Computer magazine visited Metacomco (Tripos)

[fryguy]

I found an article in a swedish magazine called Commodore Rapport from 1985 about a swedish guy who travelled to UK to visit Metacomco. This is googletranslated from swedish:

AMIGA-DOS was written in England!

Commodore's new computer "Amiga" marks the beginning of a new era for personal computers. With its ease of use and capacity, it brings something new to the computer market. A market that is otherwise dominated by IBM PC copies.

What makes the Amiga so different from previous computers is the Motorola 68000 processor and the operating system for it: Amiga-DOS. Amiga-DOS was developed by an English computer company "Metacomco".

Why has an English computer company become one of the most important pieces of Commodore's new Amiga? That question has been gnawing at the back of my mind so strongly that I decided to find an answer. In November, I therefore first went to London, bought a train ticket to Bristol and the next day early in the morning sat on the train heading for Metacomco's headquarters.

After a three-hour train journey through a gray and foggy corner of the west of England, the train rolled into Temple Meads station in Bristol. A short taxi ride and I found myself at Metacomco's unassuming office.

The environment was not at all the usual tough, polished cold computer design, but a more charming old-fashioned one. Right inside the door I met the operator: - Well, Dr. Tim King (who was responsible for the development of Amiga-DOS) would not come to the office today at all. But, sit down for a while and drink a cup of coffee. Naughty, I thought. and calculated what this cup actually cost me in terms of plane ticket, train ticket, hotel, taxi, etc.

Then the door was flung open and in rushed Tim King. Sure, he came especially to see me today. Full of enthusiasm to have the opportunity to show the company's creation to a single journalist from the outskirts of northern Europe. And Dr. Tim King told. We only made a short break for a sandwich and a beer at the neighborhood pub. So we continued by looking at how the Amiga-DOS worked.

- It all really starts with an operating system called Tripos, said Dr. Tim King. It was a result of research work at Cambridge University. We have developed it further and now have an operating system that can really exploit it like Motorola's 68000
processor can.

- In October 1984 we offered to develop an assembler and a linker for the Amiga. (A linker is a program that links assembly programs together). The Amiga people had heard about us and our Tripos and they had also seen some of our products for other computers.

-They had now begun to doubt the people they had contracted a year earlier to develop an operating system. They believed that the risk was high that they would not produce anything in time. As a sort of insurance they offered us to set up Tripos on the Amigan.

- We settled on a contract and I went back to England. We had been given three weeks to get Tripos running. For three weeks, I and three others worked late into the night. Then I went back to the Amiga with a preliminary version. Of course, it wasn't completely finished, but you could run compilers, editors and little else.

When I met the Amiga people, I explained that I wanted to show them the assembler we had been working on, but that I particularly wanted to show what we had done with the operating system. Sure, sure, they said wearily. Let's see the assembler. And I showed it. And when they saw it they said: - OK, now we have lunch. Later that day I tried again. I really WANT to show you the operating system.

-OK, do it then, they said still tiredly. In hindsight, I understand that they expected what they had previously seen from other developers and consultants. Half-finished and lagging programs.

Well, I put the disk in, the machine booted, and then I ran and displayed. How to multitask. Pascal, showed how the assembler worked, showed filters etc. A fairly standard demonstration of what Tripos can do.

The demonstration took about three quarters of an hour. By the time I was done and turned around, practically the entire company had gathered behind me. From the beginning it had only been one person. And they all started applauding. - It's the first time we see our computer working like a real computer. they said. Congratulations.

- It was then clear that we had beaten our fellow competitors. We still had a job to convince the Commodore.

Why should we give you the assignment?, they said. After all, you are 5,000 miles and eight hours away from here, and in Silicon Valley there are 1,500 software companies only half an hour away.

- My answer was that we KNOW what we are doing and we can handle it. So we were then tasked with further changing Tripos into the system they wanted. Among other things so that our DOS could work within the "Intuition" windows program.

The result was that a standard Amiga now has two user "interfaces" One with icons/pictures and one with commands When you use commands you have about 40 Tripos commands to work with.

- Our Amiga-DOS is a good operating system that we would like to see as standard on other machines. It fits well between the current standards. We have CP/M and just above that MS/DOS. Those systems are relatively unsophisticated "single-task system". At the top above these is UNIX, which is a multi-user system that can handle several tasks at once. However, UNIX requires a large machine. For example, 5 MB is needed just to store the system. And it is price-wise beyond the reach of ordinary people.

Now, with Amiga-DOS there is a "multitasking system" compact enough to fit on a personal computer that ordinary people can afford. With this operating system, you can have seven different programs working at the same time. If you use the window method, you can have a window for each of the programs on the screen and switch between them using the Amiga mouse.

-Tripos is a complete application for a 32 bit processor. It can address the 16 Mbytes that are addressable within the 68000 processor given the right set of hardware.

In addition to the operating system for the Amiga, Metacomco has also produced other Amiga products. ABasic, MCC Pascal and Cambridge Lisp are three languages developed for the Amiga.

Cambridge Lisp is a dialect of Lisp similar to Standard Lisp, used by many major computers. This Amiga version opens up possibilities for developing artificial intelligence applications on the Amiga.

[fryguy]

Here's another article about an early(?) test of WB.

Amiga Workbench

When the Amiga arrives at your home, all you have to do is connect the cables and get started. The computer package contains everything you need to be able to use the computer, at least for the first time. WORKBENCH is a toolbox for the computer, where you can adapt the computer's inputs and outputs to suit your computer system with various "tweezers". "Workbench" is controlled with images (in English: Icon-driven menus, can we get a Swedish name suggestion?), which you select by placing your private pointer on. The pointer, in turn, is controlled by a so-called MOUSE (MOUSE, what a word!), which of course also comes with the computer. An ordinary mouse consists of a hard plastic body, with two push buttons, which fortunately generate different codes. The movement itself is controlled by a small ball that goes against the substrate, and with its own rotation drives three separate rollers, which with pins break photocells. So by moving the mouse back and forth on the table, the computer can read your movement.

When you turn on the computer and BOOT with Workbench, you get a small figure that simply shows that you have Workbench to choose from. Two presses on the left button gives you the title page, a page that you can then change so that you always get the options that suit you best. In the "original version", the image shows four drawers with the texts "Demos", "Utilities", "System" and "Empty" respectively, as well as a clock, a trash can and an image of the Amigan's central unit behind a large question mark. The empty box can be filled with some additional useful "program snippet" with a lot of effort and trouble. Below the image of the central unit it says "preferences", which are the values and facts that are different for each individual computer set, eg. printer, paper width, ditto feeding, transmission speed, etc., and for the screen the speed of the small arrow, the number of columns (60/80). colors, clock with date, repetition rate, etc., and a third screen, where you set how graphic prints should be designed, size, direction and colors: black/white, grayscale or color.

The trash can ("Trashcan"), found on the first page, is for throwing things in. Say, for example, that you're tired of one of the demonstrations you have to choose from. Then you just go into the drawer marked "Demos", take the title of the program you no longer want - by a light press - and throw it in the trash. BUT just to be safe, the program will not disappear until you decide to empty your trash, which you ideally do when you end the day's session. Until then, it is therefore free to root out what you have accidentally thrown away. An extraordinary security measure.

If you select the clock in the main menu, you get a simple clock that shows the time it thinks is correct. You can easily choose an alarm time, change the clock between digital and analog display, between 12 and 24 hours, and place it wherever you want. However, the clock is set to the "preference" department.

What do the drawers contain?

The top drawer, labeled "Demos", i.e. demos, includes three nice graphics demos to play with and enjoy. They can also be used for practice, if you want to learn how to mix images together, by changing the size, position and priority of all three demo images at the same time.

The next drawer, "Utilities", i.e. "nyttygether", according to Swedish parlance, contains "little småttågott", but in the original version only "notepad", i.e. a simple notepad. A window with white paper opens, you select "Note pad", and on this paper you can write down what you want in rather large and very nice letters and also save

The "System" drawer is the drawer that handles most of the communication. Initially it only contains programs but "Diskcopy" and "Initialize", but by flipping something like a switch on "Preferences", one can also get the CLI (Command Line Interpreter), available. The program "Diskcopy" copies, not entirely unexpectedly, the contents of one disk to another. "Initialize" resets (formats) a disk, which you always have to do to be able to use it. According to the golden rule "It is the exception that proves the rule", there is an exception: You must NOT use "Initialize" (abbreviated as "Init") if you are going to use "Diskcopy" (abbreviated as "Dcopy"), it is only necessary if you should copy or create single files. CLI in turn, is a very powerful language/operating system, in the style of CP/M. In order to make full use of the CLI, one must have an "AmigaDOS User's Manual", each of which must be purchased separately.

Finally, we have the empty drawer. To change the name of the drawer in order to be able to fill it in turn, you place the arrow on the drawer and press the left button ONCE. Then the drawer turns black, indicating that it is selected, and that drawer commands now apply to it, until you switch. Then you press down the right button and move up to the top of the screen. Once up there, pull down the menu and select "Rename".

In a narrow box you can then write the new name, after positioning yourself there and pressing the left MOUSE button. Then delete the old name (with "Delete"), enter the new one, and press "Return". Then you can start filling your private drawer, if you yourself can be responsible for the design and layout. Speaking of which, how about a new,

Self-designed menu

Just as you can decide everything else, you can of course change and move around the main menu itself in the same way. You can also choose which options you want to include in the main menu. For example. can it look a little rubbish on the screen with a trash can, and the clock you know how you want, not to mention "Preferences" which has not been in the main menu to do since the day you decided the order of everything. Consequently, you take a real hold of the hemp on these pictures, and put them in the "smådgaott" box. The CLI, on the other hand, is probably at this point the most used program, and in connection with work it is always good to be able to save your comments for posterity. Not to forget: a beautiful graphic demonstration of fat relatives coming to visit. So then you simply and quickly download the CLI, NotePad and optional graphics demo, mount them in the box where you want them, and... Now comes the important part! Place the arrow on the Workbench diskette. Press the left button once. then hold the right one, go up to the SPECIAL section and select SNAPSHOT (snapshot is a photographic term, and be roughly means "snap a picture"). The way the screen was set up now, it was more likely to be saved, and thus it always comes up as the main menu when you start Workbench.

David Bergström

[khph_re]

In my 34 years of Amiga ownership, I thought I'd read all there was to read. But I've never seen this before! Thank you very much for this.

[fryguy]

I'm glad someone found it interesting. I might try and fix some bad translation later, but overall it looks ok I think.

[nogginthenog]

Dr Tim King's presentation at Amiga32 was really interesting. You can probably find it on YouTube.

[fryguy]

Originally Posted by nogginthenog

Dr Tim King's presentation at Amiga32 was really interesting. You can probably find it on YouTube.

Cool, gonna watch it later.