Memories!!!!!

Who remembers the good old days? When we waited in anticpation of the next lot of disks we would get our hands on. Luckily for me there was place where all Amiga lovers could meet up once a week swapping games with each other for hours on end. That was was the good thing about the Amiga, it wasn't that difficult to get hold of anything and once you had a copy of X-Copy your few disks then became a mighty collection.
Not that I'm condoning PIRACY, but when you're only about 10 & can't afford to buy any originals yourself you have to resort to copying or you'll miss out.
Not to say that I didn't own any originals I must have had about 150ish.

What annoyed me more than anything was the people who went to this computer club (as we called it) & sat there all night playing the newest games making the rest of us sick. You'd go up to these people most of them double my age and ask them if it would be alright to copy any games that they might of had.
No F-Off would be the answer, unless you had anything new for them. How could they do this to kids?
The tight bastards!!!!!
Though in the end I got my own back on these people as I made quite a few contacts through my school and it ended up me telling them where to go, anyone else though I was happy to let borrow anything, I wasn't going to deprive anybody.
I can still remember these Amiga Lamers today!!!

Amiga Lamers suck!!!!

Does anyone elso have bad memories about these people?

Zeewolf

I used to go to these places as well. I had about a dozen friends with Amigas and every Sunday there would be a computer club. One of our fathers would drive about 4 or 5 of us to the place and we'd unload about 3 or 4 Amigas and set them up. Each of the machines had extra disk drives as well so we could churn out so many games in one day. It only cost a pound to get in as well, it was well worth it.

There would be lots of people selling peripherals and disks and disk boxes, it was great. The disks that people were selling were off the cover of magazines and they were selling them dirt cheap, this was one of the reasons that my collection got so big. I remember buying an extra joystick parallel port adapter and constantly having 5 people round my machine for an entire day while one of my mates copied all the games that people were letting me borrow simply so they could have proper 5 player games of Dynablaster.

I do feel a bit guilty actually, because it was people like me who sort of killed the Amiga. If it wasn't for the thousands like me who would take part in this, developers would have stuck with the Amiga. I too had a lot of originals no as many as 150 mind, probably about 60 but that took a lot of money for an 11 year old. In the end I got rid of all my copied games and I sold some of my originals and I only have a few classic originals left in my loft.

I also used to hate the people who wouldn't let you copy the latest games. I didn't have anything to offer because the computer club was THE place where I got my games, where else was I supposed to get them? We always found ways round getting the latest game.

X-Copy??? I never really took to that - I always prefered to use D-Copy, it was much more user friendly than X-Copy and just as reliable, I think.

[RCK]

I lost two years of my life by playing at Dynablaster / Bomberman all the midday in my college on Amiga, with the special adaptater (5 person in multiplayer)...

What some great years ! yeah, no regret

sniff (tears to eyes)
ah the good old days, ive used emulators, emulating the amiga on the pc for a while now, but u just cant beat that real atmos u get with an amiga
my personal fave is the amiga 500+ which was the first and only amiga i had, i had to full kit for it to, GVP HD+8 40MB hard drive with 2MB of fast memory on board, 1mb chip ram expansion in the amiga as well as the 1mb chip ram on the motherboard, and the philips mkii monitor
does anyone remember the old bbs boards ?
like plastic passion, magic mushrooms and a few of the crystal and fairlight ones they had
greaaaat days

[Twistin'Ghost]

Well, you guys are lucky. Here in the US, we Amiga freaks were scoffed at by the PC crowd. Imagine how this made us feel...they outnumbered us 100 fold, and laughed at us for using Amigas while they used EGA systems that cost a fortune and were complete rubbish! A great deal of our crowd fell prey to their peer pressure and bought PC's as well (claiming they wanted the apps and the RPG/strategy/flight sims, etc.) Those of us who stuck by the better machine were the clear winners because not only did we get to stay with the Amiga, but we made decisions for ourselves and not what the Joneses TOLD us to think!

Anyway, with no kind of cool scenes like you Europeans had, we knew what was going on overseas (yeah, we read the scrolltexts and diskmags and Amiga Power, etc.), so we were well aware of the scene we were missing out on. We formed our own club, of which I was the ringleader (since I had the biggest warez collection and could literally get anything anyone wanted via my elite BBS connections.) And while it was likely nowhere near as cool as the Euro scene, it was still one of the best times of my entire life!

We had swapping parties and Amiga Vs. PC parties and started a local BBS. A lot of the older kids who got warez from me would be stingy with them when kids asked to make copies, but that was OK because I'd let the kids get copies of anything they wanted even if they didn't have anything to offer back. Since the kids didn't have any other means of getting new games, I even gave them leech access on my BBS. I guess this was inspired by the friendship movement on the scene from the early 90's. One of the kids even became a coder (so I got him a copy of DevPac and he made us a nice little intro!) We were deprived of a scene, but we created one anyhow and I wouldn't trade that part of my life for anything.

