My life with the "Girlfriend" Pt. 1

A note from the author:

As you may find out very quickly, I am not a native English speaker. So some of the German word plays (and much of the grammar) may actually NOT be very good English. Sorry.

I hope you still enjoy it as much as I had fun writing about it.

Oh, an the original German version can be found at:

http://www.amiga-news.de/forum/threa...9476&BoardID=1

Hope to see you, hope to read you - and keep the Amiga alive!


Prologue:

Ever since I started with the detailed description of the reactivation of my "girlfriend", more and more memories started creeping into my mind about the whole story of myself and the Amigas.

Well, now I've put some effort into it and have written it all down - everything regarding my encounters with these machines (and some more).

Nostalgia always requires a certain distance in time (as well as distortion of memories) and many others will have very similar stories to tell.

But this one here is mine...



My life with the "Girlfriend"


1. Max Headroom

The year was 1986. Everything was fresh and new. I was a "free" (meaning "unpaid") employee in a computer shop in my city.

Basically, that meant sitting around for most of the time and exchanging knowledge and trivia with other like-minded people - or fiddling about with the computers there. Until - finally - some work befell us "vasalls" und we had the chance to earn our further stay in the shop - including its advantages as a "knowlegde-base".

By that time I had actually never heard anything about a computer by the name of "Amiga". My personal interest was still mostly concentrated on my C64 (incl. a disk drive), which would finally receive the blessing of a socketed EPROM ("Fast Kernal") to "convince" it to fast loading by the end of the year.
(This lousy fast loader was actually sold to me by some shabby money grubbers und was the prime reason to motivate me doing my own hardware modifications in the future. But more about that at another time.)

Cutting edge and also (*1*) present in the shop was the Apple Macintosh. A beautiful machine that we had to present to customers once in a while (and which disks would magically disappear into a lockable drawer as soon as the demonstration was over). However, I didn't like a number of things about it. On the one hand, its graphics were only black-and-white - although much nicer than on my C64 - on the other hand what you could make out of its games available seemed to be mostly of the "Mine Sweeper"-brand (more for clerks and lawyers I suppose). And then of course there was the price! 10.000 Deutsch Marks were far beyond my possibilities back then!

Then one of these days my dad surprised me with an article from a magazine (I guess it was from DER STERN) about a new "Wondercomputer" by the name of "Jackintosh". Of all people my dad! What sounded (at least to what he had understood) like a cheap, rather illegal Macintosh-clone (which would also appear some time later) turned out, instead, to be the first Atari ST! Yet, at that time I had no idea. The "Jackintosh" received some discussion in the shop but was quickly filed under "illegal, cheap clone" or "presumably as unaffordable as the Apple".

Then one day the first Amiga (1000) appeared in the shop! Freshly purchased from a wholesale dealer and assembled. The design reminded me of the Commodore C128D - elegant and professional. More like an office machine than a home computer. Even if IBM-keyboards didn't give me much enthusiasm back then and the 3,5"-disk drive rather puzzled me.

When I joined the ongoing demonstration they were showing the Workbench and the Amiga-Ball-demo (or maybe the juggler, it's been while). Very nice! And so many colors! Oh, and the sound is also nice. But the price quickly and mercilessly destroyed any illusions: 5.000 Deutsch Marks. Ouch!

That same day someone turned on the machine a second time and (since the Kickstart disk was in the drive) you could at least admire the blue disk symbol for a few minutes. "Oh, great!", I thought to myself, "Turn it on and there's nothing on it? Just like the Macintosh!"

For a first encounter a rather bland impression.


2. Step by step a little closer

By midyear 1986 I became acquainted with a techno freak, whose brother had just purchased an Amiga (1000).

While we young whippersnappers were busy pimping our C64s (Speeddos was the hit!) this one was really reaching for the skies! It was the first time I saw a game on an Amiga - THE PAWN! And it blew me away! The SOUND, the GRAPHICS! I had the music of the game recorded to a tape and none of my mates would believe me that this stereo sound was actually coming from a computer WITHOUT a MIDI or a synthesizer connected to it! But since big brother left home just the same year it remained the only contact from that side.

