Took me a while

danboid · 17 October 2023, 21:56

I have been mulling joining this forum for over two decades. I'm finally here with my first post so I thought it best to arrive properly (if a bit late) for once by doing an intro post. I've joined hundreds of forums over the years but I've never bothered to go to this length before but your guys are a bit spesh. You cut me and I bleed Commodore!

The best way to handle this, I feel, is a timeline of key events in my life as a computing enthusiast, the ones I remember at least. A rough year is as accurate as I'll get in most cases.

Jan 81 - I'm born. My mums waters break whilst she is playing Space Invaders on the 2600, a machine I still have. This is mere days after the Rendlesham Forest incident, just a co-incidence I'm sure. The IBM PC arrives and TCP v4 gets ratified.

82 - The C64 is launched but I'm too young to care

85 - Amiga 1000 arrives. Space Harrier is the first arcade with decent music.

85-89 was my happy time in the arcades. Got to play lots of computer and console games at friends houses. It was so exciting then. Big props to SEGA, Capcom and Data East for their arcade wonders of this era. SST are one of my fave bands.

Xmas 89 - I get my breadbin and several boxes full of games that my dad drip fed to me and my bro over several months as he kept them at his work and brought one home every week for weeks. One of my schoomates gets an A500 for Christmas that same year. I think the first Amiga game I played was Last Duel. Of course I badly wanted a Amiga but it would be a year or two before I saved up enough to buy one. I'm pretty sure he had Shadow of the Beast from day one and that totally blew me away. Still does.

Summer 1991? - Got my first Amiga, a second hand A500 with 1MB from Loot.

1993? - Saw Wolfenstein. Meh!

1994 - Saw Doom. Goodbye Amiga, hello PC! Got a Compaq 386 SX20 with 4 MB RAM and a 40 MB HD and MS DOS 5. It could JUST about run Doom but in a wee postage stamp size window OK ish.

1995 - I'd used BBS' before but I got my first internet accout in 1995 I think - Zen Internet.

1996 - Became a full time Linux user. It was circa Linux 1.2 when I got super keen on open source

2004 - Got my first ARM Linux device, a SHARP Zaurus SL-C3000. It was the first PDA with USB, first with a VGA display and first with an IDE microdrive. It was the shiz.

2008 - Got my first 'propa' IT job

2009-2020 - Involvement in lots of cool open source projects like Haiku, Serenity, wrote the first database backed image viewer, the Arch Linux Easy ZFS installer etc.

2020-2023 Got involved with the Uzebox. Built a Uzebox (its the best/fastest open source 8 bit console), wrote a game for it and I designed and built my own arcade joystick for the Uzebox / SNES that I also use on my Amiga 600. One of the main reasons I've joined is to try and spread awareness of my fave open source games console. Any questions?

Present - I got my A600 out of storage a few months ago and I've been slowly pimping it out. I upgraded it to KS 3.1, 5 MB RAM, I've got a IDE SD card adapter that I've installed CWB 68K on, a PCMCIA CompactFlash adapter, a PS2 mouse adapter and a SNES controller adapter. I'm definitely living my best Commodore life now in 2023.

On Classic Workbench 68K - It would be nice to see this get an update. It should include the full CF drivers and xfs for mounting ADFs. Who wouldn't want to do that?

Its lovely to finally post here! Thanks for having me, sorry about the delay!

I'm going to start my first 'propa' thread now... hi!

malko · 17 October 2023, 23:05

Nice trip to the past reading your intro.
Welcome to the forum as a "posting" member

fxgogo · 18 October 2023, 00:52

Welcome to our crazy neck of the woods.

ransom1122 · 18 October 2023, 01:35

Nice intro & Welcome

94 to 99 did you maintain much pc gaming with the favourites, Diablo, Warcraft C&C etc?

It's never too late to re enter the commodore world...

All the best

Pyromania · 18 October 2023, 02:01

Welcome!

TCD · 18 October 2023, 07:23

Welcome to EAB, danboid

The early part of your 'resume' reads awfully familiar

If you missed out after 1994 there are some great programs and games to check out.

danboid · 18 October 2023, 09:36

Thanks for the welcome!

I lost a lot of interest in the arcades circa Ridge Racer and the consoles circa the Dreamcast. I started off as a PC gamer but became more interested in Linux and open source stuff than games. I enjoy writing games more than playing them but I'm not a great programmer, I'm more of a sys admin than a coder.

That said, I'm more interested in checking out the new Amiga games than using it for serious computing, athough I am havng a go at that too. I got Dread working and I'm totally blown away by that! I am also super impressed by the new Rastan port. That is the best homebrew arcade port I've ever seen.

I got to play Snow Bros on my Amiga for the first time a couple of days ago - another fantastic Amiga arcade conversion. Why they hell was that not released!? I want to do an Amiga arcade port eventually but the Uzebox community needs me more so I'll be doing another Uzebox game first.

TCD · 18 October 2023, 09:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by danboid

Why they hell was that not released!?

It's a bit longer read and might not answer it perfectly, but here is the thread about how it was preserved: https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=17816

nogginthenog · 18 October 2023, 17:48

Hello and welcome!

Quote:

Originally Posted by danboid

On Classic Workbench 68K - It would be nice to see this get an update. It should include the full CF drivers and xfs for mounting ADFs. Who wouldn't want to do that?

There has been updates since 3.1!

AmigaOS 3.5 (1999) & 3.9 (2000) (but we don't talk about these

).
AmigaOS 3.1.4 (2018)
AmigaOS 3.2 (2021)

The latest is 3.2.2 which was released in 2023.

You can mount ADFs. I don't have a CF Amiga so I can't comment on that.

danboid · 19 October 2023, 02:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by nogginthenog

Hello and welcome!

There has been updates since 3.1!

AmigaOS 3.5 (1999) & 3.9 (2000) (but we don't talk about these

).
AmigaOS 3.1.4 (2018)
AmigaOS 3.2 (2021)

The latest is 3.2.2 which was released in 2023.

You can mount ADFs. I don't have a CF Amiga so I can't comment on that.

Yes I'm aware of all this. I'm referring to the Classic Workbench 68000 "distro" of Workbench. Its not been updated since 2015 it seems:

http://classicwb.abime.net/classicweb/download68k.htm

17 October 2023, 21:56	#1
danboid Registered User Join Date: Sep 2023 Location: England Posts: 28	Took me a while I have been mulling joining this forum for over two decades. I'm finally here with my first post so I thought it best to arrive properly (if a bit late) for once by doing an intro post. I've joined hundreds of forums over the years but I've never bothered to go to this length before but your guys are a bit spesh. You cut me and I bleed Commodore! The best way to handle this, I feel, is a timeline of key events in my life as a computing enthusiast, the ones I remember at least. A rough year is as accurate as I'll get in most cases. Jan 81 - I'm born. My mums waters break whilst she is playing Space Invaders on the 2600, a machine I still have. This is mere days after the Rendlesham Forest incident, just a co-incidence I'm sure. The IBM PC arrives and TCP v4 gets ratified. 82 - The C64 is launched but I'm too young to care 85 - Amiga 1000 arrives. Space Harrier is the first arcade with decent music. 85-89 was my happy time in the arcades. Got to play lots of computer and console games at friends houses. It was so exciting then. Big props to SEGA, Capcom and Data East for their arcade wonders of this era. SST are one of my fave bands. Xmas 89 - I get my breadbin and several boxes full of games that my dad drip fed to me and my bro over several months as he kept them at his work and brought one home every week for weeks. One of my schoomates gets an A500 for Christmas that same year. I think the first Amiga game I played was Last Duel. Of course I badly wanted a Amiga but it would be a year or two before I saved up enough to buy one. I'm pretty sure he had Shadow of the Beast from day one and that totally blew me away. Still does. Summer 1991? - Got my first Amiga, a second hand A500 with 1MB from Loot. 1993? - Saw Wolfenstein. Meh! 1994 - Saw Doom. Goodbye Amiga, hello PC! Got a Compaq 386 SX20 with 4 MB RAM and a 40 MB HD and MS DOS 5. It could JUST about run Doom but in a wee postage stamp size window OK ish. 1995 - I'd used BBS' before but I got my first internet accout in 1995 I think - Zen Internet. 1996 - Became a full time Linux user. It was circa Linux 1.2 when I got super keen on open source 2004 - Got my first ARM Linux device, a SHARP Zaurus SL-C3000. It was the first PDA with USB, first with a VGA display and first with an IDE microdrive. It was the shiz. 2008 - Got my first 'propa' IT job 2009-2020 - Involvement in lots of cool open source projects like Haiku, Serenity, wrote the first database backed image viewer, the Arch Linux Easy ZFS installer etc. 2020-2023 Got involved with the Uzebox. Built a Uzebox (its the best/fastest open source 8 bit console), wrote a game for it and I designed and built my own arcade joystick for the Uzebox / SNES that I also use on my Amiga 600. One of the main reasons I've joined is to try and spread awareness of my fave open source games console. Any questions? Present - I got my A600 out of storage a few months ago and I've been slowly pimping it out. I upgraded it to KS 3.1, 5 MB RAM, I've got a IDE SD card adapter that I've installed CWB 68K on, a PCMCIA CompactFlash adapter, a PS2 mouse adapter and a SNES controller adapter. I'm definitely living my best Commodore life now in 2023. On Classic Workbench 68K - It would be nice to see this get an update. It should include the full CF drivers and xfs for mounting ADFs. Who wouldn't want to do that? Its lovely to finally post here! Thanks for having me, sorry about the delay! I'm going to start my first 'propa' thread now... hi! Last edited by danboid; 17 October 2023 at 22:55.

18 October 2023, 01:35	#4
ransom1122 Registered User Join Date: Aug 2011 Location: Omnicorp Age: 45 Posts: 5,818	Nice intro & Welcome 94 to 99 did you maintain much pc gaming with the favourites, Diablo, Warcraft C&C etc? It's never too late to re enter the commodore world... All the best Last edited by ransom1122; 18 October 2023 at 02:53.

17 October 2023, 23:05	#2
malko Ex nihilo nihil Join Date: Oct 2017 Location: CH Posts: 4,883	Nice trip to the past reading your intro. Welcome to the forum as a "posting" member

18 October 2023, 00:52	#3
fxgogo Also known as GarethQ Join Date: May 2019 Location: Twickenham / U.K. Posts: 718	Welcome to our crazy neck of the woods.

18 October 2023, 02:01	#5
Pyromania Moderator Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Chicago, IL Posts: 3,375	Welcome!

18 October 2023, 07:23	#6
TCD HOL/FTP busy bee Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Germany Age: 46 Posts: 31,598	Welcome to EAB, danboid The early part of your 'resume' reads awfully familiar If you missed out after 1994 there are some great programs and games to check out.

18 October 2023, 09:36	#7
danboid Registered User Join Date: Sep 2023 Location: England Posts: 28	Thanks for the welcome! I lost a lot of interest in the arcades circa Ridge Racer and the consoles circa the Dreamcast. I started off as a PC gamer but became more interested in Linux and open source stuff than games. I enjoy writing games more than playing them but I'm not a great programmer, I'm more of a sys admin than a coder. That said, I'm more interested in checking out the new Amiga games than using it for serious computing, athough I am havng a go at that too. I got Dread working and I'm totally blown away by that! I am also super impressed by the new Rastan port. That is the best homebrew arcade port I've ever seen. I got to play Snow Bros on my Amiga for the first time a couple of days ago - another fantastic Amiga arcade conversion. Why they hell was that not released!? I want to do an Amiga arcade port eventually but the Uzebox community needs me more so I'll be doing another Uzebox game first.

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