Since I saw the note about systems being slower under Update 2 and I hadn't updated yet, I thought I'd try it before and after, to give it a shot.

Sam400ep-flex 800 Mhz, 1G RAM, solid state disk.
4.1.1: 19:25.36
4.1.2: 19:32.32

Seven seconds slower. Not much of a difference.

@Helgis

A DVD Combo Drive is kind of an odd choice.

Combo drives read DVDs and read/write CDs.

Full DVD burners are less than $25 at actual, physical retail stores in the US. (Microcenter, specifically, has Samsung burners for $24.99.)

Are combo drives really enough cheaper than that to matter?

@MamePPCA1

High-def videos are usually encoded in H.264. Even if there's a codec for playback, I don't think any AmigaOS 4 hardware is fast enough to do it.

My dual 1.8 Ghz PowerMac G5 stutters on 720p H.264 video, and 1080p is completly unwatchable.

Unfortunatly, video decoding is one of those applications that just requires pure, grunt power.

(The reason HD videos are usually in H.264 is that if they're not, the files are either massively huge, or have terrible compression artifacting from using less efficient compression methods.)

Edit: Let me add, that Matroska files usually AREN'T in high def.

It's just the currently popular container format, replacing .avi because it supports things .avi doesn't.

HD files are usually in Matroska, but so are lots of standard-def files.

I just got my backplate for my Sam440ep-flex and while it certainly fits the board's ports okay and covers the hole in the back of the case...

... it's not a proper ATX case backplate. It doesn't snap into the hole in the case. It's a sheet of metal that you screw to the Sam440ep-flex using the post screws for the serial port, and it just stands up on its own.

Getting it to fit tight against the case when it's all bolted together took a little bending, but it looks fine and certanly blocks airflow OK. The problem is this:

It's just a little bit wider than it ought to be, and the angle-bent top of the bracket hits the back of my video card in the first PCI slot, and crosses a couple of solder points. Fortunatly, I saw this before I powered on.

So please be careful and make sure the backplane doesn't hit against any of your cards -- or do what I did and put some electrical tape on the bits that might short out.

--jbni

Can anyone suggest a good small, quiet fan for the CPU on the Sam440ep-flex? I have the 800 MHz model and the CPU usually runs about 44 - 45 C... if I point a fan at the (rather small) heatsink, that drops pretty much immediatly to 28C, which is only 2C more than the case temp.

I haven't been able to find any little fans locally, and it's hard to shop for a fan like that online since you can't hear the darned things. So if anyone knows where to get one that works well, please let me know!

@jbni

Welp, AmigAIM worked in 4.1, but in 4.1 Update 1 I get 'Failed to create MyTI Custom Class'.

Any ideas?

@hotrod

That worked, thanks!

Edit: Need to rename def_busypointer.info , too.

.. change the Pointer in 4.1 update 1?

I can open the Pointer preferences and change it, and save it, and the changes are still there when I open Pointer preferences again... but the computer isn't actually USING that pointer.

This probably falls under the category of Missing The Obvious, but I'm stumped!


Anyone else got any 'duh' questions? :)

-jbni

@abalaban

One can be security conscious without being completely freakin' paranoid.

Some decent reductio ad ridiculim, false dilemna, and a dash of straw man there.

As is, I've found an AIM client that works. A multi-IM client would be nice, but it's not a requirement.

(Of course, now I have to set everything back up once I manage to download the 4.1 update!)

@xenic

All my IM accounts have a password, of course.

If I want to use AIM, I have to have my password, and I have to give it to AOL; this makes lots of sense, since AOL wants to make sure I'm me, and I don't want anyone to be able to pretend to be me to AOL.

But using Jabber to access AIM means I have to give my AIM password to Big Bob's Jabber to AIM Gateway Service. Big Bob now has my AIM password, and could log in as me to AIM all day long without me knowing it.

(There's really not much one could do with an AIM password except pretend to be the legit user, but MSN passwords are often linked to Xbox Live accounts, and you can do some ugly, costly things with those.)

