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Amiga: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Amiga
Jay Miner, the brilliant engineer who designed the Amiga's custom chips, once told a colleague that he wanted to build a computer that could do everything a television studio could do, but for the price of a home appliance. This audacious vision became reality in 1985 when the Amiga 1000 launched, featuring a custom chipset that allowed it to handle graphics and sound independently of its central processor. While competitors like the Atari ST and Macintosh relied on the CPU to manage these tasks, the Amiga's dedicated coprocessors, including the blitter for graphics and the Paula chip for audio, gave it a performance edge that was years ahead of its time. The system could display up to 4,096 colors simultaneously and generate four channels of sample-based audio, capabilities that were unheard of in a personal computer of that era. This hardware architecture allowed the Amiga to become a powerhouse for multimedia, enabling users to create complex animations, edit video, and compose music with a level of sophistication that IBM PC compatibles could not match for years. The Amiga was not just a computer; it was a creative tool that democratized professional-grade production for home users and small businesses alike.
From Silicon Valley To Commodore
The story of the Amiga began not at Commodore, but at Atari, where Jay Miner led the development of the Television Interface Adaptor for the Atari Video Computer System. After the 8-bit line's launch in 1979, Miner and his team, including RJ Mical and Dale Luck, began designing a next-generation chipset that would eventually become the Amiga. However, Atari's new management, under Warner Communications, was uninterested in developing new products that might cannibalize existing sales. Miner left the company, and the industry, for a time. In 1982, Larry Kaplan, who had also left Atari, founded Activision and then approached investors to develop a new game platform. Kaplan hired Miner to run the hardware side of the newly formed company, Hi-Toro. The system was code-named Lorraine, in keeping with Miner's policy of giving systems female names, after the company president's wife, Lorraine Morse. When Kaplan left the company late in 1982, Miner was promoted to head engineer, and the company relaunched as Amiga Corporation. By late 1984, the prototype breadboard chipset had successfully been turned into integrated circuits, and the system hardware was being readied for production. At this time, the operating system was not ready, and led to a deal to port TRIPOS, a multitasking system written in BCPL during the 1970s for the PDP-11 minicomputer. This early version was known as AmigaDOS, and the GUI as Workbench. The BCPL parts were later rewritten in the C language, and the entire system became AmigaOS. Commodore, which had been left without a workable path to creating a next-generation home computer after Jack Tramiel resigned and formed Tramel Technology, offered to fund Amiga development. The two companies were initially arranging a license agreement before Commodore offered to purchase Amiga outright. By the end of 1984, the prototype had been turned into integrated circuits, and the system hardware was being readied for production.
Who designed the Amiga computer and what was his vision for the system?
Jay Miner designed the Amiga computer with the vision to build a computer that could do everything a television studio could do for the price of a home appliance. He led the development of the Television Interface Adaptor at Atari before founding Hi-Toro and later Amiga Corporation to realize this goal.
When was the Amiga 1000 first released and how many units were sold by the end of 1986?
The Amiga 1000 was released in July 1985 but became widely available in early 1986 due to production problems. By the end of 1986, 120,000 units were reported as having been sold from the machine's launch.
What custom chipset features gave the Amiga a performance edge over competitors?
The Amiga custom chipset included the blitter for graphics and the Paula chip for audio which allowed the system to handle graphics and sound independently of the central processing unit. This architecture enabled the system to display up to 4,096 colors simultaneously and generate four channels of sample-based audio.
When did Commodore shut down the Amiga division and file for bankruptcy?
Commodore shut down the Amiga division on the 26th of April 1994 and filed for bankruptcy three days later. The company had been left without a workable path to creating a next-generation home computer after Jack Tramiel resigned and formed Tramel Technology.
How many Amiga computers were sold in the United Kingdom and Germany compared to North America?
The Amiga machines were most popular in the UK and Germany with about 1.5 million sold in each country. Sales in North America were estimated at 700,000 units which was less popular than in Europe.
Which operating systems are currently available for the Amiga platform and what are their origins?
AmigaOS 4 is developed by Hyperion Entertainment and runs on PowerPC-based hardware while MorphOS is developed by the MorphOS Team and continues on Apple and other PowerPC-based hardware. AROS is a free and open source operating system that serves as a re-implementation of the AmigaOS 3.1 APIs for Amiga 68k, x86 and ARM hardware.
