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AmigaOS 4.1 Classic with FS-UAE 2.5.18dev on Mac OS 10.9

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My focus has been on AmiWest for the past few weeks, so I haven't done much in Classic Amiga land - my apologies in the delay in posting.

This week though I have been moving my AmigaOS4.1 Classic setup from WinUAE to my Mac OS X 10.9 setup now that FS-UAE 2.5.18 development version is allowing me to run it on my Macbook Pro without Windows!

There is a thread and guide on EAB on how to set this up now using FS-UAE here. I won't redo what they have already written, but I can quickly show you that it works! Here is the FS-UAE 2.5.18 dev launcher:

 To make things easier there is now a Amiga 4000 (PPC/OS4) model to select from which has the correct configurations - although you do of course need to download the Picasso IV, Cyberstorm PPC and QEMU PPC plugins and put them in the right places for the FS-UAE config to work out of the box.

There is a few custom lines in my config too - some I added before the latest version so not sure how many are really needed:


Here it is, up and running:


I did cheat since I already prepped the HDF and installed AmigaOS4.1 Classic (and updates) in WinUAE previously (covered in detail in this blog in 4 parts starting here).

Next I am starting to load some software onto the system. I attached a Data HDF i prepped for my MiniMig and also an ISO (created using Toaster 11) containing AmigaOS4.1 files I want to install. Here I am using AmigaAMP3 to play back some favourite music (click to expand):


Still have to play with it more, and much more install work to do! 

But I wanted to quickly show that AmigaOS4.1 Classic works under Mac OS X too now! Haven't got networking working yet (trying the latest versions and updated qemu ppc plugin and slirp config) but it apparently does work so I will keep on trying!


AmigaOS 4.1 Classic with FS-UAE 2.5.19slirp on Mac OS 10.9

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Following on from my blog entry yesterday, a new FS-UAE 2.5.19slirp build was released for MAC OS X overnight and now I have working network support in AmigaOS4.1 Classic!

Turns out I needed to download another new updated 3.3.0 qemu plugin to fix the network support. My setup following the EAB instructions here was correct.

Following that I could finally run AmiUpdate to scan for updates post Update 6!

When running AmiUpdate for the first time, refuse the updated version. I then enter my login details for access to Hyperion's servers for the updates. Note that you need to register your AmigaOS4.1 Classic product key on Hyperion's website using your login first (create a new login if you don't have one):


After a while scanning for updates, 83 updates appear!


I read that it is necessary to deselect all updates, then select "An Update to the AmiUpdate shared library is available" only, and update.


Then close and re-open AmiUpdate - and update the AmiUpdate program when prompted this time:


When done and AmiUpdate reopens, it will prompt you it needs to change the date format for the Rollback function. Make sure to click OK to change the format as described.

We can then do all the updates - it took a while to process so many updates:


Eventually though, it finished successfully and I rebooted it.

I then got to work installing IBrowse, OWB (from the AmigaOS4.1 CD), TuneNet (plus plugins), AmigaAMP3, Wookiechat, Cinnamon Writer and more.

I also uprated the screen resolution to 1280 x 700 to make it look a bit better on a HD screen and provide more real estate on the Workbench desktop (click to expand any of the screenshots):


Being able to play Amiga modules in AmigaAMP3 is really great:


IBrowse works well, although I find the downloads stall occasionally.  Web browsing is fine though, within the limitations of this browser:



OWB is much better for browsing and downloading large files, although it does run slower than IBrowse:


Wookiechat and Cinnamon Writer works too. I had less success with games I tried - I suspect it is memory and graphics card related.

Plenty more to do if I want to complete the setup how I really want it, though I am not sure if I will get much more time to play with it before AmiWest. I plan to bring the setup "as-is" with me if anyone at AmiWest is interested in how it is setup using FS-UAE 2.5.19slirp on MAC OS X.

My advise too is to regularly backup the HDF file when you close the emulation in case something goes wrong with an installation in AmigaOS 4.1 Classic.

No doubt there will be more updates of FS-UAE by the time I get there but at this point I am happy with it and want AmigaOS4.1 Classic to be reasonably stable while at AmiWest.

Icaros Desktop 2.0 on Acer AspireOne ZG5 Netbook

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This past week we finally see released the new Icaros Desktop 2.0 upgrade (AROS), so I was keen to try it out on my existing Icaros 1.5.4 installed netbook (I showed this at AmiWest 2014) - the Acer AspireOne ZG5.


You can download the Icaros Desktop 2.0 Live DVD from here. The Dvd includes everything you need to get a usable Icaros system on an x86 PC, including a large array of applications and utilities included! (You can click on any image to expand it for more detail)


Icaros is an alternative to AmigaOS4 and MorphOS as a Next Generation Amiga operating system - unlike the other two I mentioned it runs natively on a standard x86 PC.

You can just boot the Live DVD to try it out on your x86 PC system - you don't have to install it to hard disk until you have tested it out and are ready to do so. It is free to download and use!

The next photo shows a closer view of the Acer Netbook running the Icaros Desktop 2.0 live DVD from external dvd drive connected to the netbook via USB.


After installing Icaros Desktop 2.0 onto the hard disk using the InstallAROS icon on the desktop (which wiped the previous 1.5.4 installation - it does prompt you before it does it!), you then get a nice new Icaros Desktop using Directory Opus 5.9 Magellan as the Desktop, rather than the previously used Wanderer UI.

This is a great move in my opinion - I definitely prefer the Dopus 5.9 Magellan UI to Wanderer.

Since it is Directory Opus 5.9, I can easily change the drawer views to Icon Action (Right click, View As > Icon Action), creating the familiar DOpus interface for easy file management under Icaros:


There is also a modified Directory Opus toolbar on the right hand side with common operations - the distribution thoughtfully includes a icon on the bottom left of the toolbar that explains what the icons do:


One of the new applications included in the Icaros Desktop 2.0 Live DVD is Zune View, which allows thumbnail view of images, and simple graphical operations on images such as Resize, crop, Rotate, Flip, Color correction and more:


The Dock icon bar from previous versions of Icaros is still present in it's latest incarnation, allowing easy access to all programs installed without having to navigate through the drawers via Directory Opus:


Helpfully included in the installation of Icaros Desktop 2.0 is an 82 page Manual, which I was reading while listening to the example MP3 music file included in MyWorkspace vis MPlayer.


MyWorkSpace is a bit like the Windows Library folder concept under a user's home folder, with Music, Videos, Pictures, etc, subfolders under MyWorkspace for easy access. In addition to a shortcut on the desktop, each of these subfolders also has an Assign, eg. Pictures: which allows quick access from file requestors.

Next I wanted to try out the DiskImageGUI, which I have used heavily on AmigaOS3 and AmigaOS4, but not on Icaros before. It works exactly the same and works out of the box - below I mounted a CD iso file and also an old Amiga Computing cover disk to prove it works:


You don't have to use the DiskImageGUI though to mount images - you can also right click on an ISO in the Directory Opus listers to mount as ICD0 for example - very convenient. I mounted a CU Amiga CoverCD ISO this way:


Straight away the CD icon appears, ready to open up:


Being a big fan of Amiga (and other) modules, I next fired up HarmonyPlayer on Icaros Desktop 2.0 to play some tunes:


I can't imagine why you would want to, but in the prefs under Icaros Settings there is the option to change the Desktop back to the Wanderer GUI rather than the new Directory Opus 5.9 Magellan default:


At the moment I haven't got network support working, so I can't show off the internet applications yet - once I work it out I certainly will though. Networking worked out of the box with Icaros 1.5.4 on this machine so not sure what the issue is yet. Seems some other people are having network issues too. I am keen to try out the IndieGoGo App store included with this release once resolved...

You can download software for AROS from a number of places, such as The AROS Archives here as a starting point, the AROS community forums at AROS-Exec and some interesting game developments on AROS too via AROS Gamer.

Next up on Icaros I played Putty Squad, which is an AGA game unreleased until recently by System 3 after being shelved in completed state and not released for 20 years! There is a link to it included in the Icaros Desktop 2.0 Dock icon:


This game is launched using the Janus-UAE 1.4 environment in Icaros, which presents the configuration GUI prior to starting the program - it is setup as a standard Amiga 1200 AGA computer emulation in this example - you can modify the configuration in the tabs as needed to fine tune:


When I click Start, Putty Squad loads up and runs:


On the emulation front, plenty of system emulators are included in the Icaros Desktop 2.0 Live DVD, including VICE, the Commodore 64 emulation. I had to try this out:


I ran the included D64 included with the distribution, which works - the emulation runs at or near 100% while running:


There is a lot of technical changes under the covers (like ABI0 to ABI1), but this doesn't mean much at all to me as an end user - although I am sure it is probably a good thing! I am glad they are improving Icaros, and it is great to see a new release in 2014.


There is still plenty more to explore and setup yet as I just got started with it (especially I need to play more with Amibridge and the Co-existence functionality as I haven't set it up properly yet). But hopefully this gives you a small taste of Icaros Desktop 2.0.

AMIStore released and new Applications for X1000

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Today AMIStore App Store was released on AmigaOS4.1 - regular blog readers will know I have already tried out a sneak preview of AMIStore, but now I can run the released version, purchase and try out some of the new applications, drivers and utilities on my X1000!


You can download AMIStore from www.amistore.net. I covered the features and installation AMIStore in my previous blog entry here so I won't repeat it again here...

This now is the release version of AMIStore for the public, running on my X1000:


 I even have a few friends now on AMIStore after meeting many Amigans at AmiWest 2014 last month! Will be adding more friends soon!


Needless to say it didn't take me long to start buying stuff on AMIStore:


 First cab off the rank was the new Radeon HD 2.4 driver for AmigaOS4.1 from A-EON:
 


Here is the downloaded Driver, ready for installation:


The Installation process for Radeon HD 2.4 driver is very simple, with a reboot at the end:



The updated MPlayer is not available on AmiStore yet, but even with the old version of LiveForIt's MPlayer I felt that the playback of video was improved with the new driver - fullscreen HD 720p video (Girls Generation) on the left screen, DOpus 5.9 screen on the right (click to expand):


Next I downloaded CANDI (by Entwickler-X) from AMIStore, and here is the extracted folder with a number of different Workbench animated backdrops to try out:


The DefaultLight animated backdrop looks nice (click to expand):


I really like the RedLight animated backdrop (click to expand):


I then added this to my WBStartup so it is run on boot each time:


Next I briefly tried out NemoSound (by Lyle Haze), which allows control of the onboard X1000 sound card specifically, allowing monitoring and recording of input ports as well as the master volume control to turn up/down or mute the audio from the X1000:


This is the Control UI for NemoSound:


Next I tried Andy Broad (Broadblues) upgraded Personal Paint 7.3 native AmigaOS4 PPC version from AmiStore:


The initial view is definitely Personal Paint, but now upgraded in 2014:


You can modify the Image format to make use of the large real estate on HD screens (click to expand):


I loaded an example image into Personal Paint to show it off - it supports many different graphic file formats (click to expand any photos):


The zTools Suite from zzd10h is also on AMIStore and very reasonably priced - I also grabbed this:


The suite is broken down into Dockies, Multimedia programs and Utilities. He has certainly written a lot of useful utilities over the past few years for AmigaOS4.1 and it is goods to see them in a bundle like this. The Readme shows all the utilities on offer:


I can't possibly cover all the Utilities today, but here is a small sample. Below is a screen grab of the GFX Card Docky in action, showing memory used and free, current screen resolution and model number:


Another of the zTools utilities is SysMon, which monitors your system and even can benchmark your AmigaOS4.1 system:


SysMon showing the X1000 system information, including the upgraded RadeonHD 2.4 driver:


SysMon showing running applications:


Showing the devices connected to my SATA controller on the X1000:


And finally showing the SYSMon benchmarking functionality, here running the RageMem benchmark:


I intend to explore more of these programs fully this coming weekend, so this is a brief glimpse of what to expect!

It is certainly an exciting time on AmigaOS4.1 with the launch of AMIStore, The App Store content purchase and delivery model finally arrives on AmigaOS4.1 (with AmigaOS3 to follow)! 

We now have released a number of new applications, games, drivers and utilities for AmigaOS4.1, and even some utilities like NemoSound especially for the X1000! This is just the beginning, with plenty of new content to follow no doubt in the months and years ahead.

Definitely download AMIStore if you run AmigaOS4.1! 

If you can, please start buying software on AMIStore and in so doing supporting the AmigaOS4.1 developers that create the software that keeps our Amiga systems interesting and moving forward in 2014! 

Icaros Desktop 2 - Internet, IndieGo App Store and Amibridge!

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Following on from my initial installation blog entry for the recently released Icaros Desktop 2.0 on my Acer AspireOne ZG5, I had a bit more of a play with it this weekend also.


I got my network settings sorted out, with Wireless now working after adding the Atheros 5000 driver to the network settings and defining the Wireless Access Point SSID to connect to, so next I tried out web browsing using the OWB web browser included with Icaros Desktop 2.0:


OWB version information:


Browsing the AROS-Exec.org forums - some Australian guy introducing himself :-)


I then tried out viewing some PDF viewing of old Amiga Computing PDF magazines, playing back music using the included Harmony Player:



Since my internet access was now working from my Icaros Desktop 2.0 setup on the Acer AspireOne ZG5, I decided to have a quick look at the IndieGo! App store.

I should preface this part by saying that this software is still very much in development, and as such still has a few rough edges to iron out.

That said, unlike AMIStore, IndieGo! is targeting many platforms, not just AmigaOS3 and AmigaOS4. It covers AmigaOS3.x, AmigaOS4, MorphOS, Icaros (AROS), MSDOS, Windows and more...the two app stores are not really in direct competition as they are currently targeting mostly different markets.

In Icaros Desktop 2.0, IndieGo! App store is included in the installation, available from the AmiStartMenu under Extras > Demos > AppStore (the bubble help shows the actual disk path):


On the first launch you have to agree to terms and conditions of use:


Having accepted that it presents the latest release notes:


After clicking OK it then prompts for a login:


In my case I don't have an account yet, so I clicked on Register to setup a new one:


You put in your desired username and password:


Email address is also needed:


You are then sent an OptIn email to your nominated email address. In case, the confirmation URL was malformed - I copied the confirmation URL into the browser and edited out the extra http: in it - it then registered me as expected.

The IndieGo! AppStore Main menu then appears:


There are 8 options here, access the App Store, view your purchased software, download your software, latest news, Profile information, Settings, Logout and Quit.

Within the App Store option, you are presented with more options to choose from:


You can select Software & Media Catalogue, items on Sale, New items, Search function, Redeem a voucher, and Filter platform:


Going into the Catalogue Browser you are then presented with the various genres of applications to select from:


Given the development status, most of these are still empty, but there are a number of areas with content int them - Games for example:


Some areas (Like Graphics) have content in them although there is no example graphic (just the default one) shown:


Clicking on Games I then wait for the contents to load from the internet - this did take a few minutes on my Icaros Desktop machine with a progress bar line as below - your mileage may vary:


 Once the Games category load up, I can see the options to return to the previous screen, and to select a subcategory. There is also multiple screens here, indicated by the white/grey dots at the bottom of the screen - you can use the cursor keys to navigate to the next screen in this view:


 Here is the next screen view:


There are some AmigaOS3.X games here - like the demo of The Speris Legacy:


Also, in the driving subcategory of Games, we can see some MSDOS games available for download:


Here is the Puzzle subcategory - Soko4MUI is a recent release for AROS so I am thinking to try it out:


When I click on the Soko4MUI tile, I get the information screen showing a description of the game, screenshots, pricing and category details shown across the top, with options to Buy, Download, Install, Uninstall, Configure, Run and Close (return to previous screen):


When I select Buy (it is free), I get the following screen:


It then changes the status of the game to Owned:


Next I click on Download to download the game:


Eventually the download completes and updates accordingly:


Hmm, from here I hit some problems though - I couldn't use the Install option (said the files wasn't downloaded) and so I couldn't try it out!

I rebooted, ran IndieGo! App Store and tried again:


I still couldn't Install the program though - so I went back to the Main Menu and selected the option to view Your Software:


I then selected to browse my software:


You can see the software I downloaded is listed - selecting takes me back to the software information for Soko4MUI, so it didn't allow me to install it still:


So Unfortunately I couldn't try the game out! I then tried getting Bopping (full version ADF) and hit a similar roadblock after buying and downloading it - I couldn't install it either:



Update 16/11: I found out that apparently you need a voucher code to download anything from the store - this explains why I couldn't download the programs yet.

The platform filter function is also a work in progress in IndieGo! App Store - unable to filter by platform at the moment, though the future intention to be able to filter to your favourite platform is a useful feature:



 But, as I said - it is a work in progress - just wanted to show a bit of what it looks like as this is my first time to use it. IndieGo! is an interesting App Store, with plenty of potential to be unlocked as the development work continues on it!

Moving on, I still have plenty of work to do on my Icaros Desktop 2.0 build - still trying to unlock the Amibridge, Amiga Forever and integration functionality...having some success - got Amiga Forever installed and a full screen/window Amibridge preset works well initially:


After installing the Amiga Forever files from my original Amiga Forever CD when prompted, I then needed to set the screen resolution in the emulated environment to match the Icaros Desktop screen resolution - which is 800x600:


Next I selected the Preset Loader option from the AmiStart Menu to select how I want to use the emulation under Icaros:


There are a few options available as below - select your preferred one:


Confirms your choice:


Final prompt to Save/Use/Discard your choice:


I was going to use Integration as above, but then changed my mind and selected Full Screen instead (didn't re-do the screenshots though sorry!) - I then select Workbench from the AmiStart Menu to boot into the emulated environment for the first time:


Here is the Amiga Forever emulated environment running on Icaros Desktop 2.0:


The UAECtrl dock entry (bottom right icon) allows you to insert/eject disks (ADF) and exit the emulation.

When I exited and tried selecting Integration as the Preset Loader instead of full screen, I started to get consistent crashes trying to launch the environment, sadly even after I set it back to the original working Full screen preset loader config:


So I still have some work to do to get it working well, but it is certainly interesting! As an aside, if you select Power Off on the Software Failure dialog box, it doesn't power off automatically - instead you get a power off screen I hadn't seen before now - a bit like the old OS/2 and Windows 95 shutdown/power off screens telling you to press and hold the power button to switch off:


When you boot the system again you get the boot loader, which I wanted to show here:


If you Press E while highlighting a boot option you can edit the boot string as needed, which is pretty cool:


Run out of time though so I'll keep trying another day - perhaps reinstalling Amiga forever will fix it:


Well, certainly spending time playing with Icaros Desktop 2.0 is not boring that's for sure but as I said I have run out of time for today! Time for sleep - more tinkering to happen again soon no doubt!

E-UAE JIT Beta 5 with RunInUAE Beta 3 on X1000

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Exciting for me is the release of the E-UAE JIT Beta 5 (Feature complete) with the updated RunInUAE Beta to use it on my X1000.


Finally I can run Amiga AGA demos up to the current year at full speed on the X1000! Great stuff!

You can download RunInUAE Beta 3 including the UAE JIT Beta 5 from here. This is the Amigans forum dedicated to discussions about it - http://www.amigans.net/modules/xforum/viewtopic.php?topic_id=6718&forum=8 . 

There is an installer for the RunInUAE in the archive to get things up and running. It erroneously prompted for an Amiga Appz: assign which I mounted to the extracted archive folder and the install then proceeded as normal. 

Here is the readme for the new RunInUAE Beta which explains the addition of the new UAE JIT Beta 5:


Here is the resulting Emulation Folder after installation, which includes the new E-UAE JIT Beta folder and my custom Emulation folders I created a long time ago (explained on my blog here) for running Amiga 1200, 2000 and A4000 systems.


I renamed the older UAE and copied the updated UAE program to the Amiga 4000D folder so it used the new JIT version when running my customised emulations (not just the default RunInUAE functionality):


I then added the new JIT config sections from the installed RunInUAE Beta 3 files to my custom A4000D emulation config .uaerc file to get it to use the new Beta:


Demo time! I ran the A4000D Amiga emulation to try out the AGA demos. You can run this in a window but full screen is much nicer in my opinion.

Some screenshots of other demos running well - TBL's Starstruck (above/below):


TBL's Silkcut running at full speed on my X1000 - awesome!


 Some other demo screenshots running using UAE JIT Beta 5 - perhaps you know these demos too:







 An oldie but a goodie - Haujobb on the X1000:


Ephidrena's brilliant 2003 effort running nicely too:


Very exciting to finally be able to run all the Classic Amiga stuff on my X1000 - looking forward to the final release of the JIT UAE software!

Looking back at 2014 on Amiga

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With December now upon us and Xmas coming soon, it is that time of year again when I take a look back on the major happenings in 2014 in Amiga land. There has been a lot happening!

My AmigaOne X1000 with Ducky Zero custom Amiga keyboard and two Radeon HD cards running AmigaOS4.1.6 and DOpus 5.9

Amiga hardware

On the Amiga hardware front in 2014 we saw the new A-EON AmigaOne X5000 released to Beta testers, and demonstrated at AmiWest 2014.

Tekmage's AmigaOne X5000 on display at AmiWest 2014

AmigaOne X5000 system board up close

In addition there was also the announcement at AmiWest 2014 of a new ACube Sam 460CR (Cost Reduced) system running AmigaOS 4.1.6 to be released soon. The plan seems to be to release a cheaper Next Generation Amiga system for those unable to afford an X1000 or Sam460ex system.
 
Loriano "The Daddy" Pagni also released a small run of specially customised Ducky Zero mechanical keyboards with Amiga keys in 2014.

Ducky Zero keyboard with Amiga keys on AmigaOne X1000, released in 2014 (Loriano Pagni)

Individual Computers released the Rapid Road USB hardware in 2014, allowing Classic Amiga systems to use USB 2.0 devices at USB 2.0 speeds for the first time, and allowing power input to avoid the need to have a  powered usb hub, which was required for previous USB solutions.

A-EON also released the Radeon HD 2.4 graphics drivers on the AMIStore in 2014, providing new 2D Composite video functionality on Radeon HD graphics cards on AmigaOne X1000, X5000 and Sam460 systems. Primarily the benefits will be felt in AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition, but video playback is also improved on AmigaOS4.1.6 also.




Operating Systems

On the Amiga Operating System front in 2014 we saw the release of MorphOS 3.7 and Icaros Desktop 2 (AROS).

My Acer AspireOne ZG5 netbook running Icaros Desktop 2.0, released in 2014.

Closer look at Icaros Desktop 2.0, released in 2014.

My Powerbook G4 15" laptop running the 2014 released MorphOS 3.7 with Apple Airport WiFi support - no more USB WiFi dongles!

MorphOS 3.7 in action, released in 2014 with the optional Chrysalis Pack also installed

Also we had the announcement and demonstration at AmiWest 2014 of AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition, expected to be released by Hyperion as a paid upgrade by the end of this year.

Update 18/12/2014: AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition has now been officially released. I have ordered my copy for the X1000 and Classic Amiga and look forward to receiving it early in 2015 for a much closer look!

 AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition new features been shown at AmiWest 2014

So all three Next Generation Amiga operating systems saw substantial new upgrades in 2014! It is fantastic to see the ongoing development of the Amiga platform in 2014 and beyond.

In addition we also saw some important work in the emulation world in 2014, with QEMU-PPC support added by Toni Wilen for PowerPC processor emulation in WinUAE and later ported to the FS-UAE Amiga emulators too, making it possible to run AmigaOS4.1 Classic under Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

I demonstrated this development with my own emulated AmigaOS4.1.6 Classic build at AmiWest 2014 running on Windows 7. I used it for the programming seminar before the main AmiWest 2014 show also!

My Macbook Pro i7 laptop running AmigaOS4.1.6 Classic under WinUAE at AmiWest 2014

A-EON also released Ubuntu Live Remix 12.04 LTS for the AmigaOne X1000 in 2014, the easiest installation of Ubuntu I have ever done! :-)

 A-EON Ubuntu Live Remix 12.04 LTS - released in 2014 for AmigaOne X1000

A-EON Ubuntu Live Remix 12.04 LTS - released in 2014 for AmigaOne X1000

Last, but certainly not least is the very recent release of AmiKit 8, a highly customised pre-configured Classic Amiga setup for users who want to run the most beautiful AmigaOS3.x system with all the myriad of patches and utilities installed and configured to taste, but lack the time needed to build it from scratch themselves. You can download from here.

AmiKit 8 loading screen, running on FS-UAE under Ubuntu 14.04 on Asus i5 laptop

All that is needed is a copy of Amiga Forever (from Cloanto) to copy the required copyrighted files during the installation of it. This AmiKit distribution is available as a self booting USB stick for purchase, and also free download to setup and run on your favourite Amiga emulator - WinUAE, FS-UAE, E-UAE, etc. There is even a distribution of this now available to load onto Classic Amigas directly called Real AmiKit. Plenty of helpful instructions are included to get you started.

In my case I loaded AmiKit 8 onto my newly built Ubuntu 14.04 Asus Core i5 laptop, running it under FS-UAE.

FS-UAE screen showing the running AmiKit 8 installation

AmiKit 8 Workbench, with Start Menu shown

AmiKit 8 DOpus 5.9 integration, running in Workbench replacement mode. MUI 4 is included also.

Certainly it has been a great year for operating system upgrades for Amiga, with plenty of new features to explore!


Games

On the games front in 2014 we saw fewer titles released than previous years, but still quite a few new games to try out on Classic Amiga, and the Next Generation Amiga platforms too:

Me And My Shadow - released in 2014 on AmigaOS 4.1 (Huno PPC)

Tales of Gorluth - released in 2014 on Classic Amiga (Amiworx)

Flappy Bird - released in 2014 on Classic Amiga (Michael Gibs)

Amazing Voxel Bird Saga - released in 2014 on AmigaOS4.1 and MorphOS 3.7 (Cherry Darling)

Ace Of Hearts - released in 2014 on AmigaOS4.1 and MorphOS 3.7 (Cherry Darling)

HunoPPC also released his substantial catalog of AmigaOS4.1 game ports and some previously unreleased titles in an Acube Games Bundle DVD in late 2013 so it missed my look back last year - I got it in 2014:


Here is a small selection of the many games on offer by HunoPPC in this bundle, focused on the titles I hadn't seen and played before until 2014:

 HexGem

 Metal Slug

Secret Maryo Chronicles

Amazing Voxelnoid - released in 2014 on AmigaOS4.1 and MorphOS3.7 (Cherry Darling)

I particularly enjoyed playing Me and My Shadow and Voxelnoid in 2014 - they are fun games!

App Stores

One of the key releases in 2014 for Amiga platforms has been a new application purchase and delivery model commonly used these days on the very popular Apple, Microsoft and Google portable devices - the App Store.

The first of these is AMIStore (by A-EON), released on AmigaOS4.1 in 2014 and soon to be released for Classic AmigaOS 3.x platforms too.

 AMIStore - released in 2014 for AmigaOS4.1 showing All Product view. 

AMIStore - released in 2014 for AmigaOS4.1 showing M.A.C.E Product Overview detail.

Also released in beta test form in 2014 is IndieGO App Store, aiming itself not only for Classic and Next Generation Amiga platforms, but other platforms too.

 IndieGO App Store - released in Beta test form in 2014, running on Icaros Desktop 2.0

 IndieGO App Store - released in Beta test form in 2014, running on Icaros Desktop 2.0

Applications

With the release of the Amiga App stores in 2014, and the emphasis placed by A-EON on the need for new content and applications in a big way in 2014, and a lot of work has gone into releasing a lot of interesting applications for our favourite platform.

 DigiBooster Pro 3 music tracker - released in 2014 for AmigaOS4.1 (APC & TCP)

PT1210-MK1 Protracker module mixer - released in 2014 for Classic Amigas (Kikencorp) - Image of two Amiga 600's setup with a mixer using the software taken from their Facebook page

 MUI 4 gui program development framework - released in 2014 for AmigaOS4.1

MUI 4 was also released for AmigaOS3.x via AmiKit 8 in 2014, and it was already available on MorphOS previously.


Odyssey 1.23 Web browser - released in 2014 for AmigaOS4.1 allowing YouTube playback (Kas1e)

 Odyssey 1.23 Web browser - released in 2014 for AmigaOS4.1 allowing Vimeo playback (Kas1e)

 Fractals for Sketchblock - fractal generator released in 2014 for AmigaOS4.1 (Andy "broadblues" Broad)

 Directory Opus (DOpus) 5.9 - released in 2014 for AmigaOS4.1, AROS and AmigaOS3.x (Kas1e)

 BigSister Webcam viewer - released in 2014 for AmigaOS4.1 (Massimiliano Scarano)

 Little Brother Webcam viewer - released in 2014 on AMIStore (Z-Tools) for AmigaOS 4.1 (zzd10h)

TwittAmiga - first Twitter GUI client for Amiga, released in 2014 for AmigaOS 4.1 (Oliver Urbann)

MPlayer GUI - released in 2014 for AmigaOS4.1 (Deniil 715)

 Live for It MPlayer optimised for AmigaOne X1000 - released in 2014 for AmigaOS4.1 (An updated release for 1080p playback on AMIStore soon for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition) (Kjetil Hvalstran)

 CANDI - Animated Workbench backdrops - released in 2014 on AMIStore for AmigaOS4.1 (EntwicklerX)

Personal Paint 7.3 PPC - released in 2014 on AMIStore for AmigaOS4.1 and AmigaOS3.x (Andy Broad)


 Z-Tools - Suite of utilities for AmigaOS4.1 - released in 2014 on AMIStore by zzd10h


 E-UAE JIT Beta 5 (Almos Rajnai) and RunInUAEJIT Beta (Chris Handley) - released for AmigaOS4.1 in 2014

 FileSysBox NTFS support - released for AmigaOS 4.1.6 in 2014 (Hyperion)


 Kryoflux - Amiga floppy read/writer software for Kryoflux hardware - released for AmigaOS4.1 in 2014 (Kryoflux Products & Services)


NemoSound - AmigaOne X1000 sound mixer - released on AMIStore for AmigaOS4.1 (Lyle Haze)

Radiance Graphics Suite has also been announced in 2014, planned to be released on AMIStore when AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition is available.

There is also work being done on bringing Octamed Soundstudio onto AmigaOS4.1 as well, with A-EON acquiring the rights to it and Warp3D support for Radeon HD cards which will open up many Warp3D games on AmigaOS4.1 to be able to be run on the AmigaOne X1000 without an old legacy Radeon 9250 PCI graphics card installed.

Certainly there has been more applications released this year and I sincerely hope this continues into 2015.

AmiWest 2014

This year I was finally able to save the money to attend my first ever AmiWest show in 2014, held in Sacramento, California.

It was a lot of fun and great to meet so many passionate Amigans and see the ongoing developments for our platform first hand - to see the X5000 up close, play with AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition, see demonstrations of various games/applications, and to demonstrate MorphOS, Icaros and Minimig systems to attendees.

I also got to hear about the final days of Commodore UK from the perspective of Colin Proudfoot, the ex Commodore UK MD at the banquet.

Finally, I also got to meet and hear from Trevor and Matthew Leaman (A-EON), Steven Solie (Hyperion), also many AmigaOS 4.1 developers and many Amigans I had chatted with on IRC but never met in person - Ken (both of you!), Mike Brantley, Val, Eldee, Tony, Bill, Brian, Andy, Tom and too many others to mention - it was great to meet you all this year!

SACC huge Amiga display at AmiWest 2014

Friday night Classic Amiga Clinic - Tekmage's unwell Amiga 4000 being looked at.


Steven Solie during his presentation

 Trevor and Ken "Sundown" discussion at A-EON/AmigaKit table

 Colin Proudfoot (ex Commodore MD) speaking at the banquet

My table at AmiWest, with plenty of discussion about all things Amiga all weekend!

A-EON also announced at AmiWest 2014 they bought the Amiga forum websites amiga.org and amigaworld.net in 2014. There has been plenty of debate in the Amiga community about this move, but if it keeps forum websites online for the forseeable future to discuss all things Amiga then it is a good move for us all.

Look out for my AmiWest 2014 coverage article I have written for more detail in an upcoming Amiga Future magazine. :-)

There have also been plenty of other Amiga shows held around the world throughout the year!

I wanted to point out all the things that have happened in 2014 for Amiga - there has been many positive developments as you can see - and 2014 is not quite finished yet!

We still have AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition release to look forward to this year, and Radiance Suite along with it - and no doubt plenty more developments in 2015.



Whew - well that summarises 2014, lots happening still!

I will be offline from this blog for a bit from now, as usual during the Xmas/New Year period. I should be back in late January-ish as usual.

Until then, I wish you all and your families a Very Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year. See you in 2015!

AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition - Part 1

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Happy New Year to you all! What better way to bring in 2015 than with the brand new recently released AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition!



In this first part I want to look at what I had to do to prepare my AmigaOne X1000 for the new AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition installation, as there is plenty to do before I can start the installation itself.

At this point unfortunately I am also still waiting for my AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition CD to arrive in Australia....and I am not the only one it seems. Not sure if my package is coming by plane, ship, junk, row boat or carrier pigeon - feels like forever even though it has only been 2.5 weeks. I guess I am just very excited to try it out - hopefully it arrives very soon! I bought the X1000 version and the Classic versions of Final Edition.

The first thing to realise is that AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition is not able to be installed as an upgrade. It is not possible to upgrade an existing AmigaOS4.1.X or AmigaOS4.0 installation to AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition. It is required to do a clean install, and then re-install your favourite applications again afterwards.

This situation is not hugely different from Windows, where upgrading (while possible) is not recommended, and generally most people install it as a clean install and then reinstall their applications.

To this end, I decided to prepare a new 1TB hard disk for AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition. In reality, this 1TB disk was actually the original 1TB SATA drive I bought with the X1000! Last year I moved all my data to a new 1TB hard disk so I could use a new partition design to allow more space on the System drive.

This left the old disk sitting dormant and disconnected in the X1000 until now. I relabelled it as the AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition drive, and reconnected it back to the X1000 SATA cables....


To detail my system setup at this point (hard disk wise), I have three disks installed in the X1000 - the current 1TB hard disk booting AmigaOS4.1.6, a 1TB hard disk running Ubuntu Remix 12.04LTS (using the CF Card onboard the X1000 to boot), and the 1TB hard disk I just installed above to copy files prior to installing AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition.

With everything ready, I then booted the X1000 from the usual hard disk into AmigaOS4.1.6 as normal. Once booted, I needed to do some work to prepare the new hard disk for the partition design I want to use for Final Edition.

You can also do this partition work using the bootable AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition CD installation wizard (it also runs Media Toolbox), but since I wanted to transfer all my data to the new hard disk before I did the installation, this method of partitioning is necessary for me ahead of swapping the hard disks over for the clean install.

First step is to run Media Toolbox in the System folder:


 Select sb600sata.device when prompted for the device to use:


Once selected, the drives installed in the system will appear.


As you can see below there are three hard disks, the top one is the current AmigaOS4.1.6 disk, the next is new one for final Edition, and the last one is the Ubuntu Remix 12.04 disk, which has a filesystem that AmigaOS4.1.6 can't read, hence it is listed as "not installed". So next I select the current disk at the top, and select the Edit partitions and fileystems button:


I do this so you can see how I currently have my partitions laid out on AmigaOS4.1.6:


As normal, there is the hidden unmounted BHD0 partition, which contains the amigaboot.of file used by the X1000 CFE to boot into AmigaOS4.1.6.

In addition, I have two 10GB partitions, formatted SFS\02.

The first one contains the AmigaOS4.1.6 System partition (HD0):


The second 10GB partition HD1 is a backup copy of the HD0 partition, also formatted as SFS\02 partition and labelled OSBackup:


This is done so I can backup my System: partition to the OSBackup: partition before making major changes, to make it easier to rollback to my working installation if it all goes wrong. I used to do the exact same thing on my Classic Amiga systems as well.

I then have 810GB for the Work: partition (HD2), also formatted SFS\02.


Last but not least is the NTFS partition HD3, which I use as a common drive, accessible from Ubuntu 12.04LTS and AmigaOS4.1.6 on the X1000, to allow for sharing and accessing data between the two operating systems on my X1000.


So having looked at the current system partition layout, let's prepare the new 1TB disk. I click Cancel on all windows until back at the window showing the drives currently installed on my system. This is because I don't want to make any changes to the current drive.

I then select the new 1TB disk and again click on the Edit partitions and filesystems button:


I have previously shown how the hidden partition and other system partitions are added and configured in this blog here, so I won't rehash that ground again. Please read the previous blog post to review that information if you need to know how to do it.

What I will explain here is that unlike my previous hard disk setups, I plan to have three 10GB SFS\02 partitions on the new 1TB disk. Why will become clear shortly.

I also need to ensure the drive device names and labels on the new disk are different from the current disk to avoid problems during the copy process. That is why the current hard disk has HD0, HD1, etc. This is because originally the original hard disk in the X1000 used DH0, DH1, etc, and I needed to choose different names.

As we have a new disk to use now, we can re-use the old original DH0, DH1 names again! After preparing the partitions my new 1TB disk looks as follows in the Media Toolbox:


I have set all partitions as Automount, and DH0 (System) and DH1 (OSBackup) as Bootable.

You will note I have left some free space at the end of the disk. I plan to set this up as my NTFS share partition with Ubuntu Remix 12.04LTS (as per the previous setup). I have covered how to setup NTFS partitions previously, but to recap, click on the Free space in the Partition Editing section and select Add Partition - it will automatically create DH4 with a DOS\03 type:



Next, click on Select filesystem/edit details so we can change the filesystem. Initially, it looks like this:


In the Filesystem chooser, change Type from Standard filesystem to Custom filesystem:


Click in the Identifier field, and replace the 444F5303 with 4E544653 and Press Enter. It will then show NTFS to the right of the Identifier field as below:


I then modified the Buffers field from 600 to 2000:


I then clicked on Ok - accept changes, which takes me back to the partition editing window, showing the update partition view including the new NTFS partition we created:


I also turned off Automount on the NTFS partition as I felt I didn't need it at this time. Not sure why I did that, and in retrospect was the wrong step...don't do it.


I then clicked on Ok - accept changes which returns me to the disk present in the system window, where the status of the new 1TB disk is now changed to Modified:


I then clicked on Save to disk to commit the changes to the hard disk. Since this wipes anything on the disk it prompts me to make sure I really want to do this:


It then updates Media Toolbox status for the new disk to Ready:


When I close Media Toolbox it then prompts me that a reboot is needed for the change to take effect, so I click on Yes, reboot NOW!:


After the reboot I now have uninitialised partition icons on my Workbench screen as below:


I need to right click on each one in turn and select Format Disk - First is DH0:


I label it System initially, to match the naming convention of the current disk, and then click on Quick Format, and click Format twice on the confirmation requests:




After the format is complete, we now have a new System Partition ready for AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition:


I then repeat Quick Formats for the other partitions - DH1, labelled as OSBackup:


Now DH2, which is my third 10GB partition - I label this one AmigaOS4.1.6, as I plan to copy my current AmigaOS4.1.6 System partition to this location. Why? Because I have little chance of remembering everything I did on the current hard disk once I swap over disks, and it makes it easier to add back in the applications, review setting files for missing things, and so on:


I then Quick format DH3 as the Work partition:


Because I didn't automount the NTFS DH4, it is not visible so I didn't format at this time. In retrospect, that was a mistake by me as mentioned earlier...it should be formatted here also.

I then renamed the new partitions System as SystemNew, OSBackup as OSBackupNew and Work as WorkNew. This is to avoid problems when copying files between the partitions with the same names on different disks. I will rename them back to the original names when copying is done and ready to swap the disks over.

In any case, here are the formatted and relabelled partitions ready to go:



As you can see there is a lot to copy over to the new disk:



For the System partition I used Deniil 715's Backup program, which copies all links as well as files when copying files, and allows you to do differential copying, which means it only copies changed files, which makes backups much faster:


Click on Asl button next to the Source field to select the Source drive - I selected Volumes, System and clicked on OK:


It then updates on the Backup program window - then select Asl button next to the Target field:


I select AmigaOS4.1.6 volume as the destination and click on OK:


Now we are ready to go:


I click on the Backup button to get started:


It took 24 minutes to backup the System partition - it completed successfully:


Unfortunately I couldn't use the Backup program to backup the Work partition - it kept hanging the system trying to do so - I found it was because there are so many large video files in it.

Update: I found out my version of Backup is not the latest one - the version I am using apparently can't copy files bigger than 2GB...the latest version of Backup (1.91) apparently fixes that problem, but unfortunately I had already moved on to another solution by the time I noticed the newer fixed version existed!

So I went back to the tried and trusted method - I used the Shell instead to copy the Work partition, specifically this command:

copy COPYLINKS Work:#? WorkNew: all

There is well over 530GB of data to transfer on this drive, and it took just under a day to copy it all across!


While I was rebooting after Backup hung while copying the files, I found out that the Early Startup Control Menu from AmigaOS3.1 on Classic Amigas is still available on the X1000 as well!

If you hold down both mouse button on booting the X1000 until after the AmigaOS4.1 boot screen appears, you will see it! Here it is:



You have the option to Boot With No Startup-sequence, Boot, and change Boot Options and see the Expansion Board Diagnostic, all of which is the same as it is on a Classic Amiga! It also includes information about about the X1000 system on the initial Menu screen.

The Display Options is greyed out and can't be selected, which makes sense since the old Classic  OCS/ECS/AGA display selection options are not applicable on the X1000.

Here is the Expansion Board Diagnostic screen:


This is the Boot Option screen on the X1000:


As I have the new disk and old disk in the X1000, I have the option to boot either one by selecting it on the left and clicking Use at the bottom, and to disable mounting of any specific partitions on each drive too:


I was surprised it took me all this time to find this - I mistakenly thought it was only on the X5000! This was very nostalgic, and great to see the Early Startup Control Menu survives still on the X1000 too :-)

To finish up, I powered down the X1000, and swapped the SATA cables from the current AmigaOS4.1.6 hard disk to the new disk, and left the old AmigaOS4.1.6 disk disconnected.

In the next part (once I have received my AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition CD) I will tackle the AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition installation on the new prepared disk!



AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition - Part 2

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Continuing on from Part 1 of my look at AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition where we prepared the hard disks for the new version, in this part we look at the installation of AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition onto my X1000!


I received my AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition and Classic CD's in a nice professional package:


Opening up the X1000 version for the installation, you get a nice Boot Guide (Serial number on the back for registering for updates from Hyperion via AmiUpdate and their website), an AmigaOS4.1 sticker and the CD itself of course):


A close up of the CD label reveals that my purchase guarantees the bananas for the codemonkeys!


I am very happy to support the efforts of AmigaOS4.1 developers! So let's get into the installation!

First, I put the AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition CD into the X1000 and booted from it, using the CFE AmigaOS 4.1 CD boot menu option.

As a side note, this is not the Final Edition of AmigaOS4 to be released! It is just the Final Edition of AmigaOS4.1 to be released. There will be an AmigaOS4.2 in the future, which is under development right now.

Back on topic - Once the CD has booted, it presents the welcome screen below:


On closer inspection, we have the option to set the locale and keyboard to be used for the installation, to prepare our hard disk for the installation (already done in Part 1 separately), Start the installation, or run the Live CD Workbench directly from the CD:


I will show my hard disk setup that I did in Part 1 via the "Start the Hard Disk preparation utility" option above, now that the other AmigaOS4.1.6 disk is removed:


You can see the hard disk highlighted below:


When I select Edit Partitions and filesystems, you can see the partitions all setup, and ready to go. I will be installing to DH0:


I don't need to make any changes, so I click cancel to close the Media Toolbox utility, and then choose the start the installation option - it reminds me that the default localisation settings are still running (I didn't change them) - it gives me the option to change them now:


So in the setting window that comes up I add in English-british and English in Languages tab:


Under the Country tab I select Australia of course:


I then select the Timezone tab and set the timezone to Adelaide Central Standard Time (GMT+9.30):


I then click on Use and move onto the next setting screen to setup the keyboard type - which I left as is:


After that I click Use and it then prepares the installation:


Now we move into the installation proper - Click Next:


I then agree to all manner of legal things I suppose in the usual license agreement and click Next:


A warning comes up to remind me that JXFS is no longer supported in AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition, and has a read-only legacy mode only. No problem - I don't use it:


After clicking Next, the installer then reminds me that this is not an upgrade and there is no upgrade option - click Next:


It then asks me to configure a SWAP partition - on an X1000 with 2GB of memory or more this is not needed - I click Next:


The installer then gives you the chance to open Media Toolbox to setup the SWAP partition and prepare your target partition and format for AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition (if not already done):


I can click Next here as my hard disk partitions are already prepped. The next screen asks me where I want to install to - I select DH0 and click on Next:


At this point the installer makes you aware of the Radeon HD Lite video driver included with the default installation - basically stating you are restricted to 1024x768 screen resolution with no compositing support enabled.

You are encouraged to go and buy an upgraded video driver from AmiStore to unlock the full video functionality of your system.

I personally think it makes more sense to bundle it and charge more for the operating system - but it is their choice of course, and many people already paid for the enhanced drivers previously like myself.

People who paid for the drivers already may not be happy to pay for it again effectively in the price of the upgrade. The Lite driver is a compromise to keep both sets of users happy I guess:


I already bought the Radeon HD 2.4 graphics driver so later on in this process I can upgrade the driver. If you have the Radeon 1.0/1.2 HD graphics driver then you can use that too (as an X1000 owner this was given to us for free - for other SAM440/460 systems you need to buy it from AmiStore).

After clicking Next, the following screen asks you to tell the installer what the maximum resolution your monitor can support, defaulting to 1024x768:


I selected 1920x1080 as my resolution as I use a 24" HD LCD Screen, and left the AmigaOS4.1 look option set - You do have the option to use the look and feel of AmigaOS4.0 if you prefer.


After clicking Next you get the final confirmation screen of the choices you made in the installer before proceeding with the installation. Last chance to go back and make changes:


After clicking next the installation gets underway - coffee time:


While the installer is running, a small descriptive text changes several times at the top of the screen explaining some of the new features in AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition - starting with AmigaDOS:


Graphics enhancements:


Radeon HD Lite:


Intuition, Workbench and BOOPSI improvements:


Kernel improvements opening up extra memory beyond the 2GB barrier for the first time:


Upgraded Shell:


Other enhancements too:


And a final thank you:


Installation of files and post-install config is now completed successfully:


Click Next and after a few more things in the background the installation is finished and ready for reboot - with a reminder to remove the CD from the drive before clicking on Finish, which reboots the X1000:


After the Reboot, we see AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition Splash screen:


After that the Workbench appears with a promo for the Radeon HD 2.4 graphics drivers, available to purchase on AmiStore. Seems strange not to include AmiStore with AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition and then promote using it to upgrade the video drivers within the installation!


When you close that window you see the post-install setup screen:


Here you can reconfigure localisations, setup the screenmode for your graphics card, configure sound card, setup the network connection and finally install some of the extra software bundled on the AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition CD (requires the CD to be put back in).

First things first, let's set the screenmode - by default it is 640x480 LowRes so let's fix that:


Scrolling down I note that in AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition the graphics board name has changed from Radeon R730 to Board 0. I select the 1024x768 32 bit screen mode as below:


I click on Test first to make sure the screen mode works correctly - which it does:


I click on OK, then Save on the screenmode settings. The screen went away but the screen mode didn't change - at this stage I was confused why it didn't change (found of why later on), but continued on anyway.

Next post-install option was to configure the Audio - when you select the option the AHI preferences window comes up. On the X1000 the internal audio card is used, so just make sure the hdaudio Hifi 32 bit is selected - then click Play a test sound to make sure it works, then Save:


Next up is configuring the Network settings - select the Local Area Network option and click on Next:


You can do automatic configuration, but I chose to use manual configuration, and clicked Next:


You are then asked to choose your network card. I got a bit excited when I saw that the built in X1000 network adapter is included as an option (we have to use a PCI network card under AmigaOS4.1.6). I selected the built in adapter and click on Test this Configuration:


Unfortunately it didn't work - I also subsequently found out the built-in network driver has dropout issues and shouldn't be used by X1000 owners at this time.


So, I went and selected the RTL 8139 PCI network adapter in my X1000 (as I used in AmigaOS4.1.6):


I tested the configuration again, and success - it found the card:


After clicking on Next, I then got the screen to specify DHCP or static IP Address for my X1000. I chose DHCP and clicked Next:


It asks for a filename for the Configuration - I named it the same as the Network Adapter for easy future reference, and clicked on Finish:


Next the network initialises:


An information screen appears when this is done saying the configuration is done, I clicked on Okay:


It gives you the option to configure advanced settings too - I didn't change these but clicked Yes to show them to you:



Network Interface configuration - can set the hostname here:


Routes for network traffic are defined here:


Having finished the Network configuration, I moved onto installing the Extras included with the AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition CD - accordingly it prompts me to put the CD back in to the X1000:


It then shows a window with a number of bonus software to install:


Helpfully when you click on each one, you get a description of what it is and does - you can click on the checkbox next to each one you want to install:




I decided to install almost all of the extras:


When I click on Install, the programs install and come up in green as they are installed:


Entries are added to the Amidock at this point and the screen gets a little cluttered. You can close the docks that appear as below, in order to view the ongoing installation easier:


It was at around this time that I found out why the screen mode didn't change - I got a nasty message saying that "Volume has broken Cluster geometry! Can't mount it!":


At first I had no idea what this could be, but after some thought I realised that it was the CF Card in my X1000 that was causing the problem.

The CF Card in my X1000 (on the motherboard itself) is a 8GB card, formatted as 4GB FAT partition containing Linux kernel needed by the X1000 CFE in order to boot Ubuntu Remix on the X1000.

AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition now supports reading this CF card - AmigaOS4.1.6 didn't. Clearly AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition was having issues with the unformatted space on the CF Card. When I removed the card the problem went away and no more error messages appeared.

One solution is to comment out the cfide.device.kmod line in the kicklayout file, which prevents AmigaOS4.1.6 Final Edition from seeing the CF Card. This is the option to do if you get this problem and want to preserve your dual booting linux capacity on the X1000 using the CF Card as FAT.

Here below is the Kicklayout file in Notepad (System:Kickstart/Kicklayout) with the required line highlighted and shown commented out by placing a semi-colon in front.


While in this file you can also comment out the bootsound.kmod line if you want, which is what plays the original Amiga 1000 boot sound when AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition boots every time.


Back on topic, Another resolution to the CF Card error issue is to use a 2/4GB CF card, which apparently works fine when formatted to it's full capacity. 4GB is the FAT limit, so it is not possible to format a 8GB CF card to it's full capacity unless I create multiple partitions.

Other people have had this problem too - please remove the CF Card if you are having this error message, confirm the problem goes away and then decide what to do with your CF Card after that.

I haven't used Ubuntu Remix for a long time and with 2015 now here, it is a good time to go AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition only on the X1000 moving forward.

I later decided to format the CF card as Amiga format (8GB) labelled CF0 so I can use it in the X1000 still, now only for AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition.

Getting back to the installation of the extras, it is continuing:


RunInUAE prompts for additional options when it installs - Simple or Advanced Mode:


I picked the advanced mode - it asks where I want to install it:


It then asks where E-UAE should be installed:


After that it asks where the Workbench3.1 folder should be created - it reminds you that you need to manually create the drawer as it is not done automatically for some reason.


To do this, right click in the requester window, highlight Control and select Create new Drawer. Enter the name and click on Create:


Then select the new drawer you created as the destination and click OK:


It also prompts (not shown) for the location of your WHDLoad registered key so it can insert it into RunInUAE environment. I have registered WHDLoad so I was able to provide this file at this point - you can register WHDLoad at www.whdload.de 

It then prompts you that installation of RunInUAE is about to start - click on OK:


It finishes the install and then prompts that you need to restart the X1000 to use RunInUAE:


I clicked OK and restarted the X1000. I then get the AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition Workbench screen for the first time on my X1000:


At this point I got SGrab setup so I could start screen grabs from this point onwards:


You can see at this point I haven't formatted the CF Card, which is showing as uninitialised. I right clicked on it and selected Format Disk to format it as an Amiga formatted disk (as mentioned earlier).

Looking around briefly at what is new, I checked the Prefs first - I can see the new Console prefs here:


From the Workbench title bar menu, I can select About to see the version information window:


Running up a new shell, I can see the tabbed shell console for the first time:


I opened another shell and it opens in a new tab in the same Console window - neat:


I will play around with the console more later on of course as there is a lot more configuration for it!

Unregistered MUI4 is included - I have registered MUI so later on I will put my key in s: to activate the full functionality of MUI4 - but wanted to point this out for people who are not aware that it needs registration at www.sasg.com to get the full functionality:


Just showing off some more of the AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition drawers and icons:


In the Utilities drawer I ran ShowConfig for some more version info about this X1000:


In AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition we now have image preview icons when viewing drawers with photos in them. To view these, right click on a folder containing photos and select Information. Select the Icon tab:


You can see Previews field is set "As parent" - the default is previews is off for all drawers. You can change this to On for this folder:


After clicking Save and opening the drawer, from the Workbench title bar menu, highlight Window > Show > Previews (or press Amiga-T):


You then get the preview photos as icons in the drawers! This is standard functionality on Windows and Mac OS X, so it is great to finally have it included in AmigaOS - it also includes the photo size and colour depth information underneath the name of the photos in the drawer:


Excellent stuff!

Next I went to www.amistore.net using OWB (included in the Extras for AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition) to download the AmiStore program. After it is installed I logged onto it as me so I could start installing the programs I bought for the X1000 previously, to reinstall them on AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition:


Of course the first order of business was upgrading the Radeon HD Lite driver to the full Radeon HD 12.4 driver - I downloaded it to my X1000 from AmiStore:


Once saved to RAM: by the download install wizard, the Installation of the driver is simple enough - run the Install_RadeonHD icon in the extracted folder in RAM: and follow the prompts:


I then was able to select my preferred 1920x1080 32 bit colour screen mode again:


Now I have my HD screen again on the X1000:


After some more work reinstalling my applications and settings onto my X1000 things are taking shape on the X1000 - I have also restored my dual display configuration (by copying the dev/monitors folder from my AmigaOS4.1.6 installation to the dev/monitors folder on the new install.

Here are some more screenshots as my work progresses...showing AmigaAmp3 with ExpensiveHifi Skin applied, SMTube (Qt Application) and Cute Piano (QT Application), and the new tabbed Shell (click to expand any photos for more detailed look):


Another shot of Final Edition running AmiPDF, Final Writer 97 (Classic Amiga application running native on AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition), and Cubic IDE with Hollywood Plugin (and example Hollywood program being edited):


On my other display (now configured as dual display) is the DOpus 5.9 screen as I had on AmigaOS4.1.6 before, running Odyssey web browser and Digibooster Pro 3 on that screen:


I have Odyssey, Timberwolf, AmiCygnix, QT, MPlayer (and GUI), DOpus 5.9, Codebench and more installed already, but more to go yet before my system has everything I was using under AmigaOS4.1.6! I am working hard to get everything installed on the X1000 ready for the Adelaide Amiga User Group get together on January 19th - can't wait!

The X1000 Dual display setup running AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition looks great already in my opinion!


Whew - covered a lot in this part. But we now have AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition installed on my X1000!

I am sure there will be more blog entries to come as I transfer and reinstall more of my applications onto the new installation and get to grips with AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition new features!

Playing Videos on AmigaOS4.1 using MPlayer-GUI by default

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One of my pet annoyances is a legacy AmigaOS3.x thing that all video files are still expected to be opened by Multiview by default under AmigaOS4.1. Multiview doesn't play most of these types of videos at all, or not well...there is a way to fix it to use MPlayer GUI all the time, and that is what I want to show you how to do!



I am aware you can do other functionality in DOpus 5.9 or DOpus 4 to change default viewers (it has it's own method), but this article focuses on how to change it for AmigaOS4.1.

So, to start with, in the System Drive, go to the Prefs drawer:


The drawer we need is Env-Archive, which is not visible by default, so right click in the Prefs drawer and Show All Files. Then you should see the Env-Archive drawer as below:
 

Inside the Env-Archive drawer we then need to find the drawer called Sys, as below:


Inside the Sys folder is a lot of Default icons (amongst other things) for various types of files and devices under AmigaOS4.1:


In our case, we want to view the Information (right Click > Information) for the def_video icon.

In the icon information window that comes up, switch to the Icon Tab as below:


Here you can see that Multiview is set as the default.

I really like using MPlayer GUI (by Deniil 715) to control MPlayer on my X1000. You can download it from os4depot here if you don't already have it installed. I am also assuming you have Live For It MPlayer installed already too, which you can also download from os4depot here.

What I want is for all videos to open up and play automatically in MPlayer-GUI.

To do this, to start with we need to change the Default Tool field for this Def_video icon to use MPlayer-GUI, as shown below:

 

You should also repeat these steps for def_asf, def_avi and def_wmv icons in the Sys drawer too.

Next I run the MPlayer-GUI program. I switch to the GUI tab, and select the options to:

* Iconify MPlayer-GUI when playing (not ticked in screenshot sorry!)
* Auto play on drag n drop, shift click and CLI start
* Do not start a new MPlayer-GUI when starting with arguments.



In the Video tab, I also have Composition turned on for Video output since I am running the Radeon HD v2.4 driver that supports it (available for purchase from AMIStore).


I also turn on the -cache option in the Extras tab, and add extra stuff into the Additional parameters field for optimisation as shown below:


For those unfamiliar with the keyboard options to use full screen, fast forward/rewind videos in MPlayer, the Keys tab in MPlayer-GUI shows these for quick easy reference.



So now I click on Save prefs and Quit MPlayer-GUI.

To test these changes, I pick a MP4 video in my Work:Videos drawer, and double click it:


It then launches MPlayer-GUI, which runs the video to MPlayer and minimises MPlayer-GUI to the Workbench:


I then tested an AVI video, which tests the changes made to the def_avi icon default tool, and it works perfectly as well:


I hope this tip is useful to people who want to be able to double click videos to view them in MPlayer-GUI (Mplayer) using AmigaOS4.1!


SMTube on X1000

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Today I wanted to take a look at SMTube, an application that uses QT 4.7, on the X1000.


SMTube is a program for AmigaOS4.1.6 or AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition by Ricardo Villalba that allows you to search YouTube.com for YouTube videos, play the videos, save the audio and/or video to your local system, and other features too! It was ported to AmigaOS4.1 by Guillaume 'zzd10h' Boesel.

You can download it from OS4Depot here.

The attraction of SMTube is the small compact uncluttered search interface without the need to run Odyssey or Timberwolf to use the YouTube website. It also bypasses the comments and ads spooled on YouTube before viewing videos! So just for that alone it is a great program already!


SMTube requires QT 4.7 to be installed on the X1000, also available on os4depot here. I have covered QT 4.7 initial installation previously on this blog here, and the updates to apply afterwards here.

In order to play YouTube content, SMTube uses a AREXX script to run MPlayer. This script requires some customisation to suit the X1000, so I wanted to show how this is done.

In the SMTube folder there is an Amiga folder. In there is a script file called PlayVideo.rexx. If you open it up in Notepad, you can make some changes to have SMTube operate at optimal performance on the X1000. First up is to get SMTube to use the faster Altivec version of MPlayer, as below:



The next step is to minimise the annoying console that appears when MPlayer runs:


And finally there is a MPLAYER_OPTIONS optimisation line (for graphics cards that support Overlay - which the X1000 does). You just need to uncomment it in the file (remove the /* and */) around the line so it looks like below:


When running SMTube, it will automatically load Most Relevant YouTube videos based on your country location (specified in AmigaOS4 - but can be changed as required within SMTube):


You can type in your search criteria into the search box on the bottom left of the program window and press Enter to bring up the results.

Next to the Search box is 4 icons - for Recordings, URL, Settings and About. There is also Forward and back buttons to go to the next/previous page of search results.

The Recordings button shows you any YouTube videos you have downloaded, or the audio from YouTube videos that you may have downloaded to your local system. (more on this in a moment)


You can double click on these recordings to view them in MPlayer - below I have the Amiwest 2014 Show floor video playing (click to expand to full size):


Under the Settings button on the main window, you can specify the Recordings location on your hard disk, the quality (high - 1080p, low 360p) of the videos to download when saving recordings, the playback quality when playing back in MPlayer, the region you come from to provide search results for Most Relevant section of SMTube, and Period of Time to search on:


I changed the download location to /Work/Videos. Note the folder syntax is not standard Amiga syntax (which would be Work:Videos). Be careful with this. Click OK to save.


When you click the About button on the main window of SMTube you you get the version number, updates location and other author/translator information.


The Enter URL button on the main window allows you to enter a specific URL for a YouTube video you want to record. This is useful if you have been sent a link on Facebook, Twitter, IRC, Email or similar, and just want to copy and paste the URL into SMTube to record the video to your local system - very handy:


On the main SMTube window, you can right click on any video to see the options available - which are to Play Video, Record video, Record audio, Watch on YouTube (website) and Copy link.


If I select Record Video, it then brings up the Recordings window and shows me the progress in downloading the selected video to my X1000:


You can of course also stream the videos direct from YouTube using SMTube by double clicking on the video in the search results - an example video is shown below (click to expand):


SMTube is a great program, is free, has lots of good features and I now use it in place of the YouTube website on my X1000. Recommended! :-)

New Shell in AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition on X1000

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One of the new features in AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition is an upgraded Shell (Console). Today I wanted to take a closer look at this on my AmigaOne X1000!


By default in AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition, when you run the Shell you will get the standard Shell interface carried over from AmigaOS4.1.6, but now with tabs visible at the top of the Shell:


 If you right click in the Shell window, you can see there are plenty of options to explore (click to expand any photo):


If I select Project > New Shell from the right click menu, I now get a new tab within the current Shell window with another shell running:


You can click on the tabs to switch between the running Shells. In addition you can also right click in the Shell Window and select View > Prev Shell or View > Next Shell to switch tabs (keyboard shortcut Amiga + < and Amiga + > also work to switch to the next or previous tab):


In the right click menu under View you can also select Select.., which pops up a window of currently open Shell tabs to select from - once selected it will switch to that tab:


Under Right click menu in the Extras option, there is a Help option. When selected, you get a helpful Amigaguide document that explains the new features and how to use the Shell (Console):


Controls and Keyboard shortcuts are also covered well in this help documentation:



Ok, so lets now take a look at more of the customisations we can do in the new Shell. Right click on the Shell window and select Settings > Edit..


The Shell (Console) Preferences window then appears as below:


Time to play! First of all I will change the Text Font from the default to aix/15 by select the Ff button under Text Font to select it from the list of fonts available on the system. I also select the ClickTab Labels section and put in Epsilon - this will then label the tab as Epsilon:


Here is the resultant Shell after I click Save:


Opening a new shell - Right click Project > New Shell, then replicates the same settings as the previous Shell window had:


Ok, so let's go back to the Console Preferences window again (Right click, Settings  > Edit..). I will change the Cursor Style section next, changing the Cursor Type to Vertical Bar:


This gives the Shell a cleaner look in my opinion:



 Going back to the Console Preferences window again, I now select the Text Colours tab:


By default it uses System Pens as the default Palette - but there are other options - Full ANSI Colours, Faint ANSI Colours, and User colours are now available in the drop down selector:


So I select Full ANSI colours to start with, which alters the foreground and background colours available to select from:


A preview of the resultant Shell appearance is at the bottom of the tab, which is very helpful. When you select Save, the resultant Shell is now quite different:


Personally though, I don't like these colours. So back to the Console Preferences > Text Colours tab, I change the Background Colour to Blue and Foreground colour to White, as shown below:


Here is the resulting Shell:


I like this look, but decided to take a look at the IBM terminal green on black look for a retro feeling:


BTW when I click Save each time, I then type in cls to reset the Shell window - it doesn't show the changed colours in full until you do so:



Any new Shell window I open now inherits these settings:


But I decided to restore it back to the white on blue that I liked earlier:


Ok, so now let's take a look at the Completion tab on the Console Preferences window:


One of the features of the new Shell is TAB completion, which means that the Shell will autocomplete filenames and directory names as you type them in by pressing TAB. Where more than one entry has the same matching characters as those you have typed, press TAB again and again will cycle through the options.

It is very nice, and glad to finally have it in AmigaOS4.1 as a default Shell function.

In the Completion tab you can modify the behaviour of the TAB completion functionality so it allows you to tab through .info files, assigns (eg. S:), the sort order of tab completion (by default files first is the most common) and more - I added Show Assigns:


Example of tab completion is shown in the Shell sequence below - I start in the Shell by writing s: to cd to the s directory, and then type and a space:


When I press tab at this point, it allows me to tab through all files and folders in this location by continuing to press Tab until I get the one I want:



If I don't want tab anymore - I can backspace to remove the last result and do it again. In this case I wanted Shell-startup:


While I am talking about S:Shell-startup, I also can modify the appearance of the default prompt and add aliases for shell commands in this file. This is global and affects any Shell window you open. If you open it in Notepad you get the file as follows:


In this case I want to modify the Prompt in the shell so the current directory listed in the prompt is a little more clear - I insert [] -> into it as follows:


So once saved, I launch the Shell again, and the new prompt appears:



I like it, but of course you can customise however you prefer to have it!

If I go back to the Console Preferences window again, I want to change the behaviour of the TAB completion in the Completion tab. I change the Multiple Choices appear option to In a list. as below:


Now when I do TAB completion in the Shell, a small window pops up with all the choices to select. This is very nice as it saves tabbing multiple times to get the one you want:


Last, but not least is the Options Tab in the Console Preferences:


In here I can change the settings that keep a history of the shell commands I have typed (available by continuing to press up arrow on the keyboard in the Shell). You can choose to permanently save this history (which is normally lost when the Shell is closed) so the historical commands you types are always available to you. You change the Save history on exit option to do this - restarting the Shell is needed for this change to take efffect:


In the same tab you can also modify the Save Settings Options to save these settings for this Shell window, or for all future Shell windows, or this window and all future ones.


Going back to the Shell window, you can also close the current Shell tab from the Right Click > Project > Close Shell option as below - you can also select Close All to close all tabs:


Also in the same right click > Project menu is the option to iconify the Shell to an icon on the Workbench - useful to get it out of the way and double click on it again to restore the window when needed (you can also click on the iconify button on the top right of the Shell window):


The Console Preferences is also available in the Prefs window - you don't have to have the Shell open to access it:


The final bit I will look at in regards to the Shell is changing it's launch window size and title.

The Shell program itself is located in the System:System folder. Right click on the Shell icon and select Information as below:


In the Information window for the Shell, select the Icon tab:


In the tool types section we can change the size of the default Shell window and the title of the Shell window, amongst other things:


Having changed the Shell title window, I am now happy with a new Shell theme for my AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition setup on the X1000:



I hope this look at the new upgraded Shell in AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition is useful! There is certainly many new features.

Adelaide Amiga Meeting Jan 2015

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Last night (January 19th) I attended the Adelaide Amiga Meeting, held at Clarence Park Community Centre from 7:30pm. It was a great night!



Above is Andrew Wilson and George (AmigaMan101) preparing the room with a big Amiga banner! Andrew Wilson is an Adelaide-based developer of the Phoenix A1000 Motherboard replacement and memory expansion modules.

The Adelaide Amiga Meeting was held in the Black Forest Room. There is a regular user group meeting each Monday evening at 7:30pm at this venue too, apparently with a mix of PC, C64 and Amiga users present:



I brought Michael (MickJT) along, and he brought his SAM440 AmigaOS4.1 system with him to display:


In addition, George had brought along his Amiga 500 and Amiga 1000 for the meeting:



Melanie (from the Play it Again Project) was also present, keen to chat to us about our memories of Australian made games in the 1980's as part of her ongoing project. It was very interesting to hear her talk about her project in detail. You can read more about that project on her website here.


I brought along my AmigaOne X1000, which proved quite an effort to pack, unpack, repack and unpack again! But it was worth it because it certainly received a lot of attention from attendees on the night.


I also brought the latest Amiga Future magazine for attendees to flick through to see that Amiga is still very much alive in 2015.

We had plenty of questions about this strange new AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition version - who is Hyperion, can we run Amiga games on this new system, why do we still muck around with Amigas in 2015 - and so on! It was great to see people's genuine enthusiasm and interest in the Classic and Next Gen Amigas on display.


MickJT was certainly busy showing off what his Sam440 system could do!


Not since AmiWest 2014 have I been surrounded by so many Amiga systems so I was very glad to talk Amiga with fellow enthusiasts again, this time in my home city!


This Amiga 1000 has a Phoenix Memory expansion module attached - you can see an Amiga 1200 in the background too:


Cameng and MelbourneBen talking about the Amiga 1000:


The Amiga 1200 was rather special, being one of the Amiga 1200's Petro has personally signed - it is in perfect condition:


At the meeting an ACA1231 accelerator was fitted to the Amiga 1200 - it also has a CF card installed which was purchased from AmigaKit.


Ian (below, left) is also an AmigaOne X1000 owner based in Adelaide (wow, there is more than one!), and was very keen to discuss the latest developments and setup hints and tips for the X1000:


Another view of my AmigaOne X1000 on display at the Meeting:


I was surprised that there was a mix of attendees, young and older:


Andrew Wilson and George:



As mentioned, Andrew Wilson, Adelaide-based developer of the Phoenix A1000 Motherboard replacement and memory expansion modules was at the meeting too.



Andrew explaining the features of the Phoenix A1000 memory expansion board:



It was very interesting to hear about the development of the Phoenix A1000 board, it's expandability and features.


The Phoenix Motherboard up close:



My AmigaOne X1000 got plenty of interest and I fielded lots of questions from Amigans curious to know more about modern Amiga systems, AmigaOS4, Amigakit and A-EON too:



I also opened up the X1000 so people could take a look at the Motherboard and setup internally:


Also set up at the Meeting was an Amiga 1000 and Amiga 500:


Here, MickJT explaining some of the finer points of AmigaOS4.1:


Andrew was very kind to give a lot of his technical knowledge of the Amiga Phoenix motherboard.

He also explained a bit more about the story behind the approach from members of A1K forum to purchase some Phoenix Motherboards (PCB only) from him back in 2005 to turn into full functional Amiga boards again.




Andrew also brought along some flyers and club magazine from the original Adelaide Amiga user group from back in the day:



MelbourneBen had brought along some Amiga 2000 expansion cards he recently got, including this OpalVision card (made in Australia) which I hadn't seen before:



This second A1000 brought to the meeting was a bit unwell, but thanks to Andrew and some work on the night, it was brought back to life again:



The Adelaide Amiga Meeting 2015 was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed spending time with other Adelaide based Amiga enthusiasts. We probably had about 15-20 people during the evening (wasn't counting) which was great to see. I think if it were held on a weekend you would see even more come!

The show wrapped up around 10:30pm when we packed up and headed home. I had almost lost my voice after so much intense Amiga discussion during the evening!

