Top 5 essential Amiga apps and utilities?

[mr_a500]

ErrethAkbe:

You haven't said what your Amiga specs are. What ROM/WB? Do you have a graphics card?

Here is my list - for ECS, 3.0 ROM, WB 3.1. (sorry, it's a little more than 5, but it's still only a partial list!)


Workbench/Tools
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
File manager - ABCDir
WB look improvement - VisualPrefs, Newicons, Magic Menu, TitleShadow, Borderblank
Screen promotion - ModePro
WB palette lock - LoadCMAP
Speedup Patch - SystemPatch
Icon editor - Iconian (2.98r - later versions unstable)
Window tool - WindowToFront, Iconify
Text clip - PowerSnap
Path/Filename clip - Clip (use in ABCdir)
Drive click stop - DrivePrefs
Full screen shell - ScreenShell
Benchmark - AIBB
File finder - SimpleFind3
Disk salvage - DiskSalv 4
Application Monitor - SnoopDOS
Add to WB tools menu - AddTools
System Monitor - Scout
Binary Editor - Hex
AntiVirus - VirusZ
Archive - Wizarc
UnArchive - Voodoo-X/XAD
Screen Magnifyer - Zoom
Screen saver - Matrix
Command line run from icon - runfromwb (same as double-clicking!)
Sound datatype - SoundDT41
Calculator - TotalCalc


Internet
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
TCP/IP Stack - MiamiDX
Browser - IBrowse
Email - YAM
Messenger - Jabberwocky

Development
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
C/C++ - SAS/C 6.58
BASIC - AMOS Pro Compiler
Assembler - Asm-One
GUI - MUI, Feelin

Music
¯¯¯¯¯
Tracker - OSS/Protracker4
Sampler - DSS-3
Disk Sample player - SongPlayer
Disk Sample editor/converter - SampleZ
MP3 player - DiamondGUI/Mpega
Multi-format music/SID player - EaglePlayer 2.03

Application
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
Wordprocessor - FinalWriter 97 / Wordworth 7
Spreadsheet - TurboCalc
Organiser - Organiser
Paint Programs - ImageFX, PPaint 7.1, PPT
JPEG viewer - fjpeg 1.1
Image viewer - Visage
Text Editor - MicroGoldEd
PDF read - Apdf 2.2
PDF print/create - Ghostscript 8
Fax - STfax 4.1
Mac Emulator - Shapeshifter 3.11
Database & GUI - XBaze
Home finance - HomeBank
Presentation - Scala MM400


I use all these and more on my A500. Most are freely available on Aminet.

[mr_a500]

I've got a Viper 520 with 33 Mhz 020 and 8Mb RAM. The 32bit ROMs make a nice speed improvement too. I do most of my tea making while waiting for PDF pages to display. ;-)

[mr_a500]

Actually simple PDFs take "only" about 10-20 seconds/page - not enough time to bake cookies. Complex PDFs allow me to make tea.

Making PDFs with Ghostscript and printing them with TurboPrint gives me enough time to make tea, bake cookies, make more tea, eat the cookies, write a novel and have it published... then use the book royalties to buy more tea and cookie mix.

[mr_a500]

Beware of Software Hut scandoublers. I bought one a few years ago and was very disappointed. Images flickered and screen updates seemed very slow. It was like looking at WinUAE on an extremely slow computer. It cost something like $129 US but looked very cheap. It was my worst Amiga purchase ever. (I ended up trading it for TurboPrint - my second worst Amiga purchase ever)

Who knows - maybe the scandoubler will work fine on your computer. I'm just saying "beware".

[mr_a500]

Never ever list Miami or Miami DX as a must... because it is not, unless one is to use one of the very very few options which is not to be found elsewhere... it is slow and demanding...

Really? I've used it almost every single day for the last 3 1/2 years on my A500 and I never found it slow or demanding.