OT: My book collection and Full Throttle

Posted on 2015-01-22 by Yasu

I thought about doing something different today. I’m a collector in soul and heart and since I returned to the Amiga in mid 2012 I have gathered a small collection of Commodore related books. I also have a big (and mostly incomplete) magazine collection with publications such as Amiga Format, CU Amiga, Datormagazin, Amiga Info, Azine, SAM etc, and of course the magazine I make: Amiga Forum. But I’m gonna concentrate on books. I’m gonna start off with …

The future was here (MIT Press, 2012)

The_future_was_here

This rather nice book which explains the technical wonders of the Amiga as well as how the different parts was envisioned and made. It’s mostly a technical book but not too hard to follow. The only thing I didn’t like was that it sometimes lingered on some subject for far too long, and then rushed through some other parts. But it’s still a good read for the technology nerd.

On the Edge (Variant Press, 2005)

On_the_edge_full

This book has become pretty hard to find. If you do find a copy: buy it! It portrays the whole story of the rise and fall of Commodore as a computer company, told mostly through the people who worked there. It doesn’t deal much with the time before 1976, before dumb luck opened the eyes of Commodore’s CEO Jack Tramiel to the possibilities of making home computers. The part that tells the story of the Amiga/Post Tramiel era is pretty short sadly compared to the rest but it’s still very informative and does a fine job in showing how utterly unsuitable C= was as a computer manufacturer.

Commodore: A company on the edge, part 1 (Variant Press, 2010)

On_the_edge_Tramiel_eraThis is the same book as above in a new, more detailed version. It has about the same number of pages as On the edge, but only goes up to the time Jack Tramiel gets ousted from Commodore in 1984. It’s nice and detailed and all that, but the author seems to have problems keeping the story linear. Everything is equally interesting or important and it becomes rather difficult for the reader to not get distracted by all the sidestories. Still a very good read though.

A part 2 has been announced and canceled twice but the author has told us via Twitter that he is planning to finish the second part this year. That book will be called “The Amiga Years”. I do hope it’s true this time.

Freax (CSW-Verlag, 2005)

Freax

This is the story of the birth and development of the C64 and Amiga demoscene. Though a very interesting topic the book seems to be plagued by inaccuracies when reading about it on various demo scene forums. But considering the vast number of personal stories it might be something you have to expect. Far worse is it’s very scetchy English, that more than often makes it hard to understand what you are actually reading. I only managed to read it half through because of it. But the book looks really good and the guy deserves applause just for the sheer work that has got into this product.

Freax, the art album (CSW-Verlag, 2006)

Freax_the_art_albumThis is an art album meant to complement the book Freax by presenting a vast number of scene related art. This book is simply stunning with it’s many pictures by many talanted artists on various computers (and ordinary pen and paper):

Freax_the_art_album_inside

A must have buy if you can find it. There was a part 2 planned which would deal with the non C64 and Amiga demo scene, but the author “Tomcat” later decided to scrap the project in rage because of how he was treated by other fellow demo sceners for his views of gays and jews.

Generation 64 (Bokfabriken, 2014)

Generation_64This book explain the importance of the C64 through the eyes and memories of some now famous Swedish entertainers, entrepreneurs and internet rebels. It’s not about how cool the computer was but rather what cool things people could do with it. It’s a coffe table book and a very nice read if you understand Swedish (homepage, blog).

Commodore 64: a visual compendium (Bitmap books, 2014)

C64_a_visual_compendium

I got this when I pledged for an Amiga book kickstarter. It’s a graphical compendium with plenty of screen shots of various games and some anecdotal facts about them (from the makers I suppose). Not much of a read, but the pictures are nice indeed.

Sabrina online (United Publications & Distribution Ltd, 2012)

Sabrina_online

There are hardly any Amiga fans out there who has never heard of Eric W. Schwartz. He became famous for his slightly erotic Warner Brothers like animated cartoons in the late 80’s/early 90’s (remember, we where mere teens back then). This was long before Shockwave and Flash made amateur animation simple enough on a PC. He doesn’t do much animation for the Amiga anymore but he is still making his monthly web comic Sabrina Online, which started in 1996. This book contains the first 10 years (plus some extra stuff).

Sabrina_online_inside

So … uhm … BUY IT!

The Amiga book (Imagine Publishing Ltd., 2014)

The_Amiga_book

This one here I got just last week. It has been on the marked for less than a month and it’s already sold out. So if you find a copy, don’t hesitate to buy it! This is basically a collection of articles about the Amiga that has been published in the Retro Gamer magazine. It’s huge! Full of text and pictures about the Amiga and the various games that defined it. Sometimes it shows that some articles are old (like when it referenced to sn Amiga Inc. statement that it will release a new supercool OS soon), and some themes was repetative, like various “top 10” like lists. But it’s still an excellent read.

The greatest Amiga, Amiga wa saikō! (Shinki gensha, 1993)

Amiga_wa_saikou

This arrived today and is also pretty much the reason I wrote this blog. It’s a Japanese book about the Amiga from 1993! This is pretty darn rare, and I was lucky to find a store that shipped to Sweden. I have not of course had the time to read it yet (my third language is Japanese), but from what I can see it doesn’t just tell you about how an Amiga work but also some about the people using it.

