Amiga Forever is an

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

preservation,

emulation Emulation may refer to: *Emulation (computing), imitation of behavior of a computer or other electronic system with the help of another type of system :*Video game console emulator, software which emulates video game consoles *Gaussian process em ...

and support package published by Cloanto, which allows Amiga software to run on non-Amiga hardware legally and without complex configuration. The Windows version of Amiga Forever includes a "player" software developed by Cloanto which makes use of "plugins" such as

WinUAE 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. History Bernd Schmidt conceived of an emulator that can run Ami ...

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 play back and author files in Cloanto's proprietary RP9 format. RP9 packages are compressed files that embed all media images, plus XML-based configuration and description data, and ancillary content like documentation, screenshots, audio tracks, etc. Beginning from the 2012 version, Amiga Forever includes Cloanto's RP9 Editor for content authoring. Besides its own authoring and playback environment, and Cloanto's floppy disk conversion service, Amiga Forever includes

and WinFellow, and different versions of UAE and E-UAE for other platforms. All versions of Amiga Forever include different

AmigaOS 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 version ...

(

m68k The Motorola 68000 series (also known as 680x0, m68000, m68k, or 68k) is a family of 32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and w ...

) environments and support to run a large range of

Amiga games __NOTOC__ This is a list of games for the Amiga line of personal computers organised alphabetically by name. See Lists of video games This is a list of all video game lists on Wikipedia, sorted by varying classifications. By platform Acorn * ...

and

demoscene The demoscene is an international computer art subculture focused on producing demos: self-contained, sometimes extremely small, computer programs that produce audiovisual presentations. The purpose of a demo is to show off programming, visual ...

productions which are available for free 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 A ROM image, or ROM file, is a computer file which contains a copy of the data from a read-only memory chip, often from a video game cartridge, or used to contain a computer's firmware, or from an arcade game's main board. The term is frequentl ...

files) from the Windows Desktop.

History

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. 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 Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western States of Germany, state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 m ...

, Germany. It was contained on a CD-ROM which contained a front-end for Windows and different versions of UAE for Windows,

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

, macOS and Linux, plus Fellow for DOS and a selection of Amiga Kickstart ROM images and

Workbench A workbench is a sturdy table at which manual work is done. They range from simple flat surfaces to very complex designs that may be considered tools in themselves. Workbenches vary in size from tiny jewellers benches to the huge benches used by ...

disks. The new plugin-based player software was introduced in 2007. Amiga Forever was ported to

Android (operating system) Android is a mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android is developed by a consortium of de ...

and appeared as a

Google Chrome extension Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macO ...

, 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.

Features

Amiga Forever comes bundled with all versions of the official Amiga ROM and OS files, from versions 0.7 to 3.1. It is also bundled with two preconfigured

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

emulators

UAE The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia (The Middle East). It is located at th ...

and

Fellow A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context. In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements. Within the context of higher education ...

. 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 Amiga Disk File (ADF) is a file format used by Amiga computers and emulators to store images of floppy disks. It has been around almost as long as the Amiga itself, although it was not initially called by any particular name. Before it was kno ...

format, and also allows PC users to mount drives on an Amiga machine, both for PC use. Other features include: * Emulation of Amiga hardware (allows Amiga software to run on a PC or mobile device) * Additional emulation and drivers (RTG graphics, SCSI, TCP/IP, AHI,

CDTV The CDTV (from Commodore Dynamic Total Vision, later treated as a backronym for Compact Disc Television) is a home multimedia entertainment and video game console – convertible into a full-fledged personal computer by the addition of optional ...

, CD³², etc.) * Amiga Forever player software for Windows to access and launch content * Preinstalled games, demos and applications (web browser, paint, etc.) * Support for a large amount of downloadable

demos Demos may refer to: Computing * DEMOS, a Soviet Unix-like operating system * DEMOS (ISP), the first internet service provider in the USSR * Demos Commander, an Orthodox File Manager for Unix-like systems * plural for Demo (computer programming) ...

and

applications Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a c ...

* Optional

Live CD A live CD (also live DVD, live disc, or live operating system) 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 fro ...

, based on

Knoppix KNOPPIX ( ) is an operating system based on Debian designed to be run directly from a CD / DVD (Live CD) or a USB flash drive (Live USB), one of the first live operating system distributions (just after Yggdrasil Linux). Knoppix was developed b ...

Light (boots a PC or Intel Mac directly into Workbench) * More than five hours of Amiga videos (two DVDs) * Gallery of items of historical interest

References

External links

* {{AmigaOS 1997 software Amiga Android emulation software Google Chrome extensions Linux emulation software MacOS emulation software Windows emulation software

History

Features

See also

References

External links