amiga-news.de - Archive

Archive 07/2021

15.Jul.2021 PDF Magazine: Lotek64, Issue 62
The magazine "Lotek64" is dedicated to old or alternative computer systems. The 62nd issue contains, among other things, a report on the Anaglyph 3D process used in the demoscene for about 30 years and its applications, including the example of the Amiga. This article can also be read on the website 'tarnkappe.info', where it is supplemented by some videos. (dr) (Translation: bb)

[News message: 15. Jul. 2021, 07:26] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]

15.Jul.2021
Amigans

AmigaOS 4: Version 6.8 des Audio-Treibers für Intel HD Audio
An update of the new AHI driver for AmigaOS 4 has been released (amiga-news.de reported) which includes the following changes:

Output options added (ALL, Line, Front HP, S/PDIF)
Added support for S/PDIF output (both RCA and optical)
Added support for output muting (mutes Line, Front HP and S/PDIF)
Added support for line-in and microphone preamplifier. (From the CODEC perspective, Line-In and MIC are equivalent. Therefore, preamps can also be enabled for Line-In).
Speed improvements
Small bug fixes

Explaining, the developer adds:

"With AHIRecord you can select a monitor output. This is a strange implementation becauseese actually makes an AHI request to change the playback output. This would require a digital loop. But this is not implemented in AHIrecord. Now that the playback output selection is implemented, this is how you control the playback output for the next playback cycle. So be careful.
The internal monitor hardware provides an analog loopback to a small selection of outputs. The Sound Blaster Audigy FX is limited to the Front HP and Line outputs.
The CM8828+CM9882 cards are limited to the Line output only. So you cannot use the HD audio front panel output as a monitor output AHI has no way to switch to monitor input. Only to monitor volume. So all monitor outputs are enabled. But if there is a need for a single monitor output, I can add a mute option for the other single outputs."

Supported Soundcards:

Creative Labs Soundblaster Audigy FX (24bit/192kHz 5.1)
Startech PEXSOUND7CH (24bit/192kHz 7.1) -> available under many different names
Fransande 411944 (24bit/192kHz 7.1) -> available under many different names
Terratec AUREON 7.1 PCIe (24bit/192kHz 7.1)

Sound cards that should work:

Basically any combination of HDaudio controller and HD Audio multichannel codec (e.g. CA0113, CM8828, CM9882A ALC898 etc.)

Sound cards that do not work (yet):

Asus Xonar Phoebus solo (CM8888 in combination with Discrete DACs in high quality)
Powercolor Devil HDX (CM8888 in combination mit Discrete DAC)

Sound cards that will never work:

"Sound Core3D" (CA0132) based sound blasters (Eg. Z, AE-5, AE-7, AE-9 etc). These cards have a DSP (ca0132) instead of an audio codec. They initially appear to be HD audio cards but after the DSP is booted they behave totally differently. Therefore, such cards must be supported with other drivers.

PCIe Asus sound cards that are currently on sale. These cards are either AV100 (converted CMI8788), CM8786 or C-media 6632AX (USB chip) based. None of these chips comply with the Intel HD Audio standard.

Sound Blaster Audigy RX and all other EMU-based or X-FI-based sound blasters. (do not comply with the Intel HD Audio Standard).

Non-PCIe sound cards in general like external USB cards or old PCI cards.

(dr) (Translation: bb)

[News message: 15. Jul. 2021, 06:31] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]

14.Jul.2021
Arne Urbaniak (E-Mail) Amiga disks on PC: Copy program A-Copy
A-Copy is a program that looks a lot like X-Copy for reading and writing ADF disk images under Windows. It requires the ADF drive hardware, which uses a Teensy USB Development Board as an adapter between PC and floppy drive. (cg) (Translation: bb)

[News message: 14. Jul. 2021, 23:51] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]

14.Jul.2021

AmigaOS 4: Python implementation of Space Invaders
Programmed by Tomohiro Nishikado and Taito distributed by Taito, Space Invaders premiered in 1978: an attack of aliens had to be fended off with the spaceship, moving left and right with it at the bottom of the screen and trying to decimate with shots the rows of regularly arranged aliens that were constantly moving horizontally, gradually moving downwards.

Subsequently, there were also numerous conversions for the Amiga, such as "Super Space Invaders" or DeLuxe Galaga. In 2014, developer Lee Robinson wanted to test his Python programming skills and wrote a Python clone of the game, the source code of which he published on GitHub (YouTube video).

Amiga programmer Janne Peräaho has taken this source code, ported it from Python 3 to Python 2.5.6 and created a conversion for AmigaOS 4.

Extras:

Full screen mode
Unlimited attack waves
Highscore
Title music
Moon background
Amiga-Icon

We have tested the game briefly: The game runs in slow motion under WinUAE on a Windows computer with 2.20 GHz. Maybe newer and faster systems can get more out of it. Native on an AmigaOne X5000/20, on the other hand, it runs smoothly and is thus perfectly suited for a short phase of distraction.

The game can be downloaded for free from OS4Depot, the author is happy about a small donation if you like it, which he also considers as motivation for future projects. (dr) (Translation: bb)

[News message: 14. Jul. 2021, 07:19] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]

12.Jul.2021
Indie Retro News (Webseite) Preview-Video: Point'n Click Adventure 'Athanor 2'
Two years ago 16-bit conversions of the point'n click adventure game 'Athanor 2 - The Legend Of The Birdmen' (originally developed for the Amstrad CPC) were announced. Now, a first video has been released: Athanor 2 Amiga (pre-release video), comparison of the Atari ST and Amiga conversions. (cg) (Translation: bb)

[News message: 12. Jul. 2021, 23:22] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]

12.Jul.2021
Indie Retro News (Webseite) Game Compilation: Ad Cosmos Ex Terra
Ad Cosmos Ex Terra is a game compilation for A500 with one MB of RAM. The disc image, which can be downloaded for free or for a price to be determined by the customer, contains the titles 'Lumberjack', 'Pong 4b' and 'Jump Besi Jump' - the first two have been revised again for this release.

After Lumberjack Reloaded, 'Lumberjack Revision' is already the second further development of the C64 port Lumberjack released in 2017. The new features include 8 different levels, some with different designs, a bee that disturbs the lumberjack at work and a shaking screen when the lumberjack has consumed too much alcohol.

'Pong4b' is an update for Pong4. New is the adoption of the sprites from the CD32 implementation Pong4k as well as background music during the game. (cg) (Translation: bb)

[News message: 12. Jul. 2021, 23:11] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]

12.Jul.2021
Indie Retro News (Webseite) Teaser video: Jump'n Run 'Agonman' announced for August
'Agonman' is a platform game created with the help of the RedPill development environment. A teaser video announces the release of the title for August. A 68020 and 2 MB of RAM are mentioned as the minimum requirements, while a 68030 and some Fast RAM are recommended. Agonman uses some of the graphics from the 2020 released classic 'Agony'. (cg) (Translation: bb)

[News message: 12. Jul. 2021, 22:55] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]

12.Jul.2021
Amigans Puzzler 'Follix' for AGA Amigas released
Recently he has updated his puzzle game ArtPazz, yesterday Simone 'saimo' Bevilacqua has announced the release of his AGA puzzle game Follix. He wrote:

"I was 16 when I bought a stock Amiga 1200, in the fall of 1993, finally making the jump from my beloved Commodore 64. Back then, I was isolated in a little town, knew nobody who was into software development, owned no programming books and had no software, apart from a bunch of floppies containing 3 pirated games I got as a bonus from the shop I had bought the Amiga from. However, having heard I was interested in programming, some friends put me in touch with an older guy who had an Amiga 4000 loaded with several original productivity programs - among which AMOS Professional - and sitting on a desk in his shop, doing nothing. The guy (who eventually became a close friend) allowed me to go to his shop and use his Amiga at will (years later, he even let me take it with me to another town!) and provided me with a copy of AMOS (registered in his name).

I started learning AMOS and improving the little programming skills I had built with the Commodore 64 User Manual and some tapes that taught BASIC. I did not consider another language because I was totally unaware of other options and, anyway, AMOS felt like a natural step from Commodore 64's BASIC and gave me the feeling that I could finally satisfy my desire of making a whole, proper game. Still, my skills and knowledge were limited, my unexpanded Amiga (which was the computer I did most of my programming on anyway) was not exactly a workstation and AMOS had its limits, so most of my ideas were doomed to remain just that - ideas. Yet, I was quite interested in puzzle games, which often have little hardware demands. And so the first game I ever created ended up being a puzzler. It was called Follia NBA¹, and the year was 1994.

The concept was stol... erm... heavily inspired by Thalion's Atomix², which I had seen on an MS-DOS computer of one of the aforementioned friends. It was a bit different from Follix: the tiles of a level were the pieces of a picture depicting the logo of an NBA team³; as a consequence, there was only one correct place for each tile; the player had to guess the area where the reconstucted picture fitted; for every 2 minutes left, the player was awared a bonus that, at his/her command, would automagically put a tile in the correct place. That first version was really bad: some design choices were completely wrong; most of the graphics were ugly; the code was messy, inefficient and, in places, uselessly complicated; the sound effects were taken from various tracker modules. In all, it mirrored perfectly the fact that the development had been a learning process. Though, it did work (I am somewhat amazed by how the patches to the workarounds to the fixes to the bugs produced, in the end, the correct result); moreover, the puzzles were actually good and the game was indeed fun.

In those days, I could not imagine I was sowing a seed. Through the years, I reworked/remade the game 4 times (plus an additional attempt that brought a prototype to AmigaOS 4 and Windows, as a byproduct of an iOS version which somebody else was supposed to take care of), with Follix being the result of the last effort. The motivation behind it was not only to make the game better, but also to make it technically special through ALS (enhancing Follia NBA using CSS, the ALS predecessor, is something I had been wanting to do for ages), to put ALS to good use and to get rid of the basketball theme (which, at some point, no longer felt appropriate to me and certainly is not everybody's cup of tea). The code and the assets of Follix have been created from scratch, but the puzzles are still the original ones (except for Follix' first 4, which are new and purpose to introduce the player to the mechanics gently, and Follia NBA's last 2, which have been excluded because of their sheer difficulty)."

The game can be downloaded for free or for a little donation as lha archive or adf file. (dr)

[News message: 12. Jul. 2021, 09:42] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]

<- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ->