Amiga is a family of home computers that were designed and sold by the Amiga Corporation (and later by Commodore International) from 1985 to 1994.
Amiga Corporation
The Amiga's Original Chip Set, code-named Lorraine, was designed by the Amiga Corporation during the end of the first home video game boom. Development of the Lorraine project was done using a Sage IV machine nicknamed "Agony" which had 64-kbit memory modules with a capacity of 1 mbit and a 8 MHz . 090427 floodgap.com Amiga Corp. funded the development of the Lorraine by manufacturing game controllers, and later with an initial bridge loan from Atari Inc. while seeking further investors. The chipset was to be used in a video game machine, but following the video game crash of 1983, the Lorraine was reconceived as a multi-tasking multi-media personal computer.
The company demonstrated a prototype at the January 1984 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Chicago, attempting to attract investors. The Sage acted as the CPU, and BYTE described "big steel boxes" substituting for the chipset that did not yet exist. The magazine reported in April 1984 that Amiga Corporation "is developing a 68000-based home computer with a custom graphics processor. With 128K bytes of RAM and a floppy-disk drive, the computer will reportedly sell for less than $1000 late this year."
Further presentations were made at the following CES in June 1984, to Sony, HP, Philips, Apple, Silicon Graphics, and others. Steve Jobs of Apple, who had just introduced the Macintosh in January, was shown the original prototype for the first Amiga and stated that there was too much hardware – even though the newly redesigned board consisted of just three silicon chips which had yet to be shrunk down. Investors became increasingly wary of new computer companies in an industry dominated by the IBM PC. Jay Miner, co-founder, lead engineer and architect, took out a second mortgage on his home to keep the company from going bankrupt.
In July 1984, Atari Inc. was bought by the recently resigned CEO and founder of Commodore, Jack Tramiel. A substantial number of Commodore's employees followed him, prompting a lawsuit from Commodore for theft of trade secrets. Tramiel's son Leonard later discovered that Atari Inc. had lent $500,000 to the Amiga Corporation, with repayment due at the end of June, prompting Atari Corp. to counter Commodore.
In a subsequent development, the Amiga group received interested from Commodore, and began discussions of selling the company. In August 1984, Amiga was purchased by Commodore for $27 million, including paying off the loan from Atari.
Commodore 1985–87: the early years When the first Amiga computer was released in July 1985 by Commodore, it was called the Amiga 1000, devoid of references to Commodore. Commodore marketed it both as their successor to the Commodore 64, and as their competitor against the Macintosh. It was later renamed the Commodore Amiga 1000.
At a relatively affordable base price of , the Amiga could display up to , produce 8-bit stereo audio, and run several applications concurrently. These qualities were unprecedented in a consumer-oriented computer and gave the Amiga 1000 a significant technical lead on its three main competitors (the Atari ST, the Macintosh, and the IBM PC).
The public saw both Commodore and Atari selling, as John C. Dvorak wrote, "cheap disposable" game machines, and observers believed that either the ST or Amiga would survive, but not both. The ST had more software in the beginning, but larger companies like Electronic Arts and Activision promised to make software for the Amiga. Neither had distribution from major chains like ComputerLand or BusinessLand, or support from large business-software companies like Microsoft, Ashton-Tate, or Lotus. The New York Times stated that "it is not clear that the business computer user really cares about colorful graphics". The computers' sophisticated graphics strengthened their perception as "game machines".
Poorly marketed, the Amiga 1000 was not a success. An August 1986 Compute! editorial expressed amazement that Commodore, insisting that the Amiga was a business computer, did not show it at the summer CES. The magazine estimated that in their first year of availability, the Atari ST had outsold the Amiga. Stating that the "industry needs the vision and direction that a Commodore can help provide", it urged the company to pursue the consumer market that had been very successful for the Commodore 64. Jerry Pournelle from BYTE praised the Amiga Sidecar as "really impressive", and approved of the "great deal of Amiga software" at Spring COMDEX, but wondered "whether Commodore has enough high-tech people to support the Amiga properly" after large layoffs, while "Atari ST software pours forth like a flood". Bruce Webster reported in January 1987 that Commodore had sold about 150,000 Amigas as of October 1986, but "imagine how many [the company] might have sold if they had done things right". He criticized many aspects of Commodore's handling of the computer, including selling "not-quite-finished" hardware and software, not supporting third-party developers, poor advertising, and internal uncertainty of the Amiga's target market. Aware of its reputation, Commodore asked the press to call the computer "The Amiga, from Commodore" and designed new logos to replace its own iconic "C=" design. Commodore compounded the problem by marketing the new 8-bit Commodore 128 alongside the Amiga, confusing the general public about Commodore's direction and the Amiga's advantages.
By 1987, rumors spread that the size of the Amiga market disappointed software vendors, which were uncertain of Commodore's intention for the computer. Bing Gordon of Electronic Arts, which had prominently supported the Amiga, stated that year that "the Amiga has never done as well as we had hoped when we started out", and that Electronic Arts had expected Commodore to sell it as a $600 high-end home computer instead of an $1800 business computer. The best-selling Amiga games sold about 25,000 copies in 1986, said Gordon, compared to 125,000 to 150,000 copies on the Commodore 64. In 1994 BYTE wrote "The Amiga was so far ahead of its time that almost nobody – including Commodore's marketing department – could fully articulate what it was all about. Today, it's obvious the Amiga was the first multimedia computer, but in those days it was derided as a game machine because few people grasped the importance of advanced graphics, sound, and video." This marketing confusion would plague the Amiga throughout its lifetime, even as it changed hands between Escom, Gateway, and other owners.
1987–90: Cost-reduced and high-end models In 1987, faced with strong competition from Atari ST in the lower end of the segment, Commodore released the cost-reduced Amiga 500 and the high-end Amiga 2000, for the respective prices of US$699 and $2395 (this price included 1 MB RAM and a monitor).
By 1988, software sales for the Amiga remained disappointing, compared to those for the IBM PC, Commodore 64, and Apple II. With its lowered price, the Amiga 500 became a successful home computer and eventually outsold its main rival, the Atari ST. The Amiga 2000, thanks to its Genlock and internal expansion slots, also managed to carve out a market niche within desktop video. This market was not as large as the office and publishing markets dominated by the IBM PC and Apple Macintosh, and the Amiga 2000 lagged behind these systems in sales. Additionally, Commodore had initially announced a price of $1495 for 2000, resulting in widespread disappointment among their customer base when the higher price was made public. This was also the case for the A500, which Commodore announced its price as $595.95, but later released it at $699. The Amiga did see widespread use in the television and video production industry during the late 1980s and early 1990s, including on popular shows like Clarissa Explains It All and Unsolved Mysteries.
1990–92: Height of popularity
In 1990, Commodore released a significant update of the Amiga platform, in the shape of the Amiga 3000 featuring an enhanced chipset (ECS) and the second release of its operating system, commonly referred to as Workbench 2.0.
Commodore had a poor reputation among consumers and developers. Computer Gaming World wrote in 1990 of its "abysmal record of customer and technical support in the past". Commodore was unable to match the pace of PC advancement with their lower resources and economy of scale, and users complained that the custom ECS chipset failed to match the features of the PC and Mac display hardware at the time. Users also felt that the operating system (Workbench 2.0) only featured improvements taken from the user community. As Apple was the only other major user of Motorola chips at the time, Commodore often had to wait for a new CPU technology until increased supplies allowed Motorola to sell chips to anyone but Apple.
On the plus side, many users considered the Amiga 3000 the most well-engineered Amiga model, and the Amiga 3000's integrated flicker fixer made it painless to use inexpensive PC-style VGA monitors.
In the same year as the Amiga 3000, Commodore released the US$895 CDTV, aimed to move the Amiga platform to the living room and a competitor to devices such as Philips CD Interactive (CD-i). Commodore believed that there was a market for a system that could display animations, pictures and offer educational software and games on television, and many game developers thought that interactive CD-based video games would become a popular market. The end result was a system that could be described as an Amiga 500 with a remote control replacing the keyboard and a CD-ROM replacing the floppy drive.
Considering that the Amiga 500 was cheaper, more versatile, and had the promise of a future CDTV expansion, few Amiga users had any interest in the Amiga CDTV. At the same time, the general public preferred cheaper game consoles over both the CDTV and CD-i, and they were not aware of or interested in the multimedia potential of these CD-ROM based systems.
Both Commodore and Philips tried to tempt users with the promise of an MPEG-1 module capable of playing video from a CD-ROM. These Video CDs can be considered lower-resolution versions of today's Digital Versatile Disks (DVDs), but without some additional features and the inconvenience of having to change the disks during a full-length movie.
The CDTV became Commodore's first Amiga-based failure, one that allegedly cost them a significant amount of resources. Commodore made a last-ditch effort in saving the system with the CDTV 2 but dropped that design in favor of the much more capable Amiga CD32.
1992–94: Trouble ahead Commodore began 1992 early by introducing the Amiga 500+, a slightly updated and cost-reduced Amiga 500. Viewed primarily as a game machine, especially in Europe, this model was criticized for not being able to run popular games such as SWIV, Treasure Island Dizzy, and Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge, and some people returned them to dealers, demanding an original Amiga 500.
By the early 1990s, the IBM PC platform dominated the market for computer games. In December 1992, Computer Gaming World (CGW) reported that MS-DOS accounted for 82% of game sales in 1991, compared to Macintosh's 8% and Amiga's 5%. In response to a reader's challenge to find a DOS game that played better than the Amiga version the magazine cited Wing Commander and Civilization, and added that "The heavy MS-DOS emphasis in CGW merely reflects the realities of the market". Instead of discontinuing the Amiga 500 and 500+, Commodore envisioned it taking the place of the Commodore 64 in the low-cost segment. To make that possible Commodore set out to design the Amiga 600, a system intended to be much cheaper than the Amiga 500. The Amiga 500 itself would be replaced by Amiga 1200, also under development.