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A propos d'Obligement
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David Brunet
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Interview with Bernd Assenmacher
(Interview conducted by David Brunet - April 2026)
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Today, we are pleased to welcome German developer Bernd Assenmacher, author of tools such as Image2PDF,
PDF2PDF, and LHArchiver for MorphOS and AmigaOS. We are going to discuss his background, his passion
for the Amiga world, and the behind-the-scenes of his creations.
 Hello Bernd.
Could you introduce yourself to our readers?
Hello David, yes, of course. :-) My name is Bernd Assenmacher, and I am 54 years old. I work as a refrigeration
technician and am the managing director of my own small company. My hobbies are hiking, cycling, and, of
course, my computers. I live near Nationalpark Eifel in western Germany. I have been married for 27 years
and have two children. I would call myself an "old Amigan." :-)
Do you have a nickname? If so, what is it, and where does it come from?
Yes, I do. The nickname is "Trekman" or sometimes "theTrekman." As you can see, it comes from "Star Trek",
which has always been my favorite TV show. On YouTube, I have a channel called
"MorphOS User" where I have
made three small videos so far. You can find me on the Amiga forums, MorphZone, or on the Amiga or MorphOS
Discord channel.
What was your
first computer, and how did you first discover the Amiga?
Wow, that was a long time ago. I remember my first steps working with a ZX Spectrum at school, which had
rubber keys. That was in the early 1980s. In the mid-1980s, my brother and I owned a Commodore 64. In the
late 1980s we purchased an Amiga 500. I got into the Amiga because of my brother's "fault" :-) - he actually
introduced me to Amiga computers. My brother is two years younger, but he is the one who studied computer
science.
What are
your current Amiga configurations? Why do you choose to stay active in the Amiga world?
I own an Amiga 500, an Amiga 1200 (equipped with a 68030 turbocard), an Amiga 3000D, and an Amiga 4000T.
The Amiga 500 and 1200 need upgrades - that's on my to-do list. I do not use my Amiga 3000D at the moment.
The Amiga 4000T is equipped with a 68060 turbocard from Phase 5 and a CyberVision64/3D graphics card.
RAM with 2 MB Chip and 144 MB FastRAM is quite nice :-). I installed AmigaOS 3.2.3 on it alongside AmigaOS 3.9
in a kind of "dual boot" system, so I can use both OSes for testing. But of course, I do play some games on it too :-).
I run AmigaOS 4 and AmiKit in WinUAE and some AROS distributions in VirtualBox on my Linux machine for
testing. Unfortunately, the available hardware for AmigaOS 4 is rather expensive. It would be nice to
have more options there.
Besides that I have a Mac mini G4 and a Power Mac G5 with MorphOS, which I use most of the time. MorphOS
is the most advanced Amiga-like experience. I can really recommend MorphOS in many ways.
The Amiga community has always been special to me and the Amiga computers were just beautiful machines to
have fun with. They always drew me in. They have a kind of soul and you can configure them as you like.
Among Amigans there is good communication and, if you need it, someone to help you out. From a certain
point of view, dealing with Amiga-like systems is different compared to other computers or operating systems.
Amiga-like systems have much passion in them. Also, the people are nice. That's probably the fascination
and a main reason why I was always attracted to the Amiga world. :-)
When did
you start programming? What were your very first developments?
I did my first steps, as mentioned, on the ZX Spectrum. But "real" programming (if one can say so)
started on the C64 with V2 BASIC and/or an extension called "Simons' BASIC." My first developments
were rather simple and small programs - for example, drawing lines, circles, or rectangles. Later
I did some sprite programming and I remember programming a small game. I need to look up my old C64
stuff. Maybe it's still there.
In recent
years, you've become well-known for practical tools like Image2PDF, PDF2PDF, and LHArchiver. Could you introduce
these programs to us? Why did you start developing them, and what are their key features?
On Amiga systems, I noticed that creating LHA archives typically requires using a Shell or opening a
file manager or GUI, which I found annoying because it took too long to get an archive (at least for me :-)).
So I created an easy-to-use tool where you only provide the essential information like the archive name,
the source files, and the target drawer - and there you go: archive created. Over time, it grew due to
user requests, so I added languages and functions. Today, it can be used as a simple backup tool although
it wasn't made for that initially.
LHArchiver
Image2PDF is meant to convert scanned pages saved as image formats like JPG, IFF, or PNG to PDF, which
is a standard for documents. The few scanning programs on Amiga systems (ScanQuix, ScanTek, or Scandal)
did not save to PDF directly, so for my needs (and others') it was necessary to convert them. Strangely,
on MorphOS, an older version of Scandal could save to PDF, but this was abandoned in the latest release.
Image2PDF sur MorphOS
Image2PDF (impression)
PDF2PDF was a step between versions of Image2PDF. If I remember correctly, it was requested by Sébastien "Jedi"
Jeudy, who needed a tool to convert regular PDF documents to PDFs where copy/paste is prevented. That's
what PDF2PDF does. One must consider that the quality of the target PDF is lower than the original because
it transforms the PDF to images and then back to PDF.
I recently published Image2PDF v2.9 along with LHArchiver v1.15 to Aminet.
Le récent Image2PDF 2.9
Image2PDF
and PDF2PDF are quite similar. Do you plan to merge them into a single, comprehensive tool?
The code of PDF2PDF was already integrated into Image2PDF. So one can use it inside the GUI.
Some people asked for this, so I implemented it in Image2PDF v2.4. :-)
LHArchiver
doesn't seem to allow compressing individual files directly (the user has to create a directory and place
the files inside first). Do you plan to add this capability?
As you described above, it is already possible to compress a single file if you put it in the source
directory or drawer. Of course, it would be possible to compress a file directly, but that would require
adding another step to choose whether to compress one file or multiple files. As this would slow down the
process, I do not see it as advantageous. However, if users want it, I would not rule it out. :-)
Your software
is programmed using Hollywood. What is your opinion on this language/software? Do you have any suggestions
for its author, Andreas Falkenhahn, to improve it?
I used Hollywood from v8 onward. Currently, I use v11. Hollywood is a great piece of software. The language
is very BASIC-like with many preconfigured functions that do the magic. It's easy to learn compared to
other languages. It has all the tools and documentation one needs. I can absolutely recommend using it.
It's worth the money, and if I may say so: Andreas should be supported by buying it so he can develop it
further. It's an enrichment to all platforms it supports, especially the Amiga platforms. I have only one
suggestion: I would like to see more coding examples so users of Hollywood can learn more quickly.
What is
your response to those who think Hollywood isn't suited for "real" system utilities? Does the ease of
porting outweigh the loss in raw performance?
That depends on the hardware you use. It's a speed thing. On slower systems, other languages like C
are naturally faster, so it wouldn't be wise to use Hollywood for system utilities there. One can
certainly hold that opinion. Even with Miniwood, the speed gain is not huge. But on faster hardware
like a PowerPC G4 or G5 processor with some RAM it can work as fast as C-compiled programs. I could
imagine that a well-made utility programmed with Hollywood could make it into an OS.
What are
your future projects? Are you considering releasing your tools on other platforms supported by Hollywood?
At the moment, I don't have other projects in mind, but I'm open to useful ideas :-). I will improve the
tools I made already as long as it makes sense. LHArchiver and Image2PDF are released for some other platforms
too. They can be downloaded from my webspace.
The versions for Amiga systems are uploaded to Aminet.
You also
authored a tutorial
on printing with MorphOS. Do you think a modern printing system (like CUPS) is essential for the survival of
MorphOS, or are current solutions (TurboPrint/Netprinter) sufficient for daily use?
MorphOS, as a "modern AmigaOS," supports quite a range of printers. For most users this should work,
but since it is an assembly of two printing systems, there is room for improvement. It would be nice if
they were consolidated into a more powerful single printing system, maybe more CUPS-like, but I know due
to the many printers out there with different manufacturer philosophies it's not that easy. The NetPrinter
solution works well as far as I can tell. It lacks good documentation, which is why I did the tutorial.
As a MorphOS user,
what features or improvements would you like to see in the next version of the OS?
More stability (although it's already quite good), dual-core support (especially for the Wayfarer browser
to gain more speed), an office suite or good word processor (Yannick "Papiosaur" Buchy is working on Stylos,
which looks promising), a usable spreadsheet application (Jacek "JacaDcaps" Piszczek is working on one),
and an improved printing system would be nice. Supporting more (affordable) hardware would be welcome too.
With Mirari there is a step in that direction.
Is the "Fast"
Amiga Classic scene (PiStorm, Apollo Vampire...) also a target for your productions?
Not yet, but who knows...? :-) The AmigaOS 3 versions of my tools should work there too, but I never
tried because I don't own that hardware.
Artificial
Intelligence has entered our lives. What is your opinion on these new tools? Will you be using them for your
future developments?
If AI can be used as a good tool and it doesn't steal our thoughts or replace our need to think and understand
things, we can and should use it. We must remember that AI is pattern matching against databases, so we
should not stop thinking and creating things ourselves. I can imagine using it in future developments,
but I don't believe it's the holy grail :-).
How do you
perceive the evolution of the German and international Amiga communities over the last few years?
The communities, regardless of location, are surprisingly active and strong. That proves to me that all
Amiga systems give special feelings and fun to the users. If affordable hardware is provided in the future,
we should be able to keep having fun with Amiga-like systems. To achieve that, all people working on this
should come closer together. In the last few years my impression is that, in most cases, people realized
this and moved in the right direction.
Is there
a question I haven't asked that you'd like to answer? Or any anecdotes you'd like to share with us?
Well, the question I would have expected is how my family sees my computer hobby and how they deal
with it. In my case, the answer is, thank goodness: they let me do it, so they are fine with it.
I hope all Amiga users get to enjoy this benefit :-).
A final message
for the Amiga community?
Keep doing Amiga stuff! It's worth it! Do not forget to have fun with it! And stay healthy in the
first place. The fun in Amiga computing will help with that. Best wishes... :-)
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