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Established 1997
William Matthews Computing Museum
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.
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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.