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Amiga Systems: Their History.

History of the Amiga Computer

1982

Hi-Toro Incorporated is formed by a group of midwest investors who are trying to cash in on the video game market by making Joysticks. The name was later changed to Amiga, Incorporated So not to get confused with the lawn-mower manufacturer, Toro.

1983

Information is leaked about an incredible computer codenamed Lorraine featuring unheard of graphics and sound capabilities. Multitasking, 80 column display, 5+ megs of RAM and MORE!

1984

August - Commodore purchases Amiga Corporation to help finance the new developments.

1985

July - Commodore unveils the new Amiga 1000 in New York, for US$1300.

1986

Commodore releases Transformer software for the Amiga, which, along with the Commodore 1020 5 1/4-inch disk drive, provides limited MS-DOS compatibility.

1987

January - Commodore announces the Amiga 500 and the Amiga 2000.

1988

December - Commodore announces the A2286D Bridgeboard for the Amiga 2000. The A2286D contains an 8-MHz Intel 80286 and a 1.2MB 5 1/4-inch disk drive, Giving full on IBM support to users. A Harddriver version of the Amiga 2000 is also brought to light, as well as the A2500.

1989

January - Commodore announces that 1 million Amiga computers have been sold. In November
Commodore announces the Amiga 2500/30. It is essentially an Amiga 2000 with a 2630 Accelerator Board (25-MHz 68030 and 68882 math coprocessor). This Improves the performance far more then ever before.

1990

April - Commodore offers Amiga 1000 owners US$1000 to trade in their Amiga on a new Amiga 2000. Commodore ships the new Amiga A3000 computer in June. September sees the release of NewTeks Video Toaster. This is a hardware and software real-time video effects tool for the Amiga 2000, for US$1600.

1991

Commodore releases the CDTV package. It features a CD-ROM player integrated with a 7.16-MHz 68000-based Amiga 500. List price is US$1000. The Amiga 3000UX is shown to world at a cost of US$5000, without a monitor.

1992

March - Commodore introduces the Amiga 600 for a base price of $500. This is basicly an Amiga 500+ but without the numerical keypad. However, it comes with the new PCMCIA slot for future expansions such as hard drives and memory. The A4000 is also released this is the new "Big Box" Amiga with the new AGA chipset that produces 256,000 on screen colours.

Also this year the A1200 is unleashed. The A1200 comes with the same AGA chipset and Workbench release as the A4000, It also re introduces the numercial keypad missing from the A600 and IDE interface.

1994

Commodore International and Commodore Electronics (two of the many international components of Commodore Business Machines) file for voluntary liquidation. This leads thousands of Amiga users wondering what will happen to their belovered machines.

1995

April - At an auction in New York, ESCOM buys all rights, properties, and technologies of Commodore.

It then later re-releases the Amiga 1200 with 3.1 Roms and Workbench, as well as internet surfer packs. The A4000T is also re released.

1997 - Onwards

Gateway buys bankrupt Amiga. The Amiga computer as we know as gone. OS 3.5 & 3.9 Will be released after with OS 4 being developed for the new Amiga Ones. When this will happen who knows.

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