Amiga Story | Nostalgia Nerd

What goes up, must come down... Welcome to the story of the Commodore Amiga. This is part 1 of a 2 part documentary exploring the history and story of the mighty Amiga from its conception through to its buyout by Commodore. This episode deals with the "up" part of the story, and takes place during the 1980s. It charts the conception of the Lorraine machine (that would become the first Commodore Amiga), the early years and team spent working on the machine, the buyout of Atari followed by Commodore, the launch of the original Commodore Amiga machine (later renamed the Amiga 1000) and the subsequent Amiga 2000 and Amiga 500 machines which conclude before 1989 is out. In the second part, we'll look at the 1990s, when the Amiga peaked and then fell to its regrettable demise.
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♜Resources♜
Some of the research resources used for this video;
www.lemonamiga.com/forum/viewt...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Miner
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_K...
sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi-Toro
www.amigahistory.plus.com/ahis...
www.retrocomputacion.net/yabbf...
arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/0...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_C...
arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/0... - Copper Chip Information
www.retrocomputacion.net/yabbf... - Page 6 Custom Chip information
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intuiti...)
www.amigahistory.plus.com/caos...
www.amigahistory.plus.com/trip...
arstechnica.com/gadgets/2007/1...
www.amigahistory.plus.com/a200...
www.amigahistory.plus.com/a500...
cloanto.com/amiga/roms/help/m... - ROM Bits (A1000) WCS RAM, etc (ALL MACHINES)
Jay Interview - www.amigahistory.plus.com/comm...
www.amigahistory.plus.com/b52b... - B52 - Motherboards
Unseen Perspectives (Larry Kaplan Photo) - the-futurist.blogspot.co.uk/20...
www.amigahistory.plus.com/comm... - Amiga team photos
www.cbmitapages.it/foto/person... - Further team information
www.filfre.net/2015/03/ - Bouncing ball resource
Other Resources:
Amiga 3D renders used with permission by www.flickr.com/photos/tommesk...
• MESS WIP: Booting the ... - Amiga 1000 (CC) Footage
• History of the Commodo... - Commodore Amiga Documentary (PixelThing)
archive.org/details/amigaform... - Amiga Format Archive
• Commodore Amiga Boing ... - Amiga Boing Zen (The Guru Meditation)
You can purchase the Amiga Launch Video (along with others) from Cloanto at www.amigaforever.com/videos/
If you believe I have forgotten to attribute anything in this video, please let me know (Twitter is usually the best), so I can add the source in. It takes time to make these videos and although I try my utmost not to, it can be easy to forget things or make a mistake! All clips are used under fair use for educational purposes.

[@RayTech70]

The story of Amiga is both amazing and sad at the same time. It was a TRUE personal computer. Owners loved and used it. The days of the Amiga are burned in my mind.

[@animatewithdermot]

It was clear that the engineers put a lot of themselves in the machine, the signatures and paw print inside the 1000 - I remember reading about that years ago.

[@general8284]

Yes and no. It was sad at the time, but ask the best developers and engineers were always going to end up in the same place regardless of the banner. At the end of the day we would have had the Amiga MacBook or Amiga series X.

[@Aerojet01]

The Amiga blow my mind. Some of the things you could do on it was revolutionary for its time and it left its mark in computer history. Everything in life has a beginning and end. Yes, the developers had fun making it. However, people keep it alive by making new software for it.

[@jean_mollycutpurse_winchester]

I used an A500 to make the video animation graphics for the film, Murder by Moonlight (TV Movie 1989 with Brigitte Nielsen) Great machine.

[@flavorfulsoups]

Really?? What’s your name, that sounds really cool.

[@daveholden2711]

I used my A500 and ribbon color printer to write a report for college speculating on the concept of a computer-based film editing program. I made a mockup screen-shot in Amiga's paint program, and included it in my report. That summer I was at SMTPE, and saw Avid 1.1 running on an Apple 640AV with TWO(!) 500MB(!) hard drives. Seems they had my idea long before I did...

[@theadventuresofoldmort1746]

Prove it.

[@nebularain3338]

@@theadventuresofoldmort1746 disprove it.

[@theadventuresofoldmort1746]

@@nebularain3338 nah, it's fine. I'm happy to not believe it until evidence is provided. Thanks.

[@alex_smale]

That Batman pack was what got me into the Amiga when I was like 12. And thanks to Deluxe Paint being included, I went on to be a graphics artist in the games industry for ten years.

[@bluespartan076]

what did you do?

[@comatose3788]

Deluxe Paint was great. I found a free paint set that kind of follows the style of Deluxe Paint called: Ultimate paint.

[@sasakalak4681]

ah, my beloved amiga 500. I still have it in storage room, I can`t throw her away, not after those happy years spent with her in childhood

[@doctormobius5]

How much for the Amiga?

