
Amiga – The Deathbed Vigil (1994) [video] - bane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvJjFYHGTnU
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keithgabryelski
Shameless comment: i'm in that video:
[https://youtu.be/jvJjFYHGTnU?t=34m29s](https://youtu.be/jvJjFYHGTnU?t=34m29s)

The Amiga was a good product, the engineering team was solid: the love for the
product did not translate into success.

~~~
pavlov
The product found deserved success in Europe, where it was the #1 home
computer for quite some time... If only the management at the American parent
company hadn't been so clueless, they could have built on that.

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SwellJoe
I'm confused by some of the model discussion in the text overlays in this. It
mentions the A3000 and A4000 and describes them in ways that don't seem to
match the actual products.

It describes the A3000 as the first AA-based (AA was called AGA by the time it
went to market) machine that was never released, but the Amiga 3000 was
actually an ECS-based machine with a 68020 or 68030 CPU, a hard disk, and a
built-in flicker fixer for solid VGA output. It did reach market and sold
modestly. I owned one. It could be described as slapped together from Amiga
2000 parts, I guess.

The A4000 is described as slapped together from A3000 parts, but it was
actually the first AGA-based machine (followed by the 1200), with the whole
new chipset and architecture, and a 68030 or 68040 CPU.

On another front, the CD32, at the time, seemed like such a ridiculous
distraction to me, and stories at the time seemed to indicated Commodore lost
money on the massive bet they made on it. But, in everything I've read, the
company really bet hard on it, and many folks who tell the story from inside
seem to believe the CD32 was a great idea and maybe should have been pushed
even harder. I don't know what to think of it.

I loved my Amigas, and it was really heartbreaking to see Commodore fail so
spectacularly, and seemingly because of extremely poor management. Reading the
article yesterday about the various post-Tramiel CEOs was really interesting,
and a story I'd never seen in its entirety. I mostly knew about the failures.
Gould was well-known and well-hated at the time, the others and their various
failings were less famous/infamous.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "I'm confused by some of the model discussion in the text overlays in this.
> It mentions the A3000 and A4000 and describes them in ways that don't seem
> to match the actual products."

Knowing about the unreleased A3000+ may help clear up the confusion:

[http://www.amigahistory.plus.com/prototypes/a3000plus.html](http://www.amigahistory.plus.com/prototypes/a3000plus.html)

Regarding the CD32, it was basically an A1200 with a CD drive. I think it had
one CD32-only custom chip, I forget what it was called. In any case, it was
possible to convert a CD32 into an A1200. The A1200 was a popular machine, I'm
sure the CD32 would've lasted a little longer if Commodore didn't close, even
if it was just lived on as a living room version of a desktop Amiga rather
than as a pure games machine.

As an aside, I believe the first GTA game was originally being developed for
the Amiga, but the Amiga version was dropped after Commodore went bust. If the
CD32 needed a 'killer app', it may have found it in GTA.

That said, both the CD32 and the A1200 were a couple of years late IMO. I
remember reading something from Dave Haynie saying that AGA could've been
ready in 1990. If the CD32 was competing with the SNES and MegaDrive instead
of the Saturn and PlayStation, I suspect it would've been a lot more
successful.

EDIT: My memory may have mangled this Haynie quote (different chipset,
different year:

[http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/acutiator.html](http://www.amigahistory.co.uk/acutiator.html)

I messed up on the quote, but considering OCS was released in 1985, 1990 for
AGA doesn't seem too much of a stretch.

~~~
EvanAnderson
The CD32-specific custom chip is Akiko
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_custom_chips#Akiko](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_custom_chips#Akiko)),
which did chunky-to-planar conversion in hardware.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Yeah, Akiko, that's the one.

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Paul_S
It's amazing how something that is in the end just a computer company can be
so uniformly loved (contrast with apple with equal parts of love & hate). I've
never heard anyone rag on Amiga (other than to criticize its mismanagement).
And I was an Atari owner and I still wish I hadn't missed out on what turned
out to be such a landmark system.

~~~
setpatchaddress
You don't get a lot of hate for any of the classic systems now. But, there
were, and still are, valid criticisms of the Amiga. Bil Herd is on record in
the first edition of the Bagnall book as being unimpressed with the Amiga
hardware. I think there's still widespread agreement that they really fucked
up Amiga's OS layer with AmigaDOS. And the initial Amiga UI has got to win the
prize for ugliest 1.0 GUI ever. The Mac looked better, even though it was
limited to B&W. Etc.

All classic systems had their weak points.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "I think there's still widespread agreement that they really fucked up
> Amiga's OS layer with AmigaDOS."

That's because it was a rush job.

[http://www.thule.no/haynie/caos.html](http://www.thule.no/haynie/caos.html)

> "And the initial Amiga UI has got to win the prize for ugliest 1.0 GUI
> ever."

That's highly subjective. Many users (myself included) see that early 1.x
interface as iconic. Here's another example of someone who probably liked it
(as the saying goes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery):

[https://www.chromeexperiments.com/experiment/chiptunecom-
gui](https://www.chromeexperiments.com/experiment/chiptunecom-gui)

One design issue with Amigas was lack of support for chunky graphics modes. I
remember reading an interview with Jay Miner where he implied he'd have
supported chunky graphics (alongside planar graphics) if he'd considered how
much cheaper RAM would become.

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justanother
The beating that we Apple IIgs owners took in the BBS scene from the Amigans
in the early 1990s was downright brutal. It gives me no particular pleasure to
note that the Amigans suffered approximately the same fate as we did (horrible
marketing, unnecessary obsolescence). Either one of our machines would have
been more fun than what we ended up with, no?

~~~
takeda
True, although you must agree, that Amigas were slightly better.

 _ducks_

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redcalx
Still got three A500s in the garage. One was recently saved from going into
landfill and is in pristine condition. Still got the original 'Simpsons'
packaging and discs.

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nickpsecurity
Meanwhile, people wanting a mix of nostalgia and pragmatism still have MorphOS
to enjoy:

[http://www.morphos-team.net/intro](http://www.morphos-team.net/intro)

I wasn't an Amiga owner but still might get a hold of it. Looks nice.

~~~
ZenoArrow
Yeah, MorphOS is meant to be pretty decent, it's definitely worth a go,
especially if you've got a compatible PPC Mac lying around (IIRC the demo
version of MorphOS is free).

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orionblastar
I had owned an Amiga 1000 and 500. It was better than the other computers at
the time. Commodore made blunders in marketing and other things and the other
companies had caught up once IBM made VGA and Creative Labs had that Sound
Blaster card.

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makmanalp
If you liked the video, looks like you can buy the video to support the author
here, albeit a disc:
[https://www.createspace.com/358043](https://www.createspace.com/358043)

