18.Dec.2022
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Advent Calendar: Door 18 - Marcus Sackrow
For the fourth Advent, Marcus 'ALB42' Sackrow is our storyteller.
Marcus is a Free Pascal programmer and has managed a lot of projects over the years, which he regularly informs about in his blog.
In 2014, he started porting Free Pascal first to AROS and later also to AmigaOS 3.1. Most recently, he released Free Pascal 3.2.2 for all Amiga systems in May 2021.
Likewise, in 2015 he started working on his text editor EdiSyn with syntax highlighting for AROS (latest version 0.54.
In mid-2016, he began working on his OpenStreetMap viewer Mapparium, which he further developed to version 0.8 and also made available again for all Amiga systems. His extensive creative output also includes his free Pascal programme Leu for loading and limited editing of Excel (xlsx), OpenOffice and LibreOffice (ods), TurboCalc (tcd) and ASCII (csv) files.
The list could go on, but of course his current project AmiTube must be mentioned: a YouTube client for all Amiga systems that makes it possible to watch YouTube videos on an Amiga. To do this, they are converted into Commodore's CDXL format and downloaded.
To shorten the time until Christmas a little, he has kindly put another game behind his 18th door: his "Amigale" is a conversion of the well-known "Mastermind" (or logic trainer) with words for Amigas from Kickstart 1.3, which is currently popping up everywhere as "Wordle". The task is to guess a word, whereby the programme tells you whether a letter is included or even in the right place. "Amigale" (download at the end of the story) contains both a German and an English dictionary:
(I should definitely have some more lessons in English...: what is "Spahi"??)
Thank you very much, Marcus, and keep up the good work on your projects! And with his anecdote, we wish him and all our readers a happy fourth Advent:
Amiga, Chemistry and Internet
In 1997 I started studying chemistry at the University of Siegen. My professor in the General Chemistry lecture (Prof. Meixner) was quite new at this university and had a lot of interest in computers and the internet.
He had a nice new idea for a new website and a student for it. But since he was new at the university, he only knew us first-year students and someone from my fellow students probably gave him my name when asked. So I introduced myself for the job.
The general chemistry lecture I had with him is a very basic lecture on chemistry, a bit of repetition from chemistry classes (so that everyone is on the same level) but also new things quickly so that it doesn't get too boring. One feature in contrast to later lectures was that it contained a lot of chemical experiments as a presentation on the professor's desk. And there were really many, sometimes 5-6 per lecture hour.
Especially popular, of course, were all the experiments that had something to do with fire or explosions. (The phophore explosion left a deep memory, after the whole lecture hall had a whistling in their ears for 20 minutes, not healthy).
Professor Meixner's idea was to give the students a better way to prepare or review the lecture, which works best via the experiments. Of course, films work much better than simple pictures and text, so the idea was to record the experiments and put them on the internet with an explanation.
I was to be responsible for the technical implementation, i.e. creating the films, converting them and creating the HTML pages. To show that I can do this well, I should first create the website for his research group.
At that time I only had my Amiga 1200, at that time still with modem as connection to the university's network. So I created and tested the whole page on my Amiga and then uploaded it via FTP to the university's server. The HTML texts themselves were all created with a plain text editor (GoldED), I tried some of the HTML editors but wasn't that satisfied. Especially since I tested the pages against the online HTML validator (HTML 3.2 was still quite new back then). Professor Meixner had such a key phrase for his research, "Espionage in the world of molecules", for which I had designed a logo: a water molecule with a magnifying glass in front of it. And since I had just read some 3D course in an Amiga magazine, I implemented the logo as a 3D animation (Lightwave for the 3D, ADPro for converting/shrinking images, MainActor for the GIF animation). I was satisfied and the professor was thrilled.
Later versions of the page are still available on archive.org (a little warning: 90s wepage-overload ;))
For the actual project, money was now requested, a computer with frame grabber card and a very cheap (PAL) camera were bought - cheap USB cameras did not exist yet, hence this combination. The camera was chosen because some of the experiments were very dangerous and we had to expect that the camera would be destroyed or at least damaged. However, this did not happen, as we were always quite careful and protected the camera extra, partly with its own, additionally protective housing.
There were three people involved in total, a technical assistant who prepared and carried out the experiments (she had a lot of experience there as she also did this for the lecture). An advanced student (I think he was about to graduate) for the technical support and texts on the website and me as the person responsible for the technology and the actual website "programming".
The basic idea was to record the experiments, then put pictures of them and descriptions on the web, and if possible even the videos themselves. But we quickly ran into the problem that almost all students only had access to the internet via modem (like me with my 33,600 modem). This meant that the films could not be too big.
On the other hand, there were hardly any video formats that could be played universally. So we decided on MPEG, because you can almost always find a player there (even on the Amiga) and, as a stopgap, GIF-Anim.
Professor Meixner set the file size limit at 500 Kb. The Amiga was again used to create the web pages and especially the GIF animations (including the background image, which was also created on the Amiga with PPaint).
