What happened: Well, you could fill a book with the details -- and hey, someone did. Commodore had superb technology, but did a terrible job of developing and marketing it. You could argue that Amiga would have petered out no matter who owned it -- even Apple flirted with death as DOS and then Windows overwhelmed other alternatives -- but Commodore’s decision-making sure didn’t help. In 1994, it declared bankruptcy and stopped making computers. The Amiga name went on to change hands at least four times over the next decade, sometimes being used on hardware, sometimes being used on software and sometimes just disappearing.
Current whereabouts: You can find Amiga lovers on Twitter. Amiga Inc, the current owner of the Amiga name, uses it on middleware for set-top boxes as well as games and other applications for cell phones (you can buy an Amiga tip calculator). It also says it’s still working on Amiga OS 4.0, a product so long in the making that it, like Harlan Ellison’s science-fiction anthology The Last Dangerous Visions, is best known for how long it’s been promised without ever appearing. As a former Amiga fanatic, I hope it does ship someday -- there’s no way a new Amiga OS wouldn’t be cooler than an Amiga tip calculator.
SOURCE: 'Where Are They Now? 25 Computer Products That Refuse to Die' by Harry McCracken.
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