Philosophical Question - Amiguing

[Thorham]

Haven't you heard, Thorham? On the Internet, you are always rational, logical, and objectively correct, and anyone who disagrees with you is a blithering, irrational, sentimental loony!

Ha ha, indeed

Answer is:
Nostalgia. Pure, unadulterated, and self-indulgent.

Sure it is... for you, and you can't speak for everyone.

we have an Amiga to remind us of another time when things were simpler and we were part of the few that 'got it'.

Can you please stop speaking for everyone? I have an Amiga because I like Amiga computers, and most certainly not to remind of 'simpler' times.

Alas, it has more in common with a typewriter than a contemporary computing device.

What an absolute nonsense :rolleyes:

[Art]

For me, the appeal is nostalgia. Plus you can't simply replicate playing games
on a real Amiga, No emulator gets them all quite right.

At the same time, I'm sure there are people putting Amigas to practical and
productive uses today where other platforms or their software might fall short.

It's also a very good platform to recieve the hardware modifications about.
A lot of people would derive satisfaction that way.

[klx300r]

I had a C64 in my teen years and dreamed of owning the Amiga 1000 as there was a Commodore/Amiga dealer a bike ride away from my house and every Saturday morning I would ride my bike there and stare in awe at the A1000 for hours upon hours.  Man in 1985 it WAS THE computer hands down and to this very day I'd throw away every piece of electronics in my house if I had to but never my A1000.
I've used almost all the OS's but always AmigaOS feels like coming home.  In my 20's I decided to sell my Amiga 1200 with Blizzard 030 as I needed to use AutoCad for school and alas I had to get my first PC to do so.  The regret I had once I sold it was indescribable!
of course I got it back years after...along with other Amiga goodies :-)

[Art]

I had a C64 in my teen years and dreamed of owning the Amiga 1000 as there was a Commodore/Amiga dealer a bike ride away from my house and every Saturday morning I would ride my bike there and stare in awe at the A1000 for hours upon hours.  Man in 1985 it WAS THE computer hands down and to this very day I'd throw away every piece of electronics in my house if I had to but never my A1000.
I've used almost all the OS's but always AmigaOS feels like coming home.  In my 20's I decided to sell my Amiga 1200 with Blizzard 030 as I needed to use AutoCad for school and alas I had to get my first PC to do so.  The regret I had once I sold it was indescribable!
of course I got it back years after...along with other Amiga goodies :-)

If it's about nostalgia, I don't think it is any less valid.
Bernd Schmidt said in his interview that his vision for UAE was narrowly
defined to the specs of the A500, because that's the computer he had,
and that's not a programmer talking.
There has to be merit to the fact that the Amiga is that thing that connects
your present to your past. My first microwave oven does not do that for me.

[ChaosLord]

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, ...

Do you understand that "nostalgia" refers to the distant past?

Today is 2013, not the distant past.

Things that happen in 2013 cannot be nostalgia.

In 2013, AmigaDOS is vastly superior to MSDOS on Windoze XP and Windows7.

In 2013, AmigaDOS is vastly superior to Linux DOS, BSD DOS, Unix DOS, etc.

This is today, not the distant past.

Do you do actual work with your computer?  Or do u just play games?

Have you ever tried to do a List, Rename, Delete, or Copy with those other OSes?

Why don't you write out how to do them in the other OSes and how you do them with the Amiga?  Look it up.  Use a book or use Google.



In 2013 all Amiga MUI software is vastly superior to all WinozeXP, Windows 7, and Linux software.  Amiga MUI software allows the user to actually change the damn fonts (or just change the size) to a readable size/style without having the text flow outside the window like always happens on my WindozeXP box.  Software on Windoze and Linux is downright user hostile in its Nazi-Stalinist-Dictatorial GUIs of "Do it the way I hardcoded it OR DIE!"

Amiga MUI software allows every aspect of the GUI to be user controlled and customized and is lightyears ahead of Linux, Unix, BSD, WindowsXP, Windows7, etc. in 2013.



Or how about filesearching.  I had a 2TB harddrive that I had to repeatedly search for the existence of files.  I had to do hundreds of searches.  It was ridiculously slow.  Every search took 24 to 30 minutes on my 1500 Mhz PC.

So I used a search program (with fancy pattern matching) that I wrote in asm on the Amiga back around 1990 for BBSes.  It completed each search in around 7 seconds on my 50Mhz 060.

My 50 Mhz Amiga is 257x faster than my 1500 Mhz pc.

