Photos from the 7th September Meeting

We had a great Adelaide Meeting on September 7th, 2015!

We had special guest Jonathan Potter and plenty of people came to show their systems and talk about all things Amiga!

Below are some links to photos taken from the event!

We published photos from the September 7th event on our Facebook page here:

https://www.facebook.com/adelaideretrocomputing/

Epsilon also attended and covered the Adelaide Amiga event with this blog entry, which has plenty more photos from the event and even shows an AmigaOne X1000 built during the event!

http://amigax1000.blogspot.com.au/2015/09/adelaide-amiga-meeting-with-new-x1000.html

We look forward to seeing you at our next event - watch this space for details!

Adelaide Amiga Meeting is on tonight!

This post is a reminder to all that the next Adelaide Amiga meeting is on tonight, September 7, from 7:30pm. All the details of how to get to the venue are in the Meeting Location section of this website.

We have a special guest tonight - Jonathan Potter, Author of Directory Opus!

There will also be numerous Amiga models on display, both Classic and Next Generation Amiga systems to try out!

We look forward to seeing you all there!

Getting to know Adelaide Amiga Users - Epsilon

Did you know that Adelaide has been at the forefront of Amiga development in both software and hardware?

Below is the legendary Phoenix Board designed and developed by Andrew J Wilson in South Australia under Phoenix Microtechnologies Pty Ltd.

Image Source: "Big Book of Amiga Hardware" <http://www.bigbookofamigahardware.com/bboah/media/download_photos/a1000phoenix_4.jpg>

Below is an image of popular Amiga software: Directory Opus (or DOpus).  This program is well known to Amiga users as it originated on the Amiga system.  Originally developed and written in Adelaide by Jonathan Potter as a premier file manager program.  It's current release, version 11 is available now for Windows.  See here for more details.

To unravel this topic, a series of Amiga-related interviews are being conducted which will feature a guest who has been involved in shaping Adelaide's image for the Amiga.

To start this series off, we have an Adelaide based Amiga user "Epsilon" who has a very active involvement in both the local and online community.  He visited AmiWest last year in late 2014 and has been active with Amiga's since their inception.


How did you first discover the wonderful world of the Amiga?

[Epsilon]: My first use of an Amiga was actually at my High School in Perth when I lived there back in 1988. The school had Amiga 1000's set up for use in the art department for electronic artwork composition using Deluxe Paint. I didn't own an Amiga back then and hadn't seen one either, as I had recently moved to Perth from Alice Springs (where they definitely didn't have any!).

I was very much impressed by Deluxe Paint and I suggested I could help the school with this new computer they got! (I was already spending most of my lunchtimes in the computer labs at the school with their Australian made Microbee computers and Apple Macintosh systems). 

They agreed and so I did lots of work to learn how to make optimised boot disks and so on to make it easier for them to get students using the system with a standard floppy disk that contained their data. It started from that :-)

What was it about the Amiga that got you hooked?

[Epsilon]: Setting up Deluxe Paint at school was a fun distraction, but no question it was the games and demo scene for the Amiga that got me hooked. In the late 1980's early 1990's there was a thriving Amiga game and demo scene, even in Australia. Below is the Hinch Demo by Decay (Sydney Group) in 1990 - perhaps Australian locals may remember this one?

Going to department stores like Myer or K-Mart in Australia back then was such a different experience to today - you had banks of screens and computer models lined up from Commodore - Amiga, C64, C128, Atari - ST, Portfolio, 2600, 7800, Apple Macintosh, IBM PC & Clones (Windows, DOS, OS/2), Amstrad CPC 6128, (and others too) and all their associated game titles and applications in separated software shelves!

I ended up buying a lot of Amiga software over the years - mostly games admittedly... 

For a person like myself, keen to do anything associated with computers,  it really was like a kid in a candy shop and I couldn't get enough of it! I had no money at first of course but looking at the Amiga systems and dreaming was free!

