 The first logo | |
| Industry | Computer |
|---|---|
| Founded | September 1982 (as Hi-Toro) |
| Defunct | August 1984 |
| Fate | Became a subsidiary of Commodore International |
| Successor | Commodore-Amiga, Inc. |
| Headquarters | Santa Clara, California, United States |
Key people | Jay Miner (founder) |
| Products | Amiga |
| Website | amiga |
Amiga Corporation was a United States computer company formed in the early 1980s as Hi-Toro. It is most famous for having developed the Amiga computer, code named Lorraine.
In the early 1980s Jay Miner, along with other Atari staffers, had become fed up with management and decamped. In September 1982, [1] they set up another chip-set project under a new company in Santa Clara, California, called Hi-Toro (which meant "high bull" to them, [2] later renamed to Amiga), where they could have some creative freedom. There, they started to create a new 68000-based games console, codenamed Lorraine, that could be upgraded to a full-fledged computer. The initial start-up financing of Amiga Corporation was provided by three dentists in Florida, who later regained their investment once Commodore bought the company.
To raise money for the Lorraine project, Amiga designed and sold joysticks and game cartridges for popular game consoles such as the Atari 2600 and ColecoVision, as well as an input device called the Joyboard, essentially a joystick the player stood on.
During development in 1983, Amiga had exhausted venture capital and was desperate for more financing. Jay Miner approached his former employer, Atari, which then paid Amiga to continue development work. [3] In return Atari was to obtain one-year exclusive use of the design. Atari had plans for a 68000-based machine, code-named "Mickey", that would have used customized chips, but details were sparse.
During this period a downturn started in the video game business that turned into the Video game crash of 1983. By the end of the year, Atari was losing about $1 million a day, and its owner, Warner Communications, sought to sell the company. For some time, no one was interested.
Meanwhile, at Commodore International a fight was brewing between Jack Tramiel, the president, and Irving Gould, the primary shareholder. Tramiel was pressing the development of a 32-bit machine to replace their earlier Commodore 64 and derived machines, fearing a new generation of machines like the Apple Macintosh would render the 64 completely obsolete. The fighting continued until Tramiel was dismissed on January 13, 1984. [4]
Tramiel formed a holding company, Tramel Technology, Ltd., (a phonetic spelling of "Tramiel" [5] ) and visited various US computer companies with the intention of purchasing a company for manufacturing and possible technology acquisitions. Tramiel visited Mindset (run by Roger Badersher, former head of Atari's Computer Division), and Amiga. Amiga's talks eventually fell through as Tramiel told Amiga staff that he was very interested in the chipset, but not the staff. In the meantime, he had set his chief engineer (former Commodore engineer Shiraz Shivji) the task of developing a new low-cost, high-end computer system.
Tramiel's design for his next generation computer was 95% completed by June (which only fueled speculation that Shivji and other engineers had taken technology with them from Commodore). Tramiel discovered that Warner Communications wanted to sell Atari, which at that point was losing about $10,000 a day. Interested in Atari's overseas manufacturing and worldwide distribution network for his new computer, he approached Atari and entered talks. After on again/off again negotiations with Atari in May and June 1984, Tramiel had secured his funding and bought Atari's Consumer Division (which included the console and home computer departments) that July; Tramel Technology, Ltd. became Atari Corporation. Commodore filed an injunction against Tramiel and Atari, seeking to bar them from releasing their new computer.
One of Tramiel's first acts after forming Atari Corp. was to fire most of Atari's remaining staff[ citation needed ] and cancel almost all ongoing projects in order to review their continued viability. It was during this time in late July that Tramiel's representatives discovered the original Atari Inc./Amiga contract.
