Amiga 1000
The Commodore Amiga 1000 , also known as A1000 and originally marketed as Amiga, is the first personal computer of the Amiga series released by Commodore International. He combined the 16/32-bit Motorola 68000 CPU, which was powerful according to the 1985 standards, with one of the most advanced graphics and sound systems in its class and ran a preemptive multitasking operating system that was 256 kB read-only Memory fits and comes with 256 kB RAM. The primary memory can be expanded internally to a total of 512 kB RAM with a 256 kB module supplied by the manufacturer. The primary memory can be expanded up to 8.5 MB via the external slot.
It was Amiga and Atari ST who in 1985 significantly advanced the step from an 8-bit to a 16-bit architecture (the operating system itself even to 32 bit) in the home computer sector . At the time, the Amiga was seen by many as a revolution on the computer market, because its decentralized architecture - the main processor is controlled by special co-processors for graphics, sound, etc. a. relieved - offered many features that other systems would only contain much later. The system architecture using application-specific integrated circuits and the graphic performance were unparalleled in the home computer sector.
history
The Amiga 1000 was presented by Commodore in the USA on July 23, 1985 and was launched there a little later. Because it was marketed for professional use, it did not have the blue Commodore logo, since the company in the USA did not have the qualitative status of its competitors IBM and Apple at the time, but was more a manufacturer of toy computers. The technology of the Amiga 1000 came mainly from Jay Miner , one of the founders of the Amiga company, for more details on the eventful history see Amiga .
The preliminary presentation in Germany, moderated by Frank Elstner , was held in Frankfurt am Main on May 21, 1986 in the Alte Oper for the press and selected visitors. As a presentation of the capabilities of the Amiga 1000, the animation of a dancer in 4096 colors and the famous Amiga ball could be seen and heard.
The Amiga 1000 was officially presented in Germany at CeBIT 1986 and hit stores shortly afterwards. The hallmark was the blue Commodore lettering on the left front. A special feature here was that the first Amiga 1000 in Germany did not have a German keyboard. They were delivered with an American keyboard layout , which could be relabeled using the sticker set that is standard in Germany. Later the "1000s" were also available with a German keyboard. The list price was initially DM 5900 "without VAT" (approx. DM 6700 including 14% VAT) for the computer with an international 220 V power supply, PAL color monitor, mouse, keyboard, operating system, and was thus on par with an IBM PC Compatible.
The Amiga 1000 was replaced by the Amiga 500 and the Amiga 2000 .
design
The A1000 has a number of features that distinguish it from later Amiga models: It is the only model that has the short-lived Amiga test mark logo on its case, the majority of the case is slightly raised to provide a shelf for the keyboard available when not in use (a "keyboard garage"), and the inside of the case is engraved with the Amiga designers' signatures (similar to the Macintosh); including Jay Miner and his dog Mitchy's paw print. The housing of the A1000 was designed by Howard Stolz. As Senior Industrial Designer at Commodore, Stolz was the mechanical lead and the primary interface to Sanyo in Japan , the contract manufacturer for the A1000 case.
The Amiga 1000 was manufactured in two variants: one uses the NTSC television standard and the other uses the PAL television standard. The NTSC variant was the first model to be manufactured and sold in North America. The later PAL model was made in Germany and sold in countries that use the PAL television standard. The first NTSC systems lack the EHB video mode that is available in all later Amiga models.
Since the AmigaOS was quite flawed when the A1000 was released, the operating system was not placed in the ROM at that time. Instead, the A1000 contains a 256 kB RAM daughter card called the writable control store (WCS) into which the operating system kernel is loaded from floppy disk (this part of the operating system is known as kickstart). The WCS is read-only after loading and system resets do not require reloading the WCS. In Europe, the WCS was often referred to as WOM (Write Once Memory), an allusion to the more conventional term "ROM" (read-only memory).
technology
The basic equipment of the Amiga 1000 consists of the actual computer, a 14-inch color monitor (A1081, A1080 in the USA), the keyboard, which can be pushed under the computer to save space ( keyboard garage ), and a 2-button mouse .
It has 256 kB kickstart memory and 256 kB main memory , which can be expanded to 512 kB with a module that can be installed under the front panel, and an internal 3.5 ″ floppy disk drive with a capacity of 880 kB. The CPU MC68000 from Motorola is clocked at 7.14 MHz (NTSC version) or 7.09 MHz (PAL version). The graphics performance and sound capabilities of the Amiga 1000 were particularly impressive at the time thanks to the special custom chips from chip designer Jay Miner . The original version of the Amiga 1000 was based on the ICS chipset, which only supported NTSC and did not yet know the EHB mode, which allows the display of 64 colors.
The interfaces of the Amiga 1000 were considered modern at the time: parallel port similar to the Centronics standard , serial RS-232 interface, connection for additional floppy drives, keyboard port, audio (stereo), TV output, RGB video, 2 mouse resp. Joystick ports, a proprietary 86-pin DMA-capable bus port and the front port for the 256 kB memory expansion. The parallel port does not conform to the parallel port of the PC, so that a direct connection of PC printers to the Amiga 1000 can lead to damage. Only with the Amiga 1000 is the gender (pin / socket) of the parallel and serial interfaces exactly the opposite of that on PCs. With regard to the assignment of the interfaces, there are some differences compared to other Amiga models, especially with the live pins, so that special adapters may be necessary to connect external hardware such as a midi interface.
Furthermore, a genlock can be connected to the RGB connection , with which one could synchronize the computer with a TV source and thus superimpose the computer image with the video image. B. to create video overlays. In its prime, the Amiga was also actively used professionally for video post-processing. Additional cards, which are connected via the expansion slot on the right-hand side, are provided by the operating system with what is known as an autoconfig protocol, which allows them to connect neatly into the system and provide the necessary drivers themselves without the user having to do anything noticed.
The first Amiga 1000 available in Germany have an internal piggiback , i.e. an additional circuit board that is piggybacked onto the motherboard of the computer and contains the kickstart RAM. Later models no longer have this Piggiback, as the Kickstart RAM was integrated into the motherboard. The Amiga 1000 in NTSC version has a system clock of 28.6 MHz, the CPU clock is 7.14 MHz. The PAL version has a system clock of 28.36 MHz and the CPU is clocked here with 7.09 MHz.
The Amiga 1000 circuit diagram fits in legible size on a single A3 sheet of paper.
The Amiga 1000 is the only computer in the Amiga series that has an additional 256 kB reset-proof RAM area into which the kickstart is loaded. This fact is due to the fact that at the time the A1000 was manufactured, no finished Kickstart version was available and therefore the Kickstart was not yet available in a ROM . The first devices were initially supplied with Kickstart versions 0.9 and 1.0, and version 1.1 shortly after the market launch. This part of the operating system must therefore be loaded from a bootstrap diskette every time it is switched on, but it remains in the computer even after a reset (in the so-called WOM = Write Once Memory). But this fact also has advantages, e.g. B. There is a Kickstart version that has been patched with an antivirus program and can thus detect boot viruses .
The 32- bit - Operating system AmigaOS characterized by preemptive multitasking and windowing environments graphical user interface from "intuition".
The operating system also has a CLI command line interface.
As a special feature, the signatures of the most important people involved in the development are engraved on the inside of the housing cover of the Amiga 1000 - including a paw print of the dog of the Amiga's spiritual father, Jay Miner .
As a response to the increasing market share due to MS-DOS , Commodore in Braunschweig developed the Sidecar PC extension (A1060) for the Amiga 1000 with its own 8088 processor and XT slots. This concept of giving the Amiga a PC follower was consistently continued in subsequent Amiga models, so that even the Amiga 4000 can still accept so-called bridge cards. Whether this concept was to the satisfaction of all Commodore employees and developers can be read in the part of the Amiga 2000 circuit diagram that contains the PC slot extension as follows: "I wait in this place where the sun never shines."
Web links
- Amiga & Phoenix Community
- technical details, history and pictures of the Amiga 1000
- Review of the magazine 64'er from 1986
- Amiga 1000 commercial on YouTube
Individual evidence
- ↑ IT news, careers, business technology, reviews. Retrieved April 19, 2020 (English).
- ↑ Amiga 1000 Spec Sheet. Retrieved April 19, 2020 .
- ↑ Amiga 1000. The Amiga Museum, accessed April 19, 2020 .
- ^ New York Media LLC: New York Magazine . New York Media, LLC, August 5, 1985 ( google.com [accessed April 19, 2020]).
- ↑ 64'er 3/1986: Amiga 1000
- ^ Howard Stolz: Program Management - The Whole Picture. June 17, 2010, accessed April 19, 2020 .
- ↑ Nathan Mattise: The Amiga turns 30 "Nobody had ever designed a personal computer this way". July 23, 2015, accessed April 19, 2020 (American English).
