# 12 years and counting... Warning: This page contains my personal history. It is strictly personal and can be read by people that are interested in my past. Everyone who reads this page can actually understand me better. Don't read only a part of it. Read the complete story or nothing. This page has no graphics or fancy html tags. I don't like them. If you want to see graphics, go back to the previous page, by pressing the back button of your browser.
## 1986 It was a cold, day of October 1986. I was about 9 years old, knowing absolutely nothing about life, all I can remember from that period, is my school (I still hate it, even if it was a stupid primary, public school), my parents, and a friend , that unfortunately he is still a very good friend. I still remember that day. I was invited in a friend's (I think Spyros was his name) party. I was happy to actually go somewhere (a kid's life was so difficult before 12 years), to have fun and eat food, with my other schoolmates. I went to the party and greeted everyone... but my eyes were driven directly to a brand new computer. It was a dark grey one, with a nice color monitor. I was impressed. I asked Spyros, if I could touch it. He said no... :( But when, everyone left the room to go for the birthday cake, I stayed there turned it on and touched the ..."keys". What a nice feeling... touching small keys and seing the letters printed on a blue screen. After a while Spyros came into the room and he turned it off immediately. I hate him, I think he killed me. After 2 minutes, I recovered from the shock of feeling a computer and asked Spyros, lots of questions, like "What are these keys for? - What this thing can do? - What's his name? - How much it costs?". He told me that it was an Amstrad CPC 464 with a color monitor and it was a computer. That thing I just touched, was its keyboard and not a typewriter... After a while, I went straight to home and to my father. I asked him If he could buy me a present for Christmas. He answered that it depends on what kind of game I want again... I told him that I don't want a game, but a computer. I don't think he exactly understood, what I have just asked him to buy me and he just said "Yes". I couldn't believe him, so I had to try getting a computer by myself. I was sure that I heard my father talking about an electronics store that his brother opened some days ago in my hometown. The other day, after school I was on that store, that it was actually a Computer Shop, called Megapolis. I asked him about this Amstrad thing and his reactions were great. He let me play with an Amstrad CPC 6128, I can't remember exactly what I've played, but I was so excited that I made him to call my father at home telling him to come to the store immediately. He came...and he took me back home :(. Getting a computer was ..not a very cheap present, so he told me that I must forget about it. Next day, I was back into the store. My uncle introduced me to a PC (8086?) and an Atari 512ST. I asked him, what he would choose for me and he answered "Amstrad!". From that day and for a period of 2 months, I was every day on that store playing with Amstrad, or Atari. I didn't like the PC, it was ugly and colorless. For 2 months, I didn't spend any money at all for personal needs. Finally Xmas came. I went to my father and gave him all my money, about 10.000drs. The price of the Amstrad with a color monitor was exactly 149.000drs with 5 games and a joystick. After many arguments he finally went to Megapolis and brought home, my new computer! The date was 25th of December 1986. Before my final selection of a computer, I remember myself looking at a new awesome computer. Everyone was looking at it. I asked my uncle and he told me that Amstrad is much more cheaper and it's also more professional... Amiga he said, is only a gamers computer. Anyway... I was so happy I that finally I had my own Amstrad CPC 6128 with a color monitor. ## 1987 I spend lots of time, playing with it. My first game was Saboteur 2. Well, I've Kangoroo on a friend's Atari 2600, but it was too simple and easy for me. This one was more than great... The second day, I discovered more about my Amstrad. The 4th disk had a nice little demo, showing more about the capabilities of the CPC. Then I continued playing with other disks and found my first OS. It was CPM. Nice OS... In the 5th day I discovered that the Amstrad OS had a built in programming language, the so great Amstrad Basic. I was so happy that I stopped playing games and started programming my own programs and games. After few days of some basic work, a friend gave me some great utilities, like DiskCopier and Art Studio. In about a month or so, I've learned typing fluently. The months passed pretty fast. I was very happy with my new friend, I have made lots of programs, from simple calculators, to a graphics adventure game! This time (Mid-1987) a friend of mine had a nice 8088 PC, with an EGA gfx card. I never liked it, but I was magnified by some adventure games of Sierra, like Larry I, Police Quest I, King's Quest I etc. My dream was also to play these games, but never sell my Amstrad for a worse computer. The time was passing, but I can still remember going to my uncle's store and seing a brand new machine. It was again the Amiga but now, everyone had one and lots of games were released every day. A decision was made. I had to abandon the Amstrad and go to the Amiga scene. But again, the money was a huge problem, I couldn't buy, by myself anything at all and I was also afraid to ask for a new machine. After the summer of 1988, I couldn't stand any more with my Amstrad. Games were released but nothing for my computer. I began to hate it. I was watching others playing lots and lots of games on Amiga or PC... so... it was about time to do something... ## 1988 Well... again I got some money and told my uncle that it was time to upgrade... The November came and my father killed me once again and my uncle was happy once more. I gave him the Amstrad with the monitor and he gave me the Amiga 500 and the 1084s monitor that I still have and use it as a TV :) The following 5 days I stayed at Megapolis copying all day and night disks for others (helping my uncle) in order to get some Amiga games... I chosed Shadow of the Beast 2 and some others I can't remember right now. SOTB2, was my first Amiga game. I haven't played much, but I still love it and I am glad I can now play it even on half the speed and half the sound quality on UAE. The original feeling of seeing SOTB2 is something I will never forget. The introduction was great for a machine of that age and the same goes for the colors, the scroll and the resolution of the game. Psygnosis was the creator of one of the best Amiga games ever. ## 1989 The Amiga era was great and it's still my favorite. Amiga had something that no other machine of today has. A personality. Everyone refered to Amiga as a person, as a woman, we all called it "SHE"! I remember when I first seen Monkey Island 1. I had to upgrade my memory to 1mb in order to run it. When I've finally added the memory, I LOVED Lucasarts and Monkey Island 1 & Loom, on 32 colors on my Amiga; it was better than the PC version of the 16 colors and a stupid-speaker. I don't want to refer much more on the capabilities of Amiga, you can all read more about her, on the dedicated page. I remember going to school and telling others about the Amiga games and demos. I remember lots of guys and especially Greg, coming to my home for hours, playing with lots of classic games, that even PC games of nowdays, have them as a prototype. ## 1990 Going on a secondary school was a great oportunity for finding other Amiga users. The problem was that there wasn't many Amiga users on my school :( I have published a small newspaper, talking about Amiga, Amstrad and PC. The name of it was Monitor and my partner was a friend of mine, a PC user, John. Monitor was sold in more than 15 :) students in a 300student school. It was a monthly newspaper covering every aspect of gaming and some basic advice. After 4 issues I decided it was time to find something else. I have found some new friends and established leeching events and copy partys. 10-20 people gathered at Aggelo's or Piskopakis house, talking about Amiga 500 games and then... copying them using the great X-Copy. Finding 3 1/2 DD disks was hard this time, almost every computer store, had no stock of them, since the pirates were copying all day and night games for lots and lots of Amigas. The Amiga was the most popular machine all over Europe. ## 1991 Well.. 1991 was the peak of Amiga's era. Everyone had an Amiga and everyone was using an Amiga, for playing Games. I was just satisfied with my computer, but I was jealous of seing PCs on many commercial places, used for account balancing, spreadsheeting, word processing. I had lots of question for the Amiga. Well I knew she was perfect with Games and Demos, but what about Graphics, Music and work stuff? Thanks to the help of some great English Amiga Magazines (CU-Amiga, Amiga Format) I've learned more about Amiga's hidden secrets. Pixel was the only Amiga magazine in Greece, and had reviews only for games. I began using Protracker, a great program used for music tracking and sampling. I was excited. I could now sample my voice and even a beat from any sound source and use it to create my own songs. I began collection other's people work and even now, I own a huge collection of the so called Modules. (More info on my Links page. I have also discoved Deluxe Paint 2, a great drawing program for making my own gfx in 4096 colors! It was a fantastic experience, believe me. I was able to manipulate or create an Image! Using these programs, gave me also OS experience. Unfortunately Amiga Os 1.3 was so limited. I had already seen Amiga OS 2.04 on the new Amiga 500+ and Amiga 600 and I didn't knew yet, if it was time to upgrade. What I really wanted was an Amiga 3000, but its cost was 560.000 drs, a huge amount of money even for my parents. I was invited in Greg's place. He had a 80286 with a nice CGA card. He also had a 1200 bps modem. I didn't knew what a modem is and so I asked him to show me. He got a PC Master from his library, typed something into a terminal screen (Telix) and after a while, strange noises came out from a small external box. He was connected to a BBS and after a while he began "getting" some files for his PC. I was amazed by the idea of getting every file I needed for my Amiga, so I started learning more about Amiga's OS, in order to transfer small files between the Amiga and the PC. I've found the programs and after a while I spent thousands of hours on Greg's house in order to get the latest files, pictures (gif in 16 colors) or modules. I wanted a modem right away!...BUT my father as always was the problem. He didn't like the idea of having my Amiga connected, he didn't want to pay huge bills on the telephone company. ## 1992 Amiga had again a great year. Everyone was now expecting a new Amiga model with an enchanced chipset to be released. Finally September, Amiga 4000 and Amiga 1200 were released by Commodore. A new short era this time began, the era of AGA the new Amiga chipset. The sound was the same, it was enough anyway, but the graphics pallete has been boosted to 16.7 million colors and the memory to 2mb. A4000 was the high end machine, coming with a Hard Disk, 4mb of Ram and Zorro expansion slots, all together in a desktop box. In a very short time, everyone had upgraded his machine to the new Amiga 1200. I upgraded my A500 in November and after a month I bought a 60mb 2 1/2" IDE hard disk, paying about 60.000drs (!). The service of C= in Greece, was awfull. For adding a HD, I was waiting about 2 weeks...and finally my Amiga came back and didn't work! I took it back to the service and after 2 weeks it had the same problems. So... They changed my Amiga, gave me a new one ...and after all of this trouble, my Amiga was working perfectly and with a HD installed. Wooops.. I forgot to tell you that after buying the Amiga 1200, I bought a 2400 bps MAXAN modem, after almost killing :) my father in a hate war. I began collecting almost every module or data file I could find. ## 1993 This year was completely devoted to Amiga and BBSing. Internet made its first appearance in Greece through Democritus. BBSing was a great part of my life. I began using the teleconference of many BBSes to meet and chat with others. HOL (Hellas On Line), had one of the biggest BBS in Greece. You had to pay a subscription in order to get in, but chatting with 50 others was great. The leeching through BBSs continued. I met lots of people there, like DjLGM, HooK, DrFeelGood, Cybern0id, Amusic, and many many others. I didn't like using Amiga for games. I loved working with the Amiga Workbench. It was fast and had a true multitasking, that PC couldn't even now offer. Most people on BBSs (a PC world) hated me for using an Amiga and in the beggining they couldn't even believe it. But very soon, I started using my own mailing system and even send Fido mail. I can still remember of FidoNet, HookNet, Athens Net...erm another one, what's the name... well :) .. anyway, you know what I mean, Goldennet and others. My uplink was Michael Theoharidis of Magnum 357 BBS and the person who taught me using the Amiga for mailing, was Radoikovich Nenos. Amiga this time was used in many Greek channels for titling and mixing effects. Radoikovich was working in a TV channel in Eyboia. 1. Pretty soon, through a father's friend I began working on Junior's TV, New Channel (others followed like TV Peiraias) for subtitling or graphics design. In fact, after so many years I have seen my logos USED again on TV. 2. The most significant work I have done, was the graphics and the computer job at Agia Triada (Αγία Τριάδα Πειραιώς) for covering the whole Easter live transmission. I created many logos that can even now been watched on New channel, every Easter (!). I created different logos for every day depending on that day . The titling was done using an Amiga 2000 with a genlock and the great SCALA. ## 1994 I stopped working on the channels. A 8hr work was too much for a 17 years old boy, that in a year will have the most important exams in his life. My job at Agia Triada, continued every Sunday and holidays. 3. Well, graphics on Agia Triada was a good thing, but all my partners there were working on mixing/montage, or handling and using the cameras. Finally I asked and learned more. When I was bored, I had a whole new camera world to explore... The summer came. I was bored to death, and school was boring ... The exams finished and the "φροντιστήριο" (summer classes for preperation on the univ exams) begun. It was time for me to start my own BBS. The first name choosen was Smile BBS, but unfortunately I didn't like it. The idea came again from John. The best name he could think was Odyssey BBS. 4. Finally the Amiga, with no real time clock and a 60mb HD, became the host of the most busy BBS ever :). Odyssey, was mainly an Amiga bbs, but with lots and lots of message areas. In the first month more than 2870 message were posted and more than 50mb of data were transfered through a 2400bps modem. It was very popular, it was on Amiga (using Max's BBS)and it was free and active from 23.00 to 08.00. Odyssey had to be shutted down on September due to, technical reasons. Every time I restarted my Amiga, the time had to been set again and again. It was awfull. After my summer holidays, Odyssey continued his glorious story. I've soon upgraded to a 520mb Hard Disk, added a real time clock and an 68020 accelerator, with 4mb of Ram. I bought the 4mb 72pin simm for 45.000drs ! After all of that upgrades, I also upgraded my BBS software to CNet thanks to Varfis. Odyssey was now working by itself. My amiga was opened automatically and loaded the BBS. In the background I used to design graphics, or playing some silly games, but most time was devoted to the BBS. I have added, every network available and soon Odyssey was again active and busy. Other BBS were also active and even organizing meetings on cinemas, fast foods, restaurants. HOL organized a meeting and about 100 people came in Kifissia and even eat for free at Pita-Pan. Odyssey created its own fido-network, A/NET (later changed to Amiganet) distributing Amiga information and chat through Greece and later through the world ! Many meetings were organized, monthly for everyone to be happy and excited. The biggest meeting took place at Wendys of Omonoia, it was called B.A.M. (Big Amiga Meeting), getting the attention of 67 odyssey bbs users ! These year Amiga have been used for creating graphics on many TV Series and Movies. Lightwave 2.0 was used for the graphics of Babylon 5, American Gothic, Outer Limits, X-Files, Robocop 3, Sea Quest, Jurassic Park etc. Lots of PC users couldn't believe that and a great flame war began. PC was still an awfull machine, with no good graphics, or sound. I was a devoted Amiga user and I could easily kill , every PC user that didn't like my Amiga. This feeling is still here, I hate talking to PC guys, knowing nothing about computer's history. ## 1995 BAMs were still taking place monthly. Now, I have completely lost contact with my lessons. I didn't like them at all. I was very popular at every BBS and every Amiga corner of Greece. My subscription at HOL ended, and I stopped having access to (Linux) - internet. After summer, I was contacted by a Greek computer club, with the name S.F.A. and I was told that they actually organize Amiga users in Greece. They asked me if I could join (for free :)), for helping them in communications and Internet. This period a new commercial BBS, opened his virtual doors. The name was Matrix BBS. The most intersting fact, is that everyone there knew me and when I logged in as a demo user, they all seemed to love me. 5. Before Christmas I had a message in my mailbox, from Matrix's director, Venix offering a job as a System Operator (sysop). I loved the idea of having so many users in my hands and I already had the experience from my BBS. Next day I was at Kifissia, after a bus-travel of about 2 1/2 hours! I was exhausted... and I also had to work 8 days per day, spend 5 hours on traffic and ... only a day free every week, excluding Chrismtmas and new year's day that I had to be there! Unfortunately I thought of it and decided that it was ...too far for me. S.F.A introduced me to a yet unfinished, internet provider. It was operated by a well known and famous guy in Greek reality :) and he had lots of ideas, that I liked. ## 1996 6. February, was the year I began working on this new internet provider, Acropolis Net. My work was simple. From HTML programming, to simple graphics design and system operating. Pretty soon the unexperienced Manos, discovered that working in a company like that, even on part time, had lots of responsibilities. I did jobs that I didn't like to do, like simple text-editing, or even technical support. Well I don't hate technical support, in fact I love it, it makes you laugh. Before summer I was assigned to the most boring job I ever did. Data entry. I was assigned to type a 900 pages book, into a database. After a hour, I decided to quit. I didn't like what I was doing and ... well... I thought that everyone was above me... 7. Summer passed.. I went to Acropolis to get some money they owned me. I haven't accepted working there, but instead I get some web pages to do at home. Pretty easy for me. Last time I went to Acropolis was on Christmas. I had a proposal for full time employment. Now, with more experience, working again there was accepted... but I have also started going to a higher education school. An IIEK offering nothing more than stupid knowledge, that was like giving me instructions of how to walk.. I had to go there in order to avoid the military service for 2 years. Unti mid 1998... 8. Forgot to mention. This year I also worked at Deltagraph. A computer press company. I was writting about 70% of the Greek Amiga Computing magazine and lots of articles in a Consoles mag. This guys at Deltagraph, still own me money. Nice guys, but they don't pay, avoid them if they offer your a job!. ## 1997 This year was the worst of all. I sold my final Amiga. An Amiga 3000 with a gfx card and an accelerator. It was like selling my whole history, like destroying myself. Noone could understand this one. It made me cry for lots of lonely nights. It was like selling my believes, history and past, for 170.000 drs. Amiga gave me every knowledge I have. Now I have turned into a typical PC user. I am the owner of a Intel P200MMX... so what? I use Windows 95 and I hate the OS...so what? No difference. This machine is good, but its not for me... It's too simple. Many proposals for work this year... 9. An advertising campaign for Crypto Modems. I had to find and do a nice advertisment for their new series of 33.6k modems. Since I was v.deep in love with a girl in the beginning of 1997, I couldn't even think of working... stupid me. 10. There was an offer to work full time in Compulink network, as a web designer. Not accepted, 8 hours of working is something I can't do, before I reschedule my IIEK at 1998. 11. An offer to work as a computer technician in a big company. Not accepted it was again full time and I couldn't do it... It was a dark year. MP3s is my favorite hobby. I've collected and ripped every single CDA I could find. I have changed alot. I became more professional. I am also very depressed of my life... PC is a nice machine, full of nice games.. but who has time to play games. I have knowledge. Can I use it? The following year will pass v.fast. I will go to the army. I haven't lived my life yet. I want to taste it. I don't want any more PC's in my life. I want to live my life. I can't # ...everyone hates me... [Return to previous page] Page by depressed Manos Konstantiniadis Odyssey Web Design (c) 1997