Pimpin' the Amiga 500 in 2018 - Here comes a new challenger. Wicher 500i Ex Accelerator | MVG 

Fifty Mega Hurts!

Open the case? Pfft yeah, right, and void the warranty. Do you think I'm stupid?

Amazing that it's 2018 and there are new hardware products on the market. Crazy. :)

I've never seen Hard Drivin' look so smooth! It's becoming a really interesting time for retro computing and gaming devices. I love to see people keeping these things alive and showing that they're still useful in modern times. I think the hardware back then is more interesting, as at the time, a single computer that could do everything very well didn't really exist, and it's easy to see in the hardware that different machines had different things that they were good at (like the ST for audio production). I think that's part of why a lot of these machines are viewed as more desirable... I know I want to add an ST to my audio setup, if only for the sweet synth editors available (I have used Stella in the past to emulate an ST in order to program my Roland D-20, but it would be nice to have an actual machine to do that). I'm super excited that people are out there who still love and support these machines, and are developing new enhancements for them. I can only imagine how far things will go.

My Amiga 1200 is my baby.. fitted with a Blizzard 1230 mk IV with 32mb ram, SCSI CD rom and a 40gb HDD running Classic Workbench and WHDLoad... I love it...

Another amazing video. Please keep these coming, so awesome dude.

Thank you for this video! I had been looking for a game since I was a child and could never find it and you showed it. The game Hard Drivin' was something that I played at a local pizza place as a child and I thought it was the greatest thing ever. Rad!

Hey MVG, met you at CRX 2017. Glad I found your channel! Love all your videos. Keep it up!!!

Discovered you through The Retro Hour podcast and so glad I did!

Man that F-18 was smooth. And naturally, followed by a chaser. Great mod!

Great video as always. It will be worth checking out different memory modules and configurations in order to see what's the best RAM to hit that sweet 50mhz ceiling. Loving these Amiga videos mate!

Thank you man, exciting times for Amiga, I love your channel.

I've had less than 3 hours sleep, but this woke me right up! Some serious Polski power in a beautiful package. Sterling work on the video MVG. +100 internet points for featuring Thrust's - Ottifanten demo! 😉

The SupraTurbo28 was actually 36MHz during development-- we had them in engineering at up to 40MHz, but as you observed over 36MHz was pretty sketchy. We had a couple beta testers have issues at 36MHz (it also had to behave in a 2000), so it was dialed back to 28MHz to be safe. We used 68HC000FN-16's with the numbers sanded off with an electric eraser. (I don't think -20's were around then, or they were more expensive or something.) ;-)

Excellent video! Hard Drivin actually looks playable! I agree with your thoughts on internal vs external acceleration. Much rather it be inside the machine rather than hanging off the side.

You and Anthony should be Must-See TV for ALL computer history fans. Great video, Bill! So good.

I never had a Amiga but I LOVE how the community won't let this great machine die.

Seeing the A500 again gives me goosebump memories...I hope fat agnus doesn't mind new arrivals.

A machine of such beauty, I am in awe!

Thank you for opening a new world of ideas for me!

Forwarded this video to my brother. He also loves his retro hardware and would get a kick out of someone making accelerator cards for vintage hardware. He's purchased a couple modern accelerators for his Apple II, and a recreation that someone reverse engineered of a very rare audio/video card for his Apple 2GS. Very neat video.

I wonder if a a heat sink might help with reaching 50MHz, both on the CPU and possibly on the FPGA as well.

Really interesting video, the F-18 footage blew me away!

I think with so many retro computing and gaming channels gaining popularity on youtube, its bringing the old Atari and Amiga computers to light and getting people interested in retro gaming beyond old consoles and MS-DOS. The Amiga computers seems like someone I would have loved to played around with if I grew up with them in the 80's and 90's (but my first computers where Win95 and Win98 generation computers having been born in 1992)

Poland love Amiga/Amiga love Poland.

Wow!! This was supremely impressive! Thankyou!

Man you voided the warranty!!! Edit: Ha ha should of read the comments before posting. Im glad we all think alike!

