Sinphaltimus Posted August 24, 2016 Share Posted August 24, 2016 (edited) My Amiga 500 has 512k chip / 512k fast ram. It's been too many years.. Is it advisable to do the 1mb chip ram upgrade leaving the a500 without any fast ram? What are the caveats? I'm waiting on the vampire 2 board to upgrade ram either way. Just wondering if I should do this hack now? I've done this tens of times back in the day and can't recall much. Edited August 24, 2016 by Sinphaltimus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carlsson Posted August 24, 2016 Share Posted August 24, 2016 You can load more graphics and sound data into memory that can be accessed directly with more Chip RAM, but of course it is slower than Fast RAM. I think if you're using a sound tracker, extra Chip is beneficial. Actually I never owned any Amiga with Fast RAM until I got my 030 upgrade for the 1200. My old 500+ came with 1 MB Chip and I got an upgrade to get 2 MB, still slow Chip RAM. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinphaltimus Posted August 24, 2016 Author Share Posted August 24, 2016 You can load more graphics and sound data into memory that can be accessed directly with more Chip RAM, but of course it is slower than Fast RAM. I think if you're using a sound tracker, extra Chip is beneficial. Actually I never owned any Amiga with Fast RAM until I got my 030 upgrade for the 1200. My old 500+ came with 1 MB Chip and I got an upgrade to get 2 MB, still slow Chip RAM. Thanks. I think I'll do the mod. I used my Amiga for games, art music and animation so I think doing this mod will bring me closer to what I originally had. I'm starving for more ram though. I have to see if I can figure out what's wrong with my gvp controller ram sockets. Back 2 always comes up as bad so I can't really add any ram to it (least ram config is 2mb in slots 1 and 2.) I'm hopeful the Vampire 2 boards go in to production soon. I reeeeally want one of those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rpiguy9907 Posted August 25, 2016 Share Posted August 25, 2016 If memory serves me correctly the A500 trapdoor expansion "fast ram" is not really fast ram at all due to cost cutting. You don't get the speed benefit of real fast ram so you lose nothing by modding it to be all chip ram. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinphaltimus Posted August 25, 2016 Author Share Posted August 25, 2016 Perfect. I don't ever recall having to worry about anything either besides mainboard revision and the agnus chip version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinphaltimus Posted August 25, 2016 Author Share Posted August 25, 2016 HA, this thing doesn't have the newer Agnus. Welp, I'm in thee market for one now., Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nebulon Posted September 1, 2016 Share Posted September 1, 2016 My Amiga 500 is just using the stock 512K RAM expansion to take it to 1MB total and then the 1MB Agnus was dropped in. Although it's never had fast RAM, I'm really happy with its performance. You should be able to find a 1MB Agnus fairly easily since there are a ton of Amiga 2000s out there that had them installed. Pretty sure all the Video Toaster-equipped A2000s used the 1MB blitter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+eebuckeye Posted September 1, 2016 Share Posted September 1, 2016 Is it just a drop in replacement in the 500 or is there other work that needs to be done? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinphaltimus Posted September 1, 2016 Author Share Posted September 1, 2016 Two trace cuts and a solder point as long as you have the 512k trap door expansion ram. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nebulon Posted September 1, 2016 Share Posted September 1, 2016 Is it just a drop in replacement in the 500 or is there other work that needs to be done? Do you mean the 1MB Agnus? In my case, I just popped out the 512K Agnus and replaced it with the 1MB Agnus. No soldering or trace cutting. That's on two different A500s. They work perfectly. I'd recommend a PLCC-puller though. Most 80s or 90s tech-kits will include one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinphaltimus Posted September 2, 2016 Author Share Posted September 2, 2016 Yes, just installing the chip is fine. But depending on the mainboard revision, there are modifications needed to enable the 1mb chip in the mainboard. If you got 1nb chip on an a500 just by swapping the chip, then the mod was already done it that's a revision of a mainboard I've not seen. Having a1mb agnus does not give you 1mb chip ram, it just enables the capability. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+eebuckeye Posted September 2, 2016 Share Posted September 2, 2016 I have a rev 6A motherboard... does this mean I could just drop in the 1MB Agnus without any other modifications? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sinphaltimus Posted September 2, 2016 Author Share Posted September 2, 2016 I have a rev 6A motherboard... does this mean I could just drop in the 1MB Agnus without any other modifications? http://www.amibay.com/showthread.php?4722-A500-(r6a)-1MB-CHIP-RAM-Modification-Caution-dialup-users-excessive-H-W-pr0n! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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