Keatah

I used a program back in the day called RAM Doubler for my Mac. It just used virtual memory (storage space on the hard drive) to "increase" the RAM. Nowadays, computers can have up to 128 GB of RAM, depending on the model. I know the discontinued iMac Pro could hold 128 GB of RAM, if I recall correctly. So, there isn't a need for these types of programs anymore. Even if they worked, which I doubt, you still need to increase RAM physically anyway once it is required. This would depend on the applications and the OS, and their memory requirements.

Found this. Someone published this SoftRAM program claiming it uses compression and re-arranging stuff to double RAM on a Windows system. But did not use any compression.
Now I was able to increase amount of memory available on cartridges with compression and what I did actually worked. 
 
 

That's something I believe a lot of folks don't consider when browsing ebay. The amount of work needed to do a good restore and clean-up. And now with today's inflation, cost of those clean-up & shop supply materials add up pretty quick.
And the quality of the machines available at a reasonable cost aren't getting any better. They've been around the block a few times.
I don't find it fun doing that kind of work too often. Maybe once every year or two. I'd rather get right to it and enjoy the essence of the software and what it does. That's what these machines are all about!

Back in the day I had a TRS-80.  While it would be "kinda nice" to have one one again, I simply do not have the room, let alone the will to spend Ebait prices on an old beat up piece equipment that would in all probability need to be restored.  In this case EMULATION IS WHERE IT'S AT...  for me.
A while back I dedicated an unused RPi 3B+ as a TRS-80 emulator.  I then created some badging, added some stickers to the keyboard to remind me of which keys do what on a PC keyboard and now use it for a few quick games... "now and then".  From power on to completely booted, ten seconds!  If only my PC could do that.
This is what the whole things looks like...
 
 
Here's the closeup of the entire "computer" (RPi) with the Radio Shack badging..

 
Below is a closeup of the keyboard...

 
Below are a few examples of TRS-80 games..
 

I have an Amiga 2000 in storage. I had bought it from a thrift store here in the States for only about USD$7.50. Believe it or not, that's true! They obviously didn't know what they had, and I got it at that steal of a price. It should still work, too. I haven't used it in years and it has composite video in the back, which means it did something with TV at some point. It does not have a keyboard or a mouse, but I turned it on one time and it was working. It's a great addition to my collection. :O)

Yes. I see that they have 9.2.11.0 R2 out recently.

I know I have covered this with some feedback to Ferg on the 2600 Game By Game Podcast, but here are my memories.
My first memories of Atari is the Super Pong console my parents had. My dad would bring it out and we would play it for a while, then he would disconnect it so it would not stay on by accident and cause burn in on the tv.
Later on I went to a friends house and he showed us Space Invaders and I was hooked and had to have that game myself. On my birthday in 1981 I received the 2600. I think I finally pinpointed the date as I remember the games I received for that Christmas were 81 releases. I got Space Invaders, Air-Sea Battle, and of course Combat with the system. Then a few months later for Christmas I got Asteroids, Missile Command, and Video Pinball. The one thing I do remember was the frustration on waiting for a time to play as we only had one TV and my parents loved watching it, so I had to wait, sometimes days and maybe a few weeks, before I could play again.
One funny story was how we found out that Atari and Sears Tele-Games were the same games but with different names. One day, my dad and me were playing Air-Sea Battle and he said hold on, I have a surprise for you. He came back in the room with Target Fun. We plugged it in and found out it was the exact game we were just playing just a different name. Luckily we were able to return games back then without question and was able to get something else. Think that was how I ended up with either Human Cannonball or Sky Diver from a different store after that being afraid the same thing would happen at Sears again.

The are expensive because people tend to hold on to them as they are getting rarer and harder to find as well they did not have the market penetration in USA / CANADA or outside the UK where they are much more common. 
 
