"I've found something wrong on the Internet and have gone to painstaking lengths to rectify it" is legitimately my favourite genre of video. Thank you for this.
@@hellcoreproductionsNot in the slightest. This is probably the most accurate depiction of Amiga sales that's available, which is what Wiki should be citing. Knowledge isn't concrete or permanent, and it's not meant to be gatekeep behind prestigious universities or publishers.
to show how great this man's storytelling is, I just listened to what is basically a Stockholder report meeting for a company I do not care about, and that ceased to exist before I was even born.
pretty standard stuff to keep shareholders confident. them getting scared and selling would have crashed the company. (even if that alone wasnt enough)
13:01 I was expecting a "OR DO WE?" twist, or some wrench thrown our way, but man it instead feels like one of the rare research articles that DOESN't end with the saying that "further research is required" stuff.
Ahhh, yeah. The Job Security line. "More research is needed. [And hey, you just read a paper by a researcher in the field! Hint. Hint. Gimme a job plz.]"
Considering how influential the Commodore was for its time period, I salute you for taking the time and figuring out the exact numbers for all the Amiga and Commodore historians out there.
This video shows the pain of being a historian. I remember trying to explain to a class while in an internship how not knowing official, or more specifically, concrete data might be a nightmare just to confirm what happened in the past, like election results from the First Brazilian Republic (in Brazilian history classes, it is often discussed how manipulated elections were in this era). Apart from (recent) official releases from the government, you cannot even confirm if someone was officially president or not. Just like the Amiga sales conundrum
@@itsdeedledee5260 In that lens, if you convinced people for years through a corrupt and manipulated system, and give it 130 years to cook, then yeah, you could. But this is just a consequence of the voting system of that era. Since the first republics in Brazil were borderline oligarchical, only a handful of people were shifting terms in ridiculously lopsided elections - it isn't uncommon to see figures of like 88% or 97% for a single candidate
I've recently become quite fascinated with researching, tracking down and analysing certain historical documentation, and I've never in my life felt more like a historian than now. This video brought back a lot of those feelings for me. Something about the possibility of offering to the world, through your hard work, something the world has never seen before, is exhilarating. Whenever I see a new video like this from a RUclipsr like Ahoy or Lemmino, I get excited because I already KNOW there's gonna be a crazy amount of time and research that went into it.
That F40 screenshot at 5:20 unlocked some memories… I remember going through hundreds of amiga era audio samples trying to figure the source of them for my producer friends. It reached the point where I found an obscure email address of the publishers CEO from that time and had a brief chat about that F40 game that was made many years ago. If I recall correctly, he went from making games to being some sort of chief officer of McDonalds, was kinda cool. Great video as always!
When I scrolled down to look any interesting comments, didn't expect you to show up. Is your content purposely tailored * jiggles car keys * towards people with attention span issues? Did you considered/tried slower pace/longer format? Note: I don't expect you to be "real you" on camera.
honestly, it's refreshing to see such an unexpected side from 2018 ugandan knuckles vrchat furry youtuber 🍿 you should have a second channel or some blog for these kinds of topics, I'm sure you have some fun with stuff like this from time to time
When you put that ebay search alert out, I was like "who the fuck would ever list a 30 year old shareholders report for a bankrupt company?" that seems like the kind of thing someone would immediately throw out if they ever found it. The irony though is, that there is no way you would be making a video without getting something like it, and the fact someone listed not 1, but 4 of their final reports, is like divine levels of plot convenience. Who finds old shareholder reports and goes through the effort of using ebay to sell them instead of just trashing them?
You can put anything up for auction, and Ebay even re-auctions it for you 8 times for free if it doesn't sell for any of the first 8 attempts. If it's not taking up too much space and you don't mind the prospect of international shipping/shipping in general, you might as well.
I'd love to hear an interview with the seller on how they got those reports in the first place and why they not only chose to hold onto them for decades, but also what made them think they'd be worth selling
It's always a pain to find historical data like this. Wish there was some kind of rule that allowed archiving corporate data that would become public if the company ever went bankrupt or the trademark went out of use.
I also can never find any good data on how many CRT models of each company was sold... It tends to be mostly a collection of Trinitrons I can find. It's a shame, because I wanted to compare the popularity between companies from those times
I worked at a company that published industry reports. This was my job for almost 3 years. Had to do all this research and calcs for product lines, markets and revenue, then write the damn thing in 16 hours. From someone who's done it, I appreciate the work you put into this video. Hell of a job
I owned Axiom Software, we/i made a product called Pixel 3D for the Amiga. I was at that NY tradeshow you mentioned at the beginning. I remember the entire Amiga industry, all the software developers, were constantly in a state of anger and frustration with Commodore, we all knew it wasn't going well, despite good numbers for the Amiga. Commodore could never give the product or the developers the support they deserved. Do you know how strange it is to know how to develop on a machine that is long gone? The entire system was unique. All of those skills and knowledge faded away when Commodore went out of business. This video makes me sad, it was a great time when it was going, but those days are long, long gone.
Back in the day I was in the IT department of a large school system. This was at a time when public school systems were first looking at what brand of computers to place in classrooms. Apple, IBM, Radio Shack, Commodore, etc. They were all at conventions and workshops. All Commodore wanted to do is sell you their computers. No support in the way of training or software bundles. Apple would sell their computers at a discount, give you software bundles, and provide free training. Being in charge of selecting computers it was a no brainer as to which company to go with.
@@Kkakasih12 It seemed like for a long time, rumors were constantly saying Commodore was in trouble, or Commodore is going to close... But everyone just continued to try to act like things are fine (like that meme). Until one day, it happened and they were really gone. Hard to justify developing new software for a platform that had suddenly officially died.
