XPost: rec.arts.comics.strips   
   From: psperson@old.netcom.invalid   
      
   On Tue, 17 Feb 2026 10:38:52 +1300, Your Name    
   wrote:   
      
   >On 2026-02-16 15:21:35 +0000, Cryptoengineer said:   
   >> On 2/15/2026 9:10 PM, Bobbie Sellers wrote:   
   >>> On 2/15/26 17:10, Your Name wrote:   
   >>>> On 2026-02-16 00:13:36 +0000, Bobbie Sellers said:   
   >>>    
   >>> snip   
   >>>    
   >>>> The Amiga was technically the better computer, but the OS was very    
   >>>> kludgey in comparison to the Mac OS, although the Amiga OS was still    
   >>>> far better than Windoze.   
   >>>    
   >>>     But it was based on TripOS which I know nothing else about. The   
   commands   
   >>> were simple to learn and I was not then as stupid as I am now. I used to   
   have   
   >>> 3 external 3.5 floppy drives and used multiple terminals to do format and   
   copy   
   >>> for the Amiga Users Group here in San Francisco.  That was with my A1000   
   >>> with an external expansion box with a GVP SCSI+ host card which could   
   handle   
   >>> up to 8 MB of 32 bit SIMMs.  I had only 2 MB of simms because of the price   
   >>> for most of the time I used that card which I later moved to an A2000b    
   >>> (mb/4.3).   
   >>> It like the vast majority of my machines was second hand.   
   >>>    
   >>>     The flaw tolerated for price purposes was lack of memory management.   
   >>>     The 680x0 range cpus was quite expensive to get up to that capability.   
   >>>     I think the 68020s were the lowest level that could have managed memory   
   >>> but it was much more expensive than the 68000/14 MHz which is what the   
   >>> AmigaOS was based on.  I finally got the cash together for accelerator    
   >>> card with a   
   >>> 68060/50 MHz and thought I was doing well.  Still fell over when I ran    
   >>> web browser   
   >>> with word processor.  Always had Textra, a Forth-based text processor    
   >>> running as   
   >>> well.  Textra was shareware and vastly superior to KWrite or Kate.   
   >>>    
   >>>> The biggest problem with the Amiga was that it was bungled by    
   >>>> incompetent Commodore management who couldn't decide what to do with it    
   >>>> - business computer, audio-video computer, home computer, all of the    
   >>>> above. Apple pushed the Macintosh (and the previous Lisa and Apple II    
   >>>> range) as business computers and in education.   
   >>>    
   >>>     I can but agree. The ultimate owners never used computers and so they   
   >>> did not realize what they had. CBM tended to point it at home use for games   
   >>> and AV use.  The AV business had to use Amigas but with a card called the   
   >>> Video Toaster.  It was very expensive but very capable and was sold under   
   other   
   >>> labels as a Video Toaster computer.  Still was an Amiga hardware base for   
   the   
   >>> same reasons the Video Toaster people chose it over other platforms in that   
   >>> it was designed from scratch to use CRT/TV as output display.  Oh and   
   >>> if you had to use Mac or MS-DOS we had cards for that too.  Amigas   
   >>> with the Mac card were faster than production Macs.   
   >>>    
   >>>>> I had a car then and drove all over the SF Bay Area and got my machine    
   >>>>> in Sunnyvale or Saratoga at a shop that was exclusively Amiga.   
   >>>    
   >>>     When I go the A2000b I had to drive down the peninsula to pick it up.   
   >>>    
   >>>     I used to say that having the Amiga was like adding a room to my    
   >>> studio apartment.   
   >>>    
   >>> bliss- Dell Precision 7730- PCLOS 2026.01- Linux 6.12.71 pclos1- KDE    
   >>> Plasma 6.5.5   
   >>    
   >> I still have my A1000 (with SideCar RAM expansion) down in the basement.   
   >>    
   >> Fun fact: Some of the CGI for Babylon 5 was done on the Amiga with   
   >> Video Toaster.   
   >>    
   >> pt   
   >   
   >Yep. "Babylon 5" and "SeaQuest DSV", among others. Apparently the later    
   >Video Toaster 4000 version was product tested by Wil Wheaton (Wesley in    
   >Star Trek The Next Generation). After Commodore's collapse, the Video    
   >Toaster mvoed over to Windoze PCs,   
   >   
   >The Amiga was also used for some of the earliest "VR" games in games arcades.   
   >   
   >I still have a pile of Amiga floppy disks, but no way to access them.    
   >The CatWeasel, etc. cards are simply too expensive for the one-off use.   
      
   There is (or was about a decade ago) a website floppydisk.com that   
   sells older disc drives with a USB interface. I got a 3.5" Floppy USB   
   Drive (Refurbished) from them. This turned out to be a Dell FDDM-101.   
      
   Whether they have Amiga drives I have no idea. And perhaps you have   
   already tried them and found out.   
   --    
   "Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,   
   Who evil spoke of everyone but God,   
   Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)