Mr.Amiga500

Thanks for the link. I was looking for that. (years ago I couldn't find a good Atari font, so I made my own) By the way, that's one mother of a huge screenshot. 1.3 Mb! I'm on dialup, man!

How'd you guess? Yes, it's an Epson printer (C62). And yes, I constantly had to "clean the heads". What a piece of crap. I thought it was great that my Amiga print software could support such a modern printer. Now I think it's probably better if I just get a 1982 dot matrix printer and print from my Atari 800 XL. Back in the early '80s I thought future technology would be amazing. Instead, we have technology that had the potential to be amazing, but has been severely crippled and limited by corporate greed. Companies now constantly search for ways to lock in users, limit their freedom, control their actions and milk them for every penny they've got.

I'd love it if the Atari 8-bit could do email. It's mostly just text, so should be easily doable on an Atari. The problem is connecting to and compatibility with email servers. (also stripping out text from stupid html mail) Does anybody use Atari 8-bit for email? Is it possible? Ahh... I love the days of dot matrix printing. Printing was so easy and cheap then. There weren't overpriced ink cartridges with stupid chips in them telling the computer you're out of ink when it's still half full. Leave the printer for a couple weeks without printing and the chips insist you've run out of ink (deliberate timed ripoff!). I've got a printer now that I never use because when I run out of one colour, it refuses to work until I replace the colour cartridge. It won't even print damn plain black text (brand new black cartridge) until I replace the colour! Also, with the old printers you could add the ink youself (whatever brand), not be forced to buy proprietory cartridges.

@mos6507 Sorry to hear about your unstable Toaster setup, but my experience is completely different. In fact, the way you descibe bad drivers and buggy code reminds me much more of my Windows experiences. I've always found Amiga problems incredibly easy to diagnose. There are so many ways to test that are impossible on modern OSes - like booting backup partitions, booting the OS without harddrive or loading the entire OS into RAM. If you saw my setup in action, I'm sure you'd change your mind. @themrfreeze Amiga 4.0 only runs on expensive (and unavailable) PPC hardware and doesn't run "classic" Amiga software. There's not much OS 4.0 software available. I don't see much point to it then. Imagine if somebody made a "Atari 800-like" OS that didn't run Atari programs. It doesn't matter if the OS works the same if there's nothing to run on it.

I admit that the lack of memory protection is a bad thing, but like with most computers, if you use reliable expansions and software, it rarely crashes. It certainly isn't "best stripped bare off floppies". I use my Amiga every day 4-5 hours/day and haven't used a floppy in years - except for the odd backup. I also rarely play games anymore. It's perfectly useable for internet as long as you don't expect all sites to have flashy animations. The latest browser was updated in late 2006. (but unfortunately still no CSS) Back to Atari: I'm interested in hearing about people doing useful Atari-8bit stuff. I'd like to put my Ataris to good use. It would be awesome if I could somehow link them all to my Amiga in some kind of network.

Take a look at the link in my signature to see a few screenshot examples. In that thread you can also read about lots of the things I've done. Amiga 500s are plentiful and cheap. The accelerators needed to do what I do are damn rare. You should check out the Amiga 1200. A1200 accelerators are much easier to find and you can do much more than is possible with an A500. With add-ons, you can do broadband with an A1200 and connect USB devices. Browsing with an Amiga isn't as fun as it was just a couple years ago because everybody is converting to pages filled with video (YouTube), CSS, javascript and tons of images. As long as the pages you view don't contain much of these, you'll have no problem. A well set-up Amiga is fun and relaxing to use. The OS is simple and easy to understand and use. Unlike Windows, nothing is hidden from the user and there's nothing actively preventing the user from doing things. It's designed the way a computer should be designed. It's just too bad that all the best computer companies died and only the crap survived.

Unfortunately, the Atari 8-bit isn't useful for much more than games. I wish it was, but I'd have to be insane not to think otherwise. My Amiga 500, however, is used as my primary computer - for browsing, email, wordprocessing, music, graphics, emulation (Mac, Atari), games and everything else. I've never ever bought a PC or a Mac. I consider the Amiga as the true successor of the Atari 8-bit (both designed by Jay Miner). Sadly, with more and more internet sites loaded with video and incompatible MS-only crap and with more and more stupid SPAM-blockers blocking "suspicious" emails from "unknown mailers", the time is coming when even my Amiga has reached the end of useful life.

I've only got a "Top 4" Montezuma's Revenge Blue Max Rescue on Fractalus Ballblazer

There was a 3D remake of Montezuma's Revenge, called "Montezuma's Return". (by the original author!) Unfortunately, all the reviews I saw said it sucked.

Good point. Usually something easily obtained is not as treasured. Also, the mystery is gone. Once you see all there is to get, there's nothing more to strive for. So, in the case of the Atari 8-bit, I don't really enjoy it as much as back in 1984. (but at least, I satisfied my craving) For my Amiga though, I actually enjoy it much more today. Having only limited software back then, I only used a small fraction of its potential. With the motherlode of software I have now, I've been able to do some amazing things that impress the hell out of me. Eventually, that'll probably wear off too though.

