Why should I use Amiga?

[anon123]

I am a hobby programmer with experience in Linux. I'm interested in alternative O/S's and Amiga caught my eye. I figure if the user-base is so dedicated, there must be something to it. From both a user and developer point of view, what makes Amiga (modern, MorphOS, AROS, OS4 etc.) so good?

[RRunner]

Back in the day... it was by far the most advanced system available for home computing. Of course today it can't hold a candle to any "modern" systems. That being said, there are still a few things that keep me coming back to my old Amiga from time to time; nostalgia, blazing fast OS (boots in seconds), very simple and straight forward system with an intuitively obvious GUI.

[K7HTH]

What RRunner said!

[Matt_H]

For me, the Amiga has an extremely logical system layout. Everything is where you would expect it to be. Hardware drivers in the Devs directory, shell commands in the C directory, shared libraries in the Libs directory, etc.

What I like best about it is that you can use it as a high-level user-friendly system and still be able to get beneath the surface very easily to not only diagnose problems, but just to learn how the system works.

You may want to consider buying the Amiga Forever emulation environment and a Developer's CD (v2.1) to learn more.

[anon123]

I was considering AROS, what would you recommend I use? How does the Amiga forever thing compare (I perfer Free (as in freedom))?

From a programmers perspective, how is Amiga? Is the API clean? easy to use? powerful?

[amigean]

I'm sorry I canot answer any of your programming related questions, I am not a developer...

I'd say go for AROS, but then again, I'm a bit biased ;-)

Seriously though, AROS has a future, running natively in modern hardware - this cannot be said for any other amigoid OS

[justthatgood]

I would say do it because you want to do that.

[Ami_GFX]

It's zen like simplicity compared to over bloated monsters like Windoze Xp and Vista. The fact that everything works like it's supposed to and it doesn't come with a lot of useless junk that takes forever to load. It is extremely light on system resources and leaves most of your memory and hardisk and CPU cycles to you to do what you want with them.

Amiga DOS is like a stripped down Unix derivitive that is elegant and functional and has a lot of power. The Workbench GUI is a little eccentric but once you get use to it, it really rocks and has a real creative edge and it never gets in the way of things like Windoze does.

The only OS that I can compare it to is OS2 which came from the opposite extreme--IBM, Big Blue--of computer culture but had a lot in common with it including the Rexx language and the stability and reliability factor--reliable enough for the banking industry. The Amiga OS was reliable enough for the Broadcast Television industry.

[anon123]

What about Linux?

I'm used to doing A LOT of work in a CLI, does Amiga have a powerful CLI (better than the Windoze CLI, with support for pipe's and stuff like that)?

What does Amiga have that Unix doesnt?

Is there a central repo or directory of some sort for Amiga software?

Are there ports of my favorite programs, Emacs, Epic4, Lynx?

I saw some screenshots of Amiga's new skin's and up-and-coming icons... it looks AMAZING!

http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nova/arosshow/damir_int1.jpg
http://arosshow.blogspot.com/2007/04/damir-d980-sijakovic-interview-hello.html

[countzero]

anon123 wrote:
Is there a central repo or directory of some sort for Amiga software?

Yes, there is. Check Aminet.

What about Linux?

I'm used to doing A LOT of work in a CLI, does Amiga have a powerful CLI (better than the Windoze CLI, with support for pipe's and stuff like that)?

AFAIK, classic amiga shell doesn't have those, but probably you can find a shell replacement from aminet.

Btw, you can run linux on your amiga too, if you have 68030+ CPU

[Ami_GFX]

What about Linux?

I'm used to doing A LOT of work in a CLI, does Amiga have a powerful CLI (better than the Windoze CLI, with support for pipe's and stuff like that)?

The Amiga CLI is a lot better than Windoze but a lot less elaborate than Unix. Unlike Windoze, it is very bug free and things work the way you expect them to work.

Are there ports of my favorite programs, Emacs, Epic4, Lynx?

Emacs is included in Amiga OS under the name Memacs. I use it all the time. I work mostly with Classic Amigas. The newer versions of Amiga OS come with a more sophisticated GUI text editor but Memacs definitly does the job

[Ami_GFX]

What does Amiga have that Unix doesnt?

Unix is a multitasking OS designed for a multiuser environment. Amiga OS is a multitasking OS designed for a single user. The Amiga is a graphics orientated system and even though it has a good CLI, it's strength is the way it deals with graphics--especailly moving graphics. There is very good application interoperabilty via the Arexx language and you can have several applications loaded in memory passing data--usally graphics data--to each other for processing.

 

[Matt_H]

anon123 wrote:
I was considering AROS, what would you recommend I use? How does the Amiga forever thing compare (I perfer Free (as in freedom))?

From a programmers perspective, how is Amiga? Is the API clean? easy to use? powerful?

If it's free as in freedom you like, then its AROS you'll want to look into. While advanced over the non-opensource Amiga OSes in some respects, it's lacking in others. OS3.x and MorphOS are probably the most mature, meaning you can jump right in and start doing cool things, rather than worrying about a core system layer not being there.

I'm not a programmer, though I've tried to get into it several times. The Amiga API is extremely straightforward and everything is documented in things called 'autodocs'. They're little text files that give you an overview of all the commands and code templates for using shared libraries, includes, and devices.

A semi-famous sound sample from CanDo, a multimedia package from years ago, featured a person saying, "Programming the Amiga is like taking a vacation!"

Though its possible to do quick and dirty ports of Unix-type CLI tools, many such recompiles don't take advantage of the Amiga's unique features such as a GUI, interprocess communication, and centralized configuration data.

The core of Amiga programming is found in the ROM Kernel Reference Manuals, commonly abbreviated as the RKRMs or RKMs. They're a rather old (1991 is the last revision), but that was when the core API that's still with us today was codified. Digital copies of the RKMs and the autodocs for core system components are on the Developer's CD I mentioned earlier. There's really a lot of useful and historical material on there - you should really consider getting it. Software Hut, Vesalia, or AmigaKit can probably sell you one for a fair price.

EDIT: AmiDevCPP is a cross-compilation suite you may find useful as well

[Elwood]

The current AmigaOS version (OS4) is still free as in freedom :-) (i.e. not free as free of charge)

If you want to know more about it, read here

[Piru]

@anon123

Compared to linux, there isn't much where amiga-like systems are "better" at. MUI is quite nice GUI system. Other than that, lack of memory protection, lack of resorce tracking, missing POSIX, missing java, missing flash, missing development tools etc make them such a bit (in comparison).

Well, if you're curious about the miggy programming, give WinUAE (or E-UAE) a try. For NDK, see NDK3.9.lzx (unlzx.c).  For development environment, there's GeekGadgets (which has many GNU tools, including gcc, make et all): GeekGadgets repo. If you get serious about it, Amiga Developer CD 2.1 is a must (it contains tons of documentation and tools).

Don't get me wrong, amiga programming can be a lot of fun, but it doesn't even come close if you compare it to any serious platforms.

PS. I'm just trying to give somewhat more realistic reply here.