totalamiga_17.pdf

£4.00

8.00Euro

Issue 17, Winter 2003/4

Also in this Issue

Features

Timber Tower

Reviews

PhotoFolio 2.4

StarAm Plan

ArakAttack

AmigaArena CD

Tutorials

Mac: Reloaded

Image Enhancement

C Programming

AmigaOS 4: Hands On

We get to try a development version of the OS

everyone’s been waiting for!

Plus: News of an OS 4 pre-release for

AmigaOne owners.

Contents

News

Amiga OS 4.0 to be

Editorial

Issue 17

Spring 2004

Pre-released

Welcome to another issue of

Total Amiga. It’s been a while

since we’ve been this late with

an edition so my apologies for

keeping you waiting. Several

other tasks were competing for

my time during the production

of this issue which meant I just

couldn’t spare the amount of

time each week I normally do.

These included pressures at

work and also completing work

for an English A-Level I’m

taking at evening classes.

page). As I write this Mick has

just received a test version of

the CD which is very

impressive, especially the

simple installation procedure,

so hopefully many more people

will be enjoying OS 4 soon.

It’s been a quiet few months for

software releases so we’ve

taken the opportunity to catch

up with a few existing

programs that have never been

reviewed in Total Amiga.

Sometimes programs really

surprise you and that was

deﬁnitely the case with StarAm

Plan which I review on page

26. At ﬁrst it seemed rather

simple and quirky. However as

I used it more I found it

surprisingly powerful... ﬁnd out

what it can do in my review.

Another excellent product we

hadn’t covered is PhotoFolio, a

powerful picture cataloguer. If

you got a digital camera for

Christmas this is the review to

read ﬁrst!

I think many Amithlon owners

will be pleased to read about

ArakAttack (reviewed on page

22), this strangely named

driver enables you to use the

USB ports on your PC within

the emulation. Another piece of

good news is that the Poseidon

USB stack (used by

ArakAttack) can now be

registered again and IOSpirit

have a good value bundle in

Contents

News

Editorial..............................2

News Items........................3

AmigaOS 4 On Tour & UK

Show Reports................. 10

Features

Fleecy Moss Column.........9

Buzz Word..........................9

AmigaOS 4: Hands On... 12

Timber Tower.................. 16

Reviews

PhotoFolio 2.4................. 19

Arak Attack...................... 22

StarAmPlan..................... 26

Amiga Arena Games

Edition............................. 30

PD Paradise.................... 32

Support

Mac: Reloaded, part 2.... 36

Image Enhancement

Tutorial, part 2................. 38

C Programming Tutorial,

part 2............................... 42

As you’ll have read in this

magazine and elsewhere,

AmigaOS 4 on the AmigaOne

is progressing well and has

now been in active use by

developers and testers for

several months. As this news

spread, and OS 4 was

demonstrated in many parts of

the world lots of AmigaOne

owners posted to mailing lists

and web forums saying they

would like to try a version on

their machines even if it wasn’t

the ﬁnal release.

At the end of November, in an

interview with AmigaWorld.net,

Alan Redhouse revealed that a

pre-release version of OS 4 will

be made available to early bird

customers before the ﬁnal

release. This was conﬁrmed by

Hyperion in an announcement

posted to their website on

Christmas day! Since the

announcement we have heard

that the OS 4 development

team is working hard in getting

the OS ready for the pre-

release. This includes

completing developments,

ﬁxing bugs and working on a

slick installation procedure and

documentation. Take a look at

Mick Sutton’s OS 4 Hands on

Feature in this issue to get a

feel for what the OS 4 pre-

release will be like, however

bear in mind that the version

that is supplied with have many

enhancements in reliability,

speed and features over the

version Mick looked at. The

pre-release will also include

development material such as

source code, an initial version

of the OS 4 SDK (software

developer kit) and native

compilers to allow

programmers with an

AmigaOne to start developing

for the new OS.

We understand that OS 4 pre-

release will be supplied to each

AmigaOne early bird owner on

CD. Installation will require an

update to the AmigaOne’s U-

Boot BIOS, which, on most

boards, is achieved by booting

from a CD and issuing a simple

command. A few very early

AmigaOnes have their BIOS

ﬂash-ROM locked and will

need to be sent to a dealer for

reprogramming. With the BIOS

updated the machine can then

be booted from the OS4 CD-

ROM which leads you through

a guided installation process

including partitioning your hard

disk with the new Media

Toolbox utility if required.

The pre-release CD distribution

is currently being tested and is

expected to be available soon,

perhaps even by the time you

read this. If we hear that the

CD is ready before this issue is

posted we will include an

update sheet.

For more information on

AmigaOS 4 visit the Amiga

website:

http://os.amiga.com

The ofﬁcial announcement

from Hyperion is available on:

http://www.hyperion-

entertainment.com

their on-line shop (see the

news section for details).

To complete this issue we’ve

got a solid set of tutorials for

you to get your teeth into. Dave

Pitcher is back with the second

part of his “C” programming

tutorial and Michael Carrillo

has some suggestions for

software to run on your Mac

Emulator. In my Image

processing tutorial you can

learn how to re-touch images

using the “clone” tool and a bit

about image sharpening.

Before I go, I’m sure you’ll

notice that Eyetech’s normal

advertising is missing this

issue. There is nothing sinister

about this, they are just so

busy that they could not

prepare a new advert in time to

meet even our delayed

deadline and, unfortunately,

the existing adverts were too

out of date to run again.

The other reason for the delay

was that before Christmas,

Mick Sutton, several other

SEAL members and myself

attended several OS 4

demonstrations with Mick’s

AmigaOne running OS 4. We

were in the happy position of

giving the ﬁrst ever such demo

in the UK on the 9th of

November. You can ﬁnd some

short reports and pictures from

the various events on the

SEAL website:

http://www.seal-amiga.co.uk.

Having a development version

of OS 4 on his AmigaOne has

allowed Mick to write a very

interesting feature on the new

OS which you can ﬁnd on page

12 of this issue. Also of interest

to current and potential Amiga

One owners is the news that a

pre-release CD version of the

new OS will soon be available

(see the news item over the

I hope you enjoy the issue and

we’ll try to make the next one

more timely!

Robert Williams

Next Issue....................... 46

Colour screen-shots etc.. 48

Early Bird AmigaOne owners will soon have the pleasure of

booting Amiga OS 4.0 on their systems for the ﬁrst time!

editor@totalamiga.org

About Total Amiga

Legalese

Total Amiga is published quarterly

by South Essex Amiga Link.

Editor: Robert Williams

Design: Robert Williams

Contributors: Fleecy Moss

David Pitcher

Michael Carrillo

Mick Sutton

Nick Elliott

Proofreading: Mick Sutton

Sharon Sutton

Cover Design: Robert Williams

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: http://www.totalamiga.org/

Post: Total Amiga,

26 Wincoat Drive,

BENFLEET,

Essex, SS7 5AH,

UK.

Telephone: +44 (0) 1268 569937

(19:00 - 22:00

UK time only please)

Only Amiga Software

Made it Possible

Total Amiga is designed and laid

out using:

Hardware:

Home built x86 PC

AMD Athlon XP 2500+

nVidia gForce 2 MX400

512Mb RAM, 40Gb HDD.

Software:

Amithlon by Bernie Meyer et. al.

Amiga OS 3.9 by Amiga

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 8.00 from artofcode

LLC ported to AmigaOS 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

http://www.larabiefonts.com and

his commercial foundry at

http://www.typodermic.com.

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

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.

Advertisers

Amiga............................... 11

Amigaworld.net............... 35

AmiGBG show (Sweden) 25

Audio Evolution............... 24

Fore-matt Home Computing

........................................ 37

Kicksoft................... 18 & 47

TOTAL AMIGA

Spring 2004

News

Can That SPAM!

Bytes...

Shinier

Bytes...

Amiga Point of View is a new

magazine concentrating on

classic Amiga games, it is

available as a free download

in PDF format. It includes

game reviews, articles on

aspects of Amiga gaming,

walk-throughs, hints and tips,

and many other features. The

ﬁrst issue was released just

before Christmas and looks

excellent with a really nice

design and lots of interesting

articles including:

• 9 reviews including Sensible

Golf, Eye of the Beholder

and Balance of Power.

• A feature on Team 17.

• How comics inspired Amiga

games.

• Help on completing Quest

for Glory, Zak McKracken

and Switchblade.

Pegasos II Touches Down

Amiga PoV

The ﬁrst batch of Pegasos II

motherboards were shipped to

users just before Christmas.

This new version of Genesi’s

PowerPC motherboard is

based on the Marvell

Discovery II system controller

which endows it with support

for faster DDR-266MHz

memory and an additional

1Gb/s Ethernet port (not

currently supported under

MorphOS). Apart from those

changes the Pegasos II is very

similar to the Pegasos I with

features including:

• Processor card slot with

either a 600MHz G3 or

1000MHz G4 PowerPC

processor

• Micro ATX form factor

(236mm x 172mm)

• 1 AGP slot

• 3 PCI Slots

• 3 USB 1.1 ports

• 2 Firewire ports

• 10/100Mb/s Ethernet port (in

addition to the Gb port

mentioned above)

• AC97 built-in sound with

microphone and line inputs,

and line and S/PDIF outputs.

• Standard ports including

mouse, keyboard, parallel

and serial.

The initial batch of Pegasos II

board were supplied with

AntiSPAM is a spam

(unsolicited commercial e-mail,

often characterised by adverts

for pornography and Viagra)

blocking tool which uses a

central database on an Internet

server to collect mails that

have been marked as SPAM

by all its users. The program

runs in the background and is

supplied with a number of

scripts to integrate it with the

popular e-mailer, YAM. At start-

up a fresh SPAM database is

downloaded and any mail

received is checked against it,

if a message is identiﬁed as

SPAM it is removed from the

incoming folder. If any SPAM

messages get through you can

select them and run the

“AddSpammer.rexx” script from

a menu item to add this mail to

the database that will assist all

of AnitSPAM’s users.

Also included in the package is

AntiSPAM Remote, this tool

will scan the e-mails waiting to

GoldEd

Dietmar Eilert has released a

slew of updates for his

comprehensive text editor

package, GoldEd Studio AIX.

MorphOS is now fully

supported, this means that

GoldEd runs properly on the

platform and the MorphOS

developer material has been

integrated into the C/C++

module. The C/C++ module

was then further upgraded to

ﬁx bugs in the gcc/ndk

installation. GoldEd’s

WebWorld HTML publishing

module has been enhanced

to include the latest version of

Tidy which checks your HTML

code for errors and good

style. These updates are

available free for registered

owners, the complete GoldEd

Studio package costs

69.90Euro (about £50).

If you don’t own GoldEd or

have an older version two

new demo versions are

available, a “small” trial (4Mb)

contains the editor and

extensions but lacks the full

C/C++ mode. The “full” trial

weighs in at 84Mb but

includes all the C/C++

functionality including

compilers giving a complete

integrated development

environment. The demos are

fully functional but limited to

small documents, however

Dietmar mentions that they

may well be enough to handle

web pages and the like.

Download from:

http://golded.dietmar-eilert.de

buggy

ﬁrmware

which would

prevent the

machine from

booting if any

setting were changed.

Very quickly after their

release a ﬁx was made

available, but this should be

applied before any ﬁrmware

settings are made, if you buy a

Pegasos II be sure to check

the following web page for

details:

http://www.bplan-

gmbh.de/update_e.html

Each Pegasos II is supplied

with a copy of MorphOS 1.4

which has had the necessary

changes made to run on the

updated board. MorphOS is a

new PowerPC operating

system that can run Amiga 68k

programs under JIT emulation

and also supports WarpUp and

PowerUp PPC programs.

The Pegasos II

mother board has a

similar design and the

same neat form factor as

its predecessor.

AntiSpam’s remote utility can detect and delete SPAM

messages before you download them.

Native PPC MorphOS

programs are also available.

For more details please take a

look at Sam Byford’s reviews

of the Pegasos I and MorphOS

in issues 15 and 16.

The recommended price for a

Pegasos II board with a

1000MHz G4 processor is

499Euro (about £400 including

VAT) and the 600MHz G3

model costs 299Euro (about

£250 including VAT). For more

details on the Pegasos,

MorphOS, a list of dealers and

an on-line shop visit Genesi’s

Pegasos website:

http://www.pegasosppc.com/

be downloaded from your ISP’s

POP3 server and identify any

SPAMs. All the mails that have

been identiﬁed as SPAM are

listed and marked for deletion.

You can then check through

the mails and choose to keep

any that have been incorrectly

identiﬁed. When you’re happy

AntiSPAM will delete the

SPAMs in one go before you

have to download them.

AntiSPAM is freeware and can

be downloaded from its

website which also has more

information and detailed

installation instructions:

http://benderirc.de/

antispam.html

This magazine looks excellent

to me and if you are

interested in classic games

it’s well worth the 19.5Mb

download from:

http://apov.abime.net/

IOUpdates

Amithlon Movin’ On

Minor updates have been

released for IOSpirit’s whole

family of graphics products for

AmigaOS, MorphOS and

Amithlon. VHIStudio 6.01 now

supports MorphOS GUI skins

and has a speed increase on

that platform. The update also

includes “support for new

drivers” and bug ﬁxes. fxScan

4.05 also works with MOS

skins and now supports

loading and saving images in

the PNG format, remembers

the ﬁle save format last used

and has bug-ﬁxes. In fxPaint

2.02 the fxAlbum utility has

been updated with improved

performance, a more intuitive

delete function, support for

wheel mice and the ability to

ignore icon ﬁles. There are

also several general bug-ﬁxes

in this update.

These three updates are free

to owners of the VHIStudio 6,

fxScan 4 and fxPaint 2

respectively, if you have

registered your purchase you

can log-in and download your

update from the IOSpirit

website:

http://www.iospirit.com

With all the legal wranglings,

work on updates for Amithlon,

the x86 Amiga emulator, from

the original author stopped

some time ago. While Amithlon

itself works well one problem is

that PC hardware is moving all

the time and it is getting

increasingly difﬁcult to ﬁnd

compatible components, in

particular motherboards and

graphics cards. However

Amithlon is based on an open

source Linux kernel and this is

the part that contains most of

the hardware support. Gary

Colville has been working for

some time on Amithlon kernel

updates and asked for

donations on the Amithlon

mailing list to enable him to

purchase examples of the type

of hardware users wanted to

see supported. This work has

lead to a new kernel version

with new features and

hardware support:

• Hardware-accelerated

GeForce 4 Ti driver with full

resolution and refresh-rate

control.

• Non-accelerated GeForce 4

MX driver with full resolution

and refresh-rate support.

• IDE DMA/UDMA now

functions on recent VIA and

nVidia nForce 2 chipsets.

http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/

town/pipexdsl/s/asbf72/

amithlon/

Learn With eTeacher

AmithlonUpdate

If you have Amithlon and have

never managed to ﬁgure out

how to install the updates

available for the system then

there is a treat in store for you!

Guido Mersmann (who wrote

the ArakAttack USB driver

reviewed in this issue) has

packaged all the updates

together with a neat installer

script which will update a

system installed from the

Amithlon CD to the latest

version. The only manual

installation step is to copy the

new kernel onto your boot

drive.

eTeacher is a multimedia

training CD-ROM designed to

help you learn a language,

versions for English and

German are available. The

program features exercises

which are accompanied with

images and recorded speech

so you can learn how words

and phrases should be

pronounced. Several types of

exercise are included which

focus on vocabulary, grammar

and sentence structure. The

level of difﬁculty can be

adjusted so the program will

grow with you as you learn. It

has been designed to be

simple to use and is suitable

for both children and adults.

Version 6.2 has just been

released and features:

• More than 200 exercises.

• 3 Hours of audio.

• 1000 Images.

• Context sensitive grammar

assistance.

minimum requirements being

AmigaOS 2.0, a 68020

processor and 4Mb of RAM.

eTeacher is available from

FunTimeWorld’s on-line shop,

the English and German

versions are available

separately at 29.89Euro (£20

approx.) each or as a bundle

for 50Euro (£34):

http://www.funtime-world.de/

Gary has also released new

Linux drivers for various

motherboard features which

update those found in the last

Amithlon updates package:

• A wide range of AC-97 audio

codecs including the

ALC650, AD1890 and VIA

VT1616.

• Audio support functions in the

Intel ICH4, VIA 8235/8237

and nVidia MCP south bridge

chips.

• Broadcom 44xx 100MBit LAN

chips.

• NVidia nForce2 integrated

LAN.

The updated kernel is available

as a free download from Gary’s

website at:

Modern Amiga systems with

graphics cards and sound

cards are supported and, of

course, a CD-ROM is required.

However eTeacher will also run

on a more basic system, the

Amithlon Update can be found

on Aminet in:

misc/emu/AmithlonUpdate.lha

eTeacher has a

simple interface

suitable for all

ages, the teacher

sounds a bit strict

though!

TOTAL AMIGA

Spring 2004

News

Bytes...

Nova’s

DVD Writing Comes to Amiga

Gorky17 for OS4

STFax Set Free

Updates

Simone Tellini has released

STFax 4 as freeware.

STFax can send and

receive faxes using a fax-

modem and also has the

facility to run an interactive

telephone system complete

with menus and voice mail.

STFax is a powerful

program and was highly

rated when it was released.

Hyperion have announced that

they are working on porting

Gorky17 to AmigaOS 4 in

addition to a Linux version

which is already under way.

Interestingly the Amiga version

is being developed by the

Linux developers who have

recently been “converted” to

the Amiga and thus is not

taking development time from

AmigaOS 4 itself!

Gorky 17 is described as

having a mix of strategy and

RPG game play. The player

commands a small team of

NATO soldiers who are

investigating the appearance of

mutant creatures in a small

Polish city. This story gives the

game a Sci-Fi/horror theme

with many sub quests to

perform and secret areas to

uncover.

The ﬁrst screen-shots of the

OS 4 version have been

released and it has been

demonstrated at some of the

AmigaOS 4 On Tour events. A

release date has not been

announced but it seems

reasonable to expect it soon

after the full OS 4.0 is

available.

Read the full announcement on

the Hyperion website at:

http://www.hyperion-

entertainment.com/_amiga/

news_031225.html

DVD writers have dropped

dramatically in price over the

last few months with the

cheapest units now available at

around £50 so it’s great to see

that the ﬁrst piece of DVD

writing software has just been

made available. This is a port

by “Schlonz” of the Linux

package dvdrtools which

consists of the following

applications:

readcd - This utility reads data

from a CD or DVD sector by

sector into a track image ﬁle on

your hard disk.

dvdrecord - The most

important part of the package,

this burns CDs and DVDs from

an existing track image ﬁle.

mkisofs - Creates image ﬁles

for data CDs from ﬁles on your

system, you would use this to

prepare a data disk to be

written with dvdrecord. Both

the ISO9660 format for CDs

and UDF for DVDs are

supported.

cdda2wav - Rips audio from

CD tracks and saves them in

standard audio ﬁle formats

including the popular WAV.

All these utilities are command

line driven and therefore have

to be run from a shell, some

non-amiga-speciﬁc

documentation is available

along with some notes on the

ports website which should be

enough to get you going. If

you’re not a shell person then

you’ll be pleased to hear that a

simple GUI front end for this

package has been written by

Carsten Siegner and is also

available from the port’s

website.

DVDRTools supports writing to

CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R and

DVD-RW but does not support

the DVD+ formats or DVD-

RAM. The author states that

most MMC compliant DVD

drives should work which

would include most modern

DVD writers, he has

successfully tested it with a 4X

Toshiba DVD-R drive but

reports that a LG 4020B 2X

device did not work. I tried with

an NEC ND-1300A 4X drive

and while dvdrecord wrote CD-

Rs successfully attempting to

write a DVD-R disc produced

an error message. So if you

plan to give this a go be careful

with your choice of drive.

Download the latest version of

the port from:

http://kuddelone.gmxhome.de/

dvdrtools/dvdrtools-e.html

Nova Design have made a new

release of their image

processor called ImageFX 4.5

Studio. This release includes

full MorphOS compatibility and

the PowerStation package

which was previously an

optional extra. PowerStation

provides PPC native versions

of many processor intensive

ImageFX effects (listed below),

the modules are compatible

with Amiga PPC accelerators

(they use the PowerUp

system) and MorphOS:

• Liquid

• Fire

• Clouds

• Bubble

• JPEG loader and saver

• Gaussian Blur

• Lightning

• FXForge

Download

comm/misc/STFax4.lha

from Aminet and then

update to 4.1:

biz/patch/STFax41Upd.lha.

Web Bytes...

www.amigaﬂame.com

AmigaFlame is one of the

longest standing continuously

updated Amiga websites that

I can remember, it’s forte is

Amiga games. A regularly

updated news section carries

all the game related news and

also other major Amiga

related stories. Separate lists

are available of games in

development for classic

Amigas and for the

AmigaOne once OS4 is

released. These lists are

bang up-to-date including

recent announcements such

as Gorky 17. The site

includes a history of games

released for the Amiga from

1993 to 2002 and a separate

list of recently released

commercial games (which

sadly only contains CrossFire

II). There are pages of game

reviews and cheats which

haven’t been added to

recently but still contain

useful information. The site is

completed with a selection of

Amiga links and a listing of

Amiga game developers.

Considering the slow pace of

the Amiga game market in

recent years with very few

titles released it’s quite a

surprise to ﬁnd such an up-to-

date site. Perhaps with the

release of new hardware and

OS 4 we’ll see some more

action and new releases.

ImageFX Studio costs $129.95

(£70 approx.), upgrades are

available at $39.95 (£22) from

4.x, $59.95 (£32) from 3.x and

$79.95 from 2.x. Pegasos

owners with the SuperBundle

can upgrade to the full version

for $99.95 (£54).

Aladdin 4D, Nova’s 3D

animation package has also

been given a new release, this

time on CD-ROM. While the

core program has not been

upgraded you do get

everything you need on the CD

including all the available

updates such as advanced 3D

object loading which enables

you to use objects distributed

in other formats. Also included

are a complete set of

“Aladdin’s Lamp” news letters

in HTML format along with

their accompanying demo and

sample projects.

Aladdin 4D costs $99.95 (£54)

and users of 5.x can upgrade

to the latest release for $29.95

(£16).

For more details and to order

either of these products visit

the Nova Design website which

now has a handy on-line shop:

http://www.novadesign.com

The ToastDVD GUI is a front end for

dvdrtool’s commandline programs.

Get What You Want

ProTracker Comeback

A follow on to the classic

Amiga family of sound tracker

programs (SoundTracker,

NoiseTracker, ProTracker) is

currently in development.

Protracker II is a completely

new program which brings the

classic tracker interface to

modern hardware. Some of the

features planned for the new

version include:

• Familiar keyboard short cuts

and GUI layout.

• AHI Support.

• 32bit Internal mixing

• High quality 8-tap FIR

resampling.

• Load: MOD, MOD2, DBM,

XM, IT, S3M, MED and MT2.

• Save: MOD, MOD2, XM.

• 64 Tracks, 256 Patterns.

• Separate volume, panning,

and effects on each track.

Protracker II is currently in

development for MorphOS and

Windows and versions for

AmigaOS 4 and AROS are

being considered. The

estimated release date is

March 2004. For more

information visit the program’s

website at:

http://www.kiritsu.com/

protracker/

WallGet is a graphical interface

for the GNU wget utility which

allows you to download ﬁles or

even whole websites from a

command line. The GUI gives

you comfortable access to all

wget’s features and enables

you to queue up ﬁles to be

downloaded, the maximum

number of ﬁles to be

downloaded at one time can be

set. Wget is a powerful

program and this is reﬂected in

WallGet’s extensive range of

download options, however

having everything laid out in a

GUI makes it easier to

understand than trying to work

out the command line options.

Downloads can be initiated by

calling an AREXX command

and an example script is

provided so WallGet can be

integrated with your browser.

WallGet has a MUI interface

and is available in versions for

AmigaOS and MorphOS.

Download the latest version

from:

http://www.ppa.ltd.pl/software/

software-wgetgui_eng.html

Gorky17 running in a window on OS4.

Classic Painting for OS4 and MOS

In separate announcements

Cloanto has conﬁrmed that

Personal Paint 7.1 will be

available for both MorphOS

and AmigaOS 4. Personal

Paint is a classic palette based

paint program in the mould of

Deluxe Paint which has always

been ideal for tasks such as

icon design and game

graphics.

Under the agreement with

Genesi, Cloanto will share the

Personal Paint source code so

Genesi can assist with the

port. When complete Personal

Paint will be bundled with

MorphOS. In a similar

agreement the sourcecode will

be made available to Amiga

Inc. so they can develop a

PowerPC native OS 4 version.

The updated version will be

available as a free download

from both Amiga and Cloanto.

Cloanto also announced that

they are in talks with Amiga

Inc. about a new OS 4 native

version of Amiga Forever with

the aim of allowing classic

Amiga hardware dependent

programs to run seamlessly on

the AmigaOne hardware under

OS 4.

Read the full announcements

on the Cloanto site at:

http://www.cloanto.com

WallGet packs all wget’s options

into a MUI interface.

TOTAL AMIGA

Spring 2004

News

Features

Fleecy Speaks

Poseidon Update & Registrations

Web Bytes...

Amiga Inc.’s CTO

sums up 2003 and

looks forward to 2004.

Once again we can report that

Chris Hodges has been hard at

work on his Poseidon USB

stack and has released a new

version. The major changes in

this version are to the HID

(human interface device) class

which now supports joypads

mapping them to the

lowlevel.library so they will

work with many modern

games. Features such as

analogue sticks and hat

switches are also supported.

Other HID improvements

include support for feature

items such as keyboard lights

(caps lock etc.) and game

controller rumble packs, and

improved keyboard mapping.

There have also been many

other improvements and bug

ﬁxes, a few that stood out for

me are that memory card

readers built into Epson

printers are now supported,

some problems with certain

Olympus digital cameras have

been worked around and

“PsdDevLister” now outputs a

Google search string so you

can look for information on a

particular device (I had to

mention that a I always smile

a Poseidon’s quirky features)!

Version 2.2 also marks the

reopening of the Poseidon

registration process so buyers

of Elbox’s Spider USB 2.0 card

and Guido Mersmann’s

ArakAttack Amithlon/OpenPCI

USB driver can register

Poseidon and use their USB

peripherals without the stack

timing out. Poseidon can be

registered by sending 25Euro

(£18 approx.) to the author in

cash or via a bank transfer.

If you would prefer to register

using your credit card, IOSpirit

are selling Poseidon in a

package called MedusaUSB

for 34.99Euro (£25). In addition

to the USB stack Medusa

includes a registered version of

ArakAttack and full versions of

IOUSB Scanner and IOUSB

Digicam. The IOUSB products

allow certain USB scanners

and digital cameras to be used

with fxScan and VHIStudio

respectively. Medusa can be

ordered through the IOSpirit

on-line shop and is then

released for immediate

download from the website,

keyﬁles for Poseidon and

ArakAttack are then supplied

by the programs’ authors.

Download the latest version of

Poseidon from:

http://www.platon42.de/

poseidon.html

For details of the Medusa USB

package visit:

http://www.iospirit.de/medusa/

H appy New Year to all Total

testers. Mick Sutton is one such

community member - writer for

Total Amiga, User Group

stalwart, AmigaOne purchaser

and now working with Amiga Inc

to demonstrate the new platform

at shows and user groups.

Although not privy to the latest

versions (as he says, he needs

the most stable system to show

off, not the latest), he has been

doing an awesome job,

demonstrating exactly why the

Amiga community is unique. As

a treat for Total Amiga readers,

Robert and he approached us

and asked if they could do a

preview and we obviously

agreed. This issue this presents

what is probably a world

exclusive, the ﬁrst preview of

AmigaOS4.0 running on an

AmigaOne.

So what about 2004? This WILL

be the year that Amiga rises from

the ashes after so many false

starts and promises. Even as I

type this, the AmigaOS4.0 beta

tester CD is being given its ﬁnal

polish. This will be distributed

ﬁrst to the closed beta test list

and then, when all that feedback

has been taken and the product

revised, the public AmigaOS4.0

beta distribution will be created.

We hope to provide this to all

AmigaOne owners. The beauty

of this CD is that you just pop it

into the AmigaOne and a few

minutes later, you have

AmigaOS4.0 on your new

Amiga. (And about time too

shout all the AmigaOne owners

who have lost hair whilst playing

with PPC Linux).

At the same time, the marketing

effort for the AmigaOS4.0 launch

will be started. New websites

and a new name, the Amiga

Power Platform (APP) will be

unveiled to the world. The user

groups and dealers will be pulled

into a more formal global

structure, so that we can all work

together with the necessary

resources to get the good news

about the rebirth of the Amiga

platform out to as many people

as possible.

Unfortunately we still don’t have

a ﬁnal release date for you. Such

a date ultimately becomes self

defeating because such a thing

is highly unpredictable. The

progress being made is obvious

and for many Amigans this itself

is enough. People can read

about it or attend a local user

group and see the latest builds

for themselves.

We will only announce the

release date when we have

actual shippable product in front

of us - CD, Manuals in a box (for

the CSPPC version) or shrink-

wrapped (for the AmigaONE

OEM version). The upside of this

is that you won’t have long to

wait between the announcement

and the product being released.

The last decade in the world of

Amiga has been a nightmare.

Plain and simple. Bad luck. Lack

of resources. Mistakes. Invaders.

All have conspired to throttle our

platform. In the end, history will

show that it was the community

that saved it - the Hyperions, the

Eyetechs, the magazines, the

user groups, the dealers and the

users. Far from having been

destroyed, the community is now

sharper, tighter and more united

than ever, and playing an

integral role in the future.

In the heart tingling words of

Marc Almond and Dave Ball -

“Say Hello, Wave Goodbye”.

Amiga readers from

everyone at Amiga Inc.

2003 started with a whimper - no

evidence of AmigaOS4.0,

AmigaOnes but only running

Linux and hope running thin in

the community. The warmth of

summer brought our platform

bursting into life. AmigaOS4.0

Workbench demonstrated

running on a CSPPC A4000.

Leaks from beta testers about all

the new systems and

components that had been

released to them. AmigaOS4.0

demonstrated on an AmigaOne

at the Pianeta Amiga show in

Italy. The AmigaOS4.0 roadshow

organised by dealers and user

groups that covered Europe and

then spread to Australia and

North America. Over a thousand

Amigans now having seen the

future of the Amiga with their

own eyes and even played with it

- AmigaOS4.0 on the AmigaOne.

At the heart of much of this work

are the hours of effort put in by

the community, from the

AmigaOS4.0 developers to the

AmigaOne dealers to the beta

maconamiga.amigaworld.net

Inspired by feedback from his

Mac: Reloaded column in

Total Amiga issue 15, Michael

Carrillo has set up a website

dedicated to Mac emulation

on classic Amigas. The ﬁrst

section of the site deals with

setting up your Amiga to run

the emulation including

information on what hardware

you need and the emulators

that are available. Then come

detailed pages on setting up

the two most popular

emulators, ShapeShifter and

Fusion, these take you

through the process step-by-

step complete with plenty of

screen-shots. There is also

an FAQ covering Fusion.

Having helped you get your

emulator up and running, the

site moves on to setting up

your Mac hard drive, and

installing MacOS. Again both

topics are covered in detail

with screen shots. Finally

there is a list of a few

essential Mac programs and

an FAQ answering common

MacOS problems.

In addition to all this solid

information you’ll also ﬁnd

links to useful sites, a gallery

of screen-shots and forums

where you can ask your own

questions and discuss your

emulation experiences with

other users.

This is a very handy site that

brings together all the

information you need to get

started in Mac emulation.

Buzz Word...

Poseidon’s improved HID class supports joypads and

changes to the default keyboard mapping using this window.

Plug-in to HD-Rec

Buzz Word...

Bringing you the latest comments and rumours

from around the Amiga world.

A new beta demo version of

Thilo Köhler’s MIDI/audio

sequencer has been released

that includes many of the

features of the ﬁnal product.

HDRec handles MIDI and

Audio tracks in the same time

line window enabling you to

combine the two. MIDI tracks

can be played via external

MIDI hardware or using the

internal soft synth where

effects can be applied. An

integrated audio mixer with 16

stereo channels is included

and high quality effects can be

added to each channel. The

0.9 archive contains:

• Audio effects such as reverb,

delay, chorus, EQ, etc.

• Sweeper softsynth plug-in

with General MIDI

instruments.

• XR-49 virtual master

keyboard plug-in.

• AMixer pop-up plug-in.

• Demo songs.

Hello! Well it has been a while

since your snooping agent was

here, this was necessary to

avoid being exposed. I have to

keep my true identity under

wraps.

Jim Collas. A lot was made of

this story last time round, turns

out my source was misinformed,

don’t worry though, he tells me

he enjoys hospital food and the

he will be out by Easter.

Amiga may have ﬁnally found

an investor with loads of cash

and it’s a well known name

apparently, rumours about this

has been around for a long time

though, so take this with a large

pinch of salt.

Should this latest titbit prove

correct, it looks likely that Bill

McEwen Will be moving within

Amiga to concentrate on Sales

and Marketing. The favourite

front runner for the position of

CEO is none other than the

Legendary Garry Hare as the

man to come in and take charge

at the helm.

Eyetech and Hyperion are busy

preparing the ﬁnal push to the

AmigaOS Beta pre-release.

Expect this to be out soon, with

the ﬁnal full release out before

Issue 18 of Total Amiga

Magazine hits your letter box.

Amigaworld.net

They say that imitation is the

sincerest form of ﬂattery, well

just after announcing that they

are not interested in the Amiga

and its community, a few sites

have appeared with the

Amigaworld name, for example,

Amigaworld.de which is a

German language site.

AmigaWorld.de is aimed at the

Pegasos Machines, whilst not

an ofﬁcial Genesi website, it is

interesting that the links to the

Amiga Market remain. Nothing

like riding on the back of

another name is there?

Thendic vs Amiga Inc.

Court Case

It looks like Mr. Bill Buck has

pre-empted a Judge’s decision

and put up his own version of

the ﬁnal judgement prematurely

on a Pegasos website. I don’t

think judges are very happy for

petitioners to make their minds

up for them in advance. This

could mean that the Judge in

charge of this case won’t be

looking too kindly on Mr. Buck

now, it may push the judgement

towards Amiga’s favour.

Genesi, appear to be cutting

back their Amiga community

involvement on popular Amiga

sites such as ANN.lu and

Amiga.org, both webmasters of

the afore mentioned sites no

longer seem to be working for

Genesi. The distancing of

Genesi from the Amiga

community goes further than

one can imagine, a Genesi

employee recently posted on a

public forum that, Alan

Redhouse would be having a

bad hair day at AmiGBG whilst

being worshipped by Fat Amiga

Geeks. Charming.

The ﬁnal product will be

shareware, to download

version 0.9 and get more

information and screen-shots

visit:

http://www.hd-rec.de/

Where have we seen that

before?

That’s it for this issue, more

interesting titbits, in Issue 18.

HD-Rec’s attractive GadTools based interface

showing some of the new plug-ins.

TOTAL AMIGA

Spring 2004

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: