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This reminds me of the story about the 81 year old woman who uses an Amiga, AmigaBASIC and C to create programmatic visual art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDfIkXf3uzA

⬐ dang

Comments moved to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16521099, which posted it first. We're experimenting a bit with ways to reward first submitters.

⬐ rocky1138

This is really inspirational. I love her studio and her attitude toward life.

⬐ PortableCode

Looks like she extended her Amiga with Microbotics Starboard 2 (2MB RAM and RTC, visible in 2:36): http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/product.aspx?id=...

⬐ Jaruzel

oooh, I would love one of those for my Amiga 1000.

⬐ busterarm

If this is not the coolest video I've seen on YouTube in some years, I don't know what is.

⬐ None

None

⬐ amirouche

+1

(Sorry HN etiquette)

⬐ icedchai

Great video! It reminded me of how magical it felt when I got my first Amiga back in 1988! I followed a similar path, started with Basic, then moved up to C (Lattice, later renamed to SAS/C.)

⬐ Klasiaster

Tought herself Amiga "demo" programming 30 years ago in C and BASIC because she understood computers as a medium, and she can also use it to create art by programming.

⬐ Keyframe

What she calls a yo-yo, I call ping-pong! An inspiring video. She is a demo coder to the core.

⬐ neovive

Amazing video! She would probably enjoy working with Processing.

⬐ gdubs

Ah, the Amiga was such an amazing machine. I never owned one, but I actually subscribed to all the magazines.

Watching old Computer Chronicles episodes – and seeing stuff like this – really makes me think about how different computing was before it became a device for consuming more than a device for creating. Back then, you really had to have a passion or at least a real desire to learn a new medium.

It's so interesting to see the unique things people did with their early Amigas, Apples, Macs, etc – and how many people learned to program out of necessity.

⬐ Jaruzel

Whats nice here (that the title doesn't really imply) is that she uses AmigaBasic to programmaticly draw pseudo random colours and shapes to create the art.

⬐ ZenoArrow

Sounds like she started with AmigaBasic then moved onto C. I quite liked her "yo-yo" variables idea, not a typical algorithm but makes sense for what she's making.

⬐ teh_klev

She does actually state this in the interview at around 3:45.

⬐ ZenoArrow

Yes, when I used "sounds like" I was referring to the video.

⬐ forinti

She must be the last person using K&R syntax.

⬐ bringtheaction

This is cool. I was wondering, though, because it isn’t mentioned — is the music part of her software or was it put on top by the people that interviewed her? My favorite demoscene productions are the ones that include music.

Also, did she upload her work to pouet.net? I think probably she hasn’t but it’d be cool if she did.

⬐ None

None

⬐ melling

It’s too bad Microsoft didn’t port their apps to the Amiga.

It probably would be alive today but people bought computers for the apps.

⬐ cmrdporcupine

I dunno, MS ported the Mac version of Word to the Atari ST but by the time it got there (late, and buggy, and overpriced) indigenous ST developers had made their own superior products.

Interlace video for hi-rez modes on the Amiga also made it non-ideal for office type applications. Maybe if Commodore had bothered to include a scan doubler by default?

⬐ pjmlp

Amiga had quite a few cool office type applications like Pagestream.

The video wasn't an issue when using Commodore monitors.

⬐ puzzle

There was a WordPerfect port, but at least the initial versions were slow and did not feel like they took advantage of the OS. In other words, it was a bit of a rush job.

⬐ fractallyte

It was far from perfect, but Amiga WP 4.1 was way better than WP 5.1 for DOS! (I was a heavy user of both at the time.)

⬐ samastur

Man, this brings back memories. I spent many sleepless nights using it to format friends' school work.

⬐ bitwize

Yes it was. I used an Amiga with a Commodore monitor and while it was a lot better than any TV or other composite monitor, the interlacing was still noticeable and people's eyes would go wonky staring at that for eight hours a day.

⬐ errozero

Any monitor from back then would look awful now. I do remember noticing the interlacing on the Amiga though.

⬐ cmrdporcupine

It was awful when compared to the paperwhite monochrome displays of a Mac or the Atari ST. It's frankly one of the things that set the Amiga back in the productivity regard.

⬐ Flow

I bought an A2024 monitor and ran all apps at 1024x800 60Hz. It was a glorious time.

⬐ Jaruzel

> Maybe if Commodore had bothered to include a scan doubler by default?

They did in the Amiga 3000; It has a VGA 15pin d-sub connector on the back. Only works with modern LCDs if the Amiga is in NTSC mode though.

