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I was a huge Amiga fan as a teen, but I can still remember the moment I saw that PC gaming was where the action was going to be. It was ACE Magazine issue 35, A

I was a huge Amiga fan as a teen, but I can still remember the moment I saw that PC gaming was where the action was going to be. It was ACE Magazine issue 35, August 1990.[1] When I saw the previews of Wing Commander (Called "Wingleader" in the magazine) and 256 color adventure games like "Rise of the Dragon" [2] I was completely floored. This was the future of gaming. However, I couldn't afford a PC until 1996. The end of the home computer era was a difficult time for me and my circle of working class nerds. The price of computing shot up massively. As a troubled teenager who staked my future on being a self-taught programmer, this changing-of-the-era came at the worst possible time. One of the most valuable things about the Amiga (And the Atari ST, in the case of one of my friends) was that kids like me could learn about programming, 3d modelling, music production and productivity software all with a £399 machine plugged into a 70s TV set. My whole life as a programmer and indie game developer is thanks to that machine. [1]https://archive.org/details/ace-magazine-35 https://archive.org/details/ace-magazine-35 [2] See "movies in your micro" in the above magazine

cmrdporcupine 12y ago
Yes, this. I lucked out in that my parents took some of the money set aside and bought my sister and I 486 machines when I graduated from highschool in 1992. This was a significant chunk of change, but I held onto that 486 for 6 or 7 years, running Linux on it. The next machine I got I had to take out a bank loan for, even though I was actually working as a programmer by that point. It's nice to see now that the up and coming generation has access -- if they want it -- to very cheap but usable machines. Sub $100 ARM machines you can hook up to a TV and a keyboard, maybe sitting in the same niche as those C64s, Spectrums, Atari 8-bits and 68k machines did back then. The difference now is few people are really playing nuts and bolts with their machines like we had to back then.

cmrdporcupine 12y ago

Yes, this. I lucked out in that my parents took some of the money set aside and bought my sister and I 486 machines when I graduated from highschool in 1992. This was a significant chunk of change, but I held onto that 486 for 6 or 7 years, running Linux on it. The next machine I got I had to take out a bank loan for, even though I was actually working as a programmer by that point. It's nice to see now that the up and coming generation has access -- if they want it -- to very cheap but usable machines. Sub $100 ARM machines you can hook up to a TV and a keyboard, maybe sitting in the same niche as those C64s, Spectrums, Atari 8-bits and 68k machines did back then. The difference now is few people are really playing nuts and bolts with their machines like we had to back then.