A501 chip swapping?

[NeXT]

I have my Amiga 500's A501 RTC/512k memory upgrade module opened up so I can replace the clock battery and I'm wondering if it is possible to replace the 256k chips with larger ones. A meg is nice on a 500 but two or more megs would be a bit more fun.

 

[carlsson]

I doubt you can. Does that extra 512K show up as ChipRAM or FastRAM?

In any case, here is a DIY for an internal memory upgrade which may or may not work in conjunction with the A501:
http://www.savel.org/old/amiga/upgrade.html

You may also be interested in a Mini Megi Chip which gives you 2 MB RAM. I have no idea if or where you can obtain one though.

 

[NeXT]

Hmm. Well thanks for the info.
I'm not too hopeful on being able to upgrade this system at all. A bit more ram I was expecting to be inexpensive but I knew for sure that the AmigaHD addon would set me back a few hundred.

 

[Unknown_K]

I think you need to swap out an Amiga chip and run some wires around the board to get an A500 or A2000 to more then 1MB CHIP RAM. The A500 has some inexpensive side cars with 2MB fast RAM if you can find them (the sidecar is a Zorro 2 connector). Why do you need the extra RAM anyway, 1MB is fine for most games and apps that a 68000 would be good for.

Also if you swap out the battery on the A501 with a coin type (I did that to mine), make sure you have a diode in line with the + lead because the old battery is a rechargable one and a coin type can blow up if not protected from charging.