This is a little sad and also a little hysterically funny, especially with the "they can go back to gathering as much dust as they want'. But on a serious note thanks for preserving history that might well have been lost forever, for what its worth
Is it funny that the InItial "4.85 million" mystery number roughly aligns with the final 4.86 million by the end of fiscal 94, minus the 54k units from ESCOM? Plenty of effort, only to arrive at more or less the same conclusion. But this time, it's for real! At least according to surviving data..
the thing is; this was pure coincidence, because the origin of the number 4.85 was something completely different. Edit: I missremebered. The 4.85 was not "completely different" but "questionable mathematics". thanks @maschyt for correcting
@@belstar1128Think about how many were binned in the decade to follow. The rarity of these machines are due to the number going to the dump, and eventually, the recyclers.
@@breakallthethings yea but I find many other things from this era like pc's macs apple 2 and c64. game consoles even some that are considered flops like the atari 7800 or game gear. but the real problem is that nobody that I know irl that was around back then actually remembers it it's like it never existed.
the font he keeps using in his text in this video is Eurostile EXT. 2. its notable for being incredibly popular, but widely unknown. it was in The Incredibles and countless other pieces of media.
@@USSMariner I haven't watched it in a while but I think they also used this in 2001 and it was mostly associated with HAL. Very 70s/80s big iron high tech vibe.
In the early 2000s there was a local shop that had been an Amiga retailer here in my neck of the woods back in the late 80s/early 1990s. I think he hadn't gotten paid by C= or something so he ended up not dealing with them anymore but again in the early 2000s he announced that he had a limited stock of New Old Stock A2000HDs for sale, new in box. Something similar happened with a stock of CD32s that had been warehoused in the Philippines, those were sold (I think via eBay). So as recently as the early 2000s NOS Amigas were still being sold. I highly, _highly_ doubt there's any more out there - but one never knows, right? Clint Basinger (Lazy Game Reviews) got his hands on a New Old Stock IBM PS/2 a number of years ago from a place that was selling them, so perhaps there's a pallet full of A500+'s or Rev 6 A2000s sitting in a warehouse somewhere waiting to be discovered yet. Again, I doubt it.
@@thedungeondelverif there are some A500+ NOS still about, they're going to be in a bad way, sadly. Their clock batteries would have likely leaked a decade ago 😔
A skunk up in Ohio who keeps the last Amiga in storage between her old Transformers figures ever since she switched to Raspberry Pi emulation? (That's for all five fellow weirdos who'll get that reference)
Not only a new video from Ahoy, It's also about the Amiga. Every single video you made for the Amiga is my favourite, from general history of the machine and the world of tracking, to something as simple as you recreating a piece of pixelart from back in the day, watching your Amiga videos is always so fun! Keep on the amazing work mate! ❤
Same, I love the Amiga videos. We had a 500 when I was a kid and it was the first computer I remember playing around with (monkey island, zool, fire and ice). I don't think the Deluxe Paint Tutankhamun picture will ever leave the back of my brain
Stuart, I can't possibly express my appreciation for your work. There is a level of artistry and polish in everything you do that makes me aspire to be the same way. I also can't possibly tell you the number of times I've watched and listened to the audio from three specific golden videos to get through my longer days: Polybius, Monkey Island, Flatline. Thank you.
The fact that this investigation goes back to 2019 from your ebay searches (maybe even further) is a testament to how much thought and passion was put into this. Greak work as always
As a kid of the early 90s, when Amiga was fizzling out, I would never have guessed just how many they actually sold. Very impressive digging on this one. I think at this point, we can call you the Amiga Archaeologist. Amigologist?
The Commodore was such a great system. Obsolete by today's standard of course, but for the time it was powerful and user friendly. And it had some cracking games as well - the original version of Sid Meier's Pirates! is still a classic.
'sfunny...I LOVED games on my Amiga, but none of the games that really utilized what the Amiga was good at, Planar side-scrollers. I hated that shit lol. I liked sims, particularly 3d ones, RPGs, games like Pirates! etc. Those side scrolling jumping games were crap to me.
I always thought of the C64 and Amiga as "European computers" so it was a surprise to learn they were headquartered in West Chester, PA, where I have been many times! Apparently their former HQ site is now operated by QVC, the home shopping channel.
Fun trivia for you then: the West Chester facility had nasty speedbumps in the driveway, and trucks departing from there would get a nasty jostle, which would unseat the chips in the Amigas shipped from there. The staff named speedbumps after the CEO and President, given the harm they were doing. Fortunately, the units with unseated chips were easy to repair - just open 'em up and press the chips back into their sockets.
I found a little bit of information on Page 7 of Amiga Format, Feb 1990. It says Commodore had just sold it's 200,000th Amiga 500 in the UK. Here is the text -- "Commodore has just sold its 200,000th Amiga 500 in the UK. This staggering event took place in Woking, near Commodore's UK base, where Dean and Olivia Dibsdall, the lucky buyers, were presented with the Class of the 90s education bundle to mark the occasion. The continuing success of the Amiga in sales terms is good news for us all: it's the fastest growing 16-bit computer with an ever increasing list and variety of software and peripherals for it. Here's to another 200,000"
I get embarrassingly over-excited when I see there is a new Ahoy video. The quality/production of them is so incredible and the topics end up riveting. I had no idea I wanted to know about Amiga sales numbers, but apparently I did! Keep up the good work!
While this is an interesting dip into Commodore history, I think this video is a great dive into how hard researching a topic can be. You could just take Wikipedia's word for it, slap it in a video, and call it a day. After all, it's just a sales figure for a three-decades defunct company, who cares right? "We do," Ahoy declares. This is why you all have such a proven track record for making quality content, and why the wait is always worth it.
Just want to say your work has been a huge inspiration for me. I'm currently working on a documentary about Sinistar and its multiple connections with Amiga's early history. Thank you for continuing to produce top-tier videos, Ahoy!
