AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup – May 2025

Hi,

Welcome to the AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup covering May 2025! Thanks for visiting my blog, and hope you’ll enjoy the read.

At the time of writing it is now June 1st and a new month lies ahead of us. Who knows what it will bring to the world of the Amiga? Will we see development starting on bringing AmigaOS 4 to the Mirari board?

Time will show.

As of now, MorphOS is now booting and working to some degree on it. Whenever I visit Discord or forums, it looks like there are updates on their progress porting it.

I’m very impressed by the work of the Mirari team, and also the MorphOS group, and look forward to following their work in the coming months. It will be very interesting to see what will happen in the AmigaOS 4 camp when boards are available to their developers.

With that said, let us now move on to the news from May. 🙂

Software News

AmigaGPT is a versatile ChatGPT client for AmigaOS 3.x, 4.1, and MorphOS. It is being developed by Cameron Armstrong a.k.a. Nightfox. This powerful tool brings the capabilities of OpenAI’s GPT to your Amiga system, enabling text generation, question-answering, and creative exploration. AmigaGPT can also generate stunning images using DALL-E and includes support for speech output, making it easier than ever to interact with AI on your Amiga. Designed to integrate seamlessly with your system, AmigaGPT delivers modern AI technology while embracing the timeless Amiga experience. Version 2.6.0 is now available for download from OS4Depot.

PolarPaint is an experimental paint program made in Hollywood by Anbjørn Myren. Version 1.057 was uploaded to OS4Depot and became available on May 7th. If you are interested in checking it out, please click here. Another version called PolarPaint Small can be downloaded via this link. A list of changes can be found on OS4Depot.

Video Slot Machine is a game developed by Juan Carlos Herran Martin. An interesting addition is that you can customize the slot machine with your videos and watch them when you earn money from your spins. The latest version, 1.20, includes new background graphics and melodies, bug fixes, and Spanish language support.

Fractal Nova is a real-time Mandelbrot / Julia fractal calculated by the GPU requiring the Warp3D Nova library version 54. It is being developed by Juha Niemimaki and version 1.1 is now available on OS4Depot.

An update to Report+, a ReAction-based utility with nine functions, has been released by James Jacobs. It was made available on OS4Depot on May 19th. This tool can help you with generating Aminet- and OS4Depot-style readme files, performing batch processing on icons, and much more. Recent changes since 8.65 include miscellaneous improvements and bug fixes. More detailed information can be found on OS4Depot.

Kjetil Hvalstrand has been working on improving the Classic Amiga emulation package E-UAE. Version 1.1.1 has been released and includes several improvements:

• Fixed two issues with bdsocket.library
• Fixed issue with stretching in 16-bit AGA screens
• Created accelerator.library

Download is available here.

Maijestro of the Amiga Retro Channel on YouTube gave this one a run:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaCmVbtItOI

RdrPrep is a program that prepares an ASCII file for submission to a Hercules virtual card reader. It reads the input file, and provides a mechanism to include other (ASCII or EBCDIC) files. It is being developed by James M. Morrison.

TMSColor is a converter from BMP to TMS9928 format developed by Oscar Toledo G. Version 3.1 is now available on OS4depot.

Steffen Häuser a.k.a. MagicSN is working hard on bringing RetroArch, a modular emulation system that can emulate a wide range of systems, to AmigaOS 4. On OS4Depot you can now find cores for the soon-to-be-released emulation package.

There you’ll find the following cores:

• PicoDrive
• GenesisPlus GX
• SNES9x 2010
• MAME 2003

The Amiga Retro Channel follows the development close and has recently published a video of the beta version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJY5gWPYAtQ

On May 29th, DRIDI released version 7.342Final of the Arabic Console Device, which contains a bug fix. It can be downloaded from OS4Depot.

Version 2.5.2 of the WHD-Load front-end iGame was released in May. The AmigaOS 4 port is maintained by George Sokianos a.k.a. Walkero. This is a front-end application for launching WHDLoad games and demos. Changes are as follows:

Fixed

• Fixed the execution of whdload that broke on v2.5.1 for those that use an old icon library

iGame 2.5.1 – [2025-05-29]

Added

• Added a file requester in the Properties window, which can be used to set a different WHDLoad slave file for an item. This is useful when a game/demo changed place on the hard disk. (#174)
• Based on the selected file by the new field, the tooltypes text is updated, enabled/disabled, based if the selected file is a WHDLoad slave one.

Changed

• Moved the Properties window code to its own files
• Added the “Open game folder” menu in the MorphOS version, that was missing
• Disabled the gamepad usage on MorphOS because it was reported giving problems while playing a game

Fixed

• Fixed starting WHDLoad games in MorphOS using WHDLoadopener (#253)

iGame 2.5.0 – [2025-05-12]

Added

• Added a new “Information” window that includes the “Released date”, the “Released by”, the “Chipset”, the links to external websites and most of the fields from the properties window.
• Added the option to use repositories based on assigns (fixes #240)

Changed

• The “Properties” window has only the tooltypes of the selected item available to change.

Fixed

• Fixed a potential crash on exit, happening mostly on AmigaOS 3.1 systems (fixes #239)

BreakHack is a small, roguelike game. It was developed by Linus Probert. You can find it for various platforms on Steam. This game was ported to AmigaOS 4 by George Sokianos, also known as Walkero. The new version contains the following changes:

[4.2.1r1] – 2025-05-31

Changed

• Updated to the latest upstream code and now it uses SDL3

FrozenAt is a utility developed by Kjetil Hvalstrand. It is a small command line tool to find out where a program is hanging. Version 1.1 is now available for download.

Michael Trebilcock has uploaded a vast amount of updates to libraries and more to OS4Depot! It is a huge list, so I recommend you visit there and have a look. Here is the link.

Version 34.2 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!

Here is a summary of the changes since the last version:

Changes since V34.31:
Summary:

• TWIN, PHUNSY, Selbstbaucomputer: added “Settings|Input|Queue
  keystrokes?” toggle.
• Miscellaneous improvements and bug fixes.

Please click here to be taken to the download page.

Amiga-news.de reports that that “The Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) multimedia library is now available for AmigaOS 4 in versions 2.32.6 and 3.2.14.” More information is available on their website here.

Miscellaneous News

A new issue of Amiga Future has been released! This time it is number 174.

More information is available here. You can order the magazine from your favorite Amiga shops or directly from the publisher.

Trixie of the Rear Window blog has published a new post. It looks at the SATA PCI card from Rabbit Hole Computing.

YouTube

The Norwegian musician Helge Kvalheim has returned with two new songs for us to enjoy! He creates his music on an AmigaOne X5000.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy6i10WWl3g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGQZvQGPWPM

A video from CLASS 2025 features Robert Bernardo. He is the organizer of the show and leader of the Fresno Commodore User Group and the Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network. The video shows AmigaOS 4 demos running on an AmigaOne 1222+.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_rvKvziBB8

He also did a presentation of the A1222+:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeL2OKtxFLw

Ghettofinger Gaming is back again and this time with a new unboxing video! From Relec in Switzerland comes his second A1222+ in form of The Red One. I must say that this computer looks very, very nice. 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAe5K1K4Qwg

He also made a video showing his two systems:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QMlamwfkkE

Anouk33 has created a video showing a comparison of AmigaOS 4.1 and MorphOS 3.19 on a Pegasos 2 in relation to Petunia and Trance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L-bYMQvQnI

AmigaWave episode 393 includes a comparison between AmigaOS 4.1 and MorphOS. It is in Spanish.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdtLk3bYk-A

TheLostC is back with a new video, this time about updating UBoot on his Sam460cr.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny0QfSqkgWY

Until next time

You’ve now reached the end of the AmigaOS 4 Monthly Roundup for May 2025.

Thanks as always to all readers and supporters out there. Thanks for visiting my blog and see you in the next roundup! 🙂

Best regards,

Puni

#239 #240 #Amiga #AmigaNews #AmigaOne #AmigaOS4 #PowerPC #PPC

A new little preview video of the Mirari PowerPC board demonstrating the forthcoming new MorphOS 3.20 Beta:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9BTMQNfKXY

#Amiga #MorphOS #AmigaOS4 #PowerPC #Mirari

OpenPOWER Foundation – Open-Source / Open Hardware PowerPC CPU ISA

https://openpowerfoundation.org/

#HackerNews #OpenPOWER #OpenSource #OpenHardware #PowerPC #CPU #ISA #Technology

A week ago (https://mastodon.social/@GamesMissed/114530343518610810), I failed to resist the temptation to bring home a lovely Power Macintosh G4 tower. Today, with the rains over and some quiet time, I finally took it back out of its box to give the insides a better inspection and blow out the dust bunnies.

(My brain is rebelling against tagging this with "Retrocomputing." The G3 desktop from my relative didn't have that effect, but this absolutely does. Interesting.)

#Macintosh #PowerPC

@justine @gumnos

It's still so wild to me that almost all modern CPUs have hardware virtualization baked-in.

As you well know, home CPUs (especially Intel ones) were not very capable years ago. I recall specifically that VMWare was viewed as something of a miracle, as Intel CPUs weren't even supposed to be capable of real emulation/virtualization. That's something that #PowerPC excelled at.

Now almost every dinky netbook is basically a mainframe. It's amazing, especially when we are smart enough not to give the likes of microsoft even a second of time on our machines! XD

(Life's too short for bloated and user-hostile software!)

