Amiga Corporation was a computer company formed in the early 1980s as Hi-Toro. It is most famous for having developed the Amiga computer, code named Lorraine. The 1980s in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1980 and 1989, but in a pop cultural sense it could be considered to span from about 1979 to 1990. ... The Amiga is a family of home/personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation as an advanced game console. ...

History

In the early 1980s Jay Miner, along with other Atari staffers, had become fed up with management and decamped. They set up another chip-set project under a new company in Santa Clara, called Hi-Toro (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. 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 odd input device called the Joyboard, essentially a joystick the player stood on. The 1980s in its most obvious sense refers to the decade between 1980 and 1989, but in a pop cultural sense it could be considered to span from about 1979 to 1990. ... Jay Glenn Miner (May 31, 1932 - June 20, 1994) was a famous microprocessor designer, known primarily for his work in multimedia chips. ... For the concept Atari (当たり) in the board game of Go, see Atari (go term). ... The Amiga is a family of home/personal computers originally developed by Amiga Corporation as an advanced game console. ... The Motorola 68000 is a CISC microprocessor, the first member of a successful family of microprocessors from Motorola, which were all mostly software compatible. ... For other uses, see Joystick (disambiguation). ... Atari VCS/2600 original six-switch version. ... The Colecovision is Colecos third generation video game console, released in August 1982. ... The Joyboard is a joystick for the feet. ...

In 1984 Warner Brothers grew tired of Atari, and sold the company off to the only person interested, Jack Tramiel, formerly head of Commodore International. Prior to Tramiel's purchase of the company, Atari had signed a licensing deal with Amiga that granted them use of the Lorraine's custom chips, the very chips that made Amiga's computer so powerful. Tramiel wanted to use these chips in his forthcoming ST computer, but true to form he wanted those chips at a bargain-basement price. Knowing Amiga was strapped for cash as a result of the crash of the video game market, he held back a scheduled payment Atari was due to pay Amiga in an effort to force it to renegotiate the contract with terms more favorable to Atari. Warner Bros. ... Jack Tramiel (born 1928) is famous for founding Commodore International, manufacturer of the Commodore 64 and Commodore Amiga home computers. ... Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore International, a West Chester, Pennsylvania based electronics company who was a vital player in the personal computer field. ...

This strategy backfired when Commodore bought Amiga and canceled the contract, citing Atari's late payment as the reason. In the end, Atari was forced to use off-the-shelf components to complete the ST's design. (A lawsuit over the Amiga license dragged on for years, only to be abruptly settled. Terms were not disclosed, but many speculate the settlement involved Atari obtaining Amiga development systems for use with the Lynx handheld game system.)

See also

• Amiga computer
• Amiga, Inc. — current holder of the Amiga trademark