Amiga_wa_saikou_inside_1

If you remember my earlier blog about the Amiga in Japan, Commodore pretty much screwed up there. Only 25.000 Amigas was sold in Japan all and all (in a country with some 120 million people at the time). Therefore, a book about the subject is not common (though there where some fanzines there at the time according to the book), and getting your hands on one over 20 years later is not easy. And this one is both thick, detailed and pleasantly fanboyish. So it feels really cool to have it in my collection.

Amiga_wa_saikou_inside_2

My Amiga using friend Iggy studied in Tokyo in 2001, and he told me he had become friends with “the only active Amiga user in Japan”, which does tell a lot. There is an homepage for the Commodore Fan Club though (last updated 2005). Lately, there has also been a game released for AmigaOS 4.1 by a Japanese. This guy seems to be less of an Amiga fan and more into making games for odd platforms, but it’s something.

Full Throttle

If you have read my ScummVM and The Curse of Monkey Island blog the other day you might remember me mentioning another game called Full Throttle. It’s also a point and click game released by Lucasarts, in 1995. This was actually the first game that made me want to buy a PC (and not Doom like so many others). I even went and bought a copy of the game that year and played it on my dads computer. I was still using an Amiga myself. Later, I even bought another copy when I thought I lost the first one (which I didn’t) so now I actually got two sitting on my shelf.

The installation process is the same as with Monkey Island so read the blog post above if you need help. However, one version of the game didn’t work for me for some reason, something ScummVM call “version B”) but “version A” worked fine. I have no idea if it’s because of corrupt data or if there is some real problem with version B, but that version always crashed at the same place in the game. So if you games do the same, try and find another copy. I have played this from beginning to end with version A and it worked just fine.

Full Throttle tells the story of Ben, the leader of the motorcycle gang The Polecats, who roam the dystopian near future of a runned down America. It’s not as light hearted as Monkey Island, and frankly a little short but it’s nevertheless one of my all time favourite point and click games.

Full_throttle_01

Full_throttle_02

Full_throttle_03

Full_throttle_04 Full_throttle_05 Full_throttle_06 Full_throttle_07 Full_throttle_08 Full_throttle_09 Full_throttle_10 Full_throttle_11 Full_throttle_12 Full_throttle_13 Full_throttle_14 Full_throttle_15 Full_throttle_16 Full_throttle_17 Full_throttle_18 Full_throttle_19 Full_throttle_20 Full_throttle_21 Full_throttle_22 Full_throttle_23 Full_throttle_24 Full_throttle_25 Full_throttle_26 Full_throttle_27 Full_throttle_28

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ScummVM 1.7.0 and The Curse of Monkey Island

Posted on 2015-01-19 by Yasu

[Edit] It turns out it was faulty data files that made Full Throttle not work, and not the MorphOS port of ScummVM. Also clarified that it’s the PC data files you need.

There where several games that defined the Amiga: Lemmings, Speedball 2, Cannon Fodder, and of course: The Secrets of Monkey Island by Lucasarts in 1991. It was a point-and-click game that overcame it’s gaming shortcomings by adding plenty of monty-pythonesque humour. And it looked really good.

The Amiga was still going strong, but had already losts it’s competative edge. The VGA PC version had better graphics (256 colors against the Amiga’s 32) and better sound. But on the low end market Amiga was still king. Atari ST and PC:s with EGA only had 16 colors and poor sound.

Monkey_Island_1_EGA

The 16 color EGA version

Monkey_Island_1_VGA

The 256 color VGA version …

monkey_island_1_Amiga

… and the 32 color Amiga version. As you can see, there is not that much of a difference.

Monkey_Island_1_still_16_colors

Elaine and Guybrush, 16 colors

Monkey_Island_1_still_256_colors

256 color VGA version …

Monkey_Island_1_still_Amiga_32_colors

… and the 32 color Amiga version. Here the Amiga is at a clear disadvantage.

While the Amiga couldn’t produce the best graphics or sound anymore, you have to remember that a PC good enough to show these improvements cost between 2300$ to 7000$ in 1991 (3600$ to 10.100$ in todays value) while an Amiga 500 cost about 350£ (580£ or 880$ in todays value). The Super Nintendo that was introduced this year cost about 200$ (310$ in todays value). But the Amiga’s best selling point was it’s vast library of cracked games that kids could cheaply swap with each other, something that you couldn’t do with a Super Nintendo. For many whose parents wasn’t rich enough to buy all the cool games this was paramount.

This year was the peak of Amiga sales, with about one million units sold worldwide and it owned about 5% of the world market (thanks to strong dominance in England and Germany). But the technology was obviously getting old and sales soon started to fall. Especially to the PC as it was quickly becomming faster, better and, more importantly, affordable. When Commodore finally released a new generation of Amigas – the 32 bit Amiga 4000 and Amiga 1200 – in mid 1992 (and the game console Amiga CD32 the very next year) it was simply too little too late. By 1993 the company suffered staggering losses and declared bankrupsy in 1994.

In 1992 Monkey Island 2: the revenge of LeChuch was released for the Amiga (among others, but not the Atari systems) to critical acclaim. This would be the last Monkey Island game made for the Amiga. Lucasarts keept making good point-and-click games for the PC and Macintosh for a number of years until they simply lost the magic and started to make mostly Star Wars games. More bad ones than good ones. George Lucas finally sold his company to Disney in 2012, who closed down all game development the very next year. Today, Lucasarts lives on simply to cash in on licence fees.

ScummVM

In 2001 the first release came of ScummVM. Scumm is the name of the enginge that Lucasarts used in all or most point-and-click games (short for: Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion, which was the game it was originally developed for). ScummVM is an open source recreation of the very same engine (keeping the name “Scumm” but adding “VM” for “virtual machine”) that is still being developed today as there are still plenty of bugs to iron out. It was originally meant to be an engine for Lucasarts games, but has expanded to include a variety of point-and-click games from several different compaines.

One of the main goals of ScummVM is portability. So this engine exists on plenty of operating systems, including MorphOS (naturally). The latest version, 1.7.0 (stable) was ported by Fabien “Fab” Coeurjoly. He’s famous for making the web browser OWB.

First you need to download the program (here). Unpack it and place it whereever you want. It’s that simple. You just need to double click on the icon and it’s running. Next we need some games.

The Curse of Monkey island

This game is the third installment of the Monkey Island series and, according to me, the best one. Released in 1997, it combines that well known silly humour and equally silly puzzles with nice and cartoony graphics and great cell animation based cut scenes. And of course a talanted voice acting cast.

You have to find yourself a copy of the game somehow (PC version). Once you have found it, just copy the game data somewhere convenient. I created a game catalogue inside the ScummVM folder, then made a folder called “Monkey Island 3” and placed the game data there:

mi3-folder

Next we double click on the scummvm icon in the ScummVM folder. We will then see the main menu:

ScummVM-main_menu

And also this error message:

ScummVM-error

I have no idea what this means, but it doesn’t seem to affect much of anything. Hopefully, this is still something that can be fixed in future updates.

Now you can press “Add Game…” which will let you choose the folder of a game. We click on the Monkey Island 3 folder. Next, we can either click on the “Edit Game…” folder and set it up the way you want:

ScummVM-edit_game

Or you can just press “Start” and play the game. Depending on the game you can reach the save menu by pressing one of the F buttons. I played the game from beginning to end with no problems so you don’t have to expect it to break.

Happy point-and-clickin’!

mi3_intro_0

mi3_intro_00

mi3_intro_000

mi3_intro_01

mi3_intro_02

mi3_intro_03

mi3_intro_04

mi3_intro_05

mi3_intro_05-1

mi3_intro_06

mi3_intro_07

mi3_intro_07-1

mi3_intro_08

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Return to the Roots

Posted on 2015-01-02 by Yasu

[Edit] BSzili found the problem and a solution with the sound effects and slow loading time. Even though the solution for the latter problem didn’t work for me. Stay tuned until we find it.

—

Maybe you remember the 1993 game Settlers for the Amiga? It was a real time, slow paced build-and-conquer game, and a really good one. Then came Settlers II in 1996 and it was even better, but wasn’t made for the Amiga. I used to play it a lot on my PC.

Years passed, and now there is an open source project called Return to the Roots (www.siedler25.org), which makes it possible to play the game on non-Windows machines. Not perfectly though since the project isn’t finished. It’s at version 8.1 at the moment. In June 2013 the porting wiz BSzili made this game available as a release candidate for MorphOS (based on version 0.8 and it requires at least 64 MB of VRAM) after some trial and error (download page). I’ve finally given this game a try.

In order to get this game to work, you need a copy of Settlers II Gold Edition from 1997. Nothing else will work. Luckily, I actually have my copy from the late 90’s here:

RTTR_Settlers_disk

If you don’t have a copy, you need to find one. Next, download the game port from BSzili’s homepage, if you haven’t already. Unpack it to somewhere on you hard drive:

RTTR_downloaded_folder

Now you insert the Settlers II CD and look for the S2 folder. Inside it you will find the GFX and DATA folders. Copy those to your root folder (which I have renamed to RTTR):

RTTR_added_gfx_and_data

Don’t mind the s25rttr folder. It’s something that’s added when you have started the game for the first time.

Now it’s done. But before you start the game you must make sure you got an internet connection. Even in single game mode you need to be online for some reason. When that’s done, double click in the s25client icon. Now a loading screen (in German) will appear:

RTTR_Loading_screen

And you will also note that this game takes a loooong time to load. There is a debug screen there as well that will show you what the game is doing, and how long each part takes to load:

RTTR_Long_loading

But as long as your mouse moves, the game is progressing as it should. Finally, you will reach the main menu:

RTTR_Home_screen

Before we start to play a game, let’s look at the Options menu:

RTTR_Option_menu

One nice thing is that you can change language:

RTTR_Swedish_setting

Note that not all languages work, but quite a few do. However, we go back to English (System language) for now. In the Graphics menu you can also choose if you want fullscreen or not. But we want to click on Sound/Music. The reason is that there is an error when sound effect files are converted, which can be seen in a seperate debug window:

RTTR_Sound_conversion_failed

This makes the sound effects sound terrible. However, those where never really that important for the feeling of the game itself in my opinion. I’m happy with having only music:

RTTR_Sound_options

After I wrote this guide, BSzili found the problem and explained to me how to fix it yourself. Go to the game drawer and right click –> View –> All files. Go to the drawer RTTR. Show all files there too if it’s not already doing so:

RTTR_RTTR

Right click on s-c_resample and choose Information. Now click on the little box on the right which says Executable:

RTTR_Information_executable

Save and do the same with the file sound_convert. After this sound effects should work just fine the next time you load the game.

Another thing BSzili said was that you can speed up the loading time by going to the Graphics option and turn off Optimised textures:

RTTR_Graphic_settings

BSzili says it works for him, but for some reason it doesn’t for me (it turns out to be mostly a G5 disk operation related problem. A G4 based computer will load a lot faster). But since there is no loss in the graphics by doing it like this you might just as well do it anyway if you like.

