Amiga software
Encyclopedia
Amiga software covers a wide range of software for the Amiga
computer, both productivity and games, commercial, freeware and hobbyist. The Amiga software market was particularly active in the late 1980s and early 1990s but has since the period 1996/1999 dwindled into almost only a hobbyist scene.
During its lifetime, the number of applications made available for the Amiga was in excess of 2,000, with over 10,000 utilities (these utilities are almost all collected into Aminet
major repository). However, it was perceived as a games machine from outside its community of experienced and professional users. In fact, there were also more than 12,000 games available for Amiga. Programs are being developed for the three existing Amiga-like operating systems still nowadays, but generally new programs are portings from open source and mainly from Linux
vast software-base.
Many Amiga software solutions or noteworthy programs, during the timeline were ported to other platforms or perhaps inspired new programs still used today, such as those aimed at 3D rendering or audio creations, e.g. LightWave 3D and Blender
(whose development started for the Amiga platform only). The first multimedia word processors for Amiga, such as TextCraft, Scribble!, Rashumon
, and Wordworth, were the first on the market to allow implement full-colour WYSIWYG
(with other platforms still only implementing black-and-white previews) and even allowing the embedding of audio files.
that was born in 1985. Commodore International
released the specifications for programming software for Amiga, and a certain number of development computers to various software house of that age, and mainly Electronic Arts
, a software house which then realized some masterpiece software for Amiga (Deluxe Paint
, DeLuxe Music
, etc.). The team at Electronic Arts developed also Interchange File Format
file type container, to output the project files realized by DeLuxe Paint and DeLuxe Music. Thus IFF file format became de facto standard in AmigaOS. Historically speaking the very first programs to being shown to a vast public on Amiga were a digitizer software and the paint software ProPaint (that was still in early beta), and both were used by artist Andy Warhol
to acquire a black-and-white photo of rock artist Debbie Harry
,voice of musical group Blondie
at Amiga Launch Gala at Lincoln Center, New York
in July 1985.
To enhance the software base of Amiga, and show its hardware capabilities, in 1985 Commodore licensed also the software called Transformer
from Simile Research and put it on the market in the first days of January 1986 bundled with external A1020 5,25" floppy drive. It was a software emulating 8086 Intel based PC-XT hardware. It was capable to run MS-DOS
Operating System and thus MS-DOS productivity software like Lotus 123 or Wordstar
. This was an easy way to access the vast market of MS-DOS software, while waiting for native Amiga software beginning to be developed. In 1985 Deluxe Paint was born and featured very powerful graphic features that were available in those times only only on dedicated graphic computers. It was considered the first Amiga "Killer Application
".
, but it was 1986 (the year of the launch of Amiga 2000
) that saw enough Amiga software hitting the market and contribute to its success as a game and multimedia machine. In that year were born software like AmigaBasic
from Microsoft
, VizaWrite, Textcraft (word processors), Pagesetter (Desktop Publishing), Analyze! (Spreadsheet), Superbase Personal
(Database), Moviecraft (animation), Deluxe paint II, Deluxe Music, and Instant Music
(a composition music program for non musicians) from Electronic Arts and Graphichart again from Commodore. Graphicart was the software used by computer artist Jim Sachs to produce some Amiga masterpieces like Defender of the Crown
and Centurion Defender of Rome from Cinemaware
and the Amiga porting of Saucer Attack
. Graphicraft was the predecessor of Aegis Draw and mainly AEGIS Animator, one of the first programs worldwide (if not the first) capable to create animation videos and cartoons complete with audio stereo, featuring a cel animation working paradigm interface and outputting files based on Delta-frame difference
compression method which then were the lead for creating ANIM
file type standard. Byte-by-Byte Software Inc. released Sculpt-3D. It is the first rendering tool available for the first time to a vast audience of public, and in October of the same year Impulse released TurboSilver
.
realized in July an "Amiga/Atari
Division" and start selling a version of its famous wordprocessor for the Commodore platform for US$ 400. It could load and save Wordperfect files created on any platform, such as IBM, Macintosh and Apple II. Wordperfect 4.1 for the Amiga was the first wordprocessor in the world capable to open indefinite documents, each one in its separate window. In 1987 Andrew Tanenbaum releases the Minix
operating system for the Amiga. It is a free version of Unix
with complete source code. Year 1987 closes for Amiga with COMDEX
Exhibit Show. NewTek
shown for the first time a prototype of Video Toaster
and Impulse released TurboSilver 2.0.
software. It allowed digital painting using HAM graphic mode and full 4096 colors palette of Amiga on a single screen. Maxiplan 500 become Maxiplan 1.x, Electronic Arts shown DeLuxe Photo Lab (photo editing software), Newtek demonstrated DigiView 3.0 hardware and software image digitizing suite, WordPerfect released the WordPerfect Library for the Amiga. At the Summer CES
was announced also the Pro Draw graphic tablet with mouse emulation software, and Flash-Back and Quarterback hard drive backup software. Superbase Personal becomes Superbase Professional, Micro Illusions start shipping Music-X audio software for the Amiga and Lattice
released its C++
preprocessor for the Amiga also. In 1988 was also released Cygnus Editor
ubiquitous text editor, one of the most versatile text editors and best seller on Amiga since then. It was one of the first Amiga programs featuring an AREXX
port. Gold Disk released ComicSetter (comic creation) and Gold Disk releases the MovieSetter (32color cartoons with stereo sound animation software). In November, at World of Commodore Show ReadySoft demonstrated its AMAX
Macintosh emulator for the Amiga.
, ImageFx, Scala continue using their own not-standard GUI for a precise choice of manufacturers. In 1990 was introduced also AmigaVision, bundled free with any model of Amiga 3000. To the period 1990-1994 it belonging also software like Directory Master, Directory Opus, TurboCalc, Photogenics, ImageFX, PC Task, Photogenics, Caligari, Final Calc, Cinema, 4D, etcetera, etcetera. In this period was developed the vast majority of Amiga productivity software.
"desktop paradigm" and native AmigaOS interface guidelines, that is to say the software is mouse driven and presents also pulldown "Menus" and "dialogue windows" in which to choose the current options ("Open", "Save", "Save As", "Preferences", "Cut", "Copy", contextual "Help", etcetera) just as it happens still nowadays in any software. As long as AmigaOS owns also a text-based Shell, many software could also present just a text-based GUI, or interact with the user just with "command line", such as early compressing-decompressing (inflate-deflate) utilities, like as Zip
and Lha
.
); Support and Maintenance Utilities that are used for formatting hard disks, recover or backup data, etc.; Multimedia
software (graphic, video, music); Communication software
(including the software for dealing with Internet
and any other net); Programming
, that is one of the basics function on a computer and allows new software to being coded and released to users; some various other major or minor utilities that enhance the ease of use in any Operating System (that is for example Application Launching Docks
) together with Software for Special Purposes (such as software for people who suffer of limitation of movements). Games
are a separate kind of software that deals with entertainment
for kids and adults. Emulation software is a very particular family of software that allow a computer acting as a different computer than the original one (even built with different classes of processors than the host computer that is capable to emulate it), it deals mainly with retrocomputing
issues. Demos are another kind of separate software. Demos are often music videos or graphical hacks created for pleasure, to astonish spectators or to demonstrate the very limits of the hardware the run into. These are often being considered a modern form of art (see Demoscene
). Here follows a brief list of major known software for Amiga organized by these categories.
paradigm; Amiga Advanced Graphics Systems; PostScript; TrueType Fonts, Color Fonts and Anim Fonts; Font Designer Software; Amiga Advanced Audio System; native, external, widely common used, and third party Filesystems; Datatypes; MultiView; MIME types; USB stacks; Firewire stacks (IEEE 1394); Printer Drivers; Video digitizers; Graphic Tablets; Scanner Drivers; Genlocks, Chroma-Key, signal video inverters; InfraRed Devices and remote controls; WiFi and Bluetooth Devices; Special devices.
To learn more, refer to main article Amiga programming languages.
MakeCD is the first Amiga program to support DAO, (Disk At Once). Frying Pan is the first Amiga program capable to create DVD
s. Now both FryingPAN and BurnIt! are capable to handle DVD.
BlueHD from German programmer Carsten Siegner is a MorphOS program capable to authoring and burn HD-DVDs in these formats:
(A complete list of ISO managements and converters is available on Aminet.)
on the windows manager desktop in AmigaOS. Amiga users began to appreciate the software docking utility in 1989-1990 period, due to two factors: they considered with interest and sympathy the NeXT
computer, from Steve Jobs
that was based on 68030 processor by Motorola
(the same processor that equipped Amiga 3000
) and they were intrigued by graphic aspect and coherence of the NeXT interface, and due to the parallel occurrence that it existed also Acorn Archimedes
RISC OS
docking station utility. Archimedes computers were popular in Great Britain
because they were adopted in Schools of all grades. Young Amiga users (there were 1,500,000 Amigas sold in the United Kingdom) spotted docks on Archimedes at school and asked for it on Amiga also. Various launch bars or docking utilities were born as 3rd party hobby utilities (many examples of early docking software for Amiga are still hosted in Aminet
official net repository of all Amiga free software, in the "Utility" directory) and then Amidock was officially integrated in AmigaOS since version 3.9.
Directory Opus
was a file utility program. When this software was released, the popular Amiga magazines proclaimed that it was the most important software ever released for the Amiga and "should be built into the operating system". Directory Opus went on to create a "replacement OS" for Workbench which overlaid itself upon the system.
It started as a file manager, and then became a complete desktop replacement for AmigaOS alternative to official Workbench.
Much shareware and free software was written for the Amiga and could be obtained via the Fred Fish
disk series or from the Aminet
software archive.
Because the custom chipset shares RAM (and therefore the memory bus) with the CPU, the CPU's throughput increases measurably if the display is disabled. Some processor-intensive software, such as 3D renderers, would disable the display during calculation in order to gain speed.
emulator), Fusion (Macintosh
Emulator), AMax
and AMax II, (Macintosh), GO64 (first Commodore C64
emulator), Transformer and PCTask (it was an Intel 8088 emulator, all software based, capable to emulate Intel PC based platforms ranging from PC XT 4,7 and 7 MHz on Amiga 500
, up to 80486 running at 12 MHz on Amiga 4000
and other accelerated Amigas), A64 Package
(C64), Amiga BBC Emulator (Acorn BBC emulator)
(Macintosh) classic, Frodo (C64), PSXE (Sony PlayStation
), Hu-Go! (PC Engine, TurboGrafx-16
), FunnyMu (Creativision, Funvision, Wizzard
), AmiArcadia (Arcadia 2001
, VC 4000
, TVGC), etcetera.
VICE
emulator it is modular based and capable to emulate all 8-bit
machines made by Commodore: C64 (a patch of VICE it is capable to emulate also C64dtv
), C128
, PET
including CBM II version
(but excluding "non-standard" features of SuperPET 9000), Plus4
, VIC-20
, etcetera.
". The Amiga thrived on public domain
, freeware
and other not-for-profit development. The demo scene spearheaded development in multimedia programming techniques for the Amiga, such that it was de rigueur for the latest visual tricks, soundtrackers and 3D algorithms from the demo scene to end up being used in computer game development.
. Many of the arguments pertaining to software piracy, intellectual property
rights in software, the open-source movement
, and so on, were well-developed in the Amiga scene by the early 1990s. It was not unusual for a demo group to be openly involved in software piracy.
Several anti-piracy measures were introduced during the Amiga's reign. One was the practise of distributing software on disks that contained secret "keys" on high-numbered tracks, which were officially unused. The Amiga disk drive officially only read tracks 0-79 from a double-density disk, but in reality it could easily read tracks 80 through 82. Official disk-imaging software would ignore these tracks, so that a duplicate of a boxed disk would not contain the key and the software would not work. A similar technique involved writing to sectors of the disk that would not normally be used. However, special copy software called "nibble" copiers appeared, which could exactly reproduce any disk an Amiga could read.
Publishers therefore turned to other methods. Hardware dongle
s were occasionally used for high-end software. An example would be AmigaHASP, used to protect Rashumon and was sold by HarmonySoft to Aladdin Systems. Some software manufacturers would force a user to type a word from a particular page number and line number of the manual, meaning that successfully pirating software included photocopying a large quantity of text. Sometimes the text from which the key was chosen was designed so that photocopiers would produce illegible copies, meaning that pirates had to retype or handwrite the text, or else give up.
These and other schemes lead to pirates "cracking
" software by altering a copy of the code bypassing the copy protection completely. There was not a protection scheme that was not eventually broken. One almost exception was the scheme on the Amiga version of Dragon's Lair
which became the holy grail of crackers Worldwide. Eventually it was released in a modified format that circumvented the copy protection.
Piracy has been cited as a reason for the death of the Amiga, however, piracy was just as prolific on other platforms. For example many games for the ZX Spectrum
could be copied using nothing more than an ordinary cassette recorder, leading to a massive culture of playground game trading - that machine however lived a long and fruitful life nonetheless. The same happened with C64 again with cassettes, or with PC software copied on floppy disks by organized piracy, or finally, in more recent ages, it happened with PlayStation
I and the enormous success it had due to the diffusion of pirated CD games even diffused as ISO image
s on early pirate sites on internet together with PC software. There was a vast amount of Amiga software available in the marketplace and Commodore's mis-marketing of the machine is well documented as the reason for its own demise.
techniques. Also, the disk drive had a slow transfer rate, such that using processor-based decompression could actually lead to faster loading times than loading uncompressed data from disk. Early implementations of decompression code would write rapidly varying values to a video display register, causing the screen's scan line
s to break into multiple segments of colourful noise, which would become finer as the decrunching neared the end. This effect was psychedelic
and very easy to implement, so it stuck; it was pioneered on the Commodore 64
. The use of "decrunching" became so ubiquitous that the effect was a standard. The effect was commonly seen in pirated games or demos
.
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
computer, both productivity and games, commercial, freeware and hobbyist. The Amiga software market was particularly active in the late 1980s and early 1990s but has since the period 1996/1999 dwindled into almost only a hobbyist scene.
During its lifetime, the number of applications made available for the Amiga was in excess of 2,000, with over 10,000 utilities (these utilities are almost all collected into Aminet
Aminet
Aminet is the world's largest archive of Amiga-related software and files. Aminet was originally hosted by several universities' FTP sites, and is now available on CD-ROM and on the web.-History:...
major repository). However, it was perceived as a games machine from outside its community of experienced and professional users. In fact, there were also more than 12,000 games available for Amiga. Programs are being developed for the three existing Amiga-like operating systems still nowadays, but generally new programs are portings from open source and mainly from Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
vast software-base.
Many Amiga software solutions or noteworthy programs, during the timeline were ported to other platforms or perhaps inspired new programs still used today, such as those aimed at 3D rendering or audio creations, e.g. LightWave 3D and Blender
Blender (software)
Blender is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software product used for creating animated films, visual effects, interactive 3D applications or video games. The current release version is 2.60, and was released on October 19, 2011...
(whose development started for the Amiga platform only). The first multimedia word processors for Amiga, such as TextCraft, Scribble!, Rashumon
Rashumon
Rashumon was a multilingual graphical word processor developed for the Amiga computer. It was developed by HarmonySoft in 1989 and was sold until 1994.-Notable features:This list is taken from Rashumon's README file....
, and Wordworth, were the first on the market to allow implement full-colour WYSIWYG
WYSIWYG
WYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. The term is used in computing to describe a system in which content displayed onscreen during editing appears in a form closely corresponding to its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product...
