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[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] £4.00, 8.00Euro Issue 22, Winter 2005 What’s Inside Our Winter Wonderland? Amiga Forever 2005 Premium DVPlayer: OS 4 movie player AmiDisk: OS 4 native file manager World of Wi-Fi Plus: • OS 4 and MorphOS updates. • Big Bash 3 and Amigathering 6 reports. • Interviews. • Rexx Programmer’s Reference review. • Battle for Wesnoth review. • Optimising graphics memory tutorial. Broken Sword Contents News IBrowse Draws Closer News Editorial Bytes... W elcome to Total Amiga Adios Details of the long-awaited upgrade to IBrowse, one of the Amiga’s premier web browsers, have now been released and beta versions of the new release have been demonstrated at shows around the world. Version 2.4 is mainly a bug-fix release while the team concentrates on version 3.0 which will support newer web standards like CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) and the DOM (Document Object Model). Despite its minor upgrade status, the new version still promises many useful enhancements, an extensive list of which are available on the IBrowse web site. Probably the biggest item in the list is the new plug-in API which will enable developers to make software that integrates into web pages. The first example of this will be the Flash animation plug- in which will be supplied with IBrowse 2.4. This plug-in will enable IBrowse users to view many sites that use Flash animated content. The IBrowse team point out that their plug-in is based on an open source Flash player that does not support features of the more recent versions of Flash, however it should be a big improvement over no Flash support at all! A small improvement that is bound to win IBrowse 2.4 a lot of fans is the ability to open web pages in a background tab. This feature enables you to open a link in a new tab but have the tab you are currently viewing remain active, the new page then loads in the background so it is ready when you have completed reading the first page. Trust me, it’s really handy! Another minor enhancement is the addition of context-sensitive pointers, at last the IBrowse pointer will give you a clue if you are hovering over a text or image link. Under OS 4, IBrowse gains preliminary character set support, this means that pages which use other character sets such as those in Greek and Russian will now display correctly. The support is called preliminary because it only covers the web page itself and not aspects of the user interface such as form elements (buttons, text fields etc.) or page titles. The spoofing engine, which allows IBrowse to pretend to be another browser to fool brain dead web sites has been rewritten to be much more flexible which should improve compatibility. Javascript handling has been improved and for OS 4 users there is a PPC native version of the javascript.library which should substantially improve performance on Javascript heavy sites. Many other aspects of the browser have seen smaller enhancements and bug fixes. These include the HTML engine and table parser, cookie support, the internal GIF decoder and memory management. IBrowse 2.4 will be a free upgrade for version 2.x users, a paid upgrade for owners of older versions is expected. For further details, including a very extensive list of the hundreds of changes since 2.3, visit the IBrowse web site: Issue 22 Winter 2005 Prepares for Launch In the lead up to the release of Amiga OS 4.0, Hyperion are launching an official website for the operating system. We understand that the web site will probably be on-line by the time you read this and that an announcement will be made to the Amiga press when the site is launched. The new site also showcases the new-look OS 4 logo which we reproduce above. According to Hyperion, the website will grow over time to act as a central resource for both current and future users and licensees of Amiga OS 4. At the time of launch the website will contain three separate issue 22 and what a jam- packed issue we have for you this time (so much so that I’m squeezed into this tiny column)! Much of the buzz on the Amiga forums recently and at the Big Bash 3 show in Peterborough (see our report in this issue) has been about the Amy’05 PPC motherboard from a new company, Troika. We have been lucky enough to get an exclusive mini-interview with the people behind Amy’05 and some pictures as they gear up for production. So, if you haven’t already done so take a look now! Once you’ve taken that in, don’t forget that there’s much more in this issue! In particular there’s two more great interviews, the latest Amiga Forever release for retro fans and more on Wi-Fi. If you’re a US or Canadian reader, then you may notice that this issue has been posted from Canada. Greg Condon of the PANORAMA Amiga users group in Vancouver is now printing a second run of Total Amiga in Canada. This has enabled us to cut our subscription rates to North America by 25%! Thanks to Greg for his on-going effort to help readers in this region. We need your help to keep each issue as packed with varied and interesting content as this one... if you would like to contribute please contact me for details. Enjoy the mag! Robert Williams editor@totalamiga.org Garry introductions to the OS, each targeted at different groups of users, and a number of interesting articles intended to remind people of the great legacy of the operating system and the features that make it such a great user experience. Over time, further articles will be added to give more insight into the new version of the OS, and Hyperion will be offering downloads and a developer’s section from the web site closer to the Amiga OS 4.0 launch. The new site will be available from the following URL: os4.hyperion-entertainment.biz News Editorial..............................2 Troika Amy’05....................8 Amiga OS 4 Update........ 10 MorphOS Update............ 12 Features Big Bash 3 Show Report. 14 Amigathering 6 Report.... 16 Jamie Krueger Interview. 18 IBrowse Team Interview.. 24 Micro AmigaOne Audio Update............................ 28 Reviews DVPlayer......................... 30 Amiga Forever 2005 Premium Edition.............. 32 AmiDisk........................... 36 XNet-RSS....................... 38 On the Edge Preview...... 39 Broken Sword................. 40 Battle for Wesnoth.......... 42 Rexx Programmer’s Reference....................... 44 DaveyD, the web master of AmigaWorld.net, recently posted to the site that Garry Hare has contacted him and stated “Several months ago I terminated my association with Amiga, Inc. I am no longer affiliated with Amiga in any capacity.”. You may remember that Garry’s company KMOS purchased the rights to Amiga OS and then purchased Amiga Inc. itself, and then dropped the KMOS name in favour of Amiga Inc.! Amiga themselves have not made a statement regarding this move and we have no information on what it might mean for the company’s fortunes. We do know that this change has had no noticeable effect on the development of Amiga OS 4 which continues apace (see our OS 4 Update feature for further details). You can read the e-mail from Garry and some reactions at the following AmigaWorld.net thread: modules/newbb/ viewtopic.php? topic_id=15634&forum=16 Support Optimising OS 4 Graphics Memory Usage................ 46 World of Wi-Fi................. 48 Colour screenshots etc... 52 A preview of the new Amiga OS 4 web site showing how it introduces the OS and reminds visitors of key features. A screenshot of IBrowse 2.4 beta running on OS 4 with the new context-sensitive pointer image highlighted. About Total Amiga Legalese Total Amiga is published quarterly by South Essex Amiga Link. Editor: Robert Williams Design: Robert Williams Contributors: Tony Aksnes Andy Baldie Sam Byford Sean Courtney Nigel Derbyshire Magnus Johnson George Sokianos Mick Sutton Tommi Toivanen Proofreading: Sam Byford Greg Condon Sean Courtney Mick Sutton Contact Us If you have any queries, suggestions or want to contact us for any reason please use one of the following: EMail: editor@totalamiga.org WWW: Post: Total Amiga, 26 Wincoat Drive, BENFLEET, Essex, SS7 5AH, UK. Telephone: +44 (0) 1268 569937 (19:00 - 22:00 UK time please) Only Amiga Software Made it Possible Total Amiga is designed and laid out using: Hardware: Home built x86 PC: Athlon XP 2500+, 512MB RAM, nVidia gForce 2 MX400 AmigaOne-XE: 800MHz G4, 512MB RAM, 3DFX Voodoo 3 3000 Software: Amithlon by Bernie Meyer et. al. Amiga OS 3.9 by Amiga Amiga OS 4 by Hyperion PageStream 4.1 by Softlogik ImageFX 4.5 by Nova Design Perfect Paint 2.93 by Georges Halvadjian Photogenics 5 by Paul Nolan Final Writer 5 by Softwood Ghostscript from artofcode LLC, Amiga OS port by Whoosh777. There are also some essential utilities we couldn’t live without: Directory Opus 5, SGrab, MCP, Turbo Print 7, MakeCD. Our thanks to the creators of this and all the other great Amiga software out there. Total Amiga is entirely created using Amiga software, no other platforms are used at any stage of the design or layout process. Fonts The body text of Total Amiga is set in Triumvirate Normal as supplied with PageStream, the heading typeface is Forgotten Futurist by Ray Larabie. Take a look at Ray’s huge range of freeware fonts at his commercial foundry at The views expressed in this magazine are those of the author of each piece, they do not necessarily reflect the views of the editor, other contributors or SEAL. Please Note: Total Amiga is produced by the editor and contributors in their spare time. While we always strive to produce the magazine on time and include all the advertised contents this is not always possible due to other commitments. The price you pay for Total Amiga covers our costs and nothing more, we don’t make a profit from it. If you wish to contact a contributor send your message to one of the addresses in this