Things the Amiga didn't get right from Day 1

[Thomas Richter]

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.

[modrobert]

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.

[Overdoc]

@ 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

[drHirudo]

Originally Posted by Overdoc

@ Thomas Richter:
It seems you don't get it?
Typical case of technical blindness and without thinking about useability....

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

Dude, the Amiga back in the times was aiming at being professional computer and it was 16-bit. Early IBM-PC models had BASIC in the ROM, but they also had cassette ports, which is more aimed at amateur users. On the other hand the Amiga was aimed more for professional users, and what's the point of booting into usable system and starting working on it, if you can't save your result? Booting from the disk means at least that you have floppy drive, where to save your result. There were no type-in games for the Amiga and there was little point in loading an OS without having I/O devices connected to your machine.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Again, please show me how the OS can be used after I turn on my Amiga?

You insert a disk. As simple as that. Your statement that Amiga has "the os on disk" is simply false. The Os is in the ROM. The only thing the disk does is that it activates components of the Os.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

The user needs to activate it manually with a Workbench disk (and it takes ages to load!!)

Not really. It takes a couple of seconds, and it does not need to be workbench. If your's take a minute, you'd probably have a look at the startup-sequence. The one that shipped with the A2000 and Kick 1.2 is huge, to be able to boot from harddisk (lacking romboot, a mistake), but the A500 startup should be rather minimal.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

And that was a major design flaw of the Amiga.

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.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

The concept of being able to design your own boot disk might have been nice, but who made use of it?

Almost any game of existence.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

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....

Err. No. WB 2.1 works on top of the 2.04 ROMs, and I have at least two different versions of WB 1.3 as well.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

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?

They did implement a "default Os", the one in the Kickstart, please get that, finally! Once again, the "workbench disk" is not the Os. The Os sits in the ROM, including the workbench. It's just waiting to be activated. So please stop the bull of "there is no Os". Of course there is one.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Like on the C64, I can load GEOS if I like, but I can also just use the built in OS.

The C64 does not have a user interface, and not really any sort of "Os" user interface. It has a Basic (from Microsoft!) the machine boots into. But that's just a strange design choice people made back then, to equip machines - instead of an Os prompt or Os user interface - with a programming language most people only used to load applications. Maybe you were used to that, but it was, as a design, "a miserable failure" because you mis-used a particular component, a programming language interpreter, to do what the Os should do.



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.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

The concept of 'boot from disk to be able to use the OS' failed miserably, and most Amiga users I talked with support this.

Right, the Amiga was such a miserable failure... and this "mistake" was used by so many other systems back then - and is still used today.



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.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

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.

That was not a "mistake", it was a necessity because Kickstart wasn't ready with the hardware. As simple as that.

[grond]

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.

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Overdoc

When you turn on your Amiga, the operating system is not there, it is not complete, yet, und you cannot access and use it until you boot an additional, missing part, which is called 'Workbench disk'.....

Only two small files are needed to boot Workbench, but yes - without them you won't get it. This was indeed an 'oversight' (or to be more precise - a deliberate design decision), but was it a big deal?

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.

And this is the problem which did make everything so tedious. You couldn't do anything with your Amiga 500 until you waited 1 minute to boot the Workbench, and then you became a diskjockey if you wanted to do anything on a disk which was not the Workbench disk.

Yes, it was tedious. The sad thing is that it didn't need to be. An A500 only takes ~8 seconds to boot into Workbench 1.3 with a minimal startup-sequence, but Commodore loaded it up with extra stuff that casual users didn't need. IMO they should have gone for speed over features, and provided more advanced scripts for those who wanted them.

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.

Developers forgot that it is complete bullshit to boot the operating system from a disk. This is something which only works from a harddisk. But harddisks were expensive as hell back then, and so only few people had them. Most just invested in a second diskdrive, which was mandatory on the Amiga if you wanted to do anything else than gaming.

Not entirely true. The RAM disk can be used for copying files etc., and in later OS versions commands can be made resident to eliminate disk swapping. You can also strip unneeded files from the boot disk to make room for the ones you do need.