BYTE had reported in April 1984 that Amiga "is developing a 68000-based home computer with a custom graphics processor. With 128K bytes of RAM and a floppy-disk drive, the computer will reportedly sell for less than $1000 late this year". [6] It turned out that Amiga was supposed to deliver the Amiga chipset to Atari Inc. on June 30, 1984, or forfeit the company and its technology. With the deadline fast approaching and still not having enough funds to finish development, the Amiga crew went on alert after having heard rumors that Tramiel was in closed negotiations to complete the purchase of Atari in several days. Remembering Tramiel's visit that Spring during their investor campaign, they began scrambling for another large investor. So, at around the same time that Tramiel was in negotiations with Atari, Amiga wound up entering into discussions with Commodore. The discussions ultimately led to Commodore wanting to purchase Amiga outright, which would (from Commodore's viewpoint) cancel any outstanding contracts — including the contract given to the now defunct Atari Inc. So instead of Amiga delivering the chipset to Atari, Commodore delivered a check of $500,000 to Atari Corp. on Amiga's behalf (right about the time they were discovering the contract), in effect returning the funds invested into Amiga for completion of the Lorraine chipset.
Seeing a chance to gain some leverage, Tramiel immediately used the situation to countersue Commodore through its new (pending) subsidiary, Amiga, which was done on August 13, 1984. He sought damages and an injunction to bar Amiga (and effectively Commodore) from producing anything with that technology. The suit tried to render Commodore's new acquisition (and the source for its next generation of computers) useless and do to Commodore what they were trying to do to him.
Meanwhile, at Commodore, the Amiga team (according to conversations by Curt Vendel of Atarimuseum.com directly with Dave Needle of Amiga and also with Joe Decuir of Amiga) was sitting in limbo for nearly the entire summer because of the lawsuit. No word on the status of the chipset, the Lorraine computer system or the team's fate was known. Finally in the fall of 1984 Commodore informed the team that the Lorraine project was active again, the chipset to be improved, the OS developed and the hardware design completed.
From this point on the former Amiga Corporation was a division of Commodore. Over the next few years many employees felt Commodore's management proved to be as annoying as Atari's, and most of the team members left, were laid off, or were fired. Meanwhile, Atari used this time to finish and release the Atari ST computer just months ahead of the release of the Amiga.
Both lawsuits themselves were laid to rest in March 1987, when Commodore and Atari Corp. settled out of court in a closed decision.
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 Atari 8-bit family. 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.
Atari is a brand name that has been owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by French company Atari SA through a subsidiary named Atari Interactive. The original Atari, Inc., founded in Sunnyvale, California, USA in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney, was a pioneer in arcade games, home video game consoles, and home computers. The company's products, such as Pong and the Atari 2600, helped define the electronic entertainment industry from the 1970s to the mid-1980s.
The Atari 2600 is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977 as the Atari Video Computer System, it popularized microprocessor-based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridges, a format first used with the Fairchild Channel F in 1976. The VCS was bundled with two joystick controllers, a conjoined pair of paddle controllers, and a game cartridge—initially Combat and later Pac-Man. Sears sold the system as the Tele-Games Video Arcade. Atari rebranded the VCS as the Atari 2600 in November 1982 alongside the release of the Atari 5200.
The Atari 7800 ProSystem, or simply the Atari 7800, is a home video game console officially released by Atari Corporation in 1986 as the successor to both the Atari 2600 and Atari 5200. It can run almost all Atari 2600 cartridges, making it one of the first consoles with backward compatibility. It shipped with a different model of joystick from the 2600-standard CX40 and Pole Position II as the pack-in game. Most of the announced titles at launch were ports of 1981–1983 arcade video games.
The Amiga 1000, also known as the A1000, is the first personal computer released by Commodore International in the Amiga line. It combines the 16/32-bit Motorola 68000 CPU which was powerful by 1985 standards with one of the most advanced graphics and sound systems in its class. It runs a preemptive multitasking operating system that fits into 256 KB of read-only memory and was shipped with 256 KB of RAM. The primary memory can be expanded internally with a manufacturer-supplied 256 KB module for a total of 512 KB of RAM. Using the external slot the primary memory can be expanded up to 8.5 MB.
