Well another month or two gone and some great things happening in the Amiga scene! We have had the TF1260 and the TF1230 released to full open source, the Vampire team hasent let us down and continued on the path of forgetting it base of users with previous hardware and released the first series of the V4 based cards for the 68000 based machine called Firebird and Amiwest 2021 has come and gone. Sadly no new real news on the Amiga-NG front again this year though.
I am busy with real work in my full time job as usual and it has continued to take me away from doing what I love for all of you out there. I wish I had two of me so I could keep up and offer more service. Those of you that have stuck with me and have had the patience to wait me out, thank you! It means a lot reading the emails and seeing how appreciated I am and being told its worth waiting for me to get your boards and other things completed at my free time.
If I can do anything for you or add to what I do here, please reach out! I love finding new and interesting things to do and add to this site and the other places you can find me!
I am happy to announce that Acill Classics now has an IRC server that is mirrored over to the Discord Chat for those that prefer IRC! Head on over to irc.amigaworld.net and join #AcillClassics If you need to get into the Discord chat you can so so using this invite https://discord.gg/3TVMdWBkp4
I wish I could say I was able to attend this year, but sadly y duty calls and I will be out of town on a work trip. It seems this happens nearly every year! Maybe I need to talk to my boss and see if he is n Atari fann?
Here is the info on the show below an the link to learn more! You can bet I will be online for it though! Visit the official site here: http://Www.amiwest.net
AmiWest 2021, the 24th AmiWest show celebrating the 36th year of the Amiga era and over two decades of AmiWest, and related events: October 16th & October 17th, 2021, at the Holiday Inn Express Cal Expo, 2224 Auburn Blvd., Sacramento, California 95821, USA.
This A3000 was sent it by the owner requesting it get transplanted to a brand new Re3000 board. Everything here on the new blue board is all new except the custom chipset and the flicker fixer RAM. Some nice enhancements include simm modules and smd components.
“Apollo Team strives for long-term consistency, stability and harmony. Our single mission always was and always will be to revive the Amiga. Today Apollo Team announces the next level in our roadmap with the introduction of a future proof line-up of Amiga accelerator cards based on the powerful and robust V4 architecture. Part of this new and exciting phase is a withdrawal of our high respected team member Igor and the reunion of the talented Thomas Hirsch (Mr. NATAMI) in our team.”
A little Apollo history
Nearly six years have passed since we proudly shipped our first Apollo Vampire board. From that moment on our hardware portfolio has greatly evolved and the complete Apollo Team has worked with unlimited passion to bring up all the cards to the level of today. This progress has only been possible with the help of all our loyal and patient customers helping us with reporting bugs and improving the user experience. In the year 2014 the Apollo Team created the compact V2-V600 together with Igor responsible for layout/production of the PCB and the rest of the Team in charge of the 68080 core, AMMX/SAGA chipsets, bus controller and drivers. In 2015 in the same constellation the now world famous V2-V500 was released which after several revisions over time in 2018 reached its final 2.3 version. In 2019 the revolutionary Vampire Standalone V4 was introduced, designed by Gunnar and Chris and manufactured by Apollo Computer. Finally in 2019 Igor started his production of the V1200 accelerator for Amiga 1200. With that accelerator finally the 68080 AMMX Core become accessible to 1200 users. Since the beginning of this amazing journey all the Apollo products have generated significant interest from Amiga fans new and old, which makes us really happy and proud!
Igor has handled the production of the V2 accelerator cards since the beginning. He did the PCB design and worked closely together with the Apollo Team through many steps and improvements while producing those cards. The Apollo Core used in the FPGA for the Vampire Cards, designed by Gunnar, gave the V2 accelerators an unmatched performance. It was the combination of Igor’s PCB, Gunnar’s core, and the chipsets and software developed by the incredible and dedicated Apollo Team members that have made these cards a reality.
Initial accelerator card production was done solely by Igor, who produced boards by hand. The volume of production and sales was small, and so this volume was manageable. However during the last couple of years Igor has been unable to meet demand for the accelerator cards and this has resulted in a high-stress high-workload, which has taken a personal toll. Igor has now withdrawn himself from active participation in Apollo Team in recent weeks and we want to thank him deeply for his dedication and wish him all the best for the future. With Igor’s withdrawal, Apollo-Team has to change the roadmap for the recently announced Raptor accelerator, which was in joint development with Igor.
V2 End of Sale The Vampire V2 line comes out of the Apollo Team product catalog. The C3 FPGA and corresponding components on the V2 family are overdue for quite some time now. Igor is currently selling his remaining PCB and FPGA stock. He will still assume warranties for the cards he sold. There are significant amounts of backorders remaining for V2-500 and V2-1200. We fully understand that many of you have been waiting for an exceedingly long time on getting your hands on these cards. So the Apollo Team is releasing the next-generation V4-based accelerator cards produced at scale in Germany to fulfill these orders. We want to say thank you for your patience, and we can now share details of these exciting new cards. With honors to the Apollo V2 family now going end of sale we introduce our new family of accelerators based on the highly successful V4 Stand Alone computer, unifying the hardware architectures of the established premium 68k Amiga-compatible computer and accelerator cards.
V4 Family Introduction Apollo Team proudly introduces the new V4-based Apollo FireBird (A-500/A1000/A2000) and IceDrake (A1200) with unique values: Based on the proven powerful V4 architecture High Quality German production, software and support High Volume production; we will clear the all waiting lists very quick! All components are future-proof and available High-performance 512MB DDR3 memory Additional features: 16bit Audio 2x IDE port for CF and CD-ROM 100 MBit Ethernet USB Joypad support C5 FPGA (V4) with twice the capacity of the C3 (V2)
Apollo Team is fully committed to support a highly requested feature for these new accelerator cards: output of the native Amiga screen modes over DIGITAL-VIDEO output. This will require substantial R&D and we will update you with progress when we have more details to share.
While we can disclose that the Apollo Team is already testing operational prototypes of the next-generation accelerators, the reality is that there is still development work to be done before they are ready for large scale commercial production. Fortunately, we can build on the high-quality production line already in place for the V4 cards in Germany, and thus guarantee rapid upscaling of manufacture when production gets underway in Q4 2021/Q1 2022. The Apollo FireBird will be available first, followed closely by Apollo IceDrake .
We wish to thank every one of our customers that have waited patiently for so long! Thank you for your dedication. We will revive Amiga together!
On behalf of the whole Apollo – Team, Gunnar & Miri
I’ve been getting a lot of inquiry about getting boards recapped lately. I am accepting boards in for recaps as long as you are understanding of the time it may take to have them returned. Currently I have no waiting list, but I will be away from my shop for awhile. This doesn’t mean you can’t send something in now. It would arrive safe and be put into the work queue once it arrives. Someone will be here to receive it. I’m expected to be back July 28th. Boards received between now and then are first in line and would be returned about a week to two weeks later.
I am also looking for some help with the web site. If you are good with WordPress and want to help out, please get in touch! I’d like to integrate a simple store and do some cleanup of the way it’s currently looking. I plan to start selling projects here many ask for and want to keep an inventory of requested things many of you use. I’m also looking to do service like ROM burning, CF cards and other such things.
Hyperion Entertainment CVBA is very pleased to announce the immediate availability of AmigaOS 3.2 for 68K based Amigas.
AmigaOS 3.2 comes packed with well over 100 new features, dozens of updates that cover nearly all AmigaOS components and a battery of bugfixes that will undoubtedly solidify the user experience.
AmigaOS 3.2 is the result of more than 2 years of intense and relentless work from a team of over sixty people who have contributed to produce a new milestone in AmigaOS history.
Hyperion Entertainment CVBA has no words to express its gratitude to this talented and resilient team for its impressive work ethic.
The most comprehensive version of AmigaOS 3.2 is available now on CD-ROM and contains all the disks and AmigaOS Kickstart ROM sets for all Amiga machines ever produced allowing users to install AmigaOS 3.2 on multiple different types of Amigas at once.
Digital (machine type specific) downloadable versions will follow.
