So a lifelong friend and I connected for some old-school gaming this weekend. And when i say ‘old school’ while not quite as old as say, Frisbee, Monopoly, or Go – these were still pretty old videogames. He has an extensive collection of old (mostly 70s-80s but a few are even older) videogame consoles – the same ones we used to play on the big ol’ 25″ tv in his basement back in the day. We actually had an Atari ‘flashback’ console for those – it has a ton of games built into it instead of plugging cartridges in and out all day – and it even has a few previously-unreleased and prototype Atari 2600 games as a bonus, which is pretty cool (and I’m sure doesn’t hurt sales :)).

So after some Atari, we hauled out the Bally Arcade, then sidetracked to a couple (real) arcade games – we both have several of these – a couple of mine are at his house) – then off for pizza. Then back for more Atari, followed by Colecovision (played through nearly all the cart’s he had, although the controllers on that system haven’t stood the test of time well – they were all but impossible to use) and then back to Atari with a brief sojourn in C64-land. We also surveyed several other systems he has around, but ultimately forgot to get around to hooking them up.

Then of course the required pilgrimage to Fry’s in Wilsonville, followed by a quick dinner and then to Ground Kontrol (an actual arcade in Oldtown Portland with 80s-90s videogames and about 20 pinballs – great stuff!).

We got done around 945 pm. And the good thing is, there are plenty more games for NEXT time 🙂 We need to get back to more C64 – and then some older PC and Amiga games we used to play for hours on end.

Ah, memories…..

candybowl

After a long series of ISP hassles a couple months ago I won’t bore you with, the home network/site situation has been looking (back) up. And as part of this hopefully continued success, the Amiga server is back in the pink, too after some overdue tweaks and maintenance. What is an Amiga, you say?

Click here for a fairly concise and accurate history of one of the coolest computers ever made. As I drift back towards Amiga-land, including using an actual modern Amiga (my server is getting near 20 years old, I am not making that up!) it will mean reacquainting myself with an old friend, and a computer that’s actually FUN to use.

I guess that’s my main beef with most computer systems these days. Windows is about as subtle as a power drill and even less fun to use. I don’t use it for games, barring say Solitaire, Mahjong or FreeCell and the less time I spend using it excepting certain programs, the better. And living in Seattle means (still) enduring people who never used anything else and think Micro$oft invented everything to do with computers. Those sad, sad people….Thankfully M$’s arrogance, ineptitude (Vista, anyone?) and the resurgence of the Mac and Linux have quieted them down considerably (plus many have since ‘retired’ as wealthy stock barons since anyway).

Yes, the Mac is more ‘elegant’ (whatever that means) and isn’t near as hacky, crash-prone or virus-ridden. But again, barring usage of certain programs, it’s ‘meh’ to use for me. It can do many cool things and had I never used an Amiga, I’d probably prefer it above all others.

FreeBSD, the *nix I regularly use on my ThinkPad (soon to be FreeBSD 8.0 in a couple of days) is secure and stable, but still has a way to go on the user-friendliness aspect. But it’s getting there, just like the various types of Linux i’ve used in the past. The interesting thing about Unix/Linux is that despite many users’ strong and continued efforts to mold it into a Windows-killer – there is just as much interest in NOT EVER DOING THAT. Because Unix (and to a somewhat lesser degree Linux) is a geek’s OS, first and foremost – and wasn’t developed originally to be anything different. The windowing systems (X11 and beyond) and GUI elements that came much later were in part a reaction to systems like the Mac, and many users still *like* being ‘in the know’ – without the rest joining the ‘cool kids club’ of Unix users. In other words, if you want to use Unix, earn your stripes, Marine.

Which brings me to the Amiga – as I get back into hopefully using it regularly again, I’m sure i’ll run across things I now take for granted elsewhere that got left behind in the Amiga’s comparative years in the wilderness since 1994 – but the 4.x versions are a promising re-start and there’s ample cause to be optimistic given the nutty lawsuits are now over (hopefully for GOOD). I will leave it to the reader to review the history materials linked above, but here’s to my happy reconversion back 🙂

candybowl

PS – the Amiga site is here: http://www.amigau.com – it is hosted on a vintage 1989 A2000 68060/50mhz machine with 64mb RAM. For an original-spec Amiga, this is a comparative powerhouse machine (not by modern standards of course – but how many ‘modern’ computers are still running almost 20 years later after debut, either?) And yes, I know there are many dead links on that site – i’m working on it 🙂