Let's see...
I started off with a C128 (Christmas gift from my folks waaay back in the 4th grade), had much fun as a child learning BASIC and playing my silly cartridge games. Eventually I acquired a '41 and a 300 baud modem (soon replaced with teh uber 1200 baud version)... and spent several years heavily entrenched in the local C= BBS scene, at one point was even a co-sysop -- and that was just *SO* freakin' cool, especially as a kid.
Call-waiting was the absolute BANE of my existence back then, LOL. I had several friends with Amigas and Atari STs, but there was no way my folks were going to spring for another computer, since the C128 still handled my schoolwork just fine. Ownership of several game consoles passed through my hands (even had a NEC TurboDuo at one point, LOL), I also acquired an early x86 box for WordPerfect and playing Wasteland.
I picked up an A500 fairly late in the game, somewhere around '92 I believe (I recall being jealous as my Amiga buds had just bought new A1200 HDs). I sold my mint, absolutely flawless comic collection to buy it (about 450 comics at the time, all selectively purchased stricly for future "collector" value), which I *really* wish I hadn't done. Anyhow, I used the 500 mostly for watching demos and gaming, and since I couldn't afford a hard drive, I played games like Dune II (5 disks IIRC) and Civ with a single floppy drive. I upgraded it a little (1 meg Agnus and some fast ram), but eventually it went into storage. By the time I *finally* had an Amiga, it was getting seriously long in the tooth... unless you had 4k to blow on upgrades, which I did not.
I had little to do with computers for about 5 or 6 years, I just got into other things and didn't have time and money for both. Sometime around '99 I picked up an Intel P3, and shortly after a 1 GHz Athlon. Around this time my interest in the Amiga as a retro-hobby picked up, I bought a brand new A1200 (strange find at a tiny computer shop somewhere in northern Cali), learned all about it, and had a blast upgrading it in small increments. Really great watching all the AGA demos I missed out on. Amiga OS was intriguing, and it might sound masochistic but I actually ENJOYED spending hours playing with things like BlizKick, and getting the thing connected to my broadband service.
I bought a Pegasos 2, which arrived around Christmas 2003 IIRC (Genesi shipped it with free, overnight UPS, which I always thought was pretty "stand up"), enjoyed toying around with MorphOS and Linux. AmiNetRadio was probably my favorite program on that platform.
I upgraded my PC around that time, decided it was ridiculous to have a bunch of expensive hardware that I really didn't have time to enjoy (also hand an eMac laying around), so I sold my Pegasos, '060 card for the 1200 and a few other little things. I still own my first computer, also the A500 and A1200, along with a few C= monitors (not to mention all the software), and I'll probably hang on to it all for a while... their worth so little, it would be almost pointelss to sell them. I remember reading a while back about a planned PPC board for the A1200 with onboard Radeon GFX, now that would be interesting... I'm definitely not loosing any sleep over it (I'm fully aware of how things work in Amigaland), but the slight possibility of running something like AOS or MorphOS on a desktop A1200 with modern screenmodes *is* a pretty cool thought.
Anyway, my interest in Amiga these days is passing and largely for nostalgic/retro purposes, but I just might buy another Pegasos someday if I really get the itch. I've been "out of the loop" for about 2 years, so it's been interesting to check back and catch up on everything. I love PCs (just watercooled my main rig), but I still fire-up WinUAE on occasion. Truth is, with work, girlfriend, and a motorcycle to ride, there's just not much time left for my other hobbies anymore.
Nice to see amiga.org is still alive and well, it's by far the best amiga site on the net, and still one of my favorite sites to visit.
