Commodore History Part 8-The Amiga 1000

When I was in grade 7 or 8, our librarian had a friend who worked at Commodore who came to the school to show us the new computer they were about to release — the Amiga 1000A. As the school “computer guy” I was asked to set it up, and in doing so noticed it had the serial number 0000000001. I have numerous “claims to fame”, but having used the very first Amiga 1000A is still one I cherish all these years later.

Absolutely unbelievable. I had a C64 as a kid in the 80s but never even heard of Amiga until probably the mid-2000s. The graphics and sound on that thing are unreal. It reminds me a lot of a Super Nintendo or a mid-90s Pentium with a Sound Blaster 16 card. Cannot believe this was available in 1985!!

The Hawking documentary explains how the Amiga was used for his voice and how he loved it so much he refused to upgrade it until it finally died. That's why it sounds like him. Because it is the voice he used.

My brother (11yrs older than me) sold me his A2000 in 1992 (I was in 3rd grade, 8-9 yrs old). It's like I remember every single minute of that first (and long) day I owned that computer. I couldn't believe that I got such awesomeness in my room. At least since then I was in awe for these Amigas - until today. Updated it with Kick 3.1 and 8mb fast ram in 1993 or 1994 (childhood savings). Also a color Monitor (just had an amber monitor till then). Wanted a CD-Drive so badly. Said A2000 is in the basement in an overhauled condition and is ready for use. Can't wait to invite my brother to come over and playin' some old classics (he's living 500km away). I just LOVE them Amigas!

I remember walking into a computer store in the mid 80s and seeing an Amiga on display, running a demo featuring a walking jungle cat of some kind. I was absolutely blown away. Instantly made my Dad's life around every Christmas a nightmare for the next 5 years.

I was one of about 37 lucky Americans to have grown up using an Amiga! The "too fast" NTSC music on some of these games is exactly how I remember it.

I know probably some readers would say I'm an old dude, but I have to admit, since I started my computer coding in 1984, this is by far the most dazzling computer and OS at that time. I'm still amazed by its features compared to other systems. It was way ahead of its time. Thank you for this amazing video. You reminded me of the good old days.

We used an Amiga with a Genlock in high school. It was used mostly for overlaying titles onto our VHS recordings, giving it a somewhat (at the time) professional look especially for high school students. However, I found the paint program and some text animation program so I started making animated titles with letters tumbling around the screen as well as some other cool special effects. I managed to produce some laser battles where I used the Paint program to draw lasers and disintegration effects, and overlay things like starfields in the background to make it look like someone is on a spaceship. I used a Yamaha PSR-36 to make laser sound effects and disintegration noises. Looking at my films today the effects look laughably bad. But back in 1987 they actually looked pretty good (at least for high school students) and people were mystified as to how I did it.

Wow the signatures in the top case is absolutely ridiculous. These guys were proud of their work and you can feel it.

One thing that often gets missed due to games bypassing the OS, is that the operating system libraries were absolutely fantastic, as well. There were many of us who used the Amiga as a low cost scientific and engineering workstation, because of how damned good exec, graphics, layers, and intuition.library were.

Hi 8-Bit Guy! My son, who was 9 at the time, is a really big fan and has watched virtually all your videos. Once, in the middle of the night, after watching the Commodore history series, he sat straight up in bed, called out "Commodore, commodore!" turned over and carried on sleeping. Gave me the shock of my life 🤣 Thanks for the wonderful channel, we still enjoy watching these videos as well as the new ones! Greetings from South Africa.

Incredible. As an '80s kid who grew up on IBM PCs, everything you showed that the Amiga could do looked at least 5-10 years ahead of its time to me.

The Amiga was a work of art and you felt that when you used one. I often wonder where we would be today had the Amiga not been mismanaged by Commodore.

Grew up on the Amiga 1000, my dad was debating between the Apple IIgs and the Amiga. He choose the Amiga. We had that computer for over a decade , it was that far ahead of its time, All my friends wanted to come and play games on it because it was "like the arcade" way better than any other stuff out. The Amiga and the stuff like the genlock adapter and the video toaster is what got me interested into video editing on a computer.. never had that stuff but read about it in all the Amiga Rags of the day.. Today I'm a professional video editor and Audio/Video Engineer.. Crazy how just exposure to that stuff from the rags of the day sucked me in. Thanks for this episode.

I will never forget the Amiga time in the 80s. It was magical. Nearly everyone in my school class had an Amiga.

My dad bought an Amiga 2000 in the late 80's. I had the pleasure of playing Lemmings, The Lost Vikings, and so many other gems on it. I didn't realize back then how much of a luxury it was to be able to just turn on the system, pop in the game disk, and start playing (after the set up of course).

I really enjoy your Commodore History series. Honestly, the Commodore gaming / home computing days were the best. The Amiga 1000 was really ahead of it's time!

Switching from the C64 to the Amiga 500 was such a step up for sound and graphics, seeing these games makes me want to go back.

It was amazing at the time. It was the first computer I bought myself.

Ok, great video and I have to tell my story with the A1000. I was 14 in 1985. My dad was a farmer and school teacher. He actually gave me a 15 acre field of corn to take care of. When it was harvested he gave me the profits and I went out and bought this computer, with the 256k upgrade and a 1080 monitor. I had grown up with the VIC-20 and Commodore 64. The Amiga was so amazing! The MS BASIC was so much fun with it's real-time debugger! You could step through each line and see what was happening. Favorite computer ever.