Hello Lawrence
Here is a point of view from a HEAVY USER,( 5 AMI 2000's and one 1000 ).
The AMI 500 is the most portable. Drawbacks are limited expansion, and
in my opinion, light duty contruction.
AMI 1000 ( 6 units ) has been the most reliable, 2 years, 16 hours
daily, 6 days a week, with ZERO maintenance problems. Drawbacks are that it is
becoming difficult to expand, and is slowly fading away.
AMI 2000 has had 2 drive failures, and all of the keyboards have failed
to some extent.
I would say, if possible, go with the 2000. The reason for this is it can
GROW, to become, at a professional level, anything you want. Each of our AMI's
has a 200 meg+ library, used by up to four floppy drives. Because of this fact,
we use NO HARD DRIVES.
Hope this will, in some small way, help you out.
Jesse Shadle