The recording and processing of the experiments took several months, and later the descriptions of the experiments were translated into Spanish and French and supplemented with small quiz questions.
A funny anecdote at the end: when the site went online, the university was very worried because it described how to make explosives (black powder is one of the experiments, but also phosphorus or termite; they are pretty violent experiments). So they didn't want to see these experiments on the free internet, we had to install an IP filter so that only students of the University of Siegen could see these experiments. A few years later, nobody was interested any more.
The website still exists today, on archive.org, but also as a copy on my own site.
Download: Amigale1c.zip (88 Kb) (dr)
[News message: 18. Dec. 2022, 06:57] [Comments: 1 - 18. Dec. 2022, 18:43]
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17.Dec.2022
Twitter
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Web browser: IBrowse 2.5.8 for Amiga OS 3/4 and MorphOS
Press release: Happy Christmas to all our loyal IBrowse users and thank you for the continued support. In 2023, we hope to share some exciting plans for the future of IBrowse. In the meantime, we are pleased to announce the immediate availability of IBrowse 2.5.8, which may be here downloaded (OS4 users may use AmiUpdate instead). This is the eighth free update for registered owners of IBrowse 2.5. IBrowse 2.1-2.4 and 1.x owners may upgrade to IBrowse 2.5.8 via our store at discounted rates.
Please note: IBrowse 2.5.8 requires AmiSSL 5.5 as minimum, with AmiSSL 5.6 being the latest version at the time of writing, so you are advised to download it before updating IBrowse, otherwise you will be left without HTTPS access.
Due to the bugs that unfortunately crept into the initial 2.5.7 release (although these were quickly resolved with hotfixes) we decided to make a full new stable release. This release contains the previous hotfixes, plus a few more fixes and improvements:
- Unescape the URL before showing it in the popup bubble when the mouse is over links
- Fixed crash that occurs if the info window failed to allocate memory when updating the URL
- Fixed crash that can happen when specifying a non-existent filename on the command line when starting from the shell
- OS4: Reversed the protocol and codec modules file lock change in 25.108, unless at least elf.library 53.35 is detected, due to a relocation issue in older versions
- Fixed Gemini support which stopped working in 25.108
- Include updated Greek catalogs from Aminet
(dr)
[News message: 17. Dec. 2022, 16:08] [Comments: 0]
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17.Dec.2022
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Advent Calendar: Door 17 - Thomas Claus
Behind the 17th Advent calendar door awaits the anecdote of Thomas 'imagodespira' Claus, who as a graphic designer forms the duo of EntwicklerX together with the programmer Frank Menzel.
When one thinks of EntwicklerX, two things come to mind: the commercial media player Emotion and elaborately written games for AmigaOS 4. And there is something for everyone. A small list:
They started the development of their media player Emotion in 2016 and released a first alpha version soon after. The official version then was released at the beginning of 2017. An update to version 1.9 is available on the developer page. As Thomas told us, more games and remastered versions are planned - but since they are not pure Amiga developers, of course always depending on other projects. We wish good luck and look forward to today's anecdote:
"My first computer was an Atari 130XE. At the time of the German reunification, there was a "welcome money" for GDR citizens and my brother and I begged "our" money from our parents to be allowed to buy a computer in the Intershop. Of course, we had no idea about computers, we just wanted one. When we were standing in the Intershop, there was only one option for the 200 DM (100,- per child). An Atari 130XE for 192,- (the value is burnt into my memory, I hope it's right ;)). So we bought this one. Of course, there were also C64 computers and Amigas in the corner, but financially unattainable.
Once home, the device was connected to the Raduga TV (Russian brand, very explosive). A blue screen came up with the text "Ready". That was it. By trial and error we got into a screen where notes could be seen. Our English skills were close to zero, so we couldn't even translate "Self Test" (I was 13 and we were learning Russian at school). However, Self Test brought us a tune and made us want to hear more. After that, there was some digging in the manual and we found out that we couldn't go on without external media. We needed a "datasette". We begged and pleaded with parents again and were able to dust off my little sister's money for our Atari and thus buy a Datasette XC12 and a game (Kikstart). That was the entry into my computer world. In the course of time we found out that our neighbour had an Atari 800XL and so we got some software. My favourite game at the time was Montezuma's Revenge. Actually, it's still my favourite game. In the meantime I have an Atari 130XE again, Datasette and every now and then I give myself a round of Montezuma...
Back to my youth. As a happy Atari fan, I dreamed of the Atari ST, MegaST and other Atari devices that were also in our computer shops at some point. Amiga didn't interest me at all. But one day my cousin who lived one street over called. "Come over, I want to show you something". No sooner said than done. Now I was standing in his room. There was an old TV on the floor, an Amiga 500 in front of it and Rick Dangerous was playing. I've never seen such graphic splendour, it looked like the real thing. The sound was amazing, especially the dying in the game. You heard that a lot... Yeah, what can I say. It was a quick conversion. After that afternoon, I didn't even know how to spell Atari anymore. I wanted an AMIGA! Some time later I was able to sell the Atari, my brother was in training and gave money for an Amiga 500 and I shovelled out my aunt's coal cellar to be able to buy a memory expansion... From here on there was no turning back.
To get a reference to today: as some may know, I develop small games with Frank Menzel at the EntwicklerX. Also for AmigaOS 4. I already dreamt of this with the first Atari. Here I drew simple pixel pictures in Basic with the commands "Plot" and "DrawTo" (I didn't have a drawing programme). Later I pixelated in Deluxe Paint, mostly small game scenes for platformers. So running levels and obstacles. Montezuma's Revenge but also Rick Dangerous never really let me go and so we were able to finish our "Pyramid Quest" in early 2021 and release it on Windows, Playstation, Nintendo Switch and Xbox. My 14-year-old Atari self had already dreamed of this, but would never have thought it possible to pull something like this off. We're not well-known developers, don't have a hit, but get by and still dream of new projects that are viable for 2 people. Often our games are interpretations of old games and game principles that we used to love on the Amiga and still love and enjoy playing.
You can find our projects on various platforms, for example itch.io. You will certainly recognise one or two of the game principles, even if the realisations are often somewhat different and the templates usually remain unattainable...". (dr)
[News message: 17. Dec. 2022, 09:45] [Comments: 0]
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17.Dec.2022
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Puzzle game: AmiBlock
After the Amiga conversion of the game "Wood Block Puzzle" by the Polish developer 'Tukinem' (amiga-news.de reported), 'Szafir' has now released his variant under the name "AmiBlock". It is also written in Blitz Basic 2 and requires an Amiga 500. (dr)
[News message: 17. Dec. 2022, 06:22] [Comments: 0]
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17.Dec.2022
Passione Amiga (ANF)
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Italian Print/PDF magazine: Passione Amiga, issue 11
Press release: With great joy and a bit of excitement we are pleased to announce that the new issue of Passione Amiga, where we celebrate two years of publishing, is now available for purchase!
The entire editorial team has worked hard to get this issue out slightly ahead of the official date, so that Amazon can deliver it under the tree to anyone who wants to read it or give it as a Christmas present. Content:
- Video games: Devil's Temple: Son of Kung Fu Master, Aquabyss, Black Dawn: Technomage, Wonderboy, Wrong Way Back, Chaos Arena, Wood Block Puzzle, Luma
- Reviews: Amiga Duel, Amiga Forever 10
- Special Amiga Blitz Basic Game Jam 2022
- Special Amiga games in physical version
- Blender course, part 3
- AmigaOS 3.2 R4 NDK
- And also: Games news, Tech news, THEA500 Mini news, Tricks and Solutions, Demo scene, New Talents, Mailbox
The magazine is available as digital (3 Euro) or printed version (7,50 Euro, via Amazon). Its current issue consists of 48 A4 color pages. (dr)
[News message: 17. Dec. 2022, 06:19] [Comments: 0]
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17.Dec.2022
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Text adventure: The Daring Rescue of Pacuvia the Sheep
Domenico 'Diduz' Misciagna has released his very first game, The Daring Rescue of Pacuvia the Sheep, a text adventure written in Amos Professional 2.0 that can be played in English and Italian.
As an employee of a mysterious "agency", you find yourself on a dangerous mission: the biotechnically bred sheep Pacuvia must be freed from the clutches of a man who has no idea what he has stolen. For security reasons, all digital tools have been taken away from you and you are limited to purely analogue equipment. And Pacuvia doesn't seem to be quite so helpless either...
The game is available for C64, Amiga, MS-DOS and Tandy M100. The Amiga version requires 512Kb RAM and Kickstart 1.3.
As Misciagna writes, he suddenly realised during the 2020 Corona Lockdown that he had never written a video game before. He has been following and commenting on audio-visual art all his life. His bachelor thesis in 2020 was an academic study on video games. In the same year, he launched his website Lucasdelirium, dedicated to LucasArts adventure games. Moreover, since he had been playing computer games since childhood, it was time to write one himself. And the result is this text adventure. (dr)
[News message: 17. Dec. 2022, 06:08] [Comments: 0]
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16.Dec.2022
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Blog: Review of RadeonHD V5 driver with a X1000
While 'Epsilon' had taken a look back at 40 years of English-language Amiga magazine history in his blog "Epsilon's World" two days ago, he now devotes himself to his AmigaOne X1000 and AmigaOS 4: Thus he acquired the latest Enhancer Software 2.2, the new RadeonHD V5 driver and finally the latest version of DvPlayer in order to test all this on his AmigaOne X1000 under his previous graphics card Southern Island's R7 250X, as well as a newly acquired Radeon HD R9 ASUS 270X PCI-E. (dr)
[News message: 16. Dec. 2022, 20:03] [Comments: 0]
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16.Dec.2022
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MorphOS: Sixth beta version of TinyGL
MorphOS team developer Mark 'Bigfoot' Olsen had offered a bounty project for improved OpenGL support as well as drivers for more Radeon graphics cards under the title link, which has been successfully funded (amiga-news.de reported). Now the developer has released the sixth public beta version of his TinyGL update. He wrote:
"The main change in this update is the completion of project 1: Implement the fixed-function OpenGL pipeline as shaders. This change fixes a variety of rendering problems in various apps and games on hardware that currently supports shaders, meaning R300 and newer.
