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This is another one of my favorites, the JobsNote-like launch of the Amiga https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3x00Pbs2K8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3x00Pbs2

This is another one of my favorites, the JobsNote-like launch of the Amiga https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3x00Pbs2K8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3x00Pbs2K8 Compare this to the 1984 launch of the Mac which cost $2485 MSRP, all of these capabilities came for only $1285 ($1595 with monitor), or the A500 ($699 MSRP) As you can tell, I'm still bitter and annoyed at how Commodore mismanaged and squandered the marketing and sales of this machine. The Amiga was so advanced, it wasn't until PCs arrived with SuperVGA cards and SoundBlaster audio that I was enticed to leave the Amiga platform. The Mac128k at school seemed like a toy in comparison to my Amiga and what it could do, but somehow all of the media attention was on it. It's as if someone launched an iPhone in 1985, and no one cared.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago
> It's as if someone launched an iPhone in 1985, and no one cared Commodore had no clue what to do with it. It's like Apple launched iPhone, then Jobs spent the rest of the marketing budget on a yacht then told engineering to make everything cheaper. Eventually Gould and Ali were on 3x what the CEO of IBM got in the same years. Tucked away somewhere, I still have the 1985 issue of UK's PCW (the serious magazine, comparable to Byte) when the A1000 was first reviewed. Something like 15 pages of glowing praise and how nothing else is in the same universe, it'll change the world, etc. They barely touched an Amiga ever again.
- chipotle_coyote 8y ago
  I remember an interview with Jean-Louis Gassée that mentioned after he'd been fired from Apple but before he'd gone on to start Be Inc., Gould actually approached him to lead Commodore before he hired Ali. Gassée said he'd only do it if he got a guarantee of non-interference for a specific amount of time (three years, maybe), and Gould wouldn't go for it. I don't know how that would have changed things -- Be came to a sad end itself, after all. But it's hard not to wonder.
sys_64738 8y ago
I used AMAX II with my Amiga 500 to run Mac programs while at College. That was an example of how brilliant it was given the native speed of the Mac under emulation. The Amiga platform is an era which I wouldn't trade for anything. I feel sad for people who didn't have the opportunity to experience and live it first hand.
- rockxloose 8y ago
  > I feel sad for people who didn't have the opportunity to experience and live it first hand. Would that be the 1984 people of China and Northern Korea who are besting the 2019 iPhone? if only the U.S.S. Fitzgerald was running Amiga and not the MS-Windows's 2000 Outlook for 2017, which wasn't working on the very very bad sad day, the closer to realtime collision detection avoidance algorithm would have stood a better chance to triumph swimmingly.
- tejtm 8y ago
  I used Shapeshifter to bring my Amiga up as a Mac but way faster, if I recall the author (a German?) included a special thanks to Apple for making their firmware so trivially reversable
gdubs 8y ago
I was obsessed with the Amiga, and also a huge fan of the Mac. Couldn’t afford either. But I think the reason the Mac resonated in such an enormous way was a) because Steve Jobs was a master of media manipulation, but also b) because the Mac turned the computer into an appliance. It showed that computers weren’t these difficult scary things, and that they were approachable to everyone.

NeedMoreTea 8y ago

> It's as if someone launched an iPhone in 1985, and no one cared Commodore had no clue what to do with it. It's like Apple launched iPhone, then Jobs spent the rest of the marketing budget on a yacht then told engineering to make everything cheaper. Eventually Gould and Ali were on 3x what the CEO of IBM got in the same years. Tucked away somewhere, I still have the 1985 issue of UK's PCW (the serious magazine, comparable to Byte) when the A1000 was first reviewed. Something like 15 pages of glowing praise and how nothing else is in the same universe, it'll change the world, etc. They barely touched an Amiga ever again.

chipotle_coyote 8y ago
I remember an interview with Jean-Louis Gassée that mentioned after he'd been fired from Apple but before he'd gone on to start Be Inc., Gould actually approached him to lead Commodore before he hired Ali. Gassée said he'd only do it if he got a guarantee of non-interference for a specific amount of time (three years, maybe), and Gould wouldn't go for it. I don't know how that would have changed things -- Be came to a sad end itself, after all. But it's hard not to wonder.

sys_64738 8y ago

I used AMAX II with my Amiga 500 to run Mac programs while at College. That was an example of how brilliant it was given the native speed of the Mac under emulation. The Amiga platform is an era which I wouldn't trade for anything. I feel sad for people who didn't have the opportunity to experience and live it first hand.

rockxloose 8y ago
> I feel sad for people who didn't have the opportunity to experience and live it first hand. Would that be the 1984 people of China and Northern Korea who are besting the 2019 iPhone? if only the U.S.S. Fitzgerald was running Amiga and not the MS-Windows's 2000 Outlook for 2017, which wasn't working on the very very bad sad day, the closer to realtime collision detection avoidance algorithm would have stood a better chance to triumph swimmingly.
tejtm 8y ago
I used Shapeshifter to bring my Amiga up as a Mac but way faster, if I recall the author (a German?) included a special thanks to Apple for making their firmware so trivially reversable

gdubs 8y ago

I was obsessed with the Amiga, and also a huge fan of the Mac. Couldn’t afford either. But I think the reason the Mac resonated in such an enormous way was a) because Steve Jobs was a master of media manipulation, but also b) because the Mac turned the computer into an appliance. It showed that computers weren’t these difficult scary things, and that they were approachable to everyone.