The haul included a boxed, minty very early A500, an A590 and a really large pizza box sized metallic thing with a very large, heavy and kind of scary looking PSU.
I've kept the A500, but ultimately decided to sell the hard drive and strange pizza box thing.
It took my local friend Christian, who is a walking Book of Amiga Hardware, to identify it. It's called the Pacific Peripherals SubSystem 500.
In case that print is tough to read, here are the details.
- 2× Zorro II slots with DMA support
- 1× 3.5" drive bay for an optional 2nd floppy drive
- external power supply
- connects to the side expansion port
- fits under the Amiga
- It's a painted metal case, so it'll never turn yellow.
- Naked and exposed.
- Check out the wacky power connector. Is that for a C64? Nope.
Mine is the "premium" version with the extra DF1: 3.5" floppy drive that originally retailed for a whopping $399 back in 1987/88 (approximately $875 in 2020 dollars).
in theory you could eliminate a large external hard drive (like the A590, or GVP Impact HD8+) and use a SCSI Zorro II card to have an internal hard drive and reclaim some of that desk space. It had metal plates on the back for mounting additional ports, too, in case you wanted to use even more devices.
But, the side expansion connector also had a hard pass-through so you could use your pre-existing external HDD if you wanted to, which is just nuts. You'd probably have to put a book under it, though, and maybe even decide to raise your desk chair a couple of inches along the way. Hah!
In any case, this is the only one of these I've ever seen. But I was too chicken to ever try and hook it all up. I've decided that's a fun project someone else should enjoy. The PSU weighs a respectable 13.5 pounds!
I did want to capture several photos of it, first, before I said good-bye.