Frank Mariak got our operating system #MorphOS running on #Mirari T1042 board in no time. My home is so full of #PowerPC gear already I doubt I'll get one of these boards.

Very exiting: https://vivapowerpc.eu/index.php?page=blog
#powerpc

Update:
Project homepage: https://mirari.vitasys.nl/

#ppc #mirari

Just stumbled upon this project called Mirari. Their goal is to design a low cost, #opensource PowerPC motherboard capable of running AmigaOS4, MorphOS and Linux. They already seem to be pretty far in. Cool.

https://mirari.vitasys.nl

#amiga #powerpc #ppc #morphos

In what is practically blinding speed for me, I have already started poking at the Power Macintosh G3 desktop that was delivered by relatives over Mother's Day weekend (https://mastodon.social/@GamesMissed/114492147791660882).

It's this lovely example of beige right here. Note the correct Apple case badge in the upper right corner of the front bezel (even my kids, who were born well into this century, feel strongly about this).

#Retrocomputing #PowerPC #Apple

Projekt Mirari má web (a další novinky)
#Amiga #PowerPC
https://alt-f4.cz/projekt-mirari-ma-web-a-dalsi-novinky

CellBasics - nový nativní tabulkový editor pro MorphOS
#MorphOS #Amiga #PowerPC
https://alt-f4.cz/cellbasics-novy-nativni-tabulkovy-editor-pro-morphos

Relatives who showed up today delivered unannounced devices!

This #PowerMacintosh G3 desktop looks, from the outside, to be in good shape. It even came with a keyboard and two mice, and the "getting started" box. No idea where the optical drive went, though.

Update: there's a DVD drive! It's just pitch black and recessed far back into the case.

I'm not going to even connect a power lead until I open it up and check the motherboard. Fingers crossed.

#Retrocomputing #Macintosh #PowerPC

Mirari - nová uATX deska s PowerPC
#PowerPC #Amiga #AmigaOS #MorphOS
https://alt-f4.cz/mirari-nova-uatx-deska-s-powerpc

Mirari - ein neues PowerPC basierendes micro-ATX Mainboard in Entwicklung - gedacht für AmigaOS 4 und MorphOS.

https://mirari.vitasys.nl/

#commodore #amiga #amigaworld #amigaos4 #morphos #powerpc #power #nxp #hardware

Trying to install an old Ubuntu PPC I found lying around on my Genesi ODW PowerPC CHRP machine. It has.. not gone well. Not only is it looking for a ramdisk that doesn't actually exist at that location on the disc, but the version of yaboot included pukes on its own config file.

Shortly after this, the DVD-ROM drive died. #powerpc #ubuntu #retrocomputing

@brauner

John Paul Adrian Glaubitz is working on #debian ports on #SPARC64, #PowerPC, #PowerPC64...

You can help him with keeping HFS, with testing last images on https://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/ports/snapshots/ and report bugs on https://lists.debian.org/debian-powerpc/.

There are bugs and TODO items that affect Debian Ports architectures,
listed at https://people.debian.org/~glaubitz/debian-ports-todo.txt

For anyone who wants to support his work, there's a Github Sponsoring on https://github.com/sponsors/glaubitz

This is my Motorola StarMax 3000 that I bought back in the 90’s. It’s one of the Mac clones from the short period where Apple had a clone program. It has the Apple designed Tanzania board that the 4400 also used. The 4400 is generally regarded as the least “Mac” Mac, so the StarMax is even less of a Mac I guess. It was my first “Mac”, and I got it pretty cheap when they were getting rid of the old stock.
The StarMax was universally criticized for its obscene noise level, and it is really is very loud, to the point of being unusable.
I’ve worked a little on mine recently.
It has two fans - a 92mm in the PSU and a 60mm in the front, which takes care of the CPU. Yes, really. 60mm.
I have replaced those with Noctuas.
Another noise source, which is perhaps even worse, is the obscenely loud OEM IBM hard drive. I have replaced it with a CF card in the back, also making getting files across easier.
The StarMax has also been fitted with a Sonnet CPU upgrade, which replaces the L2 DIMM and needs an extension to activate.
All in all, this is a delightfully quirky system.

#retrocomputing #mac #powerpc

/* maybe a lie? */

https://elixir.bootlin.com/linux/v6.13.7/source/arch/powerpc/kernel/pci_of_scan.c#L191

#linux #kernel #powerpc

A wiecie, że #uv już nie da się zbudować na #PowerPC?

rustc-LLVM ERROR: out of memory
Allocation failed
error: could not compile `uv` (bin "uv")

Tak, kompilator zużywa całą dostępną przestrzeń adresową. #RustLang jest super!

#Python