Vintage Amiga Hardware Blog

I have been thinking about writing a post about the BMon system by Eyetech but I have refused to because the system is so complicated. But to make it easy to explain, it is a monitor switcher that switches between CGFX (CyberGraphX) and AGA screenmodes so that output from scandoubler and output from RTG-graphics board can be viewed on a single monitor.

Here is another shot of the Eyetech Bmon keyboard switcher for the Amiga 1200 frontside

This little device here is a rare component of the BMon system. It fits the Amiga 1200 motherboard on the little chip that usually holds a PC-keyboard adapter (IIRC) and lets the user switch between graphics card and AGA by pressing a button on the keyboard (I think it was the “*” key). There was also the AMon component, it was the automatic monitor switching part in the BMon saga, and then there was the manual switch part, that is the most known I think.

Eyetech Bmon keyboard switcher for the Amiga 1200 frontside

Anyway this is a neat little rare Amiga hardware part that is essential if you are building a super Amiga PPC/CGFX system in an A1200 desktop.

And here is the backside of the Eyetech A1200 switcher

There have been a few accelerators made for the Amiga 600. They are notoriously rare these days since most people just got a faster turbo board for their A1200 back in 97-98. Their popularity have only got bigger in recent times -Who does not want a small genuine 68k Amiga with a bit more speed boost than a stock 7.14MHz 68000 CPU?

One of the most sought after turbo board for the A600 is the Apollo A630 which has a 030 CPU and a 72-pin SIMM slot so you can take your Amiga 600 to 32MB and beyond.

Apollo 630 is a genuine collector’s item so do not expect it to come cheap (if you are not lucky that is).
Some things to keep in mind if you are aiming for the luxury of having 030 power in your small Amiga system, you should consider adding a heatsink to the 030 CPU and a fan either to the heatsink or the upper half of the A600 case. 030 runs hot and old hardware should not cook itself to death.

If you are salivating over the idea of installing a 030 board into your Amiga 600 I suggest you head over to Amibay.com right now and take a look at the A630 that is just now offered for sale!

Apollo 630 on AmiBay

If you are interested in purchasing the mouse pictured above go to the thread on Amigaworld.net forums and read the instructions here. (more…)

This is the fifth theme of this blog, lets hope I stick with it

I am going over all my pages so they will look great in the comming days, until then, have fun and I hope you like the theme!

How to add IDE to your Amiga 500

Judging by searchwords that people use to find my blog it seems many Amiga users are interested in adding IDE interface to their Amiga 500 so they can use cheap harddrives and Compact Flash cards. (more…)

A well worn but still functional Commodore 1084 monitor

It seems a bit poor of me to write a post about the Commodore 1084 monitor, I mean, here I am surrounded by PPC boards, A4000 boxes, A1200 towers and Amiga desktops all around me. Instead of even more focus on those high end super hardware of yesterday I decide to write about a silly CRT in these days of 52″+ entertainment screens. (more…)