Icaros Desktop 2.2 and Classic Amiga upgrades

My apologies for the lack of blog posts recently. This has been due to a long personal illness, a death in the family involving travelling to Japan and also work being incredibly busy. Sorry for this but it was beyond my control!

But despite this I have not been idle with my Amigas and indeed have been busy doing work on Icaros Desktop 2.2 upgrade on my Acer AspireOne, Classic Amiga upgrades for my A1200, 2000 and 4000D, and even doing more work on my Amiga 4000T too!

Icaros Desktop 2.2 Xmas Special edition was released at Xmas 2016, and I finally got around to upgrading my Acer AspireOne to the latest version:

Installation was done via a burnt iso and attaching a USB DVD drive to the Acer AspireOne to boot off the CD to start the installation:

I have covered Icaros Desktop 2.0 installation on this machine on this blog here if you want to see more details. I also covered it's install in brief on a more normal PC here. The new version hasn't changed that much but is worth doing.

It takes a while to run through the installation as a lot of applications, games, and utilities are installed along with the Aros system files to ensure you have a system that is quite usable out of the box. It looks like the installation has now finished - reboot time:

After the reboot is setting up the usual locale parameters and video modes:

Configuring sound output via AHI is next up, followed by iControl preferences:

Next up you can choose whether to use Dopus Magellan in Workbench replacement mode or the Wanderer GUI. Personally I prefer Magellan.

You can also configure extra features like web server, ftp file sharing and VNC enabled Workbench functionality:

That done, we now have the upgraded Icaros desktop 2.2 system:

The updated look from the previous Icaros 2.0 version is welcome, with the white and black borders contrasting nicely with the blue, and easy to navigate thanks to the Magellan integration:

Here is the Dock in action, including a Start button functionality, showing below the CloudDrives program that allows syncing of Google Drive and Dropbox files to your local Icaros machine - very handy (note that purchase and registration is required to enable write access to the cloud based drives):

Next up was configuring Icaros to use the VGA out on the Acer AspireOne to output to my 32" LED monitor:

Annoyingly I found that my custom made Ducky Zero Amiga keyboard doesn't work with AROS (or MorphOS either), so I swapped in a cheap and cheerful AmigaOne x1000 USB keyboard which worked straight away. Sometimes cheaper is better! :-)

The screen above shows Icaros running at 1920x1080 from the Acer AspireOne - impressive for such a little machine.

Delving deeper into AROS, here is some shots of the AROS Shell, and default editor:

Here is System Explorer and System Properties windows:

Moving up to the 1920x1080 resolution, you have some serious space to play with on the Workbench:

Here is Cinnamon Writer, MPlayer playing back an MP4 and a nice AROS image being displayed with the default viewer.

Next is ZuneView, an interesting program for viewing and simple manipulation of pictures:

As with other NG Amiga's, video playback beyond 720p is not possible at the moment, so keep the video files 720p or less.

Also included in Icaros Desktop 2.2 is Putty Squad, run via emulation on Icaros!

Looking around the AROS system folders reveals nice icons and a familiar Workbench experience!

You can of course change the theme to OS4 style, AmigaOS 3.1 style and many other options too via the Theme Manager:

I was having issues with the network drivers though, which also happened to me on the previous Icaros 2.0 installation, but so far I can't remember what I did to fix it!

Lunapaint is another included program for creating pictures. And yes, I suck at graphics so I am not even going to try!

I have to say the Icaros Desktop 2.2 does look very nice:

Also included in the Icaros Desktop 2.2 Xmas Special edition is a preview of the upcoming Final Writer 7, to be released initially for Icaros (AROS) before other Amiga platforms to follow later.

It looks nice at this stage, though is still a bit buggy and needs more work. It is nice to see the progress made on the program so far though.

Icaros Desktop 2.2 Xmas special edition is a worthwhile upgrade for those who have the right hardware that AROS fully supports, like the Acer AspireOne. I recommend checking the compatibility of your proposed system before jumping in with Icaros (or AROS) to make sure it supports it.

Moving on to my Classic Amigas!

I have been focused on finishing my builds, including adding Rapid Road USB and X-Surf 100 cards to my Amiga 2000 and Amiga 4000D:

Here is a closeup of the Rapid Road installed in the A4000D:

You can also see the Big RAM 256MB expansion card is installed underneath the X-surf 100, along with the Picasso IV, which includes a built in scan doubler for native Amiga resolutions, output through the same VGA output as the RTG output. Together with the 127GB IDE HD, Cyberstorm 060 installed and fixing the floppy drives so that they both work again, this machine is very nice now:

So I turned my attention next to the Amiga 1200, which I have already covered a lot of it's project work on this very blog. I won't cover it's hardware specs as it was covered in those blog entries extensively. Please review first if you are not already up to speed!

Since then, I have removed the AmiKit Real built CF card that was being used on the A1200, so I could use it on the Amiga 2000 Vampire build project I covered here and here.

Having done this, it necessitated a new build on another CF Card on the Amiga 1200. I also took the opportunity to get a 90 degree converter from Ebay that allows me to mount the CF Card much nicer in the A1200 case.

As you can see, without it, things are cramped in the A1200 case, with the hard disk sitting uncomfortably on top of the very hot Indivision AGA board, and underneath the Rapid Road USB:

Here is the new adapter installed:

I also bought a new CF Card, preloaded with Workbench 3.1 from Amiga Forever (Cloanto) to get me started quickly:

As you can see it makes the A1200 much cleaner and less likely to be affected by overheating components:

Along with these items I also received the latest Amiga Future magazines for some catch up reading, and the new Classic Amiga boxed games Projekt: Lila (From AmiWorx) and Enemy 2 (from Anachronia).

I haven't had time to play the games yet but hope to do so soon!

I also took delivery of a SCSI2SD v6 card from the local Australian supplier CodeSrc:

The intention is to use this on the Amiga 2000, together with the new (old?) hardware I got for it recently too:

The SCSI2SD can be programmed and SD Card SCSI drives setup via Mac or PC using software downloaded from the maker's website - in my case I chose the Mac OS software as I am using a MacBook Pro to do the setup.

the utility software looks like this, and allows you to define the SCSI compatibility, as well as defining SCSI termination and per SCSI drive mappings:

In my case, I set these settings as below:

I then stepped through the devices, turning on the SCSI target, setting the SCSI ID, device type, device size and so on. I recommend setting the Device size and then using the Auto button to automatically calculate the start sector and sector size for you:

The rules of SCSI still apply. Make sure each device uses only one unique SCSI ID, and that you don't have conflicts with any SCSI ID's already present in your system.

In my case I setup three scsi drives on the SD Card since it is an 8GB SD card. 2x2GB and 2x4GB drives.

With that done I wrote the changes out to SCSI2SD device and disconnected it from the Mac, ready to try out on the Amiga 2000.

This gets me onto the topic of the Amiga 2000....

Last time I worked on it, it was as a Vampire 500 installed Amiga 2000 system. Although it was running well enough on the upgraded Gold 2 Core I did earlier this year as shown below, I found that I couldn't run any whdload games and demos on it. For me this was a complete deal breaker and not something I expected when installing the Vampire 500 in it.

It is VERY fast with the Vampire installed though, and the extra memory and SAGA RTG HDMI driver is wonderful and I know more is to come with the Gold 3 core supporting native Amiga output avoiding the need for multiple screens or switching VGA to HDMI on the same screen (as I did).

I worked with the folks at the Apollo team IRC to try to resolve the WHDLoad problem but I couldn't get a solution that worked, even after installing the latest WHDLoad that is supposed to resolve some of the Vampire related issues with it.

Not willing to wait any longer for a "fix", I decided to downgrade my Amiga 2000 back to an 030 setup, but utilising some of the new hardware upgrades I bought for it before the Vampire arrived (many that I didn't get to install).

I will do another project to install the Vampire 500 into my Amiga 500 later on, keeping the CF card and all the work done so far on the Amiga 2000 build for it. Stay tuned for that build!

So I put back in the 1.3/2.0/3.1 Kickstart switcher and 68000 CPU into the Amiga 2000.

I already had a Commodore 2630 Accelerator board for the Amiga 2000, which has a 68030 and 68882 FPU installed, but the revision of the board meant that a newly released Individual Computers 116MB ram upgrade I wanted to install on the card was not compatible with that revision!! frustrating!

So I tracked down another A2630 on Ebay that had the correct revision, which was shipped over from the USA and I eventually got it:

Here is the close up view of the 030 and 68882 fpu. Normally there is a metal cover on this - I took it off for the photos:

Flipping the card over you can see the ram expansion port:

And here is the new BigRAM 2630 ram card from Individual Computers, intended to be installed on the A2630 card to expand the FAST memory on the Amiga 2000 to 116MB!

For a very long time, the 8MB fast memory limitation on the Zorro 2 bus on the Amiga 2000 has relegated my Amiga 2000 to storage most of the time, as it couldn't run the later AmigaOS software that needed more memory. But with this expansion, this is no longer an issue!

Here is the new card attached to the A2630:

While on my spending spree I purchased the X-Surf 100 and Rapid Road USB for the Amiga 2000.

The Rapid Road USB simply clips on to the X-Surf 100 to provide USB 2 functionality on the Classic Amiga!

Here it is installed in the Amiga 2000, along with the Prisma Megamix that I installed during the Vampire build earlier. It will remain in the Amiga 2000.

I then installed the Rapid Road USB drivers on my 1GB SCSI HD to enable USB support.

Next up is an Octagon 2008, originally purchased so I could use my SCSI CDROM drive in the Amiga 2000 with the Vampire, which conflicted with the scsi.device installed in the Commodore A2091 SCSI controller I had installed before:

I removed the old hard disk that came with it, and attached my 1GB SCSI HD from the Amiga 2000 A2091 controller card:

I also attached the SCSI2SD card, daisy chained on the SCSI bus:

Here it is installed in the Amiga 2000:

With all the cards now installed in the A2000, things are a bit busier inside!

Amiga 2000 being worked on, as the C64 and Amiga 4000D provide demo stimulation while I am working on it...

Initially I spent quite a bit of time getting the 1GB SCSI install of AmigaOS3.9 updated to support Picasso96 and reinstalled my Picasso II RTG card. It has a passthrough for the native Amiga display, which is already scan doubled using the Indivision ECS installed on the Amiga 2000 previously.

Next I turned my attention to getting the SCSI2SD working. Initially I thought it would be easy - HDToolbox picked it up right away:

But after this is where things went wrong with it...it read the drives correctly, but failed to write the RDB information and partition setup information to the devices, meaning it didn't allow me to format the drives, etc.

Frustrated with that, I hooked up my usb hard disk and played some mp3's via the Prisma card while I thought about the problem - you can see the extra fast memory from the new BigRAM 2630 card - I also have 2MB Chip memory via the MegAChip add on:

After many hours of trying, checking forums, blog posts, upgrading the firmware and lots of advice that the v6 SCSI2SD was very picky about working on some systems, I decided to give up on it for now, but I will try again later on.

On the positive side, all the WHDLoad games and demos that refused to work on the same Amiga 2000 system when the Vampire was installed now work perfectly on the same system without the Vampire. This confirms that it was the Vampire at fault and makes my decision to downgrade the right one for me.

With that I moved onto the Amiga 4000T, which has been shelved for a long time now due to a failure of the hard disks (both of them!). Because I have a Deneb USB card with the Flashrom area preloaded with the updated kickstart roms from OS3.9, the disk failures results in seeing the insert disk screen for OS3.9 on power on - a rare sight indeed:

At the time I was depressed so much about this hard disk failure as I also lost some data on the 127GB HD that I can't replace. It took me so long to build that A4000T setup and I dreaded having to do it all again so I shelved it for quite a long time.

This past week though I decided to take the plunge and do it all again...

I installed the TrueIDE onto the Buddha IDE controller on the A4000T to run a new CF card setup of AmigaOS 3.9 BB2. It has two partitions on it, one as the backup partition of the system partition (both bootable). In addition the new replacement 60GB IDE hard disk also has a bootable copy of the system partition installed. (I want a larger IDE hd but that is the biggest one I have at the moment)

And on top of that, I have a SD to IDE converter installed, and that SD Card also has two partitions with the same copy of the system partitions. I copied that to another sd card for safe keeping so I should be safe for the future...the build still has a very long way to go but it is getting there....

This means that all my Amiga except the Amiga 1000, CDTV and CD32 have USB and network support, making data transfer so much easier. :-)

As an aside I saw that auction on Ebay this past week for the same Amiga 4000T I have being sold for over AUD$7000!!! Crazy! No plans to sell mine - I love it too much!

Whew. It has been busy for me in Amigaland of late and hopefully this gives some insight into what I have been occupied with for the past month or so!

DubCRT has arrived!

Today I want to cover the rather excellent DubCRT cartridge released recently in it's second batch for the Commodore 64.

It is available for purchase via Shareware Plus Facebook page for GBP65 plus shipping.

So what is DubCRT? Well, it is a very interesting concept. Goto80 produced an album of music using the SID chip on the C64, and decided with Datadoor and others to create a interactive C64 cartridge, which includes all the songs plus adjustable and configurable visuals that respond to the music being played!

