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The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Amiga Emulation => Topic started by: Aegis on November 29, 2015, 08:06:53 PM

Title: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Aegis on November 29, 2015, 08:06:53 PM
From Cloanto:

Quote from: Cloanto
If a single, gorgeous image could tell the story of almost two years of work made possible with your past support, it might be here:

http://www.amigaforever.com/screenshots/

The new 2016 Amiga Forever and C64 Forever versions, which have been released in the past few hours, at last merge more than 35 years of Commodore/Amiga computing history into a single player experience, inclusive of stunning high-DPI (4K, "retina", etc.) display support.

And yes, that includes a PowerPC Amiga (with 1+ GB of RAM, preconfigured PCI bridge, Picasso IV, Ethernet and more).

Installing your favorite PPC OS from CD or ISO image (not included) takes only a few mouse clicks.

Instructions for upgraders are here: http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/15-121

And a more detailed list of new features: http://www.amigaforever.com/whatsnew/

You can now also participate in beta updates by enabling the option in the About dialog. Or send feedback directly from the Help menu. We love to hear from you!

Thank you again for your generous support, and feel free to post, tweet or otherwise promote our effort, or let me know directly what we can do to better meet your needs.

Regards,

Mike and Your Amiga & C64 Forever Team

http://www.amigaforever.com
http://www.c64forever.com
Title: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: alberonn on December 09, 2015, 10:01:57 PM
I just bought this and I'm pretty happy with the results. I have been missing my old Amiga since I gave it to my old user's group in 2006. My wife gave me a modest shopping spree for my birthday and Amiga Forever 2016 Premium Edition was my first purchase.

When I bought it, I was immediately given my software key so I could download the Plus Edition archive while I awaited delivery of my DVDs. Installation was really easy and I could jump into the software fairly quickly. AmiKit and AROS required additional downloading but the AF launcher took care of that detail for me--the first time you try to launch it will download the required files for you.

While getting into the preconfigured systems and games were easy, I have been having trouble working out my big, bad, PPC-accelerated system. This is a matter of some trial and error on my part as well as another forum post.

The DVD came much faster than I thought--apparently there is a center in Oregon that filled my order. However, their hard drive hiccuped and I received four copies instead. All had my same key file and when I let Cloanto know about the problem--in case it was a bigger problem for those guys--I received three more software keys and was told Merry Christmas! That is what I call amazing customer support. Disk 0 in one of the sets was bad however and I'm not sure what to do with that one and my other two have new homes allocated already. I guess I could try to duplicate Disk 0 and include the duplicate in the package since I don't expect the company to replace a disk sent in error. The Software key should still be good though.

On my laptop-a Dell N5110 with 8GB of RAM and currently running Windows 10--using the launcher to play the videos does not work. They will play when I use WMP but I notice that disk 2 won't play or popup with a DVD menu in my computer--it does work perfect in my Sony Blu-Ray player. I can delve into the disk with VLC and play the individual tracks. I have no idea where the problem is but I do notice that my laptop has issues with a lot of DVD movies.

Overall, I am very happy with this set--I just need to get deeper into being a little more of a power user. My old CLI skills are rusty but I still feel comfortable playing in the shell. The Amiga is a computer that I was very comfortable with and it feels like I have rediscovered an old friend. While having the original hardware would be nice, I simply don't have a place to put it and as the hardware ages, things will break and stop working. This is not a bad way to keep the spirit of the Amiga alive. I have also downloaded the free C64 Forever edition and I think I'll go for the plus edition of that title too. What is nice is that if you have both installed, your Amiga and C= 8-bit systems will show up on the same launcher, separated into two categories: Amiga Files and CBM Files. This is very handy and gives you easy access to all your systems without too much clutter and confusion.

This was certainly worth it--even if I hadn't been delivered the extra copies.
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: kreciu on December 10, 2015, 12:07:25 AM
This is really good news. Now, I'm even more happy I got my copy of AmigaOS4.1 Classic :). My PC will be fastest possible AmigaPPC ever build... I hope they will make a support for some other graphic card, not just Picasso IV. This 4MB memory limit is not the best... Voodoo 3? I hope to see it someday.
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: Epsilon_ on December 10, 2015, 12:21:20 AM
Quote from: alberonn;799993
While getting into the preconfigured systems and games were easy, I have been having trouble working out my big, bad, PPC-accelerated system. This is a matter of some trial and error on my part as well as another forum post.

