Amiga's Special Qualities
Qualities which make the AMIGA such a unique Computer:
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Fully automatic recognition and OS mounting of hardware
expansions during system start-up.
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Reliable operation and blazingly fast switching between tasks,
even in low memory conditions. All this since 1985!
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Read, write, copy, and format, while continuing to work.
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In its current implementation, the AMIGA file system works with
32-character long filenames, for which on low-level
even 127 characters are reserved.
Filenames are allowed to start with '.' just like under
UNIX, and they can also have multiple extensions: Archive.v102.tar.Z.
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Graphical User Interface (GUI) Workbench and
text- or commandline-oriented Shell (CLI), comparable with
UNIX Shells.
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AmigaOS 3.1 or its graphical user interface
Workbench can
be switched among 10 different languages providing full localization
through a preferences editor,
and all this without re-installation of the operating system!
Workbench offers this localization mechanism also for applications
programs for these languages:
Dansk, Deutsch, English, Espa˝ol, Franšais, Italiano, Nederland, Norsk,
Portuguŕs, and Svenska.
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880 KB instead of 720 KB, or in the case of the HD floppy you have
1.76 MB instead of 1.44 MB. All this while still using longer
filenames, etc.
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Aside from AmigaOS, Amigas also can be run under different UNIX
derivatives like LINUX, NetBSD, Minix.
Further operating systems through
Emulation of the following computers:
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- VIC-20
- C-64
- Apple-II
- MSX 8-Bit Computer
- Sinclair Spectrum
- Sinclair QL
- Oric-1
- Nintendo Gameboy
- Atari ST
- Apple Macintosh
These all work as pure software solutions and, of course, they also multitask
among each other.
MS-DOS and MS-Windows can also be emulated by software on
a comparably powerful Amiga model, but it would make more sense to
use a PC Bridgeboard -- these have been available since 1987 as hardware
expansion cards.
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ARexx is available in AmigaOS as a system-wide macro language and a means
of communication between programs.
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Programs under AmigaOS can use these Datatypes system-wide to
work with most different kinds of data, like: audio, text, graphics,
animation or data formats like GIF, PCX, AVI.
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The Amiga is video compatible from the start for simple use with
TVs, for professional video presentations, or for video
editing and/or video titling in home or professional quality.
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Practically freely programmable from video compatible to
ergonomic displays; in normal, overscanned, or (through
'draggable' screens) mixed form.
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Unique through a comfortable price level and an unbelievably big
offering in the Shareware or Free Software area.
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4-channel stereo sound standard, expandable through expansion cards,
but they are not needed to provide sound at all.
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AmigaOS shows special qualities in economic use of resources and
non-existance of 640 KB barriers, etc., thus a linearly usable
address space.
An Amiga can already work comfortably with 2 MB RAM, on the other
hand an Amiga 4000 can be equipped with more than
1 GB of RAM nowadays!
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In an abstract view, you can imagine it as memory saving,
hardware supported data decompression.
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Every program has the ability to open one or more 'screens'
when necessary with each screen having its own custom
resolution and/or color choice. To put it another way: with
optimization for speed, memory use, or color display, respectively.
You can drag screens down like rollos to expose those in the background.
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Copyright by AMIGA International, Inc. · Mail to M.Grohmann
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http://www.amiga.de/gb/Infos/AmigaRulez!.html (Amiga Plus Extra No. 5, 08/1997)