This Amiga 500 was left outside for years. Let's try to revive it!
It's time for another poor neglected retro computer -- this time we have an Amiga 500 which was left outside for years. Here in Oregon that means rain -- lots of rain. Can this poor computer ever work again? Let's give it a try!
Part 1: This video
Part 2: • The Field Found Amiga ...
Part 3: • From Death's doorstep ...
-- Links
The Field Found 64: (the video that started it all)
• Commodore 64 left outs...
Amiga 500 Schematics:
www.amigawiki.org/dnl/schemat...
archive.org/details/system-sc...
Adrian's Digital Basement Merch store:
my-store-c82bd2-2.creator-spr...
Adrian's Digital Basement ][ (Second Channel)
/ @adriansdigitalbasement2
Support the channel on Patreon:
/ adriansdigitalbasement
-- Tools
Deoxit D5:
amzn.to/2VvOKy1
store.caig.com/s.nl/it.A/id.16...
O-Ring Pick Set: (I use these to lift chips off boards)
amzn.to/3a9x54J
Elenco Electronics LP-560 Logic Probe:
amzn.to/2VrT5lW
Hakko FR301 Desoldering Iron:
amzn.to/2ye6xC0
Rigol DS1054Z Four Channel Oscilloscope:
www.rigolna.com/products/digi...
Head Worn Magnifying Goggles / Dual Lens Flip-In Head Magnifier:
amzn.to/3adRbuy
TL866II Plus Chip Tester and EPROM programmer: (The MiniPro)
amzn.to/2wG4tlP
www.aliexpress.com/item/33000...
TS100 Soldering Iron:
amzn.to/2K36dJ5
www.ebay.com/itm/TS100-65W-MI...
EEVBlog 121GW Multimeter:
www.eevblog.com/product/121gw/
DSLogic Basic Logic Analyzer:
amzn.to/2RDSDQw
www.ebay.com/itm/USB-Logic-DS...
Magnetic Screw Holder:
amzn.to/3b8LOhG
www.harborfreight.com/4-inch-...
Universal ZIP sockets: (clones, used on my ZIF-64 test machine)
www.ebay.com/itm/14-16-18-20-...
RetroTink 2X Upconverter: (to hook up something like a C64 to HDMI)
www.retrotink.com/
Plato (Clone) Side Cutters: (order five)
www.ebay.com/itm/1-2-5-10PCS-...
Heat Sinks:
www.aliexpress.com/item/32537...
Little squeezy bottles: (available elsewhere too)
amzn.to/3b8LOOI
--- Links
My GitHub repository:
github.com/misterblack1?tab=r...
Commodore Computer Club / Vancouver, WA - Portland, OR - PDX Commodore Users Group
www.commodorecomputerclub.com/
--- Instructional videos
My video on damage-free chip removal:
• How to remove chips wi...
--- Music
Intro music and other tracks by:
Nathan Divino
@itsnathandivino
A few months ago, I found an Apple IIc at a recycling center in a very similar state. The bottom was just a brown mass of rust and goo. After seeing all your videos, I thought "what the heck" and took it home. Inside it was even worse. The RF shield had completely eaten through in most places with just a tiny bit of shiny metal left and all the ports were solid rust. The infamous keyboard rubber mat had turned to dust. Still, I'd seen you recover worse, so I pushed on. The floppy drive had rust and insect corpses pouring out of the slot and there was a disk inside that had fused to the innards. Surprisingly, the rubber belt (that usually turns to dust or goo) was intact. Long story short ("too late!"), after a lot of de-oxit and IPA and rust remover, I plugged it in and it mostly worked fine! The biggest shocker was after thoroughly cleaning the floppy drive and re-greasing the components, it also worked. This was the ultimate goal since I had a stash of about 40 floppy disks from the mid-80s with no way to read them. 5 1/4 floppy drives are getting very rare and ones that can work with Apple II disks with something like a kryoflux are even rarer. And another shocker was of the 40 floppies only two were unreadable. Not bad for 35+ year old magnetic media. It was quite a joy to re-discover some computer projects from my grade school days and archive them. Now I can run them in an Apple II emulator and show my nieces and nephews "This is what your uncle had in school when computers were new". So thanks for the inspiration and maybe check if that floppy drive still works. You might be surprised.
