I'm looking at all the options and was wondering if I'm just hankering back to my past or is there a real bonus in using an Amiga today.
Well it is certainly a fun hobby at least and there are a number of ways to indulge it.
1) Getting an original Amiga up and running. For me this is fun in the way keeping a classic car on the road is. However, like that example, it can be pretty expensive, depending on how far you want to push it
2) Getting a minimig system. If you simply want to relive the heady A500 days and do a spot of retrogaming, without resorting to emulation or tinkering with an actual machine, this is one way to do it.
3) If you want to explore a high end classic amiga of the sort you could (like me) never afford originally, emulation via UAE is certainly an option. It's possible to emulate a 680x0 machine at a speed that no actual 680x0 could ever attain, along with a high resolution RTG display, sound card, networking etc.
3.5) There is also a project to create an "advanced" Amiga compatible machine called the "natami". It aims to provide AGA compatibility but with additional hardware features. I'm not sure what the current state of the project is, but essentially the guys developing it appear to be creating what they hoped the original Amiga hardware might have developed into had C= not gone under.
4) If you want to explore the Amiga experience today, you are almost spoiled for choice. There are 3 platforms that are descended from OS3.x:
i) AmigaOS4. This requires dedicated hardware, either an original Amiga with a PowerPC board (A1200/A4000 are the ideal), one of the AmigaOne machines or a Sam. Release 4.1 is also available for the Pegasos 2. Should that happen, I may actually be forced to buy my first (and hopefully last) ever Mac :lol:
ii) MorphOS. Likewise this requires dedicated hardware. Again, an original Amiga with a PowerPC board (MorphOS v1.x only), or a Pegasos 1, 2 or Efika. The MacMini would seem to be the next PowerPC platform it will support in v2.
iii) AROS. This is essentially an open source AmigaOS clone that aims to be at least OS3.1 compatible at the source level. Unlike the above, it isn't tied to any particular hardware platform, but it is pretty much a given that x86 is the ideal target.
Each one of the above has various benefits and drawbacks. There have been many flamewars, particularly OS4/MorphOS, which I've no wish to resurrect. Ultimately, I plan to use all 3, alongside classics and emulation