Now we can return to the main menu and click on Singleplayer. I want to try out the campaign so I click on that:

RTTR_Single_player_failed

It’s not supported (yet). Which means that we can only play in non campaign mode. We click on Unlimited Play and reach a map menu:

RTTR_choosing_maps

I choose a map (Lost World) and click on Continue:

RTTR_Map_lost_world_settings_before

Even though this works fine, I change the setting Goal from None to Total domination (that is: destroy all enemies), and for the sake of this blog, Exploration from Fog of War to Off (all visible). Now I will be able to see if the computer players work or not:

RTTR_Map_lost_world_settings_after

Now I press Start game and soon enough I’m busy building stuff:

RTTR_human_player

I also take a look at the map to see what one of the computer players are doing:

RTTR_computer_player

As you can see, the computer player is just as busy. Everything seems to work. Now we have to be patient and spend hours upon hours gathering resources, expanding our borders and destroying our enemies. Happy playing!

Oh, if you like this game you can show your appreciation by donating a few euros to BSzili via Paypal at his homepage. There is also a lot of other games there he has ported for your enjoyment.

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Removing the boot sound

Posted on 2014-12-28 by Yasu

*Daaang!* Yep, this is how Mac users know their computer is alive every time they start it. It’s reassuring. And so very … annoying! You want to turn it off but there is no button! So is there a way? Yes, two actually.

Method one

This is by far the simplest method. You start MacOS and turn the volume down to zero and reboot. Now your Mac should be nice and quiet. Then you can install MorphOS. The boot sound will not return.

Method two

But how about if you got no MacOS installed, or have already installed MorphOS over it? Now things get a little trickier. You can either reinstall MacOS if you can and use method one. Or you can use a PPC version of Linux and change settings there.

The obvious choice is Ubuntu, or one of it’s derivatives. This is because Ubuntu has the best set of drivers. However, not all versions will work with every PPC Mac out there for some reason (firmware issues I suspect). Ubuntu 12.04 LTS works with my G5 but not my Ibook. But after some trial and error I noticed that Lubuntu 14.04 LTS work on every Mac I have. I think it’s because Unity in Ubunty is a graphic memory hog and the poor Ibook simply can’t handle it. Lubuntu is a much better choice for computers with slow or poor hardware.

So download the ISO (it’s free) and burn it. Then insert it into your (loudly booting) Mac. Boot the computer while holding in ALT until you see the boot menu:

ibook_boot_menu

Choose the burnt CD/DVD and click on the arrow on the right. Now Lubuntu will boot to a command line interface:

ibook_lubuntu_boot

Then write a letter, any letter (like “h” like I did in the picture) and press return. If you don’t, Lubuntu will after a while automatically boot in default mode (even if you are typing) and that might not work. Now, write “live video=ofonly“. I’m not sure what it does, but it usually makes Lubuntu load successfully. If you write “live” or do nothing it will probably fail somewhere.

After a looong booting time (it’s very very long, seriously, so go grab a coffee) Lubuntu will finish loading:

ibook_lubuntu

Now click on the button on the far left at the bottom. You will see a menu like on the picture above. Go to System Tools –> XTerm:

ibook_lubuntu_xterm

There you write “sudo nvsetvol 0“. It will show the original boot sound volume and then the new one: zero. Now go to the same button at the far left at the bottom and reboot the computer. Remove the CD/DVD and boot into a now silent MorphOS instead. Your computer will go *daaang* no more!

Note: If you have the Radeon X800, no Linux distro will work. There seems to be no working driver for that graphic card (which actually means that MorphOS can do something Linux can’t!). So in order to use method two you need to remove that card and switch it to something supported, like the Radeon 9600. Then it will work.

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Support out developers (again)

Posted on 2014-11-20 by Yasu

WArMUp  (The World Association of MorphOS Users) have yet again started a drive to gather funds for our various developers. This time there are two different fund raisers: one for developers in general and one for the development of the native word processor Calimero, which will be the successor of Scriba.

You can download a very early alpha of the program here. I have only given it a quick look but it has a lot of promise. It’s fast and nice looking but of course very very unfinished:

calimero_a_01

I have written a long review about word processors for MorphOS if you want to know more.

You can donate either here: http://meta-morphos.org

Or here (French): http://meta-morphos.fr

I’m sorry about the lack of updates lately. The reason is that I have writers block and also other stuff to do in my life. This include working on the next issue of the Swedish Amiga magazine Amiga Forum. So now you know why 🙂

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DAPlayer

Posted on 2014-11-12 by Yasu

DAPlayer (Digital Audio Player) is a MUI based music player by Thomas Rapp who released version 1.12 a while ago. Unlike Jukebox (but like Aminet Radio) it can play Audio CD and a variety of Amiga music files, like MOD:s. As we shall see, this player still needs some work done before being able to compete with other players.

First you need to download the player from here. Extract it to where ever you like:

daplayer_drawer

Next we double click on the DAPlayer icon. When we do that, this promply appear:

daplayer_insert_data

This happens every time and can only be fixed by clicking Assign… (and choosing the correct path, probably the one appearing) or do like I do, click on Cancel until it goes away (after several tries). Then the program itself starts:

daplayer_start

Volume change volume, even adding sound virtually if your speakers are too weak (up to 400). Balance changes the ratio of left-right speakers. Moving to the left will give more sound to the left speaker etc. This is sometimes a good feature when you listen to 4-channel MOD:s. 0:00 is of course the list of the position of the music piece. The part to the left will tell you how many minutes and seconds your song have played and the right one will tell you how long the song is. You can change where in the song you want to go with the bar in the middle.

The buttons below means, from left to right; previous song, next song, pause, stop, randomize and choose songs. Pretty standard.

Save at the bottom saves a playlist. The problem is that the manual isn’t that good and it doesn’t tell you what the playlist must be called in order to show up when you chose files. Typing the name directly in the file requester loads it though. Append adds a song or several songs. Edit lets you choose files in the list. Click on it, choose Select, select songs from the list and then click on Edit again and choose Remove. You can’t just choose the files and press delete, which is quite annoying. If you press on the choose songs button all files from the list will be removed. Sort lets you sort the songs according to name, artists, folder etc. Repeat repeat the song or songs on the list (if it’s grayed out it means that it’s on).

Lets click on select files button and choose a All in a drawer. It will now look like this:

daplayer_playing_with_cover

As you notice there is no information at the top, where name and artist etc should be shown. Yep, the player can’t read ID3-tags apparently. Though it does show the cover art as shown above. The songs play as they should, even though this program is a little prone to crash and break. Some MP3 songs doesn’t work, as well as some MOD:s (it is written in the manual that some music files needs some tweeking. Files that Aminet Radio can play doesn’t play on DAPlayer nevertheless). Audio CD also doesn’t work. It always complain that there is a CD error, even though Jukebox can play them without problems.

There is a function called On Error which let you choose what the player should do with files that doesn’t play which is a nice feature. I chosed Remove from playlist:

daplayer_on_error

But sadly, this feature is not as great as it seems since it doesn’t remove non working music files but instead asks the user what it should do nevertheless. It gives you a box with your default setting pre-checked. If you still have to remove the files manually.

It turns out, you also need to click also on the Apply choice to all errors below for it to work automatically. Not all that obvious maybe, but once checked it does work as expected. Non working files are shown until they are being played, then it promply disappears and next song is played. A very nice feature indeed!

Sadly, this program needs some more love in order to be a competitor to my favourite music player, Jukebox (included with MorphOS). But unlike Jukebox this can play various amiga music files (when it works). So I still think this program has potential and I’m looking forward to future updates.

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I’ve made an icon set

Posted on 2014-11-03 by Yasu

Being able to radically change the look and feel has always been something I loved about the Amiga systems. No wonder, since Workbench 3.0 didn’t look pretty at all when you compared it to Windows 3.0:

Workbench_3.1

windows_3.0

I was of course not the only one dissatisfied by this. First SASG made MagicIcons, in the early 90’s, which made your system look really cool with just 8 colors:

mwb_preview

And a little later Nicola Salmoria made NewIcons, and it looked great with it’s 32 colors. This was made possible thanks to cheap acceleration cards, cheap memory and the availability of graphic cards for the high end systems, making 32 color screens not dead slow anymore:

newicons

I would spend hours and hours adding, changing and looking for new icons, creating the coolest Workbench I possibly could.

Well, not much has changed for me with MorphOS. Not long after I got my first MorphOS machine in the early 2013 I found several nice sets of PNG icons made by Mattahan (AKA Paul Davey) called BUUF and GANT (released under the Creative Commons licence). It wasn’t perfect since it was made with Linux and it’s best known software in mind. But I did the best I could in order to make it look good with MorphOS.

Later, I started to make some icons myself based on a particular icon style of his. I showed it to some friends who said “I want that!”. It gave me the idea to create an icon set with a mixture of Mattahan’s and my own creations. It didn’t go far beyond the planning stage though.

I had a couple of days left before the end of my vacation when a friend and fellow MorphOS user, Metalmac, asked me if I knew of any good icon sets for his newly reinstalled MorphOS system. So I simply told him, without really thinking; “Wait a couple of hours. I will make an icon set and share it with everyone.” And I did.

It’s a nice feeling to actually do something for the MorphOS community besides donating money for bounties and developers. I’ve uploaded the icon set to MorphOS Files which is where you can find it (direct link).

This is a sample of what it looks like:

icon_set

I made most of the hard disk icons. Just so you know 🙂

If it’s appriciated I will try to make more icons in the future. So drop me a line or a comment on this blog if you like this icon set.

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A better way to create a volume adjuster

Posted on 2014-11-01 by Yasu

It didn’t take long after writing my latest blog post before some nice reader showed me a better way to create a costum volume adjuster. If you havn’t already read that post and don’t want to, the premise is that there are no keys on the keyboard that adjust volume on MorphOS compatible computers (except Ibooks and Powerbooks). Therefore you need to create them yourself (unless you are OK with changing volume all the time with the mouse). My last try was using Shell commands in a costum made menu using Crabum. The downside was that it only worked in Ambient screen.

