The FireBee FreeMiNT Setup 2022
2022-12-31:
This year we are back with a strong sign of life. Now that the website is up and running again and all information has been correctly coded in the respective languages, we are proud to present a completely new FireBee FreeMiNT Setup at the end of the year.
To celebrate the tenth anniversary of our first multitasking setup, this is a completely new MiNT installation. All programs are up to date. A number of new user programs have also found their way in and can be used immediately in the usual pre-installed way.
The project, which was largely implemented by Jo Even Skarstein at the time, has been driven forward by Latz over the last few years. In years of tireless work for our platform, we were able to put together a very respectable and, under the circumstances, up-to-date operating system with over 50 modern user programs. Our special thanks go to all the external programmers who have allowed us to pre-install their software or have made it available under free licences anyway.
In this context we would like to point out that we as the ACP team did not coded most of the operating system and its sub-areas, as well as the user programs, and therefore cannot be responsible for their functionality or support. Finally, the credit must go to those who deserve it, namely the hundreds of people all over the world who create various software titles and operating system parts for the Atari platform, mostly in their spare time. First and foremost, the contributors to the FreeMiNT project who continue to provide our platform with a modern multitasking operating system overlay under a free licence.
Our FireBee FreeMiNT setup
, as usual, can be unpacked directly onto a compact flash card and run under FireTOS. EmuTOS, as before, does not work with it! In any case, we recommend a separate empty CF card. Unpacking on an already existing installation makes no sense because of the new file/folder structure and is only advisable in exceptional cases for very experienced people.
We hope to sweeten the start of the new year with this new system version and to have provided you with many exciting hours with your FireBees. From next year onwards, we will be contacting you more regularly as a project with the latest news, and hopefully we will finally be able to complete the delivery of the currently sold-out series.
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EmuTOS 1.2 and 1.2.1
2022-12-25:
On August 07th 2022 EmuTOS Development Team published new version 1.2 of free and open-source TOS replacement.
And then - it already became a tradition - developers found a bug in a new version and nine days later bugfix version 1.2.1 was out.
So we speaking now about both versions together.
Major changes in EmuTOS 1.2:
- AES: Add support for 3D objects (enabled in 512k ROMs and PRG)
- AES: Add support for new menu_xxx() functions in AES 3.30
- AES: Allow up to 16 windows for versions with AES 3.30 support
- BIOS: Add interrupt-driven I/O for SCC serial ports
- EmuDesk: Resize screen memory in videl modes, just like TOS4
- General: Make FireBee ROMs single-language
- VDI: Fix crash under FreeMiNT with memory protect enabled
Other changes:
- AES: Display better error message if program launch failed
- AES: Improve error checking for wind_xxx() functions
- AES: Better looking separators in menus
- BDOS: Implement undocumented TOS function Srealloc()
- BIOS: Add support for ...
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EmuTOS 1.1.1
2021-08-16:
On July 08th 2021 EmuTOS Development Team published new version 1.1 of this free and open-source TOS replacement and as it was found a bug just after release, on July 19th bugfix version 1.1.1 was out.
Major changes in new EmuTOS version:
- AES: Add support for colour icons
- AES: Add support for colour windows
- BIOS: Add support for Falcon DSP
- BIOS: Add interrupt-driven I/O for MFP and TT-MFP serial ports
- BIOS: Improve Nova video card support in several areas
- EmuCON: Allow setting of EmuCON startup folder
- EmuCON: Initialise EmuCON default path from AES's PATH variable
- EmuDesk: Remove the non-standard 'menu click' preference
- General: Add online manual for EmuTOS
- General: Add support for Hungarian & Turkish languages
- General: Make the 512K ROMs single-language only
Other changes:
- AES: Handle '||' and '] ] ' correctly in form_alert()
- BIOS: Add early startup message so ...
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HTTP 521 Webserver is down - Hardware failure at firebee.org
2021-03-22:
Maybe you have already noticed it: Some news, pages and downloads are no longer available. This is due to the fact that our previous web server broke down about 3 weeks ago. Since then we have been working to get it back to its original state.
The beginning of spring has not been kind to us, the weather is anything but springlike. It is wet, cold and not cosy at all. Actually, you'd rather want to hide your feet under a warm blanket, but ...
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GFA Basic Editor (GBE) v3.7 Released
2021-01-18:
For those not aware, the original author of GFA Basic passed away in 2011. December 9th is Frank Ostrowski's birthday. His brother was kind enough to share that information. To honor Frank's legacy, the full release of GBE was released on that day.
