User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Sun Jan 08, 2017 11:42 pm

This weekend I received the single most generous donation of personal, physical Amiga related "stuff" I could ever imagine. Computers, expansion cards, box after box of productivity software, games, video production software, music composition software, drives, memory, chips, original OS disks... Literally anything and almost everything one could imagine.

And everything was boxed and in original packaging with manuals, meticulously organized and labelled. At least half of his enormous collection appears to have been opened once, then carefully re-packed and stored. I could be wrong, but it seems like it because so much of it looks brand new. And most of the expansion cards are still in the original boxes.

The man who bestowed this gift, who goes by the name of Skip, was what I'd call an Amiga power-user hobbyist. He did not use Amiga computers professionally, but he was one of the most passionate Amiga users I've ever met. He had games, sure - some big name classics. And he told me stories about how he and his son played the Monkey Island games together and used to recite the jokes at the breakfast table. But he went so much farther than games. He absolutely wanted to be a creator. And the Amiga was the only platform that held that promise.

Part of Skip's collection includes virtually the entire printing of Amiga World magazine - my personal favorite American magazine that covered the Amiga. He read each one, then carefully stored it. He also subscribed to the more professional Amiga mags, the ones aimed at video broadcast professionals. Some of the pages show places where he underlined tips and tricks as he self-taught himself how to do all the things the powerful Amiga could do.

Many people ask why. Why did he give this treasure trove all away? To be honest, I'm not entirely sure except that it was "easy". Easy in the sense that it was all gone in a day, not weeks or months or years on Ebay or Craigslist. But his own reasons were that he was now 73, suffering from tendonitis and had lost sight in an eye. He needed to down-size and reduce due to the realities of advancing age. And, he ultimately wanted it to go to someone, or somewhere, it would be appreciated.

I have to say - just opening the 17 boxes after I got it all home, I couldn't believe what I was looking at. The breadth and depth of this Amiga lover's passion was deeper than anything I've ever seen in person in one place. It spans over a decade of passion, commitment and financial investment. And, from what I can tell, he actively used the machines for at least fifteen years, if not more. Due to some moves across country, everything was packed up in 2004 and had remained in dry storage.

After everything was put into my van, Skip wanted to show me two of the animations he created on the Amiga. He used Deluxe Paint and a few other tools (including computerized voice dialog that was synced to the animations). He had managed to convert them to MP4s so we could watch them on his Windows machine. After watching the first clip, which was rather amusing, we started to watch the second as my son approached the monitor. The three of us watched the second short animation together. Each clip was about a minute long with a character, short story and joke, and featured synthesized voice. I could see the pride Skip had in these short movies. Movies this man created from his home when literally no other consumer-level computer at the time could do so. He knew the dialog by heart still, and I could see his lips moving slightly as he mouthed the words as we heard the character recite his lines.

I submit below a series of photographs of his collection, which I am beyond lucky to now call my own.

Note: I didn't put this post in the Conquests section as this doesn't seem to qualify as an Amiga find. It feels more like a gift that fell from the heavens.
Attachments
IMG_6428.JPG
Music creation software.

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One of the Amiga 2000s.

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Another of the Amiga 2000s, probably the original daily driver. Both machines are equipped with Syquest drives. Each disk is the equivalent of an original 40MB hard drive. There is a box full of disks, loaded.

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Various hardware upgrades and adapters

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Graphics dissolve sliders

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Word processing, fonts and page layout

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TV Broadcast software

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Operating systems 1.3, 2.0, 2.1, 3.1, 3.5 (!) and original computer manuals

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Graphics software

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Large assortment of expansion cards ready for action.

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Amiga World magazines, issues 1988 - 1994

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Productivity Software

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Boxed games, complete, all mint.

all-boxes.jpg
The entire collection, before any boxes have been opened.


User avatar
Bulletdust

Posted Mon Jan 09, 2017 12:43 am

That is absolutely incredible, I honestly think I'd loose all bowel control if I was presented with such an amazing collection of Amiga history.

So envious.

Now get those Batteries out asap!

User avatar
Shot97
Detroit, MI, USA

Posted Mon Jan 09, 2017 1:28 am

The award for luckiest nerd of this year or last; Intric8! I saw his post, saw he was from Seattle, knew it was meant to be. Oh that beautiful 2000... So much great software, upgrades... Classic and deep games... All boxed and complete... All those Amiga World magazines... Seeing them stacked on top of each other like that brought an instant rush to me as I looked at the collection build itself one by one, complete... To have it for years after that... Then let it go to the trash... I'm counting on you to make up for my mistake on that one, let those magazines survive!

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Mon Jan 09, 2017 11:04 am

I wanted to post a couple of pictures of Skip's animation which he showed my son and I before we departed his home. The two animations featured a boy named Tommy, who seemed to get into trouble in matters of cleanliness - a bit like Dennis the Menace.

One clip involved Tommy sweeping, and his sweeping became so intense that all of the dirt did indeed vanish from the floor. When he turned around to walk out of the room, all of the dirt covered his entire body.

In the second clip, Tommy's mother ordered him to clean the dishes. The pixelated character walked across the room, picked up a foot stool and placed it by the kitchen sink. He started to use the soap in the sink, and used way too much. Ultimately the entire room is filled with bubbles.

Both clips featured spoken voice from the Amiga's synthesizer chips. As a result the voices were robot-sounding. But it didn't detract from the stories once you got used to it. In some ways, it added a layer of naivete that made the animations more charming.
Attachments
tommy-2.jpg
Tommy in a cloud of fast-growing bubbles after going a bit crazy with the soap.

tommy-1.jpg
Tommy at the sink, preparing to wash some dishes.


User avatar
Bulletdust

Posted Wed Jan 11, 2017 1:30 am

That's awesome, this person really loved his Amiga's! All that hardware and software as well as the A2000's would have cost the earth in the day.

I even see a mega chip 2mb chip ram mod, those things are worth a fortune even now due to the fact they're so rare!

User avatar
elblanco

Posted Mon Feb 13, 2017 5:26 pm

intric8 wrote:This weekend I received the single most generous donation of personal, physical Amiga related "stuff" I could ever imagine.
This is amazing! :o

Please please please consider contacting Jason Scott @ the Internet Archive to see about getting some help with documenting and archiving as much of this material as possible for posterity. Especially the books, manuals, software and magazines.

User avatar
intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Wed Feb 15, 2017 3:55 pm

elblanco wrote:Please please please consider contacting Jason Scott @ the Internet Archive to see about getting some help with documenting and archiving as much of this material as possible for posterity. Especially the books, manuals, software and magazines.
I sent two very large boxes away, but I still have a massive trove.

I sent one full box of Amazing / Amiga magazines - over 25 pounds - to user AmigaLove icbrkr, and I sent another very large box of productivity software to user alterus. Both went to very appreciative homes where I know everything will be cared for and used.

The magnitude of the collection is not lost on me. I'll be doing what can to learn about it, use it and have fun with it. And I hope to continue posting about pieces of it here for many years to come. :) Trying to scan it and log it digitally somehow would take a very long time.





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