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[ral-clan]

(I've also posted this message to the Bars & Pipes newsgroup - my apologies to those who've already read it there).

Whew, it finally came. The day when my real Amiga hardware failed. The Amiga has been the centre of my home recording studio for about 10 years now. All the backup Amigas I have proved to have "issues" in one way or another that made them unusable for serious audio work.

So...with mixed emotions, it's time to move onto PC for audio recording. I'll miss the Amiga, but I won't miss the unreliable, aging hardware. The thing I'll miss most of all is Bars & Pipes (and possibly OctaMED).

So....I'm going to try and buy a PC that can emulate and run Bars & Pipes as if running on a real Amiga. Is this even possible? Is anyone doing this in a serious sense?

I would really appreciate any advice you guys can give me towards running Bars & Pipes with a PC emulator.

- any advice towards buying a PC with a mind towards Amiga emulation? What sort of microprocessor is good for UAE (Intel? AMD?)
- There is a local PC store which sells reconditioned older PC CPUs for cheap (i.e. $100 for a 1Ghz model). What is the minimum CPU speed I should consider for smooth Amiga emulation?
- any hardware or software tweaks to get B&P to run smooth under emulation?
- what sort of PC MIDI interfaces can be used with UAE?
- Can Bars & Pipes running in UAE by synchronized with audio recording applications running in Windows (i.e. Protools?) through MTC or Midi Clock?
- Failing a successful use of Bars & Pipes on the PC, is there any Windows software which gives a Bars & Pipes like experience on the PC?