3 ms·

I hadn't realized how ahead of its time the Amiga was for a personal computer: TCP/IP, MIDI, SCSI, REXX, (screamtracker) MODs.

by magoon 10y ago

jandrese 10y ago
I suspect this is a reference for a much later version of the OS. You probably wouldn't see all of these commands on a machine from the Amiga's heyday.
- EvanAnderson 10y ago
  There are definitely new commands and functionality in there, but a lot of the functionality was present in earlier versions. The shell, at least, is not wildly different in older versions. It's been a _long_ time so I can't quickly give a point-by-point comparison, but a lot there looks familiar (and the bulk of my experience was in Workbench 1.3 and 2.1).
- anexprogrammer 10y ago
  The SCSI commands were there at start. There was some unix and tcp commands that were part of the devkit if I remember right (pretty hazy these days). Gave uucp (for exchanging the developer newsgroups), a selection of unix commands, tcp/ip stack, and some other things I forget. They were fairly early. Rexx came prerelease with devkit in 1.3, baked into OS in 2.0. MODS No clue.
- a_thro_away 10y ago
  The A2000 was in it's heyday, I think; you would see most of those commands (or their equiv) with an Amiga A2000 with the Amiga LANCE ethernet board A2065 and AS225 TCP/IP option, or maybe even the Amiga UNIX; there was even a DECNet stack which worked quite well... AREXX was always there, right? There were many SCSI commands as well to support the A2000 Zorro SCSI board. "bigroadshow"? it was apparently part of the TCP/IP stack. I guess it just depended on which system, boards, and options you bought at the time.
  - icedchai 10y ago
    ARexx wasn't included with the OS until 2.0. You could buy it as a third-party add on for 1.3 and earlier.
    - ekianjo 10y ago
      2.0 was already in the amiga 500 plus and that was still very early in the life of the Amiga.
a_thro_away 10y ago
Agreed; I used them all back then. I connected my A2000 to my companies' DECnet and IP network, and used TCP/IP to move data to and from Japan and Europe. I used my machine to send UUCP, admin Silicon Graphics, Evans and Sutherland, DEC uVax and PCs, ran X11 (IIRC), as well as troubleshoot network issues. I could print to Postscript printers, even though Adobe was a real pain (you had to dump PS fonts from the printer, then convert them to Amiga as Adobe kept hinting a secret at that time and didn't support Amigas, just Macs and PCs).
- puzzle 10y ago
  Tomas Rokicki's AmigaTeX, with its previews, was a lot better than any other implementation of the time, too.

I hadn't realized how ahead of its time the Amiga was for a personal computer: TCP/IP, MIDI, SCSI, REXX, (screamtracker) MODs.

by magoon 10y ago

I hadn't realized how ahead of its time the Amiga was for a personal computer: TCP/IP, MIDI, SCSI, REXX, (screamtracker) MODs.

jandrese 10y ago

I suspect this is a reference for a much later version of the OS. You probably wouldn't see all of these commands on a machine from the Amiga's heyday.

EvanAnderson 10y ago
There are definitely new commands and functionality in there, but a lot of the functionality was present in earlier versions. The shell, at least, is not wildly different in older versions. It's been a _long_ time so I can't quickly give a point-by-point comparison, but a lot there looks familiar (and the bulk of my experience was in Workbench 1.3 and 2.1).
anexprogrammer 10y ago
The SCSI commands were there at start. There was some unix and tcp commands that were part of the devkit if I remember right (pretty hazy these days). Gave uucp (for exchanging the developer newsgroups), a selection of unix commands, tcp/ip stack, and some other things I forget. They were fairly early. Rexx came prerelease with devkit in 1.3, baked into OS in 2.0. MODS No clue.
a_thro_away 10y ago
The A2000 was in it's heyday, I think; you would see most of those commands (or their equiv) with an Amiga A2000 with the Amiga LANCE ethernet board A2065 and AS225 TCP/IP option, or maybe even the Amiga UNIX; there was even a DECNet stack which worked quite well... AREXX was always there, right? There were many SCSI commands as well to support the A2000 Zorro SCSI board. "bigroadshow"? it was apparently part of the TCP/IP stack. I guess it just depended on which system, boards, and options you bought at the time.
- icedchai 10y ago
  ARexx wasn't included with the OS until 2.0. You could buy it as a third-party add on for 1.3 and earlier.
  - ekianjo 10y ago
    2.0 was already in the amiga 500 plus and that was still very early in the life of the Amiga.

a_thro_away 10y ago

Agreed; I used them all back then. I connected my A2000 to my companies' DECnet and IP network, and used TCP/IP to move data to and from Japan and Europe. I used my machine to send UUCP, admin Silicon Graphics, Evans and Sutherland, DEC uVax and PCs, ran X11 (IIRC), as well as troubleshoot network issues. I could print to Postscript printers, even though Adobe was a real pain (you had to dump PS fonts from the printer, then convert them to Amiga as Adobe kept hinting a secret at that time and didn't support Amigas, just Macs and PCs).

puzzle 10y ago
Tomas Rokicki's AmigaTeX, with its previews, was a lot better than any other implementation of the time, too.