amiga-news.de - Latest Amiga News

16.Jun.2024 Aminet uploads until 15.06.2024
The following files have been added until 15.06.2024 to Aminet:
more ... (snx)

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16.Jun.2024 OS4Depot uploads until 15.06.2024
The following files have been added until 15.06.2024 to OS4Depot:
more ... (snx)

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16.Jun.2024 AROS Archives uploads until 15.06.2024
The following files have been added until 15.06.2024 to AROS Archives:
more ... (snx)

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16.Jun.2024 MorphOS-Storage uploads until 15.06.2024
The following files have been added until 15.06.2024 to MorphOS-Storage:
more ... (snx)

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16.Jun.2024 WHDLoad: New installers until 15.06.2024
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 15.06.2024: more ... (snx)

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16.Jun.2024 Twin-stick shooter: Cecconoid available (update)
In addition to the boxed edition, starting to be available from tomorrow, the download version of Cecconoid is now also available at the title link. The game is "an 8-bit inspired, flick-screen, twin-stick-shooter, set in an alternate dimension where the pixels are still chunky, and the bad guys are black and white" (amiga-news.de reported).

Update: (18.06.2024, 17:14, dr)

A zip version of the game is now also available, which contains a WHDLoad version and selected tunes from the game in MOD format. (snx)

[News message: 16. Jun. 2024, 08:23] [Comments: 0]
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16.Jun.2024
Andreas Magerl (ANF) Print magazine: Issue 143 of Amiga Future readable online
The German and English issue 143 (March/April 2020) of the print magazine "Amiga Future" can now be read on the magazine's website in the form of image files of the individual pages. Remaining copies of the magazine as well as a higher resolution PDF version can be purchased from the publisher. (snx)

[News message: 16. Jun. 2024, 08:23] [Comments: 0]
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16.Jun.2024
jPV RNO (E-Mail) Event: "Finnish Amiga Users Group" at Vectorama 2024
Last weekend, Vectorama 2024, an online gaming event aimed at people of all ages, took place in Oulu (Finland). The Finnish Amiga Users Group was also there, organising an Amiga stand at the gaming event. more ... (dr)

[News message: 16. Jun. 2024, 06:37] [Comments: 0]
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15.Jun.2024 Preview video: Beta versions of Gorky 17 and Heretic II
Even though George 'walkereo' Sokianos concentrates mainly on the development of AmigaOS4 software, he also has classic hardware at his disposal. In a detailed video he shows beta versions of Gorky 17 and Heretic II running on his Amiga 1200 upgraded with a PiStorm-lite. (dr)

[News message: 15. Jun. 2024, 09:22] [Comments: 0]
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15.Jun.2024

Survival game: Zombie Survivor V1.10
Sami Vehmaa continues to work on his current project "Zombie Survival", a game for Amigas with a graphics card in which you have to fight off an endless army of the undead (YouTube video). The current version 1.10 offers the following changes:

more settings to let you tweak the game
info window in settings
Bottom Weapon display switch (F1)
added max Zombie 300
new blood animation
after killing a zombie a body lays in ground for some seconds
several bugs found and fixed
new speed progress system

(dr)

[News message: 15. Jun. 2024, 08:39] [Comments: 0]
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14.Jun.2024 Creating and reading disk images: Disk Jockey V3.4 for macOS
At the end of March, we reported on Jean-Michel Durand's "Disk Jockey" (DJ), with which you can easily create and analyse (Disk-O-Matic) disc images for retro computers and emulators under macOS 10.13 to macOS 14. After version 3.0, he continued to work on the programme and has now made version 3.4 available.

In addition to bug fixes and performance improvements, DJ now understands HFS+ and makes it possible to extract files from it. Also, whenever possible, Disk-O-Matic now displays the file type in the file browser. It is now much easier to recognise which files are text files, which are images and which are programs, for example.

As the author points out somewhat smugly, there is still no AI in Disk Jockey. It's "aall hand-made with human fallibility, questionable design choices and, most of all, love for the craft. And coffee."

As the author kindly explained to us on request, in addition to the version for macOS, which is being actively developed, there is also a Disk Jockey for Windows, which can also be used to create empty images. However, he left it at that and did not implement the rest of the Disk Jockey, as there are already good solutions for Windows.

Finally, there is Disk Jockey Jr (djjr), Disk Jockey for the command line, which runs on macOS and Linux. It received a major update a few months ago and can now do things that the full Disk Jockey for macOS can do (such as analyse disk images, including ADF). This "branch" is also in active development. (dr)

[News message: 14. Jun. 2024, 12:05] [Comments: 0]
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14.Jun.2024
Individual Computers (ANF)

Individual Computers: Features of Indivision ECS V4
V4 of the Indivision ECS flickerfixer and scandoubler developed by Individual Computers will be available in limited quantities from 15 July. The previous version V3 is sold out. In a forum post, developer Jens Schönfeld explains new functions and details of the new version:

the FPGA has almost twice the capacity. This lets us implement more features, yet keep the same form factor as the previous versions.
all-new appearance in all-black. This is in line with the colour of our most successful product ever, the ACA500plus. Not that it matters much in a closed computer, but after 16 years, I felt it was time for a change from the blue that the three previous versions have used. Even the cable to the VGA connector is black!
more sophisticated clock generation. While Indivision ECS V2 and V3 were completely async, we now have the possibility to generate precise whole-number multiples of the native Amiga pixel clock. This improves the VSync feature a lot, because the monitor's capability requirement is reduced to 50Hz for PAL or 60Hz for NTSC modes, but it doesn't have to be a specific V-Sync-capable monitor any more (like an expensive gaming monitor). Your choice of low-cost monitors with VGA input increases a lot with this - it's the same feature that Invidision AGA MK3 users already enjoy under the name "auto resolution mode".
EDID monitor identification: The config tool can detect the monitor and read supported modes, so fiddling with monitor settings is vastly simplified
CIA adapter for keyboard signals: This lets us implement the live-config feature, which is highly appreciated by Indivision AGA MK3 users. Bringing this to OCS/ECS machines, which are often used for gaming, was a "must" - you can pan/zoom the picture with the mouse after pressing a magic keyboard combination while the game is running.
Graffiti false-positive avoidance: Generally, Graffiti mode is activated on a line-by-line basis using the Genlock Audio bit (GAUD). Some games set this bit without actually wanting to use Graffiti mode. We're developing a heuristic that also looks at more criteria to tell if it's really a program for the Graffiti hardware, or if it's a false positive that would otherwise result in garbled graphics.
I have kept the amount of memory on the flickerfixer at 8MBytes. Although I'm constantly trying to reduce prices, it would not have made any sense to reduce the amount of memory to 2MBytes (whích is the next-smaller chip you can buy), because it would make double-buffering impossible. Instead, I have wired this Ram differently, so we can address it byte-by-byte. This doesn't impact the current functionality (which only uses 16-bit accesses to this memory), but will allow us to add things in the future that would be very slow to do on the previous versions of this flicker fixer.
the OSD now has true transparency and can be positioned in any corner of the output picture. I know that many people find the OSD just annoying and always switch it off, which is of course still an option. For those of you who have the OSD visible, it can now softly fade out to complete transparency, adding a little modern "bling" to the look-and-feel.
Improved interlace handling: If you drag sreens and you have a non-interlace screen in front of an interlace screen, the whole picture will turn to interlace if you drag the front screen down. Previously, this resulted in a screen mode change on Indivision, which may result in the monitor going into re-sync mode, showing a black screen for a few seconds. The new interlace handling can now avoid this.

As the developer goes on to explain, there are further plans. The price of Indivision ECS V4 will remain the same as that of V3 until the functions have been completed. There is no timetable for the implementation of the following features:

change position and zoom factor in auto-resolution modes
improve auto-resolution to support 3x and 4x pixels
detect and support A2024 "Hedley monitor" screen modes
make OSD auto-sizing, so readability on high-resolution monitors is improved
inhibit Amiga's access to mouse movement data during live configuration (movement only - LMB can't be inhibited!)
add a framebuffer mode with 256 colours out of 21 bits colour, 1024x768 and 1280x1024 pixels
add 64x64-pixel sprite with 4 colours to framebuffer mode
add 2D acceleration to framebuffer mode
add second draggable screen to framebuffer mode (must have same resolution as first screen)
implement P96 driver for framebuffer mode - don't expect wonders here! It's questionable if Picasso-II performance can be reached.

(dr)

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13.Jun.2024 Worth a read: 42 years of programming - The Amiga
Matthias Wiesmann is a Swiss computer scientist who took part in a programming camp 42 years ago, where he learned to program for the TRS-80. As he writes in his blog, programming languages have changed a lot over time, and the computer world used to be much more diverse back then:

"These days, a lot of concepts in computer science settled on one solution: there is one network stack, one type of filesystem, one low-level programming language, etc. It certainly makes things simpler, but this kind of consensus is also a big risk. What I will do is go over the various devices I interacted and explain how they were weird compared with today’s mental model."

In a previous article in English, Wiesmann took a look at the Commodore 64. Now he has turned his attention to the Amiga under the title link and describes the special features of the system from a personal perspective: chipset, planar graphics, weird graphics modes such as HAM8, interlaced graphics and sound modules. (nba)

[News message: 13. Jun. 2024, 13:39] [Comments: 0]
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13.Jun.2024 Floppy disk images: Disc Image Manager V1.47 for Linux, macOS and Windows
Gerald J Holdsworth's Disc Image Manager is an application used to load a retro disc image, read the catalogue and output any required files. In addition, it will also add files to the image, delete, and rename files and directories. On the Amiga side, reading and writing of AmigaDOS disks and hard disks with OFS and FFS formatting are supported (not fully tested with FFS). Support for directory cache and international characters is still missing (amiga-news.de reported). Version 1.47 provides several new features and bug fixes.

The author also provides a detailed PDF manual. (dr)

[News message: 13. Jun. 2024, 08:43] [Comments: 0]
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12.Jun.2024 Book: AmigaOS 3.2 Reference Manual - Limited print run, pre-orders being taken
Press release: Following the successful release of the German edition, Look Behind You is delighted to announce the English version of "AmigaOS 3.2 Reference Manual". This comprehensive guide is essential for anyone using the AmigaOS in its latest and greatest version 3.2 (up to and including 3.2.2.1).
more ... (snx)

[News message: 12. Jun. 2024, 11:50] [Comments: 1 - 12. Jun. 2024, 16:06]
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12.Jun.2024
Sven Scheele (ANF) Event: Interface XXXVIII in Kiel, Germany, on 22.06.2024
Sven Scheele writes: On Saturday, June 22, 2024, the second "Interface" in 2024 will take place in Schwentinental near Kiel, Germany. This will be the 38th edition of the retro computer get-together. As always, the organizers are the Vintage Computer Club (VCC), the Amiga Club Schleswig-Holstein (ACSH) and the Computer Club Klausdorf (CCK).
more ... (snx)

[News message: 12. Jun. 2024, 11:49] [Comments: 0]
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12.Jun.2024 Developer log: Weapons for the strategy game "Ecliptic"
At the beginning of April, a new demo version of the strategy game "Ecliptic", which is currently under development, was released (amiga-news.de reported). In another detailed developer diary, the author now writes about some of the weapons that can be used to send these monsters to the afterlife (flamethrower video, grenade video) (dr)

[News message: 12. Jun. 2024, 06:25] [Comments: 0]
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11.Jun.2024

Video game history: Amiga Germany trading cards
The team behind Amiga Germany, which founded and manages the Facebook group of the same name and publishes the associated magazine, has presented a new project that should be of interest to collectors who are interested in the history of video games: the "Amiga Germany Collector's Cards" are high-quality, double-sided cards that celebrate the long history of Amiga games.

Each of the four sets currently available contains five of those high-quality cards with box artworks of popular games and logos of legendary developer studios on the front. On the back of each card, you will find additional information about the motifs, such as the year of publication and the name of the artist (for game artwork) or the year of foundation and the games published (for developer logos), as well as a star rating and the number of the issue of Amiga Germany Fanzine in which the corresponding game was discussed.

The following four sets of five cards are available initially:

Set 1: Apidya Box Artwork, Dune Box Artwork, Kaiko Entwickler Logo, Midnight Resistance Box Artwork, Nathan Never Box Artwork
Set 2: Monkey Island 2 Box Artwork, Psygnosis Entwickler Logo, Starglider 2 Box Artwork, Apprentice Box Artwork, Black Crypt Box Artwork
Set 3: Turrican Box Artwork, Thalion Entwickler Logo, Lethal Xcess Box Artwork, Simon the Sorcerer Box Artwork, Defender of the Crown Box Artwork
Set 4: Toki Box Artwork, Golden Axe Box Artwork, Turrican 2 Box Artwork, Lionheart Box Artwork, Factor 5 Entwickler Logo

Further sets are in the pipeline. Each set costs €2.50, while the starter pack containing all four sets is available for €9.50. For €26.50, there is a "Deluxe Supporter Pack" that contains all initial four sets and a matching collector's album. (nba)

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11.Jun.2024

Using image files and discs in PC drives: DiskFlashback V1.0.1.0
Developer Rob Smith has written DiskFlashback, a convenient software for Windows 10/11 (64-bit) that enables PC floppy drives to read and write image files such as ADFs (Amiga Disk Files) during operation. It also allows you to process real discs in Amiga or Atari format, with the appropriate hardware extensions. To use it, you need the FloppyBridge plugin, which in turn requires additional hardware (amiga-news.de reported). Now he has released version 1.0.1.0 of the software. Changes:

Fixed disabling "auto-detect com port" being ignored
Better support for hard disk image files larger than 4G (some partitions got ignored before)
Upgraded to use the new ADFLib v0.9
Changed error handling when reading from disks to include the Always Ignore option
Added Amiga PFS3 file system support (this was a real PITA!)

Editorial update, 12 June 2024 (nba): Our original news article stated that no special hardware is required to process physical Amiga disks. That is not accurate. The FloppyBridge plug-in is required, which in turn requires DrawBridge, Greaseweazle or Supercard Pro hardware. The article has been updated accordingly. (dr)

[News message: 11. Jun. 2024, 06:18] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jun.2024 Background: The Amiga 8 sprite myth
In a recent article Edwin van den Oosterkamp corrects the misconception, which in his opinion is still widespread today, that a programmer has to resort to tricks on the Amiga in order to be able to display more than 8 sprites on the screen. (dr)

[News message: 10. Jun. 2024, 10:26] [Comments: 0]
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