Happy 25th Birthday: Commodore Amiga

[Guests]

Has it really been that long already?. This month, The Amiga is celebrating its 25th birthday!

The chipset codenamed "Lorraine" was originally destined to become a
home console but when the video game crash of 1983 occurred it was
decided the chipset would be used in a personal computer instead.

The results of that original work became the device seen in the preview
thumbnail, The Commodore Amiga 1000. Costing $1295 the system boasted
256KB of RAM, a 16-bit 7.16MHz Motorola 68000 processor, a 3.5-inch
floppy disk drive and stereo sound. Also offered was the 13 inch monitor
for an extra $300.

Throughout the years the Amiga brand spawned many models placing itself
as the leading personal computer in European homes and even spawning a
console variant the CD32.

What really stood out about the Amiga was the vast amount of games many
of which still hold a dear place in gamers hearts today such as Alien
Breed, Body Blows, Canon Fodder, Chaos Engine, Speedball 2 and even
Electronics Arts renowned combat flight simulator FA/18 Interceptor.

So in honour of the marvellous Amiga platform that is still alive in
various forms today, Pull out that hardware, Yank out that emulator and
show the Amiga that it's still as good today as it was 25 years ago!

http://www.maxconsole.net/content.php?41364-Happy-25th-Birthday-Commodore-Amiga

 

[muddymusic]

God I used to love my Amiga, and it's still in the attic at my dads house - time to dig it out and play some moonstone in celebration I think

 

[trm]

I loved my Amiga. It was the first "proper" system I got to play with, it's where I learnt 68000 assembly and started to understand how the hardware worked.

I remember finally getting a scrolling dual-playfield screen up along with all sorts of sprite tricks (reusing sprites later on the same scanline) and how completely underwhelmed everybody I showed it to was All done without the Hardware Reference Manual and figured out from disassembling games and demos. An absolutely top system.

 

[DanP]

God I used to love my Amiga, and it's still in the attic at my dads house - time to dig it out and play some moonstone in celebration I think

Bizzarely I've still got an Amiga in my loft that I've never used

I did at one time have three (which I sold), this one only got kept cos it was too buried. Odd thing is I've never used an Amiga, I was an Atari man through and through and yes I still have all my old Atari's too. Oh my gawd I'm such a packrat!

Dan

 

[Purity]

I favoured a PowerPC Amiga system until very late in the 90's.

I finally defected to the PC as software was more widely available and it became easier to do things. Still miss the system though. Great system imo
Purity2010-07-26 19:14:16

 

[trm]

What did your PowerPC system consist of? Was it an Amiga/PC with a PPC card or an actual PPC mobo that ran some variant of AmigaOS?

 

[Bensonrad]

Cor blimey 25 years old, I used to love my Amiga back in the day, in my mind all those arcade conversions were the bee's knee's, I did try to get back into the Amiga last year, but all it did was taint my memories. Having since owned the arcade pcbs of converted games I had on the Amiga, playing them again just did nothing for me. Obviously not saying all games on the Amiga are crap, as I am not, there was plenty more out there for it than arcade conversions. I also found so many of the discs I was getting were corrupted, so gave it up and let it drift back to memories.

I still regularly play the PD game Drip though via emulation. I love that game soooo much.

 

[Purity]

What did your PowerPC system consist of? Was it an Amiga/PC with a PPC card or an actual PPC mobo that ran some variant of AmigaOS?

It was an Amiga with various hardware modifications. The PPC side of things was an add-on card.

 

[guddler]

They released a new Amiga at the VCF last month.

I'm not sure I could really see why though. However, the fact remains that they did!

 

[trm]

They released a new Amiga at the VCF last month.

Any details? It seemed to be every couple of months there'd be a new story about a brand new "miggy" that was going to revolutionise computing but they were all vapourware.

 

[guddler]

Here's the official site with a few promo videos and not a lot else:

http://www.a-eon.com/

It does look from that as though it's not been released yet. In which case I don't know what the launch was all in aid of at the VCF!! Like I say, at the time I didn't pay too much attention since I thought it was just PC hardware running AmigaOS. Looking at the site though there is also some sort of customisable FPGA sounding thing built into it which could be interesting. I don't think it's cheap mind. I'm sure it was priced at a grand!

That's what's puzzling me - I could have sworn there were price tags and stuff on the kit that was there. Now I wish I'd paid more attention and taken some photos - DOH!

Another one, if you're that way inclined is aros. An API level re-implemetation of Amiga OS that runs on (amoung others) x86 and x64 hardware. I had a play about with it the other night in a VM and have to say that it's nice, but for me, firmly in the category of WHY? Between Linux, Windows and OS X my needs are pretty much met

I could loose myself for days in all of this stuff and come out of it at the end of it acheiving nothing (apart from entertaining myself for a few days). That's why I stopped using Linux. I used to feel like that constantly

 

[guddler]

Actually, that customisable CPU sounds rather exciting! (OK, I'll admit it, I'm a geek).

It's based on XMOS and between Xena and Xorro (who are they kidding???) sounds like it could be just what the doctor ordered for some of the kind of stuff we get up to. We shall see. Obviously if the machine hasn't started shipping yet then it's still a case of waiting for it to materialise!

I may keep a much close eye on this though.

 

[guddler]

www.amigakit.co.uk

Those guys have been appointed the UK distributors. If you can't wait that long then they have complete systems based om Sam440 hardware (whatever that might be) running AmigaOS 4.1 in stock right now for a mere £650