Five years after releasing the Amiga 1000, Commodore was about to launch the Amiga 3000, their first real high-end Amiga. With a 68030 processor, on-board SCSI and a slightly updated graphics chipset, all in a sleek desktop case, the Amiga was truly ready for the era of professional 32-bit computing. But Moore’s law wasn’t the only thing thad had been pressuring Commodore since the release of the Amiga 1000: The desktop metaphor had matured even further, and the competition had been hard at work. IBM had launched OS/2, Windows 3.0 had turned Microsoft’s offering from a proof of concept into something actually usable, and new players had entered the scene – among them NeXTStep, with its polished 3D look.
It was time to bring AmigaOS, too, into the 1990s.
↫ Carl Svensson
It’s interesting – there’s a lot of focus on the first version of the Amiga operating system and the third one, but you don’t hear a lot about AmigaOS 2.x. It turns out this is rather odd, because as Svensson details, this version came with an absolute ton of changes and improvements, from an entirely new widget toolkit to a brand new file system, and so much more. The new widget toolkit and accompanying style guide also ensured that the operating system looked, felt, and behaved consistently.
Remember when we cared about that?
There’s so much more cool features, though, like command history, line editing, universal clipboard support and more just for the CLI, as well as something called Commodities. These were tiny little programs managed from a central location, which didn’t even need a GUI to work. Commodities included by default were things like ClickToFront, a focus-follows-mouse option, and more. Oh and of course, BASIC was replaced by ARexx.
The list just keeps going, and you should really read Svensson’s article.
AmigaOS2 does not exist. It is 1.3 rom, additions and other cool stuff. the only reason 3.0 exists is that same reason why the amiga 2500 exists. It is a pile-on.
Effin great machines, do not get me wrong.
Kickstart 2.0 existed rather fast it was 2.04. Together with Workbench 2.0. Workbench 2.1 did not have a new Kickstart.
There were definitely 2.x AmigaOS versions and kickstart rom versions. The A3000 shipped with a 1.4 kickstart that was basically a beta 2.0 modified to load a new kickstart from disk, and the early 2.0 kickstarts were used this way by soft loading them on the A3000. When the A500+ and A600 came along they included 2.04 or 2.05 on physical rom chips.
The A1200 and A4000 came with a 3.0 kickstart, while the CD32 and A4000T came with a 3.1 kickstart.
You could replace the kickstart rom chip with a newer version on most amiga models.
Wat? 1.3 to 2.0 was the single biggest jump in terms of API and features that happened in Amiga OS history. Saying OS2 doesn’t exist because it’s based on 1.3 is like saying Windows95 didn’t exist because it’s based on Windows 3.1.
Ah, Thom, you would love the Amiga User Interface Style Guide (https://archive.org/details/amiga-user-interface-style-guide). After that most applications not adhering to it really needed to be want-have to survive. It got rid of all those different unique implementations all applications had. Though some were really beautiful.
Also Svensson got wrong that BOOPSI is based on Gadtools. It was an independent framework which used Intuition directly. E.g. MUI used the BOOPSI base to create it’s one objects.
I share Svenssons passion about AmigaOS 2.
I can’t say enough about REXX.
While I was an OS/2 user, I didn’t know a single other person directly that used any Amiga computers for which it means I missed an important operating system.
I worked for a small but quickly growing mortgage company in the ’80s and ’90s and once OS/2 2.0 (actually the beta version) came out I was looking for something where I could develop some programming ideas quickly which needed to include both input into and then process data out of batch files. DOS was PATHETIC and having to take the time to write C programs was something that took too much time because there were only two of us writing and maintaining programs for most of that time period.
Not only that but we also managed all of the hardware for thirteen locations with the biggest mileage between two of them being about 250 miles. So anything that I could do remotely was a HUGE benefit. And anything that I could push to the remote system and then have run was everything to me.
Having REXX in OS/2 was almost like having a whole other person added to our team because of how quick it was for me to learn REXX but it kept surprising me about how powerful REXX is. Anyone that compares it to DOS is really like comparing a bicycle to a giant spaceship. And yes, I know I compared it but that is how I thought about it as a “super DOS” when I first starting using it only to find that it was a WHOLE lot more.
Anyone that doesn’t know what REXX is or how powerful it is and why it should replace Visual Basic for scripting in programs would be in for a huge surprise.
To be clear, if you REALLY know Visual Basic, and that became part of my job to know it very well, what I’m saying is that REXX is easy to learn for non-programmers, unlike Visual Basic which is VERY UGLY to learn for most people. And because of that you can learn and use and become MUCH more effective with REXX than most people will EVER come close to with Visual Basic. It is for that reason that REXX should replace Visual Basic including every OS that is out there.
No, I have no connection to the people that made or maintain REXX. I’ve never talked to anyone in that group nor do I know of any connection between me and anyone that has anything to do with updating and maintaining REXX.
Over my forty year career programming I learned over 30 programming languages. By that I mean I spent easily over 1,000 hours of coding with each of those languages so I think I have a little bit of knowledge to compare what most people are capable of with different programming languages.
Or to put it another way, Visual Basic because the scripting language for Microsoft programs IN PART to force them to have to hire more programmers or to hire a third party company to write code for what people in companies were trying to do, INSTEAD of doing what they could to EMPOWER normal people to get the most out their computers. REXX gives people significantly easier access to more complex ideas than Visual Basic does. It means you don’t have to spend anywhere near as much time learning how to “program” because it is closer to scripting for most people, but you can also have tie-ins and tie-outs for programs if REXX is the scripting language for one or more programs. I found that to be VERY true with OS/2.
I found that using the same quality coding with documentation that I did for all programming languages, for small to medium, and it could have been for large ideas too, that REXX was a great product to use in surprising ways.
No, it doesn’t replace C for most things. But there are times when languages like C are overkill or because C and REXX were created with totally different ideas for what they were to be used for. So you can use them by themselves or together. But REXX is something that most people are really missing out on because it isn’t in Windows and people just don’t realize how good and capable REXX is and it has only grown with time.