A600GS Updates

[amigakit]

Do you have some Amiga or C64 9-pin joysticks ?  Plug them into the A600GS for multiplayer fun!

[amigakit]

A600GS is today featured on The Retro Hour show, hosted by Dan Wood and Ravi Abbott:

https://theretrohour.com/amiga-kit-how-to-run-a-full-time-amiga-business-in-2024-the-retro-hour-ep415/

[amigakit]

Save your position in games and resume them instantly by simply selecting the saved game icon and clicking Start.   Don't worry: the amount of saved games is not limited.   This useful feature has been added to the A600GS this week.  Check out: https://wiki.amiga.org/a600gs

[amigakit]

There are several years of development behind our System V46 components.  These have been put to good use for the A600GS project. Some of the many components used within the pre-installed AmiBench:

[amigakit]

@nbache

The new SysZen font needs tweaking before release.

[amigakit]

The A600GS will be on sale at Kickstart 02 show.

We have some big news coming this week about some software development of it.

[amigakit]

Cardiff, 9th March, 2024

AmigaKit Ltd is pleased to announce an important software development for the forthcoming A600GS computer system.  The new ARM Graphics Library is  pre-installed accelerating the performance of AmiBench and 68K applications.

The ARMgraphics.library was created by AmigaKit's in-house developer to bypass the bottleneck of the 68K graphics functions.  It accelerates graphics rendering performance in applications.

AmiBench is pre-installed on the A600GS computer system.  It opens the desktop environment in high resolution 1080p with True Colour icons. Now it can use the new ARM Graphics Library for various purposes including faster rendering of windows, icons and backgrounds.

Third party developers can take advantage of this library by using it's powerful functions from their 68K application.  It also offers an opportunity for 68K games developers to enhance their games with faster graphics rendering.

The library provides a link between 68K programs and the native ARM processor.

Further work is underway to patch 68K system graphics functions so older applications that are not written to use the ARM Graphics Library can benefit.
 
AmigaKit has developed AK-Datatypes, Picture Datatype and Datatypes Library over the many years for the Enhancer Software on X5000, X1000 and A1222+.  These have been compiled for 68K to run on the A600GS,  In addition these system components can also be accelerated by the ARM Graphics Library for extra performance.

The A600GS computer system is due for launch in the second quarter of 2024.   

Additional Information about A600GS, AmiBench and it's components can be found on these websites:

A600GS:         www.a600gs.com
AmiBench:      wiki.amiga.org/amibench

[amigakit]

AmiBench Def Icons rendered in window - accelerated by the ARM Graphics Library:



(click to expand)

[amigakit]

@Boing-ball

A Warp3D driver for the A600GS is a large development project - months of work.   The current ARM Graphics Lib is a large undertaking so that has some additional development first before moving onto newer projects.

A-EON Technology owns Warp3D and we have the source code to port over in future if need be.

[amigakit]

Development of AmiBench for the A600GS continues. 

The new Clock utility added this week with a wide range of skins/themes and sizes which can be selected





a600gs.com

[amigakit]

Development work on the public release of  AmiBench V46.1 is coming to a conclusion in time for the soon to be released  A600GS computer. The latest program to be backported from the Enhancer Software to the A600GS is the Calendar app. The Calendar is fully skinnable with 20 themes provided.

For the programmers out there, It uses the Shared Image Class, now accelerated by the ARM Graphics Library



a600gs.com

[amigakit]

Thanks!  Here is a sneak preview of AmiBench with its new Dock, Calendar and Clock.




We hope this will be the ultimate 68K distribution.

[amigakit]

@TribbleSmasher

SystemV46 / AmiBench is 68K back ported from the Enhancer Software OS4 codebase.  It represents 6 years of development work and works well on 68K machines.  In recent times, we have since adapted it for the A600GS and added the ARM Graphics Library.   

[amigakit]

Here is a small part from the Quick Connect section of the printed manual that comes with the A600GS:

[amigakit]

Here is a small part from the AmiBench section of the printed manual that comes supplied with the A600GS: