Talk:AmigaOS

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Origins of the AmigaOS[edit]

The article says that the AmigaOS as developed by Commodore. This is not quite correct. The Amiga and the early version of the OS was developed by the Amiga, Inc company, headed up by Dave Hayne and others who created this killer computer. Commodore bought out the technology from the and hired them, of course. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LordAlveric (talk • contribs) 06:38, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply] 

    Dave Haynie never worked at Amiga, he worked at Commodore and styarted working on Amiga when commodore bought it. Revener (talk) 20:02, 13 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Kickstart disks[edit]

The current article states 'subsequent Amiga models all used ROM chips' [following the A1000] in relation to Kickstart.

However, I remember that the Amiga 3000 also required such a Kickstart disk. Can anyone confirm? Thanks!

Most A3000s used ROMs, but some (like mine) had a small "Super Kickstart" in ROM which read Kickstart from floppy or hard disk. (Super Kickstart was based on AmigaOS 1.4, which never appeared anywhere else.) IIRC, only the machines manufactured in Europe had "Super Kickstart", but I may well be wrong on that detail. I do know that I never got my machine to boot a v3.x AmigaOS :=(. Cheers, CWC(talk) 02:41, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]


The A3000 did not require kickstarter disks, at least after you had everything installed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LordAlveric (talk • contribs) 06:35, 31 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Freeing memory[edit]

(This is relevant to a different Wikipedia article). I have the statement in front of me that, when a program terminates in AmigaOS, memory assigned by the program is not freed, and that it is therefore vital for the program to release all memory that it asked for, otherwise it is permanently "leaked". Is this the case? Notinasnaid 10:48, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Memory that is not freed before termination of a program in the Amiga OS is leaked (assuming it was supposed to be freed - in some cases a program may have allocated structures and attached them to system objects, such as a device node). One of the most common modes of testing on the Amiga was checking free memory after program exit; there were many tools that automated that. Normal behavior of a program was to free all memory, and all malloc'd memory was automatically freed via exit-time hooks. (I.e. leaking memory typically only happened to memory obtained via AllocMem() and the like.) jesup 12:02, 23 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. AmigaOS does little to no resource tracking in order to save the memory overhead that it costs to include tracking. There was also a third-party program that patched many allocate/free resource functions (e.g. AllocMem/FreeMem, OpenWindow/CloseWindow) and added resource tracking to them, however this would break any software that deliberately allocate memory then exited, for example programs which installed patches on system functions. Programs assume the responsibility for freeing all allocated memory. The standard C library implementation in most Amiga C compilers used an onexit handler that freed any memory allocated with the malloc() implementation, but if the program crashed or the AmigaOS memory allocation routines were called directly, memory allocations were not freed. Other languages had varying degrees of support for tracking memory, usually (like C) only if you used the language-specific memory allocators. 195.173.23.111 13:50, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your replies. The reason for the question relates to a discussion I've been having on memory leak. I'm going to post a question which is very subjective, but maybe there's a consensus. The article includes "In modern operating systems, normal memory used by an application is released when the application terminates". Part of the debate is over whether this is really true, and whether it should say "In some operating systems...". The leading question is: is AmigaOS a "modern operating system"? A supplementary dispute, where it says "The application assumes that the request for memory has succeeded, and continues on this basis. This will typically result in an access violation but in some cases may result in damaging information belonging to this or (in primitive systems) some other application." Should this have "some systems" in place of "primitive systems"? Thanks in advance. Notinasnaid 19:44, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The amiga would be included in "modern operating systems", and it does release "normal memory" (i.e. malloced) when the application ends. Program crashes on an Amiga do not release memory, so you could say it leaks on process crash. And a program that uses things like OpenFile() instead of open() will leak a filehandle (and some memory) if the program calls exit() without closing the file. As for your second question, the answer would be "some systems" - many "modern" embedded systems (including running unix variants like uclinux) do not have memory protection, and can read (and possibly write) structures using NULL as a pointer without an access violation. Personally, I HATE programs that don't check malloc (or any other calls) for failure. Good programming practice on the Amiga (due to the lack of VM) was to test programs and the OS against random memory allocation failures to see if they recovered cleanly or not. All allocations (and all system calls, etc) should be checked for failure and proper rollback/error-recovery done, unlike the typical Unix/Windows/etc method of "if (NULL == (foo = malloc(N)) exit(1);" or equivalent. But that's another rant.... :-) jesup 19:59, 24 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would say "in most operating systems". Only (1970s/80s/early 90s) microcomputer operating systems and some embedded systems, especially those running on hardware without an MMU, would have no resource tracking. The number of such operating systems is quite small. I wouldn't use "modern", because almost all "old" (since late 1960s) operating systems running on expensive minicomputers or mainframes definitely had resource tracking, and some modern embedded operating systems don't have resource tracking. 195.173.23.111 13:21, 25 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OS4 Final Realised[edit]

Comment: Now, there shall be havy change to mainpage :-) Sources: Amiga World News Hyperion news

Leuven, Belgium, 24 December 2006.

Hyperion-entertainment is very pleased to announce the immediate availability (for registered AmigaOne customers) of Amiga OS 4.0, The Final Update.


Originally released in May of 2004, Amiga OS 4.0 (www.amigaos4.com) is the most stable, modern and feature-rich incarnation to date of the multi-media centric operating system launched by Commodore Business Machines (CBM) in 1985 with which it still retains a high degree of compatibility.

Amiga OS 4.0, The Final Update is the culmination of 5 years of development and takes the form of a stand-alone ISO image which contains a full installation of all Amiga OS 4.0 components.

A list of new features can be found here .

Availability of PowerPC hardware suitable for operation with Amiga OS 4.0 will be announced by third parties early 2007.

The Hyperion Entertainment management would like to take this opportunity to wish all our customers and supporters a pleasant holiday season!

Links: Amiga OS4 Hyperion Amiga section

--Rastavox 22:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The screenshot[edit]

In other articles the OS is depicted with a "non-personalized" screenshot taken after the first boot of the newest version. The current screenshot has a background image, AmigaAMP and other details I'm sure are not present after the first boot.

Anyone with AOS 4.0, or if not that - AOS 3.9, willing to upload such a screenshot? --Anss123 17:03, 5 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Note that AmigaAMP and PlayCD are installed as standard on AOS 3.9, but yes, it would be good to have a shot which doesn't have application windows or showing all the other stuff which has been installed. Unfortunately I can't do OS 4.0, but I've just done a fresh install of OS 3.9 under WinUAE, so I'll try to upload one soon. Mdwh 02:44, 28 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've created one, see [1] (not sure how to wikilink an image) - how's that? Mdwh 01:49, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for that, Mdwh. Let's use a reduced version of that image in the article. But first we need to pick which size to use. Here's the image as a thumbnail (size depends on user preferences) and at quarter size.

BTW, the wikisyntax for these is: 

[[Image:Amigaos3_9b.png|thumb|Image as thumbnail]]
[[Image:Amigaos3_9b.png|thumb|256px|Image scaled to quarter-size]]

Using "[[Image:Amigaos3_9b.png|none]]" would insert the full-sized image in the normal text flow, which is Not a Good Idea.

See Wikipedia:Extended image syntax for more details. (Here's a point which confused me: "|frame|" always uses the original image size. If you want a border and a caption on a scaled image, you have to use "|thumb|Npx|" — the "|thumb|" specifies scaling with a caption and a border, and the "|Npx|" specifies the size, overriding the thumbnail size from the user's preferences.)

Something else I've learned: "[[:Image:Amigaos3_9b.png]]" links to the image page Image:Amigaos3_9b.png rather than inserting the image.

We can use other sizes, too. 320px or 400px might be good. What do other editors think? Cheers, CWC 07:47, 11 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

AmigaOS influence on other Operating Systems[edit]

