torsdag 30. august 2012

While waiting for AmigaOS 4.2 ;)




Hi again folks ;) Well, here we are again since the last blog a short while ago. My setup of AmigaOS 4.1 Update 5 has come along really nicely now, and i have also managed to do some cleanup of my SYS partition.


The smart thing i could do was to move all so-called "third party" Internet applications over to Work:Internett (the extra t because i'm a Norwegian, hehe). That means programs like IBrowse, OWB, MUI-OWB, WordNet and YAM. This is a very safe way to do such things, as when your SYS partition is updated with new add-ons or you run a new version of AmigaOS, little would be needed to get these Internet applications to work, and you won't have to do everything from scratch again! Great, isn't it?







I also love the way AmiUpdate is taking care of updates. I simply have AmiUpdate and its' belongings right into SYS:System (no need to make a separate drawer for AmiUpdate. Just place all AmiUpdate files into SYS:System, that's it.) and AmiUpdate takes care of everything that comes to updating files.


For more than a week ago, AmiUpdate updated itself to the latest version and i have now every files it could find updated in my system (always taking a backup, so don't worry about that). I make AmiUpdate check for updates every week instead of days, and the Notification system is very handy in these situations, as a message will appear when AmiUpdate finds something, as well in other situations like receiving new mails and such. Very nice, i have to say!


For the moment i am now using the multi-tool Jack, which now appears to be working again. At the time you read this, i should have found 2 of the missing files Jack needs for all of its' buttons to work correctly. It seems that Jack doesn't like Update 5 so well, and Update 5 is different in some ways to Update 4 in how it handles things. Update 5 has for instance a new feature, called Network-Startup script, and here you can add applications like Flipclock to be started up, because such tools rely on immerdiate internet connection during startup, so in this case, adding such a tool to the Network-Startup script will be very useful. Jack already does this. But i prefer FlipClock, as it looks better and far more straightforward. This will be installed again as soon as a new working version is released, so FlipClock is actually my favourite tool!


That is not to say that everything is perfect. It's not, but at least close as possible. You might wonder why? Well, over and over again, i tried to get 2 applications working. These are:


TimberWolf Beta: Being BETA often means there are certain bugs as the program is not yet official released, but still under work for completion. Well, i got the usual GR (Grim Reaper) message right after a blank window pops up when TimberWolf has finished loading. As i am using SFS/02 file system for my SYS and JFXS for my 3 other partitions that are Work, Diverse and Spill, it's highly possible that TimberWolf doesn't accept these file formats very well, especially on other platforms than the X1000, as i am using an AmigaOne 500 (SAM460ex) with AmigaOS 4.1 Update 5. I have been told that several (except of most X1000 owners) have experienced this problem as being familiar, and this should have been solved for the next version of TimberWolf.


SabreMSN: Well, my situation is a bit weird. The program runs nicely with no GR at all, but despite my username with right hotmail address and password being typed, SabreMSN can't manage to log me into the program. It seems to almost make it, seeing the contacts that are online, but as soon as seeing them, i appear disconnected to SabreMSN again, and it tries to re-connect 2-3 times, then give up. There must be something there, but can't figure it out. It's not a failure of the main program itself, but the way it tries to log me into its' MSN and appears to fail. I hope this problem will be looked at and perhaps a solution will be found to it. For now, i have taken SabreMSN away, until the solution is found. Instead, i use Facebook Chat talking to my friends.


Haven't used DOSBox so much, despite it's working very well, but can't figure out quite to make it mount CD-ROM and harddrive to be used for it. I want it to accept my location, that is Diverse:Emulators/DOSBox for reference, and i would add DOSGames to Spill: Something like that. A friend is helping me with these things, explaining how to set it up, so i guess by the time you read this, i should have managed to configure it the way my friend explained to me.


ScummVM in the other hand works great, and i have installed several great classic adventures to it! ScummVM seems to be expanding nicely, getting just better and bigger, with more support, which is great! An emulator with a very potensial future! The games i have installed into ScummVM are Broken Sword - Shadow Of The Templars, Flight Of The Amazon Queen (Talkie-version), Curse Of The Monkey Island, Secret Of Monkey Island 1 and 2, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade Adventure and Fate Of Atlantis, Leisure Suit Larry 1-5, Space Quest 1-4 and Zak. Trying to look for Broken Sword 2 - Smoking Mirror. I mostly run the games in Windows mode. As RadeonHD doesn't support overlay, it's not yet possible to get a fullscreen with all the texts fitted correctly to the whole screen. I'm sure there will be a solution to this. The emulator runs very nicely in a window mode, and the graphic looks very nicely, too! I'm happy!


Screenshots of other games and applications will appear shortly. I got CodeAudio with the registered key, but i don't use this program so much, but it's there for later use. SRec is also installed and handy if i want to make a direct video of my system. Might try that one day soon.


BlobWars - Metal Solid is quite an excellent action platformer, and it works flawlessy on my AmigaOne 500 using AmigaOS 4.1 Update 5, with special libraries like the AmigaOS4 version of render.library and guigfx.library. Also have Wazp3D Software Render, which is mostly used for the 3D-applicaton Blender (Yes, i have it installed as well) and the OpenGL-game Hurrican.


