How did you come to own your very first Amiga?
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How did you come to own your very first Amiga?
I remember this very good. I was in school, and when it was over, I got out and my parents waited for me. Didn't know why, as the school was not situated in our hometown, but 4 miles away, and I always took the bus to get there.
They didn't say anything, and myself, I didn't also ask why. So I got into the car and we drove at the shop called Eurobureau, where they had computer stuff. Still not knowing why we got there, as I still had my C64, and I thought that perhaps my father was needing something.
So we entered the shop, and my mom said to me, tell the vendor what it is that you wish the most. I thought, wtf, and told him of course, it's an amiga baby. Only at that point I realized my dream's coming true. I got the A500 with a 1084S monitor. I still remember the price, it was exactly 40.000LUF, which is now 1.000€. That was a lot of money at that time.
WOW! That must have been an amazing surprise. My parents didn't have the money in those days for such great surprises. And €1000 is for sure a lot of money. And even better getting a 1084S monitor with the A500. I had to do with a portable 14" colour TV for many years until I saved enough for a Philips monitor.
My parents did however surprise me with my Amstrad CPC464. I had wanted a computer all that year but I knew my parents didn't have much money so I didn't hold much hope and just went round to friends houses after school to play on their BBCs and Spectrums. Then come Christmas morning the CPC was sitting there under the Christmas Tree. I found out more recently that they actually couldn't afford it and had to take out a 3 year repayment to buy it for me. I will never forget that.
And that reminded me. When I had the Atari ST, I didn't even have a colour TV and had to use a crappy old 12" B/W TV, the type with the rotating tuning dial. That wasn't great at all and I used to grab the big downstairs TV to play games on whenever I could. Thinking back, I wonder why I never got a converter for the Amstrad monitor and just used that :unsure:
Mine was an A500+ bought as an Xmas pressie by my dad, before that I used his C64 with it's 1541 disk drive, he even got me to Action Replay his C64 collection from tape onto 5 1/4 disks for him, my first exploits in hacking....
He was a bit p'eed off when I swapped the A500+ for an A600, but he saw the reason why when I put a 40 Mb (WOW) 2.5" laptop hard drive into it, ahh the days of disk swapping at the local cricket club on Monday evenings...the club members wondering how I booted WB so quickly, LOL
I always wanted an A1200 but the price was silly at the time, £399 if I remember correctly.
I have an A600 now (a new floppy drive for it arrived today from Amigakit) and possibly another on the way via the EAB, I am doing the A600+ project that Zetro of Oldskool and EAB has done, but I am using a hard drive for better software compatbility.
I also have an A500, a 500+ and a couple of A1200s in various states of repair,some I traded old PC hardware for them and I got one A1200 from Ebay for £10, which had a 130Mb hard drive and a 4Mb expansion board in it, I wonder what that machine cost originally...??!
I am going to get them all working in my spare time, one of the A1200s will also get the "A1200 Plus" DVD-ROM drive treatment so I can transfer adf files quicker.
It's a hobby which will keep me busy for a while....
The 4MB expansion board for an A1200 originally cost £179.99. I know this well because that is what I paid when the A1200 was new. :cry:
I also think the A1200 dropped in price very quickly from £399 to £299 as that is what I paid for my first one not long after it came out. Definitely a great machine and my personal favourite Amiga as an all round machine with the best expansion short of going for a big box Amiga.
You may cry yourself when i tell you of a project I have been planning for some time, and one that I've mentioned on the old classicamiga board some time ago. I want to take an A1200, gut it, replacing the internals with a PC!!! :o Wire the Amiga keyboard up via USB using a Keyrah interface, mount a laptop DVD-RW in the lefthand side (similar to how many have mounted one in A1200 projects) and then I will have a very portable PC which will be perfect for emulation.
