4 ms·

Was the Amiga a British phenomenon or was it Stateside too?

by 0898 8y ago

flohofwoe 8y ago
Not sure about the US, but it definitely wasn't just popular in the UK alone. In Germany it was extremely popular, and the "natural upgrade path" from a C64. For me it was the ultimate dream machine (apart from a Silicon Graphics workstation or NeXT Cube of course). 3 days after the monetary union in 1990 between East and West Germany I drove to the nearest West German town and spent pretty much everything on an Amiga 500, a 1084 monitor, and a printer, all in all around 2.6k Deutsche Mark if I remember right (don't know why I was so keen on a printer).
toyg 8y ago
Pretty popular in Italy too, although not as the C64 (it was more expensive). I loved my Amiga 500, so many joysticks destroyed by KickOff, Turrican, Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge...
- ekianjo 8y ago
  Yeah the joysticks were horrible! I can't count the number of them that broke... :)
NeedMoreTea 8y ago
Three key markets seemed to be UK, Germany and US, I think in that order. Germany was why the 2000 existed, Commodore US wanted a box similar to the A1000, with another sidecar for HDD. UK was the most successful single region, and Commodore UK nearly succeeded buying out after the bankruptcy. In large part that was David Pleasance and things like the Batman bundle. From what I can tell, US was hampered by terrible advertising, but succeeded despite that almost entirely on word of mouth. Just as well, or there'd have been no toaster. :)
- lathiat 8y ago
  Seems to have been at least somewhat popular in Australia but I have no idea to what degree.
ekianjo 8y ago
It was popular in Western Europe especially, (UK, Germany and in a lesser fashion France), but as far as I remember it was rather "small" in the US despite Electronic Arts' support (Trip Hawkins was very positive about the Amiga). It had a small presence in exotic countries (you can find some in Japan too) but I would say it was especially strong in Western Europe.
pjmlp 8y ago
It was the machine to go for 16 bit demoscene and graphics programming in Portugal. Atari ST were hardly seen, PC were mostly for school and work related tasks, with the Apple devices beyond reach to everyone not at the university shared labs campus.
- rbanffy 8y ago
  PC's, until the 8086mph demo, were considered unfit for the demoscene, as CGA graphics were utter crap when compared to humbler 8-bit machines. They were also clunky and expensive.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Yep, for me the entry into the PC demoscene was to get hold of Abrash's articles series in PC Techniques (I think) and a copy of "PC Intern: System Programming : The Encyclopedia of DOS Programming Know How".
  - cronix 8y ago
    Audio as well. I think it was '89 that SoundBlaster came out with sampled audio for PC's. It wasn't anything close to what the Amigas could do though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY9p1oiE1_Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY9p1oiE1_Y
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      Adlib came out first. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Lib,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Lib,_Inc. Then Yamaha, Roland, SoundBlaster, ... and nowadays most people don't care what their audio chip looks like, unless they are doing professional audio.
      - cronix 8y ago
        Yes we had FM/wavetable synthesis, etc., I was more meaning sampling/trackers used in MODs which really made Amigas stand out.
AndrewStephens 8y ago
It wasn't just British - they were _the_ home computer in New Zealand for a few years in the late 80s, early 90s. Aggressively marketed and priced well below the equivalent IBM clones, they sold well. An Amiga 500 was the first computer I bought with my own money - $NZ1900 (my entire life savings at 15). I taught myself C and never looked back. But the window for Amgias was short. By about 1993 the price of the clones was dropping and they were starting to get fast enough to overcome their hardware limitations. Once MS started marketing Windows machines to home users (especially when Win95 came out) the market for Amigas dried up completely.
thedaemon 8y ago
It was not that prevalent across the USA. My first PC was a 486DX. I never even heard of an Amiga until the late 90s.
bhauer 8y ago
Here in California, both Atari ST and Amiga were less common than PCs and Macs, but they weren't entirely absent. I and a small group of friends had STs of various flavors. And I knew several people with Amigas. To illustrate, my parents would periodically drive me a few miles to a store that sold ST and Amiga software and magazines, mostly so I could buy a magazine and ruminate on which software to save up to buy. We could have gone right down the street had I been using a PC or Mac.

