Task: Purchase an Amiga 500 16-Bit Computer
Needed: Web browser
Time: 30-60 minutes
Introduction
The 8-bit era of Apples, Ataris, and Commodores ended in the mid-1980s with the release of user-friendly 16-bit computers including the Apple Macintosh and the Commodore Amiga lines that featured the Motorola 68000 processor that had a 16-bit data bus and a 32-bit instruction set. Central to these computers was the familiar point and click interface with windows and drop-down menus controlled by a mouse.
Amiga has an interesting history that started with a team of former engineers from Apple, Atari, and Commodore that came together to design one of the first next-generation computers with advanced graphics and sound. Commodore purchased Amiga in 1984 and launched the Amiga 1000 the following year. Amiga computers didn’t really take off until 1987 with the release of the less expensive Amiga 500.
I recently got my first Amiga, an Amiga 500, and love it. I think this is a great model to purchase for several reasons. First, I love the look as it reminds me of the Commodore 128 which is one of my favorite computers. Second, it is one of the first Amigas. Third, you can replace the 68000 CPU with an accelerator board, the PiStorm, powered by a Raspberry Pi that allows the 500 to emulate later 32-bit 68030 CPUs with greatly expanded memory and virtual hard drives from an SD card. I actually built my Amiga 500 from separate parts and will cover this build in another post.
Instructions
These are generally available on eBay for $300 to $500. Note that these were more popular in the UK and Europe and many for sale come from those countries.
I picked this one up (below) after this post from Bill Pelton on Facebook for $300.
Comments
The Amigas were more popular in the UK and Europe where they were very popular as gaming machines given the advanced graphics and sound. They were less popular in the U.S. where Americans opted for Nintendo and other consoles. This can make finding Amiga accessories challenging since many of the people selling items such as accelerators and parts are overseas.
The Amiga operating system is called Workbench and is still very popular today with continued community development. The firmware for the OS was called Kickstart and was included in a ROM on the motherboard.
I highly recommend a Gotek floppy drive emulator for booting virtual disk images and/or the PiStorm mentioned earlier that can have virtual hard drives for launching software. I will post about both of these SD-card software solution later. These are both relatively inexpensive solutions (< $100).