Talk to be about Amiga emulators.
Discussion
I was considering asking the other half for a mini a500 for Christmas, but after looking into it decided to buy a raspberry pi (the newer one, 800 series I think) and go down the emulator route instead for a nostalgia fix. Like you I'd be interested in anyone's experience of doing the same.
WinUAE has been the main emulator really for a very long time:
https://www.winuae.net/
It comes with an open source alternative implementation of a basic Kickstart to get you off the ground with games you may find elsewhere on the interweb in ADF format.
If you want to start fully legal with proper Kickstart and Workbench, Amiga Forever packages up WinUAE along with fully licensed Kickstart / Workbench and some games to get you started.
https://www.amigaforever.com/
In terms of minimum hardware spec, anything built in the last 20 years will do
https://www.winuae.net/
It comes with an open source alternative implementation of a basic Kickstart to get you off the ground with games you may find elsewhere on the interweb in ADF format.
If you want to start fully legal with proper Kickstart and Workbench, Amiga Forever packages up WinUAE along with fully licensed Kickstart / Workbench and some games to get you started.
https://www.amigaforever.com/
In terms of minimum hardware spec, anything built in the last 20 years will do
Yeah, WinUAE plus about any modern piece of computing kit will be enough to emulate an A500 (or higher) pretty well.
That said, I just got a DE-10 Nano for a 'MiSTer' FPGA setup, so looking forward to some hardware-based emulation of retro systems like my old Amiga.
By the way, if you can get hold of an actual old A500/A1500/A2000 there are some really powerful accelerators available now for not a lot of cash. There's one that uses a Raspberry Pi to emulate the CPU delivering A3000 like performance for around 60 quid. It also gives more memory and RTG graphics over HDMI. Clever stuff. Would have blown my mind back in the day.
That said, I just got a DE-10 Nano for a 'MiSTer' FPGA setup, so looking forward to some hardware-based emulation of retro systems like my old Amiga.
By the way, if you can get hold of an actual old A500/A1500/A2000 there are some really powerful accelerators available now for not a lot of cash. There's one that uses a Raspberry Pi to emulate the CPU delivering A3000 like performance for around 60 quid. It also gives more memory and RTG graphics over HDMI. Clever stuff. Would have blown my mind back in the day.
In 1989 I bought an Amiga 500 Batman pack for £399 after saving up my £37.50 a week cleaning job money for several months. I honestly cannot tell you how excited I was as my mother drove me home from Dixons, and the smell upon opening the box will live with me forever. One game stood out as my favourite, FA-18 Interceptor I would play that game for hours, sometimes just flying around San Francisco for hours for no reason at all.
I would order Public Domain software from NBS on the Isle of Wight and seeing that little jiffy bag of discs land on my doormat on a Saturday morning meant I was going to have an amazing weekend. I used to buy every issue of Amiga Format and read them cover to cover.
Literally the years between 1990 and 1992 before I got my first PC were defined by my Amiga.
We all know that nostalgia is a powerful drug and bout 15 years ago I purchased an Amiga 500 from eBay before the prices went stupid. It arrived with a load of games including FA-18 Interceptor so I excitedly say down to relive my childhood.
As soon as I started playing it took me about 10 seconds before I got very disappointed. The utterly amazingly smooth and realistic graphics I remembered had somehow been replaced with a jerky 5 frames per second mess. I tried a few other games, got bored within 30 minutes, packed it all up again and resold it on eBay.
The thing about these memories is they are best left in the past, I get my nostalgia hit now by just watching videos on YouTube instead.
I would order Public Domain software from NBS on the Isle of Wight and seeing that little jiffy bag of discs land on my doormat on a Saturday morning meant I was going to have an amazing weekend. I used to buy every issue of Amiga Format and read them cover to cover.
Literally the years between 1990 and 1992 before I got my first PC were defined by my Amiga.
We all know that nostalgia is a powerful drug and bout 15 years ago I purchased an Amiga 500 from eBay before the prices went stupid. It arrived with a load of games including FA-18 Interceptor so I excitedly say down to relive my childhood.
As soon as I started playing it took me about 10 seconds before I got very disappointed. The utterly amazingly smooth and realistic graphics I remembered had somehow been replaced with a jerky 5 frames per second mess. I tried a few other games, got bored within 30 minutes, packed it all up again and resold it on eBay.
The thing about these memories is they are best left in the past, I get my nostalgia hit now by just watching videos on YouTube instead.
Joey Deacon said:
IAs soon as I started playing it took me about 10 seconds before I got very disappointed. The utterly amazingly smooth and realistic graphics I remembered had somehow been replaced with a jerky 5 frames per second mess. I tried a few other games, got bored within 30 minutes, packed it all up again and resold it on eBay.
The thing about these memories is they are best left in the past, I get my nostalgia hit now by just watching videos on YouTube instead.
100% this. The past was great, but that's where it should stay.The thing about these memories is they are best left in the past, I get my nostalgia hit now by just watching videos on YouTube instead.
deckster said:
Joey Deacon said:
IAs soon as I started playing it took me about 10 seconds before I got very disappointed. The utterly amazingly smooth and realistic graphics I remembered had somehow been replaced with a jerky 5 frames per second mess. I tried a few other games, got bored within 30 minutes, packed it all up again and resold it on eBay.
The thing about these memories is they are best left in the past, I get my nostalgia hit now by just watching videos on YouTube instead.
100% this. The past was great, but that's where it should stay.The thing about these memories is they are best left in the past, I get my nostalgia hit now by just watching videos on YouTube instead.
Lincsls1 said:
Whilst I get you both, I can say certainly of WinAUE, that silly loading times and jerky graphics need not apply. I can't comment on the game play, but performance isn't an issue as you can spec your Amiga to be more powerful than they ever were.
I have used WinUAE and it works well, although as others have pointed out you do need to find a kickstart ROM image. The problem I have is I have a gaming PC with steering wheel and pedals and I would much rather play F1, Call of Duty or Medal of Honor than a 30 year old Amiga game.Don't get me wrong, they were amazing at the time and I spent whole summer holidays playing on my Amiga. I loved Buggy Boy and Operation Thunderbolt, which at the time I truly believed were arcade perfect. It is only now after watching them on YouTube compared to the arcade versions that it wasn't even close.
For me the biggest nostalgia hit has always been the music, so quite often I will spend 30 minutes watching game intros and PD demos on Youtube. Speedball 2, Gods, Xenon 2, Shadow of the Beast and Blood Money are the game intros I watch time and again. For PD Demos it is Scoopex Mental Hangover, Puggs in Space and Cusaders Audio X and Bacteria.
Games are SO good now I just don't understand why you would choose to play ancient games instead. I have most of the emulators on my phone, and I will say however that the only game I go back to is Tetris on the Gameboy.
.F/A 18 Interceptor was a pretty early game and fairly rudimentary by the standards of the later releases.
Speedball 2, Dune, even Lotus Turbo were later and better. I think F15 strike eagle? or something was a better 'action' based sim.
The Keaton-era Batman platform game was cool however, I did love kicking the Joker off that tower...
Speedball 2, Dune, even Lotus Turbo were later and better. I think F15 strike eagle? or something was a better 'action' based sim.
The Keaton-era Batman platform game was cool however, I did love kicking the Joker off that tower...
I Had an A500 in 1987 with the Ten star games pack which contained Amegas, The Art Of Chess, Barbarian, Buggy Boy, Ikari Warriors, Insanity Fight, Mercenary, Terrorpods, Thundercats and Wizball.
I remember the sound and graphics blew me away and the music was and still is awesome.
I remember the next xmas getting my 'half meg' upgrade and second disk drive with Xcopy which took some of the disk swapping away.
Intros that I remember standing out:- Xenon 2, Shadow of they Beast 2, Another World, Blood money
I now had a Retro Pi with all the Amiga games + Keyboard and mouse. the games have a loader that avoids having to virtually 'swap' disks'
I acknowledge the graphics have aged but it's just like anything else an 80's movie can't be judged by modern standards just as the amiga needs a '90's head put back on your shoulders when you play the games.
My Son who is 11 loves Moonstone, and Battechess plus a game called Dungeon Quest that is a text adventure with just some screens to show you where you are. He loves the fact you have to 'type' what you want the character to do 'East, West, pickup axe etc
which contained Amegas, The Art Of Chess, Barbarian, Buggy Boy, Ikari Warriors, Insanity Fight, Mercenary, Terrorpods, Thundercats and Wizball. I remember the sound and graphics blew me away and the music was and still is awesome.
I remember the next xmas getting my 'half meg' upgrade and second disk drive with Xcopy which took some of the disk swapping away.
Intros that I remember standing out:- Xenon 2, Shadow of they Beast 2, Another World, Blood money
I now had a Retro Pi with all the Amiga games + Keyboard and mouse. the games have a loader that avoids having to virtually 'swap' disks'
I acknowledge the graphics have aged but it's just like anything else an 80's movie can't be judged by modern standards just as the amiga needs a '90's head put back on your shoulders when you play the games.
My Son who is 11 loves Moonstone, and Battechess plus a game called Dungeon Quest that is a text adventure with just some screens to show you where you are. He loves the fact you have to 'type' what you want the character to do 'East, West, pickup axe etc
I still have Winuae on an old laptop, I installed it to play the games like Monkey Island, Simon the sorcerer etc ….still fun to be honest but the graphics are now of course barely adequate.
I still have an A500 and two A1200 in the loft along with two Blizzard 1260 and a 1230 accelerators in the box too. Happy days but got to say I’m more excited by Capture 1 on my iMac these days….
I still have an A500 and two A1200 in the loft along with two Blizzard 1260 and a 1230 accelerators in the box too. Happy days but got to say I’m more excited by Capture 1 on my iMac these days….
Like many others, I took the easy route and went for a Raspberry Pi which came fully preloaded with 'Retro Pi' software and something silly like 10,000 games, which included most of the Amiga titles.
Works extremely well, and many of the games still look and play great (such as SWIV and SuperCars 2) however a lot of them are best left in the past as the years have not been kind. Many really don't look or play as spectacular as you remember them from being 10 years old
In my opinion if you can get a fully loaded Raspberry Pi with a couple of controllers and heaps of systems and games already on there, then go for it as the £100 or so quid is worth it to play the classics from the past.
I spent a great few afternoons playing classics from my Amstrad and Amiga. Definitely worth doing.
Works extremely well, and many of the games still look and play great (such as SWIV and SuperCars 2) however a lot of them are best left in the past as the years have not been kind. Many really don't look or play as spectacular as you remember them from being 10 years old
In my opinion if you can get a fully loaded Raspberry Pi with a couple of controllers and heaps of systems and games already on there, then go for it as the £100 or so quid is worth it to play the classics from the past.
I spent a great few afternoons playing classics from my Amstrad and Amiga. Definitely worth doing.
aust240378 said:
I Had an A500 in 1987 with the Ten star games pack which contained Amegas, The Art Of Chess, Barbarian, Buggy Boy, Ikari Warriors, Insanity Fight, Mercenary, Terrorpods, Thundercats and Wizball.
We had the exact same Amiga pack plus I think it came with New Zealand Story and a competition pro joystick. which contained Amegas, The Art Of Chess, Barbarian, Buggy Boy, Ikari Warriors, Insanity Fight, Mercenary, Terrorpods, Thundercats and Wizball. Fantastic bit of kit.
Kids today get to play great open world games but they miss out on the excitement of going into a computer shop and meticulously reading every word on each box. The excitement of then taking the game home and waiting for it to load. Half the fun for me was walking into town on a Saturday to get a new game.
I had the Screen Gems A500 pack, came with Shadow of the Beast II, Days of Thunder, BTTF II, Night Breed and Deluxe Paint.
Loved it, and played it to the bitter end but no matter how hard I've tried to get into emulation etc. it's always been just wide of the mark. I guess if I'd never experienced the real thing, plus it being of its time - although I love Lotus Turbo Challenge II on the Amiga and always will, it can't really hold a candle to something like FH5 on my series x.
Loved it, and played it to the bitter end but no matter how hard I've tried to get into emulation etc. it's always been just wide of the mark. I guess if I'd never experienced the real thing, plus it being of its time - although I love Lotus Turbo Challenge II on the Amiga and always will, it can't really hold a candle to something like FH5 on my series x.
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