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Archiv 'Updates for hardware and software products'

09.Feb.2022
Twitter

Workbench distribution: AmiKit XE 11.5+ for Windows/Mac/Linux
For the workbench distribution AmiKit, which is intended for emulators, an update to version 11.5 (followed by a live update to version 11.6) has been released. In addition to an emulator, AmigaOS 3.x and the Kickstart ROMs are required. Users who purchased AmiKit XE last year or this year will get the update for free. Those who purchased AmiKit XE in 2019/2020 will need a subscription to the existing AmiKit 11.4.3 to upgrade to the new version 11.5 and above.

The most important changes:

New software, games, updates, features and design too
AmiKit is now in FullHD with enhanced dark look & feel
It's 64bit ready now, also faster and less CPU demanding
All AmiStart menus have been refreshed with nicer and bigger icons
New state-of-the-art installation of AmigaOS - just click 'n g
New MorpheuZ provides better design and functionality
Enhanced Startup-Sequence including Startup-Scripts for better stability
Newer emulation engine (WinUAE) now provides faster and even more precise job

(dr)

[News message: 09. Feb. 2022, 21:43] [Comments: 0]
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09.Feb.2022

RTG driver: P96 V3.2.3 released
At the beginning of January, Individual Computers had updated its graphics card driver P96 to version 3.2.2. Not on the official homepage, but in the support forum, Jens Schönfeld announced that he had uploaded version 3.2.3 with the following changes:

P96 no longer attempts to set the beamcon0 register and the vtotal register of the custom chips in case the active video mode is on an RTG board that is not in the display chain.
Even though bitmaps were locked, memory management could have migrated them off the board if memory was getting tight. This may have caused quite some issues on "close-to-zero" memory situations.
As BlitMaskBitMap was potentially allocating memory for the mask buffer, it could have migrated the bitmaps it was actually supposed to render, causing all kinds of havocs. To avoid this problem, source and target bitmap for a two-bitmap operation are now locked on the board. This is actually a very old bug that goes back to the 2.x release cycle.
A possible memory inconsistency in P96Mode was fixed where an incorrect memory pointer was released.
The Altais and RetinaBLT drivers did not record the state of the monitor switch correctly. As a result of this defect, the SetDPMS() function to enable power saving may have failed, keeping the monitor on all the time.
The rtg.library may have attempted to switch of the Altais display on a Draco system without ever turning it on again.
Fixed a very old bug on adjusting the line pattern shift upon drawing into multiple cliprects. This bug was apparently introduced while merging my own P96 version with the last official version by the authors. This bug could have introduced artefacts when drawing "marquee" effects for selecting multiple files in alternative file managers.
When switching buffers on a double-buffered screens, P96 forcibly reloaded the sprite image, which caused flicker on some RTG boards. This version now avoids reloading the sprite unless absolutely necessary.

(dr)

[News message: 09. Feb. 2022, 06:59] [Comments: 0]
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09.Feb.2022
Michael Rupp (Mail)

Controlling Sonos speakers: SonosController 1.2 (OS3/4, MorphOS)
Well-known for his workbench simulation TAWS, Michael Rupp had released his first Amiga program at the beginning of August, which is used to control Sonos speakers: SonosController (amiga-news.de reported). After a first update, he has released version 1.2 today for his program written in the Hollywood programming language, which is again available for MorphOS and AmigaOS 3 and 4 (screenshots in that order):

Highlights of the new version are room grouping functionality, better handling when Sonos devices are switched on or off and localization including German, Italian and Dutch translation. Michael Rupp was able to intensively test and use the updated RapaGUI plugin during the development of the new version. Regardless of the availability of a Sonos speaker, the author is happy if users basically test the program on the different platforms and give him feedback.

Detailed changelog:

NEW: support for grouping and ungrouping devices. When grouped, volume and muting can either be set for the whole group or for each device individually.
NEW: support for devices that suddenly appear or disappear from the Sonos system, for example when turned on or off.
NEW: timeout for devices to respond can be configured in the Preferences. On slower Amigas it might be necessary to increase the timeout (default is 5s).
NEW: implemented localization
NEW: german catalog: feel free to use it as a template to create catalog files for other languages. Check out the following link for info on how to do it: https://hollywood-mal.com/docs/html/hollywood/CatalogFormatNote.html
NEW: italian catalog by Samir Hawamdeh. Thanks for this!
NEW: dutch catalog by Dave "Skateman" Koelman. Thanks for this, too!
NEW: if no devices can be found by the network scan, it's now enough to add just one single device by its IP address. This one will then be queried to return all the others.
NEW: added a "Cancel" button to the requester that pops up if the network scan couldn't find anything (requested by Steve Harrison).
NEW: added a version check of reqtools.library where needed (on AmigaOS 3.x and MorphOS) when adding devices manually and letting the user know, if the version installed is not sufficient (v39 or higher is needed). After confirming with "OK", the URL of the download page on Aminet is automatically opened.
NEW: displaying the loading's progress when browsing the music library incl. the possibility to cancel it by pressing the [<] button.
NEW: button "Clear Queue" is disabled for an empty queue.
IMPROVED: quicker network scan because now it's enough to find one single device to connect to.
CHANGED: for the non-AmigaOS 3.x versions the shortcuts for "Next" / "Previous" are changed from Alt-LEFT/RIGHT back to Ctrl-LEFT/RIGHT (as it was in v1.0), because only on an Amiga keyboard the Alt key is the closest qualifier key to the cursor keys, but on keyboards used on NG-Amigas it's usually the Ctrl key.
FIXED: nasty networking bug that caused SonosController to freeze after a while, especially on AmigaOS 3.x.
FIXED: possible crash when searching something without results, searching some more and going back again.
FIXED: switching between "Pause" and "Play" sometimes made the button move a pixel.
FIXED: as long a no Sonos devices are found, all controls are now disabled by default, avoiding possible crashes.
FIXED: Control menu items are now disabled according to the corresponding buttons.
FIXED: suppressing shortcuts for "Next" and "Previous" while the search field is focused, because Ctrl/Alt-Left/Right is used to navigate inside the textentry.
FIXED: MUI 5 column widths in the Music Library browser listview.
FIXED: display of room's names with MUI 4.0
FIXED: replaced calls to "OpenURL" with "URLOpen" in the AmigaGuide for AmigaOS 4.x.

(dr)

[News message: 09. Feb. 2022, 06:44] [Comments: 0]
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07.Feb.2022
Roland Wintgen (E-Mail) Conversion instructions: Joystick Competition Pro Extra USB on Amiga
At the title link, Michael Steil has updated his conversion instructions by which you can connect the Competition Pro Extra USB joystick with a standard DB9 connector to the Amiga - optionally even without giving up the USB interface. (snx)

[News message: 07. Feb. 2022, 20:16] [Comments: 0]
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06.Feb.2022
Artur Jarosik Real-time strategy: Command & Conquer is ported to the Amiga
Artur Jarosik is known for various game ports like the platformer Hydra Castle Labyrinth or the action adventure Heart of Darkness, besides his SDL implementation of the browser NetSurf. Now, as a contribution to the AmiGameJam, he has started to port the first part of the real-time strategy series Command & Conquer to the Amiga and named it "Vanilla Conquer".

The video published the day before yesterday shows the beta version of his game. As Artur Jarosik explained to us, the game is primarily intended for Amigas upgraded with an Apollo processor. However, it could also be playable on a 68060 processor with a grafics card with the music and sound effects turned off. Since the audio code is very resource hungry, it is explicitly written for V4 SAGA audio.

If you want to support the author, you can do so on his Patreon website. (dr)

[News message: 06. Feb. 2022, 21:18] [Comments: 0]
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06.Feb.2022 Game Construction Kit: RedPill 0.9.6
RedPill, developed by Carlos Peris, is a game construction kit written in Amiblitz 3.8, 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.

This new version 0.9.6 provides many changes. Among other things, some games can now run on an Amiga with only 0.5MB chip RAM (Fast RAM still required). Also the loading of levels has been optimized and it is now much faster to switch between levels during the game. (dr)

[News message: 06. Feb. 2022, 18:00] [Comments: 0]
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06.Feb.2022

Aminet uploads until 05.02.2022
The following files have been added until 05.02.2022 to Aminet:

mrwolf.lha               comm/tcp   32K   OS4 Pool-friendly SNTP time sync ...
googoo1_2022.lha         demo/sound 48K   68k Chip-music pack by Zenon
gcc3210.lha              dev/gcc    3.8M      Compiler for DSP3210 chips
MCE.lha                  game/edit  3.3M  68k Multi-game Character Editor
MCE-MOS.lha              game/edit  3.6M  MOS Multi-game Character Editor
MCE-OS4.lha              game/edit  3.8M  OS4 Multi-game Character Editor
FlashMandelNG_OS4.lha    gfx/fract  22M   OS4 Mandelbrot & Julia fractals AOS4
WhatIFF1.02.lha          mags/misc  162K      What IFF? #1.02 - January-2022
genplus_mos.lha          misc/emu   1.4M  MOS Sega Genesis and MasterSystem...
MED.RainyDays.lha        mods/techn 373K      MED.RainyDays
MMV8_Complete.lha        mus/edit   1.7M  68k MusicMaker V8 Version 3.0 (Co...
MMV8_Player.lha          mus/play   34K   68k MusicMaker V8 Player
Pacman_Joy_C4D.lha       pix/3dobj  25M       Pacman Greek Joystick C4D Object
amigangwallpaper.lha     pix/back   13M       AmigaNG Wallpapers
ASE2019_1.90.lha         text/edit  169K  68k Text editor
AmiLion.lha              util/app   6.1M  68k AmiLion, a Rabbit Hole App
CompareDirs_OS4.lha      util/cli   417K  OS4 Compare two dirs for diff. fi...
CompareDirsItaCat.lha    util/cli   62K       Italian catalog for CompareDi...
AFortune.lha             util/shell 9.3M  OS4 AFortune write random sentenc...
perciman_68k.lha         util/wb    1.5M  68k manage contact and other info...
perciman_AROS.lha        util/wb    1.7M  x86 manage contact and other info...
perciman_MOS.lha         util/wb    1.6M  MOS manage contact and other info...
perciman_OS4.lha         util/wb    2.0M  OS4 manage contact and other info...

(snx)

[News message: 06. Feb. 2022, 09:27] [Comments: 0]
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06.Feb.2022

OS4Depot uploads until 05.02.2022
The following files have been added until 05.02.2022 to OS4Depot:

frozenat.lha             dev/deb 4kb   4.0 find out where a program is hang...
mce.lha                  gam/uti 4Mb   4.0 Multi-game Character Editor
openurl.lha              net/mis 531kb 4.0 Get that URL!
comparedirs.lha          uti/fil 417kb 4.1 Compare two dirs for different f...
amigattext.lha           uti/mis 3Mb   4.1 Shows German ARD/ZDF Teletext fr...
perciman.lha             uti/wor 2Mb   4.0 Person Contact and Information M...

(snx)

[News message: 06. Feb. 2022, 09:27] [Comments: 0]
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06.Feb.2022

AROS Archives uploads until 05.02.2022
The following files have been added until 05.02.2022 to AROS Archives:

perciman.i386-aros.lha       off/mis 2Mb   manage contact and other informa...

(snx)

[News message: 06. Feb. 2022, 09:27] [Comments: 0]
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06.Feb.2022

MorphOS-Storage uploads until 05.02.2022
The following files have been added until 05.02.2022 to MorphOS-Storage:

SDL_2.0.20_Libraries.lha  Development/Library       All Libraries SDL 2.0.2...
MCE_13.5.lha              Games/Editor              Multi-game Character Ed...
PerCIMan_0.7.4.lha        Office/Organizer          A program to manage con...

(snx)

[News message: 06. Feb. 2022, 09:27] [Comments: 0]
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06.Feb.2022

WHDLoad: New installers until 05.02.2022
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 05.02.2022:

2022-02-05 updated: Hawkeye (Thalamus) patch redone, new imager (game has to be reinstalled), access fault fixed, CD32 joypad support, high score load/save, more trainer options, source code included (Info)
2022-02-02 new: Lemmings - More! (AmigaJay) done by Psygore (Info)
2022-02-02 new: Knightmare (Konami) (Hoffman) done by Psygore (Info, Image)

(snx)

[News message: 06. Feb. 2022, 09:26] [Comments: 0]
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06.Feb.2022 Apollo-Team: Apollo V2 Accelerators Support Statement
Press release:
Dear V2 users, Apollo V2-series have been an extremely successful and hugely loved Amiga accelerator since 2014. Vast amounts of Amiga’s were resurrected from a lonely existence in the attic by “Vampirising” with the V2-600, V2-500 and V2-1200 cards featuring the powerful AMMX 68080 CPU.

Last year the Apollo Team declared the V2 accelerators End-of-Sale and introduced the new V4 range for Amiga 500/1000/2000 (Firebird), Amiga 1200 (Icedrake) and Amiga 4000 (Kraken) (amiga-news.de reported). In this Support Statement we want to give full clarity to our Apollo Vampire V2 user base about the end of the Roadmap for the Apollo V2 accelerators.

Fixes:

Apollo Team has always been and will always be 100% focused on compatibility, giving our users the best Amiga experience.

We continue to collect, analyse and mitigate reported issues from our users, specifically any experiences in game & demo incompatibilities. The recent maintenance v2.15 ApolloCore release for all V2-series shows our commitment and loyalty to V2 community.

For the foreseeable future the Apollo Team will keep bringing new “maintenance” ApolloCore release to V2 accelerators.

Features:

The physical limits of the possibilities in the V2-Series FPGA have been reached. This means the current functionality will be frozen, including the support for targeted OS platforms.

In practice, this means there are no new features to be expected. The V2 range will NOT support any other OS than Amiga OS3.x. Users that want to experience all new developments in ApolloOS, including the ApolloBoot multi-OS solution running up to 10 operating systems, are encouraged to look at the new Apollo V4 accelerators.

We hope that this Support Statement gives the needed clarity on the remaining Roadmap for the V2 accelerators. Please give us your feedback or tips for bug-fixes on the Apollo Discord channel: v2-series. (dr)

[News message: 06. Feb. 2022, 08:24] [Comments: 0]
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