A2000
From Classicamiga
Contents |
Introduction to the A2000
The A2000, released in 1986, was the successor to the A1000. The A2000 was considered by many to be the "big brother" to the A500 and was a high end machine. Like other Amigas, it used the same custom chip design with 512KB CHIP RAM (later upgraded to 1MB CHIP RAM).
The case was much bigger than the A1000 and had 3 drive bays, one 5.25" and two 3.5" bays. Floppy drives, hard drives and sometimes CD-ROM drives were commonly installed into these bays by users who were upgrading the A2000
Expansion
The A2000 also featured 5 Zorro II expansion slot, 4 PC ISA slots and a special video slot for internal expansion. It was common for a hard drive controller or a PC emulator bridge board to be installed in to these Zorro slots. Later variations, such as the A2000HD came with expansion cards already occupying a slot or two. Commodore distributed either the A2090 or A2091 SCSI card with the HD models.
On top of this, all the other standard Amiga connectors existed, such as Serial, Parallel, RGB Video, Keyboard, Mouse, Joystick etc.
Variations
Amiga 2000A
The A2000A, often, and more commonly, referred to as the original A2000 was manufactured in Germany. It was based on the German A1000 design and had some limitations. It only had a thin Angus wich could only access 512KB of CHIP RAM. This model also had quite a few reliability issues.
Amiga 2000B
The A2000B (or B2000 as it was sometimes referred to in the UK), is a redesinged, cost-reduced version. These are said to be a lot more reliable.
Amiga 2000C
The A2000C, which was based on the ECS chipset, was considered the final model. The motherboard design is almost identical to the A2000B (a.k.a. B2000) but had ECS and Kickstart 2.04. This model was referred to as the A2000+ in the US.
Amiga 2000HD
The A2000HD was a B2000 model with an A2090 or A2091 SCSI card and a hard drive installed.
Amiga 2500
The A2500 was a redesigned version, which used technology that was planned for the A3000. This model was considered the best A2000 to get.
Amiga 1500
A UK only model. The A1500 had Kickstart 2.04, two floppy drives, but no hard drive or SCSI controller. This was considered a budget model of the A2000.
Specifications
| Released | 1986 |
|---|---|
| End of production | 1990 |
| CPU | 68000 |
| CPU speed | 7.0 MHz (PAL) 7.1 MHz (NTSC) |
| Chipset | OCS (Original Chipset) ECS (Enhanced Chipset) present in later models |
| RAM | 512kb CHIP RAM 1MB CHIP RAM in later models |
| Kickstart ROM | 1.3 2.04 |
| Workbench | 1.3 2.04 |
| Price | £2000 (UK, 1986) |
Further Reading
- A2000 Upgrade Options - Find out how to get the most out of an A2000.
