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A propos d'Obligement
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David Brunet
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Interview with Vojin Vidanovic
(Interview conducted by Hugo Pereira and extract from the Telegram Vampire group - May 2021)
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This is the first interview in the "Users of the Vamps" series, which gives a voice to Vampire
card users around the world. Vojin Vidanovic (aka vox,
Ras Voja), a Serbian Amigan,
opens the show.
 Hi Vojin, can
you introduce yourself?
Hello Amigans, my name is Vojin Vidanovic. My professions are social worker, University teacher and
reggae music lover. I live in Belgrade, Serbia (used to be Yugoslavia, when I was born). I am 42.
Private interests and hobbies are nature and walking, healthy food, vinyl's and old school hi-fi, retro
computing (Amiga, Atari, Classic Mac OS), poetry. My spiritual choice is Rastafarianism and orthodox Christian,
I am single with no children.
In Amiga forums after 2000 and local serbian BBS of 1990's, I use short nick: vox. It was created first
time I had to enter hi-score name on local arcade or personal computer.
How long have
you been using the Amiga?
About 1994, I obtained an A1200 barebone and 50 floppies. Once I bought a 2.5" 80 MB silent hard drive,
I could install most of it and still have breathing space to work. Later, I expanded it to 68020/28 MHz/4 MB
Fast RAM/800 MB 3.5" externally powered hard drive, a CD-ROM and a modem. Had better computer experience
and joy then 16 GHz, 16 Gb + 4 GB VRAM, 1 TB SSD and 2 TB HDD beast with Athlon 4x 880K and Sound Blaster Audigy.
I tried to render, used Deluxe Paint, enjoyed AmigaOS 3.5 a lot. AmigaOS 3.1 for me was only used with the
"loadwb" command or to get to games, I disliked its too spartan look, even I enjoyed long filenames, versatility,
abilities to edit icons, datatypes and libs, etc.
In East Europe, even in liberal Yugoslavia, there were no personal computers on sale. Our computer industry
existed and heavy taxes were put, computers could only be imported or found in "Comission" shop
individually. No software support existed. I believe people living under the so called "peoples social democracies"
know this and have lived same and even worse, even East Germans, Polish or Russians great nations. We were
self learning, grabbing every bit of information, sharing whatever we could get. But tradition of computer
magazines, meeting and with modems bulletins boards, flourished. Amigas were smuggled, but at least at 2X the prices.
So I have struggled 1986 to start with ZX Spectrum, falling in love in 1991 with cheaper C64. Once my friend
in 1992 got a mighty Amiga 500 with monitor and memory expansion, I have experienced multimedia and real operating
system. If he did not get that A500, my next computer dream machine would be
Sinclair QL, I was keen on even in
1996. I hear Linux kernel maker learn to code m68k ASM on it, maybe we could ask him to revisit it for the 68080
kernel.
I have not become musician, animator or coder. Amiga (even games) helped me to learn English, link with other
Amigans (so rare), participate in local demo scene (Scene Strikes in Belgrade, shout to corrosion) as member
of Trancetherial and Zaiebani (Shaban In Space
and Blackhill Experiment). I was admin of forums on Rear
Of No Carrier, a local Amiga/DOS BBS on New Belgrade (shout goes to Spider!). I also befriended
DJ Nick, an
Amiga techno DJ that played at techno parties.
To Amigans, he is known for the 1997 Warped demo
and music for the game Capital Punishment. At that time,
he used max pimped PowerPC Amiga to make music, demos and videos, he worked
on local TV and produced trance and drum and bass, and DTP books with PageStream.
Today, he makes a lot for children, but he has designed PageStream website and the
best AmigaOS 4.1 skin
(Crystal Theme) and some gorgeous Amiga
skins. He even tries to beat influencers on YouTube with such
smashing hits as Mommy Loves Baby and
Chickens, or my favourite,
Ide Zmija. I am pink elephant driving hilly-billy
machine with Amiga logo in that last one. So I was able to see what creative people can do with high-end
Amiga firsthand. At that time, I was unaware of the fiasco with Capital Punishment and Myst porting adventures
(ClickBoom sad story... Canado-Serbians trying to revive and milk Amiga scene at same time...).
