A very early Amiga computer prototype was on public display at VCF West 2025 last weekend, as part of the wider Amiga 40th anniversary celebrations going on this year. On a white desk backed by a red curtain, you can see an unsightly collection of PCBs, chips, and wires that would soon blossom to become the most sought-after 16-bit multimedia home computer of the era.
The amiga prototype demoed at CES from r/amiga
The above setup was originally showcased at CES 1984 (Chicago, January). Printed photos you can see on the desk show the same machine on exhibit from 41 years ago. Interestingly, this prototype Amiga 1000, codenamed Lorraine, wasn’t even under the Commodore wing at the time of its first public outing. A Wikipedia entry says that the Amiga inventors were simply there looking for investors.
At the following CES in June 1984, the Amiga creators were present again, pitching to Sony, HP, Philips, Apple, Silicon Graphics, and others. Steve Jobs also reportedly looked at this machine, but dismissed it for being overly complicated.
Of course, it was Commodore that acquired the system design, in August 1984. But it would take until July 1985 for the original Amiga 1000 to hit the shelves, distilled into an attractive beige pizza-box (with keyboard garage) from the motley collection of PCBs, chips, and wires in the above picture.
What is that mess?
In the linked Reddit post, you will see reference to the prototype display , showing the “Agnus is on the right.” In Amiga circles, the Agnus is regarded as one of the holy trinity of custom chips, which elevated the machine far above its Motorola 68000 brethren (particularly the Atari ST).
Agnus provided a DMA controller, with fast access to chip RAM, a graphics blitter, a display synced co-processor (the Copper), and covered video timing sync duties. In effect, the Agnus coordinated the Amiga computer's resources, aided and abetted by Denise (graphics), and Paula (audio and I/O), taking a lot of strain from the M68000 CPU. Each of these custom chips would be refined and enhanced through the Amiga’s subsequent generations, but remained a common central feature from OCS to ECS to AGA chipsets. As a user in the 1980s, the Amiga’s smooth multitasking, and ability to engage in disk operations and other I/O without pause were eye-opening. The custom chips and their weaving into the multi-tasking OS were central to these abilities.
It is explained by RJ Mical, in the video above, that the messy PCB pile of the prototype was necessary as “in the early days of the Amiga we didn’t have the [custom] chips yet, and all the logic for the chips was implemented in wire wrap boards.”
While WCF West 2025 closed its doors on Saturday, there are VCF Mid West (Sep 13-14) and VCF Montreal (Jan 24-25) still to come. Hopefully this early Amiga computer prototype will be rolled out again for enthusiasts to check out.
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