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TopWhatIFF? For The Creative Amiga User
CONTENTS WhatIFF?-Issue 1.08 December 2022 For The Creative Amiga User T ================================================= |T | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~|[L | __________________________________________________[| |I __==___________ ___________ . ,. _ . __ T| ||[_j L_I_I_I_I_j L_I_I_I_I_j /|/V||(g/| == l| lI _______________________________ _____ _________I] |[__I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_] [__I__] [_I_I_I_]| |[___I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_L I ___ [_I_I_I_]| |[__I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_L_I __I_]_ [_I_I_T || |[___I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I_I____] [_I_I_] [___I_I_j| | [__I__I_________________I__L_] | | | -Row l__________________________________________________j ENTER MAGAZINETopWelcome to WhatIFF?
CONTENTS ============================================================================ -# WhatIFF? - Issue 1.08 - December 2022 #- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --EDITORS DESK-- -MEET THE WRITERS-- A few word from the current editor about the magazine. ---SHELL TALK--- A place for WhatIFF? writers and readers to air out their Amiga laundry or just talk about anything Amiga related! -----REVIEWS---- Reviews of hardware and software, old and new covered. -----GUIDES----- -----ARTICLES------ Guides and support to all things Amiga. -TALKING AMIGA-- Hear from the people making hardware and software for the Amiga. -----LINKS------ ---AMIGA VENDORS--- ---AMIGA GROUPS---- Amiga related links and Amiga vendor websites. -INVENTS CORNER- Kevin Saunders regular column for WhatIFF? FUTURE IMAGINEER A few words from the creator of the new podcast aimed at creators using old and new technology. --------===============================================================----- NEXT ISSUE *All content copyright of the respective authors 2022* --------===============================================================-----TopFrom The Editor's Desk
CONTENTS ============================================================================ From The Editor's Desk - by: Timo Paul ============================================================================ Happy holidays, I hope that you are sitting comfortably and in a warm place reading this issue of WhatIFF? First off I must apologise for the lateness of this issue, due to some maintenance work on our home I have not had access to my Amiga and then afterwards going to Okinawa for a few days (Ahem). We have some fantastic contributions and interviews this issue with Steve Lord back with an indepth guide about viewing YouTube videos on your AGA Amigas. Ivan Sorensen has written about the Amiga in 2022, we have interviews with PixelVixen and Anthony of The Amiga Show. John Scolieri has a review on a Dell LED monitor that is compatible with the standard Amiga resolutions. This is also our first year as a magazine, it is incredible how the time has flown by. I have greatly enjoyed working on the magazine and seeing how it has grown over the last year with new writers and content. I have new respect for the writers of Amiga Future and Amiga Addict, I have found it a tiring but rewarding job, though it has not been nice to my wallet and as such it is considerably thinner since starting the magazine. The Amiga scene has really grown this year with a lot of new hardware and games being released, alongside some productive applications. It is going to be an interesting 2023 and hopefully we will be there with you, who knows how long the magazine will be around but there is hope that we might do a limited print run sometime in the future, more on that next year. In the meantime enjoy this issue, make sure you read Kevin Saunders Invents Corner page for the latest on his projects. Take care, thank you for having joined us for this year and see you in 2023. Before I go I just want to thank everyone who has written for the magazine this year, especially: Steve Lord, Kevin Saunders, John Scolieri and Ivan Sorensen who have all been regular contributors putting up kindly with my constant nagging for articles and updates. See you all in 2023!TopFree For All About The Amiga
CONTENTS ============================================================================ Shell Talk - by: Vicky Lamburn ============================================================================ I guess it can be summed up like this, and this may be contentious but I'm beyond caring: I don't use retro computers to relive the past, I use them now to create new experiences for the now and to create the future. I'm sick of all the "How I remember the day" and "Are you this old?" bullshit everywhere on the internet, I think this is in a big way why I began to slink back from participating in the retro scene as it's way too backwards looking for my liking. I love old games but not because they're old, but because they bring me joy in the present. And also, like yeah, the Amiga was a big failure in the end compared to the PC and Mac really (or it would still be a mainstream system) but what a beautiful fuck up it was! Instead of fighting old wars and old arguments (including telling me the Amiga wasn't a fuck up because in 1988 it was everywhere or the A500 sold a million) we should just use it now and enjoy it and push it in new ways to create a new future for it. I don't give a shit about whether an Amiga 1200 in 1993 was competitive to a 386SX, that doesn't matter and never really did, but so much of the retro scene is about that kind of stodgy bullshit. I'd just rather use the Amiga now amongst everything else because it's rad, I use it to push the creative envelope in 2022 in a mainstream kinda way, not just in demo comps or on retro YouTube channels. If I could one day hook up with someone who was good at music production, create actual animated anime and merge it with Amiga HAM animation, stills etc. it'd be so sick. I can dream big but one day I'd love to be be launching my manga with a visual DJ event incorporating all that. But seeing as I only have 10 readers, I have to keep dreaming. I think the one way the old stuff is more interesting is that now it's so punk, compared to all that commodified stuff in a Mac or Windows or even Linux. It's like the world is being drained of its imagination as it stares endlessly down the infinite scroll of the matrix. So I like using old stuff in the present to start disrupting consensus, merge analogue and digital and make something new for now and the future. The world could change tomorrow if everyone deleted their social media and told the Silicon Valley god incarnates to fuck off but then if their is one hope for the metaverse is that Zuckerberg gets so sucked into it he never reappears. All those billions to create him a new ass to disappear up! :) My only other thing I want to say to other creatives is think how the Amiga can contribute to wider projects, don't think it all has to be performed through the Amiga. Pete Cannon does this so well with his music as does Paulee Bow; this isn't to take away from what CTrix and Hoffman do with just the Amiga. Actually on that note, that's what I want to continue seeing more of, not Sysinfo screenshots and the Frontier intro, but generally more Amiga derived creativity, this is what is enticing about the demo scene but that again is system limited. This isn't meant to be a dig at the tinkerers and modders but I'd love to see some of that power used to creative ends not just as stat waggling. Anyway, the future isn't in the past, it's always ahead of you, so run to it and don't look back.TopWelcome to the reviews section!
CONTENTS ============================================================================ - Reviews - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Native Amiga Mode Compatible LCD Monitor John Scolieri reviews an LCD monitor that compatible with the Amiga native screen modes. A1200.net - A1200 Translucent Replacement Case Find out if the A1200.net cases are more than just a simple recasing of the A1200 and if it is worth your hard earned cash. RNOEffects_68K Review ImageFX Studio 4.5 was the last image processing program to be released for the Amiga, we take a look at a free image processor for! Aminet Tasters Short reviews, comments, news and updates on Aminet uploads. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Reviews - WhatIFF? Issue 1.08 - December 2022#Topamigalcdmonitorreview
Reviews ============================================================================ 15Khz Compatible LCD Monitor Review - by John Scolieri ============================================================================ #Modern 15KHz monitor that works with Amiga I'm lucky that I have an Amiga 1080 CRT monitor in my man cave that still works great but it's still a pain in the you know what to disconnect it from my Amiga 1000 when I need to trouble shoot or test another Amiga so I was very happy when I recetnly stumbled on a used monitor that was for sale at a local electronic store that was adverised as a 'multi-sync' monitor. The monitor is a DELL U2412M LED monitor with VGA, DVI, and HDMI connectors. I hooked it up to my Amiga 1200 with an RGB to VGA adapter and VGA cable that I had lying around and was pleasantly surpised when the early start up menu popped up on the screen with no fiddling of settings etc...it just worked. In Workbench all my games and applications worked just fine (including Lightwave/ Modeler and render screens) after adjusting my overscan screens to adjust for the 16x10 format. Games run smooth with no artifacts or tearing and colours are bright and crisp. I also tested the following screen modes: - DBLPal- ok - DBLNTSC- ok - Multisync Productivity- ok - Super 72- not working - Euro36- not working - Euro72- not working Interlaced modes worked but with a noticeable flicker though so basically unusable without a flicker fixer. Overall I'm very happy with this monitor for my Amiga use and it's also nice to use it with my work notebook as well via HDMI cable when I'm working from home.TopA1200.net - A1200 Translucent Replacement Case Review
Reviews ============================================================================ A1200.net - A1200 Translucent Replacement Case Review - by Timo Paul ============================================================================ ##Product Name A1200.net Replacement Case ##Available From www.amigastore.eu www.amigaonthelake.com www.retrokit.com.au www.micromiga.com www.retropassion.co.uk www.amiga-shop.net (Alinea) www.vesalia.de www.amedia-computer.com ##Price USD 120 / EUR 99 / GBP 105 (Inc. 20% VAT) ##Hardware/Software Requirements A1200 ##A New Home For Your Amiga Over the years my A1200 has gradually been upgraded in one form or another through, CAPS having been replaced, an Indivision AGA MK3, TF1260, GOTEK drive and replacement LEDs installed. All of the changes have been internal and through this the case has been opened and closed numerous times, as such it has become a bit rough around the edges with the bottom half featuring a crack and all the tabs at the back broken. It still looks white but the wear and tear from constantly being opened and closed have taken it's toll, as such I decided it was time to re-house the venerable Amiga into something more fetching. There were two options available to me, find an original case or buy one of the new ones created by A1200.net. After a search on eBay it became quickly clear that buying an A1200.net was the cheaper option. If you have not heard of the A1200.net cases, it was a Kickstarter that begun in 2016, after a successful initial fund the cases became available to the general public. ##More Than Just A Case The cases however go beyond the standard A1200 housing, some of the features of these newer casings are as follows: * Made by injection molding * Enhanced rear door * Vents on the bottom trap door * Rubber feet * Set of brass screws * CF Slot above the PCMCIA slot for HD access * Pre-cut GOTEK LED panel * Two USB slots on the right * Available in different colours * UV Protection to stop the dreaded yellowing * Metal brass inserts to stop dimples and screw holes breaking As you can see these cases offer more than the traditional case and it is particulary useful for the modern Amiga 1200 user since quite a few if not the majortiy of users have upgraded their machines with a variety of modern enhancements. Originally the cases were only available from A1200.net luckily for us they can be bought from a number of Amiga vendors. For my case I went with Alinea, however they are also available from the following Amiga vendors: * www.amigastore.eu * www.amigaonthelake.com * www.retrokit.com.au * www.micromiga.com * www.retropassion.co.uk * www.amiga-shop.net (Alinea) * www.vesalia.de * www.amedia-computer.com Being in Japan I had to choose a vendor that gave me a better rate for my yen to whatever currency I bought the case for. In the end I chose Alinea since they had the best price and cheapest shipping option, plus they were the only vendor to still have the translucent casing that I was after. After a quick process of setting up an account and making a payment via PayPal all I had to do was sit back and wait. Credit must given to Alinea for their fast processing, the day after my order had been put in, it had already been packed and shipped. Taking only around a week to arrive I had to quickly prepare my A1200 for it's new home. A week later and Japan Post delivered the slim box, luckily I did not have to pay any import charges. The box itself comes in a charming and nostalgic A1200 box, it is very reminiscent of the original A1200 box all Amiga 1200s used to come in. After opening the box I was presented with the case in a plastic bag, and two other bags containing the screws and 3 x back plates and trap door. Initial impressions were good, it felt nice with a textured feel that at least seems to be missing from my original A1200 case. The plastic seemed a little more flexible than the my A1200 case but at the same time stronger, it was easy to see where the case can be easily cut for the extra USB ports, GOTEK and CF slot. So enough admiring of the new case, onto the installation ... ##Moving Time Removing the Amiga motherboard was a simple task of taking off the top lid, unscrewing 3 screws to motherboard (at least in my case) and then sliding it out. It was rather alarming seeing how much dust and dirt had managed to get into the housing. Sliding the A1200 motherboard into the new case was a simple task without any hitches. Once the board was screwed in it was time to attach the Indivision AGA MK3 board, the case comes with several back door flaps for those who have a VGA or DVI cable coming out the back. However this was my first disappointment with the case, the VGA/HDMI adapter of the Indivision screws into a hole on the original A1200 case allowing the adapter to sit nice and snuggly however the A1200.net case rear door panel is not oriented correctly for the Indivision ports which means if you want to use it with the new case you will have to find another way to secure the video port. In my case I used some double sided tape but I felt it was a bit of let down since one of the reasons for buying the case was the have the Indivision snuggly installed. Hopefully this is something that can be updated in future versions. After installation of the Indivision I was able to close the up the Amiga. It was here that I really appreciated the new screw inserts also the rear now has three other long screws to close the case instead of the weaker tabs. It was nice to be able to screw the Amiga tightly without having to worry about the plastic breaking or dimples appearing. ##How Does She Look? As this is more of a cosmetic upgrade for the Amiga you are most interested in how it looks. Well, I was very pleased with how my Amiga looks now. The translucent/skeleton/see through case looks fantastic, even with my original keyboard which I had whitened last year the overall effect is very pleasing to the eye. You can just about see the chips on the motherboard but it gets even more fun when you turn on the Amiga and the hard disk, floppy and power lights come on, they help luminate the inside of the Amiga enchanced by the translucent case. I really enjoy pulling my Amiga out from my desk to see it in it's new case, the photos online do not give it justice to how good the Amiga looks in a translucent case. There was one other issue after putting the Amiga together however. The PCMCIA slot seems to be 1-2 mmm offset which means when inserting a card you are unable to slot it in straight. To make it go in you need to come at an angle and slowly jiggle it in. I had double checked my installation of the A1200 motherboard after this but could see no issue with the installation, most likely this is a manufacturing error. Over time it seems like the motherboard has settled into the case though and it has become easier to insert the card but I still have to make sure I do it at an angle. ##Final Conclusions The A1200.net cases are a great way to give your Amigas a facelift, they offer more expansion opportunities and look fantastic. If it was not for the VGA/DVI back plate/Indivision connector issue and PCMCIA slot misalignment this would be a perfect product. It is built very well, the addition of metal scew inserts, replacement of rear tabs for screws and the grilled trapdoor all make it not an essential purchase but one that is highly recommended. If you want to change the look of your Amiga or your case has become a bit rough around the edges then these cases are for you. ##Pros and Cons + Variety of colours + More durable than the original cases + Goes beyond a tradition case with different backing plates, grilled trap door and metal screw inserts + Not too expensive - Rear trapdoor and bottom case do not accomodate the Indivision correctly - PCMCIA slot not aligned properly ## Scores Ease Of Use: 8 Features: 8 Value For money: 8 Overall: 80% - WhatIFF? SilverTopRNO Effects_68K Review
Reviews ============================================================================ RNO Effects_68K Review - by: Timo Paul ============================================================================ ##Product Name RNOEffects_68K ##Available From www.aminet.net ##Price Free ##Hardware/Software Requirements Amigs OS 3.0+, minimum 68020 and fast ram MUI, TextEditor.mcc, codesets, guigfx, render, and reqtools libs ##Image Processing Is Back If you were to think of the best image processing software on the Amiga most people will probably mention ImageFX or ADPro. Of these two only ImageFX has been updated and that was still a few years back, since then we have not had any real challenges to the ImageFX dominance. However there is a program that has been available for free for a while now and does a lot of what ImageFX can do and all for free. RNOEffects is available for classic Amigas, OS4 and Morph OS, for this review I will concentrate on the 68K version as I do not have an OS4 or Morph machine to hand. The software has 30 image processing effects which include drop shadows, emboss, various colour filters and drawing options for various shapes and text. It is also effecient as a batch iage convertor. ##Installation The installation of RNOEffects is quite involved (for classic systems) and it took me a while to download everything and figure out where each of additional downloads went. Definitely reading the documenation is highly recommended before even trying to load RNOEffects. The extra installs with the links are as follows: - MUI 3.8 or later (http://aminet.net/package/util/libs/mui38usr) - TextEditor.mcc (http://aminet.net/search?query=mcc+texteditor) - codesets.library (http://aminet.net/search?query=codesets) - guigfx.library (http://aminet.net/package/dev/misc/guigfxlib) - render.library (http://aminet.net/search?query=renderlib), v32 is probably the best for <040 CPUs - reqtools.library (http://aminet.net/package/util/libs/ReqToolsLib) Once you have downloaded and installed the above items it is just a simple case of copying the drawer over to a location of your choice. Of the extra installs I found TextEditor most difficult to install since you need to find the MUI install drawer, show all files, locate the 'Libs' drawer, then go to the drawer named MUI and copy the mcc files. The other libraries had installers making it easier but it just shows how important it is to read the documentation, especially with software that is available from Aminet. After a some time spent downloading and installing the libraries and components I was ready to go. ##In Use There is a slight delay in loading the program but once it is up you are presented with a window, containing three main buttons 'O' - open, 'P' - previous & 'N' next. It was a little confusing at first as I have imagined 'P' - print and 'N' - new. There are arrow buttons on the right which will be greyed out until you have applied an effect as these act as undo and redo. Overall it is very a sparse and utilitarian window that opens up on your Workbench. As such whatever image is displayed will be limited to the Workbench screen depth. Most of the effects are accessed via the drop down menu. From here you have access to various filters/processing effects that along with saving formats. You can save files in: PNG, JPEG, GIF, ILBM, and BMP along with all Amiga icon formats. The list of effects that can be applied are as follows: * Background Colour * Modulate * Shadow * Blur * Monochrom * Sharpen * Charcoal * Oil Paint * Solarize * Contrast * Opacity Map * Swirl * Crop * Perspective * Tint * Draw * Pixelate * Water Ripple * Edge * Polar Distort * Emboss * Quantize * Flip * Reduce Alpha * Gama * Resize * Invert * Rotate As you can see there are quite a number of effects that can be applied, and each effect has it's own parameters window. It can take some time to apply an effect and there is no progress indicator/bar common in most modern Amiga software. As such it can appear as if your Amiga has stopped working or the effect has not been applied. Due to being on the Workbench screen it was a little hard to gauge the effectiveness of the applied filter. This was evident when I applied a 'Charcoal' filter and during the application of the filter I was given no indicatiton that the program was working. There are lot of options for each of the effects and it pays off to have proper look at each of the effects. It would be nice to have the effects sorted into different categories, having them lumped all together makes it a little harder trying to find a specific filter. ##Overall Impressions RNOEffect is a good image effects processor that has some advanced features, and is very impressive for a free product. There is not much that you can't do with it but you do need to spend some time figuring out how to use/apply the effects properly. There is video on YouTube to help you get the hang of RNOEffects: https://youtu.be/KsRtDHXkEKA There are just a few issues that stop it from being a really great product. It is quite a journey from downloading the software to getting it up and running, there are a lot of libraries and components that need to be installed and you might run into some problems initially. It seems that if you are running OS4.1 or Morph OS the installation however is a much simpler affair. One bug that I did encounter was when opening a file in an unrecognised format, RNOEffects will suddenly close without any warning. Hopefully this will be addressed in a future update. It feels like a program that was made for more powerful computers, as such it is probably a much better experience on an OS4 or Morph OS machine. As it stands running it on a classic machines feels a bit slugglish, and I found myself going back to ImageFX 2 since it is more responsive and is able to handle a larger variety of file formatse. ##Final Thoughts RNOEffects is a great idea hampered by a time consuming installation, difficult user interface and lack of resolution/screen modes. If you have an Amiga with a video card or a newer OS such as an OS4/MorphOS then RNOEeffects will be come an essential tool. It's batch processing and large variety of effects make it a valuable graphics utility. However with older software like ImageFX easily available and more suited to the classic hardware I feel less inclined to recommend this to classic users and more to Amiga owners with 24Bit displays or the newer OS systems. Download it and have a play around but I recommend having lots of ram, a fast processor and if possible a graphics card. ##Pros and Cons + New FREE image processor + Large variety of effects + Batch processing - Very slow on 68K Amigas - Really needs a 24Bit display - UI could be betterTopAminet Tasters - A quick dip into the latest updates of software available on Aminet.
Reviews ============================================================================ - Aminet Tasters - ============================================================================ Welcome to the Aminet Tasters section, here we dip into the latest uploads of interest. We do not have time to cover everything uploaded, so this is just a random selection of uploads that caught our interest. This month there have been some standard updates and useful tools for users of older Commodore computers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ##D-CAPS Stomper www.aminet.net/package/mus/edit/D-CAPS-Stomper A great little program for creating your own kick drums, opens up onto to your Workbench allowing you to tweak until your are content with the your custom kickdrum. Unfortunately there is no way to preview the audio on the Amiga. I contacted the author and at the moment there are no plans to fix this. The only way to hear your custom kickdrum is to load it into a DAW. ##AmiSSL 5.5 www.aminet.net/package/util/libs/AmiSSL-5.5-OS3 Another update to the ever useful AmiSSL now on version 5.5, this version brings full compatability with OpenSSL 3.0, important security related fixes, a built in HTTP(S) client and comes with the latest encryption ciphers. If you surf the net with your Amiga then updating to this the latest version should be no brainer. ##GeoWrite Import www.aminet.net/package/util/conv/gwimport For those who wish to transfer their GeoWrite documents to their Amiga, this utility will convert a GeoWrite file into an ASCII file to be read on an Amiga. Reqtools.libary is needed to run the utility. It is a useful utility that runs easily, a good program to have sitting on your HD if you still use GeoWrite. ##WebP Image Datatype V45.4 www.aminet.net/package/util/dtype/WarpWebPdt Update to the WebP Image datatype, this version fixes crashes on 020 and 030 computers. Gives you more control over how images will be displayed on your browser, can turn off dithering for 16Bit+ displays, handles both lossless and lossy WebP images. ##Icon Libary V46.4 www.aminet.net/package/util/libs/IconLib_46.4 Latest version of the free optomized icon replacement library, this update fixes a problem with the patch SetMan and a workaround for another issue. Good for Amiga OS 3.0-3.9, however I had some issues with Kickstart 3.2 and ClassicWB. ##IMP v3.382 www.aminet.net/package/mus/play/imp3 Juen keeps improving and updating his fantastic MOD streamer for all Amiga models. With this version it can be used with an IMPBox. If you still have not downloaded this incredible piece of software do it now! ##Hippo Player Update v2.55 www.aminet.net/package/mus/play/hippoplayerupdate One of my favourite audio players, nice and compact with great features. With the latest update you get the ability to drag'and'drop folders and all of the fonts can be changed in the main window. The feature that I find most interesting is the ability to search and download from some module websites. ##Versatile Amiga Test Program www.aminet.net/uti/misc/VATestprogram.zip Another Amiga test program for our Amigas, this one is from Jochem Caspers and is a nice little program for finding out what is wrong with your Amiga. This update allows for more indepth Bob testing and can identify your model of Vampire V2 under ChipID.TopWelcome to the guides section!
CONTENTS ============================================================================ - Tutorials/Guides - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Watch YouTube Videos On Your Amiga Pt:1 AGA Users Steve Lord takes us through the process for downloading and converting YouTube videos for AGA Amigas. This is part 1 with the 2nd part coming out in the next issue. LightWave 3.5 - 101 Creating a Star Field In our seventh installment of the Lightwave 101 series we get to work on creating your own star field for use as a background or as an animation. Brilliance - Reflections A quick tutorial on how to create convincing reflection effects in TrueBrilliance. Storage Solutions: Amiga A1200 Hopefully you don't have to live in Japan to appreciate this guide on storage options for your A1200. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Tutorials/Guides - WhatIFF? Issue 1.08 - December 2022#TopWatch YouTube Videos On AGA Amigas Part 1
Guides ============================================================================= Watch YouTube Videos On Your Amiga Pt: 1 AGA Users - by: Steve Lord ============================================================================= # Watching YouTube Videos On Your Amiga Pt 1: AGA Users The Amiga Show is a beautiful YouTube series. A labour of love all about the Amiga, produced entirely on the Amiga. It'd be great to be able to watch the show on the Amiga, and using some Open Source tools, you can. This article focuses on AGAConv and AGABlaster on AGA Amigas - The A1200, A4000, and with a nod to the CD32. A future article will look at options for OCS and ECS Amigas, while a 3rd part will look at other tools and codecs. ## No MPEG, No Problem! Probably the most well-known 90s video codec is MPEG-1, as used in the old Video CD format. Other codecs such as QuikPak and Sorenson were also popular with Mac users. You might not know that among the many innovations Commodore threw away, CDXL was one of the first full-motion video file formats. The now-expired patent (available at https://www.freepatentsonline.com/5293606.html) demonstrates how CDXL works, tightly coupled to the Amiga's chipset and DMA capabilities. As with many Amiga technologies, CDXL gave way to newer formats and software. Markus Schordan started playing with HAM video and eventually created AGAConv and AGABlaster, which are far and away the best ways to watch video on classic Amigas. As well as AGABlaster, AmiTube - available at https://blog.alb42.de/programs/amitube/ is a GUI tool for downloading and playing YouTube videos from your Amiga. AmiTube is great for short clips, but requires substantial server resources for transcoding. I wouldn't use it for anything long like The Amiga Show. I'll cover AmiTube (including setting up your own transcode server) in a later issue. To download and transcode The Amiga Show, you will need: * A Linux machine, or a Windows machine running WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) * FFMpeg (usually available as a package on Linux) * AGAConv - https://mschordan.github.io/amiga/agaconv.html * AGABlaster - https://mschordan.github.io/amiga/agablaster.html * YT-DLP - https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp * Access to YouTube to download The Amiga Show - https://www.youtube.com/@theamigashow9506 ## Getting The Video Available at https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp this tool is a swiss-army knife for downloading streamable content. Not only YouTube is supported. Yt-dlp can download from most video sites, sometimes with a bit of finagling. Yt-dlp also supports tools like Sponsorblock, which removes sponsor segments and ads. It also has support for geo-verification bypasses and subtitles. You can install yt-dlp from binaries, pip or via your system. I'm using a Linux-based system for getting and converting the video, but many of these steps will work with no more than minor changes on a Mac or Windows machine. I'm testing Episode 8 of The Amiga Show, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWI-s_lHtjs YouTube supplies videos in different formats and resolutions. We'll test AGABlaster in 320x240 resolution lores video. We'll download a 640x480 version with yt-dlp. Although it's possible to download 320x240 from YouTube, compression artefacts on lower-resolution YouTube videos are far more apparent. The command to download the 640x480 version of this video in h264 with an mp4a audio track is: ``` yt-dlp -f "bv*[height=480][vcodec~='^((he|a)vc|h26[45])']+ba[ext=m4a]" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWI-s_lHtjs -o TAS08.mp4 ``` The cryptic -f value tells yt-dlp to download the best video with a vertical resolution of 480p, a h264 or h265 video codec, along with the best quality m4a audio stream. With a bit more work we can tell yt-dlp to download the entire channel, which will come in helpful later: ``` yt-dlp -f "bv*[height=480][vcodec~='^((he|a)vc|h26[45])']+ba[ext=m4a]" --download-archive tasvids.txt https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-2a5umZHO7lyt8pcPcbdnQ -o '%(channel)s/%(title)s.%(ext)s' --restrict-filenames ``` This uses the same format trick as before but downloads the channel's videos to a directory named after the channel, using the title as the filename. A list of downloaded videos is kept in the file tasvids.txt stopping yt-dlp from downloading the same video twice when next run. A script could run nightly to check for new episodes and download them ready for processing and transfer. So far, so good. But how can we watch the results on an A1200? We'll need to convert the video to CDXL format with AGAConv. ## AGAConv Markus Schordan's AGAConv runs mainly under Linux, but Windows users can use the Microsoft Ubuntu App to run AGAConv. The documentation at https://mschordan.github.io/amiga/agaconv.html details how to download and install the software. Once you have agaconv set up in the same directory as your downloaded video, you're ready to start converting. There are a lot of options, and a lot of choices depend on your setup. If you've ever played games like Alien Breed 3D II and have switched between window sizes, pixel sizes and floor and ceilings to optimize gameplay, this will feel familiar. The three main factors governing playback are: 1. Transfer speed (disk bandwidth). 2. File size and available space. 3. Hardware configuration (CPU power, bus speed and chipset) Of the above, transfer speed is the most important. You're just not going to transfer 640x480 Ham8 at 25 frames per second across a single-speed CD-ROM, Zip disk or Zorro II SCSI Interface to a spinning disk. On the one hand, my Amiga 4000 with FastATA and an 060 can comfortably play 320x240 Ham8 at 30 fps in stereo all day long. My CDTV barely manages 12 fps at 160x120off the CD-ROM drive. CDXL was designed for the CDTV, with a 68000 CPU. Latency and bandwidth are more important than CPU power. Even my CDTV can decode CDXL at around 160x120 and a reasonable (for the time) frame rate. Storage and bandwidth will dominate resolution, frame rate, colour depth and audio configurations. The good news is that an AGA Amiga with reasonably fast storage can deliver better than VCD quality in many cases. If your drive bandwidth is slow, try reducing frame rate., resolution and switching to mono. Unfortunately I don't have a CD32 to test with, but I suspect that 320x240 at around 10fps may be possible from CD. If you have a CD32 and are happy to play around, send your results to the editor and we'll include them in a future issue. Another point on bandwidth before we move on. If you're a A1200 owner with fast ram and a stock 020, expect around 20FPS for 320x180 with 22050hz mono on internal IDE with a fast Compact Flash card. If you have an 030/50 you should expect better results, especially if your turbo card has a fast IDE interface. I cut a short 10 second clip from the episode 8 title screen (3-13 seconds in) to test different AGA conversions. I used 22050hz stereo audio (as the original audio was 44100hz) for my tests, running ham8 and aga8 conversions at 30, 20, and 15 fps with the following results (size in bytes, and filename): * AGA8, 30 FPS - 23242K * HAM8, 30 FPS - 23073K * AGA8, 20 FPS - 15665K * HAM8, 20 FPS - 15552K * AGA8, 15 FPS - 11798K * HAM8, 15 FPS - 11714K The 256 colour AGA8 videos are larger than the HAM8 videos due to HAM effectively acting as a kind of frame compression. The original MP4 video is 126K, but that would never play on a stock Amiga 1200. Playing from RAM disk is also typically faster than hard disk (especially for on-board accelerated RAM), but obviously limits file size. To create a 10 second clip for testing, I used the following command: ``` ffmpeg -i The_Amiga_Show/The_Amiga_Show_Episode_08_-_May_86.mp4 -ss 00:00:03 -to 00:00:13 -c:v copy -c:a copy TAS08testclip.mp4 ``` Using a test clip is a great way to test different encoding strategies. Video with little movement works better at lower FPS, while music videos might support higher quality audio at lower resolutions. The command line I used to generate the HAM8 video was: ``` ./agaconv "TAS08testclip.mp4" tas08_h8_320_30_s_22050.cdxl --color-mode=ham8 --audio-mode=stereo --frequency=22050 --fps=30 --width=320 --max-fps=30 ``` The first argument is the clip generated above. The second file is the filename. As I made *a lot* of test files, I added the colours, horizontal resolution, frames per second, whether it was stereo ("s") or mono ("m"), and the sample rate in hertz to the filename. Most of the remaining arguments are self-explanatory. Frequency refers to audio sample rate, fps is frame-rate in frames per second and width sets the width (as we're resizing a 640x480 video). The max-fps setting specifies a max frame rate. It's not necessary but I added it anyway. ## AGABlaster Playing back the clips requires AGABlaster, available from http://mschordan.github.io/amiga/agablaster.html - extract the archive and copy the version for your CPU into your C: drawer and you're good to go. Use the following command from the Amiga shell to play a video: ``` agablaster filename.cdxl ``` You should be able to create a file association so that CDXL files are played by AGABlaster when double-clicked. The exact method varies with AmigaOS versions but associations should be documented in your Workbench manual. If you run agablaster from a shell with the keyword "STATS" you'll see a report at the end of the video. This contains information including the actual calculated fps vs encoded fps (in parentheses), audio frame buffer delays (AFB) and video frame buffer delays (VFB). This is helpful to spot where things fail when optimizing videos. You can seek forwards and backwards by 10 seconds using the left and right keys. Use up and down to increase or decrease volume, space to pause and M to mute or unmute audio. Backspace restarts the video, while escape or the left mouse button quits agablaster. There's also a cute copper effect that splits the screen into 4 or 16 windows with F2 or F3. Press F1 to return back to a normal screen. ## Converting Bigger Videos By now you should've understood: 1. How to download a video from YouTube 2. How to extract a small clip 3. How to encode this for playback on an Amiga 4. How to play it back on an Amiga Now you know how to determine practical frame rates, resolutions and expected video sizes (1-2mb per second for 320x240 at frame rates between 15 and 30 FPS), it's time to look at a bigger video. Different Amiga OS versions come with different file restrictions. The most common restriction is the 4.3Gb partition limit, closely followed by the 2Gb file limit for some filesystems. Expect to burn through 1Gb every 500 seconds at 22050 and 30fps. To work around this, we can split our episode of The Amiga Show and play the segments in agablaster. To start with, lets use ffprobe to determine the length of our episode: ``` ffprobe TAS08.mp4 ``` In the results I saw the text *Duration: 00:27:32.45*. So that's roughly 27 minutes and 33 seconds or 1653 seconds. Using the example above for Ham8 video: * HAM8, 30 FPS: 1653 Seconds * 2.3 Mb/Sec = 3801.9Mb * HAM8, 20 FPS: 1653 * 1.55 Mb/Sec = 2562.15Mb * HAM8, 15 FPS: 1653 * 1.17 Mb/Sec = 1934.01Mb We could encode the episode at 15 FPS to fit the entire episode under the Amiga's native 2gb file limit. Another alternative is to use a non-standard filesystem supporting larger files, such as PFS3 or FAT95. An excellent guide to different Amiga filesystems and their limits can be found here: https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=61666 If you use an editor such as the superb Kdenlive (https://kdenlive.org/en/), you can cut the episode into parts up to 10 minute clips. The encoded videos will come in under the native file size limit. When playing in AGABlaster there will be a slight gap between one video ending and starting. It's best to cut at quiet parts, ideally on a solid or black screen. If you don't mind the odd potential pause while videos change over, the following command will automagically split the episode into 3 roughly equal sized chunks of 9 minute and 10 seconds. ``` mkdir -p tmp ffmpeg -i The_Amiga_Show_Episode_08_-_May_86.mp4 -c copy -map 0 -segment_time 00:09:10.0 -f segment -reset_timestamps 1 tmp/tase08_%03d.mp4 ``` The above will create 3 files - tas08_000.mp4, tas08_001.mp4, and tas08_003.mp4 in a tmp/ folder. AGAConv can turn these into separate cdxl files using the following command: ``` for i in tmp/*.mp4; do f=`basename "${i}" .mp4` ; ./agaconv "${i}" "tmp/${f}_h8_30.cdxl" --color-mode=ham8 --audio-mode=stereo --frequency=22050 --fps=30 --width=320 --max-fps=30 ; done ``` Each of the files should come in around 1.3Gb in size. Copy them over to your Amiga and you'll be good to go. ## Getting More From AGAConv/AGABlaster Use short clips for lower transcode time while testing. This will make optimization so much easier. You can always do a final encode once you're happy with the results. When testing playback under emulation be aware that most Amiga emulators don't accurately emulate drive access speeds. Expect significantly higher performance on emulated systems than the real thing. Although the fastest transfer rate usually wins, it's worth testing different mediums and filesystems. My A4000 can run full speed, full 320x240 video with full stereo 22050hz on my FastATA-powered Compact Flash card. My DVD-ROM drive can still play the same videos at 17 FPS from the A4000's internal IDE interface. If you don't have UDF support via CacheCDFS or AsimCDFS, try http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/DVD-RAM from Aminet. I get a rock-solid 30 FPS via FAT32-formatted USB drives, but I get constant glitches (possibly due to DMA complexities with my setup). I've also experienced significantly better playback performance with PFS than on FFS. PFS can be found on Aminet at https://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/pfs3aio but this YouTube video might also be useful if you're setting it up on a new drive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CytF5LNzpqE Audio seems to significantly impact playback quality, especially on less capable systems. If playback is stuttering or sounds like it's time- stretching, try using mono or a lower frame rate. Most YouTube video is encoded at 44.1 Khz, so encoding audio at 22050 or 11025 should avoid aliasing effects you might experience at other frequency settings. Hopefully by now you should be ready to watch The Amiga Show as it should be seen... on your Amiga! Don't forget, yt-dlp can download way more than just YouTube. The full list of supported sites can be found here: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/master/supportedsites.md - You can download from BBC iPlayer, Bandcamp, Disney and more! In my next article I'll walk through optimizing video for OCS/ECS systems and playback on 1.3 machines like the CDTV.TopLightWave 101 - Creating A Starfield
Guides ============================================================================ LightWave 101 - Part 7 - by: Timo Paul ============================================================================ ##Starfield As we move into winter and say goodbye to Autumn, the night skies become a feast for the eyes with stars and stellar views. However if you live in an area with cloudy skies then you are out out luck, so if you can't see the stars above how about making our own star view? ##Particles For this tutorial we are going to be spending most of our time in the modeler using particles, or single-point polygons. A characteristic of this polygon is that it will render the same size no matter how far it is from from the camera. With LightWave 3.5 it became possible to choose the rendered screen size of particles and lines: Small, Medium or Large. Essentially this means a single particle can rendered at one pixel, 3x3 pixels or 5x5 pixel arrays. Why this is important you will find out later on. With that out of the way, let's get down to the business of making our star field. I presume you are in the Modeler, if not, go there now. In the modeler select New or press 'N' (the key presses will be capital and lowercase sensitive, so (N = shift + N key) and (n = N key) and click on 'OK'. This time we are going to use one of the macros that come with LightWave, click on 'Macro' and find "Point Distributions". When the dialogue box pops up enter "10,000" into the 'Number of points' box, set 'Falloff Towards' to "Center" and 'Density Distribution' to "Constant", you can leave the rest as is. Click on 'OK' to start creating your star field, it will take some time depending on your processor. ##Naming Your Starfield Once LightWave has finished calculating the particles you will see something that looks akin to a cotton ball. This is the beginning of our starfield. Next we need to select all the polygon surfaces, the easiest way to do this is to go into 'Polygon selection mode' by pressing the (spacebar) and rename the surface to 'Stars 1', renaming can be done in the 'Polygon' menu, under the 'Transform' heading. Click on the 'Surface' button and type in 'Stars 1' or much easier, press (q). Save this object with a name of 'Stars1.10k' i.e. it is our first Stars object and it is made up on 10,000 points. Now we need to grow our starfield and this will be done by pressing (c) to copy the particles, if you wish to use the mouse the same actions can be done with the 'Copy' button at the bottom on of the screen. Next go to layer 2, this can be found at the top right of the screen where there are 20 little square buttons. Currently the button on the far left is selected as indicated by the yellow colour. Click on the box next to it on left and paste the copied starfield by pressing either (v) or clicking on 'Paste' at the bottom of the screen. You should see your object now duplicated on the screen. If we were to stack the two objects the would overlap each other and that would be not be of much help in creating our starfield, what we need to do is add some randomness and this is achieved via jitter. To do this you can either press (J) or go to the 'Tools' menu and select 'Jitter' under the 'Points' heading. Our radius is only 1m so we can set the 'Radius' X, Y and Z to '0.1m' which is (5-10 percent of the radius). When finished rename the surface using the key (q) to 'Stars2' and save the object out as 'Stars2.10k'. Repeat this process three more times for the first five layers. ##The Last Two Now that you have created five starfields each one that has been jittered and copied to the five first layers we will work on the last two. For our sixth field, go to layer six, create a new starfield using the same "Point Distributions" macro but this time enter 5,000 for the particles with the same previous settings. Rename the surface to 'Stars 6', and save out the object as 'Stars6.5k'. Finally we can work on our last star field, just like before go to layer seven, create another starfield with the same macro but this time with 1,000 particles, rename the surface to 'Stars 7' and save it out as 'Stars7.1k'. So that is it for this issue, next time we will look at how to bring your starfield into the Layout program, set up the camera and render your star scene, we might even dip a little into animation. Good luck and have a wonderful winter holidays, keep rendering and see you in the February 2023 issue!TopBrilliance 101 - Reflections
Guides ============================================================================ Brilliance 101 Part 7 - by: Timo Paul ============================================================================ ##Mirror, mirror ... Reflections, a great effect that looks amazing when used in a 3D rendering package but how do we create a convincing and easy effect in a 2D paint package. Well Brilliance has you covered here with two tools. First off we will be using TrueBrilliace since the larger pallete helps in creating a much more realistic effect plus we can bring in other images and there will be no need to remap the colours since you have the full 24Bit pallete at your disposal. ##Going back If you remember in our first tutorial we created a checkered marble texture, if you still have that go grab it and create a brush from it. Now we have the marble texture as a brush, let's set the perspective of the brush, this time however we are going to set it quite low. Go to the 'Tweening' menu and click on 'Adjust', now we will adjust the 'XY' Pos to near the bottom of the screen. Next adjust the 'X' Rot so you have a nice perspective, for my example image I used a value of 79. Once you have finished the 'X' Rot move the 'XY' Pos to the lower part of the screen, if possible have the bottom just about disappearing into from view. When you are finished, click on 'Use'. Now we can fill in the perspective, if you remember from before use 'Draw Mode' and 'Perspective', once you have filled in your screen you should have a realistic looking perspective with the impression you are standing. ##Clouds, so many clouds ... In the last issue we reviewed Clouds AGA, well now is the time to use it. Open the Clouds AGA (Or download it if you have not) create a quick image of a cloud, it does not have to be too big but if you have the time, an image size of 400 x 400 would be suitable. Okay, I presume you have rendered your clouds and saved it as an image by now. Close Clouds AGA and go back to TrueBrilliance, we currently have our marble floor, for the next part we need to use a buffer screen and this can be done by pressing the 'J' key, it will take you to another screen. If you press the space bar you can see , in the 'Buffer' tool bar the two spare screens available, it is possible to add more buffers by clicking on 'Add' but for the moment we are going to use two, using multiple buffers will be for another guide. You should have the clouds image now loaded into your buffer screen, so cut out as large a brush as possible, then press the 'J' key switch back to your working image or the space bar to bring up the buffer toolbar and click on the far left side of the slider to get back to your image. Don't worry if you brush colours look the same, give it a moment for TrueBrilliance to remap the colours. Now we will go back to the 'Tweening' menu but for this instance we will be creating the sky all we need to do is change the 'XY' Pos to the upper part of the screen, click and drag it to the top of you can use the same values in my example image which are 0 and -256, click on 'Use' and then use the perspective tool to fill in the top half of the screen. Now you should have a bottom and top perspective of a marble floor and blue sky and clouds. If you feel your marble floor is a bit dark you can use the 'Brighten' in 'Draw Mode' to make the marble a bit brigher, this can be done by simply drawing a white filled rectangle over the entire marble floor, making sure 'Draw Mode' is activated and 'Brighten' is selected. ##Reflecting Our Clouds Now it is time to reflect our clouds and to do that we will be using the same cloud brush that we used to make the sky. Also we will go back to the 'Tweening' menu and use the same settings or as near as possible as the marble flooring. Once you have done that we will go to 'Draw Mode' menu and choose perspective. Before you draw anything you need to also go to the 'Trasparent' tool and set your transparency level, for my image I chose 19% as a good balance between the marble floor and reflection of the sky, but you it pays off to have a play around. Instead of using the fill bucket this time we are going to use a filled rectangle, draw a rectangle covering the entire marble floor. Slowly you will see the image crawl down with a transparent and perspective blue sky. Hopefully by now you have an image with a reflected sky on the perspective marble floor. If you want to add something more you can grab a brush of the sky and floor, then choose 'Filled Eclipse', from the 'Draw Mode' menu select 'Shape' and you can draw a globe that is reflecting both the sky and floor. If you want to reflect the globe on the floor, then I recommend using the buffer screen to draw out the shape filled globe, grab it as a brush and the flip it with the 'Brush Distort' tool. Before pressing down the brush make sure to adjust the 'Transparency' for a more realistic reflective effect. Well that is the last guide for this year, I hope you have enjoyed the our exploration of Brilliance and look forward to continuing the series in 2023. Have a wonderful winter holidays and see you in 2023!TopAmiga A1200 Storage Solution
Guides ============================================================================ Amiga A1200 Storage Solution - by: Timo Paul ============================================================================ ##Tiny Houses We all want to display our Amigas and have easy access to them, however for those of us living in smaller domiciles having, our beloved Amigas available all the time is not always an option. If you have ever lived in Japan, you will know that the available space in apartments and houses can be quite limited. With some of the newer houses the floor space has increased but the average person lives in a considerably smaller space than those in the United States or Europe. As such it is common for family members to share a desk or have the desk in a communal area. This can cause some issues for Amiga users, however there is an option for A500, A600 and A1200 users. While only one brand of product is used is this guide there are others, the main points to take away from this guide are the dimensions. ##Sanwa Keyboard Tray The keyboard tray was ordered from Amazon Japan, and was delivered by Sanwa Direct, not from the Amazon. It comes in a large and heavy cardboard box. When opened the tray is already put together. All you need to do is make space on your desk and tighten the bolts. My desk has a thickness of 1.5cm, with the keyboard tray attached this gives me a clearance of 8cm, perfectly fine for an A1200 that sits at 6.5cm. The keyboard tray's dimensions are 51cm wide and 29.6cm deep, this fits the A1200 perfectly allowing the Amiga to sit comfortably and not hang over the edge. You will not be able to use a mouse though on the tray, it will have to be used on your desk which means leaning over every so slightly to reach it. Including the tray height you are looking at a total height of 12.8cm so using a lower chair will make it a more comfortable typing experience. ##Availability As the moment it is only available to Japanese households from Amazon Japan, however as it is being sent directly from Sanwa Direct it is worth contacting them about international shipping. Japan Post offers some great rates when items are shipped by Surface mail (3 months average) and if you suggest this to Sanwa they will most likely be happy to oblidge you. When I checked on Amazon.com there is another keyboard tray that looks almost the same, the 'Huanuo Keyboard Tray 27" Large Size', this is easily available in the United States and UK. ##Final Thoughts While having our Amiga on the desk at all times would be ideal, some of us are not lucky enough to have the space or understanding spouses so we need to keep our Amiga hidden. Having to take out the Amiga and plug in the cables each time you want to use your Amiga is not an ideal situation. The Sanwa keyboard tray is a solid and effective way of stowing away your Amiga when not is use and easy to slide out when you do. It has given me my limited desk space back and looks great when slid out. When it is under the desk my wife thankfully forgets its there. If you want to hide your Amiga away but have easy access to it then using a keyboard tray is an effective solution. While this is just one product there are other keyboard trays available, try to find one that has the following dimensions: * 10cm clearance between keyboard tray and the bottom of the desk. * At least 51cm wide. * At least 29.5cm deep. * Total height (including keyboard tray thickness) of 12.8cm. If you find one that is easily available in your country then contact us so we can add the information to the magazine.TopArticles
CONTENTS ============================================================================ - Articles - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Look Back ... Ivan Sorensen ponders 2022 and what is has meant to him and other Amiga users around the world. From Across The Pond In the last issue we looked at the current crop of Amiga magazines, for this issue we take a look back at the top two US Amiga magazines. The First LD Computer? The Amiga may have been one of the first computers with colour, sound and animation, but it was much more than that to 10% of the population. Amiga Advent Calendar Daniel Reimann of amiga-news.de introduces us to the Amiga advent Calendar. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Articles - WhatIFF? Issue 1.08 - December 2022#Topamigaadvent
Articles ============================================================================ The birth of the Amiga-News.de Advent Calendar - by: Daniel Reimann ============================================================================ What happens when Corona, the Amiga37 and the anticipation of the Advent season come together? Exactly, the idea for the Amiga-News.de Advent calendar :) After two years of successfully fending off Corona, it finally hit me at the end of September. The temptation was obvious to condemn the world and everything. After a short while, however, I decided to make something positive out of it: as bad as I felt, I wanted to use the forced time at home to start planning a virtual Advent calendar. As a child, I loved Advent - and in my mid-40s, I still do ;) Obligatory equipment was always an Advent calendar. The Amiga37 was about to open and when I felt the anticipation for this event through our extensive reporting in advance, I thought: why not bring Amiga and Advent calendar together? And since reading out stories has always been part of Advent, the idea was born to create an Amiga Advent calendar with anecdotes from developers, programmers, publishers and creative people and to give them a small stage to introduce themselves at the same time. No sooner said than done: a list of potential candidates was quickly compiled and one mail after the other was sent out. I was totally surprised by the positive feedback: actually everyone who thought being able to write a story wanted to take part. However, I reached my limits when I tried to find a graphic designer to create the announcement: unfortunately, they were all booked up! Making a virtue out of necessity, I now dared to take on this task myself and am satisfied with the result - against the background of my very limited skills: a picture of the local Christmas market (which was under construction at this time) was taken and placed as background picture for a window in AmigaOS 4, drawers were created and the whole thing saved. Using paint.net a headline and the initials of the participants (as a little puzzle) were added. Finished: https://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2022-11-00129-EN.html And so our calendar has been running since 1 December and has not only provided us with amusing and beautiful anecdotes, but also awakened many memories. At the same time, the calendar offers a small summary of previous and current projects for the respective patron and thus an appreciation of all those who make an effort for the Amiga. Because without them there would be nothing to report, without them, we would only live in the past. But no, even in the year 2022 software and hardware for the Amiga is being developed. Great. We hope you enjoy the rest of the stories. It's worthwhile to stop by! And the 24th of December, we promise, will be special...;)TopA Look Back At 2022
Articles ============================================================================ A Look Back At 2022 - by: Ivan Sorensen ============================================================================ #A Look Back ... The year is coming to a close and so it is time to reflect. For a system that has not been sold since Amiga Technologies, the Amiga is quite alive these days. It seems that every month brings some piece of new kit to expand your system or make it ever more adaptable to current technology. What is interesting is that it seems no machines are being left behind: For a while it was mainly the 1200 and the big box machines that were getting targeted but we have seen new kit aimed specifically at the 500 and 600 as well. Retro computing is a bit of an odd market place in that so much is kit-bashed or made to small production runs and the availability of an item in theory is no guarantee that it can actually be purchased when you go to look for it later. While I wholeheartedly believe Amiga does not have to be a multi-thousand dollar hobby, you are often best advised to buy things you really want when they are available, as they will rarely remain so. On the software side the focus is usually mostly on games. I have recently embarked on a (probably impossible) quest to play every Amiga game ever released, which meant compiling a list of said games. One thing I noticed is that the number of new Amiga titles have steadily been increasing since 2012/2013 or so and while some new games are mainly tech demos, many are quite awesome original creations as well as ports of classics from other systems. In fact the wave of new releases was part of why I ended up opting to replace my floppy disk drive with a Gotek, since so many of them are available on ADF. Bridging the gap between hardware and software we are also now living in a world where actual Amiga OS updates have been happening and seems to continue to do so. Would anyone have guessed that 10 years ago? I am not on board the 3.2 train yet, since I am pretty in love with my ClassicWB setup but every day the interest increases. Plus I am big on 'digital minimalism' lately so going back to basics a little sounds like a good exercise. On a personal level, this was also a good year for Amiga: My system is now set up in the living room and every night I take an hour or so to play a couple games, check out a demo or listen to some mods. I have been looking at ways to spend less time on the internet and the Amiga is a nice way of doing so, especially since there was so much content I never experienced at the time. I think I saw maybe five demos at the time, so being able to access the huge library of demos and watch them now is pretty fun. To me collecting is only ever a side hobby (I own 7 game boxes and a few manuals for the Amiga). The purpose of the system is to use it and every purchase I make for it is aimed towards that goal. In conclusion it has been a strong year for the Amiga and I look forward to seeing what crazy, innovative and groundbreaking things people come up with in the new year.TopFrom Across The Pond: US Amiga Magazines
Articles ============================================================================ From Across The Pond: US Amiga Magazines - by: Timo Paul ============================================================================ Magazines played a large part in the Amiga's life, we all have memories of going to the newsagents/bookstore to see if the latest issue of our favourite magazine was out. The UK in particular is well known for having had many Amiga magazines; Amiga Format, CU Amiga, The One, Amiga Power, Amiga User International, Amiga Computing, Amiga Shopper, and probably more, that alone is seven that I could list off the top of my head. The US howver is not recognised as having had many Amiga magazines, the most famous being Amiga World and Amazing Computing Amiga. There were many more though early in the life of the Amiga published in the US. Amigo Times, Amiga Resource, Transactor, Comodore Magazine, Amiga Plus, Ahoy Amiga, AX, Graf/X, Amiga Informer, .info and Amiga Sentry. That takes us up to 13 different magazines, if we add in the magazines dedicated to the VideoToaster such as Video Toaster User, and LightWave Pro, it takes us up to 15 magazines! Having lived in the UK I would have never imagined there were 15 different Amiga magazines of sorts, it just goes to show how the US Amiga market was viewed differently from across the pond. That being said, my experience with the Amiga started in the US, we were living in Pennslyvania during the release of the A500 and as luck would have it our family purchased an A500 with Commodore monitor. Along with the Amiga I was also introduced to the world of Amiga magazines, in our area there were only two Amiga magazines easily available in the bookstore, video game shop or camera/video stores, yes it is a bit different than the UK. My goto magazines were Amiga World and Amazing Computing Amiga, of the two I preferred Amazing Computing a bit more as it concentrated more on the creative uses of the Amiga. That does not mean Amiga World did not have enough creative articles, in fact far from it, but I preferred the writing style and attitude of Amazing Computing. In regards to the differences between the US magazines, I found the size to be immmediatly noticable, the UK magazines come in at the typical A4 size but the US magazine size is a bit shorter. The page count did not go much above 100 pages, the UK magazines definitely being thicker and bigger. I find that I prefer the former format though more as it is a bit easier to hold and fits easier into a bag. Amiga World and Amazing Computing Amiga were both there at the beginning of the Amiga's life with Amiga World's and Amazing Computing Amiga's first issues coming out in 1985. Amiga World was published by TechMedia Publishing in New Hampshire, a one year subscription fee was USD 29.97 and for the rest of the world USD 84.97 Airmail. It was stated at one point in the magazine that they had 100,000 subscribers. Amazing Computing Amiga was published by PIM Publications Inc. in Massachusetts, a one year subscription was USD 29.95 and outside the US USD 49.97 via Surface. It is interesting seeing how much cheaper the subscriptions were for the US magazines compared to the UK magazines, although it should be noted AW and AC did not come with any cover disks. Looking back at an issue of Amiga World it is interesting to see how much more text there is verses the bright and visual Amiga Format/CU Amiga. The UK magazines seemed to want to assualt your eyes with large full colour images, Amiga World and Amazing Computing were a bit more restrained in their use of imagery. Amazing Computing however did have more images and colour than Amiga World, they had a tendancy to use half the page for images which AW seemed to avoid. When reading Amiga World, it feels very much like a newspaper, there is a lot of text, you can go several pages at a time without a photo or image. In in a way it makes it feel like a product aimed at the mature reader, the UK magazines at times felt like they were for the teenagers who had an attention span of 30 seconds. While there was a little more colour and imagery to Amazing Computing it still did not have the large photos and images of the UK magazines, again it also felt like a magazine targeting the older audiences. Thinking about it now, the Amiga was largely used as a game machine in the UK so the general use Amiga magazines had to take that into consideration. The nature of the articles was another area of difference, if you wanted to read game reviews there were just 3-4 pages and contained just a paragraph or two, and maybe one photo for the whole page. Amazing Computing had a little more colour and images but it was also mostly columns of text when it came to game reviews. While these two magazines may not have not put in the same effort into reviewing games as their cousins across the pond, when it came to doing tutorials and reviews you could guarantee on them having some of the best articles. In fact most of what I learnt about the Amiga was from AW and AC, these magazines were made to support your creative use of the Amiga and they were at the top of their game with video production, 3D rendering, music production, graphics techniques to building the most powerful Amiga possible. Reading the UK magazines made me think the big box Amigas were interesting but it was when reading the US magazines that I decided to upgrade to an A3000 with a Picasso II card, their coverage of the bigbox Amigas was far greater, demonstrating how to create a more capable Amiga. One other aspect of Amiga World that I liked was the 'Your Turn' that would crop up in reviews, these were little boxes that had a sort review of the product written by the readers. It was a nice way to balance the reviews giving your a broader idea of the product. Amazing Computing Amiga delved a bit deeper into tutorials having full programming guides, graphics and other tutorials on how to improve the look of your Workbench. The magazine tailored to the user who likes to tinker around with their Amiga and try to get the most out of the software and hardware. If you needed to find some help on how to do some graphic trick or rendering technique then your best chance would be in Amazing Compututing Amiga. Amiga World in a way was the Amiga Format for the US market and Amazing Computing Amiga was the CU Amiga equivalent. Both magazines though came out several years before the UK publications so it should be the otherway round. When I moved back to the UK I continued a subscription to Amiga World and Amazing Computing Amiga. It was always exciting to see the white envelope with the US postal stamp come through the mail slot. Even with all the choices of UK Amiga magazines available to me in the shops I kept up with Amiga World until its last issue in 1994 and Amazing Computing until 1999 when it too closed. It was a very sad day for me when I received my last issue of Amazing Computing Amiga, more than any other Amiga magazines, these two magazines helped shape and direct my Amiga adventures and I often go back to my old issues to read up something I had forgotten about or learn something new. If you are new to the Amiga or have been around for a long time and have not read Amiga World or Amazing Computing Amiga, I highly recommend having a look. It is easy to download an issue from the Internet Archive sites or if you are willing to spend some cash buy back issues from places such as eBay. There is software and hardware that I have not seen reviewed in UK magazines and even some games that seemed to not have been written about in British magazines. But it is the tutorials and guides on software such as Brilliance, LightWave and ImageFX that make the issues still stand out all these years later. This was just my experience of Amiga magazines, how about you, what memories or experiences do you have? Write in to WhatIFF? and we would love to hear about your experiences. We can be contacted at: submissions@whatiff.infoTopldcomputer
