CPU: Motorola MC68000 7.16 MHz MEMORY: 512KB of Chip RAM (OCS chipset - A500), 512 KB of Slow RAM or Trapdoor RAM can be added via the trapdoor expansion, up to 8 MB of Fast RAM or a Hard drive can be added via the side expansion slot. The ECS chipset (A500+) offered 1MB on board to 2MB (extended) of Chip RAM. GRAPHICS: The OCS chipset (Amiga 500) features planar graphics (codename Denise custom chip), with up to 5 bit-planes (4 in hires), allowing 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 color screens, from a 12bit RGB palette of 4096 colors. Resolutions varied from 320x256 (PAL, non-interlaced, up to 4096 colors) to 640x512 (interlace, up to 4 colors). Two special graphics modes where also included: Extra Half Bright with 64 colors and HAM with all 4096 colors on-screen. The ECS chipset models (Amiga 500+) offered same features but also extra high resolution screens up to 1280x512 pixels (4 colors at once). SOUND: (Paula) 4 hardware-mixed channels of 8-bit sound at up to 28 kHz. The hardware channels had independent volumes (65 levels) and sampling rates, and mixed down to two fully left and fully right stereo outputs MEDIA/STORAGE: 3.5 DD floppy, 880 KB, external shell HDD
The Amiga 500, also known as the A500, was the first low-end Commodore Amiga 16/32-bit multimedia home/personal computer. Low-end meant that the expandability was reduced due to its strict in-size casing while architecture remained the same of course! It was announced at the winter Consumer Electronics Show in January 1987, at the same time as the high-end Amiga 2000, and competed directly against the 16bit Atari ST series. Note that the original Chip Set (OCS) was a chipset used in the earliest Commodore Amiga computers and defined the Amiga's graphics and sound capabilities. The original A500 proved to be Commodore's best-selling Amiga model, enjoying particular success in Europe. Although popular with hobbyists, arguably its most widespread use was as a gaming machine, where its advanced graphics and sound for the time were of significant benefit. The Amiga series offered outstanding, for its time, graphics and sound capabilities either in video games or multimedia apps. It was amazing the feature to display graphics in multiple resolutions and color depths at the same screen; more on that, the Blitter custom chip (copying blocks of memory, filling blocks and line drawing) offered smooth sprite/background animations and a huge number of depth in parallax-scrolling without pushing its CPU to the limits! A500s with the OCS chip set shipped with Kickstart 1.2 first, later with 1.3. The A500 Plus shipped with 2.04 Kickstart ROM. Last but not least (at all...). A major drawback with the ECS chipset (Amiga 500+) was some compatibility issues found with the software written on OCS chipset (due to the new Kickstart).
The Amiga 500/500+ (default) color palette
12bit RGB 4096-colors palette (32 to 4096 colors on screen)
Amiga 1000
released in 1985
CPU: Motorola 68000 7.16 MHz MEMORY: 256 KB of Chip RAM, with an additional 256 KB provided by a dedicated cartridge GRAPHICS: The Original Chip Set (OCS) of the Commodore Amiga features (via Denise custom chip) a 12 bit RGB, 4,096 color palette. A 320x200 with 32 colors or HAM-6, a 640x200 with 16 colors SOUND: (Paula custom chip) 4 hardware-mixed channels of 8-bit sound at up to 28 kHz. The hardware channels had independent volumes (65 levels) and sampling rates, and mixed down to two fully left and fully right stereo outputs MEDIA/STORAGE: 3.5 DD floppy, 880 KB
The A1000, or Commodore Amiga 1000, was Commodore's initial Amiga personal computer, introduced on July 24, 1985 at the Lincoln Center in New York City. Machines began shipping in September with a base configuration of 256KB of RAM at the retail price of US$1,295. A 13-inch (330 mm) analog RGB monitor was available for around US$300 bringing the price of a complete Amiga system to $1,595. Before the release of the Amiga 500 and A2000 models in 1987, the A1000 was simply called Amiga or The Amiga from Commodore. Note that the original Chip Set (OCS) was a chipset used in the earliest Commodore Amiga computers and defined the Amiga's graphics and sound capabilities. The A1000 had a number of characteristics that distinguished it from later Amigas: It was the only model to feature the short-lived Amiga -checkmark- logo on its case; the case was elevated slightly to give a storage area for the keyboard when not in use (a -keyboard garage-); and the inside of the case was engraved with the signatures of the Amiga designers, including Jay Miner and the paw print of his dog Mitchy. The casing was designed by Howard Stolz
The Amiga 1000 (default) color palette
12bit RGB 4096-colors palette (32 to 4096 colors on screen)
Amiga 2000
released in 1987
CPU: Motorola 68000 7,16MHZ MEMORY: 512 KB (Max) / (1 MB Max) of Chip RAM, practical limit of 8 MB total Fast RAM memory without the use of a CPU expansion card, due to the 24-bit address bus GRAPHICS: (Denise) The Original Chip Set (OCS) of the Commodore Amiga features planar graphics, with up to 5 bitplanes (4 in hires), allowing 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 colour screens, from a palette of 4096 colours. Two special graphics modes where also included: Extra HalfBrite, which used a 6th bitplane as a mask that halved the brightness of any colour seen, and Hold And Modify (HAM), which allowed all 4096 colours on screen at once. SOUND: (Paula) 4 hardware-mixed channels of 8-bit sound at up to 28 kHz. The hardware channels had independent volumes (65 levels) and sampling rates, and mixed down to two fully left and fully right stereo outputs MEDIA/STORAGE: 3.5 DD floppy, 880 KB, SCSI Hard drive in A2000HD systems
The A2000, also known as the Commodore Amiga 2000, was released in 1986. Although aimed at the high-end market it was technically very similar to the A500, so similar in fact that the A2000B revision was outright based on the A500 design. What the A2000 had over the A500 was a bigger case with room for five Zorro II proprietary expansion slots, two 16-bit and two 8-bit ISA slots, a CPU upgrade slot, a video slot, and a battery-backed clock. Note that the original Chip Set (OCS) was a chipset used in the earliest Commodore Amiga computers and defined the Amiga's graphics and sound capabilities. It should also be noted that, like the Amiga 1000 and unlike the Amiga 500, the A2000 came in a desktop case with a separate keyboard. The case was more PC-like than the A1000 - taller to accommodate the expansion cards and lacking the space beneath for the keyboard.
