---- Amiga 600 ----
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Launched:  1992

Released in the summer of 1992 as a replacement to the A500+, the A600 weighed just 6lbs (the smallest Classic Amiga ever!). This 14 deep x 9.5" wide x 3" high system was aimed at the console market, adding very little to the operating system or the Amiga as a whole. It only had 1mb of chip memory, ECS and Workbench 2.05. It shrunk the basic system by doing away with the numeric keypad leaving just 78 keys, and became the nearest the Amiga has to a laptop. It did, however introduce the PCMCIA slot at the side of machine allowing the use of ram cards; CD drives and disks that fitted into this port. The fatter Agnus chip as standard also allowed the addressing of up to 2Mb Chip ram as standard, with the maximum ram expansion (with PCMCIA) being 6Mb.

This was yet another attempt by Commodore to aim the Amiga towards the console market by selling it as a games machine with a keyboard, which didn't work. The numeric keypad was sorely missed by most Amigans who would not touch it with a barge pole. Whatever the reasons Commodore chose to produce it, it was the last of the 16 bit Amigas and was the closest we have had to a laptop yet. In fact, it forms the basis of the DIY laptop known as Suzanne.

* Processor *

68000 @ 7 MHz
68020 @ 25 MHz
68030 @ 33-40 MHz

All A600s has a 68000 @ 7.14 MHz soldered to its motherboard.
The A600's expansion slots are designed to not support processor card upgrades at all. Even its 68000 is not socketed which would allow the easy connection of a processor board. The only solution is to place the board on top of the 68000 with a mirrored CPU socket.

* Memory *

up to 2 MB Chip RAM
up to 32 MB Fast RAM on processor boards
up to 4 MB Fast RAM on PCMCIA cards

The A600 has 1 MB Chip RAM on its motherboard which can be expanded to 2 MB via the trapdoor slot.
Fast RAM can be added either via the PCMCIA slot or via using a processor board.

* Custom chips* 

Fat Agnus - ECS display controller
Super Denise - ECS graphics coprocessor
Paula - audio and I/O controller
Gayle - system address decoder and IDE controller
Kickstart ROMs

The A600's ECS chip set supports the following screen modes:
Low High Super
PAL, non-interlaced
PAL, interlaced
NTSC, non-interlaced
NTSC, interlaced
320×256
320×512
320×200
320×400
640×256
640×512
640×200
640×400
1280×256
1280×512
1280×200
1280×400
50 Hz, 15.75 kHz
50 Hz, 15.75 kHz
60 Hz, 15.75 kHz
60 Hz, 15.75 kHz
Productivity
Super72
640×480 - 640×960
400×300 - 800×600
50 Hz, 31.5 kHz
72 Hz, 24 kHz
Low resolution screen modes offer up to 32 colours from a palette of 4096, 64 in EHB mode or 4096 in HAM mode. High resolution screen modes offer 16 colours from 4096, super-high resolution and productivity modes offer 4 colours from a palette of 64.
4 channel stereo 8 bit audio output with frequencies up to 28 kHz when using screen modes with 15 kHz, or up to 56 kHz when using screen modes with higher horizontal frequency.
All A600s shipped with Kickstart 2.05 ROMs.

* Expansion slots *

1× trapdoor expansion slot
1× PCMCIA Type II slot

The 40 pin trapdoor expansion slot is not compatible with the one in the A500. It can be used for Chip RAM expansion only.
The 68 pin PCMCIA slot accepts industry standard peripherals if the suitable driver software is present.

* Interfaces *

1× serial DB25 male, RS232
1× parallel DB25 female, Centronics
1× video DB23 male, analog RGB
1× composite video, RCA jack
1× RF modulated video, RCA jack
2× mouse/game DB9 male
2× stereo audio, RCA jack
1× external floppy DB23 female
1× internal floppy 34 pin header
1× internal IDE 44 pin header

Unlike the A500, the composite video output is coloured and the RF modulator is internal.
The floppy drive controller supports up to four devices - one attached to the internal floppy header and three connected to the external floppy port. Both double and high density disk drives are supported. A 880 kB double density floppy disk drive is built into the A600's compact case.
The built in IDE controller supports two IDE devices connected simultaneously, although there is only one internal drive bay for a 2.5" hard disk drive. Only mode PIO 0 is supported.

 

 ---- A600 CONFIGURATIONS ----

A600 P

Amiga 600 with Motorola 68000 Processor, internal 3.5 880K Floppy Drive, 1 MB RAM Integral Keyboard Release 2.X Operating System and Utilities 2-button Mouse.

A600HD

Amiga 600 with Motorola 68000 Processor, internal 3.5 880K Floppy Drive, 1 MB RAM Internal 40MB IDE Hard Drive Integral Keyboard Release 2.X Operating System and Utilities 2-button Mouse.