[brainstorm] Amiga for penniless folks

[saimon69]

I am one of the penniless folks above and most social media activity around seems to tells me that, since am not spending anything, i might not doing things right, down to the level of not even being worthy of the hobby...

[dreadnought]

Huh? Is it about something a random person on utube/twitter said (if so, who cares)?

One of the best things about this hobby is that all you really need is a PC, even a fairly old one, (and since you made this post you must have one) or even some lo-fi board such as RPi, and then nearly everything else is free. You can play any old game, access all the literature, use any software. Creating stuff is also free.

[grelbfarlk]

Well if you can gather 16,000 pennies you can guy an Orange Pi Zero 3 and have a brand new Amiga 600GS. There's Gigabytes of RAM and it's basically a new Amiga. See the letter "A" and 3-4 digits with two of them being zeros?
That's like 3.75 cents per Amiga.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by grelbfarlk

Well if you can gather 16,000 pennies you can guy an Orange.

I love out of context quotes!

Not sure which thread inspired this one, but the 'support new Amiga development or else' mentality isn't anything new. Best to just do your own thing and leave the torches and pitchforks behind.

[saimon69]

Is just me having a rant after seeing a discrete amount of people in social media buying old machines, accessories and accelerators plus doing repairs (strangely not too much people brag on new software) that i cannot afford; was unable to afford it back when Amiga was mainstream and cannot afford it now that is prized retro possession;

[TCD]

Originally Posted by saimon69

Is just me having a rant after seeing a discrete amount of people in social media buying old machines, accessories and accelerators plus doing repairs (strangely not too much people brag on new software) that i cannot afford; was unable to afford it back when Amiga was mainstream and cannot afford it now that is prized retro possession;

Ah, good to know So a standard case of 'manage your expectations' then Just think about people showing off their prized retro hardware acquisitions on social media as a new way to perform a proper mid life crisis

[saimon69]

In my case is one of the many: drooling over synthesizers, consoles, arcades, a better wage, a proper home [here in US, in Italy have the family home for retirement] and so on

[dreadnought]

This is what makes social media so extremely boring (to me at least) - any time I look at some area of interest there, the most liked/upvoted stuff is all about "rate my setup", with people going to extreme lengths to outdo themselves (the old philosophical question of "how many Mario figurines can fit on top of my rare NES model" springs to mind).

In this respect the good ol' forum format is still vastly superior.

[saimon69]

We definitely need more Lotus models, plus Zool and Turrican figurines to show off back!

[Pyromania]

Enjoy the hobby anyway you can. Ignore peanut gallery posts from nobodies.

[Cris1997XX]

Why do you care about other people's opinions, anyway? Just play on emulator and enjoy the many great games Amiga has to offer

[UberFreak]

This seems to work for some people:

1) Open a retro-related YouTube channel
2) Ask viewers to send you stuff so you can showcase it on the channel (and thank them publicly for the donation)
3) For reasons yet unknown to me, some people will send you stuff
4) Profit.

If I had the time and patience for it, I would try this myself...

[Megalomaniac]

As said, retrogaming can be a near-free hobby thanks to emulation - a very old PC can comfortably emulate most older systems, and computer games at least are easily available for download. I'm in a position where I don't have a huge amount of spare money (even finally getting a way to use a joystick with WinUAE would be an investment I have to consider, see my thread on that) but I try not to obsess over others having more spare money to spend on luxury parts of this hobby. I don't know if people are deliberately showing off or gloating over their collections, I hope people have outgrown that though I do occasionally see comments mocking the less financially fortunate on here, I try to let them wash over me. The wider world is often worse for this.

[rare_j]

Sometimes these guys who buy in heavily are here today, gone tomorrow. Which is fine of course. You see it in a lot of hobbies.

[DisasterIncarna]

Pi400 is nice and cheapish for what most people need, and like its amiga inspiration its an all in 1 machine in a keyboard, can run an emulator on it np, its probably ideal for most casual users without breaking the bank.

[kriz]

So you want an Amiga or not ? If you want, you can save a little here and there, then you can for sure get an A500 or A1200 .. Only depends on what you want

[grelbfarlk]

I'm not sure what saimon wants, a loaded A1200 with accelerators and FastIDE adapters and extra clockports, maybe a slim DVD mounted inside the case?

Old (and pretty bad) synths, maybe a Roland MT-32?

Or is it the righteous fame of making an hour long youtube video including opening boxes and commenting on how well this old and kind of crappy gear was packed and whether you are saving the boxes. For a newly manufactured Amiga mouse.

If you want to Amiga, you have a phone or a PC, surely, you can just run UAE better than all of that original junk is together at a fraction of the price, which I'm assuming is zero, since you probably have a phone or a PC.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by rare_j

Sometimes these guys who buy in heavily are here today, gone tomorrow. Which is fine of course. You see it in a lot of hobbies.

I'm always reminded of those kids in school who had the newest toys and never used them again after a couple of months.

[Paulee_Alex_Bow]

Originally Posted by saimon69

I am one of the penniless folks above and most social media activity around seems to tells me that, since am not spending anything, i might not doing things right, down to the level of not even being worthy of the hobby...

I have many real Amigas & would never look down on someone who runs stuff via emulation. Heck I write most of my music/do most of my sample conversion, on WinUAE on my laptop in bed! Haha.

[saimon69]

Originally Posted by kriz

So you want an Amiga or not ? If you want, you can save a little here and there, then you can for sure get an A500 or A1200 .. Only depends on what you want

I have two amigas, a 500 and a 1200 in italy,both need however love: the 1200 in particular feel ready for a recap and a new hard drive