What resources, tools (emulators, e.g.) should I know about?
I absolutely loved my Amiga back in the day, and we had a few throughout my childhood home.
What are the things I need to know about to geek around today? I see there's multiple emulators (some free, some not - are they official?), and I assume there's places with old ROMs of the games and software I used to use, like Zool, SWIV, Cannon Fodder, Skidmarks, Speedball 2, Deluxe Paint, etc, etc.
Share your retro wisdom with me!
There's nothing truly official, just a whole bunch of legal nightmares.
If you use Windows, get WinUAE and off you go! Find some .adfs and ROMs and you're set.
If you use Linux, FS-UAE.
If you use Linux on a Raspberry Pi, maybe RetroPie is what you need.
Plenty of options out there! Best of luck.
The official one would be:
http://www.amigaforever.com/
Even if you are going to use a different emulator, buying it there gives you legal copies of the Kickstarter roms and such for them...
Ok, so they're legit and official - I wasn't sure. The 90s-style design made me think it was ok, for some reason, but a few other things gave me pause.
Is their emulator recommended, or do people use a different one?
Amiga International gave them the rights to sell it, basically. It's on wikipedia and other places, so I'm pretty sure it's legit, though there's something with another company also owning some of the rights... (And an alternative, mostly compatible OS called AROS.)
They are giving you WinUAE behind a frontend. Most, but not all amiga emulators are in some way descended from UAE, and a lot of people use WinUAE or FS-UAE, which is apparently easier to use. (Or running on a Raspberry PI, you might want something more specialized for that.)
Don't necessarily know the most about it, though. I watched a few videos, got a copy, had a fun time emulating an Amiga for a bit, then got sidetracked, and didn't quite get back to it...
@SweetAIBelle @Deebster
Amiga, Inc etc are long gone
Clanto owns the OS and Kickstrart ROMs
I'd just by Amiga Forever Essentials from the Play store for a few dollars then use WinUAE or FS-UAE Though their Amiga Forever packages come with a lot of interesting extras
Can't for get AmigaLIve, used UAE, for online multiplayer
Unfortunately, I get "This app is not available for any of your devices", even for the old Pixel XL I pulled out of my abandoned tech drawer (I can't believe it still boots!).
Been a while, so I don't recall the exact software name.
Grab the music tracker/editing program that has "slartybartfast" as one of the built in samples.
Oh, and Turrican II and Desert Strike and Superfrog and those amazing demos. Many of the cracked games my dad got had better graphics+music on the crack intro than the game that followed. Good times...