amiga-news.de - Latest Amiga News

Amiga events
13.-15.06.25 • Flashback-Symposium #02 • Jößnitz (Germany)
01.-02.08.25 • Amiga/040 • Mountain View (USA)
11.-14.09.25 • Classic Computing 2025 • Hof (Germany)
17.-19.10.25 • Amiga40 • Mönchengladbach (Germany)
14.-16.11.25 • Flashback-Symposium #02 • Jößnitz (Germany)

14.Oct.2022 Developer diary: Inspired by Powermonger, part 1
Developer Daniel Bratton had been "fascinated with what appeared to be a living breathing world – and that world looked like a gaming tabletop", ever since the game Powermonger came out in 1990. Since then, he said, he's always wondered how that was programmed. That eventually motivated him to learn how to program the Amiga so he could recreate it.

In the first part of his developer diary, Daniel Bratton now reports on how he reprogrammed the game board with the intersecting lines - with the help of the Visual Studio Code Extension, which he will discuss in more detail in later entries. (dr)

[News message: 14. Oct. 2022, 06:39] [Comments: 0]
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13.Oct.2022 ACube Systems: Delivery of Sam460LE boards in November
Press release: We would like to thank all our customers for their support and patience. Despite all our efforts to deliver the new Sam460LE by the end of September, we suffered some delay in the production and, unfortunately, the boards are still not ready for delivery.

Unfortunately, we had to make a last-minute change of some components (connectors) that are no more available and this has delayed (again) the production as we had to test the pre-production boards one more time.

After this last-minute modification, pre-production boards passed every test and are ready to go. We are expecting to be able to ship all the boards to our customers in November.

At Amiga37 in Mönchengladbach we will show the pre-production boards on which are based the final boards we will send to customers. We will update our customer as soon as we have news. See you in Mönchengladbach! (dr)

[News message: 13. Oct. 2022, 08:06] [Comments: 0]
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13.Oct.2022 Linux: Browser Artic Fox V40.0
Christian 'xeno74' Zigotzky has compiled version 40.0 of the web browser Artic Fox for Linux PowerPC (32 Bit). Basically it runs under the Linux PowerPC distributions Void PPC, MintPPC, Fienix and Ubuntu 10.04 (which are also available for AmigaOne X1000 and 5000. Mainly, the browser is meant for older resp. slow systems (e.g. G3 with Ubuntu 10.04) because it is using an older version of the Goanna engine which has a good performance on slower systems. As a result, certain pages like GitHub cannot be fully displayed.

Download: arcticfox-40.0.linux-powerpc.tar.bz2 (40 MB) (dr)

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12.Oct.2022

SCSI-SD adapter: ZuluSCSI firmware 1.1.0
ZuluSCSI is a new generation of file-based SCSI hard disk and CD-ROM drive emulators. ZuluSCSI emulates a SCSI-I or SCSI-2 hard disk using an SD memory card (amiga-news.de reported). Today version 1.1.0 of the firmware was released. Changes:

Removed Apple quirks from defaulting to right-aligned strings
Akai S1000/3000 read delay in SCSI-1 mode
Limit drive capacity to actual file size
Initiator compatibility fixes (RP2040 specific)

(dr)

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12.Oct.2022 Tetris clone for RTG Amigas: Atris V0.50
A month ago, Sami Vehmaa released a Tetris clone called Atris for Amigas equipped with graphics cards (amiga-news.de reported). This update to version 0.50 adds an easy and a hard mode, each of both with highscore. Additionally, the game now can be completely controlled with the keyboard. (dr)

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12.Oct.2022

AmigaGuide magazine: Issue 7 of 'WhatIFF?' released
WhatIFF? is an Amiga magazine in AmigaGuide format. Unlike other magazines or journals, WhatIFF? does not deal with games, but is mainly intended for users who want to be creative with their Amigas (amiga-news.de reported).

Now issue 7 is available providing these topics among others:

Reviews:

Classic Amiga Programming Book
FastATA 4000 MK-VII
AmiKit 8MB Expansion
AGAClouds
AmyTree 2022

Tutorials:

Installing AmigaOS3.2 on AmigaOS4.1 via E-UAE
Lightwave 101 - Editing MOD config file
Brilliance 101 - Morphing
Bringing IFFs over to PC/Mac

Interviews:

AmigaLove.com - Eric Hill
Last year`s Amiga Art Contest Winner - Hernain

(dr)

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12.Oct.2022

Encryption protocol: AmiSSL 5.4 (AmigaOS 3/4)
The open source encryption protocol AmiSSL has been updated to version 5.4 and is now based on the latest OpenSSL 3.0.6, which was also released yesterday. The changes:

Updated OpenSSL backend to full compatibility with the latest OpenSSL 3.0.6 (11.10.2022) version, which brings security and other bug fixes.
Updated root certificates to latest Mozilla-based bundle provided by https://curl.se/docs/caextract.html dated 11.10.2022.
Added a proper Amiga-specific ossl_sleep() function, replacing the default fallback busy wait function.
Consolidated all routines that individually open timer.device to instead use a single unified thread-safe solution.
File locks on the OS4 libraries are released during initialisation and no longer held until reboot or expunged from memory.
Handle setting of Roadshow TCP/IP stack type on OS3.
Removed unnecessary multiple openings of dos.library, some of which were mistakenly never closed.
Reworked SDK macros for split API functions to better handle when __USE_INLINE__ is not defined.

Download AmigaOS 3: AmiSSL-5.4-OS3.lha (3,3 MB)
Download AmigaOS 4: AmiSSL-5.4-OS4.lha (3,1 MB)
Download SDK: AmiSSL-5.4-SDK.lha (2,3 MB) (dr)

[News message: 12. Oct. 2022, 06:41] [Comments: 0]
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12.Oct.2022 DIY: Remake of audio digitiser AP420
The AP420, released by Phoenix Microtechnologies in 1991, is an audio digitiser that can take a microphone or line-level input and is connected to the parallel port of an Amiga. 'wiretap-retro' has posted an updated schematic on GitHub that matches the one in the official PDF manual, with the addition of a second RCA jack so you can connect stereo audio. Likewise, he has upgraded the microphone jack, which now features a 3.5mm TRS jack. The selector switch on the board can be used to switch between the RCA input and the microphone input. (dr)

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12.Oct.2022
English Amiga Board (Webseite)

Commercial puzzle game: Connect
In the puzzle game "Connect", you have to connect a series of ICs in such a way that each chip receives exactly the number of connections printed on its package. The game offers over 4 billion possible board variations and can be played alone, in cooperation or against each other.

A physical version of Connect can be purchased exclusively next weekend at the "Amiga 37" in Mönchengladbach. From next week, a digital version can then also be obtained from the developer's itch.io site. (cg)

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11.Oct.2022 MP3 player: Reel Deck V0.71 (update)
After Atris, his Tetris clone for RTG Amigas, and AB_Template, his programming assistance for AmiBlitz 3, Sami Vehmaa had released Reel Deck, an MP3 player for Amigas with graphics card, a few days ago (amiga-news.de reported). With his update to version 0.63 he made some corrections, so that you can now move the window without problems, among other things. Required are a graphics card, a faster CPU, AmigaOS3.x, AHI and at least 20 MB FastRAM. Reel Deck costs at least 3 Euro.

Update: (12.10.2022, 18:22, dr)

In the meantime, version 0.71 is available, which should now use less CPU power: 80% less when idle and 20% less when playing. Likewise, the control keys have been revised, which should now be closer to reality. (dr)

[News message: 11. Oct. 2022, 08:06] [Comments: 1 - 12. Oct. 2022, 18:56]
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10.Oct.2022
Ko-fi Editor: Lite XL 2.1.0r1 for AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS released
George 'walkero' Sokianos has just released version 2.1.0r1 of the editor Lite XL for AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS (amiga-news.de reported) and explained:

"Hope you are all ready for one more release of LiteXL editor, for both AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS. This release is one of the best I made because there are a lot of new features and fixes.

This release brings the code more up-to-date with the official repository and closer to the v2.1 release, which is still in development. This means that we have the latest code as it is created by the original team, which will make future releases easier to be ported unless a huge change will happen.

Some of the included fixes are the locale problem on MorphOS, which I thought I fixed in the previous release, but I didn't. But now I hope I nailed it, but it remains to be proven. Also, fixed issues with regex selections and with some plugins that used it to recognise parts of the code, like the Markdown and PHP files.

Now, if the user right click on a folder or file at the treeview on the left side of the editor, and selects the "Open in System" option this opens at the Workbench or Ambient screen. If it is a folder a new window opens showing the contents of that folder, but if a file is selected this opens with the default tool. Even binaries can be executed that way.

Since it is the latest available code, all the plugins were updated with the latest versions, something that is necessary because the supported version changed. That means that the old plugins are not working with this one anymore. I also added extra plugins in the add-ons folder, which are tested and working fine.

One of the features I enjoy in this version is the filesystem synchronisation, which means that if a file changes outside the LiteXL, i.e. a file/folder is added/deleted/renamed, this will be reflected in LiteXL as soon as it gets the focus. Even if you change the contents of a file, a requester in LiteXL will inform the user about it. That is really useful, but it is still experimental, although it seems to work quite well.

A lot of people complained about the scrollbar at the side, that it is too small. Now, when the mouse pointer goes close to the edge of the window, the scrollbar gets bigger and it is easier to grab and move it. Hope you people like it.

This ninth release of the editor for AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS is one of my beloved and possibly the best to give you. You definitely need to try it out, if you haven't done that yet. And if you love it and find it useful please consider supporting my work here in ko-fi, as my Top Supporters do.

I highly recommend you do a new installation and do not use old configuration files, since a lot changed and this might not work well for you. Also, please read the readme file that comes in the archive for more information." (dr)

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10.Oct.2022
Bartos Lisowski (ANF) C64 music emulation: PlaySid.library updated
SID (short for Sound Interface Device) is the name of the sound chip used in the VC 10, C64 and C128. (see C64-Wiki). The Playsid.library allows music players like HippoPlayer and DeliTracker to emulate this chip under AmigaOS 3.

Kari-Pekka Koljonen, developer of HippoPlayer, has forked the GitHub repo of the Playsid.library published a few days ago and modified it, so that the PlaySid.library now uses the very accurate reSID instead of the original SID emulation. A minimum of a 68060 processor is required, although the 68040 has not been tested. An FPU is not needed.

Download: playsid.library (28 kB) (dr)

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10.Oct.2022
Andreas Falkenhahn (ANF) Programming language: AVCodec plugin 1.5 for Hollywood
Press release: Airsoft Softwair are proud to announce that version 1.5 of the AVCodec plugin for Hollywood has just been released. This plugin allows Hollywood scripts to load all kinds of video and audio formats supported by FFmpeg. Version 1.5 is a minor update which introduces support for parametric stereo and contains some fixes.

Version 1.5 of the AVCodec plugin is now available for free download from the official Hollywood portal. Thanks to Hollywood's cross-platform plugin system versions for AmigaOS3 (m68k, m881), AmigaOS 4, MorphOS, Linux (ppc, arm, x86, x64), macOS (ppc, x86, x64), Windows (x86, x64), Android (arm, arm64), and iOS (arm, arm64) are provided. (cg)

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09.Oct.2022

AmigaOS 4.1: Introduction to the Software Development Kit V54.16, part 1
A few days ago, Hyperion Entertainment released the Software Development Kit (SDK) V54.16 (amiga-news.de reported). Our reader and AmigaOS 4 user Josef Wegner has kindly agreed to introduce us to the new SDK and its possibilities in a series of articles. We say thank you very much and hand over the scepter for the first part to Josef:

"After a break of about half a year, there is a sign of life from Hyperion Entertainment again. The company has made a new SDK available for download. But what is it? And what do you need it for? This and other questions will be answered in this and other articles. Developers or readers who have already installed and used one of the previous SDKs may now skip this article, there will probably be nothing new mentioned here.

What is this SDK?

SDK stands for Software Development Kit. Translated, it is a software development package. Developers from the classic (m68k) Amiga will instead know the term NDK – Native Development Kit. Native stands for the fact that development takes place on the Amiga itself. In contrast to cross compiling, where the development takes place on another computer and only the finished code is transferred to the Amiga and then started. For this you also need the SDK, but only certain components, and goes beyond what I want to discuss in these articles.

What can you do with the SDK?

You can compile programs in the programming language C on the Amiga and then run them. So roughly sorted by difficulty, the following is possible with the SDK:

writing small programs in C
learning the programming language C
porting old Amiga programs to AmigaOS 4.1
porting C programs from other platforms (e.g. Linux) to AmigaOS 4.1

What does the SDK include?

It contains everything to translate C source code into executable Amiga programs. More precisely there are:

different version of GNU C compiler (gcc)
the VBCC, also a C compiler
documentation about the functions provided by the AmigaOS
so called header files, which tell the compiler what the functions of the operating system are called and which parameters are expected
a POSIX compatible environment to compile Linux/Unix/POSIX programs
a debugger
and other tools.

The GCC is the standard compiler on Linux and most programs on the Linux world can only be compiled with this compiler without changes. Different versions can be installed in the SDK, in the current SDK the versions 6.4, 8.4, 10.3 and 11.2 are available for selection. Usually a higher version means that the compiler has more features and is "better". But sometimes possibilities are dropped, e.g. a better support of the (still to be released) A1222 plus (Tabor), which is only included in GCC up to version 6.

The VBCC is a slim, small (compared to the GCC) compiler that supports a variety of targets, e.g. Amiga with a 680x0, MorphOS, AmigaOS 4.1, but also Atari, ARM, 6502, just to name a few. But in the SDK there is only a version for AmigaOS 4.1. If you want to program on AmigaOS 4.1 also for the classic Amigas, you need further packages from VBCC.

Very important are the so-called Autodocs, which describe all public functions of the operating system. If you want to look up the name of a function, which parameters it needs or how exactly it works, you will find it in the AutoDocs. In order to be able to read and search them better, there is a program called AutoDocViewer, which takes over these tasks.

What does SDK include not?

The SDK does not contain an IDE (integrated development environment), it is almost exclusively command line tools. If you expect an environment like Visual Studio or Eclipse, you will probably be disappointed. And there is no tutorial to help you get started.

What do you need in addition to the SDK?

