Exploring the history, technology, and legacy of the Amiga…
Long ago, in 1985, personal computers came in two general categories: the friendly, childish game machine used for fun (exemplified by Atari and Commodore products); and the boring, beige adult box used for business (exemplified by products from IBM). The game machines became fascinating technical and artistic platforms that were of limited real-world utility. The IBM products were all utility, with little emphasis on aesthetics and no emphasis on fun. Into this bifurcated computing environment came the Commodore Amiga 1000. This personal computer featured a palette of 4096 colors, unprecedented animation capabilities, four-channel stereo sound, the capacity to run multiple application simultaneously, a graphical user interface, and powerful processing potential. It was the world’s first true multimedia personal computer.
The Amiga’s capacity to store and display color photographs, manipulate video (giving amateurs access to professional tools), and use recordings of real-world sound were the seeds of the digital media future: digital cameras, Photoshop, MP3 players, and even YouTube, Flickr, and the blogosphere. I examine different facets of the platform — from Deluxe Paint to AmigaOS to Cinemaware — in each chapter, creating a portrait of the platform and the communities of practice that surrounded it. Of course, the Amiga was not perfect: the DOS component of the operating system was clunky and ill-matched, for example, and crashes often accompanied multitasking attempts. And Commodore went bankrupt in 1994. But for a few years, the Amiga’s technical qualities were harnessed by engineers, programmers, artists, and others to push back boundaries and transform the culture of computing.
The materials on this web site are meant to accompany and enhance the material found in the Platform Studies volume about the Amiga, The Future Was Here, written by myself, Jimmy Maher, and published in 2012 by the MIT Press. It can be purchased from the MIT Press’s online store, from Amazon, from Barnes and Noble, or from brick-and-mortar booksellers worldwide. Readers of the book may also be interested in my personal blog, The Digital Antiquarian.
This entry was posted on March 9, 2012 at 3:48 pm and is filed under News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
15 Responses to “Exploring the history, technology, and legacy of the Amiga…”
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Christian Says:
April 30, 2012 at 3:35 pmHow can we get autographed copies.
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Jimmy Maher Says:
May 1, 2012 at 1:24 pmHa, I’m not sure I can accommodate you there. I guess if you want to send a copy to Norway I can sign it and send it back.
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Alessandro Gerelli Says:
May 5, 2012 at 4:43 pmHey! Dear Jimmy,
I’m a Commodore user from 1982 with a C64 (I was born in 1971, one year before you I think and I pre-ordered your book from Book repository and received three days ago… (still using my A4000 some days Good job!
Alessandro from Italy!
ps: are you on facebook or twitter? .. bye!
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Jimmy Maher Says:
May 6, 2012 at 9:05 amThanks for that!
I’m not a big social networker, but am always happy to respond to email queries.
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Francis Augusto Says:
May 17, 2012 at 6:05 pmI’m starting to read the book now! Amazon should have thought about autographs on kindles, cause I want an autograph as well!
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iPadCary Says:
December 9, 2012 at 6:09 pmFunny you should mention that, Francis ….
I’d always thought ereaders/tablets should have some sort of an autographing capacity, so here’s my idea ….Since now ereaders — and by default, of course, tablets — are multitouch, why not have a page in an ebook where the author can use the tip of thier finger & sign an autograph?
You can call it a “digigraph” or whatever.
Pretty cool, huh?Reply
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Mitch Durdle Says:
May 19, 2012 at 12:59 pmI received my copy a couple of days ago and had to say you’ve done a great job. The memories came flooding back, as well as the excitement and anticipation I experienced during those early days. Thanks!
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Roman Baranovic Says:
June 3, 2012 at 2:52 pmthank you for the book. I was amiga user 1990-1994 as I was just 16 when I have got it and from the postcommunist country, your book helped me to better understand what I was actually part of
but I had no idea…Reply -
gianluca Says:
June 25, 2012 at 9:49 amexcellent reading! I started with a Commodore128, then moved over an A2000HD. I’m now a proud user of AmigaOS4.1 on a Sam440ep.
You actually showed me things that I couldn’t imagine. Looks like that Amiga is still alive and kicking mostly thanks to Europe.Greetings from Italy!
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zsz Says:
October 28, 2012 at 9:09 amParadox (one of the top producers in the UK drum & bass scene) still uses an old Amiga 1200 with OctaMED for both production and live shows to this day (althought probably mostly for novelty purposes). Here’s a video of him explaining his use of the system/software: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e0wg_618ac
And here is a video of a Mulder remix of Fatboy Slim’s Rockafeller Skank playing on Octamed: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG1CLi_Fjkw
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victor osaka Says:
November 12, 2012 at 9:12 pmI just got your book and starting to read it and I am truly amazed. Bravo. It was certainly the most exciting time of my life. Those of us there at the very beginning certainly new the impact the Amiga would have on computing’s future. As some of you may know, my contribution is in the field is 3d graphics and animation. I still look fondly upon all those images that I and so many others created that in the beginning. I recently compiled all of the newsletters for the 3d Artforum and will be posting them on the web for everyone.
Cheers, Victor OsakaReply -
iPadCary Says:
December 9, 2012 at 6:19 pmJust downloaded the sample on my iPad Mini from the iBookStore a few seconds ago.
Looks pretty good so far!I’d’ve bought the book outright, but since being spoiled by $10 prices in this, the Kindle Era, I was kinda taken aback by the $27.
B-U-T, rest assured, as soon as I can swing it, I’m gonna buy this book!Reply -
Armin Pöhlmann Says:
July 30, 2013 at 7:59 pmI finished reading your book, and I found it truely touching. Everything else I read before was mostly from the Commodore perspective – what did they do, how did they develop etc. Your book shows what we, the users did with these machines.
I must say: We heard as youngsters the Amiga was called a “creative” computer – but we didn’t realize that all this painting, digitizing, playing around for fun was exactly that: creativity. It gave me great joy to read all this about DPaint etc.
Nearly all the aspects which made and destroyed the Amiga are mentioned in your book – it’s great work.
Maybe some remark: The AmigaOS has these multitasking features – but we young Amiga 500 users never realized. We had only one program running: The one we booted from floppy. Multitasking for us only got unfolded after the intruduction of hard disks – for me with purchasing my A4000. Actually multitasking was pretty useless with only one floppy drive – but still it was developed! Amazing!
Maybe there is some space for another analysis of the hardware. The Amigas seem terribly expandable: E.g. Commodore saves the money for a clock, puts a clock port. Years later some other guys come an develop sound cards and usb controllers for this clockport. I find this equally amazing.Nevertheless, a great book, it gave me a good time and thinking about how Amiga computing made me the man I am. Thanks a lot!
Armin.
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Thomas Says:
August 6, 2013 at 9:11 amJust finished reading your (e)book, and as a former bare metal programmer on this platform, I can see how insightful your text really is regarding the Amiga hardware and its tight connection to software.
I also liked the ARexx discussion (AppleScript isn’t mentioned, but found it in your errata). I’m still thinking not having it on the otherwise very usable Windows 7 is an unpleasant ommision. Most user don’t even know what *could* be done ;-(.
There’s really only one or two words missing: Texturemapping and c2p (regarding Doom). I think with just a small paragraph one can explain why the Amiga couldn’t run something like Doom at that level, further explaining why bitplanes where yesterdays technology when RAM became cheaper.
But I don’t think this (or the EOL of the 68k line) added to Commodores fate. The Mac survived two architecural changes, and RTG with more advanced/different graphics hardware became, as you wrote, a reality. It was just not done by C=, leading to highly problematic solutions. If done by C=, more elegant solutions are imaginable bridging into a future without tightly integrated custon chips and bitplanes.
Thanks for some nice hours reading it. Now I need to buy the physical book!
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Marcin Says:
November 18, 2013 at 10:24 pmThis is a great addendum! Even though I purchased and read your book something like a year ago, I did not know about this website… Or I forgot about it.
Ebook could be better in terms of layout, but it is clear and readable. The thing that bothers me is the left margin. Too wide. Anyway I think I will buy the pbook too. Just to have it physically on the shelf.
Thank you very much for the effort, work and passion. The book is great. I was amazed by level of details.
Cheers!
MarcinReply
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