Been looking for a way to run Workbench on your A500 Mini? While there are several methods of doing this, the simplest is to use the AMiNIMiga package, which includes not just the Amiga’s own GUI, but a bunch of old software that you can run legally.
Available to download from www.aminimiga.com, and put together by Jimmy Johanssen (whose voice you can hear on the accompanying installation guide), the package should run from a 16GB USB stick, preferably USB 3.0 in order to enjoy the maximum speed from the A500 Mini’s USB 2.0 bus. Among the pre-installed software you will find:
- DiectoryOpus 4, ScalaMM, FinalWriter
- Eagleplayer, Hippoplayer, ProTracker
- DeluxePaint, Brilliancs, Real3D, Lightwave
- Amos, AmigaE, BlitzBasic
AMiNIMiga is a collection of old shareware and abandonware software and games that just isnt available anymore, think of it as a timemachine to the 90s! Re-live your youth/childhood with the games you played growing up using your A500Mini. AMiNIMiga is completely free and will always be. Expect many updates to come later on, this is only the beginning!
Similarly, the package includes games,such as recent ports such as Doom, Duke Nukem, Heretic, and others.
Release of the AMiNIMiga final build was announced in a private group on Facebook.
I’m happy to announce that after three days of testing, a pretty good number of fixes, AMiNIMiga v101 has gone from rc1,rc2,rc3 and finally to Final which i am happy with enough to release to the Public
I recommend USB3 sticks, and for this release 16GB should be enough.Its been hard work and the last days i’ve been sleeping about 5hours/night, with the update/fixes/video recording/editing/answering questions. I will be taking a few days off, but expect alot more great things to come in a VERY recent future.
Free to download and use, you can grab this Workbench project chock full of games and softwre for your A500 Mini from www.aminimiga.com.
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Christian Cawley is a writer and editor who covers consumer electronics, IT, and entertainment media. He has written for publications such as Computer Weekly, Linux Format, MakeUseOf.com, and Tech Radar.
He also produces podcasts, has a cigar box guitar, and of course, loves retro gaming.