The story of Commodore, the famous manufacturer of home computers, is a murky one at best. Commodore fans will decry their woeful marketing and dismal product roadmap, while former employees such as our Hackaday colleague [Bil Herd] have shone a bit of light on the goings-on behind the scenes. The company’s final demise in the collapse of the German company Escom scattered its parts to the four winds, but now we find a potential return to clarity.
Amiga Corporation, holders of much of the Commodore and Amiga IP, have reached agreements with Commodore International Corporation, the recently formed face of the Commodore brand, and Hyperion Entertainment BV, who have been behind a series of Amiga developments over recent decades.
The press release provides a fascinating map of the Commodore and Amiga ecosystem as it stands in the 21st century, something which has sometimes eluded fans. As we understand it the rights to the 8-bit IP reside alongside the rights to the Amiga IP with Amiga Corporation, and it’s these 8-bit rights, or at least the software and documentation within them, that have been licensed to Commodore International Corporation. Meanwhile in a separate agreement the rights to continued development of AmigaOS 4.x remain with Hyperion, while the AmigaOS 3.x versions for the 68k Amigas will revert to Amiga Corporation at the end of 2027.
As far as we can see then, this should enable Commodore International Corporation to produce their line of 8-bit Commodore 64s and other machines, while Hyperion continue to serve the AmigaOS 4.x community. The interesting part comes in the AmigaOS 3.x versions, for which Amiga Corporation say they will continue to direct the development and evolution. Does that mean we’ll eventually see a 68k Amiga of some kind licensed through a company such as Commodore International Corporation? It’s an interesting prospect, and a story we’ll follow.
The “mom-n-pop” 8-bit machines interest me much more than anything Commodore might produce. There is a lively group working on the Commander X16, for instance.
Loved my Amiga 500 back in the day used it for all my degree work and of course a bit of gaming. Also used to be jealous of a friend’s vic20 back in the day when I had my old zx spectrum 48k
Wow – same here. Even bought the HD to store my project files. Then wasted many evenings with my two housemates playing speedball2. They had a PC and Archimedes between them, but Amiga was the entertainment master!
I almost failed the 3rd year of my degree thanks to speedball 2 and populous
The hw emulation C< is doing isn’t interesting to me to be honest. What would interest me: somehow resurrecting the ability to manufacture new stock of the original hardware to go along with the case refresh. And if someone starts doing that with Amigas (even minus 68ks) I will get way pumped.
I loved my Amiga 500 back in the day and I used to play “The Wrath of Nicodemus” till way past dawn. Best home computer for entertainment ever made!
Maybe an Amiga DTV, all built into a Tank mouse, with a (thin) HDMI cable attached to it as a mouse cable?
The HDMI cable could use HDMI Cable Power to power the ADTV. With an HDMI connector on the TV’s side that supports a USB-C port to supply power if the TV doesn’t support HDMI Cable Power. That way there’s only one cable between the ADTV and the TV.
Of course the ADTV needs a micro SD card slot.
Joystick ports on the tank mouse. And maybe a small thumb joystick (8 directions plus push-to-click) that acts as a joystick in port 0, while the ADTV mouse (or course optical) acts as the Amiga mouse in port 1.
Maybe no SD card slot but two or more USB-C slots that can take peripherals and USB sticks.
My gold commodore ultimate is pretty, but I feel.like they’re close to milking this well of of nostalgia dry. Perfractic phone antics and hucksterism didn’t help. I’m actually kinda happy the Amiga IP is out of his clutches.
I think he was close. I could see owning the phone if it ran commodore basic code that could be triggered by, and could trigger phone actions.
I like the idea of their phone, if it was a bit cheaper I’d buy one. Anything to escape the Apple/Android duopoly.
And where is Cloanto in all this?
Cloanto is Amiga Corp.
Hopefully preserving history.
Cloanto is Amiga Corp! Moreorless
Wish they’d do a new version of the C16 or Plus4, that was the machine I grew up with. I now own an original A500, so no need to get something new. But might be interested in a C64…..
Yes, I bit my teeth on a Vic20, but loved my Plus4 even more. I don’t think retro will sell much these days. I did copy down Commodore Linux, needs work. As for hardware, a powerful PC ala Plus4 style form factor would be awesome, 8, 16, 32 bit computing is dead. Work towards the future, not the past. Get rid of the old shitty management and bring in some visionary for the future.
Whilst I beat Fire Ant a few times and got to the point in Icicle Works that I seemingly couldn’t die but had to go to bed, it was a shame about the lack of games generally that I was much happier upgrading to a C64, but then I was much happier upgrading to an A500+ but then I was much happier upgrading to an A1200, and then adding all sorts of bits to it, but then I got a real job and I pretty much bought every Amiga there was going.
I Wold buy a c64 Tomorrow
I’m waiting for this to arrive in december https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B0G1L9Q7WK
I belive that Commodore would make some money if they create a “New” Amiga. The Amiga community is probably the largest retro computer group out there and a “New” Amiga would most likely sell pretty well.
Especially if it would be RISK based or even an FPGA retro “echo” model being simply a recreation of the old one would sell good. A newly developed one Based on RISK would most likely satisfy a large portion of the Amiga community.
Go all in on ARM. That way they can design their own chipset and work with ARM GPU developers.
Maybe we can do the same with Atari, bring the band back together
Risc-v!! We need some risc-v, maybe blackhole architecture related systems. Let’s get some graphics power going on the high end possibly!
RISC-V with CHERI would be an enabler.
But that would break backport compabilities, but that could be covered by JIT running as a separate process?
If one create a hardware for this, than I would be buying it
Maybe they can make a 8 Core 2nm 68k CPU, along with modernized co processors, that would be something. I went from VIc20, C64, Amiga, then I went to the PC world in the mid 90s.
it’s pretty clear the retro community would like c= to release an Amiga ultimate. A A500 or A1200 case with fpga inside. Sure the pc I am typing this on can emulate an Amiga 4000 many times over and with a little coaxing using WinUae (and I even have Amiga forever installed to make it easier) I can relive the days my daily driver was a suped up Amiga 500 or the dreams I had of owning an Amiga 3000 whenever I want but since the 90’s we’ve all been waiting for an actual computer that says “Amiga.”
I’ve got a bunch of Amigas in the loft and I miss playing the games, I am less fussed by needing to do so on original hardware – a vaguely Amiga-shaped box that runs my game collection and/or has a bunch of classics pre-loaded would be perfect, it would ideally emulate the A500/+ for the early games and the A1200/A4000 for the AGA stuff.
Modern games/consoles are ridiculously expensive, complicated, and these days they all demand subscriptions that I can’t justify as a filthy casual.
I’d rather want to see a new A1000 or A2000 or A2500.
One of the business models, in short. I don’t need a wedge computer, I already have an NES. :)
Well it is end of the line for 68k amiga then. Since all the updates Hyperion did in 3.2 will be lost. and whatever “amiga” comes up with will be probably garbage.
The whole Commodore situation is becoming more and more disgusting. It will kill homebrew/opensource community around Amiga.
Yeah, they keep beating a dead horse. They need innovation.
Did our bit to try to help Commodore with the Amiga from here in the UK back in 1987:
https://yair.energy/crew/alexb/bio/#amigamagic
Neato. Thanks for the link.
Okay, and what about the “real” Amiga OS? Kick 1.3 and Workbench 1.3? Who owns that?
If my memory serves me well, then Amiga OS 2 was a re-write in C.
The original, true Amiga OS of the 1980s was derived from TRIPOS.
I do. In fact I also have 1.2 Workbench.
Great machines, well advanced for their time. Still listen to game mods. One of the best Star Glider 2 cassette music.
Its was great to see the Commodore 64 ultimate ,brings back a lot of memories but If they bring back the Amiga im in for sure . Used that to edit movies, music,art .games ,everything. It was and always will be the king of the computers. All we need are proper joysticks back instead of the crappy controllers of today. Luckily my old wicco redball joystick is still great and ready to fight some more. That beast can handle anything.
Still think Commodore should just restart in Canada, and order their chips from, say, University of Waterloo’s Nano Engineering Lab. Or McGill’s. Maybe skip Toronto and open HQ in Waterloo, Ontario. No shortage of people for hire.
i loved the music softwares fit the amigas
deluxe music construction set
sonix
adrums
i would love to be able to use those again in some form