Alive and Kick'Starting'

Kickstarter is addictive....  There I said it.

Last year, I backed my first Kickstarter...  a book called "Commodore 64: a visual Commpendium", by Sam Dyer, and published by Bitmap Books.  It surpassed all expectations and became quite a hit with fans of the Commodore 64 (including me).

So, when I heard that Sam was producing a follow up book entitled "Commodore Amiga: a visual Commpendium", I just had to back it immediately.

The book had a target goal of £25,000 so I think it came as a bit of a surprise to most when the total amount pledged to the project came in at just short of £130,000.  Wow.  It just goes to show how much love there is for the old Commodore computers.

Anyway, after several months of waiting, the book finally arrived through the letterbox today, and WOW.

The book is fantastic, and considerably larger than the Commodore 64 one.  The graphics on each page depicting various well known games are truly remarkable, with a small piece of text from well known people from the Amiga days (game/demo programmers, designers, graphic artists and fans)

AND due to the massive success of the project, backers also get loads of cool extras with the book as standard.

• Shadow of the Beast 2015 Remix CD by Tim Wright (CoLD SToRAGE)
• I Love Commodore Amiga Sticker
• Metal Amiga engraved bookmark
• Amiga pen
• Amiga Ball Pin
• 6x Demoscene postcards (one signed by the author of the book)
• Another World poster
• Ask Me About Loom badge (from The Secret of Monkey Island) Limited to first 100 Backers

I highly recommend this book (and the Commodore 64 one) to any person who has an interest in old computer games - even if you never had a Commodore computer.  I cant wait for Sam's next book which I hear may be about the Spectrum.

Amiga Book - http://www.funstock.co.uk/commodore-amiga-a-visual-commpendium-book
C64 Book - http://www.funstock.co.uk/commodore-64-a-visual-commpendium-c64-book

Now, I've just got to wait for the other Kickstarter projects I've backed to arrive, including Matt Gray's "Reformation" C64 music project, From Bedrooms to Billions : The Amiga Years, Marcel Donne's "Project Sidologie" CD Box set, and Uncle Art's Elite 2 (Frontier) Orchestral and Retrogaming Music Remakes.

Both Books - the Amiga Commpendium and the C64 Commpendium.

Both Books - the Amiga Commpendium and the C64 Commpendium.

 

Remember this from The Secret of Monkey Island?

Demoscene Postcards

A3 Poster from the cover of Another World

Shadow of the Beast 2015 Remix CD by Tim Wright

Sticker!

The full booty!

Oh yeah, I got my name in the book as an official backer!

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One of the great things about loading old cassette games on the Commodore 64 were the fantastic loading pictures that would often appear (usually accompanied with some equally fantastic music).  It usually made the wait for the game to load much more tolerable

I thought I would share with you some of my favourites.  Not bad considering the graphical limitations of the Commodore 64.  Remember, the C64 had a palette of only 16 colours!

After Burner

Arkanoid

Back To The Future Part II

Batman The Caped Crusader

Buggy Boy

Cobra

Dan Dare - Pilot of the Future

Dark Side

Dominator

Driller

Druid 2

Druid

Fairlight

Head Over Heels

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Robocop

Short Circuit

The Empire Strikes Back

Star Wars

The Sentinel

The Untouchables

Total Recall

We want you... We want you... We want you as a new recruit.

 

Asset Management....  I just bloody hate it.  I know, it has to be done, but come on....  I've got to stick one of these stickers on EVERY piece of IT equipment in the school, and then scan it in to a central database.  We have over 600 computers and laptops, and a large number of printers, tablets, network switches, servers, monitors, interactive white boards, and other peripherals.  Guess I'm going to be busy for a while! 

 

Might be a good time to mention that we're looking for a new IT technician to join our team if anyone is interested!  (Probably not now knowing they'll have to help with the auditing  hehe!)

 

Application form and information can be downloaded from the school website by clicking here.