Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: Tenacious on April 13, 2008, 12:44:24 AM
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All of the classic Amigas were designed more than 15 years ago, before Al Gore started the WWW. Grin.
In what ways, undreamt of then, do you use your Amiga now? I'm looking for uses, applications, and expansions that allow an Amiga to be useful in modern times.
I'm after the positive here. I hope no one bothers pontificating about how it's a dead retro machine. There is enough of that already.
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We use real Amigas every day for order processing, invoice printing and packing list printing. We also use Pagestream for DTP.
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It says a lot that your ppl spend time here and responded to this in a matter of minutes. I'm impressed!
Glad you are there for us.
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I only have Amiga's:-)
I use it for MIDI/Music and it does the job for me:)
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I stream music off the web thru a MasPlayer and AMPlifier.
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I use it for all the things that the pc is too slow for (usually to boot-up.)
Net (if needed fast for eg. banking), text print
(for a quick line with good programs/skills),
Getting fast Digipictures to see or modifying our advert for prices. MP3 or stuff to play relabiable for hours. And for FUN!
Not very modern stuff but if You have a pc open all the time... Well it gets infectded somehow and warms our world with Bill Gates ruling the fleet in 2100 costing the electric bill first.
Then a good Retro-Game makes the rest of the time perfect.
Not hating Vista too much but, God I hate it sometimes;)
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Let`s start :)
This is the software that I use daily! Not only on my Amiga 1200, but also on my PegasosII/MorphOS Amiga clone.
Graphics:
- Deluxe Paint 5
- TvPaint
- Titler
- Blender
- fXpaint
Music:
- AmiNetRadio 4
- AmigaAMP
Internet:
- Wookiechat
- AmIRC
- Jabberwocky (msn and jabber)
- Ibrowse 2.4
- Sputnik
Video:
- MPlayer
Gaming:
- OpenTTD
- QuakeWorld (fuhquake)
- QuakeIII
+++
Amitopia TV is edited with iMovieHD on my mac though! Everything else, like 3D effects and logos is made in TvPaint.
I am watching movies on my MorphOS machine when I can. Surfing web, ftp, irc and chatting on msn is somethign which I love doing on MorphOS. My Amiga 1200 is used for Deluxe Paint 5 animation production and classic gaming thru whdload.
Amiga is great to use.. 15 years? 20 years? :) AmigaOS systems are so great home systems that Windows and MacOS X doesnt really compete with AmigaOS systems there. If some..Amiga Inc or bbrv or NatAmi project goes forward sometime. I am sure that more than just our hardcore fans will return. Most of us are forced to abandon Amigaworld. Those which havent abandoned Amigaworld have been good at keeping Amiga alive. All thanks to them :)
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I'm looking for uses, applications, and expansions that allow an Amiga to be useful in modern times.
In ancient times(like 1994), I had to use these horrible PCs running horrible software(like ms-dos/windows 3.11) at work and when I went home, I had, joy of joys, an Amiga 2500 to play with which, unlike the PC, was designed by people who had a creative--fun--vision of what could be done with the computer technology of the era. And I was always doing creative, beautiful and fun things with it. Even though it was grossly underpowered even by the standards of the times, it was such a cool little toy and so much fun that it just carried you away with it.
And so in modern times I use my Amigas for just about the same: Joy and fun. There are PCs and Macs for work, Amigas are above all, for fun. Good creative fun that might get incorporated into a website now and then, but I do the website with a Mac because I know the Mac will get the job done. The Amiga just might help with some "fun" graphics now and then.
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PR wrote:
I use it for all the things that the pc is too slow for (usually to boot-up.)
You use your Amiga for booting-up because it's faster at this than a different PC?
I imagine you must be right but if booting is mainly what you do then why not use a calculator or an x-box or something that boots even faster?
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I'm using Amiga and Pegasos (with MorphOS) for everything I need for daily computing.
Internet:
IBrowse for surfing and bank accounts.
Sputnik for rare situations IBrowse isn't enough.
AmIRC for communication.
SSHCon and AmTelnet for mail, news and work (doing *nix adm job).
SimpeMail for mail.
DopusFTP and DCTelnet for filetransfers.
Other:
Amplifier for music listening.
MPlayer for movies.
Showgirls for digital photo processing.
FXPaint2 for image galleries.
ArtEffect4 and PPaint7 for graphics.
FryingPan for DVD writing.
Sanakirja for translating :)
CED, FinalWriter and PageStream for texts and printing.
Ripper for automatic audio cd ripping.
Games:
Virtual Grand Prix 2 for quite modern F1 racing (with USB wheel) on MOS.
Foobilliard for 3D billiard experience ;)
Settlers, Supercars2, Nitro, StuntCarRacer, SWOS, Skidmarks on A1200.