Perhaps my blog post on getting Amiga Forever 2016 up and running with AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Classic may be helpful (assuming OS4 is what you want to run on PPC)?

http://amigax1000.blogspot.com.au/2015/12/amiga-forever-2016.html

Catcha,
Epsilon
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: Acill on December 10, 2015, 03:18:45 PM
Quote from: Epsilon_;800008
Perhaps my blog post on getting Amiga Forever 2016 up and running with AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Classic may be helpful (assuming OS4 is what you want to run on PPC)?

http://amigax1000.blogspot.com.au/2015/12/amiga-forever-2016.html

Catcha,
Epsilon


Great post Epsilon!!
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: TheMagicM on December 10, 2015, 03:50:30 PM
how useable is OS 4 on an emulator though? Meaning, how slow is it?
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: eliyahu on December 10, 2015, 04:00:55 PM
@TheMagicM

it ain't great in my experience. the QEMU PPC emulator used is very slow. that said, it's better than nothing and is a nice way to use an existing PC to test AOS4. i wouldn't use it as my only next-gen amiga, but when i'm on the road away from my X5000 and peg2 it is useful as a backup so i can use things like digital universe, for example.

-- eliyahu
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: nicholas on December 10, 2015, 04:36:26 PM
Quote from: TheMagicM;800030
how useable is OS 4 on an emulator though? Meaning, how slow is it?


About as fast as OS3.x was on PPC UAE before we had a JIT version, so it's usable.  If someone writes a PPC uaegfx driver for p96 and a bsdsocket,library it'll be a lot more usable but Toni only does 68k stuff so it's up to someone else to do it.
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: kolla on December 10, 2015, 05:18:20 PM
In stead of "hassling" with WinUAE, one could and should tweak Qemu to emulate something else that OS4 runs on, like Sam4x0 or Pegasos2.
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: kreciu on December 10, 2015, 07:05:47 PM
Quote from: eliyahu;800032
@TheMagicM

it ain't great in my experience. the QEMU PPC emulator used is very slow. that said, it's better than nothing and is a nice way to use an existing PC to test AOS4. i wouldn't use it as my only next-gen amiga, but when i'm on the road away from my X5000 and peg2 it is useful as a backup so i can use things like digital universe, for example.

-- eliyahu

I can't say it is slow. It works quite well. I will need to run some benchmarks :). I have to say that my PC will be best AmigaOS computer for me. I can't simply afford $700 mobo :(. This way there will be much more PPC Amiga users.
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: nicholas on December 10, 2015, 07:23:24 PM
Quote from: kolla;800035
In stead of "hassling" with WinUAE, one could and should tweak Qemu to emulate something else that OS4 runs on, like Sam4x0 or Pegasos2.


On a related note there was a Hungarian guy making the required changes to the QEMU code that would enable MorphOS to boot on an emulated PowerMac G4 but I think he gave up. This was a couple of years ago IIRC.

http://www.openfirmware.info/pipermail/openbios/2014-March/008183.html
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: Aegis on December 10, 2015, 07:25:27 PM
I'm really thrilled to see Michael continuing to update Amiga Forever (and of course incredibly grateful for Toni's continuing work on UAE) - I asked Michael a while back (when PPC support was in beta for UAE) if he'd make a version of AF that supported AmigaOS 4.1 and it's great to see it finally come to fruition :)

As kreciu mentions, some of us (myself included) simply can't justify the investment required for a hardware PPC system and and least now we have an officially supported software alternative so we can join in the fun - it's great for OS4 developers and publishers like Amigakit too.
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: amigakit on December 10, 2015, 07:27:28 PM
Amiga Forever 2016 now has arrived in stock at AmigaKit today: http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1196

We have sent out all preorders

We also have AmigaOS 4.1 Classic in stock now:

http://amigakit.leamancomputing.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1222
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: kreciu on December 10, 2015, 07:36:49 PM
Here is manual how to install AmigaOS4.1 using UAE supplied with AmigaForever.

