Amiga 1000

Commodore Amiga 1000

Manufacturer	Commodore
Type	Personal computer
Release date	July 23, 1985 (1985-07-23)
Discontinued	1987
Operating system	AmigaOS 1.0
CPU	Motorola 68000 @ 7.16 MHz (NTSC) 7.09 MHz (PAL)
Memory	256 – 512 KB (8 MB Maximum)
Graphics	OCS 640 × 256 5-bpp
Sound	Paula 4 × 8-bit channels at max 28 kHz in stereo
Successor	Amiga 2000

The A1000, or Commodore Amiga 1000, was Commodore's initial Amiga personal computer, introduced on July 23, 1985 at the Lincoln Center in New York City. Machines began shipping in September with a base configuration of 256 kB of RAM at the retail price of 1,295 USD. A 13-inch (330 mm) analog RGB monitor was available for around 300 USD bringing the price of a complete Amiga system to 1,595 USD. Before the release of the Amiga 500 and A2000 models in 1987, the A1000 was simply called Amiga.

In the US, the A1000 was marketed as The Amiga from Commodore, however the Commodore logo was omitted from the casing. Additionally the Amiga 1000 was exclusively sold in computer stores, rather than the various non computer-dedicated department and toy stores the VIC20 and Commodore 64 were retailed in. These measures were an effort to avoid Commodore's "toy-store" computer image created during the Tramiel era.^[1][2]

Design

The A1000 had a number of characteristics that distinguished it from later Amiga models: 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 (similar to the Macintosh), including Jay Miner, and the paw print of his dog Mitchy. The A1000's case was designed by Howard Stolz^[3] As Senior Industrial Designer at Commodore, Stolz was the mechanical lead and primary interface with Sanyo in Japan, the contract manufacturer for the A1000 casing.^[4]

There are two distinct variants of the Amiga 1000 using different television standards, namely, NTSC and PAL. The NTSC variant was the initial model manufactured and sold in North America. The later PAL model was manufactured in Germany and sold in countries using the PAL television standard. Notably, the first NTSC systems lack the EHB video mode which is present in all later Amiga models.

Because AmigaOS was rather buggy at the time of the A1000's release, the OS was not placed in ROM. Instead, the A1000 included a daughterboard with 256 KB of RAM, dubbed the "Writable Control Store" (WCS), into which the core of the operating system was loaded from floppy disk (this portion of the operating system was known as the "Kickstart"). The WCS was write-protected after loading, and system resets did not require a reload of the WCS. In Europe the WCS was often referred to as WOM (Write Once Memory), a play on the more conventional ROM (Read Only Memory).

Many A1000 owners remained attached to their machines long after newer models rendered the units technically obsolete, and it attracted numerous aftermarket upgrades. Many CPU upgrades that plugged into the Motorola 68000 socket functioned in the A1000. Additionally, a line of products called the Rejuvenator series allowed the use of newer chipsets in the A1000, and an Australian-designed replacement A1000 motherboard called The Phoenix utilized the same chipset as the A3000 and added an A2000-compatible video slot and onboard SCSI controller.

In 2006 PC World rated the Amiga 1000 as the 7th greatest PC of all time [1]. In 2007 it was rated by the same magazine as the 37th best tech product of all time [2]. In 1994, as Commodore filed for bankruptcy, Byte magazine called the Amiga 1000 "the first multimedia computer... so far ahead of its time that almost nobody – including Commodore's marketing department – could fully articulate what it was all about."[3]

Technical information

The Amiga 1000 has a 68000 CPU running at 7.15909 MHz (on NTSC systems) or 7.09379 MHz (PAL systems), precisely double the video color carrier frequency for NTSC or 1.6 times the color carrier frequency for PAL. The system clock timings are derived from the video frequency, which simplifies glue logic and allows the Amiga 1000 to make do with a single crystal. The chipset was designed to synchronize CPU memory access and chipset DMA so the hardware runs in real-time without wait-state delays.

Though most units were sold with an analog RGB monitor, the A1000 also had a built-in composite video output which allowed the computer to be connected directly to monitors other than their standard RGB monitor as well as a "TV MOD" output into which was plugged the available Amiga 1000 RF Modulator, which allowed connection to a standard TV or VCR.

The original 68000 CPU can be directly replaced with a 68010, which can execute instructions slightly faster than the 68000 but also introduces a small degree of software incompatibility. Third-party CPU upgrades, which mostly fit in the CPU socket, use faster 68020/68881 or 68030/68882 microprocessors and integrated memory. Such upgrades often have the option to revert to 68000 mode for full compatibility. Some boards have a socket to seat the original 68000, whereas the 68030 cards typically come with an on-board 68000.

The original Amiga 1000 is the only model to have 256 kB of Amiga Chip RAM, which can be expanded to 512 kB with the addition of a daughterboard under a cover in the centre front of the machine.^[5] RAM may also be upgraded via official and third-party upgrades, with a practical upper limit of about 9 MB of "fast" RAM due to the 68000's 24-bit address bus. This memory is accessible only by the CPU permitting faster code execution as DMA cycles are not shared with the chipset.

The Amiga 1000 features an 86-pin expansion port (electrically identical to the later Amiga 500 expansion port - though the A500's connector is inverted). This port was utilized by third-party expansions such as memory upgrades and SCSI adaptors. These resources are handled by the Amiga AutoConfig standard. Other expansion options were available including a bus expander which provided two Zorro-II slots.

Specifications

Jay Miner's signature from the top cover of a Commodore Amiga 1000 computer. The paw print is that of Mitchy, Miner's dog.

Rear view of the A1000.

The A1000's retail box.

Notes

1. ^{^} Early NTSC models do not have the EHB mode

Bundled Software

As well as the operating system, the machine came bundled with a version of AmigaBASIC developed by Microsoft and a speech synthesis library developed by Softvoice, Inc. [4].

See also

• Amiga models and variants
• Amiga Sidecar

External links

• The Commodore Amiga A1000 at OLD-COMPUTERS.COM
• Famous Amiga Uses

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Amiga 1000