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![]() Amiga Forever 2008 on Windows Vista. | |
Developer(s) | Cloanto IT srl |
---|---|
Initial release | November 14, 1997 |
Stable release | April 26, 2024 - 10.3.2 |
Operating system | Windows, macOS, Linux |
License | Proprietary |
Website | www |
Amiga Forever is an Amiga preservation, emulation and support package published by Cloanto, [1] [2] allowing Amiga software to run on non-Amiga hardware legally without complex configuration.
The Windows [3] version of Amiga Forever includes a "player" software developed by Cloanto which uses plugins such as WinUAE as emulation engines, while relying on its own user interface for configuration and authoring. In addition to supporting common disk image formats, Amiga Forever can also play back .Author files in Cloanto's proprietary RP9 format, which are compressed files, embed all media images including XML-based configuration and description data, and ancillary content like documentation, screenshots, and audio tracks.
Beginning from the 2012 version, Amiga Forever ships with an RP9 Editor for content authoring. Besides its own authoring and playback environment and Cloanto's floppy disk conversion service, Amiga Forever includes WinUAE and WinFellow, and different versions of UAE and E-UAE for other platforms. All versions of Amiga Forever include different AmigaOS (m68k) environments and support to run a large range of Amiga games and demoscene productions which are available for download from different software publishers and Amiga history sites. The Windows version also includes Cloanto's Amiga Explorer networking software, which allows access to Amiga resources (including virtual floppy, hard disk and ROM image files) from the Windows Desktop.
Amiga International, the owner of the intellectual property rights to the AmigaOS, sought to protect its property from people distributing unauthorized copies of the ROM files required for emulating Amiga software over the Internet. [4] On October 7, 1997, it announced on its website that it had granted Cloanto, publisher of Amiga productivity applications, the rights to publish an Amiga emulator containing the AmigaOS software. The first version of Amiga Forever was released on November 14, 1997, after its debut at the Computer '97 show in Cologne, Germany. [5] It was contained on a CD-ROM which contained a front-end for Windows and different versions of UAE for Windows, DOS, MacOS and Linux, plus Fellow for DOS and a selection of Amiga Kickstart ROM images and Workbench disks. [6] [ better source needed ] The new plugin-based player software was introduced in 2007.
Amiga Forever was ported to Android and appeared as a Google Chrome extension, both in 2013 as Amiga Forever essentials. In both cases, the application provides the necessary ROM files for emulators designed for Android and Google Chrome respectively. [7] [8]
Amiga Forever comes bundled with all versions of the official Amiga ROM and OS files, from versions 0.7 to 3.1. [9] It is also bundled with two preconfigured free and open source emulators: UAE and Fellow. [10]
The Amiga Explorer is a networking framework that facilitates data sharing between a PC and an actual Amiga computer. It readily converts files stored on Amiga disk files into the Amiga Disk File format, and also allows PC users to mount drives on an Amiga machine, both for PC use. [11]
Other features include:
UAE is a computer emulator which emulates the hardware of Commodore International's Amiga range of computers. Released under the GNU General Public License, UAE is free software.
AmigaDOS is the disk operating system of the AmigaOS, which includes file systems, file and directory manipulation, the command-line interface, and file redirection.
A live CD is a complete bootable computer installation including operating system which runs directly from a CD-ROM or similar storage device into a computer's memory, rather than loading from a hard disk drive. A live CD allows users to run an operating system for any purpose without installing it or making any changes to the computer's configuration. Live CDs can run on a computer without secondary storage, such as a hard disk drive, or with a corrupted hard disk drive or file system, allowing data recovery.
A virtual file system (VFS) or virtual filesystem switch is an abstract layer on top of a more concrete file system. The purpose of a VFS is to allow client applications to access different types of concrete file systems in a uniform way. A VFS can, for example, be used to access local and network storage devices transparently without the client application noticing the difference. It can be used to bridge the differences in Windows, classic Mac OS/macOS and Unix filesystems, so that applications can access files on local file systems of those types without having to know what type of file system they are accessing.
vMac is a free and open-source Macintosh Plus emulator which is able to run versions of System 1.1 to 7.5.5. It is available for Windows, DOS, OS/2, Mac OS, NeXTSTEP, Linux, Unix, and other platforms. Although vMac has been abandoned, Mini vMac, an improved spinoff of vMac, is still actively developed.
Basilisk II is an emulator which emulates Apple Macintosh computers based on the Motorola 68000 series. The software is cross-platform and can be used on a variety of operating systems.
QEMU is a free and open-source emulator. It emulates a computer's processor through dynamic binary translation and provides a set of different hardware and device models for the machine, enabling it to run a variety of guest operating systems. It can interoperate with Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) to run virtual machines at near-native speed. QEMU can also do emulation for user-level processes, allowing applications compiled for one processor architecture to run on another.
CrossDOS is a file system handler for accessing FAT formatted media on Amiga computers. It was bundled with AmigaOS 2.1 and later. Its function was to allow working with disks formatted for PCs and Atari STs. In the 1990s it became a commonly used method of file exchange between Amiga systems and other platforms.
Amiga emulation refers to the activity of emulating a Commodore Amiga computer system using another computer platform. Most emulators run on modern systems such as Microsoft Windows or Macintosh. This allows Amiga users to use their existing software, and in some cases hardware, on modern computers.
The Amiga computer can be used to emulate several other computer platforms, including legacy platforms such as the Commodore 64, and its contemporary rivals such as the IBM PC and the Macintosh.
Amiga software is computer software engineered to run on the Amiga personal computer. Amiga software covers many applications, including productivity, digital art, games, commercial, freeware and hobbyist products. The market was active in the late 1980s and early 1990s but then dwindled. Most Amiga products were originally created directly for the Amiga computer, and were not ported from other platforms.
AmigaOS is the proprietary native operating system of the Amiga personal computer. Since its introduction with the launch of the Amiga 1000 in 1985, there have been four major versions and several minor revisions of the operating system.
Workbench is the desktop environment and graphical file manager of AmigaOS developed by Commodore International for their Amiga line of computers. Workbench provides the user with a graphical interface to work with file systems and launch applications. It uses a workbench metaphor for representing file system organisation.
AmigaOS 4 is a line of Amiga operating systems which runs on PowerPC microprocessors. It is mainly based on AmigaOS 3.1 source code developed by Commodore, and partially on version 3.9 developed by Haage & Partner. "The Final Update" was released on 24 December 2006 after five years of development by the Belgian company Hyperion Entertainment under license from Amiga, Inc. for AmigaOne registered users.
AmiKit is a compilation of 425 pre-installed and pre-configured Amiga programs running on Windows, macOS, Linux, and Amiga computers with a Vampire V2 card.
AROS Research Operating System is a free and open-source multi media centric implementation of the AmigaOS 3.1 application programming interface (API) which is designed to be portable and flexible. As of 2021, ports are available for personal computers (PCs) based on x86 and PowerPC, in native and hosted flavors, with other architectures in development. In a show of full circle development, AROS has been ported to the Motorola 68000 series (m68k) based Amiga 1200, and there is also an ARM port for the Raspberry Pi series.
Kickstart is the bootstrap firmware of the Amiga computers developed by Commodore International. Its purpose is to initialize the Amiga hardware and core components of AmigaOS and then attempt to boot from a bootable volume, such as a floppy disk. Most Amiga models were shipped with the Kickstart firmware stored on ROM chips.
AmigaOS is a family of proprietary native operating systems of the Amiga and AmigaOne personal computers. It was developed first by Commodore International and introduced with the launch of the first Amiga, the Amiga 1000, in 1985. Early versions of AmigaOS required the Motorola 68000 series of 16-bit and 32-bit microprocessors. Later versions were developed by Haage & Partner and then Hyperion Entertainment. A PowerPC microprocessor is required for the most recent release, AmigaOS 4.
A new version of AmigaOS was released on December 24, 2006 after five years of development by Hyperion Entertainment (Belgium) under license from Amiga, Inc. for AmigaOne registered users.