There was a recent addition to this section "and was developed by RJ Mical[4], the creator of the Amiga's Intuition user interface." with regard to the statement "The operating system of the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer bore a very strong resemblance to AmigaOS". First, I believe the statement in and of itself needs a reference or it should be removed from the article. Second, I don't think that a persons resume can be used as a valid source in this case. I don't doubt that RJ Mical was the creator of Amiga's Intuition user interface, but a more reliable source needs to be cited to prove this fact. So there are 2 references needed for this statement now. To be honest, the whole article seems to need a lot of references added.Game Collector 11:54, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell they're both light weight round robin preemptive operation systems without either protected or virtual memory. They probably also have similar message/parameter passing APIs, as the one Amiga OS use is pretty much ideal for a gaming OS (less overhead). But you’re right, this does not mean the 3DO OS was in any way inspired by the Amiga OS – although seeing as the 3DO was made by the Amiga friendly EA there probably was a few driblets.
Doupt you'll find any references, and it's a small bit of trivia in any case so just remove it.
--Anss123 12:18, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You are obviously more knowledgeable than I am about the technical aspects of this article. I am not going to remove anything from it. However, being that this is supposed to be an encylopedia, reliable sources should be given for statements made. Give it some more time, maybe someone will come up with some.Game Collector 12:31, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So now there has been a second reference added to the statement, also which comes from a source that has not been proven to be a reliable source of information.[2]Game Collector 14:23, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well that's a matter for AfD for that article, and seems to be about notability, not reliability. I figured the source was better than just his resume. If we can find a better one, then we can use that instead. The question of how reliable sources are applies to just about every reference we have on Wikipedia. Mdwh 17:35, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It is a better source, and a good article to boot. Like I said previously, I'm not going to delete anything. I have no doubt in my own mind that the information is correct.Game Collector 19:38, 7 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Virtual screens[edit]

The article states that multiple, draggable screens are a Workbench feature. Surely these are a core AmigaOS feature? They're present before Workbench loads.

Zeem.uk (talk) 11:41, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

While the sliding Viewports are provided by the hardware and graphics.library, the ability to drag them with the mouse, "move" one in front of another, etc is provided by Intuition. Some people regard Intuition as part of Workbench, some don't. Cheers, CWC 08:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ARP[edit]

I've rewritten the bit about ARP because it incorrectly stated that it was only possible to interface with AmigaDOS from BCPL. In fact it was not only possible to do so, it was done regularly by early Amiga programmers. However because BCPL uses an unusual addressing scheme (storing pointers not as machine addresses but as so-called BPTRs, which are scaled according to the BCPL location size chosen by the language implementor) it was notoriously difficult to do. It was easy to cause chaos by sending AmigaDOS a C pointer where it expected a BPTR (and Amigas had no memory protection....) This is why ARP was born--to provide a C interface to existing kernel functions. --Tony Sidaway 14:51, 2 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use rationale for Image:Amiga Workbench 1 3 large.png[edit]

Image:Amiga Workbench 1 3 large.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 00:08, 8 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Fair use rationale for Image:Amiga kickstart.png[edit]

Image:Amiga kickstart.png is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to ensure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 00:09, 8 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

External links[edit]

There are too many external links. Some links could and should be moved to OS4 article. There are also too many links to developer sites (utilitybase should be enough) and why there are links to non-english sites? They are not used as a reference in this article. 01:12, 23 November 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xorxos (talk • contribs)

Metadata[edit]

This was placed on Metadata, but is too OS-specific. Please feel free to include it on this article,.:

AmigaOS stored metadata in sections of data files called "chunks" or deep into specific "hunks" that form the structure of executable files (Hunks), where are stored for example the file comments, the owner of the file (not mandatory in AmigOS), the tool that originated the data file (again not mandatory), or in parallel the metadata can also be stored into separated files named ".info" which contain not only metadata, but also various other informations needed to the data file or to the program itself, such as the options available for the executable file, the minimum stack of RAM to run the program, and also the bitmaps images that phisically represent the icon on desktop.

Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:15, 31 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PDF creation problem[edit]

For some reason the PDF creator creates this article without images. Other articles are created fine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.130.121.48 (talk) 16:23, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Separate articles for generations of AmigaOS[edit]

We have article for AmigaOS 4, but not for releases 1.x, 2.x and 3.x - in comparison, every major Windows version has its own article (same for Mac OS 7/8/9). However, as there are more articles concerning various AmigaOS versions (this general article about AmigaOS, AmigaOS versions article, AmigaOS 4 article, AmigaOS 4 versions article, Workbench (AmigaOS) article etc.), I will rather not start another one without input of other editors.

I created "demo version" of possible AmigaOS 3 article on my sandbox page (most of informations is referenced, quality of sources is not ideal, but sufficient I think):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Pavlor/sandbox2

I have this idea: If there is consensus for separate articles for AmigaOS generations, I will proceed with creation of OS1.x and 2.x articles on my sandbox page and then present these here for final review before creation of actual Wikipedia articles.

Your opinion? Pavlor (talk) 07:25, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a bad idea, especially if you delete the AmigaOS versions article and trim the versions section of this article. But your article needs some work...
AmigaOS 3 is the third generation of the Amiga Operating System, first introduced in 1992 for Amiga computers. Main improvements centered around the graphics subsystem, coinciding with the release of the AGA chipset. AmigaOS 3 survived the bankruptcy of Commodore and the turmoil of the following years. It created a solid foundation for further development of the AmigaOS.
You have a tendency to leave out the. Also, avoid saying fluff like "solid foundation", to keep a neutral tone.
It still does not flow all that well, so I'd rewrite it into something like this:
AmigaOS 3 was released in 1992 for the Amiga computer by Commodore International. The operation system improved on its predecessor by supporting hardware features found in the Amiga's AGA chipset, released the same year. AmigaOS 3 was hampered by the 1994 bankruptcy of the parent company, but was eventually updated by Haage & Partner in 1999. It saw it's last update in 2002, a decade after its initial release.
Anss123 (talk) 15:27, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for input, I should mention my language skills are rather limited as I learned English by wasting time on internet forums. Missing "the" and "a" is one of many of my deficiencies in this area... If we go this way (separate articles for major OS revisions), I hope someone will improve (rewrite) most offending parts (hard work of facts and references is there). Note: I take my sandbox as free area for everyone, don´t be afraid to do needed changes (I hope this is possible for user sandbox pages).Pavlor (talk) 17:40, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

After nearly one year... I did some progress with my idea. AmigaOS 3 article is complete and I will try to publish it via AfC. Many thanks to all, who "anglicized" my text. Feel free to make other changes. Next: articles about OS 2.x and 1.x, then get rid of AmigaOS versions and trim the AmigaOS/Versions. Pavlor (talk) 06:52, 12 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Microkernel vs hybrid[edit]

Before an edit war starts, please discuss pros and cons here. In case anyone is interested I'll be glad to point out why I think Amiga OS uses a microkernel. --Zac67 (talk) 06:39, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Oh no not again (see archived discussion...). Better than post what you think, please provide reliable sources to support your claim. Note kernel type of AmigaOS is mentioned on other articles/lists too, we should create consensus here once and for all, it would be a mess otherwise... Pavlor (talk) 08:18, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
The microkernel page lists AmigaOS as an example while Hybrid kernel doesn't. The German AmigaOS page lists it as microkernel undisputed. Are [3], The Future Was Here, Early Home Computers, Tech Book 1, Introduction To Computers RS? Can anyone point out the monolithic aspects of AmigaOS? You could perhaps argue it's not a microkernel (by today's definition) but it definitely isn't hybrid – at all. --Zac67 (talk) 17:32, 29 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]
What lists DE Wiki is not answer to our question, but these books could be useable (with exact pages for direct reference). I suggest to wait for some time. If nobody objects (with better reliable sources of course), we can assume new consensus and do all the needed changes on the entire Wiki. Pavlor (talk) 06:02, 30 September 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Latest version[edit]

Please stop vandalizing the article with outdated information. The latest AmigaOS release is 3.1.4 not 4.1FE. This can easily be checked by simply going to Hyperion's website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:A442:581E:1:E393:6D91:F2C9:8D80 (talk) 05:32, 16 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

First, reverting unsourced edits to a stable revision is not vandalism. Hyperion maintains two branches of AmigaOS (3.1.x and 4.x), we may of course discuss which of these should be in the infobox, but inserting own unsourced POV certainly is not the best way to start a discussion. Note there is also a "3.X" branch from Cloanto, which also claims to be the rightful owner of AmigaOS. Pavlor (talk) 06:09, 16 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
3.1.4 release = September 2018. 4.1FE release = December 2016. You may be unaware but time flows forwards not backwards. 3.1.4 being the latest release is simply a fact, not a matter of POV. 2A02:A442:581E:1:E393:6D91:F2C9:8D80 (talk) 04:22, 17 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Well, one may call it some small update to an old version... Both branches could be included in the infobox (eg. as done for RISC OS). Pavlor (talk) 06:31, 17 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I see we're now on AmigaOS 3.2 and yet this article still incorrectly thinks 4.1FE is the latest.

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