I must say, the internet is awesome! Every bit of Atari hardware and software I have now is because of the internet. Not only that, but I got lots of nice free stuff from extremely generous people who I couldn't possibly have known if it wasn't for the internet. Pre-internet, I spent years searching the classified ads for Atari stuff without success. The sheer amount of classic software available on the internet is mind boggling. I remember I stopped using my Amiga in 1991 because computer stores stopped selling Amiga stuff and I only had about 20 floppies of software. Now I have nearly 4Gb, over 100,000 files - and that's only the "best of the best". If I wanted, I could have 10x that or more. Then there are the awesome die-hard coders still making great software for our beloved old computers. Without the internet, would they even have the incentive to continue? (...or our constant pestering for them to continue? )

Nope, I still haven't found it. It's none of the games mentioned so far. I think I'll give up. It's probably a crappy game anyway. Around 90% of the things from my past that I spent years seraching for ended up being a disappointment anyway. Even the 10% that are as good as or better than I remembered still don't do much more than stop my desire of obtaining them. Thanks everybody for your help.

That would blow my mind. An Atari 800 would be even more impressive because it was made in 1979. Just thinking about using a 1970's computer to access the internet boggles my mind. Wow, now I feel like a wimpy "modern" loser for using a 1987 Amiga 500 for internet for the last 5 years.

Thanks. I don't want to go too much off topic here because this thread is supposed to be about A8 Beast, but with your A500+ specs you should be able to have a Workbench setup that blows mine away. The two things I need (well, besides more colours) are RAM and speed and you've got more than me. I'm just using the standard enhancement programs like VisualPrefs, Birdie, TitleShadow. In that case, your ASS is probably bigger than my ASS. I've got about 1400 Amiga floppies, but besides using them as frisbees, they're not much use. All my stuff is on HD and I can download anything I don't yet have.

This thread came in handy. I just ordered a "new in box" 800XL with a "type 1" keyboard!

Yeah, well check out the never-released "Monkey of the Beast": (combination of Monkey Island & Shadow of the Beast) (from my Game Combinations thread) I was so disappointed this one never made it.

What kind of accelerator do you have in there? Also what version of Amiga OS is that? The last I had was 3 and it didn't look that slick! I remember using Ibrowse and Aweb and Amosiac but they were all REALLY slow on my stock cpu A500 (altho it had 8 megs of ram, 1 meg of chip ram, and a hard drive...). I've got the Viper 520 with 33Mhz 68020 and 8Mb RAM. This is Workbench 3.1 (3.0 ROMs). I made all my own graphics, GUI elements and fonts - optimized for 16-colour. Notice my "Games" folder. It has the Psygnosis owl from Beast. Shadow of the Beast is the main reason I bought my Amiga in the first place. The colours, music and speed blew me away.

@Jetboot Jack Ahhh... now I see where the confusion came from. You were taking my comments personally because you were personally involved in the A8 Shadow of the Beast. I didn't know that and was naturally surprised by your reaction. Sorry if my comments sounded harsh. I played Amiga Shadow of the Beast to death. I played it backwards and forwards. There's a bug if you take the laser gun out of the castle where the main character runs backwards and punches with a dislocated fist in the wrong direction. I completed whole areas with my guy backwards like that. I'm using an A500 in original case. See some screenshots.

Read my post! I said "it would absolutely suck compared to the Amiga version". How could it not? Shadow of the Beast even pushed the Amiga's capabilities, so how could it possibly get close on an A8? Did I say the A8 needs primitive games?? Holy Sasquatch, people!! Read what I bloody wrote. I'm saying the loss of A8 Shadow of the Beast is no great loss because it exists on Amiga - the platform it was meant for. It's not a game that was completely lost. How many times do I have to say that? OK, yes. It was me. I caused the A8's demise. Let me inform you: The A8 is dead. The C64 is dead. The Amiga is dead. Even I know that and I'm using an Amiga to type this. You people need to lighten up.

You're overreacting. I didn't say I don't like ports. My point was that Shadow of the Beast is not a game that has been lost forever. It exists in the format it was designed for. It's not like those many tragically nearly-finished original games that we'll never see. Besides, even if Shadow of the Beast was somehow released for the A8, it would absolutely suck compared to the Amiga version because the A8 (awesome computer it was for its time) is a decade behind Amiga technology. That's like me wishing for Half-Life for my A500.

Even though Shadow of the Beast is a "Game that wasn't" on the A8, I don't feel that it's any great loss because it's just a failed port of a game originally written for the Amiga. If you want to play it that badly, play it on the Amiga where it was meant to be played. It would be a different story if it was an awesome A8-designed game that never made it.

You're not alone. I'm stuck in the 1980's too. Actually, I'm stuck pre-1985. I think 1985 was the turning point where things started to suck. It went downhill after that. That's my theory anyway.

We bomb our own hangars in Canada because our airplanes are so old, this is the only way we can get government funding for new ones.

Well, I'm using an Amiga on dialup. I don't think I'll be downloading 255Mb anytime soon.

Thanks for the tip! I was wondering what that little thing was. I'll test it when I get a chance. I noticed that the tint doesn't stay consistent, but occasionally flips back and forth. Maybe I've got a loose connection on that wheel. At least now I know where to look. Well Atari chips must be sturdier than Amiga chips because about half of the socketed Amiga chips I removed got their pins warped. I was being extremely careful and I had an IC puller. No matter how carefully I bent the pins back into shape, some still broke or were too weakened ever to remove again without breaking. I tried different methods too - slow enough to make a three-toed sloth look fast, the "gentle wiggle", the fast vertical pull. Results were always the same.