On ships they call it "mutiny". That pirate Irving Gould made a fortune scuttling Commodore and The Amiga, and setting back home computing and multi-media 10 years.
many companies do the same thing as commodore. I think Atari did the same thing at one point (before the infogrames rebrand) where they fired an economically good CEO. the same could be said for politicians where Canadians chose a PM who has since brang economic growth to a standstill and brought loads of rapists from the middle East (Justin truedau) when they could've voted for someone who'd bring more economic growth and better prosperity.
_"For comparison, at the Macintosh launch just a year earlier the crowd went wild for a scrolling screen of monochrome text."_ It probably wouldn't be much different in 2020.
Except of course that synopsis is bullshit. People who bought Macs could buy the computer with a printer, drop it on their office desk, and never regret their purchase. Straight out of the box it had a suite of applications which meant you'd never need to make another purchase. Why would you buy an Amiga? When the A1000 was released it cost over $1000 ($3000+ allowing for inflation) and it had Defender of the Crown and that was about all. You could buy a Commodore 64 for about $150 or a NES for $170. You couldn't do anything with a first generation Amiga because nobody had written any of the applications which came years later yet. People speak of the Amiga as if on the day of its release it came with a video toaster and lightwave and a suite of games and applications and cost the same as the A500 in 1987. The explanation for why the Amiga failed is really basic: The Amiga fan-base have a completely unrealistic image of the Amiga and an equally unrealistic and dishonest opinion of the competition.
Real Talk? Gently chiding maybe? It can be both be a genuine comment, and a friendly dig. I think the OP made it very clear he enjoyed and appreciates the video
Real Talk? I am. I have a youtube Channel under a different name, though its fairly inactive these days and I've worked on and off as a professional musician. I well understand that these labour's of love take a lot of time and energy, I just don't overreact to friendly, joking comments. Where are you from if you don't mind me asking? Maybe this is a cultural difference. In the UK this kind of comment is totally normal and not considered insulting. Friendly banter, maybe
Patience is a virtue. Quality comes from polish and refinement. Ahoy takes their time making videos to assure the absolute highest of quality, and telling him to rush would compromise it
@Global Cringe I know and I wasn't trying to criticize Ahoy. I was just joking about how long these videos take to produce. I don't want to discredit the quality of the video, or the time that was put into creating it. RU-vidrs are so focused on quantity over quality, that it is nice to see people like Ahoy that can spend months creating masterpieces, and still succeed.
The main reason, the C64 was build to a price according to Tramiels motto "Computers for the masses, not for the classes", the Amiga on the other hand was pricey hi-tech when it came around.
Much more innovation in that time period. It was a new industry, and all the waters were uncharted. Now that the industry is solidly in the hands of a few massively rich corporations, they don't want new ideas.
@@shaggybreeks You also can't just do new ideas anymore cause most of the ideas have already been had. Well, probably not most but all the low-hanging fruit for hardware and software innovation is already gone and the bar for quality has been raised immensely.
When I was working at a local TV station in 2005, they were still using an Amiga with a Video Toaster for live titles. One of the last bastions of an otherwise sadly forgotten relic.
The original name was going to be the Amigo... "The name Amiga was chosen because it is the Spanish word for (female) friend, and alphabetically it appears before Apple in lists of computer makers. It originated as a project code-named "Lorraine", therefore the female was used instead of the male and general version Amigo."
When the "Assault on Precinct 13" theme kicked in I got chills. With this level of quality, the fact that these videos are made by one person never fails to blow me away.
This is a pretty good summary, but it misses one vital detail: When Tramiel was in charge of Commodore he was so aggressive that he alienated his own supply chain and retail channels. By the time he left Commodore none of the stores in the US that they'd previously sold the C64 through wanted to do business with Commodore anymore, which meant that their new Amiga never even made it into a lot of stores where it might have impressed and made sales.
@@xmlthegreat Threatened to cut off stock supplies at times of high demand, struck deals to supply stock at price X only to demand price Y at the last minute, promised supplies to one store only to sell them to a rival store instead, etc. He basically made it miserable for the stores to deal with Commodore. "Business is war" was Tramiel's life motto, and as far as he was concerned everybody was the enemy, even the businesses that would be selling his products for him.
