The Amiga 500, also known as the A500 (or its code name 'Rock Lobster'), was the first "low-end" Commodore Amiga 16/32-bit multimedia home/personal computer. It was announced at the winter Consumer Electronics Show in January 1987, at the same time as the high-end Amiga 2000, and competed directly against the Atari 520ST. Before the A500 was shipped Commodore suggested that the list price of the A500 was 595.95 USD without a monitor. At delivery in 1987, Commodore announced that the Amiga 500 would carry a 699 USD list price.

The Amiga 500 represented a return to Commodore's roots, being sold in the same mass retail outlets as the Commodore 64 to which it was a spiritual successor, as opposed to the computer store-only Amiga 1000.

In October 1989, the A500 dropped its price from 499 GBP to 399 GBP and was bundled with the Batman Pack in the United Kingdom. This price drop helped Commodore to sell more than 1 million A500s in 1989. In late 1991, an enhanced model known as the A500 Plus replaced the standard A500

Release date 1987
Discontinued 1991
Media 880 kB floppy disks
Operating system AmigaOS v1.2~1.3
CPU Motorola 68000 @ 7.16 MHz (NTSC)
7.09 MHz (PAL)
Memory 512 kB (9.5 MB maximum)
Graphics 640 × 256, 6 bpp
Sound 4× 8-bit channels at max 28 kHz with 6-bit volume in stereo.
Predecessor Amiga 1000

This computer was used by film producer Roy Byrne and was very kindly donated by his wife Roberta and his daughter Jennifer Byrne.

Manufacturer: Commodore
Date: 1987

This exhibit has a reference ID of CH7800. Please quote this reference ID in any communication with the Centre for Computing History.