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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Sun Mar 13, 2022 12:30 pm

I ran across a post on Instagram that showed a very interesting advertisement that compelled me to dig deeper.

It was obviously an Apple ad, but it was speaking directly to Amiga users. It totally blew my mind. After a few Google searches using quotes and verbatim text from the ad's copy, I found it.

It was in the British magazine CU Amiga, Issue 086 from April 1997.

It's a two-paged spread.
whyapple3.jpg
It certainly has a lot of the expected design styling from 1990s Apple marketing.


Taking a closer look, I was stunned at the detailed understanding and knowledge the ad conveyed in addition to the thoughtful point of view. It was as if it were written by an Amiga fan at a funeral, trying to softly encourage survivors that the writing was on the wall, but it was going to be OK.

One day we may see the rebirth of the Amiga with a PowerPC processor and other new features to enable it to compete again with today's systems. Sadly though, more than two years since Commodore's demise, very little of substance has happened. We've seen prototypes and promises, but that's about it...

Perhaps some can wait for the final outcome, but if you need more performance, without paying the earth - and you need it today - there's one real alternative to consider now...

Only Apple can offer you both desktop and portable computers that truly match the case of use the Amiga brought to your desktop. Affordable Apple Macintosh systems have PowerPC RISC processors with thousands of off-the-shelf programs available in areas where the Amiga was previously so strong.

And, if you need to have the most compatible of all computers, Macintosh is currently the only system that can run MacOS, DOS and Windows applications via optional DOS Cards or SoftWindows.

I can't believe this was written - let alone sanctioned - by anyone in Cupertino. The design language is really spot on to have been pulled from Apple marketing. But the copy? No way.
whyapple1.jpg
Shame the scans of this magazine are so painfully lo-res.


Taking a look at page two, we can see this is obviously from a UK Apple dealer - quite possibly one that used to sell Amiga computers, too.
Screen Shot 2022-03-13 at 12.23.12 PM.png

Pretty fascinating bit of tech advertising history, even if from a regional perspective. You can take a closer look for yourself if you'd like over on the Internet Archive.

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fxgogo
Twickenham , U.K.

Posted Sun Mar 13, 2022 3:32 pm

That is incredible. Had I seen it, I may have even been swayed. My move to the PC was not fun even though Amiga was technically still alive at that point. I did a lot of 3D and needed processing power. But it was in that crazy DOS, Windows 3.1 days. I had to switch all the time between the two to run Imagine and Photoshop 2.5. Macintosh was way out of my price range but an advert like that would of spoken to me and the pain I was in. Well, I say pain, but you know what I mean.

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iljitsch

Posted Tue Mar 15, 2022 3:32 am

Hm, I remember back in 1995 I ended up at what could generously be called a startup, and many things were very limited. So there were times I had to use the only Mac in the office. It was a pretty nice machine with good graphics, but...

I was actually in the middle of college at that point where I used my Amiga for writing documents and programming assignments, in addition to running a BBS, even though at school it was either PC or Suns. And a few years earlier I had had an IT support job at a place where everyone had PCs (and a little VMS).

So I had a fairly wide range of experience with different OSes, but I just couldn't get used to the Mac way of doing things. Too long ago to remember what the specifics were, though.

But now as a 20 year Mac users I do see a lot of similarities between the Amiga and the Mac. Especially compared to Windows, which seems to have come from a parallel dimension.

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Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Mon Mar 21, 2022 7:51 pm

I would doubt many Amiga users switched from Amiga to Mac. The only similarity I've ever seen in Amiga and Mac users are that some have cultish type feelings toward their computer... And if you were in that category for the Amiga you were going down with the ship, in fact you're still sinking with that ship, lol. But even Amiga users were never cult into Commodore or anyone at Commodore like Apple users are into Apple and Steve Jobbs. There's still a sanity in even the crazy Amiga lovers because of that! That they're able to see those flaws without blind loyalty.

I'm sorry but computers for the masses not the classes has nothing in common with Apple back then or today. Those who understand the history of computers and Apple (ya know, the histories not told by Apple), just wouldn't find comfort in the ridiculously flawed Jesus figure; Jobbs.

Many Amiga users went into that line because it was the best you could get with decent 3rd party support and a great price. Other than the Apple II for like 2 years, Apple never had the best. They were at that time and to this day one of the more expensive options. Now they were always decent, never crap, and be sure if you buy one of their expensive computers you'll get a nice life out of it. But I doubt too many Amiga users were looking for that kind of thing. Whenever it was an Amiga user finally made the switch away from the Amiga, they overwhelmingly went to the platform which had the best hardware with the best 3rd party support and with decent prices; Your PC Clones! "...if you need more performance without paying the Earth..." HA!

I think that ad was speaking to the blackness of space. Perhaps if you used the Amiga for one purpose only, say drawing applications, the Mac would have been the choice. But I'd say a lot of Amiga users, even if they had application interests, would have been particularly interested in games. Even going into 1994 and the bankruptcy of Commodore the Amiga was kicking the Mac's butt in games. Without the Amiga to compete Apple would see a future of a handful of games per year, and it's just not the market which would have made many Amiga users happy, I would imagine.

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Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Tue Mar 22, 2022 9:13 am

It's funny because many of my more creative Amiga friends did in fact switch to Mac as it was a logical choice for them. My friends that were mostly into games went to DOS/Windows or even consoles and Mac. I went to both but mainly Mac for creative and OS reasons and DOS for games, basically but I was already a console fan too. So I get why Apple did this as Amiga was the original creative computer and this was something that Apple had eventually cornered.

There was a rivalry but also many Amiga users disliked DOS/Windows more then Macintosh System Software.

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A1-X1000
Toronto, Canada

Posted Sat Apr 02, 2022 9:59 pm

anti Apple computers in my house since 1983 (me thinks) when my friend's parents bought him an Apple II complete system that cost $3,000 back then and it truly couldn't hold a candle in any possible way to my C64...what a joke 13 year old me said to spend that much money with nothing at all to justify the extra cost....well since then I haven't and still can't fathom spending a dollar on any Apple computer :boing: :commodore: :commodore:

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Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Sun Apr 03, 2022 9:47 am

Personally I'd have more goodwill toward Atari than I would Apple. Obviously Atari did not survive to make that switch, but they were a million times closer in concept than Amiga and Apple were. The truly creative mind would want to dabble in it all, as Amiga owners did. While Apple had photoshop, so did the PC eventually, and not to mention countless alternatives cheaper and even free which compare favorably to anything Apple ever was once on top of. It has long been my impression of the typical Apple user that they've been sold something, generally they don't have that deep knowledge of the system. "It doesn't get viruses"... okay, how much of that is because the operating system is superior and how much of that is the small user base not being of concern to those who would target it?

Now you'll never get many Amiga to PC converts to praise the PC platform or its Microsoft operating systems. We're here but we're not happy about it, it's simply the place to be, period. It's a hard fact to swallow, but it's the truth. I come across Apple people and they've got the sales pitch ready... They've memorized the script but they sound like a salesman, not a computer user! Never underestimate the lengths some will go to justify expensive purchases. I can't stand Microsoft, but I can't stand Apple either, but I'm where the action is.

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Acill

Posted Sun Apr 03, 2022 4:58 pm

I was one of those Amiga users that went Apple once OSX came out. I used my A3000 and 4000T for as long as I could use it, and never owned a Windows PC all the way up to the release of the 2013 trash can Mac Pro. When Apple started getting back away from being expandable like they were with my G4 Powermac and then a G5 Macpro and the last being a very decked out Mac Pro with custom 12 core Xeon CPU's I got while working for Intel it was all over for me.

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A1-X1000
Toronto, Canada

Posted Mon Apr 04, 2022 11:14 am

@ Shot97

well said and +1 :boing: <3

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Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Sat Apr 09, 2022 9:20 am

Say what you want about Apple and sometimes I have choice words for their bad decisions. But they are still here and Amiga, Atari, Commodore, etc are relics of history. A better history, but still history.

After Amiga, I bought a Gateway 2000 486 in 1993/94 and I moved to Mac in 1995/1996 but not completely. I still had PCs for DOS and Windows as I loved the DOS VGA gaming era. Mac System 7 offered something that was cool and more Amiga like than Windows at the time. It made the OS fun to use versus Windows which was not all that fun.





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