Category - Amiga

My copy of Zzap! Amiga Issue #13 arrived in the post this morning.

Zzap! Amiga Front Cover

A Look Inside

Here’s a quick peek at the contents page and a handful of the 60 pages within this edition.

Zzap! Amiga Issue #13 Contents Page

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At £4.99 plus postage for 60 pages of Amiga goodness it’s a no-brainer for me and a worthy addition to my retro magazine collection. Don’t forget you can get 15% off a copy of your own with code ‘LYONSDENBLOG’ at the checkout!

Head on over to Fusion Retro Books to pick up your own copy of Issue #12.

Some more Zzap! Amiga magazine previews here.

Amiga Addict Issue 25 out now

24th November 2023

Here’s the latest issue of Amiga Addict magazine, number 25, a bonafide Christmas Special no less, sporting a super Robocod cover.

Issue 25 cover and coverdisk!

This months coverdisk features a playable demo of AmigaBill’s Boom! platform game, created by members of his Twitch livestreaming community. The ADF image needs to be downloaded and transferred to a real floppy if you want make a physical coverdisk using the supplied floppy disk label as I have done in the photo below.

This months coverdisc.

Here’s a look at the contents page giving an overview of what’s inside this months Christmassy issue.

Contents page

Here’s the coverdisc page providing details about what you can expect to find on this issues media.

What’s on this editions coverdisk?

The magazine consists of 60 A4 full colour pages and features loads of news, reviews, articles, tutorials and more. This issue costs £6.50 (plus P&P) and is available from the Amiga Addict website. Amazingly it is also available in some bricks and mortar newsagents such as WHSmith so you may be able to pick it up there if you’re lucky and save yourself the postage!

A Look Inside Amiga Addict Issue 25

I’ll leave you with a quick look at just few of the articles that can be found in issue 25.

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Amiga Future #165 – Nov/Dec edition out now

11th November 2023

The latest issue of Amiga Future (Amiga Future #165) for subscribers has arrived. It features artwork from Reshoot Proxima 3 (an awesome shoot-em-up) on the front cover.

Amiga Future #165 Front Cover.

The Coverdisk

The main event on this months cover CD is ‘Silk Dust’, a text adventure game written by Davide Bucci. It’s the third instillment of a series of adventure games, the others being ‘Two Days to the Race’ and ‘The Queen’s Footsteps’.

Issue #165’s cover CD.

What’s in Amiga Future #165

Here’s a photo of the contents page to give you an idea of what is in this issue.

Contents of Issue #165

Below is a little peek at some of the stuff inside Amiga Future #165. If you’d like to purchase a copy then do please take a look here.

Amiga Future are currently trying to get some new subscribers so they can increase the page count of each edition. If they can get an extra 25 subscribers on board they can add four additional pages for readers at no extra cost. 50 more subscribers would mean an extra eight pages added. So if you’ve been buying the odd copy here and there, and can afford it, then please consider getting a subscription to help make it happen!

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Never come across Amiga Future magazine before? Perhaps you’d care to take a look at some of my other Amiga Future magazine previews here.-*

Amiga Addict Issue 24 out now

1st November 2023

Here’s the latest issue of Amiga Addict magazine, number 24. This edition is a corker and marks the 30th Anniversary of the CD32 console and as such is absolutely jam-packed with content for Commodores swansong console. If you have a soft spot for the CD32 like me then this is not an issue you should miss.

Issue 24 cover photo.

This months coverdisk is a special one as it’s actually a cover CD and contains a full (legal) version of Beneath a Steel Sky along with a whole host of other games and demos. Naturally you don’t get a physical copy, just an ISO to download and burn onto your own disc. My copy in the photo below was burned onto a Lightscribe disc which allowed me to etch the Steel Sky and Amiga Addict logos directly onto the disc surface.

Issue 24 CD32 Coverdisk.

Below you can see the menu screen for the CD32 coverdisk with Beneath a Steel Sky front and centre.

Issue 24’s CD32 Coverdisk Menu screen.

Here’s a look at the contents page giving an overview of what’s inside this issue, spoiler alert – there’s a LOT of CD32 coverage this month with it being the 30th Anniversary of the console.

Contents Page.

Here’s the coverdisc page providing details about what you can expect to find on this issues offering.

What’s on this editions coverdisk?

The magazine consists of 60 A4 full colour pages and features loads of news, reviews, articles, tutorials and more. This issue costs £6.50 (plus P&P) and is available from the Amiga Addict website. Amazingly it is also available in some bricks and mortar newsagents such as WHSmith so you may be able to pick it up there if you’re lucky and save yourself the postage!

A Look Inside Issue 24

I’ll leave you with a quick look at just few of the articles that can be found in issue 24.

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Zzap! Amiga Issue #12 is out now

16th October 2023

Zzap! Amiga Issue #12 is now available.

Zzap! Amiga Front Cover

A Look Inside

Here’s a quick peek at the contents page and a handful of the 60 pages within this edition.

Zzap! Amiga Issue #12 Contents Page

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At £4.99 plus postage for 60 pages of Amiga goodness it’s a no-brainer for me and a worthy addition to my retro magazine collection. Don’t forget you can get 15% off a copy of your own with code ‘LYONSDENBLOG’ at the checkout!

Head on over to Fusion Retro Books to pick up your own copy of Issue #12.

Amiga Addict Issue 23 out now

26th August 2023

Unbelievably I had yet another retro mag, Amiga Addict, delivered this morning. Don’t think I’ve ever had a four magazines arrive in the same week before, never mind on 4 consecutive days! Amiga Addict has been running for over 2 years now and I covered the first few issues way back in 2021. It’s now up to issue 23 and this one features Lightwave (of Baylon 5 fame) on the front cover.

Amiga Addict 23 Cover

This months coverdisk features the full game Hoi (AGA remix), 5K Invaders and also 6K Pacman (which isn’t mentioned) but is on the there too!

Issue 23’s coverdisk.

If you are not familiar with Amiga Addict cover disks, they only provide the labels – you have to supply the floppy disk. The self-adhesive labels are always of a super-high quality in glossy full colour with a peel-off backing. When applied to a suitable floppy (preferably a blue one) they really look the part and provide a good excuse to blow the cobwebs out of your Amiga’s floppy drive.

What’s on this editions coverdisk?

The magazine consists of 60 A4 full colour pages and features loads of news, reviews, articles, tutorials and more. This issue costs £6.50 (plus P&P) and is available from the Amiga Addict website. Amazingly it is also available in some bricks and mortar newsagents such as WHSmith so you may be able to pick it up there if you’re lucky and save yourself the postage!

Issue 23’s Contents Page

A Look Inside Issue 23

I’ll leave you with a quick look at just few of the articles that can be found in issue 23.

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Zzap! Amiga Issue #11 is out now

24th August 2023

My weekend reading material is looking pretty good this week, what with with Freeze 64 arriving yesterday and now Zzap! Amiga Issue #11 dropping through my letterbox too.

This magazine, published by Fusion Retro Books, has been running for a good 18 months or more now and this is the 11th issue.

Zzap! Amiga Front Cover

A Look Inside

Here’s a quick peek at the contents page and a handful of the 60 pages within this edition.

Zzap! Amiga Issue #11 Contents Page

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At £4.99 plus postage for 60 pages of Amiga goodness it’s a no-brainer for me and a worthy addition to my retro magazine collection. Don’t forget you can get 15% off a copy of your own with code ‘LYONSDENBLOG’ at the checkout!

Head on over to Fusion Retro Books to pick up your own copy of Issue #11.

Getting ‘SAY’ Speech Synthesizer to Work on Workbench 3

21st February 2023

Amiga, How to's

4 Comments

I remember having an awful lot of fun with the speech synthesiser (called ‘Say’) on my Amiga 500 back in the day. As a teenager I would spend far too much time getting it to utter all sorts of obscenities and disparaging remarks to anyone within earshot. So imagine my disappointment a few days ago when I tried to revisit that memory on my Amiga 1200 and discovered the Say program was nowhere to be found!

Turns out that Commodore, in their infinite wisdom, killed off Say back in 1992 with the release of Workbench 3. As my A1200 is running the very latest Workbench 3.2.1. it simply wasn’t included and hasn’t been for a great many years.

I couldn’t leave it there though, I really wanted Say on my Amiga and wasn’t going to settle until I made it happen. Thankfully the fix turned out to be pretty simple, provided you can lay your hands on an old Workbench floppy disk that is! Luckily I have loads of old workbench disks going back to version 1.2 so finding the files wasn’t too difficult..

The first and most obvious thing to grab is the Say program itself. This can be found in the Utilities drawer on a Workbench 2 disk. Once you’ve found it copy it to the Utilities drawer on your Workbench 3 machine. Now you may be tempted to run it at this point and have it say something infantile like ‘I like boobies’ but you will be disappointed. There are some missing pieces of the puzzle we need to find before it will work.

Everything you need to get Say working on a Workbench 2.0 disk.

There are three additional files that are required to restore the Amiga’s voice (which I found through trial and error with the help of good old SnoopDOS). The files we need are:- ‘narrator.device’, ‘translator.library’ and ‘speak-handler’ and thankfully all of these files can be found on that very same Workbench 2.0 floppy disk.

