Kickstart, Workbench, AmigaOS versions and where to find programs.
Kickstart is the core of the operating system, stored in ROM chips on the motherboard (except
on the A1000, which loads it from disk). It handles booting, multitasking, graphics and hardware.
Workbench is the graphical desktop and set of tools loaded from floppy or hard disk. The two
are versioned together, so Workbench 3.1 expects Kickstart 3.1. Many games boot straight from
Kickstart and never load Workbench at all.
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Commodore released versions 1.0 to 1.3 (1985-1988), 2.0 (1990), 3.0 (1992) and 3.1 (1993). After
Commodore, other companies released 3.5 and 3.9, and later Hyperion Entertainment released 3.1.4 and
3.2, which still run on classic 68k Amigas.
AmigaOS 4 is a separate line for PowerPC hardware. AROS and MorphOS are related operating systems
inspired by AmigaOS.
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Kickstart 1.3 is the most compatible with older games, since most titles from the 1980s and early
1990s were written for it. Some of those games fail on Kickstart 2.0 and later.
Using WHDLoad (see below) on a hard disk avoids most of these problems, and some owners fit a
Kickstart switcher to choose between two ROMs.
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WHDLoad is a system for installing floppy-based games and demos onto a hard disk. Each game gets a
small installer and patch so it runs from the hard disk, quits back to Workbench, and works on
faster Amigas that would otherwise break it. It is the standard way to play a large game collection
on an A1200 or in an emulator.
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An ADF (Amiga Disk File) is an image of an Amiga floppy disk. An HDF is an image of a
hard disk or partition. An IPF is a preservation-quality floppy image that also captures
original copy protection, so the game behaves exactly like the original disk. Emulators, floppy
emulators and disk-writing tools all work with these formats.
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Aminet (aminet.net) has been the main archive of freely distributable Amiga software since
the early 1990s, with tens of thousands of programs, tools, demos and modules. Many developers have
also released their old commercial games for free, and new Amiga games and tools are still being
made and sold by the community today.
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No. Kickstart and Workbench are still copyrighted, and may only be used or distributed under
licence. Licensed copies come with Amiga Forever from Cloanto, and the AmigaOS 3.2 CD-ROM from Hyperion
Entertainment also includes Kickstart ROM sets. Check each product's licence for how its ROM files
may be used.
Owning a real Amiga does not, by itself, give you the right to copy its ROM or operating system for
use elsewhere, such as in an emulator.
AROS provides a free, open-source replacement ROM that runs many, but not all, Amiga programs.
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"Guru Meditation" is the Amiga's name for a serious system error, shown as a flashing red box with an
error code. The name comes from an in-house joke at Amiga: staff played a game on a board you stood
on, the "Joyboard", in which you had to sit perfectly still like a meditating guru. An error code
starting with 8 means the system cannot recover and must restart.
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Hold down Ctrl together with both Amiga keys to reset the computer. On Kickstart 2.0
and later, holding down both mouse buttons while the machine starts opens the Early Startup
menu, where you can choose a boot drive or turn off features for better compatibility with old
software.
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