Ever have a argument with an Amiga fanatic?

[slaapliedje]

Ha, the fun of fanaticism (no matter what it's targeted toward).  Most of the time, I think back 'in the day' the arguments I'd get in with were PC users, I was an Atari user (Atari Mega STe) but was still somewhat envious of my friend's Amiga 500, since the Mega STe was almost on par spec wise with the A500, almost NOTHING used the 'e' bits of it, software wise.  That and instead of adding extra resolutions to make it better, they stuck with the standard 320x200x16 / 640x200x4, and 640x400x2 required a special monitor.  The stock OS was/is horrible on it as well.  So eventually I got an Amiga A4000D, and upgraded the hell out of it.

I still have my Mega STe, but it's sitting in a closet unconnected, along with my TT030, and 1040ST.  Though mostly because I don't have a working monitor for them anymore  Also I have a MiST with the ST rom on it that I haven't had a chance to play with.

But the arguments were rather fun back in the day.  When it cost 250 bucks just to get sound that didn't completely suck on a PC, and you had to fork out some bucks for EGA/VGA so you didn't have the god awful colors of CGA.

Now unfortunately the 'Amiga Fanatic' is split generally between "We love our classics!  Only true Amiga!" and "Oh, Amiga OS4 is the true descendant of the Amiga, PPC FTW!" and the MorphOS/Aros crowds.  So, much like the way religions split off into different sects, (sorry to bring religion into this again, but it's so fitting) they all have the same base, but different interpretations of what that base is.  

That's basically what happens when you have something wonderful that happens that affects a lot of people, and then it dies.  The people who try to keep it alive all have their own interpretation of 'the true faith'.  

Though it does show something about the Amiga/Atari's, etc.  There are still a following of the platforms, 20 years after their parent companies disappeared.  I honestly have to wonder if Microsoft disappeared tomorrow, if there would still be people 20 years from now saying "God, that was SO awesome, remember those days?"  Sure there are people playing old DOS games to this day, but they aren't doing it because DOS was awesome to work with (god, who would EVER think that?) but because they were fun.  The Amiga, and the way it does things itself is fun.  Hell, I don't even play that many games on mine, I don't really use the apps either.  I like playing with the operating system, and I enjoy seeing how some of the things it does have been copied over into newer operating systems.  

Anyhow, I apologize for the long post, just figured I'd throw in a buck o' five for freedom...

slaapliedje

[slaapliedje]

SELL me your Atari hardware if you aren't using it (wish I could hypnotize you over the internet and get your to do that - you have some NEAT hardware).
I have alternate OS' for them that are only available for the Amiga at ludicrous prices.

And at my core, even with my PPC fascination, I am really a 68K fanatic (doesn't even have to be in an Amiga).
I used to work for a company that sold custom 68K systems.
And my lifetime three favorite processors are the 6809, 6309, and 680Xx.

And THANK YOU profusely for splitting off the religious part.

As fond as I am of Johannes (Yasu), its a really tired discussion that is too circular.

Now, again, arguments with Amigans...

Anyone?

Ha ha, I've been trying for a LONG time now to find a working Atari SC1435 to replace mine (either that or I need to get the time to see if I can fix it.  I think the only issue with it is at one point in time the cable in the back was knocked somehow, and the circuit board inside where it connects cracked.  So if I could repair that it MAY work...)

Ha, what alternate OS's are you referring to?  I also love the 68k processors.  One of the reasons (and of course the insane prices) I haven't gone PPC on my a4k.  I'm just sad my cyberstorm mk1 bit the dust.  Stinking Customs, I haven't gotten my 040->060 adapter yet

One argument I used to get into with Amiga users was the size of the libraries.  If anyone recalls, the first huge batch of games, probably from 85-89, were mostly Atari ST then ported to Amiga.  Then it was around the time of Shadow of the Beast that the Amiga was getting more 'native' games that were then ported to the Atari ST (oh my god, the travesty of the ST version of Beast....)  Then of course there was the lack of stereo sound, or even a decent sound chip in the ST...

slaapliedje

[slaapliedje]

Again you have a point (IF minor).

I wanted some more insight into why the Amiga community is so damned argumentative.

I think I nailed it on the head.  It's the 'my version of the 'true' Amiga is better than yours' mentality.

I've tried not to get into the whole debate.  Though I have my own thoughts on what would be a 'real Amiga' vs not.  

But I'm really an OS liking guy, so I did end up purchasing AmigaOS4 for Classic, and play around with it on WinUAE (since as previously mentioned, PPC hardware is insanely expensive.  Hell, I just upgraded my main PC for about 800 bucks, brand new motherboard, Skylake processor and 32gb of DDR4 memory.  Whereas you couldn't get an old PPC board for less than that and it'd probably die a year or two later, like my Cyberstorm that cost me 700 bucks did.)

I think the new Amiga arguments are just detrimental to the community at large.  We all love the Amiga in our own way, but when people pop on and say "Hey I'm starting this project, what do you guys think?" then some individuals start off by saying "well, that's dumb, why aren't you supporting X" or they start demanding a bunch of features that make the project go way out of scope, then the project dies off.

I still want a Natami, with the new chipset...

slaapliedje

[slaapliedje]

Probably not one you would easily get into. I used to sell boards that used Microware's OS-9. But getting a GUI running can be difficult (there usually isn't one bundled).
And learning to handle a CLI that can take MUCH more complicated command lines than MS-DOS actually can offer some challenges.
You really don't want to make a small typo on an OS that can send the operating system off doing something complicated that you never intended (but then that is a problem UNIX, BSD, and Linux share).
I do have a fair amount of software for OS-9 68K (very little that makes much use of graphics).
Makes a killer server though
And the Atari version was available, cheap, and is now free.
The Amiga version is close to $2000.

I'm a Linux Systems Administrator, so that doesn't bother me at all!  I actually had X11 running on my Mega STe at one point, after I had upgraded to 4mb of memory.  It wasn't very useful at the time though!  I may have to check out OS-9, maybe see how it runs on my MiST.

The problem with porting Amiga apps is that instead of running through drivers they frequently relied on libraries.
And I never understood why sound support wasn't better in the Atari line myself. There were good off the shelf sound chips that could have been used.
I have seen some neat mods to increase the color palette.

68K systems should have been built with more modularity (ours were).
If Atari and Amiga had built systems with their sound and video placed on expansion cards, they might have advanced quicker.

Yeah there are some crazy awesome mods out there now.  One thing I always wanted, but have never been able to find, was one of the VME graphics cards.  Also for Atari 8-bits, been considering finding one of the  VBXE video boards and slapping it into my 130XE.  Good times.

slaapliedje