As for BlobWars, this game is really great! Looks better in fullscreen mode, but then some of the texts and contents are not visible, so the game is better run in window mode. The game is great fun to play! Very fast and smooth, giving me hours of entertainment with the game!







For almost a week ago, i got myself a brand new graphic board! Yes, that's correct! My HIS Radeon HD 6570 2GB DDR3 PCI-E card didn't appear to be compatible with the latest RadeonHD driver for AmigaOS4, that is installed in my AmigaOS 4.1.5 system, and only showed a black display, so what to do?


Well, i contacted Hans De Ruiter personally by sending him an email describing the problem. At the same time i was analyzing the graphic cards test both he and Robert Trevor Dickinson were doing. No 2GB or more VRAM-based graphic cards have ever been tested. Only 512MB and 1GB of most graphic cards, and these are the ones that are working with the latest RadeonHD driver for AmigaOS4. Hans pointed me to a Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6570 1GB DDR3 PCI-E model, as he has this installed in his SAM460ex system fully working with his latest AmigaOS 4.1 update!


So i bought the exact same graphic card as Hans De Ruiter - Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6570 1GB DDR3 PCI-E card, installed it into my AmigaOne 500 computer and VOILA! It worked!





A beautiful display of the Radeon HD 6570 card in my AmigaOS 4.1 Update 5! Now both the Workbench titlescreen and Ranger described it as Radeon HD 6570, while Screenmode described it as Radeon HD 6.


Learnt that there was NO need to duplicate a Radeon monitor icon for the new graphic card, i simply just renamed the ordinary Radeon monitor icon that is in DEVS: to RadeonHD instead, and gave it that name and left everything else unmodified. Saved and made myself a new backup! Now i could finally use the faster, more advanced Radeon HD 6570 1GB DDR3 PCI-E card! Along with Gfxbench, tools like render.library, guigfx.library, Wazp3D, SAM460ex_Setup, my system runs more efficiently and smoother, which i am very happy for! Got myself a really fine system now!


Almost forgot to mention that DVPlayer now works with subtitles on my system, even with the plugins i installed from OS4Depot.net! Tried many commercial DVDs and they work great with subtitles! It's a pity there is no overlay or something similar of support to get a complete fullscreen mode, but it's not that bad running it in window mode also. I have a separate Blu-ray player to use if i want to REALLY watch movies now and then. I do not complain at all.


This will be all for now, so these are the things i have managed to do while waiting for AmigaOS 4.2! It's with AmigaOS 4.2 the REAL fun will start, as most things will be brand new and a lot more than what have been seen in AmigaOS! Looking forward to that time coming!


This blog will be updated with more screenshots and perhaps more to write about, so keep an eye on my blog. There is always something exciting to see when it comes to the Amiga ;)


You are free to leave a comment as well, as long as they remain friendly, adviceable, humouristic, funny and in a professional manner. Bad critics and attacks are not accepted, and such will be reported, so run a safe, clear and clean line when you want to comment things ;)


Thank you for reading :)


Best regards

Helge Kvalheim, Norway



torsdag 23. august 2012

Office work and ScummVM play ;)




So are we here again ;) Another fine blog about my lovely AmigaOS 4.1.5 system running flawlessy on my AmigaOne 500!


This time i was testing some more applications. On this screenshot, i successfully downloaded the latest version of Cinnamon Writer - An easy but powerful word processing program for AmigaOS4! This program helps me doing some serious office work until some other office bundles appear.







Other things i have done for few days are looking for more games to run in the ScummVM emulator. I managed to track down a site called Emuparadise, and it was on that site i found several great adventures to run in ScummVM. These appeared to be:


*Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade

*Indiana Jones And The Fate Of Atlantis

*Leisure Suit Larry 1, 2 and 3




*Space Quest 1, 3 and 4

*Police Quest 1 and 2

*Quest For Glory - Trial By Fire

*Zak


All these games were Amiga versions, so i installed them and VOILA! More fun in ScummVM!







Playing the old games are a breeze and really relaxing! Lovely retro-feeling and hours of fun!


What is really great playing old retro games is that they provide a unique charm and fun you don't usually see in modern games of today.


Also, the Amiga render and audio modes in ScummVM are excellent, and they give the old games the true, native Amiga-feeling! The Amiga render mode renders the colors of the games in a nicer, more stylish way, while emulation of Amiga audio is as true as you can get to the native Amiga audio itself!










There will be more games to test out, as well as other applications in another blog, so stay tuned and enjoy the pictures on this blog.


Written by:

Helge Kvalheim, Norway


































tirsdag 21. august 2012

AmigaOS 4.1 Update 5 - A Flawless Experience!




For a week now, i have been running the very latest update for AmigaOS 4.1 - AmigaOS 4.1 Update 5 on my AmigaOne 500 system!


The update works flawlessy, as i installed this update from a clean, fresh installation by formatting the AmigaOS partition empty,

then installing the AmigaOS 4.1 Update 2 CD over again, downloaded Update 3, 4 and 5, and installed them in the mentioned order. Update 3 after a clean Update 2, Update 4 after a clean Update 3 and at last Update 5 after a clean Update 4! Everything successfull!


Latest AmiUpdate was also installed successfully into my SYS:System section. No need to add a separate drawer for that. Just install the program and its' belongings right into SYS:System and have it to appear in AmiDock automatically, as supposed to, which i did. AmiUpdate is now so nice that it actually even found an update to a SDL-based Shared Object that couldn't be automatically installed, but manually. It was unpacked in RAM: and i just copied the updated object into the SObjs, and it updated that object which had to be updated. After successfully doing that, i made a new backup of my AmigaOS partition! Really nice, isn't it? :)



As you can see on the screenshot, it took me some time to set up my newly updated AmigaOS 4.1.5 system much the same i did under Update 4. Visually, the difference is not big, but there are a couple of minor improvements in term of speed and stability.


*DMA is now enabled, and i notice this especially when copying, deleting, unpacking files on my AmigaOne 500. Everything related to these things appear faster. It also helps that my boot partition is formatted in SFS/02, and the other 3 partitions in JXFS/04, as mentioned earlier.


*A new function is a Network-Startup, which is very useful for automatically detecting the internet connection during startup, just as you see in Windows and MacOS X, but in the

well-known Amiga-way! Internet connection also feels faster and a lot more stable. Not that there has been a problem with that in Update 4, but Update 5 brings this experience to a new level not seen before! This is a great welcome!


*Also some minor improvements to graphic handling and speed, which is great. Still no 3D support, but better and faster 2D graphic support. 


*RunInUAE has been updated and includes more features and is fully working. I like most people chose the Simple installation. Gave it a try and it was interesting to see it working well!







All in all, Update 5 is the greatest and the most stable, feature-packaged update for AmigaOS 4.1 released, and now not only for the X1000, but for other platforms as well!


Running this update successfully on my AmigaOne 500 (SAM460ex) is a breeze! It works flawlessy, and haven't had problems with it!


But that doesn't mean things are perfect. Better as always, but not perfect. I should mention i still have problems with getting some programs to work correctly. I will name them here, so you better see the problems:


Jack: Well, sometimes this seems to work and other times it doesn't. As usual, this is best installed manually, as the Installer script doesn't seem to do it quite correctly. Latest AISS was for me installed, as WGet and a yet another tool i don't remember exactly the name of, but it's a C command which appears important for Jack as well. Even when Jack was installed manually in the right way, and to let AmiDock startup Jack during startup, pressing the buttons on Jack many times don't seem to react. This could be a failure of the program Jack itself, no matter how right you installed the program and no matter how up-to-date the needed files and programs are.


FlipClock: This again appears far more stable and straightforward to have installed, compared to Jack, but for some reason it doesn't seem to startup during reset, despite inserted into WBStartup preference for startup. I was told this feature yet isn't well supported in FlipClock, and will most likely be addressed in a future version, hopefully. For the moment it can best be activated by double-clicking the icon in the Utilities:Commodities section. Update 5 seem to have some different but new functions compared to Update 4 in the way it works. I suppose it's only a natural, logical progress as we are just moving forward now.


SabreMSN: Well, this seem to almost work perfectly without a Grim Reaper message. I say almost, as it happens sometimes. Other than that it still has the problem to connect me up, despite that my username and password are both typed in correctly. The connection tries to log me into SabreMSN 3-4 times, then give up. I remember several mentioned SabreMSN has some unexplained bugs that are yet to be addressed, so i had no choice but to leave SabreMSN away, and only hope that a new version will address this problem.


TimberWolf: Well, i'm sure i'm not the only one here. The latest version caused a Grim Reaper and didn't work, even under Update 5. I understand it that the Friedens brothers are working hard to fix the problems with TimberWolf, so this is another program i have chosen to ignore until it's fully completed and official. As TimberWolf is still BETA, this problem speaks for itself.


Also tried to test again my HIS Radeon 6570 2GB DDR3 PCI-E graphic board, despite having the latest Radeon HD driver successfully installed, it doesn't display in AmigaOS. 2GB should not mean anything, but it seems to me that it actually has something to say. As i understand, Hans De Ruiter has never tested 2GB or more VRAM-based Radeon HD boards, but only 512MB and 1GB versions of most Radeon HD boards. I have now ordered a Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6570 1GB DDR3 PCI-E version, so this should most likely work, as the Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4650 1GB DDR2 PCI-E card i am using, bought from ACube Systems.


All i all, i should not complain. Despite these minor problems, everything else is fully working! Games work great (when not mentioning the 3D-games which need hardware render modes), like Hurrican, BlobWars, even ScummVM and DOSBox (still trying to figure out how to mount the DVD drive of my AmigaOne 500 to run the PC-compatible CDs).


There has been much for me to do at work, so haven't had much time to test different things yet. For the moment, most of the time has gone into surfing, emailing, Facebook and editing some photos. The program LoView is very handy for this, but i am looking for a useful picture compressor program like ArtEffect and Photogenics, and a word processing/DTP program that support Open Office documents. I have looked into AmigaCygnix, but i don't like the look of it so much. I'm more keen to Amiga-native programs and functions.


