Review: Amiga Forever makes retro gaming painless

Personal computers have been around long enough to become a part of our history and shared social consciousness. As time marches on and older hardware dies, emulation is often the only way to experience these orphaned systems again. Amiga has been mourned more than most. Emulators are tricky business, however. Mastering and maintaining them can sap enough enthusiasm that you're left wondering why you bothered. Cloanto carefully sized up this common problem when putting together its Amiga Forever package, and the results are impressive. We looked at the $30 Plus edition ($10 Value and $50 Premium editions also available).

Rather than reinvent the wheel, Cloanto (which also makes the C64 Forever Commodore 64 emulator) uses the excellent WinUAE as the technical engine behind its Amiga suite. The main bulk of the package is a sizable collection of legal ROM images, games, classic demoscene releases, interviews, and more. An attractively designed multi-tabbed window, which resembles a media library more than an emulation interface, presents the information. There's a ton of Amiga-related stuff at your fingertips from the moment you install. Ratings, screenshots, and descriptive texts appear for each of the dozens of entries, and full social media support means everyone on Twitter will know when you're eaten by the giant ants.

Cloanto sweats the details for your trip back to 1990.

Tinkering types and Amiga purists will be pleased to know that all the deeper settings are still available via the Tools menu (accessible during emulation using WinUAE's default F12 hotkey). That said, there's little to bother with here as Amiga Forever has most useful options preconfigured or easily selectable via icons placed around the emulation window itself. Full-screen controls, input devices, save states and more are all accessible here. Links to legal download repositories for many lost Amiga classics are built into the software, so when you tire of the included content, finding more isn't difficult. All standard Amiga formats are supported, so your own library of converted disks can be used as well. It's all designed to be as painless as possible, and it works.

The DVD edition has a number of interviews that are must-watch for Amiga aficionados. In addition to some early promotional materials, the famous "Deathbed Vigil" is included on the disc, in which Dave Haynie (the creator of the Amiga 3000) documents the fall of Commodore on video as it happens around him. This is riveting stuff for those wondering what was going on behind the scenes at the time. More material of this nature would be welcome, as this is the content that sets Cloanto's offering apart from other, more technically oriented packages. The gallery area in particular could use some back-issue libraries of Amiga-oriented publications such as .info magazine and similar materials.

Amiga Forever's quick access icons make screen changes and saves easy.

Cloanto has a winning formula here that focuses on the softer side of the emulation equation and presents a package so authentic to the original experience that even old 3.5" disk drive sounds are reproduced with sound effects. At $30, the Plus edition is reasonably priced for the software library and ROM images it provides. The $50 Premium edition, which is on DVD, is a bigger stretch, but well worth it for fans for the extra video content. Either way it’s a small price to pay for the emulator you don't need to make excuses for when you show the kids how things used to be.

Note: The "Try it for free" button on the Product Information page takes you to the vendor's site, where you can download the latest version of the software.

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Relive the Joys of Amiga With WinUAE

Back in the 1980's, a select group of computer pioneers got a glimpse of the future in the form of Commodore's Amiga computer line. Easily a decade ahead of the PCs and Macs of the era, these systems boasted hardware-accelerated graphics and stereo sound on a preemptive multitasking OS with a Unix-like desktop GUI supported by a fully featured command line interface. A darling of the entertainment and video industries in both the US and Europe, a wealth of innovative and fun software was developed for the platform, including some of the best games and 3D applications of the period. Many of these titles were never ported, so keeping them handy after Commodore went bankrupt meant devoting a sizable amount of desk space to an aging computer system. Fortunately, revisiting these classics today doesn't require you to redecorate your den. All you need to get your 80's inner geek on is the free WinUAE (and legally obtained Amiga software--more on that below).

You can access WinUAE Properties during emulation to tweak settings.Ported from the original Unix UAE package, WinUAE flawlessly emulates the hardware environment of the original Amigas, from the 500 on up to the mighty 4000. Kickstart ROM boot files containing any of the various versions of Amiga’s Workbench OS are supported, along with floppy and hard disk images for software installation. Many of the old favorites are freely downloadable from Amiga enthusiast sites or via their original publishers, so donning your Rocket Ranger helmet or becoming Defender of the Realm again has never been easier.

You can specify fairly elaborate setups from the Properties window, including emulation of expansion RAM, video cards, CPU upgrades and network support. WinUAE ran every gaming title and application I tossed at it. In most cases, the easily accessed configuration options provided better compatibility than the original hardware. Much effort has been made to smooth over the rough edges inherent with quarter-century old computing. Entire system states can be saved to a file for instant access later, allowing you to get right back into a difficult game or recreate a complex desktop configuration without effort. Floppy drive emulation options allow near-instant loading times. Joysticks are automatically mapped to their PC equivalents with autofire built in. Custom boot profiles allow you to have the best Amiga possible for every program you run. You can even emulate scanlines, for that retro CRT look. WinUAE does it all.

The drawbacks here don't involve WinUAE directly. Depending on the sources available, Kickstart ROMs may require some hunting to obtain. Cloanto's Amiga Forever bundles them with software and a commercial version of UAE for a reasonable price, getting just the ROM may take more effort, and can require access to your original hardware on a one-time basis so a dump can be performed. Cloanto's turnkey download option is easier to install--and like WinUAE, perfectly legal. Also, acquainting (or reacquainting) yourself with the ins and outs of an old computer system can take a little time, even if you're no stranger to the platform: be prepared to take a few steps up the learning curve. For the Amiga faithful, however, none of this matters. WinUAE is nothing less than a time machine back to the golden age of computing. It's a ride well worth taking.

--Jim Norris

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