12.Sep.2002
Jörg Karisch (amiga1303) (ANF)
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Meeting: Hardware Meeting of the User Group IMAGE in Nürnberg
After a long pause the user group IMAGE is again extending invitations to a hardware meeting. We will meet on Saturday the 28th of September 2002 from 9 AM to 10 PM. Address:
Mannertstraße 10
Nebeneingang
90429 Nürnberg
The purpose of this meeting is to take care of any hardware or software problems first-hand, and to talk about the latest developments of the Amiga technology. You'll find more information by clicking on the title link.
(ps) (Translation: dm)
[News message: 12. Sep. 2002, 22:33] [Comments: 0]
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12.Sep.2002
Olaf Köbnik (E-Mail)
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Game: "Aqua" - German Version Appears
Emerald Imaging, Fun Time World and Amiga Arena are pleased to present for the first time the completely German-localized version of the adventure game Aqua. Together with the developer and the help of Christian Busse we were able to fully translate the game, which resembles Myst. Aqua is available right away.
In comparison to the English version many known bugs were overcome. The game is delivered in a newly-assembled DVD package. You can get it at Fun Time World for about 17 Euros plus shipping.
Commerce and Sales
Fun Time World
c/o Sebastian Brylka
Wiehagen 78
45879 Gelsenkirchen, Germany
Telephone: 0209-14 85 620 (after 5 PM), Fax: 0209-14 85 720
E-Mail: funtime@t-online.de - Fun Time World
Aqua - Info
System Requirements: AmigaOS with 68020 Processor, 8 MB RAM, AGA or graphic card, and CD-ROM drive.
Story: You've heard about the mysterious sinking of an offshore drilling platform and have decided that their misfortune may be turned to your gain. Now you stand on landing platform to the boat, ready to begin the treasure hunt. A secret, that you are about to undertake the journey of a lifetime. A journey to a world unknown to men. A world of magic, beauty, miracles, mystery and a great destructive power that rules all the kingdom.
Fame, fortune and a great reward await the one who is brave enough to answer this challenge. Have you got what it takes?
Features:
- hi-res graphics
- 3-D raytraced visuals
- animated scene transitions
- sampled sounds
- simple point and click control
- save and load at any point in the game
- a bunch of interaction
- first person perspective
- screen-mode requester
- multi-tasking
- AGA and RTG compatibility
- AHI-Sound
- UAE compatibility
You can find out more about the game, story, and view screen-shots at the homepages of:
Amiga Arena and
Emerald Imaging
A playable demo will be released shortly.
(ps) (Translation: dm)
[News message: 12. Sep. 2002, 22:30] [Comments: 0]
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12.Sep.2002
Chaos Computer Club
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CCC: Conference on Freedom of Information
The Chaos Computer Club has scheduled a conference on the freedom of information, content control, and Internet censorship. This international, high stakes conference will take place on Monday the 16th of September, 2002 in the Finance Building in Düsseldorf, Germany.
(ps) (Translation: dm)
[News message: 12. Sep. 2002, 16:09] [Comments: 0]
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12.Sep.2002
ANN
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Meeting: More Photos from Alchimie2 / A-Expo
Click on the title link to find a row of pictures from Alchimie2 / A-Expo, courtesy of Polymere. The show took place in France on the 7th and 8th of September, 2002.
More photos, these from AFLE, can be found here.
(ps) (Translation: dm)
[News message: 12. Sep. 2002, 15:56] [Comments: 0]
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12.Sep.2002
Etienne Vogt
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Tool: CheckDisk Version 0.7 Beta
Etienne Vogt, author of SysMon and many other useful tools, has published a new program by the name of CheckDisk (beta 0.7). With this tool you can check your hard-drive for defective blocks. More information may be found in the documentation.
Download: CheckDisk07.lha
(ps) (Translation: dm)
[News message: 12. Sep. 2002, 15:22] [Comments: 0]
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12.Sep.2002
Amigan Software
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Game: Worm Wars Version 7.21
Worm Wars version 7.21 has appeared. The game requires a minimum of OS 2.04, a 68020 processor, and PAL/DblPAL screenmode capability.
Download: WormWars.lha (621 KB)
(ps) (Translation: dm)
[News message: 12. Sep. 2002, 15:09] [Comments: 0]
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12.Sep.2002
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Picture Editor: PPT Released Under Gnu Public License
Janne Jalkanen, the developer of the picture-editing software "PPT" hasn't been able to work on the program for a while, and so he is now releasing it under the GNU Public License (GPL). You'll find more information under the title link.
(ps) (Translation: dm)
[News message: 12. Sep. 2002, 14:58] [Comments: 0]
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12.Sep.2002
Guido Mersmann auf Amithlon-ML
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Tool: MMKeyboard 2.0 for Amiga and Amithlon
Guido Mersmann has just uploaded version 2.20 of MMKeyboard for Amiga and Amithlon
systems to Aminet. Normaly it will take a few days until the upload apears.
