Amiga Forever (Cloanto)
Release date: November 14, 1997 (first version) Amiga Emulation software
Shipped with: Amiga Forever
Major enhancements:

    1.3.5

    1. Hard disk image as included on Amiga Forever (RDB HDF format). Subset included on floppy version (ADF format).
    2. References: Commodore 1.3.4 US distribution, Commodore 2090A HD configuration floppy
    3. Y2K-compliant version of SetClock command
    4. Shutdown command (exits emulation session, etc.)
    5. Support for AFShared-Startup (to autoplay games and demos, etc.)
    6. Also cleaned-up Startup-Sequence, aliases in Shell-Startup
    7. Some other improvements

    2.1.1

    1. Hard disk image as included on Amiga Forever (HDF format). Subset included on floppy version (ADF format).
    2. References: Commodore 2.1 distribution
    3. Shutdown command (exits emulation session, etc.)
    4. Support for AFShared-Startup (to autoplay games and demos, etc.)
    5. Latest Amiga version of narrator.device, translator.library, speak-handler and Say command (with Say.info as in 2.04)
    6. Created DOSDrivers/Speak
    7. HDToolBox works on uaehf.device to support emulated Amiga hard disks by default
    8. Also cleaned-up Startup-sequence, aliases in Shell-startup
    9. Some other improvements

    3.1.1

    1. Hard disk image as included on Amiga Forever (HDF format). Subset included on floppy version (ADF format).
    2. References: Commodore 3.1 distribution
    3. File attribute and comment fixes by Olaf Barthel and Cloanto
    4. Y2K-compliant version of Version command
    5. Shutdown command (exits emulation session, etc.)
    6. Support for AFShared-Startup (to autoplay games and demos, etc.)
    7. Latest Amiga version of narrator.device, translator.library, speak-handler and Say command
    8. Created DOSDrivers/Speak
    9. HDToolBox works on uaehf.device to support emulated Amiga hard disks by default
    10. Support for emulated RTG display modes (UAEGFX monitor ready for use in Storage)
    11. Also cleaned-up Startup-Sequence, aliases in Shell-Startup
    12. Some other improvements

    3.X

    1. File system as included on Amiga Forever (mounted directory shared with host environment). Subset included on floppy version (ADF format).
    2. References: Cloanto 3.1.1 distribution; improvements by Olaf Barthel, Heinz Wrobel, Cloanto and others
    3. RTG monitor, TCP/IP, CD-ROM file system mounted and active by default
    4. New icons by Matt Chaput, Oliver Tacke, Thomas Peterseim, Cloanto and others
    5. Numerous other improvements
    6. Numerous preinstalled applications in Work partition (if these are not desired, it is sufficient not to mount the Amiga Forever Work partition)
    7. CD versions of Amiga Forever include Cloanto's KX Light, a lightweight layer with Linux-based drivers and emulation which enables x86 PCs to boot directly into 3.X
Screenshot from 3.x:

Hidden messages:
  • The bar codes in the physical packages were always calculated (including a valid checksum) to play with Motorola and Intel CPU references. For example, the Premium Edition is 8008868068080.
  • There is a juvenile joke (we were teenagers in the Amiga days!) in one of the demo animations included with Personal Paint. Nowadays it might be considered "not safe for work". Luckily, it was not easy to interpret. It had to do with the old Cloanto logo, which had three circles inside a larger circle.
Media information:
Descriptions and Part Number
  • Amiga Forever Premium Edition: 1 CD + 2 x DVDs
  • Amiga Forever Plus Edition: downloadable CD image
  • Amiga Forever Value Edition, Express Edition: downloadable installer
Notes/comments:
  1. Michael C. Battilana of Cloanto notes that: "All versions are intentionally very close to the original Commodore versions, the aim always was to stay close to these, rather than diverge, especially visually. For all versions, we renewed some licenses which had expired or were terminated, for example some fonts, the speech synthesis, etc. Amiga Forever also includes a fully-licensed Picasso96 RTG implementation. For the 3.X version, we included a lot of additional content and improvements, licensed directly from the authors, and independently of the 3.5 and 3.9 branches by Haage & Partner, which had been the target of legal challenges. Copyright information is listed in detail in the documentation of Amiga Forever. I'd have to add that already in the 1980s Cloanto was one of the very first licensees of the Amiga OS, which was included with our packages (our software like Personal Write and Personal Paint always came on bootable media with OS functionality, so you could start your computer directly with these disks). I am not even sure 3.1 was ever released by Commodore, I mean, before the liquidation. Cloanto also was among the very first to have a 3.1 license. We always had a very good relationship with Commodore, which was bundling our software like Personal Paint with their computers. In the early 1990s we had also done some operating system improvements, e.g. to printer drivers and DataTypes, among others. This resulted in our code being included in the 3.1 release. So, technically (and legally), we are co-authors of 3.1.

    I would also like to point out that we refer to the entire operating system as "Workbench", which historically is not the name used by Commodore-Amiga. However, given the litigation mood around some of the post-1999 Amiga companies, we chose this name as the most prudent usable name. Also, you may want to note that Commodore always called it "Amiga OS" (with a space) [This is incorrect. The Amiga User Interface Style Guide Glossary specifically uses "AmigaOS"—without a space], but Hyperion and others refer to version "4.0" as "AmigaOS" (with no space).

    See also our AmiKit and AmigaSYS Integration (screenshot)"