Based on research, Lenovo is the most popular computer brand in 2022, with 17.11 million personal computers sold within the third quarter. But long before Lenovo came into the picture, there was Amiga, which competed with IBM and Apple during the mid-80s. These two giant brands were competing at the same time as online sports betting was being considered by legislators in Colorado.
The name is a Spanish word meaning a female friend. It was chosen to bring home the message that the computer is user-friendly.
Hola, Amiga!
Amiga is a personal computer released on July 23, 1985, by Commodore International Limited, an American manufacturer of electronics and home computers. The first model had a memory of at least 256 KB and 16- or 32-bit processors. It ran on the AmigaOS, a preemptive multitasking operating system.
The operating system was also known as Workbench because of Commodore’s Marketing and Sales Team oversight: the disk was labeled “Workbench Disk” instead of “AmigaOS Disk”.
Its custom hardware, based on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, was quite impressive compared to the other brands in the market then. Amiga’s robust hardware allowed accelerated graphics such as sprites often used in 2D video games.
The brand offered features that were advanced at that time. It had superb bit-block transfer (BITBLT) graphics capabilities, with a Hold-and-Modify (HAM) mode that can display as many as 4096 colors at once. Another feature offered is the blitter, which quickly transfers large amounts of data within a computer’s memory.
The Amiga Strengths
The Amiga computer was laden with features that even Apple had difficulty matching because of hardware and design limitations. Even before the word “multimedia” came to be, the Amiga already provided those multimedia features.
What are these features that provided Amiga a clear advantage?
- Automatic disk-sensing
- Custom designed circuitry
- Preemptive multitasking operating system
- True overscan image
Automatic disk-sensing
Amiga was more intelligent and user-friendly than other brands because it instantly recognized when a user inserted or removed a disk from its drive.
Custom-Designed Circuitry
The internal systems of Amiga were designed to complement each other, allowing the personal computer to optimize its performance. Although it ran on a relatively slow CPU at 14 MHz 68020, the Amiga produced excellent graphics animation.
Preemptive Multitasking OS
The AmigaOS ran on a 512k ROM only. Others may argue that the graphic user interface (GUI) was not included in the operating system, but still, its high performance at a low cost was something to be reckoned with. This advantage made Amiga an economical choice considering its exceptional features.
True Overscan Image
Amiga was sure to deliver high quality regardless of where the image would be used. This computer, regarded as revolutionary, can support professional applications with high-resolution VGA. The same quality is produced on low-frequency output for direct connectivity to a television or video editing equipment. Amiga PC boasted a true overscan image without spending more on video converters.
Apart from the Amiga’s classic look and affordability, parts and extensions were easier to purchase and had an internal power supply. All the users needed for external power was a regular power cord.
The Amiga Downsides
Like any other system, the Amiga personal computer had its disadvantages.
For one, Amiga had no internal user interface, meaning It was heavily dependent on disk-based software programs. For instance, the first Amiga 1000 needed two boot disks: Kickstart, the initial bootup software, and Workbench, a GUI interface.
Despite the devotion of Amiga users to the brand, the personal computer’s user base was less significant than those of the other brands.
Uses for the Amiga Personal Computer
Amiga was promoted as a business machine during the early stages after its launch. However, it was clear that a Sidecar IBM PC compatibility adjunct was needed to make it relevant as a multi-use business equipment.
With its broad range of creative software and games, Amiga became more popular as a home computer. Video producers and editors valued its hardware, providing an excellent platform for 3D rendering, animation, audio, and visual effects. Among these are:
- Imagine
- Lightwave 3D
- Music Tracker
- Traces
- Video Toaster
Imagine
Imagine is a 3D modeling software originally designed by Impulse, Inc. for the Amiga platform. Newer versions were created later for Microsoft Windows and MS-DOS, but their distribution ended earlier than the versions for Amiga. CAD-Technologies continued to distribute the Amiga version. The last public release was Imagine 5.19 in 2006.
Lightwave 3D
This software is a 3D computer graphics program used in advertising, architectural visualizations, digital matte painting, music videos, video game development, visual effects, and more.
Music Tracker
Initially, Amiga music trackers could only play four-track at a time. However, as programmers immersed in 16-bit machines, they increased it to eight tracks even if Amiga only had four sound channels.
Traces
Traces is a forerunner to Blender, a 3D computer graphics software offering 3D modeling, animation, digital drawing, compositing, raster graphics editing, and sculpting. It is used for 3D-printed models, animation, interactive 3D applications, motion graphics, video games, and virtual reality.
Video Toaster
Video Toaster is a hardware and software suite used to produce and edit high-definition video. Its hardware made connectivity to analog video sources like VHS VCRs, while the software enabled animation, character generation, image manipulation, and video switching.
Adios, Amiga
Despite Amiga’s wonderful features, its demise became inevitable due to poor marketing and failed advancements of newer models.
A 1992 The Washington Post edition reported that the Amiga died a slow death because of neglect. The report claimed that Commodore failed to nurture Amiga’s unique selling points by allowing the development of the personal computer to drag and breaking its promise to thousands of users to deliver those improvements.
For example, Commodore promised to release a card to enable Amiga PC compatibility while waiting to complete the Amiga software. But it took forever to release both the card and the software.
Its multimedia features set the Amiga computer above the rest, yet Commodore failed to leverage these and provide timely updates. Soon, the Macintosh and the PC caught up with Amiga and eventually pulled ahead. The Amiga’s cost was one of its advantages and one of the reasons for its failure. The units were made of cheap plastic.
The problem was compounded when Jack Tramiel, Commodore’s founder, decided to leave the company after a bitter fight with the company’s financier, Irving Gould. With Tramiel gone, no one among the Commodore’s management team knew what to do with the computer business. Gould seemed to follow a hire-to-fire pattern for replacing Tramiel until he hired Mehdi Ali as Commodore’s CEO.
However, instead of planning the advancements, they came up with band-aid solutions in the form of add-ons to keep their customers. But the add-ons and the introduction of newer models that were supposed to be enhanced versions of the previous were no longer enough to satisfy the evolving needs of the users.
Sun Microsystems could have saved Amiga when it expressed interest in licensing Amiga UNIX (AMIX) and Amiga hardware. But Mehdi killed both deals by demanding exorbitant licensing fees.
Amiga 500 was introduced as a mini version of Amiga, which meant smaller memory and less power. But it was priced way too high to compete with Nintendo. Then came the Amiga 600, which was supposed to be less expensive than the Amiga 500. Believing that the 600 version would sell like hotcakes, Mehdi piled up big inventories of the A600 in the stores. Unfortunately, nobody wanted something which had fewer features than the A500. The A600 flopped big time.
To make matters worse, Commodore earned a bad reputation because it failed to maintain harmonious, professional relationships with Amiga dealers, developers, owners, and users. This reputation made suppliers wary, driving them to make payment terms and conditions more stringent, pushing Commodore further into a tight corner.
On April 26, 1994, Commodore International finally shut down its Amiga Division and filed for bankruptcy after three days. The bankruptcy signaled the first phase of voluntary liquidation of Commodore’s assets.
Amiga’s Legacy
Life for the Amiga continued after Commodore International shut it down. Escom, a German PC manufacturer, bought Commodore’s assets and created Amiga Technologies as its subsidiary; it re-launched the A1200 and introduced a new Motorola 68060 version of the A4000T. After researching, the subsidiary developed a prototype of the Amiga Walker. It had better expandability, a built-in CD-ROM, and a faster CPU and would have replaced A1200. However, this was not released because Amiga Technologies and Escom went bankrupt in 1997.
Gateway 2000 bought the Amiga branch and technology, but without releasing any Amiga product, it sold the brand to Amiga, Inc. In turn, Amiga, Inc. gave Eyetech Group and Hyperion Entertainment the license to sell the Amiga hardware under the AmigaOne brand. Eventually, Amiga Corporation bought into Amiga, Inc.’s intellectual property in 2019.
While it may have changed ownership several times, the Amiga brand and its devoted users are still around.
In 2010, A-EON Technologies introduced the AmigaONE X1000, a stepping board that would push further advancements such as the X3500, X5000/20, and X5000/40.
The Amiga 500 was brought to life anew through the open-source Minimig or Mini Amiga, a brainchild of Dutch electrical engineer Dennis van Weeren. Minimig enables the implementation of the Amiga custom chipset with a field programmable gate array (FPGA).
There’s also a community of Amiga users who have kept the Amiga legacy alive. A team of volunteers runs the largest Amiga-related files and software archive worldwide, the Aminet. Amiga Future is a magazine published every two months; it is available in English and German.
Epsilon’s AmigaOne X1000 Blog traces the evolution of new Amiga systems and offers a balanced insight into each system. This platform is acknowledged as a superior resource if you are interested in the Amiga system’s advancements and how they work.
These are just some of the proofs that Amiga is very much alive.
Hola, Amiga! Again?
Now and then, we hear or read about a news item in the tech landscape that a company will resurrect the Amiga. Amiga fanatics would rejoice at the news item, for sure. But if we look into it deeper, is it possible to resurrect Amiga? And if it is, is it even a wise move?
Retro Games resurrected the Amiga PC through the A500 Mini. The console version of the Commodore A500 was released in April 2022 in the UK and the EU and sold on Amazon US. The new version combines the best of the original A500 and the Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA) of the A1200. It contains 25 games.
The release of the A500 mini has given hope that the Amiga can be resurrected. But the A500 is just one of the many Amiga systems.
The Apollo Team, known for the Vampire 4 Standalone computer touted as the next official Amiga, developed a new CPU accelerator for Amiga 3000 and Amiga 400—the Apollo Kraken V4. It would have been made available in 2022, but the Apollo Team had to postpone its production because of the global chip shortage.
There are so many factors to consider in resurrecting the Amiga. A fanatic may argue that the global chip shortage is not affecting only Amiga but all other brands. But if you are in business and you are faced with a material shortage problem, where would you rather put your resources — on a product that has been tested and has a bigger market or on a product that needs to be improved and has no proven market except for its devoted users?
Consider the number of technical flaws that the Amiga personal computer had. While it may be true that it had features ahead of its time, it was not a perfect system.
One of its biggest weaknesses is the insufficiency of memory protection. Amiga had a single memory space shared by all applications and tasks, which makes the data in all applications a likely target for corruption. However, it will require massive work and resources to include memory protection, given how the original Amiga architecture was designed.
Aside from its flaws, parties interested in reviving the Amiga should be prepared to invest a hefty sum in the project. The consumer expectations from a personal computer back then are miles apart from the needs and wants of today’s consumers. With technological advancements and the escalating concern for data privacy and security, resurrecting the Amiga may feel like overhauling the entire system. And when that happens, the Amiga look and feel that its dedicated users so love may be lost in the restoration.
Whoever will invest in the Amiga restoration would also do well to get the developers of the original versions onboard. It is practical to do so because they are more familiar with the coding they used, and it would save the restoration time if the team had one less thing to figure out before they put in the improvements. But would these developers be willing to look back on what they did three decades ago?
The Amigans may be feeling nostalgic about the glory that was Amiga, but the stakes for reviving the brand are quite high.
Should Amiga be resurrected? Only time will tell.