section. Amiga is a registered trademark and the Amiga logo, the “Boing Ball” device, AmigaDOS, Amiga Kickstart, Amiga Workbench, Autoconfig, Bridgeboard, and Powered by Amiga are trademarks of AMIGA Inc. “Amigan” is copyright by Bob Scharp and used with his permission. All other trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners. The design, layout and all uncredited articles in this issue of Total Amiga are copyright © South Essex Amiga Link, 2005. The credited articles remain copyright © of their author. If you wish to use an article from Total Amiga, for example in your own magazine or on a web site, please contact the editor. Advertisers AmigaKit.com....... 9, 23, 35 ForeMatt Home Computing ........................................ 27 GGS-Data....................... 41 TOTAL AMIGA Winter 2005 2 3 News News AmiNetRadio Turns 4 Open Your MindSpace... Bytes... Bytes... Boxes in MOS TCP/IP AmiZeux have made a new release of AmiNetRadio, their music player which in previous versions has emphasised Shoutcast MP3 streaming support. While the excellent Shoutcast support with its powerful search facility is still there, the team have worked hard to enhance other aspects of the program. The play-list editor in particular has been improved with the ability to resynchronise play-lists with the files available on your hard disk. Play-lists are now automatically created containing the hundred most recently played songs and all the songs played in the last 7 days. ANR has an extensive plug-in system which allows for many areas of the program to be extended. For example, audio format plug-ins are now included for a really wide range of sound files including AHX, CDDA, Soundmon, FutureComposer, WAV and AIFF. A new user interface plug-in is included which places all ANR’s functions in one tabbed window for those that prefer this approach over the multi- windowed standard GUI. Other improvements include two new scopes, more ARexx commands, and many bug fixes. AmiNetRadio is primarily developed and tested under MorphOS, but it is a 68K program so it should work under all versions of Amiga OS. The initial 4.0 release caused some crashes on 3.x and didn’t work on OS 4 but this was quickly corrected with 4.1. Most functions now work on non- MorphOS systems except for the ANRNG skin, and some of the player and scope plug-ins; there is a compatibility guide on the program’s website. ANR is a free download from: MindSpace is a work in progress OS 4 native drawing package designed with creating diagrams in mind. The author lists potential uses as flow charts, UML diagrams, mind maps and brain storms. Unified Modelling Language (UML) is a standard used by software developers to model their software, the models created can be expressed as a diagram. Future versions of MindSpace will be able to produce code templates for C++ classes and C structures from a UML diagram. The current release is 0.2 and can already be used to create simple diagrams. Tools are available to draw basic shapes, lines and text. Objects can have fill and border colours, and the line weight of the borders can be defined. Some of the shapes available are clearly designed with specific types of diagram in mind and the author plans to add “primitives” (templates) for many types of diagram. Unlike a classic drawing program (like DrawStudio) in later releases you will be able to use connecting lines to structure your diagram, and these connections will remain intact as objects are moved in the diagram. MindSpace 0.2 is freely distributable and can be downloaded from the developer’s web site below. His long term plan is to produce a usable free demo version with limited export facilities and a full release at a low price (around 10Euro is currently envisaged). mindspace Synergy Develops MorphOS has long lacked a native TCP/IP stack with users having to use Miami or Genesis under emulation to get their computers on the ‘net. This situation at last seems to be changing with “Sonic” working hard to create a new native stack called ezTCP based on existing open source software. A MorphZone.org bounty has been setup to reward this effort and the features required to complete it include DHCP support and a MUI user interface. Beta versions are currently being regularly released on MorphZone and each one seems to make considerable progress and work with more network applications. For further details and to download the latest beta visit: modules/bounty/ bounty_view.php? mychoice=ezTCP Many people now have more than one computer and having more than one keyboard and mouse around soon becomes a frustrating experience. If you have networked computers which each have their own monitor then Synergy is a handy open source program that enables you to share a keyboard and mouse across the network so there’s no need to buy a switch. To use Synergy, the computer with the keyboard and mouse connected runs the server program and a client program, synergyc, runs on all the other computers that share the input devices. You configure the server so it knows how your monitors are physically arranged and then when the pointer reaches the edge of the screen control “jumps” to the computer controlling the monitor on that side. Synergy is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, and now Douglas McLaughlin has ported the client program to OS 4. The Amiga port implements the basic Synergy features (keyboard and mouse sharing) and also supports clipboard sharing so you can copy information to the clipboard on one computer and paste it on another! A couple of features are currently not implemented: screen blanker synchronisation and support for Mac OS X as a server (the keyboard mapping is incorrect) but for most users these will be unimportant. Synergy is a free download from OS4Depot.net, Douglas asks that you send him an e-mail if you use the program. amisynergyc.lha in network/misc Aminet News Since the release of the new interface at Aminet.net, the maintainers of the Amiga’s long-standing premier software archive have continued to add new features to the site and to resurrect old functionality that was lost during the upgrade. Since we last mentioned Aminet in issue 20, notable additions to the web interface have included: • A variety of upload statistics so you can track site and category upload activity. • Customiseable RSS feeds so you view uploads that interest you in an RSS news reader. • Site-wide architecture filtering so you can exclude software incompatible with your hardware or OS. • Sort order of file listings can be changed by clicking the column headers. Turning Gold into... CubiC? Dietmar Eilert has released a new version of his popular GoldEd Studio product and in the process has given it a new name, CubiC IDE (Integrated Developer Environment), to better describe its capabilities. The key part of the environment is still GoldEd, a powerful text editor that is now at version 8. GoldEd is very flexible in its configuration and is supplied with specialised editing modes for C/C++, HTML, ARexx, Installer and other languages. To create a full development environment CubiC integrates with SAS/C, vbcc, gcc and Storm C with the following features: • Source level debugger support for StormC users: breakpoints are displayed next to the code. • Configurable references system for includes, source codes and other material to help find information quickly. • QuickInfo function to display information related to the word under the cursor (e.g. prototypes of OS functions). • Highlight of matching brackets. • QuickFunc navigation lists all functions, labels etc. defined in your source codes. • Grep support for searches using regular expressions. • Free compilers included with easy installers. • SDKs included for OS 3.x, MorphOS, PowerUP and WarpOS. includes the free compilers that would otherwise require a very large download. You can pay either by bank transfer (if you are located within the Eurozone this should be very cheap or free) or by PayPal. Find out more and download a demo version at Dietmar’s website: When available, you can buy the package on-line at his web shop: shop/webshop.htm Rockin’ to the Beat! CubiC IDE is a 68K Amiga program and is supported by the author under AmigaOS 3.x and MorphOS. Dietmar has stated that he does his best to support Amiga OS 4 although he does not have a system to test on. The full CubiC IDE package costs 69.90 Euro and upgrades are available for GoldEd Studio AIX owners at 19.90 Euro. The package is supplied on CD which View at The collection of OS 4 native audio software is growing with the latest addition being RockBEAT, a software drum machine with a ReAction user interface from James Carroll who you might recognise as the author of the WookieChat IRC client. RockBEAT is a software drum machine which enables you to create your own drumming tracks and save them out as WAV format audio files. The program can create multiple tracks each one being 4 x 4/4 measures with 16th notes. You can save either individual tracks or all the tracks as a complete song. The program uses 16bit 44100Hz PCM WAV samples for the drum sounds. A selection are supplied and you can add more simply by copying them into the correct directory. RockBEAT is shareware and costs $15 to register. A demo version with a 10 minute time limit is available for download from: revolution.com/rockbeat Factor 5 WarpView is a new picture viewer for Amiga OS 4, while fairly simple in functionality its unique “selling” point is that it uses Warp3D for its image display. The advantage of this method of display is that the graphics card’s processor is used to scale the image which is both very fast and looks smooth. Once loaded, the image can be zoomed, rotated and panned. If you select an image within a directory the cursor keys can be used to display the other images. WarpView requires an AmigaOne with a Radeon graphics card (the author is working