Old Blue Workbench build on Amiga 500

 For those Amiga users who have owned an Amiga back in the 1980's, you would be very familiar with the original Workbench 1.2 and Workbench 1.3, as AmigaOS was then called.

My first Amiga, which my late father bought for the family back in 1988 was an Amiga 500 running v1.2 kickstart roms and Workbench 1.2 supplied on floppy disk. 
I have the original v1.1 Workbench and Kickstart disks for my Amiga 1000 too. I never had the original v1.0 disks sadly.

Let's take a brief diversion to explain the versions of Workbench/AmigaOS, as it is relevant to Old Blue Workbench build that is the focus of this blog post.
Workbench 1.3 followed v1.2 as an Enhancer Software Edition retail pack as an upgrade from Commodore.  A kickstart disk was also included in the retail pack for Amiga 1000 users. This was the last version to ship with a Amiga 1000 Kickstart floppy disk.
New Amiga 500's and Amiga 2000's were shipped after v1.3 release with Kickstart v1.3 and Workbench 1.3 on floppy disk.
With the release of the new Amiga 3000D system in 1990, we saw the upgrade of Workbench 1.3 to Workbench 2.0. This requires new kickstart roms to be in the system. 
Support for the Amiga 1000 was officially dropped with Workbench 2 release, but you could soft kick the later kickstart roms on the original A1000, which I showed how in a blog post a few years back - actually I realise now it was ten years back!
There was also a hybrid Superkickstart 1.4 kickstart ROM on early Amiga 3000 systems, which I own and covered in a blog post build series here (Part 1 , Part 2, Part 3) if you want to learn more about the Superkickstart. It can soft boot Workbench 1.3 or Workbench 2.0 super kickstarts stored on the hard disk. With some nifty tricks I covered in my blog you can upgrade SuperKickstart to AmigaOS 3.1.4 released in 2018.

The Workbench 2.0 upgrade was a significant upgrade to the functionality of the operating system, with a lot of new features. Application software written specifically to use the Workbench 2.0 new features and new application "style guide" did not work on Workbench 1.2/1.3 based systems.

Some older software didn't work with Workbench 2 and above kickstart roms, so third party Degrader software was released to allow the system to downgrade (soft kick) to 1.3 to play them. You could also use dual kickstart rom switch solutions to switch between 1.3 and 2.0 if you were able to install it yourself or via an Amiga dealer.

This situation led to people having to upgrade to Workbench 2 to run the new software, or just accept their system as a 1.3 machine, which many did. 

Many people used the Amiga system mainly for games, which mostly bypassed the Workbench altogether with custom floppy disk based custom loaders. So the newer kickstart was not needed for that until AGA Amiga systems arrived in 1992.

Curiously, the Commodore CDTV released in 1991 maintained the v1.3 kickstart roms with Workbench 1.3 functionality, rather than implementing Workbench 2. That said, it did have additional functionality for booting CD's and playback of CD audio, amongst other things.

The later Amiga 500 Plus and Amiga 600 systems in 1991 and 1992 also came with Workbench 2 (v2.05 and v2.1)

Workbench 3.0 and new kickstart 3.0 roms came with the launch of the Amiga 4000D and Amiga 1200 in 1992. It also supported older Amiga systems, except the Amiga 1000.

AmigaOS 3.1 was a later retail box update in 1993, which is the last official Commodore released update.

 AmigaOS 3.1 came with new v3.1 kickstart roms, and was included with the CD32, Amiga 4000T and as an upgrade for existing Amiga systems (except the original Amiga 1000).

After Commodore went bankrupt in 1994 and sold on to Escom and rebranded as Amiga Technologies, AmigaOS 3.1 was re-released by Amiga Technologies for the restarted Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000T models in 1995-1997. These disks are shown at the bottom of the photo below with the updated Amiga logo.
After the death of Amiga Technologies and several years of sell-offs with multiple owners, broken promises and no new Amiga systems, there was the release of Amiga OS 3.5 (released by Haage & Partner in 1999), and AmigaOS 3.9 (released in 2000). 
AmigaOS 3.5 and 3.9 were intended for installation on faster 68020 IDE/SCSI CD equipped Amiga systems with at least 4MB memory, which was common in the late 1990's for those who still had an Amiga and had upgraded it (like me).
AmigaOS 3.5/3.9 were software only updates. AmigaOS 3.9 had no retail box release - just a jewel CD case. Several updates were released for these until 2001.
AmigaOS 3.1.4 was released by Hyperion Entertainment in 2018 for most Amiga models with a floppy disk release. Some updates were also released later for it.
The much more recent AmigaOS 3.1.4 and AmigaOS 3.2 releases from Hyperion are based on AmigaOS 3.1, with no shared components from OS 3.5 or OS 3.9 but some similar functionality added in like larger hard disk support, etc. 
AmigaOS 3.1.4 has lower system requirements than AmigaOS 3.5/3.9, needing 2MB memory and able to run on 68000 Amiga systems. There was also a new 3.1.4 physical Kickstart rom. (although you can also soft kick the rom without the physical rom installed as long as you have enough memory)
AmigaOS 3.2 was released on CD in 2021 by Hyperion Entertainment, with a AmigaOS 3.2 kickstart rom update also. It supports all Amiga models as long as they have 2MB memory, excepting the Amiga 1000 and Superkickstart Amiga 3000 system. A number of updates have been released since then.
There is a floppy disk version available from Amiga dealers for AmigaOS 3.2 too, and this has by far the most number of floppy disks! The first 6 disks are provided as original labelled disks - the rest I had to write out the ADF files to real floppy disks to make a complete set. 
You can install from CD also, but having the floppies means I don't need a CD drive to do the installation, which opens up installing it on every Amiga system (except the Amiga 1000 and Superkickstart A3000).
AmigaOS 4.0 was released in 2007 by Hyperion Entertainment. It is only for Phase 5 PowerPC accelerated Amiga 1200/3000/4000 systems (and NextGen systems like Pegasos 2, and AmigaOne GE/XE and Micro-A1). It does not work on any other older Amiga systems.
AmigaOS 4.1 was released in 2010 by Hyperion Entertainment for Phase 5 PowerPC accelerated Amiga systems, and also next generation PowerPC based systems like Pegasus 2, AmigaOne GE/XE, Micro-A1, Sam 440ep/460, and AmigaOne X1000. Each system had its own released boxed version of the software.
AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition is the most recent PowerPC based AmigaOS, released in 2014 alongside the release of the AmigaOne X5000. It was the first AmigaOS released that couldn't be upgraded from the previous version. A clean install is needed.
AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition also has backwards compatibility for all previous PowerPC supported AmigaOne and Amiga systems. The most recent update 3 was released just this month in October 2025.
Yeah, yeah, says the Amiga fan base, we know all that already! 
Fair enough, but not everyone does - I thought it worth showing all readers just how far Amiga has come since 1985! 
Only Amiga makes it possible :-)

I bring all this information up because now, in 2025, we have an update to Amiga Workbench 1.3! 

Old Blue Workbench is the first attempt I am aware of to implement some of the Workbench 2.0 functionality onto Workbench 1.3. 

I am very keen to try it out!

Old Blue Workbench has been released in 2025 by Triumph software for free. It is designed as an upgrade for Workbench 1.3 hard disk Amiga systems with 1MB memory or higher! 

It is named "Old Blue Workbench" as the default 4 colour scheme of the original Workbench (as supplied on the 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 floppy disks) was a blue background, with white text and windows, with orange and black colours.

For most people who used Workbench 1.2/1.3, they probably never changed the colours. But of course you could, and I definitely did, along with plenty of other changes too!

