Nuke's initial research into Amiga scene

Amiga Amiga Shops & Resources
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So I’ve just started my trek in obtaining my own Amiga. I’ve been playing with PiMiga for about a year and would really like to obtain the real thing. This will be a living document as I go on and please feel free to reply with additions! Findings I’ve discovered to get this started…

Stores and Materials:

  • (Obvious): Ebay - but keep in mind that Ebay socks fees on the seller, so prices sometimes are higher to account for it.

  • A1200.net - This is a great place with a lot of Amiga stuff, although it’s outside the US, but great great accessories and parts located here!

  • AmiBay - Love love this place! Great place to pick up unwanted Amigas and parts/pieces!

  • AMIGAstore.eu - Haven’t played with this much, but they appear to have a lot available for our Amiga needs!

  • AMIGA+KIT - This site looks killer with a ton of hardware, cables, software and reference material, and also offers repairs and services.

  • Vesalia Online - This store has been in operation for Amigas since 1987. They are chocked full of goodies to extend your capabilities - and not only for the Amiga! Includes Commodore, Atari, Macintosh, and PC.

  • Retro Ready. - Covers similar goodies for your Amiga, as well as Armstrad, Atari, Commodore, and Spectrum.

  • Individual Computers - great for your Amiga needs, but much more. I’ve used these guys for my beloved 128 as well!!

  • Amiga Webshop - Carries items for each of the Amiga lines, about 10-20 selections per model, with the Amiga 3000 having the most. Based in Liechtenstein. This carries a really cool looking Parallel to SD port converter for all Amiga models.

  • AnaLogic - Based out of UK, AnaLogic has been in the Amigaworld since 1987. They have an extensive list of items including motherboards and even fully-tested functional computer models.

  • Amiga Shop - Software and Magazines (Amiga Future)

  • My Amiga Shop - Seem to have a good inventory of hardware!

  • Retro32 - Great inventory available for the various Amiga models. Includes other retro computer categories as well!

  • AmigaStore - Etsy - Nice set of accessosries and merchandise for Amiga!

  • Retrocu - Beautiful inventory of cool upgrades / accessories for Amiga

  • AmigaShopInUK - great resource for Gotek drives, Workbench software, some upgrade items

  • Ami64 - Dedicated software for Amiga and Commodore 64

  • CBM Retro - has RGBtoHDMI adapters for 500 and 600. Also has some accessories such as memory expansion and Bluetooth controllers.

Documentation:

Forums:

Great tutorials found during my research:

Getting new stuff for old stuff:

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So - received an A500 that I scored from Amibay - this was a board revision 6A - so I had to do a lot of research into the various revisions and what they meant. There were some great sources out there in identifying a board as well as what the revisions have.

Then I had to learn about the various kickstarts. I found this site extremely helpful.

My unit was a yellowed unit rev 6A with kickstart 2.04, for a smooth $100, and was a tested unit. Excellent. Problem: it had to make it from Costa RIca to Virginia in US - and apparently large boxes labeled electronics means to play football with them when going through customs. My amiga came in several pieces.

So I had to order a new Amiga case (there are cheap ones available, but I wanted a nice one), new keyboard (same story), and the floppy drive also took damage, so I went after a GOTEK drive. Getting a workbench 2.04 on USB was no problem - just a matter of locating on the web and downloading to the USB.

Finally getting at least a few things in to get it together, my first light off of the Amiga occurred. This was sans mouse, so not much could occur after the light off…

amiga_lightoff
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My first Amiga! With GOTEK and Indivision ECS V2. Success! It Lives!

Next up will be the case & mouse arrival, then a test run of using my Individual Computers ACA500plus!

The mouse hardware (either an Amiga DB9 compatible mouse or adapter) mainly come from the other side of the world. I wanted a nice normal mouse, so ordered one of those, but in the meantime, I did find a local in the US converter on ebay - straight from Maryland - for a reasonable price short of $19.

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Got the new wireless tank mouse in and this ran oh-so smoothly. Excellently made product and takes no skills or setting changes to get the mouse functional with the system, other than a battery insertion.

Then comes the Indivision ECS V3: I discovered this unit is not operating correctly. Upon power up, there should be an Individual Computers splash screen, and that’s not happening. In my picture above in the thread, you can see the screen is not filling the monitor space when its supposed to. I’m suspecting either a firmware problem or incompatibility with kickstart 2.04 or the power supply being used.