- The amazingly powerful and affordable 8MB RAM to 68000 by MKL (could use a catchier name, but it's accurate at least)
Several weeks ago I was lamenting over the lack of RAM upgrade options for the Amiga 1000. Sure, there are plenty of 25-year old side car expansions typically in the 2MB range. And to be honest, the vast majority of games and software don’t require that much.
But on the A1000, the most common approach to solve this problem is the use of the side-car expansion slot, right behind where the 2nd joystick port is located on the right side of the machine. This isn’t a major issue, but for me personally I don’t have a ton of room to spare.
I also have several accelerator cards that come with RAM, but getting any of them to fit into the 1000’s case without physically modifying the floppy drive bracket is an extremely difficult task to say the least.
And now that I finally got my Amiga 1000 Phoenix running exactly the way I’d like from a software/HDD perspective (it’s so, so sweet) I’m really hunting for some RAM options. Then,
mattsoft keyed me into a lesser-know new option
over on AmiBay from a user in Finland who goes by the moniker MKL. He is building and selling these really awesome little 8MB RAM boards that fit exactly on top of the 68000 socket on the motherboard. The CPU then sits on top of that. In all, it only adds maybe a centimeter of vertical height.
- This is the RAM module AND the 68000 combined, ready for takeoff.
I bought one to give it a shot with my stock A1000. It was literally plug and play! The RAM module I got auto-configures. To think I’d bought a 25-year old 2MB side-car expansion for over $150 (it's all I could ever find), and
this little amazing gem of technology only cost me
$50 US (incl. shipping)!
It fits perfectly into my A1000 right below the floppy drive with plenty of room to spare. Solid workmanship, too.
More detailed techie info
Purchase info
It goes without saying you need to have an account on Amibay.com to purchase one of these, and you'll need to go through the process of purchasing it directly from the creator of the tech. But oh man, it's so worth it.
- For me, it was a plug-and-play experience with my stock A1000 (side-car removed).
I did try to see if my Phoenix would accept it as well by just plugging it in, but at least on first boot I just stared back at a blank dark screen. I will need to read the Phoenix manual and see if I need to move some jumpers around on the MB to allow me to use one of these amazing little RAM modules with it. I really hope that’s the case - this is the
best RAM upgrade for the Amiga 1000 I’ve
ever seen. And holy smoke - it's very affordable compared to every other option I've ever run across. Call me a big time fan of this kit.
I’ve also got a healthy portion of my desk back next to my 1000.
It looks like it should also work well with the Amiga 500 and 2000 models, but I haven’t personally tried any experiments on those machines. I'd think this would be a slam dunk for a lot of A500/A2000 users that can't easily scrounge up a GVP RAM upgrade from yesteryear.