Month: November 2025

So, 25 years then.

Yup, as you read this (probably not, as nobody reads this anymore!) but right now, is 25 years since I first published my blog. November 4th 200, at 6PM was the vwery first time I pressed “publish”.

Nowadays, everything is run a lot differently who what it was back then. Back then, I used a service called “Blogger”. Back then, very few blogging platforms even existed. When I started, I was probably one of the first, and everything was hosted off static web pages. Blogger took all of the effort out of creating pages. As long as you had a website with FTP access, you gave it the details, chose a template, typed your post, pressed submit, and it did all the boring stuff for you. Generated the page, all of the backwards and forwards links, even the archives too.

Eventually, Blogger went, because I purchased this domain name. Not sure how long ago now, but it was certainly after the first few months of the blog. WordPress got installed, and I’ve used every version since.

I was going to go through the highlights. I’m sure there are some.The write of the “You Bet!” theme commenting on here. That’s one. Those few months where I was inadvertantly #1 result for a certain runner relieving herself during a marathon. Low sides which I’ll not get into, but these last 25 years have been a rollercoaster. A flat, steady rollercoaster, which only goes downhill the more you read it.

Back then, I posted everything on here. Nowaways, I’m a lot more security conscious, and have moved the emphasis from stuff about my everyday life and instead focus on other things such as my interests. Adulting takes up a lot of my time now, as well as collecting music, which is why the blog has taken a back seat in recent years, but rest assured, it’s not going anywhere, and you never know, it might even be here in 25 years time! Here’s to 25 more!

(Edit: Proof reading clearly doesn’t take up much of my time, clearly!)

The NEW A1200!

I’m typing this, and I can hardly contain my excitement except knowing about it for months. Yes, the world is about to be introduced to ‘The A1200’. the follow-up to “The A500” Retro gaming… thing.

Many of you know that I;m a fan of the Commodore Amiga. The whole existence of this post should tell you that. I’m even typing this on an Amiga branded keyboard. Instead of going into great detail, I’ll just link back to my old posts, of which there are several. If you want to read them again, then knock yourself out.

My love affair with the Amiga started in Xmas 1993 when Santa somehow managed to get one down our tiny little chimney. It survived my teenage years, and even got upgraded with a hard drive and memory expansion. It became the most important Xmas present I ever received. I even did some programming, with some of my stuff even surviving on Aminet to this day.

While the PC clearly became my machine of choice growing up through the years, and even providing technical support for some really rather major game companies, the Amiga really never left my mind. even managing to get it hooked up and talking to my PC way back in 2001..

Unfortunately, as can be seen in the Xmas post above, my Amiga is faulty. It’ll either crash on boot up with a ROM error (red screen) and/or a corrupted screen. It’s probably beyond saving.

Fast forward to 2021. I rescued my Amiga hard drive (Part 1) (Part 2) and I even went on to buy a Greaseweazle to rescue hundreds of floppy disks.

In 2022, I bought The A500. My main thought was, back in the day, that while it had everything else spot-on, the keyboard being just a single block of plastic and merely there for show, seemed a bit of an annoyance. Sure, you could stick a PC keyboard up it, and , but it was always just another thing that needed to be plugged in.. And, while it’s actually here on my desk, I don’t use it that often.

Over the recent years, there’s been a resurgence in full-size devices. I have a “The Spectrum” with a fully working keyboard, which I love, and a “The C64”. I’ve yet to even unbox that, despite having it for about 5 months. Bloody real-life getting in the way.

Next in the line, and the whole point of this post is… The A1200! yes, a full sized A1200, with working keyboard. Preorders for it start on November 10th, and although the price tag is going to be nearer £200 than I’d actually like, to be able to just use an Amiga straight out of the box without having to fiddle around with external keyboards will probably bring a tear to my nostalgic eye.

Now, with this not even reaching preorder stage, I can’t tell you a lot about it, certainly nothing that has already been said, but here’s what I think is going to happen.

The innards. It’s going to be the same, or as near as matters, to the ‘The A500’. An ARM based emulation board, everything spun onto one chip. The previous machine did emulate the Amiga A1200, so I can’t see the hardware needing to be too different.

ROMs. No, not talking about games, but the actual system ROM. I can’t remember if ‘The A500’ had stock Amiga ROMs or if they were modified in any way, due to copyright/licensing. I know ‘The Spectrum’ has a custom ROM, and while 99% perfect, some games misbehave unless you have the original Sinclair ROMs available.

It’s going to be built as a retro gaming accessory, so some of the things I’d like to see are probably out of the question. Personally, a real-time clock and the ability to access hard drive images would be a dream, but probably beyond the scope of something that’s going to be eventually sold in toy shops.

As I mentioned, I’ll be preordering, then following the progress closely. I’m sure every retro gaming site on the planet comes out with the news before I will, but I’m sure it’ll give me something to type about.

For those interested, or wondering, yes, I have typed the King’s Lynn trip, but due to real life getting in the way over the last few months, I’ve never really finished it to the standard that I liked. I may return to it some day, but i also want to start typing about other stuff again. I’ve got a while stack of unsigned music I’d like to also reply to the ones I’ve featured who got back to me, and I never replied…

Life. Tsk.

Also, due to some unknown encoding error, every apostrophe on the site is a mix of garbled letters. Don’t know why, but I’ll endeavour to fix that.