The A1200 case would lend itself to a motherboard with something like the old Western Digital layout that Compaq or Dell used on their office machines like the Dell Optiplex GX series (God I am sad to be able to recall all this crap) where all of the I/O ports are in a line, that way you wouldn't be hacking the case about too much.
Another alternative is an ITX Shuttle mobo.
I'm not a fascist when it comes to Amiga or PC modding, to each his own, if you are gutting the Miggy, I might be interested in the old innards... :)
Merlin
I also had to use my C64 with a b/w TV in the beginning, and I didn't have the floppy drive. I saved a lot of money to be able to afford one, and that was about 2 years later I had the computer. When I finally bought the 1541, I costed 375€, wow.
Like I said before...the computer was there before I was. lol.
Originally Posted by Merlin:
Well, the plan is to use a mini or micro itx motherboard inside the A1200 case. This will reduce the noise to nearly zero as there are many with completely passive cooling. In addition, using an external power supply, will reduce heat even more inside the case and will mean there shouldn't need to be any fans at all. Although I will test this by soak testing the system and monitoring temperatures once its built.
The A1200 case would lend itself to a motherboard with something like the old Western Digital layout that Compaq or Dell used on their office machines like the Dell Optiplex GX series (God I am sad to be able to recall all this crap) where all of the I/O ports are in a line, that way you wouldn't be hacking the case about too much.
Another alternative is an ITX Shuttle mobo.
I'm not a fascist when it comes to Amiga or PC modding, to each his own, if you are gutting the Miggy, I might be interested in the old innards... :)
Merlin
Alternatively I may opt for a faster Intel Core Duo based mini ITX based motherboard which would require some cooling but offers more processing performance.
Although the new Pico-ITX design is interesting me at the moment with up to 1.5GHz passively cooled CPUs and a motherboard size measuring just 100 x 72 mm in size! :o Just imagine some of the cases you could fit that in! You could probably even build a PC based around a ZX Spectrum case with that one! And one really cool thing is that it only needs a 22W PSU and only consumes 1W of Power. That could actually be a really good thing to base a file server on. 1.5GHz would easily be fast enough with enough ram to run a file sharing, ftp and torrent downloading machine. :) And no noise as it's completely passively cooled.
I bought my first Amiga with my own money that I'd saved up, an A500. I'd only had C64s before that. Went through several C64s in those early years, at least one of them I bought myself too. I know my older brother bought one, and the first one we had was bought for us by my dad.
Birthday. If anyone says stole do they get banned?:busted::lol:
My A500+ was purchased second hand from a school, which my next door neighbor worked at in 1997.
Cost £50 and included mouse, joystick, games and some software, and a 1mb ram expansion.
We bought a seperate JVC 14" colour television to use with it. I continued to ue this as a TV until 2004 when it borke and bought a new one, which also now doesn't work properly.
Although recently I have bought lots of goodies for the A500+ myself, including a CM8833-II, extra drive, HD + RAM expansion and a modem.
All other Amigas I have purchased myself over the last 2 or so years.
I purchased my first Amiga A500 from a friend when he upgraded to an A2000.
It cost me £600 at the time, (1991) and came with a whole MB of memory and a 40mb Hard Drive and a whole load of software, including stuff that he was beta-testing before release.
That still sounds pretty expensive.
I think I paid £400 for the 500+
Later sold it for a £100 (I think) and bought an A1200 for £299
I got the A500 as a joint birthday and Christmas present, but my Dad was also very keen to get it (in fact I seem to remember him coming up with the idea).
As you all know, it was the mighty 'Batman: the movie' pack :thumbs:
My first Amiga was much awaited Christmas gift in 1990. Wasn't big suprise to get one, as I already had seen the boxes at attic just few weeks before. So when I finally got it at christmas eve, I already had games and demo's for it. And had started swapping some days before :)
Originally Posted by :
:nogood: always good to know where presents are kept away from children.
Wasn't big suprise to get one, as I already had seen the boxes at attic just few weeks before.
