Who didn’t use Soundtracker? It is part of the Amiga history books as so many other great things. Soundtracker is guaranteed to give you hours if not days of material to talk about.
I still have my Soundtracker disks. Once I have my A1200 setup again I will see if they still work. I am pretty sure I had different versions over time. Floppy disks did not come cheap and sometimes you needed some for new games, demos or programs so you used disks containing stuff you would not use for some time anyway. Of course you regretted it not long after it.
There was one module you wanted to try first before any other ones. Which one? AxelF of course! Time to look for some other great classics.
Commodore International filed for liquidation to protect it from its creditors at 4:10PM on April 29th 1994. The end of a great era. In the “After the collapse” series I talk about the time leading up to the liquidation and after it. A bit of history and a personal touch for some heart touching reading. Today I talk about the build up to the liquidation.
Amiga Magazine July August 1994
While going through my Dutch Amiga Magazines (called Amiga Magazine) which was the source of info for me at that time I noticed that in the July / August there was a small column of text talking about Commodore filing for liquidation. Strangely enough there was no mention of the liquidation in the May / June edition while it was already known at that time. You got to remember at the time the information flow was not like today when news is available for everyone everywhere 10 seconds after it was announced. Kind of hard to believe but for us oldies not really since we experienced it first hand. The Amiga Magazine wondered in that small news item why it could come to this while the A1200 and CD32 sold like hot cakes. They thought it could have been the PC line (and being the die hard Amiga fan at the time that sounded just about right. They wondered if it was the end of the Amiga to which they replied; probably not. Commodore kept their offices in the UK, Germany and Holland open. Furthermore it talks about the fact they are talking with someone for a take over. In the rumour mill the names of some Asian companies are floating around. It also reports that further new news items will be posted on their (Amiga Magazine) BBS which just got launched and is the main topic in that issue.
Over at Amiga.nl you can download all the Dutch Amiga Magazines.
If I am correct it was not this magazine in which I read/heard about the liquidation of Commodore for the first time. From what I remember it was the Dutch Amos Magazine in which I read about this for the first time. I will try to locate that magazine again to confirm. It is somewhere in the house and sooner or later it should turn up. The Dutch Amos Magazine was the brainchild of Jurgen Valks. I remember there was just one line talking about the liquidation of Commodore. If I remember correctly he was in the UK for a Amos show and he was doing a write up about it and at the end of it it said something like; oh yeah and Commodore is bankrupt.
At the time I was not really worried at all. I contribute this also to the positive reporting by the magazines. Amiga was just to big to fail and maybe a new owner would provide more chances regarding investments leading to new products. Maybe it was even for the best that Commodore would disappear since they failed to understand the Amiga. What happened after that is material enough to write for years. Next time I will talk about the events at Commodore before the liquidation.
I am pretty sure that every Amiga user had a Ninja / Karate period. I surely did. Maybe it was because of the movies / tv shows they played but my god did I wanted to play those Ninja / Karate games. Here’s just three examples that made me want to play those games.
The Master
American Ninja
The Karate Kid
I am trying to remember what Ninja / Karate games I played. First one that comes to mind (no disrespect to upcoming games I will talk about) is Shinobi. The graphics are poor considering what the Amiga is capable of doing. Still the game play is not that bad and does get me hooked to play it for a bit. The best part to me is the throwing of Ninja stars which seems to (if I remember correctly) be happening in between levels. The left hand shows the Ninja starts and the right one will throw them at your opponents. I will give it some more tries to see if I can reach that part of the game.
Shinobi – What is Spiderman doing there?
Next up is the classic IK+. A masterpiece by Archer MacLean. Who did not drop the pants?
IK+
One game that cannot be left out is The Karate Kid II. It’s not a bad game at all. I kind of enjoyed playing it and I still do to be honest. Every time I see one, or all, of the three Karate Kid movies I have this urge to play this game.
There are a lot more that I played and currently I am discovering which ones they are. I remember some of them are really poor when it comes to graphics and game play. This is going to be a lot of fun.
One of the “forgotten” heroes of the latest Amiga history is without any doubt Alan Redhouse. Maybe not to some but certainly to me. Without Alan I would not be able to use my AmigaOne SE together with Amiga OS4.x. Being manager at Eyetech Group Ltd, of Stokesley, U.K. he truly kept the Amiga as we know it today alive. While Amiga Inc. focussed on their AmigaDE concept Eyetech and Hyperion set out to create hardware and software that would morph the classic line into the new future. This was presented by Amiga Inc. as something that would eventually morph into AmigaDE. How obvious it all is now looking back that Amiga OS4.x and the PPC hardware from Eyetech (continued by new companies now) would be the golden combination and that AmigaDE would be nothing but a bad memory.
Alan Redhouse
Picture from Amiga History
I had the pleasure to see Alan speak in public at the Amiga Benelux Show 2001 (Rotterdam – Holland) about the new AmigaOne. What a great day that was. Together with my dad we made the trip and had a wonderful time.
Alan Redhouse at the Amiga Benelux Show 2001
My dad (in the middle with the white shirt) at the Amiga Benelux Show 2001
Pictures from Obligement
Everyone remembers the clashes on the forums about the AmigaOne and the Pegasos. I am not talking about normal discussions but deep rooted hate against each other. The fact is that this has always been the case after Commodore fell apart and the rise of the internet. Even today battles are being fought out on the forums. Enough said about that. I have to admit the A1SE is a bit buggy but it does the job for me. Most of the crashes I contribute to the Pre-release version of OS4 I am running. Also I install a lot of software that might have problems with the Pre-release version or are in fact buggy themselves. I think I will make the switch when OS4.2 is released. That would be the time for me to upgrade my OS4 and hopefully have a more stable environment.
According to Ben Hermans from Hyperion Entertainment Alan is currently retired and lives in France. I really hope Alan looks back at the whole AmigaOne episode as something great and that there are still people out there that have not forgotten about him nor all his work he has done for the Amiga community. Without Alan we would not have had today’s thriving Amiga scene. Alan is a true hero in my book. Thanks and cheers Alan.
After reading The Hunt for the CRT on oldSchoolGameBlog I had to add the 1084 monitor I have to the “Amiga in the Attic” section. It was bought together with the Amiga 500 by my parents. That was 21 years ago and still today it is working just fine. Yes people I really mean 21 years. It has become a part of my childhood. I am pretty sure I still have the box somewhere at my parents place. Next time I am there I will have a look for it. What more can you say about the 1084 besides a lot of admiration. Enjoy the pictures!
Front of the 1084 monitor
Back of the 1084 monitor
Ports on the back of the 1084 monitor
Technical specs on the back of the 1084 monitor
Front page schematics 1084 monitor
Back page schematics 1084 monitor
Front cover manual 1084 monitor
Monitor specs in manual
One thing that could drive you crazy when playing games on several floppy disks was all that swapping of the disks. So having an external floppy disk drive was for many a gift from heaven. It also was such a great gift when copying floppy disks. And copying we did. The program I used the most for copying disks was X-Copy.
X-Copy for the Amiga
I bought my external disk drive in October 1992 for the sum of 169,95 guilders. At the time a lot of money especially when you consider I was still going to school. But I earned some money working in my free time.
Receipt showing it was bought in October 1992
Warranty card
Front cover of the manual
I bought the Golden Image Master 3A-1 manufactured by Jin Tech Electronics Corp. from Taiwan. I used it together with my Amiga 500. Unfortunately it does not work any more. It has been a long time since I tried it for the last time. Once I have my Amiga 500 up and running again I will perform some tests with the drive.
Top view of the drive
Bottom view of the drive
Front view of the drive
Back view of the drive
I do miss the days of the floppy disks. Having this huge collection of floppy disks and somehow trying to archive it all. At first the floppy disks still had a really expensive price tag. I still paid around 80 Dutch guilders for 10 pieces of TDK or Sony floppy disks. Later it changed to around 40 Dutch guilders for the good brand. It changed when the white label floppy disks came out which had a price tag from at first 10 Dutch guilders to later under the 5 Dutch guilders. I still have all my floppy disk boxes stuffed full with floppy disks. 880Kb on one floppy disk.
Produced in the early 90’s by Datel this piece of hardware is one, if not the, of my favourite hardware add-ons for the Amiga. A co-worker of my dad was also into Amiga’s and informed me about this piece of hardware and let me borrow his Action Replay. For some reason (why mention you still have some kick-ass hardware from them?) it was never returned so I still have it as you can see from the pictures below. Two days after I got it from the attic and started to write about it here I was at my dad’s place. Strangely enough (we had the Super Nintendo on playing Super R-Type and I was looking for a cheat) he brought up the Action Replay including the bit that we borrowed it. How strange is that?
My Action Replay
I still have the Action Replay manual somewhere. It should be at my parents place. Next time I will bring it back and scan it. Maybe some people might want to have this.
One game for which the Action Replay was really useful was License to Kill. In a nutshell you go in to the menu of the Action Replay and provide the amount of lives you have left and leave the menu and back in the game you loose a life. Going back in the menu you provide the current amount of lives you have left and the system will locate the correct address holding this value. You can change it to 99 for example to have 99 lives. If for some reason you loose them all you can go back in the menu and change it to more.
Later this year I will set-up my Amiga 500 again and the Action Replay will have to prove itself again. Just like old times.
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