Hi, new member from USA

[SnkBitten]

Hi, I've been a member for a month and thought it would be proper to introduce myself.

I'm older (49) and have had a number of Amiga's as they were launched. I have always been interested in computers and started with a Commodore 64. I was looking at the C-128 when I started reading rumors of something called "Lorraine" and what it could do. Eventually 'Amiga' information started to be released, and once it available out a local computer group had Commodore do a presentation with an A1000. I definitely had to attend this and after the show I had to have one. I had to buy it at an Apple computer store of all places. They were the only shop in town that initially pushed the Amiga here. I still have my receipt, the system was $1,295.00 + tax. A week later I went back and purchased the 256 KB expansion and a 2nd floppy drive. I added a video digitizer (use a b&w camera and a color wheel to multi-scan the object to get color images), some audio digitizer and an Insider 1 MB ram expansion board.

Up next the A2000 was released and the NewTek VideoToaster had me drooling. So an Amiga 2000 with Video Toaster, (2) TBC's, a "massive" 65 MB HD and SCSI controller and an ethernet board. This was supposed to be the heart of my video production system that never made it out of "playing around"

Next...the Amiga 3000....and I wanted one of those. I don't remember doing much to my A3000. I loved the size and look of it compared to the A2000. It was my primary "use" machine with the A2000 serving as VideoToaster host.

Finally....the Amiga 4000 hits..with AGA graphics and of course a "new" NewTek VideoToater 4000. In comes the A4000 with VideoToaster 4000 and out goes the A3000. I added an ethernet card to this as well, an Emplant Mac emulator and and EGS Spectrum RTG card...oh and I forgot I had a WarpEngine4040 card as well. I had the A2000 and A4000 networked together so I could share files between the two. I added one of those mega expensive Single Frame Recording VCRs and controllers and played a good bit with LightWave 3d and dumping out short animations. When the Video Flyer was announced I started dreaming of getting one of these and what I could do with it.

Some unforeseen job changes and I needed money. Commodore had filed for bankruptcy and some local places were using VideoToasters for productions and I put out the word I was selling. The equipment went fast and that was it.

I don't know what triggered an Amiga flashback but I started looking at systems on eBay and decided to look at the emulation scene. Downloaded WinUAE, got it up and running and remember how much I loved the Amiga OS. This led me to delve deeper into the emulation and what could be emulated and eventually buying a copy of AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition for Classics.

Long story, if you made it this far I hope it wasn't too boring. I kick myself now for selling all that I had (and very cheaply too...especially considering the prices I see the stuff going for now). Just having a blast with Amiga emulation right now...not much into games, just enjoy seeing what AmigaOS can do these days with the right tweaks, hacks and utility software. Setting up normal configurations and up to monster systems with tons of ram, unrealistic chip ram settings and 512 MB RTG cards. Immensely impressed with WinUAE and its emulation abilities. OS 3.1, OS 3.9 and OS 4.1 systems configured and bouncing around between the three.

[Cherno]

Hello and welcome to the forum

[voxel]

Welcome aboard SnakeBitten ^^)

[onkelarie]

Welcome! Your intro is far from boring, more like very recognizable

[Anubis]

Welcome!

Nice list of Amiga's you owned.

WinUAE is really way to go today, but also you can check RPi emulation as well. I play some games even on my old xBox (original xbox).

BTW, I'm from Michigan, and you will find out we are all around that age group... 30s through 50s.

[prowler]

Hi SnkBitten, and welcome to EAB!

Thanks for a great introduction.

I'm particularly impressed by how quickly you got back up to speed in emulation.

[trydowave]

Very interesting story. Not boring at all Wished I had the kinda dough back in the day; never owned a big box Amiga. I got my first job at the age of 14 and was paid a massive £20 a week . Saved an entire year for my Amiga 500 Screen Gems pack!

I brought Shadow of the Beast in 89 for thirty pounds (before owning the Amiga -had to have it). I was drooling over the graphics on the back of that box for a year and I pretty much wore out the T shirt that came with it. Good memories.

[SnkBitten]

Thanks for the welcome y'all. I work with computers/networks and it keeps me on my toes for figuring out things Back in the day I was doing everything on Amiga and once I had Workbench up and running a lot of the small stuff started waking up in my memories....s:startup-sequence, s:user-startup and all that fun stuff.

I really couldn't afford all those toys back then....which is a big part of why I don't have them now. Had I the means....I would probably still have the A4000/Toaster 4000 setup (though a Win PC would be around somewhere since that's how I make my living).