Unfortunately there are a couple of known regressions in this update as well, but at this point they've reached a number and severity that is low enough that I didn't want to hold off this update any longer before getting it out to you all.
The known problems all affect R300 and newer hardware and are:
- Virtual Grand Prix 2 runs noticeably slower than before, and the rear view mirrors no longer render correctly.
- FooBillard has rendering glitches it didn't have before. However this update also does fix some rendering issues that were previously broken, so this one is a mixed bag.
- Descent Freespace is completely broken.
- Reportedly there's an issue with the plasma blanker, but I'm not entirely sure of the details at this point.
I will probably release one more TinyGL update this year that hopefully addresses all of the above, plus any other regressions that might be reported by you." (dr)
[News message: 16. Dec. 2022, 18:00] [Comments: 0]
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16.Dec.2022
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Kickstarter camaign: Checkmate 19" IPS Retro Monitor successfully financed
Just three days ago, it did not look as if the Kickstarter campaign to finance the Checkmate 19" IPS Retro Monitor could be successfully completed with 138.938 of the required 239.785 Euro paid at that time. Now, about two days before the end of the campaign, 248.781 euros have been received, and the goal has thus been exceeded. (dr)
[News message: 16. Dec. 2022, 09:30] [Comments: 0]
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16.Dec.2022
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Boing Attitude: Interview with John Girvin (NIVRIG GAMES)
Boing Attitude, publisher of the quiz game Ask Me Up XXL and the file manager Dir Me Up, among others, published the fourth issue of the French print magazine "BOING" at the beginning of July. Among other things, it contained an interview with John Girvin, the developer of games like Turbo Santa (Deluxe) or Turbo Tomato, which is now available under the title link.
(dr)
[News message: 16. Dec. 2022, 09:01] [Comments: 0]
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16.Dec.2022
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Advent Calendar: Door 16 - Günter Bartsch
The 16th Advent calendar door is opened and we look forward to an anecdote Günter Bartsch.
At the end of August 2021, the developer had not only published the source code of his Amiga QuickBasic (AQB) compiler on GitHub, but also a first early version 0.7.0 and aroused great interest in the comments to our corresponding news item. With AQB, the author wants to provide a "modern, clean, OS-compliant and future-proof BASIC. An important feature of AQB are the modules: AQB has only relatively few built-in commands, but a - also syntactically - quite powerful module concept. The modules can be implemented fully transparently in BASIC (AQB) or also in C (GCC) or even mixed; AQB is fully link-compatible with GCC.
As the developer further explains, it should be possible to give AQB different "personalities" - currently only _aqb is implemented, which is intended as a default dialect and is oriented towards AmigaBASIC, QuickBASIC and FreeBASIC. But it should also be possible to give AQB a GFA, Blitz or Amos personality, for example. In general, the focus of AQB (at the moment) would be on system-compliant application development.
With version 0.8.0 he then introduced a source level debugger and since the last, current version 0.8.2 there are now instructions and functions for sound output, new tutorials and also a simple music demo programs.
Even though almost a year has passed since the last version, Günter continues to work on his project. As he tells us, there have already been quite a lot of further developments, which he "only" needs to finally bring into a release-ready state. We keep our fingers crossed for this and for the further development of his project and look forward to many more exciting discussions about it here. His anecdote or, in this case, short story :)
"The year is 1988. At the beginning of the year an event occurred that would
change my life forever: I had gotten an Amiga 500 for my birthday. Ever since
I had watched an episode of "ARD Computerzeit" on public TV in which the Amiga
was introduced I knew: I want that computer and no other. At that time (I was
12) my funds were very limited - but at some point my parents had had enough of
my whining so they fulfilled my wish.
Driven by a lot of euphoria and even more childish naivety and curiosity I had
spent every free minute of the year (and also many minutes in which I was
supposed to do other things) with this dream computer (I still couldn't really
wrap my head around the fact that now one of these actually was sitting in my
bedroom).
A lot of people would probably imagine that I mainly wanted to play games on
the Amiga - but that wasn't the case. In fact I didn't have any games for it
and being a true geek with no friends the temptation to drift into the gaming
world through private backup copies was rather small.
Instead, I did with the new computer what I had done - again in the absence of
other software - with my Commodore Plus/4 which I owned before the Amiga: I
wrote programs in BASIC. On the Amiga that meant coding in AmigaBASIC which was
supplied on the Extras disk.
