Even though I find the Atari ST family a better overall design, the Amiga is a maximalist machine, full of interesting and unique abilities back then. In the end, it was doomed by its complexity, which made development costlier and slower until it was finally overtaken by PCs with VGAs and SoundBlasters, running Windows 3. A shame it didn’t last longer.
Daviey•6mo ago
Technically Amiga Workbench was always superior to Windows 3, I think Microsoft won the PC because it was not tied to the hardware and variety of software.
rbanffy•6mo ago
The lack of higher resolutions was an issue - it wasn't a nice experience to run productivity apps on the Amiga, and better graphics only came much later (and required a new Amiga). At that time my PC went from CGA, to Hercules, to VGA with the same motherboard. A machine as complex as the Amiga should have been more modular. That would have made Commodore able to match PC capabilities more easily while preserving hardware investments by the users. When you felt it was time to upgrade your A1000 to a 3000, you'd end up considering a PC as well.
Being a machine seen as primarily targeted at games didn't help justify the development of a rich software ecosystem for it, and porting from other platforms was difficult. If the Amiga managed to acquire a critical mass of software, either original or ports, the story could have been different. Maybe if the 3000UX were cheaper and ran Coherent rather that AT&T's Unix, it'd be enough to be a viable Unix-like workstation.
snvzz•6mo ago
There's also the ownership/legal aspect, which is covered in detail in the Amiga Documents[0].
Been loving all these Amiga posts lately. I don't even do anything. It just triggers some sort of happy childhood nostalgia, like smelling your grandmother's cooking.
rbanffy•6mo ago
Daviey•6mo ago
rbanffy•6mo ago
Being a machine seen as primarily targeted at games didn't help justify the development of a rich software ecosystem for it, and porting from other platforms was difficult. If the Amiga managed to acquire a critical mass of software, either original or ports, the story could have been different. Maybe if the 3000UX were cheaper and ran Coherent rather that AT&T's Unix, it'd be enough to be a viable Unix-like workstation.