@database "ar306.guide" @Node MAIN "Amiga Report Online Magazine #3.06 -- March 12, 1995" @{" Turn the Page " link MENU} _ ____ ___ ______ _______ _ d# ####b g#00 `N##0" _agN#0P0N# d# d## jN## j##F J## _dN0" " d## .#]## _P ##L jN##F ### g#0" .#]## dE_j## # 0## jF ##F j##F j##' ______ dE_j## .0"""N## d" ##L0 ##F 0## 0## "9##F" .0"""5## .dF' ]## jF ##0 ##F ##F `##k d## .dF' j## .g#_ _j##___g#__ ]N _j##L_ _d##L_ `#Nh___g#N' .g#_ _j##__ """"" """"""""""" " """""" """""" """"""" """"" """""" ###### ###### ###### ###### ###### ######## TM ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## #### ## ## ## #### ## ## ## #### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ### ###### ## ###### ## ### ## "THE Online Source for Amiga Information!" Copyright 1995 FS Publications All Rights Reserved // =====================================//==================================== == March 12, 1995 \\// Issue No. 3.06 == =========================================================================== @endnode @node MENU "Amiga Report Main Menu" @toc MAIN =========================================================================== == Main Menu == =========================================================================== @{" Editorial and Opinion " link OPINION} @{" Featured Articles " link FEATURE} @{" Reviews " link REVIEW} @{" News & Press Releases " link NEWS} @{" FTP Announcements " link FTP} @{" Reader Mail " link MAIL} --------------------------------- @{" About AMIGA REPORT " link ABOUT} @{" Dealer Directory " link DEALER} Contact Information and Copyrights Amiga Dealers - Returns in AR 3.09 @{" Where to Get AR " link WHERE} @{" Commercial Products " link COMMERCIAL} Mailing List & Distribution Sites Online Services, Dealers, Ordering ______________________________________________ // | | // ========//====| Amiga Report International Online Magazine |======//===== == \\// | Issue No. 3.06 March 12, 1995 | \\// == ==============| "THE Online Source for Amiga Information!" |============= |______________________________________________| @endnode @node DEALER @toc MAIN We weren't kidding. Dealers now appear every four issues. Last appearance was AR 3.05. Next appearance is AR 3.09. @endnode =========================================================================== == The Amiga Report Staff == =========================================================================== @node JASON "Editor" @toc STAFF =========================================================================== == EDITOR == =========================================================================== Jason Compton ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Internet Address -------- ------- jcompton@cup.portal.com 1838 Chicago Ave. #419 jcompton@bbs.xnet.com Evanston, IL 60201-3806 USA Fax Phone --- ----- 708/491-4064 708/332-4599 @endnode @node ROBERT "Senior Editor" @toc STAFF =========================================================================== == SENIOR EDITOR == =========================================================================== Robert Niles ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Internet Address -------- ------- rniles@Wolfe.NET 506 W. Orchard Selah, WA 98942 FidoNet Fax ------- --- 1:3407/103 509/697-5064 @endnode @node KATIE "Assistant Editor" @toc STAFF =========================================================================== == ASSISTANT EDITOR == =========================================================================== Katherine Nelson ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Internet -------- Kati@cup.portal.com @endnode @node SEAN "Games Editor" @toc STAFF =========================================================================== == GAMES EDITOR == =========================================================================== Sean Caszatt ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Internet -------- Sean.Caszatt@f512.n2601.z1.fidonet.org @endnode @node EDITORIAL "compt.sys.editor.desk" @toc OPINION =========================================================================== == compt.sys.editor.desk By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} == =========================================================================== It's been a fortnight of ups and downs-actually, downs and ups. About a week and a half ago, unconfirmed reports started appearing that Amiga World, one of the oldest Amiga magazines in existance, would be ceasing publication. And, sure enough, the reports were confirmed. Amiga World's April 1995 issue, already delivered to subscribers, will be the last issue. No goodbyes appear in the issue, because word of the cancellation came AFTER the issue was completed. This, of course, has sparked considerable conversation, particularly in North America, which now only has ONE monthly Amiga print magazine-Amazing Computing. It also has the interesting side effect of making Amiga Report the second-highest circulated Amiga magazine that originates in the US. :) But even as Amiga World dropped from the picture, new light appeared. The liquidator for Commodore International has selected Escom's bid for Commodore's assets as the contract bid for the auction. This means that, once an auction date is set, all interested parties get together in a building and bid on the contract until someone wins. This, of course, is good news. It means motion and progress for the proceedings. Our pledge to put out a magazine within 6 hours of a buyout confirmation is still valid. I will confirm it, though, with either the C= International liquidator or the party who claims victory...and both, if I can manage it. Things may not be so bad after all. Of course, they would have been better if this had happened long ago, but you can't have everything. Until things get even better, enjoy what we've got, which is at least a chance in hell. Jason @endnode @node MAIL "Reader Mail" @toc MENU =========================================================================== == Reader Mail == =========================================================================== From RJMARIER@STTHOMAS.EDU Sat Mar 11 13:07:28 1995 First, I wanted to thank you and all of the rest of the staff of AR for putting out such a great online mag. It's a pleasure to read it. I look forward to even more of AR (especially since Amiga World is gone)! Now, I've got a big question for you........ I was wondering if you might be able to supply me with an e-mail address for Alex Amor and David Pleasance. I would more than appreciate it if you could find those addresses! Thanks very much, Robert Marier - Well, neither Amor nor Pleasance have direct e-mail addresses. Commodore UK can be reached as cbm@cix.compulink.co.uk, and CEI has asked that their e-mail address not be released publicly yet, so I'll pass anything you want sent to them along. Jason @endnode @node OPINION1 "Darkseid's Padded Cell" @toc OPINION ========================================================================== DARKSEID'S PADDED CELL Darkseid CKb426@ujvax.ulster.ac.uk ========================================================================== As the shadows fall under moonlit sky Creeping silence comes upon this land Now my friends beware as you walk Amidst the green and pleasant, for Strange beasts hoot and grunt Outside the barriers of reality As cold as nite 'tween the stars More black than souls of the dying We come upon the strange refuge Inside and out In truth and doubt Welcome to the Darkseid Let me take you on a short trip back in time. We control the vertical we control the horizontal (unless youve got a 1084s ;) ).dedeedodoo dedeedodoo dedeedodoo welcome to the twilight zone, the shadowy boundary between fact and fiction, between C= and Cei, between knowledge and guesswork. Watch as the scene unfolds..... We see a young boy reading his favourite magazine, the words C64 user are clearly evident at the top of the page. The magazine is showing the new wonder machine, it like the C64 is built by Commodore. But whats this it costs almost a grand and its not C64 compatible, shock horror, fear and a sudden realisation that it means none of his games will run. He wont be able to play IK, or Gauntlet, or OutRun or KnightLore or Alien8. What will he do now..... Gradually the sceen fades out and time slips forward, we see the new wonder machine evolve (shouldnt that be devolve ? :) ) from the A1000, into the creamy 512 Amiga 500 running Workbench 1.2. It sold many units and became the home games machine, easily out performing the Atari St and lesser 8bit machines. Gradually over time it changes and develops gaining worbench 1.3, a new model the 1500 then the 2000 business machines then a spurt when it becomes a cd type machine, one of the first, ahead of its time. New and improved models followed the 3000, the fated 600 and the current wonder machines the 1200, 4000-30/40 and the cd32. Now up to present date the picture shows a company in trouble development of new goodies on hold. Rumours and 'information' abound, with specs for new machines flying about. The Hombre Chip, The AAA chipset, Hp-Risc, DSP, CD1200, Windows NT. The facts indicate that when (Optimistic :) ) the new company release a new machine that it wont really be an amiga. UH OH..... cue scenes of people slashing their wrists cos they cant play Cannon Fodder on the new machines. Anyone see the parallel here ???? (no the new Amiga wont be a parallel processor type) Hang on, wouldnt 4 020s with an 030 as a controller provide a boost in raw power? anyone tell me ? The new Amiga be it AAA or HP-Risc will probably be Multi Platform, gasp shock etc etc. As can be seen the Amiga Os is portable, look at the Amiga clone... info in a previous AR, Draco. It doesnt use the same hardware but bung a grahics card and you can run virtually all serious AMI_Apps (Inc Gigamem arf arf virtual memory geddit ??? :) ). Change is inevitable, I for one hope that the new generation machine is ready sooner than later (Id settle for ready at all :) ). We had a market that basically was erroded by complacency, bad marketing (A600 what a great idea NOT !!) and the rise of the console, and not forgetting Doom of course Doom made the Pc viable as a games machine overnight, albeit a very very expensive one.... We have C64/Spectrum/Amstrad/BBC/Psion emulators on the Amiga, whilst they may not be quick they work... The new machine should be able to return the same results we have at the moment on the 1200 with its drastically more powerful/zippy cpu, plus 68020's dont cost that much,so why not bung one on the motherboard as fall back, esp for the game console variant. And with the custom chips as a subchip on the cpu, current Amiga stuff will very probably run.... (heres hoping). @endnode @node NEWS5 "The Wild Week at the Commodore Liquidation" @toc NEWS It was truly a wild week in the Commodore liquidation proceedings. Early Thursday, word came to me from a reliable source that Escom (the German-based PC clone maker who has expressed interest in the Commodore asstes) and the liquidator had reached an agreement to make their bid the contract bid. That contract would then be subjected to a public auction process, at which all interested bidders would have a chance to top each other's bids, and the highest bid would win the contract for the delivery of Commodore's assets. But a few hours later, it was revealed that this ALMOST happened, but was aborted because of a bizarre set of circumstances. Escom had instead made a deal, two weeks earlier, with Commodore Germany's liquidator to purchase the "C=" and "Commodore" trademarks for $1.4 million, and pulled out of the C= International deal since they had what they truly wanted, the trademark. However, the International liquidator and the US courts did not feel that Commodore Germany had the right to sell the Commodore trademark. Furthermore, one of the remaining bidders threatened to pull out of the International liquidation if the trademark was not part of the package. The US judge threatened Escom and the C= Germany liquidator with legal action. On Friday, Escom and the Commodore International liquidator reached a new agreement. Essentially, their contract has now been established as the contract bid. If they do not obtain the Commodore assets in the liquidation auction, they will hand the Commodore Germany trademark over to the winners. This is the breakdown of the details, as described by Dan Stets' Philadelphia Inquirer article: "Escom's contract bid is for 6 million dollars, not counting the 1.4 million they have already spent on Commodore Germany's trademark. Escom's offer includes $3.5 million for Commodore's core assets, an additional $1 million for its German assets, $500,000 for Dutch assets and $1 million for the manufacturing inventory remaining in the Philippines, where Commodore used to build its computers." The consortiums lead by both David Pleasance of C= UK and Alex Amor of Creative Equipment, International are expected to bid at the auction. Other potential bidders will be notified when a date is set, which may be as early as a month away. At last...progress! [Dan Stets' recent articles from the Philadelphia Inquirer and a Friday, March 10 conversation with Franklyn R. Wilson, chief liquidator of Commodore International, generated this report.] @endnode @node NEWS1 "Amiga World Ceases Publication" @toc NEWS ========================================================================== AMIGA WORLD CEASES PUBLICATION ========================================================================== [No, this is not a joke or a fake, unfortunately. -Jason] TechMedia Publishing announced that it will cease publication of AmigaWorld as of its April 1995 issue. The continuing impasse in the Commodore liquidation--now in its 11th month--was cited as the primary reason. With no firm prospects for new ownership of the Amiga, and no new Amiga technology introduced during the past two years, the company felt it could no longer justify publishing the magazine. Current AmigaWorld subscribers will be offered a choice of two other IDG publications, both of which contain editorial content relevant to the needs of Amiga users. An official letter detailing these choices will be mailed shortly to all subscribers. First published in July 1985 to coincide with the launch of the original Amiga 1000, AmigaWorld is proud to have covered what many believe to be the most exciting and innovative personal computer ever developed. We thank all our many readers and supporters for their dedication over the past decade. ------------ Early reports indicate that current AW subscribers will be offered Amiga Computing (Amiga Computing's publisher was recently acquired by IDG, AW's parent) or Digital Video. @endnode @node NEWS2 "Tahoe Software announces QuickText desktop video program" @toc NEWS PRESS RELEASE from Tahoe Software, Etc. PO Box 9236 South Lake Tahoe, CA 96158 (916) 541-0873 or (916) 649-8935 Great Graphics, low cost! QuickText ( $59.95, Tahoe Software, Etc. ) is an interactive desktop video program designed to easily develop and display almost any type of graphic screen, including titles and credits, pictures, and even animations. Other features include full ARexx support, auto screen sequencing, on-screen timer, text and numeric variables, a recordable & replayable "doodler", and an easy-to-use point-and-click interface. QuickText has been used for 6 years in a "down-stream" computer with a simple genlock in a daily, live newscast and in taping sports events for local TV cable. It can be used as an overhead projector, reader-board, silent pager, or teleprompter. "QT" is made for any Amiga with Workbench 1.2 or higher. You can get a FREE demo from Tahoe Software, Etc., or from the Aminet (biz/demo/QuickTextdemo.lha). Soon to be released, QuickText PRO will feature remote-control via modem, time-of-day slots, and tiled backdrops. @endnode @node NEWS3 "ImageFX Upcoming Improvements" @toc NEWS I had a chance to chat with Kermit Woodall from Nova Design, creators of ImageFX 2.0. Some of the improvements to be included in the upcoming upgrade (which will be available for free if obtained online, or for a shipping and handling fee from Nova) include: Enhanced Toaster support - previews, etc. Blue/Green Screen Compositing - Full control, soft edging with variation, image processing-can create alpha channel mask and key out. Can composite to self, or put out key and matte. Can protect foreground colors. Support for Primera Pro, Picture 310 Fargo printers. Film grain, sparkle effects. CyberGraphics 24-bit windowing previews. The developer information for ImageFX 2.0 should be available now, so it should only be a matter of time before new hooks become available. @endnode @node NEWS4 "Coleco Adam Emulator announced" @toc NEWS Nino Brunori - Visionary Unlimited! This is a preliminary technical description of the basic functions of the ADAM computer and the Coleco/ADAM Emulator. February 25, 1995 When the beta version is ready this message will be re-released to the rest of the Amiga community. Although this is a basic description of my work, it still has a lot of my R&D, my intention is to excite the Amiga community and show that the Amiga can emulate yet another cool computer with ease and show that we are still the pioneers in the computer mainstream, that in order to keep Amiga alive we need to develope more versatile software and hardware. Coleco screwed themselves, and Commodore wasn't much better. We need to help each other, and I need your support in the development of this product, idea's for improvement, developement, and BBS distribution. This emulator will be able to run all Coleco programs, but because of obvious differances, hardware is simply impractical to impossible. Here is a short breakdown of the ADAM computer. ADAM Original (Revision 80): 8K Rom, 64K mem, 16K Video Mem 3.58 Mhz, Video 10.7 Mhz 2 160K Disk Drives, 2 256K Digital Data Drives (High Speed Tape using specially formated cassettes), 300 Baud Modem, Serial/Parallel Card, Extra 64K Mem, Daisy Wheel Printer, Auto Dialer, Atari Emulator, 32K Max Cartridge Software, Digital Joysticks, Digital Paddles, Special Driving Module, Roller Controller (TrackBall), Super Action 4 Button Controller. ADAM Description of Hardware and Emulation ------------------------------------------ Audio: ADAM consists of 3 separate voices and 1 white noise. Emulation will be a step back in time for Amiga, but very easy to do. Cartridges: ADAM uses carts up to 32K, hardware restrictions forces me to make a backup of each cartridge and transfer them to the Amiga in order to use them. Emulation for this software will be simple because these carts never accessed Disk Drives or the Keyboard. Controllers: The Coleco controllers are the hardest part to emulate, all options available are the usual up, down, left, right, fire 1 also fire 2, fire 3, fire 4, spinner x, spinner y, and a 12 digit keypad. I have an idea as to it's emulation, but it's a closely guarded secret. The Emulator will be able to use all Coleco Controllers, the exception with the Roller Controller is that the power supply runs off the machines with an adapter, I will supply voltage requirements for the controller for usage. Clock Speed: 3.58 MHZ will be no problem. Emulation will set timing to normal no matter what speed the Amiga runs at, a variable speed will be added to the external shell. Drives: Disk Drives were 51/4 DSDD 160K completely useless in todays society, the Digital Data Drives were High Speed Digital Audio Cassettes formated to 256K and were essentially disks in the form of Cassettes but a little slower, they had directories with 0-255 at 1024 bytes each block = 256K. The emulator will emulate 2 digital data drives but dynamically, it will load a 256K data pack file in memory R/W will be in memory and at the end of a session any writes will be made to the file at the users discretion ie... With an alert that the data pack has been changed. Access time will be Amiga ram access speed, the faster the better. All pack files and cart files will be loaded through the Emulator shell and a requestor. Keyboard: The Keyboard has 75 Keys, everything is on the Amiga Keyboard and some. Emulation will be no problem. Memory: 64K Ram is not much from the Amiga, Expansion memory went as high as 1/2 Meg. Most of the software on the ADAM used only 64K, but there were a few other programs that did use the 64K expander for their personal use, with the high speed 256K ram data packs, I'll limit the to the extra 64K. Total 128K mem. Which only kicks in through the Emulator shell. Added all together 2 256K drives + 128 + emulator = at least 1 meg to run, there should be no Amiga users out there still running off 1/2 Meg, if there is, they don't deserve my work! Printer: The ADAM's famous Daisy Wheel Printer, a loud obnoxious device that print 120 Words a minute, 16K buffer. This piece of krap is not worth the 2 foot waste of space to emulate, so all print goes to the PRT: device. Ports: Serial/Parallel Port this option was a $50.00 board that was in limited supply, anyway there's no need whatsoever to emulate it. The ADAMLink 300 Baud Modem had it's own special connection port. The Auto Dialer, another piece of garbage like the ADAMLink used pulse dialing, check this out! Turn ADAM on, put in software, hit reset, 2 minutes later software is booted, call up menu another minute, select number, pulse dial and then pick up the phone. Best case scenario takes 5 minutes to dial someone. The guy who thought of this one should have stayed in the cabbage patch dept. The Side connecter expansion port is impossible to emulate without hardware, on the ADAM it was used primarily for the Atari 2600 emulator and the Auto Dialer, on the ColecoVision it was also used for the ADAM computer add on. Video: ADAM's Video consists of 16K memory buffer for patterns, 256x192 and 15 colors for Border and Pixels also 32 separate sprites. Emulation will be difficult because of the way in which ADAM setup and used it's video chip. In studying the ADAM video scheme it seemed more like a hack but was revolutionary for its time. The video itself was set up with 8x8 patterns with a 2 color state. This makes out a 32x24 8x8 patterns or 8 * 32 = 256, 8 * 24 = 192 which ultimately means you can only have 2 colors every 8 pixels, this is why most Coleco games never had colorful backgrounds. Another drawback was only 4 Sprites to a horizontal line. The Emulator fixes all of the downfalls of the the ADAM's video hardware architecture and greatly improves on them. Any call to hardware not supported will return an error return code. Summary ------- This whole program was almost scraped. I recieved about 7 email letters of support, one from california. I was suprised because I was on an IBM board and all of a sudden, WHAM, I got mail. Anyway, I was planning to use the original operating system for this emulator, then after more R&D I found why should I translate the output of the operating system and all of it's restrictions when I can just rewrite the EOS seeing that the Jump tables call the functions and not the program itself. See ColecoFig1.iff for more info. All which led to the development of ARTIE, (ADAM Real Time Instruction Emulator) a highly optimized set of routines that replaces the ADAM operating system and interfaces the ADAM output to Amiga's output. This code is the finishing touches before beta release. It was this code plus all my time in school which had set the release date from last summer till 2 or 3 months from now. That's Coding, Debug, and Tweaking. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - This information is being released now in order to gauge the Amiga community's response to another emulator for our great beloved machine. Visionary Unlimited! will be looking for a few good beta testers. A limit of 5 beta testers will be used for the preliminary release. All beta testers will have to show proof of ownership of a Coleco Adam computer (Possibly codes results from a simple program?) and will be registered and have to return detailed bug reports on a timely basis. If you're interested in being a beta tester for the Coleco/ADAM emulator, Visionary Unlimited! would like to hear from you. There's two ways to get in contact with VU! 1 Last! Amiga BBS (305) 456-0126 Leave a message to the SysOP that you'd like to be a beta tester for the Coleco/ADAM Emulator. You'll be notified when beta test versions are ready. 2 Reply to pday@gate.net with your request to be a beta tester. Please put the keyword BETATESTER in the message description when replying. You'll get an answer back and be given a time frame for beta release. If you are interested in the Coleco/ADAM Emulator, but do not want to be a beta tester, that's alright! Leave a short message at either two of the systems above, stating you'll just be interested in the Emulator, with your name and address. If there's enough response, there will be a product flier mailed to all, otherwise it will be announced on the InterNet and a short blurb will appear in the two leading Amiga magazines. Nino Brunori / Paul Day @endnode @node NEWS7 "Emplant "e586" PC Module Released" @toc NEWS This past week, prepaid customers of the Emplant PC module dubbed "e586" began receiving their packages. The Emplant PC module, designed for the popular Emplant emulation system, represents the second emulator released for that system, Emplant Mac being the first. The PC module is presently shipping without a BIOS. Utilities Unlimited had indicated that a custom BIOS and/or a popular existing PC BIOS would be included, but for now owners must turn to finding their own images, available from sources such as American Megatrends. Amiga Report has been told it will receive an evaluation package. More to come when it's available. @endnode @node NEWS6 "IRC Conference with Almathera" @toc NEWS [Just a gentle reminder...] Developers from Almathera, creators of the Photogenics image processing system, Video Creator, the CD32 VJ package, and many other Amiga products will be on hand on March 22, 1995, for an Amiga Report-sponsored IRC conference. Photogenics will be the topic du jour. The conference will begin at 11:00 AM EST (4:00 PM GMT). All interested participants should meet in IRC channel #amiga. The conference itself will be held on another channel, to be announced. @endnode @node FEATURE1 "Portal Conference with Lee Stranahan" @toc FEATURE ========================================================================== ONLINE CONFERENCE: LEE STRANAHAN AT PORTAL ========================================================================== This conference transcript is Copyright 1995, The Amiga Zone, all rights reserved. Amiga Report magazine is hereby granted exclusive non-commercial distribution rights. Commercial reprinting or redistribution of this transcript is expressly forbidden without permission. Write to "harv@cup.portal.com" if you are a commercial magazine who wishes to publish any or all of this transcript. Do not perform any further editing on this transcript without first obtaining written permission. Harv: BEFORE WE START... A POLL.... IF YOU OWN A TOASTER SEND A T. FOR STANDALONE LWAVE SEND AN L. FOR BOTH SEND TL. Harv: L JNeisch: T Drakon: T T AVID: TL RichKoster: t DonH: L RickB: t JeffH: AT RickJ: TL Harv: OUR GUEST TONITE HAS BEEN CALLED "THE WORLD'S SMARTEST TOASTER GUY." I'M SURE YOU ALL KNOW WHO HE IS PEOPLE PAY MANY HUNDREDS OF BUCKS TO HAVE HIM TEACH THEM TOASTER/LW STUFF TONITE YOU GUYS GET A REAL BARGAIN :) INTRODUCING MR. LEE STRANAHAN. TAKE A BOW. Stranahan: Well, thanks to Harv from having me. I'm broadcasting live tonight from my desk at my new job with Area 51, the special effects company that my brother co-founded. (Sitting in front of my 275 Mzh DEC Alpha, btw) We're currently working on a show called SpSpace, which will be on Fox this fall. In the past, I've worked for and with NewTek, produced a series of video tapes, and done a very successful (and LONG) training tour in conjunction ith Avid Media Group. We logged over 80,000 miles last year, so if you want any restaurant advice, ask! RickB: Do you have any news on the releaase date for 4.0 Flyer? Stranahan: Flyer release - no official word - do you want an unoficial guess? Early-optimistic-as-all-get-out guess, Mid-March. More realistic - Early to mid April RickJ: ? does the Flyer paint work on a 2000? Stranahan: TPaint will work fine on the 2000 in 4.0 - not working yet in 3.9 JeffH: Can you mix and match ScreemerNet Alpha - Mips CPUS under one License... Stranahan: No on S-net as far as I know, but that kinda thing has changed before. [*** Connection was lost for a minute, so I may have missed a question...] DonH: Will all versions of LW4 be distributed on a single CDROM? Stranahan: All version of LW will include a CD-ROm and a few floppies with the program on them RichKoster: Lee, what things are you personally doing with LightWave on Fox's new "Space" show? Stranahan: I'm an animator - I started 3 days ago and I've put out three shots, so... I'm doing ok - The main models and surfaces have pretty much been done already. The look is very nice so far - very non-CGI, more modeley. The guys I work with - my brother, Tim McHugh, Matt Merkovich, Karl Denham, and Scott Wheeler - have done a great job so far RickB: You left Newtek.....when.....why......and are you still working with them like at NAB? Stranahan: About three weeks ago, to move back to LA and start to write, produce and direct projects, and no - I am working for DPS at this NAB. Will be showing their PAR products and LightWave (It looks like - no details yet) DrGandalf: Will the 4.0 version of LW use Essence (or equivalent) textures, or will we have to wait longer? Stranahan: LW's plug-in structure should certainly allow that By the way - on LW's release date, here's another guess It won't be 1st Quarter - I could be wrong, but I think it will just miss Harv: Okay... Lee.... as an ex-newtek insider... and with the supply of slotted amigas drying up... and the buyout dragging on and on... what are their plans for the card? eventually... they will have no new boxes to ship them for. where are they headed? Stranahan: Well, there are acutally a number of interesting possibilities there, but I can't really taslk about them... The 4000 market is already very dry and they are at a premium But - NAB is just around the corner I can tell you this - I'm not sure what they are going to do, and I don't think that they are exactly sure either - Harv: are you intimating they will show a non-amiga toaster at NAB? Stranahan: Things change rapidly at NewTek, and no firm decisions have been made about any unannounced products or adaptations of existing products. And - I also can tell you that you won't see a non-Amiga Toaster in the sense that we think of the Toaster - as Tim said at the Video Toaster Expo. (and I know because I wrote it) - the future of NewTek is 1) LightWave and B) The Flyer...and that's also its present... Harv: I have a related question for AVID - Jim... with AW going away, (I know this is only today's news)... are we gonna see VTU fatten up quickly do you think? AVID: I don't think we'll benefit much from the demise of AW. We pretty much have all the ads that fit our magazine that also advertised... in AmigaWorld. RichKoster: Are you able to keep writing and doing seminars? Stranahan: Yes - i should have more time to write, in fact, since I will be traveling less and Jim and I are planning a tour for late summer - LW only, most likely. Oh wait One hint and rumor - if we do a tour, I plan on including a CD-ROM in the tour materials, With all my training frames on it, and about 200 megs of texture maps that I've created. And more stuff. JeffH: Will NT LW use open-gl? If not, when? Will there be a Flyer card for NT machines? Stranahan: No on open GL for now - possibly by years' end - and there could be a non-Amiga Flyer in theory DrTed: Basic Flyer questions... When widely available??? Will it work well in A2000 or A3000's??? Stranahan: Flyer will work in 2k or 3ks fine - I think 4.0 will be out in April, but that is not offical in any way.... Harv: Lee I presume you have meshew's Light-ROM. i'm interested in your candid opinion of it. For $30 I thought it was fairly wonderful. Stranahan: No, I don't have it actually Harv: oh. well get one! :) Stranahan: I'm sure I will! DonH: What are some of the NEW features of LW4? Anything revolutionary? Stranahan: The price/performance is revolutionary And the new Plug-in system is AWESOME - will allow creation of very powerful tools In addition, there are some cool new things like Glow.. AND - here's a world premiere announcement NewTek has licensed with Elastic Reality (formally ASDG) and is including ER's HIIP technology in a number of products including LW and the Flyer. Which means LW will be able to load and save all the file formats that ADpro did Harv: yow! DrGandalf: :) Harv: and HIIP is... ? Stranahan: HIIP - is Host Independent Image Processing. The engine behind ADPros loaders, savers, and image sizing/bitplane reduction stuff SO - LW will have that stuff built in - which is a BIG plus. This SHOULD be in 4.0 - the contract is signed Harv: so like you tell lw to load a jpeg or a gif and it just goes and does it? Stranahan: Exactly Harv - or save in AVI anim format or Cineon Harv: excellent Stranahan: or reduce the pallette, etc... That's a pretty big cool announcement, IMHO - I worked to get that going at NT... Harv: I knew ERI had an announcement coming but couldn't squeeze it outta anyone there. you just trumped them :) Stranahan: That might not be ERI's announcement Harv: oh. [nevermind]. they said it was "amiga development news." shrug. Stranahan: But it might - not sure JeffH: LW Layout, modeler will still be wire frame until they start using open- gl?... What will the first plug-ins will be first? Stranahan: Right - still wire... JeffH: Who will have the first plug-in for sale? Stranahan: Not sure what Plug-ins will be first- but NewTek is also in negotiations with a very well known and cool graphics software company to develop a plug-in set. DrTed: Will my old 2000 with 50 Mhz Mega-Midget Racer 50 Mhz 882, 2 meg 32 bit, 9 Meg 16 bit RAM, and Toaster # 000089 run LW4 adequately, or should I plan something more???? Stranahan: Well, for what projects? DrTed: Modelling, rendering, single frame animation.... Stranahan: I can tell you that the PC will be 'better' then the Amiga version in some ways - the surfaces panel has a on-screen preview on Win NT versions, plus the abilty to change color of wireframe objects in layout Plus run at EXTREMELY high res - like 12k by 1k or whatevere If you like that sort of thing But the Amiga version will only be good enought to do stuff like seaQuest, B5, etc etc In other words, the Amy version is plenty good... But them Alphas is QUICK!!! DrTed: Naw... NTSC field rendering will be enough for me... Drakon: Trying to do a roll top desk type thing. any easy way of getting the top to roll back Stranahan: Yeesch - ok - I see where you're going... Well, the real way would be to move the sections indivdually, I think... Drakon: yeah but geting all sections to roll back in sync is a pain Stranahan: Get one motion path set, and then clone the object, shift frames... That would help... Make it easier... DrGandalf: You need a "follow me" Drakon: I keep losing it at the beginning Stranahan: You might need to parent it to a null... Move the null up on the Y And then rotate the null Does that make any sense? Drakon: yeah, let me think about it for a bit. Harv: Lee - the LW 3.5 dongle. ..... pass thru holes.... as you know, they dont passthru nuttin.... will this ever be addressed/fixed? it's very annoying. Stranahan: Well, the 4.0 version for Amiga and PC will require a dongle Harv: a new dongle that passes thru correctly? Or the same dongle I have now? Stranahan: I fought hard against this - I don't know a popular graphics program on the PC aside from 3DS that requires a dongle I lost - and I think they plan to keep the same dongle Harv: if you have any pull with them, tell them to re-dongle it to joy port #2 if it has to have a dongle at all. thanks. Stranahan: There's no pull with them on this - the decision is basically made. Harv: sigh :( Stranahan: My argument was that lack of a dongle hasn't killed Photoshop, or Illustrator or Premiere or or or... But Tim is set on this point... RickB: I am trying to help a friend with a flyer He has a 2000 with a GVP 040 board with 32 megs of ram when we installed the flyer it boots to the screen where the bottom image of the switcher shows and then the amiga power light flashes and it crashed any clues??? Stranahan: Too many possibilities there, sorry - there has been very little 2000 system testing in house at NewTek. Almost all 4000 system, so.... RickB: everything else (other programs work fine....toaster 3.5 works fine) Stranahan: Sorry I can't be more help - but I just don't know DonH: Is the NT version the same as the Win32, Win95 version? Is there a change in FOG so that it is variable vertically? Stranahan: basically the same, but there may be multiple versions (like 486 v Pentium) compiled to take advatage... DrTed: Back to the Flyer... For a real working system in my A3000... to produce half hour shows... What should I really expect to spend for how much hard drives, RAM, needed peripheral components??? Stranahan: RAM isn't an issue. How much footage makes a half hour show for you? DrTed: say at five to one shooting... Stranahan: OK Let's say you throw out (don't digitize) half that That's an hour to an hour and half digitized A couple of 9 Gig drives should work fine 9 Gigs times 6 minutes = 54 minutes per drive Roughly Plus an audio drive. That's maybe 7-8 grand for drives, I think... DrTed: Additional components??? ( like TBC's were for the Toaster???) Stranahan: You need a TBC. And a sync source - call it $200 for a black generator DrTed: Like a personal IV in the same machine??? Stranahan: To provide stable house synce - TBC IV should be great Maybe a Mackie 1202 audio mixer. That helps. That's about it.... DrTed: (oh... how much for flyer???) Stranahan: $4995 list. Actual mileage may vary. JeffH: Will Allen be adding envolopes? I need more envolopes!!! Like in the Texture section. Stranahan: There are some new envelopes and Plugins could theoritically add many more And new surface features are easy with plug-ins. RickJ: lee, a 2000, gvp 030,18 mg Toaster Flyer, & Retina... the Retina locks up... Stranahan: yeah that makes some sense, perhaps... RickJ: ADPro 2.5 save to retina locks, any ideas? Stranahan: Adding new cards will do that...does it work with the card out but with the software installed? RickJ: the amiga locks the retina not at all The Retina worked prior to the Flyer Stranahan: Again, sorry - but no idea there....I know there'a Retina at NewTek so they can at least test it... Harv: I'm gonna sneak in one bonus question (from the crowd.. a late arriver) Lee: more render modules for LW. specifically an OpalVision rendere? coming in 4.0? yes?no? any others? Stranahan: No plans, but could be added through plug-ins... RickB: OK Lee Tim told me of a program that will you manipulate the caches in the drives is there any other programs that will let us do this or will we have to wait for Newtek to get it to us in 4.0 and how many flyers do you think have shipped to date? thanks for everything!!! Stranahan: Well, the third party often beats NewTek on things like this unless NT gets it out quickly... As for number sold Let me put it this way - The big non-linear editor on the block is the Avid NT has sold about half as many Flyers as Avid has sold system - and it isn't even in a final version yet! The Flyer (in terms of numbers) is already one the most popular non- linear editors on the market... RickB: Will the drive issue be better any sooner? Stranahan: The drive issue is better now... RickB: yes but the dealers are not letting it out! Stranahan: AND - Avid is on Mac/PC - we're on a computer that isn't being made currently... So - it's been very successful - and 4.0 is a BIG step up... Harv: I WANT TO THANK LEE STRANAHAN FOR GIVING US SOME OF HIS VALUABLE TIME TONITE. HOPE YAWL FOUND THE ANSWERS USEFUL. THANKS LEE, ESPECIALLY FOR DOING THIS IN THE MIDST OF MOVING YOUR HOME BASE. @endnode @node FEATURE2 "SHI Hack Report" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== AMIGA HACK REPORT Safe Hex International hlau@dou.dk =========================================================================== || The Hack Report || Written by Erik Loevendahl for Febuary, 1995 || || Fidonet : 2:236/116.17 Safe Hex International Support BBS: || Amiganet: 39:141/127.17 || Telefax : +45 5599 3498 DAN BBS: +45 43621655 V-Fast 28.8 || Formuala II: +45 43433463 Everyth. || Henrik Lauridsen Internet support: || hlau@dou.dk || || Lars Stockholm Packet Radio support:|| Benny Petersen Cbmnet support: OZ1GYQ@OZ4BOX.SAX.LOL.DNK.EU || bennyp@bennyp.adsp.sub.org || || Number 2 Released by Safe Hex International || Report Date: Feb 27, 1995 || ========================================================================= Welcome to the second issue of The Amiga Hack Report. This is a series of reports that aim to help all users of files found on BBSs avoid fraudulent programs, and is presented as a public service by the FidoNet, Internet and Amiganet International E-mail echos. Thanks to everyone who has helped put this report together, and to those that have sent in comments and suggestions. NOTE TO SYSOPS: The Hack Report may be freely posted as a bulletin on your BBS, subject to these conditions: 1) the latest version is used, 2) it is posted in its entirety, and 3) it is not altered in any way. NOTE TO OTHER READERS: The Hack Report (file version) may be freely uploaded to any BBS, subject to the above conditions, and only if you do not change the filename. The author is not responsible for any loss of data nor is he responsible for any information if it isn't correct. This list is made as a help and a lot of work is done to validate all the below mentioned informations to be so correct as possible, but who knows? ..... The idea is to make this information available freely. However, please don't cut out the disclaimers and other information if you use it, or confuse the issue by spreading the file under different names. Thanks! If you see other fake or trojan versions NOT listed here, please contact one of the above supporters or myself so that we can keep this listing up to date. Erik Loevendahl ========================================================================= HACKED AMIGA PROGRAMS Here are the latest and most common versions of some programs known to have hacked fake or trojan copies floating around. Archive names are listed when known, along with the person who reported the fraud. (thanks from us all!). 20-03-94 X-Copy 8.5 66424 bytes is a trojan. Installs the Fmfoj Xjsvt v2.2 (Eleni) boot virus, which can damage your harddisk. 17-05-94 Decompiler (Autoboot Disc Creator), 53.992 bytes is a trojan. Renames your harddisk directories. Reported by W. Gorzkowski. 25-05-95 Hacker 20.980 bytes unpacked is said to optimize your modem settings, but in fact it is a trojan 05-06-94 DMS 2.13 92.440 bytes packed in a file named "Dms213ur.lha" will format your harddisk. Reported by Kim B. Jensen. * 15-06-94 NoCare27.lha 28.848 bytes unpacked will delete your HD files. 18-06-94 DMS2.12 lha, Device-Masher System, DMS/FMS-Masher 2.12 Extra Turbo 92.208 bytes is a fake. 20-06-94 Ua62.lha, Ua-dialer v6.2 26828 bytes PPacked, 51956 bytes unpacked is said to damage your S/Dir. 22-06-94 Mformt12.lha, Mformat 1.2 unpacked 25168 bytes is said to format harddisks after 8. floppies. Reported by Gerard Sens * 02-07-94 NCOmm 3.09 221.056 bytes is said to be a trojan, which installs the eleni virus, that can damage your harddisk. 07-07-94 Hd_speedup.exe, 6252 bytes unpacked found in "HD_Speedup.lha" will damage your harddisk. Reported by Steen Brusgaard. 15-07-94 Clx_doom.lha, Doom 32020 bytes is a nasty trojan, which change your assign and setpatch command. Reported by Edwin Leenders. 23-07-94 Elien_virus_checker 0.1 is nasty trojan. Found in a file called "elien.exe". 1016 bytes PPacked, 596 bytes unpacked. * 02-08-94 Esp-dmpd.lha (DiskMaster 2 PAL Fix) is said to contain a linkvirus. 09-08-94 God-j12.lha, JiZaNSi 1.2 - IFF 2 ANSI converter 22.008 bytes unpacked is a trojan. Reported by Peter Hansen. * 24-08-94 Viewtek22.lha 93.844 bytes contains a link virus. Reported by Betasoft. 01-09-94 Dskslv3.DMS. Disksalv 3.01 106584 bytes unpacked is said to be a trojan. Reported by Dave Haynie. 08-09-94 Vmk30.lha, Virus Memory Kill V3.00 2620 bytes is a trojan which will damage your harddisk. Reported by Chris Hames 30-12-94 Surprise.exe 39296 bytes is spread at a demo at "The Party 94" in Denmark will damage your harddisk. Reported by Benny Petersen 31-01-95 VZII-114.lha is a fake version. Please use the new version VZ-115.lha 128182 bytes (unpacked 74028 bytes). 01-01-95 DMS206.lha and CRY_206 contain DMS206.exe is a BBS infiltrator program. Use the latest >original<... DMS 2.04 (96284 bytes). 13-01-95 IStrip21.lha unpacked 12212 bytes is an infiltrator program which place BBS user.data in download dir named "eatme.lha". 06-02-95 The Achtung.exe demo in the GATH95-!.lha archive will format your harddisk. Reported by John Vickers. 27-02-95 The Commander virus is to this day spread in the folowing files: dagis!up.exe, Denistro_1.exe, Denistro_2.exe, mn-acid.exe, Vampire.exe, Dpl-Mam1.DMS, Dpl-Mam2.DMS, Removcmd.lha ========================================================================= The above marked * trojans or fake versions isn't implementet in the SHI virus killers yet, so please take care and send these trojans for new update to the above mentioned !!. A little trick for SysOp's: Print this little list and use it to check your new uploads!! Please use this form below if you find some fake versions or trojans and send it to Safe Hex Internalional by E-mail or by post. --> cut here ======================================================================== HACK REPORT FORM: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ YOUR NAME: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ADDRESS: ZIP CODE: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ COUNTRY: PHONE: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ WHICH PROGRAM IS A FAKE OR A TROJAN : VERSION: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FOUND IN ARCHIVE NAME: ARCHIVE DATE: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ A LITTLE DESCRIPTION (Why do you think this is a fake or a trojan) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- ATTENTION IF.. Possible please send the actual fake or trojan to Safe Hex International! THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR HELP! WITHOUT YOUR VALUABLE HELP WE COULDN'T HAVE MADE THIS LIST!!! ======================================================================== --> cut here Please send the hack or the infected file together with the above report to: SAFE HEX INTERNATIONAL MAIN Erik Loevendahl Fidonet: 2:236/116.17 Snaphanevej 10 Amiganet: 39:141/127.17 DK-4720 Praestoe Telefax: +45 5599 3498 Denmark /or to .... __ __ /// SAFE HEX INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN BOARD SUPPORT: \\\/// ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: \XX/ (DAN BBS is one of the best and biggest BBS in Europe) Anti-Virus PC & Amiga CoSysOP: Erik Loevendahl Server: 486DX2-66,32mb-RAM,Adaptec 2842VL Micropolis 1528+4110 (Micro2:86127799) Total harddisks: 4.3 GIGA, 2/8 Giga Sony DAT streamer CD-Server: 386-40mhz,4MB, 18 CD's online ISDN workstation: 386-40mhz, 4MB, TELES Total 14 GB on-line (More than 30 PC's in system) Linie 1 payment line 42643990 V-Fast 28.8 Linie 2 43628230 ZyXEL/v32bis Linie 3 43627750 ZyXEL/v32bis Linie 4 43625880 ZyXEL/v32bis Linie 5-19 payment lines! 4362XXXX ZyXEL/v32bis Linie 20 42643827 V34/VFC 28.8 Linie 21 43621655 VFC 28.8 Linie 22+23 43661070 ISDN DAN BBS fax: 42643357 Group 3 HOW TO DO: --------- Do you wish to contact our SHI >free< anti-virus areas for uploads of new virus or download of the newest SHI anti-virus stuff type: "Guest", "Guest" (for free files), and "V" (for the SHI anti-virus free area) "THE AMIGA LIVE" @endnode @node REVIEW1 "AmiTCP 4.2 by NSDi Review" @toc REVIEW ========================================================================== AmiTCP 4.2 REVIEW Addison Laurent addison@jobe.shell.portal.com ========================================================================== AmiTCP 4.2 AmiTCP/IP Group (amitcp-group@nsdi.fi) NSDi - Network Solutions Development Inc. Oy P.O. Box 32 FIIN-02151 ESPOO Finland Demo with inital nag-requestor available from AmiNet: Purchase price ~$58.00 U.S. Dollars Regular Price ~$100 U.S. Dollars Requirements: AmigaOS 2.04+ 1 megabyte RAM 2 megabytes hard drive space Sana-II network drivers Summary: AmiTCP is a nice product. The pricing is high, especially given the lack of integrated utilities. As a comparison, there are several TCP/IP packages for other systems that offer more built in (OS/2 Warp now ships with an Internet packages, with built in mail, newsreader, etc) and for about the same price or less. The manual lists many available applications and where the latest ones can be found, but they require further installation, and in some cases, more fees. The manual is very good, though there are a few areas that I feel could be improved upon. Installation was not that hard (but I have installed 3 prior releases of AmiTCP), novices may have a harder time. I would suggest that any novice have with them or on the phone someone familiar with at least TCP/IP, and preferable AmiTCP. I am currently using it for CSLIP access, and it works well. I will attempt soon to network my other 3000 to this one, using Ethernet. [Last minute note - since I first wrote this, I have spend about a week trying to make this work. I have been unsuccessful so far, but I have not ruled out hardware problems with one of my boards.] I feel it was well worth the $50 I paid, but I would have thought much harder about spending $100. If graphical Internet utilities were included and auto-installed, such as a newsreader, a World Wide Web reader, mail etc. I would not be as adverse to the price. As it stands now, you will need to install these (along with any associated programs) yourself. Some programs are very easy to install, others, much harder. Review: AmiTCP is an implementation of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) for the Amiga. Up until now, it has been freely distributable, but with release of version 4, Network Solutions Development Inc. is selling it as a commercial package. Earlier versions of AmiTCP were easy to set up - after you had set it up before. Idiosyncracies such as install scripts creating files that needed to be edited by hand afterwards, and in having to change the contents of three files in order to use a dynamic IP address (as many Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP) are set up). Scripts abounded to handle some of these chores, as did utilities to access the Internet. When version 4 arrived, I was eager to install it. The first thing I noticed was the neat, spiral bound (thank you! - there should be a special part of purgatory for people who send manuals that are glue bound so they won't lay flat and be usable as a reference) printed manual. Quite a change from the earlier computer files. The installation program (using the standard Commodore Installer) was easier to use than before. One thing that was not easier was trying to enter the licence number off the licence card. The licence code you are required to enter is 33? letters, numbers, and characters in a small font that makes it hard to distinguish several characters. I spend more time trying to get this typed in than in the rest of the install! It was hard to tell whether that characters is a lower-case "l", or a numeral "1". Similar problems occurred with "o" and "zero". And the code is case sensitive, further compounding the agony. But the code finally matched the computers criteria, and the install continued. The install will automatically launch you into the Configuration program. This is where I think most novices will have the most trouble. The manual makes a valiant attempt to explain the concepts and vocabulary to understand and use such an interface. I entered my needed information (in this case, a Compressed SLIP, (CSLIP) account through a local access provider.) Most providers should be able to tell you what you will need: basically, your IP number (if not assigned dynamically), your destination address, netmask, and Domain Name Service. If you are installing on a permanent network, your system administrator should have the needed information. I created an account for myself and set up the CSLIP interface. Again, I did not find this hard - but this was the third version of AmiTCP I had installed. I would not say the manual is bad in this area - in fact, its one of the best TCP/IP manuals I have read, but it still could use a little improvement toward the novice user. Its troubleshooting list does not list several possibilities that I have had personal experience with, and have helped several others with the same problem. For instance - when I first got my local account, I could not get AmiTCP to work. I could use the "ping" utility (which measures the time it takes to send a small packet to another computer and return) but I could not use anything else. [It turns out the "SLIP" my provider was selling was really "CSLIP" (and since they give the Windows software pre-configured, it had slipped (no pun intended) their mind that they were running compression.] (In my instance above, an experienced network administrator commented that it sounded like they were set up with CSLIP - because "ping" uses TCP packets, but that other programs utilized a different transport layer - and that that was the one that was compressed by CSLIP.) AmiTCP release 4 has a basic set of tools to access the Internet, although some have been spruced up a bit. There is a telnet client, but "Napsaterm" will probably see much more use. Napsaterm is a vt100 terminal that opens its own windows, and is friendlier than the shell-based telnet. (Earlier telnets with earlier versions of AmiTCP were reputed to be buggy, so I developed a habit of using napsaterm for its greater reliability as well as its greater usability.) FTP (File Transfer Protocol) has been replaced with "ncFTP", a much friendlier and smarter client. NcFTP has the nice feature of dropping a random hint on each execution (for those few who don't read manuals) The manual details quite a few "third party" Internet programs that run under AmiTCP, as well as where the latest version can be downloaded from the AmiNet, a huge collection of Amiga software. This is a nice feature, and will be very helpful to those who do not yet know anything about AmiNet (always the place to look for something) but it seems as if they are using this as a substitute for developing/packaging these utilities into AmiTCP. Some of these utilities integrate quite easily and painlessly. Others are much more difficult, and since they are all developed separately, there is not a standard interface. Many require additional programs (Such as MUI, etc.) In my opinion, for the market AmiTCP is aimed at, with the price that is being asked, it should have a mail reader/sender, Usenet newsreader, and a World Wide Web browser as minimum tools included. The manual spends a good portion of time explaining the product, and the Internet. Proper net etiquette (netiquette) is mentioned, and the basic explanation of the TCP/IP suite is one I wish I had when I was learning about the Internet and is better than some reference books I have encountered. For what it has now, I have to give AmiTCP high marks. Its documentation is very good (leaves certain companies decidedly in the dust (no names, but who has a 70% PC network market share?). I have encountered no noticeable bugs. I feel there are still areas that need work, especially in the area of included utilities. When AmiTCP has these included utilities, I would consider it to be a mature application that has successfully developed far from its early roots. Contact the Author- Snail-Mail: 660 Windy Road Gilbert S.C. 29054 Phone: (803) 359-6301 @endnode @node REVIEW2 "MegAChip Review by DKB Review" @toc REVIEW ========================================================================== MegACHIP 2000/500 REVIEW William Near W.NEAR@genie.geis.com ========================================================================== HARDWARE: MegACHIP 2000/500 board MANUFACTURER: DKB P.O. Box 438 Wixom, Michigan 48393-0438 (810) 348-3821 - Sales (810) 348-3755 - Tech (810) 348-3531 - Fax DESCRIPTION: Allow 2 MB of CHIP RAM to your A500/2000/CDTV PURCHASED FROM: Software Hut 313 Henderson Drive Sharon Hill, PA 19079 (800) 93-AMIGA (orders) (610) 586-5701 (info) (610) 586-5706 (fax) PRICE: I paid $195 U.S., this includes $5 S&H SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Amiga 500/2000/CDTV SYSTEM TESTED ON: Amiga 2000 (Rev 4.4), ECS chip set, GForce '030 accelerator @ 50 MHz., 1 meg CHIP + 6 megs FAST memory, 2 standard floppy drives, Quantum LPS270S hard drive with Trumpcard Professional controller, Workbench 3.1 PACKAGING: The box contained the MegACHIP 2000/500 board and a 13 page manual FEATURES (according to the manual): * Doubles the amount of RAM accessible to the custom chips * Fully compatible with the Video Toaster - Toaster Paint and Lightwave * Fully autoconfig, uses config space that is reserved for use as CHIP RAM * Lets you upgrade your Amiga to stay current with the latest technology * Fully compatible with Workbench 2.x and the ECS Denise chip * Lets your system multitask much easier with graphic intensive programs * Fully compatible with the MultiStart II ROM board INSTALLATION: This is what I did with my A2000 to install the MegACHIP board. The A500/CDTV procedures will be slightly different. You must begin by removing the keyboard, mouse, and all other peripherals from the computer. Next, remove the case and power supply/disk drive bay. The old Agnus chip must be removed from the socket on the motherboard before the MegACHIP can be installed in its place. In the past, I have had about a 50% success ratio in removing old Agnus chips with the cheap tool provided by Grapevine - you really should use a professional quality PLCC chip puller. I took my machine to a computer store and had the technician remove the Agnus chip for me. It only cost $10 and it saved a major headache if the socket had been ruined in the home removal process. Years ago, when I removed my original OCS Agnus to replace it with the Fat Agnus (1 MB), the chip was in the socket quite firmly (mostly the dust over the years had "welded" it in place) and some of the contacts on the socket were messed up after using the cheap chip puller. It cost $60 to have a new socket placed on the motherboard! I learned my lesson the hard way, so consider yourself forewarned. After the Agnus chip has been removed, and if you had only 512k CHIP RAM, you must either change two jumper settings or one jumper and one solder connection depending on the revision of your motherboard. If you already had 1 MB of CHIP RAM then no changes need to be made. The manual states that you must hold the MegACHIP board in a certain orientation in relation to the motherboard, but I found this to be incorrect. The socket adapter on the bottom of the board can only go in the Agnus socket one way, so if you pay attention then you'll have no problems with this step. Now you must connect a spring action clip to either pin 36 of the Gary chip or pin 48 of the 68000 chip. I used the 68000 chip's pin because I already had another clip attached to my Gary chip (a MultiStart II Board) and I didn't want to hassle with two clips on one chip. Finally, reassemble your Amiga and you're ready to go! OTHER STUFF: The MegACHIP comes with 1 megabyte of memory on board which acts as the second megabyte of CHIP RAM. The 13 page manual is concise and easy to follow. It also includes a single page of trouble shooting which covers the most common problems when trying to install the board. The only trouble I had when installing the board was when I first tried to boot the computer for a test. The computer would not boot the first time I turned it on, so I checked the clip's connection on the 68000 chip and re-seated the MegACHIP in the Agnus socket. After doing these two steps the computer booted normally. I now have approximately 1.8 MB of CHIP RAM, after booting, on my system versus the 780k which I had previously. One note to A500 owners, the MegACHIP will NOT work if you have a RAM expansion board installed in the trapdoor that takes more than 512k of RAM. You should use an A501-type RAM expander in the trapdoor and use another RAM expansion board for your other FAST RAM. SUMMARY: The MegACHIP board is easy to install, with the hardest part being the safe removal of your old Agnus chip. The added CHIP memory allows you to run more applications at once and is a big help in the DTP and DTV areas. If you take into consideration the price of the 8375 Agnus chip and the 1 MB of RAM that are included on the MegACHIP board, it's a pretty good deal. @endnode @node REVIEW3 "CSAReview: NetBSD 1.0" @toc REVIEW ========================================================================== CSAReview: NetBSD 1.0 Markus Illenseer markus@tiger.owl.de ========================================================================== PRODUCT NAME NetBSD-Amiga 1.0, official release version from November 1994. [MODERATOR'S NOTE: This is an update to Markus's previous review of NetBSD, kernel version 635, found in our review archives in the file software/unix/NetBSD. - Dan] BRIEF DESCRIPTION Freely distributable Unix-alike operating system for Amiga computers. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: The Regents of the University of California, Berkeley and many contributors. Amiga port by Markus Wild of Zurich, Switzerland, with major contributions from Bryan Ford and Mike 'mykes' Schwartz. Merge with NetBSD-1.0 and major reworks applied by Chris Hopps. LIST PRICE Freely distributable under the NetBSD disclaimer; see the COPYRIGHT NOTICE section, below. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS NetBSD 1.0 is a final release, so all information below is static. New drivers and support for more peripherals is under development and is probably implemented in a new release of NetBSD-current. SYSTEM HARDWARE An accelerated Amiga (68030, 68040) with a working MMU (memory management unit). This includes most accelerator boards (e.g., Commodore A2630), the Amiga 3000, and others. A working FPU is required. NetBSD does support the 68040 processor. NetBSD is untested on 68020 environments. The stock A500, A1000, A2000, A1200, and A4000/030 computers have no MMU and so will not run NetBSD. Requires at least 4 MB of contiguous Fast RAM. 8 MB or more of contiguous 32-bit RAM is recommended. Requires at least 15 MB hard drive space for a minimal setup. 100 MB hard drive space needed for a full installation. Actual use of NetBSD may require much more space; for example, a serious developer may need 500 MB or more. HARD DRIVE SUBSYSTEM Amiga NetBSD supports the following hard-drive systems: Amiga 3000 and 3000T internal SCSI host adapter. A2091 SCSI host adapter for A2000. GVP Series II SCSI host adapter for A2000 and A500. PPI Zeus SCSI host adaptor for PPI 040 board Magnum SCSI host adaptor CSA SCSI host adaptor Supra SCSI host adaptor IVS SCSI host adaptor IDE Adaptor of A4000 and A1200 (and some others) Currently NOT supported: Any PIO adapter such as Oktagon and ALF. Almost every SCSI hard drive is known to work with Amiga NetBSD. This includes the range of Quantum drives, Seagate, Wren, DEC, Fujitsu and IBM. SCSI tape drives (QIC, DAT) and SCSI CD-ROM drives (ISO and Rockridge extension) are supported. GRAPHICS Standard Amiga ECS and AGA chip set. Retina Graphics Board is supported. (Experimental drivers exist for other boards - see below.) SOFTWARE The bootstrap loader works with almost any version of AmigaDOS. COPY PROTECTION None - as far as your Amiga is running with it. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 3000 with 2 MB Chip RAM, 16 MB Fast RAM Fujitsu M2623F (400MB), Apple CD300, 2 Conner CFP1060S, HP DAT HP35470A Picasso II graphics board A2060 ArcNet board A2065 Ethernet board INTRODUCTION ["TTY-fighters attacking!" Con Solo shouted.] For your own interest: I may use technical words which are very common in Unix environments but meaningless to people who have never used such a system. Amiga NetBSD may help you to enter the world of Unix, but you will need third party help, such as Unix reference books and guidelines. Amiga NetBSD-1.0 is the first freely distributable Unix for Amiga systems, and enables the user to run a fully qualified Unix environment on his own machine. NetBSD takes over the Amiga, so it is not possible to run it concurrently with AmigaDOS. So in this review, you will see references to the "Amiga side" and the "NetBSD side" to indicate which operating system (UNIX or AmigaDOS) must be running to accomplish a particular task. In general, if a reference is missing, I am referring to the NetBSD side. INSTALLATION [Vitamin enriched for your reading pleasure!] Amiga NetBSD is not intended to be installed by a novice in terms of hard drive systems on Amiga. You definitely need to know how to work with AmigaDOS HDToolBox. But first, where to get Amiga NetBSD? Before getting any of the archives, PLEASE get the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) List, which should reside at the same places as NetBSD itself. This list informs you how to install Amiga NetBSD, how much space is needed, how to set up your hard drives, and much more. If you have Internet access, you can ftp the needed archives from ftp.uni-regensburg.de (the main site for Amiga NetBSD, there are mirrors all over the world) from the directory: /pub/NetBSD-Amiga/docs The site is also reachable via WWW: ftp://ftp.uni-regensburg.de Also, some of the Aminet ftp sites mirror the NetBSD archive. PLEASE DO CHECK your local mirror. NetBSD is *not* integrated in the AmiNet archive, and hopefully never will - for several reasons. All official NetBSD-1.0 mirrors should also distribute the Amiga binary distribution. NetBSD is LARGE. You will need at least 10MB of "gzip-ed" archives to have a standard NetBSD environment... and even more if you intend to work on the kernel. If you have no Internet access, then it is a LOT more difficult to get Amiga NetBSD. Maybe you should ask someone to help you on Usenet (comp.unix.amiga), either by sending you a tape or letting you copy it directly from his/her hard drive. It's worth the effort. NetBSD-Amiga 1.0 is made available on the "Meeting Pearls Volume II" CD-ROM obtainable from your Amiga dealer. NetBSD-1.0, the official release, contains a binary and source distribution for the Amiga, as well as the official INSTALL text. So any CD-ROM containing the official NetBSD-1.0 distribution should contain the Amiga distribution as well. You do not need a tape drive, but this is recommended, as it eases the process of installing NetBSD. If you have either Ethernet or PPP access, you probably will want to get only the basic kit at first. This includes tools for Ethernet and PPP running TCP/IP; thus, you can get the rest of NetBSD using a (local) network. Also, the basic kit contains a Kermit transfer program, so it is possible to get the required archives via modem or a null-modem cable. You need an 15MB partition for the root filesystem which is created under NetBSD using a floppy disk as installation filesystem. This way the installation is way easier than previous releases. If you are careful, and if everything runs fine, you can start the kernel using the supplied "loadbsd" tool. You will hopefully see the Copyright information, and then some numbers about your system memory. Then the kernel's built-in 'autoconfig' logic detects the installed boards, such as graphics boards and SCSI host adapters. Finally, the root filesystem should be detected and the system boots into single-user mode. You are running Unix on your Amiga now! Now you need to play system administrator on your very own system. You need to format the other disk partitions and copy the /usr tree from the distributed archives. Once you have done the initial installation, the rest is easy to do. Get the ksrc archive if you intend to compile the kernel yourself. A generic kernel and the sources for it are supplied, too. REVIEW The review is split into two parts: technical discussion and general overview. HISTORY OF AMIGA NETBSD (technical) NetBSD-1.0 is based on the last public release of BSD 4.4-Lite (the networking-2 release) by the University of Berkeley, as well as integrating some ideas from 386BSD. The Amiga port is largely based on the initial HP300 code distributed with 4.3BSD-NET2, and has become part of the official NetBSD-1.0 source tree. Further NetBSD ports in the line will include support for Mac, Sun3 and Sparc, DEC and other. This port was done by Markus Wild in June 1993, and is based upon the original HP port. As Markus Wild has a great deal of knowledge of Unix systems, his first efforts were to compile the basic tools needed for the Unix environment. This was done on the AmigaDOS side with GCC 2.4.3, which he ported himself to AmigaDOS some time ago. His famous ixemul.library finally found a successor. After doing the initial port of the kernel (the basic operating system of Unix environments), the next problems were the basic root filesystem and hard drive support. Here, Markus was aided by the Amiga Mach port, worked on by many other people, which had a working SCSI driver but no freely distributable Unix server. All in all, this was a lucky constellation, and Amiga NetBSD was ported in less than a month! Having compiled the entire root filesystem, followed soon by an easy port of GCC 2.4.5 was very easy, the kernel could then be compiled under NetBSD itself, along with the rest of the environment. Amiga NetBSD has been published and distributed over the Internet to interested developers and supporters. A mailing list was created, and bugs, features and wishes have been discussed. Amiga NetBSD has a living future. At the time writing this, NetBSD-Amiga has been fully incorporated and merged with the NetBSD-current source tree for the kernel. This yields into a stable and even commonly supported kernel with many more features. Current maintainer of the Amiga part of the NetBSD-current tree is Chris Hopps. Major development is done by Michael Hitch, Niklas Halquist and Markus Wild. Many others do contribute their work. OVERVIEW You may wonder why a Unix environment is needed for the Amiga. Well, this is a serious question, but there is no real answer. The users and developers of Amiga NetBSD have various uses for it: interest in doing the port, use of Unix programs at home, easy support and easy access to University resources, etc. They share their love of pure Unix environments. Currently, Amiga NetBSD takes over the Amiga, so it is not possible to run AmigaDOS programs under NetBSD using all the resources of Intuition and Exec. This may change. It is possible to mount (read-only) Unix File System (UFS) partitions on the AmigaDOS side. This helps you to copy files from NetBSD to AmigaDOS. You can also mount (read-only) AmigaDOS filesystems on the NetBSD side. This allows the two sides to share common resources (i.e., TeX fonts, compiler include files, and much more). Amiga NetBSD is a true multitasking and multiuser operating system and allows system sharing in an intelligent way. Running in conjunction with existing Unix environments (i.e., at a university), it is possible to connect the Amiga running NetBSD to networks via Ethernet and PPP using a true TCP/IP stack protocol. The X11 window system is available in a version of X11R6. It uses shared libraries (yielding smaller binaries). X11 on Amiga NetBSD requires a third party graphics board such as the Retina or cirrus based boards like Picasso II, Piccolo and Spectrum, but a monochrome version would be feasible for the standard Amiga display. A color X server for ECS or AGA is currently not implemented. Amiga NetBSD is binary compatible with some other UNIX system. Even more, future NetBSD versions will support various third-party binaries, such as SunOS, HP-UX and possibly Amiga Unix executables. Supported drivers are: (list not complete!) o SCSI for hard drives, QIC tapes, CD-ROM, and DAT tapes. o Internal IDE adapter A4000 and A1200 o ECS and AGA console driver with overscan resolution (VT200). o Retina console driver with different resolutions (VT200). o ASCII keyboard (qwerty) driver, possible to load localized keyboards. o Mouse with up to 3 buttons o Joysticks with up to 3 buttons (no real use yet). o Internal serial port up to 38400 baud for terminal or modem. o PPP and SLIP TCP/IP driver for serial port connections. o Internal parallel port for printers. o A2065 and Ameristar Ethernet boards. o Floppy disk drives o Audio (at least for more than a simple audio bell). o Retina graphics board driver for X11 Currently not supported: o Multi-serial boards such as the A2232 and GVP I/O Extender. Experimental drivers are available for: o Cirrus based boards: Picasso II, Piccolo, Spectrum o Fastlane SCSI driver o MFC-II multiserial board o Ariadne Ethernet DOCUMENTATION The documentation which is needed to install Amiga NetBSD is the above-mentioned Amiga NetBSD INSTALL text. The official INSTALL guideline is provided with every NetBSD-1.0 distribution. There is no documentation but the standard man pages. These online manual pages help you to use the basic tools, such as the shell or formatting disks. The problem is that you need to have NetBSD running first. As Amiga NetBSD is a full flavored and full grown Unix system, you need third party documentation to provide help for system administration and basics. LIKES The installation process has been eased quite a lot. A floppy serves as initial filesystem to boot. Slightly automated, the binary distribution can be installed from almost any media - even network and AmigaDOS partitions. I like the very incredible fact that Amiga NetBSD is STABLE. My Amiga runs Amiga NetBSD-1.0 for months now, and I have not had any kernel panics. And as it is FREE, there seem to be many more productive users and developers than ever for an Amiga Unix system. At one of the last Amiga events in Germany, the Amiga Internet and Usenet Meeting '95 in Karlsruhe, Amiga NetBSD was used on 10 of the attended 150 machines. During the meeting, the Ethernet driver for Ariadne was introduced, and the networking tools, such as ftp, telnet and even IRC were used at the meeting itself (with about 70 machines connected to the local network). I like the fact that I can compile almost every neat UNIX tool such as gnuplot, tcsh, emacs, TeX with almost NO effort. Mostly there is even no change in the Makefile needed -- just compile it! What I also like is the fact that I can learn to administrate a Unix System of my own. This is harder than one might expect. DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS I dislike the fact that the developers are spread round the world - but alas, this is *Net*-BSD :-) COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS I have been using Unix environments for more than 7 years now: mostly as a standard user, but also as software developer and system administrator. This was mostly at my University and a company I worked for some years ago. Comparing Amiga NetBSD to any other Unix platform is an interesting problem. Let's start with the Unix systems available for the Amiga: Amiga Unix and Amiga Minix. Unfortunately I must say, I have not worked with either of these systems enough to do a full comparison. Amiga Unix is a the best SYSTEM V R4 port I have ever seen before the Solaris OS for Sun Sparcstations was shipped. It is a commercial product and comes with printed manuals. It has many advantages to Amiga NetBSD as yet, because it is older and has been used for a long time now. It is stable but has its problems. The current situation of the Commodore Inc. yields to the conclusion that AMIX is no longer supported. Amiga Unix has switchable consoles and supports multi-serial cards, X11, and audio features. It does not support SCSI host adapters other than A3091 and A2091 (a GVP driver seems to be available though). Sources to important parts of the kernel are missing, so it is almost impossible to add CD-ROM support. Amiga Minix is a very good port of Minix based upon the theory of Prof. Tanenbaum. I don't know if one can actually compare Minix to NetBSD: I believe one shouldn't. Minix was developed to show how to make an operating system. Amiga Linux is still under construction. The group around Hamish MacDonald has some minor advantages over the NetBSD community, but only recently the networking code and more important the graphic support has been implemented. They also have to deal with the "strange" features of the original Intel 386-based kernel code - Linux is developing more and more a horizontal layer for more platforms. I wish them good luck: we can use the competition. It is not possible for the NetBSD community to make use of any of the Linux code due to their use of the GNU copyleft. NetBSD is distributed under the Berkeley copyright (see end of article for a copy), which essentially allows free use of sources, as long as the University and its contributors are granted proper credit in any documentation and/or advertisements. So the consequence of this is that the Linux groups can use NetBSD code if they want to, but not vice-versa. Amiga Unix sources can't be used, as they're copyrighted by Commodore, although they would be quite useful to get support for the multiport serial board, for example. Amiga Mach seems to have died due to the lack of a freely distributable Unix server. As CMU has had problems distributing their own server, Amiga Mach never had a working environment. Luckily the work made for Amiga Mach could be used for NetBSD. Also, it looks like the entire Amiga Mach group has switched to NetBSD; anyway, Niklas Halquist still intends to port the Hurd Unix server. This leads us to compare Amiga NetBSD with other Unix platforms, such as Sun OS, Ultrix MacUX and AIX. This is a very difficult task, and I don't really want to do this. Simply let's say that NetBSD is as easy to handle as Sun OS (for Sun3) and more simple to use than Ultrix (Digital). It is funny to see that Amiga NetBSD is more stable than IBM's AIX ever was, but AIX is by far more complex of course. I should at least say that Sun3's are the platforms to which NetBSD actually can compare best. Both are based upon Motorola M68K CPUs, and both do not require very special hardware. Of course, Sun OS is older and wiser. A Sun3/60 or Sun3/80 has almost the same amount of RAM and speed as a normal A3000. Why I don't want to compare those Unix implementations? The machines they run on are some 100 times faster than any Amiga. These other Unix implementations are enhanced to deal with very specific hardware and are intended to run for several users at the same time without problems. BUGS A project like NetBSD has bugs. I reported all my bugs to the NetBSD community and even tried to fix some myself. VENDOR SUPPORT No such support. You need to have Usenet access at least, if you want to stay in contact with NetBSD developers. If you persuade your favorite Amiga magazine to publish more articles about NetBSD-Amiga, it would sure help us! WARRANTY None. Absolutely none. Even if you destroy your hardware. You have been warned. Warning also applies if you get addicted on NetBSD :-) CONCLUSIONS The product offers a fair way to turn your Amiga system to a real Unix workstation: a true multitasking and multiuser system for a cheap price. Professionals might consider this product as a big advantage for their needs. And as it is freely distributable, it has to be compared to the original Amiga Unix, of course. On a scale of 0 to 5 stars, I give Amiga NetBSD 4 stars. COPYRIGHT NOTICE Unix is a registered trademark of AT&T. Sun OS is a registered trademark of SUN. Ultrix is a registered trademark of DIGITAL Equipment. AIX is a registered trademark of IBM. Amiga is a registered trademark of Commodore International. 386BSD is a registered trademark of Williams & Lynne Jolitz. MacUX and Finder are registered trademarks of Apple Computers Inc. Gameboy is a registered trademark of Nintendo Inc. This is the original disclaimer under which NetBSD and especially Amiga NetBSD is distributed: /*- * Copyright (c) 1990 The Regents of the University of California. * All rights reserved. * * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions * are met: * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the * documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. * 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software * must display the following acknowledgement: * This product includes software developed by the University of * California, Berkeley and its contributors. * 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors * may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software * without specific prior written permission. * * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND * ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE * IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE * ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE * FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL * DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS * OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) * HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT * LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY * OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF * SUCH DAMAGE. * */ This review represents my honest opinion. Your mileage may vary, so tell me about it! If you use this review in any way - republishing for example, the author requests at least a copy of the used media. Special thanks to the disk magazine 'Amiga Gadget' who did so in the past. Copyright 1995 Markus Illenseer. All rights reserved. You can contact the author at: Markus Illenseer Kurt Schumacherstr. 16 33615 Bielefeld GERMANY markus@tiger.owl.de @endnode @node REVIEW4 "Amiga Game Mini-Reviews" @toc REVIEW ========================================================================== PLAYING CATCH-UP WITH MINI-REVIEWS @{" Sean Caszatt " link SEAN} ========================================================================== Hello again, Amiga game fans. This time, rather than devote a whole column to one game, I've decided to do some mini-reviews of a few recent Amiga and CD32 games. It's been a rather slow time for game releases. [Nevertheless, in Europe, Amiga game sales beat all others in the Christmas season! -Jason] Some games from the Christmas season may have been overlooked by those caught up in the hype of games like MORTAL KOMBAT II and RISE OF THE ROBOTS. Here's 3 that may have gotten past some of you, but didn't quite make it past me. SHAQ FU - (Amiga) It must be nice to have enough fame and money to have a videogame created about you. Shaquille O'Neal, the current NBA media darling, is the star of this very flawed beat 'em up. (Why a basketball player is the focal point of a fighting game is beyond me.) This game has problems any way you look at it. It's on 6 disks and is not hard drive installable. It's plagued by poor control and tiny character sprites. It's also not very fun to play. If I were famous enough to have people wanting to make a videogame about me, I'd at least make sure that it was fun to play when it was done. (Ratings out of 10) Playability: 3 - Graphics: 4 - Sound:6 - Overall: 4 Video Mode: NTSC Manufacturer: Ocean/EA DRAGONSTONE - (Amiga/CD32) This role-playing/action game seemed promising at first but was a disappointment upon further inspection. Basically, there's not a lot to it. You move around and solve puzzles (very simplistic ones, I might add) while constantly fighting off various creatures. It's very repetitive, not much to look at and not something I'd want to play very often. However, it might serve as an introduction to the basics for a first-time adventure/action player. That is, of course, as long as you let them know that there are much better adventures awaiting them down the road. A noble effort that falls on its face. Playability: 5 - Graphics: 5 - Sound: 5 - Overall: 5 Video Mode: PAL Manufacturer: Core JUNGLE STRIKE - (Amiga/AGA/CD32) This is the sequel to 1993's very popular (and very well done) DESERT STRIKE. EA opted to license the work on JUNGLE STRIKE out to Ocean. As a result, the graphics aren't quite as refined and smooth as they were in DESERT STRIKE, but the gameplay is intact and that's a big plus. The action's still pretty much the same as in D.S. except now you get to venture outside the helicopter and take control of a hovercraft and a stealth fighter as well. The control is still a bit tricky, but once you get the hang of it, you'll be having a blast (literally). For some reason, the game boots in PAL, but the screen is formatted for NTSC. The result is a big, blank area at the botton of the screen. It a minor distraction that doesn't take anything away from one of the best action games to come along since, well, DESERT STRIKE. Playability: 9 - Graphics: 7 - Sound: 7 - Overall: 8 Video Mode: PAL Manufacturer: Ocean/EA @endnode @node REVIEW5 "Commodore Liquidation Review" @toc REVIEW ========================================================================== COMMODORE LIQUIDATION REVIEW Bo Najdrovsky bn@okcforum.osrhe.edu ========================================================================== PRODUCT NAME Liquidation of Commodore International, Ltd. BRIEF DESCRIPTION A product that everyone feared would eventually come, and it finally came upon us mercilessly. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Bahamian Courts, with some help from various legal eagles LIST PRICE Anywhere from $19 million to about $100 million (US), depending on whom you ask. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE Strong nerves. SOFTWARE Lots of patience. COPY PROTECTION This product is protected from successfully operating by a couple of fools named Mehdi Ali and Irving Gould. I would rate this copy protection as unacceptable. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING This product has been in extensive testing on over 4 million Amigas worldwide. Many users were so exhausted from testing that they just decided to sell their machine and migrate to a different platform. INSTALLATION I never installed this on my system, honest. It just somehow made its way there. I suppose you could describe its installation as simple as, say, a computer virus. REVIEW Well, what can I say. For at least a year before it actually happened, I anticipated this product's hitting the Amiga market. During this time, I almost began regarding it as another one of those vaporware products that we Amiga users have become so accustomed to. When the liquidation finally hit the market, I must say that I was quite disappointed. The whole thing was full of bugs, and hardly ran at all. In fact, now, about 9 revisions and updates later, it still doesn't seem to deliver what was originally promised, which of course was the possibility of a capable company manufacturing and marketing the Amiga line of personal computers. Though the developers of this product still seem relatively enthusiastic about its possibilities, I am beginning to seriously doubt the liquidation's viability in the current Amiga market. In fact, I would go as far as suggesting that the market might have been better off without such a product being available in the first place. DOCUMENTATION Documentation is extremely poor. If it weren't for a few good supplements, such as Amiga Report, there wouldn't be any documentation at all. (Kudos to the editors.) LIKES I can't say that I like anything about this product. DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS I dislike the lengthy, seemingly endless proceedings that never seem to end, and that every time there seems to be the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, it just turns out to be an oncoming locomotive. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS Not much to compare this thing to; but if you're interested, go to your local library and look up "Pan American Airlines." They were also a once-great company that didn't quite make it. BUGS Full of bugs. Simply doesn't work. VENDOR SUPPORT None. WARRANTY None - expressed nor implied. CONCLUSIONS I would not recommend this liquidation to anyone. It doesn't perform as promised, doesn't even work, and it costs too much. It also causes many of your fellow Amiga owners leave you for little-endian pastures. Stay away! COPYRIGHT NOTICE This review is Copyright 1995 Bo Najdrovsky. It is freeware. Do what you want with it but if you republish it in your newsletter, just let me now. My address is bn@okcforum.osrhe.edu. Thanks. @endnode @node REVIEW6 "CyberGraphics Benchmarks" @toc REVIEW ========================================================================== CYBERGRAPHICS BENCHMARKS Carsten Wartmann c.wartmann@ambo.IN-Berlin.DE D. Mulligan skipper@io.org ========================================================================== [CyberGraphics is a new "Workbench Emulation" system for several video boards available for the Amiga. Since at the AR offices, we've been unable to obtain a video board, I asked for some writeups on the system. What I got were a LOT of benchmarks... -Jason] Heard you are looking for infor on the Cybergraphics WB Emulation software.. well here's my 2 cents worth. I decided to check out the new Cybergraphics shareware software on my Spectrum, and compare it to EGS 7.1. I used Intuispeed 1.5 and here are the results. A few things I should mention though are that the second and third tests were performed with NTSC LACE 8 colour WB screen for both driver packages. The first test on the EGS was with a 1024x768x8 screen and the first Cybergraphics test was with an 800x600x8 WB screen. Also each time I tested the Cybergraphics drivers the test only seemed to work in a 640x400 'box' in the top left corner, this may point out a bug in the Cybergraphics driver or Intuispeed. If you have any comments or questions please contact me at skipper@io.org. BTW I failed to mention all the tests were performed on the same machine with a 2Mb GVP EGS Spectrum in ZIII mode. I should also add I was pleased with how well Cybergraphics seems to perform and only found one program that conflicts with it, IPrefs2Fast. Skipper skipper@io.org Computer : A3K, 25MHz MHz Graphic Board : EGS Spectrum, with 2 MByte RAM OS, CPU and RAM : OS: 40.42 Kick: 40.68 CPU: 68030 RAM: 2/7 MB Resolution : LEGSa:SVGA 800x600 in 256 Colors Benchmark : Actions per second //////////////////////////////////////// Write pixel : 14187/s Line draw : 2673/s Filled rectangle : 1048/s Scroll vertical : 64/s Scroll horizontal : 56/s Draw circle : 35/s Text without scroll.: 534/s Draw rectangle : 1160/s Window layer test : 5/s Size window : 18/s Move window : 105/s Line Pattern Draw : 1624/s //////////////////////////////////////// Computer : A3K, 25 MHz Graphic Board : EGS test 2, with 2 MByte RAM OS, CPU and RAM : OS: 40.42 Kick: 40.68 CPU: 68030 RAM: 2/7 MB Resolution : LEGSa:SVGA 800x600 in 256 Colors Benchmark : Actions per second //////////////////////////////////////// Write pixel : 14189/s Line draw : 2676/s Filled rectangle : 1050/s Scroll vertical : 64/s Scroll horizontal : 55/s Draw circle : 35/s Text without scroll.: 550/s Draw rectangle : 1160/s Window layer test : 5/s Size window : 19/s Move window : 107/s Line Pattern Draw : 1626/s //////////////////////////////////////// Computer : A3K, 25 MHz Graphic Board : EGS test 3, with 2 MByte RAM OS, CPU and RAM : OS: 40.42 Kick: 40.68 CPU: 68030 RAM: 2/7 MB Resolution : LEGSa:VGA 640x480 in 256 Colors Benchmark : Actions per second //////////////////////////////////////// Write pixel : 14090/s Line draw : 3028/s Filled rectangle : 1925/s Scroll vertical : 127/s Scroll horizontal : 97/s Draw circle : 45/s Text without scroll.: 547/s Draw rectangle : 1240/s Window layer test : 6/s Size window : 19/s Move window : 85/s Line Pattern Draw : 1911/s //////////////////////////////////////// Computer : A3K, 25 MHz Graphic Board : Spectrum with Cybergraphics V40.36, with 2 MByte RAM OS, CPU and RAM : OS: 40.42 Kick: 40.68 CPU: 68030 RAM: 2/7 MB Resolution : SPECTRUM:800x600x256 in 256 Colors Benchmark : Actions per second //////////////////////////////////////// Write pixel : 29291/s Line draw : 2631/s Filled rectangle : 965/s Scroll vertical : 102/s Scroll horizontal : 98/s Draw circle : 3039/s Text without scroll.: 481/s Draw rectangle : 1074/s Window layer test : 6/s Size window : 13/s Move window : 80/s Line Pattern Draw : 1764/s //////////////////////////////////////// Computer : A3K, 25 MHz Graphic Board : Cybergraphics test 2, with 2 MByte RAM OS, CPU and RAM : OS: 40.42 Kick: 40.68 CPU: 68030 RAM: 2/7 MB Resolution : SPECTRUM:800x600x256 in 256 Colors Benchmark : Actions per second //////////////////////////////////////// Write pixel : 30422/s Line draw : 2647/s Filled rectangle : 972/s Scroll vertical : 102/s Scroll horizontal : 98/s Draw circle : 3063/s Text without scroll.: 488/s Draw rectangle : 1069/s Window layer test : 6/s Size window : 21/s Move window : 82/s Line Pattern Draw : 1763/s //////////////////////////////////////// Computer : A3k, 25 MHz Graphic Board : Cybergraphics test 3, with 2 MByte RAM OS, CPU and RAM : OS: 40.42 Kick: 40.68 CPU: 68030 RAM: 2/7 MB Resolution : SPECTRUM:640x480x256 in 256 Colors Benchmark : Actions per second //////////////////////////////////////// Write pixel : 31002/s Line draw : 2630/s Filled rectangle : 1014/s Scroll vertical : 110/s Scroll horizontal : 107/s Draw circle : 3035/s Text without scroll.: 477/s Draw rectangle : 1077/s Window layer test : 6/s Size window : 21/s Move window : 80/s Line Pattern Draw : 1767/s [And Wartmann's contribution, using a Picasso II board. "VT-Emu" is the Village Tronic Picasso software.] Hi, I've tryed a little bit with CyberGFX: 256 Colors, same Resolution : MaxonCAD, Big A1-drafting, complete redraw : CyberGFX VT-Emu 12s 15,5s PageStream 3.0d, whole A4-Side with 3 BitMaps + text : 8s 7s The menus under CyberGFX are *much* faster than with VT-Emu or Intuition. I couldn't resist to do a benchmark with Intuispeed : Computer : A2000 A2630 2MB 4MB-16Bit, 25 MHz Graphic Board : Picasso II with VT WB-Emu (2.56), 2 MByte RAM Resolution : PICASSO:800x600 in 256 Colors Benchmark : Actions per second ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; Write pixel : 19140/s Line draw : 2306/s Filled rectangle : 845/s Scroll vertical : 79/s Scroll horizontal : 76/s Draw circle : 2529/s Text without scroll.: 330/s Draw rectangle : 969/s Window layer test : 4/s Size window : 12/s Move window : 62/s Line Pattern Draw : 1566/s ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; Computer : A2000 A2630 2MB 4MB-16Bit, 25 MHz Graphic Board : Picasso II mit CyberGFX, with 2 MByte RAM Resolution : PICASSO:800x600x256 in 256 Colors Benchmark : Actions per second ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; Write pixel : 29171/s Line draw : 2032/s Filled rectangle : 885/s Scroll vertical : 94/s Scroll horizontal : 93/s Draw circle : 2190/s Text without scroll.: 340/s Draw rectangle : 832/s Window layer test : 5/s Size window : 9/s Move window : 63/s Line Pattern Draw : 1476/s ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; There is one thing which troubles me : The slow screen switching under CyberGFX. Under VT-Emu it's nice to mix 2-16 color screens with 256 color screens with the advantage to switch fast between the low-colored screens. Often I dont need any high-color screen for my actual work. There is a light ! Speed is *NOT* all. It's much more important for me that I can write Software for our A4000 with GVPSpectrum and it runs under my own Picasso as well. @endnode @node REVIEW7 "Aminet Set Review" @toc REVIEW ========================================================================== REVIEW: AMINET SET 1 @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} ========================================================================== Some people hold that information is power. If so, the Aminet Set 1 is a nuclear reactor that fits in a double-jewel box. The Aminet is something that has for the most part quietly become a huge repository of Amiga information: games, hacks, utilities, music, and, of course, online magazines. There's a romantic story of its growth from a 50 meg partition on an Amiga 3000 to the international monolith it is today, but that's not the subject of this review. Besides, you can find that story, along with roughly 900 other documents, on the Aminet Set 1. Aminet CDs have been more or less quarterly for over a year now. Apparently, though, there was demand for more than just the newest releases-people wanted the boatload. And a boatload they get. Broken down into 4 CD-ROMs categorized along Aminet's primary divisions, and with the newest releases tossed on Disc A along with "dev"s and "util"s, the Aminet Set gives over 2 gigs of compressed data (estimated at 4 gigs uncompressed) to its buyers. The now-familiar AmigaGuide interface for accessing the CDs is present, allowing the whole of Aminet as of January 1995 to be accessed at will. While AmigaGuide isn't the prettiest thing on the face of the earth, the method is sound and efficient, and allows quick access to what you're looking for, through the Aminet Search utility. Of course, everything is structured along the exact same paths as Aminet, so you can browse it with the method of your choosing. Complaints? Very few. One is that it's missing two back issues of Amiga Report (as Aminet was up until very recently), but that's nobody's fault in particular. Had I been in charge, I might have orgnized the discs slightly differently, particularly on Disc A, in consideration for BBSes which have only one CD-ROM drive. The price is hard to beat-for 59DM (US$40), you're getting one serious mixed salad collection of software. Of course, the flip side is that you'll never use all of this material. But in a pinch for an obscure file, your friends will love you. Certainly, you can get CD-ROMs with more MODs, more pictures, more 3D-objects...but you probably won't get 4 CDs with such a sampling for less money. Stefan Ossowski's Schatztruhe GmbH D45131 Essen Germany @endnode @node FTP1 "C-Shell 5.40" @toc FTP TITLE C-Shell (csh) VERSION 5.40 AUTHOR Andreas M. Kirchwitz (csh 5.20+), based on csh 5.19 by Urban D. Mueller E-Mail: csh-fan@zikzak.in-berlin.de DESCRIPTION C-Shell is a replacement for the AmigaDOS command line interface. Many builtin Unix-like commands, very fast script language, file- name completion, command-name completion, comfortable command line editing, pattern matching, AUX: mode, object oriented file classes, abbreviation of internal and external commands. Supports multiple users. C-Shell is easy to install and to use. Online help for all commands, functions and various subjects. ARP-free! NEW FEATURES Changes since version 5.39 (summary): - Fixed error message for builtin command "copy": if no special error message was available, always the string "(no mem)" was output. - New placeholders "-1" and "-2" for builtin command "window". - Increased maximum value for window dimensions from 1023 to 32767 for builtin command "window". - Environment variables LINES and COLUMNS override window bounds from Amiga console.device. (if env vars are set, no CSI sequence is sent) - Builtin command "mem" now shows size of largest available memory block. - Various minor changes/enhancements to existing commands. - Miscellaneous minor bug fixes. See file "HISTORY" in archive csh540.lha for complete listing of changes and new features. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS AmigaOS 2.0 (or higher) AVAILABILITY FTP/Internet: AmiNet and mirrors ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/util/shell/csh540.lha (252386) ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/util/shell/csh540src.lha (140528) UUCP/E-Mail : mail-server@cs.tu-berlin.de Send mail to the address above and put the line "send /pub/aminet/util/shell/csh540.lha" in the body. (same for "csh540src.lha") The archive "csh540.lha" contains binary and documentation, while "csh540src.lha" contains C source code (for SAS/C 6). DISTRIBUTABILITY Freely distributable, Copyright by the individual authors. @endnode @node FTP2 "ZShell 2.3" @toc FTP TITLE ZShell VERSION 2.3 (09.02.95) AUTHOR Up to version 1.3: Paul Hayter From version 2.0 to 2.3: Martin Gierich (uj3w@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de) DESCRIPTION ZShell is a small (30K), fast and powerful Shell with many (65) builtin commands. So it replaces most of the commands in the C: directory (like LIST, COPY etc.) what effects in saving disk space and reducing disk accesses. There is no way around ZShell for those who do not have a harddisk or still have Kickstart 1.2/1.3 . But it is useful for those with a better Kickstart and/or hard disk, too, because for example it has powerful editing & history, file name completion, review buffer, some Kickstart 2.0/3.0 specific features and a lovely LIST command. ZShell is inteded for shell users who do not need a script file execution which is as complex as a programming language (simple script execution with IF, ASK, SKIP etc. is supported). I tried to make usage nearly like the AmigaDOS Shell with some features known from UN*X Shells but without a confusing variety of options ("LIST -R" and "LIST ALL" both work). For programmers ZShell has things like showing EXEC-lists and the task list, memory dumping and execution checking. You can switch off the internal command-line-editor to use ZShell with console handlers like KingCON. Features: * Usage is similar (or better) to the standard AmigaDOS shell. * Supports the standard housekeeping commands which are builtin, so no disk access is necessary. eg. list, dir, cd, assign, delete, copy, move, path, info, type * A total of 65 builtin commands. * About 30K small (pure assembler code, source included). * Starting from Workbench (!) or CLI. No installation needed. * File name completion by simply pressing TAB; shows all matches. * Review buffer to see again what scrolled out of the window. * Some commands and debugging features for programmers. * Command line editing better than OS2.0 Shell. * Support of OS2.0+ and OS3.0+ specific features. * DIR and LIST both sort (by default) and show filesizes. * Wild cards and recursive processing. * Makes itself resident for quicker starting and memory saving. * Real (!) RUN and NEWCLI command that reenters ZShell quickly. * Can iconify itself. * Simple 'MORE' type text viewer. * Online Help function and AmigaGuide documentation with examples. * Can create and show Hard- and Softlinks. NEW FEATURES Support of OS2.0+ specific stuff (MALELINK, MAKEICON, ASSIGN ADD, Application-Icon etc.). Totally rewrote PATH, COPY, DELETE, PROTECT, MOVE and JOIN. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS None. (Works with every Kickstart and does not use disk-based libraries.) AVAILABILITY Aminet ftp://ftp.uni-paderborn.de/aminet/util/shell/ZShell23.lha (192910) Version 2.2 is available on ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/amiga/shells/ZShell22.lha (190241) PRICE Free. DISTRIBUTABILITY Freeware. Copyrighted by Paul Hayter (1990/91) and Martin Gierich (1993-95). OTHER This is a major update made by Martin Gierich to ZShell version 1.3 on the Fish Library Disk 537 from Paul Hayter. @endnode @node FTP3 "easyrexx.library 1.105" @toc FTP [ Minor edits. -Dan ] TITLE easyrexx.library VERSION 1.105 AUTHOR Ketil Hunn E-Mail: Ketil.Hunn@hiMolde.no DESCRIPTION A small and very fast shared runtime library that allows you to add an AREXX port to your application with no fuss at all. o Makes the parsing of AREXX messages as easy as parsing DOS prompt arguments! Uses standard DOS templates for arguments. o Easy to use tag-based functions. o Send AREXX messages to any named port. o Autodoc describing all functions in the library. o Amigaguide documentation describing programming techniques and how to use the library. o Complete with example sources. NEW FEATURES o ReplyARexxMsg can now return strings to the calling AREXX-script. o ReplyARexxMsg can now return values to the calling AREXX-script. o 'Small linkable library'-source included to show how to automatically call functions. o More tag aliases. Various bug-fixes. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS OS 2.04 or higher. AVAILABILITY ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/dev/misc/easyrexx.lha (29528) PRICE Free, as long as you follow the two guidelines below: The license is the same for all software, regardless of what type of software the library is used in, be it commercial, freeware, shareware or whatever as long as you: 1) Note in the program and documentation that easyrexx.library is copyrighted 1994, 1995 Ketil Hunn. 2) You give me a copy of each version of the software which uses the library. There should be no cost to me. DISTRIBUTABILITY The files may be distributed as needed. That means that for products that use the easyrexx.library, only that file needs to be distributed. For development purposes, the library and its documentation should be all distributed together. @endnode @node FTP4 "ScreenWizard 1.0" @toc FTP TITLE ScreenWizard VERSION 1.0 AUTHOR Raymond Penners E-Mail: raymondp@stack.urc.tue.nl URL: http://www.stack.urc.tue.nl/~raymondp DESCRIPTION Anyone using the Amiga probably runs into public screens sooner or later. Perhaps you are reading this on a public screen right now? Public screens are very handy. However, public screens are not as configurable as the workbench screen. Most programs that are able to run on a public screen have more or less options to configure the looks of the screen they run on, but programs capable of adding nice patterns or pictures to the screens' background are very rare. The programmers are not to blame, since it would be a waste of HD space if every program had all these options built-in. Wouldn't it be nice if there was just one small commodity capable of opening configurable public screens whenever an application needs one, and closing the screen automatically after the application is done? This is where `ScreenWizard' steps in. Features: * `ScreenWizard' consists of a stand-alone preferences program, and a small commodity. Once the program is configured, only the commodity needs to be resident, eating up very little memory. * Screens are opened and closed just as if the screens were opened by the programs themselves. So now you can give your favourite editor a nice background (instead of the standard boring grey look), without the hassle of opening/closing screens yourself (which is most common for other public screen managers). * Background pictures, as well as background patterns are supported. * Very configurable screens: palette, displaymode, drawing pens and more, all these can be set after your personal taste. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS Workbench 3.0 or higher. URL ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/util/cdity/scrwiz10.lha BULLETIN BOARDS Grafix Attack (Sysop: Kees Huizer) +31-(0)10-4745816 (V32Bis) +31-(0)10-4741062 (19k2 ZyXEL) +31-(0)10-4744682 (28K8) FidoNet: 2:286/407.0 AmigaNet: 39:153/201.0 NLA: 14:101/200.0 Decades BBS (Sysop: Thomas Andersson) +46-54-831561 (USR 28.8 V.Everything) FidoNet: 2:203/625.0 AmigaNet: 39:160/105.0 DISTRIBUTABILITY The archive and its contents are freely distributable. See documentation for details. The package is (C) 1995 Raymond Penners @endnode @node MAILLIST "Amiga Report Mailing List" @toc WHERE =========================================================================== == Amiga Report Mailing List == =========================================================================== If you have an internet mailing address, you can receive Amiga Report in @{"UUENCODED" link UUENCODE} form each week as soon as the issue is released. To be put on the list, send Email to jcompton@bbs.xnet.com and in the body of the message ask nicely to be added to the list. ie: Please add me to the mailing list for Amiga Report magazine. My addresss is . Your account must be able to handle mail of any size to ensure an intact copy. For example, many systems have a 100K limit on incoming messages. ** IMPORTANT NOTICE: PLEASE be certain your host can accept mail over ** ** 100K! We have had a lot of bouncebacks recently from systems with a ** ** 100K size limit for incoming mail. If we get a bounceback with your ** ** address in it, it will be removed from the list. Thanks! ** *** The following is only for Australian readers! *** To circumvent the new pay-per-megabyte system for Australian Internet communication, Paul Reece has been kind enough to set up an AUSTRALIAN-ONLY mailing list, to save his fellow countrymen some money. You can join the list by sending mail to: majordomo@info.tas.gov.au with the single line (in body of message): subscribe ar Amiga Report will then be bounced to you. @endnode @node UUENCODE @toc MAILLIST =========================================================================== == UUDecoding Amiga Report == =========================================================================== If you receive Amiga Report from the direct mailing list, it will arrive in UUEncoded format. This format allows programs and archive files to be sent through mail by converting the binary into combinations of ASCII characters. In the message, it will basically look like a lot of trash surrounded by begin and end, followed by the size of the file. To UUDecode Amiga Report, you first need to get a UUDecoding program, such as UUxT by Asher Feldman. This program is available on Aminet in pub/aminet/arc/ Then you must download the message that it is contained in. Don't worry about message headers, the UUDecoding program will ignore them. There is a GUI interface for UUxT, which should be explained in the docs. However, the quickest method for UUDecoding the magazine is to type uuxt x ar.uu at the command prompt. You will then have to decompress the archive with lha, and you will then have Amiga Report in all of its AmigaGuide glory. If you have any questions, you can write to @{"Jason Compton" link JASON} @endnode @node AMINET "Aminet" @toc WHERE Aminet ~~~~~~ To get Amiga Report from Aminet, simply FTP to any Aminet site, CD to docs/mags. All the back issues are located there as well. Sites: ftp.cdrom.com, ftp.wustl.edu, ftp.tas.gov.au, ftp.doc.ic.ac.uk @endnode @node WWW "World Wide Web" @toc WHERE World Wide Web ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AR can also be read with Mosaic (in either AmigaGuide or html form). Reading AmigaReport with Mosaic removes the necessity to download it. It can also be read using programs found in UNIX sites such as LYNX. Simply tell Mosaic to open the following URL: http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/Web/People/mjw/Computer/Amiga/News/AR/index.html Or, for those in Europe, the Polish site is: http://sun1000.ci.pwr.wroc.pl/AMIGA/AR/ Mosaic for the Amiga can be found on Aminet in directory comm/net, or (using anonymous ftp) on max.physics.sunysb.edu Mosaic for X, Macintosh(tm) and Microsoft Windows(tm) can be found on ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu @endnode @node COPYRIGHT "Copyright Information" @toc ABOUT =========================================================================== == _ _ __ ___ _ == == /\\ |\\ /| || // \ /\\ == == / \\ | \\ /|| ||(< __ / \\ == == /--- \\| \/ || || \\_||/--- \\ == == /______________________________\\ == == / \\ == == Amiga Report International Online Magazine == == March 12, 1995 Issue No. 3.06 == == Copyright 1995 FS Publications == == All Rights Reserved == =========================================================================== Views, Opinions and Articles presented herein are not necessarily those of the editors and staff of Amiga Report International Online Magazine or of FS Publications. Permission to reprint articles is hereby granted, unless otherwise noted. Reprints must, _without exception_, include the name of the publication, date, issue number and the author's name. Amiga Report and/or portions therein may not be edited in any way without prior written permission. However, translation into a language other than English is acceptible, provided the editor is notified beforehand and the original meaning is not altered. Amiga Report may be distributed on privately owned not-for-profit bulletin board systems (fees to cover cost of operation are acceptable), and major online services such as (but not limited to) Delphi and Portal. Distribution on public domain disks is acceptable provided proceeds are only to cover the cost of the disk (e.g. no more than $5 US). Distribution on for-profit magazine cover disks requires written permission from the editor. Amiga Report is a not-for-profit publication. Amiga Report, at the time of publication, is believed reasonably accurate. Amiga Report, its staff and contributors are not and cannot be held responsible for the use or misuse of information contained herein or the results obtained there from. Amiga Report is not affiliated with Commodore-Amiga, Inc., Commodore Business Machines, Ltd., or any other Amiga publication in any way. All items quoted in whole or in part are done so under the Fair Use Provision of the Copyright Laws of the United States Penal Code. Any Electronic Mail sent to the editors may be reprinted, in whole or in part, without any previous permission of the author, unless said electronic mail is specifically requested not to be reprinted. =========================================================================== @endnode @node GUIDELINE "Amiga Report Writing Guidelines" @toc ABOUT =========================================================================== == Amiga Report Writing Guidelines == =========================================================================== The three most important requirements for submissions to Amiga Report are: 1. Please use English. 2. Please use paragraphs. It's hard on the eyes to have solid screens of text. If you don't know where to make a paragraph break, guess. 3. Please put a blank line in between paragraphs. It makes formatting the magazine much much easier. Note: If you want to check ahead of time to make sure we'll print your article, please write to the @{"Editor" link JASON}. @endnode @node EDITORCHOICE "Editor's Choice" @toc COMMERCIAL =========================================================================== == Editor's Choice == =========================================================================== These are selected products, reviewed by myself, that I've liked. So, I've landed them and decided to sell them at All prices are in $US. | | Issue | Approximate | Amiga Report | | Product | Reviewed | Retail Price | Reader Price | ---------------------------------|----------|--------------|--------------| | | | | | |Swifty 3-button mouse | 2.28 | $39.95 | $22.75 | | | | | | |GPFax Amiga Fax Software | 2.30 | $100.00 | $60.00 | | (Class 1 and 2) | | | | | | | | | |Micro R+D CD-ROM Volume 1 | 2.25 | $69.00 | $30.00 | | (Includes early Transition | | | | | graphics converter and loads| | | | | of artwork) | | | | | | | | | |Micro R+D CD-ROM Volume 2 | 2.26 | $99.95 | $46.75 | | (Includes entire Nature's | | | | | Backdrop series) | | | | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Orders may be placed via check, money order, or postal cheque, made out to Micro R+D. Visa/Mastercard accepted via post or E-Mail. No CODs. Mail all orders to @{" Jason Compton " link JASON}. Orders will be processed by Amiga Report and drop-shipped from Micro R+D. In the US, add $5/$10/$20 for UPS shipping, ground/blue/red label, respectively. Overseas: It is recommended that you consider $20 to be the minimum cost for shipping. If you plan to order more than one item, E-mail for shipping cost. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sidewinder's Future Shock II CD is now available through Amiga Report. Featuring 15 Amiga-generated tunes totalling 71 minutes, Eric Gieseke's work is captured on an Amiga-independent media. Available for US$12.00. Please add $5 for shipping. Make check or money order payable to @{" Jason Compton " link JASON}. Orders will be drop-shipped from Sidewinder Productions. For overseas orders, please contact through E-Mail before ordering. @endnode @node DELPHI "Delphi" @toc ONLINE =========================================================================== == Delphi Internet Services -- Your Connection to the World! == =========================================================================== Amiga Report International Online Magazine and the Amiga Report Coverdisk are available in the Amiga SIG on DELPHI. Amiga Report readers are invited to join DELPHI and become a part of the friendly community of Amiga enthusiasts there. SIGNING UP WITH DELPHI ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Using a personal computer and modem, members worldwide access DELPHI services via a local phone call JOIN -- DELPHI -------------- Via modem, dial up DELPHI at 1-800-695-4002 then... When connected, press RETURN once or twice and.. At Username: type JOINDELPHI and press RETURN, At Password: type AMIGAUSER and press RETURN. For more information, call DELPHI Member Services at 1-800-695-4005 SPECIAL FEATURES ---------------- * Complete Internet connection -- Telnet, FTP, IRC, Gopher, E-Mail and more! (Internet option is $3/month extra) * SIGs for all types of computers -- Amiga, IBM, Macintosh, Atari, etc. * An active Amiga SIG hosting conferances, Usenet, Latest wares, and FTP Gopher coming soon * Large file databases! * SIGs for hobbies, video games, graphics, and more! * Business and world news, stock reports, etc. * Grolier's Electronic Encyclopedia! DELPHI - It's getting better all the time! @endnode @node PORTAL "Portal" @toc ONLINE =========================================================================== == Portal: A Great Place For Amiga Users == =========================================================================== The Portal Information Network's Amiga Zone The AFFORDABLE alternative for online Amiga information ------------------------------------------------------- Portal is the home of acclaimed Amiga Zone, a full-service online SIG (Special Interest Group) for Amiga owners and users. We promise, and WE DELIVER ongoing & aggressive Amiga support! You can dial into Portal to access the Amiga Zone in many ways: direct dial to our San Jose, CA high-speed modems (you pay for the phone call if it's not local), or though any SprintNet or Compu$erve indial anywhere (with a small hourly fee) or via the World-wide Internet "telnet" program to portal.com (no hourly fee). Even Delphi and BIX users can Telnet into Portal for a flat $19.95 a month, with *unlimited* use. Portal is NOT just another shell service! Its Online system is fully menu-driven with on-screen commands and help, and you can easily customize it for your favorite terminal program and screen size. Some of Portal/Amiga Zone's amazing features include: * 2.5 GIGabytes of Amiga-specific file space - we have so much Amiga Stuff online, we've lost count! * The *entire* Fred Fish collection of freely distributable software, online. ALL 1000 disks! * Fast, Batch Zmodem file transfer protocol. Download up to 100 files at once, of any size, with one command. * Amiga vendor areas with participants like AmigaWorld, Elastic Reality (ASDG), Soft-Logik, Apex Publishing, and others. * 40 "regular" Amiga libraries with over 10,000 files. Hot new stuff arrives daily. * No upload/download "ratios" EVER. Download as much as you want, as often as you want, and never feel pressured doing it. * Live, interactive nightly chats with Amiga folks whose names you will recognize. Special conferences. Random chance prize contests. We have given away thousands of bucks worth of Amiga prizes - more than any other online service. * Message bases where you can ask questions about *anything* Amiga related and get quick replies from the experts. * Amiga Internet mailing lists for Imagine, AMosaic, LightWave, EGS, OpalVision & others feed right into the Zone message bases. Read months worth of postings. No need to clutter your mailbox with them. * FREE unlimited Internet Email with 5 meg of free storage. * A FREE UNIX Shell account with another 5 meg of free storage. You can run Amiga Mosaic through your shell and explore the vast World Wide Web! * Portal has the Usenet. Thousands of "newsgroups" in which you can read and post articles about virtually any subject you can possibly imagine. * Other Portal SIGs (Special Interest Groups) online for Mac, IBM, Sun, UNIX, Science Fiction, Disney, and dozens more. ALL Portal SIGs are accessible to ALL Portal customers with NO surcharges ever. You never worry "Ooops... Am I paying for this area?" again! * The entire UPI/Clarinet/Newsbytes news hierarchy ($4/month extra) An entire general interest newspaper and computer news magazine. * Portal was THE FIRST online service to offer a full package of Internet features: IRC, FTP, TELNET, MUDS, LIBS. And you get FREE unlimited usage of all of them. * Our exclusive PortalX by Steve Tibbett, the graphical "front end" for Portal which will let you automatically click'n'download your waiting email, messages, Usenet groups and binary files! Reply to mail and messages offline using your favorite editor and your replies are sent automatically the next time you log into Portal. (PortalX requires Workbench 2.04 or higher) * Portal does NOT stick it to high speed modem users. Whether you log in at 1200 or 2400 or 9600 or 14.4K you pay the same low price. To join Portal or for more information call: 1-800-433-6444 (voice) 9a.m.