(incidentally I realise that nobody is likely to be interested in the following but me, but this is my site and I can be self-indulgent with it if I want to so there *wink*)
Last week I found an abandonware site that had Mac versions of several old favourite games from my early and mid-teens, versions which run very happily in 'classic' mode on my existing computer, with a few notable exceptions that use the processor speed for timings (playing Theme Park proves to be impossible because you miss a year each time you blink!) anyway I enjoyed revisiting a few of the workable games over the weekend and discovered that (apart from the sound quality) they're mostly as good as I remembered them from over a decade ago.
Back then I used an Amiga, a computer platform well ahead of its time, (not least in terms of sound processing it seems!) which for whatever reason didn't really 'make it'. Quite when the platform died is hard to say, partly because it was owned by a confusing succession of parent companies over its later years, and partly as some people are still resolutely using them as their main computers today, however in an objective look at the history of modern computing, the Amiga would probably figure as a small footnote, and was really only a 'contender' between 1985 and 1992. I finally gave up on it about the time I started working here and encountered Mac OS X for the first time, mid-way through 2001, which is a good six years after the last new product in the line was released - all Amiga users die hard you see, and you'd probably find that a little Amiga user lives on even now inside anyone who ever owned one.
...but I digress, coincidentally to finding software from the old days, I've been clearing out some of the last of my old hardware recently as well - I mothballed pretty much all of my Amiga gear when my PowerBook was delivered in September 2001, and after a couple of weeks using the new computer I decided to get rid of the old. I placed an advert on a specialist site at the time and shifted a couple of things before interest ran dry and I gave up. Sentimental fool that I am though I couldn't bring myself to simply bin the remaining hardware so it's been sitting about the house in boxes for the last couple of years.
As I've mentioned with the start of the new year I've found a new drive for sorting things out and after a recent evening clearing out cupboards I was left with a substantial number of Amiga components that no longer had a home: a couple of accelerator cards, a monitor that uses connectors and refresh-rates unique to the Amiga, various expansions, add-ons, peripherals and one entire system with a broken floppy-drive that's otherwise (amazingly) still serviceable. Once again sentimentality got the better of me - this old junk was a big part of my late-childhood, and even after all these years it seemed wrong to simply consign them to the scrap-heap. So as a sort of last gesture of appreciation for all the years of enjoyment they gave me I placed a for-sale ad online again on the same specialist site...
...and to my amazement responses started flooding in! to date I've made over £150 from the sale of this stuff, with the remaining odds and ends all under at least one offer I look set to rake in a total comfortably beyond £200, and best of all my beloved old junk is being shipped off to new homes where people are actually going to use it. Incredible.
It's sad but true that while parcelling up and shipping off all this gear, I've caught myself feeling a little conflicted sometimes - writing overly elaborate installation instructions, or checking for their safe arrival with just a bit more interest than can be justified simply as that of a conscientious e-seller... I think the truth is that even though it's been sitting gathering dust for years I'm going to miss my 'mig. Still it's nice to know that none of it's bound for the landfill, at least not just yet.
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