Amiga Forever by Cloanto
 
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Use of ROM and Operating System Files Provided in Amiga Forever

 

TOPIC

Q: Can the Amiga Forever ROM and operating system files be used on a non-emulated Amiga?

 

DISCUSSION

A: Out of more than 30 ROM files that are included in Amiga Forever Plus Edition as of this writing, very few specifically require an emulation environment.

Some original technical limitations, which were in part a legacy of a 1997 wish by some licensors that Amiga Forever not compete with the sale of "real" upgrade ROMs for Amiga computers applied during the initial release period, and were later removed. These restrictions were implemented by using some "illegal opcodes" and a ROM encoding combined with a "rom.key" file, support for which was added to the UAE and Fellow emulation projects in 1997. Amiga Forever Plus Edition installs a full set of original unencoded Amiga ROMs, including WHDLoad-compatible files.

The Amiga Forever End User License Agreement (EULA) allows use of the Commodore/Amiga ROM and OS software not only in the context of Amiga emulation on two systems where the software is installed, but also on one "Classic Amiga" computer (i.e. models from the original Amiga 1000 up to the Amiga 4000 series, which already came with a ROM and an OS disk set).

As a standard PC would have no way of writing a floppy disk which an Amiga could use to boot, the creation of a bootable disk from the Amiga Forever disk images would itself require a working Amiga computer, or another way to write an Amiga disk. We understand that you may have difficulties obtaining original operating system floppy disks and other spare parts for your old Amiga hardware, which was one of the main reasons for us to provide Amiga Forever in the first place. As long as your Amiga can boot, you can use the tools which are provided with Amiga Forever to transfer all data to another computer on which Amiga Forever is running, retaining your existing configuration, or experiencing a "fresh" installation, which is included. Alternatively, Cloanto's retail partners provide ready-to-use Classic Support media.

Third-party files other than the Commodore/Amiga ROM and OS files have in part been licensed to us, and are licensed by us to end users, for use only in the context of Amiga emulation. Although these files may be available for other uses as well, not all items have been specifically licensed for such purposes as part of their publication in Amiga Forever.

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Article Information
Article ID: 13-145
Platform: All
Products: Amiga Forever
Additional Keywords: EULA, Linux, macOS, Mac OS
Last Update: 2017-08-22
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