Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: runequester on April 04, 2011, 03:34:29 AM
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Was thinking about this the other day, while talking to a friend of mine.
What parts of the amiga OS were good ideas that hold up today?
Some things that came to mind (big and small):
Generally being able to replace and swap out parts of the system (allowing for things like Dopus and the various workbench replacement stuff)
Being able to run efficiently on very limited hardware
Using plain terms for as much as possible of the system commands, folders etc
Extremely well documented software and hardware
Applications being able to interact with each other through arexx (well, more or less)
Multiview :)
Always thought tooltypes and datatypes were good ideas. Im sure there's drawbacks as well but that could be more specific implementation than anything else.
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The most unique feature of Amigaos that i can think of that noone else has got is screen dragging :)
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The most unique feature of Amigaos that noone else has got is screen dragging :)
Screen dragging is pretty rad. I didn't add it since the functionality (multiple screens) is commonplace in linux.
It would be nice to be able to drag them though. As far as I understand it, only AROS really supports it from the "NG" options.
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Yeah, somehow the rotating cube screens on linux just isn't the same. It's not useful in any way apart from eyecandy whereas screen dragging is a useful tool.
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Yeah, somehow the rotating cube screens on linux just isn't the same. It's not useful in any way apart from eyecandy whereas screen dragging is a useful tool.
Yeah,thats what I was trying to say, but kinda bungled it :)
The functionality of having multiple screens is there (desktops/workspaces) and super handy. But being able to work on two of them at the same time would be a nice plus, in terms of actual functionality.
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For me, the whole "intuition" programming API was incredible...
Even someone like me was able to write Screened and Windowed based programs that interacted with the OS in a fairly uniform way...
And, once I realized what well structured programming was truly like, it made me realize that, as a programmer, I would be a great SysAdmin!
;-) (OK, that's not quite how it happened, but basically.. ;-)
What I really loved was the "balance" that it provided...
There was the "ease of use" of the GUI and the power of the CLI.
The ST and the Mac both had GUIs.
DOS had power and configuration.. (I still prefer INI files to registry entries or (God Forbid) XML config files..)
But the Amiga proved that you could provide both and make almost every user happy.
You could get your Amiga and something like CLIMate or DirOpus and never touch the CLI. (WB 2 and 3, you probably didn't "need" the file managers either.)
Or you could live in the CLI.
Or you could hover around both... (My personal favorite..)
And anywhere in between...
I think that's why I was much happier in the Windows world (even tho I had/have my issues) than the Mac world after the Amiga. Yes, I honestly think the Mac GUI was a much better GUI (especially early on), but I just feel like I need the command line on a computer to be happy with it...
Amiga was the first desktop machine (not counting some of the Unix variants or other lesser known offshoots.. I did use GEM on a PC WAY back too ;-) to get that "right" in my opinion..
And add in something like ARexx to make it easy for programs to interact with each other without having to write that interaction into your programs from the start...
(Meaning you didn't write your Word Processor to interact with your Spreadsheet. You just made sure it was ARexx friendly so to speak and all programs, including yours, could benefit..)
It was just such an OPEN (in the interactive sense, not the sourcecode sense) feeling...
When I got back into the Amiga recently, I was just amazed how incredibly good WB 3.x really is, even compared to OSes nowadays..
Honestly, if my Amiga supported a current browser with Flash (I know, not going to happen with 68k, but this is "IF" world), I could use it today and still be happy...
Just how the OS works, it still does what I need an OS to do mostly the way I want.
OH YEAH!! The RAM disk!!! LOVE the RAM disk!!! :-)
desiv
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RAM disk is awesome, I forgot about that.
And yeah, a balance between GUI and CLI is nice too. You can pretty much swing it either way, or mix and match.
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The simple fact that it has an OS that you can run & operate in 2MB of ram and still allow you to do almost anything on it... :)
Why one earth does this iMac I use need over 200,000 files just to have an OS on it and even with 2.5GB of RAM it still has to use the HD as virtual RAM... :(
That's what I don't get about todays OS's and so called umpteen GHZ processors what kind of rubbish are they that need all that RAM and thousands of files just to boot up in the first place ???... :(
Myself I reckon it's down to the folk who write or wrote these OS systems not having any talent to be able to actually code something as efficient as Kickstart & Workbench... :)
Reckon they should have looked at the Amiga first before writing such bloated rubbish and then maybe one day they'll have a system that is worthy of my attention... :)
Until then I'll live quite happily with me old antiquated but truly efficient Amigas... :)
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well, in the PC world, the assumption has pretty much always been that people will upgrade when new software comes out.
THe old ideals are still out there (coding for portable devices f.x. or things like Damn Small Linux (50 megs, including web browser and word processor, and can run entirely in RAM) but mostly throwing hardware at the problem became the accepted way to go
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Are there any OSs that make use of a depth gadget, which allow the active window to stay at whatever depth the user left it at?
What about the snapshot ability? I'm kinda getting tired of OSs wrongly guessing where I want my windows to be when they open.
Never knew how much I'd miss those two features, but sadly I really do.
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The Amiga's lack of "Autorise" (where a window will move to the front when it becomes active) was probably the thing I missed most moving to the PC. If you hold down the left apple key on a Mac you can force the window to stay at its current depth while dragging... But it's not the same ;)
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Desiv summed a lot of it up. For myself:
Datatypes: allowing old software and the OS to use the latest formats, great idea.
Public screens: A bit like linux workspaces.
Fast multitasking: I know it has it's faults, but it works very well for me
RAD and RAM
well organised: Everything has it's place, and you can explain to a layman how the OS is organised in 5 minutes. Unlike the mess a windows folder is as soon as you install windows.
Fits a lot on screen: seems higher resolution than it is.
DosDrivers: A great way of adding new filesystems, again, easy to understand.
startup-sequence: I know it's not drag and drop, but it's easier to understand than the registry.
WBstartup: no hunting around for what the hell is bogging your comp down on startup. Check WBstarup and S: and your done.
Low resources: Does not need two gig to get out of bed in the morning
Fast boot time: each PC I get boots slower than the last, despite being much faster ( I guess HDD speeds have not kept pace with data needs?)
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I like win 7 BUT my main problem with it is that it only remember the last screen location and size.. (at least XP you could taylor different folders to load in different areas providing of course you made short cut for them on the desktop and set them up from there..
One feature i like and use is the leave out option...
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leave out is another nifty one
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Yep, forgot that one.
AREXX is pretty cool as well.
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The most unique feature of Amigaos that i can think of that noone else has got is screen dragging :)
The multi-resolution screen dragging is unique, but not very useful on modern monitors. Single-resolution screen dragging exists for Linux using Enlightenment as the window manager.
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The Amiga's lack of "Autorise" (where a window will move to the front when it becomes active) was probably the thing I missed most moving to the PC. If you hold down the left apple key on a Mac you can force the window to stay at its current depth while dragging... But it's not the same ;)
You mean someone actually likes this? I thought everyone hated it! Why do you like it?
I read a review by someone trying out AOS4.x and he kept complaining about it and then he said that Hyperion made it so you could turn it off if you want to.
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Are there any OSs that make use of a depth gadget, which allow the active window to stay at whatever depth the user left it at?
There's tons of window managers for X (Linux etc.) that supports it if you want to enable it. I'm not sure many of the newer ones do, though.
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The multi-resolution screen dragging is unique, but not very useful on modern monitors. Single-resolution screen dragging exists for Linux using Enlightenment as the window manager.
Why isn't it useful or modern monitors? What's the difference apart from the larger screen sizes today? :confused:
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Desiv summed a lot of it up. For myself:
Datatypes: allowing old software and the OS to use the latest formats, great idea.
This is one I'm still astounded nobody seems to try to copy.
Fits a lot on screen: seems higher resolution than it is.
This is a big deal for me on my laptop. Configuring a Linux system to use equally little space for folders is possible, but it takes a lot of work and "unusual" settings. E.g. I had to install a separate program to get Nautilus - the Gnome file manager - to use a global menu instead of littering every folder window with a menu bar, since it doesn't have an option to turn the menu bar off. And by default it opens with a side bar, location bar, status bar, menu bar *per* folder/drawer. Then you need to pick a different window theme, and a bunch of other things.
On the upside, I now have a Linux desktop with sort-of halfway Workbench functionality + Ken's icons.
DosDrivers: A great way of adding new filesystems, again, easy to understand.
Linux and OS X has FUSE which gives pretty much the same thing, but it was a very long time coming.
WBstartup: no hunting around for what the hell is bogging your comp down on startup. Check WBstarup and S: and your done.
Most other OS's have a similar solution these days...
Apart from datatypes and AREXX, one of my favourites is assigns. You can halfway copy the concept with symlinks on Linux (but not multi-assigns), and could clone it fully with FUSE (implement a filesystem for assigns), but it's not the same. And special assigns like PROGDIR: as well makes a big difference.
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Desiv summed a lot of it up. For myself:
Datatypes: allowing old software and the OS to use the latest formats, great idea.
This is one I'm still astounded nobody seems to try to copy.
Fits a lot on screen: seems higher resolution than it is.
This is a big deal for me on my laptop. Configuring a Linux system to use equally little space for folders is possible, but it takes a lot of work and "unusual" settings. E.g. I had to install a separate program to get Nautilus - the Gnome file manager - to use a global menu instead of littering every folder window with a menu bar, since it doesn't have an option to turn the menu bar off. And by default it opens with a side bar, location bar, status bar, menu bar *per* folder/drawer. Then you need to pick a different window theme, and a bunch of other things.
On the upside, I now have a Linux desktop with sort-of halfway Workbench functionality + Ken's icons.
DosDrivers: A great way of adding new filesystems, again, easy to understand.
Linux and OS X has FUSE (no idea if FUSE has been ported to Windows too) which gives pretty much the same thing, but it was a very long time coming.
Anyway...
Apart from datatypes and AREXX, one of my favourites is assigns. You can halfway copy the concept with symlinks on Linux (but not multi-assigns), and could clone it fully with FUSE (implement a filesystem for assigns), but it's not the same. And special assigns like PROGDIR: as well makes a big difference.
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You mean someone actually likes this? I thought everyone hated it! Why do you like it?
If you run with lots of windows open and want to be able to see what goes on in one window while typing something into another one, not having click-to-front is massively helpful.
Being able to easily get the window to front is useful, but so is being able to easily avoid it going to front when activating.
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Why isn't it useful or modern monitors? What's the difference apart from the larger screen sizes today? :confused:
Because most modern monitors *can't* switch resolutions on the same frame (many CRT monitors can take *seconds* to resync), and for LCD/LED screens it makes no sense at all since they have a single native resolution and everything else is just scaled.
The benefit in having it originally was that it saved a lot of memory to be able to run at low resolutions in cases where it made sense. These days mainstream OS's run on hardware that can rarely support less than 8GB and rarely come with less than 2GB memory, and some x86 hardware supports hundreds of GB (was looking at motherboards the other day that supports 512GB, though that's not exactly for a common desktop system...). In that situation most people aren't interested in running at lower resolutions than what their screens can handle in any case.
To do it on a modern system you'd end up mapping the different resolution screens to textures on a graphics cards and scaling them using the 3d engine in the graphics card because of the lack of monitor support, so it's not a memory or resource saving method any more. So people don't really care about the multi-resolution variation much any more.
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You mean someone actually likes this? I thought everyone hated it! Why do you like it?
I read a review by someone trying out AOS4.x and he kept complaining about it and then he said that Hyperion made it so you could turn it off if you want to.
Yup, I hate autorise. Windows should stay at whatever depth I put them at... Unless I double click... Hence I always run the "ClickToFront double" option :)
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Screen dragging is pretty rad. I didn't add it since the functionality (multiple screens) is commonplace in linux.
It would be nice to be able to drag them though. As far as I understand it, only AROS really supports it from the "NG" options.
OS 4 supports screen dragging too, has for years.
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Being able to run completely without any filesystem available without panicking, and being able to swap different filesystems in and out of devices in a sane matter, informing the user in a friendly way what it needs. And assigns of course.
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Loading files based on actual content not some rubbish 3 letter extension or whatever. A program should know a JPEG file is a JPEG file from the header information inside the file not because it is labelled .JPG
Also a kernal that fits in a few kilobytes NOT megabytes and gigabytes of memory for a real OS not this Windows bloatware crap.
AMIGA = 100mph Go-Kart......Windows 7 = 150mph Articulated Lorry. Sure it's faster but handles like crap :)
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ah yeah, assigns.
