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[Web] Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computingANN.lu
Posted on 06-Dec-2003 22:34 GMT by Piru28 comments
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Amiga 1000 made it to top-10 list of "the most important PCs in home computing" of the Houston Chronicle, after initally being left out.

The story. From the article:

But the biggest outcry about its omission came from fans of the Commodore Amiga, thanks to a campaign launched from several Amiga users' Web sites. There were literally dozens of Amiga-related comments posted, ranging from the inane (Amiga rulez!) to detailed arguments about why the Amiga was the greatest technological achievement since the wheel.

Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 1 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by Rich Woods on 06-Dec-2003 22:06 GMT
Hey - thanks for the link and info!
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 2 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by Raffaele on 06-Dec-2003 22:23 GMT
At least our comments made on the Houston Chronicle readers page were not useless...

Even if the author of the article still consider us amigans with a bit of paternal superior sufficiency, and even after having modified the Top Ten...

Ciao,

Raffaele
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 3 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by Richi on 06-Dec-2003 22:49 GMT
...for me is before the wheel just after the fire! :-)
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 4 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by hooligan/dcs on 06-Dec-2003 23:04 GMT
Those fags still forgot Spectrum...
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 5 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by Amon_Re on 06-Dec-2003 23:05 GMT
In reply to Comment 4 (hooligan/dcs):
Spectrum? What's that? ;-)

Cheers
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 6 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by IamCleverToo on 07-Dec-2003 01:31 GMT
This is clearly off opic, but does anyone know if 'Oppressor' is DaveP?
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 7 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 07-Dec-2003 06:24 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (IamCleverToo):
Didn't Oppressor once state to have a Pegasos? And isn't DaveP, on the other hand, OS4-betatester (IIRC)?
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 8 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by Amon_Re on 07-Dec-2003 09:43 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (IamCleverToo):
Opressor isn't DaveP.

Cheers
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 9 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by takemehomegrandma on 07-Dec-2003 10:06 GMT
In reply to Comment 8 (Amon_Re):
> Opressor isn't DaveP.

And you know this ... how?
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 10 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by simplex on 07-Dec-2003 14:02 GMT
Instead, I'm replacing the Newton. I'm sure Apple zealots will
squawk predictably, but handheld computing -- while certainly
an important trend -- has not yet become as big a factor in home computing.


Not to mention that the Newton never went anywhere, and thus had zero impact... hardly meriting it a place above the Amiga, whose impact was huge.
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 11 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by Frank213 on 07-Dec-2003 14:56 GMT
This is very typical of the american media of such type. Apparently Commodore way worse marketing than we thought in the US and the Amiga was only "that home computer on which Video Toaster runs"...
Shit...
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 12 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by MarkTime on 07-Dec-2003 15:02 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (simplex):
well the Newton and Zaurus were not huge hits, but the Newton did inspire a cult following.

Well, the Palm probably is an obvious choice he still left off the list, saying handhelds didn't belong on the list yet.

I don't agree with that, but I do agree the Amiga 1000 needed to be on the list, above the Newton, and his liking of the Tandy Sensation is just plain weird.
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 13 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by vortexau on 07-Dec-2003 15:54 GMT
In reply to Comment 12 (MarkTime):
True enough! For did not the presence of the Amiga provide both the Mac, and the IBM PC Clones, with a swift kick up their inadequate bums?
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 14 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by TheArrogantSarny on 07-Dec-2003 19:48 GMT
In reply to Comment 10 (simplex):
On the contrary. The newton has influenced the direction of every handheld that followed it.

Prior to the newton we had small keyboard clamshell like designs that were truelly useful. Now we have Palm and PocketPC based devices designed with the technophobe and their backwards love of handwriting in mind - the Newtons big selling point.
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 15 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by Seehund on 08-Dec-2003 00:01 GMT
"But the biggest outcry about its omission came from fans of the Commodore Amiga, thanks to a campaign launched from several Amiga users' Web sites. There were literally dozens of Amiga-related comments posted, ranging from the inane (Amiga rulez!) to detailed arguments about why the Amiga was the greatest technological achievement since the wheel."

Ignorant fool! Now he should know better than to mess with the Scientolog... Jehovah's W... El Jiha... Amigans!
;)
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 16 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by Atheist2 on 08-Dec-2003 08:20 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (Raffaele):
Hi Raffaele,

I read about 3/4s of the feedback of the original article he wrote, and you had one of the most informative comments on there, but I still managed to append 2 items (and there was MORE that could have been said!!!!!).


WOW! Publishers read the publics opinion!!

Power to the people!!!!!


AmigaOne! AOS4+.x! It's N O T over!!!!!!!!!!!!
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 17 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by Atheist2 on 08-Dec-2003 08:59 GMT
This drove a huge amount of traffic to the Chronicle's Web site, making the column the most-viewed story for two days straight, and it resulted in dozens of nonlocal comments and e-mails.


This is quite an interesting excerpt, because Amiga was still the most spoken of ommision!!!!
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 18 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by Steffen Haeuser on 08-Dec-2003 09:38 GMT
The new list the guy posted gave me some questions at once:

1. What the HECK is a Altair 8800 ? Never heard of it, but he seemed to
think it more important than the Amiga...
2. What is a Osborne I ?
3. What is a PCs limited turbo ?
4. What is so special about model 5150 of IBM PC ? Some sort of PC Clone ?
5. Why is Compaq Portable PC on place 1 ?
6. What is a Tandy Sensation (okay, he explained it in the text :) ) ?

On the other hand some important systems are not even mentioned... What
about ZX Spectrum ? What about Atati XL ? What about Schneider CPC (never
had one, but here in Germany they were quite popular... at my school back
then they were used as school computers, and most people in the
class had either a C64 or a CPC) ? What about ZX 81 ?

And I do not agree that some on the "higher places" on the list would be more important than the Amiga.

Ask any people in the IT business, and the chances are extremely high their
first non-8-Bit System was an Amiga (Well, for some also an Atari ST, maybe...
but for LESS of them... but the ST is not on that list either, so it cannot
count as counter-argument :) ).

Steffen
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 19 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by Alan LM Buxey on 08-Dec-2003 13:53 GMT
In reply to Comment 18 (Steffen Haeuser):
the USA has certainly had a tonnage of crap computers ;-)

I'm thinking of compiling a list of the top 10 European computers.
good idea? should I spend the time and effort doing this?

Alan
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 20 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by Frank213 on 08-Dec-2003 16:02 GMT
In reply to Comment 19 (Alan LM Buxey):
no, only americans would waste time doing that :)))))))
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 21 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by Chris Kelley on 08-Dec-2003 18:25 GMT
In reply to Comment 18 (Steffen Haeuser):
"1. What the HECK is a Altair 8800 ? Never heard of it, but he seemed to
think it more important than the Amiga... "

It was the first home-computing kit to really catch on in the 1970's. It was basically a box with a ton of lights and single-throw switches on the front. If you wanted to program it, you did so by flipping switches, bit by bit. Bill Gates and Paul Allen wrote BASIC for this thing, which is probably one of the reasons that it's so hyped up. Personally, I think the altair was a piece of crap. Here's a link with all the info you need on it:

Altair
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 22 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by Chris Kelley on 08-Dec-2003 18:51 GMT
Oh, I almost forgot this. This is the now-infamous letter that Gates wrote to altair users in an attempt to curb piracy:

Gates letter
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 23 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by Alkis Tsapanidis on 08-Dec-2003 20:36 GMT
In reply to Comment 18 (Steffen Haeuser):
Well, we should keep in mind that the list is American oriented.
Computers that were very popular here, were next to unknown there.
In Greece for example, there were TONS of Amigas, many CPCs and C64s
and some Spectrums. I believe that with the shitty advertising Commodore
and Co. had, these didn't have any significant impact in the US.
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 24 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by sutro on 08-Dec-2003 23:56 GMT
In reply to Comment 18 (Steffen Haeuser):
> 5. Why is Compaq Portable PC on place 1 ?

There is no logical reason at all. He could have selected an Apricot computer and do better than that.
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 25 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by ilwrath on 09-Dec-2003 20:30 GMT
In reply to Comment 24 (sutro):
> 5. Why is Compaq Portable PC on place 1 ?

Compaq somehow re-wrote history in the US, and managed to convince the press that they built the first modern laptop. It *MAY* have been the first book-style portable with a battery, but I'm not even sure about that claim. Anyhow, that was how it weaselled it's way in there.

The list was VERY x86-centric. I'd probably drop the Compaq back a few slots, myself.

The Newton does deserve to be on the list, as really almost ALL modern palm-top devices have been directly influenced by the design -- despite the fact that the real thing failed miserably.

The Tandy Sensation should never have been listed. I'm guessing the author just owned one. It was a joke, even in it's home market of the US. It was a junk PC, with a few extra junk cards installed, for good measure.

Personally, I'd think that an early SGI IRIS (first hardware accelerated 3D?) or an Amiga 2000 w/ Video Toaster should be included, as well.
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 26 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by Ben on 09-Dec-2003 20:55 GMT
Yeah it is like when you see top-10-games-of-all-time lists on american websites and they all start with Doom... and you go noooooo remember Speedball II! Kick Off II?! Lotus Espirit Turbo Challenge?! Lemmings?! Xenon II?! Jet Set Willy II?! Pang?!

and there is no response

so sad

for the UK people, how about the BBC Micro playing Grannies Garden at primary School... The BBC Micro would be up there due to the fact it was most peoples first experience with working with a computer to do something useful. For home PC use in the UK the ZX spectrum had to be the one although close with C64, both really introduced computing to the home to the masses, not some wank IBM compatible! The Atari and Amiga eventually took over and allowed people to be truely creative with their Home PC.

- about 12 years ago I remember showing my Uncle who works for IBM an animation my sister had knocked up on the Amiga 500 using Deluxe Paint IV and he was gob smacked and started reading aloud the names of Agnus and Denise as if they were newly discovered exotic fruits! Glory Days!
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 27 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by PaulT on 10-Dec-2003 23:30 GMT
In reply to Comment 25 (ilwrath):
>> 5. Why is Compaq Portable PC on place 1 ?

>Compaq somehow re-wrote history in the US, and managed to convince the press >that they built the first modern laptop.

No, no. What you aren't considering is that eventually the IBM PC "type" computers took over the world. But they are not all _IBMs_ because Compaq made the first essentially fully compatible clone, AND demonstrated that there was a market for the portable PC with their suitcase sized Portable. (Not any laptop, though they made those later.) Compaq defended successfully their cloning, became IBM's true competitor for a long time and the only real alternative in the IBM-PC market for several years, and were in second place for about a decade as a maker of quality alternatives, only recently being bought up by H-P. Compaq was very important and influential, and their designs were often higher performance than IBM's.
Amiga 1000 made it to the 10 most important PCs in home computing : Comment 28 of 28ANN.lu
Posted by raffaele on 11-Dec-2003 09:09 GMT
It remains the fact that the "OFFICIAL" top-ten was that one with proper colours and graphics in a separated column...

While the one with Amiga is only text based, at the bottom into the coloumn of the main text...

...and not so intellegible as the previous top-ten...

Bah... we are the cinderellas in the history of IT!
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