Amigas still useable for serious work today?

[TiredOfLife]

Ah right.
Yeah it was too slow.
Useful now and then to read the odd MS Word Doc but that was about it.

Will test the new version on classic hardware this week.

[leohopkins]

I remember Amiga technology over the years being used for everything from Disney animators to NASA to kiosks interactive displays and of course major video production. I myself missded out in much of this and sadly I have no skill for programming but I did love it for basic video titling, art and animation......

I was wondering though with the low cost of PC hardware and the powerful things PC's can do, does anyone still use Amiga platform for anything serious? Do any of you use or know anyone who uses real or emulated Amiga's to do modern day serious work? Please share............

That would all depend on what you would class as "serious work". When my son is old enough, I intend to give him my A600 so that he can use it as an educational learning tool. So if you class educating a child on using a computer as serious work (which i do) then yes. The Amiga 4000 video toasting days are long gone but legacy it left behind still very much remains. It was way ahead of its time and if you want to make some personal home video's then yes its more than capable; I use it because I LOVE Amos. The simplicity and beauty of a BASIC procedure-driven programming language such as AMOS is amazing.

[Harrison]

Giving children older computers to start off with is a great idea in my view. Kids that just start off with todays consoles and PCs have no idea how they work or what is involved and no grounding at all in computing from a raw point of view. Most of us in our 20's and 30's started out with computers that you had to learn how to use. Command line interfaces in 8-bit systems for example were that beginning of sparking an interest in programming. I think it is a great idea to start children off on older hardware, but maybe even older than the 16-bit systems. Give them a C64 or similar from that era and let them experience the evolution of computing through the generations.

[TiredOfLife]

Tested the newer version of Amicygnix on classic hardware.
Loads a lot faster, but still a bit slow.
Fine for short term usage but that's about it.

[Khephren]

I was wondering though with the low cost of PC hardware and the powerful things PC's can do, does anyone still use Amiga platform for anything serious? Do any of you use or know anyone who uses real or emulated Amiga's to do modern day serious work? Please share............

Hello. I work as a computer games artist and still use winuae for deluxe paint/brilliance and personel paint for pallete based artwork and colour cycling. We have pro motion for this, but it is very expensive, and many amiga programs can do what it does just as well. The object in the picture is 3D from 3D studio, but the textures are a combo of photoshop and Amiga programs. The game is for the nintendo DS, for Xbox360 stuff, we tend to use 1024 pixel textures in 24 bit, so an Amiga is not so usefull.

Of course when I first started, all 2D artists had Amiga 4000D's on their desks, but gradually these were sold off

[Harrison]

You didn't manage to buy one of their old A4000's when they got rid of them did you? That is a great way to obtain older hardware.

It is great to hear you are still utilising Amiga graphis packages for bitmap artwork. Very nice.

[Khephren]

You didn't manage to buy one of their old A4000's when they got rid of them did you? That is a great way to obtain older hardware.

It is great to hear you are still utilising Amiga graphis packages for bitmap artwork. Very nice.

I did, I gave it away for nothing on Amiga.org about 5 years ago, thought i'd give something back to the community.

The Amiga is still really usefull, so long as you use it for things it was built to do.

[woody.cool]

[I use it because I LOVE Amos. The simplicity and beauty of a BASIC procedure-driven programming language such as AMOS is amazing.

I'm glad I'm not the only AMOS fan here

[Khephren]

I'm reinstalling 3.9 onto my A1200, and I fancy learning to code. Which would you recomend for a novice (games programming) Blitz or Amos?

[Harrison]

Definitely Blitz. It is a properly structure language which has a lot of game related elements, but is a full language that can be used for anything. Plus a version exists for Windows, so if you learn it on the Amiga, but later wanted to code something on the PC you would have a language you already knew.

AMOS isn't that great a language. It does have loads of easy to learn commands, but the language is slow and prone to crashing, and for some strange reason you normally know when any software was written with AMOS. It all seems to feel and look the same.