Hollywood 7 on X1000

This week saw the release of the latest version of Hollywood 7 for AmigaOS 4! I quick bought it to give it a go on my X1000.

Last time I looked at Hollywood was back here, a few years ago!

Hollywood is a commercial programming/scripting language which allows programs to be developed cross platform that can be compiled to run under AmigaOS 3, AmigaOS 4, MorphOS, AROS, Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and even Apple iOS and Google Android devices!

This program keeps getting better and better with more and more features added with each new release. The AMIStore client for AmigaOS 4 is an example of a Hollywood produced program, and of course Hollywood is capable of many other types of projects too.

As I already owned Hollywood 6.1, I qualified to purchase the cheaper upgrade option, and soon after  my purchase I received my keyfile and downloaded the installers for all the platforms I wanted to try it on, including Windows, MacOS X and linux.

Having said that, you don't actually need to do that, as you can compile the executables directly from AmigaOS 4 and just run them direct on the target system. So we can work entirely within AmigaOS while developing AmigaOS, Windows, Mac OS X and linux programs :-)

Speaking of which I should get it installed on my X1000. The install instructions are pretty straight forward. No need in this version to construct an iso to install from, which is great!

The installation process is very straightforward:

The installer picked up my Hollywood 6.1 installation to update:

As you can see, Hollywood can run on the NG and Classic Amiga platforms:

The new version introduces unicode character support, which is a great step forward. It mentions in the installer how to make older Hollywood programs deal with it if they are not unicode compliant:

You can use Hollywood from the command line or GUI to run scripts. I prefer to use Cubic IDE editor with the add-on Hollywood IDE support, but more on that soon.

Something to remember when you have Hollywood programs that are not behaving themselves without a close gadget or running fullscreen is the CTRL-C command to quit them:

Install is completed!

At the conclusion of the installation you get a nice Hollywood program that explains the new features of Hollywood V7, as below:

 I then ran the Hollywood GUI program, which allows you to see example scripts, including running them and viewing the source code, etc:

The 3D cube looks pretty cool:

Included with Hollywood is a comprehensive AmigaGuide document for Hollywood features and functions:

The Hollywood scripting language constructs and commands are also covered in detail, making this an essential go-to guide as you learn how to use Hollywood.

From my previous installation of Hollywood 6.1 in 2016, I also installed all the separate add-ons on the Hollywood website that enable support for all sorts of programs and project types, datatypes to playback music/videos, MUI integration, and more too!

These add-ons have not been updated (as I write this) from the older version in 2016, so I don't have any add-on installations to show here.

One thing I did update though is the Hollywood for Cubic IDE add-on, also downloadable from the Hollywood website. This enables full Hollywood compilation, source code highlighting and more.

The installer reminds you that you will be prompted to overwrite older files (as in my case):

Once installed, the Hollywood functionality add-ons are now available in Cubic IDE, my preferred editor environment in AmigaOS 4. (and indeed Classic Amiga as well):

I loaded up a program I have been working on from time to time - a little tribute to my old demo group The Experience - but not updated for a while now!

I then recompiled it under v7 and it compiled it from AmigaOS 4 with no problems!

I realise it is not the best looking or the most exciting thing, but from little things big things grow right?

In this case I have a program that allows me to select from the two Amiga demos that I helped write back in the late 1990's on AGA Amiga 1200/030 systems, for playback as mp4 video files:

I am pleased to see a bug that prevented colour playback of the videos has been fixed now, so it has given me more motivation to try expanding the functionality of this program further.

I can also playback the mods I wrote for the two demos from the program as well, although I haven't worked out how to stop them yet! Still have a lot more to learn! :-)

Hollywood 7 is a great product and well worth trying out, especially if like me you are a novice at programming.

Computer Room 2017 reconfiguration

I thought today I would cover the recent computer room re-organisation I did back in January to try to make a little bit more room for more Amigas to be running :-)

I have but one room to fit all my computer stuff into, and unfortunately these days it is packed to the rafters with stuff...

Whole systems have to packed away most of the time as I just don't have the space to set them up...rotating them in means disconnecting something I want to have permanently setup, which is frustrating and stops me working on projects I would otherwise be doing.

Accessing my floppy disks (stored in a specially setup set of drawers, is also a pain, having to move furniture around to access them every time:

I am very jealous of people who have large rooms to put their computer stuff into and don't have these problems...anyway, it is what it is!

So I decided to buy another desk to somehow squeeze in here...I measured everything out and believed it would work. But of course it meant disconnecting all my systems and clearing space to move everything around...

As the clean out is progressing the room is filled with music from the AmigaOne X1000 to keep me going, and it was the last system to disconnect.

That done, I could start to move the furniture around to make space for the new desk I got from Ikea.

My glass Zed desk (from Freedom Furniture - who sadly stopped selling this desk last year after almost 20 years!) is my favourite desk. I wish I could fill the room with them...but alas, no.

So things are starting to take shape. I can even open the windows again - the first time in many years!

With the new desk assembled and in place, the new layout is finalised and looks very nice I have to say (in my humble opinion)! Tried to make use of every centimetre of space in the room. The space to the left of the largest desk is to fit the spare tower systems not currently set up.

With the new layout I can now easily access my windows (!) and my Amiga floppy disk collection too, which was almost impossible before:

Now the long task of putting all the systems back together.

The new layout means I can have the PC, Mac, C64, Amiga 2000, and spare space on the new desk to fit two more systems on rotation as required, plus the AmigaOne X1000 of course - all permanently set up:

This took almost two days to complete, but the result was worth it:

In the spare spaces I set up the CD32 and old Pentium 200MMX (kept for DOS demos) temporarily. I definitely enjoyed seeing some old favourite DOS demos again - I haven't had this machine out for a while. I know it's not Amiga but please indulge me a few photos:

I also took the opportunity to put my UPS in the setup to power all the critical systems I use daily to protect from lightning strikes, power surges, etc. After my experiences with the X1000 in the past, I want to be very careful with them now!

Hate to think how much power I am sucking down to have these all running for the photos:

For those curious the modern-ish Core i7 PC on the left runs RemixOS and Windows 10 - in this shot running RemixOS. Later on of course I had the awesome Farbrausch demos cranked up:

One of the great things of having a legacy free C64 is that it requires very little space...

Since these photos were taken I have replaced the Pentium 200MMX with the Amiga 4000D and the CD32 with the AmigaOne A1222 for performing my AmigaOS 4.1 FE Beta testing duties.

The LG screen is fully utilised, taking the two A2000 outputs (VGA from Indivision ECS and HDMI out from the Vampire), and also the DVI output from the A1222. Here is a more recent photo showing that layout:

The spare space area is working out great, making it much easier for me to swap in systems to play with for a while without affecting the systems I want to have permanently setup.

It was a lot of work but I think it was worth it to get more space in my room for my Amiga (and other) systems!