[CodyJarrett]

I had some similar experiences - I went to a computer club on Saturdays at school and we used to bring in Amigas. That's where I first saw games like Another World. Then we'd copy the games.

The Amiga was the centre of attention too, when we would organise multiplayer Dynablaster and Body Blows sessions.

I got in touch with a pirate through the newspaper ads, and he used to sell me games from his list.

I also played lots of PD multiplayer games with a friend during lunchtimes - Trick Or Treat, Scorched Tanks etc.

[Burge]

Well, I'm a new member here but I am certainly not new to the wonderous world of Amiga. From the age of about 5 - 12 I would live, eat, breathe and sleep Amiga. The way i got games was a little different to you guys. You see, my dad was a maths teacher and was able to get me games from the students he teached. I even think he bribed kids to give him games so I could play (God bless X-Copy). Anyway, everyday when he got home from work I would bager him and ask 'did you get any new games today?" I could tell when he had that cheeky smile on his face that he indeed did have new games and I love him for that. Anyway, that's my story and I am glad that I have found sites such as this to rekindle my love for all things Amiga.
I personally had an Amiga 1000 with a sidecar which enabled things such as a harddrive, extra RAM a second drive and a shitload of (mostly) pirated games. Ok then, cya.

Burge

[CodyJarrett]

What a touching story. Amiga strengthens paternal bonds. I think I'm going to cry.

My father used to throw disks at my head. One time he beat me senseless with an A500. Some people are so lucky.

Very Funny Cody, I like your sense of humour.

Well Done Twistin, for letting the kids have access to the games. Like I posted previously I went to a computer club, but at this computer club the Adults who went would refuse to let us Kids have access to the latest games.

We had to resort to underhand tactics. Sometimes stealing games for 5 minutes while we coipied them and then returned them. This ran the risk of the organiser shutting down the club due to the thefts. Which was a bit strong seing as we always returned the games within 15 minutes.

Anyway it was very rare that we found an adult or at least anyone older than us who would willingly lend out the latest games. If we did, we exploited them rotten.

I say again, Well Done Twistin'

one of my dads m8's used to work on the oil rigs, and that was rife with cracked games
he used to bring them home by the box load, and we'd get the box for a day, to copy either the whole lot or whatever games took our fancy

Where did my youth go? I thought I was the only one who spent long nights in front of X-Copy waiting for the boing sound, but dreading the red line...oh no burst nibble mode with verify mode on! ARGH!

I started getting selective so it went from a hundred or so games/utils a week to 10 at most by the end.

I remember being stopped by some police because I was walking home at 3am and some burglar was around. The police asked me what was in the bag. What was I meant to say? They searched my bag which had hundreds of floppy disks in it, and the copper wanted to know if I could copy some off for his son. Laughed my arse off.

I never got into computer parties. People there just seemed to come along to wait to see was was doing the rounds. Being offered CLI-Mate for a game...piss off!

As for floppy disks...they make good frisbees but that's a different story

[Tim Janssen]

From 1991 till 1994 I took the train every month to Venlo, the Netherlands. For years a legendary C64/ Amiga copy party was held here in a local club building. It attracted many VIPs from the crackers scene in The Netherlands and Germany. Trivia: The programmers of Disposable Hero, Hein Holt and Mario van Zeist, first met each other here.

With just enough pocket money I bought here three packs of discs. There were many people who brought their Amigas with them and they were willing to copy games for me. -How gentle.
I remember how everyone got excited when new and exciting games like Pinball Dreams, Another World, Streetfighter 2 and Lotus Turbochallenge 2 were showed. But demos like Jesus on E's, Hardwired and Spaceballs really astounded the public.

Sadly the atmosphere changed badly during 1993. Suddenly people with large suitcases appeared, showing you games that weren't even previewed in gamesmagazines. They wanted you to pay for pirated games. Sadly some 8 year old kiddies were willing to pay for the games, not sharing them with others. -Less and less people were attracted to the copy party. In June 1994 after 12 years the party was last held. With only 2 Amigas and 3 C64's it was the end of one of the greatest (or notorious) copy parties ever.

[Twistin'Ghost]

Hmmm...I'll just bet the 8-year olds would have made an exception and let me copy their games. They'd have said "Hey, aren't you the guy who let us copy games when everyone else told us to bugger off?"

Be nice to people on your way up cause you may run into them again on your way down...or something like that.

[LaundroMat]

Copy party Venlo, the Netherlands

What was the name of that party?

Never been to any myself, though I fondly remember those Wednesday afternoon friend meetings, where large rucksacks and big cardboard boxes with floppies in them were lugged around. Just like everyone else, I guess.

I have to agree with the statement someone made here, that in fact we were part of the crowd who killed the Amiga through all that copying. Although I am not too sure whether that is the sole reason for the Amiga's demise...

