My sons first computer... the Amiga 600

Phipscube

WipEout Fanboi
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Apr 11, 2010
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Denmark
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Ringsted
Ever since I pulled my A1200 out of retirement, my 5 year old son (Ziggy) has expressed a keen interest in my hacking adventures and often sits and watches me. He decided that he wanted an Amiga too (that magical age where anything Daddy does is cool).

I thought maybe an A600 would be good for him so I showed him some pictures online of it and asked if he liked the look of it... he said "yeah daddy! its the little boy Amiga!". Ever since then i've been trying to find one in good condition locally (with Danish keys so he can type in Danish too being bilingual).

The other day I found one on QXL.dk which just happened to come with a C64 too, something else I wanted ;) So I got them and thought i'd share some pictures of Ziggy when he got it as he is super happy :) He has been wanting to try painting on the Amiga so luckily it came with Deluxe Paint IV... you can see in the photos that he gets straight onto making a masterpiece :)

There is also a photo of the internals, Ziggy wanted to see inside.. good kid! :)
 

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My Kids

My Kids

Yeah my kids were using C64's,Apple ]['s Amiga's a old XT i had youngest son could get around MS Dos then also got a old mac performa 475 teachers were
amazed how they could jump from PC and mac's..
Now they only use PC's 1 is 28 the other 18 now..

Chris
 
I'm amazed at how quickly he picked up using it. He loves drawing so he has alot of interest. He also likes typing... but doesn't want to play any games! :D It came with a box full of disks, i've been playing some and he just wants to watch. :)
 
Hi Phipscube - that's awesome and thanks for sharing. My daughter (9 now) loves my retro fascination and loves the fact that I used to be into these old computers an could use them for more than games.

My daughter - like your son is into drawing and making the computer do stuff rather than just play games (although she is a gamer too) and she knows that I did some game graphics when I was younger and thinks that was cool! LOL

They'll grow out of it (or be shamed into growing out of it by their peers) so take good advantage of it now :)

Other folks on here have wee stories of sharing their "hobby" with their kids and it really is heartening that the kids want to get involved. My daughter was fascinated by the TV series on BBC earlier this year (or late last year) that showed a family having to live with technology from different years. If you can get a hold of it - I'm sure your son will love it!

Cheers

John
 
Kewl, Great and many happy ribbits (y):ninja::)

Thanks for the happy ribbits cosmicfrog, Ziggy thinks your funny and wonders if you are a real frog? ;)

Hi Phipscube - that's awesome and thanks for sharing. My daughter (9 now) loves my retro fascination and loves the fact that I used to be into these old computers an could use them for more than games.

My daughter - like your son is into drawing and making the computer do stuff rather than just play games (although she is a gamer too) and she knows that I did some game graphics when I was younger and thinks that was cool! LOL

They'll grow out of it (or be shamed into growing out of it by their peers) so take good advantage of it now :)

Other folks on here have wee stories of sharing their "hobby" with their kids and it really is heartening that the kids want to get involved. My daughter was fascinated by the TV series on BBC earlier this year (or late last year) that showed a family having to live with technology from different years. If you can get a hold of it - I'm sure your son will love it!

Cheers

John

Hi skilgannon (John), yeah I will take your advice :) I will be quite sad the day he thinks i'm not so cool anymore, its such a nice feeling having the little man look up to me in everything I do.

I didn't really think he would be that bothered about the old Amiga, I have a PS3 that I play alot too and he hasn't been so bothered about that, he does enjoy watching me play sometimes though. I bought Lego Starwars and Eyepet which he will play with me for 5 or 10 minutes, but then thats it.

With the Amiga though, he has great interest in what i'm doing. Maybe its all my fond stories of days gone by with my old Miggy :) Well, I do hope this little old A600 starts him on a path that will lead to something more for him in the future.

I saw a few episodes of that TV series, I'd like to find them online somewhere as I agree, I think he would enjoy it.

Thanks for your nice words John :)

Cheers!

Les
 
I didn't really think he would be that bothered about the old Amiga, I have a PS3 that I play alot too and he hasn't been so bothered about that, he does enjoy watching me play sometimes though. I bought Lego Starwars and Eyepet which he will play with me for 5 or 10 minutes, but then thats it.

With the Amiga though, he has great interest in what i'm doing. Maybe its all my fond stories of days gone by with my old Miggy :) Well, I do hope this little old A600 starts him on a path that will lead to something more for him in the future.
I'm sure your reminisces have something to do with it, but if your boy is anything like I was at that age, the lure of the computer probably has a lot to do with the fact that he can make it do something. A video game you can play through, but a paint program or a BASIC interpreter can make the computer a canvas to do whatever you want on.
 