[@datacipher]

One of the great tech ironies of the time is that the Amiga was supposed to be an Atari with Atari (jay miner) DNA. The Atari St was really a Commodore (Tramiel) creation. What a twist.

[@TexasCat99]

The ST was always sort of garbage. When they lost the amiga technology to commodore. They quickly through together off-the-shelf hardware parts. Then bolted on a clone of MS-DOS with a clone of the Mac OS wrapped around it. Atari was more all over the place then commodore. Amiga died because of commodore stupidity.

[@conradojavier7547]

It felt more like a Battle between Jack Tramiel vs the Company he created.

[@pianowhizz]

Commodore had the better logo - and better hardware … Atari had a great run with the 2600 (30 million units sold) - but it was all down hill from there! Atari = 1970s King (7 year reign) Commodore = 1980s King (7 year reign) PC = April 1994 to 2020 King (26 year reign) M1 Apple = 2020 onwards King!

[@doorshotel]

Mate, the Amiga 500 is what started my love of gaming! Thank you so much for this documentary.

[@lurkerrekrul]

The story of the Amiga is sad. It's like Commodore went out of its way to see that it didn't succeed. Instead of letting people decide what they wanted to use it for, they tried to force people to accept it as a business machine, shunning games, even though games were a huge part of what people wanted computers for. Almost no advertising in the U.S., no mass distribution, killing off promising new projects, firing people who were actually improving things. They shot themselves in the foot so many times it's a wonder that any of the executives could still walk.

[@theseob]

lurkerrekrul It's not a bad story over here in Europe, where homecomputers had a better foothold then consoles. The Amiga did pretty well here in the Netherlands. Where i live there where more people using a Amiga then a ST. But the market of the IBM pc was gaining momentum. But in those early a500 years, it sold pretty good. Also in Germany and the UK the Amiga sold pretty good. Although i never owned a Amiga back in the day, we had a pc, i still have fond memories of the machine. Because friends of mine had them, and i spend hours upon hours playing games with them on the Amiga.

[@Foebane72]

What do you expect?? The company was called CBM, or Commodore BUSINESS Machines.

[@mjnurney]

Foebane72 Commodore tried to crack the U.S market but by 85,86 the IBM PC had the business market sewn up and cheaper computers were in the home. The Amiga had nowhere to go in this time frame. Commodore were also losing millions in 1985/86 and advertising wasn't selling the Amiga in anything like the numbers they needed. Eventually the A500 and 2000 sold in huge numbers but not in America. Europe was another story.

[@Foebane72]

mjnurney I'm just saying that Irving Gould and all the other head honchos at Commodore were business-minded, reflected in the official company name. They weren't about to entertain the notion of games for the Amiga. It's like they decided that the C64 was the company's leisure machine. Sad, really.

[@mjnurney]

Foebane72 I agree completely my friend, while the Amiga is a sad story in America. Commodore UK made some fantastic business decisions and the Amiga sold well, very well. Gould should not of had the backing of the board at this time but he did. Falling sales should of ousted him...

[@Michael500ca]

I have an Amiga 500 beside me right now. Still works and got it at a garage sale for $10 a decade ago. Nice piece of history to go along with my Apple //c that I got new in 1985 (my first computer) that also still works, for the most part, needs a new internal disk drive and keyboard. The history of these machines is so interesting. Thank you for uploading.

[@rebelrailz.]

I also have an Amiga near me, but of a different type. It is an Amiga 1000, made in October of 1985. It's my father's friend's old computer. It has a couple of issues as well as it being a bit yellow, and hopefully we'll fix it soon!

[@Daemonarch2k6]

Nice thing is, you can upgrade the Amiga 500 today with an sd-card reader easily, and use an raspberry zero connected to the DENISE for hdmi-output

[@mrclaytron]

I have such fond memories of my many Amigas that I had owned since around 1988 (500, 2000, 600 & 4000). I've never been so passionate about any product or computer as I was for the Amiga - and so many developers managed to squeeze so much out of the hardware, doing some truly amazing things. The Amiga Demo scene was phenomenal. Really great documentary - I really think the Amiga was years ahead of the competition. It's such a shame that Commodore screwed everything so badly. My early teen years were all about the Amiga!

[@LemonTubeAmiga]

An impressive collection of insights about my favourite computer! People have no idea how long it takes to put together a show like this, 10s of hours work over many weeks perhaps. I also had a go at trying to unpick the Amiga timeline this year for the LemonAmiga channel, although I only got as far as the launch of the Amiga in 1985 after 4 hours of trying!, and even then, I only just scratched the surface of that whole tangled mess of litigation and piracy. The computer industry really did move at a terrific pace back in those days, and I am impressed at how this video comes over so smoothly and slowly, so that anyone can understand it. (my show will be more like a high speed train!). Keep up the great work!

[@ibitato]

This level of production value is amazing. You deserve much more visibility on the Internet.

