AHC: Not Apple, but Xerox Computers

[marathag]

How far would it slow down the rise of personal computers if Apple had to make their Macintosh without a mouse? Would the Mac even exist? Would home computers altogether?

Back in the day I used a Tandy Joystick to move the cursor around, years before I owned a mouse. I based that resident program after seeing similar idea from _Compute_ for the then new Atari 800, in 1979?
But Atari also had a big touchpad, based on the KoalaPad

a few years later. This was like a real lowrez Touchpad, you could use finger or a stylus

Plus most of the early home PCs had a lightpen option
No mouse? there were other options

 

[marathag]

Ok... some misconceptions here need to be cleaned up- Amiga never existed prior to Commodore, Commodore did not "buy and ruin" Amiga, Amiga was simply a product line created by Commodore. Second- Please! Apple computers are NOT PCs!!! A PC by definition is an IBM-clone, Apple (and Commodore) is not based off IBM technology and therefore aren't PCs.

from http://www.geekometry.com/2015/01/gamechangers-jay-miner-and-the-amiga-computer/

The birth of the Amiga

Throughout 1979, Atari rapidly developed and finalized their 400 and 800 home computer models, as well as a range of perephials and accessories. All the while, Miner implored his bosses to let him begin work on a successor system, a 16-bit machine based on Motorola’s 68000 CPU. Atari management basically pointed to the money rolling in from the VCS/2600 and ignored him. More than that, Atari ordered Jay to cease any development of new systems, unless they were based on the same MOS 6502 found in the 400 and 800. Jay hated it. In the words of Harold Lee, the Atari manager who hired Miner, “He was always designing, he never stopped designing.” Frustrated, by early 1980 Jay Miner quit Atari. He moved from designing computer chips and processors for computers and video games, to designing microprocessors for heart pacemakers. While the work was challenging and rewarding – with two patents awarded to Miner for medical implants – Jay still loved computers, and itched to make his 16-bit dream system.
...With the video game industry booming, a consortium of dentists, oil barons and medical instrument distributors wanted to get in on the action, and they ran into Larry Kaplan. Kaplan remembered Jay Miner’s 16-bit dream machine and got in touch with his old colleague. The medical instrument folks were familiar with Jay through his medical implant work, and an agreement was quickly reached. Jay would create the hardware while Kaplan and Activision focused on the software and games
...
The group formed a company called Hi-Toro in mid 1982, even recruiting a Vice President from Tonka Toys, David Morse, to become CEO. But, before the end of the year, Larry Kaplan left, eventually returning to Atari in 1983. With hardware suddenly the sole focus of Hi-Toro, Jay Minor agreed to take control of engineering on two conditions: that the design be a computer, and that it be a 16/32-bit system, built around the Motorola 68000 CPU. After some initial protests from the investors, it was agreed that the design would be for a video game system, which could be upgraded to a full computer. Which, at the time meant little more than the inclusion of floppy drives and a keyboard.

Beginning in 1983, Morse, Miner and the original investors had adjusted their business plan. $7 million would initially fund the Hi-Toro, which would also sell a line of controllers and add-ons for current-generation video game systems. This allowed the company to generate some income while Miner and his team worked on the brand new, 3rd-generation video game system – codenamed “Lorraine” – to be launched in time for the 1984 holiday season. Unfortunately, 1983 had its own plans – The Great Video Game Crash. For a start-up like Hi-Toro, the Crash of ’83 calls for a pivot. Jay Miner’s insistence that Lorraine be a computer created a ‘pivot opportunity’ for the company and saved it

Even while the video game market collapsed, sales of home computer systems increased and Hi-Toro’s investors agreed to continue funding the company to build a full computer system. To seal-the-deal, the company took on a new name – Amiga, because it came in the phonebook before Apple or Atari. The new Amiga, Inc., split into two teams, one lead by Jay Miner worked to finalizing the hardware design. The other, headed by Bob Pariseau, took on the daunting task of building the Amiga’s operating system. The goal – demonstrate Lorraine at the Consumer Electronics Show scheduled to be in Chicago in January 1984, and get more investors.

