THE AMIGA's History and Future.
-------------------------------
  
   The Amiga has come a long way since the beginning and has changed owners several 
times. Fortunately the Amiga survived and will hopefully rise to Top position again.

   This document contains the history of the Amiga compiled from what I have read the 
last couple of years since I bought my A1200. And remember this is essential information
for any Amiga user.   
      
   As we all surely know the Amiga's life began in 1985. 
Amiga ( the company ) developed a groundbreaking machine codenamed, Lorraine. But they 
ran into financial trouble and Commodore Business Machines bought their shares. 
Lorraine then got more memory and was released as the Commodore Amiga A1000. 
  It was the most amazing machine : 4096 colour, genlockable graphics, digital sound 
( at a time when PCs were mono beepers ) ,a powerful CPU and a graphics orientated 
efficient multitasking OS. It sold for $1000+ and was selling well because of its 
wonderful capabilities. 

   In 1987-89 the A500 and the A2000 were launched. The A2000 a PC competitor (lots of 
slots) and the A500 an Atari competitor. 
   The A500 succeeded to beat the Atari and the A2000 were mainly bought by Graphics 
artists - it failed to make an impact in the hallowed business market.

   1990-91 saw the launch of the overdue A3000. Workbench 2, 32-bit, 68030, SCSI, ECS 
and the ability to use standard SVGA monitors were some of the exciting new feutures. 
It was sleek and fast and many Amiga users rate it as the best Amiga ever made. 
   The Video Toaster & Lightwave 3D were also released during this time and the Amiga 
would never be the same again. Almost all NTSC TV producers adopted the Amiga and the 
result was professional 3D graphics in TV productions for 10 times less money and effort 
than Workstations. ( Just check Seaquest DSV, Babylon 5 and Robocop the series ).
   The doomed CDTV ( an A500 in a Hi-Fi box with a CD-ROM ) was also launched. Commodore 
knew CD-ROM was the way forward but couldn't implement it correctly. The CDTV also did 
more harm to the Amiga name than good.

  1992... This is were everything really started to go wrong. New management proved
fatal to the Amiga.  The Original Management pushed 2 systems:
-The A3000+ was basically an AGA A3000 with the inclusion of the AT&T DSP32. The DSP 
was very powerful and could emulate a V.42 bis FAX/Data Modem through SOFTWARE!
It was of such that it would've cost the same as the original A3000 - even with
the AGA and DSP!
-The A1000+ was a super-low-cost 2slot AGA Amiga. The case was like the A1000 but 
without the keyboard space. CPU was going to be either a 28mhz 68020 or a 68EC030.
It was going to cost $999 with 2mb or 4mb.
  What happened was that the projects were scrapped by the new managemnnt and the 
A600 was built - it cost more than the A500 and did less! Then they tried an ECS A1000+ 
design but it cost much more than the original AGA A1000+ design and was also binned.
Then they took the ECS A1000+ design ( an hacked up A3000 design in a bad case ) and 
made the A3200. The A3200 was a very hacked AGA-based A3000 in a very bad case. The case 
was so bad they had to put the CPU on a seperate card to make it fit. This CPU card 
wasn't even really reworked for this design and only worked properly with an 68030. 
The cost was so high Commodore plugged in a 68040 which didn't really work properly and 
called the machine the A4000. ( Now you know why the A4000 has got slow memory access ) 
Even the SCSI-interface was removed and they replaced it with slow IDE. The engineering 
team was very frustrated but they tried to make the best out of it by using 72pin SIMMs 
and including a better Buster for Zorro-III. 

  1993: The A4000 was released in it's very hacked up form. Many cried over the missing
SCSI-interface and Flicker Fixer. 
  The Flicker Fixer was an excellent idea and the exclusion of this also harmed the 
Amiga name as most Amigas were now used with low-resolution flickering 15khz TV Monitors
 - not even PCs used such a monitor.
  Okay, you could buy a MultiScan but they were ( and still are ) very scarce and 
expensive. 
  All was not bad though. AGA was better than PC VGA and Workbench 3 was released.
There was also support for VGAs with the DoublePAL mode but this only worked in 
OS-friendly programs and halved the AGA bandwidth.
  The A1200 appeared later. This machine took the A500 idea of cramming in as much
as possible. 68020, AGA, Workbench 3, even the IDE looked like a good idea! Although
the PCMCIA interface didn't prove that useful as it was supposed to be. Many Amiga
Users see this as the Ultimate Amiga and not the A4000.
  Development started on the AAA chipset which promised better graphics as well as an
overdue sound upgrade.

  1994: The CD32 was released. Basically it was an CDTV Mark II but based on the A1200 
with the inclusion of the slow Akiko Chunky to Planar converter. This was supposed to 
be a console to compete against Sega and the likes. Once again it did a lot of harm to
the Amiga image. Why did Commodore bother? They could've added an CD-ROM to the A1200
or A4000 as standard which would've been a much bigger success. They knew they 
should've concentrated on the PC and Macintosh market but no, they want to create
an useless games machine instead of tackling the serious computer market with much
bigger benefits. 
  Workbench 3.1 was also released with CD-ROM support and as an upgrade to all Amigas. 
  The A4000T got released just before the Commodore liquidation. Basically it was the 
high-end machine the A4000 never was. SCSI, more expansion slots, tower case, some
DMA problems solved, unfortunately still no Flicker Fixer.
  Behind the scenes Commodore planned a RISC Amiga. The Hewlett Packard PA RISC was
their CPU choice as it had good 68000 compatibility. They also planned a 3D RISC custom
chip for the new Amiga, unfortunately the inevitable happened.
  Commodore US filed for liquidation on 29 April 1994. The rest of the Amiga world 
seemed unaffected and 3rd-party development for the Amiga continued although some of the
bigger companies pulled out.
  Two months later JAY MINER, one of the designers of the Amiga regardes as the "Father 
of the Amiga" passed away on June 20, 1994. A huge loss to the Amiga Community.

  1995: Escom bought Commodore after a year and relaunched the Amiga on 30 May 1995.
But beforehand they bought most of the bankrupt High Street stores in England - 
a huge capital investment - that later proved to much for them. 
  They re-released the A1200 and A4000T as well as Multiscan monitors for Amigas. But 
the Amiga had not been developed for over a year then and wasn't that competitive 
anymore. Although it was still superior to the PC ( which haven't even got a decent
OS or architecture ( or users ;D ) in many ways.  
  Apple Macintosh started using the PowerPC RISC processor putting it way in front of
the Amiga in terms of power.

   1996: The first new Amiga prototype got reveiled at CeBIT show. 
  Project Walker looked radically different and got billed the "vacuum cleaner". 
It had a 68EC030 CPU, Standard HDD and 4x CD, 2MB Chip & 4MB FAST Memory, Better I/O 
Controller, Workbench 3.2 and a new expansion slot. Amiga Tecnologies claimed it will be 
available by Spring but eventually the project got scrapped. 
  In July Escom filed for liquidation. The future definately didn't look too bright. 
More Amiga developers lost their hope and Newtek ( who originally made the Video 
Toaster ) stopped developing Lightwave 3D for the Amiga as it made more profit in the
PC market.
  To make matters even worse the PC got a hacked attempt at Multitasking in the form 
of Windows 95 - the competition for the new Amigas was going to be fierce. 

   1997...(NOW) The future started looking bright again early in the year. 
Two Amiga compatible PowerPC machines were announced. 
-PIOS ONE ,the less compatible of the two, was already in prototype stages as it was 
based around standard components. It ran BeOS, a new multitasking alternative OS from 
Be Inc.and pOS, an OS from ProDAD.
-The A\Box from Phase 5 was and is still in the development stages but it promises a lot.
The base of the system is the unique 128bit CAIPIRINHA chip.The system has Monitor output
as well as Video & Audio Inputs and Outputs. The OS is an AmigaOS 3.1 Exec mixed 
with UNIX for Multiprocessor, MultiUser etc. support as well as an "Amiga Virtual
Machine" which promises to run original 680x0 Amiga binaries. A truly amazing machine 
(just like the original A1000 was ) and they expect it to sell for Pentium prices ( with
the Video & Audio Inputs included! ). 
   The BIG NEWS of 1997 was the acquisition of Amiga Technologies by GATEWAY 2000, an
company with revenue earnings for 1996 exceeding $5 billion. At last the Amiga has
money and power behind it.
   Until now they haven't revealed their plan yet but they are selling Amiga licenses.
   Micronik released the A1400T - an A1200 in a tower with Zorro slots.
   Two other Amiga clones was also announced in August. They are based on the AGA 
chipset and will be used in Multimedia kiosks and Point of Sale systems. 
   An A600-based Notebook was also announced.
   
   What has the FUTURE got in store for us ?
Although the Amiga has survived its ordeal, it had not been developed for the past 
couple of years because of the financial diffuculties its parent companies had suffered.
It is not that far behind though. The Amiga still has an superior OS and every now
and then its custom chips delivers a surprise. But we do need a new processor and a more 
modern custom chipset to regain market share. That won't be too hard as the PC hasn't 
even got a decent architecture or OS ( or users ;-) ) and the Macintosh is heading the 
same way with their CHRP systems.
   Therefore the FUTURE of the Amiga is bright. 
GATEWAY 2000 will successfully re-introduce the Amiga as they know a lot about 
marketing ( the one thing Commodore lacked ). 
   The Amiga will also definately upgrade to the PowerPC RISC as future CPU. 
   And we probably wouldn't have to wait that long for new Amigas as the A\Box might 
as well become the next Amiga with licensing from GATEWAY 2000. 
   I think Amiga International will be looking more into developing the AmigaOS. 
Some feutures the next AmigaOS might include will JAVA, a TCP/IP stack and much better 
devices support as well as advanced RTG Graphics and Audio.

   And... At the moment I don't know anything else. I hoped you learned a lot out of 
this document. 

  
   Please excuse any grammar or concord errors as English is my Second Language.
If you really like this document and you happen to be in a very high position you can
show your gratitude by appointing an Amiga distributer in South Africa. 
( Current support is almost non-existant - only 1 shop in the whole SA! )

Cheers.

Copyleft © 1997 Bertus Viljoen

This document was written on 9 October 1997 on an Amiga A1200.
You can do anything with it if you don't alter it. If you correct the errors you should 
still include my name.
Thank you.

Bertus Viljoen
South Africa      
Knysna 

E-mail : eugene-viljoen@pixie.co.za