Eye of the Beholder

[Geraldine]

Something special about those machines. Like they were made by people who loved and respected them like we do. It was corporate screwheads that killed them.

Thats very true, can you imagine the engineers at Micro$oft or $ony naming the chips in their latest consoles after their loved ones?
No that would be unthinkable now. Those old machines were put together with love and passion, even the first Amiga the A1000, had all the engineer's signatures and even Jay Miner's Dog Mitchy's paw print inside the case. They they don't make em that way anymore, its all money, money, money now and how much can be wrung out of the users pockets.

And yes, even after all this time, I still hate Mehdi Ali

[Radioman970]

Something special about those machines. Like they were made by people who loved and respected them like we do. It was corporate screwheads that killed them.

Thats very true, can you imagine the engineers at Micro$oft or $ony naming the chips in their latest consoles after their loved ones?
No that would be unthinkable now. Those old machines were put together with love and passion, even the first Amiga the A1000, had all the engineer's signatures and even Jay Miner's Dog Mitchy's paw print inside the case. They they don't make em that way anymore, its all money, money, money now and how much can be wrung out of the users pockets.

And yes, even after all this time, I still hate Mehdi Ali

Personalized them. Fat Agnes, etc. I understand there were song lyrics on the machines too...? B52s stuff, etc.

Oh hell yeah, those guys give me a bad feeling in my gut every time I think of them. They killed a hell of a platform. I had the story of Amiga in a college textbook in some business course. I kept the book and still have it in my closet. I was such an amiga fan way back when I know family got tired of hearing me talk about it. I also loved my C64/128 machines I had. I heard there's a PC that looks like a C64, even has a C64 board in it you can use in addition to a PC. ...ah! some googling and http://www.commodoreusa.net/CUSA_C64.aspx it is. C64x. It's a little pricey.

[Zero]

Ah, memories. You can get the whole thing here. Now off I go to dust off WinUAE x64.

[Geraldine]

We bought my niece and nephew an a500 when they were small and used to playing games on an NES. They loved Chuck Rock and Pinball Fantasies on it. Recently my neph, married with a child now, was asking about it. it's stored at their grandparents..

Was just re-reading this thread when I saw this!

Was this A500 a "Plus" model Radioman970? A Plus model is easy to identify as it has a badge on the case saying A500 Plus. If so, you must (without switching it on) open it up right away and remove the battery or it will eat the motherboard!! Once done clean the area with lemon juice (to neutralise the acid from that bad boy battery) then give the whole board a good clean and leave to air dry for about 3 days. Then seal up the battery site with nail varnish to protect it. Result, a Miggy that will run for even more years. The battery is usually pale blue and barrel shaped, you cant miss it. A1500, A2000, A3000 and A4000 models also suffer from this. Don't worry about removing it as the Amiga does not need it to run, it's only there to run the real time clock. A500 (original models), A600, A1200 and CD32s are unaffected by this, although their capacitors can fail, but that's another story.

Basically, if it was a standard A500, your ok, although if it had an expanded memory card, it too may have a battery that needs removing.

And good for you Zero, those classics are hard to beat!

[Darklord]

I still have an A1200 boxed up in a cupboard, to be honest though, I'm much happier using WinUAE, it's so much easier and allows all sorts of modern convenience like quick save/load plus you can assign fast RAM and all sorts of awesomeness. (I have DM running better on WinUAE that it ever ran on an actual Amiga)

I still recall playing Beneath a Steel Sky on the Amiga many years ago,it came with 15 disks, 15! Disk swapping was dreadful to, you'd go through a door and get, please insert disk 5, please insert disk 4, please insert disk 5, please insert disk 5, please insert disk 1...

I don't think I'd have the patience for that any more!

Daniel.

[Isaac]

I still recall playing Beneath a Steel Sky on the Amiga many years ago,it came with 15 disks, 15! Disk swapping was dreadful to, you'd go through a door and get, please insert disk 5, please insert disk 4, please insert disk 5, please insert disk 5, please insert disk 1...

I don't think I'd have the patience for that any more!

Daniel.

Beneath a Steel Sky is a free game on GoG (last I checked). It plays fine; (and no disk swapping ).

**Edit: Yep; here it is on GoG.com >> http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/beneath_a_steel_sky

[Darklord]

Exactly! I recall clicking on that door accidentally and shouting "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! I don't want to go through it now!" It'd take me something like 10 disk swaps to get back outside....

Both Beneath a Steel Sky and Lure of the Temptress are freeware courtesy of Revolution Software. They went on to make the Broken Sword games, also classics!

Daniel.

[Isaac]

Exactly! I recall clicking on that door accidentally and shouting "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! I don't want to go through it now!" It'd take me something like 10 disk swaps to get back outside....

Both Beneath a Steel Sky and Lure of the Temptress are freeware courtesy of Revolution Software. They went on to make the Broken Sword games, also classics!

Daniel.

EOB shipped on 5 floppies (or 3 720Ks), and I thought it was bad then; but 15!?

*GoG lists Beneath a Steel Sky @ 71MB; Ah... it's the game, the installer, and DOSBOX.
** Broken Sword was really fun; good game.

[Darklord]

As far as I know Beneath a Steel Sky had more disks than any other game on the Amiga! I still have an original boxed copy of it to, maybe it's an antique of the future!

Daniel.

[Geraldine]

I still have an A1200 boxed up in a cupboard, to be honest though, I'm much happier using WinUAE, it's so much easier and allows all sorts of modern convenience like quick save/load plus you can assign fast RAM and all sorts of awesomeness. (I have DM running better on WinUAE that it ever ran on an actual Amiga)

Yes emulators are good, but there are times when I just need to have the real machine before me. Its part of the retro gaming experience! Or maybe its an age thing

I still recall playing Beneath a Steel Sky on the Amiga many years ago,it came with 15 disks, 15! Disk swapping was dreadful to, you'd go through a door and get, please insert disk 5, please insert disk 4, please insert disk 5, please insert disk 5, please insert disk 1...

And remember, that was the version without speech! This is why having a hard drive in your miggy was the most popular add-on back in the day.