(with other platforms still only implementing black-and-white previews) and even allowing the embedding of audio files.
1985
Amiga software started its history along with the hardware platform called Amiga 1000Amiga 1000
The A1000, or Commodore Amiga 1000, was Commodore's initial Amiga personal computer, introduced on July 23, 1985 at the Lincoln Center in New York City....
that was born in 1985. Commodore International
Commodore International
Commodore is the commonly used name for Commodore Business Machines , the U.S.-based home computer manufacturer and electronics manufacturer headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which also housed Commodore's corporate parent company, Commodore International Limited...
released the specifications for programming software for Amiga, and a certain number of development computers to various software house of that age, and mainly Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
, a software house which then realized some masterpiece software for Amiga (Deluxe Paint
Deluxe Paint
Deluxe Paint is a bitmap graphics editor series originally created by Dan Silva for Electronic Arts .The original version was created for the Commodore Amiga and was released in November 1985...
, DeLuxe Music
Deluxe Music Construction Set
Deluxe Music Construction Set is a 1986 music composition, notation and playback program for the Amiga and Apple Macintosh home computers.-Summary:...
, etc.). The team at Electronic Arts developed also Interchange File Format
Interchange File Format
Interchange File Format , is a generic container file format originally introduced by the Electronic Arts company in 1985 in order to ease transfer of data between software produced by different companies....
file type container, to output the project files realized by DeLuxe Paint and DeLuxe Music. Thus IFF file format became de facto standard in AmigaOS. Historically speaking the very first programs to being shown to a vast public on Amiga were a digitizer software and the paint software ProPaint (that was still in early beta), and both were used by artist Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
to acquire a black-and-white photo of rock artist Debbie Harry
Debbie Harry
Deborah Ann "Debbie" Harry is an American singer-songwriter and actress, best known for being the lead singer of the punk rock and new wave band Blondie. She has also had success as a solo artist, and in the mid-1990s she performed and recorded as part of The Jazz Passengers...
,voice of musical group Blondie
Blondie (band)
Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...
at Amiga Launch Gala at Lincoln Center, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in July 1985.
To enhance the software base of Amiga, and show its hardware capabilities, in 1985 Commodore licensed also the software called Transformer
Transformer
A transformer is a device that transfers electrical energy from one circuit to another through inductively coupled conductors—the transformer's coils. A varying current in the first or primary winding creates a varying magnetic flux in the transformer's core and thus a varying magnetic field...
from Simile Research and put it on the market in the first days of January 1986 bundled with external A1020 5,25" floppy drive. It was a software emulating 8086 Intel based PC-XT hardware. It was capable to run MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
Operating System and thus MS-DOS productivity software like Lotus 123 or Wordstar
WordStar
WordStar is a word processor application, published by MicroPro International, originally written for the CP/M operating system but later ported to DOS, that enjoyed a dominant market share during the early to mid-1980s. Although Seymour I...
. This was an easy way to access the vast market of MS-DOS software, while waiting for native Amiga software beginning to be developed. In 1985 Deluxe Paint was born and featured very powerful graphic features that were available in those times only only on dedicated graphic computers. It was considered the first Amiga "Killer Application
Killer application
A killer application , in the jargon of marketing teams, has been used to refer to any computer program that is so necessary or desirable that it proves the core value of some larger technology, such as computer hardware, gaming console, software, or an operating system...
".
1986
In 1985 was released also ABasiC by Commodore, licensed from MetacomcoMetaComCo
MetaComCo was a computer systems software company started in 1981 and based in Bristol, England by Peter Mackeonis and Derek Budge.MetaComCo's first product was an MBASIC compatible interpreter for IBM PC's, which was licensed by Peter Mackeonis to Digital Research in 1982, and issued as the...
, but it was 1986 (the year of the launch of Amiga 2000
Amiga 2000
The Amiga 2000, or A2000, is a personal computer released by Commodore in 1986. It is the successor to the Amiga 1000.-Features:Aimed at the high-end market, the original Europe-only model adds a Zorro II backplane, implemented in programmable logic, to the custom Amiga chipset used in the Amiga 1000...
) that saw enough Amiga software hitting the market and contribute to its success as a game and multimedia machine. In that year were born software like AmigaBasic
AmigaBASIC
AmigaBASIC was an interpreted BASIC programming language implementation for the Amiga, designed and written by Microsoft. AmigaBASIC shipped with AmigaOS versions 1.1 to 1.3...
from Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, VizaWrite, Textcraft (word processors), Pagesetter (Desktop Publishing), Analyze! (Spreadsheet), Superbase Personal
Superbase database
Superbase is an end-user desktop database program that started on the Commodore PET and was ported from that to various operating systems over the course of more than 20 years...
(Database), Moviecraft (animation), Deluxe paint II, Deluxe Music, and Instant Music
Instant Music (software)
Instant Music is an interactive music software program released by Electronic Arts in 1986. It was developed first for the Amiga, but then ported to other platforms, such as Apple IIGS, and Commodore 64....
(a composition music program for non musicians) from Electronic Arts and Graphichart again from Commodore. Graphicart was the software used by computer artist Jim Sachs to produce some Amiga masterpieces like Defender of the Crown
Defender of the Crown
Defender of the Crown is a strategy computer game designed by Kellyn Beck. It was Cinemaware's first game, and was originally released for the Commodore Amiga in 1986, setting a new standard for graphic quality in home computer games....
and Centurion Defender of Rome from Cinemaware
Cinemaware
Cinemaware was a computer game developer and publisher that released several popular titles in the 1980s based on various movie themes. The company was resurrected in 2000, before being acquired by eGames in 2005.-Cinemaware Corp...
and the Amiga porting of Saucer Attack
Saucer Attack
Saucer Attack is a computer game for the Commodore 64, created by James D. Sachs.-Summary:The game is a shoot 'em up where the player's job is to protect Washington, D.C. from invading flying saucers. The game screen presents a beautifully drawn backdrop of Washington, with various landmarks such...
. Graphicraft was the predecessor of Aegis Draw and mainly AEGIS Animator, one of the first programs worldwide (if not the first) capable to create animation videos and cartoons complete with audio stereo, featuring a cel animation working paradigm interface and outputting files based on Delta-frame difference
Delta encoding
Delta encoding is a way of storing or transmitting data in the form of differences between sequential data rather than complete files; more generally this is known as data differencing...
compression method which then were the lead for creating ANIM
ANIM
ANIM is a file format, used to store digital movies and computer generated animations , and is a variation of the ILBM format, which is a subformat of Interchange File Format.-Anim FileTypes:...
file type standard. Byte-by-Byte Software Inc. released Sculpt-3D. It is the first rendering tool available for the first time to a vast audience of public, and in October of the same year Impulse released TurboSilver
TurboSilver
TurboSilver was one of the original 3D raytracing software packages available for the Amiga and for personal computers in general. It was first revealed by its creator Impulse at the October 1986 AmiEXPO. Beaten to the line by Sculpt 3D which was released in July 1986.November 1987 saw the release...
.
1987
In 1987 was released the new platform for home computing, the Amiga 500, and this made the Amiga software market differentiating more between professional and gaming and overwhelmingly in favor of entertainment software. For professional market were produced titles like Maxiplan 500 (spreadsheet), Aegis Sonix a music program similar to Instant Music. Another wordprocessor software was born that year, it is ProWrite. 1987 is also the year in which big names entered the Amiga market. WordperfectWordPerfect
WordPerfect is a word processing application, now owned by Corel.Bruce Bastian, a Brigham Young University graduate student, and BYU computer science professor Dr. Alan Ashton joined forces to design a word processing system for the city of Orem's Data General Corp. minicomputer system in 1979...
realized in July an "Amiga/Atari
Atari
Atari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
Division" and start selling a version of its famous wordprocessor for the Commodore platform for US$ 400. It could load and save Wordperfect files created on any platform, such as IBM, Macintosh and Apple II. Wordperfect 4.1 for the Amiga was the first wordprocessor in the world capable to open indefinite documents, each one in its separate window. In 1987 Andrew Tanenbaum releases the Minix
Minix
MINIX is a Unix-like computer operating system based on a microkernel architecture created by Andrew S. Tanenbaum for educational purposes; MINIX also inspired the creation of the Linux kernel....
operating system for the Amiga. It is a free version of Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
with complete source code. Year 1987 closes for Amiga with COMDEX
COMDEX
COMDEX was a computer expo held in Las Vegas, Nevada, each November from 1979 to 2003. It was one of the largest computer trade shows in the world, usually second only to the German CeBIT, and by many accounts one of the largest trade shows in any industry sector...
