Hi,

Been trying to track down some RAM chips for my A500 sidecar. I've already got 2MB RAM in there which I got for free by ripping RAM out of old PC motherboards.

But it is expandable up to 8MB - only thing is you have to use 1M x 4 chips, which seem to be a little hard to get.

Only source I can find online will cost me about 68 Euro, which is nearly $100 US when you factor in shipping.

Since that's more than I paid for my A500 and sidecar, I'm rather inclined to forsake this upgrade.

I don't think it's an unfair price, just a little hard to justify.  I can get by with 2MB fast (I've already got another 2MB chip in there), but some things run a little tight on RAM.

Crazy the way old RAM dips in value then skyrockets as it becomes rarer!

I did find this online --- seems much cheaper, but I'm not sure if it's the same type of chip:
http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/705697837/_Memory_IC_5962_9084702MRA.html

Holy crap!

I just figured out that a lot of the old 1MB 30-pin SIMMs I had been saving from old PC motherboard have 1M x 4 DRAMs on them.....BUT they are all SMD (surface mounted) chips.

I would have to make adapters to use them as DIPs:

http://farasbee.com/blog/2012/03/19/quick-hacks-a-diy-smd-to-dip-adapter-in-five-minutes/

Would be a slight challenge, but could be fun!

Why not write Kipper2k a note and ask him about his $50 (or thereabouts) 8mb 68K board that auto configures, and ditch that ugly power hungry sidecar thing?  :knuddel:

Yeah, I was looking at that --- but my A500 is already crowded inside by several expansions!

I would...

Mechy's got them for sale on his website, but they might still be too expensive, $88 for 16 of them.

http://a4000t.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=66_108&products_id=226

I got hold of some 1Mx4 SOJ chips off some PC SIMMS and modded them using 20 pin DIP IC sockets for my VXL*30 A500 accelerator. Not very pretty but now I have 8MB 32bit fastram and it works 100%

I'll post some pics when I get home tonight.

Yeah, those are the wrong kind.  I need 1M x 4.

:-( I'll keep a look out at work as sometimes we get old Video cards being thrown out. Only RAM I have spare here is zip RAM otherwise I'd send you some for free :-)

I used these sockets with the gold inner contacts.
 

 
Here's what my VXL*30 looks like.
 

 

 

 

 

 

Hmm, clearly I'm struggling with the uploads, I can see the pics fine if I'm logged into amiga.org, but won't display if I'm not logged in.

I created a new album in my user CP, made sure it was set to "public", uploaded the pics and then used the URL for each pic shown at the bottom when I used the "insert image" icon.

I've done this on other forums but doesn't seem to work here.

What am I doing wrong? :huh: