Amiga 500 making disks

[RadRacer203]

So I was lucky enough to be able to trade for my second Amiga today, a 500. It's in excellent shape apart from missing screws, it works well with the single Workbench disk I have, and it has a DOS card installed. Apparently it's also a rare variant with the space invaders keyboard too!

I was wondering if anyone had suggestions to help me along because I'm totally unfamiliar with these machines. My goal is to find a hard drive solution for this one, like an sd card or cf card I can put into a PC and put files onto. Ideally I want to keep the original floppy drive because my plan is to use it to make disks to set up my Amiga 2000.

I don't want to replace the internal drive in this or either of the drives in the 2000 because I have several hundred floppy disks I might as well get some use out of before they all die

[fatwizard]

I use a Gotek floppy emulator in place of an Amiga external floppy drive (I removed the original floppy drive from the external unit, and installed the Gotek drive). I use a program called HxCedit to setup ADF files on a USB stick for the Gotex. A great deal of Amiga software is available for download on the internet. You can make actual floppy copies from the ADF files with the Gotek. You could connect it to your other Amiga and use it as an external drive. You could make system disks for your 2000 without even using the 500.

[Timo W.]

Get an ACA500plus from Individual Computers. Really, that's the best and most user-friendly piece of hardware you can add to an A500.

[RadRacer203]

I use a Gotek floppy emulator in place of an Amiga external floppy drive (I removed the original floppy drive from the external unit, and installed the Gotek drive). I use a program called HxCedit to setup ADF files on a USB stick for the Gotex. A great deal of Amiga software is available for download on the internet. You can make actual floppy copies from the ADF files with the Gotek. You could connect it to your other Amiga and use it as an external drive. You could make system disks for your 2000 without even using the 500.

Now that sounds like something I can do. That would be compatible with the A2000 also, correct?

Get an ACA500plus from Individual Computers. Really, that's the best and most user-friendly piece of hardware you can add to an A500.

I'll definitely look into that, I don't really need all the extra stuff like a cpu accelerator for my purposes though

[Timo W.]

I don't really need all the extra stuff like a cpu accelerator for my purposes though

You wrote that you are looking for a flash-based hard disk solution, and this gives you one which is CF card-based. You also get a second hot-swappable CF card slot for easy file transfer. Moreover, more RAM (needed to make good use of the hard disk and for WHDLoad), Kickstart 1.2, 1.3, and 3.1 (freely switchable) incl. Workbench 3.1, a clock-port, a way to mount A1200 turbo cards if you ever wish do to that, etc. Even a boot-selector for the floppy drive. And that for 140€ and no need to even open the A500. Sounds pretty much what you want.

Any other solution will set you back quite a bit more, starting with the reason that your A500 has Kickstart 1.2 (unless someone upgraded it), which can not auto-boot from hard disk. So you would need to upgrade the Kickstart, try to find an old hard disk attachment for the A500 (rare and expensive, also these were often SCSI), add more RAM, buy a CF card adapter, and what not. And the result will be slow and clunky.

You can also buy internal accelerator cards that have IDE or an SD/CF card slot on-board, but then of course you are buying a CPU accelerator. I think these are all in the same price range as the ACA500plus, too.

[RadRacer203]

You wrote that you are looking for a flash-based hard disk solution, and this gives you one which is CF card-based. You also get a second hot-swappable CF card slot for easy file transfer. Moreover, more RAM (needed to make good use of the hard disk and for WHDLoad), Kickstart 1.2, 1.3, and 3.1 (freely switchable) incl. Workbench 3.1, a clock-port, a way to mount A1200 turbo cards if you ever wish do to that, etc. Even a boot-selector for the floppy drive. And that for 140€ and no need to even open the A500. Sounds pretty much what you want.

Any other solution will set you back quite a bit more, starting with the reason that your A500 has Kickstart 1.2 (unless someone upgraded it), which can not auto-boot from hard disk. So you would need to upgrade the Kickstart, try to find an old hard disk attachment for the A500 (rare and expensive, also these were often SCSI), add more RAM, buy a CF card adapter, and what not. And the result will be slow and clunky.

You can also buy internal accelerator cards that have IDE or an SD/CF card slot on-board, but then of course you are buying a CPU accelerator. I think these are all in the same price range as the ACA500plus, too.

Ok, you convinced me! I'll get one of those once I get a little free cash

[dmac]

Long time Amiga owner here.

Since you _do_ have a working workbench disk, I'd suggest:

1. ensure your wb is write protected.
2. duplicate the floppy (using workbench's floppy duplication tool. Basically left click on the floppy disk icon to select it, then with the right mouse button menu select duplicate) just in case, so that you have more than one floppy around you can boot from.
3. get a serial cable, and use adf sender terminal (see FAQ for getting the transfer tool into the Amiga): http://adfsender.stoeggl.com/

As for how everything works, see archive.org for manuals. If you're a developer, I'd start here: http://amigadev.elowar.com/