AmigaOS 2: The Greatest Upgrade

AmigaOS 2：最伟大的升级

A system software release for the ages

一个跨时代的系统软件版本

June 2026 2026年6月

The Good

优点

In 1985 the Amiga 1000 was launched, and there was much rejoicing. Competing with a lineup of other 16-bit machines such as the IBM PC, Apple Macintosh and Atari ST, it offered far superior sound and graphics capabilities at a surprisingly low cost. It also provided something else the competition lacked: effortless, performant pre-emptive multitasking. The only other option for people who wanted a multi-tasking machine with some semblance of a GUI at this point in time was, to the best of my knowledge, to fork out an exuberant amount of money for a Unix workstation. 1985年，Amiga 1000 发布，引发了巨大的轰动。在与 IBM PC、Apple Macintosh 和 Atari ST 等一系列 16 位机器的竞争中，它以令人惊讶的低成本提供了远超对手的音频和图形处理能力。它还提供了竞争对手所缺乏的东西：轻松且高效的抢占式多任务处理。据我所知，当时如果人们想要一台具备多任务处理能力且拥有某种图形用户界面（GUI）的机器，唯一的选择就是花大价钱去买一台 Unix 工作站。

The GUI - or, as it was also known at the time, the WIMP (for Windows, Icons, Mouse and Pointer) - was a defining trait of mid-eighties 16-bit machines: The release of the Mac and its Finder had made desktop environments all the rage. Consequently, the Amiga also offered one, and called it the Workbench. All of this pointing and clicking vastly improved the user friendliness of computers, and it was also a new concept for users to learn, turning these early years of GUI proliferation into a golden era for hand models across the globe. Impeccable nails! GUI——或者当时被称为 WIMP（窗口、图标、鼠标和指针的缩写）——是 80 年代中期 16 位机器的标志性特征：Mac 及其 Finder 的发布让桌面环境风靡一时。因此，Amiga 也提供了一个类似的界面，并将其命名为 Workbench。所有这些指点和点击操作极大地提高了计算机的易用性，对于用户来说这也是一个需要学习的新概念，这使得 GUI 普及的早期阶段成为了全球手模的黄金时代。指甲完美无瑕！

The Ugly

缺点（丑陋之处）

Workbench was one of the first GUIs to incorporate colour in a meaningful way (including in icons). The Mac was still monochrome at this point, and Atari’s TOS simply added a sickly green background to an otherwise monochrome GEM desktop (licensed from Digital Research). Perhaps that green background in turn inspired Microsoft’s Windows 1.0, a system that truly pushed the limited EGA palette to induce the maximum number of seizures and migraine attacks among users. Workbench 是最早以有意义的方式（包括图标）引入色彩的 GUI 之一。当时的 Mac 仍然是单色的，而 Atari 的 TOS 只是在原本单色的 GEM 桌面（从 Digital Research 授权）上增加了一个令人作呕的绿色背景。也许正是那个绿色背景启发了微软的 Windows 1.0，这个系统真正压榨了有限的 EGA 色板，从而在用户中引发了最大程度的癫痫发作和偏头痛。

Atari TOS: Well, it’s, uh… It’s green. Not that Workbench looked particularly nice, either. Its blue and orange colour scheme, naivistic icons and lack of a standardized GUI toolkit could make even young boys in elementary school - otherwise completely mesmerized by the Amiga - recoil in horror. It’s been suggested that the Amiga palette was selected to produce the best possible result on RF output, but I have my doubts: orange on blue can bleed something fierce on lower quality displays, and I haven’t managed to find a reliable source for this claim. It was likely just a perfectly reasonable aesthetic choice in the 1980s - a decade that normalized concepts like the mullet, neon pink tracksuits, and starting the morning with a few lines of blow before firing up the Bloomberg terminal to commit large scale securities fraud. Atari TOS：嗯，它……它是绿色的。Workbench 看起来也不怎么好看。它的蓝橙配色方案、幼稚的图标以及缺乏标准化的 GUI 工具包，甚至会让那些原本完全被 Amiga 迷住的小学生们感到恐惧。有人认为 Amiga 的色板是为了在射频（RF）输出上获得最佳效果而选择的，但我对此表示怀疑：在低质量显示器上，蓝色背景上的橙色会产生严重的色彩溢出，而且我没能找到支持这一说法的可靠来源。这很可能只是 80 年代一个非常合理的审美选择——那个年代让鲻鱼头、霓虹粉运动服，以及在启动彭博终端进行大规模证券欺诈前先吸几口可卡因开启一天生活等概念变得“正常化”。

Workbench 1.3: The font isn’t helping either. At least Amiga users - unlike their natural enemies, the Atari fans - could change their desktop’s colour scheme. The multi-tasking, combined with a competent command line, also helped soften the blow. But despite all of this, Apple’s Finder - and even GEM - were in many ways more mature and coherent than Workbench. The Workbench 1.3 Preferences offered a decent amount of configuration options. The pointer editor opens up a little pixel painter, letting the user draw their own mouse pointer. The big square in which the mouse pointer is located is for positioning the screen so that it’s visible inside a TV set’s overscan area. Workbench 1.3：字体也没好到哪去。至少 Amiga 用户——不像他们的天敌 Atari 粉丝——可以更改桌面的配色方案。多任务处理加上强大的命令行，也缓解了这些问题。但尽管如此，Apple 的 Finder——甚至 GEM——在许多方面都比 Workbench 更成熟、更连贯。Workbench 1.3 的首选项提供了相当多的配置选项。指针编辑器打开了一个小型像素绘图工具，让用户可以绘制自己的鼠标指针。鼠标指针所在的大方框用于定位屏幕，以便使其在电视机的过扫描区域内可见。

The Bad

糟糕之处

The first release of AmigaOS, the 1.x series, was in many ways an exploration not only of what could be accomplished with a GUI, but also how it could be accomplished. Some early constructs were very primitive, probably in part because the first system release was rushed, but also because everyone was treading new ground. One of the most dismal examples is probably how to create a new directory using Workbench 1.x: Double-click the Workbench disk icon to see its contents. Select the “Empty” drawer (Workbenches have drawers, not folders). This drawer was helpfully a part of the standard Workbench distribution. Select “Duplicate” from the “Workbench” pull-down menu. This will result in a copy of the “Empty” drawer, called “copy of Empty”. Drag “copy of Empty” to its desired destination. Rename “copy of Empty” to its desired name. AmigaOS 的第一个版本（1.x 系列）在许多方面不仅是对 GUI 能实现什么功能的探索，也是对如何实现这些功能的探索。一些早期的结构非常原始，这可能部分是因为第一个系统版本发布得太仓促，但也因为当时每个人都在探索未知的领域。最令人沮丧的例子之一可能是如何在 Workbench 1.x 中创建一个新目录：双击 Workbench 磁盘图标查看其内容。选择“Empty”抽屉（Workbench 使用“抽屉”而非“文件夹”）。这个抽屉是 Workbench 标准发行版的一部分。从“Workbench”下拉菜单中选择“Duplicate”（复制）。这将生成一个名为“copy of Empty”的“Empty”抽屉副本。将“copy of Empty”拖动到目标位置。将“copy of Empty”重命名为所需的名称。

The fact that the drawer icon animates and actually “opens” when selected is pretty nifty, but the elaborate workflow soon gets tiresome. The lack of a standardized GUI toolkit also meant a lot of user interaction was primitive and confusing, because every single dialog had to be designed from first principles. When renaming an icon, for example, the user is presented with nothing but a box for text input. The action can’t be cancelled, so if having regrets after erasing half of the original name, it has to be retyped, letter for letter. Here, the user can either rename the file or rename the file. Another interesting idiosyncrasy of Workbench is that for a file to be at all visible on the desktop, it must have a corresponding “.info” file, which contains the icon data. In some ways this was good, allowing the user to easily change program icons at will (perhaps by drawing their own), and storing other bits of file metadata, such as which application should be used for opening a specific data file. It was also problematic, because a lot of files and directories didn’t have corresponding icons, and were thus impossible to act on from the desktop. This overall immaturity of Workbench meant that most users didn’t really bother with it. They either opted for the command line, or installed a third-party orthodox file manager such as CLI-mate. 抽屉图标在被选中时会产生动画并真正“打开”，这非常巧妙，但这种繁琐的工作流程很快就会让人厌烦。缺乏标准化的 GUI 工具包也意味着许多用户交互非常原始且令人困惑，因为每一个对话框都必须从零开始设计。例如，在重命名图标时，用户面对的只有一个文本输入框。该操作无法取消，所以如果删掉了一半原名后后悔了，就必须逐个字母重新输入。在这里，用户要么重命名文件，要么还是重命名文件。Workbench 的另一个有趣的特性是，一个文件要能在桌面上显示，必须有一个对应的“.info”文件，其中包含图标数据。在某些方面这很好，允许用户轻松随意地更改程序图标（也许通过自己绘制），并存储其他文件元数据，例如应该使用哪个应用程序来打开特定的数据文件。但这也是个问题，因为许多文件和目录没有对应的图标，因此无法在桌面上进行操作。Workbench 的这种整体不成熟意味着大多数用户并不怎么使用它。他们要么选择使用命令行，要么安装像 CLI-mate 这样的第三方正统文件管理器。

Double the Bits

位数翻倍

Five years after releasing the Amiga 1000, Commodore was about to launch the Amiga 3000, their first real high-end Amiga. With a 68030 processor, on-board SCSI and a slightly updated graphics chipset, all in a sleek desktop case, the Amiga was truly ready for the era of professional 32-bit computing. But Moore’s law wasn’t the only thing that had been pressuring Commodore since the release of the Amiga 1000… 在发布 Amiga 1000 五年后，Commodore 即将推出 Amiga 3000，这是他们第一款真正的高端 Amiga。凭借 68030 处理器、板载 SCSI 和略微更新的图形芯片组，所有这些都封装在一个时尚的桌面机箱中，Amiga 真正为专业 32 位计算时代做好了准备。但自 Amiga 1000 发布以来，给 Commodore 带来压力的不仅仅是摩尔定律……