ACA500Plus appreciation

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.
  • RE: ACA500Plus


    This is a fantastic addon - anyone who is on the fence thinking about this need not to worry - this is an excellent product and the support has been amazing. Highly recommended.


    If you have one of these addons please show your appreciation below, it's definetly good hardware for good computers - thank you Jen for keeping our dream alive! <3

  • I have just got an ACA500Plus which I got with an Amiga 500 on Ebay. I agree this product is excellent. I updated the firmware to the latest version which was quick and easy. The ACA500Plus is very easy to use, the menus are very easy to understand, and the options are great.


    I've ordered a X-Surf-500 and RTC to go with it.


    Thank you Jen.

  • I have both the Original ACA 500 and the ACA 500 Plus. Love them both.


    The Original ACA 500 needs an A1200 accelerator to really shine. I have mine paired with a fully unlocked ACA 1221. It's a really nice setup. Perfect for whdload games and Demos.


    The ACA 500 Plus on the other hand is very capable without any A1200 accelerator. I really love this one. Has just enough fast RAM to preload whdload slaves like Monkey Island 2 and Fate of Atlantis. With it's overclocking capabilities it can rival or beat many 020 accelerators. It's also very versatile as you can set your Amiga 500 to run as a bog standard A500 without the need to unplug the ACA 500 Plus. And can also use DF1 as DF0 without the need for hardware modifications. Perfect for an external Gotek. Another thing is since this is based on an overclocked 68000, certain whdload games does not suffer from slowdowns (can be fixed with 'cache' in tooltip sometimes) due to the 68000 being a true 16bit CPU instead of 32bit that can cause slowdows due to async bus.


    Alot of great features. Really love these devices. Love all my stuff from Individual Computers.

  • I have owned an ACA 500 Plus for the last couple years. It’s a tremendous product. You can even switch NTSC/PAL modes on the fly. Wish I knew about its ability to initiate a DF0: Select without any hardware modifications. I bent an original CIA chip with the hardware modification that’s out there.


    I’m thinking of buying another just to have a spare.


    Thanks Jens and IC Team!

  • Quick question for people here. Has anyone tried to fit the ACA500+ into the case of an A590 external hard drive?

    I have an empty enclosure for an A590 here and Id hate to see it go unused.

  • In face of all this positive feedback, here some self-criticism:

    The CF slots are delicate and prone to bent or broken pins. Please treat them very carefully. Do not change cards too frequently.

    Changing the ACA500+ between A500s is also prone to failure. I've managed to misfit an ACA500+ so unluckily (don't know how) that it destroyed the ACA500+ and the Gary chip. Please be careful when changing the ACA500+ card and CF cards on it, so you can enjoy it for a long time.

    The solution is, in my opinion, to order an X-Surf-500 :-) to get rid of all the mechanical stress. I honestly believe it's worth the extra money.

  • I also have an X-Surf-500! I wish there were tutorials on setting up software for the web, ftp, and telnet though.


    The only other improvement I could wish for with the ACA 500 Plus is a more current file system with the included WB 3.1 install. Long filenames are a must with WHDLoad. It’s a pain to rename files to extract them on the A500.

  • The choice of internet software for a plain Amiga 500 without acceleration is limited. By far the most important one for me would be a mounter for a network filesystem. We have included two mounters, for Samba and NFS, in the package. They are covered by the documentation and example configurations.

    The problem with nfs and smbfs is just that they are increasingly going out of fashion because everybody else considers the protocols too old - which is actually not an issue inside a trusted home network. There is a new Samba mounter available which supports newer protocols, but it has got other problems.


    We have identified this problem.

    For downloading software I can now heartily recommend the program Lubricator 2.x from Aminet and the iComp share under X-Surf/Extras . You can even launch it from there.

    With this program the whole software/demo archives of Aminet and Pouet are available to you with a graphical user interface, even on an unaccelerated Amiga 500 with at least OS 2.x.

    But our support has to end at some point. There are innumerous ways and solutions for many protocols such as IRC, FTP, mail, I guess even on a plain 68000, many fairly outdated, others still totally recommendable. But it's difficult to keep track and to give recommendations. This is something more for Amiga user forums.


    Also it shouln't be too easy on a 68000, we still want to sell some accelerator cards. :-)


    With a 68030 browsing the WWW is just barely possible. The only problem is, there are few websites which limit themselves to such old specifications that it's any fun. But there are some fringe solutions even to that, for example by setting up all kinds of funky proxies.

  • The only other improvement I could wish for with the ACA 500 Plus is a more current file system with the included WB 3.1 install. Long filenames are a must with WHDLoad. It’s a pain to rename files to extract them on the A500.

    The filesystem PFS3 is pretty modern, maybe the most modern available.

    With the utility setfnsize you can increase the filename length to up to 107, I guess.

    Please check out this thread: https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=91088

    Somebody says "Super long filenames create all sorts of trouble in many programs (like DirWork). Avoid.", but I haven't tried it myself yet. I have no opinion on that.

  • Quick question for people here. Has anyone tried to fit the ACA500+ into the case of an A590 external hard drive?

    I have an empty enclosure for an A590 here and Id hate to see it go unused.

    Unfortunately, the A590 case is not wide enough - I'd expect heavy modification to be required. I know that there are a number of empty A590 cases out there, as Vesalia used to sell them for a small amount. However, I haven't seen a single mod where someone has put an ACA500 or ACA500plus (which both have the same board shape) into one of these cases, so it's most likely just not practical.


    Jens

  • Unfortunately, the A590 case is not wide enough - I'd expect heavy modification to be required. I know that there are a number of empty A590 cases out there, as Vesalia used to sell them for a small amount. However, I haven't seen a single mod where someone has put an ACA500 or ACA500plus (which both have the same board shape) into one of these cases, so it's most likely just not practical.


    Jens

    Ah, that's a shame. Being able to fit the accelerator into the original A590 case would have been such a win.


    Time to 3D print an obese A590 case i guess... 😜

  • I have to correct myself: The A590 case is wide enough, but it will be a challenge to make the DisMo visible and the DisMo button accessible. I've just dug out my A590 top (which is the only thing I have of that case, no decals, not the metal bottom), and it's wide enough to have the two CF cards stick out the front.


    Jens