On Thu, 5 Sep 2002, Mark Weaver wrote: > James Sparenberg wrote: > > Over 10 years on computers.... not always nix (I miss my Amiga *grin*) > > > > James > > I've been hearing a lot about Amigas and invariably the people always > say they miss them. What was so special about them that they're so > sorely missed? I wouldn't know an Amiga computer if I fell over one.
Man, the things you could *do* with an Amiga. To put it in context, when the A1000 came out it had the most versatile graphics of any machine under $10,000. PCs were still largely 16 color machines, Macs were better but the installed base was still mainly monochrome. Amigas has 4,096 color static modes that was absolutely unbelievable in comparison to everything else out there. Its prime competitor was considered to be the Atari ST line, but even these were limited to a 512 color pallete, and that was with tricks ( I *love* the STs though). What was really cool was what the average person could do with it. Amiga shipped with a language called AmigaBASIC. With it you could easily create and animate sprites and access lots of the machine's power. In addition, the Amiga had some pretty impressive sound hardware. In other words, it was a multimedia machine before the term was ever invented. For me it was always the sense of camaraderie that I miss from the Amiga and Atari days. Linux is starting to recapture a bit of the wonder though! :)
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