⬐ samastur

It's competition was PC of that time which was worse in every regard including price. However, it did not have an image of being a game machine which helped a lot.

I am old enough to remember having these kind of discussion with people buying more expensive PCs because they were for serious work.

⬐ antod

The first Microsoft software I ever used was on the Amiga (AmigaBASIC). And while it was kinda cool for a BASIC implementation in those days, it was pretty damn buggy.

⬐ bitwize

Microsoft used open source to kill the Amiga. They acquihired the developer of Bars & Pipes Professional, convinced him to open source it and had him work on DirectMusic instead. The fact that a leading MIDI tool for the Amiga was now open source basically left the Amiga music software industry a smouldering ruins, where it might have hung on for a few more years, forcing developers to look at Windows instead.

Open source destroys value, and Microsoft used that to their advantage.

⬐ PhasmaFelis

Huh? How does open-sourcing a program ruin its industry?

(I'm also skeptical about your thesis that music software was the cornerstone of Amiga's popularity. That was most likely games, and Doom was the most obvious killer there.)

⬐ pmarreck

> Open source destroys value

Fucking LOL. Tell that to any internet startup since 1995 and prepare to get laughed out of the room

⬐ fractallyte

Actually B&P wasn't open sourced for many years after the Blue Ribbon Soundworks acquisition. During this time, B&P was in limbo: the most powerful MIDI sequencer on the Amiga, locked up by Microsoft. The source code was only released when Microsoft decided it had no value to them.

After this there was a flurry of activity: Alfred Faust took up development, the manuals were scanned, and it all continued from there.

⬐ pjmlp

Amiga died thanks to Commodore mismanagement, Microsoft was still not that strong back then.

PCs were still a mix of MS-DOS, Windows 3.x or Novell Netware when the downfall begun around 1994, Windows 95 was still around the corner.

⬐ teh_klev

> Microsoft was still not that strong back then

Microsoft were pretty well established and very successful by 1985 (when the Amiga was launched). The following year they IPO'd for $61 million dollars - not a lot these days, but back then it was a reasonable chunk of cash for a company of its size in the day.

For Commodore, the edge of the pan was well in sight by 1985/86 because their management and overall strategy was a mess.

⬐ phire

They stopped innovating.

The A1000 was released in 1985, the same year as the NES was released in America. It was a huge leap in capabilities over it's contemporaries.

But their massive lead was slowly whittled away by technology improvements. In 1992 they released AGA, which was barely twice as good as the original A1000 chip-set, while the IBM PC had innovated all the way from 4 color CGA, though EGA to VGA/SVGA with CPUs which were fast enough to any 2d (and increasingly 3d) effects in software.

Commodore really needed to get AAA out the door by 91 to hold onto their lead.

Doom was probably the final nail in the coffin, you simply couldn't implement it on the Amiga chipset due to it's planar graphics.

⬐ oldcynic

Management stopped and restarted AAA and 3000+ several times, including replacing a significant chunk of hardware people with PC guys. That ultimately led to the cheap hack of AGA, the cheap and nasty (4000), and the cost saving entry (600) that cost significantly more to produce than the 500.

AAA was started in 88 if I remember right, and abandoned when the rest of the world had pretty much reached it.

⬐ EvanAnderson

The drama between Commodore and Atari in the 1980s is really interesting. I wonder what kind of computing world we'd be living in today if Atari had gotten the Amiga technology, rather than Commodore. I suppose with Tramiel still at the helm at Atari it wouldn't have been so different. I do wish could just spin-up a scratch universe to see what another company would have done w/ Amiga, though...

⬐ tripletmass

There were like 200 people left in Commodore who identified and send up proper invention for promotion, and the chiefs who were good to salute good groundswell instead tried to fund moving design to Flash LSI in which there could be no production future. All producers, all bad put orders; not that local foundry accord answers how to go into production in Massachusetts ca. 1990!

⬐ jimmiejams

Yes, planar graphics had their strengths, but no chunky graphics (or only via a slow software routine) really made it difficult for the Amiga to keep up.

⬐ busterarm

Doom killed the Amiga kind of like how Quake killed Cyrix x86 clones and to a lesser degree AMD's K5.

It's interesting how John Carmack's technical vision decided the winners in the computer industry at the time.

⬐ Mantipath

The best Wolfenstein 3-D ports were on the Apple IIgs, Atari Jaguar and Panasonic 3DO. FWIW.

⬐ pmarreck

3DO, so much promise...

