Commodore Amiga Turns 40, Headlines Uk Exhibition

Hands on The Commodore Amiga turned 40 this year, and the event has been marked by The National Museum Of Computing in the UK with a hands-on exhibition of models from the archives.

Twenty classic arcade games

FROM THE ARCHIVES

You can find a range of computers in the newly-extended PC Gallery at the museum’s site in Bletchley Park, with models on show from an early Amiga 1000 through to the more-powerful 4000 (although the latter is not currently running). Machines, including the ubiquitous Amiga 500, are available for visitors to get some quality hands-on time on with. However, some – such as the early 1000 – are strictly look-and-don’t-touch due to their rarity.

The Register paid a visit, and one of the museum’s volunteers, Alex Vinall, was on hand to talk through the collection, the challenges of preserving the aging hardware, and the Great White Whales that she was on the lookout for.

Hands on with the Commodore Amiga (pic: Richard Speed) – click to enlarge

“Our target,” she said, “was to get one of every machine out … there’s a mixture of stuff that we want people to play with.” Or not, if the equipment is particularly rare or non-functional.

Slotting into the former category is an Amiga 1000 running the iconic “Boing Ball demo” that wowed the public on the computer’s debut decades ago. The demo predates the release of the computer, but served to generate excitement about the hardware.

The 1000 running in the exhibition, with its mighty 256 KB of RAM and Kickstart floppy disk (later models have the Kickstart in ROM), is yellowed with age. Vinall told us that the unit had been cleaned, but that she was not a fan of retrobrighting (where yellowing is removed from plastics using a hydrogen peroxide solution), preferring to opt for a lighter restoration to restore the electronics, but let the cases show their age.

As well as lacking a Kickstart ROM, the Amiga 1000 also lacked a battery-backed clock, which goes some way to explaining the hardware’s longevity. Vinall explained the process of preservation and hardware checking that must be done before firing up a computer. In addition to electrical safety checks, the boards must be inspected for any damage.

“We’re looking for RIFAs”, explained Vinall, “or any capacitor damage, we’re looking for any battery damage. Just generally being happy that it’s safe to try and turn on and that we’re not going to fry the machine as well!”

RIFA capacitors and aging batteries are the bane of the retro-computing world. The former can develop cracks over the years, releasing smoke and even occasionally catching fire, although any elderly capacitors can cause grief. The latter are prone to leaking, spilling corrosive chemicals over a motherboard, damaging or destroying circuit traces and components.

In addition to general component cleaning, the team will disconnect the power supply and verify that the correct voltages are present before plugging anything in.

Vinall told us that the early Amiga 500 on show did not present many problems. The old computers are generally well-behaved, although if a memory expansion with a battery-backed clock had been fitted, then leakage might have occurred. The severity of the leakage, intriguingly, could depend on how the Amiga had been stored. If it was stored horizontally, the damage might be restricted to the expansion board. If it was stored vertically, the battery fluids might have gone anywhere.

The final machines present more problems. Also on show are an Amiga 600 and 1200. The former is not much of an improvement over the 500+ (which is also available for hands-on playing), while the 1200 was speedier. However, both machines use surface-mount capacitors, which are more of a challenge for volunteers like Vinall to deal with.

“You open them up,” she said, “and there’s innocent-looking surface-mount caps. And you look at it, and it looks fine. And then you look a little bit closer, and you see the start of corrosion around it.”

A world of pain then follows, involving desoldering and a very steady hand.

We were interested in what visitors were attracted to on the machines. The arcade conversion of Paperboy was running, as was a Star Wars game. Vinall had Stunt Car Racer running on another of the Amigas and mused that, since the museum had a few units in its archives, there could be scope for connecting some for multiplayer fun.

However, interestingly, Deluxe Paint III (a bitmap graphics editor running on an Amiga 2000 when we visited) has also proved popular with younger visitors. “That’s probably the thing that surprised me,” said Vinall. While the games are attractive, some children prefer to sketch.

That’s a lesson, perhaps, for certain software vendors today that obsess over loading up simple text and bitmap editors with AI, when all users want is simplicity.

The exhibition is due to run at least until the end of August, and there’s a chance it might be extended. The collection is, however, not quite complete. While there is a CD32 controller on show, there is no Amiga CD32 console, one of the final throws of the dice for Commodore in 1993.

If anyone has a unit gathering dust in the loft, then Vinall would be delighted to hear from you. ®

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