Current state of play with emulators

[BitSeeker]

Since I have not been on the Amiga scene for a very long time, I would like to ask what the current state of play is with emulators. I work primarily with Linux, but any option that works well would be considered, so I did a bit of research and the picture seems a little bewildering. here is what I have found so far:

Amithlon - from comments on various forums seems to be very well liked but apparently abandoned by the authors. I couldn't find anything that looks like a complete download anywhere, just bits and pieces. Not sure how they fit together yet, or whether what I have is complete.

FS-UAE - easy to download via the Ubuntu archive using apt install. Having had a little play with it using model 500 and Kickstart ROM 1.3 and a single game (Dizzy Dice) picked at random which seemed to work  fine. With the second game - a car racing game, no such luck. Just a grey screen. After that I imported other Kickstart ROMs but the launcher doesn't seem to show what I have imported and doesn't find many of them. Even for those it does find, the emulator just displays a floppy disk icon as if waiting for the Kickstart disk to be inserted. The launcher does seem to I match the Amiga model with the expected ROM and offers a choice of those that relate, but I couldn't do anything with the emulator after switching away from the first ROM. I couldn't even go back the original one with the 500 model. Seems to have a nice enough interface with a lot of settings and I don’t dismiss the possibility that I’m missing something, but for now it seems to have become disfunctional.

AROS - from comments, many have moved to this, and it seems to be the most promising. The LiveCD booted fine and Icaros installed just fine. From this point, some issues are probably down to my inexperience with the OS. It took me a while to get used to the rather different operation of the mouse and menus and find my way around, but there were still some things I couldn't figure. For example, I couldn't change the display size because only the full screen resolution is available as a selection. I enabled USB, but the device did not appear as a 'Drawer' on the desktop nor, despite maybe an hour or so of browsing could I find how to open the device and browse the files on it. I couldn't drag windows to where I wanted them on the desktop. I couldn't find a description of these issues in the user guide so for now am a bit stuck. I will persever with it but if anyone can help with these issue it would be of great help. Their website says its alpha software, so I expect there will be some issues.

Morphos - cannot comment on this one. Its for the PowerPC, so I can't try it on an ordinary PC. Does it run on an old PowerPC based Mac?

Ok, so I'm not very experience with the various emulators out there, having only spent some 3-4 hours today playing with them, but I would appreciate some guidance so I'm not wasting my time with emulators that have been abandoned or do not work. I'm still hoping to get some vintage hardware at some point, but was hoping that I could get an emulator to work in the meantime. So which ones are worth sticking with please?

BTW, forgot to mention AmigaForever. It is not free, but not a very big layout. I guess the Plus version is the one to go for and was thinking of maybe purchasing it along with C64forever. Its a shame that the latter is not bundled with the former. Does anyone recommend this one?

[Minuous]

>Morphos - cannot comment on this one. Its for the PowerPC, so I can't try it on an ordinary PC. Does it run on an old PowerPC based Mac?

Yes, only certain models though.

>BTW, forgot to mention AmigaForever. It is not free, but not a very big layout. I guess the Plus version is the one to go for and was thinking of maybe purchasing it along with C64forever. Its a shame that the latter is not bundled with the former. Does anyone recommend this one?

No, it is just WinUAE plus shovelware. You can get the WinUAE emulator that it uses for free at http://www.winuae.net

[zipper]

Or still more shovelware on Workbench  - old free version of Amikit:  https://www.amikit.amiga.sk/windows

[cgutjahr]

AROS is not an emulator, but an Operating System. It doesn't run any old games or applications - if that's what you're looking for, stay clear of AROS (and MorphOS).

What you want is FS-UAE.

With the second game - a car racing game, no such luck. Just a grey screen. After that I imported other Kickstart ROMs but the launcher doesn't seem to show what I have imported and doesn't find many of them. Even for those it does find, the emulator just displays a floppy disk icon as if waiting for the Kickstart disk to be inserted. The launcher does seem to I match the Amiga model with the expected ROM and offers a choice of those that relate, but I couldn't do anything with the emulator after switching away from the first ROM. I couldn't even go back the original one with the 500 model.

There's way to many problems in that paragraph, while none of the descriptions contain any useful details.

What car racing game?
How did you try to "import" ROMs?
etc...

When you see a "floppy disk icon", does that screen have a white or purple background? If it's purple, the Kickstart is working and you need insert a game disk.

[BitSeeker]

>Morphos - cannot comment on this one. Its for the PowerPC, so I can't try it on an ordinary PC. Does it run on an old PowerPC based Mac?

Yes, only certain models though.

Ah, would have to research that then. Just wondered because PowerPC Mac hardware can be found quite cheaply sometimes.

>BTW, forgot to mention AmigaForever. It is not free, but not a very big layout. I guess the Plus version is the one to go for and was thinking of maybe purchasing it along with C64forever. Its a shame that the latter is not bundled with the former. Does anyone recommend this one?

No, it is just WinUAE plus shovelware. You can get the WinUAE emulator that it uses for free at http://www.winuae.net

That's exactly the sort of gotcha that one would like to avoid so thanks for pointing that out.

AROS is not an emulator, but an Operating System. It doesn't run any old games or applications - if that's what you're looking for, stay clear of AROS (and MorphOS).

What you want is FS-UAE.

Ok, I was under a mis-aprehension then, that it would run Amiga software, and yes, I was also thinking of old games, but not just games.

With the second game - a car racing game, no such luck. Just a grey screen. After that I imported other Kickstart ROMs but the launcher doesn't seem to show what I have imported and doesn't find many of them. Even for those it does find, the emulator just displays a floppy disk icon as if waiting for the Kickstart disk to be inserted. The launcher does seem to I match the Amiga model with the expected ROM and offers a choice of those that relate, but I couldn't do anything with the emulator after switching away from the first ROM. I couldn't even go back the original one with the 500 model.

There's way to many problems in that paragraph, while none of the descriptions contain any useful details.

What car racing game?
How did you try to "import" ROMs?
etc...

When you see a "floppy disk icon", does that screen have a white or purple background? If it's purple, the Kickstart is working and you need insert a game disk.

Sorry about that. I wrote the post on the tablet, away from the computer and couldn't remember the name of the game. The game title was Street Racer. Regarding the screens, I had another look to check. On the A1200 it was indeed a purple screen. On the A500, it was white with a blue disk, but asking for Workbench. I had mistakenly thought it was asking for Kickstart. The ROMs were imported using fs-uae-launcher. Sorry for omitting that detail.

Anyway, having tried again using the A1200 emulation, I managed to get Street Racer working. It was just taking a little longer to load than I expected - maybe a minute or so - and I was being impatient. I tried it again using the A4000 emulation with 60840 CPU and this time it loaded in seconds. Even with the 1200 emulation it ran reasonably well, but much better with the 4000 emulation much better.

I will tinker with it some more and try some other games, but now that I have it running, it seems quite an impressive feat. I guess my next step will be to set up a "hard disk" and the desktop.

[nbache]

Quote from: Minuous on October 31, 2018, 07:18:12 PM
>BTW, forgot to mention AmigaForever. It is not free, but not a very big layout. I guess the Plus version is the one to go for and was thinking of maybe purchasing it along with C64forever. Its a shame that the latter is not bundled with the former. Does anyone recommend this one?

No, it is just WinUAE plus shovelware. You can get the WinUAE emulator that it uses for free at http://www.winuae.net

That's exactly the sort of gotcha that one would like to avoid so thanks for pointing that out.

To be fair, though, if you don't already have a legal copy of the ROM(s) you use, Amiga Forever gives you that - which is hardly "shovelware".

Best regards,

Niels

[Minuous]

Presumably he paid for his ROMs when he bought his Amiga, no need for him to pay again...And it's up in the air at the moment who has rights to what anyway.

[BitSeeker]

To be fair, though, if you don't already have a legal copy of the ROM(s) you use, Amiga Forever gives you that - which is hardly "shovelware".

Well, as I said, there is always a catch!

I was so focussed on the technicalities of getting an emulator up and running, I didn't even stop to think about the legalities of anything. I had just assumed that since it has been decades and companies have long since folded there would be no issue, although I confess I did notice the strong recommendation to buy Kickstart from Cloanto on a number of download pages, so had it in mind to look at later. Having done a bit of research, it seems that technically playing any game is illegal if you don't own the original. Depending on the game licence, it may be possible to make a backup, but this does not allow you to using it to play in another machine or platform, so using a game ROM it in an emulator may actually be illegal. At this point I also discovered a number discussions about the legality or illegality of IPF, SPS, CAPS and WHDload (no idea what these acronyms mean and did not go into any depth at this point so further research required). Then there is also talk about cracked vs uncracked games.... Since the companies involved disappeared years ago, apparently nobody cares that much anymore, but it adds up to a confusing picture nonetheless.

Going back to Cloanto, technically making a copy of the ROM for "backup" purposes and using it on another platform was also supposed to be illegal.  Apparently the backup can be used to replace the original, but not to used to play on another machine. Apparently such terms of usage are common and not exclusive to Commodore. It seems Cloanto are one of the current legal copyright holders for Kickstart and Workbench and they claim that they acquired licences for reasons of historical preservation and supporting the Amiga community. These licences apparently gives them distribution rights. the copyrights themselves apparently do not expire until the 2080's so have some time to run yet. Of course, these are claims that were made on their website, but a number of Amiga related sites do refer to Cloanto site for Kickstart ROMs. Based on this, it seems that the only legal way to acquire and have the right to use Kickstart or Workbench is to licence it from the only company distributing them, namely Cloanto.

As I said, this is not a big outlay and I will consider it, but since even this might not make things fully legal, I am now getting to the point of wondering whether it is worthwhile continuing with the emulator project at all. The issue is that ambiguities do seem to exist and I do not want to leave myself open to accusations of pirating.

I will carry on with my research for now (still need to understand what IPF, SPS, CAPS and WHDload as well as the legality of cracked games - which seem to be on offer even from the well known websites) and make a more informed decision later.

And it's up in the air at the moment who has rights to what anyway.

Could you elaborate on that please?

[nbache]

Presumably he paid for his ROMs when he bought his Amiga, no need for him to pay again...

I got the impression from the above postings that he didn't own any physical Amiga, and at least three different ROMs are mentioned (so to cover that he would have to own those three models).

And it's up in the air at the moment who has rights to what anyway.

Maybe, but somebody has them, and until we hear otherwise, by all accounts Cloanto has a valid license from that "somebody" to distribute them.

Best regards,

Niels

[Minuous]

>I was so focussed on the technicalities of getting an emulator up and running, I didn't even stop to think about the legalities of anything. I had just assumed that since it has been decades and companies have long since folded there would be no issue, although I confess I did notice the strong recommendation to buy Kickstart from Cloanto on a number of download pages, so had it in mind to look at later. Having done a bit of research, it seems that technically playing any game is illegal if you don't own the original. Depending on the game licence, it may be possible to make a backup, but this does not allow you to using it to play in another machine or platform, so using a game ROM it in an emulator may actually be illegal. At this point I also discovered a number discussions about the legality or illegality of IPF, SPS, CAPS and WHDload (no idea what these acronyms mean and did not go into any depth at this point so further research required). Then there is also talk about cracked vs uncracked games.... Since the companies involved disappeared years ago, apparently nobody cares that much anymore, but it adds up to a confusing picture nonetheless.

The right to emulate, the right to format-shift, etc. have all been well established for decades. EULAs are not enforcable in most jurisdictions so I wouldn't be too concerned about those. IPF is just a file format, nothing illegal about that. WHDLoad is just a compatibility-patching system, again nothing illegal about that. As for the legality of cracked games...you might like to know that all the ones bundled with the supposedly "legal" Amiga Forever are actually cracked pirate versions.

>Going back to Cloanto, technically making a copy of the ROM for "backup" purposes and using it on another platform was also supposed to be illegal.  Apparently the backup can be used to replace the original, but not to used to play on another machine. Apparently such terms of usage are common and not exclusive to Commodore. It seems Cloanto are one of the current legal copyright holders for Kickstart and Workbench and they claim that they acquired licences for reasons of historical preservation and supporting the Amiga community. These licences apparently gives them distribution rights. the copyrights themselves apparently do not expire until the 2080's so have some time to run yet. Of course, these are claims that were made on their website, but a number of Amiga related sites do refer to Cloanto site for Kickstart ROMs. Based on this, it seems that the only legal way to acquire and have the right to use Kickstart or Workbench is to licence it from the only company distributing them, namely Cloanto.

I would not take any claims by Cloanto on face value. Kickstart and Workbench can legally be acquired from Hyperion.

>Could you elaborate on that please?

There is court action underway against Cloanto for their various infringements, see https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.256770/gov.uscourts.wawd.256770.7.0.pdf

[paul1981]

Isn't there an AROS 68k Kickstart ROM which is free to use? I've never used it but maybe that would work and it's also legal.

[BitSeeker]

There is court action underway against Cloanto for their various infringements, see https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.256770/gov.uscourts.wawd.256770.7.0.pdf

I don't often read legal documents, but that was actually an interesting read once you get beyond the preliminaries. I have no legal background so can't really comment on the merits of the complaint, but it will be interesting to see who will win this case. I guess everything will hinge on identifying who currently is the registrant of the AMIGA mark and whether that registration was conducted lawfully by that entity. There seem to be a number of aspects to the complaint detailed by Hyperion and a number of counts being put before the court. Maybe some counts will stand and maybe some will not. I am curious as to when this is scheduled to go to court? I suspect that given the complexity of the matter, as is often the case with such legal matters, resolution may take some time.

In the meantime, I looked at Hyperion's offering of Kickstart and Workbench. At 9.95 each they are by no means competitively priced against Cloanto's offering. Technically, it would appear that their version (3.1) is little more than a minor re-branding update, and is all they have to show in 20 some years!
https://distrita.com/new-amigaos-3-1-update-from-hyperion/

Meanwhile, it seems that the Cloanto offering has been more substantially updated and is now at version v3.9 and bundled with a lot of other value-add items. Ok, maybe much of it is 'shovelware' but at least it seems they have made and effort to put together a marketable emulation bundle.

Maybe this is a simplistic view and I would appreciate any comment or additional perspective on this matter.

Isn't there an AROS 68k Kickstart ROM which is free to use? I've never used it but maybe that would work and it's also legal.

That's an interesting suggestion and thank you for pointing it out. It turns out that FS-UAE does come supplied with the AROS version of Kickstart v3.1 and, as the documentation states, "Using the built-in replacement Kickstart is possible, but it is less compatible with Amiga software.". For "best emulation experience" they recommend to use copies of the original Kickstart ROMs. I'm not sure quite what "less compatible" means in this case, but having tested it with a handful of games I found that a number of them failed to start when using this ROM, although they worked when using the original Kickstart ROM. It seems that only the less demanding and more basic games work.

BTW, I did a little more digging on the subject of IPF and WHDLoad. I now understand that IPF is an alternative file format that can deal with unusually formatted disks and in that respect is an improvement on ADF. I hadn't appreciated that WHDLoad was "just" a compatibility layer, "just" as in not really relevant to legal matters, although I'm sure must be quite a complex beast. I guess at some point I may encounter something that requires it, at which point I will delve into it deeper.

[Minuous]

>I am curious as to when this is scheduled to go to court?

About a year from now.

>Technically, it would appear that their version (3.1) is little more than a minor re-branding update, and is all they have to show in 20 some years!

Cloanto also have a minor re-branding update of 3.1. There is also now 3.1.4 from Hyperion which is a more substantial update.

>Meanwhile, it seems that the Cloanto offering has been more substantially updated and is now at version v3.9 and bundled with a lot of other value-add items.

AmigaOS 3.5 and 3.9 were written by Haage & Partner, not Cloanto. What Cloanto include with Amiga Forever is not the proper OS3.9 but a crippled version of it. The full version can be obtained from https://www.vesalia.de/e_os39.htm

[BitSeeker]

Cloanto also have a minor re-branding update of 3.1. There is also now 3.1.4 from Hyperion which is a more substantial update.

.....

AmigaOS 3.5 and 3.9 were written by Haage & Partner, not Cloanto. What Cloanto include with Amiga Forever is not the proper OS3.9 but a crippled version of it. The full version can be obtained from https://www.vesalia.de/e_os39.htm

Thanks for pointing those out. I have just done an hour or so reading about different AmigaOs version and boy, what a mess! I think I found the WikiPedia articles the most succinct and clear. Unfortunately, none of this helps me much with my current issue.

For starters, although Hyperion sells AmigaOS 3.1.4 and this is probably the update to go for if you have classic hardware, they don't sell a downloadable version, so for an emulation environment I would need the hardware to read floppy disks the EPROM to a file. I did find just ONE seller (Alinea Computer) that had the floppies and ROM on their website, but it is not stated which hardware this is for. According to the Hyperion Entertainment website, you have to purchase a version specific to the target hardware. The cost is 39.95E (including shipping) for just ONE hardware platform. I might have purchased a download bundle had it included ROMs for any classic platform and if I had the hardware to read the floppy disks and EPROM available. Unfortunately, at the present I do not. Most sellers, it would seem, only sell AmigaOS4 or AmigaForever instead.

It is even less clear as to whether it is worth buying the full version of AmigaOS 3.9 from Haage & Partner as it does not include Kickstart, which is required separately. That would still leave me with the issue of licensing a Kickstart ROM.

AmigaOS4 is for the PowerPC only, so I guess that leaves me with AmigaForever as the only viable choice.

[Minuous]

>they don't sell a downloadable version,

When you buy the physical version, a download of the digital version directly from Hyperion is included after registering with the supplied serial number, as noted at http://www.hyperion-entertainment.biz/

>I did find just ONE seller (Alinea Computer) that had the floppies and ROM on their website, but it is not stated which hardware this is for.

There is an "OS Version" drop-down menu at the top right of the page at https://www.amiga-shop.net/Amiga-Software/AmigaOS-Amiga-operation-systems/AmigaOS-3-1-4::859.html?language=en where you choose the Amiga model.

>AmigaOS4 is for the PowerPC only

WinUAE can run OS4 (although a Kickstart ROM will still be required though).