A couple of years ago I've published an advert on Gumtree, saying that I was looking for old computers. One of the replies I got was from a guy who said that he has a boxed Commodore 64 and Amiga 600 for sale. When I asked for the price, he said 120 PLN, which is around 30 euro, so without any hesitation I said Yes :) The guy even brought the hardware by train to the station near my home. So for a insanely low price I got myself two new computers, some disks, joysticks and C64 stuff like datasette, cartridges and tapes.
The Amiga looked very nice, with only slight yellowing. It is an A600HD model, which had an original 30 MB 2,5" with workbench installed. It worked fine, so I started looking for some upgrades, to make it more useable. First thing I changed, was replacing the old HDD with a 4GB CF Card, and getting a 1 MB Chip Ram Expansion from Individual Computers. Later I ordered a 4 MB Fast Ram expansion from Kipper2k, only to replace it a year later with a Ninetails 020/28 accelerator.
Ninetails itself is worth a mention. It's a 020/28 turbo card with 11 MB of Fast Ram, designed and built by polish Amiga user Rafal Chyła a.k.a. "sanjyuubi", who produced a small batch of those cards a couple of years ago. From what I know there were only around 20 built, so I'm lucky to have one !
So just to sum up my config:
Amiga 600HD
2 MB Chip, 11 MB Fast RAM
4GB CF card as HDD, 64Mb CF on PCMCIA for data transfer
4xKickstart switch
Amiga OS 3.1 with Classic WB package
I use the A600HD mostly for watching ECS demos and playing Gunship 2000.
Kebab was a polish Commodore64 & Amiga magazine, originating from an Amiga diskmag (also named Kebab), issued by the first ever polish scene group - Quartet. Creators of the magazine aimed at promoting "serious" use of C= computers, so the magazine consisted mainly of programming courses, and hardware modifications rather than game reviews. It also had a lot of demoscene reports.
Recently I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to buy most of Kebab's issues in mint condition, from the old, leftover stock. Below you'll find scans of the magazine's covers, which in my opinion are quite spectacular.
Since my initial post about a new turbo card for Amiga 500 - Wicher by Spidi, a lot has changed. The card is now an internal device, and is called Wicher 500i. Since it is mounted onto the CPU socket it should also be compatible with other Amigas with similar CPU sockets (A1000, A2000, maybe CDTV). The design is ready, and Spidi already has more than 50 people declaring interest on polish amiga forum on ppa.pl .
Staying on topic of the recent Datastorm party I want to share my opinions about the Amiga releases presented in Gothenburg. First of all there was plenty of them with most being high quality demos, and almost no compo-fillers. Only one thing that I didn’t like was AGA compo with only one release. Come on guys, wouldn’t it be better to throw this single AGA demo into the Wild compo ?
Alright, enough braggin’, let’s get into AAAMIIIIGAAAAAHHH demos !
Amiga 40k Intro Compo:
1 - Copperstorm/Insane - 40k intro made entirely of horizontal copperbars and one logo, with very good music and synchro. Nice little enjoyable prod.
2 – Valejjo Amplifier / The Electronic Knights & Rabenauge - A three picture intro with one effect, and a decent chiptune. As the title clearly states the pixels are based on Boris Valejjo’s graphics.
AGA Demo Compo: Storm Rider/Focus Design - Good AGA demo, with great streaming soundtrack involving rapped vocals with lyrics about demo creators H0ffman, Booster and Malmix. GFX effects are maybe nothing groundbreaking on the AGA scene, but are very well executed. Demo could be a bit longer though, and would benefit from some more pixelled graphics. A thumb up, but too bad there wasn’t any competition.
Bootblock intro:
1-Fluid Fire/Loonies and Unstable Label - An Impressive 1kb AGA bootblock intro based on a caleidoscope effect coded by Blueberry, and a pleasant chiptune by H0ffman. How did they manage to squeeze all that in 1 kb ?
2-It's a sin/Planet Jazz - Another bootblock intro, with one boring effect, and a really annoying repetitive sound. Not much to see or hear here :)
Amiga 500 Demo Compo:
1-Makt/Spaceballs – Yet another demo by one of the greatest Amiga legends, kept alive by Slummy and Lug00ber, who deliver top quality stuff every time they get to code and compose. Makt is something I would call a next part of their previous prods like Straff, Emperor of The North Pole, and Vold, but this time involving forms created from dots, rather than for example shaded polygons. Of course the everpresent dynamic soundtrack is there, perfectly synchronised with the glitchy, dark visuals. Over a past couple of years the duo behind this demo has developed a distinctive, recognizable style of their own, which suits me very much. But hey – they are Spaceballs, you are not :) Great demo!
2-Monomateria/Pacific – A well deserved second place, a very polished oldschool style prod, in the mood of the early nineties demos. What really stands out are high quality pixeled graphics by Malmix from Nature , which really made this release a serious demo. Music by Wasp is equally cool, with a surprise guitar riff from Lenny Kravitz. Synchro and effect are also strong, with yellow glitching and exploding vector cube being my highlight. I think that Monomateria might be the most mature production by the guys from Pacific, who released their first prod only in 2013 and are getting better with each demo and intro.
3-Dandelion/The Electronic Knights – A four minute nuschool trip into effects usually seen only in AGA productions. A surprisingly well paced and polished production by a group coming back to Amiga after an 18 year long break. The effects are nothing new on the Amiga scene, but they are very well executed, things like plasmas and blue tunnel with purple “neons” are a joy to watch. On the other hand the effect with vector power lines against a copper sky should be done with a better framerate. Dandelion also features some nice pixeled graphics, especially the picture near the end. Unfortunately the soundtrack is a bit too repetitive for me, and the demo would benefit from a bit more synchro. Overall a very good production, with more smoothness maybe would it have been 2nd.
4 – Ideograph/Five Finger Punch and Insane – A demo for Amigas with only 512 kb memory, featuring a kick-ass soundtrack and some nice effects like a rotozoom, and a vector net interacting with a balloon. Nice little production, that will probably be a highlight of my next Amiga 1000 demo pack ;)
5 – Coco/Unique – This is a demo that I would personally like to see at least one place higher in the compo. I enjoyed Unique’s two previous prods, Interparalactic and Subside very much, and Coco is just more of the same good nu-style stuff. The effects are very smooth and fresh, but I especially liked the soundtrack, which kinda reminded me of a summer beach party with a little touch of drugs ;)
6 – Revision Invitation/Insane – A kind of a two screen invitro by the very productive Insane, with some decent effects and the usual invitation motivating stuff. Maybe nothing groundbreaking, but enjoyable nevertheless.
7 – RetrokompLoaderror Invitation/Wanted Team & Resistance – Well , the last place at the compo was taken by an invitation to a party that I’m kinda coorganizing ;) Sachy was finishing it at the party, and some of the gfx were provided last-minute by Slayer of Ghostown, and Jok of Dreamweb. The Invitro features quite a few effects, and a cool soundtrack by Mccnex and Nainain. Definitely not a compo filler !
Following the recent news about Wicher 500, I got an update from Spidi, who stated that the card design should be ready in about two months. after that Wicher will be available to buy, although there are no details yet about where it will be available, and how much exactly will it cost. I can only assume that it will be a cheaper alternative to ACA500+.
Another interesting detail is that Wicher will require EDO SIMM witn 60ns or less access time.
I've decided, that this blog might be a good place to catalogue and display my hardware collection. I presume, that it will take me some time to get it done, so it's only a start :)
I got my Amiga 1000 set from an internet auction in 2013. Guy from my city sold it to me for 500 PLN, which is around 112 Euro by todays rate. Basically the guy didn't know what he was selling, he couldn't even turn it on, so he wrote that the hardware is defective in ayction decription. The whole A1000 lot belonged to his father in law, who wanted to just throw it away, and the guy thought that he would try selling it through an auction. He started with 100 PLN with pickup only option, and no one was bidding, so I called him, offered him 500 PLN, and he agreed.
When I came to collect the hardware it came out that everything is working fine. Well it was a bargain :)
The Amiga comes with: C=1081 Amiga branded monitor Amiga 1010 external fdd 5,25" external FDD
Amiga 1000 type mouse (coffin shaped with angled connector) Keyboard
256k RAM expansion
A LOT of software and books (for ex Amiga Hardware Reference Manual), including system disks (OS1.1 and 1.2), software bundled with A1000, Defender of The Crown in mint condition
Besides being dirty, the Amiga is in great condition, it even has warranty stickers intact! It's one of the machines that I use often to play around. It is in near mint condition, it was brought to Poland from The Netherlands somwhere around 1986, and spent probably 20 years in an attic.
Below is a link to an archive of demoscene prods, that I've assembled for polish Amigazyn#7 paper magazine cover DVD (you can order @ amiga.net.pl).
The archive contains Amiga prods, divided by category (AGA/OCS and then demo/intro etc...), with productions having largest numbers of thumbs at pouet.net.
Numbers:
Top 100 AGA Demo
Top 100 ECS Demo
Top 25 AGA Cracktro/Dentro/Invitro
Top 50 AGA Intro
Top 50 ECS Intro/Dentro/Invitro
Below are links to ADF images of demopacks aimed for Amiga 1000/500 with kick 1.3 and 512kb Ram.
Compilations are made up of releases from recent years. Enjoy !
