The History of the Amiga
I had a Commodore Amiga 500. If I compare all the computers I owned and rate them by fun, innovation and appeal, I would consider the Amiga 500 the best computer I every had. Only with my Mac I could again had similar experiences. The easy of use, the interface, the fun factor, the games, all of these things made the Amiga a great platform. It was very advanced for it’s time, I remember when I got it, my father asked me to decide between a i386 and the Amiga. The i386 had a 40mb hdd, EGA graphics and it costed the triple. It was no use, because the Amiga won my heart the first time I saw it. Silkworm was the first game I played on a Amiga, not mine, it was some kid’s who took it to school in order to demo something I can’t remember now.
After I got my Amiga, a new world was open. Games like RodLand, St Dragon, Sensible Soccer, James Pond, Shadow of the Beast, Last Samurai… I could be here all day. And the Demo Scene? Amiga owners will remember for sure SpaceBall’s 9 Fingers and the State of the Art demo, both of them fitted video and vector animation on a single floppy disk (not an HD one)…
The Amiga defined an era, not only for me as a teenager discovering technology at the time but also for an industry and for the men and women who dedicated a big part of their lifes for a dream.
But, besides nostalgia, the reason I’m writing this post is because Jeremy Reimer at Ars Technica has been posting a series of articles on the history of the Amiga. The articles are insightful and describe very well the timeline and history of one of the best technology platforms ever made. The fist three articles are part of an installment that covers the Amiga history from the beginning to the first prototype, the second installment will cover the Amiga’s official launch and it’s early years. Not to miss this one even if you didn’t had an Amiga.
[tags]Amiga, Commodore[/tags]
I had several Amiga’s over the years, and i must say it’s the most fun platform i knew so far. Great games, great OS (not without flaws though) i knew inside in, being involved in the portuguese demoscene, it were great times!