Lorraine Jay Miner
1984 January 4th. First Amiga prototype hardware displayed at
the Winter CES. Boing ball demo and this boing video shown.
1985 * Amiga Inc getting very short of cash. Atari and SGI were
first interested but Commodore gave the best offer of
$4.25 a share.
In June, the first silicon based Amiga shown. Not many
people could believe the kind of graphics it could do.
A1000
On July 23rd, the A1000 was displayed with Andy WarHol
at the launch who drew a picture of Blondie on the spot.
* The A1000 was released in September. It cost half the
price of a EGA based PC.
Amiga World magazine released. The famous Juggler demo
released.
1986 Original A2000 designs were rejected by Commodore, instead
they went for a German design. As a result, more than half
of the original Amiga crew were laid off. Within months,
none of the original crew remained.
Defender of the Crown game released. It was so impressive
that it sold thousands of Amigas.
A500 A2000
1987 * The Amiga 500 and the A2000 were released. Both came with Workbench
1.2, although upgraded to Workbench 1.3 later (which has Hard disk
boot code, Recoverable RAM (RAD:) and New Console). See Video promo.
A1500
1988 Sales of the Amiga rose.
1989 Batman Pack (A500) released. It sold in the 100,000s. It included anA500 with TV modulator, Batman the Movie game, New Zealand Story, Interceptor and Deluxe Paint 2. 1990 The Amiga became the world's best selling home computer.
A3000 A3000T
On April 24th, the Amiga A3000 was unveiled and in May
it was released. It had the new Workbench 2.0.
Commodore Dynamic Total Vision (CDTV)
In June, the CDTV was released, which looked like a VCR
with a CDROM and used the old Kickstart 1.3. It was very
expensive, and marketed not as a Amiga computer but a
home appliance.
* In August, the A500+ was released which had ECS chipset and
Workbench 2.04 There were problems with software
compatibility as a lot of programs hit the hardware which
didn't work on the new hardware which caused a few problems
for new buyers.
In November, the Newtek Video Toaster was released. It was
widely used in TV and Video productions including some
famous ones such as B5, Seaquest DSV, Star Trek TNG,
Quantum Leap, Robocop, Alladin and Jurrasic Park etc.
1991 The CDTV was a financial failure and Commodore themselves
made some mistakes as well. The A600 was unveiled which was
no better than the A500+ (although it included PCMCIA port
and IDE interface, but some had ROMs with no scsi.device
in it!), it didn't have a keypad.
1992 The A3000+ was shown which had AGA and was very expandable,
but Commodore scrapped it, in favour of the A4000.
A600
* In March the A600 was released, it caused an outcry for
those people who still bought the older A500/A500+ (CBM
never released information until the last minute).
Amiga Format magazine, reached reader figures of 130,000
and peaked at 160,000 readers.
On September 11, the A1200 was unveiled which had AGA
and Workbench 3. It was an actual prototype but if it
was developed further it could have been even better.
A4000 A1200
* The A4000 was released in December and the A1200 was
released slightly later to cash in on the Christmas
sales. The A4000 was good but was priced too high.
1993 Commodore starts laying off people, the new AAA chipset
is shelved due to lack of money. Rumours of Commodore's
demise is rife and the PC starts to gain a lead over the
Amiga.
Amiga Report, an online magazine by Jason Compton, was
started in March.
By April, the A1200 reached 100,000 sales.
Workbench 3.1 was released to developers for testing.
The Emplant Emulator was also announced this month, which
emulates the Apple Mac.
CD32
In September, the CD32 console was released (contained a
CDROM drive and AGA chipset). It had a lukewarm reception
and Commodore promised lots of games for it - which never
appeared. They planned advertising, costing £7million.
1994 In March, Commodore announced huge losses and by April
they laid off a lot of their staff. By the 25th, only
30 employees were left, of the original 1000.
On Wednesday the 27th, the West Chester facility was
closed down.
* Finally, on Friday April 29th, 4:10, Commodore filed
for liquidation.
Later, another sad event, occured, Jay Miner, the 'father'
of the Amiga, died on June 20th due to a long illness
in El Camino Hospital In Mountain View.
1995 Chelsea Football Club considered taking legal action
against Commodore for due sponsership money.
Commodore UK tried a management buyout until the last
minute.
On March 1st, the Amiga World magazine was cancelled.
* In April, Escom and Dell fought over Commodore. Escom
offered £7m while Dell offered £15m but wasnt sure they
wanted the Amiga...!? Escom won the contest.
A4000T
Escom created Amiga Technologies to sell the A1200
and A4000T which went back into production. There was
a small problem with Escom made A1200s, the floppy drive
had a small flaw that caused some programs to fail to
load! The A4000T was priced at £2000-£2500 for 040/060
Amigas...!
On April 16th, GVP went out of business. They were very
popular hardware manufacturers for the Amiga (GVP-M have
now taken over).
1996 On April 11th, Viscorp (STB company) announces that it
will try to buy the Amiga from Escom (they tried all
year, keeping the community in the lurch).
A range of 15" and 17" monitors will be released for use
on the Amiga by Microvitec on 8th May.
May 15th, Phase 5 announces its PowerUp accelerator
boards for the Amiga.
Also, Eagle Computers announce that they will make
A4000TE computers.
Walker prototype Walker Innards
The Walker was shown to the public, it used AGA, had a CD,
floppy drive, a standard sized motherboard and Zorro slots
but the Black curved casing caused some controversy -
Darth Vader's helmet, a vacuum cleaner?!
* On July 15th, Escom filed for bankrupty. They bought out
hundreds of shops across the country and underestimated
the growth of PC sales.
In a shock move, Carl Sasserath (author of Amiga's Exec)
resigns from Viscorp on Nov 24th.
On Nov 29th, Viscorp's bid for the Amiga was cancelled.
Jason Compton (author of Amiga Report) resigns as spokes
man from Viscorp, disillusioned, on Dec 4th.
Amiga Power, a games magazine, was closed in September.
1997 On Feb 1st, QuikPak (makers of A4000s) makes a bid for
the Amiga.
On March 2nd, Phase 5 announces that they will be making
the CyberStormPPC and BlizzardPPC boards which will
use fast PowerPC 603/604 chips along with 68040/68060
to run OS functions.
Villagetronic discovers that the number of OS 3.1
upgrade kits are in short supply by March 19th.
Vulcan and Clickboom took on the Amiga market and managed
to release new games. Myst and Quake were converted to
the Amiga and sold thousands of copies.
* On March 27th, a new owner was found for the Amiga.
Gateway 2000, bought out Amiga from Escom and rename Amiga
Technologies to Amiga International to sell the remaining
stocks of Amiga to the public. They have sold a lot to
various third world countries including India.
May 9th, Haage & Partner announces that they will bring
Java to the Amiga (we are still waiting in '99).
Amiga Inc, the Research and Development arm was opened to
develop the new Amiga. Staff includes Jeff Shindler,
Dr Havemose, Bill McEwen and Fleecy Moss (who later left).
In June, Amiga User International magazine closed and
Amiga Computing in July. Finally, Amiga Review closed
as well due to lack of advertising.
Access
On July 5th, Index Info. gets a licence to make Amigas
such as the Access machine and the BoXeR.
On July 10th, Intrinsic Computers also get a licence!
On Sept 15th, Amiga Intl now has a list of spare parts
to sell.
Cloanto releases Amiga Forever CD containing UAE and
Kickstarts and Workbenchs licenced from Amiga Intl
on 10th Oct.
DCE Gmbh gains a licence to sell its own Amigas on
October 29th.
On Nov 11th, Index releases their Access Amiga box to
the world. Ideal for information points etc.
Amiga Intl. announces that a large order of Amiga
1200s are going to India on Dec 21st.
1998 * 15th May, World of Amiga show, gave a shock to the Amiga
Community. They announced Amiga OS 4 (actaully Amiga OS 5
dev) to be run on an industry standard developer machine
(x86 based) at around US$999.
The current Amiga range is declared to be legacy or
'Amiga Classic'. Amiga OS 3.5 upgraded has been cancelled.
AmigaOS 5 machines will be aimed at Digital Convergance
platform for customers. No details of processor or
hardware were released.
* At the Amiwest show in July, further details about the
AmigaII or AmigaNG were released:
3D graphics, Dolby AC3, multi-MPEG decoding, Internet,
scalable multimedia processors, HDTV, OpenGL, Java,
Firewire, USB, ADSL and Autoconfiguration!
At the MAE show in October, Amiga Inc, announces that
AmigaOS 3.5 WILL after all be developed as a gift for
the Amiga community. Features includes new interface,
better CDFS, Internet capabible, better printer support,
RTG and RTA (later dropped), PPC support, new FFS, plus
bugs fixed from WB 3.1.
On November 11th, Amiga Inc, announces that QNX Software
Systems Ltd will utilise the QNX realtime OS as the
foundation for the Next Generation Amiga.
Due to loss of a partner the Developer box did not appear.
1999 On February 26th, Jim Collas will take over Amiga Inc
and has moved its HQ to San Diego and start Fast
Track Development Plans. Former head, Jeff Shindler
will take over product strategy for the new Amiga.
On July 16th, Amiga Inc releases Technology brief detailing
their new Amiga Operating Environment using AmigaObjects,
and Java using the Linux (instead of QNX) operating system.
NG Monitor NG Amiga Case
They also announced the specification of the Amiga Multimedia
Convergence Computer (MCC) based on a unknown High-performance
next generation CPU and the latest hardware technology such as
SDRM, 3D graphics, DVD, MPEG, TV, 16bit surround sound etc.
Phase 5 announces the new AmiRage K2 computer based on the
PowerPC and using QNX as the operating system instead of Linux
on 5th August.
In a shock move, Jim Collas, President of Amiga, resigns,
probably due to differences of strategy with Gateway. Tom
Schmidt takes over as President (1/9/99)
Amiga files 17 new patents on various Digital Convergence
technologies.
Tom Schmidt (15/9/99) announces that Amiga will be only
developing software and the AmigaOE. The MCC computer is
cancelled, along with any hopes of a next generation Amiga.
OS3.5 Screen OS3.5 Box
At the end of October, Haage & Partner releases AmigaOS 3.5
software upgrade for existing Amigas. Requires an 020, CDROM,
6Mb RAM and Hard Disk (raising the minimum standard from a
basic 2Mb A1200).
2000 Jan. Amino buys name and rights from Gateway to continue the
Classic series to the next generation. They are headed by
Fleecy Moss and Bill McEwan. They partner with the TAO
group.
The old Amiga Inc is folded into Gateway`s development group.
Phase 5 goes bankrupt due to shortage of PPC sales and delays
getting G4 boards into production.
April. Amiga announce new developer system based on a 500 MHz
AMD K6-2, 64Mb RAM, and GeForce 256 graphics which will run
Linux and Tao`s Elate OS on top. Also, announce partnerships
with major companies such as Sun, Sony, Redhat etc for the
new system.
June. New Amiga SDK developer kit released for above developer
system. Developer system changed: 500MHz AMD K6-2/III/Athlon,
Matrix AGP G400 16MB, Soundblaster 128, 128M RAM, 10GB Hard Disk,
100Mbit 10BaseT Ethernetcard.
The new Amiga OS will use Elate and Virtual Processor dynamic
translator to allow the new OS to run on any processor or platform
including other OSs such as Linux, Windows, OS9, Mobile Phones
etc and use Java (running full speed) to develop programs for it.
October. Amiga announces the zico specification for the AmigaOne
computer. Consists of a AmigaDE friendly processor (PPC, x86, MIPS,
ARM, SH4), 64Mb RAM, Matrox graphics card, EMU10K1 Sound card,
10Gb HD,CD/DVD, USB, Firewire, 10/100 Ethernet, 56K modem, PCI slots.
Eyetech will be making Amiga/AmigaDE hybrid computers for existing
Amiga users: A1200 PPC AmigaOne, A4000 PPC AmigaOne.
Amiga announces a new AmigaOS 3.9 for the classic Amiga. Consists of
Genesis full TCPIP, Multimedia video players, AWeb 3.4SE, Amidock,
WarpOS 5, Iomega tools, Enhanced Shell, Datatype recognition, Unpacker,
Fast search, new PPC picture datatype and other tools.
2001 Feb. First AmigaOne prototype boards from Eyetech shown with PPC and PCI
capability at the Alt-WOA show in Huddersfield.
*Mar-Apr. At the St Louis show, Amiga Inc announces that a new Sharp PDA
will be using AmigaDE operating system. Also, a Psion PDA will also run
AmigaDE in a few weeks.
AmigaOS 4.0 will be developed, which for the first time will be PowerPC
native and will run on existing PPC driven Amigas and the AmigaONE.
AmigaOS 3.9 BoingBag 1 update released as well.
May 22 - Sharp displays the new Zaurus PDA running AmigaDE applications
at the Business Show in Tokyo.
June - AmigaDE Party Pack released with copies of pre-release AmigaDE
and the AmigaSDK packs for a limited period.
July - Storm C 4 announced as the official C developer package which
supports C++ and compatible with GCC and Storm C 3.
October - Haage & Partner releases AmigaOS XL, a very fast Amiga
emulator for QNX based machines (AmigaXL) or AMIthlon which will boot
on any Pentium II or better based PC.
AmigaDE Player software released to run AmigaDE software on Windows
based PCs. Visit AmigaDE.
November. Hyperion have been granted a licence to write AmigaOS 4.0
for PowerPC systems including the forthcoming AmigaOne system.
2002 February. EyeTech haver just about completed the first new Amiga
motherboard based on modern technology including PowerPC processor,
PCI slots, USB, Fast IDE port etc. It currently runs TurboLinux
and is waiting for completion of AmigaOS 4 (in beta at present).
See AmigaOne page.
AmigaDE will be available for Nokia's MediaTerminal in a joint
partnership. The MediaTerminal provides digital video broadcast,
gaming, streaming and personal video recorder technology.
March. Amiga announces 'Amiga Anywhere' software based on AmigaDE
which runs on the majority of platforms including Windows, Linux,
Symbian OS and VxWorks. There are now 3,000 developers for DE
and over 67 titles available.
Boing Bag 2 has been released for AmigaOS 3.9 which has updates for
HDToolbox, Amiplifier, PlayCD, Workbench utils and Reaction interface.
AmigaOne Motherboards are now available for developers. See AmigaOne
page for pictures.
Screen shots of Amiga OS 4 interface now available on
Hyperion website.
September. Hyperion completes the Firmware for the AmigaOne which will allow
AmigaOS 4 to be integrated into the A1 hardware.
November. First AmigaOne SE and Early bird XE G3-600 or faster systems on sale
at Eyetech's shop. AmigaOS 4 not ready yet, so SuSe Linux is provided.
2003 May. Details of AmigaInput, the Amiga Gaming API, have been released on Amiga's
website.
AmigaOne SE and XE systems available in Italy.
Demonstrations have been shown at various venues, meetings and shows around the
world of the AmigaOne, Amiga4000 incl. PPC running AmigaOS 4.
December. Hyperion have annouced that the the Developer pre-release of AmigaOS 4
will be out after the new year. (IDE and graphics.library left to do).
2004 March 15th. AmigaOS has been sold off to a new company called KMOS Inc who will
take over AmigaOS including AmigaOS 4 (still under development). Amiga Inc will
concentrate on AmigaDE and the Mobile market.
April 16th. AmigaOS 4 has been released as a Pre-Release (beta) for existing Amiga
One owners which includes the OS and a Developer SDK. A new portal will be available
for AmigaOS 4.
August 28th. micro A1 motherboards to be produced by Eyetech which includes onboard
Radeon 7000 video and 6 channel 5.1 sound, 750Fx @800MHz. See Eyetech for more details.
See Stellar Dreams (UK) to buy an AmigaOne motherboard (more dealers listed here).
micro A1 December 28th. Commodore name sold by Tulip Computers to American Yeahronimo Media Ventures for 24m Euros. 2005 January 1st. Latest update of pre-release of AmigaOS 4 released. This update includes Kernel 51.20, dos.library 51.24, CrossDOS FS 51.19, Timer device 51.4, loader-51.6, Mass Storage Support for USB, Updated USB stack, elf library 51.5, Moovid PPC, SmartFileSystem 1.234, newlib.library 2.8, CDFileSystem 51.4, rtg.library 41.4252, graphics.library 51.12, and Grim Reaper 51.4.
