These web pages were created exclusively on an Amiga. You see, the web is accessible by all kinds of computers. No piece of hardware, operating system or browser should be excluded from accessing the Internet - would you be happy if the machine you are using right now was barred from accessing a website? Well, that's the way some companies would like it, so exercise your right to choice otherwise you could lose it.
If you are in the unfortunate position of thinking all computers are alike, then you may be very surprised to find that this isn't the case. The world may be dominated by IBM PC compatibles and Micros**t operating systems, but there are alternatives - most of which have the edge in terms of hardware, software, performance and price. The Apple Macintosh is one such popular alternative. Or maybe a PC running either the free operating system Linux (which is also a very capable, and low-cost web server platform) or the BeOS media OS?
For me, the Amiga and its OS provides a powerful, elegant and low-cost system which fits my needs ideally. The Amiga has had a bit of a tragic history, poor marketing, underdevelopment from previous owners and so on... but despite this it still offers many powerful features (including some I've yet to see any other system offer as standard). I've used lots of other operating systems, including the Mac and Micros**t Windows so I have some experience in these matters. With new owners Gateway, and a large amount of financial and R&D support, the Amiga's future is more than assured.
| My Amiga A4000/030 | |
|---|---|
| CPU: | 68EC030 @ 25 MHz |
| RAM: | 18 Mb |
| OS: | AmigaOS 3.0 |
| Storage: | 1.76 Mb High Density Floppy Disk Drive Quantum Fireball 2.1 Gb IDE Hard Disk Sanyo/Compaq CRD-254V 4X CD-ROM Drive Iomega Zip-100 Drive (Ext. SCSI) |
| Expansion Cards: | Phase 5 CyberVision 64/3D Graphics Card (4Mb VRAM) CV64/3D Scandoubler Oktagon 2008 SCSI-2 Card IOBlix IO card (4xS, 1xP) |
| Peripherals: | CTX 1555E 15" SVGA Monitor Epson Stylus COLOR 600 Inkjet PACE 56k Modem UMAX Astra 610S Flatbed Scanner Palm Pilot Cradle |
For starters, my system is quite old. It's a vintage 1994 Amiga A4000/030 (developed about 1992). It has a 25 MHz 68030 and 18Mb of RAM (though I rarely use more than about 4 Mb). In terms of responsiveness, it feels comparable to the 166MHz Pentium MMX, 32Mb RAM machine I use at work - you'll only spot the difference on raw processing operations. My 7 MHz Amiga A500 felt as quick as the old 66MHz 80486 I used to use at work (except the A500 didn't freeze up when changing between applications). The current AmigaOS barely uses about 200k of RAM, and doesn't even require virtual memory - unlike my work PC which seems to swap large chunks of VM to the hard drive at every opportunity.
So why use an Amiga for web pages? How do I do it? Well, I prefer handmade HTML so I use the Amiga version of MEMACS which is a plain text editor that came bundled with the Amiga system disks. Graphics are either created with Photogenics or PersonalPaint. Photogenics is similar to applications like Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro, but it can do several things which they can't do - like painting with effects or retrying the same brushstrokes using different effects/settings/transparencies. PersonalPaint is closer to PSP, but feels more comfortable to use in my opinion, and is ideal for pixel-precision operations.
I used to do web design at work using an unbranded Pentium MMX PC compatible and a variety of
'popular' software tools. However, I find them clumsy and slow to use. I'm not keen on Windows
either as it seems slow and unstable at times - my PC at work has frequently refused to boot and
often lies about what hardware it has. In short, getting any major work done has proven to be a
complicated procedure.
With the Amiga, everything loads quickly, runs smoothly and new hardware is configured
automatically on boot up (and that's been a feature since 1985!). The Amiga lets me get on with the
creative processes - computers should be an extension to your mind/body, and the Amiga does just
that. Okay, it isn't perfect, no computer is, but at least it lets me get work done with the minimum
of effort, and the maximum creativity - computing should be a fun and creative experience!
To test pages, I use the AWeb browser. AWeb is fast, even with my slow processor, and loads pages quicker than Netscape, Explorer and Opera do on my work machine (and that machine is supposed to be about 80-100 times quicker than mine!). It features far more customisation options for layout, HTML conformance, JavaScript and so on than any other browser I've seen on any platform. It also features a neat JavaScript debugging tool, and (through the Amiga's extensive datatypes support) has full compatibility with a wide range of image and audio formats - including any that come along in the future. Oh, and I can listen to MP3s or view Quicktime and AVI files too. (Though I'd recommend at least a 68040 @ 25 MHz for that!)
I also develop and test CGI scripts using the full range of tools, including the Amiga port of the free Apache webserver and the essential Perl language (the swiss army chainsaw of text processing, CGI, systems administration and general scripting). I haven't had to spend a single penny on networking software or tools - yet everything is stable, efficient and smoothly integrated.
To top it all off, I can render graphics and sound directly to video tape or TV. No fancy gadgets required as the Amiga can produce TV compatible output (PAL and NTSC) as standard. Thanks to the Amiga, TV shows like Babylon 5 could produce top-rated special effects with only a small budget - no wonder the Amiga is still popular in the film and TV industry.
I've tried to find another machine like the Amiga, but nothing has topped it.