It was certainly a momentous week for Commodore seven years ago, with two major announcements that whipped the trade up into a frenzy of excitement. At the time, Commodore were the kings of the market. Sure, they had those pesky games console thingies snapping up the low ticket sales, but they were just toys, they weren't affecting sales of the Amiga. And yes, the PC was slowly creeping into more and more homes, but hey, look at the price of the damn thing - £1,000+! No-one would want to pay that when they could have an Amiga for £399...

And the first of those announcements seven years ago this week was that people could now have an Amiga for even less - £100 less in the A600's case, as it was reduced in price to £299. The A600 had replaced the much-loved A500 and, in many ways, was seen as a backward step. It didn't have a numeric keypad for a start. This price reduction had been made possible, according to Commodore MD Kelly Sumner, by the improved reliability of the A600 over its predecessor. Sumner claimed that 'returns' on the A600 were running at less than one per cent, while the A500 'conservatively' had a fault rate of 8.25 per cent.

As if that wasn't enough good news, this week also saw the launch of the A570 CD drive for the Amiga (yes, it did have one). All the usual "This will revolutionise..." quotes were attached to its launch, although there was one small problem: the £349 (single speed!) CD was only compatible with A500P Amigas, like the ones that had been discontinued three months earlier. They also needed a RAM expansion and a Fat Agnes chip. The model for the A600, called the A670 drive, wasn't due until Christmas. When asked by Amiga Format Editor Damien Noonan why Amiga users would want to buy the A570, Sumner replied: "They're going to go into a store, they're going to see one of these connected to an Amiga and they're going to go, 'Fuck me!'" A lovely thought, although, sadly, no records exist to clarify whether this actually happened.

Just a few short months later the real reason for the A600 price cut became clear; it was to make way for the £399 A1200, the all-singing AGA machine which replaced the A600. The A670, predictably, didn't appear. Kelly Sumner left Commodore the next year to become MD of Gametek (now Take 2 Interactive) although, to date, he has not yet bettered his above quote. And you all know what happened to Commodore... come on, don't make me tell that one again...