I have another mystery/story for you about that motherboard.
Back in the late summer of 1987 a Commodore rep and a EA rep showed up with the new Amiga 500 computer (the ones with the Commodore and Amiga keys instead of the later Amiga - Amiga keys) at our local computer store that sold Amiga computers. The store was fairly large and did much business so I could see why Commodore and EA would demo the new Amiga 500 here.
Users Groups from around the area and regular customers were all here to see the new Amiga 500.
They showed it off and it was quite different from the Amiga 1000. I was 17 at the time but my first thought was of Kickstart. Since it was in ROM how would older software run under Kickstart 1.2 and what about future revisions of Kickstart?
I posed my questions and mentioned that I did not think EA's Archon would run under Kickstart 1.2. (It might have been another EA game, it has been a long time...)
Here is where is gets weird, ready?
Without missing a beat the Commodore guy and the EA guy mention you can hold down the Control - Commodore - Amiga keys to have the computer prompt for a Kickstart disk. The EA guy even mentions that they were worried about older software under Kickstart 1.2 so this option gives the customer backwards compatibility.
All eyes watch the monitor for the Kickstart hand. At that moment, I thought it was a great option that Commodore came up with.
Well, nothing happened.
The Commodore guy didn't really say much but the EA seemed genuinely shocked that it didn't work. He eventually calls EA from the store to ask about this feature. He talks with some folks and then tells us he will get back with us when the machine ships.
Of course this feature never materilizes.
I believe this feature must have been talked about at some point during the Amiga 500 development since both of these guys were so quick to talk about Control Commodore Amiga.
Further, EA (as well as others) would have something to gain with this feature. Any compatibility issues with new revs of Kickstart could be easily fixed by having the customer boot into an older Kickstart.
We all know now there is not way that could work given the design of the motherboard. However, I would have liked to talk with either Haynie or Herd about this story. I do not think the EA and Commodore reps would just lie about this feature since we could obviously test it on the computer in front of us and they genuinely seemed sincere with their answer.
Cheers!
-P
