AmiKit X – An emulator engine to run Amiga on Windows or Mac | Hacker News Reader

AmiKit X – An emulator engine to run Amiga on Windows or Mac

amikit.amiga.sk

70 pointserickhill28 comments

If you don't need the bundled software and already have a legal copy of the ROM (you can extract it from a physical Amiga, for example), FS-UAE is free and Free:

https://fs-uae.net

https://github.com/FrodeSolheim/fs-uae

If you don't have a legal copy of the ROM you can buy "Amiga Forever", which includes the ROM, a license to use it, and a bunch of bundled Amiga stuff.

https://www.amigaforever.com

If you're super cheap, you can buy just the ROMs on the Google Play store https://www.amigaforever.com/android/

It's really sad that Amiga retro ecosystem always tries to put a price on everything. For example, MUI is still "shareware" with some silly license files. Come on, give it away as freeware or open source already!

UPDATE: http://www.sasg.com/

Keeping this stuff closed source is of course their right as copyright holders but it cannot be a good business and just pisses people off.

Zune is the open-source reimplementation of MUI:

http://aros.sourceforge.net/introduction/status/zune.php

I love the Amiga... but no Linux support? And I probably wouldn't buy it without a trial first.

The last free version supporst also Android and Linux: Here is the Linux version: https://www.amikit.amiga.sk/linux

So, you need an Amiga ROM to make this work. To get an Amiga ROM, it recommends purchasing one of two things, one of which is... Amiga Forever, a different Amiga emulator. If I have to buy an Amiga emulator anyway, what's the value prop of AmiKit?

Amiga Forever is a bundle that includes an emulator, as well as ROMs, and a bunch of software.

Not that that makes it much better. I think the difference is that AmiKit is designed for running "current" Amiga software, but Amiga Forever is designed for Commodore-era software.

But I'm not sure. It's not clear.

AmiKit is a modern configuration and a curated collection of software for the Amiga, set up as environment for the UAE emulator. If UAE is the application, then AmiKit is the document it loads. So to say...

AmiKit was always free. It seems to have gone commercial now.

Some Shareware soft is regsitered here, for example, MUI5, which is the Amiga OOP GUI library. Never has been a UI library that configurable on any system! It is the current version, in active development.

Another World, the game, is also pre-installed. A HD version sells on Steam and others.

Several freeware tools have an "Exclusive Update". That is surprising, because the m68k Amiga (the one which gets emulated here) is, basically, out of business since 1994-1996. If it would not be for AmiKit, these updates, most probably, would have never happened. Also "Rabbit Hole" let's you start host (Win/Mac) applications from within the emulator. This is all pretty cool. For people like me, who still have their old Amigas (and OS disks) the price is bearable. Please note, that this is not so much about playing old games and demos. For that you will be fine with AmigaForever. This is for using AmigaOS as a modern Workstation, as much as possible.

Here is a quote from their website:

  It includes more than 380 Amiga programs (and games) 
  enriching the default system with exciting features and 
  add-ons.

  We've done all the hard work for you so that your modern 
  retro experience can begin right away.

So, it's basically an installation on top of AmigaOS 3.9 (the last legacy version). If I remember correctly, one needs to own the original AmigaOS 3.9 DVD or an image, the ROM. AmiKit will then install everything into a consumable system, ready to go, with some modern drivers, that have been created for AmiKit.

Is there any reason to use AmigaOS on a workstation?

Today surely not, but gives knowledge of what was available at that time, and being so different from the Unix/Linux, Windows and Mac worlds it helps to build a better perspective, which can be a lot valuable especially if you are a developer.

One should note, that the command-line part of the OS was not that different to Unix/Linux. The commands had different names, but a Unix user will feel at home rather quickly. Threre was also a project to bring POSIX to AmigaOS and the GNU devtools. Now, the architecture is different, of course, but familiar.

Well, that depends. I have never used a better OS. Period. I have never used a better Filemanager (Directory Opus5 Magellan II, now available as Directory Opus 12 on Windows, which is birlliant, too), Texteditor (GoldED Studio), IRC client (AmIRC), email and news system (UMS), YAM, NewsRog. Raster-image painting is, especially if you want to work at the single pixel, unreached.

Now, web-browsing and office is another story... :-(

The OS came with a default scripting language, a Rexx derivate, called ARexx. Most applications would support it, meaning, you could fully automate them, extend them to do things, the programmer never dreamed about. Since all was using the same scripting language (and Rexx was purposedly designed for inter application scripting, its creator called it a language for job-control, you had access to all environments (DOS, Application Hosts, shared libs) within the same script. Man, did I create workflows... :-)

You could mount FTP, HTTP, your audio-speakers, raw memory, or whatever you wrote a device-driver for, as a disk. No need for any VFS library/framework. I've never seen such good ramdisk implementations. The system default one was volatile and dynamic, it was always there as a volume on your desktop. The other ones were configurable in block/tracksize, non-volatile and you could boot from them, if you wanted (nice for games back then, when floppies were slow and you had a game, that ran from 4 floppies. You would unarch them to the Ram Disks (which was quicker than loading them hard) and reset the machine. Voila!)

And now, that you can run host-applications via AmiKit, it seems to make sense, to run it as your main environment. I did not test this part of AmiKit, however, so I only can assume.

Assuming you aren't glorifying anything, that seems amazing! I'll definitely have to try it out.

Back in the day I ran a 4 line BBS using CNet Amiga BBS software, and I used to make amazing script doors using ARexx. The way you could hook into the BBS and do things I've not seen since.

I just did purchase this AmiKit X and installed it. Perfect, flawless install.

The UI makes Win10 look plain, and yet retains the old style of window borders. It mounted all my Windows network drives automatically. I could ALT-Tab out of it back and forth between it and Windows.

Only thing it doesn't seem to handle is my multiple screen system. If it would work across multiple screens I'd be in heaven.

CNet! So beautiful! Best BBS system I ever came around! I even had it installed on my system to be able to develop ARexx doors, just for fun and learning.

AmiKit is not the emulator (though it comes with one, or, at least, it did).

Instead, it is an application- and configuration distro. Just without the OS. Like a Linux distro without Linux ;-)

You still need the original AmigaOS disks (or images) and the firmware ROM. The only place to legally obtain them, these days, is the AmigaForever distribution, which, however, is more focussed on gaming and retro-feeling. You won't get the stuff in this distribtion, which is an add-on, that gives you the Workstation-feeling ;-)

The work done by the AmiKit guy is massive. Configuration of these things takes days and you will find yourself researching on Amiga forums a lot.

For those who do not want to pay money for this, older versions tended to be free and the last release, which is 8.5, is still. Scroll down to the bottom of this page: https://www.amikit.amiga.sk/store

Also there you may find the Linux and Android version.

I was a bit confused by what AmiKit X actually is, but I think I understand it now and it does certainly make sense in order to get a turnkey Amiga environment up and running, as opposed to going the bare bones hardcore route of doing everything yourself. All in all it's pretty impressive.

OK, so this is simply amazing on so many levels. Amiga was truly an awesome beast. The music in the amikit videos is really good too!

Will this let me play Shadow Of The Beast or Blood Money or any other Psygnosis games?

You don't need this for that. What you need for those games is WinUAE (on Windows) or eUAE on other OS'. Both are free. Then you need Kickstart ROMs, 1.3 should suffice (get them legally via the AmigaForever product, the Android version seems to be the cheapest). And, of course, disk images (ADF files) of the games from your favorite abandonware site.

What does this one do that others don't?

No trial?

It's a distro. Not a programm.

Also, the version 8.5 is still free and will stay so. Scroll down at https://www.amikit.amiga.sk/store

Not running on windows makes this effectively useless

It does say it supports Windows.

We really need you to stop posting unsubstantively like this, or we'll ban the account.

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