RetroManCave I actually remember those cases:) But as I had an A1200 by then I never purchased a case.

...I have an A2000 in the closet. Never heard of Checkmate *or* the A1500, though. Edit: After watching, this question makes more sense. What I have is an actual A2000, not one of the rebranded ones.

The UK market was much more vibrant than the US, I remember the myriad of accessories like the Action Replay carts, accelerators, etc were mostly coming from the UK. Hey mate, check out the Check Mate! he-he

I have an Amiga 2000 and 1200 still working. The 2000 is as good as new and the 1200 though used intensively still looks ok since it almost had no direct sunlight. There is a little damage on the printed letters because they are pushed so much and I had to replace three springs. I used the 2000 for about 2 months when I bought it but my father which I did not know bought a 2500 for me for Christmas 2 months later. The 2000 went back into its box and I used the 2500 till it died about one and a half year ago. I as thus took the 2000 back out of its box and transferred all that was still working from the 2500. 3.x Kickstart, 8 Mb fast memory, Bridgeboard, IDE and SATA (all Zorro II) plus a 40 Gb SATA SSD for data and a IDE interface to Compact Flash 4 Gb for the Workbench (now running 3.1 but I can change on the fly to 2.0, 2.1, 3.0 by just changing the CF), Optical CD-drive and ZIP 100. I also replaced the 68000 of the 2000 for the 68020 from the 2500. The 1200 has 8 Mb of fast ram, 4 Gb HD, Gotek and its wonderful PCMCIA slot and as thus internet. Saving for the Vampire 2+ in my Amiga 2000 and a network card.

Nice setup mate, I've never had a 1200 only a 500, 1000, and 2000, maybe I'll get a a 1200 soon till they all disappear or the price goes through the roof.

I wish you would make these again. I have a 1500plus, but I always lusted after one of these.

Would love to see some pics of that setup

So would I

I wont be long guys! Not had much time for projects of late, refurbished the keyboard recently but that was it. I was going to ask, did all of the prebuilt-checkmates have a green sticker on the keyboards spacebar?

@@RetroJay1974 no the green sticker came on the amiga 500 keyboard...I've owned 2 that have had it (only owned 3)

Years later now, but I would like to see this custom machine too!

Tramiel kept things in order. Once he went they only had accidental successes. The A600 and the Plus 4 were two of their biggest mistakes. I sometimes wonder if the Amiga would have been better if Atari had put it out?

Its such a shame as the A600 was actually my first Amiga and its small form factor was great after coming from the Atari ST which was massive. Cheap computer desks were never big enough to fit both the computer and mouse until the A600 came along.

@@alexatkin ... Not really the ST's fault though is it... you just need to get a bigger desk ;-) The 500 and 1200 were just as large if not slightly bigger. And they had pizza-box-and-separate-slimline-keyboard models available if you really wanted one, same as with the Amiga. What they didn't do (other than in the ST Book) was copy Commodore's mistake in doing away with the numeric pad... which quite a lot of software, including some games, kind of relied on. Compact PC keyboards and even Amiga's own A1000 keyboard show you could reduce the width whilst still retaining the numpad. Though really they weren't specificially intended to even go on desks, the all-in-one form factor is largely for convenience (not having to faff with a separate keyboard - and, with all but the earliest STs, power supply) when using them in a similar way to a console... on the floor, or bodged in a corner somewhere that you've got a portable TV plugged in, and the keyboard is largely an irrelevance if you're playing arcade type games which predominantly use just the joysticks... the fact that home computer games quickly started becoming more sophisticated than their arcade roots, especially on the 16-bits, and incorporated more complex control than just direction + fire (even those which started life on consoles generally needed 2 or 3 discrete action buttons), is probably the only reason the 600 even had a keyboard at all, otherwise it's a pretty decent attempt at shrinking the Amiga hardware down to the Master System-ish console form factor that it always should have been available in from the start, but we never really got, other than the hopelessly late CDTV... We didn't bother with a specific computer workstation with our ST anyway, just used a regular table, loads of room. Had to make sure to get something fairly sizeable when moving up to a multimedia PC of course, thanks to how massive the CDROM-revolution 486 cases were. The box alone probably wouldn't fit on a computer desk barely large enough to fit an A600 and a mouse... :-) .... nowadays it's just laptops placed wherever (mine is currently hooked up to the TV by HDMI, balancing precariously on the hifi stack on the far side of the room, whilst I type this with a wireless keyboard resting on a tiny coffee table), and when the old computers come out to play... they go on the floor, as the designers intended :D

@@6581punk Well, somehow an opinion persists, that they were the major a-holes, despite being a cool guys on a personal level. And despite stories like this here.