Tramiel never had much to do with the Amiga. He got fired by the management that drove C= into the ground. The Amiga actually went from the 64's toy departments to real computer stores.
@@acewolfgang276 And that is pretty crazy in it self that AAA games has such insane marketing budgets. But the market is a lot bigger now to where AAA games alone can bring in billions if you have a real huge hit.
This really needs a “part 2”, because where you leave it, everything is looking up for Commodore. I can’t help but notice, I didn’t watch this on a Commodoe tablet, and I don’t have a Commodore phone next to me right now.
The Trackers video could also be a semi sorta sequel when it switches from being about trackers on Amiga to being on PC. Also, how do you not have a device capable of amigaOS 28 already??
that wouldn't really be a part 2, that'd be a separate thing on commodore, at least that'd be the most logical way to do it since their stories overlap
When the title includes "Flatline" I expected to see the end of Amiga. Nope all I got is a little languishing. I seriously loved my Amiga 4000. I wanted to see how it all ended. Oh well. great video!
@@CTimmerman That's not what either of us are referring to. The company went under in 1994. Not close to bankruptcy, but completely and utterly bankrupt.
This is a good well produced video indeed, and covers really the beginning of the Amiga story. For the FULL history I highly recommend the videos by Dan Wood and Nostalia Nerd on youtube. Just search either with "amiga history" or "amiga story" in your search.
Yeah the end of the video also caught me a bit by surprise. The story is not completely finished yet. Other than that, great video and nice choice of soundtracks!
Apparently it lowers views and doesn't send out notifications to subscribers, therefore lowering potential ad revenue and video's popularity, so I'd disagree. The only good thing about it is the live chat, but then again it's a live chat, so most of the time it will be 99% spam.
@@equalibrium7037 the theory and on the paper? yes. Actual case? no. RU-vid Premier is basically sending your channel to a tiny fraction of audience compared to regular channel.
@Equalibrium I, as a viewer, hate it. It's a "video" that appears that has the description, the thumbnail - everything - just infront of me, like carrot on a stick, and I can't watch it. All I can do is to randomly chat with 1 person who happened to be visiting the page at the same time as me, or look at the "11 hours remaining" timer, where 11 hours later would be 03:00 AM for me so I can't really view it at the time of the premiere. And even if it premieres at the time that I can watch it at, I still watch it later because I can't set it to 2X speed or because my craptop lags out from all the chat messages. Although my time may be not that important, I still prefer watching videos at faster speed than normal so that I'd save some more of it - and I can't do that with videos while they are premiering. I saw many premieres over time, and most of them ended up having a questionable like/dislike ratio, because people disliked the video into oblivion before it even premiered. Also, here's a premiere related funny story: I remember when someone else did a premiere on a giveaway video they did - they put all the information about the giveaway in the description, but not what actually was given away. The instructions pretty much said to write a comment with a specific hashtag - then they choose the first ones as winners. At that moment the video would premiere in 5 hours, and there were like 3 people in the chat talking about stuff and wondering what the giveaway is for. Funnily enough, none of them actually bothered to write a comment, so I had all the chances to be the first before the video even releases! That's how I won... A little card. Eh, still a win! So yeah. Here's my wall of text.
@@equalibrium7037 How? All it is, is holding back a finished video to create artificial hype. We all know it to, so it creates agitation, and on top of that there's apparently release issues, and more to go wrong. Perhaps fittingly, since you're no longer uploading a video, you're leaving it to the whims of an automated scheduling system, bringing in an unnecessary middle man and mechanic to go wrong. In the best case scenario, you have a couple of excited people that needed that routine and hype in their life. In the worst case scenario, its being annoying TV cable when most use RU-vid as an evolution for something far better.
@@Jo-tv6sj For Activision/Blizzard an absolute yes, i think that if Microsoft can raise a little bit the quality of the Ac/Blizzard games, o boi it promise to be good
The graphic design in this, as with all Ahoy videos I've seen, is amazing. I love the level of thought and detail, including littles like the triangles around news clippings, the newspaper clipping colours, and the graph design (something many people stuff up).