But at exactly the same time my nerdy neigbours purchased an Amiga (1000) too! Their place was only three houses away from ours! Until then I had only shown up there to watch video and now suddenly the "mother of the house" had acquired such a wondercomputer to "work properly"! For some hefty 3.500 Deutsch Marks (incl. accessories!) that fun was way over budget for a student! The monitor turned out to be one of those nasty Philips ones, which I didn't like at first sight. It even looked shabby to me when new.

Since Mum's grasp of computery was sometimes a bit hampered, the oldest son generously offered himself for help and the Amiga remained - at least in the beginning - for the most time in his room. Now was the chance to see a bit more of it. However, the "wise man" was mostly interested in office software since Mum had to be helped!

Fortunately, since the kids in that house were busily doing vacation jobs, the oldest one got his own Amiga only a short time later - the fabulous Amiga 2000! With a whole Megabyte of RAM (500kb Chip, 500kb Fast)! Wow! Incredible! And it came with... another Philips-monitor. Yuck!

Now you could at least visit someone with an Amiga at home. Not bad.


3. The beginning of a fatal attraction

1987 saw the end of my C64. Presumably, because of the completely worn out sockets, which ruined the CIAs (MOS 6256), or because I saw no point in investing more money into this four year old computer.

Until midyear I had accepted the misery, then came the electronic moratorium and the momentous decision to finally purchase a new machine. At that point I knew already quite a number of happy people with an Amiga 500. But I felt aspiring to higher things and leaned on my dad until he financed me an Amiga 2000. Without the neighbours and the "magic effect" of the A2000 (1MB RAM!) I would have certainly not done that.

For the price of 1.650 Deutsch Marks I became the happy owner of my first Amiga! When asked by my father if that machine was a reliable one and worth the money, the vendor laconically answered: "Well, it's just a Commodore!" True words spoken! It was a lot less nice when some narrow-minded git remarked later that I had been "worth at least another 300 Deutsch Marks of profit margin". Better go dancing, monkey!


4. There are no problems, only solutions!

Finally, it was standing at my place, my own, personal Amiga! And now the problems were arriving in number... I couldn't afford a monitor - not even a Philips (yuck!). So the A2000 had to be connected to the television! Under normal circumstances that would have been NO PROBLEM AT ALL, if it hadn't been a Grundig-television by all things!

This great tv (excellent picture, worked for over 10 years like a charm!) could only use the Amiga-signal as long as a certain control-chip did NOT reach a certain temperature! Once it was getting too hot, the tv would "lose" the signal, the picture would start "running" and then, after two minutes, it would go on stand-by! Aaargh!

Finally, we went to a radio and television engineer (who initially wouldn't believe me at all) and I had to demonstrate it! But since the old man had a rather chilly place this would only happen after opening the case and using a hair dryer on the chip. But then he was suprised for sure! Unfortunately, he also realised very quickly that the problem originated from the design of the whole series and was no damage at all! Nothing to be done about it. You could also find out about this by reading the warning on the box of the adapter cable (Amiga-to-Scart) which said "Not applicable for Grundig-tvs!" Does anyone ever read the damn, small printed warnings BEFORE having the problems described in them?

So it came to be that until 1990 I had to place a ventilator behind my television. Yes, you can only grow on experience!


====================

End of Part 1.

5. Small problems, big problems...

Except for running pictures and balancing acts 1987 was not over yet! The "disk scourge" was lurking around the next corner!

My Amiga came with 30 Commodore 3,5" disks as as "starter pack". This brand was of an exceptionally bad quality! Most of these disks wouldn't even survive the second formatting and after a year not one of them was usable any more! Not that most of the other brands were any better in this regard (remaining pretty unreliable even far into the 1990s).

But that was not the crux!

