{{Short description|U.S. computer programmer (1952–2007)}} {{Other people|Frederick Fish}} {{Infobox person | name = Fred N. Fish | image = Fish-Compton-Haynie.jpg | caption = Fred Fish, Jason Compton, and Dave Haynie in 1995 | birth_date = {{birth date|1952|11|04}} | death_date = {{death date and age|2007|04|20|1952|11|04}} | known_for = Fish Disks | spouse = Michelle Fish (née Norman) }}

[[Image:Amiga koln.jpg|thumb|Image taken at the first Amiga show in Cologne (1989, Köln). Front row from left to right, {{nowrap|Matt Dillon}} and {{nowrap|Fred Fish}}. Back row from the left: {{nowrap|Oliver Wagner}} and {{nowrap|Mick Hohmann}}.]]<!-- 1995?? -->

'''Fred Fish''' (November 4, 1952 &ndash; April 20, 2007) was a computer programmer notable for work on the GNU Debugger and his series of freeware disks for the Amiga.

Fish worked for Cygnus Solutions in the 1990s before leaving for Be Inc. in 1998.<ref name="Spindazzle">{{cite web |title=Fred Fish |url=http://spindazzle.org/greenblog/index.php?%2Farchives%2F60-Fred-Fish.html |url-status=bot: unknown |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20081224200258/http://spindazzle.org/greenblog/index.php?%2Farchives%2F60-Fred-Fish.html |archivedate=December 24, 2008 |accessdate=2017-09-25 |website=spindazzle.org}}</ref>

In 1978, he self-published ''User Survival Guide for TI-58/59 Master Library''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://airy.rskey.org/CALCDOCS//TI/TI%20Master%20Library%20Survival%20Guide.pdf |title=User Survival Guide for TI-58/59 Master Library |last=Fish |first=Fred |date=1978 |website=rskey.org |access-date=2018-06-19}}</ref> It was advertised in enthusiast newsletters covering the TI-59 programmable calculator. Fish also initiated the "GeekGadgets" project, a GNU standard environment for AmigaOS and BeOS.

==Personal life==

Fred Fish was married to Michelle Fish (née Norman) at the time of his death. He died of a heart attack<ref name="richard">{{Cite web |title=Richard Fish - Fred Fish will be missed |url=https://sourceware.org/legacy-ml/gdb/2007-04/msg00154.html |access-date=2023-04-12 |website=sourceware.org}}</ref> at his home in Idaho on Friday, April 20, 2007.

== The Amiga Library Disks {{anchor |fish-disk}} == The ''Amiga Library Disks'' – colloquially referred to as ''Fish Disks'' (a term coined by Perry Kivolowitz at a Jersey Amiga User Group meeting) – had a reach that included most all Amiga users in the world.<ref>{{cite book |last=Moss |first=Richard |date=2023-01-10 |title=Shareware Heroes: The renegades who redefined gaming at the dawn of the internet |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YrlbEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT40 |publisher=Unbound |page=40 |isbn=9781800181106}}</ref> Fish would distribute his disks around the world in time for regional and local user group meetings, which in turn duplicated them for local distribution. Typically, only the cost of materials changed hands. The Fish Disk series ran from 1986 to 1994. In it, one can chart the growing sophistication of Amiga software and see the emergence of many software trends.<ref name="Spindazzle" />thumb|alt=A classic 3½ inch floppy, rotated 45 degrees to the right, with a fin on the left and bubbles on the right, giving the overall appearance of a tropical fish.|The custom fish-shaped icon used for the Amiga Library Disks from number 75 onwards.

The Fish Disks were distributed at computer stores and Amiga enthusiast clubs. Contributors submitted applications and source code and the best of these each month were assembled and released as a diskette. Since the Internet was not yet in popular usage outside military and university circles, this was a primary way for enthusiasts to share work and ideas.<ref name="Fish Disks">{{Cite web |title=Fish disks 1 - 1120 |url=http://www.amiga-stuff.com/pd/fish.html |access-date=2023-04-12 |website=www.amiga-stuff.com}}</ref>

==References== {{Reflist|30em}}

==External links==

{{Portal|Amiga|Biography}} * [http://ftp.funet.fi/pub/amiga/fish/ Fish Disks] * [http://obligement.free.fr/articles/itwfish.php Interview with Fred Fish] * {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131024004931/http://diveadx.back2roots.org/ |date=October 24, 2013 |title=Living his LifeLong Dream }} * [https://groups.google.com/group/net.micro.amiga/msg/8687b1f863fcc352?dmode=source Announcement of first Fish disks] * {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131016084207/http://geekgadgets.back2roots.org/ |date=October 16, 2013 |title=Geek Gadgets Project }} * {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131208030949/http://fish.back2roots.org/ |date=December 8, 2013 |title=Fred Fish memorial archive }} - research in progress, explicitly welcomes Wiki usage.

{{Amiga people}} {{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fish, Fred}} Category:American computer programmers Category:Amiga people Category:1952 births Category:2007 deaths Category:Place of birth missing Category:Deaths from myocarditis