To use the SDK, the command line („Shell“) and a text editor (e.g. NotePad) are required. Both are included by default with AmigaOS 4.1. However, it would be helpful to use a better text editor that has the following features:

auto indent
colored syntax highlighting
scripting or calling programs directly from the editor

Depending on your preferences and budget, there are various options:

MEmacs (part of AmigaOS 4)
vim 9.0.583
litexl 2.0.3r3
StormC5 ED
CygnusED

If you need even more functions, you could have a look at the following Amiga IDEs:

Unfortunately, both IDEs are not that up-to-date anymore and especially CubicIDE needs some adjustments to make it work on AmigaOS 4.1 with the current SDK.

In the further articles I will dedicate myself to installing the SDK, writing small programs, explaining the difference between standard C and Amiga programs and how to compile Linux/Unix libraries and use them on AmigaOS 4.1." (dr)

[News message: 09. Oct. 2022, 13:44] [Comments: 0]
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09.Oct.2022

Aminet uploads until 08.10.2022
The following files have been added until 08.10.2022 to Aminet:

SoS_robots.lha           demo/aga   10M   68k Robots by System of Sound
wla_dx_v10.3.lha         dev/cross  6.6M  68k WLA DX - 8-bit CPU Cross Macr...
REDPILLGameCreator.lha   dev/misc   2.7M  68k Game Creator with AGA support
device-streams.lha       disk/misc  88K   68k blkcopy RDB part <> file/stre...
tanx_fetser.lha          game/2play 159K  68k Artillery duel for 8 players ...
MCE.lha                  game/edit  3.6M  68k Multi-game Character Editor
MCE-MOS.lha              game/edit  3.8M  MOS Multi-game Character Editor
MCE-OS4.lha              game/edit  4.1M  OS4 Multi-game Character Editor
OpenDUNE_AGA.lha         game/strat 393K  68k Amiga port of Dune 2 (OpenDUNE)
OpenDUNE_RTG.lha         game/strat 394K  68k Amiga port of Dune 2 (OpenDUNE)
DOSBox_AGA.lha           misc/emu   931K  68k Amiga port of DOSBox
DOSBox_RTG.lha           misc/emu   931K  68k Amiga port of DOSBox
MultiPlay.ACEpansion.lha misc/emu   14K   MOS ACEpansion plugin for ACE CPC...
PlayCity.ACEpansion.lha  misc/emu   16K   MOS ACEpansion plugin for ACE CPC...
abcm2ps.lha              mus/misc   534K  MOS Convert music tunes from ABC ...
DAPlayer_68k.lha         mus/play   837K  68k Digital audio player mp3, cdd...
DAPlayer_mos.lha         mus/play   703K  MOS Digital audio player mp3, cdd...
DAPlayer_os4.lha         mus/play   1.1M  OS4 Digital audio player mp3, cdd...
imp3.lha                 mus/play   40K   ALL Do stuff on Amiga!
IdentifyDev.lha          util/libs  67K   68k Identify hardware and more
IdentifyLib_FR.lha       util/libs  11K       French catalogs for identify....
IdentifyUsr.lha          util/libs  92K   68k Identify hardware and more
ColorPicker.lha          util/wb    10K   68k tool for get color from Workb...
newmeter.lha             util/wb    25K   68k Shows free RAM and storage as...

(snx)

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09.Oct.2022

OS4Depot uploads until 08.10.2022
The following files have been added until 08.10.2022 to OS4Depot:

daplayer.lha             aud/pla 1Mb   4.0 A digital audio player for Amiga
imp3.lha                 aud/pla 40kb  4.0 Do stuff on Amiga!
vasmm68k_mot.lha         dev/cro 240kb 4.0 Portable and retargetable assembler
vasmm68k_std.lha         dev/cro 234kb 4.0 Portable and retargetable assembler
vasmppc_std.lha          dev/cro 199kb 4.0 Portable and retargetable assembler
billyfrontier.lha        gam/act 82Mb  4.1 an arcade style action game
ottomatic.lha            gam/adv 144Mb 4.1 Robot who is given the job of sa...
cromagrally.lha          gam/dri 126Mb 4.1 Wildest racing game since man in...
virtualvoodoojob.lha     gam/mis 2Mb   4.0 This black magic tool to do evil...
augustus.lha             gam/str 3Mb   4.1 Open Source Enhanced port of Cae...
mce.lha                  gam/uti 4Mb   4.0 Multi-game Character Editor

(snx)

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09.Oct.2022

AROS Archives uploads until 08.10.2022
The following files have been added until 08.10.2022 to AROS Archives:

uhctools.i386-aros.lha       uti/mis 48kb  A collection of programs and scr...
virtualvoodoojob.lha         uti     2Mb   This black magic tool.

(snx)

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09.Oct.2022

MorphOS-Storage uploads until 08.10.2022
The following files have been added until 08.10.2022 to MorphOS-Storage:

abcm2ps_8.14.13.lha       Audio/Tools               Convert music tunes fro...
wla_dx_10.2.lha           Development/Cross         8-bit CPU Cross Macro A...
SDL_2.24.1_Libraries.lha  Development/Library       All Libraries SDL2 : SD...
PlayCity_1.1.lha          Emulation/ACEpansion      Plugin for ACE CPC Emul...
MultiPlay_2.0.lha         Emulation/ACEpansion      ACEpansion plugin for A...
SpaceCadetPinball.lha     Games/Misc                Decompilation of 3D Pin...
TinyGL-Update-2022-10-... System/Update             This is the fourth publ...

(snx)

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09.Oct.2022

WHDLoad: New installers until 08.10.2022
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 08.10.2022:

2022-10-08 fixed: Tintin on the Moon / Tim und Struppi auf dem Mond (Infogrames) prevent access fault on 68000 (Info)
2022-10-08 improved: Thunder Burner (Loriciel) 68000 quitkey, new install script (Info)
2022-10-08 improved: The Quest For The Time Bird / Auf der Suche nach dem Vogel der Zeit / La quête de l'oiseau du temps (Infogrames) made 68000 compatible (Info)
2022-10-08 improved: The Oath (Attic) supports another version, trainer added, 68000 quitkey, new imager and install script (Info)
2022-10-08 improved: Streetfighter 2 (Capcom/U.S.Gold) supports another version (Info)
2022-10-08 improved: Rambo 3 (Ocean) trainer added, high score saving added, 68000 quitkey, manual and icons added (Info)
2022-10-08 new: Postman Pat III (Alternative) done by CFou! (Info)
2022-10-08 improved: Grand Monster Slam (Rainbow Arts) supports another version (Info)
2022-10-08 improved: Godfather (U.S.Gold) access faults fixed, trainer added, 68000 quitkey, manual added (Info)
2022-10-08 improved: Bombjack - Beer edition (McGeezer) supports another game version (Info)
2022-10-05 new: Face Off / Ice Hockey (Anco) done by CFou! (Info)
2022-10-05 updated: Venom Wing (Thalamus/SoftEyes) default quitkey changed (Info)
2022-10-05 improved: Stormball (Millennium) new imager, 68000 quitkey, new icons and install script (Info)
2022-10-05 fixed: Harricana (Loriciel) access fault removed, new icons (Info)
2022-10-05 improved: Armalyte (Thalamus) splash window config, 68000 quitkey, new imager, manual added (Info)
2022-10-03 improved: Workbench 3.1 (CBM) minor fixes (Info)
2022-10-03 improved: Workbench 1.3 (Amiga Inc.) minor fixes (Info)

(snx)

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09.Oct.2022
Amiga Future (website) Event: Amiga Ireland 2023
On January 13/14 the next Amiga Ireland will take place again as a regular event. The venue for the meeting, which is regularly also attended by more prominent members of the Amiga community, is as usual the Sheraton Hotel in the town of Athlone, located in the heart of the island. Tickets can already be purchased. (snx)

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08.Oct.2022

Amiga Kit launched Blog
Today Amiga Kit has launched his blog. Among others, these are the topics of the first entry:

PiStorm 600
Amiwest and Amiga37 Shows
Floppy Disk Switcher
Alien Breed Killing Grounds Development
V46 commands
AMIGA.org server update

(dr)

[News message: 08. Oct. 2022, 18:55] [Comments: 0]
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08.Oct.2022 Jump'n Run: Minky released (update)
Minky (video) is a jump'n run similar to Super Mario or Giana Sisters, which requires an Amiga 500 with one Megabyte RAM (amiga-news.de reported about the pre-release version). Now the developer 'Matze1887' has released the full version, which offers 28 levels, each of which can be accessed directly by password. The game is available from 5.99 Euro on itch.io.

Update: (12.10.2022, 18:05, dr)

The developer has released a little update which fixes a level map glitch in Level 4 and which now shows the final picture. Please note: If you use up to 2 external drives on standard Amiga 500, then download the Add21k variant which frees some more Chip-RAM. (dr)

[News message: 08. Oct. 2022, 18:19] [Comments: 1 - 12. Oct. 2022, 18:13]
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08.Oct.2022
Martina Hřebcová (Mail) Report: The AmigaOne XE (Czech)
Martina Hřebcová is known for her detailed reviews and analyses of Amiga hardware, for example about the Graphic cards for Sam440ep-flex, the Pegasos I or PPC architecture evolution in Amiga world.

In her latest article, she describes her impressions and reports on various tests of an AmigaOne XE she received from a colleague in America in the spring of 2022. (dr)

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08.Oct.2022 Hymn: File manager Directory Opus 4
Carl Svensson is well known for his detailed reflections and assessments on topics around the Amiga: be it the buying guide The Amiga Buyer's Guide - Edition 2022 or his philosophical reflections on the Sustainability of the Amiga.

In his latest essay, he focuses on the file manager Directory Opus 4 (DOpus, Aminet link to version 4.16), originally developed by GP Software, and discusses its advantages and especially its configurability. By the way, the successor version 5 is also freely available on Sourceforge. (dr)

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07.Oct.2022
RetroWiki ACube Systems: Sam460LE boards available (update)
In a press release from mid-August, ACube Systems had announced the delivery of the Sam460LE boards for the end of September (amiga-news.de reported). Now the board is offered in the in ACube's store for 962.58 Euro including taxes and AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition but excluding memory modules.

Update: (09.10.2022, 13:48, dr)

Acube Systems has just informed us that the information that the board is listed as "In stock" in the store is misleading. Currently, the boards are still in production, the published image is from pre-production. They had to be built to make sure they work as intended. According to the current status, the boards will be finished at the beginning of November. (dr)

[News message: 07. Oct. 2022, 06:42] [Comments: 0]
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07.Oct.2022

Emulator: WinUAE 4.9.2+ beta 1
Originally Toni Wilen, the author of the well-known Amiga emulator WinUAE, had already planned to jump to version 5 with the next release in July 2021 (amiga-news.de reported). However, in February 2022 he first released version 4.9.1 and as he now reports with the start of the beta series for version 4.9.2+ (the version number can still change), the next release will not have version number 5 either.

As he explained, there is a "huge amount of low level changes". And he continued:

"Main reason for delay is 68000 IPL timing testing. The last important part of cycle-accuracy. So far there has been 3 attempts this year, initial plan was to use serial port interrupts to generate cycle-accurately timed interrupt (connect TX to RX pin, send byte, when byte gets received, interrupt is generated). This didn't work because Paula serial port internal delays were unknown and I had no idea how to test it properly. Next plan was to use external hardware (microcontroller that pulls IPL lines). It worked but it wasn't fully cycle-accurate because of async clocks and it was annoying to use (I also didn't like requiring external hardware), it would have needed more hardware and I wanted to be it to be as simple as possible. Then we (me and ross) finally run out of weird display and CIA related tests and decided to analyze serial port timing. It took few more weeks (and also helped to confirm Paula interrupt timing). Finally serial port interrupt was usable for IPL testing. Still some tester software updates and testing to do before real work starts. This probably takes at least 1-2 months (it is soo boring..) which is the reason I plan to start beta series before IPL updates are done."

Now he has released the first beta version for 4.9.2+ under the title link. Main changes:

Added "Ultra extreme debug" overscan mode. Complete raster is fully visible, horizontal and vertical blanking disabled (including borderblank). COLOR0 changes are always visible.
CPU chipset bus access cycle allocation was not fully accurate. Basically addressing part of cycle and data transfer part of cycle was swapped. Has been wrong since CE mode was introduced. Fixes for example Batman the Caped Crusader. (Single cycle difference was all that was needed to fix it..). This can break some older state files.
68000 STOP emulation rewritten, cycle usage and interrupt start timing is fully cycle accurate now.
If all bitplane start conditions were active except vertical DIWSTRT and DIWSTRT was written later with vertical value == current vertical, bitplane DMA started immediately but there should be 2 cycle delay. If bitplane DMA was disabled but all other conditions were already active and then DMACON was written to enable BPL DMA: DMA started 1-2 cycles too late.
If (quite short) bitplane DMA ends before all sprite slots have been processed, remaining sprite slots can still work normally (sprites are only inhibited when internal bitplane activity signal is active). This can also trigger very nasty (previously unknown?) chipset bug: when last bitplane DMA fetch happens, sprite DMA is not anymore inhibited by bitplane DMA (sort of off-by-one bug) and if same slot has active sprite, it will conflict with bitplane DMA. It can cause unexpected DMA write to another custom register (instead of BPLxDAT), possible range is from 0x100 to 0x11E. For example if it happens to be BPLCON0 (0x100), display can get corrupted or monitor can lose sync (or shows "No signal" message) if ERSY bit gets set. (Guess how this bug was found.. It was quite confusing when very innocent looking test program suddenly caused display to lose sync only on real hardware). This is now accurately emulated and DMA debugger will log conflicts.
Bitplane refresh slot conflicts are accurately emulated (see below)
Added monitor sync method configuration. Default is "Combined" (matches previous UAE versions that basically combines both modes), C-Sync: use composite sync signal as sync source, HV-Sync: use separate horizontal and vertical sync signals (VGA). Some programmed modes can have differences between sync modes or only work in HV sync mode or only in C sync mode in real world. For example ECS Denise can't generate both valid C-sync and programmed horizontal blanking simultaneously. AGA does not have this limitation.
Emulated display is now blanked if programmed display mode settings are impossible (real display would lose sync, become blanked or show "no signal"), for example really too short or really too long sync pulses, BPLCON0 ERSY set without genlock, BEAMCON0 BLANKEN or CSYTRUE and CSYNC monitor setting selected etc.. If old statefile is loaded with ERSY set without genlock: enable genlock to prevent unexpected blank screen.
Optional display resync blank screen added to Display panel. (Simulates "modern" display mode resync delay). If not enabled, OSD FPS counter will temporarily show "---"
DMA debugger had wrong address shown for second copper WAIT/SKIP cycle. (was same as previous read cycle)
Hires resolution and hires BPLCON1 bit set (or shres and shres BPLCON1 bit): single pixel horizontal offset may have appeared in right side of screen. AGA and non-subpixel mode only. (Skidmarks II in hires mode)
RTC is automatically enabled if chipset extra= and system has fast ram, slow ram or chip ram expansion.
Higher 68000/010 integer clock multipliers (4x+) in CE mode: chipset access timing was not accurate.
A1000 Denise bug emulated: sprites end horizontally 1 lores pixel later than bitplane horizontal window end. Currently enabled when A1000 Agnus is selected.
Replaced internal 32-bit cycle counter with 64-bit counter, simplifies internal logic because annoying counter wrap around handling is not needed anymore.
Playfield to playfield collision (full collision) only worked when same line had at least one active sprite. (4.9.0)
Sprite to playfield collisions didn't work correctly (4.9.0)
Horizontal blanking was missing if programmed screen mode was active without programmed horizontal blanking (hardwired blanking should have been active)
CIA emulation refactored, fully cycle-accurate now. See below.
Max allowed programmed mode non-interlaced vertical line count is now 800 (from 592), special 700+ line programmed modes are possible and compatible with real SVGA monitors.
Statefile restore didn't restore static BPLxDAT values correctly (only affects OCS/ECS programs that use "7-plane" mode and only update BPLxDATs at startup). (broke in 4.1.0)
Copper zero cycle special cases updated, odd/even line length difference emulated. Copper list that "overflows" to beginning of next frame special case timing emulated, if copper has pending DMA request when COPJMP happens, COPJMP startup gets delayed by 1 copper cycle. Previously copper state was reset at cycle 0 and delayed start was queued which is not correct because first line's cycles 0 and 2 are still normally available for previous frame's copper list.
Blitter startup sometimes had extra idle cycle (4.9.0)
Blitter line mode with blit width != 2 is now accurately emulated and draws correct strange looking "lines" (previously it didn't do anything or line was normal looking)
Blitter interrupt started 1 cycle too late. (+1 was added long time ago becase it fixes one demo but actual bug was following INTREQ register handling)
If Paula internally sets INTREQ bit (not by writing to INTREQ with CPU or Copper): IPL line changes 1 CCK earlier, before INTREQR read returns new bit set.
Starting emulation or loading statefile before emulation has been started: vblank state variables was not initialized correctly, first field enabled sprite DMA too early. (4.9.0 or .1). Hardreset started was not exactly same as initial boot, CPU started few cycles later if hard reset.
Mid screen resolution changes are now pixel perfect (AGA fully implemented, OCS and ECS Denise only partially correct)
Save MSM6242B RTC model control registers to RTC file if they are modified. Previously only RF5C01A control registers (and NVRAM) was saved.
Serial port interrupts and SERDATR are now cycle-accurate. (Only if CPU memory cycle exact enabled)
Serial port transmit interrupts and SERDATR transmit related bits are now emulated even when serial port = none.
Serial port optional loopback mode added. TX->RX. RTS->CTS. DTR->DSR+CD. This is also cycle-accurate (for cputester IPL timing testing without extra hardware, only need TX to RX jumper wire)
Second 1M extended ROM bank is now internally split to two 512k banks. Non-aligned bank start and size caused problems in some configs.
uaegfx Picasso96 v3.0+ mixed mode screen dragging is enabled by default. 4.9.1 required "-p96test 1" command line parameter.
4.9.1 uaegfx Picasso96 screen dragging without ""-p96test 1" command line parameter crashed emulated Amiga.
uaegfx new Picasso96 features are now optional (all enabled by default). Config file only.
uaegfx all Picasso96 functions are now fully "hardware accelerated" (uses host side native code), excluding line draw. Previously some functions only supported common minterms/mask operations, unsupported operations were handled by Picasso96 software. Minterms that read and invert destination do not anymore invert unused/alpha bits if mode has them (15bit/32bit). Always use RGBFormat parameter in D7 if available, instead of RenderInfo RGBFormat variable.
Chipset programmed display modes (again) use horizontal blanking timing to calculate display positioning. It has been confirmed that at least some early/mid 1990s multisync SVGA monitors (for example Microvitec 1438) do also use blanking timing to calculate display size and position instead of only relying on hsync/vsync timing.
Hardware emulated RTG boards that have physically swapped red and blue output (Spectrum, Piccolo, Piccolo SD64) had wrong colors in 24/32-bit modes.
Piccolo Z3 and Piccolo SD64 Z3 had wrong autoconfig board logical size (which crashed the driver).
If hardware emulated RTG board VRAM was immediately (no gap in address space) after any RAM/ROM region and JIT direct was enabled: first 4096 bytes (host CPU page size) of VRAM was not fully JIT direct compatible and any direct read or write to first 4096 bytes would not access VRAM correctly, causing unexpected graphics glitches.
Simplified JIT direct exception handler, win32 exception context structure can be used to directly read and modify any host CPU registers, there is no need for trampolines and self modifying code.
Chip RAM and Slow RAM initial power up pattern emulation is enabled by default (checkbox in advanced chipset). Now matches my real hardware (A500 OCS/A500 ECS/A1200) but modified configurations like ECS Agnus in rev5 (or older) mainboard don't create correct patterns. Random set/cleared bits are not generated, only all ones/all zeros repeating pattern. Pattern depends on ram chip type and manufacturer. Other chips can have different patterns.
Disk data read returned random data even when no drive was selected (should return zeros only). Fixes corruption in original Nitro Psygnosis screen. Also fixed another related bug when no selected drives and disk sync matches side-effect that caused Juke Box 2 / Dreamdealers to hang at boot.
Switched to Visual Studio 2022.
Larger default GUI size and slightly larger font if Windows desktop is large enough (at least 1600*1024)
Finally removed huge amounts of compilation warnings (excluding PCem).
Quickstart panel initial UI element is now DF0: image selection button. Too many accidental Amiga model changes..
DirectDraw support removed, added GDI (win32 basic GDI API) support. Function differences: exclusive fullscreen is not supported (switches to D3D11/9 if attempted), all basic scaling modes and uaegfx hardware cursor supported.
Box art window screen shot rightmost pixel column and bottom pixel row was not visible.
Crash dump dialog close button usually didn't do anything.
ROM scanner dialog didn't use correct GUI size and fonts.
CyberStorm MK I update: Accelerator and SCSI has been split. CyberSCSI module is now expansion board and has separate ROM image (works similar to Blizzard SCSI Kit). Main ROM should be only configured if CPU is 68060 because it will crash if CPU is 68040, it is only needed to disable 68060 FPU. Real CSMK1 had empty ROM socket(s) if installed CPU was 68040.
Visual DMA debugger shows conflicting cycles as blinking red pixels.
DMA debugger (both console and visual) better support for variable/toggling horizontal and vertical line counts.
It was not possible to enter debugger anymore if CPU was stuck in stopped state after entering and exiting the debugger once.
Added OR, AND and XOR operators to debugger calculator (|, &, ^)
Debugger v command does not anymore crash if hpos or vpos is out of range.
Debugger v command now (at least temporarily) shows Chip RAM row and column (RAS and CAS) addressing values. Very important for REFPTR and refresh/bitplane conflict behavior.
Debugger sp command parsed attached sprites incorrectly (since the beginning).
Changed CTRL+F12 fullscreen/windowed switch: If already switched from full-window to window. Next CTRL+F12 will return back to full-window, not fullscreen.
Quickstart panel floppy bootblock check used current track of drive (not track 0). Broken when FloppyBridge support was added.
Reset FloppyBridge state when changing floppy drive type to/from FB drive type to some other drive type. Fixes uae-configuration on the fly floppy drive type change to/from FB.
Memwatch break point that crossed 64k "bank" didn't map last 64k "bank" if it was only partially needed.
Self modifying code (smc) debugger feature now clears detected modifications if 68020+ instruction cache is flushed.
Do not add CPU instruction history entries when CPU is stopped.
Horizontal and vertical position is now included in debugger history output (H/HH)
Added CPU STOP state information to DMA debugger (| = STOP idle cycle, + = STOP idle cycle and higher IPL detected = STOP ending soon)
DMA debugger decimal horizontal cycle counter value removed, replaced with current IPL (interrupt level) line state.
DMA debugger shows CPU opcodes in basic form ("NOP", "MOVE" etc), vertically. It looks a bit weird but didn't have better ideas..
Advanced chipset CD32 NVRAM or C2P without CD32 CD was not fully supported.
CD32/CDTV Quickstart mode "remembered" previous DF0: setting and didn't disable it by default (even if Quickstart panel showed it as disabled)
CD32/CDTV Quickstart panel DF0: was not possible to select/enable.
uaegfx automatic integer scaling supported (chooses max fully visible integer scaling multiplier), manual filter panel horizontal/vertical multipliers supported.
END+F9 monitor switching is not anymore hardwired and can be changed using input panel. (END+F9 debug colors when in lagless vsync mode is still hardwired)
CD audio is now always mixed with Paula audio. Separate CD audio output support removed.
CD audio was not resumed if WinUAE was unminimized and minimize was configured to pause emulation.
Z2 RAM configuration was unreliable. (4.9.0)
Some American Laser Games didn't have ROM descrambling support. Added missing ROM variants.
Added American Laser Games Quickstart support.
If Quickstart ROM based Arcade hardware config (Arcadia or ALG) is selected, NVRAM file name is automatically set to ROM name. Genlock video file path is also set if ALG ROM is selected. Config files are not affected.
Added all 3.1.4+ official KS ROMs to ROM scanner.
ROM file list sorting changed, added grouping, sort by group priority first (KS ROMs, extended KS ROMs, freezer ROMs etc..), then alphabetically.
Integer scaling had scaling artifacts that depended on window size and other variables. (Old bug)
Added NVRAM path to Paths panel. (Arcade/CD32/CDTV hardware NVRAM files default to this path)
Sometimes old graphics was temporarily visible in RTG modes if RTG had visible black borders (depends on scaling mode) and screen was switched and new screen had larger size/resolution.
CTRL+C in console window does not anymore close WinUAE. (CTRL+C in newer Windows versions can work as a Copy operation)
Added video recording file select inputevent. This also starts recording if file was selected.
Window border FPS counter value has "R" appended if recording is active.
Creating directory filesystem soft link didn't work (returned "object not found") in relative path mode (Windows needs absolute path when creating shortcut files)
Directory filesystem soft links only resolved if directory containing link was listed first or if softlink was created in same session (softlink was "cached" by filesystem emulation).
Added "Slow" flag to RAM panel. If set, selected memory bank has Chip RAM timing but is not Chip RAM capable. Advanced chipset panel "C00000 is Fast RAM" removed, it is not needed anymore. (Only affects CPU speed in cycle exact modes)
ECS Denise Genlock features can be enabled manually: genlock_effects= or p. "brdntran" can be used to force enable BPLCON2 BRDNTRAN bit, "brdrblnk" to force enable BPLCON2 BRDRBLNK bit. Separated by comma. (for example "genlock_effects=3,15,p7")
Genlock sprite color selection bug fix.
Genlock ECS Denise BPLCON2 BRDNTRAN emulation fixed. Not real HW tested but I think it is supposed to make border look normal even if color 0 is genlock transparent.
Genlock ZCLKEN BPLCON3 bit emulated, if set, genlock transparency video out pin (PIXELSW) starts outputting 14MHz pixel clock. Emulation creates alternating hires pixel size toggling transparency if enabled and genlock is configured. (Which probably is what happens in real world too when genlock is connected. Originally it probably was supposed to be pixel sync signal for external video devices)
Added Output panel optional 256 color palette indexed png screenshot support. If screenshot has more than 256 unique colors, 24-bit png is created like previously. It also tries to keep original palette order: first screenshot's unique colors are collected, then custom color register values are collected (values at the end of previous field), screenshot colors are matched with custom colors, if match found, color is marked as allocated. Then all remaining colors (copper color changes, EHB, HAM, on screen leds, blanking black etc..) are added to palette. If total is more than 256, 24-bit png is created. 256 color mode also tries to preserve first 32 color palette entries. (Preserved = color is not overwritten by another color even if color is not used in screenshot)
Optional IFF screenshot support (-screenshotiff or screenshot_mode=2 registry/ini). IFF mode does not attempt to preserve first 32 color palette entries to keep image depth as small as possible. IFF is not (yet) compressed.
Debugger 's' and 'W' quoting support improved, for example "W xxx "ab'c" works as expected....

(dr)

[News message: 07. Oct. 2022, 06:22] [Comments: 0]
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06.Oct.2022 Preview video: Robocop (AGA)
Daniel Allsopp is working on a port of Data East's classic Arcade game 'Robocop', he's trying create a better Amiga version than the official port from 1989. Allsopp has now released a new preview video of his AGA game which is developed in 68k assembler (amiga-news.de reported). (dr)

[News message: 06. Oct. 2022, 09:36] [Comments: 0]
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06.Oct.2022
Twitter Preview video: Beat'em Up 'Metro Siege'
In the latest preview video of the side-scrolling beat'em up Metro Siege (amiga-news.de reported) the developers show the latest changes and also give a first glimpse of an action platformer in development called "Scorpion Boy", which is written with the Scorpion Engine. (dr)

[News message: 06. Oct. 2022, 09:31] [Comments: 0]
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06.Oct.2022
Twitter Rogue-like game: Roguecraft announced
Budger Punch has so far released games for the Commodore 64, including Rogue64. As in Roguelike games, you have to go through a cube-shaped tentacle-terror maze in search of treasures and glory. Now one of the developers, Ricki Sickenger, has announced an Amiga version of it with improved graphics and adapted features:

As he explains to us, "Roguecraft will not be a 1:1 conversion of Rogue64. It will contain a lot of the same gameplay, but with some of the enhancements we wanted to have in the C64 version, and some new things that use the Amiga capabilities."

It was their first Amiga game, he said. He and his fellow used to be active in the Amiga demo scene, and they wanted to make an Amiga game to relive the joy of developing on this great machine. The game is announced for early next year. (dr)

[News message: 06. Oct. 2022, 06:28] [Comments: 0]
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06.Oct.2022 Video: Short tutorial for AMOS Pro
In another part of his series of short tutorials about AMOS Pro (amiga-news.de reported) the retro and Amiga fan 'Yawning Angel' explains how to open windows. (dr)

[News message: 06. Oct. 2022, 05:44] [Comments: 0]
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05.Oct.2022
Christian Zigotzky (Mail) Linux: Billy Frontier ported
After Cro-Mag Rally and Otto Matic, Christian 'xeno74' Zigotzky has now compiled a third game for Linux PowerPC (32-bit), Billy Frontier, which had just been ported to AmigaOS 4 (amiga-news.de reported). The game should work under the AmigaOne X1000/X5000 Linux distributions Fienix, Void PPC 32-bit and MintPPC.

Download: BillyFrontier_1.1.0-linux-powerpc.tar.gz (80 MB). (dr)

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05.Oct.2022
George Sokianos

AmigaOS 4.1: Software Development Kit V54.16 released
Press release: October 5, 2022

Hyperion Entertainment is pleased to announce the immediate availability of a very substantial and comprehensive update of the Software Development Kit (SDK) for AmigaOS 4.1 54.16.

New functionality includes but is not limited to:

the inclusion of different versions of the GCC compiler starting from the old 6.4.0, to 8.4.0, 10.3.0 and 11.2.0 which can be selected during installation including the option to install multiple versions
the addition of a tool added to set the default gcc version
SPE optimized binaries can be generated by using GCC 6.4 for maximum performance on systems equipped with an SPE
vbcc compiler is once more included in the SDK, configured to work “out of the box”
Simplegit and Subversion are now included
Profyler 1.1 added and Hieronymus updated to 0.50 version
Updated the include headers and the autodoc documentation
Added extended documentation for all the GCC versions included
AmiSSL 5.3 SDK is included
Latest AutoDocViewer 1.4 is included
newlib and clib updated to the latest versions
ExecSG SDK updated to the latest version
Many code examples were updated to reflect the newest changes, removing obsolete API calls
Updated the "AmigaOS 4.1 SDK.pdf" with new sections and format
Many more tools were updated to their respective latest versions

Hyperion Entertainment wishes to extend its special thanks and appreciation to George Sokianos as well as the AmigaOS 4.x development team for making this happen!

If you want to support our efforts further, please head over to our AmigaOS merchandise store. (dr)

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05.Oct.2022
MorphZone MorphOS: Fourth beta version of TinyGL
MorphOS team developer Mark 'Bigfoot' Olsen had offered a bounty project for improved OpenGL support as well as drivers for more Radeon graphics cards under the title link, which has been successfully funded (amiga-news.de reported). Now the developer has released the fourth public beta version of his TinyGL update.

Among other things, shaders on the Radeon R500 graphics card are now supported, various shader-related bug fixes and optimizations have been made, and the ShaderBoy tool for testing and playing around with shaders has been included. (dr)

[News message: 05. Oct. 2022, 13:03] [Comments: 0]
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05.Oct.2022 Feature test in AMOS: Minigame None Of Us
The group 'ELECTRIC BLACK SHEEP', known among other things for the fantasy shooter Project Quest, which is currently in development, has today released a minigame called "None Of Us", which is intended to test how to obscure the player's opponents with light and shadow in AMOS Pro (YouTube video). It is explicitly not a game under development.
An Amiga with ECS chip, 2MB chip RAM and a fast CPU are required. (dr)

[News message: 05. Oct. 2022, 10:55] [Comments: 0]
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05.Oct.2022

Game Construction Kit: RedPill 0.9.14
RedPill, developed by Carlos Peris, is a game construction kit written in Amiblitz 3.9, which allows the development of games from various genres (see short tests of two Redpill games). RedPill is compatible with AGA and ECS, the "player" for playing the finished creations requires a total of 1.5 MB RAM. Jens 'Farbfinsternis' Henschel has written a tutorial.

Changes of the new version 0.9.14:

Added condition Contains Tile that checks all tiles colliding with a big object.
In AGA black borders hidin copper are back.
Compatibility with Kickstart 1.3 is back.
Added Collisions in the profiler screen.
Levels can be exported in TMJ format in order to be used in Tiled.
When using level properties music, the music will not restart if it is the same as before.
Level properties screen layout has changes in preparation of some new cool features.
WHDLoad slave names changed to make them easier to understand.
Fix in Level Properties screen.
Fixes when building projects.
Fixes for some gfx gliches.
Some small optimizations.

(dr)

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05.Oct.2022
Christian Zigotzky (Mail) Linux: Kernel 6.0 for AmigaOne X1000/X5000
Right after the release of the final Linux kernel 6.0, which is the successor of version 5.19, Christian 'xeno74' Zigotzky has compiled it for the AmigaOne X1000 and X5000 and offered it for download in the corresponding thread of the Hyperion forum. There you can also find a screenshot showing the Fienix distribution using the current kernel. (dr)

[News message: 05. Oct. 2022, 06:20] [Comments: 0]
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04.Oct.2022
Claude Schwarz PiStorm32: lite variant announced
Claude Schwarz' PiStorm connects a Raspberry Pi to the CPU socket of an Amiga via adapter and uses the British single-board computer to emulate a fast m68k processor. The variant for the Amiga 1200 is called "PiStorm32".
Now the developer has announced a PiStorm32-lite variant in a Tweet from yesterday, which should mainly take into account the current component shortage problems and is supposed to become cheaper. As the developer explained to us, the goal is to run identical firmware on both models as far as possible. The project is still at the beginning. (dr)

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04.Oct.2022
Markus Tillmann

Amiga37: Schedules published
The Amiga37 will take place on October 15 and 16, 2022 in Mönchengladbach (information about some exhibitors). Now Markus Tillmann has published the schedules for Saturday and Sunday:

(dr)

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03.Oct.2022

Developer tool: vasm 1.9a
Frank Wille has updated his portable and retargetable assembler vasm to version 1.9a. AmigaOS 3, 4 and MorphOS are supported. Changes:

Reads the input from stdin when no source file name is given.
Small performance improvements. Tuned hash table sizes. Reduced memory allocations and deallocations.
Do not ignore the path from the main source when looking for a file.
Can build low-memory version of vasm with minimal hash tables, by compiling with -DLOWMEM.
Do not allow exporting equates which are based on imported symbols.
Search for include files in the current work directory first, then in the compile directory.
New option -maxpasses to adjust the maximum number of passes while resolving a section.
New option -nocompdir to disable compile directory based include file lookup completely.
New option -v to print version and copyright.
m68k: -no-opt option really ovrrides all "opt o" and "opt a" directives from the source now.
m68k: Fixed 68030/68851 PMOVE issue with TC and MMUSR, caused by a conflict with MOVEC control registers of the same name.
m68k: New Apollo instructions DBcc.L and MOVE2.
m68k: Fixed Apollo MOVE immediate addressing mode to vector register.
m68k: Fixed Apollo SUBI banked instruction (one word missing).
m68k: Added Apollo banking prefix support for MOVE.L Bn, and MOVE.L ,Bn.
m68k: Apollo LSLQ and LSRQ default to a .W operation size when missing. The remaining AMMX instructions should be .Q.
m68k: Make sure AMMX 64-bit constants are parsed with full precision.
m68k: Added missing Apollo FMOVE addressing modes.
6502: Added support for the WDC 65816 and 65802 8/16 bits instruction set, including some new directives for selecting Accumulator and Index width.
z80: Fix for GBZ80 "ld (c),a" and "ld a,(c)".
mot-syntax: ASSERT directive.
mot-syntax: macro arguments within <..> allow additional '>' characters inside a string without terminating the argument (vasm default mode only, not for Devpac-compatibility).
std-syntax: New option -gas for stricter GNU-as compatibility.
std-syntax: Supports one-digit temporary labels, where the nearest previous label may be referenced by Nb and the nearest following by Nf.
oldstyle-syntax: New directives SYMDEPEND and NEEDS. They define a dependency of the current section from an external symbol, which must be resolved by the linker.
oldstyle-syntax: Anonymous labels may be defined with a single ':' and referenced by ':+' or ':-'.
hunk-output: Converts NONE-relocs to 8-bit ABS with a warning.
hunk-output: Improved short-reloc output and work around AmigaOS LoadSeg() limitations/bugs.
o65-output: Check bad addends for 8-bit relocations.

(dr)

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03.Oct.2022 Sokoban conversion in Ultimate Blitz Basic 2
Our readers might know the Polish developer 'Tukinem' by his farm simulation 'Farmiga' which is in development (amiga-news.de reported). Last year he learned AMOS and his first game implemented with it was a Sokoban conversion of a 53 level game originally released for MS-DOS. Yesterday, he added a Sokoban prototype for it, which he wrote in Ultimate Blitz Basic 2. (dr)

[News message: 03. Oct. 2022, 15:33] [Comments: 0]
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03.Oct.2022
Hollwood-Forum Hollwood application: Lyrics Jukebox
Ralf Gruner has written Hollywood, a music player that was originally intended to be the basis for a built-in device for historical jukebox wallboxes.

As the author writes, the program was originally only supposed to play music and text, and control would have been via the buttons on a wallbox. Instead, it now has a full GUI that is optimized for small touchscreens, but also works with large screens. The GUI elements are built entirely with Hollywood.

The program displays synchronized lyrics in parallel with the music playback, which must be in LRC format. Besides playing playlists or shuffling the files, it can also be used in jukebox style, offering the user the tracks in the form of jukebox title strips.

The author actually released the program only for Linux and Windows, but added implementations for AmigaOS 3, 4, MOrphOS and AROS on request. These then however untested. The Hollywood plugins Avcodec and Svgimage are required. Screenshots and more info are available under the title link.

Download: Lyrics_Jukebox_0.9.60.7z (main archive, 5.3 MB)
Download: Lyrics_Jukebox_0.9.60_untested.zip (Amiga executables, 16 MB). (dr)

[News message: 03. Oct. 2022, 12:30] [Comments: 0]
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03.Oct.2022
Christian Zigotzky (Mail) Linux: Otto Matic ported
After Cro-Mag Rally, Christian 'xeno74' Zigotzky has now compiled a second game for Linux PowerPC (32-bit), Otto Matic, which had just been ported to AmigaOS 4 (amiga-news.de reported). The developer has tested the game under the AmigaOne X1000/X5000 Linux distributions Void PPC 32-bit and MintPPC.

Download: OttoMatic_4.0.0-linux-powerpc.tar.gz (137 MB). (dr)

[News message: 03. Oct. 2022, 08:25] [Comments: 0]
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02.Oct.2022 AmigaOS 4: "Otto Matic" and "Billy Frontier" ported
Roman 'kas1e' Kargin has ported two other games to AmigaOS 4:

Pangea Software's "Otto Matic" (YouTube video) was first released for Mac OS 9 and X in 2001 and was included with some Mac models of that time. Kargin further writes about it:

"The game was eventually ported to 32-bit Intel Macs, but it stopped working when macOS 10.15 discontinued 32-bit support. Pangea Software allowed Iliyas Jorio to update the original game to keep it running on today's major desktop platforms. This update aims to be faithful to the original. Elements of the presentation and handling were slightly updated. AmigaOS 4 port is based on Jorio's work and compiled with GCC 11.3.0 and latest GL4ES and SDL2. Video recorded on X5000 with RadeonRX 560 and all latest beta components."

"Billy Frontier" is also from Pangea Software and is an arcade-style action game with a "cowboys in space" theme (YouTube video). The player fights in duels, shootouts and brawls. The game was released in 2003 for PowerPC Macs, the port to AmigaOS 4 is also based on Iliyas Jorio's work.

Both games can be downloaded from OS4Depot. Downloads:

billyfrontier.lha (82 MB)
ottomatic.lha (144 MB) (dr)

[News message: 02. Oct. 2022, 20:29] [Comments: 0]
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02.Oct.2022
Alinea Computer (ANF) Amega 32 adapter: Wireless Mega Drive gamepads are now supported
The Amega 32 is an adapter for the AmigaCD 32 to use SEGA Mega Drive gamepads (DB9) with 6 or 3 buttons (amiga-news.de reported).
Now Alinea Computer has updated the firmware of its Amega 32 adapter. Version 1.4.2 now also supports wireless Mega Drive gamepads in 6-button mode. All who want to update their adapter or want to update it themselves, please contact Alinea Computer. (dr)

[News message: 02. Oct. 2022, 18:22] [Comments: 0]
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02.Oct.2022 Tool: identify-library 40.1
At the end of last year, Richard Körber released the source code of his identify.library on GitHub. He also he took the opportunity to go through the source code again, reformatted it and translated the comments from German into English. The identify library is used to recognize Zorro cards by their manufacturer and product ID, provides information about the system (CPU, FPU, memory, clock frequency etc.) and to decode guru codes and function offsets. These functions can also be used via the included tools, as well as in ARexx and installer scripts.

Under the title link he now has released version 40.1 which includes more manufacturers and boards. Both a developer and user package are available. (dr)

[News message: 02. Oct. 2022, 11:26] [Comments: 0]
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02.Oct.2022

Aminet uploads until 01.10.2022
The following files have been added until 01.10.2022 to Aminet:

CloudDav_1.6.lha         comm/net   501K  MOS A WebDav client
Dzon_Demo_Compilation... demo/disk  880K  68k Dzon Demo Compilation Disk 1 ...
Dzon_Demo_Compilation... demo/disk  880K  68k Dzon Demo Compilation Disk 2 ...
tek-transhuman_pachin... demo/disk  2.0M  68k Transhuman / Pachinkoland - G...
wla_dx-mos.lha           dev/cross  3.4M  MOS 8-bit CPU Cross Macro Assembl...
OsGrind.lha              dev/debug  30K   68k Configurable Os argument checker
PatchWork.lha            dev/debug  48K   68k Validate library calls with A...
device-streams.lha       disk/misc  87K   68k Copy block devices and stream...
device-streams_src.lha   disk/misc  33K       Copy block devices and stream...
WormWars.lha             game/actio 897K  68k Advanced snake/Tron game
WormWars-AROS.zip        game/actio 701K  x86 Advanced snake/Tron game
WormWarsMOS.lha          game/actio 944K  MOS Advanced snake/Tron game
WormWars-OS4.lha         game/actio 1.1M  OS4 Advanced snake/Tron game
F1GP2022Carset.lha       game/data  15K       2022 Carset for F1GP
MCE.lha                  game/edit  3.6M  68k Multi-game Character Editor
MCE-MOS.lha              game/edit  3.8M  MOS Multi-game Character Editor
MCE-OS4.lha              game/edit  4.1M  OS4 Multi-game Character Editor
Amdrum.ACEpansion.lha    misc/emu   8K    MOS ACEpansion plugin for ACE CPC...
AmiVms.lha               misc/emu   3.4M  68k Simulates OpenVMS commands
MirageImager.ACEpansi... misc/emu   17K   MOS ACEpansion plugin for ACE CPC...
LN4Lv7.lha               mods/misc  2.6M      LN4Lv7 4ch MED track by HKvalhe
hippoplayerSource.lha    mus/play   1.3M      HippoPlayer source code
Vim_9.0-ppc-amigaos.lha  text/edit  14M   OS4 The ubiquitous text editor
Vim_9.0-ppc-morphos.lha  text/edit  14M   MOS The ubiquitous text editor
Reqtools-Wide.lha        util/libs  44K   68k Double Width Reqtools
VATestprogram.zip        util/misc  1.9M  68k Versatile Amiga Test Program
UHCGUI-Current.lha       util/wb    58K   68k GUI frontend for the UHC-Tool...

