The Rise and Fall of the Commodore Amiga - Kim Justice

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So Amiga took a $500K loan from Jack Tramiel, who was taking advantage of their desperation to practically steal their company and their technology. Amiga uses it stay afloat long enough to make the multimillion dollar deal with Commodore. They go back to Jack and say, "Here's your money back. Thanks!" What an awesome play on their part, beating Tramiel at his own cutthroat game.

My neighbor bought an A500 in 1989 when I was 14. I used to babysit for him so quickly fell in love with the little beige wedge. Eventually I managed to convince my parents to chip in to my babysitting funds and I replaced my old ZX Spectrum with my own A500 in 1990, which I gradually upgraded with an extra floppy drive, then a hard drive (with a massive 20MB of storage!). By the time the 1200 was released I was able to sell the 500 and just barely have enough for it. The 1200 I likewise upgraded with a much larger hard drive than the 40mb it came with (I think it was around 600mb) and a 68030 cpu and 8mb RAM expansion. A couple of years after that a friend of mine went overseas and so I fostered his A4000 with an 050 in it, as he didn't want to sell it at the time (he ended up coming home and trading it for an Apple Mac once Commodore had died - the guy who bought it wanted it for video editing). After Commodore died and software support became non-existent, I reluctantly packed up my A1200 and replaced it with a PC in 1998, occasionally getting the 1200 out for a bash. I kept the A1200 in its box until eventually I realised I hadn't used it in several years and so sold it in 2002 to a guy who wanted it for video editing. It was a bitter end for me also - I learned OS fundamentals, shell scripting, Perl, C, gained an understanding of TCP/IP, sockets and so on, and so many other skills as a kid that eventually developed into a career as a software developer - and played a lot of awesome games too of course. I look at the machines my kids use now - one son has a Macbook, the other a HP all in one Windows machine - neither of them encourage fiddling around and learning about how they work in any way at all, and so my kids pretty much just take them for granted as they are, like an appliance. I wonder if once current generations who grew up with machines like the Amiga are gone, what will the next generation of tech nerds be like?

You made me remember how sad I was as a child when all my favourite Amiga magazines released their last issues, especially Amiga Power. I lived for each issue of those!

I really miss the AMIGA. It was the only computer ever created that actually felt like it had a soul.

As someone who was very proudly an Amiga owner, in almost the same time frame, thank you so very much for this excellent video. I got an A1200HD in 1993, and my last Amiga was an A4000/040 which I stopped using every day in 1999 or so, in the mean time I also had an A500, A600, A2000 and a CD32. I miss using an Amiga, there is just something missing and sterile using this Windows 10 box.

awesome video, you've got mad editing skills. this is like legit tv quality right here.

loved my old amiga, it was a lot more versatile than my mates consoles, the games were often a lot better, but for me , one thing stands out to this day, Deluxe paint was awesome, i dont think i have ever found anything to this day that could compete with its raw simplicty of use, RIP AMIGA !

Ahh the Batman pack, still remember carry'n that massive bastard home through the rainy streets of Belfast. Excellent video Kim, thx for the memories ;)

Excellent video, certainly brings back memories. We got our first A500 (expanded to 1MB RAM) back in 1988, and I stayed "loyal" to the Amiga until I finally got my first Windows PC in 1998. The fact that the same A500 machine continued to entertain our family for 10 years was a real testament to its quality!

Wow, absolutely loved this video, Kim! The Amiga is my all-time favourite system. Great getting some in-depth insight into what exactly went on. Only Amiga makes it possible!

In Canada, a friend of mine and I operated a community TV station that we started in 1990. In 1992 we bought our first A3000 and in 1994 an A1200. We managed to get parts until 2012 at which time they had both died an honorable death. But for us it was the beginning of a miserable era. The video and music editing capabilities of the Amiga were the very best for TV. With live editing and/or CG with pic in pic with action in one of the pic or both was never matched until Intel came out with its 4 core I7. So yes we miss the Amiga - the best video computer ever built.

This is really well done. My Amiga 500 was possibly my favorite all time computer.

It took me a lot of courage to watch this vid,  I was an Amiga fan for years after it was considered "dead," and still have a souped-up A1200 now, which I do cartoon animations on. Therefore, a documentary about the turmoil in its management history makes me a bit sad! :-( although people were (and still are) impressed by my animation work, it was tiresome having to constantly defend my decision to use an Amiga to everyone! I DO have a laptop PC for everything else computer related, let my Amiga be!

I always keep wondering, the Amiga was so ahead of it's time how would the Amiga be now if Commodore wouldn't have gone bankrupt as they did. I miss the Amiga times so very much.

Fantastic doc Kim. Commodore (16 then 64 then Amiga 500+, then 1200 and CD32) was my entire childhood and this brings back so many memories !

I've been binge-watching this channel for the past 3 days while stuck in bed sick, thanks for entertaining me and taking my mind off the pain Kim Justice :)

What Amiga always needed was someone in charge who not only "got" the Amiga, but believed in it. Basically, an enthusiastic visionary like Steve Jobs. David Pleasance would have been a good choice, but, alas, it was not meant to be... :( JW3HH

You make the most comprehensive retrospectives,your good at it don't ever stop.

Sensational work, Kim Justice. This is not a topic I was particularly interested in beforehand as I don't have experience with these machines, but you did a great job telling the story and making it very interesting from beginning to end.