AmigaOne 500 9th Years Anniversary

 

Me in a home office situation

Welcome to a new blog update from me. Now that I have had my AmigaOne 500 aka SAM460ex for exactly 9 years. I had ordered the 1.15Ghz AmigaOne 500 aka SAM460ex with 2GB DDR2 RAM from the Swedish GGSData around the middle of July 2012. Received it the 12th of August 2012. So yes, I have had this beautiful AmigaNG machine for 9 years, and it still works as new. It has got a new case with 2 extra new USB2 ports, and it's running the very latest AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Update 2 Hotfix and Workbench Enhancer 2.0. A FREE 2.1 update is on the way soon. Version 3 of Enhancer will be released end of 2021, and by then, I need to find a payment solution from my DNB bank I have the debet card from. It would seem that I would need a BankID to be able to pay international, like through PayPal. As of 2021, things are more complicated, due to the terrible Covid-19 situation and its massive mutations, which certainly complicate things.

AmigaOne 500 in new case

The truth is that I have never had an Amiga for so long as 9 years, and still working as new. Because when I was younger, I was also arrogant and naive. Didn't take many things seriously enough, meaning I was also uncareful with having an Amiga. The other Amiga models I had in the past, like 3 Amiga 1200 models (whereas the third was in a Tower with BlizzardPPC and BVisionPPC), an AmigaOne G3-XE and 2 AmigaOne G4-XE systems, all became destroyed one way or another, because I didn't pay attention to take good care of them.

But as I grew up, I also learnt to respect better what I have and take good care of my stuffs. This is the case with my 9 years old AmigaOne 500.

In the new case of my AmigaOne 500 aka SAM460ex, the motherboard is intact and fully working. The 1.15Ghz 32-bit AMCC PPC CPU has never been clocked and works effectively along with the 2GB DDR2 RAM. In the UBoot BIOS from 2015, DDR2 Boost is enable for both read and write operations, certainly speeding up the memory use. I also have an 1GB GDDR5 based Radeon HD 6670 PCIe graphic board, and a 24-bit ESI@Juli XTe PCIe MIDI audio card using the Envy24th AHI driver, which all work as a charm with latest AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Update 2 Hotfix with Workbench Enhancer 2.0. I'm very happy with my Amiga system!

AmigaOS FE Update 2 Hotfix

As the screenshot to the left shows, a lot of improvement to the environment has been done.

Instead of using AmiDock, I now use the new X-Dock from the Enhancer bundle. The same with the Calender and Clock. There's also a Mini dock with CPU, GPU and RAM metres displaying the active use of them. Very handy!

The only thing I do not use in Enhancer is CANDI. Some might like animated backgrounds and that can be cool, but for me it's unneccesary, so I rather use FlipPaper, which swaps multiple different wallpapers within half an hour each time my AmigaOne 500 is running. I like it that way, and I'm very comfortable with it that way.

Using a high speed WIFI 6 router with AmigaOne 500

Huawei Dual Core AX3 WIFI 6 Router

Around a week ago, I bought myself a brand new router, as the other I had was not working.

The one I bought was a brand new, high speed WIFI 6 router from Huawei, able to handle speed as much as 6000 Kbps, which is impressive!

The router is called Huawei Dual Core AX3 WIFI 6 and it works excellent with the Fibre net I have in my new place. The new WIFI 6 standard is very helpful, and it's very easy to set up with a simple net page for configuration through a simple login. It also checks for updates automatically, so when an update is available, you only need to get into the configuration page and check for updates, then it will do the job for you. On the Amiga, I notice that accessing the net is also lot more effective than what is typical for the Amiga. However, it's when you use a PC and wireless stuffs you really will notice the big difference in speed and effectivity.

Huawei router configuration with Odyssey

Using Odyssey 1.23r5 Beta 7 to access certain pages on my AmigaOne 500 might feel outdated and it certainly does, and it hasn't been updated since summer last year. Also, several sites on the net have undergone a lot of changes to security and how to access some sites with proper ID confirmation. Why that is the case is hard to explain, but it's actually the case.

Using the now somewhat outdated Odyssey is not so hopeless. As you see on the screenshot, it's even possible to access the Huawei router configuration of my new WIFI 6 router, displaying a very simple and easy to understand setup.

You only need to login with a username and a password you create, as the WIFI 6 router doesn't provide a password by standard, so I created one which only I know about.

To actually be fully able to access the configuration site even on an outdated browser like Odyssey on my AmigaOne 500 is truly amazing! I am more than happy with my new WIFI 6 router, and it makes surfing the net with the Amiga even more exciting! Shows what is possible to do with such a brand new router and an AmigaNG system. Quite enjoyable!

A new direction with 16-bit Amiga tracker music

DigiBooster 3.1 PPC with AHI support

Sometime in July, I got a nice present for FREE from a former Amiga user, but a music friend of mine, named Krister from Sweden. He knew I was deeply into Amiga tracker music and wanted to provide me an alternative tracker to use.

The one he had was actually latest DigiBooster 3.1, fully PPC native and supporting the AHI sound driver system for the Amiga. The tracker has a very nice and professional GUI. I could play several multi-track mods using the 32-bit HIFI Stereo++ setup of my Envy24th AHI driver. The audio played very clean and clear, and I could play even 24 channel mods of the 32 from my setup! An excellent tracker of its own!

OctaMED SoundStudio v1.03c NSM 

Unfortunately, I am unfamiliar with how the effect and player commands of DigiBooster works. It's certainly something I could have learnt, but I am too familiar with OctaMED SoundStudio v1.03c, and that is the one I use. The NSM patched one.

I have tried to add the use of the Set68kCpu command to always emulate the 68060 in OctaMED SoundStudio. In AmigaOS4, the Compatibility prefs allows me to use the Petunia JIT engine to run OctaMED SoundStudio v1.03c in full speed as possible. OctaMED is so easy to understand and so easy to use. 

I use the latest TheMaestrix AHI tool developed by my friend Damien Stewart, whom is currently busy trying to port it to PPC, which should be very interesting once fully completed.

Because, as most of you know from before, OctaMED SoundStudio never supported PPC and AHI, TheMaestrix is needed to make your AHI sound system to emulate a 16-bit Maestro Pro in order to get audio out, and yes, it works very well! The latest version of TheMaestrix adds the possibility of setting BUFFERS in its Tooltypes. I set it to use 4, while the Mix Buffer Size in OctaMED SoundStudio is set to 1024. This gives an excellent balance and overall quality.

Somewhere on the net, I was also able to find a huge collection of true 16-bit samples of many different MIDI instruments from Casio, Equ, Kawai, Roland, Yamaha and more! Instruments that sound like TRUE instruments, giving Amiga music a truly realistic feeling!

Making music with the Amiga hasn't always been easy and enjoyable as I hoped, as for satisfying the YouTube public is certainly not easy. They're very demanding and their criticsm can often be very harsh and unfair. Most are good people who would enjoy your release. Others might be bad people who got nothing better to do, who love to bully other people.

Nevertheless, I have learnt that it's best to trust yourself in what you do and what you want. Always trying to do your best and keep improving where improvements are needed. Listening to constructive feedback, but ignoring hateful attacks. That's what I am trying to do now.

The track I released 2 weeks ago on both SoundCloud and YouTube, was "Better Person". A true 16-bit 7ch Amiga track. The style is more toward Latin guitar music. The response to the track was good but a little mixed, which I can live with. I know I did my best, so it's okay.

16-bit tracker music is old news in most of the tracker world today, as PC and Mac have both moved far ahead, compared to the Amiga. But for the Amiga, 16-bit tracker music is a bit underrated but underestimated. Great 16-bit Amiga tracker music adds a whole new dimension to Amiga music itself. It's interesting and it's certainly something I will continue to do as long as I am able to, even on an amateur level. I do because I love it. Simple as that.

I have many plans for new 16-bit Amiga tracker music, and I'm still waiting for a PPC-native version of OctaMED SoundStudio with AHI support, which is currently in development. That's all I know and all I can say about it. The less people know of my Amiga music plans, the more exciting it should be when I am able to provide something good. All in a good time.

This ends this blog for now on. Time to celebrate the 9th Anniversary of my AmigaOne 500!

Thanks for reading my blog and supporting my Amiga stuffs. Amiga makes it possible!

Written by

Helge Kvalheim, Norway