FS-UAE: Does it require the original Bios and if so, how do I acquire them?

[Frozone212]

I do not nor will I ever be able to afford a genuine Amiga so this question is important to me. Does FS-UAE require the original Bios? If it does, where can I get them legally?

 

I would love to emulate the system but my options are:

 

A: pay $10 or so for an emulator with the bios

B: Buy the system

 

any help would be appreciated

[WhataKowinkydink]

1 hour ago, Frozone212 said:

I do not nor will I ever be able to afford a genuine Amiga so this question is important to me. Does FS-UAE require the original Bios? If it does, where can I get them legally?

 

I would love to emulate the system but my options are:

 

A: pay $10 or so for an emulator with the bios

B: Buy the system

 

any help would be appreciated

Amiga Forever should do it:
https://www.amigaforever.com/value/

[Frozone212]

I'd do it but Money is scarce right now with Christmas. It's not so much that I can't afford it, it's the fact that it's not a priority for now (mom has to buy for my sisters, herself and me). Maybe later when I have had the time to look it over, I might bite. For now, are there any other options that don't involve a credit card.

 

 

Edited December 1, 2022 by Frozone212

[Daedalus2097]

*Legal* options? Not really. It's not at all hard to find illegal copies though... You don't need to spend $10 however - if you can stretch to $1.99, you can buy the Amiga Forever Essentials bundle for Android which includes Kickstart licences (Kickstart is what the "BIOS" is called in Amiga terms). You might also be able to use the open-source replacement OS, which is called AROS 68k, but compatibility isn't great. But ultimately you do indeed need one Kickstart ROM image or another to run an Amiga emulator.

[Frozone212]

I'm just interested in Amiga BASIC

[Daedalus2097]

Amiga BASIC only works properly under the first major OS release (1.x) and only on a 68000, so you'll need to set up your emulator accordingly. An A500 spec configuration should do the job.

 

Amiga BASIC was dropped from the OS and replaced by ARexx starting with release 2.0.

[+OLD CS1]

If you really want to use Amiga BASIC in later releases and on an accelerated system, there are ways and patches available.  But, you run the risk of instability.  In emulation, just set up the appropriate environment and use it how it was meant to be used.

[Tuxon86]

Amiga Basic was essentially crap, which is why it was replaced by ARexx (fun fact, my first job was translating old JCL based bank application to Rexx for IBM).

Amiga basic was slow and a bit buggy. But there was alternative to the one that came with the machine, GFA, Hisoft, Blitz, A.M.O.S. are all easy to pick up variant and they can be used on more modern amiga arch.

[+OLD CS1]

7 hours ago, Tuxon86 said:

Amiga Basic was essentially crap, which is why it was replaced by ARexx (fun fact, my first job was translating old JCL based bank application to Rexx for IBM).

Amiga basic was slow and a bit buggy. But there was alternative to the one that came with the machine, GFA, Hisoft, Blitz, A.M.O.S. are all easy to pick up variant and they can be used on more modern amiga arch.

Are you comparing JCL to BASIC?   I did JCL on a System/34; was fun.  Never got the chance to do real Rexx but learned ARexx.  ARexx is great, but I also consider it a completely different class than Amiga BASIC... could Amiga BASIC control programs like ARexx?  Notwithstanding, there are plenty of good libraries for ARexx, including building GUIs with or without MUI.

 

Always a fan of GFA BASIC.  I learned it on my grandfather's ST and moved on over.

[Tuxon86]

24 minutes ago, OLD CS1 said:

Are you comparing JCL to BASIC?   I did JCL on a System/34; was fun.  Never got the chance to do real Rexx but learned ARexx.  ARexx is great, but I also consider it a completely different class than Amiga BASIC... could Amiga BASIC control programs like ARexx?  Notwithstanding, there are plenty of good libraries for ARexx, including building GUIs with or without MUI.

 

Always a fan of GFA BASIC.  I learned it on my grandfather's ST and moved on over.

Nah… I wasn’t comparing it to basic. I was creating input form for bank terminal from JCL to Rexx. It was my internship in college, unpaid of course. Funny enough my best information source on Rexx during that internship was my Amiga Arexx manual. 
 

Amiga basic was a rushed product included to nudge people to the new platform but the programming world had already started to move away from Standard basic by then. The PC had already introduce a plethora of more powerful compiled language which the new 16bit Amiga and ST could have access too. Basic was on it’s decline, it did have a good run.

[+OLD CS1]

14 minutes ago, Tuxon86 said:

Funny enough my best information source on Rexx during that internship was my Amiga Arexx manual

I have frequently referenced my ARexx materials when working in Regina.  Also, when I was taking C and C++ in college, my Amiga programming books taught me more and my classmates wanted them.

