Amiga

This article is about the family of home computers. For other uses, see Amiga (disambiguation).

The former Amiga logo, as used by Commodore-Amiga Inc.

The Amiga 1000 (1985) was the first model released.

The Amiga is a family of personal computers, beginning with Commodore company's 16-bit generation home computer. The first model appeared in 1985 as a high-end product with graphical, audio and multitasking capacities ahead of its time. The most popular model, Amiga 500, was introduced in 1987 and became the leading home computer of the late 1980s and the first years of 1990s in most of western Europe. In the USA success was more modest. Amiga computers were used especially for gaming, demoscene activities and graphic and video editing. Second generation Amiga systems (A1200 and A4000) were released in 1992 and while technically superior in many ways, were not advertised and marketed well by Commodore and so, lost the popularity war and market share against other platforms such as IBM PC compatible computers and Apple Macs.

Development on the Amiga in Amiga Corporation began in 1982 with Jay Miner as the principal hardware designer. Commodore International bought Amiga Corporation and introduced the machine to the market in 1985. Based on the Motorola 68k series of microprocessors, the machine sports a custom chipset with then advanced graphics and sound capabilities, and a pre-emptive multitasking operating system (now known as AmigaOS). While the M68k is a 32-bit processor, the version originally used in the Amiga, the 68000, has a 16-bit external data bus so it must transfer 32 bits of data in two consecutive steps, a technique called multiplexing — all this is transparent to the software, which was 32-bit from the beginning. The original machine was generally referred to in the press as a 16-bit computer; later models featured fully 32-bit designs. The Amiga provided a significant upgrade from 8-bit computers such as the Commodore 64, and the platform quickly grew in popularity among computer enthusiasts, especially in Europe. It went on to sell approximately six million units.

It also found a prominent role in the desktop video, video production, and show control business, largely due to the Video Toaster video editing system, and was a less expensive alternative to the Apple Macintosh and IBM-PC. The Amiga's native ability to play back several channels of digital samples made it a popular platform for early "tracker" music software, and the machine's relatively powerful processor and ability to access several megabytes of memory led to the development of several 3D rendering packages, including LightWave 3D , Blender and Aladdin 4D. The Amiga was most commercially successful as a home computer, with a wide range of games and creative software, although early Commodore advertisements attempted to cast the computer as an all-purpose business machine.

Since the demise of Commodore, various groups have marketed successors to the original Amiga line. Eyetech sold Amiga hardware under the AmigaOne brand from 2002 to 2005. A-Cube currently sell the Sam440 PPC board designed to run the latest AmigaOS 4.1 (as of 2010).

The name Amiga was chosen for the computer by the developers specifically from the Spanish word for a female friend, and because it occurred before Apple and Atari alphabetically and also gave the message that the Amiga computer line was 'user friendly' as a sort of pun or play on words.

History

Main article: History of the Amiga

"The Amiga was so far ahead of its time that almost nobody--including Commodore's marketing department--could fully articulate what it was all about. Today, it's obvious the Amiga was the first multimedia computer, but in those days it was derided as a game machine because few people grasped the importance of advanced graphics, sound, and video. Nine years later, vendors are still struggling to make systems that work like 1985 Amigas.
--Byte Magazine, August 1994

The Amiga was originally designed by a small company called Amiga Corporation, and initially intended to be a next generation video game machine, but was later redesigned into a general purpose computer. Before the machine was launched the company was purchased by Commodore. The first model was released in 1985 as simply "The Amiga from Commodore", later to be retroactively dubbed the Amiga 1000. The following year the Amiga product line was expanded with the introduction of two new models; the Amiga 2000 for high-end graphics and business use, and the Amiga 500 for home use. Commodore later released other Amiga models, both for low-end gaming use and high-end productivity use.

In 1994, Commodore filed for bankruptcy and its assets were purchased by Escom, a German PC manufacturer, who created the subsidiary company Amiga Technologies. They re-released the A1200 and A4000T, and introduced a new 68060 version of the A4000T.

However, Escom in turn went bankrupt in 1997. The Amiga brand was then sold to another PC manufacturer, Gateway 2000, which had announced grand plans for it. However, in 2000, Gateway sold the Amiga brand without having released any products.

Amiga Technologies Logo. (1996)

The current owner of the trademark, Amiga, Inc., licensed the rights to make hardware using the Amiga brand to a UK computer vendor, EyeTech.co.uk, Eyetech Group, Ltd. which was founded by Alan Redhouse and had previously been involved with warehousing and barcode tracking. They were previously selling the AmigaOne via an international dealer network. The AmigaOne is a PowerPC computer designed to run the latest version of AmigaOS, which was itself licensed to a Belgian-German company, Hyperion Entertainment.

In October 2009, Hyperion was granted an exclusive, perpetual, worldwide right to AmigaOS 3.1 in order to use, develop, modify, commercialize, distribute and market AmigaOS 4.x in any form, on any medium and for any current or future hardware platform under the exclusive trademark “AmigaOS”.

Hardware

At its core, the Amiga has a custom chipset featuring several coprocessors, which handle audio, video and direct memory access independently of the central processing unit. This architecture freed up the Amiga's CPU for other tasks and gave the Amiga a performance edge over its competitors, particularly in terms of video-intensive applications and games.

Central processing unit

PowerPC processor.

All Commodore Amiga models make use of Motorola Central Processing Units (CPUs) based on the Motorola 68k architecture. In desktop-style Amiga models, the CPU was fitted on a daughterboard (except the A2000) called a CPU card. Low-cost Amiga models come with CPUs either socketed or soldered onto the motherboard. On all Amiga models the CPU can be upgraded through an expansion card or direct CPU replacement. CPU cards were provided by both Commodore and third-party manufacturers. These cards often come with on-board memory slots and hard drive interfaces, alleviating those tasks from the base Amiga.

The Amiga is not limited to solely the 68k CPU architecture; although Commodore never shipped one, it is possible to install a PowerPC coprocessor that can be used by PowerPC-aware software and libraries, and later the AmigaOne used a PowerPC CPU instead of a 68k CPU.

Custom chipset

There are three generations of chipsets used in the various Amiga models. The first is the OCS, followed by the ECS and finally the AGA. What all these chipsets have in common is that they handle raster graphics, digital audio and communication between various peripherals (e.g., CPU, memory and floppy disks) in the Amiga. Several additional chips have been designed specifically for the Amiga line.

Graphics

A 4,096 color HAM picture created with Photon Paint in 1989.

All Amiga systems can display full-screen animated graphics with 32, 64 (EHB Mode) or 4096 colors (HAM Mode). Models with the AGA chipset (A1200 and A4000) also have 128, 256 and 262144 (HAM Mode) color modes and a palette expanded from 4096 to 16.8 million colors. The Amiga chipset can genlock — adjust its own screen refresh timing to match an NTSC or PAL video signal. When combined with setting transparency, this allows an Amiga to overlay an external video source with graphics. This ability made the Amiga popular for many applications, and provides the ability to do character generation and CGI effects far more cheaply than earlier systems. Some frequent users of this ability included wedding videographers, TV stations and their weather forecasting divisions (for weather graphics and radar), advertising channels, music video production, and 'desktop video'. The NewTek Video Toaster was made possible by the genlock ability of the Amiga.

Sound

The sound chip, named Paula, supports four sound channels (two for the left speaker and two for the right) with 8-bit resolution for each channel and a 6-bit volume control per channel. The analog output is connected to a low-pass filter, which filters out high-frequency aliases when the Amiga is using a lower sampling rate (see Nyquist limit). The brightness of the Amiga's power LED is used to indicate the status of the Amiga’s low-pass filter. The filter is active when the LED is at normal brightness, and deactivated when dimmed (or off on older A500 Amigas). On Amiga 1000, the power LED had no relation to the filter's status, a wire needed to be manually soldered between pins on the sound chip to disable the filter. Paula can read directly from the system's RAM, using direct memory access (DMA), making sound playback without CPU intervention possible.

Although the hardware is limited to four separate sound channels, software such as OctaMED uses software mixing to allow eight or more virtual channels, and it was possible for software to mix two hardware channels to achieve a single 14-bit resolution channel by playing with the volumes of the channels in such a way that one of the source channels contributes the most significant bits and the other the least ones.

The quality of the Amiga's sound output, and the fact that the hardware is ubiquitous and easily addressed by software, were standout features of Amiga hardware unavailable on PC platforms for years. Third-party sound cards exist that provide DSP functions, multi-track direct-to-disk recording, multiple hardware sound channels and 16-bit and beyond resolutions. A retargetable sound API called AHI was developed allowing these cards to be used transparently by the OS and software.

ROM

Main article: Kickstart (Amiga)

The classic Amiga Operating System consists of Kickstart firmware (including System API) and Workbench. Kickstart is the bootstrap firmware. Its purpose is to initialize the Amiga hardware and core components of AmigaOS and then attempt to boot from a bootable volume, such as a floppy disk or hard disk drive.

The first production Amiga, the Amiga 1000, required Kickstart to be loaded first from floppy disk into 256 kB of RAM reserved for this purpose. Later models hold Kickstart on an embedded ROM chip, improving start-up times. Models can be upgraded by replacing the ROM.

Several third-party vendors produced switchable socket doublers to allow two ROM chips to plug into the single ROM socket on the motherboard. This became more popular as later versions of the Amiga OS suffered some backwards compatibility problems with earlier Amiga software titles. The effect of these switchable doublers was a convenient dual boot system, with a choice of two distinct OS versions via a pre-determined key sequence at reboot, or via a two way switch installed in the case, depending on the specific version installed.

Peripherals

The Amiga was one of the first home computers for which inexpensive sound sampling and video digitization accessories were available. As a result of this and the Amiga's audio and video capabilites the Amiga became a popular system for editing and producing both music and video.

Many expansion boards were produced for Amiga computers to improve the performance and capability of the hardware, such as memory expansions, SCSI controllers, CPU boards, and graphics boards. Other upgrades include genlocks, Ethernet cards, modems, sound cards and samplers, video digitizers, USB cards, extra serial ports, and IDE controllers.

The most popular upgrades were memory, SCSI controllers and CPU accelerator cards. These were sometimes combined into the one device, particularly on big-box Amigas like the A2000, A3000 and A4000.

Early CPU accelerator cards feature full 32-bit CPUs of the 68000 family such as the Motorola 68020 and Motorola 68030, almost always with 32-bit memory and usually with FPUs and MMUs or the facility to add them. Later designs feature the Motorola 68040 and Motorola 68060. Both CPUs feature integrated FPUs and MMUs. Many CPU accelerator cards also had integrated SCSI controllers.

Phase5 designed the PowerUp boards (BlizzardPPC and CyberstormPPC) featuring both a 68k (a 68040 or 68060) and a PPC (603 or 604) CPU, which are able to run the two CPUs at the same time (and share the system memory). The PPC CPU on PowerUp boards is usually used as a coprocessor for heavy computations (a powerful CPU is needed to run for example MAME, but even decoding JPEG pictures and MP3 audio was considered heavy computation at the time). It is also possible to ignore the 68k CPU and run Linux on the PPC (project Linux APUS), but a PPC-native Amiga OS was not available when the PPC boards first appeared.

24-bit graphics cards and video cards were also available. Graphics cards are designed primarily for 2D artwork production, workstation use, and later, gaming. Video cards are designed for inputting and outputting video signals, and processing and manipulating video.

Perhaps the most famous video card in the North American market was the NewTek Video Toaster. This was a powerful video effects board which turned the Amiga into an affordable video processing computer which found its way into many professional video environments. Due to its NTSC-only design it did not find a market in countries that used the PAL standard, such as in Europe. In PAL countries the OpalVision card was popular, although less featured and supported than the Video Toaster. Low-cost time base correctors (TBCs) specifically designed to work with the Toaster quickly came to market, most of which were designed as standard Amiga bus cards.

Various manufacturers started producing PCI busboards for the A1200 and A4000, allowing standard Amiga computers to use PCI cards such as Voodoo graphic cards, Sound Blaster sound cards, 10/100 Ethernet cards, and TV tuner cards. Other manufacturers produced hybrid boards which contained an Intel x86 series chip, allowing the Amiga to emulate a PC.

PowerPC upgrades with Wide SCSI controllers, PCI busboards with Ethernet, sound and 3D graphics cards, and tower cases allowed the A1200 and A4000 to survive well into the late nineties.

Expansion boards were made by Richmond Sound Design that allow their show control and sound design software to communicate with their custom hardware frames either by ribbon cable or fiber optic cable for long distances, allowing the Amiga to control up to eight million digitally controlled external audio, lighting, automation, relay and voltage control channels spread around a large theme park, for example. See Amiga software for more information on these applications.

