FS-UAE emulator

FS-UAE emulator stands for Frode Solheim Universal Amiga Emulator and is a nice emulator available on Haiku.

In this article we will review how to quick configure it to do some Amiga retrogaming.

Install

In order to easily configure FS-UAE, the best way is to install the GUI for UAE.

In Haiku Depot type "UAE" and in the "All packages" tab select the "fs_uae_launcher" entry :

Proceed with the installation.

Configure

Launch FS-UAE from the "Applications> FS-UAE launcher" menu :

The main window below will appear :

The first thing you need is an Amiga kickstart ROM.

As this kind of ROM is under license, you will find all the details on the below URL on how to download one : https://fs-uae.net/docs/kickstarts

Once you own the ROM, put it in the Kickstarts folder of FS-UAE :

Go back to FS-UAE GUI and click on the button for "Kickstart ROM" (the icon file on the right) :

Select your ROM and confirm :

Let's check if it's working by clicking the "Start" button :

Great the Amiga Workbench is well recognized :)

In order to quit, hit "Ctrl+F12" :

Then select the cross button on the top right to quit the emulated machine :

First game

As explained in the Getting started page of the official website, some games are freely downloadable.

Let's check one of them.

Go to the Factor 5 website and download the BC Kid game.

Unzip the file and put the ADF image into the "/boot/home/FS-UAE/Floppies" folder :

Go back the FS-UAE and select the floppy tab :

Select the first floppy as being linked to the "BCKid.adf" file :

Now let's start the emulation :

The below screen should be visible, and you can start playing !

I advice you to zoom the screen as the game is not filling entirely the window.

For that hit "Ctrl+F11" to have a better display :

The default controls under FS-UAE are :

• The Ctrl key for the validation
• The cursor keys for the move

Other games

One of the game I like very much on the Amiga - and which is not very well known - is the Beach Volley released by Ocean in 1989.

Some people would say the gameplay is not very good, and the difficulty too high, however once you know all the tricks on how to play effectively, it's a nice game.

Another sport game which was famous during the Amiga period is Sensible Soccer.

It was created by Sensible Software and released in 1992.

As this game is on two disks, I will explain how to deal with that with the emulator.

First you need to indicate the two floppies as below :

Then launch the game. The below screen should appear at some point :

In order to switch the disk, I had to hit "Ctrl+F12" and then select the first floppy :

Then eject it :

Once this first floppy is ejected, the second one is automatically recognized, and the game can start :

It's not easy to play with Sensible Soccer, especially to keep the ball.

But the game is nicely done. Did you have favorite games during the Amiga period ?

You can put a comment below :)