Hello from NZ

[iDLe]

Hi all, my name's Spiro and I'm based in Wellington, New Zealand.
My first Amiga was back in 88 or 89 and my path took me into the world of Linux. But I've always loved the Amiga and get back into retrocomputing every so often.
I ended up selling everything many years ago, and then started buying things back over the last few years.

A couple of years ago I bought an A500 (off the guy I sold all my retrocomputers to back in the day) and only just started working on it this last week. It's up and running, and has a new 3.2 ROM in it, albeit the internal FDD doesn't work and the PSU is a bit iffy (ordered a new one).

Currently considering my options for it. I think I want to keep it as a 68000, but want extra mem for WB 3.2 and want to get a hard disk/CF upgrade for it.

I've ordered an A600GS and that will scratch my itch for accelerated Amiga.

Pretty excited to see what's current in the Amiga scene as I've missed so much being away so many years. But there's so much good stuff out there.

My main goal with the Amiga is to do coding on it. Assembly/ML is where my heart is at and working my way through a couple of tutes/books.

I'd be keen on knowing if there are many NZers on here and if there are any meetups, clubs, or demo/copy parties still happening.  I remember Syntax party from Australia and I'm guessing they're still going (saw one last year online).. Do many/any NZers go to that?

Anyway, hi, nice to meet you all.

[Castellen]

Always nice to see more NZ people on the forums, I'm based in Christchurch.

The last Amiga group in NZ I was aware of, Amiga Auckland, hasn't been around since 2022, after one of the main committee members passed away.  Someone in Auckland still looks after the club software/document library, I can find contact details if interested.

Apparently there's a NZ Fascistbook group, I get contacted by them for repair jobs.  Not sure who's on there or the topics of discussion, I don't do social media.  Not aware of any physical meetups nationally either.

I tend to focus on national/international hardware repair jobs and support, contract/commercial Amiga hardware development work, and a bit of 68k software development.  I'm not particularly interested in games, the Amiga is mainly a work machine.   My website, which never gets enough attention from me, has been continuously running on an A4000T for nearly 25 years: http://amiga.serveftp.net/sysinfo.xgi

Not sure about trying to do software development on an unaccelerated A500.  While it's possible, the lack of a decent source code editor would be painful.  I use CubicIDE myself, mainly for C and ARexx, though you'd need an expanded system to run that.

[RobertB]

     I should be visiting the North Island in 2027 or 2028.  I usually fly into Wellington.

          Truly,
          Robert Bernardo
          Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
          Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan

[iDLe]

Always nice to see more NZ people on the forums, I'm based in Christchurch.
I tend to focus on national/international hardware repair jobs and support, contract/commercial Amiga hardware development work, and a bit of 68k software development.  I'm not particularly interested in games, the Amiga is mainly a work machine.   My website, which never gets enough attention from me, has been continuously running on an A4000T for nearly 25 years: http://amiga.serveftp.net/sysinfo.xgi

Hi. My friend Edwin told me about you over the weekend and sent me a link to your site. He mentioned a scan doubler in your past. 

It's great to see the site being hosted on an A4000.

Do you write software for yourself or for others too?

The last Amiga group in NZ I was aware of, Amiga Auckland, hasn't been around since 2022, after one of the main committee members passed away.  Someone in Auckland still looks after the club software/document library, I can find contact details if interested.

Thanks. I'd like to get in touch with groups currently running, or perhaps with people open to starting a group. Seems like low odds, but I live in hope.

Apparently there's a NZ Fascistbook group, I get contacted by them for repair jobs.  Not sure who's on there or the topics of discussion, I don't do social media.  Not aware of any physical meetups nationally either.

I joined it, but don't really use FB much. I probably should pay attention or ask on there about locals too I guess.

Not sure about trying to do software development on an unaccelerated A500.  While it's possible, the lack of a decent source code editor would be painful.  I use CubicIDE myself, mainly for C and ARexx, though you'd need an expanded system to run that.

I've heard of Cubic's predecessor GoldEd, but used Cygnus Editor back in the day.

I can imagine needing a more advanced editor/IDE for C, but for assembly, I like DevPac and AsmTwo.. I'll look into Cubic if my needs get more advanced. I sort of have Visual Studio Code on my Mac, but with Microsoft adding copilot into everything including Paint and Notepad, I'm losing confidence that documents I write or load into modern software won't be injected into an LLM. :/

[iDLe]

     I should be visiting the North Island in 2027 or 2028.  I usually fly into Wellington.

Hi Robert, well it would be great to catch up when you make it over. Be good to make some international friends.

[RobertB]

Hi Robert, well it would be great to catch up when you make it over.

Oooo, I could invite my other Wellington Amiga friend to join us!

          Truly,
          Robert Bernardo
          Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
          Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan

[iDLe]

Sounds great.

[balrog74]

Hi and welcome!

I'm based in Auckland. I would have got my A500 about the same time as you, previously had a C64. Had a lot of fun and met some great people through the bulletin boards and user group. Unfortunately. I ended up giving all my kit away to the daughter of a family friend.

I'd started thinking about the Amiga again over the last couple of years, looking to pick up a good A1200 system. Eventually I decided to get the A600GS, which suits me just fine for that hit of nostalgia. 

[iDLe]

Ah nice, hi Balrog.

Yeah, the BBS scene was huge for me down here. A lot of my friends today were people I met on the BBSs.

Ran quite a few as well over the years. Was good times.

Are you still in touch with anyone from the BBS scene or are there any groups up there for Amiga or general retrocomputing?

[Castellen]

My friend Edwin told me about you over the weekend and sent me a link to your site. He mentioned a scan doubler in your past. 

It's great to see the site being hosted on an A4000.

Do you write software for yourself or for others too?

I don't specifically recall a scan doubler job, maybe I sold something to him?  Hard to remember everything over so many different jobs spanning decades.

Some of the Amiga software I've developed is used commercially as the interface to hardware I've designed, though I'm definitely not a software specialist; I have a software genius as a business partner who does most of that work.  The majority of my software work is for my own needs.  For example, I developed in-circuit debugger hardware/software that shows what the system ROM software is doing as an Amiga attempts to boot, which is invaluable for the complex fault finding work I often do.

More recently I did an embedded systems design (not Amiga related) that uses a new family of Microchip microcontrollers that are very low cost and feature rich.  The problem with these new devices is that most EPROM/MCU programmers don't support them, and commercial programming solutions are expensive.  I developed my own hardware and software for production programming that runs on an Amiga, which is a lot cheaper, faster and easier than the available in-circuit programming solutions.

No idea how to embed inline images here, but see attached.  I might write some user documentation and upload the entire project to Aminet one day as an open source thing, if I can find the time and motivation.

Thanks. I'd like to get in touch with groups currently running, or perhaps with people open to starting a group. Seems like low odds, but I live in hope.

Send me your Email address and I'll put you in touch with who might be still around from Auckland Amiga.

I can imagine needing a more advanced editor/IDE for C, but for assembly, I like DevPac and AsmTwo.. I'll look into Cubic if my needs get more advanced. I sort of have Visual Studio Code on my Mac, but with Microsoft adding copilot into everything including Paint and Notepad, I'm losing confidence that documents I write or load into modern software won't be injected into an LLM. :/

At least having a source editor with syntax highlighting makes everything a lot easier, many IDEs are annoying to use anyway.  There's some reasonable editor options on Aminet; I used TuiTED back in the day since I found the editor that came with SAS/C to be horrible.  And Annotate might suit your needs, though you'll need more than a stock A500 to run it.

[iDLe]

For example, I developed in-circuit debugger hardware/software that shows what the system ROM software is doing as an Amiga attempts to boot, which is invaluable for the complex fault finding work I often do.

That's very cool. I love to see stuff like that. I even wish I could tinker with that sort of stuff, but I think the international ban on my weilding a soldering iron will be in effect for the next hundred years at least. 

More recently I did an embedded systems design (not Amiga related) that uses a new family of Microchip microcontrollers that are very low cost and feature rich.  The problem with these new devices is that most EPROM/MCU programmers don't support them, and commercial programming solutions are expensive.  I developed my own hardware and software for production programming that runs on an Amiga, which is a lot cheaper, faster and easier than the available in-circuit programming solutions.

Love it. Is the serial/parallel thing how the amiga rom diagnostic tool works as well?

No idea how to embed inline images here, but see attached.  I might write some user documentation and upload the entire project to Aminet one day as an open source thing, if I can find the time and motivation.

These sort of projects are becoming quite popular. And prebuilding them for people like me would probably be a side business.

At least having a source editor with syntax highlighting makes everything a lot easier, many IDEs are annoying to use anyway.  There's some reasonable editor options on Aminet; I used TuiTED back in the day since I found the editor that came with SAS/C to be horrible.  And Annotate might suit your needs, though you'll need more than a stock A500 to run it.

I really like that TuiTED has all the tooltypes listed in the readme. I've never seen that before, but always wished I knew what tooltypes I could use for lots of programs. Even allowing you to implement syntax highlighting for different languages tooltypes is a great idea. Sadly no assembly/machine language tooltypes.

They both look good. And actually I've succumbed and set up an a1200 in winuae and am playing with internet access and blitz basic, or Amiblitz as it's called now.

I think I mentioned I have ordered an A600GS so that'll let me "physically" have a more powerful machine, so will definitely be installing more power hungry apps then.

[balrog74]

Ah nice, hi Balrog.

Yeah, the BBS scene was huge for me down here. A lot of my friends today were people I met on the BBSs.

Ran quite a few as well over the years. Was good times.

Are you still in touch with anyone from the BBS scene or are there any groups up there for Amiga or general retrocomputing?

I ran one myself for a time as well... it seemed the thing to do back then. 

No, I haven't seen anyone from the AKL scene in years. I'm aware of the FB group (also not my thing) but I haven't really looked any further.