[Tuxon86]

1 minute ago, OLD CS1 said:

I have frequently referenced my ARexx materials when working in Regina.  Also, when I was taking C and C++ in college, my Amiga programming books taught me more and my classmates wanted them.

I learned C with the v2.0 of Turbo C. I still have the book and for the most part it’s still usable since C is a simple language at its base. But after my internship I moved to Turbo Pascal for a few contract, then I went to university where we were forced to use Ada… Eeeech… After that I moved to Delphi up to version 5 and then left programming and went into tech support. 

[Daedalus2097]

Yeah, I got funny looks in uni with my Amiga C reference books  BASIC was thrown in because in the '80s to try and sell a computer without BASIC was seen as foolish. BASIC was still pretty popular well into the '90s though, perhaps moreso in Europe than the US.

 

Regarding the more "modern" Amiga BASIC variants, Blitz Basic is still being developed as an open-source project under the name AmiBlitz, and is currently receiving pretty regular updates. It's very capable, and while it'll never hold a candle to a modern IDE, the environment is vastly nicer to use than anything that was available during the Amiga's lifetime. It needs an upgraded system to run, but under emulation that's not an issue.

 

Here's a screenshot of the current AmiBlitz3 release as I used it for a recent game jam entry.

Edited December 4, 2022 by Daedalus2097

[WhataKowinkydink]

4 hours ago, Daedalus2097 said:

Regarding the more "modern" Amiga BASIC variants, Blitz Basic is still being developed as an open-source project under the name AmiBlitz

Surprised no one mentioned this yet until you did - it was your advice that lead me to installing it on my Workbench 3.1 system...

 

@Frozone212 - I think you'll like this  :)

[Frozone212]

i'll give it a try

[zzip]

On 12/2/2022 at 12:29 PM, Tuxon86 said:

Amiga basic was slow and a bit buggy. But there was alternative to the one that came with the machine, GFA, Hisoft, Blitz, A.M.O.S. are all easy to pick up variant and they can be used on more modern amiga arch.

On 12/2/2022 at 8:44 PM, Tuxon86 said:

Amiga basic was a rushed product included to nudge people to the new platform but the programming world had already started to move away from Standard basic by then. The PC had already introduce a plethora of more powerful compiled language which the new 16bit Amiga and ST could have access too. Basic was on it’s decline, it did have a good run.

ST Basic sucked too and GFA was the way to go there as well.

 

Also when ST came out,  magazines started publishing type-in programs in C rather than BASIC, so it seemed clear to me that I should be learning C.

[Frozone212]

On 12/5/2022 at 9:00 AM, zzip said:

ST Basic sucked too and GFA was the way to go there as well.

 

Also when ST came out,  magazines started publishing type-in programs in C rather than BASIC, so it seemed clear to me that I should be learning C.

that seems like where I should Start. what magazines?

[carlsson]

On 12/3/2022 at 2:07 AM, OLD CS1 said:

ARexx is great, but I also consider it a completely different class than Amiga BASIC

Yup, but the way Commodore, or at least Amiga magazines put it, the impression was that ARexx was replacing Amiga BASIC. In terms of kilobytes included in the OS distribution it might have, but not functionality wise. I managed to use ARexx exactly once during my ~10 years of active Amiga user.

[+OLD CS1]

1 hour ago, carlsson said:

I managed to use ARexx exactly once during my ~10 years of active Amiga user.

Oh, man.  I used ARexx so much, including an ICQ bot.  So much functionality.

[Daedalus2097]

Yeah, compared to AmigaBasic, ARexx was a massive improvement, and I have been using it a lot since the '90s. I don't think I have an Amiga setup where it doesn't feature in some way or another from boot. It's not a direct replacement for AmigaBasic, but it wasn't really intended to be (it's not BASIC after all), rather an included programming language that you can start using right away. It was one of the very smart moves by Commodore IMHO, only to be hobbled when they screwed over the guy who created the Amiga version. It's a testament to the language and the quality of the original version that it's still included and integrated with the latest OS 3.2 and 4.1 releases with essentially no changes in >30 years.

 

Unfortunately, Commodore didn't include the ARexx manual with their budget machines, which means it was pretty much invisible to the casual observer, with no obvious editor, documentation or examples. That's changed now thankfully.

[Zap!]

On 12/1/2022 at 12:50 AM, Frozone212 said:

I do not nor will I ever be able to afford a genuine Amiga so this question is important to me.

While I don't know your age (Collage age and in school? Middle aged? Retired senior?), why would you say something so negative? You can get a nice one for just a few hundred. I get it if that's too much for you at this time, but saying that you'll never be able to afford one is selling yourself extremely short. Have more faith in your future.