[@davidstanden480]

I'll never forget the day my buddy Mike, showed me his Amiga. It truly was 'one hell of a magic box'. I immediately started saving up for one. No regrets. Eventually (and stupidly) bought an Amiga 3000 because of the even better and faster graphics.

[@BartBVanBockstaele]

Great video. It brings me back to different times. I wrote a lot of software for the Amiga. No games. I stopped programming when Commodore went belly-up. We are decades later now, and I still sorely miss the Amiga. It was often touted as the first real personal computer, I'd argue it was also the last real personal computer.

[@chindleymuffin]

...with character. It was also the first true multimedia computer with multitasking, a whole decade before PCs were capable of the same thing.

[@taurusparke]

The sheer time and effort that goes into these videos is mind blowing! Better than most TV docs

[@andrewwillard2313]

Maybe I am jaded but there is still a part of me that believes that had it been managed better we might all be using Amiga compatibles today.

[@joshuaausel4549]

I agree, or at least some new commodore computer. AMIGA Lives Forever!

[@rustcohle3803]

Amiga lives on within our hearts, and our basements

[@wclifton968gameplaystutorials]

when the amiga left the market, a few years later a new OS was launched called BeOS which did all of what AmigaOS could do but also do it better and do more but the hardware it shipped failed in the market and Microsoft didnt want PC manufacturers to make hardware running BeOS so it dissapeared with the company being purchased by Palm Technologies for use of BeOS technologies. BeOS is still being developed though but named as HaikuOS which is free and open source. HaikuOS is similar to Linux except its more secure, lesser known, has less programs. BeOS was originally only supported on PowerPC CPUs such as those used on mac and mac clone computers but was later ported to x86 'Wintel' machines

[@valleykid6577]

I don't disagree, but I wonder if other external forces, such as GNU might also have had an impact as to where we are today.. On the one side, we have entities like google/android making life horrible, but on the other side offerings like gnusense leveling the field, that said, I have no concept at the time of writing of where people lie... but between you and I... I hope we choose wisely...

[@doncarlin9081]

Not jaded at all, you are spot on, it was blatant gross mismanagement from the top that caused Commodore to fail, from poor decisions to being slow to innovate. Seriously, the AGA chipset should have been released at least two years earlier and there should have been a full 24-bit graphics chipset by 1995. And yes Commodore should have licensed out their hardware and OS and allow Amiga clones, including laptops. The Amiga still remains my favorite computer, even over my old old Apple ][, and I still have an Amiga 4000.

[@IljaSara]

Documentaries with this level of quality... You should have at least 10 times more subbers. Now I'm one of them.

[@Nostalgianerd]

Ilja Sara thanks! Welcome aboard :)

[@jedits1988]

I'll bet it doesn't sit well with the USA crowd that didn't have most of these machines. TBH, while I like Lazy Game Reviews, this trumps it!

[@rustcohle3803]

you could say this youtuber is not so "Lazy"..... ;)

[@fuzzywzhe]

I have quite subscribing to users on youtube since youtube has decided to delete my subscriptions and to terminate accounts based on politics. I'm here not because I found it on youtube, but another site directed me here. Fuck google.

[@thatboi6821]

@@Nostalgianerd yo what’s the song for 14:01

[@Pulsed101]

We had an Amiga 500, my brother saved up and bought it himself & It's what started my love for gaming at a very young age. This video was amazing, thanks for the hard work to make it. Their collapse makes more sense to me now. Shame.

[@ViralKiller]

it would be awesome to see a video about the 90's graphics programs, like truespace caligari, simply 3d, 3d studio and softimage

[@xpez9694]

And HOUDINI AND CINEMA 4D AND MAYA

[@54321kola]

Yeah. I worked wirh truespqce on amiga 4000 a Lot. In 90s. Best times ever of my lífe. I loved tsx extensions.

[@BobKerns4111]

Or how about 1980s', like S-Dynamics, S-Paint, and S-Geometry? These were used to produce, among other things, the graphics for the display screens in Star Trek III: Search for Spock, and this early animation classic: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ppOpdoSsZ5psr9k The Symbolics hardware was the first to do genlock, realtime full video output, HTDV...

[@anarxstudios5290]

do an lesson on that or an retro video.. i would watch it =)

[@myfaveyoutube]

YESSSSSSS

[@MrROTD]

I learned to model and animate in lightwave 3d on an Amiga and Used Deluxepaint for textures, it was suddenly possible to make 3d graphics on a cheap budget

[@aaronosborne4906]

Imagine 2.0 from a cover disk for my a1200. I made a lightcycle animation (bike from Tron),Good times, good very looong waiting times between frames :)

[@RaymondUpenieks]

@@aaronosborne4906 Started 3D with Turbo Silver (Impulse Software) which then became Imagine. For some strange reason the assumption is that 3D started in 1988 (Because of SoftImage) but for me it was 1987 on Turbo Silver, also later used Caligari trueSpace and then Lightwave (v0.98?) since that required the Video Toaster.

