Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: Jeff on August 12, 2012, 03:58:18 AM
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As probably almost everyone here knows, the Amiga has had lots of "behind the scenes" roles over the years. Here are a few of the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Has anyone played with some really cool unusual Amiga software?
Airport display/information terminals (TWA for example used A4000T's - I have one)
Casino's used 1200's for Keno and ?
Nasa used Amiga's on the shuttle program as well as ?
Cable TV's Prevue channel as well as lots of behind the scene Toaster use
Movie Studios - probably mostly Toaster and Lightwave in the early days
Medical applications
Dental applications
I know I have only listed a few. Any lists been compiled anywhere? Does anyone collect this kind of stuff?
Cheers
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Back in the day, I worked at an Amiga dealer. One of our customers used Amiga 3000s to layout their newspapers. At least they used Pagestream to do the typesetting and pasted it up in the traditional way. I wrote them a Cando deck to manage their classified ads. I also remember writing some sort of file converter to mangle text files from the Apple ][s used by the reporters into something more compatible with Amigas.
The local Planetarium used an Amiga 2000 for something related to the shows they gave. I don't know what software they used, they brought the machine in for repair once.
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Cool Stuff! That reminds me they were used in Laser control applications also.
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I receve any A4000 from plastic surgeon, then in the HD has any Patients Database Aplication, and other to modify images, you know, had pictures of patients boobs, nouses, scars, and others.
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I receve any A4000 from plastic surgeon, then in the HD has any Patients Database Aplication, and other to modify images, you know, had pictures of patients boobs, nouses, scars, and others.
Someone I met at a local Amiga dealer many years ago bought cadavers and sliced up frozen cross sections to be imaged in to some sort of medical school app. He said he used Amiga's exclusively although we didn't get in to the software. Not sure that job would work for me.
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Recently read an article from an old Danish amiga magazine, and it was mentioning a swedish/norwegian hospital using amiga's pretty extensively at the time.
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I've heard rumours that Amigas were used in Lockheed and Boeing aircraft for a brief period.
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The Amiga was used extensively on the first illegal (pirate) porno TV channel of Athens (and Greece, in general). A funny moment was when the VHS porn movie ended it had always auto - rewind, however, in the meantime, the pub screen of 1.3 Workbench was broadcast across Athens, LOL. The leading technician that worked for that station then went to work for other (legal this time) privately held TV channels in Athens and rest of Greece. In most of them, he installed several amigas. I don't know what software he used them for though.
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I've heard Amiga's were used on the Sydney monorail, not sure in what capacity (its been discussed else where on here). I think they were also used in Sydney or Brisbane (cant remember which) to display train times, an Amiga user on here actually sent me the program that was used, still got to check it out.
A colleague of mine here in Adelaide said a hotel here used a C64 on the reception desk well into this 2000's. It ran a small guest database.
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Recently read an article from an old Danish amiga magazine, and it was mentioning a swedish/norwegian hospital using amiga's pretty extensively at the time.
Hi may i ask where you read that danish article :-)
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I think I read somewhere that Amigas were used in a roller coaster to sync audio and light effects with the movement of the roller coaster.
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Hi,
The Amiga 4000 I'm posting this on came from a local schools Art Department. The system had an A3630/50 Mhz card, 2 Meg Chip and 2 Meg fast as well as a VLab Card and "Art Department Pro" installed.
The Art Department students had produced lots of Graphics and Animations, some of which won national awards.
My daughter went to the school 12 years ago and introduced me to the Art teacher who I then became the "Amiga Tech".
I upgraded the system with an A3640 and more fast RAM.
When the Art Teacher left on retirement I asked the schools Head Master if I could buy the A4000 and he gave it to me as a thank you for the work I'd done on helping them.
The motherboard is now installed in an Elbox Tower with a Cyberstorm MKII/060, Mediator Voodoo Card and NIC.
Regards, Michael
aka rockape
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A friend of mine bought a pile of A4000D from Scandic Hotels in early 2000. This is one of them. Not actually sure what they were using it for. It came with a S-VHS coverter card.
(http://a1.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/s720x720/376641_3492702965476_112711010_n.jpg)
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A show on ITV ('The Chart Show' I think it was called) used Amigas for the video overlay information. There was a WB1.3-style pointer clicking on things on screen and they popped up. In the years before it was axed, the information overlay was changed to something a bit more modern - which I assume meant the Amiga they had controlling it was either retired or broke.
Northampton bus station information displays had a Guru Meditation showing when I was there once, so they were all controlled by Amigas.
There's a "famous Amiga uses" document/web site which lists a lot of these.
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I've heard Amiga's were used on the Sydney monorail, not sure in what capacity (its been discussed else where on here). I think they were also used in Sydney or Brisbane (cant remember which) to display train times, an Amiga user on here actually sent me the program that was used, still got to check it out.
A colleague of mine here in Adelaide said a hotel here used a C64 on the reception desk well into this 2000's. It ran a small guest database.
Too true on the monorail. Amiga 2000's, they control the station synchronisation and doors for the Sydney monorail. Now that it's being decommissioned there might be a few A2000s on the market.
