Workbench Basics
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power. Files give your computer persistent memory — memory that lasts after you turn your computer off. Every file has a name so that you or the Amiga OS can locate it. The job of the AmigaDOS subsystem is to store and retrieve disk files. Because they are files on a disk, tools, drawers, and projects aren't something you can see and touch. To let you access them, the Workbench displays icons (small pictures) that represent these different objects.
Icons (see Figure 2-2) provide information about the the different objects on the Workbench. For example, the icon for a word-processing program might look like a typewriter or a pen. For practical purposes, you can consider an icon to be the object it represents. When you start up a program by doubleclicking on its icon, you should think of that as manipulating the program directly, rather than simply manipulating a representation of the program. Icons are actually files that contain the information about how they will appear on the Workbench display and about the tool, project, or drawer they repre sent. Icon files always have names that end with .info and are called "dot info" files. The first part of an icon's name is the file it represents. For example,1 Amiga OS 2.0's clock program is named Clock and the icon file is called Clock.info. Many Amiga files do not have corresponding .info files and thus don't normally appear on the Workbench display. You'll learn more about these files later.
Disks and Volumes Disks and disk icons are special on the Amiga. When you first boot your sys tem, the only icons you see are those that represent the disks active in the sys tem. For a floppy-based system, these will usually be Workbench2.0 and Ram Disk. A hard-drive system may have more active disks, because you can divide the space on a hard disk into more than one partition, each of which acts as a separate disk.
Workbench calls disks volumes to differentiate between the disk and the drive that holds it. Thus, Workbench2.0 is the name of a particular volume, not the name of the drive that disk is in. When Workbench refers specifically to a disk
drive, it uses the drive's AmigaDOS device name. The device name for the first internal drive in an Amiga is DFO: (for Disk Floppy 0). The second internal drive on an Amiga 2000 or 3000 is called DF1:, and the first external drive is DF2:. The first external drive on an Amiga 500 is DF1:. Workbench uses these device names instead of volume names for such functions as copying disks.