I have sixteen 500 (two CIB) and two 500plus (Cartoon Classics CIB) main units,
many 500 KB Memory Modules, many Power Adapters, eight Extra Disk Drives,
many Mice, five TV Modulators, two Scart Cable, Genlock, Vidi Amiga, Digi-View
MediaSation, CD-kit, auto mouse/joystick switch, Syncro express III, Commodore
1084s monitor, A520 mod and many joysticks.
type computer
country USA
year 1987 (500) / 1990 (500plus)
os kickstart 1.2 workbench 1.3 (500) / kickstart 2.04 workbench 1.3 (500plus)
cpu Motorola mc 68000
speed 7.14 MHz
ram 512 KB (500) / 1 MB (500plus)
rom 256 KB (500) / 512 KB(500plus)
graphic 320 x 256 (32) + many
colors 4096
sound 4 voice 8 bit pcm
disk 3,5″ (500, 500plus)
ports centronics, rs232, mouse, joystick, rgb, composite,audio, disk
The Commodore Amiga 500 and 500 Plus — The People’s Amiga
Released in 1987, the Commodore Amiga 500 was the machine that brought the Amiga’s extraordinary capabilities to the mass market. At £499 at launch — later falling significantly — it made the Amiga’s multitasking operating system, 4,096-colour graphics, four-channel stereo sound, and vast software library accessible to families who could not afford the professional A2000. The A500 became the best-selling Amiga model by a considerable margin, defining an entire generation’s experience of home computing in Europe. The A500 Plus, released in 1991, added 1 MB of chip RAM and the Enhanced Chip Set as standard, providing improved capabilities while maintaining complete software compatibility.
The Chipset — Original and Enhanced
The original A500 used the Original Chip Set (OCS) — Agnus, Denise, and Paula — providing 512 KB of chip RAM, display modes up to 640×400 pixels in interlaced mode, 32 colours in standard resolution or 4,096 in HAM mode, and four-channel 8-bit stereo audio. The A500 Plus introduced the Enhanced Chip Set (ECS) with Fat Agnus supporting 1 MB of chip RAM and higher display resolutions. Both machines used the 7.09 MHz (PAL) Motorola 68000 processor that had powered the platform from the beginning.
Gaming on the Amiga
The A500 produced some of the finest games of the 8/16-bit era. Shadow of the Beast, Turrican, Lemmings, Another World, Sensible Soccer, Speedball 2, Monkey Island, and hundreds of other titles exploited the Amiga’s custom chips to deliver experiences that PC and console alternatives could not match for years. The combination of smooth scrolling (enabled by the blitter and copper), high-quality sampled sound (enabled by Paula), and large colour palettes created a gaming platform that many users consider the finest of its era.
Multimedia Beyond Gaming
Beyond gaming, the A500 served as a music production tool for countless musicians — the four-channel Paula chip and tracker software like ProTracker and OctaMED enabled sophisticated music composition accessible to bedroom producers. Video titling, desktop publishing, programming, and early internet access via BBS were all practical A500 applications. The machine’s AmigaOS — with its preemptive multitasking, intuitive Workbench interface, and efficient memory management — was a genuinely sophisticated operating system that Windows would not match for years.