That thing so old it's making my screen refresh like crazy

I miss my Amigas. I had a Amiga 500 which I pimped with 1.5 Mb extra memory. And the second mod was a kickstart switch so i could switch between 1.3 and 2.04. My other Amigas included 2x Amiga 2000, Amiga 3000 and Amiga 4000.

I remember that my old Supra Turbo 28 had a 68010 processor. It stands out since you really didn't see 010's in Amiga accelerators much, if at all elsewhere. It would also convert for use in an A2000 when you removed the case and set a jumper on the board--which was what I did when I got my A2000 and moved the accelerator, DKB Mini Mega Chip with 2MB Agnes, Super Denise and my 3.1 ROM from the A500. You could also convert it back by removing the jumper and putting the board back into the case.

That monitor stack you have in the background is crazy lol - I like it =D

Cheers mate! Great insight. Might get one for my A500 ;-) . I've been too many years of focusing on my A1200 (which I often leave in it's flight case) so it'd be great to have a second box that can also boot to CF and but running faster 68k.

Wow.. cant believe people are making upgrades for my 1st computer... Rock on peeps

This is superb. Thanks for the video. I think I'll have to get this screened at tomorrow's South West Amiga Group (SWAG) meeting.

Man those frame rates are gorgeous, well done.

ahhhhhhhhhh..memories....! Brilliant video!

Very nice! More love to the Amiga 500. :)

Great to see this review :)...Now I'm proud that I introduce you Wicher turbo card :) You should reach 50MHz without problem with 8MB simm EDO 50ns even with stock cpu. My Wicher runs rock solid in 50MHz with 8MB simm 50ns edo. You can add little heatsink on Xilinx chip and/or CPU to improve stability. Of course I will send you info when new projects for Amiga will be available :) Pozdrowienia od Polskich fanów Amigi z PPA :) (Cheers from Polish Amiga Fans on PPA.PL)

I have the card too (500i version, without the battery slot). It's everything I need to play games via WHDLoad, watch demos, etc. I have 4 kickstarts and a switch for turning the card (mostly) off. This way I still have compatibility with disk demos, old games etc.

Hi. Great Vid. So out of all the accelerator cards you mentioned, which one would you suggest as the easiest to get up and running on an original unmodified 500. Main use is a mix of general software and gaming and I don't want anything outside the case with the least amount of modification as possible. Cheers.

Awesome video as always

Put a small heatsink on the Xylinx, and add an adjustable voltage regulator with fine tuning pot to power the card instead of the mainboard power. This will probably solve any stability issues.

It really warms my heart seeing all this new hardware and software coming out, not just for the Amiga, but for all kinds of retro computers. Even the Vic-20 is getting some love. I wonder where we'd be if Motorola had continued with the 680x0 line beyond the '060...

Looks like a great solution and I agree it is great to see this stuff popping up for the Amiga 500 nowadays. For me personally though after having a Vampire I have reverted my personal Amiga 500 back to stock. The nostalgia I have in regard to the machine does not include making it super fast or using WHDLoad. For me the true Amiga 500 experience is the stock experience. I have done some things to "modernize" it such as a DFO: switcher to allow the external port to be used with a HxC floppy emulator mounted in an external floppy case and a USB keyboard solution (internal piggybacking the CIA) to allow a wireless keyboard to be used in conjunction with the real keyboard. I am able to button it up RF shield and all and play games in a modern way but still keep it just like how it was when I purchased it new.

Sweeeeeeeeet!!! The Amiga is getting so much love recently =D Might just have to get one of those for my 500 or 500+ EDIT: Although it's nice, the TF530 has more power due to the 030. This is still a lovely option though depending on price. Amazing just how many options we are getting lol

Excellent video, man! I'm kind of glad I didn't grab a Wicher 500i right away; I'll wait and grab the EX edition instead!

Hard drivin' and f18!! Ahh the good ol days. I'd like to try D-paint & digi-view with that!

Thanks for the well-made video review! Kudos! Guess I will pick up an Amiga 500 rather sooner than later after beeing without "my girlfriend" for about 20 years. The card looks really nice, too. Awesome deep-blue PCB, for the look alone it should be worth it. ;-) Seeing F18 perform as well as in the video is really an eye-opener.

Very good video! Will probably buy one :)

Piękne! Szacuneczek :) Amiga rólz :)

Great review, thanks!