You can also play around with the visuals in real time as the music is playing to alter the effects. You can also play a game on one of the tracks to collect $ to unlock further features of the cartridge, including remixes!

Mine arrived this week from the UK, and came very nicely packaged:

Inside the box is the DubCRT cartridge in a clear perspex casing with reset button on the back, and some instructions on how to get started with the DubCRT:

Here are some close up photos I took of the DubCRT cartridge - looks great:

Case looks sturdy and well put together - here you can see the reset button, which lights up red:

Here is the dubCRT installed in my C64, ready to go:

On power on, the cartridge lights up:

Soon after we get the title screen:

This is the main track selection screen, which changes also as you collect $ from the game included in the cartridge (Track 8) - Press keys 1 to 8 to select the tracks to get started, and press space to return to this menu:

The Visuals are very interesting indeed - here are some examples from various tracks:

The visuals use Petscii art, which looks fantastic:

Here is the game (Track 8) - this is randomised maps each time, and collecting the $ is surprisingly difficult (and sometimes impossible) on the generated maps - but keep trying!

This really is a very interesting concept, and one I hope we can see more of in the future!

Of course for a music related cartridge and visuals, you really need to see it in action. So, I captured two short videos to YouTube of what you can expect from the dubCRT playing through some of the tracks on my C64:

At the Adelaide Retro Computing group event last week dubCRT was shown running on my C64 and also a Commodore SX64 via Ray Manta, who helped with the design and concept for it, and had a dubCRT to show it off at the event:

Here it is running on my C64 at the Adelaide Retro Computing Group meeting last week:

Needless to say this is a must for anyone interested in SID Music! Production of the dubCRT is limited (the first batch sold out almost immediately), so if you want one in this second batch I suggest jumping on it quickly.

Commodore 64 is just so cool in 2017! So many interesting new developments!

Multimax cartridge

Hi all, and sorry the delay in blog posts but I have not been well including being in hospital, and also recently been dealing with another death in our family in Japan. Has been tough so far in 2017 to put it mildly.

That said, this week I was very pleased to take delivery of the very interesting Multimax cartridge, to try out on my Commodore 64!

The Multimax cartridge is a compilation of all the games ever released for the Japan only released rare Commodore Max computer in 1982. The cartridge is available from Ebay as a new cartridge package - that is where I got this one from.

Amazingly, the Commodore 64, SX-64 and 128 include a backwards compatibility mode that allows them to play Commodore Max cartridge games!

In all only 24 titles were released for the Commodore Max, as the system was a commercial failure in Japan and quickly discontinued. All these titles were released on cartridges. Here is a picture of the Commodore Max system:

Credit: Photo By William Ward - Flickr, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2809305

This Multimax compilation makes it possible for people like me who don't have the rare Commodore Max system to try out all the games released for it on the Commodore 64!

Here is the inside of the Multimax package I received, which shows the cartridge carefully surrounded with a protective foam packaging when not in use.

The cartridge has a reset button on the top to quickly reset the C64 without needing to power on/off each time you want to try another game from the cartridge - neat!

When firing up the cartridge on the Commodore 64 , you get the Multimax menu which shows all the titles available, with a scroller at the bottom that explains a bit about each title when you select the corresponding key:

Another nice feature is that when you select a game it displays the control methods required for the game, eg. paddle, joystick and keyboard before you launch the game.

Given the low specifications of the Commodore Max, I wasn't expecting a lot, but the games were quite interesting indeed - starting with Avenger Wars!

There is also Pinball, a variation of the Pinball Wizard (?) version on the Commodore 64:

Perhaps some Radar Rat Race?

Actually I remember playing this on the Commodore 64 as a kid - it was great fun to play it again!

Just to prove it is not all games, here is the Music composer software:

There is also the extremely memory limited Max Basic - can't imagine you can do much which this much ram available:

Or perhaps checking out the Visible Solar System is more your speed?

Moving back to the games I also had a go at Road Race:

It is a surprisingly frustrating difficult car game:

 I also had a go at Slalom, which was quite good fun actually:

Some of the other game titles to try out include Super Alien:

Wizard of Wor:

Kickman:

Bowling:

Billards:

There are other titles I haven't covered here, but there should be some surprises for you when you buy it that way! :-)

I thoroughly recommend trying out the Multimax cartridge - there is a lot there to muck around with and experience what the rare Commodore Max system offered, but on your Commodore 64!