Computers and Games

Background Information

The beginning

Commodore 64

My interest in computers started in 1986 when I bought my first computer. A Commodore 64. I mostly played games then but also took my first steps in programming. In 1989 the time had come to buy an Amiga 500 which in 1992 was replaced by an Amiga 600 and some months later to an Amiga 1200. It wasn´t until the summer of 1995 I decided to go on to the PC platform. In Autumn 1998 I once again bought an Amiga 1200 with some additional Fast Ram

The old commodore 64 still has a lot of fans on the internet. Check out these links if you want to hear classical C-64 tunes or download a C-64 emulator. The best musicians of the C-64 era in my view are - in no particular order - Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway and Ben Dalgleish. Other great musicians worth mentioning is David Whittaker, Chris Huelsbeck, Fred Gray and Jonathan Dunn.

Downloadable Top C-64 Game music
(No ranking)

1. Mutants
2. Nemesis the Warlock
3. The Last Ninja
4. Legend of Kage
5. Task III
6. Thrust
6. Arkanoid
7. Monty on the Run
8. Bombo
9. Bulldog
10. Ocean Loader
11. Short Circuit

Amiga

Information

Though I today have a PC, I follow with interest what is happening to the Amiga since I think it is a great machine (vastly underpowered though). Amiga Technologies was finally sold in 1997-03-27 to Gateway 2000 and has changed name to Amiga International. check out these Amiga related sites for more information.

The future for the Amiga was presented at the World Of Amiga 1998 in London
This will happen in 1999...

1. The Current AmigaOS 3.1 will be upgraded to 3.5 and released in August 1999. Since Jim Collas became the new president of Amiga Inc in February 1999, there might be further development of this OS after the release of 3.5 but that has not been decided yet.

2. The next generation of Amiga computers are being developed with a new operating system based on the Linux kernel. In fact that was a decision made in July 1999. Since November 1998, the QNX Kernel was told to be the OS to build next generation of Amiga computers on but business related aspects got in favour for using the Linux kernel. The new Amiga Operating Environment will include a revolutionary software concept called Amiga Objects. The developer machine have been delayed to the 4th quarter of 1999 when the Amiga MCC (Multimedia Convergence Computer) also will be released. Amiga MCC is a new computer designed by Pentagram that differs from the look of normal PC´s as can be seen on the pictures. This machine will have 2 PCI ports and 7 USB ports. No ISA, serial or parallell ports will be fitted. You will also be able to buy a separate ATX motherboard that have room for more PCI ports and that you can fit into ordinary mini/midi tower cases. The supplied 128-bit graphic chip will be manufactured by ATI and the new processor will be from Transmeta. The aggressive time schedule targets the release of this machine before christmas 1999.

Amiga have several business partners in this new launch and some of them are ATI, SUN, COREL and TRANSMETA.

Little is known about the TRANSMETA processor but it is said to be able to emulate X86 code and have hardware support for JAVA and Linux. Rumours says the first processor will be ready to ship in the 4th quarter with a speed of 400 Mhz. For further information regarding the next generation of Amiga products I recommend you to visit Amiga