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Hello Nick, thanks for taking the time to do this interview.

MY pleasure =)

Could you tell us about yourself and how you became interested in Amiga's?

When I was younger most of my friends, like myself, got caught up in the Amiga hype (no not that they're going to release another version.. the original hype about how good they where =)) of course this meant I ended up getting a sexy little A500. That was my main Computer for many years until the Amiga1200 came along so logically I had to upgrade. I still have my A1200 even now - though stashed away on a shelf sadly (with mediator PCI bus board, PowerFlyer ATA adaptor etc etc) as well as a second a1200 motherboard for spare's =S. I've also been the owner of a CD32 and A600 but while they were fun - I ended up selling them.

In the late 90s though I found myself using my Amiga less and less, and instead started using/dabbling with Linux. I spent a couple of years learning C via the Linux kernel source (nasty) and one day I recalled a project mentioned in Amiga Format for an open source AmigaOS implementation .... called AROS. That was almost 10 years ago now, and I've had a lot of fun since finding the project - hacking on bits of the system here and there, and generally getting a better understanding of how AmigaOS must've worked internally.

What work have you completed for AROS up to this point?

Well im not sure to be honest, theres a few bits and pieces ive worked on including:

InstallAROS - gave it a bit more of a graphical feel than it originally had (I vaguely remember when it was a tiny window that displayed almost nothing)

Mesa 2.2 - My first real attempt at working on anything on AROS. It took a single night to port the original AmigaOS Mesa code - and ever since to bring it upto date with the latest version ( 6.5).

A few network adaptor drivers (PCNet32 for my VMWare test systems and the VIA Rhine driver)

What AROS specific projects are you working on now?

Right now im working on Wanderer mostly, although I have a theme for AROS in development tentatively named Xstream.

Could you go into more detail on your Wanderer and Zune changes and enhancements?

Hmm I'm not sure what there is to tell. =)
A lot of the most recent changes are to try and get Wanderer working in a more friendly fashion internally - since one of my goals is to make it a bit more modular/pluggable. I also have been working on its general configurability (changing font options, background rendering options, and so on).

What can you tell us about the VIA RhineII NIC Driver you completed recently?

Its a very basic driver for VIA-Rhine based chipsets. I hope to come back to the NIC drivers at some point and make them a bit more configurable but it should suffice for general network activity. All Rhine I and Rhine II cards should work.

You started development on the very first IRC client for AROS named AiRcOS. With your permission a fork of AiRcOS has been created. AROS now has Wookie Chat as well. Do you have any plans to finish and enhance AiRcOS?

Yes, but the problem is finding time since I have a number of projects to work on. Eventually I'd like to rework AiRcOS to become a modular IM application with IRC as only one of its connection options .. something like Trillian for AROS. =)

What has kept you involved with AROS for so long?

I guess my interest in AmigaOS, and of course the friendly/buzzing AROS IRC community is hard to keep away from. I've learnt a considerable amount from people on there - indeed I probably wouldn't have accomplished half of the things if it weren't for people like Fabio Alemagne, Michal Schulz and so on to help when things just don't make sense. =)

Have you thought about what projects you would like to do for AROS in the future?

All the time. =)

I'd really love to get proper hardware 3d support in the relatively near future since realistically it's the only way to get newish games working. I'd also love to get the networking side up to date with more modern systems. There's a lot of things AROS needs still so finding something to do is easy enough. =)

What advice could you give other developers who want to start contributing to AROS?

Dont be shy! The best thing to do is to study the code that exists in the AROS svn repository since it's a great source for information/examples and inspiration. Hang around on the mailing list to find out how things go and if you have problems make sure and ask - theres a lot of really friendly and helpful people involved and most are more than willing to point people in the right direction.

How did you develop your programming skills?

Well, I started when I was 7 years old on Spectrums - its amazing how much enjoyment you can get out of printing your name on screen in different colours. A family friend came round and showed my brother and myself how to write some trivial stuff in Basic, which led us to write our first code - a centipede style game (hasn't everyone wrote one of those!). From there I moved onto the Commodore family of Home computers and was a C64 fan/user for many years. That resulted in me learning ASM mostly from copying page upon page of data from magazines and wondering what the hell it all actually meant. Sadly I never had much time for languages back then so I only really understood ASM particularly well - even once I obtained my first Amiga, though I did try and get my head around Dice C, Storm C (the most promising of them for me at the time) and GG. It wasn't till much later when I started using Linux that I dabbled in C, and a lot of what I have learnt of it comes from the Linux kernel code and AROS's svn repository.

I've also dabbled (through necessity at work) in Javascript, ASP and other web related technologies.

What programming languages do you know and what is your favorite?

Sheesh I'm not sure I can remember hehe..

Lemme see, Z80, 6502 and 68k ASM (though the first 2 are a bit vague nowadays), Comal, Cobal, various Basics, various scripting languages (Javascript and so on), a little bit of Perl and of course C.

After using C for a while now and finally starting to get to grips with it I would have to say its my favourite by far since it allows me to quickly bang out code.

Do you plan to learn other languages? If so, which ones?

Have you ever tried the REBOL programming language?
Finding times the hard bit - though I find it much easier to pick up new languages these days (and most scripting ones work in very similar fashions)

I haven't tried REBOL sadly though I've read a lot about it - again it all boils down to finding the time to do it.

Have you noticed more activity surrounding AROS lately, than in the past?

Yes and No =)

AROS has always had bursts of activity then quiet periods though it does feel like theres a few more interested devs hiding out in the wings lately.

In your opinion, what feature could greatly improve AROS at this point?

That's a tricky one - there's a few things I personally could use that I feel would greatly improve the AROS user experience - A decent standards compliant web browser, reworking the existing data types to support streamed data, A decent media player, Productivity tools (word processing packages and so on) - Let's face it there's tons of Apps we could really benefit from.

What applications would you like to see available for AROS?

Well, a decent media player and browser would be high on the list - as well as a decent general IM application. Those are some of my main uses of PCs in recent years.

To make a push towards a 1.0 release of AROS, what do you think needs to be completed?

Personally I think we need to look at the subsystems we currently lack or are incomplete. A considerable amount of AROS feels feature ready now (imo) so we just need to hit the nail on the head as it were and finish up.

Do you use any other operating system? If so, what type?

For a long time I used Mandrake Linux, however things went to pot when it became Mandriva and I've since migrated to using Fedora Core which I'm very pleased with - as Linux distributions go anyhow.

I also run Windows XP, XP64, Server and Vista on various machines.

How many Amiga's have you owned and what models?

1x A500,
1x A600,
2x A1200
And a CD32

Do you currently own any Amiga's?

I still have my 2 trusty old A1200s.

Could you give me your thoughts about Amiga OS 4 and MorphOS?

MorphOS is an interesting product since its very much alike AROS - indeed a lot of it is based on AROS code. It has a vocal community and developer base that I think would fit nicely with AROS but like most Amiga related things theres the age old "my groups better than yours" sentiment around.

AmigaOS 4 looks interesting but I've not had the chance to use it myself. I got disenchanted with the whole AmigaOS affair long long ago.

Is there anything at all you would like to add?

Thanks for giving me the time to share some of my thoughts. =)
I hope 2007 will be a great year for AROS!

Thanks again for taking the time to do this interview for The AROS Show. Keep up the great work! We hope to have you around for many more years.

Thank you.

Kal, as I like to call him, knows his stuff. There have been many times I have witnessed a new user asking detailed questions in the #aros irc channel and if Kal is available he will answer them with ease. This interview touches on many of the things he has done, but there are so many other little things he has done to help AROS, I can't remember them all. Everything from helping new developers commit their code correctly to implementing a change in AROS that someone asked for on the AROS-Exec.org forum. I just wanted to make sure this was acknowledged and give Kal the credit he deserves.