The Amiga 2000 (default) color palette
12bit RGB 4096-colors palette (32 to 4096 colors on screen)
Amiga 600
released in 1992
CPU: Motorola 68000 7,16MHZ MEMORY: 1MB of Chip RAM, upgrade to 2 MB -chip- RAM using the trapdoor RAM expansion, an additional 4 MB of -fast- RAM could be added in the PC card slot using suitable SRAM cards to give a maximum RAM capacity of 6 MB GRAPHICS: The Enhanced Chip Set (ECS) with 4,096 color palette. The custom Fat Agnus display chip screen modes varying from 320x200 pixels to 1280x512 pixels. Generally only 32 colors were available, but there was an extra-half-bright mode that allowed each of the 32 colors in the palette to be dimmed to half its normal brightness (thus 64 colors on screen). A memory-intensive 4096 on-screen color "HAM" mode could be used at lower resolutions. At its highest resolutions, only 4 colors could be displayed at once. SOUND: (Paula) 4 hardware-mixed channels of 8-bit sound at up to 28 kHz. The hardware channels had independent volumes (65 levels) and sampling rates, and mixed down to two fully left and fully right stereo outputs MEDIA/STORAGE: 3.5 DD floppy, 880 KB, Internal IDE hard disk drive (optional)
The Amiga 600, also known as the A600 (codenamed "June Bug" after a B-52's song), was a home computer introduced at the CeBIT show in March 1992. The A600 was the final model of the original A500-esque line based around the Motorola 68000 CPU and the ECS chipset. A notable aspect of the A600 was its small size. Lacking a numeric keypad, the A600 was 14" long by 9.5 deep by 3 high and weighed approximately 6 pounds. AmigaOS 2.0 was included which was generally considered more user-friendly than AmigaOS 1.3 The Enhanced Chip Set (ECS) used here is the name used for the enhanced version of the Amiga computer's original chipset (OCS). ECS was introduced in 1990 debuting in the Amiga 3000 and used in A500+ and A600. ECS included the improved Super Agnus (with support for 2 MB of CHIP RAM) and Super Denise chips (with support for Productivity on 640x480 noninterlaced and SuperHires on 1280x200 or 1280x256 display modes but limited to 4 colors). It also featured a capable blitter to copy regions larger than 1024x1024 pixels in one operation. Like the A500 before it, the A600 was aimed at the lower -consumer- end of the market, with the higher end being dominated by the Amiga 3000. It was essentially a redesign of the A500 Plus, with the option of an internal hard disk drive. It was intended by manufacturer Commodore International to revitalize sales of the A500 line before the introduction of the 32-bit Amiga 1200.
The Amiga 600 (default) color palette
12bit RGB 4096-colors palette (32 to 4096 colors on screen)
Amiga 3000
released in 1990
CPU: Motorola 030@16Mhz or 030@25Mhz (FPU 68881@16Mhz or 68882@25Mhz) MEMORY: 1MB Chip RAM and 1MB Fast RAM expandable up to 16 MB on board and per Zorro III slot! GRAPHICS: ECS (4096 colors palette) 32 colors on screen, 320x200 px (32 colors, 64 colors - the 32 colors in the palette to be dimmed to half its normal brightness- or HAM mode with 4096 colors on screen) to 1280x512 px (4 colors) screen modes SOUND: (Paula custom chip) 4 hardware-mixed channels of 8-bit sound at up to 28 kHz. The hardware channels had independent volumes (65 levels) and sampling rates, and mixed down to two fully left and fully right stereo outputs. MEDIA/STORAGE: 3.5" DD floppy 880 Kb, 3.5" 50MB SCSI HDD.
The A3000 was a much more serious proposition to build a professional multimedia computer than the previous 500, 1000 and 2000 effort. It was released in June 1990, three years after the Amiga 2000 and was entirely reworked as a high-end workstation. The A3000 was a powerhouse in comparison to previous Amiga and sold as a high-end graphics workstation. The system was regarded by some Amiga fans as the best model ever made. It was the first Amiga to feature the new Kickstart 2 upgrade and Zorro III slots. Two operating systems were included: The first was the newly released Kickstart/Workbench 2. This was unusual by the fact that Kickstart was stored on the hard disk rather than in ROM. This was similar to the A1000 that required Kickstart to be loaded from floppy disk before anything else could be done. The second OS was the Unix System (SVR4) V operating system. This allowed the use of the Unix graphical interface, X Windows with standard networking capabilities! An enhanced version, the Amiga 3000+, with the AGA chipset (!) was produced to prototype stage in 1991. The A3000+ is a rare beast - and Commodore are rumoured to have produced around 50 differing versions. It was the first computer to be based on the Pandora chipset (later dubbed AA, then AGA). This protype was finally replaced by the newly Amiga 4000 (A4000)
The Amiga 3000 (default) color palette
12bit RGB 4096-colours palette (32 to 4096 colors on screen)