AmigaOS

AmigaOS is the proprietary native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. It was developed first by Commodore International and introduced with the launch of the first Amiga, the Amiga 1000, in 1985. Early versions of AmigaOS required the Motorola 68000 series of 16-bit and 32-bit microprocessors. Later versions were developed by Haage & Partner (AmigaOS 3.5 and 3.9) and then Hyperion Entertainment (AmigaOS 4.0-4.1). A PowerPC microprocessor is required for the most recent release, AmigaOS 4.

AmigaOS is a single-user operating system based on a preemptive multitasking kernel, called Exec. It includes an abstraction of the Amiga's hardware, a disk operating system called AmigaDOS, a windowing system API called Intuition and a desktop file manager called Workbench. A command-line interface (CLI), called AmigaShell, is also integrated into the system, though it too is entirely window based. The CLI and Workbench components share the same privileges. Notably, AmigaOS lacks any built-in memory protection.

The current holder of the Amiga intellectual properties is Amiga Inc. In 2001 they contracted AmigaOS 4 development to Hyperion Entertainment and in 2009 they granted Hyperion an exclusive, perpetual, worldwide right to AmigaOS 3.1 in order to develop and market AmigaOS 4 and subsequent versions.

Read more about AmigaOS:  Components, Technical Overview, Influence On Other Operating Systems