AmigaOS 4 News – January 2025

Hi,

Welcome to a new edition of the AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup! 🙂 Thanks for visiting my blog. Hope you’ll enjoy the news!

New year, new opportunities. Let’s have a look at what happened on the platform in January.

Software News

In earlier monthly roundups, we’ve read a lot about the FlashMandelNG tool. Dino Papararo and Edgar Schwan are once again back with an update. Version 5.3 sees the following changes:

• Reworked and speededup color remapping algorithms
• Fixed parsing of “COLORSREMAP” ToolType

Smart Filesystem 1.279 by Jörg Strohmayer is available to download on OS4Depot. This version, however, is an older one. The newest is only available through the Enhancer Software package from A-EON Technology. Still, it can be useful for those not using Enhancer. Here is the link to the download.

Frank Wille has released updated version of vasm m68k std, vasm PPC std, and vasm 68k mot. vasm is a portable and re-targetable assembler to create linkable objects in various formats and absolute code. Multiple CPU-, syntax, and output-modules can be selected. More information is available here:

http://sun.hasenbraten.de/vasm/

Now here is an interesting one. Anyone into the field of genealogy? If yes, then you might find the following software helpful. The application is called AmiGen and it is a genealogist program developed by R. Florac. The author states the documentation and the catalogue is in French only at the moment. If you’d like to AmiGen, here is the download link.

AmiTranslate by Marcus Sackrow is a DeepL interface for Amiga systems with text print and PDF output. Version 0.5 is now available on OS4Depot.

René W. Olsen is back with version 2.12 of ReSrc4, an Mc680x0 disassembler. It was tested against the Amiga game Civilization (ECS) and LightwaveFP for FPU support. The source is available here:

https://github.com/rolsen74/resrc4

A new version of the lightweight text-editor Lite XL has been released for AmigaOS 4.1. This time it is version 2.1.7R2. The png16 library has now been added to the AmigaOS 4 archive.

The port is being maintained by George Sokianos a.k.a Walkero. The program itself was created by Francesco Abbate and the Lite XL team.

Version 1.34 of the AFA-Viewer from A. Pankalla has been released. With this program, you can use the Amiga Future Archive-DVD in a very effective and easy way. Find the item you are searching for, then double-click on the right line to read it straight away.

George Sokianos a.k.a. Walkero had released a new game port for AmigaOS 4. This time he brought over Jazz Jackrabbit to the platform! This is a fun and entertaining platform game series that was created and started by Epic Megagames back in 1994. After the first game, others in the series followed such as Jazz Jackrabbit 2 and Jazz Jackrabbit 3. You can read more about this on Wikipedia.

Walkero writes in the documentation:

This is the port of openjazz to AmigaOS 4.

OpenJazz is a free, open-source version of the classic Jazz Jackrabbit(TM)
games.

To play, you will need the files from one of the original games.

With the demise of DOS-based operating systems, it has become necessary to use
emulators to play old DOS games. Jazz Jackrabbit(TM) deserves more – and would
benefit greatly from new features.

about:blank

Jazz Jackrabbit(TM) is a PC platform game. Produced by Epic Games (then Epic
MegaGames), it was first released in 1994. The fast-paced, colourful gameplay
proved popular, and the game won PC Format’s Arcade Game of the Year award.
Many people still fondly recall the shareware versions.

If you want to download the AmigaOS 4 port, please head over to OS4Depot by clicking here.

Keep in mind that you’ll need the data files. Walkero has tested the port with the data files from the games from GOG (Good Old Games). They currently have a -84% discount on the Jazz Jackrabbit Collection right now if you are interested.

Roman “Kas1e” Kargin created a port of this game series back in 2012. Since then, the OpenJazz project has received several updates. It now uses SDL2 for example. Due to problems with the bonus stage on many platforms, it has been disabled in the new OpenJazz version. This stage works fine in Kas1e’s old port.

If you are happy about George Sokianos work, you can support him on Ko-Fi. There he shares news and other interesting information about his projects. 🙂

Maijestro has created a video of OpenJazz running on his AmigaOne X5040:

IconDesigner has uploaded AOS-AmigaGPT-Icons to OS4Depot. Please click here to check them out.

Ulrich Beckers has released an update to PerCIMan. PerCIMan is a program for managing contacts. It allows you to store phone numbers, birthdays, image files, and so forth. People can be marked as friends, relatives, business contacts, alumni, etc. In the new version, 0.7.6, the beta version validity restriction has been removed.

A minor update has been done to glUAE by Simone Bevilacqua. Legal terms have been clarified in the readme.

Video Vortex is a frontend GUI for YT (.rexx) to search and view YouTube videos. It is developed by Thomas Kölsch and vesion 1.0 is now available for download from OS4Depot.

On January 29th DRIDI released version 5.0Final of the Arabic Console Device.

(version 5.0Final) input in raw mode (Stevie editor) is better during heavy
multitasking, under ArabicLauncher input at beginning with pipes works better.
It remains ARABCON: [hard litterate] to adapt [to parameterize] to ARABCON2:
ARABCON3: .. ARABCONX: in plus.c : “| pl 1” at the end of an ‘Arabic’ pipe,
under “ArabicLauncher [ARABCONX:]”.

You can download it by clicking here.

Dragon Memory NG is a game developed by Santiago Radeff Leria in 2011. HunoPPC has now ported it to AmigaOS 4.1. You can download it from his website here:

http://hunoppc.amiga-projects.net/content/dragon-memory-ng-full-version

amiga-news.de reports that Juha Niemimaki a.k.a. Capehill is working on the new SDL 3.2.0. A release candidate is available. More information can be found here.

https://www.amiga-news.de/en/news/AN-2025-01-00111-EN.html

Version 33.9 of AmiArcadia for AmigaOS 4, a Signetics-based machines emulator, has been released by James Jacobs.

According to the documentation, AmiArcadia supports the following systems:

• Emerson Arcadia 2001 console family (Bandai, Emerson, Grandstand, Intervision, Leisure-Vision, Leonardo, MPT-03, Ormatu, Palladium, Poppy, Robdajet, Tele-Fever, Tempest, Tryom, Tunix, etc.) (c. 1982);
• Interton VC 4000 console family (Acetronic, Cabel, Fountain, Hanimex, Interton, Prinztronic, Radofin, Rowtron, Soundic, Voltmace, Waddingtons, etc.) (c. 1978);
• Elektor TV Games Computer (1979);
• PIPBUG- and BINBUG-based machines (EA 77up2, EA 78up5, Signetics Adaptable Board Computer, Eurocard 2650, etc.) (1977-1978);
• Signetics Instructor 50 trainer (1978);
• Signetics TWIN minicomputer (1976);
• Central Data 2650 computer (1977);
• PHUNSY computer (c. 1980);
• Ravensburger Selbstbaucomputer aka 2650 Minimal Computer trainer (1984);
• Hofacker MIKIT 2650 trainer (1978);
• Astro Wars, Galaxia, Laser Battle and Lazarian coin-ops by Zaccaria (1979-1981);
• Malzak 1 and 2 coin-ops by Kitronix (c. 1981);
• AY-3-8500/8550/8600-based Pong systems (Coleco Telstar Galaxy, Sheen TVG-201, etc.) (1976-1977);
• VTech Type-right machine (1985)

It is packed with features, far too many to list here. Examples include ReAction GUI, load/save snapshots, and windowed and fullscreen modes. Other features are CPU tracing, trainer, and drag and drop support. Additionally, it offers graphics scaling, PAL/NTSC modes, and frame skipping, among many other features!

Misc

Hyperion Entertainment has posted the following news on their website:

New Ownership of Hyperion Entertainment CVBA – New Director Appointed

Brussels – January 21, 2025

At a general assembly held on December 18, 2024, organized and convened by the temporary administrator, the shareholders of Hyperion Entertainment CVBA appointed Timothy De Groote as the company’s new director.

The general assembly also instructed the new directors to prioritize consolidating the company’s financial situation and restarting development of AmigaOS.

The general assembly followed the bankruptcy of Hyperion Entertainment’s largest shareholder, Ben Hermans BV, which, under Belgian law, resulted in the annulment of its shares.

https://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/

They also state that they are back on social media platforms:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HyperionEntertainment
BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/hyperionentertain.bsky.social
Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/@CreatorsOfAmigaOS

Amiga WARP is back one again with a brand new calendar, this time for the year 2025. Please check it out on their website by clicking here.

https://www.amigawarp.org/

The Norwegian musician Helge Kvalheim is back with a new song called Pray for LA, which was created on an AmigaOne X5000.

Maijestro, who runs the Amiga Retro Channel on YouTube, has uploaded several videos recently. One of these shows Dosbox in action on the AmigaOne X5000:

The Polish Amiga user Muf has released a new video about the game from Entwickler-X, Super Star Blast. You can watch it below:

Ghettofinger Gamer shows his new A1222+ in a recently released YouTube video.

Until next time

You’ve now reached the end of this month’s news summary.

Thanks to all readers and supporters out there for visiting my blog and for reading the AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup! It is much appreciated! 🙂

I wish you all a great day and a good weekend!

Best regards,

Puni/Void a.k.a AmigaOldSkooler