News, Views, Reviews, Photos

Amiga A600

ByKevin Simon

Jul 1, 2013

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a600_title

a600

Released in spring 1992 as a replacement to the A500+, the A600 weighed just 6lbs (the smallest Classic Amiga ever!). This 14 deep x 9.5″ wide x 3″ high system was aimed at the console market, adding very little to the operating system or the Amiga as a whole. It only had 1mb of chip memory, ECS and Workbench 2.05. It shrunk the basic system by doing away with the numeric keypad leaving just 78 keys, and became the nearest the Amiga has to a laptop. It did, however introduce the PCMCIA slot at the side of machine allowing the use of ram cards; CD drives and disks that fitted into this port. The fatter Agnus chip as standard also allowed the addressing of up to 2Mb Chip ram as standard, with the maximum ram expansion (with PCMCIA) being 6Mb.

This was yet another attempt by Commodore to aim the Amiga towards the console market by selling it as a games machine with a keyboard, which didn’t work. The numeric keypad was sorely missed by most Amigans who would not touch it with a barge pole. Whatever the reasons Commodore chose to produce it, it was the last of the 16 bit Amigas and was the closest we have had to a laptop yet. In fact, it forms the basis of the DIY laptop known as Suzanne.

spec1

CPU: Motorola (R) 68000, 16/32 bit 7.16 MHz NTSC Multi-Chip coprocessor system for DMA, Video, Graphics and Sound
Memory: Expandable to 2MB Chip RAM Maximum RAM expansion 6MB with PCMCIA 512KB ROM
Software: AmigaDOS (TM) Release 2 Multitasking Operating System in ROM Workbench 2.X and Utilities software
Keyboard: Integral 78 Key International
Mouse: Opto-mechanical 2-button design
Disk Drives: Built-in 3.5-inch 880 KB floppy disk External 3.5-inch floppy disk Internal IDE hard disk drive (optional)
Graphic modes: Colour palette of 4096 colours Selectable resolutions Supports full overscan
Video Output: RGB analogue 15 kHz Horizontal Scan Rate Colour Composite RF Modulated
Sound: Four channel stereo sound
Dimensions: 14″ deep x 9.5″ wide x 3 high
Weight: Approx. 6 lbs.
Power Requirements: Switching power supply 23 watts
External Interfaces:
Floppy Disk (DB23)
Mouse/Joystick/Lightpen (2 DB9)
Serial (RS-232, PC-compatible)
Parallel (Centronics — PC-compatible)
Video RGB analogue (DB23 15 kHz)
Colour Composite (RCA)
RF Modulator (RCA)
PCMCIA Card Slot
Internal Interfaces: Internal AT IDE connector

A600 CONFIGURATIONS:
A600 P

Amiga 600 with Motorola 68000 Processor, internal 3.5 880K Floppy Drive, 1 MB RAM Integral Keyboard Release 2.X Operating System and Utilities 2-button Mouse
A600HD

Amiga 600 with Motorola 68000 Processor, internal 3.5 880K Floppy Drive, 1 MB RAM Internal 40MB IDE Hard Drive Integral Keyboard Release 2.X Operating System and Utilities 2-button Mouse

 

By Kevin Simon

I run this blog & also self employed cleaning out fish ponds, but due to spinal problems not able to do as much, now started a youtube channel showing my converted Peugeot Partner micro camper also as interest in photography so now vlog about the trips and of course Lego figures out in the wild photos.

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