Still waiting on mine. That's one of the bad things about living down in Texas...TA takes longer to get to me. :(

I think they're both quite awesome pics, especially the first one. No explanation needed, IMO.

I got my order from Amigakit.com today...fantastic job on packaging everything! I now have 3.1 ROMs, Workbench 3.1, PCMCIA CF adapter, and of course the OS4 mousepad. :) Sooo...do I need to install the 3.1 ROMs first, or will Workbench 3.1 need to be installed before doing anything else? I'm assuming I should install the ROMs first, but I just want to double-check.

I just think the word "amigans.net" needs to stand out a little more. People like me with poor eyesight have a hard time reading it.

I do have to admit that I was disappointed to see AW.net turning blue after my 3 year absence, but thankfully this site was opened not too long after my venture back into the world of Amiga. You guys get a big "Thanks!" from me too!

Done! :)

Awesome! I just got the last issue of TA in the mail yesterday , so it sounds like I won't have to wait long at all for the next issue! :)

I personally always hated the integrated keyboard cases, although I do find the A1200 case to be the nicest of those I've seen. I'd much prefer something new though...maybe they could integrate the computer into the mouse? That's about the only peripheral that hasn't been done with yet. :D

I'm not worried about Sam's lack of power, honestly. I know most everyone here wants to see a new Amiga running the latest and greatest, but I think it kind of misses the point by expecting that. AOS can run great on lower end hardware, and seeing a lower end board running it at full speed will go a long ways in pronouncing this fact...although not as much as running it on a PDA, but I digress. This board definitely would provide a good foundation for future hardware, with the added benefit of being a little more affordable for those of us who can't spend $1,000US+ on hobbyist hardware. Let it sit out there for a bit, and maybe the economies of scale will allow for more powerful hardware to come out at a reasonable price.

I'm sure the new member signups will level off shortly, but still, it's nice to see the population here growing. :)

Regardless of what the price is, it'll be nice to see some new Amiga hardware. Having said that, I'm still hoping it'll be somewhere near affordable. :)

You're right, the keyboard is making my rear look like a chess board! :)

Just as an update, I'm still patiently waiting for new parts to make it in. I might end up turning this whole experience into an article of sorts, and if I do, I'll post it here for all of you to gander at and feel jealous about being new to Amiga. ;)

I used GFA Basic on my Atari ST quite a bit back in the day, and I'll certainly vouch for its usefulness as well as its ease of use. I never knew it was available for the Amiga.

AMOS, which I'm guessing is the Amiga cousin to STOS on the Atari, is good but is a little more "retro" in that it still uses line numbers, and is much more geared towards the creation of games rather than any more serious applications. If I'm wrong about AMOS, someone please correct me...I'm just going off my memory of STOS and assuming AMOS was the exact same.

Anyways, it's quite interesting to know that GFA Basic is available on the Amiga. I'll have to go search for it myself... :)

Oh, I think you mean A&W. They even have fast food restaurants here with excellent burgers!

Here's one I heard from my friend's 8 year old daughter:

Why did the fish cross the ocean?

To get to the other tide.

@Fransexy

You hit the nail on the head. So much work has gone into throwing in the "bells and whistles" into an operating system that it's basic functions have been ignored. I can't look at any of the three major ones (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux desktop distros) and see any sort of effort to get back into the basics and allow the OS to become transparent instead of getting in the way of the user. It's like the OSes try to be everything for everyone, and I think we all know how that turns out...a jack of all trades but a master of none. I think that AOS goes a long way towards being a transparent experience just from its simplicity and efficiency, and that efforts to make it more "modern" shouldn't lose sight of this.

I also find this to be one of the charms of delving into AOS 3.0, which is what I have on my A1200 at the moment. Sure, there are more modern functions that I do miss while playing aroudn on it, but even then most other OSes didn't have them at that point in time either.

@Mitch

Forgive Mikey_C's tone, I think he's just too used to having to deal with the flame wars over on the other sites and misunderstood what you're getting at.

What you're proposing is probably a good idea. I'm still a noob with Amigas in general and haven't even touched OS4, so I have no clue as to what the online security situation currently is. However, if it's something that really hasn't been looked into by others in-depth, recognizing the current shortcomings is definitely the first step in getting them fixed.

@Mitch

Oh, he's gorgeous, just look at his avatar! :)

Just because it's security through obscurity doesn't make it any less secure. Does any version of the AmigaOS natively allow for remote logins of any type, such as FTP, telnet, web hosting, etc? The more of these types of services are available (and even enabled by default), the more of a risk you'll have. I'll venture a guess and say that AOS 1.3 - 3.9 at the very least doesn't have most, if any, of these. A bigger concern would probably be browser encryption, but considering the current state of browsers, I doubt most sites you would do any online transactions with would even work correctly with them. As it stands, though, I'd say overall you're far more secure using an Amiga online than a Windows or even a current Mac.

Those are all good ones! Not much of a joke here, but I did have a dream that Mikey_C and I both died and went to Heaven. When we both woke up in Heaven, I noticed that I was tied with golden rope to an extremely ugly woman, and Mikey_C was tied to an absolutely beautiful woman, the likes of which I had never seen before.

After all of us stood there tied up for a while, St. Peter came strolling in and greeted us to Heaven, and asked if we had any questions. Not missing a beat, I quickly spoke up:

"St. Peter, why am I tied to this horribly ugly woman?"

"Sauron, you're being punished for your sins that you weren't able to repent before you died."

"So why is Mikey_C tied up to an extraordinarily beautiful woman then?"

"Oh, that's simple; she's being punished for her sins."

:)