World Premiere of Amiga

July 23rd, 1985 is a special day in Amiga history. It marked the launch of the Amiga 1000 computer. The event took place in the Vivian Beaumont Theatre Building at Lincoln Center in New York. Commodore spent a considerable amount of money on an orchestra, a ballerina and last but not least, got Andy Warhol and Debbie Harry to appear on stage. It was broadcast worldwide via satellite uplink.

Dave Needle arrived late due to a last minute issue which came up: The day before, Jack Tramiel called the FCC and claimed that Amiga had cheated on the emissions test for the computer. Upon hearing the news, Dave flew out to the FCC facility in Long Island to do another test and prove that Jack and Atari Corp. were lying. It passed.

In the meantime, the plane which the rest of the Amiga staff had boarded was having engine trouble. They wished Dave had been there as he knew how to troubleshoot an aircraft. This was back when the FAA allowed one to do so.

During the rehearsal, Bob Pariseau instructed Andy to be as creative as he wanted but "Don't touch the flood fill". At the event, after photographing and digitizing the portrait of Debbie, Andy began to put his finishing touches on it in the paint program... and in a creative frenzy clicked on the flood fill. A sense of dread filled the room. Amiga's resident artist Jack Haeger is sitting next to him and gets very nervous. Fortunately it worked and the computer didn't crash.