»

[AmigaNG]

Not having to boot the OS to load programs, what I mean is on the classic Amiga you could use your Amiga without ever having to load up the OS/Workbench, games could boot straight up, even programs could self boot, all powered by the Kickstart. I think this is one of the reasons the Amiga had a edge over the PC in early days, no having to go into Dos or Windows to load a program, just slam the disk in and let it get on with it. I kind of liked this, because you could just use it like a game console, never having to touch the OS or complicated code to get a game or program running, why are these days gone, I know this is not really an OS issue but more of a Bios and Uboot issue but do you think we will ever see this again on a computer?


plus why does everything has to be installed, ok I know its quicker and easier no disk required etc, But kind of liked the option of not filling my hard disk up and having to use it to perform every task, these Linux Live disks proves that you dont really have to have a hard drive for everything.
So what do you lot think?

[HammerD]

Originally Posted by AmigaNG

Not having to boot the OS to load programs, what I mean is on the classic Amiga you could use your Amiga without ever having to load up the OS/Workbench, games could boot straight up, even programs could self boot, all powered by the Kickstart. I think this is one of the reasons the Amiga had a edge over the PC in early days, no having to go into Dos or Windows to load a program, just slam the disk in and let it get on with it. I kind of liked this, because you could just use it like a game console, never having to touch the OS or complicated code to get a game or program running, why are these days gone, I know this is not really an OS issue but more of a Bios and Uboot issue but do you think we will ever see this again on a computer?


plus why does everything has to be installed, ok I know its quicker and easier no disk required etc, But kind of liked the option of not filling my hard disk up and having to use it to perform every task, these Linux Live disks proves that you dont really have to have a hard drive for everything.
So what do you lot think?

Well it is still possible today. The difference is kickstart is loading from hard disk instead of a ROM. Once kickstart is in memory, if you had no OS partition set to boot, you would get the "insert disk" screen. So at that point you could start to play your floppy-based game

I guess it's the fact that things have moved on. Hard drives are standard now, games don't fit on floppies, run better off of hard disks than CDROMS, etc etc.

[save2600]

Modern computing has made a lot of things dis-interesting to me as well. I very much like removable storage, working with floppies, etc. Just think if the Zip drive technology had been more popular or standardized. The LS120 drives too, remember them?

But yeah, like an Amiga, IBM clones and Mac's can still boot from floppy or optical drive, but most peoples mindsets have shifted from that way of thinking. It's really only used now to save a HD or install/prep said HD. With the computing power we have today, think of how well certain programs could run if coded so that they were written entirely for a given machines architecture (machine language) and NOT a crappy OS. Oh wait - that's what dedicated consoles pretty much are. lol Going from MSDOS to Windoze the first time, couldn't help but scratch my head in amazement that, all of the sudden, we need a program to run a program?! I felt exactly the same way about GEOS for the C64. Somehow, the ST, Mac & Amiga all seemed different as they were "born" with the mouse driven interface. Really though, it *is* the same thing. Programs running programs. Supposed to make our lives easier, better - faster. HA! lol

But when it comes to "computing", perception is everything. Mainstream folks feel the need to be moving "forward" all the time, even if they're going nowhere fast. The digital music industry has already proven that. Using a floppy today, especially a measly 1.44mb one, would just screw with their perception of the computing experience. Besides all that, the format simply isn't large enough to handle all the inefficient coding going on in today's software and I agree with HammerD... just isn't practical anymore en masse.

[persia]

It is quite possible to boot from USB flash drives (the 21st century equivalent of floppies), It's great for diagnostics and computer repair, I suppose you could boot a game or other app, but with hard disk space running at less than US$100 per terabyte there's really little incentive to save disk space.

[Golem!dk]

Originally Posted by AmigaNG

So what do you lot think?

Progress doesn't bother me.

[scuzzb494]

What's great fun is writing and customising your own Amiga self booting floppy disk. I have a great tutorial from one of the Amiga magazines that kept me occupied for weeks. Still have a folder full of disks....

scuzz

[KThunder]

I've had way too many floppies, cds and dvds die on me to mourn their loss or disuse to much. I kept my n64 alllllllooooong time simply because the carts were so durable, so my kids couldn't damage them. Actually I think I still have one kicking around and last I checked all the games still worked.

[pyrre]

Originally Posted by save2600

Modern computing has made a lot of things dis-interesting to me as well. I very much like removable storage, working with floppies, etc. Just think if the Zip drive technology had been more popular or standardized. The LS120 drives too, remember them?

But yeah, like an Amiga, IBM clones and Mac's can still boot from floppy or optical drive, but most peoples mindsets have shifted from that way of thinking. It's really only used now to save a HD or install/prep said HD. With the computing power we have today, think of how well certain programs could run if coded so that they were written entirely for a given machines architecture (machine language) and NOT a crappy OS. Oh wait - that's what dedicated consoles pretty much are. lol Going from MSDOS to Windoze the first time, couldn't help but scratch my head in amazement that, all of the sudden, we need a program to run a program?! I felt exactly the same way about GEOS for the C64. Somehow, the ST, Mac & Amiga all seemed different as they were "born" with the mouse driven interface. Really though, it *is* the same thing. Programs running programs. Supposed to make our lives easier, better - faster. HA! lol

But when it comes to "computing", perception is everything. Mainstream folks feel the need to be moving "forward" all the time, even if they're going nowhere fast. The digital music industry has already proven that. Using a floppy today, especially a measly 1.44mb one, would just screw with their perception of the computing experience. Besides all that, the format simply isn't large enough to handle all the inefficient coding going on in today's software and I agree with HammerD... just isn't practical anymore en masse.

