It was one of the first commercially available consumer operating systems for personal computers to implement preemptive multitasking.
Another notable feature was the combined use of both a command-line interface and graphical user interface. AmigaDOS was the disk operating system and command line portion of the OS and Workbench the native graphical windowing, icons, menu and pointer environment for file management and launching applications. Notably, AmigaDOS allowed long filenames up to characters with whitespace and did not require file extensions.
The windowing system and user interface engine which handles all input events is called Intuition. The multi-tasking kernel was called Exec. It acts as a scheduler for tasks running on the system, providing pre-emptive multitasking with prioritised round-robin scheduling. It enabled true pre-emptive multitasking in as little as kB of free memory. Like other operating systems of the time, the OS lacks memory protection.
This was because the CPU does not include a memory management unit and therefore there is no way to enforce protection of memory.
The problem was somewhat exacerbated by Commodore's initial decision to release documentation relating not only to the OS's underlying software routines, but also to the hardware itself, enabling intrepid programmers who cut their teeth on the Commodore 64 to POKE the hardware directly, as was done on the older platform.
While the decision to release the documentation was a popular one and allowed the creation of fast, sophisticated sound and graphics routines in games and demos, it also contributed to system instability as some programmers lacked the expertise to program at this level. For this reason, when the new AGA chipset was released, Commodore declined to release low-level documentation in an attempt to force developers into using the approved software routines.
AmigaOS directly or indirectly inspired the development of various operating systems. Among other unusual features of Amix is a hardware-accelerated windowing system which can scroll windows without copying data. Amix is not supported on the later Amiga systems based on or processors.
There is an official, older version of OpenBSD. The last Amiga release is 3. Minix 1. In the late s and early s the platform became particularly popular for gaming, demoscene activities and creative software uses. During this time commercial developers marketed a wide range of games and creative software, often developing titles simultaneously for the Atari ST due to the similar hardware architecture. Popular creative software included, 3D rendering ray-tracing packages, bitmap graphics editors , desktop video software, software development packages and " tracker " music editors.
Until the late s the Amiga remained a popular platform for non-commercial software, often developed by enthusiasts, and much of which was freely redistributable. An on-line archive, Aminet , was created in and until around was the largest public archive of software, art and documents for any platform. The name Amiga was chosen by the developers from the Spanish word for a female friend, and because they knew Spanish, [ 64 ] and because it occurred before Apple and Atari alphabetically.
It also conveyed the message that the Amiga computer line was "user friendly" as a pun or play on words. The first official Amiga logo was a rainbow-colored double checkmark. In later marketing material Commodore largely dropped the checkmark and used logos styled with various typefaces. Though it was never adopted as a trademark by Commodore, the "Boing Ball" has been synonymous with Amiga since its launch.
It became an unofficial and enduring theme after a visually impressive animated demonstration at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show in January showing a checkered ball bouncing and rotating.
Following Escom's purchase of Commodore in , the Boing Ball theme was incorporated into a new logo. Early Commodore advertisements attempted to cast the computer as an all-purpose business machine, though the Amiga was most commercially successful as a home computer.
Since the demise of Commodore, various groups have marketed successors to the original Amiga line:. After Commodore went bankrupt in , there remained a very active Amiga community, which continued to support the platform long after mainstream commercial vendors abandoned it. The most popular Amiga magazine, Amiga Format , continued to publish editions until , some six years after Commodore filed for bankruptcy. Another magazine, Amiga Active , was launched in and was published until Several magazines are in publication today, notably Amiga Future , [ 68 ] which is available in both English and German; Bitplane.
In spite of declining interest in the platform there was a bi-weekly specialist column in the UK weekly magazine Micro Mart. There is also a web site, [ 71 ] that has served as a community discussion and support resource since the bankruptcy.
Other popular English-language fora also exist, particularly amiga. The Amiga series of computers found a place in early computer graphic design and television presentation.
Below are some examples of notable uses and users:. In addition, many other celebrities and notable individuals have made use of the Amiga: [ 78 ]. Chat WhatsApp. Today, it's obvious the Amiga was the first multimedia computer, but in those days it was derided as a game machine because few people grasped the importance of advanced graphics, sound, and video.
Nine years later, vendors are still struggling to make systems that work like Amigas. Main article: AmigaOS 4. Main article: AmigaOS. The biggest difference is that the AmigaOS could operate fully and multitask in as little as K of address space. Dvorak , PC Magazine , October Main article: Amiga software. Ars Technica. Archived from the original on April 21, Retrieved April 21, Retrieved Amiga History Guide.
Amiga Forever. Amiga Hardware Reference Manual. Amiga Technical Reference Series Third ed. ISBN Archived from the original on July 12, Retrieved July 17, Archived from the original on May 12, Retrieved May 23, Gareth Knight. Retrieved January 31, There's no real OS here, just a library of routines, including a 3D package, which would probably be licensed. The Amiga OS was not to have run on this system in any form.
Amiga Hardware Database. December 12, Retrieved September 29, Retrieved May 20, Feb 13, Retrieved June 24, Polski Portal Amigowy. April 28, Retrieved June 15, Retrieved 7 10 Amiga Intuition Reference Manual.
Amiga Technical Reference Series. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.. ISSN Retrieved December 30, Archived from the original on May 11, Amiga Network News. Retrieved November 21, July 28, August 12, October 24, April 23, Old Rare Games request.
Demos request. Apps request. Modules request. Music request. Other Looking for a game name? Games images which need to be WHDified abime. Amiga Lore project. EAB project. IRC project. Mods Jukebox project. Wiki abime. APoV project. ClassicWB project. Maptapper project. Sprites project. Amiga Demo DVD project. Amiga Game Factory project. CARE project. Amiga File Server project. CD32 Conversion project. Feedback and Suggestions GCA. Work in Progress GCA. Cover Requests GCA. Usefull Programs GCA.
Helpdesk project. KGLoad project. MAGE project. Missing Full Shareware Games project. TOSEC amiga only project. WHDLoad project. Even without exposure to a magnet, the data on floppy disks will de-magnetise over time - a phenomenon called 'bit rot'.
The truth is that no one knows for sure how long floppy disks can actually last. Variations of temperature and humidity can affect the adhesives that glue the magnetic particles to the disk itself, and you can get oxidisation - there's a lot that can go wrong! The simple truth is that these media weren't designed with the kind of longevity we're now expecting in mind - certainly it wasn't anticipated that they'd need to last 30 years or more But if it was banned to the attic, with hot summers and cold winters, chances are the coating has already been damaged.
High humidity might have caused mould. Our recommendation is: get the data off these floppies sooner than later. Amiga disks are decaying, and with every year that passes, originals are getting more difficult to find. It's getting more expensive, too, with eBay prices skyrocketing. And the sad fact is that very few seem to care little about preserving old games for future generations.
But with games it's not. The preservation of Amiga games is therefore down to a scattered group of amateurs. But if they're able to find original Amiga disks in good working order, what do they do with them next? It turns out that the groups I spoke to have quite varied approaches when it comes to game preservation. For Bartsch at the SPS, it's all about obtaining the original data in the best possible condition. Also, the original high scores, which programmers often filled with the names of team members, might be changed on a crack.
It's like wanting to see the Mona Lisa, but then just looking at some defaced print. Find a climate controlled room with low oxygen levels and controlled humidity, make sure the book is free of mould, check acidity, etc.
You might even scan it or photograph it. For software it's completely different. Just imagine this very book suddenly is encrypted and can only be decrypted if you know how to decrypt it. And then add the challenge that the decoding will break if there's only a single character that is unreadable.
Plus it's degrading very quickly. Bartsch and his colleagues focus on creating perfect digital clones of floppy disks, then save them as image files for long-term storage. But because original Amiga hardware is also degrading, they developed a modern software tool called KryoFlux to help pull the data off old floppies, a tool that has been picked up by many others in the community.
The society's emphasis is on preserving the original data exactly - data protection and all. We can guarantee integrity and authenticity, something that's very important, but only implemented by few. But there's one problem: members of the public can't play the Amiga games stored by the SPS.
Most of the companies are long gone, but usually there is someone who still owns the IP. Until politics decides what to do with so-called abandoned or orphaned works, we can't do much with it. Whoever dumps a rare game and sends it to us will of course get the analysed file in return. Although it's technically illegal, many contributors simply upload the image files to the internet.
In fact, what the SPS is doing could also be considered problematic, explains Barsch: "In most parts of Europe the only thing games museums or archives are allowed to do is put up the media on their shelf and let it rot.
Even the pure transfer of the data off the disk and into an image file might be regarded as piracy.
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