English Amiga Board - View Single Post

Andec · 24 September 2007, 12:19

Hi all,

As I await the imminent arrival of my A500, I thought that I would write a brief description of how I got into Amiga's and computing in general.

I started late. Very late. My first computer was a System-80 (TRS-80 clone) that I bought in 1993 (I was 22). At the time, I was a musician and wanted a very basic computer to help me store MIDI patterns for my drum machine. The System-80 turned out to be the wrong choice. However, when I bought the Sys-80 ($15.00), it came with a ton of Micro-80 magazines and some Programming in BASIC books. I ended up so addicted to typing in the games and saving them to cassette, that we needed to buy a second TV.

Incidently, one of the absolute best "graphical" adventure games that I ever played was written for the Sys-80. The game was called "Asylum".

By the time the Sys-80 died in early 1994, I had been "improving" the games having taught myself programming. About the same time, my wife and I moved and our new neighbour had a C64. My neighbour and I would scour the newspapers each week looking for people that wanted to offload their old C64 gear and we ended up with quite a collection of both hardware and software. At about this time, our neightbour across the road bought their 11 year old son and A500 (second hand of course - IIRC it cost about $20). The very first game that I saw was SWIV.

I had to get one.

I managed to pick up an A500 (512k) a couple of weeks later. I started collecting software for the A500 and upgraded the RAM to 1mb.

Enter Monkey Island 2. I can remember playing it for three days straight! My wife was always yelling at me to turn the computer off and come to bed (Awww hon, 5 mins more, pleeeeeese?). I spent more time in front of the A500 than anything else. If I wasn't playing with the miggy, I was thinking about the miggy (and occasionally my wife, hehe).

At the start of 1995, I started my training as an applications programmer. Sadly the A500 died about two months into the course and I was so busy getting my head around COBOL on a VAX/VMS system that I never even investigated what was wrong with it. I kept the A500 with the view to repair it. It never happened and somewhere along the line, it disappeared.
I eventually got a PC and went through the whole Doom I & Doom II thing. I don't know what it was, but the games felt "different". It just wasn't the same as playing games on the miggy.

For various reasons, not least of which is that I have 6 kids, I haven't until now been able to get my hands on another miggy. The catalyst for getting another one was reading the book "Underground" by Suelette Dreyfus (The story of The Realm hackers that were based in Melbourne here in Oz) and discovering WinUAE.

I had always wanted to write a game for the A500. But, at the time, I didn't have access to the proper tools and AmigaBASIC just didn't seem to cut it. It wasn't until 1996 that we "got the net" and before that I didn't have a modem so there was no calling BBS's. After writing a couple of homebrew PSX(1) games for the kids, I think I will give writing a game for the A500 a go.

My 3yr old son is now the biggest game player in the house. ATM, he is playing Van Helsing on the PS2. Hopefully we can spend a heap of time together playing on the Amiga.

Cheers
Andec

24 September 2007, 12:19	#1
Andec Registered User Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Australia Age: 53 Posts: 83	Just wanted to introduce myself Hi all, As I await the imminent arrival of my A500, I thought that I would write a brief description of how I got into Amiga's and computing in general. I started late. Very late. My first computer was a System-80 (TRS-80 clone) that I bought in 1993 (I was 22). At the time, I was a musician and wanted a very basic computer to help me store MIDI patterns for my drum machine. The System-80 turned out to be the wrong choice. However, when I bought the Sys-80 ($15.00), it came with a ton of Micro-80 magazines and some Programming in BASIC books. I ended up so addicted to typing in the games and saving them to cassette, that we needed to buy a second TV. Incidently, one of the absolute best "graphical" adventure games that I ever played was written for the Sys-80. The game was called "Asylum". By the time the Sys-80 died in early 1994, I had been "improving" the games having taught myself programming. About the same time, my wife and I moved and our new neighbour had a C64. My neighbour and I would scour the newspapers each week looking for people that wanted to offload their old C64 gear and we ended up with quite a collection of both hardware and software. At about this time, our neightbour across the road bought their 11 year old son and A500 (second hand of course - IIRC it cost about $20). The very first game that I saw was SWIV. I had to get one. I managed to pick up an A500 (512k) a couple of weeks later. I started collecting software for the A500 and upgraded the RAM to 1mb. Enter Monkey Island 2. I can remember playing it for three days straight! My wife was always yelling at me to turn the computer off and come to bed (Awww hon, 5 mins more, pleeeeeese?). I spent more time in front of the A500 than anything else. If I wasn't playing with the miggy, I was thinking about the miggy (and occasionally my wife, hehe). At the start of 1995, I started my training as an applications programmer. Sadly the A500 died about two months into the course and I was so busy getting my head around COBOL on a VAX/VMS system that I never even investigated what was wrong with it. I kept the A500 with the view to repair it. It never happened and somewhere along the line, it disappeared. I eventually got a PC and went through the whole Doom I & Doom II thing. I don't know what it was, but the games felt "different". It just wasn't the same as playing games on the miggy. For various reasons, not least of which is that I have 6 kids, I haven't until now been able to get my hands on another miggy. The catalyst for getting another one was reading the book "Underground" by Suelette Dreyfus (The story of The Realm hackers that were based in Melbourne here in Oz) and discovering WinUAE. I had always wanted to write a game for the A500. But, at the time, I didn't have access to the proper tools and AmigaBASIC just didn't seem to cut it. It wasn't until 1996 that we "got the net" and before that I didn't have a modem so there was no calling BBS's. After writing a couple of homebrew PSX(1) games for the kids, I think I will give writing a game for the A500 a go. My 3yr old son is now the biggest game player in the house. ATM, he is playing Van Helsing on the PS2. Hopefully we can spend a heap of time together playing on the Amiga. Cheers Andec