Relive running a HDDequipped Amiga 1200

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Les Pounder is associate editor at Tom’s Hardware and a freelance creative technologist. He blogs about his discoveries at bigl.es.

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Back in 1989 Tim Burton’s Batman movie was in the cinema, and advertising campaigns were in full swing to promote the Caped Crusader. At Commodore, its marketing team had signed a deal with Warner Bros. Pictures and Batman was to be on the Amiga. The Amiga 500 “Batman Pack” was our introduction to the Amiga and it started a life-long love for the machine.

But the Amiga 500 was not the first machine. That honour goes to the Amiga 1000 as used in 1985 by Andy Warhol to digitally alter a photograph (look up the flood-fill bug – Ed) of Blondie lead singer Debbie Harry. The Amiga 500 was the machine that made the biggest impact on the 16-bit home computing scene. With its 512KB of RAM and a 68000 7MHz CPU, the Amiga 500 was much more than a games machine. It was a competent office computer, with printers and floppy disks on which to save our work. It was a music creation tool using sound tracker tools and virtual mixing desks, it was an artist’s studio where they could create paintings, animations and 3D digital art via the mouse and a myriad of aftermarket add-ons. The Amiga was also a television workhorse, capable of mixing live television with graphics created on the Amiga.

The Amiga was expensive, retailing for around £399 in 1990, but that was far cheaper than an IBM PC compatible