Why the Amiga?

[mjnurney]

Why did you buy your first Amiga??

For me as a games player , especially strategy games it was Defender of the crown by Cinemaware in 85 or 86?

I had a C64 at the time and the guy I bought It off was buying a new Amiga -I guess an A1000 and after this guy raved about it I looked through my C64 magazines and looked up all the info on the new amiga...

When Defender arrived, it was everywhere in the magazines. I still remember a full review or preview in a magazine and saying to a relative - wow it's just like a photo!

But it was 89 or 1990 before I could afford one and that wad a 1.2 512k a500 with a red power light

funny but I can remember the day my A500 was delivered, even the day I had the chat with the guy who sold me his c64..

But I don't recall the day I got my first pc or various windoze versions thru the years.

Amiga - mythical? Like the first girlfriend, first car , first erm what ever :shhh:...:shhh:

 

[fitzsteve]

Well I didn't have an Amiga when they were big back in the day we could afford one and I had to make do with my Spectrum until games consoles like the Master System came out which were more affordable.

Of course they were not a computer which was shame and by the time I had the money for one the PC was at the Pentium stage and I went that route

Anyway! My first Amiga came in about 2002? It was an A1200 from a Car Boot sale and the reason I bought it was becuase I always wanted one! My mates had A500's and A1200's back in the day and their games were always better then what I had on my speccy

I remember looking at the screenshots on the back of boxes and a big sigh when I saw Atari ST and Amiga versions compared to Speccy...

First games I saw on my friends A500 were Silkworm and Test Drive and they were amazing, so I knew one day I'd have to own one!

Steve.

 

[netagra]

Amiga = Dreaming

 

[Justin]

i had a c64, my m8 had an A500, he came round one night and loaded up Flood faster than i could type "run", so the next day i went out and bought a 500

 

[salaxi54]

It was summer of 86 when i was transferred to Lackland AFB, TX. Up until then, i had a ZX 48k Spectrum. Not much, but still love the little fella.
Anyway, ads of the super-wow A1000 were on the pages of various magazines, even computer-irrelevant ones.
I actually had one of those ads folded in my pocket, the one with king Tut, and kept unfolding it all the time while on the plane to Texas. Kept looking at it, and would say the time is near!
Luckilly, the base exchange had a computer shop, and on my first visit there, i saw her. Sexy as hell! Didn't take me more tan a few seconds to empty that wallet. A month's sallary, $1300 for the base unit with 512k and a 1080 monitor. Happiest man on earth. Star date, Saturday, August 23 1986.
They did have some Macs and pcs and various other machines there, but none looked good or had anything special to show on screen.
It was Amigas ever since, and am glad it went that way

 

[AndyLandy]

Anyway! My first Amiga came in about 2002? It was an A1200 from a Car Boot sale and the reason I bought it was becuase I always wanted one! My mates had A500's and A1200's back in the day and their games were always better then what I had on my speccy

I bought 3D Construction Kit for my Speccy. It had a tutorial video that showed the Amiga version. That was it, I wanted an Amiga. The graphics were like nothing I'd ever seen before!

 

[Templar]

I just saw New Zealand Story in an Amiga 500 back then; it was exactly like the arcades. The rest is history.

 

[mjnurney]

I guess the thing is that back then , most of us came from c64, speccy, BBC , apple 2 , msx or whatever 8 bit to the powerful amiga - it was a big jump in power. Like b/w tv to colour..

But..

Where does that leave kids of today? Xbox to xbox 360 or ps2 to ps3 not much difference really.

I think we had the golden years.

 

[Shoonay]

Why? Because it rulez.

 

[smilertoo]

Because it was the best thing available.

 

[morcar]

My best friend in school had one we was like 13 back then and i had a megadrive. I loved the computer but didnt have one until my cousin sold him and i must have been around 15 maybe older. By then i also had an Atari STE 520 that i loved to death as well.

 

[protek]

I totally skipped the Amiga back in the day. A couple of my friends has STs while I had a C64. I was going to upgrad to ST too but my dad convinced me to get a PeeCee and so bought an Amstrad PC1512 with a CGA display. That was of course inferior to Amiga and even ST and I was pretty envious of my buddies. A year later, I upgraded to a 286 with a VGA display, HD and later on a Sound Blaster and I stopped being envious.

My first Amiga I got as late as 2005. I was reading some old computer magazines and found the Amiga related articles quite interesting. I decided I want one and got an A500. The rest is history.

 

[cosmicfrog]

Back when there were 8 or 9 of us who used to meat once a week and we called our selfs the 1541 club, after a few years one of them got an A1000, I remeb even back then the disk copyers where much more colourful than we had seen on the c64.

But alass being from the bottem end of the social chain I had to wait 3 years and do a lot of work to afford my first A500. Even then it wast mine as I went Halfs with a very good friend, who I still see even if he has left the scene, It worked out quite well as we went to one of the biggest computer/trading party's in north staffs so he would have it one week and then I would have it the next.

Happy dazys

 

[Templar]

Well, the best question would be: Why still an Amiga those days?

 

[Justin]

or "why not an Amiga?"

 

[mjnurney]

or "why not an Amiga?"

No , I mean originally ... What drew people to the Amiga?

I suppose if you've only recently got an amiga the other questions are valid but back in the 80's only Atari had a similar machine. The pc was years behind as was apple.

 

[desiv]

I was in college (using an SX64 at the time ), and needed to upgrade...
I needed either a PC or a Mac for class work...
I had seen and wanted the Amiga, but I needed one of the others...
I was looking at a great deal on a new NEC laptop I think, under $1000.
I couldn't afford even the low end Mac at the time..
Stopped by the bookstore and was looking around and of course stopped by the Amiga they had setup..
Some guy was using A-Max on it, so it was running Mac stuff, which I had heard about.
We talked a bit and I told him how great that would be, but a Amiga with monitor was $800. Add in A-Max, a Mac Floppy, A Mac ROM and a copy of the Mac OS and I was well over my limit...
Then he showed me the back of the Amiga..
No A-Max.. Hmmm..
There was a copy he could give me that had everything I needed, and with a modem, I didn't need the Mac floppy really either..

Now, I don't condone piracy in any way, and I'm not saying any of that justifies anything..

but.. suffice to say, I walked out of the store with an Amiga...

desiv

 

[jope]

Coming from a C-64 it was the logical upgrade, both having been made by Commodore. :-D

But yeah, it was the best you could buy, everyone had one, loads of cracked games circulated in the school playground, why wouldn't you get one.

 

[mjnurney]

@desiv

excellent what year was that? and did the Amiga do everything you needed at the time?

@jope

i had left school and just started working , with my first months wage i went in to a computer shop and bought the 'last' a500 they had - it was on display
£399.99

 

[moijk]

Why did you buy your first Amiga??
Amiga - mythical? Like the first girlfriend, first car , first erm what ever :shhh:...

The magazines started to list more and more about the Amiga and less and less about the c64. I got permission from my parents to take a chunk off my bank account to buy it. I expected it to be great, but the operating system, load speed, sound and graphics blew me away.

Call it first love. Because I simply adored the system.