FPGA/Vampire vs WinUAE

[Duce]

Fun thing about UAE is you can disable all the Windows  bits you want and boot right into WB.

See the one x86/UAE guide for details.  I've had a Windows box booting into 3.9 that you never, ever see Windows in the least.  It's so Amiga like that if I hook an Amiga keyboard and mouse up to it and hide the PC tower under the desk it'll fool even the biggest Amiga purists into thinking they are running on the fastest Amiga they have ever run, lol.

Then again, I like modern hardware.  I detest the concept of paying $200 for a NIC for a 20 year old machine, or having to replace caps, or cobble together some A1200 tower that is assured to never be entirely stable.  I've run a BBS off this straight to UAE machine for over a year without ever rebooting the thing.  It's power efficient and entirely silent, an older AMD based rig that runs circles around even the fastest '060 boxes I ever owned.

I've never been too particular about what runs my Amiga experience, as long as it runs it well.  I've had terrific luck with emu boxes, and they are easy to set up without ever having to see one inch of Windoze past setting them up.

Never did understand the mental mindblock people have on the various different solutions, esp when all of them can be a sheer fun and bulletproof experience.  And I say that as someone who owns PPC 4.1 machines, MOS rigs, one lone legacy Amiga still, and a number of emu boxes, including a windows based straight to 3.9/never see Windows at all machine and an Amithlon machine.

[Duce]

"See the one x86/UAE guide for details"

Which one are you recommending? Link please

http://wowohl.de/Amiga_XP_x86.pdf

An older one, and for XP, but can fairly easily be adapted for a more modern version of Windows.  Can strip the cruft out of Vista or 7 just as easily as you can XP, and get the underlying Windoze OS underneath (which if you do things right, you'll never see anyways) as lean as possible, then out of the way entirely.

Only reason I'd not recommend XP is due to MS no longer supporting it on the consumer side, and the risk of underlying security vulnerabilities that come with that.

I've used this guide many a time for a dedicated UAE box where Windows is entirely invisible in the end and had nothing but luck with it, anyways, so good luck!

Could just as easily do it with Amikit or something as well.  It's not as fast of a solution as a dedicated Amithlon machine, but it's a hell of a lot less work and infinitely less finicky, hardware wise.  An Amithlon box is hard to beat if you have the right hardware for it, though - but this stripped down version involving windows and UAE works just fine too.

I've just got an Intel NUC type system (think Mac Mini footprint - mine is a Zotac, actually, not a NUC) on a VESA mount on the back of my monitor.  While I prefer modern, mechanical keyboards and laser mouse to the old Amiga legacy stuff, there's no reason you couldn't hook a big box Amiga keyboard and Amiga mouse up to such a machine for a more authentic "feel", with the proper adapters.

That seems to be the main gripe against UAE, anyways - "but it doesn't feel like an amiga with a PC keyboard and mouse!".  Well, use an Amiga keyboard and mouse then, strip Windows out entirely and boot 'er into WB right off the bat, and most Amiga fanboys wouldn't know the difference if they couldn't see the physical box running it.