Rapid_Gav
New member
Hello from Scotland.
At the age of 11 I got to play Stuntcar Racer on my friends step dads A500. It blew my mind.
My own Amiga story started on Christmas day 1992 which ended my 7 year love affair with Sinclair having had a ZX Spectrum followed by a +2A (James Bond pack), when I was lucky enough to get an A500+Cartoon Classics pack - which to my huge disappointment failed to work properly (I am sure it may have been an ex demo from Dixons which had been sold off cheap). I had to wait what seemed like an age till the shops reopened and my folks drove me to town to get it fixed - only to be told that they were discontinued and all they could offer was our money back
My upset was real - all toys were well and truly out of the pram!
The salesman tried his best to offer the 'new' A600 The Wild The Weird and the Wicked pack which was substantially more, I said yes please and pleaded with my dad, who said that would involve spending all my savings to make up the short fall and we would need to go home and have a serious think. There was no need for any further thinking from me, continually nagging and agreeing to the splurge of all my saved pocked money (a shrewd investment I hope you agree) some days later I had my A600. That was the start of my love for Amiga and it lead to many friendships and gaming experiences that have stayed with me to this day.
Fast forward a good many years and I had moved onto 486 PC's and flogged my trusty A600 to my cousin, who stayed at the other side of the country, with the many disk boxes filled of games and software as I am sure you can all image was par for the course at that time.
Many years later, at least ten, I was a console gamer and ended up catching up with my cousin at a family gathering. I asked if he still had the A600 and he said he was sure he did, buried in the bottom of a wardrobe - a deal was done then and there and arrangements made to drive through some time later and collect. It ended up being about a month, and it was dark and wintry night I finally pulled up outside a huge tenement in the middle of a city I was not familiar with. Suffice to say I had gotten lost many times that night. A quick catch up chat over a cuppa was had reminiscing about the '80s was had, then cash changed hands and he lead me through to collect my prize.
There it was on a bed, a very batter and bruised WW&W box, opened up with just the power cord, mouse and RF lead, and a couple of disks... a couple of disks
icard I asked what happened to all the disk boxes and he said he couldn't remember. That was a bit of a blow but still I was great-full and packed up the box and said my good byes.
I happened to be staying over at the girlfriends (of that time) parents house that night and I was meeting them all there. I burst in so excited to show off my original A600 that they gave me center stage in the living room to plug it into the tele and amaze them with the awesome retrotasticness, only to find out that there was no way I could get a video signal out of the board, it booted up, the drive clunked and there was even sound but not image. Suffice to say I was a little bit deflated and the A600 returned home with me and was stuffed up into the attic for the next so many years.
I did eventually buy a replacement mother board for the A600, and tested it worked, and was by this time a bit of a collector of retro computers and consoles, which started off as a means to fulfill that nostalgia kick but lead to many play expo visits and ebay scouring sessions acquiring machines which i had only read about in the magazines back in the day. During this time i lived in a small flat so most of my collection lived boxed up in the loft never seeing the light of day. It was only 5 years ago when I got married and finally bought a house I was lucky enough to have my own games room!
Suffice to to say the A600 lives on permanent display, with its own 1084s monitor and a much healthier collection of software. I also have a C64, A1200 and CD32 among many others. I am loving all the podcasts that are about these days, and it was Ravi's mention of a seller on this site offering Terrible Fire card for the CD32 on the Retro Hour podcast that brought me here.
Sorry for all the waffling, and thank you for having me.
Gavin
At the age of 11 I got to play Stuntcar Racer on my friends step dads A500. It blew my mind.
My own Amiga story started on Christmas day 1992 which ended my 7 year love affair with Sinclair having had a ZX Spectrum followed by a +2A (James Bond pack), when I was lucky enough to get an A500+Cartoon Classics pack - which to my huge disappointment failed to work properly (I am sure it may have been an ex demo from Dixons which had been sold off cheap). I had to wait what seemed like an age till the shops reopened and my folks drove me to town to get it fixed - only to be told that they were discontinued and all they could offer was our money back
My upset was real - all toys were well and truly out of the pram!The salesman tried his best to offer the 'new' A600 The Wild The Weird and the Wicked pack which was substantially more, I said yes please and pleaded with my dad, who said that would involve spending all my savings to make up the short fall and we would need to go home and have a serious think. There was no need for any further thinking from me, continually nagging and agreeing to the splurge of all my saved pocked money (a shrewd investment I hope you agree) some days later I had my A600. That was the start of my love for Amiga and it lead to many friendships and gaming experiences that have stayed with me to this day.
Fast forward a good many years and I had moved onto 486 PC's and flogged my trusty A600 to my cousin, who stayed at the other side of the country, with the many disk boxes filled of games and software as I am sure you can all image was par for the course at that time.
Many years later, at least ten, I was a console gamer and ended up catching up with my cousin at a family gathering. I asked if he still had the A600 and he said he was sure he did, buried in the bottom of a wardrobe - a deal was done then and there and arrangements made to drive through some time later and collect. It ended up being about a month, and it was dark and wintry night I finally pulled up outside a huge tenement in the middle of a city I was not familiar with. Suffice to say I had gotten lost many times that night. A quick catch up chat over a cuppa was had reminiscing about the '80s was had, then cash changed hands and he lead me through to collect my prize.
There it was on a bed, a very batter and bruised WW&W box, opened up with just the power cord, mouse and RF lead, and a couple of disks... a couple of disks
icard I asked what happened to all the disk boxes and he said he couldn't remember. That was a bit of a blow but still I was great-full and packed up the box and said my good byes.I happened to be staying over at the girlfriends (of that time) parents house that night and I was meeting them all there. I burst in so excited to show off my original A600 that they gave me center stage in the living room to plug it into the tele and amaze them with the awesome retrotasticness, only to find out that there was no way I could get a video signal out of the board, it booted up, the drive clunked and there was even sound but not image. Suffice to say I was a little bit deflated and the A600 returned home with me and was stuffed up into the attic for the next so many years.
I did eventually buy a replacement mother board for the A600, and tested it worked, and was by this time a bit of a collector of retro computers and consoles, which started off as a means to fulfill that nostalgia kick but lead to many play expo visits and ebay scouring sessions acquiring machines which i had only read about in the magazines back in the day. During this time i lived in a small flat so most of my collection lived boxed up in the loft never seeing the light of day. It was only 5 years ago when I got married and finally bought a house I was lucky enough to have my own games room!
Suffice to to say the A600 lives on permanent display, with its own 1084s monitor and a much healthier collection of software. I also have a C64, A1200 and CD32 among many others. I am loving all the podcasts that are about these days, and it was Ravi's mention of a seller on this site offering Terrible Fire card for the CD32 on the Retro Hour podcast that brought me here.
Sorry for all the waffling, and thank you for having me.
Gavin
Last edited:
