The Amiga A570 is a single-speed external

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains computer data storage, data computers can read, but not write or erase. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold b ...

drive for the

Amiga 500 The Amiga 500, also known as the A500, was the first popular version of the Amiga home computer, "redefining the home computer market and making so-called luxury features such as multitasking and colour a standard long before Microsoft or Apple ...

computer launched by

Commodore Commodore may refer to: Ranks * Commodore (rank), a naval rank ** Commodore (Royal Navy), in the United Kingdom ** Commodore (India), in India ** Commodore (United States) ** Commodore (Canada) ** Commodore (Finland) ** Commodore (Germany) or ' ...

in 1992. It was designed to be compatible with

Commodore CDTV The CDTV (from Commodore Dynamic Total Vision, later treated as a backronym for Compact Disc Television) is a home multimedia entertainment and video game console – convertible into a full-fledged personal computer by the addition of optional ...

software as well as being able to read ordinary

ISO 9660 ISO 9660 (also known as ECMA-119) is a file system for optical disc media. The file system is an international standard available from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Since the specification is publicly available, im ...

CD-ROM discs. The original designation was A690, and pre-production devices under this name were delivered to developers. The A690/A570 used a proprietary

Mitsumi is a Japanese manufacturer of consumer electronic components, founded in 1954. Mitsumi has been a subsidiary of MinebeaMitsumi since 27 January 2017, when it merged with Minebea to form the parent company. Mitsumi is primarily known as an O ...

CD-ROM interface. It contained a header for an internal fast memory expansion, but this proprietary memory module was never put into production and only a few rare developer examples of this exist today. It is also notable that by the time of the A570's launch, the A500 computer had already been discontinued. The

Amiga 600 The Amiga 600, also known as the A600, and full title Commodore Amiga 600, is a home computer introduced in March 1992. It is the final Amiga model based on the Motorola 68000 and the 1990 Amiga Enhanced Chip Set. A redesign of the Amiga 500 Plus ...

(ostensibly the A500's direct replacement) was, like the later

A1200 The Amiga 1200, or A1200 (code-named " Channel Z"), is a personal computer in the Amiga computer family released by Commodore International, aimed at the home computer market. It was launched on October 21, 1992, at a base price of £399 in the ...

, incompatible with this external drive. Thus, Commodore were in the position of having launched a CD-ROM drive for a discontinued machine, while a similar device was unavailable for their current low-end Amiga. This move by Commodore marketing department could be justified by the fact that millions of A500 systems existed already, along with considerable demand for Commodore to release a more advanced data storage solution. The device (like the Amiga A590

hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...

that was sold by Commodore for the A500) had no through connector, so it was not possible to connect both an A590 and an A570 to the computer at the same time. The A590, despite having an XT IDE hard disk, also carried a SCSI interface that allowed third-party hard disks and CD-ROM drives to be fitted. While these drives did not carry CDTV emulation, the lack of success of the CDTV format made this a null disadvantage for most users.

Features

* Single speed CD-ROM reader * Headphone jack on the front panel * Audio control knob on the front panel to adjust the volume of the headphones if connected, it did not change the volume out of the rear ports as they are designed to go to an amplified speaker setup which will have their own controls * Stereo audio in and stereo audio out connectors. The audio in connects from the A500 to the A570 and the audio out goes to the speakers (or monitor). * 2 Megabyte RAM internal interface connector * Rear connector bay port to add a

SCSI Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices, best known for its use with storage devices such as hard disk drives. SCSI was introduced ...

interface card CDs could not be inserted directly into the A570 and needed to be put in a caddy before being inserted into the reader slot. The A570 had no need for drivers. It was automatically recognized as a standard Amiga expansion card by the Amiga Zorro bus

Autoconfig Autoconfig is an auto-configuration protocol of Amiga computers which is intended to automatically assign resources to expansion devices without the need for jumper settings. It is analogous to PCI configuration through ACPI. Autoconfig is in ...

feature. Programs for playing Audio CDs were available on a bundled 'A570 Tools' floppy disk,

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software disk collections, and then on Aminet. The A570 also featured an external

power supply A power supply is an electrical device that supplies electric power to an electrical load. The main purpose of a power supply is to convert electric current from a source to the correct voltage, electric current, current, and frequency to power ...

, which was the same model as the A500 power supply.

External links

amigahistory.co.uk - ''Amiga 690''
article at the Amiga History site.

{{Amiga hardware Amiga CBM storage devices Optical computer storage Computer-related introductions in 1992