The Future Was Here Platform Studies Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost, editors Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Computer System, Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost, 2009 Codename Revolution: The Nintendo Wii Platform, Steven E. Jones and George K. Thiruvathukal, 2012 The Future Was Here: The Commodore Amiga, Jimmy Maher, 2012 The Future Was Here The Commodore Amiga Jimmy Maher The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England © 2012 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or me- chanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. MIT Press books may be purchased at special quantity discounts for business or sales promotional use. For information, please email [email protected] or write to Special Sales Depart- ment, The MIT Press, 55 Hayward Street, Cambridge, MA 02142. This book was set in Filosofia and Helvetica Neue by the MIT Press. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Maher, Jimmy, 1972– The future was here : the Commodore Amiga / Jimmy Maher. p. cm. — (Platform studies) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-262-01720-6 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Amiga (Computer). 2. Multimedia systems—Social aspects. I. Title. QA76.8 A177M35 2012 006.7—dc23 2011038518 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To my wife, best friend, and most tireless supporter, Dorte. Without you, this book would still be just a dream. Contents Series Foreword ix Acknowledgments xi 1 “The Future Is Here” 1 2 Boing 11 3 Deluxe Paint 43 4 SSG and Sculpt-Animate 83 5 NewTek 111 6 AmigaOS and ARexx 143 7 The Scene 171 8 Cinemaware and Psygnosis 207 9 The Way the Future Was 249 Glossary 271 Notes 287 Bibliography 303 Index 315 Series Foreword How can someone create a breakthrough game for a mobile phone or a compelling work of art for an immersive three-dimensional (3D) envi- ronment without understanding that the mobile phone and the 3D envi- ronment are different sorts of computing platforms? The best artists, writers, programmers, and designers are well aware of how certain plat- forms facilitate certain types of computational expression and innovation. Computer science and engineering have likewise long considered how underlying computing systems can be analyzed and improved. As impor- tant as scientific and engineering approaches are, and as significant as work by creative artists has been, there is also much to be learned from the sustained, intensive, humanistic study of digital media. We believe it is time for humanists to consider seriously the lowest level of computing systems, to understand their relationship to culture and creativity. The Platform Studies series has been established to promote the investigation of underlying computing systems and how they enable, con- strain, shape, and support the creative work that is done on them. The series investigates the foundations of digital media—the computing systems, both hardware and software, that developers and users depend on for artistic, literary, and gaming development. Books in the series will certainly vary in their approaches, but they all will also share certain features: • A focus on a single platform or a closely related family of platforms. • Technical rigor and in-depth investigation of how computing technolo- gies work. • An awareness of and discussion of how computing platforms exist in a context of culture and society, being developed based on cultural con- cepts and then contributing to culture in a variety of ways—for instance, by affecting how people perceive computing. [x] Acknowledgments Although my name is on the jacket of this book, its contents reflect many others’ contributions. I must first of all thank Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost, who envisioned and brought into being the Platform Studies series to which this book belongs and provided the example of Racing the Beam: The Atari Video Com- puter System to show how exhilarating and useful this way of approaching digital culture can be. Nick and Ian not only entertained the first pitch from an unproven author and researcher but also helped me to formulate a workable scheme for the book as a whole and delivered invaluable feed- back on my first chapters before leaving me in the able hands of Douglas Sery, the MIT Press acquisitions editor who shepherded this book through to completion. Along the way, the press’s anonymous manuscript readers also provided useful advice and feedback, helping me to make this book the very best that it could be. My research put me into contact with a number of former Amiga developers who gave generously of their time and opinions. I thank in particular Joe Decuir, badge number 3 at “Hi-Toro” and one of the princi- pal minds behind the Amiga’s hardware design. Joe went through the whole manuscript looking for oversights and inaccuracies—and, yes, he did find a few. Dallas Hodgson, one of the programmers behind Deluxe Paint IV and V, and Eric Graham, mastermind of the Juggler demo, SSG, and Sculpt-Animate, also provided invaluable insights, as did the pro- grammer of the first Amiga virus, who for obvious reasons wishes to remain anonymous. Much of the Amiga’s history survives thanks to the efforts of the Neti- zens who have archived software and even entire books and magazines that are now very difficult to find in their original forms. These digitized trea- sures from the past were key to much of my research. The magnificent Ultimate Amiga Emulator (UAE) similarly gave me access to virtually any model or configuration of Amiga I could imagine through the magic of emulation. Indeed, some of the deepest software explorations in this book would have been virtually impossible if I had been restricted to real Amiga hardware, without access to the additional tools UAE provides the digital archaeologist. UAE was created by Bernd Schmidt, but it includes contri- butions from a list of programmers far too long to include here. I would be remiss, though, not to mention Toni Wilen, longtime maintainer of the Microsoft Windows version of UAE that I use. The current Amiga community is smaller than it once was, yet it remains a rather shockingly friendly and helpful bunch, something I relearned time and time again when drawing upon their experience and expertise in online resources such as the Amiga Addicts Sanctuary. Ernie Wright and Bob Eaton were particularly wonderful in helping to seek out and recover software from aging floppy disks, a process that was compli- cated by my living in Denmark. Finally, I must once again thank my wife, Dorte, who saw me through the long process that has finally resulted in this book and through a tran- sitional time in my life that saw me moving to an unfamiliar country and contending with a new language as well as all the other challenges that accompany immigration. Dorte is the very picture of my imagined reader: one very smart cookie, but not schooled in computer science or engineer- ing. She read the whole manuscript, telling me where I overexplained and underexplained and prompting much revision and improvement. Tak, min skat. Du er den bedste kone i hele verden. [xii]