"Illustrated Computer Dictionary for Dummies" (1995).
Definition:
"Amiga": the most technologically advanced personal computer that few people want to deal with today. Use in sentences: "I wanted to buy the Amiga because of its low price and incredible color graphics, but everyone uses IBM PCs and Macintoshes. So to be compatible with the rest of the world, I paid three times as much for the Macintosh and only got half the graphics capabilities of the Amiga."
The birth of an idea
The history of the Amiga computer began back in 1979, when ATARI Corporation released the ATARI 400 and 800. These models were the first home computers in which special chips developed by engineer Jay Miner were responsible for processing graphics and sound.
Jay Miner with his dog Mitchie near his dream computer
The destiny of a creator is to create something new, and sometimes without regard to his previous works, so Miner, immediately after the release of ATARI 400 and 800, suggested that the company develop a completely new home computer on the most powerful microprocessor at that time, Motorola 68000. But ATARI found many reasons to refuse its employee. The main one was financial: the company spent a large amount of money on the ATARI 400 and 800, and had just launched them on the market, so the development and release of a new computer model seemed unreasonable to the company. In the end, ATARI quite successfully occupied the niche of 8-bit systems, and believed that the time for 16-bit home computers had not yet come. This misconception later led to the decline of the entire gaming industry and the beginning of a long list of ATARI failures, after which management admitted that their opinion was wrong.
As you know, it is difficult to stop a creator. Therefore, without being particularly upset, Miner left ATARI and got a job at Zymos, developing microcircuits for individual customers. He was not alone in his actions. A group of ATARI employees, including Larry Caplan, one of the lead programmers for the ATARI 2600 computer, petitioned for a salary increase, and after being rejected, decided to leave and try their luck in their own business. On April 25, 1980, they founded Activision, which by the end of the 90s became one of the largest gaming giants.
At the beginning of 1980, Larry Keplen called Jay Miner and offered to found his own gaming company, to which he happily agreed, because this was the only way Miner would have a free hand and be able to create without being burdened with orders from above.
Dave Morse, who had previously worked at Tonka Toys, was elected to the post of executive director of Hi-Torro, which was the name of the new company, which chose the city of Santa Clara (USA) as its base.
Jay Miner managed to attract investors who invested $7 million in the creation of the gaming system. And although Hi-Torro had funds for development, it lacked one important detail - a well-known brand in the gaming product market.
A way out of the situation was found quite quickly. Two departments were created in the company: the first was involved in the actual development of the gaming system, and the second was in charge of creating peripheral devices and small games for various computer platforms.
The first department developed two joysticks: Amiga Power Stick and Amiga Joyboard.
The original Amiga Power Stick (top) and its modification (bottom)
Externally, the fairly standard Amiga Power Stick was, at one time, one of the most convenient joysticks, as a result of which it was revered by many owners of ATARI 2600, Texas Instruments TI-99/4a, and ColecoVision gaming systems. The joystick modification was equipped with a digital panel with 12 keys and two two-position switches.
Virtual whiteboard Amiga Joyboard
As for the Amiga Joyboard, its appearance was more unconventional. The joystick's purpose alone, to serve as a substitute for a surf simulator board, speaks volumes. Amiga Joyboard, in addition to its appearance, was remembered for something else. The game "Zen Meditation" was created by Amiga Inc. programmers. for its own use, later became the prototype for the contents of the dialog box message that appears when the software fails.
The famous "Guru is meditating" message that appeared during a program glitch
While the first team of developers “created” the brand of their company, the second group, under the leadership of Jay Miner, intensively brought his dream to life.
"Lorraine"
The task facing the twenty employees of the second group was to create a gaming system with advanced graphics and sound for that time. Unlike ATARI, which was developing computers and game consoles, as well as creating games for them independently, Hi-Torro developed only hardware, while other companies, Activision and Imagic, for example, were supposed to “manage” gaming products.
Work on the Lorraine project (named after Dave Morse's wife) began in 1980. Lorraine was originally intended to be a system designed solely for gaming. This concept was necessary only to satisfy the interests of investors who perceived Hi-Torro only as a competitor to ATARI.
But, subsequently, serious disputes broke out between engineers within the company regarding the market orientation of the project under development, as a result of which it was decided to create a gaming system, which, if necessary, could be turned into a full-fledged computer.
Early concept art for the appearance of "Lorraine"
The year is 1982. Hi-Torro had to change its name because lawyers from the Japanese company Torro, which produced lawn mowers, approached it with the threat of legal proceedings. As a result, the former Hi-Torro was renamed Amiga Incorporated. Around the same time, the Lorraine project began to be called simply "Amiga" (from the Spanish "Amiga" - "girlfriend").
There is a hypothesis that the name "Amiga" was given to the company and the computer so that they would stand above Apple and ATARI in the alphabetical list of computer products. By the way, Apple took such a step in 1976 when choosing its name.
The modern computer market grew out of small firms trying their hand at a new business area in the early 80s of the last century. This area of the industry has developed over four decades, methods have been improved and technical approaches have changed, discoveries and ridiculous mistakes have been made. The smartest ones learned from the mistakes of their own and their competitors. Amiga computers have become a legend and a guide to how a great initiative and brilliant prospects, combined with stupid mistakes of the creators, led to complete collapse.
History of the Amiga brand
Back in the 1970s, there was active development of custom integrated circuits and chips, culminating in the creation of eight-bit microprocessors. Young specialist Jay Miner enthusiastically joined this work carried out by Atari. Employees did not always agree with the opinions of managers; each had their own vision of further development. The tough management style and harsh corporate rules were not liked by creative people and enthusiasts of the development of “smart” machines. Therefore, when they left the company, they founded small companies, implementing their own projects.
A group of engineers who disagreed with management's policies created the Hi-Toro company, which later received a different name - Amiga. Miner was invited to head the department responsible for the hardware. All the work revolved around the creation of a game console, codenamed Lorraine, with the long-term view that it would gradually be modernized and improved into a real desktop computer. The most popular processor at that time, Motorola 68000, was used as the “heart” of the console, which allowed for faster graphics and sound, and was a direct competitor to Intel for personal computers.
Funding for the project was provided by three dentists from Florida, but the budget was still bursting at the seams. To stay afloat, Hi-Toro employees had to develop accessories for the ColecoVision and Atari 2600 game consoles, which were at the peak of popularity. It was through their efforts that the dynamic Joybord joystick (analogous to Wii Fit) appeared on the market. The proceeds from the invention were enough for a year of work, and in 1983 they again had to look for investors. Competitors agreed to help with finances. Atari, at that time under the wing of Warner, planned to release a game console based on a processor similar to Motorola's. The deal was proposed: Atari would invest in a company consisting of former employees, subject to the exclusive right to use the design created in the Amiga for a period of one year.
