Launch and run Amiga emulator for Linux. Introduction A bit of history.
The Commodore Amiga was first shown to the public in 1984. He played stereo music with amazing quality, the graphics had no analogues in smoothness and speed. The opinion of those present at the exhibition was: a new era began. Mouse control, insanely convenient operating system, multitasking. The demo shown under the name “Boeing” showed a ball painted in red and white squares, which flew across the screen crashing against the walls. The first model of Amiga was number 1000. The only model where the OS was loaded from a floppy disk. All subsequent ones contained the OS kernel in ROM. A revolutionary home computer was developed by a group of enthusiasts who invested all the money in the business - about 7 million. They were driven by the desire to create the best computer in the world. New ideas arose in the minds of the creators. To make the computer insanely fast, a “blitter” was proposed - a special processor that freed the central CPU from the tasks associated with the output of graphics and very quickly displays and fills the plane with any color (up to a million pixels per second !!!). Another special processor also freed the CPU from tasks unusual for it, forcing it to deal only with program logic. The ingenious idea of \u200b\u200bone of the creators made it possible to display 4096 colors in HAM mode (hold and modify) with scanty memory consumption, and this was at a time when the IBM PC 286 with DOS and a 4-color CGA monitor was standard. The supposedly revolutionary 16-color EGA video cards have just appeared. Ha. In the magazine Amiga Guide there was an interesting comparison taken from Dmitry Mikhailov’s book “Amiga No. 1”. A huge factory where the director instead of management rushes from machine to machine trying to do everything himself. In Amiga, he leads, and everything, including the output of sound, is implemented in hardware. Amiga computer developed, but the old hardware had reserves. For the 8-bit Paula sound special processor, new AHI drivers were written thanks to which the sound became 14-bit. And even without them, he could digitize an audio signal with a frequency of up to 80,000 Hz!
This is the famous Commodore AMIGA
For a long time, at least repeating this unique computer in emulators was unrealistic. It is rightfully considered one of the most complex computer systems for emulation. Only when the line of x86 processors crossed 1000 Mn, we finally were able to get an approximate embodiment of virtual AMIGA. The first and best AMIGA emulator for today was called UAE. Many unknowingly naively translate this abbreviation as Ultimate Amiga Emulator. But the real translation ... hold onto the chairs (!!!): Unix Amiga Emulator. Of course, he first appeared in * nix-ah! Since then, the dream of launching indescribable Amiga games and incomparable programs has come true. The fact that AMIGA is a great computer is even indicated by the fact that many of my friends with pleasure even in 2002 use convenient and fast (!) Home AMIGA 600s in their work to create animations and games. In this they are successfully helped by the wonderful True Briliance program. And the result, believe me, is impressive, and the standard ability to output images to a VCR is simply magnificent.
For several years I was a user of the best, insanely fast, multi-tasking and user-friendly AMIGA600 home computer. But ... I, an even older user of IBM PC (there is practically no alternative to it today, but the PC is gradually approaching what AMIGA was originally - an ideal home computer. Video and sound cards are finally starting to unload (!) processor from unusual tasks).
Started with a triple. 386SX40 Mh / 2 Mb of memory. The worst-ever video card Realtek 256 Kb. The average user did not have a sound card at that time and enjoyed the PC Speaker. I think that every old PC-shnik would strangle the creator of this miracle with his own hands. You could buy 286, but, having borrowed a lot of money, I scraped into three. Smart people even then advised me to buy Amiga, but ... Of course, I spent a lot of time playing games. Hits such as Golden Ax, Flashback, Space Quest, Soccer Kid, Crime Wave will not leave anyone indifferent. At that time, just no one had a CD-ROM, and the toys were copied from friends and acquaintances onto floppy disks. In some games, the graphics were simply amazing, for example, in GODS or Joe and Mac, but it soon became clear that in my favorite genre of platforms and shot’em’up there was almost nothing. Of the decent airplane shooters, I found only Tyrian and OverKill.
Games with a bunch of moving backgrounds, like on SEGA, simply did not exist. Later, I purchased 486. A more serious car, but everything was repeated regarding toys. Only strategies pleased me at the IBM PC camp. For action games, this platform was too weak. The fourth was replaced by the 133rd Pentium, overclocked to 150 Mn via the 75th bus. Then the K-6 500Mhz is comparable in speed to the Celeron 400 .. Next, the Celeron 566 is overclocked to 950 Mhz on 112 buses. 192 Mb of memory. IBM screw on 7,200 and Riva TNT2Pro. The choice fell on this processor because of the ability to seriously overclock it.
I first saw Commodore AMIGA in 1994. They showed me an Alien-3 toy from Acclaime. The graphics left a strange impression, in particular due to the small number of colors, but I was struck by the smoothness of the animation in the game. I have not seen this before. The machine on which it was demonstrated was an Amiga 600 with 1 Mb of memory. This was not the best example from which to start acquaintance with a wonderful home computer. But, nevertheless, the game impressed, despite the fact that:
1. Absolutely no Amiga special processors were used.
2. For some reason, you could only choose music or special effects, and this is with the stunning 4-channel stereo processor AMIGA, the sound of which is beyond description !!!
3. The graphics were simply converted to 32 colors from the general palette, despite the fact that pictures in games are usually drawn using a certain palette, and then they are not converted and look amazing, and AMIGA itself is able to display up to 4096 colors on the screen (on Amiga 600) and 260,000 out of 16 million (on the AMIGA 1200). Games from Acclame on AMIGA unfortunately are all with converted (bad) graphics. (Mortal Kombat 1.2)
Mostly cool animation left an impression, which is not surprising, because The usual display speed on Amiga 2-D graphics is 50 FPS. (In 1984, I recall.)
Amizhnaya ElfMania: unsurpassed smoothness of movements!
The next game was Mortal Kombat from the same Acclame. There were flowers too, but ... SOUND ... Of course, I played MK 386 for a long time, but here, in comparison with the IBM PC, it seemed to me that they gave me other ears. I heard the same familiar Kombat melodies, but the number of instruments was much larger. As if you used to just listen to one violinist and now you’ve got to a symphony orchestra.
And the second thing that shocked us was speed. On the top three 40 Mh, the game was more like a slide show. After pressing the keys, one could only guess whether the blow would pass or not. Everything was terribly slow. At AMIGA Mortal Kombat just flew !!! Everything was very smooth and beautiful. AND THIS WHAT THE CENTRAL PROCESSOR ON AMIGA 600 - 7 Mhz !!! The secret was to use AMIGA graphics super processors (or the so-called ECS chipset).
In the future, I continued to work on the IBM PC, endlessly spending money on an upgrade, but the toys did not reach the level of AMIGA. A friend of mine told me that his friend was selling the Amiga600.
We immediately went to watch a new computer. I was not going to buy it at all, and there were problems with the money, but I wanted to see and hear everything myself. Once seen MK2 and Alien3 haunted. And here I am with a new friend. On the table is a small and inconspicuous white AMIGA connected to a 14 ”color TV. The whole computer fits in the keyboard. Side hole for installing 3.5 ”floppy disks.
“You want to see what is inside her,” the Amizhnik asks, and I have no time to object as he raises the top of the computer with a deft movement. Inside is almost EMPTY !!! A motherboard with a small number of processors. A hard drive is inserted into it. A loop goes out to the side. A CD-ROM is connected to it. Drive and ... EVERYTHING. After all the wire thickets in a regular PC, this makes an impression. But the main thing, of course, is how the computer will show itself in work. And then it began, which I did not expect from a computer developed in 1984.