I just cannot believe that someone out there, in 2019, not only had those reports..but decided to list them on ebay....while at the same time, someone else was looking for them. It just feels like a one in a million thing to happen.
Like I’ve said in the discord many times, FLATLINE is still my favorite soundtrack to this day. Thanks for bringing her back and amazing video as always. 🧡
@@dedy__5622 Already found it through some digging. It's called "Only Amiga" from the soundtrack of Ahoy's "Flatline: how the Amiga Languished" series.
Ahoy is perhaps the only RUclips channel where I will watch regardless if I’m interested in the topic. Never had or used an Amiga myself yet this was 13 minutes well spent So glad to see you back Stu
Don't know how I missed this detail but I love how Stu slapped a bullsye on Irving Gould at 5:43. The commitment to publishing Commodore and Amiga content is legendary
I KNEW IT. All the sudden Ahoy starts popping up on the home page for me and I'm like, "He just released a video on youtube but it's unlisted so patreons or members can see it early."
Seeing how successful, popular, and prolific the Amiga was becoming in the early 90's especially across Europe just makes it all the more baffling that Commodore shit the bed so hard they perished in just a few months' notice.
The Amiga never really took off. 1 million cheap A500 in a year were not enough. And the custom chips + motorola's very bad CPU offering made it hard to make a strong follow up
Holy moly! I can't TELL YOU how much I appreciate your research and presentation. I have looked for AGES for any idea to a total number. It was fascinating watching your progress in the video and seeing the logic. I'm stunned that I saw a number there I can actually believe is in the ballpark of sales. This is a great thing you've done sir. I appreciate your efforts!
It's so refreshing seeing a video to the point, no "a little bit of story", a 5 minutes "i remember this" or a cynical "so, why bother making this video" bloat that a lot of youtubers do nowadays.
The fact that I was glued to the screen during a video about a defunct microcomputer company's financial history is a testament to your incredible videography and narration. Excellent work as always!
Being a kid in Poland in early 90s after collapse of communis I remember 93-95 years. At that time everyone who owns any kind of "computer" or video game device owns Amiga. I barely know anybody with Nintendo or Sega console because it was very expensive. Amiga was everyone first choice mainly because there was no anti-piracy or copyright bill at this moment in almost every post-soviet countries so computer flee-markets were blooming and piracy was a normal way of distributing games and software. All in all Amiga was a very good system with lots and lots great games and software.
This is meant as an informative statement, not any sort of attack. It's a 'flea market,' after the insect, which is associated with poverty, rather than a 'flee market,' as far as I know _that_ exists nowhere outside puns about markets that run away.
After seeing that I have to say Ahoy, you're my only hope! CDTV CR is said to have C2P in hardware like afterwards CD32 got through AKIKO. Given that the lack of chunky pixels is said to be the demise of Amiga it would be interesting to see the first implementation of it on the Amiga platform. That would be an awesome piece of retro-archeology. If you agree help Ahoy to see this!
Apparently Akiko was not particularly effective, for example upgrading the CPU to an '030 would have a much bigger effect on performance and even that wasn't enough for the more ambitious 3D games on the Amiga. The Akiko chip was a fairly simple and cheap last ditch effort by the Commodore engineers to compensate for the lacklustre specs of the CD32. A valiant effort, but they had too few resources to work with to create anything significant.
@@danyoutube7491 "If you read the magazines at the time, it was added for no cost because they had the space on the chip to do it. Just an added bonus" there's an interesting thread on ran named: "Performance of Akiko C2P on 030/50 CD32 systems" But my point is that there's another sustem developed for the CDTV prototype, different to that one's made by different people.
@@vertigoz Ah I see. I had to Google CDTV-CR as I didn't know exactly what it was (Cost Reduced), though I'd heard of there being scrapped plans for an improved CDTV. Certainly if they had refined the original design to that point in the first place for a more affordable and slightly better CDTV it would have been an improvement, but probably still not enough to make it a success (at least not without other hardware improvements - 1mb ECS wasn't much to work with when trying to create groundbreaking games, there is only so much polish one can add with the benefit of CD - and much better software. I often think Commodore should have doubled down on producing high quality launch titles in-house to ensure that they didn't launch machines in the situation the CDTV started in, with virtually no impressive software to tempt customers).
Your documentaries are always so well produced. Even when it's of a topic I normally couldn't care less about it, you still somehow manage to get me watch the whole video :D Really, they're *that* amazingly well made
This is so crazy, I was looking up the Amiga wikipedia page less than a week ago and I distinctly remember the 4.85m figure cited in the article. Now just a few days later, you come out with this video, and the article is updated with new figures and citing this video as the source. Great stuff!
I never once would have cared or thought about this topic but your videos always hook me and keep me interested the whole way through. Thank you for the amazing content as always!
3:50 Maybe you searched in the wrong place. These things can also be found at local libraries here in Germany. I know they store all kinds of things, even Annual Reports
I always immedietly watch your videos when I realize you released a new one. Your voice, the presentation, the sheer quality, its all so amazing, better than all those boring documentaries you find on other streaming services.
I have zero nostalgia for the Amiga, but these videos really sparked my interest for it. As someone who grew up with Windows 98 and Mac OS 9, learning about the Amiga and the history around it really wants me to actually find a machine and give it a try just for fun.
It’s so crazy to think I used to watch this channel when it focused on COD weapon details. but it’s been around 13ish years, back in the XboxAhoy days and to see the channels progression has been amazing.
This is why I love your videos the depth you goto it's outstanding, and always being on the hunt for lost information then presenting it in such a clean professional package. Keep up the good work sir!
here is the problem though. Commodore 128s are about 5mil, and those are rare. I've seen 4 in my life, and I know a couple of other people who have one/had one. One must stalk and hunt to find one. Not so much now ebay exists but before ebay you had to prowl for them. Meanwhile A500s every garage sale would have one, I have 6 A500s I bought within 3KM of my house, then my mate got one, 2 teachers had them, they were everywhere, when I went to uni in 2000 there was a computer store using an A500 as till. I always figured the 4.58Million sold was A500s' sales figures. And I live in Australia, you know the 7% of sales territory.
I think David Pleasance (?sp) made his name at Commodore running all over Oz selling Amiga for PoS, pokies, Keno, TAB, railway information displays and the like. Then moved "up" to UK just before it all came tumbling down. 😢
This channel gives me 13 minutes of well-produced content in a documentary format that has insane research effort put into it. Others talk for 20 minutes about some drama that can be summed up in 3 sentences.
I haven't seen your 2018 video about Commodore. I did not know what Amigas were prior to watching this fresh video. I still watched all of it. It's a great job!
If they'd sold 10x the number the board would have just squeezed it even harder. They weren't paying 3rd party companies like HP who were making their chips. Not because they _couldn't_ - they just didn't want to.
@@thedungeondelver yea they wanted to do everything their way that worked in the 80s but in the 90s companies found out its not worth it most of the time
"I've found something wrong on the Internet and have gone to painstaking lengths to rectify it" is legitimately my favourite genre of video. Thank you for this.
honestly stuff like this and lost media analysis is so very satisfying to watch because it answers questions you didn't even know you had :p
People told me that RUclips videos are no reliable source of information. :-)
very agreed
im reminded of xkcd's "Duty Calls"
Ahoy's a madman. The good kind.
I love how wikipedia has already updated their page to reflect the numbers in this video, citing it as a source
Yeah that was crazy fast
Ahoy couldn't find a concrete source, so he became the source with the sauce. Love to see it.
This video came out 5 hours ago. The Wiki page was first updated with Ahoy's conclusions 5 hours ago. Wikipedia doesn't mess around.
@@dreamer72 As much as I love the video, that's actually a bad look for Wikipedia.
@@hellcoreproductionsNot in the slightest. This is probably the most accurate depiction of Amiga sales that's available, which is what Wiki should be citing.
Knowledge isn't concrete or permanent, and it's not meant to be gatekeep behind prestigious universities or publishers.
to show how great this man's storytelling is, I just listened to what is basically a Stockholder report meeting for a company I do not care about, and that ceased to exist before I was even born.
Commodore existed for another 7 months after I was born.
You just made me sound ancient.
Imagine Ahoy doing the meeting presentations at a company. I bet meeting attendance would shoot up.
And there's not a single like and subscribe to take us out of it. Truly the best fucking content of our web ages.
@@Leofwine who let you out of the museum??
@@wixardoA Night at the Museum?
"As a final act of desperation I turned to eBay" in the most calm voice ever
"I found some guy who sold me 30 year old shareholder reports from a long dead company" is a truly wild climax to the video.
Having a blurb about how successful the last year was before they bankrupt is so crazy
They were in the grips of corporate raiders; it didn't matter to them.
pretty standard stuff to keep shareholders confident. them getting scared and selling would have crashed the company. (even if that alone wasnt enough)
Gotta keep the share price high while jumping ship
Litterally the "this is fine" meme
Typical capitalism moment. In a competitive environment, it's best to do anything to avoid showing signs of weakness until it's unavoidable.
13:01 I was expecting a "OR DO WE?" twist, or some wrench thrown our way, but man it instead feels like one of the rare research articles that DOESN't end with the saying that "further research is required" stuff.
SAME after he said it i checked the video time to see if there was more, and was weirded out when there wasnt 😂
Ahhh, yeah. The Job Security line. "More research is needed. [And hey, you just read a paper by a researcher in the field! Hint. Hint. Gimme a job plz.]"
I mean, it is an estimate. A very educated figure, but still. Its as good as we'll probably get though.
Haha yes, however, I think Ahoy is 100% confident in his research and his genius 🤣
same lol
Considering how influential the Commodore was for its time period, I salute you for taking the time and figuring out the exact numbers for all the Amiga and Commodore historians out there.
This video shows the pain of being a historian. I remember trying to explain to a class while in an internship how not knowing official, or more specifically, concrete data might be a nightmare just to confirm what happened in the past, like election results from the First Brazilian Republic (in Brazilian history classes, it is often discussed how manipulated elections were in this era). Apart from (recent) official releases from the government, you cannot even confirm if someone was officially president or not. Just like the Amiga sales conundrum
So you're telling me that I could say Goku was president, and nobody could proove me wrong?
@@itsdeedledee5260 In that lens, if you convinced people for years through a corrupt and manipulated system, and give it 130 years to cook, then yeah, you could.
But this is just a consequence of the voting system of that era. Since the first republics in Brazil were borderline oligarchical, only a handful of people were shifting terms in ridiculously lopsided elections - it isn't uncommon to see figures of like 88% or 97% for a single candidate
@@marcelo90zcarai, essas coisas eu nao aprendi na escola kkk
The video also shows the pain of trying to scratch a non-existent speck of dust off your screen
I've recently become quite fascinated with researching, tracking down and analysing certain historical documentation, and I've never in my life felt more like a historian than now. This video brought back a lot of those feelings for me. Something about the possibility of offering to the world, through your hard work, something the world has never seen before, is exhilarating. Whenever I see a new video like this from a RUclipsr like Ahoy or Lemmino, I get excited because I already KNOW there's gonna be a crazy amount of time and research that went into it.
Imagine your shareholder report eventually being worth more than your stock.
That F40 screenshot at 5:20 unlocked some memories… I remember going through hundreds of amiga era audio samples trying to figure the source of them for my producer friends. It reached the point where I found an obscure email address of the publishers CEO from that time and had a brief chat about that F40 game that was made many years ago. If I recall correctly, he went from making games to being some sort of chief officer of McDonalds, was kinda cool.