The deal was beneficial to both companies, but the contracting parties did not take into account the saturation of the American video game market with various kinds of consoles that were completely incompatible with each other. The quality of games on most devices was low, the graphics were extremely primitive. A long crisis followed that almost led to the collapse of the video game industry. Losing millions of dollars a day, Atari became a burden to Warner's owners, who wanted to sell the unprofitable division as quickly as possible.
During the same period, another no less legendary company, Commodore International, began a personnel rush. The head of the company, Jack Tramel, did not find a common language with the main shareholder, and was forced to resign from his post, creating a new holding, Tramel Technology. Obsessed with the idea of promoting game consoles and computers, Tramil wanted to buy the Lorraine chipset production technology from Amiga. But this meant that all the company’s employees, who had invested years of their lives in the game console, would be left behind. Amiga, despite financial instability, refused the deal that promised immediate profit.
Tramil took a different path. He stopped searching and created a team of former Commodore employees, entrusting them with the development of an original chipset for a low-budget and, at the same time, powerful computer. Creating a set of connecting chips was interesting, but extremely difficult. When six months later (06.1984) the specialists reported that the work was 95% ready, it was time to doubt their honesty, because in such a short period of time it was unrealistic to create a high-tech product from scratch. Most likely, the technology “left” Commodore along with the engineers who left.
By this point, the unprofitable Atari itself was falling like an overripe fruit into Tramil's hands. As a result of short negotiations, Atari Consumer Electronics Division changed ownership, and the new owner very quickly unearthed a contract concluded between Atari and Amiga for the supply of a finished product, the development of which had been suspended until funding was resumed. This news marked a new dramatic turn in Tramil's relations with Amiga, Atari and Commodore.
The creation of the platform for Lorraine, meanwhile, has not yet been completed. Continuous failures in the financial field made it difficult to bring the matter to fruition. Not wanting to work for Tramil, who had once offered to buy the technology, Amiga management decided to come to an agreement with the enterprising businessman’s competitor, turning to Commodore for funding. Having received a tranche of half a million dollars, the Lorraine developers had the opportunity to refine the chipset. At the same time, Commodore was able to protect a new promising product from Tramila and gain access to Amiga developments.
Having received the go-ahead, the Amiga team enthusiastically continued their work, quickly presenting a finished sample of their own computer. The further fate of the company turned out to be closely connected with the development of computers in collaboration with Commodore. Each new computer released onto the market was a step forward toward fame—and ruin.
Main models and their technical characteristics
The Amiga 1000 was the first computer with multimedia functions. Production began in 1985 and ended in 1987. CPU – Motorola MC68000 with an operating frequency of 7.14 MHz. RAM - 256 KB. During the release process, the amount of RAM increased to 512 KB. The default OS is AmigaOS 1.0 - 1.3. It was equipped with a disk drive that allowed you to read 880 KB floppy disks.
The fully functional Amiga 1000 was introduced in 1985 as part of a new line by Commodore. This computer was relatively inexpensive ($1,200), but it displayed 4,096 colors on the screen and could play eight-bit melodies.
What made the model stand out was the new OS - Amiga OS, which can support multitasking and is equipped with the Workbench interface and the Intuition window system. For the mid-1980s, launching and working in two applications simultaneously seemed revolutionary!
An analog monitor was included, and it was also possible to connect the Amiga 1000 to a TV via a composite connector. Superior to its main competitors by a head, the “thousandth” was ahead in its technical equipment of the Apple Macintosh, IBM PC and Atari ST. For complete victory, all that was needed was a good marketer capable of promoting the product and promoting it on the market. Byte magazine published an article in the mid-1990s that examined the history of the model, taking into account the passage of time and the speed of development of the computer field. It was called “ahead of its time” so much that neither users nor Commodore even realized how advanced the first Amiga PC turned out to be.
This model turned out to be the most popular, produced from 1987 (replacing the A1000) to 1991. Processor – Motorola CM68000 with an operating frequency of 7.16 MHz (NTSC) and 7.09 (PAL). The hard drive and related devices were mounted on the side of the system bus connector. Another slot was used for installing “slow memory” RAM (512 KB) with the ability to increase an additional amount of “fast memory” (8 MB), which maximally accelerates the performance of the processor. The floppy drive allowed reading 3.5'' floppy disks. The operating system that supports the computer is AmigaOS versions 1.2, 1.3.
Rivalries with rival high-tech firms intensified significantly in 1987. The Amiga developers released two machines at once, designed for different wallet sizes of buyers. The budget version of the Amiga 500 was essentially a copy of the Amiga 1000, with the only difference being that the new model consisted of cheaper components, making it possible to reduce the price to $600. At the same time, the same 4096 colors were offered for display on the screen and 8-bit sound.
The standard kit included a system unit combined with a keyboard and a mouse. The monitor was not included in the package; it was supposed to be purchased separately. As an anecdote, there was a story going around for a long time, how one of the PC users, looking at the new product, asked the seller: “Everything is clear with the keyboard, but where is the computer itself?” The creators' trick was that the computer was placed non-standardly, inside the keyboard box.
Due to its low price and advanced functionality, the model quickly became popular.
CPU – Motorola MC68000 7.14 MHz with operating modes of 7.16 MHz (NTSC) and 7.09 (PAL). RAM - 512 KB in models A and B (1987), in model C (1991) increased to 1 MB. Comes with a hard drive. The motherboard was equipped with five Zorro II expansion slots - patented connectors, two sixteen-bit ISA bus expansion slots, slots for a video card and a processor if there was a need to upgrade it. 3.5'' disk drive. Operating system - AmigaOS versions 1.2, 1.3 (models A and B) or 2.0 (model C).
Paired with the budget model Amiga 500, an expensive version of the Amiga 2000, created for the professional market, went on sale. The innovation was that the desire to expand the system in the future, while remaining within the standard case, could be realized by users using special connectors that allow this to be done. At the same time, the $2,400 machine offered performance absolutely identical to the Amiga 500. It turned out to be in demand, unexpectedly for everyone, in the field of video processing. Amiga 2000 models were actively purchased by television companies, and also spread into the field of film production.
The market niche, despite the demand, turned out to be too small. It was far from the enterprise segment controlled by the Apple Macintosh and IBM PC. The company made one unforgivable mistake when promoting the new product: the price was initially announced at up to $2,000, but when it went on sale it turned out to be $400 higher than stated. This “optionality” caused a wave of anger and disappointment. Despite its good data, the Amiga 2000 would have dragged the company to the bottom if not for the next, new model.
The appearance of a new computer on the market in 1990 very quickly earned it the reputation of being the best in the Amiga line. In order to increase the performance of the machine, the developers replaced all key components. The system unit box no longer contained a built-in keyboard; it came as an independent element. The computer was expensive for its time, but extremely sophisticated. It was equipped with a special flicker unit, which is responsible for suppressing the annoying pulsation of the scan of a low-budget VGA monitor. The asset also included a coprocessor that accelerates the processing of operations in the presence of floating point. All libraries containing buttons and panels that previously had to be registered manually were standardized. The standard package contained a primitive browser and AmigaGuide language support for hypertext markup.
Buyers regretted that the Amiga chipset was inferior in functionality to the IBM PC, and the operating system could have been better developed. Although overall the machine was received well, confirming its place among the major computer manufacturers.
CDTV
In parallel with the development of the PC, Commodore carried out work to implement the idea of a full-fledged home multimedia center. They decided to install computer components into the body of an ordinary VCR, in the hope that such an “innovative” idea would increase sales. A similar desire to cross a “hedgehog and a snake” led to the emergence of the Commodore Dynamic Total Vision (CDTV).
The final product was the classic Amiga 500 model in a modified case, in which there was no room for a keyboard and mouse; they had to be purchased separately. The multimedia center was supposed to be controlled using an infrared remote control. For the first time, the CD drive was built into the “body” of the system unit. For $900, only the most hardcore fans wanted to buy a morally decrepit model, albeit in an updated design, with the old version of the Amiga OS 1.3 operating system (with version 2.0 already working).
Moreover, Philips followed a similar path, deciding to convince customers that playing video directly from a laser disc is very cool and modern. MPEG-1 decoding and support for Video CDs, whose modules were supposed to help users, were met with a cold reception. The “combined” Philips and Amiga turned out to be equally unclaimed and a failure. For Amiga products, this miscalculation turned out to be disastrous, because it was with this model that Commodore had certain hopes.
The developers improved the Amiga 500 version by upgrading it to a megabyte of memory, and also improving the coprocessor set to the Enhanced Chip Set version. We added a built-in clock and a more advanced operating system AmigaOS 2.04 - 2.1. Compared to the Amiga 500, the PC looked more attractive both in terms of hardware and budget, but it lasted less than a year on sale (sales started in October 1991 and ended in June 1992). If this model had gone on sale a year earlier, in parallel with the Amiga 500, which had a high sales rating, the demand for it would have been higher.
During operation, an unfortunate mistake was discovered by the developers - the model conflicted with the most popular games of the early 90s. Disappointed Amiga fans returned the "defective" version to stores en masse, suing Commodore. The company's management, sensing its image was collapsing, hastily began to look for a way out of the unpleasant situation. He was seen in the creation of new models - the complete replacement of the Amiga 500 with a more advanced and low-budget version was supposed to win over wide sections of the population that had a “taste”.
The inexpensive and most compact machine of the entire Amiga line, production of which began in the summer days of 1992, replaced the Amiga 500+, which failed to win the hearts. The computer keyboard has again “merged” with the system unit. The old Motorola processor MC68000, with an operating frequency of 7.14 MHz and one megabyte of RAM, turned out to be a disappointment for users eager for the miraculous transformation of the new model into a strong and modern unit. Having removed the convenient connector that made it possible to improve the system, the PC was equipped with a PCMCIA connector, designed to connect cards with 2 or 4 megabytes of RAM. Unlike the 500 versions, for Kickstart modifications an internal 2.5’’ screw was installed, which, after additional shamanism, expanded to 3.5’’. The insignificant technical equipment of the new computer and its weakness became a loss for the Commodore management, which insisted on its version, because the designers constantly proposed moving forward along the path of technology development.
Instead of confidently occupying the price niche, displacing the Amiga 500, the computer unexpectedly became much more expensive with the same performance parameters and features. Buyers called it a “failure,” criticizing the entire system, in which no significant improvements had been made, but the deterioration was “obvious.” In order to make the computer smaller and lighten its weight, the developers cut down the calculator keyboard. The lack of a block of numbers caused difficulties and sometimes made it impossible to work with some popular applications.
The management, seeing how precarious and fragile the company's position in the market had become, made an attempt to calm dissatisfied customers by releasing an announcement of the imminent appearance on the market of much more productive and powerful versions of the Amiga line. It was almost a disaster. Disappointed with the old models and intrigued by the promised super-sophisticated computers, potential buyers lay in wait and stopped buying “junk.” Sales virtually froze, profits did not recoup investments, putting Commodore on the brink of bankruptcy.
CPU – Motorola MC68EC020 with an operating frequency of 14 MHz. RAM 2 MB. DRAM 4 MB. HD 2.5'' with the possibility of conversion to 3.5''. OS – Amiga OS 3.0.
This version, which appeared in the fall of 1992, rightfully became a “real”, serious computer. It was equipped with a new product - an improved AGA graphics chipset. Instead of a radical improvement in capabilities, it turned out to be nothing. The presence of AGA negated any advantage the Amiga had over competing computers. With a refresh rate of 72 Hz, the screen resolution reached a maximum of 640x480, despite the fact that the IBM PC's image already confidently maintained a resolution of 1024x768 at the same frequencies. Meanwhile, the developers claimed that the computer can support a large number of monitor modes (max – 1448x566), a color palette of up to 262 thousand shades, four video outputs (TTL/analog RGB, radio frequency/low frequency PAL). Externally, the model looked traditional for the Amiga, once again bringing together a keyboard, mouse, and double drives.
The Amiga 1200 was expected to be a top-selling home computer, but the $600 price tag was higher than average. In the home PC market, budget IBM PC lines and game consoles have already firmly held their positions. The Amiga system was more expensive than similar and even more productive models from competitors. The question once again arose about the compatibility of hardware with “native” games from the Amiga 500, which no longer run on the new hardware. The processor also turned out to be slightly outdated. People who understood the beauty of choice wanted to get a better and more modern car for the money. No matter how much the “1200” was criticized, it managed to sell about a million copies of the PC.
This PC model was destined for a professional future. The system unit became horizontal, the keyboard came separately. The memory implied the possibility of expansion using standard connectors. The cost of the car was significant, under 2 thousand dollars, although the graphics and sound were no different. True, extensions and plugins made it possible to significantly improve them. Eight independent connectors on the system unit (4 of them are compatible with PC) made it possible to expand the capabilities of the computer. It was assumed that this version would become in demand for creative workers, in cable television studios and in pure programming, because its speed and power made it possible to spin the processor to maximum values.
The Commodore company tried in every possible way to promote this model, even introducing a light version of the PC, with a processor and RAM embedded in the motherboard. Alas, this modification could not save the situation.
The company's "swan song" was a game console with the ability to work with CDs. It was essentially an Amiga 1200, housed in a miniature new design. The game console unexpectedly hit home, taking over half of the European gaming market. Inspired by the success, the developers managed to push the console onto the Canadian market, anticipating a triumphant march across the vast expanses of the United States of America, but the demand for new personal computers was so-so. Despite good sales of the game console, profits were critically low. Commodore declared bankruptcy in 1994, no longer caring about the fate of the Amiga computers.
Epilogue
After Commodore's bankruptcy became known, Amiga computers disappeared from the shelves. The main mistake that led to the collapse was incorrect marketing. PCs were sold as regular gaming computers in toy stores. As soon as the crisis occurred in the video game market, Commodore tried to change its image, but remained a manufacturer of gaming machines rather than professional ones. This is how the Amiga line of models, once capable of ousting their now famous competitors, ended their lives ingloriously...
Sergey Zuev
History of Amiga computers
Part two: 1995-2006
After the death of Jay Miner and the bankruptcy of the company, the future of the Amiga was in question.
Looking for the owner
At the beginning of 1995, the company's property began to be sold off; such giants as Commodore UK, IBM, Dell, Escom, CEI and Samsung claimed the rights to own popular trademarks. The tender was won by the German giant producing IBM PC-compatible computers, Escom. The new company immediately separated two brands: Commodore began selling regular PC peripherals (mice, keyboards, speakers, etc.), and the Amiga Technologies division began developing the Amiga.
Escom immediately announced that the Amiga was not dead and launched new production of the Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000T. There was a hitch with the latter; they went on sale only in February of the following year, which tarnished the company’s reputation. For new machines, they even slightly rewrote the existing AmigaOS 3.0, giving it version number 3.1. The A1200 that went on sale did not have a “native” disk drive. Escom installed slightly modified disk drives from IBM PCs, which caused programs that used non-standard boot loaders that directly controlled the disk drive controller to stop working. However, this miscalculation was never corrected.
In 1996, president of Amiga Tech. became an old Amiga fan Petro Tishchenko. He announced the start of development of new models - Amiga Walker and Power Amiga. Walker, named after the very first Amiga game Mind Walker, had a very original design, similar to a vacuum cleaner or Darth Vader's helmet. Inside, it had an MC68030 processor, 2 MB of Chip memory, an AGA chipset and could be expanded via Zorro-3 slots or the then popular PCI bus. Third-party manufacturers have announced the start of development of Amiga clones. For example, Phase 5, a well-known company among Mac and Amiga users, which produces processor cards, video cards and other peripherals, announced its new A/Box computer. It was supposed to bring about a new multimedia revolution, just like the Amiga itself 10 years ago. Inside it was planned to install up to four PowerPC 604 processors with a clock frequency of 200 MHz (maximum - 500 MHz) and up to 1 GB of memory with a transfer of 1.6 GB / s (incomparably higher than the then popular EDO RAM - 57.3 MB /With). But the most important thing in this computer was supposed to be the chipset. Phase 5 announced that the entire chipset will be contained in a single 128-bit, 200 MHz chip called "Caipirinha." It was planned to remove the division of memory into two areas, making a single address space; resolutions up to 1600 x 1200 pixels at 24 bits were supported with a transfer between modules of 3200 MB/s. In addition, they promised hardware MPEG support, a Genlock-compatible output, two separate video inputs, hardware windows, an advanced Blitter and a DSP-RISC processor for 3D graphics and video compression.
In July, Escom suddenly announced the sale of its assets to VISCorp due to financial problems. The latter immediately stopped the Walker project and began releasing Amiga Magic kits, which were a regular A1200 with a modem and 100 hours on IBM.net. However, VISCorp's financial position was initially shaky, so in December the Amiga brand was sold to another company, Quickpak. The latter launched the A4000T with MC68060 processors and announced its plans to port AmigaOS to DEC Alpha processors. However, this company also had no luck with the Amiga, and the brand went into the hands of the Gateway 2000 corporation, which was friendly with Microsoft. The Amiga division was renamed Amiga International.
Amiga International
Phase 5 demonstrated new processor cards for the existing A1200 and A4000 fleet - these were dual-processor cards with MC68040(60) and PowerPC 603e/604e. In addition, the company announced that work on A/Box does not stop and, if the Amiga brand is abandoned, then their new systems will successfully occupy the Amiga niche as computers with the same ideology. This year, video cards based on the Cirrus Logic chipset from the same Phase 5 – CyberVision 64 and from Village Tronic – Picasso IV were presented.
By 1996-97, Amgia computers had finally lost their previously strong position in the computer entertainment market, but despite this, during this period there was a rapid growth of new games. Two unofficial releases of Quake and Myst appeared, which worked almost like a slide show (3-4 fps), but by the end of the year ClickBoom officially released optimized versions of these games.
The Gateway 2000 division dealing with Amiga, under the leadership of the same Tishchenko, announced in 1997 the development of a new operating system, AmigaOS 3.5. Amiga International announced that it would no longer produce hardware, leaving that prerogative to third parties like Phase 5 or PIOS. Several Amiga-compatible machines from Draco, Access, Eagle and other manufacturers immediately appeared on the market. In September 1997, Gateway announced the creation of a new division, Amiga Inc., which would handle the future of the Amiga. By the end of the year, Phase 5 finally released its new processor cards, and some third-party companies (DCE, Micronik) announced the creation of a new generation of Amiga-compatible computers. The small company BlitterSoft announced a new clone of BoXeR, which was supposed to have an improved AGA chipset, implemented in FPGA and a 680x0 processor.
The beginning of 1998 was decorated with new announcements: Phase 5 released graphics adapters based on the Permedia 2 chipset for its new processor cards, and an alliance was announced between Phase 5, Blitter Soft and Index Information Ltd. about the development of a PowerPC extension for BoXeR. On March 10, Phase 5 licensed AmigaOS and promised that it would use it on its new Pre/Box systems. Since it was quite difficult to master the development and production of such a complex integrated product as A/Box, it was decided to first release simplified Pre/Box systems. According to plans, they were supposed to contain one 680x0 processor and four PowerPCs. Index announced the development of its Inside Out project. It was planned to make a PCI card for the IBM PC, which would contain an AGA chipset and a 680LC60 processor at 75 MHz.
There was also some revival in the software market: since the source codes of Doom and Descent were open, their unofficial versions for the Amiga immediately appeared. Another significant release is 3Dshooter Genetic Species. Netscape, having lost the commercial browser competition to Microsoft, opened the source code of its browser, which caused considerable excitement in the Amiga user community. DiscreetFX announced a small reward for the first person to port NN to AmigaOS. However, it was a complex, complex product, and the first significant steps in porting Mozilla and FireFox are only being carried out today. The reward for porting has already grown to almost 10 thousand dollars.
That time was the boom of dot-coms and machine-independent languages. In mid-year, it was announced that in addition to the desktop market, the Amiga brand would be expanded into the embedded and mobile systems market. To do this, they began developing a Java-like virtual machine, AmigaDE. For desktop computers, it was proposed to release a new OS version 4.0 by 2000. It was planned to use a kernel from Linux or BeOS as its basis, but in the end they settled on the QNX version. It was a very fast and compact core that fit into the processor cache. There was also confusion with the processor of the new systems. At first, it was announced that the x86 family from Intel would be used, but most of the community protested the transition to “enemy” processors, and then they reported that the basis of future computers could equally likely be solutions from many companies (MIPS, Motorola, Hitachi, etc.)
The next year began with the merger of the German and American divisions, the resulting conglomerate was called Amiga. Jim Collas was appointed to replace Tishchenko. A statement was immediately made that the company understands the desire of Amiga users to preserve the “spirit of the Amiga” and all further efforts of the company will be aimed only at this. Amiga has a new significant partner - Corel, which announced that their popular product WordPerfect will be ported to AmigaOS. However, Corel programmers refused to work with anything alternative to Windows, with the exception of Linux.
For convenience, Amiga computers began to be divided into “classic” and new systems. For classics with processor cards with PowerPC, a PowerMacintosh emulator was released - iFusion, which turned the Amiga into an iMac. BoXeR demonstrated its new developments in the field of creating an Amiga clone, but, unfortunately, the project was folded by the end of the year. In April, the first games for PowerPC were announced and a port of the game was soon released from the PlayStation WipeOut 2097, and Hyperion released 3Dshooter Shogo. The first USB controllers for the Zorro bus were announced in the peripheral market, which were later canceled, but marked the beginning of new developments in this area.
In the middle of the year, the company's management signed an agreement to jointly develop AmigaDE with Microsoft. QNX severed all ties with Amiga and signed an agreement with Phase 5 to use its OS on new computers. Phase 5, in turn, stopped developing the Pre/Box project and announced the creation of a new, no less impressive, four-processor system, the AmiRage K2. The announcement of two more clones followed - the Amiga MCC (Multimedia Convergence Computer) from Gateway 2000 and a computer from the unknown Iwin Corporation. The latter promised to make a real Amiga clone with a 68060 or PowerPC 604e processor, 8 MB Chip memory, 3D accelerator, 16-bit sound, USB support, etc., but after the announcement no one heard anything more about this company. By the end of the year, the Amiga MCC project was canceled, and immediately after that Microsoft announced the start of development of the X-Box, which immediately sparked a wave of rumors about the relatedness of the two projects.
Renaissance
Since over time it became increasingly clear that the Gateway company from Amiga only needed a well-promoted brand, at the beginning of 2000 Tao Group and Amino Development bought Amiga. Amino immediately declared itself the new owner of the Amiga and even renamed itself Amiga Inc.
On January 26, 2000, Phase 5, a developer of peripherals for Mac and Amiga with 12 years of experience, declared bankruptcy. This event finally buried all the community's hopes for A/Box, Pre/Box and their latest developments - the Amirage computer and processor cards based on PowerPC G3/G4. The rights to produce existing products from Phase 5 were bought by the famous German electronics plant - DCE. The assembly line included all the top processor cards from Phase 5 and their peripherals: for the A1200 – Blizzard 1240 (processor 68040), Blizzard 1260 (68060), Blizzard PPC (040/060 + PowerPC 603e); for A3/4000 – Cyberstorm PPC (040/060 + PowerPC 604e); BlizzardVisionPPC and CyberVisionPPC video cards. DCE promised to continue unfinished developments from Phase 5 (such as the PowerPC processor card for the A2000), but did not release any new products in subsequent years.
New Amiga Inc. was divided into three parts:
- Amiga Consular Council is a group of Amiga developers, journalists, user groups, and dealers who were selected by Gateway-Amiga Inc in 1999. Amiga Inc. recruited these people to evaluate its own position in the market, using the opinions of various parts of the Amiga user community.
- Amiga dealer network– a channel for Amiga distributors and dealers, connecting them with the parent company.
- Amiga Developer Support Network– created to support (documentation, bugfixes, etc.) developers.
The year 2000 was busy in terms of new product announcements. The former members of Phase 5 decided to continue working in their native field and announced the creation of a new operating system - MorphOS. Inside, the new OS was very similar to the classic AmigaOS, but its fundamental difference was that MorphOS was originally written for PowerPC processors. Since rumors about the creation of a new OS had been circulating since 1996, the community reacted very negatively to this news - in recent years, too many things were announced and immediately disappeared into oblivion. To alleviate these doubts, a very crude beta was released for public testing, which nevertheless worked and could even run some programs.
Despite the cancellation of further BoXeR development, the Amiga hardware market was booming with new products this year. The peripheral manufacturer Apollo, known along with Phase 5 in the past, has released boards with Zorro4 expansion slots for the A1200 rearranged in the tower. Zorro-4 is a kind of compromise between Zorro-2 and Zorro3: the bus has a 24-bit addressing, as in the first case, and a 32-bit data bus, as in the second. The Polish company Elbox began selling Mediator kits. These boards were also intended for the A1200 and provided the opportunity to use widespread PCI peripherals instead of expensive Zorro analogues (for comparison, a network card for Zorro costs $85, when for PCI you can find similar parameters for $5-10). Immediately after the release of Mediator, the English company Eyetech announced their new development - bus bridge + Predator processor card. According to promises, it was supposed to be a board with PCI and AGP slots and a PowerPC G3 processor, which was also planned to be used in tower versions of the A1200.
The well-known manufacturer of processor cards for PowerMacintosh MetaBox announced a new card for the A1200 based on the PowerPC G3 processor. Unfortunately, due to internal problems, this company soon went bankrupt, leaving behind only a prototype.
Amiga Inc. launched the new AmigaDE OS and SDK for it. For future systems on which this OS was planned to run, a Zico specification with system requirements was published. As mentioned earlier, AmigaDE is an analogue of Java, a platform-independent OS that was planned to be used in a wide range of devices - from desktop computers to embedded and mobile equipment. Quite unexpectedly, AmigaOS 3.9 began to be sold for classic computers. While OS 3.5 was just a set of patches for older operating systems, OS 3.9 came with PowerPC support and a set of very useful utilities.
Modernity
In 2001, Amiga Inc. announced the development of AmigaOS 4. This was exactly what the community had been waiting for for many years. They took the source code of OS 3.x as the basis for the new OS and began to rewrite it to meet modern requirements. Most of the old AmigaOS was written in C, but there were also rudiments in the form of pieces in the BCPL language, the predecessor of C, and machine-dependent parts written in assembler for 680x0 processors and for the chipset. The development team working on the new project committed to rewriting the OS for PowerPC and exclusively in C. To demonstrate the capabilities of the new OS, a series of tours were held in many countries in subsequent years. At first the release date was planned for the end of 2001, then it was pushed back to 2002. Since then, three official beta versions have been released (see Figure 1), but the final release date has not yet been determined. The only thing the developers say is “when it’s done.”
Eyetech revised its plans to develop a bus bridge for the A1200 and released a new PowerPC computer called AmigaOne. Later, several more models of this computer were released, differing in processors and board formats. The latest development, Micro AmigaOne, is a micro-ITX format motherboard (see Fig. 2). The first models came with a Linux distribution, with the option to get OS 4 for free when it went on sale. Later, all owners of purchased AmigaOne received all three released betas by mail, and buyers of new computers received them immediately along with the computer. Recently (second half of 2005) Eyetech has suspended production of its computers, and it is not yet known when it will continue.
Several other projects were declared OS4-compatible. For the period 2001-2005. Elbox released several different versions of their Mediators, including the Mediator 4000 Di, which replaced the standard Riser Card in the Amiga 4000 with a new one with PCI slots. In 2002, at exhibitions dedicated to the Amiga, a new processor card for Mediator with a PCI interface was demonstrated - SharkPPC. It was planned that PowerPC G3/G4 processors with a clock frequency range of 400-533 MHz would be installed on it. In fact, this card is a slightly modified processor card for the PowerMac 7200 from Sonnet. The release dates for this product were announced on the day of the release of AmigaOS 4. Since the latter has not yet been released, the community is still waiting for this card.
In December 2004, well-known hardware developer Adam Kowalczyk announced his development of a processor card for the A1200 based on the Freescale 8245 processor (analogous to the PowerPC 603e) with a clock frequency of 400 MHz. The card was planned to contain an ATI Mobility Radeon graphics controller, slots for SODIMM memory, USB and a high-speed IDE controller. Among other things, they promised very low heat dissipation and a JIT compiler stitched into ROM for on-the-fly emulation of the old 680x0 family of processors. That is, the new processor started working immediately after switching on, and it would be possible to use AmigaOS 3.x without installing OS 4. After this announcement, a year of silence followed, and recently, in November 2005, the Belgian news site Safir.se was able to take Adam's interview, in which he reports that work on the processor card is in full swing and the characteristics have changed slightly over the year. Instead of the Freescale 8245, it is planned to install a new Freescale 5200 with a heat dissipation of 1 W and a clock speed of 400466 MHz, the memory slots have been replaced with 512 MB of Fast memory soldered directly on the board, and the ATI chip has been replaced with a MiniPCI laptop connector for video cards. The release dates are indicated at the time of the release of OS 4. One good thing is that the AmigaOS 4 developers report that the process of final code debugging is entering its final stage.
However, not only OS 4 remained on the Amiga operating system market. In addition to Linux and BSD, which are classic for all platforms, MorphOS has received its development (see Fig. 3).
After the collapse of Phase 5, a new company was formed - bPlan, which continued its work in the field of hardware for the Amiga. In 2000, bPlan published the specifications for their new Pegasos computer, and by February of the following year had already released working prototypes of their machines. PowerPC G3 400 MHz was used as the central processor, and SuSE Linux 7.0 and MorphOS were used as the OS. MorphOS, like AmigaOS 4, is a new operating system that is a clone of OS 3, rewritten entirely for PowerPC.
Over time, Pegasos and MorphOS have developed quite a lot. The processor was updated to DualG4 at 1 GHz, and two versions of Pegasos have already been released (see Fig. 4). A variety of software is developed and transferred from other platforms under MorphOS. In the future, new computers based on the PowerPC Cell are promised, as well as a sub-notebook based on the Freescale 5200.
But the classic “hardware” is not abandoned either. In recent years, Freescale has released new members of the 680x0 processor family, the Motorola Coldfire. This processor also has many integrated controllers, and so, on December 17, 2004, Elbox announced a new Dragon processor card. Structurally, this is the same Mediator with AGP, only a PCI card with a new processor with a frequency of 266 MHz is inserted into one of its slots.
In recent years, many different peripherals have been developed and released for classic Amigas. The German company Individual Computers produces sound cards, controllers for high-speed (>115200 baud) serial ports and much more for the A1200, E3B has released USB controllers, and the Ariadne 2 Zorro network card with the ability to connect various modules has gone on sale.
During this time, the problem of new computers was brewing among the community. Classic Amiga computers, like any thing, have their own resource, and, despite the fact that Escom at one time produced so many A1200s that you can still buy a new (never printed) computer abroad without any problems, someday they will end. The community itself is split into several parts: adherents of the new PowerPC platforms, adherents of the classics, and those who use the WinUAE emulator. The latter, despite not very good chipset emulation (problems with flickering of parts of the image, a problem with VBlank that cannot be eliminated in principle, etc.), emulates the main 680x0 processor well at speeds 5-10 times higher than the flagship of this series 68060 .WinUAE can also use your PC's graphics controller as a video card, making AmigaOS much easier to use. The idea (BoXeR, IWin) of transferring the Amiga chipset to modern PLMs has been brewing for a long time. And just recently, in December 2005, it was announced that work in this direction was being carried out by Norwegian enthusiast Dennis van Veeren. According to him, about 60% of the OCS chipset has already been transferred to FPGA, and so that the community, accustomed to deceptions recently, does not consider him a liar, photographs were posted on the Internet demonstrating the operation and (probably most importantly) errors in the operation of the emulated chipset .
It must be admitted that despite all the difficulties that befell it, the Amiga lives on and is still popular among a considerable part of PC users.
Launch and operation of the Amiga emulator under Linux. Introduction. A little history.
The Commodore Amiga computer was first shown to the public in 1984. It played stereo music with amazing quality, the graphics were unparalleled in smoothness and speed. The opinion of those present at the exhibition was: a new era has begun. Mouse control, incredibly convenient operating system, multitasking. The demonstrated demo called “Boeing” showed a ball painted in red and white squares, which flew across the screen with a roar hitting the walls. The first Amiga model had the number 1000. The only model where the operating system was loaded from a floppy disk. All subsequent ones contained the OS kernel in ROM. A revolutionary home computer was developed by a group of enthusiasts who invested all their money into the business - about 7 million. They were driven by the desire to create the best computer in the world. New ideas arose in the minds of the creators. To make the computer insanely fast, a “blitter” was proposed - a special processor that freed the central CPU from tasks related to graphics output and very quickly displayed and filled planes with any color (up to a million pixels per second!!!). Another special processor also freed the CPU from tasks unusual for it, forcing it to deal only with program logic. The ingenious idea of one of the creators made it possible to display 4096 colors on the screen in HAM (hold and modify) mode with minimal memory consumption, and this was at a time when the standard was the IBM PC 286 with DOS and a 4-color CGA monitor. The supposedly revolutionary 16-color EGA video cards have just appeared. Ha. In the Amiga Guide magazine there was an interesting comparison taken from Dmitry Mikhailov’s book “Amiga No. 1”. A huge factory where the director, instead of management, rushes from machine to machine trying to do everything himself. In the Amiga, he is in charge, and everything, including sound output, is implemented in hardware. The Amiga computer developed, but the old hardware also had reserves. New AHI drivers were written for the 8-bit audio processor Paula, thanks to which the sound became 14-bit. And even without them he could digitize an audio signal with a frequency of up to 80,000 Hz!
This is the famous Commodore AMIGA
For a long time, it was impossible to even replicate this unique computer in emulators. It is rightfully considered one of the most complex computer systems to emulate. Only when the x86 processor milestone crossed 1000 MN were we finally able to get an approximate embodiment of the virtual AMIGA. The first and by far the best AMIGA emulator was called UAE. Many people, out of ignorance, naively translate this abbreviation as Ultimate Amiga Emulator. But the real translation... hold on to your chairs (!!!): Unix Amiga Emulator. Of course, it first appeared in *nix! Since then, the dream of launching indescribable Amiga games and incomparable programs has come true. The fact that AMIGA is a great computer is evidenced by the fact that many of my friends, even in 2002, happily use the convenient and fast (!) home AMIGA 600 in their work to create animation and games. The wonderful True Briliance program successfully helps them with this. And the result, believe me, is impressive, and the standard ability to output images to a VCR is simply magnificent.
I have been a user of the best, insanely fast, multi-tasking and easy to use AMIGA600 home computer for several years. But... I, an even older user of the IBM PC (there are practically no alternatives to it today, but the PC is gradually approaching what AMIGA was originally - an ideal home computer. Video and sound cards are finally (!) beginning to unload processor from tasks unusual for it).
I started with three. 386SX40 Mh/ 2 Mb memory. The worst video card in the world is Realtek 256 Kb. At that time, the average user did not have a sound card and enjoyed the PC Speaker. I think every old PC guy would strangle the creator of this miracle with his own hands. It was possible to buy 286, but after borrowing a lot of money, I scraped together for three. Smart people even then advised me to buy an Amiga, but... Of course, I spent an insane amount of time playing games. Such hits as Golden Ax, Flashback, Space Quest, Soccer Kid, Crime Wave will leave few people indifferent. At that time, no one simply had a CD-ROM and toys were copied from friends and acquaintances onto floppy disks. Some games had amazing graphics, like GODS or Joe and Mac, but it quickly became clear that there was almost nothing in the platform and shot'em'up genre I loved. Of the decent airplane shooters, I found only Tyrian and OverKill.
There were simply no games with a lot of moving backgrounds, like on SEGA. Later, I bought a 486. A more serious car, but everything was the same in relation to toys. Only strategies made me happy in the camp of the IBM PC. For action games, this platform turned out to be too weak. The four were replaced by the 133rd Pentium, overclocked to 150 Mn on the 75th bus. Then K-6 500Mhz, comparable in performance to the Celeron 400.. Next, the Celeron 566 overclocked to 950 Mhz on the 112 bus. 192 MB memory. IBM screw for 7,200 and Riva TNT2Pro. The choice for this processor fell because of the ability to seriously overclock it.
I first saw the Commodore AMIGA in 1994. They showed me the Alien-3 toy from Acclaime. The graphics left an odd impression, particularly due to the low number of colors, but I was amazed at the smoothness of the game's animations. I've never seen anything like this before. The machine on which this was demonstrated was an Amiga 600 with 1 Mb of memory. It wasn't the best way to start out with a great home computer. But, nevertheless, the game made an impression, despite the fact that:
1. Absolutely no special Amiga processors were used.
2. For some reason, it was possible to choose only music or special effects, and this was with an amazing 4-channel AMIGA stereo processor, the sound of which defies description!!!
3. The graphics were simply converted to 32 colors from the general palette, despite the fact that usually pictures in games are drawn using a certain palette, and then are not converted and look amazing, and AMIGA itself is capable of displaying up to 4096 colors on the screen (on the Amiga 600) and 260,000 out of 16 million (on AMIGA 1200). Games from Acclame on AMIGA, unfortunately, all have converted (bad) graphics. (Mortal Kombat 1.2)
The main thing that left an impression was the cool animation, which is not surprising, because... The usual display speed for Amiga 2-D graphics is 50 FPS. (In 1984, let me remind you.)
Amiga ElfMania: unsurpassed smoothness of movements!
The next game was Mortal Kombat from the same Acclame. It was the same with flowers, but... SOUND... Of course, I had been playing MK on the 386 for a long time, but here, compared to the IBM PC, it seemed to me that they gave me different ears. I heard the same familiar Combat melodies, but the number of instruments was much larger. It’s as if you were just listening to one violinist before and now you’ve found yourself in a symphony orchestra.
And the second thing that shocked me was the speed. On the triple 40 Mh the game looked more like a slideshow. After pressing the keys, one could only guess whether the blow would go through or not. Everything was terribly slow. I just flew on AMIGA Mortal Kombat!!! Everything was very smooth and beautiful. AND THIS IS DESPITE THE fact that the CENTRAL PROCESSOR ON AMIGA 600 is 7 Mhz!!! The secret was the use of AMIGA graphics superprocessors (or the so-called ECS chipset).
Later I continued to work on the IBM PC, endlessly spending money on upgrades, but the toys never reached the AMIGA level. A friend from work told me that his friend was selling an Amiga600.
We immediately went to look at the new computer. I had no intention of buying it, and I had problems with money, but I wanted to see and hear everything for myself. The MK2 and Alien3 I saw once haunted me. And here I am with a new friend. On the table there is a small and inconspicuous white AMIGA connected to a 14” color TV. The entire computer fits into the keyboard. There is a hole on the side for installing 3.5” floppy disks.
“Do you want to see what’s inside,” the Amiga man asks, and before I have time to object, he deftly lifts the top of the computer. Almost EMPTY inside!!! Motherboard with a small number of processors. A hard drive is inserted into it. A train goes out to the side. A CD-ROM is connected to it. Disk drive and... EVERYTHING. After all the wire thickets in a regular PC, this is impressive. But the main thing, of course, is how the computer performs in operation. And then something began that I never expected from a computer developed in 1984.
