My friend, my Amiga

We shall not cease from explorationAnd the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we startedAnd know the place for the first time.The Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot

The Amiga is still fighting the good fight with the release of Amiga OS4.0.

February 17th, 1986 changed the course of my life. I received an Amiga 1000 for my birthday. From early December to my birthday in February my father died, my mother remarried and I began living in my step-father’s house. I was lost and had no idea what was happening around me. I had never heard of the Amiga before and didn’t really know what to do with it, but it promised so much.

The Amiga had funny names for the chips inside: Agnus, Denise, and Paula. It had signatures from the engineers etched inside the case. GUI functionality was captured in Gadgets. Screens where handled by the Intuition library. It had color, preemptive multitasking, good sound, and most importantly an invitation to tinker with it. Not many chip designers achieve the celebrity that the “Father of the Amiga”, Jay Miner, attained.

The Amiga gave me an anchor when I was adrift. I threw so much time into that machine. I learned csh on it. I messed around with animation in Disney Animation Studio and Deluxe Paint. I played many, many, excellent games. I first began downloading music back then, MOD files, and taking control of what went in my ears rather than just passively listening to the radio. I forged the friendships over the modem that I never found in real life until the 12th grade. I edited videos for school with that Amiga. I learned the basics of programming on it. I had a very dog-eared copy of the Amiga ROM Kernel Reference manual and the Abacus books 68000 Assembly Language book.

The Amiga saved a life that felt lost. Now coming back to it again as I read that review about OS4.0 I see that first time with new eyes.