Hey guys this is most likely the oddest post you'll have ever read, but I just need to vent to a friend, an AMIGA friend...

Growing up, there was an Amiga store that introduced me to the miggy, then i was introduced to the local users group and made immediate friends.

Through my life I owned every major type of the Amiga but a 3000 variant with my highlights being a towered A1200, followed by (I think) 8 or 9 different systems, all setup and running, culminating in one A4000T fitted with a PPC and Mediator with all the fixings.

I had Amiga friends and I had Amiga computers.  Now, I have none.

The store has been gone for years and the users group is little more then a web page and yahoo group.  I still catch word from a member here and there but I've even moved to the other side of the US so getting together is not going to happen.

As for my A4000T, I sold it two years ago to fiance my wedding...  I still think now and then if there might have been a way to do it all without selling that piece of my life.  My wife tries to understand and even let me have money when times were tight to get Amiga Forever, but it just isn't the same!

And it sounds SO STUPID but it hurts!  I still hang around the forums for no tangible reason but I can't let go!

I tried emulators, even custom made an Xbox to pay homage, but they were frustrating and not the real thing.  An Amiga to me wasn't only an easily used and understood OS like some say OSX is or a Fun to hack/mod hardware box.  IT WAS BOTH!

Frustrations upon frustrations as I see cool and new ideas made that I can't get my hands on to tinker!

GAH!

I understand you too!  It's hard to explain I use computers every day that run rings around what an Amiga could do, but I find myself flicking on the old 3000 and remembering when doing things that were magic wasn't so much like work.  I think it's a bit like when you are writing a paper, word processing has become so fancy that you have to get exactly the right font, paragraph style, every mechanical thing correct that you can't enjoy the writing anymore.

And I don't get impressed anymore, I remember the astonishment at the Amiga demos, nobody had been there before, they were pushing technology.  Now technology has become so advanced that you might be able to nudge it a little bit once in a great while, but push?  FOrget about it.

Computers today are nothing but tools.  You can't really love them.  And there's no way back.

D.i.v.o.r.c.e.

I hear ya loud and clear and yes, nothing beats the real thing! maybe one day you can find a used classic for a great price in your local paper and I strongly suggest considering treating yourself to AmigaOS4.1 and a new Sam flex as it truly is the best, most modern, Amiga experience around :-)

Where are you located? It's pretty easy to find Amiga deals.. you can get a cheapy 1200 for maybe $50 or 60 bux, unexpanded of course.. but you can build from there!

Go download icaros distro of AROS and boot that.

Growing up, there was an Amiga store that introduced me to the miggy...

The store has been gone for years...

Frustrations upon frustrations as I see cool and new ideas made that I can't get my hands on to tinker!

Here's the store now: http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/index.php?currency=USD¤cy=USD

x303

I can relate to the topic, I also had a similar thing recently with the C64, and also the Amiga , The C64 being an even tougher object to get specimens for any reliable extensive usage..  

And about current Computers - PCs - they have simply become GODLESS, SOULLESS, cant be trusted .. "Trusted Computing" - yeah right ... Did  PCs really ever have a soullike sensation ? And when did Apple lose it ?

And one thing, you pretty much knew what was going on in your Amiga or C64 at any one time, but with PCs you might have a trojan spying or you just dont know whats going on in the box , "WHY IS that drivelight flickering ALL the time ?! Im not really DOING anything .. " Paranoia , sure .. But it adds up to a feeling that , that computer isnt really your friend... Worse now with Win 7 ..

To get on topic. I did however starting in this May of 09 get a few machines used in ok condition, one in seemingly excellent condition (a C64G) and a couple of 1581 disk drives !!! I laid down quite some cash on them (I live in Norway). Could not believe my luck to get the 1581s, 3-4 times the storage of a 1541 floppy. And Ive even since then been able to find two routes to get software from the net over to the C64s .. !

I also have gotten more into my 4 Amigas, getting the old A500 i got in 1988 , my prescious I had back then, set up on a 20 inch TV with RGB to scart cable. My CDTV, A1200 and CD32 is also set up .. I have yet to find the time to play extensively with them though..

IF ONLY .. IF ONLY .. Commodore had, had proper management, there would not have been so many nostalgic Amigans ... Then we would have had Amigas still,, Maybe there would have been a triopoly instead of the Windows, MacOS duopoly, yeah I forgot Linux .. But thats a PC too .. :-) If slightly better ..

And what about the conspiracy theory Ive come to have, that Amiga DID NOT DIE, IT WAS KILLED !! Secret agreement between the powers that be, that there was no room for "Amiga" in the IT landscape ... ? Only Microsoft and Apple .. Ok Ok this is way offtopic :-)

Anyway, my solution to my nostalgia problem was to keep tinkering in the remainder of the Amiverse... The classics being my passion. With in my case also a big if not biggest portion in the C64 world .. !

But the hope is that the Natami happens before the flu kills us all, and that mayyybe Jens Schoenfeld has a a few Cloned A's up his sleeve .. ! And that Minimig gets a properly put together featureset, 030 CPU, enough ram, preassembled ARM expansion etc. In a nice case to buy. ReadyMade(tm). And for me that I can sustain my Amiga and C64 passion on used hardware and NewOld stock till then ... Old hardware cant last forever, and my repair skills are pretty bad..

What can I suggest ? Hang on to Amiga, if you want to, if only by a thread. Things will not be the same, but they never are ..

Remember fondly the good past while looking forward to the future. Maybe something will come along. While you tend to the daily business of Life After the heyday of the first Amiga age. And to be honest , I KNOW emulators arent the same, but WinUAE / Amigaforever is getting good - atleast for games, and particularily on a CRT. And a biggish update is on the way I read on winuae.net.