ROM ("Kickstart") files are stored in the "System/rom" subdirectory of the emulation-specific directory of the Amiga Forever distribution or installation.
On a current (Amiga Forever 2005 and higher) Windows installation, "System/rom" is in "Amiga Files".
The same "System" directory also contains other Amiga operating system files, such as boot floppy disk images (which are in "System/adf").
Access by Amiga Forever Users
In general, it should be considered that within the emulation environment as it comes preconfigured in Amiga Forever on Windows it is normally not necessary to manually locate system ROM and other files. If an emulation site mentions that ROM and operating system files can be found in Amiga Forever, then this is certainly true, however it is also true that the emulation itself has been preconfigured so that no additional adjustments or copying of files are required. Emulation applications such as WinUAE and WinFellow are preinstalled to automatically detect these files. If there is a problem involving this detection, or with the installation, then that specific issue (e.g. two instances of WinUAE installed on the same system) should probably be addressed first.
Technical Reference
The exact location of the emulation directory depends on whether the files have been installed or not:
- After installation of Amiga Forever 2005 or higher on a Windows system, the directory (inside the "Amiga Files" folder) is referenced by the %AMIGAFOREVERDATA% environment variable
- On an Amiga Forever CD (i.e. before installation) and in non-Windows installations, the "System" directory is located inside "Emulation", at the root of the medium, installation directory, or distribution archive
For example, the full path (starting with an environment variable) of a 1.3 ROM of a current Amiga Forever installation on a Windows system is "%AMIGAFOREVERDATA%\System\rom\amiga-os-130.rom". Expanded to an absolute path, on a Windows Vista system this would be something like "C:\Users\Public\Documents\Amiga Files\System\rom\amiga-os-130.rom".
Older Versions of Amiga Forever
Amiga Forever versions 1.0 to 6.0 differ in at least two significant ways from newer (2005 and higher) versions:
- Both after installation and on CD the system-specific items now located in the "System" directory used to be inside a directory named "shared"
- There was no "Amiga Files" architecture, meaning that the "Emulation" data directory was installed in "Program Files" (e.g. inside "C:\Program Files\Cloanto\Amiga Forever")
Additional Information
The following article explains where other files, including floppy disk image files, are located:
- 5-101 - Structure and Names of Emulation and System Files
The following article explains how to programmatically find the "Amiga Files" directory on Windows, independently of an Amiga Forever installation:
- 5-112 - Use of "Amiga Files" in Amiga Forever for Windows
The following article explains how to programmatically find the Amiga Forever installation directories on Windows:
- 5-102 - Locating the Installation under Windows
This article contains additional information about the ROM and operating system versions included in Amiga Forever:
- 3-114 - ROM and Operating System Files in Amiga Forever
