Directory Opus on Amiga

Here is an old screenshot from my Amiga with Directory Opus Magellan.[/img]


God, I miss Amiga computers! Good old times! :slight_smile:

Nice shot.

1 Like

I've still got my A1200. I plugged it into my TV a couple of years ago and was astounded by how long it took to boot up and then how long it took to draw windows bit-by-bit every time you opened one. I can't believe I used to put up with that. :slight_smile:

I do still miss aspects of it, though.

[quote="nudel"]I've still got my A1200. I plugged it into my TV a couple of years ago and was astounded by how long it took to boot up and then how long it took to draw windows bit-by-bit every time you opened one. I can't believe I used to put up with that. :slight_smile:

I do still miss aspects of it, though.[/quote]

Yep, it was slower but Amiga and Atari times were IMO the best computer experience we got: software were optimized, markets wasn't lead by big companies and games were very entertaining (before Internet people used to go around the same desk to play together... that's not I dislike Internet but seems like everybody took some distance as it was susposed to be the other way around :wink:

I am shocked to see once fellow Amiga user nudel talk that way. Tststs :wink:

Seriously, I miss Amiga and I am bleeding from all that crappy and shitty software on both Linux and Windows.

Applications are self-centric, chauvinistic, monolithic and unflexible.

Browser-Wars, Desktop-Wars (the Big Cos trying to get an icon on your desktop with every install), Spyware, Malware, sheepish users, scripting is considered for admins only, bah!

Now, don't get me wrong, there is a lot of things, that are good (Mozilla, DirectX ie), but how long did it take ?

Have you ever seen a text-editor on this oh so important operating-systems, that come even close to GoldED on Amiga ?
Oh yes, I tried em all. XEmacs, ConTEXT, UE32, I got a license for Zeus for Windows (which is actually maybe the most powerful, but it lacks UTF-8, making it worthless in the end).

Or a newsreader like NewsRog ? Or a clever email/news system like UMS ?

An IRC program like AmIRC (okay, maybe Klient is coming close).

Have you ever had as much ease using bitmap programs ? Don't say Photoshop. That's ok for pros, but not amateurs, except one wants to learn and learn and learn...

The "modern" systems are very powerful, but extremly unflexible.

If you haven't already, try TextPad and UltraEdit if you want a good text editor. I used to use Cygnus Edit on the Amiga and I can't think of anything that TextPad doesn't do, apart from ARexx. (Shame more Windows programs don't support ActiveScripting/VBScript.)

I'm sure the Amiga would've become just as bad for stupid corporate desktop icons and browser helpers and other marketing annoyances if it had become as big/popular/mainstream as Windows is today.

I use mIRC for IRC. It's not as awful as it used to be (really!), although parts of it still really need some work. (The Options dialog in particular. Ugh. And its custom scripting language isn't exactly wonderful, but is very powerful.) I've toyed with a lot of other IRC clients but always ended up back with mIRC.

Bitmap editors... Yeah, I still miss DPaint/Brilliance sometimes when working at the individual pixel level, like icons. Photoshop is a fantastic program but just isn't designed for that kind of work and it can be a pain -- if you remember how streamlined DPaint and Brilliance were -- to use for that kind of task, even though I know the program reasonably well and have a lot of the hotkeys memorised. I still use Photoshop as my only image editor, though. There are some bitmap-focused paint programs on the PC that might be worth checking out but I don't remember the names and can't tell you if they're very good.

(I do wish Adobe would use some of their money hats on making Photoshop's GUI modal in fewer places. I keep paying for updates (well, I skipped CS1) and getting the odd nice-to-have feature but wishing they'd fix the UI so I could open a dialog and, you know, scroll the main image view or even, god forbid, do some editing without having to cancel the dialog.)

[quote="nudel"]If you haven't already, try TextPad and UltraEdit if you want a good text editor.[/quote] I did not try Textpad, but UE32 was UltraEdit32 (above).

That IS the problem !! One of it. What I also miss is the full configuration of any menu and mouse button/combination. With GoldED I could change the file-save menu so, that instead of saving directly it would run a script, that would save the file instead (well I'd save the file to T: and then would run my script upon it, which would rename it afterwards.) Just one example for power that I miss. Or the XRef library with GoldED. I had all my developer documentation, including Autodocs, ARexx guides for applications, RKM Amigaguides and much much more indexed. Hitting F1 would bring up the docs, hitting ctrl-tab would autocomplete via an external API from the Amigaguides I indexed ! It was all more like this:

Configure once, run anywhere. (Not wanting to talk about filetype-analyzis libraries, XPArchive, XPK etc. :wink:

I agree with ActiveX. And while I hate VBScript I love, that I can use OpenObjectRexx, Python and Javascript with ActiveX hosts. Too bad they will drop the WSH with its possibilities to use any language that has a hook into ActiveX in favor for PowerShell (Monad). I mean, PowerShell is very nice and powerful, I use it in conjunction with IronPython (.NET) but I think, they should leave it open to the user, which language they want to use. Javascript won't be .NETtable, OpenObjectRexx: Who knows ?! This is already too high-level for power-users, who are not really into programming, but need to stuff up their tools.

Of course, this seems true.

I hate mIRC :wink: It's clumsy (did not check the latest version]. Did you try Klient ? (www.klient.com) It's got a modern .NET interface and is ActiveScriptable. Also has an API for more advanced plugins. It's shareware with a free and unlimited trial.

PersonalPaint (PPaint) here :wink: The power of its Arexx host was a dream. I created macros, that would allow me to paint "Bevel Boxes" with the mouse. This was ideal when creating icons or toolbars. I really miss it. This is why I have UAE and a 9GB SCSI HDD in my workstation.

Indeed, it is.

Right. That's my problem.

Do you know Painter ? I believe it is a Corel product by now and I only know it from the Mac (back at 7.5 times, Shapeshifter :smiley: ) It was like Brilliance to the M.A.X.

I can not say, that I can not fulfill my needs on these OS. But the way how I am forced to do it is what makes me feel so bad. The user experience sux IMO. A big, very big advantage were the XP libraries (of what kind ever), the flexible and application independant filetype recognition, the RAM disk, and, of course, ARexx !

I hate it, that IPC scripting is being reduced to "automation" on Windows, mostly being for admins. There is so much more you can do.

Also, the typical Windows tutor goes like this:

"First open the Start-Menu (that is the one with "Start" written on it) with you mouse. Klick with the left mouse button. Select "Execute". Klick it with the right mouse button. Type in "regedit.exe" and klick "Ok" with the right mouse button..."

Argh ! It's so lame :slight_smile:

It either is for lamers or for professionals. The power-users are somehow seated in between but can not really come to power. The paradigm seems to be: There is users, they are stoopid. And there is programmers, they have a SOAP and CORBA soda before going to bed. Nah, this is not the way I like it.

This is a screenshot of Directory Opus Magellan II (v 5.82) running on (emulated) Amiga. Click for full-size.

One more, now with dual PNG support!!! Click for full-size.

Can't post my Amiga Dopus screenshots 'cos they're safely archived away, and I've dumped WinUAE (just not the same).

I did import and adapt my original Amiga system to UAE when I finally took the plunge to x86 H/W, and I probably used it more than the native OS at the time.

I agree that there are still several things the Miggy did better. Arexx is the huge loss to Windows. Once I got to grips with it I was doing all sorts with my system that windows just can't handle. The accessibility of Blitz Basic 2, for free, with none of the bloated interface that VB has meant that anyone prepared to learn could produce very polished applications. I had at least two successes myself (AmigaDraughts back in the AUI days - though that was done in AMOS, and GHelpDeluxeMUI which is still available today, done in Blitz).

It's I shame that I had somethign of a a catastrophe and lost all of my sources in one go, I had some interesting projects on the go.

Oh, and Windows 98 was responsible for the catastrophe, believe it or not.

It's nice to see the Amiga spirit isn't dead, though. :slight_smile:

An old screenshot of DOpus 5 on my Miggy... I'm still using it actually, and it's definitely faster than any Windows version (and much, much faster than my WinUAE install). Heh, maybe that's my uber 68060 running at an insane 50 MHz...

Magellan

[quote="Kaminari"]... and it's definitely faster than any Windows version...
[/quote]

As old DOpus 4 user on A2000 030 & A3000 050 I thought this too, started my restaurated A3000 and... wait... and wait... and wait :wink:

Last time I used Amiga was 1994, in the Jurassic.

But I can't believe anyone uses prehistoric Amiga today in 2007.

I don't use my Amiga anymore, but it's fascinating that a 20 years old computer (incl. 2 HD's, graphics card,...) still boots up! I don't believe that my actual PC would do this in 20 years!

Also funny: The weight of my A3000 (original desktop-case) is about the same as one of my noise-reduced Chieftec BigTower :smiley:

arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20 ... dware.html

:smiley:


[quote="Sasa"]
A2000 030 & A3000 050 I thought this too[/quote]
Motorola never made 68050.

I'd guess the 050 refers to processor speed rather than generation.

ie - 68060 50Mhz

[quote="NomenNescio"]
Motorola never made 68050.[/quote]

Sorry, meant 30 and 50MHz, not processor type (030/30 and 030/50)!

From an old Amiga 2000,3000,2500, user. Thats great..! I didn't even know the Amiga was still around. Damn i love those machines. I still have my "Multitasking in 64K" T-Shirt. yep 64k not like sux Msoft 1 gig..

Thanks 4 the info..

SpaZm (ole Amiga handle)