Portal:Amiga

From Infogalactic: the planetary knowledge core
Jump to: navigation, search

Template:/box-header The Amiga is a family of personal computers sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. Based on the Motorola 68000 family of microprocessors, the machine has a custom chipset with graphics and sound capabilities that were unprecedented for the price, and a pre-emptive multitasking operating system called AmigaOS. The Amiga provided a significant upgrade from earlier 8-bit home computers, including Commodore's own C64.

The Amiga 1000 was officially released in July 1985, but a series of production problems meant it did not become widely available until early 1986. The best selling model, the Amiga 500, was introduced in 1987 and became one of the leading home computers of the late 1980s and early 1990s with four to six million sold. The A3000, introduced in 1990, started the second generation of Amiga systems, followed by the A500+ and the A600. Finally, as the third generation, the A1200 and the A4000 were released in 1992. The platform became particularly popular for gaming and programming demos. It also found a prominent role in the desktop video, video production, and show control business, leading to affordable video editing systems such as the Video Toaster. The Amiga's native ability to simultaneously play back multiple digital sound samples made it a popular platform for early "tracker" music software. The relatively powerful processor and ability to access several megabytes of memory led to the development of several 3D rendering packages, including LightWave 3D, Imagine, Aladdin 4D, and TurboSilver.

Although early Commodore advertisements attempt to cast the computer as an all-purpose business machine, especially when outfitted with the Amiga Sidecar PC compatibility addon, the Amiga was most commercially successful as a home computer, with a wide range of games and creative software. It was also a less expensive alternative to the Apple Macintosh and IBM PC as a general-purpose business or home computer. Initially, the Amiga was developed alongside various Commodore PC clones, but Commodore later left the PC market. Poor marketing and the failure of the later models to repeat the technological advances of the first systems meant that the Amiga quickly lost its market share to competing platforms, such as the fourth generation game consoles, Apple Macintosh, and later IBM PC compatibles. Commodore ultimately went bankrupt in April 1994 after the "make or break" Amiga CD32 model failed in the marketplace.

Template:/box-footer
Show new selections

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Box-header/colours' not found.

AROS Research Operating System (AROS – pronounced "AR-OS") is a free and open source multi media centric implementation of the AmigaOS 3.1 APIs. Designed to be portable and flexible, ports are currently available for x86-based and PowerPC-based PCs in native and hosted flavors, with other architectures in development. AROS, in a show of full circle, was also ported to the m68k-based Amiga 1200, and the Raspberry Pi series.

AROS originally stood for Amiga Research Operating System, but to avoid any trademark issues with the Amiga name, it was changed to the recursive acronym AROS Research Operating System. The mascot of AROS is Kitty created by Eric Schwartz and officially adopted by the AROS Team in December 2, 2002. Used in the core AROS About and installer tools, it was also adopted by several AROS community sites and early distributions. Other AROS identifiable symbols and logos are used around the cat shape, such as IcAROS logo which is stylised cat Eye, or AFA (Aros for Amiga).

More selected articles... Read more...

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Box-header/colours' not found.

Jon Hare
Jon "Jops" Hare (born 20 January 1966, Ilford, Essex, England) is an English computer game designer, game artist and musician. He is one of the two founder members and directors, with Chris Yates, of Sensible Software, one of the most successful European games development companies of the late 1980s and 1990s.

Hare was co-designer and artist of all of Sensible's hits prior to 1992 including Parallax, Wizball, Microprose Soccer, SEUCK and Wizkid. He was also the lead designer, composer and creative director of Mega Lo Mania, the Sensible Soccer series and the Cannon Fodder series, some of the most popular software franchises of the mid-1990s.

More selected biographies… Read more…

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Box-header/colours' not found.

Amiga 520 RF output adapter for the Amiga 500
Credit: Johann H. Addicks

Amiga 520 RF output adapter for the Amiga 500.

More selected pictures... Read more...

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'Module:Box-header/colours' not found.

...that AtheOS was originally intended to be a clone of AmigaOS?
Other "Did you know" facts... Read more...

Template:/box-header

Template:/box-footer

Template:/box-header


Template:/box-footer

Template:/box-header

Template:/box-footer

Template:/box-header

  • Create articles: There are many articles that have yet to be started... Pick your favorite and start researching!
  • Find photos for articles: Many Amiga–related articles would be substantially better with the addition of photographs.
  • Expand articles: There are many Amiga stubs which could use extensive updates and development.
  • Find sources: Many poorly sourced articles could use better citations.
  • Wikify: Add {{Portal|Amiga}} to the See also sections of Amiga-related articles.

Template:/box-footer

Template:/box-header

The following Wikimedia sister projects provide more on this subject:
Wikibooks  Wikimedia Commons Wikinews  Wikiquote  Wikisource  Wikiversity  Wikivoyage  Wiktionary  Wikidata 
Books Media News Quotations Texts Learning resources Travel guides Definitions Database

Template:/box-footer