New classic boards

[songoku]

Yes, I am guilty of having 21 Amigas and just today I was working on installing AmiKit on the monster Dell XPS 700 tower.

I've been off of the board for so long I don't know if I even qualify as a n00b anymore.  heh.  I've got a couple of questions for ya, Dave, so bear with me.  I tend to ramble in explanations.

I'm what you would consider an original Commodore owner.  Started with a VIC-20, toyed with friends' C64s, 128s etc...moved up to an Amiga 1000, and stayed with them from 86 until roughly 98, off and on. At one point I had 2 1000s and a 1200 along with the 486 I sold out and bought from a friend in 1993. Sadly, when I considered "should I get a 4000 or 1200?" brand-new (this was in 1994, I think) I watched Commodore finally go pffffffffffft.  But nothing could compare to the Ami's grace and elegance, at least for me.  So I've always been looking to replace it.

Here's the thing.  Replace it with the speed and power of modern hardware.  That being said, the easiest way would be with an emulated system; but not with WinUAE. I've tried it, and I'll admit it doesn't do much for me.  I found AmiKit the other day and since I've got a free week or so, am trying to install it.  I get to the point of "Please choose your ROM source" and it won't get any further.  I have AmigaForever, an Amiga XL CD and AmigaOS 3.9 (whch is admittedly at home, not much help to me here on campus).  I pop in the XL CD, it loads the ROM file and then goes no further.  I get a "RAM:XL/Workbench3.9/C/Execute: Command not found" error followed by my absolute favorite of prompts, "1>"  :-P

Any ideas how to get past that?  I've completely uninstalled AmiKit (including wiping the directory) and am planning on re-installing AF6 on C:\  instead of my boot drive F:\.  I also tried the "AF installed" button and got nada.  So I suspect the program's looking on C:\ for it.

I got a ton of emulators, all of which I bought!  Woulda been cheaper to get another 1200, which by the way I did last year (classic, not tower) but sold it to a friend of mine who had more time to mess with it.  Also tried getting XL/Amithlon to work, and boot a dual system but I'll be damned if I can follow the directions I downloaded from somewhere.  And I'm an engineer!  go figure.

If you want to email me, the best one to reach me at is tackett.94@osu.edu;  I check it daily.  Now then..... 21 Amigas?  DAMN am I ever jealous!  I'm trying to convince my fiancée that the Amiga isn't dead.  She remembers the platform but is trying to talk me "back into reality" as she puts it.  Doesn't like fine Italian leather, either (at least not on Maseratis). Heh.  Women: go figure.

[songoku]

YEah that's the real trick, isn't it?  Amiga, Inc is not Commodore.  And I've heard Commodore is working on another machine under CommodoreGaming?  anyone know anything?

But yeah, I'd give my right arm for a 1200Tower system.  In fact, that's what I originally had in mind for my 1200 I bought last year.  Was gonna get a case, strip the 1200 from its desktop, transfer everything, put in a Mediator, USB/PCI, ethernet card, video card, the works, y'know?

But at the moment we've got a wedding to save for.  

[songoku]

stopthegop wrote:
Warning:  Philosophical Rant ahead!  Proceed at your own discretion.  

Even longer one here  Someone's got me on my soapbox now.  hehe  

I'm with Amiga92570 & Amigadave.  I don't plan on ever parting ways with my Amiga systems.  Never.

A position I held in college with my A1000.  I even used it in a couple of classes, one for video production!

The Amiga, I believe, was the pinnacle of a design philosophy that embraced elegance, grace, speed, efficiency, responsiveness, and the highest respect and regard for user; a philosophy that is regrettably dying, crushed under the weight of the Amiga's  monopolistic polar-inverse: the "certification"-happy world of Windows.  I don't think there will ever be another computer like the Amiga because the design philosophy that led to its creation has also seemingly died.

Ok let me rephrase something or flat-out state it in case I led people astray here.  [color=800080]I HATE MICROSOFT with a purple passion[/color]!!  :pissed:  :pissed: Always have, for just those reasons stated.  They've been a monopoly for decades, and I'm not one of those people who just roll over when I'm told. I don't like being forced into using something just because everyone else is using it. I like to have choices, and make my own decisions.  Unfortunately, that thinking almost cost me a marriage when I bought my first Maserati without consulting the now-ex wife.  Shame I don't even have that anymore, either.  The thing is, she woulda stopped me.  And she should have.  More detail later.

I only wish I could find... wait does AmigaWriter SAVE in Word format as well?  I've got 2 copies of that one.  What I'd love to find is an office suite for my beloved platform that for once is compatible with everyone else.

I love the Amiga's style, poise, charm, and ability to do things that the peecee just couldn't do at the time.  It was truly haead of its time.  Faster than anything else of its day, and honestly because of Agnes, Denise and Paula, I still think it could be on par with an AMD chip today that has to do all of that processing itself.  No wonder my CPU is overloaded and spends roughly half of its time at 100% capacity.

And I want it back.  Call it a project.  Like restoring a beat-up car to showroom quality.  (which is what happened with the Biturbo I bought; saw it restored, not what it was).  It'll take time, but I want it back.  That ought to appease Jen.  not spending all of that at once.  A case here, a motherboard there... cheap enough.  Now if I Can only find a dreml to use for the 1200... no wait, a 4000.  I want another Toaster card too.  heh :-D

[songoku]

MskoDestny wrote:
Guess what. Modern PCs have all kinds of hardware to offload tasks that the Amiga custom chips take care of. PCs have had 2D blitters for ages now and even 3D accelerators have been standard for years. Sound cards with DSPs that can do what Paula does and a whole lot more have been around for ages as well (though they haven't exactly become standard issue in large part because mixing a few audio channels together takes a trivial amount of processor time on a modern PC).

Oh, I know modern hardware has all the abilities of our old beloved Amigas.  In fact, I recently put in a 128MB ATI Radeon card to do just that:  free up some of my CPU's processing power.  In fact, it's not the IBM-compatible platform (the Amiga, Apple, Sinclair, Osborne, etc are all PCs... personal computers) I have a problem with; I've never had a problem with Intel chips or AMD, or Cyrix.  It's Mr. Bill that grinds my gears. Specifically, its memory management issue.  

Which is why I'd be happy with just the look and feel for my old favorite.  If I can't get AmiKit to work, I may have to  break out VB or VC again and write my own GUI shell.  I'm using Aston at the moment and like it, but it's not quite what I'm after.  I have Suse Pro 10.1 as well, and I like it, but somehow I always wind up back with Losedows XP.  I used to be stronger-willed than this.   ;-)

If your CPU is seriously pegged at 100% half the time it's probably because your PC is stuffed to the gills with spyware.

That is quite possibly true.  I've run all the spyware software I have and they've come up empty or report cookies.  And I don;'t trust site-specific software (like, for instance, spywaredoctor) that require payment for their products.  Any program can always report you have SOME spyware and leave others.  Call it paranoia but I'm somewhat fond of my little green slips of paper with Andy Jackson on them.  Want to keep them around.  And there are other removal programs I've found out that actually ARE spyware.  But then, that could be propoganda too.  

Is it any wonder I got into nuclear engineering?  The computer business can be insane.  :-D  Speaking of other fields, QNX is good, solid, and a basis for AmigaXL.  Which I have.  Hmmmm.... ideas abound.  Time to download QNX6.2 :-D