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As the AmigaOS 3.x is basically 10 years old, there’s quite some room for improvement. Ofcourse Haage & Partner released OS 3.9 some time ago, which includes a lot of useful new stuff, but still, there’s room for improvement. Here’s a writeup on the stuff that I like, note that all applies to OS 3.x on “classic” m68k hardware, as I don’t have any other Amiga system running for now.

MCP

MCP (the Master Control Program) has always been one of my favourites. This program has a lot of patches and add-ons other small programs supply, bundled together in one relatively small program and easy to use MUI GUI.Some, but by far not all, features of this gem of a tool:

• Assignwedge - If a program requests a non-existent assign, you can assign it ‘on the fly’, with a regular filerequester
• Automount - A bit like Assignwedge, but this allows you to mount a drive ‘on the fly’ and on-demand with one buttonpress.
• Several speed-increasing hacks
• Hotkeys - Create hotkeys for almost anything imaginable from almost any imaginable combination. I, for one, use it to replace the invaluable “click-to-front” commodity which allows you to raise windows by double-clicking them
• Noguru - replaces the all-to-familiar Guru with a somewhat nicer requester with several options to allow you to (usually) be able to finish your work before rebooting
• Reqtools hacks - customize all system requesters to use the same layout and extra features (like creating directories ‘on the fly’, etc.)
• Assignprefs - manage all your assigns from a GUI, and be able to create ‘Late’ assigns which are only created when needed.
• Trackdisk prefs - turn off that clicking floppydrive
• Screensavers
• Snap - adds copy/paste to almost any window or screen

MCP development fortunately still continues this day, albeit by different authors. Get it here.

ENV-Handler

Traditionally, AmigaOS copies the contents of ENVARC: (”Environment-archive”) to ENV: in RAM:Env during startup. This is a waste of RAM (since most of the preferences stored in ENV: won’t be used during your session) and startup time (since everything needs to be copied at startup). Env-handler fixes this by creating an ENV: in RAM device which copies files from ENVARC: ‘on-demand’, fixing both these issues.
Also, it allows you to set up ENV: with one command for those sessions without startup-sequence.
Get env-handler via AmiNet.

SnoopDOS

The author of this program should receive the Nobel prize for piece, as far as I’m concerned at least.
SnoopDOS is a bit similar to the truss and strace utilities found on some UNIX platforms, but only a lot better (ofcourse). It shows you what the applications and OS are ‘doing’ in terms of loading libraries, fonts, and much more and is therefore an invaluable tool in troubleshooting ‘dead’ or erratic applications. A real lifesaver!
SnoopDOS can be found on the author’s homepage.

KingCON

Fed up with typing long filenames in the AmigaShell? Enter KingCON, a CON: and RAW: replacement which (amongst a whole host of other features) adds tabcompletion to the shell, and, if multiple possibilities exist, presents you with a nice requester from which you can select your file. Install and you’ll never look back.
KingCON via AmiNet.

WBStartup+

WBStartup+ prioritizes the items you load up in SYS:WBstartup so they load sequentially, and thus much faster (less i/o-trashing going on). Also, it gives you a nice (optional) progressbar.
WBStartup+ via AmiNet.

CygnusED (CED)

The default editor “ED” bundled with AmigaOS pretty much sucks. Which isn’t too surprising since it’s hardly changed since the early days of Workbench 1.x. Fortunately, there are some excellent editors out there (like GoldEd), and the one I particularly like is CygnusED, usually referenced to as just “CED” by Amigans.
It’s very fast, very stable, and after you get the hang of it, very intuitive.
CygnusED still seems to be sold commercially, but it’s hard to find out who is exactly selling it. However, it shouldn’t be hard to find a copy in that stack of utility disks of yours, or somewhere on the web…

See also:

Some other people have setup similar pages:

• Amiga University - Essential Amiga Tools and Tweaks
• Unofficial Boingbag 3

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