TRUE multitasking when everything just flies. There is no expectation, I touched the mouse, it moves, despite the fact that the processor would not do it. The user has the highest priority. (The owners of the Linux OS, of course, only shrug their shoulders, they say, why be surprised, but Windows users will involuntarily swallow their saliva) Sometimes it is not clear in Windows who the owner of the computer is. I want to close the application, and Windows is busy with another and does not allow anything to be done. So on Amiga this is not. Everything reacts lightning fast. The multi-tasking operating system on Amiga is called AmigaDOS, and its graphical shell is Workbench. In order to boot up and work normally on Amiga in a graphical shell, it is enough just one file on a screw or diskette - LoadWB, the size of which is ... 1 Kb! For stable operation of the system, the main core is wired into the chip. At the same time, the WB (WorkBench) system has tremendous extensibility. There are catalogs on the screw. But this is not an incomprehensible porridge from the names, as in Windows, but quite meaningful components.
For example, in the folder (according to Amizhny - in the box, because WorkBench is translated as a desktop) DEVS contains devices, for example, when Amiga was developed, there was no CD-ROM yet, however, this does not prevent amizhniks from using this device, because in the DEVS folder we placed a file that tells the system what kind of CD-ROM device it is, and in the L folder there is a file with a description of the CD-ROM file system. If tomorrow some CD-RUM appears there will be no need to rewrite the OS, just write 2 files and drop them into the necessary boxes. There are boxes for Russification, etc. The DataTypes box contains data types. For example, if you add a file with a description of the BMP or PCX format to this box, WorkBench will be able to show us images in these formats with its own means. Those. it turns out, the larger the size of the operating system, the steeper it is. On IBM, the same ratio is true for Linux and not acceptable for Windows. As you can see, the so-called plug-in extension method is used here. And this despite the fact that the system was developed in 84? And you want to change the skins in WorkBench, as in WinAMP. So where did you actually guess the idea stolen from? A true plug-and-play from where. On Amiga, it is called auto-configuration. Mouse support in WorkBENCH is done in hardware, i.e. no drivers, nothing. Its movement is unusually smooth, because cursor movement data is fed and updated on the DMA channel at an incredible speed. The screen resolution even on a TV can be 1200 by 512. Amiga has a stereo output for 2 stereo channels and video outputs (bass, RGB and treble), recording the results of your work on a video cassette is extremely easy. Regular DD floppy disks of 720 Kb on Amiga are formatted on 880. And by non-standard methods on 1049. For AMIG it does not make much difference whether the executable is archived or not. She will launch anyone. Only when you start the compressed screen will the screen flicker, indicating that the file is compressed by PowerPacker. The file names on Amiga can be any length with almost any punctuation marks. On Amiga, windows do not display files, but their icons, but not all files have icons, only those that need to be seen by the user (for example, those that are launched). Those. if I open the box, then I will see only one icon, which I click on with the mouse, thereby launching the program, and not a bunch of files in which I need to look for the executable for half an hour. If I need to see all the files, I can select “Show all files” in the top menu of the WB.
WorkBench at AMIGA.
Windows in WB can be arranged in several layers and by moving one screen down we will see other screens or running programs under it. And the second point - the programs on AMIGA with absolutely the same graphics as on the IBM PC have an order of magnitude smaller. For example, LightWave on AMIGA takes 9 Mb, and on PC - 80 Mb. The game Reunion on the IBM PC - 24 Mb, on AMIGA - 4 Mb. Moreover, games on AMIGA come with 1Mb of memory, for example Stardust, on IBM - conversions do not have the most beautiful levels and require 8 (!!!) Mb of RAM. Not to mention that on AMIGA 7Mh, but on PC it is required not less than 486 with 66 Mhz. Therefore, in fact, the desire to play not in conversion, but in native amiga games under the emulator is understandable. AMIGA is designed so that the central processor is mainly busy with simply distributing tasks and calculating logic, while the output of the graphics is hung on specialized ultrafast microcircuits (for example, the blister processor can draw a million !!! dots per second, and we are not talking about a modern computer) , and the sound goes through the DMA channel without using the central processor at all! Amiga even includes a Risc processor !!! He knows how to track the course of the beam, as a result of which on the screen with one screen resolution you can display windows, objects, sprites in OTHER resolutions. Purely visual, if you compare the speed of the AMIGA600 7 Mh with an IBM PC, it will be a Pentium 133 Mhz. After all of the above, you need to understand that emulating this miracle computer requires super-powerful IBM PCs. On 950 Mh Celeron nearly does not slow down. But I'm getting ahead of myself. So, a friend launched a multimedia program and began to show photographs in 4096 colors, and they did not just show, but flew out, rolled up and twisted around the axis. Moreover, even earlier, he launched one task to play music, and therefore everything happened under the amazing soundtrack. The music was digital, in MOD format (native amiga format). Then he showed the file manager Directory Opus 4 (analogue Norton Comander). Files were dragged by the mouse, etc. At IBM, there is still no manager comparable to Dopus. And finally, the turn came to the games.