Features include:
- Build for 68k or Coldfire regardless of host machine.
- Added all missing AES calls up to AES v4.1, plus some N.AES calls.
- Added the most commonly used Bios, Xbios, Gemdos, VDI, and NVDI calls.
- Some new general purpose commands not related to the operating system.
- Built in STiK, MiNT-Net, LDG API's and more.
- Commands for game coding, like Joypad support, blitting with masks, SNDH, etc.
- Over 500 new commands.
Some of the new commands were inspired by GFA for Windows/DOS and HiSoft Basic.
Follow the download link at http://gfabasic.net/
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New AHCC version released
2020-12-03:
After almost 3 years, Henk Robbers released version 6.0 of AHCC on November 27, 2020. As always, he also release binaries specific for Coldfire on his webpage
Besides the bug fixes and improvements (the release notes can be found here), AHCC 6.0 only has binaries produced using AHCC itself (not Pure C), has improvements in the editor and handling of nested projects.
Henk is also looking for a future maintainer for AHCC. Contact him directly (see his website) if interested.
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New Firmware, FPGA Configuration and FireTOS
2020-08-31:
Already a long while back we promised to you the new software for your FireBees. As for some time the new computers get already delivered with this software in Flash-Rom, we decided now to make it available for everyone.
All the improvements have been programmed by Medusa over the last years, and work pretty well at several dozen of machines. But, there have to be followed some precautions by you, as you could transfer your FireBee into a status, where you need external hardware, to rewrite something to the ROM and be able to boot again.
In first place there is the fact that this software is requiring each other! The new FPGA configuration needs the new BaS and the new FireTOS need also the new FPGA and vice versa! For the first time you have to flash all components directly consecutively, without rebooting the FireBee inbetween. Shouldn't you flash all 3 components at once, you will not be ...
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COVID-19 Watcher
2020-03-30:
If you have an Atari connected to the Internet, you may now track the coronavirus outbreak on your trusted machine. COVID-19 Watcher is an app that displays the current (more or less…) number of infected, dead and cured cases. It should ...
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FireTOS addon archive
2019-08-12:
The ACP-Team collected a set of useful software, prepared to give you best singletasking experiences on your FireBee right from the start.
In July we published the brandnew FireTOS addon archive on firebee.org. This collection of programs is designed for easy singletask working on the FireBee. Yes, there are people who prefer working under TOS and we know that there are also "pure (Fire)TOS users" on the Bee; so for those not running MiNT this collection may be very helpful.
Similar to the „Language-Disks“ known from Atari we prepared some essential programs which can be used directly on an SD card (as floppy replacement) or from partition „C“ on mass storage devices like CF card, harddisc or SSDs connected to your FireBee.
You will find included a controlpanel server with some useful cpx modules, the helpsystem ST-Guide, a texteditor, a calculator, a screenshot ...
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Atari 8-Bits at the FireBee
2019-05-01:
"Atari800" is an emulator for Atari 8-Bit Systems like the 400/800, the Atari XL/XE-Series or the 5200. At 13th of April 2019 the version 4.1.0 was released by Miro KropáÄek.
The Emulator for the FireBee works via SDL and the assembler core was excluded in the FireBee version. Beside the fact that this is the first version for the FireBee, the main news in v4.1.0 are that the emulator can now ...
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Up-to-date information about the ACP project Q1/2019
2019-03-31:
It's the right time again to give you some information about the state of things in ACP. Last year we neglected the flow of information a little, and some of you got the impression that nothing was happening anymore with the FireBee.
But the opposite is true, so we want to give you an update about the things that are currently being worked on.
• Delivery of the 2nd series
We are still busy to deliver the computers of the 2nd series. With all the things that went wrong with this batch (power transformer issue, case production - the final cases were delivered to us this January etc.) the resulting huge delay also caused an incredible mess. Some pre-orderers believed they wouldn't get a device anymore; others we had to chase down with multiple mails, posts or on other channels because their personal data had changed. At any rate, the efforts are huge. We are doing the best we can though to ...
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Latest News
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The FireBee FreeMiNT Setup 2022
2022-12-31:
This year we are back with a strong sign of life. Now that the website is up and ...
|
Read more
|
EmuTOS 1.2 and 1.2.1
2022-12-25:
On August 07th 2022 EmuTOS Development Team published new version 1.2 of free and ...
|
Read more
|
EmuTOS 1.1.1
2021-08-16:
On July 08th 2021 EmuTOS Development Team published new version 1.1 of this free ...
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Read more
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