Things the Amiga didn't get right from Day 1

[Overdoc]

Originally Posted by Gorf

In that case you would probably need the Workbench anyways.

Oh, yes, very true, and here again we are at the start of the discussion.
For every simple task, the Workbench needs to be loaded.... And guess why I actually did much less other things with the Amiga (other than gamin) than I did with the C64?
Always having to load this Workbench disk was simply tedious and boring, and time consuming, and then also needed that disk swapping.

All of you are talking about the Amiga being a different system and different use cases etc., and I only used it th wrong way?
But then, please, tel me how shoudl it have been used? How did you work with it WITHOUT running into all these problems?

And no, don't tell me again to get a harddisk as a solution. If that really was the only solution, then you only confirm my words that it was not possible to do anything more with an Amiga other than gaming

Originally Posted by Gorf

If it is just a collection of tools not meant for the WB you would simply create a boot disk with that tools.
On that disk would of course also be a "dir" command.
It just takes <5 seconds to boot into a CLI and it would list the content automatically upon start.

I avoided the Workbench whereever possible because of the mentioned annoying load times, and also because many tools didn't have that .info icon file with them, which made them invisible in Workbench.

But the solution you explain here is basically that every disk which I used to store some files, tools, games, etc. also needed to be some kind of system boot disk, and contain all the needed commands like dir, cd, makedir, rename, etc. ?!?
But you see how complicated this all is compared to the C64 way I was used to?!

Originally Posted by Gorf

Or you use tools like LaunchPad or X-bench …

Never knew those tools and also never came across them back then?!

I had some premade tools disks, which booted rather fast into some select menu. One of those disks had 'Cli-Mate' on it. This was the best option I could get when I wanted to work with files.
Still, as mentioned before, it felt tedious when you came from the C64....

Originally Posted by Gorf

The thing is:
on the Amiga nobody needed to list a directory immediately after turning on the computer to start a program in 99% of all cases.
That is just not the normal use-case.

Either you boot directly into the game or program, or you have a disk with all the necessary commands on it.
It you really wanted to do something with you files you would need the workbench anyway.

Exactly!!
This is exactly the problem I had whenever I wanted to do anything on the Amiga!
But the solution you mention would mean that I had to use a new disk for every single program, only to be able to start it by booting this disk ?!?
Or alternatively have more than one program on a disk, but then also need to have all needed dos command on it?

Originally Posted by Gorf

What can you do on the C64 with that directory listing?
Not much - in most cases.
Start the program/game? The Amiga does that automatically for you!

The Amiga can only do that automatically if there is only ONE program on the disk. Otherwise I would first need to list it's content to see the filename and be able to run the file I want to run.

But like I wrote above, is that really the great concept of the Amiga? Needing a boot disk for every single file?!
3.5 disks were quite expensive back then, and how stupid is it needing to waste a full 880kb disk just to run one single, much smaller file, when there is space for 20 such files on the disk?!

Originally Posted by Gorf

Manipulate a file? No: you would need to load an editor or some other program first.

Exactly my Amiga problem! And my point from the beginning of this discussion!
To manipulate a file, the Amiga always first needed to load the command for manipulating it, and made it necessary for me to have those command ready on the disk if I didn't wnt to end up like a diskjockey....

Originally Posted by Gorf

Show a picture - not directly possible
Play a sound- not directly possible
And so on.

On the C64, those were often run-able.

Originally Posted by Gorf

On a naked C64 you can do shit with your files unless they are programmes you execute.

On the C64 I can do most needed file or disk operations without needing to load any additional command first, because those operations are already available in the C64 rom or diskdrive rom

Originally Posted by Gorf

There is absolutely no practical advantage.

You mean no advantage of listing a disks content?
See my explanation above.

Originally Posted by Gorf

That is why no modern system behaves this way anymore.

Modern systems don't work with disks any longer, they boot up from HD rather fast, and are not 'gone' after for instance you played a game, like on the Amiga 500.
That makes a difference to working with floppy disks!

Originally Posted by Gorf

Stop insulting other people.

It is really enough now.

This not how we discuss things here!

There was absolutely no insult in my words!
It was just the impression that you seem not to be used to having more than one file on a disk.
And from your explanation above I read that it really was this way?

I never wanted to anoy anyone here, I just want to know how you PRACTICALLY USE the Amiga system, when you keep telling me that the way I was doing it was wrong, because I did it like I was used to from the C64?

Maybe you are all correct and it was all my fault, and there is a better way to work with it, but so far the mentioned solutions all have their drawbacks.

[Gorf]

No: you do not need a bootdisk for every singe file - read what I wrote and stop trolling or shut up!

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Overdoc

For every simple task, the Workbench needs to be loaded....

That is the point of an operating system, namely to load it. Yes.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Always having to load this Workbench disk was simply tedious and boring, and time consuming, and then also needed that disk swapping.

I didn't really do much disk swapping. I did a lot of programming. Booted from the workbench, inserted the disk with the assembler, or application program - done.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

How did you work with it WITHOUT running into all these problems?

I personally never run into "these problems".

Originally Posted by Overdoc

I avoided the Workbench whereever possible because of the mentioned annoying load times, and also because many tools didn't have that .info icon file with them, which made them invisible in Workbench.

I don't recall which applications did not have icons. Maybe the C compiler (Aztec C) back then didn't, but this was to be used from the CLI anyhow, so I didn't need icons.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

The Amiga can only do that automatically if there is only ONE program on the disk. Otherwise I would first need to list it's content to see the filename and be able to run the file I want to run.

Er, what? To run the file you want to run, boot the workbench, double-click the icon. Or type "list" in the CLI.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

To manipulate a file, the Amiga always first needed to load the command for manipulating it, and made it necessary for me to have those command ready on the disk if I didn't wnt to end up like a diskjockey....

"resident" exists. I typically made the commands I need often resident, and then use them...

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Maybe you are all correct and it was all my fault, and there is a better way to work with it, but so far the mentioned solutions all have their drawbacks.

Apparently...

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Gorf

Let's switch to something else:

One thing the Amiga 1000 did not get right from the beginning was the missing real time clock.
The A1000 was supposed to be a serious computer and was advertised as such. With the price Commodore asked for it, there was no excuse to not include a proper battery buffered RTC in 1985.

One thing Apple did not get right from the beginning was...

One thing CP/M did not get right from the beginning was...

One thing the IBM PC did not get right from the beginning was...

The instant IBM announced the PC it became the 'gold standard' for what a desktop computer 'should' have. An RTC was not part of that 'standard' until the PC-AT. When the A1000 was born in 1985, millions of PC users were still starting each day by typing in the time and date. Why should the Amiga have been any different? You didn't need an RTC to play games, draw pictures, make music etc.

But as Overdoc pointed out, one thing the Amiga did get right from the beginning was not putting a rechargeable clock battery on the motherboard (I lost count of how many PC motherboards I had to trash due to leaky batteries). Making the RTC an optional extra was the right decision IMO.

[ajk]

@Overdoc

If your main critique here is that file handling was somehow better overall on the C64 out-of-the-box, it's really hard to take that seriously. The C64 by itself had essentially no commands for file management at all. All you could do is send various options to the drive using the load/save command and some very arcane syntax. Copying, renaming, deleting files was difficult, slow and error-prone. Duplicating a floppy, or copying files from drive to drive? Could you even do that without resorting to 3rd party utilities?

On the Amiga, Workbench and CLI - while certainly not perfect - included commands for all common file handling needs. They had understandable names and were straightforward to use.

Applications were generally provided on self-sufficient, bootable floppies. Loading Workbench separately was not usually necessary. This is how, for example, Deluxe Paint worked, as did various music programs, word processors etc. Of course some disk swapping was unavoidable on a single drive setup anyway, if there was no room to save your work directly on the application disk.

If you made your own compilation disks with multiple programs, you could include whatever was necessary. Such a disk could be made to load Workbench, or a CLI prompt, some menu script or whatever was appropriate.

With two drives things became much easier; usually either Workbench or an application was in the internal drive, and a data disk of some sort in the external one.

Three or four floppy drive systems didn't seem to be very common from what I remember (in the A500 days at least - perhaps more so earlier with the A1000 when hard drives were really expensive). If one needed extra capacity beyond two floppy drives, it made sense to invest in a hard drive. The A590 with 2 megs of RAM felt like an incredible leap in performance and productivity when I eventually got one

I don't personally remember the half meg expansion being much of a compatibility issue with games, but I must also admit a significant portion of my games back then weren't exactly official copies Cracked versions may well have included fixes for any such issues.

