Category - Gaming

Having created the physical floppy disks in Part 1 and installed the 8GB CF card and ROMs in Part 2 it is now time to set about partitioning and formatting the compact flash card so we can install Workbench 3.1.4 on it (in Part 4).

To start the process of partitioning a compact flash card I booted my Amiga off the 3.1.4 Install disk. Once it booted I ran the HDToolBox program found inside the ‘HDTools’ directory.

HDToolBox Program

This brings up the window below where you can see all of your installed hard drives. Mine is listed as a SCSI unit which is normal as this is how the Amiga sees the internal IDE controller.

Amiga HDToolBox Main Window

Clicking on ‘Change Drive Type’ brings up the window below. As this is a new CF card there is nothing on it yet so you must click on ‘Define New’.

Amiga HDToolBox – Defining a New Drive

Which brings up the the ‘Define a New Drive Type’ screen. You need to click ‘Read Configuration’ at this point which will bring up another message. Simply click ‘continue’ to move on here.

Informational Message

The software will then take a moment to scan the CF and identify the size and parameters needed to access it. After the scan has completed it will display this info in the window as seen below.

Drive Parameters

Now you can simply click ‘OK’ to get back to the ‘Drive Type’ window and then click ‘OK’ once more. At this point you will be warned ‘Are you sure you want to change the drive type for the current drive?’ Clicking ‘Continue’ will return you to the main HDToolBox screen once more.

Back to the main screen but now with a ‘Changed’ drive status.

Now that HDToolbox knows the ins and outs of our CF card it is time to partition it into drives. Of course we could just make it one big 8Gb partition, after all Amiga OS 3.1.4 now natively supports large drives. However I always like to split mine into at least 2 partitions to keep things organised.

To start this process click on ‘Partition Drive’.

Select ‘Partition Drive’.

Which should bring up the partitioning window as shown below.

I chose to make my first partition 500MB, this will be my System/Workbench drive. To select the size you simply drag the little triangle pointer and slide it along the bar. It’s virtually impossible to size a partition exactly so just get it as close as you can.

You need to give the partition a name – I called it DH0. I also ticked the box to make it bootable as this is the first partition and will be the one the Amiga will boot off.

Creating the first partition.

To create another partition you click ‘New Partition’. Don’t be tempted to click the ‘OK’ button until you have finished creating all your partitions. For my second partition I called it DH1 and made the size approximately 1.5GB. I will be using this to install applications and save documents to. I will probably keep a small selection of music on this drive too.

Creating the second partition.

I left my biggest partition for last so it could use all of the remaining space on the card. This worked out at a little less than 6GB in total. I called this partition DH2 and this will be where I install WHDLoad games.

Creating the third partition.

You can click each of your partitions in the bar to check their details. Once you are happy that they are all exactly the way you want them to be, hit ‘OK’. You should then be back to the main HDToolbox window.

HDToolBox with ‘changed’ drive status.

You must now click ‘Save Changes to Drive’ for all the settings you have configured up to this point to be written to the disk (CF card). The window should then change to look like this:

HDToolBox back to ‘Not changed’ status.

Congratulations! Your new Amiga drive has now been prepped and partitioned! The final step is to format the partitions. To do this you need to reboot the Amiga whilst leaving the Install disk in the drive so it can boot off it.

The three partitioned but currently ‘uninitialized’ drives created earlier.

When your Amiga has finished rebooting you should see a screen similar to the one above. You will notice that the partitions show either as ‘Uninitialized’ or just as a weird name (or both in my case).

The Format Disk menu item.

They now need to be formatted so that the Amiga can actually use them. To format a partition you just click on its icon and then select ‘Format Disk’ from the ‘Icons’ menu.

Formatting and Naming DH0.

In the above example I called my DH0 partition ‘Workbench’ but you can call yours whatever you like. If you are interested in the new long file names feature of 3.1.4 now would be a good time to select that tick box.

First format warning…

Make sure you select ‘Quick Format’ or you’ll be waiting a very, very long time for the format to finish. You will get a couple of scary warnings that give you an opportunity to back out if you’ve accidentally selected the wrong disk to format.

Second and final format warning.

