Run your fingers over a full-size computer wedge and you remember a desk that did not need a separate tower. Keyboard and machine were one object. Commodore sold that shape in 1992 as the Amiga 1200. AGA lived under the keys. Workbench came up in front of you. For years, whenever someone tried to sell that shape again, they hit a wall of paper. You could copy the plastic. You could not print the word Amiga on the box.
Dummy Keys
I watched that compromise happen with The A500 Mini. From across a room it looked like an old friend. Time Extension reviewed it in 2022 and said the miniature keyboard was purely for show. Dummy plastic. The Mini used off-the-shelf parts and software emulation. You could plug a USB keyboard into one of the ports if you wanted to type. The keys molded into the case did nothing. Sit down the way you sat in 1992 and your fingers hit a painting of a computer.
In August 2026 the same site noted the Mini was not allowed to use the Amiga name. Retro Games Ltd had shipped a wedge that remembered the Amiga 500 and could not say so on the carton. An orphan box, whispering what it was, because the title had been stuck in boardrooms since Commodore went down in the nineties.
That is the loss you could hold. A keyboard that would not type. A name you were not permitted to print. The Mini shipped. The word stayed in the contracts.
The Name in the Contracts
In August 1984, Commodore and Amiga brought their work together under Commodore-Amiga. That is the year the name became a company you could print on a machine. After the 1996 Escom liquidation, the marks split. Amiga Corporation's August 4, 2026 update lays the path out. The Commodore and C= trademarks walked off with Tulip Computers, then later owners. The Amiga marks stayed. So did the old code, the hardware designs, and the documents, in a chain of title Cloanto had helped keep together. Mike Battilana's Amiga Corporation holds that chain now.
A 2009 deal with Hyperion Entertainment frayed for years. On August 4, 2026, Amiga Corporation settled that fight and replaced the old contract. Classic 68K stays with Amiga Corporation. Hyperion keeps AmigaOS 4 under license. Hyperion's remaining 68K rights are transitional: AmigaOS 3.2 and 3.3 as upgrades for systems that already have the OS, and distribution of those products ends no later than December 31, 2027. Retro Games Ltd sits on the licensee list with Cloanto, Commodore, and Hyperion.
The keepers matter because they kept the word from dissolving. Battilana held the paper. Hyperion kept OS4 alive under license. Retro Games Ltd, the UK outfit that already shipped the Mini, waited until the name could sit on a full-size wedge. The paper is why the object on the desk can finally tell the truth.
The Wedge That Types
Retro Games Ltd said it on Facebook: THEA1200 is officially an Amiga product. The full-size unit is due December 4, 2026, listed at £169.99 from their store. GenerationAmiga put it plainly. When it launches, it will officially be an Amiga.
This one has a working keyboard, a recreation of the original layout at full size. Workbench boots. GenerationAmiga later reported Workbench 3.1, and a choice to come up on the desktop or on a game carousel. A two-button mouse comes in the carton, and an eight-button gamepad. HDMI to a modern screen. USB for storage. You can load your own software from a stick, WHDLoad included, the way people used to feed a hard disk instead of a pile of floppies. Retro Games lists twenty-five games on it, with four save slots each. Fine. That is not why I care.
They already delayed the launch once. GenerationAmiga reported in May that the plastics and the molds were done, and that the extra months were for the operating system. Hardware finished, software still being made to feel like a computer. December 4 is the date they landed on.
What lives under the keys is a program. GenerationAmiga says THEA1200 is built around software emulation, not original Amiga hardware. Retro Games' own store calls it perfect emulation of the A1200's AGA, and of the older OCS and ECS machines. The original silicon stayed in 1992. If you want those chips, you still hunt original boards. This is a licensed recreation that types, boots Workbench, and is allowed to wear the name.
Gaming Retro reported that people already spotted a packaging revision with the official word on it. Commenters talked about changing the molded case. Given manufacturing turnaround, Gaming Retro figured a case change is unlikely for the first run. The box is the tell. The machine does not have to hide.
Hands on Real Keys
I care that you can rest your hands on real keys and load Workbench. The Mini had to pretend. This one types. Retro Games waited for the license. Battilana held the name. The word spent the years after Escom in contracts, and it came home on a cardboard sleeve. The carton is allowed to say Amiga.
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