Amiga Forever

[W1GUH]

My sentiments, but this is a product (http://www.amigaforever.com/). I just ran across this while google-ing for the name of the Amiga operating system for another thread. Turns out it's AmgigaOS. DUH!!! I think it's a subset of Unix, but not sure of that.

Anyway, this Amiga Forever looks kinda cool...I really, really miss my Amiga days. I've still got the whole Amiga system and if I ever get one of those "round tuits", I'll set that up for old time's sake AND for the awesome games I had for it.

Bioggest frustration with it, though, is it attracted a lot of vaporware. Never could get my hands on a genlock.

Anybody ever play with this Amiga Forever stuff? I costs money (but not a lot) and, maybe worse, could turn into a time sink...albeit a fun one!

Get out your workbench and 1,3 Rom!!!

[KG4CGC]

You mean that car that was made in Mexico during the 70's and only sold here for 4 or 5 months?

[NQ6U]

No, he's talking about the computer, built by Commodore, that had the distinction of attracting a fan-boy contingent that was even more rabid than that of the Macintosh.

[KG4CGC]

No, he's talking about the computer, built by Commodore, that had the distinction of attracting a fan-boy contingent that was even more rabid than that of the Macintosh.
OOH! Yeah, until just a few years ago they were the darling of hamfests everywhere. Didn't make much sense to me though. I'm glad we've moved on in the WoH. World of Hamdom!
Hey, if you're into that kind of thing ... I knew a guy that loved his in the 90's.

[W3MIV]

The real darling of the ham set was the Commodore 64 itself. In fact, I know of one such unit that was running a unique program pretty much around the clock for a certain agency we cannot mention. :geek: Last I heard of it was a few years ago, but for aught I know, it may still be humming happily along doing its patriotic duty. :usa:

[WØTKX]

Amiga plus the Video Toaster ROCKED for for editing back in the day. Interesting hardware platform...

[n2ize]

I miss the old PDP and VAX days.

[KG4CGC]

I miss acetate pressings.

[NQ6U]

I miss acetate pressings.

I miss wax cylinders.

[KG4CGC]

I miss wax cylinders.
Remember when everyone ate dirt, and was happy to have it?

[WØTKX]

I miss cuneiform tablets.
http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:6nThknWAjibxQM::knp.prs.heacademy.ac. uk/highlights/&t=1&usg=AFrqEzc9G9IcoDXOBLZJ-ErKYvokFwTtVg

[NQ6U]

Remember when everyone ate dirt, and was happy to have it?

Yeah, man, those were the good ol' days! Remember how sometimes you'd find a rock in your dirt and be happy for days?

[WØTKX]

Times have changed...

http://www.thepaincomics.com/Now%20I%27ll%20Eat%20Anything.jpg

[KC2UGV]

I miss grunting as a form of communication...

[WØTKX]

Like Ugh, Eh?

[NQ6U]

I miss the day when a guy could go out and get himself a woman by just hitting her with a club instead of having to pay to take her out to one. Can't get away with that anymore.

[KC2UGV]

Like Ugh, Eh?

Ug. Uhg. Ug ug eh?

[W1GUH]

I miss the day when a guy could go out and get himself a woman by just hitting her with a club instead of having to pay to take her out to one. Can't get away with that anymore.

I miss the days when "having to pay to take her out to one" was sufficient! Nowaday the $$$ costs of same have paled in comparison to the health, legal, and emotional costs. THAT's an UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[W1GUH]

Geeze, you freakin' guys!!!!! LOVE the comments. :rofl:

But seriously...(well, sort of)

What the Amiga represents to me is:

Postitive: The first home, personal computer with a bona fide and genuine multi-tasking OS. You could have as many apps, windows, whatever running as you had memory for. You could also do "windows" AND command line stuff runnning simultaneously. This 'way BEFORE PC's or macs could do that. Also, it was built to interface directly with video. Made it a staple in pro network graphic studiow. Also, it used the Motorola 68000 chips. Maybe my deccie heritage, but their assembly language blew away Intel's. Points to mac for using the 68000 architecture.

Minus: Commodor/Amiga (can you say Jack Tramiel) couldn't market their way out of a wet paper sack. When they were sitting on the PC architecture that was ready to go that could have sewed up the technical and office markets, all they could do was market their jewel as "just another game machine." Shame on them! I'll bet they would have done a MUCH better job tham MS and mac combined. Their OS was wide-open; you could buy listing of it. It was written in c and was completely extensible and modifiable. Think MS or Apple will ever do that? HA!!!

And honorable mention to 'ize for mentioning PDP & VAX stuff. Pity the "forces that be" took over DEC (Probably put a pod in their corporate hq offices) killed the innovations that that company had given us over the years. Source for that is I worked there when it was taken over (it started at the middle management level, before they went after Ken Olsen's head). Someday I'll post a verbose description of what happened internally between '77 and '81 when I was a deccie. It wasn't pretty.

Actually, I vote for the cuneiform tablets. Imagine what we're going to learn about the Ancient Sumerians as we translate more and more of those? We've already learned a great deal of (sometimes controversial -- especially to the more fervent followers of the Judeo-Christian tradition) stuff. On the sad side, how much of that stuff did we destroy in the Iraq war? :cry:

And, yep, the Commodore 64 was/is a true classic. Those guys really knew how to make a home computer.

[KG4CGC]

how much of that stuff did we destroy in the Iraq war?
Those are the WMD's they were really talking about. Now you know the real goal of going to Iraq.

[WØTKX]

http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/mba/lowres/mban1949l.jpg

[W1GUH]

Those are the WMD's they were really talking about. Now you know the real goal of going to Iraq.

:yes::yes::yes:
:agree::agree::agree:
:cheers::bbh:

NOW I get it!! You rock for that insight!

[kf0rt]

I miss the days when "having to pay to take her out to one" was sufficient! Nowaday the $$$ costs of same have paled in comparison to the health, legal, and emotional costs. THAT's an UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

See now, a Teagagger would just hire a hooker. :yes:

[NQ6U]

See now, a Teagagger would just hire a hooker. :yes:

So, what you're saying, then, is that Teabaggers aren't as dumb as they appear?

[kf0rt]

So, what you're saying, then, is that Teabaggers aren't as dumb as they appear?

Even a blind squirrel, and all that.

[W1GUH]

Yea, but even hiring a hooker carries the risk of aids or herpes. Is that an acceptable risk?

[N2NH]

Yea, but even hiring a hooker carries the risk of aids or herpes. Is that an acceptable risk?


Yeh, "she" would also look like this and they'd find "her" doing a wide stance thing at an airport restroom...

Lookie what I found. I'm gonna show her ta Ma!
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PQSZPc0vT00/SifbJV4k71I/AAAAAAAABjk/LTwZrjU8FT8/s400/GNV+109.jpg

[n2ize]

And honorable mention to 'ize for mentioning PDP & VAX stuff. Pity the "forces that be" took over DEC (Probably put a pod in their corporate hq offices) killed the innovations that that company had given us over the years. Source for that is I worked there when it was taken over (it started at the middle management level, before they went after Ken Olsen's head). Someday I'll post a verbose description of what happened internally between '77 and '81 when I was a deccie. It wasn't pretty.


You worked for DEC ?? Awesome. I'd love to hear about it. I have such fond memories of my academic PDP, DEC-20/TOPS20, and VAX/VMS days. I used to pour through the DEC manuals at my school. I remember one day a guy from DEC came to the school to talk over some tech stuff with the sys administrators. I happened to be there that day and I wound up talking to him for over an hour.

Anything you can share would be interesting. That is the stuff I "grew up" with.

[W1GUH]

You worked for DEC ?? Awesome. I'd love to hear about it. I have such fond memories of my academic PDP, DEC-20/TOPS20, and VAX/VMS days. I used to pour through the DEC manuals at my school. I remember one day a guy from DEC came to the school to talk over some tech stuff with the sys administrators. I happened to be there that day and I wound up talking to him for over an hour.

Anything you can share would be interesting. That is the stuff I "grew up" with.

You've encouraged me to compose my deccie story...so I'll be working on it. Working for DEC was my "dream job" out of college and it finally happened in '77. What I did was designed the hardware floating point for the VAX 11/750. That was one MF'ing aggressive company, technologically speaking.

And guess what? The group that designed that machine, including us hardware jocks and the micro-code people, was about 15 people and almost all of us were total pot-heads. The ones who didn't (can't actually remember if there actually were any total abstainers), had no problem with that. Neither did the company. So much for pot making you lazy and stupid. There is an actual, honest-to-gopod, unrefutable counter example!

[n2ize]

You've encouraged me to compose my deccie story...so I'll be working on it. Working for DEC was my "dream job" out of college and it finally happened in '77. What I did was designed the hardware floating point for the VAX 11/750. That was one MF'ing aggressive company, technologically speaking.

And guess what? The group that designed that machine, including us hardware jocks and the micro-code people, was about 15 people and almost all of us were total pot-heads. The ones who didn't (can't actually remember if there actually were any total abstainers), had no problem with that. Neither did the company. So much for pot making you lazy and stupid. There is an actual, honest-to-gopod, unrefutable counter example!

The brightest and most brilliant and creative people I have known were pot heads, psychedelic freaks, among other things. The idea that drugs make you a lazy good for nothing looser, or crazy, is a myth perpetrated by the establishment goons who have a vested interest in keeping their foot in everyones door and their noses into everyones personal lives.

In 77 I was 2 years out of high school and working part time for a roofer in the South Bronx. In those days i was partying a lot and NYC was my playground. I started college a year later as a Chemistry major and in 2 years I switched majors and was a budding Mathematician. My first job out of undergrad school was in the insurance racket. Then i went on to grad school.

It would be interesting to hear about your DEC exploits and hardware design. The VAX was among my favorite platforms. You were among the pioneers that made it happen.