Amiga 1000
About 25 years ago my girlfriend and I were wandering through an underground mall in Montreal on my way to school. When passing a computer store I saw a screen with a primitive man juggling reflective balls. I’d never seen anything like it. I mean, my computer at home was strictly used for word processing and had a monochrome screen. What I’d seen was a demo animation running on a then new Commodore Amiga 1000 computer. It changed my life. The moment stuck with me and I kept using Amigas right up the parent company’s demise. First attempting to do 2D animation (using Electronic Art’s Deluxe Paint) then 3D with some early packages (Optiks, Turbo Silver, Sculpt Animate 4D Jr, Imagine and Lightwave).
Luckily the Amiga 4000 I had when Commodore folded didn’t become worthless. In fact, I managed to sell it for the original purchase price to the local school board. They were using Newtek Video Toasters for video training classes and, while they could obtain the cards, the host machines were in short supply.
I still have an Amiga 1000 (with ASDG Sidecar and Micron RAM expansion) in storage. One day I’ll have to dig it out and see whether or not I can get “The Juggler” running again.
