Amiga Corporation
Industry | Computer |
---|---|
Founded | September 1982 (as Hi-Toro) |
Defunct | August 1984 |
Fate | Became a subsidiary of Commodore International |
Successor | Commodore-Amiga, Inc. |
Headquarters | Santa Clara, California, United States |
Key people | Jay Miner (founder) |
Products | Amiga |
Website | amiga |
Amiga Corporation was a United States computer company formed in the early 1980s as Hi-Toro. It is most famous for having developed the Amiga computer, code named Lorraine.
History
1982
In the early 1980s Jay Miner, along with other Atari staffers, had become fed up with management and decamped. In September 1982,[1] they set up another chip-set project under a new company in Santa Clara, California, called Hi-Toro (which meant "high bull" to them,[2] later renamed to Amiga), where they could have some creative freedom. There, they started to create a new 68000-based games console, codenamed Lorraine, that could be upgraded to a full-fledged computer. The initial start-up financing of Amiga Corporation was provided by three dentists in Florida, who later regained their investment once Commodore bought the company.
To raise money for the Lorraine project, Amiga designed and sold joysticks and game cartridges for popular game consoles such as the Atari 2600 and ColecoVision, as well as an input device called the Joyboard, essentially a joystick the player stood on.
1983
During development in 1983, Amiga had exhausted venture capital and was desperate for more financing. Jay Miner approached his former employer, Atari, which then paid Amiga to continue development work.[3] In return Atari was to obtain one-year exclusive use of the design. Atari had plans for a 68000-based machine, code-named "Mickey", that would have used customized chips, but details were sparse.
During this period a downturn started in the video game business that turned into the
1984
Meanwhile, at
Tramiel formed a
Tramiel's design for his next generation computer was 95% completed by June (which only fueled speculation that Shivji and other engineers had taken technology with them from Commodore). Tramiel discovered that Warner Communications wanted to sell Atari, which at that point was losing about $10,000 a day. Interested in Atari's overseas manufacturing and worldwide distribution network for his new computer, he approached Atari and entered talks. After on again/off again negotiations with Atari in May and June 1984, Tramiel had secured his funding and bought Atari's Consumer Division (which included the console and home computer departments) that July; Tramel Technology, Ltd. became Atari Corporation. Commodore filed an injunction against Tramiel and Atari, seeking to bar them from releasing their new computer.
One of Tramiel's first acts after forming Atari Corp. was to fire most of Atari's remaining staff[citation needed] and cancel almost all ongoing projects in order to review their continued viability. It was during this time in late July that Tramiel's representatives discovered the original Atari Inc./Amiga contract.
Acquisition by Commodore August 1984
Seeing a chance to gain some leverage, Tramiel immediately used the situation to countersue Commodore through its new (pending) subsidiary, Amiga, which was done on August 13, 1984. He sought damages and an injunction to bar Amiga (and effectively Commodore) from producing anything with that technology. The suit tried to render Commodore's new acquisition (and the source for its next generation of computers) useless and do to Commodore what they were trying to do to him.
Meanwhile, at Commodore, the Amiga team (according to conversations by Curt Vendel of Atarimuseum.com directly with Dave Needle of Amiga and also with Joe Decuir of Amiga) was sitting in limbo for nearly the entire summer because of the lawsuit. No word on the status of the chipset, the Lorraine computer system or the team's fate was known. Finally in the fall of 1984 Commodore informed the team that the Lorraine project was active again, the chipset to be improved, the OS developed and the hardware design completed.
From this point on the former Amiga Corporation was a division of Commodore. Over the next few years many employees felt Commodore's management proved to be as annoying as Atari's, and most of the team members left, were laid off, or were fired. Meanwhile, Atari used this time to finish and release the Atari ST computer just months ahead of the release of the Amiga.
Both lawsuits themselves were laid to rest in March 1987, when Commodore and Atari Corp. settled out of court in a closed decision.
See also
References
- ^ Chira, Susan (August 29, 1984). "Amiga's High-Tech Gamble". New York Times, August 29, 1984. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
- ISBN 0-07-223172-6
- ^ "TOP SECRET: Confidential Atari-Amiga Agreement". Atari Historical Society. November 1983. Archived from the original on 2019-10-23. Retrieved 2006-07-23.
- CU Amiga, (September 1992)
- OCLC 820011527.
- ^ "Microbytes". BYTE. April 1984. p. 10. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
External links
- On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore (2005), Variant Press. A book describing the formation of Amiga Corporation and subsequent acquisition by Commodore.
- Amiga History Guide: Amiga 1982 - 1984