4 ms·

So, you need an Amiga ROM to make this work. To get an Amiga ROM, it recommends purchasing one of two things, one of which is... Amiga Forever, a different Amig

by cwyers 9y ago

So, you need an Amiga ROM to make this work. To get an Amiga ROM, it recommends purchasing one of two things, one of which is... Amiga Forever, a different Amiga emulator. If I have to buy an Amiga emulator anyway, what's the value prop of AmiKit?

LeoPanthera 9y ago
Amiga Forever is a bundle that includes an emulator, as well as ROMs, and a bunch of software. Not that that makes it much better. I think the difference is that AmiKit is designed for running "current" Amiga software, but Amiga Forever is designed for Commodore-era software. But I'm not sure. It's not clear.
- zmix 9y ago
  AmiKit is a modern configuration and a curated collection of software for the Amiga, set up as environment for the UAE emulator. If UAE is the application, then AmiKit is the document it loads. So to say... AmiKit was always free. It seems to have gone commercial now. Some Shareware soft is regsitered here, for example, MUI5, which is the Amiga OOP GUI library. Never has been a UI library that configurable on any system! It is the current version, in active development. Another World, the game, is also pre-installed. A HD version sells on Steam and others. Several freeware tools have an "Exclusive Update". That is surprising, because the m68k Amiga (the one which gets emulated here) is, basically, out of business since 1994-1996. If it would not be for AmiKit, these updates, most probably, would have never happened. Also "Rabbit Hole" let's you start host (Win/Mac) applications from within the emulator. This is all pretty cool. For people like me, who still have their old Amigas (and OS disks) the price is bearable. Please note, that this is not so much about playing old games and demos. For that you will be fine with AmigaForever. This is for using AmigaOS as a modern Workstation, as much as possible. Here is a quote from their website: It includes more than 380 Amiga programs (and games) enriching the default system with exciting features and add-ons. We've done all the hard work for you so that your modern retro experience can begin right away. So, it's basically an installation on top of AmigaOS 3.9 (the last legacy version). If I remember correctly, one needs to own the original AmigaOS 3.9 DVD or an image, the ROM. AmiKit will then install everything into a consumable system, ready to go, with some modern drivers, that have been created for AmiKit.
  - PrimHelios 9y ago
    Is there any reason to use AmigaOS on a workstation?
    - squarefoot 9y ago
      Today surely not, but gives knowledge of what was available at that time, and being so different from the Unix/Linux, Windows and Mac worlds it helps to build a better perspective, which can be a lot valuable especially if you are a developer.
      - zmix 9y ago
        One should note, that the command-line part of the OS was not that different to Unix/Linux. The commands had different names, but a Unix user will feel at home rather quickly. Threre was also a project to bring POSIX to AmigaOS and the GNU devtools. Now, the architecture is different, of course, but familiar.
    - zmix 9y ago
      Well, that depends. I have never used a better OS. Period. I have never used a better Filemanager (Directory Opus5 Magellan II, now available as Directory Opus 12 on Windows, which is birlliant, too), Texteditor (GoldED Studio), IRC client (AmIRC), email and news system (UMS), YAM, NewsRog. Raster-image painting is, especially if you want to work at the single pixel, unreached. Now, web-browsing and office is another story... :-( The OS came with a default scripting language, a Rexx derivate, called ARexx. Most applications would support it, meaning, you could fully automate them, extend them to do things, the programmer never dreamed about. Since all was using the same scripting language (and Rexx was purposedly designed for inter application scripting, its creator called it a language for job-control, you had access to all environments (DOS, Application Hosts, shared libs) within the same script. Man, did I create workflows... :-) You could mount FTP, HTTP, your audio-speakers, raw memory, or whatever you wrote a device-driver for, as a disk. No need for any VFS library/framework. I've never seen such good ramdisk implementations. The system default one was volatile and dynamic, it was always there as a volume on your desktop. The other ones were configurable in block/tracksize, non-volatile and you could boot from them, if you wanted (nice for games back then, when floppies were slow and you had a game, that ran from 4 floppies. You would unarch them to the Ram Disks (which was quicker than loading them hard) and reset the machine. Voila!) And now, that you can run host-applications via AmiKit, it seems to make sense, to run it as your main environment. I did not test this part of AmiKit, however, so I only can assume.
zmix 9y ago
AmiKit is not the emulator (though it comes with one, or, at least, it did). Instead, it is an application- and configuration distro. Just without the OS. Like a Linux distro without Linux ;-) You still need the original AmigaOS disks (or images) and the firmware ROM. The only place to legally obtain them, these days, is the AmigaForever distribution, which, however, is more focussed on gaming and retro-feeling. You won't get the stuff in this distribtion, which is an add-on, that gives you the Workstation-feeling ;-) The work done by the AmiKit guy is massive. Configuration of these things takes days and you will find yourself researching on Amiga forums a lot.

by cwyers 9y ago

LeoPanthera 9y ago

Amiga Forever is a bundle that includes an emulator, as well as ROMs, and a bunch of software. Not that that makes it much better. I think the difference is that AmiKit is designed for running "current" Amiga software, but Amiga Forever is designed for Commodore-era software. But I'm not sure. It's not clear.

zmix 9y ago
AmiKit is a modern configuration and a curated collection of software for the Amiga, set up as environment for the UAE emulator. If UAE is the application, then AmiKit is the document it loads. So to say... AmiKit was always free. It seems to have gone commercial now. Some Shareware soft is regsitered here, for example, MUI5, which is the Amiga OOP GUI library. Never has been a UI library that configurable on any system! It is the current version, in active development. Another World, the game, is also pre-installed. A HD version sells on Steam and others. Several freeware tools have an "Exclusive Update". That is surprising, because the m68k Amiga (the one which gets emulated here) is, basically, out of business since 1994-1996. If it would not be for AmiKit, these updates, most probably, would have never happened. Also "Rabbit Hole" let's you start host (Win/Mac) applications from within the emulator. This is all pretty cool. For people like me, who still have their old Amigas (and OS disks) the price is bearable. Please note, that this is not so much about playing old games and demos. For that you will be fine with AmigaForever. This is for using AmigaOS as a modern Workstation, as much as possible. Here is a quote from their website: It includes more than 380 Amiga programs (and games) enriching the default system with exciting features and add-ons. We've done all the hard work for you so that your modern retro experience can begin right away. So, it's basically an installation on top of AmigaOS 3.9 (the last legacy version). If I remember correctly, one needs to own the original AmigaOS 3.9 DVD or an image, the ROM. AmiKit will then install everything into a consumable system, ready to go, with some modern drivers, that have been created for AmiKit.
- PrimHelios 9y ago
  Is there any reason to use AmigaOS on a workstation?
  - squarefoot 9y ago
    Today surely not, but gives knowledge of what was available at that time, and being so different from the Unix/Linux, Windows and Mac worlds it helps to build a better perspective, which can be a lot valuable especially if you are a developer.
    - zmix 9y ago
      One should note, that the command-line part of the OS was not that different to Unix/Linux. The commands had different names, but a Unix user will feel at home rather quickly. Threre was also a project to bring POSIX to AmigaOS and the GNU devtools. Now, the architecture is different, of course, but familiar.
  - zmix 9y ago
    Well, that depends. I have never used a better OS. Period. I have never used a better Filemanager (Directory Opus5 Magellan II, now available as Directory Opus 12 on Windows, which is birlliant, too), Texteditor (GoldED Studio), IRC client (AmIRC), email and news system (UMS), YAM, NewsRog. Raster-image painting is, especially if you want to work at the single pixel, unreached. Now, web-browsing and office is another story... :-( The OS came with a default scripting language, a Rexx derivate, called ARexx. Most applications would support it, meaning, you could fully automate them, extend them to do things, the programmer never dreamed about. Since all was using the same scripting language (and Rexx was purposedly designed for inter application scripting, its creator called it a language for job-control, you had access to all environments (DOS, Application Hosts, shared libs) within the same script. Man, did I create workflows... :-) You could mount FTP, HTTP, your audio-speakers, raw memory, or whatever you wrote a device-driver for, as a disk. No need for any VFS library/framework. I've never seen such good ramdisk implementations. The system default one was volatile and dynamic, it was always there as a volume on your desktop. The other ones were configurable in block/tracksize, non-volatile and you could boot from them, if you wanted (nice for games back then, when floppies were slow and you had a game, that ran from 4 floppies. You would unarch them to the Ram Disks (which was quicker than loading them hard) and reset the machine. Voila!) And now, that you can run host-applications via AmiKit, it seems to make sense, to run it as your main environment. I did not test this part of AmiKit, however, so I only can assume.

zmix 9y ago

AmiKit is not the emulator (though it comes with one, or, at least, it did). Instead, it is an application- and configuration distro. Just without the OS. Like a Linux distro without Linux ;-) You still need the original AmigaOS disks (or images) and the firmware ROM. The only place to legally obtain them, these days, is the AmigaForever distribution, which, however, is more focussed on gaming and retro-feeling. You won't get the stuff in this distribtion, which is an add-on, that gives you the Workstation-feeling ;-) The work done by the AmiKit guy is massive. Configuration of these things takes days and you will find yourself researching on Amiga forums a lot.