AmigaOS 4.1 has been fairly impressive. I've got shares from my NAS box mounted on my Amiga and even have my Windows Media Center PC sharing one of it's drives. I was able to run an RDP session from my Amiga to my WMC PC as well.

Still, there's something about tweaking 3.1 to do all the things it wasn't originally setup to do I love how fast 3.1 feels with lots of ram and some serious RTG abilities. 1680x1050X32bit makes for a very nice Workbench. If I remember correctly...I pretty much stayed on 800x600x16bit on my A4000/EGS Spectrum card.

[anachronicus]

Howdy from Texas, SnkBitten! I'm just slightly younger than you, clocking in at 42. My first computer was a Commodore 64, and I very quickly graduated to an Amiga 500. I nev er really had one of the "big box" Amigas, but I now have a A4000 tower I'm trying to bring back to life. Most of my Amiga use was with a A1200. The folks here are very helpfull, so don't hesitate to ask any questions you may have. Have fun

[ransom1122]

Welcome. .. Interesting intro
If only you kept your gear. You would of made a killing

[Adrian Browne]

There's a new Amiga reloaded board in the works from individual computers. it's a new a1200 board. There are also apollo accellerator project and vampire accellerator projects.

There's also lot's of cool hardware for amigas still being produced to this day.

Have you heard of indivision? Allows amigas to display on flat screen tellies and gives new resolutions also.

[jmmijo]

Welcome, from one yank to another

[Anubis]

@ SnkBitten,

I prefer WB 3.1, specially advanced one such as one build by another EAB member, Bloodwych - ClassicWB. There are few different versions, from one made for old machine to the fully loaded one or WinUAE. All of those are free as long as you have WB images.

If you prefer to make it yourself, then you can follow guides made by our late member Paul aka The Green Amiga Alien. Guides include all required downloads and steps you through installation. WinUAE did change bit since then, but I am sure you can figure out if needed.

Just to mention 2 more things, one is WHDLoad, that makes amiga ADF games being able to play from HD. If you like to play old games, this might help a lot. (I have even setup where my windows icon would load Amiga game inside WinUAE with settings I predefined) Key costs 20 bucks and is great way to support this great project - well worth the money.

Another EAB member created WHDLoad installs for many games and demos - you can access his site from here: http://kg.whdownload.com/kgwhd/

Site has packs with games, but if you like just to load only one, then this is site you are after: http://whdownload.com/

And for end, another great resource is Archive.org, with Amiga TOSEC set:

https://archive.org/details/Commodor...SEC_2012_04_10

Enjoy your stay and have fun!

[B14ck W01f]

So, when you give your introduction, are you really supposed to state whether you had an Amiga or not?

[SnkBitten]

Originally Posted by B14ck W01f

So, when you give your introduction, are you really supposed to state whether you had an Amiga or not?

You can probably do whatever you want in your introduction thread. For mine, it was based on what led me to EAB....which was owning Amiga's in the past and enjoying the experience again through emulation (WinUAE).

[Wayne123]

Nice collection of Amigas you used to own, I always wanted an Amiga with a toaster setup.

[SnkBitten]

Wow, less than a year from making my introduction thread and I have an Amiga again.

A4000, 68040@25Mhz, 16MB fast and 2Mb chip. I've added a 250 GB HD drive and DVD-RW/CD-RW to the internal IDE controller and have installed 3.1 Roms and OS 3.9. Had to do the OS install with WinUAEon the HD as my install floppy for 3.1 was bad. It was much faster that way anyway...

A friend gave me a steal deal on a Toaster4000 and Flyer card, now just need some drives.

So back to having a real Amiga again as well as my Amithlon machines (desktops and laptops) and of course WinUAE.

[JimDrew]

If I can ever get around to assembling EMPLANT boards, you can get one of those too. I have about 400 unstuffed boards sitting in storage.

[kneehighspy]

Originally Posted by JimDrew

If I can ever get around to assembling EMPLANT boards, you can get one of those too. I have about 400 unstuffed boards sitting in storage.

really like my emplant, just need an amia

[SnkBitten]

Originally Posted by JimDrew

If I can ever get around to assembling EMPLANT boards, you can get one of those too. I have about 400 unstuffed boards sitting in storage.

I loved my Emplant board back in the day. Had a friend with a Mac and we used to play some game (Marathon) online all the time. He may have been a tad jealous of my faster "Mac" lol. It also let me get on the old Prodigy service since work at the time provided me a free account.