Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: runequester on December 25, 2010, 09:19:23 AM
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Before the internet was a big thing, what sort of tasks did you use your computer for?
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That would be my A1200t. It was used for games, word processing, more games, and games. Apart from that I did a bit of scanning and image manipulation and listened to audio cd's. Later on with the modem, came faxing, telephone answering machine and games :)
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Playing games, watching demos, listening mod music, copying disks, programming in AMOS, pixelling with DPaint, rendering with Real3D and Vista etc, tuning Workbench, recording animations to VHS, reading Amiga mags, doing school work and printing, testing everything, visiting demo parties... and some years before internet going online to BBS'es for trading, chatting, bank accounting and online gaming :)
Hmm.. I guess everyone here has lived that phase and isn't that we're all missing nowadays... sooo.. what kind of question this was afterall? :)
EDIT: and I got my first email address in 1994 via some BBS, first PPP connection to internet in 1995 and static 10/10 Mbps internet connection in 1998. All only with Amiga.
Later half of the 90's was great, lots of people were online with Amigas on internet and Amiga IRC channels were full of life etc. It was the golden era of online Amiga using. After millennium it all went downhill as majority was switching to PC as online machine and talk about real computers ceased on the most places ;)
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Before Internet was a big thing, I used my A1200 for Internet.
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Same as above. Also tinkering and customising Workbench floppies to get it lean and fast. You become lazy after you get a hard drive though.
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games, demos, dpaint, protracker. and ofcourse tweaking workbench. did some lightwave stuff, too.
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Before Internet was a big thing, I used my A1200 for Internet.
I used my a500 to access the internet circa 93.
Before that programming, games, demos.
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Used my Amiga 500 for games and some dpaint, the pc was also used for games and some programming.
Internet was already a good know thing when it really took off, and made the most use of it at a friends house.
Wasn't untill 1998 that I had my own dialup, later ADSL and now cable, which runs 120/10 Mbit.
I rather would have a bit more upload than download, since 95% of the time you won't reach the full 120Mbit.
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For games, the great Amiga 500's games, drawed even for bussines.
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Well up until about 6 months ago I'd never in me 25 years of using the Amiga been on the net (it still isn't I'm using a Mac for the net) so me trusty old miggies are still doing the same things they always have done... :)
D.T.P, Graphics work, Programming, Music, Audio (burning CDs/ DVDs) and anything else you can use a computer for (except of course the net), oh and of course the odd game or two... :)
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Hmm - skimming through my blogs... can't find anything... weird... :rolleyes:
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First computer, C64, mostly games and a little bit of art-type stuff, 1985ish-1990ish
Second, Apple IIe, mostly games and some word processing for school, 1990ish-1993
Third, Leading Edge 8086, Prodigy, found BBSes, didn't do much else with it, 1993-1994
Fourth, Packard Bell 486, AOL (pre-www,) BBSes, games, schoolwork, and probably my first direct internet connection, 1994-1995
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My Amiga ran a BBS for years. If i could go back to those days i would in a heartbeat! the internett is nowhere near as fun.
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Before the internet was a big thing, what sort of tasks did you use your computer for?
BBS'es
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I never actually had Internet access until 2000 (yes, really!) Before that, it was all about learning to program (sadly, I didn't make much progress because all the good tools were unaffordable in those ancient, pre-GCC days) and playing games off of those giant shareware compilation CDs you'd get for $5 at the local computer store. Good times :)
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First computer was a TI-99/4A and I used it primarily for games. Had Mini-Memory and the Assembler cartridge, so dabbled in TMS9900 for a bit. Extended Basic was so powerful though that I mainly just stuck to that. Was great trying to create your own games or type in those you found in the computer mags back then.
I've had Apple ]['s, C64's and A8's after that. Apple was fun for games and bringing home some homework that needed to be saved to disk. C64 and A8 though - primarily gaming again, although I did have a Gorilla-Banana printer for my Atari 400, but I have to admit... I never really used a computer and printer combo for homework and such. 9-pin printers looked too "computer" like and I would have never wanted to hand that in as such. We had typewriters if anything more professional was to be used. Never did the cheesy early computer Christmas card thing either, even though it was popular in the 80's.
