Pine users... do you exist? lol Usenet/Mail probs & minor audio rant

[save2600]

Okay - very passively I'll admit... I have not been able to get Pine version 3.93 to work on ANY of my Amiga's for the last 10 years. This fabled all-in-one solution I've downloaded time and time again. Tried to install BOTH archives (you have to install 2 out of 3 together as the always confusing instructions tell you to) to no avail. Just tried to install it today (yet again), which is why I am writing.

You install one on top of the other - depending on the CPU you currently happen to own. Why it's not available as a single archive is beyond me. It's not like we haven't learned to rename files to suit our processors and MANY, MANY, many Amiga programs are like this. I just learned that AMPlifier (built into AmigaOS3.5+, even though NO Amiga ever came built in with a superior sound card that required AHI or XSound) and ALL of these other mp3 players, REQUIRE a third party sound card in order to work. Not even in the docs of any Amiga OS does it state you MUST use a 3rd party card capable of using the AHI, etc. driver in order to use these supposedly "friendly" AmigaOS software packages. Yeah, as if Paula and a speedy CPU aren't good enough  :-(    Amplifier and some of these other programs should have been included under the 'Extras' part of the OS plain and simple.

Anyway... I have yet to come across a mail/newsreader combo that is easy to setup and/or does not require an impossible to find vapourware keyfile in order to run properly. YAM's "AAREX" Usenet "patch" is an April's Fools joke. You download one Yam, try to install the news plug-in, configure this, download and patch that... NADDA. Doesn't matter which version of YAM either. It's all so frustrating.

AWeb's built in mail and newsreader, even though there are a lot of teaser configs, etc., - I've never been able to get to work. News keeps saying I need more "authentication". How much more do you need besides your frickin' password and user name?!? lol

Who here uses their Miggy to read news & e-mail (one package) in a fully functional and civilised manner?? And most importantly... how have you managed this seemingly impossible task? What to do in the case of programs that are no longer supported, but we need keyfiles for?

And what's up with OS 3.5 & 3.9's AmigaMail?!?  That has NEVER worked right for me. Cannot delete messages rotting away in the 'inbox', etc.
 

[CSixx]

Can't really help you, but wanted to add:
AMPlifier does NOT require a soundcard. I've used it on my 1200 to play mp3's (in poor quality, i admit) and I've never owned a sound card for my amigas.

[save2600]

I thought so too once, but WTF?  Whenever I add an .mp3 or a .wav, ALL 3 versions of my AMPlifier either crash or (depending on configuration) 'abort' the file I am trying to add to the playlist.

I've studied the amplifier.config file and made sure Paulaaudio.device was listed. There's also a audiomod.xxxx device (going by memory) of some sort too, which points to an appropriate directory & file. Nothing. Dragged Paulaudio.device out of Devs and still nothing. AMPlifier is not pointing to AHI either. In fact, under the configuration option, my computer or the AMPlifier program crashes when I try to select anything other than 'blank' - is all that's listed in the requester. Yeah, even without any sound files loaded, upon startup of the configuration, I don't even see anything listed. Paula, oh Paula... where art thou?

On the spec'd A2500 listed below, I cannot play an mp3 or .wav file to save my life.

[CSixx]

Your specs are better than what I used (a1200 apollo 040, 32M ram). I do remember having to fiddle with the settings quite a bit...


Here are my settings, work on a basic install of OS3.9 (no boingbags), if you want me to look at anything else i didnt cover below, let me know.

X-Audio using paulaaudio.device
buffer: 5secs
prebuffer: 30 secs
priority: 10

mpeg audio 1.2 player config:
------------
paulaaudio.device
buffersize 256k
blocksize 32k
layer I/II/III all (samplerate 1:4) (quality: low) mono

[pVC]

None of the mp3 players require soundcard. All can play with paula directly or through AHI (AHI comes with paula.audio device). OK, there might be some excceptions like MAS-player's own software or delfmpeg, but those should be obvious needing the decoder hardware.

I've been using AMPlifier for over ten years as my main mp3-player. For some years with paula and it worked pretty well with it when you had 060. If you gave it bit higher priority than default is, then it played without any cuts no matter how much you used other programs and CPU.

Then I got Delfina Lite soundcard and AMPlifier worked fine with it decoding mp3:s with its DSP. No CPU load at all.

And nowadays I'm using it on MorphOS with Pegasos.

So, I'd say it's pretty compatible program and if it doesn't work, it's probably an user error. And actually if you don't have soundcard with hw decoder for mp3, then using soundcard needs more CPU power than paula.

About mail and news combo... I wouldn't try to find combo. Separate programs are better for separate jobs, IMHO YAM or SimpleMail is good for email and I guess there's some news programs too.. at least NewsRog and NewsCoaster seem to be open source nowadays. I had successfull test with NewsRog long time ago... I myself don't use mail or news locally, so can't say anything sure about those as main programs. I use Pine and Tin on my mail server.

[save2600]

Thanks for the confirmation pVC. Amplifier or any other mp3 player simply do not work on my system. Files cannot be loaded and when I go into Amplifier's 'configuration' option, Paulaaudio is not seen, nor can I change it to Paulaaudio. In fact, on an older version of Amplifier, pressing the 'configure' or 'about' buttons underneath where paulaaudio should be listed, it causes my computer to crash. Suspend or Reboot to be exact.

@ CSixx:

I haven't tried X-audio or mpeg audio yet. I'll try those next. Would just be nice if the Amiga Amplifier would work  :-)  The other Amiga mpeg sound program (Amp I think its called) does not work either.

[CSixx]

The X-Audio and mpeg audio i referred to are categories for different settings in AMPLifier.

[save2600]

LOL! Okay I get it. X-Audio refers/points to the built-in Paula chip. Got the Amplifier problem figured out anyhow. Turned out I had a bad install somehow. Reinstalled the one from BB2 and she's up and running again. Wheee! Of curiosity though, older AMPlifier progs still did not work. Only version 2.34 works on my system. Must be a Boing Bag thing?

Thanks for the tips and help all.

[Ilwrath]

I believe the Amiga version of Pine requires a complete ixemul setup.  Which ixemul, itself, is an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in a giant steaming turd.

And, really, the better question might be why you'd want Pine on an Amiga?  Back 15 years ago or so I used to use it through a unix (Solaris, I think?) terminal I dialed into at my school.  It almost, sorta, worked for plain text messages.  That is about the best I can say for it.  I can't imagine wanting to use it today.  I don't think it can even comprehend a multi-part MIME message.  I seem to remember it just displays the text/plain portion and then presents you with a giant block of uuencoded crap at the end.

[save2600]

Ilwrath wrote:
I believe the Amiga version of Pine requires a complete ixemul setup.  Which ixemul, itself, is an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, wrapped in a giant steaming turd.

ROTFLMAO! I never used Pine before, so thought I may have been "missing out". I do have those ixemul files though. But, it still doesn't work. No biggy. NewsRog looks promising, but the evaluation version is severely crippled.

[Ilwrath]

ROTFLMAO! I never used Pine before, so thought I may have been "missing out".

Naw...  I think you're probably better off with any of the more modern Amiga email or news programs.  Pine is totally text/terminal based.  It's one strength is that it can run through a standard VT-100 terminal.  (So WAY back in the day, you could simply use JR-Comm to dial directly in to a computer running a dial-in shell.  Then, open Pine on that remote computer, and you could read your internet e-mail, and not need TCP/IP or whatnot on your end computer.  This was helpful like 17-20 years ago when I didn't have a hard drive on my Amiga, nor the skill to run TCP/IP on it.  :lol:)

I do have those ixemul files though. But, it still doesn't work. No biggy. NewsRog looks promising, but the evaluation version is severely crippled.

Yeah, I had an ixemul setup, too.  It seems like I remember finding though SnoopDos that Pine was barfing on something related to ixemul, though.  I always suspected my ixemul setup wasn't so good.  Really, I only got about 50% of the ixemul programs I tried to actually work.  And, of those, only a few worked reliably enough to be useful.

[pVC]

Ilwrath wrote:

ROTFLMAO! I never used Pine before, so thought I may have been "missing out".

Naw...  I think you're probably better off with any of the more modern Amiga email or news programs.  Pine is totally text/terminal based.  It's one strength is that it can run through a standard VT-100 terminal.  (So WAY back in the day, you could simply use JR-Comm to dial directly in to a computer running a dial-in shell.  Then, open Pine on that remote computer, and you could read your internet e-mail, and not need TCP/IP or whatnot on your end computer.  This was helpful like 17-20 years ago when I didn't have a hard drive on my Amiga, nor the skill to run TCP/IP on it.  :lol:)

Depends, I find Pine as the best option still, BUT I definitely won't recommend to run it on your Amiga or any other local computer. It's great if you have shell access to your mail server etc. Then you can have your mails, settings, folders, filtering, addressbooks, mail archive and everything available from any computer at any time. From work, school, mates, travels... and home Just connect with SSH client to server and do the mails. No hassle to configure clumsy mail clients locally to any machine. I can connect to my mail server with SSH by just clicking one hotkey or menu item from my Amiga's keyboard, so it's as quick to start as any other program.

Usability of properly configured Pine is far far better than any graphical client will ever be And it can handle attachments, links etc well... that uuencoding yourself is ancient history. Pine is very powerful nowadays.

I use local clients only when I want to send quick attachment to someone...

[robo-ant]

I *loved* Pine as a newsreader, over a terminal.  I wish I still had access to an ISP that provided terminal access.

I tried to run Pine on my Amiga via SLIrP when I still had terminal access but I didn't have enough RAM to configure the newsgroups (I think I had 6MB at the time).  When using GigaMem later, memory wasn't the problem, but speed was.  My ISP disconnected me each time after downloading the list of newsgroups, before I could actually configure anything, because of inactivity.

I bet Pine would run great on my Amithlon box over TCP, but I think my ISP doesn't have a news server anymore. :-(

I wouldn't use Pine for e-mail, but I would definitely still use it as a newsreader.

[Piru]

I use Alpine for my personal mail. Before that I used pine.

It runs on my linux box (except that early on it ran on the university unix boxen), and I use it remotely via ssh (the alpine is always open in screen).

This way I can access my mail from anywhere, anytime (including amigaos, if I for some reason need to).