AmigaAmp 3 on X1000

Today I wanted to take a look at AmigaAmp 3 under AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition on my X1000, and also look at some recent Front end add-on software under active development in 2015 that utilises it and adds extra functionality - Song Wrangler and aTunes.

AmigaAmp 3 is a music player that supports multiple formats, MP3, modules, and more! It is freeware, the latest version was released in 2015 (3.16) and available to download from here. There is also an older Classic Amiga version that runs on AmigaOS 3.x.

There are also many AmigaAmp format support files such as skins and plugins to download from the same site to put into the AmigaAmp drawer to enable support for other file formats, skins and visualisations.

In it's standard GUI below AmigaAmp looks good, but when you customise it and use Visualisations and add ons you can make it look great!

You can customise things in the AmigaAmp 3 preferences - in the Program tab you can change how files are handled, autoplay of files and playlists, repeating playlists or songs too, amongst other things:

Under GUI tab is where we can change the default skin, and Visualisations (FX) to run - this can also be changed from the right click menu at any time without coming into this screen:

Under the Audio tab we can modify volume, the use of the equaliser and specify the AHI unit to use.

Setting the path of your music files under System tab makes things quicker too of course - the buffers section is mainly relevant if you have a slower AmigaOne machine - no issues on the X1000 of course:

You can certainly choose from a very large selection of AmigaAmp skins, available on their website here, and also on os4depot.net and aminet.net. A sample selection appears below that I have installed on my X1000:

Simply copy the skin downloaded into the AmigaAmp Skins drawer to have it available to select from, once the program is restarted next.

Everyone's taste varies of course, so what I may like for a skin doesn't do it for everyone. But certainly there is enough variety of skins (this is only a small sample) to be able to find one that appeals to everyone I think!

When you combine the FX with the skins and add-ons, your Workbench screen can look really great!

There is also full screen real time Visualisation FX for AmigaAmp 3 like the one below:

You can get more visualisation plugins from the AmigaAmp website here.

Let's take a look now at some of the recent add-ons, namely Song Wrangler and aTunes.

Song Wrangler 0.92 by Caras Ghant is the most recent entrant into the front end add-ons for AmigaAmp 3. You can download it from os4depot.net here.

Once extracted to a drawer and run, it finds the AmigaAmp 3 folder and program itself, and you then can add in your music drawers - it aims to be an iTunes style interface. Note that at the moment it is limited to MP3 files only:

Here is the initial view once the music drawer contents has been loaded in, and playing a song using AmigaAmp 3 iconified in the background:

You can use the Search/filter section to find songs and albums easier:

There are some settings available in Song Wrangler from the right click menu as below:

Important one to turn on is Use AISS toolbar images to enable the nicer toolbar icons from AISS, which I already have installed - you can get it from os4depot.net here.

After restarting Song Wrangler with AISS toolbar images it looks much nicer:

Listening to some music made by yours truly - if interested in my music you can listen to some of it on soundcloud here:

You can still de-iconify AmigaAmp with SongWrangler and use it's functionality too - including turning on some of the FX:

In case you are wondering, in these screenshots I am running CANDI (available on AMIStore), using rotating background images I got off the internet, which compliment using AmigaAmp 3 and Song Wrangler well in my opinion:

Ok, time now to take a look at aTunes by zzd10h, available as part of zTools package on AMIStore.

The aTunes add-on can work with AmigaAmp 3 and TuneNet players, supports all the music formats AmigaAmp 3 and TuneNet do (mods, m4a, etc) and has a lot of other functionality too!

After building up the database from my music folders on the X1000, I could then click on Play to play the selected song. You can see the options at the bottom of the aTunes screen to select the Player, and the Mp3 information.

Unlike Song Wrangler, aTunes does not minimise AmigaAmp 3 when run, but this just encouraged me to run all the FX to show it running nicely on my X1000:

aTunes includes an advanced filter (available by clicking on the Filter option in the aTunes window), which allows you to filter the list of songs in your library by a number of different criteria. Below I filtered by Artist:

Another nifty feature in aTunes is the ability to create and save/load playlists compatible with AmigaAmp 3 and TuneNet. Simply right click on the song you want in the playlist and select Playlist > Add to Playlist:

The song is now added to the playlist.

I can modify the list, or close this and go back to the aTunes window to select more songs..

Here is my playlist, ready to go:

I can also play the playlist directly from this window without saving it! I can also erase all, remove specific songs, etc. Very handy.

I can then save the playlist in M3U (AmigaAmp 3) or PLS (TuneNet) formats by clicking Save.

Having saved it I then play my new playlist in AmigaAmp 3 from aTunes.