(snx)

[News message: 02. Oct. 2022, 09:12] [Comments: 0]
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02.Oct.2022

OS4Depot uploads until 01.10.2022
The following files have been added until 01.10.2022 to OS4Depot:

vlink.lha                dev/cro 176kb 4.0 A portable linker, written in AN...
amoskittens.lha          dev/lan 2Mb   4.1 Amos the kitten is amos basic in...
dungeonofchess.lha       gam/boa 13Mb  4.1 Simple game written with usage o...
cromagrally.lha          gam/dri 125Mb 4.1 Wildest racing game since man in...
devilutionx.lha          gam/rol 11Mb  4.1 SDL Port of Diablo and Hellfire
mce.lha                  gam/uti 4Mb   4.0 Multi-game Character Editor
libsfml.lha              lib/mis 5Mb   4.1 Simple and Fast Multimedia Library
litexl.lha               uti/tex 1Mb   4.1 A lightweight text editor writte...
vim_mui.lha              uti/tex 14Mb  4.1 The ubiquitous text editor

(snx)

[News message: 02. Oct. 2022, 09:12] [Comments: 0]
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02.Oct.2022

AROS Archives uploads until 01.10.2022
The following files have been added until 01.10.2022 to AROS Archives:

dosbox.i386-aros.lha         emu/com 2Mb   Dosbox a PC Emulator
wormwars.i386-aros.zip       gam/act 701kb Advanced Tron/Snake-style arcade...
sdlscav-145.4.i386-aros.zip  gam/pla 384kb Lode Runner clone
drawer-app.lha               gra/ico 171kb Collection of Drawer Icons for A...
icongamegorillazdrawer.lha   gra/ico 352kb Collection of Drawer Game Icons ...
arzip.i386-aros.zip          uti/arc 153kb arZip zip file archiver

(snx)

[News message: 02. Oct. 2022, 09:12] [Comments: 0]
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02.Oct.2022

MorphOS-Storage uploads until 01.10.2022
The following files have been added until 01.10.2022 to MorphOS-Storage:

Re2c_3.0.lha              Development/GeekGadgets   Scanner generator f. re...
SSA-1_1.1.lha             Emulation/ACEpansion      SSA-1_1.1.lha
Willy_1.1.lha             Emulation/ACEpansion      Plugin for ACE CPC Emul...
Dandanator_1.0.lha        Emulation/ACEpansion      Dandanator_1.0.lha
DKTr-Speech_1.1.lha       Emulation/ACEpansion      DKTr-Speech_1.1.lha
MirageImager_1.1.lha      Emulation/ACEpansion      Plugin for ACE CPC Emul...
Nova_1.1.lha              Emulation/ACEpansion      Plugin for ACE CPC Emul...
TMPI-Speech_1.1.lha       Emulation/ACEpansion      Plugin for ACE CPC Emul...
Amdrum_1.1.lha            Emulation/ACEpansion      ACEpansion plugin for A...
WormWars_9.3.lha          Games/Action              Advanced snake game by ...
DevilutionX_1.4.1r2.lha   Games/Adventure           Diablo build for modern...
LiteXL_2.0.3r3.lha        Text/Edit                 Lite XL is a lightweigh...
Vim_9.0.583.lha           Text/Edit                 A highly configurable t...

(snx)

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02.Oct.2022

WHDLoad: New installers until 01.10.2022
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 01.10.2022:

2022-10-01 improved: Turrican 2 (Factor 5/Rainbow Arts) 3-button joystick support (Info)
2022-10-01 improved: The Quest For The Time Bird / Auf der Suche nach dem Vogel der Zeit / La quête de l'oiseau du temps (Infogrames) support for Italian version added (Info)
2022-10-01 improved: Obitus (Psygnosis) fixed 68000 problems, hints added (Info)
2022-09-28 improved: Joe & Mac (Caveman Ninja) (Data East) interrupts fixed, manual protection correctly removed (Info)
2022-09-27 improved: Venom Wing (Thalamus/SoftEyes) rewritten, 68000 quitkey, ssp relocated, load/save to external file, uses less chip memory, new install script (Info)
2022-09-27 improved: Tip Off (ANCO) rewritten, fixed freeze on title screen, keyboard fixed, manual added, new install script (Info)
2022-09-27 improved: Purple Saturn Day (Exxos) fixed to run on NTSC, fixed some random crashes (Info)
2022-09-27 fixed: Ooops Up (Demonware) crash of second version on 68000 fixed (Info)

(snx)

[News message: 02. Oct. 2022, 09:12] [Comments: 0]
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02.Oct.2022
Erik Hogan (Twitter) Preview video: Shoot'em Up Hyperblaster (Inviyya 2)
At the end of last year, we reported about Michael 'Tigerskunk' Borrmann's announcement to write a successor for his shoot'em up 'Inviyya', released in spring 2021. Now he has published a new preview video of the Amiga 1200/Amiga 4000/CD32 version. As he wrote, "collisions are off, it's still a bit glitchy, no sound at the moment, but you can see where this is heading to". He is going to demonstrate the game at Amiga37. (dr)

[News message: 02. Oct. 2022, 08:37] [Comments: 0]
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02.Oct.2022 MP3 player: Reel Deck V0.60
After Atris, his Tetris clone for RTG Amigas, and AB_Template, his programming assistance for AmiBlitz 3, Sami Vehmaa has now released another project: Reel Deck is an MP3 player for Amigas with graphics card written in AmiBlitz 3 (YouTube video). You also need a fast CPU, AmigaOS3.x, AHI and at least 20 MB FastRAM. Reel Deck costs 3 Euro. (dr)

[News message: 02. Oct. 2022, 06:19] [Comments: 0]
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01.Oct.2022
Christian Zigotzky (Mail) Linux: Cro-Mag Rally released
Two days ago we reported about Roman 'kas1e' Kargin's port of the racing game Cro-Mag Rally for AmigaOS 4. In the process, he and the original developer also solved some big endian issues. Christian 'xeno74' Zigotzky could now compile the game for Linux PowerPC (32-bit) and thus make it available for the AmigaOne X1000/X5000 Linux distributions Void PPC 32-bit and MintPPC.

Download: CroMagRally_3.0.0_linux-powerpc.tar.gz (123 MB). (dr)

[News message: 01. Oct. 2022, 21:27] [Comments: 0]
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01.Oct.2022
Puni / AmigaOldskooler (ANF) AmigaOS 4: Blog summary of September
The blog Gaming on AmigaOS 4 has published an illustrated summary of the developments and releases from the areas of hardware and software for AmigaOS 4 in the month of September. (dr)

[News message: 01. Oct. 2022, 11:54] [Comments: 0]
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01.Oct.2022

Amiga emulator: Amiberry 5.4
Amiberry is an Amiga emulator for ARM-based single-chip systems like the Raspberry Pi, the Odroid XU4 or the Tinkerboard from ASUS, which brings some newly developed features like a "WHDLoad-Booter" or support for controller configuration using RetroArch. For example it is used in the Workbench distribution AmiKit for the Raspberry Pi 4/400.

A few moments ago, version 5.4 has been released. Changes:

Bugfixes

whdbooter settings were not all parsed correctly
Fix CD audio not resuming after unminimize
32bit to 64bit clock counter missing update
fixed macOS compile errors regarding uaeserial
always use mouse 0 for mice, until SDL2 supports > 1 system mouse
settings from XML db were not always parsed correctly
fixed flickering in native modes when Fast copper was enabled
copy all prefs when doing a hard reset
Fixed some memory leaks
Hard reset CPU startup was not identical to initial power up
WHDbooter game paths with commas would not work

Improvements

implemented Screenshot to file custom event
Added the possibility to compile with a version of GCC older than 8.0
P96 - Implement all previously implemented blitter operations
Save also MSM6242B RTC model control registers to RTC file
added uaeserial implementation from dev
merged OpenGL experimental version from dev
Make sure hardware emulated RTG boards don't have barrier at the start of VRAM space to fully support JIT direct
merged CIA rewrite from dev
Optimize compiler code generation for 'strlen()'
Fix disk read handling when attempting to read from non-selected drive
use double fields line mode by default
brought statusline drawing closer to WinUAE method

Chors

moved variable closer to scope
minor sync from dev branch
removed obsolete variables

WIP

merge diffs from dev into master
bring custom chip emulation closer to WinUAE
synced gfxboard.h with dev

(dr)

[News message: 01. Oct. 2022, 11:49] [Comments: 0]
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01.Oct.2022 DIY project: ATX power adapter for Amiga 500 tower project
'wiretap-retro' has developed an adapter for its Amiga-500 tower project, which is attached to the motherboard or another suitable place in the case via two spacers. It allows the connection of a standard ATX power supply and provides a 4-pin molex connector (for the Amiga 500 power connector) and 3 standard fan connectors for 12V fans. The project is open source and can be modified as desired. (dr)

[News message: 01. Oct. 2022, 06:49] [Comments: 0]
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01.Oct.2022

Block-oriented copying: Device Streams 2.0.0
Roc Vallès i Domènech has updated the Amiga tool "Device-Streams" for block-oriented copying, similar to UNIX command dd, which was originally developed and released by Christian E. Hopps in 1993. AmigaOS 2.04+ is required. Changes:

Cleaned up code.
Removed SAS/C-isms and updated to build in modern toolchains.
Use of 64bit offsets throughout.
Safeguards added against 32bit overflow wraparound.
Use dos.library for file I/O.

(dr)

[News message: 01. Oct. 2022, 06:39] [Comments: 0]
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30.Sep.2022

SCSI-SD adapter: ZuluSCSI firmware 1.0.9
ZuluSCSI is a new generation of file-based SCSI hard disk and CD-ROM drive emulators. ZuluSCSI emulates a SCSI-I or SCSI-2 hard disk using an SD memory card (amiga-news.de reported). Today version 1.0.9 of the firmware was released. Changes:

Full support for new ZuluSCSI hardware platform based on Raspberry Pi foundation's RP2040 microcontroller
RP2040 bugfixes
RP2040 SCSI initiator mode support
RP2040: reduce boot delay by enabling cache during bootloader

Users of a blue ZuluSCSI V1.0/V1.1 board with firmware version 1.0.8 do not need to upgrade to version 1.0.9, as it does not contain any bug fixes or improvements over 1.0.8. (dr)

[News message: 30. Sep. 2022, 20:44] [Comments: 0]
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30.Sep.2022
Amigans-Forum AmigaOS 4: Dungeon of Chess ported
Four months ago 'MrsRina' had written a simple chess game "Dungeon of Chess" in SDL2 and OpenGL 3 (YouTube video). Roman 'kas1e' Kargin has adapted this to AmigaOS 4, added background music and made some small corrections. The source files are included and offer, as he writes, a good way to get familiar with SDL programming. (dr)

[News message: 30. Sep. 2022, 06:47] [Comments: 0]
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30.Sep.2022 Video tutorial: Configuration of DrawBridge under WinUAE
Robert Smith's project "DrawBridge" (Disk Reader and Writer Bridge) uses like the similar ADF Drive a microcontroller - in this case an Arduino board - to read and write Amiga floppies with a connected standard PC floppy drive. By means of the plugin FloppyBridge WinUAE is also officially supported since version 4.9.0 (amiga-news.de reported).
In his latest video Robert Smith takes you step by step through the setup of the FloppyBridge plugin in WinUAE. Starting with the installation of WinUAE followed by the configuration and explanation of all FloppyBridge options. (dr)

[News message: 30. Sep. 2022, 06:10] [Comments: 0]
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29.Sep.2022

AmigaOS 4.1: free AMOS interpreter AMOS Kittens 0.9
Kjetil 'LiveForIt' Hvalstrand is working on an interpreter which can run AMOS source code under AmigaOS 4. As the developer wrote "on the Amos command this project tries to stay 99% compatible, a few command won't work as this project use a bit more modern chunky image format instead of the planar graphic format". (amiga-news.de reported). The source code is available on GitHub. Changes of version 0.9:

Speed up "*skip_next_cmd(...)"
Some changes were not committed before.
Optimized Amos Kittens stack by removing state from the stack.
Improvement I debugging.
Token relocation for operator optimization.
Math order operator optimization.
Command Dir$ fixes.
Fixed bug in Eof command
Command "Resume Next" implemented.
Command Input$(fd,length) fixed. (And some minor fixes.)

(dr)

[News message: 29. Sep. 2022, 20:29] [Comments: 0]
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29.Sep.2022
Amigans-Forum

AmigaOS 4: Racing game Cro-Mag Rally ported (update)
After his OpenGLES ports "Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast" and "Jedi Academy" (amiga-news.de reported), Roman 'kas1e' Kargin now has ported the racing game Cro-Mag Rally to AmigaOS 4 (YouTube video). The latest versions of OpenGLES2.library, Warp3Dnova.library and RadeonHD or RadeonRX graphics card drivers are required.

Update: (02.10.2022, 18:38, dr)

Meanwhile version 3.0.0.01 is available. Changes:

added stack cookie of 1mb
fixed missing bonuses/powerups on the race
user data now saves as expected in root dir of game, and not in volume's root

(dr)

[News message: 29. Sep. 2022, 06:56] [Comments: 1 - 02. Oct. 2022, 20:38]
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29.Sep.2022 Retro Trex Game Jam: DRex released
'Prince', founder of the group 'Phaze101', had organized the Retro Trex Game Jam. The goal was to create an identical or improved version of the well-known browser game Google T-Rex for a retro computer.

For this competition, Lorenzo di Gaetano released DRex (YouTube video), which was written in C with the help of the Planar Game Engine. The game runs on any Amiga with 1 MB RAM. An ADF file is available as well as a Workbench version. (dr)

[News message: 29. Sep. 2022, 05:33] [Comments: 0]
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28.Sep.2022

Programming language: Amiga C/C++ Visual Studio Code Extension 1.6.1
Bartman', member of the demo group 'Abyss', provides with 'amiga-debug' a 'Visual Studio Code' extension for "compiling, debugging and profiling Amiga C/C++ programs compiled by the bundled gcc 11.2 with the bundled WinUAE" (YouTube video). Today versions 1.6.0 and 1.6.1 were released. Changes:

NEW: icons for .uss, .amigaprofile, .shrinklerstats, .objdump
FIX: fix memory content for multi-frame captures (was wrong after frame 1)
FIX: screen: center reference screenshot (probably still wrong)
CHG: screen: zoom panel size, clipping
NEW: screen: show bitplane pointers
CHG: screen: improve performance by 40%
NEW: screen: mouse click&drag to set time
NEW: screen: Freeze frame to visualize drawing (+ Memory overlay)
CHG: profiler: improve loading performance by >1000%
CHG: profiler: multi-frame captures are now loaded in the background for faster startup time
CHG: savestate: show progress bar during profiling
NEW: Amiga: Clean Temp Files to delete .amigaprofile files from your temp path.
FIX: the terminal didn't re-open once closed
FIX: disassembly: fix divul, divsl, FPU, fmoveml (see 68k-dis.ts)
FIX: #128 Can't use the image converter link
FIX: #129 Screen and Resources tabs have no scroll bars so I can't see the bottom of a tall image
FIX: improved behavior of jumping from assembly to source (still sometimes the source window disappears)
NEW: update to latest WinUAE
FIX: screen: freeze frame memory was wrong
FIX: resource: possibly very slow performance when using Copper Palette

(dr)

[News message: 28. Sep. 2022, 21:18] [Comments: 0]
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28.Sep.2022

Debugging tool: PatchWork 1.0
More than ten years after the last version 0.17, Richard Körber has released version 1.0 of his debugging tool PatchWork today.

Similar to MuForce and Mungwall it ensures that calls to AmigaOS libraries are AutoDocs compliant. Illegal parameters (e.g. NULL where a pointer is expected) are reported. PatchWork helps to make program code more robust and future-proof.

The source code was previously closed. Richard Körner has checked and reformatted the files and made the project compilable with vbcc on Linux (and probably other systems). The source code is now open for everyone to contribute, study, etc. Changes:

After 25 years, I guess PatchWork is finally due for a major version bump.
Now built on Linux using vasm.
Checks AmigaOS V40 calls. Actually, the only check that needed to be added was graphics.library/WriteChunkyPixels.
DISPC is now the default behavior. Use the new option NODISPC to explicitly disable PC disassembly on PatchWork hits.
Bugfix: intuition/SetPointer() hit output was incorrect (reported by @Hagbard-Celin). This bug was there since 1997.
Correct library name is shown even if A6 is not pointing to the library base.

(dr)

[News message: 28. Sep. 2022, 21:12] [Comments: 0]
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28.Sep.2022 Boing Attitude: Second part of interview with Apollo team
At the end of march, the first part of an interview with the Apollo team was published, which originally was printed in issue 3 of the French magazine Boing. Now the second part is available on the homepage and was originally printed in issue 4. (dr)

[News message: 28. Sep. 2022, 19:25] [Comments: 0]
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28.Sep.2022 Obligement: Interview with Jérôme Senay (Boing Attitude)
On his Obligement website, David Brunet has published an interview with the publisher of the French magazine Boing and the quiz game AskMeUp XXL, Jérôme 'Glames' Senay. (dr)

[News message: 28. Sep. 2022, 19:14] [Comments: 0]
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26.Sep.2022
Ko-fi

Editor: Lite XL 2.0.3r3 for AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS released
At the end of last year, George 'walkereo' Sokianos released the first version v1.16.12.3 of his port of the editor 'Lite XL' (amiga-news.de reported) for AmigaOS 4 and in June an update to version 2.0.3r2 which also included a port for MorphOS (amiga-news.de reported). Version 2.0.3r3 released today provides the following changes:

Added

Added plugin for AmigaGuide files
Added plugin for Hollywood files

Fixed

Fixed non existing path crashes on OS4 and MorphOS
Fixed editor refresh whenever init.lua is changed, no matter the working folder
Fixed an issue when the user added a directory in the project that already existed
Fixed locale issue on start for MorphOS. Now it should start just fine no matter what locale the user has on his system.
Fixed "Find" on MorphOS that was not working (shortcut CTRL+F)
If the user selects to change the project folder and inserts Sys: or any partition name, the included folders will be listed as suggestions

Changed

Removed linking with unix on OS4 build
Makefiles updated

(dr)

[News message: 26. Sep. 2022, 19:40] [Comments: 0]
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26.Sep.2022 Editor: MUI-Vim V9.0.583 for AmigaOS4 and MorphOS
MUI-Vim is a port of the editor Vim. This editor is intended for editing programs as well as plain text files. Multi-level undo, syntax highlighting, command line history, block operations and scripting are some of the features. Ola 'sodero' Söder has now ported version 9.0.583 of VIM and released it for AmigaOS4 and MorphOS. (dr)

[News message: 26. Sep. 2022, 06:11] [Comments: 0]
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25.Sep.2022
mithrendal (Mail)

Emulator: vAmigaWeb v3.0 beta1
vAmigaWeb is an Amiga emulator for the web browser or a Progressive Web App (PWA) based on the Amiga emulator for MacOS vAmiga.

With vAmigaWeb 3.0 a number of other CPUs are now implemented besides the 68000 CPU. So you can already run - without having implemented a MMU yet - quite a few more applications and software, like Dungeon Master II (1994) or demos that need at least a 68020 (Roots 2.0). Detailed changes:

supports 68000, 68010, 68020 and 68030 CPUs (with this kickstart roms which need at least a 68020 are working now e.g. kickstart 3.1 for A1200)
runs now also in a private / incognito browser window (be aware that browser does not permit any saving in this case)
various performance tweaks (reduced logging and separation of big computational blocks into smaller execution units on the main thread to get better "cooperative" multitasking escpecially when amiga overclocking is in use)

(dr)

[News message: 25. Sep. 2022, 18:19] [Comments: 0]
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25.Sep.2022

Aminet uploads until 24.09.2022
The following files have been added until 24.09.2022 to Aminet:

ZitaFTPServer.lha        comm/tcp   14M   OS4 A fast and secure FTP(S) server.
asm-kurs_rev_2022.lha    dev/asm    4.5M      Assembly course, German
re2c-morphos.lha         dev/gg     7.3M  MOS Modern lexer generator for C/...
anaiis.lha               driver/oth 182K  68k ANAIIS USB Stack Release 1.22
anaiis_massive.lha       driver/oth 45K   68k Massive release 1.22
webptools124_a68k.lha    gfx/conv   2.4M  68k encode/decode images in WebP ...
webptools124_aros.lha    gfx/conv   3.7M  x86 encode/decode images in WebP ...
AmiVms.lha               misc/emu   3.4M  68k Simulates OpenVMS commands
Dandanator.ACEpansion... misc/emu   681K  MOS ACEpansion plugin for ACE CPC...
DKTr-Speech.ACEpansio... misc/emu   24K   MOS ACEpansion plugin for ACE CPC...
Nova.ACEpansion.lha      misc/emu   11K   MOS ACEpansion plugin for ACE CPC...
SSA-1.ACEpansion.lha     misc/emu   14K   MOS ACEpansion plugin for ACE CPC...
TMPI-Speech.ACEpansio... misc/emu   17K   MOS ACEpansion plugin for ACE CPC...
Willy.ACEpansion.lha     misc/emu   24K   MOS ACEpansion plugin for ACE CPC...
D-CAPS-Stomper.lha       mus/edit   1.2M  68k Kick drum sample generator
listercompare.module.lha util/dopus 7K    68k DOpus Magellan II: Compare li...
UHCTools.lha             util/misc  48K   ALL UHC Tools installer

(snx)

[News message: 25. Sep. 2022, 09:55] [Comments: 0]
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25.Sep.2022

OS4Depot uploads until 24.09.2022
The following files have been added until 24.09.2022 to OS4Depot:

amoskittens.lha          dev/lan 2Mb   4.1 Amos the kitten is amos basic in...
cppcheck.lha             dev/uti 3Mb   4.1 A static analysis tool for C/C++...
blobwarsattrition.lha    gam/act 2Mb   4.1 A 2D mission and and objective-b...
wormwars.lha             gam/act 1Mb   4.0 Advanced snake/Tron game
chess-sdl2.lha           gam/boa 5Mb   4.1 Chess Game for AmigaOS4/SDL2
opensupaplex.lha         gam/puz 22Mb  4.1 Open Source version of 90's...
zitaftpserver.lha        net/ser 14Mb  4.1 A fast and secure FTP(S) server.
uhctools.lha             uti/mis 48kb  4.0 UHC Tools installer

(snx)

[News message: 25. Sep. 2022, 09:55] [Comments: 0]
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25.Sep.2022

AROS Archives uploads until 24.09.2022
The following files have been added until 24.09.2022 to AROS Archives:

bochs.i386-aros.lha          emu/com 11Mb  X86 PC Emulator
dosbox.i386-aros.lha         emu/com 2Mb   Dosbox 0.73 for AROS x86
janus-uae-v2.i386-aros.lha   emu/com 19Mb  Amiga 68k Emulator Fork of WinUA...
eaqne.lzx                    gam/adv 15Mb  Adventure point and click with d...
color-lines.i386-aros.zip    gam/puz 1Mb   Arrange 5 same color balls in line.
webptools124_aros.lha        lib/mis 4Mb   encode/decode images in WebP format
uhctools.i386-aros.lha       uti/mis 48kb  UHC Tools installer

(snx)

[News message: 25. Sep. 2022, 09:55] [Comments: 0]
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25.Sep.2022

MorphOS-Storage uploads until 24.09.2022
The following files have been added until 24.09.2022 to MorphOS-Storage:

DevilutionX_1.4.1.lha     Games/Adventure           Diablo build for modern...
BlobWars-Attrition_1.2... Games/Platform            A mission and objective...
Woof!_10.3.0.lha          Games/Shoot3D             Woof! is a continuation...
UHCTools_1.6.lha          Misc                      A collection of program...
CloudDav_1.6.lha          Network/Streaming         A WebDav client
Wayfarer_4.2.lha          Network/Web               Wayfarer is the latest ...

(snx)

[News message: 25. Sep. 2022, 09:55] [Comments: 0]
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25.Sep.2022

WHDLoad: New installers until 24.09.2022
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 24.09.2022:

2022-09-22 new: Emetic Skimmer (Kingsoft) done by Psygore (Info)
2022-09-22 improved: Ooops Up (Demonware) source code and SMC fix rewritten, slave v1.1 patch added for the both game versions (Info)
2022-09-22 fixed: Harricana (Loriciel) access fault fixed (Info)

(snx)

[News message: 25. Sep. 2022, 09:55] [Comments: 0]
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25.Sep.2022
Amigaworld.net (website) Floppy disk drive for WinUAE: Waffle
Based on Robert Smith's FloppyBridge, Retrogiovedi.it offers at the title link a floppy disk drive in Amiga-inspired design called Waffle for use with the emulator WinUAE, with which ADF files can be created or written. (snx)

[News message: 25. Sep. 2022, 09:55] [Comments: 0]
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25.Sep.2022
Amiga Future (Webseite) Development tool: vlink 0.17a
Frank Wille has updated the portable linker vlink, which copes with a variety of binary formats and is part of the compiler package vbcc. (snx)

[News message: 25. Sep. 2022, 09:55] [Comments: 0]
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24.Sep.2022
Prince (Mail) Video tutorial: Episode 32 of assembler coding course
'Prince', founder of the demo group 'Phaze101', is currently streaming the assembler programming course "Corso completo di programmazione assembler in due dischi" in English on Twitch and uploads the respective episodes time-delayed to YouTube (amiga-news.de reported). Now episode 32 was published. (dr)

[News message: 24. Sep. 2022, 21:15] [Comments: 0]
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24.Sep.2022 Kickstarter campaign: Update on DB9-to-USB adapter of "Tank Mouse"
The Polish designer Lukas Remis had successfully finished a Kickstarter campaign for the re-release of the wireless Commodore Mouse 1352 (amiga-news.de reported).

In a recent status update, he now explains again why the adapter cannot be produced as originally planned: for example, the price of the main chip had jumped from about $1 to over $15, and even at that price it would not have been available in some cases.

He has now had a new adapter designed by Lotharek. A prototype has already been built.

However, this adapter will cost much more than originally estimated. The money raised would not be enough to cover the production of the mouse and adapter. Therefore, everyone who is interested in the adapter is asked for an additional payment of 16 Euros. He will soon prepare a survey for all supporters asking who would like to have the adapter and who would not. Those who decide against it will receive their tank mouse as soon as it is made. Otherwise, both will be sent when the mouse and adaper are finished. (dr)

[News message: 24. Sep. 2022, 10:51] [Comments: 0]
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24.Sep.2022

Amiga37: Information on exhibitors and its booths (update 5)
There are still three weeks to go until Amiga37 in Mönchengladbach. For all those who were able to get hold of a ticket, we asked some exhibitors what visitors can expect at the respective booths, if there are any special events planned etc.

AAA Technology: A-EON / Amiga Kit / Amedia Computer

one of the main sponsors of the Amiga37
are represented by Matthew Leaman for AmigaKit / A-EON from the UK and Laurent Zorawski and Franck Bednarski for Amedia Computer from France
A-EON's Linux expert Christian 'xeno74' Zigotzy from Germany will also be at the stand, showing AmigaOS 4.1 and MorphOS on his X5000/40
unless prevented by international travel restrictions, Trevor Dickinson will also travel from New Zealand
a whole range of Classic and Next-Generation Amiga goodies will be for sale, including complete X5000/40 computers
After an unavoidable two-year break, AAA Technology would like to thank Markus Tillmann and the entire Amiga 37 team for bringing back this awesome show

ACube Systems

the production of the Sam460 is progressing

there will be some news about the laptop

ACube Systems is looking forward to spend some time with the Amiga community

Alinea Computer

Presentation of exclusive new products at the booth
all OmniPort and Amega 32 adapters available
Adapters will be demonstrated on the Amiga 1200 or CD32 and questions will be answered
many other articles from the shop availble

AmiKit / Amiberry

A special limited edition of AmiKit for Raspberry Pi will be available (physical product)
The latest version of Amiberry will be shown running in different environments (both for games and the full RTG desktop experience). You can experience some of the unique features implemented and ask the author any questions directly
A Lightwave expert will be demonstrating a special render farm built using Amiberry and multiple Raspberry Pi devices.
Interview wit author of Amiberry

Andy Brenner (MiSTer FPGA / Amiga Germany print magazine)

Amiga Germany print magazine issues 1, 2, 3 and 4 available
his MiSTer FPGA systems with the possibility to test the whole thing live. Possibly there are also devices for purchase on site.
special highlight: exclusive Amiga Fan Watch named A-Watch will be produced in limited numbers and can be bought, according to today's status, for a special price at the fair.

ApolloTeam

big booth with presentation of all hardware ever built by Apollo Computer: from Zorro Amiga GFX cards, to NATAMI, all Vampires - and all new cards including SALAMANDER and MANTICORE
large sales booth with, among other things, a new ICEDRAKE batch of over 100 cards
additionally there are 8 seats where visitors can play
SPACE INVADER championship: up to four players in the team can play at the same time - and win prizes
once a day there are live programming classes: together with Arne and Gunnar visitors can learn to program a complete small game in assembler with graphics and music. All questions will be answered, you can take the game and its sources with you.

GoldenCode (aka Daytona675x)

will be at the show with an NG-Amiga (X5000 or A1222) and two A1200s to present old and new golden game projects: "There will be enough joysticks for proper gambling, even a fine "Souverän Soccer" Cup is planned. The one or other souvenir for inclined visitors will certainly also be available."

Lukas Remis

the initiator of the "Tank Mouse" project (amiga-news.de reported) will attend Amiga37 "presenting first factory-made pieces of Tank Mouse."

MorphOS-Team

Planned are presentations of the latest MorphOS version and applications on:

diverse PPC Amiga Classic devices
PowerBooks
AmigaOne X5000/40

Presentation of the just released latest version of PageStream
MorphOS developers answer questions about various topics around MorphOS

RELEC

2021 Benoît Wiblé took over RELEC (Interview on Obligement):

Presentation of his ideas and work for the shop
Presentation of single hardware: crystal replacement case for Amiga 500, accelerator board Tsunami 1230, pre-configured AmigaOne X5000
Presentation of the Old Computers & Consoles Club (OCCC) and its events

(dr)

[News message: 24. Sep. 2022, 06:55] [Comments: 5 - 13. Oct. 2022, 08:41]
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24.Sep.2022
MorphZone (Forum) MorphOS: Web browser Wayfarer 4.2
Jacek 'jacadcaps' Piszczek hat released version 4.2 of his web browser Wayfarer for MorphOS. It is now based on WebKitGTK 2.36.8 and thus fixes fixes several bugs within WebKit. Additionally, cURL and other libraries have been updated.

Download: wayfarer.lha (26 MB) (dr)

[News message: 24. Sep. 2022, 06:20] [Comments: 0]
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23.Sep.2022
Twitter Review: MorphOS audio player bePlayer 1.4
David Brunet has published a review of the MorphOS multi-format audio player bePlayer by French developer Bruno Peloille on his Obligement news page. The original article is in French, but machine translations are provided. (dr)

[News message: 23. Sep. 2022, 08:51] [Comments: 0]
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23.Sep.2022
Ko-Fi AmigaOS 4: Code analysis with Cpppcheck V2.8r1
At the end of July, the AmigaOS 4 developer George 'walkero' Sokianos had already published the code analysis tool "Flawfinder", which searches for potential security holes in source files. Now he has ported Cppcheck, a program for static code analysis for the programming languages C and C++. A GUI is not available, the tool must be operated via the shell. (dr)

[News message: 23. Sep. 2022, 06:36] [Comments: 0]
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22.Sep.2022
(ANF) Harvey 'Harv' Laser (AmigaZone, Amiga Companion) passed away
Harvey 'Harv' Laser was a US based Amiga journalist who published thousands of articles in various Amiga publications. He also established the commercial, Amiga-only online service 'AmigaZone' and maintained it for several decades. Laser passed away after a heart attack on July 5, 2022. Mike Battilana, who knew Laser for a long time, posted a short obituary in the 'Remembering our Friends' section of the Amiga Forever website. (cg)

[News message: 22. Sep. 2022, 15:47] [Comments: 0]
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22.Sep.2022 Unofficial successor: "It Returned From The Desert" for Windows
Tim Rachor's "It returned from the desert" (YouTube video of the early prototype) is supposed to be an unofficial successor of the Amiga game It came from the desert and is supposed to be released for Windows, maybe also for Linux and possibly Android if there is enough demand.

The game is written in Unity and is not supposed to be a sequel or remake, but an independent game. The gameplay is to be modernized a bit, offering fewer dead ends, thus avoiding tough trial&error. And the combat mini-game is to be replaced by tactical, turn-based combat - while retaining the great atmosphere and exciting story of the original. As Tim writes to us, he spent endless hours sitting at a friend's house as a kid enjoying this game. Even then, however, the many dead ends frustrated him, so he wanted to make it better with his game: more beginner-friendly, respectively fairer.

The goal is to finish the game in the course of this year. And if someone should find a way to port the finished game to the Amiga, he would be happy to give his permission, provided that the quality is maintained. But he has neither the know-how nor the time to do it himself. (dr)

[News message: 22. Sep. 2022, 10:23] [Comments: 0]
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22.Sep.2022 Business simulation: Unofficial update for Dynatech
Dynatech is an economic simulation game by Magic Bytes from 1993 for AGA-Amigas: raw materials and open spaces on Earth are exhausted, and the supply of mankind is to be secured through the discovery and development of alien planets. As the boss of "Dynatech", a gigantic corporation for the production of conveyor systems, building complexes and storage facilities, it is the player's task to get hold of transport orders and to enter the business with raw materials and refineries (taken from Amiga Games 11/92).

30 years after the release of this game, a user has now released an unofficial update that primarily transfers the German localization into English. Besides numerous minor bug fixes, however, the "Dynatech 30th Anniversary Edition" also fixes a problem with the AGA version of the game, which caused the original version to render with half the intended color precision bit depth. Likewise, the update features carefully redesigned graphics and user interface. (dr)

[News message: 22. Sep. 2022, 09:42] [Comments: 0]
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21.Sep.2022

AmigaOS 4: New versions of newlib.library and string.gadget class
Via AmiUpdate two updated system files are availble: string.gadget lass 53.24 and Kickstart module newlib.library 53.80. Changes:

string.gadget V53.24

Rewrote the SHK_PASSWORD handling in the GM_RENDER method in a way that does not require temporarily replacing the buffer in si->Buffer (fixes a race condition when STRINGA_TextVal is read).
No longer temporarily writes an 'n' character to the end of the buffer, which should fix some nasty race conditions when accessing the buffer.
Fixed the text cursor sometimes being rendered with a wrong width when placed at the end of the string. This bug was a side effect of changes made in the previous release.

newlib.library.kmod V53.80 (excerpt)

Fixed the clock() function which was comparing time values using different different epochs, as well as time zones if the local time zone did not happen to be GMT.
Replaced GetSysTime() in rusage() and clock() with GetUpTime() which is guaranteed to be monotonically increasing.
Fixed a bug in setstate() that would cause the long word in front of the previous state buffer to be overwritten instead of the the first long word in the buffer.
Made always include as it is needed for SIZE_MAX, for now at least.
Added the previously missing asnprintf(), vasnprintf(), _asnprintf_r() and vasnprintf_r() functions to shared object and small data builds of libc.
Disabled .__newlib_version section and linker warnings for shared object build of libc.
Updated libauto.a to the latest version with VBCC support.
mongetpcs() now uses the locally opened elf.library interface instead of relying on a global IElf interface existing.

(dr)

[News message: 21. Sep. 2022, 20:32] [Comments: 0]
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21.Sep.2022

AmigaOS 4.1: Graphics card driver RadeonHD V5 (update)
At the end of October 2018, RadeonHD driver version 3.6 came out with the release of the "Enhancer Software Graphics Upgrade", as a supplement to the Enhancer 1.x package, which later also became part of Enhancer Software 2.0. With version 2.1 of Enhancer, version 3.7 of the graphics card driver was released.

Finally, version 2.2 of the Enhancer software was released recently, which did not include a new RadeonHD driver, but did include an updated version (1.11) of the va.library. The Video Acceleration Library was developed to support hardware video decoding on Radeon Polaris (RX) cards. Apparently, hardware acceleration for both Polaris RX cards and RadeonHD cards was already integrated in this version, but for the latter case, version 5 of the RadeonHD graphics card drivers was required, which was not yet available at that time (see AmigaKit's contribution on Amigans). Among other things, this resulted in the media player Emotion from Entwickler-X now crashing, because the software loaded the new va.library but did not find version 5 of the RadeonHD driver. This could only be solved by deactivating or reverting to the old version.

After purchasing it under the title link for 50 Euro at AmigaKit (still not available on AmiStore), now this driver is available as version 5.14 via the Updater tool, device-specific for the SAM 460 and the two AmigaOne computers, X1000 and X5000 and brings the driver up to the same feature set as the RadeonRX driver. Most important changes:

Dropped support for all graphics cards older than Southern Islands
switched to a new code-base for the core
added Dynamic Power Management (DPM)
added UVD (hardware accelerated video decoding) support
added GART support
A bunch of miscellaneous fixes and improvements

Suitable graphics cards can be found via the RadeonHD driver compatibility page.

The RadeonHD v5 driver works also fine without the Enhancer Software. But it is required for hardware accelerated video decoding.

Update: (24.09.2022, 07:38, dr)

According to AmigaKit in a press release, the new RadeonHD driver can be directly purchased on A-EON's website until he will be made available on AmiStore. (dr)

[News message: 21. Sep. 2022, 13:58] [Comments: 2 - 27. Sep. 2022, 20:19]
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20.Sep.2022
Ko-Fi Platformer: "BlobWars: Attrition" 1.2.2r2 for AmigaOS 4 and MorphOS
A month ago, the AmigaOS 4 developer George 'walkero' Sokianos - among others aiostreams, Flawfinder, Lite XL or iGame - had released the first version of his port of the commercial platformer "BlobWars: Attrition" to AmigaOS 4 (amiga-news.de reported).

The now updated version is also available for MorphOS for the first time and offers a lot of bug fixes, but especially an improvement of the performance. So the game should now be playable on not so powerful computers and SDL renderers, as long as you have a graphics card with some memory available. Unfortunately, it still wouldn't be playable on computers with 32 MB of graphics memory or less. Also, the debugging window that appears when the game starts has been removed.

The developer himself tested the MorphOS version on a PowerBook G4, where it "worked quite well". On his X5000 with the Radeon HD 6850, the game unfortunately only worked with a software renderer and was not playable due to a lack of suitable drivers.

Anyone who wants to support the author has the opportunity to do so on his Ko-fi website. The author returns 50% of the donations to the community at the end of each month by supporting projects or developers. (dr)

[News message: 20. Sep. 2022, 06:28] [Comments: 0]
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20.Sep.2022
Hans de Ruiter AmigaOS 4: FTP-Server 'ZitaFTP' 1.35
A week ago Hans de Ruiter had released version 1.34 of his commercial FTP server 'ZitaFTP' (amiga-news.de reported). Users reported here crashes at program start, which was due to a missing initialization of AmiSSL. The bug has been fixed and version 1.35 is available for existing users either via AmiUpdate or as download under the title link. (dr)

[News message: 20. Sep. 2022, 06:11] [Comments: 0]
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19.Sep.2022
Erik Hogan

Game Construction Kit: Scorpion Engine V2022.7
The "Scorpion Engine" developed by Erik 'earok' Hogan allows you to develop games. The engine itself is closed source, all demos and example games are open source. The editor runs under Windows. Graphics are imported as PNG files, levels created by using the editor Tiled eingesetzt. For importing and creating sounds, music and animations the Amiga formats (mod, 8svx, anim5) are used.

A few moments ago he has relesaed version 2022.7. Changes:

Mouse support, including support for two simultaneous mice
Improved support for separating assets for different targets (to make it easier to have specific animations or levels for OCS, AGA etc)
Further performance gains from improved 68K compilation
Various bug fixes and feature additions

You can support the developer on his Patreon website. (dr)

[News message: 19. Sep. 2022, 03:36] [Comments: 0]
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18.Sep.2022
Prince (Mail) Video tutorial: Episode 31 of assembler coding course
'Prince', founder of the demo group 'Phaze101', is currently streaming the assembler programming course "Corso completo di programmazione assembler in due dischi" in English on Twitch and uploads the respective episodes time-delayed to YouTube (amiga-news.de reported). Now episode 31 was published. (dr)

[News message: 18. Sep. 2022, 16:20] [Comments: 0]
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18.Sep.2022

Aminet uploads until 17.09.2022
The following files have been added until 17.09.2022 to Aminet:

ZitaFTPServer.lha        comm/tcp   14M   OS4 A fast and secure FTP(S) server.
MCE.lha                  game/edit  3.4M  68k Multi-game Character Editor
MCE-MOS.lha              game/edit  3.7M  MOS Multi-game Character Editor
MCE-OS4.lha              game/edit  4.0M  OS4 Multi-game Character Editor
ADoom-1.4.1.lha          game/shoot 184K  68k Amiga port of DOOM
DoomSndLibs.lha          game/shoot 31K   68k New Sound & Music Libraries f...
ACE-MorphOS.lha          misc/emu   1.9M  MOS Amstrad CPC/CPC+ Emulator
AmiVms.lha               misc/emu   3.4M  68k Simulates OpenVMS commands
dS-tpro.lha              text/bfont 123K      high res topaz font for squar...
VATestprogram.zip        util/misc  1.9M  68k Versatile Amiga Test Program
ColorPicker.lha          util/wb    8K    68k tool for get color from Workb...

(snx)

[News message: 18. Sep. 2022, 06:44] [Comments: 0]
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18.Sep.2022

OS4Depot uploads until 17.09.2022
The following files have been added until 17.09.2022 to OS4Depot:

rave.lha                 aud/edi 2Mb   4.1 An editor for mono/stereo audio ...
a1xe_hardware_fixes.zip  doc/tut 796kb 4.0 Official Eyetech AmigaOne XE USB...
eaqne.lzx                gam/adv 15Mb  4.0 Adventure point and click with d...
mce.lha                  gam/uti 4Mb   4.0 Multi-game Character Editor
zitaftpserver.lha        net/ser 14Mb  4.1 A fast and secure FTP(S) server.
ign-addon-ods.lha        off/spr 212kb 4.1 Ignition addon for access ods-files
ign-addon-xlsx.lha       off/spr 301kb 4.0 Ignition addon for access xlsx-f...
ignition.lha             off/spr 5Mb   4.1 A modern spreadsheet
ignition-src.lha         off/spr 1Mb   4.0 A modern spreadsheet (source)
yt.lha                   vid/mis 799kb 4.0 YouTube URL Extractor script

(snx)

[News message: 18. Sep. 2022, 06:44] [Comments: 0]
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18.Sep.2022

AROS Archives uploads until 17.09.2022
The following files have been added until 17.09.2022 to AROS Archives:

murks_0.6.0_fix.lha          dev/ide 1Mb   Murks an Integrated Development ...

(snx)

[News message: 18. Sep. 2022, 06:44] [Comments: 0]
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18.Sep.2022

MorphOS-Storage uploads until 17.09.2022
The following files have been added until 17.09.2022 to MorphOS-Storage:

Protrekkr_2.6.3r2.lha     Audio/Tracker             A hybrid of modern day ...
AmiArcadia_29.11.lha      Emulation                 A Signetics-based machi...
ACE_1.25.lha              Emulation                 The acidulous CPC/CPC+ ...
EAQNE_demo.lzx            Games/Adventure           Adventure point and cli...
MCE_14.0.lha              Games/Editor              Multi-game Character Ed...

(snx)

[News message: 18. Sep. 2022, 06:44] [Comments: 0]
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18.Sep.2022

WHDLoad: New installers until 17.09.2022
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 17.09.2022:

2022-09-16 new: Willy The Kid (Kingsoft) done by Psygore (Info)

(snx)

[News message: 18. Sep. 2022, 06:44] [Comments: 0]
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18.Sep.2022
MorphZone (forum) MorphOS: Web browser Wayfarer 4.1
Jacek 'jacadcaps' Piszczek has released version 4.1 of his Wayfarer web browser for MorphOS. This is now based on WebKitGTK 2.36.7 and thus fixes various errors within WebKit itself. Therefore, the update is recommended despite the fact that due to yesterday's release of WebKitGTK 2.36.8, version 4.2 can already be expected in the next few days.

Download: wayfarer.lha (26 MB) (snx)

[News message: 18. Sep. 2022, 06:44] [Comments: 0]
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18.Sep.2022 Programming assistance: "AB_Template" 0.40 offers templates for AmiBlitz 3
Sami Vehmaa wants to get more people to develop games for the Amiga platform and for this purpose offers templates for the RTG variant of AmiBlitz 3 on itch.io with "AB_Template" (YouTube video of version 0.23, amiga-news.de reported).

In version 0.40 he has added 16/9 Parallax side scroller with a warrior, a slot machine update and fixed some bugs. (dr)

[News message: 18. Sep. 2022, 06:26] [Comments: 0]
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17.Sep.2022
Twitter Print/PDF magazine: Komoda & Amiga plus #21 (English/Polish)
"Komoda & Amiga Plus" is dedicated to retro gamers and deals mainly with Commodore's 8-bit computers and Amigas. Among the topics of the current issue 21 (summer/autumn) are an article about Amiga in NASA service, the second part about the situation of Amiga in 2022 and several game reviews.

The magazine is available as printed issue inclusive Commodore 64/128 coverdisk for 9,54 Euro plus shipping (about 5 Euro) or as digital issue for 2,12 Euro. (dr)

[News message: 17. Sep. 2022, 07:45] [Comments: 0]
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17.Sep.2022 Floppy disks, part two: Who got them? Tom Persky!
Recently, the offspring discovered the almost criminally forgotten floppy disks as a game object, which not only our one, but also many readers were drawn into many fond memories. However, there is someone who never lost interest and passion for collecting floppy disks and even made a business out of it: Tom Persky.

He is the founder and operator of floppydisk.com. I stumbled across an Interview with him the other days, which is included in the book Floppy Disk Fever - greetings to Joerg Doege :) and now published by "Eye on Design", the editorial platform around design issues.

He bought the domain in the early 1990s and was originally involved in duplicating floppy disks. As he says, he "never in a million years thought I would ever sell blank floppy disks." His business, which used to be 90% duplicating CDs and DVDs, is now 90% selling blank floppy disks. Which he finds shocking. Currently, he has about half a million floppy disks in inventory, but also offers a disk recycling service.

Of course I asked him if he also had experience with Amiga users...As he writes, this is limited to the duplication of floppy disks. He has one or two Amiga customers who order duplications of a few hundred disks. He can still do that, since he still has some duplicators that recognize and support the Amiga format. Unfortunately, since he no longer has any original Amiga equipment, he does the duplication, but the final quality control has to be done by the customer. Even though his equipment is very reliable, there is always some nervousness when he sends disks that he cannot test.

Now it's great that his business still exists, but I wanted to at least see if there was a local alternative to America. I thought I had found one, but the offer to sell blank floppy disks is currently not available. And I was asked not to mention the site either, lest I get a flood of inquiries...;).

So if you are in the process of writing your own text adventure, with umpteen high-resolution background graphics, and want to put it on the market on 10 disks per slipcase, you will have to look elsewhere... ;)

Have a nice weekend! (dr)

[News message: 17. Sep. 2022, 06:53] [Comments: 0]
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17.Sep.2022

8-/16-bit emulator for Mac OS and Linux: Clock Signal V2022-09-16
Thomas Harte's Clock Signal is an emulator for various 8- and 16-bit platforms aiming to be invisible to the user. The idea is to simply start the source medium without configuring the emulator oneself. Clock Signal is available for Mac OS and Unix-compatible systems. While there is also an Amiga emulation included, it "remains wilfully inaccurate" for now.

Yesterday version V2022-09-16 was released. Changes:

fixes an error in Apple II disk image handling that caused corruption upon save
adds emulation of the Apple II SCSI card

(dr)

[News message: 17. Sep. 2022, 06:04] [Comments: 0]
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16.Sep.2022 Real-time strategy: Update of Vanilla Conquer
Artur Jarosik had released version 1.0 of his port of the first part of the real-time strategy series Command & Conquer to the Amiga in May (amiga-news.de reported). Now he has released a separate version ("vanillatd_no_vamp.zip") for Amigas without Vampire accelerator card, which offers a twice optimized rendering speed. Also, the custom cursor is now enabled in the game. (dr)

[News message: 16. Sep. 2022, 17:34] [Comments: 0]
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16.Sep.2022 Video: What is DMA?
In his latest video Robert Smith explains Direct Memory Access (DMA) and among other things also the interleaved mode of the Amiga. (dr)

[News message: 16. Sep. 2022, 05:47] [Comments: 0]
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16.Sep.2022

SCSI-SD adapter: ZuluSCSI-Firmware 1.0.8
ZuluSCSI is a new generation of file-based SCSI hard disk and CD-ROM drive emulators. ZuluSCSI emulates a SCSI-I or SCSI-2 hard disk using an SD memory card (amiga-news.de reported). Today version 1.0.8 of the firmware was released. Changes:

Enable PHY_MODE_DMA_TIMER by default if no GreenPAK is present on V1.1 hardware
Initial implementation of synchronous mode for RP2040
Add device type autoconfiguration for more filename prefixes: MO, RE, TP
Relocate Apple default drive IDs to shared code
Add platform support for upcoming RP2040-based ZuluSCSI
RP2040: custom bootloader & performance improvements
RP2040: Fix SCSI-2 mode not getting enabled due to ATN handlinghttps://github.com//pull/64
RP2040: Add support for SCSI-1 single initiator mode

(dr)

[News message: 16. Sep. 2022, 05:22] [Comments: 0]
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15.Sep.2022 Connector board for FPGA Amiga clone: MiSTress 600
After the currently sold out versions for the installation of the FPGA Amiga clone MiSTer into an Amiga 500 and Amiga 1200 or ITX/Micro ITX PC-, 8bits4ever today officially introduced a conversion kit for the Amiga 600 as well.

As with other MiSTress models, the original Amiga 600 keyboard can be used as a regular USB HID device, and the case LEDs light up just like the MiSTer's. As the site writes, this first batch will take about 5-6 weeks to be ready for shipping. The introductory price is 135 Euros plus shipping.

Among other features, the MiSTress 600 has a hub with five USB ports, RGB/VGA DB15 connector, RCA stereo audio (with selectable I2S DAC), two DB9 joystick connectors (SEGA Megadrive compatible), and an internal 2.5-inch drive bay. The keyboard controller has an extended keyboard layout, which gives access to most of the keys you would find on a normal 104-key keyboard, and which are otherwise missing on the Amiga 600 key set. (dr)

[News message: 15. Sep. 2022, 18:27] [Comments: 0]
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15.Sep.2022
Amigaworld.net (Forum) Video: Amiga Alive and Kicking also at Amazon Prime in the USA
The crowd-funded documentary "Amiga Alive and Kicking", which has been available for download since the end of June (amiga-news.de reported), is now also available on Amazon Prime - but currently only in the USA. (snx)

[News message: 15. Sep. 2022, 09:54] [Comments: 0]
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14.Sep.2022

Text adventure: Pre-order of Collector's Edition of "Silk Dust"
In the middle of the last year, Davide Bucci had released the third part of his text adventures series called "Silk Dust" (amiga-news.de reported. "poly.play" now offers a collector's edition for 27 Euro plus shipping. It includes:

3.5" floppy disk
Cardboard box
MicroSD card including disk images and more
Compass in linen bag
8-page DIN A5 manual (English)
Stickers
Poster (Din A3)
Shrink-wrapped

The box will be available from 03. October 2022 and can be pre-ordered now. (dr)

[News message: 14. Sep. 2022, 08:57] [Comments: 0]
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14.Sep.2022

AmigaOS 4: Audio editor Rave 1.3
For more than a year Daniel 'trixie' Jedlicka presented the audio editor 'Rave' developed by him in status updates on his blog, at the end of June he released the first version 1.1 (amiga-news.de reported). The now released version 1.3 includes the following changes:

Unlimited Undo, with an option to use the Extended Memory Objects framework.
Added support for WAV files containing IMA ADPCM-encoded data.
Faster processing, loading and saving of long samples thanks to optimizations in the sndeditor.gadget.
Fixed: The list of assigns in the file requester got improperly sorted under certain conditions.
Fixe: Applying Mute didn't change the project status to modified, so the Save function remained unavailable.
Fixed: Pasting mono data from the clipboard into a stereo project didn't work.
Fixed: Auditioning a right-channel selection always played left-channel data by mistake.
Fixed: The channel mixing code in Convert Channels was broken and produced some distortion.
Updated program documentation.

Rave requires AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Update 2 as well as A-EON's Enhancer Core. (dr)

[News message: 14. Sep. 2022, 05:59] [Comments: 0]
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13.Sep.2022
Amiga.org (forum) AmigaKit: Switchless floppy boot selector
British dealer AmigaKit offers a switchless boot-selector for the Amiga 500 or 2000 floppy drives at the title link: Pressing Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga for five seconds makes DF1 the boot drive, while the original DF0 is switched off. Pressing the key again reverses this. (snx)

[News message: 13. Sep. 2022, 15:04] [Comments: 0]
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13.Sep.2022

AmigaOS 4.1: Spreadsheet ignition 1.21
Achim Pankalla has released version 1.21 of his spreadsheet ignition, which requires at least AmigaOS 4.1 Update 6. The new version corrects bugs in some functions, now allows file suffixes with more than three characters and offers a revised manual.

The ods-addon has also been updated. The extension allows loading and saving tables in OpenDocument format, which is used in LibreOffice/OpenOffice Calc, among others. Changes in ign-ods-addon 0.37:

now some more functions are converted
solve a problem with ms ods-files
corrects a failure in calculation of column and row size

A new addition is the xlsx-AddOn for reading MS Excel files. This is a first, early version of the extension, the integration in ignition must still be done manually. Here tested with a calendar file (left ignition, right Excel):

Achim Pankalla thanks all testers, bug reporters, translators and supporters. He welcomes any feedback via email, and also refers to the official ignition support forum (German) at os4welt.de for further information and discussion. (dr)

[News message: 13. Sep. 2022, 06:40] [Comments: 0]
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13.Sep.2022
Hans de Ruiter

AmigaOS 4: FTP server 'ZitaFTP' 1.34
Hans de Ruiter has released version 1.34 of his commercial FTP server 'ZitaFTP'. He wrote:

"ZitaFTP Server v1.34 has just been released, and can be downloaded. This version marks a major milestone: it's no longer a pre-release.

No, this doesn't mean it's perfect. I have plenty more features and enhancements to add. ZitaFTP Server has matured to the point that the pre-release label can be removed. It's a solid product.

The ZitaFTP Server logo has been refreshed, and is looking nice. It's been incorporated into the installers too, so the generic banners are gone. In brief, here are the (cross-platform) enhancements and bug fixes:

UI sidebar menu now only shows the pages that a user has access to
Enabled Link-Time-Optimization (LTO) for release builds. This reduces the compiled binary size by removing unused library code (and other optimizations)
Fixed timer event removal to eliminate a SEGV fault on exit when the ACME autorenewal client is active
Fixed a potential hang in the event loop with slow tasks (such as ACME certificate renewal tasks)
Fixed thread pool so more than one thread can run at once

The AmigaOS version got some special attention this time round. Here's what AmigaOS users have to look forward to:

Added an AREXX port
Installer now has upgrade and maintenance modes when an existing installation is detected. Upgrading just got easier
Added AutoInstall script
Updated libcurl to use AmiSSL, and deleted the statically linked OpenSSL that was there only for libcurl (reduces the binary size by several megabytes)"

A single license of 'ZitaFTP Server' costs around 47 Euros. The program can be tested free of charge for 30 days. (dr)

[News message: 13. Sep. 2022, 06:09] [Comments: 0]
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