Introduction
The Commodore Amiga The Commodore Amiga was a series of personal computers that were ahead of their time. Developed and produced by Commodore International, the Amiga range was released in 1985 and continued to evolve until the early 1990s. The Amiga was known for its advanced multimedia capabilities, including advanced sound and graphics capabilities, and it was a popular choice for gaming, desktop publishing, and video production. With a wide range of models and configurations available, the Amiga was a versatile computer that found its way into homes, businesses, and creative industries across the world. In this introduction, we will explore the history of the Amiga range and its impact on the computer industry.
Amiga computers feature a unique technology: Amiga-Dos. Not only can you run several programmes at the same time on your Amiga but with the aid of built-in co-processors increase your productivity even further to let it perform effortlessly on other tasks. Amiga co-processors look after graphics, sound and peripherals. This frees the main processor to get on with processing, while other chips play music, display graphics or animation and look after interfacing to the outside world
Unlike other computers, Amiga's Autoconfig technology means you do not need to set configuration switches on peripherals you buy. For example, to install a Memory card, just plug it into the slot and turn the power on, the Amiga does the rest. Just like the point and click manner in which you use an Amiga, everything has been designed with ease of use in mind
Using Amigas
Amigas let you decide how you use them. You can use the point and click system, which we call Workbench, or you can type commands on the keyboard as on MS-DOS computers. Most people prefer Workbench, it is easy to learn and great fun to customise. With Workbench you move the pointer around the screen w ith the mouse and click on little pictures called icons, these represent functions you want your Amiga to do.
All Amlgas can run several programs at once: so you can print a letter, sort names and address lists, listen to some music and play with a paint program all at the same time.
You can also exchange data with MS- DOS machines simply by putting the disk in the drive. Workbench will even give you an icon to make things easier. Most Amiga programs use a universal file format called IFF. This allows one program to use another's data, for example, a Word Processor can use a picture created in a drawing program. Even the software you buy for your Amiga will be easy to use and great value for money, just like the computer itself
Amiga Specialties
The Amiga is a great tool for work and pleasure and it excels at;
Graphics: Anything to do with graphics or video. Being video compatible means that the picture can be displayed on a CRT TV or recorded on video. Having a graphics co-processor makes the action fast. whether you are reading through a large report or playing a super-action game.
The Commodore Amiga range was renowned for its impressive graphics capabilities, which were far ahead of its competitors at the time. The Amiga featured a custom graphics chip, known as the "blitter", which allowed for fast and efficient manipulation of graphics data. The Amiga's graphics capabilities allowed for the display of up to 4096 colors on screen at once, which was a significant improvement over other computers of the era. Additionally, the Amiga featured a unique "HAM" mode, which allowed for the display of up to 4096 colors from a palette of over 16 million colors, resulting in stunningly rich and vivid images. These features made the Amiga a popular choice for graphic designers, game developers, and multimedia enthusiasts. Even today, the Amiga's graphics capabilities remain impressive and highly regarded by retro computing enthusiasts.
Digital Stereo Sound: Built in digital stereo sound on the Amiga gives you concert quality reproduction. With an inexpensive add-on you can even digitise your own audio and then experiment with it on the screen.
The Commodore Amiga was not only ahead of its time in terms of graphics, but it also boasted impressive digital stereo sound capabilities. The Amiga's sound system, known as the "Paula" chip, was capable of producing four channels of 8-bit sound with a sampling rate of up to 28kHz, which was considered impressive for its time. The chip also had features like stereo panning, volume control, and special effects like echo and reverb. With its impressive sound capabilities, the Amiga was a popular choice for music and sound design in the video game and multimedia industries. Many retrocomputing enthusiasts still appreciate the unique sound of the Amiga and its contribution to digital music production.
Optional Emulators: With the addition of optional emulators, the Amiga can also run MS-DOS or Apple Macintosh software - giving you the best of all worlds.
The Amiga computer was not only a powerful machine for its time but also had the ability to emulate other systems, such as MSDOS and Macintosh. This allowed users to run software and games designed for these systems on their Amiga. By using emulation software such as Shapeshifter or Fusion, Amiga users could take advantage of the Amiga's superior hardware while still being able to run their favorite software from other platforms. This feature made the Amiga an attractive choice for users who wanted the flexibility to use software from a variety of systems on a single machine.
Commodore Amiga Models
Amiga 600
The natural choice for the your student or beginner. No toy, but a real computer designed to grow with your children. Yet for real work, it's hard to beat. That's not to say that with it's fast action, spectacular graphics and digital audio it won't play the most excrting games in town. Representing outstanding value-for-money, the Amiga 600 offers and easy-as-pie, point-and-click operating system. Although compact enough to fit into a briefcase, the Amiga 600 can be expanded to work with all manner of peripherals. In fact, it's a powerful tool for managing your home or small business. The A600 was originally designed as cost-reduced A500 that was to be called the A300. Manufacturing prices rose and the deep discount could not be achieved so they changed the name to the Amiga 600, because A600 sounded better than the outgoing A500. Some early motherboards still had A300 printed on them.
Amiga 1200
The new mid-range addition
to the Amiga product family,
incorporating the Amiga
Advanced Graphics
Archrtecture (AGA) chip
set. These chips proVide an
abundance of display modes,
offering different pixel resolutions and colour palettes. All
this powered by a Motorola
68EC020. Combine the speed of a 14MHz processor and the AGA chips with their 4x speed increase
over the previous chips and you've a computer that packs quite a punch.
With both a PCMCIA Smartcard and trapdoor
expansion port, the Amiga 1200 can grow with your needs.
As with all Amigas, it is operated in the same, easy point and click manner.
Amiga 4000
The Commodore Amiga 4000 extends the Amiga family into the 68040 performance class. Sporting 25MHz performance with built-in maths co-processor for computational speed, AGA chips, mutliple display modes and palettes, the Amiga 4000 is the ideal multimedia platform. The Multi-tasking Amiga operating system shines on this platform. With the ability to read and write MS-DOS disks, the Amiga will fit into any office, even those currently using MS-DOS compatible. Whether as a specialist Desktop Video machine or as a general purpose computer, the Amiga 4000 is at home on any desk.
The more economical alternative to the 4000. The 030 uses a Motorola 68EC030 power-house with the same mother-board as its big brother. Math co-processor and memory manager chips can be added to the system, should you need them for extended number crunching tasks.
Retrocomputing
The Commodore Amiga 500 is often considered the most popular and iconic model of the range among retrocomputing enthusiasts. It was released in 1987 and quickly became a commercial success, selling over six million units worldwide. The Amiga 500 was the first affordable model that provided powerful graphics and sound capabilities, making it a popular choice for gaming and multimedia applications. It also had a vast library of software available, including many classic games that are still popular today. The Amiga A500 Mini is based on the Amiga 500 form factor.
The Amiga 600 is often considered the cutest model of the Commodore Amiga range due to its small size and sleek design. Unlike the larger models in the range, the Amiga 600 was designed to be a more compact and portable machine, making it perfect for users who wanted to take their computing with them on the go. Despite its smaller size, the Amiga 600 was still a powerful machine, featuring a 32-bit processor and advanced graphics and sound capabilities. Its compact form factor and powerful features make it a favorite among retrocomputing enthusiasts today, and its cute and stylish design only adds to its appeal.
The Amiga 4000/40 is an ideal computer for running the Amiga Unix (AMIX) operating system. It has a powerful 68040 processor and can be upgraded with additional RAM and storage to meet the requirements of running AMIX. The Amiga's built-in networking capabilities also make it easy to connect to other computers and networks, making it an ideal choice for use as a workstation in a Unix-based environment. The Amiga's unique hardware capabilities, such as its custom chips and graphics and sound capabilities, also make it a versatile platform for multimedia and graphics applications, as well as for retro gaming enthusiasts. The Amiga 4000/40 is a powerful and flexible computer that is well-suited for a wide range of computing tasks, including running Unix-based operating systems like AMIX.
