>4From Complete S.H.I.T.S To AGAS Part 1 >2By Andy Gibson >3 I'm not sure how many people will actually read all this article, but maybe if you're new to the Amiga and are planning to start writing PD, Shareware, Licenceware or even Commercial titles, then this may give you some ideas! What I am about to type has NEVER been seen before in any other disk mag before now. It is a history of my past with the Amiga since I first moved over to it from the good old C64 (what a machine that was in it's day) Let me begin at the very start shall I? (usually a gud place-Ed.) My first ever computer was a Spectrum 48k which I bought (well my parents did) just to play Jet Set Willy. Playing this game was my life for some weeks as I was addicted to it. It was also responsible for why I wanted to learn more about computing and writing my own games! All Speccy users will have used Pokes before to give games those endless lives etc. Well, I had about half a dozen (no, maybe only six!) pokes for Jet Set Willy that made him climb walls and of course others to give endless lives etc. (can anyone remember that poke?) Anyway, this poking was something which I loved doing (don't we all guys, fingers at the ready, Hmmm, sniff sniff!!! - Sick!) Eventually I was given a Commodore Plus 4 computer (did anyone else have one of these shit machines?) It had 64k I think of which some of was set aside for its built in word processor and spread sheet thingies! It was so long ago that I can't remember what was built into it now. Anyway, I managed to get Jet Set Willy II for it which was just Jet Set Willy with more rooms (enhanced if ya like). But ya couldn't poke values on this machine, or at least, I didn't know how to! So I hardly ever played JSW again after that! I moved onto text adventures and had a couple for the C+4 machine on a cart. (yes it took carts as well as cassette tapes) I played one of the text adventures for weeks and eventually completed it. Wow, amazing. I wanna write a game like this one day I thought to myself. Eventually I managed to buy a C64 and loads of games. This was the new style C64 (yip, there were older models which were a bit bulky) My C64 was my pride and joy and I managed to get one heck of a large software collection built up over a couple of years. Some classic games too such as Beach Head II, Raid Over Moscow, Little Computer People and The Great Giana Sisters etc. (The last two which I even have for the Amiga now! Yip, Amiga versions, not snapshot files for emulators!) After a while I bought an Action Replay cart for my C64 and started learning how to alter scrolly messages and even the sprites in most games. Wow, this was fun and I eventually had special copies of games saved on tape compilations. I also started learning to write shitty programs with C64 Basic. I tried for weeks to write a text adventure, but it was pretty shit! I just didn't have enough knowledge. I was a complete lamer gamer!! Most of my mates had C64's (didn't everyone?) and of course we used to swap games with each other! But still I wasn't happy just playing other people's games. I wanted to write my own. I started buying magazines hoping I would find some help. I must have been buying the wrong mags, coz I didn't get any real help. I bought loads of issues of Zzap! and also C64 User (or Commodore User as I think it was known as back then. Of course, this eventually changed its name to Commodore User Amiga - CU Amiga). Everyone seemed to be going Amiga and I was not gonna be converted! I had too much equipment for my C64. What with loads of games, Action Replay and even a sound sampler! I had spent a fortune! (Well, I was young and not on much income) Eventually I had no choice but to upgrade to an Amiga 1.3 back in 1989. I think I paid about £500 for the machine and a further £60 for a half meg fast ram upgrade! Eventually I bought a second drive so I could play games with ease and less disk swapping. Still not having written my text adventure, I scanned the mags for any software that would help me create one of these games. I eventually came across a program named HATRACK II which was selling for £30! I bought it and at the time I thought it was amazing! I could write a text adventure (no gfx) with ease and was soon on my way to writing my first real game. I soon got bored with it when my friends said it was boring due to lack of gfx! What was I to do now? There was no point in going any further with the game! I started buying PD and mostly music demos. I really wanted to do my own demos! So I bought Stereo Master Sampler (£40) and Audio Master III Software (£60)! I wasn't impressed with the sound quality at all, so I ordered the most expensive sampler (at the time), Audio Engineer Plus 2 for a whopping £200! What a difference in sound quality. I was impressed and started working on my first music demo. UTAH SAINTS - WHAT CAN YOU DO FOR ME It required 2 megs and was spread over two disks. It was a HUGE sample which was sequenced together using Audio Master IV. (I didn't have a clue about sample rates and all that, or a CD Player at the time.) The quality was fine and the gfx were drawn up by my mate Andy Strachan. We needed a name for our new demo krew and we decided upon: The S.H.I.T.S. (Super Humble International Trax Stealers) What a name! I was to be known as Kenwood (as in Kenwood mixer) coz I was doing all the music stuff ya see! Yip, very crap I know! But we were trying our best! Anyway, we eventually made loads of music demos and had reviews in some of the Amiga mags such as CU (my Michael Jackson Mega Mix) and another mag called Public Domain (anyone else ever seen it?) Suddenly we noticed that none of our demos were being reviewed (not that we had that many to begin with). We then bought a digitiser and started working on slideshows (boring). At the same time, we decided that we should have a new name! We had two new members also who were George Burnett and Stevie McGowan. We simply took all our initials and stuck them together: AGAS - Andy, George, Andy and Stevie! Simple. Pronounced as Eh?-Gas and not as Ah-Gas as some people thought. CU Amiga eventually reviewed one of our slideshows (Hellraiser) and gave it a huge rating. (can't remember what it was now) One thing lead to another and both George and Stevie were no longer interested in working on slideshows! (who can blame them?) After all, anyone can digitise pics from videos! Still, it was kinda new at that time and not a lot of people had the equipment. So only myself and Andy Strachan remained with AGAS! What were we to call ourselves now? Simple, we took our initials again and came up with....AGAS! - Andy Gibson and Andy Strachan :^) So the name AGAS remained, but with one slight change, Inc. Yip, we were now called AGAS Inc. Don't ask me why or even who's idea it was! Still it didn't last long coz Andy Strachan decided he was too good and was very slow at presenting his work on time! So he was dropped and I had to think of a new name! Arrgghh! What would it be? Simple, AGAS - Andy Gibson's Amiga Software. Yippeeee! I had nothing I wanted to do though! That was until I got CanDo. I decided to attempt to write a game with it! (I must have been mad!) At this point in time, my mate Jason was running a PD Stall in a market named The Barras up here in Glasgow. I had fixed numerous Amiga titles for him under the name of SKID MARKS! (before Acid Software even thought of the game with that name) Why did I call myself Skid Marks? Well, two reasons really, I used to see a lot of Skid Row stuff and decided to take the piss outta them by calling myself Skid Marks and also because of our previous group name, The SHITS. Skid Marks seemed very appropriate. Anyway, I started working on my quiz using CanDo which was called:- SKID MARKS CanDo Pop Quiz Volume 1 During the making of this game, my A500 with 2 megs of ram and an Action Replay II Cart was damaged beyond repair when I sent it off to Future World to be fixed. I borrowed my young brother's A500+ to continue working on the game. Meanwhile, Future World said that they would replace my A500 with an A500+ as their insurance would cover the cost. Oh great, I was gonna get an A500+. But nothing ever arrived at my door for about 1 month! Eventually I got so pissed off that I got a solicitor to sort it all out for me and on Christmas Eve of 1992, a new Amiga was at my door. But bugger me backwards and sniff my botty, (no thanks-Ed.) if it wasn't a brand spanking new A1200! These were brand new and had only been out a couple of months. Happy X-Mas Andy! :-) I was pretty lucky to get this as Future World went bust on January and a lot of their customers probably received zilch! Phew!