In the previous part of the amiga story, I've talked about how the company grows by producing peripherals and cartridges on an existing system. but know I will show you how the amiga computer started to developed and published. if you haven't seen part 1 of this story then I recommend you check it out and read it by yourself. part 1 can be found here.
The start of Amiga's development
The hardware plan was to create an advanced 16-Bit gaming machine following in the open development practices of commodore's new 64 machine. once the design is complete the circuits would be hammered out at Xymos labs. 1983 would see the company name changed to something friendly and welcoming. the investors are unhappy that the current name sounded too much like a Japanese lawnmower manufacturer, Hi-Toro. After several suggestions, including Amigo, the team finally settled on 'amiga', a soft Spanish word meaning 'female friend'. also like Acorn computer, it came above apple and atari in the phonebook, this was cutting edge marketing for the 1980s.
and so it was the company was renamed to Amiga Incorporated, with the main objective and one main side-line to supply and act as cover for their secret technology. so whilst jay worked on hardware the other division worked on devices such as the 'powerstick' and 'joyboard', a kind of early Wii balance board along with compatible titles such as surfs up and mogul mania. these products weren't really the success the team had hoped for, some hindered further by the American videogame crash of 1983, which also brought with it a considerable degree of nervousness from their investors. thankfully computer systems such as Apple II and the commodore 64 were still selling well and having unprecedented foresight Jay reassured the investors by convincing them that the new hardware could be sold as full and powerful computer from the go. however additional investment was needed for which Jay would have to re-mortgage his house and borrow from other sources to keep afloat
steve jobs also visited the company a few times at this point but decided that the hardware was too complicated to invest in. throughout 1983, hardware development continued aided by an additional colleague from Atari and driven by Jay's insensible craving for design. the team Jay chooses to recruit, all have one thing in common. they were looking to change the world, and Jay's tolerant and flexible management style certainly helped this and crafted the feel of the amiga. Members brought on board include programmers Dave luck and RJ Mical, Designer Joe Decuir and Dave needle, and even Jay's beloved Cockapoo, Michie who work on a daily basis.
the custom Architecture wasn't new to Jay. The chips he'd design at atari are what made their 8-Bit line so impressive for the time, offloading work from the 6502 CPU. Lorraine was also built around custom chip designs, freeing up cycled on the Motorola 68000 CPU, which although meaning it would be more expensive to manufacture, also allowed for arcade rivaling graphics something the entire team was very keen on nailing
The components that made amiga possible
The chips in question were originally named Portia, Daphine, and Agnus, and each has a specific task. Daphne would manage the display. Portia was in charge of sound and I/O tasks whilst Agnus synchronized them all to the CPU and memory whilst housing the copper and blitter circuitry which gave the amiga such impressive animation capabilities. One of Jay's inspirations for daphne chip was a "link trainer" Flight simulator machine, introduced to him by AI pound at manufacturer singer-link. He wanted to use the blitter chip (which can push large amount of graphics around the screen quickly) to create frames fast enough to create a flight simulator in the home. This simulator was also the inspiration to incorporate HAM mode (Hold And Modify) that could place more colors on screen than memory allowed by changing the hue and saturation of existing pixels. This laid the path for the amiga's impressive 4096 simultaneous on screen color mode. Although in these early stages it could only muster 324 at the same time.
The complex designs were put together by wire and large board in an Anti-static area with an entrance sign saying "ground thyself" As if you are entering the church of God and in many ways, that's almost true. In September 1983, Loraine was completed in discreet form, which although it's unsuitable for retail, allowed some impressive demonstrations to be coded upon the advanced hardware along with amiga's sideline peripherals, one of these was the infamous bouncing ball was on show at winter CES, but cutting it fine was an understatement.
The demonstration
At this point, the components have to be maintained constantly as components failed on the fly. Bob Pariseau had been brought on as chief of software design but hasn't had time to implement a suitable operating system, so RJ Mical and Dave luck worked non stop at the show to come up with something worthy of presentation. Loraine didn't have a keyboard at this point and software has to be uploaded via a SAGE 4 remote terminal. the result was red and white checkered ball that according to Dale only bounced up and down, at this point, with no horizontal movement nor sound effects.
but even so, it's enough to spark the interest of several investors who have witness the system in a VIP only backroom, and god knows that amiga needed the money again at this point... badly. even the transportation of their equipment was done on cheap by booking an extra airline seat and wedging in between them under the name of "Joe pillow", with a smiley face drawn on for good effect.
Amiga struggled on through the first half of 1984, fueled by passion, loans, and foam baseball bats which the team would use to settle a dispute in meetings. RJ Mical even wrote a meditation program for the JoyBoard were you have to sit as still as long as possible, without registering its sensors. this became the running joke and the inspiration for the fabled "guru meditation error" we're all very familiar with. the kit was condensed a little, although is still strewn across a variety of bread boats and hundreds of MSI logic chips, which accurately simulated the Amiga, albeit at a somewhat slower pace, and the bouncing ball demo was improved akin to the version we're all familiar with today.
Bob pariseau, Dale luck, RJ Mical, and recruit carl sassenrath had also got stuck into the task of creating a suitable OS for the machine, and the team would arrive ready for June summer CES with their latest hardware and bouncing ball demo, this time on wider display. but what was it about this ball that gathered so much interest? well... the initial draw was the sheer size of the ball. remember, this was an era when computer animation was always on the smaller size, there wasn't simply enough power to chunk tons of pixle around in unison. the boing ball demo was a whooping 140x100 pixels and seemed to jig around the screen completely seamless and mesmerizing fluidity, much like a modern 3D rendering, however, there were some cunning tricks Lorraine's big bouncing ball, thanks in part to the design of the hardware
rather than mapping out 14 frames of animation, the ball was completed using just one, through clever cycling of color registers. the sound echoing from the ball also from a single sample simply by changing the speed and volume. Bob Pariseau was recorded hitting an aluminum garage door with one of those foam bats and an apple II digitize it from inside the garage. the demo is a testament to not only the team's advanced hardware but also to their sheer programming skill. creating something brilliant in a limited time and with limited resources but this wasn't their only trick.
Amiga's Intuition
By now RJ Mical the basis of an application programming interface called intuition. this is a window driven operating environment which took 7 months of 100 hours weeks and like others were based around an early xerox environment from the late 70s. combined with the boing demo, the first glimmers of multi-tasking, thanks to carl sassenrath's revolutionary multitasking kernel called Exec. but really it was unnecessary
by now several big names were interested in amiga's technology, keen to forge their place in the evergreen and rapidly evolving computer market.
that's all for this part, part 3 will come soon. so stay tuned
Part 3 can be found here