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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: InTheSand on January 19, 2007, 12:47:35 AM

Title: What's the furthest distance you've travelled to collect Amiga stuff?
Post by: InTheSand on January 19, 2007, 12:47:35 AM
I'll start the ball rolling with a 1140.4km round trip (that's 712.75 of ye olde fashioned miles if you still use them!), travelling down New Zealand's South Island.

My haul of Amiga goodies was won on TradeMe (the eBay equivalent in New Zealand) and consists of:
Stock A1200 with hard drive
Stock A1200 without hard drive
A500 with 512Mb trapdoor expansion, Kickstart 1.2 and original keyboard that has a C= key!
A600 with 1Mb trapdoor expansion but broken floppy drive
A600 non-working (yellow screen on startup), missing floppy drive
3x 1084S monitors
1081S monitor (boxed)
About 50 boxed games with manuals
Several hundred magazine cover floppy disks
Literally 1000+ "other" disks (various "backups" etc!)
3x external floppy drives (original C= A1000-style)
Several joysticks (some non-working!)
7x Amiga mice (some with various problems!)
5x Amiga PSUs
External modem
About 10 technical Amiga-related books
At least one set of A1200 and A600 original manuals
Several sets of original Workbench floppies from 1.2 to 3.0
2x old dot-matrix printers
A box of cables

That lot pretty much completely filled my car up!!!

I thought it was quite a good catch for NZ$336 (about £120 or US$230), though perhaps not so good when the cost of the petrol is added! Still, I could hardly have asked for it to be shipped!!!

 - Ali
Title: Re: What's the furthest distance you've travelled to collect Amiga stuff?
Post by: costabunny on January 19, 2007, 12:55:54 AM
you beat me - most I ever went was 170 miles from Weymouth to the other side of london in 1991 for a A2000 with 40Mb, A2086 - was a nice old bomb-proof-box tho and served me well for many years....

 :lotsacoffee:
Title: Re: What's the furthest distance you've travelled to collect Amiga stuff?
Post by: AmiDude on January 19, 2007, 12:58:22 AM
165km, and 165km back - to pick up an old yellowed A4000 with a leaky battery.
 :lol:

 :pint:

EDIT:
There was also a C=1942 monitor included. It's not the
same A4000 I own now at the moment (that's in a white,
mint an pristine condition).
I've sold that yellowed A4000 about 3 years ago.

 :pint:
Title: Re: What's the furthest distance you've travelled to collect Amiga stuff?
Post by: lorddef on January 19, 2007, 01:04:12 AM
Back when I was a student, I did a 12 mile round trip by foot to pick up one of those massive Eyetech A1200 towers. The 6 miles home carrying the tower wasn't really much fun.
Title: Re: What's the furthest distance you've travelled to collect Amiga stuff?
Post by: InTheSand on January 19, 2007, 01:05:40 AM
@lorddef: by foot??!! You must have had arms like a pro wrestler by the time you got back!!!!

 - Ali
Title: Re: What's the furthest distance you've travelled to collect Amiga stuff?
Post by: pan1k on January 19, 2007, 01:39:57 AM
I drove about 50 miles round trip to collect a car full of amiga stuff. (Software, magazines, etc) was free and took me about an 40 mins to load everything.
Title: The longest bridge on Earth
Post by: ChaosLord on January 19, 2007, 01:53:23 AM
At least 1300 miles round trip.
We drove my big American car.
It was quite an adventure!
I took a friend with me.  We took turns driving.
On his turn, we were halfway there and...
he crashed the car...
Luckily it was an old Dodge (think Al Bundy)
A tow truck came along and drug the car out of the mud back onto the road and we drove it the rest of the way without incident.

At one point in the journey I come to this bridge.
So I am driving along at 75 mph over this nice smooth bridge which if irc has 4 lanes total, 2 for each direction.
After 3 minutes of driving over this bridge I am like "man, this is the longest bridge ever! We've gone over 3 miles and I still can't see the end of the bridge!" (A normal HUGE bridge is around .5 miles or less.)  So I keep driving...
and driving...
hmmm...

After 10 minutes we are still on the same bridge, there is no end in sight!  I'm like "uhhh... crap... I think we are in the twilight zone. This can't be happening."
I have no choice but to keep driving...
and driving...
and driving...

After 15 minutes I am like "Dude, this is impossible.  There is no bridge in existence that is over 15 freaking miles long!  So, obviously I killed us in a car crash on this bridge and now I am condemned to drive it for all eternity without stopping :-("

We continue on...
My friend who is a hardcore atheist starts contemplating converting to religion...
After 20 minutes we are sweating and suffering anxiety.
We start to negotiate: "This bridge we are experiencing feels 100% real.  Therefore it must be real.  Therefore we are still alive, possibly in a coma, remembering our real bridge crossing... or something..."

After 25 minutes we start to wonder what happens if we run out of gasoline and we are stuck here in the middle of nowhere on a bridge that doesn't exist.

After around half an hour we FINALLY reached the end of the bridge!  Hallelujah!  Whew!  We were like "well I guess we woke up from our coma"

Days later when we got home I grabbed my almanac and looked it up and it was listed as the longest bridge in the world, over 34 miles long! But I never would have known it was there if it wasn't for the Amiga megacomputer.


Title: Re: The longest bridge on Earth
Post by: stopthegop on January 19, 2007, 02:07:39 AM
Drove from St. Louis Missouri (in the middle of winter in an old rusted Honda, no less..) to Clearwater, Fla (about 800 miles) for an A4000T I won on ebay back in 1997..  At that time, most people had not yet even heard of ebay!  
Title: Re: The longest bridge on Earth
Post by: Plaz on January 19, 2007, 02:09:23 AM
@ChaosLord

Good grief man, what a story! Where was that bridge? Sounds like it spanned the Grand Canyon.... length-wise! Longest bridge I drove was only about 3.5 miles.

My longest trip for Amiga equipment was only about 85 miles round trip. But it was up hill both ways on a bicycle with 2 flat tires being chased by wolfs. On the return trip the amiga's were straped to my ankles like exercise weights!

Ha, just kidding. :-P It was an air conditioned car ride with a nice radio and a cold soda.

Plaz
Title: Re: The longest bridge on Earth
Post by: Gavilan on January 19, 2007, 02:14:19 AM
Well...im not sure if my stories fit into this category but anyway...here they go:

- Once i won an ebay auction. The seller only shipped to USA, so i have him sent the stuff to my father´s house (he lives in Florida). I have to wait more than 8 months to "collect the stuff". When i went to visit my father, i took all Amiga stuff he had received over those 8 months, and took them with me back home (Argentina)

- I won another ebay auction. The guy was from France, and (of course), only shipped to France. I have him sent the CD32 to my sister´s house in Paris. One year and a half later , i travelled to France because she was getting married. I then collected the CD32 and other Amiga stuff i had bought back to home. I can also mention another CD32 i won which belonged to some canadian guy who only sipped to (you guess it!) Canada. My uncle lives in Toronto, so when he went to France for the wedding, he took the CD32 with him, gave it to me, and i then brought it home with me (not to mention i spent almost 1 months travelling all across Europe with my bag full of Amiga stuff)


 :-D  :-D  :-D  :-D
Title: Re: The longest bridge on Earth
Post by: DamageX on January 19, 2007, 02:24:10 AM
I bought my A2000 when I was 700 miles away on a weekend trip. I got a C= 1702 and some other stuff too. That wasn't the sole purpose of the trip of course, but if I hadn't had the opportunity to buy a cheap Amiga that I could see working I probably wouldn't have one.
Title: Re: The longest bridge on Earth
Post by: Amiduffer on January 19, 2007, 06:40:42 AM
Amiga users have to be the craziest s.o.b's! :lol: Although people who go on Fear Factor are a close second.

Farthest ever, 132 miles round trip to buy my first Amiga after getting out of the Navy, from a musician who lived by a lake near Farmington Falls Maine in a slightly rusty Dodge Aspen.

Second was 50 miles to get an A500.
Title: Re: The longest bridge on Earth
Post by: McVenco on January 19, 2007, 08:06:02 AM
I guess I'm lucky that I live in Holland - you can't travel more than 200 kilometers without going abroad :-)

Anyway, I still traveled quite a distance in total to pick up my current Amiga stuff.

- 140 km roundtrip for an A1000
- 100 km roundtrip for a Blizzard PPC and 14" Microvitec monitor
- 230 km roundtrip for 3 A1200s
- 200 km roundtrip for an A1000 and A2000 (also included in this trip was a visit to a meeting of the Dutch Commodore usergroup

Since my car broke down there won't be much long trips anymore in the near future....
Title: Re: What's the furthest distance you've travelled to collect Amiga stuff?
Post by: Cyberus on January 19, 2007, 08:23:34 AM
I once did a 500 mile round trip from Ashford, Kent to Manchester for a Power Tower, BPPC 240/60, BVision, Powerflyer, Silversurfer, scanner, zip drive, loads of games and software etc etc etc.
Was a good deal!

