Amiga stability?

[pyrre]

I think MSDOS was more stable than Workbench. But Workbench was more stable than Windows2000

Hmmmm... I cannot agree with you on that...

I have used pcs since spring 1999 and the most stable windows based os i have ever used (disregard any hardware specs causing instability) is windows 2000 (professional).
second place goes to XP. I only changed to Xp because drivers were no longer written to support win2k.
and third place goes to win98se...
Judging by my experiences with PCs over the years...
And by my experiences workbench do not come even close to win2k.
But amiga os beats the crap out of win95, early 98 releases and win millennium with regards to stability.
It does not beat win 3.11 in stability, but sure as hell beats it in userfriendliness and of course, multitasking....

With regards to msdos. i have very little experiences with it.

[Ancalimon]

That's like comparing TOS to the Amiga Kickstart.
Both of those were very stable.  Both did nothing, but allowed other programs to do things.

AmigaOS was missing the essential "dir" command from ROM. When I think back when I was using an A500+, I remember always having to load the dir command from a disk with it when I wanted to see the contents of a disk.

If we had "dir" inside ROM, it would have been much better.

[Thorham]

That's like comparing TOS to the Amiga Kickstart.
Both of those were very stable.  Both did nothing, but allowed other programs to do things.

Right. Kickstart doesn't do anything. Except set up a whole multitasking environment with various things going on in the background...

In that situation, GEM was a much more mature product, and didn't have to deal with the memory issues from a non-protected multitasking system.

More mature... and of course not even remotely as powerful as kickstart.

Please do your homework

[_ThEcRoW]

Kickstart on his own has no use without the os, so you can use kickstart alone.

[Zac67]

btt...

Define 'stable'.

AmigaOS by itself is stable. By running the OS and its various tools coming along with it it's hardly possible to crash it.

However, when adding software, tools and applications it can be made to crash quite easily - a single severe bug in any application is sufficient. There's no protected memory and trashing kernel memory is bound to sink the system, a complex multitasking system being much more delicate than a simpler OS.

In order to overcome this, memory protection and a decent HAL would need to be added (which isn't possible without extensive changes to the system as has been discussed adequately).

But as can be seen in MS Windows (NT), this may not even be enough. Windows drivers are still required to run with Ring 0 privileges where they may do whatever they like. Any driver bug can still crash the system. Is this better? Definitely. Is it stable? It's more stable but you're still short of 100%.

[Thorham]

Kickstart on his own has no use without the os,

Kickstart IS the OS :rolleyes:

[Crumb]

Kickstart on his own has no use without the os, so you can use kickstart alone.

The only thing you need is a floppy disk with bootable flag, the rest is all in kickstart: workbench/intuition/dos/graphics/timer/input... almost everything you need.

I used KS1.3/2.0/3.x many years and the OS is pretty stable. It never crashed unless you ran an unstable app. MacOS7-8, Win3.x, Win9x... all these were more unstable and as easy to crash deliberately.

DOS was simply crap, comparing MSDOS stability with AmigaOS is ridiculous, following that logic I could compare my NODOS games stability with MSDOS ones too since msdos was so thin but so crap in the little things it did (stupid filename limits, ridiculous memory limits, retarded mono-task, lack of any autoconfig, lack of graphic apis, lack of sound apis, lack of codec/datatype support, lack of everything!...) than running a game inside was like running a NODOS game as it took the OS entirely.

[commodorejohn]

The only thing you need is a floppy disk with bootable flag, the rest is all in kickstart: workbench/intuition/dos/graphics/timer/input... almost everything you need.

According to Wikipedia, that's only true for KS1.2/1.3 systems, 2.0 and later separated Workbench out to a library file on disk. Still, it is true that Kickstart is a whole lot of the system software (Old World Macs also did this, with the Toolbox ROM holding a lot of the fundamental OS code.)

[desiv]

Right. Kickstart doesn't do anything. Except set up a whole multitasking environment with various things going on in the background...

You missed the whole point.
I'm talking about from the users perspective.
I'm fully aware of what's inside kickstart.
But, you boot a machine with just kickstart, you get a hand asking for a disk.
That's it..
You can't even boot an ST with TOS and not GEM.

More mature... and of course not even remotely as powerful as kickstart.
Please do your homework

You again miss the point.  It was more mature in that it was around longer.
Stable code base.  More time for bug fixing.

Of course it wasn't anywhere near as powerful as the Amiga, which I mentioned as a reason the Amiga might have been less stable.

desiv

[Pentad]

I think MSDOS was more stable than Workbench. But Workbench was more stable than Windows2000

I had to read this twice because my first reaction was, "This guy can't be serious."

Windows 200 was one of the most stable Windows OS I've ever encountered.  It was a great step from Windows NT 4.0 on the way to Windows XP.

IIRC Windows NT 4.0 driver model was still in kernel mode and not user mode which is where Windows 2000 started that migration.

I'm not saying that Windows is perfect but I'm not sure you or others here give Microsoft the credit they deserve.  I take issue with:

1.  Memory Protection.  I can crash any classic AmigaOS by writing to memory location $4.  Poof!  Gone!  AmigaOS stability is based on the premise that Amiga Apps are written to behave properly.  There is nothing in the OS that can stop a malicious program from trashing your memory, data, or hard drive.

2.  AmigaOS runs on one platform.  Windows has to be open to a plethora of hardware configurations and try to work with all of them.  Now Windows 2000 was much less driver friendly than Windows XP.

You know, I have students that will bash Microsoft all day long.  Then they have to take class where they must implement virtual memory in a simulated OS.  They come out of that experience with a new respect for Microsoft and Linux.

3.  The AmigaOS FileSystem is terrible.  Without support for file permission, journaling, or even basic recovery it was the source of many stability issues.  "Volume Work: is Not Validated" was never a good alert to see during a boot.

Please do not mistake my comments as being negative towards Amiga, the OS or the great people that were behind it.  It was and is from a different time and place.  In 1985 it was from the future.  Sadly, by 1994, it was no longer cutting edge.

If you wish to talk about stability between AmigaOS and other Operating Systems from that area than I think Commodore did a great job with it.  The AmigaOS was so much more complex than the MacOS (System 6) or Atari TOS.  Neither of which was a true multitasking OS.

TOS always seemed toyish to me and I think that is because Digital and Atari were walking softly around Apple since they were suing everyone in sight.

Commodore continued to refine and upgrade the AmigaOS.

You cannot compare a Model-T to a 2011 Ford Mustang.  They are from different worlds.  Both will get you where you want to go but certain advances have become mandatory for a reason.  In the case of Operating Systems, Memory Protection and security are necessary.

Cheers!
-P

[Pentad]

The first batch of Atari ST's need a TOS Disk just like Kickstart on the Amiga 1000.

Here is a video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1jscTrkeso

[matthey]

1.  Memory Protection.  I can crash any classic AmigaOS by writing to memory location $4.  Poof!  Gone!  AmigaOS stability is based on the premise that Amiga Apps are written to behave properly.  There is nothing in the OS that can stop a malicious program from trashing your memory, data, or hard drive.

MuForce (and probably Enforcer) stops writes to the zero page (includes address $4). The MMU can provide some protection even on the Amiga.

3.  The AmigaOS FileSystem is terrible.  Without support for file permission, journaling, or even basic recovery it was the source of many stability issues.  "Volume Work: is Not Validated" was never a good alert to see during a boot.

Fast File System is not very advanced but terrible is rather harsh. I have not had very many issues with it over the years. I do use PFS3 now which is an improvement but I believe FFS has less bugs. File permissions are supported by the way and recovery tools work great after waiting for the validation provided there is enough memory for the partitions size .

You cannot compare a Model-T to a 2011 Ford Mustang.  They are from different worlds.  Both will get you where you want to go but certain advances have become mandatory for a reason.  In the case of Operating Systems, Memory Protection and security are necessary.
-P

I like to think of the Amiga more like an AC Cobra with no air bags, traction control, abs breaks, power steering, or other non essential bloat. It's bare bones and slower than some of today's cars and you can kill yourself in a jiffy but it's worth the ride .

[Thorham]

I like to think of the Amiga more like an AC Cobra with no air bags, traction control, abs breaks, power steering, or other non essential bloat. It's bare bones and slower than some of today's cars and you can kill yourself in a jiffy but it's worth the ride .

Couldn't agree more. A Model T Ford is more like the C64 OS.

[bbond007]

According to Wikipedia, that's only true for KS1.2/1.3 systems, 2.0 and later separated Workbench out to a library file on disk. Still, it is true that Kickstart is a whole lot of the system software (Old World Macs also did this, with the Toolbox ROM holding a lot of the fundamental OS code.)

Who wrote that Wikipedia? That is just plain wrong....

I workbench.library still in my 1200s 3.1 ROM.

I do know that it is one library you can remove to make room for other stuff. I was experimenting with doing this with Remus.

Maybe that is something specific to the 4000.

[HardStep]

You cannot compare a Model-T to a 2011 Ford Mustang.  They are from different worlds.  Both will get you where you want to go but certain advances have become mandatory for a reason.  In the case of Operating Systems, Memory Protection and security are necessary.

Cheers!
-P

2011 Ford Mustang still has a live rear axle, not a good example;)

I like to think of the Amiga more like an AC Cobra with no air bags, traction control, abs breaks, power steering, or other non essential bloat. It's bare bones and slower than some of today's cars and you can kill yourself in a jiffy but it's worth the ride .

You should check out that Weineck Cobra 780CUI

And yes, Amiga is fun the same way:)

[orange]

Windows 200 was one of the most stable Windows OS I've ever encountered.  It was a great step from Windows NT 4.0 on the way to Windows XP.

too bad its almost useless due to lack of drivers (compared to win9x)

1.  Memory Protection.  I can crash any classic AmigaOS by writing to memory location $4.  Poof!  Gone!  AmigaOS stability is based on the premise that Amiga Apps are written to behave properly.  There is nothing in the OS that can stop a malicious program from trashing your memory, data, or hard drive.

-P

well then, thank god there are so few malicious programs for Amiga..