Wally Dug's Beginners' Guide to the Amiga

In the first of a brand new series, the world's most renowned Amiga expert, Wally Dug, gives you a guided tour of this wonderful machine

Learning how to use the Amiga properly can be a daunting task, especially for the newcomers upgrading from a humble Commodore 64 or Sinclair Spectrum. The following is a short guide to help those unaccustomed with the machine.

Booting the machine

Many newcomers believe that the only way to start the computer is a technique known as "booting the machine". However, this is completely wrong and Commodore is entirely to blame.

Do not follow Commodore's instructions by holding your Workbench disk up in the air in your left hand as nothing actually happens until you kick, or boot, the machine in anger. Instead, hold the disk in your right hand and post it into the letterbox on the right hand side of the machine.

Left handed people

This brings us to the fact that the Amiga has been designed solely with right handed people in mind. This problem, however, is easily solved.

If you look at the computer, you will find that there is a ridge just above the "Commodore" logo and below the "Amiga" impression. To convert the machine to left hand drive, simply cut along this ridge using a Stanley knife, chainsaw or industrial laser, whichever is handier. Then, turn the "Amiga" side over so that the letterbox is on the left hand side. Reassemble using a soldering iron, superglue, some sticky-backed plastic and second hand Hubba Bubba.

All the ports at the back of the computer become starboards and the mouse can now be used in the left hand with ease.

Floppy disks and hard disks

These are what store the computer data, i.e. programs such as games, word processors, etc. Hard disks are better than floppy disks because they can hold more data due to their rigidness.

On the other hand, floppy disks are a lot cheaper than hard disks. This is because they are not as heavy as hard disks, therefore salespeople can hold more of them in the air at computer shows in order to sell them. As more is sold, the price becomes cheaper.

Dual disks

This is the name given to games disks which play a thrashing, clunking type of music whilst the game is loading.

This ethnic music, based on funk and written in the computer language C, is known as C-Rap music.

Copy protection

This is, initially, an excellent method of legal back-ups of commercial software which requires the input of a word from the manual before the game or package will continue its operation.

Unfortunately, manuals always get lost after 3½ months. This results in your greatest-ever high score at Astro-Invaders Paint The Simulated City being obliterated after you failed to enter the 9th letter of the 4th word on the 21st line of page 71 of the manual in the allotted five seconds.

Games

A lot of people seem to think that the best Amiga software is games software. This is another false belief. The Amiga was never designed to be the world's leading computer games machine.

Well, maybe it was. But the best way to show the true potential of the Amiga is in pursuit of the anti-esstee.

Anti-esstee disks can be found in any public domain library and are often known by such names as demo, megademo or hyperdemo.

The usual composition of such disks is fast vector graphics, a colourful "scrolly" and, of course, the ubiquitous use of colour.

Viruses

There has been increasing talk recently, both useful and useless, of the computer virus, a rogue program which creates disaster for users, but here is the definitive guide to viruses.

No computer is safe from a virus unless the following simple precaution is taken: Never ever pour cold water over the computer.

The computer is an electrical device and, as such, generates an enormous amount of heat. If cold water is poured over it, it quickly cools down and catches a chill. If the computer is not wrapped up in a scarf, woolly hat and those mittens joined together with a piece of string, this chill soon develops into a virus. Then, all hope is lost.

So there you have it. A brief, but hopefully concise, introduction to the world of the Commodore Amiga. I hope you can see better now!

Next month we continue on the theme of beginners and the Amiga with a look at how the new Amiga A500 Plus can be used as the nerve centre for our Build-It! feature, "Life, The Universe and Nuclear Fusion in the Back Bedroom for 42p".

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