Hello!

[gridrunner-xy]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been an Amigan since 1987 and yes I’m another Manc. The first Amiga I ever saw would have been in 1985/86, an Amiga 1000 in the possession of a friend of a school friend. The Amiga was quite new at the time and this 1000 must have a been a pretty penny, but your first job still living at home can pay for things like that. To my young blue on blue C64 eyes, the things I saw stunned me. There aren’t many times in your technology life when things genuinely amaze as much of what you see is incrementally better in a way that just excites your peripheral vision, but occasionally something comes along that just slaps you in the face with its brilliance. The Amiga was one of those things to me and much more recently the Oculus Quest is another.

Seeing a mouse in action with Workbench was a revelation, then of course the graphics and sound on display. I remember seeing Marble Madness, Defender of the Crown and Interceptor. Defender of the Crown was jaw dropping. To think that the technically inferior Apple Macintosh debuted a year before the A1000 (note I am an Apple fan) and let’s not even talk about the IBM PC of the period - well it all just goes to show how the legendary Commodore marketing machine managed to make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse.

I later had a dalliance with an Atari ST that lasted weeks (it was basically a crap machine and no one in my orbit owned one and therefore had games I might cadge for it) and I sold my 64 and got a voucher from Commodore for £100 off a new Amiga 500. Which still made it £399! And who remembers that generous voucher scheme ? ?

The kickstart 1.2 500 I bought originally was soon replaced by a Cartoon Classics A500+ (Ladbroke Computers) and then a A590 hard drive purchased second hand from Micromart. I got the venerable Star LC10 printer and was word processing through college and on to university. The 500+ gave way to a 1200 with a 68030 card but by then the Amiga was falling away and the PC was appearing affordably everywhere and the DIY PC scene was just taking off. I made the switch around 93 and didn’t look back for a good few years.

Today I have a A1000 as my main machine with an ACA500+ sitting in a 3D printed contrivance off the expansion port. This great gadget makes it easy to get files on and off the machine using the CF auxiliary port. It has a primary CF hard drive and the ACA500 also remedies the boot kickstart inconvenience and lends a modest speed boost and memory upgrade. Next to the 1000 is a stock 500+ and both machines have the ubiquitous Gotek floppy drive. The 500 did have a Terrible Fire 68030 accelerator for a while but to be honest I was underwhelmed by the performance and it did weird things to Laser Squad (a cardinal sin!). I’ve had every Amiga model going in the intervening years with the exception of the Escom line of machines and the 4000 towers. However nothing can supplant the A1000 in my affections and it’s one machine I’ll never part with.

I do have one interesting Amiga peripheral which appeals to my fascination for laser disc games, the LDG parallel port dongle and a couple of their laser disc titles – Dragons Lair and Space Ace. I’ll pick up their Thayers Quest laser game one day when the price is right.

Stu

[SnkBitten]

Welcome. Amiga's tend to plant themselves somewhere in your heart/soul and you have a hard time staying away. I had an A1000 back in 1985 and upgraded over the years until I sold all mine to pay bills back in the mid 90's. Regret that decision a lot...but I eventually found my way back with an A4000 and A4000T.

[Nobby_UK]

Welcome !

[chip]

Welcome

[simonhez]

welcome