At that time I used the RAD (not RAM) disk via bootable Workbench 1.3 floppy to fit my custom Workbench 1.3 environment, which survives reboots and could fit all the utilities and tools I commonly used without needing to insert multiple floppy disks to run each one. 

I took this disk based setup and moved it to the hard disk on the Amiga 2000 when we upgraded the Amiga 500 in 1991, and expanded the Workbench hard disk setup build a lot more since I now had a lot more space! 

I loved doing it - I learnt so much during this time by doing this A2000 hard disk 1.3 build.

Recently, I put this original Amiga 2000 hard disk setup onto a AztecMonster CF SCSI card setup on an acquired Amiga 500 system with a A590 hard disk expansion - running Workbench 1.3 with a 1.3 kickstart rom. I covered that build in this blog here.

The Amiga 2000 Workbench 1.3 setup I built from the ground up myself as a teenager from 1991-1994 is the culmination of hundreds of hours playing around with PD utilities and programs from Fish disks, Magazine cover disks, and software gained from BBS's I used back in that era.

I built my own splash screen for booting Workbench 1.3, created in Deluxe Paint to cover the AmigaShell window and look more like a modern OS. Later AmigaOS 3.1 software like ShowAmiga96 and many other patches and utilities expanded this customisation a lot more! 

Even for 1.3 though, I found great utilities like setfont to change the default topaz font, implemented a Workbench 2 style "Window" for the Workbench desktop, and a program to display a background image. 

I also had a starfield screensaver that kicked in after a few minutes of inactivity to prevent burn-in on the original 1084S, 1.3 installer for installing software that used the newer commodore installer, deli tracker, hippo player, IBM disk format file system support, zip drive support, cd rom support, and lots more commercial applications and tools too!

I had the Australia made Directory Opus 4 installed from a cover disk (later a boxed retail copy) and iconified for easy access to file and drawer manipulation. 

Directory Opus or some other file management software solution like SID, DiskMaster or Dir Work 2 was really needed with 1.3, as Workbench 1.3 was limited to what could be easily done in the GUI. Many files were hidden and unable to be seen unless you used the AmigaShell or CLI.
These limitations (and many others) were removed in Workbench 2.0.
It is this kind of functionality (and many others) that Old Blue Workbench brings to a standard Workbench 1.3 setup, without the many years of work that went into making my customised Workbench 1.3 hard disk setup. All from a simple installer that fits on a standard floppy disk.
The Old Blue Workbench website covers the upgrade and what new features you get in full detail.
In summary:
Workbench Windows
  • Workbench 2.0 style window showing disk icons
  • Drawer windows showing contents of drawer or disk (can now modify view in settings to view all files)
  • Browser windows to browse the file system and can show all disks and files (with or without icons). Path is available to manually enter path or select from dialog box, with Parent button to go back a drawer.
  • Mouse interaction improvements to select multiple icons by drawing around them
  • Keyboard interactions improved (use ALT and SHIFT with cursor keys to scroll windows to end points)
Workbench Menus
  • Project, Window, Icon, Settings and User defined menus added
  • Project Menu - Update All, Open browser window/drawer, Backdrop on/off, Execute command available
  • Window menu - New Drawer, Open Parent/Close/Update, Arrange by Name/Type, Snapshot Window/All, Show only icons/all files
  • Icon Menu - Open/Copy/Rename/Information, Snapshot, Unsnapshot, Delete, Format, Empty Trash
  • Settings Menu - New dock, Edit Menus, Default icons, Disk icon position, Use default tool path
  • User defined Menus - Open a Browser, command, dock, Drawer, Tools, Trashcan
Docks
  • Dock items can be Browser window, Command, Open Dock, Drawer, Tool or Trashcan
  • Can modify position and layout of dock items on Workbench screen, with vertical or horizontal orientation.
  • Show icon only, or icon plus name, show order and dragbar.
Info Windows
  • Improved Information window for Disk, Drawer, Project and Tool information
  • Drag and drop icon onto information window to update icons!
Other Windows
  • Execute command window improved
  • New Drawer window improved. The option to create an icon at the time is great!
  • Rename window improved, showing old name and new name. 
Default icons
  • Implementation of Workbench 2 style default icons, with the creation of ENVARC:Sys location for storing these. Supports the same default icons as Workbench 2.0
  • This allows Workbench 2.0 style launching of applications directly from the file, something that was a pain to do under Workbench 1.3
Whew! So much to explore!
To experience this Old Blue Workbench, I first needed to go back to a basic Workbench 1.3 hard disk setup.
Using my custom 1.3 hard disk setup would not allow me to see the significant changes as well, or seperate what is new from what I had patched into my original 1.3 setup. 
Also, as a teenager I did a lot of crappy drawer organisation, and I wanted to build a new setup with a much cleaner setup.
So, I purchased a prepped a ZuluSCSI RP2040 external card from rabbit hole computing with 4 new 512MB drives. I later changed it to 2 - more on this later. 
I plan to have one 512MB partition on each drive, with three for games, demos, mods and applications. I will temporarily make one drive bootable so I can setup a blank Workbench 1.3 partition, and then move it to the AztecMonster CF card in place of the current setup I have.
The process to do this drive setup on ZuluSCSI is covered on this ZuluSCSI Wiki page website. Basically, on my Mac Studio I created an empty text file with the right filename syntax to put in the root folder on a FAT32 formatted MicroSD card. Then put the ZuluSCSI into the SCSI connector on the rear of the A590. 
On power on, it will create the drives. This process takes a while, and flashes green while it is working. 
So I went for a coffee and did something else for a while!
Once done, you end up with the HD#.BIN hard disk image files. The # is the SCSI ID, and HD identifies the file as a hard disk image for ZuluSCSI to mount on power on.