Great video as always!
Ironically, this game, also known as Crazy Cars 2, is considered one of the worst on the system due to poor control method.
When I scrolled down to look any interesting comments, didn't expect you to show up. Is your content purposely tailored * jiggles car keys * towards people with attention span issues? Did you considered/tried slower pace/longer format?
Note: I don't expect you to be "real you" on camera.
Sometimes forget youtubers are real people. Good world building God
honestly, it's refreshing to see such an unexpected side from 2018 ugandan knuckles vrchat furry youtuber 🍿
you should have a second channel or some blog for these kinds of topics, I'm sure you have some fun with stuff like this from time to time
Fantastic video!
I almost scratched my iPad screen trying to get a speck of dust off, not realizing it was in the video. 😂
was it intentional. now thats been pointed out i cant un-see it.
same
GAH! That speck of dust! So annoying...
I wiped with a bit of tissue on my screen.
Is it the one at 5:56? cause I definitely almost did the same
When you put that ebay search alert out, I was like "who the fuck would ever list a 30 year old shareholders report for a bankrupt company?" that seems like the kind of thing someone would immediately throw out if they ever found it. The irony though is, that there is no way you would be making a video without getting something like it, and the fact someone listed not 1, but 4 of their final reports, is like divine levels of plot convenience. Who finds old shareholder reports and goes through the effort of using ebay to sell them instead of just trashing them?
Us Commodore users are a mad lot.
You should see how Christorians go about getting their hands on stuff that "survived" Chris Chan's house fire.
You can put anything up for auction, and Ebay even re-auctions it for you 8 times for free if it doesn't sell for any of the first 8 attempts. If it's not taking up too much space and you don't mind the prospect of international shipping/shipping in general, you might as well.
I'd love to hear an interview with the seller on how they got those reports in the first place and why they not only chose to hold onto them for decades, but also what made them think they'd be worth selling
I mean if you knew even a tiny bit about retro computing you'd probably figure that someone would be interested in this.
It's always a pain to find historical data like this. Wish there was some kind of rule that allowed archiving corporate data that would become public if the company ever went bankrupt or the trademark went out of use.
Something something, but Disney
I also can never find any good data on how many CRT models of each company was sold... It tends to be mostly a collection of Trinitrons I can find. It's a shame, because I wanted to compare the popularity between companies from those times
Would be fun to sift through and make some inferences.
There is no profit in it, so why would they bother.
@@joshuahensley9395 yeah that's why I said it should be a regulation instead
I worked at a company that published industry reports. This was my job for almost 3 years. Had to do all this research and calcs for product lines, markets and revenue, then write the damn thing in 16 hours. From someone who's done it, I appreciate the work you put into this video. Hell of a job
Yeah I basically do this for streaming platforms but it's even harder because they don't even report it
the 93 report is sad.. no more fun images when the company is dying
Print is already expensive, unfortunately, images cost more 😢
It used to be fun until they have falled
I owned Axiom Software, we/i made a product called Pixel 3D for the Amiga. I was at that NY tradeshow you mentioned at the beginning. I remember the entire Amiga industry, all the software developers, were constantly in a state of anger and frustration with Commodore, we all knew it wasn't going well, despite good numbers for the Amiga. Commodore could never give the product or the developers the support they deserved. Do you know how strange it is to know how to develop on a machine that is long gone? The entire system was unique. All of those skills and knowledge faded away when Commodore went out of business. This video makes me sad, it was a great time when it was going, but those days are long, long gone.
Back in the day I was in the IT department of a large school system. This was at a time when public school systems were first looking at what brand of computers to place in classrooms. Apple, IBM, Radio Shack, Commodore, etc. They were all at conventions and workshops. All Commodore wanted to do is sell you their computers. No support in the way of training or software bundles. Apple would sell their computers at a discount, give you software bundles, and provide free training. Being in charge of selecting computers it was a no brainer as to which company to go with.
Very interesting, so from developer pov it was clear that the company was not going to last long ?
@@Kkakasih12 It seemed like for a long time, rumors were constantly saying Commodore was in trouble, or Commodore is going to close... But everyone just continued to try to act like things are fine (like that meme). Until one day, it happened and they were really gone. Hard to justify developing new software for a platform that had suddenly officially died.
This is a little sad and also a little hysterically funny, especially with the "they can go back to gathering as much dust as they want'. But on a serious note thanks for preserving history that might well have been lost forever, for what its worth
The reports should be scanned and seeded online
@@eberbacher007he did scan them; they're linked in the description. and I assume someone already uploaded it to the internet archive
I asked my dad about it who worked for a store selling Amigas and he assured me that at least 10 were sold.
Big if true. That could be anywhere from 10 to a million
sounds about right
Thanks ilovepanda's dad!
Thanks ilovepanda's dad!🐺
Is it funny that the InItial "4.85 million" mystery number roughly aligns with the final 4.86 million by the end of fiscal 94, minus the 54k units from ESCOM?
Plenty of effort, only to arrive at more or less the same conclusion. But this time, it's for real! At least according to surviving data..
the thing is; this was pure coincidence, because the origin of the number 4.85 was something completely different.
Edit: I missremebered. The 4.85 was not "completely different" but "questionable mathematics". thanks @maschyt for correcting
Well, we went from number, unverified to number, verified, extrapolated so it really wasn't in vein.
that is way too much i doubt its more than 100k with how rare these things are
@@belstar1128Think about how many were binned in the decade to follow. The rarity of these machines are due to the number going to the dump, and eventually, the recyclers.
@@breakallthethings yea but I find many other things from this era like pc's macs apple 2 and c64. game consoles even some that are considered flops like the atari 7800 or game gear. but the real problem is that nobody that I know irl that was around back then actually remembers it it's like it never existed.
the font he keeps using in his text in this video is Eurostile EXT. 2. its notable for being incredibly popular, but widely unknown. it was in The Incredibles and countless other pieces of media.