Got now a Wicher500i Rev 2a on my A500 Revision 5 with the kickstart 3.1. Have the CPU Motorola MC68HC000FN20 20Mhz and a 8MB EDO 60ns 72pin SIMM on it and a 8GB CF with WB 3.1 and WHDLoad games. I liked it more than my ACA500Plus and yes i still waiting for the Vampire 500 V4. Nice video and the Wicher500i is a great turbo card for WHDLoad games.

Wicher (not witcher) means gale - strong wind in polish.

absolut fantastic card ! thanks for info

Great video, MVG! I always learn quite a bit about Amiga hardware. I'm glad to see so many modernized solutions for these systems. It makes such a difference in gaming and worth the effort to seek out a fast and stable system. Do you still feel the community is attempting to push the Amiga to its limits? Are there limits?

Totally forgot the water cooling in this video. Still 5 stars. Keep up the good work.

I don't think it's THAT surprising the A500 is starting to get some serious love. Take a look on ebay how much a semi-tidy A500 is vs a similar quality A600. One is £40 - £50 the other £100+ with some cheeky chancers wanting £200+ for an A1200. Having said that I'm sure the A500 will go up in price sooner or later as more people hoover them up and slap "retro vintage" in their listings rather than "found in the attic".

You should show before and after footage with and without the accelerator card for those of us who are interested in retro Computing but don't happen to own one of these beauties.

Hi! Awesome videos! Great source to check out the avalible accelerators for the Amiga 500 :) iam in to buying and accelerator and your work has been to great help :) there is a new accelerator out as well called hc508cr would be lovely to see you do I review about it to! Another thing I would love to see is some more in depth info about the rewieved accelerator, like whload compability especially the quitkey function does it work? Maybe do like a comparison video with all the different accelerators for the a500 with pros and cons :) well it's just some humble ideas it your channel and it great anyways! Keep it up and take care! /Dan

I have been looking at this for my amiga 500. I was wondering if it will work well with a sd to ide board? My setup now is a 500 with the supra500xp with a scsi to sd and the supraturbo 28 with the kipper2k 68000 with the 8 mb ram but like you said the side is used and is not a nice clean package

I just noticed we have the same mixer! QX1002! Great video BTW. If I ever find a decent condition A500 (wish I never sold mine) for a sane price. I think this accelerator is the way to go.

Great informative video. So the question is will it also work with a A2000 using a CPU relocation board.

Dan here from LemonAmiga. Amazing video! Im truly happy they are making these cards, and I can imagine there will be a long waiting list. I might order one myself! I much prefer this idea to the vampire solution. But will this run Cannonball Outrun :)

very intriguing for sure... a win for us all...

What a time to be looking at getting my first Amiga

I recently watched your video on how to get the Amiga running on a modern monitor and I'm excited for the parts to come in. The Amiga 500 was my dads first computer and the first computer I ever played with. He bought it the year I was born, 1987. I've decide to dust it off and give it a new life after many years of enjoyment but I cannot find this card anywhere. Do you or anyone out there, know where I can purchase one of these? I would love to have Workbench 3.1 and WHD Loader running.

This is very interesting. I agree with you on wanting the accelerator on the inside. Simply because it frees up the side socket for an Action Replay v3.17. Which was something I had a lot of fun with back then and I kind of miss that experience now on my accelerated A1200s. I guess the question is; will the Action Replay cartridge be functional at those speeds?

I still have a 'hopefully' working Amiga in a store room at home (with a Hard Drive!) and a big old box of games/disks/utilities (Xcopy, White Lighting etc etc). This video has inspired me to (at some point) boot it up and see if it still lives! ..as I haven't booted it since I was around 20 (I'm 45 now!). I even had a PC emulator on it (so I could do my homework from school - Turbo Pascal programming and some horrid Cobol too). It would be interesting to see what's on the hard drive too. :)

Had an eargasm when you displayed the card.

Excellent review. Will you make a supplementary video when you have the 20MHz 68000 cpu?

The memories. Grew up on the Amiga 2000.

I did some extra research after your video with those who have attempted to make the Wicher work in an A1000...it's a no go.

Great video, awesome music! |m| Keep it up!

Cool video man!

Hey there is a spot in that board where it says "Caution Hot!" Can you re-run the tests at 42 and 50MHZ if you can somehow add a heatsink to that chip or a fan?

Its amazing to see how they keep these 20+ year old computer going, There are 6000+ games, 1000 of programs for the Amiga. Great way to learn about computing extra.

Hey! What's the background music on the begining? It's from some game that i used to play on amiga...

Did you try fitting the cpu and the xilinx-chip with a flat passive heatsink? maybe it's only a temperature-issue with your chip?

I want to hear more, what happened when you got the new RAM? did you actually get a stable 50Mega Hurts?

There is no "c" in the name of this card. "C" is silent when "h" is after in polish. Always. So, name of this card is Wi(c)her - strong wind in polish. I think "gale" would be a proper english translation. Anyway. Cool video. As always. 🙂👌

I'm looking at ordering a Wicher 508i for my A500 Rev 5, just wondering... Do I also need to have a 512k memory expansion card to the trapdoor slot? asking because my 512k expansion board corroded so I would need to buy a new one of those.

11:55 Holy sh*t, that's an Ottifant on the screen in the background! It was created by the German comedian Otto Waalkes, and my mind is just blown to see one in an Amiga demo.

Subscribed, thank you very much!

Have you tested the HC508 card, which was released last year?

Cool stuff. I have an A500 and this looks like something I'd use. I do have 1 question though: if I connected a cf card adaptor to it could the cf card be treated like a hard disk? or is it just for floppy images?

Great stuff, and yes I agree I'd rather have an internal solution then something hanging off my machine. I will seriously have to consider this one when I get some extra funds to play around with Amiga hardware again. :-)

one reason I was looking to get ACA500+ was the freezer feature, do the other cards have that?

Question? what are the best upgrades for an Amiga 3000, like an accelerator card, sound card, video card, sd reader, cd-rom, internet connection all internal no outside stuff.

I'm apparently one of the lucky souls that can run 42mhz without ill effect on the ACA500+ I've begrudgingly accepted that the ACA500+ is going to be on the left side of my machine, so I ordered a manufactured case that also facilitates an ACA 1233n with risers and sealed shut. All in all, I'm happy, but the Wicher is definitely making me green with envy. ;) . I would have opted for this back in November.

Thank you Sir COMMODORE AMIGA 2018 and beyond

One intense Wicher intro!! :-D

this is some savage shit, well done bruh

Would you need to add heat sinks or some kind of cooling at 50 Mhz? PS: at the end of the video what is the last video being shown on screen with the pyramid made of Amiga boing balls?

Have you or can you do a rundown of LCD monitors that work on the Amigas? I've just got an NEC AccuSync, but they are hard to get hold of. It looks like you have a Dell in the background. Sorry if this has already been covered - I'm just getting my Amiga back on the rad, as it has been in storage for 20 years! I have an early A500 (with the Cherry Mechanical Keys) and an A1200. This Wicher board looks like something I'd want!

So, what would be the easiest way to get a complete (or as near to complete as possible) library of games working on WHDLoad? Get an Amiga 500 with Kickstart 3.1, this accelerator card, a MC68HC000, 8 Megs of FastRAM and a compactflash drive? I literally don't know anything about soldering or futzing around with the insides of an Amiga and I'd only want to use it for games. Used to have one in the 90s and looking for stuff now can get somewhat overwhelming with no knowledge of how to set one up correctly.

How are you using the right mouse button to bring up tiny launcher, is that a startup-sequence trick or something else?

Looks nice

Question: Watching YT movies of Roland and Yamaha Midi devices on PC, I was wondering if there is something like good soundcards for the A500? Since the difference between PC speaker -> soundblaster or ESS soundchip -> Roland MD32 is SO big, I'm hoping I can find a good way to improve my Amiga's sound :) Thanks!

"Coast To Coast"- Very good sinthwave!

I had a Supra Turbo28. I thought it had a 68010 in there. I couldn't afford a beefier accelerator at the time. But the nice thing was that when I shifted over to my A2000, I was able to remove the Supra Turbo 28 board from the case, set a jumper and plug it into the A2000's processor slot. It worked well enough but there was no room for onboard Fast RAM and I had to use a Zorro II RAM board.