Question about the Amiga 500

[bustaballs]

I don't know anything about the Amiga systems. All I know is that there are plenty of Amiga lovers out there. I found an Amiga 500 at my local game shop. The guy there said he didn't know anything about it and he'd be willing to sell it for $25. It only comes with the computer and the power adapter. I looked at the video output and it wasn't standard VGA. The machine did power on but because there was no display, there was no way to tell if anything was wrong with it. Do you guys think it's worth it to pick this up for $25?

 

[craigix]

Was it just a standard A500? It could have been an A500+.


The + has more RAM (1 or 2 MB, and maybe an internal clock).


You can connect it to a TV or a monitor. You will need the right adaptor, they should be quite easy to find on ebay.


I'm not sure if there is a quick and easy way to convert it to, say, SD card rather than floppy disks, the A1200 is a lot easier in that regard.


Anyhow, if you do get it I think you will be blown away by how advanced it is for 1985.

 

[bustaballs]

Yeah, I watched an old 10 minute long ad on youtube. It looked really nice. The model only said A500.

 

[Miner49er]

You may end up spending more than $25 for an RF=Modulator, which is a requirement for a colour picture on a regular TV. However, if you have a monitor that is capable of 15Khz (say, an Arcade Monitor or even a TV with RGB input) you could hook it up to that.


To be honest though, unless you actually want it for historical value I would just run euae or winuae on a PC - much simpler. You could even cobble together a specific PC for the purpose...or am I missing the point?

 

[gunni]

I don't know anything about the Amiga systems. All I know is that there are plenty of Amiga lovers out there. I found an Amiga 500 at my local game shop. The guy there said he didn't know anything about it and he'd be willing to sell it for $25. It only comes with the computer and the power adapter. I looked at the video output and it wasn't standard VGA. The machine did power on but because there was no display, there was no way to tell if anything was wrong with it. Do you guys think it's worth it to pick this up for $25?

you'd need one of these to connect it to a TV


http://cgi.ebay.com/Amiga-A520-Commodore-TV-Modulator-/150621470909?pt=UK_VintageComputing_RL&hash=item2311bd40bd


you can also get a VGA adaptor, but then you need to fit a scan doubler which is gonna cost more than the Amiga will.


I resurrected my A500 a year or so ago and having great fun with it


Edit: As Craigix says you can convert it to run from SD cards with a floppy emulator like this one

 

[Sugar_Kane]

Kick ass, I saw a spectrum running one of those at R3play last year, I thought it would be cool to get one but I'd need to turf the speccy out from my mums house, if they didn't chuck it that is. My A500 is lurking up there too, or at least it WAS...


Anyway, $25 is a steal for a working Amiga, but you will be spending extra on peripherals such as this, and in the end it's probably just a much better idea to plump for a minimig:


http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=777

 

[THB]

A500s should have black and white component output so at least you can test that it works before spending cash on a TV modulator or scandoubler.


I assume you are in the US as you mentioned $ so a RGB to scart cable will be no good to you. There are RGB to S-video adapters (www.amigamaniac.com)out of production/stock atm and the expensive indivision ECS scandoubler (www.amigakit.com) also out of stock...

 

[ikreos]

Any AMIGA working or not is definitely worth $25. I would buy it just to add it to my collection.