The A600, also known as the Amiga 600 (codenamed "June Bug" after a B-52's song), was an Amiga personal computer launched in March 1992. The final model of the original A500-esque line based around the Motorola 68000 processor, it was essentially a repackaged A500+, intended by manufacturer Commodore International to revitalise sales of the A500 line before the more sophisticated A1200 became available. In computing, Amiga is a range of home/personal computers primarily using the Motorola 68000 processor family, whose development started in 1982, initially as a game machine. ... In computing, Amiga is a range of home/personal computers primarily using the Motorola 68000 processor family, whose development started in 1982, initially as a game machine. ... 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday. ... The A500, also known as the Amiga 500, was the first low-end Commodore Amiga 16-bit multimedia home/personal computer model. ... The Motorola 68000 is a CISC microprocessor, the first member of a successful family of microprocessors from Motorola, which were all mostly software compatible. ... The Commodore Amiga 500 Plus, (A500+) is a enhanced version of the original Amiga 500. ... Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore International, a West Chester, Pennsylvania based electronics company who was a vital player in the personal computer field. ... The Amiga 1200, or A1200, was Commodore Internationals third-generation Amiga computer, aimed at the home market. ...

The notable thing about the A600 was its size. Lacking a numeric keypad, the A600 was only 14" long by 9.5" deep by 3" high and weighed approximately 6 pounds. This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

It came with the Kickstart/Workbench v2 AmigaOS and was generally more user-friendly and pleasant than its older brethren. It was very much aimed at the lower "consumer" end of the market, with the higher end being dominated by the A3000. AmigaOS is the default native operating system of the Amiga and AmigaOne personal computers. ...

According to Dave Haynie, the A600 "was supposed to be $50-$60 cheaper than the A500, but it came in at about that much more expensive than the A500." This is supported by the fact that the A600 was originally to have been numbered the A300, positioned as a budget version of the A500+. In the event, the cost led the machine to be marketed as a replacement for the A500+, requiring a change of number. Early models feature motherboards with the A300 designation. Dave Haynie Dave Haynie is the former Commodore International chief engineer on high end and advanced projects. ...

Processor and RAM

The A600 used the Motorola 68000 processor, running at 7.14 MHz (PAL) or 7.09 MHz (NTSC). The Motorola 68000 is a CISC microprocessor, the first member of a successful family of microprocessors from Motorola, which were all mostly software compatible. ... For other meanings of PAL see PAL (disambiguation). ... NTSC is the analog television system in use in Japan, United States and certain other places, mostly in the Americas (see map). ...

Standard RAM was 1 MB, though many people upgraded to the maximum of 2 MB "chip" RAM. An additional 4 MB of "fast" RAM could be added if the PCMCIA slot was employed. Even more "fast" RAM could be added with a processor upgrade. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... The PCMCIA is the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association, an industry trade association that creates standards for notebook computer peripheral devices. ...

The original design did not intend processor upgrades expansion as the 68000 was soldered to its motherboard. Despite this, unofficial processor upgrades included the Motorola 68010, 68020 (at up to 25 MHz), and 68030 (at up to 50 MHz) processors. Additionally, up to 32 MB of "fast" RAM could be added with some processor upgrades. The Motorola MC68010 processor is a 16/32-bit microprocessor from Motorola, made in the early 1980s. ... Motorola 68020 The Motorola 68020 is a microprocessor from Motorola. ... Motorola 68030 Processor from a Macintosh IIsi The Motorola 68030 is a 32-bit microprocessor in Motorolas 68000 family. ...

Graphics and sound

The Fat Agnus display chip drove screen modes varying from 320x200 pixels to 1280x512 pixels. Generally only 32 colours (or 64 "half tone") were available, although a memory-intensive 4096 colour "HAM" mode could be used at lower resolutions. At its highest resolutions, only 16 colours (4 bits per pixel) could be displayed at once. Agnus is the name of a range of custom chips that were featured in the Amiga home computer. ... Hold-and-Modify (more commonly known as HAM) is a screenmode of the Amiga micro computer. ...

Sound was 4 channel, 8-bit.

Peripherals and expansion

One 3.5" internal floppy drive was standard and a second could be added externally. Two DB9 ports for joysticks, mice, and lightpens were included, plus a standard 25-pin RS-232 serial port and 25-pin Centronics parallel port. The D-subminiature or D-sub is a common type of electrical connector used particularly in computers. ... For other uses, see Joystick (disambiguation). ... Operating a mechanical 1: Pulling the mouse turns the ball. ... A lightpen is a device similar to a touch screen, but is facilitated by use of a special light sensitive pen instead of the finger. ... RS-232 (also referred to as EIA RS-232C or V.24) is a standard for serial binary data interchange between a DTE (Data terminal equipment) and a DCE (Data communication equipment). ... A Centronics connector (Top) Centronics is a manufacturer of dot matrix computer printers formerly based in Hudson, New Hampshire. ... In computing, a parallel port is an interface from a computer system where data is transferred in or out in parallel, that is, on more than one wire. ...

Perhaps its most interesting connections were the PCMCIA Type II slot, and the internal IDE interface (for the astounding, and expensive 20 or 40 MB 2.5" disks). The model with the integral IDE drives was sold - for almost double the price of a standard A600 - as the "A600HD", with a white rather than cream outer casing, and was marketed as a more "scholarly" version of a home computer hitherto best known for its extensive range of games. Some games, however, were used to using every last system resource available to the standard Amiga so, for example, to run some games such as Civilization from the Hard disk a memory expansion to take the available RAM higher than the standard 1MB was required. ATA cables: 40 wire ribbon cable top, 80 wire ribbon cable bottom Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA), is a standard interface for connecting storage devices such as hard disks and CD-ROM drives inside personal computers. ...

Other add-ons included MIDI and samplers. Musical Instrument Digital Interface, or MIDI, is a system designed to transmit information between electronic musical instruments. ... A sampler can be any of the following things: In general, a sampler is any broadly representative cross-section of some collection; for instance, food products are sometimes packaged in samplers containing a variety of chocolates or beers. ...

Operating System

The Amiga 600 was shipped with AmigaOS 2.0, consisting of Workbench 2.0 and a Kickstart ROM which was either version 37.299, 37.300 or 37.350 (Commodore's internal version numbers). Paradoxically, all three ROMs were officially designated as version "2.05".

Early revisions of the Amiga 600 were shipped with Kickstart version 37.299, which oddly neither had support for the internal ATA controller, nor for the PCMCIA interface. Although it was possible to load the necessary drivers from a floppy disk, it wasn't possible to boot directly from ATA or PCMCIA devices. Only later models of the Amiga 600 and especially the Amiga 600HD were equipped with Kickstart 37.300 or 37.350, which both were able to utilize those devices at boot time. Due to some strange bugs of Kickstart 37.300, the maximum supported size of a hard drive was limited to 40 MB. Everything above this size was a game of chance. In contrast, version 37.350 was capable of supporting hard drives up to 4 GB.

Later it was possible to buy an updated Workbench 2.1. It featured a localization of the operating system in several languages and had a "CrossDOS" driver which provided read/write support for FAT (MS-DOS) formatted media like floppy disks or hard drives. It was a pure software update. Kickstart ROMs designated as 2.1 never existed. Workbench 2.1 ran on all Kickstart ROMs of the 2.0x family.

Bundled software

Originally the computer came bundled with the popular game Lemmings and the sophisticated-for-the-time Electronic Arts graphics package Deluxe Paint 3; later, it came bundled with a series of more up-to-date games, including Zool and Pinball Dreams. If you are looking for the warm-blooded rodent, view Lemming. ... Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) is a leading video game developer and publisher. ... Deluxe Paint in MS-DOS. Spanish translation Deluxe Paint (DPaint) is a bitmap graphics editor created by Dan Silva for Electronic Arts (EA). ... Zool is a British computer game originally produced for the Amiga by Gremlin Graphics as a rival to Sonic the Hedgehog. ... Pinball Dreams is an Commodore Amiga game from 1992 developed by Digital Illusions CE. Title screen (Amiga) It spawned two sequels, Pinball Fantasies and Pinball Illusions. ...

External links

• A600 history page at amiga.emugaming.com
• The Extreme A600 Upgrade Page
• Amiga-Classics
• A600 specifications and motherboard photos
• More A600 specifications including processor and RAM upgrades