Merry Xmas from the Kitty

Merry Christmas!
These are my sincere votes to the AROS/Amiga community and everyone else, and here's a nice and quick treat for all of you!

I hope all your wishes come true in this holiday season...

AROS Kitty - So sexy and so lost...

If you do read my blog from time to time, you'll notice that those lovely AROS ICE themed window skinning is missing from this BLOG - well the domain where the image sitted just expired, so I'll have to find another one (but first I'll have to redo the images! Ouch!...)

Anyway this time I'm letting myself go with the flow and talk about Kitty - AROS mascot, first designed by the famous Amiga Illustrator and animator Eric Schwartz. His work is vast and well recognized and appreciated by not only Amiga fans but a much wider audience. His most recent work is available in Youtube, but you can follow it's monthly web comic Sabrina Online (Which is also an Amiga inspiration character)...

So asked upon creating a character for AROS, he designed this sexy kitten we all grown found with...


Mascot images can be downloaded here: Aros.sourceforge.net/kitty

Lately interviewed on AROS-SHOW, Eric Schwartz admited the possibility of more work on Kitty - See the full inteview on AROS SHOW!
But the sexy kitten would never get another role or pose, and AROS users/fans begun to deliver some mockups and ideas based on kitty for several purposes...

Such as:




and lately I stumble upon a rendition on Amiga.org of Kitty on a completely new pose done by anglosaxonusa:



There's also a honorable mention on the MorphOS Tans and AROS one (check OS-TAN wiki for more info)


Lately there's been interest in getting Kitty mascot onto SuperTuxKart, as character driveing her own car... Info on AROS-EXEC and FreeGameDev Forums ... Quite a deserved honor, but I believe still pale regarding its role on AROS life, and it iconic presence that immediately makes AROS recognizable to the eye!

So here's my plea... Help Kitty get back to life - lift it to more modern design features, more poses, more personality, more life beyond a simple still iconic image for an about window or a logo on a Web site!... Either with drawings, mockups or nagging Eric Schwartz to get her fit! AROS identity is somehow tied to her, so let's have it - Show you work...

And please enclose your exploits to this address, so that I might add to the above collection - > joao (dot) r (dot) ralha (at) gmail (dot) com

AROS Strong points - POV

I don't follow all the posts in the Amiga Forums, I mainly stick to AROS-EXEC, AmigaWorld.net and ocasionally wonder around Amiga.org, and Natami.org ones... I seldom got to Amigans.net and MorphosZone...

Naturally you find a lot of trolling in any forum, but that's specially true for the ones that are "multi-format"... Most of them are always the same lame attitude that plagues since Commodore demise, and in an ever increasing fashion. Usually the subjects are "What is considerered amiga, amiga like or amiga oficial or amiga spirit", or "Classic vs NG, Blue VS RED VS Black", or "your OS only supports Dead HW or not Amiga like HW"... The list goes on... A sane normal person can only think that Amiga community stands for some kind of Asylum Health type disease that everyone is trying to solve!...

So I can hardly look at these subjects with necessary objectivity. Anyway, I guess I'll put my reasons for backing up AROS (with no disregard for the other NG OS), and with the full clarity that it's not perfect even by a far stretch (but then again what is perfection!?)...

AROS has in my point of view some great strong points, in comparison with other OS:
- It's Open-Source nature frees it from an entity sole control, and has contributed for the development of the other OS due to its magnanimous license (APL), and maybe even to other software I'm not aware.


- Hardware support: True has to be said that both AmigaOS 4.x and MorphOS have their hardware reasonably well to fully supported. But they only support one CPU type (PPC) and limit themselves to a small range of GFX HW.
AROS on the other hand supports lots of CPU's but does not try to limit itself to only a few range of devices. So if a user decides to use an NVIDIA PCI CARD on a PPC machine, the porting affair should be relatively simple (probably comprising of endianess issues mostly). The development although more complex (and not so well optmized in certain issues) delivers a backbone for real multiplatform availabilty.
AROS can be found running from desktop type computers to Portable and netbook computers, and is aiming for ARM powered devices, so maybe soon AROS will reach the NG cellphones/smartphones.



- Connectivity: Both AmigaOS 4.x and MorphOs support modern TCP/IP stacks, AROS has its own rendition of AMITCP (ArosTCP), but it has more drivers available, and has support for both Wireless and Mobile Broadband from the get going. The only thing that does not currently support is modem through common phone line.
But the fact remains, that AROS offers more modern options for the ordinary connection to the internet.

- Ratio Price/performance: Right now you either have an MorphOS on a latest generation MAC, and that is a very nice combination (providing you got your hw on ebay for a low bid) or you have AROS (which was free) on X86 machine. That's as simple as that... And the quantity of options are much larger...

- Future prospects: While MorphOS has devoted its future focus to the Apple PPC line (and aims to support it fully), AmigaOS 4.x is backing the PPC custom machine with a few novel twists and offering (AmigaOne X-1000), the truth is that PPC hw is deemed to end, and even some Linux distros have ceased support on that platform (sounds familiar right). AROS is available to the EFIKA and SAM440 PPC, does not seem to further aim on to more PPC machines, but has extend it range beyond X86-32 bit and 64 bit , to M68k (as retrospective goal) and ARM (which is a sensible option regarding ARM supported devices prospect for future ones). So I would say that in that area seems ahead of the its "competition"...

- Specific Software: So far that's the point that AROS is alway lacking behind, both AmigaOS and MorphOS offer more, but maybe its time for some interesting developments in the media front in the future...


So While AROS is lacking in several areas, the truth is that it no longers sits in the pale shadows of the other Amiga like NG Offerings, it surpasses in certain degrees.

And its great because of its open-source development. It means that if any of the other OS wishes to add any of these enhancements or opt for other devices, AROS provides a shorter path to the required R&D.