windows = workbench

[Thomas]

pcs boot into windows

Nonsense. What you see when Windows if fully loaded is called desktop. So if you are looking for counterparts you can compare "AmigaOS" to "Windows" and "Workbench" to "desktop".

The philisophy behind the Windows desktop and the Amiga Workbench is different, though. Workbench works more like the Windows "My Computer" folder, i.e. it uses the directory structure of the file system for its drawers (although by default it only shows files with icons) while the Windows desktop is a complete abstraction layer between the user interface and the file system.

Bye,
Thomas

[Thomas]

The Amiga's operating always consisted of two parts: the Kicktart ROM and several files on disk, one of them being the command to load Workbench. At some time people started to call the entire disk part of the operating system Workbench. So, if you bought an early A1200 with Kickstart 3.0 and Workbench 3.0, in order to fully upgrade to 3.1, you had to buy Kickstart 3.1 and Workbench 3.1.

The term AmigaOS for the Amiga's operating system was introduced with AmigaOS 3.5. Probably because there will not be another version of the Kickstart in the future than 3.1. But objectively AmigaOS 3.5 is nothing more than Workbench 3.5, or, even more precisely, version 3.5 of the disk-based part of the Amiga's operating system.

And yes, you need Kickstart 3.1 for both OS 3.5 and OS 3.9.

Bye,
Thomas

[Thomas]

drewz21 wrote:
Workbench would be.  AmigaOS 3.1 and higher allow you to do most everything you need from Workbench.  CLI is not required although once you learn the commands it's faster.

Speaking of counterparts, you could add CLI <-> DOS-window.

Bye,
Thomas