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Was Amiga ever big in the United States? I had this realization the other day (which might be completely wrong) but it feels like US computing industry is a lot

Was Amiga ever big in the United States? I had this realization the other day (which might be completely wrong) but it feels like US computing industry is a lot more business focused than the European computing industry. E.g. most DAWs are built by European companies (Ableton, Logic (before Apple acquisition), FL Studio, Reason, Bitwig). Same goes for the demo scene. The demo scene was really big in Europe, but it feels like it was never that big in the US (but I might be wrong). I legit wonder if part of the reason is due to the popularity of Amiga in Europe.

LeoPanthera 6y ago
It wasn't big, but it did exist. While in Europe Amiga was the "default" games computer, the US adopted games consoles much faster, so most Amigas sold in the US were used for productivity purposes, and mostly video, due to the popularity of the Video Toaster.
socialdemocrat 6y ago
Yeah that is my impression too. Always got the impression that PCs, Macs and Nintendo was bigger in the US. Growing up in Norway in the 80s I remember the Commodore 64 and Amiga really dominated the home computer scene. We used to read computer magazines from Sweden, so it must have been big there too. Pretty much nobody used Macs. Schools used a home grown Norwegian computer system called Tiki, with these odd keyboards with round orange keys. I had the impression that Macs where much more prevalent in the US due to school usage. My American wife has fond memories of playing Nintendo games as a kid. But for me it was all about Amiga. It was really sad that it died. It was a really enabling system. I compare to people who used Nintendo and we learned so much more. I learned to do Basic programming on the Amiga. There was even this Game making Basic called AMOS which as really ahead of its time. Using Deluxe Paint to draw was amazing. I learned so much about colors and shading from that. Then there was Assembly programming which was actually kind of nice on the Amiga. But before all that I remember making things like bootable disks with menus where you could select preferred program.
- timbit42 6y ago
  The Amiga was somewhat popular in the US but I think it was mostly with people who had Commodore 8-bit systems and remained with Commodore when upgrading to 16-bit systems. There were a lot of Atari and Apple II systems in the US besides the C64 and Atari and Apple II owners likely upgraded to Apple Macs, the Atari ST and IBM PCs and not the Amigas. Beyond home computing, the Amiga got quite a bit of use in the video industry in the US. In contrast, Commodore systems were huge in Canada, where I live. All the schools here had 8-bit Commodore systems from the PET to the C64 era. This meant a lot of homes had the VIC-20 and C64. I only knew 1 person in my school with an Apple II and one with an Atari 800XL. Many of the Commodore owners upgraded to Amigas, especially once the Amiga 500 came out. Of course, Canada had 1/10th the population so there weren't as many Amigas as in the US, but a higher percentage of the population had them.
- mrwh 6y ago
  AMOS! I swapped my copy of Easy AMOS with a school friend's copy of AMOS Professional. It set me on a path to becoming a professional software engineer. (Later, I swapped AMOS for Amiga E. Anyone remember that?)
  - squarefoot 6y ago
    > Amiga E. Anyone remember that? I do, and still miss it although today we have really powerful computer languages; kudos to Wouter van Oortmerssen for creating it. But on that little 8MHz machine (mine actually was 7.16 MHz for being a PAL machine), that wonderful little language did wonders. I recall being amazed at how it would compile a several hundred lines program I wrote back then in a few seconds without caching. I miss those years so much!
  - robsan 6y ago
    Sure, I loved Amiga E, coded some utils (still up on aminet) and even some demoscene stuff (file packer, music-disk and slideshow for a friend's art).
    - mrwh 6y ago
jandrese 6y ago
In the US Amiga was a niche player. Video production nerds went crazy for it and some people got them for games, but PCs were so clearly the way forward that you had to be something of an iconoclast to go for the Amiga. Macs were another niche player, although some businesses went for Macs which gave them a bit more of a "you can justify this by saying you'll work from home sometimes" purchase. In the US it's harder to convince people to spend thousands on a machine that's only going to be used for games.

LeoPanthera 6y ago

It wasn't big, but it did exist. While in Europe Amiga was the "default" games computer, the US adopted games consoles much faster, so most Amigas sold in the US were used for productivity purposes, and mostly video, due to the popularity of the Video Toaster.

socialdemocrat 6y ago

Yeah that is my impression too. Always got the impression that PCs, Macs and Nintendo was bigger in the US. Growing up in Norway in the 80s I remember the Commodore 64 and Amiga really dominated the home computer scene. We used to read computer magazines from Sweden, so it must have been big there too. Pretty much nobody used Macs. Schools used a home grown Norwegian computer system called Tiki, with these odd keyboards with round orange keys. I had the impression that Macs where much more prevalent in the US due to school usage. My American wife has fond memories of playing Nintendo games as a kid. But for me it was all about Amiga. It was really sad that it died. It was a really enabling system. I compare to people who used Nintendo and we learned so much more. I learned to do Basic programming on the Amiga. There was even this Game making Basic called AMOS which as really ahead of its time. Using Deluxe Paint to draw was amazing. I learned so much about colors and shading from that. Then there was Assembly programming which was actually kind of nice on the Amiga. But before all that I remember making things like bootable disks with menus where you could select preferred program.

timbit42 6y ago
The Amiga was somewhat popular in the US but I think it was mostly with people who had Commodore 8-bit systems and remained with Commodore when upgrading to 16-bit systems. There were a lot of Atari and Apple II systems in the US besides the C64 and Atari and Apple II owners likely upgraded to Apple Macs, the Atari ST and IBM PCs and not the Amigas. Beyond home computing, the Amiga got quite a bit of use in the video industry in the US. In contrast, Commodore systems were huge in Canada, where I live. All the schools here had 8-bit Commodore systems from the PET to the C64 era. This meant a lot of homes had the VIC-20 and C64. I only knew 1 person in my school with an Apple II and one with an Atari 800XL. Many of the Commodore owners upgraded to Amigas, especially once the Amiga 500 came out. Of course, Canada had 1/10th the population so there weren't as many Amigas as in the US, but a higher percentage of the population had them.
mrwh 6y ago
AMOS! I swapped my copy of Easy AMOS with a school friend's copy of AMOS Professional. It set me on a path to becoming a professional software engineer. (Later, I swapped AMOS for Amiga E. Anyone remember that?)
- squarefoot 6y ago
  > Amiga E. Anyone remember that? I do, and still miss it although today we have really powerful computer languages; kudos to Wouter van Oortmerssen for creating it. But on that little 8MHz machine (mine actually was 7.16 MHz for being a PAL machine), that wonderful little language did wonders. I recall being amazed at how it would compile a several hundred lines program I wrote back then in a few seconds without caching. I miss those years so much!
- robsan 6y ago
  Sure, I loved Amiga E, coded some utils (still up on aminet) and even some demoscene stuff (file packer, music-disk and slideshow for a friend's art).
  - mrwh 6y ago

jandrese 6y ago

In the US Amiga was a niche player. Video production nerds went crazy for it and some people got them for games, but PCs were so clearly the way forward that you had to be something of an iconoclast to go for the Amiga. Macs were another niche player, although some businesses went for Macs which gave them a bit more of a "you can justify this by saying you'll work from home sometimes" purchase. In the US it's harder to convince people to spend thousands on a machine that's only going to be used for games.