A series of personal computer models originally sold by
Commodore, based on 680x0 processors, custom support chips and an
operating system that combined some of the best features of
Macintosh and Unix with compatibility with neither.
The Amiga was released just as the personal computing world
standardized on IBM-PC clones. This prevented it from gaining
serious market share, despite the fact that the first Amigas had
a substantial technological lead on the IBM XTs of the time.
Instead, it acquired a small but zealous population of
enthusiastic hackers who dreamt of one day unseating the clones
(see Amiga
Persecution Complex). The traits of this culture are both
spoofed and illuminated in
The BLAZE Humor Viewer. The strength of the Amiga platform
seeded a small industry of companies building software and
hardware for the platform, especially in graphics and video
applications (see video
toaster).
Due to spectacular mismanagement, Commodore did hardly any
R&D, allowing the competition to close Amiga's technological
lead. After Commodore went bankrupt in 1994 the technology passed
through several hands, none of whom did much with it. However,
the Amiga is still being produced in Europe under license and has
a substantial number of fans, which will probably extend the
platform's life considerably.
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Amiga Persecution Complex n.
The disorder suffered by a particularly egregious variety of
bigot, those who believe that the
marginality of their preferred machine is the result of some kind
of industry-wide conspiracy (for without a conspiracy of some
kind, the eminent superiority of their beloved shining jewel of a
platform would obviously win over all, market pressures be
damned!) Those afflicted are prone to engaging in flame wars and calling for boycotts and
mailbombings. Amiga Persecution Complex is by no means limited to
Amiga users; NeXT, NeWS, OS/2, Macintosh, LISP, and GNU users are
also common victims. Linux users used
to display symptoms very frequently before Linux started winning;
some still do. See also newbie,
troll, holy
wars, weenie, Get a life!.
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amoeba n.
Humorous term for the Commodore Amiga personal computer.
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=
amp off vt.
[Purdue] To run in background. From the Unix shell `&'
operator.
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amper n.
Common abbreviation for the name of the ampersand (`&',
ASCII 0100110) character. See ASCII
for other synonyms.