Any Amiga fans/users here?

[TreyRandom]

I still have my Amiga 500, with extra memory, a 40 MB hard drive, and modded with a Fat Agnus. I had to replace a chip that controls the joystick, and during the repair, I broke a resistor. Once I get a replacement and solder it in, it should be good to go.

 

[adlep]

That was my dream computer in the 80s. I could never afford one though so I had to stick to my C-64.

Ditto...
I was so jealous of my friends swapping programs/games on floppies vs me with my pathetic tape deck...

 

[Arkaign]

I had an Amiga 500 later on in the early 90s, before that I had Atari 8-bit PCs (400s/800s), Atari ST, and Commodore 64. Pretty fun stuff back then, though I think those in Europe had so much easier time with the 16-bit Atari/Amiga systems due to their very high popularity compared to here. I remember it being relatively difficult to find ST games/stuff, and not all that easy finding Amiga stuff, while C64 and IBM PC stuff was EVERYWHERE. A place like Software, Etc, would have like 40 shelves of PC, 15 shelves of C64, 4 shelves of Amiga, and maybe 2-3 shelves of Atari 8 and 16 bit stuff.

 

[So]

I have an amiga (500, I think) that someone gutted and screwed into some corkboard. IDK if they did it as a teaching tool or as art, but either way, it's damn cool. I found it for $2 at a thrift store a couple of years ago.

 

[Pheran]

To me, it is amazing how many hardware idiosyncracies the Amigas had. I remember upgrading the Kickstart ROM (to version 2.04) in my Amiga 2000 and IIRC, it had a resistor soldered across 2 pins.

Fast forward from 1991 to 2011, and I add a 68030 accelerator. It would not boot when I had the 2.04 ROM selected; it would only boot with the 1.3 ROM selected. After researching, I found that there was yet another version of 2.x ROM I needed for the thing to boot properly. I got the ROM off eBay and everything worked great!

Remember the constant and important motherboard revisions? Some cards wouldn't work on revision 4.x boards, for example.

You are right about that. When I upgraded from an A500 to an A2000, I was able to remove the SCSI card from my sidecar enclosure (it was a Trumpcard 500) and put it in the A2000. However, I started have absolutely bizarre and intermittent problems with file corruption on my hard drive. I actually traced some of this stuff down sector-by-sector on the hard drive, and found that blocks from different files were sometimes getting cross-linked into one another. Finally I contacted the card manufacturer and it turned out I needed a new firmware version on the controller because I had a 68020 accelerator in my A2000. Back in those days, "new firmware version" meant they shipped me a ROM DIP chip, and I popped the old one off the controller and installed the new one.

 

[Pheran]

We share a property line with him, and we actually refer to the ridge on our property by his last name. Although I grew up in the neighborhood I never met him. Once we finish the house build and move in I'd like to go over an introduce myself.

That's way cool that he is your neighbor. If you do meet you can tell him there are Amiga geeks on your forum.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Interesting videos on the AmigaOne X1000.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wT36RYN_Bk&context=C311c0ebADOEgsToPDskJiqJ2HUtikFKbVWBo4pN4F//url

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvXpdIroSu0&feature=related

Nice forum too..

http://www.amigans.net/

Thanks! I'm a member of amiga.org and am always looking for new Amiga forums.

I'm more of a classic, 68000-based Amiga fan myself. The Amiga 3000 I just bought has Workbench 3.1, and that may even be "too new" for me.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I still have my Amiga 500, with extra memory, a 40 MB hard drive, and modded with a Fat Agnus. I had to replace a chip that controls the joystick, and during the repair, I broke a resistor. Once I get a replacement and solder it in, it should be good to go.

Ah, you probably had to replace an 8522 (IIRC) CIA chip. I should probably find a couple and keep on hand!

I've got a spare Amiga 2000 motherboard that had battery corrosion damage to the CPU socket (and maybe traces) as well. I really need to pull the socket off, clean the board, and solder on the new socket I bought and see if it works.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

You are right about that. When I upgraded from an A500 to an A2000, I was able to remove the SCSI card from my sidecar enclosure (it was a Trumpcard 500) and put it in the A2000. However, I started have absolutely bizarre and intermittent problems with file corruption on my hard drive. I actually traced some of this stuff down sector-by-sector on the hard drive, and found that blocks from different files were sometimes getting cross-linked into one another. Finally I contacted the card manufacturer and it turned out I needed a new firmware version on the controller because I had a 68020 accelerator in my A2000. Back in those days, "new firmware version" meant they shipped me a ROM DIP chip, and I popped the old one off the controller and installed the new one.

I still am not sure I understand Commodore's logic behind using internal ROM chips for Kickstart rather than another delivery method. Heck, even a cartridge-based system would've been better; getting to the ROMs in an A2000 was a PITA because you have to remove the drive/power supply cage and in my case, I have a ROM switcher installed that has a wire to the Gary chip so there isn't much slack.

 

[Thump553]

Jack Trameil (sp?) killed Atari by selling off the Amiga to it's main competitor.

I had boatloads of Atari 400 & 800s, but never took the leap into either the Atari ST or the Amiga, which was my dream machine. Money and time were too tight for a young family back then.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I had an Amiga 500 later on in the early 90s, before that I had Atari 8-bit PCs (400s/800s), Atari ST, and Commodore 64. Pretty fun stuff back then, though I think those in Europe had so much easier time with the 16-bit Atari/Amiga systems due to their very high popularity compared to here. I remember it being relatively difficult to find ST games/stuff, and not all that easy finding Amiga stuff, while C64 and IBM PC stuff was EVERYWHERE. A place like Software, Etc, would have like 40 shelves of PC, 15 shelves of C64, 4 shelves of Amiga, and maybe 2-3 shelves of Atari 8 and 16 bit stuff.

In terms of the actual computers, I think Indy had 3 or 4 Amiga dealers back in the 80s. I'd often go to one of them when I was in college and just sit and play with the Amiga 3000, since I thought it was cool and couldn't afford one. One time, they were having problems with the Amiga and the guy in the shop couldn't fix it. I fixed it for him and then sat there and played with it. He actually said "I should charge you for always coming in here and playing with the computer." I looked at him and said "Sure, and I'll charge you for the tech support I just gave you."

I think I got most of my software, accessories, and peripherals through mail order at the time. I suppose the Babbages of the world may have had Amiga games at the time, but I don't recall for sure.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Jack Trameil (sp?) killed Atari by selling off the Amiga to it's main competitor.

I had boatloads of Atari 400 & 800s, but never took the leap into either the Atari ST or the Amiga, which was my dream machine. Money and time were too tight for a young family back then.

Jack was a character, but I think he knew how to make money. I think that by the time he took over Atari in the mid-80s, it was probably too late for him to make much of a difference in the computer world. The PC and Mac were gaining more and more marketshare and the Amiga was superior to the ST and was probably the only realistic shot at having a third alternative platform.

I read somewhere (I believe it was on the "Secret Weapons of Commodore" site) that Jack approached Steve Jobs in the late 70s or early 80s and wanted to buy Apple. Imagine if that would've happened! Once Jack left Commodore, they had a string of largely ineffectual leaders (with the exception of Rattigan) and blew many opportunities at increasing their sales. Sun wanted to buy Amiga 3000s, rebrand them, and sell them as lower-end Unix workstations but Commodore blew the deal. And that doesn't even take into account the large number of very advanced projects Commodore was working on that never saw the light of day and were canceled -- advanced chipsets, new Amigas, etc. which would've pushed them far ahead of comparable PCs and Macs of the day.

 

[rudder]

Started with the Amiga 500 and ran a multi-line BBS off of my Amiga 3000.

SOld the 3000, had the 500 till about 2 years ago, but still have my Atari 800XL.

 

[Andy22]

I remember the pure unbridled joy I felt when I bought my Amiga 500. Earl Weaver Baseball, every Cinemaware title. Man those were some fun gaming days.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Ditto...
I was so jealous of my friends swapping programs/games on floppies vs me with my pathetic tape deck...

I remember when I got my first 1541 drive (for my 14th b-day, IIRC). I was AMAZED at how fast it was, and that is saying quite a bit considering the fact that the 1541 was a notoriously slow disk system.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

started with the amiga 500 and ran a multi-line bbs off of my amiga 3000.

Sold the 3000,

D:

had the 500 till about 2 years ago, but still have my atari 800xl.

I've been debating picking up an 800xl.

 

[paperfist]

I wonder what it would be like if Commodore was still around today? They made great, innovative products and I would guess if they were around it would be similar to an Apple or AMD tech company. It's a shame they never bothered to advertise back in the day which is something that held them back and I'd guess led them to their doom.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I wonder what it would be like if Commodore was still around today? They made great, innovative products and I would guess if they were around it would be similar to an Apple or AMD tech company. It's a shame they never bothered to advertise back in the day which is something that held them back and I'd guess led them to their doom.

I've often wondered what would've happened had they survived. I'm not entirely sure that there is/was room for a third platform, so at some point, Commodore probably would've had to focus more on their PC business and maybe going down that path would've made them another Dell or HP. Of course, had they not had issues selling the CD32 in North America (a legal issue, IIRC), they may have also sold enough to become a real player in the console market. The workstation market could've happened for them as well, and them botching the Sun deal probably cost them millions in yearly sales.