on Voodoo support) and is reported to work on OS 4 pre-release update 3. warpview.lha in graphics/viewer A example of old functionality that has returned is ADT support on the Aminet.net FTP server. ADT stands for Aminet Download Tool and is an extension to the FTP protocol that enables an application on a remote machine to perform Aminet searches and display lists of recently uploaded files. This feature will be welcomed by users of FTP clients like AmiTradeCenter and AmFTP which support ADT. The new Aminet user interface can be found at the URL below, if you want to support the development of Aminet, a PayPal donation button is available. TOTAL AMIGA Winter 2005 4 5 News News Bytes... Bytes... Let the Development Begin! Trawl for Music with TuneNet Scalos New Wookie Hyperion have released version 51.15 of the Amiga OS 4 Software Development Kit (SDK) to OS 4 developer pre-release users. The kit includes the tools and documentation developers need to create native programs for OS 4. Key features include: • GNU C/C++ compiler, incl. the GDB source-level debugger. • Includes and Autodocs for Pre- Release Update 3. • VBCC ANSI-C compiler. • Developer documentation and example source code. • Many pre-configured third-party libraries as contributions. • Code profiling support for both clib2 and newlib. • Based on GCC 3.4.4 tool set. complete package weighs in at about 100MB, this is also available in several “chunks” for users on slower Internet connections and there is also a slimmed down version for those who don’t require the contributions. To download, login with your OS 4 pre-release details at: www.hyperion-entertainment.biz Playing back media tends to be processor intensive, so having native players for your processor is a real advantage. This is doubly true for audio players because they are often left to run in the background while you do other things with your computer. OS 4 users will be pleased to find TuneNet, a native MP3 player with Shoutcast streaming support by Paul Heams which is in constant development. TuneNet integrates with IBrowse and AWeb so you can easily listen to Shoutcast streaming audio. You can also listen to MP3 files from your hard drive which can be organised via play lists. Some of the program’s other features include an Internet stream search facility, sound level meters, and a station and current tune display. Recent alpha releases have added new features. A plug-in system enables the program to support more sound formats; basic Protracker and AIFF plug- ins are already available. Another addition that we’re sure many users will like is the ability to save a stream to your hard disk for later listening. Even more exciting enhancements are planned for the future including Shoutcast broadcasting (which we don’t believe is currently possible on the Amiga) and improvements to the interface. TuneNet is freeware and can be downloaded from: Update In addition to his work on RockBEAT, James Carroll has been continuing to develop his IRC client, WookieChat. Since our review of version 1.52 in issue 20, lots of new features have been added bringing the program up to version 1.9. Notable improvements include: A URL grabber window which records all URLs displayed and allows them to be visited in a browser. Sounds can be played to alert you to a new tab opening or a particular word being mentioned, you can choose to only play these sounds when the WookieChat window is inactive. Chat history allows you to recall, edit and re-send previous messages. Probably the most useful new feature is that DCC-send support is now implemented so you can send files directly to other users. Download the latest version of WookieChat from: revolution.com/wookiechat The Scalos team have released the latest version of their Workbench replacement system which now includes a native PPC MorphOS version (where it replaces the default Ambient desktop). Scalos has many advantages over Workbench including full internal multi-tasking, more powerful name view, support for PNG icons (with full alpha- channels), configurable menus and context sensitive pop-up menus. In addition to MorphOS support, recent releases have added (amongst many other changes): • Thumbnail views of items within a drawer. • The icon under the pointer can be highlighted (optional). • Default icons for file types have adjustable transparency. • Tool tips provide information about files and drawers, plug-ins support for information about specific file types (for example image dimensions). The SDK is available as a free download from the Hyperion web site for pre-release users. The Candy Factory 2: News at Last The original release of Candy Factory Pro, a graphics package ideal for quick buttons, titles and logos, was always a firm favourite here at Total Amiga. So we were pleased to hear that development had resumed back in 2003. For a long time nothing more was heard, but in July ZeoNeo revealed that work had continued since the original announcement and they demonstrated it at Amiga shows at the end of that month. The premise of Candy Factory remains the same in the new version, you take a mask (that is a greyscale image) and then apply effects such as textures, bevels, glows, drop-shadows, bump-mapping and lighting to it to produce an attractive effect. The mask can either be produced in the program (for example you could create text for a logo) or created externally and imported. The combination of Candy Factory’s effects makes it easy to achieve all kinds of results, it is particularly effective at mimicking natural surfaces like metal or plastic but the choice is really up to you. All Candy Factory’s controls update in real- time so you can tweak your settings until you’re happy with the result, there’s no waiting for effects to “render”. Version 2 is a substantial upgrade and many parts of the program have been rewritten to take full advantage of Amiga OS 4. This means the program is PPC native and has a ReAction GUI using new features introduced in OS 4. All over the program, improvements have been made that address some of the shortcomings of the earlier release. Multiple project windows can now be opened at the same time and the working canvas can have an unlimited size viewed using scroll bars. This is a big improvement over the last release where the canvas was limited to the size of the screen; which was a major limitation for print projects where higher than screen resolution is required. Multiple layers will allow several effects to be included in one image without having to first “fix” the initial effect to the background. You can go back and edit any layer at any time and also change the layer order (via drag ‘n’ drop) greatly adding to the program’s flexibility. Candy Factory 2 makes use of the new ReAction “toolbox” class windows for its editing palettes, these are special windows for this task that do not become selected when you click them – meaning when you choose a tool the window stays selected. The tool windows in Candy Factory 2 are even more powerful, settings for things like “bump-map”, “bevel” and “material” can be kept in individual windows or combined in a single tabbed window to reduce screen clutter! No further details of Candy Factory 2 have been announced so far, and the program isn’t yet mentioned on the ZeoNeo web site. You can read the official press release and see some more screenshots in this thread on AmigaWorld.net: news/article.php?storyid=2449 TuneNet showing Internet radio stations. KHTML Koming Soon? As great as Amiga web browsers are, especially in the user interface department, their development teams have a hard job keeping up with the standards used on the web and also with the many ways web developers use and misuse them. One common plea heard from Amiga users is “why doesn’t someone just port an open source browser?”. While projects like AmiZilla show that this is no mean feat, a lone coder going by the nick’ of Marcik has started work on a web rendering library for MorphOS based on the KHTML engine. In the short time he has been working on the project, Marcik has already reported some impressive progress. KHTML is the rendering engine developed for the KDE project’s Konqueror browser which is also used by Apple as the basis for Webcore which is behind its Safari browser. Marcik has based his port on GTK+Webcore a version of Webcore further modified by Nokia (phew!). Screenshots on the developer’s site (two of which are shown below) show development versions of the library running in a very simple browser and successfully displaying pages with good layout and images. There is even a screen-movie available where you can see it in action. All in all it shows more progress than any of the other porting projects that we have seen. In his FAQ section, Marcik says he aims to have a beta version out by the end of the year and an initial release in February 2006. While Marcik is aiming his development at MorphOS, the end result will be open source (under the LGPL and BSD licences) and he says it should not be a hard task for someone to port it to Amiga OS 3.x or OS 4. If you would like to support this development, there is a bounty open on MorphZone.org (standing just shy of $700 or about £400 as I write) which will go to the developer once the port is complete and meets a set of documented objectives. For more details, screenshots and a link to the bounty visit: 3CAG If you live within a reasonable distance of Peterborough in the UK, then you’ll be pleased to hear that a new Amiga user group is being started by Paul Hovell (known as The_Editor on AmigaWorld.net and the brains behind the Big Bash series of Amiga shows). The 3 Counties Amiga Group (3CAG) are aiming to hold their first meeting in mid- November and plan to charge members only for the meetings they attend. The group are keen to recruit members so if you are in the area why not get in touch with them, further details should be available on their web site by the time you read this: Scalos is freeware and can be downloaded from the link below, note that the latest releases are currently in Beta. Marcik’s KHML-based test browser showing ask.com and MorphZone.org. The layout looks pretty good! Candy Factory 2 showing multiple project windows, the layer manager and combined toolboxes. TOTAL AMIGA Winter 2005 6 7 Features SUBWAY USB CATWEASEL MK IV Troika Amy’05 R ecently a company new to the The Subway brings USB to the Amiga A1200 and now the A600 (when used with the clockport adapter). Access Amiga format floppy disks with the Catweasel MK4 interface. • Gb/100Mb/10Mb Ethernet port using RTL8110 controller. • 5 High Speed USB 2.0 ports: 3 rear and 2 front connectors. • Two ATA 133 (IDE) channels (4 devices) using Sil0680 controller. • 6-channel 5.1 surround sound with audio headers. Support for Line In, microphone (Analogue) and SPDIF (digital). • Two 33 Mhz, 32bit PCI slots This PCI card connects to a floppy drive and allows reading/writing to Amiga floppy disks USB gives your Amiga access to many standard peripherals such as mice, printers, scanners and keyboards. Amiga scene, Troika NG announced that they are working on a new PowerPC-based motherboard to run Amiga OS 4. Troika planned to show a prototype of the board at Big Bash 3 in September but unfortunately due to component supply problems did not have it ready in time. However during the show specifications were released along with the board’s official name, Amy’05. The Amy’05 is a flex ATX sized motherboard measuring 170 by 191mm, making it slighly larger than the mini ITX µA1-C but only by 20mm on one side. A PPC 750Fx (G3) processor is soldered directly to the board and is cooled by a heat-sink and fan. Amy’05 uses a Tundra Semiconductor Tsi107 northbridge, this is the component that interfaces the PCI bus, RAM and other systems to the processor. System memory is provided through 2 DIMM slots for PC100/133 SDRAM up to 1GB in total, inexpensive unbuffered modules can be used. The following functions are built into the Amy’05: Ideal for WinUAE/Amiga Forever. Subway attaches to the clockport internally. Fully registered USB Stack is included. Shipped with drivers for Windows - many other platform drivers are in development from third party suppliers. £69.99 £62.99 REDUCED! ORDER CODE INTCAT004 ORDER CODE USBCTR001 You will notice that no “legacy” ports such as PS/2 mouse, PS/2 keyboard, parallel or serial are included. This reduces the complexity of the board and shouldn’t cause many problems as USB devices are so widely available. Users with USB storage devices will be pleased to see the inclusion of USB 2.0 high speed which offers massively enhanced transfer rates. 80GB IDE HARD DISK X-SURF 3CC NETWORK CARD The Amy’05 (part of a familiy of products called Prometheus) block diagram showing the logical layout of its components. Get your big box Amiga connected with this Zorro network card. Upgrade your AmigaOne with this great 80GB hard disk. Troika seem to have been listening to calls for an affordable way to become an OS 4 user, and are aiming to price the Amy’05 at less than £400. To minimise production costs the CPU is not upgradable and no on-board graphics chip is included. Users will need to purchase an inexpensive PCI graphics card to use with the board. No doubt most Amiga dealers will stock suitable cards that are supported by OS 4. The drive can be partitioned and formatted on request ready for AmigaOS installation. Now your Amiga can share files with other networked computers (PCs & Macs) Drive is 3.5” IDE, 7200RPM with 8MB Cache. It can also share a broadband network connection. We now offer various additional services such as Linux installation - please see www.amigakit.com for costs. Features RJ-45 and BNC connection. Ideal for A1200 with Zorro, A2000, A3000 & A4000 £44.99 £73.99 ORDER CODE HDDIDE003 ORDER CODE NETZOR001 2.5” HARD DISK (4GB) KICKFLASH OS4 (ZORRO) KICKSTART 3.1 ROMS (A1200) Q&A Photos showing Amy’05 components ready for production, from left to right: A Tsi107 north bridge and design manual, Tsi107s ready for use, various ancillary components inlcuding DIMM sockets. Kickflash is a Zorro card that can be used with any big box Amiga. Upgrade your Amiga to the latest Kickstart ROM chips in order to use AmigaOS 3.1, 3.5 and 3.9 This 2.5” hard disk is ideal for the A600 or A1200. The basic version comes with 1Mb Flash memory (upgradable to 1GB) It is supplied fully formatted and partitioned. All 2.5” drives that we supply are preloaded with OSInstall program that makes installation easier We asked Troika some questions that didn’t seem to be answered in their press release or in the FAQ section on their We were sorry not to meet you and see the Amy’05 at Big Bash 3, what went wrong? All our plans were to introduce Amy’05 at the BB3 show. We all worked very hard to be there, but in the end it didn’t work out. We