Personal computers Amiga, developed by Amiga Corporation, are dated back to 1982. Jay Glen Miner (formerly employed by Atari) was at their birth, together with Dave Morse (Tonka Toys) and R. J. Mical, and he also founded the new type of platform. Amiga Corporation was later bought up by Commodore International and introduced Amiga computers in 1985. The name was chosen on purpose as it means “girl friend” in Spanish and it is meant to be such a friend. On top of that, the name is alphabetically before Atari and Apple. At that time, Amiga 1000 was ahead of its time thanks to the sound, graphics and OS which it offered and it undoubtedly deserves to be in virtual hall of fame.
The system offered unparalleled sound and graphics. Amiga offered significant improvement compared to 8bit PCs and it became popular, especially in Europe, when over 6 mil. units were sold. Yet Commodore went bankrupt in 1994 and it was taken over by Escom. Escom went bankrupt in 1997 and was sold to Gateway in 2000 which planned to continue all projects in a grandiose style. Without launching any product, it sold Amiga. The current trademark owner is Amiga, Inc.
R-Type (Irem – 1987): This classic is considered one of the best shooter games and it also has high ratings. The player drives a space ship going through various worlds and fighting with enemies. The first version was launched for gaming machines in Japan. Then it was adjusted for Commodore C64, Amstrad CPC, Sinclair ZX Spectrum, Amiga, Atari ST computers and Sega Master System and Gameboy consoles. Later ports for other platforms were developed – Xbox 360, PlayStation, Java ME etc.
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Katakis/Denaris (Factor 5 – 1989): by Manfred Trenz who was also involved in the first part of Turrican. The aim of the game is to collect points and bonuses using shooting from a small rocket.
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Turrican (Rainbow Arts/pro Amigu Factor 5 – 1990): This popular game offers precisely made locations, fast action and shooting. It is unbelievable what was possible to squeeze out of 8bit machine.
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Lemmings (DMA Design – 1991): It was later enabled also on other platforms due to its popularity. The aim of the game was to bring a certain number of wasps to a shelter, over various traps and obstacles.
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Sensible Soccer (Sensible Software – 1992): The football video game that was played just by everyone for many years.
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Cannon Fodder (Jon Hare – 1993): Strategic shooter game with an excellent graphics from the times of post-war rage.
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Další hry, které fungovaly i na více platformách: Tetris (Alexej Pazhitnov – 1984), Dungeon Master (FTL Games – 1987), The Guild of Thieves (Magnetic Scrolls – 1987), Shadow of the Beast (Reflections Interactive – 1989), Eye of the Beholder (Westwood Associates – 1991), Quake (id Software – 1996) etc.
1/ Chris Hülsbeck made a legendary soundtrack for Turrican part 2. It was released also as a single CD. It was performed live by the orchestra at Symphonic Game Music Concert (Leipzig, 2004).
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2/ Katakis was given its name after Manferd Ternz’s favourite pizzeria.
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3/ Jay Glenn Miner made many proposals for medical industry.
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4/ At the time when computers with processor 286 were able to display 16 VGA colours, Amiga 500 could display 4,096 colours which could be selected from a palette of 16 mil. shades.
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5/ After communist fall, Amiga found its way to the Czechoslovakia. Before that, the export of computers to communist countries was strictly forbidden by the US government. The reason behind it was a fear from the advance technology being misused for military purposes – e.g. decrypting.
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6/ Pac-Man (Namco – 1980) was a game that was working on pretty much all platforms and it became a model for other game, songs and even tv series. It has been popular since.