Other popular devices:

• Trumpcard 500 Zorro-II SCSI interface.
• A590 SCSI harddisc controller.
• A3070 SCSI tape backup unit with a capacity of 250 MB.
• A2065 Ethernet Zorro-II interface. The first Ethernet interface for Amiga; uses the AMD Am7990 chip. The same interface chip is used in DECstation as well.
• Ariadne Zorro II Ethernet interface using AMD Am7990.
• A4066 Zorro II Ethernet interface using SMC 91C90QF.
• X-Surf from Individual Computers using Realtek 8019AS.
• A2060 Arcnet.
• A1010 Floppy drive. Consists of an 3,5", 300 rpm, 500 kbit/s drive unit connected via DB-23 connector. Track-to-track delay is on the order of ~94 ms. The default capacity is 880 kB. Many clone drives were available, and products such as CatWeasel makes it possible to read and write Amiga and other special disc formats on standard x86 PCs.

Networking

Amiga had three networking interface APIs:

• AS225 - Is the official Commodore TCP/IP stack API with hardcoded drivers in revision 1 (AS225r1) for the A2065 Ethernet and the A2060 Arcnet interfaces. In revision 2 (AS225r2) the SANA-II interface was used.
• SANA-II — Is a standardized API for hardware of network interfaces. It uses an inefficient buffer handling scheme, and lacks proper support for promiscuous and multicast modes.
• Miami Network Interface (MNI) - Is an API that doesn't have the problems which SANA-II suffers from. It requires AmigaOS v2,04 or higher.

Different network media was used:

Type	Speed	Example
Ethernet	10/100 Mbit/s	A2065
ARCNET	2.5 Mbit/s	A560, A2060
Floppy disk controller	250 kbit/s	Amitrix: Amiga-Link
Serial port	≤ 115.2 kbit/s
Parallel port	~1600 kbit/s	Village Tronic: Liana
Token ring	1.5 Mbit/s	Nine Tiles: AmigaLink (9 Tiles)
AppleTalk / LocalTalk	230,4 - 460 kbit/s	PPS-Doubletalk

Models and variants

Main article: Amiga models and variants

The "classic" Amiga models were produced from 1985 to 1996. They are, in order of appearance: 1000, 2000, 500, 1500, 2500, 3000, 3000UX, 3000T, CDTV, 500+, 600, 4000, 1200, CD32, and 4000T. The PowerPC based AmigaOne was later produced from 2002 to 2005. Some companies have also released Amiga clones.

Commodore Amiga

The Amiga 500 (1987) was the most popular variant of the Amiga.

File:Amiiga4000DP.jpg

Amiga 4000 (1992)

The first Amiga model, the Amiga 1000 was launched in 1985 to various critical success, particularly for its audio and graphics capabilities. In 2006, PC World rated the the Amiga 1000 as the seventh greatest PC of all time, stating "Years ahead of its time, the Amiga was the world's first multimedia, multitasking personal computer".

Following the A1000, Commodore updated the desktop line of Amiga computers with the Amiga 2000 in 1987, the Amiga 3000 in 1990, and the Amiga 4000 in 1992, each offering improved capabilites and expansion options. However, the best selling models were the budget models, particularly the highly successful Amiga 500 (1987) and the Amiga 1200 (1992). The Amiga 500+ (1991) was the shortest lived model, replacing the Amiga 500 and lasting only six months until it was phased out and replaced with the Amiga 600 (1992), which in turn was also quickly replaced by the Amiga 1200.

The CDTV launched in 1991, was a CD-ROM based all-in-one multimedia system. It was an early attempt at a multi-purpose multimedia appliance in an era before multimedia consoles and CD-ROM drives were common. Unfortunately, the system never achieved any real commercial success.

Commodore's last Amiga offering before going bankrupt was an attempt to capture a portion of the highly competitive 1990s console market with the Amiga CD32 (1993), a 32-bit CD-ROM games console. Though discontinued after Commodore's demise it met with moderate commercial success in Europe.

Following purchase of Commodore's assets by Escom in 1995, the A1200 and A4000T continued to be sold in small quanties until 1996, though lost ground and the prohibitive expense of these units meant that the classic Amiga line never regained any real popularity.

Several Amiga models contained references to songs by the rock band The B-52's. Early A500 units, at least, had the words "B52/ROCK LOBSTER" silk-screen printed onto their printed circuit board, a reference to the popular song "Rock Lobster" The Amiga 600 referenced "JUNE BUG" (after the song "Junebug") and the Amiga 1200 had "CHANNEL Z" (after "Channel Z").

AmigaOS 4 systems

Main article: AmigaOS 4

AmigaOS 4.1

AmigaOS 4 is designed for PowerPC Amiga systems and currently runs on both Amigas equipped with CyberstormPPC or BlizzardPPC accelerator boards, and on the PPC Teron series based AmigaOne computers built by Eyetech under license by Amiga Inc. AmigaOS 4.0 had been available only in developer pre-releases for numerous years until the final update was 'released' in December 2006. Due to the nature of some provisions of the contract between Amiga Inc. and Hyperion Entertainment the Belgian-German firm which is developing the OS, the commercial AmigaOS had been available only to licensed buyers of AmigaOne motherboards.

AmigaOS 4.0 for Classic Amigas equipped with PPC (Cyberstorm PPC or BlizzardPPC) accelerator boards was released commercially in November 2007, prior to this it was available only to developers and beta-testers. The most recent release AmigaOS is 4.1.

No new hardware has been released since the AmigaOne; however Acube Systems has entered an agreement with Hyperion under which it has ported AmigaOS 4 to its Sam440 line of PowerPC-based motherboards.

Amiga hardware clones

Long-time Amiga developer MacroSystem entered the Amiga-clone market with their DraCo nonlinear video edit system. It appears in two versions, initially a tower model and later a cube. DraCo expanded upon and combined a number of earlier expansion cards developed for Amiga (VLabMotion, Toccata, WarpEngine, RetinaIII) into a true Amiga-clone powered by Motorola's 68060 processor. The DraCo can run AmigaOS 3.1 up through AmigaOS 3.9. It is the only Amiga-based system to support FireWire for video I/O. DraCo also offers an Amiga-compatible ZORRO-II expansion bus and introduced a faster custom DraCoBus, capable of 30 MB/sec transfer rates (faster than Commodore's ZORRO-III). The technology was later used in the Casablanca system, a set-top-box also designed for non-linear video editing.

In 1998, Index Information released the Access, an Amiga-clone similar to the A1200, but on a motherboard which could fit into a standard 5 1/4" drive bay. It features either a 68020 or 68030 CPU, with a redesigned AGA chipset, and runs AmigaOS 3.1.

In 2006, two new Amiga-clones were announced, both using FPGA based hardware synthesis to replace the Amiga OCS custom chipset. The first, the Minimig, is a personal project of Dutch engineer Dennis van Weeren. Referred to as "new Amiga hardware", the original model was built on a Xilinx Spartan-3 development board, but soon a dedicated board was developed. The minimig uses the FPGA to reproduce the custom Denise, Agnus, Paula and Gary chips as well as both 8520 CIA's and implements a simple version of Amber. The rest of the chips are an actual 68000 CPU, ram chips, and a PIC microcontroller for BIOS control. The design for Minimig was released as Open Source on July 25, 2007. In December, 2007, an Italian company Acube Systems announced plans to commercially produce the original Minimig. In February 2008 Acube began selling Minimig boards. A third party upgrade replaces the PIC microcontroller with a more powerful ARM processor, providing more functionality such as write access and support for harddrive images. The minimig core is being ported to the FPGArcade "Replay" board. The Replay uses a larger FPGA which will support the AGA chipset and a 63030 soft core. The Replay board is designed to emulate many older computers and classic arcade machines.

The second is the Clone-A system announced by Individual Computers. As of mid 2007 it has been shown in its development form, with FPGA-based boards replacing the Amiga chipset and mounted on an Amiga 500 motherboard.

Emulation of the Amiga

Main article: Amiga emulation

Like many popular but discontinued platforms, the Amiga has been the target of various emulation projects so that software developed for the Amiga can be run on other computer platforms without the original hardware. Such emulators attempt to replicate the functionality of the Amiga architecture in software. As mentioned above, attempts have also been made to replicate the Amiga chipset in FPGA chips.

