The A500 Mini comes out 08. April 2022 in Europe

I’m a bit out of the loop what a good mechanical keyboard supposedly costs (@Frenzie might be the expert there), but given that it’s basically just that with 3 custom key caps and an Amiga logo it seems to verge on the pricey side. Especially the 30 £ markup for a German QWERTZ layout seems a wee bit excessive.

That is what good mechanical keyboards cost.

On my 9-10hours daily working machine, yeah fine.
But not only to have the possibility to sometimes type in something on the mini.

That’s about 160€ plus shipping. Nope, not for me.

btw
2 days left… ^^

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You can get a pretty darn good one for € 50 but a 100 quid is not unreasonable.

heavy breathing


image

It`s on it´s way
one day left
:smiley:

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Time to get the Speedlink Competition Pro USB out of the cabinet, it should be here soon.

Hopefully.
:star_struck:

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Please keep us up-to-date!

Only that for now - I love it.
It´s the best way I´ve played Amiga in a very long time.

The included Games work perfect and added games can easily be configured to be perfect too. Most are not fullscreen at the beginning, but that can be changed very easy. I never had one of these gamepads back then but I really like it. And for everything I want a joystick, I have the Competion Pro USB which worked out of the box too. The Mouse is just awesome. A little optical Amiga mouse, crazy :smiley: That thing makes playing Monkey Island a lot more authentic.
The build quality of everyting is really good. And when I opened the box I had a huge grin on my face. That thing is so cute and really tiny.

I decided to connect it at first to a monitor which I have on a rollable closet so I can use it everywhere. I just roll it around everywhere I need it. And that`s perfekt.

I was about to connect it to the TV but that thing is huge and for now I thought to have it like back then on a smaller screen might suit better. I´ll try it on the TV later.

I don´t regret it.

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Enjoy! You deserved it!

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So, I’ve added a ot of my favorite games now and I’m still impressed how well that works.

Now I need to figure out how to get workbench running. That seems to be very complicated for now, since there is no preconfigered version to download yet. So you have to setup and install it to a whd load file by yourself. I have to see I if I can do that.

And I need to find a DPaint 3 WHD Load file ^^

Yes I will have a lot of fun with it. And I did not miss a keyboard yet. The few things I had to type or key I had to press, were done with the onscreen keyboard.

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Sounds really promising. Have tested it on your TV yet? :smiley:

Which version of the Kickstart ROM does it have? Or does it come with multiple?

The original A500 would only run Workbench 1.3 AFAIK, and later Workbench versions would require a ROM replacement. Though a few games would then no longer work.

I tested it on a 42" TV and it’s as cool as on the Monitor.

The 65" TV in the living room has yet to come.

I don’t know which Kickstart it uses, you can’t choose that. It plays A500 games as well as AGA and CD32 ones out of the box.

All I saw until now is two YouTube videos were Workbench 1.3 was running.
Retro Recipes & Dan Wood both told it’s complicated. Perifractic from Retro Recipes plans to do a dedicated Video on it.
Dan Wood was positiv to get a newer Workbench running later.

For me Workbench 1.3 would be enough since I only had that back then.

And I have Pimiga on a PI400 if I need more. But that’s not very likely.

I noticed that the settings sometimes change on different added games regarding to the memory. Maybe it chooses the Kickstart by itself as well.

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so far I found an easier way to get workbench running, with an HDF file containing workbench . I have to see if I have one which I can use or if I get one online or if I have to create one in WinUAE.
Also that seems to be an easy way to start ADF files.

Both by creating a save file from an added WHD Load game and by editing the savestate file that will be on your USB Stick. So it starts the ADF or HDF file instead.

I have to see if I’ll have enough time to test that today.

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So far no luck with workbench. There is a way, I know. What I found until now that is supposed to work is that you have to create your own workbench HDF and/or make your own WHDLoad installation of it.
I made a workbench HDF and I´m still trying to get along only using the HDF. Since making my own WHDLoad installation requires a much deeper dive into that stuff. And WHDLoad is everything but easy.

Found another badly translated tutorial in which you have to change the general files and WHDLoad files on the A500.
So I think for now I´ll wait until sombody with more knowledge will find or create an easier solution.

In the meantime I´ll enjoy playing games on it. Btw. my daughter loves MI1 so far. She already had to laugh a few times really hard. :slight_smile:

And now I connected it to the big TV in the living room to test there too. Man that´s awesome. Having it that huge and connected to a hifi receiver. :slight_smile:
Ok, you have to have some distance between you and the TV. It´s just to huge. The cables are barely long enough for that.I have a two USB extension cables I use for my Recalbox Raspberry PI. If I connect them I can easly sit on the couch, about 6 meters away from my TV. Yep, thats nice.
I´ve seen People using different wireless controllers. But I especially like the delivered one.

Beeing in the living room with that extensive setup is not like playing how we did it back then, siting in front of the Amiga and the TV/Monitor and having the mouse and joystick besides it.I like it too. but the solutions I testet first give me more retro feeling :smiley:

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So the emulated sound is good? :slight_smile:

Well, that’s the way we did it. :wink: We hadn’t the money for a monitor first. So we had to use the TV in the living room. We used an A520 TV modulator and placed the Amiga 500 and the mouse on the floor in front of the TV. And this is the way I always remember playing Indy 3. :smiley:

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So my mouse arrived today (couldn’t resist that one, at least), and my plan was to grace you with a comparison between the new and the original – only the original is nowhere to be found :frowning:.

At least I finally mustered the courage to take the Amiga apart and have a look at the board. My worry was that some caps had leaked and basically ruined the whole thing beyond salvation, but lo and behold, looks all good to my untrained eye.

Sadly, the same can’t be said for the RTC and memory expansion

There goes 512kB of my 3MB of RAM :frowning:.

And no, I still won’t boot it. That power brick looks seriously intimidating.

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I have my original tank mouse here but I don’t plan to compare them. I just like the new one. Feels really nostalgic to use it.

Yeah I think I have to pen my amiga 500 to check that too. But I wasn’t brave enough yet.

OK, just for size comparison.

Man the cable on the original was way bigger.

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It seems a bit odd to have a mouse almost as big as the keyboard! :laughing:

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