My Yearly Amiga Check-In (sorta)

[justthatgood]

Well everyone once and awhile I check in to see how things are going with the Amiga world. As it stands I only have two Amigas left, My First Amiga 4000 desktop and My Amiga 2000. I haven't really done much with either as life demands too much from me, and usually free is held ransom by car repair, trying to make money to live paycheck to paycheck, or my wife.

With that said I'm taking a few moments to see if there is anything really groundbreaking and interesting, and I'm feeling that there really isn't. The development of the new stuff just seems like it's being stagnant, and the people that are selling just 68060 accelerators must be high. I felt like I blew a ton of money on the stuff I did in the past (I do regret some of the stuff I've wasted my money on), and that has made me a more cautious person.

I can understand the new tech stuff for the Amiga, but the idea of throwing down the amount of my rent, my gas to go to work, auto insurance,  part of my utilities (that's right I only get a chance to pay part of them), and lastly food if I manage to have any left, on components that have no warranty and could break.

Not like a car, you can rebuild an engine, diagnose the parts a lot easier and it has more then one purpose. Maybe being poor has dampened my outlook on things, or maybe I have just passed through a phase, I don't know.

[coldfire]

Yes reality sucks sometimes.  The amiga as a hobby is expensive.  I spent a lot of money but not nearly as much as some.  I have to say I enjoyed the decade I used my amiga computers more than the years since.  The community was something that made it special I think, its kind of like a cult.  Hanging out in IRC, user group meetings, reading the mags.  It was like you were part of something special.  I remember looking at people using clones and sneering at the ridiculous junk they called a computer.  In 88 the peecee was pathetic.  It wasn't really until win98 that windoze actual looked anywhere near as capable as the amigaOS.  Even then if it weren't for the fact that the Amiga hardware was becoming badly outdated it would still have not been in the same ballpark.  I finally abandoned the amiga as my primary computer in 99 when I bought a dual PII 333mhz server for 100 dollars, about a third of what I had paid for my gvp A530 accelerator years before.  I installed linux on it and moved on but it was several years before I quit longing for the familiar friendly workbench.  I still break out the old A3000 occasionally now and remember all the great fun computing used to be.

[drwho]

I think coldfire hit it on the head. The Amiga community was really what made the machine fun. Don't get me wrong, the Amiga was the coolest thing since sliced bread for a long time, but, that's only part of the story. It really was like a special club, and like most special clubs (the linux club, and the Mac club come to mind ...), outsiders with opposing opinions that didn't center around the Amiga being the best, were not welcome. This was ok though, since the club was more fun when you excluded the people who bought the crappy computers. :-)

I figured this out when I tried to get back into the Amiga full swing some time ago. It's not the machine as much as it is that you have friends who are doing it, and of course, new products, magazines, advancements, etc. help to fuel that fire.

I've been trolling here off and on over the years, and the one thing that I think will kill the Amiga more than anything else, is the shrinking community. It's not anyone's fault really. Let's be honest, we all love the Amiga, but, it's a very outdated platform if your a classic hardware lover like myself. There is never going to be a Jay Minor designed "Amiga 5000", ever. Yes, you can build boxes which run the Amiga OS, but, they are not Amiga's anymore than UAE is an Amiga.

I know I sound pretty gloomy, but, actually I don't feel that way. I am glad that I was around to experience the full life cycle of such an incredible machine being used by some of the smartest and most creative people that I have ever met. Unfortunately, you are correct, there isn't anything ground breaking going on with the Amiga, and chances are, it's probably not going to change much either.

On the other hand though, if you had asked me 5 years ago if there would still be an Amiga.org, or AmiNet mirrors on the internet in 2011, I probably would have said no, I don't think so. I would have been wrong too. There are some real die hard fans out there. I think we just need some who can design hardware as cool as the classic 68xxx stuff and write some new software.

For any hardware guru's out there reading this post, I think network cards for classic Amiga zorro slots that come with a free, robust TCP stack would be a great place to start. ;-)

[smerf]

Well everyone once and awhile I check in to see how things are going with the Amiga world. As it stands I only have two Amigas left, My First Amiga 4000 desktop and My Amiga 2000. I haven't really done much with either as life demands too much from me, and usually free is held ransom by car repair, trying to make money to live paycheck to paycheck, or my wife.

With that said I'm taking a few moments to see if there is anything really groundbreaking and interesting, and I'm feeling that there really isn't. The development of the new stuff just seems like it's being stagnant, and the people that are selling just 68060 accelerators must be high. I felt like I blew a ton of money on the stuff I did in the past (I do regret some of the stuff I've wasted my money on), and that has made me a more cautious person.

I can understand the new tech stuff for the Amiga, but the idea of throwing down the amount of my rent, my gas to go to work, auto insurance,  part of my utilities (that's right I only get a chance to pay part of them), and lastly food if I manage to have any left, on components that have no warranty and could break.

Not like a car, you can rebuild an engine, diagnose the parts a lot easier and it has more then one purpose. Maybe being poor has dampened my outlook on things, or maybe I have just passed through a phase, I don't know.

Hi,

That is why I moved on to Cloanto's Amiga Forever, yes I still have my Amiga's, but I am really getting scared to use them, the old Amiga 4000 still starts up but now it is taking 2 or 3 tries to get it going. On Amiga Forever, I still can use all the software and still can enjoy what is out there, plus it runs very fast (faster than my 040/40 Amiga 4000.

The Amiga is a very expensive hobby, I still plan on building up some of them, like my Amiga 1200. Just bought a video card for it that supposedly takes a 15 khz signal and up it to a 30 khz signal so that you can use a VGA monitor. Can't wait to build up the plugs and try it out.

Anyhow the only big thing going on is that Karlos has become a tyrant, and keeps throwing people off the site if he doesn't like what you are saying. (I can't help myself, I just love busting Karlos, it is more fun than busting Kesa).

Oh well made my major troll post today, see if Karlos bites.

smerf

[mousehouse]

After 10 years of absence I rejoined the Amiga by buying a second hand A4000D. At first because I wanted to relive some of the memories and joy associated with that period in time and my life when the Amiga was prominent. I learned computing on the Amiga, learned C programming, etc. Now I use it occasionally to play a game, try to do some coding and play with the hardware. It's actually a lot of fun.

The less expensive part is going to some of the meetings. I guess I'm lucky that there are some hardcore guys here in the Netherlands, and there are bi-monthly meetings organized by the CommodoreGG group - which is (in my opinion) transforming into more of a retro-computing group. There are always at least 10 Amiga's present and it's a lot of fun.

As far as total costs go, I needed to get the A4000D board fixed. Hikey (search on Amibay) did it for me and did an excellent job. A much better investment IMHO than a 68060 accelerator.

And to prove that a lot of fun does not need to be expensive, I got a DENEB USB controller last year with Chris's super-brilliant USB stack. It needs a 68030 but man, what fun it is to play with USB on your Amiga... setback was $200 I think but gave me more fun than any Amiga-related hardware at any point in time.

It does not need to be an expensive hobby, as said it's mainly the people and memories... but sometimes something not too expensive and fun comes along ;-)

[zylesea]

Well everyone once and awhile I check in to see how things are going with the Amiga world. As it stands I only have two Amigas left, My First Amiga 4000 desktop and My Amiga 2000. I haven't really done much with either as life demands too much from me, and usually free is held ransom by car repair, trying to make money to live paycheck to paycheck, or my wife.

With that said I'm taking a few moments to see if there is anything really groundbreaking and interesting, and I'm feeling that there really isn't. The development of the new stuff just seems like it's being stagnant, and the people that are selling just 68060 accelerators must be high. I felt like I blew a ton of money on the stuff I did in the past (I do regret some of the stuff I've wasted my money on), and that has made me a more cautious person.

I can understand the new tech stuff for the Amiga, but the idea of throwing down the amount of my rent, my gas to go to work, auto insurance,  part of my utilities (that's right I only get a chance to pay part of them), and lastly food if I manage to have any left, on components that have no warranty and could break.

Not like a car, you can rebuild an engine, diagnose the parts a lot easier and it has more then one purpose. Maybe being poor has dampened my outlook on things, or maybe I have just passed through a phase, I don't know.

Amiga (in a broader way) doesn't need to be expensive - there are ways where little money is enough. I primarily think of AROS, emulation and - to some extend - MorphOS (the key costs some money, but some machines are *really* cheap).

[amigean]

welcome back justthatgood, nice to see a member of the old guard around.

On topic: Not much has changed indeed, but the Amiga hobby is somewhat akin to the study of Latin/Greek; there's so much good stuff to enjoy from the glorious past, that the present hardly matters.

[Frags]

It is a shame the prices are so high now, it seems like only last week I sold my blizzard 1260+scsi for a hundred quid!  I still have a little box somewhere with a power flyer, pc keyboard interface and stuff like that - I sometimes get the urge to build a muscular 1200 again but you just can`t these days without a grand in your pocket.  I`ll definitely jump on a natami though if/when it turns up!