Everything about the Amiga's History

What Amigas were there before?

The first Amiga ever was the A1000 with a 68000 processor, 7 MHz clock speed, 256 KB RAM, packaged in a neat, compact desktop case, offering the unique feature of a "keyboard garage". The software for this grandfather of the Amigas still runs flawlessly on the newest models.

The A1000 was followed by the pair A500/A2000. The A500 became the leading home computer succeeding the Commodore C64, while the A2000, with its vast expansion capabilities via slots and bays, became the work horse for professional applications.

The A3000 brought the 68030 processor and the ECS (Enhanced Chip Set) to the Amiga line.

Shortly afterwards, the tower variant A3000T also appeared.

The A600 brought ECS into the home computer category.

The Commodore CDTV was the first CD-ROM Multimedia device for the living room or for educational purposes.

When were the Amigas first introduced?

The Amiga 1000 was introduced in 1985 in the USA and shortly afterwards in the rest of the world.

How did the Amiga Operating System evolve over time?

The first Amigas shipped with OS 1.0 in October, 1985. The significant features like preemptive multitasking, 32-bit structure, and Autoconfig were there from the beginning as firm parts, features which only today slowly enter other platforms. As OS 1.1 (December 1985) still contained some bugs, it was soon followed by OS 1.2, which also had a restyled user interface. With OS 1.3 came the ability to boot from a harddisk. OS 2.0 brought a complete redesign of the graphical user interface, some additional capabilities, and support of the ECS chipset. OS 2.1 added support for international languages. OS 3.0 added further features, like the Datatypes, plus support of the AA chipset. The current version is OS 3.1 with other new features, like a CD-ROM filesystem, and is usable also on older Amigas without the AA chipset.