Please send questions, suggestions, bugreports and of course keyboard profiles
to Guido Mersmann.
Some details of MMKeyboard:
You like those Windows keyboards with many additional tool buttons for
EMail, WWW, music and so on? You want to use a wireless keyboard? You
don't want to buy expensive hardware that only supports the standard
keys and leaving the others unused? Then you found the right archive!
For a few bucks you'll get a selfmade hardware that uses everything!
MMKeyboard allows you to use a Windows keyboard as Amiga keyboard. In
addition to that it's possible to launch programs via the multimedia
buttons.
No driver problems like on the PC! One little commodity enables all
available non standard keys on any keyboard! Even future keyboards are
working!
Start your music player by pressing the play button on your keyboard.
Eject your CDROM by pressing the eject button, or open a Shell in the
same way! Now it's possible to execute any tool without qualifier,
because the keys are unknown to the system! Of course it's possible to
use qualifiers to be more flexible!
In addition to that there are additional features like a real hardware
password with optional Amiga GUI, full reset handler support and much
more!
(ps)
[News message: 12. Sep. 2002, 12:46] [Comments: 1 - 12. Sep. 2002, 17:52]
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11.Sep.2002
Mariusz Wloczysiak (E-Mail)
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Elbox: Mediator PCI USB drivers for Poseidon stack
Elbox Computer is pleased to announce that its drivers to PCI USB
cards in the Mediator busboard operate under the Poseidon USB stack.
These drivers have been prepared by Elbox programmers as a result
of co-operation started a few weeks ago by Chris Hodges, author of
the Poseidon stack.
As the Poseidon stack is already supported by authors of third-party
commercial software, we have decided that releasing another, our own,
USB stack for Amiga under such circumstances would mean doubling
effort of Amiga programmers.
We are sure that high-quality software included in the Poseidon stack
package and our hardware-optimised drivers resulting in high performance
achieved by PCI USB cards in Mediator will satisfy even the most demanding
users.
The unregistered, time-limited version of the Poseidon USB stack will
be available in the Mediator Multimedia CD. Registration of the Poseidon
stack for Mediator users will be provided by Chris Hodges.
About Poseidon:
The Poseidon USB Stack is a software solution that unleashes the
possibilities of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) and the devices with
USB interface, ranging from mice, keyboards, tablets, joysticks, printers,
scanners, webcams, digicams, flash card readers, zip drives, floppy disk
drives, harddisks, memory sticks, ethernet adapters, scanners and audio
adapters to less common things like power supplies, GPS location devices
or finger print readers. It is intended to be a solution for all systems.
For more info about Poseidon stack please visit Chris Hodges' website.
About Mediator:
The Mediator PCI busboard line is designed so as to enable expanding the
Amiga computers with a wide range of standard PCI cards like Graphic cards,
Ethernet and Fast Ethernet network cards, Modem cards, ISDN cards, USB and
SCSI cards, Sound cards and Multimedia cards: TV tuner and MPEG-2 hardware
decoders. Expanding the Amiga with the Mediator PCI busboard opens the way
to employing the power of the latest PowerPC G3/G4 processors in Amiga,
around which SharkPPC and SharkPPC+ cards are based. For more info about
Mediator please visit Elbox website.
(ps)
[News message: 11. Sep. 2002, 20:09] [Comments: 0]
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11.Sep.2002
Mariusz Wloczysiak (E-Mail)
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Elbox: Mediator UP 3.2 & Mediator Multimedia CD UP 1.16
The MediatorUP 3.2 update for Mediator PCI 3/4000T, Mediator PCI 4000D,
Mediator PCI 4000, Mediator PCI 3000D, Mediator PCI 1200, Mediator PCI ZIV
and for the newest Mediator model--Mediator PCI 1200 SX has been
made available today.
The update includes new version of: · MediatorNET.device
Changes:
MediatorNET.device ver.2.6 - patching of MiamiDX ver.1.0c added
The MM CD 1.16 update for the users of Mediator PCI 3/4000T, Mediator PCI 4000D,
Mediator PCI 4000, Mediator PCI 3000D, Mediator PCI 1200 SX, Mediator PCI 1200
and Mediator PCI ZIV busbords, who are registered owners of
the Mediator Multimedia CD has been released today.
The update includes new version of: · FastEthernet.device
Changes:
FastEthernet.device ver.1.6 - patching of MiamiDX ver.1.0c added
Info on the current versions is available in DOWNLOADS | Mediator section. (ps)
[News message: 11. Sep. 2002, 14:20] [Comments: 0]
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11.Sep.2002
Raquel Velasco and Bill Buck (E-Mail)
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Thendic France: Post A-Expo Notes
1. Pricing for the Pegasos and Betatester
The Pegasos mainboard with 600 Mhz G3 (which is upgradeable AND scalable)
will be sold to end-users for 560 Euros (no VAT) from Thendic-France or
our Distributors/Resellers. Our prices to Resellers and Distributors are
of course better and are based on volume. They are in business too. We
need to support them and we will.
The G4 upgrade (800Mhz) can be purchased for less than 200 Euros and you
will be able to do this well before the end of the year -- if you want
(see on an earlier thread here for a discussion about this).
You will see basic models of the Pegasos for less than 800 Euros
(including tax and taking all the different country VATs into consideration)
as GGS Data in Sweden is now offering and Vesalia will soon.
2. MorphOS
MorphOS gets better daily and we will delivered Betatester machines 127-133
this week. Betatester machines remain 1000 Euros because of the extras that
come with it - the smart card reader, the wireless camera, and the DataPlay
module - depending on what the individual Betatester is working on.
Betatesters also get successively upgraded (as required/desired) to each
version of the G4 and have FTP access to the latest ROM. The Betatester
becomes the development machine for the eclipsis. The first peripherals
will be distributed in Frankfurt at Betatester II on 12 October.
3. Linux
Further, every version of Linux for the PPC known has been installed and
works fine on the Pegasos. We have been especially amazed by Mac-on-Linux.
Sitting next to a G4 iMac you cannot tell the difference between the
machines while running the same applications.
4. Show/Demonstration Schedule and Updates
a. For the Finnish Amiga Users Group the following individuals will be
present:
- Gerald Carda (bPlan)
- Ralph Schmidt (bPlan)
- Rakesh Raghoebardayal (Thendic)
- Sharwin Raghoebardayal (Thendic)
- Teemu Suikki (Finnish MorphOS Core Developer)
- Harry Sintonen (Finnish MorphOS Core Developer)
We will also have other Finnish Betatesters/Pegasos owners
present.
b. Thendic/bplan will be out in force for the WOA Show in Brentwood,
Essex, UK on 2 November.
c. A Pegasos Show will be held in Lodz, Poland on 16 November. Please
refer to www.pegasos.pl for details as they become available.
d. A Pegasos Show also be held in Moscow. A date has not been set.
You will be able to see information on
www.amiga.org.ru.
If you want to hold a Pegasos show/demo please send us an email.
We will figure out a way to support you. There are Pegasos demos
being planned/scheduled in nearly every weekend until the big show
in Aachen in December.
5. Un grand MERCI!
The A-Expo was extremely well organized. We were very pleased to be
involved. Congratulations to the A-Expo Team! We will have our
pictures from the event posted to www.thendic-france.com shortly.
Sincerely,
Raquel and Bill
(ps)
[News message: 11. Sep. 2002, 14:08] [Comments: 3 - 12. Sep. 2002, 11:48]
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10.Sep.2002
Jochen Abitz (ANF)
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Event: Amiga-Events with Apple iCal
For all Amiga devotees working also on a Mac with MacOS X and iCal (now
available) I offer the subscribable iCal calendar. Only follow the title
link to "subscribe" and iCal gets all Amiga events.
(ps) (Translation: gf)
[News message: 10. Sep. 2002, 23:25] [Comments: 0]
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10.Sep.2002
Patric Klöter (ANF)
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Amiga - Mein Leben - Ask Petro...
Patric Klöter wrote:
For the memoirs of Petro Tyschtschenko is a chapter planned where Amiga fans can ask Petro questions and he will answer them.
I do not think, that there is anybody who does not know who Petro is. But for the ones who never heared of him here a short history of his Amiga curriculum vitae:
"Petro was working since October 1982 at the Commodore Büromaschinen GmbH and has seen the birth of the Amiga in 1985. After the bankruptcy of Commodore 1994 he was chief of Amiga Technologies, a branch of ESCOM, which bought all rights of Commodore and the Amiga in April 1995. As ESCOM also got into bankruptcy 1996 Petro tried everything from the survival of the Amiga and became chief of Amiga International, Inc. after Gateway 2000 bought the rights in 1997. He put himself in to the further development of the AmigaOS, then released in version 3.5. In April 2001 he retired officially from AMIGA Inc.. He has not left for all instances and is taking a boo on Amiga events to talk with Amiga fans who were customers and are now friends."
Now I call the Community to ask Petro interesting questions dealing with his life and the Amiga. Sure there are people who want to know some special things about Petro. Now here is the opportunity for that.
I will create a catalogue of questions for Petro he will answer and it will be a special chapter in the book. This will be unique in an autobiography.
I will administrate these questions I want to make sure you note this: Please send the question to me NOT personally to Petro. The address is mail@commodore-amiga.de.
I will forward the questions to Petro. Please for now only one question per person. I do not know how many question are taken up into the book, so maybe not all question are answered.
Petro has been informed about this event and so this is not a joke.
I thank you in advance for your interest and wait for your questions.
(ps) (Translation: gf)
[News message: 10. Sep. 2002, 23:20] [Comments: 0]
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10.Sep.2002
Gerd Frank (E-Mail)
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AmiATLAS 6 Update Info
Gerd Frank writes:
It really lasts a very long time, but now there are some updates to
AmiATLAS 6 available. Sorry for the really long delay, but we had some
strange personal and technical problems over the last months...
A few users already got several of the older update archives some
months ago, others obviously nothing. So now within several eMails
(spreaded over some days to avoid overfilled eMail accounts)
you will receive all the available updates again. But remember, only
for registered users and some selected beta testers with an NDA release!
The distribution will be done in several packed archives in LHA format.
There are normally no installation scripts included, it is enough to
unpack the archives and copy the directories directly into your installation
of AmiATLAS 6. If you are not sure with such procedures, just send an eMail!
You should receive the following updates:
- AmigaAUTO v1.06
- AmigaKONTO v1.06
- AmiATLAS v6.38 (ony an internal but stable release!!!)
- map denmark v6.50
- map benelux v6.50
- map germany_special v6.50
All these maps were done by Manfred Rohde in many many sacrifying hours
of absolutely hard work. Kind regards to him and thank you very much!!!
Possible a new enhanced map for Italy, done by Fabio Miscia, will follow
in the near future too! But again please be patient...
To the programs I can only say these are mainly bug fixed localized
versions,
the main changes and enhancements are done inside and by now are mostly not
visible to the user. This will follow with the updates in the future. So
please don't be disappointed or even expect miracles.
In future releases the following maps won't be supported or enhanced
anymore,
because it needs too much time to do all the work on nearly the same maps
for
one country. It's even possible some maps will only be renamed so don't
panic!
- austria (these three will be joined to one "austria")
- austria_plus (map with highest capacity, choosable with)
- austria_special (the travelguide and a map of europe)
- belgium (included in the new BeNeLux)
- D_CH_A (old stuff...)
- germany (now only "germany_special" is supported,)
- germany_global (same conditions as austria and switzerland)
- germany_small (dito)
- netherlands (included in the new BeNeLux)
- switzerland (these three will be joined to one "switzerland")
- switzerland_special (map with highest capacity, choosable with)
- switzerland_standard (the travelguide and a map of europe)
What we will do with the maps in "germany_prof" was still not decided
finally.
Within the travel guides and hotel guides are very extensive changes in
progress,
but because of the amount of data of course it needs some more time.
In the future you can use a database as known from similar products on other
systems. Btw AmigaGuide files wont be used so extensive in the future as it
is currently done, but you will get powerful possibilities e.g. for
searching.
By request you can get the actual beta release and have some fun...
The tools AmiAVON and AmigaPLZ should follow soon (I hope so!). The problem
is I have to recode these tools now already four times because of technical
problems with the old hardware.
And don't forget:
Anybody who had already done own enhancements on towns, streets or other
things, surely knows about the long time to wait for new updates. In most
cases this is really underestimated.
Last not least a request to all users:
The whole project AmiATLAS lives from the contributions of its users.
A short eMail with new ideas or bug reports would be really great and
of course very useful for future releases of this product! Thank you!!!
I would note this because from hundreds of users there are only about ten
enthusiastic guys with ideas and bug reports from time to time, what
I think is very a pity.
Best regards,
Gerd Frank
AmiATLAS Development Team
(ps)
[News message: 10. Sep. 2002, 19:46] [Comments: 0]
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10.Sep.2002
Mariusz Wloczysiak (E-Mail)
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Elbox releases MM CD UP 1.15
The MM CD 1.15 update for the users of Mediator PCI 3/4000T, Mediator PCI
4000D, Mediator PCI 4000, Mediator PCI 3000D, Mediator PCI 1200 SX,
Mediator PCI 1200 and Mediator PCI ZIV busbords, who are registered
owners of the Mediator Multimedia CD has been released today.
The update includes new versions of the following drivers:
- FastEthernet.device
- sb128.audio
- tv.library
- Voodoo.card
The changes were made as follows:
FastEthernet.device ver.1.5
- driver completely rebuilt,
- optimisation for MiamiDX
sb128.audio ver.4.6
- AHIsub_Update() procedure changed
tv.library ver.1.11
- I2C support for developers added
Voodoo.card ver.4.15
- clipping procedure improved
The current developer documentations for tv.library and mixer.library are
enclosed in the MM CD 1.15.
