WEBVTT - Death of the Amiga 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:13.680 Stuff Works dot com. He there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:16.000 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickling. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:16.000 --> 0:00:19.160 How Stuff Works in Love all Things Tech. As I 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.760 watched my producer lip sync my intro with me, I 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:26.880 guess that's a comment about how predictable I've become. It 0:00:26.920 --> 0:00:31.120 doesn't matter. We're talking about Amiga. We're wrapping up the 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:34.800 discussion on Amiga. We're going to be cramming a whole 0:00:35.040 --> 0:00:38.400 lot of history in this episode, because we focused a 0:00:38.440 --> 0:00:41.879 lot on the politics that surrounded the launch of the 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:44.680 Amiga one thousand and then the Amiga five hundred and 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:47.320 two thousand. By the time the Amiga five hundred in 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.479 two thousand had debuted in seven, the story of Amiga 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:54.160 had changed considerably. The original people who had led the 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:58.279 design of that first computer, that Amigo one thousand, we're 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:00.680 pretty much out of the picture. There still a few 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:04.680 Amiga engineers and developers who were around and we're working 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:08.160 at Commodore, but they had been more or less incorporated 0:01:08.160 --> 0:01:13.080 into Commodore's larger structure. The Amiga five hundred debuted at 0:01:13.080 --> 0:01:17.040 a pretty attractive price, It was sold for the princely 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:22.000 sum of six hundred dollars. If we use an inflation 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:24.560 calculator to figure out how much that would be in 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:27.400 today's money, that would be close to about one thousand, 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:31.800 five hundred seventy bucks. The Attari st had debuted at 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.399 one hundred dollars more, but it also came with a monitor, 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:37.640 and that was for the monochromatic version. If you wanted 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:40.640 the color monitor version, it was three hundred dollars more 0:01:40.840 --> 0:01:44.000 than the Amiga five hundred. But again, if you bought 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:46.400 an Amiga five hundred, you had also get a monitor, 0:01:46.800 --> 0:01:48.600 so you could also use a television if you really 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:52.880 wanted to. Unlike the Amiga one thousand, which Commodore had 0:01:52.960 --> 0:01:56.600 only sold in computer stores, the Amiga five hundred actually 0:01:56.640 --> 0:02:00.480 found its way onto retail shelves like in sears. The 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:03.920 lower cost and the superior performance in graphics and audio, 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:09.320 and the wider availability made it a popular gaming platform, 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:13.080 particularly over in Europe. It did okay in the United States, 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:15.680 it always did better in Europe than did in the US. 0:02:16.440 --> 0:02:19.960 Developers like Bill Williams would create games that could leverage 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.120 the specialized chip set in the Amiga five hundred to 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:26.840 accomplish stuff that left the Macintosh and the IBM compatible 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:30.320 machines of that era in the dust. It was around 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:32.840 this time that I first got a chance to play 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:36.480 stuff on an Amiga. I was immediately floored with how 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:41.040 advanced gaming was on those machines compared to the Apple 0:02:41.120 --> 0:02:44.000 two that I had at home, or even the IBM 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:47.680 two eighty six that my father was using to write books, 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:51.040 and whenever he wasn't writing, I was playing games on it. 0:02:51.040 --> 0:02:54.639 It was like nine day when you compared the Amiga 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:57.240 to other computers. At that time, I could not understand 0:02:57.240 --> 0:03:00.320 why the Amiga was not the dominant computer in the 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.080 consumer market. But to be fair, I was also twelve 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:06.080 years old, so my capacity for understanding the complexities of 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:09.640 corporate maneuvers was even less developed than it is now, 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:14.440 and that's saying something, but I was incredibly impressed. Some games, 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:18.280 like Williams's title mind Walker, would allow the user to 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:21.360 run other applications in the background, so you could actually 0:03:21.400 --> 0:03:26.720 take advantage of the Amiga's multitasking capabilities. But soon