What are the differences between an Amiga 500 and Amiga 500 Plus 

Floppy drives back then were industry standard commodity items, Commodore would buy whatever was cheapest on the market at the time and stuff 'em in, they all had their own unique sounds depending on their construction/design, head stepper motor (which is what produced the grinding noises) and so on. You won't ever notice any performance differences between regular A500 and A500+; there were zero differences in loading speed especially since that was limited by the Shugart floppy interface. It's not like today where you would expect a newer computer to load stuff faster, have faster graphics and so on. A500+ was just a very slightly warmed-over A500, and equipped with what was called the 'enhanced chipset' (ECS) which had some minor capability differences compared to the original chipset (OCS lol). Biggest differences off the top of my head included the DMA controller chip ("Fat Agnes") could address up to 2MB of "chip RAM" instead of just 512kB. So A500+ had no "slow ram" anymore - it was all "chip RAM" now. Other than that, I believe Agnus was unchanged, so no new blitter capabilities, blitter speed was unchanged as well so no faster graphics updates or anything like that. The display controller ("Denise") saw the biggest improvements, and now had programmable/improved pixel output timing capabilities, so it could produce "flicker-free" VGA-resolution modes on a multisync capable monitor (no more interlace-induced headaches yayy!), but with very low number of simultaneous screen colors, since the overall system architecture of the ECS was unchanged compared to the original, and so did not have the memory bandwidth to support higher color depths in high resolution modes. There was also a "super-hires" graphics mode which as standard produced 1280 pixels per line instead of the old hires mode's 640 pixels (max 4 colors compared to old hires' 16 colors, also very slow graphics speed, since most memory bandwidth was eaten up by video scan-out DMA accesses), and hardware sprites could be positioned horizontally with super-hires precision even in lower screen resolution modes (pretty nifty), or was that an AGA-only feature? I don't remember... lol Oh, and the border region of the screen could be blanked out to black color instead of always showing whatever color value which was loaded into one particular color palette register (#0, I believe.) "Paula", the sound/disk drive interface controller was completely unchanged as I recall in the ECS chipset, and was also unchanged in the AGA chipset, which meant using HD floppies in the A4000 computer required a janky special floppy drive which spun the disc at half-speed compared to regular HD floppy drives in order to read/write the higher density tracks. All this is from memory, I haven't used my old Amiga for over ten, probably going on 15 years now, so apologies if I screwed anything up. Everything turns to mush over time, including my brain... :P

While the A500 and 500+ are fairly identical, the 2 MB of (theoretical) CHIP RAM makes it worthwhile. If you just play games it made little difference, but for those of us that used our Amiga as a fully fledged computer the extra CHIP RAM was fantastic.

With Lemmings, keep in mind it will use as much RAM as you have free on initial load. For instance, my A1200 for 2mb chip and 4mb fast loads the entire game into RAM at start up and never needs to load again. If the 500+ has more RAM, the longer load may be it loading additional data into the extra RAM to make later load times shorter.

As soon as I saw the amiga in the shops and played on one and a mate also had one I thought I somehow had to get one for myself so when I was 14 ish maybe I found a used 500 in a shop with a big selection of games and joystick i saved up paper round money and birthday and everything else i was able to get my hands on, i sold the other things other tech i had that was worth money and i eventually had enough, it was the greatest purchase i made i have loved the amiga ever since.

Hard drive does not = floppy drive but I know what you meant 🙂👍

Nice to see this, used to love Fire and Ice as well 😊 I'm getting my 500 + repaired soon, just hope it wont cost a fortune lol. Great content dude.

