A small development team, named Hi-Toro, chose the code name "Amiga" for a games console that will beat the Atari. The team responsible for the development of the "Amiga" had 4 members: Mr Jay Miner ,Mr R.J. Mical, Mr Dave Morse and Mr Carl Sassenrath.

In the beginning they sold other products to win the respect of their customers and to earn them some money while developing the Amiga. One of their first productions was "Joy board"a controller that you used by sitting on it! There were many games for that, but the best was "Zen Meditation" in which you have to stay absolutely still. ( Does the word "Meditation" means something to you? Guru Meditation? ... YES! They used to say that if anything goes wrong the only way to relax was by playing Zen Meditation! )

The code name "Amiga" was not chosen by luck. ( Jay Miner didn't like that name at the beginning ) A story tells us that the team didn't want to have a computerized name, such as SCOA16/II, because they didn't want to be easily identified as a computer development team.

The code name "Amiga" was the Spanish name for girl friend. They continued this tactic and to the custom chips that they made (Agnus, Portia, and Daphne). For the main CPU they used a Motorola 68000 (16bit), the best CPU available in 1982. Slowly their games machine was getting shape...The C64 was still selling well..

Rumors about a super-computer, with the code name Lorraine ( the first Amiga, named for the Hi-Toro president's wife) were traveling across the USA. 1983 was the year that all the custom chips were built.  R.J. Mical (the coder of the intuition) wanted a cheap games machine, but the others wanted the best computer.

Jay Miner was dreaming about a machine like the Amiga 2000, one with lot of expansion slots. Jay Miner cooperated with Ron Nicholson who gave the idea of the blitter. HAM was Jay Miner's idea after a visit to some flight simulators (there was a chance to leave HAM option outside of the first Amiga). $7,000,000 had already been spent on the Amiga project.

C.E.S. (Consumer Electronics Show) took place at Chicago, USA. The team introduced an Amiga (well... a huge pile of chips and wires...) with the hope that they would find someone to invest in their project. On January the 4th Dale and RJ Mical made the first Amiga Demo ever, the famous "Boing" demo, a sphere with red and white rectangles on it, bouncing on the screen. The "Amiga" was only shown to selected "customers" and all the processing was continued secretly.

The Amiga Inc. team was trying to find a company to buy their technology and to employ them, since they had run out of money. Many companies were interested in the custom chips of the Amiga, such as Sony, Apple, Philips, HP, etc.

Atari's president, Jack Tramiel, who had just left C=, because he purchased Atari secretly, was trying to get his revenge by buying Amiga Inc. He lent Amiga Inc. $1,000,000, to be paid back one month later. When the month was almost up, it became apparent that Amiga Inc. would not be able to pay him back, so he offered 98 cents per share for the company. Amiga Inc. thought that this was unacceptable, so they looked for someone else to buy them. Just 2 days before the deadline, C= came in and began to talk to Amiga Inc.

They managed to get C= to raise its bid to $4.25 a share, and just before the deadline ended C= gave them $1,000,00 to pay back Atari, on the condition that they would get to buy Amiga Inc.

The year that the "dream machine"came out when Amiga 1000 introduced in Lincoln Center at New York. Many people say that this was the date that changed the future of computers.(Multi media ... back in 1985!)

The Amiga 1000 shipped to its first customers.

[(*): The Very First Amiga used 128k ram!] [(*): Later expandable to 8.5mb ! ]

It was the FIRST computer to use more than 16 color output as a standard feature (4096 colors / HAM6 [Hold And Modify]).It was also the first computer with pre-emptive multi tasking OS. It already had 4 channel digital stereo sound and the first computer to ship with a mouse as a standard (Mac first?).

The kickstart was loaded from floppy. The price was about $2000 in the days where single tasking PC's (286) cost about $4000.

It only had one external expansion slot because Commodore wanted to keep costs down.

At the same year the first issue of "Amiga World" made its debut. It was the first Amiga magazine...

The Amiga 1000 was finally launched in the UK.

The team began working on a new Amiga model. They wanted it to be more expandable, with a lot of slots and they wanted the slots to be AutoConfig. They had to argue with C= once again, because the autoconfig slots cost 50c more.

Two prototypes of the new model were developed. One in the Los Gatos (USA) and one in Braunschweig (Germany). C=also wanted IBM compatibility, so both teams tried to do the best to emulate an IBM 8088. Jay Miner didn't like the idea.

Finally, the emulator came out from Germany. The "SideCar" was a $1000 product, basically an IBM XT without a keyboard that was plugged into the side of an Amiga 1000. The product that Los Gatos was producing it was a $200 accelerator, for an IBM PC software emulator.

Los Gatos helped the German team a lot with the emulator's software.

The Los Gatos began working on a new "dream machine", no one knew exactly what at that point.

The very same year, Mehdi Ali, was employed at Commodore as a consultant for Dillon Reed by Irving Gould.

Finally the new Amiga model was on production The name was just the simple as A2000. The Amiga 2000 was bigger than the A1000 and extremely expandable, with 5 Zorro II slots [5] (Zorro II) plus a video slot.

It was launched in the UK for 3200 (later 3150). The kickstart was finally in ROM. A2000 was a base for other Amigas, being released on various world markets, as the A1500 [A2000 with two 3 1/2" drives], A2000HD, A2500/20, A2500/30, A2000HDA/100, A1500 plus and A2000Plus.

Later the same year, the Amiga 500 was launched (3599 in the UK). It was the same as the Amiga 2000, with a compact design (keyboard and cpu in the same box) and no internal slots. Both the machines had a new graphics mode, the EHB (Extra Half Bright), that gives 64 colors on screen.

The operating system was 1.2. The Amiga 500 was the first really affordable machine.

Jack Tramiel, returns, as Atari takes Commodore to court, by claiming that it had given money to research the Amiga. The judge supported Commodore, however.

Minor changes, to the chip sets. Agnus became Fat Agnus, and later, Fatter Agnus, which can control 1mb chip Ram.

The first fully 32bit system, with a 68030 and the ECS chip set (fatter Agnus), named the A3000, was launched in the UK as 3300 (later 3200)..

The Kickstart was 2.0. It had an onboard SCSI controller and Zorro III slots. It was also available on a tower model, the A3000T, and a UNIX model, the A3000UX. A flicker fixer was also included so that the A3000 could easily be plugged in a VGA monitor.

A few months later, the A500+ was released. It was a European model, with ECS (Enhanced Chip Set), 1 Ram (expandable to 10mb), and Workbench 2.0. The price was about 3399.

Both the systems had graphics mode of up to 1470x580 (4 colors). Kickstart 2.0, was a step forward. It occupied 512kb ROM (1.3 was just 256kb), but there was not very much backwards compatibility with 1.3. The compatibility problem was not Commodore fault, however, but the fault of bad programming by coders.

1991

The first multi media CDRom system, CDTV, was launched in the UK for 3599. The CDTV was an A500 and kickstart 1.3 with a CD-Rom drive. CDTV was the shortened version of Commodore Dynamic Total Vision (code name: "babe" as they were designing it for 9 months :)).

Commodore hoped to sneak it into the homes of computerphobes.
Commodore also didn't put the Amiga logo, anywhere on the CDTV. As a result, CDTV failed to catch the public's imagination, partly because it was 3200 more expensive than an A500, and partly because the software was disappointing.

This year no more than 50 CD disks went on sale, but the games was no better than the floppy disk versions. The CDTV was operated by a user-friendly infra-red remote control. Later the same year the option of turning the CDTV on a full A500 computer was available. Maybe the market was not ready yet for that multi media revolution.1

[A570, a CDROM drive for A500 released, before the end of the year. The [major [problem was that all this years Commodore had a stable system. [They had to do a major system upgrade

A600 launched in the UK for UK£399. The CPU was still the Motorola 68000. So what's the difference between A600 and A500? First of all it had a surface-mount technology (lower cost for Commodore).RF and Composite output were also added. It was also the first Amiga with an IDE controller (2 1/2") and a PCMCIA slot. The major disadvantage was that it did not have a numeric keypad. An A600HD was launched later that year.

Rumors about a new Amiga, with an advanced chip set, able to support up to 16.7 million colors, were true! Commodore announced the release of the new AGA chip set (Advanced Graphics Architecture).

At the world of Commodore Show (Pasadena California) in September 11, 1992, Commodore introduced the first machine with the AGA chip set. As Commodore announced it was "the company's most significant new technology advancement in its Amiga line since the product's introduction in 1985."

At the W.O.C. they also announced AmigaDOS TM Release 3 Operating System and "AmigaVision TM" Professional Authoring System.

The first machine with the new AGA technology was the A4000/040 launched in the UK for £2100. (USA $3699).

They replaced the SCSI controller with an IDE one (they included a Seagate ST3144A 3.5" 120mb HD - The HD was preformatted, with an 8meg Workbench partition and a 116 Meg Work partition).The floppy drive was a dual speed high density one. They also used the SIMM technology for the memory upgrades, but all fast ram simms must be on the same type. (Commodore used a 4mb SIMM for the internal 4mb)

At the Christmas of 1992, the low-end AMIGA 1200, an A500 like Amiga with the AGA chip set, was released as a low-cost machine, with full 32 bit technology and 2mb Chip RAM. The machine nearly missed the vital Christmas season, and although it did just make it, not enough parts had been ordered to build an adequate number. Christmas 1992 is a disaster.

No one wants an ECS machine and few can get one of the new "AA" systems. (now called "AGA")". David Haynie, an ex-engineer at the Pennsylvania production plant, states at his movie, named "The Deathbed Vigil". Available in PAL or NTSC.

The AMIGA 1200, was one of the most successful AMIGA computers. It launched in the UK for 3399 (USA: $599). It also had the IDE controller and the PCMCIA slot of the A600, plus a 32-bit trap door expansion. It included Amiga Dos v3.0. 1

Both Amiga 4000 and Amiga 1200 used the AGA chip set, able to display 256 colors on hi-res displays, from a palette of 16,7 million colors. There is also a HAM-8 mode able to display 256.000+ colors (very close to 24bit display!). Compared to the old ECS chips the new AGA chips are very fast, even on 256 colors!

Both Amiga 4000 and Amiga 1200, make use of AmigaDos v3.0! AmigaDos 3.0 adds CrossDos as standard (a useful commodity that helps you read and write on PC disks). It supports all the new AGA graphic modes. WB 3.0 also supports "datatypes," a new facility that allows programs to access data in an unlimited number of formats, as long as you install a datatype that understands the format. Another useful addition is the Localization, so WB3.0 and programs using it can easily be on multiple languages.

A lot of useful programs such as Multiview (a viewer for every datatype) and Installer (a easy to use install utility), are also supplied. A new filesystem is also included, the DCFS. (Directory Caching File System). You could also now use what every picture you like for a window or workbench background.

A4000 with the Motorola 68040 wasn't so cheap that everyone could afford it. So a little bit later, Commodore launched the cheap-version of the A4000/040, the A4000/030, with a Motorola 68EC030.

Commodore was a very profitable company, especially in Europe and it had a major power in computing, especially in Germany. But what happened these years on the story background? Commodore wasn't producing any hardware (except the basics) and they also cut the production of the A500 plus and later the A600. Why? Well, no one really knows...

Well... First issue of Amiga Report, online magazine ! :)

The very last machine of Commodore, the CD32, a games machine, launched in the UK for £299. It was the worlds first 32bit console. It had a double speed CDRom Drive, 2mb Chip memory, AGA chip set and the option of a FMV (Full Motion Video) module. But once again the machine didn't make it. It had many sales but not as many as they were needed to save the financial problems of Commodore. Most of the games released were just CD conversions of the original A1200/4000 ones, with no extra CD music, or FMV. The Commodore situation was awful...

CD32 was the first (and the last?) machine using as standard, Kickstart3.1.

(Released later as an upgrade for all Amiga machines.)

Commodore had a financial damage of $107 million dollars by the end of 1993. But the Amiga was still a very popular machine. In 1992, Commodore sold about 800,000 Amigas (17% more than 1991) and in 1993, it sold 20% less.

Big problems made Commodore lose all that money : Fall of Amiga peripherals sales (Monitors,Printers etc.), the US $ and its price fall on the major economic markets) and ... Me*di A*i (president of the Commodore).

Commodore, has announced that they were having financial difficulties which might result in bankruptcy or liquidation. Commodore had lost $8.2 million. The stock fell to 0.75 per share. The New York stock exchange halted trading of Commodore stock!

Until the middle of April, Commodore was still producing A4000s, A1200s, and CD32s, and the engineers continued development of the new AAA chip set. AAA was meant to be a big improvement over AGA. 24bit Graphics [resolutions up to 1280x1024], 16bit CD quality audio and other interesting things. AAA was never truly finished.

During the second half of April the production of Amigas stopped. The Philippines factory closed, but left behind a big stock of Amigas. The Scotland factory also stopped the production. Many employees were told by the management to hunt for new jobs...

15 people were dismissed from West Chester (PA), and the Commodore Semiconductor Group was closed. 15 people were also dismissed from the Norristown factory.

Engineering closed. The site in West Chester, once supported by 1000 employees, now had only 22 people left on it.

Commodore International filed for liquidation in order to be protected from its creditors Friday April 29, 1994, at 4:10 P.M.

Commodore's official statement follows:

"Commodore International Limited announced today that its Board of Directors has authorized the transfer of assets to trustees for the benefit of its creditor and has placed its major subsidiary, Commodore Electronics Limited, into voluntary liquidation. This is the initial phase of an orderly liquidation of both companies, which are incorporated in the Bahamas, by the Bahamas Supreme Court."

"This action does not affect the wholly-owned subsidiaries which include Commodore Business Machines (USA), Commodore Business machines LTD (Canada), Commodore/Amiga (UK), Commodore Germany, etc. Operations will continue normally."

But how can the branches work without the head, of engineering that designs and builds the new hardware and software ?

Few of the stuff knew about the bankruptcy, till the next day when they arrived at W.C.

CEI announced that they would still supply and distribute Amigas and should be able to meet demand, something that today seems wrong, as there wasn't any stock available during the next months.

Rumors, rumors and rumors. Samsung was interested in buying Amiga, but they dropped when they found out that other companies interested offered less money than they did.

Jay Miner, passed away June 20, 1994 at the El Camino Hospital In Mountain View. The actual cause of death was heart failure, but it was the result of kidney complications.

Many ex-Commodore employees moved to work for other companies such as Scala (for example Dave Haynie that will oversee all computer related hardware research and development activities in Scala offices).

Amiga Convention 94, took place in Quebec, Canada.

The liquidators had finally received four proposals to buy Commodore, Those being Amstrad, Philips, Samsung and Commodore UK. But the Bahamian court rejected the proposals to move the proceedings to New York City, that was closer for any company interested for Commodore.

Commodore set 2 phone numbers for getting information about the current proceedings of the liquidation.

Rumors about, Nestle, Atari, Sony and other companies willing to buy Commodore.

More rumors for the day that the liquidation will commence.

This day is continuously jumped from month to month.

CEI seemed to be more interested than any others and that is represented by the online conferences held by Amiga Report, on Portal, BIX, and Delphi.

CEI finally offers a big amount of money as long as the liquidators give Commodore to them right away.

World Of Amiga Show held in the Wembley stadium in UK. C=UK claimed that they are prohibited to talk about the buy out publicly. David Pleasance informed everyone that CEI had lost their financial backing-up status. CEI never confirmed that.

Rumors on UK magazines that C=UK got the highest bid. CEI again gives a new bid to the liquidators.

CEI announced that they were signed an agreement with IBM to have them manufacture Commodore products, for them if they win Commodore.

Escom seems to be interested in Commodore.

Techmedia Publishing, stopped the publishing of Amiga World, the world's first Amiga Magazine. The primary reason was the 11 months Commodore liquidation and the magazine's low circulation. The last issue of Amiga World was April 1995. The cancellation came after the issue was completed so you will not find any goodbyes and things like that on April's issue.

On the date that Amiga World's death is announced, the first issue of Amiga Link online magazine is released.

Escom (a German based PC-clone maker) and the liquidator had reached an agreement to make their bid the contract bid. The contract bid was for $6 million, not counting the $1.4 million they have paid for getting the Commodore's Logo from Commodore Germany. Other offers were made for other parts of Commodore.

At last the judgment day of Amiga (or the auction date), was set. It was April, 20th 1995. The companies that made it till that day were Commodore UK, CEI and Escom.

1 year after the liquidation... Geez! Time is short. ;)

Escom finally made it!

Cut from Amiga Link - Buy out <---[Thanks Zool!]

In the auction on April 20, only two companies had bid, Escom and Dell . Escom was the German computer retailer, and Dell is a big American computer company. CEI, long thought to be a bidder, had thrown in their hat with Dell, so that Dell would work with CEI on the Amiga, although CEI would be the ones running the show in respects to the Amiga. Escom's bid was the starting bid of approximately 5 million dollars, as well as the money they spent on the C= trademark, approximately 1.3 million dollars. Dell made a bid at 2 PM of an undisclosed amount. However, that bid was rejected for Escom's bid, because it had conditions attached to it, whereas Escom's bid was unconditional.

After the auction ended, and Escom's bid was accepted, Dell continued to work on, trying to make a more suitable bid. Their second bid was a $15 million bid, with the condition that they be allowed a 30 day waiting period to look at the Amiga and decide if they wanted to keep it. If they decided not to keep it, they would forfeit their $1 million deposit, and the whole process of getting another bidder would have to go on again.

In the hearing on Friday, April 21, the Creditor's Committee wanted to accept Dell/CEI's bid. However, Escom felt that was unfair, because Dell's bid was placed after Escom's bid was accepted.  There was much legal wrangling, but finally, the judge asked that during the recess the parties try to work out an agreement. After 3 hours, the court re-adjourned, and Escom said that they would agree to raise their bid by $6.5 million, to 12 million dollars. Although that was less than Dell/CEI's bid of $15 million dollars, the Creditor's agreed to drop the objection to stop Escom winning the Amiga, because Dell could back out of the deal and then they'd have to go through the process again.

[...]

Escom has sales of approximately 2 billion dollars last year.

[...]

Commodore UK did not place a bid at the auction, apparently because their backer dropped out. However, David Pleasance, Colin Proudfoot of C= UK and Escom have both stated that in 2 weeks they will be holding talks as to Escom either licensing Amiga technology to C= UK, or, more likely, buying C= UK. Don't hold your breath!

Escom has said that they will work with Amiga developers, user groups, and the Internet to support the Amiga. One can only wonder if they will do anything

The Philippines plant and stock in it wasn't included in the auction, but it will most likely be sold to Escom for $1 million soon, because it may actually be illegal to sell it to anyone other than Escom or carved up for some use.

Joshua Galun Editor-in-Chief of Amiga Link Magazine

Escom announced the beginning of a new era for Amiga machines. First of all Escom created a new division, called Amiga Technologies. Their first priority is to resume the production of the machines. They are expecting the new Amigas to be out on September 1995.

They announced the production of an Amiga 4000/060 in a brand new Tower case and the A4000/040 in tower also. In October they will produce Amiga 1200s. They have also signed contracts with Scala, so with every Amiga you can get for free a Scala MM300. The RISC technology should be researched in 1996.

Well... lets hope to see our Amigas back again on the top. :) Lets hope that Escom will make the right movements and correct management and to not copy the Commodore's mistakes.

LONG LIVE AMIGA! Only Amiga Makes It Possible!

Joshua Galun - for helping on this article! Jason Compton - For Amiga Report and for the things he did for the Amiga Community.

Jay Miner, RJ Mical, Dave Haynie ( I really liked your Deathbed Vigil!) Thanks for your great work all this years on the Amiga [ AIKIDO! :) ],

Acechan, AK, chelt, CISC, davereed, lauraaa, logiXs, madboy, rauper, shitlips,

Frank Livadaros, Aggelos Poulakis, Lucas Sorotos, Pantelis Christoforidis, Spyros Paraschis, Nikos Sardelianos and Sotiris Varotsis.

Disclaimer. Whilst the text of this article is for public viewing, credit for this text must go to Mr. Konstantiniadis Manos konem@prometheus.hol.gr, also to his helpers, who made this interesting to read document possible.