This kind of also goes back to simple commands. It took seconds to memorize how to do an assign command in amigados. On linux, symlinks can do it to, but the command is mostly gibberish, and I have to look it up.
No idea how to do it in windows, so I dont know if its easier or not.
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Because most modern monitors *can't* switch resolutions on the same frame (many CRT monitors can take *seconds* to resync), and for LCD/LED screens it makes no sense at all since they have a single native resolution and everything else is just scaled.
No monitors can switch resolutions on the same frame.
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While I sure like the features listed in this thread, I understood the question in a differnt way.
My lessons ´d be:
1) A friendly and helpful team can produce great work. You don´t have to be elitist to win.
2) If you have a lot of cool public domain software, you will grow your user base.
3) A single man can write a better programm than a huge company.
4) Most business computers and software is a complete waste of money.
5) A killer game machine is really a killer machine for almost every task.
6) look at the low end to decide where to place your defaults.
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AMIGA = 100mph Go-Kart......Windows 7 = 150mph Articulated Lorry. Sure it's faster but handles like crap :)
+1
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DOS had power and configuration.. (I still prefer INI files to registry entries or (God Forbid) XML config files..)
Urgh, I thoroughly hate INI files. XML config files should be the way but I agree it would be a pain to edit them. A good intuitive ascii xml editor available in CLI (AmigaOS/Windows/Linux) would be nice. An editor that can prevent unnecessary typos (in an int field not being able to type in non-decimals, for instance). INI files are just so 70s you know... ;)
But the Amiga proved that you could provide both and make almost every user happy.
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OH YEAH!! The RAM disk!!! LOVE the RAM disk!!! :-)
Amen to that!
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What about the snapshot ability? I'm kinda getting tired of OSs wrongly guessing where I want my windows to be when they open.
No program whatsoever should guess. I regard it as a design failure.
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Philosophically speaking, it showed me that if you're counting the length of the college cafeteria using a tape measure, while everybody else is using a celery as a measuring stick, sooner or later, you'll have come down to a single celery stick too. And they'll cut it in half if you're going too fast.
But really, in 1989, that's how it felt when you had an Amiga at home and were forced to work on some sort of IBM compatible at school.
Windows is good enough for me nowadays, but the Amiga tought me to look over the cube wall so-to-speak.
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A GUI that always immediately reacts to it's user. On an Amiga any time you clicked something you immediately got a visual indication of the click, icon image change, button change, etc... The GUI even changed if the task was going to take a while to operate.
With a certain PC OS, half the time you click and see nothing change so you click again only to then get two of whatever you opened.
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No monitors can switch resolutions on the same frame.
That's a brave claim to make on an Amiga forum.
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While I sure like the features listed in this thread, I understood the question in a differnt way.
1) A friendly and helpful team can produce great work. You don´t have to be elitist to win.
2) If you have a lot of cool public domain software, you will grow your user base.
3) A single man can write a better programm than a huge company.
4) Most business computers and software is a complete waste of money.
5) A killer game machine is really a killer machine for almost every task.
6) look at the low end to decide where to place your defaults.
Ilike your interpretation. 3 and 5 especially.
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Urgh, I thoroughly hate INI files. XML config files should be the way
Yes, of course something like this:
/path/to/*Test.php files
/path/to/MyTest.php
Is much better than 1 line in a file that says:
testsuite=/path/to/Test.php
Not to mention the extra K's of code needed to parse that..
:griping: :griping: :roflmao:
I prefer simple (it suits me.. ;-) and tighter code when possible.
I REALLY hate XML log files!!!! (Yes, I'm looking at you OpenFire!!)
I can no longer just "grep" for something, I need an XML parser!!!
(No, the above emotion is NOT an XML statement!!!)
desiv
And I totally agree about "assign".. Man that's slick!! Even better than "ln". Not sure why no one has stolen that yet..
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XML is fine when it is used for what it was intended, defining document/data structures and relatively simple data interchange. Unfortunately, a generation of developers who grew up after anybody still knew what a CPU was, let alone how to design/write efficient code of any sort have embraced it as the answer to every class of data storage / parsing problem.
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I've always wished for the whole ENV: & ENVARC: thing in Windows / Linux.