If you simply would like to try some of the more popular AMIGA games you might consider an emulation package like Cloanto's AMIGA FOREVER, now before anyone starts with "BAH WHY PAY FOR EMULATION???" it is true one can get UAE emulator for free as well as "obtain" the kickstart ROM files (think of it as the required BIOS for AMIGA) and of course download various romsets of games etc, figure the configuration blah blah blah BUT THEN AGAIN if one knows nothing or very little of these things then one can do worse than buying an officially licensed ready to go plug n play package to experience various versions of the operating systems as well as different applications and of course a good sampling of games and demos. If that is of interest check out HERE :
https://www.amigaforever.com/ 
 
 
IF YOU ARE DEAD SET ON REAL HARDWARE well I would suggest the most common Amiga 500. This is the most basic model and compatible with many games THAT SAID it is not the most expandable thus you would be relying on original (or copied) games on Floppy Disk media which may not be the most reliable even if you DO track some down. An AMIGA 1200 was the next most popular machine and probably the most expandable with modern storage options, floppy disc emulators and other add-ons which would make the storage, handling and loading of games much more reliable and convenient.
 
Now I do not actually have real AMIGA hardware of any type having to resort to emulation myself for several years now but this is what I know from following the scene. Anyone else of course is welcome to add any suggestions or knowledge from their own personal experience. 

I've always wanted an Amiga -- knowing full well that it's the true successor to the Atari VCS/8-bit family.  But I haven't gotten one for a couple of reasons.  First, they are really expensive.  2nd, I have no idea which model or additional items are needed.  It can be a little intimidating, and the potential of spending a lot and getting the wrong thing is high.
 
You guys think you might be interested in throwing together a "beginner's guide" for buying an Amiga?  What model to buy, what accessories are best, etc for someone new to the system who just wants to try some of the better games?

In the 90ies i had worked with an Amiga 2000. A 030 processor was included, also 41 MB RAM, a graphiccard, two HDS and a CDROM. And yes i had used that machine for my academic studies and it does well. With the wordworth 5 text editor it was a pleasure to write.
There are also other reasons to take the Amiga seriously.

Nice story thanks for sharing.   In my case you are preaching to the choir   I love Atari but I was a Commodore kid growing up and for me AMIGA was my platform of choice and so that is where my nostalgia and best early computing memories are. Whether playing games or dabbling in Deluxe Paint. The thing is dauber whatever system, console, platform brings you joy or nostalgia we love to hear about it. Despite the Atari name of the site we are all about retro times and experience and that means different things to different people and we are here to celebrate it all! Nobody here is going to laugh at you for being  Die Hard Amiga fan that I can promise you  In fact I had created THIS thread to kick off the Amiga section for stories just like yours! Keep it in mind if you continue to share your great Amiga stories and experiences (the thread could use the boost) 
 
http://forums.atari.io/index.php/topic/1451-amiga-memories/

Just wanted to share this story...
 
In the summer of 2012 I had gotten laid off when the company I was working for decided to shut down our office. No big loss, as I hated that job with every fiber of my being. (True story: when we got the word from headquarters that they decided they no longer wanted to make money in Chicago, first thing I did was call my wife -- she's a teacher and is off during the summer -- and say, "Honey, would you like to take a road trip?" She knew that that meant that I had lost my job and ergo we had time to take a trip. Her response: "Well, the thing is...we just got back from a road trip! Where would we go this time? We need time to plan it out!")
 
Anyhoo...I was in grad school and working on a master's in software engineering. My wife had told me that at the point I'm at in my life with all the know-how and skills I've acquired, there was no reason I should not be able to land some kind of good-paying IT job. So I basically tried like hell to get some kind of IT job, focusing mainly on development.
 
Six months into my unemployment, I get a call from a recruiter who stumbled onto my LinkedIn account. I had some pretty wacky stuff on it, saying things like, "Look, people, I've been programming freelance for ten years. TEN YEARS. Yet none of you will interview me. WTF, people?" The recruiter told me that she had a lot of clients who would love someone with that kind of style. She asked me to send her an updated résumé. So I worked on it, and just for laughs added Amiga to my technical skills. I figured worst case scenario, hiring managers would get a good laugh; best case scenario, hiring managers would take it as an indication that I have the aptitude to learn new and/or unusual skills.
 
So I send my résumé to the recruiter. She calls me back a while later and told me of a few clients she wanted to send it to, including one company that "really prefers people who are super-super-senior" (which I most definitely was NOT; I was really kind of a noob), but she said it's worth at least trying. Well...she landed me a phone interview with that company. The next day, she calls me back and says they want to see me in person.
 
Why? Because the dev manager was "intrigued" by my Amiga experience!
 
So I go to the interview and meet with the dev manager, and then he has me meet with the development team and do a whiteboarding exercise. (That is, they give me a scenario, and they want me to write some code for it on a whiteboard so they can give me some feedback.)
 
As the dev manager was escorting me out after the interview, I asked him why he was "intrigued" by my Amiga experience. He laughed and said, "Quite simply, because I'm a child of the '80s!" And he told me he had fond memories of his Amiga 500.
 
So I meet with my niece and have lunch. While we're eating, I get a call from the recruiter, who tells me the company wanted me to start the next Monday. My exact words to her were, and I quote, "Holy s**t." heh. My first dev job. And the salary quoted was more money than I'd ever seen.
 
So....yeah...this, folks, is why the Amiga is important!
 
(And people laughed at me for being a die-hard Amigan for thirteen years.)

So the other day, I was able to hold it and snap a picture with a gold Nintendo world championship cart. See it here!
So I got to thinking. If you ever came up on something like this, say, at a thrift store for cheap, would you actually keep it in your collection or sell it? 
 
to be honest I don't think I could ever keep something this valuable in my collection knowing how much money I could get for it. I feel it would be cool enough just to say I owned it at one point in time.
 
What would you guys do?

I don't trust eBay to have direct access to my bank account. At least PayPal served as a buffer between the two. There've been more than one occasion over the past two and a half decades that I've been on eBay where they've acted unfairly or attempted an unreasonable chargeback without notice. Two months after an order is delivered someone decides they don't want it and hundreds of dollars get taken out of your account. I can imagine the unexpected overdrafts some people are going to face. That's a serious problem. A lot of people turn to eBay to sell things in times of need.

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Enjoy!
 

Love classy displays like so. Recessed accent lighting always gets me.

Like how all systems are hidden (I think) except for the matching woodgrain VCS. Taste!

I haven't shared this video in a while. 
 
 

Like how all systems are hidden (I think) except for the matching woodgrain VCS. Taste!

My gramma liked it when I'd play Doom. She'd always bounce around on the end of the bed grunting as I worked through a level. That's about as close to any older relative of mine liking gaming. They just couldn't see the point or were distracted by other adult concerns.

My gramma liked it when I'd play Doom. She'd always bounce around on the end of the bed grunting as I worked through a level. That's about as close to any older relative of mine liking gaming. They just couldn't see the point or were distracted by other adult concerns.

I never liked Pac-Man in the arcades. Too difficult. But I was happy to see it come home on MAME.
Enjoyed Snack Attack and Microwave on the Apple II equally.
 

I grew up with Atari VCS, Intellivision, Colecovision, Astrocade, Odyssey2, Commodore64, Atari 400/800, Vectrex, Amiga, Ti-99/4A, CoCo, and other pre-NES stuff. I kind of skipped the NES, PS1, SMS, Genesis, NeoGeo, and SNES generation while it was happening.
Today I just have my original Apple from bitd. And all my gaming is done on a state-of-the-art PC, both vintage through emulators and a few select native modern titles.

Love classy displays like so. Recessed accent lighting always gets me.

Emulation will always be something I do. More now than ever it's become complementary to many (real hardware) Apple II activities - like preparing disk images or verifying concepts and ideas. And it keeps wear and tear off 40+ year old hardware.
For other systems and arcade cabs it's the only practical solution for experiencing them. It's the only way (4me) to bring the experience into this modern era.
So I say use it for what it's good at.
 
True enough. It's all over. And many implementations belong in the bargain barrel. Quality and hi-fidelity emulation exist like with Altirra being spot-on in color rendering colors. A huge amount of work has gone into making just right..
 
I see a time when old systems' custom chips will become impossible to find. Think the SSI-263P speech chip. Hadn't seen one for sale in over 5 years. The only way to experience it is through something like AppleWin. A niche example, sure, but stuff is heading that way eventually.
I do hold out hopes that a CPLD or FPGA version of the SSI-263P will be made someday. Like they did with PokeyOne and the CPLD in the C64.
Now I'll go watch the video!