Amiga 600 - Vintage Hardware

Commodore's 16-bit Amigas: The Amiga 600

Date Range: 1992 - 1993
Release Price:

This quote from a former Managing Director of Commodore UK says it all about the A600, "[The A600 was a] complete and utter screw up."

A4000 Product Specs:
- 16 bit 68000 cpu
- 7.09/7.16Mhz
- 1280 x 512 video
- 80 x 32 text
- 4096 colours
- 8-bit stereo
- 1MB Chip RAM
- 3.5 880KB floppy
- Pre-emptive Multitasking

Commodore-Amiga 600

In 1992, Commodore released the Amiga 600.

The design scope of the Amiga 600 was to revitalise the sales of the Amiga 500 line and reduce costs. However, to get the unit to sell, Commodore stopped production of the Amiga 500. It was the first time Commodore killed off a successful product that still had strong sales.

The A600 was 14" long by 9.5" deep by 3" and weighed approximately 6 pounds. It came with AmigaOS 2.0 and was generally considered more user-friendly than its older brethren. It was aimed at the consumer market with the higher end being dominated by the A3000.

The main reason for releasing the A600 was to reduce costs, however, by the time Commodore had finished redesigning the unit, it came in at about US$50 more expensive than the A500. The A600 was also designed as a replacement for the Commodore 64.
David Pleasance, Managing Director of Commodore UK, described the A600 as a "complete and utter screw-up". This is once again another reason why Commodore did not make it past 1994.