January 17th. Amiga T-Shirts released to Amiga users! March 5th. New Firmware update released for AmigaOne. March 18th. KMOS have changed their corporate name to Amiga, Inc. Website updated. New AmigaAnywhere programs announced: Jackpot. AmigaOS stuff still done by Hyperion. June 14th. Latest update of pre-release of AmigaOS 4. This update includes New Kernel, new IDE devices, new P96 drivers, Warp3D 51, Warpup support, new shell and commands, updated reaction classes and intuition, new Roadshow TCP/IP stack, new Sirion USB stack and usbprinter.device, updated datatypes, preferences and locale. 2006 Feb 8th. AmigaOS 4 update IV now available with updates for Warp3D, faster Petunia 68K emulator, new Intuition with screen dragging, ExecSG updates, extended Input system. Note: There seems to be a shortage of AmigaPPC hardware at present! Apr 10th. AmigaOS SDK v5.1.22 released with the new GCC 4.0.2 compiler toolchain and new header files for AmigaOS 4 release 4. June 6th. ACK Software Controls and Troika reveals new MPC7448 boards. Work in progress. Sep 21st. AmigaKit acquires remaining classic Amiga stock from Eyetech (company that used to make the AmigaOne). Oct 11th. Individual Computers reveal some details of the Clone-A project to make a clone of the original OCS/ECS chipsets. * Dec 24th. AmigaOS 4 Final Update finally released for existing AmigaOS 4 registered users. AmigaOS 4.0 is the latest version of the operating system for the Amiga using the Motorola PowerPC processor for systems such as the AmigaOne, CyberPPC and other upcoming PPC systems. 2007 March 25th. Hyperion Entertainment and ACube Systems (makers of SAM 440ep) announce a strategic partnership after a two day meeting in Brussels. April 30th. Amiga Inc sues Hyperion VOF for trademark infringement of Amiga at Washington Western District court. May 7th. Amiga Inc and ACK Software Controls announce new Amiga hardware specification: Power Design Specifications PowerPC board: • Based on the P.A. Semi PWRficient PA6T-1682M dual core 64 bit CPUs clocked at 2GHz.
• RoHS compliant ATX form factor.
• Four (4) DDR2 DIMM slots.
• One (1) PCI Express x16 slot for high performance graphics cards.
• One (1) PCI Express x2 slot for high performance I/O cards.
• One (1) PCI Express x1 slot for standard I/O cards.
• One (1) PCI 32 bit slot for legacy cards.
• Six (6) USB 2.0 ports.
• Two (2) Gb Ethernet ports.
• Two (2) UART ports for serial connectivity and debug.
• One 8Mb Flash EEPROM containing U-Boot firmware.
• Four (4) SATA II ports based on the Silicon Image SiI3132 (x2) May 23rd. Amiga Inc and Vulcan announce a new relationship to bring classic games to the PC and other devices. Jun 14th. The TAO group, creators of Intent and AmigaDE, have gone into administration on 31th of May. There technology has been sold to Cross Atlantic Capital Partners. July 18th. Hyperion release another AmigaOS 4 Update which includes updates for ExecSG, POSIX thread library, library for Unix type shared objects and dynamic linking, Python 2.5.1, Sirion USB stack and other fixes. Aug 18th. Gateway, a former owner of Amiga, has been sold to Acer. Nov 9th. Dave Morse, a co-founder of Amiga company has died. Nov 23rd. Amiga OS 4 for PPC based Classic Amigas has gone to Gold ready for distributers.
It currently supports Amiga 1200,3000 or 4000 with a Phase5 or DCE Blizzard or Cyberstorm
PowerPC accelerator. See list for Compatibility. Nov 30th. AmigaOS 4 for PPC based Classics released.
2008 Jan 7th. Amiga Inc announces a new version of Amiga Anywhere v2, which is a virtual
machine that runs on a host OS including Smart Phones, laptops, desktops etc such
Symbian, Windows Mobile, Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.
Feb 23rd. Hyperion releases an update for BlizzardPPC and CyberstormPPC Amigas
July 11th. Hyperion announces AmigaOS 4.1 for AmigaOne systems. Includes intelligent memory
paging, hardware compositing engine for Radeon 1xxx,2xxx cards, Cairo 2D rendering engine,
PTP support for cameras, JXFS Filing System, improved DOS functionality with 64 bit support
etc.
Sep 17th. AmigaOS 4.1 OEM will be available for the SAM440EP motherboard, which
is a PowerPC 440EP embedded chip at 553MHz or 667MHz.
2009 Jan 26th. A new Amiga OS 4.1 SDK is available for all AmigaOS 4.x systems. It comes in
two versions: Lite (84MB) or a Non-Contrib (53MB) version.
Jan 31st. AmigaOS 4.1 is now available for another PPC system called the Pegasos II.
Unfortunately, Genesi has had to discontinue this product due to RoHS regulations.June 21st. AmigaOS 4.1 quick fix released to fix some driver and stability issues. June 24th. New Sam440ep-Flex computer at 733MHz (replaces the 800MHz version)!
* - Important events. Information taken from Various sources inc. Amiga.org, Amiga.com, Amigaworld.net etc Other historial sources: 'History of the Amiga' video or original Amiga crew by Devware Inc. 1992 'The Deathbed Vigil' video of Commodore's demise by Dave Haynie, IAM. 1994 (Now available with Amiga Forever 5 from Cloato)