This machine sold over 7 million in its lifetime. Here is a video demonstrating how you can work on your Amiga 500.
The truth is that Amiga 500 is like any other Amiga. It is a home computer. This means it’s made for getting upgrades. So, even today there are amazing people in the Amiga community making awesome accelerators for Amiga 500. Let’s dive into Daily working possibilities.
Here are all upgrade possibilities for Amiga 500 and Amiga 500+
- Every Amiga 500 got a mem slot beneath the machine (as seen in the image above) where it is easy to install mem upgrades. It is here where I got my very first 512KB RAM expansion upgrade for my Amiga 500 so I could play Lotus III.
- Amiga 500 also got a Zorro type of slot on the left side of the machine (just beside the long 68k CPU). For that one, you can purchase Hard Drives, Mem expansions, A570 (CDTV for Amiga 500), and accelerator cards such as ACA500 and the 68HC000 card.
- Inside the Amiga 500, you find a removable CPU slot which the original 68000 CPU uses. Be gentle when you remove it and when you replace it. The Warp560 and Vampire accelerator cards use this slot.
- Also, you can replace the Kickstart, CIA, and Denise chips. You can also get a Plipbox Ethernet box for the parallel port to get ISDN speed for your Amiga 500.
The possibility to upgrade is endless. But my advice is to upgrade your Amiga 500 to the latest Kickstart. Add a 68HC000, 68060, or 68080 accelerator to your Amiga 500 and 32GB of storage. Using a Compact Flash card or a MicroSD card as AmigaHD helps a lot too.
Check out the Amiga 500 upgrade possibilities here. Amedia Computer France is a very nice and friendly Amiga store that supports Amitopia.
Is it possible to do Daily Work with an Amiga 500 today?
The answer is yes. It all depends on how much you want to spend and how much anti-retro you want to go.
There are USB cards for Amiga 500. SDcard solutions exist. You can use AmiFox for much more modern web browsing. AmiTube can be used for watching YouTube clips. YAM and SimpleMail are nice email clients. Paula’s music is the best too. You can use Final Writer, Leu, or other applications that help you a long way too.
Come to our Discord channel if you have questions regarding Amiga. We are waiting for your questions.
