5 ms·

A history of the Amiga, part 10: The downfall of Commodore

61 points by msh 10y ago

jonSson99 10y ago
great Amiga movie out, didn't know about the Euro demo scene. I didn't get one until the Video Toaster. https://fmovies.se/film/from-bedrooms-to-billions-the-amiga-years.9o59x https://fmovies.se/film/from-bedrooms-to-billions-the-amiga-...
- rullgrus 10y ago
  Thanks for the documentary link!
- eriknstr 10y ago
  Tried to download it using youtube-dl, their server returned a funny message. HTTP Error 503: Have you the ability to read quickly as the light? PS: The video is actually hosted on Google Video. Copying the relevant Google Video URL from devtools network monitor allows youtube-dl to fetch the video correctly.
- prefect42 10y ago
  Bad link, goes right to some Android virus or scareware page.
Zardoz84 10y ago
I had the luck of buying an A1200 a few years ago. Really impressive machine for 1992. Compared against my PC on the early 90s... well Can't run DooM, but have a lot of nice games. The majority of the games that I played from 1990 to 1995 was 2d games. Games that could have ran on these A1200 without any issue.
squarefoot 10y ago
Watch also the "Deathbed Vigil" video by Dave Haynie, an interesting and moving account of what was happening during the last days of C=. I would recommend to watch it especially if you never touched an Amiga and always wondered why those nerds adored it so much.
- setpatchaddress 10y ago
  I don't think it's aged well. I tried watching it recently and couldn't get past the first five minutes.
- orionblastar 10y ago
  Kim Justice has another series of videos on Youtube about Commodore, Atari, and Amiga. She did a lot of research on them. Commodore did not market the Amiga in the USA, and the PC Clones caught up in 1987 with VGA and Sound Cards. When Windows was preloaded with a mouse on PC Clones nobody needed the Amiga. The Amiga was cheaper than the Macintosh, but PC clones were cheaper than the Amiga. Amiga had mostly video games, and Commodore could not get business apps written for it to compete with PC Clones nor get many computer dealers to carry them as Jack Tramel burned computer dealers by putting the Vic-20 and C64 in toy stores and discount stores.
toyg 10y ago
We complain about today's management class, but in the '80s scumbaggery and general thievery really were at Far-West levels. The Amiga was a fabulous game machine and a great computer.
- bleair 10y ago
  Rather amazing how inept management was. The amiga was way ahead of its time (the software architecture and design choices) and thus it might never have succeeded, but the management actively did things to increase cost of production (the a600, the various tower versions of the 2000 and 3000) and harm its own sales.
pmoriarty 10y ago
I fell in love with the Amiga ever since I saw an Amiga 1000 in the first issue of Amiga World. Amigas were clearly light years ahead of virtually all other personal computers at the time -- with the arguable exception of the Atari ST, which had the reputation of being better for music. But the Amiga was better for games and had better graphics. As a hardcore gamer, I knew instantly that the Amiga was what I wanted. Somehow I convinced my parents to get me an Amiga 500, as my second computer (after the TI99/4A) and spent a lot of time collecting games and demos, and connecting to BBS'. Somehow the rest of the world didn't really see the clear superiority of the Amiga, and stuck with their boring IBM PC's and Macintoshes. Commodore collapsed, and virtually every other personal computer became extinct, as most people just wanted to buy whatever they had used at work (IBM PC) or school (Apple). This was an early lesson for me that superior technology does not always win. In fact, it's often the inferior technologies that win, for a variety of reasons -- especially marketing. I kept my Amiga for a long time, but eventually migrated to Unix (SunOS, Irix, Dec Alpha's OSF/1, and Solaris), and eventually to Linux on a PC. It had become increasingly clear that newer tech had left the Amiga in the dust. Some people still stuck with the Amiga long after I stopped using it, but I donated mine long ago. Sometimes I wish I'd kept it, so I could bring it out for nostalgia's sake every now and then, but it's a lot of equipment to lug around. I often wonder how the personal computer landscape would have changed had the Amiga won. Back then, it seemed like Microsoft, the IBM PC, and Apple have kept us back 10 or 20 years with their dominance.
- BjoernKW 10y ago
  > it seemed like Microsoft, the IBM PC, and Apple have kept us back 10 or 20 years with their dominance. I used to think so, too. However, the Amiga might've just been a fluke. The very architecture that made it unique and so far ahead of its time also was its limitation in terms of technology. There wasn't really a way forward beyond the AAA chipset, which never even made it into production. Hombre, the proposed next generation of the Amiga, was supposed to be very different from and mostly incompatible with previous Amiga computers. The software had serious limitations from today's point of view, too. There was no memory protection and no multi-user capability. Adapting Amiga OS accordingly would have taken serious effort, perhaps to the point it wouldn't have been recognisable anymore. So maybe, while a truly awesome machine the Amiga sadly enough was just an outlier of computing technology that was the right thing at the right time but wasn't viable in the long run.

61 points by msh 10y ago

great Amiga movie out, didn't know about the Euro demo scene. I didn't get one until the Video Toaster. https://fmovies.se/film/from-bedrooms-to-billions-the-amiga-years.9o59x https://fmovies.se/film/from-bedrooms-to-billions-the-amiga-...

rullgrus 10y ago
Thanks for the documentary link!
eriknstr 10y ago
Tried to download it using youtube-dl, their server returned a funny message. HTTP Error 503: Have you the ability to read quickly as the light? PS: The video is actually hosted on Google Video. Copying the relevant Google Video URL from devtools network monitor allows youtube-dl to fetch the video correctly.
prefect42 10y ago
Bad link, goes right to some Android virus or scareware page.

Zardoz84 10y ago

I had the luck of buying an A1200 a few years ago. Really impressive machine for 1992. Compared against my PC on the early 90s... well Can't run DooM, but have a lot of nice games. The majority of the games that I played from 1990 to 1995 was 2d games. Games that could have ran on these A1200 without any issue.

squarefoot 10y ago

Watch also the "Deathbed Vigil" video by Dave Haynie, an interesting and moving account of what was happening during the last days of C=. I would recommend to watch it especially if you never touched an Amiga and always wondered why those nerds adored it so much.

setpatchaddress 10y ago
I don't think it's aged well. I tried watching it recently and couldn't get past the first five minutes.
orionblastar 10y ago
Kim Justice has another series of videos on Youtube about Commodore, Atari, and Amiga. She did a lot of research on them. Commodore did not market the Amiga in the USA, and the PC Clones caught up in 1987 with VGA and Sound Cards. When Windows was preloaded with a mouse on PC Clones nobody needed the Amiga. The Amiga was cheaper than the Macintosh, but PC clones were cheaper than the Amiga. Amiga had mostly video games, and Commodore could not get business apps written for it to compete with PC Clones nor get many computer dealers to carry them as Jack Tramel burned computer dealers by putting the Vic-20 and C64 in toy stores and discount stores.

toyg 10y ago

We complain about today's management class, but in the '80s scumbaggery and general thievery really were at Far-West levels. The Amiga was a fabulous game machine and a great computer.

bleair 10y ago
Rather amazing how inept management was. The amiga was way ahead of its time (the software architecture and design choices) and thus it might never have succeeded, but the management actively did things to increase cost of production (the a600, the various tower versions of the 2000 and 3000) and harm its own sales.

pmoriarty 10y ago

I fell in love with the Amiga ever since I saw an Amiga 1000 in the first issue of Amiga World. Amigas were clearly light years ahead of virtually all other personal computers at the time -- with the arguable exception of the Atari ST, which had the reputation of being better for music. But the Amiga was better for games and had better graphics. As a hardcore gamer, I knew instantly that the Amiga was what I wanted. Somehow I convinced my parents to get me an Amiga 500, as my second computer (after the TI99/4A) and spent a lot of time collecting games and demos, and connecting to BBS'. Somehow the rest of the world didn't really see the clear superiority of the Amiga, and stuck with their boring IBM PC's and Macintoshes. Commodore collapsed, and virtually every other personal computer became extinct, as most people just wanted to buy whatever they had used at work (IBM PC) or school (Apple). This was an early lesson for me that superior technology does not always win. In fact, it's often the inferior technologies that win, for a variety of reasons -- especially marketing. I kept my Amiga for a long time, but eventually migrated to Unix (SunOS, Irix, Dec Alpha's OSF/1, and Solaris), and eventually to Linux on a PC. It had become increasingly clear that newer tech had left the Amiga in the dust. Some people still stuck with the Amiga long after I stopped using it, but I donated mine long ago. Sometimes I wish I'd kept it, so I could bring it out for nostalgia's sake every now and then, but it's a lot of equipment to lug around. I often wonder how the personal computer landscape would have changed had the Amiga won. Back then, it seemed like Microsoft, the IBM PC, and Apple have kept us back 10 or 20 years with their dominance.

BjoernKW 10y ago
> it seemed like Microsoft, the IBM PC, and Apple have kept us back 10 or 20 years with their dominance. I used to think so, too. However, the Amiga might've just been a fluke. The very architecture that made it unique and so far ahead of its time also was its limitation in terms of technology. There wasn't really a way forward beyond the AAA chipset, which never even made it into production. Hombre, the proposed next generation of the Amiga, was supposed to be very different from and mostly incompatible with previous Amiga computers. The software had serious limitations from today's point of view, too. There was no memory protection and no multi-user capability. Adapting Amiga OS accordingly would have taken serious effort, perhaps to the point it wouldn't have been recognisable anymore. So maybe, while a truly awesome machine the Amiga sadly enough was just an outlier of computing technology that was the right thing at the right time but wasn't viable in the long run.