Amiga users/ fans check out the latest Issue #14 of WhatIFF? Amiga Guide magazine

Issue 14 is out now & download is available at Aminet and https://www.whatiff.info/

You will also be able to view the latest issue on TAWS (run it on a web browser to load up various version of AmigaOS and on the Workbench you'll see a WhatIFF? folder)

The magazine contains the following content:

Reviews:
SDBox v2
TF536
Amiga GPT
Backdrop Pattern Generator
Redit
Retronics Plastic Covers
ApolloExplorer

Game Reviews:
Cecconoid
ZombieSurvivor
Shift

Guides:
Blitz Basic Basics Part 1: Introduction and Setup
How to Setup WPA2 Encrypted WIFI on PiStorm
More on Noise Reduction
ApolloBoot: Getting Started
Creative Graphics: Creating Custom Brushes
First Time: Creating MagicWB Backdrops from Modern Photos

Articles:
Show Report Kickstart 02
Old Computer Challenge 2023
The Elements of the Game
FPU or not FPU
Full Circle

Interviews:
karri-Pekka Koljonen: Hippo Player
Cameron Armstrong: AmigaGPT
Wayne Ashworth: Scourge of the Underkind
Michael Rupp: TAWS
Badgerpunch: Henning and Ricki - Roguecraft

Shell Talk
Invents Corner

Cover Disk:
M1 Samples
Printable WhatIFF? Disk Label
Mods from MrRobot
Transparent Low-Res Pointer
WHDLoad Torrent File

Authors:
Andy Vaisey, Ivan Sorensen, John Scolieri, Kevin Saunders, Kristian KG,
Martyn Bampton, Rob O'Malley, and Timo Paul.

Thank you to everyone who has written an article(s), helped with editing and provided suggestions. This issue is the first one to have inline images for those on OS3.2, please be aware though that the pages can take up to 30 seconds to render on slower Amigas, so do not be surprised if it takes a while for a page to show up. Also thanks to Roald Strauss we have music in the magazine via easy on and off buttons from the main menu. Enjoy the magazine!

 

& here's what the less viewed NE section of the mancave looks like today!

 

 Amiga users/ fans check out the latest Issue #13 of WhatIFF? Amiga Guide magazine

Issue 13 is out now & download is available at Aminet and https://www.whatiff.info/

Reviews:
xT Amiga 600 Turbo Card
Open Amiga Sampler
Apollo Computer V4+ Standalone
RNOXfer
Aminet Goodies

Game Reviews:
Weasels Gaming Corner: Current Games
The Deep
Dice Masters

Guides:
Game Graphics: What NOT to do
Making Modules 101 Part One
How to Get Better Samples
Creative Graphics: Easzy Aztec Graphics
Brilliance 101 Part 12 - Tokyo Bay Part 2
Creative Graphics: Fun With Smear

Articles:
Completing Games at Long Last
Building a New Rejuvenator in 2024
Amiga Paradox of Choice
Amiga Through the Lens of LD Learner Part 2
Contributing article: Lessons from a 7Mhz CPU

Interviews:
Massimo Loi: NEONnoir
Simone Bevilacqua: RETREAM
8080: The Deep and Dice Masters
Willem Drijver: Apollo Robin Hood

Shell Talk
Invents Corner

Cover Disk:
The Deep
WHDLoad Torrent File

Authors:
Andy Vaisey, Ivan Sorensen, John Scolieri, Kevin Saunders, Rob O'Malley,
and Timo Paul.

 

 & here's what the NW section of the mancave looks like lately before I dismantle my Amiga 1200 Tower to finally send off my 1D1 MB to get recapped !

 

 Amiga users/ fans check out the latest Issue #12 of WhatIFF? Amiga Guide magazine

Available via download from http://www.whatiff.info/ as well as https://aminet.net/

Issue 12 includes:

Reviews:
A600 RGB2HDMI Adapters
Furia Accelerator
DrawerGenie
Aminet Goodies

Game Reviews:
Spheroid (Demo)
Tenebra 1 and 2

Guides:
Making DF1 work as DF0 with the PiStorm
A314-CP date/time and device not found fix
Creative Graphics: 3D Objects with a word processor
Brilliance 101 - Tokyo Bay
ImageFX 101 - Part 2

Articles:
The Amiga Philosopher's Stance on Amiga Games
Things Commodore Did Right
Amiga Through the Lens of an LD Learner

Interviews:
Andrew Vaisey - Spheroid
Rob Cranley - DrawerGenie
Miguel Fides - Trinity Card

