12.Jul.2022
Mirandor (ANF)
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Word processing: Beta testers for Finalwriter wanted
In mid-February we last published an article about the current state of development of FinalWriter. And the work on the word processor is going on: Timothy "Terminills" Deters is currently looking for beta testers for AROS 68K and ApolloOS. If you are interested, please contact him via the contact form on the website that has already been set up especially for the project. (dr)
[News message: 12. Jul. 2022, 07:08] [Comments: 0]
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12.Jul.2022
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Interview: MorphOS developer Jacek Piszczek
Many of our readers know Jacek Piszczek by his browser Wayfarer, first released in early October 2020, and his email program Iris, first beta version released at the end of March 2018, both for MorphOS.
But the developer has been active for MorphOS for much longer: the first mention of him in our database is in a news item about VirusExecutor 2.24 from July 2002, in which he is mentioned as the author of ReqAttack. With his transparent digital clock TranspoClock from December 2003, he is recorded on our website for the first time with an independent news item. High time to find out a bit more about this busy developer and talk about past and current projects.
Amiga-News (AN): Dear Jacek, thank you very much for taking the time for this interview. Tell us three key facts that the reader needs to know about you.
Jacek Piszczek (JP): Hello. Jacek Piszczek, 39yo and an Amiga users since 1996.
AN: Since you develop for the MorphOS operating system: what hardware do you use for it? And: do you use MorphOS as your main system?
JP: The three main systems would be a 2.3GHz PCIE G5, a 17'' 1.67Ghz PowerBook upgraded to a FullHD panel and a silent upgrade Mac mini. I have several more spares, but those three are the ones I do all testing and a lot of development work with. I especially love the PowerBook. As for the main system: how do we even define that these days? I use MorphOS in the evenings (unless I'm playing games), Windows for work and macOS on my PC. Since WebKit is pretty demanding, I'm using XCode and a Debian VM cross-compiler to build Wayfarer, but I try to do all the other MorphOS work on either the G5 or a PowerBook. Luckily Iris just links against pre-compiled WebKit binaries so I can work on it on MorphOS.
AN: Our readers know you as the developer of the MorphOS applications Iris and Wayfarer. But can you tell us how you got into retro systems in general? Even as a "simple user"? Were you focused on MorphOS from the beginning?
JP: They weren't retro yet when I've started playing with the Amiga. I went through an A500, then A1200/PPC which gave me a chance to learn E and C programming languages. A transition to MorphOS happened simply because that was the one available solution at the time.
AN: Did you also write software for other operating systems or only for MorphOS?
JP: I've started programming on Amiga 500 and a C64 so no, not just MorphOS. I've mostly been working as a programmer the past 20+ years and so I've had the opportunity to write code for a lot of platforms besides the Amiga.
AN: Can you remember your first (small?) project? Or did you start right away with Iris or Wayfarer?
JP: Haha, I wish I were talented enough to be able to come up with Iris as my first programming project. Seriously though, I believe my first actually usable application was a jingle player I wrote in AMOS for a high school event. Even wrote a custom self-layouting UI for it. Unfortunately the floppy with all the source code died on me later on...
AN: With your browser Wayfarer and your e-mail program Iris you gave MorphOS two programs that have a unique selling point among Amiga systems and don't need to hide from comparable programs under Windows and Co. What do you love more and why?
JP: My heart would be with Iris since there's a lot more of my own code in it. It was also the application that forced me to look for something to bridge a gap between modern programming techniques and MUI. After several weeks of researching various options I've started experimenting with Objective-C on MorphOS and ended up writing the two objc frameworks most of my MorphOS applications use these days. Without this step I'm afraid neither Iris nor Wayfarer would have been possible, at least not without major compromises.
AN: It's pretty incredible that one person can handle these two big projects. How much time do you spend on it in a week? And: is it fun? Or is it also a chore? Was there a time when you thought: This is getting too much for me, I'm quitting?
JP: I would say realistically I put about 15-20h a week into MorphOS and all of that is basically programming. But that's on weeks where I actually feel like it :) As for fun vs obligation I guess it's a bit of both. I like challenges but some debugging sessions can often feel like too much. The nastiest bugs I've had to solve in Wayfarer took weeks to figure out. Weeks of putting 2-3h into it every day. After that you just want to take a break, especially when essentially doing debugging work at my day job too...
AN: Is the combination "Jacek - MorphOS" a 'special case' or is it conceivable that also a single person writes a browser for AmigaOS 4?
JP: It's certainly possible to do it as a one person project, since it's been proven with other browsers we've had in the past (Sputnik, Odyssey). You do need someone who knows what he is doing, knows the OS he is dealing with (and is able to diagnose and fix bugs in the OS while at it).
To be fair, I did have quite a bit of help from Piru, especially in the early stages. He's helped with a lot of the compiler and OS issues like fixing phreads.
Still, you need person(s) who will put hundreds of hours of hard work into getting this done with no expectancy of getting paid (or getting paid the rates programmers at the required level would expect).
AN: Are you also - at least a little - familiar with AmigaOS 3 and 4? If so, can you explain if writing a mail program and a browser for MorphOS is easier than for the other two? And why? Or why not?
JP: MorphOS makes it easier because of all the work we've been putting into the system updates. Sometimes adding a seemingly small debugging feature to the OS can have a great impact on a browser project. Or Unicode support. Or a Notifications system. All of those things come together and make an impact when porting a huge project like WebKit. Yes, you could pack almost everything into the browser, but that'd make it a lot more work and wouldn't positively impact the whole OS. In that aspect, both AmigaOS 3 and 4 have stagnated long ago - for example AmigaOS 3.2 basically just re-implements things done by Haage & Partner 20 years earlier.
AN: Regarding this: I read in several forums that you would have been open to porting Wayfarer to OS4.1, but no one from A-Eon etc. approached you. That was in March 2021, has anything changed?
JP: All of my WebKit work is available to anyone on github. I don't have the time to port and then maintain another project of this magnitude so the best I could is to offer pointers to whoever wants to make his own port based on my work.
AN: Let's philosophize a little bit: Suppose the community, A-EON or whoever would donate to you for a port...What would be the result? Just the port or would you maintain it as well? And would it be based on MUI or Reaction?
JP: Making a port and then not maintaining it would mean the browser stagnating pretty quickly. A lot of major websites expect that you're up to date with what current Safari is offering, so things would start to deteriorate within a year or so. This is why I keep rebasing (updating my patches) to newer WebKit versions every couple of months (that's what results in Wayfarer's version number getting bumped).
All the really big Amiga projects use MUI, because it simply is the best UI we have from a programmer's point of view. I'm sure a ReAction version is doable, but if it means putting many extra hours of work, why bother?
AN: Mail program and browser are always a big topic in the Amiga community. Unfortunately, as a result of our research, we recently had to report that the development of the well-known mail program YAM has been discontinued. Did you notice this? Would you say that it would be easier to continue this project, e.g. by adding IMAP support? Or do you think it makes more sense to rewrite a mail program from scratch? Whereas we still have hope to see an update of SimpleMail....
JP: YAM died in 2000 when the original author stopped developing it, to be honest. I don't believe it to make sense to even try to add IMAP to it because the two protocols have a different philosophy. YAM was always about getting your mails to the folders on HDD, because that's what POP3 is really about - you are not meant to store emails on the server. IMAP is all about being able to access your mail from multiple clients at the same time. Bit hard to reconcile the two in an app that was designed for POP3.
AN: Can you describe to our readers how you got started with your mail program? Are there any ready-made program components that are open source that you were able to use for Iris? And how much time have you invested in the program so far? Can you tell? It seems that Wayfarer is the main project, but are there any plans for Iris?
JP: Iris started with Nicholai Benalal's port of libvmime. This is an open-source dual-license library that provides core mail functionality. As it is C++, the work quickly stalled since there wasn't a good way to use it without bridging it to MUI somehow. That's where Objective-C stepped in, but it actually took over a year where I could actually start working on the mail application. After that it took about three years of work to get it to a state where I'm mostly happy with it. Impossible to say how many hours I've spent on this application.
I have a roadmap for Iris and will be switching my attention to it again soon...
AN: Let's get back to hardware: recently the community funded a project initiated by Mark 'Bigfoot' Olsen to improve TinyGL (we reported). What do you think about this? Does this mean an immense boost for MorphOS? And why? What will be possible?
JP: There's certainly some exciting stuff you can do with better graphics card support, especially with shaders. I'm hoping I'll be able to use those in Enhanced Display. It'll also be interesting to see how video playback in Wayfarer may be improved with newer cards.
AN: As a developer, what do you think: is the current hardware situation satisfactory for MorphOS? On one side we have old Apple hardware, on the other very expensive new hardware (Sam, X5000). If you could choose: what would be your favorite hardware for MorphOS? x86 hardware? Is that possible in the near future?
JP: I think I'm biased because I like the PowerBook too much, but yeah, the hardware is becoming hard to buy these days. Sams are way too slow and an X5000 is both expensive and doesn't offer the performance the G5 Macs do. We'll see what happens about an AMD64 switch, I guess.
AN: About the software situation of MorphOS: what I miss at the moment is a proper word processor. Would it be possible for such an excellent developer like you to port LibreOffice or, a bit smaller, AbiWord to MorphOS? However, looking at AmigaOS 4, this seems to be a project of the century: first announced in 2012, beta testing started in 2017 and seems to last until today...
JP: LibreOffice is both huge and very, very messy. I'm no fan of cmake but I wish they used that instead of all the custom built stuff they've written. There's supposed to be a way to get it to work inside an SDL view, but it doesn't look like any platforms are actually using that. AbiWord looks a little less messier, but then it's only an editor. I want to look into one or the other, eventually, but the amount of other projects in my pipeline is already too much.
AN: Jacek, thank you very much for taking the time for this interview and, of course, keep up the good work on your projects!
If you want to support the developer, you can find a 'Donate' link on the Wayfarer and Iris project pages linked at the beginning of this interview. (dr)
[News message: 12. Jul. 2022, 06:19] [Comments: 1 - 22. Apr. 2023, 14:58]
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11.Jul.2022
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Email client: New YAM Nightly Build provides AmiSSL 5 support
At the end of May we reported that IBrowse and AmiSSL5 developer Oliver Roberts had uploaded changes to the YAM project that enable the mail programme to support the new version 5 of the AmiSSL 5 encryption protocol. Jens Maus has now merged these changes and a new Nightly Build was automatically created yesterday. Currently no further steps are planned by Oliver Robert regarding YAM. (dr)
[News message: 11. Jul. 2022, 11:41] [Comments: 0]
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11.Jul.2022
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Live-Event: Back In Time 2022 - A Musical Homage to the C64 & Amiga (Norway)
FastLoaders is a C64/Amiga remix metal band from Bergen, Norway. There, at Stereo Bar, on Friday, October 21, 2022, from 18:00 to 02:30, they will host a mini-festival dedicated to music and retro games from the golden era of Commodore 64 and Amiga. Among the musicians will be Chris Huelsbeck. Ticktes are available for around 50 Euros. (dr)
[News message: 11. Jul. 2022, 07:50] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
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Selfmade project: GottaGoFastRAMZ3 offers Zorro III FastRAM for Amiga 3000/4000
At the end of 2020 Matt Harlum had designed 'GottaGoFastRAM', an 8MB autoconfig FastRAM for A500/1000/2000 and CDTV (amiga-news.de reported). Now he has designed a memory expansion with 128MB or 256MB Z3 autoconfig FastRAM for the Amiga 3000 and 4000. (dr)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 16:31] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
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Workbench distribution: AmiKit XE 11.8.1 for the Raspberry Pi 4/400
The update to version 11.8.1 (changelog) of the workbench distribution AmiKit XE for the Raspberry Pi 4/400 single board computer contains the new version 5.3 of the Amiga emulator AmiBerry which AmiKit is based on. Besides, the WHDLoad database was updated and a notification bug of Amplifier fixed. (dr)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 10:34] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
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Let's Make an Amiga Game Tutorial 10 / Game Jam
'Prince', founder of the group 'Phaze101', streams the assembler coding 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 reports regularly).
In another tutorial Amiga Assembly For Beginners - Lets Make a Game, Prince now explains with concrete examples how to write a game with assembler. Here the tenth part was published.
In addition, he has launched the Retro Trex Game Jam. The goal of this contest is to create an identical or original version of the well-known browser game Google Google T-Rex for a retro computer. Thanks to its simplicity, the game can be programmed by beginners on any 8/16-bit retro computer. This game jam is for fun and learning purposes only. The prize is to complete this challenge. The rules:
- any programming language is allowed
- solo developers or teams are allowed
- adapted versions are allowed, nice graphics, etc.
- no consoles / DOS / Windows / Linux / Mac or other x86 machines
At the end of the competition, there will be a live stream showing all the matches. The competition will run until September 10, 2022. (dr)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 07:50] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
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Aminet uploads until 09.07.2022
The following files have been added until 09.07.2022 to Aminet:
Guide_To_Blitz_Basic.pdf dev/blitz 6.3M 'Guide To Blitz Basic' by Nei...
REDPILLGameCreator.lha dev/misc 2.3M 68k Game Creator with AGA support
HuntingFrogsV1.adf game/2play 880K 68k 1-4 player game
labyrinth64.lha game/misc 135K 68k Remake of Commodore 64 game L...
AmiArcadia.lha misc/emu 4.5M 68k Signetics-based machines emul...
AmiArcadiaMOS.lha misc/emu 4.8M MOS Signetics-based machines emul...
AmiArcadia-OS4.lha misc/emu 5.1M OS4 Signetics-based machines emul...
NAFCYI1991S1-B24.zip text/bfont 2.8M NAFCYI Spring 1991 (BMP Fonts)
jasspa-memacs.lha text/edit 2.2M OS4 JASSPA MicroEmacs for AOS4/Am...
NAFCYI1991S1-24.zip text/pfont 1.6M NAFCYI Spring 1991 (PS Fonts)
AmiSSL-5.3-OS3.lha util/libs 3.3M 68k OpenSSL as an Amiga shared li...
AmiSSL-5.3-OS4.lha util/libs 3.1M OS4 OpenSSL as an Amiga shared li...
AmiSSL-5.3-SDK.lha util/libs 2.3M AOS OpenSSL as an Amiga shared li...
TestProgram.zip util/misc 693K 68k Versatile Amiga Test Program
InstallerLG.src.lha util/sys 1.5M Commodore Installer replacement
MorphUp.lha util/sys 481K MOS MorphOS package manager
MorphUp_source.lha util/sys 631K MorphOS package manager source
(snx)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 07:24] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
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OS4Depot uploads until 09.07.2022
The following files have been added until 09.07.2022 to OS4Depot:
amissl-sdk.lha dev/mis 2Mb 4.0 SDK for AmiSSL
amiarcadia.lha emu/gam 5Mb 4.0 Signetics-based machines emulator
amissl.lha lib/mis 3Mb 4.0 OpenSSL as an Amiga shared library
deepl.lha uti/tex 3Mb 4.0 DeepL tool / incl. sourcecode
jasspa-memacs.lha uti/tex 2Mb 4.1 JASSPA MicroEmacs under AmiCygni...
(snx)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 07:24] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
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AROS Archives uploads until 09.07.2022
The following files have been added until 09.07.2022 to AROS Archives:
friq-i386-aros.zip gam/mis 418kb Bubble shooter.
(snx)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 07:24] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
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MorphOS-Storage uploads until 09.07.2022
The following files have been added until 09.07.2022 to MorphOS-Storage:
DeTerm_1.1.lha Communication Simple terminal for debug.
MorphUp_2009.lha Network/PackageManager MorphOS package manager
MorphUp_source_2006.lha Network/PackageManager MorphOS package manager...
MouseTracker_1.3.lha System/Ambient/Commodi... Record Mouse movements ...
(snx)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 07:24] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
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WHDLoad: New installers until 09.07.2022
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 09.07.2022:
- 2022-07-09 improved: Grid Start (Anco) supports another versions, manual included (Info)
(snx)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 07:24] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
Amiga.org (forum)
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Video: 10 Minute Amiga Retro Cast #130 - Tsunami 1230
In its 130th issue Douglas Compton's videocast 10MARC reviews the accelerator board Tsunami 1230. (snx)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 07:24] [Comments: 0]
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10.Jul.2022
Andreas Magerl (ANF)
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Print magazine: Amiga Future, issue 157
The English and German issue 157 (July/August 2022) of the print magazine Amiga Future has been distributed. It can be ordered directly from its editorial office and from Amiga dealers that stock the magazine.
Content of the current issue includes reviews about The Amiga 500 Mini, FreewayPro USB Zorro-II and MasPlayer 2022 Edition. (snx)
[News message: 10. Jul. 2022, 07:24] [Comments: 0]
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09.Jul.2022
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AmiTube 1.2: YouTube client for all Amiga systems
Marcus 'ALB42' Sackrow's AmiTube enables watching YouTube videos on an 68k Amiga. They are converted to Commodore's CDXL format and downloaded.
With version 1.2 released today, a play list like feature, introduced some days ago, for playing the downloaded movies automatically or by random or in a loop was added (amiga-news.de reported). Additionally, AmiTube now can manage multiple move directories. Changes:
- Bugfix for fancy list text printing
- play list with wait screen
- open own directories with movies in play list
- close requester
- restore splitter position on start
- multiple movie directories via icon tooltypes
- choose default directory via menu
The current version can be downloaded from the AmiTube website or installed via the update check in AmiTube. (dr)
[News message: 09. Jul. 2022, 20:27] [Comments: 0]
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09.Jul.2022
Gaming on AmigaOS 4 (ANF)
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AmigaOS 4: First beta version of Doom 3 port
Hugues 'HunoPPC' Nouvel is in the process of porting Dhewm3 - based on the Doom 3 GPL source code, to AmigaOS 4.1 and has released a first beta version 1.5.2b1 (recent YouTube video). Requirements:
The source code is available on GitHub. (dr)
[News message: 09. Jul. 2022, 16:16] [Comments: 0]
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08.Jul.2022
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Amiga emulator for MacOS: vAmiga 2.1b4
By releasing version 2.0 (amiga-news.de reported), developer Dirk Hoffmann has started the beta phase of version 2.1 of his Amiga emulator vAmiga for MacOS and yesterday released the fourth beta version. Changes:
- Added support for ECS Denise (SuperHires modes)
macOS 10.15 or higher is required. (dr)
[News message: 08. Jul. 2022, 22:23] [Comments: 0]
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08.Jul.2022
Erik Hogan
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Game Construction Kit: Scorpion Engine V2022.5
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 2022.5. Among others it includes expanded control of sound tones, a new parallax demo, editor improvements for easier development, the ability to swap level backgrounds on the fly, bug fixes and more.
You can support the developer on his Patreon website. (dr)
[News message: 08. Jul. 2022, 13:16] [Comments: 0]
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08.Jul.2022
Gunnar von Boehn
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Apollo Space Invaders: Eighth developer version of the remake
Arne von Boehn is writing a Space Invaders remake in 68K assembler on a Vampire4 standalone (amiga-news.de reported). Besides a new preview video there is also a new developer version for testing.
As Gunnar explains, the game is playable, but not yet finished. Arne has now added the 2-player mode, which still needs to be refined. Likewise, work continues on the UFOs: if they were hit, extras will be dropped in the future, such as alien freeze, extra life, quick shot, quick reload, repair bunker, shield, etc. All graphics are made by Kevin Saunders. In addition, the bunker damage will be improved and drawn in more detail, as well as the sound effects refined.
The game uses true colors and runs at 60 frames per second. The Super-AGA chipset and the AMMX instruction set are required. In the end, the game should run on both the Vampire V2 and V4.
Download: ARNEINVADER8.exe (52 MB) (dr)
[News message: 08. Jul. 2022, 07:00] [Comments: 0]
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08.Jul.2022
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Programming language: AmiBlitz 3.9.4
At the end of March the new major version 3.9.0 of the programming language AmiBlitz was released. Yesterday a fourth update with bug fixes was released with version 3.9.4. Changes:
- fixed: scrolling problem with vertical slider in source window
- fixed: crash when trying to save settings from settings-window
- fixed: setting "autolayout" was not stored correctly
- fixed: bug in userlibs-loading routine that corrupted the internal libs list
- improved: rawkeylib now supports NM_WHEEL_UP/NM_WHEEL_DOWN-Events sent by WinUAE that means PED supports mousewheel without any further tools like FreeWheel
- changed: instruction browser - search for functions in includes is now switched off by default
- changed: some default settings to better values (CON:, sourcefont)
added: menu items for changing the window layouts
In addition, the documentation was revised:
- added all missing commands of windowslib to windowslib.guide
(dr)
[News message: 08. Jul. 2022, 05:53] [Comments: 0]
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07.Jul.2022
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Game Construction Kit: RedPill 0.9.11
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 which he recently updated.
Changes of version 0.9.11:
- Added new action trigger Set Cam Limits to change the bounds of camera movement.
- Refactor of some features allows to gain 14ks of memory in most games.
- Camera center now works correctly for reduced display sizes.
- EXPERIMENTAL: Support for games with only 2 and 4 colors.
- Fix for freeze after making a Build.
- Fix for the spritesheet number 9 not being exported correctly.
- For some reason it seems display was moved one pixes to the left, this has been corrected.
(dr)
[News message: 07. Jul. 2022, 17:48] [Comments: 0]
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07.Jul.2022
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Preview video: Kung Fu action 'Devil's Temple'
Devil's Temple features 10 stages of intense arcade kung fu action based on the classic Irem games Kung Fu Master and Vigilante. Over 300 frames of animation were packed into the game and every cycle of performance was used on the Amiga A500. The game will adapt to upgrades, so additional chip ram will result in better music, AGA will provide additional colors and a greater variety of enemies in the game.
Yesterday, a new preview video was released for the game in development, allowing a brief look at each of the bonus levels in Devil's Temple. These are obtained after defeating the level 3, 6 and 9 bosses and are meant to break up the action a bit.
The game is already available for pre-order as a boxed edition. Likewise, a demo version of the first stage is available on itch.io.
(dr)
[News message: 07. Jul. 2022, 13:17] [Comments: 0]
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07.Jul.2022
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Blog review: Sound card Maestro Professional
The blog 'shred.zone' presents in a detailed article the internal sound card Maestro Professional, which was distributed by the German company MacroSystem in the early 1990s. Besides the presentation of the design, the development of a corresponding driver maestix.library is also highlighted, since MacroSystem itself never released the required Amiga software. (dr)
[News message: 07. Jul. 2022, 11:48] [Comments: 0]
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07.Jul.2022
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Game: 'Hunting Frogs'
At the Swedish demo party Gubbdata!, which took place this year from July 1 to 3, the Swedish demo group Software Of Sweden presented version 1.0 of their game 'Hunting Frogs': with a frog you try to catch and eat insects here (YouTube-Video). The game is based on a 28-year-old code, can be played by up to four players and was uploaded to Aminet yesterday. (dr)
[News message: 07. Jul. 2022, 07:37] [Comments: 0]
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07.Jul.2022
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Verschlüsselungsprotokoll: AmiSSL 5.3 (AmigaOS 3/4)
Only about 14 days ago version 5.2 of the open source encryption protocol AmiSSL was released, which has now been updated to version 5.3. It is now based on OpenSSL 3.0.5, which was released just two days ago. (dr)
[News message: 07. Jul. 2022, 07:17] [Comments: 0]
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06.Jul.2022
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Video: Creating games graphics
Graphic artist Simone Bernacchia, who has designed graphics for numerous Amiga games, explains some of his designs in this talk recorded at the Commodore Los Angeles Super Show 2022. (dr)
[News message: 06. Jul. 2022, 07:15] [Comments: 0]
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06.Jul.2022
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MorphOS: MouseTracker 1.3
The team of #amigazeux has released version 1.3 of its commodity MouseTracker, which records mouse movements and clicks and can display them as realtime overlay. Changes:
- Image format for saving can now be selected and isn't limited to PNG only anymore. Formats supported through Reggae are: PNG, JPEG, TIFF, ILBM, DEEP.
- Added '%x' as placeholder for save filenames for track and heatmaps that is replaced by the approriate suffix for the set image format.
- When an overlay track/heatmap is shown it will now also mix the map with the screen on non-composited screens. Live-updates for trackmaps on non-composited screens are not done for now.
- On non-composited screens the prgress window was 'burned' into the track/heatmap. Fixed.
- Reduced the amount of tracker nodes created by a factor of ~3 by optimising away unnececarry waypoints.
- Added a small close button in the left top corner when showing Track- and/or HeatMap overlays.
- The config file is now saved as a sequence of template strings instead of saving one binary blob. The old config is loaded once and converted to the new config automatically. The old config is not deleted by MouseTracker itself in case you have to revert to an older version of MT. If you want to manually delete it: 'env:MouseTrackerCX/default.cfg' and the same in envarc:
- "Strength" header in mouse tracker prefs also acts as a button now to advance all cycle gadgets at once.
- The "Track" header of the track column in mouse tracker prefs is a button now and can be used to toggle respective checkmarks.
- When an overlay is shown the window opacity can now be adjusted by pressing CTRL and moving the mouse wheel.
- Fixed mouse distance calculation which was severly broken. My head still hurts...
- Also tracks the fourth mouse button now.
- Now also visually tracks mouse-wheel up and down events.
- Prefs handling was completely jumbled up internally. Fixed.
- Added NOSCREENBAROBJECT=NOSBAR/S option to have no screenbar object created at all. Works from tooltypes and/or shell.
- Will add its own screenbar object to the screen titlebar when started. The screenbar object offers a popup menu with a couple of options (map creation, go to prefs, go to stats) to chose from. Furthermore the screenbar object displays the mouse position on the screen using a sizeable dot. Check out its config options in the pubscreen manager (right click on screen depth button).
- Fixed a memory leak when parsing tooltypes.
- Added PREFS=GUI/S option to open the GUI of MouseTracker directly when started. Works from tooltypes aswell as from shell.
- It is now possible to select the screen to generate an overlay or image for from the prefs.
- Stats for individual screens are tracked now and can be selected in the 'Stats' tab for display.
- Long term statistics can be reset now too. It has a saverty requester aswell.
- Added a savety requester to the 'Reset Statistics' button.
- Prefs/statistics GUI got some cosmetic changes.
- Heatmap creation for low screen sizes did not work. Fixed.
- Sped up final HeatMap generation by about 300%.
- Sped up drawing of TrackMap and HeatMap by more than 1000%.
- Added MagicBeacon notification support when a a Track- or HeatMap has been saved. Left clicking the notification will open the drawer the map has been saved to while right clicking it will open the image itself in an Ambient window.
- Statistics now always opens in a virtual group allowing the window to be sized smaller.
- When mouse pointer reenters a screen and the trackmap live update is shown, it won't draw a line from the last position the mouse pointer left the screen from to the new position the mouse pointer reentered the screen.
- Added short description texts to all progress windows.
- Removed all spaces in texts displaying percentages.
(dr)
[News message: 06. Jul. 2022, 06:16] [Comments: 0]
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06.Jul.2022
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Flashback: Australian Amiga Gazette (update)
The Australian Amiga Gazette (AAG) was founded in 1996 to keep the Amiga computer alive here in Australia. The first issue was published in December 1996, the last in October 1998, making 23 issues.
AAG was created entirely on an Amiga 4000 using Amiga's Page Stream Publishing software and printed on a second-hand press. The magazine had 40 black and white printed pages and contained articles, product reviews and advertising.
20 issues are available for download in PDF format at the title link. Two have yet to be scanned, one issue was never printed.
Update: (25.07.2022, 16:47, dr)
According to Michael Burak in the English-language comment section, he has redone the scans in 600 dpi and re-uploaded them. (dr)
[News message: 06. Jul. 2022, 06:07] [Comments: 10 - 25. Jul. 2022, 18:53]
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