• News: Huno Party 4, NASS 6, Preview of Scalos (OS4)
• Reviews: Virtual Grand Prix 2 (MOrphOS), WB Super Games (AmigaOS 4), In Shadow Of Time (AGA)...
• Tutorials: Firewalls under OS4, First Steps with fxPaint, AntiWord...
• Several more articles, among others Lemonade, Last.fm, TiMIDIty, Linux on the AmigaOne...

• Title: Change Reality
• Artist: Tripper
• Style: Electro
• Play length: 4:03
• Format: mp3 @ 160 kbps
• Size: 4.7 MB (ZIP-packed)

• Almost completely re-written
• Upgraded to use the current synergy protocol, v1.3
• All mouse and keyboard OS operations now work properly
• Now a commodity
• No need for a reset handler, the server can now detect when a client drops offline
• Mouse pointer blanking is much more system friendly now. No longer loses the pointer image if you switch back to the Amiga mouse when the synergy mouse is offscreen

• Expanded Arexx interface to allow manipulation of event data
• Automatic launching of commands at start and stop of event
• Html documentation
• Improved GUI for easier navigation / look

• Removes AmigaOS4-only memory types from de_BufMemType if not running on OS4, that way partitions configured to use an OS4-only memory type like MEMF_PRIVATE can be mounted on AmigaOS 3.x as well.
• Removable media support was broken in 1.262, fixed.

• 10.10.06 improved: Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles (Mirrorsoft/Probe) Joypad support enhancements (Info)
• 10.10.06 new: Super Skidmarks (Acid Software) done by JOTD (Info)
• 10.10.06 improved: Deliverance (21st Century) new disk imager (Info,Image)
• 08.10.06 improved: CaveMania (Atlantis) megadrive/genesis pad support added (Info)
• 08.10.06 improved: Lionheart (Thalion) supports another version (Info)
• 07.10.06 updated: Lionheart (Thalion) overall reworked, converted to kickemu, several issues fixed, icons and manual added (Info)
• 07.10.06 updated: Enchanted Land (Thalion) overall rework, compatibilty for 68000, icons and manual added (Info)
• 07.10.06 updated: Deliverance (21st Century) trap exceptions fixed, manual and icons added, new install script (Info,Image)
• 07.10.06 updated: Chuck Rock 2 (Core Design) quitkey handling improved (Info)
• 06.10.06 fixed: Questron 2 (SSI) fixed problem with repeated keys, installs correct system-configuration file (Info)
• 04.10.06 updated: Ghost Busters 2 (Activision) access fault removed, new install script, docs added (Info)
• 03.10.06 new: Covert Action (Microprose) done by JOTD (Info)
• 02.10.06 fixed: Legend Of Faerghail (reLINE) fixed bug in access fault fix (Info)
• 02.10.06 updated: Chaos Engine (Bitmap Brothers) added check for rnc packed executable, aga supported properly (Info)
• 18.09.06 updated: Simulcra (Graftgold) new imager and install script (Info)
• 14.09.06 improved: Warhead (Glyn Williams) extro fixed, docs added (Info)
• 14.09.06 updated: F-17 Challenge (Team 17) fixed for WHDLoad 16.6, docs and icons added, new imager (Info)
• 10.09.06 improved: Magnatron (BSP Design) music player fix, can skip intro, infinite energy trainer added, new icons (Info)
• 10.09.06 fixed: Classic Arcadia (Alternative Software) fixed access fault on 060 (Info)
• 10.09.06 fixed: P47 Thunderbolt (Firebird) music player fix, new icons (Info)
• 10.09.06 improved: Crazy Sue 2 (Hironymus Jumpshoe) access fault/music player fixed for 060, gameplay enhancements (Info)
• 10.09.06 improved: Crazy Sue (Hironymus Jumpshoe) access fault/music player fixed for 060, gameplay enhancements (Info)
• 10.09.06 updated: Global Gladiators (Virgin) fast memory usage, protection fix, fixed to work with WHDLoad v16.6 (Info)
• 10.09.06 updated: Crossbow (Screen 7/Intelligent Games) fixed to work with WHDLoad v16.6 (Info)
• 10.09.06 updated: Botics (Krisalis) fixed to work with WHDLoad v16.6 (Info)

• Files with the same fileextension will be summarized, which brings a higher compression rate
• Bugfixes
• Progress bar will be more frequent updated.