Shell Talk
Invents Corner

Cover Disk:
Spheroid Xmas Demo - 15 Levels
Audio Sample Pack 1

Authors:
Ivan Sorensen, John Scolieri, Kevin Saunders, Rob O'Malley, and Timo Paul.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Amiga users/ fans check out the latest Issue #11 of WhatIFF? Amiga Guide magazine

Available via download from http://www.whatiff.info/ as well as https://aminet.net/

Issue 11 includes:

Reviews:
* ImageFX 4.5
* OmniPort A1200
* AmigaKit RED LEDs
* Amiga CD32 Disc Reference Guide Book

Game Reviews:
* CyberPunks 2
* NightShift

Tutorials:
* LightWave 101 - Rendering DEMs
* ImageFX 101 - Digital Postcard
* Brilliance 101 - Dithering
* OctaMED 101 - Setting up OctaMED SoundStudio
* How to install RTG on PiStorm32-lite
* ELUDE Demos on PiStorm32-lite
* Reducing noise in 8-bit samples
* Modern Effects in Oldskool trackers

Articles:
* Amiga Magazines Yesterday Today
* Custom music vs stock music
* Revisiting Tokyo Retro Computer Users Meet

Interviews:
* Apollo Team Part 1 of 2
* Scorpion Engine - Erik Hogan
* RNO Developer

Cover Disk
* BitBeam Cannon Demo - Aeon Legends
* Acidic breakcore OctaMED multi-module

 

 Amiga users/ fans check out the latest issue #10 of WhatIFF? Amiga Guide magazine

I have to admit that it's just comfy and cool to read a new Amiga magazine on my Amiga computer ! For this issue 10 release there's also a PDF version and both can be downloaded from http://www.whatiff.info/ as well as https://aminet.net/ and for the first time there's an exclusive game demo of Humulet which is a new dungeon crawler with great HAM6 graphics that can run on OCS miggies !

More details are below:

Reviews:

PiStorm 32-Lite
A314-CP
HID2AMI v2.0
How Synthesizers Work
Commotron Gamepad Turbo
Aminet Goodies

Game Reviews:

Weasels Quick Gaming Corner
Attack of the Petscii Robots
Luma
NEON Noir

Guides:

A314-CP Setup
LightWave 3D - Creating Objects for 2D work
Brilliance - RubThrough Tips

Articles:
Amiga Gaming and You
Amiga Daily Software

Interviews:
Remi - Hamulet
Carlos - RedPill
Marcin - A314-CP
Mirko - HID2AMI v2.0

Shell Talk

 TF1260-got a Rev.5 68060 let's see if it can overclock and run stable with the latest Alpha firmware & compare it to my Cyberstorm MKIII in my Amiga 4000 !!!

Was lucky to find a full Rev5. 68060 (FPU & MMU) recently without having to sell my kidney lol I was originally thinking to put into my Amiga 4000 BUT then I realized the headache of taking it apart to get to my Cyberstorm MKIII by Phase5 (the  CPU connector isn't fun to take off...) and thought my Rev.1 has been rocking for decades in my A4k so better to try overclocking it in my Amiga 1200 Tower via my TF1260!

First to carefully take off my Rev.1 68060:

-I used to use a small flat head screwdriver and s-l-o-w-l-y lift up each edge until eventually it would come off without bending any pins but luckily I found a removal tool on AmiBay that makes the operation so much quicker and most importantly it has alot more support on each edge of the CPU which drastically improves the chance of damaging pins.

 

Here's the Rev.5 securely on the socket:

- CPU in great shape. Bought it as tested and confirmed FPU and MMU as there's alot of rebadged Chinese knockoffs online nowadays unfortunately.

Now to put the heatsink on the Rev.5:

- first some double sided thermal tape...careful it's sticky stuff! I used wax paper and an exacto knife to peel & place on the 060

 - one side on

 

 

 - wax paper off

 heatsink & fan on:

- won't connect the fan on now as I want to see how hot the 060 gets after overclocking & testing fist

and finally the moment of truth!..always worried about the magic smoke showing up still :-):
 

- phew great news no magic smoke & we boot right up into the newly released AmigaOS3.2-Update 2

- after making sure all is good at the stock 50Mhz and checking if it actually is a Rev5 with FPU & MMU it's time to start overclocking!

- using the new Alpha version of the cpuspeed command from the shell I try 70Mhz and it locks into 67 Mhz. All seems fine until I try to load up a program then the HD light stays on all the time and although I can still move my mouse and move windows around in Workbench I can't do anything else so time to reboot the 1200 Tower and try again

- after reboot I try at 63 Mhz and sadly same thing SO reboot again and try for 60 Mhz and cpuspeed locks in at 58.33Mhz...all looks good as I can load up programs and some games but just as I load up SysSpeed to do some benchmarks the system freezes up..dammit! I try again after a full power down (no reset) and same thing :-(

- disappointed as I know some friends with full Rev.5's with the Alpha firmware run very stable at 67Mhz but I also know that some don't like to be overclocked and it's just a flip of the coin which ones do or don't ! After the initial disappointment I felt grateful that at least my new CPU was humming along very stable for over a few hours running 060 specific demos and it was barely hot to the touch (quite a bit cooler than my Rev.1) so I decided not to connect the fan at all. Also my full Rev.1 can be easily sold for close to the cost I paid for the Rev.5 so it was definitely worth the upgrade.

 SysSpeed results at 50 MHz with OS3.2.2:

 Comparing with my Phase 5-Cyberstorm MKIII at 50 MHz with OS3.2.2:

WoW..very impressive stuff from the TF1260!

-The ROM & Fast memory tests are over 3x faster than the CSMKIII

- The Fast Ram speeds are on average approximately 4% faster (though I would have expected more since the modern chips on the TF1260 are much faster than the old DRAM chips on the MKIII

- The Fast Ram to Chip Ram speeds are only approximately 0.5% quicker on the MKIII.

- The CPU MIPS are 0.7% quicker on the TF1260

- The MFLOPS (FPU) are 0.25% on the TF1260

Overall bravo Terrible Fire developers!!! Looking forward to more firmware updates in the future

And of course the obligatory picture of what the mancave looks like at the time of writing this post (east end anyhow..notice the latest addition?)

 

 TF1260-time for a new Alpha firmware update & lets compare results with my Cyberstorm MKIII !!!

Been enjoying my TF1260 with the Beta firmware update (see Dec27-21 post below) so let's look at what the latest Alpha firmware update brings to the table!

All tests carried out running AmigaOS 3.2.1with SysSpeed v2.6.

Note: On my Rev1 68060 I unfortunately couldn't over clock it to 62.5Mhz (like I did with the Beta firmware) or even 58 or 55Mhz so testing done only at base 50Mhz. That being said, in testing some intense 060 specific demos I honestly saw no difference in performance? Perhaps this is because of the big jump in chip ram speed or other internal changes?
Stability wise the Alpha firmware update is solid on my system.

Results at 50 Mhz with Alpha firmware:

Comparing to Beta firmware Results at 50 Mhz:

MIPS/ MFLOPS: +1.17 / +0.52

DRIVE SPEED: +1.47 MB/s (ReadFile)

MEMORY: +187.69 MB/s (CacheRead)

                  +22.11 MB/s (ReadROMb)

                  +40.98         (ReadROMw)

                  +51.76         (ReadRoml)

                  +0.49          (ReadFastb)

                  +0.51          (ReadFastw)

                  +0.67          (ReadFastl)

                  +0.35          (WriteFastb)

                  +0.56          (WriteFastw)

                  -1.56           (WriteFastl)

                  +0.22          (Fast2Fastb)

                  +0.3            (Fast2Fastw)

                  -5.53           (Fast2Fastl)

                  +0.03          (Fast2Fastm)

                  +25.74        (Fast2Fast16)- no result with Beta?

                  +0.06          (ReadChipb)

                  +0.12          (ReadChipw)

                  +0.24          (ReadChipl) 

                  +0.44          (WriteChipb)

                  +0.87          (WriteChipw)

                  +1.73          (WriteChipl)

                  +0.19          (Chip2Chipb)

                  +0.38          (Chip2Chipw)

                  +0.75          (Chip2Chipl)

                  +0.41          (Chip2Chipm)

                 +2.55           (Chip2Chip16)- no result with Beta?

                 +0.41           (Fast2Chipb)

                 +0.79           (Fast2Chipw)

                 +1.62           (Fast2Chipl)

                 +1.36           (Fast2Chipm)

                 +4.95           (Fast2Chip16)-no result with Beta?

 

Phew ok there you have it so there's alot of +'s there so basically almost every item improved with the best results being Fast Ram, ReadROM and especially Cache Read.

It's too bad I couldn't get my Rev1 060 to overclock with this latest firmware update so I could compare the 62.5Mhz results as well but I'm hoping future updates will bring back 62.5 Mhz as my system was humming quite reliably at 62.5 :-)

And now for fun sake & yes I know it's not Apples to Apples but below are my Cyberstorm MKIII results in my Amiga 4000 also running AmigaOS3.2.1 with Rev1(same mask)68060:

and the obligatory view of only the NorthEast corner of the mancave as it is at this time: