27.Aug.2022
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Programming language: Amiga C/C++ Visual Studio Code Extension 1.5.4
Bartman', member of the demo group 'Abyss', provides with 'amiga-debug' a 'Visual Studio Code' extension for "compiling, debugging and profiling Amiga C/C++ programs compiled by the bundled gcc 11.2 with the bundled WinUAE" (YouTube video). Yesterday version 1.5.4 was released. Changes:
- NEW: profiler: improve blitter tooltip for line mode, show simplified formulas of minterms
- NEW: profiler: show blitter mode (Blit, Line, Fill, Clear) in blitter timeline
- NEW: new commands in the command palette Ctrl+Shift+P:
- Open Gradient Master: opens the Deadliner's The Amiga Gradient Master tool to assist you creating color gradients for Copperlists).
- Open Image Tool opens the Deadliner's Image Tool to assist you converting images to different Amiga formats.
- Open Color Reducer opens the Deadliner's Color Reducer tool to assist you reducing the number of colors in images in a smart manner.
- Open BLTCON Cheat Sheet: opens the Deadliner's BLTCON Cheat Sheet tool that helps you designing Blitter operations.
- Open Amiga Hardware Reference Manual: opens the Amiga Hardware Reference Manual TOC hosted at amigadev.elowar.com.
- NEW: you can set your Kickstart paths in settings Ctrl+, under Extensions > Amiga C/C++ Compile, Debug & Profile > Rom-paths: A500, A1200, A4000
- NEW: template project's output now in out/a.elf, out/a.exe. Can be changed in settings amiga.program
- NEW: new command Convert EXE to ADF (right-click Amiga EXE files in the explorer)
- NEW: assembly registers now also show SR (status register)
Parallel to this original expansion, there is a fork by David Cañadas Mazo that focuses less on stability and more on additional features. Which are:
- VASM assembler with debugging support:
- GAS keeps the .s extension; VASM uses the .asm extension.
- VASM has been modified to provide valid DWARF section names to make the extension debugger to work.
- The assembly language provider has been updated to validate assembly sources against either GAS or VASM depending on the source code file extensions.
- Syntax highlighting, symbol search and error squiggles support.
- VASM official site: http://sun.hasenbraten.de/vasm/.
- Modified VASM: https://github.com/davidcanadas/vasm-m68k-mot-win32. Version 1.9.
- Support for multiple build targets:
- Release: default target. Optimizations enabled, debuggable (when optimizations allow to). DEBUG macro defined for GCC, GAS and VASM.
- Debug: Optimizations disabled, slower but fully debuggable. DEBUG macro defined for GCC, GAS and VASM.
- Final: Optimizations enabled. Not debuggable. NDEBUG macro defined for GCC, GAS and VASM.
- Shrinkled: Final, Shrinkler-compressed. Parameters are configurable using VSCode settings.
Many of its changes flow back into the original extension. Here, too, Version 1.5.4 was released yesterday. (dr)
[News message: 27. Aug. 2022, 09:49] [Comments: 1 - 29. Aug. 2022, 21:16]
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27.Aug.2022
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Amiga Assembly For Beginners: Last episode of Let's Make an Amiga Game Tutorial
'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 has explained with concrete examples how to write a game with assembler. The last Episode 16 is now available.
The resulting game "Mr Poo's Journey" is available on itch.io for a self-determined price. The game runs on a standard Amiga 500. (dr)
[News message: 27. Aug. 2022, 08:46] [Comments: 0]
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27.Aug.2022
Michael Rupp (Mail)
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Book: Volume 3 of "From Vultures to Vampires" announced (update)
In a video message the former Commodore UK manager David Pleasance announced that the book "From Vultures to Vampires" (amiga-news.de reported), which was originally divided into two volumes, will be extended by a third volume.
As he explained, they "kept researching and researching and researching" and had gathered much more material than they ever imagined. Approximately 550 pages of information would have been collected for the years from 2005 to the present. Since they assumed that readers would not want to read only half the story, it would be best to publish a third volume, even if it meant additional costs for everyone. Volume 2 would now be printed with around 300 pages.
As David goes on to explain, he "felt guilty" and didn't like the idea of having to split the project into two volumes, since that would mean additional costs for the buyers. To thank buyers for their support, this second volume was offered for half the price of the first volume, 17.50 British Pounds (GBP). However, due to the price increase, he said he could not do this for the third volume, but could at least still offer a lower price than volume 1: 26 GBP (about 31 Euro). With packaging and postage, the total cost is as follows:
- UK: 33.00 GBP (39 Euro)
- EU: 36.00 GBP (42,40 Euro)
- ROW: 39.00 (46 Euro)
Payment is made via the mail address of his PayPal account, inquiries, orders etc. please send to his cbm mail address.
Update: (28.08.2022, 06:48, dr)
David has asked to use different addresses for payment and contact. Article changed accordingly. (dr)
[News message: 27. Aug. 2022, 08:32] [Comments: 0]
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26.Aug.2022
Indie Retro News (Webseite)
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Playable demo: Jump'n Run 'Minky'
'Minky' (Video) is a jump'n run in the style of Super Mario or Giana Sisters, which requires an Amiga 500 with one megabyte of RAM. The now released playable pre-release version includes the first four levels, the release of the full version is supposed to be "soon". (cg)
[News message: 26. Aug. 2022, 22:50] [Comments: 0]
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26.Aug.2022
Kas1e (ANF)
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OpenGLES ports: Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy
Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and
Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy are the third and fourth part of a series of first and third person shooters set in the Star Wars universe. The source code of both games was released years ago, shortly after that ports for AmigaOS 4 were released, which were still based on MiniGL at that time.
Roman 'kas1e' Kargin has now ported these MiniGL versions to GL4ES, which according to him provides a noticeably smoother gameplay - on his system consistently at least 30 FPS or more, while the MiniGL versions at high detail levels quite possibly only managed 12-13 FPS. In addition, according to Kargin, various display errors and crashes are now a thing of the past. In a video the developer demonstrates the new versions of both games extensively, in an article on amigaworld.net he gives further explanations about his updates and tips for the performance increase of the 3D subsystem in AmigaOS 4.
Both games require the recently released Enhancer 2.2. The engines ported by Kargin can be downloaded for free from the OS4Depot (Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy), additionally a copy of the original commercial release of the respective title is still required. (cg)
[News message: 26. Aug. 2022, 22:38] [Comments: 0]
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26.Aug.2022
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Database: MUIBase is now BeeBase, version 1.0 available
Steffen Gutmann has been maintaining a programmable relational database called MUIBase since 1998, most recently version 4.5 had been released in mid-July. Since the open source program is now available for various other platforms (Windows, Mac OS, Linux) in addition to Amiga systems, the name 'MUIBase' was no longer optimal, however. The author seems to see it that way, too: Yesterday BeeBase 1.0 was released.
The first release of BeeBase is practically identical with MUIBase 4.5, new are an Italian translation, furthermore a bug in the installation process under AmigaOS 4 has been fixed. The pictograms in the current archive seem to be corrupted, the author has already been informed. (cg)
[News message: 26. Aug. 2022, 18:23] [Comments: 0]
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25.Aug.2022
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Motorola68k emulation: WiFi development for Emu68 paused
Developer Michal Schulz regularly provides background information and status updates on his Motorola68K emulation Emu68 for the ARM architecture on his Patreon website.
At the beginning of May the developer had announced to start writing a WiFi driver. In a blog entry from two days ago, he now reports that the development had to be stopped for the time being. Read his explanations:
"I got stuck. Literally. The progresss on Wi-Fi driver was slowing down during last weeks until a full stop where I have no idea how to proceed. Let me write a bit about it.
The raspberry pi is using several different chipsets from cypress in order to provide Wi-Fi and (eventually) Bluetooth experience. These chips consist of a tiny ARM core connected with radio interface on one side and with communication interface with host, realized as few functions of SDIO interface. Subsequently, the Wi-Fi module has also few additional signals used as a clock source or Wi-Fi/Bluetooth enable/disable switches. So far so good, so where is the problem?
As always, the problem lies in lack of documentation. The cypress module is hardly documented, at least within freely available docs. Because of that I do not actually know how to drive it properly. Furthermore, I do not know if there are any differences on software side between different cypress modules used on pi3, pi zero 2 and so on. Sure, I can lurk into sources of e.g. Linux, where there is a fully functional code for Wi-Fi on raspberry. But digging through others source code is not always that useful, not to mention licensing differences. There are some open source projects like e.g. zerowi, which provide quite a lot of working code with very liberal licensing, but this very project is focusing on raspi zero and I am not entire,y sure if this one is good for me, because of, you guessed, lack of documentation.
So how far I got it? Basic initialization of SDIO is working flawlessly. I can initialize basic SDIO functions used to talk with Wi-Fi chip. I have successfully uploaded firmware for ARM cup and successfully resettled the arm core. Actually I went that far that’s the very next step should be the arm boot followed by full communication with Wi-Fi. Almost. For some reason the clock of arm is not starting up, at least that much I understood from undocumented registers. Without cpu clock running the arm of Wi-Fi will not start.
I am not giving up on this one, far from it! But for now I will do. Short break from Wi-Fi and will do something else. Otherwise I will sit fully blocked in front of the screen without any sable code written. I will come back to Wi-Fi as soon as I will reset my mind :)
By the way, if any of you has ideas how to get to the necessary documentation please let me know. If necessary, I can sign any NDA needed, provided it will allow me to develop open source Wi-Fi driver (with obfuscated register names if requested). Any help is appreciated." (dr)
[News message: 25. Aug. 2022, 06:38] [Comments: 0]
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25.Aug.2022
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Puzzle game: PuzzleTronAmiga
PuzzleTronAmiga is a simple puzzle sliding game (YouTube video) released by Ecalius Software. It is written in AMOS Professional 2.0 and runs on any standard Amiga 500. The game is available on itch.io for 2 Euro or more. (dr)
[News message: 25. Aug. 2022, 06:15] [Comments: 0]
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24.Aug.2022
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Programming language: AmiBlitz 3.9.5
At the end of March the new major version 3.9.0 of the programming language AmiBlitz was released. Today a fifth update with bug fixes and minor enhancements has been released. Changes:
- fixed: some Requesters where shown on WB instead of IDEs own screen
- fixed: library "ab3pft.library" was tried to open before dynamic assignment was done
- fixed: deleting a line could crash PED
- fixed: minor display bug when updating line numbers
- fixed a cursordisplay bug when jumping to top or bottom of source
- improved: handling of double-click mouse event
- improved: requester showing compile errors
- changed: display color of line numbers
- fixed display problem on AmigaOS1.3: Error text of debugger was not readable as the text was drawn as white text on white backgroud
- added to repository: disassembled rundebuglib, inputoutputlib, runerrlib
(dr)
[News message: 24. Aug. 2022, 21:06] [Comments: 0]
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24.Aug.2022
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Article: Self-made Amiga cases
In the forum of Amiga Love, 'SimonGK' has written a detailed article about several, self-made cases for his Amiga computers. (dr)
[News message: 24. Aug. 2022, 06:45] [Comments: 0]
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24.Aug.2022
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Turn-based space strategy: Imperium Terranum 2.820
The source code of the turn-based space strategy game Imperium Terranum 2 was ported from Pascal to C. 'fook42' continues to update and improve this port. After a longer break (amiga-news.de reported), now version 2.820 is available. Changes:
Multiple changes for code-reduction and stability
- replaced some artificial datatypes
- reduced usage of global variables for "find objects"
- preparation for "resizeable" playfield (allows screens bigger than 640x512)
A detailed guide for installing the game you can find on the GitHub page of the project. (dr)
[News message: 24. Aug. 2022, 05:26] [Comments: 0]
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23.Aug.2022
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Aiostreams V1.7.5: Scripts for Streaming Twitch.tv and Mixer.com videos
George 'walkero' Sokianos has created Python scripts and bundled them in aiostreams ("All In One Streams") for viewers of the Amiga and other retro streams on Twitch.tv and Mixer.com, so that they can also watch the videos under AmigaOS 4, AmigaOS 3, MorphOS and AROS instead of on the PC.
Today version 1.7.5 has been released. Changes:
Added
- Added -sc argument to the youtube script which can be used to search for YouTube channels based on the given description. This returns a list of
channels titles and their feed URLs
- Added support for https://yewtu.be invidious server in YouTube script
Fixed
- Fixed dlive script
- Fixed peertube script
- Fixed lbrytv script to support odysee.com videos as well
- Fixed vimeo script
The author has only tested it under AmigaOS 4, but according to him, it should also run under the other Amiga systems. A detailed (English language) description of the changes is given by the author in his latest Ko-Fi blog article.
Download: aiostreams-v1.7.5.lha (263 KB) (dr)
[News message: 23. Aug. 2022, 15:37] [Comments: 0]
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23.Aug.2022
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8-/16-bit emulator for Mac OS and Linux: Clock Signal V2022-08-22
Thomas Harte's Clock Signal is an emulator for various 8- and 16-bit platforms aiming to be invisible to the user. The idea is to simply start the source medium without configuring the emulator oneself. Clock Signal is available for Mac OS and Unix-compatible systems. While there is also an Amiga emulation included, it "remains wilfully inaccurate" for now.
Today version V2022-08-22 has been released. Changes:
- partially enables a properly-serialised blitter for the Amiga, mostly replacing the tentative instant blitter of previous releases
- adds 1mb and 4mb RAM size options for the Atari ST
- improves support for .ST disk images of non-default geometry
- resolves a crash on macOS when the app needs to request user provision of ROMs
- gives a version number to macOS builds
(dr)
[News message: 23. Aug. 2022, 05:54] [Comments: 0]
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23.Aug.2022
Passione Amiga (ANF)
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Italian Print/PDF magazine: Passione Amiga, issue 9
The Italian magazine 'Passione Amiga' is available as digital (3 Euro) or printed (7,50 Euro, via Amazon) edition. Its current issue consists of 48 color pages and includes among others the following topics:
- Video games: Duckstroma, Junior's Great Adventure, Game Over Moscow!, Rcross, BattleShip Sea Hawk, Operacion Falida, Mision La Luna, Hunting Frogs
- CDTV special
- Install AmiSSL on Amiga
- Commodore Day 2 reportage
- Blender course, part 1
- Hardware: THEGAMEPAD
- Interviews with: Mario Savoia and Yoz Montana
- Plus: Games news, Tech news, THEA500 Mini News, Demo scene, New Talents, MailBox
(dr)
[News message: 23. Aug. 2022, 05:51] [Comments: 0]
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23.Aug.2022
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Amiga Blitz Basic Game Jam: Introduction of shoot 'em up "ACE"
The Amiga Blitz Basic Game Jam (amiga-news.de reported) runs until November 1, 2022. In a small series we present game projects that are currently being developed for this competition. So in the first article we presented the games "Deathmine" and "Capacitor's Revenge" by 'PixelPlop', the second article described in detail 'TheoTheoderich's' turn-based building and trading game "Settle the World". The third past of our series today is about the shoot 'em up "ACE" and its programmer 'DarkGiver'.
In his game, optimized for standard OCS/ECS Amigas, you try to shoot your way through the enemy ranks with an airplane. The gameplay is reminiscent of predecessors like Banshee. As the developer tells us, the game is still in the early stages and the first project for the Amiga: "I like to experiment and understand things and the better way to understand an amiga is probably progamming it."
When he was 10, his parents would have bought an Amiga 500 and he played around a bit with Amiga Basic. He started learning programming seriously in 1990 when Frenchman François Lionet published the AMOS programming language. Later, around 1993, he got an Amiga 1200 and started programming again with Blitz Basic a few years ago. When he got himself some Amiga hardware again a few years ago, he started using it again.
Time permitting, he would like to write easy to understand examples in Blitz Basic covering many aspects of Amiga programming. To motivate people to start programming and enjoy a more creative way to use the Amiga. (dr)
[News message: 23. Aug. 2022, 05:45] [Comments: 0]
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23.Aug.2022
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Programming language: Amiga Blitz Basic 2 Visual Studio Code Ext. 0.6.0
Youen Chéné - one of the organizers of a programming community in Normandy called Codeurs en Seine - is in the process of writing a Visual Studio Code Extension that adds support for Amiga Blitz Basic 2 (and Amiblitz). The extension is in alpha stage, so syntax highlighting is still limited.
Features:
- Syntax highlighting.
- Snippets for most Blitz Basic 2 functions and methods.
- Outline shows macros, labels, functions and statements.
- Integrated help.
This version of Youen Chéné is a fork of the vscode-amiga-blitzbasic project by 'MickGyver' and aims to provide a complete, native javascript extension that works without external tools if possible (except UAE) and runs not only on Windows but many platforms (macOS, Linux, Windows). He hopes that eventually both extensions will be merged. (dr)
[News message: 23. Aug. 2022, 05:06] [Comments: 0]
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22.Aug.2022
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New links on AmigaSource website
For 20 years now Scott Pistorino collects on his site AmigaSource all information around the Amiga. On October 19, 2001 he introduced his project on amiga-news.de. Beside several interviews with Ben Hermans or Fleecy Moss from 2002 there are numerous categories like software, hardware, demos etc. Because Pistorino changed to a new database some time ago, some articles are not yet available again.
A few days ago he published a new update with various links. He is also in the process of rebuilding the site and making all the previous links etc. accessible again. (dr)
[News message: 22. Aug. 2022, 06:13] [Comments: 1 - 23. Aug. 2022, 17:28]
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22.Aug.2022
S0Y (Mail)
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Preview video 3: Temptations port for CD32
The developer 'S0Y' is primarily dedicated to converting games to the Amiga platform using the game construction kit RedPill. After his Abu Simbel Profanation project, he has now begun the conversion of Temptations, a platform game originally published for MSX-1 in 1988. The basis for this, however, is a port for Android. With the author's permission, he uses graphics and music, but modifies some of them (amiga-news.de reported).
Yesterday he published a new video presenting the first level of the game including music from audio CD. (dr)
[News message: 22. Aug. 2022, 05:48] [Comments: 0]
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21.Aug.2022
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Dossier: Hidden messages and easter eggs in AmigaOS
David Brunet has listed on his Obligement news page an overview of all the messages and easter eggs hidden in Kickstart or AmigaOS, starting from Kickstart 0.7/0.9 up to AmigaOS 4/U-Boot. The original article is in French, but machine translations are offered. (dr)
[News message: 21. Aug. 2022, 17:41] [Comments: 0]
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21.Aug.2022
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Preview video: Sci-fi racing game "Hyper Runner"
The developer team of Raster Wizards - among others The Shadows of Sergoth or Super Metal Hero - had already announced a new sci-fi racing game "Hyper Runner" for the Amiga two months ago with the release of a first YouTube video. The second video released now shows static objects, more HUD elements (information displays) as well as hard and soft collisions. The game is written in Amiblitz 2 and is more than half finished. (dr)
[News message: 21. Aug. 2022, 14:36] [Comments: 0]
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21.Aug.2022
Erik Hogan
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Game Construction Kit: Scorpion Engine V2022.6
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 2022.6. It features new demos for performance testing and falling stackable objects, major optimizations, improvements for text, performance scaling, and more.
You can support the developer on his Patreon website.
(dr)
[News message: 21. Aug. 2022, 13:29] [Comments: 0]
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