Really found your vid interesting, keep them coming. I bought an A500 back in the day, 1.3 ROM and 512Mb RAM. By the time the A500+ came out most Amiga owners, like me had upgraded to 1Mb. The amount of memory most games of the day demanded. If you only had a 0.5Mb system I recall Team17 games (Alien Breed series) instead of loading, showed an image of a RAM expansion, asking you if you have seen one of these. If not it told you to buy one. I deliberatly took my expansion board out of the trapdoor just to see what it would do to discover this. My Amiga 500 had the Fat Angus chip that supported 1Mb chip RAM but it wound not address my 512Mb trapdoor expansion, so it was slow RAM, I was stuck with 512Mb chip RAM. Positive, I had 1Mb and Amiga games did not mind what type it was, as long as it was there. I would imagine few A500 owners would have upgrade to the A500+ if they knew the system well enough. It was mainly a memory and OS (ROM chip) upgrade. The extra memory and new ROM chips could be added to the A500. Although the ECS (Enhanced Chipset) in the A500+ (and A600 that followed) did offer 2Mb chip RAM, that was an upgrade that would be put to use mainly on the AGA (Advanced Graphics Architecture) in the A1200/4000 systems. I think most owners moved onto those 32-bit Amiga systems (or the PC/Consoles).

Un'ottimo video sullA500 e A500 plus.un bel lavoro

My Amiga 500+ battery lasted 32 years. Saw it was just starting to leak slightly when I recently installed a 8mb fast ram and ide card. Have now removed the battery.

The loading time of 'The Lemmings' to the menu on A500 ca. 00.47.17 (2:37) and on the A500+ ca. 00.49.23 (5:26). So, in your test the A500 v1.3 loaded faster. BUT Mr Guru wrote here about the real difference between these 2 machine types.

Floppy Disk Drive, NOT Hard Drive, not by a long shot.

There is quite a few Amiga A500 games that will not load on a 500 Plus . You need to make or get hold of a Relokick Boot Disk which puts the 500 Plus in 1.3 Kick start mode then your non working games will work . There will still be a very small percentage of games that will still refuse to work. Update : Come to think about it i might be thinking of the A600 . I'm sure someone will mention it in the comments ? lol

5:03 were you talking about the Hard Drive? or did you mean Disk Drive?

Safest and easiest way to de Yellow is to leave them out in the sun a few days. Obviously bring them in at the end of the day and watch for rain.

Hello, I ask myself this question, the PCs that we have, are they based on the Amiga, the identical keyboard, except that the Amiga is a window,

About the floppy drive being crunchy, I always assumed that was hardware but on my A600, if I use relokick to drop it to 1.3, then the drive sound crunchier. Ive often wondered what could cause that.

8-bit guy has many videos on how to retrobright a computer

Do you have a copy of that disk? I'd like to try it on my modded 500. Thanks!

Amiga 500 Specifications: Catalog type Desktop computer Manufacturer Commodore Release Date April 1987 Processor Motorola 68000 @ 512kB Memory 512kB Storage 3,5" FDD Operation System Workbench 1.2 The Amiga 500 was sold for a much lower selling price, and being more stable because of the newer Kickstart version next to the new Workbench software. There are two versions of the A500. The first versions having an OCS-chipset, which was almost identical to the chips used in the Amiga 1000. Later models are equipped with an ECS-chipset, that is a slightly different upgraded version of the OCS ones. The Amiga 500 is unique because most of the chips are off factory placed in a socket. So upgrading was very easy. The Amiga 500 has an expansion board on the bottom where you can i.e. place a memory expansion card with a real-time clock, that was backed-up with power coming from a Varta battery. Nowadays, many of these batteries are leaking, causing extremely damage to the mainboard, and it's components and electrical traces. On the left side of the Amiga 500 there is another expansion slot, most of the time that is used to plug in a CD-rom drive (A570) or an external hard disk drive. The next Amiga that was released would be the Amiga 500+, where an onboard real-time clock (RTC) would be standard built-in instead of having to use an expansion card as the biggest difference with the "normal" Amiga 500. Amiga 500+ Specifications: Catalog type Desktop computer Manufacturer Commodore Release Date November 1991 Processor Motorola 68000 @ 7,09 MHz Memory 1MB Storage FDD Operation System AmigaOS 2.04 Although officially introduced in 1992, some Amiga 500 Plus units had already been sold by the end of 1991 (disguised as Amiga 500 models and without prior notice). It has been speculated that Commodore had already sold out the remaining Amiga 500 supplies. To make enough A500s for Christmas, Commodore used stocks of the new 8A revision motherboards destined for the A500 +. Many users were unaware that they were buying anything other than a standard Amiga 500. While the Amiga 500+ was an improvement over the Amiga 500, it hasn't sold much. Sales and production were discontinued with the introduction of the Amiga 600 in the summer of 1992. This makes the A500 + the shortest sold of all models.

Some games are not working on the Amiga 500+ because it has no fast memory. It took me some time before i figuring out why my friends Amiga 500 could play the games, but i couldn't even if i have more memory (2MB Chip). After installing a Supradrive with 52MB HDD and 1MB fast memory i could play the games. So, it is not always how much memory you have, it is what type of memory it is too.

The A500 and A500+ may look identical from the outside they are different machines essentially. The A500 has an OCS chipset running Kickstart 1.2/1.3 and had 512k RAM whilst the A500+ has the upgraded ECS chipset; shipped with Kickstart 2.04 and had 1MB.

It is called Retro Brightening. You put the shell in a bath of Hydrogen Peroxide, while the bite is illuminated with UV light. It is possible to put it outside, if you have a place where it can stand in peace and in direct sunlight. I recommend you search on RU-vid and find the method that suits you best.

Cool video! Yellowing can be tackled by using the retro brite method (peroxide and sunlight) there is info online on how to do it.

There seems to be a slightly cleaner sound on the A500+ compared to the original A500

Boring? Yeah. You must remember back then it was fun amazing animation! Being played on your Amiga in real time. Quite the thing! I always try to frame my channel’s videos with “set your brain back 30+ years.” ;)

If there hadn't have been an A500+ we'd have seen the A600 as a Godsend. It's a pity for Commodore that the two were on the market at roughly the same time.

The Best thing about the Amiga was the Loading times. You where never sure if the thing freezes or the 27 Minutes Loading time are legit. A thrill every second.

I just want to play pga golf I played as a kid on my Amiga 500+ I looked at emulators and the Amiga mini , but it all looks to complicated and destined to not work for me lol, so looking at the easiest way of just buying a used Amiga 500+ and a copy of pga off eBay BUT just wondering if I could buy a 600 or 1200….. if there is any extra benefits ? I know nothing about them really . Would the copy of pga golf that works on 500+ work on the 600 or 1200 ? .

My old Amiga 500 when i opened it had a Amiga 500 Plus board with half the RAM sockets being empty. I think my dad bought it for me like half a year to a year before the 500 Plus came out

The Amiga to me was a world above and beyond the C64 that was our family computer for Christmas 1991. I always wanted the Amiga 500+ Cartoon Classics, but we couldn't afford the £399.99. What was more powerful out of the Amiga 500/500+/600 and the Mega Drive? I know there are similarities with both of them having the Motorola 68000.

Hey hope you can help me make a decision lol I want to buy a amiga and everyone i ask online or most of them say 1200 And while i can scrape enough money for one its still alot All i want to to is play games so not interested in ither capabilities the 1200 has Its just games...also i want to use floppy discs and play games as they were meant to be Hell i have a Amstrad cpc and use tapes as i love it and loading is way longer lol Do you think i should just get a 500....500+ or 1200 I do understand the earlier ones can not play the later aga games but not sure if that will affect me or not

Yelp looks interesting, though I didn't really understand it :) Microbes looks really fun too. I remember playing a demo of Humans, it looked like a decent puzzle game but puzzlers were never my forte (apart from Lemmings! We too got the Cartoon Classics pack :)).

If I buy Amiga 500 plus, does it come with old kickstarter or i need to install old kikstarter myself?

