| Name | Amiga 500 |
| Codename | - 'B52/ Rock Lobster'
- Rock Lobster is a song by The B52's (from their debut album which was also called The B52's)
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| Made by | Commodore AMIGA Inc. |
| Released | - 1987 at Winter CES in Las Vegas
- was introduced together with the A2000 'A'
- this Revision 6A machine was built in 1989
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| Serial-No. | C= COMMODORE
MODEL A500
SERIAL NO. 709506 |
| Board-Info | |
| CPU | Signetics SCN68000C8N64- an OEM-manufactured Motorola 68000
- Signetics is today part of Philips Semiconductors
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| Speed | 7.09379 MHz (PAL)/ 7.15909 MHz (NTSC) |
| RAM | MOS 8372A 'Fat Agnus' (PAL & NTSC-capable)- 512 KBytes ChipRAM:
- with A501 RAM-expansion and small modifications, the A500 Rev. 6A can be expanded to 1MB ChipRAM - however, by default these additional 512KB are so-called 'Ranger-Mem' (=pseudo FastRAM which is as slow as ChipMem)
- expandable to 9216 KBytes (1MB Chip-, 8MB FastRAM)
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| ROM/ Native OS | C315093-02 Kickstart 1.3 (v34.50, 256 KB ROM)- AmigaDOS 1.3
- Kickstart 1.3 was introduced in 1988. Earlier A500 came with Kick 1.2, which lacks several features:
- Autoboot-capability. Kickstart 1.3 can boot AmigaDOS from a harddisk partition (if supported by the controller)
- Fast File System (FFS). Optimized for DMA transfers (=major speedup) and controls diskspace more efficient (up 4.9% of additional space available)
- better printer support. AmigaDOS 1.3 contains a lot more printer drivers, and many bugfixes for the older ones
- additional fonts
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| Keyboard/ Layout | CBM 6570-036 keyboard-controller
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| Graphics | MOS 8362R8 'Denise'
'Blitter' (filling ops & memory block moves), integrated in Agnus
'Copper' (graphic coprocessor, supports CPU in graphic ops and controls the Blitter)- Pre-defined screen modes:
- 'LowRes': 320x256 (50Hz PAL)/ 320x200 (60Hz NTSC)
- 'HighRes': 640x256 (50Hz PAL)/ 640x200 (60Hz NTSC)
- all modes can also be interlaced, doubling vertical resolution
- horizontal scan rate: 15.6kHz
- Simultaneous colors (from a 4096-palette):
- 4 (2 bitplanes) in all resolutions
- 16 (4 bitplanes) in HighRes
- 32 (5 bitplanes) in LowRes
- 64 (6 bitplanes) in LowRes ('Halfbright')
- 4096 in LowRes-HAM6 mode ('Hold-and-modify', 6 bit/pixel)
- Text: 60x25 or 80x25 (no 'real' text-mode, it's graphics)
- Note that this was later called 'Original Chip Set' graphics (OCS), when the 'Enhanced Chip Set' (ECS) was introduced
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| Sound | MOS 8364R7 'Paula'- 4 independant hardware sound channels, each including an 8 bit DAC
- can be combined to 2 channels stereo
- frequency- and amplitude-modulation, low-pass filter
- complex sound effects can easily be programmed
- Paula also has registers for floppy control
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| Media | integrated diskdrive: 3.5" disks, 880 KBytes/ disk- external drives like A1010/ A1011 via diskdrive connector
- 5.25" disks, 360/1200 KBytes for PC-compatibility (A1020 drive)
- external AT-Bus (IDE) or SCSI-harddisks (via expansion-port)
- later: 3.5" 1.76MB Amiga-HD-drives (compatible with PC-HD 1.44MB)
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| Input/ Output | 2x MOS 8520A-1 'CIA' (Interface I/O, timers, floppy disk I/O)
MOS 5719 'Gary' (some logic functions & floppy-motor control)
Motorola MC1488 + MC1489P (RS232)- 54 pin internal RAM expansion-slot ('trapdoor')
- 85 pin male edge conn. expansion-slot (on its left and incompatible with that of the A1000, because turned by 180 degrees)
- 2x 9 pin SUB-D mouse/ joystick/ paddles
- 25 pin 'Centronics' parallel SUB-D
- 25 pin SUB-D external diskdrive
- 25 pin 'RS232' serial SUB-D
- stereo cinch-out
- 23 pin SUB-D RGB jack, capable of
- analog RGB (= full range of 4.096 colors)
- digital RGBI (= 16 color combinations only)
- monchrome composite video jack
- DC-in ('square'-type)
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| Miscellaneous | - The Amiga 500 was introduced together with the very first A2000 (often called A2000 'A') on the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 1987 in Las Vegas. It was meant to be an entry-level alternative to the quite expensive Amiga 1000, and the modular and professional A2000. And indeed, it became the best-selling Amiga of them all, succeeding the C64 in the homecomputer-markets and dominating them like its successor had done before
- The first series Amiga 500, made in the USA, came with multi-colored AMIGA checkmark and black 'AMIGA' letters as logo. However, I don't know whether these machines were just prototypes or have actually been sold
- All Amiga 500 came with the 'Original Chipset' (OCS). After Commodore had introduced the ECS-based Amiga 500 Plus in 1991, the two were sold together with an identical board (Rev. 8A); this board could be configured for both OCS or ECS, reducing overall production-cost
- Several 'special editions' of the A500 existed:
- the golden A500, a gift from Commodore Germany for the german Amiga Magazin's 2nd birthday in 1989. One piece is known to exist, but where is it today?
- two NEW ART Limited Edition series (see pic below), which were designed in 1990 by the german designer Stefanie Tücking. Several hundred of these do exist; they were just A500 REV.6 with the upper part of the case replaced
- the A500 'European Computer of the Year Award'. They were standard A500 with an additional plaque, below AMIGA logo and LEDs
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