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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Topic started by: SysAdmin on February 18, 2012, 04:45:15 AM
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Pre-order Now, Book gets Released on April 27, 2012
http://www.amazon.com/Future-Was-Here-Commodore-Platform/dp/0262017202
Book Description
Publication Date: April 27, 2012 | Series: Platform Studies
Long ago, in 1985, personal computers came in two general categories: the friendly, childish game machine used for fun (exemplified by Atari and Commodore products); and the boring, beige adult box used for business (exemplified by products from IBM). The game machines became fascinating technical and artistic platforms that were of limited real-world utility. The IBM products were all utility, with little emphasis on aesthetics and no emphasis on fun. Into this bifurcated computing environment came the Commodore Amiga 1000. This personal computer featured a palette of 4,096 colors, unprecedented animation capabilities, four-channel stereo sound, the capacity to run multiple applications simultaneously, a graphical user interface, and powerful processing potential.
It was, Jimmy Maher writes in The Future Was Here, the world's first true multimedia personal computer. Maher argues that the Amiga's capacity to store and display color photographs, manipulate video (giving amateurs access to professional tools), and use recordings of real-world sound were the seeds of the digital media future: digital cameras, Photoshop, MP3 players, and even YouTube, Flickr, and the blogosphere. He examines different facets of the platform--from Deluxe Paint to AmigaOS to Cinemaware--in each chapter, creating a portrait of the platform and the communities of practice that surrounded it.
Of course, Maher acknowledges, the Amiga was not perfect: the DOS component of the operating systems was clunky and ill-matched, for example, and crashes often accompanied multitasking attempts. And Commodore went bankrupt in 1994. But for a few years, the Amiga's technical qualities were harnessed by engineers, programmers, artists, and others to push back boundaries and transform the culture of computing.
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I had pre-ordered from Amazon a while ago. It was due to be released earlier, then got pushed back. Hopefully this date sticks!
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Ordered! Thanks for the heads up!
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Does anybody know anything about this author? I am thinking about purchasing the book but I'm not sure about this author. I've been burned before when a book like this is mostly pictures or fluff.
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Preordered one, thanks a lot! Hope it will be as eye popping as the book I so much enjoyed reading "Commodore a Company on The Edge" ,which I ordered also while reading comments at amiga.org.
http://www.amazon.com/Commodore-Company-Edge-Brian-Bagnall/dp/0973864966
I would strongly recomend this one for anyone who feel interest in computing history and legendary C= company! Can't wait for sequel "The Amiga Years" -book by this author.
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It has to be decent -- it's published by MIT Press.
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Long ago, in 1985, personal computers came in two general categories: the friendly, childish game machine used for fun (exemplified by Atari and Commodore products)...
There it is again... :( If the description is referring to Commodore 8-bit computers, many were used by business and in education... e.g., the San Francisco Unified School District and the University of California, Berkeley. Commodore 64s - used in educational institutions, like the Fresno Adult School (between 100 and 200 set-ups), Tulare Union School District, Portland (Oregon) Public Schools, and more. Also C64s were used in places like the Lawrence Livermore Lab and by the military, like at the Fort Benning Army Base in Georgia.
Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
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FWIW, I've bought and read the first book in the Platform Studies series, Racing the beam (Atari 2600), and found it a very enjoyable read (if a bit incoherent at times). This book is from a different author though.
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Hope it comes in electronic form soon after the hardcopy version arrives, I enjoy reading but most print books I'm unable to read due to vision problems.
Ipad/Kindle versions at least I can have the massive text effect, heh.
Sounds like an interesting read, looking forward to it.
If anyone knows of an e version of the previous Commodore book, help a brother out - have been unable to find it on iTunes or elsewhere (including Variant Press) thus far in digital form. I see some chapters in pdf form from various shady web dumpsites, but logically I'd prefer to support the cause and buy it in ebook form and support the author.
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After thinking about it I ordered it as well. Not many books about the history of Amiga come our way so what the hell! :-)
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Deja vu...
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=59970
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If anyone knows of an e version of the previous Commodore book, help a brother out - have been unable to find it on iTunes or elsewhere (including Variant Press) thus far in digital form.
This is peculiar... I purchased Commodore: A Company of the Edge for my Kindles from Amazon a few weeks ago. But I just checked the Amazon site and I cannot find it listed for Kindle. As a matter of fact, all I see is wording advising me to let the publisher know if I would like to it released for Kindle.
Wonder what gives.
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Received my copy on Friday and read the whole thing cover-to-cover this weekend. Some very indepth technical examination of the Amiga chipsets and some very nice historical uses and software reviews.
Really enjoyed the book, it does have a few errors though, such as claiming MorphOS is an open-source x86 operating system like AROS.
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Does anyone know when the eBook will be available? I've given up print books...
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There it is again... :( If the description is referring to Commodore 8-bit computers, many were used by business and in education... e.g., the San Francisco Unified School District and the University of California, Berkeley. Commodore 64s - used in educational institutions, like the Fresno Adult School (between 100 and 200 set-ups), Tulare Union School District, Portland (Oregon) Public Schools, and more. Also C64s were used in places like the Lawrence Livermore Lab and by the military, like at the Fort Benning Army Base in Georgia.
Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
Not at all uncommon. This area, (Central Maryland, Washington D.C.) used the C-64 in most of their schools. High Schools in this same area used Amigas, later on and many Video Toaster systems!
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There it is again... :( If the description is referring to Commodore 8-bit computers, many were used by business and in education...
To be fair tho, that's the perception now, and it was at the time I remember.
Also, I don't think it's wrong for a generalization..
What can be missed tho, is that you could (and many did) use your "friendly and childish game machine" for business and education.
You could also use your "boring, beige adult box" for games.
My mom frequently did my sister's legal documents on our C64 using the Fleet System 2 Word Processor. Even tho, that C64 was basically a game machine. ;-)
And when the family got a PC with Word Perfect, I can tell you that many a game of Thexder was played on it.. ;-)
I'd maintain that the images of the C64 as game machine and the IBM as a business machine are fair generalizations. Doesn't mean that each can't do a bit of the other.
And personally, I'd generally give the edge to a game machine being more flexible, because moving graphics around and playing sound is a lot of work. ;-)
Now, the Amiga was interesting at the time in that it was "both" from the start. It had the eyes and ears of a game machine with the graphics and sound, but it's mind and heart were equally impressive for business with the memory, multitasking and GUI based OS.
desiv
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The above was true for my household back in the 90's... I used my Amiga 500 for Final Writer stuff sometimes, but predominately my Amiga was solely used as a Games machine once I got a Pccceeeee I used it for Mircosoft Word.. I played the Shareware version of Doom as my first Pcceeee game on a 386.... Wasn't really amused by it and thought oh thats a bit pixelated and beep beep crappy sound.. So the Pcceee was used for Business applications until I got a Pentium 100 with a more serious video card.. Then I slowly stopped using the Amiga for games sadly.. but now these days games are too complex and a bit boring so back at the Amiga games for really really addictive off the bat games!
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Has anyone read this book? How does it hold up?
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Not at all uncommon. This area, (Central Maryland, Washington D.C.) used the C-64 in most of their schools. High Schools in this same area used Amigas, later on and many Video Toaster systems!
I can remember seeing an Atari 8-bit prompt on the local cable system's info channel back in the day. Before they went Amiga. :-) I also knew a local newspaper that used Apple ][s for their writers. We sold them Amigas for display ads and the classifieds.