Click ‘Format’ in response to both of the warning messages to seal the deal. A few seconds later a drive on your newly partitioned and formatted compact flash card should appear on the workbench screen. Now simply repeat this process for each partition you created earlier.

And that concludes Part 3 of my Amiga OS 3.1.4 installation guide – Partitioning a Compact Flash Card.

I must admit I had originally intended to include the Workbench install in this part too but decided against it as I thought this post was long enough already. Therefore I will be covering the installation of Workbench in Part 4 shortly.

Installing Amiga OS 3.1.4 – Part 2 (Fitting a CF Card & Kickstart 3.1.4 ROMS)

18th August 2020

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Having created the physical floppy disks in Part 1 of this guide it is now time to fit the IDE Compact Flash adapter and the 2 Kickstart 3.1.4 ROMS.

Fitting the IDE Compact Flash Adapter

For this I needed to open up my A1200 to gain access to the mainboard.

Location of the 5 case screws.

Removing the top half of my A1200’s case was just a matter of turning it over and removing five screws. I’ve circled their locations in the photo above. There were three along the front edge and one each side of the case. The two rear edges of the case are held together by some little lugs and recesses in the case itself.

Pin 1 of ribbon cable aligned with pin 1 on mainboard.

Fitting the IDE Compact Flash adapter simply involved fitting the 44 pin cable connector to the IDE header on the board. Notice how the coloured strip of the ribbon cable aligns with PIN 1 on the board. I chose an 8GB CF card for my install as Workbench 3.1.4 now natively supports large drives. However a smaller card would work just as well. I think my original A1200 had an 80MB (yes I do mean Megabyte!) drive back in the 90’s so 8GB is an insane amount of storage!

Foam pad fitted to insulate underside of adapter.

As the compact flash adapter has lots of solder pads on the base, I stuck a thick foam pad on the underside. This will ensure that the contacts don’t short out when sat on top of the metal drive bracket. (This drive bracket would have been used to house a 2.5″ IDE HDD back in the day).

CF adapter in it’s final resting place.

Removing the old Kickstart ROMS

Luckily the Kickstart ROMS have their own little cut-out in the metal RF shielding so there is no need to remove the shield to access them.

The original Kickstart 3.0 ROMs. Note the empty socket pins on the left!

I used my trusty chip puller to remove these, gently alternating pressure from one side to the other until they popped out. You could use a small flat bladed screwdriver to do this. Make sure to alternate from side to side, lifting the chips one millimetre at a time so you don’t bend the pins. If you want to make life even easier, use an old screwdriver and bend the blade 90′ at the end to make getting it under the chip easier.

Pulling out the Kickstart 3.0 ROMS.

Fitting the new Kickstart ROMS

With the old ROMs removed it was time to fit the new ones. After making sure the pins would line up OK (they were splayed out a little too far) I began to fit them.

It’s vitally important they are fitted correctly and besides the usual static precautions there are three things to watch out for.

The chips have to go in the right sockets. The chip marked as ‘HI’ must go in the front slot. The chip marked ‘LO’ must go in the rear slot.
The chips must be oriented correctly. The end with the notch must be fitted so that it is on the same side as the notch in the socket.
The sockets have 42 pins whereas the chips only have 40! You must make sure to leave the 2 pins on the left side of each socket empty.

The 2 new Kickstart ROMS fitted correctly.

Thankfully testing the ROMS is pretty straightforward. Flicking on the power should display a brand new boot screen. That boing ball is definitely new! You can also see the updated ROM version and copyright message.

The brand new Hyperion Amiga boot screen.

That concludes Part 2. In Part 3 I will deal with partitioning and formatting the Compact Flash card.

Installing Amiga OS 3.1.4 – Part 1 (Obtaining the Disks)

16th August 2020

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For my ‘new’ Amiga 1200 I decided I wanted to have the latest Workbench running on it so I ordered myself a copy of AmigaOS 3.1.4 from Sordan in Ireland. It arrived a few days later in a small cardboard box and consisted of a ROM Installation Guide, 2 Kickstart chips and a bunch of labels for you to stick to your own Amiga OS 3.1.4 Disks.

