MikeB on 07 April 2010
@ Plaupius
Sounds interesting, I remember now seeing some video about certain aspects of the AmigaOS. My impression then was that while it was technically quite impressive (boots fast, has lots of features), it wasn't as impressive with regards to the usability and user experience it offered. However, I haven't really used an Amiga myself though my friend had one, so I can't really say what it is like to actually use.
I have never been as productive on another system as I was on the Amiga. The usability was great, just insert a diskette or CD and boot straight into a game or even an app like you do on consoles (a minimal core OS was placed in a ROM).
The GUI was simple to use for newcomers to computers and AmigaOS was very modular, flexible and thus the functionality could be easily expanded to extremes for "power users".
With AmigaOS you can shut off the system instantly, likewise booting in an instant, even on the oldest 7 Mhz Amigas the system would respond to any mouse click instantly with feedback (not like with other systems when you click a button you hear the harddrive rattling but nothing happens for a while). If a system file is corrupted somehow, you can easily determine the error, you can then boot straight from CD into a preset AmigaOS and unprotect and drag&drop the needed file over the faulthy one. I think I would need to write a book if I wanted to tell you all the good ideas of the system...
I don't know if I should feel sorry for people who haven't grown up in the 80s with Amigas and with MacOS or MSDOS instead or be glad for you. It widdens one's perspective on what can be done, but also when having to deal with other systems you will often think this and that could have been done so much better/easier/productive/fun, etc.
An old video of what could be done on the lowest spec entry model Amigas in 1987:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaRkacQ-YMg
