Category Archives: Hyperion Entertainment

AmigaOS merchandising shop now open!

Good news, everyone! 

The AmigaOS merchandising shop is now open for all those of you not being able to buy from your local Amiga dealer. You can find t-shirts, tank tops, pullovers, hoodies, mugs and more in our new Spreadshirt shop, where we will gradually add more designs and products.

And as a little welcome gift you can get 15% discount on everything during the next 14 days by entering the code:

welcome-100172727

Show others your love! Be proud! Be authentic!
http://shop.amigaos.net

New AmigaOS Core Developers

blog_devWe are pleased to announce that we have joined the AmigaOS development team. We hope that we are able to contribute some good things to AmigaOS using our skills in coding (Frank) and graphics (Thomas).

The follow is a short description of us and our products.

EntwicklerX:
We are currently working full time, self-employed, developing our games on multiple platforms (AmigaOS, Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Xbox Indies) as EntwicklerX. For about 10 years we have worked together on various software projects in our spare time. The focus in the last 5-6 years was to earn some money with the small bonus that it has allowed both of us to live from it (not enough for a Ferrari but enough to have fun at work). A strict separation between design and programming logic helped us build our products in an effective way with our limited time. While Frank takes care of programming, Thomas builds the graphics. Our subsystem is so sophisticated that Thomas can create and test Layouts without the help of Frank and Frank can use this directly in his code. This saves a lot of time and nerves. Before this, Frank had to compile every time if Thomas wanted to move a graphic a few pixels. 😉

AmiBoing Games

Our Amiga platform AmiBoing is used to bring an online connection to our games for high scores and achievements and it is also used for distributing our games. With more than 200 Users we can say this is the leading online gaming community on the Amiga platform. 😉

avatarImago_small

Thomas:
I care about what the user sees, how users interact with a game, paint graphics, create the levels and take care of our website. I have invested a lot of time into understanding how to create themes for AmigaOS and am still learning. The seamless design of an operating system is very important to me and I hope to play a part in this within AmigaOS.

avatarGoos_small

Frank:
I try to bring Thomas’ graphics to life and love to get the maximum out of AmigaOS using any available techniques to optimize (e.g. compositing). In our projects, I take care of all the programming. Together with Thomas, I am working on the game play and new game ideas. I can do my part in helping the Amiga in all areas of coding and to help current developers.

We are a Team:
Even with the split of responsibilities we will usually work as a team because ideas and their implementation always occur together. We look forward to working with the existing developers and also contributing to any interesting discussions. We will do our best but please note that we are only human and have a finite amount of time to work on everything. Give us time to understand how things work within the developer team. 😉

Best regards and let us say thank you for adding us to the list of AmigaOS core developers,
Thomas “imagodespira” Claus and Frank “Goos McGuile” Menzel.

Some Links:
EntwicklerX: www.entwickler-x.de
AmiBoing: www.amiboing.de
Themes: www.amiboing.de/themes.php

M.A.C.E

ThemeScreenshot

Happy Easter

Brussels, March 31, 2013

Easter seems like an appropriate time to provide a short update on the development status of a few key components of the upcoming AmigaOS 4.2.

  • Exec SG  : kernel development has been forked off into an experimental and stable branch, to facilitate field testing of potentially drastically new features such as the scheduler, separate address spaces, 64 bit address space awareness etc.
    The task scheduler was completely rewritten in C and now implements the long planned “pluggable” scheduler functionality  : the scheduling algorithm can be changed on the fly, during runtime depending on factors like task’s preference and CPU load, different CPU cores using different scheduling algorithms. The re-write of the scheduler also allows for load balancing which is required for proper multicore support.
  • Work is in progress on yet another Power ISA implementation.
  • Gallium  : bumped to Mesa 9.1, i.e. OpenGL 3.1. Software renderer already implemented, work on hardware accelerated drivers within the framework of Gallium will benefit substantially by the experience gained developing Warp3D drivers for the AMD Radeon Evergreen range (Radeon HD 5xxx/6xxx).

Please note that whilst work on AmigaOS 4.2 is in progress, work on other components is also ongoing and will be made available via AmiUpdate to registered users of AmigaOS 4.1.

Hyperion Entertainment’s management and the AmigaOS 4.x development team wish to thank all of you who have provided much needed support of our efforts by buying AmigaOS 4.1 (either as a standalone copy or together with suitable Power(PC) based hardware available from our hardware partners A-EON Technology and A-Cube Systems.

We greatly appreciate your support and wish you a Happy Easter  !

Classic Cinemaware Returns to AmigaOS

As stated in the official press release, Cinemaware’s original 68K games have been re-released for AmigaOS.

Wings

Screenshot of Wings™ on the AmigaOne X1000

Using original Amiga ROMs and Workbench files along with the UAE emulator, current AmigaOS 4.1 owners can enjoy complete Amiga 68K emulation on their PowerPC based systems. The RunInUAE package by Chris Handley makes it possible to double click on each game to automatically launch UAE. There is even a JIT compiler in the works which should dramatically speed up emulation when it is completed.

dotc-a500

Defender of The Crown® on the AmigaOne 500

Each Cinemaware game utilizes WHDLoad to enable it to run with a simple double click of the mouse. WHDLoad may be registered to remove the nag requester and help support even more original Amiga game conversions.

All that said, the emulation is not 100% perfect. This is where you come in. UAE is very configurable and specific config files are provided for some games. If you know of any tricks to help improve those UAE config files please share them. There is also the decision to use WHDLoad versions of the games. Some people prefer ADF versions instead. Please consider helping us improve the games and possibly provide ADF versions as well. The best way to get in contact with us is via the contact form or the support forum.

rr-a500

Rocket Ranger™ on the AmigaOne 500

AmigaOS 4.1 Update 6 users should note they must have the Emulation and RunInUAE updates applied to their systems for smooth operation. If you have not yet updated, this is a great reason to do so.

I would like to thank the AmigaOS beta testing team for helping to find and fix the many issues that cropped up during beta testing. A special thanks must also go out to Lars Fuhrken-Batista of Cinemaware and Ben Hermans of Hyperion Entertainment for making this project possible.

Steven Solie
AmigaOS Development Team Lead

AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4 Released

AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4 has now been released.

More details and a place to download the update can be found at Hyperion’s main web site.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/05/Boingball.png

This update introduces a special bonus for AmigaOS 68K emulation fans: official AmigaOS 3.x ROMs and Workbench files. We plan to keep adding more files and helping to improve the emulation experience further in future releases.

Don’t forget, for direct customer support please go to Hyperion’s support forum.

New AmigaOS Web Site Launched

The new AmigaOS web site is now ready for browsing.

Check out the new web site here.

A big thanks goes out to George Sokianos and his team for this fantastic effort!

Steven Solie
AmigaOS Development Team Lead

AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4

Just a quick note to say the development and testing teams are working on AmigaOS 4.1 Update 4 right now.

Several issues identified in Update 3 and earlier are being addressed thanks to direct customer feedback via Hyperion’s support forum. A huge thanks to all those that have taken the time to register and post your bug reports! AmigaOS can only get better with direct customer feedback so keep it coming.

Along with the usual assortment of bug fixes, there may well be a surprise or two as well.

Steven Solie
AmigaOS Development Team Lead

AmigaOS 4.1 Update 3 Released

AmigaOS 4.1 Update 3 has been released! http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/05/Boingball.png

You can find all the details and a place to download the update at Hyperion’s main web site.

Special thanks to the AmigaOS development team and the beta testing team for a great effort. This update is rather complex and involves no less than 7 different hardware platforms not including variants.

For direct customer support please go to Hyperion’s support forum.

Where is AmigaOS 4.1 Update 3?

I am happy to report that AmigaOS 4.1 Update 3 is finally nearing completion. Release candidate testing is underway so as long as the testers don’t discover any new issues this will be it.

As is normal for any complex software effort, there have been some last minute issues that held things back. Most of the issues have been taken care of now. If necessary, we will organize an Update 4 if any major issues are discovered after release.

Along with the usual bug fixes we have included a new feature or two along with this update. Other features will be held until the next major release (AmigaOS 4.2) of course.

The update will be distributed via Hyperion’s main home page. If you have not created an account and registered your product(s) yet then this is the time to do so. A registered AmigaOS 4.1 serial number is required to download the update.

Steven Solie
AmigaOS Development Team Lead

AmigaOS Support Forum Launched

I am happy to announce that Hyperion Entertainment has launched a new AmigaOS support http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/05/Boingball.pngforum!

This forum is designed to centralize communications between AmigaOS customers and the AmigaOS software development team. Think you found a bug? Then post a message in the support forum. If an AmigaOS beta tester is able to reproduce the bug then they will take it from there. AmigaOS core developers are also encouraged to participate in the forums and can answer questions directly as well.

Additional support forums are available for Hyperion’s game products such as Freespace and Shogo.

AmigaOS developers have not been left out. There is a support forum for you as well. Found a bug in the SDK? Then just post a message and get it fixed.

Everyone will be allowed to read the web forums but only registered product customers will be allowed to post. To become a registered user, just register your product with Hyperion at their main web site using your product serial number. Remember to register all your Hyperion products for full access.

To summarize:
1. Register your product serial numbers at the main Hyperion Entertainment web site.
2. Create an account on the new Hyperion Entertainment Message Boards.

Steven Solie
AmigaOS Development Team Lead