20.Jul.2022
Amigaworld.net (forum)
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Mai Logic: Research on the company history published (Update)
The PowerPC computers "AmigaOne" by Eyetech and "Pegasos (I)" by bplan used the northbridge "Articia S" by Mai Logic, whose defectiveness made it more widely known in Amiga circles. In the forum of Amigaworld.net Michael 'RTK0103' Coe has linked at the title link the results of his research on later allegations of the former Mai Logic CEO Jason Hue about Chinese industrial espionage, which according to him are not true.
Those interested in such details surrounding actual Amiga history will find there especially information about the company history of Mai Logic, formerly Mentor Arc.
Update: (08:00, 24.07.22, snx)
Link regarding "defectiveness" changed to English version of our news-item, after exchanging the Moobunny link there by its copy at Archive.org. (snx)
[News message: 20. Jul. 2022, 09:46] [Comments: 1 - 24. Jul. 2022, 08:04]
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18.Jul.2022
Alinea Computer (ANF)
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Amega 32: use Mega Drive gamepads on Amiga and CD32
Press release: Alinea Computer is pleased to introduce the Amega 32 adapter. The Amega 32 is an adapter for the AmigaCD 32 to use SEGA Mega Drive gamepads (DB9) with 6 or 3 buttons. The adapter supports the full CD32 gamepad assignment. Of course, the adapter can also be used with other Amigas, if games there support the gamepad assignment. In addition, it is possible to change the assignment of the adapter via the firmware.
System requirements:
- AmigaCD 32 or other Amiga
- 3 or 6 Button SEGA Mega Drive gamepad/controller (DB9)
(cg)
[News message: 18. Jul. 2022, 23:18] [Comments: 0]
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17.Jul.2022
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Aminet uploads until 16.07.2022
The following files have been added until 16.07.2022 to Aminet:
MUIbase-4.5.lha biz/dbase 7.7M Programmable relational datab...
HomeBank_beta.lha biz/misc 109K 68k Free MUI personal accounts ma...
PlanetR.lha demo/intro 187K 68k Planet R invitation to Revisi...
evo.lha dev/e 639K 68k E-VO: Amiga E Evolution
Kwiz2.lha game/2play 72K 68k A Blockbusters-style quiz game
ScummVM_AGA_060.lha game/misc 8.0M 68k Amiga port of ScummVM 1.9.0
ScummVM_RTG.lha game/misc 8.0M 68k Amiga port of ScummVM 1.9.0
AmiVms.lha misc/emu 3.3M 68k Simulates OpenVMS commands
NoJob.mp3 mods/mpg 4.1M A motif made by Stefano Maria...
hippoplayerupdate.lha mus/play 315K 68k Updated HippoPlayer
nextvi.lha text/edit 173K MOS Next vi clone
Avalanche_FR.lha util/arc 7K French catalog for Avalanche 1.6
AnalogClock.lha util/time 39K 68k Resizeable analog transparent...
wet_update.lha util/wb 289K AOS Wet weather info patch to v6.9
(snx)
[News message: 17. Jul. 2022, 09:22] [Comments: 0]
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17.Jul.2022
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OS4Depot uploads until 16.07.2022
The following files have been added until 16.07.2022 to OS4Depot:
seq.lha aud/mis 421kb 4.0 MIDI sequencer
amiarcadia.lha emu/gam 5Mb 4.0 Signetics-based machines emulator
powerpacker_library.lha lib/mis 40kb 4.0 recreation of powerpacker.librar...
fonttester.lha uti/tex 2Mb 4.0 Tool to test the fonts installed...
ppmore2tool.lha uti/tex 16kb 4.0 Unpack powerpacked text files, a...
wet_update.lha uti/wor 289kb 4.0 Wet weather software v6.9 patch
amitube.lha vid/pla 1Mb 4.0 Direct stream and download YouTu...
(snx)
[News message: 17. Jul. 2022, 09:22] [Comments: 0]
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17.Jul.2022
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AROS Archives uploads until 16.07.2022
The following files have been added until 16.07.2022 to AROS Archives:
mirrormagic.i386-aros.zip gam/puz 1Mb A game like "Deflektor"...
rnoeffects_icons.lha gra/ico 5kb Icon for program RNOEffects
muibase-4.5.lha off/dat 8Mb Programmable relational database
fonttester.lha uti/tex 2Mb Test the fonts installed in your...
(snx)
[News message: 17. Jul. 2022, 09:22] [Comments: 0]
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17.Jul.2022
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MorphOS-Storage uploads until 16.07.2022
The following files have been added until 16.07.2022 to MorphOS-Storage:
Kulki_1.1.lha Games/Think Puzzle game
AmiTube_1.2.lha Multimedia The first YouTube Clien...
MUIbase_4.5.lha Office/Database Programmable relational...
FontTester_1.20.lha Office/Show Font Tester
(snx)
[News message: 17. Jul. 2022, 09:22] [Comments: 0]
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17.Jul.2022
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WHDLoad: New installers until 16.07.2022
Using WHDLoad, games, scene demos and intros by cracking groups, which were originally designed to run only from floppy disks, can be installed on harddisk. The following installers have been added until 16.07.2022:
- 2022-07-15 improved: Cadaver (Imageworks/Bitmap Brothers) use fast memory, joypad controls, sound/scrolling fixed, buttonwait support added (Info)
- 2022-07-13 fixed: Bar Games (Accolade) Air Hockey was broken, install script updated (Info)
- 2022-07-11 improved: Castle Master (Incentive Software/Domark) supports more versions, splash control added, speed regulation, 68000 quitkey (Info)
- 2022-07-11 improved: 7 Cities Of Gold (Ozark Softscape/Electronic Arts) fixed install script (Info)
(snx)
[News message: 17. Jul. 2022, 09:22] [Comments: 0]
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17.Jul.2022
Amiga Future (website)
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AmigaRemix: Further files added
AmigaRemix collects remixes of well-known soundtracks of Amiga games. Since our last news-item, the following mp3 files have been added:
- Space Harrier (NAPAPBWPMIF Mix)
- A Prehistoric Tale - Main Theme (Live performance)
- Red Sector-Theme (Electric Revenge Live Performance)
- Beyond the Ice Palace
- Another World Intro Remix
- Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 (Nitrous Remix)
- Ninja Remix - Kabadachi Mix
(snx)
[News message: 17. Jul. 2022, 09:22] [Comments: 0]
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17.Jul.2022
Amiga Future (Webseite)
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RCross: Radio-controlled car game from developer contest ported
Last year, the developer competition #hvdosdev2021 was won by the PC game "RCross", which requires an 80486 processor with 8 MB RAM. In it, you control a radio-controlled car that has to complete a course in the best possible time.
The Amiga port by Szilárd 'BSzili' Biró requires a 68040 or 68060 processor with FPU, 8 MB Fast-RAM and either AGA or RTG. (snx)
[News message: 17. Jul. 2022, 09:22] [Comments: 0]
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15.Jul.2022
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Amiga E Compiler: E-VO 3.5.0
E-VO Amiga E Compiler is a derivative of the original Amiga E compiler written by Wouter van Oortmerssen. It adds many new features, bug fixes and optimisations including object UNIONs, string merging, non word-aligned objects and many more.
This version 3.5.0 brings in many of the features from the creativE E compiler and also adds many new features unique to E-VO as well. (dr)
[News message: 15. Jul. 2022, 08:59] [Comments: 0]
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15.Jul.2022
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Event: 30th Assembly Summer 2022 in Helsinki
The demo party "Assembly" has been held since 1992 and thus celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. From August 4 to 7 at the Messukeskus exhibition center in Helsinki, there will be various demo competitions, including the Oldskool competition, in addition to various program items such as demo demonstrations, gaming and e-sports. (dr)
[News message: 15. Jul. 2022, 07:26] [Comments: 0]
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15.Jul.2022
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Floppy disk images on PC and Mac: Greaseweazle Tools 1.0
Keir Fraser's "Greaseweazle" does - similar to Kryoflux - read the magnetic information on a floppy disk independently from the format used and saves as much information as possible to generate a so-called "Flux Level Image" in Supercard format (SCP), which enables reading and back-writing of copy-protected disks (amiga-news.de reported)
The adapter gets connected between a floppy disk drive - e.g. a standard 3.5" PC one - and a USB port of the PC or Mac. Few weeks ago, version 1.0 of the Greaseweazle Tools was released providing the following changes:
- New IMG formats:
- ibm.1680, ibm.dmf
- akai.800, akai.1600
- ensoniq.800, ensoniq.1600
- FM/MFM: Report unexpected sectors when reading
- Gives a hint that the format specifier is incorrect
- Minor bugfixes
The Greaseweazle is available from various retailers. (dr)
[News message: 15. Jul. 2022, 06:27] [Comments: 0]
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14.Jul.2022
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Weather tool: Wet 6.9 for AmigaOS 3 and 4
Chris Young - among others http-handler, ReAction-GUI for XAD Avalanche or Netsurf ports - has released an update for his weather tool 'Wet', which now requires AmiSSL 5. The new version now can better handle connection problems. The update requires a previous installation of version 6.7. Wet is available for AmigaOS 3.9 and 4.
You can support the developer on his Ko-fi page. (dr)
[News message: 14. Jul. 2022, 09:44] [Comments: 0]
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14.Jul.2022
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Preview video: Temptations port for CD32
The developer 'S0Y' is primarily dedicated to converting games to the Amiga platform using the game construction kit RedPill. After his Abu Simbel Profanation project, he has now begun the conversion of Temptations, a platform game originally published for MSX-1 in 1988. The basis for this, however, is a port for Android. With the author's permission, he uses graphics and music, but modifies some of them.
The music will be entirely in CD audio, as he plans to convert the game for the Amiga CD32. But if someone can be found to convert the music into mods, he might also create a version for the Amiga 1200. Basically, the goal is to create a conversion that is as faithful to the original as possible, but uses the improved possibilities of the Amiga. The screen mode seen in the video was chosen because it comes closest to the 8-bit variant. (dr)
[News message: 14. Jul. 2022, 08:14] [Comments: 0]
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14.Jul.2022
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Bluetooth for the Amiga: Unijoysticle 2 A500
Ricardo Quesada is a software developer for different platforms in different languages. A few days ago he presented an update to his Unijoysticle 2+ project under the title link: The 'Unijoysticle 2 A500' is a device that allows the connection and operation of Bluetooth gamepads and mice on the Commodore Amiga (YouTube video).
It is similar in functionality to the Unijoysticle 2+, but with some additional features tailored for the Amiga, like:
- Fits in the Amiga 500 / 1200 joystick port without additional cables
- New buttons:
- “mode” button: To easily cycle between “normal”, “mouse” and “enhanced” modes
- “swap” button: To easily swap joystick ports. Useful in many scenarios, specially in the Amiga 4000 where the joystick ports are swapped.
- Additional LED for status: Tells whether Bluetooth pair is enabled, and in which gamepad mode is selected.
Comprehensive information is also available on the User Guide page. The board is available for 35 Euro plus shipping at tindie. (dr)
[News message: 14. Jul. 2022, 07:04] [Comments: 0]
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13.Jul.2022
Gunnar von Boehn
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Apollo-Team: Manticore accelerator board for Amiga 600 announced
In addition to the currently already available turbo cards FireBird (for the Amiga models 500, 1000 and 2000) and IceDrake (for the Amiga 1200), which are based on the core of the Vampire 4 (amiga-news.de reported) the Manticore for the Amiga 600 is now announced under the title link.
The accelerator board has the following features:
- CPU: Apollo 68080 AMMX with 64-bit support
- 3D Support: Via the Exclusive Amiga Maggie3D Unit
- Memory: 512 MB DDR3
- With AGA support and you can enable up to 12 MB chipmem
- Video: SuperAGA, RTG, Truecolor 32-bit, 1280x720
- Audio: 8/16-bit, 56 kHz, 24-bit mixing, 8 Amiga DMA audio voices
- FastIDE controller (CompactFlash), Idespeed=up to 20 MB/sec
- 2x USB port for USB joypad support (as CD32 pad) and USB Mouse
- 100Mbit Ethernet RJ45 port
- Digital Audio/Video out
- microSD card port (for data exchange)
The board is supposed to be available at the Amiga37. (dr)
[News message: 13. Jul. 2022, 19:58] [Comments: 0]
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13.Jul.2022
George Sokianos
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Relaunch: Skin and Wallpaper archive Amiga-Look.org
Amiga-Look is intended to offer the user a central point of contact for everything he needs to embellish his workbench: Pictograms, themes and background images, but also MUI settings or mouse pointers. The site was last revised in January 2010. In the last few days, George Sokianos has dedicated himself to his site again and writes about the relaunch:
"I am delighted to inform you all that in the last few days I was working on my Amiga-Look website getting a refreshing update. I was waiting for this moment for a long time. After a few years when I kept this website almost disabled, I decided to update it and refactor it completely.
Amiga-Look is one of the first websites I created back in 2007, dedicated to the Amiga community. Here you can find themes, skins, icons and much more content of artwork for our Amiga systems. The goal is to help you beautify your Workbench and also have a place where people can share their creations.
This updated version of Amiga-Look adds a lot more security for all the users, has a responsive fresh look, is super fast and works fine with our AmigaOS web browsers without making your system crawl. No content is lost and all the accounts are still there, so go ahead, log in and upload your new creations.
If in any case, your password doesn't work, try to reset it and follow the email instructions. In case you need more help, please use the contact form at the bottom of the page and get in contact.
Amiga-Look is also a no-trackers website, since no external websites, analytics and sources are used. Also, I enforced the secure connection using the SSL protocol. So, your privacy is truly respected when you visit my little site." (dr)
[News message: 13. Jul. 2022, 16:23] [Comments: 0]
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13.Jul.2022
Kevin Saunders
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Apollo-Team: Two other games announced
Kevin Saunders, graphic designer, artist and game designer (e.g. Boss Machine and RESHOOT PROXIMA 3) has given a taste of two games that are each being developed in collaboration with the Apollo team in two blog posts on Patreon:
Work has already begun on Apollo-X - Red Dwarf Star. The shooter, reminiscent of Xenon II in terms of gameplay style, is said to have much smoother action and better gameplay. In the included two-player mode, players will have the option to take different paths. Other features:
- Resolution: 640 x 360
- Colour Depth: 16bit, kann aber auf 256 Farben reduziert werden
- 3-4 Parallax layers. (each layer having up to 256 colours but keeping that nice pixelartstyle)
- Supports for both V4 and V2, With V4 providing extra features like stereo positioned audio, e.g. explosion sound position
In addition, work will soon begin on a remake of Mutant Monty (YouTube video of C64 version). As Kevin Saunders writes, he actually started working on the fantasy action game, originally available for 8-bit computers, back in 2001 when he had the idea to port 8bit games to the Amiga. Even though the Apollo team will start the development for the Vampire cards, he is happy to provide assets to interested developers for a conversion to AmigaOS 3. (dr)
[News message: 13. Jul. 2022, 12:58] [Comments: 0]
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13.Jul.2022
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Event: AmiWest 2022 (20.-24. October in Sacramento, USA)
From October 20-24, 2022, the 25th AmiWest will be held at the Holiday Inn Express in Sacramento, California, as a combined online and in-person event. According to the event's latest blog post, the multicore capability of AmigaOS 4 will be showcased by the ExecSG team at the show. Steven Solie, development manager of ExecSG, will be available for questions afterwards. (dr)
[News message: 13. Jul. 2022, 06:38] [Comments: 0]
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12.Jul.2022
Mirandor (ANF)
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Word processing: Beta testers for Finalwriter wanted
In mid-February we last published an article about the current state of development of FinalWriter. And the work on the word processor is going on: Timothy "Terminills" Deters is currently looking for beta testers for AROS 68K and ApolloOS. If you are interested, please contact him via the contact form on the website that has already been set up especially for the project. (dr)
[News message: 12. Jul. 2022, 07:08] [Comments: 0]
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12.Jul.2022
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Interview: MorphOS developer Jacek Piszczek
Many of our readers know Jacek Piszczek by his browser Wayfarer, first released in early October 2020, and his email program Iris, first beta version released at the end of March 2018, both for MorphOS.
But the developer has been active for MorphOS for much longer: the first mention of him in our database is in a news item about VirusExecutor 2.24 from July 2002, in which he is mentioned as the author of ReqAttack. With his transparent digital clock TranspoClock from December 2003, he is recorded on our website for the first time with an independent news item. High time to find out a bit more about this busy developer and talk about past and current projects.
Amiga-News (AN): Dear Jacek, thank you very much for taking the time for this interview. Tell us three key facts that the reader needs to know about you.
Jacek Piszczek (JP): Hello. Jacek Piszczek, 39yo and an Amiga users since 1996.
