====================================================================== ________ _________ ____ _|__ __ __|_______ _________ __\ _____ \\\\ \_ _/ //___// _____//______\ _____ \\ // \\\\ /. \\\\__ \/ __// \\ \\____. /// \\\\ /. \\ \\___\¯ /___///___\ /___\ \\_________//\\___\¯ /___// ¯ \/ ¯ ¯ \/. |¯ ¯|z!o ¯ ¯ \/ ¯ A M I G A | 040630 | U P D A T E |________| "SO THE WORLD MAY KNOW" ====================================================================== AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- O S 4 . 0 P R E - R E L E A S E T O D E V E L O P E R S O S 4 . 0 U P D A T E F R O M H Y P E R I O N N E W H Y P E R I O N W E B S I T E A M I G A A L P E A D R I A A L M O S T H E R E ! A M I W E S T T I C K E T F O R M T W O N E W V E R S I O N S O F P A G E S T R E A M M O R E S V I E W I V F R E E W A R E V I R U S Z I I I U P D A T E D L A T E S T F R O M W I N U A E M A L I B U 1 . 1 P L U G I N I S O U T P I C S H O W F O R O S 4 , O T H E R S T H E L A T E S T F R O M . . . C O M M O D O R E ? Editor's Thoughts and Introduction: June was a busy month in the Amiga community, as the variety and nature of the stories below will show. The most important event, of course was the arrival of the OS4.0 "pre-release" in the hands of developers. It's hard to over-emphasize how important that is to the Amiga community. All involved deserve a hearty "well done!" from the rest of us. But there's no rest for the good guys. On now to the general release to the rest of the Amiga world! We also picked up on an interesting rumor. As most Amigans know, Commodore has been resurrected after a fashion by Tulip Computers. The rumor involves the "new" Commodore marketing Amiga One computers under the name "Commodore Amiga". It's enough to make your head spin if true. We haven't found any indication that this rumor IS true, but it IS fun. Speaking of Commodore, we thought you might be interested in knowing what they're up to so they're the subject of our last story this time around. And while we're talking about non-Amiga news that might be of interest to Amigans anyway, we came across the following in the June 18 issue of "Linux Pipeline": "In Germany, the Brandenburg Cabinet, a regional governmental body, approved a five-year strategic plan that approves the concept of open-source software for government use as being "modern und innovative." The Brandenburg action followed another move this week in Munich, where the decision was made to move some 14,000 computers gradually from Microsoft software to Linux-based open-source programs. The process is scheduled to be completed in 2009, and the Munich city council earmarked $42 million to carry out the plan. "Elsewhere in Europe, Bulgarian politicians in Sofia criticized Microsoft in a press conference, noting that the European Community's antitrust regulatory agency had found the company guilty of antitrust violations. Microsoft has denied the allegations. "And, in Bergen, Norway, governmental officials moved to install Linux on servers, utilizing SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8, replacing Windows and Unix products." You can read the entire article at: http://www.linuxpipeline.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=22100903 Theres lots of fun this issue in our opinion. We hope you enjoy it. Brad Webb, Editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E-mail to the E-ditor: The following note was received this month, coming as a result of recent letters from readers asking about the Video Toaster. Brad. 1 June, 2004 HI! We've been a NewTek dealer for the last 14 years. NewTek is still offering repairs (the last time I checked for a customer for free) on Toaster and Flyer cards. I don't know if they have software available but my guess is that they only have the last version (4.x) and it's on CD. If the person who wrote in needs it on floppies we might be able to get him copies. The biggest problem we've seen in getting Amiga Toaster systems running is usually they have a bad Amiga part and those are hard to find replacements for (and NewTek has never done repairs on Amigas). We've pretty much stopped doing repair because of this problem. Since the person who wrote in gave no specifics it's hard to tell whether ourselves, or any one else, can get the system running again. They're welcome to call and speak with us if they like although I make no guarantees. Our phone number is 812-330-0124 (Tues. - Sat. 10-6EST or they can e-mail me at kkuntz@digarts.com. Thanks, Kris Kuntz - owner Digital Arts Bloomington, IN -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= O S 4 . 0 P R E - R E L E A S E T O D E V E L O P E R S Leuven, Belgium - June 5th, 2004 Hyperion Entertainment is proud to announce that the Developer-prerelease of AmigaOS 4.0, the PowerPC reimplementation of the original Multimedia Operating System, is right now being shipped to end users. We invite all pre-Release customers to register their copy of AmigaOS 4.0 to unlock additional downloads and updates from our download area. Amiga OS 4.0 © 2004 Hyperion Entertainment, developed under license from KMOS, Inc. All rights reserved. "Amiga" and associated trademarks are registered trademarks of Amiga, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- O S 4 . 0 U P D A T E F R O M H Y P E R I O N 8 June, 2004 By Hans-Jörg Frieden, Hyperion Entertainment With the Developer Pre-release finally out, the time is right for a status report on the current state of AmigaOS 4.0. The huge amount of work invested into the project by a lot of dedicated developers means that there has already been substantial progress since the pre-release. Some of the 68k components of the pre-release have in the meantime been ported to PowerPC code. The most prominent of these are Picasso96 and MUI. While Picasso96 is still in alpha test among the developers, the PPC version of MUI is being beta-tested right now, and is expected to be stabilized soon. The kernel has also seen some updates. Among other things, it now supports a special resource called the performance monitor. The performance monitor is a hardware profiler within the CPU that allows the programmer extremely fine-tuned profiling of code, even including counting cache hits and misses,instruction timing, pipeline stalls, number of instructions patched, instruction throughput, and a lot of other factors. The performance monitor is controlled via performancemonitor.resource, which offers an easy-to-use API that wraps all this functionality into a few functions. Further improvements of the kernel include support for the Altivec unit. The Altivec unit is a SIMD vector processing unit. SIMD stands for "single instruction multiple data", meaning that a series of instructions is executed in parallel on multiple streams of data items. Altivec has a lot of uses, most prominently in 3D graphics, but also in image processing, signal processing, compression/decompression, and all general computing applications that inherently work by executing the same instructions on large datasets. Altivec support in the kernel isn't 100% stable yet, but is expected to be fully functional very soon. Moovid, the well-known media player, has now also been ported to PowerPC, and the results are quite spectacular. An Altivec-enabled version is also in the works. Moovid plays a wide range of movie codecs, including DivX. A lot of progress has also been made on the shared C library, newlib, and the static C library, clib2. Subsequently, there is now a new gcc compiler suite that runs up to six times faster than the compiler included in the SDK. Furthermore, since the final release of GNU C 3.4.0 has emerged, it has also been successfully ported to AmigaOS 4.0, and is now used for most components and programs. GCC 3.4.0 features a much better code generator than previous versions, much better support for ANSI C++, and implements the Motorola 'vector' extension for Altivec (meaning you can use types like 'vector unsigned char x' in your program to signify a vector for Altivec). One program that has seen a tremendous speed boost is AmiPDF. The new PowerPC version of AmiPDF is, depending on input, up to 60 times faster than the original version on the prerelease. Furthermore we expect a working serial device and floppy support soon. The USB stack is shaping up as well. It now supports HID devices like keyboards and mice as well as HID joysticks and steering wheels, and USB mass storage devices like USB sticks, flash card readers, 7-in-1 card readers and cameras. The A1 IDE device now has working UDMA support. Also, interrupts are no longer polled but delivered properly. This means that the device does not require any CPU time for transfers. Currently, work concentrates on performance optimization. Results look quite good already, and stress tests have shown the device to be 100% reliable - no data corruption occurs This material will in due course be released for download to registered users of the Developer Pre-release on our web site at: http://www.hyperion-entertainment.biz ---------------------------------------------------------------------- N E W H Y P E R I O N W E B S I T E Leuven, Belgium - June 5th, 2004 Hyperion Entertainment is proud to announce that our new web site is now online. The new site can be reached at www.hyperion-entertainment.biz. The new site features an all-new dynamic content system that allows registered users to login on the front page. Logging in will give users access to otherwise restricted areas of the web site, including more download options. New features will be added to the web site in the future. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A A L P E A D R I A A L M O S T H E R E ! 