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.

The C64 gave the possibility do write programs and explore the system right from the start.

The C64 had a stink OS that didn't provide any support for its advanced hardware features. The programmers manual (which was an extra you had to pay for) was a joke, full of horrible decimal pokes. That was bad enough, but imagine trying to control the Amiga's even more advanced features with a similar technique, let alone doing it in a multitasking environment. AmigaBASIC made a good attempt at supporting OS functions, but it also had limitations and a few bugs (the worst of which was using the upper 8 bits of addresses for other purposes, making it fundamentally incompatible with 32 bit machines).

I think the Atari ST did it correct, and had it's TOS in ROM, afaik?

Eventually yes, but in the beginning they were forced to load it from disk. Here's a story explaining why...

Initially the ST was going to have 128K of ROM; we wanted to one-up the Macintosh (which hadn't shipped yet, but there were rumors and we had copies of Inside Macintosh that were simply fascinating to read) and put both our OS and a version of BASIC in ROM. Most home computers at the time came with some version of BASIC, and the Mac did not; we were hoping that would be a differentiator. Trouble was, nobody had actually sized our software yet (the only things even remotely running were on the 8086, not the 68000 we were going to use, and Digital Research wasn't exactly forthcoming about details anyway).

So mid-October (the project started in earnest in July 1984, and FWIW we shipped in late May 1985, a whole new platform starting from zero in less than ten months) we realized that just the OS and GUI would be 128K, and that the BASIC we were thinking of using was like 80K (but could probably be shrunk). So the hardware guys added two more ROM sockets, for 192K of ROM. A month went by. Wups! -- it turned out that the OS and GUI would be like 170K, with little hope of shrinkage. No, make that 180K. Would you take 200K?

The code topped out at 210K or so, and that wouldn't even fit into the six ROM sockets we now had. No chance in hell of getting another 64K of ROM -- that stuff costs real money

[Overdoc]

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.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Ok, if that 8 second bootable Workbench really exits, then plase show me, put an ADF file of such a Workbench in the zone.

Create one yourself. "Format df0:", "install df0:", "makedir df0:c df0:s", then copy C:LoadWB to df0:C, and then "echo LoadWB >df0:S/Startup-Sequence".



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.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Commodore did not provide such a disk, the Amiga system was shipped with a Workbench disk, which I estimate takes 1 minute to load?

Mine never took 1 minute to load. What for? As said, the startup-sequence of the A2000 boot disk tried a lot of assigns to divert the bootstrap process to a harddisk. Get rid of all the assigns, and things work faster.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Since the Amiga is not useable withtu a disk directly after I turn it on, the disk is part of it's system.

Of course it's usable. You insert a disk, and it runs the programs on it. Similar to most other systems.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

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

Of course it's usable without that disk. Actually, many users used it without this disk.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

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.

Huh? Workbench can clearly copy files and start programs.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

This could all have been solved if a minial OS (including baic DOS functions) woudl have been in ROM.

It doesn't get more valid by repeating the nonsense. The kickstart is full with an operating system. All of it. The shell, the workbench, the console, that's all in ROM. There is 256K of operating system in the ROM, or what do you think the ROM is used for? As a door stop?

Originally Posted by Overdoc

And regarding the statement that the C64 had no user interface? Are you jioking?

No, it doesn't. It has a BASIC prompt. BASIC is not a user interface. It's a programming language.


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.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

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....)

Use a boot block. The Amiga then starts any program you want it to start.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

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!

You still don't understand what the Os does, right? The shell is there, right in ROM. It is a command interpreter. Not BASIC, of course. It's commands are files, and to load a file, you type its name. Actually, this is also how MS-DOS worked. It is a command interpreter, just that the commands are not "POKE" and "RUN", but the file names of the binaries you want to execute. That was a fairly standard design back then. The workbench - also in ROM until 3.9.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

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!

