ANDY's AMIGA ACTION!

Well I'll be damned.

You don't get a thread from Baz in weeks and then the bugger does two in an hour.

Is that a record? From what I've heard he can barely manage one a week these days but there you go...

OK, I'm gonna be concentrating on some Amiga action in the next few posts and this is one I;ve had in the can for a few weeks.

Can anyone remember the Euros? Yep, that thing a a couple of weeks ago featuring a whole host of prima donnas, slapheads, chancers and bloke footballers who like lying on the floor pretending to have been shot by a sniper.

Anyhow, you might remember I'd said we held an Enger-land semi-final game party as we invited mates round and sure enough this included me old Miggy mates Zakster and Lozzer who turned up (poor Loz lost his brother Gaz to cancer last month) in order to roll back the years, quaff a few ales, chow down some pickled onion Monster Munch and have a blast on KICK OFF2 on the ol A500!

Here we go - a bit of random match / evening action from that balmy semi-final evening in the Baz Biome residence as I also took the lads down to the Baz retro bar as they aint seen that yet either... I believe England managed to beat Holland 1-0 on the Amiga - just in case you were wondering




ABOVE: Tense in the front room as the Monster Munch gets dished out and England look a bit wobby early on against the classy Dutch who take the lead with a stunning strike... BUT - England level:



Forget about ITV - here's where the real action's at:



ABOVE & BELOW - Zakster and Lozzer lurve the 500 match action:









Then... after the match, took the fellas down the ol Baz Retro Bar for a quick skeg:









More Amiga and retro action next time, fellas, when we look at some classic titles.

This night was more of a classic piss up, Enger-land victory on the way to a showdown with the Spanish in the final and of course, a chance to dust down the Miggy and get some Klassic Kickoff 2 in but what it showed was that we all needed a lot more practise as we only managed the one goal after 15mins play Oh well, a good ol excuse to get it out more often, what, vicar?!

 

Brilliant stuff Andy, great to see you and your mates have some good times watching the football and then getting it real with the Amiga and a visit to your bar.

But one goal after 15 minutes? Blimey, talk about emulating the real England team!

Good to see Bev finally getting a chance to sit down with her feet up as well

 

Cheers, Al.
You were spot on with all that analysis - move over, Ally!
Yeah, we'll have to have a bash at KO2 when we next meet - emulated, probably - unless you pile round here too.
OK, have a great week ahead, fellas.
Catch you tomorrow after I;ve been oop to Brid and tekken me mam to Sewerby for her chish n fips

 

Sewerby for fish and chips? You need to take her to Filey man, then sit down at the Glen Gardens with your suppers and smell the flowers

 

LOL! You have plenty of hols time on yer hands, Al, to enjoy the delights of Glen's, fella! (I've got other chores to do when I get back from Sewerby/Brid at 8.30!) All ruddy go, bud, but at least mam's had her ears syringed - she'll be able to hear me for once - best watch what I'm muttering under me breath

 

OK, fellas. Just a brief next part to Amiga Action - but I can assure you I've been giving the Miggy some hammer over tea and tonight (and a little clue as to what I've been up to - or wanting to achieve - came in that Workbench Extras 1.3 disk request) earlier.

Right, so last time we had a peek at the Amiga doing a damn fine job of entertaining the lads at the England Euros semi final which saw Zakster and Lozzer really get their teeth into the wonderful KO2 as they rolled the years back and really went for it head to head, toe to toe and a few ales were quaffed in the process...

Tonight, a reminder of just how serious and business-like the Amiga range could also be for those home micro users, in the late 80s and early to mid-90s, who had moved on from the 8-bit machines and didn't want an IBM clone PC...

These pics are similar to Al's recent show and tell whereby he showed some pics taken of his beloved Atari 8bit machines and peripherals all set up on a computer table of that era... and didn't it take us all back? I'm hoping that these below will do too, fellas.

Step forward the Miggy A500 which could certainly match the PC in many areas such as word processing, CAD, DTP and other "serious applications" such as spreadsheets, databases and graphical packages/image manipulation etc.

I acquired a Star LC-10 dot matrix printer last week, lads, and boy am I having some set-up "fun" getting it all to communicate Talk about rolling back the years / printer ribbons / printer drivers!!

OK, I'll let the pics do the talking and catch you again next time when I'm hoping to update you that yes, the AmigaDos / Workbench does now see an Epson compat printer at the end of the parallel cable!




ABOVE: Oh the joys of running 3-4 disks... off one floppy disk drive DF0: !!