@@przemekkobel4874 Depends on the individual. Some people like weak management that lets you fail. Others like fair management that pushes you hard and holds you to your word. Somewhere between the two is a good balance. Jack would expect results, if you didn't deliver you had broken your promise.

The meeting should've been an offer to buyout Checkmate and hire them to design a proper mid level Amiga model. Instead Commodore slashed their profits on a stripped down 2000 to drive Checkmate out of business.

This interview explains a lot - kzfaq.info/get/bejne/jJmVmZuj1NTeaXk.html it was total mismanagement by the head guy, no investment in the right areas and wasting a fortune on fruitless projects, they setup an entire PC hardware department at one stage when they could have just bough all the parts off the shelf from Japan!

@@greggv8 - yeah, the Checkmate team obviously knew what they were doing and had a good eye for design (the 1500 case looked much better than the 2000, and if you didn't need space for a million full-size expansion cards, why not go slimline?), as well as a supply line for the cases and internal conversion parts already. It could have been easily converted to an official Commodore model with their input, using 500-level hardware and the adaptors or coming up with a new low-end motherboard that incorporated some of those tweaks (perhaps having just one Zorro slot and a riser card for it that offered maybe three expansion slots, vs the A2000's seven/eight), cutting out the middle man by not bothering to make the wedge cases at all or bundle the licensed games, using regular A1000/2000 keyboards, etc. Perhaps employing them as consultants to help out the main designers. So on and so forth. But, no... crush, kill, destroy! Atari were about as bad, though. So many missed chances, abandoned projects, hare-brained ideas etc on both sides, without even the full benefit of Jack's business experience running Commodore as he'd had enough of being involved in the detailed operations and preferred to take a back seat as a passive owner, handing the actual reins of the company over to his son, who by all accounts was far less competent (thus, if they'd got hold of the Amiga, it probably would have had to have been _without_ the console crash, company split / part purchase by Warner, and the takeover of the computer division by JT). Though they did at least make a reasonable job of offering their own IBM-compatibles... just missed an open goal in not making them compatible with the ST line's peripherals, which were generally cheaper than the PC equivalents, and if those plus the adaptors were sold on the open market could have been a nice little sideline. I think they _did_ do the "buy parts off the shelf from Japan" thing that RetroCable mentions, in fact, and added just enough of their own parts to make the machines unique and somewhat attractive at the price...

@@gwenynorisu6883 Apple did the same with Unitron in Brazil. Rather than seeing their brilliance and bringing the company into the fold to absorb their skill to make Apple a better company - Apple chose to destroy Unitron and hand the Brazilian computer market to PC clones. Until 1992 Brazil didn't allow imports of computers. That's why the biggest sellers had been locally manufactured apple ][ clones. Apple's management was mad about that and blinded themselves to the opportunity to convert Unitron to an authorized Macintosh factory and development partner.

Brilliant anecdote.

I saw that movie. The Amiga was all over graphics on numerous low budget SF productions in the 80's and 90's

And even used on some high budget StarTrek animations too (so I've read).

@@BillAnt and Babylon 5, Terminator 2 ..

​@@STriderFIN77 < Saw it in the news that recently they found a bunch of artwork by Andy Warhol made on an Amiga up for auction as an NFT's. Who would have thought.

Checkmate Digital ltd was closed down over 20 years ago, but I resurrected the Checkmate name just for the memories and I was a director of that company.

Maybe Stephen can chime in here as to the colours that will be available?

I just asked him and he says yes! Cream will be an option

Sorry for delay, to be accurate it is to be RAL1013 or Oyster white or black :-)

I like it in it's current black and white design, it is modern and vintage at the same time.

Maybe even give it a slightly yellowing patina at manufacturing, so we don't have to wait a decade .. tsk tsk

Thanks for sharing your story with us Stephen, looking forward to hearing David's tales from inside Commodore and pleased to hear the 1500 will get a mention.

