@database "ar3.17.guide" @Node MAIN "Amiga Report Online Magazine #3.17 -- September 23, 1995" =========================================================================== September 23, 1995 @{" Turn the Page " link MENU} Issue No.3.17 =========================================================================== ,a c4%&; 1%%%b 9%=~ " m; mmmm; nmm mmmmm .,pmq,. m; j#6 ##6 j### ### ,#'~ ~`g, j#6 ##&; ##&; #### ### ,#f `# ##&; jP##6 ###6 jP### ### .##' " jP##6 #'$#&; #$#&; #'### ### i## #'$#&; jP l##6 #l##6 jP ### ### &## jP l##6 #' $#&; # $#&;#' ### ### &## #' $#&; j#mmmd##6 # l##6P ### ### ?## mmmw j#mmmd##6 #' $#&; # $##' ### ### ##; $#$ #' $#&; jP l##6 # l#P ### ### `#l ,&#'jP l##6 #' ###mm # $' mm###mm mm###mm `#q,.,p#' #' ###mm (R) "~^~" &&&&q, , ,P `b d' tm d' ,P d&&&P ;P .,d' ,c&&q, &&&&q, ,c&&q, q&,e&q ;P' d&&&P ;P' `& d' `b ;P' `b dP~ `P d' ;P'`&; dB&&&&P ;P ,P d' P ;P ;P d' `&; &, , d' .,d' &, .,d' d' d' , &&& &&'`&&&P' ;B&&&P' `&&&P' &&& `&P' d' ;P &&& "THE Online Source for Amiga Information!" Copyright 1995 FS Publications All Rights Reserved @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 Dealer Addresses and Numbers @{" Where to Get AR " link WHERE} @{" Advertisements " link COMMERCIAL} Mailing List & Distribution Sites Online Services, Dealers, Ordering ______________________________________________ // | | // ========//====| Amiga Report International Online Magazine |======//===== == \\// | Issue No. 3.17 September 23, 1995 | \\// == ==============| "THE Online Source for Amiga Information!" |============= |______________________________________________| @endnode =========================================================================== == The Amiga Report Staff == =========================================================================== @node JASON "Editor" @toc STAFF =========================================================================== == EDITOR == =========================================================================== Jason Compton ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Internet Address -------- ------- jcompton@shell.portal.com 1203 Alexander Ave jcompton@xnet.com Streamwood, IL 60107-3003 USA Fax Phone --- ----- 708/741-0689 708/332-6243 @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 WILLIAM "Contributing Editor" @toc STAFF =========================================================================== == CONTRIBUTING EDITOR == =========================================================================== William Near ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Internet -------- wnear@epix.net @endnode @node ADDISON "Contributing Editor" @toc STAFF =========================================================================== == CONTRIBUTING EDITOR == =========================================================================== Addison Laurent ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Internet -------- addison@jobe.shell.portal.com @endnode @node EDITORIAL "compt.sys.editor.desk" @toc OPINION =========================================================================== == compt.sys.editor.desk By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} == =========================================================================== Hey! Guess what! No, I don't have a new 4000T on my desk just yet. But I DO have a paying job in the Amiga field. Actually, two of them. This summer I spent a couple of weekends in Canada (as those of you who have read my show reports will know.) Wonder Computers figured pretty prominently at those shows, and along the course of the shows, I found that I was being offered a job as Promotional Director for Wonder Computers, Incorporated. I could work at home as a sort of consultant, set my own hours, keep doing just what I'm doing for Amiga Report, and help an expanding Amiga company. It sounded pretty good to me. So I took the job. So, here I am, Editor in Chief of Amiga Report who also happens to be Promotional Director of Wonder Computers, Inc. And an assistant conference moderator on BIX. (I could have mentioned that a few months ago when I got the job, but it never seemed relevant. But while I'm on this kick, I may as well lay everything out on the table.) Mark Habinski, CEO of Wonder, and I made Amiga Report's relationship to Wonder pretty clear. In short, there is none. Yes, that's right, Amiga Report and my employers have nothing to do with each other. And there's a good reason for that. When Mark (and Joanne Dow, head moderator of the Amiga Exchange on BIX) approached me, it was my work on AR that brought them to me in the first place. They must have liked something, and I'd like to think it was my ability to be very open and honest, and keep it that way. And I have, and will continue, to keep it that way. In short, the only noticable effect on AR will be the fact that, since more Wonder Computers press releases are being written, they'll be showing up here, as do any industry press releases I get my hands on. It's just that in this case I'll be writing a lot of them. Just in case anybody might get the wrong idea, I won't be reviewing any WCi-released software. I would personally feel comfortable doing it, but wouldn't want to generate any suspicion. It will be passed along to reviewers who know better than to temper their judgement. :) Wonder felt that they would be well served having me onboard for this very, uh, interesting time in the Amiga market. I thought it would be interesting being onboard. Similarly, Joanne thought I would be interesting to have around BIX, and I'm interested in hanging around. My first love, as it were, is Amiga Report, and doing the job I've been doing HERE for the past 2 years. I have only my record, and my promise, to convince you that a little prosperity (we're not talking about full-time jobs here) does not breed evil. That was refreshing. Now, to business! "Better late than never" seems to be the theme recently. All of a sudden, the floodgates of news from Amiga Technologies have been opened a bit. We have news and interviews coming from the UK, Switzerland, and Italy. North America actually has a distributor, but our Australian cousins are still shut out. When I called Ed Goff's office to discuss the North American distribution situation, I didn't make it past his secretary (he asked her to talk with me.) Essentially, I know just as much as they do right now, as both they and SMG, the North American distributor, are waiting on official announcement of the distribution situation from the home office in Bensheim. And so we wait... Read on, and you'll see that AT has quite a travel agenda planned. A pity it's all in Europe, but at least it's a press conference. Enjoy. Jason @endnode @node COMMERCIAL "Commercial Products" @toc MENU =========================================================================== == Commercial Products == =========================================================================== @{" National Amiga Canada " link AD2} Mail/Net-order from Ontario @{" Hi-Tech Components' SX-1 " link AD6} The CD32 expansion device @{" Editor's Choice " link EDITORCHOICE} Jason's picks @{" Portal Information Systems " link PORTAL} A great place for Amiga users. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- @{" Opinion " link OPINION} @{" News " link NEWS} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{" Reviews " link REVIEW} @{" Charts " link FTP} @endnode @node AD2 "National Amiga Canada" @toc COMMERCIAL ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- N A T I O N A L A M I G A C A N A D A ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- National Amiga is a small mailorder company based in Ontario Canada. The main thing we want to do is help out other Amiga owners and give them a place to find out about and purchase Amiga products. National Amiga does most of it's business over the internet. We have a World Wide Web site that contains our full catalog along with information on many of the products we sell and support. Something is added almost on a daily basis. Don't see it? Ask! We actually LOOK for things all over the world. Not only does our web site contain prices, but it also contains links to other Amiga related sites. Our new Technical Information page has jumper settings, diagrams, specs, and how-to-do it sections. It's growing all the time and has become quite popular for many FAQ's! Hard-Drives * 3.1 Kits * Networking * RAM * CD-ROMs * Cables * Accelerators, Chips * Mice * Graphics Cards * Software * And we ship around the world! * Email us to be put on our weekly up-date list containing specials * on new and used products! * Don't have email access? Call and leave a message for our new print catalog! NATIONAL AMIGA 1229 Marlborough Ct. #1401 Email: gscott@interlog.com IRC: NAN (_NAN) Oakville, Ontario http://www.interlog.com/~gscott/NationalAmiga.html L6H3B6 CANADA Phone: (905) 845-1949 Fax: (905) 845-3295 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- @endnode @node AD6 "Hi-Tech Component Distributors' SX-1" @toc COMMERCIAL Hi-Tech Component Distributors Inc-makers of the SX-1! Hi-Tech has an all-new production run of the SX-1 Expansion Module for the Amiga CD32 available. The SX-1 adds a SIMM slot (expandable to 8 megabytes of RAM), internal and external IDE hard drive controllers, a PC/AT keyboard connector, serial, parallel, and floppy drive ports, as well as an audio mixing port to the CD32. In addition, the new Hi-Tech models have an improved, more stable edge connector. The SX-1 base unit is available for US$200. In addition, a 170 megabyte internal 2.5 inch IDE hard drive is available for a mere US$69 with purchase of the base SX-1 unit. (Regular price is US$89) Contact us for our other great deals on hard drives and accessories! Hi-Tech Component Distributors 59 S. La Patera Ln. Goleta, CA 93117 USA 805-681-9961 voice 805-681-9971 fax @endnode @node MAIL "Reader Mail" @toc MENU =========================================================================== == Reader Mail == =========================================================================== Jason: Concerning your report on the Amiga Convention 95 in Montreal. Valley Soft gave out over 100 catalogues at this show. We had another 100 available for anyone who requested them as well as business cards. We were invited back to future shows so we hope to meet you again. You were at our booth I believe and we did offer a catalogue to you. We were located just to the left of Obys Computers and had our table piled high with software. We, like the other dealers that were there were there for the explosure as well as to show Amiga owners that there is still support for their systems. We have been Amiga users since the first A500's arrived in Canada and dealers since 1992. We would appreciate being added to your list of dealers as we do ship all over North America and have over 500 different Amiga game titles IN STOCK! Our address is: Valley Soft P.O.Box 864 Pembroke, Ont. K8A 7M5 Phone 613-732-7700 Fax 613-732-8477 Internet valsoft@renc.igs.net (Canada) Thank You, Bill Valley Soft This oversight was entirely my fault, and I apologize. -Jason --- --- --- --- --- --- --- From: Eyal Teler Subject: The future of the Amiga At last I got to reading AR316. In the reader mail deparment, Joe Brewin wrote: I'm afraid ESCOM's only interest is squeezing the technology for all they can get from it and then tossing the rind in the garbage to be hauled away to the nearest landfill. I hope he is wrong, and it seems to me that he is. Of course, ESCOM is interested in getting all they can from the Amiga, but they're doing it with good intentions. They won't try to shove a dead animal at people, but if people do buy the Amiga, Escom seems to be willing to continue its development. They have some plans for simple enhancements, and are talking about a future RISC Amiga, which seems encouraging. And Escom does seem to try to make the Amiga a better choice for people looking for a computer. I was annoyed with the high price, initially, but after reading in AR what will be bundled with the Amiga, I understand where this price comes from. It's the first time that the Amiga is bundled with a full productivity suite, and this should certainly show it in a new way. Together with the bundled multimedia software and games, you certainly get a comprehensive software bundle with the Amiga. With a little (or, hopefully, a lot of) marketing, and the help of Amiga enthusiasts, maybe people will actually get the idea that everything you want done by a home computer can be done by the Amiga. At the very least, I hope that there are a lot of people who still want to buy an Amiga, enough of them to convince Escom that working on more advanced Amigas is worth while. Eyal Teler -- teler@cs.huji.ac.il ET's home page is at http://www.cs.huji.ac.il/~teler --- --- --- --- --- --- --- From: RJMARIER@STTHOMAS.EDU Subject: Hello, howdie, and all that good stuff Yes, I did buy my Amiga new. However before I could send in my registration cards, Commodore went out of business. I had only had my compputer a month at most, but I'm sure it was less. The problems I'm haveing are in several areas: [ I ] Video Problems: - RF and Composite send no signal at all. - The main RGB video works, but has several problems. After haveing my Amiga on, say an hour, I start getting lines that flicker on the screen. They are random spots on the screen, but usually there will always be some up by the title bar area of the screen and when you use the menus. When I pull down a menu the selections usually have lines flickering through the selections and extend out of the menu. When this flickering problem becomes more numerous on the menus, it is possible to see a "reflection" of a menu choice to the right of the menu. What I mean is say on the main workbench screen, I hold the right mouse button down and got up to the menu that says TOOLS. Well, then it displays the menu selections, in this case it is ResetWB. The ResetWB will have lines flickering through it and out onto the main part of the screen. ON that main part of the screen next to the menu selection, you can see ResetWB being reflected. I've tried programs like GrabIFF and QuickGrab to take a Snapshot of the screen, however when I display the snapshot, it looks perfectly normal. [ II ] Video/Memory ? - There is also another problems with random lines on my screen. These are little black lines scattered in differant places across the screen. Some are actual lines, dots, and dashes When I've used screen grabbing programs like above, I do capture these lines in the picture. Therefore, this might be a memory mapping problem. [ III ] Serial Problems: - Basically, when I try to Download/Upload (with my fast memory turned on) I get a lon of errors. They come one right after another. This problem happens 70 to 90 % of the time however, it doesn't always happen. When I deactivate the fast ram, that will sometimes fix the problem, but again not always. I've taken my Amiga to an Amiga store, where I've swapped differant accelerator cards, SIMMS, deleted and reinstalled software, tried differant cables, and everything else. However, nothing ever seems to work. My setup is: An Amiga 1200, with a Microbotics 50 Mhz '030, and a 4 meg SIMM. I usually run my screen display in DBLNTSC mode. I've got a 200 watt power supply. I've tried my best so far to figure out what is wrong with this thing, but myself and the people I've had check this thing out can not figure it out either. Thanks much, A patient (but frustrated) Amiga Owner, Robert Marier -Anybody have any ideas? @endnode @node NEWS1 "ShadowStart 1.3" @toc NEWS TITLE ShadowStart VERSION 1.3 AUTHOR Lars 'SFX' Eilebrecht Glueck-Auf-Strasse 23 57223 Kreuztal GERMANY SFX@appl2.hrz.uni-siegen.de http://vespa.unix-ag.uni-siegen.de/~sfx Shadowfox@IRC DESCRIPTION ShadowStart is a small utility that should be called from the startup-sequence. If the activation-key is pressed down a requester pops up, asking you if you want the WBStartup-drawer, the User-Startup script or both to be disabled. This means, you can bootup a "clean" Workbench, without any programs in WBStartup or User-Startup executed! And also a new shell-window can be opened for changing things befor executing the startup-sequence. (Sourcecode is included.) NEW FEATURES Before any key checks are performed ShadowStart checks if the SYS: partition is currently being validated. If yes, Shadowstart waits 3 seconds and checks the disk state again. When the validation is finished, ShadowStart automatically continues with its normal execution. The main effect of this feature is that startup execution will be delayed until the SYS: partition is validated (no more disk-trashing on startup). The validation check is always performed, if the activation-key is pressed or not. FUTURE Ideas and suggestions are always welcome! SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS Two version of ShadowStart are included, one for Kick/WB 3.1 and one for Kick/WB 2.0+. HOST NAME ShadowStart has been uploaded to the Aminet Site ftp.uni-paderborn.de (131.234.2.32) and should be available on all other Aminet sites. DIRECTORY pub/aminet/util/boot FILE NAME ShadowStart13.lha RELEASE DATE 14. August 1995 PRICE ShadowStart is ANYWARE! :-) (see guide for details) DISTRIBUTABILITY The ShadowStart archive is freely distributable, but it is Copright 1994-1995 by Lars Eilebrecht. OTHER The latest ShadowStart archive is also available via WWW (http-download) from the page: 'http://vespa.unix-ag.uni-siegen.de/~sfx/programs/' @endnode @node NEWS2 "DoIcon 1.6" @toc NEWS TITLE DoIcon VERSION 1.6 AUTHOR Lars 'SFX' Eilebrecht Glueck-Auf-Strasse 23 57223 Kreuztal GERMANY SFX@appl2.hrz.uni-siegen.de Shadowfox@IRC http://vespa.unix-ag.uni-siegen.de/~sfx DESCRIPTION DoIcon is an icon information and manipulation tool. It is designed for quick shell usage and can be used with programs like DirOpus. Any option of DoIcon can be used with file patterns. Features: o Displaying of icon related values... type, defaulttool, stacksize, highlightmethod, position, dimensions, tooltypes and number of bit-planes o Manipulation of the above listed values... o Manipulation of tooltypes (add, change, toggle, delete, clear, sort) o Automatic tooltype updating from a source to a destination icon (only new tooltypes are copied) o Copying of most icon values into a destination icon o Strip number of bit-planes. o Swapping of icon image (normal/select) o Converting icons to 8 bit-planes (For icons not displayed correctly on >8 color WBs) o Remapping icon colors (1.x style <-> 2.x/3.x style) o Remapping icon colors (MagicWB 8 color -> standard 4 color) (Two different remap-methods are available) o Deleting icons (with Workbench refresh) o Recursively deleting old 1.x ".info" drawer files o Converting icon image data to C source code o Calling of Workbench information requester from Shell o Search & replace of a specified default tool (pattern support) o Search & replace of specified tooltypes (pattern support) o Search & delete of a specified tooltype (pattern support) o Checking of tooltype values for specified tooltypes o Support of file patterns and recursive directory scanning! o Full locale support, you can use DoIcon in your preferred language (Currently english, german, finish and french are supported.) New features for version 1.6: o Manipulation of the drawer showmode (show all files/only files with icon). o Manipulation of the drawer viewmode (listed as icon, by name, date or size). o Search & copying of a specified tooltype to a destination icon (with pattern-support). o Search & updating of a specified tooltype to a destination icon. (Tooltype is only copied if it is not already in the destination icon.) (with pattern-support) o Copying of a specific or all tooltypes into an other icon o Locale support: new danish and polish catalog included FUTURE Simply tell the author what feature you need. :-) SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS DoIcon needs at least Kick/WB 2.04. For locale support it needs WB 2.1+. HOST NAME DoIcon has been uploaded to the Aminet Site ftp.uni-paderborn.de (131.234.10.42) and should be available on all other Aminet sites. DIRECTORY pub/aminet/util/cli FILE NAME DoIcon16.lha RELEASE DATE 8. September 1995 PRICE DoIcon is ANYWARE! :-) (Anyware? Just send the author an email or _anything_ else. :-)) DISTRIBUTABILITY The DoIcon archive is freely distributable, but it is copright 1994-1995 by Lars Eilebrecht. OTHER The latest DoIcon archive is also available via WWW (http-download) from the page: 'http://vespa.unix-ag.uni-siegen.de/~sfx/programs/' @endnode @node NEWS3 "HTML-Heaven 1.2" @toc NEWS TITLE HTML-Heaven VERSION 1.2 AUTHOR Paul Kolenbrander Email : paul@serena.iaehv.nl Snail : Turfveldenstraat 37 NL-5632 XH EINDHOVEN The NETHERLANDS DESCRIPTION HTML-Heaven is a suite of _four_ programs intended to make the creation and maintenance of WWW (HTML) pages easy. The programs in the suite interface with your favorite editor (providing it supports text insertion via ARexx) to provide you with a very comfortable environment. Now inserting HTML commands is as simple as point and click. This is the upgrade from version 1.1 with a host of exiting new features. NEW FEATURES Version 1.2 has all the features of version 1.1. Plus: * Support for five new editors. MEmacs (thanks to Ellis Pritchard) AME, PolyEd, SkoEd and EdWord v5.