What is an Amiga?

[Raziel]

Well?

[mikeymike]

Would you like to be a little more specific, or are you trying to start a flamefest? :-)

[Wain]

It's okay Mike I'll handle this one...


An Amiga is a computer.

 :-D

[Raziel]

Thank you captain   :-o  wow wunderbar
let me reformat so you understand

Why would i want an amiga--------
i know what it is------
what can i do with one----
that cannot be done----
with a pc  

spank you

[Raziel]

flamefest?

no being serious

[alx]

Amiga on Wikipedia - I'd read that first.

[browny]

Hi, Raziel
Q.  What is an Amiga ?
A.  Was the first serious games and home computer.

your PeeCEE is a decendant !! (Throwback)

[mikeymike]

Ok...

The Amiga was a series of computers released in the eighties/nineties.  Many people like its hardware architecture, it was ground-breaking at the time.  Many people like the OS (previously called Workbench, now AmigaOS) because it is a low-footprint, fast, easy to configure, efficient OS.

Amigas were used primarily for gaming, but also for professional graphics work, notably TV editing, as well as standard office'y type applications stuff.

Here is a good guide to the history of the Amiga.  Here is a guide to the evolution of Workbench/AmigaOS.

Currently what is "Amiga" is a bit fragmented.  AmigaOS 4.0 is due to arrive "at some point soon", MorphOS is an OS available now that is applications-compatible with the old range of Amigas, and AROS is an x86 port of AmigaOS.

What can be done with an Amiga?  99% of the stuff you can do on a PC, though it lacks commercial support, which means that most of the applications available are freeware, and so there are little or no big projects to write Amiga applications.

[mikeymike]

your PeeCEE is a decendant !! (Throwback)

Advocacy to a minimum please :-)

[Raziel]

Amiga on Wikipedia - I'd read that first.

thank you for that i appreciate it

i will reformat  the question in long terms so tech heads will understand

I understand what an amiga does what it is capable of and why it has a "cult following",  but  what i dont understand is what is it capable of doing that cannot be accomplished on higher end video editing etc systems now. In other words why would i upgrade my amiga?,and put a ton of money into wouldnt it be better to just eat a hot bowl of die and get one of those newer machines or an amiga 1?

not insulting or flaming just curious  i know pcs eat  pony loaf as well

edit:thank you mikey mike  i am very interested in learning all about amigas thanks for the great links :-)

[alx]

Here's a longer post...

Many people think that a "PC" running Windows is what a "Computer" is for home users, but they couldn't be more wrong.  Amiga is very similar to Apple - when the Amiga was really popular, there were lots of competing systems, like the Amiga, Atari and Apple.

The Amiga was released in 1985.  It was special as it was the first computer to completely target the "multimedia" market.  How did it do this?  With its hardware.  When the Amiga was released, people were gobsmacked.  It could produce 4096 simultaneous colours at a time when PCs were monochrome or 4 colours.  As was said in a magazine:

"The Amiga is potentially powerful enough to make the IBM PC look like a 4 button calculator".

The power to drive all this came from the "Custom Chipset" - a closely integrated set of state-of-the-art microchips with funny names like "Angus" and "Denise".  The idea of using seperate processors for graphics etc was in its infancy - nowadays we take it for granted that a graphics card has a GPU, a sound card has a DSP etc, but it wasn't always the case, and the Amiga helped shape that.

Amigas run AmigaOS - a powerful multitasking operating system that is extremely lean and fast.  Its still remarkable what it manages to do on the old "Classic Amiga" hardware.

So what happened?  Commodore (who owned Amiga) released various improved models until the early 1990s, where it all started to go wrong - the Amiga entered a game of pass-the-parcel, going to several companies, none of which managed to do anything meaningful with it.  In the meantime, the Amigas were upgraded with fast processors, graphics cards etc and still used as primary computers.

Now, finally, something is happening.  The Amiga eventually found its way to a company now called "Amiga incorperated" who are supervising the production of new machines and an OS - AmigaOS4, which is nearly complete.  The AmigaONE is the machine, and is fairly similar to a Mac.

Another development is a company called Genesi, who are producing a computer called the "Pegasos" and an OS called "MorphOS", which is fully compatible with AmigaOS.  There is even an opensource version called "AROS".

Amiga was a groundbreaking computer that made it all possible - and its still going today :-D

---edit---

Just read your post above - I'll see if I can write another essay for you ;-)

[mikeymike]

@ Raziel

Well, what do you do with your PC?  Then we might be able to frame a more appropriate response.

Most of my Amiga-related opinions are on my website here, but I think it basically boils down to, for most people, that they prefer the OS [or a derivative] to others available.

For example, I use Windows 2000 primarily, I get along with it quite well because I know what I'm doing, but I enjoy using AmigaOS.  Not so with Windows.  The only way you might see what I mean here is either if you dig up your Amiga (presuming you have one), and upgrade it a little, or copy the ROM/OS disk images off it, and emulate it on Windows using WinUAE.  That's what I do for lack of physical space.

In terms of new computers available, currently there is the AmigaOne and the Pegasos.  The AmigaOne will run Amiga OS4.0 and the Pegasos currently runs MorphOS.  They have a PowerPC processor architecture, which is incompatible with Wintel/X86.

[mikeymike]

"The Amiga is potentially powerful enough to make the IBM PC look like a 4 button calculator".

Would that be Control, Alt, Delete and the power button? :-)

[DIABLO_NEGRO]

I should add an amiga key on all my PC keyboards

VIVA LA AMIGA  :-o

[Raziel]

Alx and mikey mike
Thank you very much for all the info
I think im beginning to realize how ahead of its time it was.

Also  sorry to be so general in my questions, i am a techie with pcs, but noob squared with amigas and i figured  i would come to the knowledge base that is amiga.org  to learn more so sorry if anyone is/was annoyed. :-)