- 10x 3,5" (DD) disks would cost you some unbelievable 25 (twenty-five) Deutsch Marks

- 10x 5,25" (DD) disks you could get for 5 (five) Deutsch Marks

It had been clear to me from the beginning that I would like to continue using the empty disks of my C64. And only a short time later I

would read about there being 5,25"-disk drives for the Amiga! So, sometime around christmas, I shelled out some 240 Deutsch Marks and got me a 5,25" external drive! And it worked like a charm from the beginning!

Well, would that be the end of this section? Happy end and all is well? Nooo. Of course not. Since my Amiga 2000 was equipped with Kickstart 1.3 only you could not boot from an external drive! An interesting fact that I found out about soon enough.

Whom could I have asked beforehand? The neigbours were only using internal disk drives - and then 3,5" only (including the inevitable read/write-errors etc.). So, I had to shell out another 40 (!) Deutsch Marks and get me a Boot Selector (df2: -> df0

And when the little package (including only a meagre socket + cable + switch) finally arrived, I had that strange and sudden feeling of the guy who bought the horse with only one tooth.

Apart from the fact, that I, the Amiga-rookie, had now the challenge upon me to open the case (incl. breaking the guarantee seal), remove the drive-section, unplug lots of cables and then un-socket and re-socket the MOS 8520 (hello CIA!). And after that, of course, put it all back to together again - in working condition!

By golly! Those were the jim-jams! Only pure boldness and iron concentration would guide me through!

And then... it didn't work. A cable had been torn off during the assembly of the switch. Fortunately, back then I could already handle a soldering iron (at least that's what surviving witnesses claim). Hoo-haa! Finally... it worked. Phew!

Ultimately, to buy this 5,25"-disk drive was one of the best decisions - until I got my RAM expansion in 1991. (And until the very end of my Amiga-time only about 5 games/applications had trouble working on that format. That's really an excellent rate!)


6. Playful learning, wishful thinking

1988 was the year I started using the computer instead of playing with it only. Yep, sure took me a while!

Until that time some influences had to have their "effect" on me - and, of course, there had to be a certain pressure to write a text on the machine or even start up the Workbench.

At least now I would very quickly develop a reputation as "miracle healer" and "Amiga Whisperer", since (thanks to my neighbours) I always had the newest version of VirusX at hand and so could cure lots of Amiga 500-users (or better: their disks) from "infections". At one opportunity I had to disinfect 50 disks from a fellow student. Each one of his disks had at least 3 (in words: three) different viruses on it!

The only problem now was getting my "collected works" to be printed. Since I had no printer, I had to copy the texts to my neighbours Amiga first and then he would use a tool (no idea what that was) that would convert it to MS-DOS-format... and thus letting the rest of mankind participate on my wisdom. That way I could e.g. "enhance" our student magazine with malicious and sneaky glosses! Mua ha ha!


7. Excursion 1: What was so special about the Amiga?

Working on an Amiga felt "different" compared to working on any other of the older machines. It was an exalted feeling (probably because the rig had been so darn expensive).

And you enjoyed this psychedelic storm of colors and sound which occurred during a game (or good demos). LSD made by computer chips!

At this time you could easily distinguish between the different types of systems/brands and their users:

- Atari? For musicians. ("I'm not interested in pretty colors, I want SOUND!")

- MS-DOS PC? For office people. ("This Excel-sheet must be ready by tomorrow or we'll lose the margin!")

- Apple? For rich eccentrics. ("Shall I purchase a solar cell roof now or rather save some baby seals?")

The Amiga was most certainly aimed at hippies! ("Give me the disk! Aaah! Ooh! Those colours, those sounds... Groovy! Can you dig it, man?").

As a beginner I found the desktop and handling of the Workbench 1.3 to be rather cryptic. And even today I consider it (without proper manuals) to be rather... user-un-friendly. Hm. Subjective impression!

Games were the one thing where the Amiga really excelled at first sight! As well as at second and third sight. And when Cinemaware was released upon mankind there was, for the first time, the feeling that this machine would make cinema at home possible.

Certainly, it was still some distance before real "Multimedia" became available (and you needed 1 Megabyte for starters). But the door was open by an inch - and you and your Amiga were standing right in front of it, in the front row!