http://www.amigaforever.com/kb/16-127
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: TheMagicM on December 10, 2015, 07:43:15 PM
@ all
thanks for the replies/confirmation on emulating PPC OS4.   I'm sure in time that will be knocked out also.
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: WeiXing3D on December 10, 2015, 09:35:12 PM
Quote from: Epsilon_;800008
Perhaps my blog post on getting Amiga Forever 2016 up and running with AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Classic may be helpful (assuming OS4 is what you want to run on PPC)?

http://amigax1000.blogspot.com.au/2015/12/amiga-forever-2016.html

Catcha,
Epsilon


Would my OS4.1 FE for SAM460ex work to install in the AF PPC configuration?
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: alberonn on December 10, 2015, 09:55:55 PM
The installation of OS 4.1FE seems pretty straight-forward but I don't have that (yet.) I was wondering what would be the beefiest config for a PPC-accelerated 3.x install. I'm not getting any configs that will boot.

I do love the detail you put into that article about the new AF and setting up 4.1. I may be referring to that when I finally get the disk.
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: kreciu on December 11, 2015, 02:28:39 PM
Quote from: Epsilon_;800008
Perhaps my blog post on getting Amiga Forever 2016 up and running with AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Classic may be helpful (assuming OS4 is what you want to run on PPC)?

http://amigax1000.blogspot.com.au/2015/12/amiga-forever-2016.html

Catcha,
Epsilon


Very nice manual. I'm also happy that people can by legal ROM files from CSPPC and PIV. I was waiting for AmigaOS 4.1 PPC under UAE for a long time :).
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: Gryfon on December 12, 2015, 11:41:16 PM
Failing the idiot test here!

I've got AF 2016, OS 4.1FE for Classic and managed to install it successfully once on my PC with a copy of the RP9 as the instructions suggest.  Then STUPIDLY tried to install the extras, not realising that 300MB was nowhere near enough space. Totally messed up the drive.  So started again, but since then I cannot build my own hard drive file AND make it work.

The instructions specifically relating to creating my own hard disk file are not specific enough.  Every time I copy the PPC RP9 as instructed and setup a large disk (1GB in this case), try to follow the steps, I end up either with a DHO is not a DOS disk error or a Guru Meditation loop.  The disk format and installation appear to work but after ejecting the CD and boot floppy then shutting down the emulation, I always get one or other issue. When I finish the install I get a prompt to "commit changes to my external disk" - whether I do or don't doesn't appear to make a difference either!

The instructions contradict the reset option (AF website says to "soft reset" but not with the AF icon, but the installer says to cold reboot and switch off machine).  Where AF website lists hard drive configuration requirements, the descriptions don't match those used in the Media Toolbox for creating the hard file, so I have no idea what part of the hard drive config I am doing wrong.

I hope Cloanto or someone smarter than myself can provide a step-by-step guide to creating a hard-disk file so that the OS 4.1FE installation can be performed without these issues.  Damn - if I could make it work I would write it myself!  I'll keep trying but any help would be very welcome.
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: eliyahu on December 12, 2015, 11:59:14 PM
@Gryfon

the best step-by-step guide i ever found was from thomas rapp. i'm not sure if the amiga forever version of UAE is sufficiently different to make his instructions not as useful, but i'd still recommend you look through it:

http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/os41uae/index.html

-- eliyahu
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: Senex on December 13, 2015, 04:47:26 AM
@Gryfon

The "soft reset" instruction has been added later to the manual after I experienced the same behaviour as you did. There's no real solution to this bug yet, but Cloanto is aware of it, thus I hope it will be fixed soon.

Until then you can't do more than what I've described here (http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=40751&forum=2&start=40&viewmode=flat&order=0#774321).
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Gryfon on December 14, 2015, 07:33:12 PM
Thanks for the update.  I'll give these a shot!

Regards,

Gryfon
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Gryfon on December 14, 2015, 08:48:05 PM
There are indeed many posts about this so apologies if everyone has worked it out.

The problem appears to be at the end of the process, after the installation has completed.  At the point you are asked to click "Finish" and reboot, the AF 2016 website suggest a warm reboot using CTRL + Left Amiga + Right Amiga.  I happen to have a PC keyboard where the right-hand Windows key is a Function key instead, rather like those you see on a laptop. So when I couldn't soft reset I was always using the icon in the GUI, which leads to the Guru Meditation problem.  Note - AF 2016 website have updated this, albeit in a tiny modofcation to their instructions, on their website now.