TRUE multitasking when everything just flies. There is no waiting, I touch the mouse, it moves, no matter what the processor does. The user has the highest priority. (Linux OS owners, of course, will just shrug their shoulders, saying, why be surprised, but Windows users will involuntarily swallow the saliva that rolls up) In Windows, sometimes it is not clear who is the owner of the computer. I want to close an application, but Windows is busy with something else and won't let me do anything. So on the Amiga there is no such thing. Everything reacts with lightning speed. The multitasking operating system on the Amiga is called AmigaDOS, and its graphical shell is Workbench. To boot and work normally on the Amiga in the graphical shell, just one file on a screw or floppy disk is enough - LoadWB, the size of which is... 1 Kb! For stable operation of the system, the main core is hardwired into the microcircuit. At the same time, the WB (WorkBench) system has amazing expandability. There are directories on the screw. But this is not an incomprehensible mess of names, as in Windows, but quite meaningful components.
For example, in the folder (according to Amiga - in a box, because WorkBench is translated as a desktop) DEVS there are devices, for example, when the Amiga was being developed, there was no CD-ROM yet, however, this does not prevent Amiga people from using this device, after all, in the DEVS folder we placed a file that tells the system what kind of CD-ROM device it is, and in the L folder a file describing the CD-ROM file system is stored. If tomorrow some CD-RUM appears, there will be no need to rewrite the OS, they will simply write 2 files and throw them in the required boxes. There are boxes for Russification, etc. The DataTypes box contains data types. For example, if you add a file describing the BMP or PCX format to this box, WorkBench will be able to show us images in these formats using its own means. Those. It turns out that the larger the operating system, the cooler it is. On IBM, the same ratio is true for Linux and unacceptable for Windows. As you can see, the so-called plug-in method is used here. And this despite the fact that the system was developed in 84? Do you want to change skins in WorkBench, like in WinAMP. So where did the idea actually come from? Where does true plug-n-play come from? On Amiga it is called auto-configuration. Mouse support in WorkBENCH is done in hardware, i.e. no drivers, nothing. Her movement is unusually smooth, because... data about cursor movement is supplied and updated via the DMA channel at a monstrous speed. The screen resolution even on a TV can be 1200 by 512. The Amiga has a stereo output for 2 stereo channels and video outputs (LF, RGB and HF), it is extremely easy to record the results of your work on a video cassette. Regular DD floppy disks of 720 KB on Amiga are formatted to 880. And by non-standard methods to 1049. For AMIGA, it doesn’t make much difference whether the executable file is archived or not. She will launch anyone. Only when running compressed will the screen flicker indicating that the file is compressed by PowerPacker. File names on the Amiga can be of any length with almost any punctuation marks. On the Amiga, not files are displayed in windows, but their icons, but not all files have icons, only those that the user needs to see (for example, those that are launched). Those. if I open the drawer, I will see only one icon, which I click on with the mouse, thereby launching the program, and not a bunch of files in which it takes half an hour to search for the one to launch. If I need to see all the files, I can select “Show all files” in the top WB menu.
WorkBench on AMIGA.
Windows in WB can be arranged in several layers, and by sliding one screen down, we will see other screens or running programs underneath it. And the second point is that programs on AMIGA with absolutely similar graphics to those on the IBM PC are an order of magnitude smaller in size. For example, LightWave takes up 9 Mb on AMIGA, and 80 Mb on PC. Reunion game on IBM PC – 24 Mb, on AMIGA – 4 Mb. Moreover, games that come with 1Mb of memory on AMIGA, for example Stardust, on IBM – the conversions do not have the most beautiful levels and require 8 (!!!) Mb of RAM. Not to mention the fact that on AMIGA 7Mhz, and on PC you need at least 486 from 66 Mhz. Therefore, the desire to play not in conversions, but in native Amiga games under an emulator, is understandable. AMIGA is designed in such a way that the central processor is mainly occupied with simply distributing tasks and calculating logic, while the graphics output is hung on specialized ultra-fast chips (for example, the blitter processor can draw a million!!! dots per second, and we are not talking about a modern computer) , and the sound goes through the DMA channel without using the central processor at all! The Amiga even includes a Risc processor!!! It can track the course of the ray, as a result of which windows, objects, sprites can be displayed on the screen at one screen resolution in OTHER resolutions. Purely visually, if you compare the speed of AMIGA600 7 Mhz with an IBM PC, then it will be a Pentium 133 Mhz. After all of the above, you need to understand that to emulate this miracle computer, you need super-powerful IBM PCs. On 950 Mh Celeron almost doesn't slow down. But I'm getting ahead of myself. So, an acquaintance launched a multimedia program and began to show photographs in 4096 colors, and they did not just appear, but flew out, curled up and spun around an axis. At the same time, even earlier, he launched one task to play music, and therefore everything happened with amazing sound accompaniment. The music was digital, in MOD format (native Amiga format). Then he showed the file manager Directory Opus 4 (similar to Norton Comander). Files were dragged with the mouse, etc. IBM still doesn't have a single manager comparable to Dopus. And finally, it was the turn of the games.
The first game they showed me was Brain The Lion. A lion cub runs on its hind legs, beats with its paw, and collects diamonds. There are stores where you can buy various useful things. But the graphics. It was delicious. Backgrounds (plans) moving at different speeds, special effects of scaling and rotation (increase-rotation) in prize secret levels. And the colors!!! Everything was very beautiful. Magnificent 3D music sounded from the speakers with lots of stereo effects. I was simply shocked.
The next game was Chaos Kid from Ocean. Energetic techno music, incredibly smooth graphics. Moving backgrounds. Special effects. But most importantly, the music was dynamic. Those. when entering the water, the sound became muffled, without high frequencies, and when jumping out of it, it regained clarity and purity. The main character, armed with a club, had to reach the end of the level by destroying a certain number of exploding flowers and the inhabitants of this world. In addition, on the Amiga I came across many of the games I loved so much on the ZX Spectrum, but with incomparably cooler graphics and sound. For example, Freddy Hardest in South Manhattan, Myth, Barbarrian 1,2,3, Satana, AMC, Elite, Dizzy, etc.
At the beginning, I just wanted to see the Amiga in action, but by the end of the day I couldn’t imagine how I could live without such a wonderful home machine. As a result, after 2 weeks I purchased an Amiga 600 with 2 MB of memory and a 20 MB screw. All this cost me $100 and I have never regretted the purchase. In 2002, I sold my AMIGA (due to the emergence of perfect emulators) for the same $100, but many years later! The new owners are very happy with their purchase and spend days (and nights) passing through colorful game worlds, often happily reporting that they have finally passed the unforgettable and terribly beautiful Cedric, and the music from it has been recorded on a tape recorder and is being listened to. The music there is really great, something like Enigma. In general, if we compare the quality of graphics, the best games with AMIGA are more beautiful than the best games on 2D slot machines. But very close. What could be better graphically than, for example, Lion Heart on AMIGA?
(To be continued)