From LQWiki

The Amiga was a home computer, first released by Commodore in 1985. The Motorola 68k series of CPUs was used throughout the lifetime of the original "Classic" Amiga, coupled with a powerful custom chipset for graphics, sound etc. The Amiga ran AmigaOS, which included a pre-emptively Multi-tasking kernel and a DOS (AmigaDOS) based on Tripos, an OS based somewhat on UNIX. Amigas can run Linux, either compiled for the 68k processor (providing a MMU is present) or the PowerPC accelerator boards produced later.

The Amiga was released just as the personal computing world standardized on IBM-PC clones. This prevented it from gaining serious market share, despite the fact that the first Amigas had a substantial technological lead on the IBM XTs of the time. Instead, it acquired a small but zealous population of enthusiastic hackers who dreamt of one day unseating the clones (see Amiga Persecution Complex). The traits of this culture are both spoofed and illuminated in the BLAZE Humor Viewer. The strength of the Amiga platform seeded a small industry of companies building software and hardware for the platform, especially in graphics and video applications.

The platform faded from view after Commodore's 1994 bankruptcy and subsequent mismanagement. At one point, Escom (the owners after Commodore) were considering using Linux as the basis of the New Amiga. Eventually, the rights were bought by Amiga Incorporated, who contracted out production of the new Amiga hardware and software. The new "AmigaONE" systems are based on the PowerPC line of processors and use standard PC peripherals and components. They are bundled with Debian Linux and the pre-release version of AmigaOS4, a new PowerPC OS with important new features such as limited memory protection.

The Amiga can be emulated with software such as UAE.

This article is based, in whole or in part, on entry or entries in the Jargon File.

External links

• Amiga Inc. (www.amiga.com)
• Amiga Wiki (www.amigawiki.com)