Amiga CD32 discovered and working

[Slattery]

Hi everyone,

 

I just opened my box with my Amiga CD32 and SX1 in it here in Melbourne, Australia. It has been sitting in the box for 20 years. I've connected it up to a small TV via composite plugs (yellow video and red/white audio) and it works!

I plugged the floppy drive into the SX1 and have got a few disc games working. (Ones that are compatible for A600/ 1200 AGA anyway. Some won't load). Some of them however require a keyboard.

Could someone please recommend which keyboard to get for my CD32 SX1? If I recall correctly I can plug it into either the AUX port on the CD32 or the AT KBD port on the SX1.

Any other ideas to maximise my enjoyment with my new entertainment would be greatly appreciated :-)

Thanks

Adam

 

 

Edited April 17, 2019 by Slattery

[+save2600]

I use an Amiga 2000 keyboard via a PS/2 adapter in the Aux port of my CD32. Not sure if you can plug it directly into the SX-1 however as I've never tried, but seems like you should be able to? The answer's probably buried somewhere in here:

 

https://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/media/manuals/Amiga%20CD32%20Frequently%20Asked%20Questions%20(FAQ).pdf

 

...and here's a great site chock full of CD32 goodness:

 

http://www.indieretronews.com/search/label/AMIGA%20CD32

 

Have fun!

[+chue]

I don't own a CD32, but if it's anything like an A1200, it'll probably need to be recapped.

 

You may want to consider a modern accelerator, such as the TF330. It gives you 64 MB of memory + an 030. The accelerator plugs into some kind of backplane, like the SX1, but I'm unsure if it will work with the SX1.

 

[Seob]

I hacked a a500 keyboard to use it as a keyboard for my cd32. It works great. I can connect it directly to the cd32.

You need to recap some audio caps, since they come installed wrong at the factory.

You could swap the floppy drive with a gotek drive for ease of use.

Edited April 21, 2019 by Seob

[Daedalus2097]

Yeah, the audio caps are installed backwards on many CD32s, but the other electrolytic capacitors in general will all need to be replaced at this stage, since they're the awful SMT types and will leak and damage the board.

 

The keyboard port (aux) on the CD32 itself will only work with Amiga keyboards - the A4000 one has the same connector, all of the others can be connected with a simple adaptor). The SX-1 can take a normal, old-style PC keyboard - either AT directly or PS/2 using a simple adaptor you can find for a couple of quid. This is by far the cheapest option if you don't already have an Amiga keyboard lying around the place, though the key mapping won't be 100% since there are a couple of differences (e.g. no Help key on a PC keyboard). In particular, it predates the introduction of the Windows keys so I'm not entirely sure how you can access the Amiga qualifier keys, though it's mostly applications that will use them.