In 2018 we didin't receive anything, which could wake up Amiga world. Lack of decisive points or events. Still we are small, reducing environment. Of course, it doesn't mean, that there were no positive enents. We need them, because that can keep our environment still alive. The rest has no matter. Just like in the song of Marek Grechuta:
Were so many days, to wasted strength,
To wasted breath, were so many moments,
When you feel regret to those, the ones you have nothing,
One thing worth learning, the only one thing to know, is that...
Marek Grechuta - "Dni, których jeszcze nie znamy" (Days, which are yet not known)
Position 8: Trivia
In 2018 we received lots of interested info and memories about years of Amiga golden years. So we had info about Traces, program for Amiga, which was a forefather of Blender. We wrote about the painter Samii Halaby, which has bought Amiga 1000 in 1985 roku at age 50 and still uses it. There was possibility to purchase of Commodore The Inside Story and read again: There have been rumours about how Commodore - once a billion-dollar company at the cutting edge of computing technology - could go bankrupt..
Adam Podstawczyński prepared a film on YouTube, to show how looks nowadays places in Silicon Valley connected with Amiga. In 13th episode of Retro Stories Karol "Caro" Włodarczyk and Mariusz "MDW" Włodarczyk talked about memories from the period, when they created their first games.
Position 7: AmiCygnix and other software for OS4
It is of course a drop in the ocean of needs, but we had several good points for AmigaOS 4 users. Just on the beginning of 2018 new version of Hollywood, marked as 7.1, has been released. Hollywood is a program to create audio-video presentations (also using script tools). New version of spreadsheet Ignition has been also released.
In the end of 2018 graphic program SketchBlock Pro has been released. Anybody, who has some talent for painting or scathcing, can do a magic there. Olaf Barthel has prepared new version of SMB protocol, which implements Samba protocol - used in Microsoft Windows systems for sharing files and printers. Most important update in 2018 was AmiCygnix in version 1.4, unix environment for AmigaOS 4, which allows to run newer version of programs from unix-like environments.
Position 6: Scene
Nowadays scene means classic Amiga, but very often people creates everything on their PC and Amiga is used only to show it. 2017 was a very good year, but also 2018 is a quite good year. In January huge collection of disk from Bamiga Sector One has been published. Next, we received (after 12 years) final version of famous demo Starstruck released in Assembly 2006 by The Black Lotus group. We had also next edition of Revision, where demo competition has been win by The Deadliners & Lemon with "The Fall" for Amiga 500. During summer the best production were showing during Datastorm.
In Poland we also had periodic events - AmiParty (23th edition!) and final Riverwash in Katowice. In the middle of year we received film by Michał Barański about Polish demo scene Sztuka przekraczania (The Art of Breaking the Ground).
Position 5: Two Adams in Poland
Adama Zalepa works in classic area, Adam Mierzwa in NG. Work of both gentlemen was very valuable. New editions of Amigazyn and Amiga User (English version magazine). Zalepa released also books (for example about developement) and games (like Worthy).
Mierzwa has an active blog and during last year he recored his podcast and released 4 issues of Amiga NG. He wrote also e-book "AmigaOS 4 for the weekend".
Position 4: MorphOS for X5000
Waiting for AmigaOS 4.2 or adjusted version of 4.1, Amiga One X5000 users had possibility to make number of tests on their computers using alternative system MorphOS - this is how I wrote about here: MorphOS 3.10 in March 2018. Next, we received a second (3.11) version of MOS within 2018. System is still developing by team of developers not obligated by law or commercial issues.
In this year, thanks to Trevor Dickinson, who had bought hardaware and developer work, version for Amiga One has been released. In fact, the newest Radeon graphic cards are not handled (AmigaOS 4.1 has a proper drivers), but for users (especially non-players) it could be useful as an alternative. Such points are: number of features implementes (for example JIT) w Oddysey or developement in IDE "Flow Studio".
Position 3: Tower 57 and games with the shaders
Little bit better was in games area for AmigaOS 4. Most important release - commercial game for this system, very good shooter Tower 57. Thanks to Daniel Müßener (Daytona), who had done a great job by optimizing code, game works fast on every Amiga NG.
Thanks to EntwicklerX group, which use shaders and Warp3D under AmigaOS, we received arcade game for kids Spencer.
For engine "Flare", which is used for RPG games and frequently released for AmigaOS, new addon has been released: Empyrean Campaign. Amiga users could get it, but opinions of players were varied.
In 2018 we received tool, which can make creation of games ports for AmigaOS much faster. As we know, there is new 3D system available for AmigaOS 4 called Warp3D Nova. Special wrapper, developed by Daytona, allows to use OpenGL ES 2.0 standard (OpenGL 3D prepared for mobile devices). Most of the games are prepared for common GL and, to compile them, one more wrapper (another library) was needed - OpenGL -> OpenGL ES. Such wrappers were created by kas1e (GL4ES) and HunoPPC (EGL). Thanks to this solution we can play: Barony and Reborn (to Castle) Wolfenstein.
Position 2: classic - hardware and games
Classic Amiga, made by Commodore, is in the good form. Lots of companies, also Polish, produced different accessories for "old friends". We should not forget about few exciting projects.
- ReAmiga 1200 - John "Chucky" Hertell announced, that he will create a copy of main board of Amiga 1200 in version 1D4,
- ACE2 - Individual Computers has prepared extension ACE2, which is installed in socket of Fat Agnus chip of Amiga OCS/ECS and increases CHIP memory up to 2MB,
- reincarnation of AA3000 i A3000+ - models AA3000 and A3000+ were next versions of Amiga 3000 mainboard, which should use new chipset AGA for a first time. DSP processor (for 16-bit sounds and floating point operations) had to be added there ,
- network cards PPC in Mediator - Dennis Boon, who develops Sonnet library, annonced, that he will use a abilities of PowerPC processors located in network cards.
Games for Amiga with 1MB RAM (or more) - in current year there were quite lot of them. Instead Worthy, we received: a nice arcade game Trap Runner, number of games presented during RetroKomp (probably the best one AMIner) and good quality Amiga version of 8-bit games: Tiger Claw and Power Glove. So let's grab joysticks!
Position 1: AmigaOS 3.1.4
Adjusted by Hyperion AmigaOS 3.1.4 for classic Amiga 68k should resolve small issues, which were collected by years. Many parts of system have beed opgraded (accordig to changes within version 3.9) - it is official reason of release new version of AmigaOS 3.1. As I told you before, this version will be bestseller of Hyperion.
In fact Hyperion showed it as the sales hit on Facebook profile. Info about it was also most popular news on eXec.pl within 2018 and lots of Amiga users purchesed it. So definetally, it was an Amiga event of 2018. But only event and nothing more, because from technical point of view, it was not a step into the future. Maybe such release had rescued Hyperion, maybe, but... we will see. We are witing for 2019 with hope.
Important are only the days which we don't yet know,
Important are those few moments, the ones on which we wait,
Important are only the days which we don't yet know,
Important are those few moments...