@@CattoRayTube wow nice argument mate, like totally addresses the issue you should be next pendostan president with such skills, would ideally complement the current one
@@tsartomato well you cant blame him for 'shite' gameplay. Its a computer from the mid 80s. Did you expect deep gameplay and decent graphics? This sorta stuff was cutting edge for its day
This video was quite hard to watch as I have been an Amiga fan since childhood! Painful truths with regards to Commodore's lousy management meant they went bankrupt in 1994, but I stayed loyal after my family and friends migrated to the PC! I eventually accepted I'd have to have a Windows PC as my main computer, but I still have a souped-up Amiga 1200 which I have made many cartoons with, and some digitised animations. The Amiga never truly died, there is still new hardware being made (or converted) for it.
I know what you mean, I kept using my Amiga for *everything* until the year 2000. It sat idle after I had to go the PC route for 5 years, but I pulled it back out and fired it back up in 2005. Now it sits there for the occasional burst of nostalgic fun 👍
I used my Amiga 500 with an upgraded CPU and daughterboard until The Apple G4 came out. I saw a G3 running OS9 shortly before that and said, "The other companies have finally caught up."
I also play old games occasionally and do animation with Deluxe Paint 5 and AnimatED, a while ago I turned on too many appliances at once, and the A1200's power unit was shorted out! There is a UK company, Amigakit, that sells Amiga stuff and fixes Amigas, but they always have a work backlog! :-( Since my A1200's PSU was that of a standard PC, I was able to get it fixed in a normal computer shop, they were quite fascinated by it!
Sounds familiar, I was also sad over two recent episodes of the AVGN, where he reviews the CD32 and bad games, slamming all its faults (and the CDTV!) While most of his "criticisms" are accurate, I loved our CD32, I had some GOOD games and was wowed by 24-bit artwork on magazine cover CDs! At the end, the nerd destroys his CD32 with fire, painful to watch!
@@ChristianIce the amiga wasnt dead in 92. Whilst pc users had early 3d games, amiga users still enjoyed a host of superior games up until at least 97 when things started to die off.
I was in the Atari ST camp, but the 486 with VLB VGA was just crushing it and I finally realized that as messy as the PC was, it was now able to brute-force its way past everyone else. I don't think there was any one computer company that was really aware of or looking to the future. Even Apple was making those late 68K Macs so unaffordable that no one gave them a second glance.
I think the staggered upload is actually part of ahoys charm.. He's a fleeting view into what's good about RU-vid... He comes back to remind us of the absolute quality that some people can get too... Absolute king... Deserves a TV show
I can only think of two companies from that era who are still thriving in Microsoft and Apple, and Apple only survived the 90s thanks to Microsoft trying to avoid having a monopoly. Even IBM is a shell of itself.
Mate, I’ve watched your content since 2013 and it always delivers. This is amazing, the research of data, the soundtrack, and of course the animations. It animates It educates It’s history of videogames. It’s Xbox Ahoy.
I can't agree more. The Polybius documentary completely blew me away. So far, I've watched it thrice and I'm absolutely sure I'll watch it another couple of times. This is truly great content.
@@F0ur_Tw3nty when he show really old software he often shows it widescreen dos internal resolution was wide but you were supposed to stretch it with crt gun for full screen 4//3 the stupidest part even game devs never knew what the hell they are doing. some people used old giant widescreens, some people used aspect correcting software some raw software. the mismatch mismanagemant and miscommunication is present even in the rgeat games like wolf3d or ufo but you always can tell when a 4//3 game is presented in widescreen and you can find raw images or software he shows in widescreen and see for yourself that it's 4//3
I almost didn't watch this as it is just too depressing. the Amiga was my favourite computer of all time. I still prefer it over modern systems. The multitasking is still better in many respects. It saddens me to think of how great a system it could have become today if not for the stupidity of Commodore. I once asked a Commodore rep at a World of Commodore show in Toronto, "Why aren't you advertising this machine?!" and his reply... "advertising costs money"... it was a sign of things to come. Beautifully done video anyhow. So many good memories come flooding back. Good times, I miss those days. I ran a BBS on my Amiga 2000 for a while as well using the wonderful TransAmiga BBS software. Amiga's scripting language, AREXX was very nice to use, easy to program BBS doors with it. I think AmigaBASIC was one of the first BASIC's that didn't use line numbers, but used labels instead. I was surprised that you missed one Amiga Magazine, my favourite... Amiga AHOY :)
The C64/C128 days were the glory days of Commodore. They dominated the home computer market in the US. The IBM PC supposedly was the most popular personal computer when you read texts nowadays, but that's not the same thing as the home market since most IBM PCs were bought for purposes related to business, and by the businesses that could afford to do so.
It even gives me nostalgia vibes- which is weird cause I didn't even have an Amiga. I had an Atari, and I only knew about Amagi because all good games on PC (and Deluxe Paint II) were ported it. So I'm getting warm feels about games my Atari could never run but IF it could have, it'd surely have looked like this LOL
This is amazing content. Amiga was before my time but Ahoy could do a video about *ANYTHING* and I'd happily watch it. The voice, the graphic design, the pacing, the music, it's all superb and world class.
I've never even heard of this machine before and I'm glad I've been enlightened. It's interesting to compare the home computer market of today to the one of the past, and I wonder if we can see parallels in industries such as 3D Printing.
I had a roommate during college who owned an Amiga 2000, it was an amazing computer. I dearly wished Amiga back then experienced a greater success. I would like to see what a World would be like if their computers had really taken off.
@@berkan5578 Much earlier than that. There was no stopping the PC clone market with its open platform. Commodore didn't have the fat margins that Apple did to rely on niche sales of the Amiga and instead kept a crutch onto the 8 bit market for sustained cashflow.
I would say the Amiga experienced huge success, particularly in Europe where the Amiga 500 was king for bedroom gaming for years. In the US the Amiga took over the TV production industry for years even in 3D which is ironic as it was 3D gaming that destroyed the success in gaming. The fact it all went wrong shows just how bad the management at Commodore was at that time. Watch this and weep ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-BhTNR6XZJd0.html
Turrican soundtrack at the end made me cry... Those pearls, cannon fodder, ruffntumble, it came from the desert... Cytadela, deathmask, superfrog... i could count all games that i have deep in the heart till the morning...
Yes! I just commented about the soundtracks from Shadow of the Beast and Turrican, I got very nostalgic. It was nice to see those Bitmap Brothers graphics again too, they had such a distinct visual style on all their games.
@@Lilacs4 I think this video he made works perfectly as a part 2. It even kinda starts where this video ends: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Tv6aJRGpz_A.html
The Amiga will always hold a special place in my heart, a sentiment that almost all Amiga owners will agree with and most non-Amiga users simply can't understand. It's a feeling of genuine love that no other piece of hardware has ever garnered from its users. Some of the software managed to coax incredible things from the hardware; Hired Guns with its 4 characters, first person, and fairly advanced AI and inventory systems. Uridium 2's intro music that makes Paula make sounds you never knew were possible. And the exemplary helicopter flight sim, KOALA that managed huge theatres of war and 3D graphics. And of course, the cracktros and demoscene that wowed us all with their artistic and programming talent.
My dad used to use an Amiga back in the day, and he has fond memories of me being barely a baby just hitting and bashing the keys of the keyboard while on his lap. It'll always have a special place in his heart
Very true, those innumerous hours on A500 (to the detriment of my parents mental health) are the most memorable computer memories i have. Just thinking about those times is making me feel someone is peeling onions somewhere in the house. i had no harddrive on it so i had to swap disks. A lot of them. If i remember correctly "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis" required 13 disks! And at times i had to swap the disk two times to load the next room or cutscene. For a hyperactive young boy that was a perfect way to learn patience. And i never felt angry about it, i felt it can take twice the time because the awesomeness of the adventure is worth the wait :)
@@MarkoKraguljac I think there could a part at the end titled "The small rebirth of Commodore" with the whole Demoscene being still active for both 8 bit, and 16 bit machines, new hardware still giving life to the machines, the YT/online community, and commercial products like the C64 Mini, and Full size versions having decent success. so it does not have to be all doom, and gloom.
