Quote:
Originally Posted by Frogs
Did you buy an Amiga in 1985? If not, what one was the first one you got?
I'm pretty sure my dad "gets it".
The Amiga, the very first one and the only one that was available for the first couple years, the Amiga 1000 didn't have a text mode for doing 80 columns (which the C-128, Apple II and IBM PCs had) nor could it do acceptably high resolution graphics non-interlaced out of the box like the Mac had.
As a result, it was at a big disadvantage for spreadsheets, word processors, desktop publishing or most of the other things people in 1985 were using computers for for work.
As a gaming platform, it certainly did thrive for awhile but the origin of this thread was me asking my dad why the Amiga didn't beat out at least the Mac if not the IBM PC.
It's not like my dad is bitter about the Amiga. He has no vested interest. I asked him his opinion and he gave it to me as someone who had one of the very, very first Amigas and got it as a general purpose computer.
I'm not even sure the Amiga could have done anything differently given where monitors were at the time (the Mac was physically integrated into its display at the time). And the ST had a text mode and that didn't save it.
I'm not sure if the Amiga could have had a 512x384 non-interlaced resolution (would it require a special monitor or was it just something that Denise could have had?).
My dad still has his Amiga 1000 btw. He thinks of it quite fondly. He had an Apple II before that and a homebuilt "mainframe" before that along with a NeXTStep later and these days (he's 80+ years old) still messes around with Raspberry pi's and is quick to use his soldering iron on something or other.
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But your Dad made a theory why the Amiga didn't thrive in the US. He's misremembering the years. The year in which something was actually available must be fact-checked to hold true.
I advance a theory that is consistent with years of release instead.
Any computer can do a spreadsheet. The Apple II did, a little over two years after release.
The Amiga had 640x200 4 colors as minimum spec. Perfect for spreadsheet or word processing software. On A1000, double-click the Prefs icon and flip a (GUI, hires, color) switch to get 80 columns... how come this setting was not found?
Now, if you were to say that your dad abandoned Amiga despite software and hardware excellence to get DOS text mode applications, you would be closer to the truth, there would be no theory about other US computer buyers, and you couldn't put the thread title you did.
The Amiga thrived. It sold millions. That's why we are here and remember correctly, in infinite detail, the strange phenomenon of the US computer buyers ignoring the software and hardware breakthroughs of the Amiga compared to the rest of the world.
It's not very fair this, pitting our combined knowledge of what happened versus memories of an individual. It's just that theories are a dime a dozen, and these days you must fact-check before even starting one because so much is documented.