Amiga questions you've always been too embarrassed to ask

[Supamax]

What's AROS? (in easy words)

[TCD]

The AROS Research Operating System is a lightweight, efficient, and flexible desktop operating system, designed to help you make the most of your computer. It's an independent, portable and free project, aiming at being compatible with AmigaOS at the API level (like Wine, unlike UAE), while improving on it in many areas. The source code is available under an open source license, which allows anyone to freely improve upon it.

https://aros.sourceforge.io/introduction/index.php

The important bits are 'compatible with AmigaOS' and 'open source license'.

[ShK]

If one puts a Zorro II card in one slot in the Zorro III bus, will all Zorro III cards also slow down to Zorro II speed?

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by ShK

If one puts a Zorro II card in one slot in the Zorro III bus, will all Zorro III cards also slow down to Zorro II speed?

No.
The Buster Chip is smart enough to negotiate the speed for every card separately.

[ShK]

Ok, nice. Thanks!

[Weasel Fierce]

A stupid question perhaps:

Is the A4000 CPU on a card and can be swapped out? Is this also the case for the 3000?

[Gorf]

Originally Posted by Weasel Fierce

A stupid question perhaps:

Is the A4000 CPU on a card and can be swapped out? Is this also the case for the 3000?

On the A3000 the CPU is in all models on the motherboard- an acceleration card would use the CPU expansion slot.
In later cost reduced A4000s this was the same, but earlier models did leave the spot on the motherboard empty and used to ship with an acceleration card in the CPU expansion slot (with is the same as in the A3000).

[Weasel Fierce]

Originally Posted by Gorf

On the A3000 the CPU is in all models on the motherboard- an acceleration card would use the CPU expansion slot.
In later cost reduced A4000s this was the same, but earlier models did leave the spot on the motherboard empty and used to ship with an acceleration card in the CPU expansion slot (with is the same as in the A3000).

Aha. Thanks

[dreamkatcha]

In Workbench, the default settings hide all files other than icons and scatter those about randomly as though a tornado has ripped through your folders. You must specifically choose to reveal the full contents and tidy them up before attempting to do anything useful. Who thought this was a good idea?

[TCD]

Originally Posted by dreamkatcha

Who thought this was a good idea?

Time constrains? It's just a bit weird that it was never remidied.

[malko]

I would better bet it was due to available chip memory. The more you display, the more memory you need and there was only 512Kb chip. So displaying only the icon needed to launch the application was a smart choice. If you needed to know which other files were available, you still could open a cli/shell

[Supamax]

I saw on eBay an external Zorro II slot interface for the A500/A500+ (https://www.ebay.it/itm/404054646863).
Having a Zorro II interface means that one can also insert Zorro III cards (at the price of reduced performance) or isn't there backward compatibility?

[Etze]

If it’s a Zorro-III-only card like the Cybervisionb64, it won‘t work. Just like in a A2000.

[Weasel Fierce]

Originally Posted by malko

I would better bet it was due to available chip memory. The more you display, the more memory you need and there was only 512Kb chip. So displaying only the icon needed to launch the application was a smart choice. If you needed to know which other files were available, you still could open a cli/shell

Displaying only "what is needed" also fit the emphasis on user friendliness.

[dreamkatcha]

Originally Posted by malko

I would better bet it was due to available chip memory. The more you display, the more memory you need and there was only 512Kb chip. So displaying only the icon needed to launch the application was a smart choice. If you needed to know which other files were available, you still could open a cli/shell

That would make sense given it was a time when every byte counted and efficiency optimisation was still considered something to strive for.

Originally Posted by Weasel Fierce

Displaying only "what is needed" also fit the emphasis on user friendliness.

I can buy that too if the emphasis is on catering for newbies/marketing the computer as a universal platform at a time when they were a foreign language to millions of people. Problem there is that there is no one size fits all criteria for what users need/expect to have immediately available to them. It all depends on their degree of experience/competence. It also wouldn't explain why 'clean up' isn't an automatic thing.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by dreamkatcha

It also wouldn't explain why 'clean up' isn't an automatic thing.

That was what my comment was mainly about. At least have an option for it. The window management stayed pretty much the same between WB 1 and 3.

[Jope]

Originally Posted by dreamkatcha

In Workbench, the default settings hide all files other than icons and scatter those about randomly as though a tornado has ripped through your folders. You must specifically choose to reveal the full contents and tidy them up before attempting to do anything useful. Who thought this was a good idea?

The rationale is probably that there were floppy only systems in use until the end of Amiga sales. They had to keep it usable without a hard drive.

[dreamkatcha]

Originally Posted by TCD

That was what my comment was mainly about. At least have an option for it. The window management stayed pretty much the same between WB 1 and 3.

Ah, I'm with you now, sorry. It is odd. Today you'd imagine a thousand people would send feedback to Microsoft to say, "This isn't very practical, can you change it?" Back then maybe the channels of communication weren't so open and accessible so seemingly obvious issues failed to be flagged up.

[gkb]

Ok, time for me to look silly.

In Workbench 1.3 on my A500, in the system drawer; there were the following programs:

FastMemFirst
NoFastMem
MergeMem

What did they do?

I know how the Amiga had different types of memory - slow, fast, chip, etc; and how they were used - but I never understood the function or advantages of these three programs.

[TCD]

https://ftp.fau.de/aminet/docs/help/A500UserGuide.pdf on page 11 & 12:

3.1.2.4 Fastmemfirst
Running this program will tell AmigaOS to load programs into Fast memory first instead of the slower
Chip RAM. You can insert this into your startup-sequence if necessary if you have any Fast memory
installed. To see if you have any Fast memory installed use the AVAIL command.

3.1.2.7 NoFastMem
This command disables all fast memory which may be useful for old programs that will not work with
fast memory installed. Re-run program to re-enable fast memory.

3.1.2.8 Mergemem
This program adds other memory to be used by the Amiga which does not automatically configure it
self to be added to the Amiga’s memory pool.