Preparing new hard drives and partitions under Workbench 1.3 is a pain. Generally, it is easier to prepare them under Workbench 3.1 and then use them under Workbench 1.3. However, I wanted to do it old school, as I hadn't done it for a long time and I thought it was more interesting!

To do this means using the v1.3 HDToolbox software that I had to use on my Amiga 2000 1.3 system. I believe this program is on the Workbench 1.3.3 disk, but was not on my 1.3 disk. On my original Amiga 2000, it was included on the hard disk from the factory, so I backed it up since I couldn't  find it on the original disks supplied with the system.

The first drive is the Aztecmonster SCSI CF card in the A590 hard disk. The other drives are the ones on the ZuluSCSI. The need to use the AztecMonster CF card to run HD Toolbox to prep the drives meant I need to remove HD1 from the ZuluSCSI MicroSD so it wouldn't clash with it, as only one drive can use each SCSI ID number.

The A590 SCSI controller rom is limited to working with maximum size of 1GB drives, so I need to keep the drive sizes small to avoid filesystem issues.
Note: I apologise in advance for the poor quality of the iPhone taken photos in places. I don't have time to retake them. You can click on any photo in my blog to see it full size, which is much easier to see the detail.
HD Toolbox under 1.3 detects the new drives I created with the ZuluSCSI, but unlike the later Workbench HD Toolbox software, I need to create a new hard disk type to assign to the drive first. 

To do this, I needed to first go into Change Drive Type. I select SCSI ID 2 to start with. This then shows the following screen:

With SCSI selected as the drive type, I select the option to Define new drive type:

It attempts to read in the drive configuration from the ZuluSCSI drive (SCSI ID 2) that I selected.

It has correctly read the drive as a 512MB drive. I change the Manufacturer's name to ZuluSCSI. I can then save this drive definition.

With that done, I can then select the drive type ZuluSCSI to assign to the SCSI drive I selected earlier.

It now updates the SCSI ID 2 drive listed in HD Toolbox to reflect that new configuration:

I can then go to the option to partition the drive:

I deleted the default two partition setup, and create one partition using 512MB called ZDH0. I then select the Advanced options, to show all the options, and select Bootable as Yes. 

Under Workbench 1.3 roms, the Boot priority setting is very important as there is no early boot menu to choose which drive to boot from. 
The boot priority setting sets which drive boots first. The higher the number, the higher the priority this drive has. By default it is 0, which is the same as the AztecMonster CF card I built before. I need to set Boot priority higher, so it will boot from the ZuluSCSI. 
I also checked the Add/Update file systems option to make sure the FastFileSystem version is the original 1.3 version. I would of course expect this given I am using a 1.3 setup to build it, but be aware that if you build this drive on Workbench 2/3 or later HDToolbox, you need to update the fastfilesystem drive here on the drive to the FastFileSystem driver on the original Workbench 1.3 disk. 
If you don't do this step , you will end up with a non-bootable drive on a 1.3 Amiga, and you will have to do the hard disk build again.

I then stepped through the other SCSI ID drives from the ZuluSCSI MicroSD card. Because I set all the drives to be the same drive size of 512MB, I can just select the ZuluSCSI drive definition I saved earlier to prepare each one.

I still need to set the partitions for each one, which I set as ZDH1, ZDH2, etc. These are set as non-bootable, so the boot priority setting is greyed out.

With all this done, I can save the changes to the drive:

I then exit, and I need to power off the Amiga 500. 

The AztecMonster CF Card has two 512MB partitions on it, one called System and one called Data1:

AS mentioned, I removed two extra drives I created on the ZuluSCSI at this point, as I decided to use the AztecMonster as the boot drive still, but create a new basic Workbench 1.3 standard setup on it. 

So, checking HD Toolbox to confirm the current setup,  I have SCSI ID 2 and 4 for the ZuluSCSI 512MB drives, SCSI ID1 for the AztecMonster, leaving SCSI ID 3 and 5 free to connect my external ZIP Drive and SCSI CDROM drive later on.
I power off the A500.

I then ran Directory Opus 4 from a bootable Floppy disk to format the ZuluSCSI drives, which I need to do from AmigaShell to do a quick format.  

You can see ZDH1:NDOS and ZDH2:NDOS icons on the Workbench screen, showing that they need to be formatted first to use them.
I needed my Workbench 1.3 floppy disk in the external floppy drive DF1 to be able to use the common shell commands like Format and Dir, as the Directory Opus 4 disk didn't have those.
You can see the ZDH1: and ZDH2: format commands in the AmigaShell I did below
DF1:System/format DRIVE ZDH1: NAME Games FFS QUICK

DF1:System/format DRIVE ZDH2: NAME Demos FFS QUICK
I named the new ZuluSCSI partitions Games and Demos respectively:
I now have two drives ready to put data on:

I relabelled the existing AztecMonster Data1 partition as Music, since it mostly contains Music modules (MOD files) and MIDI files:

Next step is to prep the System bootable partition. I launch Directory Opus as it makes this so much easier:

I created a backup drawer called A2000HDBackup on the system partition:

I then moved all the files from the System partition into that drawer:

With that done, I now have a blank slate to work with on the system drive partition, but I still have all my original files which I can copy across later as I need them.

Next I used Directory Opus to copy the contents of the official Workbench 1.3 floppy disk to the system partition:

I also copied the Amiga Extras disk afterwards to the system partition. The last step was to relabel the System drive as "Workbench".

Once done, I remove all the floppy disks and boot from the AztecMonster CF card, now setup with a basic Workbench 1.3 setup, as copied from the floppy disks.

Oh, and I did a small change to the s:startup-sequence to include the build time/date information when the system boots up. The year and date is set wrong, but otherwise boots as expected.

The Workbench 1.3 desktop appears, with the new drives all setup, and running the original Workbench 1.3 colour scheme and basic setup. 

I showed the drives, and all is looking good.

At the moment I don't have Directory Opus on the hard disk, so I need to use old fashion methods to create drawers...first select the Empty drawer, then right click menu to access the Workbench > Duplicate option to duplicate the Empty drawer. 