I want to thank George (Amigaman101) for his work to get this Adelaide Amiga meeting off the ground, Andrew for his interesting presentation of the Phoenix Motherboard, and of course all the other attendees who brought their Amiga's along for a fun evening!

Dockies with AmigaOS 4.1.6 and Final Edition on X1000

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Today I want to take a look at some Dockies using AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition on the X1000.


So what are Dockies? Basically they are an interactive object that appears in an AmiDock toolbar on your Workbench screen. They can perform a lot of different functions as we will see.

By default, AmiDock has one Dock defined called MainDock, which is the one that appears at the bottom of your Workbench screen when you install AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition (or AmigaOS 4.1.6):


You can drag normal icons into the Dock to launch programs by clicking on them, or drag and drop files onto them to launch a file using the requested program. Eg. Dragging a music file onto AmigaAmp, a picture file onto Multiview or dragging a text file onto Notepad to edit it.

Dockies can provide interactive information above this basic functionality of icons in the AmiDock toolbar. Some like the Subdocks are well known to AmigaOS4.1 users already - for example the Extras and Internet sub docks shown below - which allow additional icons to be added to them (via drag and drop or through prefs) which expand when clicked on in a Dock (click to expand).


Some examples of more advanced dockies are the AmiUpdate Docky (which animates a processing animation when searching for updates for your system), TuneNet App Docky (which displays the current song being played and basic control functions in the dock like play, stop, rewind, fast forward):


The Mixer and NemoSound docky allow you to quickly control the volume levels on input and output of sound through the sound card in the X1000 from the Dock.

There are more too of course - I am just scratching the surface here.

In addition to the ones above, the Z-Tools suite of programs by Zzd10h (available for purchase on AMIStore) has a number of useful tools that uses various Dockies to place information about your system, network, and graphics card at your fingertips on the Workbench.

The Z-Tools dockies go one step further by supporting MiniDock mode of operation. This requires a little more explanation.

MiniDock mode means that the objects used are resized to a much smaller size than a standard AmigaOS icon size used in a normal Dock, making it possible to size a AmiDock Dock to fit snugly inside the Workbench Title Bar at the top of the screen (or elsewhere).

This is similar functionality to the Mac OS X Finder title bar, where icons are made available in a similar manner, unlocking extra information when clicked on. An example MiniDock I have setup in AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition is shown below (CPUDock is showing in this case - click to expand):



In the AmiDock preferences (available from clicking the down arrow and selecting Edit Preferences  - next to the Amidock default MainDock on the Workbench) you can add additional Docks, which you can configure for use in MiniDock mode.

In the example below I am adding a new Dock called TitleDock that I plan to use for the MiniDock icons in my Workbench title bar space - Below I have created the New TitleDock on the Left (Click Add to do this) and then added the various Objects (Dockies) I want installed in the Objects heading (again, click Add to add them in individually).


Note I have included Separator.docky dockies (which are in Sys:Utilities/Dockies) between each object for cleaner appearance in the Titlebar. This is not required, but I think it looks better with it - personal choice though!

Important thing if you want the toolbar to exist in the workbench Titlebar is to uncheck the option in AmiDock at the bottom of the Preferences screen above to Respect screen titlebar. This then allows Docks to be positioned in the titlebar - otherwise this is not allowed.

Moving on to the Layout tab for my new TitleDock, I then change some of the default options as below: no Snap to defined, and Dock is Borderless checked on. For the Orientation option, use Horizontal. Ensure Placement option is set to Always on top. In this tab, ensure the Dock has drag bar option is kept initially until the new TitleDock is positioned where you want it and saved - then remove it as below for a clean look. You can always put the drag bar back from this screen if you need to move it again because you added another dockie(s) to it:


Moving to the Appearance Tab, we need to ensure the TitleDock Icon Area option is fully transparent so it looks right on the titlebar it will be placed on top of, as below.


I didn't change the Misc tab but it is included for completeness:


Note that back in the Contents tab you can use the up and down button below the Objects section to move icons order around in the new Dock until you are happy with their location before hitting Save:


This is not the end of the configuration though. Next, we need to edit the Information on the individual Dockies - to activate MiniDock mode of operation - at the moment the icons will appear normal size until these next steps are done. For each of the Z-Tools docks, modify them as follows:

RamDock.docky, CPUDock, NetDock and GFXDock need MINIDOCK=ON and INFO_WINDOW_DISPOSITION=BW set in the respective docky icon Information > Icon Tab > Tool types section - which tells the docks to display the information for the dock just below the Workbench title bar and use MiniDock mode for the objects displayed in the Dock:


Note that after changing these settings - the resulting TitleDock may not be aligned as you want in the Title bar - it wasn't for me either. This requires a bit of mucking around with positioning on the screen with the drag bar enabled to get it where you want it. Once you have it where you want it - uncheck the drag bar option as mentioned before and Save it's position.

Remember also that the drag bar is included in the position of the Dock. When removed it shifts the dock that distance from the position you had before - allow for that when positioning prior to saving it without it so it is where you want it.

CPUDock is the first docky in the TitleDock that results from all the settings above - it shows the CPU usage as a percentage and current running tasks when the minidock icon is double clicked on:


RAMDock is the next one - showing detailed look at the memory used, free and total available, and a updated historical graphical view of the usage:


The GFXDock docky is next up, showing the current Graphics card screen resolution, memory usage and total available.


The NetDock shows the data uploaded/downloaded amount and speed, total uptime and the historical data transferred in graphical format.


I also added SmartDock.docky, which I downloaded from os4depot.net here, which allows you to report on the health status of your SMART enabled hard disk (assuming your hard disk is SMART enabled).

I configured it as below for my SMART reporting enabled Western Digital Hard Disk only - my other hard disk is not SMART enabled:



Below is the resulting TitleDock on my Workbench TitleBar with SmartDock added in:


Note that the time clock on the right is not part of the dock, but a separate program I run in my wbstartup called Digiclock (download from os4depot.net here). I positioned the TitleDock so it fitted nicely with it on the right hand side of the Workbench title bar and looks more integrated.

Here is the SmartDock extra information when moving the mouse over the icon in the TitleDock - click to expand:


I then added WinBar.docky (download here), utilising a new Dock I created in AmiDock preferences (similar to the above TitleDock (but using Vertical Orientation instead of Horizontal) to allow me to scroll through and select the active programs and screens from what is currently running on my Workbench - click to expand:


Here is a closeup view of the WinBar docky running on the Workbench - you can see that the DOpus 5.9 screen running on the other display is switchable from here with a simple mouse click:


I then moved the dock to the bottom right corner of the screen to keep it out of the way, but easy to get to when I want to easily switch screens or programs (click to expand):


Previously I had looked at the LittleBrother Docky too on my blog here under AmigaOS4.1.6, which is another example of an interesting docky, for live webcam views on your Workbench from sites around the world! This docky is now available as part of the Z-Tools Suite on AMIStore. The blog post I linked already covers the detailed configuration of Little Brother, so I just include some of the images of the setup here for interest of what it looks like:




There are plenty more dockies out there to explore, and investing some time in the readme for each dock is worthwhile, to get them working for you the way you ideally want them to!

Dockies can add a lot of functionality to the Workbench, with information and programs quicker to access, and more detailed information available too.

I hope this information is useful and inspires you to try out more dockies on AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition or 4.1.6 on your X1000!

ABC iView TV with AmigaOS 4.1 FE on X1000

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In Australia, our free national TV broadcaster ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) has a internet tv viewing service called iView. Today I want to take a look at iView v2.4 for AmigaOS4.1 Final Edition on the X1000.



The iView v2.4 program for AmigaOS4.1 is written by my fellow local Adelaide resident Michael "MickJT" Trebilcock. It is available to download from OS4Depot.net here.

This program is needed as the ABC iView functionality on their website requires Adobe Flash, which is not available on AmigaOS4.1, and likely will never be. Hopefully ABC will upgrade their website to use HTML5 to view such content in the future and then this program will no longer be needed!

For now though, iView for AmigaOS 4.1 is essential to view ABC iView programs!

I did some new version 2.4 testing on this program this past week as there have been some changes to the ABC iView service since the previous v2.3 AmigaOS4 program was released, that affected the programs ability to download content - this has now been corrected in 2.4 and works well.

I should caution that this iView program is only really useful if you live in Australia or use an Australian proxy, since iView does active geoblocking of almost all of it's internet tv content to Australian based viewers only.

It is a Shell based program utilising AREXX to run, but it is easy enough to use - I will describe how to use it in this blog post.

Extract the archive to the drawer of your choice. I recommend putting it on a drive with lots of space since tv programs will be downloaded to the drawer while iView is running.

Here is the contents of the iView drawer, it can run on AmigaOS4.1 or AmigaOS3.X also - hence the 68k and PPC folder are visible - but here I will focus on AmigaOS4.1 only:


There is also a iView.readme which is extracted separate to this folder, which explains the features and how to use the program.


Open a Shell and cd to the iView drawer. Then type RX iView and press Enter. (I used tab complete so it automatically added the .rexx but you don't need to type that part). It will attempt to connect to the iView service on the internet. All going well, After pressing enter again to accept the terms and conditions you should then see the following prompt:




You can choose to download the ABC News 24 live stream, or choose from the available tv programs to download from iView. Here we will choose the second option, which gives us the menu of which tv program category we want to view. I select 3. Comedy, which then loads the list of available tv programs:


There are quite a few shows to choose from:


I am a huge fan of the Show no. 28, so I select this option. It then prompts me below with a list of available episodes to download:


I select Option 1 to view the first episode in the list (which is the most recent). It then starts downloading to the iView folder as below:


Once it is downloaded the program will go back to the Episode list menu to download the next one if you want, or you can go back to the previous menu or Main Menu. For now I leave it there.

In our case, we now want to view the show we downloaded, so I fire up MPlayer-GUI and select the file downloaded:


Of note is that the subtitle track is also downloaded, so you can also specify that in MPlayer-GUI  in the SubTitle field if you want subtitles on the program while you watch - great stuff! The downloaded show works well:


 I then went back to the category menu in iView and went into Option 8. Lifestyle to download another show I really enjoy:


Again, I choose the first one in the list and then it starts to download it:


A progress indicator at the bottom of the screen shows the progress and the download is quick.


Having completed the download, I then open MPlayer-GUI and select the downloaded file in the iView drawer:



I then hit Play in MPlayer-GUI to get things underway - It works perfectly, and I laughed all the way through the episode as normal! :-)




I also tried out a few other shows, like the Local news bulletin and some other programs - it works well:


For the last part I went back to the Main Menu in iView and chose to view the ABC News 24 Live stream. Now this is a little bit different to pre-recorded programs since it is a live stream. I also need to choose the resolution of the video stream, matched to my internet connection speed - I have ADSL and high bandwidth works ok for me:


When it starts downloading the file, it will continue to do so until you CTRL-C the program in the Shell. To view it as a stream, run MPlayer-GUI, select the live stream flv file in the iView folder and hit play - it will continue playing as long as the download stream continues to download via the iView program running in the Shell. You can see this below:



The iView 2.4 program works great, although It would be nice to see a proper GUI written for it at some stage.

Also be aware that live show streams contained in the pre-recorded show category listing in iView do not work at present with iView for AmigaOS. (eg. Live Sports broadcasts)

The addition of the extensively re-worked menu system in iView 2.4 for AmigaOS (I tested this for the author) makes iView a very useful program for me now!

There are more features in the pipeline for the next version of iView for AmigaOS and I am looking forward to them!

The program is free, and it works well - I am glad to finally be able to watch live tv streaming from the internet on my X1000. :-)


HottiesView on X1000

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Recently I was looking around at various image viewers for AmigaOS 4.1 on os4depot when I noticed the release of HottiesView and thought I would give it a go on the X1000.



Despite the racy title, HottiesView (written by Massimiliano Scarano) is a command line based image viewer. You can download it from OS4Depot here.

Sorry for the lack of posts this month so far, but I have been unwell recently and unable to do much at all. I have been getting better recently so I put together another post!

An AmigaGuide help guide is there to get you started with the program and explains the command line switches and controls to move images around while viewing images.


The interesting thing here is the apparent ability to display up to 70 Megapixel images! Unlike other viewers it displays the images at their native size, rather than resizing them to fit the screen that you are using.

I imagine for people who need to look at native resolution photos in detail this would be very useful indeed.

You need to run the Shell and cd to the drawer where you installed HottiesView (in my case SYS:Utilities/HottiesView). inside that drawer is a bin drawer that contains the HottiesView executable program. If you plan to use the program a lot, I suggest copying HottiesView program to C: so it works whichever folder you are wanting to view photos from.

Because I run my X1000 dual graphics cards with 1920x1080 screen resolution, I need to specify this screen size on the command line so that the program uses the full resolution available.

eg. HottiesView <picture> SCRWIDTH=1920 SCRHEIGHT=1080


Rendering and displaying images using HottiesView is fast due to the GPU hardware accelerated rendering, and once on the screen you get a scaled version of the original image in the top left of the screen, and a scrollable (up/down/left/right) full size image filling the screen as below (click to expand):


I moved around the image a bit to show that it is indeed the full resolution picture, and not rescaled.


You can use the mouse and also the CTRL+scroll button on the mouse to navigate around the image, and press Q to quit back to the Shell.

Here is some other images I tried out with HottiesView, all of them above the standard 1920x1080 screen size being used on the X1000:



By the way the last picture is one I took of a warning poster about tobacco at a train station in Tokyo. Seriously, only in Japan. :-)

I did one more test photo - this one I took from inside the fully automatic driver-less Toneri Liner train in Tokyo - from the front seat:


 
There is the makings of a good program here in HottiesView, but I feel it needs a few things implemented before it can be used by the average everyday user like myself, and to be able to compete with other image viewers like LoView (which I showed here), MihPhoto (which I showed here), FastView and more that are already available for AmigaOS4.1.

My suggestions are:

1. A GUI is needed for any image viewer program.
2. Rescaling the images to fit the screen should be an option (without the preview image being present in the top left).
3. Wildcard processing of all images in a drawer as a slideshow.
4. For dual graphics card users like myself, the ability to choose which screen the output goes to.

Apparently the development of a GUI for this program and additional features depends on donations to the author, so any of these enhancements is potentially possible if we want them!

Amiwest 2014 Programming Seminar Day 1

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Today is my first full day here in Sacramento for Amiwest 2014!


Quite a few people are here already and luckily I have already spent quite a bit of time catching up at dinner and breakfast with people I had only met online before.

Enough of that though, here is some photos from the setting up of the programmers seminar.

Eliyahu has his Pegasos 2 here:




Sacc-dude setup is an Amigaone xe G4 800mhz system:






Steve Solie has his AmigaOne X500 system here too:



Tony, Brian and Steve chatting:


Andy, bill, tony, Brian chatting with Valiant's X1000 in the foreground:



Valiant's sam440 has some issues and he is working on it:



Paul 'Pjsx1k' has his sam440 system:


My Amigaos 4.1.6 classic build on winuae beta 20 running on my late 2013 macbookpro.


Exciting to have so many AmigaOS4 systems around today, with more to come the a weekend! Please come along to Amiwest this year - would love to meet all Amiga fans while I am here!


Ok, time to start learning now from Steve and Andy so I will do another update later!

My Amiga 1000 has arrived!

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Today I received my Amiga 1000!






Ever since I attended the local Adelaide Amiga Meeting in January this year, I wanted to get an Amiga 1000 again. I used to have one until about 10 years ago, when I sold it (along with a lot of other Amiga and various retro computer stuff) to fund my purchase of an Amiga 4000T (which I still have!).

The Amiga 1000 was the very first Amiga released, back in the mid 1980's.

This particular Amiga 1000 came up on Ebay recently, and it was a fair price so I got it. It is a bit yellowed on the keyboard especially, but fully functional - all the keys work:


The view of the rear ports on the Amiga 1000 - note the serial and parallel ports use opposite connector types to every other Amiga released - care needs to be taken here to avoid damaging the Amiga 1000 motherboard. The keyboard connector is a telephone connector type - also unique to this Amiga only:


The Amiga 1000 was made in Japan, unlike most of the Amiga models that followed (with the exception of the CDTV which was also made in Japan):


The back of the Amiga 1000 keyboard:


By default the Amiga 1000 comes with just 256k of memory! The memory expansion slot on the front of the Amiga 1000 allows an additional 256k expansion to be installed to being the total to 512k memory. As you can see, this Amiga 1000 has this expansion installed:


I connected it all up to make sure it works (with a RGB to SVGA Scan doubler attached externally), and sure enough, I soon got the Kickstart Disk prompt:


View of the Amiga 1000 setup and running on my desk - the keyboard can slide underneath the Amiga 1000 case when not in use:


The person I bought this from said that the Kickstart and Workbench disks worked fine, but none of the game disks worked. The reason for the game issue became clear to me when I noted that the only kickstart disk included was a v1.1 kickstart!


Most games needed v1.2 kickstart minimum to work properly, which explains why the seller couldn't boot the game disks he sold with it. I will sort this out a bit further down this blog entry.

Unlike all other Amigas, the Amiga 1000 does not have a kickstart ROM included on the motherboard. Instead, the kickstart is loaded from disk on each power on. There were Kickstart disks for v1.1, v1.2 and v1.3, with a few rare and older variants as well.

For now, the v1.1 Kickstart disk included does boot fine on the Amiga 1000, and soon I got the familiar Workbench disk prompt:


I then booted the V1.1 Workbench disk. Have to admit it has been a very long time since I have seen a V1.1 Workbench!


Close up view (sorry for crappy iPhone screen photo quality):


Having determined the Amiga 1000 worked, the next priority was to make a v1.3 Kickstart disk. When I sold my Amiga 1000 ten years ago, I included all the Kickstart disks with it since I assumed I wouldn't need them anymore. Heh, feeling stupid now.

So now I needed to create a new kickstart disk. Fortunately there is an easy way to do this via a program called WriteKickDisk (available on AmiNet here). This needs a Classic Amiga and does not work on the X1000 (I did try it though).

Using my Amiga 4000T, I then ran WriteKickDisk to transfer a Kickstart 1.3 ROM file (copied from my A2000 using a program called GrabKick) to a floppy disk:



So now I am ready to try my new Kickstart 1.3 disk on the Amiga 1000. I power off the Amiga 1000 so it prompts to load the Kickstart disk again:


..and Voila! It works. Kickstart 1.3 now up and running on the Amiga 1000:


Now I can load up the various game disks included with the Amiga 1000 which the previous owner couldn't get to work - Ghouls N Ghosts is shown below - works fine now:


As most Classic Amiga fans would know, it is very desirable to have 1MB memory in an Amiga - 512k is a bit limiting and many games don't run on less than 1MB.

Accordingly I have found and purchased a 512k memory expansion module for the Amiga 1000 that plugs into it on the right hand side connector. This will then give the system 1MB of memory. This right hand side connector is the same as the Amiga 500 Expansion connector, except that it is flipped around as it is on the right side (on the A1000) versus the left hand side (on the A500).


So expansion cards intended for the Amiga 500 can in theory be used in the Amiga 1000 by flipping them around - but there are many exceptions to this rule and physical restrictions depending on the expansion casing used!

I haven't received the 512k expansion module yet, and look forward to trying it out when it arrives!


I am also keen to see if Individual Computers releases the promised ACA1000 expansion to allow A1200 accelerators and Hard disk CF cards on the Amiga 1000, like the ACA500 does for the Amiga 500. That would be awesome!

I will clean up the Amiga 1000, and then take a peek inside the case another time as well to see what version of the motherboard is inside this Amiga 1000.

Potentially this Amiga 1000 system is a good candidate for a Gotek or HxC USB/SD floppy controller in place of the normal floppy drive to load games on it, in the absence of a hard disk or other accelerators to run hard disk based games. It would also make booting the kickstart disk each power on much less tedious. I even may try this out next!


AmiWest 2014 - Friday night Classic Clinic and X5000 Cyrus running

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On Friday evening the AmiWest 2014 show kicked off with the Classic Clinic, where people could get their Classic Amiga equipment repaired.

At the same time the X5000 system running AmigaOS4.1 (showed in my earlier post) was fired up and shown in public for the first time!


Here Matthew from AmigaKit is getting things up and running, showing the boot sequence and updated u-Boot menu:


The new Early boot menu is done in the Workbench 3.1 style:


The System Info option shows the detailed information about the X5000 system:


Interesting is the option to Start AmigaOS or to Start Classic AmigaOS. I asked Matthew what the Classic AmigaOS option did but was told it was a interesting surprise - I guess we will hear more about this:


Here, Steve Solie and Matthew are discussing all things X5000:


AmigaOS4.1 booting up on the X5000:


This is the composite 3D demo running on the X5000:


Eldee (eliyahu), Matthew, Steve Solie and Ken (sundown) looking at AmigaOS4.1 running on the X5000:


In addition to the X5000, the Classic Clinic was also running at the same time, with a sick A4000 and sick A3000T being worked on while I was there:



Daniel from SACC was helping out with spare parts during the Clinic:


Mike Brantley and Andy (broadblues) chatting:


Classic Clinic was quite busy, with the clinic still going at 11:30pm!


Sick A3000T:


Bill (tekmage) needs help with his A4000D:


Very interesting evening. Quite a number of us (including me) went out to dinner on Friday night at a local Italian Restaurant:


Dave (AmigaDave - moderator at Amiga.org) was at the dinner also:


Steve Solie with the ever present finger!


 Tony got his chance to have the pie again that he had at this same restaurant at AmiWest last year! Thanks Paul (pjs) for taking this photo:


Time for bed - well after midnight here now in Sacramento. The show proper kicks off at 10am Sacramento time on Saturday! Plenty to do in the morning so catcha later.

Memory Expansion for my Amiga 1000

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I am pleased to say that today I received my 512k external memory expansion for my Amiga 1000!


As I mentioned in my previous blog entry about the Amiga 1000, this Amiga has 512k of memory in it already, but with this new external expansion it now has a total of 1MB memory!

I bought the expansion card module from Ebay - it was AUD$50 from memory. 
(just realised that was a terrible pun after writing it - sorry!)

The seller packed it very well indeed.

Here is a closer look at the expansion plugged in and running - it was a relief that it worked:


As you can see it connects to the Amiga 1000 right hand side expansion connector port, which is covered by a plastic cover you can see on the desk below the installed expansion card.

The memory card has a green light to show it is on - plus it also has a red flashing light whenever it is used too! I am a little curious about why it needs that! Seems like overkill but at least I know it works!

I booted up a v1.3 kickstart disk and then the Amiga Workbench 1.3 disk to show the extra memory:



Excellent! Now I can run games and demos that need a 1MB Amiga to run - such as the TRSI Wicked Sensation demo as shown below:


Before the upgrade this screen said I needed 1MB memory to run the demo and stopped. Now it shows my new memory expansion and chip memory totals 1MB and then demo now runs:


Here is some screenshots from the demo running:



I know having 1MB on an Amiga is not such a big thing, but finding a suitable 512k external expansion card for an Amiga 1000 is not as easy as it used to be! I am very glad to have it on my Amiga 1000!

I have ordered an Indivision ECS adapter card for my Amiga 1000 too, and look forward to trying it when it arrives! Unlike other Amiga models, the Amiga 1000 needs a special adapter card to be able to install a separate Indivision ECS card into it. Initially I will try my Amiga 600 Indivision ECS card in it first to make sure it works! Then I may invest in another Indivision card for the Amiga 1000 to keep permanently.

I have no idea where I can wire the VGA connector to on the rear of the Amiga 1000 case though! One problem at a time I guess! Any suggestions please let me know!

I am also interested in trying the Amiga 1000 Sidecar (PC) expansion if I can get one that works on Australian power (US power is different)...there are quite a few upgrades I can try out on the Amiga 1000 which is great! If any of you have interesting upgrades for the Amiga 1000 that work and you are willing to part with please let me know! :-)

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