ScuzzBlog: Diaries June 2025
Entry 27th June 2025: Post 1: Amiga 1000 - A1060, Janus and Systems 1,2 and 3.
Amiga 1000 - A1060, Janus and Systems 1,2 and 3.
Yesterday I created my Workbench 1.0 'Extras' disk from a clutch
of files I discovered in one of my old repositories. The files
were part of a collection in support of the Amiga 1060 sidecar.
Included with the files were a mysterious group of three called
System1, System2 and System3. Today I thought I would have a look
at what these files were.
First up the Amiga 1060 was a product of Jay Miner's desire to
almost use the Amiga 1000 as an IMB clone. He explains in one
of his early interviews how he anticipated the Amiga to be able
to use a whole raft of commercial DOS based applications. As a
nod toward this Transformer was released with the Amiga 1000
and features in the presentation ceremony at release.
The Amiga 1060 is a computer in its own right and slots into the
Amiga 1000 side expansion. Once installed and up and running it
takes over the Amiga 1000 and works as a stand alone PC emulator.
The system requires a modified Workbench disk using the Janus
library. You have to selectively remove Amiga software from the
Workbench disk and add what ever you feel is necessary to use
the PC. Once in the system the DOS based 5.25" disks become the
key data source. It took me an age and a half to get a set of
working disks. I was helped during the process by a fellow Amigan
who I shared files with during a quite long process.
Whilst the process proved very educational I really have never
been a fan of DOS as I grew up and am grounded in CP/M which I
find way more intuitive and logical. After all DOS is just a
disk operating system and not a very good one at that. I sense
Jay Miner was very keen to lift the aspirations of the Amiga to
that of a commercial product for business, something that was lost
on Commodore who never really tried to break into business and
educational markets. Gamers pretty much slammed that door shut
and simply drove the Amiga down the C64 highway, albeit very
successfully.
Anyhoo back to the System files. Turns out they simply represented
a series of stages the author went through in creating his/her
Amiga 1060 custom disks. You can see the way the Workbench was
modified to incorporate PC friendly processes and set-up files.
When the Amiga boots the Amiga 1000 gives out a 'trill' phone
type noise indicating the sidecar has now absorbed the Amiga as
a 'Borg' style process degrading it into a DOS machine. Something
that many at Commodore never really wanted. It is interesting to
note that the originating team, including Jay Miner and the offices
of Amiga were disbanded soon after launch of the later models.
And so the commercial dream of emulating PCs for commercial gain
died at that instant. Sure, Commodore sold business software, but
to say the efforts were half hearted is an understatement when
you consider just what IBM and Apple were doing. The Amiga suffered
its whole life from the Jack Tramiel legacy of a computer for the
masses ... a home computer.
The Amiga 1060 Sidecar:
The Amiga Sidecar is an IBM PC XT system. The exception being only
the I/O devices and operations which are handled by the Amiga
computer.
Processor: Intel 8088 clocked at 4.77 MHz.
RAM: 256 kB (expandable to 512 kB + 80 kB Dual Bus Memory)
Graphics Emulation: Dependent on Amiga settings. (Can use real
8-bit ISA graphics cards).
Sound Emulation: Dependent on Amiga settings. (can use real
8-bit ISA sound cards).
One internal 5.25" drive bay normally fitted with a 360K 5.25"
floppy drive.
3 x 8-bit ISA slots for using real PC cards.
Amiga 1000 Expansion Bus connector (for Amiga connectivity).
Amiga 1000 - A1060, Janus and Systems 1,2 and 3.
My goodness was it 2018 when I first got this working.
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