- The Original Amiga A1000 Released in 1985 - Image: Kaiiv
On July 24th 1985, Commodore International launched what was to become a legend in the history of video games when it unveiled the Amiga personal computer at a celebrity event in New York's Lincoln Centre.
The company had already achieved considerable success in the personal computer market with the Commodore 64 but the Commodore Amiga was a step far beyond that and included technology that was still considered revolutionary at the time.
Amiga Features and Models
The original Amiga that went on sale 25 years ago in 1985 (which later became known as the A1000) had a desktop case with a separate keyboard and mouse and sold for $1,295. It included 256KB of RAM, a 16-bit 7.16MHz Motorola 68000 processor, a 3.5-inch floppy disk drive, stereo sound and a maximum resolution of 640 x 400 pixels. These were features that firmly made the Amiga a cutting-edge product.
The IBM AT Personal Computer, released in 1984, had just a 6MHz processor by comparison and used a 5.25-inch floppy disk drive. The Amiga could also display up to 32 colours from a palette of 4,096, whereas the EGA graphics of an IBM AT could only display a maximum of 16 colours from a palette of 64. The Amiga was also special because it used a multi-tasking graphical user interface (GUI) at a time when PCs were still using DOS.
Commodore launched two new Amiga models in 1987 - the high-end A2000 and the popular A500 which retailed at launch at $699. The A500 was different to the other two models by being a single unit with a separate mouse. It became the best-selling model in the Amiga range and doubled the RAM of the A1000 to 512KB.
Several more models in the Amiga range were launched in the years after, including the CD32 games console in 1993.
Amiga Software
The Amiga was home to many great games, including Defender of the Crown, Carrier Command, Starglider 2, and Speedball 2. FA/18 Interceptor from Electronic Arts was a revolutionary combat flight simulator released in 1988 and became renowned for its 3D graphics which allowed the player to fly a McDonnell Douglas Hornet jet around San Francisco and take off and land from an aircraft carrier. Peter Molyneux's Populous, released in 1989, was inducted by IGN in 2008 into their Hall of Fame and is considered to be the original god game.
As well as being a great computer for playing games, the Commodore Amiga was also used for graphic and video production. Deluxe Paint by Electronic Arts was a successful graphics application and, with the first version launched in 1985, predated even Adobe Photoshop by two years. Compared to the rival Atari ST, which launched at the same time as the Amiga and was popular among musicians because of its MIDI ports, the superior graphics and hardware of the Amiga made it an excellent choice for video production. For example, the special effects for seasons 1 and 2 of the classic science fiction TV show Babylon 5 were produced using the Lightwave 3D software running on Amigas.
The Amiga 25 Years Later
The final Commodore Amiga, the A4000T, was released in 1994 - the same year the company filed for bankruptcy. Although it couldn't repeat the sales success of the Commodore 64 which, according to the company's 1993 annual report had sold 17 million units, the Amiga is a fondly remembered personal computer for the millions of people who owned it. Far ahead of its time with its multitasking GUI operating system and advanced graphics, the Amiga deserves its place as a video games legend 25 years after its launch.
Jason Glover - Jason Glover has worked in the marketing teams of major companies for over twenty years, including over ten years in online marketing ...
