While the seemingly endless "future of the amiga" discussions go on in discussion forums, computer shows, mailing lists, etc. many people seem to forget the point that they still have an Amiga, and instead of, or while, waiting for what the future has to bring, they may still have a lot of fun with their old and faithfull miggy. A bare AGA amiga might be limited to 256 colours, 8 bit audio, and outdated architecture, and it might be a clear fact that the new machines (mainly the Wintel PCs) might be able to outperform these very easily but is it also not a fact that there are and will always be jobs for which even an unexpanded Amiga's capabilities would be more than enough ? I have been thinking about a few projects and alternative uses for our beloved miggy and I decided I would collect them in this article and share with the other Amigans from around the world. If any of you decide you are interested in the following ideas, or if any o you decide he would put these theories into practise, please feel free to contact me from memrah@usa.net
A few alternative uses for an Amiga..
I remember having a ZX Speccy when I was a teenager, and one day I realized that it was no longer a desirable computer as it once was (in the early 1980s). Now there were better machines, Amigas, Atari STs, PCs. But one person, my father reminded me that the ZX Speccy did not have any of its funtionality removed. It could still perform as perfect as the first day. Any anything I used to do on it could still be done. He was right. Definitely it was not a good reason to avoid buying a new computer, but it was good idea to remember that every computer was useful, and had capabilities that will never be out of date. The simplest one of these, for instance, would be maths. Say you had a speccy, and a new modern machine like the amiga (for the late 1980s). And you do some sines, cosines, and similar maths calculations at work but that is the only thing you would need a computer for. Would you say, the amiga has spreadsheets, greater memory, etc. etc. and buy an amiga for that task ? What about the cheap, small speccy? Now the same applies for the miggy.
Personally I am interested in all sorts of video-arts, and video editing is one of the hobbies that I won't change with anything. This hobby requires a lot of video titling, which involves scrolltexts, subtitles, even wipes. The little wonder Amiga already has a built-in PAL/NTSC compatible output with quality sufficient for amateur home video. It even has programs to allow the controling of VCRs using SONY's industry stadard LANC protocol. One can easily setup a A/B Roll editing suite with an Amiga, genlock , a VCR, and a handycam. SCALA is still a very good program. Almost unrivalled in some aspects, and the PC/Unix counterparts of SCALA are way less affordable and suitable for home use.
Ever realized that an A1200 with an ethernet adapter (such as PCMCIA ethernet cards) would make a great server ? First of all it is quite compact. Nowadays 3.5" HDs are quite affordable and they can be put into the case of an A1200 using the well-known hack. In fact one might want to include a CD-ROM drive too. After a few hours work on software installation, you have a cheap, versatile, and relatively secure server. Remember, I am not claiming that this rather humble setup can replace NT servers, SGI machines, etc. but you would have as much space for WWW as you like on your very own HD. You may even give WWW accounts to friends. APACHE, the well known web server software (www-daemon) is now available for the Amiga for free. Consider also FTP. WU-FTPd, LS-FTPd, etc. are all ftp-daemons available for the amiga, and they are very good pieces of software. WU-FTP is what Washington University Archive, WUSTL (or Aminet) is using. Setup an IRC daemon, where you make the rules. Bring your friends together on your own server.. This is no problem. In fact , with the addition of a cheap audio digitiser, you can even put streaming audio on your web page. (Unfortunately not the RealAudio standard though) Telnet daemon allows remote CLIs. With Mutiuser file system you might give shell accounts to people too, but this is not as good an idea as the others , as the amiga CLI is not designed for remote access. The simplest example is, if one tries to access a volume that does not exist, the amigaOS opens up a GUI requester.. The remote user would be left alone with a frozen shell, and the amiga will be left with a messed up GUI with a lot of requesters. Of course there are means of avoiding that such as the freeware NOREQ command file, but still remote CLIs are not vey advisable... YET! the telnet port can be used for special tasks. You can have a MUD (Multi user game) setup! In fact any program which sends and receives its input/output (or can redirect it) to a CON window can be used remotely. All you have to have is an amiga with a TCP stack, and a HD. (Don't forget though, o install a patch to turn off the HD motors after a predefined time to save energy and HD life) The one advantage over other server solutions is that the Amiga has VERY FEW backdoors and security holes over a network connection! Keeping in mind that only about %5 of the net-people are amiga oriented, there is a very small probability that your system can be hacked. The PC/Unix/BSD/etc. hacks wont be able to do any harm to your amiga. Neither will PC net-viruses, hack tools, nukers, etc. will work. In fact, provided that you carefully plan and configure your machine, it would be one of the most information-safe systems around for its cost and effectiveness. Imagine adding an external modem, and you can even have dialup data/voice/fax access, bridging the modem, and LAN users!
If you are handy with electronics and you have a fast amiga with a 060 processor (or even PPC....I say "even" for most people would not use their amiga for a single purpose like the one I am going to talk about if they have a PPC machine) For the following project you need :
- A fast amiga (fast enough to play MP3s at decent quality)
- A storage space (HD) of a few gigs. (4 ?)
- A CD drive (optional)
- A car!
By the time you have read the last item you probably have had a spark in your mind about what I am going to discuss. Yes. Imagine a computerized car. Now that we have Microsoft's autoPCs, we can guess how driving can be a real pain in the head too, so lets bring our own response to Micro$oft's auto PC! (Imagine a software failure while you are cruising at 90Mph!) Ever wanted to connect one of those new 20 CD changers to your car audio ? What about showing to everybody that you are not just one of these ordinary people by installing your Amiga1200 in the trunk and playing MP3s ? Impossible ? ope it is not! You can feed an A1200 off a car's battery,. There are schematics for this. You already have an audio setup (amplifier/speakers, etc) in your car. All you need to do is fill a HD with HOURS AND HOURS of your favorite music, connect the audio output of your miggy to the aux input of your car audio, and run a wire from the joystick port to the dashboard, to connect up to 5 push buttons for.. you guessed it.. (Play, Forward, Reverse, Stop, Select) buttons. All you have to do would be to program a simple interface to read the joystick port to tell the MPEGA player, which MP3 file to play. Run another cable from the mouse port for some extras and you can have your K.I.T.T! (Amiga actually :) ) turn itself on when the car starts, and you can have your car (Kitt, amiga, whatever) say (remember, the amiga has a SAY command, and a speech synthesiser built-in to the OS :) ) "Hello, how are you today..It is XX:XX o clock" etc. You can have the miggy to tell the time, tell some pre-written things (jokes ?) aloud at random times.. Imagine how enjoyable, and funny it would be. Imagine also the look on your friends' face after your KITT! starts showing off what it can do [SOme mysterious ligts, etc. will make your dashboard look even more impressing :)] If you decide you can find some place for the miggy close to the dashboard, you can even include a C
