9 ms·

It’s too bad Microsoft didn’t port their apps to the Amiga. It probably would be alive today but people bought computers for the apps.

cmrdporcupine 9y ago
I dunno, MS ported the Mac version of Word to the Atari ST but by the time it got there (late, and buggy, and overpriced) indigenous ST developers had made their own superior products. Interlace video for hi-rez modes on the Amiga also made it non-ideal for office type applications. Maybe if Commodore had bothered to include a scan doubler by default?
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Amiga had quite a few cool office type applications like Pagestream. The video wasn't an issue when using Commodore monitors.
  - samastur 9y ago
    Man, this brings back memories. I spent many sleepless nights using it to format friends' school work.
  - puzzle 9y ago
    There was a WordPerfect port, but at least the initial versions were slow and did not feel like they took advantage of the OS. In other words, it was a bit of a rush job.
    - fractallyte 9y ago
      It was far from perfect, but Amiga WP 4.1 was way better than WP 5.1 for DOS! (I was a heavy user of both at the time.)
  - bitwize 9y ago
    Yes it was. I used an Amiga with a Commodore monitor and while it was a lot better than any TV or other composite monitor, the interlacing was still noticeable and people's eyes would go wonky staring at that for eight hours a day.
    - Flow 9y ago
      I bought an A2024 monitor and ran all apps at 1024x800 60Hz. It was a glorious time.
    - errozero 9y ago
      Any monitor from back then would look awful now. I do remember noticing the interlacing on the Amiga though.
      - cmrdporcupine 9y ago
        It was awful when compared to the paperwhite monochrome displays of a Mac or the Atari ST. It's frankly one of the things that set the Amiga back in the productivity regard.
- samastur 9y ago
  It's competition was PC of that time which was worse in every regard including price. However, it did not have an image of being a game machine which helped a lot. I am old enough to remember having these kind of discussion with people buying more expensive PCs because they were for serious work.
- Jaruzel 9y ago
  > Maybe if Commodore had bothered to include a scan doubler by default? They did in the Amiga 3000; It has a VGA 15pin d-sub connector on the back. Only works with modern LCDs if the Amiga is in NTSC mode though.
pjmlp 9y ago
Amiga died thanks to Commodore mismanagement, Microsoft was still not that strong back then. PCs were still a mix of MS-DOS, Windows 3.x or Novell Netware when the downfall begun around 1994, Windows 95 was still around the corner.
- phire 9y ago
  They stopped innovating. The A1000 was released in 1985, the same year as the NES was released in America. It was a huge leap in capabilities over it's contemporaries. But their massive lead was slowly whittled away by technology improvements. In 1992 they released AGA, which was barely twice as good as the original A1000 chip-set, while the IBM PC had innovated all the way from 4 color CGA, though EGA to VGA/SVGA with CPUs which were fast enough to any 2d (and increasingly 3d) effects in software. Commodore really needed to get AAA out the door by 91 to hold onto their lead. Doom was probably the final nail in the coffin, you simply couldn't implement it on the Amiga chipset due to it's planar graphics.
  - busterarm 9y ago
    Doom killed the Amiga kind of like how Quake killed Cyrix x86 clones and to a lesser degree AMD's K5. It's interesting how John Carmack's technical vision decided the winners in the computer industry at the time.
    - Mantipath 9y ago
      The best Wolfenstein 3-D ports were on the Apple IIgs, Atari Jaguar and Panasonic 3DO. FWIW.
      - pmarreck 9y ago
        3DO, so much promise...
    - jacobush 9y ago
      Doom was just the nail. Economically, Commodore was messed up by the time Doom came around. But I agree, Doom made it very evident, I remember it well - suddenly, a 486 became a "must have" for rich geeks.
bitwize 9y ago
Microsoft used open source to kill the Amiga. They acquihired the developer of Bars & Pipes Professional, convinced him to open source it and had him work on DirectMusic instead. The fact that a leading MIDI tool for the Amiga was now open source basically left the Amiga music software industry a smouldering ruins, where it might have hung on for a few more years, forcing developers to look at Windows instead. Open source destroys value, and Microsoft used that to their advantage.
- fractallyte 9y ago
  Actually B&P wasn't open sourced for many years after the Blue Ribbon Soundworks acquisition. During this time, B&P was in limbo: the most powerful MIDI sequencer on the Amiga, locked up by Microsoft. The source code was only released when Microsoft decided it had no value to them. After this there was a flurry of activity: Alfred Faust took up development, the manuals were scanned, and it all continued from there.
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  Huh? How does open-sourcing a program ruin its industry? (I'm also skeptical about your thesis that music software was the cornerstone of Amiga's popularity. That was most likely games, and Doom was the most obvious killer there.)
- pmarreck 9y ago
  > Open source destroys value Fucking LOL. Tell that to any internet startup since 1995 and prepare to get laughed out of the room
antod 9y ago
The first Microsoft software I ever used was on the Amiga (AmigaBASIC). And while it was kinda cool for a BASIC implementation in those days, it was pretty damn buggy.

cmrdporcupine 9y ago

I dunno, MS ported the Mac version of Word to the Atari ST but by the time it got there (late, and buggy, and overpriced) indigenous ST developers had made their own superior products. Interlace video for hi-rez modes on the Amiga also made it non-ideal for office type applications. Maybe if Commodore had bothered to include a scan doubler by default?

pjmlp 9y ago
Amiga had quite a few cool office type applications like Pagestream. The video wasn't an issue when using Commodore monitors.
- samastur 9y ago
  Man, this brings back memories. I spent many sleepless nights using it to format friends' school work.
- puzzle 9y ago
  There was a WordPerfect port, but at least the initial versions were slow and did not feel like they took advantage of the OS. In other words, it was a bit of a rush job.
  - fractallyte 9y ago
    It was far from perfect, but Amiga WP 4.1 was way better than WP 5.1 for DOS! (I was a heavy user of both at the time.)
- bitwize 9y ago
  Yes it was. I used an Amiga with a Commodore monitor and while it was a lot better than any TV or other composite monitor, the interlacing was still noticeable and people's eyes would go wonky staring at that for eight hours a day.
  - Flow 9y ago
    I bought an A2024 monitor and ran all apps at 1024x800 60Hz. It was a glorious time.
  - errozero 9y ago
    Any monitor from back then would look awful now. I do remember noticing the interlacing on the Amiga though.
    - cmrdporcupine 9y ago
      It was awful when compared to the paperwhite monochrome displays of a Mac or the Atari ST. It's frankly one of the things that set the Amiga back in the productivity regard.
samastur 9y ago
It's competition was PC of that time which was worse in every regard including price. However, it did not have an image of being a game machine which helped a lot. I am old enough to remember having these kind of discussion with people buying more expensive PCs because they were for serious work.
Jaruzel 9y ago
> Maybe if Commodore had bothered to include a scan doubler by default? They did in the Amiga 3000; It has a VGA 15pin d-sub connector on the back. Only works with modern LCDs if the Amiga is in NTSC mode though.

pjmlp 9y ago

Amiga died thanks to Commodore mismanagement, Microsoft was still not that strong back then. PCs were still a mix of MS-DOS, Windows 3.x or Novell Netware when the downfall begun around 1994, Windows 95 was still around the corner.

phire 9y ago
They stopped innovating. The A1000 was released in 1985, the same year as the NES was released in America. It was a huge leap in capabilities over it's contemporaries. But their massive lead was slowly whittled away by technology improvements. In 1992 they released AGA, which was barely twice as good as the original A1000 chip-set, while the IBM PC had innovated all the way from 4 color CGA, though EGA to VGA/SVGA with CPUs which were fast enough to any 2d (and increasingly 3d) effects in software. Commodore really needed to get AAA out the door by 91 to hold onto their lead. Doom was probably the final nail in the coffin, you simply couldn't implement it on the Amiga chipset due to it's planar graphics.
- busterarm 9y ago
  Doom killed the Amiga kind of like how Quake killed Cyrix x86 clones and to a lesser degree AMD's K5. It's interesting how John Carmack's technical vision decided the winners in the computer industry at the time.
  - Mantipath 9y ago
    The best Wolfenstein 3-D ports were on the Apple IIgs, Atari Jaguar and Panasonic 3DO. FWIW.
    - pmarreck 9y ago
      3DO, so much promise...
  - jacobush 9y ago
    Doom was just the nail. Economically, Commodore was messed up by the time Doom came around. But I agree, Doom made it very evident, I remember it well - suddenly, a 486 became a "must have" for rich geeks.

bitwize 9y ago

Microsoft used open source to kill the Amiga. They acquihired the developer of Bars & Pipes Professional, convinced him to open source it and had him work on DirectMusic instead. The fact that a leading MIDI tool for the Amiga was now open source basically left the Amiga music software industry a smouldering ruins, where it might have hung on for a few more years, forcing developers to look at Windows instead. Open source destroys value, and Microsoft used that to their advantage.

fractallyte 9y ago
Actually B&P wasn't open sourced for many years after the Blue Ribbon Soundworks acquisition. During this time, B&P was in limbo: the most powerful MIDI sequencer on the Amiga, locked up by Microsoft. The source code was only released when Microsoft decided it had no value to them. After this there was a flurry of activity: Alfred Faust took up development, the manuals were scanned, and it all continued from there.
PhasmaFelis 9y ago
Huh? How does open-sourcing a program ruin its industry? (I'm also skeptical about your thesis that music software was the cornerstone of Amiga's popularity. That was most likely games, and Doom was the most obvious killer there.)
pmarreck 9y ago
> Open source destroys value Fucking LOL. Tell that to any internet startup since 1995 and prepare to get laughed out of the room

antod 9y ago

The first Microsoft software I ever used was on the Amiga (AmigaBASIC). And while it was kinda cool for a BASIC implementation in those days, it was pretty damn buggy.