The Last Days of Amiga - and the Lost Amiga CD64 (youtube.com) 46
This week Mike Bouma (Slashdot reader #85,252) looked back nearly 30 years to the glory days of the world's first true 32-bit CD based home console — Commodore's Amiga32. In the final three months of 1993, the company had sold 100,000 in just three months in Europe, outselling Sega four to one, "and claiming 38% market share of all CD ROM drives sold in the U.K. (according to the Gallup Weekly Report)."
But the next year all over, Mike Bouma writes, summarizing reports from both Amiga Report and Wikipedia: Operations in Germany and the United Kingdom were still profitable, but Commodore was not able to meet demand for new units because of component supply problems — and could not release the (already made) Amiga CD32 stock in the United States due to a legal patent issue!
Commodore declared bankruptcy on April 29, 1994, causing the CD32 to be discontinued only eight months after its debut.
This look back was apparently inspired by a report from retro gaming vlogger Lady Decade about what then happened to the Amiga CD32 after Commodore's demise — and about the system that would've been its successor: the lost Amiga64.
Earlier this week Mike shared the news that attempts to make a 'Doom' clone for the Amiga 500 have already led to a demo map (for both Amiga 500s with one megabyte of RAM and Atari STs with two megabytes of RAM).
And for more vintage retro-gaming goodness, Mike adds that "In my opinion the most impressive game released for the system was Super Stardust by Bloodhouse, published by Team17." It was the sequel to Stardust for the Amiga 500 and Atari STE. Bloodhouse merged with Terramarque (famous for their impressive Amiga 500 game Elfmania) to form Housemarque, which is still making games as of today.
But the next year all over, Mike Bouma writes, summarizing reports from both Amiga Report and Wikipedia: Operations in Germany and the United Kingdom were still profitable, but Commodore was not able to meet demand for new units because of component supply problems — and could not release the (already made) Amiga CD32 stock in the United States due to a legal patent issue!
Commodore declared bankruptcy on April 29, 1994, causing the CD32 to be discontinued only eight months after its debut.
This look back was apparently inspired by a report from retro gaming vlogger Lady Decade about what then happened to the Amiga CD32 after Commodore's demise — and about the system that would've been its successor: the lost Amiga64.
Earlier this week Mike shared the news that attempts to make a 'Doom' clone for the Amiga 500 have already led to a demo map (for both Amiga 500s with one megabyte of RAM and Atari STs with two megabytes of RAM).
And for more vintage retro-gaming goodness, Mike adds that "In my opinion the most impressive game released for the system was Super Stardust by Bloodhouse, published by Team17." It was the sequel to Stardust for the Amiga 500 and Atari STE. Bloodhouse merged with Terramarque (famous for their impressive Amiga 500 game Elfmania) to form Housemarque, which is still making games as of today.
The fifth horseman. (Score:3)
And there will be five platforms. Apple, Windows, Linux, Mobile, and Amiga.
Re: The fifth horseman. (Score:2)
I thought its also a noun... place in Alabama
Re: (Score:2)
amiga-2200 / agent-88 board any one have pics? (Score:2)
amiga-2200 / agent-88 board any one have pics?
Re: (Score:2)
I think he meant "Nokia"
Never had an Amiga but... (Score:5, Informative)
I worked. In music and 3d animation in the late 90s and Amiga was where almost everyone cut their teeth. Without Amiga the UK would be massively poorer in terms of creative computer pursuits.
Maybe not 100% on topic but Amiga stories always remind me of its massive influence. Same as Sinclair and UK gaming in the 80s.
The Amiga was much more than just a games computer (Score:5, Informative)
I would also like to mention that next to the system's graphics and sound capabilities (which also resulted into some great games), the system innovated with a pre-emptive multitasking GUI. Some uses include Lightwave 3D [wikipedia.org], the Video Toaster [wikipedia.org] and Scala [wikipedia.org].
Famous amiga uses include:
https://www.amigareport.com/ar... [amigareport.com]
To see what the system could already do in the 80s have a look here (1988, for example copy & pasting between programs):
https://archive.org/details/am... [archive.org]
Re: (Score:3)
The idea of a pre-emptive multitasking os was not new, what made the amiga stand out was making such a system available at an affordable price.
And then of course commodore's extremely poor marketing, so that the majority of amiga users booted directly into games and had no idea there was a multitasking os available on the system.