⬐ jacobush

Doom was just the nail. Economically, Commodore was messed up by the time Doom came around. But I agree, Doom made it very evident, I remember it well - suddenly, a 486 became a "must have" for rich geeks.

⬐ busterarm

I grew up with a Commodore 64 but once my older brother started getting loaner machines from work, it was quickly dispatched.

We were usually playing Pirates!, Carmen Sandiego, Cauldron I & II, Ultimate Wizard & the Bard's Tale games and dialing into BBS on the C64. The usual way of dialing with leaked calling card numbers.

Eye of the Beholder on the 386SX machines was cool and all, but once he 'liberated' a 486DX from work and we started playing Doom and using his job's dialup service, the C64 was done.

⬐ zengid

So is there an emulator or something we could use to get her running on an updated machine?

⬐ peterashford

There are a few. They're pretty good, too

⬐ glenneroo

I don't think she would go for using an emulator. She said near the end of the video that the Amiga IS the artwork, and that she can only show her works on HER Amiga.

⬐ zengid

You're right, but then later she says that she'd love a 'modern' Amiga, too. I just could see someone giving her a Mac running an emulator and be like.. here you go!

⬐ taejo

My understanding is that she'd like to treat a new machine "on its own terms" -- but modern machines are too complex. AmigaBASIC and Amiga C address the machine's native capabilities.

A bit of retro-brite and a few spare parts in knowing hands might be more her thing. Or maybe the plotter that was discussed here on HN last week.

⬐ ZenoArrow

Reading the video comments, the creators of the video suggest that the artist was impressed by their A1200 and was interested in getting one, so I guess that's 7 years forward in terms of modernity. Besides that, there's the commonly accepted notion that limitation spurs on creativity.

⬐ 11thEarlOfMar

The original hacker painter?

⬐ bitwize

What this woman could achieve if she knew about fragment shaders...

⬐ Rotareti

"What Morandi could achieve if he went outside...", "What Yves Klein could achieve if he knew red, yellow and green...", "What Roman Opałka could achieve if he knew about for loops and printers.", I could go on like this for a while.. This is not how art works.

⬐ azinman2

Someone needs to tell her about processing and get on a modern machine.

⬐ azinman2

So I got down voted, probably by someone who didn't watch the whole video. She said at the end (paraphrasing) 'if someone updated the amiga and I'd love to use something where it wasn't on the verge of giving out, the mouse worked properly, ...'

Processing [1] is about the closest thing to her Amiga code, and is totally cross platform.

[1] https://processing.org

⬐ kristopolous

The production value and artistic merit of this was quite good but here's the insight ... it's what I call the Ira Glass structure:

1. show the meat, why you're interviewing them - if the person is say, a miner you start off with machinery and sounds of workers

2. do the intro of who the person is - have them state their name and identity (occupation or other story-relevant identity such as an ethnicity or physical attribute that is relevant to the story)

3. give a backstory - relevant details that led them to the present such as where they started, their parents, siblings, etc.

4. identify the present and show the passion - usually with long-form charles dickens details of rooms or where the person lives along with what they love

5. talk about what the person is about to do - a cross country journey, a competition, get married, etc.

6. set the scene - the person getting ready for it and preparing, setbacks along the way, human interest style narratives

7. make it special - try to frame it as either a unique story or something that effects a very small group of specific people

8. conclude with a future oriented framing - say "the story isn't over" such as talking about next years competition or some more ambitious task they plan to do

⬐ AmigaBill

Hey that's really cool. Never heard that before. Thanks for that.

⬐ kristopolous

What makes this format the most obvious in my opinion, is The Onion's knockoff of This American Life: https://www.theonion.com/tag/a-very-fatal-murder

This is also the same format done by Radiolab. I don't know if this is a well-documented structure to be honest.

I derived it myself after becoming lethargically bored listening to these types of podcasts. I realized they all had essentially this structure, sometimes with a few steps removed but rarely, almost never, out of this sequence.

I would like to claim, although a lot of data would need to be collected, that these steps have narrow time ranges with normal distributions and fairly tight bounds. As an extreme example, they don't spend say, 53 minutes on machine sounds and then cram the rest in the remaining time. I think there's more or less a clockwork to them.

⬐ forapurpose

Very interesting. In a way, what you describe is the story-telling technique in media res - start in the middle of things - used by Homer and many after him, and probably a few before: Start with where they are now (e.g., in the coal mine), then go back to their backstory, how they got there, then forward to their future.

It's a bit different for biography, but why not?