Planet Industrious Rabbit

Here you’ll find regularly updated posts from the various places where The Industrious Rabbit happens – across the Fediverse, here on this blog, and in the various apps that support the project.

@TopazRabbit@oldbytes.space

Via Topaz πŸ‡

November 18, 2023 2:33 AM

Just played through Symphony of the Night for the first time. Real solid game. Super Metroid is next, so I can see both origin points of the Metroidvania genre.

Hop to the Top: Bunny's Revenge and IFF ILBM files

Via Blog -- The Industrious Rabbit

October 30, 2023 8:00 AM

RobSmithDev released Hop to the Top: Bunny’s Revenge and posted a video about some of the production process. I did some of the graphics for the game, as well as writing the code for the intro. For the graphics, I ended up writing some custom code to automate some of the process, and it was an opportunity to learn about a popular Amiga image format.

My typical process for making art for retro systems is:

  • draw the piece in Krita and export as true color PNG
  • use GNU Image Manipulation Program to convert it to an indexed PNG, cleaning up the pixel art as needed in GIMP
  • use some tool somewhere to turn the indexed PNG into a retro machine friendly format

In the case of the Amiga, I’ve used ArtPRO on the Amiga in the past to convert PNG images to whatever format I needed. With all the art I was making, and potentially remaking, I needed a faster process. ArtPRO is good, but clicking buttons on retro machine software to convert images was going to be too slow.

I was also running into an issue with GIMP not preserving the index order of the color map I had created for the game. I think I had Remove Unused and Duplicate Colors from Colormap enabled which was messing up the color indexes, so be sure to disable that if you’re using a similar process.

Due to this, the resulting color map on the output images was all over the place, so I needed to fix that issue.

I had two approaches I could take:

  • automate the production of a sprite sheet encompassing all of the individual pieces of art and convert it once, fixing the palette issue.
  • convert each piece separately and load them as separate images, finding some other way to speed up the conversion & palette fix.

I chose the latter since I preferred separate image banks to start, over hard-wiring in sprite sheet locations, during initial development.

I decided to write a tool in Ruby that converts indexed color PNG images directly to IFF Interleaved Bitmap (ILBM) files, enforcing the order of the palette. It uses RMagick to load the image, and then implements IFF ILBM writer code to create the Amiga-ready files. It even supports run length encoding compression.

Here’s the source code. It drew heavily from the IFF ILBM reference found here, as well as from a lot of examining IFF ILBM files in hex editors. It only supports images up to 32 colors, so no Extra Half Brite or HAM images. If you end up using it, let me know!

@TopazRabbit@oldbytes.space

Via Topaz πŸ‡

October 18, 2023 9:48 PM

I've had some real busy times these past few months -- lots of life stuff happening, some good things, some not so good things. One reason I like to draw, even during those busy times, is that it gives me some moments away from all that life stuff. Where it becomes just me and the piece, even if it's just for a half hour. I finally finished up two Night in the Woods pieces I started during this time, where I wanted to try different approaches from how I normally draw. Hope you like them. Marked sensitive for some slight spoilers to the game.

Now that these are done, I'll be starting on the next Industrious Rabbit video, which will be a nice code heavy one to balance out the Paintbox video, which was more of a history video.

Hope your day is going well!

An anthropomorphic black cat with a stick pokes at an arm lying on the ground, saying "It's an arm..." An anthropomorphic cat in a Halloween costume runs quickly to the left.

@TopazRabbit@oldbytes.space

Via Topaz πŸ‡

October 7, 2023 12:05 PM

I used @inkscape 's Page tool for the first time today. It's great! Laying out a multi-page document this way is so much easier than my old school multiple-layers-one-per-page approach, and multipage PDF export Just Works :tm:. Great stuff!

@TopazRabbit@oldbytes.space

Via Topaz πŸ‡

September 28, 2023 9:56 PM

I made some new art for my personal site. This sits on the side of the index page. I still have to do some work on the site itself, but the site is way more lofi and early Web than it used to be, and having my cartoon art back on the site makes me happy.

A human and an anthropomorphic rabbit dangle from a phone cable. A modem at the end of the cable is swinging around.

Drawing YOUR REQUESTS on a Quantel Paintbox from the 90s! -- Full Stream

Via MakerTube -- The Industrious Rabbit

September 5, 2023 9:04 PM

I draw your requests on a Quantel Paintbox, specifically a Harriet from the early 90s. Due to streaming issues, I wasn't able to broadcast this live, but I did record the whole stream locally. I made it through three pieces: a rat holding a Quantel RAT (a mouse-like input device), a request from @imrustyok@meow.social for a TV show ad card recreation, and a request from @tyrel@social.tyrel.dev to draw his cat. I thought I was drawing his cat Henry, but it was actually Victor. Oops.

Learn more about the Quantel Paintbox:

Stream music by Nihilore: https://nihilore.com

Drawing YOUR REQUESTS on a Quantel Paintbox from the 90s! -- Full Stream

Via Blog -- The Industrious Rabbit

September 5, 2023 3:00 PM

I uploaded the full Quantel Paintbox live stream, edited a bit to trim out some stream issues and to correct some audio issues. This was my first time not only recording a Paintbox, but also recording away from home, so there were plenty of issues to work around!

Below are the three pieces I produced during the stream. They came out as Targa files from the Paintbox that I converted to JPEG.

Thanks again to Adrian Wilson for providing me access to the Paintbox and giving me lots on instruction on how to use it. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to paint on it again!

Stream music by Nihilore.

A cartoon rat holding a Quantel RAT

A cartoon rat holding a Quantel RAT, an input device for the Paintbox.

A parody of a TV ad card for a show called Mission Bunpossible

A parody of a TV ad card for a show called Mission Bunpossible. This was a request by Rusty Ralston.

A digital painting of a one-eyed black cat, incorrectly titled as Henry

A drawing of Tyrel's cat Victor. I thought it was Henry. Oops! Sorry, Victor.

I'm taking YOUR REQUESTS for what to draw on a Quantel Paintbox this Sunday, September 3rd at 1pm Eastern! Read the blog post to find out more and to make a request: https://theindustriousrabbit.com/blog/2023-08-31-drawing-your-requests-on-a-quantel-paintbox/

Via Topaz on Pixelfed

August 31, 2023 10:18 PM
A cartoon rabbit sits at a desk. On the desk is a Quantel Paintbox tablet, a monitor with the Paintbox logo, and various video equipment. The rabbit is saying, "I'm drawing YOUR REQUESTS on a Quantel Paintbox!" The info "September 3 @ theindustriousrabbit.video" is posted on the bottom.

I'm taking YOUR REQUESTS for what to draw on a Quantel Paintbox this Sunday, September 3rd at 1pm Eastern! Read the blog post to find out more and to make a request: https://theindustriousrabbit.com/blog/2023-08-31-drawing-your-requests-on-a-quantel-paintbox/

Drawing YOUR REQUESTS on a Quantel Paintbox!

Via Blog -- The Industrious Rabbit

August 31, 2023 10:00 AM
Anthropomorphic rabbit sitting at Quantel Paintbox announcing that he will draw your requests on September 3rd

I’ve been given access to a V-Series Quantel Paintbox and I want to draw your requests on it! I’ll be on the machine for a few hours, streaming the art production on my PeerTube channel and talking with the Paintbox’s owner, Adrian Wilson, while I draw. Send in your characters, ref sheets, and requests, and I’ll do my best to honor those on this dedicated art machine from the 90s! Don’t make me just draw Topaz and the Amiga custom chip characters over and over, because I will if you don’t send anything in.

Don’t know what a Paintbox is? Watch my latest video to learn more!

Submission Instructions

If you want to submit a drawing request, use the email instructions on the About page to send me your request. Attach or link to any reference images I might need. You must email me your request! Requests made on Mastodon will cause me to point you at these instructions instead.

  • The deadline is Saturday, September 2 at 5pm! Any emails received after then won’t be part of this stream.
  • Requests must be safe for work! I am the sole decider of what that means, and I can work with you beforehand to make it SFW if needed.
  • One request per person, please!
  • Keep attached reference images smaller than 1 MB.
  • I’ll randomize the entries after I’ve sorted through them.
  • I may not get through every entry! If I don’t get to yours, I’ll email you and ask if you’d like me to feature it on a non-Paintbox art stream instead.
  • I’m not going to email you about anything else besides this art stream.
  • I’ll do my best to retrieve the final images off of the machine directly to send to you. If I can’t, you’ll have to settle for a screen capture. Hey, it’s free art from a custom computer from the 90s, whaddaya want?