This is what you get when you purchase Amiga OS 3.1.4

Registering my Purchase

To actually obtain digital copies of the disks I had to register my serial number (found on the top of the Kickstart ROM’s) on the Hyperion Entertainment website. After doing that I was able to download a bunch of ADF files and a few other things (Wallpapers, Icon packs and documentation mainly) on my PC.

Time to crack open a nice box of 3.5″ Floppies.

It would have been nice to have received the disks in the box but it’s no real hardship creating my own and it cuts down the price quite a lot. I love working with real floppy disks anyway, the tactile feel of them in use and listening to the whirring of the drive as it accesses them*.

*I hate working with grotty, mouldy, faulty old disks that end up giving me nothing but aggravation and a headache.

You don’t see this much any more…

I decided to use my trusty Amiga 500 to create the disks as it has an SD Card reader that makes transferring the files across from my PC a doddle. Once I’d copied the ADF files over I loaded up my favourite ADF software, GoADF and dug out a box of new 3.5″ DS DD floppy disks and set about creating my 6 Workbench disks.

GoADF

Creating the Workbench Disks

I started with the Workbench disk first, selecting it from the list of ADF files provided. Double-clicking the name of the ADF loads the image into the software.

Here we can see all the Amiga OS 3.1.4 Disk images in GoADF.

Alternatively you can click the ‘Load image’ button on the bottom left of the screen.

Load (ADF) Image.

As I wanted to create a physical disk from the ADF files I selected ‘Image to disk…’

To write ADF images to a real floppy you must select the ‘Image to disk’ option.

Which loads up the disk creation window. Here you can select which drive you want to use and whether you want to format and/or verify the disk.

My disks were IBM PC formatted hence the ‘not a valid DOS disk’ warning.

I opted to both format and verify the disk. You simply can’t be too careful when working with floppy disks these days. Most DS/DD floppy disks have to be at least 20 years old by now as new ones haven’t been manufactured in a long time.

At this point it might be a good time to check that the disk you have inserted really is the one you want to use!

Writing the First Disk

Clicking ‘write image to disk’ brings up the obligatory warning that the disk will be overwritten. Clicking ‘yes’ begins the process which starts off with the disk being formatted.

Formatting the disk…

GoADF features a neat virtual representation of the floppy disk marking each sector white as it’s formatted…

Writing the data to the disk…

Then blue as the data is written to it…

Verifying the disk…

And finally places a small black dot in it after the data has been successfully verified. A couple of minutes later a little box appears to confirm the disk has been created successfully.

Hurrah – one down, five to go!

And here’s the completed disk with it’s snazzy label affixed.

Amiga OS 3.1.4 Workbench Disk.

Now it was just a matter of repeating the process for the other 5 ADF’s to give me a complete set of Workbench disks.

A full set of Workbench 3.1.4 floppy disks!

However there’s a couple of other disks that needed creating – ones that no labels are provided for. The first is the ‘Modules Disk’ and the second is a new ‘3.1.4.1’ update that has recently been released containing the latest Workbench bug-fixes. The update disk was a separate download from the Workbench disks but is provided free for registered users.

The extra disks needed. Sadly no professionally printed labels for these!

In Part 2 I will cover installing the ROM chips and performing a clean install of Workbench on a new CF/HDD.

Blizzard 1230 MkIV Accelerator Card

16th August 2020

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I recently managed to pick up a nice Blizzard 1230 MkIV accelerator off eBay which arrived a couple of days ago. I reckon I was probably just as excited to get this one in 2020 as I was back in the 90’s when I got my first one!

After opening it up I gave it a good visual once over and everything looked to be in good order. Not sure why the markings have come off the top of the chips but I won’t see them once it’s installed anyway.

Some Information about the Blizzard 1230 MkIV

My 1230 was made by Phase 5 Technologies which is the original manufacturer of the cards. Unfortunately Blizzard went out of business so later cards were manufactured by a company called DCE. Ironically it looks as though DCE still exists to this day making electronic circuit boards!

I’m guessing this was manufactured some time in 1995 looking at the board.

