####################################################################
# ATTENTION: This post is a reference to a website. The poster of #
# this Usenet article is not the author of the referenced website. #
####################################################################

<URL:https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-the-commodore-amiga-power
ed-your-cable-system-in-the-90s>

The text below is a quotation from the URL above:
>
> In terms of planning our lives around what our TVs spit out, we've come
> a long way from the overly condensed pages of TV Guide.
>
> In fact, the magazine was already looking awful obsolete in the 1980s
> and 1990s, when cable systems around the country began dedicating entire
> channels to listing TV schedules.
>
> The set-top box, the power-sucking block that serves as the liaison
> between you and your cable company, is a common sight in homes around
> the country these days.
>
> But before all that was the Commodore Amiga, a device that played a
> quiet but important role in the cable television revolution.
>
> The Amiga was a much-loved machine, huge among a cult of users who
> embraced its impressive video and audio capabilities, which blew away
> every other platform at the time of its release.
>
> As a multimedia powerhouse, it was ahead of both the Apple Macintosh and
> the IBM PC by nearly a decade at the time of its 1985 release, and its
> launch price was a relatively inexpensive $1,295, making the computer a
> bit of a bargain at launch. And seeing as "Amiga" is the Spanish word
> for friend with a feminine ending, it was also friendlier than its
> office-drone competitors.
>
> For cable providers, the Amiga's capabilities for displaying content on
> a television were a bit of a godsend. Previous offerings, such as the
> Atari 800, were able to put messages onto a television screen, though
> not without much in the way of pizzazz.
>
> As a result, the Amiga quickly became the cable industry's computer of
> choice in the pre-HDTV era, especially after the release of NewTek's
> Video Toaster in 1990. Video Toaster, which at first was only compatible
> with the Amiga, made it possible to do complex video editing at a small
> fraction of the cost of specialized professional video-editing
> platforms, and that made it popular with public-access TV stations.
>
> ...