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NEWSNEWSBoing is BackAmiga have released an update toAmigaOS 3.9, in the form of Boing Bag1. In addition to some minor updatesand bug fixes BB1 includes a ReactionGUI for Genesis prefs and the longawaited ASyncWb utility. The latter addsasynchronous copying and deleting toWorkbench, now you don’t have to waitfor these file operations to completebefore you do something else withWorkbench, most excellent!Download the update now from:www.amiga.com/3.9iFusionReleasedAfter a very long wait MicrocodeSolution’s Power Mac emulator, iFusion,has been released. Sadly due to a problemwith WarpUp iFusion only works onAmigas with a CyberStormPPC cardand not the more popular BlizzardPPCcards for the A1200 at the moment.According to Blittersoft, Microcode’s distributor,there is nothing they can doabout the problem until Haage andPartner can modify WarpUp, which isbeing worked on.On those machines where it does workiFusion seems to be a bit of a mixed bag(speaking as a user with an CyberStormin my A3000) the core emulation seemsto work well and is compatible with mostPower Mac programs. However iFusiondoes lack many useful features, there isno serial port, parallel port or networkingsupport so surfing the net and printingare out. Also the current release ofiFusion does not have acceleratedgraphics drivers so the screen redrawcan be slow, this makes the emulationseem slower than it really is.Development is continuing, some initialproblems have been fixed and onemajor feature, sound support, has beenadded so there is hope, upgrades areavailable from the Blittersoft website.Whether the WarpUp problem can besorted remains to be seen.iFusion is available from Blittersoft at£149.95 and also requires MacOS 8.6 orabove (it won’t run OS X). The Blittersoftwebsite at www.blittersoft.com has onlineordering or you can phone them on+44 (0) 870 7462118.Hyperion NewsAs we have reported in previous issuesHyperion have been busy porting anumber of top games for high endAmiga gamers. Their first game, HereticII, was very well received and now theirsecond is out...ShogoShogo is a manga themed first personperspective 3D shooter. Shogo’s actionis tied together by a story line that allowsyou to fight both on foot and in giantmechanical robots. This gives a lot ofvariety in locations and game play, forexample you might be outside in a cityor desert in your Mech or inside a buildingon foot. The two modes also havedifferent weapons, yet more variety.Shogo requires a PPC system butseems to run a little faster than Heretic IIoverall.SiN to be AmigaOne OnlyHyperion have decided that SiN, aPolice themed 3D shooter set in the future,that was to be released soon willnow be held back until the Amiga One isreleased as it needs too much power toplay well on existing Amiga PPCsystems. Although it is based on thesame Quake II engine as Heretic II otheraspects of the game make it moredemanding. According to SteffanHauser, one of Hyperion’s developers,“Sin has really heavy AI Code... this isthe problem”.Descent: Freespace TheGreat WarThis “space combat simulator” is likely tobe Hyperion’s next release, it is set tohave the lowest requirements of all theirSince our last issue Kicksoft have greatlyextended their range of pre-registeredshareware and commercial Amiga software.They can now supply products suchas Photogenics, Art Effect, Pagestreamand many more, some of which have beendifficult to source in the UK, you can evenbuy your Clubbed subscription throughKicksoft! As we go to press Kicksoft havejust unveiled their brand new websitewhich has on-line ordering in US dollars,sterling, French Francs, Deutsch Marksand Euros on a wide range of credit andreleases so far, even a 68K version is onthe cards (no promises at this stage)although that would need a 3D graphicscard. The game features advancedphysics and breathtaking 3D effects includingdeadly asteroid fields andmassive capital ships. The missionsform a detailed campaign where yourperformance makes a difference to thegame’s progression. Both the enemiesand your wing men are controlled bysophisticated artificial intelligence whichadapts to your abilities. Sounds like ablast!for more information visit Hyperion’swebsite at:www.hyperion-software.comTheir games can be purchased fromyour friendly Amiga dealer.Kicksoft Gives You More(and gets Clubbed!)debit cards. Facilities are also available forpeople who would