Amiga 1000 celebrates 25th birthday, gets dismantled

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July 24, 1985. That’s the date the Amiga 1000 was first introduced, and to celebrate its 25th anniversary Benj Edwards of Vintage Computing and Gaming has taken a peek inside the machine for PC World.
Depending on your age the Amiga 1000 may hold fond memories for you. The machine’s base configuration included:

  • Motorola 68000 at 7.16MHz
  • 256KB of RAM + additional 256KB from cartidge
  • 256KB for OS loader
  • 3.5″ DD Floppy drive with 800KB capacity
  • Video modes: 320×240 (32 colors), 320×400 (32 colors), 640×200 (16 colors), 640×400 (16 colors)
  • Audio: 4 voice/2 channel setreo, 8-bit resolution, 28kHz sampling rate
  • AmigaOS 1.0 to 1.3 via Kickstart floppy disk
  • AmigaBASIC included
The cost of the base model was $1295, with an additional $300 for a 13″ CRT display.

Edwards has lifted the lid on the machine taking us through the ports on offer, the hardware that sits inside, and the little extras you may not know about. Examples include the names of everyone involved with the design of the Amiga being molded into the underside of the case, and the “secret sauce of the Amiga” being the custom-designed coprocessing chipset consisting of Paula, Agnus, and Daphne chips.

If you have fond memories of the Amiga 1000, or The Amiga from Commodore as it was also commonly called, please share them with us.
 
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