Duncan Styles’ Classic A500+ Setup!
Amigos listener Duncan Styles writes:
I have been going through old photos and found the attached photo of my old Amiga A500+ set up. In the photo you will see an Alfapower Alfa Data hard drive enclosure with (I think) a 320mb drive. I installed 8mb of ZIP RAM in there too. There is also an IDE CD drive hanging out the back of the Alfa Data. An external floppy. A Quickjoy Top Star Joystick as well as Quickjoy Megastar Joystick. There is an Epson Stylus printer which I think was the first of the Stylus range and produced amazing prints (for the time). Small stereo underneath the desk and a portable TV that was replaced by a Viglen monitor with the aid of an EZ-VGA Scandoubler which I remember used to get quite warm and needed extra feet stuck on the back to ensure it was level when connected to the Amiga.
Inside the A500+ there was an M-Tec 68020-i Accelerator which was replaced by a Viper 520-CD which is still in there. I fitted a switch to the back of the A500+ that allowed me to select between v2.04 and v3 (or 3.1) of Kickstart for better game compatibility.
In one issue of CU Amiga magazine there was a how to guide to build your own Midi output box using a Yamaha add on card so I made that too. Last time I set the Amiga up I tried it but sadly it no longer seems to work, shoddy soldering I guess.
Wow that brings back some great memories. I need another desk so I can set it up again!
Nice rig, loving the poster in the last pic
That's awesome!
Hey Duncan, the issue with it not working could be leaking capacitors. It might be worth the money to do a capacitor replacement on it and see if that breaths new life into it.
Hi, it's the Midi card that doesn't work. The Amiga is fine.
Helluva sweet setup there!