Private company

Amiga, Inc.

Logo: Unknown author Unknown author, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons3

Licensing company

Amiga, Inc. was a holding company run by Bill McEwen that used to own some trademarks and other assets associated with the Amiga personal computer, from 1999 until 2019. The company most notably licensed the rights for packaging and selling classic Amiga (versions 1-3.x) operating systems to Cloanto, and the rights for a newly-built next generation operating system (AmigaOS 4) to Hyperion Entertainment. The company has its origins in South Dakota–based Amiga, Inc., a subsidiary of Gateway 2000, of which McEwen was its marketing chief.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1996Founded1
  • Industryvideo game industry1
  • HeadquartersIssaquah1
Amiga, Inc. headquarters Snoqualmie, Washington, 2001 panorama
Photo: Robert Bernardo (BIOSJERBIL), CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons5

Amiga, Inc. was a holding company run by Bill McEwen that used to own some trademarks and other assets associated with the Amiga personal computer, from 1999 until 2019. The company most notably licensed the rights for packaging and selling classic Amiga (versions 1-3.x) operating systems to Cloanto, and the rights for a newly-built next generation operating system (AmigaOS 4) to Hyperion Entertainment.2

The story

In the early 1980s Jay Miner, along with other Atari, Inc. staffers, set up another chip-set project under a new company in Santa Clara, called Hi-Toro (later renamed to Amiga Corporation), where they could have some creative freedom. Atari, Inc. went into contract with Amiga for licensed use of the chipset in a new high end game console and then later for use in a computer system. $500,000 was advanced to Amiga to continue development of the chipset. Amiga negotiated with Commodore International two weeks prior to the contract deadline of 30 June 1984. In August 1984, Atari Corporation, under Jack Tramiel, sued Amiga for breach of contract. The case was settled in 1987 in a closed settlement.

In 1994, Commodore filed for bankruptcy and its assets were purchased by Escom, a German PC manufacturer, who in turn went bankrupt in 1996. The Commodore-Amiga assets were then sold to another PC manufacturer, Gateway 2000, which had announced grand plans for the Amiga. However, in 1999, Gateway sold the assets (except for the patents, which were only licensed) to Amino Development for almost 5 million dollars. Gateway still retained ownership to the Commodore-Amiga patents. The last of the Commodore-Amiga patents (EP0316325B1 for "Cursor controlled user interface system", based on US887053) expired on July 14, 2007.

From Wikipedia’s article on Amiga, Inc., shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Timeline

  1. 1996Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5