ScuzzBlog: Diaries December 2023 Entry 26th December 2023: Post 1: Mick Roots - Unsung hero of the A1500 by A1500 Ltd Part 2. Mick Roots - Unsung hero of the A1500 by A1500 Ltd Part 2. Over the last month or so I have had the opportunity to chat with the originating designer of the A1500. The A1500 houses the Amiga 500 in a differing case and provides an external keyboard plus many other enhancing features. What was interesting for me was that Mick pointed out that the box I had was for the A1500 by A1500 Ltd who sadly went to the wall before they could get off the ground. The product was picked up by Checkmate who branded it under Checkmate Digital Limited. Mick really never received the credit he deserved for all his hard work in creating this wonderful masterpiece and so I asked Mick to pen down some of his thoughts from the era. I have spread this article over two posts and so Part 2 follows tomorrow. I do have two of these machines and you can distinguish the one from the A1500 Ltd house as per the box with the more curvy font style. I am still not sure who exactly made the second of my machines with the more simplistic font given that there is no reference to A1500 Ltd or Checkmate. Mick suggests that one is an early prototype of which only a couple of dozen were made. Anyhoo here is the second half of Mick's article, so enjoy. _________________________________________________________________ Hi Scuzz, Disappointed not to have accidentally, stumbled on a ready source of the A1500. ........ [ continued ] On their way up the shiny stairway CBM scattered a few gems and left some holes in a crazy fast moving market. No one can justify criticism of their heroic efforts to do justice to the Amiga they were just not big enough or hard enough at the wrong time. If someone's intention was to grab and run with the results of someone else's efforts (claiming them for their own) without concern or consideration of the real possibilities then that would be the act of a short-sighted, self-serving fool who would be dangerous if granted power and responsibility. I'm sure we have all seen many examples of those. I did feel an obligation to diminish the effects of a single, silly, slip-up like handing a workable design over to someone I did not personally know or trust. I did feel that I was in a losing game the moment I realised my designs had been ripped-off. Due to Checkmate's intransigence (also a very familiar human condition in these sorts of situations) It is my honest opinion that a very narrow window of opportunity to make the Amiga 500 a serious machine was completely missed. They have, however, worked hard to achieve their purpose and I’m certain that their customers have been well served. I have since witnessed this cycle of events so many times that I’ve come to believe that this is the only way that our system allows the small man to break through the glass ceiling. I have decided that breaking glass is not my purpose in life. You are right. Taking a perfectly good Amiga out of it's case is nuts especially with the 1200 and even the 600 which are totally unsuitable. But the A500 was absolutely screaming out for it. I can honestly say that this project was never about the money for me or most of the hard working supporters of the same goal. We wanted to see the Amiga lifted to the level of respect envisioned by those originators (injected into the lid of the Amiga 1000) with an almost evangelical fervour. Maybe we were foolishly idealistic but surely this could not have be achieved by a non- cooperative, two-man operation but may have by a company with the resources of CTD, hopefully, in tandem with Commodore. We’ll never know. The good thing, for me to take away is having learned, to recognise the signs (even in seemingly trivial circumstances) and when to say "Thanks But no thanks to offers of help". Amiga Software: I used X-CAD designer then X-CADpro as was supplied by CTD. Yes auto cad is better (I enjoyed many expensive courses, while an engineering manager and used it around 2000 ish ) and as a roving automated warehouse project engineer (GIANT TRAIN SETS). Another nightmare for the family but a ridiculously addictive career with design-on-the-hoof SCADA and PLC programming while pressured by the prospect of dozens of lorry drivers sat on loading bays awaiting a software patch that may fail but never did. I had experience of systems from the same hands that brought you the Terminal 5 debacle (among others). Also. Travelling for hours when some joker found that they could freeze the system with an empty coffee cup, a few flat packed cardboard boxes or kicking a power adapter from a control console multi-outlet. Happy days of dealing with the best of British controls engineering. And the best of British system dodgers and skivers. Pro-net and Pro-board produced the expansion PCBs the original version was awful but with bug fixes it became awkwardly useable. I think, in the (totally inadequate) A1500 manual, it says CAD on Amiga (this is where my memory fails me.) and in the rush of the premature launch it may not have happened. Started the A1500 design with Aegis draw at Home. CAD? X-CAD3D and X-CAD2D had many problems also with confusingly different command syntax for the same actions but the 2D [DXF out] worked reasonably well and at CTD the A0 HPGL plots were acceptable. No 3D DXF out is, still, a massive downfall. I've tried the 3000 version on UAE and it's all the same issues with 3D display rotations disintegrating into a pile of pick-up sticks although with X-CAD3000 at least the drawings, sometimes, recover or just evaporate into the ether when you rotate the display back before the mathematical twilight zone. The supplied .hpgl to .dxf utilities break with XCAD 3D plot-outs. At first glance, Turbo silver output relies on surfaces (which is where my quest for X-CAD3D manuals started and dead-ended). I may pick this up again next year or try the other output converters. My youngest daughter is still an Amiga fan and has animations and her own songs recorded. I was attempting to help out but no need as she has, now, found Davinci Resolve on Windows so I'm redundant on that project. I've yet to find any Amiga CAD that doesn't guru on [3D-DXF out] with anything more than a simple cube. Very disappointing. I see no Amiga X-CAD users out there and no suitable documentation. My continued motivation was to recover and prove my old files and to archive them in a universally compatible format. Much of the detail was put into X-CAD 3D to hand over to animators (but that never happened). I will probably switch to the PC to reassemble the 3D from 2D DXFs as I’m seeing a lot of free Windows CAD available. Maybe next year. The name XCAD has been ripped into pieces and scattered amongst many other brand scavengers. If the Amiga was, ever, to lift itself out of the toy department then inexpensive genuine engineering and educational software, that can take a project to completion, could have done it. Having a machine that does not 100% have to be connected to the web and does not need subscriptions and massive, intrusive corporations for every useful function sounds very appealing to me. Many dreamed the internet could be like that, with all it's flaws, (but not even Elon Musk and the 'bleedin choir invisibule' could fix it now). For old PLC systems (some still in existence) I keep Win 98 and XP on a couple of Dell laptops (the last of the serial and parallel ports). There is no other software support for those dongles and interface adapters to ancient programmable controllers. I have several of these old beasts and have started to mount them on panels and interconnect them. My retro interests are more to do with industrial controls which have gone through similar developments and although the machines and their processors are good (for many years to come) some fools have been convinced to 'upgrade' to operating systems that claim to be user friendly to the thick- headed management that choose them. Strangely as in modern computing they only serve to make the simplest tasks infinitely more complex and infinitely more likely to fall over. But more universally attachable to other previously stable operating systems making them appear unstable. And of course, to perpetuate the licensing for those who must now rent or subscribe to their use. The Amiga with its tiny programs of a few Mega-Bytes and operating systems of not much more. (The fancy front ends offered by well meaning advocates of the overly user friendly don’t tempt me). They could have put all that energy into seriously useful Applications that could make all the difference in loosening the hold of the tech giants who are right now deciding how best to gain money from and power over our young peoples futures as A.I. looms before us. Or am I getting a bit dark in my old age? I don't begrudge this new Amiga generation playing free games and showing off their Amigas in public or whatever they can glean from the legacy. I’ve not seen it and I'm not likely to but I can see the appeal as Amiga games are still very playable. If this does cause a resurgence of interest in the Amiga then great. Until someone finds a way to rein it in and put it on a subscription. Then everyone will want one. I hope you find this rant amusing and maybe even interesting. If you got this far without falling asleep at least once then you are a better man than I. I have put this together having verified the facts and expressed my opinions without prejudice. I was going to insert the unrepeated paragraphs from my previous messages but I am loosing the will to spend any more of my rapidly fading eyesight on editing text so this is all I can muster. Feel free to do with it as you will. I am unlikely to add to or amend any of this distraction for a very long time as my life is full of, both laughable and lamentable, priorities which are added to daily. Particularly at this time of year. If I may ask you one favour as you have CAD capability. I have mentioned recovering most of my files. But some are unrecoverable and due to my confusing file names and poor memory I am not sure which version of two particular components ended up in the A1500. If I send you a drawing file of the two components could you either confirm or deny that version is in the A1500 that you have. (Don't need actual details). Just to know if those were the release versions. Talking of versions. I kept re-designing and reworking right up to the end and the last keyboard casing was a leap on. It tapered to the front with the same depth at the back and had an elevating foot to stand up at an angle or to hook onto the rack mount. All a bit redundant now. I’m very happy to hear critique of the A1500 Ltd. kit that was released. I’m never happy with anything that I make, repair, design or produce but there’s merit in trying and comparing the alternatives. I believe that is the only way that anything useful has ever come about and it certainly increases the chances of something wonderful happening. Best Regards. Mick ...... END POST PS if any of you have a spare original A1500 machine that you want to gift to Mick I will certainly be happy to pass on his contact details Mick Roots - Unsung hero of the A1500 by A1500 Ltd.

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Last updated 26th December 2023

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