4 ms·

Classic Amiga titles, free to download

180 points by doener 3mo ago

urbandw311er 3mo ago
Always fun to go and look up the very first software I sold in this archive.
- aphrax 3mo ago
  Don’t keep us in suspense :-)
  - urbandw311er 3mo ago
    Oh sorry - it’s actually quite boring it was called Radbench! I had this idea you could load workbench from a TSR RAM disk rather than endlessly swapping floppy disks whenever you wanted to run a command.
- harel 3mo ago
  which was it?
  - urbandw311er 3mo ago
    Oh sorry - it’s actually quite boring it was called Radbench! I had this idea you could load workbench from a TSR RAM disk rather than endlessly swapping floppy disks whenever you wanted to run a command.
Lerc 3mo ago
Fish disks were an incredible contribution to the Amiga community. The impact of a dedicated and contentious curator cannot be understated. I think a lot of platforms today could be transformed if they had someone doing a similar contribution to Fred Fish. I wouldn't be capable of such an effort, I think few people are, and I'm not sure if it can be done in any monetized way. The motivation has to be purely for the quality of the job.
- danielheath 3mo ago
  Debians apt repositories come to mind.
- Razengan 3mo ago
  > Fish disks I still gotta play the quirky text adventure game called Fish..
tiahura 3mo ago
Does anyone know of a source of the pre-release eagle demo?
romerstomer 3mo ago
First 2 games I tried it didn't have Lotus turbo Buggy boy Not obscure games
- whywhywhywhy 3mo ago
  Appears to be Public Domain games, sort of thing you'd get on magazine disks
  - Dwedit 3mo ago
    A magazine disk was the first time a game containing Sonic the Hedgehog was released. He was thrown into a game as an enemy character in a platformer game (Adventures Of Quik & Silva) without any regard for copyright law. This happened before the actual Genesis/Mega Drive game released. (and no, that game is not on this site)
    - whywhywhywhy 3mo ago
      Quik & Silva was a banger, noticed a bootleg sonic was in it as a kid but had no idea about that fact. Amazing soundtrack too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXtT3L0zEqs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXtT3L0zEqs Something special about growing up with an Amiga instead of just a mainstream console because a lot of the games were opinionated creations from individuals that went viral through physical disk copies rather than everything just coming from a corporation.
unwind 3mo ago
Wow this is really cool! Epic to see that it has "No Man's Land" [0] and really really weird feeling to read the readme. No idea why it's listed as a "17 Bit" title though, perhaps they distributed it at some point but they certainly were not involved in creating it. Source: I wrote it. Fun times. Edit: formatting. [0]: https://amigafreeware.downer.tech/17bit/17bit/1423 https://amigafreeware.downer.tech/17bit/17bit/1423
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- mjg59 3mo ago
  17-bit distributed a lot of redistributable stuff - in this case it's listed as disk 1423 in their collection
andrea76 3mo ago
From webpage I read: " Search or browse games, applications, demos, graphics, music and tools from the golden age of 32-bit home computing." But Amiga has a 16 bit CPU... or not?
- maffydub 3mo ago
  It's a bit complicated and it depends on what exactly you're measuring. The 68000 CPU has 32-bit registers internally, the address bus is 24-bit, and the data bus is 16.
  - lstodd 3mo ago
    This is so for A500, but the definitive Amiga is A1200 with 68EC020, AGA and only limited by 24 bit address bus (=16 MB ram). From that on people just installed 030 with MMU and later PPCs if they wanted.
    - maffydub 3mo ago
      Interesting that you see the definitive Amiga as being the A1200 - the definitive one for me was definitely the A500/A500+ - it was definitely way more popular! BTW, I don't think the software in this repository is compatible with PPC-based Amigas, is it? (Unless they have the add-on board that runs a 68000-series processor in parallel?)
      - lstodd 3mo ago
        There were things like BLIZZARD 603e+ that you could just plug into an A1200. And it would still run 68K code on "companion" 040/060 http://www.phase-5-digital-products.com/TheLegacy/amiga/b603epe.html http://www.phase-5-digital-products.com/TheLegacy/amiga/b603...
- catoc 3mo ago
  I think most Amiga’s had 32-bit registers, but a 16-bit bus. (So to everything around the CPU they were 16-bit even though internally they could do 32-bit computations)
doener 3mo ago
Some background information: https://www.reddit.com/r/amiga/comments/1uzs4g9/amiga_freeware_archive/ https://www.reddit.com/r/amiga/comments/1uzs4g9/amiga_freewa...
IronWolve 3mo ago
When I first got my Amiga I spent all day one weekend copying PD game disks at the local computer store, Think it was like 25 cents to copy one plus price of a floppy. Good times.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
redsymbol 3mo ago
The Amiga, and this era of computing, were before my time. But it is surprisingly fun to browse through some of this stuff, and get insights into the very early days of software development. My favorite so far is the "Iff Specs Disk", with technical documentation on an ancient container and data format called IFF (Interchange File Format). Like in the file ea.iff.85 [0], and this section explaining why common data file formats are useful the first place: "The problem with expedient file formats - typically memory dumps - is that they're too provincial. By designing data for one particular use (e.g. a screen snapshot), they preclude future expansion (would you like a full page picture? a multi-page document?). In neglecting the possibility that other programs might read their data, they fail to save contextual information (how many bit planes? what resolution?). Ignoring that other programs might create such files, they're intolerant of extra data (texture palette for a picture editor), missing data (no color map), or minor variations (smaller image). In practice, a filed representation should rarely mirror an in-memory representation. The former should be designed for longevity; the latter to optimize the manipulations of a particular program. The same filed data will be read into different memory formats by different programs." Imagine having to explain to a professional developer today why having something like JSON is valuable. Most of us find it obvious. But there was a time when this kind of thing was not obvious at all; the need for it had to be discovered the hard way, and then solutions invented from first principles. We really are standing on the shoulders of those who came before us, in more ways than we realize. [0] https://amigafreeware.downer.tech/17bit/17bit/61/contents/iff.text/ea.iff.85 https://amigafreeware.downer.tech/17bit/17bit/61/contents/if...
amiga386 3mo ago
FYI, many of these collections are sourced from CD-ROM compilations, and thus they're also in the archive.org collection of CD-ROMs, e.g.: https://discmaster.textfiles.com/cd-rom?search=17+bit https://discmaster.textfiles.com/cd-rom?search=17+bit

