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Harrison
10th January 2007, 02:13
What is your earliest memory of the Amiga? The very first thing you remember about the system.

When you first remember seeing, reading or hearing about the system?

cicobuff
10th January 2007, 02:22
First remember reading and drooling over the specifications of the system in ZZAP 64 magazine.....

First memory of actually seeing the system wasnt until 1991 when I visited the flat of my moms boss at the times son. First time I had seen the Amiga 500 in action and remember him booting up both Elvira (brings back mammaries rather than memories lol) and Shadow of the beast II (Remember the game over sequence tune to be outstanding at the time!)

Saved up my pennies and eventually bought one quite late on really, Cartoon Classics A500 plus pack in April 1992 after reading about them so much for months on end of buying the as then cheap magazine Amiga Shopper (remember trawling through the adverts, the talk of the new to be Workbench 2.0 and ECS, compatibility issues etc etc)

Harrison
10th January 2007, 02:57
After posting this topic I was trying to remember when I first heard of the Amiga myself. I can't remember for sure but I expect it was whilst chatting with friends at school. We were all into computers and had been eagerly looking forward to the 16-bit era after having all owned 8-bit machines for a long time. It was probably one of my friends computer magazines I first saw the system in.

The first time I saw an actual Amiga was in a store in Southampton and it was am A500 running Defender of the Crown. I remember standing there watching it running for ages and then looking through the software titles wishing I could afford one.

But I didn't end up initially buying an Amiga. I had been interested in the whole 16-bit era coming along and just wanted to be able to play the games and use 16-bit software.

I started saving for the rest of the year for an Amiga, and purchased a couple of magazines to read about the 16-bit machines and the games for them whilst I waited. I remember the first 16-bit magazine I bought was The One (before it split into ST and Amiga versions). I'm sure it had a preview for Falcon on the cover. I probably still have the issue somewhere. :)

I was as interested in the Atari ST as I was the Amiga, and come Christmas I only had £240 to spend on a new system so had to sell my soul to the devil and buy an Atari ST520 instead of an Amiga. :o

I didn't own my first Amiga until the A600 was released. I purchased it on launch at a Dixons store that was running a special promotional discount knocking £100 off the price! :) The first time I booted up the A600 I wished I had bought an Amiga instead of an ST from the start!

Oz2
10th January 2007, 08:55
Never heard of the system until i saw it first at a friend's house.

First thing i remember doing on it was playing Stunt Car Racer ;)

Demon Cleaner
10th January 2007, 10:04
First amiga I saw, was an amiga 1000 in a C64 magazine. They had some screenshots posted, and me and a friend, we were kinda paralyzed. At that time the price was a bit mor than 80.000 FrLUX, which is now 2000€ (1350£)

Then later, after going to school in another town, we saw the amiga 500 at a computer shop. It was running 10th frame, and again, we stood before it and were completely paralyzed. This graphics, so much finer than on our C64s.

The first game I saw running at a friend's amiga (finally someone got one), was of course Defender of the Crown ***paralyze mode ON*** and it looked just awesome.

Puni/Void
10th January 2007, 10:57
I've been thinking about this myself, and its not easy to remember it all. It's hard to dig down deep and retrieve such memories. I'll give it a try though. ;)

My first memory with the Amiga must have been in the late 1980's. A friend of mine had gotten an Amiga 500 from his parents which came with the Summer Olympics 1988 game. He did also have a few other titles, and I remember him getting hold of Defender of the Crown. We played a few games on this machine and I remember thinking that I would like to own such a computer as well. Another friend, who lived next door, did also get an Amiga 500 around the same time and he got hold of many, many games. I was stunned by both music, graphics and gameplay. :) As with you guys, Defender of the Crown really made an impact. Awesome graphics, music and gameplay. Still, we played Summer Olympics 1988 all the time and it was great. :D

Sadly I was a kid without much money, so I had to help my parents with their business. They often sold second-hand stuff at a market in a city on Saturdays and I was allowed to come with them. I therefore picked a lot of berries for example, put those into green boxes, and sold them. That way I actually earned some money. :)

Anyway, after a quite a support from the parents and with my own cash in hand, I could finally make that purchase of the machine of my dreams. The Amiga 500. Quickly learned how to use X-Copy, started copying, and then playing. I was hooked. :)

J T
10th January 2007, 14:10
Hmmm, I remember when my Dad talked about getting an Amiga and I was very excited about it. but I cannot remember how I actually came to hear of the Amiga.

I was given it as a joint birthday/Christmas present and remember the excitement. All those boxes with games (Batman the movie pack and a 10-star games compilation) applications and suchlike, the excitement of a computer with disks. Even flicking through the manuals gave a real buzz of excitement at the potential of this fantastic machine we had sitting in front of us.

It was already set up in the living room when I got downstairs, I know for sure that my dad had been playing on it for a long time the night before. Many many years later he told me how at the time he thought it was the absolute business and incredibly modern.

He was utterly flabbergasted when I showed him winUAE running on a p4 and told him about the TOSEC sets.

Demon Cleaner
10th January 2007, 14:15
He was utterly flabbergasted when I showed him winUAE running on a p4 and told him about the TOSEC sets.:lol: And what did he answer?

J T
10th January 2007, 14:58
Well, it was amazement at how easily the good old Amiga could be emulated (even the mighty A1200). I guess that he didn't realise just how much computers have grown more powerful. To someone with only a passing knowledge of computers -basic web browsing and word processing - emulation is something completely amazing.

As for the ADFs (and TOSEC sets), the first thing was surprise at how quick it was to download a game and play it. The second was slight dismay that these games we would pay 25 pounds for could be acquired with a swift click of the mouse.

Harrison
10th January 2007, 15:27
The second was slight dismay that these games we would pay 25 pounds for could be acquired with a swift click of the mouse.That is probably the biggest thing for me regarding retro systems and emulation too. Everytime I play one of the games via emulation that I originally paid for on the original system I think of how much the games originally cost to buy.

And as we have all mentioned in the past, the price of a game was quite a motivational element in making you play it and get the most from it. These days, being able to download any retro platform's games in a few seconds at zero cost makes the game easily discardable. A quick load and play, then within minutes of aquiring the game it might end up never being run again. If the same game had been purchased for £25 you would take the time to play it longer and try to get your moneys worth from it.

It is amazing how when something costs nothing you can so easily draw a conclusion about it within seconds, whereas paying for something makes you assess it in far more detail to understand why you purchased it.

Teho
10th January 2007, 15:36
My first memory was seeing one running in a store. I don't remember what it was running any more, and don't remember the actual episode either. What I do remember is coming back later and trying out a game one it; Terrorpods. Didn't understand the game at all, but that didn't matter. I was too busy gawking at the graphics!

I bought one for my own money that I had saved up some time later.

J T
10th January 2007, 16:25
Terrorpods. Didn't understand the game at all, but that didn't matter. I was too busy gawking at the graphics!


I could never work it out either. The Tenstar pack version had heavily trimmed instructions so as to fit on the rear of the sleeve. I got the buggy thing to interact with the mines but could never actually trade anything, so instead I'd make those big missiles (with the cool aiming device) and blow them up, or launch them at the mothership - pointless as I knew that wasn't the way to destroy it, but it seemed like fun anyway.

Then I'd run out of fuel or materials and have to restart.


These days, being able to download any retro platform's games in a few seconds at zero cost makes the game easily discardable. A quick load and play, then within minutes of aquiring the game it might end up never being run again. If the same game had been purchased for £25 you would take the time to play it longer and try to get your moneys worth from it.

It is amazing how when something costs nothing you can so easily draw a conclusion about it within seconds, whereas paying for something makes you assess it in far more detail to understand why you purchased it.

Mmm, I have done a lot of the "quick play a ROM, then change to the next" loads. Probably missed out on some gems that way, but I have a lot of newer games to try first. I particularly do this with MAME, there is so much on there and a lot of it is dross I have to say. As I've said before, I was surprised (and kind of disheartened) when I found out how small Mega Drive/SNES cartridge data was. And some of those games were £50+ !!!!

Stephen Coates
10th January 2007, 16:31
Hmmmmmm. Not sure.

Probably in 1995/1996 which was not long after Peter moved in next door. As I have said before, he worked at a school and we used to borrow an amiga and a load of games during the summer holidays. I think the first one I used was an A500/+ but could have been a 600. I definately remember using an Amiga which was quite smaller than one of the others, and when we came to purchase one when the school decided to sell them, Peter recomened the 500 becuase it was more reliable than the smaller ones.

Harrison
10th January 2007, 16:44
Strange. The A600 is actually the most reliable Amiga every made. During its production less than 1% of A600s sold ever needing to be returned for repair or replacement during their warrantee.

It is quite strange to think you were first getting into the Amiga just as Commodore were going out of business. I little sad to think you missing the actual Amiga years.

cicobuff
10th January 2007, 16:53
Strange. The A600 is actually the most reliable Amiga every made. During its production less than 1% of A600s sold ever needing to be returned for repair or replacement during their warrantee.

Yep, same with the A1200 using Surface mount technology, the old A500/plus was better for self repair though because of not using this.

Stephen Coates
10th January 2007, 17:55
Socketed chips are best when it comes to replacing them. No fiddly soldering to do ;)

When I said reliable, it might have been something to do with more games working on the A500+. I really can't remember.

Harrison
10th January 2007, 18:02
But the 500+ and 600 are identical as far as compatibility goes. Same chipset, kickstart etc...

J T
10th January 2007, 18:58
As long as you don't need that numpad for a flight sim ;)

Harrison
10th January 2007, 21:27
True.


As I've said before, I was surprised (and kind of disheartened) when I found out how small Mega Drive/SNES cartridge data was. And some of those games were £50+ !!!!

The size of a game's data is never an indication of the
quality of the game. These days games have expanded to fill the huge media available to hold them and in turn have often been a victim of sloppy development. When a developer had to code for a very limited storage size the innovations were often far larger than anything seen these days.

J T
10th January 2007, 21:35
No, I know that the amount of data isn't indicative of the quality of the game, it was probably more the ease at which they could be downloaded in literally seconds in most cases. Partially due to the increasing speed of internet connections too, but I'm sure you see what I was getting at. It was certainly surprising when it dawned on me anyway.

Harrison
10th January 2007, 21:51
Oh yeah, I see your point. It is amazing to think that some of the best SNES games could fit on a floppy disk. But then some of the best Amiga games did come on a single floppy disk at the same time. ;)

But also, at that time 800KB of data was viewed as being quite big. These days it's considered very small.

J T
10th January 2007, 21:54
Exactly, a reasonably high res high quality JPEG can be that size or more.

Also, I guess the physical size of the carts (and the chips therein) - think about how small say an SD card is, and they can hold 4gb! And probably have miles better read/write rates.

Incredible how things have moved on.

Harrison
10th January 2007, 22:00
I was thinking about the size SD cards had become only the other day. It was when sitting playing my PSP. I suddenly thought how it was quite amazing that I was now about to use a 4GB solid state storage device in a portable system when only 10 years ago we were being amazed by the first 1GB harddrives for our computers.

Toasty667
3rd May 2007, 11:44
Ah yes the first memory. But of course in those days I was only a tea boy.:hmmm:

A mate had an Amiga 600, loved the graphics. Think he was playing a game called Doddle Bug? It was a platformer but I bet if that's not the title that doesnt narrow it down much! I'm not sure if it was totally due to this but I bought loads of issues of Amiga Power at least a year before I got one just due to being facinated with it. Cant remember if I saw his 600 first or got the magazines first (I've got a Goldfish memory). Then one birthday I got my A1200!:lol: Loved it. It came with Trolls, Pinball Dreams (I think) and a football game. Was blown away. I only had a small amount of games due to pocket money but still had loadsa fun. But I had amassed a great deal of cover disks by that point. Pitty not all were compatable but at least with the A1200 I got to play Gloom.:)

Harrison
3rd May 2007, 11:52
Did you ever use the Relokick 1.3 disk with the A1200? It rebooted the machine into a kickstart 1.3 system and most games that would not run as standard on the A1200 worked perfectly.

As for that platform game, it was probably DoodleBug: Bug Bash 2 (http://www.classicamiga.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1567&Itemid=96), so you were pretty much right. ;) Sorry there are no images for this game on the site yet.

Toasty667
3rd May 2007, 12:03
Did you ever use the Relokick 1.3 disk with the A1200? It rebooted the machine into a kickstart 1.3 system and most games that would not run as standard on the A1200 worked perfectly.

As for that platform game, it was probably DoodleBug: Bug Bash 2 (http://www.classicamiga.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1567&Itemid=96), so you were pretty much right. ;) Sorry there are no images for this game on the site yet.

Doh never knew about that! Oh well still had some good stuff. Seriously by the time FPS's arrived I was thankful for the 1200. Just got Gloom working again perfectly on winuae and it brought my memories back instantly. Was funny because I remembered the first couple of levels and most of the locations where you got ambushed! Funny how a reminder can trigger your old memories like that.

Harrison
3rd May 2007, 12:18
Tell me about it. That happens a lot to me, especially with Amiga games when I test them when adding something for the site. I often start playing them and suddenly it all comes flooding back. Where baddies are, the layout of levels, secret areas etc... I even remembered a load of the rune combinations for the spells in Dungeon Master when I loaded it up recently! :blink: mad!

Demon Cleaner
3rd May 2007, 13:04
I still know some of the games by heart, mostly on the C64 though. That's the same thing than with a song, you didn't hear it for 15 years, listen to it, and immediately sing the lyrics whilst hearing. Would we always have such a memory.

Harrison
3rd May 2007, 13:22
Unless we all develop dementia! One good reason to be making the main site. If one day we all forget about everything at least we will be able to visit the site and read what we once knew. :lol:

Demon Cleaner
3rd May 2007, 15:25
We're so much involved in the whole scene, I don't think we will forget for our whole life.

J T
4th May 2007, 14:54
Ah yes the first memory. But of course in those days I was only a tea boy.:hmmm:

A mate had an Amiga 600, loved the graphics. Think he was playing a game called Doddle Bug? It was a platformer but I bet if that's not the title that doesnt narrow it down much! I'm not sure if it was totally due to this but I bought loads of issues of Amiga Power at least a year before I got one just due to being facinated with it. Cant remember if I saw his 600 first or got the magazines first (I've got a Goldfish memory). Then one birthday I got my A1200!:lol: Loved it. It came with Trolls, Pinball Dreams (I think) and a football game. Was blown away. I only had a small amount of games due to pocket money but still had loadsa fun. But I had amassed a great deal of cover disks by that point. Pitty not all were compatable but at least with the A1200 I got to play Gloom.:)


Did you ever use the Relokick 1.3 disk with the A1200? It rebooted the machine into a kickstart 1.3 system and most games that would not run as standard on the A1200 worked perfectly.

As for that platform game, it was probably DoodleBug: Bug Bash 2 (http://www.classicamiga.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1567&Itemid=96), so you were pretty much right. ;) Sorry there are no images for this game on the site yet.

I played a demo of Doodlebug on an AP coverdisk, it was good fun. Throwing the coloured pencils would result in things being 'drawn' on screen that you could use - eg a balloon to float across some water or up to a high ledge, or a parasol to float down. Was a lot of fun as I remember

Harrison
4th May 2007, 17:10
Ah, I completely forgot that aspect of the game. Very innovative at the time and only very recently was that idea revisited with the PS2 game Okami where you play a mythical wolf who can control the mystical forces of natual and use a paint brush to paint shapes to form water and other natural elements, as well as destroy and cut down things.

Submeg
4th May 2007, 22:25
woa that sounds like an interesting game

Harrison
5th May 2007, 00:05
Okami is a great game and if you get the chance it is well worth playing. The game's style is japanese ink based art work with all of the 3D graphics rendered in this way. It looks amazing and is really different and quite a unique game.

Submeg
5th May 2007, 07:44
How old is it? I need this game

Demon Cleaner
5th May 2007, 10:03
Okami is indeed a very good game, with a unique gameplay.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/cioprgr/classicamiga/okami_screen001.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/cioprgr/classicamiga/920500_20050516_screen004.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/cioprgr/classicamiga/920500_20050516_screen006.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/cioprgr/classicamiga/920500_20050516_screen008.jpg

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/cioprgr/classicamiga/okami_screen011.jpg

Harrison
5th May 2007, 10:41
Okami wasn't released that long ago so you should be able to find a copy easily. It was made by Capcom and the official site is http://www.capcom.com/okami/

Submeg
5th May 2007, 10:47
Sweet cheers Harrison! That looks like it will go nicely with Loco Roco and I love Katamari :)