AN: Since you develop for the MorphOS operating system: what hardware do you use for it? And: do you use MorphOS as your main system?
JP: The three main systems would be a 2.3GHz PCIE G5, a 17'' 1.67Ghz PowerBook upgraded to a FullHD panel and a silent upgrade Mac mini. I have several more spares, but those three are the ones I do all testing and a lot of development work with. I especially love the PowerBook. As for the main system: how do we even define that these days? I use MorphOS in the evenings (unless I'm playing games), Windows for work and macOS on my PC. Since WebKit is pretty demanding, I'm using XCode and a Debian VM cross-compiler to build Wayfarer, but I try to do all the other MorphOS work on either the G5 or a PowerBook. Luckily Iris just links against pre-compiled WebKit binaries so I can work on it on MorphOS.
AN: Our readers know you as the developer of the MorphOS applications Iris and Wayfarer. But can you tell us how you got into retro systems in general? Even as a "simple user"? Were you focused on MorphOS from the beginning?
JP: They weren't retro yet when I've started playing with the Amiga. I went through an A500, then A1200/PPC which gave me a chance to learn E and C programming languages. A transition to MorphOS happened simply because that was the one available solution at the time.
AN: Did you also write software for other operating systems or only for MorphOS?
JP: I've started programming on Amiga 500 and a C64 so no, not just MorphOS. I've mostly been working as a programmer the past 20+ years and so I've had the opportunity to write code for a lot of platforms besides the Amiga.
AN: Can you remember your first (small?) project? Or did you start right away with Iris or Wayfarer?
JP: Haha, I wish I were talented enough to be able to come up with Iris as my first programming project. Seriously though, I believe my first actually usable application was a jingle player I wrote in AMOS for a high school event. Even wrote a custom self-layouting UI for it. Unfortunately the floppy with all the source code died on me later on...
AN: With your browser Wayfarer and your e-mail program Iris you gave MorphOS two programs that have a unique selling point among Amiga systems and don't need to hide from comparable programs under Windows and Co. What do you love more and why?
JP: My heart would be with Iris since there's a lot more of my own code in it. It was also the application that forced me to look for something to bridge a gap between modern programming techniques and MUI. After several weeks of researching various options I've started experimenting with Objective-C on MorphOS and ended up writing the two objc frameworks most of my MorphOS applications use these days. Without this step I'm afraid neither Iris nor Wayfarer would have been possible, at least not without major compromises.
AN: It's pretty incredible that one person can handle these two big projects. How much time do you spend on it in a week? And: is it fun? Or is it also a chore? Was there a time when you thought: This is getting too much for me, I'm quitting?
JP: I would say realistically I put about 15-20h a week into MorphOS and all of that is basically programming. But that's on weeks where I actually feel like it :) As for fun vs obligation I guess it's a bit of both. I like challenges but some debugging sessions can often feel like too much. The nastiest bugs I've had to solve in Wayfarer took weeks to figure out. Weeks of putting 2-3h into it every day. After that you just want to take a break, especially when essentially doing debugging work at my day job too...
AN: Is the combination "Jacek - MorphOS" a 'special case' or is it conceivable that also a single person writes a browser for AmigaOS 4?
JP: It's certainly possible to do it as a one person project, since it's been proven with other browsers we've had in the past (Sputnik, Odyssey). You do need someone who knows what he is doing, knows the OS he is dealing with (and is able to diagnose and fix bugs in the OS while at it).
To be fair, I did have quite a bit of help from Piru, especially in the early stages. He's helped with a lot of the compiler and OS issues like fixing phreads.
Still, you need person(s) who will put hundreds of hours of hard work into getting this done with no expectancy of getting paid (or getting paid the rates programmers at the required level would expect).
AN: Are you also - at least a little - familiar with AmigaOS 3 and 4? If so, can you explain if writing a mail program and a browser for MorphOS is easier than for the other two? And why? Or why not?
JP: MorphOS makes it easier because of all the work we've been putting into the system updates. Sometimes adding a seemingly small debugging feature to the OS can have a great impact on a browser project. Or Unicode support. Or a Notifications system. All of those things come together and make an impact when porting a huge project like WebKit. Yes, you could pack almost everything into the browser, but that'd make it a lot more work and wouldn't positively impact the whole OS. In that aspect, both AmigaOS 3 and 4 have stagnated long ago - for example AmigaOS 3.2 basically just re-implements things done by Haage & Partner 20 years earlier.
AN: Regarding this: I read in several forums that you would have been open to porting Wayfarer to OS4.1, but no one from A-Eon etc. approached you. That was in March 2021, has anything changed?
JP: All of my WebKit work is available to anyone on github. I don't have the time to port and then maintain another project of this magnitude so the best I could is to offer pointers to whoever wants to make his own port based on my work.
AN: Let's philosophize a little bit: Suppose the community, A-EON or whoever would donate to you for a port...What would be the result? Just the port or would you maintain it as well? And would it be based on MUI or Reaction?
JP: Making a port and then not maintaining it would mean the browser stagnating pretty quickly. A lot of major websites expect that you're up to date with what current Safari is offering, so things would start to deteriorate within a year or so. This is why I keep rebasing (updating my patches) to newer WebKit versions every couple of months (that's what results in Wayfarer's version number getting bumped).
All the really big Amiga projects use MUI, because it simply is the best UI we have from a programmer's point of view. I'm sure a ReAction version is doable, but if it means putting many extra hours of work, why bother?
AN: Mail program and browser are always a big topic in the Amiga community. Unfortunately, as a result of our research, we recently had to report that the development of the well-known mail program YAM has been discontinued. Did you notice this? Would you say that it would be easier to continue this project, e.g. by adding IMAP support? Or do you think it makes more sense to rewrite a mail program from scratch? Whereas we still have hope to see an update of SimpleMail....
JP: YAM died in 2000 when the original author stopped developing it, to be honest. I don't believe it to make sense to even try to add IMAP to it because the two protocols have a different philosophy. YAM was always about getting your mails to the folders on HDD, because that's what POP3 is really about - you are not meant to store emails on the server. IMAP is all about being able to access your mail from multiple clients at the same time. Bit hard to reconcile the two in an app that was designed for POP3.
AN: Can you describe to our readers how you got started with your mail program? Are there any ready-made program components that are open source that you were able to use for Iris? And how much time have you invested in the program so far? Can you tell? It seems that Wayfarer is the main project, but are there any plans for Iris?
JP: Iris started with Nicholai Benalal's port of libvmime. This is an open-source dual-license library that provides core mail functionality. As it is C++, the work quickly stalled since there wasn't a good way to use it without bridging it to MUI somehow. That's where Objective-C stepped in, but it actually took over a year where I could actually start working on the mail application. After that it took about three years of work to get it to a state where I'm mostly happy with it. Impossible to say how many hours I've spent on this application.
I have a roadmap for Iris and will be switching my attention to it again soon...
AN: Let's get back to hardware: recently the community funded a project initiated by Mark 'Bigfoot' Olsen to improve TinyGL (we reported). What do you think about this? Does this mean an immense boost for MorphOS? And why? What will be possible?
JP: There's certainly some exciting stuff you can do with better graphics card support, especially with shaders. I'm hoping I'll be able to use those in Enhanced Display. It'll also be interesting to see how video playback in Wayfarer may be improved with newer cards.
AN: As a developer, what do you think: is the current hardware situation satisfactory for MorphOS? On one side we have old Apple hardware, on the other very expensive new hardware (Sam, X5000). If you could choose: what would be your favorite hardware for MorphOS? x86 hardware? Is that possible in the near future?
JP: I think I'm biased because I like the PowerBook too much, but yeah, the hardware is becoming hard to buy these days. Sams are way too slow and an X5000 is both expensive and doesn't offer the performance the G5 Macs do. We'll see what happens about an AMD64 switch, I guess.
AN: About the software situation of MorphOS: what I miss at the moment is a proper word processor. Would it be possible for such an excellent developer like you to port LibreOffice or, a bit smaller, AbiWord to MorphOS? However, looking at AmigaOS 4, this seems to be a project of the century: first announced in 2012, beta testing started in 2017 and seems to last until today...
JP: LibreOffice is both huge and very, very messy. I'm no fan of cmake but I wish they used that instead of all the custom built stuff they've written. There's supposed to be a way to get it to work inside an SDL view, but it doesn't look like any platforms are actually using that. AbiWord looks a little less messier, but then it's only an editor. I want to look into one or the other, eventually, but the amount of other projects in my pipeline is already too much.
