Emulation and Operating System

• Low-level emulation of "Classic" Amiga hardware
• Operating system (running on top of the emulated hardware)
• "Classic" Amiga software (running in the operating system)

The operating system consists of a set of original ROM and system files which run on emulated Amiga hardware. Amiga Forever uses primarily two hardware emulation engines: UAE and Fellow. The operating system files included on Amiga Forever are compatible with various ports of UAE and Fellow, most of which are included on Amiga Forever itself.

It is only the combination of full hardware emulation and operating system that makes it possible to achieve maximum compatibility with thousands of existing "Classic" Amiga software applications. Because the emulation software includes the option to adjust the functionality of the emulated CPU (e.g. 68000, 68020, etc.) and custom chips (e.g. OCS, ECS, AGA), as well as a choice of operating system versions, compatibility with older programs is often higher than what would be possible with a "real" Amiga.

Different Amiga Forever Versions

The Workbench 1.3 and 3.X environments are included in both the Online Edition of Amiga Forever and in the CD-based Plus Edition (also included in the Premium Edition).

The Plus Edition of Amiga Forever additionally includes other ROM and system disks released between version 1.0 and version 3.1., inclusive of the A1000 boot ROM and extended CDTV and CD³² ROMs.

Amiga Forever is also available in a more limited Express Edition, which only includes a partial 1.3 environment (and no 3.X environment).