What makes you an Amiga user?

[manic23]

I'm interested to gauge what makes members here an Amiga user in 2013. I mean modern PCs and Macs are a 1000 times more powerful than even a highly ungraded Amiga 4000 these days, so why do we all love the Amiga so much?

For me, if I am brutally honest it is nothing more that pure nostalgia, I had an Amiga A1200 back in the early 90's and want to relive my younger days and play the games and use the software that I remember using back then.

Having said that, I am really loving learning about aspects of the OS that I never knew (or cared about) back then like tool types for example, I never knew about stuff like that back in the day, and of course now we have the pleasures of Compact Flash Cards and the awesome WHDLoad, the wonders never stop .

So come on people tell us why you use an Amiga now in the futuristic world of 2013...

[Kitty]

It's all about the games and demos for me. Kickstart 1.3 era.

[fitzsteve]

Mostly for me it's to have the systems I couldn't afford back in the day, I'm the same with my consoles such as my Sega WonderMega, I desperately wanted one as a teenager and didn't have the dosh!

Same for the Amiga, some of my mates at school had A1200's and I was really jealous! I didn't get my A1200 till about 2001/2002 but used it for a few years with an 8mb Ram board I got on eBay cheap.

I'd kept it stored for about 6-7 years and only when I got tee Amiga out to sell did I realise there was such a huge following, I got my first 030 upgrade a few months after and well the rest is history!

[psygnosis]

im doing things now that i couldnt do...mainly because i couldnt afford to

for example....adding extra ram c,f cards

its much easier nowadays with the likes of ebay to just search for amiga products click buy and wait for delivery then add to your machine.

the use of floppy emulators and cf cards nowadays are brilliant full credit to the people taking time out to develop these things.

also online blogging on how to mod amigas is another brill thing also not avalible back in the day

[blade002]

For educating those for whom are younger on this system by showing them it running (it's important to me that it be known due to its influence), my niece for when she comes over, my ex-fiancee loved it when I would put something cute on for her such as Globdule or Rodland.

Also there are those from Asian countries, friends of mine that never had the Amiga in their prospective nations, friends that heavily into IT so again it's a history lesson for them. '

And for myself, it's nostalgia, sharing with those aforementioned people and it's still an escape from time to time when the world becomes a little too much, to take me back to a better time

Oh and finally, it's the artistry behind the software, the beautifully drawn pixel art within demo's and games and the unique sounds it can produce such as what the C64 does with it's SID chip..etc

[musashi5150]

I've been an Amiga user since 1990 and have never stopped. Yes, I have PCs & consoles as well, but there has never been a time when at least one Amiga wasn't permanently setup on a desk

At first it was always about the games. Moving on from a Spectrum the step up was huge and I lapped it up! As time moved on, and I got older, I became more interested in the technical side of things and got used to AmigaDOS scripts, setting up harddisks and constantly tweaking the system for no particular reason From the games background my attention had been drawn by the many colourful cracktros I had seen over the years and I decided to start getting down 'n' dirty with Assembler. I did briefly flirt with AMOS but quickly decided it was crap (no offence to anyone - it's just not my cup of tea).

After reaching a stage where I was quite familiar with the display hardware I then coded my first trackloader. The side effect of understanding the disk hardware is that you can then remove disk protection (or at least have a good try). My first crack was MFM + longtrack and I was quite pleased with myself This then led on to patching code and eventually making a few WHDLoad installs amongst other things.

I appreciate I'm rambling now, but from the very first sight of an Amiga I loved it and that just never went away. Sure, it's old now and certainly can't compete with anything modern technically, but it's just a lovely little machine. There is a lively community and there are still new things being developed for it regularly.

Hopefully I've hoarded enough machines to last me a lifetime. I'll certainly need them as I'm not planning on leaving this little club

[Coltch]

I'm using an Amiga now as I couldn't afford one when they came out and moved onto PC's quite quickly for work.

It's also a nostalgia thing, my Amiga's were bought because I always wanted one and was envious of friends that had them (I was on a C64 & PC when the A500 came out).

I originally wanted to get just one Amiga to go with my Spectrum + because space is at a premium - that failed and I now have 6 Amiga's along with my 3 Spectrums and different peripherals, getting the ACA1231 gave my A1200 a new lease of life and I use that machine more than my various PC's.

Now all I need is to get a C64 and my collection will be complete.......until I spot something else on Amibay/eBay

[psygnosis]

Originally Posted by Coltch

I'm using an Amiga now as I couldn't afford one when they came out and moved onto PC's quite quickly for work.

It's also a nostalgia thing, my Amiga's were bought because I always wanted one and was envious of friends that had them (I was on a C64 & PC when the A500 came out).

I originally wanted to get just one Amiga to go with my Spectrum + because space is at a premium - that failed and I now have 6 Amiga's along with my 3 Spectrums and different peripherals, getting the ACA1231 gave my A1200 a new lease of life and I use that machine more than my various PC's.

Now all I need is to get a C64 and my collection will be complete.......until I spot something else on Amibay/eBay

i got this cheeky little number a while ago always wanted one back in the day

[alkis21]

I've been an Amiga user since 1987, and I see no reason to stop. Kick Off 2 is still my favorite video game of all times, and I am still enjoying dozens of other games too, some of which are practically extinct on PCs, such as 2D platform games or shoot'em ups. Sure I could use emulation, but having an Amiga in my computer room made me a cool kid 25 years ago and I still strongly believe that it makes me a cool kid today. People still enter the room and go "WOW, is that an Amiga?".

[TCD]

Originally Posted by alkis21

...but having an Amiga in my computer room made me a cool kid 25 years ago and I still strongly believe that it makes me a cool kid today.

Now that's a great way to put it

I don't want to use a smartphone to play platformers and shoot 'em ups today, but I mainly use the convenience of an emulator. Nonetheless the Amiga had a nice amount of unique and/or well made games that I can still fully enjoy ~25 years later

[manic23]

Originally Posted by alkis21

...but having an Amiga in my computer room made me a cool kid 25 years ago and I still strongly believe that it makes me a cool kid today. People still enter the room and go "WOW, is that an Amiga?".

LOL, I also love that statement, I think you should have that as your sig!

interesting you say that People still enter the room and go "WOW, is that an Amiga?" I have totally the opposite, most of my friends and work makes think I'm in need of urgent medical attention still using an Amiga now, they just don't understand

[Mrs Beanbag]

Put simply, a computer with 1000 times more power just isn't interesting. I tried to get into OpenGL on the PC a few years ago and produced a few impressive things, far too easily, and I quickly got bored. And then if you ever do manage to reach the limit, you only have to wait a few months for the next graphics card to come out. I never really got into 3D games anyway, the only game I really played on my PC was The Sims which I reckon you could do on the Amiga anyway, gameplay wise. In fact I see modern games all the time and think, you could do essentially the same game on Amiga without the fancy graphics so the appeal of all that extra performance is a bit lost on me.

Programming with strict and definite limitations, and trying to squeeze out every last drop of performance, is far more satisfying. This is why even when I program for Amiga I aim for an unexpanded A1200, even though I have 32Mb RAM and 68060.

[NovaCoder]

I was very late to the party, I think what got me into them was the fact that there was still an active scene, oh and they are fun

[John Pillow]

Originally Posted by Kitty

It's all about the games and demos for me. Kickstart 1.3 era.

Same goes for me :-) But fast forward 20+ years and emulation had me discover Workbench 3.x, so i am learning and get to know what i missed during my "absence" in Amigaland, plus it's great that development still exists for the platform, still trying to decide wether or not to invest in a so-called-AmigaNG (have a MacMini with MorphOS, but it's rarely used as i'm more of a "on the go person" and prefer laptops).

[manic23]

Yer, I know what you mean about 3.x well 3.9 in my case, I also was out her Amiga scene for many years, I sold my A1200 with the intention of getting a 4000T but by the time I had nearly saved enough for it, Commodore went bust, so I never got one. I got a PC instead (sorry to blaspheme), so I never really knew anything about AmigaOS 3.5 or 3.9 but its great fun learning all about it now.

[Coltch]

Originally Posted by psygnosis

i got this cheeky little number a while ago always wanted one back in the day

envious

[lordofchaos]

Having withdrawal symptoms is a good sign your an Amiga user :-) Sometimes you just need to hear the sound, sometimes you need to play that game, sometimes you need to see some copper bars, sometimes you need to hear that disk click sound, and sometimes you even need to see that Guru message!

[Bamiga2002]

Originally Posted by lordofchaos

Having withdrawal symptoms is a good sign your an Amiga user :-) Sometimes you just need to hear the sound, sometimes you need to play that game, sometimes you need to see some copper bars, sometimes you need to hear that disk click sound, and sometimes you even need to see that Guru message!

Nuff said! Close to my sentiments there
minus the gurus maybe

[diablothe2nd]

I remember (and have the photos to prove it!) the birthday i had as a kid, when my speccy +2 was never powered on ever again and my brand spanking new amiga 600 with external drive and 2mb ram took it's place at the "computer desk". ahhh such fond memories. not only of using the amiga but every month was like christmas for me as i'd saved up my 5 pounds pocket money and cycled on my bmx as fast as i could to the newsagents to buy another magazine with cool new free stuff to play with

nowadays i'm collecting all those magazines and coverdisks I couldn't buy (£5 per month pocket money only got me one, so had to choose carefully) and all the hardware (A1200, BPPC, hard drive etc) i couldn't afford back then. hell i cant afford alot of the stuff even now (mediators! ouch!) but i still to this day get that warm fuzzy feeling firing the miggy up and hearing that drive click. emulation is fine for me too when i want to play lemmings on my 50" tv

aside from collecting magazines and coverdisks and pimping my A1200 I've been reading an awful lot more about the inner workings of it. I've set myself a goal of learning everything i can about the A1200 in particular and am already starting to code my first game. for me i think it's an age old platform that once you learn about you never need to keep updating yourself because the hardware doesn't change as fast as modern hardware does.

TLDR: I want what i could never afford as a kid, and want to learn everything i can about the A1200

[sneeker]

I missed the games, and as I never got a 1200 when it came out as I decided to jump ship to the pc instead. So now spending my time playing the games I missed.

I do miss lugging it to the pub every few weeks and copying the games, it was a lot more sociable then.