The
Early Years
This
is the first of a
special series of
features focusing
on the Amiga computing
platform, over them
I will take you through
what an Amiga is (in
case you were either
on Mars during the
late '80's/early '90's
or if you are too
young to recall the
glory days), what
went wrong and where
Amiga is now. Hopefully,
this will be a regular
occurrence - feature
"themes"
so to speak.
The
Amiga has arguably
had more of an impact
than any other games
system on the industry
- if it wasn't for
the Amiga it is likely
that the UK wouldn't
have had such a high
profile development
community today.
The
man behind the Amiga
was called Jay Miner,
before joining the
Amiga team he had
drifted amongst technology
startups in Silicon
Valley before eventually
gaining a job with
Atari. They he worked
on the 2600 before
going on to help create
the Atari 400 and
800. However, he wasn't
really interested
in all this, what
he really wanted was
to produce a 16-bit
home computer (stop
laughing this was
a long time ago!)
but Atari wasn't interested
mainly due to cost
- so he quit.
In
1982 Miner joined
a bloke called Larry
Kaplan (another ex-Atari
man) and Dave Morse
(ex-Tonka toys), who
had been approached
by investors with
regards to developing
a new games console.
Miner
though wanted to develop
a fully blown home
computer, not a console
and so without telling
the investors they
went ahead with this
plan. The group which
eventually decided
to call itself Amiga
was joined by a number
of highly talented,
but quirky programmers
and engineers - not
all who would have
found employment at
more conservative
companies.
Miner
interviewed Carl Sassenrath
for a job designing
the new machines Operating
System. He was asked
what he really wanted
to design and he eventually
came up with the Amiga's
kernal Exec, a multitasking
system - the first
home computer OS to
include multitasking.
The
WIMP environment was
taken care of by RJ
Mical, it was called
Intuition and in these
days he basically
took care of the task
completely by himself.
The task took him
three weeks solid,
only asking for help
once!
The
custom graphics co-processor
was being designed
at the same time by
Miner himself - it
included a blitter
for moving rapidly
areas of graphics
RAM. He came up with
all sorts of functions
for the blitter, but
line drawing was only
added later, much
later in fact - two
weeks before the Amiga
was to debut at the
CES show in New York.
The
machine was a huge
success at the show,
however the company
was in financial trouble.
This was at a time
when there had been
a general down turn
in the gaming industry
and investors were
beginning to get itchy
feet. The team were
running short of cash
to turn their dream
of a fully blown home
computer into a reality.
At one stage Morse
had to take out a
second mortgage to
pay the wages and
the bills.
They
made it through to
the next CES show,
but by that stage
it was obvious that
if the Amiga was going
to survive, the company
had to be sold. Atari
desperately wanted
the custom chip-set
technology and bailed
the group out with
$500,000, which was
apparently all spent
the next day.
The
condition was that
either the money was
paid back in thirty
days, the company
sold out to Atari
or they licensed the
chip-set. However,
Commodore stepped
in and bought the
company from under
Atari's noses - obviously
pissed off, Atari
went ahead without
the chip-set and produced
the ST...
[click
to continue]
//agi.
[agi@fsmail.net]