Amiga - Back for the Future!


3/22/05 - This is a reposting of my original Amiga page. I've not updated this info since 12/15/97 (when it was written). Read it for some amusing history, I guess. Boy was I really pompous about thge Amiga. I still think it was one of the best OS's at the time. Now it has fallen behind drastically. And, yes, there is some limited development on a new version, but it is basically dead.

OK, guys, this is Marz's Amiga page. First, what is an Amiga? Well, I'm glad you asked. First of all, it is a proprietary computer system. It doesn't natively run Windows '95, 3.1, 3.11, or NT. It doesn't natively run MacOS, BeOS, NeXT, OS/2, BSD, VMS, or any of those other OS's. It runs AmigaOS. It can run an Amiga version of UNIX natively. If this last part is incorrect you other Amiga experts, let me know. But I do remember an option at one time to have UNIX as part of your setup. You could choose between AmigaOS or UNIX at startup.

OK, so what is AmigaOS? Well, it's a GUI OS. More specifically it's a pre-emptive multitasking GUI OS. It has been considered one of, if not THE, best multitasking OS's put out. This is due to its efficient handling of tasks, and it's compact size. A stock A500 can still run the OS and other programs. A stock A500 only has 1 Meg of RAM. The original A1000 came with only 256k of RAM, and did multitasking just fine. I know, I had one.

In addition to being a GUI, there is the Shell. A CLI or Command Line Interface that allows us Amigans to enter DOS commands. The AmigaDos command set is very much like the DOS set found on IBM Compatibles. The main difference in the DOSes is that the Amiga doesn't use the "\" symbol. Everything as far as that is concerned uses the "/" symbol instead.

The Amiga was the first in many areas:


The Amiga has been doing all this since 1985. It has taken 10 years for the other two major systems to even catch up to the sophistication of Amiga in both it's OS and standard Hardware Configuration. Even so, it is the only PC with true plug & play, aka plug & pray on Wintel machines;) It also has been able to exceed the 640k memory limit since the beginning, unlike Intel machines that have to rely on trickery to exceed that limit. It doesn't matter if you have a 64Meg 200Mhz PII, the CPU can only access the memory in 640k increments. The AmigaOS is currently capable of accessing up to 1 Gigabyte of continuous memory. It's only true limitation on memory "out of the box" is it's Video Ram of 2 Meg. This is known as Chip Ram. This is the memory that does all graphics and sound. This is the source of those wierd memory amounts that Amiga users have. Like mine. 21 Meg of memory. That is 1 Meg of Chip Ram, and 20 Meg of Fast Ram, or regular Ram. Ram can be upgraded in 1 Megabye increments on the Amiga. With the addition of a 64-bit gfx card (yes, they are made for the Amiga), the current graphics memory limit is 6 Meg. There are also 16-bit sound cards available to enhance the sound capabilites of the Amiga.

Many of you may have heard of the Video Toaster. This piece of equipment would not be possible on any other PC. The Amiga's architecture is perfectly designed to handle video. It is known as THE DTV (Desktop Video) computer. Most local weather forcasts are done with Amigas. Many Prevue Channels on cable television are done on Amigas. The premier 3D animation program, Lightwave, originated on the Amiga, and is used for many television programs, and films. And is usually done on an Amiga rather than a PC.

The Amiga, while it may be the laughing stock of those ignorant computer users (Wintel owners usually), is a well repsected system to those that actually know what they are talking about. Many Win95 people have either never worked on an Amiga, seen an Amiga, or worse, even heard of an Amiga. These uninformed people have made a judgement on the Amiga based solely on market share. This is very similar to VHS versus Betamax from the 70's for VCR's. The Beta system is a much superior system to VHS, and always has been. The failing of Beta was it's 2-hour limitation versus VHS that could record up to 6 hours. Is Beta still made? Very much so. It is now a solely professional format.

The Amiga is in many ways a professional's computer. Most users have had one for at least 4-5 years. They know the OS and the innards of their computer better than the vast majority of other computer owners. Most Amigans are not hesitant to open up their computer to install or repair a component.

OK, smarty, so will your Amiga run the latest and greatest DOOM/QUAKE, etc. game? Well, yes and no. Currently, the game development on the Amiga is limited to small companies. The Major games makers have stopped or suspended game develpoment on the Amiga. However, through emulation, any program or game from just about any OS out there can be run on an Amiga. Sometimes faster than the intended platform. Many previous games were designed on Amiga and ported over to other OS's due to it's ease of programming, and sophisitication. Where do you think a company like Psygnosis even started. That's right, on the Amiga. They didn't even make games for other platforms at first. I was playing Lemmings before PC and Mac owners had even heard of it. Currently, there are a few games being ported over to the Amiga. Myst already has. Others are to follow in the next few months as deals are signed with those publishers. Myst was ported over by an Amiga games company.

A little history. The Amiga was designed by Jay Miner in the early 80's. After he completed the computer, two companies fought over the rights for it. They were Atari and Commodore. Commodore won out, and started producing the first model called the Amiga 1000. It came with 256k of memory (Chip Ram), an internal double density disk drive, an expansion port, two-button mouse, and a separate keyboard. Shortly afterwards, Atari came out with the 520ST. It was similar to the Amiga, but was not as sophisticated.

The next two models to come out were the A2000/2500, and the A500. The A2000 came in a PC type case with multiple slots for expansion boards, and CPU slot for accelorator boards, 1 Meg RAM (Chip Ram), one internal DD disk drive, two-button mouse, and a separate keyboard. The A2500 was the same, but had a 40Meg ST504 HD in it. Later SCSI was used. Yes, I said SCSI. IDE was really never popular as it was, and still is, a slower standard than SCSI. The A500 was the same computer as the A2000, but had an integrated keyboard and only one expansion slot. Think of a bigger C128.

Then came the A600,and the CDTV. I really never understood the diiference of the A600 and the A500. The CDTV was a game console similar to the SegaCD game system, but could also be used as a computer. It was basically an A500 in a cool looking black box, infrared keyboard, and mouse. Neither of these systems ever became popular. Around this time Commodore was quickly losing market share versus Mac and IBM. While their hardware and software limitations still existed, they were gaining more users to something that Commodore never understood - Marketing. Any type of marketing stopped with the C64, as world-wide sales were still booming.

Then came the A3000. It was sleek. One unfortunate thing was it came with an IDE hard drive. After much backlash from the Amiga community, it came with either an IDE or SCSI. Most people bought the SCSI version. The A3000 allowed motherboard memory upgrades of up to 16Megs. It also came with 2 Megs of Chip RAM, and a 25Mhz Motorola 68030 CPU rather than the standard 8Mhz 68000 since the A1000 days. The case was smaller, so Newtek had some problems with it's Video Toaster (See below). It also came with a couple more custom chips.

Custom chips? What are those? Well, every Amiga model has what are called Custom Chips. They have funny names like Paula, Denise, Buster, Ramsey, etc. These work in conjunction with the CPU. These are the Amiga's secret weapons. Without them, the Amiga would be just like any other computer. The custom chips relieve CPU load for sound, graphics, DMA, SCSI/IDE control, etc. This allows the CPU to do what it does best; number crunch. This is the beauty of the architecture of the Amiga. These custom chips allow the Amiga to run faster than its Mac and IBM counterparts. I literally can run other platforms' software through emulation, and operate it faster than on a Mac or IBM.

During the interim between the A2000 and the A3000, a little company called NewTek produced an interesting little board called the Video Toaster. After two years of a waiting Amiga public, they finally released it. This little $2500 board set the video industry on it's head. It crammed over $50,000 worth of video processing equipment onto one board. They bundled it with a revolutionary 3D rendering package called Lightwave, and a paint program. This one product is the entire reason, in my opinion, why the Amiga is still around today.