My first game for the Amiga was ULTIMA IV by Origin. Ironically, this had also been my last C64-game! First I played it on the "Little one" and now I bought it for the "Big one". Comparing those two versions doesn't make much sense. Graphics and sound are not too far apart. But I completed it on the Amiga as well as I had on the C64! This is the last of the Ultima-titles that I consider any good.

ULTIMA V was not a great piece of software and it ruined my neighbours' character-disk every time it tried to save on it (some stupid error by the programmers I guess).

My first big disappointment in a game was - of all things - DEFENDER OF THE CROWN by Cinemaware! That one I had also played excessively on the C64 and I was really looking forward to the "better" version! Unfortunately, this looks a lot better than it actually plays and is not by far as perfected as the 8-bit version!

PIRATES! by Microprose, on the other hand, is to this very day one of my most beloved games and just because of it the Amiga will always have a special place in my heart, erm, on my table!


8. MS-DOS *INCOMPATIBLE*

The beginning of the 1990s was mostly characterized by the rise of the MS-DOS PC.

With the 386-systems came a generation of IBM-PCs on the table that definitely outclassed most Amigas regarding their computing power. Although graphics and sound were still looking/sounding rather bland.

At that time (end of 1989) my Dad purchased his first PC for work. Around 10.000 Deutsch Marks did he have to pay for a 386DX40 + monitor + printer + software. The monitor was the famous 14" NEC Multisync 3D btw! Very nice coincidence!

By no means a coincidence was the fact, that I - the "Computer Adept" - had to nurse that baby! Because Dad's interest would only include the software he needed for work - and nothing else! Well then, until I laid eyes on the Lucasarts-game X-WING in 1993, I never took the PC-story very serious. Something for the office. Beep beep.

For now the Amiga would offer me everything that I needed!


9. "Brains! More Brains!"

By the end of 1990 I went to university and for that "special" occassion - or rather to be able to work "properly" - I had finally purchased a Commodore 1084S monitor.

In spring 1991, however, I came to the conclusion that it was due time to get a RAM expansion. Until now 1 MB had seemed sufficient to me, but recently - while working with several of the newer programs - the feeling had crept up that things could run a bit smoother indeed.

No sooner said than done a big 8 MB RAM-expansion was purchased! 320 Deutsch Marks? Somewhere around that I remember. Anyway, the board of that expansion was stuffed to the brim with ZIPs.

And then the miracle happened... the Workbench became fun! PIRATES! for example could now be played from the RAM Disk!

And just after that - in the summer of 1991 - my enthusiasm curve took a steep drop when other things became more important and kept me from the "girlfriend" - which would now remain turned off for quite some time!

Had I finally grown up? Was the end of my youth near? Or was it already the beginning of my climacteric period?


=========================

End of Part 2

10. True love never dies

Actually, no, it had only been an intermezzo. Around the end of 1992 my Amiga became important again.

At that time quite a lot of software had become available that required higher versions of Kickstart and I had wisely chosen to upgrade my system with a Fat Agnus (in principle, the whole mainboard had been exchanged with a newer ECS-revision - for a bargain price). And in the same step I had also acquired a Kickstart Selector (1.3 <-> 2.0). Together with the RAM this turned out to be a most excellent affair!

Now a very airy-fairy "mate" appeared on the scene and wanted an Amiga too - for gaming. Well, I would have recommended an Amiga 500 to him and good riddance! Instead, he suddenly and unexpectedly came up with an A2000 from a coworker! And I, as his "driver, collecting customer and Amiga expert", had to take care about it!

This A2000 not only contained a second 3,5" disk drive but also a Golem-Filecard (Zorro II) with a 40MB hard disk! Exactly this hardware I bought from him. (Some time later he would claim that I tried to screw him on that occasion. Shortly before I had organized him a 5,25" disk drive for 20 Deutsch Marks - including pick-up - and built and installed a Boot Selector in his A2000. Ungrateful, bloody bastard!)

