Adelaide Amiga Meeting Jan 2016

Last night was the first meeting of the Adelaide Amiga user group for 2016 and it was a very full meeting place!

For this meeting the theme was Amiga and other Retro computers, and we certainly got an interesting variety of computers on display!

Here is a Amstrad CPC6128 Plus, Dick Smith 80 and a Commodore 64 which has a Raspberry Pi inside running C64 emulation!

As you can see, there were plenty of people and lots of lively conversation about all things retro computing!

Here you can see an Amiga 500 and A600 too:

Here is a closer look at the Amstrad:

I used to own an Amstrad CPC6128, but never seen or used this later model before! Looks great!

The Dick Smith System 80 was a static display, but great to see it!

Here is a closer look at the Raspberry Pi housed in a C64 running a Commodore 64 emulator under Emulation Station - you can see the Amiga Action replay and Amiga 1000 Digiview expansion on display too:

I also saw this interesting Amiga 500 on display:

It has a Commodore A590 expansion hard disk, using a SCSI2SD converter to run the hard disk from MicroSD card:

Firing up some WHDLoad games from the hard disk:

I then had to get to work setting up my AmigaOne X1000 for my presentation at the meeting - an Introduction to AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition:

I hooked up the X1000 Radeon HD card via HDMI out to the big screen and DVI out to a smaller screen simultaneously, so I could demonstrate to the audience, and still face the audience while doing so!

Unfortunately I couldn't film my presentation and present it, but I am sure some photos will turn up.

George took a photo of me doing the presentation and shared via Facebook - I hope he also doesn't mind me including it here:

The presentation I did ran for 30 minutes and covered some of the history of AmigaOS through the years, web resources to find more information, current vendors and developers, the features of the new AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition, what hardware it runs on and where to buy it from.

I will show one more taken by Paul of Retrospekt, who attended the meeting tonight and shared it via Facebook - hope he doesn't mind me including it:

I also demonstrated the AmigaOS 4.1 GUI itself, the AmigaOne systems it runs on (including emulation via Amiga Forever), showing Classic amiga apps running natively, MP3 playback, internet browsing, games, demos, classic amiga emulation and more.

I fielded a lot of Q&A after the presentation about AmigaOS 4.1 features, and I was glad to see plenty of interest in it.

I was given much thanks for the presentation and I am glad people enjoyed it!

After it finished I then set up the X1000 next to my C64 with a 1541 Ultimate II installed which I also brought along to show this meeting - here they are running together:

The C64 was running some great REU based demos (Ram Expansion Unit) from the 1541 Ultimate II via SD card.

I had some very interesting discussions with some C64 local Adelaide demo scene members and fans - it was great fun and I learnt a lot!

It was really great to see people getting into and trying out all the Retro hardware on show:

An Amiga 1200 was also on display, showing some nice effects on a normal TV:

A Phoenix Amiga 1000 system was also on display - for those unfamiliar, the Phoenix motherboard was a drop in replacement for the A1000 which added Workbench 2.0 and a lot of other functionality, and was designed right here in Adelaide.

The second presentation of the evening was a extremely rare opportunity to see a real MITS Altair 8800 running - courtesy of Theo who brought it in to demonstrate at the meeting:

This unit was sourced from Canada and is fully functional. It can boot CP/M and the original Microsoft Basic from floppy disk:

The presentation was fascinating, with a lot of history about the system and the work involved to make it run well again:

Standing room only by this stage!

Theo used a VT100 terminal to connect to the system:

Seriously, flick switches and flashing red lights on computers are just cool!

Here is CP/M up and running on the Altair 8800:

Here is the first original Microsoft Basic now loaded:

You can even play some games on it - I even had a brief play on it. Wow, I have now used an Altair 8800:

I took two videos of the Altair 8800 running during the presentation, which I have uploaded to YouTube. They are linked below:

https://youtu.be/BUKr6ep2Bxk

https://youtu.be/cnEJKOR1_L8 

The case was also taken off the Altair 8800 so we could take a closer look at the internals of this amazing working piece of history - the first real personal computer!

After the presentations were finished the conversations continued until late and it was really interesting to see lots of new faces for this meeting:

This meeting was a great success, with all the tables full. We also had a Commodore 128D on display and another Amiga 1200 used for video production on static display!

On the way out I couldn't help but notice one of the meeting attendees just had the best car rego plate so I had to grab a photo to include - Respect mate:

Thanks to everyone for coming and bringing their very interesting Retro computer systems to see and use on the night! I got back home after midnight and then stayed up until 2am to finish this blog post!

