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A Short Documentary About 81-Year-Old Commodore Amiga Artist, Programmer Samia Halaby (youtube.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the pictures-in-motion dept.

erickhill shares a short documentary about Samia Halaby, an 81-year-old Commodore Amiga artist and programmer: Samia Halaby is a world renowned painter who purchased a Commodore Amiga 1000 in 1985 at the tender age of 50 years old. She taught herself the BASIC and C programming languages to create "kinetic paintings" with the Amiga and has been using the Amiga ever since. Samia has exhibited in prestigious venues such as The Guggenheim Museum, The British Museum, Lincoln Center, The Chicago Institute of Art, Arab World Institute, Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Sakakini Art Center, and Ayyam Gallery just to name a few.

26 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. Amiga Forever by mschwanke97402 · · Score: 1

    Subject says it all.

    1. Re:Amiga Forever by AvitarX · · Score: 2

      So much meditating.

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    2. Re:Amiga Forever by Wizardess · · Score: 4, Informative

      I second the notion. Amiga Forever is based on WinUAE. But it has enough added content that it's well worth the price. Fortunately for her Amiga Forever includes at least one environment which gives very accurate emulation of the A1000 with the same timing, video limitations and features, and even sounds. I suspect she'd feel right at home with it unless she wants the interlace flicker as part of her environment. (And I bet even that could be at least partially emulated on a good enough base Windows machine.) Mike and his company Cloanto have done a wonderful job. (So says the former head moderator of the BIX Amiga Exchange.)
      {^_^}

  2. Re:Bad math by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    I suspect the video is a couple years old - the linked channel doesn’t seem to do any of its own original work, so it probably just recently got the rights to the short subject.

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    #DeleteChrome
  3. Re:Bad math by Mascot · · Score: 3

    This is one instance where I am fine with an off by one error.

  4. Re:Bad math by Wizardess · · Score: 2

    A gentleman never expects a lady to tell her true age. In fact, he knows well enough not to ask at all.
    {^_-}

  5. Isn't it amazing ... by Qbertino · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ... how this so very well and elegantly puts into perspective all those todays whiny girlie brats who cry about "gender discrimination" and "equal pay" but couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag?

    This lady has a working brain and used it when the Amiga came about and saw the future. She is way more a digital native than most teens today. Cudos to you, ma'am.

    My 2 cents.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
    1. Re:Isn't it amazing ... by CODiNE · · Score: 1

      I'm trying not to dislike this video, but do a search for mid or late 80s Amiga demo scene to see some real art. This is bad screensaver quality. Hackers are artists as much as those who put squares on canvas.

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      Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
    2. Re: Isn't it amazing ... by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      She is way more a digital native...

      Well said. I'm constantly hearing older folk remark about how "computer savvy" the youngest generations seem. In reality, they're the least likely to grasp how the shit actually works.

  6. This 81 year old... by Viol8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... probably knows more about computers than the supposed "digital natives" generation, whose IT abilities consist mainly of knowing how to prod a touchscreen to update the latest trivia about their tedious lives on social meeja.

    1. Re:This 81 year old... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You don't understand because you aren't a digital native. Your point is irrelevant.

  7. Re:Amiga Forevern GNAA GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION by BozoForPresident · · Score: 2

    Steemit.com has a voting feature that can cause sufficiently down-voted comments and posts to be grayed out and reduced to a minimum amount of screen space. But, back on topic, I'm a former Amigan and I was inspired by this mini-documentary. It's too bad that Amiga magazine didn't realize the human-interest angle of the content Samia sent them. I would have loved to know about her and her art - and I'd love to help her continue with it.

  8. Re:How can a computer still run... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It's called "offline" computing and it's amazing.

  9. Amiga by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The computer that never dies. There will be Amiga users still alive and kicking after nobody uses PCs anymore.

    1. Re:Amiga by behrooz0az · · Score: 1

      old 3000 MHz PC

      Only a bit old then; got it.

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  10. I thought the same thing. by Qbertino · · Score: 2

    You're right. I also wondered why she didn't move beyond the Amiga, since she does her stuff in C. But I figure there is a solid amount of Amiga love involved as well. When she talks about the Amiga it clearly shows.

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
    1. Re:I thought the same thing. by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      At the time, the Amiga was state of the art for this sort of stuff. The PC was a joke, graphics cards for them were overpriced and not very good. Around the same time in 85/86 there were a few PC competitors making the rounds: Amiga, Atari ST, and Apple IIGS. All had much better graphical and audio capabilities than the PC.

      Doing stuff in C was very common on Amiga. The basic was good enough to do much of what the artist did, but doing it in C you could make things smoother and use more capabilities. While today a lot of this seem like bog standard screensaver stuff, remember that these things were still new at the time and the graphics were things you'd otherwise only see on an expensive professional workstation.

      What really made Amiga stand out is that it wasn't just a copy. It did a lot of things differently than how things were done in the home computer market. It didn't use your basic -bit pixels but used bit slices, which led to a different set of capabilities. It wasn't just a 16-bit upgrade over older single tasking DOS systems, it used multitasking (common in professional world but extremely rare for home computers), had a custom multithreaded GUI, and so forth. The biggest flaw of Amiga was their CLI/DOS, but that was outsourced to a third party.

  11. Re:Amiga Forevern GNAA GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION by thegreatbob · · Score: 1

    I'd be all for a sort of '-2' that suppresses the sort of trash we're talking about from anybody who doesn't explicitly desire to see it. Would go a long way towards making our comments sections not look like a dumpster fire to random passers-by. To avoid being completely offtopic, I will note that I unfortunately grew up in a PC household :( I look back and think of all the fun I might have had if we'd had Amiga/Atari/Mac, but who knows for sure.

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    There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
  12. Re:Amiga Forevern GNAA GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

    Slashdot should consider permanently IP banning or even better shadow-banning off-topic posts like the above one, because they are boring and dull as an expression of personal sentiment and do not contribute anything useful to the thread. Their only purpose is to derail discussion. IP banning and shadow banning of AC off-topic posts can solve this issue.

    You have seen that little slidey bar that allows you to read at whatever level you want? I cut off everything below 2 when I'm not moderating and otherwise don't see that crap. Those bizarre wipes get to post what they want, and I decide what I'm going to see. Not perfect, but not far from it.

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    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  13. Re:Amiga Forevern GNAA GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I for one, welcome our new GNAA overlords.

  14. Re:Amiga Forevern GNAA GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

    I'd be all for a sort of '-2' that suppresses the sort of trash we're talking about from anybody who doesn't explicitly desire to see it. Would go a long way towards making our comments sections not look like a dumpster fire to random passers-by. To avoid being completely offtopic, I will note that I unfortunately grew up in a PC household :( I look back and think of all the fun I might have had if we'd had Amiga/Atari/Mac, but who knows for sure.

    See that slide bar right above the comments? There ya go.

    The Amiga was an absolute blast to use and work with. I started with a 500, then went to a 2000, a 3000 (my favorite) and finally a 4000 with a Video Toaster. Used them up until 2001 when I went to non-linear editing on a Mac. I had the chance to use one again a couple years back, and the GUI is still better than modern Windows, fluid and responsive. A pity that the wy they ran the company was so bad.

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    The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  15. Warning: sexism follows by fibonacci8 · · Score: 1

    In general, a woman is about as honest about her age as a man is about the length of his penis. The overvaluation of both pieces of information despite the likelihood for inaccuracy is mind-boggling.

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    Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
  16. They had me... by neoRUR · · Score: 1

    at the bouncing ball.

  17. Wow, I'm impressed by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    you managed to take a clever and talented woman's story and twist it into a screed against equal pay for equal work.

    The takeaway isn't "girls should stop complaining because they can write code too" it's "girls should complain because they can write code too and multiple studies show they're paid less for it".

    And it's not "men are paid more" it's "Women are paid less". That's the important distinction everybody misses. The point is _always_ to pay workers less.

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  18. Re:Amiga Forevern GNAA GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION by Darinbob · · Score: 2

    It could be misused though. People are already routinely marking posts they disagree with as "troll". The idea could work if you're only allowed to use that -2 vote once in a while. Say once a day for anonymous posts or once a week for member posts.

    I saw this article last night and wanted to see what slashdot had to say, and there were only 3 posts so far, two of them being filth. Public opinion about slashdot is pretty low I think from what my friends have said. Maybe it's time for slashdot to get some adult diapers.

  19. Re:Amiga Forevern GNAA GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION by Bert64 · · Score: 1

    IP banning just doesn't work anymore, thanks to NAT...
    It's not uncommon to have millions of mobile subscribers behind a small pool of addresses, ban one and you ban every user of the same provider.

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