Printers in the early to mid 80's, were more like luxury items than necessity to me. Hell, the disk drive too, to an extent. While it was pretty much standard fare on the Apple, you could certainly get by without one on the TI/Atari/C64 for a while anyway. Tape drive for the TI worked fairly well and with prices of the RAM expansion, Disk Drive Module and drive itself being sky high, you made do with what you had or could afford.
When the Amiga came along, I was in my teens, working and learning the importance of saving money. The A1000 was a money pit back then, so I ended up selling it to get an A500. Again, primarily for games. But since the parallel port was more standard, I did end up getting a nice 24-pin dot matrix for her and that allowed me to type up nice letters and databases to keep track of phone numbers, albums, my console games, etc. By the late 80's, finally got a sound digitizer and had fun playing around with that.
By the early 90's, I had re-purchased an A1000 with memory expansion and the A1300 Genlock. They were dirt cheap back then and I always loved the styling of the A1000. Anyway, added titles to some home movies and did some dubbing, light special effects and titling for friends, which ended up having paying friends of their own :)
First modem I ever had IIRC, was for the Amiga. Had one for my A500, A1000 and eventually the A1200. Only mildly ever checked out the BBS scene, but because phone usage and long distance back then was cost prohibitive, I never really saw the value in hanging out "online" all day or tying up my phone line all night downloading whatever. Just never saw the value of the online experience until the mid to late 90's.
Wish I could say I've done more useful things with all my computers, but the truth is, I guess I've always sorta/kinda viewed them as the paragon of fancy electronic toys. Working on them today is a much more utilitarian experience to be sure. Much more necessary to have online access, printers, cameras, scanners, mass storage and all that jazz, although I will admit - if the internet continues to "evolve" the way it is, I have romantic notions of ditching it all. Seriously. lol
Had I grown up with all of these things as standard equipment, I'm not sure how I would have received all of it. In my teens, I think I would have felt like a douche staying inside all day, "playing" on the computer or chatting online. Don't get me wrong. Growing up with arcade games all about the house, we certainly had our share of indoor time - but it was better balanced than I see kids doing today. We'd play a few quick games here and there and then would head outside. NONE of us were fat. I had only one chunky friend (incidentally, his family had a complete Atari 800 setup) but he was nowhere near as jumbo as kids are today. He was simply predisposed to it. Any fast or junk food we might have had, was quickly burned up playing - that's how much we played outside! Even in our late teens.
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The Amiga was the first computer I ever owned starting out w/a A1000 which I still have was purchased in '92 from Amiga Guru Rick Hunter of Apogee Technologies and Contraption Industries in Sarasota FL.
Started purchasing discs from TLAS [Turtle Lightning Amiga Software], DevWare etc. for utilities then buying games after running the demoes from Amiga Format etc. and/or reading about in Amiga World, Amazing Computing, Amiga Informer etc.
I went to an internet cafe many times late '98 and downloaded from Aminet to many disks formatted on the Wintel boxes and transferred using CrossDos 7 to the A1200 which I got online later the next year.
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2 - A1000 OS1.3
1 - A500 OS1.3
1 - A600 OS2.05
1 - A1200 GVP1230 16mb OS3.1
1 - 2500 IVS Vector 03/25 8mb OS2.1 Toaster 2000
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My Amiga ran a BBS for years. If i could go back to those days i would in a heartbeat! the internett is nowhere near as fun.
I totally agree!
I used mine for BBSing, running my BBS and games. I also did some school work on it for college. Kindwords was a good word processor.
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looks like lots of good memories :)
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I used to use BBSs back pre-internet days. Depended on FidoNet back then. My basic computer use hasn't changed all that much, just the output has gotten much more sophisticated over the years.
From TI/994A days I have used data base software and Spreadsheets a lot. When I switched to the C-64/ C-128 graphics and DTP started to sneak into the picture. With the Amiga, I started a DTP business, and video work.
When good Morphing software came out for the Amiga, I started making videos for $$.