As standard the Blizzard 1230 MkIV comes with a 50Mhz Motorola 68030 Processor and can be fitted with a single 72 pin SIMM up to 128MB in size. Mine came fitted with a 64MB SIMM. The exposed edge connector is where an optional Blizzard 1230-IV Fast SCSI-II controller module can be attached. The SCSI module actually incorporates a second 72 pin SIMM slot meaning you could theoretically add a whopping 256MB of FAST RAM to your A1200 if you wanted to! Of course now I want to do just that but the SCSI modules are super rare these days!

The Motorola 50Mhz 68030 CPU (on the right) and 50Mhz 68882 FPU (left).

I made sure I got one with the FPU installed as this was not included as standard. These were never strictly necessary and most software didn’t benefit from having one. However VistaPro (one of my favourite programs) is just one such title that relies heavily on having one. The FPU really makes a significant speed difference for programs like this that involved performing a lot of complex mathematical calculations.

View of the reverse side of the board.

Fitting the card

I’d forgotten just how snuggly the Blizzard 1230 fitted inside an A1200. After triple-checking it was correctly aligned I needed to gave the card a worryingly forceful push before it finally clicked into position.

This is how the card looks fitted inside my A1200. The edge connector, visible on the upper left, is for the optional SCSI module. If I ever come across one I’ll add it to my setup for sure.

Of course the real moment of truth was turning the Amiga on. Happily this proved to be completely uneventful. Workbench booted up without a hitch and reported 65,957,656Mb of Fast RAM which was a great start.

Workbench Screen showing Chip and Fast RAM levels.

From 0 to 65,957,656Mb. A good start!

Speed Test

The next test was to load up the classic Sysinfo and make sure the CPU and FPU were correctly identified, which they were. Of course you can’t load Sysinfo and not run a quick speed test! My Blizzard equipped Amiga topped out at 9312 Dhrystones, or 9.72 Mips. Basically twice as fast as a 25Mhz A3000 which is exactly what you would expect.

Of course it’s nowhere near as fast as my Vampire equipped A500 and it actually cost quite a bit more too. But you know what? I don’t care. This just ‘feels’ right. The best way I can describe it is if you imagine upgrading a classic car. The Blizzard is like fitting a period authentic performance exhaust and carburettor to the engine whereas the Vampire is like replacing the whole engine with an electric one. Don’t get me wrong, the Vampire is an amazing piece of hardware and you can’t beat it in terms of value for money. However absolute power is not my goal here… it’s having an authentic Amiga experience.

SysInfo Speed Report.

Real Time Clock Test

Anyway enough of that. There was one final test that would take a little longer to complete. The Blizzard incorporates a 3V rechargeable battery backed clock for keeping track of the date and time. However when I plugged the card in the date/time were completely wrong. The seller told me the card hadn’t been used in years which is why he was selling it so this wasn’t unexpected.

To test the battery I set the date and time correctly and then left the Amiga turned on for a couple of hours before going to bed. This would hopefully give it a chance to get some charge before turning it off for the night. Booting it up the following evening revealed it had retained the correct time so the battery was still working! Of course the battery may no longer hold enough charge to last for extended periods but for now I’m happy that everything appears to work perfectly!

Amiga keeping the correct date and time!

MMU Library

With the card installed and tested there was just one niggle for me to sort out. Every time I booted my A1200 I was getting the following error about no MMU library being installed:

“This system is running from a 32-bit CPU (68030, 68040 or 68060) which may require specific CPU libraries to be installed in the LIBS: directory of your hard disk.”

It then goes on to recommend you either install these files off the disk that came with your accelerator card or search Aminet. As I didn’t receive a disk with the card I went straight to Aminet and had a rummage around. Sure enough there was an MMULib.lha download for just such a scenario. I ran the installer and let it install an mmu.library and a bunch of 680×0 library files and then rebooted. And just like magic the error was gone – happy days!

Now I just need to get hold of that SCSI module!

Welcoming an Amiga A1200 into the fold.

11th August 2020

4 Comments

Today the Lyonsden computer collection just got a little bit bigger with the arrival of a Commodore Amiga A1200 computer! 🥰 This is actually something I’ve been hankering after for a long time now. I’ve missed being able to play those old AGA games and also wanted to get back to using an ‘original’ machine. Not only that but the A1200 is just a more capable and expandable machine. It has an internal IDE interface as standard and a PCMCIA slot that can be used for a multitude of things. Wi-Fi and ethernet network cards, card readers, SCSI interfaces and so on. That AGA chipset is not just for games either, it provides a range of improved workbench screen modes that support up to 256 colours too!

