A Tale of Two Vampires

Sorry for the delay in blog posts, but today I try to make up for it as I bring you a tale of two Vampires, featuring AmiKit XE. And even a bit of Gotek to boot. This work was carried out throughout the whole of August.

Touching quickly on the Gotek - I already have a Gotek drive installed in my Amiga 500 Checkmate A1500 plus system:

Trouble is the old style digit display. These days the Gotek come with fancy OLED displays to show the name of the floppy disk image and other goodies. I was keen to try it and bought one before COVID-19 started, with the intention of swapping the Gotek in the Checkmate A1500 plus case the next time I did any work in it.

With the release of AmiKit XE for Vampire enabled Classic systems, I had the excuse to swap the Gotek out. Here is the new one:

I then started the task of disassembling the Checkmate A1500 plus case to replace the Gotek drive with the new one:

With the old drive removed, I connected the new Gotek, ready to screw into the drive bay expansion.

I screwed it in and here is the comparison. Note I picked a black 3d printed mounting bay for the new one so it would look better in my black case.

The new one only has mounting holes in two places that I could screw into the expansion bay.

Putting the expansion bay back into the case, I checked the alignment of the new Gotek to the drive bay hole. The news wasn't good:

It is much lower than the old one was! It doesn't fit!

I put them together to show the problem - the new one (on the right) is positioned much lower on the drive mount tray than the old one. 

This means the 3D print drive mount is probably intended for an A600 or A1200, rather than a A500 floppy drive mounting. That is a shame, as it means I couldn't use it. I put the old one back in for now. That was a bust!

Moving quickly on, I was very excited to see the new AmiKit XE version released, especially written for Vampire accelerator owners of Classic Amigas, and even supports the new Vampire V4 Standalone system recently released.

It is clear a lot of work has gone into the release, and as with other recent previous versions of AmiKit, is a commercial product that you need to purchase.

You can buy it in a preloaded CF card, shipped to your door, or buy and download the zip file only and create the CF card yourself using the detailed instructions.

In return for this purchase, you get a fully configured, RTG enabled AmigaOS system with all the bells and whistles, which is able to be installed with AmigaOS 3.1, AmigaOS 3.1.4, AmigaOS 3.9, AmigaOS 4 or Amiga Forever which you supply during the installation as qualifying products.

I have covered AmiKit XE previously in this blog, which is already available under PC emulation (Windows, Linux) or MacOS.

You can also run a cutdown free AmiKit Real 9 for Classic Amigas without a Vampire (minimum 030 accelerator), which I also covered on this blog.

But now at last you can have the full featured AmiKit XE on your Classic Amiga (with Vampire accelerator) with the latest AmiKit XE release.

I have to make a special mention of the awesome real time technical support I received from the author of AmiKit XE (Jan) throughout the installation process and my many troubles, which has turned out to have nothing to do with AmiKit XE. 

I wanted to share more details about the many features of AmiKit XE as part of the blog entry, but fate had other plans, as you will see. I did get to enjoy it fully working for exactly 30 minutes. Hopefully that is enough to tempt more people to try it out :-)

The first Vampire Tale: The V500 V2 AmiKit XE installation

For those who follow my blog regularly, you would know that I have run the Vampire 500 V2 in my Checkmate 1500 Plus cased Amiga 500 system for a while now.

It currently runs CoffinOS r54 from a 32GB CF card, which is <ahem> not very legal unless you legitimately own AmigaOS 3.9 which it is distributed with. Fortunately I do own it legitimately.

That said, I was excited at the prospect of running AmiKit XE for Vampire on this system. I bought the downloadable version and downloaded the zip file, and extracted it on my Amiga 4000D system, using a USB disk to transfer. I then downloaded the various prerequisites from the installation guide:

I originally tried prepping a 32GB CF card (with USB to CF converter) using HDToolbox on my Amiga 4000D. I set it as per the instructions, using PFS3 as the file system.

I then formatted the CF card with PFSformat:

I then downloaded the lzx archive needed to extract the archive to the CF card, and installed it on my Amiga 4000D.

I then started extracting the archive to the CF card partition (connected using USB to CF converter). 

It didn't go well. After a while I got write errors:

I thought I would copy the archive to the CF card first, then extract on the actual CF card. Previously I was extracting from the Amiga 4000D data partition to the CF card.

It is clear that this was not going well either, with constant write failures.

Unfortunately after a while it came up with an even worse write error:

I gave up and connected the CF card directly to the IDE interface on the Amiga 4000D. Then it copied successfully. The moral of the story extracting a large number of files over USB is a game of lottery of whether it works or not.

Anyway, with the extraction of files done to the CF card, I then made sure I had all the files needed for the initial install, as per the installation guide. 

Initially I was trying to use AmigaOS 3.1.4 and had the required files in the AmiKit:Expansion/InstallFiles drawer, as below:

I moved the CF card to my Vampire 500V2 enabled Amiga 500 system and came up with this prompt:

After a reboot it told me I needed to upgrade my Vampire Core version to 2.12. Currently I was running 2.11 Core. 

So I downloaded the required AmigaOS updatable 2.12 core files to try to upgrade the Vampire Core before trying the install again. The upgrade is not included with the AmiKit XE setup. Here is the drawer from the archive I download from the Apollo website, ready to run the installer.

And, it didn't work. Program failed. Great...

I tried a number of times but it gave me the same error every time. I previously upgraded the core from 2.10 to 2.11 without a problem on the Amiga, so I have no idea why this upgrade doesn't work.

So, I decided to ignore it, and just use the existing onboard rom rather than remapping another rom. I copied the AmigaOS 3.9 files from the original CD to the InstallFiles drawer on the CF card to use instead of the 3.1.4 files, which require the remapped 3.1.4 kickstart rom in order to work. OS3.9 doesn't need the remapped rom since it is the same one included in the Vampire itself.

With that done, the pre-flight checks for the installation of the AmkitXE passed without a problem and I could get the install underway:

With the install completed, it rebooted into a wonderful AmiKit XE customised RTG Workbench, and looks very beautiful.

Having used this version under emulation, I can say in my brief play with it that it works just as well.

I ran a game or two from WHDLoad games I copied to the CF Card to try out once the install completed.

However, being me, I wasn't content to leave it like this. The main reason is because although the system worked, the screen display was patchy at 720p output. I need to set a lower screen resolution in order to have a stable display. It is believed the issue was the firmware installed, and that I really did need to install the 2.12 core, which is the minimum required for AmiKit XE.

Since the AmigaOS upgrade method didn't work (as noted above), I purchased a USB Blaster from Bay and after a serious disinfection when it arrived from China, I connected it to the Vampire 500V2.

Closer view of the USB Blaster connected to the JTAG connector on the Vampire V500 V2.

I removed the CF card to prevent issues while flashing the Vampire 500. I needed a Windows PC or Linux machine for the next step, as I needed to download the Intel FPGA Quartus programmers toolkit. I am grateful to the Apollo Vampire Wiki for the instructions on what is needed here, as I have never flashed a FPGA core via a USB blaster before.

To be honest it shouldn't be necessary either, considering there is an AmigaOS patch method which I definitely prefer - it is much simpler. But it didn't work, so...

I had to read the instructions carefully, register to Intel's developer network to download the required free software. I used my Surface Go to run the software, as it was the easiest way to connect a PC to my Vampire in a separate room to my main day to day computers.

I did get it downloaded and installed on the Surface Go.

Getting the USB hardware to recognise under Windows 10 was annoying, and needed some manual intervention. 

As you see, even though I installed the drivers and software, it is not detected:

The not documented trick to get it working is to locate the inf file for the USB Blaster driver, helpfully installed in an obscure folder as part of of the Intel Quartus FPGA programmer tool installation:

Right clicked on the usbblstr.inf and select install. After that, the Device was picked up correctly. Isn't Windows wonderful...

With that done, I could set up the Programmer software to use the USB blaster hardware:

Ok, ready to load the 2.12 core. I chose the slowest x11 core as the Vampire 500V2 is not so fast and that is supposed to be the most compatible core.

Just to remind ourselves, all I wanted to do was get the core updated. I had to waste a bunch of time learning about fpga reprogrammers, setups and more just to do that. This is not something the average Amiga fan would ever do....only crazy Amiga fans like me. And maybe you, since you are reading this! :-)

Anyway, following the instructions from the Apollo Vampire wiki on how to flash the core, I select the program/configure and verify flags for the 2.12 core file I selected.

I then turned on the Amiga 500 (so that Vampire has power) and started the Core update process.

It is working:

All done and flashed successfully. Why couldn't I use the AmigaOS updater....this is much more difficult.

Anyway, now the Vampire V500 v2 is flashed and running the correct 2.12 x11 core.

You can see the new version number here:

But, the problems with the 720p screen resolution persisted and now the system was unstable too, failing to boot to workbench every 3 out of 4 times. 

When I changed the AmiKit XE CF card I created, and booted my CoffinOS CF card, it now has a green workbench screen and it was unstable and crashing now too. So now the position of the system is worse than before.

So yeah, not sure that really worked out well. Oh, and mapping the 3.1, 3.9 or 3.1.4 legitimate kickstart roms via VampireMap still doesn't work.

At this point the developer of AmiKit XE suggested he send me a pre-prepped AmiKit XE CF card to work with, just to rule out something I might have done to stuff things up.

I was grateful to receive it. It soon arrived from Europe, as below:

I backed it up to an image file using my Windows PC, copied the required install files into the dedicated FAT partition on the CF card on my PC also, and then installed it into my Vampire 500V2, ready for installation to begin. The Fat partition make this process much easier than creating the CF card yourself. I recommend getting the CF card version for a very easy setup process:

Here the installation is underway using the Amikit XE branded CF card:

All is proceeding normally:

Install done, reboot time:

I was working live with the developer via Slack to do this installation to make sure it went well. I am so grateful for the assistance and the support was very very welcome. 

I set the CF card speed to "2" the recommended speed.

Screenmode setting time:

I set the screen mode settings to 720p. Turns out you need to set 24bit mode, not 32bit mode.

The system worked, but it was still unstable. The Vampire would lock up quite often on booting or on the Workbench, and the screen resolution was limited to 576p for a stable display without glitching.

I can hear someone probably tell me something like, you need to upgrade the SAGA drivers, or some other inevitable update I missed somewhere. But after all this mucking around and still not having a stable system, I had had enough. The developer and other beta testers suggested my Vampire 500 is faulty. The card cost me $800....great.

I am sorry to Vampire fans out there, but this Vampire 500 V2 hardware is too flaky. It is too unstable and has too many issues to get it working, and to keep it working.

Maybe your experience is different. I really hope so. I read plenty of good stories from people loving their Vampires. But I am burnt now. I am not going to buy another one to replace it.

I decided to rip it out and restore the ACA500 accelerator and 68000 CPU back in the Amiga 500 system with a normal AmigaOS 3.1.4 ROM install running (as it was before I installed the Vampire 500 in it). With that done, the Amiga 500 system rans rock solid reliable and no further lockup or other issues since.

As those who may remember a while ago, I actually have two Vampire accelerators. I also have one for my Amiga 600 too. This leads me nicely onto the second tale.

The second Vampire Tale: The V600 V2 AmiKit XE installation

My Vampire 600 has sat inside the dead Amiga 600 it killed for a long time now. I was so angry it killed the system. This blog post covers the Vampire 600 I did. At that time it briefly worked.

However, after a few days, every time the system booted, the first audio to come out of the system was a high pitched sound and would completely lock the Amiga system solid everytime. If I used AHI to set audio to null device it would boot, but of course, no sound. I wanted to destroy the Vampire with a hammer for destroying a perfectly functional system until I installed it in it.

I bought another Amiga 600 to replace it as I lack the skills to fix such a fault.

Unfortunately the audio output on the replacement Amiga 600 was not perfect, but it least it worked without locking up the system everytime. I left it in a fairly stock state for a long time with no Vampire, running AmigaOS 3.1.4 with A604n, Subway USB and Indivision ECS output. It worked perfectly.

So it was with a lot of trepidation I decided to install the Vampire 600V2 in the Amiga 600 for AmiKit XE, given the failed state of the V500 install.

Here is the Vampire 600 installed in the system. I am using a Amiga converted PC ATX PSU from Amigakit to supply more power as I know all these expansion in the A600 need a beefier PSU than the standard one in order to work properly.

This Vampire has been out of use for a long time, so it is still running the 2.10 gold core. Much older than the 2.11 core in the V500.

But, it worked perfectly out of the box with AmiKit XE. I mean, perfectly! everything works, the remapping works, the 720p output works, no lockups.

I couldn't believe it. Wow, a working Vampire system with no issues! I was so happy.

I fired up OpenTyrian on it and was delighted to be able to enjoy this on my Amiga 600:

I had a look at the Dracula wizard to help with common configuration changes under AmiKit XE:

I was happily listening to mods and feeling good about all things Vampire. I fired up Worthy for some more recent gaming fun.

I then decided I really should update my Vampire core from 2.10 to the 2.11 core being recommended. So I did that:

All went well with that, and I was soon back on the AmiKit XE desktop, running 060 demos on my Amiga 600 and enjoying the full power of the Vampire:

Playback of music videos at 720p is just awesome.

Smooth playback and sound in sync.

I connected my CoffinOS CF card to the A600 as well, and that also worked well.

More 060 demos:

Fixing a problem with my A1200 while enjoying the A600 Vampired.

I then thought I should fix up the IDE CF card on the A600 which was using the ribbon cable that meant it was sitting over the A600 Vampire card, causing the IDE cable, CF card and the Vampire to get very hot. I had a converter that allows the CF card to be positioned over the PCMCIA slot, away from the Vampire. So I opened the case for one last time to do this change.

And disaster.

When I removed the ide ribbon cable, the ide connector pins literally disintegrated from the base of the motherboard!

Clearly it was just too hot. But I can't fix this - I don't have the soldering skills. So my Amiga 600 is now a useless machine. Again.

I was so upset and so angry. 

I finally got a Vampire working well, with AmiKit XE, and then the machine let me down again by me trying to protect it from the very damage that ultimately killed the Ide port.

I angrily scooped up the lot and threw it in the cupboard. And so ends the second tale of Vampires.

To finish this entry, I moved my Amiga 1200 to have more space on the desk, and fixed up the IDE CF card which had decided to corrupt itself for unknown reasons while sitting off and idle for months. 

I have a backup CF image I took of this system, and I can reflash when this happens so it doesn't take long to fix. 

I then enjoyed some 030 AGA demos and promised myself not to buy or play with Vampires again for a long time.

Microbee CGA to VGA upscaler on Amiga 1000

Today I wanted to take a look at the Microbee CGA to VGA upscaler, which is able to be used on the Amiga to scan double and de-interlace the Amiga native RGB output to a modern TFT screen.

I must first apologise for the lateness in blog posts. I have been very busy with my new job, which I started recently. I have also been distracted by other projects and training I am working on that are not Amiga related to keep learning new IT skills.

However, last week I received notification from Facebook that Microbee finally had stock of their upscaler devices, (HDMI or VGA output) which are compatible with Amiga's too.

Normally these units sell out VERY quickly and I have missed out multiple times in the past, so I quickly jumped on their website to grab a VGA version (AUD$129), and the optional Amiga RGB to CGA cable (AUD$22).

It arrived in the post the other day, and after the usual heavy cleaning due to COVID-19, I could use it.

I bought this device for use on my Amiga 1000. It is the only Amiga I own without a scan doubler installed. The indivision ECS doesn't fit in the A1000 due to the daughterboard on top.

Until now I have been using a 15khz compatible TFT screen with the Amiga 1000, connected to a AmiVGA connector to the RGB port.

Problem with this is mainly that interlace modes don't look good, and the fixed resolution on a 16:9 screen looks a bit funny, with some screen artefacts (lines) that make it less than optimal.

Enter the Microbee upscaler. Microbee is an interesting company, having made the local Australian built Microbee computers in the 1980's which were used in schools and homes too. I used one myself in computer classes in the 1980's in Perth.

I remember learning LOGO on the Microbee computers. I also remember that they were networked to a master "server", which would routinely crash when too many people were using the Microbee computers simultaneously...usually just before you finished typing a long amount of code to run.

I never owned a Microbee myself sadly. The company these days makes this Upscaler to enable the Microbee computer to be displayed on a TFT screen (CGA to VGA). To make it appeal to a broader market they made an Amiga RGB to CGA cable and tweaked the settings to make it work with the Amiga (and other systems like Commodore 128, etc).

Close up of the Amiga cable - it uses a real DB23 connector, not a shaved 25 pin one, which is great:

Pin outs for the RGB to CGA cable were included. Fortunately they build the cable for you nowadays rather than having to make it yourself (which you used to have to do).

On the front of the unit is the Analog/Digital switch and the CGA input port.

On the back is the VGA port and power input (power adapter is included) to power the unit.

I set to work connecting up the cables to the Amiga 1000.

The Amiga cable is very short, so the upscaler unit needs to be close the Amiga 1000 RGB port.

With it all hooked up, time to test it. On power on, I get the ACA500 boot screen (as I have an ACA500 attached to the Zorro port on the A1000). You can see some blue display garbage at the bottom of the screen, but otherwise looks nice:

I adjusted the screen settings on my Viewsonic TFT 19" screen to move the display down a bit to remove the blue bit from view and have a nice clear scan doubled Amiga display:

I booted up my Amiga Workbench 1.3 from CF hard disk:

The Standard Amiga lores screen works great, although I should mention that there is still some screen artifacting on closer inspection in demos and games. I used a demo "Interference" from Sanity to show this - the purple edging has some artifacting:

So, well, it is not perfect. But it is not too bad. Compared to some of my other very old scan doublers, this looks much better! Especially when using the Workbench and applications.

The artifacting is much less noticeable on black backgrounds:

Next I fired up Deluxe Paint IV to test Hi-Res and Interlace modes - Hi-Res first:

The output is crisp and looks quite nice actually:

I tested interlace next and it displays very nicely with no flicker visible:

When using the normal workbench 1.3 with mouse pointer, I noticed some strange "watery artifacts around the mouse when moving. Not really annoying, but noticeable.

I am not sure if there is much you can do to optimise this (I assume the serial cable allows connection to the board inside to customise it), but it is ok for normal use and I haven't played with the board setup at all. Strictly tested as it was delivered to me.

I fired up some more demos that I know use some weird screen tricks (like Wild Copper) and it works well:

I also tested a game - APB - and with this game you can really see the artifacting up close with a purple backdrop. This is a shame as it kinda ruins things a bit:

In short, the Microbee upscaler is good, but not perfect for the Amiga 1000. When I have some more time I will try to use it on some other Amigas as well to confirm if the issues I saw are Amiga 1000 specific or not. For now I will keep using it on the A1000 as it looks nicer than using a 16:9 screen and interlace works well.

Live Streaming AmigaOne X1000

Sorry for the long wait for another blog post. Today I wanted to look at the setup I have done recently which allows me to live stream the output of the AmigaOne X1000 with AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition Update 1 to the internet via Twitch!

The last month has been very difficult for me to say the least. 

Work was very busy with the company being taken over, and then finding out that all the IT operations would be moved to Queensland. I was made redundant in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic last week with many of my colleagues. This is like many others globally too I know. 