I really enjoyed the Adelaide Amiga meeting this month and can't wait for the next one!

Adelaide Amiga Meeting Jan 2015

Last night (January 19th) I attended the Adelaide Amiga Meeting, held at Clarence Park Community Centre from 7:30pm. It was a great night!



Above is Andrew Wilson and George (AmigaMan101) preparing the room with a big Amiga banner! Andrew Wilson is an Adelaide-based developer of the Phoenix A1000 Motherboard replacement and memory expansion modules.

The Adelaide Amiga Meeting was held in the Black Forest Room. There is a regular user group meeting each Monday evening at 7:30pm at this venue too, apparently with a mix of PC, C64 and Amiga users present:



I brought Michael (MickJT) along, and he brought his Sam440ep-flex 800mhz AmigaOS4.1 system with him to display:

In addition, George had brought along his Amiga 500 and Amiga 1000 for the meeting:

Melanie (from the Play it Again Project) was also present, keen to chat to us about our memories of Australian made games in the 1980's as part of her ongoing project. It was very interesting to hear her talk about her project in detail. You can read more about that project on her website here.

I brought along my AmigaOne X1000, which proved quite an effort to pack, unpack, repack and unpack again! But it was worth it because it certainly received a lot of attention from attendees on the night.

I also brought the latest Amiga Future magazine for attendees to flick through to see that Amiga is still very much alive in 2015.

We had plenty of questions about this strange new AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition version - who is Hyperion, can we run Amiga games on this new system, why do we still muck around with Amigas in 2015 - and so on! It was great to see people's genuine enthusiasm and interest in the Classic and Next Gen Amigas on display.

MickJT was certainly busy showing off what his Sam440ep-flex system could do!

Not since AmiWest 2014 have I been surrounded by so many Amiga systems so I was very glad to talk Amiga with fellow enthusiasts again, this time in my home city!

This Amiga 1000 has a Phoenix Memory expansion module attached - you can see an Amiga 1200 in the background too:

Cameng and MelbourneBen talking about the Amiga 1000:

The Amiga 1200 was rather special, being one of the Amiga 1200's Petro has personally signed - it is in perfect condition:

At the meeting an ACA1231 accelerator was fitted to the Amiga 1200 - it also has a CF card installed which was purchased from AmigaKit.

Ian (below, left) is also an AmigaOne X1000 owner based in Adelaide (wow, there is more than one!), and was very keen to discuss the latest developments and setup hints and tips for the X1000:

Another view of my AmigaOne X1000 on display at the Meeting:

I was surprised that there was a mix of attendees, young and older:

Andrew Wilson and George:

As mentioned, Andrew Wilson, Adelaide-based developer of the Phoenix A1000 Motherboard replacement and memory expansion modules was at the meeting too.



Andrew explaining the features of the Phoenix A1000 memory expansion board:

It was very interesting to hear about the development of the Phoenix A1000 board, it's expandability and features.

The Phoenix Motherboard up close:

My AmigaOne X1000 got plenty of interest and I fielded lots of questions from Amigans curious to know more about modern Amiga systems, AmigaOS4, Amigakit and A-EON too:

I also opened up the X1000 so people could take a look at the Motherboard and setup internally:

Also set up at the Meeting was an Amiga 1000 and Amiga 500:

Here, MickJT explaining some of the finer points of AmigaOS4.1:

Andrew was very kind to give a lot of his technical knowledge of the Amiga Phoenix motherboard.

He also explained a bit more about the story behind the approach from members of A1K forum to purchase some Phoenix Motherboards (PCB only) from him back in 2005 to turn into full functional Amiga boards again.

Andrew also brought along some flyers and club magazine from the original Adelaide Amiga user group from back in the day:

MelbourneBen had brought along some Amiga 2000 expansion cards he recently got, including this OpalVision card (made in Australia) which I hadn't seen before:

This second A1000 brought to the meeting was a bit unwell, but thanks to Andrew and some work on the night, it was brought back to life again:

The Adelaide Amiga Meeting 2015 was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed spending time with other Adelaide based Amiga enthusiasts. We probably had about 15-20 people during the evening (wasn't counting) which was great to see. I think if it were held on a weekend you would see even more come!

The show wrapped up around 10:30pm when we packed up and headed home. I had almost lost my voice after so much intense Amiga discussion during the evening!

I want to thank George (Amigaman101) for his work to get this Adelaide Amiga meeting off the ground, Andrew for his interesting presentation of the Phoenix Motherboard, and of course all the other attendees who brought their Amiga's along for a fun evening!