Sometimes reality is laughable, but that's really it, yes.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

It just shows that the system asa whole simply was not ready when sold? Bad project management?

You should probably read the full story, but yes, that's exactly it. The whole reason why we are stuck with AmigaDos, BPTRs and Tripos legacy was because the CBM "DOS" coined "CAOS" was too late, and CBM bought, in last minute, the rights on Tripos, a research operating system, that was loosely bound to the rest of the Os. There was no "project management", just a bunch of friends that designed a system, and run out of money when CBM jumped in and made the whole project a computer system.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

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.

Harddisks, at those days, were expensive, and competitors did not ship with harddisks either. Look at the Mac, for example - no harddisk at day one. That changed only later.


With a harddisk present, the system would have been a lot more expensive.

[Overdoc]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Create one yourself. "Format df0:", "install df0:", "makedir df0:c df0:s", then copy C:LoadWB to df0:C, and then "echo LoadWB >df0:S/Startup-Sequence".

Ah, sure, so you have to design one yourself with some expert knowledge to get somethnig which is already integrated in other computers...what a great idea!
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.

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

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.

Yeah, but how often should I repeat it:
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.

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Mine never took 1 minute to load. What for? As said, the startup-sequence of the A2000 boot disk tried a lot of assigns to divert the bootstrap process to a harddisk. Get rid of all the assigns, and things work faster.

Nice for you, but the one I got with my Amiga 500 kick 1.3 (WB 1.3.2 to be precise) took at least 1 minute to load.
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....

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Of course it's usable. You insert a disk, and it runs the programs on it. Similar to most other systems.

You seem to have some serious troubles with reading? Repeat reading what I wrote:
'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.

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Of course it's usable without that disk. Actually, many users used it without this disk.

as a doorstop?
or as a dust catcher?
Without a disk, an Amiga 500 is not more than that - sorry....

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Huh? Workbench can clearly copy files and start programs.

Ever tried to use the copy command on any other disk than the Workbench?
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.

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

It doesn't get more valid by repeating the nonsense. The kickstart is full with an operating system. All of it. The shell, the workbench, the console, that's all in ROM. There is 256K of operating system in the ROM, or what do you think the ROM is used for? As a door stop?

Without a boot disk - yes! It is no more than a door stop.
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.

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

No, it doesn't. It has a BASIC prompt. BASIC is not a user interface. It's a programming language.

Sorry, but you are again wrong here, you don't seem to know anything about the C64.
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.

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

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.

Oh please, again...ready my words...NOT WIHOUT PREVIOUSLY HAVING LOADED FROM DISK !!!!
On the C64 I get all that right after turning on the computer!

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

You still don't understand what the Os does, right? The shell is there, right in ROM. It is a command interpreter. Not BASIC, of course. It's commands are files, and to load a file, you type its name. Actually, this is also how MS-DOS worked. It is a command interpreter, just that the commands are not "POKE" and "RUN", but the file names of the binaries you want to execute. That was a fairly standard design back then. The workbench - also in ROM until 3.9.

I perfectly understand what you are telling me. You repeated it for x times, so yes, the OS is in the kikstart rom, I got that.

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?

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Sometimes reality is laughable, but that's really it, yes.

You should probably read the full story, but yes, that's exactly it. The whole reason why we are stuck with AmigaDos, BPTRs and Tripos legacy was because the CBM "DOS" coined "CAOS" was too late, and CBM bought, in last minute, the rights on Tripos, a research operating system, that was loosely bound to the rest of the Os. There was no "project management", just a bunch of friends that designed a system, and run out of money when CBM jumped in and made the whole project a computer system.

Just a a lame excuse for a bad design, imho.
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.

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

Harddisks, at those days, were expensive, and competitors did not ship with harddisks either. Look at the Mac, for example - no harddisk at day one. That changed only later.

I don't know about the MAC, but I am quite sure the Atari ST had GUI OS avalable right after turning it on, where you can do at least some basic stuff like opening a disk, listing it's contents, copying and renaming file,s etc. ?

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.

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

With a harddisk present, the system would have been a lot more expensive.

Yeah, it was not a hard disk system, but a floppy disk system.
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....

[tolkien]

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.

[Chucky]

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>

[Overdoc]

@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....

[Bruce Abbott]

Originally Posted by Overdoc

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.

No need for an ADF, just take a standard Workbench disk and edit the startup-sequence down to one line: - "Loadwb" (note: loading time may vary a bit depending on where the files are on the disk).

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.

If it took 30 seconds it wasn't 'minimal'.

But who had the knowledge to create such an 8 secodns WB disk? One out of 100 users, maybe?

That's my beef too.

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...).

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

Not at all true. The vast majority of games and apps came on a bootable disk. This had the advantage that it was correctly set up to run straight away without the user having to do anything special. Early PC programs often did this too, but it soon became untenable due to the wide variety of configurations that had to be accommodated on the PC. This was another big selling point of the Amiga vs PCs, especially for games which were often a nightmare to get running on them even for advanced users.

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:

Loading and saving files was done by the application, and copying/renaming files or formatting disks was easily done via Workbench. The problem was that many apps didn't create icons for their files, so you ended up with 'hidden' files that were difficult to manage. This was mostly the fault of developers who were stuck in the past and didn't embrace the Amiga's more user-friendly way of doing things.

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.

It's true that the original Amiga OS had some shortcomings (especially if you had KS1.1 like I did), but most of them were addressed with KS2.0 and above. I don't think many people were concerned about having to boot into Workbench though - sure it took a while, but so did other popular machines of the day. In fact until recently most PCs took ages to boot, even with the enormous power of GHz speed multicore CPUs, oodles of RAM and fast hard drives. My PC takes about a minute to get to the desktop, plus another minute to activate the network - and that's with all kinds of tricks like conglomerating system files and caching icons etc.

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.

And regarding the statement that the C64 had no user interface? Are you jioking?

I didn't make that statement. Of course the C64 has a user interface, it would be impossible to use otherwise. But it's not a good one.

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 C64 has a slow unreliable tape drive that is not much fun to use. But the disk drive is even worse. So slow you often wonder if it is working at all, and it has a very unfriendly user interface with ridiculously arcane commands that you would never guess without reading the manual. Listing a disk directory wipes your program! How do you copy a disk with one drive on a stock C64? Answer: you can't!

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.

You're exaggerating, but I commiserate. Some operations require more disk swaps than they should.

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!).

ALso, afaik, the Amiga was initially designed as a games console, not a professional computer? And the Amiga 500 later was exactly that.

Actually it was designed to be both, and in the US (where it was designed) the A500 was used for both. If it hadn't been for its ability to be a real computer the A500 probably would have flopped like most consoles did. One reason is that even though it was primarily desired and used as a gaming machine, its more 'professional' abilities justified the price. What parent would spend thousands on a console for their children to just play games on? This was the same reason PCs were able to enter the home market in even greater numbers.

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?

You have a naive idea of how hard it is to develop a sophisticated OS. It took longer for Microsoft longer to develop Windows to a usable state, and they already had their own DOS. The A1000's WCS was actually a brilliant idea - it foreshadowed the current system of large flash ROMs used in many modern devices, including FPGAs which are ubiquitous now. It allowed users like myself to upgrade their 'ROM's at no cost, and also allowed us to patch the OS. It's one reason I bought an A1000 in 1987 when I could have had an A500 for less.

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.

Your criticism about disk swapping etc. is valid, but I don't think your 'solution' would have helped much. The real solution was (as you say) to get a hard drive - but this was not a viable option for a sub $1000 machine (and also the reason very few PCs had just one floppy and no hard drive!). Although the decision to optimize the Amiga for multiple drives wasn't ideal 'from the start' in the end it turned out to be a good one.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Ah, sure, so you have to design one yourself with some expert knowledge to get somethnig which is already integrated in other computers...what a great idea!

