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The Complete (no, really) Guide to Amiga History, Version 0.4, by RAGE. Freely distributable with this notice intact. Email corrections/additions/comments to rage@unixnet.org, or gojira@interlink.co.uk.
This is the HTML version - a text version will soon be available. Please note that this is a VERY early version of the text. So far as I know, it is still the most complete one available on the Net. Please excuse (or help correct) any errors.
Last updated: 21st Aug 97, at 4:54pm. Hits:
Thanks to Mathew Ignash for his contributions.
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1982
Hi-Toro was formed by three Florida dentists, who were keen to cash in on the video games craze. They invested $7million into the development of the machine, which was headed by Jay Miner, who has previously designed the Atari 2600. Hi Toro was soon renamed to Amiga Inc. due to the fact that there was already a Japanese manufacturer of lawn mowers called Toro. They code-named their computer Lorraine after the wife of the company president. So as not to attract suspicion, they built 'unique' hardware for other systems. The Amiga Power-Stick was a small joystick, which had a 6-foot cord. However, the Amiga Joyboard was very different, resembling bathroom scales, and it was shipped with the Atari VCS game Mogul Maniac! a skiing game. A game was coded for this called 'Guru Meditation', in which the idea was to sit as still as possible on the Joyboard. The 'way out' Amiga developers supposedly used this when the constant crashing of their test machines began to grate on the nerves - Hence 'Guru Meditation Error' when an early Amiga crashes. Other games for the Joyboard include Surf's Up, S.A.C. Alert (a fighter pilot game), and Off Your Rocker. The Joyboard had a 10 foot cord, and could support up to 250 lbs (If anybody has pictures of these items that they have scanned, I'd very much appreciate an email). This devlopment work covered the fact that the world's best console was in development.

1983
Rumours are leaked about the ongoing development of an incredibly powerful console. Jay and his team work to get the hardware in place, while Dale Luck and his group concentrate on getting the OS working through software simulation. Since they didn't have a working Amiga, they had to emulate the as-yet non-existant computer. The hardware folks would come to Dale, and inform him of which registers do what and where, and he would set up his machine to emulate this. It was a lengthy process.

1984
Amiga were extremely over-budget - Lorraine was costing more than they had anticipated, due to Jay Miner having decided to push it past being a simple games machine, into a full blown computer. This was largely due to the decline of the video games market. The truth is that the Amiga would probably have survived in the market being as powerful as it was, but they didn't want to take the risk.
It was January 4th. It was the beginning of a era. The world's first Amiga was on display at the Winter CES. It was a gigantic machine, not yet on Silicon - It was made of lots of breadboards, and those traveling up a nearby escalator could catch a glimpse of bundles of wires and breadboards. Also, this was the night that the Boing demo was finished by Dale Luck. The checked bouncing ball is still the Amiga logo to this day.

1985
This was the year where things finally started to happen for Amiga Inc. They had offered their computer to many companies, such as Sony, Apple, and Silicon Graphics. Silicon Graphics were interested in the chips, but didn't want the computer. Atari made an offer, but it was very poor. They had offered 70c per share, whereas when Commodore stepped in at the last minute, they offered $4.25 per share. It was just in time, too. Jay and his team were about to give up, due to a now crippling lack of money. Commodore also gave the crew $27 million for development, on condition that they release the machine prematurely - the team wanted over a year for more development and testing time, which Commodore could not financially support.
In June, the Amiga was on display again, this time on Silicon. People viewing the new Amiga didn't believe that it was a real machine - They thought it was some sort of practical joke. They simply didn't believe that a machine in a PC-like case could possibly be capable of such stunning displays.
It was on July 23rd that the Amiga 1000 was unveiled officially. Andy Warhol & Deborah Harry were at the launch party, and Warhol stunned everyone by knocking up an on-the-spot portrait of Blondie herself. Not long after in September, the Amiga 1000 was released. It had a number of signatures on the underside of the case, including Jay Miner's, and the paw print of his dog, Mitchy. It cost half the price of an EGA PC.
Soon after the release of the A1000, the world's first Amiga mag, Amiga World, was released. The juggler demo was also coded - the world famous scene of a character juggling reflective balls in a 3D environment.

1986
The original A2000 designs were rejected by Commodore, who instead decided to work on a version made in Braunschweig, West Germany. As a result, more than half of the original Amiga crew were laid off. Within months, none of the original crew remained.
Defender of the Crown was released this year. It was so impressive, that it sold thousands of Amigas. It still runs flawlessly on today's A1200s, and the presentation of the game is impressive to this day.

1987
The Amiga 500 and Amiga 2000 were released, after their unveiling at the CES. The A500 battled against the Atari ST, with a higher price tag, but considerably higher specs. The ST was released before the Amiga, a clone which was released before the Amiga was on the streets, if you like. It was a quick job by Atari, and featured no custom chips, a 68000 CPU, and a MIDI port (which is why the Atari ST is still in use in some studios even now!) and had an advantage in terms of price and software available. This was also the year that Scala was formed.

1988
The Amiga sales continue to rise.

1989
The Batman pack is released, the world's most popular Amiga pack. It sold in the hundreds of thousands.

1990
By this time the Amiga has become the world's best selling home computer, ever. On March, CanDO was released, which is now one of the premier multimedia authoring packages. On the 24th April, the Amiga 3000 was unveiled, and there were rumours of Kickstart 2.0. Up until 30 minutes prior to it's announcement, Commodore denied that A3000 existed! It was released in May. There were also some rumours of Kickstart 2.0 being incompatible with the A500.
One of Commodore's most expensive mistakes was the CDTV, which was released in June. It was an A500 in a hi-fi box, with a CD ROM. It was a disaster. Sales persons were disallowed from mentioning the Amiga in the same sentance as CDTV, and the machine had to be kept away from Amigas. The machine looked funky, but it was crapper than crap, and the punters knew it.
In August, the A500+ was released. It was basically an A500, but it had the ECS chipset and Kickstart 2. It was on sale for only a few brief months, but it was better than the machine is preceded, the A600.
A bit of a revolution in video happened in November - The release of NewTek's Video Toaster, a cheap and powerful tool which is still used in countless television and movie studios worldwide. Since it's release, it has been responsible for the graphics in shows and films such as Babylon 5, Seaquest DSV, STNG, Quantum Leap, Robocop, Alladin, and even Jurassic Park (a bit).

1991
The CDTV is a failure. Commodore start to make some serious financial mistakes. The A600 was also unveiled (another such mistake). It was an A500+ but in a smaller box. An embarrassing mistake, seeing that the A1200 was also released in 1992. One of a string of marketing mistakes which turned the punters against Commodore.
In December, Mirrorsoft went into liquidation, thanks to Robert Maxwell taking a bit of a prolonged plunge in the ocean. Sensible Soccer was sold off to another company (Renegade..?).

1992
The Amiga 3000+ was put on show. It had AGA graphics, and it was also very expandable. It was later scrapped, and released in a totally revamped form as the A4000.
The A600 was released in March. It was an A500+, but with no numeric keypad. There was an outcry from those who only recently bought A500s. Worse was yet to come, in the form of the A1200.
In April, Oceans's dongle-protection on Robocop 3 was announced as a failure, as pirated versions hit Bulletin Boards world wide. Weeks after, Ocean still weren't sure quite how they managed it. Meanwhile, Amiga Format reported regular reader figures of over 130,000 copies, and on one occasion, 160,000. These days it still sells a respectable (if unspectacular) 30,000.
The best ever Amiga, the A1200, was unveiled on September 11. It was actually just a prototype of a machine that they were working on, but Commodore insisted that it go into the shops as it was. If it had been developed further, the Amiga may still be alive today. Workbench 3.0 was also announced.
In December, the A4000 was released, the first of the two AGA machines. The A1200 was released slightly later, to cash in on Christmas sales. The A4000 was a good machine, but devastatingly overpriced.

1993
Commodore starts to lay people off, and the advanced AAA chipset is shelved due to a severe lack of money. Things begin to look bleak, and rumours of Commodore's demise are rife. The PC starts to gain a major lead over the Amiga.
According to maverick Journalist and Amiga-hater Stuart Campbell, a meeting was held involving all of the major games companies, in which it was decided that the Amiga was dead, and that software development should be wound down. Still, in these dark times there was some good things happening - not least the launch of Amiga Report, a popular online magazine, in March.
April was good too, as it was announced that the A1200 had broken all previous records, with 100,000 sales since it's launch. The Atari Falcon was losing by a considerable margin. Workbench 3.0 was being shipped out to developers for testing, which turned out to be the biggest story of the month. Also, though it's debatable if this is a good thing, the ambitious Emplant Emulator was also announced this month.
Another of Commodore's blunders was released in September - The CD32 was launched to a lukewarm reception. Commodore promised lots of games by the end of the year. They did not arrive. Surprise surprise. In October, Commodore planned advertising to the cost of UKP 7million.

1994
It was now pretty obvious, despite the sadly optimistic approach by the Amiga magazines, that Commodore was going downhill fast. It was in March that Commodore announced horrific losses. On April 22nd, they had laid off huge amounts of staff. So many in fact, that by April 25th, only 30 of Commodore's 1000 employees remained. The death of the Amiga looked certain.
On Wednesday the 27th, the West Chester facility was closed down.
On Friday April 29 at 4:10 P.M, the fate of Commodore was sealed, as they file for liquidation. They made a brief announcement to the press, before going quiet.
A very sad piece of news which shook the Amiga owning community was the death of Jay Miner, the father of the Amiga. He died on June 20th at the El Camino Hospital In Mountain View. He had been fighting against illness for a while, and he eventually died from heart failure due to kidney complications. It was ironic that while the Amiga was in it's final stages, Jay should himself pass away. It is to Jay that this document is dedicated.
Despite a failing market in Amiga software, the annual Amiga Convention took place in July. It was held at Quebec, Canada.

1995
In Janurary, Chelsea Football club considered taking legal action against Commodore for money they never recieved for sponsorship. Commodore didn't seem too fussed. Also in that month, ELSPA carried out raids on stalls at a car boot sale in Leeds. It was worth UKP 100,000.
Commodore management attempt a buyout, and say that they are sure to win, right up until the last minute.
More depressing news on the 1st of March - Amiga World was canceled. It ran for nearly a decade, and was the first Amiga mag to spring up, and one of the first to close. On May 3rd, 1994, they had claimed that the death of Commodore in no way affected the mag. They had said: "Regardless of any change in the status of Commodore's operations, AmigaWorld will continue to provide coverage of the Amiga market for its readership. We believe there are sound reasons to remain in the Amiga market -- namely, an installed base of five million Amiga computers worldwide; a dedicated AmigaWorld readership of loyal, enthusiastic users; and an innovative, proactive group of third-party developers." Less than a year later, the publishers thought that the machine would never recover, and closed it down. Now, in 1997, Amiga Format is still selling a more than healthy 30,000 copies.
It was April before the final battle was to be fought, between two PC manufacturers, Dell and Escom. Escom was a fledgling PC manufacturer and retailer from Germany, but history would tell us that they were hardly an ideal buyer. They won - and the Amiga cost them a mere $6 million. Dell had offered $15 million, but there were several conditions - they weren't sure that they actually wanted the Amiga.
On April 16th (ish), GVP went out of business.

1996
The Walker was put on show, a computer which looked like a 1950's radio. It had good specs, but never saw the light of day. CU-Amiga had a competition to name it.
In a staggering bit of bad luck, Escom soon filed for bankruptcy. A set-top-box manufacturer called VisCorp tried to get the Amiga, but luckily for us they failed. The typically excitable and sensationalistic Amiga magazines claimed that VisCorp was very likely to be the next owner. Thankfully not.
A few more Amiga mags died this year, including Amiga Power, which died in September. Thank God for that.

1997
The year of AmigaQuake and games promises. Vulcan games expanded from making crap adventure games coded in AMOS, to producing very good games by out-of-house publishers. Vulcan are heralded as one of the best Amiga software publishers. Best of luck to them, too. They have promised a number of games, not least the forthcoming Wasted Dreams.
ClickBOOM, despite very few releases, are another company who are helping the Amiga out - they are releasing Myst soon, and plan more big-budget conversions.
In January, the long-running Video Toaster User magazine ceased publication. However, Lightwavin magazine started publication to fill the gap. Later, in April, Newtechniques magazine started publication
Amiga Technologies was sold to Gateway2000, one of the world's biggest PC manufacturers. They renamed AT to Amiga International, cleaned up the Web site, and licensed the technology to several companies who are now making their own Amigas.
Quake for the Amiga was coded earlier in the year, or rather ported. It was created from some source code found on Crack Dot Com. It was ported by software pirates Digital Corruption, who were turned from people that were 'killing the Amiga' into Amiga heroes overnight. There were various announcements from DC, first asking people to shut up about the port, so as not to draw attention to it, and then saying that AmigaQuake development had ceased, but this was probably disinformation. There was at least one update of AmigaQuake which was released quietly and discreetly, after the main announcement by Shen^DC, stating that development had ceased entirely. AmigaQuake, despite the hype, was slow, and slightly pathetic when put up against PC Quake even on a 486 SX25. Here's one of the announcements made by Shen^DC on March 1st. Oh, and here's and another. Don't you just love the Amiga Elite?
Unfortunately, the long running Amiga magazine Amiga User International (known as AUI) closed in June. It was followed by Amiga Computing in July.
In a shock move during August, Amiga Review was closed, due to a lack of advertising methods (advertising was refused by the big-boys in CU Amiga and Amiga Format). At the same time, Totally Amiga magazine started publication.