OSNews

No OS is compelling if you are used to another one. One is constantly
wanting the new one to behave exactly like the old.

The main thing to realise is that AmigaOS is not a Unix, nor is it a
Windows clone.

It's a small, efficient single-user microkernel OS with a single
memory space shared by all programs. The result is that it is fast,
responsive and easy to use, but not secure or stable. Programs have to
be less buggy than on other platforms because a crash will often bring
down the whole OS.

It's a very modular OS, unlike Windows where everything seems to be
entangled with everything else. That makes it technically easy to add
new drivers etc.

Extensive use of linked lists in the OS makes it very scalable - for
example, there is no fixed limit to the number of fonts you can
install.

All programs that are scriptable (and most Amiga programs are
scriptable to some extent) use the same scripting language, a dialect
of Rexx. That means you can easily write custom scripts that make use
of several programs.

The public screens concept seems to baffle those not familiar with it.
The idea is that each program getas the whole disploay to itself, edge
to edge. There is nothing on the screen here now except the browser -
no task bar, icons, wallpaper, dock, etc to clutter up the display.

To go to another screen with another program on it, I select from a
menu accessed by holding down the right mouse button at the top right
corner of the display (a good Fitt's Law position). A screen can
include more than one workspace, but this is not usual. A program can
run on another program's screen (useful for small utilities).

A major advantage of the Amiga, shared to some extent with Linux, is
that the user has direct access to the author of a program.