Finding more Amigans

To cut a long story short I have got someone to come back to the Amiga today

A guy who I was trying to buy a webcam off via his company SpicedApple, he said he couldnt get that particular model any more and wondered why I wanted that actual one. I explained I wanted it to use on the Amiga and he came back to me saying her was an Amiga user 10 years ago and left the scene, after some discussion via e-mail he says he is very interested in returning so I told him about ACubes entry level SAM440 for 270 Euros and he is investigating further and may get one.

Cheers me up no end to find these people who used to use the Amiga unaware that it's still evolving and takes little to get them interested again

I know it's only one person but if many of us managed to do that it would be a start......... who knows!

Now if everyone else could follow your example (me included!) then we'd double the Amiga user base

If we would have an A500-Pad where we can play all those old games on, then
i am sure they will crawl all out of there holes.

I discovered my gf has an Amiga in her mum's loft. Ofc I suggested we go around there sometime and collect

Mind... I don't know what model it is.

Let's hope he finds the SAM attractive and becomes an Amiga user once again.

@Rikki
Cool GF!!

@troels

Well I don't quite follow that lol

@ChrisH

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Just trying to do my bit, don't forget I left the Amiga and came back after several years away so can understand what they might be going through.

I haven't looked back since coming back, enjoying the whole experience, both the ups and downs, we will get there in the end

If only I had your enthusiasm Sicky, Sadly at the moment I feel really negative about the whole thing

Still got My MicroA1 - Use it now and then, but its not my everyday computer.

Well MikeyC if they come out with this NetBook at the price currently boasted there 'could' be a pretty good resurgence of new users.

@Mikey_C

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I have lots of enthusiasm thanks, why you so negative?

I use my SAM460 as my main computer now, swapped from my MacBook Pro almost immediately after getting it all set up how I like it.

We have modern browsers (MUIOWB and Timberwolf), MSN (SAbreMSN),e- mail clients (SimpleMail and YAM) and can knock out the odd letter with the likes of Final Writer and Cinnamon Writer etc.

So it's not all doom and gloom, yes we are missing an office suite and a few other items but I can do pretty much all I want to do with the Amiga and guess what?.............. It's so much more fun

I never was an Amiga user, although I'm old enough to have been. I stayed with my Commodore 64 until I finally bought a PC in 1996. In hindsight, I wish I had been an original Amigan back in the day, so I picked up a Minimig, although I use it primarily as a game machine.

I've been lurking for a while here and a few other Amiga boards. I'd love to jump in with OS4.x and join the Amiga community, and the timing would be perfect, since my current laptop running XP is literally falling apart. I'd really like to get the rumored netbook as that would fit my needs for portability and price point, but I feel like I may be waiting a good while. Eventually, I might break down though and buy a desktop. While an X1000 would be nice, its well out of the range of what I would like to spend on a computer. Would I be sacrificing much in terms of performance if I bought a low end SAM board (667Mhz)?

You should be warned this is not a PC replacement, but you can do many things on an Amiga that you can do on a PC, it all depends on what you expect from a computer I guess.

AmigaOS is nice balance between, scripting, GUI, and organized system, whit out being too technical or too simple.

I really love my Aone 500 and OS4. If you want a amigafriend on msn just add me

Thanks for the warning. To be honest, all I do on the current laptop is surf the net and occasionally write (attempting a first novel) with open office. As long as Timberwolf is or will soon be a viable browser and there is something I can use to write, I could imagine it might be all I need. I'm also hoping that it will force me to learn a thing or two about coding and other things as well. I know I'd be coming in a bit blind, but I figure, got to start somewhere!

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Thanks! I appreciate that, although I do not have an account on MSN. If I sign up for one at some point, I would definitely do so.

EDIT note: I made a few corrections.

@CommodoreRock Quote:
As a former Sam440 (667MHz) users (I mostly use my shiny X1000 now), I think I can say that it is "just about" fast enough for most things, with certain exceptions:
* High Def video playback isn't possible (but DVDs are... just barely - but 733MHz would be better).
* 3D games *above* Quake 2 level are too slow.
* Timberwolf is currently way too slow, BUT it *may* be fine once it gets hardware acceleration (probably have to wait for AmigaOS4.2), although it may still not be that fast (will have to wait and see).
* Compiling large programs (with GCC) can take a long time, which I was OK with, but I am fairly patient.

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Things a 667MHz Sam440 should be OK with (although Your Mileage May Vary) :
* Fast booting, even faster rebooting, instant switch-off (thanks to OS4).
* In general OS4 is fast & responsive, despite the low-power CPU.
* Web browsing using MUI-OWB is pretty decent, but beware that no Amiga browsers support Flash (in any useful fashion), while videos don't work except on YouTube & a few other sites - and even then only in a separate window (ask if you need to know more).
* Standard Def video playback (up to about 640x480 or 720x400) is general fine with older codecs like AVI or MPEG (but modern codecs like MP4 or MKV are probably too CPU intensive).
* Most 3D games available should work, but beware that you really need 128MB of Video RAM for the more demanding stuff; the original Sam440 only had 64MB built-in, but the Sam440 Flex should be fine (since it usually comes with a 128MB Radeon 9250).
* There are various word processing & spreadsheet options, although none of them are perfect; typically they are either polished (ex)commercial stuff that doesn't support the latest modern file formats, smaller "home grown" programs that do support some more modern file formats but have more limited capabilities, or ports of Linux/Windows apps that fully support modern formats but may be a bit slow to start or use. Printer support is also a bit limited, typically older or more expensive printers are the ones more likely to work. Google Docs also tends to work (not tested recenty).
* There are lots of options for older & less demanding stuff like emailing, music playback, 2D graphics & painting, audio editing (I believe - I don't do it myself), emulators of older systems, playing old Amiga games, CD burning, etc.
* There are a few options for programming, and in general I would say the situation is improving (excepting the mysterious disappearance of Hollywood).

If you *mainly* want to use OS4 for web browsing then sadly a Sam440 may not be such a good idea, unless you don't care for watching videos (or playing stupid Flash games).

P.S. Yes, I know that MKV isn't a codec, but it usually uses a modern codec...

@joeled

Have added you to my MSN will look out for you

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Ok Mikey fess up now and tell us what's wrong as you've been moping here for a while now

@Mikey_C

Get your self a Classic Amiga and enjoy it while we are waiting for the next big thing.

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I don't need a classic Amiga Dirk

I am just so frustrated with the whole Amiga thing, we need some new fresh faces, people with new ideas and questions etc.

The Community has stagnated and is on a constantly shrinking spiral. I would like to see some fresh faces around here the Amiga Netbook would have brought more people back at the prices quoted.