Technology | Nostalgia | 1980s | Life Story

Remembering the Commodore Amiga: A Landmark Multimedia Personal Computer

Reflecting on the impact and innovations of the Amiga through personal experiences in the 80s and 90s

This is an updated version of an article I wrote a few years ago for some of my now-defunct blogs.

To my non-technical readers: Look out for the photo of Amiga Format magazine. I hope you find that section amusing!

The original Amiga (known later as the Amiga 1000), with its ‘pizza box’ case and separate keyboard. Photo by Kaiiv licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

I resigned myself to the fact that it would be a long time before I could afford such a machine.

Magazines at College

The original Amiga was launched in 1985 when I was still at college. I often used to read magazines in the library there, and remember discovering articles in Practical Computing and Personal Computer World — both of which covered the Amiga, as well as the Atari ST.

Compared to the 8-bit computers that I was familiar with, this new breed of more affordable 16-bit machines, which featured the powerful 68000 microprocessor, seemed incredible. It felt like…