Commodore Amiga Retro

So you bought an A600

What can you expect ?

DAY ONE

I won this little auction for just £1, yes one pound. I sent
the woman a fiver and she returned the favour by filling the
box with goodies. Being polite, honest and fast helps greatly
when your buying, as the seller likes the feedback

It was time to dig through the box of items to source the A600

At first sight the machine appears a nice clean unit. Very
little in the way of yellowing, and there is no marking
on the case.

Sadly, however, you discover the first signs of abuse. The
floppy drive is badly damaged and the case split open on this
edge. Machines like the A600 were used by kids as a games
console so they would have generally been constantly bombarded
with disks, and further, the ports would have been plugged in
and plugged out many many times. The A600 did not expand easily
and only certain A600s supported the hard-drive so the floppy
usage is a killer

The acid test, as they say, is to check if the baby works.
And to my delight she fired up first time. I dreaded installing
the floppy, but this too worked without problems. So why all the
damage to the floppy drive. To find out I need to go inside

When opening the A600 beware of the keyboard connector at the
front of the unit. You need to unplug this before lifting the
top up. Just slide the bottom conector out. If you thread the
connector through the keyboard you can open the unit fully

At this point I realised what all the problems were about
The A600 had been shorting out and the user had discovered that
by fiddling with the case in the corner he could breath life back
into the machine. A pain when playing Mortal Kombat so I guess
the owner would have got occassionally angry, as the clips on the
case are snapped off. Also the drive has physical damage.

The ribbon connector is folded under the floppy drive on the A600
and this can cause problems. In this case the connector came off
as I lifted the drive

The ROM chip ( centre picture ) was raised to its right
end so I re-seated this. The whole inside of the unit was
very dusty and there was evidence of the A600 getting very
hot through long periods of usage

This A600 has had a battering in a previous life and sadly
is only just about alive. As to what I can do, well I believe in
this instance that short of replacing each and every component
there is little to do. I will use the A600 as my games tester
for A600 games and give her a good clean. If I come across
the missing parts I will install them

So I put some insulating tape on the floppy casing to secure
the bent and broken metal, and to shield from the keyboard and
other components. I gave the motherboard a very careful dust
by blowing out the debris. I located loose screws in the case
and put them back into their original places. I secured the ribbon
down in its correct format and ensured it was not trapped.
I then screwed the whole unit back together, and having correctly
seated all components I found that the case now shuts properly.
The clips to the rear are broken, but that`s no mind. She looks
just fine now, and is currently running in the workshop.
I guess you really can`t complain for just £1.

DAY TWO
Scratches head and thinks what can be wrong
Time to strip down to the motherboard