@@MaxHohenstaufen Stuart has never been the fastest content creator to begin with, but I have heard he's been having more than his share of troubles over on his Reddit. He has a sleep disorder and children, and COVID has complicated his life to prevent him from being able to crank out lots of videos. This is why when an Ahoy video does appear in the wild, it's a treat.
Just a note on the attention to detail put into these videos, the background music @2:42 uses the noises of floppy drives as percussion, awesomesauce :)
I was a musician on the Amiga demo scene for a while! I was Screech/Eltech. I never made a name for myself, but it was cool nonetheless. I did get to be CU Amiga magazine's tune of the month in April 1997 (I know, very late in the Amiga's life), and that was a high point for me. The A1200 was my all-time favourite home computer. Great days. Thanks for the video!
nice :) i always wished i got into the scene at some point.. ive always followed it. it's mad what they can do on an amiga and others now. I recently thought of getting into the scene (never too late) as a musician (i code and do gfx too but im best at music) .. i've left a few posts here and there asking if anyone would need a musician .. who bloody knows :)
@@FiksIIanzO The moment the market grew to the point that it promised making a lot of money, it attracted people that really only just wanted to make a lot of money.
"dur hur, now x company only believes in money" That isn't really how it works. EA cared about making money as much then as it does now, it's just as the company got bigger it's mentality on how to make that money changed, the problem lies more in the size of the company and the mentality of the people running it than it does in "making money". In these lines no one selling things are doing it purely for the art. That may make you uncomfortable, but it's true.
More than any Amiga game and I played most, pixel art, sound and atmosphere of Bitmap brothers' Gods will remain etched in my brain FOREVER. What a time.
I was in University. A friend of mine was one of the first to major in "computer animation". He bought an Amiga in hopes of being a professional graphic artist. The average consumer didn't buy a computer for games. A Commodore 64 for games, yes. Anything over $1000? No way. I had to play games on a green monochrome screen. The frustration was crazy making.
To be alive when all this stuff was happening was pure magic. Bear in mind that before computers went mainstream, they were still considered tools, and you could do anything you wanted with them. It was possible for one person to understand how the whole machine worked, right down to the metal. Every day new and exciting stuff was coming out. Programming in the 90's was the most fun I've had in my life. I feel bad for anyone who missed the dawn of the computer age, before all of this technology became a boring commodity littered with DRM.
@@Waccoon how did you get into programming back then? like how would you learn? the way people talk about early computing makes it sound like everyone was a programmer
Had a thought that one day there will be very few people alive that lived through the 80s/early 90s era of computing so that is interesting that will it remain remembered. Another interesting thing is how older computing comes across to younger people who didn't see it gradually come about.
@@chis5050 I read somewhere that Linus Torvalds got started with programming on a Sinclair QL - with relatively little software available for it, he had to write programs for himself. Also, computers like the QL, C64 and ZX Spectrum booted into a BASIC interpreter (it was in the ROM), so you could literally just flick the power switch and start coding!
My stepfather's brother had an Amiga so I spent a lot of time playing it during the mid-90s despite already having a PC and an 8-bit Nintendo myself. Have many fond memories of games like Turrican, Giana Sisters, Pirates!, Xenon II: Megablast, Operation Wolf and Shadow of the Beast II.
Damn, Deluxe Paint was really powerful and iconic, never would have imagined such art program was there. Figures why the pixelart program, GraFx2 is a tribute for it, and both are powerful in their way.
I bought myself a Commodore Amiga 500 back in the late 80's. It had just over 500KB of RAM. Then about a year later, I upgraded it to 1MB of RAM 😮 It was an exciting time.
The Amiga was a great machine for the time. Got my start in animation with Deluxe Paint and Sculpt Animate 3D. Its 4096 colors blew away the 16 colors Mac was touting and even the 256 colors of the PC for many years after. Sadly, the last time I saw an Amiga was on clearance for $50 in the mid 90s after PCs took over the high end graphics space.
The production values on these videos never cease to amaze me. On the gameplay videos I have no idea if the scanlines and CRT grid were made in After Effects, or were filmed with a camera off screen. Either way stunning effect. I'd love to see it broken down on your second channel. Magnificent video as always! Looking forward to the next video.
My only gripe with them was that me and my brothers couldn’t beat the first boss in Shadow of the Beast. Turns out it’s: down, punch. 10 yr old me would’ve loved that little tip.
"First there was Menace. Now, Psygnosis presents. A DMA Design game. Blood Money." Still love that intro. I think I prefer Doesn't Mean Anything Design games back then to what they are now; Rockstar North.
why is that when the first notes of xenon 2 or turrican start to play in the background i instantly get chills? amiga music was so good, it gets under my skin everytime
There was something else great about the amiga: Blitz Basic, you could make games that look just as good as commercial games with it, I made a clone of IK+ that run at 50fps just like the original games, 3 characters fighting, etc, also made a bunch of other games with perfect hardware scrolling. AMOS professional was nice as well, but Blitz Basic was on another level.
Thank you for finding footage filmed on a CRT for the games instead of just capturing the video off an emulator. The effect of the phosphor raster on a CRT really is significant for these older game titles which were designed expressly to take advantage of this anti-aliasing and color smearing in order to add detail to what would otherwise be a rudimentary sprite.
Rattigan seems like the rare breed that actually goes in and make the cuts, really unpopular but definitely important. In Sweden we had a prime minister named Göran Persson, he is extremely controversial as he went in and cut the spending like crazy, used pension funds to settle the state debt and made the goal budget + 2% = BNP. I think what he did was the right thing for Sweden but holy hell is that both rare and controversial.
It's all the little touches in this video that make it so good. Take for example the like "but the Amiga would not be a success", such a chilling thing to say that still leaves something to the imagination, it sounds so much better than to simply say "but the Amiga would end up a failure".
F/A18 Interceptor was what made me buy an Amiga 500! I played it on a mate's black and white telly and was totally blown away! I spent many hours trying to land on the Golden Gate bridge! :D
I remember seeing the Amiga 500 and 2000 demo units at the computer/video game store at the mall when I was a young girl and being completely blown away by the graphics. All my school had was a couple Apple IIe with monochrome monitors. The Amiga made the IIe look like a primitive relic.That moment definitely sparked my passion for computers and video games. Decades later I love it just as much as I did then. Thanks for a fond trip down memory lane!
I remember my dad buying me an Amiga 1200 with 500MB harddisk, Amiga OS and Deluxe paint when I was about 10 years old. I loved making small animations in DP, and play UFO enemy unknown on it. And Monkey Island 2, Pinball Dreams, Turrican... It was so much fun, and all my friends had an Amiga to. Then, suddenly, everybody had PC with Norton Commander instead.
My dad died and we still have the amiga 500 ,my childhood favorite, and I believe two or three amigas 1000's with on the inside autographs of the original team. I'm not sure what we could sell those for. (he was a little bit of a tech hoarder ) Seeing amiga 500 games does take me back, such a good time.
Oh my God it's my first new Ahoy video! I subbed a year ago, watched all your videos at least twice each if not more, and I've been waiting for this day!
He was using the company as his own personal fund. There's lots of evidence to suggest this was the reason Tramiel left, and the reason behind Rattigan being 'fired'. Whenever Gould was challenged on it, he moved people out of the company management structure.
What I enjoyed in the usual production quality is that even the music is AMIGA based, I especially liked when he started to play a BOMB the BASS an instant before speaking about bitmap brothers. Epic work as usual.
After all this time I still love this video. When I was about 6 my great aunt gave me and my brother an old PC, completely forgot about it. Then when Moved into his old room after he moved out I found it there. About a day later I watched this video and realised it was an Amiga 500 lol there was also a few dozen games. I have since got it set up and working and I love having it around.
