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 Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first personal computer with a bitmapped color GUI, using a version of Digital Research's GEM from February 1985. The Atari 1040ST, released in 1986 with 1 MB of RAM, was the first home computer with a cost-per-kilobyte of less than US$1.
Commodore International was an American home computer and electronics manufacturer founded by Jack Tramiel. Commodore International (CI), along with its subsidiary Commodore Business Machines (CBM), was a significant participant in the development of the home computer industry in the 1970s to early 1990s. In 1982, the company developed and marketed the world's best-selling computer, the Commodore 64, and released its Amiga computer line in July 1985. Commodore was one of the world's largest personal computer manufacturers, with sales peaking in the last quarter of 1983 at $49 million.
A RAM drive is a block of random-access memory that a computer's software is treating as if the memory were a disk drive. RAM drives provide high-performance temporary storage for demanding tasks and protect non-volatile storage devices from wearing down, since RAM is not prone to wear from writing, unlike non-volatile flash memory. They are in a sense the reverse of virtual memory: RAM drive uses a volatile fast memory as if it's a nonvolatile slow memory. Virtual memory is the opposite.
The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 with the Atari 400 and Atari 800. As the first home computer architecture with coprocessors, it has graphics and sound more advanced than most of its contemporaries. Video games were a major appeal, and first-person space combat simulator Star Raiders is considered the platform's killer app. The "Atari 8-bit family" label was not contemporaneous. Atari, Inc., used the term "Atari 800 [or 400] home computer system", often combining the model names into "Atari 400/800" or "Atari home computers".
MetaComCo (MCC) was a computer systems software company started in 1981 and based in Bristol, England by Peter Mackeonis and Derek Budge. A division of Tenchstar, Ltd.
The Atari Transputer Workstation is a workstation class computer released by Atari Corporation in the late 1980s, based on the INMOS transputer. It was introduced in 1987 as the Abaq, but the name was changed before sales began. Sales were almost non-existent, and the product was canceled after only a few hundred units had been produced.
The transputer is a series of pioneering microprocessors from the 1980s, intended for parallel computing. To support this, each transputer had its own integrated memory and serial communication links to exchange data with other transputers. They were designed and produced by Inmos, a semiconductor company based in Bristol, United Kingdom.
Meiko Scientific Ltd. was a British supercomputer company based in Bristol, founded by members of the design team working on the Inmos transputer microprocessor.
A blitter is a circuit, sometimes as a coprocessor or a logic block on a microprocessor, dedicated to the rapid movement and modification of data within a computer's memory. A blitter can copy large quantities of data from one memory area to another relatively quickly, and in parallel with the CPU, while freeing up the CPU's more complex capabilities for other operations. A typical use for a blitter is the movement of a bitmap, such as windows and fonts in a graphical user interface or images and backgrounds in a 2D video game. The name comes from the bit blit operation of the 1973 Xerox Alto, which stands for bit-block transfer. A blit operation is more than a memory copy, because it can involve data that's not byte aligned, handling transparent pixels, and various ways of combining the source and destination data.
Carl Sassenrath 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 the designer of the REBOL computer language, REBOL/IOS collaboration environment, the Safeworlds AltME private messaging system, and other products. Carl is currently a Principal Engineer at Roku, Inc.
Helios is a discontinued Unix-like operating system for parallel computers. It was developed and published by Perihelion Software. Its primary architecture is the Inmos Transputer. Helios' microkernel implements a distributed namespace and messaging protocol, through which services are accessed. A POSIX compatibility library enables the use of Unix application software, and the system provides most of the usual Unix utilities.
The Amiga is a family of home computers that were designed and sold by the Amiga Corporation from 1985 to 1994.
The Amiga computer can be used to emulate several other computer platforms, including legacy platforms such as the Commodore 64, and its contemporary rivals such as the IBM PC and the Macintosh.
Amiga software is computer software engineered to run on the Amiga personal computer. Amiga software covers many applications, including productivity, digital art, games, commercial, freeware and hobbyist products. The market was active in the late 1980s and early 1990s but then dwindled. Most Amiga products were originally created directly for the Amiga computer, and were not ported from other platforms.
Workbench is the desktop environment and graphical file manager of AmigaOS developed by Commodore International for their Amiga line of computers. Workbench provides the user with a graphical interface to work with file systems and launch applications. It uses a workbench metaphor for representing file system organisation.
Exec is the kernel of AmigaOS. It is a 13 KB multitasking microkernel which enabled pre-emptive multitasking in as little as 256 KB of memory. Exec provided functions for multitasking, memory management, and handling of interrupts and dynamic shared libraries.
Polyhedra is a family of relational database management systems offered by ENEA AB, a Swedish company. The original version of Polyhedra was an in-memory database management system which could be used in high availability configurations; in 2006 Polyhedra Flash DBMS was introduced to allow databases to be stored in flash memory. All versions employ the client–server model to ensure the data are protected from misbehaving application software, and they use the same SQL, ODBC and type-4 JDBC interfaces. Polyhedra is targeted primarily for embedded use by Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), and big-name customers include Ericsson, ABB, Emerson, Lockheed Martin, United Utilities and Siemens AG.
