People who discovered the Amiga after it had disappeared?

[Kepler]

It seems the overwhelming majority of contributors to this and other Amiga forums are people who were introduced to the Amiga brand of computers during "the golden age". I would be very interested in hearing from people who discovered the delights of the Amiga after it's demise in the mid 90s - does this segment even exist?!

[Seiya]

i take Amiga at the end of 1994
at the end of '95 i bought A1200 second hand; in the 1996 i bought blizzard 1230 and in 1997 i bought Apollo 68040@40

[CyberSoftworks]

Lets begin with how I had learned about the Commodore64: I had learned of the Commodore 64 in the year 2017 via a friend who had connected to a bulletin board system I connected to back then. We discussed how he connected to the bbs and what machine he was on, and he said that: "I am using a Commodore 64 to connect" So automatically I looked up Commodore 64 on Wikipedia, and to my suprise I learned that it is an 8bit system with a capability of showing 16 colors on the screen. So I took the time to install vice64 emulator, and from there I was hooked. Then about three years later in the year 2020 I purchased TheC64Maxi, on it I learned BASIC Programming and even started to work on a Graphic Text Adventure using Koala Hires Gfx. About a year later I purchased a C=64c Model from a friend I met via Discord Chat, for around 200.00$. After I recieved it in the mail, it had to sit for lil, until I bought a new Kellog Oled Display PSU (Power-Supply-Unit), aswell as a Kung Fu Flash SD Card Cartridge and a Commodore Kazz C64 Wifi Modem (Esp232). I fell in love with my setup at first site!.. Til this day I still use it, for games, sidchip music, and gfx as well as a little petscii bbsing. --> A little while after that I had just collected enough money from working a gig, and in the year 2022 I bought a Custom Commodore64 By Darth Skalmar's Retro Garage, it came with a splattered green paint case, a green badges, and green keys, as well as a 25in1 Game Cartridge by C64Lover. Well some of you might ask, how did he come across the Amiga 500 as shown on the mainpage of my neocities site. --> For so long since the year 2019, when I had discoved Amiga Forever by Cloanto Software. I had desired an Amiga 500 or 1200, so I had asked my friend Marvin, if he wanted to trade his Amiga 500 (Came with Gotek USB Drive & Kickstart 2.4 aswell as the old beige brick power supply unit, a mouse, and books on workbench, amigados, and the a520 modulator.) I recieved it in exchange for my Custom C64. After I recieved it I purchased a: PlipBox_Deluxe, and that is how I have come across Commodore Machines. --> End of Article 001 - Written By: Cybernide.

[Kepler]

Originally Posted by Seiya

i take Amiga at the end of 1994
at the end of '95 i bought A1200 second hand; in the 1996 i bought blizzard 1230 and in 1997 i bought Apollo 68040@40

Were you aware of the Amiga before you decided to buy one?

[Seiya]

Commodore 64

[BSzili]

I discovered it for myself in the mid-2000s.

[chip]

I bought a second hand Amiga (my first Amiga) in 1995

[LynnDrumm]

I got my first Amiga(s) around 2007, an A500 and later an A2000. I never did much with them though, being a poor teenager with essentially no income ^^;

In 2014 I got an A600 and that's when the Amiga Fever really took hold ^^ -- upgraded it with extra chipmem, an ACA620, and an indivision ECS. Being able to finally afford upgrades and have a hard disk definitely made it more fun.

over the years I've gotten hold of a few more machines. I don't have my original A500/2000 anymore (house fire got to them), but I do have another A500 with it's original box, a few A600s, two A1200s, and my current main machine, an A4000 with a BFG9060 @ 100MHz + ZZ9000 ^^

[qz3fwd]

I have vague memories of the Amiga from the 1990’s, forgot about it entirely by 2000, stumbled upon OS4 in the 2010’s after reading an article about the x1000 on Engadget but and was intrigued about the system but could not get over the price, then forgot about it until just before the pandemic when I got bored with x86 and re-learned about Atari/Amiga (68k), ARM64, RISCV, Power. I never saw a single Amiga either in stores here in the US or anywhere while at university-just PC’s, Mac’s, and Unix machines.

