Talk:Amiga 500

Challenge the "Open Architecture" line

I believe this article references another article (on Tom's Hardware) that is incorrect. I have tried changing it many times but have been warned that I am not allowed to change something with a reference. Even though I believe the reference is wrong. It was suggested that I challenge the reference. I'm not quite sure how to do that so I am trying here.

The line I would like to change is:

While not the first computer to have an open architecture, the Amiga is considered due to its expandability as one of the early examples.

While I do believe the Amiga has an "open architecture", I don't believe it was "one of the first" computers to have that feature or an "early example".

The reference to Tom's Hardware is here:

https://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/history-of-computers,4518-31.html

Towards the bottom of the article, the author states:

Amiga was one of the first computers with an open architecture. It had two expansion slots, one on the side and one on the bottom

My issue is that I don't believe it was "one of the first". I thought it was widely known that the Apple 1, Apple II and the IBM 5150 were designed around an open architecture and they were released to the general public many years before the first Amiga was released. I believe the Amiga 1000 was released in late 1986. Whereas the Apple 1 & II were released late 1976. 10 years is not "close enough" in my opinion. Especially in the computer industry. If someone claimed the Amiga was "one of the first" computers to support color then that claim would quickly be rejected.

Here are a couple references to the IBM 5150 and the Apple computers talking about their open architecture. I believe these references are more accurate.

Apple 1 ("single peripheral slot")

https://apple2history.org/history/ah02/

Apple II ("It became one of the most important and unique features of the Apple II, and a significant part of its open design")

https://apple2history.org/history/ah03/

IBM 5150 (several references to open design of the 5150).

https://www.filfre.net/2012/05/the-ibm-pc-part-1/

What I would like to happen is the reference to the Tom's Hardware article be removed. I have even contacted the original author to see if he could correct his article. But I received no response. The reference should be removed and the line supporting it as well. A more generic term like "The Amiga was designed around an open architecture" would be much more accurate. I've tried changing it to this several times but my edits keep getting removed.

Please let me know if there is a better way to challenge this reference. Or, if you think I'm wrong. I just feel that the Amiga was many great things...but "one of the first" with an open architecture is not.

cbmeeks 13:00, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

cbmeeks

Untitled

Mmmmm, very fond memories of my Amiga 500. Nice work. -- LukeyBoy

• Support renaming this article as Amiga 500 in the interest of uniformity. Related articles, such as Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000, are not abbreviated or concatenated. Can't sleep, clown will eat me 18:38, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support — Pixel8 12:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)
• Support - Assuming I'm allowed to say anything in the matter, I say rename it. Fred26 15:52, 5 March 2006 (UTC) :)
• Support I also suggest to rename this article as Amiga 500 in the interest of uniformity. All the related articles, such as Amiga 500+, Amiga 600, Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000, are listed this way. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Garvanit (talk • contribs).
• Support strongly. The Amiga 500 is simply not referred to as "the A500" anywhere I've ever seen. Look at the incoming links: the majority link to the Amiga 500 redirect. Rename A500 to Amiga 500 asap. Haakon 20:57, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Move completed. Naconkantari e|t||c|m 21:03, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, Naconkantari. Haakon 21:05, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

A500 release date

Does anyone have any (US based) articles from March to July 1987 about the A500? I have looked through the google groups archive from Jan to July '87, but it doesn't make any specific mention of a release date. The impression I get from the archive is around June. —Pixel8 14:42, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Odd

It looks like a PC owner wrote the summary. Amigas have had an interrupt system called "IRQs". This is IBM PC and compatibles terminology. Likewise, why mention that there's no Port-mapped I/O? As this is purely an Intel/Zilog phenomenon, why say it? It would be like saying there was no segmented memory or 640KB memory limit - these things are purely IBM PC topics and the fact they're not on other computers is indicative of the other computers not being IBM PCs. Should I say that the Amiga 500 doesn't contain pork because it's not a pork sausage?

