The Amiga Portal

The 1987 Amiga 500 was the best-selling model.

Amiga is a family of personal computers produced by Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production by others afterward. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16-bit or 16/32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphics and audio compared to previous 8-bit systems. These include the Atari ST—released earlier the same year—as well as the Macintosh and Acorn Archimedes. The Amiga differs from its contemporaries through custom hardware to accelerate graphics and sound, including sprites, a blitter, and four channels of sample-based audio. It runs a pre-emptive multitasking operating system called AmigaOS.

The Amiga 1000, based on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, was released in July 1985. Production problems kept it from becoming widely available until early 1986. While early advertisements cast the computer as an all-purpose business machine, especially with the Sidecar IBM PC compatibility add-on, the Amiga was most commercially successful as a home computer with a range of video games and creative software. The bestselling model, the Amiga 500, was introduced in 1987 along with the more expandable Amiga 2000. The 1990 Amiga 3000 includes a minor update to the graphics hardware via the Enhanced Chip Set, also used in subsequent models.

The Amiga established a niche in audio and multimedia. The first music tracker was written for the Amiga, and it became a popular platform music creation. The 3D rendering packages LightWave 3D, Imagine, and Traces (a predecessor to Blender) originated on the system. The 1990 third-party Video Toaster made the Amiga a comparatively low cost option for video production. In later years, the Amiga started losing market share to IBM PC compatibles and video game consoles, eventually leading to Commodore's bankruptcy in 1994 and then the end of Amiga. Commodore is estimated to have sold an 4.85 million Amigas. Various groups have since released spiritual successors. (Full article...)

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Aminet is the world's largest archive of Amiga-related software and files. Aminet was originally hosted by several universities' FTP sites, and is now available on CD-ROM and on the web. According to Aminet, as of 1 April 2013, it has 80592 packages online.

In January, 1992 Swiss student Urban Müller took over a software archive that had been started by other members of a computer science students' club. Soon the archive became mirrored worldwide and in 1995 started being distributed on monthly CD-ROMs. Reports of daily additions to this software archive were posted automatically to Usenet (de.comp.sys.amiga.archive), or could be requested as an email newsletter. Most of the programs on Aminet were public domain or shareware, but software companies made updates and demo versions of their programs available as well. Now Aminet is complemented by platform specific sites archiving software for AmigaOS 4, AROS or MorphOS only. (Full article...)

Selected biography

Chris Huelsbeck
Chris Huelsbeck
Chris Huelsbeck (also spelled Hülsbeck, born March 2, 1968) is a German video game music composer from Kassel, Germany.

In 1986, Huelsbeck released the SoundMonitor program for Commodore 64 computer. The program was released as a type-in listing in the German computer magazine 64'er. Huelsbeck has written soundtracks for more than 70 titles, the latest being Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams. Many of his scores for the Commodore 64 are regarded as classics among enthusiasts today, most notably The Great Giana Sisters. He is best known for the soundtracks to the Turrican series of games. Chris's initial recognition arrived at age 17 when his composition "Shades" won first place in a music competition for the German 64'er magazine. (Full article...)

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Amiga 1000 system and PC-extension "Sidecar" (A1060)
Amiga 1000 system and PC-extension "Sidecar" (A1060)
Amiga 1000 system and PC-extension "Sidecar" (A1060).

Did you know...

... that Sylvia Pengilly used an Amiga computer to integrate graphics with music and herself dancing?
Other "Did you know" facts... Read more...

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Pen & Earth
Pen & Earth


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