I don't know if I'd call it an ancestor. When I first saw the Amiga 1000 introduction articles in the computer magazines in 1985, the Mac vs PC wars were already well entrenched and I had both a Mac and a PC. It didn't stop me from getting an Amiga 2000 in 87 when I'd saved up enough money though.
That's an odd turn of phrase considering that both the Mac and the PC predate the Amiga.
If anything surely the Mac's Ridley Scott directed launch Super Bowl ad was the start of "Mac vs PC".
People loved the Amiga because it had a lot of modern features for the time and was reasonably priced. You're definitely right, it's the little computer that could.
The demo scene loved the Amiga because a lot of hardware features were left undocumented ready for you to discover and wow your friends with.
Technically true. The PC definitely predates both, but the first Mac launched in 1984 and the first Amiga in 1985. They were very much contemporaries.
I remember these commercials, because they were on a VHS recording I had of Back to the Future, along with a brief news clip of the only Soviet Shuttle flight.
Amiga 500 commercial (1988)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2KiNpqATUY
Atari 1040ST Computer Commercial 1988 With 1 Megabyte Of Memory!
sweeps config.sys under the rug
It's from a time where if you wanted games and you were a kid, you most likely pirated them. Wanna learn to code? Start messing with your game's files and hex editors. The demoscene was where the cool kids came up with ways to push the limits, beyond commercial software. Beyond that oh so lame Microsoft PC.
It's remembered fondly because it's a way to congregate the people who were there. I never had an Amiga as a kid, my parents had a PC. But I still care about that community. It feels like my people, when I started computers.
Much like music has genres and some might be nostalgic, so does the demoscene. It just doesn't get as many releases as on Spotify.
Respect to all the groups still making content for it. I'll share my favorite recent one, by TheBlackLotus https://youtu.be/W5_NMxW5UfE