Now I realise not everyone has a bunch of Workbench disks to hand so I have gathered the files together and made them available for you below. This LHA archive contains all the necessary files you need so just download it and unpack it on your Amiga.

SayStuff.lha

Where to put the files?

The main ‘Say’ program itself can technically go anywhere but traditionally it was found in the Utilities drawer so I recommend copying it there. The other three files must go in the correct drawers otherwise the program won’t work. You can use any method you like to copy the files into place. I prefer using Directory Opus but you can use the Shell or Workbench too, whatever is easiest for you.

Here’s a quick rundown of where to put the files (and by extension, where to find them too, if you are using your own floppy to source them):

narrator.device -> Devs:

translator.library -> Libs:

speak-handler -> L:

Once all four files have been copied across you can finally run Say and have some fun. Enjoy!

Amiga Speech Sample

Below is a sample of speech from my Amiga 1200 just for fun. I think the quality of the speech is pretty good but in case your ears aren’t tuned to 80’s speech technology here’s a transcript of what it is saying:

“Hello there and a warm welcome from the Lyonsden Blog Amiga 1200 computer. I really hope you enjoyed this article about getting my voice back!”

Trade and Play Wirral

17th February 2023

Amiga, CD32, Gaming

6 Comments

This is just a quick post I’m putting up after a recent visit I had to a Retro gaming shop called ‘Trade and Play’ in the Pyramids shopping centre in Birkenhead. Thought it might be of interest to anyone who lives in North West England as I was completely unaware of its existence until a friend tipped me off about it and I think it is well worth a visit. Spoiler alert – they stock Amiga games!

What sort of stuff does it sell?

Though the shop does stock (and accept trade-ins for) current generation games and consoles, what really sets it apart from the likes of Game and CEX is the amazing amount of retro games and hardware they stock. Not just a few old PlayStation or Xbox games but masses of games for every system including the likes of the NES, SNES N64, MasterSystem, MegaDrive, Saturn, Dreamcast, PS1, PS2 plus all the handheld systems like the Gameboy, Game Gear, PSP and Vita. We’re talking original boxed hardware, peripherals, games and more. They even had an original boxed Atari 2600 for sale along with a stack of cartridges for it.

However what really excited me the most was that they actually stocked Commodore Amiga hardware and big box games for both the regular Amiga computers and the CD32. On one wall nestled amongst a boxed Sega MegaCD and Master System 2 there was a beautiful Amiga 500 for a not entirely unreasonable £150 supplied with mouse, PSU and cables. Imagine being able to buy that and walk back to the car with an actual Amiga 500 you just bought from a shop in 2023! I was sorely tempted I can tell you, but as I already have one, explaining getting another one to my wife (who was with me!) would have been challenging to say the least!

Incidentally the store also stocks a massive range of pre-owned DVD’s, Blu-Rays, books, comics and Sci-Fi memorabilia. It’s the kind of place you can browse around for hours and spend a fortune in should you let yourself.

Nostalgia Time

My visit to Trade and Play really brought back fond memories from when I used to buy Amiga games ‘off the shelf’ in the high street. One of my favourite places to go was Electronics Boutique in Lord Street, Liverpool. This was way back in the 1990’s before it got taken over by Game. I would often visit during my lunch hour and spend half an hour or more simply browsing the shelves. I don’t think there’s anything quite like being able to browse a selection of physical games in a shop. Looking at the cover art, flipping the boxes over to read about the the game itself and then studying the screenshots to get an idea of what the game would be like. When you finally made your choice you’d take it over to the till to buy it. The experience didn’t end there though, because now you entered the next phase; the fervent anticipation of actually playing the game and imagining just how great it was going to be. This phase could last for hours depending on when you bought the game and how long it would be before you got home. During this period you could open the box up and pour over the manual to get a taste of what it would be like. Occasionally you could also take a look at the included game map or the keyboard overlays to see what keys worked which weapons and so on. Very occasionally you could even read a Novella that would set the scene for a game and really get you hyped to start playing.

This all happened in a golden age before the Internet existed and the only prior knowledge you would have about a game was word of mouth, or a review in a magazine. Oftentimes I would buy a game blind though and rely totally on the screenshots to guide me. Sometimes I would end up with a real hidden gem of a game, sometimes not but it was always a pleasurable experience. Simpler, happier times in my book.

A look behind the counter at Trade and Play Wirral.

My Haul

Unlike Sega MegaDrive or SNES games (of which they stocked hundreds of titles) the selection of Amiga games was a lot more modest, we’re talking about maybe twenty titles in total here. However this is 2023 and I couldn’t name any other store that stocks even a single Amiga title so this is shopping nirvana as far as I’m concerned. The quality and condition of the Amiga games they did stock was outstanding and I would have been proud to add any of them to my collection.

