Title :Dusty old Treasures | Electronic Arcs By :Brad Grier | Volume 1, Number 3 Filename :Articles2 | (c) 1987, Brad Grier & Authors --------------------------------------------------------------------- Next to your computer, you probably have the most-used, and least- often-thought-of peice of computer equipment. It is your Disk Storage Case! If you are like me, there are many programs in it that you hardly even use, because there are other 'better' ways to do somthing. Well, I am going to reminisce, and travel back in time, and take a look at some Golden Oldies, in the Amiga software market...Buckle up, it's a bumpy ride. Back to the Future ~~~~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~~~~ Wow, and Amiga...ok, what can it do. GraphiCraft, and Textcraft...THATS IT!!! The first Amiga software. You can draw pretty pictures and send letters that have bold and italics. Graphicraft soon was retired to the obslete drawer, while TextCraft still has some uses. I prefer the TextCraft user interface to most 'Word-Processor' type programs I have used (I only use Word-Processers for composing letters that need the special text, like Bold, Super/Subscript, and Italics). For just straight writing I like a simple Text Editor (NOT ED!). MicroEmacs 1.1 is still a favorite. Aegis Images! soon replaced GraphiCraft, and Deluxe Paint (the original) replaced Images! as my Graphic Editors. Images had the speed and flexibility that GraphiCraft was lacking, and Deluxe Paint had all of that, plus much more. Needless to say, on a 512k Standard Amiga, Deluxe Paint I is the ONLY way to edit Hi-Res Images with more than 4 colours. It is still in my Current Use drawer, right behind it's younger brother, Deluxe Paint II. All work and no play... ~~~ ~~~~ ~~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~ Makes Braddie a very boring person...so brushing off some dust, lets see what kind of older games we have here..AH HA!!!...the first Amiga version of HACK!. I remember many hours of time, happily spent racing through dungeons, with my little dog (Bingo!) following diligently (when he wasn't dying of starvation) behind. An Amiga Classic was born when the colour version was released into the Public Domain. A must have for everyone. I bought the Epyx equivalent, Rogue, but found Hack a much better game. Speaking of Epyx, they also released another old (for them) game, the Temple of Apshai Trilogy. This is a port of a series of 3 games for the Apple II and Commodore 64 computer. More dungeon crawling. Apshai and Rogue are in the NEVER-USE drawer. Arctic Fox was destined to be an Amiga Classic even before it was released. The guys who did it, cut their teeth developing a Apple II tank game called Stellar 7. If you ever get a chance, check it out. Some of the enemies will appear rather familiar. Arctic Fox is in my Current Use drawer...right near the front. The Halley Project: has my vote for the Best Educational Program for the Amiga. It kept my girlfriend amused for months, finding her way around the solar system. I learned a bit as well. Another Golden Oldie I fiddle with every so often, is Marble Madness. There is somthing I like about this rather warped world, and squishing the little tiny black marbles on the Silly Race makes my day. Flight Simulator II, not really an Oldie, but an immediate Amiga Classic in my books. I first saw the early release of Radar Raiders, and KNEW that FS-II would be incredible. When it was finally released, and I learned about the Multi-User aspect, it exceeded my wildest expectation. Defender of the Crown. A new concept in computer games. Nothing else to compare it to at that time, so everyone I know bought a copy. Incredible, and quite entertaining, even today. Is this work, or is this play? ~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~ ~~ ~~~~ ~~~~~ When Electronic Arts released Deluxe Video Construction Set, I wasn't quite sure what it was. DeskTop Video, the new industry 'buzzword' was born with the advent of this program. Another Instant Classic. Instant Music, and MusicCraft (now Sonix!) are a couple of 'Productivity Programs' that I enjoy Playing with. Instant Music will let (even) me create 'correct' sounding music. MusicCraft has the niftiest synthisizer you have ever seen. I have played with it for hours. Now if only I could afford a Midi controller. It's Bed Time ~~~~ ~~~ ~~~~ Ok, no more work, or play...gotta wrap this thingie up. What you have read above is MY ramblings about some old software that seems to have some staying power. Staying Power will usually make it a Classic. Check back with me in a year, and you may see some new titles on that list. Don't be surprised if you see some of the same ones, too.