Mouse and that mouldy joystick are worth a shot as well. Though i guess it's good to disassemble it outside and maybe dip it into miconazol just in case :D
Curious how you archived the floppies? I have boxes worth also from the '80s. Still have my Apple ][ Plus, //e, and IIGS, but would be good to be able to access the disk images from an emulator.
I would be careful putting anything into that drive that you care about - throw some disposable diskettes at it first!
@@orbitalgolem91 If you have working Apples you can use ADTPro to transfer data to a modern system. You'll need a serial cable but this shouldn't be hard to obtain.
@@the_kombinator Exactly what I did. I got some blank disks and then transferred known good disk images from a PC to the Apple IIc via ADTPro. Those booted fine. Then I had ADTPro read the same disk and transfer that image back to the PC and verified it was byte-identical to the original. Then I went through my disks in order of least importance (just in case the functionality was intermittent) and imaged them to the PC. I'd seen videos of people preserving old magnetic media where as they were being read for the final time, the oxide would come off, so I acted as though I had one shot to do this. In the end I had a lovely time capsule of the 80s including an ancient AppleWorks database of my old comic book collection (and realized the box is still buried in tupperware bin in my parent's basement appreciating in value).
Tonight Adrian made me sick to my stomach as he said battery in the memory expansion. Run to the basement I checked my Amiga and sure enough the battery in it just started leaking thank God it did not touch the board!!!! Lol. 😅 Thank you Adrian!!
So the main takeaway here is: Always clean *all* the sockets and chip legs first before you do any testing
It's like the new version of the "check if it's plugged into the wall" advice :D
I would completely 100% agree, remove all chips, clean and deoxit, reinsert, then start tests. Save a bunch of time.
No, clean them before doing other _troubleshooting._
They are rotten, cleaning will help but the rotten sockets will likely cause instabilities later on. Especially if the Amiga is back in its case (it can get cozy warm inside). They all have to go. Sockets are a common problem on all THT-Amigas, even the ones that have not spent many years outside. ^^
Yep, have a system to follow, otherwise you are just trying to lay a carpet with all the furniture still in the room.
It's pretty impressive how resilient electronics can be.
Back when planned obsolescence wasn't a thing (to the extent it is today)
Especially something that was made as cheaply as possible!
Car manufacturers take note.
Cars are designed and tested to be left outside.
Ikr. Especially when it's made with quality parts.
Another patient brought back to life at your Amiga hospital. Amazing work!
I do appreciate Adrian's taking the "long way" to fix something in an attempt to teach us. This way we can see how the system reacts when various components arn't functioning properly. The final lesson if you find a computer in this type of condition, check and clean the chips and sockets before bothering to turn in it. Granted Adrian could have done that and gave us a 10 minute video but then we would have missed out on quite a bit of info. Amazing how he can be given a computer from somebody that sat on a shelf for years, and turns out to be a total bust, then dig up some thing from a field and up and running within a day. Boggles my mind.
To help your toothbrush action you should get an old/cheap electric tooth brush. When the battery died in mine I bought a new one, replaced the battery on the old one and made it a permanent fixture on my electronics bench. It works really well for cleaning flux and corrosion.😊
Take a drink every time Adrian says 'crunchy'. 🤣🤣🤣 That poor Amiga but Adrian does it again. IT FREAKIN' WORKS!!!!!
For this type of sockets, always clean the chip pins from BOTH sides, especially from the inner side.
I was screaming “just clean all legs and sockets!” at the screen, but it was still interesting to watch the full video. That said for the longevity of the machine I would still replace all sockets and caps given their low quality even when they were new combined with the state they are in
This si pure happines! Really! I sed to be in similar situations and I can clearly understand how does that feel!
It never gets old seeing you get excited when it starts working. Thanks Adrian.
Watching the first 5min, I felt real physical pain watching this poor, poor Amiga! Thank you for trying to safe that poor thing!
I think a lot of people originally found this channel from that C64 video - I know I did. Always fascinating to see that things like this can still be salvageable!
I noticed a resistor network next to the Gary chip surrounded by corrosion and thought surely it was causing grief. Apparently not! Go figure. Looking forward to part 2.
I kept looking at that & thinking the same thing...
To correctly boot, the OVL (overlay signal) should work. It enables the Kickstart ROM overlay at address 0 through Gary's address decoding (OVL -> ROMEN). The OVL signal is coming from one of the CIAs.
