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Author Topic: "Alternative" platforms as primary computers  (Read 5121 times)

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Offline GreggBz

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Re: "Alternative" platforms as primary computers
« Reply #14 on: September 14, 2006, 04:59:43 PM »
At work I have my Linux workstation, because I administer Unix servers. It's vital because it has so many (networking) tools built in that are helpfull to an adminisrator.

At home I use Windows XP on a "silent" pc that I built. I do some amature game developemnt and VS.NET 2003 + DirectX is an outstanding development IDE. It dual boots Ubuntu Linux but I hardly ever run Linux at home anymore because after 10 or 15 years of use I still find it kind of exhusting.

I use my Amiga 1200 pretty regularly for hacking around and games. Mostly just hacking around. Also, I occasionally use my Atari ST when I want to play Dungeon Master.



 

Offline Amiduffer

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Re: "Alternative" platforms as primary computers
« Reply #15 on: September 14, 2006, 05:41:05 PM »
Quote

LoadWB wrote:
So I told you all of that to ask you this: when did you acquire your first Windows or Mac to become your primary computer, or do you still use Amiga (or other "retro"/"classic"/"alternative" computer) primarily?


I don't know if I would call it primary. I'm at the office a lot, and PC's are it, besides a few Mac laptops people personally own. So I tend to use them a lot. Personally, Amiga's are all I have personally owned, although I don't seem to do too much, draw, 3D, a few games, scan stuff. A cheap IBM laptop was bought one year ago and until the sound system died and now the network PCMCIA card has crapped out, was my main internet PC along with older PC games, but now shoved in a corner, and the little time I have at night, if I'm not reading is spent on Amiga.

Interestingly, a future class my friend and I plan to give, I'm planning to use my A3000 and Scalla hooked up to the office projector to give my presentation, which will be on Matthew Carey and the early 19th century in America.

Amiga 3000D UP and running! Hear that clicking. 8)
Amiga 3000D & 4000D in storage sadly.
 

Offline Plaz

Re: "Alternative" platforms as primary computers
« Reply #16 on: September 14, 2006, 05:43:19 PM »
Quote
it did what the Amiga couldnt do


What, crash repeatedly? Sorry couldn't resist.  :lol:

I used Win95 and Amiga side by side for years. Don't recall 95 being more capable at anything. I will agree that by the time 98 came out Amiga was lagging behind, but still a more stable OS.

These days I still enjoy doing retro C64 stuff. Even thought about publishing my own new cart app.

Plaz
 

Offline pierre

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Re: "Alternative" platforms as primary computers
« Reply #17 on: September 14, 2006, 06:00:25 PM »
I was pure amiga until about 1996/97 when I built my first win NT workstaion. (needed speed for 3d animation)  It sucked and I got beamed up into SGI country. Bein running Irix and Linux since then.  Did try win 2000 and winXP and even beoOS.  Have a winXP box at home for my girlfriend... she does design work with it, I use it for casula browsing.  At work I have a linux box.  At home I still run my ortane2 with irix, runns maya just fine for R and D work and coding.  I also have a readhat system thats realy fast for rendeirng.  I also have an a3k/par and an a4k with a toaster/flyer at this point mainly for fun but find the a3k060 fast enough for casual browsing and find I use it qute a bit still!
 

Offline Ilwrath

Re: "Alternative" platforms as primary computers
« Reply #18 on: September 14, 2006, 06:01:44 PM »
Quote
I used Win95 and Amiga side by side for years. Don't recall 95 being more capable at anything.


I ran Win95/98 and Amiga together...  I can say by that time, Win 95 had a number of features over Amiga.  

It had an integrated TCP/IP stack you didn't have to purchase/register/use for more than 30 minutes.  It had several decent browsers available.  It had available PDF viewers (ghostscript finally got ported, but it was a couple years later).  

And, stability was about the same.  I could expect to do about 8 hours work on either one, with a minimal of fuss.  

Despite that, I kept my Amiga 4000 as my primary machine up until early 2000, when I built an AMD Win98 (and updated it to Win2k, when available) machine.

Nowadays, pretty much the only thing that keeps me on Windows is games.  Otherwise, Linux or OSX looks rather nice.  I dual-boot my PC, but 99% of its time is spent in Windows XP, as that's where the games are, and there isn't anything I CAN'T do in XP to force me to use the Linux boot.

I've thought about putting something like a VMWare or QEMU Linux installation onto my Win build and running all my network apps and browsing through that for more security, but with Firefox and other GPL apps, I haven't had many problems just running them right on Windows.  (shrug)

Anyhow, if I had to go with an unsupported OS these days (something really alternative -- not Win, Linux, or OSX), I'd probably go with my SGI Octane and IRIX!  :-)

Have I rambled enough?  :lol:
 

Offline stopthegop

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Re: "Alternative" platforms as primary computers
« Reply #19 on: September 14, 2006, 06:22:38 PM »
Amiga 4000 060/PPC is my "main" computer.  I also use my CT60 Falcon for a lot of projects.  Less frequently, I use my Milan040, Amiga 1200/060 and TT030.  No Macs (can't stand the OS).  I also have PCs in the house (like almost everyone else), but I've never actually bought one.  I have two PII machines and one PIII, all of which I've plucked from the trash.  The only thing I really use the PCs for is to remote into work which is MS Office VB apps via VPN or through Citrix or to view some websites that unfortunately don't work with Ibrowse.   Not really into games at all so I don't need -or want- a "quad" duo core orgasmatron or whatever..   My computers are more than powerful enough -and then some- to satisfy my needs, plus they're a joy to use.  Unlike windoze, which is a burden to use.  Mostly I use my "retro" machines to, ummm...., compute things.  :)  I do C and .asm coding, DTP, PLC and robotics projects, automation, D.R. modeling,  database design, and to balance my checkbook.  :)          
Primary:
A4000T. Phase5 PPC604e-233mhz/060-66mhz. Mediator, Z3 Fastlane, Voodoo5, Delfina, X-Surf, AD516, Peggy Plus.

Collection:
A4000D, A1200, A500, Milan060 (Atari clone), Atari MegaSTE, Atari TT030, C64, C128, Mattel Aquarius, (2) HP Jornada....
 

Offline Plaz

Re: "Alternative" platforms as primary computers
« Reply #20 on: September 14, 2006, 08:21:31 PM »
@Ilwrath

Maybe I was just pushing 95 harder than normal. Harddisk recording, 3D, and video. First on a Dell later on a compaq, 95 just loved to crash or lock when things got cpu intensive. Similar work on the Amiga wasn't 100% either, but vastly better. Later when I moved to NT, things improved. You mention tcp and browsers. Amiga had them too. Sure I had to pay a little more, but I didn't mind. Was iexporer 3.0 better than amiga's? Who could tell at 38k? :lol: Back then I just wanted to get my editing done, and 95 couldn't hack it. If I really wanted to get some work done, I pulled out Geos on the 128. :-P

Quote
Have I rambled enough? :lol:


Rambling... what rambling?  :-)

Plaz
 

Offline the_woz

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Re: "Alternative" platforms as primary computers
« Reply #21 on: September 14, 2006, 08:50:24 PM »
My first computer was (is) a C64, and was my main computer until 1997 when I bought an A500.
From 1997 to 2000, I used both the A500 and the C64, the A500 for coding/graphics/games and the C64 with GEOS for DTP.
Then on 2000 I bought a PC (Ciryx M2 64MB), because I needed to use Turbo Pascal to do college work. I keep using the A500 almost everyday for a couple of months, then, all of a sudden, I have to move to another city and quit college. Due to the initial space restrictions on the new house, I only took the PC with me. Two years later, as things settled down, I move the A500 and the C64 to the new house. Unfortunately the A500 broke a week after that :(
Two years ago I bought my second PC, a Semprom 2400 witch I'm using until today.
 

Offline Waterland

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Re: "Alternative" platforms as primary computers
« Reply #22 on: September 14, 2006, 10:50:07 PM »
My first computer was an IBM PS/2 Model 55SX running MS-DOS 5.0 that I bought new in 1991.  I used that computer mostly for games until 1997 when I acquired a Windows 95 computer.  I later upgraded to  Windows 98 and ran that until a couple of years ago when the hard drive crashed.  I gave it to a guy I knew to fix it up for me, and he in turn built me a whole new PC from scratch with an Athlon XP 1500+ and Windows XP.  It still runs alright, although it has been giving me quite a few problems lately.
 

Offline InTheSand

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Re: "Alternative" platforms as primary computers
« Reply #23 on: September 15, 2006, 12:11:44 AM »
@Waterland: wot no Amigas??!  :-o
 

Offline Miked

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Re: "Alternative" platforms as primary computers
« Reply #24 on: September 15, 2006, 12:30:13 AM »
As I become more involved with my Amiga 500, I can say that if there was a very good Web Browser for the Amiga, I might not even use my PC.  

-Miked
 

Offline coldfish

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Re: "Alternative" platforms as primary computers
« Reply #25 on: September 15, 2006, 05:22:36 AM »
My conversion hit around 1996, up until then I had an A500 mostly used for playing games.  I did actually use it for typing one of my frist-year Uni term papers connected to a dot-matrix printer, Shudder!!! I couldnt afford a  proper word processor and used some text editing program I found.  It was quite aweful.

After that experience, I sold the A500 and got myself a used 386 with Win3.1 and Word for $50, it made my Uni life a LOT easier.

When I started work, I got a AMD-K6-350 (still didnt like intel) running 95, it was actually very good, maybe 5 lockups in 2 years, (I have above average mechanical sympathy).  By its side I had an A1200 for a while as a hobby box, but that eventually moved into storage after I started using WinUAE.

Eventually, I became more interested in PC's, building, modding, tinkering.  Now, they are no longer a mystery or intimidating, Ive build 7 or 8 machines in the last 5 years and put PC's in arcade machines, built a HTPC and recently got into Linux which I dual-boot on my laptop.    

I really would never go back.
 

Offline TheMagicM

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Re: "Alternative" platforms as primary computers
« Reply #26 on: September 15, 2006, 06:34:11 AM »
When you say "I would never go back" .. you mean to the Amiga?

The thing is..you have to treat the real Amiga (classic line) as a retro thing.  Not the next big thing.  Once you get beyond that, the drama thats unfolding with AI/Hyperion/OS4/MOS etc is just that..drama.  If new hardware/promises never come through it wouldnt matter anyway.  Hell I use E-UAE more then any of my Amiga's because its faster to load up/reboot  etc.. if anything breaks, its a cheap $100 NEW mobo or similiar, not a refurb/used Amiga mobo.
PowerMac G5 dual 2.0ghz/128meg Radeon/500gb HD/2GB RAM, MorphOS 3.9 registered, user #1900
Powerbook G4 5,6 1.67ghz/2gb RAM, Radeon 9700/250gb hd, MorphOS 3.9 registered #3143
 

Offline Colani1200

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Re: "Alternative" platforms as primary computers
« Reply #27 on: September 15, 2006, 01:53:19 PM »
My main system is running FreeBSD 5.5, I guess you might still call that alternative. I actually do pretty much everything with it, i.e.

- office stuff with OpenOffice, Cups, laser printer
- web browsing, mail, irc, chat (Opera, Firefox, GnomeICU)
- audio / video streaming and playback (Mplayer, XMMS)
- some games (mostly MAME, some 3d games like bzflag)
- graphics & photo editing (Gimp, Xmorph)
- 3d stuff with Art Of Illusion, Blender

I also have a Windows box, but the only purpose of it is running Cubase. I have several other boxes, e.g. a SUN Netra server and lots of retro computers, including several Amigas. The Amigas are used for playing games and for keeping up to date with the development and latest aminet stuff. At the moment, I'm trying out some NetBSD cross-platform devevelopment with my desktop 1200 (030). Currently, I'm trying to get my WLAN card to work under NetBSD (works perfectly under AmigaOS). My Amigas are also used for some productive stuff like IRCing, burning CDs etc., but most is done with my FreeBSD system.
 

Offline rockape

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Re: "Alternative" platforms as primary computers
« Reply #28 on: September 15, 2006, 02:01:15 PM »
Hi,

No Windoze here.

EyeTech Towered A1200 Blizzard 040/40 SCSI for DTP etc.

and

Elbox Towered A4K for surfing.

Regards, Michael

aka rockape
"A veteran is someone who, at one point in their life wrote a blank check made payable to \'Their Country\' for an amount of \'up to and including their life\'.
 

Offline T3000

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Re: "Alternative" platforms as primary computers
« Reply #29 from previous page: September 15, 2006, 03:08:38 PM »
Had been using various Amigas up to and through 2001 for Art and Video, when I discovered a "PC" online game called Tribes. Slowly started building an Athlon to do the things that the Amiga couldn't handle as well any more, such as Internet compatability and this adictive game called Tribes. Then came the Playstation and Grand Turismo. The eventual shift towards using the Athlon for everyday things and the Amiga as a tinker toy came around 2002. Also started working in the PrePress department at work using a MacG3 (which reminds me a lot of the Amiga). Bought a new HP Athlon, latest up-to-date home pc sporting winXP that can do all the things that the Amiga used to do (except Video Toaster stuff) and way loads more, last year. Still tinker with the Amigas...