The classic Amiga era

Hello everyone,

This is probably a pointless topic but it suddenly came to my mind and I started to think about it.
I was thinking about what could best be considered the classic Amiga era in general, the moment the home computer was at its zenith.

Personally I think that was before the Amiga developers started to make clones of Wolfenstein 3D/Doom games and RTS games like Napalm.

I am not saying that those games were bad, but somehow it feels that at that point the Amiga was competing with the PC, rather than trying to be its own thing.

What do you think was the classic era?

It definitely ended before any games required RTG, CD drives, fast processors and lots of ram. Those specs have all been addons to shore up the platform to continue getting more from it.

The classic Amiga era didn't truly start until the A500 went into production. Before this the A1000 wasn't a worldwide success, as it was priced too high, and aimed at the business market, so while developers did start writing some games for it, it wasn't until the A500 with its all-in-one keyboard design and affordability in the home that the Amiga suddenly became a realistic home entertainment system and found its way into peoples lives. Sparking the huge popularity for games development and making the Amiga the platform which launched many of the software development houses were came to know and love, and most of the people still in the games development community today in the west.

And it ended in about 1994/5. After the final true Amigas, the A4000, A1200 and CD32, nothing really new was released again that was a real Classic Amiga. The last of these launched in 1993 with the CD32. But it was the A1200 that was popular and continued to make the Amiga a popular platform to use for gaming and everything else.

The end of the classic Amiga era began with the release of the Sony Playstation in 1995 and Windows 95. And by the end of 1996 I think we can say the Amiga as a mainstream computer had ended. Most software developers were leaving it for the consoles and the PC, and productivity software developers were only holding on if they had long standing products. The rest had already moved to Mac and PC.

So I would say the true classic Amiga era spanned from 1986 to 1994.

I have a different view as a non Uk user. I agree with harrison, but i am in Portugal so, it was a bit different here. A500 was the main Amiga computer, much much more then any other. The A600/A1200 were not so important, a few people had this two. A2000/A3000/A4000 even less, i only had 1 friend with this last 1 of this 3 machines. Even A600/1200 i only have 2 friends... The A500 was the main one. But it only started here around 1989. In 1987/1988 there was no publicity on Amiga here in Portugal, the stores didn't have them for sale. The numbers of A1000/A500 here very few. It was in 1989 that People here started to have access to the A500. Maybe 1990 was the best year for sales here. So In Portugal i would say the best Amiga era was 1990-1995

I'd say it was when the A500 was the most popular. I always thought that the 'real' Amiga era ended with the release of the A1200/CD32. Both very capable machines, but they didn't evoke the same kind of feeling the classic A500 did - at least not for me.

So, my definition of the classic Amiga era isn't 'the time period when the Amiga was most popular', but more like the time frame within that period where I've gotten the most memorable experiences.