The NSW rail timetable display system built and scrapped in the late 90's used A1200s.
HBA and Mutual Community (Health Insurance Companies) used A1200s in Video Generator boxes for Point of Sale information and adverts in their branches.
Hey Hey It's Saturday (Aussie TV program) used to use an Amiga for on the fly video titles and animation in the early 90's I think.
Lots of other stuff I think most people know: Early Babalon 5, Andy Warhol, Rolf Harris (Aust/UK Artist)
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Someone I met at a local Amiga dealer many years ago bought cadavers and sliced up frozen cross sections to be imaged in to some sort of medical school app. He said he used Amiga's exclusively although we didn't get in to the software. Not sure that job would work for me.
There was an article in Amazing Computing about medical imaging and the Amiga. I wonder if it was about the same person? There's also the Visible Human Project, which I think had some Amiga involvement. Dhomas Trenn's website has (had?) good information on it.
We also had a newsletter here in the States called Scientific Amigan that covered academic and other serious uses for the Amiga. I bet there's some fun stuff in there!
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I've heard rumours that Amigas were used in Lockheed and Boeing aircraft for a brief period.
It wouldn't surprise me to find they were used as flight training simulators also. After all that was what Jay Miner intended the Amiga be used for.
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I remember seeing the guru meditation screen on the local cable guide channel a couple of times. Even further back than that, I saw an Atari 800 startup screen.
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In the late 1980s or early 1990s I worked in a K-Mart store in Canada (K-Mart is now gone from Canada). At one point I remember they brought in touch-screen Kiosks that displayed some information on merchandise and sales (sort of like an electronic flyer).
I had a suspicion they were running on Amigas and I think I peeked inside through a vent or crack and could see there was an Amiga 3000 in there.
Amigas were also used in the 1980s for driving the graphics of various museum interactive displays - The Ontario Science Centre comes to mind.
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Hi may i ask where you read that danish article :-)
I'll have to look for it. If you check out amiga.dk, there's a thread where guys are posting scans of old Danish computer mag's, including "Det Nye Computer" from before it sucked :)
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IBM used Amigas for public displays at one of their mainframe factories. It was commented on in Amiga Format Magazine. If I remember correctly, IBM used SCALA and some SCALA something-or-other was on the coverdisk, hence the mention in the magazine.
As for NASA, obligement has a nice article about that here:
http://obligement.free.fr/articles_traduction/amiganasa_en.php
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I got my A1200 from my dad's work. There was a advertisement department started whom worked only with Amiga's (ADPro, etc) for image capturing for products and commercials. Later when that department closed I even got their A4000 (and turned the A2000 down ;-). Good times.
Later I bought 2 A3000's from the school where my mom works. They have an architecture/designer classes where they used A3000's for. They got replaced by PC's. So I could buy them for cheap ($25 each!).
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Why don't I ever stumble across 25 dollar A3000s ? :pissed:
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Why don't I ever stumble across 25 dollar A3000s ? :pissed:
I know the feeling. Maybe I would stand a chance if I got down to the local car boot sales at 7am on Sunday morning, though probably not.
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A long time ago when I first got into amiga, a new amiga friend and I were at the local mall. He said did you know the mall kiosks are run on amiga? I had no idea, we went over, he did something with the trackball mouse and pulled down the mall kiosk information screen. Behind that, was workbench.
I thought that was pretty cool.
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At the local cinema some years ago I saw some AMOS Error Screen on the displays where they showed which movies are running and some other information :-)
Also see this list of Amiga uses:
http://wigilius.se/amiga/
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Years ago a local medical imaging lab used A4000T's equipped with CS MK III's and CS PPC's for their work. They had LOTS of systems in place all fully loaded. They upgraded to PC's and all the Amiga's had to be destroyed do to corporate policy. We tried everything to get them to make an exception but they all got trashed.
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In the early 90s, I came across 2 public uses for Amigas.
The first was an Amiga 1000 at the Exploratorium in San Francisco. It was a demo of pattern perception while in motion and then stopped. In later visits, I was unable to find it again. They made much use of early Macintoshes, too.
The second was at Pittsburg's airport. I think they were 1200s used in Kiosks to show maps to the local hotels and car rentals.
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I remember seeing the guru meditation screen on the local cable guide channel a couple of times. Even further back than that, I saw an Atari 800 startup screen.
Me too, i saw in middle 90`s in the TV Guide Cable Channel, several times Disk Request, or CDROM Request screens. And Blue Commodore 64 Basic System screen-
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The local TAFE used to use them for their advertising displays. Think they used MMC.
I believe there are aircraft still in service in the RAAF which have A2000s as their onboard computers.
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Here in Canada they actually had an Amiga 500 running a car battery selection kiosk in Wal-Mart. These units had a touch screen attached and booted the software from a floppy disk. It was pretty easy to peek through the little padlocked flip door and see the A500 inside. The local TV station also used Amiga 4000s and 2000s with Scala and a SuperGen SX for local programming. They even had a dedicated unit for a 24 hours information and news scroller that would go along the bottom of the screen.