The idea with the startup-sequence is actually a great one, as it allows you to personalize the system. It's not "expert knowledge", the thing was documented. The 1.3 workbench I got did a lot of stuff for harddisk owners (way out of reach for me), but it did things right.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

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.

There is not really much of an Os. There is a Basic, which is outright unusable for most basic disk operating tasks.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

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.

You still don't understand that the Os is available. The Os does not come from disk.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Nice for you, but the one I got with my Amiga 500 kick 1.3 (WB 1.3.2 to be precise) took at least 1 minute to load.

I don't know how the startup-sequence looked like, but as said, it didn't take a minute here.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

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....

They did. Just that most users didn't have a problem with the boot time.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

I wrote '....not useable WITHOUT A DISK....', and every kid can confirm this.

Of course it is usable. You use it to boot your application. As simple as that.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

as a doorstop?
or as a dust catcher?

To play a game, to run an application... those came on disks, of course.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Ever tried to use the copy command on any other disk than the Workbench?

You don't understand how to copy files on the workbench, right? Just drag them into another folder. You don't need the "copy command" for that. The workbench does the copy.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Obviosuly not.

You obviously confuse the "CLI" copy command with the built-in file copy of the workbench.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

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.

Then you remember wrong. "DiskCopy" is external, but file copy is not. Never was.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

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.

And you still don't get it. The Os is available. It's actually drawing the boot picture.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Sorry, but you are again wrong here, you don't seem to know anything about the C64.
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.

Right, except that things like "load" and "save" are commands of the basic interpreter... without which, you cannot handle the disk drive. You confuse basic commands with an Os interface. BASIC is not an Os.



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.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Oh please, again...ready my words...NOT WIHOUT PREVIOUSLY HAVING LOADED FROM DISK !!!!
On the C64 I get all that right after turning on the computer!

You get a Basic, that's it. Not a Dos prompt, not a graphical user interface. If you wanted to load a game, you needed some arcane commands. That was a lot simpler on the Amiga.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

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

Right, it simply doesn't have "Os commands" at all. It has just a BASIC, some of whose commands interact with the floppy. AmigaBasic also has commands that interact with the disk, surprise. But that's not an Os. C64 t doesn't even have a command to list the directory. So instead of an Os prompt, I have to overwrite my basic program to list the contents of a disk. How smart is that? The Atari had at least a "DOS Menu" where you could do that.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Just a a lame excuse for a bad design, imho.
Had they ever heard of something like EPROMs?

And send the machines back to the merchant, to get the final version installed? Or let the users do it, risking to break it? The WOM was the simplest solution they could get ready in time, and once kickstart was finished, it shipped on ROM of course.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

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.

And I repeat that this is exactly the reverse. Instead of having to type some arcane commands to get an application loaded, you just insert the disk that came with the application. That was a lot simpler.

Originally Posted by Overdoc

Yeah, it was not a hard disk system, but a floppy disk system.
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....

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.

[grond]

@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.

[dreadnought]

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).

[Chucky]

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

[Overdoc]

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

No need for an ADF, just take a standard Workbench disk and edit the startup-sequence down to one line: - "Loadwb" (note: loading time may vary a bit depending on where the files are on the disk).

Ok, thanks, I will try that

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

If it took 30 seconds it wasn't 'minimal'.

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)

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

That's my beef too.

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.

I am not saying the Workbench was bad! I use it on my A-500 loading from ACA500+, and I use WB 2.1 on my A-600 and 3.1 on my A-1200.
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.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

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...).

Well, they maybe could have all avoided this if a basic Workbench would have been available right from the start of the computer.
Experts still could have loaded their extended, customized Workbenches from that point, or simply any other application, game, etc.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Not at all true. The vast majority of games and apps came on a bootable disk. This had the advantage that it was correctly set up to run straight away without the user having to do anything special. Early PC programs often did this too, but it soon became untenable due to the wide variety of configurations that had to be accommodated on the PC. This was another big selling point of the Amiga vs PCs, especially for games which were often a nightmare to get running on them even for advanced users.

