It is a true "pre-emptive multi-tasking" machine, unlike the PC which one can refer to as "quick time slicing" to make it appear as multi-tasking

This was achieved in the Amiga's multi-tasking is achieved by very specialised dedicated and very clever designed architecture custom chips.

It's a pleasant FACT to know, now having said that, we all live in the "real world" and know fully that in order to run programs, one must have hard drive space sufficient to hold all of one's great programs. The Amiga was very very byte efficient. The whole OS fits in 6MB

Each and every other computer platform family works with specifically tailored software for that platform and in reference the operating system level as well as on the application level. When you install specific software that is designed to make the computer that you have purposel execute and run other that its native DOS system software , the you have what is known as sotware emulation or put anther way, a computer with software and/or hardware so that it's able to use software written for a different platform, this process is called emulation. The Amiga is sort of a "world champion" when it come to the realm of emulating

If Gold medals were given for the amount of other platforms that any computer can emulate , the the AMIGA has it in "the bag" !. The Basic AMIGA emulates platforms like the Apple II, Apple Macintosh, Mac Quattra, VIC 20 and C64, Atari ST , MSX-8Bit Computer Sinclair Spectrum, Sinclair QL, ORIC-1, and moving on up to the A1200 running PC-Task as a MS-Dos Windows-98 emulator (A1200 with 060 recommended),and A4000,or A400T both with 060 processor one can emulate the MS-Dos® and Windows® type environments via software or a add-in Card called a "BRIDGE BOARD ,for A2000.A3000, A4000 and A4000T, these cards have been available since 1987. Note Windows ® requires in excess of 80MB of hard drive space to fully install on a hard drive, so there is a noticeable size difference.

• Is the Amiga MS-DOS ® or Windows ® or IBM ® compatible?

NO,...not as such. But !...AMIGA INTERNATIONAL builds its own computers, they are not clones of other platforms, but a radical new concept in computing thinking, they run native AmigaDos or Amiga OS as it is known . Now, thanks to the flexibility of the Motorola 680x0 microprocessor,it is possible to emulate and run many diffent platformst the same time, depending on Ram, hard drive and of course, speed.It is amazing to see MS-Dos, Mac software and the Amiga all running, co-existing and multitasking all at once, seamlessly and the Amiga owner smiling all the way to the bank, one machine only required!, AMIGA ,for his or her applications. Then there is PC.Task, a software package written specially to cater for MS-Dos® users, where Windows® 3.1 is installed into a partition created by PC.Task on the hard drive and one can run most MS-Dos® software.

It is said that PC Task version 4.4 supports Windows® 95 PC TASK has 80486 compatibility. It is the fastest software PC emulator for the Amiga and uses Dynamic Compilation for speed and has support for up to 16MB RAM (15MB extended) under MS-DOS with pp to 2 floppy drives and 2 hard drives supported, it also supports multiple hard disk files and hard disk partitions also high density floppies and CD-ROM support and the user can select from MDA, CGA, EGA, VGA and SVGA (512K-2MB) video modes with support for up to 256 colours on AGA machines.

PC TASK is compatible with graphic boards (eg. Cybergraphics, EGS Spectrum, Picasso) and has Parallel, Serial and PC speaker emulation and full Mouse support, including Serial Mouse emulation.
PC Task will run multiple PC-Task processes on the same machine and also run MS-DOS applications in a window on a public screen (eg. Workbench) and transfer files between your Amiga and MS-DOS.
Support for David Salamon's GoldenGate bridge cards compatible with MS-Dos© Windows© 3.0 - 3.11 Note: Windows® 3.1 requires a minimum of 1.5 MB contiguous RAM and sufficient hard disk space to accomodate windows 3.1. If you are contemplating using Wnidows® 95, set aside at least 120MB of hard drive space for the Windows® 95 GUI (operating system) Leave some space for Workbench which needs 4.5 MB of Hard drive space maximum.

Running MS-Dos and Mac disks on AMIGA A4000 there are several ways to achieve MS-DOS compatibility . With the current AmigaOS 3.1 versions, you can read and write disks directly in MS-DOS format to grant easy data exchange via crossdos. For low demands on processing speed there are software MS-DOS emulators (like PC-TASK) that fake a whole compatible PC purely in software and allow you to run standard DOS applications. For higher demands there are hardware emulator cards that contain their own "IBM Type" processor, thus offering full working speed.

• Is Amiga Macintosh compatible ?

Again No..But there are Mac emulators like the highly stable software emulator "Shapeshifter" or the Popular "EMPLANT" which runs both Mac and IBM compatible platforms simultaneously with Amiga OS 3.1 which is currently available, it transforms the Amiga into an almost native Macintosh without any loss of speed !, in fact it may run slightly faster than the Mac...ooops :-)