19.Feb.2023
|
WHDLoad: New installers until 18.02.2023
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 18.02.2023:
(snx)
[News message: 19. Feb. 2023, 10:00] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
19.Feb.2023
Cizar via Discord/CS-Lab Warp#general (ANF)
|
CS-Lab: Further Warp 1260 and/or Warp 1240 boards can be assembled
As Greg Donner reports at the title link, CS-Lab will soon receive 50 more FPGAs that were ordered a year ago. So the production of Warp 1260 and Warp 1240 turbo boards can be resumed. Potential buyers therefore can contact CS-Lab now or already send in processors for testing. (snx)
[News message: 19. Feb. 2023, 10:00] [Comments: 1 - 20. Feb. 2023, 18:59]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
19.Feb.2023
Andreas Magerl (ANF)
|
Print magazine: Amiga Future, issue 161 - preview and excerpts
Preview and excerpts of Amiga Future issue 161 (March/April 2023) have been published online meanwhile at the title link. Contents include an interview with Colin Vella and a review of AmiCygnix 1.7.
Amiga Future magazine is available as an English and a German printed magazine and can be bought directly from the magazine's editorial office as well as several Amiga dealers. (snx)
[News message: 19. Feb. 2023, 10:00] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
18.Feb.2023
|
Floppy disk images on PC and Mac: Greaseweazle Firmware 1.3
Keir Fraser's "Greaseweazle" does - similar to Kryoflux - read the magnetic information on a floppy disk independently from the format used and saves as much information as possible to generate a so-called "Flux Level Image" in Supercard format (SCP), which enables reading and back-writing of copy-protected disks (amiga-news.de reported)
The adapter gets connected between a floppy disk drive - e.g. a standard 3.5" PC one - and a USB port of the PC or Mac. Today version 1.8 of the Greaseweazle firmware has been released providing the following changes:
- AT32F403A: Run this MCU at 216MHz in main firmware
- USB: Implement GET_STATUS(DEVICE) as required by USB spec
- This fixes repeated USB resets on some Linux hosts
- Blinky test: Fix serial baud rate (115200)
(dr)
[News message: 18. Feb. 2023, 15:19] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
18.Feb.2023
TheoTheoderich
|
Developer log: Single player mode in "Settle the World"?
A week ago, Christian 'TheoTheoderich' Wiegel published an intro update for his turn-based building and trading game "Settle the World" (amiga-news.de reported). In the feedback, the wish was expressed to integrate a single-player mode including at least one computer opponent into the game.
In a recent developer log, the programmer now outlines how this could be implemented:
"To say it in front...this will not be easy.
Settle the World was an entry for BlitzBasic Jam 2022 and was supposed to be finished within six months.
It was designed as a purely local multiplayer game due to the tight time constraints of the competition.
Unfortunately, this ensures that visual feedback for players is actually stored everywhere in the programme code.
This means, for example, that a window appears when a unit has no more movement points, or a window appears when a Pioneer has no more tools, etc.
The calls to these information windows are built into the programme parts of the units and may of course not be called up during movements of computer-controlled units.
Either all program parts will now be rewritten for universal use by players and computer opponents, or the computer opponents will receive their own program parts, which will, however, massively increase the file size of Settle the World (and with it the Fast RAM requirement).
Unfortunately, I realised yesterday that many Statements and Functions cannot simply be rewritten for shared use.
That would be equivalent to a complete rewrite in many parts and so I won't be doing that.
It would probably lead to a mess in the code that I wouldn't understand after a few weeks and so I would stop the project.
Like dozens of projects on Amiga and PC in the last 20 years.
Settle the World should be saved from this "fate", however, because the game is really close to my heart!
So I will include the part of the computer opponents as additional program code, which is mostly separate from the actual code.
This won't be easy, I've never done anything like this before.
To get a feel for what work is needed, I just started over the last two days and marked one of the players as a computer opponent. This opponent doesn't start with loaded ships like the player, but directly with a first city.
So I wrote a function that determines a "perfect" position for a city.
The basis is the starting position of the respective player, i.e. the position where the player's ships normally spawn.
Now all fields in a radius of 12 fields are checked for a suitable position.
For this purpose, the surrounding fields of each land field are rated according to certain criteria.
How it works:
- Each type of terrain gets points for its relevance. Fertile farmland gets a lot of points, tundra or desert give no points. Bonus and river fields give extra points.
- There are three additional criteria:
- Does the checked position on the map have access to wheat, wood and/or ocean?
- If yes, the first field that fulfils one of these criteria gives extra points.
- If it is the first city of a player, access to the ocean gives a lot of extra points to make sure that the first city is built by the sea.
Then a city is built at the position with the most points.
After that a Pioneer is created at the position of this first city, placed into the city and used as a farmer on a field.
So far, this works quite reliably on all the maps I have tested.
However, it has already taken me two evenings...
It's going to be a very, very lengthy project to integrate a computer opponent..." (dr)
[News message: 18. Feb. 2023, 08:20] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
17.Feb.2023
|
Unofficial successor: "It Returned From The Desert" for Windows
Tim Rachor's "It returned from the desert" (official release trailer) is an unofficial successor of the Amiga game It came from the desert for Windows (amiga-news.de reported), which now was released on Steam for 8,99 Euro. (dr)
[News message: 17. Feb. 2023, 05:50] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
17.Feb.2023
|
Video: Hidden developer messages
Piracy was rife on the Amiga, and almost every game was cracked by various scene groups. In his latest video, Kim Justice presents the messages and rants left in the code by developers for these crackers, which were sometimes angry but mostly hilarious. (dr)
[News message: 17. Feb. 2023, 05:42] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
17.Feb.2023
|
SCSI-SD adapter: ZuluSCSI firmware 1.2.1
ZuluSCSI is a new generation of file-based SCSI hard disk and CD-ROM drive emulators (review of an user). ZuluSCSI emulates a SCSI-I or SCSI-2 hard disk using an SD memory card (amiga-news.de reported). Version 1.2.1 of the firmware has been released. Changes:
- Reinsert CD-ROM image when receiving Inquiry command
- Open image as read-only if attribute set
- RP2040: Reduce delay between phase signal changes
(dr)
[News message: 17. Feb. 2023, 05:25] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
16.Feb.2023
|
Programming language: AmiBlitz 3.9.9
A few moments ago, version 3.9.9 of the programming language AmiBlitz has been released. Changes:
changes in project::
- updated documentation
- updated examples drawer
- re-added serveral resident sourcefiles of BB2 for later improvement
- added disassembled source code for blitzlibs animlib, iffiolib, ilbmifflib
- added several StormWizard-demos made by @mdbergmann
changed:
- moved commands GetD0, PutD0, GetRegD0, PushD0 from wzlib to environlib (wzlib needs at least OS2 so use of these commands prevented the executable to be working with an older OS
- reduced memory consumption for string in PED
- changed scroll size to 1 character when scrolling left or right
- changed behaviour of marked blocks, they behave now like blocks in other editors
- removed dependency of fontlib for diskfontlib when using ROM-font, so diskfont.library is not needed anymore if topaz is used!
added:
- new function win windowslib: WindowIsOpen(win#) returns True if the window with given number is opened
fixed:
- fixed several broken OS-functioncalls in PED and compiler that could lead to a crash
- fixed crash of PED when source code contains TAB-characters
- fixed crash when using HELP-key on certain macro names
- fixed some display problems with cursor when blinking is turned off
- fixed some display problems when scrolling source from outside the window
- fixed seldom display problems with highlighting of statement names
- fixed multiple redraws of source window at resize of window
- fixed configuration: state of intellisense option was not parsed correctly
- fixed: if a source file was "saved as", the new filename was not shown in tab title
- fixed: crash when saving as plain text
Download: AmiBlitz399.lha (10 MB) (dr)
[News message: 16. Feb. 2023, 12:38] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
16.Feb.2023
|
Linux: Stable long-term kernel 5.10.167 for AmigaOne X1000/X5000
Parallel to new kernels (amiga-news.de reported), Christian 'xeno74' Zigotzky also provides the latest version of the stable long-term kernel for the AmigaOne X1000 and X5000. It is suitable for old Linux distributions that do not work with the latest kernels, such as Ubuntu 10.04, or if users have problems with the latest kernels. The new version offers support for PCI-Express SAS (Serial Attached SCSI) host adapters.
Download: linux-image-5.10.167-X1000_X5000.tar.gz (71 MB)
(dr)
[News message: 16. Feb. 2023, 12:28] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
16.Feb.2023
|
Video tutorial: The AMOS command "Limit Mouse"
In another part of his series of short tutorials on AMOS Pro (amiga-news.de reported), retro and Amiga fan 'Yawning Angel' this time explains, how you can limit your mouse movements on screen by using the AMOS "Limit Mouse" command. (dr)
[News message: 16. Feb. 2023, 05:50] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
15.Feb.2023
BBSIndex
|
Demoparty: MountainBytes 2023 (Switzerland)
After a six-year hiatus and another three years of involuntary postponements by Covid, from 24 to 26 February 2023, the "MountainBytes" demo party will take place in Cham, Switzerland, organized by Echtzeit - Digitale Kultur. In addition to various workshops and competitions (timetable), the nominees for The Meteoriks Award will be presented during a show on Friday. The award ceremony will then take place at the Revision demo party in Saarbrücken at the beginning of April. (dr)
[News message: 15. Feb. 2023, 10:31] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
15.Feb.2023
|
Mod-Player: HippoPlayer 2.56
Kari-Pekka Koljonen, the developer of the Amiga-MOD players HippoPlayer, has released an update to version 2.56 which among others provides improved MP3 support and PSID playback. (dr)
[News message: 15. Feb. 2023, 06:36] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
14.Feb.2023
|
Blog: The Colorful Charm of Amiga Utility Disks
In his latest, richly illustrated blog entry, Carl Svensson looks at Amiga utility disks and their often creative CLI menus: Utility disks were especially popular in the demo scene, and included editors, crunchers, graphics tools, trackers for composing music, or tools for displaying or playing text, graphics and music files. To create a demo, you only needed a handful of these disks. (dr)
[News message: 14. Feb. 2023, 05:53] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
14.Feb.2023
|
Review: ZuluSCSI
Already in mid-January, 'Jaruzel' had reported in his blog about his experiences with the file-based SCSI hard disk and CD-ROM drive emulator ZuluSCSI. (dr)
[News message: 14. Feb. 2023, 05:40] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
13.Feb.2023
|
Video: Chemical Free Retrobrighting Alternatives
In his latest video, Robert Smith uses theoretical considerations and practical experiments to address the question of how to brighten up yellowed keyboards and cases of retro computers without the usual hydrogen peroxide. He has found two successful alternatives. (dr)
[News message: 13. Feb. 2023, 20:26] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
13.Feb.2023
Heiko Schlomka (e-mail)
|
Article on Amiga use in film productions by Digital Domain
Befores & Afters is a (primarily online) magazine on visual effects and animation. At the title link, it dedicates a current article to the use of the Amiga in the film industry - to be more precise, it is simply a reproduction of memories of Digital Domain graphic artist Sean Cunningham, which he published as a comment on the YouTube channel of Retro Recipes after an Amiga 4000 apparently used for the films "Apollo 13" and "Titanic" turned up three years ago. (snx)
[News message: 13. Feb. 2023, 15:11] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
12.Feb.2023
|
AmigaOS 4: Status of Qt 6.2.0
In October 2021, developer Alfkil Wennermark had published a first preview of a text editor created with Qt6 (amiga-news.de reported).
Now he shows in a current YouTube video how he edits text in this editor and then exports it to a pdf file. The special thing about it:
Until now, there was only a static link version of Qt6, which means that all library objects are collected in the executable file at build time. In the dynamic link now, they use shared objects that are all loaded and linked at runtime. Since most complex programs from other platforms need dynamic links (shared objects) for their build systems to work, this is another development step regarding the creation of such programs for AmigaOS 4. (dr)
[News message: 12. Feb. 2023, 15:31] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
12.Feb.2023
|
Aminet uploads until 11.02.2023
The following files have been added until 11.02.2023 to Aminet:
fe.lha dev/lang 45K MOS A tiny, embeddable language
TinyInvaders.lha game/shoot 1.7M 68k SPACE INVADERS poor clone in ...
LazyMines_FR.lha game/think 6K French catalog for LazyMines 3.x
RPNScientific.lha misc/math 2.7M x86 RPN scientific and programmer...
AmigaKlangSamples.lha mods/smpl 664K Samples & Instruments for Ami...
UADE_MMV8.lha mus/play 15K 68k MusicMakerV8 players for UADE
NAFCYI1991S1-B28.zip text/bfont 2.7M NAFCYI Spring 1991 (BMP Fonts)
NAFCYI1991S1-28.zip text/pfont 2.2M NAFCYI Spring 1991 (PS Fonts)
cabextract.lha util/arc 54K 68k Extract MS Cabinet (.CAB) arc...
cabextract_MOS.lha util/arc 51K MOS Extract MS Cabinet (.CAB) arc...
cabextract_OS4.lha util/arc 44K OS4 Extract MS Cabinet (.CAB) arc...
deark.lha util/arc 2.9M 68k Extract data from various fil...
MousePressed.lha util/batch 8K 68k Check if mouse buttons are pr...
Image2PDF.lha util/conv 8.9M ALL convert JP(E)Gs and PNGs to PDF
AmiSSL-5.7-OS3.lha util/libs 3.3M 68k OpenSSL as an Amiga shared li...
AmiSSL-5.7-OS4.lha util/libs 3.1M OS4 OpenSSL as an Amiga shared li...
AmiSSL-5.7-SDK.lha util/libs 2.3M AOS OpenSSL as an Amiga shared li...
eflashutil.lha util/misc 41K 68k GUI for eFlasher utility for ...
VATestprogram.zip util/misc 3.9M 68k Versatile Amiga Testprogram
AnalogClock.lha util/time 39K 68k Resizeable analog transparent...
(snx)
[News message: 12. Feb. 2023, 09:09] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
12.Feb.2023
|
OS4Depot uploads until 11.02.2023
The following files have been added until 11.02.2023 to OS4Depot:
void-fb14.zip dem/mus 5Mb 4.0 A music-pack by Void
cardsmakingkit.lha gam/uti 3Mb 4.0 This is a SDK to make your decks...
afnews.lha net/new 1Mb 4.0 Amiga Future Everywhere AmigaOS 4
afa-viewer.lha uti/arc 4Mb 4.1 Browse AmigaFuture Archive-DVD
deark.lha uti/arc 6Mb 4.0 Extracting data from various fil...
cabextract.lha uti/fil 44kb 4.0 Extract Microsoft Cabinet (.CAB)...
(snx)
[News message: 12. Feb. 2023, 09:09] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
12.Feb.2023
|
AROS Archives uploads until 11.02.2023
The following files have been added until 11.02.2023 to AROS Archives:
cardsmakingkit.lha gam/uti 2Mb This is a SDK to make your decks...
image2pdf.i386-aros.lha off/dtp 9Mb convert JP(E)Gs and PNGs to PDF
rpnscientific.i-386-aros.lha uti/sci 3Mb RPN Scientific and Programmer Ca...
(snx)
[News message: 12. Feb. 2023, 09:09] [Comments: 0]
[Send via e-mail] [Print version] [ASCII version]
|