I still use some of the same software I used almost 20 years (maybe newer versions). I really depended on Pagestream, and TextFX (until it was integrated) and still do. ImageFX too, Graphics programs from DPaint to Brilliance, to ??? . Somewhere back in the 8 bit days I started to program - That was much more interesting with the Amiga.
I played games too, all through the different platforms used.
It's been interesting, to say the least.
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Before internet, that was my A500 Plus for gaming, watching demos, word processing and printing, copying disks, basic programming, basic making of music. Good old time :)
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Playing games, drawing on D Paint, Wordprocessing my homework, listening to music on Octamed (never created any), dialing into BBS's, playing BBS games, downloading porn from BBS's and that was all on my 1meg A500 with 120meg hard drive!
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My old frankenstien A500 ran CnetPRO (2.x and onwards) BBS and UUCP (via dial up UUCP connection). While playing games, of course. ;)
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I used to write demos and games in 68k assembler, make music in Octamed, and draw stuff in Deluxe Paint.
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Porn:o
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Oh, about the same stuff I do now. Only instead of the Internet it was Compuserve and then later every BBS in Northern NY. Then in college it was dialing in to the mainframe(VAX) and Bitnet. My second semester Bitnet faded out and the College got on this thing called the Internet.
Anyone remember Gopher? Good old Mosaic!
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My Amiga ran a BBS for years. If i could go back to those days i would in a heartbeat! the internett is nowhere near as fun.
you can and l have
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My Amiga ran a BBS for years. If i could go back to those days i would in a heartbeat! the internett is nowhere near as fun.
BBS for me had alot more personal interaction. Though AO comes close.
It was always interesting who was calling in at the same time I was logged on. Some called from some distance.
The local BBS I was the SubOP for the Amiga section. Always nice meeting other users in the area.
A friend I made the day I moved into my college dorm ran a BBS on a C64 and 3 1581 drives. Never expected to meet another C64 user at college, much less two doors down.
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I did everything with my Amigas that I do nowadays. Except Internet stuff (Web, E-Mail, etc.), of course.
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2600 nuff said
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My Amiga 500, it was used for games, word processing and also for fun drawing and animating on. I got my local contacts thro asking, looking and finding myself a network with other amigians and new friends. It was a bit troubblesome but also really fun times! I also had a friend how used a PC and i didnt really thought about how much powerful my amiga was back then, not until recently I gave it a though and how awesome the amigas really was!
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Porn:o
At least you're honest! :D
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Some illegal things plus coding, co-sysop on a few boards, demos, some gaming.
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Before the internet was a big thing, what sort of tasks did you use your computer for?
Before the birth of the Web, I used my main computer to run NASAU Beach BBS, which eventually became the site you see before you today.
Wayne
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Before the birth of the Web, I used my main computer to run NASAU Beach BBS, which eventually became the site you see before you today.
Wayne
"roots of amiga.org"
What sort of stuff was on the BBS?
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"roots of amiga.org"
What sort of stuff was on the BBS?
Honestly, I couldn't possibly remember at this point (25+ years ago), save to characterize it as "legal" and "All Amiga oriented".
That, and I remember paying about $1600 for 2x 155 MEGAbyte, Full-height, 5.25" RLL/MFM Maxtor hard drives to store the MASSIVE amounts of data involved, which at the time, made NASAU Beach one of the largest single-line BBSs around. Damned thing sounded like a geiger counter going off in my apartment 24/7.
Lots of ANSI color coding as I recall as well. The BBS is, in fact, the reason I built my first PC (it started on a home-built 8086 with an Amber monitor, and eventually moved up through a 386 before being replaced by the web.
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Honestly, I couldn't possibly remember at this point (25+ years ago), save to characterize it as "legal" and "All Amiga oriented".
That, and I remember paying about $1600 for 2x 155 MEGAbyte, Full-height, 5.25" RLL/MFM Maxtor hard drives to store the MASSIVE amounts of data involved, which at the time, made NASAU Beach one of the largest single-line BBSs around. Damned thing sounded like a geiger counter going off in my apartment 24/7.
Lots of ANSI color coding as I recall as well. The BBS is, in fact, the reason I built my first PC (it started on a home-built 8086 with an Amber monitor, and eventually moved up through a 386 before being replaced by the web.
Fair enough, and thank you for the insights :)
Was that 1600 per drive or for both?
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Before I got internet access (well, the always-on kind), the answer would be that I used my computers productively. Now they are devices for consumption in the hours between work and sleep.
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Fair enough, and thank you for the insights :)
Was that 1600 per drive or for both?
$800 each as I recall. Bought through an advert in a magazine called "Computer Shopper" when it used to be about 400 pages and weigh about 3 pounds each month (as opposed to the magazine-weight shadow of it's former self that it's faltered to these days).
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Before I got internet access (well, the always-on kind), the answer would be that I used my computers productively. Now they are devices for consumption in the hours between work and sleep.
Wow. I almost completely blanked out the era of modems from my memory.
This is funny, because we had friends who worked at Universal Data Systems (UDS) here in town -- before they became Motorola -- who always kept us up to the latest and greatest speed (for a considerable price).
I also remember having to pay a local guy for bringing in Fidonet feeds every day.
Wow. Amazing what you forget as you get older.
Wayne
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Digitising pictures with Digi-View. Drawing stuff in various graphics packages. Creating animations using digitisers or from scratch. Sampling sounds. Making MOD tunes. Running a couple of emulators. Playing games.
Pretty much what people do now still apart from internet based activities.
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Before the internet was a big thing, what sort of tasks did you use your computer for?
Hi,
My first computer was a C64 and I used it for data bases, word processing, spreadsheets, and games. My primary use was for cracking games and copying them during software parties.
As I became older I bought an Otrona, which was a small portable computer (suitcase size) I used this for writing dbaseII and spreadsheet programs in CPM, then Microsoft appeared on the scene and I had to update the Otrona to a 8088 emulator board where I continued to write dbase II and Lotus 123 spreadsheet programs for banking and accounting.
Then when my Otrona attache finally died, I went out looking for a new computer, about this time I had my choice on which computer I was going to buy, an Amiga 1000 or a Tandy, well the tandy could run dbase and Lotus 123, but I had to buy the programs from Tandy, the 2 programs cost more then the computer, the Amiga 1000 couldn't run any IBM programs at the time, so I bought you guessed it, the Tandy, but the following week after buying the Tandy the Transformer came out for the Amiga 1000, so back went the Tandy (it was just way to expensive) and in came the Amiga. Now the Amiga 1000 could run my original IBM programs (ones that I had already originally owned) and it could also play some awesome games. The one I liked best was Arctic Fox by EA, then Commodore upgraded from Amigados 1.0 to 1.1, and my awesome game Arctic Fox wouldn't work, I called EA and they played the phone circle with me and I never did receive an answer. so then I decided to heck with their copy protection and started cracking and distributing there games if copy protected, had lots of business in this area because a lot of Amiga games where copy protected, OK I KNOW IT WAS ILLEGAL, but one thing I can say is that I never distributed a unprotected piece of software, and still refuse to today.
In 1984 I was hired by Commodore to sell their computers, what won me this job was my programming skills and my new ideas with this great machine. I won salesman of the year for 3 years straight in the Bay area by Commodore. (Huge bonus's ($500, $1000) I could of sold more but I couldn't get enough Amiga's in the store.
So what did I use my Amiga's for, cracking protected software (EA's fault) databasing, spreadsheeting, games, Desktop Publishing, slideshows, movie titling, commercials, weddings, and 3d rendering. It was an all around computer that would take you as far as your imagination allowed. Lots of fun.
smerf
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Gaming and upgrading A500; trying to find means to install games on HD.
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games! & also used it for word processing and spreadsheets up to my 2'nd year of University...that's when 56.6 modems came out..
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I used my amiga on BBS doing some chat and looking for programs. One of my first BBS's I used was called F.E.T.C.H. used by US military in Japan from the 80's to the 90's and the internet took the members away.
