MyStory JohnS: My Amiga - a little bit of history

I don't really remember that exactly, but it was the end of the 80's, when my old man bought an Amiga (to be exact: it was an Amiga2000). First and foremost - at least this was the official reason - to work with it. In practical terms, the younger generation in particular took a close look at the new piece of hardware and misused it to “daddle”. This went very well with the wickedly expensive computer, which came along with a sensational 7 MHz and 1 MB of RAM.

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Over the years - we are now in the mid-1990s - not only did they grow older, but the demands on hardware also increased. In addition to the obligatory games, the Amiga has also been used for serious applications in word processing, spreadsheet and music. At some point, however, the computing power wasn't quite enough anymore and while friends and acquaintances changed direction towards Windows, I stayed with the Amiga. He continued to perform his services reliably and my question, which I always asked myself at that time, was simply the simple question of why one should repair something that is not broken?

For example, further years went by and the formerly so successful brand Amiga disappeared further and further into the country. Even though I meanwhile owned several other Amiga models - new hardware with the iconic logo should not be released anymore until today and so it is actually astonishing that there is still a lively scene around the formerly innovative computer system in 2006. The last, really new hardware finally dates back to the mid-1990s.

Of course, you can hardly get around a PC with Windows or an equivalent from Apple, but my Amiga 4000 (year of manufacture: 1992) is still doing its job on my desk. Internet excursions have become less frequent due to the lack of further developments in the browser area with the Amiga, but as soon as a compact and fast office system with word processing and spreadsheet has to be created, the Amiga is booted in seconds. Until my Windows PC has started up and all applications are running, I am done with my work on the Amiga long ago. In addition, there is an operating system that I consider to be still unbeatable, which is not only characterized by efficiency and compactness, but also does not cause any problems as big as Windows. With the AmigaOS (so the name of the operating system) you can experiment to your heart's content, without having to deal with numerous problems and whoever has ever experienced multitasking of the Amiga, doesn't even have to smile at Windows. Certainly, you can't get into some areas with the Amiga and one or other exotic software solution may seem adventurous. The fact is, however, that the Amiga itself is still useful today and doesn't have to shy away from comparison in certain areas.

Every time you turn it on, you can dive into a world in which the word computer was something special, almost adventurous, where a myth surrounded the computer worker and it was simply not the order of the day to turn on the computer. Today, it is something that the younger generation takes for granted, even though it is very unfortunate that they often do not know where their roots lie. It's cooler to “hack around in Windows”,“suck MP3s” and “start an ego-shooter”. As soon as you can do that, you think you're a supposedly computer genius - with the glassy eyes you got when you wrote your first successful basic programs, it's not comparable. But it doesn't have to be, because the knowledge about the predecessors of today's PC generation is now limited to the no less legendary C64, and other systems - the Atari, for example - are now almost exclusively associated with myths within the younger generation. The knowledge fades more and more…. and soon it will be completely lost. This is regrettable from the point of view that healthy competition and solutions that go a different way may return the mythical attraction that it once had to the world of computers …

John Smith (05.08.2009)
http://recording.de/Magazin/News/Vertrieb_und_Personal/14/Schiller.html#article

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