As a final note you can also edit the MP3 tags of one or more songs in your collection from aTunes as well:

aTunes is more advanced in features at the moment than Song Wrangler, so it is still currently my preferred choice of front end for AmigaAmp 3. I have been using it for a number of years now on my X1000.

I do continue to follow the updates to Song Wrangler with interest too though - it is good to have options!

Of course AmigaAmp's competitor TuneNet (not developed for a number of years) has been picked up by A-EON recently, so no doubt we will see updated version of it on AMIStore in the future too!

It is great to have these program developments on AmigaOS 4.1 in 2015.

Freedroid RPG for AmigaOS4.1 on X1000

Today I am taking a look at the recently released game FreeDroid RPG for AmigaOS 4.1 on the AmigaOne X1000.

You can download the game from os4depot.net here. It is a port by Michael Trebilcock (local Adelaide AmigaOS 4 system owner) of the in progress open source game from Windows, MacOS X and Linux versions. The website for the Freedroid RPG game is here.

Once downloaded and extracted you get the following drawer:

There is a good Readme that explains the controls of the game - I am using MultiviewerNG available from AMIStore to replace the usual Multiview program to show the README:

Once the game is launched you quickly reach the main title screen - note Open GL is not active as it doesn't work properly yet:

There is a tutorial option to get to grips with the game:

Chatting with characters in the game reveals important information to allow you to progress:

Moving on from the tutorial to the main game now, I was taken aback how great the game looks. The Isometric 3D and the gameplay style like classic RPG games like Diablo / Starcraft:

Not all characters are friendly, and destroying them is important before they do the same to you!

Running the game full screen in 1920x1080 on the X1000 is slow, around 8fps. Better to run in a smaller screen resolution at the moment, until OpenGL is supported properly in the game port to speed things up:

I ran the game at this resolution purely for the nicer screen shots. It looks wonderful!

In this view below I show the inventory view showing what items I have collected and what armor I am wearing, and the weapons I am using.

As I moved around I am attacked my more and more robots - which is the link to the Paradroid Classic game that the characters are loosely based on:

The background music is great and complements the game very well as you move around exploring the game maps.

I then walked straight into a fight with too many robots and it was game over!

Like Diablo, there is a lot to this game, and way more than I can cover in this short blog entry - but I wanted to show what the game is like, and it is great to see this new game on AmigaOS 4.1 in 2015.

SimpleMail 0.41 Gmail IMAP on X1000

Recently I took a look at SimpleMail 0.41, released in December 2014 for AmigaOS 4.1, on my AmigaOne X1000.

AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition includes SimpleMail 0.35 with it, but since then SimpleMail has been updated to support the latest SSL protocols to fix the issues with Gmail not working since their security upgrades removed support for the older AmiSSL connections.

You can download the latest SimpleMail 0.41 with the fixed openssl library from here. Once downloaded and extracted you get the following drawer.

As your email can use a lot of space over time, I recommend putting this drawer on a separate large WORK partition rather than the System: partition. In my case I created an Applications drawer on WORK: and then extracted the SimpleMail 0.41 archive to there.

There is a good Amigaguide document included with the SimpleMail program to explain it's requirements and how to use it.

As they mention, it is BETA software and not completely finished, but the IMAP functionality to use Gmail is what I want to use it for, which works fine.

Note that SimpleMail requires a MUI class called PopPlaceHolder which is not included with AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition or with the included 0.35 program or the 0.41 update! The other requirements (MUI classes) have links shown in the Requirements guide below.

I already had all the MUI classes listed as requirements except PopPlaceHolder.

Update 4/11/2015: If you have the latest MUI 4 (30/9/2015) installed, you will have PopPlaceHolder.mcc installed (newer version), but it causes problems with SimpleMail 0.41 as it needs the older version below - otherwise it will crash when you click on the Configuration option in SimpleMail.

To fix this problem for newer MUI 4 versions, use the Shell to copy the popplaceholder.mcc file located in MUI:Libs/MUI/popplaceholder.mcc to another name like popplaceholder.mcc.newer, and then delete popplaceholder.mcc and install the older version shown below. Then it will work.

You can download PopPlaceHolder from AmiNet here. This is the PopPlaceHolder drawer once extracted, ready for installation. Just double click on MCC-Install to walk through the standard Workbench installer.

Even though the program is for 68k Amigas, it will work fine under AmigaOS 4.1. This requirement is needed to be able to use the Configuration window within the SimpleMail program.

Speaking of which, here is the SimpleMail 0.41 program window on initial open:

The structure and layout of the email program is very familiar to people who have used YAM (Yet Another Mailer) before on Classic Amigas or AmigaOS 4.1.

Under the Right click Menu, select Settings > Configuration.. to get the window below. You will need to configure your email accounts in here to be able to download/send out your emails.

As you can see there are plenty of settings covering most email settings you would expect. But lets look at adding a Gmail account into SimpleMail, by selecting the Accounts area of the Configuration window (in the left pane):

Click on Add Account to start putting in the configuration. I have included the settings I used to get IMAP Gmail account working in SimpleMail - minus the pixelated email address - please substitute your own Gmail email address.

In the Receive mail section you can specify how often mail is checked - I changed this to every 3 minutes.

In the Signatures section I could create my signature for my emails sent from Simple Mail:

There is a comprehensive Spam section to check incoming emails for Spam, and to add senders to black list (block) or white list (allow).

Mail sync then gets underway:

Mail synced and I now have Gmail IMAP working using Simple Mail - names and emails blurred to protect the innocent!

It is great to be able to use Gmail IMAP support on my AmigaOne X1000 using Simple Mail. It works with POP3 also of course (config not included here sorry!), so you can choose from either method.

I hope this guide is useful!

AmigaOne X1000 sold out!

Introduced for sale in 2012, three years on the AmigaOne X1000 has now officially run out of stock and it seems that no more will be made.

This means you can no longer purchase a new X1000 system. Fortunately the X1000 replacement, called the AmigaOne X5000 should be on sale in the not too distant future, which is a even faster system! It supports running AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition, MorphOS (3.10 once released) and many variants of Linux too.

In addition we now also know publicly about the new Tabor system, a new entry level system for AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition planned for release in the future to complement the X5000.

There was even mention and demonstration at AmiWest 2015 of A.L.I.C.E, an off the shelf laptop running Amikit X, Amiga Forever and AmigaOS3.x.

So there is plenty of new hardware on the way to keep both Classic and Next Generation Amiga community busy for a few more years to come yet, which is great news!

I have really enjoyed using the X1000 for the past 3 years, it was a worthy replacement of the Sam 440ep I had before that. I was glad to order the X1000 as part of the First Contact initial batch and it was worth every cent.

In case you are wondering, with these screenshots on the X1000 I took this week I am using the latest updated CANDI software (available on AMIStore) to rotate the background images every 60 seconds and still use some CANDI effects over the top of them. I think it looks great.

The X1000 was the result of Trevor Dickinson's vision to have a stable higher performance NG Amiga that could run AmigaOS 4.1 as it deserved to be run, rather than on entry-level hardware platforms. I believe the X1000 achieved that goal and I will always be grateful that he took the financial risk to make the machine a reality.

I have huge respect for what Trevor has done to help the NG Amiga community, jetting around the world sponsoring and supporting Amiga shows, and getting down to work with moving the Amiga forward as a ongoing hardware platform, working with all the major players.

I was very glad to finally meet Trevor at AmiWest 2014 to chat and thank him in person. Cheers to you mate.

This is of course in no way diminishing the considerable efforts by others in the NG Amiga community as well, but I wanted to make a special mention of Trevor's efforts in relation to the X1000.

I have tried my best via this blog to show the AmigaOne X1000 to the community - the good things, the great things, and the not so good things since no system is perfect after all. Plenty of hints and tips, configuration step-by-step guides, new software, and multiple hardware projects I undertook with the X1000 during the last 3 years.

The X1000 inspired me to try new things, to see what AmigaOS 4.1.5, 4.1.6 and AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition could really do on a fast system!

The NG Amiga community extends to many other systems too of course. I also looked at the Sam460CR system, MorphOS PowerBook G4 systems, AROS PC Laptop/Desktop systems and Classic Amiga systems too - including FPGA reimplementations and AmigaOS 4.1 Classic emulation on Mac and PC systems.

The X5000 and other NG Amiga systems to follow in the future continue Trevor's vision with the X1000, and hopefully the availability of ongoing new hardware to run NG Amiga systems on will encourage more people to be part of the NG Amiga community - running AmigaOS 4, MorphOS or AROS!

I will of course continue to use my X1000, and will no doubt be tempted to upgrade it with the X5000 once it goes on sale!

The world of computers is always evolving, changing and improving - the X1000 is a significant milestone in NG Amiga system history and I believe it helped to push the AmigaOS 4.1 platform forward. I wanted to make a post dedicated to it now that it is sold out!

Embrace and enjoy the NG Amiga systems for what they are, today. Many people like me are doing so already!

With the NG Amiga systems like the AmigaOne X1000 I don't need to "remember when computing was fun?", it is fun right now in 2015 :-)