among 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:30.480 game developers it became common practice to create software that 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:35.920 would tap directly into Amiga's hardware. Bypassing the operating system 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:39.160 and locking the computer into a single task just playing 0:03:39.200 --> 0:03:42.160 a really awesome game. It was a justifiable trade off, 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.520 and I'm pretty sure most gamers didn't really care. Other 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:49.560 games like Defender of the Crown showcase the Amiga's ability 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:53.560 to present high resolution, colorful images. Defender of the Crown 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:55.880 was a strategy game in which you would lead armies 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:58.560 in a contest for the Crown of England. That game 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:01.920 launched as an Amiga exclusive, but later ports of the 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:04.680 game made their way onto lots of other platforms, including 0:04:04.680 --> 0:04:09.080 the IBM PC and even the Nintendo Entertainment System. There 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:10.800 were lots of other games coming out for the Amiga 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:14.960 five hundred. The computer system gave developers the chance to 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:18.320 make really creative choices without being restrained by the hardware 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:21.200 limitations that were everywhere else. So you had games like 0:04:21.240 --> 0:04:24.200 Shadow of the Beast, which included the ability to incorporate 0:04:24.240 --> 0:04:27.720 up to twelve layers of parallax scrolling, and you might 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:30.240 wonder what the heck does that mean. Well, parallax scrolling 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:33.279 is when you can create different speeds of scrolling for 0:04:33.360 --> 0:04:36.840 different layers of an image on a screen. Gives you 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:40.279 the overall impression of movement. So a lot of side 0:04:40.279 --> 0:04:43.560 scrolling games would use this to create a more compelling experience. 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:46.560 It's kind of an old trick. You have stuff that's 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:50.120 in the foreground so close to the viewer moving at 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.479 a faster speed than stuff that's in the background, and 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:55.240 it gives you the sense that the stuff that's in 0:04:55.240 --> 0:04:59.039 the background actually is further away. That's why moving past 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:04.240 it takes longer. And uh the uh. The Shadow of 0:05:04.240 --> 0:05:06.640 the Beast could actually have up to twelve layers of this. 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:10.160 That's pretty much unheard of during that time. The popular 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:14.120 game series Limmings also debuted on Amiga gosh. I love 0:05:14.160 --> 0:05:16.040 that game. This was one of the games that my 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.600 friend had. Limings. That game, in case you're not familiar, 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.359 was one where you have a group of critters Limmings, 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:28.080 little green haired creatures that it was your job to 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:30.760 move them from one part of a level to the 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:34.200 exit of that level, and you did this by giving 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:37.000 different limings various jobs, like they might have to dig 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:40.560 through earth to get to the end part, or they 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:43.440 might have to parachute to get down to another level 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:45.640 and build a platform back up so that the other 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:48.680 Limings can get down and if you lost too many 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:54.359 lemmings because they were very fragile, then you would fail 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:56.640 the level. And I just I can still remember the 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:58.159 sound they would make when you would tell them to 0:05:58.200 --> 0:06:01.120 self destruct. They do a little no and then pop 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:04.200 out of existence with confetti. But while games were starting 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:06.800 to take off of the Amiga fire, the system did 0:06:06.800 --> 0:06:10.160 not become a mega hit in the US. A different 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:14.120 product would really show off how powerful the Amiga platform was, 0:06:14.520 --> 0:06:17.640 and it would ultimately become a combination of an expansion 0:06:17.680 --> 0:06:21.320 card and some software, and it was called the Video Toaster. 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:24.960 And this was for the Amiga two thousand and here's 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:28.880 where the story of Amiga's past really would come into play. 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:32.960 The original intent for the Amiga, back when it was 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:36.560 first in the design phase, before any hardware had been built, 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:39.080 was that it was going to primarily be a video 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:42.560 game system, and as part of that, from the beginning, 0:06:42.560 --> 0:06:46.159 it was made to be compatible with television frequencies, meaning 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:48.920 you could hook it directly up to a TV. Other 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:54.320 computers were reliant on computer monitors, and you had sinking 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.160 issues if you wanted to send a signal out from 0:06:57.200 --> 0:07:00.280 a computer to a television. Often the frequencies didn't match up. 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.640 The gen lock in the Amiga two thousand would let 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.560 a user overlay graphics on top of a video signal 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:10.880 in either in TSC or PAL formats. A guy named 0:07:10.880 --> 0:07:14.800 Tim Jensen, was an electrical mechanical engineer, would take advantage 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:18.600 of this capability. He had already created a program called 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:21.520 digit View that would allow him to take a snapshot 0:07:21.520 --> 0:07:24.640 of a video so he could run a video on 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:28.880 his Amiga. Use this program and capture a single frame 0:07:29.040 --> 0:07:32.240 and save that to an Amiga floppy disk. He saved 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:34.760 some images to a disk which also happened to have 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:38.920 his contact information stored on that disc, and he shared 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:42.120 it with a guy named Jeff Bruett who worked for Commodore. 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:46.080 Soon his work was being spread around, and because his 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:49.080 information was still on that disc, he started getting contacted 0:07:49.080 --> 0:07:52.080 by people who wanted to explore the possibilities of using 0:07:52.080 --> 0:07:55.680 the Amiga to work with video in a more robust way. 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.880 Jennison founded a company called new Tech. His programs did 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:03.680 Your You and digit Paint We're both big hits. And 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:06.520 then a guy named Paul Montgomery, who really wanted to 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:09.480 develop a tool that would allow for video manipulation and 0:08:09.640 --> 0:08:14.080 editing joined New Tech, and he came up to Jennison 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:18.360 and he said, what if we made a program that 0:08:18.360 --> 0:08:20.840 would let you do stuff like squish a video image 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:22.880 or even flip it. So now you're looking at the 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:26.760 mirror image of that video. What would it take to 0:08:26.840 --> 0:08:30.520 do that? And Jennison's initial response was, you take a 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:34.280 hundred thousand dollars. I mean, you're talking about the capabilities 0:08:34.320 --> 0:08:40.040 that a video editing studio running hardware that's dollars easy, 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:43.760 plus software that's way more expensive than that. It's just 0:08:43.880 --> 0:08:50.760 it's it's financially impossible. But Jennison became obsessed with this idea, like, 0:08:50.880 --> 0:08:53.480 maybe maybe I could figure out a way to do 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:56.120 this using an Amiga. You know, do the same thing 0:08:56.640 --> 0:09:01.160 that these specific purpose workstation do, but I can do 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:03.840 it with a general purpose computer like the Amiga. So 0:09:03.880 --> 0:09:06.800 he started thinking about this and Montgomery, Jennison, and a 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:10.640 guy named Brad Carvey, who trivia here is the brother 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:14.880 of comedian Dana Carvey got together and started working out 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:17.679 what it would take to allow an Amiga to manipulate 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:21.120 video this way. They created a hardware design that would 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:24.079 interface through an expansion slot on the Amiga, and they 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:27.839 created some software to give them some early primitive capabilities. 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:30.960 They built out a prototype of this concept and in 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:35.760 November they showed off their idea at the Comdex computer 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:39.120 trade show. The demonstration was a huge hit, and the 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:41.160 team continued to work on their idea with the goal 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.040 of creating an expansion card and software kit that would 0:09:44.040 --> 0:09:46.320 be able to handle all the tasks that you would 0:09:46.360 --> 0:09:50.000 find in a network video editing bay. And it would 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:55.160 take three years total and three fifty thousand lines of code, 0:09:55.559 --> 0:09:57.840 much of which was written in the assembly language of 0:09:57.880 --> 0:10:02.320 the Motorola sixty eight thousand chip empowered the Amiga. When 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:06.559 the product finally came out, it cost just under two thousand, 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:10.280 four hundred dollars. But if you bought Video Toaster, you 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:13.920 would get an expansion card, you would get a collection 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:17.280 of eight floppy disks holding a set of programs, and 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:21.160 you would suddenly have the power to do video editing 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:25.000 like a full system. Um. But here's the things that 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.760 even if you bought a brand new Amiga two thousand 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:30.640 and a copy of Video Toaster, that would set you 0:10:30.679 --> 0:10:33.640 back less than five thousand dollars. That was a fraction 0:10:33.960 --> 0:10:36.720 of what it would cost if you wanted a professional system, 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:39.160 and yet you would have all the capabilities of a 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:42.640 professional system. This turned the Amiga two thousand into the 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:46.040 go to computer system if you were working in video. 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:50.200 These days, the Mac platform is frequently favored by people 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:53.840 who edit video or audio, including people here at how 0:10:53.920 --> 0:10:58.160 stuff Works. The Mac isn't quite as dominant in that 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.360 position as it used to be, thanks to some advances 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.199 in PC software suits over the last several years, not 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:06.880 to mention some decisions that Apple has made with some 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:11.240 of its editing software that has let's say, cheese off 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:16.160 some long time editors. But you know, for the longest time, 0:11:16.200 --> 0:11:19.559 you'd say the Mac was the dominant video and audio 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:23.640 editing platform. Well, in the nineties it was the Amiga 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:26.440 two thousand. I've got more to say, but first let's 0:11:26.480 --> 0:11:36.760 take a quick break to thank our sponsor. The Amiga 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:40.520 and Video Toaster had an immediate effect on the appearance 0:11:40.679 --> 0:11:44.920 of video because producers now had access to video effects 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.520 that would have previously cost them tens of thousands of 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:51.800 dollars to use, which led to a saturation of certain 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:55.520 video effects. You started to see them everywhere, to the 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:58.880 point where they became cliched and a joke. So today, 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:01.880 if you were to see a star wipe in a video, 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:04.880 you would probably hear a lot of people chuckling, especially 0:12:04.920 --> 0:12:08.160 anyone who had worked in video editing. That is a 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:11.920 very dated kind of look. It's cheesy, but that's largely 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:14.800 because that effect got so much use in the nineteen 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:20.240 nineties because the Amiga and video Toaster made it so accessible. Meanwhile, 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:24.360 back in the executive offices over at Commodore, chief executive 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:28.520 Irving Gould would hire Max Toy to become the president 0:12:28.520 --> 0:12:31.040 and chief operating officer of the company in the fall 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:35.600 of nine. Toy would say that no contract would be 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:39.760 necessary to guarantee his loyalty. That was obviously a dig 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:43.800 at at Ratigan, the former CEO of Commodore, who had 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:47.920 been fired by Irving Gould earlier that year, and he 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.160 said that the day he would require a contract would 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:53.440 be the last day he would ever work at Commodore. 0:12:53.480 --> 0:12:55.800 And I guess that day must have happened two years later, 0:12:55.840 --> 0:12:58.439 because that's when he got fired. He got the boot, 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:03.559 and Commodore then hired a guy named Harold Copperman from IBM, 0:13:03.640 --> 0:13:07.000 and also he had worked at Apple and now he 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.160 was there to lead the United States division of Commodore. 