Hello Everyone,
The AMIGA/040th was a smashing success. When we started this journey, we wanted to create something different from the Amiga 30th ten years ago. That led us to think about how the audience could experience the history of the Amiga in a more personal way. The other critical aspect of this event was being part of the VCF West, where the audience would not be “Amiga” savvy, but general retro computer enthusiasts.
What happened?
That led us to the concept of constructing icon scenes from the Amiga’s history, the first CES Booth and prototype room, an A500 in a kid’s bedroom, and the video toaster edit bay. From there, we added a lineup of Amiga systems that started with an A1000 and many other Amiga systems, but each with a twist. Every machine was modified in some way, made modern with accelerators, or floppy replacements, or, in many cases, not even classic Amiga hardware. We also represented the latest developments with AROS and AmigaOS 4. To make the display approachable, and due to our limited space, we were not able to present four complete systems, including MorphOS and the TheA500Mini
Dale Luck provided two different coin-op systems, the Arcadia and MoonQuake. The latter is a prototype of which only one has been reassembled. Each was based on the Commodore A500, showing how the Amiga achieved the designer’s goal of a home computer being worthy of the arcade. Some would have noticed the Sinistar located at the very front of the booth—another coin-op created in part by RJ Mical, San Dicker, and Jack Haeger. Built in 1983, those three individuals would go on to join a little startup called Amiga Corp a few months later.
The last element on the show floor was the “Future Wall.” A representation of 6 machines, all recently made, built to run a flavor of AmigaOS. The A1222+, ReAmiga4000 (with z3660), Vampire v4 Standalone, A600GS, A1200NG, and Denise. Each machine has been mounted to the wall and is fully operational. We also synchronized the slide show, where each machine would display information about itself. Sadly, due to the time constraints, we were only able to get 4 of the 6 running the slide show. Despite not having all six rotating through the images in a synchronized way, the Future Wall was a resounding success, showing that Amiga hardware development is still very much alive.
During the show, we presented six talks. A panel hosted by Dale Luck to talk about the Boing! Demo and the 1984 CES. A panel sponsored by Perry Kivolowitz of developers who supported the Amiga, Dan Salvato and his game developments, Stefan Reinauer discussing building modern Amiga hardware, and Trevor Dickinson sharing “What is an Amiga in 2025.”
On Friday night, we hosted an evening event to honor the launch of the Amiga 1000 and the newly created Ammi Awards. We did have some technical difficulties and a late start. It’s hard to ask the remaining members of the Home Brew Computer Club to vacate the stage, so we waited patiently for their talk to end before setting up our system. That system was an Amiga 1000 with the A1000 version of the A Squared Live! Board. A real-time digitizer created for the Amiga and available at the Commodore launch in 1985. When we asked Dale Luck if he had one we could use for the event, he claimed to have two; we found three in his collection.
Under the direction of Tim Jenison, of Video Toaster fame, he set up the system, the camera, and critically, the lighting to make it all work. Using the Live! software version .97 and a 1987 copy of GraphicCraft, Tim was able to capture an image of the amazing Kiki Stockhammer and apply drawings and colors similar to Andy Warhol, 40 years before.
During that presentation, we had Jeff Burette, a Commodore engineer tasked with teaching Andy Warhol what a computer was and preparing him for that event. Jeff told stories and interviewed Tim Warhol on stage.
The final presentation was the Ammi awards hosted by Bill Borsari and social media personality AmigaBill. The pair presented 15 awards, twelve for categories voted on before the event and three “Amazing Amigans” for individual contributions to the Amiga Community: Mike Battilana, Trevor Dickinson, and Dale Luck.
What’s next?
Over the next few weeks, there will be a lot of content coming to YouTube around the event. The VCF team filmed and will release the video of the talks mentioned above with a quality camera and direct audio feed from the speakers’ microphones. We had a professional videographer filming the show floor and evening event. They will have access to all of our assets to produce the best possible video of that event.
My recommendation is to watch the overview and interview videos, but wait for those final edits for the talks and the evening event to get the best experience.
In the meantime, Robert Bernardo filmed a walk-through of the booth, and AmigaBill did a live stream recap. I watched both, and they are an excellent, quick overview of the event and will prepare you for when the final videos drop.
During the event, we sold some of our show merchandise, but we have some inventory left. We are working on an online store and exploring the possibility of a European distributor.
Thank you!
To our sponsors, A-eon, Amiga On The Lake, Amiga Forever, Rabbit Hole Computing, and AmiKit. Thank you to our donors. Thank you to our volunteers (over 30 people around the world). Thank you to the attendees (3500) for making VCF West and AMIGA/040th an astounding success!
-AMIGA/040th Organizers.