There are four types of Zorro slots for the Amiga.
Zorro 1 is not officially called Zorro 1 and is unlike version 2 and 3 an 86-pin slot. Version 1 can be found on the Amiga 1000 and A500.
Zorro 2 is a 100-pin slot and can be found inside the Amiga 2000 and variants like A1500 and A2500.
All classic Amiga models can view display output on a regular television through RF either directly or through the Commodore 520 RF adapter. In Europe we have the industry standard SCART which basically is RGB. With a 23 pin to SCART cable any Amiga can view crystal clear output on a good television. Those resolutions do not need an Amiga scandoubler since they can display Amiga output without a scandoubler processing the image.
By today’s standards the cooling abilities of the A4000 desktop case is pathetic. The case is divided up in two parts internally. The left side holds four Zorro cards on the vertical daughter card that splits the case in two chambers. At the back of the case where the brackets are screwed in cold air gets sucked in by tiny holes. The cool air is then drawn in over the Zorro cards and then into the second chamber where the CPU and memory is. Finally the air is sucked into the power supply and out from the case through tiny slots in the back of the PSU.
Out of all Amiga models officially released I kind of prefer the Amiga 4000 desktop. The A4000D is a compact and good looking computer with a lot of flexibility in how you want to set it up.
My A4000 I have the following hardware
Computer: Commodore Amiga 4000 desktop (originally a 040 version).
The classic big box Amiga. A lot smaller than the A2000 but still enough room for a single DVD-ROM and all kind of Amiga hardware you usually want to run.
I have an Amiga 2000 that is currently my lab Amiga. Meaning that its hardware configuration changes all the time and I mostly use it for testing hardware and fooling around.
The good thing with A2000 machines is that they are very inexpensive and relatively easy to find. Most people view them as an unnecessary large Amiga 500 but in reality they are quite a bit more capable than that. Granted in this day of multi GHz multi core CPU:s it is hard to find valid difference between Amiga 500 and Amiga 2000 but back in the day an A2000 offered so much more potential right out of the box.
For example the 2000 came with 1 MB memory as standard, and it was easy to expand it to 8 MB through the Zorro slots. It was also easier (and probably cheaper) to upgrade the CPU in the A2000 than in the A500. So the A2000 was pretty much the hi-end Amiga of the time intended for professional use.
My Amiga 500 is a standard unit modified and enhanced with various hardware accessories to make it faster and better than a typical A500 models.
Hardware:
Computer
Commodore Amiga 500, revision 6A
This is a standard A500 with 0.5 MB chip memory. It originally came with a 7.09 MHz processor and Kickstart 1.3.
The Commodore Amiga 500 was a popular computer in Europe during the late 80′ies and the early 90′ies. Mostly known as a games computer there was in fact many hardware upgrades released for the A500 such as hard drives, memory expansions, flicker-fixers, scan doublers and turbo boards which transformed it into a capable home computer. Those who where dedicated could easily convert their humble A500 to a true workstation if they had enough dedication and cash.
The computer with the futuristic “2000″ designation in the Amiga line was also one of the best big box Amiga systems made by Commodore. Released near the A500 it was the higher end of the new 16-bit computers from the makers of the C64.
In contrast to the Amiga 4000 the 2000 was designed with a huge desktop case. The case held expansion cards, power supply, floppy disks and harddrives. The equivalent of ISA and PCI slots in Amiga showed up for the first time in the A2000 and was called Zorro 2 (Zorro 1 was used on the first Amiga called A1000 but was external and positioned different than Zorro 2). Its main usage was for professional tasks such as video editing, graphics work and desktop publishing in comparison with the little brother -the A500- it succeeded and is highly regarded as a classic by video professionals and other hardcore digital media workers.
The Amiga 1200 came on the market in 1992 and was meant to replace the aging A500 which was loosing momentum as the defacto home computer. The main difference between them was that A1200 had 2 MB chip memory as standard, built in IDE hard drive interface, a PCMCIA slot and a 150-pin expansion slot for turbo/memory expansion boards on the underside. Graphics where also improved by the AGA chipset and a slightly faster CPU was used.
While the Amiga 1200 was a success it was also a failure since it could not keep up with faster PC machines released for the time. Many also criticized the choice of not improving the sound of the A1200 comparing it with the Atari Falcon which had better sound capabilities at the time.
Amiga 500 was the model which made the Amiga famous, it was also the most sold computer in the Amiga range from Commodore. Launched in 1987 together with the A2000 it was aimed at home users as an inexpensive home computer.