Amiga.org

[HopperJF]

Hi,
Basically as an ex-Amiga user I just feel I should say something about this site and the community as a whole.

For almost 15 years since the death of Commodore the Amiga has suffered an ever dwindling user base and through those years morale has been up and down a lot. Sadly a lot of the "ups" were false hope of a new product be it hardware or software however at least the AmigaOne actually *did* get released as did OS4... eventually.

However it is obvious that the longer these trials continue the more the Amiga community will probably shrink as one by one members reach their "wall" where they feel they can no longer continue or bear to follow this madness any longer.

I initially thought I reached such a point in 2003 when I sold off my main machine, an Amiga, and "switched" to Mac. I am now a PC user.
The point is... I remain an Amiga fan through all of this.

I stopped taking the Amiga seriously many years ago now, and I'm sure most people now see it as a fun hobby and have stopped convincing themselves that Amiga is a force to be reckoned with in today's modern computer world of Java, multi-core processors, multi-threaded/memory protected OSes, fast-paced games etc. (you get the idea).

The sad thing is it seems evident from this site.
Whilst I completely understand why people would abandon the Amiga, at least as their main platform, I think it is sad that some feel that when they leave, they leave the community too.
I don't think the two should be together... I think as long as someone admires the Amiga then there is no harm in still contributing to forums and checking what is going on in the Amiga scene, even if they no longer have an Amiga... who knows one day we could see new hardware.

The point is that sites like Amiga.org and the small fragile Amiga community is all we have left now. We need to keep things like this going, whether we still use Amigas or not... because the Amiga community is a beautiful thing.
It is almost like a phenomenon... nothing will be like it ever again. The Mac, Windows and Linux worlds do not have communities as dedicated and passionate as the Amiga community.

It would be a shame to let such a thing die. So whether you still use an Amiga or not, it's important that all Amiga fans stick together and keep sites like this alive and active

It would be sad that if someone left and came to check on Amiga.org 5 years from now in 2013 and find that it is gone!

[Speelgoedmannetje]

Aw, cheer up!
There's things like Aros and Minimig...
I think the open source community will welcome open source hard- and software (especially if the hard- and software are built for each other) :-)

[Jeff]

Not only Aros and Minimig, but people like DJBase, lordv, mrmkl, and many talented others keep coming up with AMAZING new professional quality projects with spare time and money that they probably don't have to make our old systems more powerful. Not too long ago you couldn't easily take a stock Amiga 1000 and add Kickstart 2.x or 3.1, and an IDE hard drive! Plus there is the Clone-A project as well.

What we need to do also is make sure the gathering places stay alive as well. Cheers to Wayne for keeping this web site up for all of these years. I know I need to feed the kitty more often than I do.

-Jeff

[amigadave]

Jeff wrote:
.... Not too long ago you couldn't easily take a stock Amiga 1000 and add Kickstart 2.x or 3.1, and an IDE hard drive! ....
-Jeff

Not sure what you mean by the above Jeff, but I had the ability to add different KickstartROMs to my A1000 since 1987 and also had an internal 2.5" hard drive with the AdIDE controller at the same time.  It cost me a small fortune at the time for the ROM switcher/HD/AdIDE/2mb RAM, but I had my autobooting A1000 way back in 1987. :-o

[Jeff]

Well I am aware of the AdIDE but they simply aren't available right now. I looked for a LONG time and finally gave up when I was out bid at $200.00 on ebay a while back.

Now you can buy or make the IDE 68K project for a very reasonable price. As far as Kickstart goes, I really didn't research it. I just watched DJBases project and bought that when it came available, again very professional and reasonably priced.

The options that you mention are great too, nothing wrong except availability. I had mine also back in 88 or so, but I foolishly traded it off. I am only just now rebuilding the 1000's that I sold years ago.  

[spihunter]

I think it was well put...

I still consider myself an Amiga user, but sadly my main machines are not Amigas.

I still use my Amiga for audio stuff. the 8bit Paula still sounds great running in through recording hardware. It has such a nice strong signal!. I'm still a sample tracker user.
Still a great way to compose tracks.....

[TheGoose]

Well yeah, that's all very true. I come and go at the site as my enthusiasm fades and pops back up. Right now, I'm in a 'I'm back phase' It will pass, but I'll always be a fan, follower of things Amiga.

I don't need for Amiga to be a phoenix. I'm happy with it as a community and a special piece of hardware & OS people still use for purpose & fun.

Having said that, I do buy new hardware at times and got OS4C, but only because I had the ppc hardware for years and years. Back then it seemed remotely feasible that new hardware and owners could jump back into the present.

What I could never get and still don't is why 'Amiga' or the 68k OS has not gone open source? This should have happened a million years ago. These chump companies still trying to squeeze a dime out of a logo and community, has just killed it. Crap like Amiga Anywhere. Base ball caps and rings tones. You can have it.

But I still come back here.

  :-D

[persia]

Amiga owners are like amateur radio operators.  Yeah, I can talk to Tibet on Skype but the fun is building your own antenna and talking to Tibet on low power with no net and on 10 watts.  This is the Amiga owner.   A Modern computer will run rings around an Amiga but there's some satisfaction in knowing that you built the routines that ran the program and that you did it on a machine that has far less power than a mobile phone.

[Sig999]

I left my Amiga behind in 1997, when I left my home country (Australia).  I'd bought a PC that year too - a second hand 486, mainly because work had switched to windows 3.1, and my bridgeboard setup wasn't going to cut it for work at home.

The PC was 'just for work', when I had to bring work home. Most of my free time was spent with Devpac 3, Dpaint, and Protracker on the Amiga.
 When I was leaving I looked over the costs involved and the headaches of converting to NTSC, different Power supplies, and the writing on the wall already with C= (AGA too little, too late). So I left it behind with  a friend (who still only had a 1000 - man was he happy!)

The only time I've even come close to the fun I had with my Amiga was with the Linux crowd - I even set my Xwindows up to look like my old Amiga, eventually dual booting to Amithlon.  But with a new job in TV News and then video production, I had to bite my lip and use Windows.

(I know some will say 'but VIDEO TOASTER!', sorry to say - but in a world dominated by Avid and now Final Cut, I would be asked 'Video....what?' if it was on my resume - and of course bringing work home and sending back finished EDL's over the net is a wonderful thing - but I digress).

Still... there's something about the machine that I keep going back to - even if it's only on an emulator (which again still doesn't seem to capture the full feeling for me).  I tried for 10 years to rebuild my old machine - and was thwarted by a finite budget and huge ebay prices.

I've come and gone on this site a few times, mainly lurking - a little active, but couldn't remember my old username or password.  Read up on the news, surfed the web to catch up.  The Amiga is like the great tragedy of the computer revolution.  It was ahead of it's time and a lot of people 'didn't get it' - The types of people who loved the Amiga are very much like the people who created it.
It's a sort of high tech Haight Ashbury that attracted fantastically talented people who shared a lot of the things they discovered with a tight community.

However the people who OWN Amiga are the exact OPPOSITE.

'Running the show' it seems were folks that just wanted to exploit what was made - then throw it away.  AGA came too little too late with C=, when Amithlon came I thought it was 'the answer' - no longer being a slave to the dwindling supply of hardware, maybe eventually opening the way to NEW hardware. Maybe it would be the step to transitioning old software to new hardware....  But again - the way I read the story is it ended over squabbles about money and who could get what.

Every year like you say - there's less and less people around, and the companies that hold the IP for the OS and the other bits and bobs haven't really done that much - to my mind it seems like they are hovering, waiting to get a bigger slice of a rapidly diminishing pie, cashing in on the  name alone.

That being said (in this already overly long post) - what remains of the community is just as it ever was, and just as I ever remembered it.  In 24 hours after I finally got my Ami folks have been rapidly posting info for me - answering my (somewhat boneheaded) questions and giving advice, people have been sending me PM's about my machine... Other people I've never known seem genuinely as excited as I am about getting back on the horse again.

And that is something you will NEVER find in the rapidly growing PC Windows community - something I NEVER found even in the budding years of Linux - and I doubt anyone buying a  classic mac at a pawn shop would experience with the Apple community.

I was 2 years old and on the other side of the planet during Woodstock - so I'm glad I got to be a part of this movement - and like lots of the old hippies, I'll keep thinking back to it and trying to recapture a little bit of it now and again.

My 2c, with a buck 50 tip!

Cheers!

Sig.

[A4000_Mad]

I don't write long posts (Thank goodness! :lol:) But to me coming to A.Org feels as much a part of being an Amigan as switching one on :-)

:cheers:

[Khephren]

I was a serious Amiga user till about 1999 (from '89 I guess). I got really despondant when new software and machines stopped appearing, and the magazines went. I never dropped out completely, still looked on the major forums.

Now i'm back as a hobbyist, as opposed to a hardcore user. Just enjoying using the machine again, for what it could/can do. Rather than waiting for some mythical rebirth. (....which would still be nice though!)

[DaBest]

Well......I still use my Amiga. I do all my writing on Finalwriter, collect my mail, use DPaint 4 and many more things. I reacently took it to work and people we absolutly amazed of what could be done.

Long live the Amiga and its community. :-D  :-D  :-D

[A6000]

There are people who collect old valve radios dating from 30's and 40's maybe earlier.
Can anyone imagine owning and possibly using a 50 year old amiga?
We are almost half way there with the a1000.
If we do collect old amigas should they be factory spec or will enhancements be acceptable?

[persia]

Perhaps their should be a section of the forum devoted to collectors issues.  How does the use of non-original parts affect the value?  What parts can be replaced without affecting the visual appearance of the machine?  Etc.

[A6000]

We know that batteries and capacitors leak and destroy tracks on the motherboard, so we must replace them with new components, how long will equivalent parts be available?
We know integrated circuits suffer from "silicon rot" which renders chips non functional after 10 years or so, so we are lucky our custom chips still work, there is a limit to how long an amiga with original components will last.
I am now starting to hear that lead free solder has problems, products failing after 4-5 years. so repairs should use leaded solder if possible.