Computer Lab: My Amiga History

In 1977, Commodore introduced one of the first "personal" computers, the legendary PET 2001. This machine was followed by the 3000, 4000 and 8000 series.

My first contact to a computer was in 1984, when my dad came home with a Commodore C=64 which was derived from the 8000 series. On this machine I learned the basics of programming in the well-known interpreter language named BASIC. Of course I was also an enthusiastic computer player, but the only real use of a computer is to program it!

In 1985 at school I learned some LOGO on Apple IIc machines. As an interpreter language, LOGO has a very easy-to-learn and easy-to-understand procedural structure.

Around 1987 our school got some Commodore PCs on which I learned some Pascal. This was the first time I could use a compiler which creates programs that run at a useful speed.

In 1988 I had the first closer contact to Amiga computers, when I could experiment with my uncle's Amiga 500. I did some coding in AmigaBASIC but only some smaller programs.

Now it became obvious: My first own computer had to be an Amiga. So I invested in an Amiga 500 and an Amiga 1084S stereo monitor in 1990. This monitor has also stereo sound of an acceptable quality.

In 1994, writing my diploma thesis required a more professional system, so I decided to buy another Amiga, the Amiga 4000.

In the same year, my first contact to the internet happened. I started my first web projects. They were interrupted when I left university in 1997. In 1998, after my visit of the Computer'98 fair in Cologne, I finally went online with my Amiga 4000 from home and re-launched my web projects. My web design has changed step-by-step over the years.

In November, 2000, the cpu board of my Amiga 4000 became overheated and destroyed. But I could replace it with another one in April, 2001. Thanks to Andreas Volkmann, who borrowed me his A3640 in the meantime, so that I could use my Amiga nevertheless.

In the year 1999 AmigaOS 3.5 was released by Haage&Partner, one year later the last 68k version, AmigaOS 3.9, emerged. In 2001, Haage&Partner finally introduced the possibility to run a x86 computer with AmigaOS and independently of an underlying host OS with the AmigaOSXL package. I purchased an Athlon Tower, on which I currently configure and test AmigaOSXL. I have compiled my Experiences with AmigaOSXL on another page.

Meanwhile the German company ESCOM bought Commodore and founded Amiga Technologies GmbH in 1995, which was renamed to Amiga International GmbH and bought by VIScorp (USA) in 1996 and Gateway2000 (USA) in 1997. At the end of 1999 Amiga was finally taken over by Amino Development (USA), who - meanwhile renamed to Amiga Inc. - are currently working on the next generation Amiga: AmigaDE.

Projects - Equipment - Programs - Amiga History - AmigaOSXL - Web Design - Web References