Kickstarter Rom, is it needed?

Hi there,

New to the forum and emulations with Amiga, though I had a A500 back in the 90s.

Question, to run games, do I need the kickstarter?

If so, is it free?

[TCD]

Have a look here: http://eab.abime.net/faq.php?faq=eab..._ks_wb_faqitem

You can start by using the built-in AROS rom and see if the games work

Ah okay, thanks.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by redeem

Ah okay, thanks.

You could always purchase Amiga Forver.

One day soon. Thanks.

[killergorilla]

Or there are plenty of places to find Kickstart ROMS online

[Graham Humphrey]

But of course officially we can't talk about nor condone that sort of behaviour

[lesta_smsc]

Originally Posted by FOL

You could always purchase Amiga Forver.

Worth it in my opinion - although, interestingly the ROMs they provide are different to those found elsewhere, as me and Frode discovered when using FS-UAE to match auto-match configs.

[FOL]

Originally Posted by lesta_smsc

Worth it in my opinion - although, interestingly the ROMs they provide are different to those found elsewhere, as me and Frode discovered when using FS-UAE to match auto-match configs.

Is that cause they are encrypted?

[demolition]

Originally Posted by FOL

Is that cause they are encrypted?

Can't you just run transrom in the emulator if you have bought Amiga Forever and want an unencrypted version?

[thomas]

Originally Posted by demolition

Can't you just run transrom in the emulator if you have bought Amiga Forever and want an unencrypted version?

Yes, you can.

[Mequa]

The most free option is AROS ROM, which reimplements Kickstart 3.1. If you check out the nightly builds downloads, you can get the latest AROS ROM (amiga-m68k-boot).

This ROM (in 2 files) should be all that's needed to boot much Amiga software, and includes the minimalist Workbook replacement for Workbench.

For more AROS, a filesystem with Wanderer and additional software are also available on the nightly builds page, and there's also the AROS Vision distro for classic Amigas.

Originally Posted by thomas

Yes, you can.

In my experience this works with the included original Commodore ROMs from 1.0 to 3.1 (which also have variants for each Amiga model), but not with the "Cloanto Kickstart 3.x" ROM used for its version of AmigaOS3.9, AmiKit etc.

This method can be used to rip an unencrypted Kickstart 1.3 (and/or 1.2) image from the cut-down Value edition of Cloanto Amiga Forever. I successfully obtained this free with TrialPay (signing up for a free NetFlix trial which I discontinued), and this offer is still available, so Kickstart 1.3 and 1.2 can be obtained free of charge. The Value Edition does not include a rom.key file at all, but encrypts Kickstart 1.2 and 1.3 in the package.

Transrom (and there are also graphical methods) gets the kick.rom file, which can be used in many ways (e.g. UAE4ALL on Raspberry Pi, for one example). To do this with the Value Edition however will require Windows (or perhaps x86 Linux/Mac with Wine).

I asked Cloanto about the legality of using Transrom with their software, however they did not comment on that (which suggests they don't consider it a big deal), but said that they may consider cheap entry-level versions of Amiga Forever for other platforms than Windows in the future (such as Raspberry Pi).

So Kickstart 1.3 (and 1.2) really is available freely and legally, if you have a Windows PC, don't mind messing around with Trialpay, giving credit card details before trying (and cancelling in time) free trials, and can use Transrom to extract the ROM image using Amiga Forever's version of WinUAE.