Exhibit Show. NewTek
NewTek
NewTek, Inc. is a San Antonio, Texas-based hardware and software company that produces live and post-production video tools and visual imaging software for personal computers...
shown for the first time a prototype of Video Toaster
Video Toaster
The NewTek Video Toaster is a combination of hardware and software for the editing and production of standard-definition and high-definition video in NTSC, PAL, and resolution independent formats on Commodore Amiga computers and subsequently on computers running the Windows operating system...
and Impulse released TurboSilver 2.0.
1988
In 1988 it was released Photon PaintPhoton Paint
Photon Paint is a Hold-And-Modify based bitmap graphics editor for the Commodore Amiga, first released in 1987. It was programmed by Oren Peli, Eyal Ofek & Amir Zbeda at Bazbo Soft and published by MicroIllusions....
software. It allowed digital painting using HAM graphic mode and full 4096 colors palette of Amiga on a single screen. Maxiplan 500 become Maxiplan 1.x, Electronic Arts shown DeLuxe Photo Lab (photo editing software), Newtek demonstrated DigiView 3.0 hardware and software image digitizing suite, WordPerfect released the WordPerfect Library for the Amiga. At the Summer CES
Consumer Electronics Show
The International Consumer Electronics Show is a major technology-related trade show held each January in the Las Vegas Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. Not open to the public, the Consumer Electronics Association-sponsored show typically hosts previews of products and new...
was announced also the Pro Draw graphic tablet with mouse emulation software, and Flash-Back and Quarterback hard drive backup software. Superbase Personal becomes Superbase Professional, Micro Illusions start shipping Music-X audio software for the Amiga and Lattice
Lattice C
Lattice C was the first C compiler for MS-DOS on the IBM PC, in 1982. It was ported to many other platforms, such as mainframes , minicomputers , workstations , OS/2, the Commodore Amiga, Atari ST and the Sinclair QL.The compiler was subsequently repackaged by Microsoft under a distribution...
released its C++
C++
C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...
preprocessor for the Amiga also. In 1988 was also released Cygnus Editor
CygnusEd
CygnusEd is a text editor for the Amiga OS and MorphOS. It was developed in 1986-1987 by Bruce Dawson, Colin Fox and Steve LaRocque who were working for CygnusSoft Software...
ubiquitous text editor, one of the most versatile text editors and best seller on Amiga since then. It was one of the first Amiga programs featuring an AREXX
ARexx
ARexx is an implementation of the REXX language for the Amiga, written in 1987 by William S. Hawes, with a number of Amiga-specific features beyond standard REXX facilities. Like most REXX implementations, ARexx is an interpreted language...
port. Gold Disk released ComicSetter (comic creation) and Gold Disk releases the MovieSetter (32color cartoons with stereo sound animation software). In November, at World of Commodore Show ReadySoft demonstrated its AMAX
AMAX
AMAX is a United States certification program developed by the Electronic Industries Association and the National Association of Broadcasters in 1993. This quality control program addressed both consumer receiver developments and air chains of broadcast AM transmission stations...
Macintosh emulator for the Amiga.
1989-1994
In 1989 it was developed Photon paint which was capable to draw at 4096 colors in high resolution 640x512. Period 1990-1994 could be easily considered the golden age of Amiga software. In 1990 was introduced AmigaOS 2.0. The interface of Workbench GUI was changed to a fake 3D aspect using grey shades of colors. For the first time Commodore introduced an obliged styleguides for developers of AmigaOS, so then the vast majority of Amiga software begun to use also a standardized GUI and it improves its usability. Programs like Imagine 3D, LightwaveLightWave
LightWave 3D is a high end computer graphics program developed by NewTek. The latest release of LightWave runs on Windows and Mac OS X.- Overview:...
, ImageFx, Scala continue using their own not-standard GUI for a precise choice of manufacturers. In 1990 was introduced also AmigaVision, bundled free with any model of Amiga 3000. To the period 1990-1994 it belonging also software like Directory Master, Directory Opus, TurboCalc, Photogenics, ImageFX, PC Task, Photogenics, Caligari, Final Calc, Cinema, 4D, etcetera, etcetera. In this period was developed the vast majority of Amiga productivity software.
Usability
The software for Amiga is to be considered mainly "second generation" kind of software, as (unlike "so called" first generation software presenting only a text-based interface) it presents a complete graphical interface to interact with the user (GUI), following Amiga WYSIWYGWYSIWYG
WYSIWYG is an acronym for What You See Is What You Get. The term is used in computing to describe a system in which content displayed onscreen during editing appears in a form closely corresponding to its appearance when printed or displayed as a finished product...
"desktop paradigm" and native AmigaOS interface guidelines, that is to say the software is mouse driven and presents also pulldown "Menus" and "dialogue windows" in which to choose the current options ("Open", "Save", "Save As", "Preferences", "Cut", "Copy", contextual "Help", etcetera) just as it happens still nowadays in any software. As long as AmigaOS owns also a text-based Shell, many software could also present just a text-based GUI, or interact with the user just with "command line", such as early compressing-decompressing (inflate-deflate) utilities, like as Zip
ZIP (file format)
Zip is a file format used for data compression and archiving. A zip file contains one or more files that have been compressed, to reduce file size, or stored as is...
and Lha
LHA (file format)
LHA is a freeware compression utility and associated file format. It was created in 1988 by , and originally named LHarc. A complete rewrite of LHarc, tentatively named LHx, was eventually released as LH. It was then renamed to LHA to avoid conflicting with the then-new MS-DOS 5.0 LH command...
.
Cataloguing Amiga Software
Any computer could not exist without a vast range of software that covers the requests of the userbase, the software solves the necessities of the users and mainly elaborates user input data into a more intellegible and practical output result. Amiga do not miss this paradigm: "No software base, no user-base". As long as the software for Amiga (or Windows, or Macintosh) covers a vast range of targets of reference in any camp of problem solving or data-elaboration, it becomes necessary to split the catalogue in various Wikipedia articles. This is not a necessity for Amiga only, but it is common practice for cataloguing software on any platform, that is for example Windows software, Macintosh software, Linux software and so on. The main software categories to be catalogued are: Productivity Software (also called Application softwareApplication software
Application software, also known as an application or an "app", is computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software, accounting software, office suites, graphics software and media players. Many application programs deal principally with...
); Support and Maintenance Utilities that are used for formatting hard disks, recover or backup data, etc.; Multimedia
Multimedia
Multimedia is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media which use only rudimentary computer display such as text-only, or...
software (graphic, video, music); Communication software
Communication software
Communication software is used to provide remote access to systems and exchange files and messages in text, audio and/or video formats between different computers or user IDs...
(including the software for dealing with Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
and any other net); Programming
Computer programming
Computer programming is the process of designing, writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code of computer programs. This source code is written in one or more programming languages. The purpose of programming is to create a program that performs specific operations or exhibits a...
, that is one of the basics function on a computer and allows new software to being coded and released to users; some various other major or minor utilities that enhance the ease of use in any Operating System (that is for example Application Launching Docks
Dock (computing)
The Dock is a prominent feature of the graphical user interface of the Mac OS X operating system. It is used to launch applications and switch between running applications...
) together with Software for Special Purposes (such as software for people who suffer of limitation of movements). Games
VideoGames
VideoGames may refer to:*VideoGames, a mid-1990s magazine about video games.*Video games in general....
are a separate kind of software that deals with entertainment
Entertainment
Entertainment consists of any activity which provides a diversion or permits people to amuse themselves in their leisure time. Entertainment is generally passive, such as watching opera or a movie. Active forms of amusement, such as sports, are more often considered to be recreation...
for kids and adults. Emulation software is a very particular family of software that allow a computer acting as a different computer than the original one (even built with different classes of processors than the host computer that is capable to emulate it), it deals mainly with retrocomputing
Retrocomputing
Retrocomputing is the use of early computer hardware and software today. Retrocomputing is usually classed as a hobby and recreation rather than a practical application of technology; enthusiasts often collect rare and valuable hardware and software for sentimental reasons...
issues. Demos are another kind of separate software. Demos are often music videos or graphical hacks created for pleasure, to astonish spectators or to demonstrate the very limits of the hardware the run into. These are often being considered a modern form of art (see Demoscene
Demoscene
The demoscene is a computer art subculture that specializes in producing demos, which are non-interactive audio-visual presentations that run in real-time on a computer...
). Here follows a brief list of major known software for Amiga organized by these categories.
Productivity software
The article split section covers: Graphics, Video, Design and CAD Software, Graphic Utilities; Vector Graphics programs and converters; Amiga based Word Processors; some advanced Text Editors, with programming facilities and features for basic formatting of huge text files, lists of programs, advanced script programs; Database and Spreadsheets; Science, Entertainment and Special use programs: Entertainment for kids and adults; Fractals, Virtual Reality, Artificial Intelligence; Route Planning; Personal Organizer, Notebook, Diary software; Personal Budget, Home Banking, Accounts; Software for special purposes.Support and Maintenance Utilities
The article split section covers: Commodities and Utilities; Hard Disk Partitioning; Diagnostic Tools; Vga Promoting Tools for ancient Amiga Software with TV resolution graphic screens; Game loaders for storing and autoloading from Hard Disks the original Amiga, autostarting non standard Floppy Disks; Disk Copiers; Backup and Recovery Tools, Archives and Compression Utilities; Command Line Interfaces and Text-Based Shells; graphical GUI interfaces with WIMPWIMP (computing)
In human–computer interaction, WIMP stands for "windows, icons, menus and pointers", denoting a style of interaction using these elements. It was coined by Merzouga Wilberts in 1980...
paradigm; Amiga Advanced Graphics Systems; PostScript; TrueType Fonts, Color Fonts and Anim Fonts; Font Designer Software; Amiga Advanced Audio System; native, external, widely common used, and third party Filesystems; Datatypes; MultiView; MIME types; USB stacks; Firewire stacks (IEEE 1394); Printer Drivers; Video digitizers; Graphic Tablets; Scanner Drivers; Genlocks, Chroma-Key, signal video inverters; InfraRed Devices and remote controls; WiFi and Bluetooth Devices; Special devices.
Music
The article split section covers: Sound Design; Audio Synthetyzing; Music software; Audio digitizing and sampling; Hard Disk recording; Speech synthesis; Audio Trackers; MOD music module filetype.Programming
Although a large amount of programming languages and compilers were available for the Amiga, most development on the Amiga was done using C and C++, 680x0 assembler and various Basic dialects.To learn more, refer to main article Amiga programming languages.
Multimedia
[Section to be developed -it requires an article of its own-]- Movie Players: Frogger Player, MooVID player, SoftCinema, AmiDogMoviePlayer, mPlayerMPlayerMPlayer is a free and open source media player. The program is available for all major operating systems, including Linux and other Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS and MorphOS are also available. The Windows version works, with some minor...
, MysticView, VLCVLC media playerVLC media player is a free and open source media player and multimedia framework written by the VideoLAN project.VLC is a portable multimedia player, encoder, and streamer supporting many audio and video codecs and file formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It is able to...
(only for MorphOS). - Media Center: AMC a multiplatform multimedia center realized with Amiga Hollywood piloting mPlayer.
- Internet Radio: AmigaAMP and AmiAMP (similar to WinAMPWinampWinamp is a media player for Windows-based PCs and Android devices, written by Nullsoft, now a subsidiary of AOL. It is proprietary freeware/shareware, multi-format, extensible with plug-ins and skins, and is noted for its graphical sound visualization, playlist, and media library features.Winamp...
), AmiNetRadio, TuneNet - Music: Kaya Player, Hippo Player, CD Player, PlayOGG, HivelyPlay, Play16
- Special players and music modules players: XMPEXpanded MultiPlayereXpanded MultiPlayer is a multiplayer expansion to Unreal II developed by Legend Entertainment. XMP contains just one game mode that is similar to Capture the flag but requires more sophisticated tactics.- Development :...
Module player, ADPlay for AdLibAdLibAd Lib, Inc. was a manufacturer of sound cards and other computer equipment founded by Martin Prevel, a former professor of music and vice-dean of the music department at the Université Laval...
modules - Midi players: TiMidityTiMidityTiMidity++, originally and still frequently informally called TiMidity, is a software synthesizer that can play MIDI files without a hardware synthesizer...
, DG Midi Player - Image viewers: Multiview, Showgirls, SView5, MiniShowPicture, PicShow, SimpleView
- Image Cataloguers: PhotoAlbum
- Flash SWF file editing: SWFToolsSWFToolsSWFTools is an Open Source software tool suite for creating and manipulating SWF files. Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, it may be compiled from C source, to run under Linux, Microsoft Windows, and Apple Mac OSX...
Open Source set of flash .swf files utilities - Flash SWF file playing: simple basic Flash Player for MorphOS, GnashGnashGnash is a media player for playing SWF files. Gnash is available both as a standalone player for desktop computers and embedded device, as well as a plugin for several browsers. It is part of the GNU Project and is a Free and open-source alternative to Adobe Flash Player...
for AmigaOS 4.1, SwfdecSwfdecSwfdec is a free/open source replacement of Adobe Flash Player. It is currently compatible with GNU/Linux and FreeBSD and is distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License ....
(integrated as Plug-In for Origyn Web BrowserOrigyn Web BrowserOrigyn Web Browser is a web browser that is synchronized with WebKit and sponsored by web enabler Pleyo. OWB provides a meta-port to an abstract platform with the aim of making porting to embedded or lightweight systems quicker and easier...
for MorphOS). - Encoding video: 3ivx3ivx3ivx is a video codec suite, created by 3ivx Technologies, based in Sydney, Australia, that allows the creation of MPEG-4 compliant data streams. It has been designed around a need for decreased processing power for use mainly in embedded systems. First versions were published in 2001...
, FFmpegFFmpegFFmpeg is a free software project that produces libraries and programs for handling multimedia data. The most notable parts of FFmpeg are libavcodec, an audio/video codec library used by several other projects, libavformat, an audio/video container mux and demux library, and the ffmpeg command line...
, Mpeg2Enc, Mpeg2vidcodec, MEncoderMEncoderMEncoder is a free command line video decoding, encoding and filtering tool released under the GNU General Public License. It is a close sibling to MPlayer and can convert all the formats that MPlayer understands into a variety of compressed and uncompressed formats using different codecs.MEncoder... - Encoding audio: LAMELAMELAME is a free software codec used to encode/compress audio into the lossy MP3 file format.-History:The name LAME is a recursive acronym for "LAME Ain't an MP3 Encoder". Around mid-1998, Mike Cheng created LAME 1.0 as a set of modifications against the "8Hz-MP3" encoder source code...
, FLACFLACFLAC is a codec which allows digital audio to be losslessly compressed such that file size is reduced without any information being lost...
, ADPCM - PowerPoint ".PPT" files: PointRider
- Adobe SystemsAdobe SystemsAdobe Systems Incorporated is an American computer software company founded in 1982 and headquartered in San Jose, California, United States...
".PDF" files: APDF - Digital cameras: Canon toolbox for Canon photocameras, PtpDigCam, SimpleCam, AmiCaMedia, DigiCam, CamControl, Camedia, IOSUB Digicam Package, VHI Studio from IoSpirit Software
- TV cards players: Amithlon TV, Visionary, AmiTV and VailantVision that is an evolution of Amihlon TV.
- Java: It exists only old versions of KaffeKaffeKaffe is a clean room design of a Java Virtual Machine. It comes with a subset of the Java Platform, Standard Edition , Java API, and tools needed to provide a Java runtime environment. Like most other Free Java virtual machines, Kaffe uses GNU Classpath as its class library.Kaffe, first released...
JavaJava (programming language)Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
, from Geek Gadgets project. It worked under X11 graphical engine but without AWTAbstract Window ToolkitThe Abstract Window Toolkit is Java's original platform-independent windowing, graphics, and user-interface widget toolkit. The AWT is now part of the Java Foundation Classes — the standard API for providing a graphical user interface for a Java program.AWT is also the GUI toolkit for a...
, or with very pre-release alpha versions of abstraction windows toolkits. Other ports such as AmJay, Daytona, MOca and MerapiMerapiMerapi may refer to:* Mount Merapi, an active volcano in Central Java, Indonesia** aka Gunung Merapi * 2010 eruptions of Mount Merapi* Mount Marapi , an active volcano in West Sumatra, Indonesia...
were dismissed before reaching a working status. Actually there is JamigaJamigaJAmiga is an open-source Java virtual machine for the Amiga platform . It is released as free software under the GNU General Public License ....
and CACAOCACAOCACAO is a research Java Virtual Machine developed at Vienna University of Technology. It compiles the class binaries while running , resulting in faster execution...
being developed.
Drivers for Multimedia Devices and Special Input Functions
- Multimedia Keyboards MMKeyboard
- Hand-write recognition Meridian. Meridian is a program that performs Handwriting recognitionHandwriting recognitionHandwriting recognition is the ability of a computer to receive and interpret intelligible handwritten input from sources such as paper documents, photographs, touch-screens and other devices. The image of the written text may be sensed "off line" from a piece of paper by optical scanning or...
input function using a stylusStylus (computing)In computing, a stylus is a small pen-shaped instrument that is used to input commands to a computer screen, mobile device or graphics tablet...
like those equipping any tablet PCTablet computerA tablet computer, or simply tablet, is a complete mobile computer, larger than a mobile phone or personal digital assistant, integrated into a flat touch screen and primarily operated by touching the screen...
, emulating the stylus by mouse.
Software for people suffering of diseases and limitations in movements
- JakeBoard input software and hardware system emulating keyboard and mouse to be used by persons with physical limitations and/or problems of movements. Software and hardware schemes are actually freely downloadable at BlackBeltSystems Amiga Software page on their site.
- Talkboard similar to jakeboard, is a speech-generation system for persons with severe handicaps of movements. It is also freely downloadable.
CD, DVD and Blue Ray Burning Programs
BurnIt!, Frying Pan, MakeCD, AmiDVD, DVDRecord, DVDAuthorMakeCD is the first Amiga program to support DAO, (Disk At Once). Frying Pan is the first Amiga program capable to create DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
s. Now both FryingPAN and BurnIt! are capable to handle DVD.
BlueHD from German programmer Carsten Siegner is a MorphOS program capable to authoring and burn HD-DVDs in these formats:
- Normal Video-DVD (European PALPALPAL, short for Phase Alternating Line, is an analogue television colour encoding system used in broadcast television systems in many countries. Other common analogue television systems are NTSC and SECAM. This page primarily discusses the PAL colour encoding system...
) - HD-Video-DVD HDTV (mkvMatroskaThe Matroska Multimedia Container is an open standard free container format, a file format that can hold an unlimited number of video, audio, picture or subtitle tracks in one file. It is intended to serve as a universal format for storing common multimedia content, like movies or TV shows...
-h264/AACAdvanced Audio CodingAdvanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....
) (that are recognized by some newest BlueRay Player) - HD-Video-DVD HDTV (MP4-h264/AVCH.264/MPEG-4 AVCH.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC is a standard for video compression, and is currently one of the most commonly used formats for the recording, compression, and distribution of high definition video...
)
Disk Images and ISO files Management
- ISO-o-Matic software is a CD Image converting software and supports: b5i, bin, CD-iCD-iCD-i, or Compact Disc Interactive, is the name of an interactive multimedia CD player developed and marketed by Royal Philips Electronics N.V. CD-i also refers to the multimedia Compact Disc standard used by the CD-i console, also known as Green Book, which was developed by Philips and Sony...
, img (normal/CloneCDCloneCDCloneCD is proprietary optical disc authoring software that makes exact, 1:1 copies of music and data CDs and DVDs, regardless of any Digital Rights Management restrictions. It was originally written by Oliver Kastl and offered by Swiss company Elaborate Bytes, but due to changes in European...
), mdfDisk imageA disk image is a single file or storage device containing the complete contents and structure representing a data storage medium or device, such as a hard drive, tape drive, floppy disk, CD/DVD/BD, or USB flash drive, although an image of an optical disc may be referred to as an optical disc image...
(Alcohol 120%), nrgNRG (file format)A .nrg file is a proprietary CD image file format used by Nero Burning ROM, a utility suite made by Nero AG, to create and burn ISO 9660 CD images.Other than Nero Burning ROM, a variety of software titles can use these image files...
(Nero Burning ROMNero Burning ROMNero Multimedia Suite is a popular software suite for Microsoft Windows by Nero AG . Version 10 of this product was released in April 2010.- Included products :The following applications are included in Nero 11 :Disc authoring...
), pdiPDI-Parties:* Party for Justice and Integration, an Albanian political party* Partai Demokrasi Indonesia , a defunct political party...
and uifMagicISOMagicISO is a CD/DVD image shareware utility that can extract, edit, create, and burn disc image files. It offers the possibility of converting between ISO and CUE/BIN and their proprietary Universal Image Format disc image format.In addition to being able to edit the contents of the disc images...
. - ISOMount mounts CD ISOs, PC floppy disk images and Amiga disk images. Supports: Amiga (ADF) 880KB either OFS and FFS, MS-DOS (IMG) from 360KB up to 2.88MB (Fat12), Atari ST 800KB (Fat12), MAC GS (file image of Mac has no extensions) 800KB (MFM encoded), CD (ISO) - every size, including floppy specific.
- MountVirtual and DiskImage programs for AmigaOS and MorphOS that mount CD ISO images as standard Amiga devices. Supports CD ISO images and disk images such as ADF, DMS, IFS. MountVirtual requires DiskImage.
- VirtualCD uses ISOs and CD-Images as virtual drives
- mkisofs and Amkisofs are ports of MaKeISOFileSystem
(A complete list of ISO managements and converters is available on Aminet.)
Internet and communications
This section split article covers: Modem software, Direct Connect, BBS managing, Fidonet, Packet Radio; Prestel, Videotel, Videotex, Minitel; Teletext, Televideo, Viewdata; FAX, Answering Machine and Voice Mail; ISDN; Networking and Ethernet protocols; World Wide Web (TCP/IP Stacks, Browsers, E-mail programs, Newsreaders, Internet Radio, Proxy server support programs, PPP, Telnet, Podcasting, RSS Feed, Distributed Net, Google Services, Instant Messaging and Chat, FTP and FTP Server, Weather casting news, Webcam supporting, Clock Synchronization, SMS Short Messages, Web development & HTTP Server, Peer2Peer, VCast (Online VCR), Youtube, Flash player, Monitoring webpages, Remote Desktop, SSL, SSH, etcetera.); Communication Protocols.Various Utilities
AmiDOCK is a utility that creates Application Launching DocksDock (computing)
The Dock is a prominent feature of the graphical user interface of the Mac OS X operating system. It is used to launch applications and switch between running applications...
on the windows manager desktop in AmigaOS. Amiga users began to appreciate the software docking utility in 1989-1990 period, due to two factors: they considered with interest and sympathy the NeXT
NeXT
Next, Inc. was an American computer company headquartered in Redwood City, California, that developed and manufactured a series of computer workstations intended for the higher education and business markets...
computer, from Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...
that was based on 68030 processor by Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
(the same processor that equipped Amiga 3000
Amiga 3000
The Commodore Amiga 3000, or A3000, was the third major release in the Amiga computer family. Released in June 1990, it features improved processing speed, improved rendering of graphics, and a new revision of the operating system...
) and they were intrigued by graphic aspect and coherence of the NeXT interface, and due to the parallel occurrence that it existed also Acorn Archimedes
Acorn Archimedes
The Acorn Archimedes was Acorn Computers Ltd's first general purpose home computer to be based on their own ARM architecture.Using a RISC design with a 32-bit CPU, at its launch in June 1987, the Archimedes was stated as running at 4 MIPS, with a claim of 18 MIPS during tests.The name is commonly...
RISC OS
RISC OS
RISC OS is a computer operating system originally developed by Acorn Computers Ltd in Cambridge, England for their range of desktop computers, based on their own ARM architecture. First released in 1987, under the name Arthur, the subsequent iteration was renamed as in 1988...
docking station utility. Archimedes computers were popular in Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
because they were adopted in Schools of all grades. Young Amiga users (there were 1,500,000 Amigas sold in the United Kingdom) spotted docks on Archimedes at school and asked for it on Amiga also. Various launch bars or docking utilities were born as 3rd party hobby utilities (many examples of early docking software for Amiga are still hosted in Aminet
Aminet
Aminet is the world's largest archive of Amiga-related software and files. Aminet was originally hosted by several universities' FTP sites, and is now available on CD-ROM and on the web.-History:...
official net repository of all Amiga free software, in the "Utility" directory) and then Amidock was officially integrated in AmigaOS since version 3.9.
Directory Opus
Directory Opus
Directory Opus is a popular file manager program, originally written for the Amiga computer system in the early to mid 1990s...
was a file utility program. When this software was released, the popular Amiga magazines proclaimed that it was the most important software ever released for the Amiga and "should be built into the operating system". Directory Opus went on to create a "replacement OS" for Workbench which overlaid itself upon the system.
It started as a file manager, and then became a complete desktop replacement for AmigaOS alternative to official Workbench.
Much shareware and free software was written for the Amiga and could be obtained via the Fred Fish
Fred Fish
Fred Fish was a computer programmer notable for work on the GNU Debugger and his series of Fish disks of freeware for the Amiga. He was a pioneering spirit pervasive in the Amiga community...
disk series or from the Aminet
Aminet
Aminet is the world's largest archive of Amiga-related software and files. Aminet was originally hosted by several universities' FTP sites, and is now available on CD-ROM and on the web.-History:...
software archive.
Because the custom chipset shares RAM (and therefore the memory bus) with the CPU, the CPU's throughput increases measurably if the display is disabled. Some processor-intensive software, such as 3D renderers, would disable the display during calculation in order to gain speed.
Emulation
During the years, Amiga was able to emulate other platforms or game machines, or to run directly a vast range of other operating systems. Noteworthy are:Commercial
Medusa (Atari STAtari ST
The Atari ST is a home/personal computer that was released by Atari Corporation in 1985 and commercially available from that summer into the early 1990s. The "ST" officially stands for "Sixteen/Thirty-two", which referred to the Motorola 68000's 16-bit external bus and 32-bit internals...
emulator), Fusion (Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
Emulator), AMax
AMAX
AMAX is a United States certification program developed by the Electronic Industries Association and the National Association of Broadcasters in 1993. This quality control program addressed both consumer receiver developments and air chains of broadcast AM transmission stations...
and AMax II, (Macintosh), GO64 (first Commodore C64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
emulator), Transformer and PCTask (it was an Intel 8088 emulator, all software based, capable to emulate Intel PC based platforms ranging from PC XT 4,7 and 7 MHz on Amiga 500
Amiga 500
The Amiga 500 - also known as the A500 - was the first “low-end” Commodore Amiga 16/32-bit multimedia home/personal computer. It was announced at the winter Consumer Electronics Show in January 1987 - at the same time as the high-end Amiga 2000 - and competed directly against the Atari 520ST...
, up to 80486 running at 12 MHz on Amiga 4000
Amiga 4000
The Commodore Amiga 4000, or A4000, is the successor of the A2000 and A3000 computers. There are two models, the A4000/040 released in October 1992 with a Motorola 68040 CPU, and the A4000/030 released in April 1993 with a Motorola 68EC030....
and other accelerated Amigas), A64 Package
A64 (emulator)
A64, a Commodore 64 emulator for the Commodore Amiga, was developed and published by the now-defunct software company Questronix, and distributed as shareware. The non-registered version was free of charge, but was limited to ten minutes of use at a time...
(C64), Amiga BBC Emulator (Acorn BBC emulator)
Freeware
Atari ST Emulator (AtariST), Hatari (Atari ST and STE), Basilisk IIBasilisk II
Basilisk II is an open source software emulator which emulates the 680x0-based Apple Macintosh computer on a variety of operating systems, including BeOS, Linux, AmigaOS, Windows NT, Mac OS X and even on the Sony PSP....
(Macintosh) classic, Frodo (C64), PSXE (Sony PlayStation
PlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
), Hu-Go! (PC Engine, TurboGrafx-16
TurboGrafx-16
TurboGrafx-16, fully titled as TurboGrafx-16 Entertainment SuperSystem and known in Japan as the , is a video game console developed by Hudson Soft and NEC, released in Japan on October 30, 1987, and in North America on August 29, 1989....
), FunnyMu (Creativision, Funvision, Wizzard
Wizzard
Wizzard was a Birmingham-based band formed by Roy Wood, former member of The Move and co-founder of Electric Light Orchestra. The Guinness Book of 500 Number One Hits states, "Wizzard was Roy Wood just as much as Wings were Paul McCartney."-Biography:...
), AmiArcadia (Arcadia 2001
Arcadia 2001
The Arcadia 2001 is a second-generation 8-bit console released by Emerson Radio Corp. The game library was composed of 51 unique games and about 10 variations. The graphic quality is similar to that of the Intellivision and the Odyssey²....
, VC 4000
VC 4000
The VC 4000 is an early 8-bit cartridge-based game console released in Germany in 1978 by Interton. The console is quite obscure outside Germany, but many software compatible systems can be found in many European countries...
, TVGC), etcetera.
VICE
VICE
The software program VICE, standing for VersatIle Commodore Emulator, is an emulator for Commodore's 8-bit computers, running on Amiga, Unix, MS-DOS, Win32, Mac OS X, OS/2, Acorn RISC OS, and BeOS host machines...
emulator it is modular based and capable to emulate all 8-bit
8-bit
The first widely adopted 8-bit microprocessor was the Intel 8080, being used in many hobbyist computers of the late 1970s and early 1980s, often running the CP/M operating system. The Zilog Z80 and the Motorola 6800 were also used in similar computers...
machines made by Commodore: C64 (a patch of VICE it is capable to emulate also C64dtv
C64 Direct-to-TV
The C64 Direct-to-TV, called C64DTV for short, is a single-chip implementation of the Commodore 64 computer, contained in a joystick with 30 built-in games. The design is similar to the Atari Classics 10-in-1 TV Game...
), C128
Commodore 128
The Commodore 128 home/personal computer was the last 8-bit machine commercially released by Commodore Business Machines...
