© 1997-2006
Gareth Knight
All Rights reserved
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New Star A5A00 Amiga-Clone
Developer: New Star
Launch date: 1996 |
As one of the bidders for the Amiga during the auction of 1995
(where Escom eventually won), it came as some surprise to discover
they had licensed the Amiga chipset from Escom. Their Amiga Clone
was released in Taiwan a year later (1996) at a price point of less
than $200. When the news article in ComputerWorld's Inside Lines
section it caused quite a stir in the Amiga world. An Amiga for
just $200? It is well below the standard price for a new Amiga and
almost cuts below the A600's clearance cost after the A1200 was
released. As part of the deal, New Star are licensed to sell Amiga
clones in Taiwan only, so the machine was never released in the UK
or USA. The secret to this low price point lies in the New Star's
rather modest specifications:
- Processor: 68000
- Custom Chipset: ECS
- Drives: CD-ROM and probably Floppy Disk
- Operating System: Kickstart 3.1
The specifications would look more interesting if the year of
release had been 1987 rather than 1996. However, the focus does not
seem to be on how fast the machine is but its ability to perform
certain tasks. As we move towards the 21st century, the A500 is
still useful for certain things- light word processing, playing
games, etc. Rather than creating a web computer, New Star have gone
for a basic no-frills Home Computer. A task-specific computer that
was aimed at a similar market to the Amstrad PCW in the UK- useful
for word processing but not much else.
Read the Press Release
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