http://www.boobip.com/
These are a delight. Any Amiga fettler will tell tales of
burning eeproms to different versions of Kickstart.
1.3, 3.1, 3.2, diagrom, and so on. This amazing little
device is a 27C400 emulator (the eeprom chip that
you write the Kickstart images to) it can hold four
different kickstarts and allows switching between
them. To make it even cooler, for me anyway, you
connect to it directly using a USB cable and it has its
own little embedded OS. Truly brilliant.
My first foray into the 16-bit computing jungle
was with an Atari STe back in 1990. Why? It
wasn't just because it was a cheeky £100
cheaper, but also because my mate had one.
He talked it up so well, I just couldn’t resist.
Fast forward to 1992, and there I am,
spending my entire University loan on an
Amiga 1200. Inspired by my reckless
abandon, my brother decided to get in on the
action too and snagged himself an Amiga
500Plus. And yes, the very same Amiga 500
I’m referring to sat on the left. A couple of
years back, he passed it on to me as a gift.
What did I do? I spruced it up, retrobrited the
heck out of it, tidied up its innards, gave it a
bit of a turbo boost with an accelerator,
slapped in a hard disk, and polished it to near
perfection. I adore this Amiga 500.
And let’s talk games—this A500 isn't just a
retro classic; it’s a veritable treasure trove.
From the blockbuster hits to the delightfully
obscure gems just waiting to be discovered,
this machine has it all.
I say Amigo,
you say Amiga.
…and I’m wrong. It’s Amiga.
I never actually owned an Amiga
500 back in the day. That doesn’t
mean I didn’t lust after one…
Why exactly do I have 3 Amiga 500’s?
Because the Amiga was so dearly loved, and there are such a variety of add-ons and
modifications available, tinkering wih the system can be a hobby in itself.
This is largely an unmodified Amiga 500plus. The ACA500 plugs into the expansion port and
allows me to switch between Kickstart versions and provides access to hard disks in the form
of CF cards.
This is a heavily modified A500
plus. It has a HxC floppy drive,
to load disk images from SD
Card, an acrylic case, so I can
admire the motherboard, and a
Apollo Vampire 2 which
provides a HDD and makes the
A500+ go like a bat out of hell.
Perfect for 3D games and
showing off.
?
My 3rd Amiga is Amiga 500 is a work-in-progress.
Made initially from bits and scraps I had lying around.
It has a Apollo Firebird installed, which is a 68080
processor, HDMI, IDE Interface, network support and
adds SAGA, which allows the humble A500 to run
Amiga AGA games.
Horrified by the lack of content on this page? I would be too.
Click on the image of the Amiga 1200 (left) for more Amiga
smugness goodness.