Was the Amiga a British phenomenon or was it Stateside too?

by 0898 8y ago

Was the Amiga a British phenomenon or was it Stateside too?

Not sure about the US, but it definitely wasn't just popular in the UK alone. In Germany it was extremely popular, and the "natural upgrade path" from a C64. For me it was the ultimate dream machine (apart from a Silicon Graphics workstation or NeXT Cube of course). 3 days after the monetary union in 1990 between East and West Germany I drove to the nearest West German town and spent pretty much everything on an Amiga 500, a 1084 monitor, and a printer, all in all around 2.6k Deutsche Mark if I remember right (don't know why I was so keen on a printer).

toyg 8y ago

Pretty popular in Italy too, although not as the C64 (it was more expensive). I loved my Amiga 500, so many joysticks destroyed by KickOff, Turrican, Lotus Esprit Turbo Challenge...

ekianjo 8y ago
Yeah the joysticks were horrible! I can't count the number of them that broke... :)

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

Three key markets seemed to be UK, Germany and US, I think in that order. Germany was why the 2000 existed, Commodore US wanted a box similar to the A1000, with another sidecar for HDD. UK was the most successful single region, and Commodore UK nearly succeeded buying out after the bankruptcy. In large part that was David Pleasance and things like the Batman bundle. From what I can tell, US was hampered by terrible advertising, but succeeded despite that almost entirely on word of mouth. Just as well, or there'd have been no toaster. :)

lathiat 8y ago
Seems to have been at least somewhat popular in Australia but I have no idea to what degree.

ekianjo 8y ago

It was popular in Western Europe especially, (UK, Germany and in a lesser fashion France), but as far as I remember it was rather "small" in the US despite Electronic Arts' support (Trip Hawkins was very positive about the Amiga). It had a small presence in exotic countries (you can find some in Japan too) but I would say it was especially strong in Western Europe.

pjmlp 8y ago

It was the machine to go for 16 bit demoscene and graphics programming in Portugal. Atari ST were hardly seen, PC were mostly for school and work related tasks, with the Apple devices beyond reach to everyone not at the university shared labs campus.

rbanffy 8y ago
PC's, until the 8086mph demo, were considered unfit for the demoscene, as CGA graphics were utter crap when compared to humbler 8-bit machines. They were also clunky and expensive.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Yep, for me the entry into the PC demoscene was to get hold of Abrash's articles series in PC Techniques (I think) and a copy of "PC Intern: System Programming : The Encyclopedia of DOS Programming Know How".
- cronix 8y ago
  Audio as well. I think it was '89 that SoundBlaster came out with sampled audio for PC's. It wasn't anything close to what the Amigas could do though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY9p1oiE1_Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hY9p1oiE1_Y
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Adlib came out first. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Lib,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Lib,_Inc. Then Yamaha, Roland, SoundBlaster, ... and nowadays most people don't care what their audio chip looks like, unless they are doing professional audio.
    - cronix 8y ago
      Yes we had FM/wavetable synthesis, etc., I was more meaning sampling/trackers used in MODs which really made Amigas stand out.

AndrewStephens 8y ago

It wasn't just British - they were _the_ home computer in New Zealand for a few years in the late 80s, early 90s. Aggressively marketed and priced well below the equivalent IBM clones, they sold well. An Amiga 500 was the first computer I bought with my own money - $NZ1900 (my entire life savings at 15). I taught myself C and never looked back. But the window for Amgias was short. By about 1993 the price of the clones was dropping and they were starting to get fast enough to overcome their hardware limitations. Once MS started marketing Windows machines to home users (especially when Win95 came out) the market for Amigas dried up completely.

thedaemon 8y ago

It was not that prevalent across the USA. My first PC was a 486DX. I never even heard of an Amiga until the late 90s.

bhauer 8y ago

Here in California, both Atari ST and Amiga were less common than PCs and Macs, but they weren't entirely absent. I and a small group of friends had STs of various flavors. And I knew several people with Amigas. To illustrate, my parents would periodically drive me a few miles to a store that sold ST and Amiga software and magazines, mostly so I could buy a magazine and ruminate on which software to save up to buy. We could have gone right down the street had I been using a PC or Mac.