{"id":602,"date":"2018-03-08T22:57:10","date_gmt":"2018-03-09T03:57:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/?p=602"},"modified":"2018-03-14T21:18:48","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T02:18:48","slug":"make-the-amiga-go-faster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/2018\/03\/08\/make-the-amiga-go-faster\/","title":{"rendered":"Amiga Uplift Part 1: Accelerator"},"content":{"rendered":"

Looking around today in 2018 there are many choices for accelerating your Amiga 500. At one point in the far past the A500 was my primary computer and I had purchased the GVP A530 in order to run programs like NewTek’s Lightwave on the A500. The A530 was marvelous piece of kit for the Amiga and it turned the A500 into very powerful computer with lots of CPU, RAM, and disk space for almost any task. My A530 is long gone (it was sold years ago) and when they come up today on Ebay for sale they go for crazy amounts of money– and besides– even if you manage to get one there are still two (maybe three) issues. One is that some software has compatibly issues with the ‘030 CPU. Second you still have to deal with GVP DIMMs (unless you got it fully loaded) and last you still have to deal with old SCSI 1 drives- although there are SCSI to CF adapters (I’ve used the Aztec Monster for my Mac) they are an additional cost and can also have compatibility issues themselves. But you can bypass all those issues by purchasing a new, modern accelerator that uses modern components. <\/p>\n

\"Amiga
\nThe HC508<\/em><\/p>\n

After looking around online I settled on the HC508<\/a> from Amedia Computer company, located in France. The HC508 is a sweet little card (from their web page):<\/p>\n

Provided with one 68HC000 processor @ 50MHz (68000 instructions 100% compatible), 8MB of FAST ram, 512KB of flash memory (for loading a kickstart file), One Compact Flash slot, One IDE 3.5 inch 40 pins connector, A Boot menu for managing the options<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I liked keeping compatibility w\/ the 68000 and just pumping up the speed. The CF card and IDE was nice also. For about $200 you get the accelerator and for $35 more you get a CF card with WB already installed and ready to boot.<\/p>\n

\"A530\"
\nThe A530 fit the A500 profile perfectly and was wicked fast for the time<\/em><\/p>\n

The accelerator arrived after about a week of shipping and customs and after opening it, inserting the included CF card containing WB 2.1 and newer Kickstart ROMs, and attaching it to the A500 expansion port it booted right up. Once I verified it worked I next wanted to back up the CF card with WorkBench on it since that was my only copy- no floppies come with this anymore. I purchased a USB CF reader and 4GB card from Amazon and then backed the card up to a disk image and then imaged that onto the new CF card.<\/p>\n

Steps for imaging the WB CF Card on Apple’s OSX<\/h4>\n
Making an backup image<\/h5>\n

On almost all mac laptops, an inserted CF card will come up as \/dev\/disk2, but use diskutil list to make sure. Then backup using the dd command to a local file.<\/p>\n

