| Amiga 500 - 02 |
In 1987 Commodore released the A500 - a cheaper version of the A1000 - which came in the "distinct" Commodore box. The basic system still used the 68000 processor, 512k ram, and OCS chipset but had got rid of the ZORRO slots in favour of a DMA slot at the side of the machine. The operating system had been upgraded to version 1.3, which included the Amiga Command Line Interface (Shell) allowing the user more functionality. This is the machine that kicked the entire Amiga world into focus and brought more people to the Amiga than has been done since. It was voted "Home Computer of the Year" (36.7) in 1991 by a selection of Greek and Italian publications There are two different revisions of the A500 motherboard: Amiga 500P (American) the 'Productivity' edition features 1Mb memory (512k Chip, 512k Fast). Amiga 500C (American) an improved version that incorporated the new Agnus chip, providing 1Mb Chip RAM (corresponds to the Amiga 2000C). (amiga.emugaming.com) The Commodore Amiga 500 is the low-end successor of the Amiga 1000 and the predecessor of the Amiga 1200. It was the main competitor of the Atari 520 STf (there was a great "war" between the owners of these two computers). It uses a special system for its RAM configuration: 512 KB of Chip RAM which can be accessed by the Paula and Denise custom chips (sound & I/O and video, respectively) and Fast RAM which can be accessed only by the CPU. An extension card can be connected to the 68000 bus (thanks to the external connector) and offers a battery-backed clock (the Amiga 500 doesn't have any - the 500+ does). The 68000 bus has two connectors: an external and an internal one. The Amiga 500 was followed with the Amiga 500+. The Amiga 500+ has the same characteristics as the Amiga 500 exept it has 1MB of Chip RAM and uses the AmigaOS 2.04, this version of Amiga OS needs a 512 KB ROM. (www.old-computers.com) |
| Manufacturer | Commodore | Name | Amiga 500 |
| Type | Homecomputer | Origine | USA |
| Introduction Date | April 1987 | End of production | ??? |
| Built in Language | ??? | Keyboard | Full-srtoke keyboard with seperated numeric keypad and arrow keys |
| CPU | Motorola MC68000 | Speed | 7.14 Mhz |
| Coprocessor | Agnus (MMU), Denise (video), Paula (Sound & I/O) | Amount of Ram | 512 KB (expandable to 9MB : 512 KB CHIP RAM + 512 KB Slow RAM + 8 MB FAST RAM) |
| Vram | None | Rom | 256 KB (DOS 1.2) |
| Text Modes | 60 x 32 / 80 x 32 | Graphic Modes | 320 x 256 / 320 x 512 / 640 x 256 / 640 x 512 |
| Colors | 32 (for 320 x X modes), 16 (for 640 x X modes) among 4096 + 2 Special modes : EHB 64 colors and HAM 4096 colors on static display. | Sound | 4 voice 8 bit PCM |
| Size / Weight | ??? | Built in Media | one 3.5'' disk-drive (880k) |
| I/O Ports | Centronics, RS232, Mouse, Joystick, RGB, Composite, External Audio, Bus | OS | AMIGA WorkBench 1.3 |
| Power Supply | External | Introduction Price | £599 (UK, 1988); £369 (UK, 1990) |
| Sold | ??? | Serial Number | ??? |
| Other Extras | 512 Kb Memory Expansion | Bought Where | ??? |
| Bought When | ??? | Condition | Dead |
| Price Paid | ??? | Specs of my Model | 1 Mb Ram |
| Setup Today | ??? |
Amiga500-02: The Amiga 500 was my first computer. My parents bought it as a reward for my school results (for once they were good). They bought it back in 1989 in the Metro in ??? (???km from Kempen). It was bought just before the holidays, at that time we lived in Germany (Kempen) and had also a house in Belgium. From time to time (almost every holiday) we went to Belgium to do gardening work and see family. It was meant to take the Amiga to Belgium for two weeks and learn how to work with it. The shop had no 1084 monitors in stock so I was forced to buy another one (a Highscreen in a very lousy box). When I came home the monitor turned out to be broken. My parents decided (after long wining and complaining of my side) to wait another day to leave to Belgium and so we went back to the shop the next day. Arrived there they could kindly tell us that they had nothing in stock anymore (because of the holidays etc…). No fun anymore. So they proposed to repair the monitor (estimated time: two weeks). Because the only reason I bought a higscreen monitor was the lack of the commodore 1084 I insisted to have a commodore instead of the highscreen (estimated time: also two weeks). So we went to Belgium without the Amiga and I spent two weeks reading the manuals. When we came back to Germany (if I remember it right) the commodore monitor had arrived and the next day it was mine. At last I could try my Amiga. The original Amiga was sold to a guy via an ad in the “koopjeskrant”, by then we were moved to Belgium. I sold it for 26000 Belgian Francs with 512Kb expansion and a “flicker Fixer” (which was quite a lot because two weeks afterwards I saw it in a shop for 14000) The Goldstar VGA-Monitor was already sold to another guy. It was time to buy a 500+ I have to think hard to remember how I got my first three Amiga 500's. The first I bought in Ghent, I just remember that it was very cheap and the owners where two students who played lots with playstation, they also gave me an Amiga 1000 and some diskettes. The second one I bought in Zomergem together with a 1084 monitor, a Teletext decoder and some other stuff, also Cheap. The third one I don’t remember, I think it was also a gift from a guy I bought something else. |