rather order over thephone or pay by cheque.If you can’t find what you want listed onthe Kicksoft website or in their advert inthis issue, contact Kicksoft via EMail orgive them a ring. They can often order aproduct for you and are always addingnew products to their range.You can find the Kicksoft website atwww.kicksoft.co.uk or phone them on+44 (0) 1737 219280.BPlan Pegasos PrototypesJust before Christmas last year Germancompany BPlan announced their intentionto build a new PowerPC basedmotherboard codenamed Pegasos.BPlan state that they see two main marketsfor the machines based on themotherboard, LinuxPPC and Amigausers. BPlan are working with theMorphOS team to get their PowerPCAmiga compatible OS working on thePegasos in fact some of the MorphOSteam also work for BPlan. We also knowthat there have been some discussionsbetween Amiga and BPlan although noresults have yet been announced. Theinitial specifications for the Pegasos are:• Micro ATX Motherboard• 133Mhz Processor slot and 133MhzSDRAM• AGP slot• 3 PCI slots• USB and Firewire• 10/100 MB/s Ethernet• 100Mb/s UDMA IDE controller• PS/2 mouse and keyboard, serial andparallel ports• The board will support one or twoAfter several delays Alien Design’sRepulse sound card is now availableand pre-orders have been shipped. TheRepulse is a high quality Zorro II card forany Amiga with Zorro slots (A2/3/4000and A500/A1200 with Zorro II busboard). Some of its features include:• Sampling rates from 8 to 48 kHz including44.1 kHz and 96 kHz S/P-DIF• Support for 16 bit, 18 bit, 20 bit and 24bit (S/P-DIF) samples in mono orstereo• Enhanced full duplex recording• 1x optical digital output (max 24 bit/ 96kHz, S/P-DIF compatible)• 1x optical digital input (max 24 bit/ 96kHz, S/P-DIF compatible)• 1x stereo line in (extern)• 1x stereo line out (extern)• 1x mono microphone in (extern)• 1x independent stereo headphonesout (extern)• 3 internal stereo inputs to connect CD-ROMs etc.PowerPC G3 or G4 processors, thehighest currently available speed is733Mhz.In April BPlan posted the first images ofa prototype Pegasos with LinuxPPC running.Ralph Schmidt, the lead programmerof MorphOS, has said that the workon the Pegasos verion of their OS isprogressing but they won’t show it atAmiga events until it is completed totheir satisfaction.www.bplan-gmbh.dewww.morphos.deRepulse is Spreading• All inputs (except S/P-DIF) can bemixed together. It’s possible to recordnot just from one input, but from allsimultaneously.Included software:• AHI driver• Toccata emulation• Stream player to play encoded datavia S/P-DIF output• Stream extractor to extract encodedstreams S/P-DIF input• Full version of SoundFX!• Driver for ProStation Audio ofAudioLabs• Many tools, shareware and demo versionson CD.The Repulse costs about 200 Euroswhich is about £125 direct from AlienDesign, currently I have been unable tofind a UK distributor. For more detailsvisit the Alien Design website:www.aliendesign-gbr.deFor more big news don’t forget ournews features starting on page 9!Individualand Petsoffhave Flipped!The Petsoff Partnership have joinedforces with Individual Computers (ofCatweasel and Buddha fame) to producea new version of Petsoff’s DelfinaDSP sound card. The new board knownas the Delfina “Flipper Edition” has beenpartially redesigned to improve bus performance,it can now achieve over5Mb/s transfer rate across the Zorro IIbus. This enhanced performance allowsmore voices to be played at once andlower CPU usage per channel playedthan previous Delfinas (and other soundcards according to Petsoff’s announcement).The Delfina’s Digital SignalProcessor is (as far as I’m aware)unique among Amiga sound cards andmeans it can perform special effects andeven play MP3’s with minimal load onthe Amiga’s CPU. The first new boardsshould be available this summer and willcost 189 Euros which is around £120.The Petsoff and Individual Computerswebsites can be found at the followingaddresses:www.petsoff.comwww.jschoenfeld.comPetsoff’s Delfina lite,one cool looking Zorro card!Open YAMYAM (Yet Another Mailer) is probably themost popular Amiga EMail program,largely due to its freeware status andpowerful set of features. YAM’s authorrecently made it open source so it couldbe developed by any member of theAmiga community and soon a teamformed to continue development. Thefirst fruit of their work is now available inthe form of YAM 2.3. The new versionincludes new features, bug fixes andchanges, many to make YAM use thelatest MUI custom classes, there is alsoa MorphOS version available. The newfeatures in this first open source releaseare fairly minor but much bigger thingsare promised for the future, keep youreye on the YAM website at:www.yam.ch6CLUBBED - Issue 8Summer 20017
NEWSFEATURESDynAMIteEver fancied blowing up your friends?Well now here’s your chance withDynAMIte, a freeware bomberman /dynablaster-clone which is designed tobe played (in fact it can only be played)over a TCP/IP network which of courseincludes the Internet. Dynamite isprogrammed by the Author of the excellentAmi Trade Centre (the only FTPclient with built-in Tetris) so it deserves aclose look.One of the features that is making thegame popular on the ‘net is that it canbe customised, both new levels andstyles (which give the characters a newEMail MadeSimpleSimple Mail is a new open source EMailprogram with a MUI GUI, in many wayssimilar to YAM (which wasn’t opensource when the Simple Mail projectstarted) however its programmers aim toimplement features differently and addnew ones. For example Simple Mail alreadyhas a threaded message view andhierarchical message folders not foundin YAM. The threaded message view isa real boon as it makes reading mailinglists much more comfortable.Simple Mail already has the basicfeatures required to handle simpleEMailing and it is an on going project.New releases are made availableregularly and each one has a slew ofadditional features. Download the latestversion from:simplemail.sourceforge.netlook), designed by players, can bedownloaded from the Dynamite website.Anyway check it out for yourself at:amisource.de/dynamiteMany Amiga users would love to be ableto add USB ports to their machine, imagineaccess to the world of cheap USBhardware, from mice to scanners. Aswith many things this is not as simple ashooking up a USB controller to a Zorroslot or other likely port and pluggingdevices in. The USB ports themselvesneed a driver and on top of that eachdevice needs a driver too, some deviceslike keyboards and mice are prettygeneric but complex ones like scannerswill need a driver for each model.Michael Böhmer has put together a veryinteresting web page that aims to collectinformation about efforts to bring USB tothe Amiga. Surprisingly he even has pictures(shown below) of a USB interfacewhich attaches to the A1200 clock port,so even though it has no drivers yetthere is some progress being made,take a look at:www.e3b.de/usb/USBCentralMorePaybackSince releasing their criminal themedoverhead “drive-em up”, Payback, ApexDesigns haven’t stopped enhancing thegame, firstly several updates have beenmade available on their website to fixbugs and add new features. Next lots ofnew maps created by players are availablewhich extend the game a greatdeal. Probably the most interestingdevelopment is that a PowerPC versionutilising WarpUp is in the works, not onlywill this play more smoothly but it includesbetter quality shading and realisticlighting which, by the screenshotsavailable, takes the game to a new levelof graphical quality. The PPC versionwill be a free upgrade to existing ownersso you got no excuse, buy this excellentgame now, you can even do so on-lineat Apex’s website:www.apex-designs.netThree shots from the upcomingPPC Payback show the new subtlelighting and shadow effects.Amiga UpdateSince our last issue Amiga Inc. havemade some major announcementsrelating to both the Amiga DE(Digital Environment) and the future ofAmiga OS. From the point of view of existingAmiga users the most interesting announcementis probably that the AmigaOSwill continue to be developed to version 4and beyond. I don’t think this means thatthe 50,000 copies of OS3.9 were soldwhich Fleecy Moss originally suggestedwas a requirement for OS 4, instead thestrategy has been reworked so a radicallyenhanced OS 4.x and 5 running on newhardware complement the Amiga DE.Amiga have now issued a clear plan forOS 4 development, here is a summary ofthe key features for each release:AmigaOS 4.0Version 4.0 is the first step to a PowerPCnative AmigaOS that takes full advantageof Zico (Amiga’s specification for future“Amiga” computers) compliant computers.In this release key aspects of the OS willbe ported to PPC and the remaining 68kcode will run under emulation, no 68kprocessor will be required. Even with version4.0 new features will be added thathave never been available in theAmigaOS.