Back in mid-July I was contacted by a gentleman in Arizona who had a large Commodore Amiga collection he wanted to donate. He had been an official Commodore Developer, and had been deeply hooked into that world. His collection has really too big for me to have shipped to where I live in a practical sense. So I contacted an Amiga friend of mine who lives close-by in Phoenix and introduced the two. I told my friend that he should take all of the (boxed) machines: A1000, 1080, disk drives, etc. But I was mostly interested in the "weird" A1000-specific components and the Developer/Commodore documentation.
Two boxes arrived yesterday.
This post is a quick unboxing of what's in the smaller box. Truth be told, each individual shred of paper could be its own post worth of investigation. In the following weeks and months I intend on scanning many of these booklets and one-sheets. From a historical perspective, I consider them to be utterly priceless. I know I've never seen anything like this before.
Here is a sampling of what is in box number one, and some of my future projects for 2018/2019.
- It doesn't look like much when you see it like this. But inside each manilla folder is a wealth of history and information.
- I think this might very well be a stand-alone Microbotics Star Clock for the A1000. I have one built-in to one of my Starboards, but I've never seen a stand-alone version. This looks... AWESOME. It probably contains the same annoying but that only supports up to 2010. I will have to pop the case open here soon and see what horrors might be inside battery-wise. Either way, VERY cool looking (and solid metal, and perfectly matching the A1000, as usual for Microbotics).
- This book is completely amazing. It was sold at a developer's convention in November 5-7, 1986, in Monterey, CA. This was very early days in the scene. I believe it accompanied presentations given based on how it is written. Some sections are mere agendas, others are very detailed ins-and-outs of everything from the IFF image format to parallel pin layouts. This entire book should be scanned (and it is very long).
- Gorgeous front/back one-sheet I'll be scanning at hi-res.
- Developer Support documentation of benefits, and fees.
- The prices on these refurbbed machines make me drool when compared to today's Ebay prices. $250 for a "new" refurbbed A1000? Oh man! Of course that would be equivalent to over $500 in today's dollars, but still. Ah Commodore, I miss you.
- He saved all of the communication Commodore sent him and other developers in the program over the years. Some are completely fascinating, and I'll be scanning some of these, too.
- Amiga Mail is a publication that Commodore created - like a low budget magazine - for Developers to keep them "in the know" about things. This is the first time I've ever seen or held one of these things.
- So much more...
- Finally, there is a multi-page glossy full-color brochure that is just unreal. This is pure gold. It is page after page of "user stories" of mostly real people who use their Amiga machines in a multitude of ways. This will be one of the first scans/PDFs I make. I believe the machine shown in each photo (though usually not seen) is the A500.
There is also a very large SCSI adapter (the MICRON) for hooking up an even larger external HDD, which I shall show soon.
Box #2 will be opened here in a bit.