What else were you into in your Amiga years?

[005AGIMA]

During the time, and age when you initially owned your Amiga (so mid to late 80's into mid 90's for most of us) what ELSE were you into?

What "time" in your life does the Amiga take you back to?

For me......
Street Hockey / Skating
Many a summer evening, I'd be home from school, skates on and lined up on a street waiting for the office workers to leave the local "Land Registry" at the end of thier working day, so we could hijack their car park and use it to play Street Hockey (or tag, or just listen to music while on our skates).

My skates were shitty ones but eventually I got a prized pair of Bauer Turbo 33's with a backstop, and a Cooper hockey stick. GREAT times.

I remember the day I got my Bauers, which I'd wanted for AGES.

We'd just got back from a holiday. I was then meant to go meet my "girl friend" (Think I kissed her once....on the cheek....ah Isabel.) But I was late because suddenly Mum and Dad presented me with these Turbo 33's, brand new, with a back stop (no one had a back stop).

My mum didn't like my girl friend so I had to carefully choose my escape window lol.

Eventually went out and found Isabel on her way home and she was like "OMG You've got Bauers!!!!!"

Thanks Mum and Dad.

BMX
I'm sure I'm blurring things a little, and possibly by the time I had my Amiga, we'd moved on to Mountain Bikes perhaps? but I'm sure there is cross over here.

My BMX was a Raleigh Super Burner. mmmmm gold! I love goooooooold!
My older brother purchased it for me for one birthday.

God I lived on that thing. It was my KITT. My Trigger. My....bike that was often off the road with a puncture, waiting for Dad to fix it (or show me how).

Mountain Bikes
Would have been about that time we upgraded our BMX's for Mountain Bikes.
OMG 18 gears!!!!!
Mine was a Raleigh Mustang. As rugged as a BMX (or so I thought) but as fast as a 10 speed racer (or so I thought).
Great fun up the local woods.
I soon learned that you dont jump a mountain bike (at least not those early ones) like a BMX. If you do, you'll soon bend the front forks lol.
Later upgraded to a Diamondback, and then a Claud Butler (which got stolen during that golden era in the UK when EVERYONE had their bike stolen. It was pretty much guaranteed to happen.)

Radio Controlled Cars
I should say at this point that MANY of these hobbies and trends were inspired by our mate "Steve".

Steve was a little older than the rest of us, and had more access to funds, and always had the coolest stuff.

I have to mention Steve here because I'm pretty sure the day we met Steve, was the day he awed us up at the local park which his Tamiya Hornet!!!!

OMG that thing was as fast as a REAL CAR I SWEAR!!!!!!

And OMG he had to "BUILD IT!!!!"

WOW STEVE IS AWESOME!

Steve was the First to get a SPectrum +2, and the First to get an Amiga I think. And he got the big box Shadow of the Beast with the T-Shirt.

...he had the best BMX (mongoose) and the best Bauers (because dark blue, rather than black, is more expensive) and the best Mountain Bike (Diamond back when the rest of us were on our Raleighs.)

I really must look Steve up actually.

Anyway, so I got RC cars, but cheap pre-made ones from Woolworths originally. They were fun but not like Steve's hornet until I got my own Tamiya Thunder Dragon. AWD Awesomeness with a futuristic body which I purposely left transparent.

My older brother built the thing lol, but I upgraded the front mono-shock to duel wishbone suspension myself later. And later still converted it to rear wheel drive, and put a Ferrari Testarossa mold body on it for "street" use. Even rigged up reversing lights lol. By that time of course Steve had his Hornet AND a Clod Buster, and I'm pretty sure he had a Lunch Box as well.

Steve actually bought me an RC Glider kit for my 18th, which is still in it's box at my parents place. One day I will build it. I promise.

Model Railways
The other major hobby and money pit was trains. I can't tell you why. While most of our friend group were all into the same stuff at the same time, it was just me and Steve into trains really.
Again, Steve had all the best stuff but I also put together quite a collection.
Mostly the traditional 00 gauge Hornby stuff. Intercity 125 starter kit was added to with the GWR Pannier tank, carriages, track cleaning car (that never worked lol), rolling stock. Some Lima stuff crept in.

But space was the problem in small English houses.

So I discovered N guage and that was a game changer. My dad made room in the loft and we erected some boards so I could start a permanent layout.

Before this we'd put a tractable board above the stair case inspired by a neighbor who did the same, but to come up the stairs when the trains where in use, you had to crawl under the board at the top of the stairs lol.