View from the left.

The A1200 has been recapped already so hopefully it will provide many more years of faithful service now. It’s a really nice example and hasn’t been modified in any way which is how I intend to keep it. I’ve already heavily modified my A500 so hopefully I’ve scratched that particular itch well enough already!

View from the right. Original floppy disk drive fully intact.

The plan is to operate the Amiga A1200 just like I would have done 25+ years ago. That’s not to say I’ll be keeping it stock… oh no. But it does mean I won’t be fitting a modern FPGA accelerator into it for example. Whether I can operate it without a Gotek remains to be seen but I’m certainly going to try!

View from above.

Upgrades on the way…

I’ve already got a Blizzard MkIV 68030 accelerator on the way for it and a SCSI CDROM drive is sat on the desk ready to be hooked up too. These are both accessories that I had back in the 90’s and so meet my criteria for keeping things original. I also plan to fit a hard drive (well CF card) and install the very latest AmigaOS 3.1.4 on it too. Basically lots of new projects to look forward to!

View showing the serial number and silver Commodore label.

Freeze 64 Issue #38 Fanzine is out now

7th August 2020

Commodore 64

It’s always nice to be able to start the weekend with the latest edition of Freeze64. In todays case it’s issue #38 featuring the unmistakable Rambo on the front cover.

Here’s a look at the front cover of issue 38.

Here’s a rundown of the contents of this issue taken straight from the magazines’ directory listing! As always there’s no shortage of interesting Commodore 64 articles to get stuck into.

Freeze64 Issue 38 Contents Page.

If you fancy getting hold of your own copy of Freeze 64, Issue #38 then head over to the Freeze64 website and show your support by purchasing this issue.

Physical copies (it isn’t available digitally) are priced at £3.99 plus postage. There are also subscriptions available which offer the opportunity to save a little money.

Finally, here’s a link to my previews of several earlier editions of Freeze64. If you’re new to Freeze64 and would like to check out what you’ve been missing all this time then this is a great place to find out!

Cosmic Force Review

6th August 2020

Commodore 64

This was a game I backed on Kickstarter back in March 2019 and a couple of weeks ago it finally arrived through my letterbox.

Cosmic Force Box Cover.

The front box artwork is nicely done featuring your spaceship surrounded by blueprints of what are presumably enemy spacecraft. The back of the box shows a few screenshots of the game along with a description of the gameplay elements you will encounter.

Back of the Cosmic Force box.

Opening up the box reveals a number of physical goodies that enhance ownership of the game, harking back to a time when this sort of thing was commonplace.

Cosmic Force Box Contents

Included inside is a Blu-ray ‘making of’ documentary, a Cosmic Force sticker plus the game on a 5.25″ floppy disk along with a paper jacket to store the disc in.

Goodies laid out.

Completing the physical box contents is a full colour instruction manual with a cover that duplicates the artwork found on the box.

Cosmic Force Instruction Manual.

The instruction manual is terrific and includes a little bit of history behind the games creation along with some technical insights into how it was programmed. Littered throughout are many colour screenshots of the game to accompany the instructions and gameplay hints provided.

A look inside the instruction manual.

Rounding off the manual is a list of all the Kickstarter backers who enabled the game to be created. I really liked this feature and it gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside seeing my name listed amongst them.

My name in the Kickstarter backer list.

The Game

Upon first loading the game you are presented with a menu screen of sorts allowing you choose between starting the game, loading the pixel art title screen and resetting the high score. This game stores your high score on the disk which is a terrific feature that I wish a lot more games offered.

This is the first screen you are presented with after loading the game.

The vibrant pixel art title screen is well worth a load at least once. The fact that it is accompanied by a funky piece of Rob Hubbard/Jason Page music certainly doesn’t hurt it either!

The ‘Pixel Art’ title screen.

Once you’ve had enough of the title screen and music you can press fire and the game will load. You get a brief overview of the games plot and also a view of the current high score. This is a pretty spartan screen compared to the title screen which is a bit of a shame. The use of a custom font here at the very least would have elevated its appearance greatly.

This is the main title screen of the game proper.

Phase 1

Pressing fire starts the game proper. The first section is, as the game event admits in the manual, just like Galaxians. Waves of enemies will make their way down the screen in various formations whilst shooting at you. When destroyed some of the enemies will drop a range of power ups for you to pick up. These include a twin shot, a protective force field, a bomb which will destroy everything on screen, extra lives and an EMP that that freezes enemies in place allowing you to pick them off with ease.

If you die you will lose your current power-up. In fact even if you don’t you will lose it as soon as you enter the next level. Fortunately they are not in short supply. Extra lives in particular are thrown at you regularly and you will need them all if you are to stand a chance of reaching level 108.

The ‘Galaxians’ Phase.

Your ship is able to move both vertically and horizontally as you would expect and firing speed is only limited by how fast you can mash the fire button. A simplified version of the music continues to play during the game using one less channel leaving room for the sound effects of your laser fire and enemy explosions.

Phase 2

After a few waves of Galaxians you move onto the next series of levels – the ‘Star Wars’ phase. This is easily the weakest part of the game for me. Waves of enemy drones follow an elliptical path ‘into’ the screen. To give a 3D effect, blocky sprites are reduced in size to make them appear to fly away into the distance which in itself is an acceptable effect. However they do not fire back at you!! You can sit there doing nothing and the drones will just appear in front of you and fly away into the distance only to reappear in front of you and do the same again and again until you shoot them down. At the very least there should have been a timer or something to add some level of tension here but really the enemies should have been firing back at you.

The ‘Star Wars’ Phase.

Another niggle I have with this section is the lack of a firing animation. When you press fire the crosshairs will briefly flash and you hear a beep… and that’s it. If an enemy is under the crosshairs at the time it will be destroyed. Some sort of laser beam effect would have been nice here… even if it was just a couple of flashing lines like you got in Elite so you know your weapon is actually firing.

Phase 3

When you complete the star wars bit (and lets face it, it’s impossible to fail) it’s on to the final Defender phase. Here you fly your ship horizontally left and right across a scrolling vector landscape shooting down enemies and trying to prevent them from building bases on the planet surface.

The ‘Defender’ Phase.

The enemies are by and large the same as the ones you faced in the first stage of the game. They share similar attack patterns even though the screen is now scrolling horizontally. The new mechanic here is preventing the aliens from landing and building bases on the surface. Sadly there is no radar included for this section of the game which is an odd omission for a defender clone. It doesn’t ruin the gameplay completely but it does make accidental mid-air collisions with enemies more frequent than I would have liked.

Interspersed between the three phases are the occasional challenge levels. These are a variation of the Galaxians phase but enemies drop lots of pick-ups giving you a chance to stock up on extra lives and bonus score. After phase three you go back to phase one with slightly more enemies to deal with.

Verdict

The presentation of the game is a little disappointing I feel. The game makes a great first impression with a high quality box, physical goodies and that impressive pixel art screen. However things take a turn for the lacklustre once the main game loads with a screen full of text using the C64’s standard font. The enemy sprites are also very dull with poor use of colour making the game look very drab and uninteresting.

After the three phases the levels just loop around with maybe a few extra enemies so you are basically playing the same levels over and over with little to set them apart. There’s the occasional challenge level thrown in that offers extra lives and score bonuses but these don’t look much different from the standard levels. There are 108 levels in total and so far I’ve reached level 40. Other than encountering an asteroid field once there hasn’t been anything radically different from the first few levels of play.

The ‘Game Over’ / High Score Screen.

Despite appearances though it’s actually a fun little shooter once you get into it. I highly recommend using a gamepad rather than a joystick as you really need that extra responsiveness you get with a D-pad. The inclusion of a permanent high score is a big positive too as you are always striving to beat it. Sadly it is literally just a high score that is saved though. No names or initials are stored so if your wife beats your score there’s no way to save that fact for posterity.

So is it worth the £35 I pledged on Kickstarter? Sadly I don’t think so, no. It would definitely make a great budget game, maybe on Itch.io for a few pounds. However I feel it just doesn’t have the polish or variety I expect for a game at this price level.

A look at Fusion #12

24th July 2020

Amiga, Commodore 64, Gaming

Time to take a look through this months Fusion #12 magazine and give a little insight into what you can find inside it.

A look at the cover of Fusion #12.

As I’ve come to expect there’s a broad range of content this month. Topics include (non computer) games, toys, TV shows and of course computer games. Buckaroo is in the spotlight this month and is a game I played a lot with my mates during the 80’s. There’s also a look at merchandise from the TV show ‘V’ (and a look at the associated computer game too). I was glued to the TV every night when that show was on and remember being genuinely shocked when Diana stuffed a hamster into her mouth! Needless to say the article triggered many happy memories and reminded me of my teenage crush on Diana 😉.

Elsewhere there’s articles covering the Frey twins, the 1942 arcade game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, a flashback 1999 PlayStation chart and loads more.

Here’s a little peak at some of the stuff in this new issue:

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Here’s the contents page so you can see what else features in this issue:

Fusion #12 Contents.

If you want to pick up a copy of Fusion #12 magazine then head on over to their website. The mag is £3.99 plus postage. Use the code ‘LYONSDENBLOG’ at the checkout to get a 15% discount. I will also receive a tiny bit of commission which helps towards the hosting costs of running this blog.

Amiga Future #145 – July/August edition out now.

11th July 2020

The latest issue of Amiga Future (Amiga Future #145) for subscribers has arrived. It features artwork from the game Fred’s Journey on the front cover.

Amiga Future #145 Front Cover.

What’s in this issue?

There’s a good mix of stuff in this issue as always with plenty of reviews to get stuck into. I’m a big fan of adventure games so was delighted to see a review of ‘The Queen’s Footsteps’. This is a brand new text adventure for the Amiga that had completely slipped under my radar. There’s also a complete guide to speed-running your way through Monkey Island 2 but that seems like sacrilege to me!

Issue #145’s cover CD.

There’s plenty of brand new game reviews in this issue. Fred’s Journey, Little Princess 1 & 2, Chips and Eye are all critiqued. Software wise there’s a review of Distant Suns 5 (which is included on the CD), Hollywood Designer 5 and RNOxfer, a new FTP client.

For the hobbyist there’s the regular AmigaOS 3.1.4 tips section, latest uploads to Aminet plus the latest Amiga news across 68K, OS4 and MorphOS systems.

Contents of Issue #145

The Cover CD

The main event for this issue’s cover CD is a full version of Distant Suns 5. This is a Desktop Planetarium and whilst I do having a passing interest in space, this software is on a whole other level entirely. Budding Patrick Moore’s may well get a lot of mileage out of it but sadly for me it was of no interest.

This is a preview of what you can expect to find in the latest edition of the long running Amiga Future magazine, Amiga Future #145.

Full version of Distant Suns on this issue’s Cover CD.

Below is a little peek at some of the stuff inside Amiga Future #145. If you’d like to purchase a copy then do please take a look here and support what is now the last remaining commercially printed Amiga magazine!

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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.

Fusion Amiga Magazine – Special Edition

10th July 2020

Amiga, Gaming

This edition of Fusion magazine is for all us Amiga fans out there. It’s a special edition of the magazine, completely dedicated to all things Amiga (and CD32!). It’s just a little bit thinner than the regular magazine running to 52 pages all in.

Closer look at the magazine cover.

So what sort of things are covered in this issue? Well there’s a mixture of game reviews, several Top 5 ‘best of’ lists, hardware guides and a bunch of Amiga-centric articles from luminaries in the scene.

The top 5’s include CD32 Games, Amiga Utilities and also Point and Click Adventure games. Meanwhile the hardware guide covers each Amiga model from the first A1000 right through to the final CD32 System.

Here’s a little peak at some of the stuff in this new issue:

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Take a peek at the contents page below to see what else features in this issue:

Fusion Amiga Magazine Contents.

If you want to pick up a copy of Fusion Amiga Magazine then head on over to their website. If you use the code ‘LYONSDENBLOG’ at the checkout you will also get 15% off the price! I will also receive a tiny bit of commission to help towards my running costs.

Commodore 1530/1531/C2N/Datasette Dust Cover

9th July 2020

Commodore 64, VIC 20