What is the name of the OS?

[Amiga_Nut]

Well you have to specifically load Workbench in the S\Startup Sequence to get a GUI environment to play with, but then on a KS 1.x machine you can't boot up to a CLI and you need the Workbench disk to even access a shell window like DOS.

I would say Intuition is to Workbench what DWM is to Vista (desktop window manager) so it can't be Intuition.......so that leaves Workbench as the OS.

I'm going to stick with that reason because Workbench is required to do anything useful other than play games...and on a PC if you make a custom Linux Quake bootable CD then in a similar fashion you can boot your PC to play a game with a blank hard drive and no DOS disks. I know that isn't strictly true but since the 70s PCs were designed to boot a DOS disk or something that does the same job.

Anyway the OS of the Amiga is a bespoke version of TriPos anyway isn't it? So technically the OS is TriPos surely?

[Amiga_Nut]

Hmmmm actually after a little bit more digging...I found a video clip (from Computer Chronicles- Atari ST and Commodore Amiga special) where Rick Geiger who says "what we see here is Workbench, which is the graphical user interface of the Amiga). Also on KS 1.0 and WB 1.0 a CLI window is open labelled AmigaDOS.

So if the General Manager of Commodore Amiga puts it like that then perhaps Kickstart is the OS. If you think about it having a Workbench disk for an Amiga 1000 or 3000 is useless without a kickstart disk....you couldn't even run the most low level game....but at the same time you can't load Workbench either. So maybe Kickstart is the DR/PC/MS-DOS half and Workbench is the Windows/GEM/Top-View side in comparison to PC compatibles. By that definition then kickstart must be the OS.

I don't think Kickstart is the BIOS as per PC computers as on an Amiga 1000 it does plenty of boot up checks (coloured screen on failure to boot etc or hand with KS disk requester image is shown on success) which is what your BIOS does...so clearly Kickstart isn't a BIOS as such. Also it was the same for the original Atari 520ST with TOS (The/Tramiel Operating System) loaded from disk...and GEM sits on top of TOS just like Workbench is loaded after Kickstart.

I think this is a fair assumption as within the KS ROM/Disk is a lot of code execution related stuff,  OK at the lowest level, but enough for a game to run.  Workbench extends it for sure  but essentially on boot up of Kickstart your Amiga is just waiting  to be told what to do (run a game, load a WB GUI environment for serious work etc etc)

[Amiga_Nut]

I do agree that you can't really compare it to either the ST (OS and GUI in one set of ROMS/boot strap disk) or PCs because it is different to both and WB disks certainly have some extra features useful for a full featured OS but at the same time the KS roms have sufficient code on boot up for drivers and basic code execution not just routines to load data from a disk drive (which is basically  all a PC bios has...you still need IO.SYS MSDOS.SYS and COMMAND.COM on the boot disk otherwise nothing happens..even on game disks).

[Amiga_Nut]

You don't need IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, or COMMAND.COM, just a boot sector that loads *something.*

On a floppy disk? I think you need to have those 3 files written to get a bootable floppy using the format /s command IIRC.

Can't think of any games that circumvented this as games run in dos and therefore a dos bootdisk requires those 3 files to get going and do 'something' I  am guessing.

[Amiga_Nut]

The fact this discussion has dragged on so long says a lot about amiga users. Makes me want to switch to risc os.

It says the the Amiga 'OS' is completely unique and spread across both Kickstart and Workbench or just Kickstart depending on your definition