:-) AIUI, AFROS more or less came about because there were multiple competing replacements for various bits of the GEM stack: AES, VDI, desktop, etc. (Mostly f

:-) AIUI, AFROS more or less came about because there were multiple competing replacements for various bits of the GEM stack: AES, VDI, desktop, etc. (Mostly from the German market, AFAICT. I am not sure why.) One of the differentiators between these became that some were or went FOSS. Eventually, there were FOSS components for more or less all of TOS+GEM, so a new focus came into being: replace the handful of missing parts, so that an entire OS from bootloader to desktop, could be built from free software. Again, this is only AIUI as an external spectator. When ARANYM and other FOSS emulators came along, they needed at least some ROM firmware to start the soft-loaded all-FOSS replacement OS. IIRC that was the genesis of EmuTOS. An alternate market to the FOSS stuff and the various commercial replacements to make your ST go faster, was a commercial whole-stack replacement. I think there were several of those, too, but MagiC was the only one I know of that actively chased users on other platforms once the supply of new Atari kit dried up. Aside from this: a friend on Twitter is very upset that this OS they disliked so much is still around, a bit like some posters here. I'm amazed at the residual hatred for this OS after over a third of a century. It really saddens me. Some people clearly love it. I think in a way -- maybe I am reaching too far here -- but ISTM it says something positive about a software platform if it inspires such strong feelings. It makes me think of Vi and Emacs. I cordially detest both. Many people love one and hate the other. I make my living from xNix, but I don't actually like it much. Never did. I'm not a programmer; much of why programmers love xNix just gets in my way. There were other, non-xNix-like OSes that were much more pleasant to use. I loved RISC OS back in the day, but while I still have it running now, I don't have much use for it in 2022. I loved classic MacOS, too. I must try to get my two old gigahertz-class G4 Macs running again so I can run the revived edition of MacOS 9 that can run on late-era OS-X-only G4s. At least I could do some paying work on that. I have an Amiga, and I respect AmigaOS, but it is hard work trying to use modern Amiga-like systems in the 21st century when you didn't really know it back in its prime. I have repeatedly tried to get AROS running on bare metal with no joy. I did get MorphOS onto on my Mac Mini G4 in the end, but my word that was hard work, involving multiple preparatory steps with Classic and OS X and Ubuntu PowerPC. Yes, the Amiga was more capable, but Amiga enthusiasts don't get that the price of greater capabilities is greater complexity, and that's off-putting. Maybe TOS appeals to people because it's so much simpler? And because in some ways it's DOS-like, and that's familiar too? And maybe that's why this modular re-creation exists?