The Video Toaster - Commodore Amiga was really Ahead of it's Time.

[88keys]

People always talk about Apple for being great innovators, but I've been doing some research on the Commodore Amiga systems and I'm really shocked at what these systems could do for their time...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyGCYoZ5Nlk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nymVNhy4dw8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_K8vnx2ZDc

Apparently the Video Toaster was in widespread use in local TV stations during the 90's and is responsible for a large portion of Commodore Amiga sales. I suppose you could say that The Video Toaster is like the precursor to Adobe Premiere.

And then there is it's sampling capabilities.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXXg578v0ig

Hard to believe this was possible on a home PC almost 25+ years ago.

I'd probably say that it qualifies as the first multimedia PC for consumers.

 

[sandorski]

It was an awesome PC for sure. Worked with one in a 9 month temp job way back then and wanted one for myself but could never quite afford it.

The Hardware was way before its' time, the software and OS were far ahead of what was available for MS-DOS/IBM PCs by about a decade.

That said, Apple and Atari had similar capability to the Amiga. All 3 were very capable and far advanced what eventually came to dominate the Market, that which most of us use today.

 

[manimal]

Early 90s was a sea change and paradigm shift for the editing world. The transition from linear to NLEs like the toaster was huge for the movie and TV production.

I learned to edit on linear equipment and I remember the day they came and demoed a early newtek setup when I was working for Vin Di Bona. We ended up getting Mac Quadros with early AVID boards and it was fucking awesome. The hardware acceleration allowed so many effects that there were a few years in the early 90s that most of the TV shows used them to hilarious effect. Kiki effects by transjammer will always make me smile

I had my own media 1000 setup that I pieced together from parts and the neuvision board were so damn expensive I could have bought a MB at the time. While you could get 640x480 on those it wasnt till AVR77 came about that the industry jumped hard core into NLEs.

 

[Eug]

It was an awesome PC for sure. Worked with one in a 9 month temp job way back then and wanted one for myself but could never quite afford it.

The Hardware was way before its' time, the software and OS were far ahead of what was available for MS-DOS/IBM PCs by about a decade.

That said, Apple and Atari had similar capability to the Amiga. All 3 were very capable and far advanced what eventually came to dominate the Market, that which most of us use today.

???

Atari did? All I remember from that era was the Atari 1200XL I was lusting after turned out to be useless, and by the time the Commodore Amiga Video Toaster came out, Atari was defunct as a company.

 

[poofyhairguy]

80's Atari was amazing. In 1983 the arcade game I Robot had Starfox level polygon-based graphics. In 1983!!! That is what you call before its time!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmvWxG2zvs8

 

[KMFJD]

Babylon 5 and seaQuest DSV used them for special effects

 

[KMFJD]

???

Atari did? All I remember from that era was the Atari 1200XL I was lusting after turned out to be useless, and by the time the Commodore Amiga Video Toaster came out, Atari was defunct as a company.

The Atari St line was on par with the Amiga , i believe they where better for music and the Amiga for gfx.

 

[angminas]

Star Trek: TNG used Video Toaster. Absolutely amazing what they could do back then.

 

[Rudee]

Have fond memories of playing Kings Quest on my Amiga 500, swapping disks during the game and such.

 

[Thebobo]

Star Trek: TNG used Video Toaster. Absolutely amazing what they could do back then.

Babylon 5 used a crop of Amigas for light wave 3d gfx work.

Was used all over for public access cable TV thats how I got involved with it. Remember Waynes World Light Wave Toaster T shirt

Amiga in the media

 

[Elixer]

The Atari St line was on par with the Amiga , i believe they where better for music and the Amiga for gfx.

The Atari ST had a midi port as well, and I am pretty sure there was a game that could be played via midi ports hooked up to multiple machines.

 

[cubby1223]

PC:

Amiga:

Oh, what fond memories of playing games on that system growing up

 

[cubby1223]

If only Lotus 1-2-3 were created by Commodore rather than IBM...

 

[sandorski]

If only Lotus 1-2-3 were created by Commodore rather than IBM...

I used a Spreadsheet App on Amiga, but don't recall its' name. It was pretty awesome, had multiple spreadsheets open at once, one could be calculating while I entered data into another. Couldn't do that on the IBM-PC of the time.

 

[mikeymikec]

What I find amazing is that decades after their era, there are still "Atari vs. Amiga" discussions

 

[manimal]

Babylon 5 and seaQuest DSV used them for special effects

This was true for a few years early but they switched over to Avids after the resolution upgrades. With a 3d board an AVID was just too good. When Symphony came out and you could high res on the same machine was it game over for most of the competition untill Apple FCP became good at version 3.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

What I find amazing is that decades after their era, there are still "Atari vs. Amiga" discussions

Amiga >>> Atari ST. :awe:

The ST was an OK series of machines and in fact, I have considered buying one to add to my collection. However, our high school had 1040STs and as an Amiga user, I can tell you, it was no contest -- the Amiga beat it in nearly every conceivable way, regardless of what Atari fans chirped on about. I'll admit, however that I was biased -- anyone who was a computer fan in 1985 and saw the Amiga release could not help but be completely blown away.

I still have an Amiga 2000 and an Amiga 3000 in my man cave and both work after I restored them a couple years ago. The Amiga 2000 is one I got when I graduated from high school but the 3000 was one I bought on an auction site a couple years ago because I always wanted one and couldn't afford it as a poor college kid.

The 2000 had some board damage from the battery so I bought an undamaged board, removed the battery, and soldered a plug onto the board and then mounted a cordless battery pack on the front of the chassis and plugged it into the board. I also bought a flickerfixer and a GVP 68030 accelerator for it.

I got the 3000 for only $250 and the only thing wrong with it was that someone took a Dremel to the back of the chassis to cut out a larger slot, presumably for a video toaster to fit. Those of you familiar with the A3000 know it was a small desktop case and couldn't fix a Toaster into it. Otherwise, I removed the battery and soldered a coin battery socket to the motherboard and also bought a SCSI card reader for it in order to replace the hard drives with flash cards, but I ran into issues and never went back to resolve them.

 

[Mixolydian]

Silicon Graphics was too.

 

[mmntech]

Video Toaster, way before my time. NewTek equipment is still pretty popular with broadcasters. I use the 3PLAY instant replay software a lot for hockey. Though the new 4-series can go suck a dick. It has more features, but it's not as intuitive as the previous version.

LightWave is still around too, but I think it's mostly been replaced by After Effects.

 

[inachu]

NASA used Commodore stuff because it was an open design and it was far easier to fix and build electronic for the shuttle launch systems.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAPD9HA8Unw

 

[Schmide]

Amiga went HAM.

Spoiler

Ham is Hold and Modify basically what allowed all these cool color pallets to be displayed

 

[HeXen]

I remember wanting one after seeing pics in mags but $700 back then was a lot of money for gaming plus no store in my area ever sold it anyway. Wasn't as popular in the states as it was in europe.

80's Atari was amazing. In 1983 the arcade game I Robot had Starfox level polygon-based graphics. In 1983!!! That is what you call before its time!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmvWxG2zvs8

I remember playing that when my mom went to the laundromat but didn't care for it. Back then I was more into spending quarters into Galaxian or popeye. Now Starfox, that game was fun, shame they didn't make more.

 

[Fingolfin269]

I remember upgrading from a C64 to an Amiga 500. Glorious. In the meantime all of my friends were getting this little box that hooked up to their TV called Nintendo. What a bunch of tools.

 

[SearchMaster]

Babylon 5 used a crop of Amigas for light wave 3d gfx work.

Was used all over for public access cable TV thats how I got involved with it. Remember Waynes World Light Wave Toaster T shirt

Amiga in the media

Well, Dana Carvey's brother *did* help design it...

I saved my money as a kid for the original VIC-20, then again for a C-64. I always wanted an Amiga but it was just too much money.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Well, Dana Carvey's brother *did* help design it...

I saved my money as a kid for the original VIC-20, then again for a C-64. I always wanted an Amiga but it was just too much money.

I went from Vic 20-->C64-->C128-->Amiga 2000-->PC. I still have every single one of them too -- the 128, Amiga 2000, and an Amiga 3000 I bought later are all in my man cave and fully functional. I built a cable to connect the C128 to my plasma TV -- it's great!