Now, with a hard disk in place you could really work comfortably! And the crowning finale was my purchase of a printer!


11. One grade up, upgrade!

When I visited my parents I developed the tendency to use my dad's PC more and more.

This was not due to some great enthusiasm for it. Word processing with those things worked fine. But having it for fun? Sierra's LEISURE SUIT LARRY with its EGA/low-res VGA-graphics and beeping noises? It was the release of X-WING in 1993 that would break the ice and make me get more RAM (SIPP-Modules!), the first sound card and the first joystick ("How the...? What? Calibrate? A JOYSTICK?") for it. No, sorry, but something like X-WING was not available for the Amiga!

Had I become an apostate? Joined the daft side of the Force? Would I grow a tie and brace creases into my blue jeans? Yes, there was a serious threat to my soul! But then, salvation, when I met father 'Dude' from the Holy Order of the Reformed Amiganians. And he showed me the way, oh brothers! Fat Agnus, Paula and Denis in Guru Meditation for all eternity, amen!

What had REALLY happened? 1993, through one of those usual, stupid coincidences, I had met my first serious Amiga-User (no, the neighbour does not count - word processing on the Amiga does not make you serious!)

For the first time I was introduced to a fully upgraded Amiga 3000T - full action! Including a graphics card, hard disk, VLab, modem, a 17" Multiscan-monitor, an inkjet printer, an optical mouse - the works! Wow! This guy performed things with it that you could not (yet) do on an IBM-PC! And it was an Amiga - (just) like my own!

I also was pretty enthusiastic about that modem and its possibilities - access to mail boxes (BBS), Aminet and FIDONet. (All that happened a long, long time ago - before the internet, younglings!)

My reaction? I became very much infected on the spot! (There really is something like "Amiga-fever".)

In autumn of that same year I purchased my first accelerator board. Holy Rotstift* (*excellent shop in Germany)! The GVP "GForce" with its 68EC30/40Mhz (incl. 4 MB 32bit-RAM and SCSI-controller) cost me 1580 Deutsch Marks. The second step was the purchase of a ZyXEL-modem for 720 Deutsch Marks. And as a direct consequence the following telephone bills would ruin my finances permanently - for months to come!

But the benefits were also of unequalled quality! With a modem came contact to communities, PD-software, knowledge bases, Amiga- and other computer-clubs, market places, user meetings... Amiga life in overdrive!

Word processing and hardware modification with the Amiga became an established normality. You were in contact with the whole world (although not online yet), video-processing (with my own VLab!) was also done. It was intoxicating! Oh, and alongside I was still doing my studies.

Ironically, the higher level of organisation required for the computer also helped me a lot in real life! Assignments and papers proofed to be of no problem anymore! Multi-tasked working became easier as well due to the experiences with PC and Amiga. (Thanks to my good reputation and expertise I was hired on the spot to work as a student assistant!)

Meanwhile, the upgrading continued! The 40 MB IDE-drive was quite nice, but soon a fast 120 MB Quantum ProDrive replaced it (this one was originally purchased for my dad's PC, but then I came up with a better solution). Now I wanted more RAM for the GVP, so another 220 Deutsch Marks were spent on the next 4 MB of RAM! A Multisync-monitor (again the famous NEC 3D) - as well as a Flicker Fixer - were purchased (in used condition) through a FIDONet-market place. Oh, and since that nice guy also had one 68030/50 MHz left, that one also arrived the same day! Welcome MMU!

Finally, to get the SCSI-controller up and running I was looking for an appropriate hard disk and was very lucky! A reconditioned 1 GB Micropolis-hard drive from an insolvency was offered to me for 720 (!) Deutsch Marks only. It still had 4 years of guarantee left then - and to this day is still fully functional and rests in one of my drawers - waiting! Quality really has its price!


12. Excursion 2: How was working with an Amiga?

It's not easy to explain that in our times of 512MB/DDR2-powered GPUs, 64-bit Quadcores, Windows Vista and KDE/GNOME!

