Keatah

I feel the modern gaming industry has lost its way with so many flavors of screwups and vain attempts at capturing the real spirit retrogaming. I'm also pleased to report that I've observed this situation time and again at neighbor's houses as well.

They're not that rare. And there's always something available on ebay and craigslist. Some are ratbaggy, some are clean and ready to roll. I think they've held up over the years much better than the cheap C64 or Vic20. TRS-80, Apple II, and Atari 400/800 seem to be the best built 8-bit micros around. As far as finding them in the wild..? That's going to be more difficult. People are fixated on "Because Apple" and "Steve Jobs". And when they see Apple they see dollar signs. And the way to get those dollar signs is by selling on ebay or Christies.

That's crazy man. I totally dislike pacman these days, too hard and I *still* suck at dot-eater games, but wanted one of those when I was a kid. It's also great to see that VFD displays seem to have great longevity even if they can develop wear over time. I consider them close cousins to crt phosphors because they rely on cathode emission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_fluorescent_display

I wonder what how we'll be "doing Amiga" in the next 5 and 10 years? I see 4 possible methods: 1- Software emulation like WinUAE 2- Original hardware from back in the day 3- Internal FPGA plug in upgrade boards for original hardware (vampire series) 4- External stand-alone FPGA recreations of original hardware with potential for new modifications (MiST and successors) 1- Software emulation means not having to worry about acquiring and maintaining 35 year old hardware. And it potentially affords more versatility than original stuff. To say nothing of reliability. With emulation, anyone can get going for cheap or free. 2- Real hardware. Well, it's real hardware. The old & gold standard. 3 & 4 seem interesting in different ways. Is it it better to upgrade real hardware with new capabilities? And yet be limited by that real hardware? Or is it better to work entirely within FPGA fabric and build new ideas and concepts from the original hardware? New custom chips, modifications to architecture, new processor specs with mods, that sort of thing. In any case I'm still surprised at how long it's taking for FPGA to catch on and go mainstream.

My first foray into the Amiga platform was in the fall of 1985. I learned about through Byte and AmigaWorld. It was totally cool reading about a system so different than the 8-bit hobbyist computers I was used to working with. And it looked on-par with the Mac, with color. But the Mac was too expensive. So I got an A1000, 2nd drive, 256K memory module, and 1080 monitor from Farnsworth Computers near Oakbrook Mall. Despite it only costing me $1495, it didn’t work out for me for numerous reasons. Mainly the system was way too new and nothing was available for it. And no one had them, let alone knew what one was. I had TextCraft and GraphiCraft, but it wasn’t enough. They seemed to be too different from what I was accustomed to. Luckily I was able to sell it back to the store for about $1250. I took the money and bought some Team Associated RC car stuff among other things. The second time around was in the fall of 1987 and based on the A500 + 512K/Clock expansion + 1084s monitor. This cost somewhere between $600 and $700. I got it from some place in Barrington called Protecto Enterprises or some store affiliated with them. It was like a warehouse in a barn - IIRC. Shortly thereafter I also got a Digi-View digitizer and PhotonPaint. Got them from Software+ in Hanover Park / Streamwood. This was more like it now! These two tools made the whole platform cool and really worth it. I had loads of fun. I learned plenty of foundational techniques such as color mixing, dithering, brushes, cutting and pasting images, colorization, among all the special features contemporary “paint” programs of the day showcased. I also learned about what would become mainstay graphic formats and how to handle them and convert between them. Many of the techniques I learned on DeluxePaint, DigiPaint, and PhotonPaint have carried over nicely to modern-day Photoshop and Lightroom. HAM mode was my favorite to work with because of the subtle shades of colors. And then eventually SHAM. And my style of working was to grab a digitized image, mod it, colorize it, and mix several of them together. Sometimes just using the camera to input shapes and shadows. Just enough to get perspective and an idea of the interplay of light in a scene. While I could do that stuff on the Apple II, with similarly styled graphic paint programs, the resolution and color mixing was severely limited by what was essentially 1970's hobbyist-class hardware. So I kept the Apple II for productivity, word processing, modems & BBSing, and other miscellaneous tasks while transitioning graphic work to the Amiga. I was inspired by James Blinn from JPL. I ended up doing sci-fi art, and other futurism material in the same style. Animation didn’t matter too much to me at the time and the Video Toaster/Flyer was way out of my price range anyways. I never got much into gaming on the Amiga. No one in my geographical area had one. So supply was limited. But we thoroughly enjoyed Flight Simulator II, Jet, F/A-18 Interceptor, Terrorpods, F-29 Retaliator, Marble Madness, and a few other assorted games. Often times till 1am in the morning. So I continued graphics work, pro-level and recreational, till about 1992-1993. At that time I moved ALL my work from the Apple II and Amiga onto the PC platform. Pretty much out of necessity. Industry standard file formats, data interchange, colleagues having the same platform, raw clock speed, more standardized word processing and communications features. All that stuff. It was about that time that the PC began to match the Amiga’s static image resolution and color gamut at a reasonable price. Somewhere in that timeframe I discovered emulation, first for the Atari VCS and some arcade games. Then more. Over the next 2 decades emulation grew to cover all the early 8 and 16 bit platforms. Amiga included. In 2010 I sold the A500 and the few bits and pieces of hardware I had accumulated. I was beginning to feel the bulking strain of having too much old hardware around. All kinds of old hardware. Emulation was good enough to run the software I had in the 80’s and so that was that. Today I dabble in the Amiga ecosphere from time to time via WinUAE.

Electronics-wise? Mainly my trusty laptop, packed with an unimaginable amount of emulators and all my music. A flip-fone. Perhaps a book or two. Oftentimes taking in the scenery and ambiance *IS* the entertainment itself and I don't get into the stuff I bought with. If I did, I might as well stay at home!

I loved going to the toy stores of the 70's and 80's. I felt toy stores of that era were custom-made for kids. They were OUR store. OUR domain. And I even remember making rudimentary maps for each major store. Oft times going to those places was the "reward" for having had to tag along with mom at the cosmetic shop, the bedding store, the appliance warehouse, and god remembers where else!

Apple II, II+, //e, //e platinum, //c, //c+, ///, ///+, IIgs. TRS-80 Pocket Computer models 1, 2, and 4. TI-59 Calculator Emulation picks up the rest of the traditional cartridge based systems and computers. Various odds and ends and other 70's-80's bits of things.

There's several bands from that era that are long overdue. Jouney for one. And I think Jeff Lynne just got either inducted or nominated. Something. Someone want to clarify that?

Love the black shelving - how it enhances the color lables and creates contrast. But stacking the carts sideways would drive me nuts, AND give me neck cramps!

EG was required reading. And we had plenty of time to do that. In between turns in games like Video Pinball, or games where the second player would wait and wait and wait. While waiting we'd always read something from the stack of EG. I don't directly recall the demise, couldn't say what issue, but all of a sudden the content didn't resonate with us anymore. And we stopped subscribing or buying.