Amiga - Notable Historic Uses

Notable Historic Uses

The Amiga series of computers found a place in early computer graphic design and television presentation. Below are some examples of notable uses and users:

• Season 1 and part of season 2 of the television series Babylon 5 were rendered in LightWave 3D on Amigas. Other television series using Amigas for special effects included SeaQuest DSV and Max Headroom.

In addition, many other celebrities and notable individuals have made use of the Amiga:

• Andy Warhol was an early user of the Amiga and appeared at the launch, where he made a computer artwork of Debbie Harry. Warhol used the Amiga to create a new style of art made with computers, and was the author of a multimedia opera called "you are the one" which consists of an animated sequence featuring images of actress Marilyn Monroe assembled in a short movie with a soundtrack. The video was discovered on two old Amiga floppies in a drawer in Warhol's studio and repaired in 2006 by the Detroit Museum of New Art. The pop artist has been quoted as saying: "The thing I like most about doing this kind of work on the Amiga is that it looks like my work in other media".
• A pioneer of the Digital Art movement, Laurence Gartel, along with Jeff Bruette, personally taught Andy Warhol how to use the Amiga and relevant software.
• Actor Dick Van Dyke was a self-described "rabid" user of the Amiga, although he has since switched to other platforms and sold most of his Amiga equipment.
• Artist Jean "Moebius" Giraud credits the Amiga he bought for his son as a bridge to learning about "using paint box programs". He uploaded some of his early experiments to the file sharing forums on CompuServe.
• Tom Fulp is noted as saying he used the Amiga as his first computer for creating cartoons and animations.
• The "Weird Al" Yankovic film UHF contains a computer animated music video parody of the Dire Straits song "Money for Nothing", titled "Money For Nothing/Beverly Hillbillies". According to the DVD commentary track, this spoof was created on an Amiga home computer.
• Rolf Harris used an Amiga to digitize his hand-drawn art work for animation on his television series, Rolf's Cartoon Club.
• Todd Rundgren's video "Change Myself" was produced with Toaster and Lightwave.
• An Amiga 1000 can be seen in the movie Disorderlies in the background running a heart animation.
• An Amiga 4000 was in Michael Jackson's movie Ghosts. At the left of the screen, an Amiga monitor and keyboard can be easily seen at the end credit. (at exactly 38:40)
• Scottish pop artist Calvin Harris composed his debut album I Created Disco with an Amiga 1200.
• Susumu Hirasawa, a Japanese Electropop-artist is known for using Amigas to compose and perform music.
• Electronic musician Max Tundra also created his three albums with an Amiga 500.
• A black Commodore Amiga 1200 was seen on an episode of Bones, used as evidence to lead to a murder suspect. A clip of this show hosted on YouTube became infamous because of the high number of errors in such a minor mention. Among many other errors, an IBM 5150 (the first PC) was shown as its floppy drive, and it was described as using "a homemade operating system" with a "6800 chipset".
• Tom Berenger's character Gary Simmons uses an Amiga 500 for his KKK network in the 1988 movie Betrayed.