It's nice to test changes in a temporary fashion without commiting them to the registry or home folder. A quick reboot and the size 30 Opal as your main font making your windows too big to change back was gone. I know in modern OSs you wouldn't want to reboot after every minor change but a simple "reset to stored settings" option would be nice.
I also liked how you could back up all of your settings just by copying the envarc folder to a different location and imporrt them back after a reinstall.
The Linux way is better that the horror that is the Windows registry but I think it's messy having loads of .blah folders in your home directory that can quickly fill any selection dialogue windows you have open.
The general structure of the OS was easy to learn and understand too. C: Libs: etc etc all made good sense and are far less confusing that Windows or Linux.
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A million small things, but the main ones
- An OS designed around sharing structures. That can clash violently with modern safety and stability standards. The only ones looking into it today are the SASOS crowd.
- Libraries done right (at least in the Exec setting). Not being dependent on a specific version or placement as long as it is available and the version is high enough.
- Datatypes. The implementation might not support streaming and similar, but the idea is so right. In Linux land there is not really anybody who can declare that a component so high up in the stack is a standard component.
- Media naming&handling. Not having the physical unit, but the media mounted as your action target. Doesn't make as much difference today when you move less media around.
- Handlers. Ties in with previous point, but makes for programmable media interfaces. Like the text editor that exports the open files and lets your compiler load the file straight from memory. They missed the boat on not making and defining STDIN: STDOUT: and STDERR: though.
And then there is the reverse lessons about what not to do
- Make clear what it does not and can not do. All the safety and stability issues you have for multiuser, bulletproof, nonhackable has been known since the 60s. So either make room for _everything_ or declare where the end of the road is before you start.
- Printing needs a strategy. Preferably a good one.
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Yes, of course something like this:
/path/to/*Test.php files
/path/to/MyTest.php
Is much better than 1 line in a file that says:
testsuite=/path/to/Test.php
Not to mention the extra K's of code needed to parse that..
:griping: :griping: :roflmao:
I prefer simple (it suits me.. ;-) and tighter code when possible.
Fact is, if things get a bit more complicated, which it more often than not does, maintaining .ini files will become a pain, especially when you made a typo.
I've lost many hours in vain finding some silly typos in linux configuration files. :S
My point was more in the direction of instead of a text editor, using a dedicated configuration editor which makes input easier and let you edit values and metadata seperately as human.
(and a generally available parser as library on the software side)
And considering XML being too resource-hungry, well, it's true. And that's the reason why I actually use JSON, so think JSON instead of XML then for the heck of it.
XML is what everyone knows and understands.
I didn't mention performance issues with XML either because configurations are being read only once during application startup and generally aren't that big to notice the performance hit even on an Amiga 500.
Btw., log files in XML are a VERY bad idea indeed as extensive logging actually CAN slow your application considerably, and make unnecessary big files.
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The Linux way is better that the horror that is the Windows registry but I think it's messy having loads of .blah folders in your home directory that can quickly fill any selection dialogue windows you have open.
Linux is (slowly) moving towards a single directory (per user) with config data too, with the XDG Base Directory spec. Tons of apps still don't support it, though, and many probably never will because the dot-file in home-directory approach is so entrenched.
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Yes, of course something like this:
/path/to/*Test.php files
/path/to/MyTest.php
Is much better than 1 line in a file that says:
testsuite=/path/to/Test.php
Of course, the much more equivalent version of that would be /path/to/Test.php or .
and tighter code when possible.
"Where possible" being the key. The moment your config gets complicated enough to do stuff like your example, ini files becomes a total pain.
I REALLY hate XML log files!!!! (Yes, I'm looking at you OpenFire!!)
I can no longer just "grep" for something, I need an XML parser!!!
Agreed, sort of. There's no problems creating log files that are almost valid-XML ("almost", because the lack of a single properly closed root tag is a problem with using XML for any "stream" type format) while also being easily "grepable", though - just keep it all on one line and regularly formatted. But I don't see the point over just a cleanly separated file. Though most text log-file formats are created by brain-dead developers... How hard is it to make something with uniform field separators so it's trivial to manipulate with things like AWK without writing regular expressions? (that's a rhetorical question, in case anyone wonders).