# Amiga 1000

25 Hacker News commenters recommended Amiga 1000 and 4 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 41 years (4 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Recommended for fast, responsive input handling and preemptive multitasking; critics say it was not ten years ahead of rivals and floppy setups were clunky.

## Why people recommend it

- Fondly remembered by long-time owners (7 comments): "My second computer was an Amiga 1000 with a 68000, a CPU even more directly a successor to the PDP-11 than any other." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48567710)) "I got my A1000 in late '85 and only had prior exposure to 8-bit home computers" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49994970)) "when I got a 68000-based A1000 in 1985 and programmed it in assembly language" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47818360))
- Fast, responsive input and mouse (4 comments): "The mouse is a hardware sprite and its movement stays responsive and smooth even under heavy load" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49018636)) "I can't think of anything today that comes close to how instantly it responds to user input" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49018411)) "clicking a button, typing, or moving the mouse was as fast as it could possibly get" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49018520))
- OS used low-level hardware well (2 comments): "The special sauce of the Amiga was that the operating system actually made use of low-level hardware features" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49018826)) "AmigaOS had preemptive multitasking (in 1985!)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49022519))

## What people warn about

- Not ten years ahead of rivals (2 comments): "The Amiga was a great computer when it came out, but it was not 10 years ahead of anything." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49021171)) "Terrific, but not sure about the ten years ahead." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49021124))
- Poor management at Commodore (2 comments): "10 years ahead, but for Irving motherf- Gould wasting it all out of pure greed" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49018963)) "Things could've so much better if upper management wasn't disfunctional." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49017788))
- Clunky and sluggish from floppy (2 comments): "Floppy based Amigas were incredibly clunky." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49042726)) "Skip to ~9:50 when it gets real sluggish." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49018484))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Apple Mac](https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-mac.md): 453 recommend
- [Apple Mac Studio](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mac-studio.md): 319 recommend
- [Apple M1 Mac](https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-m1-mac.md): 48 recommend
- [Apple II](https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-ii.md): 46 recommend
- [Apple Macintosh](https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-macintosh.md): 34 recommend

## Where to get it

- [See price on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Commodore+Amiga+1000+vintage+computer&tag=hackerapprove-20) (affiliate link)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Amiga 1000", https://hackerapproved.com/p/commodore-amiga-1000/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).