PERIPHERALS; COMMODORE INTRODUCES NEW AMIGA. COMMODORE'S new Amiga A1000 computer was unveiled at Lincoln Center last week amid flashing lasers, rip-snorting jazz, rented tuxedos and rented celebrities, including Andy Warhol, who was there to bestow the first 15 minutes of fame on the machine. Yet even surrounded by all the glitter, the Amiga stood out clearly as the evening's star performer. When it reaches the stores here in mid-September it will be one of the most technologically advanced computers available for the home and business markets. Whether it will sell is another matter. In the currently turbulent computer industry, even a dazzling machine like the Amiga - it has been described as a color Macintosh that works faster than an I.B.M. Two major hurdles must be cleared if the Amiga is to survive its infancy. The first is identity. The second is software and peripherals. The hardware horizon looks brighter. Those are the formidable hurdles. Power, Speed and Flash Junior on Sale In light of the falling cost of the I.B.M.
Launch of the Amiga. YouTube - History of the Commodore Amiga Part 1. YouTube - History Of The Commodore Amiga - Part 2. YouTube - History Of The Commodore Amiga - Part 3. YouTube - History Of The Commodore Amiga - Part 4. YouTube - History of the Commodore Amiga Part 5. YouTube - History of the Commodore Amiga Part 6. YouTube - History of the Commodore Amiga Part 7. A history of the Amiga, part 1: Genesis - Ars Technica. All these people have one thing in common. They understand the power of the dream. Jay Miner and his dog, Mitchy. There were many people who helped to create the Amiga, but the dream itself was the creation of one man, known as the father of the Amiga. His name was Jay Miner. Jay was born in Prescott, Arizona on May 31, 1932.
Jay’s interest in electronics continued to grow, and he brought his new bride with him to California where he enrolled at the University of California-Berkeley. For the next ten years, Jay moved around from company to company, many of them startups. Jay then landed a position at a hot young company called Atari, which had gone from nothing to worldwide success overnight with the invention of the first computerized arcade games, including the blockbuster PONG. A history of the Amiga, part 2: The birth of Amiga - Ars Technic.
Born as a console, but with the heart of a computer Game consoles and personal computers are not all that different on the inside. Both use a central processing unit as their main engine (the Apple ][, Commodore 64, and the Atari 400/800 all used the same 6502 CPU that powered the original Nintendo and Sega consoles). Both allow user input (keyboards and mice on computers, joysticks and game pads on consoles) and both output to a graphical display device (either a monitor or a TV). The main difference is in user interaction. However, the investors weren't likely to see things that way. This was one of those decisions that, in retrospect, seems incredibly prescient. The video game crash The great video game crash of 1983, was, like all great crashes, easy to predict after it had already happened.
There were too many software companies producing too many games for the Atari VCS and other competing consoles. The game that ended it all. Instead of two copies, most people decided to buy zero. A history of the Amiga, part 3: The first prototype - Ars Techni. Prototyping the hardware Modern chips are designed using high-powered workstations that run very expensive chip simulation software. However, the fledgling Amiga company could not afford such luxuries. It would instead build, by hand, giant replicas of the silicon circuitry on honeycomb-like plastic sheets known as breadboards. Breadboards are still used by hobbyists today to rapidly build and test simple circuits. The way they work is fairly simple. The breadboard consists of a grid of tiny metal sockets arranged in a large plastic mesh. Short vertical strips of these sockets are connected together on the underside of the board so that they can serve as junctions for multiple connectors.
At the time, nobody had ever designed a personal computer this way. The Amiga was nothing like this. However, Jay never let the mounting stress get to him or to his coworkers. Jay even let Mitchy help in the design process. Slowly, the Amiga's custom chips began to take shape. A history of the Amiga, part 4: Enter Commodore - Ars Technica. Deus ex machina Commodore The company that rescued Amiga in 1984 was the creation of a single man. Born in Poland in 1928 as Idek Tramielski, he was imprisoned in the Nazi work camps after his country was invaded in World War II. Rescued from the camps by the US Army, he married a fellow concentration camp survivor named Helen Goldgrub, and the two emigrated to the United States.
Upon arrival, he changed his name to Jack Tramiel. Jack Tramiel Jack enlisted in the US Army in 1948 and served in the Equipment Repair Office. The little firm grew quickly, going public in 1962, but it became enveloped in a financial scandal that threatened to consume the company. The MOS purchase got Commodore into the computer business, starting with the PET, then the low-cost VIC 20, and finally in 1982 the company released the best-selling personal computer model of all time: the Commodore 64.
Jack was determined not just to compete with other computer companies, but to destroy them. A history of the Amiga, part 5: postlaunch blues - Ars Technica. On the cusp of greatness By July 1985, Commodore had everything going for it. The Amiga computer had been demonstrated in public to rave reviews, and everyone was excited at the potential of this great technology. That's when the problems started.
The Commodore Plus/4 Commodore's primary woes were always about money, and 1985 was no exception. Sales of the Commodore 64 were still going strong, but the price wars had slashed the profits on the little computer. The company had invested millions of dollars creating new and bizarre 8-bit computers that competed directly against the venerable C-64, such as the wholly incompatible Plus/4, that had no chance in the marketplace. All these financial problems put a strain on the company's ability to get the Amiga ready to sell to the public.
This wouldn't have been a huge problem, had Commodore been able to gather enough resources to ship the machine in quantity. Jack Tramiel's Atari ST Missing Christmas. A history of the Amiga, part 6: stopping the bleeding - Ars Tech. Chopping heads When a corporation is bleeding money, often the only way to save it is to drastically lower fixed expenses by firing staff. Commodore had lost over $300 million between September 1985 and March 1986, and over $21 million in March alone. Commodore's new CEO, Thomas Rattigan, was determined to stop the bleeding. Rattigan began three separate rounds of layoffs. The first to go were the layabouts, people who hadn't proven their worth to the company and were never likely to. The second round coincided with the cancellation of many internal projects. The last round was necessary for the company to regain profitability, but affected many good people and ultimately may have hurt the company in the long run.
Under Jack Tramiel, Commodore had embarked on a whole host of projects: some practical, some far-sighted and visionary, and others just plain crazy. How many megabytes does that cabinet hold? Computers weren't the only thing that Tramiel had a hand in. A history of the Amiga, part 7: Game on! - Ars Technica. The most powerful gaming platform The Amiga started out its life as a dedicated games machine, and even though it grew into a full computer very quickly, it never lost its gaming side. The machine's 4096-color palette, stereo sampled sound, and graphics acceleration chips made it a perfect gaming platform, and it didn't take long for game companies to start taking advantage of this power. While the slow sales of the Amiga 1000 limited the number of games that developers were willing to make for the platform, when Commodore released the low-cost Amiga 500 in 1987, everything changed.
Now the most powerful gaming computer was also one of the cheapest, and game companies jumped at the chance to showcase their talents on the Amiga. Mind Walker (1986) One of the first games ever released for the Amiga was a quirky gem called Mind Walker, written by Bill Williams and published by Commodore itself. Mind Walker puts the gamer in the role of a physicist who has lost his mind. A history of the Amiga, part 8: The demo scene. Author’s note: The Demo Scene is the latest piece in a long-running Ars series on the history of the Amiga. The last installment in the series ran in 2008, but professional obligations for the author caused a delay. More chapters are on the way—emphasis on chapters. The ultimate aim is to compile all the parts of this series into a book. Stay tuned! Genesis As computer games became more and more complex in the late 1980s, the days of the individual developer seemed to be waning. For a young teenager sitting alone in his room, the dream of creating the next great game by himself was getting out of reach.
The genesis of the demo scene started with the Apple ][ in the late 1970s and fully formed with the Commodore 64 a few years later. Friendly competition between cracking groups led to an artistic arms race. Creating the demo scene Demos required the participation of multiple people, including artists, musicians, and coders, much like a small game studio. Running a demo group. The History of the Amiga. Since the Amiga was launched it has seen a great many changes many for the better, most for the worst. Amiga History Guide looks back to the golden age of the Amiga. Stand by with the tissues. Select a year by clicking the links below: 1980: The idea The story begins in an Atari development lab where Jay Miner is developing 8-bit systems, such as the 2600, 400 and 800. 1982: Below the radar The story picks up again in 1982 when Jay Miner receives a telephone call from Larry Kaplan - a former colleague who left Atari to create Activision.
However, the continued delays associated with managing a business were beginning to show on Larry Kaplan, who becomes increasingly impatient with the company's slow pace and leaves his position as vice president. I had wanted for years to build a super personal computer based around the Motorola sixty-eight thousand micro processor. A final significant event that took place during 1982 is the company's' name change. 1983: From design concept to breadboard.
Shadow of the 16-bit Beast: an Amiga gaming retrospective. Author's note: I want to personally thank the literally hundreds of people who replied to my call for stories from Amiga game developers, without whom this article would not have been possible. Unfortunately, it was not possible to include everyone's stories in the article, but I did make an honest attempt to reply to every email I received.
If I missed you, I apologize. Introduction The Amiga was born a game machine, but it entered a world where the video game industry was well-established and changing rapidly. Long gone were the days where a lone coder would stay up all night in his basement for six weeks and bang out a hit for the Atari 2600. Even the younger and smaller computer game industry had moved far beyond Roberta Williams putting floppy disks into ziplock bags and answering phone calls from players in her kitchen.
For the first time, specialized careers were starting to emerge in game development. Life in the trenches Finding these people wasn't easy. Magazines and reviewers.