This Saturday (22-Oct), Hyperion announced they are working in drivers for an OEM PowerPC based netbook already available. Drivers will be available in the 1Q-2012.

The only PowerPC based netbook in the market is the LimePC. http://www.limefree.org
The LimePc is based on a Freescale PowerPC MPC5121e processor

Other details:
– 400Mhz MPC5121e Processor
– 8,9″ TFT Screen (1024×600) -> Rumor: 12″ screen
– 256 Mb RAM -> Rumor: 512Mb
– HD: 4, 8 or 16 GB
– Wireless LAN
– Battery Li/Ion 3400 mAh
– Webcam 0.3 Megapixels
– Ports: 1xVGA, 2xUSB, 1xRJ45, 1xSD Card reader
– Powervr SGX 2D/3D graphics accelerator (the iPhone 3G graphic chip)
– Soundcard

This configuration could change in the commertial product, but this is a minimum base config. And the best: The Netbook price is 199$ http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/Vodacom-Linkbook/

The Amiga branded Netbook will cost between 300 and 500$

Very good news!

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Recently I bought a NOS CD32 v4.0 (French version) with a scart cable.
Very nice, but the consoles didn’t work with CDRs and had many problems with originals CDs.

I decided to replace the CD32’s laser unit buying a new one in Dönberg Electronics LTD.
This is the model: KSS 210b http://www.donberg.ie/descript/k/kss_210b.htm only 12,9€ + shipping

this is was what we did:

Original Laser unit inside the CD32

Now the CD32 works like a NOS one and it can read CDRs without problems.

Every Amiga user have (or have had) a lot of floppy disks because the floppy drive is the native format and you can find thousands of games and programs in this format.

Thanks to WHDLOAD and the popularity of CFCards as a Hard Disks, the A600/A1200/A4000 users now can forget the floppy drive.

But what about A500/A2000 users without IDE or SCSI controller?

I discovered an incredible device: a floppy disk emulator that works with SD memory cards.

The emulator can be installed replacing the internal floppy disk and connecting the floppy cable to the emulator. I have installed the emulator as external device because my Amiga must share this “toy” with an Amstrad CPC. In the pictures you can see the cables comming out but the Amiga case is closed with screws.

Its very simple to install, only plug the floppy controller cable and the power.

You must set the jumper like you can see in the photo.

The only bad thing is: you need to use a Windows machine to convert the adf/dms files to a propietary format, then copy the files to the SDCard.

Once the files are in the SDCard, when you turn on the Amiga with the emulator connected and the SD inserted, a special program load from the

SDCard. This program shows you all the floppy images in the SDCard. The system supports folders and is “multidisk”, this means you can select multiple disks, for example: workbench install, workbench fonts, workbench extras. If you press f10, the system reboots and the Amiga boots from the first disk selected, in the video you can see “Amiga Workbench 2.1 install disk”.

Pressing the left and right buttons in the emulator, you can browse through the files you have selected before, in this example you can see Amiga Extras and Amiga Fonts disks. Only one image can be loaded at the same time in the emulator!! ;P

The emulator read, but also WRITE in the SD using an Amiga (emulator revision C).

I’ll put more videos and info about this cool device.
You can find more info in the official web:

[edit : 7-dec-2010]
A new video : HXC rev. C (with write support) formating a floppy and copying files.

Speed test with Sysinfo: Reading files the HxC emulator works like the real drive (arround 20k/s)

Speed writing data: It’s very slow writing data (1 minute/100k vs 20 seconds the real floppy).

Jens did it again. Individual Computers has designed two new accelerator cards for classic Amigas. The ACA630 for the A600 and the ACA1230 for the A1200.

Very interesting cards. I love the ACA630, it comes with 32Mb and a 68030/28Mhz (not EC).
You must quit the internal floppy drive if you want to install the Indivision+ACA630.

HXC Floppy Emulator it’s perfect to replace the A600 floppy drive: http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/
I think the disk emulator will fit perfect with the ACA630 and the Indivision. I’ll do a review in other post.

The other card, the ACA1230 comes with 64Mb and a 68EC030. No MMU and No FPU. The only option it’s a RTC clock.
Will be a 56Mhz version far more interesting than this. But the 28Mhz version costs only 99€!

I’m having a lot of problems with the Zorro cards. I think my motherboards are damaged.
I’m going to send the board to Amiga Center France. They repair Amiga boards.
If they can’t repair the board, I’ll buy an Amiga 4000T from Softhut.

My new X-Surf has worked very well for a week.. Today I have a problem:

When turn on the computer sometimes:
– The green led in the Xsurf is on -> then the card works
– The green led is off -> then recoverable alert 0100 0008

I’m going to check the card in my other Amiga 4000, but I don’t like this problem.. the card is hot, and I have an extra fan inside the case…

updated:

Now I’m using my other A4000 and the X-Surf is working without problems. My old A4000 is broken, I think the buster or something related with the Zorro slots.

I’m going to put a X-Surf speed test here.

After a week working pretty stable, now the computer reboots randomly again.
My graphic card and my network card works fine, but random reboots are unacceptable in a server.

I removed the Mediator and the problems are gone.

I ordered a Xsurf card, I will not waste any more time with the Mediator.

* edit: mediator works perfect in my other a4000

Yes, now I have working a 750Gb disk in my Amiga!

I fixed the problem by doing these things:
– The disk does not work as a master but as a slave.
– You need to install IDE-Fix.

I installed the disk instead of CD because I must boot the amiga from the old disk to start idefix and mount the second disk.

Pic: AmigaX  now with 750Gb HD. 

I found a new problem. The SATA partitions were read-only.
I solved the problem by doing the following things:

1. Downloading the SFS
2. Installing the SFS in the hard disk using HDTOOLBOX after copying smartfilesystem in l:
3. Adding mounter u=1 >nil: in my user-startup

Now I can write data in the disks!

Yeah, the irobot hunt my keyboard.
Nothing serious, still alive…   😉

I love this machine as much as the Amiga.

After 6 weeks testing hardware and software, I have a stable system for run the BBS.

The Bulletin Board Systems were connected modems through the serial port.
There were cards with multiple serial ports like the Commodore A2232

Modems are now extinct animals … a shame, I loved their sound!
Today everyone are connected by routers and dsl lines.

How can we integrate our old bbs software with tcp/ip?
Very easy, thanks to telser.device

If you want to use it, you will need AmiTcp/IP. I installed EasyNet from AmigaKit.

Once connected, we can download Telser and the key from Aminet.

The installer asks for AmiTCP, AS225, I-NET or Multilink.

The program was shareware but now it’s free, you can download the key from Aminet.
The key must be in s:

You need a comm software. I love Ncomm. You can get it from Aminet, now its free.
Once installed, you should change the serial.device by telser.device

Restart Ncomm and type:  atdt bbs.amiexpress.co.uk  (for example) and press enter

This is the screen where Ncomm store the “bookmarks”

Downloading a file using Z-Modem.library. In this case I got 5335 cps! ;P

Telser.device works with AmiExpress and any other communications software.