A600: Beefing my A600 Software and Hardware wise

Hi my friends,

After spending some time fiddling around with my A600's custom ClassicWB that it took quite an effort to make it good for my needs, I couldn't help it by wanting to even more beef my beloved Amiga.
All may know that my most beloved OS is OS3.9 but sadly, all my previous efforts into installing OS3.9 to my 030 A600 wasn't so nice for my taste.
It works, and it works well, but GlowIcons plus 16 colors WB (even in 640x512) isn't as responsive as I would like. That was the reason for sticking with ClassicWB Full in the first place anyway :)
So... I thought about giving one more try to ClassicWB 3.9 but customizing as much as I could to make it more responsive for my taste.

Ok... this is what ClassicWB 3.9 looks like when you install it to an ECS system with 16 colors at a resolution of 640x512 (PAL Hi-Res Laced).

And this is when you change it 8 colors... Yeah I know it sux a bit, but just wait a bit more :)

That's more like it!  Changing screenmode to SuperPlus (800x600) with some nice backdrop, changed via ImageStudio to MWB palette.

This is the default GlowIcons iconset before doing anything...

And this is the same, but this time using PeterK's icon.library that supports except from ALL icons even on WB3.0 systems, fast decoding even on PNG icons with it's embedded decoder! (not datatype related!)
It's not such a huge difference, but you can see some shadow differences if you compare it side by side.

Last but not least... AND THIS WAS THE HARDEST PART, was to replace WHOLE iconset of OS3.9 to the one that I made for my previous custom environment based on MagicWB icons!!!
Seems a bit weird at first seeing MWB icons and an 8 colors palette for an OS3.9 system but who cares?
Check also on the following screenshots the replacement of Amidock with the more lightweight and looking AWESOME for small icons ToolManager.

You can see in the following screenshot, some version checks from my custom Kickstart 3.9 that loads via ACA's MapROM feature.

Just to praize a bit of PeterK's work, I thought of doing one more screenshot checking out some DualPNG, and OS4.1 MasonIcons, as well as some older NewIcons and GlowIcons through his AWESOME library.

Don't want to sound too excited, but the system was responsive as a rocket! Boots just fine and rebootless due to custom kickstart, and it blazingly fast, giving the expresion that you might have an 040 underneath (LOL). Icon loading is superb and overall I'm TOO excited about this system which is from now on my ONLY system that I use on this A600.

I'm attaching a really quick teaser video just to understand where all my excitement comes from :)

More updates and info will come in the future as atm I'm still fiddling around with what more stuff to put in this OS :)

Apart from that, despite owning one of the few ACA630@30MHz and 64MB of RAM, I couldn't help wanting to beef a bit more the CPU clockage but not to extreme levels as I know that it would push the memory beyond specc.
So this is my beasty ACA with it's default 60MHz oscillator giving 30MHz speed to my Amiga. It's a small square oscillator but Jens putted both square and rectangle oscillator support to the PCB layout as you can see bellow.

It just needs a bit of careful unsoldering...

And mounting the socket carefully into place :)

And that's about it \o/ On the following example I used for fun despite knowing that it probably won't work... an 80MHz oscillator sent to me by Zetr0.

System booted just fine... and Workbench loaded!!! I was WTF? time to fire up some SysInfo for benchmarking... and Whoa!!!

I was about to cry from joy and when I realized that system crashed a bit after getting back to Workbench :(
I tried a restart but then system refused to boot.
I waited some minutes and system booted just fine again, but after 2 mins it crashed once more... Ok I expected that tbh, so I didn't try it more. It was definitely going beyond specc and I couldn't do anything about it.

Then came Stachu100 to the rescue with a free 66MHz oscillator that he sent me as a gift :)
Once putting the oscillator on... I had a feeling he was a keeper!
System booted just fine, and SysInfo was fired up once more... This time with a bit worse results as normal, but better than the stock 30MHz one.

I left the Amiga playing modules via EaglePlayer for about 1.5 hour without a single glitch!!! Yey!
After that I run my MMU support script and voila some new results (lower than before but this is typical as it was the same in my previous 3.1 ClassicWB setup)

Still awesome though, now that MMU was working I could also fire up WhichAmiga for some leet infos :)

Since MMU is on (on request) I can also run my ShapeShifter setup with Indy support that works just fine but will show on another time on a full video presentation.

Till then... I hope you enjoyed it :)

A600: ClassicWB improvements

Free time on weekends to tinker my lovely Amigas is just priceless :)

This week there was a thread on EAB where we discussed about commodities while some fellow Amigans showed the need to use a Dock instead of plain icons "left out" on their Workbench screen.

Well I was one of them as well, since Workbench 3.1 doesn't have an AmiDock equivalent utility and every utility that I tried in the past wasn't nice for my taste.

Then it hit me that my old A2000 days I have used the ToolManager utility which worked like a charm. After so many years and trying to use it again, I found out that it was kind weird into setting it up. In some minutes I remembered how to set it up correctly and since some fellow Amigans asked if it would be possible for me to write a guide... I thought "Oh well... Lets do this"!

You can download the Guide that I wrote by clicking here.

An example of how my ClassicWB Full is now configured using ToolManager can been seen bellow.

The nice part is that apart of being pretty neat and nice, is that it's really configurable and most important... Blazingly fast! 

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Some time ago I contacted Peter Keunecke (PeterK) asking him if there was a way to be able to use his awesome icon.library successfully on ClassicWB.

You see... before contacting him, I made all the necessary tests to my ClassicWB installation and for some reason loading PeterK's icon.library... messed with my palette and icons weren't showing at all!
After a lot of searching around I finally realized that it was the LoadWB that was causing the problems!

Scalos that all ClassicWB 3.1 packs use, uses it's own LoadWB command that internally uses the original LoadWB command (that is renamed to LoadWB.orig).

• If I use the original WB3.1 LoadWB library then the icons using the new icon.library display just fine but I have no Scalos working.
• If I use Scalos's LoadWB command then Scalos works just fine but I don't see the icons using the new icon.library.

After some fiddling around, PeterK sent me an archive with some file replacements on my ClassicWB installation that involved some new Classes/Datatypes/Libs/Prefs etc files and that way his icon.library worked just fine!!!

You can check it out along with a video from my previous article that I wrote some weeks ago here.

Seeing that it worthed the effort, Peter created a thread over EAB which explained everything you need to know.

Some days ago, he made a final revision of his archive which involved lotsa stuff. In the thread there is lot of details about what features his version had so whoever needs to make some reading... you can check it there :)

Since I have a really heavy modified ClassicWB installation I had to do my tests carefully so I decided that today was a nice day to do so.

Well after some time tinkering my installation around... IT WORKED LIKE A CHARM!!! 

These are some screenshots from AllIconsOnWB3.1 archive by PeterK showing OS4 icons and DualPNG Ken's Icons.

...and the new Icon information module from Scalos! How awesome is that!

Since my system is rather heavily modified with Custom Kickstart ROM... I made some minor alterations to PeterK's Startup-Sequence script:

• I commented PatchRAM from the patches since I already have an "Ram-Handler 42.24" inside my Custom ROM.
• I commented the LoadModule declarations for both Icon.library and SCSI.device as I have them in my Custom ROM.
• I removed the PatchWB from my WBStartup folder since now it's in C and run from Startup-Sequence

Lotsa thanks Peter for your continuous work!

A600: Recent updates and a new video

Hey peepz just thought of sharing my latest updates since lately I've been tinkering my A600 a lot softwarewise :)
It's going really stable all this time, and I'm enjoying it very much.

Listening to music while I chat, or making custom Kickstarts is so enjoyable, and I run it on daily basis without a single crash.

Latest updates were:

• Attaching a silent 40x40x10 Scythe/Kaze fan on ACA630 (just for safety)

• Upgrading an NetGear MA401 PCMCIA Wi-Fi NIC (firmware+station) in order to be able to support WPA2 encryption that my home network uses! No delay at all :) There is an awesome guide by a guy Hiddenevil (over A.org) on his blog here.
• Tinkering my OS as much as possible. Also with the help of PeterK (author of the newest Icon.library) I managed to be able displaying all possible icons under WB3.1 like GlowIcons, NewIcons, OS4 icons and even DualPNG Ken's Icons. Ofc colors aren't that great (since my WB only uses 8color palette) but still quite impressive. The thread concerning changes of some ClassicWB files can be found over EAB here.

I also made a quick video last night to see how my system is going on :)
I converted it to 480p (from FullHD) this time in case it looks a bit better so probably it's nicer than the previous ones (better use full screen, or change to the native YouTube page that has more options on resolutions).

I hope you like it :)

Stay tuned \o/

A600: Kickstart refresh day

I love Saturdays not only because I don't work, but because I have more time to tinker my lovely Amigas :)

Today I refreshed a bit of my Custom Kickstart OS3.9 for my beloved A600 since I have done some changes recently due to Peter Keunecke's Icon.library and Cosmos SCSI.device.

What modules I have so far in my Custom 1MB Kickstart (except the normal Kickstart 3.1 modules) are the following:

• Exec 45.24 (instead of 40.10)... [OS3.9 BB4]
• BootMenu 44.7 68020 (instead of 40.5)... [OS3.9 BB2]
• Card.resource 40.5 (instead of 40.4)... [OS3.9 BB4]
• Console.device 44.10 (instead of 40.2)... [OS3.9 BB3]
• Datatypes.library 44.48 (instead of 44.47)... [OS3.9 BB4]
• Filesystem.resource 45.10 (instead of 40.1)... [OS3.9 BB2]
• FastFilesystem 45.16 (instead of 40.1)... [OS3.9 BB4]
• Graphics.library 42.8b11 (instead of 40.24)... [Cosmos]
• KingCON-handler 40.4 (instead of Con-Handler 40.2)... [Cosmos]
• Icon.library 46.4.220 (instead of 40.1)... [PeterK]
• RAM Handler 44.24 (instead of 39.4)... [OS3.9 BB3]
• Ramlib 40.3 (instead of 40.2)... [OS3.9 BB4]
• Romheader 45.21 (instead of BlizKick module)... [OS3.9 BB4]
• SCSI.device 43.46b8 (instead of 40.5)... [Cosmos]
• Shell 45.27 (instead of 40.2)... [OS3.9 BB3]
• Trackdisk.device 40.2 (instead of 40.1)... [OS3.9 BB4]
• Workbench.library 45.131 (instead of 40.5)... [OS3.9 BB3]
• BBlank... [For Black Borders]
• HRTModule 2.30... [HRTmon using ACA630's NMI header]

Everything seems to work just fine :)

And you can check the correct versions from CLI:

A600: Kipper2k's CF extender installation + more

Since I got Kipper2k's awesome CF adapter I thought of installing it (cause at the weekdays it's really tough)...

Dremeling the case was once more a shity procedure, but had to be done

I also changed my upgraded from Revision B to C HxC SD Floppy emulator to a new one of Revision C that I got from a fellow Amibayer since it had less height (due to my hack missing lol). After all my hacked HxC will be used in an external case in a future mod (to be able to use it on my other Amiga and Amstrad computers.

I also like that the color matches the one from Indivision ECS.

Along with the hardware mod, I was more busy remaking my own custom 3.9 ROMS adding stuff like Cosmos KingCON-Handler and PeterK's Icon.library 46.4.196 that supports displaying DualPNG Icons (like Ken's Icons or MasonIcons). Not really usable under processors like 030 but really cool to be able to see an icon instead of seeing it as a dot or not at all
I'm so in love with Remus (for giving the opportunity into making so easily custom kicks) and ACA's MapROM feature (for giving the opportunity in mapping those kickstart without having to burn every once and a while).
Anyway take a look on some PNG icons under my ECS A600

Just a couple of things needed and I guess I would be finished with this mod (at last). Case needs to close to proceed with my more serious A1200D PPC project

I hope you like it.

A600: Custom Kickstart 3.9 + Visual enhancements

I made quite some changes today

I changed from Bloodwych's ClassicWB 3.5 to 3.9 because I wanted more recent shiz
Ok here's what I removed (Gulliver my friend, thanks tonz):

• AmiDock --> Too heavy for my taste. For now it's off till I find a better one.
• DefIcons --> Not needed for me. Bloodwych made a great work not for me to need that.
• RAWBInfo --> It's cool but not so important for me.
• AsyncWB --> Really unimportant since I never do multiple copy/delete etc.
• Benchtrash --> Never used it. For now it's off.

I also enabled Env-Handler since by default it's disabled (Bloodwych my man, your enable/disable scripts are just epix)

Result was a workbench at EXACTLY (I measured it in seconds) the same booting speed and response with the 3.5!!! I really love it.

So today I made quite some upgrades, putting BB3+BB4+Cosmos scsi.device and after all worked like a charm via LoadModule declarations... a custom 3.9 BB4 custom Kickstart was made and voila... No reboots and every new version exists on the spot

Just for information the contents are the following:

• Exec 45.20 (instead of 40.10) --> OS3.9 BB2
• BootMenu 44.7 (instead of 40.5) --> OS3.9 BB2
• Console.device 44.10 (instead of 40.2) --> OS3.9 BB3
• Datatypes.library 44.48 (instead of 44.47) --> OS3.9 BB4
• Filesystem.resource 45.10 (instead of 40.1) --> OS3.9 BB2
• FastFilesystem 45.16 (instead of 40.1) --> OS3.9 BB4
• Icon.library 46.4.181 (instead of 40.1) --> OS3.9 BB4
• RAM Handler 44.24 (instead of 39.4) --> OS3.9 BB3
• SCSI.device 43.46b3 (instead of 40.5) --> Cosmos
• Shell 45.27 (instead of 40.2) --> OS3.9 BB3
• Workbench.library 45.131 (instead of 40.5) --> OS3.9 BB3
• ROMUpdate 44.57 --> OS3.9 BB2
• BBlank --> For Blank Borders
• SpeedyIDE --> For quicker IDE speed
• HRTModule --> Action Replay clone using ACA's NMI header (=full of win)

I really enjoy my new WB and at last I think I have all the things I wanted Maybe in future I'll put some more modules.

I'm attaching 2 screenshots of the WB along with some appz and window open (Thanks for the tips Cammy about EaglePlayer and Shine color change in VP).




Good thing is that after the BB3 upgrade... The icon colors (new icon.library) restored to the BLUE we all loved!!! No more washout colors using Rebel's Palette!!! /awesomeness