15 October 2021, 20:35 | #341 |
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The reason for that is that the system is modular. Actually, AmigaDOS (Tripos aka dos.library) is rather loosely bound to the system, and upon designing the system, it was conceived that users would like to boot into some alternative DOS from disk. This is actually quite similar to the Atari 8 bit system which also booted the DOS from disk, and allowed multiple DOS's
Thus, instead of keeping the DOS completely on disk, a compromise was found that the boot block of the boot disk would be responsible for selecting the DOS to use, and in simplest case, activate the DOS in ROM, i.e. AmigaDOS. Thus, it is a proven and wise design, keeping in mind that "AmigaDOS" was a "last minute" decision because CAOS was not ready. The same goes to the workbench. It was conceived that it would be only one out of several user interfaces the system could offer, and thus, instead of forcing the system booting into the workbench, the wokbench was put into ROM, and a minimal "activation" was required to run it (aka "LoadWB" aka "workbench.task"), also allowing other optional interfaces. LoadWB doesn't do much, it just scans for the right ROM module, and starts it (almost like the boot block scans for AmigaDOS aka dos.library). This flexibility and modularity is actually one of the strengths of the design (even though some of the modules are of moderate quality). Without that design, we wouldn't have programs such as DOpus, which could replace the workbench. A minimal boot disk thus first contains a boot block starting AmigaDOS, and a statup-sequence activating the user interface. |
15 October 2021, 21:35 | #342 |
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At the time when I first bought the Amiga 500 there was nothing missing at all, to me it was revolutionary in every possible way, simply amazing.
Thinking back now in retrospect, there is one thing that could have changed things for the better, if they had went more modular and open in the initial hardware design. As a user it would have been great if we had more Amiga hardware clones early on so when Commodore went bankrupt it wouldn't have been the end of Amiga computers. Comparing with PC, if IBM would have died, who cares when you had Compaq, Dell and many more. Last edited by modrobert; 15 October 2021 at 21:53. |
16 October 2021, 01:21 | #343 |
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@ Thomas Richter:
It seems you don't get it? Typical case of technical blindness and without thinking about useability.... Again, please show me how the OS can be used after I turn on my Amiga? What can you do with the Amiga without putting a disk in the drive? I tell you: absolutely nothing! Not even keyboard access!! No mouse pointer, no user interface. I think it's not so hard to understand....any kid would be able to follow my words.... The Amiga behaves similar to a games console, which can't do anything other than display some sort of welcome screen (kickstart hand in the Amiga's case) before you put in a cartridge or disk. Honesty, you are talking about some technical details what parts of the OS are already 'there' and could be activated, but you forget that they are not activated by default! The user needs to activate it manually with a Workbench disk (and it takes ages to load!!) So, it is not 'there'. If it was 'there', then I would be able to access the computer after I turn it on. Instead it is like sleeping until activated by a disk. And that was a major design flaw of the Amiga. The concept of being able to design your own boot disk might have been nice, but who made use of it? I have not seen any other OS disks than the original (or slightly modified) Workbench back then. And even Commodore didn't release many different Workbench versions. Whenever they released a tiny bit different version, then it also needed a new Kickstart chip as well....so it was not that modular, after all. But still, if they wanted it to design that way, then why id they not implement a default OS and minimal DOS ready from the start of the machine? In case it wold not suit for someone, then he can just easily load 'his' own Workbench, instead - where is the problem? Like on the C64, I can load GEOS if I like, but I can also just use the built in OS. The concept of 'boot from disk to be able to use the OS' failed miserably, and most Amiga users I talked with support this. It might have suited well if there had been a hardisk in the Amiga like it was in the XT, but that was not the case. It was even more stupid design with the Amiga 1000's kickstart disk even before the Workbench disk, but at least Commodore noticed that mistake and tried to correct it on the Amiga 500. Unfortunately, they didn't succeed, but only did half of the job.... Another Amiga 500 flaw that I clearly remember (and which also has been mentioned a thousand times) is that the mouse/joystick ports were at the rear side, and required the user to find the port blindly whenever you wanted to use a second joystick instead of the mouse for a two player game. At least this was corrected on later Amigas |
