Amiga: VMWAROS 0.8, MorphOS 2.0, AmigaOS 4.1

[Raffaele the Amigan]

In less than three or four weeks all AmigaOS-like O.S.s are been updated.

The first was VMWAROS 0.8:

A brand new version of VmwAROS is out. This release needed a lot of rework since the 0.7 tree, so users are encouraged to backup their data and clean their old installation before installing this one. Since paths for some programs have changed, using VmwUpdate may lead to duplicate drawers and programs, which is something you'd surely prefer to avoid. Here is a little list of what's changed, but it's only what I remember so far:

- added emergency mode kernel and options

- added complete development environment with C, C++ and E (PortablE)

- updated Murks! IDE to version 0.6.0

- Murks! can run from CD (but it's not completely safe)

- added checks for proper assign and development paths (LIVE! only)

- Murks! and development tools can be installed either in Sys: or Work: (LIVE! only)

- added filesystem and futilities menu to AmiStart

- moved SimpleMail directly in the /Utilities directory

- added lots of new games

- added lots of new utilities

- added some sound and video commands (madahi, play, playnosound, aramp and so on) (sound working only on LIVE! version with AROS supported audio cards).

- enhanced graphic theme

- added PlayStation emulator FPSE

- added some new fonts

- VmwAROS now launches Opaque commodity at startup

- custom muimaster.library updated to June 15th sources

- system files updated to may 23rd nigthly build, some files are newer

- updated Quick and dirty guide in PDF

http://vmwaros.blogspot.com/2008/06/new-vmwaros-beta-08-released.html


MorphOS 2.0:

30.06.2008 - MorphOS 2.0 - Public Release

The MorphOS development is proud to announce the public release of the much anticipated version 2.0 of MorphOS. For an overview of the included new features and updates, please read our release notes. A description of the hardware requirements and installation procedures can be found here. Please check this web page for further updates.

Notable updates:
Ambient was extended massively and is well on its journey to become the ultimate desktop
NetStack, the new integrated TCP/IP stack
Poseidon USB stack, now at version 4.1 (includes support for USB 2.0)
MUI 4.0 with new UI classes
Many brand new tools and utilities

General improvements:
AltiVec support
Many components are now localized
Various UI style fixes in applications and components
Static m68k emulation and Trance JIT bugfixes

Improvements in graphics operations:
AltiVec and hardware accelerated graphics operations for alpha blending, stretching and a lot more
Support for Display Data Channel (DDC)

Reggae:

A new, modular, streaming multimedia framework. It is going to replace existing datatypes system. Many Reggae classes are accelerated with AltiVec.

Currently supported sound formats
AIFF
WAVE PCM
WAVE floating point PCM
WAVE A-law/u-law
WAVE IMA ADPCM
WAVE MS ADPCM

Currently supported image formats
BMP
ICO
GIF87a
PBM/PGM/PPM
ZX Spectrum screen dump (SCR)

Currently supported data sources
memory
file
HTTP/1.1 protocol

Currently supported data outputs
audio (via AHI)
window (for images)

Available filters
audio looper
audio FIR filter

Etc., etc., etc.

Notheworthy:
MorphOS DOS enhanced to support 64bit

All graphic subsystem now dependes entirely from GPU of the graphic card. No more stress for CPU.

http://www.morphos.de/news.html

http://www.morphos.de/releasenotes-2.0.html


AmigaOS 4.1:

Antwerp, Belgium - 11 July, 2008.

"Hyperion Entertainment is very pleased to announce that Amiga OS 4.1 has gone into final testing and is scheduled for release mid-Q3/2008. Building on the solid foundations of Amiga OS 4.0, Amiga OS 4.1 introduces a wealth of substantial new functionality which is a prerequisite for the deployment of industry standard applications on the Amiga platform. "

New features include:

* Intelligent memory paging
* Hardware compositing engine (Radeon R1xx and R2xx family)
* Implementation of the "Cairo" device-independent 2D rendering library
* Picture Transfer Protocol (PTP) support for greater digital camera compatibility
* JXFS filesystem with the support for drivers and partitions of multiple terabyte size
* Improved Workbench functionality
* New and improved DOS functionality (full 64 bit support, universal notification support, automatic expunge and reload of updated disk resources)
* Improved 3D hardware accelerated screen-dragging
* Reworked AmiDock with true transparency
* Reworked Warp3D Radeon drivers with new functionality
*And much, much more.

There are interesting screenshots showing animations in Alpha Channel on the Workbench (Amiga GUI) screen:



and some youtube videos from privates who spotted and tested it in Italy and England meetings:


http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlCA319gFFc

Here is the comments of one of the people who posted the videos:

First Video
This video shows some of the features of the new HW accelerated composition engine that will be included in AmigaOS 4.1
In this video you can see the transparent windows and a small window containing a thumbnail of the WB screen that is updated in real time

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=-MhrbzWePz0

Second Video
This video shows some of the features of the new HW accelerated composition engine that will be included in AmigaOS 4.1
In this video you can see the zoom utility. Activating the titlebar of the utility and holding down the right mouse button you can zoom and navigate in real time the WB screen using the scroll wheel to increase or decrease the zoom factor.

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=wCThwFOIs8g

Third Video
The new lister can display a miniature of the file/drawer Icon (size is fully configurable and can also be bigger than the original). The windw can have stripes of different colors to help follow long lines of text, column headers can be clicked to change sort order and you can have accurate description of file types thanks to integration with deficons. All those aspects are fully configurable with Workbench Preference window.

Just two more words about the demo I held.
For all the duration of the demo I worked using Virtual Memory. At the beginning I copied a 780Mb file in RAM DISK (my A1 has only 512 MB of phisical RAM). If I remember correctly It took about 12-15 seconds (from a SFS partiton to RAM).

I then showed all the things you can see on the videos and much more:
- I opened a PDF file and browsed some ot its content
- I played a video (from one of my partitions) with DvPlayer (it was the same 780MB file I copied in ram)
- I launched Cygnix and AbiWord
- I launched Tunenet with a couple of skins

All of this with no visible slowdown.
My A1 is equipped with a G4@1GHZ (one of those repaired and upgraded by ACube Systems) with a Radeon 9000 PRO video card.

BTW, I forgot to show the new ASL file requester.... It's now using reaction and has some of the functionality of the new text mode lister.

http://www.hyperion-entertainment.biz:8080/amiga

Enjoy it!

[C-Chan]

Oooh,... couldn't have drawn that picture at a better time.  ^__^

[Raffaele the Amigan]

Oooh,... couldn't have drawn that picture at a better time.  ^__^

Yes... You made it just in time...  ;010