As we all know by now, mismanagement was their biggest issue, by far. I think they had the engineering talent and I think their engineers also had some awesome ideas, but those ideas generally got shelved due to cost cutting or in a few cases, legitimate concerns. The A500 and A2000 being delayed probably hurt them, and the release of the A4000 rather than the much better A3000+ was a big disappointment to many fans. Those, coupled with lack of advances in their chipsets, caused them to fall behind PCs by the early 90s and while the A1200 and A4000 may have achieved parity with the PCs, it was too late and they would soon be overshadowed. I know that around 91 or 92, I started getting frustrated and started moving towards PCs. When my Amiga monitor finally died in 94, I didn't even replace it and the Amiga basically collected dust between then and 2011, when I refurbished and expanded it.

Commodore never really gets its dues when the history of computing is discussed, and it generally pisses me off. The C64 is often mentioned in passing, and if we're lucky, MAYBE you hear about the original Amiga, but it seems most "journalists" completely ignore Commodore. It's a shame, because they had a HUGE impact.

A great site to read about some of their projects is the Secret Weapons of Commodore site, located here: http://www.floodgap.com/retrobits/ckb/secret/

 

[Pheran]

I remember when I got my first 1541 drive (for my 14th b-day, IIRC). I was AMAZED at how fast it was, and that is saying quite a bit considering the fact that the 1541 was a notoriously slow disk system.

The 1541 was a wacky drive system, there was even a primitive CPU in it. If you had 2 1541s, you could daisy chain them and run a disk copy program that would download code into the drives. You could then completely disconnect the drives from the C-64 and insert disks into them, which would be automatically duplicated.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

The 1541 was a wacky drive system, there was even a primitive CPU in it. If you had 2 1541s, you could daisy chain them and run a disk copy program that would download code into the drives. You could then completely disconnect the drives from the C-64 and insert disks into them, which would be automatically duplicated.

IIRC correctly, the 1541 had a 65xx series CPU in it, which was the same family the C64 used. I still have my original 1541 drive from 1984 and AFAIK, it still works, though I've got a 1571 hooked up to the C128 on my desk now. I built a cable to connect it to the 42" plasma in my man cave and there is just something funny about seeing a C64 or C128 hooked up to a plasma TV.

Speaking of Commodore, I was shocked to discover the active VIC 20 community. Some of those guys are doing amazing things -- this is actually a screenshot from a VIC 20:

 

[brandonb]

I had an Amiga 500, then eventually an Amiga 3000 and Amiga 1200.

I remember modding a few of them. I know back in the day you could overclock the Amiga 3000 by buying an oscillilator and replacing the clock on the MB. I also remember going to Radio Shack (back in the day when it actually sold transitors and stuff) and creating a sound recorder to plug into the serial port. I remember them being called "digitizers" back in the day, and recorded all my favorite heavy metal songs into the .wav format (or whatever it was back in the day) I remember needing an DAC and wiring it up and all that. My first (and only) venture into creating hardware electronics.

I loved computing back in those days. I also ran a multi line BBS on CNET, and got started with programming making games/plugins using the Arexx computer language for that software. Was the first programming language I used (successfully) when I was a teenager.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I loved computing back in those days. I also ran a multi line BBS on CNET, and got started with programming making games/plugins using the Arexx computer language for that software. Was the first programming language I used (successfully) when I was a teenager.

I did as well. I know I've said it before and I probably sound like a broken record if you've read some of my other retrocomputing posts, but computers had more "personality" back then. I really loved going "online" back then and was a member of several boards. When I resurrected my A2000 last year, one of the first things I did was to fire up Access! and look at my old BBS phonebook.

 

[JimmiG]

I still have the Amiga 1200 and the Amiga 500 but I don't use them any more. We actually used the Amiga 1200 until the very late 1990's. My mum published a small newspaper so we used it for PageStream (DTP software) among other things. It was fitted with a 68030 CPU @ 50 MHz, FPU, CD-ROM, 33.6kbps modem, 1GB hard drive and 18MB of RAM. It was much faster and more stable than any Win95/98 machine I used back then.

All those cool 3D games made me eventually abandon it for a P-133 MHz with a Voodoo1 card, later upgraded to a K6-2 and Voodoo3 and since then I've been a PC user.

I think emulation is the best way to experience the Amiga these days. Those modern "Amiga" computers are really just overpriced Linux machines.

 

[coloumb]

Don't own an Amiga as of now - but did back in the day. I purchased Dungeon Master to "force" myself to save up and buy an A500. Eventually plopped in an accelerator card [can't recall specifically which one] so I could play AB3D.

Today I use Amiga Forever [http://www.amigaforever.com/] if I'm ever in a nostalgic mood.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I could never quite get the emulators working to my satisfaction, unfortunately, but at some point, I will probably have to go that route. I just like seeing the big Commodore logo and my Amiga boxes.