Finally Version 3.2.0 of FreePascal is released. This is the first final release contains the Amiga style systems fully usable. A while before I did some extra work to also create an Amiga-sytle installer, which will be also released with this. Today I will also release the 3.2.0 FreePascal packages for Amiga 68k, Amiga OS4, AROS for ARM, AROS for i386 and MorphOS. So basically all versions except AROS for x86_64 because that’s still too unstable to use (mainly the AROS 64 bit is still a moving target and I was not able to fix that, because AROS is simply not working after the last changes and my last questions about it got just ignored)
Downloads: – Amiga 68k OS3.x+ 68020+ SoftFPU – Amiga OS4 OS4.x PowerPC (X5000 not supported) – AROS ARM RasPi 1-4 ABIv0 – AROS i386 ABIv0 – MorphOS OS 3.x Have fun using them!
You notice, these files are still hosted on my server and not on the official FreePascal Server, as the last release 3.0 as well. I was told because my previous packages did not meet the standards for official FreePascal packages. Which was true, I did not care about and packed a lot additional stuff into, like fpgui or LCL and I did not know there are readme texts to add which are not in the official repository but in an external one.
For that release 3.2 I did a lot of work on finding out what would be a good Amiga style package and which docs/texts should be added. Therefore I created that installer package I release today. I also asked for a review and put on to the official FreePascal server, as an official Amiga FreePascal package or give me feedback on what I should further changed.
Sadly that did not happen, I did not get any feedback and the release archives are still nowhere to be found on the official servers, therefore missed for that release.
That whole story took away my motivation as well over the last month as well, it seems rather futile to continue to work on it, when nobody even really use it, which is still true, unfortunately, I have to admit.
I uploaded some of my sources to my github account. With it also Leu and MUIMapparium. MUIMapparium is 100% written by me, therefore it is now under CC0 License. Leu contains fpspread and some files from LCL therefore it is modified LGPL as the original. Have fun with the code. 😉
I had some interesting and intense discussions the last days. Mainly about my programs and vampire. As you might know I did not want to have my programs on the highly illegal distribution Coffin. You cannot detect Coffin, but it’s a distribution especially made for Vampire, therefore if I block Vampire they will not include my software anymore. Besides the Vampire users could push the Vampire team to condemn this distribution and stop to promote it. All of that did not happen, they still added my stuff, even with the Vampire block and the people became mad about me, not about the Vampire team (or the coffin team). I’m not good at being the bad guy.
Basically the people tell me that I’m an idiot and an asshole because I blocked Vampire, so I give up. The people always told me that Coffin is not illegal because it contains abandon-ware only. Ok, if that’s the case I transform my programs to exactly that and put them all to github, then it is legal and everything is solved.
Don’t get me wrong, I do not have a grudge with the Vampire team. I always hear that, that I’m mad about them because of the FPU issue, which is not true, maybe disappointed, but not more, I use my Vampire mainly as RTG-GFX card for A600, the only one currently available and the FPU I can turn off and use femu (which still works and is rather good).
The last long weekend is over and MCAmiga got a new milestone, the search is working for now. Time to make a release, I just tried it again on my Amiga1200/030/50/AGA and it still works nicely, redraw still slow, but it’s quite usable. I’m used to it, always used 64 colors screen with higher resolution. I guess this will be much better when there is a nice GFX card for Amiga1200, like the Warp1200. I really look forward to it, hope will be available to by soon.
MCAmiga 0.7 on Amiga 1200 and OS 3.1.4, with the new search dialog.
Working on the Search function of MCAmiga, again try to get close to the function midnight commander is offering.
I put the search function into a thread that you easily can continue to work, even the search is still running, (as midnight commander also do it). Atm you can press F3 to view the file or F4 to edit or enter to jump to the file directly. It works already nicely but still needs a little bit work, especially the mouse control needs some care.
Due to multiple questions, yes it is possible to compile MCAmiga for 68000 as well, even it would still need AmigaOS3.x to work. But because I got some requests also to supply such a binary a made a separate archive for a Version for 68000, it’s not really tests, at least it starts:
MCAmiga 0.5 on a 68000 processor and OS3.1
But no promises about the function. It is rather slow but somehow usable.
Finished a little bit more MCAmiga testing, especially on MorphOS and AmigaOS4 there where some serious problems. On AmigaOS4 the device view did not work at all, just crashed, reason was a bug in the AmigaDOS unit of FreePascal. I fixed that exact problem already for other platforms, and now also on AmigaOS4. On MorphOS only tiny changes are needed, mostly related to the supplied lha being a little bit different than the one on classic, but still very close. AROS was a bigger problem, the lha command here is completely different, very limited actually, for example you cannot extract a single file.
MCAmiga 0.5 on MorphOS 3.11
I got a hint from Charlie to use cad to unpack archives, because it supports many different formats and it’s available for at least classic and MorphOS, I found out for AROS there is also a version in contrib, that means at least Icaros even comes automatically with it. AmigaOS4 seems not to have it, at least I did not find it. It works very nicely, easy to operate, but sadly it’s only for unpacking archives, no way to pack them. That means the functionality is limited to read only access in MCAmiga. Therefore I gave xad a lower priority over the native lha/lzx programs, except on AROS because there xad is the better choice, the native lha command does not work at all.
MCAmiga 0.5 on AROS i386 ABIv0
Besides that big feature for handling archives, I added a lot of small stuff, like Shift cursor keys to select file, or Ctrl cursor keys to jump fast up and down or to first item (left) or to last item (right). Start programs with enter and wait for finish or with Shift Enter an do not wait for it, so effectively start it in a new shell.
MCAmiga on a Amiga with OS3.9
The Source is now also available on GitHub completely. I did put it there on the first release but I forget to push the changed source. I committed locally only. But now the full source should be there, so take it an improve it and most importantly have fun with it.
MCAmiga 0.5 on Amiga OS 4
For now that is already a very useful program for me, more or less finished. I do not really need more than that, maybe one day one could add an editor to it, especially an hex editor. But at the moment I don’t need it.
The requirements did not change, still Amiga 68020+, 4 MB, AmigaOS3.x, AmigaOS4 (except X5000), MorphOS 3.x, AROS i386 ABIv0, AROS ARM ABIv0, AROS x64 ABIv1 NonSMP
Working on the lha handling inside MCAmiga, would be nice to have it like in Midnight commander where you can directly browse inside archive, add, remove files, and even edit files inside.
I got it somehow to work, still with some limitations, for example, LHA you cant create an empty directory, so I create the directory with a ‘delete_me’ file inside. Also when the directory is created “merged” on adding (usually means added together with its parent directory) you cant remove it, if will stay there, even empty. But still it works already very nicely. Until now you can copy files to archive, copy file from archive, make a new directory, rename files. View and edit files (also with external tools, file is extracted to temp dir). Also introduced the Tools menu (F2) well known from midnight commander.
I did not try on AROS/MorphOS or so until now, hmm curious if all LHA versions are the same, I should try some different versions 😉
Thanks to some hints/wishes in amiga.org forum I spend some time to optimize the use of MCAmiga on lowest possible setting, thats means a high res, no interlace screen with 4 colors, like starting without startup-sequence. It works quite nicely, one still can see activated entries, so it’s somehow usable, but of course on a real Amiga will be quite slow.
