Aminet
Encyclopedia
Aminet is the world's largest archive of Amiga
-related software and files. Aminet was originally hosted by several universities' FTP
sites, and is now available on CD-ROM
and on the web.
(de.comp.sys.amiga.archive), or could be requested as an email newsletter. Most of the programs on Aminet were public domain
or shareware
, but software companies made updates and demo versions of their programs available as well. Now Aminet is complemented by platform specific sites archiving software for AmigaOS 4
, AROS
or MorphOS
only.
Aminet was the first attempt by an internet community to create a centralized public archive maintained by the users themselves, and to keep the community united and free to download new open source software, new program demo releases, patches and localization of Amiga programs (AmigaOS and its modern programs are free to be localized by any single user into any country language). Its creation predates of various years any Linux archive or PC archive or archives for other platforms.
Until around 1996, Aminet was the largest public archive of software for any platform. When the Internet
explosion took place from 1996 to 1999, Aminet rapidly fell behind the emerging massive PC archives.
During 2004 the main Aminet mirror suffered from a harddisk crash and many people considered the whole effort as dead. Around the same time Nicolas Mendoza was setting up a modernized interface for Aminet that indexed Aminet and provided advanced searching features and a modern interface to navigate the tree coined Amirepo. He also posted public suggestions on how to help improving Aminet by adding tags for architectures to help catalog the tree that now consisted of MorphOS, AmigaOS 4 and Amithlon files, in addition to the already existing M68K, PowerUP and WarpOS
files. He also suggested on measures to add proper dependencies to complement and replace the existing Requires field. This also in a future goal of letting Aminet function as a repository for package management systems similar to Debian's APT/DPKG and Red Hats' RPM. He tried to contact individuals like Matthias Scheler and Urban Müller which was known to maintain Aminet, but to no avail.
In the end of 2004 Christoph Gutjahr made contact with Urban Müller and set up a team to continue the Aminet effort. Urban Müller provided a new main mirror site and the backlog of packages were added in. The Amirepo interface of Nicolas Mendoza was integrated and Aminet was officially up and going again in February 2005. During 2005 the uploads started getting going again and in November 2005 most of ambiguous files and .readme files were sorted out finally sanitizing the repository. The team has been making lots of changes gradually.
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
-related software and files. Aminet was originally hosted by several universities' FTP
File Transfer Protocol
File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from one host to another host over a TCP-based network, such as the Internet. FTP is built on a client-server architecture and utilizes separate control and data connections between the client and server...
sites, and is now available on CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
and on the web.
History
In January, 1992 Swiss student Urban Müller took over a software archive that had been started by other members of a computer science students' club. Soon the archive became mirrored worldwide and in 1995 started being distributed on monthly CD-ROMs. Reports of daily additions to this software archive were posted automatically to UsenetUsenet
Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...
(de.comp.sys.amiga.archive), or could be requested as an email newsletter. Most of the programs on Aminet were public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
or shareware
Shareware
The term shareware is a proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a...
, but software companies made updates and demo versions of their programs available as well. Now Aminet is complemented by platform specific sites archiving software for AmigaOS 4
AmigaOS 4
AmigaOS 4, , is a line of Amiga operating systems which runs on PowerPC microprocessors. It is mainly based on AmigaOS 3.1 source code, and partially on version 3.9 developed by Haage & Partner...
, AROS
Aros
Aros may refer to:*Aros , a river in J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth legendarium*AROS Research Operating System, a free software implementation of AmigaOS* Aros, the original Viking name of Aarhus, the second largest city in Denmark...
or MorphOS
MorphOS
MorphOS is an Amiga-compatible computer operating system. It is a mixed proprietary and open source OS produced for the Pegasos PowerPC processor based computer, PowerUP accelerator equipped Amiga computers, and a series of Freescale development boards that use the Genesi firmware, including the...
only.
Aminet was the first attempt by an internet community to create a centralized public archive maintained by the users themselves, and to keep the community united and free to download new open source software, new program demo releases, patches and localization of Amiga programs (AmigaOS and its modern programs are free to be localized by any single user into any country language). Its creation predates of various years any Linux archive or PC archive or archives for other platforms.
Until around 1996, Aminet was the largest public archive of software for any platform. When the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
explosion took place from 1996 to 1999, Aminet rapidly fell behind the emerging massive PC archives.
During 2004 the main Aminet mirror suffered from a harddisk crash and many people considered the whole effort as dead. Around the same time Nicolas Mendoza was setting up a modernized interface for Aminet that indexed Aminet and provided advanced searching features and a modern interface to navigate the tree coined Amirepo. He also posted public suggestions on how to help improving Aminet by adding tags for architectures to help catalog the tree that now consisted of MorphOS, AmigaOS 4 and Amithlon files, in addition to the already existing M68K, PowerUP and WarpOS
WarpOS
WarpOS was a multi-tasking kernel for the PowerPC architecture developed by Haage & Partner for the Amiga computer platform in the late 1990s and early 2000s. It ran on PowerUP accelerator boards developed by phase5 which contained both a Motorola 68000 family CPU and a PowerPC CPU with shared...
files. He also suggested on measures to add proper dependencies to complement and replace the existing Requires field. This also in a future goal of letting Aminet function as a repository for package management systems similar to Debian's APT/DPKG and Red Hats' RPM. He tried to contact individuals like Matthias Scheler and Urban Müller which was known to maintain Aminet, but to no avail.
In the end of 2004 Christoph Gutjahr made contact with Urban Müller and set up a team to continue the Aminet effort. Urban Müller provided a new main mirror site and the backlog of packages were added in. The Amirepo interface of Nicolas Mendoza was integrated and Aminet was officially up and going again in February 2005. During 2005 the uploads started getting going again and in November 2005 most of ambiguous files and .readme files were sorted out finally sanitizing the repository. The team has been making lots of changes gradually.