What do you use your Amiga for

[gdanko]

I see a lot of people here who apparently still use their Amiga(s) quite a bit. Some even claim to use them for MOST things. Aside from classic games, what are you doing with your Amigas? I assume that if it's an A500 or barebones A2000 it is games only. Those with RTG cards, NICs, and 040 or better may well be using them for most things.

Can you connect to shared printers?
Can you do most of your office app type work on an Amiga?
Contact management?

Wondering how feasible, say, an A4000 040 with 64m fast RAM would be in the real world.

[LoadWB]

gdanko wrote:

Can you connect to shared printers?
Can you do most of your office app type work on an Amiga?
Contact management?

Wondering how feasible, say, an A4000 040 with 64m fast RAM would be in the real world.

Yes.  HP 4050DTN via JetDirect, and an HP 882C via lpr port on SMC Barricade router.

Not any more.

Not any more.

I do, however, maintain personal emails on the Amiga, while business are on the Windows box.  This should give the Feds a WTF moment when they raid my compound  :-D

Up until around 2000-ish, my A4000 was my main computer.  Since then the Windows machine has usurped the Amiga mostly out of necessity.  I am a Windows (and Solaris) system administrator after all.  And even so, I could essentially go back to using my Amiga as the only machine, what with RDesktop, samba, ssh, YAM, and IBrowse, I could get away with it for the most part.

And I'll tell you from experience that a 40MHz 4000 is useful, but not entirely practical.  Now, PPC is another story.  I have a CSMKIII with 128MB RAM on the 4000 now, PIV, and X-Surf -- I can get away with a LOT.  I'm hoping to have at least one working Blizzard PPC soon.

[EDIT]: I meant CyberStorm PPC

[tokyoracer]

Games mostly but hope to expand that to music and general apps as soon as I get OS3.9 sorted. :-)

[spihunter]

I use mine for mostly music production. Octamed, Soundprobe...
I sing and play guitar straight through my megalosound sampler into my Tascam board.

I'm still amazed that an 030 can do the effects in real time.

[LoadWB]

The 680x0 series is QUITE capable.  IINM, the 030 and 040 CPUs still lie at the heart of numerous pieces of network equipment  and printers.  Some have gone or are going to later incarnations of the Motorola CPUs, like the PowerPC.  It's neat to still find them in equipment.

[AMC258]

I use my Amiga for everything I do with a computer except the occasional video or website that it won't do.  Also, I run CADCAM software on a peecee.  Oh, and I have Sparcstations for mundane internet services, and the occasional use just because I have so many.

I used to do audio production, and some music synthesis, I do a lot of programming (this time of year), I have a Toaster setup to play with.  All my financial work is done on an Amiga (more than you think!).  All my email and internet browsing.  Website hosting ( a little ).  Oh and yes, all office type work.  And, I have several network printers that my Amiga is really the only computer accessing them.  I can't print from Solaris!
I even have the toner cartridges in my color laser printer loaded wrong due to a bug in TurboPrint.
Any graphic work I would do is strictly Amiga.  Every once in a while I do a lot.  I use Provector and ArtEffect a LOT.  I still like Provector better than I liked CorelDraw, and I haven't had a copy of CorelDraw since I ran it in Windoze 3.0.
I used to have a really nice DooM editor for the Mac which I ran under emulation on my Amiga (it worked better than a real Mac) and we would play a lot of network DooM on Amigas.  And my Amigas aren't even milspec, I don't think.

[zhulien]

>Can you connect to shared printers?

I rarely need to print at all, I could print though if I wanted to.

>Can you do most of your office app type work on an Amiga?

I don't have a use for this

>Contact management?

nor this

I use my Amiga (actually a Pegasos 2, but does that matter) for email mostly.  I would use it as a main machine if I had a decent web browser.

[krize]

Peg2 is main machine, used for all computing ->web, mp3, chat, im, games, art etc.


The 4000 gets used to check out all new demo scene releases and play classic games.. Sometimes still on irc and web also Also play around with code and try to learn something (takes time).

[gdanko]

spihunter wrote:
I use mine for mostly music production. Octamed, Soundprobe...
I sing and play guitar straight through my megalosound sampler into my Tascam board.

I'm still amazed that an 030 can do the effects in real time.

And you are able to use it effectively in spite of its speed?

[pan1k]

I use it for email, WWW, word processing, and recording from my turntable, and games! Spreadsheets.. and IRC! :-o

[Tenacious]

Pretty much everthing: surfing the net, e-mail, office stuff, Mp3s, shoutcast streams, Digital Universe, simpler thinking games, interface to Palm (the contact management in Spitfire works well for me).

[motorollin]

As my recent dilemma over whether or not to upgrade to OS4-capable hardware has shown me, I'm a "retro gamer and hardware fetishist" :-) I love the classic hardware. The way the A4000 fits together is just beautiful. Big chunky Zorro cards, bolted-down accelerator boards, everything! I also like massively expanded A1200s. The idea of daisy-chaining more and more upgrades is quite fascinating (e.g. A1200 mobo -> Zorro expansion -> X-Surf -> Subway) but at the end of the day the stability and simplicity of the A4000 wins for me.

As for the games, I love to play all my old favourites. Not like I used to, when I was a teenager and would spend literally all day playing Cannon Fodder, Worms DC or Stardust with my best mate. But a quick play of those old favourites gives a nostalgia kick which can almost bring a tear to my eye - and that's why I still love the Amiga after all these years.

I think I would be more likely to use my Amiga as a main machine if it wasn't upstairs. Most of my computing is done in the lounge or in Uni so using my Amiga just isn't as practical as using my MacBook. If OS4 were to be patched to run under emulation or natively on a Mac, then I would definitely install it on my MacBook (under emulation) or on a G4 iBook (natively) and try to use it as a primary OS.

--
moto

[Amigaz]

Using it mostly for gaming which was the reason I got an Amiga after selling my A500 in 1993

I do alot of websurfing + chatting too on it and even some bittorent downloads with beehive

[nasty]

Collecting dust these days and not alot else!

[MASACREWILL]

..exactly pal.. and the heretic idea crossed my mind recently - sell that thingie off!! But I don`t know.. it is like selling a soul.. :roll: