My platform of choice is the Amiga, which may be inevitable as I seem to be set in my ways, having started programming on pre-chip `dinosaurs` (Univac, IBM, GE, Honeywell, etc.).

It is not that I would ever refuse to try whatever is available, far from it, it`s what I do for fun, using emulators on the platform that`s most capable of performing exactly as I expect it to. Amiga is the OS that won't get in your way or annoy you by being excessively `user-friendly,` while boasting hype like a spiky-haired office dude, aka a know-it-all. For me it is simply about making an individual and practical choice, backed by decades of experience hacking around with software on many systems. If an OS (or its creator) won`t respect me - then I won`t respect it either.

Amiga is polite and friendly. If I decide to stay online, it will save the settings to the drive and set itself a tick to reload it at the next convenience. We can all appreciate simplicity, efficiency, consistency and elegance, and some will also like fun! It was fun to run MacOS v8+ on the Shapeshifter emulator, and later v9.04 on Fusion, the emulator running on my PPC accelerator card. They were different - awkward, "cute", puzzling at times, they not only allowed me to test my website in Netscape, Opera or IE, thus remaining compatible with the masses, but made me appreciate the Amiga even more.

Workbench has the ability to change language on the fly - and all programs will follow suit - try that with WinXP`s user interface! AmigaOS can be upgraded while it is running a time-critical shuttle uplink (this from NASA, wish I`d archived that back then!), and only ever needs to be re-installed if something drastic, like a hard drive crash, destroys it - smaller disasters can be easily repaired. All that without a re-boot, if you know the shell, whereas Windows seems to live on reboots for even the most minor change. The Amiga is getting swifter with every new release, while the opposite is the case with the Redmond product. So f. x. Vista or W7 would not run on my old P3 hardware, and installed on my present box they`d gobble up all the additional resources and leave me no better off. So no way!

Sadly my A4000 died in `07, followed a couple of years later by the Blizzard in my A1200, which left only the basic 2MB of RAM. My OS v3.9 setup is unable to run in that. Consequently I had to downgrade` to the P3 Celeron, with all its problems due to BIOS limitation of hard drive size, a puny PSU, and dumb WinXP, which brutally and sneakily enforces its depression on all - Marvin was at least funny. On Amiga and AROS I can simply patch the filesystem to fix any drive size boundaries, while this `01 BIOS will never be upgraded. As a result, I was being forced into buying a new box, so I decided to build a Socket AM2 system with Athlon 64 X2 CPU and an ATI Radeon x850. Not quite cutting edge, but it can handle all my large drives, and the mobo/chipset is open source compatible right down to the BIOS, with Coreboot.

The line between extortion and business is getting more and more blurred as we approach the perfect throw-away system, the wet dream of greedy suits and marketroids. Sadly it is all a reckless waste of the planet`s resources, that can only result in future generations ending up in poverty, with nothing working due to planned obsolescence. (see ZeitGeist links near bottom of "`contact` page.)

So all you good folks - you know who you are - who choose to regard me as "computer illiterate" until I "conformed" to humanity`s dark side, and would not rest bombarding me with regurgitated advertising until it was forced down my neck, all you have proved is your utter ignorance on the matter. Considering your lack of experience, or even the most basic knowledge, it took a great deal of arrogance to assume the right to tell a pro what computer to use, and that despite having known me for long enough to wonder what I was talking about when trying to explain my work. Of course at the time you had no idea of what a computer could even be used for except to run a game. The price of ignoring experience is to be doomed to finding all your knowledge in hyped news and adverts - which only a luser will take as of any value...

You barely learned how to switch on your shiny new PC, and never even having seen an Amiga, you tried to compare the two, coming to the shallow-minded "conclusion" that Amiga being `old stuff`, Windows must be so much better. By the same token a new Nissan Micra should be better than a 60`s Ferrari GTB, Ford GT40 or a RR Corniche. Quaintly demented, it explains the need to follow the herd of sheep. Obviously ignoring any explanations, since you had no idea, let alone any understanding of what I was talking about, you preferred to be a know-it-all who would never admit that. And refusing to learn, wanna-be "experts" who try to patronise an old hacker, really deserve the mind-numbing system they are saddled with, it was built with sheep in mind and is part of the NWO plans to dumb them down before the chop. Meanwhile I have installed gnu/linux as my main OS for the time being, allowing me to keep some sanity in my life.

While Windows is some corporate types` idea of what should be popular, allowing them to spy on you as it calls home every time you boot up, gnu/linux was built by many volunteers, who believe in individual freedom, therefore it is the people`s idea of what is useful, user-friendly and safe too. This becomes quite obvious, once you know what to look for.

And to run it, there are these:

Sadly with the A4000 and the Blizzard in the A1200 out of commission, things are `serious` until the Natami comes along. Meanwhile I am relying on UAE for my daily dose of fun.

My main machine is the Amiga 4000, the A1200 is for the odd scan and MIDI. The clone is mainly just a 'badge' to show that I exist, and fills in for the tasks where the Classic Amiga has fallen behind. However, I am convinced that if it had only 10% of the funding and development that`s poured into Windows, it could easily jump light-years ahead of the entire pack - again... Amiga at NASA. A4000 (desktop) in PowerTower, OS3.9 + BB2. CSPPC '060 + 128MB (needs fixing, so now just '030 + 16MB + Oktagon), 9GB SCSI + 32x TEAC CDRW, 120GB IDE. CV64/3D + Samtron 55E monitor (shared with PC), MFC III, VLab Motion, Delfina Lite DSP @60MHz, Canon BJC2100 via parallel port. Runs emulators for MacOS v8.6 on 68k and v9.04 on PPC. A1200, Blizzard'030/50 + 32MB, 20GB IDE, SCSI IV + SCSI Agfa SnapScan, OS3.5 + BB2, VidiAmigaRT, TriplePlayPlus MIDI i/f, C= 1940 monitor. On-line via 56k ext modem and PCMCIA net-card.

That was the fun part, from here it gets "serious"!

(meaning: bland, humourless, depressing, patronising)

AcerPower S57, intel Celeron @1GHz, 1GB RAM, 20GB PATA, DVD-ROM/CD-RW, 80GB SATA in a USB cradle and Canon BJC2100 via USB. On-line via 24Mbps DSL. WinXP/SP3 and Mepis GNU/Linux dual-boot. Main apps: WinUAE running a virtual copy of my A4000, Open Office and Mozilla FireFox & ThunderBird, though I do occasionally use Opera and Safari as well.

MSI MS-7260 K9N Neo series Mobo socket AM2 in an ASUS 738 Black/Silver Midi ATX PC Case With 500W PSU. The CPU is an Athlon 64 X2 @2.6GHz, kept cool by a copperpipe heatsink and a silent fan. It has 2GB of memory and an ATI Radeon X850XT (256 MB) PCI Express, able to handle two HDMI monitors. The system is populated with DVD-RW, 1TB SATA, 2 x 160GB (one SATA, one PATA) and the 120GB IDE drive from my old A4000. Just for completeness I installed WinXP Media Center (32-bit), which constantly nags me to switch on "automatic updates", so it can spy on me, therefore my main OS is 64-bit mepis linux at present and next I am about to install AROS, before I tackle Source Mage.

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"The U.S. is Microsoft. Al Qaeda is Linux."

John Robb`s new book - Brave New War

as quoted by Jamais Cascio on 14-May-2007