Well, if you don't know, today marks the 20 year anniversary of the Amiga. It is hard to believe it has been 20 years. I thought I would write about some memories today, to pay tribute.

In 1985 my parents were nice enough to buy me an Amiga 500. I bugged them everyday for one, because my best friend had one and I just had to have one! It was exactly like the screenshot I have posted. It came with Workbench 1.3 and you booted it from a floppy disk. I had a Supra 1200 baud modem to connect to the local BBS. That was a big step up from the 300 baud modem I had with my Commodore 64. I played games like mad, played with everything in Workbench and learned to use Deluxe Paint. My best friend and I were always designing new pointers to have for our Workbench too. We always went to the local Amiga usergroup meetings to soak up everything we could and talk to others who had our same interest. Those memories will stick with me forever.

1985 was the start of an enthusiastic interest in a wonderful little machine. That interest is still going strong today. Today, AROS is like a new beginning for me. It brings back those memories, excitement and fun again, just like in 1985. Although, sad to say, I'm not a teenager anymore. But that old feeling is coming back. I'm having fun computing again. AROS not only has nostalgia with it's classic features, it has features that are current in this day and age. I'm looking forward to another 20 years of the wonderful Amiga experience, AROS style.
Happy Birthday Amiga!

Here is a little tip I picked up about refresh and hosting AROS in Linux. If you are in AROS and you are having trouble with the windows getting blacked out, AROS is not at fault. For example, if I drag a window off the screen a bit and bring it back into full view, half the window is blacked out.
To fix this, edit your config file for X Windows. XF86Config if you are using XFree86 and xorg.conf if you are using Xorg. These are usually found in your /etc/X11/ directory. Edit the file and find the "Device Section". Then input a line that reads "Option "Backingstore"". Without the outside quotes. Save the file and logout and back into your desktop environment. This should take care of the blacked out window problem in AROS.

AROS Developer Michal Schulz has just recently created his own blog. I have placed a link on the right side or you could click on his name in this post. Check it out, it should be interesting. Michal is currently working on an ATI video driver for AROS. He tells you more about it in his blog.

Correction on the post below this: FreeBSD is supported, but the ports for OpenBSD and NetBSD are not. They probably will not compile. Thanks goes out to AROS Developer Adam Chodorowski that corrected me on this. I apologize to the readers for the confusion.

If you are interested in programming for AROS, the best way right now is to use Linux. AROS cannot compile within it's self. You should use gcc3 and not gcc4, because it is not supported yet. So if you want to use the new Fedora Core 4 Linux distro. It comes with gcc4, so it isn't a good idea at this time. BSD flavors can also be used, for example FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD. I don't know of anyone that is using DragonFly yet. Actually, the head developer at Dragonfly BSD (Matthew Dillon) wrote the famous Dice C compiler for the Amiga years ago. Some of the Linux distros being used are Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora Core 3 and Suse.

It was announced yesterday that AROS will be an exhibitor at AmiGBG on the 23rd of July. AmiGBG is an Amiga Fair held in Sweden. Hopefully someone will take some good pictures and I will be sure to post them here.

Developer Darius Brewka has been working on porting Amistart to AROS. Amistart is a Windows-like start menu and quick-launch bar. Take a look at the screenshot I posted and you will see it in action.

AROS Developer Jack Patton was kind enough to give me a link to his source directory. Looks like there is some very cool programs there. After I work my way through it. I will post some updates to the The Definitive AROS Application List, plus tell you about it here of course.

You can actually earn money by programming for AROS. The term for this is bounties. This is where Team AROS comes in. Features and applications that need implemented into AROS are posted. People can donate money to the bounty they would like to see implemented. After a developer completes the project, the bounty money is paid to him.

There is a link to Team AROS in the right navigation of this site. They list all the bounties that are opened, assigned, completed and cancelled.

Several of us in the AROS community have been working on an application list. This list shows what is available right now for AROS. This is still a work in progress. The next thing I am going to do is add names and links to developers next to the application name. This list will also help other developers to see what has already been ported, what needs work, etc.
Additions and suggestions are welcome.
Here is the link: http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nova/list.html

I would like to welcome you to The AROS Show. I plan to make this a place where you can read information about the Amiga Research Operating System. AROS is an open source operating system based on Amiga OS 3.1, but it will be improved in many areas. AROS is mainly targeting Intel platforms, but will be expanded on various other platforms in the future.

The AROS Show will try to answer some of the questions you may have about AROS, while providing you with information about the community, happenings and developers. It will do it's best to update you on current and upcoming applications in AROS.

The AROS Show is maintained by me, Paul J. Beel. I am about to tell you a little about myself, so if you don't want to hear the boring details, feel free to skip this part.
I have been an Amiga enthusiast ever since my parents bought me an Amiga 500 somewhere around 1986. I'm showing my age a bit with that statement. I still own an Amiga 1200, but use an emulator called Amiga Forever to play around in. October 2001, a friend and I opened an Amiga specific web site named GetBoinged.org. This was mainly a web based file repository for everything current in Aminet and carried new Amiga DE applications. The site reached over 1 million hits after it's first 4 months. The site shutdown in 2003 because we just did not have the time to run it anymore. The Amiga has still remained in my thoughts and I am doing my best to contribute to the AROS project at the present time. AROS is very exciting to me, because it breathes new life into an Amiga type operating system. New features and applications are being implemented everyday. I go by the nickname of NovaBurst on the AROS-Exec.org forum and in the AROS IRC Channel. The AROS IRC Channel is on the Freenode network at #aros.

This is a great project with a very friendly community. If the Amiga interests you, you should definitely check out AROS. AROS would love to have new developers and users in the community.

Please read the first post on the site for more information on getting involved with AROS. The information is from the official AROS web site at http://www.aros.org.

I hope you enjoy The AROS Show. Please visit often, because I plan to update frequently and fill the site with new information.

Thank you!