»

[Ranchu]

I've been thinking it would be interesting to mod an A500 or A600 by installing an x86 mainboard, wiring the keyboard to the onboard USB, and routing other connectors to the case where possible.

Now before you all start flamming me... this would be a well thought out and executed mod, keeping the original appearance of the miggy intact and any cutting/drilling to the case would be minimal to preserve the machine in an original form. I am not talking about whacking a mobo in the case, drilling a few holes then hacking the back panel apart with a dremel...

To anyone's knowledge has this been done before? Can someone send me the dimensions of their A500/600 (especially the rear panel height).

I imagine that a Mini-ITX case would be the largest that would fit. I am investigating fanless CPUs such as the VIA C7 as options...

[alexh]

You might get an XBOX-1 in an A500 case. It would be cheaper.

Dont think you'll get an ITX motherboard in an A500 case due to the height of the back plane.

[dammy]

I'd go either EFIKA or maybe wait couple more months for VIA's new PICO-ITX.

Dammy

[CannonFodder]

dammy wrote:
I'd go either EFIKA or maybe wait couple more months for VIA's new PICO-ITX.

Dammy

Oooooh!!!

Me likes, me likes very much!

A600 Case + Pico ITX + Keyrah Adaptor + A big IDE flash drive. Xmas might be coming early in my house. :-D

[Ranchu]

@alexh

The height of the backplane is one of my main concerns. I need to know pretty quickly whether it will fit. If it does then it opens up a whole range of Mini-ITX boards based around either VIA's C7 (crappy performance) or Intel Pentium-M ULV or underclocked Core Solo (great performance).

If it isn't then my options are basically down to a few VIA Nano-ITX and the new Pico-ITX board which have no I/O backplate and put all the ports on headers instead. Examples here and here.

An Xbox 1 mobo is a VERY interesting idea and not one I had thought of... The problems I can see are:
1) no VGA connector (TV out only).
2) Heat output. I see from the board image here that it has two fans. Although the wiki entry indicates that it is a Mobile Celeron, it doesn't give any indication of what the heat output is. I image the GPU is not low-power either...
3) Isn't it a custom design? I can't imagine it would run AROS or other operating systems easily??

[Ranchu]

@dammy

Yes the Pico-ITX certainly looks interesting although one probably doesn't need to go that small for this project. A Mini-ITX or Nano-ITX should fit nicely.

Don't even get me started on the EFIKA

[Ranchu]

@CannonFodder

You've got the idea :-D

[voyager]

Only the xbox v1.0 has 2 fans, 1.2 – 1.6a/b only has one. It’s a normal celleron cpu @ 733MHz The design of the xbox makes it possible only using one fan sucking warm air out of the box.

If you take the mainboard out of the box you will need to cool the GPU and CPU, or it will overheat and reset. Putting a fan on the cpu makes the mainboard to big to fit in a Amiga case.

Then you have the power supply, 1.0 has a AT style connector, 1.6 a ATX type I’am not sure if it’s a real AT or ATX standard. But the pinouts are on the net. The xbox power supply also needs cooling or must be in the air flow.

I am playing with this idée for a long time, I think the VIA Epia board will fit, use a snap on atx power supply. Take a fanless board. If the backplate IO not fits cut it down and wire it to the back of the amiga case ;-)

A small liliput lcd 7” lcd screen and your all set ;-)

[Rob]

If you go for an A500 and intend to use a Keyrah you'll have to source an A1200 keyboard.

[Brian]

I'm currently working on a simular project together with 8bit so it's not a unique idea, sorry. We've opted for an A1200 case though and also added a Catweasel MK3 to the recipe. This would actually be made so it's not visually any different from an A1200... including backplanes... hence the 15pin VGA connector will be wired up using an external Commodore VGA converter, serialport will be converted to the old big kind, sound will be split up to use the Amigas AUX connectors etc. Not sure yet if the PCMCIA port should be customiced for a NIC keeping the A1200'ish feel to it or if it should be add underneath the trapdoor together with some extra USB connectors so the PCMCIA hole can be used for a CF reader. If we can get the catweasel to support Amiga mouse in Windows and WinUAE correctly it'll be used else we're probably looking at a Amigamouse case with a PS2 mouse inside and with a specialy whired mouse plug on the back so the 9pin DSub stays intact. External CDRom have not yet been decided but a few possibilities are available to us, either try find a way to use the external floppy port for an IDE CDrom (think we're a few pins short of making that a reality) or use a highdensity 50pin SCSI connector on the expansion plate on the back to simulate a SCSI chain but used with an IDE drive or for an even cooler solusion (if we can find some room fore it) use a real SCSI PCI card for external devices.

Not sure what OS to run on it... WinXP or Win2K but so far an 2K bootlogo have been created, manually converted original rom image to 16 color picture with text slightly edited, a very discreet rolling bar at the buttom and the loading boxes made with retro in mind.



Think things trough

[bloodline]

I bought an EPIA Mini-ITX for the very task of putting in an A1200 case... while the board does fit... the SIMM memory stick is exactly under the keyboard, and thus there is no room.

Your only option is the Pico-ITX really... Nano-ITX might work in an A500...

[hardlink]

Ranchu wrote:

Yes the Pico-ITX certainly looks interesting although one probably doesn't need to go that small for this project. A Mini-ITX or Nano-ITX should fit nicely.

I've been planning something similar for some time now, but not actually doing it - so many projects ...

There has been no mention of IMHO the best solution, a single board computer. For example:

http://sbc.winsystems.com/products/sbcs/ebc855.html

A lot of companies make them. These things are only 5.75" x 8.00" (147mm x 203mm) and have everything built in except wireless, but that can be added. The tallest thing on the board is the memory stick. Should fit into even an A600 easily, with the keyboard. Then just add Amithlon!

SBC's with this and other form factors are often available on the old Ebay.

[Ranchu]

@voyager

The Xbox idea is awesome but I think that the heat output will be too much for an A500/600 case. Even a couple of 40mm fans on the back would not generate much airflow through the case. Then there is the problem of running software on the thing... I guess Linux would be an option (UAE) but AROS would probably require modifications to boot on the Xbox.

There is also the issue that it only has TV out. This is fine for just running games but wouldn't be much use for Workbench.

@Brian

I really like your idea of wiring up to the existing plugs to keep an original appearance. If you don't mind, I would like to incorporate that idea in my design

@bloodline

Can you say what the model of board you bought? Does it have a double stacked I/O backplate and would it mount up to the back of your A1200?

Are you aware that there are ultra-low profile DIMMS available that are only 18mm high such as the ones here If even these are too big then the I/O shield will certainly be a problem I would guess. The other option is a Nano-ITX or Pico-ITX board with a SO-DIMM slot mounted flat against the board.

@hardlink

Yes I had thought about some of the small form factor SBC too. They are very expensive new. I hadn't thought about getting second hand from Ebay.

[K7HTH]

Very interesting insights. I may have a project in mind here myself, thanks.

[Brian]

@Ranchu

Sure you can borrow from these ideas... I'm convinced others will too and I'm equally surtan that, although I've not actually looked at/read about a simular project and is brainstorming these ideas right now, there've still been someone else with simular ideas in the past.

You simply can't put copyright on thoughts and ideas... wait... there's a hole licensing industry living on just that! Ow well, these ones are on the house. :-D