First Look at Commodore's Amiga - Ahoy! Magazine

Originally published February 16th, 2017
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Sadly while moving I trashed much of my father's enormous collection of Amiga/C64/PC magazines. While I was wise enough to go through them all and tear out pages of interest, I can certainly tell you that is a collection I wish I still had. Of the few individual magazines I kept, there was an issue of the Commodore 64 magazine Ahoy! with a look at the "yet to be released Amiga". I put that in quotes simply because the article was written in July of 1985, before the release of the Amiga, but this issue of Ahoy! was released in October of 1985, after the release of the machine. I scanned these at 1200 dpi, screwed with them so they match what I see in person, and then resized/compressed for viewing here. I imagine this one is already out there somewhere, but I also imagine this is the best it's going to look.

The first page focuses on the unveiling of the Amiga, with stories you've probably heard before; Andy Warhol, Debbie Harry. It then goes into the specs of the machine, comparisons with PC/Apple hardware, and notes this sucker must be designed to go after the big boys.

Page 2 notes the sound, built in speech, and MIDI capabilities in comparison to PC and Apple hardware. "Wow!" The kickstart being supplied via a floppy disk? "Wow, again!" The multitasking? "No wow - utterly speechless this time!"

Page 3 has the author (Tom Benford) take a stab at the New York Times, who had implied nobody really cared based on the crowed. The author noting said Times reporter must have never attended a computer show in his life. A great example of how history can be destroyed both in the long term, like the internet loves to do, as well as right then and there! The New York Times, with its readership, may have forever tainted the Amiga as a machine nobody cared about based solely on the ignorance of the man covering the story.

The rest of the article contains a fascinating list of confirmed software releases for the Amiga. It strangely ends there, no real conclusion to it all.

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