The story of Amiga | part 6 - Amiga's journey in the computer market

In the previous part, I've talked about Amiga's astonishing hardware, and how it is so way ahead of its time but now I will talk about Amiga entering the computer market. if you haven't seen my previous blog post about the amiga then I recommend you check it out. links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5

in its sleek low profile package, the commodore amiga looked way ahead of its time both technically and aesthetically, released for $1.495 for the 512KB model and $1.295 for the $256KB iteration in north America. an analog RGB monitor was available for an additional $300 bringing the cheapest package for $1.595. this was a price beyond most casual users but was still half the price of the 128KB apple macintosh at $2.495 and cheaper than IBM PC-AT machines, whilst packing a hell of a lot more power.

However, there is one slight thorn in this issue. whilst commodore amiga was frantically building away, Jack tramiel and his team of ex-commodore staff over atari had been working even more frantically, and had thus been successful in launching the Atari 520ST a whole month earlier, and not only that but a far cheaper price $799.99 with a monochrome monitor and $999.99 for a color monitor. if you consider that the amiga didn't even come with a monitor as standard, this was one hell of a deal. of course, it's true that the Atari ST didn't have the same custom abilities as the amiga, but even without those chips, Jack's machine was still pretty advanced in itself.

it also had the head start, further confounded by commodore not getting Amigas out until November. and crucially it has the price. Rather than unveiling a golden ticked unrivaled by other machines, Jack had got back in his former company within just a few months and thrown commodore amiga into a furious competition from the go. by ridding on higher development costs and choosing a price point over $1.000 Commodore had placed their Amiga into the high-end workstation market, fighting the likes of Apple and IBM. This was a market were software mattered.

Where spreadsheets and productivity were kings. And as a new machine, the Amiga simply lacked a great deal of software. Atari's pricing had placed their machine into big players in an entry-level price zone, opening up the system to a swathe of New users wanting to get into something new and exciting. This early discrepancy meant the ST was initially outselling the Amiga and as a result gathering a reasonable degree of software houses looking to work on it, including the game developer. However, Amiga did still have the wow factor, along with a few other cards beginning to fall nicely from their sleeves.

One of these cards came from the then innovative electronic arts headed by the familiar face of trip Hawkins. Before, after and during the Amiga’s debut, the aspect which received the most interest was its remarkable graphics capabilities. Able to display 32 colors on screen from a palette of 4096 in low res and 16 in high res, not to mention it's 64 and even 4096 full-color HAM mode, these abilities dumped all over apple's monochrome Mac, IBM's 4 color CGA and even beat the Atari ST maximum of 16 out of the palette of 512.

Amiga's various demos showcased these abilities, but if the software was available which allowed users to really capitalize on this ability, then the purpose of the amiga would start to become clear. Deluxe Paint, a rewrite of their prism package for DOS really brought the tools to the table, and artists inspired by the appearance and continued work of warhol on the machine began popping up. in a shrewd move, commodore had given EA access to prototype machines several months ahead of the launch date, allowing trip Hawkins and his team to really see the machine's potential.

before this point, most programs have their own file formats, in a bid to lock users into their line of software, however, EA was the first to really integrate a literal Interchangeable File Format (.IFF) into their package developed by Jerry morrison. this .IFF format acted as a container, allowing images, sound graphics, and animation to all adopt this universal format. combined with the new features offered in deluxe paint, which rather than presenting basic digital tools, seemed to re-create an artist studio in the computer, it opened up a door away for generations of new artists and graphical tweakers who could begin to unlock the wonder of this new machine or just play around with the wealth of color and bathe on its on-screen glory.

if IBM PC had found its niche with business and spreadsheet programs, the Mac with desktop publishing, and the Atari ST with music production, the Amiga was just beginning to find its footing in the world of graphical superiority. released in November 1985, Deluxe paint was one of the first in a line of Electronic Arts release which would help propel the Amiga forward and solidify its place in computer history.

that's all for part 6. part 7 can be found here