My A1200HD is up and running again after being “retired” for a bit due to lack of space. I created some space and sourced a table so I could set it up again. I am using a TV since my monitor died on my some time ago. I just love the look and feel when playing Amiga games on the TV. Everything still works as it should. Due to only 2 MB of memory I use the CLI to transfer files from my laptop to my Amiga. This works really great. I have two memory cards which allows me to use a GUI FTP (like AmitFTP) to transfer files but for some reason they give my A1200HD issues. It works fine for a while but suddenly it switches off and will not turn on again. The power light keeps flashing. If I wait a bit it will work again and sometimes it keeps doing it again right away but also works for a longer time but eventually the problem surfaces again. But I am at peace with the CLI using NCFTP to transfer files.
I am sure I talked about it before about me having lost my degrader disk. I use this to get Kickstart 1.3 loaded on my A600 or A1200 so I can play games that won’t run on the new Kickstart.
I remember looking for it everywhere and as always it turns up when you don’t expect it. It is called Multi Kickstart and it was written by SinSoft.
It does not work for every game of course as many of you might have experienced.
There is a new update of AmiUpdate. Version 2.34 is out which I installed right away of course. AmiUpdate is the first utility I run when I have booted up OS4.x.
Out of nowhere I suddenly start getting these JXfileSystem errors popping up. I remember seeing something on the screen when I started OS4.1 but everything seemed fine once it was up and running. But I should have known better. It does seem to be related to my DH2 drive which contains my applications. I already posted about this on AmigaWorld to see what can be done but I fear a format of the partition is the only way. Maybe it even will go away and I can go back to normal like this never happened. Fingers crossed!
I wanted to play a bit with Amos and since I don’t have any room, actually table, to setup my A1200 I have to use emulation. Instead of using WinUAE I thought I would try to set it up on my A1SE with OS4.1. I got really excited about it and setting it all up using two hard drive files, one for the Workbench installation and the other to have Amos installed, was just great. Since I want to write some Amos tutorials I need to transfer the source code files to OS4.1. I was thinking about using a folder as hard drive but thought I would give the hard drive option a try. You can mount this as a drive in OS4.1 so that should enable me to get the source code files. I am not sure but I remember from last time that Amos would not let itself be installed in a folder that is being used as a hard drive. I was not sure but I thought I better go for the hard drive file option. I already mounted the file and it worked perfectly but about this more later on.
All this happened just a few days before the weekend that we would go to France. Not that I was not excited to go to France but being all worked up and everything worked the first time I tried I could not help thinking that I would have to wait till after the trip to continue. That was last week and the long weekend to France was absolutely marvelous. That great that I did not give much thought to my Amos emulation project.
At my first attempt I succeeded in mounting my hard drive file that contains the Amos installation. It was no fluke since each other attempt after this also worked. This will enable me to access the source code files I want to use for my tutorials. It just feels better and is more fun to emulate the classic Amiga on the new Amiga. There is just a lot of excitement doing it this way. Since I also have a partition on my OS4.1 installation called development I need to make sure I unmount the HDF file since rebooting will case some start-up errors. Mountdiskimage will also mount the HDF file again on the next boot of OS4.1. Since everything is up an running now it is time to start playing around with Amos. Hopefully I can do a new tutorial soon.
I was delighted to receive a gift from OldSchoolGameBlog. It is just the kind of game I love. I have some great memories playing Leatherneck as well in single player mode as two player mode. This game will be the next game I will do a review about. Looking forward to start on this. Thanks to OldSchoolGameBlog!
I also installed the latest NetSurf (version 3) version. I have to admit I use mostly OWB and it has been some time since I used NetSurf. From now on I will use NetSurf 3.0 to see how it behaves on my A1SE. Time to play some Leatherneck and do some coding.
Commodore International filed for liquidation to protect it from its creditors at 4:10PM on April 29th 1994. The end of a great era. In the “After the collapse” series I talk about the time leading up to the liquidation and after it. A bit of history and a personal touch for some heart touching reading. Today I talk about the build up to the liquidation.
Amiga Magazine July August 1994
While going through my Dutch Amiga Magazines (called Amiga Magazine) which was the source of info for me at that time I noticed that in the July / August there was a small column of text talking about Commodore filing for liquidation. Strangely enough there was no mention of the liquidation in the May / June edition while it was already known at that time. You got to remember at the time the information flow was not like today when news is available for everyone everywhere 10 seconds after it was announced. Kind of hard to believe but for us oldies not really since we experienced it first hand. The Amiga Magazine wondered in that small news item why it could come to this while the A1200 and CD32 sold like hot cakes. They thought it could have been the PC line (and being the die hard Amiga fan at the time that sounded just about right. They wondered if it was the end of the Amiga to which they replied; probably not. Commodore kept their offices in the UK, Germany and Holland open. Furthermore it talks about the fact they are talking with someone for a take over. In the rumour mill the names of some Asian companies are floating around. It also reports that further new news items will be posted on their (Amiga Magazine) BBS which just got launched and is the main topic in that issue.
