--- title: Commodore Amiga 500 categories: - Computers types: - Home Computer origins: - U.S.A. years: - '1987' cpus: - Motorola MC68000 params: name: Amiga 500 image: /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga-500.jpg company: /companies/commodore company_name: Commodore specs: - label: NAME value: Amiga 500 - label: MANUFACTURER value: Commodore - label: TYPE value: Home Computer - label: ORIGIN value: U.S.A. - label: YEAR value: April 1987 - label: END OF PRODUCTION value: '1991' - label: KEYBOARD value: Built-in keyboard, 95 keys - label: CPU value: Motorola MC68000 - label: SPEED value: |- 7.09379 MHz (PAL)\ 7.15909 MHz (NTSC) - label: CO-PROCESSOR value: 'OCS based chipset: 8370/8372 Fat Agnus (memory controller and blitter), 8362R5/8362R6/8362R8 Denise (video control chip), 8364 Paula (sound & I/O), 5719R2 Gary (I/O)' - label: RAM value: '512 KB Chip RAM (expandable to 9MB : 512 KB Chip RAM + 512 KB Slow RAM + 8 MB Fast RAM)' - label: ROM value: |- Kickstart 1.2: 256 KB (Early models)\ Kickstart 1.3: 256 KB (Later models) - label: GRAPHIC MODES value: 320x256, 320x512, 640x256, 640x512 - label: COLORS value: |- Palette: 4096\ On screen: 16 in 640 modes, 32 in 320 modes, 64 in EHB, 4096 in HAM - label: SOUND value: 4 channel 8 bit PCM, stereo output - label: SIZE / WEIGHT value: Unknown - label: I/O PORTS value: RS-232 serial port, Centronics parallel port, external disk interface, 2x RCA audio, cartridge interface, expansion interface, 2x Atari joystick/mouse ports - label: BUILT IN MEDIA value: 3.5'' floppy disk drive - label: OS value: |- Workbench 1.2 (Early models)\ Workbench 1.3 (Later models) - label: POWER SUPPLY value: External PSU - label: PRICE value: £599 (UK, 1987), $595 (U.S.A., 1987), £369 (UK, 1990) tabs: - photos - adverts - hardware - emulators - links - videos forum_thread: 81 photos: - title: BOX subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga500_box.jpg - title: 'BOX #2' subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga500_box_2.jpg adverts: - title: UK ADVERT subtitle: '' text: |- November 1987 ...This elegant little machine takes family computing into new dimensions of creativity, excitement and productivity. It outruns and outguns office PCs as a business multi-tasker, performing a deskful of different jobs simultaneously at over 7 million steps per second in realtime... image: /media/museum/pubs/commodore_amiga500_pub_1.jpg - title: FRENCH AD (DEC. 1987) subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/pubs/commodore_amiga500_pub_pour-faire-fort.jpg hardware: - title: 520 - RF MODULATOR subtitle: '' text: Amiga A520 RF Modulator for the Amiga 500 RGB Port. This device enables an Amiga 500 to run off an ordinary TV. It also comes with the audio cable, which enables audio through the TV as well. image: /media/museum/hardware/amiga_520_rf_modulator.jpg - title: KCS POWERBOARD subtitle: PC emulator text: Hardware PC emulator for the Amiga 500 (NB Not A500+, which has its own version). Includes battery backed up clock, 1MB of RAM and Soundblaster/Adlib emulation. 512K of RAM is accessible by the Amiga with the other 512k only being available as a recoverable ram disk. image: /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga500_kcs-powerboard.jpg - title: MIDI GOLD 500 subtitle: by Golden Hawk Technology text: |- This is a MIDI interface for the Amiga 500, 2000, or 3000... It features :\ \- one MIDI In\ \- two MIDI Out\ \- one switchable Out/Thru\ \- one MIDI/Serial Switch\ \- one Out/Thru Switch image: /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga_golden-hawk-midi-interface.jpg - title: AMIGA 1300 subtitle: Genlock text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga1000_1300-genlock.jpg - title: MEMORY EXPANSION BOARD subtitle: '' text: 2 / 4 / 6 / 8 MB expansion card here fitted with 2 MB. image: /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga1500_memboard_1.jpg - title: VIDEO BOARD subtitle: '' text: This board featured 2 MB of RAM and allowed the Amiga to be connected to a standard VGA monitor. All the video modes could be displayed, including the interlace one. image: /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga1500_videoboard_1.jpg - title: A570 CD-ROM subtitle: '' text: Thanks to David Griffith for this picture image: /media/museum/hardware/amiga_cdrom_a570_1.jpg - title: HARD DISK CARD subtitle: '' text: |- 40 MB SCSI card from SUPRA CORP. Additional SCSI devices could be connected in chain trough the back connector image: /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga1500_hdboard_1.jpg - title: FLYER HARD-DRIVE subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga-500_flyer-harddrive.jpg - title: EXTERNAL HARD DISK subtitle: GVP 8 MB text: '' image: /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga500_exthd_1.jpg emulators: - title: Amiga Forever url: http://www.amigaforever.com/ platform: Windows text: Complete but commercial Amiga emulator - title: AMIthlon & AmigaXL url: http://amigaosxl.haage-partner.de/index-e.html platform: Windows text: Powerful commercial emulators - title: WinFellow url: HTTP://FELLOW.SOURCEFORGE.NET platform: Windows text: Probably better at some games than UAE, but not as versatile. - title: WinUAE url: http://www.winuae.net/ platform: Windows text: The best Amiga emulator ? :-) - title: Max UAE url: http://maxuae.de/ platform: Apple text: UAE for Mac OS X - title: AmigaSYS url: http://amigasys.fw.hu/ platform: Unix / Linux text: AmigaSYS is a pre-installed full Amiga OS for WinUAE - title: Pocket UAE url: http://pocketinsanity.sourceforge.net/ platform: Other platform text: Amiga Emulator for Pocket PC - title: Experimental UAE url: http://www.rcdrummond.net/uae/ platform: Multiplatform text: Standard UAE enhanced with features from WinUAE. - title: MESS url: http://www.mess.org platform: Multiplatform text: MESS now emulates the Commodore Amiga - title: UAE url: http://www.freiburg.linux.de/~uae/ platform: Multiplatform text: '(Ubiquitous Amiga Emulator) for BeOS, Mac OS, Linux, NextStep, MSDOS, OS/2 and Win95/NT : Homepage.' links: - title: Amiga animations url: http://www.randelshofer.ch/animations/ text: A collection of Amiga Animations. This is the only site where you can see them online! - title: Amiga Interactive Guide url: http://amiga.emugaming.com/ text: Excellent site ! A lot of very interesting infos there. - title: Amiga Island url: http://www.virtualpast.de/ text: Excellent site with ROMs to download! - title: Amiga Web Directory url: http://www.cucug.org/amiga.html text: '' - title: AMIGART.COM url: http://www.amigart.com text: Nice site with Amiga news - title: Back to the Roots url: HTTP://WWW.BACK2ROOTS.ORG/ text: Amiga culture, guides, huge collection of legally downloadable software, and much more. - title: Lex Site - Amiga Hardware Database url: http://amiga.multigraph.com/ text: The website title says it all! - title: NetBSD-Amiga url: http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/amiga/index.html text: '' - title: Old Computer Mags url: http://www.old-computer-mags.com/ text: Scans of old computer and videogames magazine - title: Recorded Amiga Games url: http://www.recordedamigagames.org text: Speedrun, longplay and misc videos of Amiga games and more. - title: RetroPack url: http://www.retropack.co.uk/ text: Website dedicated to selling original Amigas, CD32s and Amiga/CD32 Games. - title: The Amiga Monitor url: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/MikeWebb/amhome.html text: '' - title: The Big Book of Amiga Hardware url: http://www.amiga-hardware.com/ text: Pics & info (pinouts, jumpers etc.) for just about every piece of Amiga related hardware there is - title: The English Amiga Board url: http://eab.abime.net/ text: Community site for Amiga fans - title: World-Wide Amiga - Online!! url: http://www.amiga.org/ text: '' - title: Web Wiz CAPTCHA url: http://www.webwizcaptcha.com text: Reviews of Amiga software, hardware videos: - title: Commodore Amiga commercial - EXIT url: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=8721405286052618769&hl=fr text: 'Length: 41 s' - title: Commodore Amiga 500 commercial url: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=5737538578208665725&hl=fr text: 'Length: 29 s' - title: Commodore Amiga 1000 commercial url: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=5356507595228759374&hl=fr text: 'Length: 32 s' - title: Commodore Amiga 600 italian commercial url: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-768109352967297990&hl=fr text: 'Length: 19 s' - title: Commodore Amiga packs commercial url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdaMq8JLyHA text: 'Length: 21 s' - title: Commodore Amiga TV Ad - Celebrities url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEFoj6sbDjU text: 'Length: 29 s' - title: Commodore Amiga 500 promotional video url: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=9038863557655975739&hl=fr text: 'Length: 15 min 06 s' - title: 'Computer Chronicles: Amiga & Atari (1985)' url: http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=8978343825632445107&hl=fr text: 'Length: 29 min 18 s' related: - /museum/commodore-amiga-1000 - /museum/commodore-amiga-1200 - /museum/commodore-amiga-1500 - /museum/commodore-amiga-2000 - /museum/commodore-amiga-2500 - /museum/commodore-amiga-3000 - /museum/commodore-amiga-4000 - /museum/commodore-amiga-500-plus - /museum/commodore-amiga-600 - /museum/commodore-amiga-600hd - /museum/commodore-cdtv oc_id: 65 source: url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230605232441/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=65 date: '2023-06-05' --- Commodore's Amiga 500 was the low-end version of the [Amiga 2000](/museum/commodore-amiga-2000/) and the main competitor of Atari's 520/1040 ST range. The A500 was superior in almost every area, apart from its MIDI capabilities and the disk drive, which was not only slow but very noisy as well and a bitter feud quickly developed between owners of these rival machines. Hardware wise, the A500 is very similar to the [Amiga 1000](/museum/commodore-amiga-1000/), the main internal differences being an increase in memory fom 256 KB to 512 KB and the addition of another custom chip named "Gary" (the only Amiga chip with a male name). This is a new I/O chip that controls the disk drive and also performs address decoding. This chip is also used in the high-end A2000. The A500 was easier to upgrade than both the ST and big box Amigas, thanks to an expansion port located in the bottom of the case. Owners could simply insert a small board which contained an extra 512 KB of Ram and a battery-backed clock. The popularity of this upgrade meant that more 1 MB software (both 1 MB versions of 512 KB software and 1 MB only software) was released for the Amiga than the ST, which had to be taken apart to expand the memory. Over the course of the A500s lifespan several different packages were available, the most basic of which included only the computer, TV modulator and Workbench disks. A number of bundles were also sold, such as the best selling "Batman Pack" which was released in 1989 and included 3 games and Deluxe Paint 2. The A500 was discontinued in 1991 and replaced by the short lived [Amiga 500 Plus](/museum/commodore-amiga-500-plus/). **Pandy** comments:\ The Amiga 500 is a "cleaned" A1000, "cleaned" means plenty of TTL glue logic was replaced by custom IC which was named Gary. A500+ it is a new generation of custom IC's so called ECS (A500 have OCS). A500+, A3000, A600 have new graphics modes (1280 dots in line without overscan and 31Khz scanning similar to VGA - limited to 640 pixels in line with 4 colors).