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Archive 10/2019


06.Oct.2019
MorphZone (Webseite)


MorphOS: Software Development Kit 3.14
Press release: The MorphOS development team is proud to announce the release of the MorphOS Software Development Kit 3.14 (October 2019). Our new software development kit advances a number of key technologies enabled by updates to the latest binutils 2.32, ports of the most recent versions of the GCC7, GCC8 and GCC9 compilers as well as a newer perl.

The threading models in GCC5 and up were changed to posix, enabling better libstdc++ compatibility in std::thread, etc thanks to the new ports of libpth and libpthread. A switch to the DWARF2 Exception Handling Model improves performance of C++ code of up to 30 percent. Objective-C ARC is now supported on MorphOS thanks to the introduction of the ObjFW runtime and other advances in compiler ports.

The new SDK requires MorphOS 3.12 and about 3GB of free disk space and can be found in our files section. As always, a separate source package is available for download as well. (snx) (Translation: dr)

[News message: 06. Oct. 2019, 22:38] [Comments: 0]
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06.Oct.2019



Review of browsers on an Amiga 1200 under AmigaOS 3.9 (Update)
In 2019, for the operating system AmigaOS 3.9 there are three different browsers which can be used to surf the Internet using an Amiga 1200? But how does this work? Our editor Daniel Reimann has taken a closer look.

It is hard to believe: In 2019, still it is possible to surf the Internet using my 25 years old Amiga-1200 running AmigaOS 3.9. Recently the best-known browser for the Amiga, called IBrowse, has been updated to version 2.5. Besides, there are two different versions of the browser NetSurf, which both are constantly developed: Artur Jarosik's recently updated developer version 3.10 is based on SDL, Chris Young's ReAction-based version also has been updated to developer version 3.10 in July. This version constantly is being replaced by updated builds.

The key question is: Which websites you can surf using these three browsers and an outdated, at least very slow performing computer technology? How do they manage the websites of the Internets, which nowadays are created using standards like CSS, HTML5, Javascript and a lot of pictures and clips? A first indication that this will be not quite simple is the fact, that by the release of version 3.10 both NetSurf browsers for the first time provide rudimentary support for JavaScript.

One aspect is clear: Browsing the Internet using an Amiga 1200, upgraded by a Blizzard-1230 accelerator board, it requires a lot of patience and creativity. This article is not supposed to and cannot review all aspects but maybe gives you an idea how differently the browsers display the layout and text of the websites, how much time they take and by that is supposed to encourage you to (again) browse the Internet for yourself.

Being able to load websites within a reasonable time, by default loading pictures and Javascript is disabled. In this way some sites look a little bit "amputated", but it saves a lot of time. As we shall see sometimes it cannot be avoided to load pictures. Otherwise you have not access to some functions of the website.

We start our tour with our homepage. In this case we indulge in the luxury having pictures enabled. When amiga-news.de could be accessed unencrypted, IBrowse only took a few seconds to load the website. Now, like many other sites, a "https"-connection has to be established which takes iBrowse 50 seconds to load the site (30 seconds pictures disabled). But IBrowse display the site much sooner, only some loading processes last a little bit longer without changing anything else:



Both NetSurf versions take much longer: Artur's NetSurf 240 seconds (curiously Netsurf calculates only 170s; 73 s without pictures). The result was quite good. The site is displayed compactly and clearly legible:



es Chris Young's NetSurf takes a similar time. The graphic of amiga-news.de looks blurred which might be explained by reducing my Workbench to 64 colours.



Looking at these two pictures, the different concepts of menu navigation can be explained. While Artur's Netsurf completely dispense with a menu and therefore you have not quick access to options, Chris' version offers the menu navigation known from Amiga programs. Using it you can easily and fast turn on/off loading foreground and background pictures as well as disable/enable JavaScript or scaling the view. Artur's NetSurf uses a separate MUI prefrerences window. By calling it (on the left side the first buttom under the Google search), NetSurf disappears and the preferences windows appears:



Also Chris' version offers a separate preferences window for more detailed options.

Curiously amiga-news.de is the only website (so far), where the loading time, calculated and shown by Netsurf bottom right, differs so much from the real one. Both NetSurf versions then only took about 15 seconds for loading the individual news items.

