Armiga vs Raspberry Pi | What's the best Amiga Emulator?
235Armiga or Raspberry Pi? If you're looking for a hardware Amiga emulator you've probably considered at least one of the Raspberry Pi models or the Armiga dedicated Amiga emulation console.
I've done a couple of Armiga videos in the past and we get a fair few comments saying thing like "just use a Raspberry Pi lol". I mean, fair point, the Raspberry Pi 3 is a very, very good Amiga emulator. Previous Raspberry Pi models weren't the best for Amiga emulation but the two devices are probably neck and neck.
Your advantages for choosing the Raspberry Pi Amiga emulation route are that the Pi is a completely customisable device. You can load Raspbian, RetroPie, Emulation Station; you've got tons of choice on what to run. You can house the board in an infinite number of ways from 3D printed cases, customs, bought shells or inside a Deltoids tin if you want. You can run so much on a Pi so for a come-one, come-all Amiga emulation solution the Pi is a great choice providing you're patient, happy to follow fairly complex instructions and maybe a bit smarter than the average bear.
The Armiga though still packs a few features that the Pi lacks. It's a completely above board, legal solution for a start. This might not bother you, but the Armiga comes with a fully licensed copy of Kickstart, meaning for all intents and purposes it is an Amiga licensed hardware device. Compatibility is through the roof with the Armiga, including AGA A1200 support (which I forgot to say in the video!), something which the Pi can't quite top. I had some issues with the Pi compatibility but YMMV as I could have just cocked it up myself. No way to do that with the Armiga as it's all set up to work out of the box, advantage number 2. No downloading, no mucking about. You turn the Armiga on, it works.
There's a question of aesthetics but this is a completely subjective issue so have at it however you want. I'd say the layout of the board is a bit smarter on the Pi. The Armiga has cables coming out of three sides which is hella annoying. The Pi has a nice clean board and depending on your case can have the output cables very streamlined.
The final issue though is why I keep coming back to my Armiga. The floppy disk drive. You just can't play Amiga floppy disks on a Raspberry Pi. I say that like I have absolute confidence - I bet somebody somewhere has figured it out. Some clever sausage has got a floppy drive running on a Pi and is able to read 750k Amiga disks. But what I'm saying is *I* can't do it, not easily anyway. The Armiga reads and backs up Amiga floppies which for collectors is a Godsend of a device. If you've got data, demos, artwork, music or the like on Amiga disks this could save your precious cargo from data rot.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
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Music is Level 2 from Turrican II on the Amiga. Absolute banger.