[Overdoc]

Oh yes, that's what I expected - you cannot explain, because obviously there is no good solution if your are working with disks on the Amiga.
Or it is such a secret which is only shared among the enlightened Amiga enthusiasts? Maybe....

I DID read what you wrote, here again your proposed solution:

Originally Posted by Gorf

In that case you would probably need the Workbench anyways.
If it is just a collection of tools not meant for the WB you would simply create a boot disk with that tools.
On that disk would of course also be a "dir" command.
It just takes <5 seconds to boot into a CLI and it would list the content automatically upon start.

But you should learn reading, because I explained that this 'more than 1 files on a disk' solution is completely tedious since it needs me to copy all the needed commands like dir etc. on every disk where I want to have more than 1 programs!

And then there is also the problem of making a disk 'bootable'?!
Was that ever anywhere explained in the Amiga manual? Maybe I missed it?
You needed to create a bootblock,if I am correct?
I solved this problem with some virus tool which was able to copy a bootblock from one disk to another. Later, I had an X-Copy version which was already able to format a disk with a bootblock .

Originally Posted by Gorf

Or you use tools like LaunchPad or X-bench …

What a great advice to use some obscure tools which probably did not even exist back in 1990, just to be able to list and start different programs from a disk?

But I see, there is no solution and it seems the only way to make the Amiga a comfortable to use system was getting a harddisk.
So boviously you had to pay that extremely high price (the whole system then was about double the price of a C64 & 1541 system)

But with a harddisk, it is a COMPLETELY different experience!! That is very true!
I have an ACA500+ for a few years, which solved all those problems, I can boot from CF card where all the needed commands are instantly loaded/accessible from, when I want to explore a disk, I can set memory configurations as needed for any game, I can switch back to games compatible kick 1.3 if needed, etc. etc.

The ACA500+ is definitelythe best hardware ever made for the AMiga 500, and in fact IS a great solution for all the problems I had back then.
(in contrary to you, Dirk Schönfeld recognized all the issues and solved them - thanks to him for all that!!)

Actually, I like the system this way!
So, probably all of you here had a harddisk from start or very quickly, and in that case I can fully understand your point. That way it really makes fun .

But with one diskdrive only, the system is just a pain in the ass. Developers probably never had in mind to be an Amiga used with a diskdrive only (although it was sold like that!), because they ofcourse had harddisk available, and actually did not notice, or did not care.

I will do you all a favor and not post any more in this thread, it is pointless discussing it when everyone here had a harddisk or knew some secret ways to solve the issues, which they won't share, or simple did not care (because he simply 'played a different game' when a memory expansion prevented it from worked any more)

So, have your fun and stay in your illusion that the Amiga 500 was such great to work with disks.
My experience was different and the only working solution I was given here was to afford a hardisk. (which is true, but unfortunately was very costly back then....)

[Predseda]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

But as Overdoc pointed out, one thing the Amiga did get right from the beginning was not putting a rechargeable clock battery on the motherboard (I lost count of how many PC motherboards I had to trash due to leaky batteries). Making the RTC an optional extra was the right decision IMO.

[Chucky]

@overdoc I used my floppybased amiga without any real issues. as I prepared floppys for my different works I wanted to do.. program, boot the seka disk. (actually I had one copy for each project so no need to diskswapping), edit graphics. boot dpaint disk.. listen to music. boot protracker disk..

it went just fine.. and I had no issues with it. getting a harddrive however let me use the full amiga much better and all sorted in one place.. but disks was never a real issue.

[grond]

I used an A600 without 2nd FDD to program using SAS/C. I don't remember a lot of disk swapping. I then borrowed an external disk drive from a friend when that friend got an A2000 with harddisk and things became more comfortable. Yes, I would then always have the workbench disk in one drive and the other would be my work drive. With the aforementioned C-Shell and resident, there weren't a lot of usability problems even with just one drive. I actually always thought how fast and comfortable all this was (not having experienced harddisks yet).

As for slow-mem expansions, the same friend with the A2000 had a chicken lips A500 with 512 slow-mem and an external switch for the mem expansion. I remember him explaining to me how his A500 was the best compatibility-wise because it still had kick 1.2 and the mem expansion could be switched off.

I wonder how much of this was based on hearsay and perhaps a few early game titles. I don't remember having many problems with games on my A600 with kick 2.0 and ECS which certainly was farther away from the "compatible" 1.2/OCS combination than later A500s. And in fact the early game titles usually weren't making too good use of the Amiga hardware anyway and thus no big loss.

[Overdoc]

@Chucky:

Ok, one last comment:
Yes, it sounds like that would be a working solution. Too bad I did not have that idea or not the knowledge to build such bootable disks, or didn't want to store my own stuff on the applications disks (or there wasno space any more on those?!)

I was probably too much used to the C64 and therefore wanted to have all my own files or often used programs on one or few 'work disks'.

Those 3.5 disks were quite expensive back then, and I remember that I even did not copy some games because they used too many disks, and therefore were too expensive for me being still at school at this time. So I tried to fill disks as much as possible just like I did it on the C64.

But, yes, I appreciate your effort giving a solution.

@grond:
I can very much understand that friend of yours
There were hardky any games that needed Kick 1.2 and refuses to work with Kick 1.3.
But there were lots of (older) tittles which refused to work on Kick 2.0! Ofcourse, nearly all newer titles that came out aftere the A-600 did not have this issue, because developers already took care about it, and made sure their games would work on the A-600 as well, to prevent reclamations.
But games before 1990 or so often were not compatible, and those were not bad games just because they were a bit older!

Unfortunately, there is no list of those. In rare cases there existed patched versions from cracker groups to make them work (same also existed sometimes to make OCS games working on AGA machines)
I wish HOL would list the memory/kick configurations for games, but it is difficult because there might be differences between the original and several cracks etc.?

There were even games which did only work on a specific Agnus version! (Double Dragon II and another one I cannot remember at the moment only worked on Rev. 5 Boards with Agnus 8371 )

[Chucky]

So probelm for you was that you was never interested of learning the system and tried to use it as a old C64.. this is not the fault of the amiga, it was lack of interest of learning the system you bought.

while the first thing I did when I got my Amiga home was "oh lets see what this bad boy can do"... and started to learn how to use it.

[Overdoc]

Originally Posted by Chucky

So probelm for you was that you was never interested of learning the system and tried to use it as a old C64.. this is not the fault of the amiga, it was lack of interest of learning the system you bought.

while the first thing I did when I got my Amiga home was "oh lets see what this bad boy can do"... and started to learn how to use it.

No, I did the same and tried to love it, but was quickly annoyed by waiting for Workbench to load and diskswapping issues.
You might be correct that I did not invest too deep digging into the system to create a fast loading Workbench disks or several special disks, like you did.

And yes, I don't know how this is for you, but for me it is like if something is annoying right out of the box, then I loose interest quickly. Then I do not even try to make it better. Hence my comment about that bad Workbench disk

I think it is the same with most people, especially younger ones. You can see this nowadays with mobile apps etc. If those apps require ANY fiddling around, then noone will download them.

But yes, I learned to love the Amiga 500 more a few years ago with this ACA 500+ expansion, which gave it a new user experience to me.

[Chucky]

When I was younger I tried to dig in as deep as I could. I must confess I am way more lazy today. by then. the Amiga was way more userfriendly then the C64.. no need of obscure "open" commands or so.. it did not take me long time to do my own custom disks. I quickly understood that everything old with the c64 was nothing I could have any use of..

even if I must say that while learning 68000 assembler. I did think 6502 a while to get an idea of the theory of coding on it. but I quickly understood that it was a bad way of doing it

[Overdoc]

Sorry guys, but I cannot help, just read this post by Thomas Richter....it is turning into a comedy now!

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

That is the point of an operating system, namely to load it. Yes.

Ah, really?
Who was it who told me some pages earlier that the OS of the Amiga was completely in the Kickrom, and that I should learn to understand that?

Oh man......

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

I didn't really do much disk swapping. I did a lot of programming. Booted from the workbench, inserted the disk with the assembler, or application program - done.

'Booted from the Workbench....'
Do you even realize that the solutions you give are exactly the problems I am adressing?

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Er, what? To run the file you want to run, boot the workbench, double-click the icon. Or type "list" in the CLI.

Again here....to run the file....boot the workbench.....
This is like a comedy.....no discussion any longer

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

"resident" exists. I typically made the commands I need often resident, and then use them...

Yes, and takes how long?
I also did that, and I even started to make resident itself resident first, because the making other commans resident would at least be a bit faster.


Your argumentation reminds me of something I once read:

If your internet connection is not working....try the online help....

[indigolemon]

Just read this thread, pretty sure my face looked like this for the last few pages:

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Who was it who told me some pages earlier that the OS of the Amiga was completely in the Kickrom, and that I should learn to understand that?

Of course you need to understand that. The commands are not in ROM, yet you want to prepare the system. That's what we have the startup-sequence for. An example would be:

SetPatch >NIL: ;fix ROM bugs
SetClock Opt Load ;for Kick 1.3 only, for those Amigas with RTC
SetMap d ;set the keyboard to your liking
resident C:Resident ;make some commands resident
resident C:List ;for example
LoadWB ;load the workbench
endcli >NIL: ;done

Originally Posted by Overdoc

'Booted from the Workbench....'
Do you even realize that the solutions you give are exactly the problems I am adressing?

Don't you understand that there is no problem with this solution?

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Yes, and takes how long?

A couple of seconds. I believe 15 secs or so when I tested last week.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

I also did that, and I even started to make resident itself resident first, because the making other commans resident would at least be a bit faster.

Yes, of course, and your point is?

[Overdoc]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Of course you need to understand that. The commands are not in ROM, yet you want to prepare the system.

That is just splitting up the OS in 2 parts. Ofcourse the commands are part of the OS, otherwise you cannot use it. What is an OS worth without any comands or without any UI?

My original argument and comparisojn to the C64 was that not even basic commands were available at start, but had to be loaded from disk.
Then you contradicted that it was 'all in the Kickrom', which obviously is not the case.

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

That's what we have the startup-sequence for. An example would be:

SetPatch >NIL: ;fix ROM bugs
SetClock Opt Load ;for Kick 1.3 only, for those Amigas with RTC
SetMap d ;set the keyboard to your liking
resident C:Resident ;make some commands resident
resident C:List ;for example
LoadWB ;load the workbench
endcli >NIL: ;done

Thanks!
I will try it over the weekend.
I am quite sure that the startup-sequence of my modified 'DOS disk' looked very much the same back then. I have to look, maybe I even still have it? Then we can compare.
At least I see that there was no other way, so after all I did make the best out of it anyway back then without having a harddisk or second drive.

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

A couple of seconds. I believe 15 secs or so when I tested last week.

Yes, for the tweaked DOS disk.
But this was not the Workbench disk which got shipped with the Amiga, which I was referring to.
My Amiga did not come with such a DOS disk, but with the slow loading red labeled Workbench disk, which loaded endlessly.

And it is not what I expect from a ready to use system that I need to study some highly technical stuff how to tweak the startup-sequence, only to be able to have the OS (with commands ) ready within an acceptable time.

And still, these 15 seconds are waaaay more time than I need to list a directory and start an application compared to the C64.
And I know your answer will be that I need to study cryptical commands on the C64 instead, which is right.
But even after I studied the C64 commands and after I studied how to tweak the Workbench to load faster, I can select and run the specific application I want to start from the disc faster on the C64.

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Yes, of course, and your point is?

No point, just for your information. It might have been that was stupidly done by me, and there was a better way?

[Chucky]

your c64 did not come tith ANYTHING. just "grow up" I must say..
ofcourse they would not send a disk that was so specialiced. you had to do it youself.

you know. sometimes you need to do something to get something. the world is nor circeling around you..

[freehand]

A 49 year old man telling a 50 year old man to grow up what has the world come to..

[Overdoc]

Originally Posted by Chucky

your c64 did not come tith ANYTHING. just "grow up" I must say..

Erm, it didn't need such a disk, because the commands were in ROM!!
Something you need to understand as much as you argue that I don't understand how the Amiga system works.

Originally Posted by Chucky

ofcourse they would not send a disk that was so specialiced. you had to do it youself.

Specialised?!
What is so special about having an interface ready to be able to list what files are on a disk, then load and run the one you want?

Actually, this is the process you do 90% of all the time...you load an application.
And the computer should be ready for this operation as fast as possible after startup.

Originally Posted by Chucky

you know. sometimes you need to do something to get something. the world is nor circeling around you..

Yes, I know, it was a system for some elite, enlightened people.
Guess why it became a gaming machine for most people, then?
Because working with the filesystem or doing anything else, which was not as simple as booting a pre-made game disk, became complicated....