Milestones!
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This page will list significant happenings on the C64 and Amiga, like "first
demo with border sprites" was released.
Right now this page is pretty lame, but that could change with your
help!
Mail us your small anecdotes! (You'll
of course be given full credit!)
1985
January
Newsweek covers the Consumers Electronics Show in in Las Vegas in their
magazine. They note that "Commodore held back the much-touted new
computer, the Amiga." Rumors later came out that Commodore didn't
want to steal the thunder from it's new C-128!
March Business Week reports that Commodore is having problems with it's
new Amiga staff, ever since the value if the shares that they paid the
Amiga people with for their product droped to half their value.
April
Venture Magazine does a two page story telling the rise and fall of
Amiga Inc. who have now sold their company to CBM.
July
Advertsing Age reports that Amiga Inc. sells the Amiga to CBM for $40,000,000.
Compute Magazine reports that is has only run into walls in it's attempts
to investigate into this new machine called the Amiga. PC Week reports
that "much awaited" Amiga will sell for $1295 and be available
in Sept. 1985. (yea right!) It also details the amazing hardware at the
heart of the machine.
August
Compute is still bitching that Commodore won't let them see the Amiga,
while they let other magazines have a look at it. It also devotes two full
pages to the specs of the machine. Fortune Magazine reports the coming
of the Amiga. Basically they say it's a Mac, but only faster, with color,
and multitasking. They also picture Andy Warhol, Debi Harry and the A1000
together. Newsweek reports the Mac, Apple II and Atari now have competition
with the new Amiga.
September
Amiga World magazine premiere's. Basically it's a 98 page color ad for
the Amiga at this point. S&MM magazine reports that report of the official
release of the Amiga.
October
PC Magazine reports the new Amiga is "too good to ignore, even
if you are an IBM aficionado." and it has "nothing going for
it but technical excellence." Popular Science reports of the Amiga
being used at the New York Lincoln Center to create dance art. Electronic
Arts takes out 2 page adds in magazines stating it's commitment to the
Amiga platform.
November
Byte magazine devotes 8 full pages to interviewing Jay Miner about the
custom chips he designed for the Amiga. The cover story of Compute is "Amiga's
Amazing Graphics" Macleans does a one page report on how the Amiga
is drawing people into computer stores in Toranto. New York magazine reviews
new snazzy television comercials, including a rather impressive one for
the Amiga (when was the last time you saw one of those).
Notable Amiga Games announced in 1985 from EA: Dr. Jay and Larry Bird
Go One-On-One Skyfox Seven Cities of Gold Archon Deluxe Video Construction
Set Articfox Return to Atlantis Marble Madness
(Source: Great research by Matt!)
1986
January
Amiga World magazine devotes 6 pages to Andy Warhol's work on Amiga.
Commodore actually takes out 3 pages adds. Bryce Wray writes 2 pages on how
he (an avid Mac fan) has converted over to the Amiga.
Fortune magazine writes 3 pages on the new Amiga computer, including a picture
of Amigas being manufacturing.
PC Magazine releases it's best and worst of 1985 lists. The Amiga makes BOTH!
to quote them "...a single product that stands head and shoulders above the
competition...". They don't understand how Commodore markets the machine as a
business machine and then introduces it be having a new age artist use it to
draw pictures of a rock star for the press.
Personal Computing writes 5 pages about "The New Human Interface", in other
words Graphical User Interfaces are the new wave of computers. Included in
their list of this new technology is the Amiga Workbench
Games: The Halley Project & The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
(Source: Great research by Matt!)
February
Amazing Computing Magazine premieres. A 68 page black and white magazine
with a three color cover, It lists for $2.50 U.S. Dollars. It includes a
list of all known Amiga dealers (87 of them by my count. slightly less than
their are today). It also includes articles on Date Virus (not really a
virus, but more a system glitch), EZ-Term, Inside CLI, C Tutorial and more.
Most interesting are some of the adds, such as 2400 bps modem for only $429!
No wonder I didn't get into tele-computing back then!
Note: Amazing Computing are still in production as of this writing, December
1996.
Byte Magazine did an 8 page article on the introduction to the Amiga Rom
Kernal and a 5 page article on article called "Tripos - The Roots of AmigaDOS"
detailing the history of development of the Amiga's wonderour operating
system.
Compute Magazine predicts "great things from Commodore's new Amiga" in their
editor's notes. It also does a review of the Motorola 68000 chip, the
powerhouse that makes the Amiga and other new computers possible. Meanwhile
The only adds Commodore buys in the magazine are advertising the C128, way to
go Commodore marketing!
Time Magazine publishes a article predicting the possible demise of Commodore,
mostly becuare all it's new Commodore 64 varients have been flops, but they
also report that it's purchase of the Amiga Corp. could help it (and I guess
it did as Commodore survived for 8 more years, and when it died everyone was
hot to get the Amiga Technology from them).
(Source: Great research by Matt!)
March
Marauder by Discovery Software is introduced for only $39.95.
Tecmar introduces a modular add-on system that adds 1mb of ram, clock, serial
port, and SCSI port in the first module, a 20 mb hard drive in the second, a
20 mb tape backup in the third, and a 2400 bps modem in the forth. The modem
alone costs $569.00!! The 1mb of ram, clock, serial and SCSI go for $849.00.
Amiga World writer Bob Ryan does an article on the new 68020 accelerator from
CSA. It has a 68020 and 68881 running at 7.1 mhz. It lists for only
$1875.00 (And people complained about the high price of the A1200?). They
also do several pages on the new CD-Rom technology. They say that Sony has a
CD-Rom drive that reads 150k per second (what we call a single speed drive
today), they also say that they plan to make SCSI interfaces the standard for
the drives if they ever catch on.
Commodore put out a magazine ad for the Amiga! It is a one page ad on the
back cover of Amiga World pushing the Amiga as a business and educational
machine capable of color. It only contains one screen shot of a running
program, and a couple pieces of art. Real nit pickers will notice the ad
refers to the "Amiga by Commodore" and not "Commodore Amiga". This is because
they were tyring to distance themselves from the other Commodore line like the
"Commodore 64" the "Commodore 128" etc... After all why would you want to be
associated with the best selling computer system to date? Another disturbing
fact is that the Amiga is only advertised in Amiga only magazines, but in
general computing magazines Commodore would rather advertise the Commodore
128. This pretty much insures that only current Amiga users will ever see an
Amiga ad.
Compute magazine does a comparison of the Amiga and the Atari ST in it's
editoral column, but can't decide on a winner. Compute also celebrates a
first. The simple BASIC game that they provide with each issue now includes
an Amiga version. The game is called Switchbox and is done in Microsoft Amiga
Basic. Compute also offers it's first two books about the Amiga for sale.
They are "The Amiga: Your First Computer" and "Using AmigaDOS"
(Source: Great research by Matt!)
First version of Deluxe Paint released
(Source: Dmz)
Some great C64 games from 1986:
World games (Epyx introduced the Sumo & weightlifting)
V-The Action Game (Despite of the name the game didn't have lizards
nor action)
Bomb Jack (This arcade conversion saved us a fortune)
Kung Fu Master (A kick and punch game with weird kamikaze dwarfs)
Commando (A-one-man-alone-shoots-400-enemies-game)
Green Beret (The POW was to be saved, no matter what the cost)
International Karate (Yesterdays Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter)
Ghosts'n Goblins (Lotsa weapons and great music!)
Leaderboard (One of the very first golf games)
Ace of Aces (Good motor sound!)
Marble Madness ("Wow! It looks so real")
(Source Dmz)
1987
The production of the Amiga 1000 is stopped. The first models of the
Amiga 500, shown at the Consumer Electronic Show in Las Vegas, only had
a memory of 256 Kb, while the prototype of the Amiga 2000 had a 68020 processor!
(Source: Dmz)
The first turbo cards for the Amiga was released. The American company
CSA now made the incredible speed 20 MHz possible!
(Source: Dmz)
29/10-1/11 Silents party in Alvesta/Sweden
Workbench 1.2 is introduced! (and with it harddrives are now possible!)
(Source: Dmz)
The first Amiga Virus, SCA (Swiss Cracker Association), was spread.
It was not very advanced, and it could easily be removed by installing
a new bootblock. The only thing the virus did was writing "something
wonderful has happened, your Amiga is alive!..." on the screen.
(Source: Dmz)
5/12 FCS (Fantasy Cracking Service) party in Bonn, East-Germany.
Between Xmas and new years: Triads party in Stockholm.
Some great games from 1987:
Space Quest (Animated 3D adventure from Sierra!)
Blood'n Guts C64 (Swedish programmers (probably too much of that
"Vilse i Pannkakan") made a game with head chopping, beerdrinking
and animal torture...)
Arkanoid C64 (A breakout game with excellent (hard to rip) music!)
Gunship C64 (The best chopper simulator -took 25 mins to load from
tape)
Defender Of The Crown Amiga (Jim Sachs amazed us with his graphics!)
Wizball C64 (A bouncing-wizard-with-a-cat game)
Spy vs Spy C64 (Thanks to a split screen two players could enjoy
the game at the same time!)
Last Ninja C64 (System 3 gave us a great game with superb graphics
and sounds!)
Surgeon Amiga (A surgeon simulator. Really hard. If you were good
the patient didn't scream when dying!)
Pirates C64 (Why was the wind always from the east?)
IK+ C64 (Wasn't this the best fighting game of all times? Great
sound FX!)
(Source Dmz)
1988
A Norwegian computer magazine had heard some rumours about a copyparty
organized by Razor 1911, Abnormal and The Cartel that was about to take
place in 6-9 October. (A copyparty is a get together of hackers and crackers,
who among other things dublicate copyrighted software. Something which
is illegal) One of the paper guys, with a past as a porn reporter, wanted
to make this boring event somewhat more interesting for his readers. So
in order to rise the profit for the mag, he placed a call to the local
police, informing them about the whole thing.
And guess what! He got some great pictures of desperate hackers escaping
in panic throu windows when the police made a razzia. The mag had gotten
its first scoop. What the mag didn't write was that one of the police officers
had a commodore 64 at home and was interested in getting games for himself!
He started talking to the computer freaks, who now had the guts to come
back, asking them if he please could have some programs!
Only a few more issues of this mag, Dator Norge, was released.
(Source Dmz)
InsaneTTM (Founder of Razor 1911 in 1985) comments: well atleast main parts
of Abnormal and Razor 1911 came on the front of that magazine together
with the cop holding up a c64 with disks...
A new virus, Byte Bandit, started spreading in March. This was a nasty
one. Infection all you non-write protected disks and crashed your computer
after a few minutes.
(Source: Dmz)
Some parties back in 1988:
12/5-15/5 Stockholm : Agile+Rebels
13/5-15/5 Arvika : Vortex 42
8/7-10/7 Tommerup, Danmark : Jewels, Danish Gold, Dominators, Upfront
8/8-14/8 Iisalmi, Finland : Byterapers
Horizon's & Jet-Speed's party in Enkoping, Sweden.
(Source: H.O./S451)
Iguana (a paper magazine): Made by Nosah (who is associated with DCS).
First released in the middle of 1988. It had a long break during 1989 when
Nosah did his military service. Last issue? The mag was spread to those
who subscribed. Outside the UK the price was 2 disks per copy!
(Source: H.O./S451)
Some great games from 1988:
Rocket Ranger (A cinemaware game with amazing sequences)
OutrunC64 (A disappointment, the Amiga version was better)
Leisure Suit Larry Amiga (A neat new game idea)
Tetris C64 (A game even girls like!)
Jack The Ripper C64 (Because of the bloody digitized pictures, the
first game with an age limit)
Interceptor Amiga (Still considered the best flightsimulator by
many people)
Great Giana Sisters C64/Amiga (A game so identical with Nintendos
Super Mario Bros that they threatened to sue the developer, and the game
was stopped)
Last Ninja 2 C64 (A great squeal)
Battlechess Amiga (Remember the good graphics and the interesting
ways the players killed eachother?)
Neuromance C64 (Read Wiliam Gibson's book!)
Elite Amiga (!)
(Source: Dmz)
1989
Digitech's Summer Conference 1989 in Kortedala (Gothenburg / Sweden)
A big success! Everyone was there! Great weather and tasty beer! We had
a ball!
(Source: Zike!)
Horizon's Easterparty in Eskilstuna, Sweden. (Source: Merlin)
Light's Halloweenparty in Balsta, Sweden. (Source: Merlin)
David Haynie released his excellent program "Disksalv". Probably
saved lotsa harddisks and tears. Thanks!
(Source: Dmz)
One of the best parties ever: 23/3-25/3 Zargon's party in Slagelse,
Danmark.
CCCP (A paper magazine): A product of Transcom. Was made on a Mac with
a lazer printer (superb quality compared to the standard of those days).
First released in 1989. Last issue? Spread "exclusivly" to Transcoms
contacts.
(Source: H.O./S451)
Some great games from 1989:
Wayne Gretzky Hockey (A game where strategy was important for you
as the center player
Speedball C64 (Novel idea!)
Dragons Lair Amiga (A whole new game concept; great graphics, superb
sound and boring)
Falcon Amiga (Come fly with me)
Dungeon Master Amiga (A classic game, with many copies)
Populous Amiga (Different strategy game where you can be yourself)
Project Firestart C64 (A bloody game with some parallel's to the
movie Aliens
Silkworm Amiga (A cooperation test between you and your friend)
Kick Off Amiga (The mother of all soccer games!)
Rick Dangerous C64/Amiga (!)
Sim City Amiga (The first Sim-game. It was here it all started)
1990
The Red Sector and Silents party in the summer. Strider made Zelnik
stand on a chair, screaming "I'm Zelnik. I'm Lame!"
(Source: Denmark UK)
Easter Conference on Burgårdsgymnasiet / Gothenburg (Sweden)
(Source: Conqueror)
Horizon's Easterparty in Varby, Sweden (Source: Merlin)
Some great games from 1990:
Mean Streets (A detective game at its best)
Future Wars Amiga (Time traveling game with good gfx)
Fighter Bomber (A game that was entertaining, mainly for its bugs;
Rivers with a constant size, no matter how far away you were, the fighters
dropping missiles on the runway etc...)
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Amiga (A tricky adventure game)
Knights of the Crystallion Amiga (One of the few games that was
made in HAM-gfx (4096 colors))
E-motion C64/Amiga (A "new age-game" you wither loved
or hated)
Projectyle Amiga (Hmm...)
Damocles Amiga (Took 4 years to be released)
Operation Stealth Amiga (An agent game a la Bond style)
Loom Amiga (A good beginners adventure)
Wings Amiga (The resurrection of the pilots of the first World War)
1991
CDTV & C64 GS introduced
(Source: Dmz)
ESKILSTUNA COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT SHOW - 14-16/6 1991
The best organized party EVER was held by Conqueror & Zike!, Phenomena,
Razor 1911 and Rebels on the 14-16:th of June 1991 in Eskilstuna / Sweden.
Just to mention a few of the things that made the party something extra
special:
Together with the 6 page invitationsheet a FULL COLOR map was submitted.
Also included was turist information about the city.
In addition to the BEST cafeteria with the widest selection to very humane
prices there was among other things Arcades (supplied by Uncle Tom!)
If you didn't feel like spending your money on expensive cab rides, you
had the opportunity to be given a ride by any of the two party-minivans!
A well known UK pirate preformed his on rap-song during the demo competition!!
Also, a very neat 1 x 2 meter ECES flag was made by Ziphoids (Razor) girlfriend
(now wife and mother of two!).
(Source: Phenomena)
Horizon's last Easterparty in Huddinge, Sweden. (Source: Merlin)
Some great games from 1991:
Rise if the Dragons Amiga (10 disks!)
Prince of Persia Amiga (Great animations)
Lemmings Amiga (Let's go!)
Pro Tennis Tour 2 Amiga (The best tennis game?)
The Power Amiga (A lovely game...)
Monkey Island Amiga (Guybrush Threepwood!)
Killing Cloud Amiga (A futuristic Hill Street Blues game)
Railroad Tycoon Amiga (A Sid Meiers masterpiece, one of the best
management games)
Eye of the Beholder Amiga (Almost as good as Dungeon Master)
Hunter Amiga (Action game with vector gfx)
Cruise for a Corpse Amiga (Impressive gfx, polygonpeople on top
of bitmapped background)
(Source: Dmz)
1992
The Commodore 64 is no longer available in stores.
(Source: Dmz)
A new version of the Amiga 500 is introduced; Amiga 500 Plus. It included
AmigaDOS 2.04
(Source: Dmz)
A CD-Rom for the Amiga was first shown on the Las Vegas Consumer Electric
Show. When it much later was released it was called A570.
(Source: Dmz)
Amiga 600, 1200 and 4000 were introduced
(Source: Dmz)
Some great games from 1992:
Sensible Soccer (!!!)
Populous 2 Amiga (Once again, you could play God)
Another World Amiga (2D polygon gfx)
Hudson Hawk Amiga (The only good movie-game that turned out okey)
Robocop 3 Amiga (The game was released 3 years before the movie.
The copy protection required you to put a Dongel in the joystick port.
Didn't fit on the A2000...)
Willy Beamish Amiga (To play with the little brat Willy you needed
12 disks)
Microprose Grand Prix Amiga (A racing simulator)
Pinball Dreams Amiga (The ex Silents members blessed us with a great
game. We had a ball!)
Monkey Island 2 Amiga (Bah!)
Civilization Amiga (Microprose best game ever!)
Leeds Unlimited Championship Amiga (Worst game ever?)
(Source: Dmz)
1993
In June (16th) the worlds first 32 bit consol was released. The Amiga
CD32 was supposed to crush the Nintendo and Sega. Because of too few games
released, it didn't become the hit it was supposed to be...
(Source: Dmz)
CD-ROM for the Amiga 500 came out in November. You could even run the
CDTV stuff on it!
(Source: Dmz)
Some great games from 1993:
Frontier -Elite II Amiga (THE game of 1993)
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis Amiga (The man in the hat
is back)
Wing Commander Amiga (Finally an Amiga version of the great PC game)
Air Warrior Amiga (Now you could start using Internet and have combats
with pilots from all over the globe)
The Chaos Engine Amiga (The best two-player game ever!)
A-train Amiga (Wallstreet, here I come!)
Flashback Amiga (Flashback was NOT "Another World 2".
Another world 2 was called "Heart of the Alien")
Gunship 2000 Amiga (Finally!)
Syndicate Amiga (Violence!)
Dune II Amiga (Actionstratigy that required you to be able to multitask)
Cannon Fodder Amiga (Sensible Software's incredible Lemmings-Syndicate
combination!)
(Source: Dmz)
1994
Amiga 4000 Tower introduced-The dream machine!
(Source: Dmz)
Rumours about Escom wanting to buy Commodore
(Source: Dmz)
Some great games from 1994:
Impossible Mission 2025 Amiga (Nostalgia is cute!)
Simon the Sorcerer Amiga (Try this game when you're done with Monkey
Island 2)
Tornado Amiga (The best argument for buying an Amiga 1200)
Settlers Amiga (Tricky one!)
Bubba'n Stix Amiga (Comic!)
Microcosm CD32 (The first real CD32 game with a great intro!)
Beneath a Steel Sky Amiga (A cyberpunk adventure)
Benefactor Amiga (Digital Illusions strikes back!)
Universe Amiga (Some illogical stuff, but the gfx made it all worth
while!)
Theme Park Amiga (Haha!)
Litil Divil CD32 (All ready then!)
(Source: Dmz)
1995
On April the 21:st ESCOM bought what was left of Commodore. The price
was 12 million Dollars and has then invested another 60 million. Let's
see what happens...
(Source: Dmz)
Some great games from 1995:
Sim City 2000 Amiga (Sooo slow, soooo slooooow)
Rise of the Robots Amiga (Bah...)
Sensible World of Soccer Amiga (Wow! All those details! Great!)
Gloom Amiga (The first Doom clone on the Amiga)
(Source: Dmz)
1996 - December
Quikpak demonstrated it's two new Amiga models a Toronto, Canada computer
show. They are the A4060L and the A5050.
The A4060L is a A4000 tower in a black case with a handle, it lays on it's
side and a LCD screen pops up for use on the road.
The A5050 has a giant case and holds a A4000 and IBM 80X86 motherboards and
interfaces the two machines. The ultimate brigdeboard.
(Source: Great research by Matt!)