The "normal" IBM-PC came as a 386/486-system with DOS and Windows 3.1 installed. Tricky to a certain extent, since drivers had to be (properly) installed in the startup files (AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS). You had to be very careful with the correct system adresses (IRQ, DMA)! Especially sound cards could ruin your day if you created an address conflict! And even the mouse required an extra driver.

The screen resolution was usually at 640x480 (due to the - then - most common monitor sizes of 13" - 15") - some games or extensive graphics softwares offered or required an 800x600 resolution. Better than the Amiga? Certainly. But the optical effect sometimes didn't give you the "correct" impression. You got the feeling the PC's resolution was far more "pixellated" and the colors appeared to be somehow "softer" than those of the Amiga. Subjective? Definitely!

In comparison, the installation and integration of new hardware was - most of the time - very easy on the Amiga and a true delight! Real plug & play was already possible in 1986! OK, you also had to add to the startup files (if there was no installation routine available).

But - compared to the IBM-PC - I almost never encountered any address conflicts!

The handling of the Workbench felt very modern and was quite superior to that of Windows 3.1! Much of the Amigas desktop reminded me of the Macintosh (which in turn were both inspired by the Xerox-standards). Even the highly praised "Wonder-Windows" 95 looked to us Amiga-users mostly like old news. Nothing new under the sun!

With a decent graphics card and/or a Multiscan-monitor you could basically work on an Amiga as comfortable and professional as on a PC.

Specific upgrade cards allowed you to use fully compatible PC- and Macintosh-emulations as additional options - parallel to your Amiga's capabilities! Well, ok, basically you were just "upgrading" your system with a complete secondary computer...

Making music was an option were (for a very long time) the Amiga was superior to the IBM-PCs. MIDI- and sound cards would allow you - even at a later point in time - to remain on the same level - and the softwares were also very good. (Although some of my musician-friends commented that they would rather prefer Ataris. See above!)

Regarding software the Amiga was in great supply of good - and even free - programs. "Shareware" was a concept I encountered for the first time when I used a PC - and "crippleware" or worse was a rare exception on the Amiga!

Magazines, manuals and books were also available, covering as many aspects as you could imagine. Although, FIDONet or an adequately frequented BBS proved to be a much better choice if you required quick help on a delicate problem!

Using it as an office solution the Amiga was quite suitable but rather underchallenged. His strengths lay more in the graphics-department - and especially in the music- and video processing-sector. For word processing I used my Amiga less and less from 1994 onwards. At that point I already owned a PC as my secondary rig. Yes, indeed, because the continuing problems with WORDSWORTH and its "WYSIAWYG" ("What

You See Is *ALMOST* What You Get") were getting on my nerves! And I also wanted to use MS Office at home, which (unfortunately) was the standard office software at the university. This development had its causes (and led to consequences) that many Amiga-fanatics would just ignore!

Us "experts" were in principle a very small cutting edge in a sea of dumb gamer-idiots. The majority didn't even see a reason to get a RAM-expansion for their Amiga 500! "Hey, it's just a gaming computer!" And exactly that attitude would ruin the Amiga in the end! Because the video game consoles would suit that clientele a lot better and severalsoftware companies would later even claim that "there was too much copying going on" before they cowardly absconded.


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End of Part 3

13. The Party is almost over

1994 was a terribly busy year! I got around quite a lot, meeting more and more Amiga-fanatics in the process.

At the user meetings that I visited the majority of users were in possession of an Amiga!

And such monstrosities as the Incubus-BBS in Wuerzburg (its 40 telephone lines were managed by one A4000 running CNET!) gave you the strong feeling that everything would just go well with the Amiga since almost all of mankind seemed to support it.

Hence, the insolvency of Commodore was not considered to be a disaster. Nobody had the impression that such a good thing could be ruined by a some dumb, greedy idiots in suits! And then the German company ESCOM even offered itself heroically to take over the reigns. Well, the reality turned out to be just a bit different from that...

The shape of things to come manifested itself around Christmas 1994. I was doing some shopping in a hypermarket when I stumbled across a real bargain: a CD32 for 150 Deutsch Marks! At that point I had already considered buying an AGA-Amiga. But the fully upgraded A2000 kept me from doing so. Buying a third computer just because of some software and games? I had rather hoped for an AGA-kit as an upgrade.

But now I was standing in front of a heap of CD32-boxes (near the cash registers, that's were they always place the candy strategically for children) and not one second of hesitation kept me from buying it! "We wish you a merry christmas!"

Even today I'd buy that CD32 again. And if I had a time machine I'd buy the whole heap of them! Erm. Anyway.

An essential motivator were the announced expansions for it, of which - strangely - the MPEG-card never interested me at all! I even had the chance to buy it very cheaply - and abstained. Ouw! Don't hit me!

No, I was mostly looking forward to the SX1! To turn the CD32 into a fully-fledged Amiga, that was my major desire.

And exactly that dream would come true in the next year!


15. You can't teach complete bastards new tricks.

I ordered at a proper company in Berlin, after I had been looking for weeks for a retailer that could actually get you the thing and not just make empty promises. And than, one day, it had really arrived, standing on my table! Haha, it was like 1987 again and the problems were only about to begin...

Service wasteland - Germany! The final frontier! This is the year 1995. A man will boldly go about the city for hardware.

The SX1 came with some clever solutions onboard, even when it did not offer you the option of a CPU-expansion. (Alas, the SX32 would only be released subsequently.) But that did not bother me. More important were its features: use standard SIMM-modules for RAM-expansion, connect normal PC/AT-keyboards and a 2,5" hard disk-controller onboard. Three steps to AGA-heaven!

Getting the correct SIMM-module proved to be the least problem. One visit to the FIDONet-market place later, I had 8 MB at my disposal that would do the trick. Plug and play.

The PC/AT-keyboard proved to be a bit more tricky! Although the manual claimed differently, not *EVERY* keyboard would actually work! My newly acquired and beautiful PC/AT-keyboard (with retaining springs, *click*) did not work on the SX1! Whereas the older keyboard of my subtenant worked without any problems. After a number of "would-you-borrow-me-the-keybord"-activities we finally agreed to a (temporary) swap of the keyboards. In the end I was fed up with it and connected my A2000-keyboard instead. Why not sometimes do the right thing from the beginning?

Now the hard disk proved to be a real problem! Well, getting it was no big deal - the Toshiba wasn't even expensive. But then the cable... that damn CABLE!!!

Now you must be aware, that a 2,5" hard disk requires (logically) the appropriate adapter cable. (Under normal circumstances) those were supposed to be included with your new notebook (at least that was I was told, but would you trust that?).

Unfortunately, the SX1 was NOT a notebook and there came NO such cable with it. Now, a normally intelligent person would imagine that a shop selling such hardware would also offer the appropriate cables. Far from it! Even the availability - IF and WHEN such a cable would become available at ALL - was beyond the capabilities of this "specialist dealer". This I considered to be pretty weak.

Imagine the shop like THIS: the boss being one of those younger calibres, who were looking for a "business" after they had just completed their MBA. Not really experienced in dealing with customers, but only really good at adding numbers! Some like to call this type of businessman "straightforward", *I* like call this type "rude"! A customer and his son had entered the shop right before me (they were the first customers of the day). After listening to their explanations and objections he plainly refused to open up their computer and check it out. Instead, he said, he would soon erect some tables near the entry and then everyone could screw around with their computer to their hearts' contents. Nowadays, it would leave a shop after hearing something like that. But then... I would quietly wait and buy the hard disk.

After several hours of senseless running around and asking for the cable, I returned to this shop and asked a second time. Same procedure, same answers. When I commented how *any* shop could sell hardware without the proper accessories, some ugly, unshaven apeman (working there as a technician) stuck his ugly head through the door and meant, I should rather keep my trap shut.

Yep, apeman thinking like boss-man.

Anyway, I still got my cable that same day! A mate of mine had shown me such a cable spontaneously some two weeks ago at at a meeting and asked me if I had any use for it. I had to drive another 120 kilometers that day. And I never, ever bought anything in that dump again.

(Some months later I came across a respectable dealer, from a real system house, who only laughed about my story and commented, that someone there - obviously - was too much fixated on walk-in customers. Well, rather "walk-out customers". That system house still exists to this day (whereas the dump finally closed its doors years ago)!


16. Multimedia marches on!

With the SX1 now ready for action the CD32 transformed like Cinderella: you got a fully-fledged (and fast) A1200 - including a CD-ROM (although, you had to get used to the strange shape on your table and especially the connection between the console and the expansion)!

For work I still preferred the A2000, but the newer machines - especially the PC - would now finally outstrip it.

From the software side of matters everything was looking great! While the production of games was decreasing, the PD-sector was expanding like mad - and such series as the "Fish Disks" could be found in almost everyone's (read: professional amiga user's) shelf. Back then I bought the first Aminet 4CD-set and never regretted it for a second!

On the other hand the PCs were on the rise as well. While Windows 95 (including office) seemed to be mostly a new desktop-OS "put on top" MS-DOS, it was capable of a lot more than any of the previous versions. Although, I took my time and waited with the update until Rev. B was released.

Regarding word processing, most of my Amiga-files had already been exported to the PC and only a few ASCII-texts remained to be updated (thanks to such wonderful software as GOLDED and CYGNUSED).

Even FINAL WRITER, maybe the best word processor for the Amiga, could not convince me to migrate back. The problems with WORDSWORTH had permanently ruined my enthusiasm.

And then the internet became the next hot thing!


16. Excursion 3: The Amiga and the internet

I already knew the internet from the university - while working there on PCs! No matter if under Windows 3.1 - or later under 95 - it was great using the fast connections! (Unfortunately, as a private individual, you had to wait until the advent of DSL to enjoy this "thrill of speed" again.)

But now I also wanted it at home! FIDONet and mail box-services went on for a little while longer, but then I finally got rid of them.

They had no chance against WWW and IRC!

At first the only access possible was via the university, but fortunately many better providers became available soon. The university wanted to keep the exploding traffic down as much as possible, so everything except HTTP and e-mail was blocked. But from time to time you simply wanted to download something from an FTP-server, visit IRC to have a little chat oder read something on the Usenet.

While my Amigas were up to visiting mail boxes and granted access to offline networks like FIDONet/Aminet, they very soon reached the end of their capabilities when it came to the requirements for the internet. While IRC, for example, was no problem at all, surfing the WWW proved to be quite a different story.

At that time most of the HTML-standards had already been firmly established and the "Great War" between the Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator was just about to enter its next stage. The browser softwares for the Amiga proved to be a frustrating experience. So

I had no big problem in completely migrating to the PC by the end of the year.

With newer and faster Amigas and better developed software this outcome could have been different, but it was no permanent farewell - yet. That was only about to come.


===================================

End of Part 4

17. Sleeping Beauty

In 1996 I purchased my last Amiga - an A1200/HD40. And that happened rather by accident!

A very friendly person, not living very far away, bought some hardware from me and I visited him to bring it over. Aside from a PC he also owned an Amiga 3000 AND an Amiga 1200/HD40!

After talking shop about Amigas and PCs he casually informed me that the A1200 was just sitting around there useless, since he preferred the A3000 for working.

For 200 Deutsch Marks I spontaneously bought that A1200 - including an accelerator board (with SCSI-expansion), but without RAM or hard disc.

Now, finally, I got rid of the old A2000 and the CD32 + SX1 (since the CD-ROM didn't work anymore). I wanted one intact machine sitting on my table and not two half-ones!

I actually liked this "final" Amiga the most! It didn't have the dull grey colour of the Amiga 500 but came in an "innocent" white. And it was very compact and faster than the old Amiga 2000 had been!

Buying an Amiga 4000 had also been under consideration. But several of my friends had a lot of problems with their machines and that deterred me.

1997 my Amiga was put in its resting place in a carton box.


And there it waited for me for eleven years...


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