emualate from which program?

[Holley]

but will also sap much of the power of the PC

Yes, it gives you a handy way of showing off all that raw, untapped, processor power in the modern PC :lol:.

WinUAE is the most developed/supported emulator, and in the bought 'Amiga Forever' package you get it in a nice pre-configured form.  If you're serious be sure to get the CD version, as it has more stuff on, including a bootable Linux-based version that you can use to show people on their own PCs :-)

Don't let Cymric put you off, the Amiga is one of the most advanced emulatable computer there is (alongside the Mac), and you can have alot of fun just by experimenting with it!

[Holley]

Fair enough - I just use some of the old image editing programs, they don't need the same abilities obviously ;-)

[Holley]

Well, plenty of Classic Amiga users are graphic artists, and the same software runs on the new ones, so they can carry on using familiar programs but with more resources.

The new Amiga also heavily leans in the direction of ATI Radeon chipsets, so there will probably end up being at least some capacity for video work - especially given that, again, there's some people out there using their old Amigas for that (though they'll have to leave the beloved Toasters behind).

As for other stuff, there's a big pile of old software (and some new) that allows most of what can be done on PCs/Macs, but in a 'lean and mean' package with a familiar user interface.  Personally I'm looking to get one for DTP, as I seem to have outstripped my PCs abilities.

[Holley]

There's also a few PCI DV cards designed for Macs, wouldn't be surprised if someone came up with something to use those.  Did the Lightwave dongle use the parallel port like AutoCad on the PC used to?  If so it might work if EPP/ECP mode can be switched off (?)

[Holley]

I think you got the wrong end of the stick, G - we're talking about a plugin 'key' that was needed for lightwave to run on an Amiga.  Lots of PC programs use them on the parallel port, but obviously if it was a joystick one a legit copy of lightwave wouldn't start on an A1 or Peg.