ABOVE: Remember the days of getting copied disks off yer mates with all the latest games and productivity software and then running off new lists of what you had for them on yer dot matrix printer - oh, the simple joys, fellas! BBS were still to come so for now the market trader, PD library and your mates list of copied stuff RULED!


And where did the LC10 come from, Baz? Al might well be interested...



...and talking of serious stuff, images like this from a Hubble demo disk showing on Deluxe Paint, would have blown our socks off back in 94:







ABOVE & BELOW - now yer talking the biz, Baz - what's all this and mention of a Supradrive - aha! Now we're rocking!



and although we didn't quite get the print-outs and hard copies I was hoping to show you... even after checking printer DIP switches etc -



Ol Baz had a damn good wander down memory lane tonight investigating his old Amiga apps, cables, disks and demos!

Hope some of this brought back happy 16bit memories for you too in this epi-sod of Amiga Action, guys.

Catch you soon...

 

I'm not liking it Andy. I'm LOVING it

This is what it is all about lads, going back to a special time and place with our old micro's. And now me and Andy can recreate the ST v Amiga playground wars of the 80's and early 90's!

I think that LC10 beauty should be repatriated back up to Scotland though mate. It was my favourite dot-matrix printer back in the day and your one looks in great condition.

I think you need to get a Philips monitor or at the very least a CRT telly for the full retro vibe though. And possibly some Amiga magazines to scatter on the tabletop.

I think I still have an old Amiga video genlock about somewhere as well. Happy to donate it to your Amiga corner if you want it?

Looking forward to seeing exactly how much Amiga action you get now and how long it takes for FAST to burst down your door for that dodgy floppy of X-Copy lol

 

Ah, it was typical that just when I was getting back into the Miggy scene my ruddy hard drive would die in the midst of configuring the Star LC-10 printer (I hope Al has more luck with his set-up).
I've taken the Supra apart a bit today so here are a few pics... basically, the red drive BUSY light sometimes lights and right now, it just blinks a wee bit as does a green LED under the h/d itself - almost like a distress beacon

Anyway, a few pics and I will try completely unplugging the drive to see if that makes any difference. Today I;ve been mainly checking connections/seatings and cleaning contacts esp between the drive and the A500 but so far, no cigar, fellas...









No longer boots from the h/d, fellas, only from floppies...

 

That's a right scunner Andy
Is it a standard IDE drive the interface takes?

Going to try an HD installation in the ST later this week maybe, but an emulated version from SD card.

 

Yep. just a bog standard IDE h/d by the looks of it, mate.
I do have the odd spare kicking around from old PC days but I haven't the Supra install disks... I don't think, to reformat it and set-up a boot partition etc.
I will have a good look though as you never know or maybe someone has an idea how else it might be possible from online resources.
No probs - for another day, Al and good luck once more with your ST set-up.

 

Sorry I don't know anything about setting up Amiga HD's Andy, never was a fan of Workbench or the Amiga OS to begin with. Had a quick look to see if I had any small IDE drives kicking around but nothing in the cave.

Remember if you find images of Supra install disks I now have the power to convert adf files to proper Amiga floppies if needed

 

Many thanks indeed, Al.
That offer may come in handy... cheers, mate.

 

I had a 590 (I think), Amiga HD for a while, but I was not a fan of setting them up. I then move up to the 1200 and had a mini 20MB (oh, so much storage) in it. Never played with the HD. By the look of that IDE there may be ram chips on that board, they are pretty cheap just as a try.

 

Chances are that its the HD itself

I actually had a spare HD that was sent down by another Bob, who wrote that wonderful Atari mag that we all loved. Guy in Scotland. Sadly I found out it had died. That was my last IDE drive I had.

 

Cheers, Paul - once more, all advice and help on this subject much appreciated.
I'm gonna next try unplugging it all and then reassembling... you never know/worth a try and then consider my next step...

Hmmm, "bargain" replacement set-up here:

 

It's a pity he didn't continue on with that magazine, all the issues were excellent.

 

Yeah, lovely bloke, had wife problems..

(not to be repeated outside of here please) Which I know would not happen but just to be safe.

Apparently I was one of the reasons Bob did the mag. He said he loved hearing the stories about old times. Kind of him to say and the reason I got a free copy. Such a wonderful mag, as you say. An actual mag I read from cover to end.

But back on topic, I really hope the HD can be fixed, it sounds like it's semi working. For the price of those chips I'd change them, can't hurt. As Andy has found out, the Miggy HD's go for silly prices and yet are as prone to dying from drive failure. If it was unused then that's better but 30 year old HDs that have had the drive hammered are not a good choice, especially when they want big bucks.

