User avatar
m0th

Posted Mon Feb 18, 2019 11:44 am

Hello, I recently purchased an Amiga 1000 allowing me to enter the world of vintage computing!

I quickly purchased one of mkl's "ram69k" IDE 8MB chips to upgrade the memory after being recommended from someone on Reddit. MKL and I sent a few messages regarding the installation since this A1000 has been recapped and has something called the "DKB Kwikstart" which allows you to skip the Kickstart for a faster boot.

Wonder if anyone knows the best route for installing his memory expansion would be? He was unsure since he had never owned an A1000 but guessed it could go on top. I'm afraid that would cause some space issues with the floppy drive or destroy the boot process for the Amiga.

Images of the A1000 with Kwikstart:

https://imgur.com/a/CRGBkzo

https://imgur.com/a/MwIlOqk

(Insert Image not working)

User avatar
joethezombie
Twin Falls, ID

Posted Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:29 am

I don't know anything about the ram68k IDE 8MB, but there are 68000 relocator boards that should move it away from the floppy drive. You should be able to plug everything in as is with the floppy drive just off to the side to see if it works. If everything is as expected, get one of those relocators.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:34 am

I wonder if that person on Reddit was me? I use the MKL 8MB expansion in 2 of my machines and I love it.

Joe makes a good point - if you're running out of room vertically, a little board to offset the stuff should do the trick. But I wonder if you have room - have you tried?

I had an AdSpeed and MKL 8MB stacked on top of each other in one of my machines (iirc) and it worked just fine.

I'm not sure which one you'd want, but there's an interesting right-angle one like this which was originally designed for an A500.
s-l300.jpg
There's also the more typical type like this, which I've used before myself.
20180428_184333.jpg
Here's more info on all of those.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Sat Feb 23, 2019 10:52 am

The best A1000 relocators are designed by our friend EzdineG who is a member here and is mentioned in the Amibay post above. He could probably lead you to the promised land.

User avatar
m0th

Posted Sun Feb 24, 2019 6:13 pm

joethezombie wrote:I don't know anything about the ram68k IDE 8MB, but there are 68000 relocator boards that should move it away from the floppy drive. You should be able to plug everything in as is with the floppy drive just off to the side to see if it works. If everything is as expected, get one of those relocators.
My biggest fear is removing the 68000 CPU from the Kwikstart and replacing it with the IDE and potentially breaking both. Would you recommend removing the Kwikstart CPU that's already in place? I'll attach a picture of the IDE to show what I mean.
intric8 wrote:I wonder if that person on Reddit was me? I use the MKL 8MB expansion in 2 of my machines and I love it.

Joe makes a good point - if you're running out of room vertically, a little board to offset the stuff should do the trick. But I wonder if you have room - have you tried?

I had an AdSpeed and MKL 8MB stacked on top of each other in one of my machines (iirc) and it worked just fine.

I'm not sure which one you'd want, but there's an interesting right-angle one like this which was originally designed for an A500.
s-l300.jpg
There's also the more typical type like this, which I've used before myself.
20180428_184333.jpg
Here's more info on all of those.
Yes it was you! Thank you again for the recommendation! It's not easy finding official sidecar expansions for the A1000 so I'm hoping this works.

I haven't tried it yet out of the fear that I would brick the Kwikstart so that's why I was wondering if I should just remove it or at least see if the IDE would work with the Kwikstart board. It's running Workbench 1.3 not sure if that makes a difference or not.

Here's a picture of the IDE that mkl sent me:

https://imgur.com/a/eFdJYc3

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon Feb 25, 2019 9:25 am

OK this is were someone like EzdineG is the expert that should offer advice if he happens to run across this post. But to my recollection stock 1.3 Kickstart doesn't support IDE devices. So to do the MKL IDE board in your A1000 in addition to the 8MB RAM, your Kickstart would have to be at least 2.0 or you find a custom IDE patched 1.3 ROM. (not easy unless you have those skills)

Something else to keep in mind is EzdineG has created a board for easily adding Kickstart to the A1000. It might be a better option for you to ponder than trying to save the Kwikstart board, if room becomes an issue. EzdineG's board already offsets the CPU.

Original Post to Check Out by EzdineG

Be sure to read through that whole thing as it was sort of an organic post where things changed over time.

User avatar
EzdineG
Springfield, MO

Posted Mon Feb 25, 2019 11:59 am

m0th wrote:My biggest fear is removing the 68000 CPU from the Kwikstart and replacing it with the IDE and potentially breaking both. Would you recommend removing the Kwikstart CPU that's already in place? I'll attach a picture of the IDE to show what I mean.
It looks like the Kwikstart is using a machined socket. There should be no problem plugging MKL's IDE68K into the Kwikstart, and then the 68000 on top of it. Some revisions of MKL's board have taller than average pin headers, and I'm not familiar with the height of your existing Kwikstart board. Given this and the fact that some A1000 have longer floppy shields, it may be that you don't even have enough room even with a relocator board.

Send some pictures of the MKL board on it's side and we'll be better able to give you an idea of your options.

That said, you could use this board without the mod instructions and only the CPU sockets to use it as a relocator, which should work fine alongside your Kwikstart (or you can fully populate the board, do the mod and remove the Kwikstart.)

Thanks to Thomas (A10001986), we have a guide on just how to make Kickstart 1.3 bootable with these MKL adapters. That is assuming you don't just want to go 2.05+.

User avatar
m0th

Posted Mon Feb 25, 2019 3:39 pm

intric8 wrote:OK this is were someone like EzdineG is the expert that should offer advice if he happens to run across this post. But to my recollection stock 1.3 Kickstart doesn't support IDE devices. So to do the MKL IDE board in your A1000 in addition to the 8MB RAM, your Kickstart would have to be at least 2.0 or you find a custom IDE patched 1.3 ROM. (not easy unless you have those skills)

Something else to keep in mind is EzdineG has created a board for easily adding Kickstart to the A1000. It might be a better option for you to ponder than trying to save the Kwikstart board, if room becomes an issue. EzdineG's board already offsets the CPU.

Original Post to Check Out by EzdineG

Be sure to read through that whole thing as it was sort of an organic post where things changed over time.
This being my first Amiga I don't know what the best option would be. I really like the look and feel of Workbench 1.3 but would the better be upgrading to Kickstart 2.0? I have zero background in vintage computing so I'm not sure how I would get the update to the IDE for 1.3. I appreciate all of the advice and information you have been able to share with my regarding this. Since finding information on the Kwikstart I has been very difficult.
EzdineG wrote:It looks like the Kwikstart is using a machined socket. There should be no problem plugging MKL's IDE68K into the Kwikstart, and then the 68000 on top of it. Some revisions of MKL's board have taller than average pin headers, and I'm not familiar with the height of your existing Kwikstart board. Given this and the fact that some A1000 have longer floppy shields, it may be that you don't even have enough room even with a relocator board.

Send some pictures of the MKL board on it's side and we'll be better able to give you an idea of your options.

That said, you could use this board without the mod instructions and only the CPU sockets to use it as a relocator, which should work fine alongside your Kwikstart (or you can fully populate the board, do the mod and remove the Kwikstart.)

Thanks to Thomas (A10001986), we have a guide on just how to make Kickstart 1.3 bootable with these MKL adapters. That is assuming you don't just want to go 2.05+.
After seeing intric8's post above, how difficult would it be to patch the IDE with Kickstart 1.3? It's starting to look like the easiest route would just be upgrading to 2.0 and using your mod for the IDE. Thank you for helping me with this! I'll post more pictures when I get home.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon Feb 25, 2019 4:31 pm

This starts to enter the realm of personal opinion.

I use 1.3 exclusively, and I know I'm the oddball here in that department. But 1.3 - for me - almost guarantees compatibility with probably around 95% of the software I'll ever want to use. The only other variable really is NTSC vs PAL when it comes to compatibility (which is a real issue). For AGA (e.g. the a1200, etc.) there are less than a dozen titles I'd ever care about - just me, personally.

So I stick to what works. And, in a non-logical move, I love the way it looks, too.

Most of my machines run SCSI hard drives, which are sometimes faster than IDE drives, too.

But the A1000 is obviously a very unique creature and harder to upgrade as the rest.

There were several side expansions made for it but most of them are 1) long dead and/or hard to find 2) expensive if you do find one (and may still be dead) 3) usually small capacity (e.g. 20-40 mb) etc. And it's even more complicated. You have to get the SCSI side-car interface, then the expansion will usually only work with a small set of hard drives that were made back then. And each expansion typically came with its own unique "driver" software, which often was written for 1.0 or 1.1 or 1.2.

I think my Zip Drive expansion is probably my favorite A1000 hard drive solution just because it's so weird. But it was also a major PITA to set up (and finding the parts is haaaaaard). Although sometimes the journey is just as much fun as the final solution if you like to geek out on hardware.

So, from a practical standpoint..... hm.

OK. If I only had 1 A1000 I would try and find a way (there is a way) to get a Kickstart ROM that could boot a SCSI2SD card. 2gb sd card, nice and quiet with almost zero power drain on our ancient PSUs, with Workbench 1.3 loaded on it.

I should make one of my stock 1000's like that just to go through the process and get it all set up nice and tidy.

At the end of the day just ask yourself: What is it you want to do? If it's play games, you will want to get some sort of hard drive solution at some point - at least the kind of games I play it's just a better experience to have them installed. But if you want to, say, play Ultima IV, all you need is RAM. That's it! Save yourself the headache and just go have fun (for the next several months). Hah!

If you're gonna go 2.0, you might as well jump up to 3.1. Sorry for the rambling post.

User avatar
m0th

Posted Mon Feb 25, 2019 9:53 pm

intric8 wrote:This starts to enter the realm of personal opinion.

I use 1.3 exclusively, and I know I'm the oddball here in that department. But 1.3 - for me - almost guarantees compatibility with probably around 95% of the software I'll ever want to use. The only other variable really is NTSC vs PAL when it comes to compatibility (which is a real issue). For AGA (e.g. the a1200, etc.) there are less than a dozen titles I'd ever care about - just me, personally.

So I stick to what works. And, in a non-logical move, I love the way it looks, too.

Most of my machines run SCSI hard drives, which are sometimes faster than IDE drives, too.

But the A1000 is obviously a very unique creature and harder to upgrade as the rest.

There were several side expansions made for it but most of them are 1) long dead and/or hard to find 2) expensive if you do find one (and may still be dead) 3) usually small capacity (e.g. 20-40 mb) etc. And it's even more complicated. You have to get the SCSI side-car interface, then the expansion will usually only work with a small set of hard drives that were made back then. And each expansion typically came with its own unique "driver" software, which often was written for 1.0 or 1.1 or 1.2.

I think my Zip Drive expansion is probably my favorite A1000 hard drive solution just because it's so weird. But it was also a major PITA to set up (and finding the parts is haaaaaard). Although sometimes the journey is just as much fun as the final solution if you like to geek out on hardware.

So, from a practical standpoint..... hm.

OK. If I only had 1 A1000 I would try and find a way (there is a way) to get a Kickstart ROM that could boot a SCSI2SD card. 2gb sd card, nice and quiet with almost zero power drain on our ancient PSUs, with Workbench 1.3 loaded on it.

I should make one of my stock 1000's like that just to go through the process and get it all set up nice and tidy.

At the end of the day just ask yourself: What is it you want to do? If it's play games, you will want to get some sort of hard drive solution at some point - at least the kind of games I play it's just a better experience to have them installed. But if you want to, say, play Ultima IV, all you need is RAM. That's it! Save yourself the headache and just go have fun (for the next several months). Hah!

If you're gonna go 2.0, you might as well jump up to 3.1. Sorry for the rambling post.
I honestly bought the A1000 for 1.3 but that was because I had a close friend who's dad gave him his A500 with 1.3 on it and we would use it for hours. It wasn't until a month ago that I found this pristine A1000 with 1.3 on it that I couldn't resist getting it. I just didn't realize that it would be so difficult to modify to play games or just use most software with only 256kb.

I eventually want to look into getting an A500 but they're rare in good condition for a fair price. I would love to get the A1000 to work with this IDE without upgrading the Kickstart, but I'm honestly looking at what would be my easiest and most cost efficient option. Overall, I want to just be able to play games, experiment with music trackers, try Digital Paint III and possibly get an accelerator!

I'm very open to any suggestion at this point. It's nice just to see that there are helpful answers like this since it's been almost two weeks struggling to find anything.

(Also here is photos of the IDE with measurement: https://imgur.com/a/gnjd0bs)





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