curious what everybody is dialing in to chat with on these boards, for those doing it on retro hardware :)
over here i have an Amiga 600 + ACA620 accelerator online with an Orinoco Gold card, Prism2 drivers under AmiTCP and DCTelnet for a terminal
not *exactly* how it would've been done in the day, but hey, it works :P
i'm hoping to build an ESP8266 wi-fi modem for my 500 eventually to dial with that too
curious what everybody is dialing in to chat with on these boards, for those doing it on retro hardware :)
Nice! Never got to play with an Amiga back in the day so don't know much about them. How well does you setup work? Was it difficult to setup?
it's pretty good, the whole Workbench experience is a little cryptic at worst having to dig around in old forums sometimes with bitrotten links
to try to figure out how things work, but beyond that it's not too
difficult once you get the hang of it. i'm sure it would've been more intuitive if i had grown up with it instead of Windows machines around
the same time.
curious what everybody is dialing in to chat with on these boards, for those doing it on retro hardware :)
So what drew you to the Amiga then if don't mind me asking?
curious what everybody is dialing in to chat with on these boards, for those doing it on retro hardware :)
i'm hoping to build an ESP8266 wi-fi modem for my 500 eventually to dial with that too
... Amigaaaaaaaaaa
Long live the Amiga :)
Currently own an Amiga 1200 & 600
If Amiga had come out as the most popular computer (rather than IBM PC compatibles), I wonder what a modern Amiga would be like..
If Amiga had come out as the most popular computer (rather than IBM PC compatibles), I wonder what a modern Amiga would be like..
Like a modern PC? In essence all roads lead to Rome as they say.
over here i have an Amiga 600 + ACA620 accelerator online with an
Orinoco Gold card, Prism2 drivers under AmiTCP and DCTelnet for a
terminal not *exactly* how it would've been done in the day, but hey, it works :P
it's pretty good, the whole Workbench experience is a little cryptic at worst having to dig around in old forums sometimes with bitrotten links
to try to figure out how things work, but beyond that it's not too difficult once you get the hang of it. i'm sure it would've been more intuitive if i had grown up with it instead of Windows machines around
the same time.
If Amiga had come out as the most popular computer (rather than IBM PC
compatibles), I wonder what a modern Amiga would be like..
Like a modern PC? In essence all roads lead to Rome as they say.
I would say if we "squeezed the juice" out of modern hardware like we did back in those days it could be something spectacular. Though it would probably not be a "wow, look at those graphics" spectacle, more a "look how quick my 400 browser tabs open" spectacle :)
compatibles), I wonder what a modern Amiga would be like..
Like a modern PC? In essence all roads lead to Rome as they say.
Yup, that was going to be my suggestion. We currently
have x86, ARM and a bunch of other options for
hardware, running Windows, Linux, MacOS, iOS,
Android... controversially I'm going to say the user
experience isn't hugely different across the board, for
casual users at least.
I think the things that made the Amiga so incredible at
its time were the special purpose chips for sound,
blitting, graphics, etc - they really enabled new and
wonderful things. Nowadays we almost have too much
grunt to know what to do with it, everything runs in
"true colour" modes, high quality sound is standard...
I'm not sure where you could differentiate for
capabilities.
I wonder about an alternate universe where computers were made BETTER instead of just FASTER and with more data capacity.<snip snip>
it'll only get worse).
But I think that instead of the kinks being worked out, we just decided that computers not really working that well is a normal and satisfactory baseline.
We live in a world of compromise, and the result isn't always ideal. Instead of stacks of books documenting computer hardware/software, things are made so intuitive that documentation "isn't needed". Now we're relying on posts online from unknown sources to educate us in how to use our new devices. I didn't know how to move the cursor for text entry on my iPhone for a really long time, until I happened to see a friend do it - I still run into people who have no idea you can move the cursor and don't have to backspace everything to fix a typo in the middle. How the hell
Don't even get me started on software development practices... They make modern hardware look absolutely brilliant.
True, though I was thinking of specifics. Amiga was ahead of its time, so I was thinking it might be interesting to see where they'd be today if they came out on top. It might be interesting to see AmigaOS rather than
Hmmm a 68k world? A powerPC Amiga? Shrug, I still think over all it would've gravitated to where it is now. Uncle Bill mightn't have gotten
There's not the same market for PC parts there used to be, a lot of stuff has just standardised and is designed into your mobo. The only major considerations at present appear to be video and memory.
Hmm, I'm not too sure, but I regulary attend a few amiga groups around where I live.
I've wondered if building your own PC would even be a thing now if Amiga or another computer brand came out on top. It was mainly the open architecture of the IBM that allowed that to happen. Also, it sounds like it almost didn't happen initially - I heard IBM initially tried to sue when the first clone maker reverse-engineered their BIOS to make a clone.
IBM wasn't the first to have open architecture though. You got the Apple II, not that it was ever cut out for the long haul. And before Apple went completely spastic, you had NUBUS in the MacII/Quadra era. You could've ended up with them instead.
Did it? I don't remember ever seeing any Apple II clones, or clones of the Quadra etc.. Apple didn't allow clones until after Steve Jobs was kicked out of Apple; I remember seeing some Mac clones from Power Computing, Motorola, and maybe a couple otehrs. Some of them were more powerful than Apple's Macs at a lower price. But Steve Jobs killed that when he came back.
At one time every man and his dog, and maybe his dog's unknown pet were making Apple II Clones. Taiwan, China, South America some better than others, some with extra features, like Z80 built into the Motherboard.
Osborne has single sided drives - only 91k space per
diskette. Serial cable
oonly has RX TX and GND wires, 2400 baud.
Learning to code TurboPascal 3.0.
[snip] What a journey!
Osborne has single sided drives - only 91k space per diskette. Serial cable oonly has RX TX and GND wires, 2400 baud. I restored the machine several years ago. Found double-sided disk images of single-sided disks online so I had to open the DS image and save it as a SS image, buy a GoTek floppy drive emulator, make the custom cable and use the emulator as drive A to write the image to an actual diskette in the restored aligned drive B. What a journey! Big thanks to everyone who posted guides online for setting up the GoTek emulator. Learning to code TurboPascal 3.0.
Osborne has single sided drives - only 91k space per diskette. Serial cable oonly has RX TX and GND wires, 2400 baud. I restored the
Serial cable only has RX TX and GND wires, 2400 baud.
I always thought you could tap on the screen anywhere in an input field to
move/place the cursor there (similar to clicking a mouse on a PC to place
the cursor). Was there a time when that didn't work? Or am I thinking of
a different scenario than you're describing?
That was only a recent thing. The screen and os need to both support that function for it to work. A touch screen is great for people that have a adverse condition to a mouse, or health issues... Not so much fun when a big decides to walk or fly into the screen though...
Why is it so hard to get ECC memory in consumer devices? The technology has been around for decades and provides a significant reliability
increase for a small price increase.
I always thought you could tap on the screen anywhere in an input field
to move/place the cursor there (similar to clicking a mouse on a PC to place the cursor). Was there a time when that didn't work? Or am I thinking of a different scenario than you're describing?
That was only a recent thing. The screen and os need to both supportthat
function for it to work. A touch screen is great for people that have a adverse condition to a mouse, or health issues... Not so much fun when
a big decides to walk or fly into the screen though...
The touch screen interface is probably what most people use on a device like an iPhone or other smartphone though. One time I plugged a USB
mouse into an Android smartphone and a mouse pointer actually
- maple "mavica" syrup (byte/byteself or it/its)
this is why nobody takes this stuff serious. heh
I decided to make a game to test out the TurboPascal
language. It's a simmple
game for 2 players where the player on the left must
reach the right side of thestage to score and vice-versa
for the other player. Both players can jump, pushthe
other and toss the other player. First one to 3 points
wins. All graphics are ASCII characters.
I'm currently trying to figure out how to store more
keypresses than 3.
in no rush to complete it. The next time I pick it up will be in a couple months from now. Dissasembling sounds like a nightmare.
That sounds like a good idea for a game to test out the language. Since you're using ASCII characters, I wonder if the game would work as a door game? (or is that part of the plan already?)
You've dismantled a fair few door games, are there any
guides around to explain how to put a door game
together? I assume the username, screen size and board
name are handed in as environment variables or
something?
Turbo Pascal seems like the most popular development system, followed by BASIC and C, as far as I can tell.
Typically a 'drop file' is used to pass information about the user and system to the game. Common drop files are DOOR.SYS and DORINFO1.DEF. They're just text files with various information on each line.
Turbo Pascal seems like the most popular development
system, followed by
BASIC and C, as far as I can tell.
I was pretty fond of Pascal... 30 years ago :)
But I need to finish Worminal first :)
etc. Turbo Pascal seems like the most popular development system, followed by BASIC and C, as far as I can tell.
Type without rhythm, and it won't attract The Worm... (Fatboy Slim, Weapon Of Choice) Check out my new terminal, terminal of choice.
https://youtu.be/wCDIYvFmgW8
I had some super basic serial work going on to leave a floating
serial line to one of my Apple IIs, it just sat looking for 2 or 3 <CR> and then fired up the BBS. It was a bit like reinventing the
wheel, but I didn't have much joy with any of the suites.
My only other significant accomplishment in pascal back then was the DM's Familiar. Don't think I got it fully complete, it'd do
combat and saves, had the extended combat tables out too level 25.
Type without rhythm, and it won't attract The
Worm... (Fatboy Slim, Weapon
Of Choice) Check out my new terminal, terminal of choice.
https://youtu.be/wCDIYvFmgW8
I, err... OK?
The stereo in that video is *excessively* wide :)
That sounds like fun, I remember some systems requiring pressing enter a couple times to get them to answer, but I never set up a system like that myself. I was living that cushy DOS lifestyle on the PC, with FOSSIL drivers and all the convenience. ;)
You've dismantled a fair few door games, are there any
guides around to explain how to put a door game together?
A web search for JPDoor led me to this great "Door Developer Kits" collection: http://archives.thebbs.org/ra102c.htm
what i am diling up with??
a fucking 10MHz 286 AST Premium/286 model 80 machine! i recently got at
Long live the Amiga :)
Currently own an Amiga 1200 & 600
I think the things that made the Amiga so incredible at its time were the special purpose chips for sound, blitting, graphics, etc - they really enabled new and wonderful things. Nowadays we almost have too much grunt to know what to do with it, everything runs in "true colour" modes, high quality sound is standard... I'm not sure where you could differentiate for capabilities.
But then, I guess that's the point - not many people could have imagined the Amiga's capabilities when it came out.
I would say if we "squeezed the juice" out of modern hardware like we
did back in those days it could be something spectacular. Though it
would probably not be a "wow, look at those graphics" spectacle, more a "look how quick my 400 browser tabs open" spectacle :)
a fucking 10MHz 286 AST Premium/286 model 80 machine! i recently got at VCF SW!~ for 150$ :D i also have a 20 MHz 286 comming in today and i am excited for it :D i am so excited!!
Fucking? :P
[..]that function for it to work. A touch screen is great for people that
have a adverse condition to a mouse, or health issues... Not so much
fun when a bug decides to walk or fly into the screen though...
The touch screen interface is probably what most people use on a device like an iPhone or other smartphone though. One time I plugged a USB
Also I've never had any bugs fly onto my smartphone screen..
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