When I was in grade 7 or 8, our librarian had a friend who worked at Commodore who came to the school to show us the new computer they were about to release — the Amiga 1000A.  As the school “computer guy” I was asked to set it up, and in doing so noticed it had the serial number 0000000001.  I have numerous “claims to fame”, but having used the very first Amiga 1000A is still one I cherish all these years later.

One thing that often gets missed due to games bypassing the OS, is that the operating system libraries were absolutely fantastic, as well. There were many of us who used the Amiga as a low cost scientific and engineering workstation, because of how damned good exec, graphics, layers, and intuition.library were.

Still waiting on the next video in this series 3 years later...

Absolutely unbelievable. I had a C64 as a kid in the 80s but never even heard of Amiga until probably the mid-2000s. The graphics and sound on that thing are unreal. It reminds me a lot of a Super Nintendo or a mid-90s Pentium with a Sound Blaster 16 card. Cannot believe this was available in 1985!!

The Hawking documentary explains how the Amiga was used for his voice and how he loved it so much he refused to upgrade it until it finally died. That's why it sounds like him. Because it is the voice he used.

Around 1985 I was 13 and a real tearaway. Me and a couple of others would be shoplifting and breaking into places and being antisocial idiots. One day, completely out of the blue - 2 huge boxes turned up at home with my name on them. It was an Amiga 1000 with the ram expansion and a Philips CM8833 monitor (it had a green screen switch!) - My mum knew how much trouble I was getting in to and knew that the only way out of this was by getting a computer like this. I loved it. Never went out again for years and got through school without an issue.  Damocles and Mercenary/Mercenary II along with Elite, Starglider II & Sentinel would be my absolute favorite games. Thanks Mum!

I remember walking into a computer store in the mid 80s and seeing an Amiga on display, running a demo featuring a walking jungle cat of some kind.  I was absolutely blown away.  Instantly made my Dad's life around every Christmas a nightmare for the next 5 years.

I remember the old tag "The Amiga was everything the Mac wished it was."

We used an Amiga with a Genlock in high school. It was used mostly for overlaying titles onto our VHS recordings, giving it a somewhat (at the time) professional look especially for high school students. However, I found the paint program and some text animation program so I started making animated titles with letters tumbling around the screen as well as some other cool special effects. I managed to produce some laser battles where I used the Paint program to draw lasers and disintegration effects, and overlay things like starfields in the background to make it look like someone is on a spaceship. I used a Yamaha PSR-36 to make laser sound effects and disintegration noises. Looking at my films today the effects look laughably bad. But back in 1987 they actually looked pretty good (at least for high school students) and people were mystified as to how I did it.

Wow the signatures in the top case is absolutely ridiculous. These guys were proud of their work and you can feel it.

I was one of about 37 lucky Americans to have grown up using an Amiga! The "too fast" NTSC music on some of these games is exactly how I remember it.

My brother (11yrs older than me) sold me his A2000 in 1992 (I was in 3rd grade, 8-9 yrs old). It's like I remember every single minute of that first (and long) day I owned that computer. I couldn't believe that I got such awesomeness in my room. At least since then I was in awe for these Amigas - until today.  Updated it with Kick 3.1 and 8mb fast ram in 1993 or 1994 (childhood savings). Also a color Monitor (just had an amber monitor till then). Wanted a CD-Drive so badly.
Said A2000 is in the basement in an overhauled condition and is ready for use. Can't wait to invite my brother to come over and playin' some old classics (he's living 500km away).
I just LOVE them Amigas!

The Amiga was a work of art and you felt that when you used one. I often wonder where we would be today had the Amiga not been mismanaged by Commodore.

When I got my Amiga 500, my parents bought it second hand. It came with a "moitor" that was actually a TV which just happened to look like a monitor. My parents would have never let me have TV in my room at age 12 so I did my best to not let them find out.

I will never forget the Amiga time in the 80s. It was magical. Nearly everyone in my school class had an Amiga.

I'm reminded of that one Easter egg on some Amiga software that went something like "we made it, they f***ed it up."

It's amazing how powerful the Amigas were and tragic how badly marketed and supported they were.

When I was around 14yrs old, My dad and I were working on a TV station’s building expansion. To my surprise, all the commercials, ads and overlays were designed on Amiga 1000s, the producer told us he loved them, and never planned to replace them.  He showed us a couple of commercials and then told us how long it took to render them, mostly overnight or longer.  I was astonished at how the graphics looked even in the mid 90s!

I've probably watched the other 7 episodes more than 10 times. So this is like 10 more episodes 😀

When you compare it to its era, this was the most innovative computer platform ever made.