The Amiga is Back, Too!

You’ve heard about the Commodore comeback, but the remains of Amiga were, if anything, even more fragmented. Fortunately, that just changed, and the newly reconstituted Amiga Corporation has reached licensing agreements with several major Amiga intellectual property stakeholders and has big plans for the future.

Granted, this company doesn’t even have a website yet. But something wonderful is happening. Two weeks ago, Amiga Corporation and Commodore reached a licensing agreement recognizing each company’s respective rights, and both have pledged to work together on new products in the future. At the same time, Amiga Corp. settled a long-standing contractual dispute Hyperion Entertainment, ending years of legal battles. And this past week, Amiga appeared at the Kickstart Amiga Expo in Derby, England, and CEO Mike Battilana, previously of Amiga Forever and C64 Forever maker Cloanto, made some interesting announcements that hint at a potentially bright future for Amiga enthusiasts.

Unfortunately, Amiga Corp. doesn’t even have a news site up at the moment, so I had to find out about these developments on YouTube. But here’s the gist, as far as I can tell right now.

Hyperion had previously created AmigaOS 4.x software systems for more recent Amiga computers, and it’s free to develop updates to that software. But its license for 68K-based AmigaOS versions ends next year, and Amiga Corp. is now developing future AmigaOS updates for the original Amiga 68K machines. To enable that, Hyperion is delivering the AmigaOS 3.x source code, revisions, and documentation to Amiga Corp.

The Amiga 1200 that I preordered back in February was supposed to ship by mid-year, but it was delayed so that Amiga and Hyperion could resolve their legal disputes. With that out of the way, the Amiga 1200 is now officially the next Amiga computer that will ship, with its maker, Retro Games, expected to ship devices by the end of 2026. Better still, it will include AmigaOS 3.1 and will be able to boot directly into the Workbench GUI normally now, like a real Amiga. Mr. Battilana hinted about other new features on a YouTube-based interview, including retargetable graphics. But Retro Games will show off the new Amiga 1200 at Gamescom in Germany at the end of August.

Amiga Corp. has also licensed to the new Commodore whatever Commodore 8-bit intellectual property that it has maintained under different company names, including the Commodore 8-bit ROMs that it owns. This is part of what helped the new Commodore to create and sell its Commodore 64 Ultimate computers. Battilana left open the possibility that Amiga Corp. could also license the original Amiga ROMs to Commodore at a future point, but that latter company is focusing on 8-bit right now and he has nothing specific to announce. For now, Amiga has no plans to ship a “Commodore Amiga” computer in partnership with the new Commodore.

Speaking of those Amiga ROMs, they were previously being licensed through Cloanto, Mr. Battilana’s former employer. But they are now owned by Amiga Corp. and current and future licensing will go through that company. (Presumably, Amiga will license them to Cloanto for future Amiga Forever releases.)

At Amiga Expo, Mr. Battilana and Amiga Corporation showed off the new Amiga text and graphical logos, both of which harken back to the classic Amiga logos of the mid-1980s, with a nicely revised checkmark logo and a more consistent font treatment. And Battilana says that there are more partner agreements to come.