On a Mhz for Mhz basis my Amiga is 7,714x faster than my worthless WindozeXP PC.

That is today in 2013.

[Bamiga2002]

...Alas, it has more in common with a typewriter than a contemporary computing device.

Quick, power up the electric chair!


:smack:

[OlafS3]

I had a A4000 with 030 and Picasso graphic card and sold (with huge losses) when I got my first PC (including lots of software) and today regret it too...

Of course it has to do with "nostalgia" but that is not the whole story. I am self-employed and have the "fun" to do support/network for some customers on the different versions of Windows and I like "Amiga" more every day because of that :-). It is not that the times were "simple" back then but the system and concepts were. And in many areas AmigaOS was far ahead of competition (f.e. installing drivers by copying files). I think there is at least a chance for the platform but of course it must be "Amiga 2.0" so to say. It will certainly not a revival of 68k as a mainstream platform but 68k will play a important part in it, not just because of nostalgia (f.e. playing old games) but because of the huge distribution chances with UAE running almost on every system today including mobile devices. That is my "dream", not nostalgia but a revive of the platform as commercial market (of course much smaller than Windows or Linux or Mac but big enough for commercial indy developers). I do not think that this is "nostalgia".

[persia]

Yeah nostalgia is a big part of it.  The Amiga was where I first learned about programming, it's what launched me into IT all those years ago.  It harkens back to a simpler past, one processor, one user, etc.

Why do people tinker with old cars?  old radios?  old anything?  Because their simplicity is charming.

[psxphill]

In 2013, AmigaDOS is vastly superior to MSDOS on Windoze XP and Windows7.
 
In 2013, AmigaDOS is vastly superior to Linux DOS, BSD DOS, Unix DOS, etc.

I'm not sure what exactly you're comparing, if it's shells you're talking about then PowerShell on Windows is superior to the Amiga shell.
 
The Amiga lost it's superiority in the mid 1990's. There were too many compromises made to make it fast on a 68000, which ultimately held it back. I switched from Amiga to PC when Windows XP came out.
 
A Raspberry PI is faster than an Amiga. Anyone programming an Amiga today is doing it purely for nostalgia or fear of moving on.

[Thorham]

Anyone programming an Amiga today is doing it purely for nostalgia or fear of moving on.

Or perhaps because they enjoy it? It's a HOBBY after all :rolleyes:

[spirantho]

A Raspberry PI is faster than an Amiga. Anyone programming an Amiga today is doing it purely for nostalgia or fear of moving on.

I think it comes to something when even on an "Amiga" forum, you have difficulty making people realise that the Amiga is just as much fun to program for now as it always was. This kind of attitude used to be limited to PC/Linux/Mac forums.

If other people do it for nostalgia or fear or whatever then great, and if people want to believe that the rest of us only do it for nostalgia, then that's their choice, but they're completely ignoring the real reasons (e.g. enjoyment, coding for a developing (still) environment, coding for a small(ish) community, coding to support development of AmigaOS - there are so many reasons which have nothing whatsoever to do with nostalgia).

Why does it have to be nostalgia? Why can't it just be the simple explanation - that some of us just prefer the Amiga to the other OSes?

[OlafS3]

I'm not sure what exactly you're comparing, if it's shells you're talking about then PowerShell on Windows is superior to the Amiga shell.
 
The Amiga lost it's superiority in the mid 1990's. There were too many compromises made to make it fast on a 68000, which ultimately held it back. I switched from Amiga to PC when Windows XP came out.
 
A Raspberry PI is faster than an Amiga. Anyone programming an Amiga today is doing it purely for nostalgia or fear of moving on.

why always the negativity? Nobody expects that "Amiga" (in whatever form) will become mainstream and beat Windows. Many developers who are left are programming on Windows or for embedded platforms and have "no fear of moving on". It is a nice little platform and in many areas more elegant than huge platforms like Windows or Linux. Let people enjoy it and not search for negativity. We have a nice warm summer day here with blue sky and therefore no need for negative comments.

[Mrs Beanbag]

It gives me a strange sense of smug satisfaction to know that I'm using a computer that is older than some of my friends.

[OlafS3]

lol

[ChaosLord]

Anyone programming an Amiga today is doing it purely for nostalgia or fear of moving on.

People only voluntarily do things for one of 2 reasons:
A: They are paid to do the thing.
B: They do the thing for fun.

Which one of those do you think applies to Amiga programming?

[OlafS3]

A? :-)