cagordon@watnot.UUCP (03/31/87)
Here is some info on the new Amiga 500 which may be of interest of someone. It was taken from QuantumLink: SUBJ: Amiga 500 Press Release FROM: RBAKER 03/25/87 S#: 508643 New Commodore Amiga 500 Affordably priced for the home Amiga's acclaimed Graphics, music and video at a low cost The Commodore Amiga 500, exhibited for the first time at the Hanover Fair in West Germany in March, provides the graphics and sound capabilities of Commodore's current Amiga 1000, plus additional memory, at a significantly lower cost. According to Nigel Shepherd, general manager, Commodore North America, Commodore's goal was to create "the ultimate home computer," a computer that fully utilizes the Amiga's outstanding technology -- including advanced graphics and video, four channel sound, built-in speech and multitasking -- but is priced for the home. "Thanks to increased production efficiences and refinements in design, we have achieved that goal," Mr. Shepherd said. "The result is a computer that maintains the performance of the Amiga 1000 at about half the cost. The Amiga 500 is a highly sophisticated home computer that outperforms all other machines in its price range." FEATURES The Amiga 500 has a one-piece design that integrates the keyboard, central processing unit and 3.5" disk drive into a single unit. It has 512KB of memory standard, expandable to one megabyte internally using Commodore's A501 RAM expansion cartridge. The A501 expander also includes a battery- backed real-time clock. Memory is capable of being expanded up to nine megabytes externally. It is being introduced simultaneously with Commodore's new Amiga 2000 computer, an open-architecture machine with optional IBM-PC compatibility aimed at high-powered business users. Both the Amiga 500 and the Amiga 200 share the following features: * Motorola 68000 CPU operating at 7.14 MHz * 4096 color graphics driven by high speed custom graphics hardware * 4 channel left/right sound generation and built-in speech * compatible with the current Amiga 1000 version 1.2 system software * ROM resident V1.2 Kickstart/kernal * Parallel and serial pots using industry standard connectors * new 94-key beyboard with separate numeric keypad, ten function keys, inverted-T cursor pad and larger Enter and Shift keys * AmigaDOS, Workbench (the window-oriented user interface), two-button mouse and AmigaBASIC from Microsoft Corp. included in the package. The Amiga 500 will be available in the first half of 1987 for a suggested retail price of $649. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chris Gordon UUCP: {abunchasystems}!watmath!watnot!cagordon U of Waterloo, Ont CompuServe: 72030,104 Q-Link: ChrisG22 CSNET: cagordon%watnot@Waterloo.CSNET ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When you care enough to send the very best, send MONEY!