Current versions info is available in DOWNLOADS | Mediator section.
(ps)
[News message: 10. Sep. 2002, 12:17] [Comments: 0]
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10.Sep.2002
Mariusz Wloczysiak (E-Mail)
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Elbox releases MediatorUP 3.1
The MediatorUP 3.1 update for Mediator PCI 3/4000T, Mediator PCI 4000D,
Mediator PCI 4000, Mediator PCI 3000D, Mediator PCI 1200, Mediator PCI ZIV
and for the newest Mediator model--Mediator PCI 1200 SX has been made
available today.
The update includes new versions of the following drivers:
- pci.library
- MediatorNET.device
- Voodoo.card
The changes were made as follows:
pci.library ver.5.4
- changed support for multifunction PCI cards
- added emulation mode
MediatorNET.device ver.2.5
- driver completely rebuilt,
- optimisation for MiamiDX
Voodoo.card ver.2.15
- improved clipping procedure
Current versions info is available in DOWNLOADS | Mediator section.
(ps)
[News message: 10. Sep. 2002, 12:17] [Comments: 0]
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10.Sep.2002
IOSPIRIT (ANF)
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VHI Studio 5.7 and IOUSB DigiCam Package available
We're proud to announce you the availability of a new and expanded version of
VHI Studio today.
New features/improvements in VHI Studio 5.7:
- USB-support (digital cameras, webcams)
- new, integrated FTP-client for the webcam-functionality
- completly newly written .mov-animationexport
- automatic framerate-recognition
- an ARexx-port has been added
- heavily advanced webcam- and timelapse-functionality
- example-webcamfiles with elegant design in the archive
- extended PPC-support (e.g. JPEG-decoding)
- now uses fxWARP 9 technology
- native CPU-modules for PPC (PowerUP, WarpUP, MorphOS) and x86 (Amithlon)
Along with the availability of the new version we also have relaunched our
VHI Studio-pages.
VHI Studio is the award-winning software for video boards, digicams, webcams and
other video sources on the AMIGA with the broadest hardware-support. Functionality
includes recording and cutting of video clips, download of images from digital
cameras, still-picture-grabbing and their optimization, watching TV on the
Workbench, a full-blown webcam-software (besides, this feature also works with
video boards, digicams, etc!) and the easy creation of timelapse-animations.
(ps)
[News message: 10. Sep. 2002, 11:59] [Comments: 1 - 10. Sep. 2002, 18:30]
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10.Sep.2002
Matthias M. (ANF)
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Meeting: Amiga Inside Part II
Matthias M. reports: Amiga Inside - Part II is finished and we would like to thank all the visitors and our sponsors. It was once again a very successful party, even if the number of Amigas has declined. On all three days we tinkered, screwed, socketed and explained.
The use of projectors was a complete success. Many films were shown and so the nights passed without much sleep. Steffen Häuser of Hyperion came and showed us the current version of Quake 2, and it made a very good impression in terms of playability and stability, and the networking functions were able to be extensively tested. The weather also cooperated and we were able to have a barbecue on Sunday evening.
A few pictures have been uploaded to the homepage, and more will follow. I hope we all get to do it again next year! -greetings, Matthias
(ps) (Translation: dm)
[News message: 10. Sep. 2002, 11:56] [Comments: 0]
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10.Sep.2002
Korodny (ANF)
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Interview with Thomas Frieden: OS4 questions and answers
Korodny writes: A few weeks ago, the amiga-news.de community collected a bunch of questions related to OS4 and forwarded them to Thomas Frieden, in the hope that he may answer some of them.
Guess what? Not only did he answer all of them, he even answered them in English, for you poor souls outside of Germany ;-). The interview in German.
1. ExecSG, 68k-Emulator, WarpUP
Amiga-News: Please describe the Memory-Protection implementation and how this works with pre-OS4 software?
Thomas Frieden: Free memory will always be protected against reading or
writing. Some critical memory areas, like the base page
(address 0) will also be protected, to allow software
to find NULL pointer bugs (which is an extremely common
form of bugs).
Old software (68k programs that are emulated, and old
PPC software) will run in a different MMU setup. This
will not protect anything else but the stuff mentioned
above, so even if the program behaves badly, it will be
allowed to do so.
New software, OTOH, will have to be written in such a
way that memory protection will work. Initially, the
protection will be minimal (see above), but with later
revisions, we're moving to completely isolated address
spaces.
Exec SG already provides for this possibility.
Amiga-News: How is Virtual Memory implemented? What has been changed in the implementation compared to your original
plans?
Thomas Frieden: The original concept was similar to VMM, i.e. a
partition mapped into memory, leaving the original
memory system untouched. However, the new plan is to
include a virtual addressing scheme at the core. This
will allow lots of additional features such a different
memory allocation schemes, automatic stack elargement
etc.
Amiga-News: I don't like Virtual Memory, can I disable it?
Thomas Frieden: You can turn of swapping of memory to disk, yes.
However, there's actually no need to do that. It seems
a lot of people are judging virtual memory by it's
implementation in Windows. Windows uses it's swapping
feature even though there's physical memory available.
OS4 will not do that. Even if you have swapping turned
on, you will not notice it if enough memory is
available. However, when you would normally get a
requester telling you that you ran out of memory, the
pager will kick in and free some memory. That's all. As
long as you do not use enormous amounts of memory, the
pager will not become active, and no swapping will
occur.
Amiga-News: Are there up-to-date Benchmarks from Petunia (68k emulator)?
Thomas Frieden: You will have to check that out on the authors website...
Amiga-News: Is Petunia completed now (all CPU commands, FPU, MMU emulation)?
Thomas Frieden: FPU emulation is being finalised right now. MMU
emulation is not planned and is really of quite limited
interest.
Amiga-News: Is Petunia already integrated with Exec SG?
Thomas Frieden: No, not yet. The integration of emulation into OS4 is
one of the reason why we are going for a virtual
addressing scheme.
The emulation integration concept is already designed
by an expert in the field and is about to be
implemented.
Amiga-News: When will there be a new scheduler (as already announced)?
Thomas Frieden: Hmm, I don't think this was announced.
ExecSG uses the same scheduling scheme as the old Exec,
that's a prioritized round-robin scheme. It's one of
the most efficient schedulers, and most of all, it
allows near-realtime behavior. This near-realtime
behavior is a critical point in the whole Amiga design:
it ensures the responsiveness that we all like about
the Amiga. Other schedulers have been available for the
Amiga in the past, but while for example 'nice' type
scheduling is suited for applications, it isn't suited
for drivers.
What we *will* add in future version is real threading:
Right now, the only possibility for threads is to use
multiple tasks, but this limits the usability
(especially since an application consisting of 30 tasks
will receive a lot more time compared to an application
consisting of just one task).
Amiga-News: When will the GCC cross compiler be available for 68k Amigas (as a Linux cross compiler already exists)?
Thomas Frieden: We're currently working on that, with low priority,
though. The compiler is also not available publically,
because we want to be able to change certain aspects of
the ABI on short notice yet.
Amiga-News: Will there be "Gurus" again?
Thomas Frieden: Probably.
Amiga-News: How much faster will existing PPC applications be under OS4?
Thomas Frieden: We don't have numbers yet but the PPC is already a lot
faster when the 68k CPU is turned off. Context-switches
will also be substantially faster.
Considering the fact that key components of the OS will
be PPC native, we can expect a nice performance gain.
Amiga-News: Will games like WipeOut 2097 or Heretic II run under OS4?
Thomas Frieden: We want to have full WarpUp compatibility, so
theoretically, they should work. It has to be tested,
though.
Hyperion will remaster all of its titles for OS 4 for
superior performance.
Amiga-News: In theory, it should be possible to catch direct access to custom chips registers and emulate
the custom chips using UAE code, right?
Thomas Frieden: In theory, yes. However, it's doubtful that this is
actually something that would be beneficial. UAE will
do a good job emulating old stuff, and with UAE, you'll
have full control over the environment, i.e. the CPU
used. As most programs that directly access the chipset
are unlikely to work reliably in an environment so
completely different from old Amigas, I'd say that UAE
is by far the better solution.
Amiga-News: Will there be something like "PuhDerBaer" für OS4?
Thomas Frieden: Uh, WTF is PuhDerBaer?
2. Boot process, File systems, AmigaOne BIOS
Amiga-News: Will the annoying "Disk not validated"-Problem be cured with the new implementation of FFS?
Thomas Frieden: No.
Amiga-News: Can I press both mouse buttons to enter the early startup menu?
Thomas Frieden: Yes.
Amiga-News: What will be in the early startup menu?
Thomas Frieden: It will remain the same for now, maybe some additional
options (for selecting the kernel configuration...)
Amiga-News: Early startup menu is in no way related to the motherboard BIOS, correct?
Thomas Frieden: Yes.
Amiga-News: What about filesystems? Can I connect my Classic Amiga HD to the A1 and access the contents? Will we
still have an RDB or will we get that "trendy" MBR?
Thomas Frieden: The disk format will not change. Definitely no MBR.
Amiga-News: Will it be possible to boot from external sources?
Thomas Frieden: This might be possible, but is not planned right now.
Amiga-News: What will be the boot time?
Thomas Frieden: Similar to what it is now, hopefully faster.
Amiga-News: What will be the floppy disk format? Will the AmigaOne be able to read my 880k Amiga disks?
