
Ten Years of Icaros Desktop - doener
http://vmwaros.blogspot.com/2017/11/10-years-of-icaros-desktop.html
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0xcde4c3db
For the uninitiated, Icaros Desktop (formerly VmwAROS) is a distribution of
the AROS Research Operating System, which in turn is an open-source clone of
AmigaOS 3.x. This is all explained in the post, but I thought I'd mention it
in comments in case anybody pops in to gauge interest.

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antjanus
no idea what any of that is. Can you provide some context for all of that
software and save me some time browsing google and Wikipedia?

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ZenoArrow
Commodore Amiga computers were a type of computer that was around from the mid
80s to the mid 90s. They had their own custom hardware and operating system.
After Commodore went bust, some of the fans of the Amiga platform didn't want
to see it die, so they started various hardware and software projects. AROS is
one of the projects started around that time (started in 1995 if I recall
correctly). AROS is an open-source operating system that closely follows the
design of the operating system of the Amiga. Icaros is the flagship distro for
AROS.

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dm319
I wonder how the computing landscape would look like if Amiga and Workbench
had been able to continue their innovation and success.

Probably still MS dominated.

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0xcde4c3db
Distressingly likely. It's easy to overlook the fact that Microsoft had
considerable dominance in BASIC implementations even before the IBM PC took
off, with several major vendors shipping a rebranded version of Microsoft
BASIC in ROM (Commodore BASIC, Tandy TRS/Color BASIC, Applesoft BASIC), and
others selling it as an add-on package (e.g. Atari Microsoft BASIC). They
probably would have gotten a foothold operating systems one way or another
once multitasking became a big deal.

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quincunx
Just for completeness, AmigaBASIC, which came standard with the OS, is also
one of these BASICs that were written by Microsoft.

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Jaruzel
Reading through this, I suddenly realised that I'd unwittingly re-created a
very similar Icon Dock which I used for many years on my Windows machines:

[http://www.jaruzel.com/files/jarstrip.jpg](http://www.jaruzel.com/files/jarstrip.jpg)

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paulryanrogers
Article is an entertaining history of the ARCOS distro.

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lproven
"ARCOS"?

"Distro"?

It's not called ARCOS. It's AROS: (originally) the Amiga Research Operating
System. (Due to a trademark claim, it is now the recursive AROS Research OS.)

AROS is not a distro; the word "distro" implies Linux. This is not Linux, nor
is it even Unix.

Arguably it is a distribution of AROS, but the term is confusing and
misleading.