Lorraine’s hardware design was largely completed. A revolutionary system, powered not only by the 68000 CPU, but through a series of customized chips, to take certain tasks on themselves, freeing up the CPU. The “Agnus” chip was in charge of direct memory access, and also contained the “Copper” and “Blitter” silicon, which allowed for some amazing graphics tricks. Managing the display and graphics would be the “Denise” chip. While the “Paula” chip handled 4-channel stereo sound, as well as controlled the system’s floppy disk drives. Offering a palate of 4,096 colors and screen resolutions up to 640×400, the Lorraine’s technical specifications were unlike anything in the industry. In the PC-world, nothing like these capabilities would be available until the popularity of dedicated video and sound cards in the late 80’s/early 90’s. All that Lorraine needed was an operating system.

Bob Pariseau needed to get an operating system done, and fast. And, not unlike Jay Miner, he had a vision as well. Coming from a background in mainframe computers, and recognizing all the specialized hardware to offload tasks from the CPU, Bob began building a team to create the first multitasking operating system for a home computer. Critical to this team were Carl Sassenrath, formerly with HP’s server multitasking OS division, and RJ Mical. Carl, for his work in developing the small and lightning fast micro-kernel, and RJ for building “Intuition“, the API used for the OS’s user interface. Even then, development of the operating system was lagging seriously behind the hardware.

For the winter CES show in January, Amiga Inc. rented a small booth in the West Hall. While the prototype hardware was ready, the operating system was not. RJ Mical and Dale Luck, another important engineer in Amiga history, were forced to create a number of software demos for the system. Most famous of which was the, at the time, jaw dropping Amiga “Boing” demo. CES was a smashing success for Amiga, in terms of generating buzz about the capabilities of the hardware. But, overall, the show was a devastating failure because they left without a single new investor. To make things worse, the success of the IBM PC and the excitement over the new Apple Macintosh had given cold-feet to the original investor consortium. Jay Miner and other top management at Amiga took additional mortgages and loans to help keep the company afloat.

For the summer CES show in June 1984, Amiga went back to Chicago to demonstrate their progress, including prototypes of hardware. HP, Sony, Apple, Silicon Graphics and others, attended private screenings of the Amiga. Everyone was impressed, but no one was interested in investing. The home computer market was a blood-bath in 1984, with Commodore’s low-cost C64 laying waste to entire companies. Atari’s home computer division, in particular, had spent the last two years getting crushed by Commodore. With their revamped and low-cost XL-line of computers finally gaining some traction in the market, Atari spied a way to leapfrog Commodore into the next-generation of home computers – Amiga.

Realizing the dire straits faced by the young company, Atari made a ruthless move and offered Amiga a 30-day/$500,000 loan against the rights to Amiga’s hardware designs. At Amiga, things were desperate. With two mortgages on his home already, Jay Miner and the Amiga team took the deal. By the first week in July, Amiga needed an investor or a buy-out, or they would be out-of-business and Atari would own all their hard work.

In spite of the runaway success of the C64, Commodore founder and CEO, Jack Tramiel, had been forced out by company’s board of directors in January 1984. Jack Tramiel deserves his own article, but, suffice it to say, the man held grudges. It’s generally believed that Commodore’s home-computer price war was largely Tramiel’s attempt (successful, to be sure) to punish Texas Instruments for things that happened in their competition in the personal calculator market during the 1970’s. On July 1st, 1984, Warner Communications shocked the industry by announcing that Jack Tramiel had purchased the Atari home computer and video games divisions. Tramiel promptly fired much of Atari’s engineering teams, bringing over hand-picked replacements from Commodore. Jay Miner and the ex-Atari folks at Amiga were stunned. In less than a week, a team of their professional rivals were due to take ownership of the Amiga hardware designs.

