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.
Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the company's 8-bit home computers. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985, and it was widely available in July. The ST was the first personal computer with a bitmapped color graphical user interface, using a version of Digital Research's GEM interface / operating system, from February 1985.
The Amiga 500, also known as the A500, was the first popular version of the Amiga home computer, "redefining the home computer market and making so-called luxury features such as multitasking and colour a standard long before Microsoft or Apple sold these to the masses". It contains the same Motorola 68000 as the Amiga 1000, as well as the same graphics and sound coprocessors, but is in a smaller case similar to that of the Commodore 128.
The Original Chip Set (OCS) is a chipset used in the earliest Commodore Amiga computers and defined the Amiga's graphics and sound capabilities. It was succeeded by the slightly improved Enhanced Chip Set (ECS) and the greatly improved Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA).
The Atari 8-bit computers, formally launched as the Atari Home Computer System, are a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 with the Atari 400 and Atari 800. It is the first home computer architecture with coprocessors, enabling more advanced graphics and sound than most of its contemporaries. Video games are key to its software library, and the 1980 first-person space combat simulator Star Raiders is considered the platform's killer app.
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 icons 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.
Extra Half Brite, is a planar display mode of the Amiga computer.
The Color Graphics Adapter (CGA), originally also called the Color/Graphics Adapter or IBM Color/Graphics Monitor Adapter, introduced in 1981, was IBM's first color graphics card for the IBM PC and established a de facto computer display standard.
Bill Williams was an American video game designer, programmer, composer, and author born with cystic fibrosis, a genetic disorder. According to a medical encyclopedia Williams consulted when he was 12, people with cystic fibrosis weren't expected to live past the age of 13.
A personal computer game, also known as a computer game or abbreviated PC game, is a video game played on a personal computer (PC). They are defined by the open platform nature of PC systems.
Hold-And-Modify, usually abbreviated as HAM, is a display mode of the Commodore Amiga computer. It uses a highly unusual technique to express the color of pixels, allowing many more colors to appear on screen than would otherwise be possible. HAM mode was commonly used to display digitized photographs or video frames, bitmap art and occasionally animation. At the time of the Amiga's launch in 1985, this near-photorealistic display was unprecedented for a home computer and it was widely used to demonstrate the Amiga's graphical capability. However, HAM has significant technical limitations which prevent it from being used as a general purpose display mode.
Street Racer is a racing video game published by Ubi Soft for various systems. It was released for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1994, Sega Mega Drive in 1995, PlayStation, Sega Saturn and Game Boy in 1996 and PC and Amiga in 1997. Marketed as a "cross between Mario Kart and Street Fighter", the go-kart themed game combined racing with comedy and beat 'em up influenced violence. The game was a success on the SNES and Mega Drive and received mixed reviews across platforms.
Lamborghini American Challenge is a 1992 racing video game developed and published by Titus France for the Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS, Super NES, Amiga CD32, and Game Boy.
Pizza Tycoon is a business simulation video game. The game was designed by the German company Cybernetic Corporation and Software 2000 in 1994, and was published by Assemble Entertainment after its re-release in 2017. It was published and adapted for the American market by MicroProse with changed artwork and locations.
The Amiga is a family of home computers that were designed and sold by the Amiga Corporation from 1985 to 1994.
Bomberman, also known as Dyna Blaster in Europe, is an action-maze video game originally developed and published by Hudson Soft for the PC Engine in Japan on 7 December 1990 and later in North America for the TurboGrafx-16 by NEC in 1991. Belonging to the Bomberman franchise, it is a re-imagining of the first game in the series starring White Bomberman on a quest to rescue Lisa, the kidnapped daughter of his inventor Dr. Mitsumori, from the castle of Black Bomberman while defeating evil monsters and villains that work for him. The game was later ported to home computers, each one featuring changes compared to the original version. Conversions for other platforms were in development but never released. The title garnered positive reception from critics since its initial release on the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 and later on home computers.
F29 Retaliator is a combat flight simulator video game developed by Digital Image Design and published by Ocean Software in 1989 Amiga and Atari ST, 1991 for the PC, and for the FM Towns and NEC PC-9801 in 1992-1993. Its working title was just Retaliator. The game was developed during the end of the Cold War, based mostly on speculations on then-future aircraft that were expected to be in use by the year 2002, in particular based on the design of the Lockheed Martin F-22 and the Grumman X-29A.
Composite artifact colors is a designation commonly used to address several graphic modes of some 1970s and 1980s home computers. With some machines, when connected to an NTSC TV or monitor over composite video outputs, the video signal encoding allowed for extra colors to be displayed, by manipulating the pixel position on screen, not being limited by each machine's hardware color palette.
Knights of the Crystallion is a 1990 video game for the Amiga developed by Bill Williams and published by U.S. Gold. A fantasy-themed adventure game comprising a mix of sub-games with a puzzle element, the game makes extensive use of the Amiga computer's Hold-And-Modify graphics mode.
TV Sports: Football is a 1988 video game by Cinemaware for Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, and TurboGrafx-16.
