What is your actual hobby?

[Weasel Fierce]

The thread about recapturing (or failing to) the spirit of playing games as a kid got me to think on something I have mulled over for a while.

Have you ever sat down and thought about what your actual Amiga hobby is?

I see a lot of people online who spend hours cleaning up and fixing up old hardware, soldering damaged boards and so on, yet seem to spend very little time actually using their amigas for anything.
Their hobby would seem to be tinkering and repairing things.

There's others who spend all their time playing retro games and even streaming them or creating longplay videos but they haven't booted up workbench in years and may not own an amiga any longer. Their hobby would be retro gaming.

Is it collecting game boxes and hunting for items off your list, trying to get complete sets in good condition?

Is it coding and making retro games?

What is your hobby, when you get down to it?

[arcanist]

My Amiga hobby is the same today as it was 25 years ago: mainly programming, with a side of games and lo-fi productivity (music, pixel art, 3D).

The Amiga, to me, is a uniquely interesting combination of hardware and software. The interplay of its custom chips is intricate and fun to master. Its limits have been extensively researched and documented by game and demoscene developers, but continue to be pushed today. Contemporary demos blow my mind about the A500's capabilities in the hands of a skilled team.

The only other platform with a similar mix of technical beauty and community expertise is, in my opinion, the C64.

It's the limitations of these platforms that drive creativity among the graphicians, the musicians, and the coders still working on them today.

[chip]

The same since 7 years: building ADA

[TCD]

When I started to get back into 'Amiga things' (so when it became 'retro') it was all about getting my hands on any and all Amiga games and playing them. I leeched BTTR and other websites and then eventually a few years after I started I got an outdated TOSEC set. So many games! I played a lot of them only to find out that there were very few hidden gems and much more subpar games.

Afterwards I started to get interested in preserving the things that went with games. The big boxes (when they went out of style), the thick manuals, the catalogues of upcoming titles etc. That's more or less where I still am today. I don't need to own them myself, but I really enjoy making them available digitally so that people can either look at them and remember or discover how games were 'consumed' BITD.

[onkelarie]

Since 1988 it has mainly been for me making MOD's, gaming and some programming.

The last decade TOSEC was added to my Amiga hobby.

[gimbal]

Gaming is a hobby in general, not specifically Amiga. The hobby did start on the Amiga though. I had an Atari 2600 at that point but those games were too simplistic and at the same time difficult to really spend large amounts of time with.

[Predseda]

Beside usual Amiga gaming?

Since last 15 years I collect boxed games, since 2016 I am directing LemonAmiga and since 4 years I have been a betatester for several games.

[gimbal]

beta testing as a hobby, not bad.

[Weasel Fierce]

Look at all you productive people!

[stevelord]

I try to give all my old computers jobs... Not necessarily in the day job sense, but jobs. I use the CDTV for programming, writing articles for WhatIFF Magazine, ham radio, and planning skywatching sessions. I use the A4000 for a lot more - Internet Radio, light photo editing, 3d rendering (mostly Vista and LightWave), some ham radio bits, some BBSing, writing, etc. I even modeled COVID stats on my A4000 with Turbo Calc a couple of years back, updating once a week. I have a G4 Mac Mini next to the A4000 that doesn't get used nearly enough because the A4000 can do almost anything it can, just more slowly.

[Megalomaniac]

Primarily gaming, which has drifted from various-retro-computers-and-consoles back towards mostly-Amiga as my free time level drops, but I've tentatively started collecting too, initially just rebuilding my old collection as closely as possible. Never been a creative person, I would have been picked last for art if that was a thing, so I'm not sure I've got much to offer towards game development. Since first buying a PC I've always used relatively-modern PCs for serious computing, internet use and my music collection.

[HEXWALKER]

I make MODs, and I have a general obsession for productivity software, and software development. I surprisingly don't play a lot of games on my Amigas, didn't really until a few months ago when I decided to do some benchmarking tests. I have a lot of other machines with a lot more software and games, and I'll use those for those things. Fun, fun.

[alexh]

Collecting. Sad I know but it appeals to some people. I like collecting retro hardware. As an ASIC (microchip) designer I like the history. Digital archeology.

[Weasel Fierce]

Originally Posted by alexh

Collecting. Sad I know but it appeals to some people. I like collecting retro hardware. As an ASIC (microchip) designer I like the history. Digital archeology.

Nothing wrong with that as a hobby.

[Anubis]

Is collecting = hoarding?

Excuse my English, still learning it.

[Karlos]

My hobby is voiding warranties on things.

[Weasel Fierce]

Originally Posted by Anubis

Is collecting = hoarding?

Excuse my English, still learning it.

Assuming you are not joking:

Hoarding is when things get out of hand and you start filling the entire house with stuff or it starts to interfere with your life. It can actually be a real mental illness where people end up trapped in their homes that are barely livable due to all the junk everywhere.

Though people of course also use it as a joke term since collectors tend to end up with all manner of random bits lying around.
"Yes, these 12 ethernet cables from 2002 will come in handy some day"

[Karlos]

Hoarding = Collection * Obsession

[gimbal]

Extreme Hoarders is such a sad program to watch, I honestly avoid it. It's not only the broken life or lives, but it's also the extreme waste. It's usually at least a truck full of stuff that goes to the landfill and a lot of it is in the state it is in because it was hoarded and left to rot.

[malko]

Originally Posted by Weasel Fierce

[...] "Yes, these 12 ethernet cables from 2002 will come in handy some day"

The opposite may be true as well. Haven't you ever faced, not long after having binned something, the need of that exact thing that you have binned ? And, voilà. to the shop to buy a new (expensive) one...

Joke aside BitD I knew a guy (clean, smart, graduate) who was not collecting stuffs but was unable to clean his flat... Damn, been there once and leaved as quickly as in an animated cartoon...