Unlike many others affected in Australia by this, I am unable to get government financial assistance as the company I worked for was not impacted much by COVID-19, making me ineligible for government help...great.

Fortunately I saved money for a rainy day, and now it is here. I will be ok for a bit, while looking for a new job. With the market right now being very tough job-wise, I don't expect to find anything for a while.

This of course means I have some significant free time on my hands, for the first time in many many years.

I decided first to up skill in various IT I am weak in currently, and one of those areas was streaming technologies. I decided to learn more about how it works, what is needed to set it up, and try to weave my love of all things Amiga into it too by streaming some Amiga generated content out to the world live!

I was inspired watching some of my favourite F1 drivers live streaming their esports sim gaming (while motorsports are all stopped) to keep their skills sharp. It was a great way to get to know their real personalities better too outside the cockpit.

To say there was a lot of work to do to get this working was an understatement. But getting it working and live streaming the X1000 on the internet was very satisfying.

I enjoy gaming too, and in addition to the AmigaOne X1000 I was keen to connect my PC, Nintendo Switch and PS4 to stream as well.

To do this I needed a lot of things. Fortunately I had most of them already, and for things I didn't have (like a dedicated webcam) I found an innovative solution from Newtek (remember them?) to use my iPad as a dedicated webcam.

For the capture of the HDMI output from the X1000, I needed a game capture card. Because I plan to use my Mac as the streaming machine (to keep the load off the PC and other devices), I needed to get an external game capture device.

Previously I had purchased a Game Capture HD device for this purpose, but didn't get far with it, as it is limited to using it's own software on the Mac for streaming, which didn't allow me much freedom with how I wanted to stream content. Also, it couldn't stream 1080p, only 720p due to limits of USB2. (it will though pass through 1080p to your screen)

The newer devices are sold out worldwide, and so I found one (Elgato HD60S) second hand, and still boxed, on Ebay. After a thorough cleaning after arrival, I could get to work setting it up.

These Elgato capture devices work by taking an input HDMI source (like PS4, PC, Switch, etc), and passing through the signal to HDMI out port to your normal screen.

They have a USB cable connection to your streaming PC running the software to grab that HDMI data and give it to the PC to process, either to record to the local disk, or stream live to YouTube, Twitch, Facebook live and more.

I then use a HDMI switch box to take multiple HDMI inputs (PC, Switch, X1000), and output to this HD60S.

Something to keep in mind is that this capture device is limited to 1080p60 pass through, so no 4K HDMI connections are possible. The newer HD60s+ model supports this I believe, but I was unable to find one. In any case, most of the systems I am currently using (apart from my PC) are outputting 1080p anyway, so it is not such a big hassle. I changed the PC to output 1080p for now.

One obvious hassle I knew I would hit early on is the audio from the X1000. Unlike the PS4, Switch, PC, etc, the AmigaOne X1000 does not output audio via its HDMI output. Instead it uses a standard line out phono plug via the onboard HDAudio.

So I needed to think outside the box on how to fix this and merge the audio into the HDMI output somehow, before it reaches the capture card.

There is an audio in phono port on the HD60S (unlike the Game Capture HD I was using before), but it is intended to be used for the chatlink function of the PS4, so that audio from the PS4 controller audio input is spliced into the HDMI output. I don't want to use that, since I intended to use it for that purpose later on, and also it is annoying and expensive to buy another set of RCA audio switch box setups and more cables to accomodate different inbound streams in a convenient manner.

The Radeon Southern Island card installed in the X1000 has DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, as below.

I purchased a VGA to HDMI converter from Jaycar Electronics, which has VGA and RCA audio input, with HDMI blended video + audio output. It uses a USB power source.

I then used a DVI to VGA converter to connect the X1000 to the converter. I then ran a phono to RCA audio cable from the X1000 HDAudio out to the converter.

I then hooked it up and connected to my HDMI switchbox, which then allowed me to see the output on my screen to confirm the normal output was working

I checked the audio output was working using the VGA converter to HDMI and pleased to say it worked perfectly:

Naturally I soon got distracted and tested the audio in a game or two...

With that done, I turned my attention to the streaming part of this setup, which is connected to my "Trashcan" 2013 Mac Pro.

I bought this system second hand from Ebay a few years ago (for a fraction of the price of it new) to replace my similarly ageing 2013 MacBook Pro, which was necessary as the battery had ballooned and made the system unusable. The quote to replace the battery was ridiculous so I replaced with a second hand system instead.

This system is still running Mojave, rather than the newer Catalina. The reason for this is because Catalina dropped 32bit application support, and I still have a number of applications and games that are 32 bit and will not run on Catalina. Including AmiKit XE...I am looking forward to the upgrade for that soon please...

The software provided by Elgato is functional for basic streaming, but I really wanted to use all the cool features that the freeware OBS Studio makes available for streaming.

There is an open source variant of this called Streamlabs, which is the software I wanted to use for streaming, and is based on OBS with some other features added to make streaming easier. It allows to use of themes and programming different inputs and screen layouts to make the stream more professional.

This needed the HD60S device in order to work on MacOS, due to the need to use OBS Link software to connect the game capture device to OBS running under Streamlabs. The older Game Capture HD device doesn't work with OBS Link.

With that working now with Streamlabs (as above), I turned my attention to the webcam so people can see me when streaming.

As you may know quality webcams are in high demand due to the working from home happening globally due to the Coronavirus pandemic. In Australia, it is basically impossible to buy one that support 720p or 1080p streaming right now.

In addition, many countries are simply not shipping to Australia now due to the removal of most flights to/from Australia. This further limits my options!

I do have an Apple Thunderbolt display, and yes, I could use the 720p webcam on that, but I can't easily re-position the screen in the right place while I am streaming, and since it contains the streaming software too, it would be distracting to look at it while streaming live. I don't want to have to move it every time.

I know that I could buy an Elgato Camlink to take a camera input, but that would mean spending more money, which in my current position I don't want to do for obvious reasons.

So, I did some research and found out you can connect iPads and iPhones as webcams over WiFi in Streamlabs using NDI software from Newtek (yep, the Amiga guys) on the iPad! This month Newtek is offering the NDI app on the App store for free so I took full advantage of it.

This meant I could get an easily movable webcam solution without spending any money! Awesome.

Here is the setup, showing the X1000, iPad, PC, Xbox One, with the Mac out of shot on the left.

For those eagle-eyed people, I also tried using the MIST (Pictured) on this setup too, but the resolution outputted is a problem it seems for the capture card to feed correctly. I'll try it again soon.

In the meantime I have working output from the X1000 with audio, ready to stream to the world.

I did this stream on the 13th May 2020 via Twitch. My Twitch profile is here:

http://twitch.tv/EpsilonAUS

If you follow me on Twitch you can be advised when I go live with new streams to view, listen and chat live, or just view the older broadcasts if you miss the live streams. There are some C64 Max and PC gaming streams you can still view too.

You can see the broadcast for another 14 days from when I wrote this blog post - from this link: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/619530703

In case you missed that, I also recorded this particular stream locally, and uploaded it to YouTube. You can view it below but recommend you click the link instead: https://youtu.be/GsYZiXf7AlI

Despite my best efforts, I will soon have to mute sections of the YouTube video audio since YouTube are annoying when it comes to copyright claims. The audio they claim copyright is from Supertuxkart and Prototype games when I was playing them. Seriously? freeware games?

This is why people use Twitch and not Youtube for live streaming. Anyway..

It was fun doing this, and I have a new high respect for the excellent work of Bill Borsari doing the live streams from AMIWest every year. It is a lot more difficult and involved to setup a professional stream than people think - thanks Bill for your hard work to make that happen.

I learnt a lot more now about the technologies involved in live internet streaming, and finally getting my AmigaOne X1000 live streaming to the world. I am sure there will be more to follow.

I hope you enjoy the stream and future ones too!