Amiga was a subsidiary of Commodore, an early PC company that lost out to IBM and Apple and eventually went bankrupt. Amiga survived for a time as a subsidiary of German computer seller Escom, another parent company that faltered financially. Gateway bought Amiga in 1997. But Gateway scrapped Amiga computer plans, focusing instead on making Amiga software. It eventually sold the Amiga name last December while keeping several patents for itself.
Amiga software runs on a variety of computers and even on operating systems.
The new lease on life may be too late, however, as Amiga hardware and software lost their technical edge over ordinary PCs and Linux, which arrived to capture the attention of those wanting to buck the trends of the mainstream. Amiga enthusiast sites still exist, but declining Amiga interest led prominent download sites such as the Champaign-Urbana Computer Users Group to cancel Amiga sections last January. Wash.-based Amiga is working hard to keep its fans from defecting while potentially raising a little funding for itself. In a note posted on Amiga's Web site Saturday, McEwen said he's considering selling shares in the company, potentially letting outside investors own as much as 10 percent of the company stock. If you are interested, please send an email message along with the dollar amount that you would be interested in investing.