37 ms·

Is there any reason to use AmigaOS on a workstation?

squarefoot 9y ago
Today surely not, but gives knowledge of what was available at that time, and being so different from the Unix/Linux, Windows and Mac worlds it helps to build a better perspective, which can be a lot valuable especially if you are a developer.
- zmix 9y ago
  One should note, that the command-line part of the OS was not that different to Unix/Linux. The commands had different names, but a Unix user will feel at home rather quickly. Threre was also a project to bring POSIX to AmigaOS and the GNU devtools. Now, the architecture is different, of course, but familiar.
zmix 9y ago
Well, that depends. I have never used a better OS. Period. I have never used a better Filemanager (Directory Opus5 Magellan II, now available as Directory Opus 12 on Windows, which is birlliant, too), Texteditor (GoldED Studio), IRC client (AmIRC), email and news system (UMS), YAM, NewsRog. Raster-image painting is, especially if you want to work at the single pixel, unreached. Now, web-browsing and office is another story... :-( The OS came with a default scripting language, a Rexx derivate, called ARexx. Most applications would support it, meaning, you could fully automate them, extend them to do things, the programmer never dreamed about. Since all was using the same scripting language (and Rexx was purposedly designed for inter application scripting, its creator called it a language for job-control, you had access to all environments (DOS, Application Hosts, shared libs) within the same script. Man, did I create workflows... :-) You could mount FTP, HTTP, your audio-speakers, raw memory, or whatever you wrote a device-driver for, as a disk. No need for any VFS library/framework. I've never seen such good ramdisk implementations. The system default one was volatile and dynamic, it was always there as a volume on your desktop. The other ones were configurable in block/tracksize, non-volatile and you could boot from them, if you wanted (nice for games back then, when floppies were slow and you had a game, that ran from 4 floppies. You would unarch them to the Ram Disks (which was quicker than loading them hard) and reset the machine. Voila!) And now, that you can run host-applications via AmiKit, it seems to make sense, to run it as your main environment. I did not test this part of AmiKit, however, so I only can assume.
- PrimHelios 9y ago
  Assuming you aren't glorifying anything, that seems amazing! I'll definitely have to try it out.
- Fjolsvith 9y ago
  Back in the day I ran a 4 line BBS using CNet Amiga BBS software, and I used to make amazing script doors using ARexx. The way you could hook into the BBS and do things I've not seen since. I just did purchase this AmiKit X and installed it. Perfect, flawless install. The UI makes Win10 look plain, and yet retains the old style of window borders. It mounted all my Windows network drives automatically. I could ALT-Tab out of it back and forth between it and Windows. Only thing it doesn't seem to handle is my multiple screen system. If it would work across multiple screens I'd be in heaven.
  - zmix 9y ago
    CNet! So beautiful! Best BBS system I ever came around! I even had it installed on my system to be able to develop ARexx doors, just for fun and learning.

Today surely not, but gives knowledge of what was available at that time, and being so different from the Unix/Linux, Windows and Mac worlds it helps to build a better perspective, which can be a lot valuable especially if you are a developer.

zmix 9y ago
One should note, that the command-line part of the OS was not that different to Unix/Linux. The commands had different names, but a Unix user will feel at home rather quickly. Threre was also a project to bring POSIX to AmigaOS and the GNU devtools. Now, the architecture is different, of course, but familiar.

zmix 9y ago

Well, that depends. I have never used a better OS. Period. I have never used a better Filemanager (Directory Opus5 Magellan II, now available as Directory Opus 12 on Windows, which is birlliant, too), Texteditor (GoldED Studio), IRC client (AmIRC), email and news system (UMS), YAM, NewsRog. Raster-image painting is, especially if you want to work at the single pixel, unreached. Now, web-browsing and office is another story... :-( The OS came with a default scripting language, a Rexx derivate, called ARexx. Most applications would support it, meaning, you could fully automate them, extend them to do things, the programmer never dreamed about. Since all was using the same scripting language (and Rexx was purposedly designed for inter application scripting, its creator called it a language for job-control, you had access to all environments (DOS, Application Hosts, shared libs) within the same script. Man, did I create workflows... :-) You could mount FTP, HTTP, your audio-speakers, raw memory, or whatever you wrote a device-driver for, as a disk. No need for any VFS library/framework. I've never seen such good ramdisk implementations. The system default one was volatile and dynamic, it was always there as a volume on your desktop. The other ones were configurable in block/tracksize, non-volatile and you could boot from them, if you wanted (nice for games back then, when floppies were slow and you had a game, that ran from 4 floppies. You would unarch them to the Ram Disks (which was quicker than loading them hard) and reset the machine. Voila!) And now, that you can run host-applications via AmiKit, it seems to make sense, to run it as your main environment. I did not test this part of AmiKit, however, so I only can assume.

PrimHelios 9y ago
Assuming you aren't glorifying anything, that seems amazing! I'll definitely have to try it out.
Fjolsvith 9y ago
Back in the day I ran a 4 line BBS using CNet Amiga BBS software, and I used to make amazing script doors using ARexx. The way you could hook into the BBS and do things I've not seen since. I just did purchase this AmiKit X and installed it. Perfect, flawless install. The UI makes Win10 look plain, and yet retains the old style of window borders. It mounted all my Windows network drives automatically. I could ALT-Tab out of it back and forth between it and Windows. Only thing it doesn't seem to handle is my multiple screen system. If it would work across multiple screens I'd be in heaven.
- zmix 9y ago
  CNet! So beautiful! Best BBS system I ever came around! I even had it installed on my system to be able to develop ARexx doors, just for fun and learning.