I briefly had an Amiga 500 back in 2002, bought it from a guy who owned Amigas and Pegasos machines, it just stopped working. At the time, I actually and physically laid my hands on A500, but turned out to be a giant paperweight. I was so interested in this hobby that I had to figure out how should I attain an Amiga. Eventually, I forgot about the Amiga, until years later (2008), my interests were rekindled.
Now, I'm running WinUAE. Of course trying out AmiSYS, Amikit, ClassicWB, and AROS distro. It came to me that the current state of the Amiga Community is dependent on emulation, or at least to a certain extent. Yes, many of you still have your hardware, but the newbies like myself are just experiencing the Amiga though UAE or alternatives.
Emulation surpasses the inaccessability to Amiga hardware, there is a limited supply out there. You cannot find a good A500 factory sealed in a box.
The question is: Is Amiga Emulation better than the real thing? Does it have that original Amiga soul comparable to its hardware counterparts? or is it just a bland Windows executable or binary file that tricks you to thinking that you really have an Amiga?
Is Amiga Emulation really modern Amiga Computing since there is no new hardware out from A-inc?
Can you integrate Amiga Emulation into the enterprise? Let's say a type shop who prefers Amiga's to Macs?
Give me your thoughts.