-5p.m. Mon-Fri, Pacific Time 1-408-973-9111 (voice) 9a.m.-5p.m. Mon-Fri, Pacific Time 1-408-725-0561 (modem 3/12/2400) 24 hours every day 1-408-725-0560 (modem 96/14400) 24 hours every day or enter "C PORTAL" from any Sprintnet dial-in, or "portal" at any CI$ network dialin, or telnet to "portal.com" from anywhere, and then enter "online" and then "info" Call and join today. Tell the friendly Portal Customer Service representative, "The Amiga Zone and Amiga Report sent me!" [Editor's Note: Be sure to tell them that you are an Amiga user, so they can notify the AmigaZone sysops to send their Welcome Letter and other information!] The Portal Information Network accepts MasterCard, Visa, or you can pre-pay any amount by personal check or money order. The Portal Online System is a trademark of The Portal Information Network. SLIP, UUCP and custom domain accounts are also available. @endnode @node GENIE "GEnie" @toc ONLINE =========================================================================== == GEnie: Internet access, online games, more == =========================================================================== * What is GEnie? GEnie is a commercial on-line service that offers many services at a reasonable monthly rate. Some of the general services are: - Over 150,000 software files to download - Uploads to GEnie are free of any connect charges, so upload those Public Domain programs to add to the Starship Amiga Roundtable's vast selection of programs for free! - Real-time chat - Dozens of special-interest discussion areas - Challenging multi-player games with graphics (yes, there are Amiga front-ends) - Worldwide news, weather and sports - Electronic mail to and from the Internet - FTP Service which provides users with interactive access to any of the millions of files available for public access on the Internet - Usenet Newsgroups Service which allow users to participate in the global discussion areas collectively known as USENET - Outbound Telnet Service which enables users to connect to other host computers through the Internet - GEnie Mall with nearly 40 different vendors - Starship Amiga Roundtable which contains gigabytes of Amiga-only files - Commodore Roundtable for VIC-20, C-64, C-128 and other Commodore computers - Other Amiga software companies have their own Roundtables for customer support such as Soft-Logik where all the latest program patches and support files are available for their products - AmiAladdin Support Roundtable for getting the latest updates to the GEnie Aladdin software which is used to make maneuvering the GEnie menu system much easier and faster. This is a specific area for the Amiga version of this software which is free of charge - Hundreds of other areas and services available * How do I sigh up for GEnie? You may sign up for GEnie service by one of two methods: (1) Using your modem (8N1 half duplex 300/1200/2400 baud) dial 1-800-638-8369. Upon connection immediately enter HHH (Return), don't wait for any on-screen prompt. At the U#= prompt type SIGNUP (Return). You may use a major credit card account or your checking account (US only.) (2) Call GEnie client services via voice at 1-800-638-9636 or 1-301-251-6475 from outside the US and Canada. @endnode @node BBS_AUSTRALIA "Distribution BBSes - Australia" @toc BBS =========================================================================== == Distribution BBSes - Australia == =========================================================================== -=NEW ZEALAND=- * BITSTREAM BBS * FidoNET 3:771/850.0 AmigaNET 41:644/850.0 +64-(0)3-548-5321, SupraFaxModem 28k8 VFast Class -=SYDNEY=- * CONTINENTAL DRIFT BBS * USENET, Internet E-mail, Fidonet, Aminet (+61) 2 949 4256 @endnode @node BBS_EUROPE "Distribution BBSes - Europe" @toc BBS =========================================================================== == Distribution BBSes - Europe == =========================================================================== -=FINLAND=- * AMIGA-NIGHT-SYSTEM * InterNet: luumu@fenix.fipnet.fi FidoNet: 2:220/550.0 +358-0-675840 V.32bis * LAHO BBS * +358-64-414 1516, V.32bis/HST +358-64-414 0400, V.32bis/HST +358-64-414 6800, V.32/HST +358-64-423 1300, V.32bis * MOONLIGHT SONATA DLG * Fidonet: 2:221/112.0 +358-18-161763 - ZyXEL V32b 19200 -=FRANCE=- * RAMSES THE AMIGA FLYING * Internet: user.name@ramses.fdn.org Fidonet: 2/320/104-105-106 +33-1-45845623 V.34 +33-1-53791200 V.32bis -=GERMANY=- * DOOM OF DARKNESS * Email: marc_doerre@doom.ping.de +49 (0)4223 8355 19200 V.42bis/Zyx AR-Infoservice, contact Kai Szymanski kai@doom.ping.de * LEGUANS BYTE CHANNEL * Usenet: andreas@lbcmbx.in-berlin.de 49-30-8110060 49-30-8122442 USR DS 16.8 Login as User: "amiga", Passwd: "report" * REDEYE BBS * Internet: sysop@redeye.muc.de +49-89-5460535 (V.32b, Zyxel EG + / USR V.34) * STINGRAY DATABASE * EMail: sysop@sting-db.zer.sub.org.dbp.de +49 208 496807 HST-Dual * VISION THING BBS * Infect East German HQ, Keks ASCII Design World HQ ++49(0)345 663914 19200 System Password: Amiga -=GREECE=- * ODYSSEY BBS * email: konem@prometheus.hol.gr 2:410/128.17@fidonet +++ 301-412-3502 (ZyXEL 16.8K) after 23:00 local time -=IRELAND=- * CUGI BBS * Fidonet: 2:263/155 +353 1 837 0204 V32bis * HIGHWAY TO HELL BBS * Fidonet 2:263/154 Internet: iblack@dit.ie Online from 22:00 - 08:00 GMT +353-1-847 5217 -=ITALY=- * AMIGA PROFESSIONAL BBS * Amy Professional Club, Italian Amos Club +(39)-49-604488 * SPEED OF LIFE * FidoNet 2:332/505 AmigaNet 39:102/501 ZyX 19.2k/V32/V32bis/V42bis +39-59-226454 -=NETHERLANDS=- * AMIGA ONLINE BS HEEMSTEDE * Fidonet: 2:280/464.0, 2:280/412.0 Internet: michiel@aobh.xs4all.nl +31-23-282002 +31-23-470739 14400 Supra * THE HELL BBS * Fido-Net : 2:281/418.0 e-mail : root@hell.xs4all.nl +31-(0)70-3468783 (v32bis Supra) * X-TREME BBS * Internet: u055231@vm.uci.kun.nl +31-167064414 (24h) -=NORWAY=- * FALLING BBS * EMail: christon@powertech.no +47 69 256117 28.8k -=PORTUGAL=- * CIUA BBS * FidoNet 2:361/9 Internet: denise.ci.ua.pt +351-34-382080/382081 (V32bis soon V34) -=SPAIN=- * GURU MEDITATION * Running Remote Access +34-1-383-1317 V.32bis -=SWEDEN=- * CICERON * E-mail: peman@solace.mh.se +46 612 22011 -=SWITZERLAND=- * LINKSYSTEM LINK-CH1 * contact: rleemann@link-ch1.aworld.de +41 61 3215643 V32bis/Zyx16800 +41 61 3832007 ISDN X75/V110 Local newsgroup link-ch1.ml.amiga-report -=UNITED KINGDOM=- * AMIGA JUNCTION 9 * Internet: sysadmin@junct9.demon.co.uk FidoNet: 2:440/20 +44 (0)372 271000 14400 V.32bis/HST * CREATIONS BBS * E-Mail: mat@darkside.demon.co.uk 2:254/524@Fidonet 39:139/5@Amiganet +44-0181-665-9887 Hayes Optima 288 2400 - V.FC * METNET TRIANGLE SYSTEM * FidoNet: 2:252/129.0 44-482-442251 2400 Voice: 44-482-491752 (anytime) @endnode @node BBS_NAMERICA "Distribution BBSes - North America" @toc BBS =========================================================================== == Distribution BBSes - North America == =========================================================================== -=ARIZONA=- * MESSENGER OF THE GODS BBS * mercury@primenet.com 602-326-1095 -=BRITISH COLUMBIA=- * COMM-LINK BBS * InterNet: steve_hooper@comm.tfbbs.wimsey.com Fido: 1:153/210.0 AmigaNet 40:800/9100.0 604-945-6192 USR DS 16.8 -=CALIFORNIA=- * MYSTIC CAVERNS * E-mail: roy@ctsnet.cts.com WWW: http://ramiga.cts.com (619)442-7030 14.4 (619)442-7060 28.8 * TIERRA-MIGA BBS * FidoNet: 1:202/638.0 AmigaNet: 40:406/3.0 Internet: torment.cts.com 619.292.0754 V32.bis * VIRTUAL PALACE BBS * Sysop Email: tibor@ecst.csuchico.edu 916-343-7420 * Amiga And IBM Only BBS * (619)428-4887 vonmolk@crash.cts.com AmigaNET address: 40:406/7.0 -=ILLINOIS=- * EMERALD KEEP BBS * FidoNet: 1:2250/2 AmigaNet: 40:206/1 618-394-0065 USR 16.8k DS * PHANTOM'S LAIR * FidoNet: 1:115/469.0 Phantom Net Coordinator: 11:1115/0.0-11:1115/1.0 708-469-9510 708-469-9520 * THE STYGIAN ABYSS BBS * FIDONet-1:115/384.0 312-384-0616 USR Courier HST 312-384-6250 Supra V.32 bis (FREQ line) -=LOUISIANA=- * The Catacomb * E-mail: Geoff148@delphi.com 504-882-6576 Supra v.fc 28.8k -=MAINE=- * THE KOBAYASHI ALTERNATIVE BBS * Usenet and FidoNet Echo Areas FidoNet: 1:326/404.0 (207)/784-2130 (207)/946-5665 -=MEXICO=- * AMIGA BBS * FidoNet 4:975/7 (5) 887-3080 9600 V32,MNP * AMIGA SERVER BBS * Now with 17 CDs available Number: 5158736 -=MISSISSIPPI=- * THE GATEWAY BBS * InterNet: stace@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil FidoNet: 1:3604/60.0 601-374-2697 Hayes Optina 28.8 V.FC -=MICHIGAN=- * DC ProNet running Cnet Amiga 3.0+ * 616-373-0287 V.Everything chetw@dcpro.UUCP -=MONTREAL=- * GfxBase BBS* E-mail: ai257@freenet.hsc.colorado.edu Fidonet: 1:167/192 514-769-0565 14.4 -=NEBRASKA=- * OMAHA AMIGANET * FidoNet: 1:285/11 AmigaNet: 40:200/10 402-333-5110 V.32bis -=NEW JERSEY=- * T.B.P. VIDEO SLATE * Full Skypix menus + normal and ansi menu sets. 201-586-3623 USR 14.4 HST * DLTACOM Amiga BBS * (201) 398-8559 Fidonet: 1:2606/216.0 Internet: dltacom.camphq.fidonet.org (email only) -=NEW YORK=- * THE BELFRY(!) * stiggy@dorsai.dorsai.org 718.793.4796 718.793.4905 -=ONTARIO=- * COMMAND LINE BBS * Canada's Amiga Graphics & Animation Source 416-533-8321 V.32 * REALM OF TWILIGHT BBS * Usenet: realm.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca FIDO: 1:221/302 Fish: 33:33/8 519-748-9365 (2400 baud) 519-748-9026 (v.32bis) -=TENNESSEE=- * AMIGA CENTRAL! * Internet mail: root@amicent.raider.net 615-383-9679 1200-14.4Kbps V.32bis * NOVA BBS * AmigaNet 40:210/10.0 40:210/1.0 40:210/0.0 FidoNet 1:362/508.0 615-472-9748 USR DS 16.8 -=WASHINGTON=- * FREELAND MAINFRAME * Internet - freemf.eskimo.com 206-438-1670 Supra 2400zi 206-456-6013 Supra v.32bis * PIONEERS BBS * FidoNet: 1:343/54.0 206-775-7983 Supra 14.4k v32.bis Login: Long Distance Password: longdistance @endnode @node BBS_SAMERICA "Distribution BBSes - South America" @toc BBS =========================================================================== == Distribution BBSes - South America == =========================================================================== -=BRAZIL=- * AMIGA DO PC BBS * Fidonet: 4:801/44 Internet: fimoraes@dcc.unicamp.br Weekdays: 19-07 (-3 GMT) Weekends: 24 hours +55-192-33-2260 @endnode @node OPINION "Editorial and Opinion" @toc MENU =========================================================================== == Editorial and Opinion == =========================================================================== @{" compt.sys.editor.desk " link EDITORIAL} News-good and bad, and interesting @{" Darkseid's Padded Cell " link OPINION1} Past and future @endnode @node NEWS "News & Press Releases" @toc MENU =========================================================================== == News & Press Releases == =========================================================================== @{" Commodore Liquidation! " link NEWS5} Would you believe...news? @{" The End of Amiga World " link NEWS1} TechMedia pulls the plug. @{" QuickText " link NEWS2} Tahoe Software's DTV assistant @{" ImageFX Upgrade News " link NEWS3} Upcoming features and add-ons @{" Coleco Adam Emulator " link NEWS4} Nothing like a new emulator! @{" Emplant PC Released " link NEWS7} ...or two! @{" Almathera IRC Chat " link NEWS6} Don't forget... @endnode @node FEATURE "Featured Articles" @toc MENU =========================================================================== == Featured Articles == =========================================================================== @{" Press Releases " link NEWS} Stuff people want you to know. @{" Conference: Lee Stranahan " link FEATURE1} Portal's chat with the Toaster expert @{" SHI Hack Report " link FEATURE2} The anti-virus crew's update. @endnode @node REVIEW "Reviews" @toc MENU =========================================================================== == Reviews == =========================================================================== @{" AmiTCP 4.2 Review " link REVIEW1} The newly commercial TCP stack revealed @{" MegAChip from DKB " link REVIEW2} 2 megs of chip on a 500/2000 @{" CSAReview: NetBSD 1.0 " link REVIEW3} Unix, for free, for the Amiga. @{" Game Mini-Reviews " link REVIEW4} Caszatt shotguns some titles @{" Aminet Set 1 " link REVIEW7} The 4-CD set. The whole thing. @{" Commodore Liquidation " link REVIEW5} Play the home game. @{" CyberGraphics Benchmarks" link REVIEW6} Not a full blown review, but... @endnode @node FTP "FTP and Product Announcements" @toc MENU =========================================================================== == FTP and Product Announcements == =========================================================================== @{" C-Shell 5.40 " link FTP1} The shell replacer/enhancer @{" ZShell 2.3 " link FTP2} What do you know, another one. @{" easyrexx.library " link FTP3} Simplified AREXX integration @{" ScreenWizard 1.0 " link FTP4} A public screen commodity @endnode @node ABOUT "About AMIGA REPORT" @toc MENU =========================================================================== == About AMIGA REPORT == =========================================================================== @{" AR Staff " link STAFF} The Editors and writers @{" Writing Guidelines " link GUIDELINE} What you need to do to write for us @{" Copyright Information " link COPYRIGHT} The legal stuff @endnode @node STAFF "The Staff" @toc ABOUT =========================================================================== == The Staff == =========================================================================== Editor: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} Senior Editor: @{" Robert Niles " link ROBERT} Assistant Editor: @{" Katherine Nelson " link KATIE} Games Editor: @{" Sean Caszatt " link SEAN} @endnode @node WHERE "Where to Get AR" @toc MENU =========================================================================== == Where to Get AR == =========================================================================== @{" The AR Mailing List " link MAILLIST} @{" Aminet " link AMINET} @{" World Wide Web " link WWW} @{" Distribution Sites " link BBS} @{" Commercial Services " link ONLINE} @endnode @node BBS "Distribution Sites" @toc WHERE =========================================================================== == Where to find Amiga Report == =========================================================================== Arranged by Continent: @{" Australia " link BBS_AUSTRALIA} @{" Europe " link BBS_EUROPE} @{" North America " link BBS_NAMERICA} @{" South America " link BBS_SAMERICA} Sysops: To have your name added, please send @{"Email", link JASON} with the BBS name, its location (Country, province/state) your name, any internet/fidonet addresses, and the phone number of your BBS. Because of the volume of BBSes on the list, we ask that you only submit your BBS if you are in a country with no more than 2 existing official distribution BBSes. @endnode @node COMMERCIAL "Commercial Products" @toc MENU =========================================================================== == Commercial Products == =========================================================================== @{" Editor's Choice " link EDITORCHOICE} Jason's picks @{" Commercial Online Services " link ONLINE} Sign-Up Information @endnode @node ONLINE "Commercial Online Services" @toc COMMERCIAL =========================================================================== == Commercial Online Services == =========================================================================== @{" Delphi " link DELPHI} Getting better all the time. @{" Portal " link PORTAL} A great place for Amiga users. @{" GEnie " link GENIE} Internet access, online games, more. @endnode