So once the install finished, I went into WinUAE config (F12) and changed the input for Right Amiga to be F11 - a key I know which is free to map.  Ejected my floppy and CD-ROM.

Then I performed a CTRL - Amiga - Amiga soft reset and hey presto!  A perfect launch into my newly installed OS v4.1FE.

And now I'm off to play! Be back MUCH later!

Regards,

Gryfon
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Gryfon on December 14, 2015, 09:24:46 PM
Sadly back too soon...

Played for a while, then clicked "Stop" icon at the top.  As the hard file is not embedded I didn't get a request to save it on closing.

Now every time I open the new system, I get the dreaded Guru Meditation.  Perhaps I should have taken a snapshot?  Trying that now.

Regards,

Gryfon
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Gryfon on December 14, 2015, 09:33:00 PM
Booted from the OS4.1 floppy, with OS4.1 CD image, but just launched directly to Workbench.  Once there, configured F11 to Right Amiga, ejected CD and floppy images and did soft reset.  Booted back to my hard file no problem.

I'll save a snapshot now...
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Gryfon on December 14, 2015, 09:43:48 PM
Nope.  Start and choose the snapshot and all I get is a black screen.  Try to soft-reset that and I get a grey/black flickering screen - I think it's locked in a reboot cycle.

Hmm....
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Senex on December 15, 2015, 04:18:37 PM
For those also experiencing the Guru Meditation problem:

amiga-news.de (http://www.amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2015-12-00036-DE.html) (german)
amiga-news.de/en (http://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2015-12-00036-EN.html) (english)
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Gryfon on December 15, 2015, 05:01:34 PM
It appears that the AF 2016 website instruction to use SFS/00 might be something to do with the guru error, according to that post.

I'll try again with FFS tonight.  Thank you very much for the link my friend.

Regards,

Gryfon



Quote from: Senex;800307
For those also experiencing the Guru Meditation problem:

amiga-news.de (http://www.amiga-news.de/de/news/AN-2015-12-00036-DE.html) (german)
amiga-news.de/en (http://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2015-12-00036-EN.html) (english)
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Gryfon on December 15, 2015, 09:02:00 PM
Failure again and again.  I just cannot get either the hard drive to be bootable ("Not a DOS disk" after installation and restart) or Guru Meditation using SFS/00.

I've read clicking F12 early start I can select the hard disk and make it bootable, when when I click F12 the display is sqiushed over the left hand side of the screen, I cant read all of the buttons or descriptions and the rest of the screen is black. I've tried just about every combination of fiddling with different display options in WinUAE but can't get the screen to render properly, so can't test my theory.

Also got an AF 2016 update today but this doesn't appear to have made a difference.

I can get everything configured more or less they way I need to, but a step-by-step guide to creating a hard file and selecting the correct Media Toolbox settings is what Cloanto need to produce.  There are some WinUAE guides out there which I may play with, but since I'm using AF 2016 I prefer to do it in a way that will work withing AF 2016.

I'm not giving up, but it's kind of frustrating.

Regards,

Gryfon
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: B00tDisk on December 15, 2015, 09:57:16 PM
Having finally gotten a chance to play around a bit with OS4.1 Classic on WinUAE, on my system it's pretty poky, but then I've got a pretty old and creaky system (Phenom X4/940 @ 3ghz, 8gb DDR2 RAM).

Doing a new build in a couple of weeks (FX-6300, 16gb DDR3 @3200), we'll see how it behaves then.
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: midway on December 16, 2015, 06:30:53 AM
Cool! Now a cvppc emulation and done we are! Btw its catapultem habeo not habea :)
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: kamelito on December 16, 2015, 11:26:45 AM
why can't it be possible to select OS4.1 and AF2016 at the same time in this page?
http://www.amigaforever.com/shop/?product=os4

Kamelito
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: jj on December 16, 2015, 12:10:48 PM
Quote from: B00tDisk;800317
Having finally gotten a chance to play around a bit with OS4.1 Classic on WinUAE, on my system it's pretty poky, but then I've got a pretty old and creaky system (Phenom X4/940 @ 3ghz, 8gb DDR2 RAM).

Doing a new build in a couple of weeks (FX-6300, 16gb DDR3 @3200), we'll see how it behaves then.

Its pretty dam responsive on my 27inch 5k iMac :)

which has got i7-6700K Processor 4.20 GHz and 16GB of  1866 MHz PC3-14900 DDR3L SO-DIMM SDRAM
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Aegis on December 16, 2015, 07:07:42 PM
Quote from: midway;800331
Cool! Now a cvppc emulation and done we are! Btw its catapultem habeo not habea :)


Haha! Thanks Midway! Corrected :D
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: B00tDisk on December 16, 2015, 10:50:06 PM
Quote from: JJ;800336
Its pretty dam responsive on my 27inch 5k iMac :)

which has got i7-6700K Processor 4.20 GHz and 16GB of  1866 MHz PC3-14900 DDR3L SO-DIMM SDRAM


Yeah; I'd hope an i7 would beat the pants off of a pokey old Phenom!
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: kreciu on December 17, 2015, 04:31:34 AM
Quote from: JJ;800336
Its pretty dam responsive on my 27inch 5k iMac :)

which has got i7-6700K Processor 4.20 GHz and 16GB of  1866 MHz PC3-14900 DDR3L SO-DIMM SDRAM


I'm using Xeon 1265l v3 3.7 and it FANTASTIC. Can anybody tell me how to test speed of this emulated system? Is there any "synthetic" benchmark? I tried SysSpeed but it is showing "crazy number".

I need to try in on my old Core 2 Duo 2.6 ghz :).

PS. Now you can gent Amiga OS 4.1 Classic directly from Clonto website as ISO + ADF :)
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: nicholas on December 17, 2015, 03:08:44 PM
Quote from: kreciu;800362
I'm using Xeon 1265l v3 3.7 and it FANTASTIC. Can anybody tell me how to test speed of this emulated system? Is there any "synthetic" benchmark? I tried SysSpeed but it is showing "crazy number".

I need to try in on my old Core 2 Duo 2.6 ghz :).

PS. Now you can gent Amiga OS 4.1 Classic directly from Clonto website as ISO + ADF :)

It's not to shabby on my 2.5GHz Bay Trail either tbh.

A UAEGFX P96 driver and bsdsocket.library emulation is all it needs really.
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: eliyahu on December 17, 2015, 03:11:41 PM
Quote from: nicholas;800372
It's not to shabby on my 2.5GHz Bay Trail either tbh.

A UAEGFX P96 driver and bsdsocket.library emulation is all it needs really.
that, and the ability to support more than 128MB of memory -- although i don't know if the issue is with the OS itself or a limitation of the cyberstorm ppc emulation in UAE itself.

-- eliyahu
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Senex on December 17, 2015, 07:13:05 PM
D'oh - SFS usage is also possible, one has just to RTFM, i.e. the official AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition booklet, regarding installation of the 68k version found in the directory L: on CD...
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: nicholas on December 17, 2015, 07:36:58 PM
Quote from: eliyahu;800373
that, and the ability to support more than 128MB of memory -- although i don't know if the issue is with the OS itself or a limitation of the cyberstorm ppc emulation in UAE itself.

-- eliyahu


I vaguely remember Toni saying it's possible to emulate more ram on a csppc but OS4 needs changing to support it.
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Gryfon on December 17, 2015, 08:12:26 PM
Aha...of course the first thing I did was dive straight in without RTFM of course :)

Will have another try tonight.

Regards,

Gryfon
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: kreciu on December 17, 2015, 08:54:23 PM
Quote from: nicholas;800372
A UAEGFX P96 driver and bsdsocket.library emulation is all it needs really.
Yes, it is pain to look at such a beautiful OS and have that small resolution :(.

It took long time, but I finally have my "PPC Amiga"...

I also like that Hyperion is selling AmigaOS4.1 iso, I already read people that it was "illegal" to install Amiga OS Classic under UAE...
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Gryfon on December 18, 2015, 11:14:06 AM
Even following the manual isn't striaghtforward because when I select SFS as instructed there, I get an error suggesting to try to increase RDBBlocksLo by 4.  Leaving it or increasing it make no difference - I still get the error.

Can anyone help please?

My general issue is I can install AmigaOS4.1 but after rebooting the newly created install won't boot.  It looks like what I need to know is precisely how to configure the hard disk with the media toolbox step by step, something which none of the guides really do.

Regards,

Gryfon
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: kreciu on December 18, 2015, 11:57:38 AM
Quote from: Gryfon;800427
Even following the manual isn't striaghtforward because when I select SFS as instructed there, I get an error suggesting to try to increase RDBBlocksLo by 4.  Leaving it or increasing it make no difference - I still get the error.

Can anyone help please?

My general issue is I can install AmigaOS4.1 but after rebooting the newly created install won't boot.  It looks like what I need to know is precisely how to configure the hard disk with the media toolbox step by step, something which none of the guides really do.

Regards,

Gryfon

Here, do it as he wrote it. Works great, no errors and it boots fine. I did EXACTLY as he wrote.

http://thomas-rapp.homepage.t-online.de/os41uae/index.html

Enjoy your Amiga OS 4.1 :)

PS. Only part do not work on mine is... I can't read CDs under UAE?! Anybody?!
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Senex on December 18, 2015, 12:38:46 PM
@Gryfon

So you increased it (from 2 to 7, IIRC), then added SFS from L: on the CD, then additionally set SFS at the cycle button at the lower right corner and finally saved your settings by clicking "Save changes to disk"?
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: HammerD on December 18, 2015, 06:06:15 PM
Quote from: eliyahu;800373
that, and the ability to support more than 128MB of memory -- although i don't know if the issue is with the OS itself or a limitation of the cyberstorm ppc emulation in UAE itself.

-- eliyahu


Well AmigaOS 4.1 Classic was designed to run on real hardware, the on-board Cyberstorm PPC memory is limited to 128MB.  You can get 256MB with a Blizzard PPC - and AmigaOS 4.1 Classic supports that.

If you were to add Zorro 3 memory, or Motherboard memory (16MB Max), it is about 10x slower than local Cyberstorm memory.  You can imagine on real hardware the performance hit you would see.  The word "snail" comes to mind.

But I do like the phrase: "Patience is a virtue" ;)
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Aegis on December 19, 2015, 03:14:39 AM
Hmm... I've noticed quite a speedup if you take the time to set up an SFS file system (rather than FFS as suggested by Cloanto) - nifty! :)

BTW, Gryfon - here's how you do it:

1) Start with Cloanto's 'Amiga 4000 PPC' template.

2) Create an appropriate size external .hdf

3) Boot with the AOS4.1 .iso

4) Start the Media/Hard Disk Toolbox in 'Expert' mode.

5) Pick your .hdf and click 'Edit RDB/Reinstall'.

6) Select 'Install/read configuration' at the top.

7) Click on 'OK/Accept Changes' - you don't need to change anything

8) Go into 'Edit Partitions'

9) Click 'Add/edit filesystems' then 'Add new FS'

10) Select 'smartfilesystem' and change the 'DosType' to 53465300

11) Hit Ok then Ok again and create a partition if you need to (make sure it's bootable).

12) Click 'Select filesystem/edit details'

13) Chose 'SFS' and change the 'Blocksize' to 512

14) Hit OK then OK again then save your changes to disk.

15) You're done! You can get on to formatting/installing now :)
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Gryfon on December 19, 2015, 11:45:06 AM
Hi Aegis,
Excellent, I now have a fully bootable installed OS 4.1FE installation.  Thank you so much for the instructions, just what I needed.  SFS is indeed a lot quicker - I could see the difference in the installation process where the files were copying far quicker than normal.

Thank you everyone who got me to this point, I'm really looking forward to Christmas playing with the new OS.

Regards,

Gryfon
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Aegis on December 19, 2015, 12:28:29 PM
Good stuff Gryfon - glad you got it working!

Two more tips for AF2016 users:

1) I couldn't get extended Zorro RAM (for swap) working with 1/1.5GB using WinUAE x64 (Workbench kept loading without Picasso screenmodes) so I tried 768MB - this is currently bugged in AF and doesn't work - 512MB will correctly show a Zorro RAM board (Michael's working on a fix).