Oddly I have no "sellers regret" on my model railway gear. It's all still up in the loft. Not setup, but it's all there. Well mostly. I think one of my sisters took some of the stuff for her son (with my permission) but on last look, most of it is actually still there. Especially the N gauge stuff I think.

Skateboarding
Just like BMXing really, none of us ever really got very good. Inspired by the Back to the Future times I guess, we all went from 70's style skinny boards to big fat pieces of wood. I eventually got a quality Variflex board with side grips and everything, and then later built a custom Santa Cruise deck.

Steve did the same of course, only...better. As always

But I swear we invented Street Luge before it had a name. Mostly, we'd all rig up our decks for downhill speed. The fastest wheels. The best bearings. The tightest trucks to eliminate death wobble.
Then we'd go find the biggest hill, and race down it. Not standing up. We weren't that crazy. But any other form was acceptable. Laying down. Sitting. Kneeling. Face first. Feet first. It didn't matter.
We'd have a "start line" and then a "stop pushing" line, and then a finish line.

And my god, you could never go fast enough. "Too fast" was a phrase we didn't understand.

Comments about my Amiga Years
So I guess then, like now, my memories are, yes, about stuff, but about people. The family that made the stuff possible. The friends I shared the stuff with. Life was about surviving another day/week at secondary school, just so I could go home and fire up the Amiga, or go out on my bike or skates.
School for me wasn't about work. It was about waiting. Waiting for it to end so that life could begin.
And when we could, me and my school mate Lee (who didn't live near me) would just talk about Amiga games. Comparing games and arguing about whether freescape style 3D graphics were better than graphics in games like Dungeon Master. An Argument we even took to the teacher for a third opinion, magazine with screenshots in hand.
Looking back, they were better times. In truth, they had their problems if I'm honest, but the fact that I remember the good more than the bad, tells me life WAS good.
What I have to realise now is, life IS good today too.

Live in the moment....but now....tell me about YOUR past. About Your "amiga years"
What things did you never give up even?
What things will you re-discover?

I still have some Bauers (inline), I now hit HARD mountain Bike Trails, I have an Airwalk Skateboard, and when I consider myself old enough, hell I'm setting those trains up again

[chip]

PC .....

[Predseda]

What do you mean 'else'?

[chip]

Exactly !

We were (ARE) nerd

[-Acid-]

Chess ! (extreme I know) me and a few friends joined the chess club at school and some of us had chess computers to play against as well, we were about 15 then.

[d4rk3lf]

Ninjas!

[fxgogo]

A fair amount of raves and general partying. It was my twenties after all.

[Daedalus]

Ooh, N-gauge! I had been into model railways as a kid, but likewise my space was quite limited so very little room for anything other than a slightly extended starter oval from Hornby's OO range at the time. Incidentally, I damaged my first computer (an Atari 800XL) by building a controller for my model railway that connected to it. It kinda worked, but not having access to the proper connectors meant I was bodging things all over the place and therefore shorting out connections with alarming regularity.

In my teens I had a girlfriend from Berlin, so I was over and back from there quite regularly. They always had much better toy stores (and stores in general), less interested in the latest trend and more in quality stuff. HO and N gauge stuff could be bought everywhere, so I would always come back with some new track, buildings or rolling stock. Build up a pretty decent layout that was intact until I moved out of home.

I also volunteered for a while with the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland, working on steam train trips and looking after the coaches. And, because it was Ireland, I also was serving pints in the train's bar from time to time...

It was pretty much always electronics, programming, computers in general, with photography, music and travel also taking up any of my spare time and cash, more so towards the clubbing and gigs and drinking as time went on. Cycling and casual football kept me fit too. That carried on through mostly until the present day - still the same hobbies but now family life means there's precious little time for anything else. My camera's rarely been out of its bag in the past few years, football and cycling are special occasions too, and I can't really remember the last gig I went to

[Gordon]

Football. Then.

And now.

[CrazyPepsi]

haha yes ninjas we were watching ninja movies and trashed chairs haha with our hands ofcourse

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Ooh, N-gauge! I had been into model railways as a kid, but likewise my space was quite limited so very little room for anything other than a slightly extended starter oval from Hornby's OO range at the time. Incidentally, I damaged my first computer (an Atari 800XL) by building a controller for my model railway that connected to it. It kinda worked, but not having access to the proper connectors meant I was bodging things all over the place and therefore shorting out connections with alarming regularity.