Articles ============================================================================ Amiga - The First LD Computer - by: Timo Paul ============================================================================ "The first LD computer?!", you are thinking, "What does he mean?", well let me clear some things up first, when I say LD I mean Learning Difficulty. You may know me as the editor of WhatIFF? but unfortunately that is not my full time job, though it can feel like it at times. My work is with children who have learning difficulties, more specifically I am a dyslexia specialist. I go to schools and learners homes to help children who have dyslexia learn how to read and write. It is a job that is in some respects as far away from technology as possible since using paper and pen is a very important part of the job. The reason I decided to do a job like this is because I am also dyslexic, I had a tough time in school, my teachers orginally thought I was deaf, that is how severe my dyslexia was and still is, just ask my wife! It does not help that I have an auditory processing disablilty on top of that. You are probably now thinking, "Hang on, if you have dyslexia, why are you writing a magazine?" A fair question, firstly I love the Amiga and secondly I enjoy pushing myself and writing is still a hard job for me. But writing about the Amiga makes it a bit easier, the Amiga is akin to taking novocain. Now that is out of the way, let's get back to the main topic of this article, why is the Amiga the first true LD friendly computer? To understand why this is so we need to look at how we help dyslexic learners. For most learning is done via rote (which is repeat many times until the student remembers) it is fine for most students, but for this to work you have to be able to read and write without issue in the first place. If you are unable to read and write properly pretty much all learning in the school enviroment becomes very difficult, hence the reason dyslexia is considered a learning difficulty. It has been at times viewed as a learning disability but disability means that something is not possible i.e. a person without legs can not walk, i.e. they are disabled. A child with dyslexia can learn, but they learn in a different way and that is why we call dyslexia a learning difficulty. When teaching a dyslexic learner we take it slowly, there is a lot of repetition but the informatiton is presented in a variety of ways using auditory, visual and physical techniques. Often moving the body, speaking and looking all together help the learner retain the new information. Dyslexic learners respond better when they can see, hear and touch a concept. This is where the Amiga comes in. Being the first home computer that could offer real sound, animation and graphics along with the physical input of the mouse as standard it became the first computer to provide input for all the senses. We had a teacher who did not tire or get angry that you made the same mistake the 20th time. We could hear and see a concept, though the animation and auditory abilities of the Amiga. Whats more the Amiga could even read our text back to us, sure it was not perfect but whatever we wrote it would not laugh at our mistakes but just show us where the mistake was. For writing school reports this was a true game changer. The Amiga is often remembered as the first real multimedia computer but it was also the first real computer that could give leaners with dyslexia an edge that they had never had before. I remember with fond memories using the spell checker and having my Amiga read me back what I had written. The educational software had sampled sounds and animations and using the mouse gave me better hand and motor control. It was a whole new world of learning that gave me not only the confidence to learn more but also to enjoy it. Eventually the Amiga's multimedia abilities started to affect my school work as well. For example in music class we had to write a song and play it on an instrument, I already was struggling trying to figure out how to play any instrument. So I was told I could use my Amiga, it was this pint that I encountered OctaMED and started my journey of tracking. The 4 channels and columns were so much easier than reading and writing music notes on paper. It did not end there, already I had been playing around with DPaint and when I brought in my Amiga to show my art teacher, I used the HAM mode. She was blown away and asked me to do a series of computer images for class. I am here now because the Amiga could support my multi sensory teaching through it's multimedia capabilities. Now in my mid 40s I am able to read, write and spell with relative ease and enjoy reading greatly. I believe that this is in part thanks to my Amiga for helping me get through school and for being one of my teachers. If you are still reading this, thank you for sticking with me on this journey into the Amiga and dyslexia. It is thanks to the forward thinking designers that the Amiga could support LD children in the 80s like no other computer for over 10 years.TopWelcome to voices of the people behind Amiga hardware and software.
CONTENTS ============================================================================ - Talking Amiga - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -= The Amiga Show's Anthony Interview =- If you surf YouTube for Amiga videos you cannot escape the finding the amazing The Amiga Show, a show about the Amiga done on an Amiga in 2022! We sit down with the man behind the show and get his insights into the Video Toaster and putting the show together. -= PixelVixen Interview =- Manga and Amiga artist living in Japan, we talk to the talented PixelVixen known for her Future Saviours manga. Find out about her creative processes and how she uses the Amiga when creating her manga. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Talking Amiga - WhatIFF? Issue 1.08 - December 2022#TopThe Amiga Show's Anthony Interview
Talkingamiga ============================================================================ Interview - Anthony (The Amiga Show) ============================================================================ Hello Anthony, thank you for agreeing to take the time to participate in our interview. 1. To start with can you tell us a little about yourself and your background? Hello! I'm Anthony and I've been into video and animation for a long as I can remember. From the age of 6 I wanted to be a TV cameraman! Although that didn't quite happen, my love of cameras remains and I did end up working in Film and TV in Visual Effects, which I still do today. 2. How did you get started with computers and the Amiga? The first computer we had was a ZX Spectrum, which I absolutely loved; played games on it, tried to write games on it (in basic, and not that well). Eventually I saw images of the Amiga and I could not believe what I was seeing, and eventually saved up enough money for an A500 (KS 1.3 had just arrived. My friend's machine was bought 2 months prior and came with 1.2). The jump from the Speccy to the Amiga was incredible, I was hooked! The graphics, sound, even the keyboard was such a step up. 3. You are the creator of the YouTube video The Amiga Show, can you tell us a little about the show and why you decided to create it? Going back about 10 years or so, I saw there was a surge of people streaming online. It coincided with my renewed interest in the Amiga, so I had this idea that I could make a Saturday morning type show on the Video Toaster; streaming it live from the Amiga. There could be Cartoons, game reviews, some music, that kind of thing. But I realized that it would take a certain personality type to pull this off and not really for me. But I still thought streaming from the Toaster was a fun idea. At this point I had no Amigas at all (having got rid of them in the mid 90's) never mind a Video Toaster. Slowly I started coming back to the Amiga scene, pickup bits and pieces along the way until I had a functional Toaster. By this point, I realised what I wanted to do was document this wonderful machine and community, using the machine itself. The Amiga Show was born. 4. Your show is quite unique in that you use a Video Toaster, which is rarely seen outside the United States, how difficult was it to obtain one in the UK? It seemed an impossible dream when the Video Toaster appeared on the front cover of Amiga Format. I had wanted one ever since! I ended up scouring eBay and found US sellers that were selling boards. You're right though, running it in the UK can be fraught with difficulty (being an NTSC product) particularly as I'm using an Amiga 2000. This setup requires hardware modification to fit an NTSC oscillator to the motherboard, as the Toaster requires very strict timings to run. It's also best to use it with 2mb of chip RAM, so that also need to be sourced. The complication being a I needed to find a compatible Fat Agnus! Oh boy, I'd forgotten these traumas :D. 5. Which version of the Video Toaster did you purchase such as 2.0 or Video Toaster 4000 and why? I actually have both, although currently I'm using a 2.0 board, and keeping the 4000 card as a backup. I would love to run the show from an Amiga 4000 as some point, but that feels like a project for another time. It means I lose some of the 4000 effects, but equally it gives the show a more time appropriate appearance, which is part of the goal; to feel like it's archive of a forgotten show. I also use a Flyer card with a bunch of SCSI to SD cards. This turns the toaster into a non-linear editor and is very much the heart of the production. 6. What kind of any difficulties did you encounter setting it up, such as PAL to NTSC conversion? The is a HUGE part of the puzzle. I've struggled with multiple was of doing it, each has benefits and drawbacks. My go-to solution is a Sony 1024G standards converter. This is a prosumer cross converter than can take VGA/PAL/NTSC video (composite/s-video/RGB) and convert it to any of those. It's is a real swiss-army knife! The output is a bit soft though; it's a trade-off. The other way is to convert the video on a timeline on a Mac or PC, but that can lead to long render times, and I feel it breaks the spirit of the show. 7. How did you find learning the software since there are a lot of components to the VT system? It definitely has complexity to it, but the real joy of the system is the way it works together with each software module. The editor, paint system, Lightwave and the caption generator all work together. It's really very impressive, I'm still only scratching the surface. Fortunately, there are some amazing resources out there! YouTube has a great number of companion and instructional VHSs and have been going through those. Can I also add huge thanks to amigavideo.net. It has a great archive of training videos for loads of Amiga titles. It's such a great resource, there has never been a better time to dust of a copy of Vista Pro and getting to work! 8. Since the VT was not particularly well known outside the States, where were you able to get advice and support from? EAB has really been a great help. I had been following the on-going trials from another board member and his experiences were invaluable. There was also a dedicated cable that I need to make myself (gulp) but eventually found a diagram and was reasonably straight-forward, even for someone like me! 9. Did you ever use the Video Toaster: The Desktop Video Magazine as a resource for your channel? I really should do, I imagine it's stuffed with tricks and ideas. That is actually a great idea! Thankyou :D 10. What has surprised you most about using the VT? Probably going back to the fact that it's a wonderful eco-system. Without doubt it is the best suite of software on the Amiga, no competition. I also admire the way the opened it up with Arexx to allow it to be transformed and integrated by 3rd party developers. There are some unique programs which I would love to explore. 11. How would you improve on the VT? Hmm. Good question.. I still can't work out if you can rotate a brush in Toaster Paint! Some of the documentation is a bit thin on some of the editing tools, so that could have been better. It's also quite easy for sequences to fall out of sync with the audio, and some effects won't trigger if they're too close to another effect. It can feel like you're problem solving more than editing sometimes, but that is often the creative process anyway. 12. What parts of the show are you most proud of and why? I'm most proud of the response from viewers to be honest. It's not for everyone, but those who watch it really enjoy it. There's definitely a long way to go, I would love to make more shows than I do, but I'm totally committed to the show and I'll just keep chipping away. From a personal perspective it's been a huge leap to produce something and present it to people. It's going to sound crazy, but I often get embarrassed just by hearing my name mentioned, so this was a big hurdle to jump. 13. What advice do you have for others who wish to use the VT for their own videos such as on YouTube? Do it! It's a really fun process, that makes you re-learn video production. Forget importing mp4s, this is video flying down a mess of cables! And don't forget about the audio, you need cables for all of that too. It can feel a bit intimidating, but draw a quick sketch of the things you need and how they connect, and jump on eBay :D It's also possible to create animations in Lightwave for use on your Mac/PC editing software. The Amiga version of Lightwave can render up to 8k! With accelerators and emulation, the Amiga can still be used to create something contemporary and (is a) valid creative tool. Going back to these bits of software from a modern perspective can be a revelation. So have fun. 14. How many Amigas and non-Amigas do you have? Oh dear. Here's the confessional. Too many! I have a 1000, 2000, 500+, 1200 and CD32. Yikes! And a 500mini. I also use a Mac and PC to encode the video to YouTube, plus off-loading any expensive renders. I have no issue with emulation. When it comes to rendering, faster is always better. Then I can ftp the frames back to the toaster. 15. What is your favorite model of Amiga and why? I will always have a soft spot for the 500, it was my first Amiga and I loved using it. Playing games, making animations, digitising pictures, and building sequences in Deluxe Video. Good times! But the 2000 has become such a day-to-day workhorse, I have a huge amount of respect for it. 16. Do you have any final words or comments before we finish off? Thanks for watching!TopPixel Vixen Interview
Talkingamiga ============================================================================ Interview - Pixel Vixel, Manga and Amiga and Artist ============================================================================ 1. Vicky thank you for taking part in our interview, to start off can you tell us a little about yourself? Well, thank you for having me first of all. I'm from the UK but currently live in north eastern Japan and have been here for nearly 3 years. I'm a keen runner, as well as generally really enjoying retro video games albeit mostly on consoles but I do play games on the Amiga from time to time. I also formerly worked as a wedding photographer but more generally photography is a big part of my life too. My main pastime aside from artwork these days is skateboarding, I am currently recovering from breaking my wrist 2 weeks ago so can't draw at all right now. But I spend a lot of time skating and I am hoping one day to create photo projects on the Japanese skate scene. And finally, I spend most of my time working on my manga Future Saviors, the story of how three misfits in society find their place in the world and deal with their past to create the future. 2. You are known for your manga and computer graphics, which one started first the computer graphics or manga? Technically manga, if we expand that to include western comics, as I drew comics from a young age. None were ever published obviously, it was little kid stuff, but my favorite character was this rad dog called Dawg. How 90s! 3. What was your first computer? A Commodore 64. 4. What made you want to do computer graphics? Curiosity. So, the second C64 came with an art package and as a keen artist I wanted to see what I could do. It turned out nearly nothing as I only had a joystick to control things. When I got the Amiga that changed. I do know for sure at the time I never looked at computer graphics as a replacement for "traditional" artwork, I just saw it as another method like do I do this in copic marker or color pencil kind of thing. 5. How you introduced to the Amiga? That, like so many things in my life as I get older is not 100% clear. But I do remember about three things before I got an Amiga. The first is my cousins. They always had the latest stuff, be it clothes, shoes, music, but also games consoles/computers. My family was relatively poor growing up. I don't even know if I had a C64 when I discovered one summer my cousins had an Amiga 500. We only played games but I remember thinking how good it was. I'm fairly certain that was 1992 as I connect that memory with the Barcelona Olympics; but it's possible it was earlier like 1990 or 1991. The second memory is simply all the kids in the playground talking about they now had an Amiga for games and how good it was. That was definitely around 1991/92 as well. The third was a family friend, they had an Amiga 500 and I remember vividly playing Buggy Boy, Rainbow Islands and Jumping Jackson on it. So I was generally aware of the Amiga and through the Silica ads in Zzap 64 and Commodore Format I also knew about the Amiga through that. 6. What do you enjoy most about creating graphics on the Amiga? That's a hard one to answer. I think much of it comes down to simplicity and familiarity. For example I really like Aseprite but Deluxe Paint is just so much simpler on basic things, such as mixing a palette. So despite a lack of layers and multiple undo it's just easier but maybe that's due to familiarity. I also love DPaint's extensive animation capability. 7. What is the most challenging part of doing pixel work on the Amiga? Apart from motivating myself to do it, but then we can all procrastinate on a real Amiga, the mouse. I'm sorry but most stock Amiga mice from Commodore are awful, bad ergonomics on the tank mouse and both that and the later mouse Commodore released with the 600/1200/4000 are low resolution ball mice that are just hard to work with. That said, the Amiga 3000 pregnant mouse and the later Amiga Technologies era Amiga mouse are passable. I much prefer the optical mice Alfa Data made. 8. Which Amiga art package do you use and why? Deluxe Paint. Again due to familiarity. On my real Amigas, DPaint IV AGA is my weapon of choice, but I will use III and V. III has the best palette requester, V has some very useful animation capabilities such as multiple palettes and camera control. All suffer from one undo level but you soon get used to it. 9. Other than your current Amiga art package, what other Amiga graphics software would like to learn that you haven't yet? Brilliance II. I have it, at least in the UK but I never got to grips with its UI and the animation power isn't as good as DPaint V but I'd still like to learn it better one day. 10. What Amiga hardware do you have/use for your artwork? In the UK I have an Amiga 500, 600 and 1200. I don't have them here in Japan although someone has loaned me an A600 which I shamefully don't use due to having nowhere to set it up. I hope I can if I move in 2023 though. 11. Regarding Your manga Future Saviours, do you use your Amiga at any stage of the creative process? Yes, after I retreated from the Amiga scene in 2020 for various reasons, I have been quietly building some skills. My impression these days is I don't want the Amiga to be the start and end of the creativity, I want to use bits of it in a wider sense e.g. merging DPaint animations into Final Cut movies, using hand drawn assets, and maybe other new stuff. Essentially to create a trailer or music video but use the Amiga's quirks for an aesthetic. It's something I am in no hurry to finish so it may not see the light of day for a few years. 12. In previous interviews you have mentioned using the HAM mode as a creative technique, can you elaborate a bit more on that? Sure. For me, and others will disagree, I'm not bothered about Amigas (not) having 24bit displays and high resolution, for that I have my MacBook. I want to sit down on a 1MB Amiga 500, and use its HAM mode to generate something that has a charm all of its own that only the Amiga has. So creating glitch animations using hand drawn assets and just generally messing about with it until it looks sick is what I like doing these days. I want it to have a punky edge that looks totally like I'm using the wrong tool but also the right tool that makes it genuinely lo fidelity but full of wonder as a result. I am a big believer in imperfection in life, the imperfect is what makes stuff interesting. Likewise I want to sit down with limitations and push them, this is why I still admire stuff like the cut scenes in Ninja Garden on the Famicom/NES, so many limitations but so much style. This is why I kinda champion the Amiga 600 as it's easy to put 2meg of chip in them and then you can really go mad with animations. The reason HAM appeals to me is the way it works to display more colors, it creates sometimes ugly color ramps, but any form of color changing over a few pixels instantly gives an image something unusual. It also means with DPaint you can in effect do transparent brushes over a cel, allowing you to really mess with it. 13. What did you find most challenging when moving with your Amiga to Japan? Well, the fact I couldn't take it! I didn't have room. In the end that has worked out fine; because I believe my future exists in me as an artist, not as that Amiga artist. I emulate these days. But I'll never sell my Amigas and I will one day use them again. 14. What is your dream Amiga setup? Just an Amiga 500 or 600. I am patient so the 68000 doesn't bother me but maybe a 68030 will speed up HAM work a bit. All I need in an Amiga is 2MB chip, some mass storage to save files and that's it; as well as a copy of DPaint. Whilst the A1200 gives me all of the flexibility I need from an Amiga, I prefer the A600s small size, but the A500 is a classic. Back when the Amiga was my main computer in the late 90s, 68040s and PPCs with RTG made sense, but now I don't really care about it. I was offered a 68060 card for free once, I turned it down for various reasons but it's wasted on me. There is something pure about sitting down at an Amiga 500 with DPaint III and messing around. I think CTrix best encapsulated that vibe with his series on Amiga samplers a year or two back. It was so sick really punk. 15. Thank you for your time Vicky and the best of luck with your manga series, before we finish up is there anything you would like to add or comment on? Thank you, it's a pleasure. To read more from Pixel Vixen a.ka. Vicky check out this issues Shell Talk for her perspective on the current Amiga scene.TopWelcome to the links section!
CONTENTS ============================================================================ Links ============================================================================ www.amiganews.net/en/ One of the most up to date and comprehensive sources for Amiga news from around the globe. www.eab.abime.net English Amiga Board, the majority of the users are from Europe, a very friendly and helpful Amiga forum. www.exxoshost.co.uk The resource if you need help or information about the new Terrible Fire cards. www.amibay.com A great place for buying and selling Amiga hardware, they also have some very nice people to give advice about. Of recent it has become very hard to register on the website since their server migration. www.amiga.org Probably the longest running Amiga forum on the world wide web, most American Amiga users are on this board. www.amigaworld.net Another large Amiga website covering all Amigas, includes news, discussions and classifieds. www.amigans.net English Amiga website covering next generation, emulation and classic Amigas. www.amigafuture.de The longest running Amiga print magazine, issues are available in English and German. www.amiga-addict.com Newest English Amiga print magazine, if you are missing the likes of Amiga Power and Amiga Format, then this is the magazine for you. www.ka-plus.pl Commodore and Amiga print magazine avilable in English and Polish. Lots of games content. mancave-ramblings.blogspot.com Our own John Scolieri's personal website. ================================================================== If you have a link that you would like added to list contact: submissions@whatiff.info ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Links - WhatIFF? Issue 1.08 - December 2022#TopWelcome to the Amiga vendors section!
CONTENTS ============================================================================ Amiga Vendor Links ============================================================================ Alinea https://www.amiga-shop.net Amedia Computers https://www.amedia-computer.com Amiga 68k http://amiga68k.com Amigakit https://amigakit.amiga.store Amiga MC1 http://amiga1.com Amiga Shop https://www.amigashop.org AmigastoreEU https://amigastore.eu Amiga on the Lake http://amigaonthelake.com Arananet Retro Products https://www.arananet.net/pedidos Arcade Shopper https://www.arcadeshopper.com BuyElbox http://buy.elbox.com Electronics Is Fun https://electronicsisfun.com GGS Data http://www.ggsdata.se My Amiga Shop https://shop.myamigashop.com Relec http://www.relec.ch/fr RetroAMI https://retroami.com.pl Retro Passion https://www.retropassion.co.uk Retro Ready https://retroready.one Sell My Retro https://www.sellmyretro.com Retro Rewind https://retrorewind.ca Sordan https://sordan.ie Tindie https://www.tindie.com Vesalia https://www.vesalia.de ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Vendor Links - WhatIFF? Issue 1.08 - December 2022#TopWelcome to the Amiga Groups section!