I jumped on the notification like a Hawk. Looking forward to another Amiga repair
The robot voice in the “Denise” and “intro” 50:08 had me laughing out loud for a minute there 😂
The first thing to do that every Amiga 500 owner should know is to re-seat all custom chips. Take them out and just reinsert them. Better yet, check all socketed chips on a working Amiga motherboard. Regardless, I like all the videos you do
My high school's TV studio class was still using an Amiga 500 and Amiga 2000 Video Toaster in 2002 when I graduated. We used the video toaster as a switcher and the Amiga 500 was used for creating title graphics. I have no other experience with this platform, and I very much would like to see more about it. Thank you Adrian! ❤
Video toaster was in use for a surprisingly long time.
I recently received and Amiga 500 that was sitting in a barn in germany for 30 years and survived shipping to the US, it was in similar (though not quite as bad) condition as this Amiga and it's pretty amazing how much a good cleaning can take these old machines from completely non-functional to running perfectly! Always great to see these machines restored! ^_^/
Love seeing lot of Amiga 500 content lately on the basement. I learned one thing for sure, “Deoxit the socket”! 😂
I really like your repair style! Anyone can shotgun everything, but actually figuring things out takes work and is for sure, educational!
That's pretty amazing :)
And that's how I know I've been watching your channel for about five years. The field found C64 was one of the first of your videos I watched. Here's to five more!
The field-found 64 was what got me into your channel, so happy to see the return of computers rescued from the elements!
I know it's a small thing but thank you for linking to the next parts, not just mentioning them in the video! Very refreshing to see. So many channels on KZhead make you search though their catalog of videos without parts numbers to find some mystery part 2 that may or may not exist.
Adrian + an Amiga is an automatic thumbs up
I have to admire your optimism :-) I would probably just have pulled all the socketed chips out and tested them separately on a known good machine and then ripped all the sockets and out of the board and left it for later.
If you can find some in your area, get an aerosol, drip can, or spray bottle of Kroil from Kroil Labs (formerly Kano Labs). Expensive, but one of the best penetrants on the market. That may have made separating the original RCA jacks a bit easier. Kroil is an "active" penetrant, and will bust that rust for ya. Tons better than WD-40. Some CRC Zinc-it cold galvanizing spray will take care of those metal surfaces once the rust is removed with a wire brush or that dremel tip you're so fond of. A little sprayed into a cup and then brushed on will get the small stuff like D-sub shells, but be sparing with it when brushed on. Your approach to troubleshooting is systematic - don't listen to those who advocate a "shotgun" approach. I would, at some time in future, consider replacing some of the sockets (notably the PLCC socket for the Agnus) that were really crunchy , but for now all seems to be working. I'd also think about installing sockets for the RAM to make future troubleshooting easier, but that's just me. Do consider getting caps of the correct value to replace those 1,000 microfarad ones you installed. That would likely be better for the long-term health of the board.
I'm not at all surprised that it worked right away after cleaning the sockets. Unlike some computers, A500s just seem to want to live.
Haha most of us were yelling at the screen about those darn sockets. How about the duribility of that old crusty rained on amiga WOW. I really enjoy your repair videos. Its very relaxing going through the process of troubleshooting.
leaving an Amiga on for days seems to improve things some times. I forgot mine for a day during a really hot period (Mediterranean Summer) and a noise coming from the sound circuit disappeared!
Adrian please stay exactly in this style of troubleshooting what you mentioned at the end. It is exactly why I like your videos. You dig deeper and deeper until you find the problematic component. Also I like your comments on findings while you edit and cut the stuff (this ROM topic). Stay in this mood and style and your videos will be fantastic as they were in the past. I also found your channel with the field found c64 and now you have a field found Amiga 500. Fantastic Thanks for this content, best wishes
This is just great stuff! So many side things you learn that can apply to other things and other machines! So many thanks to you Adrian! Appreciate the time you take.
I love your enthusiasm when something "freaking works", those machines are so resilient. The only problem is when I watch your Amiga videos I end up browsing places online to find an Amiga! So far I have resisted...... Mainly because they're quite pricey!!
Which places do you browse?
