ScuzzBlog: Diaries January 2020
Entry 27th January 2020: Post 01: The Amiga A690 a rare dilemma.
The Amiga A690 a rare dilemma.
Dilemma time. I have this rare A690 [ see below ] and it has a
battery on the motherboard. How do I know ? Well I have an A690
motherboard and it has the caterpillar battery on it. Trouble is
there is no easy way that I can see to taking the A690 apart.
There is this knob on the front that refuses to budge. And the
main cradle looks like Arkwright's cash register. The case is
more valuable than the motherboard so I have chosen to leave
well alone. With my luck I'm gonna furk the whole thing up.
The main case on the A690 is white shiny smooth plastic unlike the
more dull A570.
The A690 prototype.
This CD-ROM upgrade was mistakenly given the wrong number A690,
which should reflect an Amiga 600 SCSI card. As to why it was
numbered wrong, nobody really knows.
The A570 was first developed at a time when the A600 was not in
being and for reasons known only to the developers the A570 CD-ROM
was given the number A690. However, once the A600 was announced
it was obvious that this number would have to change. By the time
of the A600 launch a number of these A690 prototypes were already
in circulation, as they were exhibited at Commodore shows.
The A690 was in late development at the time of its name change
and therefore not much differs between it and the A570, particularly
to the PCB and case anyway. The main difference is the provision
of a battery which was understood to power the re-programmable
ROM, which holds the A690`s software ie. CD-ROM driver, auto-
config code, CDTV screens; useful obviously for when the unit
is switched off. Also the memory card slot (CN2) does not have
the 40 pin DIL connector.
The Amiga A690 a rare dilemma.
I also have a spare A690 motherboard
Labelled A690 Rev 2.2
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