Amiga Emulator: WinUAE 5.2.0 | Hacker News Reader

Amiga Emulator: WinUAE 5.2.0

winuae.net

73 pointsdoener37 comments

WinUAE is an outstanding emulator. Amiga is already such a complicated machine before you even consider that there are ~10 official models, hundreds of peripherals, and thousands of different configurations.

Toni Wilen has been involved with WinUAE since the late 90s and has been the lead developer for ~20 years [1]. It's one thing that he's still at it now, but it's crazy to think that he first got involved at a time when Amiga was still a fairly widely-used and supported platform (by third-parties; Commodore kicked the bucket in 1994).

It's unfortunate that WinUAE is Windows-only (hence the name). There are cross-platform ports (the leading one is FS-UAE), but maybe this fragmented development is a symptom of the project being almost 30 years old at this point.

As a somewhat hardcore enthusiast, I'm thrilled by HN's continued interest in Amiga hardware and software.

[1] http://obligement.free.fr/articles_traduction/itwwillen_en.p...

WinUAE being Windows-only (strictly speaking that's not true, there's Wine which is actually better than running the native "ports") is also one of its greatest strengths. It has allowed Toni to maintain his razor-sharp focus on fidelity and led to an end-product that oozes quality.

To understand how bad things could have been, look at the Linux "ports" (e.g. UAE, FS-UAE and amiberry) which are plagued with audiovisual glitches, are nowhere near as compatible as WinUAE and have essentially thrown fidelity out the window. Part of the reason is the stability of the Windows graphics/sound APIs and the disastrous / ever-changing state of such APIs and implementations/drivers on Linux.

>To understand how bad things could have been, look at the Linux "ports" (e.g. UAE, FS-UAE and amiberry) which are plagued with audiovisual glitches, are nowhere near as compatible as WinUAE and have essentially thrown fidelity out the window.

UAE is the original, back then it was the UNIX Amiga Emulator (got renamed to ubiquitous). WinUAE was a port of that to Windows to begin with.

The problem is, winuae completely abandoned UNIX support, and had more development than the original.

>Part of the reason is the stability of the Windows graphics/sound APIs and the disastrous / ever-changing state of such APIs and implementations/drivers on Linux.

The rest of the comment is just Linux FUD, easily disproved by Steam Deck.

These emulation accuracy issues have nothing to do with Linux graphic APIs unless proven otherwise. My guess (as Amiberry comes up) is that you've been trying to run these emulators on ARM, and these are ARM porting issues.

E.g. higan is a 100% accurate snes emulator, and runs well on Linux.

I'm ecstatic to see this project is still alive. As a user of the Video Toaster 4000, I barely had a real understanding of the Amiga platform. (Every once in awhile we'd go back to the Workbench to launch Deluxe Paint, AmiPro, etc) After leaving the job where I used it, I started to get into the emulation scene. That was where I learned SO MUCH about the Workbench, AmigaDOS, Demos, Kickstart ROMs. I went back to my old job to visit, and was delighted to share so much knowledge with my old boss.

My biggest accomplishment (of that era) was running SheepShaver (macOS 7.5 emulation) on top of WinUAE, on top of Windows98.

Biggest frustration (of that era): Searching for UAE on Dogpile/Altavista/Yahoo... So many references to the United Arab Emirates!! (rightfully so, but young me had no idea what that even meant)

WinUAE is the emulator used inside of Amiga Forever. I bought that, thinking I would do that instead of buying a A500 Mini. But then the A500 mini was on sale, so I bought one of those as well.

I hope the makers of Amiga Forever support WinUAE and also that they will bundle new versions like this in future Amiga Forever upgrades. I know there has been some controversy around the company behind Amiga Forever in the past. I never owned a real Amiga and I am not very familiar with what goes on in that community, so do not know any details. Any way as a frontend for (Win)UAE Amiga Forever is very nice. It comes bundled not only with some demos and games, but also a bunch of different pre-configured hard disk images to boot up virtual Amigas of different types with lots of pre-installed applications.

Unfortunately I do not know enough about how to use an Amiga to get any use out of those applications, and even less about how I would install other applications if I wanted to run other old software in those virtual machines.

https://www.amigaforever.com/

https://retrogames.biz/products/thea500-mini/

Commodore owned the rights to the Amiga's OS, which had a ROM-resident part named "Kickstart", the rest came on software disks and was called "Workbench" (also the name of the graphical "shell" the Amiga used). You generally should have both, but at minimum you need Kickstart ROMs to do anything [0]

When Commodore died, it sold rights to Amiga Inc, who then made these licensing deals:

* Cloanto got the right to sell Commodore's existing Kickstart ROM and Workbench (AmigaOS 3.1)

* Haage and Partner got the right to make a modern software-only version of Workbench that still ran on Kickstart 3.1 ROMs (AmigaOS 3.5, 3.9)

* Hyperion Entertainment got the right to make the future version of AmigaOS that also works on PPC processors (AmigaOS 4)... but they also released AmigaOS 3.1.4 and AmigaOS 3.2, which are incremental improvements over AmigaOS 3.1

At that point, Cloanto started worrying that people would buy Hyperion's AmigaOS 3.2 to boot emulators and they'd lose their market for selling legal 3.1 ROMs wrapped in Amiga Forever. There was a dispute between them and Hyperion... but there was also a dispute between Hyperion and Amiga Inc over AmigaOS 4, it's a complicated story.

How does this affect you? Well, you can use _any_ means you like to run an Amiga emulator.

* If you want to mainly play games, you can look for a variety of pre-built bundles of WHDLoad-installed games, or TOSEC disk images, and you can find frontends (like LaunchBox, Retropie) already set up to launch your choice of emulator (WinUAE, FS-UAE, Winfellow, UAE4ARM, Amiberry, etc.) and boot straight into those games. If you want to purchase a legal set of Kickstart ROMs, rather than just Google "amiga roms download", Cloanto will sell you Amiga Forever. You don't have to use their frontend if you don't like them, the ROM images you're buying (including the 1.3 ROMs for even older games) are lightly obfuscated but emulators can still use them independently of Amiga Forever.

* If you want to mainly run an Amiga desktop, you should consider getting any of the ROMs (3.1 or 3.2), and install the corresponding Workbench on a virtual hard disk... maybe even upgrade that to AmigaOS 3.9? It's very comfortable. You'll also want to ensure you install the Picasso96 graphics system, so that the Amiga can see your real machine's native screen resolutions. If you still like games, install WHDLoad and you can either use individual WHDLoad game installers to read disk images of games and put them on your HD, or you can find packs where people have already done that for you. You can then launch games from Workbench and drop back into Workbench when you press WHDLoad's quit key.

* As a further extension... if you want to see a totally tricked out Amiga that's full of alternative/replacement software, the sort of environment you'd have if you were a software junkie back in the 1990s and installed everything that looked cool on Aminet... then get AmiKit. Someone did that for you already. It's full of goodies but it's not "traditional", and personally I hate its alternative Workbench (ScalOS) with a passion, give me Workbench 3.9 any day...

Finally, if you do buy the A500 mini, it's ready for you to put more games on it via an SD card... it expects WHDLoad-installed games: https://amiga500mini.com/GetMoreGames

[0] WinUAE also bundles an AROS ROM; AROS is the Amiga Research OS, it's a portable implementation of the Amiga 3.1 APIs so should be able to run existing Amiga software... but games are tricksy and depend on various OS internals that AROS doesn't promise to repeat, so whether you can play games using AROS as the ROM depends on the game

The situation surrounding Amiga's legacy and its preservation is significantly more complex than it appears at first glance. Cloanto, holding a sincere desire for the Amiga's continuity, possesses the rights for the emulation of version 3.1. On the other hand, Hyperion Entertainment, which holds the rights to AmigaOS 4, opted for the PowerPC architecture over x86 to protect its niche in game porting, fearing that a transition to x86 would jeopardise this sector. Importantly, Hyperion does not hold rights to any version prior to OS 4. Indeed, Hyperion had a hand the death of AmigaOSXL / Amithlon.

A year or so ago, Mike Battilana of Cloanto, along with associates, has acquired the remnants of Amiga, establishing a new entity distinct from Cloanto itself.