Once all went to Amiga Inc., I have tried to revive and support Amiga beyond AmigaOS 3.5. I also imported under
yet not so normal circumstances. Even I had no hardware, I purchased AmigaOS 4.1 Classic PowerPC, AmigaOS
4.1 for Sam440ep, paid AmigaOS 4.1 beta for AmigaOne x1000, prepaid AmigaOS 4.2, bought Enhancer Software Pack 1
and plan to register MorphOS.
I have been active in Amiga forums since 2003 and ongoing (now only on MorphZone
and Vampire forum. My eyes even
have seen... Moo Bunny!), and participated in the anti-Commodore USA campaign.
I have supported multiple initiatives, websites, kickstarters, ports and I am even bronze suppoter of AmigaWorld.net, even
I have earned unlimited restriction (timeless permanent ban) to post when I criticized Hyperion.
So we can say I love to support, but I expect decency and results. I have Hollywood license, Emotion Video player
licence, Amiga Forever, two AmiKit X, Viva Amiga, Loriano Pagni`s Ducky Zero keyboard with Amiga and serbian keys,
etc. So I do try to support Amiga production worldwide, as much as I can from African economy in East Europe of
peripheral globalization and semi feudal capitalism.
What is your
current configuration?
I have a couple of machines, I do love and care. I had a PlayStation 3 too, but ex-girlfriend took it with her :).
Damn, it was my strongest PowerPC machine!
Daily horses for job, gaming and surfing
- 22" Desktop PC, half obsolete in 2021 - Windows 7, LMDE4, AmiKit XE.
- 6" Xiaomi Mi Max 3, will be replaced by KaiOS phone or even Symbian.
Workbench under AmiKit XE
Live and love
- 20" iMac G5 1 GB, 60 GB HDD, Mac keyboard and mouse. Mac OS X Tiger and MorphOS.
- 32" used Vampire V4SA, 16 GB CF, no microSD, wired keyboard and mouse, 512 MB RAM, USB Blaster,
2free DB9 ports. :-)
Vampire V4SA
Gone or retired
- Useless: AmigaOne x1000 Nemo board, 4 GB RAM, Radeon 7770, Sound Blaster 5.1 Live, Prism Wi-Fi card,
Catweasel MK3 and floppy, 128 GB SSD.
- Took by ex-girlfriend: Slim PlayStation 3, non hacked, legal gaming!
- Died: Commodore A1200, 68020/28/FPU, 6 MB RAM, 800 MB HDD, CD-ROM hooked on TV, 36K fax/modem.
Planned: none, just a few more things for Vampire 4.
What are your
favorite activities on Amiga?
It was my first typing machine, I loved my pirated Amiga Writer
- and still hope someone can update it!
I live of text processing : students papers, social workers reports, science articles, materials for students,
etc. I never accepted PageStream, maybe I am not a DTP guy, even I like such tool exists on Amiga. Presentation
software is also badly needed. And would love to see some such thing coming back. My biggest grudge on Amiga
is that no one cares for WYSWYG text processing and my legal CED is too old school. I will test PageStream S
on my used but new Vampire and I hope I will be able to do some of my daily work even there, again.
It also opened a communication world to me, as soon as I got modern chat/IRC, BlueWave format, simple
Amiga browsing and Aminet leeching, hello! Voyager
was my Amiga browser, sorry boys and girls!
Surely, I have played a lot. Until 1999, when that Amiga went back to holy place where Commodore
is (end of support, M$ would say), it helped me survive and stay sane under UN sanctions, civil wars,
brutal national-fake socialism, NATO bombing and at least high school and half social workers studies.