I got my first 68k system a V4SA back about 3 years ago, acquired an Atari Firebee, was going to follow Retro Man Caves video and build a new 500 in Checkmate case, then learned about big box 3000/4000’s and realized the 500/600/1200’s are toys and had 3000 & 4000 boards built by the board creators and now have an A4000TX, AA3000+, and ACILL 4000, together with a bunch of BFG, ReA4091, ZZ9000, Highway Pro Zorro cards and brand new cases/everything. The tricky part is USB keyboard adapters for the big boxes. Keep waiting for Sum adapter to be restocked.

Now own copies of 4.1, 3141, 32, and will get a license for MOS.

Fun hobby.

[Torqual]

Atari 2600 -> VIC-20, 32k -> C64 -> A500 in 1989. A1200 at around 1992. Put a Blizzard 1230-IV/50 in it, can't remember when. Switched to PC in 1997, DOS. Was forced to Win95 by the software then. Aaaargh! What *boring* generic machines! But still the Amiga went into the attic for 20 years or so. Discovered it again, and since I bought a C128 a couple of years ago, I thought it was a good idea to put the big sister alongside her little bro, both sharing one monitor. Fitted a Rys MKII and an SD-adapter since the HD was blown. The rest is original and working. Ok, keypad is broken, DF0: too. Minor issues.

But for the initial question, yes. My daughter, 11, greatly enjoys playing on Amiga, as well as the C128 (64 mode of course!) She doesn't care how old a machine is if the game is enjoyable. Lately even Sonic the Hedgehog on the AmiMasterGear Emulator, which runs fine!
"Papa! On the Amiga Sonic looks even better than on the PC!" - Sure does! It's running on an old 14" Philips CRT. And the Master System's resolution wasn't that far away from the Amiga, 256x240 or so. No need for shaders, scanlines and post-processing whatnot stuff to make it look less blocky on our nowadays PC.
Anyway, the lass got loads of fun with those rickety old machines and shows that we don't necessarily need a PlayStation 5 to make our kids happy!

[QuikSanz]

A500 second hand w/ many floppies, 1994 $100, friend wants doom, 386 whatever. A2000HD w/ G-Force 030/40, from high school, 1997 $800. Sold A500.
A4000T Quick Pack CSMK3, CV643D, loaded, 3rd hand, Was for air traffic control, FAA, 2004 $1000.

[Mick]

It must have been Christmas of 1991 when I got my A500 as a kid, it was actually a Cartoon Classics A500+ modded with Kickstart 1.3 for compatibility. I'd only had an Atari 2600 previously. My parents took out a payment plan with a local independent shop as it was a lot of money in those days. I have to say though out of all of the Christmas presents I received my Amiga and a mountain bike were the best value for money in terms of long term use. When I wasn't riding around outside I was on my Amiga with friends. Buying magazines with demo disks and the local market used to have people selling all PD stuff, those were the days.

[whowasphone]

Yes we do exist!

As I mentioned in another thread, one of my father's colleagues gave us his CD32 around 1997. My sister and I loved it so much our Dad got cross that we weren't playing our expensive N64. When we went to school one day, he threw our CD32 in the bin. : (

The quirky European games made an impression on us and we never forgot it. I wish I still had it!

My 4 year old is happy playing any kind of computer game, as long as it has cute characters. She has tried out quite a few Amiga platformers. If you show them older games before newer games, they will be able to appreciate them!

[giantclam]

I was 30 when I bought my first Amiga (A1000) ~ nowadays ppl tend to 'discover' Amiga via emulation (discover the software, not the machine)

My 4 year old is happy playing any kind of computer game, as long as it has cute characters. If you show them older games before newer games, they will be able to appreciate them!

Yeah, nieces/nephews/grandchildren of mine are the same ~ they really aren't interested by the time they hit their mid-teens ... they don't truly appreciate the scene that was ~ most of their mobilephones offer more gaming joy.... it is what it is, times change =)

[-=ARA=-]

@whowasphone
That´s an interesting story.
Im curious, do you remember which games you played on the cd32?

Throwing the machine in the bin was quite the reaction