I used Workbench for quite a long time (didn't get a Window PC until '97). First 1.3 on an Amiga 500 and later 3.0 on a 1200 tricked out with a 68030 and 42 (yes) MB RAM.
Some of the things in Workbench were really nice. For example "datatypes" that basically provided a pluggable way of adding file support to applications. If a datatype was written for the new QOI image format, then all the image manipulation programs written 30+ years ago would be able to use it.
Another thing that comes to mind was the ASSIGN command for setting up and manipulating search paths. These search paths were used extensively in the system. For example, libraries would be looked for in "LIBS:" and if you wanted to add a new path with libraries, you would just do "ASSIGN LIBS: <SomeNewPath> ADD". No need for messing with colon-separated lists of paths.
Plenty of downsides too.. Notable no memory protection. A program going haywire could easily bring down the whole system. Graphics performance in Workbench was generally pretty dreadful, especially with higher color counts.
a mouse pointer that was liquid smooth, and most painfully missed in Windows - tacked to scroll bars as long as the mouse button was held down rather than "slipping offf" if the cursor strayed from the scroll region. also, two-image stateful icons and front/back window z order gadgets.
Some people loved the Amiga just because of its games, but Workbench, its desktop OS, did an awful lot of advanced desktop features very early, many of which are now common, and some which still aren't.
I had 1.3 but can't remember the patch version (1.3.0 or 1.3.1 etc.), later this year I will travel to my home country and will find out (my A500 is in a box somewhere at my parent's place).
Last time I turned it on, I remember the audio was not working. Hopefully, it will not be too hard to fix. I would like to get everything back to working order, I know I'm not going to use it daily, but it would be cool to play some of the old games and listening to some of the old ProTracker modfiles.
Ah so many childhood memories. We had an Amiga 500 and then 3000 (40MB HD?), before my parents finally bought me a Mac IIx.
So many awesome applications and games. I remember spending hours with this music creator where you could put notes on the scale and then assign instruments (very fuzzy memory) and it would faithfully play it (I presume midi). There were existing songs you could load, or you could start from scratch.
Of course as ~8-10 year old this resulted in me just putting as many notes on the scale as possible and making it play really really fast.
I started with an Amiga 500, upgraded it to 1 meg RAM, then got an HD with RAM expansion (30 meg drive, 3 megs RAM total.) Eventually I updated to an Amiga 3000, which came with Workbench 2.0.
2.0 was a huge upgrade from the 1.x line. It looked much more professional, was more stable, etc.
The AmigaOS 4.1 page has not yet been updated to mention the Christmas gift from Hyperion Entertainment, a new AmigaOS SDK: https://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/
At the bottom of the announcement, there's another gift to the Amiga community:
"We will continue work on new releases of AmigaOS 3.x and AmigaOS 4.x in 2022!"
Started with 1.0 and remember freaking out over a defunct WB disk with no access to backup copies (friends were cheap and only owned C64s). No Internet recovery back then.
Yeah, I think I hosed the WB disk that came with my Amiga 500 when I tried booting it only to find the floppy drive was quite on its last legs.
But with a Gotek drive and the WB 1.3 adf I got with my Amiga Forever license, it was back up and running! How lucky I am to live and do Amiga stuff in these times!
Some of the things in Workbench were really nice. For example "datatypes" that basically provided a pluggable way of adding file support to applications. If a datatype was written for the new QOI image format, then all the image manipulation programs written 30+ years ago would be able to use it.
Another thing that comes to mind was the ASSIGN command for setting up and manipulating search paths. These search paths were used extensively in the system. For example, libraries would be looked for in "LIBS:" and if you wanted to add a new path with libraries, you would just do "ASSIGN LIBS: <SomeNewPath> ADD". No need for messing with colon-separated lists of paths.
Plenty of downsides too.. Notable no memory protection. A program going haywire could easily bring down the whole system. Graphics performance in Workbench was generally pretty dreadful, especially with higher color counts.