As the clock ran out on the deal with Atari, who was to come knocking on Amiga’s door? Commodore.

As large swaths of their engineering staff left for Atari, Commodore was looking for a way to replace what they’d lost, and then some. At the eleventh-hour on the Atari-Deal, Commodore bought Amiga. While an infuriated Jack Tramiel, via Atari, traded lawsuits with an equally enraged Commodore, Jay and his team decamped to their offices to finish the Amiga. After a year of fighting Atari, as well as technical hurdles with Kickstart and Workbench, the Amiga was officially debuted on July 23, 1985 and began shipping the following September.

It was not a success.

Jack Tramiel’s Atari had quickly thrown together a competitor, the 520ST, and beat the Amiga to market by a half-a-year and at nearly half the price. With Atari at the low-end of the market, and the Macintosh and IBM PC at the high-end, Amiga was launched directly into a very pinched middle-market. And the Amiga’s jack-of-all-trades, external-module focused design (here a Sidecar, there a Genlock…), made it very expensive to produce or expand. Commodore decided to discontinue the Amiga 1000, in favor of a new strategy.

The Amiga 500, a smaller integrated unit, would be sold at the low-end, and the Amiga 2000, a big-box expandable PC-like unit, would target the medium/high-end. It was at this point that Amiga sales increased dramatically, quickly catching and beginning to distance itself from the Atari ST. It was also at this point that Jay Miner’s influence within Commodore began to wain. He stayed with the company for several years before quietly leaving to return to his work with medical devices.

 

[marathag]

And here children we have the first picture of pornography on the computer. This is history!

Want to know more?
LINK

 

[Histor32]

The Amiga was the first affordable computer with GUI and even multitasking. Unfortunately it was bought by Commodore a compay with an incredible talent for ruining awesome ideas by poor product management.

Then again, the Atari ST was even faster by a couple of weeks and - at least in Europe - similarly successful.

In short, within two years of the Mac's release GUI was no longer a unique selling point. It was unique that Microsoft/IBM failed to implement a useful solution and didn't get out of business. That's literally the worst case of markt power vs. technology in history.

I will much much agree.
The Amiga was ahead of most by leaps and bounds at the starting gate, only to squander it all in short order

Ataris were cool too so don't misinterpret me.. but the Amiga was the first computer I LOVED.. I had a few Trs-80's before, but the Amiga, that thing was a pure work of genius.
Commodore had no idea what to do in a torn market with the thing.

I'm not knocking on apple or others. the iic was everywhere in schools during the time. a few macs as well. Each machine had strengths and weakness during the time.

but the one thing the Amiga had at the start, was the wow factor, the mac never had that, nor the Ibm's

 

[Michel Van]

Yes the Amiga was nice computer i worked with them, (Arthur C Clark idolize the Amiga)
Sadly Commodore went in deadly competitions with Atari (now unter former Commodore boss Jack Tramiel.)
He (and others) had brought Commodore in financially difficulty, like C64 price dumping and wrong choice in it's successor C16, C116 and Plus/4.

IMHO the legendary Amiga had two major problems: One financially difficulty of Commodore what let to it's bankruptcy , Second it's image to be a Game computer.
After Commodore demise in 1994, the german Amiga Technologies took over the right for Amiga Hardware
sadly after that the Rights for Hardware start the roam, in 1997 to Gateway 2000, in 2000 Amino Development bought the rights.
follow in 2004 by KMOS buying Amiga, Inc (former Amino Development) after 2007 happen nothing in Amiga Hardware

Means during 1994 to 2007 Five Company had rights for 4-3 years. In marketing the Amiga was already dead since 1994, because there Successors had litte or non advertisement for the Amiga.
Nice WI for a TL: What happened if Amiga was bought by some else in 1994 and turn into Success story?

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

The price of memory in 73/74 seems to have been some 300-400 k$ / MB. That severely limits what you can do with a personal computer with a GUI.

There's a reason the Lisa and early Macs were so expensive.