Digital photo editing a decade before Photoshop? Meet the Quantel Paintbox

Via MakerTube -- The Industrious Rabbit

August 20, 2023 9:05 PM

The popular shorthand for digital photo editing is based on the name of software developed in the 90s. However, that activity was already being done by users of a bespoke art computer developed by a British company in the early 80s, and the public could see the output of this machine everywhere. So why is digital photo manipulation not called "being Paintboxed"?

Thanks to DextersTechLab for actual Paintbox footage and technical assistance, Adrian Wilson for lots of feedback and resources!

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction
00:36 - Digital Video History
01:23 - The Quantel Paintbox
02:33 - Music Videos
02:57 - Paintbox Machines
03:23 - Why is it not called being Paintboxed?

References

Quantel Paintbox Resources:

Credits

Music:

Digital photo editing a decade before Photoshop? Meet the Quantel Paintbox

Via Blog -- The Industrious Rabbit

August 20, 2023 3:00 PM

The popular shorthand for digital photo editing is based on the name of software developed in the 90s. However, that activity was already being done by users of a bespoke art computer developed by a British company in the early 80s, and the public could see the output of this machine everywhere. So why is digital photo manipulation not called “being Paintboxed”?

Thanks to DextersTechLab for actual Paintbox footage and technical assistance, Adrian Wilson for lots of feedback and resources!

References

Quantel Paintbox Resources

Credits

Music

Moving from YouTube to PeerTube

Via Blog -- The Industrious Rabbit

August 20, 2023 10:00 AM

I will no longer be publishing videos on YouTube, and will instead focus on publishing videos using PeerTube, the federated, community-driven video sharing platform. If you’ve never used PeerTube, it’s a lot like YouTube, except it respects you, your attention, and your data much more than Google does. This move fits in with trying to get ahead of what I’ve been experiencing on the Internet in the past few months:

  • Ad-driven corporate services eventually become unusable and hostile to their users (Twitter, Reddit). Given enough time, this will happen to YouTube (and some might say it already has!).
  • You have to play a lot of games on YouTube in order to gain and keep subscribers, and to let them know when new stuff is live (ring the bell, anyone?). These sorts of games will increase in complexity until YouTube just starts asking you to pay them to show your videos to others, while still showing ads on the videos, much like how other social media services have done for years.
  • Automated moderation is overly aggressive out of fear of driving off advertisers or viewers of the company being targeted by scammers. YouTube bots making a questionable assertion about a link in one of my videos pushed me over the line here.
  • I’ve heard enough horror stories about big name YouTubers being caught in an increasingly complex net of automated tooling that denies them access to their accounts or funding, and only the largest and most vocal users are able to get any sort of resolution. Meanwhile, that tooling makes scam accounts nearly impossible to stop, causing channel viewers to get scammed out of lots of money, or accounts, or whatever.
  • Being on the Fediverse for almost a year, interacting from one community-driven server and users to another, has been refreshing and feels like how the Internet felt in the 90s, except with much more modern tools around the communication and content delivery. Try sending something larger than a postage stamp-size video in anything higher than potato quality in the late 90s to someone over dialup! It’s not happening.

I’ve changed all of the video embeds over to MakerTube, the current host for my videos. The Industrious Rabbit has a channel, just like it would on YouTube. I may start other channels for other projects. Whatever is currently on YouTube is all that will be there from now on, and those are not guaranteed to stick around, either.

One downside is that PeerTube does not have account export/import/migration yet, so if my current host goes down, reuploading everything becomes a very long, manual process, and I can’t bring along users. If you like what you see here, follow me on Mastodon just in case the worst case scanerio happens. Of course, YouTube is even worse since it has no official export or migration tools, and makes it very tough to get in touch with all channel subscribers directly! I’ll likely make one final post over there to let interested subscribers know where I’m going.

Check out the other videos MakerTube users have uploaded, and if you like what you see, be sure to donate to your instance admins.

