Amiga History: The story of the Boing Ball

The Boing Ball, many computer enthusiasts know it from the Amiga home computer. It was created for the CES 1984 show to demonstrate the capabilities of the computer prototype Lorraine and the famous logo was created by Amiga pioneers Robert J. Mical and Dale Luck. The 1984 Boing Ball demo was the first demo shown on the ‘Lorraine’ (Amiga) and it was specifically designed to take advantage of the Amiga’s custom chips, achieving a level of speed and smoothness not previously seen on any upcoming affordable computer system. What strikes visitors the most is that the 140 x 100 pixel ball bounces and reacts with the environment; bouncing and spinning with hypnotizing fluidity including the famous ‘boing’ sound effect. The original Amiga team preferred the Boing Ball design as the future trademark of the Amiga. However, Commodore decided to introduce the rainbow colored double checkmark opposed to the multicolored Apple logo of the time. The famous logo was revitalized after Commodore’s bankruptcy, Haage & Partner used the logo in AmigaOS 3.5 and AmigaOS 3.9 and Hyperion Entertainment continued the tradition with AmigaOS 4.0 and AmigaOS 4.1. Computer company A-EON Technology used the logo for it’s next generation AmigaOne PowerPC computers x1000, x5000 and upcoming A1222plus. Sadly enough, the future of this famous Boing Ball and Amiga is uncertain because of many legal battles between several companies. The legendary Boing Ball keeps bouncing to all directions just like it did in 1984…

news source: Obligement / image source: Pixel Nation / watch on Youtube

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