The first game I was shown was Brain The Lion. Running lion cub on its hind legs, beating paw, collecting diamonds. There are shops where you can buy various utilities. But the graphics. It was delicious. Backgrounds (plans) moving at different speeds, special effects of scaling and rotation (increase-rotation) in prize secret levels. And the colors !!! Everything was very beautiful. Gorgeous VOLUME music sounded from speakers with many stereo effects. I was just shocked.
The next game was Ocean Chaos Kid. Energetic techno style music, incredible flowing graphics. Moving backgrounds. Special effects. But the main thing was the music was dynamic. Those. when it gets into the water, the sound becomes muffled, without high frequencies, and when jumping out of it, it regains clarity and purity. The protagonist, armed with a club, had to get to the end of the level by destroying a certain number of exploding flowers and the inhabitants of this world. In addition, on Amiga I met a lot of games so beloved on the ZX Spectrum, but with incomparably cooler graphics and sound. For example, Freddy Hardest in South Manhatten, Myth, Barbarrian 1,2,3, Satana, AMC, Elite, Dizzy, etc.
In the beginning, I just wanted to look at Amiga in action, but by the end of the day I could not imagine how you can live without such a wonderful home car. As a result, after 2 weeks, the Amiga 600 was acquired with 2 Mb of memory and a 20 Mb screw. All this cost me $ 100 and I have never regretted buying. In 2002, I sold my AMIGA (due to the appearance of perfect emulators) for the same $ 100, but many years later! The new owners are very happy with their purchase and spend days on the fly (and nights) colorful game worlds, often delighted to announce that they finally passed the unforgettable and terribly beautiful Cedric, and they recorded music from it on a tape recorder and listen. The music there is really great, something like Enigma. In general, if you compare the quality of the graphics, then the best games with AMIGA are prettier than the best games on 2D gaming machines. But very close. What could be better in graphic terms than, for example, Lion Heart on AMIGA?
(To be continued)
It is hard to imagine a more beloved and respected PC user than Amiga. This home computer, which was ahead of its time, gave us a demoscene, tracker music, a plug’n’play mechanism and, of course, AmigaOS, an operating system that continues to develop to this day in the form of an independent AROS. But is it really a noteworthy system, and not just a nostalgic project by Amiga fans?
A bit of history
In 1982, when the world of personal computers was ruled by Apple II, Atari 400, and an IBM PC with an Intel 80186 processor, former Atari engineers led by Jay Miner began developing a brand new computer that was supposed to leave all other PCs far behind. that time.
So in 1985 Amiga 1000 was born, a truly revolutionary computer capable of displaying an image with a resolution of 640 ✕ 512 and 4096 colors, reproducing stereo sound from four independent hardware-mixing channels and simultaneously working with several applications running in a multitask OS with a window interface.
The Amiga 1000 model was equipped with a developed Denise video processor, which allowed working with eight hardware sprites (including tying a sprite to a mouse to display the cursor without lags when moving), smoothly scrolling the screen, and even overlapping images using the alpha channel.
Amiga cost half as much as the comparable IBM PC on the 286th processor - two thousand dollars against four. And at the same time did not leave him any chances for competition in the field of multimedia. Not surprisingly, Amiga quickly gained popularity among ordinary users and companies working with graphics and sound.
Not the last role in the popularity of Amiga was played by AmigaOS, an OS written from scratch with microkernel architecture. AmigaOS was multi-tasking, that is, it allowed working with several applications at once and clearly divided the kernel into many small components that were loaded into memory independently of each other. Each component performed a specific function (drivers, file systems, and so on), and they interacted using channels.
Amiga was rapidly gaining popularity, therefore, in addition to the Amiga 1000, many other computer models were released in the following years, including the even cheaper Amiga 500. Next came the Amiga 2000 with five expansion slots and the Autoconfig function (which is better known to us in the Microsoft implementation called plug'n'play), the Amiga 3000 with a more powerful processor and more memory, and finally, the Amiga 4000, capable of displaying 262,144 shades.
Together with Amiga, AmigaOS also developed. Version 2.0, released in 1990 for Amiga 1200 and 3000, got rid of the bright palette, standardized the user interface and allowed developers to create advanced graphical interfaces using the BOOPSI (Object Object Oriented Programming System for Intuition).
Version 3.0 introduced the concept of datatypes, very similar to BeOS / Haiku translators. Datatypes allowed adding support for new file types to the system by creating a library that implements a special API. After that, all applications, both system and third-party, could work with this type of file.
In 1995, shortly after the release of version 3.1, the company Commadore, which released Amiga, went bankrupt, and the rights to the operating system began to change hands. Six years later, Haage & Partner (version 3.5, 3.9) continued to develop the OS, and from version 4.0, Hyperion Entertainment began to work on it.
The latest version of Amiga OS 4.1 Final Edition Update 1 was released on December 31, 2016, but it can only work on machines with PowerPC processors: Blizzard PPC, AmigaOne, Pegasos II, Samantha. In fact, this is no longer a real Amiga, but quite standard "towers" produced by different companies. In addition, even the most powerful of them remain far behind modern x86 systems.
AmigaOS fancy architecture
AmigaOS was born exactly at the time when the idea of \u200b\u200ba microkernel OS began to spread in the world. The essence of the idea was to remove most of the kernel components from the privileged memory address space to the user, and to use typed channels for communication between them. This architecture ensures that if an error is made in the mouse driver (or any other driver or kernel component) that causes it to crash, it will not pull the entire kernel along with it, but simply crash, like a regular application, and it can be restarted .
Many OS developers then rejected this idea because of too high a cost. When exchanging data, kernel components could no longer simply pass a pointer to a buffer containing data. They had to copy data from kernel space to user space and back many times. Because of this, the core operation slowed down and the number of context switching operations expensive in terms of processor time increased.
AmigaOS developers did not stop these restrictions, and could not stop them. The Motorola MC68000 processor simply did not have an MMU module that would allow you to separate the address space of the processes and the kernel. As a result, endless copying of memory was no longer required, and context switching did not exist as a class.
So AmigaOS has become a microkernel OS in which the use of a microkernel makes no sense. Due to the lack of MMU, access to the pages of memory was not delimited in any way, and the OS could fall not only due to an error in the driver, but also because of a bug in a regular application! It was enough for the programmer to just make a mistake in the transition address or write the data a little in the wrong place, and hello, Guru Meditation (local "death screen")!
AROS
While large companies shared the skin of the killed Commadore and argued who owned the rights to the AmigaOS source code, a small group of developers decided to recreate the OS from scratch and port it not only to the original Amiga, but also to the standard IBM PC. So it appeared (AROS Research Operating System), an open OS, fully compatible at the source level with Amiga 3.1 and binary compatible with Amiga software, if you install it on one of the original Amiga models.
Icaros can be used both in Live CD mode, and installed on a hard drive or flash drive. The OS works fine inside VirtualBox, and when running on real hardware it uses hardware 3D acceleration of the GeForce 5+ and Intel GMA adapters. It also supports USB 2.0 and some of the most common network adapters.
Continuation is available only to participants
Option 1. Join the community "site" to read all the materials on the site
Membership in the community during the specified period will open you access to ALL Hacker materials, increase your personal cumulative discount and allow you to accumulate a professional Xakep Score!
In the digital world, computers from the Amiga series are better known than others. But at the peak of fame, they were not very long. What happened to them?
In 1985, Commodore International launched the first model of its computer - Amiga 1000. She was more powerful than the competition and had a multi-tasking mode of operation.
Impressive at that point in time were its graphic and sound capabilities. And the AmigaOS 1.0 operating system offered the window interface familiar to the modern user. But for home use, the device was too expensive - its the price was $ 2000, so the sales of this model were small.
Two years later, Commodore unveiled a new computer to the public. Amiga 500which was aimed at home use and cost much less. Amiga 500 model has become best selling and pretty quickly overgrown with a huge number of fans, earning the status of a cult machine.
Amiga 500
Start of production: 1987 year
End of production: 1991 year
RAM: 512 kB
CPU: Motorola 68000 @ 7 MHz
Price: $2000
In many ways, computer games such as Defender of the Crown, Speedball 2, Turrican II and others contributed to this. Total for Amiga was released over 3000 games.
And in the early nineties a new trend appeared: since copying games at that time was problematic, their exchange flourished very actively. And considering the fact that the requirements of such products for productivity were gradually growing, it was excellent soil for the further development of Amiga.
But Commodore could not repeat the success of the Amiga 500. The direct heirs of the "five hundred" - 500+ and 600 models - did not offer any new technical developments that would justify the release of updated computers.
Quite a few popular games refused to work on the new Amiga models, so users simply returned them to stores. Wrong marketing policies also played a big role in Amiga's departure from the market.
Therefore, even the production of office machines Amiga 1200 and 4000 with innovative features that were supposed to help Commodore maintain stability in the personal computer market, it could not compete with other manufacturers.
Single hit
Commodore failed to build on the success of the Amiga 500
The financial difficulties that arose in 1994 led the Commodore to bankruptcy. Subsequently, all rights to manufacture Amiga went through several companies, but the return of the cult computer did not take place.
Timeline
2015 Emulators
Users who are nostalgic for retro games and the Amiga OS interface can download the emulator for PCs and smartphones
Linux based computer with Core i7 processor (Sandy Bridge), 16 GB of memory and GeForce GT430 - the last sign of life Amiga
1994 Bankruptcy Commodore
Commodore has filed for bankruptcy. Amiga Discontinued
1992 Amiga 4000 and 1200
Professional solutions with a 32-bit processor and unique features.
Model A1200 - cheaper version of A4000
An office computer, very similar to the Amiga 500. Unlike the latter, this model had an external keyboard.
A photo: manufacturing companies
"Illustrated Computer Dictionary for Dummies" (1995).
Definition:
"Amiga": the most technologically advanced personal computer that few people want to deal with today. Use in offers:" I wanted to buy Amiga because of its low price and incredible color graphics, but everyone uses an IBM PC and Macintosh. Therefore, to be compatible with the rest of the world, I paid three times as much for the Macintosh and got only half of Amiga's graphics capabilities. "
The origin of the idea
The history of the Amiga computer began back in 1979 when ATARI Corporation released the ATARI 400 and 800. These models were the first home computers in which special chips developed by engineer Jay Miner were responsible for graphics and sound processing.
