Amiga:

The Amiga computer is a unique system, at the time having many bragging rites over other systems. Its use of a graphics display list processor for handling the details of much of the output, and some of the input, reduced the load on the CPU significantly. A preemptive multitasking MicroKerel operating system with very fast message passing blew any other multitasker of the time out of the water. A GUI that was always responsive no matter what the program was doing (because it sent GUI events through signals, effectively keeping that seperate from the main program). All of these things togather attracted a significant amount of Hacking and flinging free software at very high quality.

I got my first Amiga at the same time as my first Atari ST, both were birthday gifts from differnt family members for my 8th birthday. Later I ended up with a second hand Amiga 3000 around 1995, the 3000 came with an Apple IIgs that got me into another type of system at the same time.

Further the Amiga has an interesting time advantage. We all know the y2k issue, the 2038 Unix date issue, the 2020 Macintosh clock set issue, the 2040 Macintosh issue, and other similar date based problems. The date in Amiga OS is stored as a 32-bit days value, and thus will not overflow for over 11.7 million years (that is a long time from now).

NOTE: I am going to be giving a try at running Amibian with Amiga OS 3.1 on my Raspberry Pi 1B+, depending on the results this may end up being my main system hereafter. Though I will be adding AROS ARMhf Linux to the Amibian Linux system to do more modern stuff as needed.

• Amiga OS : A quick overview of the Amiga OS.
• Exec : Looking closer into the Exec Microkernel.
• Intuition : The unique super Window Manager of the Amiga.
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• Agnus : Blitter and Copper useful for many things
• Alice : Better faster memory access for the custom chips, AGA.
• Denise : Bitplane graphics at nearly there best
• Lisa : AGA Bitplane Graphics, more colorful and bigger hardware sprites.
• Paula : Four Channel Sound and Music in 8-bit PCM.
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• ED : An extremely good text editor that comes with all versions of the Amiga OS, and some clones (missing from AROS).
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• Programming : A little touch about programming.
• 68K Assembly on the Amiga : The easiest Assembly Language around, on the best computers around.
• AmigaBASIC and ACE : A good Structured BASIC, using ACE compiled. One of the easiest programming languages for playing around on the Amiga.
• C on the Amiga : The defacto high level programming language for writing software for the Amiga.
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• Pixel by Pixel : Pixel Painting on the Amiga.
• Raytracing : An area that the Amiga brought to the masses.
• Moving in Time : Animation with the Amiga.
• Emulating other 68K systems on the Amiga : A bit of a different way around things, virtualisation has been around since the 68010.
• Toys : Fun toy programs of all kinds are fun to have on any computer.
• Other Useful Software : What it says.
• Games, Games, Games : Every system needs its games, here is some fun on the Amiga.

Every Amiga I have owned has been either OCS or ECS, so that is what I focus on in hardware. While later versions of Amiga OS have many advantages, they also lack some of what Amiga OS 1.3 had going for it. I use Amiga OS 3.1 (3.5 does not like the 3000 very well), and I enjoy that system, though I also still use Amiga OS 1.3. Amiga OS 2.1 was very effectively replaced by 3.1 very completely, so no need of that OS.

Today I do emulate AGA Amiga systems, and purchased a copy of Amiga Forever back shortly after it came available with all ROMs, so that I have the license for the ROMs of the Amigas that I had not physically owned.

For things related to Amiga OS 1.3 I have a seperate page on this site. And another relating to AROS.

Using AGA Amiga systems is about getting stuff done well in a familiar system, it is not so much about nostalgia. Of course the others are useful as well for real work (and I still do some in Amiga 1000 emulation with Amiga OS 1.3), though for real high end multi purpose stuff the AGA is the way to go.

Amiga OS has continued on into modern times. I am looking forward to one day being able to afford a Vampire Standalone Apollo 68080 system, and retrofiting it with an Amiga Kickstart 3.2 ROM and Amiga OS 3.2. This would be my ultimate Amiga Desktop computer (at least for the time being).

On modern non-Amiga computers I now run AROS. Yes AROS is an ELF OS, and thus antithis for our Amiga Computing. That said it is as close as we can get native on computers that do not have a 680x0 or PowerPC CPU in most cases.