Interview with Commodore Amiga Designer / Engineer Greg Berlin - 4K UHD
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- čas přidán 5. 07. 2024
- This is an interview we conducted with Mr. Greg Berlin, Commodore Amiga designer and engineer, at the Vintage Computer Festival East XI on April 15, 2016. Mr. Berlin talks about his time at Commodore and gives us insight into the company culture. A big thanks to Greg for taking time out of his day to chat with us! Thanks Greg!
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Great stuff guys. I'm refurbing an A500 soon and it makes it all the more enjoyable seeing and hearing the stories behind the company
RetroManCave Right on RetroManCave! Thanks for the kind words. Glad you are enjoying our videos and good luck with the restoration!
How did it go? It will make me smile if it went well!
A500 and A600 off to be recapped and basic gotek drives here but wish I had some fancy Amiga stuff!
I worked with Greg at a startup in Philadelphia. Super cool guy, and super knowledgeable!
Greg is the gentle giant of the Amiga. What a nice guy!
Thank you Bill and Anthony for this interview.
Yes he is alex76gr ! Great observation. He is even bigger in real life then he looks in this video! Glad you liked the interview and thanks for watching! -- Bill
Behind the scenes of my youth. Thanks Guys :)
I like this.
Different being outside... No script either. Quality
Yeah he was busy all day hanging out and talking with old friends at the show so we didn't want to interrupt him. We just grabbed him when we were all hanging out after Bil Herd's presentation. It was our best chance to get the interview and not inconvenience him. Hopefully we can prepare for our next interview! ha ha! Thanks for watching as always Anthony. -- Bill
+The Guru Meditation Loving the 4k. I'll have to follow suit soon.
Anthony Jordan
Thanks! My hard drive is the only thing that doesn't like it, ha ha! We are looking forward to doing more cinematic stuff with the 4K too.
Commodore and Amiga engineers are all so goddam cool.
Agreed! They are. Must have been a cool place to work
Man I was one of those many european kids who grew up on these machines. Those guys are legends :) Im going to buy a functioning 4000 this weekend.
Excellent! Enjoy your 4000!!!
Here in late 2021 (Xmas day). It's just odd seeing an "older" Greg Berlin here in this clip, when we've also seen him as a young guy in Haynie's DeathBed Vigil, over a quarter century ago, where a younger Greg looks like he is dismantling I.C.'s out of a computer (Amiga?) in the offices, in the midst of U.S. Commodore's demise. How time flies, for everyone.
Great interview and thanks for a great channel! 😃
Super fun interview! I'm a bit sad myself for "kludging" up my C64 (reset button, homemade other stuff), Amiga 500 (can't remember but this one might be pretty pristine but I have no clue where it is sadly, probably at my parents attic)... The A1200 there was so much stuff hanging out of it I could not close the lid and the power supply (was it 37'ish watt standard) could not really power everything at the same time... so there was a bit of a guru meditation because of it (or actually just a pretty burnt AC power supply transformer unit).
But the C64, Amiga was my most creative days. Then the Internet happened...
Ha, well said! I can feel your 1200 bursting with add-ons!
Fantastic interview. Congrats guys and keep working on it :)
Thanks so much Santi! Anthony and I have been doing Amiga projects together since 1987 and we are not stopping any time soon! Glad you are enjoying the videos. -- Bill
Great to hear from Dr. Mo! I bet that Commodore laser printer would have been interesting!
Wow... Greg Berlin. I'm pretty sure he was the reason bill was wearing that cast in the picture of him with long hair
Oh wow! ha ha
thoroughly enjoyed the video, thanks for posting.
Thanks for the nice comment Mike. Glad you enjoyed it! -- Bill
Nice talking to legends like him.
Yeah, he is a super nice guy with lots of amazing stories. Still lives in the shadows of Commodore's headquarters like many of the employees. Thanks for watching as always Vincent! -- Bill
The Guru Meditation We all still live there, aren't we?
Ha ha, very true Vincent!
Thanks for a great interview.
Right on Geir, thanks so much for watching it. Glad you enjoyed it. AMIGA4EVER!!! -- Bill
Ok let's have a pt2! Greg is cool
We would love to talk with him again. He is a super kind dude with an incredible amount of knowledge and Commodore history. Thanks for watching and glad you enjoyed it! -- Bill
Berlin reminds me of Peter Steele. They have some of the same face expresions.
Nice interview, I just refurbed my A1200 that I bought in '93
Sweet! I love the 1200. It is my main Amiga these days. Thanks for watching and keeping another Amiga alive!
Top bloke.
Greg mentions the AAA hardware. If you look at the specs for it (what it would have been), it is REALLY impressive! Too bad Commodore was in such rough financial shape at that point to pursue it much further (and they were moving on with Hombre instead anyway). Here's the wiki page that talks about the AAA hardware: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_Advanced_Architecture_chipset and here's the one about Hombre: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_Hombre_chipset
JW3HH
Sweet! Thanks JW3HH. It is really frustrating to think about what those guys cold have come up with if they had the opportunity. Amiga was so far ahead of it's time. -- Bill
Yep!
JW3HH
Does any/enough AAA hardware or specs survive to make a FPGA version of it?
your another gr8t video, thanks :)
Really appreciate the kind comment as always Qvverty! Thanks so much. -- Bill
I been using my A1200 over 20 years without any problem. But today, faced with the the capacitor problem.
Ah, that is a bummer, but unfortunately a very common problem. The capacitors just weren't designed to last this long. As long as they didn't damage any other parts of the mother board you will be OK. Sorry to hear your 1200 is sick. Sending positive healing vibes! -- Bill
Still looking good Greg! Where is the gray hair?? Yup, that was Hedley who chucked the floppy drive!
Thanks for sharing this. I wonder what kind of 16-bit computer Commodore might have been working on before they purchased the Amiga.
Glad you enjoyed it Andy I appreciate the good questions also. I don't know what they might have been working on 16-bit wise, but I need to finish the book "Commodore. A Comapny on the Edge." Perhaps they mention something. I iwll ask Anthony also because he has some great insights. Thanks again -- Bill
Very nice, guys
Thanks Retroblah!
Great interview, especially for an improvised one! Too bad Greg doesn't seem to have as many war stories as Bil Herd or Dave Haynie (or maybe he has the best ones and is too shy to tell them hahaha).
Greg, if you're reading along, I would like to know why some of the projects were canceled (especially those that never saw the light of day for OTHER reasons than the fact that the ship was sinking), and which ones would you have liked to finish, in hindsight.
Oh he has war stories alright! Anthony was trying to get them out of him, but he was a bit reluctant to say them on camera, ha ha! Great question. Hopefully Greg will see your question answer you. Thanks! -- Bill
As designer of the 1571 floppy drive, I bet Greg has some stories about interesting things they may have done with a 1571. It had a 2MHz 6502 CPU and 2K of RAM so maybe they did some fun programming that would allow it to have "alternative" uses.
Great point. I wish we were more prepared for the interview. We had no idea Greg would be there, he just showed up at Anthony's presentation. Perhaps we can do a proper interview with him in the future. -- Bill
awesome interview! I had a question. I thought the commodore as well as the Amiga was an american idea? Also a comment I understand that Commodore owned the biggest warehouse in the (us/world?) in PA. Which I understand is now and has been for a while the warehouse for the home shopping channel QVC?
Amiga was original made by Hi-toro in California by Jay Miner and his team. Then Commodore bought Amiga. Commodore's HQ was in Westchester PA and the building is now QVC
1:12 "He's a big guy"
For you
And I always thought, the 2000 was developed in Braunschweig...
I have some amiga equipment for sale where is a good place to post it?
AmiBay or Ebay. Or Craig's list especially for a local pickup
Great interview guys. Greg seems like a really good guy. However that guy Anthony... Ha ha
Thanks dad, glad you like the sound too!
Immersive story, full stop
Glad you enjoyed it, and thanks for watching!
Hi Guru Meditation - great interview - Greg Berlin will be featuring in The Commodore Story - can we use a screenshot of him to use on the campaign? kck.st/2lwUckm
Sure, no problem. If you could give us a photo credit that would be cool. We'll back the film for sure. Sounds awesome. Good luck with it!
Sure will do - you guys are awesome by the way... Steve (Steve Fletcher - Director The Commodore Story) - cheers
Aww, thanks Steve. That is super nice of you to say. We are a couple of crazy Amiga fanatics for sure! Good luck with the film. It sounds awesome, but then again I would think a 2 hour lockoff shot of an Amiga is awesome, so I am not the best critic, ha ha! I have shot a fair share of feature length documentaries so I know how much work goes into it. Kudos to you for making Commodore the subject of your film! AMIGA4EVER -- Bill