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.
Since I use Virtual Box on my laptop to use Aros I don’t need the graphics and sound card any more that I took from my A1SE. So I placed them back in my A1SE and I tried to see if it still works. My experience is that if I don’t use it for some time and I fire it up again I will run in to some problems. This time was no different. After pressing the power button I was presented with the below error message.
Loadsector: error when reading from block 0
Loadsector failed
Found an HD
FLB: no SLB found in any of the designated boot sources; returning to u-boot.
Press any key to continue
First reaction was to boot from the install disc to install the boot loader again. After booting the disc the Workbench did not show my HD plus partitions. After this I checked the Amiga sites and read that more people came across this issue. I already had removed all the cables and connected them again. My optical drive is connected to the IDE port on the board and the hard drive is connected to the SIL card in my A1SE. I decided to just connect the hard drive to the IDE port on my A1SE and after firing it up I was presented with the Workbench screen. That was at least a step forward. This is currently the status and I am trying to get it back as it was before with the hard drive connected to the SIL card and the optical drive to the IDE port on the A1SE.
It felt really good to have OS4.1 running again. I still need to install update 5 and 6 and as soon as I have everything up and running again I will do exactly this. A lot of good utilities have been released lately. Back to my computer room and get my A1SE back to normal
AmigaOS4.1 Package
I really did not expect it would have arrived already since normally my wife usually contacts me and informs me my precious stuff has arrived. So I was really surprised when I got home and it was there. This was Thursday 12-4-2012. It was packed, just like my previous package from AmigaKit, really good which shows the package has been treated with all the possible care.
I did decide before that if it would arrive during the week I would wait till Friday evening before installing it. I did not want be up all night while I still had to go to work the next day. But you know very well that once it is there you just got to start with it right away. So I decided to install it after my wife and I would be back from shopping. Just before that I made sure I had backups of all my important files since I wanted to do a clean install. I did expect some issues to arise since with only very limited time on that Thursday evening so it had to be a perfect run without any obstacles. And arise it did since the installation screen did not come up at all. I tried it a few more times and at with some tries I also got some errors when trying to load from the disc which made me think it was the optical drive. The one I use is a very old one and I it did gave me some issues before when trying to read contents on a disc. I could not stop now so I quickly decided to open my wife’s desktop and take out the dvd drive swap it with the one that was in my Amiga A1SE. As it turned out this was a good decision since it loaded up the Amiga OS4.1 installation and I could run the installation. The first attempt did cause it to hang on 5% at the part of copying files to the hard drive but after starting it for the second time it installed perfectly. It was already passed midnight and getting close to 1:00am Friday morning so it was time to call it a day and continue exploring OS4.1 that Friday evening and the weekend.
Amiga OS4.1 - Update 4
With Friday evening having arrived it was time to continue with the installation of the OS4.1 updates. There are 4 updates so far and I knew already that Update 4 required Update 3 and after some investigation I found out that I needed to install Update 1 first and after it Update 2 and so on till Update 4. I soon discovered that Update 1 is a ISO file that needs to be burned on a disc and you need to do a complete new installation. This information was not present in the OS4.1 package I bought. So the installation I made on that Thursday was pointless since I needed to do a complete new installation anyway with OS4.1 Update 1. Eventually, and I did, you will find out about the fact that you need to install Update 1 and forget about the installation disc that comes with the package but putting a note in the box informing users about this would be a must if you ask me.
Once I had the Update 1 installation disc ready I started the installation. Unfortunately it gave me a black screen after the Amiga OS4.1 splash screen. I created it on a DVD instead of a CD so I created also (the only one left) a installation CD but this also failed at the same part. Time to start paying a visit to the Amiga sites to find out what could be causing this. I discovered right away this had to do with the USB modules that are being loaded during the installation. I need to comment them out. In the Kickstart folder is a file called “Kicklayout” in which you can comment out those lines.
Kicklayout file
Sounds easy, right? Making the changes is easy but how to get it back on the disc? No matter what I tried each time I booted from the disc it failed to do so. That seems to be putting a hold on my OS4.1 dreams. I also read on the Hyperion forums that Tuxedo created a bootable partition and booted the installation from that partition. I posted on AmigaWorld.net about having two bootable partitions and also contacted Tuxedu by PM. Besides Tuxedo there was also tonyw who both gave me the information to have a go at it and actually succeed in booting the installation from the bootable partition.
Amiga OS4.1 - Partition overview
The trick is to set the second bootable partition to a higher priority than the Workbench partition so the system will start from the installation partition. I had the Workbench set to 0 and the installation partition to 3. You should not not set bootable partitions to 5 or higher since cd’s are priority 5. You have to make sure that after the installation (so before the reboot) you set the Workbench partition to the highest priority. If you cannot get out of the installation and do this but only reboot you can start from the original OS4.1 disc and change the priorities. This worked really great for me. I will keep the partition with the installation files in case I need to install OS4.1 again. After OS4.1 Update 1 was installed the other updates installed perfectly. It would be great if Hyperion could make some kind of option to select what needs to be loaded in future updates so that A1Se owners can install it without any problems.
So what do I think? It is everything I thought and more. It is so much more stable and I actually can use it without having crashes every 5 minutes. I am really happy I purchased although I did started to fear I would never get it to install. I am still getting to learn all the new stuff and applications I can run now. But so far I have been using CodeBench the most which is one kick ass utility and a must have for every programmer. To round up my OS4.1 review and stealing McDonald’s slogan “I’m Lovin’ It“.
AmigaOS4.1 Package
It certainly is one of those weekends I am going to remember for a long time to come. People that follow my columns might have already guessed it, OS4.1 arrived. I will write a more extensive article about it which I plan to post later this week. The package arrived on Thursday and I managed to get it all up and running this (time of writing) afternoon. You can imagine that this has been some journey. What I can say is that in the end I am really impressed. Part of this column is actually written on OS4.1 (Update 4) using OWB as a browser. Sadly with the weekend ending there won’t be much time during the week for me to play with OS4.1 and the many great applications I can try now.
AmigaWorld.NET
What is so great about the Amiga, which showed again, is the community. I had to get some help in getting it all up and running and the people at AmigaWorld.NET showed their true value. So many people tried to help and in the end it was that help that got it all to work.
CodeBench
Of course I had to try CodeBench once I had it all up and running. I am really loving it. I have not done much with it yet but what I have seen really impressed me.
My Run the Gauntlet game review should also be posted this coming week. I needed some info from Hall of Light but it was down for a couple of days so that caused a bit of a delay. Let’s hope I can free myself from OS4.1 for this.
In my previous column I talked about me going to order Amiga OS4.1 from AmigaKit. That has happened (yeah!) and now I am waiting for it to arrive. This should be somewhere next week. With having a rather long weekend it would have been great to already have it now but I am not complaining but only happy for having ordered it. I am really curious it will improve on stability compared to the Pre-Release I am running now. Hopefully I will be able to write about it next weekend. I will backup my important files so I can do a clean installation and also set up a new partition scheme.
My Amos Professional tutorials are going really well. This week alone I posted already two (the first two) tutorials. I am really enjoying this and I am already brainstorming for the next tutorial. The benefit of it all is that I learn (again) more and more as well. It is aimed at beginners but I might already up it a notch in the next tutorial. Of course everything will be (as always) easy to understand.
I came across it before but today I had more time to check it out; DLH’s Commodore Archive
DLH's Commodore Archive
If you look at the Amiga part (there is stuff for other Commodore machines) you can find scans of books, manuals, magazines, newsletters, advertisements and even images of disk magazines that came with magazines. This will keep you busy for some time.
It is about time I do another game review. Currently I have Run the Gauntlet in the planning.
Run the Gauntlet - Title Screen
Another blast from the past and looking forward to play it so I can write about it. I will try to do a some more game reviews in the coming time. All that game playing but it has to be done. I will try to enjoy it. A short column this time due to it being Easter. Back to the drinks and yes a bit Amiga as well.
AmigaOS4.1
The decision has been made; I am going to purchase OS4.1 for my A1SE! The main reason for this is that when I am programming some stuff does not work the way it should be and what works in one example does not in the other. I am getting some real strange results which I am contributing to the OS4 Pre-Release I am using. For example with some ReAction stuff I had to use code that is not really recommended any more to get it to work. When I follow the guideline for ReAction it just does not work and gives me the Grim Reaper. Since I was going to start with ReAction for The Bucket Programming Corner I really did not want to teach you all the incorrect ways of programming. Plus there are so many other benefits when it comes to Amiga OS4.1 and the updates. The plan is to purchase it within the next two weeks or so.
I really have to DeC myself at the moment since I started to program in Amos again. I need start thinking basic again instead of C. Work on the disk magazine is going rather slow at the moment. On top of that I also want to do a few tutorials on Amos. It is really strange but as soon as you start Amos you start getting these happy feelings from the past. Just seeing some code on the screen makes me smile. Amos still has this great nostalgic wow factor which says something about Amos. This week it is a short column but I felt like sharing my OS4.1 purchase urge. Till next time!
The first Bucket Weekly Christmas edition has arrived. I am actually putting it together on Christmas Eve. I suffered a bad cold this week and I am still sort of recovering from it. Sadly that meant I could not do much Amiga work this week. Hence the reason I am writing this column on Christmas Eve. Sitting next to the Christmas tree writing it makes if feel sort of magical.
A nice surprise was the release of Update 4 for Amiga OS4.1 this week.
The following new functionality and bug fixes are included in Update 4:
- Introducing the new Emulation drawer with official AmigaOS 3.x ROMs and Workbench files. AmigaOS ROMs are provided for all classic Amiga models and the CD32 platform.
- Added RunInUAE contribution to utilize the new Emulation drawer.
- New scsi.device patch for Classic installations which enables internal IDE drives to be used for memory paging (SWAP).
- Added NoDriveClick utility for Classic users.
- Added DefIcons support for RunInUAE.
- Updated TCP/IP stack with much improved DHCP support.
- Updated MUI with various fixes.
- Various Workbench fixes.
- Fixed several USB issues.
- Fixed elf.library that could cause programs using shared objects to misbehave when unloading (e.g. Timberwolf).
I am sure we will see some reviews popping up in the next couple of days. I certainly like the adding of the Amiga 3.x ROMs and Workbench files together with RunInUAE. Reading all this makes me really wish I had Amiga OS4.1 so I could enjoy all this. Especially with the holidays at the doorstep.
Thanks to my pal over at Old School Game Blog for his Christmas greetings. Below are some Christmas greetings from The Bucket Diary to you mate. And of course to everyone else as well. Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas from The Bucket Diary
I was thinking about calling it the Bucket Monthly instead of the Bucket Weekly. Just kidding of course. Lately most of my time went in to the next article for The Bucket Programming Corner. I am pushing for a release this weekend. Besides that I am about to start on my next programming project. I thought it would be a good idea to also write about the progress of it here on my blog. Not just writing about the status but also dig a bit into the concepts and show some code with explanations.
This weekend is really exciting since AmiWest 2011 is happening. Usually good for some new exciting news and announcements. At the time of writing we have the below news items already.
– First Contact : AmigaOne X1000 Limited Edition
– Hyperion launches official AmigaOS website
For the X1000 limited edition the prices start from: £1699, USD $2682.56 (excluding AmigaOS4 license, shipping, handling and sales tax). That is a bit on the pricey side to say the least. It would be around the 2000 Euro and on top of that you will have the OS4 license, shipping, handling and sales tax. The hardware specifications: “The First Contact system includes the official AmigaOne X1000 Boing Ball case in either black or white and includes the Nemo rev 2.1 motherboard complete with 1GB of DDR2 RAM, a Radeon HD4650 graphics card, 500GB HDD,DVR R/W optical drive, Audio & Ethernet cards.” The price of it will certainly make it a dream only, including me, for a lot of Amiga fans. It is a fact that Amiga hardware will be more expensive compared to other PC hardware. But don’t forget we have cheaper hardware as well. Surely we will see some heated discussions about the price of the hardware.
I really love the new AmigaOS site that was launched by Hyperion. This was really needed especially for new people on the block or long lost Amiga fans having a peek at what we are doing now.
There was also some news about OS4.1 and Timberwolf earlier this week. You can read some more about this over at OldSchoolGameBlog. For updates on AmiWest you should visit the AmiWest Weblog.
Due to all kinds of activities I have not been able to start working on my office. But I will start working on my office really soon now. I really need to start with it since I am out of a computer room now. The missus has started clearing it out and turning it into her hobby room. Lucky enough I was able to put up a fight and get some kind of agreement so I can still leave my A1SE in the room for now. As you can see from the picture there is not much male spirit left in that room.
My former computer room
I started a new section on the site called The Bucket List. A list of things a really really want to have. I will keep adding things to it since there is so much I still want to have. First to make the list is a PCMCIA network card for my A1200. I found one on AmigaKit which I might order. I just need to butter up Mrs W a bit so I can place the order. Seeing what happened to my computer room I believe I might get permission.
Also A-EON confirmed this week that the AmigaOne X1000 betatesters have been supplied with the latest version (update 3) of AmigaOS4.1 with their Nemo 2.1 motherboards. I am really considering to purchase Amiga OS4.1. I might do it together with the PCMCIA network card for my A1200. Lately I see a lot of software released that will only run on OS4.1. I think it is time I upgrade.
Something I am really looking forward to is beta testing AmiSystemRestore from Chris Handley. I already have access to it but I was not able to give it a try earlier this week. It will have to happen this weekend. I will write about it in my next column.
Coder's Blog 