Amigan Apprentice & Journeyman
A curated collection of freely distributable software for the Amiga, running to at least 23 numbered volumes. Its character was distinctly programmer-friendly, as suggested by the "apprentice and journeyman" subtitle - each disk was packed with utilities, tools, and source code, the occasional game tucked in among them.
Not much is known about this PD library. On-disk data credits it to Bruce M. Drake and James E. Cooper of NC, USA. The series does not appear to have achieved the same broad international circulation as some of the larger libraries, but the quality and consistency of its curation suggest it was produced with care.
The content of the disks reflects the kind of software that productive Amiga users were reaching for: disk 1 includes Emacs, a screen dumper, and a CLI tool; disk 4 bundles an assembler, a linker, an icon editor, and make; disk 6 is devoted entirely to LARN, the classic roguelike dungeon game that also appeared on Fred Fish's disks. The mixture of programming infrastructure and recreational software was typical of the era, when the boundary between "tool" and "entertainment" was drawn rather loosely. Disk 8 notably contains the full source code for HACK — the ancestor of NetHack — cross-referencing with the binary on disk 2.
Disk Series
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Amigan
22 entries