180 points by doener 3mo ago

urbandw311er 3mo ago

Always fun to go and look up the very first software I sold in this archive.

aphrax 3mo ago
Don’t keep us in suspense :-)
- urbandw311er 3mo ago
  Oh sorry - it’s actually quite boring it was called Radbench! I had this idea you could load workbench from a TSR RAM disk rather than endlessly swapping floppy disks whenever you wanted to run a command.
harel 3mo ago
which was it?
- urbandw311er 3mo ago
  Oh sorry - it’s actually quite boring it was called Radbench! I had this idea you could load workbench from a TSR RAM disk rather than endlessly swapping floppy disks whenever you wanted to run a command.

Lerc 3mo ago

Fish disks were an incredible contribution to the Amiga community. The impact of a dedicated and contentious curator cannot be understated. I think a lot of platforms today could be transformed if they had someone doing a similar contribution to Fred Fish. I wouldn't be capable of such an effort, I think few people are, and I'm not sure if it can be done in any monetized way. The motivation has to be purely for the quality of the job.

danielheath 3mo ago
Debians apt repositories come to mind.
Razengan 3mo ago
> Fish disks I still gotta play the quirky text adventure game called Fish..

tiahura 3mo ago

Does anyone know of a source of the pre-release eagle demo?

romerstomer 3mo ago

First 2 games I tried it didn't have Lotus turbo Buggy boy Not obscure games

whywhywhywhy 3mo ago
Appears to be Public Domain games, sort of thing you'd get on magazine disks
- Dwedit 3mo ago
  A magazine disk was the first time a game containing Sonic the Hedgehog was released. He was thrown into a game as an enemy character in a platformer game (Adventures Of Quik & Silva) without any regard for copyright law. This happened before the actual Genesis/Mega Drive game released. (and no, that game is not on this site)
  - whywhywhywhy 3mo ago
    Quik & Silva was a banger, noticed a bootleg sonic was in it as a kid but had no idea about that fact. Amazing soundtrack too https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXtT3L0zEqs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXtT3L0zEqs Something special about growing up with an Amiga instead of just a mainstream console because a lot of the games were opinionated creations from individuals that went viral through physical disk copies rather than everything just coming from a corporation.

unwind 3mo ago

Wow this is really cool! Epic to see that it has "No Man's Land" [0] and really really weird feeling to read the readme. No idea why it's listed as a "17 Bit" title though, perhaps they distributed it at some point but they certainly were not involved in creating it. Source: I wrote it. Fun times. Edit: formatting. [0]: https://amigafreeware.downer.tech/17bit/17bit/1423 https://amigafreeware.downer.tech/17bit/17bit/1423

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
mjg59 3mo ago
17-bit distributed a lot of redistributable stuff - in this case it's listed as disk 1423 in their collection

andrea76 3mo ago

From webpage I read: " Search or browse games, applications, demos, graphics, music and tools from the golden age of 32-bit home computing." But Amiga has a 16 bit CPU... or not?

maffydub 3mo ago
It's a bit complicated and it depends on what exactly you're measuring. The 68000 CPU has 32-bit registers internally, the address bus is 24-bit, and the data bus is 16.
- lstodd 3mo ago
  This is so for A500, but the definitive Amiga is A1200 with 68EC020, AGA and only limited by 24 bit address bus (=16 MB ram). From that on people just installed 030 with MMU and later PPCs if they wanted.
  - maffydub 3mo ago
    Interesting that you see the definitive Amiga as being the A1200 - the definitive one for me was definitely the A500/A500+ - it was definitely way more popular! BTW, I don't think the software in this repository is compatible with PPC-based Amigas, is it? (Unless they have the add-on board that runs a 68000-series processor in parallel?)
    - lstodd 3mo ago
      There were things like BLIZZARD 603e+ that you could just plug into an A1200. And it would still run 68K code on "companion" 040/060 http://www.phase-5-digital-products.com/TheLegacy/amiga/b603epe.html http://www.phase-5-digital-products.com/TheLegacy/amiga/b603...
catoc 3mo ago
I think most Amiga’s had 32-bit registers, but a 16-bit bus. (So to everything around the CPU they were 16-bit even though internally they could do 32-bit computations)

doener 3mo ago

Some background information: https://www.reddit.com/r/amiga/comments/1uzs4g9/amiga_freeware_archive/ https://www.reddit.com/r/amiga/comments/1uzs4g9/amiga_freewa...

IronWolve 3mo ago

When I first got my Amiga I spent all day one weekend copying PD game disks at the local computer store, Think it was like 25 cents to copy one plus price of a floppy. Good times.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

redsymbol 3mo ago

The Amiga, and this era of computing, were before my time. But it is surprisingly fun to browse through some of this stuff, and get insights into the very early days of software development. My favorite so far is the "Iff Specs Disk", with technical documentation on an ancient container and data format called IFF (Interchange File Format). Like in the file ea.iff.85 [0], and this section explaining why common data file formats are useful the first place: "The problem with expedient file formats - typically memory dumps - is that they're too provincial. By designing data for one particular use (e.g. a screen snapshot), they preclude future expansion (would you like a full page picture? a multi-page document?). In neglecting the possibility that other programs might read their data, they fail to save contextual information (how many bit planes? what resolution?). Ignoring that other programs might create such files, they're intolerant of extra data (texture palette for a picture editor), missing data (no color map), or minor variations (smaller image). In practice, a filed representation should rarely mirror an in-memory representation. The former should be designed for longevity; the latter to optimize the manipulations of a particular program. The same filed data will be read into different memory formats by different programs." Imagine having to explain to a professional developer today why having something like JSON is valuable. Most of us find it obvious. But there was a time when this kind of thing was not obvious at all; the need for it had to be discovered the hard way, and then solutions invented from first principles. We really are standing on the shoulders of those who came before us, in more ways than we realize. [0] https://amigafreeware.downer.tech/17bit/17bit/61/contents/iff.text/ea.iff.85 https://amigafreeware.downer.tech/17bit/17bit/61/contents/if...

amiga386 3mo ago

FYI, many of these collections are sourced from CD-ROM compilations, and thus they're also in the archive.org collection of CD-ROMs, e.g.: https://discmaster.textfiles.com/cd-rom?search=17+bit https://discmaster.textfiles.com/cd-rom?search=17+bit