One of the most challenging aspects of emulation is the design of the Amiga chipset, which relies on cycle-critical timings. As a result, early emulators did not always achieve the intended results though later emulator versions can now accurately reproduce the behavior of Amiga systems.

Operating systems

AmigaOS

Main article: AmigaOS

At the time of release AmigaOS put an OS that was well ahead of its time into the hands of the average consumer. It was one of the first commercially available consumer operating system for personal computers to implement preemptive multitasking. Other features included combining a graphical user interface with a command-line interface, allowing long filenames, permitting whitespace, not requiring a file extension, and the use of information files associated with other files to store icons, launch and other desktop data.

John C. Dvorak stated in 1996 that AmigaOS "remains one of the great operating systems of the past 20 years, incorporating a small kernel and tremendous multitasking capabilities the likes of which have only recently been developed in OS/2 and Windows NT. The biggest difference is that the AmigaOS could operate fully and multitask in as little as 250 K of address space."

Like other operating systems of the time, the OS lacks memory protection. This is necessary also because the 68000 CPU of the first Amiga computers does not include a memory management unit, and because there is no way of enforcing use of flags indicating memory to be shared. Although it speeds and eases interapplication communication (programs can communicate by simply passing a pointer back and forth), the lack of memory protection made the Amiga OS more vulnerable to crashes from badly behaving programs, and fundamentally incapable of enforcing any form of security model since any program had full access to the system. A memory protection feature was implemented in AmigaOS 4.

The problem was somewhat exacerbated by Commodore's initial decision to release documentation relating not only to the OS's underlying software routines, but also to the hardware itself, enabling intrepid programmers who cut their teeth on the Commodore 64 to POKE the hardware directly, as was done on the older platform. While the decision to release the documentation was a popular one and allowed the creation of fast, sophisticated sound and graphics routines in games and demos, it also contributed to system instability as some programmers lacked the expertise to program at this level. For this reason, when the new AGA chipset was released, Commodore declined to release documentation for it, forcing most programmers to adopt the approved software routines.

Influences on other Operating Systems

AmigaOS influenced directly or indirectly various operating systems. MorphOS and AROS clearly inherited the same structure API of AmigaOS as it was explained directly in all articles regarding these two operating systems. But amongst other well known operating systems AmigaOS also influenced BeOS as it featured a centralized system of Datatypes, similar to that present in AmigaOS, and DragonFlyBSD as stated by Dragonfly developer Matthew Dillon who is a former Amiga developer.

Unix and Unix-like systems

Commodore-Amiga produced Amiga Unix, informally known as Amix, based on AT&T SVR4. It supports the Amiga 2500 and Amiga 3000 and was included with the Amiga 3000UX. Among other unusual features of Amix is a hardware-accelerated windowing system which can scroll windows without copying data. Amix is not supported on the later Amiga systems based on 68040 or 68060 processors.

Other, still maintained, operating systems are available for the classic Amiga platform, including Linux and NetBSD. Both require a CPU with MMU such as the 68020 with 68851 or full versions of the 68030, 68040 or 68060. There is also a version of Linux for Amigas with PowerPC accelerator cards. Debian and Yellow Dog Linux can run on the AmigaOne.

There is an official, older version of OpenBSD. The last Amiga release is 3.2. Minix 1.5.10 also runs on Amiga.

Emulating other systems

Main article: Emulation on the Amiga

The Amiga is able to emulate other computer platforms ranging from many 8-bit systems such as the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Nintendo Game Boy, Nintendo Entertainment System, Apple II and the TRS-80, up to platforms such as the IBM PC, Apple Macintosh and Atari ST. MAME (the arcade machine emulator) is also available for Amiga systems with PPC accelerator card upgrades.

Amiga software

Main article: Amiga software

The Amiga was a primary target for productivity and game development during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Software was often developed for the Amiga and the Atari ST simultaneously, since the ST had a similar CPU architecture.

Aminet was created in 1992 and until around 1996, was the largest public archive of software for any platform.

Bootblock

File:Amiga kick34.5 askforwb1.3.png

An Amiga rebooted or powered on without a bootable volume (such as a floppy disk) will request the user to insert a disk. The screenshot is of Kickstart 34.5 (AmigaOS 1.3) on the Amiga 500.

At system boot Kickstart attempts to boot from a bootable device (typically, a floppy disk or hard drive). In the case of a floppy the system reads the first two sectors of the disk (the bootblock), and executes any boot instructions stored there. Normally this code passes control back to the OS (loading the 'dos.library' (AmigaDOS) and invoking the GUI) using the disk as the system boot volume. Any such disk, no matter what the other contents of the disk, was referred to as a "Boot disk" or "bootable disk". A bootblock could be added to a disk by use of the "install" command. Some entertainment software contains custom bootblocks. This allowed an application, game or demo to take control of memory and resources, effectively disabling AmigaOS.

The bootblock became an obvious target for virus writers. Some games or demos that used a custom bootblock would not work if infected with a bootblock virus, as the code of the virus replaced the original. The first such virus was the SCA virus. Anti-virus attempts included custom bootblocks. These amended bootblock advertised the presence of the virus checker while checking the system for tell-tale signs of memory resident viruses and then passed control back to the system. Unfortunately these could not be used on disks that already relied on a custom bootblock, but did alert users of potential trouble. Several of them also replicated themselves across other disks, becoming little more than viruses in their own right.

Boing Ball

The Boing Ball.

The Boing Ball has been synonymous with Amiga since its public release in 1985. It has been a popular theme in computer demo effects since the 1950s, when a bouncing ball demo was released for Whirlwind computers. Commodore released a bouncing ball demo at the 1978 Consumer Electronics Show, to illustrate the capabilities of the VIC chip. A similar theme was used by Amiga Corporation to demonstrate the capabilities of the Amiga computer at the 1984 Winter Consumer Electronics Show in January 1984. It was a real-time animation showing a red-and-white spinning ball (about 1/4 screen size) bouncing up and down and casting a shadow on a wall behind it. The echoing deep Bong! sound and left-right motion was added soon after the show was over. Since then, the Boing Ball became one of the most well-known symbols for Amiga and compatible computers. Within the context of this tradition of bouncing ball demos at the Consumer Electronics Show, CBS Electronics also showed a Bouncing Ball demo for the Atari VCS/2600, with a spinning and bouncing ball, at the same event.

The 1984 Boing Ball demo was one of the very first demos shown on the Amiga. It was specifically designed to take advantage of the Amiga's custom graphics, achieving a level of speed and smoothness not previously seen on an affordable computer. The 1984 demo ran standalone as there was no official DOS operating system and Intuition was just a glint in RJ Mical's eye at the time. A year later this demo was converted to operate in an Intuition Screen, allowing the higher resolution Amiga Workbench screen to be dragged down to make the Boing Ball visible from behind, bouncing up above the Workbench while the Workbench remained fully active. Since the Boing Ball used almost no CPU time (only to calculate the bounce angles - animation was handled by playfield vertical and horizontal scrolling tricks, the rotation animation was done with color cycling in the graphics chip, and of course the sound chip handled the sound), this made a particularly impressive demonstration of multitasking at the time.

Despite its popularity in the Amiga community, the Boing Ball itself was never officially adopted as a trademark by Commodore. The official Amiga trademark was a rainbow-colored double checkmark. After the bankruptcy of Commodore, the Boing Ball remained in use as one of the symbols for Amiga-related systems on hundreds of web sites and products by different companies and individuals.

Amiga community

When Commodore went bankrupt in 1994, there was still a very active Amiga community, and it continued to support the platform long after mainstream commercial vendors abandoned it. The most popular Amiga magazine, Amiga Format, continued to publish editions until 2000, some six years after Commodore filed for bankruptcy. Another magazine, Amiga Active, was launched in 1999 and was published until 2001.

Interest in the platform remains high enough to sustain a bi-weekly specialist column in the UK weekly magazine Micro Mart. There is also a web site, Amiga.org, that has served as a community discussion and support resource since the 1994 bankruptcy.

Notable historic uses

The Amiga series of computers found a place in early computer graphic design and television presentation. Below are some examples of notable uses and users:

• Season 1 and part of season 2 of the television series Babylon 5 were rendered in LightWave 3D on Amigas. Other television series using Amigas for special effects included SeaQuest DSV and Max Headroom.

In addition, many other celebrities and notable individuals have made use of the Amiga:

• Andy Warhol was an early user of the Amiga and appeared at the launch. Warhol used the Amiga to create a new style of art made with computers, and was the author of a multimedia opera called "you are the one" which consists of an animated sequence featuring images of actress Marilyn Monroe assembled in a short movie with a soundtrack. The video was discovered on two old Amiga floppies in a drawer in Warhol's studio and repaired in 2006 by the Detroit Museum of New Art. The pop artist has been quoted as saying: "The thing I like most about doing this kind of work on the Amiga is that it looks like my work in other media."
• A pioneer of the Digital Art movement, Laurence Gartel, along with Jeff Bruette , physically taught Andy Warhol how to use the Amiga and relevant software.
• Actor Dick Van Dyke was a self-described "rabid" user of the Amiga.
• Amigas were used in various NASA laboratories to keep track of multiple low orbiting satellites, and were still used up to 2003/04 (dismissed and sold in 2006). This is another example of long lifetime reliability of Amiga hardware, as well as professional use. Amigas were also used at Kennedy Space Center to run strip-chart recorders, to format and display data, and control stations of platforms for Delta rocket launches.
• Artist Jean "Moebius" Giraud credits the Amiga he bought for his son as a bridge to learning about "using paint box programs". He uploaded some of his early experiments to the file sharing forums on CompuServe.
• Tom Fulp is noted as saying he used the Amiga as his first computer for creating cartoons and animations.
• London Transport Museum developed their own interactive multi-media software for the CD32. The software included a walkthrough of various exhibits and a virtual tour of the museum.
• The "Weird Al" Yankovic film UHF contains a computer animated music video parody of the Dire Straits song "Money for Nothing", titled "Money For Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies". According to the DVD commentary track, this spoof was created on an Amiga home computer.
• Rolf Harris used an Amiga to digitize his hand-drawn art work for animation on his television series, Rolf's Cartoon Club.
• Todd Rundgren's video "Change Myself" was produced with Toaster and Lightwave.
• An Amiga 1000 can be seen in the movie Disorderlies in the background running a heart animation.
• An Amiga 4000 was in Michael Jackson's movie Ghosts. At the left of the screen, an Amiga monitor and keyboard can be easily seen at the end credit. (at exactly 38:40)
• Scottish pop artist Calvin Harris composed his debut album I Created Disco with an Amiga 1200.
• Susumu Hirasawa, a Japanese Electropop-artist is known for using Amigas to compose and perform music.
• Electronic musician Max Tundra also created his three albums with an Amiga 500.
• A black Commodore Amiga 1200 was seen on an episode of Bones, used as evidence to lead to a murder suspect. A clip of this show hosted on youtube became infamous because of the high number of errors in such a minor mention. Amongst many other errors, an IBM 5150, the first PC was shown as its floppy drive, and it was claimed it used "a homemade operating system" with a "6800 chipset".
• Tom Berenger's character Gary Simmons uses an Amiga 500 for his KKK network in the 1988 movie Betrayed.
• Amiga 500 motherboards were used, in conjunction with a Laserdisc player and Genlock device, in arcade games manufactured by American Laser Games.
• A custom Amiga 4000T motherboard was used in the HDI 1000 medical ultrasound system built by Bothell, Washington based Advanced Technology Labs (now part of Philips Medical Systems).

Media

• 
  Amiga CD32
• 
  Amiga 600
• 
  Amiga 1200
• 
  Amiga mouse

See also

• Amiga games
• Aminet
• Hold-And-Modify
• Minimig
• Natami
• UAE (emulator)

External links

• Famous Amiga Uses
• Amiga, Inc. - New Link
• Amiga Hardware Database - details of Amiga hardware
• Big Book of Amiga Hardware - Big Book of Amiga Hardware
• Amiga Lorraine: finally, the next generation Atari? John J. Anderson, Creative Computing, April 1984
• On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore Bagnall, Brian (2005), Variant Press, ISBN 0-9738649-0-7.
• The Amiga Guru Book by Ralph Babel, Self Published by Ralph Babel for Commodore and Amiga in 1989, 1993 Template:De icon, Template:En icon
• Amiga community at Amigaworld.net
• Amiga.org - community forums and support
• FC-Jungle Memories.. Amiga Mods in MP3, author's cut
• Incoming Amiga Hardware - New high-end motherboard
• BoingsWorld.de - German Podcast roundabout AMIGA