Gateway 2000 to buy Amiga

Believe or not, Gateway 2000 will buybankrupt Amiga Technologies, gaining access to the multimedia features of the 1980's wonder-computer, the ill-fated Commodore Amiga.

"This acquisition is good news for Gateway and customers of AMIGA," said Rick Snyder, president and COO of Gateway 2000. "It will strengthen our intellectual property position and invigorate a company that has been a pioneer in multimedia solutions and operating systems technology."

The Amiga was extremely popular in Europe in the late 1980's and early1990's and was light years ahead of the Macintosh and IBM compatibles ofthe time. The Amiga featured a multitasking operating system that ran onfloppies and a 512K system, a hardware blitter, a 4096 color mode when16 and 256 colors were the norm on PCs, integrated stereo sound, and fullcompatibility with NTSC and PAL video signals, making the machine a naturalfor video production work and arcade-quality games. There are still somegames on the Amiga--such as Shadow of the Beast--that have never beentopped on the PC or any "modern" video game systems. Or, to put it moresuccinctly: "Since the introduction of the AMIGA A1000 in 1985, AMIGA has represented the embodiment of the efficient use of memory and hard drive capacity, while pioneering industry developments in multimedia, 32-bit multitasking and auto-configuration." There you go.

The new company will be known as Amiga International and will likely targetEuropean markets, not the United States.

On a personal note, I owned several Amigas myself and still have an Amiga 500 with more software than I care to admit. I have been following the slowand painful death of this technology over the past few years from afar andam glad to see that someone reputable has picked it up.