January 8, 1987 was a good day for the Commodore Amiga. It was the day the Amiga came into its own, when Commodore introduced the Amiga 500 and Amiga 2000 models at CES.
The Amiga’s initial promise
The original Amiga, rechristened the Amiga 1000, was a promising computer but it had an identity crisis. The first Amiga tried to be all things to all people and fell frustratingly short.
It was bigger than a typical home computer of 1985 but not big enough to qualify as a big box computer. It was stuck in the middle like the IBM PCjr, with similarly awkward options for expansion.
And the price was stuck in the middle too. It cost less than an Apple Macintosh, but the Atari ST seriously undercut it in price. And while it was less expensive than an IBM, there were less expensive IBM-compatible options available. The Tandy 1000 was a notable example.
Reasons for the Amiga 500 and Amiga 2000 introduction
Rather than try again to build one computer that could be everything to everyone, then-CEO Thomas Rattigan ordered two machines. The Amiga 500 was a wedge-shaped all-in one that looked like an Atari ST, and while it was still more expensive than an ST, the price was close enough that Commodore thought it could compete. The Amiga 2000 was a big-box professional computer, with room for three internal disk drives and a total of 9 expansion slots inside. While the Amiga 1000 showed promise as a workstation for professional video, the Amiga 2000 took those capabilities to another planet.
Both of them were enhanced over the original Amiga 1000, with Kickstart in ROM rather than having to be loaded from a floppy, but initially they both had the same OCS chipset. Later revisions have the upgraded ECS chipset, with more video modes and higher capacity for chip RAM.
Amiga 500
Of the two machines, the Amiga 500 is the more common today. It didn’t sell in Commodore 64-like numbers like Commodore hoped, but it was the best selling Amiga model by far. It became a very popular home computer, especially in the UK and in Europe. But in the late 80s, it didn’t exactly do badly in the United States either.
Its wedge design sported a 3.5-inch floppy drive in the side like an Atari 1040ST, Apple IIc, or Tandy 1000EX. It had 512K of RAM, expandable to 1 megabyte via a dedicated slot in a trapdoor in the underside of the machine. Further expansion was possible by plugging sidecars into the left-hand side.
On the A500, the Varta battery was optional. You didn’t get one unless you bought the 512K memory expansion. But since just about everyone did, most A500s still have a Varta risk.
Amiga 2000
The Amiga 2000 became legendary as the first big box Amiga. With the same Motorola 68000 inside running at 7.14 MHz as the other two models, it was underpowered. But it had an expansion slot dedicated to CPU upgrades, which Commodore and third parties took advantage of to make every generation of 68000 CPU available to the Amiga 2000 as an upgrade option.
The Amiga 2000 also had a video expansion slot that was capable of a number of things. But the most famous card to plug into that slot was Newtek’s original Video Toaster. At its $1,600 introductory price, the Video Toaster wasn’t cheap, but it could replace $10,000 worth of other equipment. The Video Toaster’s effects defined early 1990s video editing, to the point they became cliche. But every bit as much as the Mac redefined publishing, the Amiga 2000 redefined video.
Legacy
Both Amigas are prized collectibles today. Pro tip: Be sure to open up the case and get the Varta battery out if someone else didn’t do it already. In the Amiga 500, the battery is on the memory expansion in the trapdoor on the underside of the machine. On the 2000, the battery is at the front of the machine, under the drive cage, near the CPU.
We don’t know the exact sales figures, but based on data from Commodore’s annual reports, it’s possible to estimate the Amiga 500 and Amiga 2000 combined to outsell the Amiga 1000 nearly 10 to 1. The Amiga 1000 sold around a quarter million units, while the 500 and 2000 combined sold nearly 2.4 million. Commodore had a good year after these two machines came out, and both Mehdi Ali and Max Toy claim credit for it.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.
The launch of the A500 was clearly central to the Amiga’s success, but former journalist Jaz Rignall has posted some games sales charts on Bluesky which show the Atari ST was still the leading 16-bit platform in the UK (by some margin) in 1988. That’s an aspect of history which is often forgotten in contemporary accounts.
Commodore UK marketing chief David Pleasance deserves a lot of credit for turning the tables on the ST with his infamous bundle packs. But perhaps the release of the visually-stunning “Shadow of the Beast” in 1989 also had a lot to do with it. By the time I got my Amiga in 89/90 I remember the ST was generally seen as the poor relation.
Interestingly Commodore engineer Jeff Porter, the man behind the A500, denies its wedge case was inspired by the ST. He says it was instead derived from the C128. And the original Amiga development team in Los Gatos really didn’t like the idea of putting the Amiga in an all-in-one wedge unit.
how does the Amiga 500 or Amiga 2000 compare in say 1990 with a 386SX-33 or even 486sx-25 with standard VGA graphics and adlib or soundblaster sound card and Windows 3.0 GUI, including games ?
I’d imagine Office for Windows 3.0 would be better than anything Amiga or Atari has, though there’s also word and excel for Macintosh.
when did super VGA graphics and PC sound cards surpass the Amiga, and which Intel CPU was faster than Amiga CPU’s?
I’ve read that it was DOOM on a Pentium with its FPU that finally destroyed Amiga. certainly 3Dfx and 16 bit sound cards surpass Amiga graphics and sound, especially with 3d first person shooters that wiped out Amiga and Atari leaving only Macintosh
There’s no date we all woke up and PCs were better than Amigas. It was a gradual thing. An Amiga could give a 386SX PC with VGA and an Ad Lib a run for its money, and keep in mind this was 1985 technology fighting 1988 technology. A 486 with a 16-bit Soundblaster and Super VGA had enough power all around to out-muscle the pre-AGA Amigas, once there was software that took advantage of it. But the PC was relying a lot on that 486 processor, a mainstream Amiga was still running comparatively weaker CPUs, because it had so much coprocessing. I’ve written dozens of blog posts about what made the Amiga special, maybe you should read them. I’m not going to rehash it all here in a comment.
I’ve seen lots of interesting analyses on forums and by a few YouTubers which suggest an Amiga 1200 was still value for money compared to a 386 PC in 1993.
The problem was, by that stage the Amiga had clearly lost its edge in graphics and sound as a gaming platform even compared to a Super Nintendo, leave alone a relatively expensive 386 PC with SVGA and a Soundblaster.
I think 1991 was the critical year. By that stage, 256-colour VGA games were becoming the norm on PC. Impressive titles appeared on DOS in 1992 which never made it to the Amiga, like Ultima Underworld and X Wing. And what did Commodore do? Release the A600 – the same old ECS tech and 7Mhz processor. OK they got AGA out of the door later in the year, but it was too little too late.
when did pc first have gpu?
VGA came out in 1987 with the release of the IBM PS/2 series. That’s when PC graphics surpassed the Amiga in terms of onscreen colours and resolution. The Mac II also gained 256-colour graphics in 1988.
Of course VGA cards didn’t support hardware scrolling and sprites like the Amiga did, so the Amiga remained the better option for side-scrolling shoot ’em ups and platform games.
The early 90s began the transition to 3d graphics so the brute power of the 486 and Pentium mattered more than the Amiga’s support for 2d hardware sprites. John Carmack famously dismissed the Amiga’s potential for a port of Doom and it was game over for Commodore’s machine.