PC-users may be limited in their view of computer architecture :-) Electron9 (talk) 23:37, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

A600/A1200 and PC/Macs

In Release section, "neither the A1200 nor the A600 replicated the commercial success of its predecessor as, by this time, the market was definitively shifting from the home computer platforms of the past to commodity Wintel PCs and the new "low-cost" Macintosh Classic, LC and IIsi models", I added tag . I dont dispute its message but wording is historically inaccurate. In 1992-1995 MS-DOS was still prominent on PCs (so, why Wintel PC?) and I dont recall Macs were competing against Amiga 500 at all since Amiga (500) was mostly a gaming machine. And what about consoles? Amiga and Amiga 500 was losing the market but better sources could be used. Xorxos (talk) 21:18, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Rock Lobster??

This article claims that it is commonly known as "Rock Lobster" in the lead, but it doesn't mention it anywhere in the body or cite the claim. Can anyone cite the claim or shall I delete it? Chrisrus (talk) 17:59, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

"B52/ROCK LOBSTER" is literally printed on the board. Zac67 (talk) 19:54, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Maybe so, but this picture you've provided doesn't seem to show it. Chrisrus (talk) 22:14, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Erm - have you looked at the bottom right edge of the board just below the FDD? Zac67 (talk) 06:22, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I see it now. And this picture proves that it "is commonly known as" that? Chrisrus (talk) 06:27, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

The article just states "also known as" which the picture doesn't exactly prove but printing on the board pretty much suggests the code name's no secret. Zac67 (talk) 20:04, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

That may be the codename and it clearly printed on the board. But has anyone, ever, referred to any Amiga as the "Rock Lobster". As in, "Hey Frank! Let's go to my house and play Shadow of the Beast on my new Rock Lobster!" cbmeeks cbmeeks 13:16, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

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Price of the A500

You mentioned the price of the A500 being in the region of £499, i'm pretty sure it was a lot less than that, i bought my first A500 in 87 and i'm certain i only paid £199, £499 would have been well out of my price range, i also bought a second one in 89 and i know for sure i only paid £99.99 for it then. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.66.82.95 (talk) 07:08, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

In 1987 it may have dropped to £199 at some point (but that seems lower than I'd expect, or is supported by the article which has a BYTE magazine stating the A500 was $649[1] in 1987) - but when launched it was £499. Here is a link to a launch advert that states ""Incredibly only £499.99 including VAT" Chaheel Riens (talk) 12:17, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

Maximum RAM

"0.5 MB of ChipRAM in the early Amiga 500, 1 MB in the late ones and 2MB, if BigFatAgnus is installed. 8 MB of FastRAM. 1.5 MB of "Trapdoor" SlowRAM. This is a sum of 10 MB in the early Amiga 500 and 10.5 in the late ones and 11.5 in those who have a BigFatAgnus."

Highly unlikely. SlowRAM is a kind of ChipRAM that just can't be used by the chipset. You can't have 2 MB Chip and 1.5 Slow at the same time. We'll need a good source for that claim above. --Zac67 (talk) 19:05, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

First, Slow RAM is not "some kind of Chip RAM", it is actually Fast RAM, as it can be only accessed by the CPU, but it is very slow, so it is called Slow RAM. But that is only applies if it's attached via the A500 trapdoor. Theoretically it is possible for RAM and CPU cards to map real Fast RAM to that address space.

Second, you must have misunderstood something, nobody stated, that Slow RAM can be used by the chipset. Same applies for the Z2 Fast RAM. This is about the maximum amount of RAM and not the maximum amount of Chip RAM. The maximum Chip RAM is 0.5 MB in Agnus Amigas, 1 MB in Fat Agnus and 2 MB in Big Fat Agnus or Alice. Also, the Chip RAM's address space starts from 0x00000000, the Fast RAM starts from 0x00200000 and the "Slow RAM" starts from 0x00C00000, all of these RAM-s can be present at the same time.

As for source, here is a very detailed address space map for all Amigas: http://oscomp.hu/depot/amiga_memory_map.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.236.31.191 (talk) 08:41, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Now, there's the misunderstanding: Slow RAM is controlled by Agnus and lives on the chip bus, making it slower to the CPU than Fast RAM that's living on the CPU bus. Slow RAM is created by connecting the CPU's A23 to Agnus's A19 (at JP2), moving the memory from $080000 to $C00000 (with the help of Gary and the _EXRAM signal). The move doesn't change Agnus access to that RAM ("a kind of Chip RAM") but causes the OS to treat the memory as non-Chipmem, since older Agnus versions don't enable Denise et al to actually address that RAM. So, since $C00000 memory precludes the use of real Chipmem, you can't have both at the same time - without further modifications that is. Yes, you can do some clever remapping using a Gary adapter, but you can never have more than 2.3 Chipmem/Slowmem in total. The current text is telling us that 2 MB Chip and 1.5 MB Slow are possible simultaneously. --Zac67 (talk) 11:37, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

Okay, i see the problem now; i did not know about this Agnus remapping, thanks for pointing out. Then it should be "0.5 MB of ChipRAM in the early Amiga 500, 1 MB in the late ones and 2MB, if BigFatAgnus is installed. 8 MB of FastRAM and a further 1.5 MB of Fast RAM mapped into the address space of the "Trapdoor" Slow RAM. This is a sum of 10 MB in the early Amiga 500 and 10.5 in the late ones and 11.5 in those who have a BigFatAgnus."

BTW, this interval of 0x00C00000-0x00D7FFFF is a reserved area in all Amigas, except the A4000 (Chipregs' shadow), so this 1.5 MB can be added for all Amigas (save for the A4000), can't it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.143.4.35 (talk) 15:53, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so we don't do original research here. There are sources for having either 512 KiB Chipmem plus 1.8 MiB Slowmem or 1 MiB Chip or 2 MiB Chip (plus 8 MiB Zorro Fastmem, of course). For everything else we'd require a reliable source. Many years back, I tried to rework a 512+1.8M board into a 1M+1M expansion and I failed. I don't say it's impossible but it might. Anyway, without a good source, claims for 11.5 Megs or so will need to be removed again. (In theory, you could override Gary's address decoder and stick Fast RAM in every unused space, but I think the article should stick to what has actually been done - properly sourced, of course.) --Zac67 (talk) 16:47, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

In these forumtopics (http://forum.amiga.org/index.php?topic=70580.0, http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=101165) it is stated, that the ACA500 maps it's RAM to 0x00C00000. I have an ACA500. I've booted it and checked it, it's true, here is the photo: http://oscomp.hu/epicz/misc/ACA500_C0_FASTRAM.jpg (Don't mind the time, my A500+'s clock has forgot time again, i really need to replace the battery again...) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.143.4.35 (talk) 17:32, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

An accelerator is something different completely – that I didn't think of, actually. It overrides Gary's decoder and enables Fastmem just anywhere. However, plugging in an '020 or '030 breaks the 24-bit limit – ages ago I sold the Derringer that supported 32 MiB Fast. Anyway, this was about Chipmem and (trapdoor) Slowmem, wasn't it? I think we should note the design limit in the infobox (1 MiB Chip/Slow + 8 MiB Fast) and add a footnote with the more complicated variants. --Zac67 (talk) 20:54, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

The ACA500 has a 14 MHz 68EC000 on it (http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/ACA500), there was no 020 or 030 plugged in, this is even visible on the screen (see top left: CPU: 68000), so the 24-bit limit was not breaken. If it would, then the maximum RAM would be roughly almost 2 GB (2040+ MB) in all Amigas, even in the A500 and A1000. This was about the maximum of all kind of RAM in the 24-bit realm. (Altough i admit, that it would be worth to mention, that Amigas with 32-bit address bus can use almost 2 GB RAM. Actually, this applies to A3000s and A4000s by default. Should we mention this?) Also, i don't know if the ACA500 overrides anything, you might be right in that, but still, you can map RAM to 0x00C00000 on a plain RAM card.

Why the 1 MB for Chip RAM? All BigFatAgnus Amiga 500s (500+ or upgraded) can have 2 MB of Chip RAM; mine has it too, you can see this on the posted image (right below the CPU), that is not because of the ACA500, my dad "piggybacked" another 1 MB on the top of the other 1 MB nearly 30 years ago. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.143.4.35 (talk) 21:47, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

I wasn't only talking about '020 or '030, that was just a reference on how things really get complicated – an accelerator can easily have its own decoding logic and do whatever it wants (ie. add Fast RAM other than Z2, like the $C0 Fastmem on the ACA). A 32-bit accelerator can practically add up to 32 MiB (largest I know of) and theoretically up to 2 GiB. --Zac67 (talk) 06:20, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

The M-Tec Viper/E-Matrix 530 (http://amiga.resource.cx/exp/ematrix530) can put 128 MB of RAM into an A500, but if you have an ACA500(+), then you can plug an 1200 turbo card into it, with also up to 128 MB of RAM. (Tried it with Blizzard 1230 and 1260 too and worked. Now i use it with an 1230 with 64 MB of RAM, because i have only one 1260 and one 128 MB module and that is inside the A1200...)

Anyway, we are diverting; accelerator or not, it's still only 24-bit and we can do it with a plain RAM card too. Question is, how we sum this up and if we should mention the 32-bit extension and the 2 GB upper limit? (I think the A3000 and A4000 articles should mention this, as the 32-bit address bus is default there.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.143.5.130 (talk) 07:59, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Yes. As I was proposing above, we should put the by-design maximum memory (without hardware modifications) in the infobox – .5 MiB Chipmem + .5 MiB Slowmem + 8 MiB Fastmem = 9 MiB – and refer to a special Memory section. That section details all the other variants: trapdoor expansion with 1.8 MiB Slowmem, replace Agnus for 1 MB or 2 MB Chip, accelerators with up to 128(?) MiB for 32-bit. (btw: "Fat" Agnus is ambiguous as that was used by C= engineers to refer to the A500's PLCC version already, in contrast to the A1000's "Slim" DIP version.) --Zac67 (talk) 09:59, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

How about this text as for the infobox's maximum RAM: "9 MB with no hardware modification, 11.5 MB with 24-bit address bus and 138 MB with 32-bit address bus"? (By combining a Viper 530 (128 MB SIMM) and for example a RocTec RocHard sidecar HDD/RAM addon (i have that actually and it maps it's 8 MB to 0x00200000) and a Big Fat Agnus, you can have 136 MB of Fast RAM and 2 MB of Chip RAM.) Or should we write the theoretical limit (2043.5 MB) for total RAM with 32-bit address bus? How about: "9 MB with no hardware modification or upgrades, (nearly) 2 GB otherwise"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.143.5.130 (talk) 14:54, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Imho, that's too long for the infobox. "9 MiB without hardware modifications" (or maybe "9 to 138 MiB, depending on upgrades"?) and a link to a more detailed section should do. We need the detailed section anyway as there's no way to cram all the necessary details into the infobox in a somewhat intelligible way. I'll whip up a Memory section tonight and then we can go on from there. --Zac67 (talk) 15:34, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

"9 to 138 MiB, depending on upgrades" sounds perfect. I've changed it. As for the memory, i think there should be a main article of Amiga memory map which all model's articles can refer to and only discuss the model-specific stuff. For the "global" memory map, i think we can use this doc: http://oscomp.hu/depot/amiga_memory_map.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.143.5.130 (talk) 20:45, 28 September 2020 (UTC)

Nice. Yes, maybe we should start a general article about Amiga memory, as it is currently rather poorly covered. After all, the only A500 specialty is the trapdoor expansion. --Zac67 (talk) 03:42, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

This article about Chip RAM is containing a section for Fast RAM. This makes no sense. Either the article should be renamed to Amiga memory, or the Fast RAM section should go into another article. IMHO.

Yes, I don't like it either. I'm considering an "Amiga memory architecture" article – or even a broader "Amiga architecture" one? Actually, that should go into a new section in the general Amiga article. --Zac67 (talk) 16:32, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

The entire Amiga architecture is way too vast to pour it into one article. Maybe it would make sense to create such an article, but only with some sumups of and links to the main articles. For example to the "Amiga memory architecture" article. What do you think? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.21.161.163 (talk) 18:14, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Logo

I thought that the Amiga 500 had a logo, so I searched the Web and found not one, but several logos used on the various computer packages and front page of A500 manuals. I figured that only one of them had to be the standard logo, and finding it was actually difficult. However, I settled on this logo, with the italicized AMIGA in all caps and the '5' slightly larger than the "00". The reason I think that this is the most commonly used logo for the model is not only due to its apparent ubiquity, but also because its look and feel is clearly shared by the logo of the future Amiga 500 Mini. That is just my guess, and I would appreciate any help on determining the logo. FreeMediaKid$ 12:31, 23 November 2021 (UTC)