My AMIGA

[cameng]

Hello guys, I thought I would introduce myself by telling you my story......

With an interest in all things electronic I have always been intrigued with computers.

One day I dragged my mum, a widower, into a large department store in the city of Adelaide in Australia. This was a relief for me after being dragged around dress shops all day because I was the only male in the family (besides the cat). As I walked in I browsed around and the first thing I saw was a computer with a strange looking monitor built in. I thought it looked funny, but it did look like a page, logical for text I guess and it had an apple sticker on it. Next I looked at a familiar PC displaying text with 2 colours on screen and another PC with a very primitive, almost stick figure game. Closer to the games wall I noticed a futuristic looking machine with a game on it that looked similar in style that I had seen on the Commodore 64 that my neighbour had. It was labelled Atari 520 ST, a familiar name, but I had never heard of this particular computer before. Then I walked around the other side off the IBM compatible PC's and saw to my amazement chess pieces attacking each other on the computer monitor. It had arcade quality graphics and sound, it was almost unbelievable. At first I thought it was a PC but when I traced the monitor cable it was hooked up to something called an AMIGA. I thought to myself “where did this come from”, it said commodore on it, but I had not seen it in magazines or on TV. On the next trip to the city I purchased an AMIGA 500 and 1084S monitor with my own money. It cost $1500 for the computer, monitor, joystick and R-Type. My mum even bought me a computer desk further down the track.
I played games, messed around with work bench and laughed at the people with an Atari or PC that mocked me for having an Amiga. I upgraded my chip ram when the upgrade went down in price (500 to 200!) and upgraded my custom chips and workbench (2.04) for a cost of $390.

Sometime years later I sold my AMIGA to finance the purchase of a car plus a friends family were looking for one second hand.

A few months ago I Googled AMIGA and after a lot of you tubing I was very excited and then depressed. I did not know that Jay Miner was the father of the AMIGA and that he passed away the same year as Commodore, how ironic. Then I downloaded AMIGA forever and joined you guys.

As for my AMIGA 500 and all its accessories, including original games, they were thrown out by whom I sold it too.

Since joining amiga.org I have now in my possession an AMIGA 500 (to specs above), 2000 and 3000 in various states of health. I will need the AMIGA community's help and I shall help back.

RIP my AMIGA 500
RIP Jay Miner

Long live the AMIGA community:D

[DutchinUSA]

Welcome ! Great story ... I remember feeling amazed back then .. good times

[runequester]

Amiga never quite leaves you, now does it?

[Dr.Bongo]

Seems you've got the bug again. It's going to get expensive for you

[gertsy]

Seeing Amiga in main street shopping centres.  Those were the days.
Welcome to Amiga Org.  Mayte!

[Lord Aga]

Since joining amiga.org I have now in my possession an AMIGA 500 (to specs above), 2000 and 3000 in various states of health. I will need the AMIGA community's help and I shall help back.

RIP my AMIGA 500
RIP Jay Miner

Long live the AMIGA community:D

Without any exaggeration, Amigans are the coolest people in the world :cool:

[motrucker]

I too remember the days when we could walk into a store and Amiga stuff over the counter.

[desiv]

I too remember the days when we could walk into a store and Amiga stuff over the counter.

A store??
That sounds vaguely familiar..
Is that a place people used to go before the Internet?  ;-)

@cameng WELCOME!!!  :-)

desiv

[cameng]

It will be quite expensive if I start hunting down 32 bit AMIGA. I missed this era. The 4000T looked like a turning point towards modern desktop computers. Looking back @ my old magazines there was massive after market support for some models.

[cameng]

Sing: How much is that Amiga in the window, I do wish that Amiga is for sale......

Appologies for putting that song in your head but I do miss window shopping.

Would be great to go internet shopping with one of my Amiga's. I plan to beef one up but not sure which one yet.

[k4lmp]

I remember those days, and hearing how cool the Amigas were.  I never actually saw one, however.  I was BIG into Commodore, and had a C64, 1702 monitor, tape drive, and 2 1541's.  That was a LOT of money back in the day, as the C64 was around $300, and the disk drives were around $250.  I was lucky that my parents could afford that, much less an Amiga.  All of that stuff was bought over time, not at once, and it helped that my dad liked messing with the C64.  Then, I got a C128, and was on cloud 9.  Now, I have 2 C128's, a Plus/4, a C64, 3 1571's, 2 1541's, a 1581, a bunch of modems, mice, memory expansions, tape drives, as well as my original 1702 monitor which still works great.  However, now I have an A2000, and an A500.  I absolutely love my Amigas, and play around with them a lot, having upgraded them both since I got them.  I use WinUAE all the time, and enjoy experimenting with different versions of Amiga OS's.  They amaze me at what they can do, coming from the time they were built, and I can see why the ones that had them in the day, still love them now.  I have only been an Amigan a short time, but am hard core.  I just wish I could have afforded one those many years ago.

Jeff

[djos]

Hi cameng, so there's at least 3 of us Adelaide Amiga owners on here, awesome! :cool:

I had a mate that had a 500 in the early 90's and it made our family pc look prehistoric! I managed to get my own back in 96 and then stupidly sold it in 98 (was a bit poor at the time).

2 weeks ago I stumbled across a pommy guy selling a very clean 500+ for 8£'s (no psu) and grabbed it (shipping was expensive but worth it) and I'm about to go on a massive upgrading spree!

[AmmoJammo]

*waves*

[cameng]

Hi cameng, so there's at least 3 of us Adelaide Amiga owners on here, awesome! :cool:

I had a mate that had a 500 in the early 90's and it made our family pc look prehistoric! I managed to get my own back in 96 and then stupidly sold it in 98 (was a bit poor at the time).

2 weeks ago I stumbled across a pommy guy selling a very clean 500+ for 8£'s (no psu) and grabbed it (shipping was expensive but worth it) and I'm about to go on a massive upgrading spree!

There are a lot of goodies in the UK, but also in Victoria too. I actually saw a guy sell an A500 on e-bay for only $15 in Melbourne. This was only due to him not offering freight.

Do you have a 512K trapdoor expansion for it? or maybe it was standard with the A500+. I also maybe able to get some hard drives as well:)

[cameng]

I remember those days, and hearing how cool the Amigas were.  I never actually saw one, however.  I was BIG into Commodore, and had a C64, 1702 monitor, tape drive, and 2 1541's.  That was a LOT of money back in the day, as the C64 was around $300, and the disk drives were around $250.  I was lucky that my parents could afford that, much less an Amiga.  All of that stuff was bought over time, not at once, and it helped that my dad liked messing with the C64.  Then, I got a C128, and was on cloud 9.  Now, I have 2 C128's, a Plus/4, a C64, 3 1571's, 2 1541's, a 1581, a bunch of modems, mice, memory expansions, tape drives, as well as my original 1702 monitor which still works great.  However, now I have an A2000, and an A500.  I absolutely love my Amigas, and play around with them a lot, having upgraded them both since I got them.  I use WinUAE all the time, and enjoy experimenting with different versions of Amiga OS's.  They amaze me at what they can do, coming from the time they were built, and I can see why the ones that had them in the day, still love them now.  I have only been an Amigan a short time, but am hard core.  I just wish I could have afforded one those many years ago.

Jeff

I came across a mint condition 128d (all books and original boxes)from a pensioner when I was looking for a Monitor. It boots up in 40 column mode but displays a weird "monitor" message scrolling on the screen. I remember the better off family's back in the day having the C128. A very nice looking machine in my opinion.