My haul from Trade and Play Wirral.

All the Amiga games I saw in Trade and Play were in superb condition and were offered in their original big cardboard boxes and included the manuals and disks. They guy in the store was really helpful too and dug out some Amiga games that weren’t even on display so I could have a look through them. He had no problem with me opening up the boxes to inspect the contents either. In the end I purchased four games in total, Harlequin, Legend, Superfrog and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. I would say the prices I paid for them were reasonable too, certainly no more than you might (sensibly) expect to pay for them on eBay but often quite a bit less. They even had an Infocom adventure in stock – Leather Goddesses of Phobos! The only reason I didn’t pick this up was because I decided long ago to base my Infocom collection on their C64 releases, I simply don’t have the space to start an Amiga collection too!

Anyway here’s a closer look at each of the games I bought from Trade and Play Wirral so you can see the quality for yourself.

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Amiga “Classic” USB mechanical keyboard

26th January 2023

14 Comments

Back in 2020 I backed a Kickstarter campaign run by Simulant Systems Ltd. to create a range of new retro USB keyboards for the Amiga (and other systems). Sadly it never reached its funding goal but they didn’t give up on the idea and continued to find a way to make it work. Well nearly two years later they finally achieved their goal and have produced a batch of what they are calling Amiga ‘Classic’ USB mechanical PC keyboards. They’ve been furiously packing and dispatching them since early December and mine arrived last week!

Front of the box.

What makes this extra special is that it has the official registered Amiga logo both on the box and the keyboard itself thus making it an official piece of new Amiga hardware being sold in 2023! Sadly it is actually a USB PC keyboard which is why there are Windows, Linux and Mac logos on the box but no Amiga Tick or boing ball! However they are working on an adapter that will allow it to connect to real Amiga. This gizmo will actually fit inside the keyboard case which is very intriguing. Definitely looking forward to finding out more about that when it’s released!

Back of the box.

The keyboard packaging is really attractive and worth keeping hold of. It would certainly not look out of place on a shelf in you local Currys (PC World). Opening it up reveals the keyboard safely cocooned inside a foam bag along with a guide sheet and some promo flyers.

Who doesn’t love the smell of freshly opened tech?

The keyboard itself is beige with a mixture of white and grey keycaps that follow the Amiga aesthetic well.

Noice!

It has a decently long 2m USB cable and there’s little channels in the base that allow you to have it exiting out of the left, right or rear side of the keyboard which is a really thoughtful addition. I appreciated the provision of a detachable Velcro cable tie to keep things neat and tidy too.

Note the non-slip pads, pop out feet and cable management channels.

It’s also quite heavy, coming in at just under 1.4Kg when I popped it on the kitchen scales. A fair bit more than most keyboards these days, unless you count the RGB gaming ones with aluminium bases.

Help!

The keyboard doesn’t actually come with a ‘Help’ key fitted as standard which is a bit of a strange oversight. However they have made limited quantities of Help keycaps and were good enough to include a couple of different sized ones for me when I requested them.

Help keycap installed.

The ‘Amiga’ keys on both sides of the keyboard are present and correct (replacing the Windows and Menu keys).

Left Amiga key.

There’s even an Amiga ‘Boing Ball’ key – because, well why not!

Right Amiga Key & Boing Ball!

The keyboard has little pop-out feet underneath that can be located at two different heights giving a grand total of 3 possible angles it can be positioned at.

Feet position 1.

Obviously as this is a PC USB keyboard it is currently only suitable for use with the various Amiga emulators, FPGA machines and the A500 Mini.

Feet position 2

I tried the keyboard out with AmiKit and Amiga Forever on my PC and it was a pleasure to use. The keys have that pleasing mechanical click that provides much needed feedback – but not so loud as to annoy like many gaming keyboards can. Interestingly the keyboard was actually recognised as a ‘Gaming Keyboard’ when plugged into my Windows 11 PC.

Cherry MX Brown switches throughout.

It’s nice to see that the keyboard is using genuine (as far as I can tell anyway) Cherry MX Brown switches which probably goes a long way toward explaining the high price too.

It’s far from an essential purchase, especially when it costs over £140 but given it was being made in limited quantities I felt compelled to grab one while I could. FOMO is a real thing! The plan is, one day, to pair it up with a MiSTer or possibly a Raspberry Pi in the upcoming Checkmate monitor that I’ve backed on Kickstarter.

If you are in the market for an Amiga themed USB keyboard and have £140 burning a hole in your pocket then (at the time of writing) they still have some left here…

Wireless Amiga and C64 Gamepad Review

23rd January 2023

Amiga, Reviews, VIC 20