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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: orb85750 on August 06, 2009, 11:07:52 PM

Title: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: orb85750 on August 06, 2009, 11:07:52 PM
Skilgannon suggested that we start this thread, so I'll do so here.  (Maybe such a thread already exists?)  Anyway, I'll place the first entry......

Bowlero Lanes (bowling ally), Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.  A3000 and A4000 for automated scoring system.
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: amigakit on August 06, 2009, 11:24:09 PM
AmigaKit.com for order processing and document printing :-)
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: T3000 on August 06, 2009, 11:24:31 PM
Quote from: orb85750;518316
Bowlero Lanes (bowling ally), Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.  A3000 and A4000 for automated scoring system.


Pictures please....  I mean, really, without pictures, it's just a story. :p
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: save2600 on August 06, 2009, 11:42:47 PM
Apparently A500's are used in a car wash somewhere's in FL.
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: quarkx on August 06, 2009, 11:45:25 PM
I wonder if NASA still uses them today?
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: tone007 on August 06, 2009, 11:47:00 PM
The US government is sometimes a bit behind, but I seriously doubt they're THAT far behind.
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: quarkx on August 06, 2009, 11:52:58 PM
Quote from: tone007;518322
The US government is sometimes a bit behind, but I seriously doubt they're THAT far behind.

They were using them  (when Hal Greenlee made the Video) at least until 1999
It was on you tube, but I can't seem to find it now.
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: Methuselas on August 07, 2009, 12:02:45 AM
Quote from: tone007;518322
The US government is sometimes a bit behind, but I seriously doubt they're THAT far behind.


*Snort*
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: Matt_H on August 07, 2009, 02:49:27 AM
Quote from: quarkx;518321
I wonder if NASA still uses them today?


Some of the NASA Amigas were on eBay a year or two ago. That's not to say there aren't others they're still using, but I suspect NASA's Amiga era is over. :(
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: JimS on August 07, 2009, 03:33:55 AM
I don't know if they still use it, but the planetarium in Flint,Mi used to use one to control some sort of multimedia system.  It came into my shop for repair once.  I knew a newspaper that used Amigas to do page layouts and manage classified ads.... but that's been years.
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: smerf on August 07, 2009, 04:04:00 AM
Quote from: orb85750;518316
Skilgannon suggested that we start this thread, so I'll do so here.  (Maybe such a thread already exists?)  Anyway, I'll place the first entry......

Bowlero Lanes (bowling ally), Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.  A3000 and A4000 for automated scoring system.


Hi,

I know NASA isn't using them today, they replaced them with PC's back in 1999. I bought one of them back then, the reason NASA used them was because they were the only computer that would self start after a power outage. I also bought one from Pixar when they sold out on the Amiga's.

Anyhow

I have seen an Amiga 1000 in Bill Gates office, it is sitting on one of his office shelves, and I have also seen an Amiga in a junk yard, but I really don't know if it was being used or was there for another purpose. I know where I work they use the Amiga for a door holder and I have seen an Amiga 3000 filled with cement being used as a boat anchor.

smerf
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: coldfish on August 07, 2009, 04:12:32 AM
Back when I was at Uni in 1998 there was an A3000 in the animation lab, that no one used.
I offered to buy it from the lab super but he didnt know anything about how to make that happen.

I even thought about sneaking in one night but they'd have known it was me as I was the only one who'd shown any interest in the thing in years.

Getting kicked out of Uni for an Amiga would've been dumb yet profound end to the story.
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: Haranguer on August 07, 2009, 04:27:38 AM
I've been told that the Orion aircraft flown by the Royal Australian Air Force have Amiga 2000's as their onboard computers.

TAFE colleges in South Australia use Amigas to display the services provide.  They just show slides, though.  My local college, Tea Tree Gully, has an A1200 in a metal case that performs this task.
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: persia on August 07, 2009, 04:51:54 AM
You've been in Bill Gate's office!  What do you do for a living?


Quote from: smerf;518337
Hi,

I know NASA isn't using them today, they replaced them with PC's back in 1999. I bought one of them back then, the reason NASA used them was because they were the only computer that would self start after a power outage. I also bought one from Pixar when they sold out on the Amiga's.