The restoration of the field found c64 were one of my favorite videos from you. So I'm really excited for this video
Diagrom is a 512K rom. The board is a rev 5, which has a wireing bug under the kickstart socket, hindering accessing the uppermost address bit. That's why you got no screen, using the tool
Thank you for these videos!!❤ learning so much from your detailed analysis with schematic and the scope 👍
Great work Adrian, love seeing Amiga rescues. It is pretty surprising how little was wrong with it, some videos that I have seen with battery corrosion have been so much worse.
Omg, stumbled onto this channel and video, and it’s brought back so many memories of my A500 and the A1200. It’s how I started as a software developer. Absolutely loved watching this video. Well done good sir, bringing life back into old hardware. I tip my hat to you good man.
Great video Adrian. You need to give this Amiga so much love. Would be nice to see all the sockets, rear connectors etc repaired/replaced and the case and keyboard cleaned up and everything put back together as much as possible. It deserves to live and have a bright future!
Exactly right at the end! I have two Amiga 500 a friend of mine wants me to have a look at (I don't have much experience, so I'm being super careful) and videos like you make with the details and finding out the why, is vital. Thanks so much!
Computer on shelf: my caps and transitions are dying Computer on field: what a splendid natural environment.
30:33 - lol at the CRUNCH when you put the chip back into the socket
Adrian Black - the world's expert on "field computing" 😂
I enjoyed this journey into Amiga hardware. I'm glad that you looked at the boot process in detail, as it's always been mysterious to me. Not only do the 'failure colours' vary between OS revisions but there is so much that is undocumented - and that weird purple early boot screen was a classic. Also, the process of investigating the problem often makes it a) get worse or b) disappear - a 'heisenbug'. I've seen many of these while debugging electronics.
46:02 I thought my computer got possessed for a second there. XD DENISE CHIP
Love the share!! When the computer booted I was just as excited as you!!
What a fantastic video! I love watching you hunt out the problem. Looking forward to part 2!
Thank you Adrian......am living in an apartment with no space to move around....let alone have a work bench! Your channel provides a much needed booster shot of troubleshooting and retro computing. Really appreciate your time involved in making these videos.
Love it and totally inspiring to watch. I got chills when you got the Amiga to boot first time ❤
I like your method of figuring the issues out. It is a good learning experience for me.
Really enjoyed this one. As always, thanks for so honest and genuine on your channel. It really gives all of us hope who make way more mistakes then you do!
Reminds me of an Atari 2600 I restored years ago that was left in a shed that had collapsed for over 2 decades. Great job Adrian👍👍👍👍
Great video, good analysis and great that the Amiga is running again. I'm curious to see what it will look like in the end. Your Amiga videos are my favorite
Adrian : Thanks for leaving in the whole analysis process of the diagnostics (and of course you needed a video after all this effort 👍), but it does allow me (a complete non-touching-old-computer novice) viewer to see your whole process of checking chips, reading schematics, and testing pins, etc. Thank you... also, I can imagine that was a video editing nightmare to keep all those "attempts" and secondary footage synced in your edits. Well done.
Amazing that this board was salvageable when combined with your troubleshooting skills.. loved it.
Good job. The Amiga 500 was my first computer. Brought back some memories.
You got to know not everybody loves the Amiga, when they leave it outside for 20 years. I found a Vic-20 once in a landfill. Brought that puppy home, wrote a little cassette disk OS boot loader for it, and gave it away to a friend. They then abandoned it yet again and left it behind when they moved out of an apartment. I was so mad. I think I went to pick it up when the office manager called me. After that I probably gave it away yet again in a care package to some poor Commodore nerd on the old ISCA BBS. By that time I was swimming in hundredss of computers.
Love your repair videos, thank you so much for making them Adrian!
It always amazes me what electronics can survive through. Both watching the restoration of the field-found C64 and this field found Amiga proves the electronics and ICs are far more resilient than we give them credit for. Love to see more of this content, but at the same time I cringe when I see these things getting left in fields.
brilliant as ever Adrian - keep up the ace work/videos
Wow... I can't believe its been 5 years. That was one of your first big videos.
Yes, I like the style of how you track down the cause of an error. And your diagnostic thinking. ⌨️ That's why I like to watch your videos. 👍
I think you're a marvelous and capable man Adrian, keep going as long as you can. Your videos are extremely interesting to me. 😊
i was definitely screaming at the screen "JUST DEOXIT ALL THE SOCKETS". i appreciate that you're more thorough than that.
I'm definitely curious to see what, if anything, you plan to do about the beyond-repair metal shields. I wonder if anyone has taken the time to take measurements and make CAD files people can send off to a place like OSH Cut to make replacements, like how there are 3D printing files for a lot of plastic components.
Awesome sauce :) I once accidentally left a zx spectrum on for 2 days too...surprised to say that it was still working too. Great video Adrian as usual, thanks!
It's always a pleasure to follow your enthusiastic investigations in these kinds of computosaurus 😉
There is so much new content available here! I am so happy!
Congratulations on getting this working. I really enjoyed the journey from non-functional to showing the kickstart screen.
That's a Samsung keyboard. If the membrane is bad then that's bad news as there are no replacement membranes for those like the Mitsumi ones (ask me how I know).. Great video and I'm stunned you didn't have to replace the Agnus socket. I keep a stock of them as it's such a frequent failure point!
Great stuff, don't mind the rabbit trail of testing. Yeah cleaning sockets "might" have helped but I agree with you the logic/troubleshooting is a great learning tool.
I Love these types of videos, thanks Adrian! So fun!
That field found C64 was the first video of yours i watched! Fun to see your excitement when it starts working again! Cant wait for part deaux😂
Wow, that was amazing. That's one resilient old computer. This video also gives me something to work with on repairing my A500.
Glad I found this channel! And what a an awesome troubleshooting!
I repaired literally hundreds of Amiga, C64 and C128(D) devices for living when they were sold. Your video just reminded me on these great years :) Thank you!
Nothing quite like bringing an Amiga back to life !
Still have my Commodore Amiga 500 with all the hardware, did buy the A500 when it came out. Have even the original KSC500 powerboard. I'm very happy my A500 with all the hardware still looks as new.
While I love everything you produce, this is the kind of content I enjoy the most. Great stuff.
Yay! Another one saved, well hopefully in Part 2 well know for sure.. Good job. I recently found and saved an Amiga 500 and commodore 1084 from a barn as well that was left for dead 23 years ago. Sadly the 1084 monitors flyback went byebye but the Amiga 500 is doing well today. Love all your videos Adrian, cheers from Sweden!!
Nice to see you working on my all time fave computer.
It was that field found C64 that got me onto your channel, looking forward to the sequel!
Wow! It´s impressive how sometimes a little moisture inside the house can make machines go crazy, and how TVs and computers come to life after being in the outside weather for months!
Great Video! Def nice to see the whole troubleshooting process...-Mark.
Thoroughly enjoyed this video. I was a proud owner of an Amiga 500 with the RAM expansion back in the day. The memories! :)
I remember that c64 video 5 yrs ago. You've come a long way!!!!
Yes showing the trouble shooting process was helpful and amazing. Thank you!
Just another exiting job. Thanks Adrian.
Great video Adrian, thanks for the content!
this series its better then every "netflix" series..! drama, sadness, fun, disappointment and happiness. like a journey through the feelings of a retro - hobbyist.🙂 thanks for upload, and a commodore can never rain,snow and mud stoppin..(ol).🙂..sorry for my bad english...have a nic pre-x-mas time and to all retrofreaks...your KrautRockt!er from chemnitz/germany
That was a great watch - Cheers Adrian.
A friend of mine had one of those Amiga 500 years ago. Class games on it back then. Alien syndrome, was one. Shadow the beast was another, (great graphics for the time, & at the very start run left to the last hill and stand on top behind the tree and type in "ten pints" infinite energy) turacan was another cool game. St' dragon, the list goes on. God this brings back memories 😊👍🇮🇪🙏
Great job Adrian. Keep up the good work. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands
Just found this channel and am loving it. Subbed.
Thanks for the vid! Was fun warching it
Of all the things to corrode on this... Varta (destroyer of worlds) seems to have taken a day off!
If i ever lose my Commodore 64 and/or Amiga 500, I will definitely regret retrospectively for the rest of my life 😹. I even have the Commodore 1084S TV monitor and the Commodore 1010 external disk drive 😺👍. This video deserves a big retrospective like 👍🕹️ from Vantaa, Finland 🇫🇮. COMMODORE 64 FOREVER 😺👍🕹️! AMIGA FOREVER 😺👍🕹️!
Thanks for the video - this gives me hope for my old A500, which has not been left outside 🙂