Then, during the final years of Commodore, came the A4000, A1200, and the CD32. The CD32 was a more advanced version of the CDTV. The A4000T (tower) is the current Amiga model. Its base config is a 25Mhz '040, with 6 Megs of memory, an internal 1.76 HDD, 1.2GB SCSI Drive, two-button mouse, separate keyboard, and it's big advantage, the AGA (Advanced Graphics Architecture) Chip set. The AGA chip set allows 256 color screens as a standard option without the use of a graphics card. The A1200 is basically the same as the A4000, except that it comes in an A500 like case without the internal hard drive, and an '030 CPU.

A couple of years after the introduction of the A4000, Commodore finally called it quits and filed for bankruptcy. After a long process (a year), ESCOM from Germany bought the rights to the Amiga. ESCOM was a PC manufacturer that also had its own stores to sell its PC's. They had the Amiga for 2 years, but failed to do anything with it. No updates to the current OS, or architecture were released. According to many, the AAA chip set was being worked on when Commodore closed up shop. This would have been for the next generation Amiga, keeping it ahead of the rest of the computer world. Well, ESCOM apparantly didn't do much with the AAA either. They filed for bankruptcy as a company also.

A year after ESCOM's demise, Gateway 2000 came out of nowhere to purchase the rights to the Amiga. They announced this in March of 1997, and finalized it a couple of months later. During the year after ESCOM's bankruptcy, several other companies were either actively in the process of bidding on the technology, or were rumored to be. I never heard of Gateway being interested until after the announcement. There were even rumors of Microsoft wanting to buy the Amiga. Many Amiga owners were shocked and dismayed at the prospect of MS owning Amiga, and felt that Gates would just but it and bury the technology. This type of thing was already done by MS with an Amiga music sequencing package called Bars & Pipes, so it wasn't completely out of the realm of possibilities. So what's the future of the Amiga? Well, it's hard to say as Gateway 2000 has not released the specs on the new Amigas. There is much speculation. This is what is certain as of 12/15/97. A new OS will be put out sometime in the Winter of 1998. It will be OS3.5. It will be an update of the current OS3.1. OS4.0 is expected much later. No new CPU has been decided on. The rest of the system cofiguration is being worked on.

Gateway has set up Amiga International has an independantly run company. AI is based in Germany. They will handle all the marketing of the computer. Amiga, Inc. is the R & D arm of the company, and is based in the US with Gateway. Gateway recently approved a budget of millions of dollars for advertising, and R & D. AI has signed mutliple licensing agreements for clones. There is also talk of the OS being used for other devices and uses.

So this is the history of the Amiga in a nutshell of sorts. The Amiga is still alive. It's amazing that a product that has gone through two bankruptcies, and almost no corporate support could have survived so long. That is a testament of the power of the Amiga, and the love its many users have for the machine. Many of use have used, Win95, and MacOS, but still prefer the AmigaOS. Why? It's just designed better. We don't need 8 Megs of memory just to run the OS. An 8Meg Amiga can multitask very comfortably. While the AmigaOS doesn't have some of the features that other OS's do, those features are not an important part of the OS itself, i.e. the OS can run perfectly fine without them. Many of those features are available from 3rd party programmers and are fully integrated in the AmigaOS.

Over the next year, the Amiga will be becoming more prominent on the computer scene. There are millions of Amiga users around the world. Many of them will be upgrading their current systems, or will be purchasing the new Amiga models. The best current system is a 200Mhz PowerPC with 130 Meg of RAM, 4Meg 64-bit Video card, 16-bit sound card, a high-speed serial card, 17" Amiga monitor (Amigas can actually use any monitor), 4.3GB HD, 2.1MB HDD, Jaz Drive, and 24X CD ROM. How much would it cost? Probably around $6000 if bought all together. Around $6700 if bought separately. Add the printer and scanners at normal PC prices since the Amiga can use them. This system has all the capabilites and more of any PC system out there; Mac or IBM. So now you guys know what you can buy me for Christmas this year. Any takers? ;)

This is just the first draft of this page. More to come over the next couple of weeks with pics, links, and more info.

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