Well, as I write this it's only the beginning of July and it feels like summer's lasted for years already. Don't worry, I haven't become deluded. I don't think that 5 days of beautiful sunshine followed by several weeks of utter p*sh constitutes a long summer. It's just that the last couple of months seems to have lasted for ever. The reason ? I've had to struggle on Amiga-less since the beginning of May.
Now, ther have been times in the past (admittedly few & far between) when I have gone for months on end without touching the Amiga. But on those occasions it was through choice. Either I was too buzy or, for one reason or another, I'd lost interest. This was different. It was the first time since that fateful day in 1993 when my girlfriend and I came running excitedly home from Dixons (bleurgh!) with the Desktop Dynamite pack, that I'd been forced to go without. I sincerely hope I never have to again.
It all began to go pear shaped around 6 months ago, when my trusty Commodore 1084s monitor's health began to fail. the colour went on it and it was given a decent retiral.
In it's place went my old portable TV, while I began to look for a cheap second-hand Microvitec Multiscan. I didn't have much luck. Despite checking AmiBench every day and asking around, I couldn't lay my hands on one that was in good nick and wasn't so far away that it cost as much to post it as it did to buy it! However things weren't that bad. The telly was only slightly worse than the 1084s, eyestrain-wise, although gradually it's colour began to fade too.
Around the end of April disaster struck. I came in one evening with Mark (the guy I write with). I switched everything on, ready to put the finishing touches to a track we'd been working on......
Everything worked except the display. It was completely dead. (& is now keeping the 1084s company under the stairs) Obviously I had to redouble my efforts to find a decent display.
A couple of weeks past then I thought I'd found it. A guy on Amibench would send me a "mint-condition" Microvitec m1438 for �70 including postage. I e-mailed him one more time to make sure he was sending it complete with cables. A few days passed & he didn't get back to me. Then an old work-mate offered me a brand new compaq 14" SVGA for �50. by this time I was getting desperate and snapped it up. Next day the guy from Amibench e-mailed me to see if I still wanted the Microvitec! D'oh!. This was now the end of May. The Compaq was duly delivered to my house a few days later but I couldn't use it without a scandoubler! Cue daily 'phone calls to Eyetech, Power and Analogic. Not a scandoubler to be had from any of them. This situation continued for almost three weeks, until Eyetech eventually reported they had them in stock. But that wasn't the end of the story - they had to test them before sending them out! So about a week later I picked up ~�100 worth of internal scandoubler/flickerfixer from the post office.
The clouds were beginning to part. Now, having read what I've already written, you'll probably understand my eagerness to get the thing home and installed. In fact I was so keen that I took straight into the room, removed the A1200 from the tower and stripped off the shielding and disconnected all the cables immediately. I fitted the new goods in place before realising I didn't have the instructions to put it back together! Yup, I know what you're thinking, and you're right -1complete tosser! Anyway another call to Eyetech & a few days later I had some new instructions. Click-snap-ouch- get-on there-ya- bugger and I was ready to go.
What now ? The display was pink. Cue yet more calls to an increasingly puzzled Eyetech before three days later, I figured it out. One of the components from the Scandoubler (the one that clips over the Alice chip) wasn't pushed down firmly enough!
That was last week. Now I have a display which is sharper than it has ever been and for the first time ever I'm browsing the 'net with this beast. I'm even typing this on it and sending it via e-mail. My Amiga's never been so good! Anyway, if there's a moral to this story, I'm bolloxed if I know what it is!