I got the suggestion to use an old program called MFKey instead. You can download it from here (Aminet). Unpack it to RAM: and open the drawer:

mfkey_ram

Click on the mfkey icon:

mfkey_first_start

Lets create a “volume up” key. We click on the Add button on the right, Choose Type –> Cli at the bottom, Cmd: SetMixer OUTPUT VOLUMEADJUST=3 >NIL: and then click on the Key row. I want different keys from last time (some that make a little more sense) so I pressed Left Amiga (Left Command, hereby called LA) + Page up. Now it looks like this:

mfkey_volume_up

We are going to add some more commands (5 more to be exact):

  • Volume down: Key: LA + Page down. Cli Cmd: SetMixer OUTPUT VOLUMEADJUST=-3 >NIL:
  • Volume Half: Key: LA + End. Cli Cmd: SetMixer OUTPUT VOLUME=50 >NIL:
  • Volume Full: Key: LA + Home. Cli Cmd: SetMixer OUTPUT VOLUME=100 >NIL:
  • UnMute: Key: LA + Insert. Cli Cmd: SetMixer MUTE=OFF >NIL:
  • Mute: Key: LA + Del. Cli Cmd: SetMixer MUTE=ON >NIL:

mfkey_all_done

I’m gonna use what I wrote on my last blog post to explain what these different CLI/Shell command does:

VOLUMEADJUST will adjust the volume between 1% and 100% at the time (100% being full volume). VOLUME will jump to the setting written, 50 being half. This is very good to have when you suddenly realise you have the speakers on way too loud. Having another for 100 is also pretty handy, instead of rasing the volume 3% at the time. Then we have MUTE=ON/OFF. This is not the same as VOLUME=0 and VOLUME=100. When you write the latter it will set these volumes as current default. So if you go from 75% to 0% volume and want to go back to 75%, you will have to do this manually. Using MUTE will kill the volume, and then go back to whatever volume you had before when turning MUTE off.

Lets save it. If everything works as it should, now the six keys above the arrow keys should work as volume adjuster when pressing LA + any of those keys, and that on every screen. Since I don’t need the volume adjuster I made with Crabum anymore I removed it which does look nicer.

You can copy mfkey to WBstartup so it runs every time you reboot (you can also run it from s:user-startup of course, read the guide). If you do put it in WBstartup, whenever you reboot the program it will pop up. This is annoying. So right click on the icon and choose Information. Now you should see this:

mfkey_icon_before

Click on the Attribute line CX_POPUP and rename it to (CX_POPUP):

mfkey_icon_after

Click on save and reboot. Now everything should work and you now have an even more practical way to change volume than my last blog post proposed. Thanks Batteman for the suggestion!

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Back from Japan & how to create a volume adjuster

Posted on 2014-10-31 by Yasu

Edit 2014-10-31: For some reason the paragraphs was not saved which is now fixed.

ibook_in_japan

As you may have noticed, I have not written anything on this blog for almost a month. This is not very untypical of new blogs: they appear, write a lot for a short while, fall dormant and die just about when people stop caring about it. I’m happy to tell you this is not the case here!

The reason I have not written anything is because I have been visiting my relatives in Japan (my wife is Japanese) and to celibrate our first anniversary there. Even though I brought my Ibook with me I only got to use it twice.

One of my plans was to go to the famous technoligical mecca of Akihabara and see if I could find a new battery for my Ibook. This turned out to be impossible. Even though Japanese people adore technology, they are not very interested in old stuff (with the exception of games). It’s not unusual to see less than two year old, perfectly working TV’s in the garbage space that is discarded in favour of a new TV. Why? Because a new TV is new! For a Japanese you don’t need a better reason than that to buy anything. Out with the old, in with the new.

So I gave up on that idea (I could search for one on the internet, but then I might just as well buy one at home). But then I had the problem that I can’t use my Ibook without plugging it in (it only runs for 4 minutes on battery) and it turned out to be difficult to find a café or similar that offers that. My guess is that modern laptops have such good battery life that you don’t need to offer such services anymore (it was a lot more common 10 years ago when I studied there), plus, my guess is, if you do offer that anyway you run the risk of having costomers that simply doesn’t go home.

In the end, the only place I could use my Ibook was at the local library that actually offered such a space, and for free (see picture above). It’s a safe bet that no MorphOS machine has been used at that library (and many other places in Japan for that matter). I mostly used it for IRC and checking out some new software. I simply didn’t have enough time to do anything serious. But then again, that wasn’t the point of the trip anyway.

Amiga in Japan

Amiga was never big in Japan. According to Commodore figures, only 25.000 units was sold in total. In the early 90’s, the big Japanese company Epson wanted to sell the Amiga in Japan. More imporantly, they where willing to promote it themselves and pay for the advertisement, something Commodore didn’t think they could afford at the time. It was a dream scenario for Commodore and their engineers worked hard to adapt the system for the Japanese language. The management also worked hard to make a deal that would benefit both companies. Everyone was happy and when only the formality was left before the deal was done, Ali Mehdi – the incredibly incompetent new CEO of Commodore – stepped in and starting to demand changes. There was no deal all of a sudden.

But someone at Epson thought the deal was too good to give up and returned to the negotiating table. The management of both companies agreed that they should persue the original agreement. But then Mehdi meddled again, starting making demands in order to give Commodore the much better deal at Epsons expense. Once again the deal was off and Amiga would never get the help it needed to get into the Asian market. All thanks to the arrogance of one particularly incompetent CEO.

Even though Commodore was in a poor state when he took over it was a very impressive feat to run one of the biggest companies in the world to the grave in only three (!) years (1991-1994). Ali Mehdi is still offering his services, which you can read about here. It’s telling that the other companies he has “helped” has not been faring well, including PepsiCo and General Motors. This section about Commodore still makes me laugh:

His prior experience includes serving as the President of Commodore International, where he accomplished a major operational turnaround.

Well, that is one way to put it …

How to create a volume adjuster

If you have an Ibook or a Powerbook, you notice that you have some keyboard keys that adjust the volume (F3 = mute, F4 = lower volume, F5 = higher volume). This is very practical to use instead of adjusting the volume at the top bar with your mouse.