I enjoyed arcade quality of some games (we need Amiga Vampire remakes of Street Fighter, Pit Fighter,
Golden Axe, Altered Beast and Final Fight - its Amiga version sucks!) and not having to spend money on
coins anymore. But being able to simulate submarine, tank, fighter bomber was also my joy. I love
Bubba & Styx,
The Lost Vikings,
Syndicate,
Trex Warrior et
Hunter (even all being OCS),
Waxworks,
Transcartica,
Ishar 3
and Hired Guns, to this day, and would love to see such games. Also, History Line,
Laser Squad, Sabre Team, UFO: Enemy Unknown AGA and Deluxe Galaga were my thing and still are as I just
enjoy Phoenix Point and Warblade, and dream of Amiga Vampire remake.
Thanks to the Amiga Translation Organization
(ATO), I liked to use serbian.locale (worked until AmigaOS 4.1 FE,
in FE Update 1 Hyperion managed to screw it). MorphOS has nice Croatian locale nowadays, and Aminet
testifies a lot of Serbian/Bosnian/Croatian locales exist. But Amiga expanded my knowledge of English way
more than simple applications or games I could use on 8-bits machines. I liked Amiga was first the
multilanguage computer too (combining localized applications and games and I mostly "living in English"),
it had great gfx, music and speech, even the "say" command was included in... Micro$oft Amiga BASIC on my
friends A500. Also, error and system messages are clear and understandable, as well as the OS structure and
even what certain files do. It is a computer one can understand!
In AmiKit XE, I am able to use Magellan instantly, my favourite file manager of all times, alongside
Directory opus 4 (I even think of paying for Directory opus on Windows and replacing Total Commander
that has been so kind to me, since I stopped using Norton on Wintel). There, I love having Directory
Opus 4, Homebank, AmigaAMP and Eagle Player, Wet, AmiIRC, NetSurf, PicShow... But also the
ability to access my Steam, VLC, Firefox, Chrome and Skype without leaving the Workbench.
On AmigaOne x1000, I have tried all flavours of Linux and all versions of AmigaOS 4.x that worked. I
have tried all AmigaOS 4 software back and forth until 2018, and as much (and not much) of my old AmigaOS 3.x
software that could work. I have enjoyed SimpleMail, YAM, even Timberwolf, Hollywood, Emotion, Spencer,
Tower 57, M.A.C.E and few nice new applications, or continued "shadows of the past" (YAM is my e-mail love,
only Iris can compete).
I use an old iMac to learn Mac OS X and MorphOS. I love it, partially
Iris and Wayfarer
are very modern Internet
solutions, but I don't have registered MorphOS, so I reboot every 30 minutes :-). I wish some of Mac OS X
PowerPC applications were avail on MorphOS, as its way faster and resource efficient.
As an
Amiga enthusiast, do you think that the Amiga with Vampire will remain a competitive machine?
My soft spot now is bare and tiny V4SA. I never had FPGA board, so I am very unhappy on how it is not
similar to Amiga personal computer or any of computers I had. No HDDs, no DVDs, no SSD, very few expansion
ports. At the same time, it's reviving my experience and has potential to put it to next level. It's as
Amiga as my AmigaOS 3.1 and 3.5 days were, and all I ever wanted (68060+/RTG/128 Fast RAM, 16 GB storage,
and even 16-bit audio and Akiko...). If only software improves and gets up to it, I finally have an ugly
duckling that produces dreams. Hard to do, but most of the things from my last A1200 backup do work.
Even some things I have missed in Classic world. And I no longer wait half a day to render a single demo scene
in Imagine, LightWave or Real3D.
Desktop of the Vampire V4SA
FPGA market has revived all old machines, see MEGA Spectrum or second coming of Commodore 65. It's a nice,
interesting evolution of upgradable hardware. I just wish FPGA gets so cheap a real board can be done around
it with modern and Zorro III slots, running that 68080 1 GHz with 1 GB RAM, an SSD and Blu-ray. Would not
be much larger machine, but with all personal computer legacy port and some new.
What is your
opinion on AmigaOne X5000?
It's way more positive than with AmigaOne X1000. I wish I have waited for PVR Efficient CPUs to dry out and would
save some money. Unlike AmigaOne X1000, it has good U-Boot, Ethernet is supported, CPU and FPU is significantly
better, RAM is more standard, runs MorphOS too, can accept RadeonRX card and production and support will be
longer. The AmigaOne X1000 is abandoned as Teron boards, but still has Altivec, more ports. Both share craze
of destroying one PCI-E slot and add XMOS chip manufacturer no longer uses onboard to mimic Amiga chipset
exclusivity. It would be far better if FPGA Cyclone was put and with GOLD3 core, even with a dedicated 68080 CPU put on.
Transition to PowerPC looked like savior day at that time. It was slow, hardware was unavailiable and MorphOS
did start it earlier, with AROS approaching. Hardware is not that bad, as my experience with constant milking
and not so good software support. It was the first time with AmigaOne X1000 that I have retired a working
Amiga system, and decided to keep AmiKit XE (Amiga Forever before it) and obtain myself a Vampire. Beside
that, if I haven't purchased AmigaOne X1000, I might be an AmigaOne X5000 owner. It's way younger than iMac G5
and can run decent Linux, while I still wait for my AmigaOS 4.2, prepaid and promised on early AmigaOne
X1000 promo materials. Then, maybe I would reassemble the Nemo board and try AmigaOS 4.x again, but I am
sure it won't keep me happy enough. Not even with Enhancer Sofwtare Pack 3 because of no Amiga backward chipset
compatibility, no warp3D, terrible AmigaOS 3.x application incompatibilities, constant legal mambo jumbos
and outsourcings of development, just can't make it. Worse then Duke Nukem Forever development cycle.
Finally, do
you have anything to say to the members of our community?
I am quite fascinated that people worldwide did not abandon Amiga after the Commodore demise. Here in Serbia,
people did it more than in Argentina, USA, Poland or France. I love all revival efforts and gave them a
fair try (even Commodore USA when they promised to develop AROS - and turned out to be con artists profiteering
history and brands and reskinning MINT as CommodoreOS).
I would love to see concentrated effort, but until that day, I am glad that some of AmigaOS 4.x features
are coming back to AmigaOS 3.2, that MorphOS is polished and stable and that I can enjoy CoffinOS and AmiKit XE,
while waiting for ApolloOS that needs larger card. I hope you enjoy something similar - an experience of easy
and friendly OS, where applications are simple and let you be in control. Tracking, hard drive swapping,
notifications and other destructions are non existent. I could detect virus if hard drive LED blinked on
A1200. Now I am sorry but the Vampire 4 early case does not have LEDs. And also, I could forgive no on/off
switch not on case, only if it was on bulky transformator.
Leave fun aside, I like most of the Amiga enthusisasts. Amiga companies seem to be more of trouble. So
anarchosyndicalism unity of users and (hello
Synderion!) of Amiga Vampire Team approach bears fruits.
It's slow, but it's by Amigans for Amigans. I am looking forward to seeing more of the software they will develop.
I wish a lot more updates and applications for AROS, MorphOS, AmigaOS 4.x users too. It's us that can support
it and make it. Think : it's unique, there is no real Amiga company since 1993, some say after selling team
to Commodore. But yet you have Amiga. Must be a dream.
And I like the fact that some people claim their children
love Amiga Style. We need fresh blood. I was even happy (and sad at the same time) seeing people buying AmigaOne
X5000 as their first Amiga, or early Amiga FPGA boards.
We are not the future, unless we create it, but boy
we do come from the past. Call us old fashion,
but me nah care! But even without my dreams, I like steady
progress, on both FPGA core and software front, so finally for the first time after Amiga Inc. took over, I
feel the present and the future for Amiga with Vampire line! Hope you can experience it too!
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