Amiga 1000
The Amiga 1000 is the first model in the popular Amiga computer series, which was released by Commodore. The Amiga 1000 was the one in the field of home computer the step from 8- bit to 16 - bit ( in the operating system itself even on 32- bit) in advancing significantly in 1985. It was for that time a revolution in the computer market, as its architecture offered many features that other systems should contain only much later. He was the first home computer system that dominated pre-emptive multitasking. The system architecture, application specific integrated circuits, and the graphic performance examined in the home computer field then none.
History
The Amiga 1000 was introduced on 23 July 1985 by Commodore in the U.S. and a little later brought there on the market - without the blue Commodore logo, because you did not want to damage the Amiga with the United States not as highly regarded Commodore Image ( in Germany almost a year later the situation differently ) was. The technique of the Amiga 1000 comes largely from Jay Miner, one of the founders of the company Amiga, further details of the eventful history see generally Amiga products.
Hosted by Frank Elstner preliminary presentation in Germany was held in Frankfurt am Main on 21 May 1986 at the Alte Oper for the press and selected visitors. As a presentation of the capabilities of the Amiga 1000, there were, among others, the animation of a dancer in 4096 colors and the famous Amiga ball to see and hear.
In Germany, the Amiga 1000 was officially launched at CeBIT 1986, came shortly thereafter in the stores. Indicator was the blue Commodore logo on the left chest. A special feature here was that the first Amiga 1000 still did not have German keyboard in Germany. They were supplied with a U.S. keyboard, you could re-labeling in the usual in Germany with an included sticker set. Later, the " 1000 " were also available with a German keyboard.
The Amiga 1000 was replaced by the Amiga 500 and the Amiga 2000.
Technology
The basic equipment of the Amiga 1000 consists of the actual computer, a 14-inch color monitor ( A1081, A1080 in the U.S.), the keyboard that can be pushed to save space under the computer ( keyboard garage), and a 2- button mouse.
He owns 256 kB Kickstart memory and 256 KB of memory that can be expanded with an incorporated under the front panel module to 512 kb, and an internal 3.5 " floppy disk drive with a capacity of 880 kB. CPU MC68000 from Motorola with 7, 14 MHz (NTSC version) or 7.09 MHz ( PAL version ) clocked. Especially the graphics and sound capabilities of the Amiga 1000 could convince thanks to a special custom chips of the chip designer Jay Miner at that time.
The interfaces of the Amiga 1000 were considered at that time as modern: parallel port like the Centronics standard RS-232 serial interface port for additional disk drives, keyboard port, audio ( stereo ) TV output, RGB video, 2 mouse or joystick ports, a proprietary 86 -pin DMA - capable bus port and the front port for the 256 -kB memory expansion. The parallel port is not conform to the parallel port of the PC, so that a direct connection of PC printers can lead to damage to the Amiga 1000. Only the Amiga 1000, the gender ( male / female ) of the parallel and serial ports is exactly opposite to that of PCs. With regard to the assignment of the interfaces, there are other Amiga models, some differences just in the live pins, so to connect external hardware such as a MIDI Interfaces special adapter may be necessary.
Furthermore, can be connected with which you synchronize your computer with a TV source, and so the computer image could interfere with the video image in order for example to create video displays on the RGB port genlock. Thus, the Amiga was used to its best time for video editing and professionally active. Additional cards are connected via the expansion slot on the right side, is provided by the operating system a so-called autoconfig protocol is available, which allows them to clean to latch into the system and to provide necessary drivers themselves available, without the user of the anything noticed.
The first available in Germany Amiga 1000 have internally a piggiback, so an additional circuit board that is plugged piggyback on the motherboard of the computer and the Kickstart RAM contains. Later models do not have such piggiback because the kickstart RAM was integrated into the motherboard. The Amiga 1000 in NTSC version has a system clock of 28.6 MHz, the CPU clock is 7.14 MHz. The PAL version has a system clock of 28.36 MHz and the CPU is clocked here with 7.09 MHz.
The circuit diagram of the Amiga 1000 fits in a readable size on a single A3 sheet.
The Amiga 1000 has the only computer in the Amiga series of a 256 kb additional reset fixed RAM area into which the kickstart loaded. This circumstance is due to the fact that at the time of production of the A1000 was still not ready to kickstart version available and therefore the kickstart was not yet available in a ROM. The first equipment was initially the kickstart version 0.9 and 1.0 in, shortly after market launch version 1.1. Therefore, this part of the operating system must be loaded after every power of a bootstrap disk, but remains even after a reset the computer ( in the so-called WOM = Write Once Memory). That fact also has advantages, such as exists a kickstart version that was patched with an antivirus program and can thus detect boot viruses.
The 32 -bit operating system AmigaOS is characterized by preemptive multitasking and window-oriented graphical user interface "Intuition " from. Furthermore, the operating system has an additional CLI Command Line Interface.
As a special feature the signatures of the key persons involved in the development are on the inside of the housing cover of the Amiga 1000 engraved - including a paw print of dog of the spiritual father of the Amiga, Jay Miner.
In response to the increasing market share through MS- DOS Commodore developed in Braunschweig for the Amiga 1000, the PC expansion Sidecar ( A1060 ) with its own processor and 8088 XT slots. This concept is to give the Amiga a PC followers, was systematically continued in subsequent Amiga models, so even the Amiga 4000 can still absorb so-called bridge cards. Whether this concept to the satisfaction of all Commodore employees and developers, was read in the part of the Amiga 2000 circuit diagram that includes the PC slot extension, as follows: " I wait in this place where the sun never shines. "