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Megatron

Posted Wed Feb 28, 2018 2:55 am

I just stumbled across this site whilst searching for something Amiga related for one of our projects and having read some of the posts, I had to conclude that it has a similar size userbase and atmosphere as a Dutch form (amiga.cafe) we set up a year or two back.. no rules.. just one.. be nice!

What can I tell about myself.. I go by the name Marcel, I have been an Amiga enthusiast since 1987 when my dad bought our first Amiga (the Amiga 2000). This sparked my interest in computer hardware as well and I became one of the youngest re-sellers of Macrosystems in The Netherlands. For those who do not know that brand, they were the creators of the VLab, Maestro, Medusa, Evolution Controller and some other cool products.

Fast forwarding to 2005, I happened to notice that Amiga 1200's were being sold by AmigaKit (Magic Pack) so I bought one and pretty much started to collect whatever I could find such that I could tinker with it. Not having a lot of time due to my consultancy job, I just used my old bedroom at my parents place as a storage up to the point where my dad said that the room is full.. I did not have a small room, so that is when I realized I probably had enough stuff :D

I left it there.. for many years.. and when I came back from abroad, we wanted to buy or build a new house and in that process I came across a (bigger) hoarder than me.. who also was in need of some money and was done collecting. A long time friend of mine (Paul) also an Amiga guy and myself bought it up.. and we put it in a warehouse with the idea to redistribute it all again.. 40% was Commodore stuff including loads of Amiga's and what-not.. but also PET, MSX, Atari and other things.. It took us about a year to sell 60% of it all and it was the origin of the Amiga 30 Year Anniversary events (in Europe) with the first one in Amsterdam which we both took part in organizing. The warehouse attracted so many people, that word spread fast and we even got the likes like RJ Mical, Dave Haynie, David Pleasance, Jon Hare (Canon Fodder), Mike Dailly (Lemmings), Allister Brimble (Alien Breed) and many many more over.. the event was a success and it sparked the interest in having one in Germany and the UK as well.

Everything went really fast after that.. we never did a second one in Amsterdam as we decided it was a one-of-event and did not want to make sloppy seconds so to say. That does not mean the Amiga 32 in Germany wasn't good.. in fact.. it was a great event.. but also we do not have the time to organize this and do the other things we are involved in..

Those other things are (and were) being part of the Viva Amiga movies.. worked with Zach on that and it was a great time. We now work on a new documentary called Arcadia.. this is about Coin Ups from the 1900 till 2000.. I was in Vegas for that in January and I hope it will be another Epic movie..

What else.. I am an administrator for the Commodore Amiga Facebook group.. same for the Amiga.Cafe forum in The Netherlands and most importantly is my work with Philippe and the other members of A1200.net on Amiga Cases & Keycaps.. that is quite time consuming, but fun to do.

My apologies if this type of sharing here is a bit of an unstructured dump of informational blah-blah.. but hey.. just ask me if anything is unclear.. not going to hang here all-day-every-day.. but I will try to check in once in a while and keep you also informed of A1200.net stuff happening.

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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Wed Feb 28, 2018 10:23 am

Welcome, Marcel! (Megatron)

I've seen your posts on Facebook and knew about the connection with A1200.net, but not all of the rest of the backstory. I really enjoyed reading about your fascinating journey. Very cool indeed!

I used to use my personal account on Facebook, but just last week decided to deactivate it and simply use my moniker "Amiga Love" with the Facebook group. Luckily my "new" application was accepted over there, so I can still read/write posts over there and keep up to date with this and that. Facebook has become such a toxic place that I generally don't gain much pleasure from it anymore. But I do appreciate some of the groups and the content they offer.

Amigalove.com is only 2 years old. We're small, but we're very passionate and active when we can be. I'm based in Seattle, WA, and we have several members from the USA. But we also have several members from all over the world who bring their own fascinating and valuable experiences and perspectives to the table. I believe most of us here have day jobs, but we do spend an inordinate amount of our spare time working and playing with Amiga machines new and old (and Commodore 8-bits, and Atari, and...).

For me personally, I'm addicted to the old stuff. I'll mix in some new hardware innovations from time to time, but my focus is mainly in the tech and software from a bygone era. I try to add to the Games Library here regularly, and some of the members here have posted about their own favorites in the Games channel. But that means trying to actually finish a game when at all possible, so new content can sometimes seem slow to outsiders. Right now I'm on Level 12 of Dungeon Master running off original floppy disks - maybe I'll be done by this weekend if I'm lucky? Not sure. I've been getting my butt kicked a lot in the game lately and food management can be all-consuming (no pun intended!). I take screenshots of the games as I go along off my C= monitors, scanlines and all, and do my best to give a nice thorough review after I'm done. This is not an easy task, either, as I'm trying to snap a clean photo while my characters are getting eaten to death (and a dead character means a reboot).

My most recent review was for The Immortal, by Will Harvey. I've been spending a ton of time focusing on NTSC games - but I do dabble in PAL occasionally, too, as I also have a PAL machine I can fire up (a Phoenix).

Also, when I (and some others here) work on a project I try to take pictures and take notes so I can share the experience with others when I'm done. This also includes some really "simple" tasks many take for granted, like moving files from a PC to a classic Amiga using a null modem cable. Or discovering how to read Guru Meditation errors. I do this for a few reasons: 1) believe it or not, there are still people joining the world of Amiga today and have no idea how to do things, and 2) I know that some time in the future I'll want to repeat what I've done before, but will have forgotten all of the steps! So these detailed posts are for myself, too. I encourage everyone who has the time or motivation to do the same, but I realize it's a tall order. Some of us simply don't have the time - I totally get that.

This is my primary after-work hobby, outside of family, so I make the time because it's what I love to do.

I'm honored you took the time to check us out and join! One of the advantages of being a smaller community is it's not hard to keep up with everyone's projects, and everyone is cool to each other. I have another in the background - a really weird and nerdy project I hope to post about in the next few weeks. Even if my experiments fail, I'll still post about it at some stage.

Spoiler: I'm in the process of getting the data on my Amiga 2000 (running 1.3) portable on a Sharp Wizard OZ-8000 made back in 1991. Why? Because Amiga! :D

Hope to see you around the site. And we look forward to seeing some of your hardware - feel free to post some pics when you have the time.

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McTrinsic

Posted Fri Mar 02, 2018 12:59 pm

Welcome.
I am always amazed by all the stories from back then and how the magic sparked something still alive such a long time after...

Thanks for sharing!!

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Zippy Zapp
CA, USA

Posted Fri Mar 02, 2018 1:11 pm

Welcome and thanks for sharing your story. It is always nice to hear peoples stories about their favorite computer(s).

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EzdineG
Springfield, MO

Posted Sun Mar 04, 2018 10:23 pm

Welcome, Marcel!

Thanks for sharing your story. It’s great to have you here and I look forward to hearing about your projects in the future!

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TenLeftFingers

Posted Sat Mar 10, 2018 10:57 am

Hi Megatron,

Cool, you organised a popular Amiga event! We've been running events in Ireland since 2016 and it's a lot of work. I can understand why you mightn't want to repeat it.

We are lucky that everybody helps with the running. It's a very positive attitude here - people buy tickets and still offer to help out on the day. If I had to do it all alone I don't know if it could continue.

Good luck with the current project. <3





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