Despite all the euphoria, I soon had doubts as to whether this really was the
greatest tool for the job. The execution speed of the Programs might have been
OK compared to my Plus/4, but the editor was extremely sluggish. Of course
those were thoughts that I first had never dared to say - after all, the Amiga
was the best and fastest computer in the entire universe and AmigaBASIC was the
official BASIC, which came directly from Commodore, the company where (in my
mind) those gods worked who had created this dream computer - how could there
be anything better?
Luckily I got my hands on a copy of the german magazine "Amiga Magazin". Even
though I certainly didn't understand all the articles in it, from studying it I
did learn that there were other programming environments for the Amiga that
could possibly represent an improvement over the AmigaBASIC.
And so it came about that, together with my mother, I trudged through the
Christmas-decorated downtown Stuttgart heading for department stores and
computer shops looking for a Christmas present. So I described to various
salespersons my troubles with AmigaBASIC and boldly asked them about compilers
and assemblers. Usually the last two terms confused the staff, but at least two
of them knew about the problems with AmigaBASIC so each offered their
respective in-house recommended solution for that. Luckily I had enough doubts
right there on the spot about the "True Basic" which was offered to me in the
local "Karstadt" department store that I encouraged my mother to let us try
again somewhere else. At smaller computer shop called "Schreiber Computer" I
was then offered a product called "GFA BASIC" and the saleswoman actually
succeeded in convincing both my mother as the sponsor and me as the user.
Compared to AmigaBASIC, GFA BASIC turned out to be a downright revelation -
speed, instruction set, documentation - all a difference like night and day, I
was amazed! If there were any last doubts in my mind whether this investment
was the right one (the label "Interpreter" on the box bothered me a bit, as I
much rather wanted to have a true compiler), these were finally scattered on
the day when I got my hands on a copy of the "Sonderheft 3: Basic und Spiele"
issue of "Amiga Magazin". It contained an article comparing various BASIC
implementations for the Amiga in which GFA BASIC did very well.
The first weeks with GFA BASIC were very productive indeed - all those small
sample programs from the manual worked fine, a small vocabulary training
program was implemented just as quickly as various small graphics and sound
experiments.
Accordingly, I felt well prepared and even more motivated, to tackle bigger
projects now. Among other things, I had a painting program in mind, a kind of
DeluxePaint clone in BASIC (now that I have this great programming environment,
I don't need to buy any more software, I can write everything myself - so I
thought). The beginnings of these projects were always done easily, first
successes came - opening screens and windows, drawing pixels using the mouse,
no problem.
However, as the programs grew in size, so did the number of bugs - not
surprising, I knew that even back then. However, those errors turned out to be
increasingly difficult to find: Program functions that just worked perfectly
suddenly refused to work at all, although the code in question was the same.
Yes, even the interpreter's built-in commands occasionally stopped working they
way I expected them to. I debugged deeper and deeper, wrote small test programs
- most of which worked fine - but as soon as I put the code back into my big
program, it suddenly behaved completely differently
or crashed completely.
Of course, that didn't deter me one bit - obviously there was just a lot to
learn for myself, obviously I just kept doing something wrong and that's why my
programs didn't work. I quickly realized that the commands apparently
interacted with each other in complex ways - with this insight I was then able
to solve many of my problems. "Ah, I have to first set the foreground and then
the background color, then it works" - that was the kind of discovery, which I
diligently noted in the manual.
Over time, my hypotheses, with which I tried to explain to myself the
behavior of the interpreter in particular and of the Amiga in general, grew
more and more complex. Apparently there was an enormous wealth of
secret knowledge there to discover about how these miracle machines actually worked.
Of course, such secret knowledge wasn't to be found in the manual, but could
only be acquired laboriously through many experiments and collected from many
sources. I wasn't discouraged - quite the opposite, I was fascinated by the
thought that there was apparently a mystical world to explore there and
motivated by the idea of me maybe someday too would belong to that secret
circle of people who possess this knowledge.
So, undeterred, I kept experimenting and consulted more and more literature.
"GFA BASIC 3.0 - Training for advanced users" was one of the books from which I
hoped for enlightenment. The book - published by GFA Systemtechnik GmbH
themselves, at least - actually opened up new horizons for me. Some of the
techniques in there I had never seen before, some of the commands never heard
of - that most of the example programs on the floppy that came with the book
didn't work for me unless I modified them astonished not me in the slightest.
For one, the programs I had previously typed in from books and magazines hadn't
usually worked right away either and on the other hand I was able to put all
that secret knowledge I had accumulated up to that point to good use to get the
programs running - which actually was successful for most of them.
Despite all these partial successes and insights - a real breakthrough never
seemed to happen for me. My larger programs tended to stay quite brittle and
so very slowly a feeling of frustration set in.
During my literature research I came across the book "AMIGA Programming with
MODULA-2" from Markt und Technik publishing company. There was even a matching
compiler available - though only a very limited demo version - on a fish disk.
That then was once again another revelation: a true compiler, I can write real
programs like the professionals - and they even worked! Everything so clear and
structured everything does what it should, just as it says? Should something
like this be possible should there exist a world without any mystical secret
knowledge?
At that point, GFA BASIC was quickly forgotten in my life - I was fascinated by
Wirth's languages, so I spent the following years happily coding in Modula-2,
Pascal and Oberon, but that's another story.
It was then more by chance that at some point during this period I found out
what was behind my experiences with GFA BASIC: in some magazine article GFA
BASIC 3.5 was reviewed and the author casually mentioned that while the first
versions of GFA BASIC for the Amiga were quite buggy, the situation seemed to
improve with each update. GFA BASIC had errors?! This product I purchased for
money that was packaged so neatly and made by absolute professionals
could have been not perfect? Those many surprising properties that I had so
painstakingly explored could it possibly be that they were not intended at all?
I can hardly put into words what I felt when the full dimension of these
insights slowly dawned on me: I simply had never considered that a bug could
not be my mistake! What's more, probably the only mistake I had made was that I
had never sent back this software registration card that came with the box - so
I was never informed about available updates.
Well, today I like to think back to those days with a smile - those were very
important lessons I learned back then, many of them still guide me to this day.
Without the Amiga, without these programming environments - I would have never
gotten to where I am today, I am very grateful for that." (dr)
[News message: 16. Dec. 2022, 06:51] [Comments: 0]
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16.Dec.2022
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Emulator: QEMU 7.2.0 released
QEMU is an open source computer emulator and virtualizer. QEMU is able to emulate a complete computer in software without the need of hardware virtualization. So it is possible to emulate Amiga operating systems like AROS, AmigaOS or MorphOS on QEMU. This support is provided by QEMU developer Zoltan Balaton, who gives lots of tips and info on a dedicated webseite (see also our Excursion of Amiga operating systems on non-native hardware).
According to Zoltan Balaton, the now released version 7.2.0 (PowerPC related commits) contains some changes that mainly affect newer Power CPUs, but also those that affect the entire PPC emulation: for example, the command decoding has been changed to decodetree. This is a generic method of describing commands, using general code for decoding instead of the custom code used before. As the developer kindly explained to us, this can lead to better performance, but it does not have to, as Decodetree is not optimised.
Similarly, there were also some changes to the implementation of AltiVec commands that could improve their speed, but it would depend on how it was used and what the host CPU supported. He had done some tests and found that in some cases it could be a few percent faster, but it did not really make a big change. Since sam460ex does not have AltiVec, it only benefits from the PPC instruction decoding changes, he said. Emulation via pegasos2 and mac99 could be slightly better with code that uses AltiVec. However, he says it is difficult to test this with AmigaOS 4, which has no graphics driver for the graphics cards emulated by QEMU in the pegasos2 version. For tinkerers, however, he has an idea that could be tried out:
One would have to copy some drivers to get the output on pegasos2. This means that one has to edit the boot CD or an installed version (which is not so easy, but feasible). You would have to copy the kernel from the AmigaOS-pegasos2 version and update the PCIGraphics.card and siliconmotion502.chip from the sam460ex version, as he erwähnt before. You would then have to create a CD from this. (dr)
[News message: 16. Dec. 2022, 06:08] [Comments: 0]
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15.Dec.2022
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Encryption protocol: AmiSSL 5.6 (AmigaOS 3/4)
The open source encryption protocol AmiSSL has been updated to version 5.6 and contains a fix for server applications and some other minor changes. The changes in detail:
- Fixed TLS 1.3 cipher lookup failure regression on OS4.
- The improvement from v5.4 that released file locks on the OS4 libraries is now only activated with elf.library 53.35 or higher.
- Minor build changes.
Download AmigaOS 3: AmiSSL-5.6-OS3.lha (3,3 MB)
Download AmigaOS 4: AmiSSL-5.6-OS4.lha (3,1 MB)
Download SDK: AmiSSL-5.6-SDK.lha (2,3 MB) (dr)
[News message: 15. Dec. 2022, 20:51] [Comments: 0]
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15.Dec.2022
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Video: 'DarkG' from Batman Group guest at AmigaBill
In his "Replay" series on Twitch.tv, 'AmigaBill' had 'DarkG', a member of the Batman Group, as a guest three days ago and talked to him about the recently released demo Batman Rises. (dr)
[News message: 15. Dec. 2022, 12:56] [Comments: 0]
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15.Dec.2022
CS-Lab website (ANF)
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Warp 560/Warp 1260: Firmware Pack 1.300
CS-Lab has released an update of the firmware for its 68060-based Warp accelerator boards. Changes of Warp Firmware Pack 1.300:
- WiFi support through SANA-2 warpNET.device (you need TCP/IP stack like Roadshow or Miami)
- Separate driver for onboard IDE (warpATA.device)
- Added direct-scsi mode support for warpSD.device and warpUSBDisk.device
- P96 RTG driver fix of WHDLoad "freeze" issues
- Updated WarpDiag and WarpTool tools
- Included firmware for Warp1240 model
- Lots of other minor fixes
(dr)
[News message: 15. Dec. 2022, 06:55] [Comments: 0]
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15.Dec.2022
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Advent Calendar: Door 15 - Dennis Pauler
We open the 15th advent calendar door and welcome Dennis 'Hurrican' Pauler from Virtual Dimension.
Virtual Dimension can look back on a long history and has incredibly changed and gained versatility over the years: In 1991 the group around Dennis Pauler was founded and focused on programming demos - for example the Red Sky BBS Intro - and games until 1999: so they released "Walls - The 97-Edition" in 1998 and "Othello - Das virtuelle Brettspiel" in 1999 , both to be found on their home page.
At the beginning of 1999 parts of the Virtual Dimension team participate as editors in the German magazine "Amiga Fever", which was discontinued after only four issues and integrated into amigaOS. Likewise the content support of the website was discontinued from the year 2002. Dennis' call to the readers which can be read there "better get involved...send a news message to a news site..." we can only support and is possible via Amiga News Feed at any time.
From 1999 onwards, the "On site" (German) series initially concentrated on trade fair videos - for example on the World of Amiga 2000 - before audio books and dubbing work were added. Over time, many more video series were added.
But also the programming of (Amiga)games has been rediscovered: Dennis works himself (again) into C-programming and develops the game "Danger Dennis" in the series "Coding with Dennis" (German). Not only for this, but also for all further projects we wish Virtual Dimension good luck and are now looking forward to Dennis' story:
Backed the wrong horse?
My friends and I already got thrilled at the age of 11. We no longer wanted to just PLAY computer games, we wanted to DEVELOP them ourselves. But all beginnings are difficult. After moderately successful experiments with Basic on the C64 and AmigaBasic on the Amiga, we were looking for ways to get more out of our computers. A short excursion into Amiga programming with C based on a course from the magazine AmigaPlus didn't lead to the goal either, because the course ended after a few relaxation exercises where it could have become interesting. We lacked the contacts, the books and probably the imagination how we could have developed our skills. That the way was much more complicated than we thought at that time, I should realize more than 20 years later, when I finally opened the chapter "Programming C for the Amiga" again.
Ambitious but slightly frustrated, after experimenting with shell scripts and the RedSector Demomaker, we finally stumbled upon a programming environment that promised what we had hoped for. We're talking about "AMOS - The Creator", and our goal of finally developing decent games ourselves was within reach.
The year was 1994 and the conditions could not have been better. Under the name "Virtual Dimension" a cool troop had come together to make their dream of game development come true. AMOS - first in the basic version, then in the Pro version - enabled fast development progress with background graphics, bobs and music. And our platform was THE game machine: the Amiga, which had just received a contemporary upgrade with the AGA computers and could at least keep up with the PCs in terms of price/performance. We worked on several games at the same time, shared the work and met several times a week for joint development sessions with pair programming.
At the same time, we tentatively began to network with the net community, downloading the latest tools and demos from mailboxes, writing our first emails, and discussing important questions on Usenet such as "Does Warp 9.9 period = Warp 10?"
When the news of the bankruptcy of Commodore, the parent company of the Amiga, reached us, we were initially unmoved. After all, optimism was spread in the computer magazines that a financially strong buyer would soon be found (Samsung, for example, was being discussed) and that the race to catch up with the PC would then be all the faster. But the more months went by without any positive news, the greater our worries became.
First of all, however, we did everything we could to get our first game ready. In autumn 1994, the time had finally come and "Walls", a game fiercely inspired by "Breakout" and "Arkanoid", was ready for release. Unlike our previous programming attempts, which had rarely seen disks other than our own, "Walls" was included by no less than three public domain series (Spielekiste, German Games and Nordlicht-PD) in their programme. The Amiga magazine reported on our game in a small section and one day there were even unannounced fans at the door and the slightly overwhelmed Dennis.
Meanwhile, the rumour mill on Usenet was bubbling over the future of the Amiga. Commodore UK had taken over the Amiga rights in a "management buyout" and would soon bring a new computer onto the market with the Amiga 1300 CD, it was said. This soon turned out to be a hoax, but through David Pleasance's stories we now know that it almost came true.
A group of fans did not want to wait any longer and decided to replace the AmigaOS with a new open source implementation and port it to the PC. The Amiga Replacement OS - AROS for short - as it was called at the beginning, was born.
There was movement in the scene, but time passed and more and more users and developers left the Amiga. If a buyer wasn't found soon who could save the sinking ship, our beloved computer would lose its connection to the PC world for good. The song "Final Countdown" by Europe took on a whole new meaning for me during this time.
One year after the Commodore bankruptcy, a buyer was finally found in the form of Escom, but the hoped-for new start turned out to be much weaker than hoped for. The Amiga 1200, now three years old, was produced again, but without a turbo card, memory expansion and hard disk, no one could be impressed with it in 1995. New computers were announced, but before a new Amiga had made it to the shop counter, Escom had also gone bankrupt and the dithering began again.
So had we backed the wrong horse in choosing the Amiga as a platform for a game development ambition? Yes and no. The three more games that we finally published for the Amiga in 1998 - all written with AMOS - achieved many thousands of downloads from our website, which had been set up in the meantime. But we had finally lost touch with modern game development.
In retrospect, this was certainly not the worst thing that could have happened to us, considering the poor working conditions that still prevail in the games industry today. We then took our professional careers in other directions, even though the thought of developing our own games would never completely fade from our minds.
At the beginning of the 2000s, the Amiga seemed to be history, despite all attempts to breathe new life into the platform with the help of the PowerPC processor. But like us, many others were to remember the time with the Amiga fondly and so, from 2013 onwards, new - also commercial - games for our old friend slowly appeared again. Thanks to the internet, we were able to make contact with many other Amiga fans and finally got back to the old idea of developing our own games for the Amiga. Of course, we don't have as much time as we did when we were students, so the journey is slow. But the conspiratorial community that just won't let the old computer die has given us a home and, despite everything, doesn't let us lose sight of the goal - and this time, even really with the programming language C!
But that's another story... (dr)
[News message: 15. Dec. 2022, 06:49] [Comments: 0]
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14.Dec.2022
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Advent Calendar: Door 14 - Erik Hogan
Today's Advent calendar door belongs to the game developer Erik 'earok' Hogan.
Of course, the game construction kit "Scorpion Engine", which we first reported on in April 2020 and which he developed and continues to develop, immediately comes to mind. It would probably fill a separate article to list all the games that use his engine, many of which are still in development (for example, "Creeping Me Out Hex Night"). But here are a few examples:
A developer has just started his conversion of the action game "Trojan", published in 1986, on the basis of the Scorpion Engine and has published a first preview video for it.
But Hogan himself also logically uses his engine to develop (demo) games: for example, the adaptation of the C64 classic "Raid Over Moscow", the jump'n run "Monkey Ladd" or the platform game "Super-Go-Down-The-Hole".
On his Patreon page he provides information about new releases and games. Thank you Erik. We look forward to many more exciting game projects! His anecdote:
"In English, we've borrowed the word "strafe" (as in, a plane "strafing" or attacking ground targets, itself derived from the old expression "gott strafe England" or "god punish England") to denote sideways movement in first person shooters.
I was working on a game that, while not a first person shooter, was an educational title played from the first person.
When testing, I went to use the standard A or D keys for sideways movement in the game, and realised they did nothing. Since most young gamers would expect those keys to activate sideways movement (games such as Minecraft do), I added a simple item to the project todo list that simply said "strafe".
A little while later, the project manager - who is from Germany and is passionate about educational games but isn't a hardcore gamer themselves - told me at a meeting that they were very confused that, according to my todo list, I apparently wanted to punish someone." (dr)
[News message: 14. Dec. 2022, 11:28] [Comments: 0]
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14.Dec.2022
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Linux: Kernel 6.1 for AmigaOne X1000/X5000
Right after the release of the Linux kernel 6.1, Christian 'xeno74' Zigotzky has compiled it for AmigaOne X1000 and X5000 and offered the kernel for download in the associated discussion topic of the Hyperion forum. There you can also find a screenshot showing the Debian distribution using the current kernel. (dr)
[News message: 14. Dec. 2022, 09:38] [Comments: 0]
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14.Dec.2022
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Preview video: Super Metal Hero
At the beginning of 2020, Raster Wizards announced the game "Super Metal Hero". After development was frozen in favour of the game Hyper Runner, work is now resumed. A new preview video shows the first final boss: first draft, revised version. (dr)
[News message: 14. Dec. 2022, 06:56] [Comments: 0]
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14.Dec.2022
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AmigaGuide magazine: Issue 8 of "WhatIFF?" published
"WhatIFF?" is an English Amiga magazine in AmigaGuide format. Unlike other magazines or journals, WhatIFF? does not deal with games, but is primarily intended for users who want to work creatively with their Amigas (amiga-news.de reported).
Now issue 8 was published containing the following articles:
Reviews
- Dell LED 15Khz Monitor
- A1200.net Translucent Case
- RNOEffects
- Aminet Short Reviews
Guides
- Watch YouTube Videos on your AGA Amiga Part 1
- LightWave 101 - Starfield
- Brilliance 101 - Reflections
- Storage Solutions
Articles
- A Look Back At 2022
- American Magazines
- First LD Computer?
Interviews
- PixelVixen
- Anthony (The Amiga Show)
(dr)
[News message: 14. Dec. 2022, 06:07] [Comments: 0]
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14.Dec.2022
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Blog: Review of English Amiga print magazines
In his latest blog entry of his "Epsilon's World" Epsilon gives a review of English-language Amiga magazines of the last 40 years, as usually detailed and and with numerous pictures. He himself had decided to get one copy of each English-language Amiga magazine, with at least one issue per year, covering the entire period from 1985 to 2022. He came across 44 different English-language Amiga magazines in the process. (dr)
[News message: 14. Dec. 2022, 06:02] [Comments: 0]
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