Your first memory?

[Harrison]

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]

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]

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.

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]

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]

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]

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.

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]

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]

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

And what did he answer?

[J T]

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]

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.