Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> I don’t know anyone that used the Amiga for anything other than games.

The Amiga was used worldwide by TV stations for CGI and titling effects, for digital signage eg arrivals/departures at airports, and video walls, besides being a tool for countless digital artists. I know because I wrote digital signage software for the Amiga and sold it to customers in 21 countries.



Just to be clear, because there have been a number of similar responses, I am not claiming the Amiga couldn’t do anything else, nor that it wasn’t used for anything other than games.

But, the vast majority of people who bought Amigas did so because it was a great machine for games and had lots of high quality titles.

When the majority of your market disappears and moves to cheaper options; and all you have left is video walls in departure lounges, you’re fucked.


But as I pointed out elsewhere: The subsidiary that survived the longest did so on the continued strength of sales driven by games - that market continued to do well for the Amiga until the end in the markets where the subsidiaries actually focused on gaming bundles.


The Video Toaster was the first successful competitor to the horribly expensive Avid system ($100k+) for non-linear video editing, titling, SMTPE code syncing, etc. and ran on an Amiga 2000 as a double card. I think it was $3k.

It was used to make the first 3 seasons of Babylon 5 and all of the sub graphics for Sealquest DSV.

As an aside, Dana Carveys brother was one of the lead designers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_Toaster




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: