What is the name of the OS?

[sim085]

Hi,

I have been keeping this question for a long time trying to better understand what is the real name of the operating system developed by Amiga / Commodore!

Basically when I was a child I always remember that the name was "Workbench", i.e. - Workbench 2.1, Workbench 3.1, etc. At that age I never heard my brother or cousin refer to the os as AmigaOS 2.1 or AmigaOS 3.1 - it was always Workbench.

Then when I came to the community I started to see that 4.0 and 4.1 (and to some extent also 3.9) was mostly referred to as AmigaOS. At first I thought nothing of this, and considered this just a name change due to the fact that Amiga moved hands.

However then when reading wikipedia I see that is was always referred to as AmigaOS from version 1.0.

So my question is; Was AmigaOS ever referred to officially as Workbench? Or Workbench is just part of the OS? i.e. the environment?

[Thomas]

http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/15-108

[sim085]

Thanks a very good read. Things are more clear now.

[klx300r]

@ Thomas

just wanted to thank you once again for all the amazing help you've given myself and many other Amigans over the years..was wondering how you know all this classic miggy info and basically how you got involved with the Amiga...would love to hear your story :-)

[save2600]

@ Thomas

just wanted to thank you once again for all the amazing help you've given myself and many other Amigans over the years..was wondering how you know all this classic miggy info and basically how you got involved with the Amiga...would love to hear your story :-)

Indeed!

[Thomas]

@klx300r

I got my first computer (a C64 with 1541) as a confirmation gift. Many other students at my school had one, too. I changed to an A500 with Kick 1.2 in the late 1980's when most of my friends did so, too. I mostly swapped (copied) games, wrote a few scene intros (nothing famous). When I finished school I lost sight of most of those friends, but I continued using my Amiga. As I lost most of my sources for new software I now concentrated in programming and started to buy software :-)
Soon after my first own car I bought an A4000D (must have been around 1995 or so) and with the money I earned I bought expansions: RAM, larger HDD, more RAM, CD-ROM, 68060, yet a larger HDD, even more RAM, tower case, SCSI HDD, SCSI CD writer, SCSI scanner, modem/internet, DVD-ROM, PPC, much more RAM, X-Surf. Then came my first PC which was an "Eternity1" with Win98SE and AmigaForever 4.0 (The author of Tales of Tamar offered preconfigured PCs with Amiga Forever and later with Amithlon in his shop). The X-Surf was used to connect the PC to the Amiga and to share its internet connection using MiamiDx as a router.
Today I have two A4000D, both with PPC, one with Mediator/Voodoo3/Soundblaster/Realtec NIC in a Mirage case, the other one with CVisionPPC and X-Surf in its original case, an A1XE, a Pegasos1 and three PCs. The first PC still is in the case with the Eternity1 sticker on it, but with a much more modern equipment. The second PC is used as a NAS containing files used by all other computers. The third one is a TV recorder and Bluray player as well as internet connection in the living room.
First thing after installing Windows on a PC is installing WinUAE. I never stopped using an Amiga in one or the other form in all the time. That's probably why I know so much and don't forget it. (I forgot almost everything about the C64 because I stopped using it. I even forgot where it is, but I know that I still have it somewhere).

[Tension]

Don't forget Intuition!!

[klx300r]

@ Thomas

great story..thanks! Curious if you would consider buying the new AmigaOne X1000 when it arrives?
btw, all you have to remember about the good ol 64 is:
load"$",8 and sys64738

[Gulliver]

I remember reading an old Amiga workbench 1.3 manual from Commodore, and the operating system in this case was refered as AOS 1.3

It was a small manual, about 3 x 4 inches and 1.5 inches thick. It was long ago!

[Arkhan]

The Amiga os is called Awesome.

[Boudicca]

Don't forget Intuition!!

Depending on your point view. Kickstart was the OS title, as that has to loaded first on the a1000, certainly in the circles where the first amiga's were seen in the UK at least, you would boot kickstart and load workbench. (edit: Akin if you would to: Booting DOS and Running Windows or Booting CP/M and running GEM), And when I first flipped from 64 to 500 I found it very frustrating that the CLI wasn't immediately available until you loaded a bastardised workbench disk.

So the name really depends on where you starting in computing. Workbench for me was just a fancy interface, i.e software, the CLI and writing in the shell was the OS of me

[desiv]

BITD, I always looked at it as the Kickstart/ROMs were like the BIOS on PCs.
You couldn't do anything with just them, but they allowed the Amiga to load other stuff.

I always called the command line side of the Amiga (CLI/shell) AmigaDOS, similar to PC DOS or CP/M.

The GUI was Workbench.

desiv

[Hell Labs]

I think it's more of a windows/explorer.exe relationship.

[kolla]

The GUI was Workbench.

The GUI was Intuition, Workbench is the graphical shell, or desktop as it is known as today.

[desiv]

The GUI was Intuition, Workbench is the graphical shell, or desktop as it is known as today.

I didn't know anyone who said "Go into Intuition and launch that application."  :-)

Since GUI is a Graphical User Interface, and the Workbench was the "interface", that's what I called it.

Now, when "programming" graphical features, I used the "Intuition" functions to achieve Windows and menus, etc...

But the actual Graphical User Interface we used to interact with the Amiga was Workbench.  And it used the Intuition to achieve that..

I'd say that Workbench is similar to the Windows GUI and Intuition is similar to the Windows API that is used to enable Windows.

IMHO..

desiv