I then started regularly talking to university students working in the Computer department in Myer City Store in Perth back then, and they regularly put on the latest demos on the Amiga 500 from Europe and games too. I used to sit there for hours just watching Scoopex and Red Sector demos run on loops and wishing I had an Amiga to run them myself...

Finally my dad decided to upgrade the Commodore 128 we had in 1988 to an 1MB expanded Amiga 500....and as you can tell, well before then I was already hooked on Amiga's! Later on we upgraded the Amiga 500 to an Amiga 2000HD in 1991. I even found an old photo of it from the early 1990's.

Students at that time were trumpeting their favourite systems they had at home - Commodore, Atari, Apple or PC clones. Rivalry between Atari ST and Amiga owners was considerable back then.

School student copy parties and swap parties were everywhere, and being at high school in Perth back then many of us brought to school our lists of games and demos we had, to swap disks for the latest stuff someone else had! We got to meet lots of new friends this way too!

With one friend of mine in particular we would sometimes play Populous on our Amiga 500 computers between our houses using our 2400 baud modems on the weekends...

Also I was using NComm on my Amiga 500 to access Bulletin Board Services (BBS) like Adam BBS (ADelaide AMiga BBS - now called ADAM Internet) and Perth based BBS's daily to get new Amiga software...still have the disks with some of the software I got back then! I even picked up plenty of public domain disks from mail order companies in Adelaide and elsewhere in Australia too..anyone remember these ones?

Later on I bought an Amiga 1200, 600, 1000, 3000, 4000D, 4000T, CD32 and many other systems too! 

Local Adelaide Amiga dealer G-Soft even did a expensive tower conversion of my Amiga 1200 into a Micronik Tower case - I no longer have the system (I sold it to get an A4000D) but still have an old photo of it from the early 2000's:

The upgrades to AmigaOS 3.5, 3.9 with new 030, 040 and 060 accelerators and graphics cards with some amazing demos from TBL kept my interest in Amigas well into the mid 2000's, when the Next Generation Amiga systems started becoming a reality.

I quickly jumped on board with a Sam 440EP in 2008, then AmigaOne X1000 in 2012 and most recently in 2015 a Sam 460Cr system, running AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition and MorphOS 3.8 too:

Safe to say I still enjoy using Amiga systems today, Classic and Next Generation - It is still so much fun to play around with these systems!

Where do you see Amiga heading in the future?

[Epsilon]: I see the future of Amiga continuing to head on it's current course, which is a Hobby OS for Amiga and other computer enthusiasts. It will most likely never again be a mainstream operating system or hardware platform, but the small group of dedicated Amiga users around the world can continue to enjoy using their Amigas, thanks to the work of hardware and software developers continuing to push the platform slowly forward, and reminding them and us still of a time when mainstream computing was much more fun than it is now!

As a small example we can now stream internet video content on AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition using the Odyssey web browser, including YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo and other modern websites:

  Whether people are interested in Classic Amiga systems (or emulating them on PC's and Macs), Re-implementation of Classic Amiga systems in FPGA (like Minimig, etc), or getting involved in the Next Generation Amiga systems like the AmigaOne X1000, Sam 460, Powerbook G4/PowerMac G5 systems running AmigaOS 4.1, MorphOS, and AROS on PC systems - there really is something for everyone interested in Amiga systems.

For me, I love the Classic Amiga era, and also the Next generation Amiga systems - the next generation systems are a natural evolution of the Classic Amiga operating system, brought much closer to modern operating system functionality. It doesn't replace these modern systems, but it is a lot of fun to see the boundaries continue to be pushed forward and seeing what Amiga can still do in 2015 and beyond!

Have you ever been involved in developing applications for the Amiga?

[Epsilon]: No, unfortunately I haven't to date. I was involved in the Amiga demo scene in the late 1990's forming a group called The Experience, helping to write music, graphics and code in assembly for Classic Amiga 1200 systems with 68030 accelerators.

Recently I have been doing significant quantities of pre-release software testing for AmigaOS4.1 applications for various developers.

Tell us about your experience at AmiWest – what were some memorable moments?

[Epsilon]: AmiWest 2014 was an amazing experience and for anyone who has the opportunity to visit it, I definitely recommend it!

Being able to talk directly to AmigaOS 4.1 developers like Steven Solie, AmigaOS 4.1 beta testers and the people like Matthew Leaman and Trevor Dickinson from A-EON technology (the guys behind the  AmigaOne X1000, AMIStore, and upcoming X5000 systems) was an amazing experience.

Being able to see the passion and genuine interest in the past and future of the Amiga platform was fantastic, as was being able to meet so many people I had previously only talked to on IRC. 

Having the opportunity to provide feedback and suggestions for future enhancements was also excellent! The seminars on various topics allowed all attendees to learn more about the latest releases for Next Generation and Classic Amiga systems, and get some tips and tricks on how to get the best out of them.

For me, apart from meeting some amazing people, being able to run my own seminar on how to run AmigaOS 4.1 under emulation on a normal Core i7 PC using WinUAE (and FS-UAE) was a highlight as I released just how many people were interested in doing this. 

Below is a screenshot of the latest AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition release running in emulation under FS-UAE on my Macbook Pro Core i7 running MacOS X Yosemite:

Emulation is a cheap way to experience the Next generation Amiga systems on a modern PC, and if we can get more people to try via emulation to get a feel for whether they want to buy Next Generation Amiga systems or continue to stick with Classic Amigas, it will be a benefit for enlarging our small community.

The programming seminar held directly before AmiWest show itself is also a great opportunity to get your hands dirty learning how to code for AmigaOS 4.1, assisted by AmigaOS developers who live and breathe it everyday.

[For those interested, AmiWest is an event held in California where current and past developers of Amiga products lead seminars and discussions.  There are also other activities and particulars available at this show.  Please see here for further details.]

What do you think distinguishes Amiga from other platforms?

[Epsilon]: For Classic Amiga systems, the architecture of different chips for different functions was way ahead of it's time. It allowed the Classic Amiga to do things it's competitors could only dream of at the time, especially in graphics. Amiga Games and demos from the late 1980's and early 1990's were (in my opinion) unrivalled from any other platform available back then.

The AmigaOS itself also was easy to use and quite configurable. With the introduction of AmigaOS 3.1 we could see some very clever optimised use of memory, datatypes, language localisation and system resources to provide a full GUI that could run on a single bootable floppy disk, but scaled to large graphics workstations for TV use and much more.

The addition of commercial programs like Deluxe Paint, Fantavision, Directory Opus, Scala, NewTek Toaster, Lightwave, Final Writer, ImageFX, Octamed Soundstudio, Protracker, Music X, AMOS, Storm C, Personal Paint, Photogenics, Cinema 4D, Vista Pro, Geek Gadgets (and many others too) added a lot of new functionality and explored the potential of AmigaOS applications for commercial purposes, beyond purely games and demos for home users.

These days, the AmigaOS is the core of Next Generation Amiga systems and continues to provide the look and feel of the original Classic Amiga system, but heavily enhanced in AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition, MorphOS 3.8 and Icaros Desktop (AROS) to provide modern functionality and new software support that could never run well on the original Classic Amiga hardware.

What specific things do you use your Amiga for – are you a gamer, programmer, artist or a bit-of- everything' person?

[Epsilon]: Primarily, I like to tinker with my Amigas - whether Classic or Next Generation systems. The same thing I have been doing in one form or another since 1988! I cover my various projects regularly on my blog to help other people out who want to see how to do things, or for people to just follow the latest developments in Amiga! 

I try out new pre-release software, get applications and games running well, and many other Amiga hardware upgrade projects too. Latest is the MultiviewerNG and Wings Battlefield software about to released for AmigaOS4.1.  I covered both and lots more on my main Amiga blog - Epsilon's Amiga X1000 Blog.

I like composing music on my Amigas when I have free time - not so much recently! This comes from my participation in the Amiga demoscene back in the day. I used to use Protracker, but then moved on to use Schismtracker (Impulsetracker - written on PC by local Adelaide uni student Jeffrey Lim) and recently started playing with the recently released Digibooster Pro 3 for AmigaOS 4.1.

I will admit to not really being much of a programmer or artist. But seeing Sketchblock on AmigaOS 4.1 demonstrated by it's author Andy "Broadblues" Broad at AmiWest 2014 has made me want to buy a Wacom tablet to get more into this area. Perhaps later this year is the time! :-)

Adelaide Amiga 30th Anniversary Event!

Last night the Adelaide Amiga User Group organised a special event to mark the 30th Anniversary of the release of the Amiga system.

The Amiga 1000 was the first model released by Commodore in 1985, which makes this system now 30 years old.

Of course, Amiga has come a far way since this date and as this post will demonstrate not only is the classic Amiga scene still thriving, but there has been an on-going resurgence of next-generation systems.

The event kicked off at 7:30pm at the Clarence Park Community Centre located in Black Forest, South Australia.

Persons who attended were encouraged to bring their systems along.

Below is a next-gen Amiga set-up that was brought in by Epsilon.  On the left is a Sam 460CR running AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition and on the right a Powerbook G4 running MorphOS 3.8.  These systems were connected up via LAN to test a soon to be released "Wings Battlefield" game.  These machines proved quite popular during the course of the night with many attendees constantly questioning and conversing with Epsilon.

The photo below features another system out of Epsilon's collection, a Commodore CD-TV.  They were released by Commodore in 1991 and are able to function like an Amiga as well as having a CD-ROM drive.  As is seen below, a popular Gotek Floppy Drive Emulator device has been connected to the external port to enable USB software interaction with the system.  Various demo's were played by Epsilon from this machine during the course of the night.

Games were also demoed on the CDTV.  Below is a picture of the remote used for this system.  It is interesting to note that Commodore had originally marketed this system as a multimedia player.  You will notice the common features between an audio player and this system by the buttons on this controller such as "PLAY/PAUSE", "REW", "FF", etc. 

Below is an Amiga 1000 that was set-up.  Interestingly, after power-on, this system booted straight to the well-known "Workbench" start-up screen (the hand holding a Blue floppy disk) rather than first requiring a Kickstart.  It was clear after some investigation that this system was fitted with a well-known Phoenix motherboard, which was designed and manufactured here in Adelaide!  These motherboards feature a Kickstart ROM chip, similar to the Amiga 500.

Below is another Classic Amiga system on display - an Amiga 3000 machine.  A display of the workbench screen is seen on the screen.  These systems were released by Commodore in 1990's and succeeded the Amiga 2000.  An Amiga 1200 is also present in the photo.

Here is a close-up of the unit itself.

Present below is also an Amiga 500 and to the far left is an Amiga 4000, which was being internally investigated as it had a slight issue with recognising Fast RAM.

Here is a photo of Epsilon setting up his systems before everyone arrived.  On the right is another George, who was present for the first time and greatly assisted us in setting up the venue and packing up.  A big thank-you is extended to George for his help!

Another interesting classic Amiga setup was brought in by Cam.  It featured an Amiga 1200 and 3000.  The display was quite nicely done.  Credit goes to Cam who traveled 2 hours to attend this event!  He also was present at our former event this year.



 Here is a close up of Cam's 1200 system.



Here is Cam demoing his 1200.

Another interesting system brought in by Ian was a Chameleon 64.  It enabled Ian to virtually emulate a Commodore 64 system on a modern LCD Screen.  This generated much interest amongst people as various classic games that we all remember from childhood were played.

I decided to bring along one of my older systems from my collection - a Commodore 3032 PET machine.  This system was released in 1979 and features 32KB of RAM!

My PET machine seemed to attract quite some attention..

Overall this event proved quite successful and we had around 23 persons who attended.  The room filled up pretty quickly.  There was plenty of discussion amongst everyone and great feedback was received.

I would like to thank the team from Retrospekt for making an appearance during the night and for promoting our event on their facebook site.  I would also like to thank Epsilon for his assistance in creating the User Group's website and for advertising this event.

We are going to hold another event later this year, so keep tuned for further details.

Best wishes and hope to see everyone again later this year.

Amiga Magazines still available in 2015

Did you know that even in 2015 you can still buy a regular full colour print Amiga magazine, 100% dedicated to all things Amiga - Classic and Next Generation Amiga? Well, you will be pleased to hear that you still can!

Amiga Future is the magazine - it is produced in Germany, released every two months and is available in English and German language versions.

Full version software and many of the latest releases both Classic and Next Generation Amiga are available on the included Cover CD.

Latest news, tutorials, interviews and more in the magazine too! I am glad we still have the option to have a printed Amiga magazine in 2015, and I also believe it is important to support it and keep this magazine going for the benefit of the Amiga community. It is a great read.

You can buy the magazine direct from Amiga Future (with subscription options available), AmigaKit, Vesalia and plenty of other Amiga places too - check out the Amiga Shops links on this very website for some other places to buy the magazine, and indeed for most of your Amiga needs.

Adelaide Amiga 30 Meeting coming up

Just a quick reminder that the next meeting is coming soon, on Monday 25th May, 2015.

More information about the Adelaide Amiga 30 meeting is available on the Next Meeting section of this very website!

We aim to bring as many different Classic Amiga and Next Generation Amiga systems as possible to this event to celebrate the Amiga's 30th birthday!

Above is an Amiga 1000 with Gotek Virtual Floppy drive (uses USB stick with virtual Amiga ADF Floppies). This can also boot the Kickstart from the USB stick too.

As an additional taster, shown above is the Next Generation Amiga Sam460CR (Left) running AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition, and an Apple Powerbook G4 running MorphOS 3.7. Both systems are shown running the upcoming Wings Battlefield game by Cherry Darling - which can have up to 4 players on each system and can also play against each other in multiplayer LAN games!

We hope to see as many of you there as possible, it should be a great event!

Classic Amiga vs Next Gen Amiga

For many Classic Amiga users, they are not aware that Amiga continues pushing forward in 2015!

Commodore went bust in 1994, and then Escom and Gateway extinguished hopes of a resurrection of the Amiga platform in the mainstream public eye.

However, development of AmigaOS from v1.0 to the final Commodore Amiga Workbench 3.1 release in 1994 has continued in other hands. AmigaOS3.5 and 3.9 were released by Haage & Partners in the late 1990's for Classic Amiga systems with upgraded 68030 accelerators, cdrom drives and memory expansions installed.

Also in the late 1990's a company called Phase 5 produced PowerPC based accelerators for Classic Amiga systems, and from this base, the porting of AmigaOS from Motorola 680X0 systems to PowerPC began in earnest by various interests!

The development of AmigaOS split into three different efforts, focused on three very different aims:

1. AmigaOS 4.0/4.1: 

AmigaOS 4.1 development is by Hyperion Entertainment, and runs on low volume, custom made medium and expensive level PowerPC based AmigaOne computers. These systems are still sold by A-Eon (X1000) and Acube Systems (Sam 440/460). X5000 system is currently in development as a replacement for the X1000, providing an ongoing hardware platform for the foreseeable future.

AmigaOS 4.1 also runs on older AmigaOne XE, Pegasos systems, as well as on Classic Amiga 3000 and Amiga 4000 systems with Phase 5 PowerPC accelerators and a minimum of 128MB memory installed (more recommended).

AmigaOS 4.1 can also be run under WinUAE emulation under Windows PC's and Mac OS X with QEmu PPC plugin, using the version intended for Classic Amigas with PowerPC accelerators.

Classic AmigaOS application software can be run natively under AmigaOS 4.1 in many instances. Most Classic Amiga games need the original Classic Amiga hardware to run, and so are run under RunInUAE emulation within AmigaOS4.1.

AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition is the latest version, which costs around (EURO30) AUD$45 and was released in December 2014. It is available for purchase from AmigaKit, Vesalia and other online shops too. Lots more information about it is located at www.amigaos.net.

2. MorphOS 2.x/3.x: 

MorphOS 3.8 is the latest version released in May 2015, and runs on lower cost older PowerPC Macintosh computers (various models of PowerMac G4/G5, Mac Mini G4, iBook G4 and Powerbook G4) released up until 2005. MorphOS also runs on older Efika and Pegasos systems (no longer made).

Classic AmigaOS application software can be run natively under MorphOS in many instances and is generally more compatible than AmigaOS4.1 for this. Most Classic Amiga games need the original Classic Amiga hardware to run, and so are run under UAE emulation within MorphOS.

MorphOS can be downloaded for free from the MorphOS Team website here with a 30 minute demo mode, which requires you to reboot every 30 minutes to continue using it. Registration costs varies depending on the model of computer it is being registered for, and more information about the registration process is on the MorphOS Team website.

3. AROS (Amiga Research Operating System): 

Run on standard Intel PC computers, native (Icaros Desktop) and Linux hosted versions (AROS Broadway X) exist. AROS Vision can also be run on the original Classic Amiga systems.

The advantage of AROS is that it is free and runs on cheap Intel PC hardware, making it easy for people to try it out, and can also run in virtual environments under Windows such as VMWare, VirtualBox and more. Development in AROS is generally significantly slower though than AmigaOS4.1 and MorphOS 3.7, with a much smaller suite of software available to run on it.


Classic AmigaOS application software can be run natively under AROS in some instances. Most Classic Amiga games and applications need the original Classic Amiga hardware to run, and so are run under UAE emulation within AROS, excepting the AROS Vision Classic Amiga version.

These upgraded newer AmigaOS based operating systems and the hardware they run on are dubbed as Next Generation Amiga systems. The original Commodore Amiga systems are now classed as Classic Amiga systems.

There are links on this website on the right hand side for forums and sites dedicated to software for these three Next Generation Amiga systems.

Hopefully this post helps demystify the line between Classic Amiga and Next Generation Amiga systems, and the main three ongoing developed operating systems based on Classic AmigaOS. 

Development continues in 2015 and whichever Next Generation Amiga system you want to try, they are all fun to play around with!

Adelaide Amiga Meeting January 2015

Our first Amiga meeting for 2015 was held in January 2015 at the usual Adelaide venue - Clarence Park Community Centre.

We had a lot of interest in the event thanks to George (AmigaMan101) promoting the event on Amiga.org, and a lot of people turned up with their Amiga systems to show the attendees and discuss all things Amiga on the night!

Thanks to Epsilon for supplying the photos from this event.

Epsilon brought his AmigaOne X1000 System along, running the latest release of AmigaOS, AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition:

The X1000 certainly got plenty of attention on the day - AmigaOS 4.1 has come a long way from the Classic AmigaOS 1.3, 2.0 and 3.1 days - SATA, USB support, PCI-e support, HTML5 web browser, and plenty more as well:

Classic Amigas were also well represented on the day - Amiga A1200 (personally signed by Petro!), Amiga 500's and Amiga 1000 systems too:

Amiga 1200 and Amiga 500 on display:

MickJT demonstrating his Sam 440ep-flex system running AmigaOS 4.1.6:

There was certainly plenty of interest in the demonstrations and explanations by Andrew Wilson (formerly of Phoenix Microtechnologies) of the Amiga 1000 replacement "Phoenix" motherboard he helped design and develop:

An old Adelaide Amiga User Group flyer from the early 1990's!

Epsilon posted a blog entry that covered the event in detail with plenty of photos (including some of the ones in this post). Link is here:

http://amigax1000.blogspot.com.au/2015/01/adelaide-amiga-meeting-jan-2015.html

We hope to see everyone again at the next Amiga Meeting, planned for May 2015. See you then!