Portal:Amiga

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Portal topics
Activities
Culture
Geography
Health
History
Mathematics
Nature
People
Philosophy
Religion
Society
Technology
Random portal
edit 

The Amiga Portal

The 1987 Amiga 500 was the best-selling model.
Shortcut

Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 16/32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphics and audio compared to previous 8-bit systems. These systems include the Atari ST—released earlier the same year—as well as the Macintosh and Acorn Archimedes. Based on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, the Amiga differs from its contemporaries through the inclusion of custom hardware to accelerate graphics and sound, including sprites and a blitter, and a pre-emptive multitasking operating system called AmigaOS.

The Amiga 1000 was released in July 1985, but production problems kept it from becoming widely available until early 1986. The best-selling model, the Amiga 500, was introduced in 1987 along with the more expandable Amiga 2000. The Amiga 3000 was introduced in 1990, followed by the Amiga 500 Plus, and Amiga 600 in March 1992. Finally, the Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000 were released in late 1992. The Amiga line sold an estimated 4.85 million units.

Although early advertisements cast the computer as an all-purpose business machine, especially when outfitted with the Sidecar IBM PC compatibility add-on, the Amiga was most commercially successful as a home computer, with a wide range of games and creative software. It also found a niche in video production with the Video Toaster hardware and software, and Amiga's audio hardware made it a popular platform for music tracker software. The processor and memory capacity enabled 3D rendering packages, including LightWave 3D, Imagine, and Traces, a predecessor to Blender.

Poor marketing and the failure of later models to repeat the technological advances of the first systems resulted in Commodore quickly losing market share to the rapidly dropping prices of IBM PC compatibles, which gained 256 color graphics in 1987, as well as the fourth generation of video game consoles.

Commodore ultimately went bankrupt in April 1994 after a version of the Amiga packaged as a game console, the Amiga CD32, failed in the marketplace. Since the demise of Commodore, various groups have marketed successors to the original Amiga line, including Genesi, Eyetech, ACube Systems Srl and A-EON Technology. AmigaOS has influenced replacements, clones, and compatible systems such as MorphOS and AROS. Currently Belgian company Hyperion Entertainment maintains and develops AmigaOS 4, which is an official and direct descendant of AmigaOS 3.1 – the last system made by Commodore for the original Amiga Computers. (Full article...)

edit 

Selected article

YAM (short for Yet Another Mailer) is a MIME-compliant e-mail client written for AmigaOS based computers. It supports multi-POP3, APOP, SMTP, TLSv1/SSLv3, multiple users, PGP, unlimited hierarchical folders, filters, a configurable GUI (based on MUI) and an ARexx interface and many other features which are common for Mail User Agents (MUA) today.

The first version of YAM, developed by Marcel Beck, was released to the Amiga public in 1995. While it was usable, it was relatively basic in terms of functionality. The 2.x release featured a major redesign of the user interface and added a lot of new features. It was (and still is) the most commonly used email client on Amiga computers, thanks in part to the fact that it was always a freeware application. (Full article...)

edit 

Selected biography

Carl Sassenrath
Carl Sassenrath
Carl Sassenrath (born 1957 in California) is an architect of operating systems and computer languages. He brought multitasking to personal computers in 1985 with the creation of the Amiga Computer operating system kernel, and he is currently the designer of the REBOL computer language as well as the CTO of REBOL Technologies.

In the late 1960s his family relocated from the San Francisco Bay Area to the small town of Eureka, California. From his early childhood Sassenrath was actively involved in electronics, amateur radio, photography, and filmmaking. When he was 13, Sassenrath began working for KEET a PBS public broadcasting television station. A year later he became a cameraman for KVIQ (American Broadcasting Company affiliate then) and worked his way up to being technical director and director for news, commercials, and local programming. (Full article...)

edit 

Categories

Category puzzle
Category puzzle
Select [►] to view subcategories
Amiga
Amiga chipsets
Amiga computers
AROS software
Amiga companies
Amiga emulators
Amiga magazines
MorphOS
AmigaOS
Amiga people
Amiga software
edit 

Selected picture

A room built in Adventure Construction Set
A room built in Adventure Construction Set
Credit: Rashid Clark
A room built in Adventure Construction Set on an Amiga using a fully custom tile set.
edit 

Did you know...

... that Joe Pillow was the name given on the ticket for the extra airline seat purchased to hold the first Amiga prototype while on the way to the January 1984 Consumer Electronics Show?
Other "Did you know" facts... Read more...
edit 

Related portals

edit 

Topics

Pen & Earth
Pen & Earth


edit 

WikiProjects

edit 

Things to do

  • 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.

Associated Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

Discover Wikipedia using portals


Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Portal:Amiga&oldid=1127745629"