Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: ElPolloDiabl on May 02, 2010, 01:16:40 AM
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Hi I'm wondering what software was giving you platform envy. So much so your Amiga got knocked off the winners podium and replaced with a PC or Mac. What titles/applications did you rush out and purchase?
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I downloaded OpenOffice.org for free! Java dependency satisfied by Apple on my Mac!
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Nothing really. It was more the fact that the Amiga stopped being developed. There were just too many let downs after the demise of Commodore.
The demise of phase5 was a particular downer in the post Commodore era. I had pretty high hopes for their G4 accelerator cards; they sounded like what PowerUP should have been.
In the meantime, PC hardware started to become more and more powerful and coincidental with that, linux became ever more usable and supported.
It may not be my "main" platform any more I still own several Amiga machines.
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It would have been a web browser... probably netscape in those days. The graphics were a big factor here... those 256 color gifs just don't render well on a vanilla Amiga.
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For me, it was small biz development stuff. Most of the people I wrote code for were using Quickbasic on a PC, so that's what I was using, but I didn't have a PC at the time. :-) Eventually, I came across Foxbase for DOS. Started converting all the Quickbasic programs to Foxbase and I had to get a PC.
Yes, the Amiga could have done those things, buy the people I was getting paid by didn't have Amiga's. :(
Oh well...
desiv
p.s. I really liked Foxbase tho.. Even after I converted everything to FoxPro for Windows, I really preferred Foxbase for DOS. :-) Actually, I think one of my FoxPro apps is still in production.. Now THAT is scary.. ;)
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I got Mechwarrior 2 and Need for Speed, they helped take my mind off the Amiga. I also downloaded Melody Assistant a nice Deluxe Music replacement. I also discovered WinUAE a little while after, when it was quite buggy.
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A video capture program is what forced me to go out and buy a PC (used of course).
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So many; it's hard to answer. Ironically, despite the fact that the amiga was largely a games console in Europe, games are in part what drove me to the PC: X-Wing, DOOM (and DOOM 2), System Shock, loads of flight sims...Amiga games seemed to be stuck in a cycle of wait for the port from PC games (if ever) or uninspired 2d platformers, which I never cared for.
While "windows" wasn't precisely synonymous with "multimedia" at the time (it was late '94/early '95 when I got my 486/100 with Win3.11) I just felt like my kitted out PC was more capable than my Amiga (my last Amiga being an A1200 with 28mhz 030 card and 4mb RAM and 60mb HD). I got my first taste of "web-surfing" on my PC back then and that was all she wrote.
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Sierra games on CD with dialog and 256 colors--King's Quest V and VI and Eco Quest, specifically--and SSI's The Dark Queen of Krynn. Also, I got tired of booting a terminal from floppy. My mother bought a PC for school, and talking her into a hard disk for the A500 would have been impossible. I probably could have swung an A1200HD, but by then I'd already moved on.
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When I started studying computer science I struggled to keep up with PC-users. I made my Amiga do TCP/IP and LaTeX and had to work out some stuff by my self, while others just used ready-made Linux Distributions. After about a year I would bite the bullet and get a PC and Suse-Linux. Five years later I got an iMac and Photoshop Elements because I was sort of underwelmed by Linux sound and graphics software and hardware. Evidently I wouldn´t have switched to mac before they got OS X and multitasking!
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By the mid-90s, I figured that Amiga was pretty much deceased and that it was time to move on. Needless to say, that sentiment didn't last forever.
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Has to be Amithlon, sold up my A4k and got a AMD XP1800+. oh that and UNREAL.
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When I first went to an Intel-based PC, I had a brief flirtation with Linux then moved to Solaris. I went Windows for Emerald, which is an ISP billing software. At the time it used a Windows-based client. Later it went web-based and I could use it in AWeb.
As time went on I started using my Windows PC for watching videos (movies) and what-not. As time went on and I supported Windows more and more I eventually began doing so much that Windows had become my primary platform.
My ex-gf used to remind me how I had only just gone to using a Windows PC (technically, I had a P100-based Windows 98SE box I used for Internet Connection Sharing, but it was never used for anything else and was "headless") after we started dating, which was around late 2000.
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for me it was AutoCad that forced me to get a PC
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For me it was mostly a matter of games at first. When things stopped being ported to the Amiga, I started looking at PC's. Then came the Internet and that was that... the poor Amiga was relegated to the small desk, but is still used to this day for some old school gaming, along with it's older brother, the C-128.
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Hi I'm wondering what software was giving you platform envy. So much so your Amiga got knocked off the winners podium and replaced with a PC or Mac. What titles/applications did you rush out and purchase?
I think it was the fact that there were no Amiga laptops, as my first non-Amiga computer that I purchased was a 400mhz Celeron off brand laptop. That plus my growing curiosity about Linux and the end of Compuserve's support of the Amiga application "AutoPilot".
Later I needed a Windows capable x86 to run TurboCAD (as I refused to pay the price for AutoCAD).
I am thankful that I only had to put up with Windows 3.1 through Windows95 at work and my first version of Windows on a home computer was Windows98, which was much less trouble than previous versions. (Win3.1 on my 386sx Bridgeboard in my A2000 was horrible and kept me on the Amiga bandwagon for years longer than might have been)
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Microprose F1 GP2. F1GP was my favourite Amiga game and, on the Amiga, I bought a set of pedals and updated the cars etc with some software, which I forget the name of now (it also allowed me to run at 25 fps as I had a 1230 MK-IV). I even got a letter published in CU Amiga telling people about how to update this game!
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My first PC s/w (in 1998, I think) was Win98SE... Was a bit of a revelation after struggling with Workbench.
One of the first programs I used was PaintShop Pro. I still use it (version 7.04, since it went all "photoshoppy" after that!)...
Also installed Office, etc... So much free (and good) software available...
On XP SP3 at the moment...
All freebies too... Had access to corporate editions of all of the above. Apart from that all of my other software is shareware/freeware...
Mike.
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A whole bunch of music programs and audio editors... MS Office... but the big step up was Internet Explorer, that was dramatically better than Voyager.
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Civilization 2 on a 120MHz Packard Bell Pentium running Win95.
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Any decent web browser, and Acrobat reader. If I had these, my 68060 A4000 would still by my main machine.
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It wasn't any software. I resisted having a PC at home until my job wanted me to do some work from home, and they gave me one. This wasn't until 2005. Since then I have bought 2 laptops.
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For me, it was having to write assignments for University back in 1994. I couldnt afford a good printer so I'd write my work at home and take them on floppy to be printed. The print server couldnt read Amiga disks and my Amiga had no word processing software so it was a cheap used 386 with Word on Win3.1 for me.
Interestingly, that machine felt much faster (25Mhz) than my A500, it was a fairly painless upgrade, I kept the A500 for games and the PC for work, they were apretty good team.
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@above
The 386 was slightly superior in performance to 68030. The other advantage of the intel chips was that they could clock a lot higher. Having a 20Mhz processor instead of a 7mhz processor made a lot of difference in those days. The Amiga's superiority was in arcade style games.
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My preference is to use my Amiga for general computing. However, there are indeed many situations in which I am forced to use the PC due to applications that are not supported on our platform. These are:
1. Microchip MPLAB and associated compiler tools
2. National Instruments Labview
3. National Instruments Multisim
4. Mathworks Matlab
5. Cadsoft Eagle
6. Microsoft Office (throw vegetables at me if you like but MS Office is actually very powerful! OpenOffice would be a good alternative except for the fact that there's no support for VBA. Which to me is important. However, if Open Office were available on the Amiga I'd use it for general documents)
And that's it really. It's unfortunate that pretty much all of the Engineering tools I need/use are only available on the PC. Even the MAC suffers from a lack of some of the applications I mentioned, so getting them on the Amiga just to satisfy me isn't going to happen anytime soon.
Still... The Amiga takes pride of place and is used as much as possible.
Apple Hammer
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Trax, Studio 5, Browsing.
And of course Doom II, Quake II and Counter Strike.
Gertsy
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I never went to PC or Mac. But MorphOS gave me software my original Amiga wasn't capable for (playing movies namely).
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I went accidentally on the PC. I was supposed to upgrade a stock A1200 but I got a present of a PC with Chaintech Mobo, Pentium 133Mhz, 1.2GB HD, CD24x, Win95, ATI 4MB Ram.
Anyway, I can't really regret that I swift to PC. Win where unstable just like w.b. 3.1 when was heavily patched and some apps could bring both systems down. But, OTOH, I could browse sufficient the web with Netscape and I could play games that didn't exist on Amiga and/or even if they could be ported, they would be slow like snail. For example, Carmageddon, Phantasmagoria, Age of Empires (I played through Zone as well back then!) and QuakeII (I had to upgrade to a Viper GFX of 32Mbs 2 years later).
Also, I was 12-13 years old and I couldn't really persuade my parents to upgrade my stock A1200 for the same (if not more!) amount of money and couldn't get equal results when compared to the brand new PC.
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Red Hat 6.
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I first had to use, and therefore purchase, a PC in late 94 I think, after my A1200 v1 purchase anyway. What a rude awakening that was. First impressions were Win 3.1 is WORSE than Workbench 1.1 or Gem v1 on the ST. Where the hell is the logical/physical location relationship the GUI of what is on your hard disk. And it got worse, the file system was WORSE than a Commodore PET from the 70s! 8.3 format was pathetic. Sure Dbase IV was fine for programming but that file system got right on your nerves VERY quickly. And I used Dpaint for all my assignments and projects because Photoshop even then was ineffectual bloatware and there was nothing as simple and effective as using Dpaint in super high rez and printing 1:1 with a bubblejet printer.
And then there was all the pathetic messing about to get enough memory! You have 4mb on board, app/game says not enough memory. You need to do all this geeky rubbish to maximise the dinosaur memory map of 640k >1mb >rest. And then you need the right kind of extra memory like EMS/XMS etc gahhh what a piece of shit.
But as others have said there was no new Amigas, the CD32 was a waste of time (inferior hardware STILL to the SNES/Megadrive...why bother?) and Escom were pimping 1992 (too little too late) Technology in the 96 market place. 4 years is the difference between C64 and Amiga for god's sake!
I found the games anal and boring and lacking any kind of excitement, the only decent PC game was Super Stardust, but as it was a lot less hassle to play it on my A1200 AND PC joysticks were a joke...erm. Games like Sam and Max and Day of the Tentacle were boring and required a sound card costing more than a 2nd hand A1200 at the time, what a joke. Wing Commander was pathetic, and Doom became boring very quickly for me.
Nope the only thing I wanted from the PC world in the mid 90s on my Amiga was a FAST serial port for 56k modems (bloody Commodore penny pinching) and Netscape 3. That's it, nothing else. And even to this day I don't care for OS X or Vista (or service pack 7 for Vista AKA Windows 7). But as someone else said there was no Amiga, no development, no Commodore, it was a false choice.
Amiga was like a fearless warrior of Conan proportions who died alone and penniless in a cancer hospital ward....PC was a weakling of a bespectacled spotty kid with a rich daddy and a sever infection of the luck virus. And that my friend is how I imagine 99% of intelligent Amiga users who had no choice but to get a PC felt. Sad end to a glorious amazon warrior.
YMMV ;)
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Well when I got a pc I needed it for college in 1996, plain simple.
I got things like Turbo Pascal, a program for designing boards and so on.
First ran Windows 95 with Microsoft Office and later I got my hands on Adobe Photoshop.
At that time games like Command & Conquer where so much played that it was impossible for the Amiga to keep up.
I than left the Amiga 500 in the garage where it was cool and dry and just late 2009 I fired it up again and then came the rage to buy A1200's and everything I can get my hands on.
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I went totally PC in 2000 when I heard Kid A by Radiohead and decided to start writing electronic music. I built a PC so I could run Reason (http://www.propellerheads.se/products/reason/). Now I'm totally Mac and use Reason and Record (http://www.propellerheads.se/products/record/).
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moto
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Just games really, my dad got a PC for work; I found this and knew it was over:
Papyrus IndyCar Racing 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jp5OZIj8Dw
And later, the most famous Papy racer - GPL
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGQGA7-ye98&feature=related
Of course I use to play the Amiga Microprose F1 before all this...
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I got my first PC (my A1600 netbook) so I could install Icaros Desktop on it. Aros is the only PC software that made me want a PC, a chance to use a newer Amiga OS on much faster hardware with modern enhancements was too good to pass up, and definitely the right price (direct from the distributor in China for under $200 delivered). Thankfully my netbook came with a blank hard drive and wasn't infected with the Windows virus when I got it.
I want a Mac too, a G4 Mac Mini so I can delete OSX and install MorphOS on it.
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Got my first PC in 1989, a bodybuilded Amstrad 2086...
Electronic Arts' GraphicWorshop and Deluxe Paint II.
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For me, it was having to write assignments for University back in 1994. I couldnt afford a good printer so I'd write my work at home and take them on floppy to be printed. The print server couldnt read Amiga disks and my Amiga had no word processing software so it was a cheap used 386 with Word on Win3.1 for me.
Interestingly, that machine felt much faster (25Mhz) than my A500, it was a fairly painless upgrade, I kept the A500 for games and the PC for work, they were apretty good team.
When I was at Uni, I actually got away with using ShapeShifter for that problem :)
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I went totally PC in 2000 when I heard Kid A by Radiohead and decided to start writing electronic music. I built a PC so I could run Reason (http://www.propellerheads.se/products/reason/). Now I'm totally Mac and use Reason and Record (http://www.propellerheads.se/products/record/).
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moto
For me, music sequencing reached a pinnacle with OctaMED. Stuff that has come along since has undeniably become more feature rich, better sounding and been more professional (read boring), but I just can't use any of it.
There is something fundamental about columns of note events and hex command codes adjacent scrolling up the screen that I find intuitive in a way that no piano roll or notation format has ever achieved for me.
Thankfully, OctaMED does MIDI, else I'd probably never compose anything at all. I haven't really played with the concept, but I figured using a few standalone softsynths on my PC and controlling them via OMSS within UAE might be a laugh.
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I defected in 2002. Quite a few reasons:
1) Needed to work on large graphics files, Photoshop 2 + Shapeshifter wasn't enough.
2) Office
3) Hardware based encryption
4) Raytracing and Poser
Probaby the biggest issue was RAM and processing power. When you are working on a 600mb TIFF, the 060 A4000T and its 146mb RAM doesn't cut it.
Even today, with my PPC and 530mb RAM, it wouldn't be enough. At the time I defected, games and internet weren't an issue for me. I was happy using my PS2 and I didn't mind using the internet cafe.
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Platform envy?
Well my A500 had games going on, but we made the hop to a 386-->486--->Pentium land when AOL was going down, and Neverwinter Nights originally came out...
couldn't play that on the Amiga....
lol.
that and my parents work-software was all becoming Windows based... so they kinda just went with the flow.
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The Settlers II
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~ Windows 98 ~ Kept getting checksum errors on the Amiga and subsequently lost all my artwork, forcing me (out of frustration and the knowledge that C= was a sinking boat) to go get with the Joneses and build a PC.
~ Photoshop 5.5 ~ To rework all my lost photos and images...
~ TRIBES ~ at the time, this game totally sucked me in.
I still tinker with the Amiga systems in the basement.
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I remember a distinct point in time when PC games started looking better and having more features than their Amiga ports, one example was Syndicate which loaded in a few seconds, was higher resolution and ran faster/smoother on my friends 486. This was when I knew the game was up for my trusty ole' A500.
It took me quite a while to start PC gaming though as the PlayStation took care of my gaming needs for a few years, I still prefer the (Amiga-like) put-disk-in-and-play method of games on console compared to the PC's unexpected issues.
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Like so many here, I was first enchanted in the early 90's by 16-bit sound cards, games on CD-ROM, flicker-free displays and hard drives. The Amiga back then handled all my business and productivity stuff just fine. Never had to worry about that, 'cept when it came to AOL & Netscape for browsing. Gaming wise, the first software I wanted a "new" personal computer for was stuff like Wing Commander, Demolition Derby, 7th Guest, Myst, etc. I wasn't a terribly big Doom or Wolfenstein 3D fan - certainly not enough to sway me totally from the Amiga. But it was some of the other 3D polygonal and photo realistic shooters, racing, RPG and general multimedia stuff that first made me raise my eyebrows and think hmmm... maybe this Amiga thing is really starting to show its age :(
I really liked some of the more advanced space trading trading games starting to come out for the Miggy, but they were usually short of features AND ran too slow if you didn't buy the (already back then) overpriced accelerator cards. Hate to say it, but it was literally cheaper to get a clone with a fancier processor, jam packed with all the multimedia goodies you could want for LESS than or around the same cost of many Miggy accelerators and that still holds true today :lol:
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Since I started on the PC before the Amiga, my Envy moment was
Kermit....with the acoustic coupler, and trotting all the way from Lancs Uni Janet, via X25 across to Columbia Uni, transferred back a copy of the Kermit Binary and Source to compile the latest Kermit. Hopped on a few more and spent the next 2 years hanging around 2600 Pops, much fun was had by all ;) Wargames, na, just nosey.
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I never went to PC or Mac. But MorphOS gave me software my original Amiga wasn't capable for (playing movies namely).
I'm glad to see there is someone else that never went PeeCee or Mac! Here at work I just ordered a new 27" iMacTel, but there is still an A4000D behind me right now.
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Well, it was the need for a totally compatible and up do date web-browser that made me partially switch (used the PC for web browsing, the Amiga for everything else).
But the real killer app that the PC had was DAW software for digital music multitracking. The PC had so much and it was relatively hassle free to get running. The Amiga only had one or two serious DAW applications and you needed either specific, hard to get hardware to run it (Sunrize 516) or an 060 or PPC processor (which there was never a hope of me getting).
I held out for a really long time though...using and external hardware multitracker synced to my Amiga via MIDI.
Lately, I've started using video editing software (Vegas) on the PC. I do use my Amiga's for a LOT still, but until something like that comes along for AmigaOS (along with cheaper powerful Amiga hardware to run it), I won't be able to abandon Windows/PCs.
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I'm glad to see there is someone else that never went PeeCee or Mac! Here at work I just ordered a new 27" iMacTel, but there is still an A4000D behind me right now.
That's great that you can have an Amiga at work and that it actually is useful. I would love to be able to use an Amiga at work.
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@Karlos
Take a look at SunVox (http://www.warmplace.ru/soft/sunvox/)
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For me it was Mac OS X. The reason I went with the Amiga in the first place (in 1992 or so) was that my Sinclair QL was getting a bit dated, I was tired of writing all of the software I needed completely by myself, and I couldn't move from something with clean 32 bit programming and preemptive multitasking to PC-DOS / Windows or Mac OS. Plus, I had work buy an Amiga since it could also be used to run Mac software.
When Mac OS X came out, I had a real GUI, a good programming environment, preemptive multitasking, protected memory and lots of applications. No, GNU/Linux or BSD with KDE or Gnome wouldn't do - they suck as GUIs.
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I never went fully PC or Mac since I still have A4000T's but the first app I used was Netscape Navigator.
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I never went fully PC or Mac since I still have A4000T's but the first app I used was Netscape Navigator.
well jeeze, no wonder you never went fully PC or Mac,
first impressions and all.
:)
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WinUAE. I needed a portable. WinUAE delivered me my known environemnt on a portable (some Sony Vaio QR10 - still kind of like the design).
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I switched to pc around windows 95 release, but only so I could use fast tracker II and a 16 bit soundcard that could mix 32 channels in an audio tracker..
I almost never used windows, except for fast tracker in dos mode and aol for email I suppose. I held on to hope for newer amigas but eventually then switched to linux, red hat 5.0 and dos 6 multi-booting.
Dos wasn't bad but I hated windows and still do. Now I'm using linux for most everything, and rebuilt an amiga 1200 and an aros machine.
Steven
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I stopped using my Amiga around '95 when I started working on Silicon Graphics computers with Alias Wavefront Power Animator. At about 1999-2000 I bought my first PC. Mainly because of the internet, but also because the 3D cards had caught up with the SGIs and Maya 3D finally arrived for the PC.
I still have my Amiga 1200 though, and I use it from time to time to play the old games.
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Enhanced DOOM ports and Editors...
...it's about the only thing I really need Windows for.
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Hi I'm wondering what software was giving you platform envy. So much so your Amiga got knocked off the winners podium and replaced with a PC or Mac. What titles/applications did you rush out and purchase?
Hi,
The program that made me switch was Wolfenstein 3D, this early version was really great, really didn't lose the Amiga, I still use it today for keeping my important stuff. Now on the Mac I wouldn't really switch over to it for the Mac really doesn't have any good software and the Mac really doesn't impress me in any manner shape or form. I have tried running Mac emulation software on both the Amiga and the PC, but everything Mac was crap, so I removed the emulation programs.
smerf
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Ahh, well, I'd blame my dad, or more precisely, his job for getting a PC in the house. My dad was a museum curator, and they had a catalog system using M$ Office. No one there understood that computers that didn't run windows even existed... If you mentioned 'Amiga' they laughed, or said, "What's an Omeega??" Mention Mac, and they just rolled thier eyes......
So, we had to get a computer that ran M$ Word and Excel.... We have 2 PC's running Window$ now... but at least one of them I got for free.... I found it in the garbage. Rather apropos. :roflmao:
OK, there are things that I have to use the PC for: 'Fancy' CD / DVD burning (making video compilations in VCD format for my Sega Saturns, burning DVD movies, etc.) scanning slides/negatives (I have a scanner on my A1200, but alas no slide adapter) and a few obstinate websites that insist on Internet Explorer.
Games, well not too much until recently. Years ago, I suppose I had a bit of 'Doom-envy', but now I can play Ultimate Doom on my 1200T, I'm cool with that. But, I must confess that play a fair amount of RTS games on my PC. Various new/old C&C games, Empire Earth, etc.
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2004, to get support when I changed to a digital camera. And I like driving games, which were almost missing on Amiga.
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I think it was "Comanche" the voxel rendered helicopter game. That and the Amiga was screwed at the time. I've never had a dislike for other platforms so there was nothing to put me off and for a long time I tried to get an A4000 instead.
Eventually though a friend was upgrading his PC and offered to sell me the older base unit so I got that cheap.
Andy
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I never went pc or mac and never will!