As an Amiga500 is not just an Amiga500 because of the many revisions. That also spanned the actual chips and board as the 500-Plus, and the Plus only were one revision and only sold with one type of chips. Well... Then the differences are not that many. I would say that the two main reasons are the plus can not use slowram and then the plus being released with kick 2. And yet again, a regulair 500 were also sold with kick 1.2.

Best asteroids type game for Amiga- Stardust.

The drive noise of A500 sounds more like Kickstart 1.2. But the screen says 1.3. Normally 1.3 was not so noisy.

A500+ usually have leaky varta battery that can damage the PCB - got to remove it to avoid risk

I love the floppy drive noise! That's so much hardware pr0n! ❤

My A500+ has 2MB chipram and a broken floppy drive. My 500 has a Gotek installed

A 68010 cpu helps more than people think as well because it has more instructions 🙂

I put a switchable ram chip in my 500+ , give me both kick-start 2.0 and 1.3 worked great

just give the amiga 2 weeks outdoor sun and miracle happend witout any cream, just sun :)

1987. original amiga 500 price £499 (call it 500) just found out in todays price that's a whopping £1,762!!!

Don't some games require 1 meg of chipram like in the A500+? Didn't the A500+ have the ECS chipset. I though the A500 only had 512mb of chipram like the A1000? That's where the major problems with some games would lie. Speaking as an A1000 owner, I wish I could increase my chipram and not just my ram which is at 128mb at the moment.

wear the yellowing with pride.. it makes it genuine a retrocomputer!

'72 here. My first computer...

Soak the case in Hydrogen peroxide to remove the discolouration there are plenty off instructional vids on how to do it.

So what ARE the differences between a A500 and an A500+ exactly? Still none the wiser!!

This a question i have wanted to know for 30 year's

I own an Amiga 500 and Lemmings detects my old 1 meg expansion ram, dont know for what. In Walker, if u had 2MB ram (1 MB is mandatory) suposely u see and hear many other things than with 1 MB.

Those disk loading sounds take me back... The 500+ was a fail alas...less compatible but with no extra grunt that couldn't be gained with a ram expansion

Checkout the 8bit guy and how he retro brights old computers using hydrogen peroxide

My A500+ have 2.MB Chip, 6.MB Fast RAM, 3 x Zorro Slots, 20A PSU, 1.7.GB HDD, 3 x Kickstart Switcher, 68020 CPU + FPU. Mitsumi CD Burner etc. It has Kickstart 1.3, 2.04 and 3.1. My 500+ is basically a Amiga 1200 without AGA.

Sorry, but that's NOT an A500 vs A500+ comparison. I would have expected 500kB vs. 1MB RAM, OCS vs. ECS chipset, Kickstart 1.3 vs. 2.0, no realtime clock vs. embedded real time clock and therewith the pros and cons.

he way it works, the PC like an Amiga, OS, Worknench, Windows, when I use the PC, I have the impression that it's an Amiga these days except that the name has changed.

All of my computers, including my Speccy and my Amiga had to be sold to fund the next thing. How come all these Retro Computer RU-vid channels seem to have been able to keep and store all their childhood computers?

battery leakage on the +

The A500 Plus was a miscarriage. A rarity from today's perspective, since the self-destruct battery has made many disappear.

Retrobriting, hydrogen peroxide and uv lights gets rid of yellowing!

I know 1 test you can do!! Test Dragon Ninja.... the amiga 500 won't have the women enemies

the PLUS was the 1st step of the END of Commodore - Bottom line the old games didn't all play even with Degrader to 1.3 the gameplay was the same all for a shittie 2.0 workbench and then when the a600 came along that was the final NAIL. shame as A1200 with backward compatibility would have added 10 years to the commodore theme

The "hard drive" is a little less crunchy? You are banned from making computer videos sir! Especially Retro Ones.

RETROBRIGHT!!!

Retrobrite

Check out the *8 Bit Guy* for retrobrighting.