It's actually quite familiar to me, since it was used a lot in Star Trek media through the 80s.
It's so proper for 80s computers though.
Thank you I was going to ask! I’m a typographer myself and was wide-eyed seeing such a pretty font.
You missed a prime opportunity to do a 13 minute and 9 second video essay on that.
@@USSMariner I haven't watched it in a while but I think they also used this in 2001 and it was mostly associated with HAL. Very 70s/80s big iron high tech vibe.
I wonder who bought the last Amiga ever sold brand new at retail.
In the early 2000s there was a local shop that had been an Amiga retailer here in my neck of the woods back in the late 80s/early 1990s. I think he hadn't gotten paid by C= or something so he ended up not dealing with them anymore but again in the early 2000s he announced that he had a limited stock of New Old Stock A2000HDs for sale, new in box.
Something similar happened with a stock of CD32s that had been warehoused in the Philippines, those were sold (I think via eBay). So as recently as the early 2000s NOS Amigas were still being sold.
I highly, _highly_ doubt there's any more out there - but one never knows, right? Clint Basinger (Lazy Game Reviews) got his hands on a New Old Stock IBM PS/2 a number of years ago from a place that was selling them, so perhaps there's a pallet full of A500+'s or Rev 6 A2000s sitting in a warehouse somewhere waiting to be discovered yet. Again, I doubt it.
@@thedungeondelverI need a time machine...
@@thedungeondelverif there are some A500+ NOS still about, they're going to be in a bad way, sadly. Their clock batteries would have likely leaked a decade ago 😔
A skunk up in Ohio who keeps the last Amiga in storage between her old Transformers figures ever since she switched to Raspberry Pi emulation? (That's for all five fellow weirdos who'll get that reference)
I- I understood that reference
Not only a new video from Ahoy, It's also about the Amiga.
Every single video you made for the Amiga is my favourite, from general history of the machine and the world of tracking, to something as simple as you recreating a piece of pixelart from back in the day, watching your Amiga videos is always so fun!
Keep on the amazing work mate! ❤
Same, I love the Amiga videos. We had a 500 when I was a kid and it was the first computer I remember playing around with (monkey island, zool, fire and ice). I don't think the Deluxe Paint Tutankhamun picture will ever leave the back of my brain
I pay for so many streaming platforms, but none have the quality and dedication of an Ahoy video!
Why pay for them then?
@@lilwyvern4yar har fiddle dee dee
@@lilwyvern4 Because youtube is trying to push everyone off of youtube
Nebula, maybe?
Stuart, I can't possibly express my appreciation for your work. There is a level of artistry and polish in everything you do that makes me aspire to be the same way. I also can't possibly tell you the number of times I've watched and listened to the audio from three specific golden videos to get through my longer days: Polybius, Monkey Island, Flatline. Thank you.
The fact that this investigation goes back to 2019 from your ebay searches (maybe even further) is a testament to how much thought and passion was put into this. Greak work as always
Hold up, baby, the wedding has to wait, Ahoy just posted
Hold up baby the abortion has to wait, Ahoy just posted.
Hold up, baby, the divorce procedures can wait, Ahoy just posted.
As a kid of the early 90s, when Amiga was fizzling out, I would never have guessed just how many they actually sold. Very impressive digging on this one. I think at this point, we can call you the Amiga Archaeologist. Amigologist?
The Commodore was such a great system. Obsolete by today's standard of course, but for the time it was powerful and user friendly. And it had some cracking games as well - the original version of Sid Meier's Pirates! is still a classic.
'sfunny...I LOVED games on my Amiga, but none of the games that really utilized what the Amiga was good at, Planar side-scrollers. I hated that shit lol. I liked sims, particularly 3d ones, RPGs, games like Pirates! etc. Those side scrolling jumping games were crap to me.
The king of quality returns when we need him most
I enjoyed the return of "Only Amiga" as the sole melody of the video, since the video itself is about Amiga only. Bravo, Stuart
I always thought of the C64 and Amiga as "European computers" so it was a surprise to learn they were headquartered in West Chester, PA, where I have been many times! Apparently their former HQ site is now operated by QVC, the home shopping channel.
Fun trivia for you then: the West Chester facility had nasty speedbumps in the driveway, and trucks departing from there would get a nasty jostle, which would unseat the chips in the Amigas shipped from there. The staff named speedbumps after the CEO and President, given the harm they were doing.
Fortunately, the units with unseated chips were easy to repair - just open 'em up and press the chips back into their sockets.
For those looking for the background music: it's called "Only Amiga" from the soundtrack of Ahoy's "Flatline: how the Amiga Languished" video.
thank you so much!
I found a little bit of information on Page 7 of Amiga Format, Feb 1990. It says Commodore had just sold it's 200,000th Amiga 500 in the UK. Here is the text -- "Commodore has just sold its 200,000th Amiga 500 in the UK. This staggering event took place in Woking, near Commodore's UK base, where Dean and Olivia Dibsdall, the lucky buyers, were presented with the Class of the 90s education bundle to mark the occasion. The continuing success of the Amiga in sales terms is good news for us all: it's the fastest growing 16-bit computer with an ever increasing list and variety of software and peripherals for it. Here's to another 200,000"
I get embarrassingly over-excited when I see there is a new Ahoy video. The quality/production of them is so incredible and the topics end up riveting. I had no idea I wanted to know about Amiga sales numbers, but apparently I did!
Keep up the good work!
the paper-effect overlay on the entire video had me literally rubbing my TV with a microfiber thinking there was dirt on it
While this is an interesting dip into Commodore history, I think this video is a great dive into how hard researching a topic can be. You could just take Wikipedia's word for it, slap it in a video, and call it a day. After all, it's just a sales figure for a three-decades defunct company, who cares right?
