It was a computer well ahead of its time. From the very beginning it offered features that computers today have only begun to "boast." These included a windowed graphical interface, preemptive multitasking, thousands (now millions) of on-screen colors, stereo sound, speech synthesis, plug and play, built-in video compatibility, and several co-processor chips to unburden the CPU.

It was a multimedia computer before the word was invented. Because of its multitasking ability and the coprocessor chips, the Amiga could effortlessly display a video animation with simultaneous accompanying sound. Amigas have been and continue to this day to be used by many TV and video studios for production work.

Perhaps its greatest feat was achieving true multitasking within a tiny amount of memory. Multitasking allows a computer to work on several tasks simultaneously. Whereas today's "popular" computers (that have only recently begun to even offer multitasking) have bloated operating systems requiring millions of bytes (megabytes) of RAM memory, the Amiga could cleanly multitask in 1985 in as little as 256 thousand bytes. (By the way, one of the OS developers was Carl Sassenrath, who has recently embarked on an interesting new project.)

There have been two major advances in Amiga technology since 1985. The Amiga 3000 was introduced around 1990, and the Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000 in 1992. The 1200 and 4000 are still in production.

So, if it was so good, why have you never heard of an Amiga? That answer is up for grabs. Commodore apparently just never knew how to market it properly. For example, the story goes that a video producer for one of the early Star Trek movies asked Commodore if they could have a free Amiga to use IN THE MOVIE (remember the scene with Scotty and the Macintosh?), and Commodore said no.

Although the Amiga had and continues to have a die-hard loyal following, economics finally caught up and Commodore folded in 1994. A year later, the Amiga was bought by a PC clone maker in Germany named Escom, but they later folded when the clone market collapsed. Then in the spring of 1997, Gateway bought the Amiga. After a year or two of delay, they announced big plans to continue development of the computer, but then in September, 1999, unexpectedly reversed course and decided to not produce any Amigas.

Finally, in January, 2000, two former Amiga employees organized a new company and bought Amiga from Gateway. It looks like they have backing from several other companies (Sun, Corel, etc.), and are planning big things for the Amiga's future. We can only hope!

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