A little odd: TAG_DONE and TAG_END

Sometimes one might get confused when to use TAG_DONE in AmigaOS C-code, and when to use TAG_END. The answer is very simple: They're one and the same. But it turns out there might be a little bit of an unknown story to these two widely used tokens.

TAG_DONE showed up before TAG_END, in NDK1.3, along with struct
TagItem, but not as part of the system includes, and the TagItem system
wasn't used in system functions.

Or was it? This is a section of code from the file Read-Me1.3/A2024Docs/OpenA2024.c, which is part of NDK1.3.

Great Amiga Demos!

Just in case you didn't notice, there's a growing number of Amiga demo videos on the YouTube channel.

Amiga demos are just fun to watch, and oftentimes feature some fantastic music. 

This is a collection of classic Amiga "multimedia", featuring demos by The Black Lotus, Spaceballs, Digital, Parallax, etc., and more to come. Maybe you wanna subscribe to the channel to get notified of new uploads?

To get you started, here's Spaceballs' "State of the Art" from 1992:

Recapping a Samsung 204B monitor

In September 2006, I purchased a Samsung 204B SyncMaster monitor for $320+tax. It was a 4:3 monitor, and for certain tasks like my Logic Analyzer Cart, it’s perfect.

It failed in July 2024, and would no longer power on. There was a VERY faint blue flashing happening on the blue power led on the right-hand side of the unit. I figured it was a power-related problem.

Amiga QB Extract recently updated

There was a HDD backup utility for the Commodore Amiga called Quarterback, part of a suite of tools called Quarterback Tools. This utility allowed you to backup existing files on your HDD, compress and/or encrypt them, and split them across multiple floppy disks.

This backup tool stores a catalog, which contains a number of directory entries at the beginning of the backup file, and then contains file markers for either compressed (CFM + 0x90) or uncompressed (FMRK) files.

Retro PC builds in 2024 - Part 1

Where time allows this year, I have been doing PC build projects for Compaq LTE Elite laptop (486), IBM Aptiva (AMD-K6 500), Compaq DeskPro (P3-1Ghz), Core i7 PC I built back in 2011, and Pentium 200MMX setup on IBM PC300GL with OS/2, plus adding a parallel ZIP, HP iPAQ, Sony Clie Palm into the mix.

Whew.

California Games – From Top 2 Bottom

California Games was simply outstanding, making it all the more astonishing how the sequel, California Games II, managed to mess everything up.

There isn't a single likable aspect in the sequel, which perfectly exemplifies how the developer completely missed what made the original so great.

Source

An Amiga plus a lot of good will equals... Crysis!

Can an Amiga computer run milestone first person shooter "Crysis"?

Well. "Yes it can." But you need some - just a little! - suspension of disbelief. Here's a prototype created by author lifeschool, that uses a slightly different approach to bringing the amazing graphics engine of "Crysis" to the Amiga. System requirements are comparably moderate:

  • PAL Amiga 
  • Kickstart 3.0 or higher
  • 1MB Chip and 4MB fast memory
  • 500MB free disk space

68030 or better CPU is recommended, though.

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