Commodore's forgotten Amiga Unix gets a modern revival

In 1991, Commodore released Amiga Unix, also known as Amix, for a high-end version of the Amiga 3000 called the Amiga 3000UX. This full port of AT&T UNIX System V Release 4 was a niche product that few Amiga enthusiasts remember today. The Amiga, a beloved computer of the 1980s, was primarily known as a home computer and a top gaming machine, but later on, Commodore aimed to sell its more powerful models as Unix workstations.

Amix, running on the Amiga 3000UX, featured a vintage Unix window manager and an entire vintage UNIX operating system. However, due to its limitations, such as the ECS video only supporting black and white X11 and the need for a Commodore 3070 tape drive for installation, Amix was not widely adopted. Recently, a group of hackers announced a modern update for Amix, available from AmigaUX.org.

The update includes a modified kernel for 68040 and 68060 processors, support for Zorro III cards and other peripherals, and a new package manager, apkg, that can fetch software over an internet connection. Despite its historical significance, NetBSD 11, a more modern Unix relative, can outperform Amix when running on original Amiga hardware.