Commodore Amiga 500+ User manual
The Complete Amiga 500+ User Guide
By Peter Hutchison 8 2016
Revised: 23/10/2016
2
Contents
Introduction Page 3
Setting up the Amiga for First Time Page 4
Guide to Workbench 2.04 Page 6
Menus Page 6
Mouse Page 8
Programs Page 9
Preferences Page 13
Workbench 2.1 Page 19
Beyond Workbench 2.x Page 19
Adding more Memory to the A500+ Page 20
Adding a CD or DVD ROM drive to the A500+ Page 20
Upgrading the Processor Page 21
Upgrading the Kickstart and Workbench Page 22
The Motherboard in details Page 23
Backward Compatibility Page 24
Adding a Hard Disk to A500+ Page 25
Installing Workbench onto a Hard Disk Page 27
3
Introduction
Welcome to the Commodore Amiga A500+. The first replacement of the A500 Amiga.
It was affordable and easy to use. It had a wide range of software, in particular, games
which Jay Minor, the creator of the Amiga, had designed it for.
The Amiga A500+ is based on the Motorola 68000 7.14MHz Processor with 1MbRAM,
a single 880K floppy drive with support for three more floppy drives and a Custom
Chipset that provides the Sound and Graphics.
The new A500 Plus now supports the new Kickstart 2.0 and Workbench 2.0 upgrade
from Kickstart/Workbench 1.3 and the new Enhanced Chipset (ESC) with up to 2MB of
Chip RAM supported, and new high resolutions support for Productivity modes (640 x
470), Super HiRes (1280 x 200/256) and interlace modes. The Blitter can also now
copy regions bigger than 1024x10124 pixels in one operation.
The Amiga runs the Operating System called Amiga OS which consists of the Kickstart
ROM which contains some essential libraries and devices needed to load Workbench
which is the desktop:
Figure 1
4
You can a while menu bar at the top and all the disks mounted on the right hand of
the screen. The Ram Disk is a special one which is a disk in memory basically. More on
Workbench will be explained later.
Setting up the Amiga for First Time
Before setting up the Amiga make sure you have the following items ready:
Amiga A500+
Monitor or TV Set
Mouse
Power Supply
Joystick (optional)
Speakers (optional)
External Disk drives (optional)
Withe Amiga facing you, first plug the square end of the Power Supply cable to the
Power socket on the top left hand at the back of the Amiga. Plug the other end into a
power socket but DO NOT switch on yet.
If you have a monitor, plug the monitor cable into the Video socket, if you have a TV
Set then plug it into the RF or Composite socket and also plug the power cable into a
power socket.
Next plug the Mouse into Port 1 of the D shaped sockets on the right-hand side at
the back. Plug any Joystick onto Port 2 next to it.
The stereo speakers can be plugged into the Left and Right speaker sockets in the
middle at the back. The speakers can be either stand-alone ones or part of the
monitor so if necessary, plug the other ends into the Left/Right sockets on the
monitor. Plug in to power supply as necessary.
5
Finally if you have any external floppy disk drives plug them in to the External Drive
socket on the back of the Amiga. Further drives can be added to other drives. If you
have an external hard disk, remove the cover from the Expansion port on the left-
hand side of the Amiga and slot in the drive.
Now switch on the power and press the power switch located on the Power Supply
for the Amiga and switch on the monitor.
If you do not have disks inserted you will see the Insert Disk screen below:
Figure 2
You can then insert either a Workbench disk or any other bootable disk such as a
game into the floppy drive on the right-hand side of the Amiga (called DF0: - Disk
Floppy Zero).
Insert your Original Workbench disk and wait for the workbench screen to appear.
Before continuing, I recommend that you make one or more copies of your original
Workbench disks to use rather than the Original as that can become damaged over
time and you may need to make other copies later.
To make a copy, get hold of a blank 880K double-density disk ready, then move the
white arrow (called a pointer) with the mouse over the Workbench disk and click the
6
left mouse button once (this will select the disk), then move the pointer to the top left
of the screen and click and HOLD the right-hand mouse button and a menu appear,
make sure the Icons menu is selected, move the mouse down the menu and select
Copy
Figure 3
It will say >Put SOURCE disk (FROM disk) in drive DF0:=, remove the disk from the
floppy drive, and make sure it is your original Workbench disk, at the top there is a
hole, make sure it is not covered with the black tab to protect the disk during this
operation. Reinsert the disk, and with the left mouse button click once on Continue.
Once the read operation is complete, it will ask you to Put DESTINATION (TO disk) in
drive DF0:. Press the eject button to remove your original Workbench disk, and insert
your Blank disk (the hole should be covered on this disk). Click on Continue to write
and then verify the information to your new disk
You may need to repeat the disk swap a couple of times more until the operation is
completed. Now you will have a disk called >copy of Workbench=, you can rename
this by selecting the disk, then select Rename from the Workbench menu and change
it to just >Workbench=. You should put your original disk somewhere safe and then
use your copy of Workbench from now on. Reboot with your new Workbench disk in
7
DF0.
Guide to Workbench 2.04
Contents
1. The Menus
2. The Mouse
3. WB Programs
4. Amiga DOS
5. Common Problems
1. The Menus
At the top of the screen, there are three menus which are accessible when you move the pointer to the
top of the screen and click the Right Mouse Button. (RMB). Some menus are also accessible via
keyboard shortcuts using the left Amiga key and a Letter or character (shown in brackets).
1.1 Workbench menu
1.1.1 Backdrop (B)
Turns the backdrop window on or off which surrounds the desktop.
1.1.2 Execute Command (E)
This displays an input box where you can enter any Amiga DOS command or launch any Workbench
program by entering its name. For example, typing NewShell which will open a Command Shell
window.
1.1.3 Redraw All
This redraws all the icons on the desktop.
8
1.1.4 Update All
Reload all the icons and redraw them.
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1.1.5 Last Message
Display the last error or information message on the title bar.
1.1.6 About (?)
Display Kickstart and Workbench versions and Copyright information.
1.1.7 Quit (Q)
Exit Workbench, this will quit workbench and leave the workbench screen open. You should open a
command window before quitting otherwise a reboot is required.
1.2 Window menu
1.2.1 New Drawer (N)
Create a new drawer (or directory or folder) in the current window.
1.2.2 Open Parent
Open the parent window of the current window.
1.2.3 Close (K)
Close the current window
1.2.4 Update
Update icons in the current window.
1.2.5 Select Contents (A)
Select all the icons in the current window.
1.2.6 Clean Up (.)
Tidy up the icons into a standard left to right and top to bottom layout.
1.2.7 Snapshot
1.2.7.1 Window
Save the current window size and position in icon information
1.2.7.2 All
Save the window and all icon size and position information in their respective icon files.
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1.2.8 Show
1.2.8.1 Only Icons
Displays files that have an icon file and hides all other files.
1.2.8.2 All Files
Display all files in window whether or not they have an icon file or not.
1.2.9 View By
1.2.9.1 Icon
Display files using Icons only.
1.2.9.2 Name
Display files using Name and displays protection flags, size and date and time last changed.
1.2.9.3 Date
Display files in date order using same format as Name with the newest files at the top.
1.2.9.4 Size
Display files in size order using same format as Name with the smallest files at the top.
1.3 Icons
1.3.1. Open (O)
This opens or runs the currently selected file or drawer.
1.3.2 Copy (C)
Copies one or more files and prefixes the file(s) with ‘Copy_of_’ e.g. Copy_of_MyFile
1.3.3 Rename (R)
Changes the name of the file. A Rename dialogue box appears with the current name
1.3.4 Information (I)
Displays information about the file, drawer or disk. Includes information about the icon, type, size,
comment and protection flags.
Table of contents
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