Loading games and apps is not what I am talking about! This is no different than on a games console.
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.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Loading and saving files was done by the application, and copying/renaming files or formatting disks was easily done via Workbench. The problem was that many apps didn't create icons for their files, so you ended up with 'hidden' files that were difficult to manage. This was mostly the fault of developers who were stuck in the past and didn't embrace the Amiga's more user-friendly way of doing things.

Oh yeah, another very annoying thing on the Amiga....those stupid .info files for the icons, and the every needed 'show all' to see all files....

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

It's true that the original Amiga OS had some shortcomings (especially if you had KS1.1 like I did), but most of them were addressed with KS2.0 and above. I don't think many people were concerned about having to boot into Workbench though - sure it took a while, but so did other popular machines of the day. In fact until recently most PCs took ages to boot, even with the enormous power of GHz speed multicore CPUs, oodles of RAM and fast hard drives. My PC takes about a minute to get to the desktop, plus another minute to activate the network - and that's with all kinds of tricks like conglomerating system files and caching icons etc.

Yeah, you are completely right here, and I think this is one of the most annoying things on the PC, and the reason why Windows PCs are getting less popular while Android and iOS devices are getting more popular.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

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.

Yes, but IBM quickly noticed that their system was not useable from disk alone.
The PC was quickly exchanged for the XT, which had an intergated harddisk.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

The C64 has a slow unreliable tape drive that is not much fun to use. But the disk drive is even worse. So slow you often wonder if it is working at all, and it has a very unfriendly user interface with ridiculously arcane commands that you would never guess without reading the manual. Listing a disk directory wipes your program! How do you copy a disk with one drive on a stock C64? Answer: you can't!

I am not saying the C64 was a perfect system - not at all!!
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.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

You're exaggerating, but I commiserate. Some operations require more disk swaps than they should.

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.

I had no probem with diskcopy (I actually used X-Copy for that), but when I wanted to copy files over from one disk to another, list it's contents, etc.
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.....

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

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).

But then it should have been more a games console than a computer, imho.
If I buy a computer, I expect to have a user friendly interface, which was not available.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

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.

But the bigmouth guy here who cannot comprehend things a 3 year old can explained to me that 99% of the OS is already 'there' in the kickstart, and just needs actvation.
So I don't think it was a matter of costs. They could have easily integrated that missing 1% into the kickrom, not?

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

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!).

Yeah, that's what I also think, and could be the reason.
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.

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Actually it was designed to be both, and in the US (where it was designed) the A500 was used for both. If it hadn't been for its ability to be a real computer the A500 probably would have flopped like most consoles did. One reason is that even though it was primarily desired and used as a gaming machine, its more 'professional' abilities justified the price. What parent would spend thousands on a console for their children to just play games on? This was the same reason PCs were able to enter the home market in even greater numbers.

That sounds understandable to me, but they should have known that making something not flesh not fish is not so a good idea....
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....

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

You have a naive idea of how hard it is to develop a sophisticated OS. It took longer for Microsoft longer to develop Windows to a usable state, and they already had their own DOS. The A1000's WCS was actually a brilliant idea - it foreshadowed the current system of large flash ROMs used in many modern devices, including FPGAs which are ubiquitous now. It allowed users like myself to upgrade their 'ROM's at no cost, and also allowed us to patch the OS. It's one reason I bought an A1000 in 1987 when I could have had an A500 for less.

That might all be true, but again, ONLY for a harddisk system, NOT for a disk based one!

Originally Posted by Bruce Abbott

Your criticism about disk swapping etc. is valid, but I don't think your 'solution' would have helped much. The real solution was (as you say) to get a hard drive - but this was not a viable option for a sub $1000 machine (and also the reason very few PCs had just one floppy and no hard drive!). Although the decision to optimize the Amiga for multiple drives wasn't ideal 'from the start' in the end it turned out to be a good one.

Why shouldn't it have helped to start the Amiga with a GUI and the most basic commands?
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.

[Overdoc]

@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.