A few miscellaneous ramblings of a BMW-loving, Amiga-nostalgic, Mac-using PHP developer from Australia
Ever wanted to connect your computer to another computer over RS232 serial? You do? And you want to do it reliably, without a mess of cables – that admittedly, are not made in the same high level of quality of yesteryear? The WIFI232 from Paul Rickards might be what you need.
On this day in 1985, a computer was released at a theatre in New York City that caused ripples in the computer industry at the time. A computer that gave its user so much productivity power, so much graphics and sound capabilities, and all at the click of a mouse button. At the launch presentation, a stilted Andy Warhol, clearly out of his element, was bucket filling a screen grab of Debbie Harry on screen using DPaint, taken from a video camera pointed at the sultry singer a moment before. The computer he was using was called the Commodore Amiga.
Yep, another retro computing acquisition has landed across these pages. And of course it’s a Commodore-related one!
I recently acquired a Commodore Amiga CD32, which is the first and last bona-fide game console the company made before its demise. It’s a curious machine, a mix of old and new, and came out at a very volatile time in the home game console market. Even though it is technically considered a 5th generation console, it does have 4th-generation characteristics in its hardware and software. I haven’t had the machine for long, but I am already in love with it.
First though, a little history. Commodore in its last throes, before the XOR patent that lead to its demise, rattled its last remaining engineers in Pennsylvania to come up with a console machine. This wasn’t much of a stretch given the excellent audio and graphics capabilities of the AGA chipset, but time was running out to get the thing out the door and on sale. The fifth generation of video game consoles was a very busy time, with every man and his dog throwing his hat into the ring and bringing out a (usually) CD-based 32-bit product. Hell, even Apple released one (called the Pippin). Some companies, like the big three at the time — Sony, Nintendo and Sega — continued their success in the video console market, whereas most other companies that were venturing out into the unknown (from their prospective) were not so successful. Commodore, unfortunately, was in the latter camp. Adam Koralik’s excellent 5th generation console recap video sums up quite nicely how things were for these companies back then (strong language warning in case you are reading this at work). Also Dan Wood’s video on the CD32 is an interesting watch if you have a half hour to spare.
I guess one good thing that happened within the timeframe of the 5th generation console era was that Atari released its last ever console — hurrah! (I kid, I kid).
So it has been a little while since I have posted anything on my blog, huh? The latter half of 2014 was an absolute whirlwind with work and things didn’t really die down until mid-December. Now I am on summer vacation, which is almost over, and it’s a horribly gloomy and humid day outside. What better than to stay inside and muck about with retro hardware?
I never got into the Commodore 64 scene when I was younger, because I was fortunate enough to have access to the (clearly superior) Commodore Amiga. Having access to an Apple IIe in my early high school years did however show me the quaintness and simple joy of using 8-bit machines, and I always had a curiosity of the Commodore 64. So when a Commodore C64C appeared on my eBay saved searches with a starting bid of AUD$89, I knew I had to at least put in a bid.
EDIT: Thanks to Paul Rickards for pointing out that the images in this post were showing upside down for iOS Safari readers of my blog. I have stripped all EXIF data from my JPEGs, which has now rectified this issue.
I realised earlier in the week that I hadn’t posted any Amiga content on my blog. I am admittedly a rabid Commodore fanboy from back in the day, and the apple of my eye (no pun intended) has always been the Amiga computer.
The Amiga basically represents my childhood. My dad bought an Amiga 1000 back in 1987 and the first game that I ever played on it was Marble Madness. Amigas back then didn’t come with computer monitors, and the Commodore 1084S was still pretty expensive back in those days, so we had to make do with a borrowed monochrome Mitsubishi monitor, that was green on black.