Amiga

This article is about the family of home computers. For other uses, see Amiga (disambiguation). The Amiga is a family of home/personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation as an advanced game console. Development on the Amiga began in 1982, Jay Miner being the principle hardware designer. Commodore International introduced the machine to the market in 1985, after having bought Amiga Corp. The machine was ahead of its time, sporting a custom chipset with advanced graphics and sound capabilities, and a sophisticated multitasking operating system, now known as AmigaOS. Providing a significant upgrade from 8-bit computers such as the Commodore 64, the Amiga quickly grew in popularity among computer enthusiasts, especially in Europe. It also found a prominent role in the video production business. Contents 1 History 1.1 Amiga Corporation 1.2 Commodore 1.3 Bankruptcy 1.4 Amiga, Inc. 2 Technical features 3 Operating systems 3.1 MS-DOS on Amiga via Sidecar or Bridgeboard 3.2 Mac OS on Amiga 4 Third party software 5 Models and variants 5.1 Marketed Amiga models 5.2 Unreleased models 5.3 Unreleased models (after Commodore) 6 Trivia 7 See also 8 References 9 External links 9.1 News and discussions 9.2 Software 9.3 Links directory 9.4 Link pages 9.5 History 9.6 Other History Amiga Corporation The Amiga's chipset was designed by a small company called Amiga Corporation during the end of the first home video game boom. Wary of industrial espionage, the chipset was codenamed Lorraine during development. Amiga Corp. funded the development of the Lorraine by manufacturing joysticks while seeking investors. The chipset was to be used in a video game machine, but following the video game crash of 1983, the Lorraine was repurposed to be a personal computer. Before Amiga Corp. could bring the machine to market, the company encountered financial difficulties and was sold to Commodore in August 1984. Commodore 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. It was later renamed the Amiga 1000 (or A1000 for short). Revolutionary for its time, it could display 4,096 colors and produce 4 channels of 8-bit digital audio. It is also notable for having the first preemptive multitasking operating system with a color GUI, allowing users to perform multiple tasks at the same time. An Amiga 500 computer system, with 1084S RGB monitor and A1010 floppy disk drive. In 1987, Commodore released two new Amiga models, the A500 and the A2000. These were marketed as low-end and high-end machines, respectively. The former became the most popular Amiga computer of the decade and served primarily 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 a video I/O connector. In 1990, the A3000 was introduced as the successor to both the A1000 and A2000, with an extended chipset (ECS) and the second release of its operating system, which would eventually be called AmigaOS. 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 these were commercial failures, mainly due to poor marketing. Mass-market Amigas were then considerably cheaper than PCs and Macs at the time. This factor helped to boost sales in the more price-conscious European markets, but it also led to Commodore being viewed in U.S. markets as a producer of cheap "game machines". This perception was furthered by the fact that most Commodore retail outlets were toy stores, and marketing campaigns were woefully mismatched with the status-conscious American public. Overall, the Amiga was very successful in Europe, but it sold less than a million units in the U.S.. In 1992, Commodore released their last Amiga computer models, the A1200 and the A4000: Each featured the new AGA chipset and the third release of AmigaOS. In 1993, menaced by console giants Sega and Nintendo, Commodore marketed the CD32 in a desperate attempt to save their business. The CD32 was one of the earliest CD-based consoles and was also the world's first 32-bit game machine, with specifications similar to the A1200. An Amiga A500 computer, photographed in the early 1990s Bankruptcy In 1994, Commodore filed for bankruptcy and its assets were purchased by Escom, a German PC manufacturer, who in turn went bankrupt in 1997. The Amiga brand was then sold to another PC manufacturer, Gateway 2000, which had announced grand plans for it. However, in 2000, Gateway dropped the Amiga brand. This is rumored to be due to pressure by Microsoft; however, the real reason for the sale is unknown. Amiga, Inc. The current owner of the trademark, Amiga, Inc., has licensed the rights to make hardware using the Amiga brand to a U.K. computer vendor, Eyetech Group, Ltd, which was founded by some former UK employees of Commodore International. They are currently selling the AmigaOne via an international dealer network. The AmigaOne is a PowerPC computer designed to run the last remnants of AmigaOS, which was itself licensed to a Belgian-German company, Hyperion Entertainment. Only a very few Amiga clones were ever produced, as both Commodore and subsequent owners of the trademark refused to license the Amiga technology to third-party manufacturers. Today, Amigas running AmigaOS version 3.9 and earlier are now considered "Classic" Amigas, as opposed to the new Amiga Inc./Eyetech/Hyperion models. Due to its popularity as a gaming platform, many people incorrectly refer to the Amiga as a games console (even though it is a fully-featured computer). However, there are many "Classic" Amigas still in use around the world. A popular use for the classic Amiga is as an automated readerboard for local community-access TV stations. Technical features For its time, the Amiga was quite an advanced computer for the home market. It provided impressive sound and graphics for games, and it was also popular in business environments until around the mid-1990s, aiding users in video editing and 3D graphics. The very first model, the Amiga 1000, had a 7.16MHz CPU, designed to work directly with NTSC video. The CPU clock frequency was precisely double the 3.58MHz color carrier frequency. The A1000 had a built-in composite video output, which allowed the computer to be hooked up directly to a TV or VCR. However, the output signal was considered too "hot" (strong) by many to be useful for anything other than home use (however, this could be remedied by running the A1000's composite output through a video processing amplifier, or "proc amp", to bring the video levels down to a suitable amount). The Original Amiga chipset, or OCS, was more advanced than other architectures of its time: it had dedicated chips for real-time video effects, allowing users to easily work with genlocks to overlay graphics atop live video. The Amiga's unique overscan feature, the ability to run at custom, user-defined resolutions, allowed it to draw images past the visible borders of a television screen, allowing seamless fly-ins and scrolling from off-frame. Today, many TV stations and broadcast corporations are still using A3000s and A4000s for their real-time video effects. Many programs were also written for creating "fansubs" of foreign films and Japanese animation. Another unique feature provided by the Amiga was the ability to change display resolutions on the fly — the computer could display different scan lines at different resolutions, allowing for multiple screens of information at different resolutions that could overlap one another without interfering with each other. The chipset also included a blitter, which could copy and manipulate large amounts of graphics data at once (making the Amiga well-suited to arcade action games), and accelerated line-drawing and area-filling functions, which helped advance the popularity of real-time 3D graphics and games. Operating systems After powering up or rebooting an Amiga 500 this screen display is seen, meaning the OS started and asking the user to insert a bootable floppy disk. The displayed OS is Kickstart 1.3. The operating system, AmigaOS, was also quite sophisticated for its time, combining an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) like that of the Apple Macintosh together with an elegant Command Line Interface (CLI) which then eventually evolved into a very powerful Shell. This gives the user of Amiga some of the flexibility of UNIX while retaining a simplicity that made maintenance rather easy. While its operating system was the only preemptive multitasking platform with an efficient message-passing kernel in the consumer marketplace for several years with an efficient memory management, robustness left something to be desired, mainly due to the absence of protected memory, resulting in the famous "Guru Meditation" errors. The Amiga operating system was resurrected in 2000 as AmigaOS 4, which currently runs only on AmigaOne computers and on A1200s and A4000s with a PowerPC accelerator card. Other, still maintained operating systems are available for the classic Amiga platform, including Linux, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. Commodore Amiga Unix (based on AT&T System V Rel. 4) was available only for the A2500 and A3000. MS-DOS on Amiga via Sidecar or Bridgeboard MS-DOS compatibility was a major issue during the early years of the Amiga's lifespan in order to promote the machine as a serious business machine. In order to run the MS-DOS operating system, Commodore released the 'Sidecar' for Amiga 1000, basically a 8086 board in a closed case that connected to the side of the Amiga. Clever programming (a library named Janus, after the two-faced Roman god of doorways) made it possible to run PC software in an Amiga window without use of emulation. At the introduction of the Sidecar the crowd was stunned to see the MS-DOS version of Microsoft Flight Simulator running at full speed in an Amiga window on the Workbench. Later the Sidecar was implemented on a expansion card named 'Bridgeboard' for Amiga 2000+ models. Bridgeboard cards appeared up to 486 processor variants. The Bridgeboard card and the Janus library made use PC expansion cards and harddisk/floppydisk drives possible. The bridgeboard card was manufactured by Commodore, later third party cards also appeared for the A500/1200 expansion slot such as the KCS Powerboard. Eventually, full-software emulators, such as PC-Task allowed Amigas to run MS-DOS programs, including Microsoft Windows, without additional hardware, at the costs of speed and compatibility. Mac OS on Amiga Also introduced for the Amiga was the Emplant expansion card, which allowed the Amiga to emulate an Apple Macintosh and run the Macintosh Operating System. It required an Apple Macintosh ROM image, which had to be obtained from a Macintosh. In 1988 an Apple Mac emulator called A-Max was released for the Amiga 500. It needed Mac ROMs to function, and could read Mac disks when used with a Mac floppy drive (Amiga floppy drives are unable to read Mac disks. Unlike Amiga disks Mac floppy disks spin at variable speeds, much like CD ROM drives). It wasn't a particularly elegant solution, but it did provide an affordable Mac experience. Over time full-software emulation was available in programs like Shapeshifter, but you still had to get a ROM image. Third party software Amiga was originally supported by such prestigious software titles as WordPerfect, Deluxe Paint, and Lattice C. Video Toaster, one of the first all-in-one graphics and video editing packages, began on the Amiga. The Amiga made 3D raytracing graphics available for the masses with Sculpt 3D (before the Amiga, raytracing was only available for dedicated graphic workstations). Some titles were later ported to Microsoft Windows and continue to thrive there, like the rendering software Maxon Cinema 4D, LightWave, which was originally part of Video Toaster, in addition to Video Toaster itself. Even Microsoft produced software for use on the Amiga. AmigaBASIC, an advanced BASIC software development environment, complete with an Interactive Development Environment (IDE), was written by Microsoft under contract. Microsoft never supported the Amiga. Much shareware and free software was written for the Amiga and could be obtained via the Fred Fish disk series or from the Aminet software archive. Models and variants Marketed Amiga models Original Chipset (OCS) Model Timescale RAM (base) OS Version Additional Information Amiga 1000 1985 - 1987 256 KB 1.0 - 1.3 Later A1000s shipped with 512KB base memory Amiga 500 1987 - 1990 512 KB 1.2 - 1.3 First "low-end" Amiga Amiga 2000 1987 - 1992 1MB 1.2 - 2.04 First desktop Amiga with expansion slots Amiga 2500 1989 - 1990 1MB 1.3 A2000+'020/'030 card (not a distinct model) Amiga 1500 1990 - 1991 1MB 1.3 UK only, variant of A2000 with 2 floppy drives. This version originated with CBM UK Marketing who found it necessary to distinguish the floppy-only version from the A2000 with the general public. Amiga CDTV 1991 - 1992 1MB 1.3 CD-ROM based multimedia machine Enhanced Chipset (ECS) Model Timescale RAM (base) OS Version Additional Information Amiga 3000 1990 - 1992 2/5 MB 2.0 - 2.04 First Zorro III system Amiga 3000T 1990 - 1992 1/4 MB 2.04 First "towerized" Amiga Amiga 3000UX 199? - 199? ? MB 2.04 UNIX based Amiga 3000 Amiga 500+ 1991 - 1992 1 MB 2.04 ECS based A500 with 1MB RAM base memory Amiga 600 1992 1 MB 2.05 - 2.1 First Amiga using SMT, built-in IDE and PCMCIA support Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA) Model Timescale RAM (base) OS Version Additional Information Amiga 1200 1992 - 1996 2 MB 3.0 - 3.1 Entry-level AGA machine, A1200HD with 20~209MB hard drives Amiga 4000 1992 - 1994 2 MB 3.0 First AGA machine, 68030/68040 CPU options Amiga 4000T 1994 - 1996 2 MB 3.1 Towerized version of the A4000, 68040/68060 CPU options Amiga CD32 1993 - 1994 2 MB 3.1 World's first 32-bit CD-ROM based console PowerPC based Model Timescale RAM (base) OS Version Additional Information AmigaOne SE 2002 - 2004 Varies (pre)4.0 ATX format motherboard AmigaOne XE 2003 - 2004 Varies (pre)4.0 ATX format motherboard MicroA1 - C 2004 - 256 Mb (pre)4.0 Mini-ITX format motherboard MicroA1 - I 2004 - 256 Mb (pre)4.0 Mini-ITX format motherboard Unreleased models Due to management turmoil, some viable Amiga models under development were canceled prior to release: A3000+: Prototyped in 1991, it used the AGA chipset and had an AT&T DSP3210 chip, high-fidelity audio, telephone line interface, and 2.5Mbit/s RS-485 network port. A1000+: Intermediate in price and features between the A1200 and A3000+, it would have been a detached keyboard system with expansion slots (two Zorro slots, video slot, CPU slot). (Dave Haynie, Usenet Message-ID: <40c78969.243987715@news.jersey.net>). Unreleased models (after Commodore) A number of new Amiga models were announced after the end of the Commodore model era. However, very few of them were ever produced beyond simple prototypes (if they even got that far). Some models that were never produced include: The Amiga Walker: Announced early 1996, this was supposed to be a new, compact multi-media computer compatible with the classic Amiga. Its case design was very weird: The metallic grey case, about the size of a games console, was curved at the rear. Jokes were made comparing the shape to that of a vacuum cleaner. There were more-or-less working prototypes of the Walker but it was never released into the mass market. The A\box, pre\box and AMIRAGE K2: These were PowerPC based machines announced by the German company Phase 5. The A\box, announced in 1996, was to feature a new custom graphics chipset named Caipirinha, and a new Amiga compatible operating system. This was replaced in 1998 by the announcement of the pre\box, which was to feature four PowerPC processors, and was to run AmigaOS 3.1. Finally, in 1999 the AMIRAGE K2 was announced, based on the QNX operating system. The Amiga 40x0L models: QuikPak announced a range of machines while they were planning to purchase rights to the Amiga during late 1996 / early 1997. These were models with either a 68030, 68040 or 68060 processor, and included portable "luggable" versions. Some models were planned to be fitted with NewTek's Video Toaster Flyer. QuikPak were a manufacturer for the Amiga 4000T. The A5000 and A6000: These were new models announced by Power Computing in 1997. They featured a 68030 or 68040 for the A5000, and a 68060 for the A6000. The BoXeR: Designed by Mick Tinker at Access Innovations, and announced in 1997, the BoXeR was to be a new motherboard based on a Motorola 68040 or 68060 processor. Amongst other improvements over the Commodore motherboards of the time, it incorporated the ageing AGA chipset into one chip. Sadly it never got far beyond the advanced protoyping stage. Mick was also responsible for the Access, which was basically an Amiga 1200 that was re-jigged to fit into a full length 5.25" drive bay. iWin Amigas: iWin was a German company that announced in 1999 that it was designing new computers that were compatible with both classic Amigas and IBM PCs. The only source of information about these computers was iWin's own website, which contained some technical circuit diagrams about them. Upon closer inspection, the circuit diagrams were revealed to be completely unrealistic. After a few months, the supposed "iWin Amigas" vanished without a trace, without ever being publicly presented or released into the mass market. The general consensus of the Amiga community is that iWin never had done any real design, but were simply trying to pull a hoax on the eagerly-awaiting Amiga fans. Trivia After Commodore went bust, a team of engineers and programmers created an unofficial system capable of running Amiga software as an upgrade route for Amiga fans. This resulted in the Pegasos PowerPC computers, and the MorphOS operating system. The name amiga is the Spanish and Portuguese word for 'female friend', from the Latin amica. The Amiga still has a very strong user community, particularly outside the United States. The Amiga community made a significant contribution to a computer subculture known as the Demo Scene. The Demo Scene was more or less a phenomenon inherited from Commodore 64 times. Much operating system advocacy surrounds the technology implemented in the Amiga, to the point that many Amiga users are accused of zealotry (look for "Amiga Persecution Complex" in the Jargon File). Amiga has two Three-finger salutes, one for warm reset (CTRL plus the two "Amiga" keys) and the other for reboot (CTRL plus the two "Alt" keys). The latter method was introduced with AmigaOS 4.0. When an Amiga crashes, it displays a flashing red box with a mysterious Guru Meditation number. The number is actually the 68000 exception number, and the address (in hexadecimal) at which it occurred. During the Commodore era, machines with 'thousands' model numbering were marketed as 'quality' machines for business use, while the other machines (A500, A500+, A600, A1200) were 'consumer' machines. The three most popular low-end models of the Amiga - the 500, 600 and 1200 - each had the name of a B-52's song written on their motherboard. The most widely cited reason for this is the designers having been fans of the band. The motherboard of the 500 says "Rock Lobster", that of the 600 says "June Bug" and that of the 1200 says "Channel Z". No other models have song names on their motherboards. The Amiga 600 was originally supposed to be the Amiga 300, a very low-cost "introductory" model, but in an attempt to cut costs plans from CBM management changed at the last minute, and it was instead marketed as the successor to the 500 and the 500+. The motherboard of the Amiga 600 still says "Amiga 300". A common misconception is that before Amiga was sold to Commodore, Atari was in the running for purchasing the small, Los Gatos-based company. The misconception further states that after Atari lost the acquisition, it developed the Atari ST to compete with the (then) "Commodore" Amiga. The truth is that it was Warner's Atari Inc. that had made a deal with Amiga back in 1983 (which can be seen here) and not Tramiel's Atari Corp. (which developed the ST). The agreement basically gave Atari Inc. access to the Amiga hardware for their own computer system codenamed "Mickey". As part of the agreement, Atari would sell "Mickey" (formally the Atari 1850XLD) as a video game system with no keyboard for 1 year. After that, Atari could then sell a keyboard add-on and sell full blown versions of "Mickey" to the public. Work was started but Atari ran in to the well known financial troubles and Warner wound up breaking up and selling off the parts of Atari Inc. The consumer division (which included consoles and computers) was sold to former Commodore founder Jack Tramiel. Jack had left Commodore in January 1984 and after taking a short vacation decided to return to the business with his own next generation low cost computer system. So he formed Tramiel Technology, Ltd. (TTL) with some former Commodore employees and designed what would become known as the ST series of computers. In late May 1984 he purchased Atari Consumer for their manufacturing capabilities and distribution network, which he'd need to manufacture and sell his new computer. The takeover was completed on July 2nd, and the truth of the matter is that the ST was 90% finished by the time this occurred. The operating system being the only major work needed to be finished. Jack and his people had no idea about the Amiga agreement at the time. When they took over Atari Consumer and formed Atari Corp., all projects were put on hold until they could evaluate them. In the meantime, more engineering and management left Commodore to join up at Jack's new Atari Corp. Within the span of a few weeks, several major occurrences happened. In late July, Commodore filed suit against Jack for stealing trade secrets because of this influx of former Commodore employees. Commodore bought Amiga. During the project evaluations, the Tramiel's discovered Atari Inc.'s previous agreement with Amiga and used it to launch a countersuit against Commodore via Amiga on August 13th. All suits were eventually dropped and/or settled out of court. Steve Jobs was shown the original prototype for the first Amiga (Amiga 1000) before it had been purchased by Commodore, and said there was "too much hardware". He was working on Macintosh at the time. Two of the designers of the original Amiga, RJ Mical and Dave Needle, would later go on to design the Atari Lynx, giving it a framebuffer based display with a blitter very similar to that in the Amiga. The two would also go on to work on the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer. When Great Valley Products first released their 68030 accelerator board for the Amiga 2000, it ran Apple's MacOS faster than any real Mac. Apple soon caught up, though. See also AmigaOS Amiga demos Amiga games Unix Amiga Emulator SCA virus Gateway 2000 List of arcade games ports to Amiga References John J. Anderson, "Amiga Lorraine: finally, the 'next generation Atari'?" Creative Computing, April 1984 [1] Dave Haynie. "The Amiga A3000+ System Specification". 1991 DevCon Release. July 17, 1991. [2] External links News and discussions Amiga.org Amigaworld.net - Official support forum for the AmigaOne. ANN Obligement - magazine about AmigaOS and MorphOS. Lemon Amiga - A friendly Amiga community mostly focusing on games. Abime.net - Amiga addicts sanctuary, an Amiga community. The Amiga Zone - Amiga emulation and discussion forum. Software AmigaOS - Unofficial AmigaOS Support Homepage Aminet - Public domain and freely available software for AmigaOS. OS4Depot - Unofficial repository for AmigaOS 4.x software. Amiga.sf - Your source to Amiga ports. Links directory A big Amiga web directory Link pages Amiga Realm - Amiga Internet Directory Service and Archive Resource. Amiga Links List - A 'Best of' List of Useful Amiga Links History Amiga History Guide The Dave Haynie Archives The History of the Amiga Amiga.org links EMU Gaming — Amiga history by era Classic magazine articles to read. Other AmigaOS 4.0 - Official OS4 site from Hyperion Entertainment. Amiga Music Preservation - All about the Amiga Audio/Module/Protracker/Mods/Modules scene. Amiga Wiki BLAZEMONGER - Amiga humor. Pouet - A demoscene portal. Amiga Demoscene Archive - Demoscene portal entirely dedicated to Amiga. The Big Book of Amiga Hardware The Software Preservation Society - Dedicated to the preservation of classic software for the Amiga and other platforms. The Amiga Hardware Database - Collection of Amiga hardware expansions and the Amiga models. Jim's Amiga Commercial Page! - Watch original Amiga commercials. Hall Of Light - The database of Amiga games. PowerUP - Unofficial PowerUP Support Homepage. G-Rex PCI - Unofficial G-Rex PCI Support Homepage.                 List of Commodore microcomputers MOS Technology 6502-based (8-bit):   MOS/CBM KIM-1 | PET/CBM | CBM-II (aka B/P series) | VIC-20/VC-20 | C64 | SX-64 | C16 & 116 | Plus/4 | C128 M68K-based (16/32-bit):   Amiga 1000 | Amiga 500 | Amiga 2000 | Amiga 500+ | Amiga 2500 | Amiga 3000, UX, T | Amiga 600 | Amiga 1200 | Amiga 4000 ca:Amiga cs:Amiga da:Amiga de:Amiga es:Commodore Amiga fr:Amiga hr:Amiga it:Amiga nl:Amiga ja:Amiga no:Amiga nn:Amiga pl:Amiga pt:Amiga fi:Amiga sv:Amiga tr:Amiga Search Term: "Amiga" Categories: Home computers | Personal computers | Commodore Amiga | CBM hardware

Interview: Bill McEwen, CEO Amiga Inc.