CONTENTS ============================================================================ Amiga Group Links ============================================================================ ******************************************************************* * * United Kingdom United States Canada Germany Sweden * * France Belgium Czech Republic Denmark Finland * * Australia Russia Ireland Scotland Malta Japan * * ******************************************************************* ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Group Links - WhatIFF?#Topuk
Amigagroups ============================================================================ Amiga Group Links ============================================================================ ##United Kingdom Amiga North Thame http://www.amiganorththames.co.uk/ Birmingham Amiga Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/BhamAmigaGroup/ LINCS Amiga Group (LAG) http://lincsamiga.org.uk/ Norwich Amiga Group https://norwichamigagroup.co.uk/ North West Amiga User Group http://www.bambi-amiga.co.uk/spudmiga/nwag/index.html South West Amiga Group http://www.southwestamiga.org.uk/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Group Links - WhatIFF?#Topusa
Amigagroups ============================================================================ Amiga Group Links ============================================================================ ##USA Sacramento Amiga Computer Club http://www.sacc.org/ Central Texas Amiga Computer Society http://main.org/ctacs Central New York Amiga Computing Enthusiasts https://www.meetup.com/CNY-Amiga-Computing-Enthusiasts Central Texas Commodore Users Group https://www.meetup.com/Central-Texas-Commodore-Users-Group/ Metroplex Commodore Computer Club http://www.amigamccc.org/ Southern California Commodore and Amiga Network http://www.portcommodore.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=sccan:start Fresno Commodore User Group http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm Westchester Amiga User Group http://www.westchesteramigausergroup.org/ Amiga Computer Users Long Island https://www.facebook.com/groups/202203702519 Southeast Amiga User Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/SoutheastAmigaUserGroup/ Stamford Peterborough Amiga Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/spaguk The Other Group of Amigoids http://togausergroup.org/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Group Links - WhatIFF?#Topcanada
Amigagroups ============================================================================ Amiga Group Links ============================================================================ ##Canada Amiga Computer Users of Edmonton http://www.amicue.org Amiga Users of Calgary http://www.amuc.ab.ca Toronto PET Users Group (TPUG) http://www.tpug.ca * Started in 1979, TPUG is also the operator of the annual World of Commodore computer show. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Group Links - WhatIFF?#Topgermany
Usergroups Amigagroups ============================================================================ Amiga Group Links ============================================================================ ##Germany AUCB Treffen http://www.amigaclub-bautzen.de/ Amiga Club Munster http://acmuenster.de/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Group Links - WhatIFF?#Topsweden
Amigagroups ============================================================================ Amiga Group Links ============================================================================ ##Sweden Swedish User Group of Amiga http://suga.se/ Amiga Computer Group http://www.amiga-cg.se/ Syntax Society http://www.syntaxsociety.se/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Group Links - WhatIFF?#Topfrance
Amigagroups ============================================================================ Amiga Group Links ============================================================================ ##France Triple http://www.triplea.fr/ AFLE http://afle.free.fr/ AmigaPower http://www.amigapower.net/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Group Links - WhatIFF?#Topbelgium
Amigagroups ============================================================================ Amiga Group Links ============================================================================ ##Belgium Belgian Amiga Club?http://www.amigaclub.be/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Group Links - WhatIFF?#Topczech
Amigagroups ============================================================================ Amiga Group Links ============================================================================ ##Czech Republic Luky & Amiga Klub Forever + Czech PowerPC User Group http://powerpc.lukysoft.cz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Group Links - WhatIFF?#Topdenmark
Amigagroups ============================================================================ Amiga Group Links ============================================================================ ##Denmark Amiga Club Denmark http://www.amigaclubdanmark.dk/ Danish Amiga User Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/101927439851660? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Group Links - WhatIFF?#Topfinland
Amigagroups ============================================================================ Amiga Group Links ============================================================================ ##Finland Finnish Amiga Users Group http://saku.amigafin.org/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Group Links - WhatIFF?#Topaustralia
Amigagroups ============================================================================ Amiga Group Links ============================================================================ ##Australia Sydney Amiga Users Group http://www.saug.org.au Amiga Users Group https://www.amiga.net.au/ MAUG https://www.facebook.com/groups/MAUGr/ Perth Amiga User Group (PAUG) https://www.facebook.com/groups/perthamigausergroup/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Group Links - WhatIFF?#Toprussia
Amigagroups ============================================================================ Amiga Group Links ============================================================================ ##Russia Amiga Information Center (AIC) http://amiga.org.ru ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Group Links - WhatIFF?#Topireland
Amigagroups ============================================================================ Amiga Group Links ============================================================================ ##Ireland Amiga Ireland Meetup https://www.facebook.com/groups/amigaireland ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Group Links - WhatIFF?#Topscotland
Amigagroups ============================================================================ Amiga Group Links ============================================================================ ##Scotland Scottish Amiga User Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/626138110921245 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Group Links - WhatIFF?#Topmalta
Amigagroups ============================================================================ Amiga Group Links ============================================================================ ##Malta Amiga Malta https://www.facebook.com/groups/amigamalta ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Group Links - WhatIFF?#Top---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Group Links - WhatIFF? Issue 1.08 - December 2022#japan
Amigagroups ============================================================================ Amiga Group Links ============================================================================ ##Japan Commodore / Amiga Fan Club Japan http://cfc.amiga.co.jp/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Amiga Group Links - WhatIFF?#TopInvent's Corner
CONTENTS ============================================================================ Invent's Corner - by: Kevin Saunders ============================================================================ As the end of the year approaches, it's time to reflect on 2022 and start thinking about priorities for 2023, Amiga, Classic, NG and Other. For classic Amiga's the game Reshoot Proxima III is getting ever closer to release. Richard, Martin and myself are extremely proud of our third and final in the series (well at least it's my last in the series). Richard and I have worked closely over the years on these games and I am honoured to be working with him and our great team. If you haven't visited AmigaBill's Twitch please do as Bill certainly please our demo really well. Don't forget to visit Richard's preview youtube demo here: https://youtu.be/_fLdudinjHY Aquabyss is finally released, I really enjoyed working with Peter on his Amiga project, and while I have various posts on the development process on my blog, the best place to visit the project is on Peter's website here: https://agedcode.com/agedcode/en/ What's happened to Boss Machine, not much but it's always on my mind. Dan who is a great friend and local coder in Brisbane certainly deserves more of my time on this project, he is also one of my generous Patreons and deserves more of my time and attention. 2023 will be given a lot more attention for this very exciting project. For all the behind the scenes please visit here: https://www.patreon.com/KevinSaunders?filters[tag]=BOSS%20Machine The last few months have been focused on Apollo Invaders for anyone who has a V2 or V4 Vampire card. Gunnar, Arne, Martin and myself have been enhancing the game. My recent involvement was adding 100 custom locations from famous locations around the world where you play (destroy) the aliens in. Last week I was finalizing the win victory section. The time now must be spent testing and tweaking any elements we need to improve. More info is usually posted in our Apollogames channel on Discord: https://discord.gg/Um5KZ5uqDk After Apollo Invaders, I plan on creating a shoot em up for the Amiga Vampire machines called Apollo X, besides having two player options we plan on a few more exciting features, definitely, one game to follow and the best place is, of course, my blog or Apollo discord. I do also have a placeholder on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/419549690142105 The Amiga Art Contest 2022 this month Doug and I announced all the winners. We had a great selection of entrants and it was a real joy being part of the selection panel alongside our Patreons. If you missed the live stream or want to see all the entrants' creative submissions please visit here: https://www.amigaartwork.com/gallery-2022.html Brilliance II, as you all may know is my favourite art program for the Amiga. I do try and push a few pixels when I have time. I have worked on a few more Portrait animations for my personal project called No Signal, a huge animation project using only Brilliance II. If you have or want to be part of this project please contact me at the contact details listed at the end of this page. I have another project called The Divide which is another animation I am working on. To view the image please visit here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/divide-wip-74428053 Other projects I have worked on for the Amiga but as yet I am unable to mention due to confidentiality, however, if these projects come to light I will be definitely promoting :) So what am I doing in 2023? * Boss Machine (AMIGA) * Killawatt (AMIGA) Port using scorpion engine." * Apollo X (AMIGA/Vampire shoot em up) * 2 x 3D projects for the (AMIGA) Vampire * Fruity Caves - Boulderdash clone (PC/Browser with Brother) * Dungeon Crawler- no title yet (eg Gauntlet/Fairy Tale - PC/Browser game with Brother) * Thruster II (PC - James Roberts - who I worked with on Iridium and Lunar Jetman Remake) * Project Nova (PC - James Roberts) * Unlisted new Project for AMIGA (more info coming soon) * Possible Judge for the AMIGA Art Contest for 2023 (unless I enter my No Signal animation) * Not sure what else but usually there are a few other things that happen throughout the year. As you can see, I have possibly too many projects on the go at the moment and need to find a way to give more balance to my life and family, and I must point out that I have been considering moving out of the Amiga Scene after the end of next year or the following year. I can say Boss Machine and Apollo X will be definitely completed before this time. Take care and till next time, Amiga Forever :) My Contact info: Email: kfs1971@gmail.com Website: https://www.patreon.com/KevinSaunders Discord: https://discord.gg/U8c66M2 Donation: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/INVENTKevinSaundersTopFuture Imagineer A New Podcast
CONTENTS ============================================================================ Future Imagineer: A New Podcast - by: Vicky Lamburn ============================================================================ In this edition of WhatIFF, you will probably be pretty tired of hearing from me by now what with having an interview, shell talk piece and now this as well? The good news is you can hear even more from me if you tune into my brand new podcast "Future Imagineers". Following on from my interests as a creative myself, I decided having written that opinion piece for WhatIff to take matters into my own hands and turn the mic towards creatives using both retro and modern equipment to create interesting and new pieces of artwork, music, photography, publications, video, games and much much more. Rather than be rooted in nostalgia that doesn't move forwards, I wanted to create a podcast to celebrate the active use of this stuff that means it will continue to have relevance in the future and not only be a historical footnote. Whilst it won't necessarily be always Amiga centric, it will feature interesting people who not only like older equipment, such as the Amiga, the Yamaha DX7, Akai S900, Nikon FM cameras and goodness know what else, but it will ask them the questions of why their choices are so integral to their creativity. Furthermore, it's about opening this up to an audience way beyond the retro crowd, such as the youth of today so they too can see the possibilities that come of mixing and merging retro and modern technology. You can find the podcast on Spotify, and soon Apple Podcasts as well as many others, as well as my YouTube channel (see links below). My first guest is Ant Jarvis who talked with the podcast to explain his use of the Newtek VideoToaster to create his beloved Amiga show The Amiga Show on YouTube. From exploring what the kit is, and how he goes about it and what he would do if it broke as well as how he wants to progress the show, it was a very interesting discussion! Future Imagineers is intended to be an open door for all creatives to both listen and take part, be they on YouTube and social media or not. No matter what it is you create, be it entirely retro, or a mixture of retro and modern, even including emulation I'd love to hear from you if you fancy being interviewed. You can email the podcast on the details below. All enquiries: futureimagineers@outlook.com How to listen / watch: Future Imagineers YouTube: https://tinyurl.com/futureimagineers-youtube Spotify: https://tinyurl.com/futureimagineers-spotify Apple Podcasts: https://tinyurl.com/futureimagineers-apple Google Podcasts: Please search "Future Imagineers"TopWhat's coming up in the next issue?
CONTENTS ============================================================================ Next Issue - 1.08 December 2022 ============================================================================ So here we are, one year of WhatIFF?, what do we have planned for the next year then? So far have reviews of TerribleFire 1230 and SoundBox. Interviews with Andreas of Amiga Future and AlenPPC the North American builder of the Terrible Fire cards. Tutorials will include the next part of the YouTube viewing for ECS machines and continuations of LightWave and Brilliance. There will also be more from John Scolieri and Ivan Sorensen. Have a wondeful winter holiday and see you in 2023 for issue 2.09! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Next Issue - WhatIFF? Issue 2.09 - February 2023#TopMeet the writing staff of WhatIFF?
CONTENTS ============================================================================= Writing Staff ============================================================================= WhatIFF? is an independent magazine created by Amiga enthusiasts from around the world looking for a more serious magazine. The main writers at the moment are a small group but hope to grow in coming issues. * Main Writing Staff * Timo Paul Steve Lord Kevin Saunders John Scolieri Ivan Sorensen * Guest Writers * Maddi Carl Svensson Daniel Reimann Vicky Lamburn We are always interested in new articles, guides or stories, if you have something you wish to submit please send it to: submissions@whatiff.info ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Writing Staff - WhatIFF? Issue 1.08 - December 2022#Toptimopaul
Writers Name: Timo Paul Aliases: amifan (EAB) Contact info: timopaul@whatiff.info Websites: www.whatiff.info www.binarybeats.meTopstevelord
Writers Name: Steve Lord Aliases: stevelord (EAB) Contact info: stevelord@whatiff.info Websites: www.thedorkweb.substack.comTopjohnscolieri
Writers Name: John Scolieri Aliases: klx300r (EAB) 328gts (amigans.net) aGS@C64_AMIGA (Twitter) Contact info: johnscolieri@whatiff.info Websites: mancave-ramblings.blogspot.comTopkevinsaunders
Writers Name: Kevin Saunders Aliases: Invent (EAB) Contact info: kevinsaunders@whatiff.info Websites: www.patreon.com/KevinSaunders www.youtube.com/KevinSaunders www.twitter.com/invent71 www.instagram.com/invent71/ www.ko-fi.com/kevinsaundersTopmaddi
Writers Name: Maddi Aliases: MsMadLemon (YouTube) Contact info: msmadzie@gmail.com Websites: www.patreon.com/msmadlemon www.youtube.com/c/MsMadLemon www.twitter.com/MsMadLemon www.facebook.com/msmadlemon msmadlemon.bandcamp.comTopivansorensen
Writers Name: Ivan Sorensen Aliases: Weasel Fierce Contact info: ivansorensen@whatiff.info Websites: everydayamiga.posthaven.com