at irregular times.   
      
   www.theretrohour.com/the-retro-hour-podcast-episode-16-viva-amiga/   
      
      
   *************************************   
     HOW THE AMIGA POWERED YOUR CABLE   
            SYSTEM IN THE '90S   
   *************************************   
      
   Quick snippet from the story   
      
   "In terms of planning our lives around what our TVs spit out, we've come a   
   long way from the overly condensed pages of TV Guide.  In fact, the   
   magazine was already looking awful obsolete in the 1980s and 1990s, when   
   cable systems around the country began dedicating entire channels to   
   listing TV schedules.   
      
   The set-top box, the power-sucking block that serves as the liaison between   
   you and your cable company, is a common sight in homes around the country   
   these days.  But before all that was the Commodore Amiga, a device that   
   played a quiet but important role in the cable television revolution.   
      
   The Amiga was a much-loved machine, huge among a cult of users who embraced   
   its impressive video and audio capabilities, which blew away every other   
   platform at the time of its release.   
      
   As a multimedia powerhouse, it was ahead of both the Apple Macintosh and   
   the IBM PC by nearly a decade at the time of its 1985 release, and its   
   launch price was a relatively inexpensive $1,295, making the computer a bit   
   of a bargain at launch.  And seeing as "Amiga" is the Spanish word for   
   friend with a feminine ending, it was also friendlier than its office-drone   
   competitors."   
      
   Read more at the link below.   
      
   www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-the-commodore-amiga-powered-your-cable-s   
   ystem-in-the-90s   
      
      
   *************************************   
   ARS TECH: HISTORY OF AMIGA PART NINE   
   *************************************   
      
   Part 9 of an ongoing Ars Technica series about the history of the Amiga   
   Computer continues this time with the discussion about the amazing Video   
   Toaster.  What Amiga owner didn't dream of owning this device?  Although I   
   think it was only released as an NTSC add-on, well we will all know more by   
   reading the rest of the website.  Here is a taster .   
      
   Website Snippet:   
      
   The Toaster   
      
   The Video Toaster was released in December 1990 for an entry-level price of   
   $2,399.  It consisted of a large expansion card that plugged into an Amiga   
   2000 and a set of programs on eight floppy disks.  The complete package,   
   including the Amiga, could be purchased for less than $5,000   
      
   arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/03/a-history-of-the-amiga-part-9-the-video-to   
   aster/   
      
   =====================================   
      
   *************************************   
          GROWING PAINS PART FIN   
     (Resurrection Of A Lost Program)   
            By Lenard R. Roach   
   *************************************   
      
   I was nosing around in my disk files just to see what kind of things I   
   thought were necessary to hang on to.  For somebody who doesn't play too   
   many games I sure did have a lot of games on disk that I put into storage.   
   I went through my two files of 5 1/4" disks and found that I would like to   
   still hang onto these disks for some insane reason.  I especially had a lot   
   of music programs and I needed to take time to learn how to make music on   
   my Commodore so I could have some of my favorite tunes produced by the SID   
   chip and not everyone else's.  Onto the one and only file box I had   
   containing 3 1/2" disks.   
      
   I'm not a big fan of these disks since I can load five of the 5 1/4s" full   
   of my ravings and ratings compared to only one 3 1/2".  The 5 1/4s make me   
   look more like a Commodore big shot than the 3 1/2s do, but I did condense   
   a lot of my favourite type-in games onto the smaller disks for room's sake.   
   I started to rifle through this box when, about midway in, I stumbled   
   across a disk I labelled with an ink pen, "Roachware Vol.  1." I remember   
   this disk from way back in 2000 when I took all the programming and word   
   processing I did and filed it onto one disk, with subsequent disks to   
   follow as I progressed into the 21st century.  Volume 1 was where I stopped   
   because life, as usual, got in the way of progress.   
      
   "Yeah, I'll boot this," I said to Hennessy the Commodore Cat, who was lying   
   on the table above my 128, "and we'll see what I thought was important."   
   Hennessy just shifted his head from his left paw to his right and went back   
   to sleep, indicating his famous "Whatever" feline attitude.  I booted the   
   128, loaded the intended disk into my favorite drive, the Commodore 1581,   
   and loaded the disk's directory.  A quick flash of the word READY and the   
   input of LIST, then the tap of the RETURN key and history of my world from   
   2000 to about 2008 flashed before me in lines of sixteen characters or   
   less.  Basically, the disk contained many of my writings for church   
   ministry that I won't get into in this article, but one particular program   
   file did catch my attention.  It was only called BILL8.  Who did I know as   
   Bill, why would I write a file about him, and why did I revise it about   
   eight times?  The only way to find out is to LOAD the program into memory   
   and see what happens...   
      
   The monitor showed me that BILL8 is in reality a long abandoned program   
   called "Bill Attack!" Since I didn't date the work I have no idea when I   
   started or stopped working on it, but my best guess on dating this work   
   would be about 1993 or 94, when I was trying to make a living from magazine   
   publications.  I really thought I reached the summit of my life back then:   
   beautiful wife, two sons, a great job, and what I wanted; a writing career.   
   It all crashed in a month when all things Commodore in the US went belly   
   up.  More on that at another time...  "Bill Attack" was a simple menu   
   driven program coded in Commodore BASIC that was more of a note making   
   program totally focused on word processing and little else to deal with   
   paying bills.  After all the inputs are satisfied, the program saves the   
   data in a one block sequential file on a disk.   
      
   If I remember right, I needed a program to keep up with all the bill   
   collectors were telling me instead of trying to keep all their hogwash   
   straight in my head.  I've later learned that you should know that a bill   
   collector is lying when their lips are moving and you need documented   
   evidence of what was said.  "Bill Attack" allowed a user to keep notes on   
   what was said.  I would usually use such information as who I talked to and   
   at what time.  Now what am I going to do with it?  A quick solution would   
   be the following BASIC command line:   
      
   OPEN15,8,15:PRINT#15,"S0:BILL8":CLOSE 15.   
      
   That would solve almost everything.  "Obligator Coordinator" is an upgraded   
   variant of "Bill Attack" so "Bill Attack" is not really necessary, except   
   for the fact that it belongs in the Roach Anthology of Programs.  But, if   
   this program was worth it, what would I do to it to make it marketable to   
   the Commodore public?  Apparently when I left off, I was just starting to   
   give the screen display some flair by adding a little color, but all I did   
   was some white and a light red and nothing else.  The red bled into the   
   rest of the display.  Not attractive.   
      
   I tried using the program by entering some random data to see the display   
   on the input screens.  I was impressed by how well each input took the   
   place of the former input by overlapping.  Sadly, when I went to save my   
   bogus information the Commodore disk drive failed due to a simple (,8)   
   telling the machine to save only to drive 8 and I was using drive 9 at the   
   time, so I don't know how it fully functioned.  I'm thinking of adding a   
   drive access number to all my programs I'm reviewing in this series so the   
   user can choose which drive to put data on.  I've always liked that feature   
   in works like GEOS and I'm thinking, "Why not?" I'll see how that may   
   improve the working of the software.  I think I've mentioned this before,   
   but programming in Commodore is like writing a symphony.   
      
   Each tap on the keyboard brings harmony to the work as a whole and when it   
   is finished and the programmer types that fatal RUN command, the   
   combination of key taps and algorithms begin to play together into a   
   working conglomerate.  Maybe the Rabbi Paul said it best in 1 Co   
      
   --- MBSE BBS v1.0.4 (GNU/Linux-i386)   
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