fatwizard
Veteran Member
Hello everyone. I joined Freecycle a couple of years ago after reading a post here on the forum (I can't recall the specifics) about snagging a great old computer someone wanted rid of. I have scanned the Freecycle emails faithfully and found mostly nothing of interest. That changed earlier this week as I spotted a posting for a "Amiga 500 system". I responded immediately, got a positive response the next day. I made the hour trip and picked the system up that night.
Low and behold, it is a complete system! The computer, with the 501 memory and clock expansion, a 1084 monitor, an external floppy drive, and a Star NX1000 printer. The software that came with it includes Workbench 1.2, the extras disk, two games, and Word Perfect. The person that gave this to me told me it was their first computer, acquired in 1988, and used until 1994. It had been all been put back in the original boxes and stored well in the intervening years.
I had zero experience with Amigas, and I have been having the time of my life learning about my new toy. The two issues it turned out to have were a leaking battery in the 501, and the built in floppy wouldn't read disks. I got luck with the battery, the damage to the board was minimal, and after cleaning it up and replacing battery it works fine. The internal floppy drive (Epson SMD-400) has defied my attempts at repair. Heck, I can't even get it all the way apart to access the circuit boards. I robbed the Chinon FB-354 from the external drive to get the system running. I have quite a few 3.5" floppy drives in my stuff, and have been trying to modify one of them to work in the Amiga. It's a work in progress, but no luck so far. I can see from my internet searches that floppy drive problems are common. I would love to hear what others have done about replacing the Amiga floppy drives. I have put together a null modem cable, and have successfully connected it to a PC so I can make disks from ADF files, but mercy does this thing ever need at least two drives.
Sorry for the long post. My excitement for my new project is hard to contain. I am already deep into my old PCs, and my 8bit C64s and Atari 800/800XL systems, but I have never had a machine of this class (Amiga/Atari ST) and would welcome everyone's thoughts on using and maintaining this beauty.
P.S. I am sorry for the poor pictures. I have trouble maintaining the quality while re-sizing them to make file size limits.
Low and behold, it is a complete system! The computer, with the 501 memory and clock expansion, a 1084 monitor, an external floppy drive, and a Star NX1000 printer. The software that came with it includes Workbench 1.2, the extras disk, two games, and Word Perfect. The person that gave this to me told me it was their first computer, acquired in 1988, and used until 1994. It had been all been put back in the original boxes and stored well in the intervening years.
I had zero experience with Amigas, and I have been having the time of my life learning about my new toy. The two issues it turned out to have were a leaking battery in the 501, and the built in floppy wouldn't read disks. I got luck with the battery, the damage to the board was minimal, and after cleaning it up and replacing battery it works fine. The internal floppy drive (Epson SMD-400) has defied my attempts at repair. Heck, I can't even get it all the way apart to access the circuit boards. I robbed the Chinon FB-354 from the external drive to get the system running. I have quite a few 3.5" floppy drives in my stuff, and have been trying to modify one of them to work in the Amiga. It's a work in progress, but no luck so far. I can see from my internet searches that floppy drive problems are common. I would love to hear what others have done about replacing the Amiga floppy drives. I have put together a null modem cable, and have successfully connected it to a PC so I can make disks from ADF files, but mercy does this thing ever need at least two drives.
Sorry for the long post. My excitement for my new project is hard to contain. I am already deep into my old PCs, and my 8bit C64s and Atari 800/800XL systems, but I have never had a machine of this class (Amiga/Atari ST) and would welcome everyone's thoughts on using and maintaining this beauty.
P.S. I am sorry for the poor pictures. I have trouble maintaining the quality while re-sizing them to make file size limits.