The first model, the Amiga 1000, was announced in 1985 as simply "The Amiga from Commodore," later to be retroactively dubbed the Amiga 1000. They were first offered for sale in August, but by October, only 50 had been built, all of which were used by Commodore. Machines only began to arrive in quantity in mid-November, meaning they missed the Christmas buying rush. By the end of the year, they had sold 35,000 machines, and severe cashflow problems made the company pull out of the January 1986 CES. Bad or entirely missing marketing, forcing the development team to move to the east coast, notorious stability problems and other blunders limited sales in early 1986 to between 10,000 and 15,000 units a month. 120,000 units were reported as having been sold from the machine's launch up to the end of 1986. The Amiga 1000, based on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, was released in July 1985, but production problems kept it from becoming widely available until early 1986. While early advertisements cast the computer as an all-purpose business machine, especially with the Sidecar IBM PC compatibility add-on, the Amiga was most commercially successful as a home computer with a range of video games and creative software. The system's unique features, such as the ability to genlock and overlay external video sources, made it popular for many applications, including wedding videographers, TV stations, and advertising channels. The Amiga's custom chipset, which included the blitter and Paula, allowed it to handle graphics and sound independently of the CPU, giving it a performance edge over its competitors. The system's ability to display up to 4,096 colors simultaneously and generate four channels of sample-based audio made it a powerhouse for multimedia, enabling users to create complex animations, edit video, and compose music with a level of sophistication that IBM PC compatibles could not match for years.
The Creative Revolution
The Amiga established a niche in audio and multimedia, becoming a popular platform for music creation and video production. The first music tracker was written for the Amiga, and it became a popular platform for music creation. The 3D rendering packages LightWave 3D, Imagine, and Traces (a predecessor to Blender) originated on the system. The 1990 third-party Video Toaster made the Amiga a comparatively low cost option for video production. In later years, the Amiga started losing market share to IBM PC compatibles and the fourth generation of video game consoles, eventually leading to Commodore's bankruptcy in 1994 and the end of Amiga. Commodore is estimated to have sold 4.85 million Amigas. Various groups have since released spiritual successors. The Amiga's custom chipset, which included the blitter and Paula, allowed it to handle graphics and sound independently of the CPU, giving it a performance edge over its competitors. The system's ability to display up to 4,096 colors simultaneously and generate four channels of sample-based audio made it a powerhouse for multimedia, enabling users to create complex animations, edit video, and compose music with a level of sophistication that IBM PC compatibles could not match for years. The Amiga's unique features, such as the ability to genlock and overlay external video sources, made it popular for many applications, including wedding videographers, TV stations, and advertising channels. The system's custom chipset, which included the blitter and Paula, allowed it to handle graphics and sound independently of the CPU, giving it a performance edge over its competitors. The system's ability to display up to 4,096 colors simultaneously and generate four channels of sample-based audio made it a powerhouse for multimedia, enabling users to create complex animations, edit video, and compose music with a level of sophistication that IBM PC compatibles could not match for years.
The Fall And The Aftermath
In spite of his successes in making the company profitable and bringing the Amiga line to market, Thomas Rattigan was soon forced out in a power struggle with majority shareholder, Irving Gould. This is widely regarded as the turning point, as further improvements to the Amiga were eroded by rapid improvements in other platforms. Commodore shut down the Amiga division on the 26th of April 1994, and filed for bankruptcy three days later. Commodore's assets were purchased by Escom, a German PC manufacturer, who created the subsidiary company Amiga Technologies. They re-released the A1200 and A4000T, and introduced a new 68060 version of the A4000T. Amiga Technologies researched and developed the Amiga Walker prototype. They presented the machine publicly at CeBit, but Escom went bankrupt in 1996. Some Amigas were still made afterwards for the North American market by QuikPak, a small Pennsylvania-based firm who was the manufacturer of Amigas for Escom. After a reported sale to VisCorp fell through, a U.S. Wintel PC manufacturer, Gateway 2000, eventually purchased the Amiga branch and technology in 1997. QuikPak attempted but failed to license Amiga from Gateway and build new models. Gateway was then working on a brand new Amiga platform, likely encouraged by a desire to be independent of Microsoft and Intel. However this did not materialize and in 2000, Gateway sold the Amiga brand to Amiga, Inc., without having released any products. Amiga, Inc. licensed the rights to sell hardware using the AmigaOne brand to Eyetech Group and Hyperion Entertainment. In 2019, Amiga, Inc. sold its intellectual property to Amiga Corporation. The Amiga line sold an estimated 4,910,000 machines over its lifetime. The machines were most popular in the UK and Germany, with about 1.5 million sold in each country, and sales in the high hundreds of thousands in other European nations. The machine was less popular in North America, where an estimated 700,000 were sold. In the United States, the Amiga found a niche with enthusiasts and in vertical markets for video processing and editing. In Europe, it was more broadly popular as a home computer and often used for video games.
