True for the "home computer" models (A500/600/1200). The "professional" versions (A1000/2000/3000/4000) basically looked like a PC.

Two Amigas in the basement (A1000, A1200). Their monitor is broken, and they can't run on modern screens.

The A1200 should have a built-in TV tuner (I still have the separate module for the A500, although I had an "official" Commodore monitor (that sadly also died after barely 10 years). So you should be able to connect the A1200 to your TV set via standard aerial cable.

Hurrah for Amiga Day ! Well, I don't have any Amigas (I wasn't around when they came out :-/) but I'm interested in emulating one (as I've heard they had some great videogames- plus they were one of the first computers to have a GUI- I think at least). I might buy someday the Amiga BIOS starter kit(or whatever its name is), but I hold back because of the price (I don't know, is it worth 30 euros ???)-See EDIT

P.S. As for people that claim they never saw one-in real life that is, perhaps that was because they were mainly popular in Europe ? (at least according to what I have read about the subject...)

EDIT: Ah no, wait, I meant Amiga Forever, which is the only way to get the Kickstart Amiga ROM needed for the emulation legally. And looking at the comparison here, the Value edition is 9,95 euros. I might buy that one... :-)

Actually you can hook it up to your pc screen, there is a converter thingie that cost about $80-100, then you can even put a switch between it so you just flick a switch to go from pc to your amiga and vice versa.
Works for an Amiga 600 atleast.

More than that, last known Pirates! on the Amiga went for £65 on ebay :)

Yup...a whole collection, in fact :) Unfortunately most of it is in storage atm, but my mega-expanded A1200 is still in use!

I didn't know it was "Amiga day"... unfortunately I cannot celebrate by firing up my old Amiga since I don't own it anymore...
I watched that video by "Lazy Game Reviews" (a source that I greatly appreciate) and just seeing those tiny blue fellows fall down hanging on their umbrellas at the sound of squeaky trumpets made me crave to play some Amiga games of old... one of those attacks of nostalgia I'm too prone to... I really hope to see some Amiga stuff come here eventually...
I posted about this just a few days ago. The kickstart, as we now, is copyrighted, but I wondered what prevented GOG from selling just the games, without embedding the emulator like they do with DOSBox, once an agreement is reached with the copyright holder for said games. Think about some DOS games already on offer here, that had also an Amiga version: couldn't GOG just offer the ADF disk images as a bonus alongside the DOS version, without touching the ROM/emulation part? I wrote that perhaps selling Amiga games wouldn't be a profitable choice, because it would only be of interest to those users that are willing to buy Amiga Forever and to take the trouble to learn how to set up and operate an emulator; not many of them, maybe.
Forgive me if all this sounds nonsense to you; I don't know anything about the legal/marketing stuff and I don't find it easy to write about that in English, but as a devoted former Amiga user I just wanted to advance my opinion.

Yeah I never really understood why it didn't seem to catch on in America, mostly just Europe? I got the impression that many Americans were aware of it and it having great graphics and audio... yet they still chose to buy something else? I never understood what did they buy then, 8bit NES and IBM PC with CGA graphics?

When my big brother was in US (as an exchange student) trying to find Dungeon Master for my Amiga and he asked his host family about it, they were amazed "Your little brother has a Commodore Amiga?!? But, but, but, I've heard it has kickass graphics and sounds! I thought he has a Commodore 64 or something?". Maybe they were surprised some poor kid in tiny Finland has such great piece of equipment, while that Californian host family was apparently still hanging to their aging Apple IIc computer.

My brother failed to find a computer store selling Amiga software, I think that was in Anaheim or thereabouts.

I've never had (or seen) an Amiga before, but would kind of like to get one, except for two things:

A) Software seems a bit scarce, perhaps owing to being on 5.25" floppies.
B) I read something that basically said "lots of luck if you live in the US, since it was way more popular in Europe"

On the other hand, I'm a big fan of early-era Raven Software, and their first release (Black Crypt) was an Amiga exclusive, which pushes the system up on my priority list. Also, supposedly the thing with getting a US model vs. a European one has to do at least in part with PAL vs. NTSC TV output, and needing an adapter, but I've also heard elsewhere that TVs nowadays will generally accept both formats. (One could, of course, argue that using a modern flat TV wouldn't be authentic, but that's another matter.)

Thoughts and enlightenment? Mostly I've been focusing my limited games-and-related budget on filling out my DOS and Windows 9x game collections since it seems the cheapest, at least while there are still relatively common titles I want and don't have, but I can start saving up if it seems worth it.

So emulation on your PC is not an option? It has to be the real thing?

http://www.amigaforever.com/

http://www.winuae.net/

I couldn't care less about owning a real Amiga anymore, emulation is good enough for me, and in many ways is superior to owning the real thing, like:

- swapping disks with multi-disk games is much easier and faster (e.g. I never had a real Amiga with four disk drives, but with emulation that is quite easy to achieve; unfortunately quite many Amiga games recognize and utilize only one disk drive though)

- you can have various different Amiga setups for different games (some Amiga games were very finicky about the kind of Amiga model and configuration they'd run on; it was a big victory for me to find an emulated Amiga configuration where e.g. Phantasm would run fine, I recall that game being super-finicky, hence refusing to run on most Amigas)

- you can have save states (save anywhere) etc.

Well, I suppose it's an option, but my experience with trying to emulate one is that it's a massive pain in the posterior, far removed from the sort of "drop a ROM in and go" that you get for consoles. Maybe a real machine isn't any better, though? Although as I recall it also annoyed me that you couldn't really fullscreen the emulator since the resolution didn't match up to PC ones. It also seems like most disk images are hacked versions and I don't really trust that sort of tampering.

Small correction: 3.5" floppies, not 5.25".

You betcha. Don't even start with thinking that time didn't took it's toll on the data of the discs.... they may run perfectly fine, but expect to fire up that classic you've always been fond of, just to find out that it doesn't work anymore.

So yeah, emulation in the digital age is pretty much guaranteed to be the better way.