After reading about iBrowse on amiga-news.de, we want to see what the Google search else knows about the browser:



Artur's Netsurf provides the results after 31s (above). Chris' Netsurf takes 26s, IBrowse 25s (below), all with pictures enabled:



Here we notice the link to Wikipedia (https-connection!), which we adventurously open. IBrowse takes 60s for loading the website (pictures enables even though not a single one can be seen), but after 40s the website is displayed. Only some loading activities which do not change the look take another 20s:



Chris' NetSurf fails responding a software failure. Upon request Chris wrote: "I can't test the 68k version because it doesn't work on my UAE any more, but Wikipedia was fine on the OS4 build last time I checked". Artur's version takes 240s:



By releasing the developer version 3.10, Artur Jarosik's NetSurf now supports AmiSSL 4.3. Comparative tests with version 3.9 could not prove any speed advantage for encrypted connections.

Now we want to check a website which requires JavaScript. For this we dare ebay-kleinanzeigen.de. As mentioned previously sometimes you have to be creative. Which means: Do not call the main site (https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de but take the shortcut to the direct log in site, in this case https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/m-einloggen.html?targetUrl=/.

IBrowse masters the challenge after 170s:



Both NetSurf candidates failed. After some loading process both version freezed. Only one time I got Artur's Netsurf loading the website so I could have logged in:



Jumping for joy I entered my mail address when I realized that my "@" symbol was a "2". Further tests showed that it also is not possible to copy and paste because obviously the "alt" key do not work. Artur said, using Alt+2 or Shift+2 the "@" symbol should appear but I failed. I hope some of the readers can tsts it.

Finally I want to show some examples demonstrating strengths and weaknesses of the different browsers. We always want to know how the weather is. First a screenshot in which way Firefox dislay the website under Windows:



Using the direct link, Chris' NetSurf tries to load the site:



and now Artur's Netsurf:



I guess Artur wins the point.

Being a passionate train traveller, I want to check the rail links. Again we do not use the homepage bahn.de but enter the link for the travel information reiseauskunft.bahn.de. All three browser do not offer any automatic suggestions for starting and destination station. In my case I was lucky because I got the correct main stations out of my entries. IBrowse only takes 25s (all disabled). After another 20s you get a really familiar view of the travel information. Great!



Unfortunately I did not get Chris' NetSurf starting the search because although all pictures have been enabled, no "serch" field appeared. After 517s Artur's Netsurf provides the option of entering the parameters and starting a search. After another 828s(!) you get the following result:



The good new is: It works and looks pretty good although the time required by Netsurf is quite high.

Some final comments. One additional plus point IBrowse and Artur's NetSurf get for their capability of scrolling down and up websites without jerking and rebuilding the website. Chris' NetSurf always build a website top down.

Regarding the stability (on my system), I must praise all browsers: If the browsers were successfully launched, they run without any problems. IBrowse gets another plus point for its special reliability. No problems, no crashes. In contrast, Chris' NetSurf has always crashed after quitting it so I had to reboot. Artur's NetSurf sometimes stopped loading after launching the program or the welcome screen was displayed very, very slowly. Besides, the mouse pointer sometimes stucked in the scroll bar.

One detail I was surprised: Although in the prefrerences I did set the harddrive cache to "0 MB" and the RAM to "80 MB" for a better, faster performance, the HDD lamp of my Amiga-1200 flashed while loading the websites. Chris said: "Maybe there is still something in the cache from before". But I guess it could be caused by AmiSSL. The question is if the options setting obove has an influence on the loading time of the browser at all. Maybe some readers have also tested it and can provide some additional information.

Update: (12.10.2019, 16:30, dr)

Of course we have informed all three developers about the publication of this article. We want to share the statements of Chris Young and Oliver Roberts.

Chris Young (NetSurf) wrote: "Interesting! I will note that my version of NetSurf needs more work, but it really needs to be looked at by somebody who is knowledgeable about 68k code in order to track down the bugs and optimise. I don't have the time or inclination to work on it much and am reaching the limit of my ability."

And Oliver Roberts (IBrowse) noted: "Very interesting. One thing I'd like to point out: Google will look much better if you use the default IBrowse 2.5 settings. In the defaults, IBrowse will spoof as MSIE 5.5 on Google, resulting in a much better experience."

Of course I did pursue this lead. He is right. You can change the corresponding option in the preferences of IBrowse under "network" and then "spoofing". However: I did not change anything here before. By default (after installation of IBrowse 2.5) "IBrowse" was enabled here.


