UAE - The Amiga Emulator

» Rob_Lent - UAE and Amiga

I use both WinUAE and an Amiga 1200. I purchased Amiga Forever from www.cloanto.com, so I obtained the OS files and ROMS legally.

The Amiga Forever CD has all the OS disks and ROMS
from 1.0 to 3.1. The downloadable edition of Amiga Forever only has 1.3 and 3.1, but costs half as much. Still, it would be fun to have 1.0 and 1,1. When I bought my A500 back in 1989, I started with 1.2.

I think that the fighting over UAE is regrettable, but I can understand it. I think that it comes down to hardware vs. software. Some people are fans of the efficient OS, others are fans of the hardware. I remember about 8 or 9 years ago, quite a few Amiga users that I knew didn't even use Workbench, and just used CLI for everything.

If it looks like an Amiga, feels like an Amiga, and runs Amiga software, its an Amiga.

Sadly, the OS may be the Amigas best chance of surviving. If new Amigas had been produced running the PowerPC, we would need emulation to
run our 680x0 software. We may not get any new Amiga hardware.

Many Amiga hardware purists accuse UAE users of being pirates. I do not think that piracy is any more prevalent among UAE users than among those who use genuine Amiga hardware.

-- posted by Rob_Lent

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» MetalJoe - UAE and Piracy?

Hi Rob,

I agree... UAE doesn't equate to piracy. I seem to be fighting a losing battle on comp.sys.amiga.misc recently on this very subject. Yes, there are pirates - but the fact that OS3.5 (which has trouble getting installed on UAE) is available from pirate sites suggests it isn't just the UAE crowd doing this despicable activity.

Although the hardware was/is great, I bought my A500 to get hold of 4096 colours, the OS was what really made it stand out for me. Hardware ages quickly, but software lasts for a very long time (but then, I'm a programmer so I'm probably biased). Emulation is the only way to take older Amiga apps over to new platforms - Amiga-esque (KOSH, QNX/Amiga, AROS) or not (Linux, BeOS, MacOS), and the sooner people realise this the better. UAE and emulators like it aren't a door labelled "Exit" for the Amiga, they are keeping a lot of the Amiga spirit alive and well in the hearts and minds of many - and will soon offer us a chance to take our Amiga software with us to the next generation of Amigas.

Hmmm... I wonder how many anti-UAE people will be buying a G3/G4 card? Talk about double-standards! :-)

-- posted by MetalJoe

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