Chameleon and P96 Update, Buster-12, working hours until end of 2020
After the Beta-9j update for both versions of the Chameleon has been published on November 30th, we have published version Beta-9k on December 12th. This is delivering on the announcement in our Supportforum to publish an average of one update per month from now on. With this pace, we intend to end the beta phase of this project, which already lasts for over ten years. Our main goal is to fix "real world tests": We want to fix bugs that are visible in games, demos or application programs. We will continue to deliver free updates, even for hardware that has been sold since fall of 2010. A lot of knowledge that is gained in this process will continue to go into the free emulator VICE, which is the basis for many commercial C64 emulators: Pure software packages and single-board computers that are sold in cases that look similar to the C64.
Our P96 software also got the second update since the last news item: During the "Amiwest" event, we have published V3.0 of P96, introducing screen dragging on graphics cards. This is a key feature that keeps large parts of the look&feel of the Amiga, and it's now preserved on graphics cards as well. We have published the new version V3.01 today, fixing a number of small bugs (see wiki-entry). The update is free for all customers who purchased P96 in the past 12 months.
During the interview of the Amiwest event, we've announced the "Buster-12" project, which will begin before Christmas of this year. In cooperation with Commodore chip designer Dave Haynie, we're developing a bug-fixed version of the Buster chip that will allow more than one DMA bus master card and that will fix other known bugs of the previous "best" Version 11 of the chip. The product, which plugs into the socket of the Super Buster of an A3000 or A4000 computer, will presumably be available in the second half of 2021.
For the remainder of this year, we're happy to announce that we'll have sufficient personnel on every working day to ship orders. There will be no shipments on December 24th and 31st. We're already seeing an increased number of orders from the United Kingdom, because the transitional Brexit period ends on December 31st. We urge our British customers to place their orders before Christmas. On December 30th, we will disable shipping methods to the UK, so orders with a shipping address in England or the channel islands can't be placed (these would have to be shipped after the transitional period, hence the early cut-off). We will then implement the new regulations for England not under EU jurisdiction in January 2021 and enable shipping methods again.
Starting on January 1st, 2021, the regular German VAT rate of 19% will apply again. We will most likely switch back to the higher prices on December 31st already.