I slipped and (mostly) built an Amiga 500 #Amiga #VintageComputing @erikarn
Adrian Chadd is half way through building an Amiga 500+ replica. The goal:
New PCB
New clear case
Actual floppy drive!
TF534 Accelerator, yes I am interested in FPU stuff for reasons and yes I’m sad about the 4MB of RAM but I’ll make do – terriblefire does a great job designing/building/debugging these accelerators and I’m glad they exist!
ECS Denise, also for reasons
2MB chip RAM and some slow RAM too because again why not 3.x ROMs
The challenges:
I need a keyboard for it, but my “donor” machines, like my “donor radios”, all now work. Hilarious.
The Amiga 500+ board wasn’t well documented for assembly, until I looked. Closer.
Well, the 8375 Agnus I acquired is a PAL one, so I guess I’m building a PAL Amiga 500+. (Which is fine as you can switch it in software after boot, but STILL.)
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
