--- title: Commodore AMIGA 1000 categories: - Computers types: - Home Computer origins: - U.S.A. years: - '1985' cpus: - Motorola MC68000 params: name: AMIGA 1000 image: /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga1000_3.jpg company: /companies/commodore company_name: Commodore specs: - label: NAME value: AMIGA 1000 - label: MANUFACTURER value: Commodore - label: TYPE value: Home Computer - label: ORIGIN value: U.S.A. - label: YEAR value: July 1985 - label: END OF PRODUCTION value: January 1987 - label: KEYBOARD value: full-size typewriter style, 89 keys, 10 function keys and numeric keypad - label: CPU value: Motorola MC68000 - label: SPEED value: 7.16 mHz - label: CO-PROCESSOR value: '3 : Denise (video), Agnus (memory manager, blitter & copper), Paula (sound and disk access)' - label: RAM value: 256kb, upgradable to 512k internally. Extensible to 8.5 MB with extension card (512 KB CHIP RAM + 8 MB FAST RAM) and to 10 MB - label: ROM value: 8 KB (The Kickstart isn't in ROM but loaded at the boot in RAM, where it takes 256 KB) - label: TEXT MODES value: 60 x 32 / 80 x 32 - label: GRAPHIC MODES value: 320 x 200 and 320x400 (32 colors), 640 x 200 and 640 x 400 (16 colors) - label: COLORS value: |- up to 64 colors among 4096 (EHB mode)\ The Amiga can display 4096 colors simultaneously (HAM mode) - label: SOUND value: Four 8 bit PCM voices, 9 octaves - label: SIZE / WEIGHT value: 4.25'' x 17.75'' x 13'' / 13 lbs - label: I/O PORTS value: RGB, RF & composite video ouputs, external floppy disk port, Centronics, RS232c, Expansion port, stereo sound, Atari Compatible joysticks (2), RAM expansion port, keyboard connector - label: BUILT IN MEDIA value: one 3.5'' disk-drive, double sided double density, 880k formatted storage capacity - label: OS value: AmigaDOS (1.0/1.1/1.2/1.3) + WorkBench (GUI) - label: POWER SUPPLY value: 120V, 90 Watts, 60Hz, 1A nominal - label: PRICE value: £1700 (UK, 1985) - $1500 (USA, 1986) - £1285 (UK, Nov. 1986, 512K RAM) tabs: - photos - adverts - hardware - connectors - emulators - links - videos forum_thread: 47 photos: - title: AMIGA 1000 subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga1000_2.jpg - title: REAR subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga1000_rear.jpg - title: BOX subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/photos/commodore_amiga-1000_box.jpg adverts: - title: AMIGA POSTERS subtitle: '' text: '' image: /media/museum/pubs/commodore_amiga_1000_posters.jpg hardware: - title: EXTERNAL 3.5'' DISK DRIVE subtitle: Model 1010 text: |- The Amiga 1010 was introduced with the original Amiga 1000 as a second drive option. It contained a Matsushita drive mechanism and a pass-through port allowing the user to chain other drives or floppy port peripherals. Type : 3.5" Floppy Disk\ Media : Double Density\ Capacity : 880K per disk\ Interface: Amiga "Floppy" bus image: /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga1000_1010-fdd.jpg - title: 256K RAM EXPANSION subtitle: '' text: This expansion plugs into the front panel of the Amiga 1000 and gives a total of 512k RAM to the system. image: /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga1000_256k-ram-module.jpg - title: MICROBIOTICS RAM EXPANSION subtitle: '' text: Microbiotics sidecar 2 MB memory expansion with pass-through SCSI connector. image: /media/museum/hardware/commodore_amiga1000_microbioticsramexp_s1.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 connectors: - title: 'CUSTOM CHIPS #1' subtitle: '' text: Complete system (top) and Agnus chip. Agnus is an advanced address generator. It also manages all DMA (Direct Memory Access) channels. image: /media/museum/connectors/commodore_amiga1000_customsystem_s1.jpg - title: 'CUSTOM CHIPS #2' subtitle: '' text: |- Paula's two main functions are sound and and the various I/O.\ Denise handles most of the video output. image: /media/museum/connectors/commodore_amiga1000_customdenise_s1.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-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 - /museum/commodore-amiga-500-plus - /museum/commodore-amiga-600 - /museum/commodore-amiga-600hd - /museum/commodore-cdtv oc_id: 28 source: url: https://web.archive.org/web/20230629193156/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=28 date: '2023-06-29' --- The inventor of the Amiga 1000 was **Jay Miner**, who created the [Atari 800](/museum/atari-400/) many years before. He wanted to make the most powerful computer ever, then he joined a small Californian company called Amiga. He used the principle of the three coprocessors (again) to help the main processor. At the beginning, the Amiga had only 64 kilobytes of RAM! The original "Amiga" called the Lorraine was meant to be a game machine with some computer capabilities. Atari initially invested the money in the Amiga Corp. to do the R&D on the Amiga computer line. Naturally, when the design was finished, Amiga Corp. gave Atari the choice to purchase the technology. Atari passed in favor of their own project. Amiga Corp. then offered the technology to Commodore, Inc., who were quite pleased to purchase it, seeing that their own 16-bit computer was so far from reaching the shelf.\ After the loss of a major legal battle for control of the Amiga chip set design, Atari launched the [ST](/museum/atari-520-st-st-stm/) series (Sixteen-Thirty-two) as a competitor for the upcoming Amiga. The operating system (AmigaDOS) was done by MetaComCo, a British company who specialized in the 68000 processor (they also made languages for the [Sinclair QL](/museum/sinclair-ql-quantum-leap/)). It is a fully multitasking system which looks like UNIX with a graphical user interface.\ It was the very first personal computer with great graphics and sound capabilities with a GUI environment.\ The Amiga BASIC was written by Microsoft (like most other versions of BASIC), but the first models were shipped with a non-Microsoft BASIC called ABasiC. The Amiga 1000 was to lose popularity one year later with the creation of its two main successors: the [Amiga 500](/museum/commodore-amiga-500/) and the [Amiga 2000](/museum/commodore-amiga-2000/). There were two versions of the Amiga 1000. The first one sold only in the USA, had a NTSC display and no EHB video mode. Later versions would have this built in. The second one had a PAL display, the enhanced video modes (EHB) and was built in Germany. The official name for the A1000 was the Commodore Amiga. It was only when the A2000 was launched that they officially began to refer to the machine by its model number.