(snx) (Translation: dr)

[News message: 06. Oct. 2019, 09:11] [Comments: 1 - 12. Oct. 2019, 17:36]
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06.Oct.2019
Amiga Future (Webseite)


AROS distribution: Icaros 64 V0.0.0 pre-alpha
Paolo Besser has written under the title link about the 64-bit version of his Icaros Desktop: "Yes, you've read it right. It's time to enter the 64-bit Amiga era by the front door, taking advantage of modern x86-64 processors like Core and Ryzen. But beware: this is pre-alpha, un-stable, un-finished, un-reliable software. It's good to see it in action, to check what's working and what's not, to get familiar with latest AROS development, but it's definitely no good yet for everyday's use (which also means that if you didn't consider 32-bit Icaros Desktop ready for this scope... well, this is even worse)." (snx) (Translation: dr)

[News message: 06. Oct. 2019, 09:11] [Comments: 0]
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06.Oct.2019
Amiga Future (Webseite)


Distribution for AmigaOS 3.9: AfA One 1.3
Version 1.3 of the AmigaOS-3.9 distribution "AfA One" (amiga-news.de reported) based on AfA ("AROS for AmigaOS") is available under the title link. (snx) (Translation: dr)

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06.Oct.2019



Aminet-Uploads until 05.10.2019
The following archives have been added to Aminet until October 5th, 2019:
AFnews-68k.lha           comm/news  851K  68k Amiga Future Everywhere 68k
AFnews-OS4.lha           comm/news  1.2M  OS4 Amiga Future Everywhere Amiga...
MCC_TextEditor-15.53.lha dev/mui    869K  MOS TextEditor custom class for MUI
Office_Test.lha          dev/mui    231K  MOS Demo program for office.mcc
F1GP2019Carset.lha       game/data  25K       2019 Carset for F1GP
Atomulator.lha           misc/emu   3.2M  MOS Emulator of an Acorn Atom
Flac133_a68k.lha         mus/misc   429K  68k Free Lossless Audio Codec
Flac133_Aros.lha         mus/misc   1.9M  x86 Free Lossless Audio Codec
AmigaAMP3.lha            mus/play   1.7M  OS4 Multi format audio player wit...
AmigaAMP3-68k.lha        mus/play   376K  68k MPEG audio player with GUI
SysInfo.lha              util/moni  53K   68k Classic Amiga System Informat...
UserMenus.lha            util/wb    2.7M  68k User defined menus for Wanderer
WebRadio_sbar.lha        util/wb    85K   MOS A sbar plugin to listen to We...
(snx) (Translation: dr)

[News message: 06. Oct. 2019, 09:11] [Comments: 0]
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06.Oct.2019



OS4Depot-Uploads until 05.10.2019
The following archives have been added to OS4Depot until October 5th, 2019:
amigaamp3.lha            aud/pla 2Mb   4.1 Multi format audio player with GUI
mcc_texteditor.lha       lib/mui 869kb 4.0 TextEditor custom class for MUI
zitaftpserver.lha        net/ser 9Mb   4.1 A fast and secure FTP(S) server.
aiostreams.lha           vid/mis 248kb 4.1 Stream online video from major p...
(snx) (Translation: dr)

[News message: 06. Oct. 2019, 09:11] [Comments: 0]
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06.Oct.2019



AROS-Archives-Uploads until 05.10.2019
The following archives have been added to AROS-Archives until October 5th, 2019:
flac133.i386-aros.lha        aud     2Mb   Free Lossless Audio Codec
hwp_ahx.i386-aros.lha        dev/lib 135kb Library Plugin For Hollywood App...
amifish.i386-aros.zip        gam/boa 2Mb   Chess program interface for Stoc...
mcc_texteditor-15.53.lha     lib/mui 869kb TextEditor custom class for MUI
lilcalendar.i386-aros.lha    uti/wor 3Mb   Calender scheduling and reminder...
usermenus.i386-aros.lha      uti/wor 3Mb   User defined menus for Wanderer
(snx) (Translation: dr)

[News message: 06. Oct. 2019, 09:11] [Comments: 0]
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06.Oct.2019