In my teens I had a girlfriend from Berlin, so I was over and back from there quite regularly. They always had much better toy stores (and stores in general), less interested in the latest trend and more in quality stuff. HO and N gauge stuff could be bought everywhere, so I would always come back with some new track, buildings or rolling stock. Build up a pretty decent layout that was intact until I moved out of home.

I also volunteered for a while with the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland, working on steam train trips and looking after the coaches. And, because it was Ireland, I also was serving pints in the train's bar from time to time...

It was pretty much always electronics, programming, computers in general, with photography, music and travel also taking up any of my spare time and cash, more so towards the clubbing and gigs and drinking as time went on. Cycling and casual football kept me fit too. That carried on through mostly until the present day - still the same hobbies but now family life means there's precious little time for anything else. My camera's rarely been out of its bag in the past few years, football and cycling are special occasions too, and I can't really remember the last gig I went to

yeah N gauge was so awesome hey. Where I live now, I have plenty of space but to be honest, I'd still go back to N gauge. It's just so much neater I think personally.

My mate Steve back in the day, went to a train expo and came back with a fully setup Z gauge layout on a board, all with scenery and everything already setup. Just plug in and go. Even smaller than N. Was a crazy detailed layout and it fit in the corner of his bedroom lol.

[power]

muscle cars, never grew out of that one either. haha

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by power

muscle cars, never grew out of that one either. haha

hehe for me, to say "I'm into cars" is like saying "I'm into breathing".

It's just a given

Cars = life :P

The size of the models I collect has simply grown to 1:1 scale haha.

Far cry from the bag of matchbox/corgi/hotwheels I used to take everywhere.

[gimbal]

I was just a kid and in my early teens when I sadly lost my Miggy and sold my heart to a PC, so yeah. Just kids stuff. Cartoons, legos, marbles, movies and later music. Besides that I was infatuated with technology, if it bleeped and blooped it had my full attention. Strangely enough that never developed into an interest in electronics, I went down the software path instead.

Even in my younger years I was a movie hound and was obsessed with seeing movies that my parents did not allow me to see because of my age. Good times. Also some bad times, I got exposed to the Alien chestburster scene at around age 5-6. Body horror should not be part of a child's imagination, I can tell you.

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by gimbal

I was just a kid and in my early teens when I sadly lost my Miggy and sold my heart to a PC, so yeah. Just kids stuff. Cartoons, legos, marbles, movies and later music. Besides that I was infatuated with technology, if it bleeped and blooped it had my full attention. Strangely enough that never developed into an interest in electronics, I went down the software path instead.

Even in my younger years I was a movie hound and was obsessed with seeing movies that my parents did not allow me to see because of my age. Good times. Also some bad times, I got exposed to the Alien chestburster scene at around age 5-6. Body horror should not be part of a child's imagination, I can tell you.

hahaha I didn't see the Aliens franchise till much later into my teens and remain a huge fan of the franchise to this day.

However my "5/6 years old horror" moment was watching JAWS at that age.

Yeah......even my rubber shark for bath times had to go in the bin. Had nightmares for MONTHS lol.

[drHirudo]

During my Amiga years I started and finished university, which had nothing to do with the Amiga (the IT class was with Windows 3.11). Except once when I've printed lecture schedules and exam's topics with a Daisy wheel directly from my Amiga 500. With the Daisy wheel I had to learn ASCII graphics, since there was no other way for graphics output from the printer.

[mcbpete]

Byker Grove or Grange Hill or Dark Season or whatever was showing at 5:10 on Children's BBC.

[Jope]

Mountain biking, glider planes. These days I no longer fly and my bike is a boring old hybrid commuter. :-D

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by Jope

Mountain biking, glider planes. These days I no longer fly and my bike is a boring old hybrid commuter. :-D

get back into mountain biking mate and not on an e-bike

I did about 2 years ago and it changed (and possibly saved in the long term) my life.

I go out every weekend now and in the summer (when it can easily hit high 30's here) sometimes 2 or 3 times.

I miss the UK terribly but one thing I know I'm very lucky having here in the Perth hills is AWESOME trails on my back door step.

One of the more interesting runs but still only a "blue" (medium) not a black (hard)
[ Show youtube player ]

I go along a couple of logs at about 3:15

[Jope]

Nah, not going to get an e-bike. I don't need to be convinced about how nice it is to ride a bike. :-D

A friend of mine offered me a specialized rockhopper for cheap. Perhaps I should take him up on the offer..