The Hardware That Changed Everything
The Amiga has a custom chipset consisting of several coprocessors which handle audio, video, and direct memory access independently of the central processing unit (CPU). This architecture gave the Amiga a performance edge over its competitors, particularly for graphics-intensive applications and games. The architecture uses two distinct bus subsystems: the chipset bus and the CPU bus. The chipset bus allows the coprocessors and CPU to address "Chip RAM". The CPU bus provides addressing to conventional RAM, ROM and the Zorro II or Zorro III expansion subsystems. This enables independent operation of the subsystems. The CPU bus can be much faster than the chipset bus. CPU expansion boards may provide additional custom buses. Additionally, "busboards" or "bridgeboards" may provide ISA or PCI buses. The most popular models from Commodore, including the Amiga 1000, Amiga 500, and Amiga 2000, use the Motorola 68000 as the CPU. From a developer's point of view, the 68000 provides a full suite of 32-bit operations, but the chip can address only 16 MB of physical memory and is implemented using a 16-bit arithmetic logic unit and has a 16-bit external data bus, so 32-bit computations are transparently handled as multiple 16-bit values at a performance cost. The later Amiga 2500 and the Amiga 3000 models use fully 32-bit, 68000-compatible processors from Motorola with improved performance and larger addressing capability. CPU upgrades were offered by both Commodore and third-party manufacturers. Most Amiga models can be upgraded either by direct CPU replacement or through expansion boards. Such boards often included faster and higher capacity memory interfaces and hard disk controllers. Towards the end of Commodore's time in charge of Amiga development, there were suggestions that Commodore intended to move away from the 68000 series to higher performance RISC processors, such as the PA-RISC. Those ideas were never developed before Commodore filed for bankruptcy. Despite this, third-party manufacturers designed upgrades featuring a combination of 68000 series and PowerPC processors along with a PowerPC native microkernel and software. Later Amiga clones featured PowerPC processors only.
The Software That Defined A Generation
AmigaOS is a single-user multitasking operating system. It was one of the first commercially available consumer operating systems for personal computers to implement preemptive multitasking. It was developed first by Commodore International and initially introduced in 1985 with the Amiga 1000. John C. Dvorak wrote in PC Magazine in 1996: "AmigaOS combines a command-line interface and graphical user interface. AmigaDOS is the disk operating system and command line portion of the OS and Workbench the native graphical windowing, graphical environment for file management and launching applications. AmigaDOS allows long filenames (up to 107 characters) with whitespace and does not require filename extensions. The windowing system and user interface engine that handles all input events is called Intuition. The multi-tasking kernel is called Exec. It acts as a scheduler for tasks running on the system, providing pre-emptive multitasking with prioritised round-robin scheduling. It enabled true pre-emptive multitasking in as little as 256 KB of free memory. AmigaOS does not implement memory protection; the 68000 CPU does not include a memory management unit. Although this speeds and eases inter-process communication because programs can communicate by simply passing a pointer back and forth, the lack of memory protection made the AmigaOS more vulnerable to crashes from badly behaving programs than other multitasking systems that did implement memory protection, and Amiga OS is fundamentally incapable of enforcing any form of security model since any program had full access to the system. A co-operational memory protection feature was implemented in AmigaOS 4 and could be retrofitted to old AmigaOS systems using Enforcer or CyberGuard tools. The problem was somewhat exacerbated by Commodore's initial decision to release documentation relating not only to the OS's underlying software routines, but also to the hardware itself, enabling intrepid programmers who had developed their skills on the Commodore 64 to POKE the hardware directly, as was done on the older platform. While the decision to release the documentation was a popular one and allowed the creation of fast, sophisticated sound and graphics routines in games and demos, it also contributed to system instability as some programmers lacked the expertise to program at this level. For this reason, when the new AGA chipset was released, Commodore declined to release low-level documentation in an attempt to force developers into using the approved software routines. The latest version for the PPC Amigas is the AmigaOS 4.1 and for the 68k Amigas is the AmigaOS 3.2.2. AmigaOS directly or indirectly inspired the development of various operating systems. MorphOS and AROS clearly inherit heavily from the structure of AmigaOS as explained directly in articles