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I used it for music, Protracker and Octamed, and numerous other music programmes with synths and later midi. But i also loved D-paint animation, 'digitizing' and altering photo's and general creative stuff..of course games, demos, and then it was a real tool, less for communication. IMO internet killed the videostar! or rather reduced it to an MP4 file :)
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I totally agree!
I used mine for BBSing, running my BBS and games. I also did some school work on it for college. Kindwords was a good word processor.
I also noticed how unproductive people started to become once they made the "switch" to the Internett, gone were the days of coding or doing other productive things with theyr computers (myself included).
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Games, Word Processing, a little light DTP and using BBS's.
Fun times to a degree and yes more personal. But I wouldn't swap the internet for that, I remember only too well the hateful experience that was using dialup.
(It's something I get to relive all too often thanks to 3g coverage being as poor as it is)
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you can and l have
No i cant, when i closed shop finaly in 2001 i had all but closed the dialup nodes and even the telnet nodes got very few "calls", its just not the same when there is 2/3 users telneting in a week to take a peak 5min before dropping out. There was a whole society on the BBSes with lots of nice people and friendship made! the only thing that comes close to this today are forums like amiga.org, but its still far from what it was back then.
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BBS for me had alot more personal interaction. Though AO comes close.
It was always interesting who was calling in at the same time I was logged on. Some called from some distance.
The local BBS I was the SubOP for the Amiga section. Always nice meeting other users in the area.
A friend I made the day I moved into my college dorm ran a BBS on a C64 and 3 1581 drives. Never expected to meet another C64 user at college, much less two doors down.
Exactly, it was another world and it was much easier to find someone local and acctualy make some real life friends as well, to this day i still have a few real life friends that i meet through my BBS :).
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My first computer, Commodore 64, was used for games and education. I was just in High School at the time. No online at all didnt even have a modem so everything was within my circle of close friends through school.
About halfway through college I replaced the 128 with an Amiga 500 I saved like crazy for. Games games games and playing around a bit with turbo Silver for 3D raytracing.
My first modem was a 1200baud I got with the students discount special on the 2000HD (with 286 bridgeboard). Bridgeboard was mostly a curiousity for me and bragging point. It never got used since who would play a game on it with the Amiga right there. I finally started calling some BBSes mainly to look at the wide range of software and found the much much wider range of porn. Replaced the free Amiga1000esque modem with a USR 14.4 and signed up on Genie who still had fairly active Commodore and Amiga sections. Here I met the Internet using Lynx. So I played games on it, and eventually a 1200, ray traced with Imagine, Astronomy with Distant Suns, graphics with Dpaint, Brilliance, Photon Paint and Vista Pro and finally, my 1200 was used for Internet email using YAM and webbrowsing using Aweb and Ibrowse.
Internet is a huge timesink now, unfortunately, and moved over to a Windows laptop. While it can expose you to a wider range of people and info, and makes a lot of things more acessable, it just does not have that sence of 'community' BBSes had where you knew most users you could easily meet with.
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I also noticed how unproductive people started to become once they made the "switch" to the Internett, gone were the days of coding or doing other productive things with theyr computers (myself included).
Before the internet you had minesweeper and solitaire to waste your time.
greets,
Staf.
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Before the internet was a big thing, what sort of tasks did you use your computer for?
Do you mean the "web", and do you mean NOT Amiga? Really.
The internet pre-dates the Amiga by a *long* shot. And before "your computer" there were terminals, yes, "on" the "internet" since the 1970's. I used to play Star Trek on IBM mainframe terminals on the Plato network in the early '70's, but they were not my computer.
Soon after I booted the shiny new A1000 into WB1.1, I was connected to the real live bona-fide INTERNET! Luckily, the serial ports worked even in OS1.1, and I had some kind of digital interface to plug into, and POW, I was on the honest-to-deity internet. Net News, Mail, the whole shebang. Anybody who ran WB1.1 remembers when that was, and that the WWW did not happen until 1992-1993. The first web browser I ran was Lynx, we had A4000's by then, and I was showing cloneheads running MSWindblows 3.11 the wonder of the Web on an A4000!
So as far as Amigas are concerned, the internet has always been a big thing, especially for developers; MITS and Altair owners, your mileage may vary.
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My A500 (and later my A1200) was connected to the internet as far back as 1990 thanks to the university I was attending at the time. Downloaded a lot of Amiga games that way (I was a poor college kid at the time so don't hurt me).
Other than that I used it for the usual...creating music, playing games, writing papers. My roommate and I would play Lemmings and drink beer all night long. Good times.
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Playing games with friends, watching demos, listening to mod music, copying disks, making utility disks, making music in ProTracker, pixelling with DPaint for myself or for the demo group i was in at that time....
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My computers have pretty much all always had some kind of telecomm function as their primary raison d'etre with gaming as a close second. From using dialup on my VIC-20, C64, 128, A500 and A1200 (and the first few PCs I had) through the various broadband connection types.
First got on the internet (via UUCP and newsgroups) in 1989, had a GEnie sub that I abused terribly back in the day...became co-sysop of a C-Net running BBS that had an "internet door", then used pseudo-SLIP on my first PC to brows the nascent web around 1995, which gave way to direct connection, etc. etc.
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BBSing, QLink, and hacking my way on to the internet (mostly to run IRC over telnet on my Commodore 128). Games and programming were kind of tied in second, and most of the programming was BBS related anyway.
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That would be my A1200. Non expanded (apart from RAM). I would have gaming evenings in my room with my mates (and beer of course - we had just discovered beer haha), but other than that I used it for midi sequencing via Steinberg software and I did a LOT of DTP via Pagestream (Sooooooo sloooooow on my machine - whilst my mate had a mac which flew through such things). I remember having a Star LC 24-10 NLQ printer which at the time was the Mutts nuts for a bedroom machine! I also remember using it to go "on line" to several Scottish BBS systems such as Blue Lagoon (which my mate ran) and Verities and Balderdash.
Didn't have a lot of money back then but those days were awesome!
John
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Mainly Games, creating school assignments and the occasional BASIC programming :)
It is interesting to note beginning from 1985 onwards, our local telco in Australia launched it's own 'mini-internet' service known originally as 'Viatel' and then changed the name to 'Discovery' a few years later.. Speeds were (up to) 1200/75 Baud Download/Upload and Subscription fees were outrageously expensive for the day, around USD$450-500 per month in today's money roughly (cost even more if you leased their terminal..). Anyway here's a Youtube Video Ad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esaMAyTbURo&feature=player_embedded) promoting the service.
Regards, Valentin
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*It Started with Atari 2600 - Solo Gaming.
*Then C64C - Solo Gaming, copying games.
*After that was my Amiga 500 - Solo & Buddy Gaming, Using X-Copy to copy games, messing with 'SAY' in WB, learnt to upgrade it, added a KS Switcher and KS 2.04 and dissing my friends 286 at the time (Great times)
*Progressed to SNES
*Then PS1
*Sadly I was given a P4 motherboard, and I built a PeeCee for the first time and bought a 56k and the rest is history :P
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Come on guys, admit it, most of you were just playing games.
My main use was as a word processor (still a large part of my use). But I was also building point of sales systems. Building, selling, and supporting computers for business and process control use. Real practical economically valid use for computers.
Maybe one of the reasons the Amiga failed is that many of the users had no real productive uses for their expensive hardware. So when someone in business had to justify their expendatures with valid rational reasoning, you guys and your focus on games and demos put them off, rather than selling them on the Amiga.
Its a shame that the Amiga never got the respect for its status as a real computer that it truly deserved. It was easily as (or more) apable as other 'serious' computers, but with Commodore advertising it primarily to kids, no one took it seriously enough.
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Its a shame that the Amiga never got the respect for its status as a real computer that it truly deserved. It was easily as (or more) apable as other 'serious' computers, but with Commodore advertising it primarily to kids, no one took it seriously enough.
Except NASA, musicians, programmers, developers, network television studios, cable television studios, motion picture studios, artists, videographers, actors, authors, cartoonists, medical professionals, transit companies and museums - just to name a few more that loved and recognized the Amiga for what it was. Is. Whatever! :) :lol: