Director: Anthony Caulfield, Nicola Caulfield
Distributor: Gracious Films
Duration: 151 minutes
From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years – Documentary Review
Nowadays, personal computers and consoles are so established in our daily lives, yet only a few decades ago, they didn’t even exist. It’s hard to imagine a world without them, but of course, it all started somewhere and somehow, which is exactly the story this documentary will tell you.
Starting with Atari, going to a whole range of Amiga consoles, with the Amiga 1000 as one of the most important launches, ‘From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years’ takes you back for a history lesson about gaming consoles and computers. Amiga was a pioneer in more than one thing, such as building a personal computer, including keyboard and mouse, on which you could also play games, but also the graphical progressiveness and multitasking were very important steps forward. State of the art as it was, an Amiga was also intended for the common people and with a cost of less than a thousand dollars, it was indeed very popular for quite some time. Many of the team of Amiga are interviewed in this documentary, who give you an idea of how it was working there and to be honest, it must have been hard, yet amusing and fun at the same time.
Within a timespan of two and a half hours, you get quite a detailed insight into the why and how of the Amiga success. People who worked on the first Amiga tell their story and it’s nice to see that, even though it’s been so many years since they worked together on this big project, they still talk about it vigorously and with a lot of respect for each other’s work and ideas.
Because the documentary is so detailed, it is very interesting, yet at the same time it is at some points quite difficult to keep up with what is being said, as the technical aspect is not always that easy to understand right away. Nonetheless, even without knowing all too much about computers, you will have picked something up after watching this, as next to the technical aspect, there is also the history of the Amiga consoles that is interesting regardless of whether or not you know the technical details.
The documentary handles three important issues, two of which we have mentioned before, namely the history of the Amiga consoles and the technical aspects that come with it. Next to that, there is also the history of Amiga as a company, adding yet another layer to the whole. The entire topic of the documentary is quite extensive, which means that it’s well worth lasting two and a half hours. It is quite a long time though, and the many interviews will make your concentration slack from time to time, even though it is well worth paying attention.
Conclusion
From Bedrooms to Billions: The Amiga Years tells an elaborate history of personal computers and gaming consoles that is definitely very interesting, yet also not easy to follow. Simply because there is so much information given, it’s difficult to keep up with all that is being said, definitely the more technical aspects. Nonetheless, even though the details might pass you by, the general history does become quite clear, thus it’s still an interesting documentary to watch. All in all, this is a definitely a good choice for those who already have some affiliation with the subject as it is quite detailed. For those who are new to the subject it is a bit harder to follow, but you’ll definitely have learnt some new things.
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