regarding these two operating systems. AmigaOS also influenced BeOS, which featured a centralized system of Datatypes, similar to that present in AmigaOS. Likewise, DragonFly BSD was also inspired by AmigaOS as stated by Dragonfly developer Matthew Dillon who is a former Amiga developer. WindowLab and amiwm are among several window managers for the X Window System seek to mimic the Workbench interface. IBM licensed the Amiga GUI from Commodore in exchange for the REXX language license. This allowed OS/2 to have the WPS (Workplace Shell) GUI shell for OS/2 2.0, a 32-bit operating system. Commodore-Amiga produced Amiga Unix, informally known as Amix, based on AT&T SVR4. It supports the Amiga 2500 and Amiga 3000 and is included with the Amiga 3000UX. Among other unusual features of Amix is a hardware-accelerated windowing system that can scroll windows without copying data. Amix is not supported on the later Amiga systems based on 68040 or 68060 processors. Other, still maintained, operating systems are available for the classic Amiga platform, including Linux and NetBSD. Both require a CPU with MMU such as the 68020 with 68851 or full versions of the 68030, 68040 or 68060. There is also a version of Linux for Amigas with PowerPC accelerator cards. Debian and Yellow Dog Linux can run on the AmigaOne. There is an official, older version of OpenBSD. The last Amiga release is 3.2. MINIX 1.5.10 also runs on Amiga. The Amiga Sidecar is a complete IBM PC XT compatible computer contained in an expansion card. It was released by Commodore in 1986 and promoted as a way to run business software on the Amiga 1000. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the platform became particularly popular for gaming, demoscene activities and creative software uses. During this time commercial developers marketed a wide range of games and creative software, often developing titles simultaneously for the Atari ST due to the similar hardware architecture. Popular creative software included 3D rendering (ray-tracing) packages, bitmap graphics editors, desktop video software, software development packages and "tracker" music editors. Until the late 1990s the Amiga remained a popular platform for non-commercial software, often developed by enthusiasts, and much of which was freely redistributable. An on-line archive, Aminet, was created in 1991 and until the late-1990s was the largest public archive of software, art and documents for any platform.
The Legacy That Refuses To Fade
Since the demise of Commodore, various groups have marketed successors to the original Amiga line. Genesi sold PowerPC based hardware under the Pegasos brand running AmigaOS and MorphOS; Eyetech sold PowerPC based hardware under the AmigaOne brand from 2002 to 2005 running AmigaOS 4; Amiga Kit distributes and sells PowerPC based hardware under the AmigaOne brand from 2010 to present day running AmigaOS 4; ACube Systems sells the AmigaOS 3 compatible Minimig system with a Freescale MC68SEC000 CPU (Motorola 68000 compatible) and AmigaOS 4 compatible Sam440 / Sam460 / AmigaOne 500 systems with PowerPC processors; A-EON Technology Ltd sells the AmigaOS 4 compatible AmigaOne X1000 system with P.A. Semi PWRficient PA6T-1682M processor, X5000 and A1222+ computers. AmigaKit Ltd produce the A600GS and A1200NG computers systems. They also manufacture and sell a wide range of aftermarket components to refurbished classic systems. ASB Computer Spain sell numerous items from aftermarket components to refurbished classic systems. AmigaOS and MorphOS are commercial proprietary operating systems. AmigaOS 4, based on AmigaOS 3.1 source code with some parts of version 3.9, is developed by Hyperion Entertainment and runs on PowerPC-based hardware. MorphOS, based on some parts of AROS source code, is developed by the MorphOS Team and is continued on Apple and other PowerPC-based hardware. There is also AROS, a free and open source operating system (re-implementation of the AmigaOS 3.1 APIs), for Amiga 68k, x86 and ARM hardware (one version runs Linux-hosted on the Raspberry Pi). In particular, AROS for Amiga 68k hardware aims to create an open source Kickstart ROM replacement for emulation purposes or for use on real classic hardware. The Amiga continues to be popular enough that fans continue to support conferences such as Amiga37, which had over 50 vendors. Amiga Format continued publication until 2000. Amiga Active was launched in 1999 and was published until 2001. Several magazines are in publication today: Print magazine Amiga Addict started publication in 2020. Amiga Future, which is available in both English and German; Bitplane.it, a bimonthly magazine in Italian; and AmigaPower, a long-running French magazine. The Amiga series of computers found a place in early computer-based graphic design and television presentation. Season 1 and part of season 2 of the television series Babylon 5 were rendered in LightWave 3D on Amigas. Other television series using Amigas for special effects included SeaQuest DSV and Max Headroom. In addition, many celebrities and notable individuals have made use of the Amiga: Andy Warhol was an early user of the Amiga and appeared at the launch, where he made a computer artwork of Debbie Harry. Warhol used the Amiga to create a new style of art made with computers, and was the author of a multimedia opera called You Are the One, which consists of an animated sequence featuring images of actress Marilyn Monroe assembled in a short movie with a soundtrack. The video was discovered on two old Amiga floppies in a drawer in Warhol's studio and repaired in 2006 by the Detroit Museum of New Art. The pop artist has been quoted as saying: "The thing I like most about doing this kind of work on the Amiga is that it looks like my work in other media". Artist Jean "Moebius" Giraud credits the Amiga he bought for his son as a bridge to learning about "using paint box programs". He uploaded some of his early experiments to the file sharing forums on CompuServe. Futurist and science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke used an Amiga computer to calculate and explore Mandelbrot sets in the 1988 documentary film God, the Universe and Everything Else. The "Weird Al" Yankovic film UHF contains a computer-animated music video parody of the Dire Straits song "Money for Nothing", titled "Money for Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies*". According to the DVD commentary track, this spoof was created on an Amiga home computer. Rolf Harris used an Amiga to digitize his hand-drawn artwork for animation on his television series Rolf's Cartoon Club. Debbie Harry appeared together with Andy Warhol (see above) at launch. Todd Rundgren's video "Change Myself" was produced with Toaster and Lightwave. Scottish pop artist Calvin Harris composed his 2007 debut album I Created Disco with an Amiga 1200. Susumu Hirasawa, a Japanese progressive-electronic artist, is known for using Amigas to compose and perform music, aid his live shows and make his promotional videos. He has also been inspired by the Amiga and has referenced it in his lyrics. His the 13th of December 1994, "Adios Jay" Interactive Live Show was dedicated to (then recently deceased) Jay Miner. He also used the Amiga to create the virtual drummer TAINACO, who was a CG-rendered figure whose performance was made with Elan Performer and was projected with DCTV. He also composed and performed "Eastern-boot", the AmigaOS 4 boot jingle. Electronic musician Max Tundra created his three albums with an Amiga 500. Bob Casale, keyboardist and guitarist of the new wave band Devo, used Amiga computer graphics on the album cover to Devo's album Total Devo. Most of Pokémon Gold and Silver's music was created on an Amiga computer, converted to MIDI, and then reconverted to the game's music format. American professional skateboarder Tony Hawk used an Amiga 2000 during the late 1980s to early 1990s. NewTek sent him a Video Toaster for his Amiga in exchange for appearing in a promotional video alongside Wil Wheaton and Penn Jillette, which he later used for editing a promotional video for the TurboDuo game Lords of Thunder in 1993. Veteran actor Dick Van Dyke also owned an Amiga equipped with a Video Toaster, where he is credited with the creation of 3D-rendered effects used on Diagnosis: Murder and The Dick Van Dyke Show Revisited. Van Dyke has displayed his computer-generated imagery work at SIGGRAPH, and continues to work with LightWave 3D. A number of notable producers used OctaMED for composition and live performance of Drum and Bass, Jungle, and various other sub-genres of electronic dance music on Amiga systems, occasionally in conjunction with additional synthesizers. These include: Aphrodite, DJ Zinc, Omni Trio, and Paradox, among others. Electronic musician Deaton Chris Anthony uses an Amiga to produce music (in addition to a modern Mac-based setup). Anthony has referred to the computer as his "inspiration creator". Special purpose applications: Amigas were used in various NASA laboratories to keep track of low-orbiting satellites until 2004. Amigas were used at Kennedy Space Center to run strip-chart recorders, to format and display data, and control stations of platforms for Delta rocket launches. Palomar Observatory used Amigas to calibrate and control the charge-coupled devices in their telescopes, as well as to display and store the digitized images they collected. London Transport Museum developed their own interactive multi-media software for the CD32 including a virtual tour of the museum. Amiga 500 motherboards were used, in conjunction with a LaserDisc player and genlock device, in arcade games manufactured by American Laser Games. A custom Amiga 4000T motherboard was used in the HDI 1000 medical ultrasound system built by Advanced Technology Labs. The Grand Rapids Public School district uses a Commodore Amiga 2000 with 1200 baud modem to automate its air conditioning and heating systems for the 19 schools covered by the GRPS district. The system has been operating day and night for decades. The Weather Network used Amigas to display the weather on TV. The Amiga 3000 was the basis of the Virtuality virtual reality machines of the early 1990s.