Why did you buy your first Amiga?

[AmigaHope]

Originally Posted by grond

A rich kid in my neighbourhood had a C=64 with 1541. I saved all my pocket money and eventually bought a C=16 with datasette for 149DM. Then the rich kid got an A500/1084S combo for his birthday. I couldn't believe the quality of the games. I kept saving and got a C=64 with datasette to replace my C=16. The rich kid sold his Amiga because he got bored of it and wanted a saxophone instead (to be honest, he became a professional saxophone and clarinet player so perhaps this decision of his made more sense than it seemed to me at the time). I thought he was totally nuts. I got bored with my C=64 and computers in general by around 1990. Still no Amiga. Eventually I saw an ad for an A600 for 299DM in summer of 1993. That was so cheap that I bought it to have something to do after having finished school that summer. That was the start of it all...

Jeez, should've saved up a little longer and got a 64 instead of the C-16. x.x; Talk about a crippled machine. Yeah the 1541 was expensive as hell but you could do a lot more with a C-64 and a datasette than with the C-16.

[grond]

Originally Posted by AmigaHope

Jeez, should've saved up a little longer and got a 64 instead of the C-16. x.x; Talk about a crippled machine. Yeah the 1541 was expensive as hell but you could do a lot more with a C-64 and a datasette than with the C-16.

I was twelve and with the amount of pocket money I got at the time saving for a C=64 would have meant waiting until I would have been 15.

[BarryB]

Why did I buy my first Amiga? Because some muppet shop owner in Belper thought part-x'ing a 1040ST was a good deal, I know who got the 'good deal' out of that!!

[fxgogo]

I got mine to start learning 3D and 2D animation. Of course I played games, but it was primarily a design tool for me.

[dreadnought]

Part of the reason for me was that I was actually disappointed with C64.

I was a completely broke teen and first got ZX after a few years of hard graft (saving/family begging/doing crazy odd jobs). Then after couple of years I wanted to upgrade but Amiga was too fresh and expensive in my area. So I thought C64 would be a good compromise because it also had the "big" games, like Pirates! or DotC. I sold the ZX and my aunt helped out with the difference.

But I could only afford the tape deck, and it turned out that playing the games I was after this way was either impossible, or an immense PITA (I used to do homework waiting for Pirates! levels to load). I also thought gfx wasn't really up to scratch, what with the large pixels and ugly colour palettes. I actually missed the ZX gfx

So after few months of that struggle I pulled out some more mad stunts (inluding a deal with my mom, where I agreed to cut my long hair -thrash metal phase- for a contribution) and got an A500.

Two weeks after that my FDD broke down and I had no warranty nor any money/bargaining power left. But that's another story...

[roondar]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

Part of the reason for me was that I was actually disappointed with C64.

Blasphemy!

I actually missed the ZX gfx

Call the inquisitor!

Ahem...
Sorry, my inner C64 fan kinda came back to the surface there for a while

Two weeks after that my FDD broke down and I had no warranty nor any money/bargaining power left. But that's another story...

My brand-spanking-new A500 had a broken joystick port. And my dad didn't believe it was broken, thinking that it was by design that moving the mouse caused the joystick in the other port to register movement. Took me six weeks to convince him to drive me back to the store to get it fixed.

Luckily, it was under warranty so it did get fixed. Eventually.
---
Anyway, I bought my A500 because of two things: massive amounts of exposure to Amiga game screenshots in magazines and watching lots of in-store demos. Also, I was a massive Commodore fanboy at the time as I had a C64, which I loved

Haven't regretted getting my A500 for a second

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by roondar

Call the inquisitor!

Or some nice people with straitjackets I know...

But actually, it's not as crazy as it sounds (especially sounds to people who only had the Commodore). C64 might've had superior sprites and colours but often inferior resolution in games. This was particularly visible in non-arcade titles and these were always my favourite. But sometimes there were even twitch games I'd rather play on ZX than C (eg Arcadia, Renegade, Exolon, etc).

If I had to pick one 8-bit machine for desert island it'd have to be the C (plus a damn floppy drive), winning on its software library strength. But my ideal 8-bit comp would be definitely a mix of the two.

[fitzsteve]

I had a Spectrum growing up then moved to consoles but I always wanted an Amiga as my friend had an A500 and the games looked sooooo much better. I remember being wow'd by Test Drive and Silkworm.

Fast forward to about 2001 I picked up an A1200 and a job lot of games at a Car Boot sale for £20, best money I ever spent, I had it setup along side my PC for years for my Retro Gaming fix.

