Amiga—a home user’s dream

Press, 17 June 1986, Page 29

Amiga—a home user’s dream

By WARREN MARETT Commodore’s brilliant Amiga computer is starting to draw crowds in Christchurch as the first models reach dealers and customers.

An official release of the product was held in Christchurch last week and Commodore dealers have already received demonstration models. In spite of being supplied with insufficient memory and only a small amount of software, the demonstration machines have been great attractions, say the dealers.

To many people the Amiga looks like the ultimate home computer. Its user-friendly interface, colour and sound capabilities are almost unbelievable.

At $3995, the Amiga is not currently priced for the mass market, but history shows us that it will eventually be affordable by many households.

As well as the home user, the Amiga has features that will excite users in education, the professions and the arts. It also has the potential to be successful in the business market.

The Amiga is one of the new breed of machines with the Motorola 68000 microprocessor and using the software interface popularised by Apple’s Macintosh. Its competition in this range is the Macintosh and the new Atari ST series. Naturally, it also has to compete with the IBM PC family. Reviews of the Amiga have praised its graphics and sound capabilities, its expandability and the multi-tasking ability of its British-developed operating system. The Atari ST series, being cheaper than the Amiga, will be tough competition. The Macin-

David Morse and Jay Miner are the men responsible for the development of the Amiga. They run the Amiga Division of Commodore in the United States.

The initial design for the computer called for a unit with relatively limited memory and no built-in disc drive, but expandable. What they got is very different, but, as Miner said, “It’s the

machine Fd want to have in my own home.” Amiga was not the name they originally wanted. Someone had found Arnica in a Latin dictionary — it means friend or friendliness. But it turned out that Arnica was already licensed, so they changed the c to a g. “I don’t think they had thought of the Spanish word amigo; it just turned out that way,” said Miner.

By the time Morse and Miner sold out to Commodore in 1985 for SUS2S million, the company employed 43 people. Commodore entered the picture at a crucial time. “Commodore has made a big difference in terms of financial support and manpower,” noted Miner, now vice jpresident of development at Amiga. “Commodore came in

and said ‘you guys are on the right track, here’s money, go do it the way you think it should be done.’ ” Morse and Miner wanted to create a supermicrocomputer that would exploit the full capabilities of Motorola’s 68000 microprocessor and so stimulate the consumer market that new markets would be created and new consumers reached.

keen to make use of the features now available from this new generation of microcomputer. Mr Ronnie Harris, of Commodore • and Computers, Ltd, has already sold three machines and will be taking as many as he can get from the next shipment. “I certainly would • love to have one personally,” he said. Mr Harris stressed its musical capabilities, having sold one of the three machines to a local musician. There will be a MIDI interface for the Amiga allowing it to be interfaced to a synthesiser.

Computer Village, a new retailer in Christchurch, has had a lot of serious business interest in the Amiga, said Mr Jeff Whiteside, although 50 to 60 per cent of the prospective buyers are home computer enthusiasts.

“Business sales won’t start picking up until software is on the shelf of the shop,” said Mr Whiteside. “Interest in the Amiga is intense,” he said. “It is the only computer for which I have had to do impromptu demonstrations to groups of people in the shop.”

tosh lacks colour and is more expensive, but has the advantage of a larger and more mature software base. At last week’s official release, Christchurch people were able to see the latest graphics software, including an animated sequence where a large and realistically rendered bird flapped its way over a mountain scene.

A version of "Eleanor Rigby,” orchestrated by Mr Bob Talbot, Commodore New Zealand’s product manager for the Amiga, was played in stereo through large loudspeakers and showed that electronic organ-qual-ity sound was possible. At times the Amiga was shown running one application in a window while another application was started up in a second window and allowed to run at the same time. This multi-tasking ability, as well as making print spooling trivial, can greatly increase the efficiency of the user. Business users, for example, will be able to start their month-end processing and then switch to another window for inquiries or other applications. Widespread business

use of the Amiga, however, will not happen until the machine acquires the hardware and software necessary in today’s business market.

Commodore has not yet released a hard disc for the Amiga and does not have any business application software tailored for New Zealand conditions. The brightest hope lies in the release of hardware and software to allow IBM PC applications to be run on the Amiga, making available a large amount of business and other software. Initially, the emulation of the IBM PC was available through a software package called the Transformer. It now has competition in the form of the Amiga Sidecar, a hardware and software package due to be released in August. Amiga Sidecar consists of a box that contains an 8088 processor, 256 K bytes of memory, a power supply and a 5.25-inch floppy disc drive. It enables IBM PC applications to be run using the Amiga monitor. Importantly, the user can run Amiga applications in other windows on the monitor at the same time.

Overseas reports suggest the United States price of Sidecar will be $595 (SNZIO6O), which would make the combined package cheaper than an Amiga and an IBM PC side by side' on a desk.

Fans of Lotus 1-2-3 can take advantage of the Amiga immediately through a software package available on the Amiga that is similar in operation to Lotus. Called VIP Professional, it sells for $595. A wide range of software is now starting to become available for the Amiga. Commodore New Zealand has a list of 180 titles sourced from

overseas. It has also made machines available for New Zealand software developers. Fifty Amigas came into New Zealand for demonstration purposes, to be followed soon by substantial stocks for sale to customers. At the moment the RF modulator video port on the Amigas only supports NTSC television standards. It will be later in the year before New Zealand’s PAL standard is supported.

Christchurch retailers believe that most of the initial sales of the Amiga will be to advanced hobbyists and to people such as musicians who are