ScuzzBlog: Diaries December 2020
Entry 13th December 2020: Post 1: Amiga WB3.0 - Never did take the 'Next Step'.
Amiga WB3.0 - Never did take the 'Next Step'.
I kinda fell in love with Workbench 3.0. It became my home on the
Amiga from day one using the A1200. I enjoyed so much its layout
especially the customising of icons and text. I was never like
ever under any illusion that a more graphically intense Workbench
would slow me down. Having tried and failed to use images as the
backdrop to windows and high numbers of colours for general use
without the massive clawing of system memory, I always presumed
no WB pictures on screen and no more than 8 colours in the palette
would be best. I wasn't wrong.
My rule of thumb, whilst restrictive on the face of it, maximised
resources where they were needed most and that was in the running
of programs. Once I got to DOpus I rarely used the Workbench.
So when 3.1 hit along with the refreshed sales of the Amiga in 1995
I had been tempted to move over to 3.1. Although the WB and ROM
were available at the demise of Commodore they were only sold under
licence through Village-Tronic I believe. Post 95 saw a massive
growth in the towering of Amigas and everyone rushed for the 3.1 ROM.
It also found favour on the older machines like the Amiga 500 which
I still have a sealed version of the ROM plus the disks.
It was this ROM that also spawned OS3.5 and OS3.9. Note the ref.
to OS and not WB. Only a minor point but it did trouble me. Most
that used these new OS versions had high spec Amigas set in towers
or A4000/040 machines and even the 'T'. Trying to get 3.9 running
on a base Amiga was pretty hopeless. I tried a couple of times even
with a Blizzard 1230IV but I just found it slow.
I have never warmed to the new icons and new layout of the 3.5/3.9
versions. I just hated when I installed a program and found I'd
placed some of those crappy icons on the bench. Worse was the tiny
square dot as an icon. It wasn't just The OS3.5/3.9 stuff but also
the new wave of icons that followed from other developers. For
me I have IconCopy as a permanent fixture on the Workbench and I
just simply swap them all out.
I have a complete set of my own icons that I use and these are for
my very own private use. I don't think I have ever shared any of
them on the pages featured on the website. My little gems.
A little while back I was using an Amiga Technologies A1200 with
the 3.1ROM and was struggling with retrieving animation frames in
sequence within Vidi-Amiga. Try as I might I couldn't get it to
work. I swapped out two or three Vidi-Amiga units including the
RT versions. In the end as a wild shot I swapped the 3.1 ROM for
a 3.0 ROM and that cured the problem.
I'm not saying that the later ROMs and OS versions don't come with
benefit, I am just comfortable with the way I am. I rarely get any
problems and never desire or yearn for features from upgrades. The
3.0WB may not have been the last thing that Commodore did but it
is the last tested software commercially for the Amiga.
NOTE: Storm C Amiga Computing 1996 is featured on the Developer CD V2.1.
Along with my copies of the Amiga 1200 Workbench books that came
with the Desktop Dynamite pack, I always have the very wonderful
book 'Next Steps' propped up against the monitor. The book has aged
well whereas the Amiga WB books have faded quite a bit. All have
been well thumbed. Next Steps gave me everything I needed to manage
the A1200. It also came with a video and some quite splendid disks.
I do miss the days when it was possible not only to get informative
documentation with a computer but free stuff that wasn't just some
grand plan to spam you with adverts.
Happy Days !!
Amiga WB3.0 - Never did take the 'Next Step'.
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