• Fixed: optimized scrolling
• Fixed: Better centering on zoom in/out
• Fixed: optimized redraw (askminmax)
• Fixed: crash when closing a window
• Fixed: crash when closing the pubscreen
• NEW: Recessed buttons if active tool
• NEW: Dotted line around active color in palette
• NEW: Colorpicker tool (works in Snap to palette mode and 64-bit mode)

• Objective
• Presentation of Genesi's HMCS
• Necessary hardware
• General information on Gentoo
• Easy install with the "EZPegTV" CD
• Alternative customized install, step by step
• Back-up of the system

• Up to 6 alarms
• Configure custom MP3 file, for each alarm
• Possibility of random MP3 play from a selected directory
• Nuclear Powerplant alarm MP3 file included
• Blanker activation possibility
• Auto-scale blanker pictures
• Use antialiased TTF fonts
• Save or load different alarm configurations
• Set the time between images in slideshow (Blanker)
• Set transparency level between images and alarm clock, to have a nicer effect

• Removable media support was broken in 1.262, fixed

• ADDED: EaglePlayer replayers (Musicline 4/8V, NoiseTracker, Protracker, TFMX) by Wanted Team (Don Adan)
• UPDATED: AfA_OS 3.94
• UPDATED: AmiKit - Live Update 1.1 (now waits 3s before rebooting to ensure the downloaded file has been completely saved)
• UPDATED: AmiKit - ScreenMode AmiKit 1.2 (workaround for possible incompatibility of 1280x800 screenmode)
• UPDATED: AmigAIM 0.9455
• UPDATED: PlayOGG 5.1
• FIXED: AmigaAMP 68k-Emu engine should work again. It was overwritten by WarpUp version in previous AmiKit update by mistake.

• Automatic reconnection when disconnected from a server. Configurable delay inbetween reconnection attempts, and maximum number of retrys
• Added an ignore function and a nice GUI for it. This ignore function supports wildcards and can optionally ignore Text/CTCP/DCC
• You can now choose to automatically connect to servers upon startup, and the server selection window can be hidden since it isnt required
• Channel names displayed in the listview can be joined by double clicking on them
• Wookie no longer removes leading spaces from outgoing text. This is quite useful when pasting programming source code in dev channels and you want to keep the indentation for readability
• When transferring tiny files within 1 second, the entry in the dcc windows are no longer stuck on "transferring" and are now able to be removed from the list
• Outgoing DCC RESUME seems to be working better
• Previously, you couldnt copy text to the clipboard when text was being added to the channel display. I made it pause while selecting text, but internal functions were preventing text from being copied to the clipboard when you let go of the mouse button. I have now corrected this. So its now possible to copy text to the clipboard in a busy channel.

• Alinea Computer (German)
• The programmer of Petunia Almos Rajnai (English)
• The programmer of FryingPan Tomasz Wiszkowski (English)

======================================================================
                               ________
         _________ ____      _|__ __ __|_______      _________
       __\ _____ \\\\  \_  _/  //___//  _____//______\ _____ \\
      // \\\\  /. \\\\__ \/ __//    \\  \\____.  /// \\\\  /. \\
      \\___\  /___///___\  /___\     \\_________//\\___\  /___//
            \/           \/.  |        |z!o             \/    
               A M I G A      | 060930 |      U P D A T E
                              |________|
  "SO THE WORLD MAY KNOW"                                   (Eject -1)
======================================================================
        AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga, Inc.      
----------------------------------------------------------------------

   B I L L   M C E W E N   A N S W E R S   2 5   Q U E S T I O N S 

    H Y P E R I O N   R E S P O N D S   T O   2 5   A N S W E R S

               H Y P E R I O N   O N   O S 4   D A T E 

     A M I G A   P U R C H A S E S   I N D I A N   C O M P A N Y 

            T H E   L A T E S T   F R O M   A M I W E S T 

                      A M I N E T   U P D A T E 

           A M Y 0 5   U P D A T E   F R O M   T R O I K A 

                A 6 0 0   H O P E   D I E S   . . . ?  

 . . .   W H I L E   " S A M "   B O A R D   H O P E   I S   B O R N

        A M I G A   A N D   T H U N D E R B I R D S   D E A L  

           A M I G A W E B . N E T   I S   L A U N C H E D 

         A M I G B G   A W A R D   W I N N E R S   N A M E D

                A P C & T C P   B A C K   O N L I N E 

  B I G   B O O K   O F   H A R D W A R E   I N   N E W   H A N D S 

               W I N U A E   G O E S   T O   1 . 3 . 2

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor's Thoughts and Introduction:

Wow, what a month! There are all kinds of interesting goings-on in the 
Amiga community to report to you this time round. 

Number one on most people's list would have to be Bill McEwen agreeing 
to answer 25 questions on Amiga.org. Whatever else you may think of 
Bill, that marks him as a brave man. :-) Actually, the questions are 
all quite good and the answers are certainly informative. Equally 
informative are some of the comments to the posting. It's worth your 
time to explore all this material.

We can't include the session here. It's much too large, and we do not 
have the right to do so. So pop over to the amiga.org site and check 
it out. Then try to decide what it all means. We're still working on 
that part at "Amiga Update"

The tone of the answers is certainly upbeat, with much promise for the 
future. The difficult part with that is we've heard this sort of thing 
before and we're still waiting. There are indications that Amiga Inc. 
has learned some hard lessons and is trying to recover from problems 
of the past. We hope that is truly the case, believe it probably is, 
but do wonder if they can muster the resources to really move forward. 
It should be possible and there are some signs they are doing so - see 
a couple of the stories below on recent actions, for example. To use 
our favorite phrase from recent years when talking about Amiga Inc. 
"Time Will Tell".

There are two things in particular from the questions and answers that 
specially concern us. According to Bill, Amiga Inc. is working on 
Amiga OS 5.0 at the same time Hyperion is working on Amiga OS 4.0. We 
are completely unsure what that will eventually mean for users, 
assuming both make it to market, but we hope there's some coordination 
between the two at least. And what does this do for the viability of 
Hyperion's work? It is clear the two companies aren't exactly happy 
with each other. To use another old phrase, this could be a train 
wreck.

The second thing that bothers us is the take some people have on the
change from Amiga Washington to Amiga Delaware. It's apparent that 
move is regarded by some as a shell game designed to avoid debt. It 
can easily be interpreted that way. True or not, the perception can be 
enough to cause problems when trying to strike new deals. We hope this 
is manageable.

So what's your take on Bill's answers? Are we listening to a visionary 
or just a dreamer? At this point, we're not sure. We've regarded Bill 
as a visionary in the past, and would like to be proven right at some 
point - and soon. We've lived on dreams long enough.
 
 Brad Webb,
 Editor
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

   B I L L   M C E W E N   A N S W E R S   2 5   Q U E S T I O N S 

13 September, 2006

 Bill McEwen made himself available on Amiga.org to answer 25 
questions collected by the website. We cannot reproduce the session 
here, but we can suggest - strongly - that you read the questions and 
answers - and the comments - at:

http://www.amiga.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6955&com_id=
53338&com_rootid=53336&com_mode=flat&com_order=0

 We did grab the first question to get you started:

1. Why now? Amiga Inc pretty much divorced itself from Classics and 
OS4 over a year ago, exemplified by the simple indication on your 
website that for anything OS4 related, interested parties need to 
contact Hyperion. Several parties have tried to contact you for 
licensing reasons and reported a total lack of response (not a "no" 
response, just no response at all). Now, out of the blue, you show 
interest again. What has changed, and if you are planning on 
supporting something other than the AmigaDE again, how can we know 
you're not going to just shut the door once more?

Bill McEwen -- It is obvious to me that from this question and the 
others that are like it, that we have done a very poor job in 
communicating about Amiga. Amiga has always been interested in the 
operating system, and this includes OS 4, and beyond. Our plans have 
always been to produce, create, develop, market, enhance, sell and 
support the operating system. The goal of Amiga, as stated in our 
first public appearance, is to create a scalable, embeddable, media-
centric operating system that can unify digital devices that include 
cell phones, set top boxes, computers, and any other digital device 
that the OS can support. We did not think that this vision was 
achievable with the Amiga OS 3.1, so we began the development of a new 
Operating System or Digital Environment, and started toward those 
steps with the partnership with the Tao Group and built on top of 
their Intent platform. Our goal and what we have been up to is still 
the same, and I hope that as I answer more of your questions and if 
you would allow me to also leave some editorial responses at the end 
of the questions. I believe that we will all be on the same path 
toward the future.

With regard to the hardware question, I can only state that I have 
responded to ?every? query that has been sent. So that we do not have 
vendors appear and disappear leaving the end user holding equipment 
that can not be supported, Amiga asks a series of questions of the 
person who has made the request. I can tell you that with the 
exception of two groups, nobody has ever returned with acceptable 
answers. There are a great many people who dearly want to help, and 
they really want to see and produce new hardware, but several times we 
have seen answers where they are relying on some unknown event or 
friends with credit cards to be able to support the effort. This is 
not acceptable, and we have to locate those companies or individuals 
that have the correct supply chain and understanding of how to create 
and support hardware. Of course it is always easier to make a blanket 
announcement that Amiga ?never? responds, or I never heard back from 
them.

{Bill McEwen also posted a clarification later at 
http://www.amiga.org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6970 
Brad}
----------------------------------------------------------------------

    H Y P E R I O N   R E S P O N D S   T O   2 5   A N S W E R S

20 September, 2006

Judging from some of the e-mails we received, the recent comments by 
the Amiga Inc. management seem to have created confusion with respect 
to the development and availability of Amiga OS 4.0.

As managing partner of Hyperion Entertainment VOF, I would like to 
take this opportunity to assure our customers that development of 
Amiga OS 4.0 is entirely in Hyperion's hand alone and that the Amiga 
OS 4.0 development team is proceeding very well indeed as may become 
obvious during the upcoming shows in Italy and Sacramento, U.S.A.

There are no development hold-ups of any kind and we are in fact
anticipating an initial "final release candidate" by the end of 2006
provided suitable hardware is available for sale at that time. You may
recall the fact that Hyperion held back on the official release of  
Amiga OS 4.0 in 2005 in order to have it coincide with the 
availability of suitable target hardware.

Several third party hardware manufacturers have indicated that they 
are working on a wide range of different suitable PPC hardware 
platforms. We will leave it to them to communicate about these 
projects in due time.

This extra time has given the OS 4 development team the opportunity to
not only polish the final product even more but to incorporate very
substantial and modern functionality such as the new, extremely
reliable, modern and powerful memory subsystem in conjunction with new
yet to be revealed functionality.

