In 1985, Amiga 1000 was launched at the Lincoln Centre in New York, USA. But before this, Commodore used Amiga development systems between 1984 and 1985. They were made to attract companies to the Amiga. Now Eric K. Hill which is the man behind Amiga Love got one of the 6 Amiga development systems that were made!?… Which is totally awesome!
This video that Amiga Love made shows how this unique Amiga Development System looks like. Not only showing the case but also booting up for everyone to see what sort of Kickstart it uses and more.
Six Amiga Development Systems
The author behind the video talking about Zorro, which is his Amiga Development System that he is so lucky to have in his posession. The Development System is a very unique machine as most of them have been lost. Prior to this writing by Amiga Love it was believed that only 5 Development Systems remained around the world.
Larry Blakesley in Colorado shared this unknown Commodore history with Amiga Love for his article about it.
Not quite Amiga 1000 but almost
It seems like the Amiga Development System that he got is one of the last ones before Amiga 1000 got into production. You can clearly see the detailed differences in the video.
One of the most noticed differences is the Amiga checkmark that is missing on the keyboard, Amiga keyboard keys which are black and the casing itself doesn’t have any of the original Amiga makers signatures on it inside. The mem is 256KB RAM on his Zorro development system. On the Velvet Amiga development system there is only 128KB RAM which means that this one must be one of the last ones before Amiga 1000 came into production.
Lastly, it’s worth pointing out that this machine is fully functional, however the keyboard seems to be in need of a new controller chip. That being said I may just leave it as it is – time-capsuled, so to speak, the way I found it.
Its really great to see that Eric K. Hill which is behind Amiga Love having a Amiga development system that still works so well. It is a gem and do read his full experience with it here.
Source: Amiga Love
