Buying a Vampire 500!

[RobertB]

     While at the Classic Computing area of http://atariage.com/forums , I saw the message that pre-orders for the Vampire 500 accelerator were now being accepted.  I immediately went to the pre-order page, filled in my information in the blanks, and submitted the info.  A minute or two later I received an e-mail saying that my pre-order had been accepted! 
     This is the first major buy for my classic equipment since I bought a Mediator for my A1200 tower.  The page lists the Vampire 500 for 300 Euros which comes out to $315 US - an acceptable exchange rate right now.
     When I saw the Vampire 500 being demonstrated at CommVEx and at Amiwest, I knew that I had to have one (or more).  I even told Jim Drew at CommVEx that I wanted one for an A500, one for an A2000, and one for an A1000.  However, friend Duncan M. of The Other Group of Amigoids told me that it would be silly to have one in the A1000, a machine that cannot auto-boot from a hard drive.
     The question remains, "When I receive the new board, should I put it in an A500 or in an A2000?"

          Truly,
          Robert Bernardo
          Fresno Commodore User Group
          http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

[RobertB]

The question remains, "When I receive the new board, should I put it in an A500 or in an A2000?"

In a different thread,  ( https://portcommodore.com/retro-link/index.php/topic,1440.0.html ) I had answered that question.  The Vampire went into an Amiga 500 in late 2021 (yes, I had waited that long!).  I've been showing it off at FCUG, SCCAN, TOGA, and SACC meetings, and I've exhibited it at the Commodore Los Angeles Super Show 2022 and the Vintage Computer Festival West 2022.
     However, by the time the Vampire was installed, it had reached the end of its production run.  It has now been replaced by the Firebird for the A500, A1000, and A2000.  The Firebird is faster, has more Fast RAM, uses one monitor (instead of the Vampire's need for dual monitors), and has built-in Chip RAM to make it run AGA programs!
     I bought the Firebird as soon as it came out, though not all of its features had been implemented (they now have been implemented).  The question comes up, "Should I put it in an A2000... or should I put it in an A1000?"  The A1000 is severely limited, due to its 512K Chip RAM limit and Kickstart disk load (though there are ways around that).  A Firebird would get rid of those A1000 limitations!  So, the A1000 will get all the love this time. 

          Truly,
          Robert Bernardo
          Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
          Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan
          Commodore Los Angeles Super Show - http://www.portcommodore.com/class
          The Other Group of Amigoids - http://togausergroup.org
          Sacramento Amiga Computer Club - https://sacc.org

[RobertB]

I bought the Firebird as soon as it came out, though not all of its features had been implemented (they now have been implemented).  The question comes up, "Should I put it in an A2000... or should I put it in an A1000?"  The A1000 is severely limited, due to its 512K Chip RAM limit and Kickstart disk load (though there are ways around that).  A Firebird would get rid of those A1000 limitations!  So, the A1000 will get all the love this time. 

The Firebird has been installed in the A1000!  Duncan M. of The Other Group of Amigoids took the time to install, going as far as to get a new backplate 3-printed for the A1000 so that the extra Firebird ports could be accommodated.  The Firebird runs at 177 MiPs, 320x faster than a standard A600 according to SysInfo.  Its 512 meg of DDR RAM is divided into 481 megs of Fast RAM, 6 megs for Chip RAM, and the rest of the RAM going to other functions.  Because Apollo OS still has limitations, I've gone with Coffin OS r63 with its Gold core 2.17 and Kickstart 3.10.

          Truly,
          Robert Bernardo
          Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
          Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan
          June 22-23 Pacific Commodore Expo NW 2024 - http://www.portcommodore.com/pacommex

P.S. Just released is the Giga series of Apollo Accelerators, all with a gig of RAM -- the Icedrake Giga (for the A1200), the Firebird Giga (for the A500/1000/2000), the Manticore Giga (for the A600), and the standalone V4 Giga.