Amiga 500 applications

Hello everyone, new to this forum with little Amiga experience.


When I was 5-6 my grandpa had an Amiga 500 and until my 10 whenever I visited we played games like SWIV etc. However, at the time I never thought anything else besides playing some games. After it broke down , I never thought much about it until recently.



So I am writing this post to ask you what are some applications/tasks that we can do with an Amiga. And I am not talking about artwork or gaming. I am thinking of any possible tasks that it could manage. I have read that an amiga handles the air conditioning of some schools in the US. I want to hear more examples, examples that could be used at our house as well. I am extremely curious!



Thank you!

[chip]

Hi !

No idea of what you are asking for, sorry

I only use Amiga for fun

Anyway, welcome to the forum

[Daedalus]

It all depends on what extra hardware you kit the Amiga out with. For many years I had an Amiga 600 that would control all the electrical equipment in my room (main light, lamp, stereo, TV, window blinds...) based on inputs from a button panel, remote control, light and PIR sensors, and timers. There was some custom hardware involved but it handled the tasks very well, and most of the software was written in Blitz Basic or ARexx.

On a more software side, if your Amiga is sufficiently powerful, you could use it for many things. I used my A1200 throughout Uni for writing my reports, designing projects, developing software, some photography work, playing music, burning CDs, watching TV... Some internet-related tasks can still be viable too, such as email and IRC.

If you're sticking to an A500, you might be a little more limited, but there are still some very clever, if slightly Frankenstinian, expansions that can push it way beyond what it was capable of back in the day.

[AMIGASYSTEM]

1980s Amiga has been running the AC and heat in 19 schools for 30 years:

https://www.geek.com/geek-cetera/com...years-1625147/

Originally Posted by Daedalus

... an Amiga 600 that would control all the electrical equipment in my room (main light, lamp, stereo, TV, window blinds...) based on inputs from a button panel, remote control, light and PIR sensors, and timers. There was some custom hardware involved but it handled the tasks very well, and most of the software was written in Blitz Basic or ARexx.

That was more or less what I was thinking, but couldn't imagine it possible with Amiga. It must have been quite the task back in the day I presume?

[demolition]

Originally Posted by herc34es

That was more or less what I was thinking, but couldn't imagine it possible with Amiga. It must have been quite the task back in the day I presume?

I doubt it - it is simple logic which doesn't require much in terms of CPU power or memory (most of it comes from the overhead of the chosen programming language).

[Daedalus]

Indeed, not a lot to it at all. I built a relay interface board which attached to the internal floppy port and could be controlled with simple CIA accesses (the system booted from a 120MB Conner hard drive I had salvaged from an old PC). Inputs and some outputs were multiplexed to the joystick ports, the serial port was connected to my internet-connected A1200 so I could control it all remotely, the parallel port was used to drive a small alphanumeric LCD giving status information. All of these signals were passed through a 25-way ribbon cable that ran around the perimeter of my room, with regular connectors allowing different modules to be plugged in wherever they were needed.
As well as that, there was a small amp and speaker built in, so sounds could be played and the narrator.device used for information and alarms.

On the software side, there were a number of small programs that each looked after one aspect. They were pretty simple, and all hooked together using ARexx:

- A main relay controller which poked the relevant bits to turn on or off the relays when required. It had 32 "slots" for signals, any of which could be tied to one or more relays to turn them on, off or toggle on a leading edge, trailing edge or both, and could count a number of signals before acting, giving a lot of flexibility.
- A manual control program that listened for button input signals on the joystick ports and translated them into ARexx messages for the relevant relay, also providing GadTools buttons for manual control.
- InfraRexx, which was a hardware/software combo given away with CU Amiga back then.
- A comms program that listened on the serial port for simple commands such as relay commands, mouse move and keyboard inputs, and translated them as required. It also allowed simple file transfers back and forth.
- A timer program that sent signals based on countdown or time-of-day alarms, as well as playing sounds. This could also be configured via ARexx.
- An overview ARexx script that updated the LCD display with information like time of day, certain settings etc., and would show the current alarm or signal for a few seconds when required.

Each module was pretty simple, but allowed lots of flexibility, so for example, my alarm in the morning would turn on the motor to open my blinds, turn on the lamp, main light and stereo, and speak with the Amiga's voice "it's time to get up now!". A limit switch would signal it to turn off the blinds motor, and a timer would be started that would switch off everything once there was no movement in the room for 15 minutes.

It was all pretty responsive on a 2MB A600. I had also tried to get VoiceShell running on it, which could have had it responding to voice commands, but while it more or less worked, it was very tight on RAM and made everything else a little sluggish, so I ditched the parallel port sampler (which I also built) and used the parallel port for the LCD instead. The whole lot was hidden away in a drawer under my desk.

It was a fun project that was dismantled when my little brother inherited the room. I did start to document it all and eventually wanted to make it all available to download, but haven't gotten very far with that...

[demolition]

Sounds like you must have spent quite some time building that system.

[Daedalus]

Indeed, many, many hours went into it as a teenager. Then I discovered booze and women and my productivity has never been the same since

[nogginthenog]

At Amiga32 there were a few 3D printers running. I was a little disappointed none were being controlled by Amigas.

[Daedalus]

If they were being run directly, that shouldn't really be surprised - outside of Postscript, it's hard enough to find a 2D printer that works well enough with an Amiga to be useful, let alone a 3D printer. And even then, it's only useful if you also have USB on your Amiga.

Almost all but the most basic 3D printers can also be used stand-alone however. At least these have a chance of involving the Amiga, were some G-code generating tools written for or ported to the Amiga. but even if you generated the G-code from the model's STL on the Amiga using a ported tool, there are still no CAD or modelling packages on the Amiga to my knowledge that can generate the required STL in the first place.

So basically, 3D printing is a long, long way off for Amiga.

[nogginthenog]

You would use Cura etc to generate the G-Code. The Amiga would simply send this to the printer. I'm currently installing a MKS Gen L board on my printer. It has an AUX connector.

[Daedalus]

Indeed, so then you need to have two machines involved, and transfer data between them, with the Amiga simply being used as a terminal... It's hardly worth bringing the Amiga into the equation then since it doesn't actually do anything other than moving pre-prepared data down a cable - the same thing most printers do internally anyway.