Journalism is prone to hyperbole, but on July 23, 1985 technology genuinely changed forever. At New York's Lincoln Center, as a full orchestra scored the evening and all its employees appeared in tuxedos, Commodore unveiled the work of its newly acquired Amiga subsidiary for the first time. The world finally saw a real Amiga 1000 and all its features. A baboon's face at 640x400 resolution felt life-changing, and icons like Blondie's Debbie Harry and Andy Warhol came onstage to demo state-of-the-art technology like a paint program.
Today, Amiga—specifically its initial Amiga 100- computer—officially turns 30. The Computer History Museum (CHM) in Mountain View, CA will commemorate the event this weekend (July 25 and 26) with firsthand hardware exhibits, speakers, and a banquet where the Viva Amiga documentary will be shown. It's merely the most high-profile event among dozens of Amiga commemorative ceremonies across the world, from Australia to Germany to Cleveland.
What's the big deal? While things like the Apple II and TRS-80 Model 100 preceded it, the Amiga 1000 was the first true PC for creatives. As the CHM describes it, the Amiga 100 was "a radical multimedia machine from a group of thinkers, tinkerers, and visionaries which delivered affordable graphics, animation, music, and multitasking interaction the personal computer world hadn’t even dreamt of." It pioneered desktop video and introduced PCs to countless new users, rocketing Amiga and Commodore to the top for a brief moment in the sun.
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