Re: (Score:3)
The idea of a pre-emptive multitasking os was not new, what made the amiga stand out was making such a system available at an affordable price.
The pre-emptive multitasking was one of the Amiga's greatest features, it was also one of its biggest failures. Who releases a OS with out hardware memory protection? How many of us have lost real work on an Amiga because some wonky program went off the rails and took the whole system with it.
I could understand not having it on 68000 and those running Workbench 1.3. But to not have it on later generations and Workbench 2.x+ was just poor engineering.
Re: (Score:2)
MacOS did not have memory protection at the time, neither did Dos nor early versions of Windows. A lack of memory protection and regular crashing was standard on home computers at the time. If you wanted stability you had to pay big money for a unix workstation.
Most Amiga models were not capable of hardware memory protection out of the box - afaik only the A3000 and some models of A4000 (ie not the one with the cheaper EC model 68030) were.
AmigaOS basically painted itself into a corner, its message passing
Re:The Amiga was much more than just a games compu (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The Amiga was much more than just a games compu (Score:5, Informative)
It wasn't just that it was preemptively multitasking, although that was great, but also that it was microkernel-based. This offered major, real, tangible benefits WRT drivers and such. A card would have ROM containing a driver which was just an executable. And you could load a newer driver to supersede the old one in memory on the fly, so you could boot with the onboard driver and then patch in a newer one. It was really an amazing OS in its day. Unfortunately, many of its nifty tricks depended on a total lack of memory protection, so it was always a doomed operating system.
Re: (Score:3)
> so it was always a doomed operating system
At least no more so than the other operating systems of the time, including for example Microsoft's MSDOS and Apple's MacOS.
Currently there's a kernel development team implementing multi-core support on ExecSG.
This team includes at least: Alex Perez, Alfkil Wennermark, Andy Broad, Colin Wenzel, Doug Statsny, Fredrik Wikström, Hans de Ruiter, Hans-Jörg Frieden, Jamie Krueger, Lyle Hazelwood, Mathias Parnaudeau, Olaf Barthel, Rene W Olsen, Sebastian Bau
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At least no more so than the other operating systems of the time, including for example Microsoft's MSDOS and Apple's MacOS.
Arguably less so, because you could conveniently patch it.
Currently there's a kernel development team implementing multi-core support on ExecSG.
Neato? I mean it runs on an essentially dead architecture but OK.
Amiga is great (Score:2, Redundant)
My first computer was a commodore and I stuck with the brand for a while, but man I got to tell you it is dead. When you Google commodore, all the links that come up are about the Navy. Heck even a vintage jazz club in Charleston, SC comes up before anything about the computer company. Hmm, did you know that The Commodore club was ranked best jazz and blues club 2021 by Charleston City Paper? I never knew that. Anyway, time to let go of commodore and move on.
Re: (Score:3)
There is a Jazz club in Charleston SC? Awesome, at least I'm walking away from this thread with something I didn't know. As for all that about Commodore, the computer company, all this is known. Time put that zombie down.
It's a shame (Score:1, Interesting)
That Apple survived 1994 and Commodore didn't.
Re: It's a shame (Score:2)
(IIRC) the last C64 rolled off the assembly line in 1993. Yes, an 8 bit computer that was still selling new and pretty well when IBM PC clones were the standard office item, and increasingly the home computer of choice, and we were firmly in the 16 bit home console gaming era.
I say the C64 had a very good run in it's lifetime.
Re: (Score:2)
The Apple //E was dropped in Nov of '93, so not the only 8 bit computer that was around then.
Re: It's a shame (Score:2)
They also had the Apple ][ cards for Macintoshes.
My high school had a contemporary Mac equipped with such a card when I was there in the early 90s. Kind of strange seeing Apple ][ drives connected to a more sleek "pizza box" Mac, and even stranger watching a Mac boot to a text only Apple ][ screen.
Our school had a ton of legacy Apple ][ software that was regularly used.
Re: (Score:2)
Yea, I thought about mentioning that, but decided it was a separate product and only part computer. The GS could also be mentioned as it had the //E personality and likewise ran the legacy ][ software and even looked like a Mac, except with colour.
Re: It's a shame (Score:2)
It would've been nice to have a Mac with both the x86 card and the Apple ][ card installed.
3 systems, on one machine, all done through 'proper' hardware rather than software emulation.
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Wasn't aware of a x86 card for the Mac, though it is expected, there were a few for the ][ series, including floppy and HD support to plug in beside the Z80 card. What could have been, including updating the Apple ][ card to an Apple GS card or Apple not crippling the GS.
Re: It's a shame (Score:2)
The PC card wasn't even the first x86 add on for the Mac.
Back in the mid 1980s there was an add on that came in the form of a seperate box that used the Mac for input/output. It might have used the Mac's floppy drive as well but I don't remember.
Basically it was a mostly self contained PC that used the Mac as a text only smart terminal for text mode MS-DOS programs. It was an obscure device and quickly faded from the market.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess that would have been before the Mac acquired expansion slots. Jobs had some weird ideas back then including that users didn't need expansion slots. The expansion slots on the ][ series were one of the things that made it a success.
Re: It's a shame (Score:2)
I'm trying to find it again through various search engines and well crafted search terms with no luck. When I saw it before, it was in an ad of an 80s era computer magazine that was scanned and uploaded to Archive.org.
I can't confirm if this was an actual product, or if the ad I saw only contained a prototype or mockup of a product that ultimately was never released. I hope someone else remembers it and can provide some more details.
Re: It's a shame (Score:2)
^but yeah, it was an 8088 based 'sidecar' that was for all intents a purposes a headless PC that used the Mac for input and output. I remember seeing floppy icons on the window of the interface program, which led me to believe that it had the capability of sharing files between the Mac and PC side. The ad also specifically mentioned that it was for running text mode Ms-Dos programs, so it was obviously using a VT-100 like terminal emulation for the display and keyboard.
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'Tis easy to imagine basically a headless PC using the Mac as a console over the serial port, at least for text applications.
Re: Trump... (Score:3)
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Make Amiga great again!
Re: Trump... (Score:2)
Great. Trump probally wears Hanes boxer shorts and loves to drink Pepsi.
Does that really mean anything no matter where his morals stand?
A question. (Score:3)
Teh Amiga had and what remains of it, has the three primary User Interfaces. The GUI, the Command-line and the side door IPC port (AKA AREXX port, though you didn't need Arexx to use the port.)
Are there any other systems past or present that had/has all three as well as application developers including support for all three?
Ask a painter to paint a rainbow but only give them two of the three primary colors.
Re: A question. (Score:2, Troll)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure you are right about the technical accomplishments of the device you mention.
But I'll bet you that it did not have the same impact as the Amiga did at the time, bringing the capabilities and features it did at the time for an affordable price, so many people could use/enjoy these.
Likely there will be a lot more obscure devices with pedigree. But if these are not known to the public or were produced in way too small numbers, it will not have any lasting impact on the whole. No matter how forward thin
Re: A question. (Score:2)
Re: A question. (Score:2)
I found the capability to have 'zones' of differing resolutions all on the same screen to be rather interesting. AFAIK these zones could only be stacked vertically and took up the entire width of the screen.
Nowadays, it's all seemlessly handled through modern GUI systems, where these zones can be anywhere on the screen in any size, and nobody even notices, but Amiga's 'hack' was an interesting little quirk nonetheless.
Re: A question. (Score:2)
You could run a serial terminal to an IBM clone, and at the same time have a GUI with a command line interface window open, and all 3 useable at the same time (2 monitors, two keyboards to one machine) with the appropriate software. You could even have both a VGA and a MDA card in the same machine for graphics on one monitor and console text on the other. I had such a set up, as did countless others.
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Are there any other systems past or present that had/has all three as well as application developers including support for all three?
Yes, many of them. Windows and OS/2 come to mind as early examples. Remember that AREXX support had to be implemented in the application, just like vbscript support on windows or REXX support on OS/2.
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I was just asking this question the other day about Ubuntu. I had some difficulty making people understand what I was even asking for. However. . . After some research, I think it's possible to do this kind of communication using D-Bus. I'm told there are bindings for D-Bus for multiple scripting languages, including Python and ooRexx.
The roadblock is on the application side. If nobody in a leadership position (like, say, Canonical) announces that this is a feature they want to promote, and application
Cadtrak lawsuit (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Any details for those of us who have no idea what this lawsuit was about?