Well, the term "hobbyist" implies amateur, but that doesn't have to be the case. It could very well be a professional electronics design Engineer who also likes to work on his own projects in his spare time. The projects he (or she) does in his spare time are his "hobbyist" projects.
AH
For a good example of a "Hobbyist" that is definitely not an "Amateur", I offer George Braun, who has spent years and thousands of euros on designing and producing mostly one of a kind upgrades for his A1000. I just checked his home webpage again yesterday and found that he has completed a 68060/50MHz to 100MHz accelerator for his GBA1000 motherboard. The only problem with most of his projects is that they are not meant for other hobbyist's to duplicate, as the tools and knowledge to complete them are far above and beyond the capabilities and available tools that most of us mere mortals possess, and he does not produce any of them for sale, or offer any assistance to other people, other than providing the designs and some technical information for downloads. He also created a one-of-a-kind custom design copy of the PicassoII graphics card that fits inside his A1000 and connects to the Zorro slot on the GBA1000 via a 90 degree connector. It has 2mb VRAM and is capable of working with the GBA1000's internal scan doubler. This guy is a genius with spare time and money, but I wish he would work with someone like Jens of Individual Computer's to make his inventions available to others more easily. I wonder if Jens has ever talked to him about such a partnership, not that very many people would be interested in expanding their A1000's like Mr. Braun has, but there are a few of us that still think that the A1000 is the best looking Amiga ever built.