MorphOS-Storage-Uploads until 05.10.2019
The following archives have been added to MorphOS-Storage until October 5th, 2019:
WebRadio_1.10.lha         System/Ambient/Screenbar  A sbar plugin to listen...
Wyrmsun_3.5.5.lha         Games/Strategy            Wyrmsun is an open-sour...
VintageSongPlayer_2.20... Audio/Players             A different, funny and ...
GrafX2_2.7_WIP.lha        Graphics/Draw             GrafX2 version 2.7 WIP,...
ScoutNG_beta.lha          System/Monitoring         Preview of the exec lib...
AmiArcadia_25.82.lha      Emulation                 A Signetics-based machi...
Screenshot14.jpeg         Screenshots               Screenshot realised by ...
Cyclecounter.ACEpansio... Emulation                 ACEpansion plugin for A...
Office_test_1.0.lha       Office/WordProcessor      Demo program for office...
Atomulator_1.29.lha       Emulation                 Emulator of an Acorn Atom
(snx) (Translation: dr)

[News message: 06. Oct. 2019, 09:11] [Comments: 0]
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06.Oct.2019



WHDLoad: New installers until 05.10.2019
Using WHDLoad, you can install games, scene demos and intros from cracking groups to your harddisk that were only working from floppy disks previously. The following installers have been added until October 5th, 2019:
  • 2019-09-29 improved: Wizball (Ocean) random quit after some time fixed, manual added (Info)
  • 2019-09-29 improved: Crazy Cars (Titus) supports another version, uses less memory (Info)
(snx) (Translation: dr)

[News message: 06. Oct. 2019, 09:11] [Comments: 0]
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06.Oct.2019
Amiga Future (Webseite)


AmigaRemix: New songs added
AmigaRemix has made available new mixes of well-known soundtracks of Amiga games as MP3-files. Since our last news item, the following songs have been added:
  • Defender of the Crown (The Elf's Story)
  • Turrican II - Traps (ft. Chris Hülsbeck, from Back in Time Live 2018)
  • Turrican II - Desert Rocks (ft. Chris Hülsbeck, from Back in Time Live 2018)
  • Super Cars 2
  • Human Target (trigger happy remix)
  • Apidya (War At Meadow's Edge)
  • Mike The Magic Dragon - Crocket's Theme (Piano Live)
  • Turrican 3 - Credits
  • Turrican 1 Medley (Piano Live)
(snx) (Translation: dr)

[News message: 06. Oct. 2019, 09:11] [Comments: 0]
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05.Oct.2019
Amiga Future (Webseite)


Compiler: vbcc 0.9g
vbcc is a C compiler written by Volker Barthelmann (compiler core) and Frank Wille (Amiga-specific adaptions). The compiler supports AmigaOS 3.x, AmigaOS 4, MorphOS, PowerUp as well as WarpOS. According to the developers "it supports ISO C according to ISO/IEC 9899:1989 and a subset of the new standard ISO/IEC 9899:1999 (C99)."

Changes:
  • Implemented hash table with a default size of 1000. Can be controlled by -hash-size=
  • Fixed bug with recursive struct definitions
  • Fixed bug with C99 designated initializers
  • Fixed C99 initializations of const objects
  • Fixed bug with mixed dynamic initializations
  • Fixed bug with partially initialized structs (C99)
  • Addded __noinline attribute
  • m68k: General improvements of code generation
  • m68k: Use ASR-sequence for signed division with a power of two
  • m68k: Fixed peephole bug
  • m68k: New attribute __fp0ret, to force float-return in fp0, disregarding a -no-fp-return option
  • m68k: Fixed bug with unsigned short array indexes > 32767
  • m68k: Allow 16-bit multiplication
  • m68k: Fix for possible register clobbering in PUSH loops going up
  • m68k: Avoid using the same reqister for Dr:Dq in DIV?L.L instructions
  • m68k: Fixed pointer differences in 16-bit int backend (vbccm68ks)
  • m68k: Fixed bug with shiftisdiv on big-endian hosts
  • PPC: Optimized memcmp() in vclib and as assembler-inline
  • vclib: Fixed snprintf() and vsnprintf() for sizes exactly matching the source
  • vclib atari: Made gem.h compile without warning in ANSI/C89 mode
  • vclib kick13: Support for 16-bit int. New config files
  • vclib kick13: Workaround for IEEE single to double precision conversion in mathieeedoubtrans.library
  • Fixed some kick13 clib headers
(snx) (Translation: dr)

[News message: 05. Oct. 2019, 07:43] [Comments: 0]
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04.Oct.2019
Amiga.org (Forum)


Open source project: The world's smallest 68k FPGA turbo board
Under the title link in the forum of a1k.org the world's smallest 68k FPGA turbo board was introduced - it is "just about 5mm taller than an original 68k in its socket." For the accelerator board the TG68 core is used @50MHz which was also used for the MiST project.

