Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

Amiga Forever

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Developer(s)
  
Cloanto Italia srl

Website
  
www.amigaforever.com

License
  
Proprietary

Initial release
  
1997; 20 years ago (1997)

Stable release
  
2016; 1 year ago (2016)

Operating system
  
Windows, Mac OS X, Linux

Amiga Forever is an Amiga preservation, emulation and support package produced by Cloanto, which allows Amiga software to run on non-Amiga hardware legally and without complex configuration.

Contents

The Windows version of Amiga Forever includes a "player" software developed by Cloanto which seamlessly 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 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 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 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 files) from the Windows Desktop.

History

The first version of Amiga Forever was released in 1997 on a CD-ROM which contained different versions of UAE for Windows, DOS, Mac and Linux, Fellow for DOS and a selection of Amiga Kickstart ROM images and Workbench disks. There was also an Amiga floppy disk available which contained the Amiga side of Amiga Explorer. The new plugin-based player software was introduced in 2007.

Features

Features, among others:

  • Emulation of Amiga hardware (allows Amiga software to run on a PC or mobile device)
  • Officially licensed Amiga ROM and OS files (all versions from 0.7 to 3.X)
  • Officially licensed Picasso RTG graphics subsystem
  • Additional emulation and drivers (SCSI, TCP/IP, AHI, CDTV, CD³², etc.)
  • Amiga Forever player software for Windows to access and launch content
  • Preconfigured WinUAE and WinFellow emulation engines with auto-updates
  • Preinstalled games, demos and applications (web browser, paint, etc.)
  • Support for a large amount of downloadable Amiga games, demos and applications
  • Amiga Explorer and Amiga Files data sharing framework
  • Optional Live CD, based on Knoppix 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

    Amiga Forever Wikipedia