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Ode to the AMIGA.
Twenty years ago, almost to the day,
A new breed of computer was about to come our way,
Known as the A1000 it took us all by storm,
Using mouse and GUI, it soon became the norm.
At first it didn't do much, until we got it tamed,
Then all of a sudden, the graphics modes were famed,
HAM images of a little girl, (of which I have a file),
NTSC "Lores" and beat the competition by a mile.
There was stereophonic sound coming from the ports,
When listening from an amplifier, what must have been our thoughts,
This audio was a sample, or a generated sound,
Even speech was heard, and on no other machine could be found.
There was a 32 bit processor, known as the sixty eight K,
It ran at 7 mega-hertz, and we all went, oooh... weh heh,
Its memory range was small, but more than enough for us,
It could boot into a GUI from floppy without a fuss.
Custom chips were used in this machine, to do any difficult task,
Affectionate girly names were given, so what were they? you might ask,
Agnus, Paula and Denise were the three that did their best,
To give us hours of pleasure, be-it games, drawing and the rest.
Other chips were used also, to talk to the world outside,
Bi-directional parallel port and analogue games port to deride
All of the opposition which could barely look one way,
Outgoing or Incoming, not BOTH like those MIGGYs of the day.
Soon it became apparent just how powerful it was to be,
So out came the A500 with up to Workbench one point three,
Much smaller and much better and also had a proper ROM,
Was bought for "Johnny Whizzkid" for Christmas, from DAD and MOM.
Over the years this mighty tool, was overtaken by the foe,
Technology has gripped us and the MIGGY is in a state of woe,
The A500, the A600 and the A1200 have come along,
With Big Box AMIGAs also to join the happy throng.
To try and make a come back, the new AMIGA has taken on
More up to date PC hardware, and they have called it the A 1,
But I have written this on my A1200, in what's known as YAM,
And to me, it was the best "export" to come from Uncle SAM.
Although we're twenty years further on, from the first A1000 made,
The seeds of MULTIMEDIA and digital convergence had been laid,
All of the competition cannot say they were to invent this word,
It was the A1000, attached to which this word was heard.
To finish off this ode to the "grandfather" of them all,
MULTIMEDIA and digital convergence could have taken a major fall,
If it wasn't for the foresight of the original design crew,
OF THE AMIGA A1000 AND THE FANTASTIC THINGS IT COULD DO...
(C)2005, B.Walker, G0LCU.
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