Classic Amiga titles, free to download

Wow this is really cool!

Epic to see that it has "No Man's Land" [0] and really really weird feeling to read the readme. No idea why it's listed as a "17 Bit" title though, perhaps they distributed it at some point but they certainly were not involved in creating it. Source: I wrote it. Fun times.

Edit: formatting.

[0]: https://amigafreeware.downer.tech/17bit/17bit/1423

Fish disks were an incredible contribution to the Amiga community. The impact of a dedicated and contentious curator cannot be understated.

I think a lot of platforms today could be transformed if they had someone doing a similar contribution to Fred Fish.

I wouldn't be capable of such an effort, I think few people are, and I'm not sure if it can be done in any monetized way. The motivation has to be purely for the quality of the job.

Some background information: https://www.reddit.com/r/amiga/comments/1uzs4g9/amiga_freewa...

FYI, many of these collections are sourced from CD-ROM compilations, and thus they're also in the archive.org collection of CD-ROMs, e.g.: https://discmaster.textfiles.com/cd-rom?search=17+bit

The Amiga, and this era of computing, were before my time. But it is surprisingly fun to browse through some of this stuff, and get insights into the very early days of software development.

My favorite so far is the "Iff Specs Disk", with technical documentation on an ancient container and data format called IFF (Interchange File Format).

Like in the file ea.iff.85 [0], and this section explaining why common data file formats are useful the first place:

"The problem with expedient file formats - typically memory dumps - is that they're too provincial.

By designing data for one particular use (e.g. a screen snapshot), they preclude future expansion (would you like a full page picture? a multi-page document?).

In neglecting the possibility that other programs might read their data, they fail to save contextual information (how many bit planes? what resolution?). Ignoring that other programs might create such files, they're intolerant of extra data (texture palette for a picture editor), missing data (no color map), or minor variations (smaller image).

In practice, a filed representation should rarely mirror an in-memory representation. The former should be designed for longevity; the latter to optimize the manipulations of a particular program. The same filed data will be read into different memory formats by different programs."

Imagine having to explain to a professional developer today why having something like JSON is valuable. Most of us find it obvious.

But there was a time when this kind of thing was not obvious at all; the need for it had to be discovered the hard way, and then solutions invented from first principles.

We really are standing on the shoulders of those who came before us, in more ways than we realize.

[0] https://amigafreeware.downer.tech/17bit/17bit/61/contents/if...

When I first got my Amiga I spent all day one weekend copying PD game disks at the local computer store, Think it was like 25 cents to copy one plus price of a floppy. Good times.

Always fun to go and look up the very first software I sold in this archive.

From webpage I read: " Search or browse games, applications, demos, graphics, music and tools from the golden age of 32-bit home computing."

But Amiga has a 16 bit CPU... or not?

Does anyone know of a source of the pre-release eagle demo?

First 2 games I tried it didn't have Lotus turbo Buggy boy

Not obscure games