Only two entities should have my password: me, and the service I'm logging in to.

I'm not a-givin' my passwords to Big Bob, nope nope.


--jbni

@ktadd

Well, AmigAIM logs into AIM okay, and if I add contacts I can see they're online, and I show as online to them, but I can't open a window to send messages, and if someone messages me I don't get it.

Perhaps I need to update the external .mcc files it uses. I'll try to track those down.

--jbni

Edit: Aha! I disabled JIT CPU mode for AmigAIM and it works!

Thanks!

@Slash

I understand why you stopped working on it, but I'd love to give the existing files a try, if you don't mind sharing them!

@VooDoo

Again, this involves giving your username and passwords to a third party. I've been using computers for a long, long time and one of the things drilled into me very early on was to never give a password to /anyone/. ;)

@Chris

Jabberwocky is a Jabber client. While it's theoretically possible to connect to other IMs using Jabber, you have to give your username and password to a third party.


I found Epistula on OS4Depot and Aminet which claims to be a plugin-based IM client for AIM/ICQ/etc... but it doesn't actually come with any plugins, and I can't find any to download anywhere.

EDIT: Update! The Epistula home page is down, but I found it in the Wayback Machine. But the file links weren't cached, so I can't download it from there.

Does anyone have the Epistula installer file and free keyfile mentioned here?

http://web.archive.org/web/2007122611 ... -snakepit.co.uk/projects/

My Google-fu is failing me. I can't find an ICQ, AIM, or Y! client for AmigaOS 4.1.

There appear to be a few MSN clients, which boggles me - do that many more people use MSN chat than AIM?

I'm looking for an actual AmigaOS app - not something that runs under X11, because an X server is a lot of overhead. (And it's very slow, on a Sam440.)

--jbni

I haven't been able to get Samba working between my Amiga and my Mac (it DOES work between the Amiga and a PC, and the Mac and the PC, and everything and my printer, but the Mac will see but won't talk to the Amiga, and the Amiga will neither see nor talk to the Mac.)

I had intended to use NFS, since it's an old and rather established protocol so I figured there'd be an Amiga client, but apparently I'm rather wrong there.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Is there an AmigaOS 4.1 NFS client? I don't see anything on OS4Depot or Aminet (searching for 'nfs') and a Googling turned up some blank Sourceforge pages but nothing else.

@jahc

According to Synergy's FAQ, it doesn't transmit all types of keycodes between computers.

It seems most likely that it only transmits standard keys, not the nonstandard multimedia ones.

Have you tried using it with that keyboard with a client other than the Amiga to see if it works that way?

If the server's not sending the multimedia keystrokes, then it won't matter how the client's running.

Is there a guide to setting up ScummVM on AOS 4.1 somewhere?

I'm not getting any speech or digitized sound. (no speech in Curse of Monkey Island, no voiceover and speech in Full Throttle).

I do have all the assorted volumes turned up in the AHI prefs, and music plays OK, just not voices.


---
Update: I fixed the sound by specifically setting ScummVM's sound to 44 KHz, so now I'm getting sound properly.

---
Update update: Sound in general is working, but I'm still not getting speech in Curse of Monkey Island.

I get an error message 'WARNING: Lanuage file is forced to be ignored!'

Can anyone suggest an AmigaOS 4 compatible MUCK/MUD client?

The ancient version of TinyFugue that's up on Aminet for 3.x machines doesn't work (and TinyFugue 3.x isn't all that hot anyway), and I don't really care for AmiMUD.

I've been using Term 4.8 with telser.device, which is certainly full-featured and scriptable, but it's hard to manage connections to multiple worlds with it. It's also not terribly stable, unfortunatly. (I recall it wasn't fantastically stable on my Amiga 3000T/040 either,so it's probably not the 68000 emulation that's the issue. :)

I know MUCKs are out of style and all, but dangit, if I can't be retro using an Amiga, where CAN I be?

-jbni