Amiga: Hobby or Everyday Computing?

[Dandy]

amigakidd wrote:

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How many of you use an Amiga for everyday computing (I mean earn a living) using one.

At work (Ford) I have an PC, of course.
But:
When I started working here back in 1998 it was usual in case someone needed an A0-drawing as an attachment in A4-format to call the CAD office. They plotted the needed .cgm-drawing on A0 format.
Then the person had to go to the CAD office, get the drawing and take it to the print office, where it was scaled down to A4-format.
Finally that person had to fetch the A4-drawing from the print office and give it to the "scan-man", who scanned it to make it digitally available.

This approach remionded me at the "stone age of computing".
At home on my classic miggy I had a tool called "MetaView" from Henk Jonas, that was able to convert the .cgm-drawings from our CAD-stations to e.g. GIF or JPEG.

I asked Ford IT team for a tool to convert .cgm-drawings to e.g. GIF on my PC. They told me that such a tool would not exist within the Ford world.

So I approached my manager and told him I intended to give a demonstration how to save a lot of time by modernising that attachment process. I asked him to allow me to install AmigaForever, OS (meanwhile OS 3.9) and MetaView.

I got the permission and gave the demonstration.
Management was convinced and I got the permission to leave the Amiga installation on my PC to convert the drawings, if necessary.

Meanwhile we have "VIS mockup" on our PC's for that purpose, but AmigaForever is still installed on my PC...

Ahhh - and I typed the application for my current job still on my trusty, old A500...

So far for the "earn a living"-part.

At home I use my A4000PPC on an everyday basis.
My WIntel box underneath my desk is remote-controlled (RDesktop) by my A4kPPC and only used in the rare cases where an app is missing on the Amiga or not meeting my needs sufficiantly.

amigakidd wrote:

Is owning an Amiga or emulating one just a hobby?

Not just a hobby - also serioulsly used...

amigakidd wrote:

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What makes it so different to owning a PC/Mac? Do we become special when we own an Amiga or a copy of Amiga Forever?

Hmmmm - I noticed that if you use a WIntel-box, many configurations are done by Windows without the user becoming aware of it.
From my perspective this is suboptimal, as I want to understand how COMPUTERS work - and not how WIntel-systems do it.
Often you don't get aware of things because Windows cares for it in its own way - and not the way it is done on other systems e.g. Linux or Amiga.

Quite often the WIntel-world even comes up with different synonyms than in "general computing".

amigakidd wrote:

Is it a cult following?

From my POV using Windows has more of an "cult following"...

[Dandy]

Andeda wrote:

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using it for a everyday use for example web and mail is way too painful

No idea why you think so - browsing with IBrowse works flawlessly on most of the pages I visit - and compared to InternetExplorer for me it has the advantage of "tabbed browsing".

And what exactly do you think does Outlook better than YAM?

I really cannot see what is causing you such pains...
 :-?

EDIT:
O.K. - I forgot - it works quite well for me on an 68060 @ 50 mHz - on an 020/030/040 system it might suck nowadays...

[Dandy]

Ilwrath wrote:
 
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The lack of CPU horsepower is noticeable, but it can be worked around.  

Fully agreed...

Ilwrath wrote:

The lack of current software... That's not as easy to deal with.  As mentioned, web-browsers, flash, reader, etc...
You just don't even think about them until all of a sudden you don't have them.

It may depend on what you intend to do.
Latest AWeb or IBrowse are quite O.K. for me, as most of the web sites I visit are displayed properly.
For me browsers are not so much of an issue.

Someone else already mentioned that even a basic flash reader is available.

PDF-readers are available as well - there are even applications that can create PDFs (e.g. latest FXscan)

Ilwrath wrote:

(Sure, you have AWeb and Ghostscript, and sometimes they even work for more than an hour or two before they drag the OS off into Guru Meditation oblivion...)  

Overpatched system?

Ilwrath wrote:

But I can't see using an Amiga as a primary system, anymore.  It's a fun machine for what it does, but what it doesn't do kills it from consideration for primary use.  

For me it does most of what I want.
Of course it does it differently than a WIntel machine does...
I'm suspecting that what it doesn't do is due to the unflexibility of some users -

Ilwrath wrote:

...
(It'd drag my old A4000 out behind the barn and beat it senseless..)

Fully agreed - more hp hardware-wise would be more than welcome...

Ilwrath wrote:

but again... The lack of software makes it not really usable as a primary system.  :-(

Well, that might depend on when you jumped on the Amiga train. I joined in 1988/89 and have loads of software that isn't available anymore. Such an software-pool can help a lot if you want to use an Amiga on an everyday basis nowadays.

In the WIntel world you have big applications and you can do everything with them (well, most of the time).

In the Amigaworld I possibly have to use some more, smaller apps to get a task done, but nevertheless its possible most of the time - if one has enough knowledge about Amiga apps (and where to get them) and enough creativity to combine them in a reasonable manner for the task at hand.

[Dandy]

taunusand wrote:
@quarkx

Ford Taunus are from Germany. In England they were sold as Cortina.
Compared to american cars it's very little, it has a nice little V6 engine with 90hp ;-)
It does not look as Ford Taurus, witch is a bit larger.
In Denmark it was one of the larger middle class cars back in the 1970/80'ies.
...

Ford "Taunus" (Ford of Germany):

1939 Ford Taunus (nickname "Buckel" (= "hunchback")) comes into the market as advancement of the Ford "Eifel". The company name now is "Ford Werke A.G.".

1948 On 1rst of October the production of the new "Taunus" starts: The "Buckel" is revived.

1951 At the first post-war IAA (International Motor Show; Frankfurt, Germany) Ford presents the Ford Taunus de Luxe.

1952 The "Taunus 12 M", the car with the globe, comes into the market on January 8th.

1955 The first new developed post-war Ford engine (55 hp) is available for the "Taunus 15M".

1982 In June 1982 production of the "Taunus" ceases in Europe; it gets replaced by the Ford Sierra. Production continues in Argentina until 1984, where a coupé version remaines in the line-up right until the end (while in Germany the coupé was dropped after the 1975 facelift), and at Otosan in Turkey, where a restyled version of the last model continues in production until 1994.