 

I will tackle the drive assembly connectors shortly, Paul.

Many thanks for the above and once more really sorry to hear of the sad story connected with that Bob and as you say, the amazing Atari mag he produced... Excel Mag - Robert Stewart - it was indeed, brilliant... so sad to hear of what became of the fella. He was clearly gifted, enthusiastic and deserved the support of one and all - awful to hear he didn't get it where he needed it most.



Lads, just a few screenshots of some Amiga games I've been giving a wee blast to tonight - any of these bring back any memories on this platform or others??

















Some of these I've never seen before... how about you?

Think my fave, enjoyment wise, was Parasol Stars.

Was it the follow on from... New Zealand Story? Or Bubble Bobble?

One of you guys'll know! Put me reet, fellas.

 

You had New Zealand Story, Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, Parasol Stars. Some very cute arcade platformers

Not sure about Bill's Tomato Game or Soldier 2000, never came across either of them.

Funnily enough, I'm also hitting the 16-bit memory banks on the ST tonight. Playing Kick Off and Sensible Soccer hard drive versions while loading up some other bits and pieces. Next is to hook up the LC-10 and give some printing a go.

 

Cheers, Al.
I had a feeling you/Paul and maybe Rich & Manu would know the order those platformers appeared in.
Nice to know you're also well and truly involved in the 16bit scene reet now too.
I NEARLY got chance to try and change the driver for the A500 and LC-10 but then Bev hit the sack and the Amiga's out on the landing next to our bedroom and because I value (just) my head on my shoulders, I decided NOT to faff, click, clunk, rattle and arse around within earshot of her precious sleep cos right now (menopause murder) it's in very short supply so I could easily understand her inserting the LC-10 where the sun don't shine...
Keep us updated, Al and enjoy that game playing on the footie sims (any excuse!) and I'll report back when I get a moment or 3 again later in the week and see if I can get that IDE drive investigated a bit more too (but I don't hold out much hope for it).

 

I've got a few more things running off the emulated hard drive now including most of the ST games I used to enjoy playing. Just need to try and find copies of Timeworks DTP and Printmaster or Printshop and that's it all done. I also have a USB mouse adaptor that came in a bundle with other stuff years ago so might see if that works on either of the ST's.

 

Parasol Stars is the 3rd in the Bubble Bobble series, I think the full name is sommit like Parasol Stars the story Of Bubble Bobble III or near enough.. Never knowingly seen the Soldier game. BC Kid aka PC Kid and Bonk is a great fave of mine. A good old Hudson soft game, seen first (I think) on the PC Engine. The Amiga one wasn't bad, but it's way better on the PC Engine.

Yep, Bills Tomato game, wasn't bad, wasn't great either.

Told you, my head's stuffed with silly trivia..Nowt useful tho..

 

Your knowledge of the Amiga games there, and in general, is very strong, Paul - excellent - you even remember the game developers - your memory is incredible!!



It's great to hear this "trivia" coming to the fore on here as every day is a school day for me with you gamers and console afficianados to guide me as I'm a total noob to 95% of them.

A few pics here, prob uploaded before, as Al's post mentioning those DTP packages brough PageMaker memories and my LC24-10 set-up flooding back... seems like it was just yesterday when we were all going to be budding publishers with our newsletters and flyers flying off the ol dot matrix. Jeez, you had to be a millionaire/seriously rich to even consider a laser printer but I remember the 1st bubble jets causing quite a stir as their output was really good... ah, the good ol days - still here, courtesy of the guys on Atari Owner





and finally, the Atari 8bit area in my late 80s/90s Withernsea batchelor flat...

 

I had a Canon BJ, think it was a BJ-10...Very nice little printer...Never used it much tho..

Re the games, you just picked a few games I am really in to, I don't play the Bub Bob games that much but I still have regular goes on the Bonk / BC / PC Kid games. As Al said before, Hudson Soft were the company that made the PC Engine shine. And for those that like a odd platformer, then Bonk is very nice. For an up screen shooter, the Star Soldier is just great fun..

 

Loviing those pictures Andy, totally retro!

Paul, I had the BJ-10 as well. Took my then girlfriend down to London for a day trip but the main reason was to go to a computer show at Olympia as I really wanted the BJ-10 which had just been released around then. Couldn't get one at the show and ended up in about the second last shop we visited on Tottenham Court Road before finding one!

No wonder she always looked horrified when I mentioned a BJ afterwards....