Amiga timeline

[TroyWilkins]

I'm trying to put together a timeline for the Amiga, and I'm finding some things that don't appear to be correct.

From what I've found so far, the A2000 was launched in March 1987.

However, according to http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/a2088xt the A2088XT is from 1986 - so before there was any Amiga for it to reside within?!?

Can anyone shine any light on this?

Also, does anyone know the exact dates for the launch of the A2000, A500, A2088T, A3000, A3000UX, A3000T, CDTV, A500+ (I believe that wasn't announced, but people got a 500+ instead of the 500, although I could be wrong here), A600, A4000, A1200, CD32 and A4000T?

Thanks in advance for any and all help!

[idrougge]

That's just based on the date of the Janus library, which was also used with the A1060 expansion for the A1000.

http://www.amigahistory.plus.com/a4000.txt

http://www.amigahistory.plus.com/comamiga.html

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by idrougge

That's just based on the date of the Janus library, which was also used with the A1060 expansion for the A1000.

http://www.amigahistory.plus.com/a4000.txt

http://www.amigahistory.plus.com/comamiga.html

Nice find with the A4000.txt, thank you!

On that site, Amiga History, it didn't take me long to find mistakes - on their A500 page there are a heap of things that are just plain wrong, like for example:

In 1987 Commodore released the A500 - a cheaper version of the A1000 - which came in the "distinct" Commodore box. The basic system still used the 68000 processor, 512k ram, and OCS chipset but had got rid of the ZORRO slots in favour of a DMA slot at the side of the machine. The operating system had been upgraded to version 1.3, which included the Amiga Command Line Interface (Shell) allowing the user more functionality.

A500 and A1000 expansion slot is the same, only it's located on the right of the A1000 and on the left on the A500. A500 originally came with Kickstart and Workbench 1.2, and the Shell had existed since before 1.3, but was called the CLI (Located in System drawer), not Shell (it became known as "Shell" in 1.3).

[idrougge]

Not quite right. 1.3 has both CLI and Shell, with the latter using NEWCON: instead of old CON:. From 2.0 on, CLI was thrown out and NEWCON renamed as simply CON.

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by idrougge

Not quite right. 1.3 has both CLI and Shell, with the latter using NEWCON: instead of old CON:. From 2.0 on, CLI was thrown out and NEWCON renamed as simply CON.

Ahh, yes, you are correct.

[EugeneNine]

And the Zorro slot was but wasn't the same. The 500 had fewer pins though IIRC they were all power and ground and the signals I believe weren't buffered either. Though again if I recall correctly, the buffers were later added to the A2000 and it wasn't originally.

But to end user you couldn't plug a zorro card into an a500 to from their perspective they are not the same.

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by EugeneNine

And the Zorro slot was but wasn't the same. The 500 had fewer pins though IIRC they were all power and ground and the signals I believe weren't buffered either. Though again if I recall correctly, the buffers were later added to the A2000 and it wasn't originally.

But to end user you couldn't plug a zorro card into an a500 to from their perspective they are not the same.

Are you sure, as I've read many places that they're the same, and the Zorro 2 slots that are in the A2000 were the big change, and that pretty much everything designed for the A1000 could work on the A500, with the main problem being that they would appear 'backwards'.

[TroyWilkins]

See, this is the sort of thing I wish to clarify, one way or the other, as I personally think it's rather sad and unfortunate that there is so much information about the platform that had such a big impact upon the computer industry as we now know it.

I've got hosting sorted, just need to setup the domain name and point it in the correct direction, but first I want to have at least a skeleton of correct information to put up there, that I can add to later.

[idrougge]

That note about Zorro is quite deceptive and doesn't seem to be written based on actual experience.

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by idrougge

That note about Zorro is quite deceptive and doesn't seem to be written based on actual experience.

Which one?

[mech]

Originally Posted by EugeneNine

And the Zorro slot was but wasn't the same. The 500 had fewer pins though IIRC they were all power and ground and the signals I believe weren't buffered either. Though again if I recall correctly, the buffers were later added to the A2000 and it wasn't originally.

But to end user you couldn't plug a zorro card into an a500 to from their perspective they are not the same.

The A1000 and A500 side zorro slot is the same. A500 side cars work on a1000 and just pointing the wrong way. I have used many things on A1000,even zorro2 cards like x-surf2 hooked to the A1000 via Trumpcard 500(its just a zorro adapter inside).
Many a500 accelerators work inside the a1000 also,i have had a viper 520cd inside the 68000 socket although it interferes with the floppy drive etc and with the xsurf2 on the side surfed the net in a glorious 16colors in Ibrowse 2.4 It did quite well with vipers 020/33mhz, 3.0 roms,8MB ram,and onboard ide.

Also: trumpcard 500 works,goldenimage 8MB ram side car,gvp530,A590,alfadata ide+ram side car.

[Toni Wilen]

Probably only non-working (that still physically fits) A500 expansions in A1000 are some freezer cartridges. For example Action Reply 2/3 just crash the system at power up (without some hacky hardware modifications). AR1 does work.

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

Probably only non-working (that still physically fits) A500 expansions in A1000 are some freezer cartridges. For example Action Reply 2/3 just crash the system at power up (without some hacky hardware modifications). AR1 does work.

Ahh, thank you, very interesting!

[EugeneNine]

Ahh yea right, the 2000 was zorro2. Since the quote said slots I though they were talking about the 2000.

One of my early projects in college was to take the mainboard out of my 500 and put in one side of a case I made which then had a pc board in the other side. They were side by side standing up in a tower config. Then across the bottom I made a board that had zorro2 and PC ISA slots much like the 2000. The 500 board plugged into the left in a shorter slot and the pc board in the right It was a (rare) harris 20MHz 286 with 2M ram on the board. It all ran off one PC power supply which powered the PC normally and I then made adapters for the Amiga as well as power to the zorro2 pins then A500 didn't have.
Later in college after taking a C class using Borland Turbo C I bought their professional version with student discount and I couldn't get through the install. It would run out of memory on disk 31 of 32. I sold the whole setup for a 386 with 4M of ram.
I wish I hadn't sold it so when I saw an A2000 on Craigslist a few weeks ago I paid too much for it and grabbed it.

[idrougge]

Originally Posted by TroyWilkins

Which one?

This one:

In 1987 Commodore released the A500 - a cheaper version of the A1000 - which came in the "distinct" Commodore box. The basic system still used the 68000 processor, 512k ram, and OCS chipset but had got rid of the ZORRO slots in favour of a DMA slot at the side of the machine. The operating system had been upgraded to version 1.3, which included the Amiga Command Line Interface (Shell) allowing the user more functionality.

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by EugeneNine

Ahh yea right, the 2000 was zorro2. Since the quote said slots I though they were talking about the 2000.

One of my early projects in college was to take the mainboard out of my 500 and put in one side of a case I made which then had a pc board in the other side. They were side by side standing up in a tower config. Then across the bottom I made a board that had zorro2 and PC ISA slots much like the 2000. The 500 board plugged into the left in a shorter slot and the pc board in the right It was a (rare) harris 20MHz 286 with 2M ram on the board. It all ran off one PC power supply which powered the PC normally and I then made adapters for the Amiga as well as power to the zorro2 pins then A500 didn't have.
Later in college after taking a C class using Borland Turbo C I bought their professional version with student discount and I couldn't get through the install. It would run out of memory on disk 31 of 32. I sold the whole setup for a 386 with 4M of ram.
I wish I hadn't sold it so when I saw an A2000 on Craigslist a few weeks ago I paid too much for it and grabbed it.

Ahh, this is the sort of experience I was hoping to hear about, thank you!

Originally Posted by idrougge

This one:

Yeah, so you see what I mean? That paragraph had a whole stack of issues in it, and that's why I didn't think that was a particularly good source for information. I do NOT want to add to all the misinformation that is out there, I want to make sure what I put on my site (and link to) is correct and accurate.

[EugeneNine]

Originally Posted by TroyWilkins

Ahh, this is the sort of experience I was hoping to hear about, thank you!

I know I had pictures somewhere but haven't seen them in forever. Probably in an album I've been meaning to pull out and scan for years.

I had bought the A64 package as well which had an adapter that plugged into the Amiga to use the C64 peripherals. So I have my Amiga drives and PC drives mounted in the case and two Commodore 1541's external plugged into the A64 adapter. Had two printers at the time as well, the Commodore MPS1200 and a Citizen Color for the Amiga.
The case I made was open frame made from aluminum pieces I bought at a local hardware store.

[knightbeat]

Originally Posted by TroyWilkins

Yeah, so you see what I mean? That paragraph had a whole stack of issues in it, and that's why I didn't think that was a particularly good source for information. I do NOT want to add to all the misinformation that is out there, I want to make sure what I put on my site (and link to) is correct and accurate.

It's a fair point. I wrote that text in the late 1990s using magazines as a primary source. It was only when I got an A500 that I gained first hand experience (I was referring to the A2000 with the slot comment BTW, though I can see why you'd think it was the A1000 being discussed).

I rewrote this page as part of an aborted relaunch attempt two years ago, but abandoned when work commitments got in the way. I've done a quick HTML tidy-up and uploaded it.

A500 description

[EugeneNine]

Are you sure production ended in mid 1991 for the 500? I'm thinking I bought mine later.

Well, looking back at my calendar. My fall trimester of college didn't start until November 4th and I had moved from school hosing to an apartment that trimester and had it then. Summer started July 15th so it would have been between July and November that I would have bought it.

So I bet they were clearing them out cheap right after production ended which is why it was affordable for me.

[TroyWilkins]

Originally Posted by knightbeat

It's a fair point. I wrote that text in the late 1990s using magazines as a primary source. It was only when I got an A500 that I gained first hand experience (I was referring to the A2000 with the slot comment BTW, though I can see why you'd think it was the A1000 being discussed).

A500 description

Ahh, fair enough, no offence intended, as I'm discovering myself just how difficult it is to get accurate information.

I must say, you did a great job with that site, I've spent a lot of time exploring it and reading there.

If anyone has any solid dates for specific model releases (and in what region), that would be VERY much appreciated.

I've got my web site started and live, but it's not ready to show anyone just yet, and I really do have a lot more work to do first, part of which is finding out the specific dates if at all possible.