However, if you use any other computer these feats are not included and you need to find another way to do the same thing. Which is what I did for my G5. For this, we are going to use the program Crabum (which you can read about here). It’s a program that helps you create costum menus. But not only that, it will help you create costum shortcut keys which is just what we need. If you don’t have it installed already, download it (see above link) and start it:

crabum_first_start

If you don’t know how to use this program to make a menu, read my linked blog post first. I’m gonna load my already existing costum menu:

crabum_loaded_menu

Click Add –> Menu on the left. Give it the name Volume if you like.

crabum_volume_menu

Now click on Item. We are going to create six new items: Volume +, Volume -, Volume Half, Volume Full, Mute and Unmute:

crabum_items_volume

Let’s start with Volume +. We change the Command at the bottom to AmigaDOS, give it the shortcut 1 and write this line:

  • SetMixer OUTPUT VOLUMEADJUST=3 >NIL:

crabum_volume_up

This will raise the volume with 3% at the time whenever you click on this on the menu or type A + 1. Lifting the finger on the 1 and pressing it again will raise the volume another 3%. >NIL: will do this without opening a Shell window every time (this is a Shell command). Let’s write these lines for the rest:

  • Volume – : Shortcut: 2, Command: SetMixer OUTPUT VOLUMEADJUST=-3 >NIL:
  • Volume Half: Shortcut: 8, Command: SetMixer OUTPUT VOLUME=50 >NIL:
  • Volume Full: Shortcut: 9, Command: SetMixer OUTPUT VOLUME=100 >NIL:
  • Volume Mute: Shortcut: 0, Command: SetMixer MUTE=ON >NIL:
  • Volume Unmute: Shortcut: +, Command: SetMixer MUTE=OFF >NIL: 

crabum_all_volumes

Now it should look like this. VOLUMEADJUST will adjust the volume between 1% and 100% at the time (100% being full volume). VOLUME will jump to the setting written, 50 being half. This is very good to have when you suddenly realise you have the speakers on way too loud. Having another for 100 is also pretty handy, instead of rasing the volume 3% at the time. Then we have MUTE=ON/OFF. This is not the same as VOLUME=0 and VOLUME=100. When you write the latter it will set these volumes as current default. So if you go from 75% to 0% volume and want to go back to 75%, you will have to do this manually. Using MUTE will kill the volume, and then go back to whatever volume you had before when turning MUTE off. Let’s save and see how it looks:

crabum_volume_ambient

As you can see it works fine, and so does the shortcuts. Just make sure when you decide which shortcuts you prefer it’s not already in use somewhere else.

NOTE: This does only work in Ambient screen. If you have costum screens you need to jump to Ambient screen to change volume this way.

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OT: Got myself a CD32!

Posted on 2014-10-04 by Yasu

cd32This may be a surprise for some of you, but I have not owned a classic Amiga since the early 2000. For me, Amiga has never been about the past but about the future. So during the years between 1997 to 1999 I expanded my A1200 as much as I could afford before giving up on that (partly due to the price, partly because of lack of progress in the Amiga world). Then I sold it, bought myself a faulty A3000 which I sold around 2000 or 2001. Then I was without an Amiga until 2012, when my interest rekindled after reading about NG Amigas. First AmigaOS 4, then AROS and lastly MorphOS.

But I have been longing for an classic for a while still. But I had to ask myself exactly what I was longing for. It wasn’t the OS anymore since MorphOS does a fine job at being AmigaOS (only better). It wasn’t the hardware either. No, for me it’s simply the games and the scene demos. With that in mind, I came to the conclusion that a Amiga CD32 would be the best buy.

After looking around for a good while I did find a very nice deal: A CD32 with the SX1 expansion (meaning it will turn the console into a Amiga 1200), 15 games and all the stuff needed to just plug it in and play. Today it arrived and it worked flawlessly. I haven’t tested it beyond playing some games but I’m rather happy so far. The only issue is the hand controller. It’s an original CD32 one and they have always been kinda sucky. And 20 years of use doesn’t help either. So I ordered myself two Kipper PSX controller adapters (homepage). I’ve always liked the feel and quality of Sony Playstation controllers so this will make the game experience at least 100% better.

Commodore and the CD32

cdtvEarly 1991 Commodore started to sell the Commodore Dynamic Total Vision (CDTV); an Amiga 500 with a CD reader and a CD player look to match it. This was going to be Commodores triumphant entry into peoples living room, but it bombed horribly.

First, it was a very confusing product. Not really a computer, not really a CD player and not really … anything really. A hard sell indeed. Second, it was really expensive (599 USD or about 1000 USD in 2014). Third, it was underpowered by 1991’s standard. Not enough CPU power, not enough memory and too slow a CD reader for smooth animation playback. It also lacked the promised CD-Video showing abilities. Forth, Amiga owners had very little incentive to buy this machine instead of an Amiga 500, besides the CD reader. This included, fifth, the lack of possibility if piracy. Most Amiga owners where teenagers without money. They simply could not afford to buy every ‒ or even a few ‒ of the games and programs on the market. Being able to copy from each other made the computer very popular.

This costly failure would become one of the main reason for Commodores bankruptcy in 1994. But they didn’t give up yet. First they made a CD add-on for the Amiga 500 (something they hadn’t planned but after the flop of the CDTV became obvious Commodore changed their mind) called the A570. However, it didn’t start to sell until after they stopped manufacturing the Amiga 500. It didn’t stop it from selling quite well though. After that they tried to make a cost reduced CDTV but that eventually didn’t go anywhere. Based on the Amiga 600, the so called “cost reduced Amiga 500” that was even more expensive than the Amiga 500, it was simply not cheap enough. Being too weak to play CD-Video they made an add-on for a FMV module that could play these videos.

But the lack of success made Commodore lose faith in the Amiga computer. They wanted out and get into the more lucrative PC business. Late 1991 they closed down the Amiga development department, tried to sell out their remaining stock and focused entirely on the PC market. But within six months they realised that this was an even worse opportunity. Commodore simply didn’t have the resources to produce or sell enough PC machines to break a profit in the fierce market. They quickly reopened the Amiga department again and first tried to raise interest for yet another underpowered, outdated Amiga. Commodore subsidiaries had the right not to buy anything the American headquarters proposed, and thus no one wanted this machine. That finally convinced Commodore that they needed something new, powerful and fast.

Dave Haynie (famous Commodore Amiga developer) had a prototype for the next generation Amiga graphic chip (the AAA) already in 1990. But that was scrapped before it was finished. Since they now needed something quickly they produced a stop gap chip called the AA, later renamed to the AGA. In September 1992 Commodore released the high end Amiga 4000 and the month after the low end Amiga 1200. The latter sold pretty well, though it could just barely compete with the PC by this time (The Amiga 500 had been way before it’s competitors in price/performance in 1987).

cd32_2

The same month an engineer named Jeff Porter combined the AGA chip with the closed CDTV Cost Reduce project. This included a port for a FMV module and a keyboard port. He also added the Akiko chip that was able to produce simple chunk-to-pixel 3D effects (meant for Doom like games). He designed it to look like a SEGA Mega CD and wrote “32bit” in big letters on the cover. In the early 90’s, having more bits was a big selling argument. Christened the Amiga CD32, it was presented at CES in June 1993. By September it was on sale for about 250 British pounds (about 450£ in 2013) with six games.

Commodore claimed it was the first 32 bit CD based game console. This was true in Europe but in Japan Fujitsu has released the FM Towns Marty earlier that year. It was a massive flop. The first three months the CD32 had sold some 100.000 units, and it sold especially well in England. The CD32 had dominated the non music CD sales that Christmas and had a 50% share of the market. The Amiga companies loved the CD32 since it was easy to port to and was impossible to copy illegally (affordable CD burners was years ahead still). But Commodore, deep in debt, could not manufacture enough CD32 (as well as Amiga 1200’s). According to Dave Haynie Commodore could easily have sold 250.000 units the first three months. If Commodore had eventually reached 400.000 it could have survived. In January 1994 Commodore announced that it would sell the CD32 in the States. This was a bold move since they had a very small market there, had terrible relations with the retail stores and Nintendo and SEGA where kings there.

However, when they started to ship the game console they where stopped by the customs. Earlier, Commodore had lost a patent case and owned 10 million dollars. Lacking money, they refused to pay since they needed to pay other companies for parts just to stay alive. For this reason, the US government had put an import ban on Commodore until they paid. Being unable to do so, the ship had to return to the factory in the Philippines. Commodore realised that their days where numbered. They started to lay off people until almost no one was left, cancel most of their projects and simply tried to delay the inevitable for as long as possible.

They reached their limit in April 1994 and declared voluntarily liquidation on April 29 1994.

The CD32 was Commodore’s last machine. The state owned factory in the Philippines tried to cover it’s losses by illegally selling the NTSC CD32 consoles for several years. About 100 games was eventually released for it. Most of the games where “shuffleware”, that is, the exact same games that was released on floppy discs for the Amiga 1200 except for maybe some added speech, film clips or music. It rarely added anything to the actual game play.

The history has an ironic twist. When Jay Miner developed the prototype for the Amiga in the early 1980’s he was making a game console that could be expanded into a complete computer. Commodore did not want to be associated with “mere gaming computers”, even though that’s what they where famous for and where they made their money (like the Commodore 64). So they tried to turn this game oriented computer into a high end system for professionals. They where not successful. Only reluctantly did they produce the low end versions of that computer but they where never happy with it being associated with games and games only. Not until the very end they realised the Amigas strength as a gaming platform and and poured their hearth and soul into it. But by this time they didn’t have the funds to make it a success. The CD32 was a true gaming console, but just like Jay Miner imagined with his prototype it could be expanded into a complete computer. Several modules was released by third party developers that did just that: like the SX1 and the SX-32. The Amiga ended just like it started, with a big interlude in between where it was anything but a “mere” gaming console.

Jay Miner passed away from kidney failure 20th of June 1994, not two months after Commodores demise.

However, it’s very doubtful that the CD32 could have been a success in the market in the long run, even if Commodore had survived. By the early 1994 the Sony Playstation was announced. It was a very impressive machine and when it was released in December 1994 in Japan it outclassed everything, ending the domination of Nintendo and eventually forced SEGA to leave the market. It also killed the Atari Jaguar in 1996, the last American based game console until Microsoft started to sell their XBox in 2001. Not unless Commodore could finish and produce a cheap Hombre based gaming console by the early 1995 could they have stayed afloat. A herculean task to say the least.

The CD32 had a good run, and could well have existed for one more year. Too bad it didn’t. But it still have some really good games and some equally good memories in store for me at least.

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