Aminet

Aminet is the name of an extensive free software archive for the Amiga computer operating system.

History

In the main circulation time of the Amiga computer, the Internet was neither known nor accessible to a larger public. Mailboxes were slow (modem speeds up to 2400 bit / s) and in Germany because of the expensive telephone monopoly. The legal procurement of free software has been difficult. There were numerous vendors of software collections which were shipped as diskette by mail. The best known and most widely used were the fish disks of the American Fred Fish, the software good quality sent worldwide. However, over time the software packages were larger, cheaper telecommunications and the Internet came more into the field of view of the users. Thus arose free FTP server as a mirror or in competition with the previous collections. The Amiga community built this for some time on a server of NASA. However, when this was no longer available, alternatives were needed. Enforced has at the end of the Aminet, a generic name for a comprehensive collection of free Amiga software that is available on distributed servers and in the form of CDs.

Today Aminet is a synonym for free software on the Amiga. Authors upload their software usually in the Aminet. Amiga users search software usually first on Aminet.

Began in 1992 on the initiative of Urban Dominik Mueller in Switzerland Aminet on a borrowed Motorola 68030 25 MHz with 50 MB free space for uploads. 1992 was just closed another popular Amiga FTP server at NASA. When people from the Amiga community ( and " Walnut Creek " ) donated a 1.5 GB hard drive, slowly began a mirror site after the other from the soil to grow. Müller remained over the years a leading role in the global organ Activision and coordination of the Aminet.

Finally, the Aminet developed to what it is today: Two dozen mirror sites, the availability of various mailboxes, and to select the CD sales 52 individual CD -ROMs and 12 collections of four CDs, which at regular time intervals "snapshots " of the Aminet for Amiga users ready prepared without Internet access.

Order (more or less) compatible Amiga systems ( AROS, MorphOS, AmigaOS 68k, PPC AmigaOS, PowerUP, WarpOS AmigaDE, Amithlon ) to meet the different, new software is now marked accordingly.