I then highlight the Copy of Empty drawer and use Right click Workbench menu > Rename option to rename the drawer to Downloads.

Now I have the Downloads drawer, so I can copy the Old Blue Workbench archive I downloaded from the website to this system. 

To do this, I copied the lha archive to my Amiga 3000 system via USB stick first, and then copied the lha file to a blank floppy disk on the A3000 to then transfer to this Amiga 500. 

I also copied the lha command from my A2000HDBackup drawer I did earlier to the c: location, since I will need it to extract the lha archive contents. I did this from the AmigaShell.

I copied the obworkbench.lha file from my floppy disk to the Downloads drawer in sys:

I then used lha to extra the contents to this drawer, again in AmigaShell.

With that done, I now had the Old Blue Workbench drawer on the Amiag 500 Workbench 1.3 hard disk build, ready to install. Whew!

At this point, it is wise to refer to the website installation instructions as they really detail exactly how to install it - especially important is the assigns you need to insert into the s:startup-sequence after the install is done but before you reboot:
I needed to create a Tools and OldBlue drawer for the installation - so I repeat the duplicate empty drawer process detailed earlier, and called the new drawer Tools. 

I then repeated the duplicate process again (you can see why Directory Opus is so much better) to create the OldBlue drawer inside the Tools Drawer.

Note the rename function is very basic under 1.3, we will see how this changes under Old Blue Workbench later on!

With the OldBlue drawer created in the new Tools drawer, we can proceed with the installation.

I then stepped through the installer, set to intermediate user:

I choose the destination drawer we created earlier, SYS:Tools/OldBlue

The installation then proceeds, copying a bunch of files into the Workbench drive:

The installer reminds me at the end that I need to modify the s:startup-sequence to add some assigns to it before we reboot the Amiga.

The installation then completed successfully!

So, I open AmigaShell and type is "ed s:startup-sequence" to make the changes:

I can see the Old Blue Workbench is now in the new drawer I specified during the installation:
I then reboot the Amiga to see my new Old Blue Workbench setup for the first time - and a lot has changed, even if the original Workbench colour scheme still remains the same. 
This update is called "Old Blue Workbench" after all :-)
Here is the new ENVARC:Sys drawer, which has the new default icons. Very happy with this.
The Workbench right click titlebar menu has a lot of new functionality under Old Blue Workbench:

Finally, an Execute command option under Workbench 1.3!

Being able to do Workbench 2.0 arrangement/snapshot of icons and showing of all files is a game changer in Workbench 1.3.

Here is the expanded Icon menu:

Lastly is the Settings menu, which allow editing of dock settings, menu items (including custom menus), default icons, loading different preset settings, and more.

Let's take a look into some of the other changes. Starting with the new Dock! 
As mentioned earlier, you can create one or more Docks to launch programs from under Old Blue Workbench. I used to have AmiDock for Workbench 1.3, but this Dock is a lot nicer.

I'll first add a Dock Item to launch the new Music drive window - I love the cycle drop down selection windows to select the type of Dock item - a seamless addition of 2.0 functionality into a 1.3 setup:

I chose Browser and selected Music: as the Path and Name. I just show the icon at this point, put I could show the name also. Don't forget to press enter on the Name field.

You can accept the default icon type for the Path selected, or you can change the icon to something else if you prefer with the Select option underneath it.

I clicked on Add to add the new item to the Dock:

I then added the AmigaShell to the Dock, as I use this quite often. I selected the "Tool" type for this:

As I add more icons, the dock list fills up. I can change the order however I want of course.

I think I'll add the Calculator and Notepad to the dock too.

With that done, I saved the Dock settings:

Voila! I now have  dock under Workbench 1.3 :-)

It is certainly convenient having a dock on Workbench 1.3, something we are all used to on later AmigaOS setups, Linux, Windows and MacOS too.

