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Archiv 'New hardware and software products'

25.Feb.2024
Forum 64 (Webseite) DIY: "Joystick Reanimator" repairs micro switches using electric impulses
C64 fan 'GI-Joe' - a service technician in real life - has come across many faulty microswitches in his professional life. The silver-plated switching contacts of switches that only have to switch very low currents were often oxidized: the arcing that occurs at higher currents, which "cleans" the oxidizing contacts in a kind of self-cleaning function, does not occur at lower currents. Sooner or later, the electrical resistances become too high due to the oxidizing switching contacts, even though the switch switches mechanically perfectly.

To solve this problem with the microswitches built into many joysticks, GI-Joe invented the "Joystick Reanimator": A joystick that no longer works is connected to the device. When the stick is moved or a fire button is pressed, the associated switch is then activated with a current high enough to generate the "self-cleaning" arc. The circuit board also contains connection sockets for a multimeter so that the electrical resistances of the microswitches built into the joystick can be easily tested.

German and English instructions as well as all documents required for reproduction (including circuit diagram, assembly list and KiCad project files) are available for download. (cg) (Translation: cg)

[News message: 25. Feb. 2024, 02:23] [Comments: 0]
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20.Feb.2024 Accelerator: PiStorm16 for the Amiga 600 in development
At the title link Michal Schulz describes the PiStorm16 turbocard currently under development. In contrast to the classic PiStorm, an Efinix FPGA chip is used here as with the PiStorm32-lite. This means that no external devices are required for configuration, which is loaded as soon as the Emu68 emulation starts.

A first prototype is currently being manufactured, and separate connections for HDMI and network are planned for the future. (snx)

[News message: 20. Feb. 2024, 13:36] [Comments: 0]
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16.Feb.2024

Platformer: Jump'n Bump (beta version)
Erik 'earok' Hogan has released a first beta version of his port of the game Jump'n Bump using his Scorpion Engine, which essentially contains the core functions of the original game, but has not yet been extensively tested, so there may still be a few bugs here and there. New features:

Title screen (eg, player select)
Players at same height repel each other
Butterflies
Score screen, including breakdown of each player's kills vs other players

Still to come:

Title screen text loop
Performance mode build for smooth gameplay on A500
Mega Drive conversion
Maybe additional levels derived from the original game's map packs?
AI and/or some form of single player mode

Download: jump_n_bump_LATEST.adf (dr)

[News message: 16. Feb. 2024, 11:08] [Comments: 0]
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16.Feb.2024

Tool: EmptyADF 1.0
After several beta versions, Darren 'dmcoles' Cole released the first stable version of "ReBuild" about a week ago, which should make it possible to create graphical user interfaces for ReAction, the evolution of ClassAct (amiga-news.de reported). Krzysztof Donat (bitplan) has now used ReBuild to create the EmptyADF tool, which can be used to generate empty ADF files. Main features:

creating DD (880 KB) or HD (1.76 MB) disk images
creating OFS or FFS disk images
creating images with or without system bootblock
creating disk images with your own label
completing system disk dates:
- last root alteration date
- last disk alteration date
- filesystem creation date

He tested it under AmigaOS 3.2, but it should run on any Amiga with Kickstart 3.0+ and installed ReAction libraries. (dr)

[News message: 16. Feb. 2024, 10:26] [Comments: 0]
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