Small personal anecdote:
I sold my Amstrad CPC 6128 - in order to be able to buy an Amiga - to some people who were in fact pretty computer illiterate. I even told them the Amstrad was IBM compatible (which, in a way, wasn't incorrect, as PC/M was an operating system some IBM PC's used ). The minute I sold that Amstrad, I went to the store for my Amiga 500, and the same evening I went to some computer club with it, and started playing games with a friend (Stuntcar Racer - all night long!). I was telling said friend how I sold the Amstrad, and that in fact I felt a bit bad about it (which was compensated by the fact that I now had an Amiga ). And then suddenly I saw the peeps I sold the Amstrad to, standing right behind me, gaping in awe at the 3D visuals of my new computer...

I really felt sorry for them then.

Never saw them again.

Lots of memories...disk boxes, daisy chains of disk drives..

Yes I do feel guilty ( about how copying brough the Amiga to it's knees ) but we were, from what I remeber - mostly kids chasing kicks...

So many hours lost... Gods ( Probably only me ), Stunt Car Racer, and laterly Worms. I still get this out when there's a group of us - just to show how unlike on the PSX the ninja rope bent round the scenery!

I now, as part of my on-going scavenging have two a500s, a600, 3*a1200, and a cd32. Plus plenty of boxed games...and plenty that never were

And I wish I'd caught on video a friends face when we booted up his old 500 a few weeks ago, and he exploded when the crack screen on Turrican came up....then he was in - the old sounds, old graphics, edge detection.............& hours & hours of fun!!

I'd argue with one of your comments there BWT.

Piracy didn't bring the Amiga to it's knees.

Commodore fucked it all up by itself, but that discussion is for a completely different thread.

[LaundroMat]

Hell no, you weren't the only one playing Gods for hours on end. That game ruled!

Originally posted by Khephren
I'd argue with one of your comments there BWT.

Piracy didn't bring the Amiga to it's knees.

Commodore fucked it all up by itself, but that discussion is for a completely different thread.

Fair point, but piracy didn't help: and yes I do remeber some laterly odd marketing moves; such as the launch of the first CD games console - the tradegy of the CD32.

The power of global capital ...now that is definately another thread.

Oh..cheers LaundroMat: most people I met just listened to the intro tune!!

I loved Gods. Its true though that the game was not as good as its theme tune which was superb.

I completed the game several times (hacked of course) it was far too hard to complete without having a cracked version of the game. I did try to play it more or less properly. Just with the infinite lives crack activated. There was no point in playing it if you use the unlimited money cheats as well, you could walk through every level if you did that.

I think we have deffinitely found the two reasons that the Amiga died. Commodore deffinitely fucked it up, but we also forced the developers away because their profits were coming down on every game, good or bad. They simply could not find a way of protecting their games against pirates and we exploited that to the maximum and for that I feel guilty.

The Amiga would have died even if piracy was not as rife as we made it because Commodore obviously did not have an advertising department

I'll never forgive them for the complete and utter failure they made of the CD32. I bought one of those bad boys, I only had an Amiga 500 with the one disk drive before that, so for the first time I could play some new games and without loads of disk swapping. Who remembers the Advert for the CD32? It was a direct copy of Nintendo's advert for the SNES. "A Bloke tests machine by getting robot to play on it, robot blows up because the machine is too advanced for it", YAWN. The advert disappeared very quickly and was never seen again and there were no more. The games for the CD32 were mainly ports of A1200 games or old A500 games (maybe with improved graphics, usually not though)

I still have the CD32 and about 30 or 40 games as well. I sometimes dust it off and have a game of Guardian or Roadkill. I think, though, that it would be depressing to count how many of the games were not direct ports of others. It would probably be about 3 out of my collection. If that

Then of course Commodore just gave up

[Tim Janssen]

Hi LaundroMat,

Sorry for being a bit late with my response. I was some days off (Queensday in the Netherlands, you know).

A couple of posts ago, you wrote:

Copy Party, Venlo, The Netherlands. What was the name of that party?

The party was organised every third Saturday of the month by a foundation called Stichting Huiscomputers Nederland (SHN). It did not have a real name. SHN was in reality just a family who travelled along the country renting some locations and selling software and hardware. The heads of the family were two extremely fat brothers with a sweaty smell and high voices (no kidding!).
SHN also held the party in Nijmegen, Utrecht and The Hague. The Venlo party was most popular because Venlo is situated along the German border so it attracted many people from the German user/hack/crack scene (which was more lifely than the boring grey Dutch scene). The party was held in a local clubbuilding called "De Staay", which is located in the centre of Blerick.
The family behind SHN also own a little Dutch software/ reseller company called Courbois. They have written many (horrible) PD programs and demos for C64 and Amiga. They are located in Beuningen, the Netherlands. Courbois still exists. -I saw the two brothers last year selling software on the HCC-dagen, the largest computers trade show in the Netherlands.

P.S. about Gods: I downloaded the pc version a couple of weeks ago from Home of the Underdogs. It is almost identical to the Amiga version except that those nice copper backgrounds are missing. Nothing beats the original. :float

Tim