Thomas Frieden: No, that's a limitation of the floppy controller used
in the A1. The Amiga has much more control over it's
floppy, which is not available in non-custom
controllers.
Amiga-News: Will OS4 automatically recognise if a floppy disk gets inserted?
Thomas Frieden: As this is not yet implemented, I can't really say.
However, floppy support is becoming more and more
unimportant right now, so I don't think too much energy
will be wasted on such a dead medium.
Amiga-News: How will a Classic Amiga boot OS4? A classic Amiga can't boot from a PPC filesystem,
how will that problem be solved?
Thomas Frieden: As there's still a 68k on the classic (which can't be
removed due to some signals that are still generated in
the 68k), the first boot wil always be done using the
68k. There's no reason why the file system structure
can't be used from 68k and PPC alike...
3. Supported Hardware, USB, Firewire
Amiga-News: What hardware will definately be supported by OS4 (Gfx,Sound,NICs,USB,etc. ...)?
Thomas Frieden: All of the above.
Amiga-News: What USB drivers will be available?
Thomas Frieden: Currently, the most important things to cover are
keyboards, mice, and HUBs. Other drivers will follow
later. Third parties like IoSpirit already have access
to our USB stack and will provide for support for
devices such as scanners.
Amiga-News: What will the USB stack look like? Will it have a GUI?
Thomas Frieden: With a limited GUI.
Amiga-News: Will OS4's USB stack be compatible with "Poseidon"?
Thomas Frieden: Doubtful.
Amiga-News: What about drivers for printers, scanner, CD-ROM etc.?
Thomas Frieden: This will remain in the hands of third parties for now
with the exception of the CD-ROM drivers.
Amiga-News: Are you working on a driver for PCI-Firewire?
Thomas Frieden: No. Firewire is low priority. It's scope is rather
limited, therefore it's not considered an essential
feature. Support will probably follow later, but it's
our firm believe that right now, other stuff is far
more important (USB, IDE, SCSI).
Amiga-News: Do you have access to documentation for the 'All In Wonder' Radeon 7500 and 8500 too?
Thomas Frieden: The chips on these cards are practically the same as on the other variants.
Amiga-News: If yes will there be drivers supporting the additional functionality of these cards?
Thomas Frieden: No, at least not initially.
Amiga-News: Would there be AHI support for the audio functionality of these cards?
Thomas Frieden: See above.
Amiga-News: Will 3D drivers for ATi Radeon 7500 be shipped with OS4.0?
Thomas Frieden: Not initially. The idea is to release OS 4 for the
Cyberstorm PPC first where there is no need for such a
driver (These boards are AGP only, AFAIK).
Amiga-News: Will 3D drivers for ATi Radeon 8500 ship with OS4.0?
Thomas Frieden: This will need to wait for the new version of Warp3D.
Amiga-News: Does OS4 run on the Pegasos?
Thomas Frieden: We don't have a Pegasos. Theoretically it would be very
easy to get OS 4 to run on the Pegasos considering the
very limited technical differences between the AmigaOne
and the Pegasos.
Amiga-News: What about hardware companies supporting OS4 (wrt scanners, printers)?
Thomas Frieden: None confirmed yet. However, we've been approached by
hardware manufactureres about support for OS4. I can't
tell any details yet, though.
Amiga-News: Will the BlizzardPPC be supported?
Thomas Frieden: Most likely.
Amiga-News: Will the BlizzardVision / CyberVisionPPC be supported?
Thomas Frieden: Yes.
4. Other OS4 modules
Amiga-News: What's the finalised feature list for OS4?
Thomas Frieden: See Amiga's web page.
Amiga-News: What new features will Intuition have?
Thomas Frieden: I'm sorry, but that question is too complex to answer
within the scope of this questionnaire.
Amiga-News: How much of the new features is finished already?
Thomas Frieden: The new intuition is about 95 % finished, last I
heard...
Amiga-News: What's IBrowse's status?
Thomas Frieden: Ibrowse 2.3 has been in beta-testing for a while now.
Amiga-News: What's the status of MUI 4.0?
Thomas Frieden: We have built a complete version of MUI using the
latest source-code.
Amiga-News: Will there be a new Ed?
Thomas Frieden: No, no new Ed. There are people that use vi, and there
are people that use emacs. I use GoldEd. Most people
have their favorite editor already. The system's editor
is meant for small changes, like changing
startup-sequence... most user will still want to go on
using their existing editor, though...
Amiga-News: How much is DOpus Magellan integrated? Will it be just an external Tool?
Thomas Frieden: That has not yet been decided.
Amiga-News: What new shell commands will be available?
Thomas Frieden: There will be a new shell, yes. This isn't really the
place to start listing individual shell commands.
Amiga-News: What's ARexx's future?
Thomas Frieden: Arexx will be preserved but we are looking at alternatives as a replacement down the line.
Amiga-News: Will there be multi-user support? Password protection?
Thomas Frieden: No, at least not in the initial version.
Amiga-News: Will Screen-Dragging be possible (again)?
Thomas Frieden: Such a feature is technically "challenging" on anything
but the classic hardware. If you run OS4 on a Amiga
native mode, it will be possible. But different
resolutions at the same time on a standard graphics
chip are impossible.
Amiga-News: Will OS4 stay video compatible? Will it still be possible to display the Workbench
on a TV (as long as the gfx card has TV-out)?
Thomas Frieden: If the driver supports it, yes. After all, this is just a matter of the driver.
Amiga-News: How secure is the TCP stack? What about Firewall software?
Thomas Frieden: I think a firewall is integrated. There's also the possibility for IP forwarding, which requires some firewall functionality...
Amiga-News: Will openening a Workbench window (and rendering the icons) still block the rest of the system?
Thomas Frieden: Sorry, don't know. AFAIK, this wasn't even the case on
the latest Workbench. but I could be mistaken...
5. Misc. Stuff
Amiga-News: Could you explain the various delays? What difficulties did you encounter? What unexpected
problems had to be solved?
Thomas Frieden: It would take us too far to discuss all the reasons for
the delays here. The main reason is that we decided to
fold most if not all of the functionality originally
planned for OS 4.2 into OS 4.0. Plus there's the fact
that we needed to develop the AmigaOne Bios after the
original development company (completely unrelated to
the Amiga market) failed to come up with the goods.
Amiga-News: What will we have to pay fo OS4? Will OS3.5/3.9 owners get a discount?
Thomas Frieden: Pricing has yet to be decided. No price-cuts are
planned for OS 3.5 and 3.9 buyers. OS 4.0 is the most
comprehensive OS update since 2.x to 3.0 and the
targetmarket is quite small. This leaves little room
for discounts.
Amiga-News: How can I become beta tester?
Thomas Frieden: Beta-testing will initially be carried out by selected
and trusted individuals who are known to the 30+ OS 4
developers.
Amiga-News: Will there be real manuals as PDF,HTML and AmigaGuide documents?
Thomas Frieden: Time permitting.
Amiga-News: Who will handle customer support (bug repots, requests)?
Thomas Frieden: This has yet to be finalised. Let's start with actually
releasing OS 4.
Amiga-News: What are the long term plans (AmigaOS5)? Will AmigaOS become CPU independant or run on multiple
CPUs (IA32, IA64, MIPS, SPARC...)?
Thomas Frieden: Sorry, you'll have to ask Amiga about this. Hyperion is
currently only interested in moving OS 4 forward and
ensuring its survival on a new and modern hardware
platform. Basically, the system has been "cleaned" a
bit of CPU dependencies.
However, I don't really see a good chance to run on
little endian CPUs... this doesn't only affect the
system, but all user code as well, and I would
definitely think that a lot of code will fail. Apart
from that, chances to run on IA64 are much smaller than
anything else (32 bit systems do no port well to 64 bit
systems, at least not when you want to use the extra 32
bits...)
Overall, all code working on a system wich also
includes little endian CPUs will have to take care
about the endian. This is not a problem in itself, but
I'm willing to predict that a lot of people will not
care about this. They will code for one specific CPU,
and this will lead to a real mess.
Amiga-News: What are the chances to get JAVA for AmigaOS?
Thomas Frieden: Better than before when AmigaDE can run hosted on OS 4.x.
Amiga-News: When will Quake2 be available for AmigaOS?
Thomas Frieden: Hopefully soon.
Amiga-News: Will there be Easter Eggs?
Thomas Frieden: If I'd tell you, I'd spoil the fun ;)
(ps)
[News message: 10. Sep. 2002, 11:50] [Comments: 14 - 17. Sep. 2002, 11:44]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
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10.Sep.2002
Markus Heinemann (ANF)
|
New website about the Amiga by 'Redhorse'
Dear Amigans!
I want to present my new website: http://www.amigatoday.de.tf. The site is extended regurlarly and new ideas are welcome, send an email to me.
(ps) (Translation: gf)
[News message: 10. Sep. 2002, 11:14] [Comments: 1 - 12. Sep. 2002, 17:57]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
10.Sep.2002
(ANF)
|
Music: New Up Rough Release Out
Super Sharp Shuriken EP feat. Samuel aka Substance & Nasley is out!
(This is a music disk!). Four jazzy d'n'b tracks. This one also includes
a brand new and STUNNING paperdoll by Royal.
Get your copy today here. (ps) (Translation: gf)
[News message: 10. Sep. 2002, 11:10] [Comments: 0]
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