WhereIsAtlas · Computers

Amiga

The 1985 computer with custom chips that outran everything at its price, sold about 4.9 million units, died with Commodore in 1994 — and whose trademark has since passed through Escom, Gateway, Amiga Inc, Cloanto and Hyperion

Defunct — The Amiga was a family of personal computers produced by Commodore International from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, and by others afterwards. The Amiga 1000 was released in July 1985 with a Motorola 68000 processor, custom coprocessors for graphics and sound, and an operating system with pre-emptive multitasking. Estimates put total sales at about 4.9 million machines, with the Amiga 500 of 1987 the best-selling model. Commodore shut down the Amiga division on 26 April 1994 and filed for bankruptcy three days later; the business then passed to Escom, to Gateway 2000, and to a company called Amiga, Inc. The Amiga copyrights and trademarks are held by Amiga Corporation, a sister company of Cloanto, which took them over in 2019; Hyperion Entertainment of Belgium continues to develop AmigaOS 4 under licence. The name is the Spanish word for a female friend.

The Amiga was a family of personal computers produced by Commodore from 1985 until the company's bankruptcy in 1994, with production continuing on a much smaller scale afterwards. At launch it was one of several mid-1980s machines with a 16-bit or 32-bit processor, at least 256 KB of memory and a mouse-driven interface; what separated it was custom hardware — sprites, a blitter and four channels of sample-based audio — driven by an operating system with pre-emptive multitasking, AmigaOS, and a desktop called Workbench. Its primary competitor was the Atari ST.

The machine began outside Commodore. Jay Miner had led development of the Atari Video Computer System's graphics and sound chip, and had left Atari when management would not fund a next-generation 68000-based design. In 1982 Larry Kaplan, who had left Atari to co-found Activision, was approached by investors who wanted a new game platform; he hired Miner to run hardware for a company called Hi-Toro. The system was code-named Lorraine. When Kaplan left late in 1982 Miner was promoted to head engineer, and the venture relaunched as Amiga Corporation. The hardware was designed by Miner with RJ Mical and Dale Luck. A breadboard prototype was largely working by late 1983 and was shown at the January 1984 Consumer Electronics Show.

By 1984 the company was running out of money. In March, Atari expressed lukewarm interest in the design for a console it tentatively called the 1850XLD, and talks moved slowly. In June, Amiga took a $500,000 loan from Atari that had to be repaid at the end of the month — on terms that would have forfeited the Lorraine design to Atari if it were not. Then Jack Tramiel, who had resigned from Commodore in January 1984, bought Atari's consumer division in July and formed Atari Corporation. Commodore, left without a path to a next-generation home computer, offered to fund Amiga; the two sides were arranging a $4 million licence before Commodore offered $24 million to buy the company outright.

The operating system was not ready when the hardware was. A deal to port TRIPOS, a multitasking system written in BCPL for the PDP-11, produced AmigaDOS and the Workbench interface; the BCPL parts were later rewritten in C and the whole system became AmigaOS. The first model was announced in 1985 as simply "The Amiga from Commodore", later known retroactively as the Amiga 1000, and the name was chosen because it is the Spanish word for a female friend and because it sorts before Apple in lists of computer makers.

The launch was a mess. Machines were first offered for sale in August 1985, but by October only 50 had been built, all of them kept by Commodore; quantity shipments began in mid-November and missed the Christmas buying season. About 35,000 were sold by the end of the year, and 120,000 from launch to the end of 1986. Early advertising pitched the machine as a general-purpose business computer, and there was an add-on, the Sidecar, for IBM PC compatibility, but the Amiga was commercially most successful as a home computer.

Sales figures are estimates because Commodore rarely disclosed units shipped. Amiga Format magazine put the total at 4,850,000 in June 1993; The Wall Street Journal reported approximately 5,000,000 by the end of the machine's life in May 1995; an investigation by the video essayist Stuart Brown estimated 4,910,000. The machines were most popular in the United Kingdom and Germany, with about 1.5 million sold in each, and roughly 700,000 in North America. In the United States the Amiga found a niche with enthusiasts and in video processing; in Europe it was broadly a home and games machine.

The best-selling model was the Amiga 500, released in 1987 alongside the more expandable Amiga 2000. A high-end and a low-end model made up the line for the rest of its history: the Amiga 3000 in 1990, the Amiga 500 Plus in 1991, and the Amiga 600, Amiga 4000 and Amiga 1200 in 1992, with upgrades known as the Enhanced Chip Set and Advanced Graphics Architecture.

The Amiga's strongest cultural claim is in audio and video. The first music tracker was written for it and it became a popular platform for music production. The 3D packages LightWave 3D, Imagine and Traces — a predecessor of Blender — originated on it, and the third-party Video Toaster, released in 1990, made the Amiga a comparatively inexpensive option for video production. Games including Populous and Lemmings appeared on the Amiga before being converted elsewhere. Amigas were also used for unglamorous work: NASA laboratories tracked low-orbiting satellites with them until 2004, Palomar Observatory used them to control telescope charge-coupled devices, and a Commodore Amiga 2000 was still running the heating and air conditioning for a Michigan school district in 2015.

Commodore shut down the Amiga division on 26 April 1994 and filed for bankruptcy three days later. Commodore's assets were bought by Escom, a German PC maker, which put the Amiga into a subsidiary called Amiga Technologies. It re-released the Amiga 1200 and A4000T, introduced a 68060 version of the A4000T, and developed the Amiga Walker prototype, shown at CeBit. Escom went bankrupt in 1996. Some Amigas were still built afterwards for the North American market by QuikPak, a Pennsylvania firm that had manufactured Amigas for Escom. A reported sale to VisCorp fell through, and QuikPak later failed to license the platform from Gateway.

Gateway 2000 bought the Amiga business and technology in 1997 for $13 million, taking both the Amiga properties and the Commodore patents. Gateway worked on a new Amiga platform — reportedly encouraged by a wish to be independent of Microsoft and Intel — but released nothing, and at the end of 1999 sold the copyrights and trademarks to Amino Development Corporation, a Washington company founded in part by former Gateway subcontractors Bill McEwen and Fleecy Moss, which immediately renamed itself Amiga, Inc. Gateway kept the patents and licensed them to Amiga, Inc.

What followed is a long chain of corporate transactions and litigation rather than a product story. Amiga, Inc. licensed the rights to sell hardware under the AmigaOne name to Eyetech Group and Hyperion Entertainment. In 2003 and 2004 Amiga, Inc. transferred its rights over past and future versions of AmigaOS to Itec, LLC, which was later acquired by KMOS, Inc.; the remaining intellectual property followed, and in March 2005 KMOS registered a name change to Amiga, Inc. The Commodore and Amiga copyrights, including works up to 1993, were sold to Cloanto in 2015. In 2019 Mike Battilana of Cloanto founded C-A Acquisition Corp. and transferred to it the trademarks, copyrights and internet domains he had acquired from Amiga, Inc.; that company was renamed Amiga Corporation in 2020. The Amiga patents that Gateway retained are now held by Acer, which bought Gateway in 2007.

The platform is not dead in the sense that its software is. The AmigaOS line, along with the spin-offs MorphOS and AROS, is still maintained and updated by Hyperion Entertainment, which has released AmigaOne computers based on PowerPC under licence. In 2022 Ars Technica reported updates to the Linux kernel and the AmigaOS software development kit for what was by then a 37-year-old platform. Various groups have produced spiritual successors.

Timeline

  1. 1982 — Hi-Toro: Larry Kaplan's new game-platform venture hires Jay Miner to run hardware; the design is code-named Lorraine. (United States)
  2. 1983 — Amiga Corporation: After Kaplan leaves, Miner becomes head engineer and the venture relaunches as Amiga Corporation.
  3. Jan 1984 — The prototype: A working breadboard prototype is shown at the Consumer Electronics Show. (Las Vegas)
  4. Jun 1984 — The Atari loan: Amiga takes $500,000 from Atari, repayable within the month, with the Lorraine design forfeited if it is not repaid.
  5. 1984 — Commodore buys Amiga: Commodore offers $24 million to buy the company outright, after talks over a $4 million licence.
  6. 23 Jul 1985 — The Amiga 1000: The first model is released, running AmigaOS with a colour interface and pre-emptive multitasking.
  7. 1985 — A launch that missed Christmas: Only 50 machines are built by October; volume shipments begin in mid-November and about 35,000 are sold by year end.
  8. 1987 — The Amiga 500: Released alongside the Amiga 2000, it becomes the best-selling model of the line.
  9. 1990 — The Video Toaster: The third-party video system makes the Amiga a comparatively cheap option for video production.
  10. 1990 — The Amiga 3000: A high-end model with an updated chip set; further models follow in 1991 and 1992.
  11. 26 Apr 1994 — The division closes: Commodore shuts the Amiga division down; bankruptcy follows three days later.
  12. 1995 — Escom and Amiga Technologies: The German PC maker buys the assets and puts the Amiga into a subsidiary that re-releases the A1200 and A4000T. (Germany)
  13. 1996 — Escom fails: Escom goes bankrupt; small-scale Amiga production continues at QuikPak in Pennsylvania. (Germany)
  14. 1997 — Gateway buys the Amiga: Gateway 2000 pays $13 million for the Amiga business and the Commodore patents.
  15. 31 Dec 1999 — The trademark is sold: Gateway sells the copyrights and trademarks to Amino Development Corporation, which renames itself Amiga, Inc.
  16. 2015 — Cloanto buys the copyrights: The Commodore and Amiga copyrights, including works up to 1993, are sold to Cloanto.
  17. 2019 — Amiga Corporation: Amiga, Inc. transfers its intellectual property to C-A Acquisition Corp., renamed Amiga Corporation in 2020.
  18. 2022 — Still being updated: Hyperion Entertainment continues AmigaOS development, and the platform gets Linux kernel and SDK updates.

Quick facts

Introduced
July 1985, as the Amiga 1000, by Commodore
Processor
Motorola 68000 in the Amiga 1000, 500, 2000 and 600
Operating system
AmigaOS on Kickstart, with the Workbench desktop
Key features
custom coprocessors, sprites, a blitter, four channels of sample-based audio, pre-emptive multitasking
Primary rival
the Atari ST
Design origins
Hi-Toro (1982), renamed Amiga Corporation; code-named Lorraine
Hardware designers
Jay Miner, RJ Mical and Dale Luck
Commodore's purchase
$24 million, after a $4 million licence was discussed and an Atari loan of $500,000 fell due
Best-selling model
the Amiga 500, released in 1987
Sales
about 4.9 million machines over its life, mostly in the UK and Germany
Amiga Format, June 1993
4,850,000 sold
The Wall Street Journal, May 1995
approximately 5,000,000
Amiga division closed
26 April 1994, three days before Commodore's bankruptcy
After Commodore
Escom and its division Amiga Technologies, 1995 to 1996
Gateway purchase
1997, for $13 million
Trademark sale
to Amino Development Corporation on 31 December 1999
Today
copyrights and trademarks held by Amiga Corporation, a sister company of Cloanto, since 2019
AmigaOS
still developed by Hyperion Entertainment under licence
The Commodore and Amiga patents
now held by Acer through its purchase of Gateway
Name
the Spanish word for a female friend, chosen partly because it sorts before Apple

Lineage — where the name went

From a game-platform venture called Hi-Toro to a trademark held by a company founded in 2019 — one machine, and the ownership of its name for the four decades after Commodore died.

  1. Hi-Toro rebranded as Amiga Corporation (the venture relaunched under the Amiga name after Kaplan left)
  2. Jay Miner served under Amiga Corporation (head engineer who led the Lorraine hardware design)
  3. 1984 — Commodore International acquired Amiga Corporation (paid $24 million to buy the company outright)
  4. 1984 — Commodore International defeated Atari Corporation (Atari had lent Amiga $500,000 secured on the Lorraine design)
  5. 1985 — Commodore International created Amiga 1000 (released in July 1985 as the Amiga 1000)
  6. 1987 — Commodore International created Amiga 500 (the best-selling model, sold alongside the Amiga 2000)
  7. Commodore International created AmigaOS (built on a port of TRIPOS, with the Workbench desktop)
  8. 1993 — Commodore International created Amiga CD32 (the console that arrived as the platform was fading)
  9. 1995 — Commodore International acquired by Escom AG (the Amiga business went with the rest of the assets)
  10. 1995 — Escom AG created Amiga Technologies (separated the Amiga operations into their own division)
  11. 1997 — Amiga Technologies acquired by Gateway 2000 (Gateway 2000 bought the Amiga business and the Commodore patents)
  12. 1999 — Gateway 2000 sold Amiga, Inc. (the copyrights and trademarks, with the patents retained)
  13. Amiga, Inc. licensed the brand to Hyperion Entertainment (licensed to continue development of AmigaOS)
  14. 2019 — Amiga, Inc. sold Amiga Corporation (sold its intellectual property to Amiga Corporation)
  15. Amiga Corporation licensed the brand to Hyperion Entertainment (the current holder's licence for AmigaOS 4)
  16. 2007 — Gateway 2000 acquired by Acer Inc. (the purchase that also carried the former Commodore patents)

Entities in this tree: Jay Miner (person); Hi-Toro (company, 1982); Amiga Corporation (company, 1984); Atari Corporation (company, 1984); Commodore International (company, 1984); Amiga 1000 (product, 1985); Amiga 500 (product, 1987); AmigaOS (product); Amiga CD32 (product, 1993); Escom AG (company, 1995); Amiga Technologies (company, 1995); Gateway 2000 (company, 1997); Amiga, Inc. (company, 1999); Hyperion Entertainment (company); Amiga Corporation (company, 2019); Acer Inc. (company, 2007)

Sources

  1. Amiga — Wikipedia (2026-09-20)
  2. Commodore International — Wikipedia (2026-09-20)
  3. A history of the Amiga, part 3: The first prototype — Ars Technica (2026-09-20)
  4. A history of the Amiga, part 11: Between an Escom and a Gateway — Ars Technica (2026-09-20)
  5. Gateway buys bankrupt Amiga — CNET (2026-09-20)
  6. Gateway Sells Amiga Trademark to Amino Development — The New York Times (2026-09-20)
  7. C-A Acquisition Corp. renamed to Amiga Corporation — amiga-news.de (2026-09-20)
  8. Legal dispute: Amiga Inc. transferred rights to Mike Battilana's company — amiga-news.de (2026-09-20)
  9. 37-year-old Amiga platform gets updates to Linux kernel, AmigaOS SDK — Ars Technica (2026-09-20)
  10. Amiga 30 and the Unkillable Machine — IEEE Spectrum (2026-09-20)

Related: commodore · atari · gateway