We will specifically not comment on any legal issues as raised by 
Amiga Inc. management as these matters are finally and at our explicit 
and repeated request being handled by both parties' respective 
lawfirms and we find it highly inappropriate to publically comment on 
these matters in the meanwhile. Suffice it to say that some statements 
by Amiga Inc. were clearly in contradiction with the views held by 
Hyperion's attorneys both on a legal and on a factual level.

We thank you for your patience and the continued support of the Amiga 
OS 4.0 project which we are dedicated to complete as soon as possible.

Evert Carton
Managing partner
----------------------------------------------------------------------

             H Y P E R I O N   O N   O S 4   D A T E 

16 September, 2006

Besides the OS4 item above, Hyperion made the following information 
available during a chat at the Amiga Big Bash 4: Amiga Big Bash and 
Retro in England:


Q:It is rather obvious that OS4 would not appear in the nearest six 
months or so. Do they plan to release next update/updates?
        
A: Our current target is end of the year, provided of course that 
hardware is available. To that end, we are working with hardware 
manufacturers, but as usual, we're not doing their press releases, so 
we let them come forth with their projects
        
A: End of the year is the projected release date for OS 4, for real 
this time ;-)
                
Another comment on the release date: We've made a lot of progress 
recenlty, so we *are* pretty sure that it will be December.

http://amigaos.dk/modules/mydownloads/
----------------------------------------------------------------------

     A M I G A   P U R C H A S E S   I N D I A N   C O M P A N Y 

23 September, 2006

Issaquah, WA/Pune, India, September 22rd 2006: Amiga Development India 
Pvt. Ltd. (ADI), a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S. based Amiga, Inc., 
announced that it has purchased the majority of the assets owned by 
Ruksun Software Technologies Pvt. Ltd., a Pune-based company servicing 
software development projects, on August 10, 2006. The acquisition 
includes intellectual property, business and engineering and support 
staff and all development contracts.

Ruksun has over thirteen years of experience in mobile, wireless and 
web technologies and embedded systems development. ADI will be able to 
leverage the experience of Amiga Inc.?s efforts in both mobile and 
desktop computing in order to better serve its existing and future 
clients. In addition, ADI will become Amiga Inc.?s off-shore 
development center. Amiga Development India will work to grow its 
customer base and will look to incorporate and grow the existing 
intellectual property base purchased from Ruksun.

http://www.amigadevindia.com/html/news/22sep2006apa.html
----------------------------------------------------------------------

          T H E   L A T E S T   F R O M   A M I W E S T 

AMIWEST 2006, RELEASE # 6

Here is the sixth information release for AmiWest 2006, October 21, 
2006. Our webpage at www.sacc.org/amiwest is being updated with all 
the current show information.  We encourage you to visit our site to 
see the rest of the current information.

Amiga Forever,

Sacramento Amiga Computer Club
AmiWest 2006 Committee

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
AMIWEST IS GROWING!  GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Yes, AmiWest, the Amiga show for the United States, is growing!  New
exhibitors have confirmed their presence and we hope to have a great 
time with all things Amiga.

Here are the exhibitors that have confirmed that they will be at 
AmiWest 2006:


AMUC 
Bill Borsari (webcasting AmiWest worldwide every year since 1998)
Bit By Bit Software 
Hyperion 
Individual Computers
Pagestrem
SACC
Software Hut
Troika

. . . and a surprise exhibitor you won't want to miss!

Featured speakers throughout the day will include:

Richard Drummond
Jaimie Krueger
Jens Schoenfeld
Steve Solie

. . . and a surprise speaker!

With all of this happening in one day (whew!), you will want to get 
your tickets now.  Buying your tickets ahead allows us to assemble 
your information packet ahead of time and have it ready for you at the 
door.  So go to sacc.org/amiwest and click on the tickets link to 
order your tickets. Or just fill out the form below and send it in.

No matter how you do it, order your tickets soon!  And be sure to 
reserve your spot at the Saturday night banquet.  It's a good meal, 
and our banquet speaker is one of the few Amiga company CEO/COO's 
remaining in Amigadom. I'm sure he'll have much of interest to say to 
all of us.

AWest 2006 will be October 21, 2006 at the

Clarion Hotel Cal Expo
2600 Auburn Blvd.
Sacramento California 95821

Reservations Phone 1-877-424-6423 toll-free (local 1-916-487-7600),
choicehotels.com (click the Clarion icon) and by snail-mail at the 
above address.

Please watch our website at www.sacc.org/amiwest for continuing news 
and information regarding AmiWest 2006.  We are on target for another 
improved show!  See you there!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

So remember,

AmiWest 2006 is rolling!  The facility is reserved and the vendors
are notified!  Keep watching for these releases and tell everyone
that you know - the Amiga and the Amiga community is alive and
well!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


           AmiWest 2006, October 21, 2006 Ticket Reservation Form

                          Clarion Hotel Cal-Expo
                             2600 Auburn Blvd
                            Sacramento, CA 95821        

     Your Name:______________________________________________________

   Affiliation:______________________________________________________

       Address:______________________________________________________

               ______________________________________________________

          City:______________________________________________________

   State/Province:_______________________Postal(Zip) Code: __________

       Country:_________________________

   Email Address:____________________________________________________

   Ticket wanted ONE DAY PASS: SATURDAY, October 21, 2006

   Do you want Banquet tickets (Circle One)    YES      NO

   Admission to AmiWest 2006 is:
    $ 8 (One Day Pass - paid in advance by July 12, 2006)
    $10 (One day Pass at the door)
    
   One day passes will allow admittance to any FREE seminars on that 
day only.
   Seminar topics will be announced later.

   Banquet tickets are $28 per plate and MUST be paid in advance.   
   Seating is limited and tickets are available on a first come, first
served.
   
   Please fill out this form and remit with proper payment  (US Funds 
Only) to:
   
        AmiWest 2006
        c/o Chuck Washburn
        7051 Dolan Way
        Citrus Heights CA 95621
        USA
   
   Make checks payable to "AmiWest".  A form must be filled out for 
   each person attending the show although one check can be used.

   For more information you can contact AmiWest by email to: 
   chela@calweb.com 
   Phone: (916) 723-9846 Evenings (Pacific Daylight time)

   Our WWW web page is: http://www.sacc.org/amiwest/ 
----------------------------------------------------------------------

                    A M I N E T   U P D A T E 

4 September, 2006

It's been a while since last time, but it doesn't mean we haven't done 
anything in the meantime. Following is an update on the newest stuff 
happening over at Aminet.net.

The Aminet Wiki

Aminet has its own Wiki now: at http://wiki.aminet.net you'll find 
manuals, FAQs, information about the team and Aminet's history as well 
as our changelogs, todo lists and bug 'database'. The section covering 
Aminet's usage urgently needs more info added though: if you'd like to 
help out with creating a nice user manual covering archive formats, 
the tools required to handle them, various ways of transfering 
archives from a PC to the Amiga, using an FTP client etc. - get in 
touch with us, please.

Translating the Wiki into other languages is planned, but our 
ressources are somewhat limited and there are lots of things to do - 
so this might take a while.

New directories

Several new directories have been created, amongst them misc/os, which 
is intended for operating systems and updates. The first uploads to 
this directory are "Amiga Minix", an open source Unix like operating 
system for Amiga 500, 2000 and 3000 computers and the final m68k-amiga 
distribution of OpenBSD. The former was kindly provided by Thomas 
Unger, while the latter is a mirror of ftp.planetmirror.com and was 
moved to Aminet because OpenBSD-Amiga is discontinued und slowly gets 
removed from the official BSD-mirrors.

A complete list of the new directories:

dev/lib (static libraries)
game/edit (game editors)
game/strat (strategy games)
misc/os (Operating systems and updates)
pix/icon (PNG icons)

We already started to move files into these directories, if you 
stumble across further packages that should be moved, don't hesitate 
to tell us. Thanks a lot to James Jacobs for both suggesting game/edit 
as well as providing a complete list of files that should be moved in 
there.

More mirrors

Three new mirrors have been added (de5.aminet.net, se.aminet.net and 
dk.aminet.net). For more info about mirrors and who to thank for the 
various ones, see http://wiki.aminet.net/Mirrors. Aminet now consists 
of seven mirrors - with more coming up. As the question has been 
brought up several times now: Yes, we do accept big files, a CD ISO 
shouldn't be a problem. For anything significantly bigger than 80-100 
MB we'd appreciate it if you would notify us up front though.

New filetypes supported

We now accept PDF documents (you don't have to put them into an 
archive anymore) as well as music and video files in an Ogg container, 
the most popular ones being Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Theora. In addition we 
encourage you to use the open OGG formats rather than the proprietary 
MPEG (MP3, MPEG1/2) formats which often come with patent and license 
issues.

As we're still getting DMS uploads occasionally: Please note that 
Aminet does not support DMS. If you need to upload a disk image, 
convert it to ADF first. We accept both plain ADF files aswell as 
zipped ADF (.adz).

A reminder - server abuse

Recently we encountered postings on various forums where people 
announced they would download the whole Aminet repository, others 
explained that they already did it or gave instructions how this can 
be accomplished easily. Apparently, we really need to address this 
issue.

Downloading the whole Aminet repository is considered abuse. No ifs, 
buts or whens - end users are not entitled to run personal mirrors. 
Aminet has a total size of more than 32 GB right now, individual users 
downloading that much data from our servers just for the sake of 
having their own local copy are not just acting rather impolite, they 
are actually eating up resources that somebody has to pay for.

Aminet isn't going away anytime soon. It's going to celebrate its 15th 
birthday soon, and we do have the resources available to make sure 
that there are going to be quite a few more birthday parties. We also 
have a bunch of 100% mirrors up and going, so there are no excuses 
really.

If you really feel like leeching, go download Google - compared to 
Aminet, that whole WWW thing is a relative newcomer and might be gone 
any day now.

As usual, an extensive change log can be found at: 
http://wiki.aminet.net/Changelog. If you want to get in touch with us, 
either drop us a mail at aminet@aminet.net or join our IRC channel 
#aminet on irc.amigaworld.net. We *love* feedback, feature requests 
and complaints. Honestly.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

         A M Y 0 5   U P D A T E   F R O M   T R O I K A 

13 September, 2006

This is the final update on the Amy05 design prior to [Amiga Big 
Bash 4]. 

One of the biggest changes to the Amy05 design from our first 
released specification is the addition of the .AMD Geod(TM) CS5536 
companion device. For Project Prometheus/Amy'05 this becomes Amy?s 
Southbridge. This is the low cost Southbridge device from AMD that 
been in many of the newspapers. It?s used in the $100 'One Laptop per 
child' system, and in many AMD Geode(TM) embedded designs. It?s a well 
proven design and AMD continues to refine all the little details to 
get the most out of the design. Its extremely well supported, and its 
great to have a working relationship with the AMD people, we take much 
pride in this.

What?s the Geod(TM) Southbridge mean to the Amiga community? Software 
wise the opening of many new doors, and features. For example, one 
feature built in is the ?USB keyboard?, making USB keyboards easy to 
install and use.

Hardware wise this device provides the following features to Amy05:

AC97 Codec interface,
A single channel IDE port,
An additional 16C550 UART,
Real time Clock and CMOS RAM
Additional USB 2.0 ports,
PC 82XX legacy timers.

There are additional features to this device but we have only 
highlighted the features utilized by Amy05.

This is the other component of the Kryptos sound system. It is a low 
cost high performance solution that will in the future, allow for a 
lower cost design by fully utilizing the USB and ATA interfaces of 
this device. Also in future Troika designs, will be able to 
incorporate, many more hardware features not as yet implemented, into 
future Amy designs.

The CS5536 interfaces to the TSI107 via the 66 MHz PCI bus interface 
for maximum performance. The 66 MHz PCI bus connects to the 33 MHz PCI 
bus using a PLX technology PCI 6150 bridge device. The PCI 6150 makes 
it easier to connect riser cards to the system without violating PCI 
bus loading rules, an improvement over previous designs.

A side effect of increasing the system bus to 66 MHz was the need for 
some glue logic, normally quite boring but it did provide potential 
for a 'Geekport interface' to be easily added. Now referred to as the 
Amy Geekport.

The aim of this interface was to put some of the fun back into home 
computing. For too long now if you wanted to add a custom device to 
your computer, it was too complicated. By providing a simple 8 bit 
wide interface that connects directly to the PPC local bus it is once 
again possible to create homebrew devices and connect them to your 
computer, just like in the good old 8-bit days.

The interface is memory mapped, provides a basic I/O port, can 
generate interrupts and provides user defined I/O. Application notes 
and sample designs will be available at product launch.

As a final note, the planned board for display at the show will be a 
'developer' prototype. She?s rough around the edges, and we have had 
?issues? with making our logos look great like we wished. This is the 
first release which will be made in a limited quantity for hardware 
testing/OS4 development. There will be bugs to iron out and some 
improvements will be made, when this process is complete, the 
necessary changes will be added into the consumer version, which will 
then be released.

This is the reason we ask for some feedback on the design, there are 
limited opportunities for changes to the final design. Rest-assured, 
we will not be making any drastic changes to the system.

*AMD Geod(TM) CS5536 is a registered trademark of AMD

{Photos of the board are at these URLs. Lookin' good! Brad}
http://troikang.com/images/1.jpg
http://troikang.com/images/2.jpg
----------------------------------------------------------------------

                A 6 0 0   H O P E   D I E S   . . . ?  

3 September, 2006

The release of the A600 accelerator and the A500 version of the IDE 
controller Buddha will be delayed indefinitely. The main reason is 
contract work that will keep us busy for the next few weeks. Please 
refrain from requesting any of these products. The production of the 
new A1200 CPU slot connectors is going according to plan. The new 
products Catweasel MK2 anniversary edition and the A600 memory 
expansion are already available at out retail partners.

Individual Computers
----------------------------------------------------------------------

 . . .   W H I L E   " S A M "   B O A R D   H O P E   I S   B O R N

Empoli (Florence), Italy, September 15, 2006:

On September 23 and 24 at Palaesposizioni exhibition palace in Empoli, 
it will take place the 10th edition of Pianeta Amiga Show.

This is nearly an historic appointment for the italian scene of 
alternative information technology, but not only limited to Italy and 
not only limited to Amiga computers, because Pianeta Amiga exhibit it 
is continuously growing and expanding, due to presence of foreign 
visitors and exhibitors from all Europe.

The Pianeta Amiga event, it represents a place of rendez-vous for all 
amigans and users of various alternative platforms, and an aggregation 
point which is exclusive in the italian outline, and it is also a 
privileged launch pad platform for literally dozens of projects and 
products which continuously born and grew up in the sparkling world of 
alternative computing.

The appointment of this year truly represents a milestone for italian 
information technology, because during the event in Empoli it will 
take place the official presentation of a new computer, entirely 
designed, developed and manufactured in Italy.

This new motherboard will be capable to use wide part of Operating 
Systems created to run for Linux-like PPC based platforms, and it will 
also capable to run various other alternative Operating Systems that 
are widely used on the scene of I.T. world.

It was a long time since the moment that technology innovation left 
italian peninsula.

Now it was born again a new Hi-Tech challenge, and this is due to the 
efforts in co-operation and synergy lead by three dynamic italian 
firms: Alternative Holding Group Srl., Soft3 e Virtual Works, which 
started together a partnership in order to complete the first one of 
many projects, lots of these still in development and evolving.

The results of their co-operation it is a compact, versatile, and 
scalable motherboard based on PowerPC processor by IBM, which could be 
adapted to fit the needings of any niche in the market, and more, the 
motherboard is enhanced with innovative and decent characteristics.
All the features will be revealed during a conference that will take 
place on Saturday 23 September 2006 starting at 11:00 during Pianeta 
Amiga show.

Ciao,

Jasa Communication
Bitplane
Alternative Holding Group
Soft3
Virtual Works
----------------------------------------------------------------------

       A M I G A   A N D   T H U N D E R B I R D S   D E A L 

Seattle , September 26, 2006 - The Seattle Thunderbirds and Amiga, 
Inc., today announced a cooperative marketing deal that will give 
T-Birds fans access to a variety of games, puzzles, and arcade 
applications for personal computers, gaming devices, mobile handsets, 
set top boxes, and other computing devices.

Amiga's technologies are being designed to integrate consumers' 
favorite T-Bird images and hockey-based content into the most 
entertaining and challenging mobile games, video and music.

Fans will be able to see demonstrations of, and purchase, T-Bird-
branded Amiga products at the T- Birds 2006-07 home opener on 
Saturday, September 30, at KeyArena at 7:05 p.m. The T-Birds will 
take on the Vancouver Giants in their home opener.

"Amiga's ability to offer high quality T-Birds branded multimedia to 
the phones, PCs and TVs of our fans fits well with our commitment to
provide the most enticing entertainment package," said Colin Campbell, 
T-Birds Assistant General Manager and Director of Marketing.

"The T-Birds bring excitement to their loyal and enthusiastic fan base 
both on and off the ice. Amiga further enhances the value of the 
Thunderbird brand and lets fans take their team with them everywhere?, 
said Vince Pfeifer, Amiga Vice President of Operations.

The T-Birds and Amiga are pursuing joint marketing and sponsorship 
opportunities throughout the Seattle community. Amiga will also 
sponsor several T-Bird promotions throughout the season, including the 
official team poster and the magnetic schedules giveaway on opening 
night.

About the Seattle Thunderbirds:

The Seattle Thunderbirds are a Seattle-area based hockey team 
affiliated with the Western Hockey League. With a league-wide 
development agreement with the National Hockey League geared to 
creating outstanding hockey talent and well-rounded individuals in the 
community, the Thunderbirds and their players are one-step away from 
the NHL. The players in the WHL attend high school or take college 
courses while perusing their hockey career. For more information 
please see www.seattlethunderbirds.com.
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          A M I G A W E B . N E T   I S   L A U N C H E D 

27 September, 2006

We are proud to announce first version of a new English web site 
dedicated to computing and Internet in general, and the Amiga in 
special.

The website is AmigaWeb.Net

Note: The AmigaWeb.Net website belongs to the community it serves, 
namely common people like us all, and especially to those having a 
curiousity towards the Amiga computing platform.

AmigaWeb.Net wants to embrace all hardware and software platforms 
being able to run AmigaOS and Amiga emulators as well, including:

AmigaOne
Pegasos
AROS
Amiga Forever
WinUAE
AmiKit

...but the web site also wants to target general internet related 
news, and also have some news about special events / happenings / 
products that are of common interest for computer interested people.

We also run an IRC channel #AmigaWeb @ EFnet. You are most welcome!

User registration and forum is functionable and it is possible to 
register at the moment.

Still, progress is done in coding towards the version 1 of the site 
code, as we still consider the existing code to be in a beta version.

I have the honour of wishing all of my Amiga companions a warm welcome 
to the new site.
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       A M I G B G   A W A R D   W I N N E R S   N A M E D

22 September, 2006

Amiga Summer Party 2006 took place on the 25-27:th of August.
For the third year in a row the AmiGBG award was awarded.

This years winners were:
The Swedish award to: Guru Meditation

The International award to: Individual Computers

AmiGBG congratulates the worthy winners.


Andreas Loong - Guru Meditation
AmiGBG crew honours Andreas with this award for his efforts and hard 
work in promoting the Amiga platform. Guru Meditation, based in 
Gothenburg, Sweden is a company that supports the Amiga user base in 
many different ways. With true Amiga spirit, Andreas has on several 
occasions showed his great generosity (e.g. the os4depot contest, his 
donations everywhere). Guru Meditation has become a well known name in 
the world of Amiga, a company that stands for honesty, righteousness, 
passion and real belief in the Amiga.

Jens Schonfeldt - Individual computers

AmiGBG crew honours Jens with this award for his efforts and hard work 
in promoting the Amiga platform. Individual Computers, based in 
Aachen, Germany is a company that supports the Amiga user base in many 
ways. The numerous ingenious hardware solutions coming from Individual 
Computers throughout the years have helped the Amiga platform to 
persist and evolve. Jens is a well known name in the world of Amiga 
and has a rightful place among the greatest contributors ever in the 
history of the platform as he continues to support both Amiga classic 
as well as the future of Amiga.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

              A P C & T C P   B A C K   O N L I N E 

29 September,  2006 

Due to a movement to a new server our homepages were only partly 
accessible the last days.

Unfortunately the onlineshop also was also nearly a week offline.

But now the switch to new servers has been completed and the Amiga 
Future page and all APC&TCP pages are accessible again.

Also the onlineshop is ready again.

Because of this there have been also failures in the processing of 
mails. If someone has put an order and hasn't received a confirmation 
mail please get in contact with us.

At this point we want to remind you that the switch of the BBoAH pages 
hasn't finished yet. Many users link directly to the German/English 
starting pages. Soon they won't exist anymore. The only valid domain 
is http://software.amigafuture.de.

http://www.amigafuture.de
http://www.apc-tcp.de
----------------------------------------------------------------------

  B I G   B O O K   O F   H A R D W A R E   I N   N E W   H A N D S 

17 September, 2006 

Because of personal reasons, Ian Chapman, the founder of the Big Book 
of Amiga Hardware, has given his seven years old compedium in new 
hands.

Amiga Future is proud to announce to become the new maintainer of the 
BBoAH. The compendium will be the same as known, but only a few 
optical adjustments.

In future, the BBoAH will further exist in two languages - english and 
german.

Unfortunately, Ian Chapman is not able to free the well known URL 
"http://Amiga-hardware.com" for the BBoAH in the Future. Because of 
this, the BBoAH ONLY can be reach at http://hardware.amigafuture.de. 
Please update your bookmarks!

The Amiga Future team also will work on, to open the (licensed) driver 
downloads page again, which have to be closed since end last year.

NOTICE: For submissions only use the following Email: 
hardware@amigafuture.de

About Ian:

After nearly 8 years of running the Big Book of Amiga Hardware, 
I've decided it's time for me to retire from maintaining the site. The 
reasons are many and varied, but personal. The project started in 
January 1999 and since then has grown to be what it is today. This 
wouldn't have been possible without the hundreds of contributors that 
took their time to help out, many of who sent hundreds of photographs 
over the years.

Effective from today, The Big Book of Amiga Hardware will be 
officially maintained by 'Amiga Future' in conjunction with Mario 
Misic. Mario has maintained the German mirror for several years. They 
will continue to maintain the site in a similar style with some 
modifications but will hopefully be able to give the project more time 
than I could.  In addition they hope to translate the entire site into 
German. Please give them your support.

The new official page is http://hardware.amigafuture.de as I am unable 
(for practical reasons) to transfer the ownership of the domain. 
Please note, that this site (http://www.amiga-hardware.com) will still 
remain available on the web but will not be updated. All submissions 
should now be sent to the email address hardware@amigafuture.de. 
Thanks again to everybody who has helped out.


"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Ian.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

             W I N U A E   G O E S   T O   1 . 3 . 2

16 September, 2006 

Amiga Emulator WinUAE has had a new release taking it to version 
1.3.2.

Changes since the last release include:

    * Debug window won't open automatically anymore

    * HRTMon keyboard layout and WHDLoad commands fixed


New features:

    * Mouse Up/Down and Left/Right input destinations supported 
      simultaneously

    * CD32 state save support (work in progress)

    * A1000 Kickstart disk images can be used as a ROM image



The updates can be found on the WinUAE website.

http://www.winuae.net/
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Amiga Update on the net:
 All back issues available at:
    http://www.globaldialog.com/~bandr/AU/index.html
Stop by and check out our archive! Now in our 13th publication year. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2006 by Brad Webb.    Freely distributable, if not modified.
======================================================================
                 _    __      _     <>_   __      _      
   A M I G A    /\\    |\    /||    ||   /  `    /\\      A M I G A   
  U P D A T E  /__\\   | \  / ||    ||  || ___  /__\\    U P D A T E 
              /    \\_ |  \/  ||_  _||_  \__// /    \\_  
                    amigaupdate@globaldialog.com      
======================================================================

• Fixed: Colorize works correctly (WILL be further perfected later)
• Fixed: Lighten and darken pays notice to the colors they darken and lighten (better)
• Fixed: More BOOPSI compliance internally (IPTR)
• Fixed: Crash on canceling loading of a datatype project !Regression: No 64-bit exporting due to reprogramming
• NEW: Chosen color is not directly connected to palette
• NEW: Rewritten scroll routine makes fluid scrolling a reality
• NEW: Unerase tool! Recover erased areas [WIP]
• NEW: Export with flattened layers (wasn't implemented before)
• NEW: Animation export, vertical strip for programmers and one image pr. frame for making gif animations etc

• Guido 'Geit' Mersmann (Valiant Vision, among others)
• Sven Dröge (proBanking, Bonds)
• Axel Dörfler (Spreadsheet Ignition)
• Timo 'Ermentrud' Kloss (Midi sequencer Horny)
• Alinea Computer (Demonstration of the distributed products)
• Matthias Goldisch (Dealer for Amiga & retro computing)
• Axel Knabe (Office & information service, presentation of BurnIt, among others)