[@doncarlin9081]

I got decent using Imagine on my Amiga, though later I used in on my PC.

[@vrfan]

I still have my Amiga 1000. Incredible computer that was far ahead of its time

[@MarkLada]

I still have a 500 and a 1000, along with a filing cabinet packed full of games.. My uncle used to copy all the games for me and my brother..

[@RasVoja]

@@MarkLada WOW A1000 iconic! Best looking model, A3000 most functional, A4000T and DraCo highest end

[@TheyTalkOnline]

One of our favorite computers of all time : Commodore Amiga 1200. Damn we miss those times. Btw... still have Commodore VIC-20, Commodore C-64 & Commodore Amiga A1200. All of them work!

[@Pat_S]

I had the A1200 and loved it. My A500 had a special place in my heart though. I had it on layaway and was a happy guy the day I got to take it home. I then upgraded the Chip ram and then put the 20MB hard drive expansion on layaway. The store owner let me take it after a week and keep making payment. I’ll never forget how fast the machine was with a hard drive and how huge 20MB was!

[@sevaarutyunov7301]

I'm re-watching this video again and again! I just can't get enough of those history pieces!

[@mieszkogulinski168]

My first computer was a PC with 386, and I'm too young to experience platforms different from the PC. But some of my friends had an Amiga - and I considered it as something interesting and different. I was young enough that I didn't know that PC software won't be understood by Amiga, so I brought a 3.5-inch diskette with Fractint and tried to run it on the Amiga. It didn't work. The computer displayed blue? violet? purple? screen and returned to the animation of inserting a diskette. Now, I find learning about all these older and defunct platforms really interesting :) And I really appreciate how long we went from there - now, a regular USB drive and most of its files can be understood by PC, Android, Mac, and even a Raspberry Pi, and we have easily portable cross-platform software in languages such as JavaScript or Python.

[@dirkardostevergreen4827]

The day I got my Amiga 500 at the tender age of 15 was, up to that point, the best day of my life! Although my mum seemed a bit disappointed that I mostly played games on it.

[@SynthoidSounds]

The LucasFilms game development group was using Amigas (I worked at the Droid Works, another Lucas company), got to see these machines first hand. I was convinced, immediately bought a 2000 . . . and a few months later a friend was developing a 3D raytracing engine (Raydance) for the Amiga. Nothing else that even remotely approaching this existed then . . . and then of course, the Video Toaster came out, I immediately bought a 2500. Nothing could touch the Amiga platforms for graphic and video work . . . at least then. Fun times it was!

[@lookoutforchris]

>Nothing could touch the Amiga platforms for graphic and video work... at least then. #SiliconGraphics has entered the chat

[@dramaticusflatudicus3839]

Nothing could touch...for the price..... Alias etc always looked really good but the hardware/software costs put them beyond most of us unless we got in the big studios. SGI only got affordable much later, but by that time us LW artists had migrated to PC (via DEC Alphas)...

[@GerardKean]

"the, then, innovative electronic arts" lol

[@daviddyer3543]

We could use a Deluxe Paint...5 or 6 soon, or maybe buy the rights off EA to do that one.

[@fabian24123]

How times have changed...

[@ThePOWERtoRULE]

A gripe my friends an I share is that modern EA are the most lazy developers ever...

[@lcb8333]

One bland battlefield to go please!

[@itdepends604]

EA is very innovative still. They are the inventors of many great gaming phenomenons such as loot boxes and pay to unlock progression. They are so innovative that they don't even have to finish games anymore. They also invented numerous infinite money exploits such as EA sports. The only company any more innovative would have to be blizzard.

[@marksankey175]

Love the music used in this video. Project X - Pinball Dreams - lotus ll turbo challenge - supercars - the chaos engine... and more.. the games i grew up playing on Amiga 500. A great watch!!!!

[@Dre2Dee2]

Man, never seen those Batman pack boxes before! Those look AMAZING, just the giant gold batman logo on a black box! CLASSIC!

[@ItsBigIan]

Good to see youtubers citing their sources. Excellent work!

[@takismail]

The Amiga 500 was the best pc of its Time , it was my dream to get one when i was a Kid

[@crzces7500]

TAK Ism. Same here. I loved my C64 which you could nod into a 128, but the Amiga was the PC the cool dad's had. Playing games like Faerytale Adventure was just insane to me as a kid.

[@1teamski]

The Amiga was one hell of a system and I really had a ball with mine. It is a true classic.

[@MrSEA-ok2ll]

Migrating from an Atari 130xe in 1988, I purchased an Atari STFM with colour monitor for $1000. 3 months later I saw a friend's loaded Amiga 1000 running Hybris and two weeks later I was flat broke, but now owned an Amiga 500 with the trap door ram expansion...fond memories.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

I hope you hooked up your Amiga 500 and Atari ST via null modem cable and played Falcon and Lotus head-to-head.

[@wielku]

I'm only 5 mins in and the editing is already great. Love your videos, and I wish you more subs, you deserve it.

[@ShishakliAus]

His fan base is slowly dying of old age and shitty pop music

[@franknitti9126]

ShishakliAus which group are you in?

[@ExtremeWreck]

wielkus This should have over 50 million views!!!!!

[@fivesquaredyt2521]

wielkus 69 likes

[@RichardTroupe]

Every time I think about how Commodore's senior management botched the position they found themselves in, it brings a tear to my eye. Argh! What could have been, eh?

[@Orlor]

Indeed. Gould was a class A asshole for firing Rattigan. Get rid of the guy who was turning Amiga around? What a brilliant strategy!

[@zo1dberg]

If you haven't already, watch this inverview of Commodore UK cheif David Pleasance - kzbin.info/www/bejne/jGTIl2uopNOtb6c Basically Commodore head office in the US bent the Amiga over and gave it a good rodgering. Absolute crime.

[@CosasCotidianas]

51 minutes and one ad only? Love it!

[@AshleyIrons]

An incredible machine for its time. 4096 colours, multi-tasking, 4 channel stereo sound in 1985 was unheard of. I used Amiga computers for 10 years 1987 to 1997.

[@grimfic]

Loving this. Taking me right back to my youth. Brilliantly made documentary as well.

[@crisisnite1]

The Amiga animation program was freaking amazing! I'd love to find a ported version.

[@RoxieSniper]

Not only one of the most entertaining, well researched, and best edited Tech channels; Nostalgia Nerd is one of the absolute best available on all of KZbin. Thanks for all of your hard work! It's really great stuff, especially on these longer days when work keeps stacking up across my desk. I truly appreciate this for helping keep my sanity while grinding through this stuff :)

[@SteveBenway]

I waited a couple of days, so I'd have a spare hour to watch all in one go. Well worth the wait. Thoroughly enjoyable :)

[@lofiprototype]

ow man, that lotus turbo challenge intro song at 26:56 puts a big smile on my face!

[@johnmarshall8395]

I just watched From Bedrooms To Billions: The Amiga Years and Viva Amiga last night. I still prefer your documentary over these two. Not that they are bad, they contain more info at times than the Amiga Story but also a lot less personality. I'm now watching your video for the 8th time or so. I just can't stop watching it as it's such an addictive video. Thanks so much for taking the time to make such a great documentary!

[@gregbowen617]

I bought an Amiga 500 here in Australia as soon as it was released - awesome machine for its time...I owned FA/18 Interceptor from Electronic Arts and all my friends wanted to play whenever they were at my place... Way ahead of its time, but mismanaged from the top down....

[@justanotheryoutubechannel]

Whoa. I’m watching this with headphones for the first time, and I never realised that this video has stereo sound support! The music is split between both ears! That’s so cool!

[@themadplotter]

Love the music, it's like I'm in the 90's watching new Robot Wars and Red Dwarf again. Wait a second....

[@animatewithdermot]

My god, watching these vids is bringing back so many memories! I had a tech friend who got a hold of a commodore UNIX install, and had it on my old A3000 machine as a lark. Wasn't anything I could do with it of course, other than have it as a novelty. No idea how/where he came by it, but we were in LA then, so a bit closer to the origin of the thing maybe. This would have been around 1999 or 2000.

[@AnkaLagan01]

First bought an Amiga 500. Such a great machine , way above anything else on the market at the time. Then saved enough $$ to get myself an Amiga 2000. Was the first on my neigbourhood to have a '' Serial cable '' Lan party. Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 and Kick Off 2 tournament... friends were in awe ;)

[@SomeOrangeCat]

When I was younger, I had assumed Amiga was a European computer. It was way more popular there, and that's where most of the games were, whereas in the states it had a pretty small install base.

[@Foebane72]

Don't ASSUME, it makes an ASS of U and ME.

[@KaitainCPS]

Yeah, it was a strange time. Americans were mainly playing on Japanese consoles, whereas Europeans were mainly playing on American computers. It still seems strange to me that my American friends often have almost zero knowledge about their own country's hardware and software between around 1985 and 1992. All they know is Mario, Sonic and Metroid.

[@RedLegBlazer]

I had an Amiga 500... I played Populous, and Lemmings. That was all. Much later I worked at an arcade that had those early VR pods with the giant helmet. Those ran on a 2000, and were unbelievable at that time. The problem with being ahead in the tech industry is that the product ends up costing more for features no one knows what to do with. Then the competition copies it, but with all of the ground work done, so they're spending more on polish. Remeber the Dreamcast. lol.

[@paul8079]

I'm American and had an A500. None of my friends had this machine. They would come over and marvel at it. It just didn't receive advertising in America. But any kid that had one was envied. The kids that had Apple II and IBM were just blown away by the graphics and fun games.

