Amiga

The Belgian Amiga Club is a group for "Amiga enthusiasts".
The Amiga is a family of (retro) computers originally introduced by Commodore in 1985.

History

The Belgian Amiga Club was founded in 2003 by Simon Vergauwen and Dirk Baeyens, with the goal to bring together what was left of the Amiga enthusiasts out there, after the bankruptcy of Commodore and the various failed takeovers that followed, which ultimately resulted in the disappearance of all active Amiga user groups in Belgium.

The main motive to start a new group was the conviction that in 2003, with various projects going on, like the new forthcoming AmigaOS4 for PPC, the Amigascene was in a revival mood and so this felt like the right moment to restart an active Belgian Amiga user group.
The goal was to meet up regularly with tens of people to hold interactive and informational meetings.
Thanks to our (now defunct) forum, the minimum viable number of participants was quickly reached.

The forum then was closed in favour of a Facebook page to reach a larger audience. Initially, meetings were held 4 times a year in “de Mouterij”, a hall located in Zwijndrecht, which the chairman could rent for cheap, being a local there.
Time went on but after a few years it became clear that AmigaOS4, MorphOS and AROS would never be what the original AmigaOS was, and after 5 years of clubbing, the passion/zest for Amiga dwindled down to a point it became impossible to hold 4 useful meetings a year.
It was decided to reduce the number of annual meetings to 1 or 2, and the Facebook page was created in an attempt to keep the club relevant.

After a long uneventful period, interest in Amiga and retro computing in general sparked again and a new revival period formed quickly and is still ongoing today.
Most likely you are one of those who went through your old storage to un-dust and power on your Amiga again, purely for nostalgic reasons.



In 2022, Simon transfered presidency to Steffest.

Fast-forward to today, where our Facebook page has around 600 members, of which 10% are actively involved and attend the annual club meetings.
These gatherings have always been free of entry fees, everyone is welcome to join with or without his Amiga alongside.

This is our history in a nutshell, we hope to welcome you on our Facebook page or during our next club meeting.