$ sudo diskutil list\n...\n\/dev\/disk2 (external, physical):\n...\n\n$ sudo dd if=\/dev\/disk2 of=amiga_WB.img bs=1m\n<\/pre>\n
Restore Image<\/h5>\n
Now you have the backup image on the Mac– keep it safe in case you need to make another WB card. Eject the original card and insert the new blank CF. After inserting you may need to unmount the new card (usually they are DOS formatted which OSX will recognize and then automount) and then use dd again to write out the image onto the CF. Using the raw device \/dev\/rdisk2 usually speeds up the writes.<\/p>\n
\n$ sudo diskutil unmountDisk \/dev\/disk2\nUnmount of all volumes on disk2 was successful\n\n$ sudo dd if=.\/amiga_WB.img of=\/dev\/rdisk2 bs=1m\n3823+1 records in\n3823+1 records out\n4009549824 bytes transferred in 196.589467 secs (20395548 bytes\/sec)\n<\/pre>\n
\n
Next post will look at my one surprise extra purchase for this project: another A500 from ebay. I needed a power-supply.<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Looking around today in 2018 there are many choices for accelerating your Amiga 500. At one point in the far past the A500 was my primary computer and I had purchased the GVP A530 in order to run programs like NewTek’s Lightwave on the A500. The A530 was marvelous piece of kit for the Amiga […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[109,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amiga","category-cpu"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3PE01-9I","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":594,"url":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/2018\/03\/08\/amiga-500-2018-uplift-project\/","url_meta":{"origin":602,"position":0},"title":"Amiga 500 2018 Uplift Project","author":"dillera","date":"March 8, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"I've started a project to pull my Amiga 500 out of the attic where it's been for 18 years and try to use it again for fun (with the floppies that I've also saved for years) and to try and get it on the Internet. To do that I'm willing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Amiga"","block_context":{"text":"Amiga","link":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/category\/amiga\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/commodore-amiga-500.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/commodore-amiga-500.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/commodore-amiga-500.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":620,"url":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/2018\/03\/14\/amiga-uplift-1-1-hc508-case\/","url_meta":{"origin":602,"position":1},"title":"Amiga Uplift 1.1 – HC508 Case","author":"dillera","date":"March 14, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"A quick update- I found a great case on Ebay from finchball. The original creators of the HC508 don't yet have one available so I purchased this one. It fits perfectly and makes the HC508 look much nicer on the side of the A500. The construction is good, with 4\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Amiga"","block_context":{"text":"Amiga","link":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/category\/amiga\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/001_a500_hc508.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/001_a500_hc508.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/001_a500_hc508.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/001_a500_hc508.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":661,"url":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/2018\/03\/17\/amiga-uplift-part-2-the-extra-amiga\/","url_meta":{"origin":602,"position":2},"title":"Amiga Uplift Part 2: The Extra Amiga","author":"dillera","date":"March 17, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"It turns out the best thing you can buy to help restoring an Amiga 500 is a second one for parts. My first issue was while I had pulled the A500 from its resting place out of the attic (where it has been sitting for the past 20 years) I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Amiga"","block_context":{"text":"Amiga","link":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/category\/amiga\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/extra_amiga_sa18.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/extra_amiga_sa18.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/extra_amiga_sa18.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/extra_amiga_sa18.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":793,"url":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/2019\/11\/27\/sgi-land\/","url_meta":{"origin":602,"position":3},"title":"SGI Land","author":"dillera","date":"November 27, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"So I've been very busy this year working, collecting and playing with my growing collection of SGI systems. My most interesting one to date is the Power ChallengeL that I obtained from an associate who found it destined for the trash at an NYC University. \u00c2\u00a0 Picking up the Challenge\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "RetroBattleStation"","block_context":{"text":"RetroBattleStation","link":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/category\/retrobattlestation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/IMG_7304.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/IMG_7304.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/IMG_7304.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/IMG_7304.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/IMG_7304.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":727,"url":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/2018\/11\/10\/risc-workstations-of-the-1990s\/","url_meta":{"origin":602,"position":4},"title":"RISC Workstations of the 1990s","author":"dillera","date":"November 10, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Inspired by the amazing system collection and blog of Sophie Haskins aka cronmom I've been trying to figure out what workstations I have (and what I want) from the classic RISC workstation era. I have a couple of them from the Nextslab all the way to the svelte DEC Alpha\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "UNIX"","block_context":{"text":"UNIX","link":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/category\/unix\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Workstations_v1b.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Workstations_v1b.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Workstations_v1b.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Workstations_v1b.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9,"url":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/2004\/07\/28\/pocket-amiga-emulator\/","url_meta":{"origin":602,"position":5},"title":"Pocket Amiga Emulator","author":"admin","date":"July 28, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"My Amiga 500 (and my CD-TV) are both still in my closet, and haven't been used in years. But long ago I used to work for a store that was exclusively Amiga, back in the early '90s in Rockville Maryland (Software Advantage was the name) and had lots of fun\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Amiga"","block_context":{"text":"Amiga","link":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/category\/amiga\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Amiga ball","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/amiga-ball.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":623,"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602\/revisions\/623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dillernet.com\/apple\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}