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Author Topic: Hello from South Africa  (Read 15594 times)

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Offline frootloopTopic starter

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Hello from South Africa
« on: March 28, 2008, 08:26:01 AM »
Hi there,
I've been lurking here for a while now, just thought I'd drop in officially;)
Got a banged old A2000 that a buddy of mine found lying in a forgotten flooded store room, and have rediscovered how much fun the 'miggys were! Btw, is anoyone else here from South AFrica? As for as I can tell, I'm the last surviving Amiga User in the country...it was not all that populat here to start with, unfortuantely.
I must say, this is one of the best communities ever, It really makes me feel the old 'miggy spirit is still alive and well!
 

Offline frootloopTopic starter

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Re: Hello from South Africa
« Reply #1 on: March 28, 2008, 10:10:19 AM »
Hi there,

Thanks for the welcome :)

The Amiga was not very popular in SA for several reasons.

There was no Commodore subsidiary in the country. The C64 had previusly been distributed here by a company called Tedelex, but they didnt seem to support the Amiga much. SO there was no advertising or real awareness of the Amiga except among a small group of computer enthusiasts.

during the 80's and early 90's, South Africa was still under the Apartheid regime, and was under international sanctions. It was therefore not easy to get hi-tech stuff, and usually at a high price - a secondhand A500 with monitor would sell for around R4500 - this was quite a bit whne you consider at the time, R4500 a month would be considered an exceptionally good salary| Also, non white people would earn significantly  less than that...and it was almost unheard of to see a computer at a non-white school at all.

On the otherhand, PC clones thrived. There was a huge influx of them from Taiwan, you couls get them as cheap as R1000 for a full system if you shopped around. They sucked, biut they were fairly common ;)

Whoa...sorry looks like I'm going off on a tangent there ;)

The A2000 ame with a GVP Series II HC+8 with 2Mb onboard, and the Agnus upgraded to an ECS 1MB model along with 2.04 roms.

It also came with a Magni 4005 Internal genlock - apparently one of the best PAL genlocks at the time. Apparently its been hacked to support YUV ... will have to find a manual and a pinout diagram so i can build the breakout cable for it.

All in all, its been a lot of fun getting it back up abd running...waiting for the 3.1 roms and os i ordered to arrive, and the super denise...now if i could just find a decent RTG card and accellerator, I'll be all set to use it as my primary box :)
 

Offline frootloopTopic starter

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Re: Hello from South Africa
« Reply #2 on: March 28, 2008, 10:11:49 AM »
@countzero
LOL, xrays of Amigas? He does sound South African then;)
 

Offline frootloopTopic starter

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Re: Hello from South Africa
« Reply #3 on: March 29, 2008, 06:43:38 PM »
Thanks for the warm welcome everyone! Its good to to see that the Amiga is alive and well, given the enthusiasm I see here!
 

Offline frootloopTopic starter

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Re: Hello from South Africa
« Reply #4 on: March 30, 2008, 08:35:23 AM »
Not surprising really - the Amiga was never really popular here :( Mossel Bay is quite nice in Summer .. but I usually go further up the coast to Knysna if I can .. its one of my gavourite spots in the country.
I'm from Cape Town, the best part of South Africa, lol. Spent some years in Johannesburg and other parts, but always come back:)
If you are ever in SA again, be happy to show you around ;)
I have an Ex-South African friend in New Zealand - she really loves it there, I hope to visit one day ;)