Anyhow

I have seen an Amiga 1000 in Bill Gates office, it is sitting on one of his office shelves, and I have also seen an Amiga in a junk yard, but I really don't know if it was being used or was there for another purpose. I know where I work they use the Amiga for a door holder and I have seen an Amiga 3000 filled with cement being used as a boat anchor.

smerf
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: Damion on August 07, 2009, 05:22:00 AM
Check here (http://www.greatapetrust.org/media/video-bonobo-kanzi.php), and watch the video under "Kanzi Understands Spoken Language"... there's an A2000 about 2 minutes in. Might be interesting to find out what it's being used for. :)
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: orb85750 on August 07, 2009, 05:34:26 AM
Quote from: T3000;518318
Pictures please....  I mean, really, without pictures, it's just a story. :p


I live in the USA.  I sold my 1950-B monitor on eBay to a Canadian user that runs the bowling ally there.   He told me that they needed one to replace another 1950-B that stopped working.  Why would he (or I) fib about such things?  -- I don't have images, but you can make a phone call to that bowling ally to inquire for yourself whether Amiga computers are still used for their scoring system.  But when you ask them for images as proof, they may hang up on you.
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: jagoche on August 07, 2009, 08:46:34 AM
A regional TV in Slovenia still makes "video pages" using A4000. They broadcast 6 hours of video pages a day next to their regular program.

http://www.vtvstudio.com/e107/page.php?3
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: Voyager74 on August 07, 2009, 12:47:30 PM
Regarding the article NASA using Amiga;
http://www.upchug.com/HalInterview-eng.html
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: persia on August 07, 2009, 02:42:20 PM
Actually turns out we did have one running a kiosk board here at the Uni, but it was replaced by a Mac Mini when they replace the tube TV with a flat panel one a few years back.

I tried to track it down and it was either taken home by somebody or thrown in a dumpster, nobody really knows, it was written off long ago and so had no "value" and didn't need to be accounted for.  Who knows maybe it's in a closet someplace but it's not my department.
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: VingtTrois on August 07, 2009, 04:06:12 PM
hummmm here: http://asunews.asu.edu/20090806_conexiones

August 05, 2009

"One student, who worked in an inner city school, told Cohn she could gather a group of students and bring them to the university for a workshop with 16 donated Amiga computers."

“The hook was the Amiga (now out of business), which at the time was capable of visual effects and creating music,” Cohn says. “We would give the kids some basic instruction in animation and other programs and let them go and see what they came up with.”
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: jay on August 07, 2009, 07:47:11 PM
i wonder how many are up in the atics, collecting dust. what a shame for the old amiga:confused:
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: TjLaZer on August 07, 2009, 08:23:19 PM
Quote from: orb85750;518353
I live in the USA.  I sold my 1950-B monitor on eBay to a Canadian user that runs the bowling ally there.   He told me that they needed one to replace another 1950-B that stopped working.  Why would he (or I) fib about such things?  -- I don't have images, but you can make a phone call to that bowling ally to inquire for yourself whether Amiga computers are still used for their scoring system.  But when you ask them for images as proof, they may hang up on you.


Why would he be in the hunt for another 1950 monitor to replace the old one?  Any VGA monitor will work on the 3000!
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: TjLaZer on August 07, 2009, 08:24:48 PM
Quote from: smerf;518337
I have seen an Amiga 1000 in Bill Gates office, it is sitting on one of his office shelves

Quote
I have seen an Amiga 3000 filled with cement being used as a boat anchor.

smerf

Man I gotta pull the BS card out on these!!  No way!
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: quarkx on August 07, 2009, 08:54:02 PM
Quote from: smerf;518337
Hi


I have seen an Amiga 1000 in Bill Gates office, it is sitting on one of his office shelves, and I have also seen an Amiga in a junk yard, but I really don't know if it was being used or was there for another purpose. I know where I work they use the Amiga for a door holder and I have seen an Amiga 3000 filled with cement being used as a boat anchor.

smerf


He retired a year ago form Microsoft, so chances are, if he didn't take it home... it's gone.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HA4lSUhlbw
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: obscurepanic on August 08, 2009, 12:37:44 AM
Quote from: orb85750;518316
Skilgannon suggested that we start this thread, so I'll do so here.  (Maybe such a thread already exists?)  Anyway, I'll place the first entry......