@ Gavilan

You are lucky to have family in so many places to visit!
If you ever want any thing in UK, I would be happy to send to you in Argentina!
Title: Re: What's the furthest distance you've travelled to collect Amiga stuff?
Post by: justthatgood on January 19, 2007, 10:52:33 AM
Well I guess it's more sensible to drive a long distance for some vintage computer hardware, rather then driving for some "action" of other sorts. Though I've known people that have done it for both...
Title: Re: What's the furthest distance you've travelled to collect Amiga stuff?
Post by: Gavilan on January 19, 2007, 03:31:27 PM
@ Cyberus: thank you very very much for your kind offer!
I will take it into serious consideration, since eBay UK is my primary source of Amiga related stuff

Yeah...its very cool to have relatives spreaded all around the world...but... i usually never have the $$$ to pay a visit!!
( i mean, i spend my hard earned money in Amiga stufff!!!!)



 :-D  :-D  :-D  :-D  :-D

Cheers

Sebastian
Title: Re: What's the furthest distance you've travelled to collect Amiga stuff?
Post by: JimS on January 19, 2007, 04:44:33 PM
I once drove about 70 miles round trip to *deliver* a Phoenix expansion box to a guy wanting to buy it from me. We met about halfway between his town and mine at a 7-11 store in some little burg. ;-) I remember it, especially because while we were there some guy drives in in a DeLorean. No Mr. Fusion though.  
Title: Re: What's the furthest distance you've travelled to collect Amiga stuff?
Post by: jkirk on January 19, 2007, 05:56:47 PM
well as far as hardware i only bought that mail order but when i bought my a570 cdrom drive i ordered it overnight shipping. well the next day i went to warner robins and we noticed the water was rising fast so we cancelled our plans and went home. my drive didn't come the next day so i contacted the company and asked for the tracking number. lo and behold the cdrom drive was in macon,ga and i had been watching macon flooding on tv all day. :cry: it was several days later i got the drive but it only lived for 6 months then died. :cry:  :cry: commodore was dead by then. :cry:  :cry:  :cry:

at least i got my cd32 before they died :-D
Title: Re: What's the furthest distance you've travelled to collect Amiga stuff?
Post by: InTheSand on January 19, 2007, 11:56:53 PM
Looks like ChaosLord went the longest distance by a huge margin! Then again, the US is pretty large! Can't drive that far in New Zealand or you fall into the sea!

Where was that bridge in the end?

 - Ali
Title: Re: The longest bridge on Earth
Post by: ChaosLord on January 20, 2007, 12:34:12 AM
@Plaz
Quote
Good grief man, what a story! Where was that bridge?

Interstate 10 (I-10) in Louisiana.  It crosses a giant swamp.  The topography there is quite dreadfull.  Like something from a Horror Movie.

You probably saw the damaged bridge on the news after Hurricane Katrina blasted pieces out of it.

btw: My car's air conditioner worked beautifully the whole entire trip.  But as soon as we got home it broke and never worked again.  :boohoo:
Title: Re: The longest bridge on Earth
Post by: Amiduffer on January 20, 2007, 02:01:05 AM
Quote

ChaosLord wrote:
btw: My car's air conditioner worked beautifully the whole entire trip.  But as soon as we got home it broke and never worked again.  :boohoo:


Gadzooks! New Orleans in summer without air conditioning is unbearable. I only spent 2 weeks there for navy reserve, and it was bad. Better hope your windows don't break too.  :-D
Title: Re: The longest bridge on Earth
Post by: Dr_Righteous on January 20, 2007, 02:42:22 AM
Wow, these storys make my little 30 mile trek to the flea market look like mail order!
Title: Re: The longest bridge on Earth
Post by: InTheSand on January 20, 2007, 03:06:06 AM
Good old Internet! That's one long bridge (http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t24705.html)!!!

 - Ali
Title: Re: The longest bridge on Earth
Post by: mick_aka on January 20, 2007, 11:33:46 AM
200 miles then through the hills and valleys of Wales in a very old car to collect an entire Amiga based S-VHS video production studio.  :-)
Title: Re: What's the furthest distance you've travelled to collect Amiga stuff?
Post by: ZeBeeDee on January 20, 2007, 03:42:58 PM
I've just got back from Fleet, Hampshire England to collect a Philips  CM11342 14" colour monitor on the train. A round-trip distance of appox 165 miles.

OK, not that far but you never had the hassle of the London Underground to contend with :-o