AmigaOS 4.1 for 68k, and i got mad :)

[quarkx]

I believe a lot of people still use their Amiga with no Graphics card, other then the indivision flicker fixer. Have you seen the prices of cards these days? They are almost impossible to find as people are hording them. I can get a hold of just about (excluding tower systems) every model of Amiga way easier that finding a Picasso card. In the last year alone, I have gotten a hold of just about everything but a card. I may be getting in a 3000T very soon (keeping fingers crossed) and I thank God it has a flicker fixer built right in so I don't have to pay for another Indivision card for it. At least the Indivision cards are easy to get. Price is another issue all together.

[tone007]

Er, there have been at least 3-4 Picasso II boards on eBay that sold in the $100 range (some cheaper, like $70) in the last month or two alone.  Picasso IV is another story, obviously, but I think there are enough RTG boards to go around if you don't need an integrated scandoubler.

edit: and if you want new, Softhut was supposed to be putting some Spectrum boards out (ZIII anyone?): http://www.softhut.com/cgi-bin/test/Web_store/web_store.cgi?page=catalog/hardware/accelerators/gvp_spectrum.html&cart_id=4661352_82831 albeit at a slightly higher price than used cards.

[Cammy]

I agree, let's make a poll. Who still uses a classic Amiga for everyday work with no RTG card? Results from a poll like this will help with market research for Amiga developers.

[Ratte]

@kola:
icon45.5(and Ibf-version) can display newicons, you just need iprefs and wb.config-prefs setted to newicons.
the presettings are for "old 3.1"-icons for higher compatiblity for use in kick3.x-roms.

the 45.5 / 45.4 mysterium is reported by perterk,too.
he found out, that wb.lib 45.1xx is opening icon.lib 45.4 (ecxactly x.4 .. not 4 or higher).
All you can do is ... patch wb.lib to 45.132 and fix that shit
or simply remove 45.4 from (hard)disk and leave 45.5

@bernd_afa:
if you take a look at my example code, you will notice, taht there is no "search for the best possible color" is needed.
it is working with "killing some bits per color" and a table system.

no searching, just a small pice of code:

morph:
; d0 15Bit color (%000rrrrrgggggbbbbb)
lea converter,a3 ; colortable
add.l d0,a3
move.b (a3),d1
; d1 pennumber for matching 8bit color

and special colortable.

[Gulliver]

Please anyone reading this, please take the time to answer the poll that @Cammy suggested!
I hope everyone understands that a real Amiga is not either Amithlon, WinUAE, ect.!

[kickstart]

In general people using classic amiga hardware has no gfx card, i bet for it.

[Gulliver]

Some users sent  me PM regarding ContextMenus on working on 68k, i have just found out, there is a neat replacement which was PD and for AmigaOS 3.5 and up.

The programm ContextSAS by Andre Dörffler provides the possibility to create and use context sensitive menus for AmigaOS3.5+. The DefIcons system is supported. With some additional tools it is possible to iconify Workbench windows and to create system links.

Version 1.72 of ContextSAS and version 1.34 of ContextPref this time mostly bugs were wiped out and the look was polished. Some new features wee added:

    * AutoSelect: Selects icons at the WBDesktop automatically.
    * Title: Shows the object name as title.
    * Prefeences: The internal menus can be configured now.

I gave it a quick look and found out it could be even better than the OS4 version.
But here comes the sad part. It is not in Aminet, and the author´s site vanished around 2007! So i did some searching and....

What a wonderfull creation "The Wayback Machine"!
Courtesy of them you can see some screenshots of the program and download the latest version at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20061011114947/www.and-software.de/programme_de.htm

Hope it is usefull!
Just be patient, The wayback machine is quite slow!

[bernd_afa]

In the Poll does not stand i have only a amiga with no GFX Card AND i use it as Main system for E-Mail image processing and surfing.

>In general people using classic amiga hardware has no gfx card, i bet >for it.

I know that there are lots amigas used for play games, and lots that want run firefox at a A1200 with 2 megabyte of RAM and show truecolor pictures that look same es on the PC.

But if this not here, then they dont use Amiga for that. ;-)
and reaching this quality is not possible without GFX Card.So i need not try it out.

>no searching, just a small pice of code:


>morph:
>; d0 15Bit color (%000rrrrrgggggbbbbb)
>lea converter,a3 ; colortable
>add.l d0,a3
>move.b (a3),d1
>; d1 pennumber for matching 8bit color

ok this work fast, but quality is bad.On AFA obtainBestPen func can change to work with such a palette.

But i think when i add this to AFA there come soon some comments, AOS do better quality on 8 bit.

Or maybe the solution is to convert all images in grey images when use 8 bit.there are some guys that like black white fotos so they can use a black white computer.maybe that bring more amiga Users
 ;-)

AFA is opensource, feel free to add this and PNG Icon show this.

wawa work on enhance AFA too and he have add nicer window Buttons on 8 bit modes.

I have no time for a feature i dont need.

[Moto]

I answered NO in the poll BUT after using my 1200 for the past few months for more than just gaming, I am building out a 4000T system with an RTG and all the goodies.  I am looking forward to driving my LCD monitor at it's native 1280x1024 resolution so that fonts don't look blurry, etc.  I have been using the 1200 with the Indivision AGA with only 32 colors and even things like scrolling text is pretty slow.  Back in the day when I used to program with kseka on my A500, I'd use a program called oneBPL to set up 2 color mode and scrolling was very fast!   I'm hoping that a RTG video card gives me that kind of experience but with 16 or 24bit color!  

It's all new to me!

[nyteschayde]

Great work!

Ok so one of the biggest issues with things like these boing bags and updates with soo many places to get files is this:

The links get old, stale and disappear. There are already broken links on the Boing Bag 3 section. Such as the 060 dl for xadmaster. There were others too. It would be nice to merge all these updates into as few files as possible and mirror them in as many places as possible

It would be even better if there was an installer or at least a merged, patched archive of the files to extract over a fresh install. I am assuming that most of the problems with this approach are in licensing?

Can we get the authors' permissions to make a concerted effort and installer? If we have to, we can have two (hopefully that few) archives. One for the quick and simple install it and be done approach and another that contains all the original files linked to on your site and others that may be needed for the finished product.

You can even have the installer request the user to put discs in the drive for proof of purchase for things that come from the Amiga OS 3.9, Amigs OS 4.0 for Classics CDs as well as 3.1 floppies. As much of a PITA as that would be for the installing user.

Goal #1: Make it simple
Goal #2: Preserve it for future use
Goal #3: Get it out there (everywhere)

Thoughts?

[tone007]

I'm hoping that a RTG video card gives me that kind of experience but with 16 or 24bit color!

RTG makes a HUGE difference, it's definitely worth the effort, and a major reason I built another machine besides my 1200 (BPPC and BVision combo would've cost far more than I spent purchasing and upgrading my 3000T.)

It would be nice to have the option to use some of this stuff on AGA only (and maybe even ECS) machines, but the limitations are pretty rough.  It stinks that the desktop (1200, 600, 500) machines get left out of the fun as they're definitely cool systems, though I'd like to see the 500 and 600s with the horsepower to run these crazy browsers.

[Damion]

Come  on guys... if you want to run AFA on classic hardware, buy a PCI busboard and put your A1200 in a tower.. or get a BVision. Asking bernd to get AFA running flawless on a stock A1200 is a pretty ridiculous request!! Even with an '060, 256 color AGA modes are slow as hell.

[bernd_afa]

@Gulliver

Now you have written AFA in the line of MUI.

But in GUI line still stand - visual prefs

AFA is here to add the most important functions that make OS4 far ahead in compare to AOS 3.9.

AFA enhance GUI, have system wide truetype fonts and antialiasing, support 32 bit OS4 Icons, picture datatype with alphachannel,realtime skin system, that can scale border to any size very fast.truecolor Icons can scale in realtime and can faster show

look here, many features OS4 dont have.

http://amidevcpp.amiga-world.de/AfA_Screenshots/215.png
http://amidevcpp.amiga-world.de/AfA_Screenshots/136.png
http://amidevcpp.amiga-world.de/AfA_Screenshots/146.png

there are more screenshots

http://amidevcpp.amiga-world.de/afa_screenshot_upload.php

[Gulliver]

@nyteschayde

I totally agree. Then get the permisions from the authors, make the scripts and i will put them online!

[Damion]

I answered NO in the poll BUT after using my 1200 for the past few months for more than just gaming, I am building out a 4000T system with an RTG and all the goodies.  I am looking forward to driving my LCD monitor at it's native 1280x1024 resolution so that fonts don't look blurry, etc.  I have been using the 1200 with the Indivision AGA with only 32 colors and even things like scrolling text is pretty slow.  Back in the day when I used to program with kseka on my A500, I'd use a program called oneBPL to set up 2 color mode and scrolling was very fast!   I'm hoping that a RTG video card gives me that kind of experience but with 16 or 24bit color!  

It's all new to me!

Yes, it will make a hell of a difference. Even an A2000 with a gfx card blows AGA out of the water. Obviously, it's still much slower than emulated RTG (or Pegasos etc), but fast enough to be enjoyable/usable.

[Vulture]

@gulliver

nice finding this contextSAS as all the versions of contextmenus I could find (pre-release even) wouldn't work! thx!

@bernd

I think there should be an option to use AFA_OS with Ratte's solution under 8bit screens for ppl who want it, just optional and anyone does what he likes. I know I'll use it....