"We do," Ahoy declares. This is why you all have such a proven track record for making quality content, and why the wait is always worth it.
It's amazing the amount of work put into check the correct number from a dubious magazine from 40 years ago.
Just want to say your work has been a huge inspiration for me. I'm currently working on a documentary about Sinistar and its multiple connections with Amiga's early history. Thank you for continuing to produce top-tier videos, Ahoy!
Ahoy is so comforting. Just simple, no sharp angled twists, just an explanation.
And that VOICE?! 🤤👌
@@WavingWorld This is the voice that we should have telling us when the world is ending. So soothing...
Its crazy to think back to watching his CoD videos. Such a fun time in my life
I just cannot believe that someone out there, in 2019, not only had those reports..but decided to list them on ebay....while at the same time, someone else was looking for them. It just feels like a one in a million thing to happen.
Like I’ve said in the discord many times, FLATLINE is still my favorite soundtrack to this day. Thanks for bringing her back and amazing video as always. 🧡
Agreed, I liked the 1st videogame one but I keep coming back to Flatline because it's so good
Ahoy Getty into the accounting game wasn’t in my bingo card, but warms this CPA’s heart
I dont believe I will ever get your BG music choice for this video out of my head. Ever.
do you know what the background music is called?
@@dedy__5622Nope. Probably a free to use or royalty free piece I would imagine.
I'd like to know as well.
@@dedy__5622 Already found it through some digging. It's called _Only Amiga_ from Ahoy's "Languishing Amiga" soundtrack.
@@dedy__5622 Already found it through some digging. It's called "Only Amiga" from the soundtrack of Ahoy's "Flatline: how the Amiga Languished" series.
Ahoy continues to deliver as usual and i'm never disappointed even if there is a larger timescale between videos. Quality > Quantity!
Always a good day when Ahoy uploads
Ahoy is perhaps the only RUclips channel where I will watch regardless if I’m interested in the topic.
Never had or used an Amiga myself yet this was 13 minutes well spent
So glad to see you back Stu
Amiga was the last home computer you would develop an emotional attachment to.
Apple's iMac G3 from the early 2000s?
Don't know how I missed this detail but I love how Stu slapped a bullsye on Irving Gould at 5:43. The commitment to publishing Commodore and Amiga content is legendary
I totally expected some kind of "...or do we?" at the end - but it's nice to have some mysteries solved for a change.
The excitement never gets old seeing a new Ahoy upload.
Time to binge the playlist again...
awesome to see you still put out videos, i started watching you back in 2012 for the bo2 weapon guides. wonderful memories
I KNEW IT. All the sudden Ahoy starts popping up on the home page for me and I'm like, "He just released a video on youtube but it's unlisted so patreons or members can see it early."
As has been for the last decade or so, excellent work Ahoy! Always a real treat when you make art out of these things.
Seeing how successful, popular, and prolific the Amiga was becoming in the early 90's especially across Europe just makes it all the more baffling that Commodore shit the bed so hard they perished in just a few months' notice.
The Amiga never really took off. 1 million cheap A500 in a year were not enough. And the custom chips + motorola's very bad CPU offering made it hard to make a strong follow up
Holy moly! I can't TELL YOU how much I appreciate your research and presentation. I have looked for AGES for any idea to a total number. It was fascinating watching your progress in the video and seeing the logic. I'm stunned that I saw a number there I can actually believe is in the ballpark of sales. This is a great thing you've done sir. I appreciate your efforts!
I was just rewatching Ahoy videos right when he blesses us with another.
Watched your original Amiga video just the other day, really nice to see a follow-up video!
I didn’t know what Commodore was, or even the Amiga. However, I enjoyed every bit of this video.
Proof I will watch anything Ahoy makes, haha.
When you put this much love, care, and attention into your videos it’ll bring people in.
It's so refreshing seeing a video to the point, no "a little bit of story", a 5 minutes "i remember this" or a cynical "so, why bother making this video" bloat that a lot of youtubers do nowadays.
amazing video. been here since mw2 gun reviews. its cool to see the progression over the years. i hope you keep this channel going forever.
I swear your Amiga videos are severely underrated.
There is no other person who can present just 'boring numbers' more interesting than Steward.
Freaking great video!
The fact that I was glued to the screen during a video about a defunct microcomputer company's financial history is a testament to your incredible videography and narration.
Excellent work as always!
Being a kid in Poland in early 90s after collapse of communis I remember 93-95 years. At that time everyone who owns any kind of "computer" or video game device owns Amiga. I barely know anybody with Nintendo or Sega console because it was very expensive. Amiga was everyone first choice mainly because there was no anti-piracy or copyright bill at this moment in almost every post-soviet countries so computer flee-markets were blooming and piracy was a normal way of distributing games and software. All in all Amiga was a very good system with lots and lots great games and software.
This is meant as an informative statement, not any sort of attack.
It's a 'flea market,' after the insect, which is associated with poverty, rather than a 'flee market,' as far as I know _that_ exists nowhere outside puns about markets that run away.
This made me watch Flatline again. One of my favorite videos you did and I love this companion piece!
After seeing that I have to say Ahoy, you're my only hope! CDTV CR is said to have C2P in hardware like afterwards CD32 got through AKIKO. Given that the lack of chunky pixels is said to be the demise of Amiga it would be interesting to see the first implementation of it on the Amiga platform. That would be an awesome piece of retro-archeology. If you agree help Ahoy to see this!
Apparently Akiko was not particularly effective, for example upgrading the CPU to an '030 would have a much bigger effect on performance and even that wasn't enough for the more ambitious 3D games on the Amiga. The Akiko chip was a fairly simple and cheap last ditch effort by the Commodore engineers to compensate for the lacklustre specs of the CD32. A valiant effort, but they had too few resources to work with to create anything significant.
@@danyoutube7491 "If you read the magazines at the time, it was added for no cost because they had the space on the chip to do it. Just an added bonus" there's an interesting thread on ran named: "Performance of Akiko C2P on 030/50 CD32 systems"
But my point is that there's another sustem developed for the CDTV prototype, different to that one's made by different people.
@@vertigoz Ah I see. I had to Google CDTV-CR as I didn't know exactly what it was (Cost Reduced), though I'd heard of there being scrapped plans for an improved CDTV. Certainly if they had refined the original design to that point in the first place for a more affordable and slightly better CDTV it would have been an improvement, but probably still not enough to make it a success (at least not without other hardware improvements - 1mb ECS wasn't much to work with when trying to create groundbreaking games, there is only so much polish one can add with the benefit of CD - and much better software. I often think Commodore should have doubled down on producing high quality launch titles in-house to ensure that they didn't launch machines in the situation the CDTV started in, with virtually no impressive software to tempt customers).
Your documentaries are always so well produced. Even when it's of a topic I normally couldn't care less about it, you still somehow manage to get me watch the whole video :D
Really, they're *that* amazingly well made
One mans undying love for the Amiga leads him on a side-quest to find out how many of these relics even made it to earth.
This is so crazy, I was looking up the Amiga wikipedia page less than a week ago and I distinctly remember the 4.85m figure cited in the article. Now just a few days later, you come out with this video, and the article is updated with new figures and citing this video as the source. Great stuff!
There are little dirt spots in the video. Had me scratching my monitor. :D
RetroAhoy never fails to amaze.
I love supporting your work
Been amazing for over a decade. Keep going 🎉
I never once would have cared or thought about this topic but your videos always hook me and keep me interested the whole way through. Thank you for the amazing content as always!
Published less than 4 hours ago, and this video is now cited as a source of Amiga sales numbers on Wikipedia
I love the more frequent uploads. I do not mind it being not as long as a retroahoy, as long the quality is top-notch.
12:28 - I mean 4.85M weren't too far off then. It was just rounded down to the next 50k mark. And all Amigas after that weren't sold by Commodore ^^'
Thank you so so much for archiving the annual reports
Ahoy is the kind of games journalist we need, but don't deserve.
Spent most of this video cleaning what I thought were smudges on my screen. Excellent video and my monitor is spotless, thanks
5:40 Arthur Andersen, now it makes sense why Commodore went under
Information I was never curious about or interested in, but by golly I watched the whole video because you present it in such an engaging manner!
Ahoy!! Welcome back, old friend! I've been missing you!
liking these shorter but more regular uploads. love the long stuff just as much, but seeing more of your content more often is amazing! keep it up!
3:50 Maybe you searched in the wrong place. These things can also be found at local libraries here in Germany. I know they store all kinds of things, even Annual Reports
I always immedietly watch your videos when I realize you released a new one. Your voice, the presentation, the sheer quality, its all so amazing, better than all those boring documentaries you find on other streaming services.
Fully expected this to end with _"...EXCEPT FOR ONE... SMALL... PROBLEM."_ But it didn't. I'm stunned. :) Great work!
Sell their Amigas to who Petro? Fucking Sabrina Online?
your obsession with old tech is so funny.
no one has this question
but now that ahoy ask it, i wanna know and then you tell me. love these videos
I have zero nostalgia for the Amiga, but these videos really sparked my interest for it.
As someone who grew up with Windows 98 and Mac OS 9, learning about the Amiga and the history around it really wants me to actually find a machine and give it a try just for fun.
It’s so crazy to think I used to watch this channel when it focused on COD weapon details. but it’s been around 13ish years, back in the XboxAhoy days and to see the channels progression has been amazing.
I watched the video on 130x speed and can confirm this is a certified Ahoy classic
This is why I love your videos the depth you goto it's outstanding, and always being on the hunt for lost information then presenting it in such a clean professional package. Keep up the good work sir!
here is the problem though. Commodore 128s are about 5mil, and those are rare. I've seen 4 in my life, and I know a couple of other people who have one/had one. One must stalk and hunt to find one. Not so much now ebay exists but before ebay you had to prowl for them. Meanwhile A500s every garage sale would have one, I have 6 A500s I bought within 3KM of my house, then my mate got one, 2 teachers had them, they were everywhere, when I went to uni in 2000 there was a computer store using an A500 as till. I always figured the 4.58Million sold was A500s' sales figures. And I live in Australia, you know the 7% of sales territory.
I think David Pleasance (?sp) made his name at Commodore running all over Oz selling Amiga for PoS, pokies, Keno, TAB, railway information displays and the like. Then moved "up" to UK just before it all came tumbling down. 😢
This channel gives me 13 minutes of well-produced content in a documentary format that has insane research effort put into it. Others talk for 20 minutes about some drama that can be summed up in 3 sentences.
Never clicked so fast in my life.
Another Ahoy video this year? An unexpected treasure.
I haven't seen your 2018 video about Commodore. I did not know what Amigas were prior to watching this fresh video. I still watched all of it. It's a great job!
Life’s gotta pause, Ahoy just dropped a new video!
I've missed this channel. You have such a soothing voice, I would listen to recite anything!
"Not enough" would be my guess
If they'd sold 10x the number the board would have just squeezed it even harder. They weren't paying 3rd party companies like HP who were making their chips. Not because they _couldn't_ - they just didn't want to.
@@thedungeondelver Burning relationships with suppliers and distributors isn't exactly the best long-term growth strategy that's for sure.
@@thedungeondelver yea they wanted to do everything their way that worked in the 80s but in the 90s companies found out its not worth it most of the time
for sure they are so rare nobody remembers it