Back in the days it was easy to program software to work on spesific computers. The programmers knew what hardware was inside the computer. and they could program games to that "standard" and it would work on 70 - 90% of the computers in the world. A short port and you would further expand it.

Today this is a whole different story.
Here:
http://www.indexoftheweb.com/Compute...ntrollers.html
Is a short list of HDD controller makers. Which is one major part of a computers motherboard setup.
If programmers of modern games should make device drivers for any modern computer part. The games would be huge and unnecessary complex. And would possibly only support a sertain component manufacturer.
And what about audio, GFX, network, motherboard drivers, +++...

In pcs early life this was their story. 500 different manufacturers and their components only worked with their own components. unless you purchased components from one of their business associates. It "may" work...

Then arrived standards like PCI which for the first time introduced plug and play (or autoconfig in amiga), and it worked, relative so to speak (in the beginning).
And of course the operating system became the gateway for games to run an any hardware. The operating system holds the device drivers. And provides the games and programmers with a standardized platform. As is the direct X, open gl, (direct 3d is a part of direct x).

And suddenly we are back to the start. Programmers have their standardized platform and do not need to worry about device drivers. They just need to make an interesting game.
So you see, it ain't so much different in Principe. Its just an evolutionary step further.

[yorgle]

In a way, the "boot from floppy direct into a game" thing is about on par with cartridge-based consoles. Plug in a cartridge (or disk) and have it load the game without an application loader, quickly (or slowly).

That's a really interesting train of thought. Need to think about this more.

[Gulliver]

So, A Big missing classic feature on the new Amiga's?
Simple, the missing feature is the Amiga.

Today you can buy a SAM or whatever and feel it is a computer for either geeks or enthusiast. Now it is just a matter of hunderds or thousands megahertz cpu and sloppy coding, with mostly ports of other architectures that give you a feeling of lost identity. The hardware is unoriginal, not innovating in any area, just a dull motherboard with nothing special about it.

When you bought an Amiga, in the early days, you knew it was an overwhelming high standart computer experience, with tight and smart coding, with programs that were only available to that platform and gave it a special value and a disctintive seal. The hardware was original, ingenious and innovating in many areas, custom chipsets, coprocessors and many dma channels made that, a unique computer arquitecture.

My two cents

[ChaosLord]

Originally Posted by Gulliver

So, A Big missing classic feature on the new Amiga's?
Simple, the missing feature is the Amiga.

Today you can buy a SAM or whatever and feel it is a computer for either geeks or enthusiast. Now it is just a matter of hunderds or thousands megahertz cpu and sloppy coding, with mostly ports of other architectures that give you a feeling of lost identity. The hardware is unoriginal, not innovating in any area, just a dull motherboard with nothing special about it.

When you bought an Amiga, in the early days, you knew it was an overwhelming high standart computer experience, with tight and smart coding, with programs that were only available to that platform and gave it a special value and a disctintive seal. The hardware was original, ingenious and innovating in many areas, custom chipsets, coprocessors and many dma channels made that, a unique computer arquitecture.

+1

[sledge]

I agree... it's a very powerful feature indeed. Something I really miss from time to time on other systems aswell.

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by AmigaNG

Not having to boot the OS to load programs, what I mean is on the classic Amiga you could use your Amiga without ever having to load up the OS/Workbench, games could boot straight up, even programs could self boot, all powered by the Kickstart.

You still can boot without a startup sequence in OS4 if you like. Of course, OS4's Kickstart lives on disk (how's that for a full on trip into retro land for you?), so you still need it available, even if it is on an external medium (install CD for example).

I think this is one of the reasons the Amiga had a edge over the PC in early days, no having to go into Dos or Windows to load a program, just slam the disk in and let it get on with it. I kind of liked this, because you could just use it like a game console, never having to touch the OS or complicated code to get a game or program running, why are these days gone, I know this is not really an OS issue but more of a Bios and Uboot issue but do you think we will ever see this again on a computer?

You are sort of confusing the OS with Workbench, I think. Regardless of whether or not you started a full workbench session, or even just an amigados one without startup, AmigaOS was always loaded right from power on, even when booting from a non-os friendly game. What do you think activated the floppy drive and read in your game's bootloader?

plus why does everything has to be installed, ok I know its quicker and easier no disk required etc, But kind of liked the option of not filling my hard disk up and having to use it to perform every task, these Linux Live disks proves that you dont really have to have a hard drive for everything.
So what do you lot think?

This is a bit of a nonsense argument these days, IMHO. How is it an advantage? Storage is vast and cheap today. You aren't going to fill a modern HD quickly by installing applications, especially Amiga ones. It's your data that takes up the room. My oldest still-in-service Amiga hard drive (1.2GB, utter peanuts by todays standards) still has plenty of free space after 15 years!

Booting straight into an app from disk was useful before I had a hard disk but I'd much rather be able to launch something without having to rifle around in a drawer full of disks, which usually takes longer than it does booting the system It was the whole reason I bought a hard disk for my Amiga in the first place and it was one of the single most useful hardware upgrades it ever had.

[TomJ]

I think maybe some of us like me are just getting lazy many of the disks actually had the same boot info as the workbench. I remember creating a special Pagestream disk that loaded every thing on my ram and would run faster. Of course all the games especially the good one .....

[Karlos]

Originally Posted by TomJ

I think maybe some of us like me are just getting lazy many of the disks actually had the same boot info as the workbench. I remember creating a special Pagestream disk that loaded every thing on my ram and would run faster. Of course all the games especially the good one .....

I used to have custom configured boot floppies for running various software, such as octamed, protracker and the sampler software for my old parallel port sampler on the same floppy.

It was necessary in the days before getting a hard disk but I'd argue that having to boot a different disk for each major application you use made a mockery of a system designed around multitasking.