Amiga set for re-launch

The AmigaOne X1000 is said to resemble the Amiga 1000 - photo courtesy Kaiiv - but with a modern edge.

If you grew up in the era of 16-bit computers, a familiar name might surprise you with a comeback: there's a new Amiga in the offing.

Based around the original Amiga A1000, the AmigaOne X1000 is something Commodore could only have dreamed of making back in the early days: with a dual-core 1.8GHz PPC RISC processor backed up with an ATI Radeon R700 graphics processor and 2GB of RAM, the specifications leave its namesake standing, featuring as it did a 7.09MHz processor and an absolute maximum of 8MB of RAM.

The connectivity is something pretty impressive, too: a full ten USB 2.0 ports, 7.1 channel audio output, a gigabit Ethernet port - and a modern standards-compatible web browser to make use of it - PCI Express slots, SATA 2 connectors, various legacy connectors including a pair of RS232 serial ports and two PCI slots, as well as a Xorro slot.

The last - a modified PCI Express x8 slot - will require some explanation: designed to provide additional input output lines to the system bus, the Xorro slot can be equipped with an add-on programmable co-processor to keep multi-core software ticking along nicely. As standard, the Xorro slot will be populated with a programmable 500MHz board dubbed Xena.

The appearance of the AmigaOne X1000 - described by creator A-eon as a involving "customised case, keyboard, and mouse" and expected to take its cues from the Amiga 1000 - is currently being kept under wraps, with a grand unveiling due at the Vintage Computing Festival in Bletchley Park this June.

i hope it will be more powerful than the first Amiga 1000.
i had two amiga computers, when i was young. i began with the amiga 500, better than all the PC( principaly IBM PC) of this time.
after i bought an amiga 1200, the best of the product range, it was totally outdated in comparison of the PC of the same period.
But commodore made very sturby computers. mine stopped working in 2005, when i tried it, and it was during years in the attic, under dust.( and it'was only the hard drive which crashed)

Rebel O Conner wrote:i hope it will be more powerful than the first Amiga 1000.
i had two amiga computers, when i was young. i began with the amiga 500, better than all the PC( principaly IBM PC) of this time.
after i bought an amiga 1200, the best of the product range, it was totally outdated in comparison of the PC of the same period.
But commodore made very sturby computers. mine stopped working in 2005, when i tried it, and it was during years in the attic, under dust.( and it'was only the hard drive which crashed)

I agree I had an Amiga 600, my friend had an Amiga 500+ then a 1200.

They were very sturdy computers. As far as I know my Amiga 600 is still working, they didn't have hard drives and functioned as long as they were kept clean. I've kept mine in the attic too!

I have had many years of good memories from Commodore, its good to hear that the Amiga is going to make a come back.