2) AF doesn't seem to recognise additional SFS .hdf files properly so adding extra SFS drives is problematic (HD undo wasn't working for me) - it's better to create one big .hdf and partition it to your needs.
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: A1260 on December 19, 2015, 09:06:28 PM
finally we are here, it only took years from Amithlon to this... its time to sell my beefed up a1260, i just hope i get some money for it at all. i fear i will have to junk it at this stage.
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: kreciu on December 23, 2015, 02:43:05 AM
Can someone tell me on earth I can find SysMon.lha!? I'm serious, none of places I found have it!
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Minuous on December 23, 2015, 03:57:46 AM
@kreciu:

It's on an obscure site called Aminet ;-)

http://aminet.net/search?query=sysmon
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: kreciu on December 23, 2015, 04:49:15 AM
Quote from: Minuous;800627
@kreciu:

It's on an obscure site called Aminet ;-)

http://aminet.net/search?query=sysmon


I know... but is this latest version?

http://commodore.ninja/sysmon-v4-2-amiga/

??
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: amoskodare on December 23, 2015, 05:21:21 AM
Quote from: kreciu;800630
I know... but is this latest version?

http://commodore.ninja/sysmon-v4-2-amiga/

??

It's now on AMIStore, in the packages called zTools:

http://apps.amistore.net/zTools/
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: kreciu on December 23, 2015, 06:11:40 AM
Quote from: amoskodare;800631
It's now on AMIStore, in the packages called zTools:

http://apps.amistore.net/zTools/

Thank you! Finally I can post my benchmarks :). I'm not sure how reliable they are but numbers looks good.

Like I mentioned system feels really good and fast with exception of low resolution etc. for what ever reason my network connection is 10x slower then under PC :(.

PS. I like AmiStore! I have to say the more I use AmigaOS 4.1 the more I like it, there are few things which are quite nice. We shall see!
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: amoskodare on December 23, 2015, 06:39:16 AM
Quote from: kreciu;800632
PS. I like AmiStore! I have to say the more I use AmigaOS 4.1 the more I like it, there are few things which are quite nice. We shall see!
:)

And welcome to the AOS4.1 club :hat: :)
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Aegis on December 23, 2015, 04:10:38 PM
Anyone else getting this with the latest version of AF2016 (2016.0.24.0)?

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8210563/AFError.png)

Clicking 'OK' boots the .HDF just fine..?

I'm happy to see the Z3 768MB bug's fixed in the latest version though :)
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: nicholas on December 23, 2015, 04:33:48 PM
Quote from: Aegis;800663
Anyone else getting this with the latest version of AF2016 (2016.0.24.0)?

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8210563/AFError.png)

Clicking 'OK' boots the .HDF just fine..?

I'm happy to see the Z3 768MB bug's fixed in the latest version though :)


You probably haven't installed a 68k filesystem to the RDB.

Edit: I can't read lol

Dunno, it's a weird one.
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Senex on December 23, 2015, 05:44:07 PM
@Aegis

Yes, me too, but since it boots fine despite the error message, I can live with this minor bug.
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: kreciu on December 23, 2015, 07:27:28 PM
Quote from: amoskodare;800633
:)

And welcome to the AOS4.1 club :hat: :)


Thank you.

Now I will try to set up UAE on its own computer. I hope I will be able to make my AmigaOS4.1 boot without help on Windows... (sure Linux will be there at the background).

My new project for 2016.

I'm really happy there is AmiStore. I hope there will be more software to buy and possibility to PAY for someones work in Amiga community is really good :)
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Aegis on December 23, 2015, 07:38:36 PM
Hmm... it looks like AF doesn't recognise .HDFs that've had the RDB re-written (i.e. SFS disks) as bootable - if you add an unaltered AF-created disk the message goes away:

(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8210563/AFDisks.png)

Note that AF is showing my boot partition as non-bootable (even though it boots fine) weird.
Title: Nice bonus for early buyers...
Post by: alberonn on December 27, 2015, 05:31:12 AM
I had to stay off of my e-mail until I opened up my presents this year since my wife and I both ordered from Amazon but when I was clearing out my baclog of e-mail, I recieved this nice letter:

Quote


Hello Mark,

Many thanks for being among the very first to support us with your recent Amiga Forever 2016 order. As a special thank you, and because this is also part of an upgrade offer we are making this month, please find below a free additional license to the companion package, C64 Forever:

C64 Forever 2016 Plus Edition
(URL to MSI file)
License Key: XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX

The download will expire in two weeks. Please make a backup of the file and license key, because it will not be recoverable via the e-commerce provider's backup system. If you prefer, you may give this bonus copy to a friend.

You will receive a separate email with a refresh of Amiga Forever 2016 itself, but for now I wanted to share this special thank you gift with you.

Regards,

Mike and Your RetroPlatform Team

--
http://www.amigaforever.com
http://www.c64forever.com



These guys are awesome. I was thinking of getting C64 Forever soon anyway and I was pretty stoked to see this in my inbox. :D
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: Terminills on February 26, 2016, 01:00:16 AM
Quote from: kolla;800035
In stead of "hassling" with WinUAE, one could and should tweak Qemu to emulate something else that OS4 runs on, like Sam4x0 or Pegasos2.


;)

look what's been released.


https://github.com/mmuman/qemu/tree/sam460ex-WIP-rebasing

apparently not quite complete yet.
Title: Re: Amiga Forever 2016 with PPC support!
Post by: Aegis on February 26, 2016, 04:48:01 AM
Well that puts the cat amongst the pigeons doesn't it? :D
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: kolla on February 26, 2016, 09:20:53 AM
Quote from: Terminills;804695
;)

look what's been released.


https://github.com/mmuman/qemu/tree/sam460ex-WIP-rebasing

apparently not quite complete yet.


Sweet, there we go :laughing:
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: dammy on February 26, 2016, 01:28:54 PM
Quote from: Terminills;804695
;)

look what's been released.


https://github.com/mmuman/qemu/tree/sam460ex-WIP-rebasing

apparently not quite complete yet.


Excellent news!
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: Iggy on February 26, 2016, 07:23:39 PM
Quote from: kolla;804705
Sweet, there we go :laughing:


I can't imagine that Acube looks at this as 'sweet'.
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: nicholas on February 26, 2016, 08:19:22 PM
Quote from: Iggy;804723
I can't imagine that Acube looks at this as 'sweet'.

Resistance is futile, you will be emulated. ;)
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: dammy on February 26, 2016, 08:22:25 PM
Quote from: Iggy;804723
I can't imagine that Acube looks at this as 'sweet'.


Never know, they may see this a door opening for them to dump expensive hardware development for their industrial customer(s).
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: Iggy on February 27, 2016, 12:10:57 AM
Quote from: dammy;804727
Never know, they may see this a door opening for them to dump expensive hardware development for their industrial customer(s).


They might forego a market that is willing to pay more for a product in favor of one that is not going to pay anything?

You, sir, have been an Amigan too long.
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: kolla on February 27, 2016, 12:14:45 PM
I didn't know Acube make laptops.

Anyways, Sam emulator is great for both OS4 and MorphOS.
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: dammy on February 27, 2016, 02:34:11 PM
Quote from: Iggy;804736
They might forego a market that is willing to pay more for a product in favor of one that is not going to pay anything?

You, sir, have been an Amigan too long.


IIRC, AOS/MOS has been a secondary market for ACube products.  Which would make their industrial customer(s) the primary market.  Offering something that is cheaper (and possibly with more profit) with the possibility of being faster in the future is a way to expand market share.  If that means the secondary market won't see upgrades but continue existing production line as needed, wouldn't you opt for doing so?
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: Iggy on February 27, 2016, 07:47:27 PM
Quote from: dammy;804761
IIRC, AOS/MOS has been a secondary market for ACube products.  Which would make their industrial customer(s) the primary market.  Offering something that is cheaper (and possibly with more profit) with the possibility of being faster in the future is a way to expand market share.  If that means the secondary market won't see upgrades but continue existing production line as needed, wouldn't you opt for doing so?


Sounds good, in theory, but as someone who used to work with a company that only had a small volume of sales I would still focus on the market that offered me the most return on my investment.
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: dammy on February 27, 2016, 08:13:25 PM
Quote from: Iggy;804772
Sounds good, in theory, but as someone who used to work with a company that only had a small volume of sales I would still focus on the market that offered me the most return on my investment.


I completely agree and my bet is on their industrial customer(s) side as their primary cash cow.
Title: Re: Impressions/experience from a recent purchaser of AF16
Post by: Iggy on February 27, 2016, 09:30:07 PM
Absolutely, dammy.
And the numbers sold to our community are probably no higher than the industrial market, again I would focus on the customers who are willing to pay a little more and want/need good/better technical support.