[@despicabledog]

American people will never understand the influence that Amiga had in Europe, it changed the life of millions of kids like me in the early late 80s to early 90s and got them into computers and gaming. In America most people associate Commodore with the Commodore 64 and they rarely even remember the Amiga, in Europe the Amiga was king. It was huge here, also because it was very easy to pirate games. I remember my father buying pirated games (floppies) from a guy who had a newsstand near my house, and this is was in 1991 when very few people had computers and yet EVERYBODY had an Amiga 500. Watch this video to understand more about Amiga piracy and demoscene and how it made the Amiga huge in Europe: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jWebfmVsis-ad7c

[@RetroMMA]

For such a complicated history, you did very well! Must have been a daunting task trying to figure out the key points to cover and I'm looking forward to the second half.

[@daveholden2711]

In 1998, I bought a used Video Toaster Amiga 4000, with TBCs and S-VHS decks. I still have it, and the computer still boots!

[@RasVoja]

If it just picks dust, interested in buying it end of this year

[@djoni1980]

I was born in 1980 and every time I watch your videos it feels like a beautiful journey to my childhood. Thank you!

[@RasVoja]

I am 79 and me too, but its teens

[@ninjamaster3453]

this is probably your fav labour of love computer to review yes? thank you for your efforts. you're an impressive person to be able to produce this. i admire you.

[@sauenrolf]

Ah yeees! The Lotus turbo challenge sound track! Now that's true nostalgia

[@arashikage878]

Stian Schmooples yep and also the main theme from Space Crusade. Love that track!!!

[@alexkaa]

The intro sound of 'Obliterator' in the background around 25:20 fully gave me the nostalgic flash.

[@yuriwalkiw]

I really appreciate all the hard work that goes into these "story" videos. Awesome to have somebody sharing these important pieces of computing history.

[@SeverityOne]

Pleased to have met Jay Miner at the Amiga Expo in Cologne in 1989, where I shook his hand (and contributed to his handshake-induced injury) and got an autographed T-shirt.

[@Nostalgianerd]

37:08 Freme Fraze?! XD What the hell had I been drinking. Hahaha (that one skipped through QC)

[@TheJamieRamone]

No probs m8, the vid is spectacular anyway!

[@blunderingfool]

Didn't even notice that, even after you pointed it out in the comments. Had to go back and triple check. Heh.

[@mkmot530]

Great video mate, even if your loyalty to Atari show's at time's, not like there is anything wrong with that.

[@mkmot530]

Lol are you talking about the Trap door intro haha, I wonded what the hell that was all about

[@kristina80ification]

At least that mistake won't show up in three videos in a row. ;)

[@stepheniddon1482]

The Amiga 500 was my first computer. Think my parents bought me one around 1990. Brings back memories

[@mvl71]

I have been so lucky, having worked in computer retail in the 90's. I have seen so many firsts: the sound card, cd-rom, LAN gaming, 3D cards, super fast computers (the 486 DX2-66, oh my...) etc. And before that, I was a permanent resident of most computer stores in town, where I saw the latest hard- and software and where I could even do what I wanted (within limits of course, and I always made a point of making myself scarce when I saw a customer heading in "my" computer's way). Typing in programs from magazines (thank you, people of Dixons (Leiden, the Netherlands), for not kicking me out of the store but letting me do what I loved instead), exploring all computers, learning BASIC by trial and error. It was an education and a half, and one of the best times of my life. Thank you, Nostalgia Nerd, for your awesome videos and also for your book (shameless plug). Sorry for taking up this much space in the comments section, I just wanted to express my, well, love for early computers.

[@segaprophet]

This must have been a huge effort to put together - loved it! Keep up the excellent videos.

[@LordHorst]

When a friend of mine gave me his Amiga (because he bought himself a PC) my schoolgrades began to go down... but I still don't think there was any correlation between the two events, lol.

[@bilbobaggings]

This is the first of your presentations of past computers that i have had the pleasure to enjoy and i am very pleased to have done so. You encapsulate the enthusiasm through your dialog, that i remember feeling at the time of using the Amiga.

[@EmperorKonstantine01]

Amiga is a very significant Heart-warming Story from beginning to End, At the time was one of the most unique, Exciting, complicated machines created way ahead of its time, by a Truly dedicated team. It melts my heart to see it go..those memories will live forever...

[@comatose3788]

I honestly believe at some point the major computer makers will announce the new Multi Chip/Hardware Multitasking computer and we will truly see how far ahead of it time it really was.

[@kristina80ification]

A movie about Amiga needs to be made.

[@FedorSteeman]

Kandi Gloss Micro Men ?

[@kristina80ification]

***** micro men isn't about the amiga team at all though.

[@stevenwarner9156]

A full 2 hour documentary has at least: www.frombedroomstobillions.com/amiga I got the original film about the development of video games with a lot of focus on 8-bit micros and helped on kickstarter for this one, but this is an excellent and informative documentary with loads of great interviews and information. Worth checking out.

[@stevenwarner9156]

But yeah, a movie of the development like Micro Men would be great.

[@KaitainCPS]

"Viva Amiga" is worth a watch as well, even though much of the same material is covered.

[@D6team]

Great computer.... Great material - great job :) The times of Amiga were the beginning of the end, where engineers had something to say as for the things they have designed... Amiga is/was the best computer designed on this planet so far :) and was also responsible for the boom of many (even "modern") creative enterprises.

[@bjbell52]

I'm glad to see a video about the Amiga that mentions Atari's role in the computer. Another one I watched didn't mention Atari at all. I ended up buying an Atari ST ONLY because that's all I could afford at the time. I needed it for school and the monochrome screen was perfect for me at the time. I really wanted an Amiga since I had an Atari 800 and thought it was an excellent machine.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

That's okay. Look at all of the television programs, movies, and documentaries about Steve Jobs that omit him having been Atari employee #40 [and Woz also working there unofficially with him at night]. "The Pirates of Silicon Valley" having been the worst example of the bunch.

[@doctorsocrates4413]

My childhood was so much happier and enriched when i had an A 500...i am 51 now and still have 2 amiga500s to take me straight back...

[@luisgonzalez5482]

Hell yeah, 51 minutes. Time to learn and enjoy.

[@RaptureMusicOfficial]

Amiga rules!

[@ariandgabe]

I still miss my Amiga 1000 dearly, especially my Electronics Art Paint program!!!! All that with 512K memory. R.I.P. my Amiga!

[@zavialova]

Brilliant. This could easily be a Netflix doc. Well done.

[@Nostalgianerd]

EnglishFootballisFCUKD well, thank you kindly!

[@johneygd]

Well, the amiga was a beast in it's porfomance and it was very ahead of it's time, and since it also became a gaming machineit technically. crunched the pc engine, the snes & genesis aswell .

[@levicassidy9312]

performance* machine it*

[@skelejp9982]

AMIGA was Way ahead of it's Time... Just the Fact that U could have more Windows opened ,with a Different resolution !~!!

[@edism]

Screens* you mean, but as much as I love Workbench, you can do that better on Windows with: WIN + CTRL + RIGHT

[@leerudd1294]

@@edism We're talking 1990's here, not 2020. It was far ahead of the field and in lots of ways made some of what we have today.

[@edism]

@@leerudd1294 True, I must have been utterly disagreeable that day lol

[@leerudd1294]

@@edism No worries. I was probably a little drunk at the time and going on a youtube rampage. :D

[@austinramsay]

There was much more powerful hardware out there though so I don't know about way ahead of its time. Workstations from Sun or DEC or any other workstation company were much more powerful weren't they?

[@elit3darkness]

I know this video is old but I still appreciate it! Some of my fondest computing memories were on my AMIGA 500 and 2000. Both were hand-me-downs.

[@jjock3239]

As an owner of an Amiga 1000 from 1985, and following on by purchasing the A2000, A3000, and the A4000, the Amiga story is one of heartache, knowing that such a fantastic computer just fell through the cracks at every critical moment of its development. Jack Tramiel, was the king of vapour ware, and it is ironic that he should have been an important figure in the Amiga's development, and its struggles.

[@electricmiragemedia]

Fantastic video! You deserve more subs

[@aceventura999]

I miss so much my Amiga...

[@random_archivist]

Too me...

[@rustcohle3803]

with you, may the force be

[@HavenMarches]

Lol I miss it too master Yoda

[@1000sofusernames]

Never have kids looked as happy as in 80s computer/console adverts.

[@mondowrongo9510]

My friend in the 80’s had an Amiga. I coveted that thing so much, all I had was an Amstrad 464. I remember play Shadow Of The Beast and thinking graphics can’t possibly get better than this!

[@niamaru2]

Can't wait for the next one, thank you very much

[@SE09uk]

next Amiga ??? same lol

[@niamaru2]

ever heard of the MiST FPGA ? it's not an amiga per say but you can run AmigaOS 3.1 natively on it. plus it has USB and VGA so... its pretty awesome!

[@RasVoja]

@@niamaru2 Yes, Mister and FPGA Arcade are closest to it for now. Too bad mister is not much available

[@zelphx]

I miss Amiga more than MOST ex-girlfriends I've ever had. If my wife asks... I was never here.

[@ShanePleasance]

Bradley Greenwood she was everybody’s girlfriend.

[@paulmichaelfreedman8334]

@@ShanePleasance Literally.

[@uiopuiop3472]

god damnit Bradley, that's so much not you

[@Game_Hero]

Did you use it to get dates with them

[@morten1]

Ask your wife if you can.. insert disk :)

[@jeffreyverry8467]

I used an Amiga when I was going to college 90/91. Loved my Dot Matrix printer

[@jasonziyad5985]

Why would anyone give this awesome and very interesting and educational video a thumbs down?

[@ExplosiveAction]

Another great video. Have you thought of trying to get these aired? These are professional quality and your voice would suit television.

[@Foebane72]

Television is DEAD. KZbin is the FUTURE. Don't look back.

[@nellyfish9692]

yea, I don't watch normal TV anymore.

[@infinidominion]

we gotta keep the CRT's for the games tho. it just feels right

[@dacoda930]

Only watch tv when I go to my mum's

[@AudieHolland]

Don't even have cable. I don't watch football anyway but documentaries... KZbin is filled with them.

[@BongoBaggins]

Television quality documentary there, fella.

[@Cmm4626]

More accurate than the History Channel that's for sure!

[@CakePrincessCelestia]

Disagree. This is waaaaaaaay better than TV.

[@jpotter2086]

As late as 1999, we were still using an Amiga to process on-air images for the Prevue channel, just before it bought TV Guide and rebranded as the TV Guide channel. Had great, spanking new graphics workstations, but all had to thru the Amiga to get old school enough to go on air!

[@onlineamiga]

I can't even imagine the amount of work that must have gone into making this. This is just... AMAZING!. Loved every minute!. You're giving Viva Amiga a serious run for its money (ie your video is free!) Thank you so much for putting this together. It taught me a lot about the history of my favourite platform. I jumped into Amiga in 1992 so was a bit unaware of its 80s origins. I'm very much looking forward to watching the second part which I will do tomorrow! Thank you again!

[@moabt.frican7163]

"You use it for your homework, you use it to get dates." Apparently they were serious

[@keiranbowes1979]

Damn you! I was going to go to sleep and then you put this up.

[@Nostalgianerd]

If it helps, this video has caused me a vast amount of sleep loss myself.

[@keiranbowes1979]

I'll bet. I've started a Retro Gaming channel myself and I can't imagine how much time and effort this has taken to produce.Now I'm going I've got a documentary to watch.

[@darianmccants]

keiran bowes lol

[@kevinmcfarland3893]

Great video! I grew up with a nicely decked out Amiga 1000 as my first computer. I can't wait for part two!

[@mommywhereisdaddy]

man... this machine was way ahead of its time. the amiga architecture had dozens of dma channels as well as ocs/ecs, while other computers including mac used polling. they gave millions to management instead of funding the chip or OS crew. people like dave haynie were working on aaa (advanced amiga architecture) which could not go further than being an in-house project because none of the top guys took it seriously. so sad... r.i.p amiga: you were the best.

[@trejkaz]

PC "at" machines... no, we used to pronounce the letters AT one by one.

[@timnorton4000]

Dude is British. I have heard numerous folks across the pond pronounce it "wrong". He also has the th-fronting dialect which is fine when you know what it is... he does say the word "further" fairly often in is videos which comes out as "furver" of course. As long as he has a fervor for retro stuff I'm cool with it.

[@davekp6773]

Welsh guy here and I pronounce it A tee, and XT machines as X tee.

[@davmar9923]

He also mispronounces "Portia". It is not a three syllable word "por-tee-a", it is a two syllable word, "por-sha". By the way, "Porsche" is just the Germanic spelling of "Portia" and is also pronounced "por-sha".

[@mvl71]

@@davmar9923 This German dude disagrees: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o3iaeHV9mKZ1j7M

[@chipheadnet]

Also the Commodore "One Hundred Twenty Eight" was pronounced "One Twenty Eight"

[@pmedwards42]

Great video. I owned an A1000 (bought used), 'upgraded' to an A500 and kept it going for years with aftermarket upgrades - hard drive adapter, memory, bigger PSU, etc. I only moved to the x86 world with great remorse about the time the cheaper 386sx chips came out.

[@johnhunt1725]

If Atari had allowed Jay Miner to develop his ideas, they could have been coming out with what eventually became the Amiga when Commodore was just coming out with the C64.

[@evansdm2008]

This is definitive. Like your other history videos. This is good enough to be archived. Genuinely this should not be lost.

[@KaeYoss]

"Dentist investors" Something you don't hear every day, especially not when discussing game consoles/computers.

[@rogehmarbi]

Put in electric chairs too

[@RedSkyHorizon]

Yay! I had the Amiga 1000. I had asked for it and unbelievably my mum bought it for me even though we had little money. The sales guy said it was the first one sold in the UK. Anyone remember fairey tale adventure and all those demos ?

[@spatulasnout]

Just found this interview with David Joiner, covering the development of Faery Tale: www.abime.net/interviews/view/interview/id/71

[@Zizzily]

Thanks for another great video. Amiga/Commodore was really ahead of their time with some of their features. Still hope to own an Amiga 1200 one of these days.

[@esseferio]

I can't believe the amount of work you have put into this. Thank you, sir!