, PET
Commodore PET
The Commodore PET was a home/personal computer produced from 1977 by Commodore International...
including CBM II version
Commodore CBM-II
The Commodore CBM-II series was a short-lived range of 8-bit personal computers from Commodore Business Machines , intended as a follow-on to the Commodore PET series, released in 1982.-Technical description:...
(but excluding "non-standard" features of SuperPET 9000), Plus4
Commodore Plus/4
The Commodore Plus/4 was a home computer released by Commodore International in 1984. The "Plus/4" name refers to the four-application ROM resident office suite ; it was billed as "the productivity computer with software built-in"...
, VIC-20
Commodore VIC-20
The VIC-20 is an 8-bit home computer which was sold by Commodore Business Machines. The VIC-20 was announced in 1980, roughly three years after Commodore's first personal computer, the PET...
, etcetera.
Games
Games were an obvious application for the Amiga hardware, and thousands of games were produced. It was common for games to be produced for multiple formats in the days of the Amiga. For example, a game might be produced simultaneously for Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and so on. Since the Amiga hardware was the most advanced of all, the games were usually developed on an Amiga, and the Amiga version would be the "gold standard" of the bunch.Demos
The Amiga was a focal point for the "demo sceneDemoscene
The demoscene is a computer art subculture that specializes in producing demos, which are non-interactive audio-visual presentations that run in real-time on a computer...
". The Amiga thrived on public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
, freeware
Freeware
Freeware is computer software that is available for use at no cost or for an optional fee, but usually with one or more restricted usage rights. Freeware is in contrast to commercial software, which is typically sold for profit, but might be distributed for a business or commercial purpose in the...
and other not-for-profit development. The demo scene spearheaded development in multimedia programming techniques for the Amiga, such that it was de rigueur for the latest visual tricks, soundtrackers and 3D algorithms from the demo scene to end up being used in computer game development.
Piracy
Because the Amiga was one of the first game oriented computers to feature a built-in floppy disk drive, which allowed for easy copying, it was also the scene of much software piracyCopyright infringement of software
Copyright infringement of software=The copyright infringement of software refers to several practices which involve the unauthorized copying of computer software. Copyright infringement of this kind varies globally...
. Many of the arguments pertaining to software piracy, intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
rights in software, the open-source movement
Open source
The term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
, and so on, were well-developed in the Amiga scene by the early 1990s. It was not unusual for a demo group to be openly involved in software piracy.
Several anti-piracy measures were introduced during the Amiga's reign. One was the practise of distributing software on disks that contained secret "keys" on high-numbered tracks, which were officially unused. The Amiga disk drive officially only read tracks 0-79 from a double-density disk, but in reality it could easily read tracks 80 through 82. Official disk-imaging software would ignore these tracks, so that a duplicate of a boxed disk would not contain the key and the software would not work. A similar technique involved writing to sectors of the disk that would not normally be used. However, special copy software called "nibble" copiers appeared, which could exactly reproduce any disk an Amiga could read.
Publishers therefore turned to other methods. Hardware dongle
Dongle
A software protection dongle is a small piece of hardware that plugs into an electrical connector on a computer and serves as an electronic "key" for a piece of software; the program will only run when the dongle is plugged in...
s were occasionally used for high-end software. An example would be AmigaHASP, used to protect Rashumon and was sold by HarmonySoft to Aladdin Systems. Some software manufacturers would force a user to type a word from a particular page number and line number of the manual, meaning that successfully pirating software included photocopying a large quantity of text. Sometimes the text from which the key was chosen was designed so that photocopiers would produce illegible copies, meaning that pirates had to retype or handwrite the text, or else give up.
These and other schemes lead to pirates "cracking
Software cracking
Software cracking is the modification of software to remove or disable features which are considered undesirable by the person cracking the software, usually related to protection methods: copy protection, trial/demo version, serial number, hardware key, date checks, CD check or software annoyances...
" software by altering a copy of the code bypassing the copy protection completely. There was not a protection scheme that was not eventually broken. One almost exception was the scheme on the Amiga version of Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair
Dragon's Lair is a laserdisc video game published by Cinematronics in 1983. It featured animation created by ex-Disney animator Don Bluth....
which became the holy grail of crackers Worldwide. Eventually it was released in a modified format that circumvented the copy protection.
Piracy has been cited as a reason for the death of the Amiga, however, piracy was just as prolific on other platforms. For example many games for the ZX Spectrum
ZX Spectrum
The ZX Spectrum is an 8-bit personal home computer released in the United Kingdom in 1982 by Sinclair Research Ltd...
could be copied using nothing more than an ordinary cassette recorder, leading to a massive culture of playground game trading - that machine however lived a long and fruitful life nonetheless. The same happened with C64 again with cassettes, or with PC software copied on floppy disks by organized piracy, or finally, in more recent ages, it happened with PlayStation
PlayStation
The is a 32-bit fifth-generation video game console first released by Sony Computer Entertainment in Japan on December 3, .The PlayStation was the first of the PlayStation series of consoles and handheld game devices. The PlayStation 2 was the console's successor in 2000...
I and the enormous success it had due to the diffusion of pirated CD games even diffused as ISO image
ISO image
An ISO image is an archive file of an optical disc, composed of the data contents of every written sector of an optical disc, including the optical disc file system...
s on early pirate sites on internet together with PC software. There was a vast amount of Amiga software available in the marketplace and Commodore's mis-marketing of the machine is well documented as the reason for its own demise.
"Decrunching"
The Amiga's floppy disk drive allowed 880 kilobytes on a single disk, which was comparable to the memory of most Amigas (usually 512 kilobytes, often 1 megabyte). In order to increase the yield, the Amiga was one of the first computers to feature the widespread use of compression/decompressionData compression
In computer science and information theory, data compression, source coding or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation would use....
techniques. Also, the disk drive had a slow transfer rate, such that using processor-based decompression could actually lead to faster loading times than loading uncompressed data from disk. Early implementations of decompression code would write rapidly varying values to a video display register, causing the screen's scan line
Scan line
A scan line or scanline is one line, or row, in a raster scanning pattern, such as a line of video on a cathode ray tube display of a television set or computer monitor....
s to break into multiple segments of colourful noise, which would become finer as the decrunching neared the end. This effect was psychedelic
Psychedelic
The term psychedelic is derived from the Greek words ψυχή and δηλοῦν , translating to "soul-manifesting". A psychedelic experience is characterized by the striking perception of aspects of one's mind previously unknown, or by the creative exuberance of the mind liberated from its ostensibly...
and very easy to implement, so it stuck; it was pioneered on the Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
. The use of "decrunching" became so ubiquitous that the effect was a standard. The effect was commonly seen in pirated games or demos
Amiga demos
Amiga demos are demos created for the Commodore Amiga home computer.A "demo" is a demonstration of the multimedia capabilities of a computer . There was intense rivalry during the 1990s among the best programmers, graphic artists and computer musicians to continually outdo each other's demos...
.
External links
- Aminet biggest repository of all public domain softwarePublic domain softwarePublic domain software is software that has been placed in the public domain, in other words there is absolutely no ownership of the intellectual property that the software represents....
for the Amiga platform. - Amiga SourceForge Home of various programs such as: LAME and FLAC encoders, SWF Tools, Image Magick, Amiga 7-Zip, cURL, Anubis, OpenSSH, unRAR, WGet, PlayOGG and many other Amiga ports.
- Obligement page of Amiga Links French site of the Amiga Online Magazine "Obligement".
- Amiga Review Slovak site of all software for Amiga reviewed online.
- Chronology of Amiga starting from 1982 Site maintained by private user Ken Polsson.
- AmiWorld list of Amiga software Italian site reporting a list of all known productivity programs for Amiga.
- The classicamiga Software Directory An Amiga directory project aiming to catalogue all known Amiga software.