When can I get an A1500+ case? Will there be an external A1200 keyboard case? This is the most exciting thing in years:)

Ten51on # keyboard case only for A500 for now.

That's a shame. Never really understood the attraction of the A500 since the A1200 is so much better in every way. I worked my way up to an A4000T, then sold everything a few years ago to buy a house. Big mistake. Bought an A1200 last year and it's great for all I use it for (OctaMED Soundstudio only these days). But if there was some way to put the A1200 in a cool desktop case and have the MIDI ports built in, that would tempt me back into the custom cases. Good luck with everything!! :D

Problem is the A500 keyboard has the electronics and so we can make a connecting cable

With an Avatar like yours I'm not surprised by this comment :D

Thanks :-)

A3000 would have been even better if the DSP planned for it was added. I've got a prototype A3000T as well, it has A3500 written on the PCB. I used it as a main machine for years, I had to rewire the serial port breakout cable as it was incorrectly wired.

6581punk I thought the dsp was for the unreleased A3000+? Still it did end up in the Quadra Macs! I think the DSP would have been useful for a music workstation imagine an Amiga 3000+ with Cubase that DSP, built in midi and AGA with amber flicker fixer and decent SCSI.... could have been a good workstation. Could definitely fill the niche the Atari ST occupied.

My memory is hazy, I always thought the A3000 was originally destined to have 16-bit sound and a DSP. The DSP stuff was for the 3000+. Never knew it had the AGA stuff either.

Yeah, I thought he probably didn't do himself any favours there...

Cheers Phill

gamesessions Hope you managed to remove the vicious varta battery inside the A1500 of yours! Cheers, M

Mark D I haven’t seen or touched it in 20 years, though I did pop up in the loft about 10 years ago to make sure it was still there. Perhaps I should go on a rescue mission soon and see if corrosion has indeed occurred.

Yes get that varta snipped out at the very least... fingers crossed

The best: you get the A1500 saved and working after minor or major reparations. The worst: you still have a beautiful system well boxed, who never will get powered on again; however, an A2000 mobo is always available on the market for a future replacement. Just give it a try if you can! Fingers crossed 🤞🏻

Thank you

The story of the Amiga personal computer is a warning, just because you have superior technology doesn't mean you can "bollocks up" your business decisions and still be a success.

So unfortunate... All wasted due to bad business decisions.

Much respects to Stephen ... sadly the moral of the story is (and this goes for pretty much any other business), "don't mess with the big boys, cuz they will crush you like a cockroach", which of course will only stifle innovation. They could have nicely co-existed, unfortunately Commodore didn't see it that way. But the chess game wasn't over yet, and Checkmate may have had the last laugh. :)

Oh, yeah, and then some; with the IBM PC being an open hardware system, and hardware companies making use of it when users and video game programmers realized it's potential; the only shot the Atari ST and Commodore Amiga had was to become an open hardware system themselves. One little company isn't going to out compete, every other hardware company on the planet combined; it's just not gonna happen. Combine that with the different culture on the PC of constantly upgrading your hardware to play the latest games that weren't designed with weaker systems in mind, but with the intent of breaking the more powerful systems down and making them cry; you're just not going to last long. They would have needed to become more of a software/OS developer with maybe a main system release themselves, but leave the rest up to the competition and make them pay for your OS. Similar to the route Apple went, only make the hardware far more open. No doubt the ST and Amiga would have migrated to the x86 processors, because I don't think Motorola would allow for free competition with 68000 clone systems the way 90x x86 processor competition rapidly pushed onward, so the CPUs wouldn't be able to compete without shifting to the x86. And what a world we would live in; if there was genuine competition on the OS market.

Thanks! Yes I love his tracks, they really do add a great layer to any video

The A2500 by CBM was simply a factory A2000 with a factory 68020 or 68030 accelorator card in the first slot. The HDD may have been mounted on the rear of this card just like it would have been on the back of the A2091 card in a plain A2000HD (that last was the name of the A2000 in Australia, as here there was a plain A2000 model without a HDD).

Thanks Kim

No this is not at all "questionable". You need to understand the asynchronous nature of the RAM-interface back than and the way the 030 calls the FPU - and that the FPU usually needs many cycles to produce a result... And the memory-bus is of course 32-bit on the turbo card (FastRAM) - only ChipRAM is still 16-bit (and occupied by the custom chips half of the time...)

Cybergorf, I like your comment. Thumbs up. :) Although I do still think the FPU to CPU ratio can be questioned. Like I said, the cost for is an issue where some might prefer to spend less on an FPU and more on a CPU (or maybe better RAM at some point). Look at the video and you can see it mentions networking multuple machines (and users were sometimes using a business environment or were using gaming). I agree that there are instances in which it would work well. I'm really just saying back in the day for some users, that the scenarios in which the FPU would be used like that would be questionable for their usages, for one reason because some people would want the CPU to exceed the FPU because of the price one is paying (in Britain anyway). Considering the software base at the time (especially 2D gamers who sometimes play 3D and otherwise only dabble a little in FPU programs like Graph software or 3D landscapes). So the question at the time might be _"Why spend money on FPU when it could go on something else like CPU or RAM etc?"_ My comment is not limited to the mega-midget racer, so do not misunderstand it, if that is what it sounded like. That said, it is possible (well theorectically depending on the amiga) to be having a (PGA) 030 CPU ranging from 16Mhz, 20MHz to 50MHz in that and an FPU ranging from 20MHz to 50MHz FPU. I think people would start to question ratios at some point. But sure a 33MHz CPU to 50MHz FPU is not that extreme. The megamidget racer btw did not support DMA access to its 32bit memory. Also It's memory configuration required software and was not supporting autoconfig (although you could choose ZIPs DRAM, or DIPS DRAM). Do remember that a person might have looked at the static RAM as an option (512k or 1meg or meg) instead of the 8Meg DRAM. They may have simply opted for keeping their a500 RAM they had already. Thye might only want RAM for remapping the kickstart ROM. Or they might go for a590 RAM later. A small thing to not about the video is the mentoin it makes of the launch of the a3000. You could get the 16bit (memory) a3000 with a mere 16MHz to begin with (before they made them faster and also opened it up to 32bit). Questioning that ratio? It depends really. Buyer confidence has something to do with it. Chicken-and-egg software or hardware catch22's were an intertia potential amiga customers faced, especially if there were the type of people to expect some sort of "upgrade" to be possible in their future buying habits be that a upgrade accelerator card or an entire new amiga computer (which might not occur and they maybe go for IBM PC one day). They might worry about throwing old money after new. I think part of the problem a little later on back then was the fact that the 040 (which was year 1990 and after all the a1500 in the video mentions 1990 about 6minutes in) started becoming a hope and dream for many amiga users (and actually after a while it did end up in an amiga, such as the a4000, irrespective of FPU). The trouble with the inability to handle transcendentals without severe penalty is that it inclines people to expect a scenario of needing to know what their FPU is doing. Really a lot of people did not. They wouldn't always be aware that their FPU would be better at say processing an equation satisfied as a polynomial (in their 040). A cyclic redundancy check could use that, but would they care? Maybe, or maybe not. So people might wish to upgrade to an 040 eventually but fell they could not really on their existing 030 with FPU to run a software base that would not get the best out of the 040 (for its speed) when applying the same calculations (like say transcendentals in FFT - an example of which might be increasing the speed of an IO interface). Some people (a little more into their amiga hardware at the time) might worry about the heritance too. The efficiency of the types of calculation they are doing will be affected by how the multiplier tree uses the FPU. As it happens, they might actually discover for their purposes that having a top heavy FPU is great! And so they go for that fast FPU and small CPU combo. If they are comparing the work they are doing on a big endian versus little endian, then I think some people might try and find ways their niche application can overcome the multiplier tree issues if it is slow and inefficient. So they might simply want a better CPU. Or maybe multiple amigas instead. It does however become a bit of a cheat when FPGAs came to tie some acclerator cards together (array circuit architecture vs tree circuit architectures). So for example, in an a500, people are not going to have been using a video toaster, although I will concede that they may have anticipated upgrading to on in future in a a200 or the like (with toaster kit acclerators etc). It could be done now though with an FPGA. An a500 can be made to use a different 'space' for zorroIII, but it will run slower like old zorro. It is also worth considering that sometimes people would not have RAM on the (equivalent turbo) card at the time. They might make do with their existing 16bit RAM situation. I'm referring to accelerator cards in general and not limiting my above comment to merely the brands used in upgrades by Checkmate. My comment is about the specs of CPU and FPU in general on the amiga (especially a500 but not merley the a500). The Cartoon classics could be used and it could have a 2meg Amiga a500plus at the time with sluggish a 16bit situation for the RAM, and yet one might make do with that and sling a CPU and maybe FPU in it. Good comment by you btw. I'm simply explaining why some might find the combinations questionable merely for _"each to their own"._ You make a good point btw: The scenarios you example have a point and the polynomial is a good example of how a FPU could (as you say) need many cycles to produce a result, especially because it has more than one exponent, (even if it could have the same mantissa). Actually, in the mid 90's the heritance of PowerPC (from 680x0) really had to look at the IEEE for array vs tree multiplier architectures for the pertaining topologies, pertaining to the FPU. I should also add, I'm not bashing the 040 either. Sure I know later some cards allowed for the maths library to be patched. However, even just as it is, the 040 with its stifled FPU, I've grown to like it (although I'm still ambivolent some days about if a I "love" the 040). I think the 040 without any FPU is a hidden wonder because it forces people to think about the other goodies it offers such as fancy IEEE (e.g. for parallel port etc., if done right). There are still examples whereby the custom chips would not necessarily be using the chip RAM as heavily most of the time though, if you think about it (and if it is the only RAM anyway). And an example could be for a person transferring data over an IO whereby it is compressed (and maybe subject to checksum) or even simply bit twiddled out of the IO to wherever it was going. Mind you'd they probably benefit from what you suggest with the faster FPU. But then again, if the money can be spent on a faster CPU instead, a more efficent implementation of the CPU for that (with FPU) might be achieved. We have both said (or hinted) something similar in the part where the FPU would want cache friendly routines. I mean, even with 32bit RAM, back then it was sluggish RAM and you'd a want cache friendly routines (if you had the luxury of having the code for your needs written that way). A faster FPU would love that. I that is where we are mostly on the same page. We aren't really disagreeing if you think about it. As an side with buyer confidence some amigans were really just megadrive users who may have even merely got an a500 (or a500plus) on account of the fact their mate had one, and they may have only dabbled with the notion of an acclerator upgrade in the way a person might have a 32x in their sega. And yet they may have also consider the outcome they maybe they would have become one of those people who simply did not use computers after they flung out their megadrive or a500. This was (as you would presumably know) back in the day when you could actually survive by doing all the essentials in life on paper or with a typewriter and postage stamps. So what money went on upgrades was affected by all these things. As an aside, I think I have spotted a small "error" in the video although I'd be delighted to discover I am incorrect and that it is not an error. The video implies the "Cartoon classics" pack was used for the a1500checkmate. The thing is though that the a1500checkmate presumably ended being made (aside form the DIY upgrades) by august 1990. However the a500plus was 1991. That said you can still put the DIY-checkmate upgrade in it later. The video refers to "cartoon capers" but I think he means "cartoon classics" since that was a500plus. You could still mod a a500 for the extra RAM though. The "Cartoon Capers" was a Yogi Bear game which was on system like, for example the AtariST, I think.

Thanks for watching

Cheers mate 🍺

You're welcome and thanks for watching Pixels!

Thank you 😁 what you're seeing is 3D printed prototypes. Check the website for better images, and a cream/biege model is confirmed by Stephen which I agree will be my choice too

No. Its closer to A2000 expandability. Its not like A1200 to A4000 (or A600 to A3000) real advancement in CPU and slots, it just added more floppy and HDD controllers but onboard mem slots and Zorro autoconfig slots made it be expandable more in CPU, GFX choices. And maybe few more ports, but larger case for HDDs and cards made it PRO.

I wish they were cheaper as well :-)

I'll be following it closely. Best way to get updates is to follow the Facebook group in the video description but I'm sure I'll make some noise when I get hold of one if the Kickstarter works out for Stephen

The A500 has a side expansion slot so you add expansions on the side of it. The board brings that expansion slot back inside the case, just like the original checkmate A1500 did. It's an optional extra.

There's more than just moving the expansion though as it appears to have a few sockets on it?

The board brings the external 86 pin slot inside and adds an A2000 Zorro 2 slot, plus it has a socket for the PC power supply (SFX) that fits inside.

That's exactly right. You can find out more here www.amigasystems.com

Thank you for the reply.

Horzuhammer A500 one but 1200 is much more complex for now but maybe soon.