kinkyMachine.co.uk: Tribute to an Amiga 1200

It was a cold and dark night in Swansea in 1995, when I received my new Amiga. My previous A1200, on which many essays had been written, and countless campaigns against the Kilrathi had been fought (as well as umpteen trips around the galaxy, starting from Lave), had died earlier that year. It seems that the standard power supply with the Amiga couldn't handle expansion devices and so on, and had given up the ghost after randomly turning itself off, and trashing the hard disk in the process.

So, now armed with a new A1200, supplied by Escom (then owners of the company), a dedicated monitor (no TVs any more!) and a super huge power supply, me and my Amiga set out to conquer the world (much to the chagrin of my then girlfriend Emma, who often had to lure me away... but I digress!). Many campaigns of Civilization were fought (into the early hours) and, with the aid of a CD-ROM drive (that often went wrong too) a huge new world was opened to me.

Fast-forward on a few years, and I managed to get a dirt-cheap modem from work, and finally we had made it onto the internet. They said it couldn't be done (well, those people who hadn't seen an Amiga since an A500), but there we were, surfing the web, e-mailing, on-line shopping, etc. I suppose that was about three years ago now, and unfortunatley, the world is marching on too fast for my poor old girl now. All these websites seem to want you to have Flash or JavaScript routines that work 100%, and the software just can't handle it now.

I could upgrade, I know, but I would be throwing money away on a computer that was designed nearly ten years ago, and it's not worth it. I want to be able to use chat-rooms, play games on the net and watch the latest film-trailers. Don't worry, I haven't sold my soul to the devil and his underling Bill Gates, I would never do that. I plan to get a spangly new iBook (even though it chafes to use things like Outlook Express, and Word!), and update this website to bring it into the 21st century.

Frankly, the jump will be a huge one. I've been looking at various Mac magazines and their reviews, and it's making my mind boggle. I suppose I've never really thought how big the gap between my Amiga and a modern computer is. Just look at these differences:

Feature	iBook DVD	Amiga A1200
Processor	G3 500MHz	68030 50MHz
Cache	256K	Eh?
RAM	128Mb	2Mb Chip & 8Mb Fast
Hard Disk	10 Gb	170 Mb
Optical Drive	DVD-ROM	None, can add CD-ROM
Ports	2xUSB, 1xFireWire, 1xEthernet, AV	Serial, Parallel, PCMCIA
On Screen Colours	At least 32,000 (I think)	32 (Can push it up to 128, but it won't do anything else - at 64 it falls over a lot!)

And that's just scratching the surface! Thirteen times the memory! God knows how much more hard disk space! I had palpitations when I saw that a scanner software for the Mac was looking like it was going to take 20Mb up! My brain can't handle those kind of figures!

It's going to be a hard thing to get used to a whole new operating system. I'm sure I'll say things like "Oh, I used to be able to do that on my Miggy", or "I don't like the way that works on this Mac", but after a while, I'm sure it'll be more like, "Wow, I couldn't do that on my Amiga" or, "Oh, so that's what it's supposed to look like!"

Still, that's progress for you. Amiga may bounce back with some new super operating system, like they say they're going to, but I don't think anyone's holding their breath. If and when it comes, it will have to be judged on its merits and where it is in the market place.

Farewell, my old friend. You've been a great help over the years, but I can't play with you when I'm lying in bed. ;-)