The new Amiga Forever 2008

[mrandyman]

Hi there.

Has anyone gotten a chance to review or checkout the new Amiga Forever 2008 that was completely redone? It is even supposed to run on Vista 64bit and come bundled with a whole bunch of (new old) games. Does anyone know what they are using for virtualization (to save the current system & game state-- (remember FREEZING back in the C64 days-that was fun)) in Windows (Vmware???) I am really curious! I bought Amiga Forever twice in the past and want to know if it is worth it especially considering it is being sold in EURO and the dollar is really weak. How is the new interface really?

Regards,
Andy

Link: http://www.amigaforever.com/

P.S. Isn't it something "freezing" the system state is still used today? I remember the popular Final Cartridge III and the "true" Action Replay cartridge (not the crap they used the name for later). Those were some good times.

[Shane R. Monroe]

I have a press copy on the way - a review will follow.

They call freezing the system state "hibernation" now.

[mrandyman]

UPDATE: I received the following email today. It mentions that the PLUS version is available for $24.95. I'm running it from CD now. It's got a neat/simple interface. It allows you to save the game state just like Virtual PC. Wish you could have multiple snapshots though like VMWare workstation and not just a single snapshot. I also noticed the March 2005 RGR show is included on the CD as a MP3 in the "gallery" folder of the CD.

Dear Andy,

After more than two years of development, and thanks to your
past support, Amiga Forever 2008 has been officially released.

When we released Amiga Forever 2005 three years ago, after
working for months on the DVDs alone, we thought there was not
much that could be improved. After that, the 2006 version was
an incremental update. Well, we now managed to surprise even
ourselves, because Amiga Forever 2008 is a revolutionary update
which makes all previous versions pale in comparison. The new
player is a labor of love down to the individual pixel, like in
the old Amiga days. And what it does is disrupting, for it is
changing the way people perceive emulation. The new 100+
demoscene productions are simply beautiful to watch and listen
to (and you keep wondering, "How did they do it, in real time,
on a 68000 CPU?"). Then there are 100+ games (all with short
instructions). And new gallery items (my favorite is the 1979
Tripos article, an Amiga Forever exclusive which shows more
similarities with AmigaDOS than most of us would have expected).

Some quick links before delving into more details:

Upgrade Now to Amiga Forever 2008 Plus Edition
(only $24.95, special PayPal discount)
http://www.amigaforever.com/go/af2008u/

Upgrade Now to Amiga Forever 2008 Premium Edition
(only $39.95, special discount includes shipping!)
http://www.amigaforever.com/go/af2008ud/

The new player for Windows feels as familiar and easy to use as
a media player, while providing easy access to a universe of
free downloads. It uses heuristic logic to autoconfigure
downloaded games, and supports features such as double clicks
on disk images (yes, you can download an ADF and run it that
way!), saved states, disk write undo and dual-monitor setups.

On the cross-platform front, the KX Light boot environment
features a new kernel, and hard disk installation (with online
updates). The Gallery section includes the full and original
1979 Tripos (Amiga OS precursor) presentation, and new "top
secret" Amiga-Atari documents, while tons of new games and
demoscene productions are sure to deliver hours of enjoyment.
For the technically-minded, Amiga Forever 2008 also includes
new ROMs, new ADFs, new HDFs, and better support for WHDLoad,
AmiKit and AmigaSYS.

I could spend hours describing details of the new player, but
Amiga Forever 2008 is much more than a list of features, even
if they took exhaustingly longer than in the past to develop.
Amiga Forever is not about a player. Amiga Forever is about
emotions, about a direction, about extending our past
commitments into the future, and enjoying the relationship with
fellow Amiga friends like yourself along the way.

You may have heard that we cataloged more than ten-thousand
Amiga games. Two years ago we didn't even know the Amiga had so
many games! Why did we do this? See the link below for the
details. Let me just add that the Amiga Forever 2008 player
already features a button that goes beyond the local search
function, and taps into a free online system that we are
working on. More integration with the database will follow,
also via free updates.

For additional information:

New Features
http://www.amigaforever.com/whatsnew/

Screenshots
http://www.amigaforever.com/screenshots/

Quick Tips for Upgraders
http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/5-121.html

Amiga Forever Cataloging Effort Reaches 10K Milestone
http://www.amigaforever.com/news-events/20071214cataloging.html

And again the upgrade links, if you would like to enjoy the
many new features and support our effort:

Upgrade Now to Amiga Forever 2008 Plus Edition
(only $24.95, special PayPal discount)
http://www.amigaforever.com/go/af2008u/

Upgrade Now to Amiga Forever 2008 Premium Edition
(only $39.95, special discount includes shipping!)
http://www.amigaforever.com/go/af2008ud/

The above are time-limited discounted prices for orders via
PayPal. You are receiving this because you already ordered
with PayPal in the past. Offer expires June 15, 2008. Not
valid in the European Union (we need to apply VAT there).

Please note that if you already purchased a previous version
with the two DVDs, these have not changed in the new version.
However, because the current high-quality dual-layer
manufacturing process is very expensive (at our volumes),
we are considering some changes in future versions. So if you
already own the videos you can enjoy all new features with the
new Plus Edition. But if you never saw these amazing and
touching videos about the people behind Amiga, this is the best
time to get them, because this unique piece of history is not
likely to get any better. Either way, you are going to receive
a full version (not an upgrade license), so you are free to
give the previous version to a friend. In any case, please tell
them about Amiga Forever (this being what is considered a
"niche market", word of mouth referrals can make a big
difference, and we really need that)!

Thank you again for your most precious support, and have a
great week-end.

With warm regards,

Mike and Your Amiga Forever Team


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[TechMaster]

UPDATE: I received the following email today. It mentions that the PLUS version is available for $24.95. I'm running it from CD now. It's got a neat/simply interface. It allows you to save the game state just like Virtual PC. Wish you could have multiple snapshots though like VMWare workstation and not just a single snapshot. I also noticed the March 2005 RGR show is included on the CD as a MP3 in the "gallery" folder of the CD.

I hope they asked Shane for permission first. ?

[OldSchoolGamer]

I ordered the PLUS EDITION, downloaded the ISO and am burning now.
I been putting this of for years and in fact have already been emulating the platform for just as long so I already know the in and outs. With this new version though I thought what the hell, let's finally make it official (and legal) not that I wasn't already emulating the Amiga platform just as well but I like the new presentation of the software. Looking forward to checking it out!

Also happy to finally be supporting CLOANTO for all their wonderful efforts.
Should be fun.

Since I was a new customer I paid $39.95 USD, I am sure it is money well spent.

UPDATE: OK, I am impressed, works well and even mapped my USB PC gamepad which is great for the games!
MY ONLY ISSUES thus far:

For some reason it is failing to install on my Desktop which runs XP, I am in communication with the support team to resolve the issue and they seem very helpful and fast to respond, I cannot degrade the customer service as they are very helpful. STRANGELY while waiting I figured what the hell, I attempted to install on my LAPTOP runnning VISTA and............PERFECT! Hah, go figure. Anyway, still really need it for the Desktop though as I prefer not to keep running from CD. Notes to anyone else who installs this, just so you know, under the System tab when you run WinUAE configuration (this allows you to chose emulation of different Amiga models as well as more options) you may get a message about missing certain ROMS and indeed when I chose the CD32 configuration it whined about missing the ROM, DONT WORRY, under the UAE options just highlight the "PATHS" option and in the accompanying window on the bottom simply click Rescan ROMs, then you will be good to go. I booted a CD32 and CDTV envinronment successfully after that. ALSO note you may find booting from CD it may take a while until the Amiga OS is loaded, this is an option to boot from CD just to emulate an AMIGA without installing to Hard drive, just like a Linux Live CD, note however loading is slow and this method is not really very useful for anything serious, your better off loading from within the WinUAE emulator or even a preconfigured setup in the Amiga Forever interface.

LAST UPDATE: OK all resolved, for some reason my desktop was having issue with my optical media (damn cheap media!!!!) I guess my laptop is more tolerant but on the customer reps advice I just copied the CD content to a folder on my hard drive and it installed perfect from there, all installed and up dated, well think this would be a good time to image my OS! LATER.

PS: CLOANTO CUSTOMER SERVICE AWESOME!!!!!!

[Shane R. Monroe]

I hope they asked Shane for permission first. ?

Of course they did.

http://www.amigaforever.com/news-events/20050318rgr/

You'll see a picture of Bryan, myself and Michael at various events on their news page.

http://www.amigaforever.com/news-eve...x/IMG_0305.jpg

[OldSchoolGamer]

Well, I am posting this using Aweb after booting from the Amiga Forever CD, it's not fun,
but It shows what is possible lol!

[TechMaster]

Of course they did.

http://www.amigaforever.com/news-events/20050318rgr/

You'll see a picture of Bryan, myself and Michael at various events on their news page.

http://www.amigaforever.com/news-eve...x/IMG_0305.jpg

Yea, I guess that was a stupid question. After all, it is the Amiga Emulator guys. Can't say Amiga and not think of you.

[alexjlopez]

Been thinking about getting this since Monroeapalooza after playing around with Shane's CD-32. Comments seem positive so far--is this the way to go for Amiga emulation?

Although I owned an Amiga 500, I practically missed the Amiga age since I was in the Army at the time and most of my gaming time was spent on the original Game Boy and Sega Game Gear (along with some SNES and Genesis to a lesser extent). By the time I finished my service, Windows 95 was upon us and the Amiga went into the closet.

So I realize I've missed a ton of great games I've heard of mostly through RGR--I'm very interested in checking out games like Superfrog, Defender of the Crown, and tons of others I never had the chance to play.

[Shane R. Monroe]

I've got it ... I plan to do a full stand alone review of it for RGR ... at some point.

If you're at all curious and want someone to tell you to pull the trigger - do it.