Amiga
More info
- Owner
- Commodore International
- Released
- 1985
- Type
- Home computer
- CPU
- Motorola 68000, 7.16 MHz
The home computer that had pre-emptive multitasking and 4096 colours in 1985, and an owner who did not grasp what it had.
The Amiga 1000 was unveiled in July 1985 with Andy Warhol on stage. Under the lid sat three custom chips named Agnus, Denise and Paula, handling the blitter, graphics and four-channel sound without troubling the CPU, plus an operating system with pre-emptive multitasking — years ahead of Mac and Windows. The combination made it a media machine rather than an office one.
The A500 of 1987 became the popular model and sold in the millions, above all in Europe. With the Video Toaster the Amiga became the standard for cheap television production in the US, and the demoscene grew up around its hardware. Commodore never managed a follow-up: the company went bankrupt in 1994 and the brand has drifted between owners ever since.