I'd like to start a thread about your history with the Amiga: what first got you attracted to the Amiga, why you are still hear and everything in between.
Let me start:
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I got my very first computer for my 11th birthday. It was the Commodore Vic-20 with a cassette drive and a single game's cassette. This was the best gift I had ever received, and at the age of 11, this does not say much, but then again, my most memorable gifts are from my childhood years. The Vic-20 was better than any Atari or any other games' machine. The Vic-20 gave me the ability to hack the games, explore the code and understand how programming code worked allowing me to change the course of the game: The Vic-20 spurred my creativity.
I continued to use my Vic-20 often. Then, several years down the road, I bought my very own Commodore 64 with a sleek grey case. Gaming became a more serious activity than it was on the Vic-20. I spent hours with my brother or a friend copying code from a Compute magazine that I hope was bug free. Playing games was not the only application I enjoyed. GEOS was truly an amazing package. GEOS had every application I needed to create essays, reports and presentation for my High School classes. It is impressive what an application can do with such limited resources!
Then one day in 1995, I was reading a Compute article about a new powerful personal computer -- The Amiga 1000. Powerful sound, graphics and ability to run more than one application at the same time was revolutionary. I had to have an Amiga, but $1,500 is great deal of money for a 15-year old. As a result, I kept using my C64 through out my high school years until I was 17.
I had managed to save up about $2000 that summer working odd jobs. Commodore released two more computers that year: the Amiga 500 and the Amiga 2000. I attended the World of Commodore that year and was not going to leave without buying my first Amiga.
The World of Commodore attracted some 50,000+ attendees and several hundred vendors from all around the world. The show room was huge. The demos were amazing especially the Newtek demo. I was seeing something that no other computer of its time could do. Moreover, I was seeing something that never existed on a home computer. I was as a kid in a candy store and it was time for my fix.
I made my purchase. I got a brand new Amiga 500 for 700.00. I also bought a 1084 monitor and a A501 memory expansion unit. I used my Amiga constantly for both school and play. I created music scores with Sonix and DMSC. I created presentation with Elan Performer and used Maxiplan for my spreadsheets. I also spent endless hours searching for, and watching the latest demos.
A few years later, I headed of to College down in Kentucky and I figured this was a good time to upgrade to the new Amiga 3000. I was a little disappointed by the ECS but that was my only disappointment. The machine had everything I needed to carry me through the next four years of college.
In Kentucky, there were not many computers let alone a leading edge multimedia computer. I used this computer to create full animations for various business courses to illustrate what new products would look like and function and put together full colour slides and hand outs.
However, the good news did not last forever: Commodore filed for chapter 11. It was a complete shock. How could a company with such technology fail? One thing I learned in business school is that having the best mouse trap did not mean success. The key to success was a good business plan, execution and marketing.
I returned to Canada in 1995 and sold my Amiga 3000 to have enough money to buy a suit for a new job. Even in the end, my Amiga was helping me get started on my career.
From 1995 until 2006, I was completely Amiga free. I still had the Amiga 500 unused in my mother's basement. I would read about Amiga technology from time to time to see who was making promises of the Amiga's future. However, I did not expect anything to come of the Amiga anymore. There had been too many setbacks and I felt the technology was surpassed. I would read up on the articles of how Commodore failed and the plans for new Amigas. I was truly sad hearing about how Commodore continually fumbled the technology.
Early this year I could not get enough news on the Amiga. I searched every site and read everything I could about the computer's history, future plans, current developments and historic figures in Amigas history. I was determined to get another A3000 as well as an A500.
Well, here I am writing this article on my nearly new Amiga 3000 with the first ever word processor I bought and will be proofing it on the first ever grammar corrector I bought years ago.
My Amiga is a little different now. It sports 26MB of ram and an ethernet card. It looks as new as it did the first day I bought it. It has an extra floppy drive and a new Commodore 1950 monitor through the VGA port. I have also added a network card and should be receiving a Cybervision 64 video card in a few days. The only thing left to add is a processor accelerator. I am determined to use my Amiga as my main machine and promise not to upgrade to Windows Vista. Twelve years later and the Amiga is far from dead to me.
I still ask how did a company with a machine this good become insolvent? After 12 years without any additional development, how come this machine is just as usable today as it was 12 years ago. I do not feel as though I am writing this essay on an old piece of hardware. It looks stylish and sleek as it did the day it was purchased. How can a piece of hardware and software mean so much? I don't hold onto my old TVs, old appliances, old stereo components.
The Amiga stirred in me something very different, much in the same way the Vic-20 did: it inspired my creativity. The Amiga allowed me to do anything I wanted. It also showed me new things I could do and challenged me to do better. Like a mentor that drives us to perform and strive for success, the Amiga has a special place in my heart.
My Amiga helped me get to where I am today. It helped me develop the tools I needed to succeed. I am eternally grateful to the likes of Jay Miner.