• PPC native Exec (OS kernel) allowing forthe following execution of PPC, 68k andmixed (PPC+68k) executables.• A PPC 68k emulator.• Virtual Memory System for new applicationsand games.• Graphics system with support for moderngraphics cards, Voodoo3 and MatroxG450 drivers included in this release.• Audio system with integrated AHI andCAMD (for MIDI) support.• PPC native reimplementation of FFS withhigher performance and reliability.• New TCP/IP stack optimised for PPC,multiplayer gaming and content serving.We understand that initially OS4.0 will supportonly the Eyetech AmigaOne and anA1200 will be required. Presumably otherhardware such as Elbox and Matay will besupported as development continues.AmigaOS 4.24.2 will continue the work started in 4.0with more of the OS code running nativelyon PPC, it will also allow all applications torun without an older Amiga attached. Moreof the features of Zico specification hardwarewill be supported. Release 4.2 willalso see the integration of the AmigaDigital Environment into AmigaOS.• AmigaDE hosted directly in the AmigaOS• Personal Java• SHEEP scripting language• Audio System made PPC native withdrivers for EMU10K1 PCI cards.• USB2.0 support with drivers for mouse,keyboard and hub.• Amiga.devices reimplemented as retargetable,removing the requirement forold Amiga hardware to be presentAmigaOS 4.5AmigaOS4.5 represents the final stage inthe creation of a native PPC OS. Its tasksinclude:• All remaining 68k OS code to be convertedto PPC native.• All hardware features of the zico spec.made accessible to developers.• New user environment.AmigaOS 5AmigaOS5 represents a revolution in thedevelopment of ‘other’ operating systemsand the evolution of the AmigaOS as itseeks to provide the best way forwards forusers and developers. Its feature set includes:• Brand new services model providing• Virtual Memory• Memory Protection• Symmetric and Asymmetric modes• AmigaOS4 sandbox• and many more advanced features.You might ask how this fits in with Amiga’splans for the DE? It seems that plans forOS 4 and beyond came about becauseextending the DE to a full desktop operatingsystem was found to be incompatiblewith other key target platforms such asPDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) andother portable devices. For example amodern desktop OS needs features likememory protection and virtual memorywhich are not part of Amiga DE andadding them would be over kill on a mobilephone. Therefore Amiga’s aim is to make acomputer running AmigaOS 4 and abovethe home server which stores digital contentsuch as video and music for accessby other devices running AmigaDE. Thiscomputer can also be a “powerful computerin its own right”. From version 4.2AmigaOS will have Amiga DE integratedso it can run all software and “content”developed for the DE, another benefit willbe access to Tao’s Personal Java, givingcompatibility that AmigaOS has lacked fora long time.For full details of the new Amiga strategyLoads to report fromAmiga this issue, RobertWilliams gets stuck in!take a look at the extensive TechnicalUpdate linked from Bill McEwan’s 12th ofApril update at: www.amiga.comAmiga OneAs we mentioned above the AmigaOnefrom Eyetech is scheduled to be the firstmachine running AmigaOS 4.0. Since ourlast issue development of the A1200 versionhas continued apace, prototypeboards have been shown at several Amigashows in the US and the UK but so far nomachines have actually been seen running.According to the latest update on theAmigaOne website OS4.0 shipped with theAmiga one will support 1GB of mainmemory, UDMA IDE and SCSI controllers,Ethernet cards 2D drivers for VooDoo3PCI/AGP and Matrox G450 PCI/AGP &G550 AGP graphics cards. Warp3D/Mesa3D drivers will also be shipped with thefirst release of OS4.0. Sound card (withPaula emulation), USB (keyboard andmouse) drivers will follow as downloadableupdates so we won’t have to wait untilOS4.2 for those facilities. Eyetech nowexpect the AmigaOne and OS4.0 to beshipping to customers in the first week ofOctober this year.For full details visit the AmigaOne sectionof the Eyetech website atwww.eyetech.co.uk/amigaone.8 CLUBBED - Issue 8Summer 20019SharpAmiga have announced their first “household name” partner, consumer electronicsgiant Sharp. Amiga will be providingAmigaDE based “content” (that is ap-
Page 1: Networking:Your doorway to sharing:
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