Jay Miner with dog Mitchie near the computer of his dreams
The creator’s fate is to create something new, and sometimes, without regard to his previous works, so Miner, right after the release of ATARI 400 and 800, suggested the company to develop a completely new home computer on the most powerful Motorola 68000 microprocessor at that time. But ATARI found many reasons to refuse its employee. The main one was financial: the company spent a large amount of money on ATARI 400 and 800, and just launched them on the market, so the development and release of a new computer model seemed unreasonable to the company. In the end, ATARI quite successfully occupied the niche of 8-bit systems, and believed that the time of 16-bit home computers had not come yet. Later, this erroneous opinion led to a decline in the entire gaming industry and the beginning of a long list of ATARI failures, after which management acknowledged that their opinion was erroneous.
The creator, as you know, is difficult to stop. Therefore, not particularly upset, Miner left ATARI and got a job at Zymos, developing microchips for an individual customer. He was not alone in his actions. A group of ATARI employees, among whom was Larry Caplan, one of the leading programmers for the ATARI 2600 computer, filed for a pay raise, and when she was refused, she decided to leave and try her luck in her own business. On April 25, 1980, they organized Activision, which became one of the largest gaming giants by the end of the 90s.
In early 1980, Lerry Keplen called Jay Miner and offered to establish his own gaming company, which he gladly agreed, because this was the only way that Miner's “untied hands” and he could create, not burdened with orders from above.
As the executive director of Hi-Torro, that was the name of the new company, which chose the city of Santa Clara (USA) as its base, Dave Morse, who had worked at Tonka Toys until then, was elected.
Jay Miner managed to attract investors who invested $ 7 million in the creation of the gaming system. And although Hi-Torro had funds for development, it lacked one important detail - a well-known brand in the gaming market.
The way out was found quite quickly. Two departments were created in the company: the first was engaged, in fact, in the development of a gaming system, and the second was in the development of peripherals and small games for various computer platforms.
The first department developed two joysticks: Amiga Power Stick and Amiga Joyboard.
Original Amiga Power Stick (above) and its modification (below)
Outwardly, the fairly standard Amiga Power Stick was, at one time, one of the most convenient joysticks, as a result of which it was revered by many owners of ATARI 2600, Texas Instruments TI-99 / 4a, and ColecoVision gaming systems. Modification of the joystick was equipped with a digital panel with 12 keys and two on / off switches.
Virtual Amiga Joyboard
As for the Amiga Joyboard, its appearance was more non-standard. The mere purpose of the joystick, to serve as a substitute for a board for a surfing simulator, says a lot. Amiga Joyboard, in addition to appearance, was remembered for something else. The Zen Meditation game created by Amiga Inc. programmers for their own needs, later became the prototype of the contents of the dialog box message that occurs when the software malfunctions.
The famous message "Guru is meditating" that occurred during a crash in the program
While the first development team "created" the brand of their company, the second group, under the leadership of Jay Miner, intensively realized his dream.
Lorraine
The challenge faced by twenty employees of the second group was to create a gaming system with advanced graphics and sound for that time. Unlike ATARI, which was developing computers and game consoles, as well as creating games for them independently, Hi-Torro developed only hardware, while other companies, Activision and Imagic, for example, were supposed to "manage" game products.
Work on the Lorraine project (named after Dave Morse's wife) began in 1980. Initially, Lorraine was supposed to be a system designed exclusively for games. Such a concept was necessary only to satisfy the interests of investors who perceived Hi-Torro only as a competitor to ATARI.
But, subsequently, serious disputes broke out between the engineers within the company over the market orientation of the project under development, as a result of which it was decided to create a game system, which, if necessary, could be turned into a full-fledged computer.
Early Lorraine Appearance Concept Art
Year 1982. Hi-Torro had to change her name, as lawyers from the Japanese lawn mower company Torro contacted her with a threat of litigation. As a result, the former Hi-Torro was called Amiga Incorporated. Around the same time, the project "Lorraine" began to be called simply "Amiga" (from the Spanish "Amiga" - "girlfriend").
There is a hypothesis that the name "Amiga" was given to the company and the computer so that they appear in the alphabetical list of computer products above Apple and ATARI. By the way, Apple took such a step in 1976, choosing a name for itself.