See you on PeerTube!

Amiga Art: "Disney Presents: The Animation Studio" - Ink & Paint Part 3

Via MakerTube -- The Industrious Rabbit

August 2, 2023 1:00 AM

I did it. I finished the animation. Working with this software is more challenging than I expected. It also didn't help that my tablet was having issues with Weylus after a while. I also learn just what Frisket does, and why it's important to Free the Frisket!

Skip to 2:23:54 if you want to see the finished animation playing!

I'll be taking a break from streaming while I focus on the next video, then I'll pick back up with either DeluxePaint V or True Brilliance as my next Amiga art tool to explore.

Stream music by Nihilore (CC-BY 4.0) - https://nihilore.com

Can I fix the non-functioning AMOS BASIC networking library I wrote in 1998?

Via MakerTube -- The Industrious Rabbit

August 2, 2023 12:59 AM

Bamboo figures out how to get code he wrote 23 years ago on the Amiga to work for someone today, and it involves a lot of work with libraries.

Thanks to Piotr Kuchno for contacting me and working through debugging the code, and for the videos of the code in use on real Amiga computers! Thanks also to @ijimkoz on Twitter for valuable feedback!

Note: The project name and URL have changed! Go to theindustriousrabbit.com to learn more!

Resources

Intro:

AMOS Extensions:

Amiga libraries:

Why was my server code not working?

Amiga Architecture 101: The Basics + Gaming

Via MakerTube -- The Industrious Rabbit

August 2, 2023 12:59 AM

Want to try out gaming on the classic Commodore Amiga computer? Topaz walks you through the basics of this retro computer's hardware, and the things you'll need to look for to get your own setup working.

I currently use these emulators:

If you're on Windows, you can run the venerable WinUAE (https://www.winuae.net/).

You can get Kickstart ROMs from Cloanto and their Amiga Forever pack (get at least the Plus Edition for the more modern Kickstarts) and/or from Hyperion if you want AmigaOS 3.2, a modern AmigaOS for applications.

I leave ADF and WHDLoad archive hunting to the viewer!

Thanks to Meredith, Tyrel, Dave!

Read more at https://theindustriousrabbit.com and subscribe to the channel and RSS feed for future updates!

Credits

MiSTerFS problems with AO486? Here's a workaround, and a quick explanation how it works

Via MakerTube -- The Industrious Rabbit

August 2, 2023 12:58 AM

Having trouble getting MiSTerFS to work on the AO486 core? Topaz Rabbit walks you through a workaround you can do on the Linux side of the MiSTer, then describes how that workaround works.

Thanks to Tyrel (@tyrel@social.tyrel.dev), Jim (@ijimkoz@mastodon.social)!

References

Credits

Can a Commodore Amiga help you cook a pizza? -- Amiga GUI app development in C

Via MakerTube -- The Industrious Rabbit

August 2, 2023 12:57 AM

Topaz Rabbit walks us through writing a pizza timer app in C on the Commodore Amiga. Follow along and learn about Intuition, GadTools, devices, message ports, IO, and even signals!

Thanks to Tyrel (@tyrel@social.tyrel.dev)!

Chapters

00:15 - Introduction
00:40 - Intuition
01:17 - Opening a Window
01:50 - GadTools
03:31 - setup and teardown
03:53 - Fonts
04:29 - Timer Logic
05:24 - Amiga code documentation
05:53 - Message Ports
06:34 - Intuition Direct Communication Message Port (IDCMP)
09:06 - Time & timer.device
10:01 - Synchronous & Asynchronous IO
11:40 - Alerting the user with DataTypes audio playback
12:43 - Signals
13:27 - Intuition menus
14:19 - The About window
14:45 - App testing with CodeWatcher and avail
15:25 - Conclusion

References

Amiga documentation and tools:

C tutorials:

Source code:

Credits

Music:

Sound Effects:

Building a Simple Server in C for the Commodore Amiga

Via MakerTube -- The Industrious Rabbit

August 2, 2023 12:57 AM

Topaz Rabbit walks through building a simple bsdsocket.library based server for the Commodore Amiga using the C programming language. You'll learn about development environment setup, waiting for socket connections & other signals, and reading and printing client data to the console.

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction
00:08 - Network socket basics on the Amiga
01:06 - Development environment setup
01:54 - Starting work on our server
02:20 - setup()/teardown()
02:53 - Control-C handling in SAS/C
03:24 - bind a socket to a port and interface and listen, and processor/networking endian-ness conversion
04:00 - Waiting for socket activity or Control-C using WaitSelect()
05:25 - Reading data from the client
05:56 - Amiga function names can be different from normal socket library function names
06:11 - setsockopt, TIME_WAIT, and SO_REUSEADDR
06:52 - Conclusion

References

Code:

Documentation:

Setup:

Credits

Music:

Write Internet-enabled Amiga programs with AMOS Professional and this extension!

Via MakerTube -- The Industrious Rabbit

August 2, 2023 12:56 AM

Introducing the BSD Socket Extension for AMOS Professional, the newest and easiest way to get your AMOS BASIC programs onto the Internet. Available now on Aminet and on the Hackerbun code repository.

This code finalizes the 25 year old project I started in 1998 to write a networking library for AMOS Professional. If you want to watch from the beginning, check out this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4GNHJfYOUU&list=PLX_wfJQZe5SVK1D17NJpbmjyXI6dByOKl&pp=gAQB

Thanks to Piotr & Tyrel (@tyrel@social.tyrel.dev)!

References

Download:

API & Examples:

Extension Users:

Credits

Music:

Sound effects:

Drawing Denise in True Brilliance - Bromo Art Walk May 2023

Via MakerTube -- The Industrious Rabbit

August 2, 2023 12:56 AM

During the Bromo Art Walk in Baltimore on May 18, 2023, I drew the character for the custom chip Denise on an emulated Amiga 1200 in the 24-bit Amiga painting software True Brilliance, which was released in 1993. My display was mirrored onto a monitor so others could see the art production. There was a lot of stopping and showing the 30 year old copyright date on the About window for True Brilliance that I cut out of the video. Next time, I'll use the Stencil feature more so I'm not overwriting my ink lines so much.

Music

Building a simple Amiga network client...in assembler?!?

Via MakerTube -- The Industrious Rabbit

August 2, 2023 12:55 AM

Topaz walks through what it takes to write a network client in M68K assembler on the Commodore Amiga, using development tools that run right on the Amiga itself!

Thanks to Tyrel (@tyrel@social.tyrel.dev) & Colin!

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction
01:02 - AsmPro Setup & Usage
02:11 - Web-based m68k Assembler
02:50 - Just enough assembler
05:58 - Amiga Library Vector Offsets (LVOs)
07:29 - Working with AsmPro
08:58 - Tour of the client code
16:18 - Conclusion

References

Code:

Tools:

68000 Assembler:

BSD Socket Library:

Credits

Music:

Amiga rasterbars are cool -- Meet the Copper, the hardware that helps make them happen

Via MakerTube -- The Industrious Rabbit

August 2, 2023 12:54 AM

Rasterbars are a common special effect on early computer games and demos. The Commodore Amiga's take on rasterbars are special due to the Copper, a special processor that synchronizes its activity to your monitor's image rendering hardware.

Thanks to Tyrel (@tyrel@social.tyrel.dev)!

References

Documentation:

Examples:

Credits

Amiga rasterbars are cool -- Meet the Copper, the hardware that helps make them happen

Via Blog -- The Industrious Rabbit

June 20, 2023 7:30 AM

Rasterbars are a common special effect on early computer games and demos. The Commodore Amiga’s take on rasterbars are special due to the Copper, a special processor that synchronizes its activity to your monitor’s image rendering hardware.

Thanks to Tyrel (@tyrel@social.tyrel.dev)!

References

Documentation

Examples

Credits

Music

Drawing Denise in True Brilliance -- Bromo Art Walk May 2023

Via Blog -- The Industrious Rabbit

May 20, 2023 5:25 PM

During the Bromo Art Walk in Baltimore on May 18, 2023, I drew the character for the custom chip Denise on an emulated Amiga 1200 in the 24-bit Amiga painting software True Brilliance, which was released in 1993. My display was mirrored onto a monitor so others could see the art production. There was a lot of stopping and showing the 30 year old copyright date on the About window for True Brilliance that I cut out of the video. Next time, I’ll use the Stencil feature more so I’m not overwriting my ink lines so much.

Credits

Music

Write Internet-enabled Amiga programs with AMOS Professional and this extension!

Via Blog -- The Industrious Rabbit

April 5, 2023 5:25 PM

Introducing the BSD Socket Extension for AMOS Professional, the newest and easiest way to get your AMOS BASIC programs onto the Internet. Available now on Aminet and on the Hackerbun code repository.

This code finalizes the 25 year old project I started in 1998 to write a networking library for AMOS Professional. If you want to watch from the beginning, check out this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4GNHJfYOUU&list=PLX_wfJQZe5SVK1D17NJpbmjyXI6dByOKl&pp=gAQB

Thanks to Piotr, Tyrel (@tyrel@social.tyrel.dev)!

References

Download

API & Examples

Extension Users

Credits

Music

Sound effects

Building a simple Amiga network client...in assembler?!?

Via Blog -- The Industrious Rabbit

April 2, 2023 4:26 PM

Topaz walks through what it takes to write a network client in M68K assembler on the Commodore Amiga, using development tools that run right on the Amiga itself!

Thanks to Tyrel (@tyrel@social.tyrel.dev), Colin!

References

Code

Tools

68000 Assembler

BSD Socket Library

Credits

Music

Topaz as a Knight Attacking an Amiga

Via Blog -- The Industrious Rabbit

February 9, 2023 5:00 PM
Topaz attacking an Amiga that's displaying a Guru Meditation error

I took a break from some Amiga assembler programming to draw this piece. I had seen a picture from an advertisement of a knight attacking an Amiga 500, so I redrew it featuring Topaz, and gave Topaz a good reason to want to attack the Amiga. Enjoy!

Building a Simple Server in C for the Commodore Amiga

Via Blog -- The Industrious Rabbit

January 11, 2023 8:14 AM

Topaz Rabbit walks through building a simple bsdsocket.library based server for the Commodore Amiga using the C programming language. You’ll learn about development environment setup, waiting for socket connections & other signals, and reading and printing client data to the console.

References

Code

Documentation

Setup

Credits

Music

I forgot to write down the name of this game, so if you know it, please post it in the comments! You controlled a green dot on the LED strip, and you moved it with a spring down the dragon's interior, the goal being to get the dot to the end of the dragon's tail. If you made the spring wiggle quickly, it did a yellow attack that could take out enemy red dots. There were orange dots that toggled on and off too. Each run was randomized so it was a new challenge every time. #magfest #indiegaming

Via Topaz on Pixelfed

January 10, 2023 12:06 AM
A cardboard dragon with an RGB LED strip running into its mouth.

I forgot to write down the name of this game, so if you know it, please post it in the comments! You controlled a green dot on the LED strip, and you moved it with a spring down the dragon's interior, the goal being to get the dot to the end of the dragon's tail. If you made the spring wiggle quickly, it did a yellow attack that could take out enemy red dots. There were orange dots that toggled on and off too. Each run was randomized so it was a new challenge every time. #magfest #indiegaming

I've never played a theremin, so I didn't do too well at the shoot'em up Psychic Space Wars, where you raise and lower your left hand to control the ship's position, and raise and lower your right hand to control aiming the ship's autofiring guns. #magfest #indiegaming

Via Topaz on Pixelfed

January 9, 2023 11:58 PM
A Psychic Space Wars cabinet.

I've never played a theremin, so I didn't do too well at the shoot'em up Psychic Space Wars, where you raise and lower your left hand to control the ship's position, and raise and lower your right hand to control aiming the ship's autofiring guns. #magfest #indiegaming

AO486 VHDs On Both Emulated PC and Linux

Via Blog -- The Industrious Rabbit

December 17, 2022 2:53 PM

Having trouble getting MiSTerFS to work on the AO486 core? Topaz Rabbit walks you through a workaround you can do on the Linux side of the MiSTer, then describes how that workaround works.

Thanks to Tyrel (@tyrel@social.tyrel.dev), Jim (@ijimkoz@mastodon.social)!

References

Credits

Can a Commodore Amiga help you cook a pizza? -- Amiga GUI app development in C

Via Blog -- The Industrious Rabbit

November 28, 2022 7:36 AM

Topaz Rabbit walks us through writing a pizza timer app in C on the Commodore Amiga. Follow along and learn about Intuition, GadTools, devices, message ports, IO, and even signals!

Thanks to Tyrel (@tyrel@social.tyrel.dev)!

References

Amiga documentation and tools

C tutorials

Source code

Credits

Music

Sound Effects

Notes from the Amiga - AjSTer oops

Via Blog -- The Industrious Rabbit

October 6, 2022 8:00 PM

Well not only did I have to take a Blender-shaped knife to the top of the case, I also have to take one to the side of the case as well.

DE-10 Nano and MiSTer Digital I/O board inside the AjSTer case

I can’t get power over to the USB hub via the DE-10 Nano without some creative solution. I’ve seen one build where someone soldered a power cable coming off of the DE-10 to power the USB hub, but I’m not that confident in my soldering skills right now to try that.

So I’m going to cut a hole in the case for the DE-10 power plug, then run a cable out the side and back into the case for the hub. I also need to print a different USB hub-side of the case, ‘cause I printed the one for two exposed USB ports and I only have one over there. Oops.

At least I have all the electronics components I need to build this thing. And once it’s all built and working, I’ll put up my modified files on Thingiverse and here for others to use.

Notes from the Amiga - Building the AjSTer Part 1

Via Blog -- The Industrious Rabbit

October 5, 2022 12:00 PM

Most of the parts to assemble my AjSTer arrived, so I started on construction. I decided to tackle the hardest part first, the soldering. Also, depending on how the soldering came out, I’d likely need to reprint some parts.

I got the primary parts list from BuildingTents’ build, but I ordered a different Micro USB header which seemed simpler to use suggested on Reddit.

The MiSTer digital I/O board has two connectors for external buttons and LEDs. I found a great diagram showing how to wire up the LEDs, and my breadboard setup and subsequent soldering job worked out great.

MiSTer with my hand-soldered LEDs and buttons on PCB board

The buttons were a little more difficult and required some experimentation. The first pin on the Digital I/O board for the buttons seems to be on the other side of the connector as the LEDs, so I had to wire the buttons “backwards”. Once I figured this out, breadboard testing, and subsequent soldering, went smoothly.

Since the PCB I got wasn’t the same one as the original creator used, the top right part of the case needed to be reworked. I grabbed my calipers and some paper and took as many measurements as seemed to make sense to ensure:

  • the board had enough clearance for the LEDs I was using,
  • the printed buttons, which I now needed to modify, would extend down from the top of the case far enough to hit the buttons on the PCB,
  • and the PCB could be mounted securely to the case, in case I decide to aggressiely reset the MiSTer in a fit of rage from losing at Battletoads yet again.
Diagrams of measurements for how I need to modify the case

My go-to way of building most 3d models nowadays is using the Boolean modifier in Blender. Rather than directly modifying vertices, I’ll drag cubes and cylinders and whatever overtop of an object and use the modifiers to make non-destructive cuts. This was how I built the floppy disk model for the Amiga Architecture 101 video, and it’s how I modified the AjSTer case model.

Blender showing lots of boolean operations on the reworked case

As I’m writing this, the new case part and buttons are printing away, and I have one cable I forgot to order, a USB to headers connector for the USB hub, arriving tomorrow. If my schedule holds up, I can have this new case assembled sometime this weekend!

Amiga Architecture 101: The Basics + Gaming

Via Blog -- The Industrious Rabbit

October 1, 2022 2:31 PM

Want to try out gaming on the classic Commodore Amiga computer? Topaz walks you through the basics of this retro computer’s hardware, and the things you’ll need to look for to get your own setup working.

I currently use these emulators:

If you’re on Windows, you can run the venerable WinUAE (https://www.winuae.net/).

You can get Kickstart ROMs from Cloanto and their Amiga Forever pack (get at least the Plus Edition for the more modern Kickstarts) and/or from Hyperion if you want AmigaOS 3.2, a modern AmigaOS for applications.

I leave ADF and WHDLoad archive hunting to the viewer!

Thanks to Meredith, Tyrel, Dave!

Credits

Last built: December 2, 2023 12:04 AM