The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International. It has been listed in the Guinness World Records as the highest-selling single computer model of all time, with independent estimates placing the number sold between 12.5 and 17 million units. Volume production started in early 1982, marketing in August for US$595. Preceded by the VIC-20 and Commodore PET, the C64 took its name from its 64 kilobytes(65,536 bytes) of RAM. With support for multicolor sprites and a custom chip for waveform generation, the C64 could create superior visuals and audio compared to systems without such custom hardware.
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 second-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.
Jay Glenn Miner was an American integrated circuit designer, known primarily for developing graphics and audio chips for the Atari 2600 and Atari 8-bit family and as the "father of the Amiga".
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".
Jack Tramiel was an American businessman and Holocaust survivor, best known for founding Commodore International. The Commodore PET, VIC-20, and Commodore 64 are some home computers produced while he was running the company. Tramiel later formed Atari Corporation after he purchased the remnants of the original Atari, Inc. from its parent company. He was one of 6 people spotlighted when the computer was denoted "Machine of the Year" by Time magazine in 1982.
The Motorola 68000 series is a family of 32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and were the primary competitors of Intel's x86 microprocessors. They were best known as the processors used in the early Apple Macintosh, the Sharp X68000, the Commodore Amiga, the Sinclair QL, the Atari ST and Falcon, the Atari Jaguar, the Sega Genesis, the Philips CD-i, the Capcom System I (Arcade), the AT&T UNIX PC, the Tandy Model 16/16B/6000, the Sun Microsystems Sun-1, Sun-2 and Sun-3, the NeXT Computer, NeXTcube, NeXTstation, and NeXTcube Turbo, early Silicon Graphics IRIS workstations, computers from MASSCOMP, the Texas Instruments TI-89/TI-92 calculators, the Palm Pilot, the Control Data Corporation CDCNET Device Interface, and the Space Shuttle. Although no modern desktop computers are based on processors in the 680x0 series, derivative processors are still widely used in embedded systems.
The VIC-20 is an 8-bit home computer that was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the PET. The VIC-20 was the first computer of any description to sell one million units. It was described as "one of the first anti-spectatorial, non-esoteric computers by design...no longer relegated to hobbyist/enthusiasts or those with money, the computer Commodore developed was the computer of the future."
Atari Corporation was an American manufacturer of computers and video game consoles. It was founded by Jack Tramiel on May 17, 1984, as Tramel Technology, Ltd., but then took on the Atari name less than two months later when Warner Communications sold the home computing and game console assets of Atari, Inc. to Tramiel. Its chief products were the Atari ST, Atari XE, Atari 7800, Atari Lynx and Atari Jaguar.
Amiga, Inc. is a company that used to hold some trademarks and other assets associated with the Amiga personal computer.
The Amiga is a family of home computers that were designed and sold by the Amiga Corporation from 1985 to 1994.
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Atari, Inc. was an American video game developer and home computer company founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. Atari was a key player in the formation of the video arcade and video game industry.
The Atari AMY was a 64-oscillator additive synthesizer implemented as a single-IC sound chip. It was initially developed as part of a new advanced chipset, codenamed "Rainbow" that included a graphics processor and sprite generator. Rainbow was considered for use in the 16/32-bit workstation known as Sierra, but the Sierra project was bogged down in internal committee meetings. However the Rainbow chipset development continued up until Atari's CED and HCD divisions were sold to Tramel Technology, Ltd. For a time, AMY was slated to be included in the Atari 520ST, then an updated version of the Atari 8-bit family, the 65XEM, but development was discontinued. The technology was later sold, but when the new owners started to introduce it as a professional synthesizer, Atari sued, and work on the project ended.
Sierra was the code name for a 16-bit/32-bit personal computer designed by the Sunnyvale Research Lab (SRL) of Atari, Inc. starting around 1983. The design was one of several new 16-bit computer systems proposing to use a new chipset from Atari Corporate Research.
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