(Thanks to Martin Reddy) * Improved scripts for a number of editors now support blocks the same way that the TTX script does. (Yes, CygnusEd as well) Just mark a block and hit eg. the gadget in HTML-Heaven. * Support for character entities so you can now embed special characters like ®, ć and ţ for example. * The brunt of the new NetScape extensions to the HTML language. Including the BackGround= tag. * Optional Edit Tag requester allows you to edit outgoing tag before it is sent to the editor. Useful for entering URL's etc. in tags. * The documentation is now also available in HTML format. And can be viewed online via WWW on http://www.iaehv.nl/users/paul/index.html. * iso2html (simply convert ISO Latin-1 characters to HTML entities) tool by Christian Ruetgers is now included in the distribution. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS HTML-Heaven requires: * Workbench 2.04 or above. * ARexx (bundled with Workbench 2.04 and above.) * Around 1MB of free memory. * About 300KB of floppy or harddisk space. (installing the entire suite and docs.) AVAILABILITY - ftp://ftp.iaehv.nl/pub/users/paul/amiga/HTML-Heaven.lha - WWW - http://www.iaehv.nl/users/paul/index.html - Most Aminet sites. Examples of which are: USA: ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/text/hyper/HTML-Heaven.lha EUR: ftp://ftp.luth.se/pub/aminet/text/hyper/HTML-Heaven.lha PRICE The registration fee for the HTML-Heaven package still is only: - Nederland Dfl 15,- - Europe DM 15,- / Dfl 15,- - Rest of the World US$ 15.- / Dfl 20.- DISTRIBUTABILITY The unregistered version is freely distributable if done in a non- commercial way. The registered version and it's personal keyfile are *NOT* freely distributable. This suite of programs is copyright 1994, 95 by Paul Kolenbrander. OTHER To encourage users to register, (I'd like to get some return for all this effort I have put into creating the suite.) the freely distributable versions does not support ToolTypes/parameters and will not supply on-line help. Furthermore a 'reminder' requester appears on exiting any of the four programs comprising the suite. The unregistered versions will also not allow more than 5 ARexx commands per session. They'll keep functioning, but ignore any further ARexx commands given by the user as it has unloaded it's ARexx Host. @endnode @node NEWS4 "North American Amiga Distribution" @toc NEWS According to Gilles Bourdin of Amiga Technologies, Service Management Group, the company that provided warranty service for Amigas in the US, will have non-exclusive North American distribution for the remainder of 1995. Maxximum Video Creations, a US dealer, has begun advertising Amiga 4000Ts for mid-October delivery, at a price of $2700, with the full Amiga 1200 software pack (including Scala MM300, per the 1200 HD bundle), a one year SMG warranty, a 1 gig SCSI hard drive, and a double-density floppy. Apparently, Amiga Technologies was unable to secure high-density floppy drives for this release of the machine. SMG can be reached at 410-992-9975. @endnode @node NEWS5 "Soft-Logik's 10th Anniversary" @toc NEWS PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 8, 1995 PRESS CONTACT: Ellen Kazmaier tel: 314-256-9595; fax: 314-256-9595 SOFT-LOGIK 10th ANNIVERSARY: (St. Louis) Soft-Logik Publishing(tm) will celebrate its tenth anniversary on September 11th. In an industry where companies appear and disappear seemingly overnight, Soft-Logik products have become fixtures on the shelves of Amiga and Atari computer owners. Soft-Logik introduced Publishing Partner for Atari in 1986, and it was hailed as the most powerful desktop publishing program of its time. The industry's leading magazine called it a "knockout program". Publishing Partner grew into PageStream and was released for Amiga in 1989. It soon became the number one selling DTP program for both Amiga and Atari computers. In 1994, Soft-Logik released PageStream 3.0 for Amiga, a completely new program which set a new standard for features and value. Version 3.1 is scheduled for release later this year and will be a free update for owners of PageStream 3.0. Today, Soft-Logik sells a wide range of Amiga software, including PageStream and TypeSmith. Soft-Logik is the exclusive North American publisher of Digita's Wordworth, Organizer and Datastore. THE DECADE AHEAD: New versions of PageStream for Macintosh and Windows are in development. The Macintosh and PowerMacintosh versions will be released later this year, and the Windows95 and WindowsNT version is scheduled for the second quarter of next year. A new Amiga version is also planned for next year. Soft-Logik president Deron Kazmaier said "PageStream has become the #1 Amiga and Atari DTP program by being the best program available. The Macintosh and Windows markets have entrenched market leaders, but our extensive experience as a pioneer in the DTP field will help us succeed where recent Mac DTP newcomers have failed." PAGESTREAM3 AMIGA: NEW PRICE Soft-Logik Publishing is pleased to announce that it has lowered the upgrade price for PageStream3. The standard upgrade price from previous versions has been changed from $135 to $95. A new $60 option is being added for those on a budget. The $60 version does not include a printed manual or Pantone(R) color libraries, both of which are included with the standard $95 version. PageStream3 includes the most comprehensive AmigaGuide help system of any Amiga program, so it's easy to use even without a printed manual. Printed startup instructions are included. This price change will help increase PageStream3's user-base so that Soft-Logik can continue development of this important Amiga program. A continuous stream of new users is essential, and the new upgrade price will allow more people than before to use the latest version. Owners of PageStream 1.0 to 2.2 Amiga, excluding the new SE version, are eligible for the new upgrade price. Purchasers of PageStream 3.0 will receive a free upgrade to 3.1 when it is released later this year. PAGESTREAM 2.2 RETURNS: To celebrate its 10th anniversary, Soft-Logik is re-releasing PageStream 2.2, the best-selling desktop publishing program for Amiga and Atari computers. Bundled with a new 90 page manual, PageStream 2.2 SE will probably top the sales charts again at its incredible new price. PageStream 2.2, which originally had a suggested retail price of $299.95 will now sell for just $39. The new lower price will help bring desktop publishing to people who couldn't previously afford a professional quality DTP program. Readers of Britain's "CU Amiga" magazine will receive a free copy of PageStream 2.2 with their October issue cover disk. They can purchase the full program disk set with all of its fonts and the manual for 24.95 pounds Sterling. PageStream 2.2 SE is the perfect choice for owners of older Amiga and Atari computers. Its minimum system requirements are 1.5MB of RAM, 1 floppy drive (2 for Atari), and AmigaDOS 1.3 or any version of TOS. Purchasers of PageStream 2.2 SE Amiga who wish to upgrade in the future can apply the entire purchase price towards the purchase of PageStream3. PageStream 2.2 SE for Amiga and Atari will be available in late October. Orders are being accepted now. WORDWORTH: MORE AFFORDABLE THAN EVER Digita is working on an exciting new version of Wordworth that will include style tags, ARexx, true footnotes, improved tables, faster editing and more. There's no reason to wait for the next version because Soft-Logik has lowered the North American price of the current version. The Soft-Logik direct price for owners of other Soft-Logik programs has been lowered from $120 to $99. The new price at which anybody can order direct, and the suggested street price, has been lowered from $135 to $110. This is a limited time price! WORDWORTH 3.1 SE: NEW PRODUCT Not everybody needs all the features of Wordworth 3.1, that's why Digita created Wordworth SE. Amiga Format gave it their Gold Award and said it has "all the best bits of 3.1 at a bargain price." The SE version has been optimized to run on a 2MB Amiga with AmigaDOS 2.04 or better, with or without a hard drive. Wordworth 3.1 SE will be available in North America in October at the incredibly low price of just $49. This rock-bottom price will help everybody afford this popular word processor. Owners of 3.1 SE can upgrade to the full version of 3.1 for just $59. Orders for SE are being accepted now. THE SE BUNDLE! Now Amiga owners can get the best desktop publisher and the best word processor for the price of a new game! For just $69, Amiga owners can get PageStream 2.2 SE and Wordworth 3.1 SE together. This is the best Amiga software value today, and is sure to be a popular combination in the months ahead. Orders for the SE bundle are being accepted now. ORGANIZER: NEW PRICE Soft-Logik has also decreased the North American price of Organizer. Organizer has been one of Soft-Logik's top-selling programs since its introduction in the spring of this year. Owners of other Soft-Logik applications can order it directly from Soft-Logik for just $75, while other customers can order it for $85. EVANGELIZE! Wordworth owners can save money by getting friends to purchase Wordworth 3.1. If your friends mention you when ordering, they will pay our best price which we normally reserve for owners of Soft-Logik programs. In return, we'll give you $20 off your next Soft-Logik application purchase. PageStream3 owners can save money by getting friends to upgrade to PageStream3, or to purchase PageStream3. If your friends mention you when ordering, they will pay our best price which we normally reserve for owners of Soft-Logik programs. In return, we'll give you $25 off your next Soft-Logik application purchase. --- END --- PS: Watch for another exciting announcement later this month! Kevin Davidson, Asst. Moderator AmigaZone Vendor Support - PORTAL SOFT-LOGIK BBS: (314) 256-8971 e-mail Tech support questions to: tech@slpc.com @endnode @node NEWS6 "Native Net" @toc NEWS ** R E D D E S E R T N A T I V E * * * (c)1993-95 * * * * * ****** ****** ****** ******* * * A * * * * * * *** *** ** * * G ********* ********* ******* ******* * * * * I B M * * * * * * * * ** * M * * * * * *********** **** A ********************************* ************* (613)744-4340, 24hrs, 1200-14,400bps *o ** o* ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * * * * Another Amiga*IBM BBS serving the Ottawa*Hull area. *=====* *======* SysOp: Apollo, Ron "Big Bear" Goddard, ********************* (Kitchi Maqua in Algonquin - Okwari-Okowa in Mohawk) N A T I V E N E T W O R K 90:163/1.0 NativeNet = Check out what's in the North American Native Network scene, we also carry Ottawa CKCU's Spirit Voice local message base. Loc = Local Sections/Ottawa ONLY NA = Native_Network 1. + NA-Canada Breakup 2. + NA-Moderator 3. + NA-Art 4. + NA-Chat (General Chat) 5. + NA-Cree vs Hydro 6. + NA-Education 7. + NA-Events 8. + NA-Geneology 9. + NA-History 10. + NA-Jobs 11. + NA-Languages 12. + NA-Literature 13. + NA-Politic 14. + NA-Programs 15. + NA-Questions&Answers 16. + NA-Reservation Life 17. + NA-SysOp 18. + NA-Trade 19. + NA-Trivia 20. + NA-Veterans 21. + NA-WoodLore 22. (Loc) + 1st Nations Conf. 23. (Loc) + CKCU Spirit Voice 24. (Loc) + Government Indian Acts 25. (Loc) + Aborig. Women's Support Centre 26. (Loc) + Native Land Treaties 27. (Loc) + Native Expressions I would like to take this oppurtunity to introduce Native_Network, the Native North American news and Information network. Native_Network is a computer network dedicated to news, issues and cultural information regarding North America's Indigenous populations. This network is geared toward any Native American/Canadian with access to a modem. Although Native_Network was designated for and by Native-Americans, non-natives with genuine concerns and interests in Native affairs are welcomed to join in the numerous areas which most bulletin boards (BBS) carry. (see ad above) Native_Network provides a wide range of topics and areas of interest. For the serious minded, you can find out the latest in Native legal affairs on Nations battling the dominant society over concerns such as treaty rights, land rights and international law or find out about current conditions on reservatons and historical perspectives. If you find the Net lacks something, please inform the local Sysop (system operator of the bulletin board/BBS) you're calling. Also call back from time to time, as new things are added quite often. For those looking for cultural material, Native_Network offers discussions and information sharing/relating to tribal language(s), native stories, poetry and legends. You can also hookup and find out about upcoming pow-wows, celebrations and gatherings and conferences. Looking for resources! Native_Network can help! From education and grant oppurtunities to listings and business development, Native_Network provides direct links to trading, bartering and programs being developed to help tribes help each other while becoming self-sufficient and increasing self-pride. Naturally, there are Conferences covering everything from Arts & Crafts to political exchanges and cultural beliefs. Informaton is available on issues from the U.S., Canada, South America, Australia, Africa, and Europe. Engage in intelligent and educational conversations with knowlegeable people who not only know Native affairs, but also live them every day. Native_Network is also a wonderful choice for schools, universities and the media. The current news and information is a welcomed addition to Native studies because it provides an up-to-date of current affairs and what is happening in Indian Country. Outdated school books and primers can't compare to today's news...today. Native_Network DEPENDS ON YOU! NATIVE-NET is also looking for new informationfrom Indian Nations not currently using our network. The more informationand nations that utilize this network, the more productive and informed our Native peoples can be. Sharing information, relating to cultural, legal matters, education, etc., will help to unite Native people and provide a wider base of information to draw from. Any ideas or suggestions on this matter are greatly appreciated. The Native_Network network is growing all the time and more and more information is coming over the echos. From Alaska to Florida, California to New Jersey, Natives news is happening all the time. For other BBS around the country, see our Native BBS Phone Listing. We have hopes of it to double in the next six months with the help of the users. If you are interested in hooking up with Native_Network, call our BBS (see our ad above). ou will need a computer and modem of 1200 to 14,400 baud to call in. Any Amiga, IBM compatible PC or MacIntosh computers are accepted. NATIVE-NETETWORK is coming in from Kanahwake Native Net Computer Systems located in Kanahwake Mohawk Territory (Frosty Deere is the SysOp at this Location). NOTE: Native_Network is NOT an INTERNET based network. IT is it's own network corelating the reserves and other communities around the world. --- Red Desert Native BBS (613)744-4340 InterNet: rgoddard@reddesert.jammys.net Ron 'Big Bear' Goddard (Apollo) FidoNet: 1:163/578.0 Home of Ottawa's Native_Network BWRDnet: 199:163/1.0 NativeNet: 90:163/1.0 TCNet: 201:935/102.0 @endnode @node NEWS7 "IPISA '95" @toc NEWS The Italian Amiga community will meet on November 18th, 1995, at the fifth annual IPISA conference. IPISA stands for "Incontro dei Programmatori Italiani per lo Sviluppo su Amiga" (Italian Programmers' Meeting for Amiga Development). IPISA is an open meeting (advance registration is required for a small fee) focussing on non-commercial products, projects and ideas, and on the distribution of high-quality information and advanced software tools. It is also a chance for (usually isolated) novice users to talk each other and to consult qualified and experienced Amiga users. IPISA is (and has been) a valuable occasion for small Italian enterprises working with the Amiga to do some head-hunting and to arrange professional talks with usually unreachable people, such as magazines chief editors and journalists, freelance programmers, etc. In the past, IPISA was an opportunity for Commodore Italia to introduce new products and to answer questions on its policies. Commodore Italia has always supported the IPISA conference by helping in the organization phase, by lending computers and sample products, and by participating in the conference through its representatives. Amiga Technologies GmbH has been contacted but they were unable to confirm or deny their presence. About past IPISA conferences As we said, this is the fifth conference; the first and second ones were held in Modena and were organized by three former Amiga developers. Even without press coverage, the conferences attracted 90 participants. Since 1993 the organization was taken over by a large group of developers and users living in Milan. The '93 edition was attended by more than 150 people, grown up to 220 in 1994. About this year's conference IPISA'95 will be held Saturday November 18, 1995, in the Conference Hall of the Centro Universitario ISU (via Valvassori Peroni 21 Milano). Here is a tentative list of the talks and papers (unless otherwise specified both are in Italian). Manuel Lemos - Upper Design (Madrid, Spain) Objection: a object-oriented class system for developing object-oriented portable applications (Amiga, POSIX-OS and X-Window System are supported). Both the talk and the papers are in english. Michele Battilana - Cloanto (Italia) A perspective of alternative and complementary technologies to the Amiga Paolo Canali Development of a bridge controller PCI 2.0 - Amiga MC68020/30 Rocco Coluccelli MOOS: an Arexx based modular programming system for application sharing Gabriele Falcioni e Stefano Guarnieri Visual Neurocomputing: Neural Networks and visual tools for their creation, training and use. Vincenzo Gervasi EUNice: a framework for object-oriented programming in Amiga E Alberto Longo - Fields of Vision software design (Italia) Breathless, a DOOM clone for Amiga: technical analysis, problems and solutions about texture mapping Giuseppe Ligorio A set of libraries for compressing IFF-ILBM images, IFF-8SVX sounds and Protracker modules Michele Puccini - ClassX (Italia) XFA: a freeware library for fast animation playback and IFF-XFA format handling Riccardo Solmi NetMail: an Internet mail reader Alessandro Tasora Phenomena: a RPL-Forth package extending Real 3D capabilities Federico Zuccollo Media Library: a modular file system A complete lunch will be served in the ISU refectory. Attendants will receive the Conference Proceedings, consisting of: - professionally printed documentation - some floppy disks - IPISA'95 CD ROM The disks and the CD-ROM will contain, talks-related software, PD and shareware software and demo versions of commercial programs. The fees are: - meeting admission (including lunch)..............................US$ 35 - Conference Proceedings for non-participants (sent by air mail)...US$ 35 Note well: To join the meeting, you need to book in advance before November, 1 1995 by sending e-mail to one of the addresses listed below. ruocco@dsi.unimi.it (Sergio Ruocco) attias@dsi.unimi.it (Roberto Attias) zandonad@dsi.unimi.it (Marco Zandonadi) Fees can be paid at the entrance. For additional informations please write to: Sergio Ruocco Via Di Vittorio 4 I-20019 Settimo Milanese @endnode @node NEWS8 "Chris's Button Strip V1.5" @toc NEWS Chris's Button Strip V1.5 : HTML Editing For Final Writer I don't know how many people out there use Final Writer extensively, but I have developed an HTML "editor" for use with it, using the user menu, button strips, Arexx scripts and text clips. I use it to produce HTML for Web authoring, aswell as converting ascii text into html. The system works by taking whatever has been selected by the mouse, and placing html code either side of the selection. If nothing is selected, then the html code appears, and the cursor is placed *within* the code, to allow you to type. All html code appears in a different color (red), and text is justified and highlighted depending on what you've done to it. (eg, clicking on the 'italic' button will add the and to the text, and also turn the text between the code to an italic font. The macros are packaged on my web site. The application is 'ChocWare' - if you like it, send me some chocolate, and I'll send you the latest version. You can get to it directly via:- http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/~cjs/cbs/index.html If anyone wants the archive but has no web access (can't think why you'd want it then..? ), I can email the uue file (100k with pictures). Enjoy ! And thanks to Woody for continuing to support us.. ! Chris email:cjs@icbl.hw.ac.uk voice:0131-451-5686 http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/~cjs/ video : (+44)-131-451-5686(ISDN-2) "..Vorsprung Durch Trabbi.." snailmail:Institute for Computer Based Learning, EH14 4AP Scotland @endnode @node NEWS10 "Amiga CDROM Guide" @toc NEWS TITLE Amiga CDROM Guide VERSION 1.2 AUTHOR Anders Bakkevold. (anders.bakkevold@norway.bbs.no) DESCRIPTION Amiga CDROM Guide (ACDG) was made to help Amiga-owners to pick the right CDROM for their needs. It doesn't include commecial games or photoCD-discs, but all Amiga PD/clipart/fonts/modules collections. - It is in the Amigaguide-format. - You will find all the vital information on a CDROM, like price, contents, publisher etc. - Covers 157 CDROMs - 70+ of the CDROMs have a review - If you're interrested in for instance raytracing, click on the keyword "Raytracing" to get a list of all CDROMs that can be assosiated with ratracing. - Other keywords: Clipart, fonts, pictures, utilities, GNU, text-files, fish etc - It's up-to-date with the latest CDROM releases. NEW FEATURES - 28 CDROMs added: Aminet 6 Da Capo Fresh Fish 9 Freshfonts 2 Sex CDROM no.1 Sex CDROM no.2 Sex CDROM no.3 Gateway Magic Illusions Zoom QwikForms Amiga Tools 2 Lechner Collection N.T.W.I.C.G. 2 Scenic Views Aminet 7 Ten on Ten Groliers Encyclopedia The EPIC Collection Multimedia Mania Pro WB Backdrop Collection Frozenfish (Aug 95) CBM 64 Sensations Fresh Fish 10 Speccy Sensations 2 Hottest Amiga Demos Shuttle Encyclopedia Internet Info Vol 2 - A new field: Access Software, which describes search utilities and index files included on CDROMs. - You can now tell from the listing of all the CDROMs wether the CDROM includes Amiga software or is just a PC CDROM - support the Amiga! - Other CDROM material, like CD-Write is also covered. - A lot of minor enhacements has been made. - Some faulty information corrected, and more prices and reviews added. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS You will need a program able to display Amigaguide files, like Multiview or xkpGuide. AVAILABILITY Amiga CDROM Guide is available from any Aminet site, for instance: ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/docs/hyper/ACDGv12.lha (60523b) PRICE Amiga CDROM Guide is freeware. DISTRIBUTABILITY Amiga CDROM Guide v1.2 is copyright 1995 Anders Bakkevold. All rights reserved. You may copy it as you like, as long as no changes are made to the archive, and you don't charge more than ś2.00 for the media and copying fees. @endnode @node NEWS11 "Termite 1.10" @toc NEWS TERMITE 1.10 NOW AVAILABLE! =========================== Some of the NEW features in 1.10: * Built in ZMODEM protocol The XPR ZMODEM library is no longer required for ZMODEM transfers. The functionality of the XPR ZMODEM library has been written into Termite, with portions hand-optimized in assembly language for speed. The built-in ZMODEM code also takes special measures to avoid dumping binary "garbage" characters on your terminal, in the event of an aborted transfer. * Improved emulation Termite now offers two built-in emulations: ANSI & VT102. The new ANSI emulator is much more complete and robust, and has been extensively tested with the most complex ANSI screens we could find. The VT102 emulator is ideal for use with UNIX or VMS dialup accounts, and can completely replace the XEM VT340 library for most users purposes. Both of the built-in emulations have mouse-based cut-and-paste functionality. * Jump scrolling Both of the built-in emulations offer the ability to "jump scroll". Instead of scrolling the screen one line at a time, Termite monitors incoming serial data and scrolls up multiple lines at a time, for a huge speed increase. * Multitasking review buffer You can now use the terminal and review buffer simultaneously! * Enhanced chat window The chat window now maintainss a resizable "history", which keeps track of the text you have sent. A single click on a line in the history brings it up for editing. A double click on a history line instantly resends it. * New dialer The dialer has been almost completely rewritten, although it still visually appears the same. The "Cancel" button is now available at virtually any point during the dialing process. Dial monitoring can be toggled for each individual phonebook entry. * Predefined palettes The screen settings requester now provides buttons which allow you to switch between ANSI, RIP, and Termite default color palettes with the click of a button. * Review buffer filter Optional filtering of ANSI codes out of the review buffer. * New macro capability You can now launch an ARexx script via a macro. * New button bar icons Sporting a cleaner default palette, Termite 1.10 offers a revised selection of button bar images, which occupy less than half the disk space of the previous images. * New button bar functions Settings requesters can now be accessed from the button bar. * Compatibility with previous configuration files Termite 1.10 will read your old 1.00 prefs and phonebook files without any sort of conversion program, although you'll probably want to browse through the settings menus anyway, to make sure you're getting the most out of Termite's new features. * Ignore file overwrite warnings "This file exists, overwrite it?" warning messages can be optionally turned off, for the benefit of expert users. * Ignore serial errors Optionally disable reporting of serial errors. Termite will just drop the offending data bytes instead. * New and revised ARexx commands "SerExpand" is now "Send". New commands, including "AppendCapture". * New manual * New quick reference card Quick reference card that explains the suggested usage of the default button bar images. * Recoverable alerts fixed All known instances of recoverable alerts have been fixed. * Much more... Many many little tweaks and improvements, for a leaner, meaner Termite! The price for registered users to upgrade is: US$10.00 for a new disk and the quick reference card, or US$15.00 for a new disk, the quick reference card, and second edition manual. There is also a US$2.00 shipping/handling fee. (Note: Some copies of Termite 1.00 already have the second edition manual. Check the copyright page of your manual to make sure.) To order, or for more information, contact: Oregon Research 16200 SW Pacific Hwy, Suite 162 Tigard, OR 97224 tel: 503-620-4919 fax: 503-624-2940 net: orres@teleport.com @endnode @node NEWS12 "Twist 2 Demo" @toc NEWS TWIST 2 RELATIONAL DATABASE DEMO NOW AVAILABLE ============================================== Oregon Research now has available a limited demonstration version of the TWIST 2 relational database program for the Amiga line of computers. It can be obtained directly from Oregon Research via uuencoded email at no charge, or sent to you on disk for US$5. The demo is also available from the biz/demos directory of AmiNet. (Announcement submitted by Steven Frank, technical support for Oregon Research) @endnode @node NEWS13 "Distant Suns" @toc NEWS From: Mike Smithwick [] Sigh. There has been a very slight ripple in the force about 10 days ago. I received my latest accounting sheet from my publisher, Virtual Reality Labs, and it was the first time NO Distant Suns/Amiga were sold. Zilch, NULL, nada. . . Sniff. VRLI no longer plans any further support for Distant Suns, although a smaller company, Chaocity, has picked up the Amiga line of products and have my source code for possible future versions. I want to thank all of you fine folks out there, customers, friends, fans of AmigaTrek, etc. As even the diehards start to wistfully consider the possiblity of moving over to PCs I might suggest that you consider the Distant Suns legacy. Two months ago the third generation of Distant Suns was released, called First Light. This is currently a windows product only, but I think it's a damn good one. Thanks guys and gals, it's been fun. You can reach Chaocity via 75300.3706@compuserve.com. Clint Woeltjen is the big cheese there, and is continuing Amiga development. @endnode @node NEWS14 "ShapeShifter 3.2" @toc NEWS TITLE ShapeShifter VERSION 3.2 AUTHOR Christian Bauer EMail: bauec002@goofy.zdv.uni-mainz.de SMail: Christian Bauer, Langenaustr.65, 56070 Koblenz, Germany DESCRIPTION ShapeShifter is a multitasking shareware Macintosh-II emulator for the Amiga computer. It allows to run Macintosh software concurrently to Amiga applications without hardware add-ons or modifications. Some of the emulation's features: - Color display up to 256 colors on AGA Amigas (16 colors on ECS) and up to 16.7 million colors on graphics cards - Support for one or two monitors - No MMU required, even runs on A1200 - Macintosh hard disks can be simulated in Amiga files or Amiga hard disk partitions [unregistered version has no hard disk partition support] - Can use Amiga floppy drives, serial, parallel and SCSI ports from the Mac [use of SCSI not possible in unregistered version] - Mac HD disks can be read directly with an HD floppy drive, Mac 720K disks can be used with any Amiga floppy drive. To use Mac 800K disks, you have to own CrossMAC and an original Mac drive - Multichannel sound output and parallel-port sound digitizers supported - Access to Ethernet networks - Text clipboard sharing between Mac and Amiga - File handler to access Macintosh volumes from the Workbench - Speed comparable to a real Mac with equivalent hardware The most important changes in V3.2: - A workaround for the mfm.device bug - The utility "SSOktaPatch" for users of Oktagon/AT-Bus 2008/ AlfaPower/TandemAT/ALF2/ALF3 controllers having problems with DeviceDisks and SCSI access (see the README in the archive "SSOktaPatch.lha") - Completely new SCSI settings - Phase 2 of the new SCSI routines: Direct transfers - ShapeShifter can be used with a two-monitor setup - The Merlin and Picasso support has moved into external drivers. There is now also a driver for the "Graffity" video system. - Improved Ethernet driver - Full 68060 support, including MMU refresh - Support for pre-emptive threads (yes, you CAN have pre-emptive multitasking on a Mac) - Owners of A-Max II+/IV can use the serial ports on the card - Fixed the Mac-Handler (no more "Destination file removed") - The Mac's sound output can be disabled completely ERRATA One thing that is not mentioned in the manual: The format of the "ShapeShifter PRAM" file has changed from earlier versions of the program. Anyone upgrading from previous versions should delete the PRAM file before starting ShapeShifter 3.2. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS OS2.1, 68020 processor, 4MB of RAM, HD floppy drive recommended. A copy of a Macintosh 512K or 1MB ROM and the Macintosh system software are not included, but required. The ROM can be read off of a real Mac by using a supplied program, the system software can be bought from Apple. Note, however, that reading the ROM is only legal if you have bought the ROMs or own a real Macintosh. AVAILABILITY Aminet sites: /misc/emu/ShapeShift3_2.lha ftp://server.biologie.uni-erlangen.de/pub/shapeshifter/ShapeShifter3_2.lha Next Generation BBS, Germany (ShapeShifter support BBS) Port 1: +49-261-805012 (Zyx19.2/ISDN) Port 2: +49-261-84280 (V.FC) PRICING The requested shareware fee is DM 50,- or US$ 40. Upon registration you will receive a keyfile that enables the disabled features (SCSI and hard disk partition support). DISTRIBUTABILITY Shareware (DM 50,- or US$ 40 requested) Bye, Christian -- / Christian Bauer, Langenaustr. 65, 56070 Koblenz, Germany \/ WWW homepage: http://www.uni-mainz.de/~bauec002/ @endnode @node NEWS15 "Magic-Backgrounds" @toc NEWS TITLE Magic-Backgrounds VERSION 5.0 AUTHOR Torsten Hiddessen Email: math@sun.rz.tu-clausthal.de URL: html://www.rz.tu-clausthal.de/~math DESCRIPTION This package contains 13 new Hight-Quality Magic-Backgrounds for use with Martin Huttenloher's MagicWB. I created 40 backgrounds before - this is the fifth release. I always tried to create patterns wish have no visible borders and can be repeated without looking trivial. I didn't want to be one of the authors wo put a dozen copies of the same pattern into an archive - just with different colors or with serveral figures drawn on it. I think thats not worth downloading... This time all backgrounds were taken from several photos. I processed the raw-material with ADPro 2.5.0 and finished it with DPaint 4.5, pixel by pixel - serveral days of work. Result: the best backgrounds available (IMHO)! Additionaly I have included two classic Boot-Pictures and two older backgrounds which fit very well into this package ;-) SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS In order to use this collection you will need: * An AMIGA ;-) with at least Kick 2.0+ (3.0 recommended) * A properly installed MagicWB of Martin Huttenloher or (under WB 2.0/2.1) NickPrefs * If you want to use a boot picture, you need a program like PicBoot V2.7 * Internet access - so you can send me e-mail to REGISTER! AVAILABILITY Magic-Backgrounds are available on any Aminet mirror in 'pix/mwb' ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/pix/mwb/MagicBGs5.lha or on my WWW-page http://www.rz.tu-clausthal.de/~math/AMIGA.html My previous releases were freeware - I just asked to send me comments by e-mail. So far, only a few nice guys (around 12) send me mail. BUT: I know that very much people use my backgrounds everywhere: on their Workbench, with MUI, inside DEMOS, on WWW-pages,... Therfore I decided to publish seven of 13 backdrops crippled: they are marked with a cross. You will receive a peronalised package if you register. PRICE Shareware ($7/10DM). @endnode @node NEWS16 "Wonder Computers Incorporated Expands" @toc NEWS WONDER COMPUTERS INCORPORATED EXPANDS SCOPE AND OPERATIONS Ottawa, Ontario, Canada September 12, 1995 One of North America's largest Amiga-only companies just got bigger. Wonder Computers, Inc. not only expanded their corporate headquarters and added a new multimedia dealership to their arsenal, but has formed Lazarus Engineering, a development arm dedicated to the creation and refinement of Amiga products. WCi's new headquarters keep the company based in Ottawa, but creates 3,000 extra square feet for the expanding administrative office needs of the company. The former HQ will continue to be used as a retail outlet, with larger floor space, more storage, and a full-time Amiga lab for classroom activities run by WCi's Information Technologies division. Coming off the heels of a successful showing at AmiJAM '95 in Western Canada, Wonder Computer has opened its fifth Amiga dealership in Vancouver, British Columbia. Tim McGuire, formerly manager of Wonder's Montreal store, has relocated to manage the new operation. With the addition of the Vancouver store, Wonder Computers occupies 13,000 square feet of Amiga-only business nationwide. In order to meet the demands of the global Amiga marketplace, Wonder Computers decided to add a new product development division to the team. Dubbed Lazarus Engineering, and lead by industry veteran Steve Cockwell, the division will bring the talents of such well-known developers as Steve Tibbett to the Amiga consumer. In addition to original, in-house projects, Lazarus is hard at work revamping and improving the product line WCi purchased from New Horizons Software last spring. Popular packages such as Flow, QuickWrite, and DesignWorks are being brought up to the standards of the latest Amiga operating system as well as improved to compete in today's marketplace. Under the ministrations of Amiga Technologies, the Amiga marketplace has a changing face. Wonder Computers, Inc. is taking the steps necessary to ensure that Amiga users worldwide are prepared for the future and are supported in their needs today. Wonder Computers, Inc. is a privately held corporation. Contact: Mark Habinski, President and CEO: mark@wonder.ca Jason Compton, Promotional Director, jcompton@wonder.ca, 708-332-6243 @endnode @node NEWS17 "Wonder Computers, Inc. Signs Promotional Director" @toc NEWS WONDER COMPUTERS, INC. SIGNS PROMOTIONAL DIRECTOR Ottawa, Canada - September 1, 1995 Mark Habinski, President and CEO of Wonder Computers, Incorporated is pleased to announce the hiring of Jason Compton in the newly created position of Promotional Director Compton, a noted journalist in the Amiga community, is enthusiastic about this move. "Wonder is in a position to make itself a formidable presence in the North American technology industry. At the same time, their momentum is a positive thing for the Amiga market and its visibility. I'm more than happy to be part of the team that gets both Wonder and the Amiga the notice and respect they deserve." Habinski added that "In Jason Compton, Wonder is acquiring one of the most visible and respected figures in the Amiga marketplace. Jason has inspired us all with his unflinching defense and support of the platform, and I am proud to have him join the WCi team." WCi is a privately held corporation headquartered in Ottawa, consisting of the Wonder retail arm with five multimedia dealerships in Canada; Lazarus Engineering, a software development team; "I.T.", an Information Technologies division responsible for computer education and Internet services; and WCi Distribution, a complete Dealer-Sales channel for all manner of Amiga merchandise. @endnode @node NEWS18 "AMG Gets World Wide Web Pages" @toc NEWS [From the pages' creator, Harv Laser, harv@cup.portal.com] AMG Inc. (formerly known as Avid Media Group, Inc.) publishers of Video Toaster User magazine and LightWave Pro newsletter is now on the world wide web. Their new URL is http://www.portal.com/~amg These pages are, of course, "under construction" and will be changing each month in sync with the two publications. So visit soon and visit often! @endnode @node FEATURE1 "News from Amiga Technologies UK" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== NEWS FROM AMIGA TECHNOLOGIES UK Steve Crietzman steve@parabbs.demon.co.uk =========================================================================== In early September, Steve had a 20 minute conversation with Sajjad Majid, Head of Developer Support UK. These are the points that came out of the conversation, reported by Steve. -Developer Support is still incomplete - (yep, I was told to fax Dr Peter Kittel -- I'd hate(/love :) to have his job at a time like this..) -Escom AG has evidentally not given AT the kind of money they need. However, after sales between now and Christmas, they hope to launch an agressive marketing campaign (referring to M$ and IBM as examples of such, convincing users Win95 was the best and only multitasking OSs, even though it isn't..) -AT plan possibility of marketting the fact that the Aniga can happily multitask within 2 Meg of memory, compared to Win95's 8Mb minimum, 16Meg recommended. -The image of the Amiga in the UK they aim to change from a games machine into a serious, low-cost multimedia platform. (Not necessarily the cost of the machine, but the cost of maintaining a comfortable one. Eg Win95 may set you back hundreds on upgrading your memory, as an example. More and more apps on the PC requiring Win95 thus memory, plus a Pentium, and the high cost of PC apps alone). -The A1300 is still in the production stage (naturally, but at least this confirms it). An 030-equipped Amiga with 4Mb of RAM seems the current specification, plus RISC-based and CDROM-equipped Amigas under consideration. -Developer Support looks likely to exist in two forms - one for PD/Shareware, where you pay 50 and receive includes, support utilities, help etc all on one CD-ROM. This is in contrast to C='s policy of charging 75+ for registration, 25 for the includes, and extras for their individual CDROM title with all this already on it, etc. -The other, for commercial developers, which includes full technical support. -A MORE OPEN APPROACH TO AMIGA USERS! AT-UK will not close their telephone lines to Amiga users any longer as C= did. They welcome feedback and suggestions from the users. -This also means users can give suggestions to AT for future machines, not just developers. Rather than C='s style "This is what you want, go and buy it" (the CDTV is a deadly example), AT will take more of a questionaire-style approach and _ask_ Amiga users what they would like to see. -A1200 pack to include no games (not suicide, but rather an attempt to push the serious multimedia-multitasking ability of the Amiga to the user, plus giving them applications to get them started straight away. I've been waiting for a serious full-hearted attempt to do this from C= UK for years, but their holding on to the games packs obviously show they were not willing to take the plunge). -400UKP price tag (approx. US$640 at current exchange rate) is realistic, and will gain support of dealers looking to increase their profits (last part taken from an earlier Usenet posting, not actually mentioned by Sajid). Due to high initial costs of choosing a new production plant, new headquarters, employment and wages of new engineers, support people, managers etc, holding press conferences/press releases, etc, this IS realistic. Profits will be spent on marketing/advertising when the money is availible. This is from "the horse's mouth" as it were. Statements are those of Amiga Technologies' Sajid Majid, not my own (except for comments and critisms that follow). Make of it what you will, it could all be bull or there could be more truth in there. As it appears to make sense, I tend to believe a lot of work is going on behind the scenes, for the benefit of the Amiga. Here's hoping I'm right.. ______________________________________________________________________ (__ SysOp of Quantum Singularity BBS - UK Amiga CNet(!) BBS ___)teve BBS National (01778) 393323 International +44(0)1778 393323 @endnode @node FEATURE2 "Interview with Giles Bourdin" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== INTERVIEW WITH GILES BOURDIN C 1995 by Markus Bieler and Claude Müller Members of AUGS (Amiga User Group Switzerland) =========================================================================== The Amiga User Group Switzerland had the possibility to interview Gilles Bourdin (Public Relations) of Amiga Technologies. Gilles was at the boot of Promigos, one of the two Swiss Amiga- distributors (the other is B&S Digitronic), at the ORBIT computer fair in Basle, Switzerland. "Orbit" is the largest computer-fair in Switzerland. We, (Markus Bieler and Claude Müller) asked Gilles Bourdin questions on several topics. The questions were based on the IRC-Conference that he had attended a few days before. Here are some hot infos you might find interesting. AmigaReport-readers get it first ! - On September 11th, the first Amiga 1200 were produced and tested in Bordeaux (France). As a result, about 8000 A1200 per week will be manufactured. The first A1200 will have arrived in Germany by the end of this week. - The Amiga4000T with MC68060 should be available from Nov./Dec. They are still discussing whether they will produce an own card or if they will license it from a third-party manufacturer. They are talking with several companies about that. - A future model, an improved A1200 will be also available with a CDROM. Also, MPEG will be possible. It's important for them that existing, correctly programmed CD32-software, will run on this CDROM, too. The A1200 CDROM will be based on the CD1200 which has never been delivered. - Amiga Technologies supports development of Software for Amiga on CDROM and in general. - He didn't give us many informations about the company ISE because this is still "secret". Amiga Technologies will give ISE a time-limit for development of a product. ISE then has to decide themselves how many people they will use for that job. Developments will be made by Amiga Technologies itself and by ISE. - Development of a RISC-Amiga is surely a priority. Until the first RISC-Amiga, MC68060 based Amigas are a good compensation. - Amiga Technologies has good contacts with the industry which will help and give advice in moving to RISC. This switch will be made in any case, be it "with or without ISE". - They are still discussing where development will be made. Germany is preferred, they are looking for the best solution. Some developers from the USA are willing to move to Germany. It's no problem to find capable people Germany/Europe that are able of doing Amiga-development. There are many excellent developers, as an example we should look at all the shareware-programmers. Amiga Technologies considers the large shareware-and PD market on the Amiga an important strength of the Amiga. - Development depends on the success of the sale of Amigas now. But we shouldn't worry about that, says G.Bourdin, since the "new" Amigas "gehen weg wie frische Brötchen" (oops, no intelligent translation available here, in other words: The demand is VERY high). 100'000 A1200 and 20'000 A4000T are practically sold. They expect to reach the break-even point in February. Because Amiga Technologies is a 100% daughter-company of ESCOM it is important to work in the direction of profit and have a good organization of the company. - To the question if AT thinks that it can compete with the fast development of the computer-world Gilles Bourdin responds with a clear "yes". There already is a demand now. The Amiga has many strengths in Video, Multimedia and most important the OS. One important strength of the Amiga OS is the low HW-performance it needs, but that doesn't mean that AT doesn't wants to develop better hardware. There are solutions that are not possible with a pc-clone, for example a cheap settop-box. Amiga Technologies has "good chances". - The fact that ESCOM doesn't have any experience in development doesn't lead to a negative influence on Amiga Technologies. "Mr. Schmitt knows what's up.", says Gilles Bourdin. For example, Schmitt has done the talks with SCALA that have lead to a good cooperation with SCALA on a software-basis. - The company SMG is a non-exclusive Amiga-distributor for America (others will follow). They are responsible for marketing and distribution. The contract is valid until the end of this year. - The Amiga 4000T is that expensive because it is a "new product" which has high costs to get into production. Also it needs expensive parts which can't be manufactured in very large numbers and are therefore more expensive than mass-production-parts. - Gilles Bourdin wants to underline that the construction of a company, including the start of the complete production within three months is a very good performance that can't be done that well by many ! In general, Amiga Technologies is a company that can make decisions very fast. - Marketing for this year is concentrated on PR (public relations): Press-conferences, attending shows/fairs, supporting distributors (e.g. attending "Orbit"), making contacts with the press. There will be press-conferences at the following places (this year): Milan (Italy), Madrid (Spain), Lisbon (Portugal), Bordeaux (France, with local French press and the intl. Amiga-press), Bradford (UK, together with Microvitec and the local UK press), Prague (11.+12. Oct., perhaps attending the INVEX-fair), Paris (5th of October), Cologne (Germany, World of Amiga). Advertising will be made in Amiga-magazines first, later also in some pc-magazines. Marketing depends on the country. In some, the Amiga-distributors will be part-responsible for marketing. - An Amiga internet bundle for A1200 and A4000T is planned. This must run from one disk, on an A1200, connected to a TV. - AT doesn't work together with the AOS replacement team, but they have "a good view of the market" and know "who's sitting at which place". Ideas of other people are discussed at AT. - One important goal in development of the OS is RTG. It is not planned to use pd-extensions like MUI for the OS because this isn't everyone's taste. - On the question which programming language / compiler will be used for OS-development he names SAS C. AT is in talks with SAS. Also there is another project from another company which is still secret. - Communication between Amiga Technologies and the ESCOM country- subsidiaries is excellent. - They are having Meetings with NewTek. - Talks about "Amiga in China" are still in progress. The market is a "gigantic chance". It is very likely that the Amigas that would be sold in China would be the same models used in the other markets. - The company Innelec is Amiga-distributor for France. They and AT will hold a press-conference together on Oct. 5th in Paris. - Macrosystem has licensed the Amiga-technology. Many companies are negotiating with Amiga Technologies concerning licensing parts of the Amiga-technology to realize their own projects. - Concerning the software-bundle, Gilles Bourdin said that it is the same in all countries. SCALA MM300 comes only in combination with a hd-drive. - Support (ADSP = Amiga Developer Support Program) is planned with WWW and FTP-servers. At the moment, ADSP can be reached at: adsp@amiga-tech.de Support on BIX is in discussion. - Important: All Amiga (incl. A1000 !!!) replacement parts will be available from Amiga Technologies Braunschweig. C 1995 by Markus Bieler and Claude Müller / Members of AUGS (Amiga User Group Switzerland) *** This text may not be used commercially without our permission.*** Contact-addresses: Markus Bieler Claude Müller Parkstr. 11 Auf den Hallen 32 CH-4102 Binningen CH-4104 Oberwil Switzerland Switzerland +41 / (0) 61 / 422 1543 +41 / (0) 61 / 401 21 17 2:301/707.2@fidonet 2:301/707.6@fidonet markus_bieler@ghost.aare.chnet.ch claudem@ghost.aare.chnet.ch AUGS contact-address: AUGS Seegasse 6c CH-3375 Inkwil Schweiz @endnode @node FEATURE3 "Amiga Tech and Giunti Multimedia in Italy" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== AMIGA TECHNOLOGIES & GIUNTI MULTIMEDIA WELCOME BACK THE AMIGA IN ITALY Marco Dufour marduf@galactica.it =========================================================================== Press Conference - Milano (SMAU) - 21/9/95 report from Marco Dufour - Computer Gazette Today (21/9/95) at 11:30 AM, in the C Conference hall of the SMAU computer fair in Milano (Italy), Amiga Technologies and Giunti Multimedia revealed their strategies for the future of the Amiga in Italy and the rest of the world. There were more than 30 journalists from various magazines (Amiga Magazine, Enigma Amiga Run, Amiga Byte, Computer Gazette, PC Magazine, MicroComputer etc.); they all waited for the good news: THE AMIGA IS BACK! Ok, who is Giunti Multimedia? Giunti is one of the oldest Editorial group here in Italy. Three years ago Giunti and Albino Bertoletti (Ex CEO of Commodore Italiana) founded Giunti Multimedia. Since then they published more than 42 CD titles for CDTV, CD32, CDI, CD-Rom. During the first week of September Giunti Multimedia agreed to be the exclusive italian distributor for the Amiga range products. They also distribute the spectacular I-glasses, the new Virtual Reality experience by Escom. The meeting was a success and everybody seemed satisfied (... the prices... a bit too high ...) Amiga in Italy: Obviously this was the most important subject of the meeting. The production is on the way and we should see the "new" Amiga 1200 and A4000 Tower very soon. Petro Tyschtschenko confirmed that on the 11th of september the first NEW Amiga was born in Bordeaux. That's a good news because it means they found all the pieces to make it, and be sure it hasn't been a simple task! By the way this means that the product will be on the shelves in the very near future (firt week of october, they say). The "new" Amiga 1200 has the same specs of the old one produced by Commodore. They had to do that because they wanted to get the Christmas sales. The good news is that it will have a serious Bundle wiht Wordworth 4, Personal Paint, Scala MM 300 and other good stuff. The bad news is that it will have a mere two MB of memory. Well, you can buy the new Blizzard 1260 (Phase 5) and have a truly workstation for less than 3000 Dmarks! The A1200 + kit costs 1.150.000 Lires VAT incl. The A1200 + kit + 170 HD costs 1.450.000 Lires VAT incl. The new A4000 Tower costs 5.890.000 Lires VAT incl. (68040/25MHz, 6 MB of ram and 1 giga HD - SCSI II) Amiga Technologies also showed the new Multisynch monitor. It's the Microvitec, a good monitor compatible with 15 KHz and 31 KHz frequences. This means it's compatible with A500 and A1200 too. The price of the monitor is set to 750.000 Lires VAT incl. I-glasses! During the meeting were introduced in Italy the fantastic I-glasses! The speaker, Denis Premiski, told that there are planned 25.000 units for Europe. He claimed it's the Virtual Reality tool for the masses. There will be a special Amiga bundle with specific Amiga drivers. NEWS: NewTek is back on the Amiga! They were undecided where to produce only the PC version of the Video Toaster and LightWave but then Amiga Technologies convinced them to continue supporting the Amiga. That's good, expecially for american users The new monitor from Amiga Tech. is the old but good MicroVitec. On october the 10th, Amiga Technology will have a party to welcome the new Amigas on the market. It will take place in Bordeaux, France. There will be an Internet Package, with Modem and programs. More news about that in the near future. The next generation Amigas (faster processor and better graphics) will be introduced at CeBit (Hannover fair, March 1996). Comment: Like in Frankfurt, last May, I felt Escom and Amiga Technologies are doing the best they can to bring back the Amiga. We, as users and fan of the Amiga, should let them know our support and our thinking of what future Amigas and current should be. Why not, for example, put an High Density drive inside the A1200? It's not a technical problem and the advantages are great! In my humble opinion I can't tell what's right and what's wrong, expecially before I see the final product (weren't we expecting a greeny Tower?). Let's hope all the promises will be mantained and the prices lowered. "Amiga, What You Want Is What You Get!" - Petro Tyschtschenko COMPUTER GAZETTE REPORT - Milano, 21/9/95 Marco Dufour ------------------- marduf@galactica.it @endnode @node FEATURE4 "I-Glasses" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== I-GLASSES Dr. Peter Kittel peterk@combo.ganesha.com =========================================================================== Perhaps some people already have heard about this new, fancy product. i-glasses! by company Virtual I-O in Seattle are a new and affordable way into 3d, or Cyberspace, if you want. For Europe, we have set up a sister company named Virtual Products, residing together with Amiga Technologies under the same roof in Bensheim. There are two parts: The main one are the glasses themselves, a color LCD for every eye, independent ones. Provided with the right signals, you will see real 3D effects. - The other part is called Head Tracker and is a position (or better angular) detector for your head to enable real-time looking around in space or do cursor-like movements by head movements. - Also mounted to the glasses are stereo headphones. To provide the right signals for the glasses is nearly trivial. They take a fully standard composite video signal (one wire, plus two others for stereo sound) as input. Thus there are PAL and NTSC versions of the glasses. The NTSC versions already exist, the PAL versions are also now shipping. As the video signal is standard, it is always interlaced. And then the even lines (or one half field) go to the right LCD and the odd lines (the other field) to the left (or the other way round, you can choose with a switch a the set, so you don't have to worry during programming). This way of coding is also called "field sequential". When I had the first PAL glasses in my hand and tried my first own software, my experience was: You have to make the effect much more drastic than I thought. For the nearest point to the face I chose on a HiRes screen 15 pixels horizontal spacing. This is far too little I learnt: If a pixel is infinitely far away, its two field pixels should be a quarter screen apart horizontally, when the pixels gets nearer, the field pixels get nearer to each other and cross finally. Assume that the view angle is only ca. 40 degrees. Another hint for programming: The resolution is rather low, something like 268 x 230 (don't have more concrete figures, sorry). The head tracker part is a bit more complicated, I'll quote below the data provided to me by Virtual I-O. >Date: Thu, 6 Jul 1995 01:58:14 -0700 (PDT) >Subject: Head Tracker Specs I tried to format the text the way it is in the developer's kit, but my mail program created a mess of it. The fax line has been busy, so hopefully this e-mail will work. Contents Introduction Basic Tracker orientation Communicating with the host computer Using the i-glasses! Tracker The i-glasses! Tracker command set Virtual i-O Tracker Modes Mode 0: Raw data mode Data packet format for mode 0 (Binary) Data packet format for mode 0 (ASCII) Send mode for data mode 0 Mode 1: Cooked data mode Data packet format for mode 1 (Binary) Data packet format for mode 1 (ASCII) Send mode for data mode 1 Mode 2: Euler angles mode Data packet format for mode 2 (Binary) Data packet format for mode 2 (ASCII) Send mode for data mode 2 Emulation Modes Mode3: Microsoft mouse emulation mode Mode 4: CyberMaxx emulation mode Examples Modes for terminal debugging Modes useful for applications Emulation modes Mouse mode Sample Code Notes: Introduction The i-glasses! Tracker, available exclusively from Virtual i-0 Corporation, sends yaw, pitch, and roll information to a host computer. This information is then available to application software for creating immersive, head-tracking, real-time stereoscopic 3D simulations called virtual reality. Basic Tracker orientation All orientation descriptions are from the perspective of someone actually wearing the Tracker: Positive yaw is defined as a left head rotation. Positive pitch is an upward head tilt. Positive roll is a left head tilt. The coordinate system used is +Y up, +Z out, and +X right (The positive axes can be formed with the right-hand index, middle finger, and thumb: a right-handed coordinate system. See Computer Graphics, principles and practice, by Foley et al for more inf ormation on coordinate systems). creating immersive, head-tracking, real-t ime stereoscopic 3D simulations called virtual reality. Basic Tracker orientation All orientation descriptions are from the perspective of someone actually wearing the Tracker: Positive yaw is defined as a left head rotation. Positive pitch is an upward head tilt. Positive roll is a left head tilt. The coordinate system used is +Y up, +Z out, and +X right (The positive axes can be formed with the right-hand index, middle finger, and thumb: a right-handed coordinate system. See Computer Graphics, principles and practice, by Foley et al for more inf ormation on coordinate systems). Communicating with the host computer The Tracker communicates with the host computer via an RS-232C 3-wire serial interface (TXD, RXD, GND). The Tracker can run at 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, and 19200 bps. The Tracker can be queried and tested using a standard ASCII terminal program. All commands are printable ASCII strings, and provide feedback to tell the application if a command was successfully processed. All commands (except 'S') begin with a '!' (Attention) and end with a carriage return (Hex D). The Tracker responds with an ' O' for OK or an 'E' for an Error. The 'S' (Send data) command requests the Tracker to send data to the host. In this case, only the requested data is returned, and a time-out check must be used to determine if an error occurred. Protected mode applications will need a bi-modal serial handler. A bi-modal serial handler for Watcom C/C++ is provided on the developer kit disk. Using the i-glasses! Tracker The Tracker must be initialized to a known state before an application can begin using the Tracker. Since the Tracker may be in a continuous streaming mode and at any of six supported bps rates, the host must send a reset command until successful. This will give the Tracker time to stop sending data and to change its communications rate if necessary. After the Tracker has been successfully reset, the host must put the Tracker into the appropriate mode for the application (polled, streaming, ASCII, bina ry, etc.). For emulation purposes, the Tracker retains its last operating modes (data mode, send mode, and send format) when it was powered off. All applications that directly support the Tracker must set and verify the operating modes on initial startu p. The i-glasses! Tracker command set All commands to the Tracker are printable ASCII characters. Each command (except 'S') is terminated with a carriage return (Hex D). Result codes, 'O' and 'E' are ASCII 'O' and 'E'. Tracker orientation data is sent to the host in either ASCII or binary. The serial protocol is one start bit, 8 data bits, no parity, and one stop bit. Command Description !R Resets the Tracker to the default state: cooked, polled, binary mode. All applications should put the Tracker into Cooked, Euler, or an emulation mode before requesting orientation data. !V Get the Tracker revision string. This allows future revisions of the protocol to work as applications will know what version of the hardware they are talking to. The string format is: M<16 chars>P<16 chars>T<8 chars>Hxxx.xxxFxxx.xxx where M is for Manufacturer followed by a 16 character ID string, P is for Product code followed by a 16 character product code or serial number, T defines product Type, H is for Hardware revision followed by a C format "%07.3f" revision string, and F is for Firmware revision with the same C format string. An 'O' or an 'E' is appended to the end of the returned string to indicate whether an internal self test has passed or failed. !M,,[,,][,,] Tells the Tracker to change data mode, send mode, send format, and filter modes, and is terminated with a carriage return (Hex D). Data modes are '0'-'4'. Send modes are 'P' for polled, 'C' for Continuous, and '0'-'1' in mouse mode. Send formats are 'A' for ASCII and 'B' for Binary. Filter ranges are '0' for none, and '7' for maximum. These parameters must be sent all at once, separated by commas, and in the defined order. Filter modes and mouse parameters are the only optional commands and shouldn't be set by the application, but rather by the Tracker manager software. If they are set by the application, the user must be able to change them. If the optional mouse parameters are set, the filter parameters must also be specified. The mouse sensitivity and threshold settings are fully described in the mouse emulation section. Only Tracker manager software should set mouse settings. S Tells the Tracker to send a packet of orientation data. In continuous modes, 'S' starts the stream. When a '!' is sent, the stream stops and the command is processed. '!' followed by a carriage return can be used to stop the stream. Virtual i-O Tracker Modes Mode 0: raw data mode The Tracker sends raw data readings from the sensors. The numeric format is 12 bits unsigned (0..4095) stored in 16-bits for all values. This mode is most useful for debugging the hardware. Data packet format for mode 0 (binary) The total packet size is 12 bytes. The byte format is: Byte Description 0 Header (always 255) 1 X-axis high byte 2 X-axis low byte 3 Y-axis high byte 4 Y-axis low byte 5 Z-axis high byte 6 Z-axis low byte 7 Pitch high byte 8 Pitch low byte 9 Roll high byte 10 Roll low byte 11 Arithmetic checksum (Bytes 0-10 added together) Data packet format for mode 0 (ASCII) The data is transmitted in the preceding form in ASCII hex with spaces separating each two byte ASCII hex value. This is for debugging only. Send mode for data mode 0 The send modes for data mode 0 are 'P' for Polled and 'C' for Continuous. In continuous mode, a '!' command stops the stream and the 'S' command restarts it. To read data in continuous mode, the application searches for a start header (255). Once f ound, the rest of the packet must be read in, the checksum computed and compared to the packet's checksum. If the checksums don't match, the application must reread the data one byte beyond where it last found a 255 and start the process over again. Alternatively, the application can stop the stream with a '!', pause a few character send times, flush its read buffers, then send an 'S' and begin reading the stream. All raw modes should not be used for commercial applications. They are for factory debugging only. Mode 1: Cooked data mode The Tracker scales the magnetic vector, centering it about the zero, and linearizes the tilt sensor readings based on internal factory calibration constants. This is the mode to use when performing the angle computation on the host. The data format is s igned 16-bit words. The x, y, and z magnetometer readings are approximately +/- 16384 (This varies with the Earth's magnetic field). The pitch and roll readings are converted to linear values where +16384 = 180 degrees and -16384 = - 180 degrees. To convert to floating point: degrees = (float)reading/16384.0*180.0. A provided C library routine converts the cooked data values into yaw, pitch, and roll. Data packet format for mode 1 (Binary) The total packet size is 12 bytes. The byte format is: Byte Description 0 Header (always 255) 1 X-axis high byte 2 X-axis low byte 3 Y-axis high byte 4 Y-axis low byte 5 Z-axis high byte 6 Z-axis low byte 7 Pitch high byte 8 Pitch low byte 9 Roll high byte 10 Roll low byte 11 Arithmetic checksum (Bytes 0-10 added together) Data packet format for mode 1 (ASCII) The data is transmitted in the preceding form in ASCII hex with spaces separating each two byte ASCII hex value. This is for debugging only. Send mode for data mode 1 The send modes for data mode 1 are 'P' for Polled and 'C' for Continuous. In continuous mode, a '!' command stops the stream and the 'S' command restarts it. To read data in continuous mode, the application searches for a start header (255). Once f ound, the rest of the packet must be read in, the checksum computed and compared to the packet's checksum. If the checksums don't match, the application must reread the data one byte beyond where it last found a 255 and start the process over again. Alt ernatively, the application can stop the stream with a '!', pause a few character send times, flush its read buffers, then send an 'S' and begin reading the stream. Continuous mode is not recommended for commercial applications (error recovery is dif ficult and serial interrupts and CPU cycles are wasted). Mode 2: Euler angles mode The Tracker sends yaw, pitch, and roll angles. The data format for yaw, pitch, and roll is a signed 16-bit word, where +16384 = 180 degrees, and -16384 = -180 degrees. Data packet format for mode 2 (Binary) The total packet size is 8 bytes. The byte format is: Byte Description 0 Header (always 255) 1 Yaw high byte 2 Yaw low byte 3 Pitch high byte 4 Pitch low byte 5 Roll high byte 6 Roll low byte 7 Arithmetic checksum (Bytes 0-6 added together) Data packet format for mode 2 (ASCII) The data is transmitted in the preceding form in ASCII hex with spaces separating each two byte ASCII hex value. This is for debugging only. Send mode for data mode 2 The send modes for data mode 2 are 'P' for Polled and 'C' for Continuous. In continuous mode, a '!' command stops the stream and 'S' command restarts it. To read data in continuous mode, the application searches for a start header (255). Once found, th e rest of the packet must be read in, the checksum computed and compared to the packet's checksum. If the checksums don't match, the application must reread the data one byte beyond where it last found a 255 and start the process over again. Alternative ly, the application can stop the stream with a '!', pause a few character send times, flush its read buffers, then send an 'S' and begin reading the stream. Continuous mode is not recommended for commercial applications (error recovery is difficult a nd serial interrupts and CPU cycles are wasted). Emulation Modes Mode 3: Microsoft mouse emulation mode When in binary mode and communicating with a mouse device driver, this mode operates at 1200 bps and simulates a 7 bit data byte (with 1 stop and 1 start) by always sending the last data bit as a simulated stop bit. The output format is defined by the Mic rosoft mouse data format (3 byte format). While operating in mouse mode, X is determined by a scaled yaw angle calculation. Y is determined by a scaled pitch angle sensing. Send mode 0 for mouse mode This mode sends values like a mouse. Delta values are sent as long as the Tracker moves. The size of the deltas depends on how far the Tracker has moved. Send mode 1 for mouse mode When the Tracker is first initialized into this mode, a reference position is taken. Any movement away from this reference position results in deltas being continuously sent until the Tracker is moved back to within the threshold near the reference posit ion. The size of the deltas depends on how far away the Tracker is moved from the reference position. Sensitivity and mouse mode mickey values One X mickey is 1/4 degree change in yaw and one Y mickey is 1 degree change in pitch for a sensitivity of 1. As sensitivity increases, the change per degree increases. Thus, a sensitivity of 2 represents 1/2 degree change in yaw, etc. A sensitivity of 0 can be used to disable X or Y mickeys. For example, DOOM works best with the Y axi s disabled, where yaw causes the head to turn and pitch has no effect. The range for sensitivity is 0-9. Mouse threshold settings The threshold settings determine how far the Tracker has to move before a packet is sent. If the threshold is low, a movement in the Tracker will result in packets being sent frequently (small mickey counts sent frequently). If the threshold is high, th e Tracker must move farther before a packet is sent (large mickey counts sent infrequently). The threshold is related to sensitivity in that the movement values are first adjusted by sensitivity before being compared to the threshold settings. The thres hold range is 0-9. Mode 4: CyberMaxx emulation mode [Not yet implemented] Examples Modes for terminal debugging !M0,P,A,0,0 Raw polled mode, ASCII, no filtering. !M0,C,A,0,0 Raw continuous mode, ASCII, no filtering. Modes useful for applications !M1,P,B Cooked polled mode, binary, filtering not changed. !M1,P,B,0,0 Cooked polled mode, binary, no filtering. !M1,P,B,3,3 Cooked polled mode, binary, medium filtering. !M1,P,B,7,7 Cooked polled mode, binary, full filtering. !M2,P,B,3,3 Euler polled mode, binary, medium filtering. Emulation modes Mouse mode !M3,P,A,0,0 Mouse mode, polled, ASCII, no filtering. This is for debugging only. !M3,C,A,0,0 Mouse mode, continuous, ASCII, no filtering. Transmits only when the mouse moves. For debugging only. !M3,C,B,3,3 Mouse mode, continuous (whenever the mouse moves), binary, medium filtering. For true mouse emulation, this command must be sent at 1200 bps to put the Tracker into 1200 bps mode. Sample Code /* test.c: Simple program that prints data to the screen. */ /* Uses src\simple\vstrack1.lib. See the devkit disk for more info. */ /* Created 2/17/95 */ /* John Schultz */ #include #include #include #include #include "vstrack1.h" void main(int argc,char ** argv) { TrackerData td; TrackerStatus ts; ts = initTracker(&td,TP_COM1,9600,timerSecs(2)); printf("%s.\n",trackerInfo(ts)); if (ts != TS_OK) { closeTracker(&td); exit(0); } // if ts = sendTrackerCMD(&td,"!M1,P,B\r",timerSecs(2)); if (ts != TS_OK) { printf("%s.\n",trackerInfo(ts)); closeTracker(&td); exit(0); } // if requestTrackerData(&td); while (1) { float y,p,r; if (kbhit() && getch() == 'q') break; ts = readTracker(&td,timerSecs(1)); if (ts != TS_OK) { printf("\n%s.\n",trackerInfo(ts)); resetTracker(&td,timerTSecs(1)); } // if requestTrackerData(&td); y = TOFLOAT(td.euler.y); p = TOFLOAT(td.euler.x); r = TOFLOAT(td.euler.z); printf("x %6ld y %6ld z %6ld y %6.2f p %6.2f r %6.2f\n", td.magnetic.x,td.magnetic.y,td.magnetic.z,y,p,r); } // while closeTracker(&td); } // main /* test.c */ (end of quote) The details about tracker programming are an excerpt of the i-glasses! Developers Kit. This kit consists of a PC version of the glasses, docs, and a CD with examples and costs $1000. There will be also a version of the kit with the developer material only for ca. $50 (Also the PC version of the kit comes with a CD with 10 games.) You can purchase this kit directly from Virtual-io in Seattle (address next time). You also can get such material from their ftp site: ftp.vio.com, look into outgoing/docs and especially the file webdev.doc there. To give you an idea what the glasses products are aside from the Amiga: There is a VCR version which is made for a WalkMan-like VCR and is just the glasses connected to this VCR. The second product is the "PC" version. It's much more expensive, because it also contains a VGA-to-composite conversion box, and the Head Tracker. The Amiga version of this product is not yet defined precisely. This is because it depends on which Amiga you use, for the A1200 you need only the glasses and the Head Tracker without that conversion box of the PC version. For the A4000, you would need some Composite modulator or similar, perhaps we have to produce again something like the A520, this is not yet clear, sorry. But anyway, for the Amiga, the kit will probably contain the glasses and the Head Tracker, which connects directly to the serial Amiga interface. So you don't need that VGA-to-composite conversion so that the Amiga version should become significantly cheaper than the PC version and end up somewhere in the middle between the Video and the PC version (rough guess currently, no guarantee). -- Best Regards, Dr. Peter Kittel // Private Site in Frankfurt, Germany \X/ Email to: peterk@combo.ganesha.com Now re-employed at Amiga Technologies GmbH in Bensheim, Germany Currently only rarely reachable via email and news, sorry. @endnode @node FEATURE5 "IRC Conference: Giles Bourdin" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== IRC CONFERENCE: GILES BOURDIN =========================================================================== [This first conference was held without notice on IRC EFNet. Not all questions were answered, but this represents the transcript in reasonably clean form. Thanks to Robert Reiswig and Niteflite for providing logs.] gbo | let me tell a few things here AT exists now for three months when we set up the thing, we set one top priority: bringing Amigas back to the market ASAP this ment : no enhancements to current models. we had to be quick because there is a big demand for current models. we know that we HAVE to enhance the technology otherwise we are dead in less than one year but there are very important strategic decisions to be made and these decisions have to be taken carefully because they will set the direction of RD for the coming years. these processes of decision just can't be made public until they are completed we want our company to be profitable in three months of existence, ESCOM has spent tremendous amounts of money to set up operations, and production many times the initial investment of the buyout. RobR | When AT was formed there was some info about a HomePage.... is the Up yet? Something would be better then nothing... i think this would be a good way to inform us all... gbo | yes, we are making our homepage RobR | What is the time frame ? gbo | actually, the servers are running already gbo | we have following domains : gbo | Amiga-tech.de gbo | amiga.de gbo | and Amiga.com soon gbo | there will also be an ftp server accesible for the press, developers and users gbo | the homepage will be updated dayly NiteFlite | what can you comment on the US disrtibution? Whats the delay in namimg someone. Jkay | ok .. looks like a "no comment" .. Frotz? Frotz | I understand your startup problems, but don't you think that "hype" is important to this machine? The current lack of information is equal to death in most consumer's eyes... after 3 months the "we're new at this" thing isnt working, you have had time to hire experienced people... [Bourdin announced here that the North American distributor was Service Management Group, SMG, contracted until the end of 1995.] gbo | ps: the distribution contract is not exclusive gbo | these were not problems. gbo | but difficult tasks to achieve. gbo | when I joined the company, we were 3-4 people gbo | it was not easy to do what we did but we did it. gbo | now, new people come every day and thaings are really becoming a lot easier gbo | but we are still a small team gbo | and the IFA fair in Berlin for instance took lots of time and ressources. gbo | that's why we have been silent for almost three weeks gbo | at least i have been silent because I was realoly busy. Phalanx | When can we see OS upgrades and will it be more vigorous than when C=3D went from 1.3 to 2.0 (length of time), also will the OS be ported to a more common hardware platform? Babbage | ok a couple of things...... Babbage | a) why does the price of the amigas when they come back out unchanged seem so high? with no excuses of production runs etc. especiall the 4000/60, there way higher than they should be, especially competing against lower price higher spec pcs '. and you say there are so many people wanting amigas, you should easily recoupe any costs selling them at more competitive prices gbo | these prices are to be seen as introductory prices Babbage | b) do you see yourself aiming newly specced amiga hardware at todays specced similar machines, or way ahead to try and win back more people Babbage | re b) i know many people who wont give things a second look at those prices :( gbo | the a4000T is actually a new product, since it hasn't been released by Commodore on the mass market. gbo | there have only been 200 pieces manufactured gbo | starting up a production like this is very expensive. Babbage | c) will you be talking to non developer users as well, eg. demo / pd game writers when designing new hardware as well for ideas gbo | we didn't take over any production facilities from Commodore there are first professional users such as companies who need Towers like SCALA for instance, who bought a big bunch of them. and also TV channels for their production needs. The problem with production costs is extreme for DRAMS. without ESCOM and their connections, nothing would have been = possible at all. gbo | we know that the price is high but that's life, we are starting with 20000 units of A4000T and the bill of material is high gbo | b) we want to RISC and enhanve the custom hardware Babbage | re b) do you want to meet other platforms or beat other platforms though gbo | c) we are listening to everyones suggestions Tau | one important question: what is the word for developers? Tau | when can we expect a working developer support program? gbo | tau: we are going to support developers of course gbo | ADSP is being currently build up gbo | we are talking to SAS for having a supported C system gbo | we also are talking to a german company that has finished development of an object oriented C++ system on the Amiga Babbage | gbo: know if escom are gunna setup their own software in-house? Babbage | that would help! Tau | I believe I'm talking for all remaining Amiga shareware developers when I say that the future still remains very unclear to us. In fact, for many people the present is unclear gbo | tau: we are all amiga fans here, we really do all our best to succed in bringing it back to the market Tau | I for one hope to see developer support information on your www server RSN Babbage | gbo: be cool to see a place set up where all www, ftp, irc, etc.etc. is all run on an amiga :) NiteFlite | gbo: One would hope so given the money Escom put in, also si= nce the Amiga is a passion you should expect this irateness from us. :> --- --- --- --- --- --- --- [This second conference was an extension of sorts, two days later, of the first.] Tau | gbo, could you start by giving us a quick overview of the near future plans of Amiga Technologies? When will we actually see machines on sale, and where will we see them? gbo | please be aware that gbo | i am a PR guy, not an engineer gbo | actually today was a historical day for us gbo | the first 1200 board came out of the line gbo | it has been tested and was good. gbo | so we can now go into mass production. gbo | the A4000T should be delayed a few more days that means that the machines should hit the shelves on schedule. now that production runs, we can concentrate one other things gbo | like what we want to do for next year. gbo | next thing to arrive will be the 060 board for the a4000T gbo | then we want to enhance the A1200 gbo | give it more memory expansion onboard, gbo | make the motherboard less power consuming gbo | adding an easy CD ROM expansion with MPEG gbo | These are the plans for the near future, this means early 1996 for us. Lohengrin | One of the thingsthat made the Amiga less tha popular was that you couldn't go into mainstream software shops and purchase Amiga titles readily. Does Amiga Technologies have any plans to encourage large software chains and/or independant dsoftware retailers to carry Amiga compaatible titles again? gbo | Of course we are. We are also talking to software editors [Note-I presume he means "publishers" -Jason] to make them write that software we want to see in these shops (jonathan Anderson is doing a good job regarding this in the UK) jalovick | I have 3 or so questions jalovick | has AT contacted Australian distributors, jalovick | what of hte old range will you continue to support jalovick | and do you think you'll move away from the 680x0 CPU soon ? gbo | We are looking for a distributor in Australia but haven't chosen one yet. we will have to move away from the 680XX processor range for sure NiteFlite | What are or will be the eventual USA marketing plans or promotions? If so, will you coordinate them, or Ed Goff (ie/ the US office)? Any dealer support? GA gbo | In the united states, we are looking for a partner more than for a distributor. We have some negociations going on at the moment that seem to be very promising. Currently, we have signed a non-exclusive agreement with a distributor called SMG. this contract is valid until the end of the year. marketing and promotion will be made by our partner in the states, in accordance with us of course narwhal | Will the CD32 be reintroduced or an upraded version? Or at least will the MPEG card ever be available? I have three sx-1 CD32's here gbo | The CD32 should not be reintroduced this year gbo | We want to do something new next year on the CD32 base. For the MPEG card for the actual CD 32. I think that we aren' t going to produce it anymore. But we are looking at the market and if it is worth it, we have no problem if a third party co mpany wants to produce it under licence. This could actually be a good solution NorthWay | when can we hope for ADSP to restart? are you going to do the chips in CMOS for lowpower? and was the DSP project sold to a 3rd party? gbo | adsp will restart gbo | yes, we want the chips to consume less power. This is actually one of the development goals for the near future gbo | Sorry, don't know about the DSP project. Idea-MW | Are there any plans for an internet package for the Amiga? There is potential but alot of internet software currently available seems to be under-supported or not entirely user-freindly, at least when compared to PC applications. Tau | mattc informs me that the DSP project was completed but never produced gbo | Yes, we are working on an internet package indeed. gbo | I think this will be a very sucessful bundle for the A1200 and for the A4000T. Tau | is it based on AS225 or AmiTCP? gbo | For the A1200, we want something that can run with disks and the standard 2MB of RAM. And the package has to be very easy to use, sort of plug and play. regarding online services, we actually have a lot of plans but these i can't talk about Tau | gbo, will this internet package be based on AS225 or AmiTCP? gbo | It depends on more than one factor. gbo | the advantage of AS225 is that it' ours gbo | the advantage of Amitcp is that it's better Tau | many of us TCP/IP software developers might disagree on the latter ;) gbo | i haven't said witch one we will use, so what is there to dis agree with ? Frotz2 | gbo: you expressed a preference for which one is better, one that many developers wouldnt agree with. gbo | amitcp is more advanced Tau | (there are several TCO/IP oriented developers here, and to my knowledge all of us prefer AS225 (or Interworks' I-Net 225)) Tau | okay, two would prefer AmiTCP ;) The_Kid | Are we going to see A1200 with 2 megs chip and 2 megs fast out of the box? And will the A1200 be more or less in price now tha t your ppl are making them? gbo | The current A1200 slod will have 2 meg chip ram and an optional 170 MB harddrive loaded with the bundle sW gbo | the price i can tell is 699 DM without HD and 999 DM with 170 MB gbo | the prices of course will depend on different countries, VAT, etc... Timmer | My question is regarding OS development... have any plans been made yet in this area, and WHEN will deve lopers be given any clue as to the directions the OS will take? Also, who is in charge of OS development that developers can contact? [and I prefer AS225 over AmiTCP :)] gbo | The OS has to be improved in many points gbo | actually you know them as well as we do gbo | there has been some work done on this by the AOS replacement project team. gbo | please don't ask me about details but i know about ressource tracking, vMem, and memory protection to be urgent things to improve/implement gbo | the docs for developers will be made available on our ftp and www servers. this is being made currently. there will be email adresses for ADSP support. we are still building up this developer support structure and we want it to be efficient and easily accessible. Tau | can you give a time estimate when these will be available? Tau | gbo, as you can see, people have more questions than you have time to answer. Maybe there is something wrong with Amiga Technologies PR? ;) gbo | tau: servers are running gbo | domains are reserved and used Tau | gbo, I tried to access said servers on Monday with no luck. gbo | email adresses have to be made and publicly announced gbo | the developer docs have to be put in a directory gbo | i think this should be running in two weeks. gbo | (actually it is already but not accessible yet) caldi | Also OS related, we have a BOOPSI toolkit called ClassAct which addresses a number GUI/API issues, who would be the contact to discuss inclusion of such work in the the OS? And, will developer support be public or private and $$$ as it was with CATS? gbo | i said at the beginning of this conf that i was no developer nor engineer but i will try to answer the question gbo | i think this support should be $, not $$$ ramscan | what about delevoper support on BIX, whats happening to that? and will 3.1 RKMs be made available? gbo | BIX is also a theme of discussion among our support guys although i'm not into that discussion, i know that it is one of their concerns and that they will adress it for sure Frotz2 | gbo: the lack of information now is far worse than even during the liquidation, to be honest. the lack of public notice is VERY bad for you guys. We don't even have contact info for the US distributor. gbo | i know. We are very busy with fairs currently and the PR section is just built up now. not easy to get the adresses and databases for the press worldwide. because we dont only want to be present in amiga magazines. gbo | but don't tell me that there is less info than during the liq uidation, it's simply not true. Tau | this is the feeling here on the field Frotz2 | gbo: there was FAR more media coverage of the amiga in any single month of the liquidation than you folks have managed in 3 months. it's a fact. gbo | we are going to be present at the world of Amiga in Colone, 10-12 november 1995. maybe because journalists prefer to report about catastrophies Frotz2 | gbo: i'm sure it has nothing to do with inactivity on your part. gbo | and BTW i was the one providing info about Commodore on the net for one year [He certainly didn't have an exclusive market on that...-Jason] Jerusalem | As a long time member of a user's group, I'd like to know how your support is set up for User's groups, and How will Canadian dealers aquire the new hardware, Thanks Cyberwlf | gbo: What sort of media coverage (if any) is planned for Aust ralia? (or even Australasian region) gbo | we will support user groups and fairs and events and everything possible according to our human ressources. of course we know how valuable user groups are for us. this can be by sending some machines, POS material or attendi ng etc. but please be aware that we still are a small company. gbo | we now have 32 people in Bensheim gbo | 5 in London gbo | 3 in the USA (sorry i had to count) gbo | and 3 month is NOTHING when you build up a company gbo | and the will be the Amiga homepage THE OFFICIAL ONE this month @endnode @node FEATURE6 "IFA Fair Report" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== IFA FAIR REPORT Sergio Ruocco ruocco@tac.sm.dsi.unimi.it =========================================================================== [Taken from comp.sys.amiga.misc, in response to a third-hand account of the show] When I was there (Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 Sept.) I was able to find the AMIGA TECHNOLOGIES booth simply asking to IFA personnel at the Info kiosks for "AMIGA": tha girl said "Oh, yes, it's hall nr. xx" without browsing the huge index) When I arrived to the right place (browsing the entire fair) I saw a large booth located in a angle of the showroom, very well laid out, in elegant black with giant labels: AMIGA (with the small red square), Commodore (in a different font), I-Glasses and ESCOM. On the boot there was a big screen displaing real time AMIGA 4000 24 bit animations and SCALA presentations. On display there were a number of A1200 and A4000T, three CD32 with FMV cards, ESCOM and Commodore PCs, and the Virtual I-glasses connected both to the Amiga and to the PC. Representatives at the stand were numerous (maybe 20) and from all the companies: AMIGA TECHNOLOGIES, VIRTUAL PRODUCTS, ESCOM/COMMODORE and also from external companies, like SCALA and Macrosystem, which were showing their presentation program and the DRACO (Amiga clone without custom Amiga chips, AMIGA OS 3.1 MC68060 @ 66 Mhz, 48 Mb ram, Retina & VLAB MOTION). I personally met and had a long talk with Mr. Gilles Bourdin and Mr. Hohmann, both from AMIGA TECHNOLOGIES, with three people from SCALA, the guys of MACROSYSTEM and Electronic Design. All of them were very excited of the feedback they got from the people attending the fair. In particular, Mr. Bourdin was continously asked "When the AMIGA will be available ?" by Video professionals from german and international TV stations. The booth was always filled with people looking at the computers, and trying the i-glasses (very exiciting experience, indeed !). Sergio Ruocco - ruocco@ghost.sm.dsi.unimi.it Via Di Vittorio, 4 I-20019 Settimo Milanese Milano Phone: 0039-2-3283896 @endnode @node FEATURE7 "IFA Fair Report" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== IFA FAIR REPORT Jason Krüger J.KRUEGER@JPBERLIN.BerliNet.de =========================================================================== [Again taken from comp.sys.amiga.misc. The below is the quoted question that prompted this report. -Jason] JS-> Did Amiga Technologies present the Amiga on IFA fair in Berlin? JS-> Are there any reports available? Yes, they did! But they shared their presentation area with commodore pcs, that's why their actual stand was relatively small. They presented, I guess, 6 Amigas, 4x 1200 and 2x 4000. I didn't see any Towers! But on the 4000 Desktop Computer I recognized a "4000T" Sign. On the A 1200 they presented the workbench (I think it was a 4 colour one). Very awfully! On one 4000 the showed a Dino-Animation, on the other high grade Amiga I think they presented Scala. Beside the Amigas, there were dozens of Commodore Pentium PCs! And, yes, there were prospects about the Amiga Clone DraCo. Very disappointing, hum? The only positive features were the nice A1200 and A4000T prospects. ___ / / _______ Greetings... Jason / /_/ ____/ \___ __/ Name: Jason Krueger, J.Krueger@JPBerlin.BerliNet.de ==== \_/ ====== Fon: +49-30-861-62-35 LOGOUT FASCISM! Destinaton: Berlin-Wilmersdorf, Germany @endnode @node REVIEW1 "Review: AirMail 1.2" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== REVIEW: AIRMAIL 1.2 By: @{" Addison Laurent " link ADDISON} =========================================================================== Product Reviewed: AirMail 1.2 (registered) Danny Y. Wong 131 64 Ave N.W. Calgary, Alberta T2K 0L9 CANADA Listed Price: $25 USD ($35 CDN or equiv) to register $10 USD ($14 CDN or equiv) additional for 1 year of product upgrades Demonstration version available on AmiNet and finer BBSes with auto UUencode/decode, user groups, spooled mail, and timed mailbox checking disabled. Listed System Requirements: AmiTCP 4.x WorkBench 2.1 or higher Review: AirMail is a utility program to receive mail for use with a SLIP/PPP (Serial Line Internet Protocol/Point to Point) account on an Internet Service Provider, where the connection is dynamic, and the user may not be connected at any given time. (The POP3 standard). It also has the ability to interface with a SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol) mailer on a system to send mail. It also allows for off-line message reading and creating. Installation of AirMail is very simple. Running the supplied REXX script installs the 2 libraries it needs, and creates a subdirectory in ENVARC: for variables. The script does not check to see if these libraries are already in place (translator.library and socket.library), so if you had newer version of either of these, it would be overwritten by the install. When run, the program prompts the user to configure the program. The program must be configured with the name of the mail host, user name, desired editor, and in and out box paths. While the documentation describes AirMail as being "a stand alone program that does not required [sic] any additional programs" there is no built-in editor, so one must be configured if the user wants to compose or edit mail. The example given is for the C= editor, ed, but I tested with memacs and the demo version of GoldEd also. A very nice feature is the browsing ability to find the programs needed. Next to the boxes to configure paths, editors, etc., there is a select button which pops up an ASL requestor, allowing the precise path and file name to be found. A small window pops up, with 5 icons. These icons have no text descriptions on them, and I had some trouble remembering what several did. I felt much more comfortable pulling down from the menu to do exactly what I wanted, rather than trying to remember which box was the in and out box. I suppose one could get used to this interface, and remember which icon does what, but it seems that a one-word description in the icon would be a very simple thing to add, and one that would make use much simpler. The leftmost pops up a requestor to send mail. The To: and From: addresses must be filled in before the editor can be invoked, but there is no message or error if you try to edit the mail first, just nothing happens. I would prefer to be told why something didn't work, and what fields must be filled in to continue rather than having to guess. The next button over is the address book. Addresses can be added here, for groups and for individuals, allowing point and click sending and forwarding. The next two icons are the In and Out boxes. Mail queues up in the out Box until it is sent. This allows off-line message composition, and then transmission at one time. The last icon gets AirMail to check the POP3 mailbox on the host for new mail. Documentation of AirMail consists of an AmigaGuide document, which documents adequately in most areas the use and function of AirMail. It falls short in some areas, notably the "Attach" ability in the send mail. In the AirMail/docs/ directory, there were several DPaint picture files. These seem to be illustrations for the Preference Setup part of the document, but both AmigaGuide and Multiview refused to follow these links. AmigaGuide gave an error or "display: Unknown command" and Multiview just did nothing. Documented are program-specific needs, such as the program UUxT for uudecoding and uuencoding. Use of AirMail shows some areas that need improvement. In and Out Boxes cannot be open at the same time. While in the boxes, even though a item is highlighted, the gadgets to perform actions are usually grayed out - the item must still be clicked on, then the gadgets become accessible. The password for the POP3 system must be entered in the setup - there is no option to require the password at the time of the actual reading of the mail on the server. This allows anyone to access that mailbox if the system is left unattended. The option to enter password only at the time of access would be a great addition for security. When my modem hung up once while checking mail, I could not get AirMail to exit, forcing a reboot (could not stopnet and re-dial) The "cancel" button did nothing. When exiting many areas in AirMail, for instance, after exiting the external editor, the screen will jump from the WorkBench screen where I was running AirMail to another screen. (In this case, the Final Writer screen). Also, keyboard use inside fields was erratic. To send mail, one must enter the To: field, if the cursor is in a text gadget, the tab key allows movement among the fields (as is very nice). But if enter is entered, the cursor disappears, requiring mouse use to regain the cursor. But, in some fields, if enter is not pressed, the field value is not accepted. This highlights a functionality problem inside AirMail - often to accomplish a function, you must use a combination of keyboard and mouse, moving back and forth. A more serious problem I found was the "attach" field. I could find no documentation for this, and no matter what I tried to attach, (binary file, text document, saved AirMail mail) each time, the program would display the error, "Cannot open file" and remain hung - connected to the mail server, and "Cancel" not cancelling. The only recourse I found was to kill the process with PriMan. The file with the mail was also locked open, and undeletable until after a reboot. To forward a mail, the user or group must be defined in the Address Book. There is no provision to enter the address(s) manually. Conclusion: AirMail has promise, but what it shows now is not enough. Other products exist now, that work better than AirMail, without the idiosyncrasies and problems, doing much the same job. These programs, however, are either too limited, or have so much capability that their setup is difficult, leaving room for a nice program that will send and receive mail. The current version has many features that make it very interesting, but the problems in using the program, both in minor irritants to larger problems, detract vastly from the value of AirMail. Since AirMail is in need of further improvements, and there is an additional fee for product upgrades, (although the key file registration scheme may allow for upgrade distribution through AmiNet and usual channels), I feel that it would be a purchase hard to justify at this stage in its development. But it is a small, reasonably major bug free piece of software, with some good ideas that I would greatly welcome if developed a little further (particularly MIME attaching and encoding). If your needs are only a small mail reader for a dynamic account, and you rarely send mail, (and are not enough of a UNIX person to do it manually), it will do the job. @endnode @node REVIEW2 "Review: Imagemaster R/t" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== REVIEW: IMAGEMASTER R/T By: @{" William Near " link WILLIAM} =========================================================================== SOFTWARE: Imagemaster R/t v1.60 (FPU) MANUFACTURER: Black Belt Systems DESCRIPTION: 24bit graphics manipulation program SYSTEM TESTED ON: Amiga 2000 (Rev 4.4), ECS chip set, G-Force '030 accelerator @ 50 MHz., 2 MB CHIP + 8 MB FAST memory, Quantum LPS270S hard drive with Trumpcard Professional controller, Picasso II RTG (2 MB) graphics board, Workbench 3.1 A FLEETING GLIMPSE: Let me start by saying that I was excited about receiving Imagemaster R/t for review in Amiga Report magazine, but the excitement soon turned into disappointment after installing the program on my hard drive. After the installation was complete I proceeded to run the Imagemaster program. The first try at doing so resulted in a hard crash of my entire computer. I promptly renamed my WBStartup drawer and user-startup script thinking that some "renegade" program was causing the conflict with Imagemaster. Sorry, wrong answer! Imagemaster continued to crash like a 747 encountering wind sheer. The only things running on my machine at that time were Workbench 3.1 and ARexx -- Imagemaster didn't care, it was bound and determined to trash the entire system eight out of ten attempts to get it up and running. After fiddling with a few other things and unsuccessfully trying to launch the program, I called Black Belt System's tech support number. The nice man there made a few suggestions, but none of them made much difference. I found out another interesting fact along the way. Imagemaster only supports two graphics boards! The FireCracker 24 and OpalVision are the only two boards supported, neither of which I feel are mainstream or current boards. No Picasso II, Spectrum, or Retina board support. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what good is a 24bit image manipulation program if it only has support for AGA, ECS, and two obscure graphics boards? I tried using Cybergraphics software with my Picasso and Imagemaster -- no difference. If I switched the Imagemaster software to one of the NTSC 16 color screenmodes then it would run for a few minutes before crashing. I actually was able to play with the program for a few minutes in 16 color modes, but what's the use? That's like downloading a 2 megabyte file on a 28.8k modem at 2400 baud. You aren't getting the full benefit of the product if you are saddled with limitations which are imposed on you by the manufacturer or for some other reason. SUMMARY: Imagemaster R/t just might be the best 24bit image manipulation program on the Amiga at its cost -- you couldn't prove it by this reviewer, though. Maybe it's some conflict with my hardware or a conflict with Workbench 3.1. I don't know. I tried every reasonable method of getting this program to run for any length of time, but it just wasn't going to cooperate. On a positive note, I liked the on-line manual and help facilities, but a companion printed manual would have been a nice touch. Also, support for other mainstream graphics boards is a necessity for a program of this type. I honestly cannot recommend buying this product; on the other hand, I cannot recommend not buying it. It may run flawlessly on your individual setup or it may turn you red with anger. Frankly, I just gave up after the fiftieth crash. @endnode @node REVIEW3 "Review: Photogenics 1.25" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== REVIEW: PHOTOGENICS 1.25 John Paden dangermo@falcon.cc.ukans.edu =========================================================================== Product Photogenics 1.25 Author Almathera Southerton House Boundary Business Court 92-94 Church Road Mitcham. Surrey. CR4 3TD. England Bought from Safe Harbor for $129 + shipping Overview Photogenics is the best 24 bit image manipulator for the Amiga. It takes a completely new approach to how effects are applied, that gives it more power then Adobe Photoshop 3.0, Image FX 2.1, or Opal Paint 2.3. However because of the lack of an arexx port Photogenics can not hope to snare very many of the video/toaster users. There has been talk of them including an arexx port(I sent them a letter and am waiting for a responce). Machine used for testing A3000 68030@16mhz 2 Meg Chip RAM 8 Meg Fast RAM Cybervision 64 w/ 4 Meg RAM(2 don't work) SCSI v. 8A 50 Meg Quantum 100 Meg Seagate Old version of Buster/DMAC (1992) High Density Floppy Drive 1960 Monitor (64khz setting-80 mhz) Requirements Hardware 030@16mhz is quite nice GVP 040@40mhz is real time 4 Meg RAM will do well and 8 Meg RAM is perfect [As with most applications, more is always better. -Jason] Software OS 3.0 or later Copy Protection Hard drive installable(Serial Number Required) Can use floppy, but I would not recommend Review I'm going to start out basically by listing off all the paint modes, brushes, and features. Then I'll go over interface and special features. Paint Modes Add Noise Noise Types-5 Noise Amount-Percentage AlterHue Based on chosen color Antique Balance Red Change Green Change Blue Change Bas Relief Amount-1 to 10 Blur Simple 3X3 Cross 3X3, 5X5 Small Gaussian 3X3 Large Gaussian 5X5 Star 5X5 Heavy 3X3, 5X5 Anti-Alias (to dark background) Anti-Alias (to light back ground) Bright Map Brightness Brightness Change- -250 to +250 Cloner Offset Colourise (Colour is the chosen colour) Black >> Colour >> White Colour >> White Colour >> Black White >> Colour >> Black White >> Colour Black >> Colour Contrast Contrast Change- -255 to +255 Cross Hatch X and Y Crosshatch- -100 to +100 each Defocus Amount- 2 to 30 Deinterlace Keep Odd/Even numbered lines Displace Map X and Y Factor- 1 to 250 each Dither Emboss Light Source-8 Grey/Colour Background Grey/Colour Edges False Colour Maps the colors to an 256 color IFF palette Flip X or Y axis Gamma Gamma Correction- -256 to +256 Gradient Tint Position(Top 0, Bottom 100) Smoothness(percent) Normal, Top to Bottom, Bottom to Top, Left to Right Right to Left, Rectangle, Inverse Rectangle Grey Scale Video Weighted, Simple Average, Brightest, Darkest Median, Red Filter, Green Filter, Blue Filter, Cyan Filter, Magenta Filter, Yellow Filter High Lights HueMap Jitter Max X and Y jitter- 0 to 50 each Limit Current Colour is Minimum/Maximum Line Art Colour, Greyscale, Inverse Colour, Inverse Grey Scale Low Lights Masking Paint Matrix A 3X3 matrix, Load and Save Maximum Median Minimum Mirage Position (Top 0, Bottom 100) Smoothness(Percentage) Mix Difference, And, Or, Xor, Add, Subtract Monochrome Motion Blur Length of Motion Blur- 2 to 50 Angle(degrees) Negative Normal Inverse (RGB Space) Invert Luma (HLS Space) Invert Brightness (HSB Space) Invert Saturation & Brightness (HSB Space) Paint Pixelise Block X and Y size- 1 to 64 Posterise Colour Levels- 1 to 8 Randomise Max Displacement- 1 to 100 Refract Distance- 1 to 250 Roll X and Y offset- -500 to +500 each Rub Emboss Light Source-8 Rub Mix Difference, And, Or, Xor, Add, Subtract Rub Texture Rub Through X and Y offset- -500 to +500 each Rub Tint Saturation Saturation change- -256 to +256 Sharpen Intensity- 1 to 9 Shift Hue Hue change (degrees)-0 to 359 Shift RGB RGB >> GBR, BRG, RBG, GRB, BGR Solarize Normal and Inverse Split X and Y Split- -100 to +100 each Stellate Size- 0 to 15 Tile Bricks X and Y size- 1 to 250 Tile Brick Bricks X and Y size- 1 to 250 Tint Normal, Lowlights, Mid Tones, High Lights Brushes Each brush has three settings: Size-1 to 256 Pressure-Percentage Transparency-Percentage Air Brush Ball Pen Calligraphy Chalk Pastel Cloth Crayon Felt Tip Pen Marker Pen Neon Pencil Sponge Water Colour Drawing Tools Colour-Clicking on it opens the palette window Dotted line Free Hand Straight line Fill Free Hand Three Point Curve Fill-Tolerance/Smoothness setting Square-Fill/Line Rectangle-Fill/Line Circle-Fill/Line Ellipse-Fill/Line Magnify-Choose a point on the image and then as you move the mouse pointer the area which you will be magnifying to is shown. This can be used to demagnify and magnify(VERY NICE) Demagnify completely Cut/Carve Pick Colour Smear Warper-Twist(=B1360 Degrees), Warp-=B1256 Paint Mode Paint Mode Options Brush Brush Options Apply Full Screen Remove Paint layer Fix Loaders ACBM Amiga Screen Back Drop BMP CDXL Framestore File Framestore Grab GIF IFFDeep ILBM Img Impulse JPEG Noise-effect Pattern-effect PBM PCD PCX Plasma-effect ProGrab24RT QRT QuadAnim Raw Ripples-effect Streaks-effect Targa Text-effect TIFF VLab Savers AmigaScreen BMP CyberGraphics-Video Card EGS-Video Card Framestore Display Framestore File Ham6 Ham8 Harlequin IFF-24 IFFDeep ILBM JPEG OpalVision-Video Card PBM PCX Picasso-II-Video Card PrefsPrinter QRT Raw Retina-Video Card Sculpt ShowHam6-ECS/OCS ShowHam8-AGA StudioII-Print Targe TIFF Display Modes Fast Ham 8-AGA 256 Colour-AGA, Cybergraphics 16 Colour-Any 256 Greyscale-AGA, Cybergraphics 16 Greyscale-Any Cybergraphics-Cybergraphics Features Printing in 12 bit using WB prefs or 24 bit using Studio II Clone Undo/Redo 1 Level + Paint layer Resize Smoothness on/off Resize Tiled Crop Image X Offset, Y Offset, Width, Height Mouse and Keyboard interface Rotate 0-359 degrees Shear X Shear Value Y Shear Value Clear To Black, White, Soft White, Choose Select Similar To chosen colour/Pick Colour- This is a fill with no boundaries(meaning all the "yellows"(whatever colour) on the image would be filled in). It has tolerance and smoothness settings. Blur Simple/Gaussian Channels Red/Green/Blue with a test option Paint Layer(VERY NICE) Auto Adjust Levels Compose with Secondary Channel Allows you to resize secondary image however you would like. Has X and Y offsets. Mouse and Keyboard interface. Blend in and out option allows the right mouse button to bring more of the back image in and the left mouse button brings the fore ground image to the front. You can use any of the paint tools or brushes. You can use any of the paint modes to combine the images. Brightness Key and Transparent black enable you to blend in better as well as use the alpha channel for complex combines.(VERY NICE!!!) Interface The interface in Photogenics is wonderfully intuitive. The manual is excpetional in that it covers everything and gives many tutorials as you go along. Photogenics uses a powerful drag and drop interface between the image, secondary image, and alpha channel(which uses the fingernails of every picture open-you can hide or show any picture to make sure your work space doesn't get cluttered. [The Photogenics 1.2 manual was a SIGNIFICANT improvement over previous versions. -Jason] Photogenics took a completely different approach to the way the paint layer is added. You can use of ANY of the drawing tools and ANY of the brushes. The interface is extremely easy to use, like Deluxe Paint only the images are in windows, making working with several images easier. Each effect has a transperency setting and brushes have a size and pressure setting when being applied. What the key factor to Photogenics power is that you end up with a paint layer with varying transparency which you can change on the fly until you decide its the way you want it to be. You can also move the paint layer to the alpha channel to make it so that you can apply lots of effects with in a boundary or use fix and paint layer to apply different effects to the same whole area. The paint layer therefore allows an unlimited amount of undos. In Photoshop you can undo to the last paint layer, but the problem is once an effect is down it can only use the undo so you have to undo and reapply the effect each time you screw up. Photoshop is VERY limited on how you can apply many of its effects and none of them have the same flexibility that Photogenics offers. Since any brush or drawing tool can be used to apply effects and using the alpha channel is as simple as one menu option. Using the left mouse button applies the effect and the right mouse button unapplies the effect. EXAMPLE: You want to solarize the sky on a picture of stonehenge. You start by using the menu option select similar on the bottom clouds. Then use the rectangle to fill in the upper region since there is nothing but clouds in the upper part. Then you take the air brush and trim the edges where the solarization filter does not blend in well with the ground and stone henge. This whole process in simple, can be done in a minute and produces an awesome effect. The secondary channel and compose are quite possibly the second most powerful feature in Photogenics, because any compose can use any brush, paint mode, drawing tool, and several powerful compose options. This tool is quite possibly my favorite, but it wouldn't be possible with out the above feature of a modifiable paint layer. The last thing is the warper tool added in 1.2. This tool allows you to select in ellipse on the the screen and set two points to warp to. You can also set the amount of warping and the amount of twist you would like. One problem is that it does not anti alias after this effect and sometimes if something is stretched out enough you need to apply a simple 3X3 blur or antialias. None the less a very powerful feature when used in the right situations. Comarison to other products: Here is a list of the programs I've seen. Brilliance 2.0 Deluxe Paint 4.5(latest 5-only in reviews) Personal Paint 6.1(latest 6.3-only in reviews) Macro Paint These programs don't compare to photogenics. It is far superior in many things, but these offer animation and quick effects. Photogenics blows them away when it comes to 24 bit image manipulation and professional painting. Image FX 2.0(latest 2.1-only advertisement) Adpro 2.5 The interface in all of these is barbaric compared to Photogenics. Photogenics has far superior painting ability. Their major advantage is an Arexx port.. which is something Photogenics REALLY needs. Beyond this I would never use the other programs. Opal Paint 2.3 Great Paint program with some nice effects only it requires a specific graphics card. The program is a little faster, but it's not really a photo manipulation program and lacks many of the features Photogenics has in painting. However it does have several cool effects which make it a very viable tool in painting still. Photoshop 3.0 w/ KPT2 Plug ins The only direct competitor and a very good one. Photoshop is much harder to use and the features aren't quite as nice some times but the options are more complete. Photogenics is definetly a better paint program... and in fact Photoshop sucks as a paint program, but that isn't its purpose. I would have to say that I like Photogenics easy to use interface and I like the fact that the really powerful features are far more accessible. See below for ratings. Another thing is speed and the prohibitive price tag that doesn't even include any of the extensive plug ins. Suggestions: (1) Arexx Port (2) The ability to warp an image to the paint layer(if possible) or a rectangle or circle. (3) Fix bugs(may be cybergraphics) (4) Use the right mouse button with the fill effect. So it would undo every part of the paint layer like that color. (5) Multiple paint layers with a composite window. @endnode @node REVIEW4 "Review: Cybervision 64" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== REVIEW: CYBERVISION 64 John Paden dangermo@falcon.cc.ukans.edu =========================================================================== PRODUCT NAME CyberVision64 64 bit graphic card BRIEF DESCRIPTION 64 bit graphics card using the Trio64 graphics chip set which uses a graphics processor, a 64 bit wide blitter, and a special 24 bit D/A converter. It also has a Planer to Chunky chip(Roxxler). I will go over installation, bugs, compatibility, and speed. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: phase5 Digital Products Address: Homburger Landstrasse 412 60433 Frankfurt/Main GERMANY Telephone: +49-(0)69-5488130 FAX: +49-(0)69-5481845 I bought this from Select Solutions of Campaign-Urbana Ohio. It appears as though they have moved... I've tried calling them...Softwood didn't get back to me(they are USA distrubuters for Phase 5). LIST PRICE I paid $600 for the 4 Meg version. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE An 040 would definetly be nice... this would allow the computer to keep up with the graphics board. A nice monitor is very important because of bandwidth and resolution. 4 Megs of RAM suddenly doesn't seem quite as endless when you deal with normal applications. I've found that the 8 megs I got have come in very handy. Photogenics(my most used program) and a virtual screen(what I use when programming) tend to zap the fast memory as well(nearly 3 megs in 24 bit color in photogenics just to run). SOFTWARE 2.04 or above. I recommend OS 3.1(cause its better) and also because you get to use all the features, like 256 colors in Workbench. COPY PROTECTION None whatsoever. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 3000/16, 8 MB Fast RAM onboard, 2 MB Chip RAM. 1 internal 1660K floppy. SCSI rev 8 chip Quantum 50 MB hard drive SCSI Seagate 100 MB hard drive SCSI Acer 14" Developers AmigaDOS 3.1, Kickstart 40.68 and WB 40.42. Cybervision 64 with 4 MB RAM INSTALLATION The installation was simple and very straight forward. The manuals really are bad except perhaps in the installation part which they do a good job. Using the CVMODE preferences(screen settings) I found that it was much better (at least for me at the time) to just use the defaults that are given when you select a khz. They have a test screen if you want to try to optimize the screen settings. The other thing is that the card is full length and you'll probably have to take the card holder on the front end if you have an Amiga 3000, this is not a problem since it is plastic and snaps out easily. EXPANDABILITY The CYBERVISION64 has an expansion bus through which additional cards such as JPEG or MPEG cards can directly access the fast video memory. Note these aren't available at the time... 2GO is what they are working on currently. Includes a DSP and some other features for rendering pictures faster. I'm afraid this will be limited to programs that specifically use it though. REVIEW Once I had it installed I started changing preferences and such in my applications to use the cybervision when I wanted. A note: The cybervision screens reside in cybervision memory and all other Amiga screens in computer memory so when you drag down screens you can only see screens in your memory section, however flipping screens works fast and doesn't make a clicking noise or anything annoying like that. One thing I really like was loading up a large 256 color gif or iff and then scrolling around in it on the 256 color screens... it was like an animation because of the updating! More information in the bug section about how programs work. LIKES Speed, speed, speed, and compatiblity... I will probably get one of their expansion modules depending on what it does (MPEG and JPEG sound nice). DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS The documentation is pretty lean, but it suffices because everything is really easy. BUGS These may be due to my 15-31khz monitor - Also they have only to do with cybervision screen modes except for one. One, when scrolling around in a large virtual screen it some times jumps back (like when you click on the right mouse button) when you move it into a certain position. This is no problem if all you're doing is moving the mouse around, but if you are using the LAmiga-Left Mouse Button drag(or whatever you have it set to) or you've grabbed the menu bar it will. Sometimes I will lose a screen and it will go completely grey(happens to NTSC screens-this does not happen when I use the 1960 monitor, but does when I use the ACER(small bandwidth). It will flicker occasionally when I'm moving the screen up and down. Some demos and games don't like to run from a cybervision screen(like CyberSphere or Lemon), actually I have found that almost no games work if you run them from a cybervision screen. When painting in hicolor, truecolor screens the pointer has a shadow about 80 pixels beneath it. You can not show two hicolor or true color screen in front/back of each other, although you can still flip through them easily. Notes: Wordworth - Works great only that they use a crappy palette. This is only a concern for text effects when your doing shading from the first to last letter or first to last shadow (which looks quite nice). You can I think load an image which forces the palette map to change (At least it seems that way as loading several images looks nice). ProCalc 2.0, Final Writer 3, PageStream 3.0, Multiview, Prowrite, Term, Twist 2, and just about any other program that I run works perfect work fine Personal Paint 6.1 crashes anytime I try to change the mode to ANYTHING else. 6.3 I suppose fixes all this and even allows you to paint in Cybervision mode. I figured out what you have to do. Personal Paint has a RTG setting when changing screen modes... makes sure this is set to "Yes" and not "No" or "Auto". Amiga Vision Pro is NTSC or PAL only. Although NewMode will allow you to work in more colors there isn't any point and you can't preview anything since it doesn't understand cybergraphics. Scala MM300 is NTSC or PAL only. Newmode will promote this to, but is rather buggy when you do. Photogenics Lite 1.2 sometimes crashes, but I use it whenever I can cause I like painting in 24 bit a lot more than having to save the image all the time when I use Photogenics 1.0. Photogenics 1.25 crashes only when I run in cybergraphics mode. Hicolor and Truecolor screens tend to have a problem with freeing used memory (This could still be photogenics fault, maybe cybergraphics mode implemented wrong. This is hard to tell since its the only program that runs completely in cybergraphics). OpalPaint doesn't work anymore... oh yea we took the board out, but I will soon be sticking it back in to test the pass through capabilities of the Cybervision 64. Brilliance does not allow you to use cybervision screens since it does some hard ware hacking to the chip ram Deluxe Paint does not animate and you have to manually refresh the brush, solid fill, and anything else that is more than one pixel wide. Adpro will not show more than 256 color screens(from the screen mode requester), but you can see in 24 bit I'm pretty sure using the saver. WBscreen can run in 24 bit, but intuition does not use more than 256 colors so special programs like CyberWindow (which is fast, supports lots of formats as well as datatypes, and allows windows to be opened on the WBScreen) must be used to exploit the 24 bit display. I use these: QMouse, ToolsDeamon, ToolsPref, CycleToMenu, PowerSnap, and Click to Front. Power Snap is the only one I've had problems with and ONLY when I run a hicolor to truecolor screen mode(256 colors is fine). I use Iconify as well and it works fine to. VENDOR SUPPORT I want to call them and ask them about any known bugs and stuff like that and speed tests, but they live too many time zones away and I always seem to not be home when I could call (I'm afraid I work and play too much). Select Solutions were really nice (but they didn't make the board though). [Note-phase5 allegedly has e-mail set up @phase5.de, but no replies have come back. -Jason] WARRANTY phase5 gives a warranty of 12 months against manufacturing defects. CONCLUSIONS I love this board compared to the ECS chip set... which of course I can still use. Installation 5 out of 5 Documentation 4 out of 5 Photogenics-Lite Demo 4 out of 5 (few crashing problems) Speed 5(6 if I could) out of 5 Compatiblity 4.5 out of 5 (the most compatible I've encountered, but still a few general bugs they can fix that don't have to do with other applications) This review is (c) by John Paden and freely distributable. You can reach me at: dangermo@falcon.cc.ukans.edu John Paden 2901 Stratford Road Lawrence, Kansas 66049 @endnode @node REVIEW5 "Review: Aminet CD 7" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== REVIEW: AMINET CD 7 By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== Finally! I was starting to feel like Aminet CD reviews were turning into exercises in repetition. Don't get me wrong, I've been enjoying them. But the pattern for evaluating them was one largely of "lather, rinse, repeat." Luckily, Urban's come up with a few things that are worth special note. But first, the overview of the CD. Aminet 7 represents the change from quarterly to bimonthly publication of CDs, meaning 8 is due any day now. The familiar-like-an-old-friend AmigaGuide interface is on the job, breaking down Aminet's structure into a searchable index, either by text string, age, popularity, or physical location on the network. The theme for this edition is the inclusion of 10,000 images from Aminet, largely clipart with some 24-bit JPEGs. Eh. I'm in online journalism for a reason, you know, and one of those is so I don't have to worry about clipart. But, I know it's rather useful to a lot of people, so I endure. It is indexed by subject matter and can be accessed by name or through a thumbnail system. The games and demos on the CD are once again in their own separate, easy-access areas (when do online magazines get that treatment?), this time categorized so far as to point out whether or not they're fully compatible (ready-to-run from CD) on an A4000/040. Mods get similar treatment (although all, of course, are compatible.) Aminet 7 also does something no Aminet CD has done before (at least, not intentionally)-include commercial software. Personal Paint 2.1 and PPrint Deluxe have been licensed and placed on the CD, presumably as a promotional measure (for PPaint, that is certainly the case, as the 6.3 demo is included to inspire the user.) The ability to customize your use of Aminet CDs now extends beyond the simple preferences in place to select a dearchiver and picture viewer. Custom index lists, for use with the AmigaGuide interface, can now be created and saved to your system drive. In addition, "clones", or virtual references to software stored on the CD, can be used as real system items, including WBStartup items. The catch, of course, is that the CD has to be in place whenever these programs are to be accessed, since they really live there. A strange concept, but if disk space is at a premium, it is worth investigating. My personal theory is that it is a bit of "catch up" with the CD-Write filesystem-a way to offer some useful "virtual filesystem" features without a full-blown package. Aminet 7. It's the newest software from Aminet since the last time around, with an improved interface and a whole ton of clip art. Rinse. Oh yeah, and it finally credits the Amiga as a trademark of Escom AG on the label. DM 25, or roughly US$18, give or take depending on your mood. Stefan Ossowski's Schatztruhe D-45131 Essen Germany @endnode @node REVIEW6 "Review: Makin' Music CD-ROM" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== REVIEW: MAKIN' MUSIC CD-ROM By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== CD Exchange showed up last year, tossed a general-interest CD32-aimed compilation on the market, and then went quiet. Now they're back, with an audio "fest" designed to, well, to sell lots of copies, but to provide a comprehensive, one-stop resource for Amiga audio hobbyists and professionals. To that end, they've brought together utilities by the dozen, including sound and .mod players, rippers, and converters, along with commercial demos, including Octa-MED V6. In addition, a healthy collection of MODs, MEDs, and MIDI files is included, as well as a number of free trackers with which to compose or edit them. The item of the CD that the most attention is drawn to is the AKAI sample library, an IFF and WAV collection of a large collection of (originally 16-bit) sound bites. The quality is quite impressive, as the sampling rate is rather high-not quite the sort of material you'll find in the average MOD, at least not without having been reduced through any one of the many sampling software packages included on the disc. There is no interface as such to the CD, but there is an AmigaGuide index, with some descriptions, for all files contained. Most work will by necessity be done with some sort of directory utility, and to that end, DirWork 1.62 is included on the CD. In fact, a complete suite of all necessary tools (including MUI, XIcon, and DMS) are available for automatic installation, as some programs require their services. The concept of an "Audio Amiga CD" is not a new one, but unlike the "mod collection" CDs I have encountered, Makin' Music has a decidedly professional slant to it-more concerned with high-quality orchestral strings than cartoon character samplings from TV. It's not hard to take a decent theme and implement a compilation badly, and it's particularly easy to make a mediocre music collection. Many aging bands do it all the time. But the blend of enjoyable, pre-composed music, genuinely useful musical tools (the mere inclusion of AmiSOX and other format-conversion programs is a significant boost to its usefulness) and "springboard" samples turns Makin Music into a successful product. Convenience is part of the game, and the CD puts just about everything within close reach. (Note-Makin Music is not autobooting. In addition, non-Amiga versions do exist, offering the AKAI library and a different set of utilities.) CD Exchange Hi-Tech House 125 Kingswood, Norwich NR8 6UW United Kingdom Phone: +44 1603 261060 @endnode @node REVIEW7 "Review: World Info '95 CD-ROM" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== REVIEW: WORLD INFO '95 CD-ROM By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== Danny Amor, compiler of the FreshFonts and da capo CD-ROMs, returns with the help of a couple of friends to create World-Info '95, an HTML-only creation intended as a cross between an almanac and an atlas, with a bit of travel guide thrown in. The interface is easy enough to explain-quite simply, it will look like whatever graphical web browser you throw at it. For the purposes of this review, I used AMosaic 1.4 (not having upgraded to the 2.0 beta as of yet.) While World-Info '95 is being marketed for "any" computer platform with graphical web browsing capabilities, the "feel" is that it was aimed at the Amiga, if for no other reason than it lacks a text-based search utility, which at the time the CD was being compiled was not available on the Web browser of the day, AMosaic 1.3. What you do get is a way to search through the facts Danny and friends have compiled for you. You can start all the way at the most general way to delineate the world (landmasses and oceans), then break it down to continents (interestingly enough, they percieve North and South America as one continent for some purposes), and so forth, right down to latitude and longitude of major world cities. Along the way, you can pick up such national data as the usual almanac entries of population, inflation, birth/death rate, literacy rate, and the like, as well as major pollution concerns and human rights violations. Full-color flags are included, and several countries have a portfolio of several pictures available for viewing. Translation of common phrases between popular world languages (although not the top ten by usage) is included. I'll be well prepared in Armenia. :) All of the data is included on the CD-ROM in both English and German, which in short means that basically half of the 538 megs on the CD are used for informational purposes, since the German and English data is reproduced, with pictures, in separate directories. It is worth noting that the human rights data seems to be in English exclusively-apparently too huge of a task for translation. World-Info is a useful resource, but not something that offers an earth-shakingly significant quantity of information. While the international telephone prefix directory is in some ways useful, and certainly is not unwelcome, it is a good capsule of the CD as a whole-interesting, but not stunning. Data does not delve as deeply as it could, particularly when it comes to individual cities, reduced to coordinates and population. Pictures, while nice to view and readily organized in a thumbnail system, should have descriptions by those thumbnails. After all, the idea of a preview is to entice the viewer to dig into the full picture, and telling them what the sight will be in full glorious 256 colors (your capabilities may vary) is a serious help. The data that has been compiled is certainly worth having access to, particularly in the realm of human rights. (Fascinatingly enough, there is a "no entry" for the US-I presume that is because the reports seem to have originated here.) In fact, that is one of the major negatives to the CD. Much of the information has been compiled, but not written, by Amor and the D'Addeo sisters. As such, there is an inconsistency in writing style. I am also troubled by the total lack (on the copyright page) of recognition for the various sources that were used to complete the CD. The team should be applauded for using HTML to create an open resource for many computer users. There is an axiom used to describe many large CD-ROM projects, and it does apply here-"there is something for everyone." Few resources like this exist for the Amiga. But don't rely on it alone to plan your winter holiday. Published by- Stefan Ossowski's Schatztruhe Veronikastrasse 33 45131 Essen - Germany @endnode @node CHARTS1 "Aminet Charts: 10-Sept-95" @toc FTP | The most downloaded files from Aminet during the week until 10-Sep-95 | Updated weekly. Most popular file on top. | |File Dir Size Age Description |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- VChk716.lha util/virus 135K 0+Version 7.16 of Virus_Checker. Amiga ar316.lha docs/mags 81K 0+Amiga Report 3.16, September 5, 1995 TIFFDT.lha util/dtype 37K 0+V40.3 to read TIFF files. Includes 2 Easylink.lha comm/misc 100K 1+Connect Amiga/PC via Parallel Port SystemPrefs301.lha util/wb 68K 0+Preferences for CPU (up to 68060) an win95.jpg pix/illu 54K 1+The Joke Of Microsoft mn_ansitest.lha comm/mebbs 3K 11+ANSI Test Door for MEBBSNet 8n1.lha comm/misc 27K 1+Replaces serial.device. V37.12 AmigaElm-v8.lha comm/mail 209K 0+Mail-Reader (UUCP/Internet), v8 (8.2 NewMode_V37.lha util/cdity 63K 0+Screen promoting utility cp5.lha comm/tcp 109K 0+Advanced GUI frontends for Amitcp & HF2.lha game/2play 327K 1+The best ninja-game ever. Disk 2/3 HF1.lha game/2play 412K 1+The best ninja-game ever. Disk 1/3 HF3.lha game/2play 414K 1+The best ninja-game ever. Disk 3/3 NewsedArfir.lha comm/tcp 85K 0+Gui Interface For Archie + Powerful gcc270-base.lha dev/gcc 1.5M 1+Gcc v2.7.0 - Base part - C/C++/ObjC AirMail1_2.lha comm/mail 118K 0+AirMail 1.2 GUI internet mailer gcc270-readme.lha dev/gcc 119K 1+Gcc v2.7.0 - README part - C/C++/Obj | The highest rated programs during the week until 10-Sep-95 | Updated weekly. Best program on top. Please rate all the programs you | download. To do so, send to aminet-server@wuarchive.wustl.edu : | RATE | where is the file you want to judge and is a mark from 0..10 | with 10 being the best. You can rate several programs in one mail, but | don't rate your own programs. Example: RATE dev/gui/mui23usr.lha 8 | |File Dir Size Age Description |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- ALynx.lha comm/net 277K 7+Textbased WWW browser (AmiTCP/MLink) mlink132.lha comm/net 123K 19+Direct internet access without SLIP FForces10a.lha game/misc 215K 0+Multiplayer tactical fantasy battle ShapeShift3_1.lha misc/emu 207K 4+Macintosh II emulator, V3.1 DevilsMine.mpg pix/anim 491K 22+A roller coaster through a mine - CO Lamp.mpg pix/anim 653K 16+A living lamp looks around - COOL! MagicBGs5.lha pix/mwb 244K 1+New breathtaking patterns for MagicW Executive.lha util/misc 429K 0+Task manager and scheduler (V1.00) lzx120.lha util/arc 139K 14+The Ultimate Archiver V1.20 Fixes/+S DPacMan17.lha game/misc 277K 6+PacMan clone with lots of extra feat PDBase12.lha biz/dbase 93K 10+Public Domain DataBase V1.2 (Needs M fruitkitchen.lha demo/aga 566K 3+A new demo of the asm95 in helsinki control1.dms demo/aga 817K 0+Control (Winning Demo From GASP `95) control2.dms demo/aga 552K 0+Control (Winning Demo From GASP `95) DPacMan17.lha game/misc 277K 6+PacMan clone with lots of extra feat DPacManAGA.lha game/misc 371K 14+PacMan clone with lots of extra feat F1GP-Ed.lha game/misc 312K 0+Formula One Grand Prix / WC Editor V DGalaga25.lha game/shoot 454K 29+Deluxe Galaga v2.5 MLED111.lha mus/edit 548K 4+New musiceditor, realtime synthesis Remind1.52.lha util/cdity 55K 0+Never forget an important event agai snoopdos30.lha util/moni 128K 51+System monitor, many new features ad VCBrn122.lha util/virus 8K 4+Version 1.22 of Virus_Checker brainf VChk716.lha util/virus 135K 0+Version 7.16 of Virus_Checker. Amiga AlgoMusic1_3.lha mus/misc 71K 16+Creates and plays great algorithmic ToolManager21b.lha util/boot 490K 121+ToolManager 2.1 (Binaries and Docume GetMailSRC.lha comm/tcp 49K 7+AmiTCP POP Client, receives E-Mail. OpusFTP.lha comm/tcp 94K 3+An FTP Module for Directory Opus 5.1 mftp1_27.lha comm/tcp 57K 2+Mftp 1.27, very nice ftp client (MUI ReOrg3_1.lha disk/optim 326K 105+Disk optimizer with DC-FFS support @endnode @node CHARTS2 "Aminet Charts: 18 Sep 95" @toc FTP | The most downloaded files from Aminet during the week until 18-Sep-95 | Updated weekly. Most popular file on top. | |File Dir Size Age Description |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- VChk717.lha util/virus 138K 0+Version 7.17 of Virus_Checker. Amiga FTPMount.lha comm/tcp 107K 0+Mounts FTP sites as part of a filesy HyperDrive.lha game/misc 324K 0+FAST tunnel race - hideously addicti Iconian2_94.lha gfx/edit 263K 0+OS3.0 icon editor, NewIcon support. telser130.lha comm/tcp 191K 0+Serial telnet(d) device for AmiTCP/A mn_ansitest.lha comm/mebbs 3K 12+ANSI Test Door for MEBBSNet ar316.lha docs/mags 81K 1+Amiga Report 3.16, September 5, 1995 MouseBounce.lha game/gag 5K 333+Screen hack that is also a game. amiconnect.lha comm/tcp 207K 1+A Configuration Program For AmiTCP W cp5.lha comm/tcp 110K 0+Advanced GUI frontends for Amitcp & FTPreview.lha game/demo 481K 0+Helicopter Arcade Game Playable-Prev AmiTCP-demo-40.lha comm/tcp 738K 46+TCP/IP protocol stack ABackup500.lha disk/bakup 259K 0+ABackup 5.00 fuck091beta.lha util/wb 4K 0+Cure your Amiga Inferiority Complex! Chimera216alph.lha gfx/x11 119K 1+Graphical WWW browser for AmiWin IconDeluxe1_11.lha gfx/edit 76K 0+Full-featured icon editor (V1.11) ClassAction.lha util/wb 96K 0+Handle ALL file formats (V2.75) ParachuteJoust.lha game/misc 148K 0+2 nutters skydive and fight for 1 ch BusyPointer10.lha util/misc 24K 0+Still/animated busy pointers on WB2/ alfa.gif pix/trace 227K 122+Alfa - fantastic raytrace done with | The highest rated programs during the week until 18-Sep-95 | Updated weekly. Best program on top. Please rate all the programs you | download. To do so, send to aminet-server@wuarchive.wustl.edu : | RATE | where is the file you want to judge and is a mark from 0..10 | with 10 being the best. You can rate several programs in one mail, but | don't rate your own programs. Example: RATE dev/gui/mui23usr.lha 8 | |File Dir Size Age Description |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- ALynx.lha comm/net 277K 8+Textbased WWW browser (AmiTCP/MLink) mlink132.lha comm/net 123K 20+Direct internet access without SLIP gcc270-base.lha dev/gcc 1.5M 2+Gcc v2.7.0 - Base part - C/C++/ObjC gcc270-c020.lha dev/gcc 708K 2+Gcc v2.7.0 - 68020 C part - C/C++/Ob gcc270-cp020.lha dev/gcc 1.7M 2+Gcc v2.7.0 - 68020 C++ part - C/C++/ gcc270-doc.lha dev/gcc 1.1M 2+Gcc v2.7.0 - Doc part - C/C++/ObjC C gcc270-inclib.lha dev/gcc 918K 2+Gcc v2.7.0 - Headers and Libs part - gcc270-objc020.lha dev/gcc 617K 2+Gcc v2.7.0 - 68020 Objc part - C/C++ ixemul4103-bin.lha dev/gcc 1.6M 2+IXemul.library 41.3 gravforce.lha game/2play 197K 64+2 Player Thrust with Guns! ShapeShift3_1.lha misc/emu 207K 5+Macintosh II emulator, V3.1 DevilsMine.mpg pix/anim 491K 23+A roller coaster through a mine - CO Lamp.mpg pix/anim 653K 17+A living lamp looks around - COOL! MagicBGs5.lha pix/mwb 244K 2+New breathtaking patterns for MagicW NewMode_V37.lha util/cdity 63K 1+Screen promoting utility DGalaga25.lha game/shoot 454K 30+Deluxe Galaga v2.5 Executive.lha util/misc 429K 1+Task manager and scheduler (V1.00) lzx120.lha util/arc 139K 15+The Ultimate Archiver V1.20 Fixes/+S PDBase12.lha biz/dbase 93K 11+Public Domain DataBase V1.2 (Needs M fruitkitchen.lha demo/aga 566K 4+A new demo of the asm95 in helsinki vty-ama1.lha demo/aga 672K 1+Amazed (from "South Sealand 2" demo vty-ama2.lha demo/aga 801K 1+Amazed (from "South Sealand 2" demo vty-ama3.lha demo/aga 620K 1+Amazed (from "South Sealand 2" demo control1.dms demo/aga 817K 1+Control (Winning Demo From GASP `95) control2.dms demo/aga 552K 1+Control (Winning Demo From GASP `95) Engines.lha game/2play 370K 4+GravForce game for 2-4 players. AGA DPacMan17.lha game/misc 277K 7+PacMan clone with lots of extra feat F1GP-Ed.lha game/misc 312K 1+Formula One Grand Prix / WC Editor V @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 listserv@itesmvf1.rzs.itesm.mx. Your subject header will be ignored. In the body of the message, enter subscribe areport ie: subscribe areport A. R. Reader The system will automatically pull your e-mail address from the message header. 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.netnet.net, 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 one of the following URLs: http://www.omnipresence.com/Amiga/News/AR/ http://sun1000.ci.pwr.wroc.pl/AMIGA/AR/ http://mm.iit.uni-miskolc.hu/Data/AR http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/amiga/ar/ http://ramiga.cts.com/~AR http://www.susx.ac.uk/Users/kcci1 http://www.sci.muni.cz/ar/ http://metro.turnpike.net/P/panther/main.html The following AR site also has a mailto form, allowing you to mail to Amiga Report from the web site.