Back to the Amiga 500 Batman Pack 30 years later

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

This is awesome story, I read it yesterday.
I guess, majority of us have similar stories, and we all share same impression when we first saw the best home comp ever.

I was pretty late introduced to Amiga world (maybe 1993-1994), and I had 2 friends, and one had Amiga 500 1MB, the other had 386 DX/40, 2MB Ram, B/W monitor, VGA.. etc. I had only C64, so I guess, I was somewhat objective.

I first met my friend with A500, that invites me at home and showed me exactly this games during few weeks:
- Mortal Kombat 2, Ruff'n'Tumble, Arabian Nights, Arcade pool, F18/Interceptor, Street Fighter 2, Shadow of the Beast 3, Fire and Ice...
Man, I was stunned.
After C64, these looked to me better then a dream. I knew about Amiga, of course, from magazines, and reviews of the games (Amiga was very popular in my country), but I never expected something awesome like that.
Not only look... the feel... when you played Arabian Nights, Or Ruff'n'Tumble, or MK2... that was it... it's arcade perfect feel. It was like you have arcade home, but not with just one game, but many games!

Several month later I met my pal with 386.
He showed me: Prehistoric 2, Street Fighter 2, Golden Axe, Monkey Island, and some ugly CGA or EGA racing game....
Can you imagine how disappointed I felt? It was UGLY, very slow, unresponsive, huge pixels, beeps instead of sound?
Man... Arabian nights or Ruff VS Prehistoric 2, that was like heaven and hell.... SF2... yes, the gameplay was better (wich I didn't realized then), but was much uglier.
I admit, I liked Golden Axe and Sleepwalker games, mainly because of nice gameplay, but then again, not near to a feel of many platformers, on the Amiga.
Later my friend bought another 2MB Ram, color monitor, sound blaster 16, and finaly he could play MK2 (that could be played on A500 with only 1MB Ram, and no expansions whatsoever), and I was again disappointed.
Framerate was not constant. It was slow... then fast... then slow, it ruined gameplay. New, bigger color monitor also showed a very pixelized picture. No Joysticks (they were very expensive for PC back then), so we had to play on keyboard, and if someone holds more then 3 keys, it blocks any other key pressed.
Many people when doing comparison today, forget about these, not so small things.

I was unaware, at that time, that Amiga was also low res, but TV kind of blurred pixels, and that is why it looked so much natural and blended, I thought for a real, that it was bigger res.
But nevermind that.... Even if I looked at the graphics on today monitors, my impression would be very similar, because of the color palette that Amiga use, the great arcade feel when you play the game, the sound... etc.

Sorry for the long post, but you haven't wrote much how disappointed you were, after changing A500 for the 386SX, and this needs to be pointed out.

Thanks for the nice story, we all looking forward to December.

Yep those are all great points. I upgraded to a 386DX not SX, and it came with 4MB Ram and 60MB HDD (never had a HDD on my Amiga), but you're right, there were many aspects that were disappointing and shocking at the time. Great idea for a followup piece.

With the video's I'm doing, I want to step into the PC gaming I moved into. More the creative side of things, but I think a "Upgrading from the Amiga to a PC: A story of regret" may be a good thing to put down in black and white.

I wasn't totally disappointed to be honest, but it was far more complex and expensive than Amiga computing, and I'd have done equally well to just upgrade to an A1200 instead at the time.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Prehistoric 2, Street Fighter 2, Golden Axe, Monkey Island, and some ugly CGA or EGA racing game....

Ugly ass CGA or EGA racing game. Back in those days all PC gamers had a copy of Test Drive, so I wonder

[d4rk3lf]

Originally Posted by 005AGIMA

I wasn't totally disappointed to be honest....

Yes you were!
You just don't remember frustration, because your mind had enough of it, and deleted bad memory (and left good memory of Amiga).

Joke aside,
I am sure you were frustrated when you had to get something that everybody called "driver". WTF is driver? I didn't had that on Amiga. You mean something like library? Well, let's copy-paste it then. It will not work (says your PC friend).
Why?

Originally Posted by gimbal

Ugly ass CGA or EGA racing game. Back in those days all PC gamers had a copy of Test Drive, so I wonder

Huh.. it's very hard to recall memory... it was like 1994, and I saw that game like once.. twice.. never interested to see it again, and my mind take care that I forget most of that bad PC experience.

[ Show youtube player ]

This?
I think not.
I think it was simpler game (maybe some formula driving (bot don't hold me 100% on this).
And it definitely, didn't run this smooth.. it was very very choppy.. unplayable... even in cga.. ega.. or whatever advanced pc graphics was made.

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by d4rk3lf

Yes you were!
You just don't remember frustration, because your mind had enough of it, and deleted bad memory (and left good memory of Amiga).

Joke aside,
I am sure you were frustrated when you had to get something that everybody called "driver". WTF is driver? I didn't had that on Amiga. You mean something like library? Well, let's copy-paste it then. It will not work (says your PC friend).
Why?

hehe.

My initial shocks jumping to PC were:
1) What do you mean I can't just unplug the mouse and plug in a joystick?
2) What do you mean I may want to think about a "sound card"?
3) What do you mean "Not enough base memory"?
4) What do you mean I have to buy Amstrad Mouse only, because my Amstrad PC has a propitiatory connector????

Now, the last one aside, the others became positives over time.

I first added a 2 port "game card", and then later switched that out for a Soundblaster Pro 16 from Creative Labs.

And with the help of a mate, I became a master of managing base memory and writing config.sys files and autoexec.bat files to shift drives up into the massive remains of the 4MB RAM outside of the 256k base (what the hell were they thinking?)
To the point where as a youngster, in my first IT role in London, I could do this better than the support guys. ....I was in sales.
I got sent out on client jobs where everyone else had tried and failed, and shifted LAN card drivers and Novell stuff around, to free up most of the base RAM, so the shitty DOS based accounting software (who's name I will not mention) could actually run on a corporate network environment, despite the un-realistic expectations it had of how much base mem it could hog.

And as for Gaming.....X-Wing kept me more than happy on my 386.

But doom ran like shit lol

[Hewitson]

Everyone always treated config.sys/autoexec.bat like it was rocket science. As a 10 year old kid, I never had any problems optimizing these files.

Microsoft "MemMaker" always made me lose memory when I tried it, as it wasn't capable of doing it anywhere near as well as I was.

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Everyone always treated config.sys/autoexec.bat like it was rocket science. As a 10 year old kid, I never had any problems optimizing these files.

Microsoft "MemMaker" always made me lose memory when I tried it, as it wasn't capable of doing it anywhere near as well as I was.

Exactly. Once you knew the basic principle, it was easy and just something you had to remember to tweak if you loaded more hardware with DOS drivers etc.

Some people would make a "games" boot disk to negate crap that Windows 3.1 would throw in these files but I never saw the need to do that. My main system files were good enough.

Now....ask me to write one TODAY?......it may take me a while and I'd be tempted to google it lol. But I'd try my best not to, and just dig my way through an existing one to work out the logic, just like we did before google

Good times.

Still have my old PII at my parents house but I dont recall needing to tweak things by that stage. Was more back on my 386 and then 486 Dos and Win3.11 PCs.

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by 005AGIMA

Some people would make a "games" boot disk to negate crap that Windows 3.1 would throw in these files but I never saw the need to do that. My main system files were good enough.

Same.

Originally Posted by 005AGIMA

Now....ask me to write one TODAY?......it may take me a while and I'd be tempted to google it lol. But I'd try my best not to, and just dig my way through an existing one to work out the logic, just like we did before google

I still remember it all. LOADHIGH, DEVICEHIGH, DOS=HIGH,UMB, etc... HIMEM, EMM386, lol. Back when computers were fun.

[gimbal]

Yeah, all to get that 5k of extra conventional memory free so your favorite game would actually boot. It was fun to experience the process again using PCEM

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by gimbal

Yeah, all to get that 5k of extra conventional memory free so your favorite game would actually boot. It was fun to experience the process again using PCEM

lol well another fun PC memory was when I installed X-Wing in the study room at the college I was at.

Hid the directory.

The staff member in charge of the room couldn't work out why the PC in the corner was always out of hard drive space.

He knew we'd done "something" but couldn't pin it down

[gimbal]

Very recognizable, when I "only" had my Miggy I used to go play on the PC of a schoolmate (and fellow computer geek); a 386 with 40mb of harddrive space. We were always cycling between X-Wing, Dune 2, Sam & Max, Wolfenstein 3D, Jazz, Halloween Harry, etc. etc. and frequently had to remove games simply because the HD was full

Ah good times.

[Hewitson]

Originally Posted by gimbal

frequently had to remove games simply because the HD was full

Still very common on consoles!

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Still very common on consoles!

^ This 100%

My original PS4 500GB version was fine until games started pushing out 5GB updates every month.

Got my PSVR the other week, and the FIRST thing I "HAD" to do was pretty much un-install everything I had on the unit bar SOTB and Gauntlet (refused as they were new and not that big).

Once the wife has got over the PSVR purchase, I'll sneak in a USB3 2TB External drive and it will be fine again.

(yes it's that easy on PS4. So long as it's USB3, plug it in and "move" all apps to the new drive, which then gets treated as the default.)

[005AGIMA]

Episodes 17 and 18 were not related to Amiga so I didnt mention them in THIS thread (they were about Basic programming, and a Duke Nukem 3D level I made years ago).

But today.......

Today 30 years ago, Batman the movie hit UK Cinemas....and that is VERY relevant to my story.

Episode 19
[ Show youtube player ]

[Amigajay]

Originally Posted by Hewitson

Still very common on consoles!

No different to buying a PC with 500GB HDD at the same time a PS4/XB1 came out, unless of course you have bought a bigger HDD for the PC since, but we know all PC’s are excluded from the same rules

[005AGIMA]

EP-028: Amiga Format Issue 3 is now 30 YEARS OLD!
[ Show youtube player ]

Finally another Amiga related video.

Not long now till my trip

[Paul_s]

Originally Posted by 005AGIMA

EP-028: Amiga Format Issue 3 is now 30 YEARS OLD!
[ Show youtube player ]

Finally another Amiga related video.

Not long now till my trip

Really enjoyed watching that video - remember subscribing to AF around issue 20... my first AF was issue 18 from a local supermarket (just prior to me owning a 500 that very Christmas)

I've always felt it better to read an actual 'physical' magazine (or be that anything else) rather than a PDF... I have the entire Amiga Power collection in storage waiting to be read fully someday... can't part with them either

[capehorn]

Your posts always catch my eye because my Amiga came with the Batman Pack and my first issue of Amiga Format was also issue #3! In fact while I did have to throw the vast majority of my magazines away, I kept issues 3 and 10 as a momento of my Amiga years. Unfortunately, having just had a look around the house, I can no longer find them and maybe I no longer have them. I do still have the original coverdisks though

[005AGIMA]

Originally Posted by Paul_s

Really enjoyed watching that video - remember subscribing to AF around issue 20... my first AF was issue 18 from a local supermarket (just prior to me owning a 500 that very Christmas)

I've always felt it better to read an actual 'physical' magazine (or be that anything else) rather than a PDF... I have the entire Amiga Power collection in storage waiting to be read fully someday... can't part with them either

Really glad you enjoyed the video And I 100% agree, there is nothing like reading an actual magazine.

I'm chasing AF issues 4 and 5 at the moment but they're not easy to find at the moment, but there is no rush.

Originally Posted by capehorn

Your posts always catch my eye because my Amiga came with the Batman Pack and my first issue of Amiga Format was also issue #3! In fact while I did have to throw the vast majority of my magazines away, I kept issues 3 and 10 as a momento of my Amiga years. Unfortunately, having just had a look around the house, I can no longer find them and maybe I no longer have them. I do still have the original coverdisks though

Ah another one who started with issue 3

That cover is unforgettable. I'm lucky enough to have the cover disks for 3 and 4 waiting in the UK for me as a forum member sold them to me out of a job lot he had.

I hope you find your magazines

[005AGIMA]

Just sharing what will be a future nostalgia trip in the waiting (for my kids), and what I've been using the machine for

As well as why I'm going to be playing NOTHING but pre 16 bit games for a while

[ Show youtube player ]

[005AGIMA]

I am now ONLY playing PRE 16 Bit era games until I collect my Amiga in December.

This is to re-create the "upgrade" feeling when I eventually get to play Amiga again

Not long to go now!!!!!!!!

So please see my other thread for video updates. From post #6 I'm playing Spectrum games as I had a Spectrum +3 before my Amiga.
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=98211#6