5 ms·

I’ll never enjoy computing again as much as I did as a teenager with an Amiga 500, a CD ROM with CDs full of mod files and Fred Fish disks, and my trusty 8 bit

by jahnu 3y ago

I’ll never enjoy computing again as much as I did as a teenager with an Amiga 500, a CD ROM with CDs full of mod files and Fred Fish disks, and my trusty 8 bit sampler. Sampling and making extended mixes of favourite rave tunes from the era, recording them to tape and playing them on a Walkman to friends at school who had no idea computers could do such things! Making 15 minute mashups of this and dancing like loons to it in the break room. Thanks, Amiga! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yefUXmB9n6c https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yefUXmB9n6c I can credit those years to a love of programming and now being a developer of audio FX plugins!

boffinAudio 3y ago
Likewise! What sort of plugins are you making?
- jahnu 3y ago
  Two of us are making spectral fx. Wouldn’t really have been possible on a 68000 :) https://gs-dsp.com/ https://gs-dsp.com/ Note we offer a completely free, midi modulation plugin (MMM) too there. Also available on iOS where it's especially super useful. Are you in Vienna too!?
  - _joel 3y ago
    Nice clean looking plugins, will give them a try tonight
    - jahnu 3y ago
      Thank you! Hope you enjoy them. And if you have any questions that aren’t answered on the site or videos just reach out. We love talking to the folks using our stuff.
  - boffinAudio 3y ago
    Nice! Just wondering if you considered using JUCE?
    - epcoa 3y ago
      The plugins are built with juce v6
      - jahnu 3y ago
        Correct. Although next update will be 7, not that it makes much difference. We only really use the plugin format abstraction and a little of the GUI stuff. Our audio path is all our own algorithms. JUCE audio stuff isn’t really it’s strong point. Although plenty good enough for many applications.
        boffinAudio 3y ago
        Hey, nice work - yes, I am also in Vienna (I maintain the JUCE-based plugins for Austrian Audio - see https://austrian.audio/software/ https://austrian.audio/software/) so its nice to meet another plugin dev - any chance you'd consider giving a technical workshop on your plugins at a local hackerspace I attend (https://gtblank.org/ https://gtblank.org/) - there are other audio hackers in that scene who would be quite intrigued by your experience, I think! Check out the exhibit at the RetroGaming Museum (nebenbei des Haus Des Meeres) some time, let us know! We have Amiga! :)
        jahnu 3y ago
        Hey send us a mail and we can maybe work something out :) mail@gs-dsp.com I've been wanting to check out that museum and I live nearby so now I have an even better excuse.
kwanbix 3y ago
Yes, the amiga was so good for it's time. It is crazy how commodore f*ked up.
- icedchai 3y ago
  It's their own fault: they basically did nothing for ~7 years. The chip set barely changed from 1985 until 1992 with AGA. ECS barely added anything, and AGA was too little, too late. The huge lead the Amiga had in the mid 80's was gone by the early 90's.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    If you look at some retro conferences, where former engineers take part in Q&A sessions, lots of it were caused by internal issues.
    - icedchai 3y ago
      Yes, I'm not blaming the engineers. The company was dysfunctional. The Amiga was still an amazing platform from 1985 to around 1992, when you could get cheap 386 boxes with SVGA and Soundblaster cards. After that point, there was really no way back.
  - zozbot234 3y ago
    Commodore didn't exactly help matters, but the M68k platform was also a dead-end by the mid-90s. Which is why the Atari ST line also died around the same time. Meanwhile you started to have machines based on RISC architectures (or high-performance x86, of course) for which custom hardware chips as found in the Amiga were just not as relevant.
    - icedchai 3y ago
      True, but Apple had similar issues and were able to port their OS to PowerPC. Old apps still ran with an emulator.
      - 3y ago
daneel_w 3y ago
> "I’ll never enjoy computing again as much as I did as a teenager with an Amiga 500 ..." Same. It really was magic exploration.
an_aparallel 3y ago
I've come across your plugins recently - your spectral vocoder looks unreal. Kudos to you for doing something different :) I wish you the best!
- jahnu 3y ago
  Thank you for the kind words! We love all our plugins but yes MagicFusion is basically unique :)
icedchai 3y ago
The Amiga is still my favorite computer. Seeing a game like "Blood Money" or "Shadow of the Beast" in 1989 was absolutely mind blowing.
- jahnu 3y ago
  I think I’m going to have to fire up the emulator again.

by jahnu 3y ago

boffinAudio 3y ago

Likewise! What sort of plugins are you making?

jahnu 3y ago
Two of us are making spectral fx. Wouldn’t really have been possible on a 68000 :) https://gs-dsp.com/ https://gs-dsp.com/ Note we offer a completely free, midi modulation plugin (MMM) too there. Also available on iOS where it's especially super useful. Are you in Vienna too!?
- _joel 3y ago
  Nice clean looking plugins, will give them a try tonight
  - jahnu 3y ago
    Thank you! Hope you enjoy them. And if you have any questions that aren’t answered on the site or videos just reach out. We love talking to the folks using our stuff.
- boffinAudio 3y ago
  Nice! Just wondering if you considered using JUCE?
  - epcoa 3y ago
    The plugins are built with juce v6
    - jahnu 3y ago
      Correct. Although next update will be 7, not that it makes much difference. We only really use the plugin format abstraction and a little of the GUI stuff. Our audio path is all our own algorithms. JUCE audio stuff isn’t really it’s strong point. Although plenty good enough for many applications.
      - boffinAudio 3y ago
        Hey, nice work - yes, I am also in Vienna (I maintain the JUCE-based plugins for Austrian Audio - see https://austrian.audio/software/ https://austrian.audio/software/) so its nice to meet another plugin dev - any chance you'd consider giving a technical workshop on your plugins at a local hackerspace I attend (https://gtblank.org/ https://gtblank.org/) - there are other audio hackers in that scene who would be quite intrigued by your experience, I think! Check out the exhibit at the RetroGaming Museum (nebenbei des Haus Des Meeres) some time, let us know! We have Amiga! :)
        jahnu 3y ago
        Hey send us a mail and we can maybe work something out :) mail@gs-dsp.com I've been wanting to check out that museum and I live nearby so now I have an even better excuse.

kwanbix 3y ago

Yes, the amiga was so good for it's time. It is crazy how commodore f*ked up.

icedchai 3y ago
It's their own fault: they basically did nothing for ~7 years. The chip set barely changed from 1985 until 1992 with AGA. ECS barely added anything, and AGA was too little, too late. The huge lead the Amiga had in the mid 80's was gone by the early 90's.
- pjmlp 3y ago
  If you look at some retro conferences, where former engineers take part in Q&A sessions, lots of it were caused by internal issues.
  - icedchai 3y ago
    Yes, I'm not blaming the engineers. The company was dysfunctional. The Amiga was still an amazing platform from 1985 to around 1992, when you could get cheap 386 boxes with SVGA and Soundblaster cards. After that point, there was really no way back.
- zozbot234 3y ago
  Commodore didn't exactly help matters, but the M68k platform was also a dead-end by the mid-90s. Which is why the Atari ST line also died around the same time. Meanwhile you started to have machines based on RISC architectures (or high-performance x86, of course) for which custom hardware chips as found in the Amiga were just not as relevant.
  - icedchai 3y ago
    True, but Apple had similar issues and were able to port their OS to PowerPC. Old apps still ran with an emulator.
    - 3y ago

daneel_w 3y ago

> "I’ll never enjoy computing again as much as I did as a teenager with an Amiga 500 ..." Same. It really was magic exploration.

an_aparallel 3y ago

I've come across your plugins recently - your spectral vocoder looks unreal. Kudos to you for doing something different :) I wish you the best!

jahnu 3y ago
Thank you for the kind words! We love all our plugins but yes MagicFusion is basically unique :)

icedchai 3y ago

The Amiga is still my favorite computer. Seeing a game like "Blood Money" or "Shadow of the Beast" in 1989 was absolutely mind blowing.

jahnu 3y ago
I think I’m going to have to fire up the emulator again.