Despite financial challenges, Hyperion is being financially supported by an undisclosed backer, aiming to initiate spurious legal action against Cloanto.

It's important to clarify that neither AmigaOS 4 nor AROS was ever at risk amidst these disputes. Mike Battilana has expressed a strong desire to see an end to these conflicts. He is firmly against the idea of undermining any Amiga-related initiatives. He said to me in passing that he would love to provide enhanced support for projects like AROS, so AROS can, if it wishes, call itself Amiga Research Operating System again.

Mike's actions and intentions throughout this ordeal have demonstrated a level of integrity and commitment to the Amiga community that stands out, marking him as a notably principled figure in the ongoing saga of Amiga.

He's a good guy.

>Cloanto, holding a sincere desire for the Amiga's continuity,

>integrity and commitment

>He's a good guy.

Please.

You don't have to step in to defend someone who's keeping AmigaOS source code tightly locked up. Nevermind open source; it's not even available for preservation.

But I still agree Hyperion is most evil.

Cloanto does not singularly hold the authority to make AmigaOS open source. As you well know, the ownership and legal rights to AmigaOS have been entangled in intricate legal matters, particularly following the involvement of Hyperion Entertainment and the settlement agreement under Amiga Inc.

Mike, as part of the new Amiga company, is in a legal position that potentially allows for such a transition. However, decisions around making AmigaOS open source are not solely at his discretion but are influenced by a web of legal agreements and considerations.

"At the end of December 2015, Austrian self-proclaimed "hacktivist" Mr. Bernhard R. Fischer gave a speech titled "The Ultimate Amiga 500 Talk" [236] at the 32th Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg, Germany. At about the same time as the speech, during which Mr. Bernhard R. Fischer cited his own past as a "cracker" and "spreader", the proprietary source code of Amiga OS 3.1 was leaked to that same event's file sharing network, and immediately became public [237]. Analysis of this leaked source code revealed how Cloanto had contributed to the Amiga operating system as far back as 1993 [230], leading to some speculation on whether it could use this status in relation to the complex legal proceedings between Hyperion Entertainment and the Amiga parties, and in the context of an open source scenario. Between 2016 and 2017, Cloanto added some details about "possible futures involving open source, a nonprofit and/or foundation, and other long-term preservation scenarios" to its cloanto.org page [238]. In what seemed like a response to this, Hyperion Entertainment director Mr. Timothy De Groote stated that "We cannot legally support this. Once it is open source, this is an irreversible decision that is beyond the scope of our license under the Amiga Inc. Settlement Agreement." [240]."

For a more detailed understanding, please read the Amiga Documents https://sites.google.com/site/amigadocuments/

> At that point, Cloanto started worrying that people would buy Hyperion's AmigaOS 3.2 to boot emulators and they'd lose their market for selling legal 3.1 ROMs wrapped in Amiga Forever

This sort of glosses over the main point, which is that Amiga Inc., later Cloanto, repeatedly took Hyperion to court in an attempt to stop them from developing and selling updated Amiga software (and I believe hardware too, in some cases). I think this has been happening in some form or another for 20 years.

We live in a world where Apple—Apple!—released the source code for Apple Lisa OS, yet Amiga Kickstart ROMs are closed-source and cost money to download.

I'm sure Cloanto has done good work, but in any other retro community, this stuff would be open-source community projects.

Likewise, Hyperion could probably open-source AmigaOS 3.2, etc. without putting a dent in their revenue if they chose the correct open-source license. I don't know if they would, but the fact is that they can't even try, because they only have the right to release AmigaOS updates (which they also had to fight in court for years), and not to distribute source code.

I haven't been around for as long as many Amiga enthusiasts, so let me know if I got any details wrong here.

edit: See Gorilla1000kg's replies for some good information as well. I've met Mike, and he seems like a good guy and truly cares about Amiga. I don't know much about Hyperion, but they clearly do amazing work on AmigaOS. It just sucks that these beloved classic platforms are so intertwined with business interests.

For what it's worth, I haven't really seen any infighting about this in the Amiga community. We get excited when we hear about new releases. When there is news about some lawsuit over Amiga assets, the sentiment is just "We're tired of this bullshit".

You have it wrong -

The assertion that Cloanto harbored concerns over potential market loss to Hyperion's AmigaOS 3.2 for use in emulators doesn't hold up when considering Cloanto offers ROM images at a nominal cost—essentially a dollar—whereas AmigaOS 3.2 is priced significantly higher, making the former a more accessible option for enthusiasts looking to legally emulate.

It's important to correct a misconception here: the developers behind AmigaOS 3.2 volunteered their time; they weren't financially compensated. This fact shifts the narrative considerably, especially in light of the ongoing legal battles, which, contrary to some perceptions, have predominantly been instigated by Hyperion. Given that Hyperion's management includes legal professionals, their propensity for litigation isn't surprising. Moreover, there are rumors suggesting Hyperion's litigation efforts are financially supported by an entity with a direct interest in Cloanto's failure to retain rights—a speculation that adds another layer of complexity to the dispute.

My experience in the Amiga community spans back to its golden years, allowing me a unique perspective on its evolution. Throughout this time, it has become evident that the situation is far from straightforward, entangled in a web of legal, financial, and emotional factors. The narrative isn't just about one entity's actions over another; it's about a passionate community caught in the midst of corporate and legal maneuverings, each with its own implications for the future of Amiga.

Thanks for your insight, you are more knowledgable on this than I am. I guess it speaks for itself that I don't tend to see the Amiga community strictly taking sides, and most are just tired of seeing this happen at all.

Yep - you summed it up best. We're all tired of the bullshit and many missed opportunities.

It's sad to see what the Amiga has become, but despite everything, the Amiga spirit is experiencing a renaissance, with more activity and passion than we've seen in a long time. Interesting things are happening.

Have you taken a look at "The Amiga Documents"[0]? It's all about the legal disputes, but I have no idea if its accurate or not.

https://sites.google.com/site/amigadocuments/home

Based on our current understanding, the Amiga documents appear to be accurate, including the identification of the individual funding Hyperion.

Their actions have caused considerable frustration. For years, they lied to us, fostering a climate of animosity and even hatred.

What Amiga could have been if not for their greed.

>How does this affect you? Well, you can use _any_ means you like to run an Amiga emulator.

But whatever you do, please do not feed the crows.

Piracy is a suitable alternative to supporting the mafia[0].

0. https://sites.google.com/site/amigadocuments/

The front page does not do a good job of explaining what WinUAE is, or rather does not say at all what it is

How is "WinUAE Amiga Emulator" not a succinct explanation of what WinUAE is?

Mind you, this is something targeting rather specific group (i.e. people who want to emulate Amiga and related machines)

At the very top of the page, in the header, it tells you what it is, an Amiga emulator.

> WinUAE Amiga emulator

perhaps with the passing of time and the state of AI, people might mistake it for an actual girl friend emulator! ;-)

I was always torn between Denise, Paula and Agnus.

As Agnus got older, she got thicc.

Agnus got fat (then fatter and super-fat), Denise turned super, Paula remained true to herself :D

How many people know about Daphne and Portia?

Or Lorraine

Shameless plug... I do!

Big Old List of EVERY Custom Amiga Chip and Chipset Name I Could Find

https://amigasource.com/bol.php

Please visit AmigaSource.com!!! Since 2001... Your BEST source for Amiga information. Again... ** Always Under Construction ** (Over 3000+ Amiga links for your viewing pleasure! -- Please help spread the word!)

Gave a hopeful click, was disappointed.

I expected to see all chip revisions (the multiple agnus, denise, gary, buster...), with any known differences they have.

Instead, it's just a list of custom chips, not covering their versions.

Sorry to hear you're disappointed and it didn't meet your HIGH level of expectations. As I stated this was MY attempt to make the MOST COMPLETE list available of EVERY KNOWN custom chip by NAME for the Amiga and few more added in for good measure! Again BY NAME!! Not perfect but pretty damn complete.

It wasn't meant to be the most comprehensive list with every version, date of manufacture, plant of origin, pin outs, know bugs, voltage & timing charts, die shots, etc... for each of them. Maybe someday but not today...

Hopefully I made it easy enough for anyone to point out errors or to add a bit of information. Just click the 'COMMENT' link.

Now I'll ask YOU... Do you happen to know of a site that has a MORE COMPLETE listing? If so PLEASE do share or maybe you have a list of your own? I would LOVE to compare.

Just trying to do my SMALL part for the community as I have been doing for the past 22 years...

oh and to you point how about this page for starters. Sadly it only exists on archive.org. (For reference see SOURCES #)

or their main page https://web.archive.org/web/20040427055954/http://www.vgr.co...

Wow! Holy triggered Batman! It's 1.) sad that you can't take any constructive criticism and 2.) care so much about the opinion of a stranger on the internet.

The mental instability in the Amiga community is RIFE.

Yup I guess I was a bit 'triggered'. Guilty as charged. Funny how quickly this can happen from a random stranger's comment. Sometimes it's hard not to take things personally and try and defend your work. And in our little dysfunctional, fractured community it does happen from time to time. For what it's worth my reply WAS a bit 'over the top' and for that I do apologize. Trust me I've been around the Amiga community since the beginning and should have known better.

Could have been worded better on my end.

I am loving the page you've linked to, and how they even had the same info in an AmigaGuide. Quite sad that it needs to be through Internet Archive's waybackmachine. Good old WWW is mostly gone.

Again... My overreaction...

Yes I agree. That's a very informative page that we can thank archive.org for saving!

Over the years I have come across a lot of sites & threads that go indepth on certain chips but knowing the amount of work it would involve to sort through and the fact that sometimes the information isn't quite as accurate as they would lead you to beleve I never started to complie it into one big list. But maybe I should start.

Here's a few more sites you might find interesting

-Collection of Amiga part numbers collected while refurbishing repair an Amiga 500 Rev 8.1a in november 2013 https://pmsoft.nl/amiga/amiga-parts-chips.html

-Amiga Realm - RESOURCES: Chipset Part Numbers https://www.amigarealm.com/resources/chipset.htm

-or some detailed info directly from the man himself, Mr Dave Haynie (another one from archive.org) https://web.archive.org/web/20190508234750/www.thule.no/hayn...

-And here's one more link. This is a master listing of Commodore's TECHTOPICS. There are no links from this page but previously I did spend some time and tried to find everone on the list http://www.amiga-stuff.com/service-documentation/commodore-t...

-My quick and dirty page of TT links from above. It's not until # 28 where they start talking about the Amiga https://amigasource.com/techtopics.php

Hopefully this helps!

Very nice, thank you.

You're welcome! And you every want to help making 'the most complete list of Amiga chips and ther versions' feel free to drop me an email at the site. Lord knows I could use the helo! lol

For what it's worth I agree with flurdy. It's obvious that it targets Amiga emulation on windows, but what can I expect, whats the user experience?

For a project like this you expect: 1 or 2 sentences explaining the project. A screenshot of the GUI. Mention if OS / software is not included. Link to an installation guide. perhaps who is behind the project, or if its open source. etc. A timeline blabla.

I'm still going to give it a shot though!

> For a project like this you expect: 1 or 2 sentences explaining the project. A screenshot of the GUI. Mention if OS / software is not included. Link to an installation guide. perhaps who is behind the project, or if its open source. etc. A timeline blabla.

Except WinUAE has been there for so long it is already part of the Amiga scene folklore.

It is a windows msi installer, there is not guide needed appart from the usual next --> next --> install and I have personally never seen a screenshot of the gui as a useful resource. So many projects show really nice looking screenshots and then your try the software itself and you find out it is buggy/crashy/misssing features.

FWIW, the WinUAE page has always been that minimalist.

UAE was the Unix Amiga Emulator and the original source is now dead, but was forked years ago and the two main versions are WinUAE (for Windows) and FS-UAE (for Linux, Windows and macOS).

FS-UAE has a website more like the one you're expecting: https://fs-uae.net/

...but the link here is to announce that WinUAE just got a new release, not to debate the relative merits of two competing forks of a project and their websites!

If it helps anyone, here's a simple how-to for setting up WinUAE: https://www.howtoretro.com/emulation/winuae-setup-amiga-emul...

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