I started out with an Apple IIgs back in '87 but had been using Apple II's (of various models) prior to that in school and with friends who had one. I absolutely loved my IIgs (I still have it today). Anyway, after Apple dumped the Apple II, I moved into the Wintel world in the early 90's (can't remember exactly). But I had heard about this thing called Amiga that intrigued me.
So after becoming rather disenchanted with my 486DX/33 running Windows 3.1 I started investigating the Amiga thing I had heard about. I asked around a few BBS's and got little bits of information here and there, but nothing to make me run out an buy one. About this time I upgraded to a 486DX2/66, which had made Windows bearable. So I stopped pursuing the Amiga...
About a year or so later, my disenchantment with the 'PC' grew (again). So one day, while perusing the magazine section of a book store, I came across a couple Amiga mags (AmigaWorld and Amazing Computing I think) and started reading up on what I had been missing.
It was then that I realized this Amiga computer was much more akin to my beloved IIgs (which I still used, more often) than my PC. At the time I couldn't afford an Amiga, I had spent too much on my Wintel machine and I had my heart set on an A4000T. I wanted to learn more, so I looked around for a local BBS'es or users groups.
Luckily I found a couple BBS'es after a few misses (something like 70% of area Amiga BBS'es had gone down). But I learned that the Amiga Community (in the form of the largest users group) in my area was slowly dying... In a way, it foreshadows the state of the present 'global' community. There was a big battle between two factions in the group, vying for control over it's name and control of the group sponsored BBS. And no wonder, it was about '93 at the time.
So I was left with hanging out at tow or three of the BBS'es still worth visiting in the area. And as luck would have it, a user at one of these BBS'es was looking to find a home for an A2000 he was retiring. He'd let me have it for free, as long as I picked it up. Which I did, and luckily for me, it came with quite a bit of stuff to get me started. Unfortunately, I had the 2000 no more than nine months before Commodore 'officially' went bust.
Still I loved my A2000. I bought all kinds of upgrades (incl, Tekmagic accelerator, Spectrum 28/24 graphics card, 2MB chip RAM, Catweasel ZII Mk2, an Emplant Deluxe, and more) Although I didn't use it as much as my 'PC' (school/work reasons), it superseded the IIgs in my heart. So much so that I bought another A2000 and later traded both in to get an A4000D which inherited much of the hardware I had for the A2000...
Sadly, my A4000 seems to be dead. And I fear repairing it will not be worth the expense. So I'll have to wait for AOS4 to be released. At which point I plan to get an A1. In the interim, I'll use UAE and keep my eye out for a 'cheap' Amiga.
I should mention I also had a VIC-20 some two or three years before the IIgs, but I used it more as a game console than anything else. Mostly because while learning BASIC, I could never save and then retrieve anything from tape! Otherwise I probably would have been hooked on Commodore and got a C-64 or C-128 and later an Amiga.