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:15.800 So why was Max Toy dismissed? Well, for one thing, 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:20.640 Irving Gould was still extremely impatient, and he still wanted 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:25.640 results super fast some people would say unreasonably fast. And 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.920 for another, Toy was apparently on the losing side of 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:33.120 an internal disagreement within Commodore, one that would actually revolve 0:13:33.240 --> 0:13:37.440 around the Amiga. So the disagreement kind of split the 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:41.400 company into two big camps. In one camp where the 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:44.400 engineers and developers who wanted to continue to develop the 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:47.160 Amiga platform, they saw a potential in building out a 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:51.320 powerful machine that could outpace all competitors in the consumer market, 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:55.160 specifically when it came to graphics and audio. That camp 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:57.840 felt the reason that Commodore continued to struggle as a 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:00.760 company was not due to the quality of its products 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:03.199 so much, but more in how those products were being 0:14:03.240 --> 0:14:06.840 marketed and sold. They were sure that the Amiga approach 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:09.240 would win out if it was just given the proper 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:13.560 chance and promotion. The other camp in which Toy was 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:18.480 entrenched was that Commodore should just abandon the Amiga platform 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:23.360 and instead concentrate on producing IBM compatible machines. This was 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:27.160 the era of the IBM clone. IBM had used off 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:30.760 the shelf components to build its personal computers, so that 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:33.320 meant that you could buy those same off the shelf 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.680 components and build your same machines, very similar to diabem. 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:41.400 More importantly, IBM had failed to secure an exclusive license 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:45.920 from Microsoft for MS DOSS, so you could then license 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.800 ms DOS from Microsoft yourself and sell your own cheaper 0:14:49.920 --> 0:14:54.080 version of IBM computers to customers. This would technically have 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:58.720 been easier for Commodore to do than to create new 0:14:58.880 --> 0:15:03.720 architecture based off the Amiga architecture, but critics of that 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:06.560 plan said, yeah, it's easier, but the profit margins are 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:10.960 also much lower. Commodore would have to pit its IBM 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:14.480 clones against all the other IBM clones that were flooding 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:19.040 the market, and ultimately this side lost, and so did 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:23.440 Max Toy. Harold Copperman would come on board. Copperman's appointment 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:27.120 was met with some trepidation from outside the company. I 0:15:27.160 --> 0:15:29.840 read an article that was very skeptical about the whole 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:34.280 situation because at this point the company had a reputation 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:37.040 now for having a revolving door. When it came to 0:15:37.120 --> 0:15:40.920 chief executives because you had Jack Tramiel and Thomas Rattigan, 0:15:40.960 --> 0:15:45.000 you had Max Toy and now Harold Copperman, all filling 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:48.840 that role since nineteen four and now it's nineteen eighty nine. 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:54.040 Nine had seemed to start off well for Amiga. Commodore 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:58.080 had announced in January nine nine that one million Amiga 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:01.040 computers had been sold up to that point. Also, one 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:03.640 other executive took a position at the top of Commodore 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:06.480 in early nineteen eighty nine. That would be Medi Ali. 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.000 That was the man who had come on board of 0:16:10.560 --> 0:16:13.800 with Commodore as a consultant. He had been an advisor 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:16.040 to Irving Gould, and he was the one who told 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:21.000 Gould to fire former CEO Ratigan just a few years earlier. Well, 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:25.960 now Ali was able to convince Gould to hire Ali 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:30.320 on as the President of Commodore International, which was largely 0:16:30.360 --> 0:16:34.080 a vacant position for most of Commodore's existence, but now 0:16:34.440 --> 0:16:38.640 made a Ali would inhabit it. Copperman would be president 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:44.400 and CEO of Commodore's US operations. In November nine, Commodore 0:16:44.440 --> 0:16:47.960 announced the Amiga twenty five hundred. This was essentially an 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:51.280 Amiga two thousand with a new pair of coprocessors, so 0:16:51.440 --> 0:16:55.920 just a modest improvement over the Amiga two thousand. In 0:16:56.040 --> 0:17:00.360 n Commodore would offer Amiga one thousand owners a thousand 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:02.880 dollar trade and deal if they would upgrade to an 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:06.439 Amiga two thousand machine. This is also when the video 0:17:06.520 --> 0:17:08.920 toaster products became official and you can actually go out 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:11.720 and buy it. The company would then announce the Amiga 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:15.080 three thousand. This was a slightly bigger upgrade than the 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:19.560 still a modest one, had a new CPU and also 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:22.680 had a new chip set, and a brand new Amiga 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:25.840 three thousand with a monitor would set you back four 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:31.720 thousand one dollars. Truly a princely sum. Commodore would hold 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:35.480 a swanky presentation to show off the three thousand. Kind 0:17:35.480 --> 0:17:38.440 of reminds me of the initial Amiga launch that came 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:43.760 out back in Copperman gave the presentation that night, and 0:17:43.800 --> 0:17:48.080 the focus was on multimedia applications, something the Amiga was 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:54.640 particularly well suited for. There were more changes in executive leadership. 0:17:54.920 --> 0:17:59.080 Copperman resigned, perhaps he was blamed for the moderate performance 0:17:59.080 --> 0:18:02.240 of the Amiga three thous and never really took off 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:05.200 in sales and it turned out that only the hardcore 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:09.200 Amiga fans were buying those computers. Other people were happy 0:18:09.240 --> 0:18:11.879 to stick with the Amiga five or the Amiga two thousand. 0:18:12.440 --> 0:18:16.560 James Dion would be named General Manager of US Sales 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.040 slash Head of the United States part of Commodore. At 0:18:20.040 --> 0:18:23.080 this point, it gets real tricky to talk about titles 0:18:23.119 --> 0:18:26.960 because they seem to be somewhat nebulous at the executive 0:18:27.000 --> 0:18:31.360 level at Commodore. There were also some pretty dark jokes 0:18:31.400 --> 0:18:34.120 going around at Commodore at this point because they had 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:37.720 seen so many leaders go in and out of that position. 0:18:37.760 --> 0:18:40.440 So the joke was, if you were named the head 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:43.879 of Commodore US, you would move into your executive office 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:46.199 and on your desk there will be three envelopes that 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:50.000 say open in case of financial emergency, and they'd be 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:52.240 labeled one, two, and three. So the first time you 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:54.600 hit a rough patch, you open envelope number one, and 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:58.280 inside there's a message that says, blame your predecessor, so 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:00.960 you would lay all the aim of all the problems 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:03.239 on the guy who was in that position before you. 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:06.560 The second time you encounter a rough financial patch, you 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.159 open up envelope two, and that one says, blame your 0:19:09.280 --> 0:19:12.280 vice presidents. So then you go blaming all the people 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:15.320 who work underneath you. The third time you hit a 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:18.240 financial rough patch, you open envelope three and a message 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:22.439 inside says, prepare three envelopes. It seemed like working for 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:25.520 Gould was tough, and it probably didn't help that Irving 0:19:25.560 --> 0:19:28.440 Gould was frequently changing his base of operations. He was 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:32.040 moving around a lot, and I saw at least one 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:35.800 guy say that he suspected the reason Irving Gould would 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.439 pick up stakes and move to a different place and 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:41.879 then force shareholder meetings to take place wherever he happened 0:19:41.880 --> 0:19:44.840 to be at the time was so that he could 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:48.400 take advantage of the most favorable tax policies at any 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.920 given time, so essentially sheltering himself from having to pay 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:55.159 too much tax. That was the allegation. I have no 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:57.840 idea if it's true, but he certainly did pop around 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:01.840 a lot. Coming or introduced three new computers in the 0:20:01.840 --> 0:20:04.840 Amiga line. You had the Amiga six hundred, which was 0:20:04.880 --> 0:20:06.680 a low cost machine that had a base price of 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:09.840 five hundred dollars and actually had fewer features than the 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:14.600 Amiga five hundred, so very confusing. Higher number, fewer features, 0:20:14.840 --> 0:20:16.720 and the initial cost at that point, the Amiga five 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:20.320 hundred was actually cheaper than the Amigas six hundred. When 0:20:20.760 --> 0:20:23.040 the six hundred launched, because the five d been out 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:25.280 for a couple of years, not many people wanted to 0:20:25.280 --> 0:20:27.520 get an Amiga six hundred. There was very little reason too, 0:20:27.520 --> 0:20:30.240 why would you want a computer that was less powerful 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:33.199 than an older machine that was actually less expensive. At 0:20:33.200 --> 0:20:37.080 that point, the company started producing more Amiga six hundreds. 0:20:37.359 --> 0:20:39.920 Then it was producing Amiga five hundreds. Technically both were 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:42.399 still in production, but they began to scale back on 0:20:42.440 --> 0:20:45.240 the five hundreds. That actually led to losses because again 0:20:45.320 --> 0:20:48.960 people didn't want the six hundreds. Later, the Amiga four 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:51.760 thousand would debut. It had a more powerful processor and 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:54.879 it had a boosted chip set. The chips had names 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:59.160 like super Gary, Super Ramsey, and super Amber, and there 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:03.600 was also Alice Lisa at Good Old Paula. And at 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:07.040 the end of nineteen nine two the Amiga twelve hundred 0:21:07.119 --> 0:21:10.600 came out. The twelve hundred would be a pretty successful machine, 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:14.840 but the company was making more Amiga six hundreds than 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:18.840 five hundreds or twelve hundreds, so the computers that people 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:21.720 wanted were being made in fewer quantities than the computers 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:26.639 nobody wanted. By nine two, Amiga sales were on the rise, 0:21:26.680 --> 0:21:31.159 with a seventeen percent over figures, and it looked like 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:33.639 it could be a turning point for a Commodore, And 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.600 I guess it kind of was, except it wasn't a 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:43.040 good turning point. In James Dion would resign as the 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:47.600 head of US operations, so once again that place was vacant. 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:51.160 So now we have Tramuel Ratigan, Toy Copperman, and Dion 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:54.280 as the various heads of Commodore in the United States, 0:21:54.359 --> 0:21:58.159 since medi Ali and Irving Gould were still at the 0:21:58.160 --> 0:22:01.200 tippy top. Gould was still the dire act. Medi Ali 0:22:01.359 --> 0:22:04.640 was still the head of Commodore International. During all of this, 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:08.520 the engineers and developers who were down at the base level, 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:11.840 we're still doing their best to make the Amiga platform 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:14.000 as good as they could possibly make it with the 0:22:14.040 --> 0:22:17.520 resources that they had available to them, but those resources 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:21.240 were getting cut back year over year. It was getting 0:22:21.400 --> 0:22:25.679 increasingly difficult to do. Commodore also had a reputation for 0:22:25.840 --> 0:22:29.360 not treating their engineers and programmers very well. They were 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:33.080 underpaid compared to others in their industry, although just to 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:37.120 be totally fair, most of their competing companies were based 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:39.960 in California, and that's a more expensive place to live 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:42.919 than Pennsylvania, so some of that was cost of living, 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:48.360 but they were still underpaid compared to their peers. In ninete, 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:52.520 Commodore would post a loss of three hundred sixties six 0:22:52.920 --> 0:22:59.520 million dollars. Sales dropped by twenty percent. In nineteen, after 0:22:59.640 --> 0:23:03.879 the first quarter of the fiscal year, Commodore posted another loss. 0:23:04.160 --> 0:23:06.800 This time it was eight point two million, which was 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:10.720 technically an improvement from the previous year, but still a loss. 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:14.080 And then Commodore sent out a warning message to investors 0:23:14.680 --> 0:23:18.679 saying that the company might have to prepare for bankruptcy proceedings, 0:23:18.960 --> 0:23:22.520 and the stock price took a nose dive. It all 0:23:22.680 --> 0:23:28.040 came to a head on April nine. That's when Commodore 0:23:28.119 --> 0:23:32.480 International Limited stated it would begin liquidating all assets and 0:23:32.520 --> 0:23:37.600 would file for bankruptcy protection. Commodore, including Amiga, was at 0:23:37.600 --> 0:23:41.320 the beginning of the end, but not quite the end. 0:23:41.400 --> 0:23:46.600 Amiga would limp on sword of I'll explain more in 0:23:46.720 --> 0:23:49.480 just a second, but first let's take another quick break 0:23:49.720 --> 0:23:59.760 to thank our sponsor. Now, these episodes are supposed to 0:23:59.800 --> 0:24:04.720 be about Amiga, not Commodore. But to understand why Amiga 0:24:04.880 --> 0:24:08.320 never managed to establish itself as a viable alternative to 0:24:08.359 --> 0:24:11.800