Chris Collins

Project

The Amiga 40th exhibit

A walk-through history of the Amiga, built for its 40th anniversary at the Vintage Computer Festival at the Computer History Museum, with the Amies awards in the evening.

Started 27 October 2024

AmigaWoodworkingElectronics3D printing

For the Amiga’s 40th anniversary, Bill Borsari and I built an immersive exhibit at the Vintage Computer Festival at the Computer History Museum. Modelled on Disney’s Carousel of Progress, it told the story of the Amiga as a walk through a series of scenes, each one a moment in time. Some 2,500 people came through, and in the evening we held the Amies, awards for people who have contributed to the Amiga.

The whole story, from the drive home from AmiWest 2024 to teardown, is in Building the Amiga 40th: a carousel of progress.

The scenes

The recreated CES 1984 booth
CES 1984: the facade of Amiga’s first CES booth, with joysticks and games for 8-bit computers out front.
Several racks of wire-wrapped prototype circuit boards on a table in front of a curtain
Behind the curtain: the original Amiga TTL wire-wrap prototype boards.
Two room sets in the hall: a bedroom with a rug and a desk
The bedroom, where so many kids had an Amiga 500, and the NewTek Video Toaster room next door.
The finished Future Wall: screens and bare Amiga boards on a wall under a FUTURE WALL sign
The Future Wall: new Amigas, stripped bare and synchronised as one display.

Each scene had a kiosk playing a video that explained it. The exhibit also showed the tooling it took to run the Amiga, including a Sage computer and the black devboxes in operation, and the industrial design work of Rob Gemmell.

The Amies

A large gold lemming figure waving
The finished full-size lemming.
A table full of small gold lemming awards with their chips
The Amies.

The trophy is a lemming, designed in LightWave by an Amiga fan in eastern Europe; I printed, cleaned and painted them.

Thanks

The biggest thanks goes to Bill Borsari, who was an amazing partner to work with: from the conversation that started it all to the kiosk videos.

  • Zach Hardesty from VCF West, a great advocate who believed in our vision, and the Vintage Computer Festival for making room for us at the Computer History Museum.

  • Winnie, Kyle and Alan Swithenbank, who helped build it.

  • Evangelos Goulas, for the art in the bedroom and video room.

  • Mike Parker, who came over from the UK and was a massive help running the exhibit.

  • Chris Hopper and his son, for the Future Wall’s sync.

  • The Amiga fan in eastern Europe who designed the lemming trophy in LightWave.

  • Trevor Dickinson, Matthew Lehman, Michael Battilana, Dale Luck, RJ Mical and Bill Winters.

  • Hedley Davis, Joe Decuir, Ron Nicholson, Tim Jenison, Jeff Bruette, Colin Proudfoot, Anneke Proudfoot and Mark Randall.

  • Rob Gemmell, Michael Slifak, Don, and every original Amiga and Commodore employee who pitched in.

Updates

  1. Building the Amiga 40th: a carousel of progress Project update · The Amiga 40th exhibit

    How a conversation with Bill Borsari became a walk-through history of the Amiga at the Vintage Computer Festival. It was built almost entirely at my home, some 2,500 people came through, and we finished the day with the Amies.