AN: Jacek, thank you very much for taking the time for this interview and, of course, keep up the good work on your projects!
If you want to support the developer, you can find a 'Donate' link on the Wayfarer and Iris project pages linked at the beginning of this interview. (dr)
[News message: 12. Jul. 2022, 06:19] [Comments: 1 - 22. Apr. 2023, 14:58]
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11.Jul.2022
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Email client: New YAM Nightly Build provides AmiSSL 5 support
At the end of May we reported that IBrowse and AmiSSL5 developer Oliver Roberts had uploaded changes to the YAM project that enable the mail programme to support the new version 5 of the AmiSSL 5 encryption protocol. Jens Maus has now merged these changes and a new Nightly Build was automatically created yesterday. Currently no further steps are planned by Oliver Robert regarding YAM. (dr)
[News message: 11. Jul. 2022, 11:41] [Comments: 0]
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11.Jul.2022
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Live-Event: Back In Time 2022 - A Musical Homage to the C64 & Amiga (Norway)
FastLoaders is a C64/Amiga remix metal band from Bergen, Norway. There, at Stereo Bar, on Friday, October 21, 2022, from 18:00 to 02:30, they will host a mini-festival dedicated to music and retro games from the golden era of Commodore 64 and Amiga. Among the musicians will be Chris Huelsbeck. Ticktes are available for around 50 Euros. (dr)
[News message: 11. Jul. 2022, 07:50] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
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Selfmade project: GottaGoFastRAMZ3 offers Zorro III FastRAM for Amiga 3000/4000
At the end of 2020 Matt Harlum had designed 'GottaGoFastRAM', an 8MB autoconfig FastRAM for A500/1000/2000 and CDTV (amiga-news.de reported). Now he has designed a memory expansion with 128MB or 256MB Z3 autoconfig FastRAM for the Amiga 3000 and 4000. (dr)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 16:31] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
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Workbench distribution: AmiKit XE 11.8.1 for the Raspberry Pi 4/400
The update to version 11.8.1 (changelog) of the workbench distribution AmiKit XE for the Raspberry Pi 4/400 single board computer contains the new version 5.3 of the Amiga emulator AmiBerry which AmiKit is based on. Besides, the WHDLoad database was updated and a notification bug of Amplifier fixed. (dr)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 10:34] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
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Let's Make an Amiga Game Tutorial 10 / Game Jam
'Prince', founder of the group 'Phaze101', streams the assembler coding course "Corso completo di programmazione assembler in due dischi" in English on Twitch and uploads the respective episodes time-delayed to YouTube (amiga-news.de reports regularly).
In another tutorial Amiga Assembly For Beginners - Lets Make a Game, Prince now explains with concrete examples how to write a game with assembler. Here the tenth part was published.
In addition, he has launched the Retro Trex Game Jam. The goal of this contest is to create an identical or original version of the well-known browser game Google Google T-Rex for a retro computer. Thanks to its simplicity, the game can be programmed by beginners on any 8/16-bit retro computer. This game jam is for fun and learning purposes only. The prize is to complete this challenge. The rules:
- any programming language is allowed
- solo developers or teams are allowed
- adapted versions are allowed, nice graphics, etc.
- no consoles / DOS / Windows / Linux / Mac or other x86 machines
At the end of the competition, there will be a live stream showing all the matches. The competition will run until September 10, 2022. (dr)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 07:50] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
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Aminet uploads until 09.07.2022
The following files have been added until 09.07.2022 to Aminet:
Guide_To_Blitz_Basic.pdf dev/blitz 6.3M 'Guide To Blitz Basic' by Nei...
REDPILLGameCreator.lha dev/misc 2.3M 68k Game Creator with AGA support
HuntingFrogsV1.adf game/2play 880K 68k 1-4 player game
labyrinth64.lha game/misc 135K 68k Remake of Commodore 64 game L...
AmiArcadia.lha misc/emu 4.5M 68k Signetics-based machines emul...
AmiArcadiaMOS.lha misc/emu 4.8M MOS Signetics-based machines emul...
AmiArcadia-OS4.lha misc/emu 5.1M OS4 Signetics-based machines emul...
NAFCYI1991S1-B24.zip text/bfont 2.8M NAFCYI Spring 1991 (BMP Fonts)
jasspa-memacs.lha text/edit 2.2M OS4 JASSPA MicroEmacs for AOS4/Am...
NAFCYI1991S1-24.zip text/pfont 1.6M NAFCYI Spring 1991 (PS Fonts)
AmiSSL-5.3-OS3.lha util/libs 3.3M 68k OpenSSL as an Amiga shared li...
AmiSSL-5.3-OS4.lha util/libs 3.1M OS4 OpenSSL as an Amiga shared li...
AmiSSL-5.3-SDK.lha util/libs 2.3M AOS OpenSSL as an Amiga shared li...
TestProgram.zip util/misc 693K 68k Versatile Amiga Test Program
InstallerLG.src.lha util/sys 1.5M Commodore Installer replacement
MorphUp.lha util/sys 481K MOS MorphOS package manager
MorphUp_source.lha util/sys 631K MorphOS package manager source
(snx)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 07:24] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
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OS4Depot uploads until 09.07.2022
The following files have been added until 09.07.2022 to OS4Depot:
amissl-sdk.lha dev/mis 2Mb 4.0 SDK for AmiSSL
amiarcadia.lha emu/gam 5Mb 4.0 Signetics-based machines emulator
amissl.lha lib/mis 3Mb 4.0 OpenSSL as an Amiga shared library
deepl.lha uti/tex 3Mb 4.0 DeepL tool / incl. sourcecode
jasspa-memacs.lha uti/tex 2Mb 4.1 JASSPA MicroEmacs under AmiCygni...
(snx)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 07:24] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
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AROS Archives uploads until 09.07.2022
The following files have been added until 09.07.2022 to AROS Archives:
friq-i386-aros.zip gam/mis 418kb Bubble shooter.
(snx)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 07:24] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
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MorphOS-Storage uploads until 09.07.2022
The following files have been added until 09.07.2022 to MorphOS-Storage:
DeTerm_1.1.lha Communication Simple terminal for debug.
MorphUp_2009.lha Network/PackageManager MorphOS package manager
MorphUp_source_2006.lha Network/PackageManager MorphOS package manager...
MouseTracker_1.3.lha System/Ambient/Commodi... Record Mouse movements ...
(snx)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 07:24] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
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WHDLoad: New installers until 09.07.2022
Using WHDLoad, games, scene demos and intros by cracking groups, which were originally designed to run only from floppy disks, can be installed on harddisk. The following installers have been added until 09.07.2022:
- 2022-07-09 improved: Grid Start (Anco) supports another versions, manual included (Info)
(snx)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 07:24] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
Amiga.org (forum)
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Video: 10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast #130 - Tsunami 1230
In its 130th issue Douglas Compton's videocast 10MARC reviews the accelerator board Tsunami 1230. (snx)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 07:24] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
Andreas Magerl (ANF)
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Print magazine: Amiga Future, issue 157
The English and German issue 157 (July/August 2022) of the print magazine Amiga Future has been distributed. It can be ordered directly from its editorial office and from Amiga dealers that stock the magazine.
Content of the current issue includes reviews about The Amiga 500 Mini, FreewayPro USB Zorro-II and MasPlayer 2022 Edition. (snx)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 07:24] [Comments: 0]
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09.Jul.2022
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AmiTube 1.2: YouTube client for all Amiga systems
Marcus 'ALB42' Sackrow's AmiTube enables watching YouTube videos on an 68k Amiga. They are converted to Commodore's CDXL format and downloaded.
With version 1.2 released today, a play list like feature, introduced some days ago, for playing the downloaded movies automatically or by random or in a loop was added (amiga-news.de reported). Additionally, AmiTube now can manage multiple move directories. Changes:
- Bugfix for fancy list text printing
- play list with wait screen
- open own directories with movies in play list
- close requester
- restore splitter position on start
- multiple movie directories via icon tooltypes
- choose default directory via menu
The current version can be downloaded from the AmiTube website or installed via the update check in AmiTube. (dr)
[News message: 09. Jul. 2022, 20:27] [Comments: 0]
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09.Jul.2022
Gaming on AmigaOS 4 (ANF)
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AmigaOS 4: First beta version of Doom 3 port
Hugues 'HunoPPC' Nouvel is in the process of porting Dhewm3 - based on the Doom 3 GPL source code, to AmigaOS 4.1 and has released a first beta version 1.5.2b1 (recent YouTube video). Requirements:
The source code is available on GitHub. (dr)
[News message: 09. Jul. 2022, 16:16] [Comments: 0]
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08.Jul.2022
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Amiga emulator for MacOS: vAmiga 2.1b4
By releasing version 2.0 (amiga-news.de reported), developer Dirk Hoffmann has started the beta phase of version 2.1 of his Amiga emulator vAmiga for MacOS and yesterday released the fourth beta version. Changes:
- Added support for ECS Denise (SuperHires modes)
macOS 10.15 or higher is required. (dr)
[News message: 08. Jul. 2022, 22:23] [Comments: 0]
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08.Jul.2022
Erik Hogan
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Game Construction Kit: Scorpion Engine V2022.5
The "Scorpion Engine" developed by Erik 'earok' Hogan allows you to develop games. The engine itself is closed source, all demos and example games are open source. The editor runs under Windows. Graphics are imported as PNG files, levels created by using the editor Tiled eingesetzt. For importing and creating sounds, music and animations the Amiga formats (mod, 8svx, anim5) are used.
A few moments ago he has relesaed version 2022.5. Among others it includes expanded control of sound tones, a new parallax demo, editor improvements for easier development, the ability to swap level backgrounds on the fly, bug fixes and more.
You can support the developer on his Patreon website. (dr)
[News message: 08. Jul. 2022, 13:16] [Comments: 0]
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08.Jul.2022
Gunnar von Boehn
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Apollo Space Invaders: Eighth developer version of the remake
Arne von Boehn is writing a Space Invaders remake in 68K assembler on a Vampire4 standalone (amiga-news.de reported). Besides a new preview video there is also a new developer version for testing.
As Gunnar explains, the game is playable, but not yet finished. Arne has now added the 2-player mode, which still needs to be refined. Likewise, work continues on the UFOs: if they were hit, extras will be dropped in the future, such as alien freeze, extra life, quick shot, quick reload, repair bunker, shield, etc. All graphics are made by Kevin Saunders. In addition, the bunker damage will be improved and drawn in more detail, as well as the sound effects refined.
The game uses true colors and runs at 60 frames per second. The Super-AGA chipset and the AMMX instruction set are required. In the end, the game should run on both the Vampire V2 and V4.
Download: ARNEINVADER8.exe (52 MB) (dr)
[News message: 08. Jul. 2022, 07:00] [Comments: 0]
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08.Jul.2022
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Programming language: AmiBlitz 3.9.4
At the end of March the new major version 3.9.0 of the programming language AmiBlitz was released. Yesterday a fourth update with bug fixes was released with version 3.9.4. Changes:
- fixed: scrolling problem with vertical slider in source window
- fixed: crash when trying to save settings from settings-window
- fixed: setting "autolayout" was not stored correctly
- fixed: bug in userlibs-loading routine that corrupted the internal libs list
- improved: rawkeylib now supports NM_WHEEL_UP/NM_WHEEL_DOWN-Events sent by WinUAE that means PED supports mousewheel without any further tools like FreeWheel
- changed: instruction browser - search for functions in includes is now switched off by default
- changed: some default settings to better values (CON:, sourcefont)
added: menu items for changing the window layouts
In addition, the documentation was revised:
- added all missing commands of windowslib to windowslib.guide
(dr)
[News message: 08. Jul. 2022, 05:53] [Comments: 0]
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07.Jul.2022
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Game Construction Kit: RedPill 0.9.11
RedPill, developed by Carlos Peris, is a game construction kit written in Amiblitz 3.9, which allows the development of games from various genres (see short tests of two Redpill games). RedPill is compatible with AGA and ECS, the "player" for playing the finished creations requires a total of 1.5 MB RAM. Jens 'Farbfinsternis' Henschel has written a tutorial which he recently updated.
Changes of version 0.9.11:
- Added new action trigger Set Cam Limits to change the bounds of camera movement.
- Refactor of some features allows to gain 14ks of memory in most games.
- Camera center now works correctly for reduced display sizes.
- EXPERIMENTAL: Support for games with only 2 and 4 colors.
- Fix for freeze after making a Build.
- Fix for the spritesheet number 9 not being exported correctly.
- For some reason it seems display was moved one pixes to the left, this has been corrected.
(dr)
[News message: 07. Jul. 2022, 17:48] [Comments: 0]
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07.Jul.2022
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Preview video: Kung Fu action 'Devil's Temple'
Devil's Temple features 10 stages of intense arcade kung fu action based on the classic Irem games Kung Fu Master and Vigilante. Over 300 frames of animation were packed into the game and every cycle of performance was used on the Amiga A500. The game will adapt to upgrades, so additional chip ram will result in better music, AGA will provide additional colors and a greater variety of enemies in the game.
Yesterday, a new preview video was released for the game in development, allowing a brief look at each of the bonus levels in Devil's Temple. These are obtained after defeating the level 3, 6 and 9 bosses and are meant to break up the action a bit.
The game is already available for pre-order as a boxed edition. Likewise, a demo version of the first stage is available on itch.io.
(dr)
[News message: 07. Jul. 2022, 13:17] [Comments: 0]
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07.Jul.2022
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Blog review: Sound card Maestro Professional
The blog 'shred.zone' presents in a detailed article the internal sound card Maestro Professional, which was distributed by the German company MacroSystem in the early 1990s. Besides the presentation of the design, the development of a corresponding driver maestix.library is also highlighted, since MacroSystem itself never released the required Amiga software. (dr)
[News message: 07. Jul. 2022, 11:48] [Comments: 0]
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07.Jul.2022
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Game: 'Hunting Frogs'
At the Swedish demo party Gubbdata!, which took place this year from July 1 to 3, the Swedish demo group Software Of Sweden presented version 1.0 of their game 'Hunting Frogs': with a frog you try to catch and eat insects here (YouTube-Video). The game is based on a 28-year-old code, can be played by up to four players and was uploaded to Aminet yesterday. (dr)
[News message: 07. Jul. 2022, 07:37] [Comments: 0]
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07.Jul.2022
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Verschlüsselungsprotokoll: AmiSSL 5.3 (AmigaOS 3/4)
Only about 14 days ago version 5.2 of the open source encryption protocol AmiSSL was released, which has now been updated to version 5.3. It is now based on OpenSSL 3.0.5, which was released just two days ago. (dr)
[News message: 07. Jul. 2022, 07:17] [Comments: 0]
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06.Jul.2022
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Video: Creating games graphics
Graphic artist Simone Bernacchia, who has designed graphics for numerous Amiga games, explains some of his designs in this talk recorded at the Commodore Los Angeles Super Show 2022. (dr)
[News message: 06. Jul. 2022, 07:15] [Comments: 0]
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06.Jul.2022
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MorphOS: MouseTracker 1.3
The team of #amigazeux has released version 1.3 of its commodity MouseTracker, which records mouse movements and clicks and can display them as realtime overlay. Changes:
- Image format for saving can now be selected and isn't limited to PNG only anymore. Formats supported through Reggae are: PNG, JPEG, TIFF, ILBM, DEEP.
- Added '%x' as placeholder for save filenames for track and heatmaps that is replaced by the approriate suffix for the set image format.
- When an overlay track/heatmap is shown it will now also mix the map with the screen on non-composited screens. Live-updates for trackmaps on non-composited screens are not done for now.
- On non-composited screens the prgress window was 'burned' into the track/heatmap. Fixed.
- Reduced the amount of tracker nodes created by a factor of ~3 by optimising away unnececarry waypoints.
- Added a small close button in the left top corner when showing Track- and/or HeatMap overlays.
- The config file is now saved as a sequence of template strings instead of saving one binary blob. The old config is loaded once and converted to the new config automatically. The old config is not deleted by MouseTracker itself in case you have to revert to an older version of MT. If you want to manually delete it: 'env:MouseTrackerCX/default.cfg' and the same in envarc:
- "Strength" header in mouse tracker prefs also acts as a button now to advance all cycle gadgets at once.
- The "Track" header of the track column in mouse tracker prefs is a button now and can be used to toggle respective checkmarks.
- When an overlay is shown the window opacity can now be adjusted by pressing CTRL and moving the mouse wheel.
- Fixed mouse distance calculation which was severly broken. My head still hurts...
- Also tracks the fourth mouse button now.
- Now also visually tracks mouse-wheel up and down events.
- Prefs handling was completely jumbled up internally. Fixed.
- Added NOSCREENBAROBJECT=NOSBAR/S option to have no screenbar object created at all. Works from tooltypes and/or shell.
- Will add its own screenbar object to the screen titlebar when started. The screenbar object offers a popup menu with a couple of options (map creation, go to prefs, go to stats) to chose from. Furthermore the screenbar object displays the mouse position on the screen using a sizeable dot. Check out its config options in the pubscreen manager (right click on screen depth button).
- Fixed a memory leak when parsing tooltypes.
- Added PREFS=GUI/S option to open the GUI of MouseTracker directly when started. Works from tooltypes aswell as from shell.
- It is now possible to select the screen to generate an overlay or image for from the prefs.
- Stats for individual screens are tracked now and can be selected in the 'Stats' tab for display.
- Long term statistics can be reset now too. It has a saverty requester aswell.
- Added a savety requester to the 'Reset Statistics' button.
- Prefs/statistics GUI got some cosmetic changes.
- Heatmap creation for low screen sizes did not work. Fixed.
- Sped up final HeatMap generation by about 300%.
- Sped up drawing of TrackMap and HeatMap by more than 1000%.
- Added MagicBeacon notification support when a a Track- or HeatMap has been saved. Left clicking the notification will open the drawer the map has been saved to while right clicking it will open the image itself in an Ambient window.
- Statistics now always opens in a virtual group allowing the window to be sized smaller.
- When mouse pointer reenters a screen and the trackmap live update is shown, it won't draw a line from the last position the mouse pointer left the screen from to the new position the mouse pointer reentered the screen.
- Added short description texts to all progress windows.
- Removed all spaces in texts displaying percentages.
(dr)
[News message: 06. Jul. 2022, 06:16] [Comments: 0]
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06.Jul.2022
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Flashback: Australian Amiga Gazette (update)
The Australian Amiga Gazette (AAG) was founded in 1996 to keep the Amiga computer alive here in Australia. The first issue was published in December 1996, the last in October 1998, making 23 issues.
AAG was created entirely on an Amiga 4000 using Amiga's Page Stream Publishing software and printed on a second-hand press. The magazine had 40 black and white printed pages and contained articles, product reviews and advertising.
20 issues are available for download in PDF format at the title link. Two have yet to be scanned, one issue was never printed.
Update: (25.07.2022, 16:47, dr)
According to Michael Burak in the English-language comment section, he has redone the scans in 600 dpi and re-uploaded them. (dr)
[News message: 06. Jul. 2022, 06:07] [Comments: 10 - 25. Jul. 2022, 18:53]
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05.Jul.2022
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French print magazine: "Boing" Nr. 4
'Boing' is a French print magazine published by Boing Attitude (e.g. Dir Me Up and Word Me Up XXL). The fourth issue has 52 pages in A4 format and among others includes an interview with John Girvin, one of the developers of the game Turbo Tomato and workshops on installation of Aros 68k and ApolloOS under WinUAE and on Candy Factory. (dr)
[News message: 05. Jul. 2022, 09:39] [Comments: 0]
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04.Jul.2022
Robert Smith
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Video: AMOS-controlled Quiz Buzzer System
In his latest video series, Robert Smith shows how to build an AMOS-controlled quiz buzzer system based on an Arduino board:
- Part 1 shows how to build a cable version of the simple quiz buzzer system that includes different sound effects for each key pressed.
- Part 2 shows how to build a wireless variant using nRF24L01 modules and Arduinos.
- Part 3 updates the wireless variant so that the controller can be connected to an Amiga and a simple quiz system can be run with AMOS. The AMOS quiz system communicates with the controller via the serial port and uses some form of interrupts ("every") to maintain communication.
(dr)
[News message: 04. Jul. 2022, 10:58] [Comments: 0]
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04.Jul.2022
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Hardware: ZuluSCSI - SCSI to SD adapter
ZuluSCSI is a new generation of file-based SCSI hard disk and CD-ROM drive emulators. ZuluSCSI emulates a SCSI-I or SCSI-2 hard disk using an SD memory card. Hard disk and CD-ROM drive images are stored on a standard FAT32 or exFAT formatted SD card. It merges SCSI2SD V5, V6 and BlueSCSI into one adapter.
This adapter allows to use SD or microSD card media instead of a real SCSI device. Compatible with a vast variety of SCSI controllers. Including the Amiga motherboard controllers, 3rd party controllers as the A590 or the Blizzard/Cyberstorm SCSI controllers. Hard drive and CD-ROM drive images are stored on a standard FAT32 or exFAT-formatted SD card.
A corresponding manual is available on GitHub, a list of compatible devices on codescr.
The adapter is available for example in the Amiga Shop or AMIGAstore.eu for about 100 Euros including taxes. (dr)
[News message: 04. Jul. 2022, 06:11] [Comments: 0]
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04.Jul.2022
Puni - Gaming on AmigaOS 4 (ANF)
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AmigaOS 4: Blog summary of June
The blog Gaming on AmigaOS 4 has published a richly illustrated summary of the developments and releases from the areas of hardware and software for AmigaOS 4 in the month of June and among others reports about Rave, Ignition, the Blastaway competetion and the forthcoming release of Doom 3 on AmigaOS 4. (dr)
[News message: 04. Jul. 2022, 05:52] [Comments: 0]
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03.Jul.2022
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Farming simulation: Third beta version of Farmiga released
The Polish developer 'Tukinem' is writing a farming simulation in AMOS, called 'Farmiga' (amiga-news.de reported). A few moments ago, the third beta version (03.07.2022) was released. Changes:
- The control of goods purchases and sales is now done completely with the mouse.
- A new mini-game with a cow has been added, where you have to "paw" the fly. On the screen we can see the life bar of the cow and the time the cow has left to live ;-)
- Adding an introductory main menu to the game and a "credits" screen (but only in Polish for now).
- When saving/reading the game, it is possible to select a specific file
Hardware requirements: 1,5MB ChipRAM bzw. 1MB Chip + 0,5MB FastRAM. (dr)
[News message: 03. Jul. 2022, 10:44] [Comments: 0]
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03.Jul.2022
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Aminet uploads until 02.07.2022
The following files have been added until 02.07.2022 to Aminet:
CestinoGlobale.lha dev/blitz 53K 68k Italian global trashcan WIP
wla_dx_v10.2.lha dev/cross 7.0M 68k WLA DX - 8-bit CPU Cross Macr...
Kwiz2.lha game/2play 71K 68k A Blockbusters-style quiz game
ScummVM_RTG.lha game/misc 7.4M 68k Amiga port of ScummVM 1.7.0
jfduke3d.lha game/shoot 1.3M 68k JFDuke3D Amiga Port
AmiArcadia.lha misc/emu 4.5M 68k Signetics-based machines emul...
AmiArcadiaMOS.lha misc/emu 4.8M MOS Signetics-based machines emul...
AmiArcadia-OS4.lha misc/emu 5.1M OS4 Signetics-based machines emul...
AmiVms.lha misc/emu 3.3M 68k Simulates OpenVMS commands
ataruita.lha mods/midi 34K Urusei Yatsura GM italian song
LHArchiver.lha util/arc 4.6M create lha archives intuitively
BootPicture.lha util/boot 87K 68k Shows pictures, plays sound d...
JFIFdt44.lha util/dtype 694K 68k fastest JPEG picture datatype
ReportPlus.lha util/misc 630K 68k Multipurpose utility
ReportPlusMOS.lha util/misc 723K MOS Multipurpose utility
ReportPlus-OS4.lha util/misc 801K OS4 Multipurpose utility
(snx)
[News message: 03. Jul. 2022, 08:53] [Comments: 0]
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03.Jul.2022
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OS4Depot uploads until 02.07.2022
The following files have been added until 02.07.2022 to OS4Depot:
amiarcadia.lha emu/gam 5Mb 4.0 Signetics-based machines emulator
lharchiver.lha uti/arc 5Mb 4.0 Create LhA archives intuitively
reportplus.lha uti/mis 801kb 4.0 Multipurpose utility
jasspa-memacs.lha uti/tex 2Mb 4.1 JASSPA MicroEmacs under AmiCygni...
(snx)
[News message: 03. Jul. 2022, 08:53] [Comments: 0]
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03.Jul.2022
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AROS Archives uploads until 02.07.2022
The following files have been added until 02.07.2022 to AROS Archives:
samples_8bit.tgz aud/mis 62Mb Varius Samples for Tracker Software
tc4.i386-aros.zip gam/puz 53Mb Solo OpenGL tetris game with AI ...
(snx)
[News message: 03. Jul. 2022, 08:53] [Comments: 0]
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03.Jul.2022
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MorphOS-Storage uploads until 02.07.2022
The following files have been added until 02.07.2022 to MorphOS-Storage:
AmiArcadia_28.91.lha Emulation AmiArcadia_28.91.lha
LHArchiver_1.3.lha Files/Archive Create lha archives int...
NMTM_Final_1.20.lzx Games/Adventure No More Toxic Man!!! - ...
Kulki_1.0.lha Games/Think Puzzle game
StarTrek-Planets_1.0.lha Misc StarTrek-Planets_1.0.lha
Wayfarer_3.9.lha Network/Web Wayfarer is the latest ...
(snx)
[News message: 03. Jul. 2022, 08:53] [Comments: 0]
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03.Jul.2022
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WHDLoad: New installers until 02.07.2022
Using WHDLoad, games, scene demos and intros by cracking groups, which were originally designed to run only from floppy disks, can be installed on harddisk. The following installers have been added until 02.07.2022:
(snx)
[News message: 03. Jul. 2022, 08:53] [Comments: 0]
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03.Jul.2022
Amigaworld.net (forum)
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Video interview with DeepMind founder: First AI program on Amiga
At the title link, a video interview was conducted with Demis Hassabis, the co-founder and CEO of the AI company DeepMind, which was later bought by Google.
After his start with a ZX Spectrum, he had, unlike his "merely" Atari-using friends, an Amiga, which he programmed in assembler and AMOS and on which he wrote his first AI program at the age of about twelve, an implementation of the game Reversi, in which he applied principles of chess computer programming.
Also mentioned is his later involvement in the Bullfrog game "Theme Park", to which economic simulation he contributed the behaviour of up to 2000 simulated figures of the theme park at the age of 16. He had programmed these as individual so-called "state machines", which independently satisfy their needs. (snx)
[News message: 03. Jul. 2022, 08:53] [Comments: 0]
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03.Jul.2022
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Amiga emulator: Amiberry 5.3
Amiberry is an Amiga emulator for ARM-based single-chip systems like the Raspberry Pi, the Odroid XU4 or the Tinkerboard from ASUS, which brings some newly developed features like a "WHDLoad-Booter" or support for controller configuration using RetroArch.
Two days ago version 5.3 was released providing the following changes:
New Features
- statusline resync indicator, merged from latest WinUAE
Bugs fixed
- AmiQuit was missing from boot-data.zip file
- Fixed P96 not working anymore in some environments
- input options were not properly parsed when using default.uae on startup, until the GUI was opened once
- Navigation in Custom controls when using SDL2 versions older than 2.0.14 wasn't correct
- don't overwrite all of changed_prefs when enabling autoheight in DMX
- Reverted CIA changes until upstream bug is fixed
Improvements
- Updated WHDLoad binary to 18.8
- updated WHDBooter XML to latest version
- Added logging when parsing Custom Controls from XML
- CD32 C2P/NVRAM only config fixes, C2P init fix.
- Add Brightness/Contrast controls on the GUI #974
- upgraded floppybridge to latest version (v1.3), fixes some issues with GreaseWeazle
- fixed multiple datatype related compiler warnings
- merged various definitions from latest WinUAE
- CPU emulation STOP update
- upgraded FloppyBridge to v1.3
- check for w/h values before setting custom limits
- newcpu emulation minor fixes
- set a default pattern for memory hard reset
Build system
- updated CMakeLists file, excluded "other" labels from release notes
- Removed Dispmanx 64-bit Manjaro build
- allow CI workflow to be triggered manually also
- added docker build for rpi4-sdl2
- don't try to copy file locally when using docker
- Added x86_64 build, disabled rpi 32-bit self-hosted
- Fixed x86-64 make command
- deprecated self-hosted agents for SDL2 builds, using Docker instead
- Removed Dispmanx targets from pre-compiled binaries list
Refactors
- WHDBooter options parsing improvements
- compiler warning fixes in disk.cpp
Documentation Changes
- removed "bug" from recognized commit labels
- Added CI badge on Readme
- updated README with improved instructions
(dr)
[News message: 03. Jul. 2022, 07:22] [Comments: 0]
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03.Jul.2022
Jens Schönfeld
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Individual Computers: Software updates
Before the summer break Individual Computers has published new installation disks for turbo cards in the wiki, as well as a new AmiTCP installation disk:
- Version 0.146 for the accelerator board ACA500plus includes a new installer, network installer and Sana2 driver
- Version 20220625 for the accelerator board ACA1234 includes a new installer and network installer
- there is also a new AmiTCP installation disk but can only be accessed via log in
(dr)
[News message: 03. Jul. 2022, 07:10] [Comments: 0]
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02.Jul.2022
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Preview video: Kung Fu action 'Devil's Temple'
Devil's Temple features 10 stages of intense arcade kung fu action based on the classic Irem games Kung Fu Master and Vigilante. Over 300 frames of animation were packed into the game and every cycle of performance was used on the Amiga A500. The game will adapt to upgrades, so additional chip ram will result in better music, AGA will provide additional colors and a greater variety of enemies in the game.
Yesterday, a new preview video was released for the game that is currently in development. As the developer writes, he had assumed to release Devil's Temple in May or June, but he just didn't have the necessary time to finish the game. The current progress is shown in the latest video:
- The game now has a hiscore system
- The game now has an attract mode
- The game has a menu system included allowing the player to modify game settings
- The background video music is now all included
Only three elements of the game are still missing: the final boss, the coding of the final sequence and the optimization of the code.
The game is already available for pre-order as a boxed edition. Likewise, a demo version of the first stage is available on itch.io.
(dr)
[News message: 02. Jul. 2022, 08:07] [Comments: 0]
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02.Jul.2022
David Brunet (ANF)
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New articles on Obligement website
The articles below have been added to the website of the French Amiga/MorphOS magazine Obligement during the last two months. All translations are welcome. Please contact David 'Daff' Brunet for more information.
- May/June 2022 news.
- News : Apollo, revive the Amiga.
- Old articles from Joystick 45 to 48:
- News: Cryo, always more innovative
- News: FMV, put a video recorder in your machine
- Report: Supergames Show 1993, Review of Blues Brothers Jukebox Adventures, Review of Campaign 2
- News: Core Design speeds up, Review of Arabian Nights [CD32], Review of Cool Spot, Interview with David Pleasance, Review of Hero Quest 2: Legacy Of Sorasil, Review of Microcosm, Interview with Jeremy San, Review of Liberation: Captive 2, etc.
- Interview with Urban Muller (Aminet, from 1995).
- Interview with David Newman (musician).
- Review of MorphOS 3.17.
- File: AltiVec.
- File: history of Dynabyte.
- File: the Amiga on TV and in movies (update).
- File: Ramrod, an unpublished game.
- Point of view: the Amiga'89 show and following.
- Programming: an introduction to the PowerPC assembler on MorphOS.
- Special quiz on the characters of Amiga video games.
(dr)
[News message: 02. Jul. 2022, 07:58] [Comments: 0]
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02.Jul.2022
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Article: Achieving period-correct graphics in WinUAE emulator
Some time ago John Novak published a detailed article in his blog that explores how to best display Amiga graphics with today's monitors using the WinUAE emulator.
The point is to experience the Amiga system as users did with original hardware and possibly still do today - as far as today's emulation technology allows. The goal is that the emulated graphics are as close as possible to the output of CRT screens used with the Amigas in the 80s and 90s. The WinUAE Shader Pack is used for this. (dr)
[News message: 02. Jul. 2022, 07:28] [Comments: 0]
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01.Jul.2022
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Amiga Assembly For Beginners: Let's Make an Amiga Game Tutorial 9
'Prince', founder of the group 'Phaze101', streams the assembler coding course "Corso completo di programmazione assembler in due dischi" in English on Twitch and uploads the respective episodes time-delayed to YouTube (amiga-news.de reports regularly).
In another tutorial Amiga Assembly For Beginners - Lets Make a Game, Prince now explains with concrete examples how to write a game with assembler. Here the ninth episode was published. (dr)
[News message: 01. Jul. 2022, 10:57] [Comments: 0]
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01.Jul.2022
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Blog: Introduction of text editor "reED" for AROS and AmigaOS 3
The blog "Amiga alive" not only reports about various software and hardware news, the operator also presents his own, partly older projects in the series AMIGA alive DevLog from time to time. In the latest blog entry, the C-programmer will report about an editor he started a long time ago under the name "proWEB": an HTML editor with advanced features like sophisticated TABLE creation, FRAME management etc. First started for AmigaOS 3, then continued for AROS, but finally stalled.
Development of the editor has now resumed under the name "reED". As the developer reports, "it took me just a day to make all code adjustments from AROS' gcc to AmigaOS' vbcc, including lots of stylistic improvements, and I got a working executable. The code now doesn't use any special compiler features, and should work with gcc, probably SAS-C, etc. just as it does with vbcc. There were a couple of minor differences between AmigaOS and AROS that needed to be taken care of - for example my old AROS system used a font called "ttcourier" instead of "courier"".
"reED" has its own GUI layout engine, it has a large function menu (many functions are not yet implemented), uses ASL file requesters, can edit multiple documents, it can highlight/cut/copy/paste - and it has real tabs with keyboard control.
Even though the editor has been made to work, the developer is still considering whether to continue this project. If, then both AmigaOS 3 and AROS should be supported, whereby he has the hope for an updated vbcc for AROS. As the developer Frank Wille told Amiga-News on request, this is currently not planned. Reason: More than 15 years ago he had created an experimental version. But the official AROS header files are full of gcc-specific (i.e. not ISO-C compliant) instructions and therefore not usable on any other compiler. (dr)
[News message: 01. Jul. 2022, 06:36] [Comments: 0]
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30.Jun.2022
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Programming language: AmiBlitz 3.9.3
At the end of March the new major version 3.9.0 of the programming language AmiBlitz was released. Yesterday a third update with bug fixes was released with version 3.9.3. Changes:
- fixed a bug that the current directory was not set for the executable when "Compile&Run"
- fixed a window refresh bug on AmigaOS3.2 when window was moved out of screen
- fixed a source corruption bug if one clicked in a non existing line (after end of source)
- fixed a possible crash when doing copy&paste
- fixed: togglestate of menuentry "generate debug code" was sometimes wrong
- fixed: console window was not opened at own screen, even if the option was set
- fixed: changes to current sourceline were forgotten if menu item was selected or user clicked somewhere in source
- fixed a bug in "screenslib" that always tried to open "cybergraphics.library" even on Kick <3.0-systems
- changed behaviour of "wzlib": lack of wizard.library will not crash at startup
- therefore Amiblitz3 will not crash at startup anymore, if wizard.library is not found
- changed: finally the full rewrite of the eventloop has been completed
- removed file extention for displaying blitzlibs-list (Library Browser)
- added display of decimal offset values (Definition Browser)
- changed: PEDs messages are now displayed in source window, not at screen bar
In addition, the documentation and examples were revised:
- updated documentation drawers
- updated autodoc for graphics.library
- added documentation for RndSeed-command to vallib.guide
- added some lib-sources from UltimateBlitz3-distribution (internal)
- added some code examples from original Blitz2-manual
(dr)
[News message: 30. Jun. 2022, 06:42] [Comments: 0]
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29.Jun.2022
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Event: Demo party 'Evoke' (Cologne, 05.08 - 07.08)
In August, this year's edition of the Evoke scene demo party will take place at the AbenteuerHallenKALK in Cologne (Germany). As usual, various demo, graphics and sound contests will be held. Special categories for retro computers are not planned, 8- or 16-bit productions can be submitted in the category Alternative Platforms - but here you might have to bring your own hardware. (dr)
[News message: 29. Jun. 2022, 08:47] [Comments: 0]
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29.Jun.2022
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Video: Is AROS The Future of Amiga?
In this YouTube video, Dan Wood explores the question of whether AROS, the open source development of the classic Amiga operating system, is a worthy successor to it, and for that looks at the Icaros Desktop distribution. (dr)
[News message: 29. Jun. 2022, 06:43] [Comments: 0]
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29.Jun.2022
MorphZone
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MorphOS: Web browser Wayfarer 3.9
Jacek 'jacadcaps' Piszczek has released version 3.9 of his Wayfarer web browser for MorphOS, which mainly includes changes for media playback. As the author writes, ClearKey encryption is not very popular nowadays, but is still used by some live streaming services. Wayfarer can now play these streams (e.g. https://tv.nrk.no).
The emulation of touch events makes it possible to search on mobile Youtube again. In this regard, the developer refers to the updated FAQ page: instructions on how to fix Youtube/iOS search and how to use a VPN with Wayfarer (with additional hardware) have been added.
Jacek also thanks everyone who had donated to the project in the last. He said that this is a motivation for further development. Changes:
- Implemented ClearKey DRM support for HLS media streams
- Implemented HLS stream quality switching accessible from the media popup
- Added configurable touch events emulation (think Youtube-Mobile seeking slider)
- Refactored the HLS player to allow MPEG-TS playback
- Live HLS streams now start playing closer to the current time
- Improved stream end position reporting to get some streaming services correctly skip to next stream after playing ads
- Updated libcurl
Download: wayfarer.lha (26 MB) (dr)
[News message: 29. Jun. 2022, 05:48] [Comments: 0]
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28.Jun.2022
Amiga Future (website)
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Kultmags.com: Amiga Fever issues added (German)
On kultmags.com the computer and video game magazines of the 80s, 90s and early 2000s are preserved in digital form for posterity with the permission of the rights holders. Most recently, Jakob Voos, who once founded the Protovision publishing house with Malte Mundt, gave permission to add all four issues of German magazine Amiga Fever.
So far, however, only the first two issues could be scanned, and help in finding the remaining issues is requested. (snx)
[News message: 28. Jun. 2022, 10:01] [Comments: 0]
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28.Jun.2022
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Review: Workbench distribution AmiKit XE 11.8.0 for Windows
About two weeks ago version 11.8.0 of the workbench distribution AmiKit for Windows/Mac/Linux was released (amiga-news.de reported). Our reader Thomas bought the latest version for his Windows computer and kindly tells us his impressions:
"After the purchase, you will receive an e-mail with the download link quite quickly. Before that you should definitely install VcRuntime https://file.amiga.sk/amikit/download/vc_redist.x64.exe, otherwise the installation will fail. The version Amikit 11.5.0 is delivered, which can be updated later. Original Amiga ROMS are necessary, otherwise the installation will fail. In which form or better said from which source the ROM's come, is up to you. Whether Amiga Forever or original AmigaOS (OS 3.1.4, OS 3.2, OS 3.9 etc.) does not matter.
The installation process runs through smoothly. In between, Picasso96 is downloaded and installed independently. After the installation process has run through and Amikit has been loaded, the Morpheus Updater opens automatically. There you can update Amikit 11.5.0 to version 11.8.0. This update is the biggest one (23 MB) and for this reason it seems to cause problems. Always only 12-14 MB arrive. This gave me no peace, so Jan was written to on Discord asking him what the problem could be. He answered promptly and wrote me that a few had the same problem. He then sent me the archive of 11.8.0, since the error could not yet be narrowed down. So I could update to version 11.8.0 myself. Many thanks Jan to the fast and smooth help.
The next step is to install AmigaOS 3.2 and the corresponding update 3.2.1. For this you put all AmigaOS 3.2 ADF's, the Amiga1200.Module, Update3.2.1.lha into the Rabbithole directory and start the Morpheus Updater again. There you can select and install the AmigaOS 3.2 installation. This is done quickly, after an automatic reboot it is freshly installed. So you have the latest AmigaOS running in the WinUAE installation. Amikit uses WinUAE for the AmigaOS emulation on the PC.
So Amikit transforms the PC into a modern Amiga. The Rabbithole is used to start PC programs directly from the AmigaOS. So you can run programs like VLC, Chrome etc. on the screen of the AmigaOS and don't need to switch to Windows. In addition, Amikit is faster than any Amiga hardware depending on the PC model, even if turbo cards etc. are used.
But it will never replace the feeling of real Amiga hardware. But it is not so easy to use it on the go. That's where Amikit makes sense. If you want to use the AmigaOS everywhere, Amikit is a good choice. It is a complete AmigaOS for people with little time and desire to build their own AmigaOS.
For myself it only serves as a replacement to real Amiga hardware. Mainly I use Amikit to transfer files from the PC via NAS to the Amiga and vice versa or when I want to use the AmigaOS mobile. The purchase was worth it."
Herzlichen Dank, Thomas. (dr)
[News message: 28. Jun. 2022, 06:40] [Comments: 0]
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