Ok.. that's what I use regularly. Of course there's a lot of other software which gets used, but more rarely :) PC isn't needed for normal computing here :)
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I use my amigas mainly for retrogaming, but every now and then i use my A1200 for emailing and internet, but with my current A1200 setup, web surfing is a real pain.
But dont get me wrong, i really love these old machines :-)
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When I lived in Fremantle - Perth a couple of years ago, a fella there was using Amiga 500s to run a Scalextric slot car centre. It was cool. You paid like 5 or 10 bucks and got to race on the biggest Scalextric race track I've ever seen. He used Amiga 500s because the software that ran the track was obviously for Amiga only. That was few years back though. Not sure if he updated since then, but when I spoke to him he said that he couldn't find any equivalent software on PC to run the track. I wonder if WinUAE would work out for him?
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I take my :hat: off to you, amigakit! I didn’t know that the machines that you support also help to run your business!
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About six years ago I only had an A1200 in tower when they offered broadband for the first time. Try to image the look on that guy's face when he insisted on installing the required software by himself :laughing:
Meanwhile I also have a few pc's that I only use for internet and some slow games. My Amiga's don't do much except that my collection gets bigger and bigger :lol:
Yesterday at the AmigaClub meeting I saw a friend with an A1200 with 030 running AmiSys and I must say that I felt like restarting again :-)
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Only have an Amiga.
There is a PC in the house but it's not mine and I don't use it.
So use it for the same things PC users use their machines for.
Email, chat (MSN, Yahoo, IRC etc.), browsing the internet, shoutcast music, mp3s, gaming, shopping, banking and even watch a bit of telly on it as well.
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I use my A3000 mainly for midi (Bars & Pipes), email (YAM) and image manipulation (ImageFX). I also use Cygnus Ed whenever I need to do some fast text editing/coding.
Sometimes I use it for IM as well (Jabberwocky). I rarely use it for browsing the web as IBrowse sadly isn't good enough.
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Ohhh!! Another fantasy thread :-D
Hmmm, what use could a relic of the computer wars be...? Well I do use my migy to do some dirty sampling and sequencing, though increasingly if I want that, I have to use UAE, since it's often impractical or impossible to to use a real Amiga in a studio or on stage.
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Thanks everyone for responding. I used to get info about new ways to use Amiga from the magazines that were available. I was hoping this thread would yield some new ideas and programs I was not aware of, and it has.
@ pVC
Your list included a number of apps I was unfamiliar with, mostly for MorphOS (which I don't have). Searching for Sputnik, however, brought me to this interesting page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_Internet_and_communications_software
It seems new users (or ppl returning) are always asking for "..what's new.." with Amiga. If this thread becomes comprehensive enough, ppl could simply be pointed here. Community can be a great thing.
EDIT: I'm still checking into Sankirja.
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I use at home: Deluxe Paint, Brillance, and Photon Paint instead of Photoshop. But at work, I will use Photoshop.
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The local bowling-hall uses Amiga's for score-keeping. Me? I have to admit that every now and then I fire-up WinUAE for a blast of the past. I felt a little annoyed that it didn't run Oldtimer the way I hoped it would... ;-)
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amiga_3k wrote:
The local bowling-hall uses Amiga's for score-keeping. Me? I have to admit that every now and then I fire-up WinUAE for a blast of the past. I felt a little annoyed that it didn't run Oldtimer the way I hoped it would... ;-)
I think I have seen that. Is it for the animations when you get a strike/spare/etc?
The psudo sci-fi computer displays here use an Amiga and scala (I think they have been there for 20 years):
Miniature world (http://www.miniature-world.com/a_scenes/space_2201/space_2201_1.php)
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I find myself using octamed on the stock 1200 alot. Also fiddling with GG sometimes, a bit of fiddling with amikit on the a4k, the occasional game, i haven't had a chance to use the a4k for mp3's and stuff yet however im looking forward to it, it just isnt too fun booting amikit on a 030@25. Pagestreamer will be used when i get around to co-edit #amiga guide and the 060 cyberstorm ppc without the ppc returns from france.
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mostly retro gaming...WHDLoad is awesome :-D and the odd messing around with OctaMed Sound Studio..
as for startup times..my 1 year old notebook with 1 GB of memory & 80 GB Hd takes bloody five minutes to boot up...my A1200 with Blizzard 030@50 takes 6 seconds for full bootup :lol:
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Terse wrote:
amiga_3k wrote:
The local bowling-hall uses Amiga's for score-keeping. Me? I have to admit that every now and then I fire-up WinUAE for a blast of the past. I felt a little annoyed that it didn't run Oldtimer the way I hoped it would... ;-)
I think I have seen that. Is it for the animations when you get a strike/spare/etc?
Not only the animations, it's also used for keeping the score. And putting your name in is done using the indestructible Arcade joysticks (tho housed in some MDF casing, to make it blend into the MDF interior).