Commodore Amiga

This article is about a piece of equipment. For more information on what it is for or how to use it, try its documents wiki article.

The Commodore Amiga (fondly refered to as the 'Amoeba') was YSTV's main graphics computer between before 1995Unverified or incomplete information and 2003, when it's increasing unreliability lead to it being replaced by Graphics PC.

Mainly used for DPaint (basically a souped up bitmap editor with animation extensions) and Scala (a home video titling program which did scrolling credits and similar) along with a little custom YSTV software.

The important feature of the Amiga was that it had a Genlock unit, so that graphics could be superimposed over live video as well as producing full screen animation content. For a long time it existed only as a stand-alone machine, although in the early 2000s a PCMCIA network card was added so it could be networked to the rest of the station.

When remote control was necessary for exercises like Election Night Graphics it was usually provided via a serial port cable.

The first Amiga owned by the station was an Amiga 500 plusUnverified or incomplete information. This was later replaced by a donated Amiga 1200 in 2000Unverified or incomplete information. This was substantially more powerful than the 500 featuring extra memory, AGA graphics and an accelerator board (which meant that it had to be raised from the desk).