The Amiga. A platform with a history. Today, we are reviewing Amiga Forever, which was kindly provided by Cloanto, its manufacturer. The question I tried to answer during the usage of Amiga Forever was: does it have anything to offer to OS enthousiasts today? Of course Amiga Forever offers great functionality for Amiga fans, but what about the rest of us? Can Amiga Forever cater to more people than just Amiga fans?
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Member since:2005-06-28
Member since:2005-07-10
This is a major discoverability and usability-speed hole.
It might be, but how often do you need to discover it? Remember back then, there was no Windows and MacOS was not accessible to everyone (expensive macs) in 1985-90. Those that got Amigas back then learned quickly to use them, not just because they had a simple UI, but because the underlying system was extremely simple.
I agree that MacOS of the same time period had a better GUI, but the internals and the flexibility of AmigaOS completely wiped the floor with MacOS and continued to do so up until MacOSX came along.
AmigaOS had a finely tuned, 32-bit multitasking kernel straight from day one, which is amazing by todays standard and the kernel itself didn't change that much in OS2.0 and OS3.x.
The simple design allowed you to easily fix things yourself if it was broken.
Edited 2005-12-12 21:37
Member since:How does right clicking to reach a menu mean anything speed-wise? In fact the Amiga solution is usability-wise far superior to e.g. the Windows solution of embedded menus (you always have to look for where the menus you really want are located inside the MDI-structure). On AmigaOS (and the old MacOS) you *always* know that by pressing the right mouse button and hammering to the top of the screen you find the menu. That's the way usability experts have been touting for years - and one of the things that have been critizised in OS X since the application menu changes in size and it's harder to immediately guess how far to the right you need to go.
MagicMenu is a nice add-on if you prefer to have context-like menus (and context menus are one of the best things Windows has added to the computing world), but when it comes to raw speed it takes about the same time to pick the item you want in MagicMenu as it does to go to the top of the screen and find it (because it's easier to predict the exact location of it).
Edges and corners are your best friends when it comes to speed and usability.
Member since:
Member since:
2005-06-29
Yes, but that doesn't mean that the usability and discoverability aspect of it is good. It's just that way from the beginning because some engineer thought he would do it that way without making some proper research.
I haven't used AmigaOS in awhile, but I remember that I liked the right-click single menubar and the MagicMenus add on.
I recognize that you are more of a usability expert than I am, but I think either pop-up menus or single menubar is a much better solution than menubar per window. Mainly for screen real estate purposes and for Fitt's Law.
Now as for discoverability, I realize especially with pop-up menus it isn't immediately obvious. But AmigaOS had a consistency where the left mouse button was the "Select" button and the right mouse button was the "Menu" button. Much like we have in Windows nowadays.
I think as long as you instruct a person how the mouse works, this consistency is a very good thing. Then the only things that have discoverability issues are the things that are inconsistent with the UI guidelines.
I don't know if they did usability studies; I think they were trying to imitate the Mac way of doing things while differentiating their own product.