I did note a weird bug in the Browser tool though - It kept doubling up some (but not all) the icons?

Perhaps someone knows why that is happening - hopefully there will be a patch to fix it, as it is weird.

Creating a new Drawer under Old Blue Workbench is a joy compared to 1.3's method of duplicating an empty drawer and renaming it..it even has the option to create an icon for the drawer. For me, Old Blue Workbench is worth it just for this!
So I created an Applications drawer to put my applications into.

Another cool feature is that you can access the context sensitive Workbench right click menu from anyway on the Workbench screen, not just the title bar. So below I can create another drawer within a window by right clicking in it.

I copied across DOpus from my floppy disk to the Applications/DOpus drawer I just created. First, I used the Show all files function of Old Blue Workbench to make this task much easier. Otherwise I would need to use AmigaShell to copy all the hidden files and drawers without icons.

The Show all files feature is one of my favourite in Old Blue Workbench, and it makes Workbench 1.3 infinitely more usable, without having to open AmigaShell so often!

Also, when copying files, you get a progress window showing what is being copied, unlike the old Workbench 1.3 Zzz wait mouse pointer, and no other indication of what is happening! This is a game changer for Workbench 1.3 users.

I also copied some commands from my backed up A2000HDBackup/c drawer to the main c: location. Also copied my fonts drawer as I have a lot of fonts there. This was a task I normally would have to use AmigaShell for under Workbench 1.3.

I added Directory Opus as a dock launch item next.

The Directory Opus icon is quite large, and enlarges the dock considerably in order to fit it. 

It would be good if the dock could resize icons to a fixed size to keep the dock size consistent. Perhaps that will come in a future update.
I set to work copying across some applications from my A2000HDBackup drawer to the Old Blue Workbench setup. I want to keep this build clean, so I am trying to keep all Applications in the one drawer this time! 
As applications like Hippoplayer have files stored in the s drawer too, I used AmigaShell to copy them - old habits die hard - I could have used show all files in Old Blue Workbench to do it.
I also found that when I tried to change the HippoPlayer application icon (which is huge) to something else that was smaller in the dock settings, the dock item window would hang like below. Hopefully this can be sorted too.
So for now my dock is huge! But Hippoplayer is working well on Old Blue Workbench. It is great that Hippoplayer is still updated in 2025, and still works under Workbench 1.3 in 2025.
I went into the Workbench 1.3 preferences to adjust the time and date as it was bugging me.

I copied across OctaMED and soon was enjoying more modules on my Old Blue Workbench setup!

Have to admit, I am really glad I put Old Blue Workbench on this Amiga 500 system. It was worth it.

The icon information window is also hugely upgraded from the original Workbench 1.3 version, with more Workbench 2 functionality, with tool types easier to view and flags easier to change.

I added Deluxe Paint back onto my Old Blue Workbench setup, and loaded the image I used to use on my Amiga 2000 1.3 setup using the excellent Simgen tool. I might add it back to the Old Blue Workbench too - but not yet.

I also can enjoy my demos I have from the A2000HDBackup drawer, which I copied to the Demos: drive I created earlier.
I decided to finish the initial build of Old Blue Workbench here for now. 
In summary, Old Blue Workbench is a worthy upgrade to Workbench 1.3, introducing some important and very useful features to a stock standard Workbench 1.3 hard disk build. 
It is definitely worth having Old Blue Workbench if you have this kind of setup on your Amiga!
I plan to add JST (1.3 version) to run WHDLoad games direct from the hard disk, along with other changes too. I want to add my ZIP Drive and CDROM drive to this setup too.
I also want to play around with a new piece of "Old" software called SIDMON I picked up recently. 
I have never heard of it and want to try out - creating SID style chip music on the Amiga. This machine seems a good machine to try it on.
But that will be in a future blog post, as this build post has gone on long enough already!
I hope this exploration of Old Blue Workbench and my build of it from scratch on an Amiga 500 has been interesting!

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