[Mick]

I'll not lie my cousin had one and said he could copy me hundreds of games.

I did buy a lot of games later in its life though when I was a teen. Mountain bike and Amiga 500 best Christmas presents I was ever bought, both lasted well into my mid-teens. When I wasn't on my bike playing tiggy-wheel with friends I was on my Amiga.

[wanderer]

Originally Posted by dreadnought

...I pulled out some more mad stunts (including a deal with my mom, where I agreed to cut my long hair -thrash metal phase- for a contribution) and got an A500.

Two weeks after that my FDD broke down and I had no warranty nor any money/bargaining power left. But that's another story...

Give us more stunts like this.

[Paisley_Pirate]

I had a Timex Sinclair 1000 (Sinclair ZX81, I think was the UK name?) back in the day - and then got a C-64 and a modem to get online to BBS's. This was in about 1984. A short while later, in 1985, a friend of mine got an A1000 with a (gasp!) 80mb sidecar harddrive - that he ran a BBS with and - get this - did OTHER STUFF with at the SAME TIME! - it was truly shocking!
So, yes, I coveted his machine, but I was a poor just out of college drop out working for a living... but a little while later in mid/late 1986, I got an Amiga 500. I got an external drive (it was some off brand, but it worked well - I had it until the early 90s when my house got struck by lightning and it was attached to my A2000 that got smoked) and then got a trapdoor ram addon - and kept upgrading when I had a few extra $$$ in place. I do remember the very day I bought the A500 I bought "Alternate Reality: The City" as the first game I bought... it was fun right up until the disk crapped out.

Before I got rid of that particular A500, I ran a 2 floppy disk BBS off of it... with 1meg of ram and 2 diskettes... good times...

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Paisley_Pirate

but a little while later in mid/late 1986, I got an Amiga 500.

That would make you the very first A500 owner in the world!
(Commodore introduced the A500 in Mai 1987)

[Paisley_Pirate]

Originally Posted by Gorf

That would make you the very first A500 owner in the world!

(Commodore introduced the A500 in Mai 1987)

I'll own that... lol... Must have been 87, first year they were out... gimme a break, I'm old and feeble, and the years ran together...

Thanks for keeping me straight!

[Dan]

The reasons why we got an amiga (my brother and me) was because our friends had, as well, an Amiga 500.

Before amiga we had only the C64. And i remember going to the local store here, and saw an demo of a game:

A flying hand and few bee's.

Ok, i haven't played that game back then, but the comparison to the c64 graphics ..
it was just amazing !

First he got an amiga, and i played with the c64 until we had enough money to get me an amiga.

[robben74]

I had a C64. Enough of drooling over my friends playing Monkey Island and Sensible soccer... I had to get in par.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by robben74

I had a C64. Enough of drooling over my friends playing Monkey Island and Sensible soccer... I had to get in par.

Yeah well, it can also work the other way around I had an Amiga as my first home computer, but I was still extremely sad I couldn't play a large variety of C64 and MSX games; although I was lucky those machines were quite popular in my neck of the woods so I still got to play from time to time when visiting people. The software libraries were pure gold.

[Gilbert]

I bought my first Amiga because it was the greatest games and productivity machine you could buy. It was also the most popular machine - so it was well supported. We had a BBC Micro and a Spectrum so it was just a massive leap in power. I also really wanted STOS - and then heard AMOS was coming out on the Amiga so was just time to get one.

A few years later on I bought a Jap SNES and used that for arcade-style games like Final Fight, Street fighter 2, and F-Zero but we still used the Amiga lots for programming, graphics and music and played games like Player Manager, Dungeon Master, Populous - you simply couldn't get those on the SNES, or not as good at least - well apart from Sim City maybe

Really having those 2 systems was just amazing because they complemented each other.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by Gilbert

A few years later on I bought a Jap SNES and used that for arcade-style games like Final Fight, Street fighter 2, and F-Zero but we still used the Amiga lots for programming, graphics and music and played games like Player Manager, Dungeon Master, Populous - you simply couldn't get those on the SNES, or not as good at least - well apart from Sim City maybe

Funny enough the Snes did have some unconventional titles such as Dungeon Master and Obitus. But I don't remember ever seeing them in the shop.

[mr.spiv]

ZX Spectrum was not posh anymore and I needed to upgrade.. I so badly wanted to write demos and stuff. This saved me from ST

[dreadnought]

Originally Posted by mr.spiv

ZX Spectrum was not posh anymore

Speccy posh? Never, it was as much a people's/ghetto micro as a micro could possibly be