Absolute Beginners : Amiga Boot Selector (Part 2) installation

Installation of a Amiga Boot Selector in your A500 / A2000.

Great, you've seen part 1 of the Amiga Boot Selector story, and are you are now perhaps wondering what it takes to build in a Boot Selector into your Amiga 500 / 2000.

Note 1: this description is based on installing the Amiga Boot Selector into an Amiga 500, for the Amiga 2000 it will be almost identical, only the location of the Even CIA is different on that machine.
Note 2 : The more modern amigas 600/1200 have a non-removable cia and therefore cannot be modified in this way, however this solution works perfectly as a bootselector for the A600 / A1200.

You're thinking about building a DF0: boot selector in your Amiga, here's a brief step-by-step explanation.

Remove all cables from the Amiga, turn the Amiga over (place a towel or the like under the Amiga to prevent damage.

Loosen the 6 screws that hold the Amiga together (photos to follow) (If they are not the same length screws, the short ones belong on the side of the space bar)

Hold the Amiga firmly and turn it back with the keyboard facing up.

Carefully remove (lift) the top and set it aside.

Remove the keyboard connector (there is a Key pin on it, but to be sure take a look how it is connected) 🙂

If you are the lucky owner of an Amiga with shielding still mounted, loosen the screws, and carefully bend the tabs up until you can lift the metal cover off.

Now you see the Even CIA , near the floppy drive (against the Floppy connector on the mainboard)

carefully place a flat object (flat Screwdriver, knife) between the foot and the CIA chip ( not between the foot and the motherboard!!!! ) and turn carefully a bit, so that the CIA chip comes up slightly, if you do this too rudely the CIA chip is out of the foot on one side and your pins will bent.
If it comes loose, insert your Flat Screwdriver or knife a little deeper and do this again (it is important to hold back the raised side a bit so that the other side is now loosened without the already worked side becoming increasingly oblique). You
would normally do this from 2 sides and that is a bit easier, but because you have to work from 1 side it has to be done with care.

(Short Movie how to remove a IC from it's socket)

When the chip comes off the base, look at the CIA chip and the base and see that both have a marking (on the floppy drive side) (This is Important)

Inspect the detached CIA chip for crooked legs, inward/outward/left right, if there are, bend them carefully in line, eg with tweezers (Note you can only bend the legs a few times for the final bend.)

Now take the Boot Selector and place the CIA chip in the Boot Selector (note the marking of the boot selector and the chip, that they are in line, check if all pins are straight, if you press the chip in and there is a pin not there straight then it will be folded in half.

If that went well, you can place the boot selector on the motherboard, in the foot where the chip was
(again, pay attention to the marking so that motherboard, boot selector and chip all point the right way)

You have to press the chip with the boot selector just as well, the boot selector has precision feet, which are slightly thicker than an IC foot, but ensure that the contact is optimal.

If it doesn't work, don't hang it with your full weight, see if you can see why it doesn't work.

Just a small but important announcement, make sure you don't shift the connections relative to each other, so that you have 1 leg sticking out of the foot, the signals (and also the voltage) may then enter the chip in the wrong place, with all its consequences.

if all that worked, press the keyboard on it and test the amiga if it starts, test if the disk drive works (if it doesn't, turn off the amiga, switch the switch and do the test again)

If the disk drive works then you can choose to test the external drive as well, or believe it and build your Amiga back together first.

Metal shield first (screws, you can only bend tabs a limited number of times), I usually choose not to put the metal shield back, if you do this then don't bend all the tabs, just a few at crucial points.
If those break eventually, you'll have a few others.

Put the keyboard connector back (note the Key, there is somewhere 5 volts on that connector, so wrong or shifted is generally not very good)

Carefully replace the top

When the top is in place, turn the amiga over (towel).

Screw the 6 screws back in place, not too tight because you will quickly lose / break it (and did I mention 🙂 the length , in case of different lengths the short screws on the side of the space bar, otherwise you get your bumps on the top when the screws come out)

If all went well, you can rewire the Amiga, connect your external drive and enjoy your Gotek which can now function as a boot drive.

There are some tutorials on the internet, but they are long-winded, incomplete or they consist of plugging certain products.

I'm going to take some pictures in due course to add them to the article (as soon as I have my own Bootselectors in and I can plug them terribly) 🙂

If you don't dare to do it yourself, send me a message, maybe I can help you somehow.

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