Commodore Free 13/Commodore_Free_Issue_13_2007_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/t.amiga forever

Text File | 2023-02-26 | 14KB | 446 lines

uAmiga Forever Premium Edition CD
Cloanto www.amigaforever.com

Amiga users are probably aware of the
name Cloanto as being the creators of
the excellent paint package for the
Amiga called Personal Paint claiming
among other benefits support for the
now standard Amiga Datatypes

Cloanto have been long time Amiga soft-
ware developers since 1987 & released
the first version of Amiga Forever
emulation software in 1997 to the
amazement of many users.  Many thought
emulating the Amiga to be impossible,
but as with everything time & machine
power moves on quickly to a point where
emulation is now almost flawless. So
what then is Amiga forever you may ask
& what is emulation software?  Amiga
forever is an Emulator or a software
package designed to act as a real Amiga
running on an IBM PC, the software will
run nearly all 68k Amiga software
including Amiga Workbench & most games
& demos. Cloanto are unique in offering
a full & legal version of the Amiga
Boot ROM & Workbench disk files.

The boot ROMs available within the
package range from version 1.3 to
version 3.0 & workbench versions 1.3 to
version 3.0 all licensed from the
relevant owners of the files & legal to
use. The Premium edition is packaged in
a neat DVD style box containing a CD
ROM of the emulation software boot ROM
& workbench files & 2 DVDs containing
videos that are relevant to the history
of the Amiga computer. The DVD is copy
free & region free but Recorded in NTSC
format, Pal countries should have no
problem playing the files as 99.9% of
DVD & Televisions can cope with both
PAL & NTSC formats on the fly. The disk
is available from Cloanto directly or
various Amiga retailers, I found
www.amigakit.com selling the premium
edition for 33.99 + Post GBP various
versions are available with a basic
download option of the emulator & work-
bench files from Cloanto's website
www.amigaforever.com for a reduced
price, there are other download options
available, but check the website for
details.

REVIEW
Taking the first disk out of the case &
inserting into your PC switching on the
machine will boot into a customised
version of Linux then start the
emulation & boot into a customised
version of Amiga workbench version 3.0.
I did have some problems with this
version not recognising my USB keyboard
& mouse.

Note the Toolbar at the foot of the
screen with quick links to various
applications & utilities, all ready &
preconfigured.

Booting your PC
Start your PC as normal & then insert
the Amiga forever disk the pc should
then Auto start the disk bringing you
to the title menu, you can now select
the version of Workbench you wish to
start although the options from here
are only workbench 3 or workbench 1.3,
also possible is booting one of the
demos listed on the tabs at the top of
the screen

The software is built around UAE & Win
Fellow (Amiga emulation software)
However the real power of the software
lies in the fact you can install the
emulation software then run it from the
PC without using the disk, this
improves speed & performance of the
emulation software. Another bonus of
installing the software is that you
could save out customised versions of
your Amiga setup for troublesome games
& demos or just favorite config-
urations.

UAE & Winfellow have been available for
a number of years & are indeed still
available as a free download from the
respective websites, HOWEVER the Amiga
kick-start & workbench are copyrighted
& so are not distributed with the
download, unlike the Cloantos Amiga
forever where everything is neatly
packaged & in one box ready to use. The
emulation software has been developed
over many years & improved; the Amiga
hardware has changed over the years,
unlike say emulation of a C64 where the
basic hardware remained static for a
number of years & lets face it isn't
going to change any time soon.  Many
Amiga programs for example require
certain versions of workbench & custom
chips to be in the hardware before the
software can run, also the amount of
memory & even the peripherals attached
could cause the application to fail.
This is fully handled through the
emulation software.

For anyone who has used Emulation
software the basics are the same as
something like winvice set the options
then load a disk image, Of course for
running applications as opposed to
games & demos, we have a full workbench
system customised by someone who has
actually used an Amiga, various handy
tool bars & must have applications are
already installed & ready to use to no
need to hunt around for PD software to
get the system running. One thing you
will need is the disk creating as disk
images or ADF files, a quick goggle
will show this is easily possible.

Once my system was installed & ready to
run I was surprised to find I could
access all my Windows network mapped
drives from the Amiga environment, this
meant I could create documents then
save them over the network onto my
windows system. To any one used to
multi-format system this is a real
bonus especially when you aren't
expecting it to work

Cloanto package even included Picasso
software for high end graphics cards to
obtain the full benefit from your
attached PC screen, I tried the soft-
ware on a spare laptop & it worked
without problems obtaining very high
resolution & colour depth that even my
Amiga 4000 would be jealous of also
with the software installed & running
under windows I had no problems with
USB keyboards & mice unlike booting
from the CD rom & running the live
version. As way of another bonus the
package contains a customised version
of Directory opus version 5, with
almost the whole back catalogue of
cloanto's software thrown in for free
this is a very comprehensive package I
look forward to the next version to see
what could possibly be improved, but do
hope USB emulation has been added to
the customised Linux version  To my
knowledge only Coanto has the rights to
sell workbench in this way through
emulation software Even things like the
processor & whether you have a 68060 or
a basic 68000 processors so we can
cover almost any machine from & Amiga
500 to an Amiga 4000 the options are a
little overwhelming at first, but the
menu system is easy to use.

Premium edition DVD contents[
The launch of Amiga  17 mins
Sampling sounds
Multi-tasking
Impressive launch demos
Emulating & IBM pc & running lotus 123
Boing ball demo
Andy Warhol & Debora Harry creating a
portrait ( the interviewer says to Andy
what machines have you used before Andy
says None except this one the crowd
gasps)

Jay Miner peach 49 mins metacom 1989
Jay introduces various commercials
Video clips from 1975  of the 2600
 video system
The Atari 400/800
About moving to work on pacemaker
 systems
The start of the Amiga
Jay says he wanted to work on a machine
 that could play flight simulators
How the design was purchased under
 Ataris nose by Commodore

Jay miner interview 9mins
The birth of the Amiga
Computers in society
Working for a pacemaker company

The history of the Amiga
Description of Amiga
The story of the making of Amiga
Staff layoffs

Amiga Scrapbooks (various Amiga photos
 of staff)

Inside Commodore
Guided tour behind doors
Tour of the Amiga Assembly plant &
 packing rooms
Meeting some of the staff from the back
 offices

Death bed vigial
The last days of Commodore
AAA board shown to be real
Last party & layoffs
Chicken lips song
History of the Speedbumps
The Amiga Unix software
The hilarious storys of property passes
to get items in & out of the company
(one staff member had a pass for an
electronic item very funny but sadly
showing a business failing)

David Hyne interview
How he stared working at commodore on
the Plus 4 & 128 How he bought an Amiga
500 Made the 3000+ with DSP & new
graphics chip Worked on the ECS
graphics system
Questions where is Amiga going

The Feature list of the package is vast
here are just some of the features
(taken directly from the website) Both
the Online Edition & the other versions
of Amiga Forever contain the following
items:

Preinstalled Workbench 1.3 environment
(for compatibility with older games &
other software) & Workbench 3.X
environment (for productivity, internet
access, etc.), running on top of a
powerful JIT-enabled Amiga hardware
emulation which also supports Amiga
custom chips, RTG, SCSI, TCP/IP, AHI,
up to 512 MB of Zorro III RAM, virtual
memory, MIDI, native x86 code, etc.
More...

Preinstalled games, & support for
downloaded games

Preinstalled demos, including more than
10 original 'First Demos' by Amiga, &
support for downloaded demos

A multitude of carefully-preinstalled
quality Amiga applications, which
include the AWeb browser (great for
cross-browser testing), TCP/IP support
tools, Personal Paint 7.1c (paint,
animation & image processing software,
includes GIF/LZW license), special
version of CacheCDFS CD file system,
AmigaAMP media player, DirDiff (file
synchronization & replication
software), AmiToRTF (convert text from
Amiga to Windows format), MailBX
(convert Amiga mail archives to
Microsoft Mail, Outlook Express &
Exchange Server), drag-and-drop LhA,
print spooler, Directory Opus 5.5
(courtesy of GPSoftware), TurboText
(exclusive latest version with bug
fixes), MUI (shareware version),
KingCON, FreeWheel, PowerSnap,
ToolManager, ReqTools, etc
Compatibility with 'Amiga OS 3.5'+
icons, NewIcons & MagicWB icons

New & fully-licensed Picasso96 RTG
software (not a shareware version),
maps Amiga graphics requests directly
to fast x86 calls & powerful low-level
DirectX functions (Windows version of
emulation)

Amiga Narrator & Translator speech
synthesis components (made available
for distribution with the Amiga OS
for the first time since 1991, when
Commodore-Amiga's license expired)

Latest versions of WinUAE & WinFellow
tested & supported by Cloanto (non-
Windows versions included/available

Launcher window with one-click controls

Amiga Files software & folder to
support future Windows systems

Software Director for easy & privacy-
conscious emulation news & updates

And just in case some inaccuracy came
into my review here is some info from
the website

ROM & Operating System Files in Amiga
Forever
TOPIC

Q: Does Amiga Forever include all ROM &
operating system files ever released?

A: Amiga Forever includes ROM & system
disks between version 1.0 & 3.1,
including 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.04, 2.05,
2.1, 3.0 & 3.1. Beta versions (eg
'1.4', which was then released as 2.0),
& versions released only for a specific
type of hardware (e.g. the relatively
buggy 2.00 which worked only on the
A3000, or a special version of the 1.3
operating system to support the A2024
monitor) are not included. These items
have been licensed to Cloanto by the
successors of Amiga Corp (formerly
Hi-Toro) & include newer developments
by Cloanto & by other third parties.

Amiga Forever includes a preinstalled
Workbench 3.X environment (newer than
3.1), & includes or supports operating
systems not originally released by
Commodore (e.g. AROS), as well as
hardware diagnostic systems & operating
systems not originally meant to run on
Amiga hardware. For space reasons, the
Online Edition of Amiga Forever
includes only version 1.3 (bootable
floppy disk image) & 3.X (preinstalled
Workbench plus application software),
which are in general sufficient to run
both old & new software. The Amiga
Forever Plus Edition contains
additional versions of the ROM & OS
files.

The licenses for certain 3rd-party
files which were originally bundled
with the Amiga operating system, such
as the Basic programming language & the
speech synthesis software were not
renewed by the successors of Amiga
Corporation (formerly Hi-Toro), & are
therefore in part missing in disks
released after a certain date (e.g. in
version 1.3 of the Amiga operating
system as shipped with the Amiga 3000
in 1991). The licenses for more recent
items, such as some fonts used in newer
versions of the operating system, also
expired a few years later.
Nevertheless, Cloanto was able to
license some of these original
components, such as the speech
synthesis software, directly from the
copyright holders, & to include them in
Amiga Forever.

Cloanto placed a high priority on
preserving & respecting the original
look, feel & compatibility of version
3.1 of the operating system as it was
released before its development team
ceased maintenance of the operating
system. Nevertheless, Amiga Forever
also includes internally developed or
fully licensed additional preinstalled
components, such as system patches,
GlowIcons, TCP/IP, RTG, etc. Amiga
Forever contains instructions on how to
disable such add-ons without affecting
functionality, if so desired.

Last note
I tried Amithlon & had a bad feeling
about Amiga forever, but to the less
technical users this is an excellent
package because the setup & config-
uration is already done, if you run the
emulation direct from CD you have the
bonus of changing settings without them
being saved so you can experiment with
full freedom, knowing you can go back
to the default setting with just a
reboot, for the more demanding user
installing there package from the disk
give almost infinite compatibility with
the real machine. Of course the real
question is can you tell its emulating
the machine & to most users they
wouldnt know. So you now have your
Amiga Laptop, customise the case with a
fancy logo & pretend this is a new
machine from Commodore

Although on the CD there is no direct
to run the software within a linux or
Mac os environment the configuration &
workbench files can be utilised with
the Uea but you will need to go to the
Uea website to manually download the
application  I liked the package very
much & I have heard that a new version
is in the works, I am sure the USB
compatibility problem from booting up
the CD will be addressed & look forward
to the extra futures (although nothing
has been disclosed at this time)

Review Commodore Free Magazine