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[LotharGR]

talented programmers could do miracles with Amigas... I have seen demos running in a simple amiga 500 with 256 colors on screen and 3D textured polygons... Those were the days that programmers really pushed the computers to their limits, and not like today.

[mika]

Yea, I used to have a ZX too! Man I loved that thing. Actually I still got it, but I haven't even looked at it in years.

It's incredible to think that nowdays you can get better games on cellphones than those you could get on the Spectrum! :shock:

[The Niles]

My first computer was an MSX. 64k RAM no monitor but a simple TV. I still have it and I have set it up from time to time but there is no reason for it. I have only a few games for it and only used it to program on it. I made quite a few good games. Can't port them though and that is a shame.

The oldest computer I have worked on was a VIC20 the predicessor to the C64. That was fun but very limited. A friend and I made a game for it than was pretty fun to play but ran on the very limits of the machine. It was in real time and that is actually hard to make work on that old thing.

If you think programming no longer pushes computers to their limits you should look again. Games like Far Cry are ammazing and a game like Medieval Total War gets the most out of your computer. Those games can run on slower machines but then they have to. If you want to sell a game now you cannot have it run only on the most modern they have to be able to run on slower machines as well or they will not sell. If you are lucky enough to own a very fats computer you are in for a (vissual) treat that makes the extra bucks you payed on your rig worth while but the game you can play on older setups.

[LotharGR]

When i said that programmers do not push computers to their limits i din't meant that the games do not continue to evolve... of course as time passes and new games come out, each wants more and more power from the computer just to be able to run. But miracles do not happen anymore. It was a "miracle" when in a simple amiga 500 you played a adventure with 256 colours ( the game was "universe" and it showed all this colours on the playfield not on the background ). The programmers used a system with multiple screens in this game. Also other programs produced 8 channel stereo sound from a 4bit sound chip ( far worse than a simple soundblaster pro ). And amiga isn't the only example what talent can do... I have seen "Doom" running on a zx spectrum! ( it was more like wolf3d actually, without enemies, and it runned on a very very small screen ) but it was amazing!. Of course these machines exist for almost 20-25 years now and it is undestandable why programmers do this things on them... they have learned every secret of these computers. Such things on a PC cannot happen ( mainly because for the reason of the open architecture. Almost every pc has a differend configuration, so hardware programming is difficult ). Thats why Amiga was called the "Rolls Royce" of the computers... PC's are machines that can produce only raw computing power, but on a Amiga if someone knows the machine very well can do magic.

[The Niles]

A friend of mine had a AMIGA500 back in those days and I will admit at the time the AMIGA was far better then the PC's that were around then. Times change though and after the AMIGA500 the PC's advanced far quicker then the AMIGA did. The 1200 still had a slight edge in all the extra's it had in it but the modularity of the PC gave it something no AMIGA could compete with in the end.
I first played civilization on the AMIGA. creating a world would take 20 minutes. How's that for speed .

[LotharGR]

I know... i also played civ 1 on a amiga 500... What more the poor machine could do? Its CPU runned in 7.14Mhz

[Danny252]

This machine has been running since 1990 or something, with multiple OS, CPU and motherboard upgrades, addons and a 2 video cards at least. No viruses and only 4 or 5 major crashes. not bad and its older than me!

[The Niles]

in 1990 we had the 386 as the top of the line maybe even a 286. Might I ask what kind of computer you have now? I seems impossible to me that any part of the original computer from that time could still function in a modern computer.

[LotharGR]

The question was to me? My PC is a Athlon XP 2700+. Amiga exists before 1990... the first model ( Amiga 1000 ) came out in 1987.

[Danny252]

ell revision is about 8 years old, I was a bit out there.