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From: papa@bacall.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: The new Amiga 500 (from latest Amazing Computing)
Message-ID: <2314@bacall.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 9-Mar-87 23:41:59 EST
Article-I.D.: bacall.2314
Posted: Mon Mar  9 23:41:59 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 11-Mar-87 22:00:16 EST
Organization: CS&CE Depts, U.S.C., Los Angeles, CA
Lines: 58

Well, this time it seems that Amazing Computing beat BYTE, AmigaWorld 
and Compute on the Amiga 500 coverage.  Just today I received the latest
issue filled with information and specifications on the Amiga 500 (and the 
2000,too).  By the way, Don Hicks finally made it.  Starting from this issue
you'll be able to buy Amazing Computing at Dalton Bookstores and Software 
Stores.

Anyway,  John Foust (of AMICUS fame) has three articles which include 
informationon the Amiga 500.  These are some of the things I found interesting
about the Amiga 500. First of all, the machine looks great. If this one
doesn not make money for Commodore, I don't know what will.

Package similar to the Commodore 128, it has a single 3 1/2 in. drive on
the right side of the box (computer and keybord are one piece).  Standard
memory is 512K expandable internally to 1Meg. The expansion bus is almost
identical to the Amiga 1000 except that it is on the left side.  A1000
boards will NOT fit into it without some kind of connector that switches the 
lines.   Hardware manufactures need only change the orientation of the package
not the electrical design. The keyboard is similar to the A2000 keyboard.
Kickstart is in ROM. New Kickstart disks will be accepted. The memory is 
ALL on the same bus. That is, "fast" memory is not fast anymore.  The 
68000 will see contention on the memory above 512K when using lots
of bitplanes or high res.  Basically you have the same speed of an A1000
with 52K (no fast mem). Reason: cost.

The gender of the parallel and serial ports has been changed to be able to
use IBM PC compatible cables. The A1000 genlock will NOT work with the A500.
The power supply is external like on the Commmodore 128.  The A500 includes the
"fat Agnes" chip: this has the same resolution as the old Agnews but packs more
chips that were on the motherboard of the A1000. Two new custom chips are 
on the board, named Gary and Buster. A gate array chip, and a bus arbitrator
that again pack various components together. At CES in Las Vegas 
Commodore showed  a low-cost SCSI interface that plugged into the A500 
expansion bus and two new video monitors. The A500 entered preliminary
testing in February. At the same time a pilot production was started 
in WestChester.  Production will move to Hong Kong. 

In a separate article John Foust states that "reliable estimates place the 
initial production run of the Amiga 1000 to 140,000 units. The production
stopped at the end of the summer of 1986 [any Comments?]. According to
sources close to Commodore there are only a few thousands Amiga 1000 left in
the wharehouses.  This indicated a planned sellout of the Amiga 1000 line.
... Chances are good that another small production run might occur in the
future, if demand arises."

In a third article of "roomers", the Bandido (:-) reports that "with the 
effective retirement of Jay Miner, and the slow attrition of the Los
Gatos staff, the odds are slim for their long-term survival. ...
Commodore West Chester officials asked the California team to move to
Pennsylvania. Guess what they said?" Another rumous states that Tim King has
been working with the Los Gatos people to impeove hard disk speeds through
modification of AmigaDOS.  The changes have improved disk access by four 
times.

That's it for now. If you want all the details, just wait until this issue
showes up on your Dalton Bookstore.

-- Marco Papa