16 Jul
2016
16 Jul
'16
8:54 a.m.
Peter Corlett <abuse at cabal.org.uk> writes:
Commodore UK also released the A1500 which was an
A2000 without hard
disk but with an extra floppy drive, i.e. the same spec as a typical
A500 gaming rig. It apparently flew off the shelves, although I'm not
sure why given it cost somewhat more than the A500 equivalent.
Looking at the prices in Amiga Shopper issue 1 (May 1991), the A1500 was
a reasonable deal *if* you wanted a machine with expansion
slots. Evesham Micros were selling the A1500 bundle with a 1084 monitor
for ?949, when the A500 "Screen Gems" bundle with 1MB and an extra drive
-- but no monitor -- was ?419. Add the ?239 for a Philips monitor and
?199 for a Checkmate A1500 expansion box (or ?350 for a Bodega Bay), and
you were in nearly the same ballpark with a much less tidy system.
It was definitely worth a look if what you really wanted was an A2000
with a hard disk, since you could buy a non-Commodore hard disk
controller, many of which were faster and/or cheaper than the A2090.
That said, though, the A1500 definitely wasn't flying off the shelves
anything like as fast as the A500. I saw lots of A500s in the early 90s
in Kent, but only one A1500 (with an accelerator, KCS PC emulator, and
various other expansions, which eventually meant it remained in use long
after the rest of us had upgraded to A1200s).
Cheers,
--
Adam Sampson <ats at offog.org> <http://offog.org/>