[scrapheap]

For anyone interested in this I can recommend the book, The Future Was Here. It really explains the Amiga hardware and how it was used. It even goes into how the bouncing ball demo works, and once you know all the tricks it could use on the Amiga, you can see why other computers of the time had to work so hard to recreate it.

[vidarh]

Seconded.

I also like the Brian Bagnall books (beware: There are two multi-volume editions, the second edition is far larger which is good/bad depending on how interested you are) but they are much more for those already interested in Commodore, though "Commodore: The Amiga Years" on its own is worthwhile for people interested specifically in the Amiga.

Maher's The Future Was Here is much more accessible to people who has want a lighter read and/or don't have a personal relationship to the Amiga and Commodore, though.

[sys_64738]

Also, David Pleasance's book about Commodore UK as Britain was the largest market for Amigas in the late 80s and early 90s. Gives real perspective.

[pjmlp]

I would say followed by Germany, Portugal and Spain, among other European countries.

I was not pleased to be the only guy on our highschool computing group with a PC, but at least there was plenty of home demoscene like parties across the group's places, that I knew enough Amiga stuff as if I also owned one.

[vidarh]

I think the big deal with the UK was that Commodore UK went their own way and really doubled down on the game bundle market, which was a big part of how they survived the Commodore International bankruptcy (for a bit) and even attempted to arrange a buyout of their parent company.

Commodore did great in terms of sales in quite a few European countries, but their subsidiaries in those other countries didn't do as well as Commodore UK.

The other exception was Commodore B.V. in the Netherlands that also survived the bankruptcy and stayed afloat selling old stock until early 1995 (Commodore UK stayed afloat until August '95, so it's not like they survived very much longer).

[vidarh]

Yes, absolutely. It's a lot more personal than the other two as well. The inside perspective was very interesting.

(I remember 64738...)