Lyonsden Blog

Tag - Apollo OS

Adding an SD Card Slot and HDMI port to an Amiga 500

SD Card Slot and HDMI port to an Amiga 500

So you may be aware that the Vampire V500 V2+ Card gives your vintage Amiga 500 both a MicroSD card slot and an HDMI port for hooking up to a modern display.  Trouble is the ports are on the board itself which is rather inconvenient if you don’t want to leave the top of your Amiga’s case off.  After doing a little research and searching around I discovered that you can get some nifty little extension cables for both ports which will allow you to ‘move’ them to the exterior of the Amiga’s case.  This post will explain how to add both an SD Card Slot and HDMI port to an Amiga 500 computer.

SD Card Slot and HDMI port to an Amiga 500

Location of the HDMI and MicroSD ports on the Vampire card. Not exactly easily accessible once the lid is back on!

Purchasing the right cables for the job

The HDMI cable was a little tricky to locate at first as there are just so many options. Once I got the search term correct I stumbled into the right cable for the job.  The cable I bought (below) was an Adafruit Panel mount HDMI Cable – 40 cm which you can pick up from Amazon.  It’s just the perfect length and almost seems tailor made for the Amiga!

SD Card Slot and HDMI port to an Amiga 500

40cm HDMI extension cable

The MicroSD slot extender was a much easier product to locate.  This Micro SD to SD Card Extension Cable I picked up from Amazon is perfect.  You will find that you can actually get both MicroSD to MicroSD and also MicroSD to SD extender cables.  I decided to chose the MicroSD to SD option as I thought it would allow a little extra flexibility in terms of what cards I can use with it.  With it I have a choice of using both regular SD cards or  MicroSD cards now with the use of a MicroSD adapter card.

SD Card Slot and HDMI port to an Amiga 500

MicroSD Extension Cable

Deciding where to locate the ports

I decided the HDMI port needed to be at the back of my A500 but that the SD card would be much more useful if it was located somewhere along the side.  There is quite a lot of free space underneath the floppy drive, ample to accommodate the HDMI socket.  However because the SD Card Slot is housed in quite a chunky plastic case there wasn’t room for it under the floppy, plus I already have my floppy boot selector switch there anyway.  So, I chose a spot that sits just under the keyboard where there is plenty of space and it’s also super convenient for me to pop cards in and out.

SD Card Slot and HDMI port to an Amiga 500

Final Cable Routes

 

SD Card Slot and HDMI port to an Amiga 500

HDMI Socket secured with hot glue. It ain’t pretty but it’s very secure.

 

SD Card Slot and HDMI port to an Amiga 500

Plenty of clearance around floppy drive

 

SD Card Slot and HDMI port to an Amiga 500

SD Card Slot Hot Glued in position

Creating the SD Card and HDMI cut-outs in the Amiga case and securing the new ports

The slots for both ports were cut out using a Dremel tool (if you have one you should know instinctively how to do this!). Take care to use a low speed otherwise you risk melting the plastic.  The ports themselves are held in place with some hot glue, perfect for this sort of project as it flows freely around things before setting hard.  I used a few blobs of hot glue to keep the SD extension ribbon cable out of harms way too as it’s quite fragile.  It could easily become trapped and get damaged by the A500 keyboard when it is replaced if it was left unchecked.

SD Card Slot and HDMI port to an Amiga 500

Top view of HDMI Socket with floppy drive back in place

 

SD Card HDMI Amiga

Finished HDMI Port

 

SD Card HDMI Amiga

Finished SD Card Slot with MicroSD adapter sticking out

End Result

I’m pretty pleased with the end result, with hindsight I probably should have tidied up the HDMI cut-out a little with a file as there are a few rough bits left… but it’s around the back of the case and out of sight so no biggie.  The HDMI port is rock solid and should have no problem with me plugging and unplugging a cable in and out.  Likewise the SD card slot is nice and secure and more than up to the task of dealing with regular card swaps.  Perhaps a version in white (or off-white LOL) would have been better but I just couldn’t find one for sale anywhere.

Improvements?

Only other thing I might do in future is add an RJ45 extender when the Apollo Vampire team make the Ethernet port expansion option a reality.  Although I already have Ethernet through the use of the fantastic little plipbox device this is currently hogging my parallel port so I cannot print without first unplugging it – hardly ideal.

Formatting the SD Card

Incidentally, if you’d like to know how to go about formatting your SD Card check out my post – How to Format an SD Card for Amiga to PC File Transfer.

 

Fitting an SD Card Slot and HDMI port to an Amiga 500.

Installing the Vampire V500 V2+ in my Amiga 500

Vampire V500 V2+

With the arrival of the weekend it was the perfect time to give my A500 the Vampire V500 V2 treatment!

Getting started – removing chips

First off I needed to remove the original Motorola 68000 CPU and the Kickstart chip.

Vampire V500 V2

Amiga 500 motherboard with empty 68000 CPU socket

Vampire V500 V2

Removing the Kickstart chip with a chip puller

Installing the card

The next step involved carefully inserting the Vampire board connector pins into the empty CPU socket. This actually took a hell of a lot more force than I thought it would. I’ll admit I was scared of damaging the CPU socket or the motherboard itself with the amount of pressure I had to exert. Anyway it eventually slotted in all the way and no harm was done. Please do make sure you remove both the CPU AND the Kickstart chip though – this wasn’t mentioned in my instructions (but they’ve been updated since I got mine to mention this). If you don’t remove the Kickstart chip then the Vampire board won’t sit flat and the CPU connections may be unreliable. Thanks to Igor Majstorovic for taking the time out to let me know about this!

Vampire V500 V2+

Vampire V500 V2+ fitted to A500 CPU socket

Cables & CF Card setup

The next step was to hook up an HDMI cable to the socket on the board and fit a Compact Flash ‘hard drive’ to the Vampire’s 44 pin IDE header. I opted for a 32Gb CF card as this is the size of the Apollo OS (Coffin) image. (This is a pre-configured Workbench 3.9 system that you can download and use with your Vampirised A500.

Imaging the card was simply a matter of downloading the Apollo OS image from here and using Win32 Disk Imager in Windows 10 to write that image to my Compact Flash card.

Vampire V500 V2+

Vampire V500 V2+ with CF Card and HDMI connected up

For once in my life everything went as it should and when I powered up my Amiga 500 it worked! As Hannibal would say; ‘I love it when a plan comes together!’ I was greeted with a really cool Vampire logo boot screen after which the Workbench loaded just a few seconds later.

Vampire V500 V2+

Vampire V500 V2 Boot Screen

Vampire V500 V2+

Vampire V500 V2 ‘Insert Floppy’ Screen that appears if no bootable device is present