The Cult Of Amiga Is Bringing An Obsolete Computer Into The 21st Century

The IBM and Apple machines were better known among the legends of 80s computer. But perhaps no computer was more beloved by its users than the Amiga. Meet the dedicated few who are working in the shadows to keep an ancient suite of software alive, waiting for it to thrive again.

The Amiga was first born at a company called Hi-Toro, run by staffers who had recently cut ties with Atari to strike out on their own.

In the mid-1980s, Commodore released the Amiga 1000, a beast of a machine whose specs blew away the hardware of its day, and which became a cult favorite. But by 1995, after several iterations of Amiga and years of questionable decisions by the Commodore company, the Amiga brand closed up shop. In the two decades since then, the rights to the computer and its software suite have been sold off and stuck in legal purgatory. And yet now, a group of hardware enthusiasts are trying to bring the revered 1980s computer into the 21st century.

“I’m nearly dumping $1,000 into a 30-year-old computer”

On an early June day, I watched one of those new old machines come to life. It might just resurrect the Amiga name—if anybody finds out it exists, that is… read more >