Speaking of the Amiga:
Thirty five years ago I became an Amiga user. One of the first, actually. This is a meandering and reminiscent post of sorts, written to mark the Amiga’s 35th anniversary and the 35 years I have known and loved the system.
The Amiga is such an odd platform. Against every single odd ever created, it is still around, it still has an incredibly dedicated community maintaining, upgrading, and expanding both the hardware and software of not only the classic Amiga, but also the ‘modern’ Amiga OS 4 platform. And on top of all that, there’s MorphOS steadily improving every single release, and AROS as the open source alternative.
The dedication the loyal Amiga fanbase displays every single day for 35 years now is inspiring. I’ve extensively tested, explored, and used both Amigs OS 4 and MorphOS, and while neither of those click with me in any way, I can’t help but admire the Amiga community as a whole – the usual warts that go with vibrant communities and all.
Here’s to another 35 years, you crazy bastards.
There are also communities for the Atari ST, Spectrum, Acorn computers etc.
Regarding Acorn, hardware and software is still being produced for the 8-bit machines and the 32-bit machines’ RISC OS has been ported to newer ARM devices, notably the Raspberry Pi.
Indeed. Last year I bought an ethernet port for my MSX, and I’m awaiting a new video cart for it at the moment. All these platforms will have dedicated communities as long as the people who were young at their heydays are still around (and with much more money too).