It's me!

Hi Everyone,

How do I describe myself? Old. Well, in the early 90s I was a graphics artist and games designer for a couple of years, working on terrible games for the C64, Amiga 500, Atari STFM, and finally the Sega Megadrive, after which I left the industry when I realised that my limited art skills would soon let me down as graphics got better. A decade or so ago I started collecting some old computers, a couple of including ZX81s, a ZX Spectrum 48K, Amiga 1200, Atari STFM, STe 4096, Atari 800XL (can't find that at the moment), and indulged in my usual inveterate tinkering and upgrading with them all.

That seemed to go off the boil after a couple of years, and late last year I got back into it with the purchase of a Commodore C64U, a hopefully imminent delivery of a Spectrum Next series 3, and one day a Vectrex Mini. Meantime, I discovered the ReAmiga project, and initially bought a 1200 board to transplant my first A1200's good bits onto, as it suffered from some trace damage due to leaky caps and battery before I got it. I repaired and recapped it myself, but wasn't happy, so bought another board and got it recapped by someone more competent at the time. I hate wasting things, so that job's on the menu at some point once my finances have recovered, but yet again I got distracted.

First distraction was MiSTer FPGA, which I built and have knocking about nearby, and then it was a MiSTress to go in a custom black A1200 case cos I "accidentally" bought two of the FPGA boards. That looks nice, but I've not had much time to play with it yet, which I'm ashamed of. The latest distraction has been a ReAmiga 4000CR motherboard that I picked up on AmiBay, and have been buying up the entire contents of the internet's new and old electronic components, expanding my project to include an AmiGUS sound board (it was cheap), and a Z3660 CPU board, with a choice of a 68060, or a Myir Z-turn FPGA board pretending to be one. I'm one of those eejits that likes a challenge, on the basis that if you're not pushing yourself to learn new skills, you're stagnating.... sometimes.

I've now got most of the components to build my A4000, including a repro case, and today I learned how to program 16V8 GALs that are the glue that holds all the custom chips together on the original A4000, and use a slightly tweaked version for the ReAmiga 4000CR. It was surprisingly easy for a novice once I got a suitable device, but other than reading them back and comparing some noticeable bit patterns with the .jed files, I've got no way to test they're gonna work yet

Next, I'll be learning how to code CPLDs once that programmer arrives. Fortunately, the Xilinx chip arrived last week, although I've currently forgotten which board it belongs to. Fortunately, I have a massive spreadsheet to keep track of everything, because my memory's appalling!

Anyway. I've forgotten most of what I knew about Amigas over the years, and certainly haven't got the skills to write any code for anything other than "Hello World", but I'm always open to trying once I've got at least one working Amiga.

That's me (or my stash at least), so Hello

Mike.

Hi Mate!
Welcome aboard! i hope you enjoy your stay here with us! Here we are almost aged users like you
Most of us own classic Amiga (500/600/1200/4000) and ng systems like the AmigaOne, Sam440/460 or the AmigaOne X1000/X5000.
It is always good to hear old stories about video game industry so, please, you are welcome to share your past with us, if you wish :)

@RetroMike

welcome back and enjoy the very deep Rabbit hole in AMIGA land

@RetroMike

Welcome Mike

I’m a longtime fan of modern ATX motherboards and modern gfx card,
I have two AmigaONE’s, that use from time to time,

I had an old CRT and Amiga500 years ago, CRT screen mede my eyes tired, and A500 was too slow, and I always hated the cable management, I believe it ended up in landfill. No, I did not throw it away, my dad did. And no, I’m not looking for another one.

Welcome aboard!

@RetroMike

Will you be building a standard daughter board for the A4000 or a Firebird PCI?

@RetroMike

Welcome back!

@Rob

I'm not sure what you're asking yet, but I'm guessing you're not referring to the CPU daughterboard? A quick Google showed me it was the riser board. Neither of the above - I've already picked up a Mediator board. I'll be (hopefully) plugging in the AmiGUS sound board, and I guess I'll take it from there. Just getting the 4000 up and running will be quite an achievement, and I'm more than a little nervous about that.

Thanks for the (re)welcome folks.

I've yet to meet a young retro gamer, although I'm sure they must exist somewhere.

My time in the gaming industry was a pretty solitary affair apart from my business partner. We wrote about 10 games on various platforms, got screamed at by the boss of a well-known company because he was in the middle of going bankrupt and we'd not finished a piece of work that probably triggered a payment he needed, and then soon after that I left. Not much to tell in the middle

Mike.