Yokemate of Keyboards
Posts: 2101 from 2003/2/24
From: po-RNO
Quote:
coolchilli wrote:
I'm interested to understand whether it's the large software base going back to the 1980s that is the greatest draw, nostalgia for old games, visual arts software, productivity software, or something else entirely?
I've always used Amigas as my main computers (well, since I swapped my c64 for an A500). Already at A500 times I did use it for text processing, drawing, programming etc. Then I upgraded to an A1200, got it online with dial-up modems, kept upgrading the A1200 with CPU cards, graphics cards, audio and network cards, SCSI drives (HDs, CD-RWs, DATs), etc, etc. It ended up being a monsterous twin-tower system (not only the A1200 was moved in a tower case, but also had a separate SCSI-tower for extra mass-storage). At one point I got a Pentium "for studies", but I actually kept using my A1200 as the main machine and never connected the PC with a modem etc.. the PC didn't get much use at all, because I still loved how Amiga did operate and I had all my stuff on it, and I managed to do all I needed with it. Finally this monsterous hacked&patched Amiga started to get a bit slow for my needs and stability wasn't the best either, to be honest.
When I managed to buy a cheap second hand Pegasos 1 with MorphOS in 2004 (for 300e IIRC), the A1200 setup finally retired as my main daily machine. MorphOS was a direct continuation for the expanded Amiga use, so it felt like home immediately. The programs I was using on the A1200/RTG/AHI setup did mostly work on the new MorphOS setup, but everyting was soo much snappier in use and also more stable, thanks to new more modern hardware and built-in features in the OS (didn't require that much suspicious 3rd party software pathces).
Since then I've moved to PPC Macs and MorphOS has kept improving and keeping up during the years. I just love to use this kind of system which has lots of clever things not seen on mainstream platforms and user can tune the system just the way he/she likes (every Amiga user tend to have slightly different taste how). MorphOS has got a good own software base and old Amiga software isn't that important anymore, although a nice bonus and there are some useful programs still. In any case I still haven't felt a need to move on other platforms at home... of course you can't avoid them in the "real world", but I've tried to manage those duties on Amiga/MorphOS as much as possible always :)
So, it's more like where you have grown rather than some certain thing you could point out to be a reason using this system now. There may be better or more professional programs on other platforms, but it's the whole way of using computers... starting from how the UI and filehandling do work, and the whole philosophy under it. And I find it less stressful to use than mainstream systems, less cursing why something still doesn't work like I'd want (or why they can't see that this could be implemented better) and no need to fear which programs you dare to install or do you get some malware everywhere.
Here's a more detailed desctiption for what I usually use MorphOS:
link