Memory Expansions on Amiga 500 and 600

This weekend I took a look at the Amiga 500 and Amiga 600 memory expansion cards and A1200 real time clock port expansion module, all kindly supplied to me for review by AmigaKit.

Starting with the Amiga 500 memory expansion first, it is an auto-configured 512k memory expansion, which is much smaller than old Commodore A501 expansion cards from back in the day! It costs GBP17.80 and is available from here.

If you have an Amiga 500+ model, you can use this card to give you the full 1MB chip memory (rather than fast memory in the A500). There is a jumper on the card you can open to enable this functionality. If you have an Agnus 8372 chip installed on your older A500 this should also work but I have not tested this.

Here is the expansion port side view:

AmigaKit also sell a Amiga 1200 Real Time Clock (RTC) port expansion for GBP 14.77 as below.

It is designed to fit on the clock port expansion port on the Amiga 1200, but also can be used on the Amiga 500 and Amiga 600 memory expansion featured here, to enable saving date/time on your Amiga.

According to AmigaKit the clock port expansion is usable for a number of accelerators, not just their own - it works on:

• Amiga 1200 Clock Port
• AmigaKit A500 Memory Expansion
• AmigaKit A600 Memory Expansion
• Individual Computers A604n Memory Expansion
• Individual Computers ACA 1220 128MB Accelerator
• Individual Computers ACA 1232 128MB Accelerator
• Individual Computers ACA 1233/40n 128MB Accelerator

Below is another view showing the CR1220 battery slot and battery on the RTC card:

Here it is installed on the Amiga 500 memory expansion:

The ability to switch the RTC between your systems is quite handy, especially if you don't need it on all your Amigas. Install time on the Amiga 500:

Seriously, this expansion card is very small once installed in the Amiga 500 - it slides in smoothly, using the plastic edges of the expansion bay to ensure it connects exactly:

Flipping back the A500 to it's rightful position, it boots and shows the extra 512k memory:

Next I moved onto the Amiga 600 1MB auto-configure memory expansion, which costs GBP19.99 and is available from here:

This card is a little more interesting - it has 1MB memory expansion for the Amiga 600, bringing it's total Chip memory to 2MB. It also has the RTC port for the Real time clock expansion card. In addition it includes a clock port for A1200 clock port expansions like subway USB, rapid road, etc.

Some closer views:

I installed the RTC card on the A600 expansion:

Next I opened up my A600 to install the expansion card. I realise that technically you can just open the expansion port to do this, but I wanted to photograph the expansion inside the system:

Installed in the A600 and ready to close up:

There is some useful instructions included with the expansion cards which you should check over prior to installation since they explain about the clock port usage among other things - there is an online Wiki for these boards too:

With the A600 powered on, I can now see the extra 1MB chip memory is working, giving me the 2MB chip memory on my A600.

The memory expansion gives the A600 enough memory now to run the newest AmigaOS 3.1.4:

Last, but not least, I decided not to run the A1200 RTC card in either expansion card. I decided to put it in my Amiga 1200, which I really do want to have a battery backed up clock for, given it is using my AmiKitReal 9 build now. 

I opened up the A1200 to install the RTC card in the clock port:

Here it is, installed, fits very nicely around the Kickstart roms:

Close up view of the RTC card installed:

I suppose thinking about it I could have installed it on my Individual computers A1233 accelerator too, but I elected to do it this way. I guess I just like any excuse to open the case!

It is great to have these new cards in 2019 to use on my Classic Amigas. They appear to be well made and are available from AmigaKit for purchase.

Amiga 1000 Comspec 2MB AX2000 with Kickstart 2.0 Beta

I finally received my 2MB Comspec AX2000 expansion module for my Amiga 1000 from Canada this week. I was very keen to try it out, and to finally try to run Workbench 2.0 on my Amiga 1000 with it!

The Comspec 2MB expansion module came with a utilities disk and a Workbench 1.1 disk:

The module also has a passthrough expansion connector, allowing me to connect other expansions to the Amiga 1000 without having to remove the memory expansion to do it - I plan to make good use of this feature later on:

I was surprised to see this was Made in Canada:

It was a bit fiddly to install since I run the Gotek floppy cable through the expansion slot also, but I managed to get it installed on the Amiga 1000:

Another look, showing the Gotek on top:

After booting the Kickstart 1.3 and Workbench 1.3 off the Gotek, I get the Workbench screen and the extra memory is now there:

I now have 2.5MB memory - I put in the Comspec AX2000 utilities disk into my external Amiga 1010 floppy drive to run the memory test program on it, which passed no problem:

Excellent stuff! But of course I couldn't stop there. As regular readers know I have already got a 512k expansion module on the Amiga 1000, which I removed to install this new 2MB expansion module.

Since the 2MB module has a pass through connector, I should still be able to use the additional 512k memory module as well!

I quickly connected it up:

Looks a bit odd, but fits well enough - a closer view:

After booting up again, I now get 3MB total memory - awesome! This memory is made up of the 256k original included memory plus the 256k front expansion memory module, 2MB external Fast memory module, and 512k external Fast memory module:

This makes for a very useful Amiga 1000 - with 3MB memory it should be able to run pretty much anything OCS that I can throw at it, including the memory hogging Eric Schwartz animations which I will try soon!

First though, there was an outstanding thing I wanted to try first. I learnt recently about the existence of a Commodore 2.0 Beta kickstart that works on the Amiga 1000!

I really wanted to try this out and luckily for me I was able to get hold of a Kickstart 2.0 beta disk. For this you need to boot Kickstart 1.3 first, then boot this disk.

The disk then soft kicks Kickstart 2.0 beta into 512k continuous memory space and then reboots into Kickstart 2.0 Beta mode! Very cool - and I had wanted to try it out. Unfortunately the old expansion module (512k) was not continuous 512k for some reason and didn't work.

I had high hopes using the 2MB Comspec memory module with the 2.0 beta disk:

The 2.0 Beta kickstart is being read into memory - excellent, didn't get this far last time I tried it with the old expansion module:

Kickstart has been loaded and ready to reboot below - I quickly change the Gotek to a non-bootable disk before the system soft reboots itself:

And voila! Kickstart 2.0 Beta on the Amiga 1000:

So next I rummaged through my drawers to locate my Workbench 2.0 disks, which I found eventually:

Because this is Kickstart 2.0 I can boot the real floppy disks from DF1: so I did so:

Workbench 2.0 loaded successfully and here are some screenshots of it running on the Amiga 1000:

I honestly had no idea you can even do this on the Amiga 1000 until recently - I always thought you were trapped with kickstart 1.3. Even in 2015, I can still learn new things about Classic Amiga systems!

On a close up of the Workbench screen you can see the 512k Chip memory (Graphics memory) and 2MB Fast memory. It is not 2.5MB memory as you might expect because the soft kicked kickstart 2.0 beta is using the first 512k of the Fast memory:

I was very glad to get 3MB memory now on my Amiga 1000, and to be able to try out Workbench 2.0 on Kickstart 2.0 Beta as well!

Now I need to find a hard disk expansion module for it - let me know if you have one in working condition :-)

Memory Expansion for my Amiga 1000

I am pleased to say that today I received my 512k external memory expansion for my Amiga 1000!

As I mentioned in my previous blog entry about the Amiga 1000, this Amiga has 512k of memory in it already, but with this new external expansion it now has a total of 1MB memory!

I bought the expansion card module from Ebay - it was AUD$50 from memory. 

(just realised that was a terrible pun after writing it - sorry!)

The seller packed it very well indeed.

Here is a closer look at the expansion plugged in and running - it was a relief that it worked:

As you can see it connects to the Amiga 1000 right hand side expansion connector port, which is covered by a plastic cover you can see on the desk below the installed expansion card.

The memory card has a green light to show it is on - plus it also has a red flashing light whenever it is used too! I am a little curious about why it needs that! Seems like overkill but at least I know it works!

I booted up a v1.3 kickstart disk and then the Amiga Workbench 1.3 disk to show the extra memory:

Excellent! Now I can run games and demos that need a 1MB Amiga to run - such as the TRSI Wicked Sensation demo as shown below:

Before the upgrade this screen said I needed 1MB memory to run the demo and stopped. Now it shows my new memory expansion and chip memory totals 1MB and then demo now runs:

Here is some screenshots from the demo running:

I know having 1MB on an Amiga is not such a big thing, but finding a suitable 512k external expansion card for an Amiga 1000 is not as easy as it used to be! I am very glad to have it on my Amiga 1000!

I have ordered an Indivision ECS adapter card for my Amiga 1000 too, and look forward to trying it when it arrives! Unlike other Amiga models, the Amiga 1000 needs a special adapter card to be able to install a separate Indivision ECS card into it. Initially I will try my Amiga 600 Indivision ECS card in it first to make sure it works! Then I may invest in another Indivision card for the Amiga 1000 to keep permanently.

I have no idea where I can wire the VGA connector to on the rear of the Amiga 1000 case though! One problem at a time I guess! Any suggestions please let me know!

I am also interested in trying the Amiga 1000 Sidecar (PC) expansion if I can get one that works on Australian power (US power is different)...there are quite a few upgrades I can try out on the Amiga 1000 which is great! If any of you have interesting upgrades for the Amiga 1000 that work and you are willing to part with please let me know! :-)