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Before installing AmigaXL, you will need to get QNX RtP 6.1 up and running. This is a lightweight realtime operating system well known by many Amiga users, and therefore excellently suitable for hosting Amiga XL. Installing this operating system is very easy to accomplish, it can be done in around 5 minutes. The QNX RtP CD is directly bootable, but also after inserting the CD on a PC running Windows, a setup menu will pop up (in case the automatic startup of CDs is disabled you need to manually double click the setup icon which can be found in the root directory). You will be offered the option to install on a seperate partition or as an image file on a FAT-32 formatted Windows partition. A bootloader menu will automaticly be added on older Windows versions, but if you dislike using the bootloader simply delete the QNX related lines from your Windows config.sys script-file and instead use the CD or a bootdisk to boot into your image filed QNX RtP distribution. You can also use the QNX RtP CD or bootdisk to boot into seperately partitioned installations, so actually no extra bootmanager would be needed. Also must be noted that QNX RtP offers multiuser support, but does not yet have an automatic login option, so you will need to choose a root password and add at least one user to be able to log into the operating system.

To log into the operating system, simply choose to run QNX RtP in the bootloader menu or boot up using a RtP CD or bootdisk and choose to run the Realtime Platform from your harddrive. Login as "root" or a previously specified user and you will boot into QNX6.1. After choosing the correct display setting you will be presented the desktop environment. Finally choose the correct keyboard and localization settings and you`re done.

To install the Amiga XL emulator, insert the AmigaOS XL CD and click on the "Installer" button located under the "Applications" group on the shelf. This will bring up the Package Installer. Subsequently double click the "QNX CD-ROM Repository," then select "AmigaOS_XL for x86" under the "Emulation" group. (Under "Description," you will see that Amiga XL uses 21 MB when installed.), Choose to install it, and shortly afterwards you`re done. A new entree was made in the Launch Shelf under "Utilities". Select it, and you will boot directly into AmigaOS!

Amithlon uses only minimal Linux pieces to start an emulator. One thing that is very impressive is that (if your hardware is supported) you will be able to boot directly into AmigaOS from the AmigaOS XL CD itself. Actually, to demonstrate Amithlon, you don`t even need a harddrive, as everything needed will be stored on a virtual RAM-disk! This is a very nice feature which enables you to easily demonstrate AmigaOS to people who don`t want to be confronted with installing "unfamiliar" (dangerous?) OSes onto their systems. The installation of Amithlon on a harddrive is well described within this article.

Finally, I should tell of the existance of pre-assembled and fully pre-installed AmigaOS XL computers. For instance Haage&Partner demonstrated AmigaOS XL on pre-installed AmigaOS XL systems to Amiga fans at the Amiga 2001 show in Cologne. Also, Extreme Computing will be showing their new AmigaOS XL powered solutions at the upcoming AmigaExpo show to be held on March, the 29th - 31st, 2002 in Baltimore.

AmigaWriter 2.0 running with the AmigaXL emulator

1. "A preface: The rise of AmigaOS emulation"
2. "The AmigaOS XL package and system requirements"
3. "Installing the AmigaOS XL package"
4. "Using AmigaOS XL (part 1)"
5. "Using AmigaOS XL (part 2)"
6. "The Pros and Cons of AmigaOS XL usage"
7. "The verdict"
8. "Appendix: The Amiga platform and its user community"