Sean Caszatt - Amiga International User Profile ----------------------------------------------- Well, I got interested in computers during my freshman year of high school (1982). I sold my Atari 2600 game machine and bought a Commodore VIC-20. I thought it would be great to be able to write my own games nstead of relying on other people to design them. I plugged away and learned some BASIC programming. I then saw my friend's Commodore 64. I never looked at my VIC-20 the same way again. I sold it and started saving for my very own Commodore 64. Finally, in June of 1983, I got it. I loved it, and started to write some game programs. The first ones were really simple and I think I had more fun writing them than anyone did playing them. I wrote STAR COMMAND, a completely random, text-based space game, and BANDIT, a slot machine game. I programmed some others like NOCTURNAL NIGHTMARE and RAID ON OCELOC. You might have seen these programs if you owned a Commodore 64 and had access to a public domain collection. I had one game available on Q-LINK called GOLD MINER or something like that. It was probably the best game I ever wrote, and I can't remember the name. Go figure. I started taking programming classes in high school, and soon found myself correcting the teacher (who wasn't used to having the students know more about the computers than he did.) I soon found myself teaching a school sponsored program to acquaint teachers with the computers in the school (Commodore PETs and 64's). Over the next couple of years, I saved up money for more stuff: a 1541 disk drive, a real monitor, and a printer. In 1987, I bought my first modem. A 300 baud Total Telecommunications modem for the 64. I made my first call to a BBS and was fascinated by the whole thing. It was like an adventure. I loved the fact that I could talk to people by leaving messages and sending files. I thought it was great. In June of 1987, I started my own BBS: The Icehouse. I changed the name a few times. It was also known as The Realm of Shades and Dark Light Systems. It only lasted a few months (til November 1987, to be exact) due to some financial difficulties. Those same difficulties resulted in the selling of most of my precious equipment. I left the modem scene and pretty much the entire computer scene until 1991. In 1991, I started back to college (Youngstown State University). I figured that life in college would be a little easier with a computer, so I went out and bought an IBM PC-XT compatible. I had no idea what I was buying. Being used to the Commodore DOS and not having used a computer in years, I was completely lost. After struggling with the computer for a while, I figured that I got ripped off. It was my fault, because I just bought what _I_ thought was a good deal. It was a CGA machine with 512K, a tiny hard drive and a .52 dot pitch monitor. In other words, crap. I was out at a local mall with some friends and I saw an issue of Amiga World in the bookstore. I picked it up and started flipping through it. I was amazed by the fact that the Amiga's graphics required no special cards, no add-ons, no nothing. I saw ads for the IBM emulators for the Amiga 500 and it was settled. I was buying an Amiga! I went down to the local Amiga dealer (yes, we have one!) and picked up an Amiga 500, an external drive, a 512K expander card and a 1084s monitor. I ordered some public domain programs from an ad in Amiga World and I was set. I loved it. (I never did get an IBM emulator for the A500...hmmm.) About two months later I bought a 2400 baud modem. I started downloading programs and found a local BBS carrying the Amiga International echo. I asked a lot of dumb questions and actually got answers! I bought a bunch of books and started learning as much as I could about using the computer. Programming was out of the question at this stage of the game. I was too far removed from what I used to know. On a trip to the local computer store looking for the elusive 2.04 ROMs for the 500, I got into a conversation with the owner. The topic wasn't too much about the Amiga. Just a lot of small talk, basically. Three hours later, my phone rang. It was the owner asking me if I was looking for a job. I really wasn't, but I said I was interested. (I didn't mention that my local computer store also happens to be a large mail-order company with a superhero-like character for a mascot, did I?) I went in for an interview, put my two weeks notice in at the movie theatre I worked at and the rest is history. I've been working there for over a year and a half. I now own four Amiga computers: My original Amiga 500, my A3000T, an Amiga 4000/030 and a CDTV. I run two BBS systems: My personal pride and joy, Project Aurora and the Amigaman After Dark BBS (which I really don't control, but I still answer all the mail and do 99.9% of the creative stuff on.) I'm still attending Youngstown State University. My major is Telecommunications with a specialization in Video Production (!). In my spare time (what little I have), you can usually find me either listening to music (King's X is the t-shirt I am wearing, BTW), drinking too much beer at one of several local bars, or sleeping. My picture was created using a Video Toaster to grab the framestore off of a video tape of me making all sorts of lude gestures toward the camera and Art Department 2.3 to reduce it to a picture displayable on all Amigas. (For those interested, the A2500 behind me is the computer that runs Amigaman After Dark. The Video Toaster 4000 boxes are part of a wall of Toaster boxes that represent all the Toaster systems we've sold in the past 6 months.)