Category Archives: Memory card

Some Amiga activities from the week

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Donor Amiga 1200

This Amiga 1200 was painted in an unusual color (and paint).

I won an Amiga 1200 on a local auction website. I put in a max bid but surprisingly it got sold for cheaper than I anticipated. I think it was for a couple of reasons. First the case was painted in a weird cement like textured paint, more on that later, secondly it was sold as-is and not working. I have heard of a new Mini-ITX AGA A1200 clone being developed so this broken A1200 will be the donor for that future project (if the chips works).

The value in this computer (for me) lies in its chips. I am mainly interested in Alice, Lisa, the two CIA chips and the Paula. I am also interested in the memory chips as those can be used on various projects. There is some value in the 23-pin video socket also.

I did some math and took a gamble on both winning the Amiga 1200 and on the chips working. As the CIA chips, the paula and Alice has been socketed, that is a clear sign someone has messed inside this A1200 before. Could both be good news or bad news as sockets can be the reason for the computer not working.

Anyways, here is how I calculated the value:

  • Alice: 100-135 euro
  • Lisa: 20-35 euro
  • CIA (2x): 35-80 euro
  • Paula: 25-35 euro
  • Memory (4x): 10 euro
  • 23-pin D-SUB: 10-20 euro

Total min: 200 euro
Total max: 315 euro

Note, I am not calculating this on Analogic prices!

Lets hope the chips are working, will test them later in the year as the motherboard has been cleaned and is archived in my Amiga hardware stash now.

And the reason why i dont count any value in the case: it was sadly painted in this horrible “paint” that gave me a terrible itch in my fingers for two hours after touching it for a few minutes. I will probably throw it away in the trash since I suspect the paint is toxic.

Changing memory chips on a GottaGoFaZt3r

Removing memory chips from the GottaGoFaZt3r Zorro 3 Amiga memory card

I built two GottaGoFaZt3r Zorro 3 memory cards late last year, only one card worked. The other refused to work, it still showed up as “working” in my Amiga 4000TX but the memory was nowhere to be seen. I got the recommendation to check for errors in the memory chips one by one. Instead of doing that I got four new chips instead from a reliable source.

I removed the memory chips with a hot air station. Then I cleaned the pads and soldered on the new memory chips.

Soldering new memory chips on the GottaGoFaZt3r Zorro 3 Amiga memory card

And once all chips was replaced the card finally worked 100%.

Both cards are built as 256 MB cards. 256 MB might seem like a lot of fast mem in an Amiga but it is actually very usable. I run a bit more buffers on my partition than a stock HDD setup so that consumes some of the fast mem. But the main usage is off course to have a large RAM disk (as there are already 128 MB on the turbo card).

And here is a pic from sunny Stockholm today!

Amiga 3000 daughter card

And finally all parts for my ReAmiga 3000 build is now soldered with the daughter board being finished. It still needs to be flashed, but that will happen another day!

MouSTer 3D printed shell

I have used a MouSTer USB mouse adapter with a wireless mouse on my Amiga for 3-4 years and I have been very happy with the adapter. Only thing I was not happy with was the heat shrink tubing that was used as the shell. It looked so cheap.

I was surprised to find a 3D printable shell for it online. I ordered one to be printed on JLC (in resin). I got a couple of warnings that the walls was too thin and may not be able to be printed. But all worked out better than I anticipated!

It looks so much better with the 3D printed shell.

The fit is perfect. I just superglued the two halves together, there are no user servicable parts on the MouSTer so no point in making it possible to open the case again.

I dont remember exactly where I found the files but you should probably be able to find them here if you search for them.

GottaGoFaZt3r 256 MB Zorro 3 memory card

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GottaGoFaZt3r 256 MB RAM Zorro 3 card for the Amiga

GottaGoFaZt3r is a memory card for Zorro 3 big box Amiga computers that you can build or buy premade. Find out more information about the GottaGoFaZt3r Amiga memory card here.

Amiga with a Zorro 2 bus supports up to 8 MB memory on the Zorro 2 bus, that memory is shared with other devices on the bus so if you have a graphics card with 2 MB you can only have 6 MB additional fast mem on the Zorro 2 bus. With Zorro 3 that is IIRC increased to 1 GB.

Phase 5 Fastlane vs GottaGoFaZt3r

Before this card was released there was not a huge offering of Zorro 3 memory cards, the most famous was probably the Fastlane from Phase 5, a huge full size Zorro 3 memory card that uses rare 30 pin memory and commanded high prices on the second hand market. The Fastlane has 16 30-pin SIMM sockets and can be expanded to 256 MB, but that would require 16 very rare 16 MB 30-pin SIMM memory. Phase 5 made awesome hardware back in the day but time marches on.

While the Fastlane was also a SCSI card the GottaGoFaZt3r is just a memory card. Where the Fastlane is full size the modern card is a mini half size Zorro 3 card. It is autodetected and just does one thing, adding more memory to your Z3 Amiga.

Whats the point of a 256 MB memory card in an Amiga?

The GottaGoFaZt3r can be built to be a 128 MB card or 256 MB card. Off course I went for the 256 MB option. While this could be seen as just bragging rights to be able to pump up your Amiga with a 256 MB memory card, keep in mind that this is actually usable on an Amiga, even with oldschool applications thanks to being able to use the memory card as a huge RAM disk.

Some comments about building the GottaGoFaZt3r Amiga memory card

Memory and CPLD was sourced from China, other than those parts its a very straight forward BOM. The build is also very simple. While the BOM does not mentions a capacitor at C1 I got the recommendations to add one so thats what I did.

My setup

In total there is 660 MB Fast RAM in my Amiga 4000TX

I installed the GottaGoFaZt3r card in my A4000TX. Currently the memory setup looks like this on my Amiga 4000TX which is alsy my primary Amiga.

  • GottaGoFaZt3r: 256 MB
  • BFG9060: 128 MB
  • ZZ9000: 256 MB

I will add 128 MB fast ram to the motherboard (which will be used as 96 MB by the A4000TX), so in the future I will have 736 MB fast mem in my daily driver. Currently the memory is reported as 660 MB as I have a memory stick that is not really supported by the TX so it only partially works.