Key features:
  • Artix7-FPGA (215k Logic-Cells)
  • 64 MB SD-RAM (32-Bit-Bus)
  • 16 MB Flash-ROM
  • Micro-SD-Card-Slot
  • SPI-BUS
Currently the FPGA accelerator board still is in development. The primary objective is an improved stability. At this stage the bus width of the RAM connection only is 16 Bit, but is supposed to be doubled. Then the support for the SD card, for the SPI bus and for the KickFlash will be done and finally also a MMU. The source code of the FPGA turbo board is supposed to be released. (snx) (Translation: dr)

[News message: 04. Oct. 2019, 21:36] [Comments: 0]
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04.Oct.2019



Game Construction Kit: RedPill 0.7.2
RedPill is a Game Construction Kit written in AmiBlitz2, which can help developing games of diverse genres - published videos show versions of Pacman and Mirror. RedPill is compatible to AGA and ECS, the "player" requires 1 MB Chip as well as some Fast RAM.

If you are about to update your previsous (0.6.x) version, you will notice that opening an existing project might take a longer time to load - the program is correcting a wrong calculation of the number of levels of the previous version.

Changes in version 0.7.1:
  • Export added in main screen to export the project into an encrypted .redpill file. This file can only be opened from the Redpill player.
  • Export will create a folder named export, this export folder is the distribution folder of your game.
  • Now each map can have its own tileset, the palette will be adapted to the spritesheet palette if there aren't enough colors available.
  • This also means each level now has its own palette saved in a separate file
  • Help for triggers is available inside the editor, just select a trigger and press the Help key. Sadly it is not finishing and not all triggers are documented, but it will come.
  • Condition triggers had a general optimization resulting in faster condition evaluation.
  • Level object screen has been changed to allow editing in a simpler way, several issues have been fixed.
  • Object triggers can be exported to text for easier and global visualization.
  • External text editor can be set in the icon, just like the image editor.
  • In the HUD, the icon sprite used can be set with either a number or number variable.
  • Added manual sprite cut to manually cut frames from a spritesheet.
  • Added action trigger Angle to target that sets the GO angle to point the target, useful for shots and many more.
  • Added action trigger Tiled Move to move objects in tiles.
  • Added action trigger Tiled Push to push other others away when moving objects with Tiled Move.
  • Collision boxes changed to the old (and better) routine.
  • Animation frames can now last less than 0.05.
  • Tabs added in the level editor screen for faster ediing.
  • Minimap tab added to the level editor for quick visualization of tiles and game objects, and map repositioning.
  • Sound Generator added to create new sounds inside the editor, the save feature uses DataToIff V1.1 - Sound File Conventer - Written by Janne Saarme 1990-1992.
  • Bouncing example added in the examples directory.
  • Pillman game example has been added to the projects folder.
  • Red color has been added in the editor for some menus and UI elements.
  • Dialog engine noe uses AGA colors when the game is AGA.
  • Added protection code to the custom load font, if font is not found it should not break.
  • If the background sprites cannot be loaded then level sprites are deactivated.
  • Frame has been removed from the HUD Bar element
  • HUD Bar element now can show timer variables.
  • Issue fixed with HUD texts numbers not being erased correctly.
  • Fixed issue with triggers Hit->CustomX not working properly.
  • Lumberjack platform by Lemming880 has been added to the projects.
Changes in 0.7.2:
  • Parts of the HUD were erased under certain circumstances, this has been fixed.
  • Camera Follow now doesn't follow the Object when it is not active.
  • In Grid Slice, an empty frame was considered, reducing the number of available frames, this has been fixed.
  • Set Speed C action triggers now changes the side the Object if facing.
  • Set Speed X from var now takes into account the side, if side is left speed X will be negative.
  • Some glitches removed when switching between menus.
  • Minor fixes in audio.
  • Some other minor fixes
(cg) (Translation: dr)

[News message: 04. Oct. 2019, 00:19] [Comments: 0]
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