Philosophical Question - Amiguing

[hbarcellos]

Question is:

-> Why do we(1) keep trying to cultivate the Amiga, knowing that, most probably it's some kind of nostalgic feeling about the surrounding of our life experiences(2) when we first had the original Amigas?

(1) I include myself on it.
(2) Youth, already deceased family members, places, childhood, teenage, ex girlfriends, ...

[nicholas]

I think a more important question is "Why not?"

[commodorejohn]

I never had an Amiga growing up; I was a Mac kid. Didn't get my first A500 until 2000, when I was 16. So no nostalgia for a lost childhood here, except in that I remember how, when I was a kid, personal computers were going to be a tool to enrich the lives of the masses and bring a whole new level of creative power to basically everybody, instead of the glorified TVs they're becoming these days.

The Amiga, like 68k Macs, reminds me of those days, and that lost dream; indeed, you could make an argument that the Amiga, in its day, was at the forefront of that. I don't think that's "mere" nostalgia.

(Additionally, the Amiga is a lovely, elegant system design, that deserves a lot more respect than it gets.)

[spirantho]

Nothing to do with nostalgia for me.... AmigaOS is the only OS I know that I enjoy coding for, using and generally playing around with. Simple as that.

[hbarcellos]

Nothing to do with nostalgia for me.... AmigaOS is the only OS I know that I enjoy coding for, using and generally playing around with. Simple as that.

...and you never ask yourself why? Why AmigaOS is the only OS you enjoyed coding/using/playing around with?

C'mon, there are several other flavor of OSes out there, that you can do everything you did with an Amiga and much more....

Wouldn't you call that... nostalgia?


*PS* I'm playing the Devil's Advocate here, ok?

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

When I sit down at my PC it's to work, or to check Facebook.  When I sit down at my Amiga I want to create music, or paint pictures, or tinker with the configuration to eek out a little more performance... or occasionally to play some old game out of nostalgia.  It's a totally different feeling between the two.  

[spirantho]

Why? If you'd ever tried coding for Windows or Linux you'd understand
AmigaOS is fast, responsive, configurable and does what I tell it to in a nice understandable way that no other OS does for me.

Nostalgia doesn't enter into it.

(now my ZX81 on the other hand )

[hbarcellos]

Why? If you'd ever tried coding for Windows or Linux you'd understand
AmigaOS is fast, responsive, configurable and does what I tell it to in a nice understandable way that no other OS does for me.

As a matter of fact, I did. Even working in a management position nowadays, I have a significant coding experience ranging from Z80/8086 ASM (MSX/PC)/ to ObjectiveC with even some Mainframe Natural Adabas in the middle.

About being fast, responsive and configurable, have you ever tried Windows XP on a really fast machine? How about even Windows 8 on one of those extreme SSDs machines? I can tell you by own experience, boots faster than my 040 A1200.
And then, you can go as roots as you want, ranging from TASM, TCC, GCC, Visual C 6.0 or even the newer Visual Studio...

What get's my attention is the word you used "Understandable". And/or the word "me" at the end.

...again... Nostalgia? Because, I agree with your feelings, but, I suspect the cause is nostalgia.

[spirantho]

Yes, I've tried XP and Windows 8 - my machine at work runs 8 x64 on an SSD and it's very quick, actually. For the most part, it's the only machine I've used that rivals AmigaOS for responsiveness. And yes, I'd expect a 2013 PC running a 400MB/s SSD to outperform a 1992 Amiga 1200. I compare with my own Sam440ep and A1XE (I can't afford an X1000) particularly, although my CSPPC A4000 is still very impressive.

But none of that can change the coding. I've always hated Windows coding ever since the word "WM_PAINT" was first ingrained into my memory. The whole way Windows works is hideous, and whereas AmigaOS now contains Reaction (with which a capable GUI can be built very quickly), Microsoft prefer travesties like MFC and now the Metro interface (which to be fair I've not tried yet).

As usual, it's horses for courses, and we'll probably have to agree to disagree on the old "my OS is better than your OS". But one thing is certain, and I can answer your original question (and I'll make this as clearly as possible):

My choice of OS is nothing to do with nostalgia. It is just a preference.

Now the less succinct version :
I think there is a tendency sometimes for people to label things that are "old" as "nostalgic", when it's not correct. For instance:
I have a large record collection, and few CDs.  Is it nostalgia? No, I just prefer the warm analogue sound to the clinical, digital sound of a CD.
I listen to old music, mostly 60s and 70s. Nostalgia? No, I wasn't even born then. I just think it's more rewarding (give me some nice Rock, Prog, Jazz or something over modern music any day)
My favourite film is "The Producers" from 1967. Nostalgia? No, it's just an awesome film.
My wife spent most of the evening playing Sonic on the Megadrive. Nostalgia? No, it's just a very good game.
My favourite platform of choice is the Amiga. Nostalgia? No, it's just an awesome platform to use and develop on.

[commodorejohn]

I think there is a tendency sometimes for people to label things that are "old" as "nostalgic", when it's not correct. For instance:
I have a large record collection, and few CDs.  Is it nostalgia? No, I just prefer the warm analogue sound to the clinical, digital sound of a CD.
I listen to old music, mostly 60s and 70s. Nostalgia? No, I wasn't even born then. I just think it's more rewarding (give me some nice Rock, Prog, Jazz or something over modern music any day)
My favourite film is "The Producers" from 1967. Nostalgia? No, it's just an awesome film.
My wife spent most of the evening playing Sonic on the Megadrive. Nostalgia? No, it's just a very good game.
My favourite platform of choice is the Amiga. Nostalgia? No, it's just an awesome platform to use and develop on.

Exactly. There's this notion that anybody who prefers older things can only be doing so out of irrational nostalgia, because...blind faith that new is always inherently better than old, I guess. Question society's blind devotion to Progress (and they always confuse mere motion with real progress,) and you're just some stupid romantic who must be afraid of change! Certainly it can't possibly be that you actually, honestly believe that a newer development is a step backwards or anything.

[Lurch]

My reasons are a combination. I enjoy it more than my PC, there is also some nostalgia. I got back into because of nostalgia and now the other half calls it an addiction.

She can't understand why I keep hacking away at it when the Amiga keeps falling over, and I keep fixing it and modding it further. LOL.

I must admit I prefer records, I still have a turntable and a record collection but no stereo to connect it to anymore.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

^^^  Russian proverb:  New is first enemy of old.  

[nicholas]

I wonder what the incidence rate of individuals who fall within the Autistic Spectrum are within the Amiga community (or even retro computing communities in general) is compared with society as a whole?

I'd be willing to wager it is pretty high.

[bloodline]

That's a great question hbarcellos, for me it is the original architecture of the Amiga system, be that the hardware (which is now totally redundant when compared to even the most basic machine- ie raspberry pi). But far more interesting is the Operating system, and I'm keen to know how the Amiga OS architecture works on modern hardware, for that reason I'm involved with the AROS project (and have been for nearly 15 years), which unlike the other "next gen" amiga OS projects, is AmigaOS 3.1 running on modern hardware, and I find that exciting.

[commodorejohn]

I wonder what the incidence rate of individuals who fall within the Autistic Spectrum are within the Amiga community (or even retro computing communities in general) is compared with society as a whole?

I'd be willing to wager it is pretty high.

Based on what? The idiotic Hollywood stereotype that "autistic" = "Rain Man?" The tendencies of self-diagnosed 'spergies?