had more posters, fliers and the Amy’05 Rev.B would have been shown in a beautiful case that Simion Archer made for the show. We ran into a major problem at the last minute. We used some of the same sound components in the Rev.B design as the µA1. The parts were on order and listed as available for some 6 weeks, we then received an email telling us those parts were no longer available. This trashed all our plans for BB3 and the sound system! Given those problems, what are your plans? Our next step has been to take out the sound system and get the Rev.B board out, so that the testing and porting can be finished. We had other improvements that would be brought into the Rev.B1, some of those have now made it into the Rev. B board that should be out by the time you read this. Next steps follow as the Rev.B board is tested and used, any changes are made into the Rev.B1 board. This board is then tested and we might have a Rev B2 board to test or Amy’05 will become the Rev.C (commercial) board for series production and resale. What inspired you to design the Amy’05? Many of the early ideas for Amy’05 took shape at the time the Mac Mini first came out. We researched most of the talk from AmigaWorld.net, along with ideas and problems AmigaOne users were having. We wanted to make a complete break from many of the legacy parts used and wanted to move OS 4 to some new levels starting with USB 2.0. Amy’05 moves on to USB ports for the mouse and keyboard. What is the estimated release date of the Amy’05? Our goal is still for Amy’05 to enter production this year. You have to plan parts orders some 6-8 weeks in advance for production runs, most of that work is done for the first run. Do you have plans to be able to meet both the initial “pent- up” demand for an OS 4 compatible board and ongoing demand, avoiding long waits between production runs? In our business plan, we have two production runs scheduled for 2005. Do you plan to sell Amy’05 boards directly or will they be sold via dealers? We will use both sales methods, different for each country. We have a long list of Amiga dealers that would love to have Amy’05 in their hands right now! Will Amy’05 be licenced to run OS 4? We designed Amy’05 from the start to run OS 4. Just less than a year ago we contacted all the parties involved in the OS 4 process and went to work on our project. We operate very differently than many companies, and feel that fluffed up news releases that end up empty, are not worth our time or your readers. Therefore don’t expect us to have a major news release on OS 4. It would be unprofessional to comment on our business dealings and we would rather demo a working product. What other operating systems will Amy’05 be able to run? Various versions of Linux as many of the components in our design are used daily in the embedded, and server markets. Many different ROMs now in stock for the full Classic Amiga range - check www.amigakit.com for details A Kickstart image can be copied into the Flash memory for a quicker boot. Many other hard disks in stock. £18.99 £24.99 £36.99 ORDER CODE ZORKFL001 ORDER CODE AMIROM001 ORDER CODE HDDIDE004 LOGITECH ULTRA-X BLIZZARD SCSI-IV KIT 512MB RAM (µAmigaOne) The SCSI expansion kit for the Blizzard 1230-IV / 1240 and 1260 accelerators. Fits onto the expansion connector on these boards. The Ultra-X keyboard is a stylish silver design with laptop style keys. Give your Micro AmigaOne 512MB of memory with this upgrade. For users who want a quality keyboard that is aesthetically pleasing to look at. Tested on the Micro AmigaOne before delivery and comes with specific fitting instructions. Also features an additional SIMM socket which will take up to 128MB extra memory. USB/PS2 fitting- ideal for AmigaOne or A1200/A4000 with Lyra adapter. £59.99 £24.99 £99.99 ORDER CODE SCSACC001 ORDER CODE LOGKEY002 ORDER CODE MEMAMI030 A600 CLOCKPORT ADAPTER LYRA KEYBOARD INTERFACE (A1200) LYRA KEYBOARD ADAPTER (A4000) Lyra keyboard interface connects over a chip on the A1200 motheboard and permits an external Amiga or PC keyboard to be attached. Now your A3000/A4000 can use standard PS/2 keyboards with this adapter cable. Use clockport expansions on your Amiga A600 such as the Silver Surfer and Subway USB. We stock a range of keyboards. This fits over a chip on the A600 motherboard and provides a working clockport -just like the A1200! Ideal for tower projects, the keyboard connector is mounted on a backplane £23.99 £19.99 £12.99 ORDER CODE ADAKEY002 ORDER CODE IDEINT001 ORDER CODE ADAKEY012 amigakit .com TM PHONE (UK) 0870 199 9569 Many more products available at www.amigakit.com Shipping worldwide. P&P charges are subject to destination. All products subject to price changes and availability. E&OE. All orders subject to our conditions of sales and returns. PHONE (US) 360 207 0349 TOTAL AMIGA FAX +44 (0)870 706 4427 8 online amiga store sales@amigakit.co.uk [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |