What was your Amiga moment?

[Pentad]

I was talking with some colleagues over lunch about computers in the 80s and the Amiga, Atari ST, and Macintosh came up. The question was asked what was the moment that sold you on whatever platform you ended up buying.

For example, a few people older than I said seeing the GUI on the Mac was revolutionary since they had started on Mainframes and text.

One person said MacPaint and Page Maker sold him on the Macintosh. Another said one of the MIDI programs on the Atari ST (he was a music major in college) sold it for him. He really compared the music software he had on the ST with an architect moving from manually drawing to AutoCad.

I thought really hard about my 'Amiga Moment' and I guess the first time I saw the Boing Ball demo and they *pulled* down the screen so you could do other things. I remember thinking how powerful that was. Having used Macs in school (I was 15 in '85) we got the whole GUI deal but multiple screens, well that was revolutionary.

So, I ask you, what was your Amiga moment? What made you say 'I have to have that'?

-P

[Pentad]

...I turned at him and said: This computer was made for me

You know, I think that is the best description of the Amiga I've ever heard.

It really did feel like it was made for me...for how I think. Probably for all of us. Though I enjoy Windows, Linux, and MacOS, I probably had the most fun with the Amiga.

I remember seeing the Miami Vice demo on the Amiga 1000 (playing the theme) and just being blown away with how good it sounded. Watching Flight Simulator for DOS in a window on the Amiga with Sidecar. King Tut in Dpaint probably sold a bunch of Amigas as well...

[Pentad]

Why were Amiga productivity programs so intuitive and great? Everything from Deluxe Paint to Bars & Pipes was great.

Of all the programs the Amiga had the only one I really miss on modern computers is Deluxe Paint. It was so amazingly intuitive that you could just sit down with it and go to work. I've used Photoshop for years but there are still features in Dpaint that I miss.

It was also a lot of fun to play with too. Color cycling, brushes, perspective drawing...just fun to use.

I keep hoping for a Kickstarter where somebody is recreating Deluxe Paint for modern computers.

-P