32 years ago today: the Commodore Amiga 500 debut at CES #VintageComputing #RetroComputing #Commodore #Amiga

Amiga 500

Via @IL0VEthe80s32 years ago today, in 1987, the Commodore Amiga 500 was first revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show, in Las Vegas.

The original model was part of a wave of 16 and 32 bit computers that featured 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphics and audio over 8-bit systems. This wave included the Atari ST—released the same year—Apple’s Macintosh, and later the Apple IIGS. Based on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, the Amiga differed from its contemporaries through the inclusion of custom hardware to accelerate graphics and sound, including sprites and a blitter, and a pre-emptive multitasking operating system called AmigaOS.

Although early Commodore advertisements attempt to cast the computer as an all-purpose business machine, especially when outfitted with the Amiga Sidecar PC compatibility add-on, the Amiga was most commercially successful as a home computer, with a wide range of games and creative software.

Do you have fond memories of this unique, trailblazing computer? Post your thoughts in the comments below.


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1 Comment

  1. Still got mine from when I was a kid. A lot of the disks still work even. I always forget how loud that disk drive is and how long it took for things to load, but it still works. That is a great machine.

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