A1000 Portable

The concept design has made two appearances in the pages of Amiga Format. The first was in the Amiga Format Annual 1993 (published Christmas 1992); the three page article described it as the Amiga of 1995. The second appearance came in the February 1993 edition of Amiga Format where it was dubbed the 'A1000 Portable'- a machine that could be launched during the fourth quarter of 1993. Even in the 21st century, the chances of an Amiga portable (based upon 'Classic' technology) being launched are slim. The two descriptions will be examined in order of their 'potential' launch.

Launch Date: 1993
The feature describes some of the difficulties in launching an Amiga laptop, highlighting the need to develop an internal power supply and mentioning regional issues that may arise as a result of the different power demands. The article suggests that the A1200 technology could be further refined to take advantage of the portable market. The floppy drive is replaced by a CD-ROM drive, citing Commodore's proclamation that an internal CD-ROM would cost the same as including a floppy drive.
The relative cost of the colour LCD screen is also highlighted, leading the author to conclude that, for the moment, this is a pipe dream. Despite this, Amiga Format predict a launch of Christmas 1993.

Launch Date: 1995
The second release date is a more reasonable prediction for the development of the Commodore-Amiga platform. The theoretical timeline takes into account Commodore's attempt to restructure their Amiga operation and develop technologies that were introduced during 1992 (such as Surface Mounted Technology and PCMCIA). In addition, there is a greater emphasis placed upon the home entertainment market as a whole, and the Amigas future role in this area. The floppy drive was notable by its absence, leaving CD-ROM as the standard means of distributing software. In retrospect the notion that CD-ROM will completely replace the floppy disk appear naive - there will always be a need for a cheap, standardised R/W medium.

A second notion that reflects the dated knowledge contained in the article, is the suggestion that the entire operating system (OS) could be distributed on ROM. The high cost of EPROM and increase in HD access speeds would make this unnecessary and impractical for an 1995 consumer machine. However, the notion that ROM upgrades could be made available on PCMCIA cards is interesting, allowing the novice user to easily upgrade their machine. At the time PCMCIA appeared to be the next big thing (TM) for multi-platform expansion. It was hoped that within a few years a range of PCMCIA devices would be available, ranging from modems to RAM expansion. The A1000 Portable would be able to take advantage of these devices, allowing the connection of four PCMCIA cards at once. While many of these devices have become available, the standard has not had the impact that many had predicted.

Additional system specifications described in the article are listed below:
 

View larger image of A1000 Portable (37.8k)
View left hand side of A1000 Portable - view of PCMCIA slots (10.5k)
View Back view of A1000 Portable (28.5k)

The machine described on this page is the product of speculation and the desires by various Amiga magazines on what would make the perfect Amiga. In other words, THEY ARE PURE FICTION. They reveal a great deal on the state of the market at the time and the perceived needs of the Amiga consumer.

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