16 October 2021, 09:33 | #344 | |
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16 October 2021, 09:51 | #345 | |||||||
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It was a sign of a very good design, namely to keep things modular, and providing applications with several layers of the Os, depending on what they needed. Just need the device interface - ok, don't initiate the dos.library. Want a workbench? Initiate the workbench.task in ROM. Quote:
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Many if not all other systems worked differently. The original Atari 8-bit series did not boot into Basic, there was no Basic ROM unless you plugged a Basic cartridge into the system. Instead, they attempted to boot from disk or from tape, into whatever environment the user provided. With a disk present, they booted into the DOS menu, and that was the user interface. The Dos menu (and not the Basic) was used to load applications. ("Option L" - "binary load files") Or it booted directly into applications, with the application disk present - exactly like the Amiga, then potentially not using the Dos, if there was no Dos on the disk. Same with the Macintosh. It came originally with a disk drive, no harddisk, and of course you needed to boot from disk to the user interface, even though most of MacOs was in ROM. It also shows a nice bootstrap picture (a disk with a question mark) if you don't have a boot disk ready. Same with the PC, it booted into a command prompt, MS-DOS, with a boot disk present. Without a boot disk, well, there was "Bios", a very thin layer around the hardware, approximately equivalent to the "Kernal" of the C64. The Amiga, with a minimal boot disk (just a boot sector) also boots into a command prompt - that's much less than a PC, a Mac, or an Atari ever needed, and unlike the "Kernal" it has a user interface - in ROM. Quote:
It was the right choice *not* to build in BASIC anymore, or mis-use or confuse Basic with an Os. Those days were over, and Amiga engineers made the right choice. Actually, not surprising as the Amiga was designed by people with a background in the Atari 8-bits (and not CBM), and they not only designed the chipset in a similar way, but also the Os in a similar way. That was not a "mistake", it was a necessity because Kickstart wasn't ready with the hardware. As simple as that. |
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16 October 2021, 10:39 | #346 |
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Still a larger ROM with everything from the workbench disk necessary to boot into workbench in it would have made it much more difficult for many users to ignore workbench and the OS altogether. Then using a single (potentially empty) FDD for productivity would have been much more convenient, too.
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16 October 2021, 12:25 | #347 | ||||||
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Most earlier 'home' computers had BASIC in ROM as their OS, which was primarily done to keep costs down. Disk drives were an expensive addon, so a totally ROM-based OS was essential. But the Amiga came with a disk drive built in, and an advanced graphical OS that would need it for storing fonts, icons, user prefs etc., so why not use it? But why force the user to boot from disk, when the machine could boot straight from ROM and then get stuff off disk if it was present? One reason is to make operation simpler. Turn on the machine and it waits for you to insert whatever you want to run - a game, a custom application, or WorkBench. No having to reboot because you took too long putting the disk in, and no confusion about where your settings went or why it is missing features that aren't in the ROM. Another is that ROM and RAM space was precious and expensive. The Atari ST was designed to have everything in ROM, but even though its OS was less sophisticated than the Amiga they still ran out of ROM space and had to put some of it on disk, then it used up precious RAM when loaded. The Amiga put the important stuff in ROM, and loaded 'transient' commands from disk only when they were needed. Other popular 'professional' machines (IBM PC, Macintosh, Apple-II, CP/M) also had to be booted from disk. However the Amiga added a twist with its automatic disk detection, named disks and assignable volumes - which meant you could eg. have your fonts on a disk named FONTS: and insert it in any drive when prompted. This avoided the need for a hard drive when the OS took up more than one floppy disk. What would I call an 'oversight'? The IBM PC had BASIC in ROM, which was invoked if you didn't insert a boot disk. This had the annoying 'feature' of supporting cassette tape only, which made it pretty much useless. But despite having to boot from disk to do anything useful, and wasting lots of RAM just to get a text-based OS, the PC easily outsold the Amiga 10:1. Clearly most users didn't think having to boot from disk was a big deal. Quote:
The 'disk jockeying' was also unfortunate, but that's an inherent limitation of having a single drive. Some other machines were more painful. To copy a disk on the Amstrad CPC664 I first had to boot CP/M, then run the disk copy program and swap disks several times, hitting a key after each swap! Of course the solution is obvious - get another drive. But with insertion detection and named disks the 'disk jockeying' is a bit less painful than other floppy-based systems, or if you have enough memory you can use the RAM disk or a RAD disk to hold common files. On my A1000 (which had 2MB FastRAM) I set up a RAD disk sized just large enough to hold essential system files. This had to be filled on the first boot, but after that it became a very fast boot disk for the rest of the day. Quote:
Of course many users didn't want to do anything but play games. It was not unusual to see operating system disks overwritten with with pirated games by desperate gamers whose only 'system disk' was xcopy. Despite the bleating of hardcore Amiga fans that the Amiga was more than just a games machine, it turned out to be the one thing that kept it relevant - until PCs finally became powerful enough to run more sophisticated games. Commodore's real oversight was not recognizing the Amiga's real strength - games. They poured much time and effort into making it more 'professional', ignoring that the market was going in the opposite direction. I'm not saying that those of us who wanted more didn't appreciate their efforts, but trying to make the OS support all kinds of professional stuff just made it much more complex and difficult to maintain, as well as making life harder for developers and users. Quote:
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16 October 2021, 16:27 | #348 |
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Ok, if that 8 second bootable Workbench really exits, then plase show me, put an ADF file of such a Workbench in the zone. I can't believe it.
I remember that back in the days I made a minimal boot disk, which only opened a shell, and also included the most basic DOS commands, like DIR (or LIST), MD, COPY, RENAME, and it still took 30 seconds to boot. But who had the knowledge to create such an 8 secodns WB disk? One out of 100 users, maybe? Commodore did not provide such a disk, the Amiga system was shipped with a Workbench disk, which I estimate takes 1 minute to load? Since the Amiga is not useable withtu a disk directly after I turn it on, the disk is part of it's system. So, ok, then let's see it another way: then the main day one problem of the Amiga was not the OS, but it's Workbench disk. But you don't tell me the Workbench disk is not the Amiga itself, because as I made clear before, the Amiga is not useable at all without such a disk The point still is that you had 2 very annoying issues whenever you wanted to do some basic stuff an OS should privide, like formatting a disk, loading/saving/copying/renaming files: - you had to wait for Workbench to load - sicne Workbench and Kickstart obviously do not even contain any basic DOS commands, you had to play diskjockey whenever you wanted to do anything on a disk, or wait minutes to copy everything into ram disk. Whatever way you put it, the sytem was a pain in the ass. This could all have been solved if a minial OS (including baic DOS functions) woudl have been in ROM. If someone wanted a more sophisticated OS, then he could have still loaded his customized Workbench disk with all his saved settings etc, so this is not an argument at all to not provede a minimal sytem in ROM. And regarding the statement that the C64 had no user interface? Are you jioking? The C64 has keyboard access and comand line interface right from the start, I can load/save files from tape, and I can also access a disk in the drive (the commands are in the drive's DOS, but Amiga has it's drive integrated but still lacks any DOS access from the start....) The C64 had a combination of OS and BASIC in ROM. But I am not talking about a ROM integrated BASIC on the Amiga, I am talking about a ROM intergated OS with rudimentary DOS functions. This should not be mixed up! And ok, you tell me I can solve all those flawas by connecting a second drive or a harddisk, but remember this thread's titel: I am talking about problems from 'day 1', which was sometime around christmas '90, when I fot my Amiga 500 and tried my first steps in the Amiga OS...and it was such a pain in the ass with that need to always boot that damn WB disk, then switch disks a thousand times. ALso, afaik, the Amiga was initially designed as a games console, not a professional computer? And the Amiga 500 later was exactly that. The Amiga 500 would never have sold anythinglike that good if it hadn't been a games console! Don't forget this! How many Amiga 2000/3000/4000 for professional user where sold in comparison to the A500? 1% maybe?! Also, the argument that the kickstart had to be loaded from disk on the Amiga 1000 because it was not ready when the hardward already was is really laughable! It just shows that the system asa whole simply was not ready when sold? Bad project management? Don't get me wrong, I don't critisize the system asa whole, I just critisize that tis system was not suited for being loaded from disk! It woudl have been a completely different thing if the miga hada built in harddrive from day one! Then this comcept would definitley have made sense. |
16 October 2021, 17:20 | #349 | ||||||||||||
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That is all it takes, two "trampoline functions": The bootstrap code in the boot block starts AmigaDos, AmigaDos loads the workbench. AmigaDos and the workbench are in ROM. Quote:
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The same keyboard access you get with the Amiga once AmigaDos has been started. You only need a bootblock, and the system boots into the CLI. You have a command interpreter there. Quote:
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With a harddisk present, the system would have been a lot more expensive. |
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17 October 2021, 20:39 | #350 | |||||||||||||
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Sorry man, but it's 1:0 for the C64. I don't have to deal with such stupid tasks on a C64 - it has the OS ready right from the start, just like I already told you at least ten times. Quote:
Those functions are not available from the start of the computer, but instead you need to insert that damn disk and wait for it to load and make the OS available. Quote:
Maybe they should have added a more useable minimal Workbench disk, and thigns would have been a bit more user friendly, bit obviously they didn't care too much about useability.... Quote:
'Since the Amiga is not useable withtu a disk directly after I turn it on, the disk is part of it's system.' Do you get it? I wrote '....not useable WITHOUT A DISK....', and every kid can confirm this. Quote:
or as a dust catcher? Without a disk, an Amiga 500 is not more than that - sorry.... Quote:
Obviosuly not. But I tell you: it will instantly prompt you to insert the Workbench disk, because the stupid OS does not even have such basic DOS commands in ROM; so it needs to load them from the Workbench disk first, and then you need to enter your work disk again. This completely annoying 'diskjokey game' will teach you one lesson: Don't bother with that stupid system, better play some games, that's what the machine is obviously more capeable of, and that's what most users did as a consequence. Quote:
You seem to ignore reluctantly what I wrote in my first post: The one thing the Amiga did not get right from day one was that it always needs that damn disk to have it's OS available - point. Quote:
Commands like LOAD, SAVE, OPEN , CLOSE as well as all the disk commands like N, S, I, C, V, etc. don't have anything to do with BASIC language. Quote:
On the C64 I get all that right after turning on the computer! Quote:
But you seem to forget or not understand that it is NOT just 'there'! It still needs the (Workbench) disk to be available from start, and it even needs it for every simple command, for just about anything you want to do. And that's the big difference to the C64. The C64 doesn't need a disk to load OS/DOS commands like the ones I mentioend above, they are really 'there', they are availabel from the ROM and don't have to be loaded from disk before they can be executed. You see the difference? Quote:
Had they ever heard of something like EPROMs? They could have changed the code in EPROM during development whenever they wanted, there doesn't need to sit some boot code or OS activation code on a disk, it could have been integrated into ROM to make it available right from the start, even if hardware development was finished earlier than OS development. Quote:
I repeat it again: Booting an OS (or even only activating it in the ROM) is NOT a good idea on a disk based system, because of all the user unfriendly issues I mentioned. This is a thing 'the Amiga did not get right from day one'. It even was not sooo comfortable on hard disk systems up to this day. Show me anyone who didnt complain about Windows taking too long time for booting? What dp you think is the main reason why more and more people do not even own a PC any longer, but do all they need to do from their tablet or smartphone? I can tell you: 90% of the answers will be that 'it takes too much time to turn on the PC whenever they want to do anything with it' Things only changed recently when SSD drives became available. Only now it became a bit similar to booting from ROM back n the days. But still Windows is way too overloaded and takes far too much time to load from SSD compared to iOS or Android. Quote:
But obviously developers handled it like it was a hard disk system, but forgot that a floppy system is way too slow for this, and needs disks changed constanly.... Last edited by Overdoc; 17 October 2021 at 20:48. |
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17 October 2021, 21:29 | #351 |
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I had a spectrum 48k before my a500 so waiting for workbench to load never seemed to me too much time.
And the programs I most used (protracker, octamed, deluxe paint, games) come with their disks so they start directly without typing anything. What amigaos 1.3 offer cant be compared to c64 basic even waiting 1 minute. So TO ME, insert a disk was not a drama. |
17 October 2021, 21:31 | #352 |
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Atari had its "window" system at poweron yes. but . that was a pretty crappy one.
but reading this thread. wow. makes me think "wtf....?" compare the Amiga to a C64 and think the c64 was superior as it booted to basic? well... I think that is kinda enough to be said.. "Had they ever heard of something like EPROMs?" you can take one guess on what the A1000 bootloader was stored on. or the kickstart <phew> |
17 October 2021, 23:58 | #353 |
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@tolkien:
I am not talking about loading applications or games from disk - this was no problem, I put in the disk, and it loaded. The big problem was when you wanted to do some basic OS/DOS operations on a 'work disk', which was not the Workbench disk. Even if you just wanted to list a disk's content, you first needed to wait for the Workbench disk to load. (please don't tell me again that it is possible to make an 8 sec. boot WB disk - I did not have such a disk and Commodore did not include one, and also gave no instructions how to make one) Then, after it had finally loaded, and you put your disk WORK: in the drive and type 'DIR WORK:' to just simply list the files on the disk. Guess what Amigados will do? Will it list the disk's content? No, it will request to put the Workbench disk in the drive, again, then after some seconds it will want the WORK: disk in the drive, and only THEN it will list the disk's file (and, btw. it will take ages to list all the files, wheras on the C64 I get my directory listing in some seconds.....) Ok, now when I want to continue to rename a file on my WORK: disk. gues what will happen? Correct, play diskjockey again, swap the Workbanch disk for the WORK: disk so that great Amigados can load the rename command, then again swap it for the WORK: disk so that it can rename the file on the work disk. Why on earth were such basic operations not included in the 'so fantastic kickrom OS' ?! Amigados it is for sure an advanced system compared to the C64, no doubt, but did any of the developers ever think about useability?! The C64 and 1541 diskdrive (which together represent a system of computer & disk drive, like the Amiga 500) is indeed superior if I want to do some basic OS/DOS operations on any disk. Compareable commands like DIR, DELETE, COPY, FORMAT, ....are available to be used right after turning on the system. No need to wait for a 'system disk' to load, and no need to wait for commands to be loaded. I simply type in the command like LOAD, OPEN, LIST, they are available, and don't have to be loaded from any disk. So, yes, for me it was quite a disappointment to see that a superior machine like the Amiga took so much more time and hassle for such stupid operations like listing a disks's content. If you came from the C64 like me, it was just a pain.... @Chucky: Ok, yes, 99% of it seemeed to be available on the Kickrom (or Eprom), but somehow they forgot to make it available at the start of the computer, and also forgot to include the most simple DOS commands.... Last edited by Overdoc; 18 October 2021 at 00:07. |
18 October 2021, 02:11 | #354 | ||||||||||||
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But we should remember that back in those days most computers came with thick manuals which users were expected to read and understand in order to get the best out of them. The Amiga was supposed to be different. The visual metaphor of the desktop should have made having to memorize arcane commands a thing of the past for most users. But Commodore didn't understand what they had the way Apple did with the Macintosh, and most users expected that they would have to read manuals and type in commands just like they did on the PC, C64 etc. So instead of the Amiga's multitasking GUI being appreciated, the opposite happened. The A500 came with an excellent manual showing how to use Workbench, but enthusiasts weren't interested in that - they wanted to get into the CLI and unleash the 'real' power of their machines! It wasn't long before magazines were publishing articles describing how to modify the startup-sequence and other tricks to speed up booting etc. Many owners also joined computer 'clubs' or 'user groups' to swap ideas and get help from more experienced users, and programmers developed public domain utilities such as advanced shells and directory management programs to make it easier to deal with things that Workbench hid from you. The result was that a major selling point of the Amiga was lost, another example of how it was unfortunately ahead of its time. Today of course the average user expects all their devices to operate like the Amiga was designed to, without the need to read thick manuals (which aren't provided anyway, so...). Quote:
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As for disk swapping, even machines that didn't have to boot the OS needed numerous disk swaps with a single drive. Have you ever tried to use a DOS PC with no hard drive? Better have two floppy drives or it's a real pain, with some operations being practically impossible. Quote:
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On a 1MB A500 with WB1.3 only two disk swaps are needed to copy the Workbench disk - which is the minimum possible when the entire disk won't fit in memory. But if you use Workbench to copy a different disk then extra swaps are required because you first have to click on the source disk, then insert the Workbench disk so it can load diskcopy, then insert the source disk again. This could have been avoided if diskcopy could run by itself in Workbench, but it can't - an unfortunate oversight for sure. Similar problems occur with other operations that need files on the Workbench disk. Of course if you have two drives this isn't a problem, but that costs more money. OTOH, putting enough of Workbench into ROM to avoid disk swaps would have cost more money too, and most purchasers were not too concerned about having to swap disks a few times for those rare times they had to (ie when not playing games or applications with everything on one disk). Another downside of a completely ROM based OS is that updating it is more difficult and expensive. As with the PC, Amiga OS was constantly being improved, with major updates coming out every 2-3 years. Users had to buy and install new ROMs, but with disk-based components they could take advantage of OS updates that worked with their existing ROMs. You say that Commodore could have put all the Workbench essentials in ROM to avoid disk swapping, but to do that properly would have required twice as much many ROMs, which in those days were very expensive. It would also have required far more effort to make it bug free, which is essential when you are making mask ROMs by the millions. The real problem wasn't that you needed a disk to boot Workbench, it was the lack of forethought that went into using it. Commodore could easily have changed the way Workbench utilities like diskcopy and Notepad worked to eliminate disk swapping, but they didn't - perhaps because their developers all had hard drives and didn't see the problem, or because they never bothered to test it on new users to see how their experience could be improved, or perhaps because they just didn't care (don't want to swap disks constantly - buy another drive!). Quote:
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Last edited by Bruce Abbott; 18 October 2021 at 02:33. |
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18 October 2021, 08:14 | #355 | ||||||||||||||
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To play a game, to run an application... those came on disks, of course. Quote:
You obviously confuse the "CLI" copy command with the built-in file copy of the workbench. Quote:
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Other systems had this very separate. A DOS menu, or a DOS command prompt to access the disk, and basic (or other programming languages) to load and save its programs to disk. Quote:
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AmigaDos derived from Tripos, Tripos was a research operating system designed on "real big" machines (back then), and those machines had of course hard disks. While not a perfect system, it was good enough to upscale the Amiga to harddisks later on, which was a good choice. |
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18 October 2021, 09:19 | #356 |
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@Overdoc:
Don't worry, I and certainly others have perfectly understood your point. I agree that it would have been better from a user perspective if the Amiga had been able to boot into Workbench without any disk operation other than perhaps checking if a different boot medium was present in the drive. But I understand that ROM space was expensive and thus limited. |
18 October 2021, 12:24 | #357 |
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A little think, and it'd probably been mentioned here before, but it annoyed me again yesterday when I dragged out my A500 for its rotational residency on my desk. Not including a power on/off button in 1987 is just not on (pun intended).
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18 October 2021, 13:57 | #358 |
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While I might agree that I was annoyed that "cd" was in the rom as command and "dir" or "list" wasn't I must say I do not get the complaint at all.
C64 "booted" to a commandpromt that did not say anything for a new person. it was totally worthless and provided no help whatsoever. Atari started into GEM. sure.. still pretty useless and as it was so useless. it was pretty much useless as an operatingsystem. Amiga os did only "start" to a disk-prompt yeah. but when booting you could do so much more. but by that saying that the OS was diskbased is wrong and just shows not knowing what it is all about. but yes. I remember back in the days when you had a issue and booted to a "empty" cli. the lack of "dir" was sometimes annoying. but was very easy to fix. most as I was pretty early to get a harddrive. and many did that used the amiga for more stuff than playing some games. so imho: pretty pointless discussion |
18 October 2021, 15:27 | #359 | |||||||||||||||
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Yeah, obviously it was not minimal But how should I know how to make a minimal one, and why was it not provided with the computer, or even better, integrated into ROM? The Amiga manual perfectly explained how to use the Workbench, but forgot about it's user-unfriendlyness due to long loading times, and nowhere explained how to make it load faster. (and if, then only in a technician's manual or some mags) Quote:
BUT: The only problem I had with it was that it was (at least for me) very tedious having to load it from disk on my A-500 back in the days. And then being forced into diskjockeying once I wanted to use my work-disk. Quote:
Experts still could have loaded their extended, customized Workbenches from that point, or simply any other application, game, etc. Quote:
But I thought the Amiga was (in the end) designed to be a computer? And as such it should have an OS that is accessible by the user, so that the user cando anything else than only loading? But this accessability was missing. Ok, I was obviously wrong in parts since I was told the OS is in the kickstart, but problem is that it is hidden from the user. The only one thing the Amiga OS is able to do from the start is loading a disk - that's it. Quote:
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The PC was quickly exchanged for the XT, which had an intergated harddisk. Quote:
It had this way too slow diskdrive, arcane commands, directory overwriting a basic program, etc. BUT: I didn't need to put in a Workbench disk and wait for it to laod whenever I wanted to work with the computer, and this was a big advantage. Also, if you say that the workbench can be modified to overcome those issues, and you could switch to later, better Workbench main revisions (which required also a hardware change of the kickstart chip!), then I can also tell you that you could get rid of all those issues on the C64 by using a cartridge like Action Cartridge, or Jiffydos, Speeddos, Dolphindos etc. instead of the original kernal/dos, and all those issue are gone, no directory overwriting any longer, fast loading times, esay commands, most used onse on the F-keys, etc. Quote:
Workbench was not useable for this, since it only copied files which had and .info icon file with them. So I had to use Amigados, and it required the diskjockeying..... Quote:
If I buy a computer, I expect to have a user friendly interface, which was not available. Quote:
So I don't think it was a matter of costs. They could have easily integrated that missing 1% into the kickrom, not? Quote:
But for me as a user who bought an Amiga 500 which was marketed as an 'all in one' system (in comparison to the C64, where devices like the disk drive where sold separately), it was not satisifying. And that's all what I am explaining here: It is one of those things the Amiga did not get right from the beginning. Quote:
Such designs always fail on one side, and on the Amiga 500 it was the 'computer' side. So it was only used as a games console by 90% of the users, because doing anything else was a pain with only one diskdrive.... Quote:
Quote:
At least for me it would have helped a lot! And it probably was one of the reasons why I got much more into exploring the C64's chips than the one of the Amiga. I honestly have to admit that the diskjockeying annoyed me that much, so that I avoided to do anything more with the Amiga than playing games. Like mentioned before, I do not have such problems with it any longer, because nowadays I have CF cards working as harddisks in all my Amigas, and so the issue is no longer there. But back in 1990 doing anything else with my A-500 except booting a game was a pain in the ass. Last edited by Overdoc; 18 October 2021 at 15:47. |
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18 October 2021, 15:45 | #360 |
Commodore Collector
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: Austria
Age: 53
Posts: 944
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@grond:
Thanks a lot for your support and understanding my point, thanks a lot! I am open for discussing this topic, and I think I explained the problem for everyone to follow easily, but some guys just don't read and or don't (want) to comprehend the problem, which is making discussion just boring - I feel like I have to explain things like in a kindergarden....? @Thomas Richter: Sorry, I give up, you seem to lack some basic comprehension. I explained my point so that a 3 year old can follow, even gave examples, etc. but you still don't get it and just repeat the same nonsense again and again, like e.g. the Amiga 500 can do something without a disk....while everyone can confirm that all it can do is displaying a kickstart hand and waiting for a disk to be inserted and booted..... So I will not answer again, it is too boring communicating with someone who cannot think logically and not read and follow even the most basic words. @Chucky: You also miss the point, sorry. I am NOT talking about an Amiga with a harddisk, but a standard Amiga 500 which was sold as a one in all computer. Since you got no harddisk with it, it was FLOPPY DISK BASED. If it was intended to be used with a harddisk only, then the one thing the Amiga did not get right from the start was that it was missing a harddisk, because it was not anything like userfriendly otherwise. So, put it whatever way you want, the problem is still there. |
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