01.May.2006
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Newsletter: Amiga Update #060430
Brad Webbs newsletter Amiga Update contains a summary of the more important Amiga related news of the last four weeks. The April issue has now been released:
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A M I G A | 060430 | U P D A T E
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"SO THE WORLD MAY KNOW"
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AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga, Inc.
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N E E D A N A M I G A O N E C P U M O D U L E ?
N E W S D K V E R S I O N F R O M H Y P E R I O N
A M I W E S T D A T E I S S E T - F I R S T I N F O
A M I R E V I V A L S H O W I N U K , I N J U L Y
G R O N I N G E N W I L L B E S H O W S I T E
A M I G A I N C . , G & D I N K D E A L
C Y G N U S E D E D I S R E H A T C H E D
D V P L A Y E R N E W V E R S I O N A V A I L A B L E
U P D A T E T O S C O U T M O N I T O R
W O O K I E C H A T 2 . 1 F I X E S B U G S
N E W F R Y I N G P A N A V A I L A B L E
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Editor's Thoughts and Introduction:
Maybe it's because April starts with April Fools' Day for some of us
- a day of bad jokes and strange pranks - but we have some oddities in
our story set this month. For starters, the author of Frying Pan seems
to have, ummmm ... jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire (I
know, but it was just BEGGING to be said). He's included what may be
the most controversial demo limitation in some time in his shareware
program. Details are below.
And for those of you looking for CPU modules for your gear, we have a
story announcing some that will be available soon. But you'll want to
check out the prices carefully. Once upon a time, Amiga meant lots of
power for less money than others could offer. That situation has,
saddly, reversed itself. It's not the manufacturers' choice, it's a
matter of market economics. Even so, it is odd to see these high
prices for Amiga gear, necessary though they may be.
Finally, shart eyed readers may spot something a bit different in
this issue. It concerns a change in story placement from our usual
practices. Maybe I'll just have some fun with this and not mention
what the change is and see if any reader is interested in figuring out
what the change is. And why.
As always, we hope you enjoy this issue.
Brad Webb,
Editor
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N E E D A N A M I G A O N E C P U M O D U L E ?
23 April, 2006
ACK Software Controls, Inc. is pleased to announce the upcoming
availability of two new AmigaOne XE CPU modules. The first CPU module
will be equipped with a Freescale MC7448 CPU clocked at 1GHz. The 1GHz
module will retail for $500.00 US Dollars. The second CPU module will
be equipped with a Freescale MC7448 clocked at 1.7GHz will retail for
$850.00 US Dollars. Both CPU modules will be eqipped with a high
quality heatsink and fan to ensure quiet, reliable operation.
Prototype modules will be demonstrated May 22/2006. The location for
this demonstration has yet to be determined. Due to the low volume
nature of these products, emails indicating demand for either of the
two units is greatly appreciated. Stay tuned for updates.
Estimated Availability June 19/2006
If interested, send mail to:
a.kowalczyk@sympatico.ca
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N E W S D K V E R S I O N F R O M H Y P E R I O N
Leuven, Belgium - 10. April, 2006
Hyperion Entertainment is proud to announce the availability of the
Software Development Kit Version 51.22 for the AmigaOS 4.0 Developer
Pre-Release.
The new SDK features the new gcc 4.0.2 compiler toolchain as well as
updated header files for AmigaOS 4.0 Pre-Release update 4.
The SDK download is available for all interested parties via anon
access at Hyperions FTP Server:
ftp://ftp.hyperion-entertainment.biz/AmigaOS4_SDK
The SDK is available in two versions: A 160 MB download that contains
everything to get you started, including compiler and contributed
libraries, and a cut-down version that contains the compiler and
documentation only.
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A M I W E S T D A T E I S S E T - F I R S T I N F O
25 April, 2006
AmiWest 2006 Date Is Reserved!
===The Hotel is Booked
The Clarion Hotel Cal Expo, site of AmiWest 2005, has been reserved
for October 21, 2006! After some hard negotiations, we were able to
secure the venue where the inaugural AmiWest '98 show was held.
===Changes In 9 years.
Of course, many changes have occurred in the venue and in Amigadom
since that time. The hotel has continued their update and we'll have a
lot more news on that as the official information releases begin.
We're working behind the scenes to bring another great AmiWest show to
Amiga enthusiasts throughout the world.
===Mark Your Calendars Now!
Now is the time to mark your calendars for this new date. After
listening to feedback from our loyal attenders and vendors, the
October date was set for better weather and better airfares.
===And a Good Time Was Had By All!
That was last year. This year promises to be a good time as well,
bringing the Amiga community together at the longest-running Amiga
show in the United States! Come and be a part of it!
===Watch for Official Information Releases!
The AmiWest committee is working even as you read these lines to give
you good information in plain text information releases to keep you
informed of our progress. As always, you can go to our web page to
view the HTML versions as well. Watch sacc.org/amiwest for
developments and contacts.
===See you there!
Don't miss out! Make plans to attend now!
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A M I R E V I V A L S H O W I N U K , I N J U L Y
15 April, 206
The show takes place on Saturday July the 29th
The doors will open to visitors at 11am and close at 5pm
The raffle(s) will be called sometime in the afternoon.
Place
The show will take place at the Kingsway Centre in Scunthorpe - UK.
The Kingsway Centre is a large conferencing centre and is located
right in the heart of the town next door to the 2 colleges and right
on the main road through Scunthorpe.
Our goal for this year is to become a much more professional outfit
and with that in mind we have booked a much bigger, more technology
orientated venue right in the centre of town. We hope to be able to
draw some high calibre exhibitors and maybe even one or 2 VIP's.
Please check out our Exhibitors section on our website to see who have
already agreed to exhibit, and please check back regularly as we are
willing to do all in our power to make this show the best we possibly
can.
Other highlights of the show include a raffle; the prizes have not yet
been confirmed but one of the prizes could well be an Amiga4000!.
Also, an Amiga show isn't complete without a Sensible Soccer
competition. So we will be running one, and possibly a StuntCarRacer
tournament too, with prizes to be had. We will also be providing a
free buffet lunch. Of course I'm sure you will all agree one of the
major highlights of any Amiga show, are the visitors themselves!.
Tickets on the day will cost 6 however if you order them in advance
they only cost 5 so we strongly suggest you pre-order your tickets.
Tickets will be sent out shortly after you have paid for them and
online ordering will close at the beginning of July
The Scunthorpe Amiga User Group (from here on in referred to as
"SCAG") was founded back in the summer of 2004 by Darren Glenn and
James King. Up until early in 2005, we were only 2 members so didn't
have much of a web presence.
However in early 2005 we got a few emails from Amiga users wanting to
know when the next Amiga show was going to be held in the UK so
decided to hold one. That meant a website needed to go up, and as a
result our membership grew slightly.
Although this group was founded and based in Scunthorpe it is open to
anyone throughout the world, we meet online as well as in Scunthorpe.
We are also open to anyone with even the slightest interest in the
Amiga, be it the official classic Amiga, the AmigaOne, Pegasos, AROS,
UAE, etc... You are all welcome.
This is our second year as an active user group and as such we will
probably be making meetings a much more scheduled thing. We will most
likely be holding them at the beginning of every other month.
If you'd like to know more about our usergroup why not head on over to
our usergroup website: www.Scunthorpe-Amiga.webhop.org
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G R O N I N G E N W I L L B E S H O W S I T E
26 April, 2006
On Saturday May 21st, we have organised a C= and Amiga party at
Stadsboerderij de Wiershoeck, Beijumerweg 20, Groningen, Holland from
10:00 till 17:00.
We will have presentations and demonstrations with a viewer on a wide
screen. Some demonstrations: Computer - RSI and Acupuncture, A Micro
AmigaOne and AmigaOS4. We will show how to work with D64 files, Star
Commander and Vice. There will be an IT Jobmarket and also opened are
the teashop and the beautiful garden.
Look for more info at: http://commodore-gg.hobby.nl/mei21.htm
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A M I G A I N C . , G & D I N K D E A L
5 April, 2006
Giesecke & Devrient (G&D), a leading supplier of smart cards and
ystem solutions for telecommunications, payment and identification,
and Amiga, Inc., a provider of cross-platform enabling technology for
digital multimedia, have agreed to work together to demonstrate the
use of Amiga's technologies with G&D's GalaxSIM(R) high memory SIM
cards.
The GalaxSIM(R) is a new series of (U)SIM cards combining the
established SIM products such as the UniverSIM(R) Callisto family with
flash memory, designed to meet the demand of wireless multimedia
services. The cards offer memory capacities ranging between 64 MB and
512 MB, where the SIM's standard EEPROM memory is supplemented by a
flash memory device in the module. This means that memory intensive
applications, such as games, music and video files or telephone
directories, can be stored directly on the flash memory of the SIM
card and the relevant security information, such as keys or right
objects could be securely stored in the SIM card controller. The
GalaxSIM(R) is designed to support games, entertainment, MP3 music,
video clips, IMS services and similar applications on mobile phones,
PCs and other electronic devices. The built-in smart card controller
supports secure applications and digital rights management
requirements.
The GalaxSIM(R) employs a standard plug-in SIM form factor where the
smart card chip is responsible for the popular applications furnished
by the SIM card, for example network authentication, secure storage
and SIM toolkit applications. The internal GalaxSIM(R) system
architecture contains the flash controller, flash memory and the smart
card chip in a 3- or 2-chip version. Both MMC and USB high speed
protocols can be used to ensure the swift transfer of data between SIM
card and mobile phone.
The Amiga technologies are intended to allow G&D customers to provide
the AmigaAnywhere(TM) application engines and Amiga multimedia
applications across many devices that support GalaxSIM(R) SIM cards.
The combined technologies are designed to assist operators in
deploying quadruple play services by enabling users to play and
manipulate the same content across devices that support SIM card or
multimedia card technologies, such as mobile phones, PCs, IPTV and set
top boxes. The Amiga-enabled GalaxSIM(R) cards have been designed to
be deployed by carriers on both Linux and Microsoft driven devices and
to allow consumers to quickly and easily move SIMs and content across
devices.
Amiga technologies provide an exceptional audio, video and interactive
experience that is being developed to take advantage of local hardware
components, including GPS, video and 3D acceleration.
The goal of the demonstration at CTIA is to validate G&D's advanced
position by running high quality, complex applications across
GalaxSIMs(R). The GalaxSIM(R) demonstration shows video, entertainment
and games (including AmigaAnywhere arcade, puzzle and casual games),
as well as content branded with major league sport marks.
"GalaxSIM(R) is the ideal platform for the subscriber to realize the
high performance and quality offered by the Amiga gaming environment,
as well as the unique portability of games and content across home and
mobile devices," said John O'Malley, Vice President of
Telecommunications for G&D in North America.
"Integrating Amiga technologies on the GalaxSIM(R) was very simple,"
said Greg Sigel, Amiga's vice president of sales and marketing. "G&D
has made great strides in bringing the GalaxSIM(R) to market. The CTIA
demonstration is extremely compelling."
About Giesecke & Devrient:
Giesecke & Devrient (G&D) is a technology leader in the field of smart
cards, providing smart card based solutions for telecommunications,
electronic payment, health care, ID, transportation, and IT security
(PKI). G&D is also a leading producer of banknotes and security
documents and is dominant in the field of currency automation. Based
in Munich, Germany, the G&D group has subsidiaries and joint ventures
around the world. The group employs over 7,200 people and generates
revenue over EUR 1.16 billion. For more information, you can visit
their Web site at www.gdai.com.
About Amiga:
Amiga, Inc. is a premier provider of multimedia enabling technologies.
For almost two decades its award-winning software has been a mainstay
for motion picture studios, multimedia creators and digital
entertainment enthusiasts around the world. Today Amiga builds on this
legacy, leading the way in multimedia development by providing
developers with hardware-independent technologies for writing and
porting applications to new platforms and interactive devices.
AmigaAnywhere(TM) enables applications to run on a broad range of
processors, including ARM, StrongARM, Intel X-Scale, OMAP, MIPS, x86
and Hitachi SH series, and to run hosted on a wide variety of
operating systems, including Linux, Windows CE .NET, Windows 2000 and
Windows XP. AmigaAnywhere(TM) applications are available online at
www.shopamiga.com. For more information visit www.amiga.com.
AmigaAnywhere(TM) is a registered trademark of Amiga, Inc. All other
company and product names may be trademarks of the respective
companies with which they are associated.
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C Y G N U S E D E D I S R E H A T C H E D
10 April, 2006
APC&TCP is proud to announce that it has taken the distribution of the
well known text editor CygnusEd.
CygnusEd will be able to run on the classic Amiga and AmigaOS 4. A
version supporting MorphOS is planned.
In only a few weeks the program will be available.
The support homepage for CygnusED will be online in a few days aswell.
http://www.apc-tcp.de
About CygnusEd Professional Release 5
The maybe most famous text editor for developers was developed by
Bruce Dawson, Colin Fox & Steve LaRocque (CygnusSoft Software) 20
years ago and was originally published by themselves. Already at that
time CygnusEd has been known for its speed and solidness. CygnusEd has
been developed even further in the following years and was one of the
first programs with an ARexx interface and the first Amiga text editor
with Undo/Redo functions. Many Amiga developers grew up with CygnusEd
and a lot of software for the Amiga was developed using CygnusEd.
The last version 4 of CygnusEd was published in 1997 and was a fully
reworked version adapted to AmigaOS 3.1.
The new version 5 of CygnusEd has been enriched with new functions and
it is even faster and more solid. The helping tool "Ed" has been
rewritten completely from scratch and is supplied with CygnusEd
including the complete sources. Many old restrictions and flaws of
CygnusEd have been eliminated. Version 5 is also the first version
ported completely with all helping tools to the PowerPC processors and
one of the first completely adapted commercial products for AmigaOS 4.
20 April, 2006
The official Support-Forum for CygnusEd 5 are now online.
http://www.amigafuture.de/forum/viewforum.php?f=25
http://www.apc-tcp.de
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D V P L A Y E R N E W V E R S I O N A V A I L A B L E
19 April, 2006
A new version of DvPlayer is now available. Changes since the previous
release:
* Added direct DVD support
* Added automatic detection of CD/DVD drive (no need to specify
device name/unit anymore)
* Added support for the new 64bit DOS functions so that files
>2GB are now handled correctly
* Implemented the I/O plugin system and moved the DVD/VideoCD
support to an external plugin
* Screen Blanker is now not allowed to activate while playing
* Implemented AppWindow support so files can be dragged onto
DvPlayer's window
* Now the previous filename is remembered in the file requester
when opening files
* Window is now opened on the frontmost screen (if it's public)
instead of the Workbench screen so that if it's started from a
different screen it will open there.
* Improved 6-Channel to Stereo audio conversion routines to avoid
distortions which appeared with a few DVDs
* Fixed NOTRIPLEBUFFER option (was broken when subtitle support
was added)
* Fixed sound distortions with interleaved AVI files
* Now ensures that only complete frames are sent to the video
decoder for AVI files. This should fix the problems with
partially downloaded AVI files.
* Fixed a bug in the subtitle code which caused memguard hits
* Fixed a serious bug in GUI loading (thanks to memguard)
* Fixed a nasty bug in the exit code which could cause random
crashes
DvPlayer is an ongoing project to bring the ultimate multimedia
experience to the Amiga computer. It is a unique and Amiga-only
multimedia player, developed by Amiga enthusiasts, for Amiga
enthusiasts!
The current version of DvPlayer requires AmigaOS 4.0 and supports the
following video formats:
* MPEG-1/2 video streams
* MPEG-1/2 system streams
* VideoCD and SVCD
* DVD Video
* AVI files
DvPlayer supports many audio and video codecs via avcodec.library,
including MPEG Video 1/2, DiVX, XVID, MJPG, Cinepak, Indeo Video, PCM,
MPEG Audio (Layer1-3) and more.
To achieve the fastest possible video playback, DvPlayer uses fast
direct-rendering algorithms for every possible HiColor and TrueColor
display mode. There are also separate rendering routines for half
scale and also for movies with 16:9 aspect ratio so that they are
correctly displayed on a 1:1 aspect monitor without being stretched.
Support for using the video overlay is also included. Overlay is
currently only supported by the Voodoo drivers; for Radeon owners it
will be available in future releases of the Radeon graphics driver.
DvPlayer features an easy-to-use Graphical User Interface.
Keyboard shortcuts are available for quick and easy access to
functions.
Handling of multiple files is implemented, so the user can easily
select many video files and step between them either automatically or
by the press of a button.
The GUI is skinnable, allowing everyone to get the look-and-feel they
want
You can easily switch from window to full screen display and back
(only for registered users).
DvPlayer can be placed into AmiDock and the user can drag'n'drop
files onto the DvPlayer icon to make them play instantly. Files can
also be dragged into DvPlayer's window which adds them to the file
list.
It is possible to switch between the different audio streams from the
menu or with keyboard shortcuts, even during playback, for example to
select a different language.
The popular .srt and .sub subtitle formats are supported. Subtitles
can be loaded manually or automatically. The position and appearance
of subtitles can also be configured (font, size, colour).
The new 64-bit DOS interface functions of AmigaOS4 are supported to
allow files larger than 2GB to be correctly handled.
For DVD and VideoCD playback, the DVD drive where you have a DVD or
VideoCD inserted will be found automatically. There is no need for the
user to specify device names and unit numbers.
DvPlayer features an I/O plugin system, which allows external plugins
to be developed to expand the functionality of the program. For
example a plugin supporting internet streaming protocols would
instantly allow DvPlayer to play internet streaming videos.
http://dvplayer.amigarevolution.com/about.html
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U P D A T E T O S C O U T M O N I T O R
25 April, 2006
Scout 3.6 has just been released!
Scout is a tool that allows you to monitor your computer system. It
displays many different things -- like tasks, ports, assigns,
expansion boards, resident commands, interrupts, etc. -- and you can
perform some certain actions on them.
Scout comes in 3 builds: OS2.x/3.x, OS4.0 and MorphOS.
It can be downloaded at sourceforge.net, os4depot.net and Aminet
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W O O K I E C H A T 2 . 1 F I X E S B U G S
30 April, 2006
WookieChat 2.1 - I've fixed a serious bug thats existed for a long
ime without me realising it. A work buffer wasnt the correct size, and
memory was getting trashed when a lot of traffic was coming in fast
(like when displaying a large MOTD while connecting to a server) but
this has now been fixed. Also, other misc crashes have been fixed here
and there, the number of users in the channel is now displayed in the
window titlebar, the ZiRC network's new usermodes are supported now,
and a few other tweaks have been made. (See the changelog.txt in the
archive for more details)
http://wookiechat.amigarevolution.com/wookiechat/index.html
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N E W F R Y I N G P A N A V A I L A B L E
30 April, 2006
The Frying Pan (shareware) is (as the name says ;) a CD / DVD burning
/ mastering software for alternative platforms (Amiga / Pegasos / A1 /
Amithlon & UAE / other clones).
Program is based mainly on users' suggestions as well as own
inventions; I hope You find this program easy to use and suitable for
Your needs.
I've released 0.4c FryingPan for all of you who had troubles or ideas
recently. It fixes a number of problems (I bet it includes new ones as
well), so - what do we have?
# read & write speeds are set right after the disc is discovered,
# Amiga specific rockridge extensions appear to work good - enjoy your
comments & protection bits :),
# Gauge has been updated a bit...,
# Contents are now discovered properly on some "incompatible" -ROM
drives
# Writing does not end at 65535% any longer heh,
# Filerequesters will show you your .info files,
# You can name your drives,
# A requester is displayed when you try to write too much data to your
disc,
# No overburning for DVDs allowed,
# You can specify system type for your disc (so you can make a
bootable MOS disc, too ;),
# Data is updated after erase operation,
# MUI4 problem has been fixed,
# You can start FP from an icon (yeeee!! hehe),
# Iconifying FP will display its icon instead of default one.
GREAT thanks to HIGHLANDER for his fantastic contribution to the
project - fantastic skin for 0.4FP and a cool CoFFE icon :D.
DEMO LIMITATION
For users who have not registered the software by now - the only
limitation implies corrupting recorded data at random positions
{!!!!! Brad}. No speed or other limits have been introduced.
Registered users of Fryingpan can use it without Problems.
http://tbs-software.com/fp/welcome.phtml
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Amiga Update on the net:
All back issues available at:
http://www.globaldialog.com/~bandr/AU/index.html
Stop by and check out our archive! Now in our 12th publication year.
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Copyright 2006 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified.
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U P D A T E /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ U P D A T E
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amigaupdate@globaldialog.com
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