25 June, 2004 Amiga Alpe Adria, the annual alternative and classic computing get-together organized by our Italian Amiga Forever team, will take place in little more than a week in Udine, a beautiful town located between Venice and the Alps. The event home page is at http://0xAA.org. The web site has just been updated with the latest flight and travel resources, links to cultural events, and exhibits information. It is now a very good time to take advantage of last-minute airline offers. Additionally, tickets are still available for concerts and performances which range from hip-hop superstars Cypress Hill (at the nearby Rototom Sunsplash festival), to Michael Flatley's Lord of the Dance, to Italian singer and songwriter Nek. This week's confirmed Amiga Alpe Adria guests include Ben Hermans of Hyperion (developers of Amiga OS 4.0), Christian Kemp (founder and maintainer of Amiga news site ANN.lu) and other Amiga personalities. Amiga Alpe Adria is free to all attendees, including exhibitors. Pre-registration is appreciated. The Amiga Alpe Adria web site includes additional details and contact information to assist visitors in their preparations and journeys. We hope to see you on July 3rd! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I W E S T T I C K E T F O R M 18 June, 2004 ======================================== TIME TO BUY YOUR TICKETS FOR AMIWEST2004 ======================================== Ticket prices for AmiWest 2004 are lower than last year's prices! We have a great, newly remodeled facility and we want YOU to come be a part of AmiWest 2004. So print this ticket form out and mail it to the SACC address (given below)! ASAP! AmiWest 2004,( July 24th & 25th ) Ticket Reservation Form Inn at the Oaks 2600 Auburn Blvd Sacramento, CA 95821 Your Name:______________________________________________________ Affiliation:______________________________________________________ Address:______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________ City:______________________________________________________ State/Province:_________________________ Postal(Zip) Code: __________ Country:_________________________ Email Address:______________________________________________________ Ticket wanted (Please Circle) TWO DAY PASS ONE DAY PASS: SAT SUN Do you want Banquet tickets (Circle One) YES NO Admission to AmiWest 2004 is: $10 (One Day Pass - paid in advance by July 12, 2004) $12 (One day Pass at the door) $15 (Full Show Pass - paid in advance by July 12, 2004) $18 (Full Show Pass at the door) One day passes will allow admittance to any FREE seminars on that day only. Seminar topics will be announced later. Banquet tickets are $28 per plate and MUST be paid in advance. Seating is limited and tickets are available on a first come, first served. Please fill out this form and remit with proper payment (US Funds Only) to: AmiWest 2004 c/o Chuck Washburn 7051 Dolan Way Citrus Heights CA 95621 USA Make checks payable to "AmiWest". A form must be filled out for each person attending the show although one check can be used. For more information you can contact AmiWest by email to: chela@calweb.com or bdeneen@calweb.com Phone: (916) 723-9846 Evenings ( California time ) Our WWW web page is: http://www.sacc.org/amiwest/ !!!!!!!!!!!! So remember, AmiWest 2004 is rolling! The facility is reserved and the vendors are notified! Keep watching for these releases and tell everyone that you know - the Amiga and the Amiga community is alive and well! !!!!!!!!!!!!! HOTEL CONTACT July 24th and 25th, 2004 At a new location in Sacramento, CA Inn at the Oaks 2600 Auburn Blvd. Sacramento California 95821 Hotel direct reservations: 1-916-487-7600 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- T W O N E W V E R S I O N S O F P A G E S T R E A M 16 June,2004 Grasshopper have announced two new releases of PageStream (their powerful DTP application) for all supported platforms including Amiga. New features of version 5 include: o Alpha Blending for Text and Objects o Picture Transparency o Text Widow and Orphan Control o Definable Printer Marks o More Shortcuts o Path Flatten and Smooth o Hanging Bullets, DropCaps and Number o New Duplicate Objects Method o and more! In addition the Pro edition can: o Place PDF Objects o Export Objects as Bitmap o Automatically Adjust Text Width Justify o Gradient/Radial Blend Masks for Pictures/EPS/PDF/Drawings o Path Math: Union/Add/Unique/Subtract o and more! The 68K Amiga version is expected later this month but you can order an upgrade or the full version now. Further details, prices and an on-line shop are available from the Grasshopper LLC website. http://www.grasshopperllc.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- M O R E S V I E W I V F R E E W A R E 2 June, 2004 Due to problems with Aminet upload, the SView5 keys now also are available for download directly from http://www.ar-kleinert.de 14 June, 2004 In addition to the key file, the PPC modules for SViewIV now also are freely available on Aminet (uploaded today). Previously, these only were available for registered PPC users. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- V I R U S Z I I I U P D A T E D 4 June, 2004 Changes since the last release: Fixed bug in Bootblock Lab which caused "Write" and "Install" to end up in a disk i/o error if "Ask Before Write Access" option was enabled. Thanks to Ronald Schakelaar for the bug report. Fixed password handling for encrypted archives: a correct password has already been remembered for all files before, but cancelling the password requester because you don't know the correct password would have caused new requesters for *all* files in the encrypted archive. Now VirusZ also remembers the cancelling and will simply report all following files as encrypted. Thanks to Thomas Tavoly for reporting this problem. Fixed bug that appeared after a sector check when checking disks that have the same name as their device (eg. disk labeled 'DF0' in device DF0:). Inhibit() is in fact a very simple DOS function that easily gets confused, so I added a little workaround for this problem. Thanks to Thomas Tavoly for the report and beta-testing. Added lots of snapshots sent by Michel 'DMX' Bagmeijer and Andreas Kürzinger. Thanks guys. Fixed bug in code calling disassembler.library: the library might have been opened several times but closed only once. Thanks to Michel 'DMX' meijer for the report. Fixed bug in preferences loader: the 'Display SegTracker Info If Available' options got switched off every time you (re)loaded the settings. Thanks again to Michel 'DMX' Bagmeijer for this report. Changed distribution from FREEWARE to MAILWARE as I need feedback for further development. Currently I have no idea at all how many active users are still out there... Visit the Denmark Virus Help Team Website for more information. http://www.vht-dk.dk/vhtdk/amiga/amiga.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- L A T E S T F R O M W I N U A E 6 June, 2004 New features include: new rtg.library, 20-30 times faster Picasso96 pixel read don't add contents of zip file to disk history if zip only contains one supported disk image file compatibility fix for buggy programs that access non-existing memory in CIA address space MIDI can be selected without serial port full collision level implemented correctly (game "Rotor") AVIOutput tweaks improved compatibility (Back in Bizness, Total Triple Trouble) Bugs in 0.8.26 fixed: JIT-only crash when loading state file or loading new config on the fly crash when loading config and directory or no config file was selected ports-page uninitialized joystick/mouse radio buttons ignore files not having .uae-extension when scanning configuration file directory GUI works now with non-96DPI fonts possible crash when starting emulator or inserting/ejecting disks JIT compatibility problems with some games (for example Alien Breed 3D II) debugger am-command "Priority=2!"-debug dialog disk image path/name text input Older bugs fixed: centering improved hardfile error "tried to seek out of bounds"-message when hardfile was too small or blocksize was set to zero fullscreen D3D/OpenGL-mode ALT-TAB fixed forever repeating "...because desktop is too small for the specified window size.." saving config: always add (if missing) ".uae"-extension to config file name "exter_int_helper: unknown native action xxx" Visit the WinUAE website for more information and forum links. http://www.winuae.net/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- M A L I B U 1 . 1 P L U G I N I S O U T 27 June, 2004 Version 1.1 of the Malibu plugin for Hollywood is out now. With this plugin, Hollywood can read and display Scala scripts. The following things are new in Malibu 1.1: - Support for curved fly-ons - Many new Scala effects are supported - General code optimizing; Malibu is faster now - Several bug fixes - More precise timing of Scala commands - Better support for very old Scala versions (Scala 1.0, MM200) - Better overall performance because of Hollywood 1.9 integration This update is free for all owners of Malibu and can be downloaded from the Airsoft Softwair homepage in the Malibu section. The update can be used with the AmigaOS3 and MorphOS binaries of Malibu 1.0. Please note that this update requires Hollywood 1.9. Malibu 1.1 does only work with Hollywood 1.9! http://www.airsoftsoftwair.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- P I C S H O W F O R O S 4 , O T H E R S 21 June, 2004 PicShow V1.31 Aos4 Native Released. Also versions for 68k, PowerUp, WarpOS, MorphOS are also included in the archive. New since Version 1.29: ======================= - AmigaOS4 native version - new version numbering (version 1.31 now has the internal version 31.x) - interpolation does no longer block the whole computer on Picasso96 (needs more memory) - option menu divided into two menus - picture list can be sorted by different criteria - functions to control PicShow's window size on the Workbench - new interpolation algorithms - crop functions - configurable user menu - and much more Available at:os4depot.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------- T H E L A T E S T F R O M . . . C O M M O D O R E ? {For old times' sake. Brad} Amersfoort, 18 June 2004 LEGENDARY BRAND COMMODORE IS BACK Commodore International B.V. (Commodore), a daughter company of Tulip Computers N.V. (Tulip Computers), introduces a new entertainment portal being CommodoreWorld. It is a distinctive combination of hardware, music, film, (retro) games and events via Internet for the whole of Europe. The new market approach of Commodore combines hardware under a single brand, with digital content and entertainment on a central website. For the whole of Europe, a wide range of hardware products in combination with various forms of digital entertainment is offered. Within CommodoreWorld, the customer can choose his personal combination of legal content and hardware. Music& Movies Within CommodoreWorld, Music & Movies will be providing a major contribution to the home entertainment concept. In the United States, the legal downloading of music and films is already very popular while in Europe this is a fast expanding market. CommodoreWorld offers the user access to the catalogue of both the major international record companies and the local disc companies, primarily in Europe. This will result in a highly varied offer of artists, which will reach the widest possible public. The catalogue will grow within a few months to an offer of at least 500,000 tracks. All tracks are provided with Digital Rights Management (DRM) based on Windows Media Audio (WMA) files. The user obtains the right to play music both on PC and on mobile equipment and to burn it on a CD. In addition to the legal downloading of music, Commodore will offer the possibility, in the longer term, to download also video clips and films. These can also be viewed directly on TV or computer or using a portable video player of Commodore. Games A number of classical C64 retro games will be available via the CommodoreWorld website. The games are offered legally, with the permission of the authors or licence holders. The offer will be considerably expanded in the next few months. Commodore is launching emulators on the market for PCs, pocket PCs and mobile phones, with also the possibility of mobile gaming. The games are expected to be available from 1 August 2004. Hardware Commodore offers a number of entertainment products. These include both new products and existing products in a modern version, such as the C64 DTV, a joystick with thirty classic retro games on it, such as: Summer Games, Winter Games, California Games and Impossible Mission. The joystick can be directly connected to the TV and is then ready for use. In addition, also the names of successful Commodore products, such as PET and VIC, are reappearing in new hardware. The line of hardware is composed of the Fpet (mobile data and music carrier), the Mpet (mobile data and music player) and the eVIC-20 (mobile jukebox with a 20 GB hard disc). This line will in future be extended with accessories, additional storage capacity, and with mobile video players for viewing films and clips. In addition to mobile solutions, Commodore will also launch contemporary home entertainment products on the market. The content for the selected products can be downloaded via the CommodoreWorld website. Media & Merchandising Via CommodoreWorld, furthermore, a broad range of various storage media will be available, among other things CDR, CD/RW and DVD-R. In addition, a range of products will be on offer including Commodore T-shirts, shorts, sweaters and other gadgets. About Commodore International B.V. Commodore International B.V. is a daughter company of Tulip Computers. The CommodoreWorld concept is developed in cooperation with a number licensee-partners amongst others Yeahronimo N.V. and Ironstone Partners Ltd. Through this joint effort Tulip Computers and its partners will strengthen their power to act and will limit the financial risks connected to the development and production of new products considerably. In addition the introduction of new products and /or services will be much quicker. The new and official Commodore web portal can be reached through www.commodoreworld.com =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Amiga Update on the net: All back issues available at: http://www.globaldialog.com/~amigaupdate/index.html Stop by and check out our archive! Now in our 11th year. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2004 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified. ====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ A M I G A /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ A M I G A U P D A T E /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ U P D A T E / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ amigaupdate@globaldialog.com ======================================================================