Some of you might wonder why i haven't yet registered myself into the forums at Hyperion Entertainment Support site. I have registered my products there, yes, but not for using the forums. I suppose i could do that, but i simply don't dare, because of my bad experiences from being a member of AmigaWorld and Amigans.net in the past. They didn't work well for me. A lot of things happened, and some of them were my own fault as well, that caused me a lifetime ban. I don't want to experience these problems again, so i felt safer not registering myself into another forum. I'm sure there is a lot of help to get in the different Amiga groups on Facebook, and help appears faster and better in many ways, mostly through friends. This works for me.


During these days, i am trying to compose music again in the old program - OctaMED SoundStudio v1.03c, which surprisingly still work. A few Grim Reapers now and then, but easily ignorable without problems. Using TheMaestrix tool and an OS4-version of Reqtools.library help the program remain more cooperative easier. Handy for older softwares before OS4.


Now there will be a while until AmigaOS 4.2 will be ready. In the Amiga world, news happens as magic, so we will always be surprised! It's when AmigaOS 4.2 appears the REAL fun will start!


The most interesting thing with AmigaOS 4.2 will not only be SMP and full OpenGL 3D hardware-acceleration, but a whole new system API! Yes, the DOS/File thing, as i can see how important and useful this will be. This will change many things in how the Amiga has been handling installation, files, updates and many such things in the well-known Amiga-way. A whole new system API with a universal DOS/File system will make things a lot easier, better and more future-proof for the Amiga, and at the same time, remain more compatible with other platforms. This is extremely useful for porting and adopting new features and functions to AmigaOS!


There is one thing i forgot to mention what will likely appear in AmigaOS 4.2 as well. There was talk about both MUI and Reaction now being "obsolete", and we need a completely new GUI. Something in the QT field would be a solution, and still this new GUI could be compatible with both MUI and Reaction, but appear in the QT-look you want for the whole AmigaOS. We will see how this will appear in future AmigaOS versions. Oh boy, how exciting the future will be!


My conclusion is that i am very happy with my AmigaOS 4.1 Update 5 running flawlessy on my AmigaOne 500! I have made a backup so that i won't loose anything if something happens.


This conclude this blog for now. A shorter blog this time. More will appear later...


Written by:


Helge Kvalheim, Norway

mandag 13. august 2012

AmigaOS 4.1.4 on my AmigaOne 500!




 Hi everybody! Now there has been quite a long time since i wrote a blog. The last time i wrote a blog, i was still waiting for my new AmigaOne 500 system to appear, and i am happy to tell that i received my AmigaOne 500 with AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4 pre-installed in my system from GGSData in Sweden early July 2012 - this year!




Being away from the Amiga the past 6 years made me also realize there was some things i didn't remember well, as well as some new things in the new Amiga system i have yet to try mastering, so i got some help in the beginning from an old Amiga veteran.


He helped me installing the ATI Radeon HD 4650 PCI-E graphic board. Why couldn't i do that myself in the beginning? Well, i was afraid of doing something wrong, as i was thinking back to the time when i relied on wrong people to help me, that caused my old AmigaOne G4-XE system to be broken. At that time i was mad about overclocking and fiddling with components i didn't understand, as i am no electrican or something like that.

Therefore i am NEVER again trying to overclock or fiddling with things to hack the system!

These things belong to the past, and God heaven for that! Things are quite different today!






Before the ATI Radeon HD 4650 was installed, i also realized that the AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4 was installed in the FFS file format.


I decided to have the whole 500GB harddrive fully formatted and partitioned to use 2 of the best and fastest file formats - SFS/02 as a bootable partition for the main OS i called AmigaOS, and JFXS/04 as a NON-bootable partition for both Work, Diverse and Spill (Norwegian for Diverse and Games to you).


AmigaOS partition was partioned to around 5GB of space, Work around 20GB, Diverse around 200GB and Spill nearly 240GB. As 2GB of DDR2 RAM is pre-installed into my AmigaOne 500, there was no need for a SWAP partition at all. I saved these configurations to the harddrives and installed the AmigaOS 4.1 Update 2 by following the instructions given.







Because i was using the Reaction-based OWB browser that is part of AmigaOS 4.1 Update 2 seen on the screenshot here, i realized that there was a problem to download files, as they always appeared corrupted. From there i was taking a break and called my old, trustfully Amiga veteran who has always helped me in the past with fixing and installing Amiga things (that was late July this year), and i don't mean these old "fools" i wrongly relied on in the past. They are no more and gone, which is a good thing! As for the old Amiga veteran, he helped me to use his Windows PC to find Update 3 and 4 and install them in the right order. Update 3 after Update 2, and Update 4 after Update 3. That way he ensured that the download of these files appeared correctly, without corrupted files. He also helped me installing the Radeon HD-driver (version 0.49) i bought from A-EON through AmigaKit. Firstly, he tried the second graphic board i also bought - an ATI Radeon HD 6570 2GB DDR3 PCI-E graphic board. It didn't manage to get display in AmigaOS, but only through the BIOS. There could be 2 reasons for that. Either the driver version 0.49 is not yet fully supporting Radeon HD 6xxx series, or my HDTV is only supporting HDMI 1.3 (not 1.4), as i am using HDMI 1.3 cables, too. That could probably explain something. He tried again the ATI Radeon 4650 graphic board i had ordered from ACube Systems, and this appear to be the most compatible graphic board to use, which is the 1GB version. This one will now be used until 3D-drivers are ready or AmigaOS 4.2 is ready, fully supporting the later Radeon HD series, or either i would need to buy a new HDTV little later that support HDMI 1.4, using HDMI 1.4-cables. I was thinking about a Samsung 46" LED (or rather OLED) HDTV, perhaps for sometime in 2013? One step at a time!


The old Amiga veteran told me that AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4 was fully working, installed with AmiUpdate (it works very nicely, but don't know how to make it check for updates other places than the server it relies on, so i barely use it at all), GfxBench was installed to test benchmarks of the ATI Radeon HD 4650 with the latest driver, the latest version of the onboard SM502 AHI driver was also installed and fully working, both in front and rear of my AmigaOne 500! RunInUAE was successfully installed as well, so everything was now ready!





The old Amiga veteran called me and told that my AmigaOne 500 was ready for pickup. That was August the 2th. So i did and was eager to set it up when i picked it up! What a sexy, beautiful baby it is! Shining and smiling at me showing herself off to me!


If this was foreplay, then it would be the cup of the tea, hehe. I had 2 beautiful stickers to put on the AmigaOne 500 case. The Boing Ball sticker and the sticker named Amiga, which you can see on the third screenshot on top of this blog. I also have the AmigaOne keyboard with Boing Ball Amiga keys, but as it is international, i use a fully Norwegian-supported USB-keyboard instead, that will soon be replaced with a wireless, black Norwegian keyboard and mouse, saving the 4 USB slots for more important components, like an extern USB-harddrive and my digital camera, thanks to the USB2 support that is working great in the latest AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4!







In the first few days of August, i tried to figure out how to make the YAM Mailer to send emails, and not only receiving emails.


Internet-access is fully working, being DCC-detectable which is just great! Same thing with graphic boards, too, but back to the topic! I asked some friends of mine on Facebook (Yes, i can actually access sites like Facebook using both OWB and MUI-OWB without problem on my AmigaOne 500!) to give me some advices in how to configure YAM to send emails. Following their instructions, i did some research on my mail server Broadpark, and found out it was using port 587 for mails, and SMPT AUTH enable, so i configured YAM with these informations, and VOILA, i could now also send emails! The Notification system in AmigaOS 4.1 is really nice this way, to display a message when new emails appear, when the weather changes in tools like Jack and FlipClock, when playing music through TuneNet or AmigaAMP. These are just some of the examples of many things the Notification system will do in form of bringing you a message (which I will explain what changes and new features there should be in future AmigaOS.)







As a start, i was beginning to get to know the Amiga system again, as i had been away from the Amiga scene the past 6 years. Still remembered much, but still new things to learn. As told many times, i am no computer expert, either that is AmigaOS, Linux, MacOS or Windows. I'm just an average allround-user with more than basic knowledges. My hobbies are photo, graphic, music, internet and gaming. These things.







So i did a lot of updates to the already provided files. AmiUpdate found some updates, as well as YAM found important updates to many MUI classes and libraries.



Mostly i found programs, files and updates on my own, especially through OS4Depot, Aminet and AmigaWorld which i check every day for news and updates. I also managed to install the old famous music tracker - OctaMED SoundStudio v1.03c! It's rare that such an old program that was last developed back in 1996, actually works, thanks to the provided 68k Petunia JIT emulator that is part of AmigaOS 4.1. Also found a very useful tool at Aminet, called TheMaestrix. This tool fools OSS (OctaMED SoundStudio) into thinking that the AHI-based SM502 onboard audio of AmigaOne 500 (SAM460ex) is an AHI-based Maestrix Pro audio card! That way, i am allowed to compose music the way i have done for many years! I configured OSS to stop asking for old floppies (trying to ask me to assign them, so instead i managed to get OSS to assign the location of the tracker program that is stored on my Diverse:Musikk/Trackers location. The program sometimes causes errors, displaying a Grim Reaper message, but not much. These errors can be ignored and allow the program to continue normally, which is good.


As for the onboard SM502 audio chip in my AmigaOne 500. Somebody complained it was lacking 5.1 audio support. I can't see that problem, as if you connect the machine to a HIFI surround system like the one i have - Logitech 5.1 surround system with the possibilities to changes modes like Movies or Music with Panorama effect ON, by connecting it with the green audio cable, then i don't really see the problem. Audio is surprisingly good, and i managed to boost the audio in AHI, making it more powerful without distortion! I boosted it by +0.5db and increased the volume to +12.0db! The audio might rely heavily on CPU power, as it uses 94% of the CPU power. Would help if it relied as less as possible on the CPU.

Other than that the audio is excellent and very clear! No need for an audio card, unless you are into MIDI. Don't think that SM502 support MIDI. Tried that, but no respond, so i realized it most certainly doesn't support MIDI. For that, you would have to use audio cards like SoundBlaster, TerraTec or ESI @Julio, to mention some. For main audio playback and recording, the SM502 is surprisingly excellent, despite using a lot of CPU power!


