Adios, Amiga
On Friday, Gateway announced that it was cancelling plans to build a new version of the Amiga computer. Who cares? After all, what's one more failed product launch, one more high-tech strategy initiated and then abandoned? But for faithful fans of the Amiga, a perennial also-ran home computer that's been around since 1985, it was the end of a dream.
What is an Amiga? Fourteen years ago, Commodore (remember Commodore?) introduced the Amiga 1000, a sporty little desktop computer that featured one of the earliest commercially available GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces) and a flexible, efficient 32-bit operating system with an array of features, including multi-tasking and serious multimedia muscle, that have turned out to be extremely prescient. The Amiga built up an active user base and a respectable software library, and it seemed ready to take its place with the Macintosh and the IBM PC as a major home computing platform. MORE>>
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