When I was a kid my friend had a loan of a NES - i was amazed by the graphics compared to my Speccy 48k so I went home and asked for one for christmas. A massive 8 months later it arrived and I went about trying to complete Super Mario untill the folks kicked me out to get some fresh air. After a few years my friend got an Amiga 500 - he was the kind of guy, and still is, that had all the latest stuff, just how his folks afforded it is beyond me. Anyhoos he was playing Turrican 2 and it blew me away, more than the NES had those years before. I went home and pestered my folks who came to a compromise - sell the NES to help pay for a new A500. When I think about it that was one expensive computer - especially back then. I had the NES sold within a week and a sparkly new A500 on my desk by the weekend. Fantastic. I was gutted when I sold it for a CD32 - should have picked the A1200 looking back now!
People moan about the cost of the Xbox 360 and PS3 these days, but looking back to what we were paying in the 80's and early 90's for Amigas and consoles the current system are not really priced any higher.
That was definitely not the best move ever toomuchmikes, selling the A500 for a CD32. I also purchased a CD32 at launch, but already owned an A1200 so it was more just an exercise in buying it because it was a new Amiga model.
The CD32 could have been a great system but it just didn't take off. I also think that it wasn't designed or thought out quite well enough. The save game flash ram was too limiting for one. I think that providing a floppy drive port on the back of the machine would have made a huge difference to the system. That would have instantly opened the system up to running A1200 and most A500 games with just the purchase of a disk drive, and you could of used floppy disks for save games too. I think that simple addition could have altered the success of the CD32 within existing Amiga fan circles. I still don't think it would have become more popular in general though as it wasn't really released at the right time. Rumours of the Sony Playstation were already starting and as soon as it was released it blew the CD32 out of the water.
I was lucky, in the fact my father owned the only Computer shop in my home town. I had asked for an Atari STE for christmas (as i was a good boy, and didnt want them to spend alot).
Come Christmas eve (I sat there all night looking at the big present) about 1 AM, my mother said "for crying out loud opening it". So I did, and to my suprise it was a Flight Of Fantasy Amiga 500 (My father even threw in an 512kb extra mem).
Best Christmas ever, :)
Definitely sounds like a brilliant Christmas, especially if you had been expecting an ST and instead got the much better Amiga. :)
Did you also have access to the games in your Dad's shop? ;)
Originally Posted by Harrison:
I did indeed, ;). Ah, those were the days.
Definitely sounds like a brilliant Christmas, especially if you had been expecting an ST and instead got the much better Amiga. :)
Did you also have access to the games in your Dad's shop? ;)
Damn that is extremley cool...thats like expecting an Xbox and getting a PS3! :p
That must have been some real golden years I suppose. We didn't have a lot of shops here in whole Luxembourg.
mmmmm what memories! My very first Amiga.
While I was at junior school, my friends older brother had an Atari ST. Once I saw Defender of the Crown, Plutos (yes PLUTOS!) and Time Bandit I knew the spectrum had to go. Bought one of them to start with and spent many hours on Barbarian, Star Wars, Super Sprint (what a game), Captain Blood, Livingstone I Presume and many other classic titles.
Then, a few years later at comprehensive school, I came across the first Amiga 500 I'd seen. Man, I was blown away by the sound and graphics of the Blood Money intro, the full screen smooth scrolling of Hybris and left gobsmacked at seeing 32 (yes 32!) colours onscreen. I knew the ST had to go.
Got the Batman pack for xmas after selling the ST to some poor sucker. Hope he was a midi fanatic because he should have been looking at the Amiga before parting with his hard earned cash.
Best xmas ever! F-18 interceptor for most of that day! A few months later Bloodwych was released...
I went the same route as you, starting with an Atari ST before later ditching it for an Amiga. My reason was more the cost and my lack of money when I bought the ST, as the Amiga was £200 more at the time. I only paid £199 for an STFM, while the A500 was still £399. I still regretted buying the ST soon after once all the games started appearing on both platforms and I could clearly see the ST was very inferior with it's huge 8-bit like borders around the screen, unlike the full overscan screens of many Amiga versions. Plus the better graphics and sound. I still enjoyed the ST but wished for an Amiga the whole time.
Yep, Amiga's were not cheap. Started out at £499 with Kickstart 1.2 in the UK, jumping down to that magical £399 mark by the time I picked one up. Considering inflation, that's a lot of money!!! Wonder what the equivalent price would be now? £799?
Makes you wonder why people complain so much about the price of the PS3.
Originally Posted by Bloodwych:
Fairly close actually, inflation adjusted the A500 at £399 would cost £694.06 in today's money. At launch in 1987 the A500 was £587 which is £1154.43 in today's money :o
Considering inflation, that's a lot of money!!! Wonder what the equivalent price would be now? £799?
~I used to go around a mates from school, every so often and play on his A500 he had. That was great. Another mate also had a 500 I used to play on. He then got a A600 and then a CD32.
I think i Brought his old A500 from him, either that or I got it from the Freeadds.
The is someone selling a boxed A1200 this week for £100 in the freeadds.
Passed 2 years in front off a shop looking at a wonderfull A500, when finaly convinced my parents to buy me a A500, lucky or not the seller only had an amiga 600 so my first amiga was a A600 1Mb (this was in 1994 and the cost was 299€ at current). Some months late i brought a 2nd hand 1084s cause my parents thinked the computer could cause damage tho the tv (and i didn't say otherwise :) ). A Year later exchanged my a600 for a 2nd hand A1200 (my current amiga). I still own the 1084s.
I can remember this well as I had a Commodore plus4 at the time so had been buying all the magazines. As soon as I saw a review of sword of sodan I had to have an amiga so borrowed the money off my uncle and got a 500 and never looked back.
As soon as the 1200 was announced I had just started working so could afford to buy one as soon as they came out.
Cheers.
Paul.
Mum said "If I buy a computer, will you be able to do your homework on it?"
I said "Yes! Of course I will!"
SUCKER!!
I got one as a birthday present when I was five. And the rest, as they cliche, is history.
@Burns Flipper
Very similar here. But much earlier. In the mid 80's my parents saw that PCs were quickly becoming popular and so looked at the options available. They really wanted to buy me a BBC Micro "to do my school work on" but couldn't afford one, so I ended up with an Amstrad CPC464 for Christmas. Glad they did as the game catalogue was much bigger and it had a colour monitor.
and did you do any homework on it?
I didn't...unless you class "Empire building" as homework.
I don't remember doing any on the CPC464, but I did use my ST and then Amiga a lot for homework. Especially graphics and word processing.
I think one of the reasons I have teken so much care with my computers was that I bought them all myself, as no-one could afford to buy me one for birthday or christmas. Having said that, I did buy one of my consoles TWICE!
I did 4 magazines with each 20-25 pages on the C64 using a program called Newspaper and using a Commodore MPS-803 printer.
Originally Posted by v85rawdeal:
That is a very good point. I also took care of all of my Amiga's and other systems due to saving up and buying them myself.
I think one of the reasons I have taken so much care with my computers was that I bought them all myself...
Those that I knew who's parents just bought them an Amiga because "it was what they wanted", and they were spoilt little rich kids, didn't take any care using them because they knew that if it was broken their parents would just buy them another, or something else that was that weeks much have item.
I do remember on kid I went to school with taking his new Amiga back a week after it was purchased and getting a refund. Why? Because it crashed during a game! :blink: What did he replace it with? A NES! Go Figure.
When i had MY C64 i used it for Word Processing, Databases, Spreadsheets all that kind of stuff as well as Elite, PSF and Wizball of course. I had a 24pin Panasonic colour printer.
I never had a printer for my CPC464. I always wanted one and would look at the adverts, but could never afford one. Plus the CPC had a unique connector so you were restricted in the printers you could buy. Once I had an ST I finally got my first printer, which was a Star LC10C 9pin colour printer. That thing was really loud!
I got my first Amiga (Amiga 500+ Cartoon Classics pack) as a christmas pressie. My folks didn't see me for ages upon openening that thing. Best crimbo I ever had. Once I got slighlty bored with the games, I fired up Deluxe Paint III and let my creative side shine through (not that I have much of a creative side)
Originally Posted by Harrison:
Althought the connector on the CPC is different, it still uses the standard Parrallel Centronics interface, so and adaptor cable expanded the range of printers that could be connected to the CPC's printer port.
I never had a printer for my CPC464. I always wanted one and would look at the adverts, but could never afford one. Plus the CPC had a unique connector so you were restricted in the printers you could buy. Once I had an ST I finally got my first printer, which was a Star LC10C 9pin colour printer. That thing was really loud!
I'd seen some stuff about it in the news and what have you and was determined to get one. I save for it and got it in 1985. I had to travel to Nottingham which was the only shop in the north which had some in stock. Had a few demo disks (one of which I'm still searching for) with it and a few games too.
Previously I'd had a Commodore +4 (you probably won't remember that one), and a C64 for a while, both of which I programmed in assembler. You have no idea how satisfying the feeling was to discover how to use multiple bitplanes and to invent the variable yourself!
I submitted some stuff to a PD Library called Tony Thompson's Services, based in the Hebrides, on programming in Assembly using the A68K PD Assembler. Really looking to see if I can get hold of it and maybe my stuff too. Don't suppose anyone remembers it? They used to advertise in all the mags. (Maybe I should start a new thread?)
Originally Posted by PiAnt:
I had a C16, which the was part of the same series of machines as the +4 (also a mate of mine had a +4, basically a C16 with 64K and some programs built into ROM)
Previously I'd had a Commodore +4 (you probably won't remember that one)
Originally Posted by woody.cool:
I got my first Amiga (Amiga 500+ Cartoon Classics pack) as a christmas pressie. My folks didn't see me for ages upon openening that thing. Best crimbo I ever had. Once I got slighlty bored with the games, I fired up Deluxe Paint III and let my creative side shine through (not that I have much of a creative side)
Originally Posted by Harrison:
Althought the connector on the CPC is different, it still uses the standard Parrallel Centronics interface, so and adaptor cable expanded the range of printers that could be connected to the CPC's printer port. I used a Star LC10 for my C64, previously I had the Commodore MPS 803, which was very slow, and my cousin got a Star NL10, which was later replaced by the LC10, which was exactly the same model only just with another model number. I also had to buy a connector to plug it into the C64, and the connector itself cost me about 75-100€, can't remember exactly, but I know it was very pricey. The printer itself already cost 17.000LUF at that time, which are 425€!
I never had a printer for my CPC464. I always wanted one and would look at the adverts, but could never afford one. Plus the CPC had a unique connector so you were restricted in the printers you could buy. Once I had an ST I finally got my first printer, which was a Star LC10C 9pin colour printer. That thing was really loud!
Wow! That was an expensive printer! I've no idea what my LC10C cost. It was so long ago I can't remember. I do however remember that my parents ended up buying it as a Christmas present for me to use for my school work. Was definitely over £100, and possibly more. Might still have the receipt somewhere.
Indeed very expensive, if you consider that you'll get printer/copier/scanner/fax nowadays in one single unit for less than 100€.
All hardware continued to fall in price at a great rate. The Canon all in one can now be bought for under £30 and is perfectly good for general home use for example.
And look at ram. 1GB for £13!.
I binned my 6 month old HP (scanner/copier/printer) now, and I'm never gonna buy an ink jet printer anymore. Next one will be a laser printer, as I use the printer once a month at home, and if I have something bigger to print, I do it at work. And I don't need a color printer, as we have laser color printers at work.