Episode 11 - What the #?$% is happening with the Amiga???

So wh all got excited with our shiny new AmigaOS 3.1.4 available from Hyperion - and then it is taken off of their website and some rumblings about a lawsuit or legal action start surfacing. Come on guys, this is so 1999! Cut it out and grow up! Pull up your big boy pants and get along!

In a nutshell, if you are a company that owns some rights to the AmigaOS and you want to make a few bucks off of it, great. Do that by actually making a product that we Amiga fans want to purchase. Don't do it by trying to file lawsuits against others who own some rights trying to do  a good thing for the community,

Nobody is going to get filthy rich off the 68K Amiga line and the software for it. That will never, ever happen. But some people can make a living off of supporting it. so take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

Please watch my rant on YouTube Here.

Or download the MPEG1 of my rant here.

Episode 10 - Upgrading AmigaOS 3.9 to AmigaOS 3.1.4

Funky numbering system aside, AmigaOS 3.1.4 is really an upgrade to AmigaOS 3.9 - 3.9 provided a lot of missing pieces 17 years ago for for sure, and provided so great enhanced utilities for playing sounds and watching videos. I also have to admit that the "Reaction" enhancements to the AmigaOS were pretty nice. 

I recently decided to upgrade my Warp Engine to an '060 card. I already own the '040 > '060 adapter, and it works great on my A3640 card, but my Warp Engine was lacking the socket to handle the upgrade, so I am shipping it off to a friend from the Commodore Amiga Facebook group for an upgrade. In the meantime I have to go back to plain vanilla IDE on my Amiga with my upgraded A3640 card. Why not do tackle the "Upgrade" from AmigaOS3.9 to AmigaOS 3.1.4 while I am at it!

I certainly ran into a few issues, which I cover in the video, but everything worked out just fine in the end. I am happy that I could keep the 3.9 enhancements like the great text editor and the reaction interface while still experiencing the power and performance of AmigaOS 3.1.4

Take a look at the YouTube Video here.

Download the MPEG1 to your real Amiga here.

Here are some helpful links mentioned in the video.


Links mentioned in this video include: Rapidroad USB Drivers: http://wiki.icomp.de/wiki/RapidRoad Hyperion Entertainment Amiga OS 3.1.4 Purchase site: http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com... AmigaOS 3,9 to 3.1.4 Upgrade Script: http://aminet.net/package/misc/os/Upd...

Episode 9 - Amiga on the Internet

Why on earth would we put our 25+ year old Amiga's on the Internet? Well... because we can! THis week I cover a few ways to get your Amiga's online, what software we can use to do it, and some of the places you can go once you are online.

I will be the first to admit that it is not a pleasant browsing experience, but it is great for grabbing files off of Aminet and for exchanging files with your PC or Mac.

You can view the episode on YouTube Here.

You can download an MPEG1 version here for viewing on your real Amiga.

Helpful links:

Roadshow TCP/IP Stack http://roadshow.apc-tcp.de/index-en.php AMISSL Releases - You can get 1.1, 2.2 and 3.6 here, as well as 4.2 - Remember, iBrowse does not really support 4.2, so load 3.6 first. https://github.com/jens-maus/amissl/r... iBrowse Web Browser (Demo) https://www.ibrowse-dev.net/download.php

Episode 8 - Amiga OS 3.1.4 and Best Workbench

In this weeks episode, I cover some of the details behind the newly released Amiga OS 3.1.4 - what enhancements it brings and how to install it on your real Amiga.
I have been an Amiga OS 3.9 user since it came out in 2002, and I have been fairly happy with the performance and capability of that OS, but all work really stopped on it after that. It was a breath of fresh air to see that Hyperion picked up the torch and started supporting the 3.1.X operating system again.
Some of the guys who were involved in the update also released "Best Workbench", whichs adds some additional enhancements and features to AmigaOS 3.1.4 or even your basic AmigaOS 3.1 installation.
I had some issues with the new OS seeing my hard drive, but I was able to resolve most of them my choosing "Direct SCSI" and removing long file name support from my drives. (I generally use the SCSI on my Warp Engine)

You can view the YouTube video here.

You can download the MPEG1 version here for viewing on your Amiga.

Episode 5 - the 15 Khz Conundrum

Most of us Amigan's have had to deal with this issue - How to display our Amiga's video signal on a display available today?

There are a lot of great solutions including Flicker-Fixers for our A1200, Home-Made converters, SCART to HDMI thingies (I am from the USA... What on Earth is a Scart? Some kind of British biscuit?)

Well, the good news is that there are still a few monitors available today that support the 15 Khz videos of our beloved retro machines! And I have one and demo it for you. And, as an added bonus, the link I have up on my video is wrong... I watched and re-watched the video so many times, and did not catch that I missed a letter until AFTER it was up on Youtube... Oh well...

Here is the real link for the 15 Khz Monitors

http://15khz.wikidot.com

Episode 5 - The 15 Khz Conundrum (YouTube)

Episode 5 - The 15 Khz Conundrum (MPEG1)

Episode 5 - The 15 Khz Conundrum (HAM6 - Caution, large file)

Episode 5 - The 15 Khz Conundrum (HAM8)

Episode 4 - Rapid Road USB Adapter Review

This weeks episode is broken into two parts just because there was so much to talk about!

I have been using a Thylacine Zorro2 USB adapter for years, but it was a bit on the slow side. I could only get about 380 Kbs data transfer with flash drives. No problem for 95% of the things I was using it for, as Amiga files are fairly small. But when  I started this video cast, and I had to test 400MB files on my A4000, the data transfer was too slow.

I already owned an Individual Computers X-Surf 100 Zorro3 card, so a Rapid Road USB Adapter from Individual Computes was a logical step. Jumping up from 380 Kbs to 5 or 6 Mbs is worth every penny! Check out the videos on YouTube at the links below, or you can download the MPEG1 file right to your Amiga and play it back on RiVA!

Episode 4, Part 1 (YouTube)

Episode 4, Part 2 (YouTube)

Episode 4, Part 1 (MPEG1)

Episode 4, Part 2 (MPEG)

Episode 4, Part 1 (HAM6)

Epsidoe 4, Part 2 (HAM6)

Episode 3 - Taking Stock

Thanks for checking out Episode 3. This week I am showing off my Amiga collection. I currently have eight Amiga's, but only six are in working condition and two are used on a weekly basis.

I have plans for my extra towerized A4000 - I want to set it up with the Video Toaster 4000 and the Time Base Correctors I have. But...Then I have no clue what I will do with it.

My A3000 Tower will eventually get a nice BIGRAM 256 MB Zorro3 board installed, and I will upgrade it to OS 3.9, install the One Stop Music Shop card and my Thylacine USB card. That should make a nice little setup. If I can get another A3640 card functional, I will install it in there too.

The A2000 will be a fun one since it has so many ZORRO slots. It will get the Bridgeboard and the toaster 2000 installed. I know there is an option to use an ISA Networking card in conjunction with Bridgeboard to get this Amiga online, so I will play with that.

The A500 will probably get Vampired - unless we hear something soon about the V4 that works in an A1200! I honestly don't need the A500 for anything as there are only so many hours in the day.

The big project will be the A2200 board - I need to get it booting again. I remember last time I had it functioning it did not seem to recognize the IDE ports on the board. I am concerned that the ROMS are incorrect. Maybe they are A3000 ROM's with no IDE support.

Thanks again for following my site and my channel! I appreciate it!

YouTube Link for Episode 3

Episode 3 MPEG1 for playback with RiVA on your Amiga

HAM6 version of Episode 3

HAM8 version of Episode 3