Over at Amiga.nl you can download all the Dutch Amiga Magazines.
If I am correct it was not this magazine in which I read/heard about the liquidation of Commodore for the first time. From what I remember it was the Dutch Amos Magazine in which I read about this for the first time. I will try to locate that magazine again to confirm. It is somewhere in the house and sooner or later it should turn up. The Dutch Amos Magazine was the brainchild of Jurgen Valks. I remember there was just one line talking about the liquidation of Commodore. If I remember correctly he was in the UK for a Amos show and he was doing a write up about it and at the end of it it said something like; oh yeah and Commodore is bankrupt.
At the time I was not really worried at all. I contribute this also to the positive reporting by the magazines. Amiga was just to big to fail and maybe a new owner would provide more chances regarding investments leading to new products. Maybe it was even for the best that Commodore would disappear since they failed to understand the Amiga. What happened after that is material enough to write for years. Next time I will talk about the events at Commodore before the liquidation.
In order to transfer files (using a wireless connection) to my A1200 I use AmiFTP on my A1200 and the FileZilla server on my Windows laptop. The problem I have is that I need more than just the standard 2 MB of memory that the A1200 has. Running the AmiTCP stack and AmiFTP requires more than just 2MB of memory. To solve this problem I add extra memory to the A1200. I have two memory boards I can use but with both I run into some problems. They both might work fine for a while but at a certain moment the A1200 will not start with them inserted. Not sure what the problem is but you can imagine it always happens at moments you really need it.
I needed a solution which I found in a little program called NCFTP. I don’t think it came with the AmiTCP stack but I actually copied it on to the hard drive. Of course using AmiFTP is easier but getting down and dirty with the CLI is a lot of fun as well. This way I will be able to transfer files to my A1200 with just the standard 2 MB of memory.
Back to the Future Part II – Title Screen
One game I wanted to review for some time already is Back to the Future II. This is one of those games that I love and hate. Today I can hate it and give it a poor score and next month I would love it and give it a high score. Unfortunately it is not running on my A1200. Not even with Relokick that places Kickstart 1.3 in memory. I could not find a WHDLoad version of Back to the Future II. There seems to be only a Back to the Future part 3 version available.
Amiga 600 – In the box
Amiga 600 – Open box
I thought I would try Back to the Future on my A600. Unfortunately it also does not run on the A600. My Relokick version did not work on my A600 so maybe with another Kickstart replacement utility I can still get it to work. If someone got it to work on their A1200 or A600 please let me know. If you know about a WHDLoad version please let me know as well. I might give it a few more tries later this coming week. I tried it today but with 35 degrees Celsius I put it on hold since it feels like a bloody oven inside and outside.
AmigaOS4.1
Hyperion released AmigaOS 4.1 Update 5 and I noticed that the AmigaOne SE is not on the supported hardware list anymore. I have not tried to install it myself yet but so far one A1SE user confirmed he managed to install it without any problems. So that at least is some good news. I will try to install it in the next week and of course report about it. Time to get some cold beer and sit in the shade with this hot weather.
So far I did not test the sound on my new Amiga OS4.1 Update 4 installation. I wanted to have some music playing while I am programming. After sourcing some quality producing sound speakers and connecting them I had to transfer some mp3 files over to my Amiga. I am using AmiFTP to connect to my FTP server running on my laptop.
AmiFTP 1.934
With my previous Pre-Release version I usually could not transfer much data over my network without any crashes. I managed to transfer “The Very Best of Cock Robin” without any crashes. To test it even further I transferred other files while having AmigaAMP playing in the background. I just notice with everything that this version is just so much better. It makes my A1SE a much more stable machine. I have to admit that at a later stage I did had a few freezes occurring.
AmigaAMP v3.3
Because I had speakers connected I discovered there is actually a start-up sound for OS4.1. How about that!
I already finished and posted part one of “ReAction – Opening a Window” and currently I am working on part 2. I am not sure yet if I will discuss everything in part 2 or still add a part 3 to the series. I actually reserved some time earlier this week to get part one done. I am also doing a lot of research which takes up a lot of time as well. For some reason I am really enjoying working on this and I am planning on getting a lot of work done.
If you read my previous column you know my 1084 monitors has given up on me. Since I really want to continue using my A1200 I connected it to a television set which will work for me for this moment. I already played some games on it to see which would qualify for my next game review. Having a display I can also continue with my Amos tutorials and work on the disk magazine. Just so that I can keep up with all my plans I will free up as much time as I can for it.
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