Amiga 500
Amiga 500 Plus
Amiga 500 Plus
--------------

The **Amiga 500 Plus** (often **A500 Plus** or simply **A500\+**) is a revised version of the original Amiga 500 computer. The A500\+ featured minor changes to the motherboard to make it cheaper to produce than the original A500\. It was notable for introducing new versions of [Kickstart](/wiki/Kickstart_%28Amiga%29 "Kickstart (Amiga)") and [Workbench](/wiki/AmigaOS "AmigaOS"), and for some minor improvements in the custom chips, known as the [Enhanced Chip Set](/wiki/Enhanced_Chip_Set "Enhanced Chip Set") (or ECS).

Although officially introduced in 1992, some Amiga 500 units sold in late 1991 actually featured the revised motherboard used in the A500\+. Although the Amiga 500\+ was an improvement to the Amiga 500, it was minor. It was discontinued and replaced by the [Amiga 600](/wiki/Amiga_600 "Amiga 600") in summer 1992, making it the shortest\-lived Amiga model.

### Compatibility problems

Due to the new Kickstart v2\.04, quite a few popular games (such as *[Treasure Island Dizzy](/wiki/Treasure_Island_Dizzy "Treasure Island Dizzy")*, *[Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge](/wiki/Lotus_Esprit_Turbo_Challenge "Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge")*, and *[SWIV](/wiki/SWIV "SWIV")*) failed to work on the Amiga 500\+, and some people took them back to dealers demanding an original [Kickstart](/wiki/Kickstart_%28Amiga%29 "Kickstart (Amiga)") 1\.3 Amiga 500\. This problem was largely solved by third parties who produced Kickstart [ROM](/wiki/Read-only_memory "Read-only memory") switching boards, that could allow the Amiga 500\+ to be downgraded to Kickstart 1\.2 or 1\.3\. It also encouraged game developers to use better programming habits, which was important since Commodore already had plans for the introduction of the next\-generation [Amiga 1200](/wiki/Amiga_1200 "Amiga 1200") computer. A program, Relokick, was also released (and included with an issue of [CU Amiga](/wiki/CU_Amiga "CU Amiga")) which loaded a [Kickstart](/wiki/Kickstart_%28Amiga%29 "Kickstart (Amiga)") 1\.3 [ROM](/wiki/ROM "ROM") image into memory and booted the machine into Kickstart 1\.3, allowing most incompatible software to run (the software did take up 512 KB of system memory, meaning that some 1 MB only games would now fail for lack of available memory). In some cases, updated compatible versions of games were later released, such as budget versions of [Lotus 1](/wiki/Lotus_%28video_game_series%29 "Lotus (video game series)") and [SWIV](/wiki/SWIV "SWIV"), and an update to *[Bubble Bobble](/wiki/Bubble_Bobble "Bubble Bobble")*. [Double Dragon 2](/wiki/Double_Dragon_2 "Double Dragon 2") by Binary Design received an update for [ECS](/wiki/Amiga_Enhanced_Chip_Set "Amiga Enhanced Chip Set") machines with the "Amiga phase\-alternated linescan version 4\.01/ECS". This solved compatibility issues with the graphics which appeared garbled on ECS machines, and it also slashed the in\-game loading times from around 20 seconds to just over 6\.

### Technical specifications

* [Motorola 68000](/wiki/Motorola_68000 "Motorola 68000") [CPU](/wiki/Central_processing_unit "Central processing unit") running at  (PAL) /  (NTSC), like its predecessor
* 1 MB of [Chip RAM](/wiki/Chip_RAM "Chip RAM") (very early versions came with 512 [KB](/wiki/Kibibyte "Kibibyte"))
* Kickstart 2\.04 (v37\.175\)
* Workbench 37\.67 (release 2\.04\)
* Built\-in battery backed RTC (Real Time Clock)
* Full [ECS](/wiki/Enhanced_Chip_Set "Enhanced Chip Set") chipset including new version of the [Agnus](/wiki/MOS_Technology_Agnus "MOS Technology Agnus") chip and [Denise](/wiki/Original_Amiga_chipset%23Denise "Original Amiga chipset#Denise") chip

How does the Amiga 500 Plus differ from the original Amiga 500?