Earliest memory of an Amiga...

[Gribnitz]

I remember walking into a Computer Plus store (I think that was the name) looking for something new for DOS and my crappy CGA graphics. I recall seeing a demo setup on Amiga, which I assume was the 1000 that long ago. It was running graphic samples that blew me away. I saw the price tag and remembered why I had an IBM clone with CGA...

[gsoravil]

For me I was with my mom (who occasionally did admin work for local community colleges) and we stopped by a community college campus. I was aware that the Amiga existed, but had never seen one. On this day it was an open-house of sorts. Maybe open enrollment? Anyway, I walk into the library and here's this guy with an Amiga playing Dragon's Lair. Having only every seen things like Commodore 8-bits and CGA PCs, I was completely blown away. A full screen, color animation video game? On a computer? I don't know if I had even seen Dragon's Lair the arcade game yet. So the experience was other-worldly. I think this might even have been before I saw Another World / Out of this World on anything yet. I already was Commodore loyal but that just cemented my rose colored glasses. It also made me mad at how they totally butchered the handling of sales of Amigas here in the states. I mean nobody sold them, they were this good, what the heck was going on?

Greg

[Sgt Jack V]

Around 2009-2010 or so, when I was about four or five and I was an overeager child, I saw some videos talking about it on this old iPod I had. Rather stupidly, I pronounced it as "A-My-Guh".

[fitzsteve]

Back in around 88/89 I guess my friend had an A500, i had a zx spectrum, he showed me Test Drive and Silkworm, I was blown away!

[Amigajay]

Remember always wanting one when seeing screenshots on multi-platform game adverts when i had my ZX Spectrum, never came across one as all my mates had 8-bit machines, it wasn’t until 1989 and Dixons had SOTB running on a demo machine in when i first saw one in person.

My mate then got one in 1990 and kept bringing it round my house and sometimes leaving it with me over the weekend, i was in computer game heaven as you could imagine!

[Tigerskunk]

I saw the Amiga mentioned on a computer magazine cover that I saw lying in the window of a magazine shop.
It was something like "how good is Commodore's new Amiga" or similar.
That must have been in 1985. I didn't have any idea what an "Amiga" was.

I saw a 1000 in person like 1 or 2 years later in a department store. It just displayed that "enter workbench" hand, and I found it very boring, since you could not do anything with it on contrast to the 8 bitters which had at least basic running on startup.

[alexh]

I think it was early 1988 and I visited a new kid on the blocks house and his brother had got an A500 which I'd never heard of, never even seen one in the shops. He was playing Test Drive and I was blown away with the gfx compared to my newly purchased Spectrum +3. I decided I had to have one, Took me 2 years to save enough to buy one.

[phx]

Originally Posted by Steril707

I saw the Amiga mentioned on a computer magazine cover that I saw lying in the window of a magazine shop.
It was something like "how good is Commodore's new Amiga" or similar.
That must have been in 1985.

This might have been the same magazine where I learned about the Amiga (Happy Computer or 64er?). But I bought it and read the whole article!

I saw it for real the first time in 1986, when we visited friends of my parents. Their children showed me a large room, where there was not much in it, except a table with this A1000 on top! I played Mindwalker and Marble Madness and was blown away by it. But I already wanted to get one since this article anyway (which finally happened in 1987).

[trixster]

I think I recall seeing one at Gemsoft in Sheffield in 87 or 88, as this was our go-to computer store

My first ‘go on an Amiga’ must’ve been at my cousins in St Albans, in late 89 or early 90. I recall New Zealand Story, Batman, F/A 18 Interceptor and Zany Golf, so that corresponds with the Batman Pack. Oh, and Robocop.

[stevelord]

My Uncle got one and we were over at their house. I saw it for the first time. I remember the intros more than the games with all the bright colours. I think I saw F/A 18 Interceptor and it blew my mind. I'd seen screenshots of Amiga stuff in Your Sinclair but never once had I seen the whole screen move like that.

[gimbal]

The first time I saw my miggy... I was 7 I think, I got out of bed, I went downstairs and boom - there was a computer, already setup. I'm pretty sure my parents got it because they noticed I had a deep interest in gaming consoles (Atari) and my uncle's MSX and realized that computers were there to stay; little did they know they determined my future right there and then on that day.

It still took a month before we had the first (PD) games for it and another month before we bought the first AAA games, so the first weeks I spent with it was just playing around with the workbench (most notably the say command of course) and we had the paint program "the Graphics Studio" which I... never really created anything with but I liked the pattern fill tool a lot.

[BLUELiGHT]

Late 1986, I went into a PC shop decided to buy an Atari ST. When I walked in I stumbled upon a beautiful Amiga 1000 on display, running a demo of "Defender of the Crown".

As soon as I saw the knight riding the horse to the tournament, the ST lost all its chances.

I walked home with the Amiga 1000 + 1081 monitor, Defender of the Crown, Marble Madness, The Pawn.

[crazyc]

I remember when we used to play on my mates C64 and then one day his dad came home with an a500. Running Outrun I think it was from these amazing smaller floppy disks.

I still remember that wow moment and its what actually got me back into the amiga a few years ago, and also why I prefer the real hardware to emulation.

[Master484]

My earliest memories of the Amiga are linked to magazine coverdisks, and the game demos and musics that were on them. I checked the Amiga Magazine Rack, and the first 3 coverdisks that I remember having were these:

CU Amiga June 1991
http://amr.abime.net/issue_69_coverdisks
Amiga Action June 1991
http://amr.abime.net/issue_94_coverdisks
The One June 1991
http://amr.abime.net/issue_316_coverdisks

So I guess the A500 arrived to the house at June 1991, when I was 7 years old.

And one the those coverdisks had this music playing in the menu screen:

[ Show youtube player ]

This 100 % powerful tune was probably the first thing that I heard coming out from the Amiga speakers. It totally filled me with excitement back then, and even today hearing it causes cold shivers.

And of course Amiga Action June 1991 had a full game in the coverdisk: Purple Saturn Day. A totally unique and great game, and still my all time Amiga favourite game number one.

---

Before the Amiga we had the C64 with one of those "black & green" monitors ( so all graphics were black and white and different shades of washed out greens ). And then suddenly we got the this new computer with a real color monitor, everything was super colorful, awesome sound and loud music and in every game. It was like having an arcade machine at home.

I think it really were the bright colors that impressed me the most. Back then as a child I could almost sort of "taste" the colors when playing those coverdisk demos of games like Warzone, Logical, Rodland, and others. And it is this "taste of colors", while great music plays, that is at the very core of my earliest Amiga memories.

[lilwshu]

My first recollection of one was seeing an A500 in the window of the computer shop in town running Jimmy White's Snooker and being amazed by the 3D graphics (I had a Spectrum at the time, around 1991).

A friend got the Cartoon Classics pack shortly afterwards and I lusted after one for another couple of years before my parents got me a second hand Batman Pack A500.

[AmigaHope]

I was at a family friend's house and they had an A1000. Saw it and immediately begged my parents for an A500.

[vbgd]

I saw a friend of my playing Games on an Amiga 500 in Stefanie Tücking Design. The Game was Stormlord. At first I wasn`t impressed by the technical aspects...but later as I`ve seen SOTB.

[roondar]

My two earliest memories are seeing a review for an Amiga game in Commodore User (when it still did C64 and Amiga) and thinking "WOW! Look at those graphics!". The game in question was DNA Warrior, so err... Yeah

Second memory was not long after when my local Dixons set up a whole bunch of systems running games and other programs. Unlike most of the systems, the Amiga was not running a game demo or a static random DOS application screen. It was running a full fledged demo, complete with "3D ball-stick figure guy running in place".

I was AMAZED and just had to have me an A500 from that point on

[rothers]

I managed to get in to the local 'posh' middle school and went to some rich kids house, and he had an original A500, just a casual gift, he didn't even see it as a big deal.

Absolutely blown away, had to know how it worked!

Proceeded to save up for a year to get one too. Before this I'd been learning to code on a 48k spectrum.

I just remembered a series of events when I saw that computer for the first time, the kid had a huge (for the UK) bedroom, and while I was playing with the Amiga he leaned back on his window, it was open, he fell out of it, to the ground floor, and landed perfectly in the bin in their back garden. He was, amazingly, fine.

[mr.spiv]

First time in "person" at a local computer club around -87 or very early -88. Some older dudes (in 40s or so) were into Amigas and even managed to get a local importer to give us a sales pitch & show some heavy duty hw.. like the new A2000.