AmigaOS 3.2 FEATURE LIST SUMMARY
ReAction GUI toolkit integration
Built-in ADF (Amiga disk file image) management
Integrated Help subsystem
Updated Data Type system
Workbench and other user interface improvements
Improved Tools, Utilities and System applications
Enhanced Shell behavior
New and reworked command set
Touched up Preferences
Polished MultiView
Revamped Commodities
Expanded BootMenu
Inclusion and refinement of the AmigaOS 3.1.4 feature set
Flexible delivery media
Many remarkable additions
1. REACTION GUI TOOLKIT INTEGRATION
The incorporation of the ReAction GUI Toolkit not only opens up a plethora of existing applications for AmigaOS 3.2 users, it also ensures much easier portability and cross-development between different versions of AmigaOS
No additional installation required, it just works, even on low-end 68000 systems
A new multi-file text editor called “TextEdit” is included as a show-case
ReAction has its own Preferences editor which lets you set backfilled patterns for ReAction based programs
Fresh and bug fixed Classes backport from AmigaOS 4.x with many exclusive characteristics and brushed up aesthetics
2.BUILT-IN ADF (AMIGA DISK FILE IMAGE) MANAGEMENT
DAControl & trackfile.device provide unprecedented functionality, as they enable users to create, mount, insert and eject ADF files
ADF images are handled just like any physical floppy disk
On “Workbench” you can mount an ADF image by double-clicking on it
ADF handling can be accomplished via Shell through the use of an extensive set of available options
Accessing such mounted ADF disk image files is fast and requires very little memory
Multiple ADF disk images can be mounted at the same time
A shared cache system is available in order to speed up ADF operations
3.INTEGRATED HELP SUBSYSTEM
A complete “Reference Manual” covers all commands and most complex topics
An AmigaGuide based central “Help hub” is available by simply pressing the HELP key
The Help database can be quickly queried from the Shell/CLI
Preferences and many other programs contain Help menu items
In the WBStartup folder, MenuTools adds the “Help” menu item to the “Tools” menu but can be customized to add other Tools as well
4.UPDATED DATA TYPE SYSTEM
New AIFF uncompressed audio data type
New GIF image data type
New WAV audio data type
New JPEG picture data type
New PNG multi-platform image data type
New BMP data type for Windows/OS2 bitmap images
New Icon.datatype enables use of “.info” files as images
New ACBM picture data type (used in AmigaBASIC & SpectraPaint)
The AmigaGuide data type can now display inline images
Text data type with search functionality
Faster and more configurable CDXL and ANIM data types
Sound.datatype manages bit rate samples of 8, 16, 24 and 32 bit
Picture.datatype is now stunningly fast even on low-end 68000 processors
5. AMIGAOS WORKBENCH AND OTHER USER INTERFACE IMPROVEMENTS
Resize windows from any border
Window iconification
Workbench title bar customization
Maximize a window by holding down the SHIFT key and clicking on the window zoom gadget
The [ESC] key quits easy requesters
Scalable “GadTools” user interface adapting to different font sizes
Workbench menu “Open volume”
Menu Window -> Sort Order (Forward or Reverse)
Off-Screen windows is a built-in default that is now configurable
Scrollers and sliders now feature 3D-style embossed knobs and a darker container background
C:Assign incorporated DENIED and DISMOUNT switches
C:Type supports AUTO, TEXTONLY, WIDTH and BUFFER options
C:Reboot restarts your Amiga but waits for any ongoing write operations to prevent validation issues
C:Group and C:Owner commands added for networked environments
C:MD5Sum calculates and compares checksums of files and volumes
C:MountInfo command helps in the creation of MountLists
C:Break and C:ChangeTaskPri NAME handle wildcards options
C:DefIcons identifies files and applies a default icon to them
C:AssignWedge allows users to create or deny an assign on the fly
C:LoadMonDrvs simplifies and quickly starts monitor drivers.
9.TOUCHED UP PREFERENCE EDITORS
Custom printer output device and unit number
WBPattern has layout options for Backdrops, Screens and Windows which include both color and dithering
PointerPrefs has been overhauled to support 40 different pointer types
Font Preferences comes with Shadow and Outline font options
IControl received a massive makeover which introduced new functionality such as Window and screen border aspect ratios customization
10.POLISHED MULTIVIEW
A new “Edit/Paste” menu item opens the contents of clipboard unit 0 (thus complementing “Edit/Copy”)
The “About” window now reports the width, height and depth of the currently displayed picture or animation
The names of ARexx scripts for user menus can now be up to 40 characters long and may contain “spaces”
Pressing the [Shift] key while the “Save as…” menu item is selected, forces MultiView to save the displayed document in IFF format
Now lists pattern matching in its ASL requester that, if removed, can also display icons (useful in conjunction with the new icon.datatype)
11.REVAMPED COMMODITIES
“RAWBInfo” is an improved replacement of the icon information tool
“AsyncWB” is an AmigaOS Workbench enhancement Commodity with divers functionality
“AutoPoint” KEEPSTRINGS prevents this Commodity from automatically stealing focus from a window with an active string gadget
“ClickToFront” TOBACK_QUALIFIER selects a qualifier for sending windows back (with a single click)
“ClickToFront” no longer brings Workbench windows to the front when double-clicking on an icon
“NumericPad” allows numeric pad keys to be remapped to the standard keyboard
The “AutoArrangeIcons” Commodity-like set of scripts automates the ordering and snapshot of icons in the active window
12.EXPANDED BOOTMENU
An option to trace the Startup-sequence line by line is now available
The user can disable ROM Module updates by clicking on a gadget
The hardware expansion screen displays expansion board addresses and sizes
A new option to redirect serial port output to a file is available with the “Enable System Log” option
The “Failsafe” boot gadget starts the Amiga in a robust and safe environment to carry out maintenance and troubleshooting tasks
More keyboard shortcuts for the majority of options
Displays AmigaOS Kickstart version numbers
13.INCLUSION AND REFINEMENT OF THE AMIGAOS 3.1.4 FEATURE SET
Support for storage media bigger than 4 GB
Modernized AmigaOS Workbench
DiskDoctor for disk diagnostic and salvage operations
Native support for pipes, softlinks, hardlinks and long filenames
CrossDOS supporting FAT 32 and long filenames
CD-ROM file system that supports Rockridge and Joliet extensions as well as UDF and now also Macintosh HFS
Both FFS (FastFileSystem) and the CD-ROM file system are now smarter, faster, and multi-threaded
Fully reworked and bug-fixed printer drivers
Built-in GlowIcons support as an installable option
More than 2100 icons in GlowIcon style included on the AmigaOS 3.2 CD-ROM
14.FLEXIBLE DELIVERY MEDIA
The distribution AmigaOS 3.2 CD-ROM contains ADF disk images that can be transferred to physical floppy disks or Gotek-type drives
All Modules disks perform as emergency boot disks too
The DiskDoctor disk can help users to quickly get back on their feet when facing disk failures
The AmigaOS 3.2 CD-ROM content can be copied “as is” to an Amiga formatted hard drive and booted right away for installation thanks to the “Amiga Preinstallation Environment” (AmigaPE)
All Amiga model disks and AmigaOS Kickstart ROM set images are available on the AmigaOS 3.2 CD-ROM
Attractive printable labels are available for all your favorite AmigaOS 3.2 storage media variants (AmigaOS 3.2 CD-ROM version only)
Experimental CD-ROM-based Amiga CDTV and Amiga CD32 support
15.MANY REMARKABLE ADDITIONS
Wheel mouse support for scrolling on AmigaOS Workbench windows
IPrefs stacks multiple changes and refreshes the screen only once
IPrefs points out names of blocking windows when refreshing
No more DF0:???? icons as disk.resource now does proper checking
Increased ROM Modules flexibility by loading more modules from disk without requiring an additional reboot for them
Just as a reminder to those looking to get information on services that I’m away in a work assignment. I should return the 2nd week of may some time on or about May 8th. Thanks for understanding. I have limited to no internet most times where I am as well.
I got a short notice work assignment and am heading out on a work trip Saturday April 17th through May 8th. I will not be able to reply to many if any work requests during this time. If you have something in and I haven’t got it back I will have to take care of it once I get back home. I apologize for the inconvenience of this, but duty calls.
It’s time to share a cool project that’s NOT Amiga related and goes in tune with the “Consoles” in the name here! This is a fantastic recreation of the original 1985 Nintendo Entertainment System Top Loader system! Its open source and very cool! I would love to see more like that and plan to look into doing some of these myself.
The design is as true to the original board as possible, with subtle changes where needed to compensate for outdated/unsourcable parts, as well as some improvements. (Expansion audio enabled, and other minor changes)
Since this project is open-source you may do as you like with it, whether that is to make boards for personal use, sell replacement NES boards, or to use the provided info for further custom PCB work/designs.
Acill Classics 