I just read that this year is the 25 anniversary of the Amiga 1000 launch in 1985,if you don't know what an Amiga is or never owned one then the start of this matt chat vid pretty much sums up what you missed. ๐ ๐
The anniversary site is here
I myself come to the Amiga in 1991 with the cartoon classic pack,only had it for a year or so as I sold it and bought a Amiga 1200,as it was one the early 1200 which had a fault and had to be replaced by a man in white van,Who took it away and gave me another one.It was my first computer that I ever had a hard drive for,I remember getting a huge 40mb hard drive about half way through playing Wing Commander in 92 no more disk swapping while at least for games which had a hard drive install.there were many great games on the Amiga like Alien Breed,Frontier,monkey Island,worms,syndicate who could forget that axe throwing mini game from Heimdall.
Used That Amiga right up untill 2001,by that time it was in a tower and had a 040/250 ppc accelerator and Bvision
graphic card,but by this time I become fed up various shenanigans going on with the Amiga owner and finally went
over to the dark side of computing.The Amiga now sit in a big plastic box along with another 1200 and 500 I pick up a few year ago,must dig out some time and see if they still work.
So if any one else has Memories of the Amiga feel free to post.
The best home computer ever. 25 years? Where has all the time gone and I still hate Medi Ali, even after all this time! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_evil.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />
Oh goodness, where to begin. I got my first "miggy" back in 89, a plane jane A500 and loved it. Spent months playing Dungeon Master & Elite. Sold that (along with an Atari A520ST) and upgraded to a 500+ and got a RAM expansion, 2 extra external floppy drives and a 1.3/2.04 ROM switcher and still have that and use it almost daily! Note avatar <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' /> The 500+ for me was the best ever Amiga, not the most powerful by any means, but it did (and still does) play some of the most awesome games ever made.
Started Uni in 92 and used that as a pretext to upgrade again to a A1200. Upgraded that with an `030 board, 8 megs of fast ram, a 120 meg HD and a CD-Rom drive. I was tempted by the small compact size of the A600, but in the end I am glad I picked the A1200 over it, besides the 500+ was just as good or even better to my mind. Frontier was the only game for me at this time! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wink3.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' /> That hard drive did come back to haunt me though as it started to smoke one day. After opening the case and expecting the worse, all I found was a burned out HD and it's ribbon cable knackered. The rest of the board was just fine. One tough little computer! Still runs fine to this day.
I saw the CD32 for sale and being worried at the time that consoles would kill off everything I bought one. I still have it and to be honest its not seen much use.
Then something miraculous happened, a friend of mine decided he no longer needed his A4000 and I quickly shoved รยฃ200 into his hands and made off with it before he could change his mind. By this time it was about 1998 and upgraded it with a Cyberstorm MK3 `060, a Cybervision graphics card, 3.1 ROMs, 24 megs of Fast RAM and a "massive" 1.7 gig HD. With this handy rig I could run the very last of the games that were coming out for the Amiga, like Nemac IV, Foundation and Naplam. Frontier was sublime on the `060 equipped machine, pure Amiga heaven <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_biggrin.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' />
The A4000 was in constant use until it inexplicably packed up and refused to work again. So it lay in a box for nearly 10 years until very recently. I have sent it off for repairs and still waiting for the result. Hope to get it back soon in working order with an Indivision AGA card installed to display native screen modes on modern monitors. My old 1940 Commodore monitor went on fire years ago! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_confused.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':?' />
Anyways it's only because the A4000 died that I finally made the switch over to PCs and have hated them ever since. I mean why can't you just switch the thing on and it works? Why to you need to shut the machine down? Why is Windowse (not a spelling error) so slug like compared to Workbench? Plus it seems to get slower as it is replaced with more modern versions. I seem to remember my first Windows 98 machine would boot up quicker than my modern Vista equipped machine. All rubbish compared to Workbench's streamlined interface. Oh, I hope the A4000 comes back soon, I have OS 3.9 waiting for it! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />
You should dig your system out Pinback, a great 1200 based tower like that deserves to see some use! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_cool.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='8-)' /> And don't be tempted to sell it either, you will only miss it afterwards! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_biggrin.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' />
Had a very similar experience to that,back in mid 90s when I put the A1200 in the tower,I put the harddrive ribbon cable on the wrong way ๐ณ .Net result smoke and flames ๐ ,when I replaced the cable and switch it back on worked first time,as you say one tough machine. ๐
Briefly owned a 2nd hand CD32,used as it as a cd rom dive for the A1200 untill I got the Squirrel,still got my copy of simon the sorcerer ๐
Alway's wanted A4000 especially a tower one.
Don't think I will ever sell them,might be buried with em. ๐
I know what you mean <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_lol.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> In my case they will become family heirlooms, the kids still love those great Amiga titles like Deluxe Galaga, Cannon Fodder & Zeewolf. My little niece being a prime example. She got a nice modern laptop to "help with her homework" and what was the first thing she wanted installed on it? Amiga Forever! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_lol.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />
I cannot remember any of the specs of the hardware I had but I had a Amiga 500 and that thing was just a solid performer and I rarely had a crash. I remember spending many , many hours on all the psygnosis games like Shadow of the Beast. Ahem those games scream REMAKE. But I remember the day I upgraded to the Amiga 500 from my C64 and I was in shock at the leaps and bounds better everything. As a kid I was in heaven, the sound and video coming out of the Amiga was the best around and the scene back then for the Amiga was amazing.
We need a new hardware/operating system to come out and give MSoft/Apple a run for there money to capture the PC gaming market. Which can be very large again if done right and the right titles take advantage of the hardware.
Gurus meditation error,god I had forgotten all about that,even the crashes were more fun on the Amiga. ๐
Spent a lot of time playing Lemmings ๐ Can remember being wowed by Eye Of The Beholder
Same here,went the Amiga show in Hammersmith (PART OF lONDON) in the mid 90s when Escom had the Amiga rights and on display was there new Amiga prototype.The one that looked like the off sping of Darth Vader and a hover. ๐
Bought Imagine 3,spent the next three or four months trying to work out what to do,eventually I gave up and had to wait until Cinema 4D came out before I could make anything.
Cannon Fodder a Absolute Classic game ๐ and the dune 2 "tank rush"!!. ๐
I remember also playing Defender of the Crown (masterpiece by CinemaWare) and Times of Lore a RPG. Ahh the memories and there is an amazing game pool sometimes they should remake some of these classics to let people play them again.
I'am sure there was a remake of Defender of the Crown a couple of years ago โ .Never played any of the CinemaWare games but the one I allways wanted too play was "It Came from the Desert".Might have to hunt down a copy on Ebay some day.
Damn, Imagine was a fucking great 3d app and complicated one too.
haha ya for Dune 2, i liked to use some rocket launchers for cleanup enemy ๐
It was a great programme but just too hard for a beginner and the manual was not much help,Cinema 4D had a much better interface and lot easier to get to grip with but not as powerful as Imagine in features.
Use like lining up the rocket and gun turrets when I found out which way the ememy was coming from and watch them blast them to pices in dune2. ๐
Ever play the first dune game that was a good one well.
Yea <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_e_smile.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' /> great games being mentioned, but I think you will find Farcodev, that Elite 3 was never out for the Amiga, at least I think it never came out for it. A version was certainly wanted by the fans and I even have a review of the game (pre-release with PC version screenshots) from an old issue of CU Amiga, but I think GameTek canned it after the court case that happened between them and David Braben. What a shame <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//sad.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':(' />
Other games I spent far too much time on, K240, F117A Stealth Fighter & Subwar 2050.
Imagine 2.0, 3 & 4 were given away on Amiga Format cover CDs, still have them! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//wink3.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=';)' /> Another program I had a lot of fun with was Vista Pro 3, a landscape creation program. I bought this, but it too was later given away on another cover CD. Oh no!, More memories are re-surfacing, Protracker and Octamed were great for creating and manipulating sound samples and of course the Deluxe Paint series. Pagestream 2 and Final Writer got me through Uni course work, although I used a dot matrix printer which (while printing out documents) used to make enough noise to wake the dead! <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_lol.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />
Deluxe Paint 3 great paint prog,still go an animation I made with it,went on to use Personal Paint IIRC it was because it had a screen grab so I could use it for texturing and Photogenics one of the best paint/graphic progs on the Amiga.
Never got far into Subwar 2050,Dreamweb was a game I really enjoyed playing,had a look and feel of Blade Runner. ๐
I was doing some reading since this thread brought back memories...
AmigaOS4.1u2 is out and the feature set for it look great and it supposed to run on some of the updated AmigaOS specific motherboards to take advantage of the hardware.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmigaOS_4.1#AmigaOS_4.1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam460ex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AmigaOne_X1000
AmigaOS might make a comeback with this hardware. I believe AmigaOS is still limited to the PowerPC processor but that might be a good thing and read that AmigaOS was running on the Cell processor as well.
AmigaOS might make a comeback with this hardware. I believe AmigaOS is still limited to the PowerPC processor but that might be a good thing and read that AmigaOS was running on the Cell processor as well.
I can't see the Amiga making a big come back,it lacks any killer software/apps really I think the only way i might make a come back would be to get in with Sony or Nintendo as an os for their consoles.
Brilliant game Stunt Car Racer as raced around those roller coaster tracks ๐ and the 3d snooker game (can't remember it name) where the balls made faces and held up signs if you took too long to make the shot. ๐
Why the surprise at Photogenic and Dreamweb Farcodev โ
For those who might be interested here is a link to David Haynie's video "The Deathbed Vigil - The last days of Commodore". See what the Commodore plant looked inside and get the views of the wonderful people who created this great computer.
It's a sad vid but also an interesting one,I watched it a while ago IIRC this vid that shows the manorial hard drive that some one at Commodore threw againt a wall,then they put a frame around it. ๐
Any one know how to convert mainactor Animations to the pc. โ
Could it be this game Pinback? http://hol.abime.net/3298 ๐
Also came across this by way of that site http://www.discreetfx.com/Care/
That's the one Geraldine ๐ , jimmy whites whirlwind snooker one.
Never got that Elite advanced to work on the Amiga,might give it anothere go some time.
Anyone ever play the Star Trek: 25th Anniversary game on the A1200,great way how each story was an episode.
Also like the RPG games Istar.
*SPOILER NOTICE*
Yep, have that one and it can be a bit of a pig to install too. The last mission where you fight another Enterprise took me quite a while to beat.
You know I don't think I every got to the last mission.
Oops <img src="' http://spacesimcentral.com/forum/public/style_emoticons//icon_redface.gi f"' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> Sorry Pinback. I must remember to post a spoiler warning. I will edit my last post right away.
Being an old fart I owned 3 Amigas over the years, and my friend still has his old 600 somewhere. I upgraded from the Atari-ST, and it was like a breath of fresh air. The ST was the first computer I owned with a 'desktop' environment and a mouse, what a revelation after all the Commodore-64s and Spectrums that went before. However, the Amiga was just so much nicer to use, so much more powerful and better supported with software. Syndicate was my favourite at the time, and I remember seeing one of the first versions of Lightwave being demonstrated on a top end Amiga too. I never got my hands on Lightwave until years later on the PC, but I still vividly remember seeing what it could do and wishing I had that sort of power at my fingertips.
Lightwave was allways the prog to have,I can remember seeing 3.5 being advertised for about รฦรโรยขรขโยฌร ยกรฦรขโฌลกรโรยฃ300.00 but not having the money to buy it.Then 4 come out and the price shot up to over a thousand. ๐ฅ
Playing Precursors over the last few days put me in mind of Robinsons Requiem
http://www.mobygames.com/game/amiga/robinsons-requiem
Any one ever play it never got far into it myself but an intresting game in the amount of freedom you had to things within the game world.