Bowlero Lanes (bowling ally), Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.  A3000 and A4000 for automated scoring system.


I live near Hamilton. This is very delightful to hear, despite I hate bowling.
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: klx300r on August 08, 2009, 07:40:44 AM
in my home!!! mostly for having fun and writing music...also used Lightwave to create my company logo..which gave me a really nice feeling inside :-)
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: A1260 on August 08, 2009, 10:13:16 AM
its used to host a.org's bloody ugly site design!
Title: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: theformula on August 08, 2009, 09:21:05 PM
Last year I saw an amiga still in use at ravensborne university, london. They used it to display the days filming timetable in the different film studios. My mate still go's to uni there I will ask him to take a photo.
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: orb85750 on August 08, 2009, 10:03:16 PM
Quote from: TjLaZer;518423
Why would he be in the hunt for another 1950 monitor to replace the old one?  Any VGA monitor will work on the 3000!


Way back when they had the system set up, it was modified in some way and the VGA port no longer could be used -- at least that's what he said (but he didn't know the details).  They were using the RGB port with an adapter, ironically on an Amiga 3000.  The person that bought it from me knew little about Amiga and was not there when the systems were originally set up.  Why a 1950?  Probably because they were looking for a duplicate of what they had working previously.
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: Munchkin on August 08, 2009, 11:17:09 PM
I know they're still used in video booths in some porn shops... :p
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: Karlos on August 08, 2009, 11:52:33 PM
Quote from: Munchkin;518542
I know they're still used in video booths in some porn shops... :p


So, you're saying they came to a sticky end?
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: T3000 on August 09, 2009, 12:54:00 AM
Quote from: orb85750;518353
Why would he (or I) fib about such things?  -- I don't have images,


That was sarcasim.
Like many fishing stories, if ya didn't get a picture of you holding the fish, ya didn't catch the fish. ;)
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: smerf on August 09, 2009, 05:09:09 AM
Quote from: persia;518347
You've been in Bill Gate's office!  What do you do for a living?


I was helping to set up computers for the gov't and was taking a tour of Micro soft, Mr. Gates was trying to sell us Microsoft word at the time, and if you believe that I have some swamp land in Florida that I will sell ya. Actually saw it in a picture in a rag that was for Amiga, Micro soft was writing basic for the Amiga at that time.

Any whose. if I could get a chance to visit Micro soft I would probably burn it down.

smerf
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: smerf on August 09, 2009, 05:15:54 AM
Hi,

Man I gotta pull the BS card out on these!! No way!

Darn he saw through my fun.

By the way my Amiga 3000 does very well as a boat anchor, thank you

smerf
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: B00tDisk on August 09, 2009, 05:22:48 AM
Quote from: Matt_H;518332
Some of the NASA Amigas were on eBay a year or two ago. That's not to say there aren't others they're still using, but I suspect NASA's Amiga era is over. :(


Long, long over.  I worked IT for Boeing at NASA (KSC) back in 2002 and was told that the Amigas had long since been removed from service.

(note however that NASA has Houston, Huntsville, Vandenberg and other locations where they might still have been in use)
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: the_leander on August 09, 2009, 06:01:51 AM
Quote from: karlos;518548
so, you're saying they came to a sticky end?


....GROAN....

Man that should go in the corner.

:D
Title: Re: Where is Amiga used today?
Post by: Captain Nemo on August 14, 2009, 02:35:24 PM
Quote from: jay;518419
i wonder how many are up in the atics, collecting dust. what a shame for the old amiga:confused:

I recently dug my A1200 out of my attic and dusted it off after about 8 years. It fired up OK but the hard drive was kaput so I replaced it with a CF kit. It has a Hawk memory board which I fitted in 1994 and would you believe that the RTC battery is still going strong and the clock had only lost around 10 minutes since I put it in the attic. Great machine and loving putting new stuff and games on it. So it is being used in my house in the UK.
 
I remember a game show in the UK called the Krypton Factor. The last in the series hosted by Gordon Burns was broadcast in 1995 and I was pleased to see they were using Amiga 1200s for a code cracking exercise.