The A2000, also known as the Commodore Amiga 2000, was released in 1986. Although aimed at the high-end market it was technically very similar to the A500, so similar in fact that the A2000B revision was outright based on the A500 design. What the A2000 had over the A500 was a bigger case with room for five Zorro II proprietary expansion slots, two 16-bit and two 8-bit ISA slots, a CPU upgrade slot, a video slot, and a battery-backed clock.

It should also be noted that, like the Amiga 1000 and unlike the Amiga 500, the A2000 came in a desktop case with a separate keyboard. The case was more PC-like than the A1000 - taller to accommodate the expansion cards and lacking the space beneath for the keyboard.

The A2000 was eventually succeeded by the Amiga 3000 in 1990.

Technical specifications

Model A (Revisions 3.0-4.0)/ B (Revisions 4.1-5.0) - 1986

• CPU: Motorola 68000 (7.16 MHz NTSC, 7.09 MHz PAL)
  • The CPU can be upgraded with CPU cards
• Chipset: OCS (Original Chipset)
  • Audio (Paula):
    • 4 voices / 2 channels (Stereo)
    • 8-bit resolution / 6-bit volume
    • 28 kHz sampling rate
    • 70 dB S/N Ratio
  • Video (Common resolutions):
    • 320×200/256 with 32 colors, 64 colors in Halfbrite or 4096 in HAM-6
    • 640×400/512i with 16 colors
  • Battery-backed clock
• Memory:
  • 256 KB ROM for Kickstart code.
  • 512 KB (Max) / (1 MB Max) of Chip RAM.
  • 512 KB Fast RAM in MMU slot (in some Model As only) / Soldered on motherboard
    • Practical limit of 8 MB total Fast RAM memory without the use of a CPU expansion card, due to the 24-bit address bus.
• Storage:
  • 3.5" DD Floppy drive, capacity 880 KB
  • SCSI Hard drive in A2000HD systems.
• Input/Output connections:
  • Composite TV out (Black & White, not present on Model A)
  • Analogue RGB video plug (Male DB23)
  • RCA audio plugs
  • 2 x Game/Joy/Mouse ports (Male DE9)
  • Keyboard port (5 pin DIN)
  • RS232 Serial port (Male DB25)
  • Centronics Parallel port (Female DB25)
  • Port for external floppy drive (Female DB23)
• Internal connectors:
  • 5 Zorro II slots (16-bit, AutoConfig)
  • 2 16-bit ISA slots (Inactive per default, only usable with a PC emulation bridgeboard or bus bridge installed)
  • 2 8-bit ISA slots (also inactive, some models could be fitted with extension edge connectors, upgrading these slots to 16 bits)
  • 1 32 Pin Internal floppy connector
  • 1 MMU / CPU Slot
  • 1 Genlock slot in Rev A models.
  • 1 video slot connector in model Bs for genlocks, flicker fixers, Video Toaster etc
• Casing:
  • 200-205 Watt switching power supply
  • 2 3.5" drive bays for 3.5" floppy drives or other peripherals
  • 1 5.25" drive bay for 5.25" floppy drive or other peripherals
• Software (Bundled):
  • AmigaOS 1.2 / 1.3 operation system.
  • Kickstart 1.2 / 1.3 (In ROM)
  • Voice synthesis library

An Amiga 2000 desktop video system. The CPU unit is to the right with the monitor sitting on a VCR.

Model C (Revisions 6.0-6.5) - 1991

Also known as the A2000+ it is for the most part identical to its forerunner.

• Chipset: OCS in Revisions 6.0-6.2, ECS (Enhanced Chip Set) in revisions 6.3-6.5
  • Video (New resolutions for ECS):
    • 640×480 with 4 colors (Productivity)
    • 800×600i with 2 colors (Super72)
• Memory:
  • 512 KB ROM for Kickstart code.
  • 1 MB of Chip RAM, (2 MB Max) with third party adaptors
• Software (Bundled):
  • AmigaOS 2.0 operation system. (Kickstart 2.0/Workbench 2.0)

Commodore UK sold a variant of the A2000, the A1500. The A1500 shipped with dual floppy drives, and 1MB of RAM as standard, along with the ECS chipset and Amiga OS 2.04. The A2500 was an A2000 sold with either an A2630 (with 25MHz 68030 and 2 or 4MB RAM) or A2620 (Motorola 68020 @ 14MHz) accelerator, A2091 SCSI controller and in some models an A2320 VGA card (flicker fixer).

See also

• Amiga models and variants

References

• Gareth Knight (2005). "Commodore Amiga 2000". Retrieved Feb. 18, 2006.

External links

• amigahistory.co.uk/a2000 ? History of the Amiga 2000.

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