Amiga

In computing, Amiga is a range of home/personal computers primarily using the Motorola 68000 processor family, whose development started in 1982, initially as a game machine. The original Amiga hardware was designed by Jay Miner; his machine was ahead of its time when it appeared in 1985, having a custom chipset with advanced graphics and sound features and a sophisticated multitasking operating system, now known as AmigaOS. The Amiga eventually became popular among computer enthusiasts, especially in Europe, as they upgraded from 8-bit computers such as the Commodore 64. It also found a business role in video production.

History

The first Amiga computer, simply called the Amiga, was released in 1985 by Commodore, who marketed it both as their intended successor to the Commodore 64 and as their competitor against the Atari ST range. It was later renamed the Amiga 1000 (or A1000 for short).

Related Topics:
1985 - Commodore - Commodore 64 - Atari ST - A1000

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In 1987 Commodore released two new Amiga models, the A500 and the A2000 as low-end and high-end machines, respectively. The former became the most popular Amiga computer of that decade and was mostly known as a games machine, while the latter was marketed as a more serious workstation for graphic purposes, due to the presence of a SCSI controller option, a Genlock slot and an I/O video connector.

Related Topics:
1987 - A500 - A2000 - SCSI - Genlock

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In 1990 the A3000 was introduced in the market as the successor of both A1000 and A2000, with an extended chipset (ECS), and the second release of its operating system, to be known eventually as the AmigaOS.

Related Topics:
1990 - A3000 - A1000 - A2000 - Extended chipset - AmigaOS

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In the same year, Commodore released three new low-end machines: the CDTV, aimed to move the platform to the living room; the A500+, with the same enhancements as the A3000; and the A600, basically an A500+ in a smaller box with an IDE controller for hard disks. All of them were a commercial failure, mainly due to poor marketing by Commodore.

Related Topics:
CDTV - A500+ - A3000 - A600 - IDE - Commodore

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Mass-market Amigas were then considerably cheaper than PCs or Macs of their time. This boosted sales in the more price-conscious European markets, but led to Commodore being viewed in the United States as a producer of cheap "game machines". This conception was furthered by the fact that most Commodore retail outlets were toy stores, and marketing campaigns which were woefully mismatched with the status-conscious American public. This explains why Amiga was very successful in Europe, but not in the US market, with less than a million sold.

Related Topics:
Commodore - Europe - US

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In 1992 Commodore released their last Amiga computer models, the A1200 and the A4000: both of them featured the new AGA chipset and the third release of AmigaOS.

Related Topics:
1992 - A1200 - A4000 - AGA - AmigaOS

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In 1993, in a desperate attempt to save their business, menaced by console giants as Sega and Nintendo, Commodore marketed the CD32, one of the earliest compact disc based consoles, with specs similar to the A1200.

Related Topics:
1993 - Sega - Nintendo - CD32 - A1200

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In 1994 Commodore filed for liquidation and its assets were bought by Escom, a German PC manufacturer, which in turn filed for liquidation during 1997. The Amiga brand was then sold to another PC manufacturer, Gateway 2000, which had grand plans for it, but they eventually sold it in 2000 before actually realizing their plans. There are rumors that this sale was conducted because of ongoing force by Microsoft; however, this is unproven.

Related Topics:
1994 - 1997 - Gateway 2000 - 2000 - Microsoft

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The current owner of the trademark, Amiga Inc., has licensed the rights to make hardware using the Amiga brand to an U.K. computer vendor, Eyetech Group, Ltd founded by some former employees of the UK branch of Commodore International. They are currently selling the AmigaOne via an international dealer network. The AmigaOne is a PowerPC computer suited to run the last remnant of the platform, the AmigaOS, that was in turn licensed to a Belgian-German company, Hyperion Entertainment.

Related Topics:
Commodore International - AmigaOne - PowerPC - AmigaOS

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During these years, a very limited number of clones (Amiga-compatible computers) were produced, as both Commodore and subsequent owners of the trademark strongly refused to have Amigas produced under license.

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Amigas running any operating system up to version 3.9 are being considered "Classic" Amigas today, contrary to the new Amiga Inc./Eyetech/Hyperion models. Many "Classic" Amigas are still in use today to produce commercials or local cable TV shows.

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Nowadays the Amiga is sometimes incorrectly called a games console, though it was and still is a fully featured computer system similar to the modern Windows PCs.

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