Goodbye, Old Friend

The buyer got an especially good deal. My A3000 included not only 16MB of zip memory (fully maxed, fastest possible) and 2MB chip memory (also fully maxed), but also a PAR board (originally $3000) and three boxes of Amiga software. Also included was my favorite trackball, with its custom blue marble ball, a 1084S monitor, a DSS8 sampler, and several accessories like joysticks and cables.

All for $110.

Before I sold it, I tore down my regular Debian computer and assembled the A3000 in its place. There followed a happy day of Lemmings, SuperFrog, Hole-in-One Miniature Golf, and a variety of other distractions. Too bad I couldn't get Artillerus. But the kids enjoyed the experience nonetheless.

In fact, they enjoyed it so much that I had the buyer hold off for two days, just so they could try it out. I entirely dropped off the Net for four days: no email, no forums, no nothing. And I got to spend some quality time with my old computer.

And then I sold it. I'm glad to have the space, and it's nice to know it went to someone who will love it, as the buyer is interested in running his sound software. But there's a lot of old memories and emotion wrapped up in that computer. Not to mention more than $6000 in hardware and God-only-knows how much in software.

My family is so bereaved that I've already installed the Amiga emulator for Debian. Now I've got to figure out how to hook a joypad up to that thing.

So, what do you do with the proceeds from selling your Amiga? You plow them into a Nintendo Wii, of course! My daughter Tatiana even made up a spreadsheet for me. We're 44% of the way there!