I didn't really think he would be that bothered about the old Amiga, I have a PS3 that I play alot too and he hasn't been so bothered about that, he does enjoy watching me play sometimes though. I bought Lego Starwars and Eyepet which he will play with me for 5 or 10 minutes, but then thats it.

With the Amiga though, he has great interest in what i'm doing. Maybe its all my fond stories of days gone by with my old Miggy :) Well, I do hope this little old A600 starts him on a path that will lead to something more for him in the future.
I'm sure your reminisces have something to do with it, but if your boy is anything like I was at that age, the lure of the computer probably has a lot to do with the fact that he can make it do something. A video game you can play through, but a paint program or a BASIC interpreter can make the computer a canvas to do whatever you want on.



Yes, I was exactly the same at his age although I loved the games too, I enjoyed loading them up as much as playing them lol.
I had a ZX Speccy and a C64 when I was 4 and 5 respectively.

When I was about 9 I started pulling things apart and inspecting their innards then attempting to put them back together.

Aged 10 I had a friend who had a Miggy 600 and I loved it. So I begged and got one for xmas that year :LOL:

I am now a CompTIA and M$ certified IT tech at age 25, have sucessfully completed CISCOs CCNA networking course and I'm still fondly learning. :coffee:
My fondness for all things computer has grown with me. Although nothing today quite feels like it used to... Your son has great taste :LOL:
 
Great pictures! Really cool amiga boy:)
 
I didn't really think he would be that bothered about the old Amiga, I have a PS3 that I play alot too and he hasn't been so bothered about that, he does enjoy watching me play sometimes though. I bought Lego Starwars and Eyepet which he will play with me for 5 or 10 minutes, but then thats it.

With the Amiga though, he has great interest in what i'm doing. Maybe its all my fond stories of days gone by with my old Miggy :) Well, I do hope this little old A600 starts him on a path that will lead to something more for him in the future.
I'm sure your reminisces have something to do with it, but if your boy is anything like I was at that age, the lure of the computer probably has a lot to do with the fact that he can make it do something. A video game you can play through, but a paint program or a BASIC interpreter can make the computer a canvas to do whatever you want on.

I think what you said hit the nail on the head. With games he gets a bit annoyed when it doesn't do what HE wants it to do. When I watch him painting in real life and now on the Amiga I see how he has control, he's proud and shows me all his work, he has talent and keen interest.

He took to the mouse straight away and was clicking on the icons to see what cool patterns he could make. The thing that he loved was that instead of just drawing a line, he could quickly make imagery with shapes and colours with the Amiga, that drew him in. Now I need to find a permanent place to put the A600 as he is craning his poor neck to use it on our wall mounted TV. The dilemma is my wife doesn't think he is old enough to have a "TV" in his bedroom.

Yes, I was exactly the same at his age although I loved the games too, I enjoyed loading them up as much as playing them lol.
I had a ZX Speccy and a C64 when I was 4 and 5 respectively.

When I was about 9 I started pulling things apart and inspecting their innards then attempting to put them back together.

Aged 10 I had a friend who had a Miggy 600 and I loved it. So I begged and got one for xmas that year :LOL:

I am now a CompTIA and M$ certified IT tech at age 25, have sucessfully completed CISCOs CCNA networking course and I'm still fondly learning. :coffee:
My fondness for all things computer has grown with me. Although nothing today quite feels like it used to... Your son has great taste :LOL:

I was always a gamer, I tried to program in Blitz Basic but just couldn't grasp it. I loved my Miggy because it had awesome games so when I see Zig doing creative things straight away I do wonder if he will be able to do what I couldn't. I'm a hardware guy myself. Give me a circuit board and i'm happy :D but software is where its at nowadays so I dunno, maybe my little man will end up being a crazy good graphic designer!

Great pictures! Really cool amiga boy:)

Cheers Xanxi, he looks very happy doesn't he :)
 
Thanks for sharing, your Son looks very happy with his little A600 reminds me of myself when I got my Spectrum 48k :)

Steve.
 
You know the saying....

"Like Father, like Son".

Awesome stuff. (y)

Kin
 
Hi Folks! Well Ziggy got something the other day to put in his A600: -

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An ACA630/25 :D !!!!

I had also ordered a few other things for him: -

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A CF Adapter and 3.1 Rom :)

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He wanted to upgrade it himself! (I loosened the screws for him)

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I did the IDE cable, he pushed in the 3.1 ROM (well so far, I gave it a last click)

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In goes the ACA! He liked the shape of it "Looks cool" he said :)

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Sticking the CF adapter down with some double sided sticky pads

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So there we are! :)

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I wanted to load up the HDD, he didn't... just wanted to try DPaint to see how much more frames of animation he could get. Lets just say its more than the 10 he could do with 1 Meg :) He was also impressed at the speed of the pen and filling etc. (Later on when he was asleep I put a vanilla 3.1 install on his HDD for now) :)

31012011901.JPG


He is pretty verse with the various tools now, here he is zoomed in making patterns :)

I plan to get him an A603 soon too, just to give him that extra bit of Chip Mem.

Thanks for looking (y)
 
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Fantastic :D

He looks like his dreams have come true in the first picture, which is smashing ;)
 
Fantastic :D

He looks like his dreams have come true in the first picture, which is smashing ;)

Hehe! Yeah, he was asking me every day "has it come yet?" all last week when I told him i'd ordered it. He was well chuffed when it finally arrived. I just need to convince him that using a HDD is cool... he loves the Floppy disks! Luckily D Paint loads ok, but he also likes Zool and Lemmings games but both of them kinda make the drive go GNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN and not load with the ACA on. I need to install a switch I think for when he decides to load games off floppy. I'll get WHDLoad running on his CF HD and show him how cool it can be :)
 
Les my friend, Ziggy is da man for this Miggy :)
Awesome photos and really nice way to treat your son \o/
Thanks for sharing this!!!

/proud
 
Awesome stuff, Ziggy looks well pleased (y)

Once you get Maprom and ACATune going things will really speed up :cool:
 
Floppies are understandable, and tactile... They're physical media in the generation of downloads, so it's fantastic that he wants to use 'em.

I dug my old record player out last week and showed the kids: they were slightly aghast that music could be listened to like that, and that if they jumped the record would skip :) . Still, the ghostbusters picturedisc was a firm favourite, and was recorded onto my macbook, edited to remove the crackles and saved as an MP3 for their ipods...

I might have to let them loose on the 500 and 600... Just to see their mother's face ;)

Just noticed the furniture: kids the world over all have that stuff from Ikea - it's brilliant :D
 
Les my friend, Ziggy is da man for this Miggy :)
Awesome photos and really nice way to treat your son \o/
Thanks for sharing this!!!

/proud

Cheers Marios mate! :D He is super happy :) I told him way back at the beginning of December that I was going to get and accelerator for him (he'd actually asked why I have one in my 1200 and not him.. Now i'm just waiting for him to notice the other extra bits and start asking for them too! ..hahaha!).

Awesome stuff, Ziggy looks well pleased (y)

Once you get Maprom and ACATune going things will really speed up :cool:

I'm going to get a really cool HD setup going for the little man, I wasn't gonna bother with ACATune though, I heared rumblings that its not too good with WHDLoad??

Floppies are understandable, and tactile... They're physical media in the generation of downloads, so it's fantastic that he wants to use 'em.

I dug my old record player out last week and showed the kids: they were slightly aghast that music could be listened to like that, and that if they jumped the record would skip :) . Still, the ghostbusters picturedisc was a firm favourite, and was recorded onto my macbook, edited to remove the crackles and saved as an MP3 for their ipods...

I might have to let them loose on the 500 and 600... Just to see their mother's face ;)

Just noticed the furniture: kids the world over all have that stuff from Ikea - it's brilliant :D

Yeah its great that he likes the disks, when I showed him the CF HDD he was quite silent and unimpressed, even when I told him it was the same as having thousands of Floppies in one. I think with kids his age something physical and BIG is more impressive :) And he loves the drive sounds, he feels like its doing something, even though he is sat waiting. he also knows exactly what to press as it loads now too.

Cripes yeah! Good old Vynyl :D Its quite scary to think CD's are going that way too. I've got my lad using CD's and even tapes. I've got some old Transformers cassette story tapes and books from when I was a kid, he loves sitting in his room busy playing and listening to them things :) Oh, and he likes Michael Jackson to the point where we got him a capone hat (My wife found her old "Bad" tape last summer in our storeage room clearout).... if you catch him sneakily, he does little dances infront of the mirror, we've sent him off to dance school actually, seems like he's got his dads talent there too, only better! :D

Do it mate! The kids will have a laugh!

And yeah IKEA is ace! each box has a "theme" in it, so it was supposed to promote easy tidying, but he still pulls them all out in one go, and the wife still crams them full of random toys and gets him really annoyed. I think she does it on purpose so I have to tidy up "properly" :D
 
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