db@cs.ed.ac.uk (Dave Berry) (10/03/90)
Someone mentioned the A1500 recently. Here's what I know about it, based on mentions in magazines and a phonecall to the makers. The A1500 is a box and keyboard unit for an Amiga A500. It lets you put the motherboard and disk in a metal box (e.g. under the monitor) and have a separate keyboard unit. It is manufactured by Checkmate Digital Ltd., not by Commodore. You can also get expansions for it. You can fit a Flicker-Fixer in the box, and you can get a kit to fit an A590. I think you can also fit a 4M RAM card, but maybe that's a normal A500 motherboard expansion card. Checkmate claim that their A590 kit will also fit other 3.5" hard drives, but say to check with them first. They will also sell you the keyboard unit separately, with 20% off the price of the full kit if you decide to upgrade later. They also make a rack version, which is primarily aimed at the music market. They have some extensions planned. They're working on a more stable attachment for fixing the A500 keyboard to the A1500 keyboard box (at the moment they use adhesive pads). They plan to provide space for a second floppy in the main unit, and to put the power supply there instead of in the keyboard. They're also working on a "top box" that will accept A2000 cards. The power supply unit is the normal A500 one. I don't know how many extensions can be run from the one power unit. Prices (from an advert in Amiga Format magazine): A1500 199 A1500 with A500 fitted and 12 months warranty: 520 A590 fitting kit: 59 Fitted Flicker Fixer: 345 (plus they sell usual peripherals). All prices in pounds sterling excluding VAT (15%) and carriage. I haven't seen the beast, so can't comment on its quality. Checkmate Digital Ltd., 80 Mildmay Park, London, N1 4PR. Tel. O71 923 0658 Fax. 071 254 1655 -- Dave Berry, LFCS, Edinburgh Uni. db%lfcs.ed.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk "Dumping 33546240 bytes to dev 0x70e0100, offset 124968. Don't cycle power ..."