Other than that, i have also spent much time in cleaning up my system, making it as nice and tidy as possible, with Subdocks for Graphic, Music, Prefs and Utilities! As you can probably see, i am using a modified SilverGreen Theme. Modified you say. How so? Well, by modifying something in its' config file which had to be done CAREFULLY! Only ONE line should be changed there, so i did that! The line that allows BeOS/Zeta style (which i love so much!), saved that and VOILA! BeOS/Zeta-styled SilverGreen Theme! I of course made a new backup by copying the AmigaOS partition into my Backup drawer in the partition Diverse, after also picking up a nicer background! As i do a lot of photographing on my own, i found a really nice background picture from my Facebook profile with sunset! I made a sub-drawer in SYS:Prefs/Presets called Wallpapers, making this drawer hidden like the others, by deleting the .info file, which is not needed here, and allowed WBPattern to save this picture as the background to use! I just love my setup now, and it's beautiful to see on my HDTV!








I also managed to get MUI-OWB to display YouTube videos! On the net, there is a great tutorial to how to configure MUI-OWB to play YouTube videos, as it doesn't yet support HTML5. The tutorial was read carefully, step by step, so i did that and followed the instructions carefully. I'm no fan of complicated configurations and spending a lot of time to manually look for necessary files and updates, installing them and hope things will work. Modern OSes like Windows and MacOS X do these things automatically by full net-access, and they find these things automatically and install them automatically by a click, just the way it's supposed to be. It would be better that way, and i will explaing later in the blog why, when we are talking a little about what has to be done in future AmigaOS.



Anyway, i managed to get MUI-OWB to play YouTube videos, as seen in one of the photos. Also managed to get the multi-tool Jack to work, but had to intall it manually. As first, i tried to let its' Installer handle it,  but it failed completely. It would help if the Installer (as again seen in Windows, MacOS X and other modern OSes) relied fully on net-access to find the updated files and programs necessary to install, and to update things automatically. AmiUpdate could have done that, but it's not fully made for that purpose, and it's not intergrated into the main AmigaOS. As for now, you as a user mostly have to do things

MANUALLY. That means to look around yourself, find the right files and programs, try to install them and HOPE they will work as supposed to! That's ridicilous, even for me, but the way you have to accept for now on. Hopefully, this would be addressed in future AmigaOS.


Without complaining too much, i did manage to get Jack to work by realizing the AISS had to be updated, and some tools like WGet and some other files i can't remember the name of, but manually i managed to get it working, and in the beginning it was a really nice experience! To be able to view calender, time, date ,weather, access to the AppStore to check for new programs and updates at OS4Depot.net, the provided picture editing program (which is actually based on LoView, which i have now separately.) and a speech-able Translator by




using the Flilte.device stored in DEVS:.


What about playing some movies? Oh yes, i wanted to do that as well, so i realized my provied DVPlayer that was part of Update 2, had to be updated. As an already registered customer of both DVPlayer and MUI, i contacted again both authors of these programs and asked for the full version of latest DVPlayer and the MUI key. Got both and installed them onto my system. As for DVPlayer, i downloaded the plugins for it through OS4Depot.net and now the full version of my DVPlayer plays commercial DVDs easily, but still without subtitles, despite the latest DVPlayer supports it. I suppose the plugins from OS4Depot are made in such a way that the subtitles don't appear, unless the author manages to bring subtitles support also for the plugins from OS4Depot, and not only the original plugin in DVPlayer.





Also got AmigaAMP (the OS4 PPC version) fully working, using a Metal Steel skin of short, making it very stylish! Haven't spent much time with it, but i know it works very well (a screenshot will appear shortly...)


TuneNet also works, mostly. I say mostly because it doesn't seem to show playlists correctly. I was told in my AmigaOS group on Facebook that the program is outdated and that the developer was not available for contact. Instead someone was able to make a patch that is said to make TuneNet works more correctly (this is installed by the time you read this blog during the day). Apart from that, TuneNet is great, as i have great experiences from that program 6 years ago on Pre4 AmigaOS 4.0 system when i had my old AmigaOne G4-XE system BEFORE it was broken down by overclocking, which i am not doing anymore!


Other programs have been tested, too. I tried LodePaint - the Open Source paint program for AmigaOS4. Although the paint program is great and powerful, it is rather slow. This is due to the fact that there is still no 3D-drivers for the Radeon HD cards in AmigaOS4, and you still have to use the Composite 2D mode in AmigaOS 4.1. Same for the Open Source 3D program Blender, which actually runs quite well on my system. There is of course a Software Render called Wazp3D (which is a continued support of the obsolete Warp3D) that allows you to use the Composite feature as smooth and well as possible, until these 3D-drivers appear, or better still - WHEN AmigaOS 4.2 is ready! Then there will be quite a difference!








To test the function of Wazp3D Software Render, i also installed the game Hurrican (that is based on Turrican 3). A really nice, smooth OpenGL plattformer! By including the Wazp3D.cfg for Hurrican in its' own drawer, after some configurations in Wazp3D-Prefs (that's the name it has to be, as i understand). The game ran smoothly with great graphic, audio and music! A screenshot of the game will appear shortly...


Earlier in the blog, i mentioned the multi-appliaction Jack. It stopped working when LodePaint was installed, as i noticed on the screenshot i took of the program. The weather didn't appear correctly, and it was NOT possible to get reaction from clicking either of the program's several buttons. It was if it freezed completely to death, with NO Grim Reaper message about the failure. I can only imagine that the failure is part of the program itself.

If i recall correctly, this was part of a discussion going on in the Amiga forums these days, about the future of Jack. Well, for me, instead of messing around with Jack again, i chose to ignore Jack in favour of FlipClock, seen on the other shots on the blog. FlipClock is really nice and handy, with far less struggle to set up. The program is not quite perfect in the way it works, but compared to Jack, it is far more stable and straightforward, in my opinion.


In addition, i felt the need of using a great picture editing program, as i am also into photographing, so i picked up LoView (which many seems to love, which i now love too!) and installed it into my SYS:Utilities. If you look closer at the photo of LoView, you will notice this is the SAME picture editing program that is part of Jack. So for the one of us not using Jack, don't worry. You can now use FlipClock and LoView separately, and i tell you they WORK!

I love the fact that the pictures can be saved in PNG, for highest possible quality!







Another tool i installed is SnoopDOS (no, it's not the man or the dog Snoop Dog, hehe. This is something else.) for analyzing the OS for erros. Hence, i don't use this often, it's still part of my system in case something happens. Useful to have in any way for security reasons, even that it's not used that much.







Now there was time to install some great emulators alongside RunInUAE. As seen here is the latest version of DOSBox - A DOS emulator that allows you to emulate an old Windows PC and to run DOS games. Haven't yet managed it to locate CD-ROM to install PC-games into the emulator. Would help if one could only access a configuration menu in the program where you simply choose graphic mode, audio mode, what drives to use and such, and simply save them, then the emulator simply runs these configurations automatically, just like in all programs and modern OSes today. Why complicate things when the point is to make things as painless and easy as possible, without having to do everything manually and end up messing things up?!


My favourite emulator is actually ScummVM! As a first, there was some fiddling around how to make the latest ScummVM 1.5.0 to work. What is even new for me, is that this version now relies on Shared Objects and not ordinary libraries (the Shared Objects are found in the SObjs drawer of your SYS partition and should NOT be messed around with!), so i realized i had to find the SObjs files the emulator needed in order to work, by making a SObjs drawer (this one can be hidden if wanted to) into the ScummVM drawer. Again, it would be better if the Installer did this for you, just like i told several times now, instead of messing around yourself. That's just stupid, and that's only meant from a realistic state. Honestly speaking.









After configuring ScummVM to work, i picked up some really nice adventures to play, and more will come! The games are Broken Sword, Flight Of The Amazon Queen (Talkie-version with subtitles) and Curse Of The Monkey Island. I will also order Broken Sword 2 and look for several other adventure games like Space Quest 1 and 2 Remake, King Quest 3 Remake, to mention some! Great fun!


I spend a lot of time playing these nice adventures, especially Broken Sword! It's so nice to just relax and play your favorite games, even in RunInUAE. As for RunInUAE, it would be better to access a full configuration menu, then save the settings, and then the emulator will always use them, not asking for them again, and why emulate the annoying Floppy audio? It's really disturbing and quite noisy! How to disable it? Would be nice if this could be disabled! There is absolutely NO need to emulate the noise of an old floppy drive! Trust me!







Other than playing a lot, i spend time on surfing the net, reading the news and watching for updates to AmigaOS and its' applications and games, editing my photos and composing some music in OSS. That is great fun, i have to say. For some more advanced work, i use my Windows 7 PC because of programs like Open Office and Picasa 3.


I should mention that i have tried running TimberWolf's latest beta on my system, but it caused a Grim Reaper and freezed my system. Tried many times and still couldn't get it to work, so for now i gave it up and thought it is better to wait when it is officially launched and fully working, by letting the Installer handle the installation as supposed to, and as already mentioned so many times...


Other programs i tried were JabberWocky and SabreMSN. Actually got SabreMSN to work, but can't figure out why it reconnects 3 times and then give up the connection. There is no problem with my internet connection, as i have full access seen with YAM and MUI-OWB/OWB and such. I believe it was said that there was a bug with the latest SabreMSN

related to such things, so i suppose this will be fixed in the next version, hopefully. For now, i only use the Facebook Chat program, which works on any browser or system you use.





Before i complete this blog, i will just say in conclusion that my AmigaOS 4.1.4 system on my AmigaOne 500 is very reliable, smooth and efficient! It's a really fine, flexible and fast system to use. Not as fast and powerful as the more expensive AmigaOne X1000, but the AmigaOne 500 (based on SAM460ex, actually) is an excellent entry-level system, at HALF the price of the X1000 system, believe my words!

As AmigaOS 4.1 only marks a new dimension for the Amiga and still have limitations, even the X1000 can't get to use all of its' features to the maximum. Not before AmigaOS 4.2, at least.


Like any other operating systems, even the latest AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4 is not perfect. It has its' limitations just like others. While it's a really stable, flexible version with many interesting features, it is by no mean perfect and there are still many things to work on.


As one of AmigaOS 4 Team developers said in an interview with Amiga Future earlier, the AmigaOS 4.1 is only the beginning of a new dimension for the Amiga, so it's only logical that the limitations are very visible and that a lof of things are been/will be worked on. From my own perspection, i will list opp the limitations and what should be changed/incorporated:


DOS/File: Shell is too old and too "Amiga-file dependent", and as the developers said, too complicated to bring up-to-date. A universal DOS/File system need to be part of the future AmigaOS. Weither that is on 4.2 or later.


I see a lot of possibilities. MorphOS and AROS already support NTFS and EXT. Steven Solie - the AmigaOS Team leader mentioned last year in AmiWest show that they are indeed working on a new framework for a new file system related to this DOS/File situation. Say, if you in later AmigaOS would want to run PC-games or applications directly through DOSBox, then this will be easier with an external harddrive or CD/DVD-ROM formatted with NTFS. Makes life easier!


Installer and Update: I suppose this speaks for itself. While the AmigaOS Installer is still limited (and might seem outdated) in the way that the user still for some reason has to look for missing or updated files, configure them and install part of them manually, the Installer in all other modern OSes like Windows and MacOS X rely completely on net access for automatically finding the needed files and programs, and also automatically updating these files and allow them to be fully installed by a click from the user, without needing to know where they appear, as that is provided fully automatically by the Installer and the Update system seen in Windows and MacOS X, saving the user a lot of time and struggle to try doing these things manually and mess things up, which is not necessary! As for the Update seen in Windows and MacOS X, they have the same prosedure as their Installer, being fully dependent on net access for automatic updating the whole system. This is the way it should be, and this is how we all want, i am sure of! This is important!


The Installer should also be able to UnInstall unwanted programs and files, 

as seen in Windows and MacOS X, which is both important and useful!


Backup, recovery, restore and defragment: Would love to see these becoming more a standard part of AmigaOS. To be able to make important backup, to recover the system from failure, even restoring to the previous setup well-known in OSes like Windows and for doing defragmentation of your partitions, cleaning up mess and such. The JFXS file system should be able to be bootable as well, like the SFS/02 file format. Somebody might be talking about including support for the PC file formats that are used regularly, if needed to.


Unarc with EXE-support: While the latest Unarc archiver in AmigaOS 4.1 supports most files already, support for EXE would be great too, but that would probably only be possible if incorporating a universal DOS/File system. This is of course something to think about in the future.


Better Internet support: Already been discussed by the AmigaOS4 Team, we need to advance to IPv6, internet security, password security (also when you start up the system, so that you either log into your system as Supervisor or just a User (inspired by Windows and MacOS X, to prevent others to be able to use your system.). I'm sure there are many thoughts here considered.


Multi-core SMP support and OpenGL: Yes, these things are coming in AmigaOS 4.2, so that are excellent news really! Being fully aware that modern hardware and OSes rely on these things, we get to see them in AmigaOS 4.2 as well! YES!


AHI and CAMD: AHI is already great today, but lacks several useful features. First of all, it should be fully CPU-independent not relying on its' power but on the audio chip's or card's own power. AHI doesn't yet support Multi-channel recording, so that would be nice to see. Perhaps more than 32 audio channel support, too, and support for higher quality than 16-bit. 24 and 32-bit are standard today. We also need support for all type of Dolby and DTS surround (including the HD-versions) in both 5.1 and 7.1 (and perhaps other new surround standard). As for CAMD, it could be included in the AHI program and automatically detect the audio hardware to see if it support it, then allow the user to save the settings and both AHI and CAMD can be used as supposed to.


A software-based shutdown: Instead of always pressing the POWER button on and off, a software-based function to either Shutdown, reset, log off or restart should be possible, as seen in Windows and MacOS X.


Locate: For some reason, it doesn't seem to intergrate completely with the whole OS and applications. If the user for instance, choose Norwegian as the language for AmigaOS to use, it's supposed to use that language for the WHOLE system, ALL the menus, title screens and ALL applications should

fully support the use of OTHER languages than just english! I suppose this is something that are been worked on for AmigaOS 4.2.


Whole new Printer-system: I suppose this is worked on, too. The current Printer system is quite outdated in a way that one had to use TurboPrint to get support for many of the drivers for modern printers. A new Printer system should also have full net access, so that if you actually have a WIFI-supported printer, the Printer system in AmigaOS should be able to set that up for you automatically, if you happen to know the IPs you use, to allow the printer to run wirelessy.


Noticifaction: While this feature is already great in the latest AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4, i hope it can be made to appear completely on the language you choose to use in your system (see the section about Locate for that), and if not already, i also hope Notification will bring up a message when it discovers something, even when the relied programs are not running, as seen in Windows and MacOS X.


There are many things i'm sure we are thinking about, but too many to add here probably. I only tried to list up the most important things first. JAVA and HTML5 support are also some of many things that are needed in AmigaOS.


Well, i suppose that concludes my blog for now, so happy reading and enjoy the photos!


Written by:

Helge Kvalheim, Norway








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