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________________________________________________________________________ / \ | HOW TO TURN AN AMIGA 500 INTO A TOWER OF POWER (Mega Hack) | | UPDATE VER 1.1 By: Thomas Weeks 11-24-94 | \________________________________________________________________________/ Ok Folks... You all (well not all, but quite a few of you) asked for it so here it is! Please excuse spelling errors and type-o's. I am on a floppy based 1200 doing this via "ed" on a FRENCH KEYBOARD no less! B-sides, I have always been ahtroshus at spelinng! hehe This updated version merely corrects a couple small gruhmatikal misteaks in the IFF's, adds 1 or 2 little things in the IFF's, and neatens things up just a bit (not enough to nitice or anything...). I am, however, still just an Engineering Student without a spell checker and don't claim that THIS ASCII document isn't still LAIDEN with errors. ;v) ARCHIVED FILES: NOW!......... This TEXT Document file. Sorry it's so unpolished. TOP_1.PIC.... Full Page IFF Documentation File. 1 of 2 TOP_2.PIC.... "" "" á 2 of 2 Please do not modify or seperate any of these files in any way. I maintain full copyrights on this material under the Shareware Agreement. (Allowing only for forms of ditribution (e.g. Fred Fish, Aminet, etc.) ) If you USE my hack docs to make your own tower, and feel obliged to thank me in monitary form... Heck.. I ain't too proud to take yer money! I will also be much more likely to help you via email. ;-) And in addition, I'll email you my own custom PAL/NTSC switch hack (nice), and any other hack docs of mine you might want. DESCRIPTION: The two IFF images that are included in this archive step you through the process of putting your Amiga 500 into a Black Diamond Mid Tower Klone Case. The use of the DIAMOND CASE I mention is important in that the demensions were specifically selected so that everything fits nicely. In fact, after cutting into my machine an actually starting the hack (6 months ago) I was PLEASED to find how nicely the case I had chosen fit the A500 mother board! The two screw holes next to the Zorro I connector matched up PERFECTLY to two of the cases mother board mounting holes and positioned the board DEAD against the upper inside part of the case! This left me a little room to possibly add a Zorro II adaptor some time in the future and maybe add a 24 bit graphics board and an Emplant (an A500 geeks dream!). Now as I have begun researching it, it does not appear that this is possible while running an A530 due to bus congestion. <Sighhhh> Oh well... An A4000 is looking better all the time... Anyway... Continuing... This specific case was chosen for it's nice roomy dimensions. There is pleanty of room to mount an A500 mother board vertically and have room horizontally (in the BOTTOM of the case) to mount an A530 or other A500 type expansion device. SUPPLIES YOU WILL NEED: (Tried to keep it mostly available from Rat Shak) -An A500 Like... Huh... Huh huh... yea.. -Diamond Tower Case Texas Computer Whse:409-693-6635 And it has to be BLACK! You want people to know that "Dis Ain't No Kolne"! (yea it comes w/250W pwr sply) -Soldering Iron A adjustablt staion is best, but a 35W weller is fine. -Solder Duhhh -Liquid Weld Expoy Great stuff... JB Weld can't TOUCH this stuff! -Diag. Cutters A basic -Needle Nose Pliers I use my leatherman (they blow away swiss army knives!) -Phillips Screw Drv. "" "" -Xacto Kife "" "" -Wire Wrap Wire Rat Shak (I like the blue colored stuff best) -Metal Cutter Nibbler will do, but I HIGHLY RECOMMEND getting a nice (or cheap) Dremel Moto tool! It has been a REAL SWEET investment that I have used the HELL out of! I really can't over emphasize the convenience of this multi perpose tool! If you use the Nibbler, you will Also need a drill to create holes to start the nibbler. -Wire Strippers yea.. -16 Guage Stranded For doing the Power Adaptor thingie (IFF 2, Fig 4.1) -Female Zorro I Edge Connector I did not HAVE one so I built one using a Rat Shak supplied ISA slot that I dremeled to death and epoxied. Sounds nasty, I know, but it's damn solid and works great! See IFF 1 for more info. -Connectors IDC DSUBs: 4 25pin M, 4 25pin F, 2 9pin M, 2 9pin F 2 RCA inline Males, 2 RCA Case mount F 1 "AT" Mother Board Power Connector (removed of course) (no source known. I just ripped one of a dead AT) 2 IBM AT keyboard extension cables (3ft each) 50 pin IDC SCSI connectors if you're doing SCSI -Heat Shrink Grab bag availbale at Duh Shack. -50 Cond Rib.Cable About 30-40 inches to be safe (Not Incl. SCSI routing) -220 Ohm 1/4W Res For Power LED reroute to fron of case -3.5" to 5.25" Drive Adaptor Kit With Floppy Drive Face Plate -2 3ft AT Key Board Extension Cables For bringing the keyboard out into the daylight whilst keeping it useable. I got mine from PC Accessories for like 2 bucks each. -Hmmmm I know that I'm forgetting something... I have had a lot of questions about the cases price, and where to get it, so to be on the safe side; I will tell you where I got MINE. I did some tech work for a friend of mine in College Station Texas who owns his own computer place and had him track down this case SPECIFICALLY for it's demensions. I hear that there are SEVERAL various "Diamond" cases, so to be safe, you may want to just stick with this source... Unless you're feeling lucky and have a fetish for digging through Computer Shopper. As I mention in the IFF's, I do not have access to the REAL demensions (or any of my schematics) and so this whole thing (& listed values) is from memory. The case its self is VERY nice and built like a tank! It is nicer than any case that I have seen in any PACKAGE Klone deal (I've assembled and worked on many PC's over the years). If you decide to take the plunge and build this project, the guy to contact is Ollie at Texas Computer Warehouse at phone 409-693-6635. He usually only does big contract related sales, but if you tell him that you are an Amiga user and that *I* sent you his way, he'll take care of you. I'm not sure what the case is going for but it should be between $160 and $180 and I have no idea about the shipping costs. The best thing to do is call him about that. Please don't leave me email about this stuff... He could tell you WORLDS more than *I* could about availability and pricing. Well, lets see... ***Now would be a good time to multitask yer way to the IFF picture files*** (Like you already HAVN'T!) POSSIBLE PROBLEMS: (Assume that you WILL have problems... That way you won't be suprized...) The Zorro I bus extension for the A530 (or other device) connects to the Amigas Zorro I bus and is soldered to the expansion device. This is very touchy and should be done with extreme care! When I did my A530, the A530's leads were too close together to get even a small pencil iron's tip into, so each pin had to be BENT slightly to the side before soldering could be attempted. Just THIS part of the soldering job took me a couple hours of straight, sweat drenched, teeth clenching, lead breathing, agony (I'm always more nervous when I'm working on my own baby!). Since the A530 is a multilayer board, bending a soldered lead TOO far or leaving the heat on TOO LONG could possibly break a trace DOWN INSIDE the multilayer board making the whole thing inoperative. I guess a fake MALE CONNECTOR could be used in the expansion device's side, but I did not have access to any such board when I did this project and I was in a rush (it being a finals week and all). If you *DO* have access to an old totally dead A500 mother board, I guess you could cut off the male edge connector of the Zorro I and make a fake PLUG in solution to the above kludge. Mine works fine though and I ain't mesing with it! There is ONE point where I mention that you have to DRILL THROUGH the mother board to create a third mounting hole. If I remember correctly, the hole was drilled just in front of the GARY chip (this area was dictated by the alignment of the other two holes by the Zorro connector). On the backside of the board, the hole simply penitrated a ground plane (rev 5 mother board) but on the top side, I think I went through like 3 address lines. But this was a must due to alignment. So I merely cleared enough room for the mounting of a metal screw (i.e. cut the traces back further from the hole edge) and rerouted the lines with insulated wire wrap wire. All ran smoothly and worked fine. This case also worked nicely because the point at which the mother board rests, places the adapted power connector solder job (see IFF 2, Fig 4.1) against open air (as apposed to facing the harsh METAL right hand inside of the case). This was a nice relief as I am always paranoid of potential "Easy Short" areas that could kill an entire machine while tripping your breakers. __Whhoa!__Check_Out_the_Sparks!__ / BvO Although I doubt that anyone else will have THERMAL (Shea!)problems, I found that I had to mount TWO EXTRA internal fans (the second A530 micro fan is not shown in the diagrams) due to the fact that I was running an old 5.25" HH Miniscribe 160M SCSI drive that puts off a *LOT* of heat. When the platters got hot enough, thermal calibration would fail and the drive would go into a thermal recal FRENZY with constant R/W errors until I shut her down and let her cool off. I think that it was also due to the fact that the home made AC power supply I made for the Internalized Line Link was dissipating like close to 3-5 watts of overhead voltage (given the operational current). The modem needed a 9V AC Xformer and I was feeding it via a 12V Xformer and using recitfiers as clippers and they were getting rather warm... In fact, I had to mount them (3 of them) together, shoot 'em up with heat sink spooge and make a little aluminum heat sink. I still don't know why that modem sucks so much current. Poor design I guess. CONCLUSIONS: I have seen other hacked Tower systems and mine is the only one that I have seen that could pass for commercial... Well... Except for the Epoxy I guess... But What is a finished plastic, but merely a type of squared off epoxy?! Anyway... It came out looking really nice. After I get back home I may digitize some pictures of it and include in a later update. A nice finishing touch I decided to do was to tape off and paint in BIG, CLEAN CUT, FLAT BLACK, the letters "A M I G A". You can also get ahold of rub on white stencil letters to add final touches to any outside lettering you want do. I blanked out (with Mr.Dremel) the letters for the RESET switch and put PAL/NTSC. It too looks nice. The lettering also came in handy for labeling the LEDs and extras appearing on the front of the Line Link modem. The case also comes with a few sheets of little silver stickers for things such as VIDEO, AUDIO, MOUSE, GAME, COM1, 2, POWER, etc... This a pretty big project here. IF you are not very mechanically enclined OR have not played around electronics a LOT (i.e. Have good soldering experience), this is probably not for you. And please don't ask me how much I would charge to do it for you. Looking back, I don't think that I would WANT to do it again. And if I did, you couldn't afford my time anyway. This was more of just an technical outcry of my lowly financial status in leiu of upgrading than a planned mega-hack. Keep your eyes open for a possible future A530 RAM HACK to take it PAST it's hardware designed 8M of RAM! Well... If I don't loose interest and go get that A4000 first. Or 486 DX... NOT! A Little About Me: (If Anyone cares) ;-) I was raised in Groton/Ledyard Connecticut. Went to a technical high school (Ella Grassa S.E. Tech) and took Electronics there for 3 years. Went on from there to Thames Valley St. Tech School for an AS in Electrical Engineering Technologies. Transferred to Texas A&M in Spring of '92. It's now late '94 (boy I'm feeling long in the tooth) and I've finished all my engineering classes. Have to go back this spring to take a patchwork of classes to finish up my BS in EET/Telecom if I wanna get out by the end of this summer. I have been a Commodore Technician for about 6-7 years. Have been authorized Amiga Technician (by Commodore for what ever THAT'S worth now!) since '91 (but been working on them since '89). Have also done classified pee on stuff for Tracor Applied Sciences/N.U.S.C, been a Pro Audio Tech (twice), a computer tech (at like... uhhh.. 5 official places through time), am currently (or last time I checked) working in the Texas A&M Bioacoustic Lab digitizing dophin farts, playing with high end scientist toys, and doing a little C programming. Oh... My System includes: A500 (tower of course), A530, 5M RAM(1C4F), 160M SCSI, 44Meg SyQuest, HD Internal Floppy, Line Link 144e, Cannon BJ-200, 1084-SP, Home Made 8 bit Stereo Digitizer, Ext. Floppy, KS 2.05, WB 2.1 Email at Texas A&M is: TWW2568@venus.tamu.edu (until the end of next summer I guess) Although I am in France until Xmas '94, I telnet to my Texas account and do the email thing like almost every day. So that is a good spot to reach me from. Welp... Good Luck! Tom D Tek **************************************************************************** ****************************** DISCLAIMER ********************************** **************************************************************************** *I ASSUME NO RESPONSABILITY FOR ANY DAMAGES THAT OCCOUR FROM ANYONE ATEMPT-* *ING ANY OF THE SYSTEM MODIFICATIONS MENTIONED ABOVE OR AS SEEN THE * *ACCOMPANYING GRAPHIC DOCUMANTATION IMAGES. IT SHOULD BE NOTED THAT NONE * *OF THESE MODIFICATIONS ARE AUTHORIZED BY ANY PART OF COMMODORE AND THAT * *OPENING YOUR MACHINE VOIDS ANY WARRANTY YOUR MACHINE MAY CURRENTLY HOLD! * *ALL OPINIONS AND EXPRESSED IDEAS IN THESE DOCUMENTS ARE MY OWN AND SHOULD * *NOT BE ASSOCIATED WITH ANY OTHER PERSON AND/OR ORGANIZATION. * ****************************************************************************