@database "ar320.guide" @Node MAIN "Amiga Report Online Magazine #3.20 -- November 16, 1995" =========================================================================== November 16, 1995 @{" Turn the Page " link MENU} Issue No.3.20 =========================================================================== ,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} @{" Aminet Charts " 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. 3.20 November 16, 1995 | \\// == ==============| "THE Online Source for Amiga Information!" |============= |______________________________________________| @endnode @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 KATIE "Assistant Editor" @toc STAFF =========================================================================== == ASSISTANT EDITOR == =========================================================================== Katherine Nelson ================ Internet -------- Kati@cup.portal.com @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 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 OPINION "compt.sys.editor.desk" @toc MENU =========================================================================== compt.sys.editor.desk By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== Some people like drawing analogies between the Amiga and the (once Amiga-generated) TV show Babylon 5, which for the first two seasons opened with the lines "It was the dawn of the third age of mankind." They perceived us as being in the "third age of the Amiga", from Amiga Corp to Commodore-Amiga to Amiga Technologies. But that wasn't really merited...not until the Video Toaster Expo, anyway. Finally, the third wave hit. Redesigned PowerPC Amigas projected just over a year away. Upgrade cards for existing machines less than a year away. Roughly par for the course, some in the industry shake their heads and say it'll never happen, others are starting to take note as new competitors crop up in what is becoming an interesting PowerPC market. Now it's our job to watch carefully to see if Amiga Technologies can really implement this plan. I suppose it's also our duty to fund it with the purchase of the current line of machines. That may not be the easiest for everyone to cope with, but the concept of PowerPC upgrades for the 1200 and 4000, courtesy of the cards Phase5 has in development, make the concept less painful. I'm pretty much totally satisfied with the move. A new processor is better than an 060 dead end, made worse by the seemingly endless delays for the processor's release. And a new processor with as much developer enthusiasm and sheer buzzword value as the PowerPC is a good thing. Motorola is talking about serious levels of support, the newsgroups and PowerPC News magazine are talking...yes, this was the right move. So, 6 months into the game, Amiga Technologies has figured out what the right things to say are. By my calendar, they've got a bit over a year to figure out how to make it all come together. We'll keep you up to date. But for today, be sure you check out the official word on the decision, as well as the myriad show reports from where Amiga Tech has set up stands in the past few weeks. The sheer volume of news and reports this issue has crowded out some of the reviews we have lined up, but 3.21 should remedy the situation. And be sure to check out our Nova Design/ImageFX IRC conference to be held on Undernet IRC, channel #imagefx, at 9 PM EST on Sunday, November 19, which translates to 2 AM GMT Monday, November 20th. The authors of the very popular image processing system will be on hand to field questions and give away prizes. Sorry for sticking this plug in the editorial, but with 43 news items already, I wanted to make sure nobody missed it. So strap in and enjoy the largest Amiga Report in history! Jason @endnode @node COMMERCIAL "Commercial Products" @toc MENU =========================================================================== Commercial Products =========================================================================== @{" 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 MAIL "Reader Mail" @toc MENU =========================================================================== Reader Mail =========================================================================== From: Michael Jantzen Thanks for distributing Amiga Report! I really enjoy it (since I don't get any Amiga related magazines). I was really interested in hearing that AT is going to announce their new Amiga. For their sake, I hope it really knocks the socks off of the competition. However, it must be done in the proper way. What makes Windows 95 such a success (for an OS) was/is the marketing effort put into it. Ask anyone on the street what Windows 95 is, and they can tell you, even if they don't even have a computer. Marketing isn't just fancy TV advertisements (although it's part of it). It also consists of doing demonstrations, ripping on other computers, and proving your excellence to the world (not just the current Amiga users). Then comes getting the "big" software packages! The BeBox's biggest challenge is getting software period. Still, I've heard they're in the works for getting Netscape and some other major applications including a development system that runs on the Macintosh. [The development system, CodeWarrior, for the BeBox runs on the Macintosh, work is underway to port it fully and natively to the BeBox itself. --Katie] Still you can really sell the product no matter how bad it is by using marketing! (Is Amiga Technologies listening?) Now, about the BeBox, in an interview with their president (whose name I'm not going to attempt to spell) jokingly called his product "Amiga 96." The funny thing is that the BeBox is just another Un*x clone. I'm not going to go for it because of this. Plus their Web page (www.be.com) mentions mac, windows thirty billion times but never mentioned the Amiga. I suppose it won't run *any* of my video/GFX software. [It's really not a Unix clone...see my report. -Jason] Thanks! Michael Jantzen N7WSB ^_^ IRC: #amiga "lid" Email: anonymous@mail.coos.or.us, 1:356/11.4 @endnode @node NEWS1 "IPISA '95 News" @toc NEWS IPISA '95 News Marco Zandonadi (zandonad@dsi.unimi.it) from the IPISA '95 organizing committee recently announced that Dr. Peter Kittel of Amiga Technologies will be present at this high-profile Amiga user and developer conference, to be held November 18th in Milan, Italy. Dr. Kittel will give a speech and will field a question and answer session. For more information on IPISA, contact Marco at the above address. @endnode @node NEWS2 "Windows Emulation" @toc NEWS Windows-native emulation on the Amiga News has reached Amiga Report of an emulator in development that would bring Windows-level compatibility to the AmigaOS, allowing Windows programs to be run as native applications. In the words of the author, Soyeb Aswat of the UK, "At the moment the emulation will be slow because it will be interpreting but I hope to implement some form of compilation in the future which should make the prog native and therefore run like a dream." @endnode @node NEWS3 "AudioLab16 Release2" @toc NEWS AudioLab16 Release2: 16bit non-linear editing/DSP system An hard-disk based 16bit audio recording, editing, processing, mixing system, originally designed for AAA / 3210DSP equipped machines, now available on standard Amigas. Operations are performed directly from/to hard-disk (DD), in 16bit resolution (or more), mostly with real-time playback (RT). Features: - RT DD 16/32bit DSP operations Invert,reverse,normalize,gate,FIR filter,reverberate, delay,flange,multiflange,fade,pitch-shift,time compress/ expand,sample-rate convert,interpolate,decimate,distort, hum-remove,quantize 16bit recordings. - RT DD non-destructive editing - RT DD multitrack drag-and-drop timecoded editing - RT DD multitrack mixing with stereo pan controls - RT DD synchronizing to Arexx,MIDI or keyboard events - RT DD samplepoint format convertion - RT DD playback/record in PC,MAC,Amiga formats - Interactive graphic access to on-disk recordings - AudioCD control/playback/direct-digital-tranfer-to-HD using SCSI CDROM drives. - Automatic or interactive FIR filter design - Test signals generation - Import/export from/to PC,MAC,Amiga formats - Support for 16bit audio boards via drivers - SoftMary 16bit emulation for Paula - System-friendly,multitasking,graphic boards compatible - on-line-hyperdocumentation *** New on Release2 *** - Complete RT DD 16bit non-linear time-line editing system: - 8 tracks edit list playback / 16 tracks edit list editing - complete drag&drop mouse control (time slipping,cloning, aligning,...) for events and tracks - clear/cut/copy/paste/insert/multi-insert on up to 16 tracks at the same time - indipendent track write-protect capabilities - double timecode notation (hh:mm:ss:ff and bars:beats:clocks) with snap-to-grid capabilities - indipendent event level and stereo pan controls, indipendent track level and stereo pan controls, master level control. - mute and solo controls for any track - insertion/retrival of user defined labels onto the time-line - time-line view snapshot-bank: immediate recall via F-keys - RT DD pitch shifter with 0.1% resolution on a (-12,+12) semitones interval - RT DD non-integer sample rate converter - Enhanced DSP support for Sunrize Studio16 users - I/O format: MAUD 8/16bit, MAESTRO 8/16bit now available during read/playback/write operations. - Internal format: AIFF16,MAUD16,MAESTRO16 freely intermixed during read/playback/write operations - Stereo 16bit file interleaver/deinterleaver - 16bit stereo file playback with RT stereo enhancer - New tone generator and sweep generator compatible with AD516, AD1012,Toccata,Maestro hardware clocks - more... Availability Firstly registered users will get their upgrades, then the Junior version will be uploaded to Aminet as audiolr2.lha (November). Contact The author can be contacted, via the Internet<>Fidonet gateway, at: Maurizio.Ciccione@p7.f206.n332.z2.fidonet.org Drivers For informations about drivers for audioboards (they are developed by 3rd parties and aren't included into the AudioLab16 package) please contact Mr. Peter Urbanec at: amiga@cse.unsw.edu.au @endnode @node NEWS4 "AmiPhone v0.5B" @toc NEWS TITLE AmiPhone VERSION 0.5B AUTHOR Jeremy Friesner E-Mail: jfriesne@ucsd.edu DESCRIPTION AmiPhone is a proprietary, AmiTCP based voice chat program. Using AmiPhone, you and a friend can talk to each other over the Internet. ADPCM compression is used so that this is possible over TCP connections as slow as 14.4kb/sec. Features: - Full duplex asynchronous operation (CPU and network bandwidth permitting) - Several compression algorithms and variable sampling rates. - Up to four incoming and unlimited outgoing connections can be active at once (although you may only be transmitting on one connection at any given time). - Supports most standard parallel port digitizers. - Volume indicator and bandwidth graph allow easy monitoring of digitizer and net connection. - Silence detection (data is only transmitted when the volume is above a certain, user-specifiable level) - Runs on the Workbench screen, or any public screen. - Installer script included. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS Requires: Workbench 2.04 or above. AmiTCP3.0b2 or higher. A standard 8-bit audio digitizer and microphone. A TCP connection with at least 14.4kb/sec bandwidth. Recommended: An accelerated (68020+) CPU. A faster TCP connection. (28.8kb/sec or higher) A line-level amplifier for the microphone. AVAILABILITY Available on Aminet as comm/net/AmiPhone0.5B.lha PRICE AmiPhone0.5B is a public beta release, and is therefore available at no charge. Future releases will be DonationWare. DISTRIBUTABILITY AmiPhone is freely distributable as long as no charge is made for it other than a small fee for the cost of the media. @endnode @node NEWS5 "Argel Pointers 5.0" @toc NEWS ----<<<{{{[[[ ARGEL POINTERS 5.0 ]]]}}}>>>----- AVAILABLITY: This is available for ftp at musie.phlab.missouri.edu in pub/amiga/ArgelPtrs/ArgelPtrs.lzx You can also take a look at them on the WWW at http://www.missouri.edu/~c621412 (go to the amiga page there). The ftp site is accesible from the WWW (and there's a link on my web page) INTRODUCTION / NOTES: These are hires mouse pointers (that means OS3+) with a focus on fantasy related stuff (e.g. AD&D character classes) plus some other stuff thrown in like sci-fi (right now a cross between TSR's "new" Buch Rodgers, G.I. Joe, and Star Wars) and believe it or not even some Christian related stuff! POINTERS (* = new to this version): Fantasy: Cleric, Bard, Thief (Kender), two "generic" fighters, a ninja fighter, Paladin, Ranger, and Mage Fantasy Monsters(*): Megalo-centipede Sci-Fi(*): SWAT and Shock assault warriors Christian(*): Jesus on the cross with Mother Mary and some lightning; comes in a regular color schem and an "antique photo" color scheme. THE AUTHOR/ARTIST: /---Russ-LeBar-------+------ c621412@missouri.edu ---------S()---------\ | // Dare to Dream | Creator of Argel Ptrs & Term toolstrip imagery | | \X/ A M I G A | A1200-6MB-14Mhz881-426HD -- Term beta tester | +^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^+ |WWW: http://www.missouri.edu/~c621412/ - Kathy Troccoli, artwork, etc.| |FTP: musie.phlab.missouri.edu in pub/amiga - (Term betas, ArgelPtrs..)| \------S()--Argel----------- Opinions are mine & thus CORRECT =) ------/ @endnode @node NEWS6 "fMSX Amiga 0.7" TITLE fMSX Amiga 0.7 AUTHOR Hans Guijt (h.guijt@inter.nl.net) DESCRIPTION fMSX Amiga emulates an MSX computer on an Amiga. Features include: - Full emulation of the MSX1 system. - Partial emulation of the MSX2 system (to be expanded in the future). - Support for reading/writing MSX disks. - Support for the SCC sound system. - Support for MSX memory sizes of up to 4Mb. (for those not in the know: MSX is an 8-bit computer system, similar to the C64) Software is not included with the package, but many packages (mostly games) can be found on FTP sites: ftp.saitama-u.ac.jp /pub/msx/ stargate.imagine.com /pub/MSX/ ftp.funet.fi /pub/msx/ riaph.irkutsk.su /pub/ Currently some 147 ROMs, 10 MegaROMs, and over 250 disk-based games have been uploaded! Of course fMSX Amiga is fully multitasking, runs in an intuition screen, and has a font-sensitive user interface. NEW FEATURES This version features a complete rewrite of the Z80 emulation that runs at the core of fMSX. The new version is slightly slower than the old one for many tasks, but it has one big advantage: it completely eliminates the need for 16Kb block copies. This means that booting with MSX2 ROMs takes about 9 seconds (instead of 45), MSX-DOS becomes usable, and megaROMs run at much greater speed than before! Another new feature is support for the SCC sound system. SCC was used in some Konami games, and it looks somewhat similar to normal Amiga sound (with sample length limited to 32 bytes). SCC emulation is not yet complete, currently it only emulates 4 channels rather than 5 channels and PSG (PSG is the native MSX soundchip, it is turned off while emulating SCC). Many MSX2 features were added. It is now possible to boot directly in MSX2 mode (no external ROMs required), but only screens 5 and 6 are supported, as is screen 0 (80 columns). Support for screens 5 and 6 is very limited: no sprites, partial blitter implementation, no line interrupts, etc. A very special new feature is support for the v36 Amiga OS. Past versions of fMSX required v39, but this restriction has been eliminated, making fMSX accessible to a much wider public. In addition to all this it has a special mode in which it acts like a PlaySID-like music player (it still emulates a complete MSX but it does not draw any graphics, great for MSX sound demos). SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS Required are: - Amiga OS 2.0 - 68020 processor - 350 kilobytes chip ram - 600 kilobytes other ram Recommended: - 68030 processor, at least 25MHz - Those 600 kilobytes of 'other' ram had better be fast ram! Note that fMSX Amiga does *not* require the AGA chipset. In fact it runs on any chipset upto and including graphics cards! AVAILABILITY fMSX Amiga 0.7 is available from any aminet site, such as: ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/misc/emu/fmsx_0.7.lha (114682) PRICE It's free. DISTRIBUTABILITY fMSX Amiga 0.7 is publically supported freeware. If you are interested in the source, and you're not afraid of function pointers and huge amounts of assembly intermixed with C, you can request it from me. If someone wants to do a special version (and I can think of several possibilities, such as a version that uses the MMU for optimized Z80 emulation, or a version that has been optimized for the CyberGfx system), contact me. @endnode @node NEWS7 "PD GIF Support for ImageFX 2" @toc NEWS Nova Design, Inc. Announces Public Domain GIF Support for ImageFX 2 For Immediate Release Friday, October 27, 1995 Contact: Bob Fisher Nova Design, Inc. 1910 Byrd Avenue, Suite 214 Richmond, VA 23230 804-282-5868 Richmond, VA - October, 1995. Nova Design, Inc. announced that it has now unbundled GIF support from it's premier product; ImageFX, and released it as a set of public domain modules. This follows on the announcement earlier this year by Unisys that it would be enforcing it's patent on the compression system used in Compuserve's GIF graphic format and requiring a licensing fee for all commercial uses. The new GIF modules include support for GIF89 specifications for transparency and interlace mode, making these ideal for Web page graphic creation. The modules will be available soon on all major computer network services, including the Internet's Aminet FTP sites in biz/patch. For more information on ImageFX call (804) 282-6528, or fax (804) 282-3768. ImageFX is a trademark of Nova Design, Inc. All other trademarks are held by their respective owners. @endnode @node NEWS8 "ImageFX 2.1a Upgrade" @toc NEWS Nova Design, Inc. Announces ImageFX 2.1a Upgrade For Immediate Release Friday, October 27, 1995 Contact: Bob Fisher Nova Design, Inc. 1910 Byrd Avenue, Suite 214 Richmond, VA 23230 804-282-5868 Richmond, VA - October, 1995. Nova Design, Inc. announced that it has an all new upgrade to their hit special effects and image processing package; ImageFX(tm). This upgrade is now part of any new ImageFX package and is available free to all owners of ImageFX 2.0 who mailed in their registration card. A minor shipping and handling charge will apply for mailed upgrades. The theme of this upgrade is "Totally Toasterized!", which is reflected in the extensive new support (since version 2.0 was released) given to Newtek's Video Toaster(tm). ImageFX now allows realtime painting and image processing directly on the Toaster's output display as well as framegrabbing and rendering to the Toaster. Other new features include: CineMatte(tm) - the Amiga's first true blue/green screen compositing system. CyberGraphX - windowed full color previews for any graphics display card, such as the Cybervision 64 and Picasso, running the Cybergraphx software system. Hewlett Packard Scanjet - use the HP Scanjet SCSI Series II scanner with ImageFX. Epson Scanner SCSI Support - new controls have been added to allow the use of any Epson scanner connected via a SCSI cable in ImageFX. PrimeraPro - print directly from ImageFX with Fargo's PrimeraPro printer. Newtek Flyer Clip - any frame can be loaded instantly from a Flyer Clip into ImageFX. PNG - the new replacement for the now-defunct GIF format is fully supported in this release of ImageFX. ...as well as new compositing methods, PaintFX(tm) improvements, AutoFX(tm) batch processing scripts and much more! The upgrade patch modules will be available soon on all major computer network services, including the Internet's Aminet FTP sites in biz/patch. ImageFX 2.1a's suggested list price remains at $349.95. Upgrades are only available to registered owners of ImageFX 2.0 or higher. To check to see if you are registered, or order the upgrade, call; 1-800-IMAGE-69 in the U.S. or Canada. If you are outside this area, please call; (804) 282-1157. For customer support or information call (804) 282-6528, or fax us at; (804) 282-3768. ImageFX, PaintFX, AutoFX and Cinematte are trademarks of Nova Design, Inc. Video Toaster and Toaster are trademarks of Newtek, Inc. All other trademarks are held by their respective owners. @endnode @node NEWS9 "ImageStudio" @toc NEWS PRESS RELEASE: IMAGESTUDIO LH Publishing is happy to anounce that ImageStudio from Andy and Graham Dean is now available from LH Publishing complete with a 72 illustrated printed page manual. The freely Distribuatable version is still available from Aminet as well ourselves. Priced at fifteen (15) pounds, ImageStudio 2.3 has a colour preview and support for Cybervision cards. In a review in CU Amiga, ImageStudio received 90 percent. For more details, contact LH Publishing at lthis email address: larry@em.powernet.co.uk Larry Hickmott LH Publishing @endnode @node NEWS10 "Amiga Goes PowerPC" @toc NEWS PRESS INFORMATION FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Amiga goes POWER PC (TM) Bensheim 07/11/95 During his key note address held in Los Angeles at the Video Toaster Expo, Petro Tyschtschenko, CEO and President of Amiga Technologies officially announced the Power PC to be the processor used in the future generation of Amiga computers. The first POWER AMIGA will be available 1st quarter 1997 and will feature the Power PC 604 RISC CPU. Further models will be available later in the entry-level, as well as in the mid-range. The Power Amigas will be backwards compatible with current models and will also feature a new and more powerful chipset. "Our pre-emptive multitasking Operating System AmigaOS will be ported to the Power PC platform first. Our goal is to make our OS hardware independent to allow further ports on other platforms", said Petro Tyschtschenko. He also added: "We have a clear business plan: We do things consequently, step by step. First, we ramped up the production and set up an organisation to handle the Amiga market and satisfy the demand. Now that we have achieved this successfully, we focus on research & development to bring new and better products on the market. One of the mistakes the former Commodore made, was to do too many things at a time, too many promises and therefore losing focus on important aspects of its business. We have learned from these mistakes and won't repeat them. Commitments and promises are nice but facts are better." The developments will also focus on including more features in the AmigaOS, especially regarding network abilities and memory management. The development of the native RISC AmigaOS will be made internally at Amiga Technologies. An R&D department is currently being set up in Bensheim with sufficient engineers to meet the announced schedules. Former well known Commodore engineers as well as new competencies will join the team in Bensheim this year. This development project will also be involving a dozen companies in close partnership with Amiga Technologies GmbH. More good news for all Amiga users: The Power PC technology will not only be available for new Power Amigas. Thanks to a close co-operation between Amiga Technologies and Phase V, a German turbo board manufacturer, a full range of Power PC boards will also be available for the A1200, A3000 and A4000 series. This will allow a general migration of the Amiga platform towards Power PC in a short time, also for current models. First Power PC boards for current Amigas will be available before end of 1996. Amiga Technologies will be flexible in licensing the RISC Operating System as before so that a global solution will be available for all above mentioned Amiga computers. This is especially important for the foreseeable partnerships. The 68060 board for the Amiga 4000 T will be available during the first quarter of 1996 and will provide the power needed by applications like 3D rendering software, compilers and high-end graphics software. During 1996, new 68K based entry-level models will be available. These Amigas will be based on the A1200 platform, with faster processors, more memory expansion capacity and CD ROM expansion. Amiga Technologies is a 100% subsidiary of the ESCOM AG and is based in Bensheim, Germany. You are welcome on our WEB page for more information at http://www.amiga.de. CONTACT: Gilles Bourdin AMIGA Technologies Berliner Ring 89 D-64625 Bensheim Germany Tel +49 6252 709 195 Fax +49 6252 709 520 eMail: gbo@amiga.de Amiga is a registered trademark of ESCOM AG POWER PC is a registered trademark of IBM corporation @endnode @node NEWS11 "Alien Breed 3D Special Edition" @toc NEWS Alien Breed 3D Special Edition Alien Breed 3D - Full screen 1x1 Pixel Mode!!! Yes it`s true!! Having caught wind of what other people were up to, Andy (coder behind AB3D) has managed to re-write a lot of the original AB3D engine and now offers the following features; NEW ENGINE FEATURES! * Glass Objects (great effect) * Transparent textures (for fences etc) * Ability to look up and down (Like, for eg, Dark Forces/Descent) CHUNKY TO PLANAR SCREEN CONVERSION FOR 030+ BASED AMIGAS! * 2 screen resolutions 192x128, 320x256 * 256 or 64 colours for A3000 compatability! * Pixel Ratio options 2:2, 2:1, 1:1 * Support for Graphics cards such as the Picasso II It is planned that we will offer the new code as part of the AB3D SPECIAL EDITION PACK that we are now planning (price & availability to be confirmed, but this will be shortly after Xmas). The pack will also contain the following; * Level Editor. Fully documented, INTUITIVE editor to all users to define their own levels using existing or completely new graphics. * Ability to load in original AB3D levels for inspection, plus information in the manual about the levels (maps, design hints) * Ability to design and introduce new aliens * Ability to enter own mission text * Ability to incorporate new sound fx * A set of new levels using all new features to test AB3D stalwarts ONLY TEAM17 MAKES IT HAPPEN... WATCH OUT FOR MORE NEWS SOON!!! Email support@team17.com for news and information. @endnode @node NEWS12 "PowerPC News Interprets the Amiga" @toc NEWS PowerPC News Interprets the Amiga [The following three news items were sent to me from Simon Austin of PowerPC News. It's always interesting to see how the rest of the industry views your moves...-Jason] From simona@power.globalnews.com Fri Nov 10 09:33 CST 1995 PowerPC Amiga due 1997 The world should see the first PowerPC-based Amiga by the beginning of 1997, according to Petro Tyschtschenko, President of Amiga Technologies. The original Amiga computer was developed by Commodore which subsequently sold the technology to German PC maker Escom AG earlier this year (mf issue 8). Although best known for games-playing the Amiga A4000 computer is actually a high-quality graphics workstation capable of far more than playing games in 24-bit colour. Cleveland's Constabulary, for example, has used the Amiga to develop a low-cost multimedia information network for its 1,500 of its officers. But whether the first of the new generation machines, dubbed Power Amigas, will be straight clones of the PowerPC standard - the Common Hardware Reference Platform - is still an open question, as the Escom subsidiary debates the best way to maintain backwards compatibility with applications. The company is also in discussion with Motorola on the practicalities of building a variant of the PowerPC 604 processor that includes a 68000-family CISC core. This would ease Amiga's transition to the new RISC architecture. Whether such a hybrid chip can or will be built in time to satisfy Amiga Technologies' tight deadlines remains to be seen, so the company is also pursuing the software emulation path. A spokesperson acknowledged that Amiga is talking to Apple about using its 68k emulation technology, but said that it is also talking to alternative emulator software providers. Running existing Amiga applications on a plain CHRP platform will be tough - the Amiga contains a number of proprietary support chips that the software expect to be present. In the first instance, therefore, it seems likely that the Power Amigas will be a superset of CHRP containing these extra chips. The first models will also have to incorporate Amiga's proprietary bus to allow the use of existing peripherals. However the spokesperson said that the intention is to wean application developers away from accessing the hardware directly; so that newer applications will be hardware independent. Tyschtschenko says that his company intends to actively licence the Amiga OS version 4.1 to other computer companies, the eventual aim is to have the shrink-wrapped OS available in the shops for users of CHRP machines to buy. He is clear that the Amiga's strength is in its software - though asked whether in a few years time Amiga Technologies will just be a software house, he answers frankly "I don't know, I don't have a crystal ball". --- Visual Information Services Corp is licensing Amiga Technologies GmbH's hardware and software technology to use in a television and set-top box combination. The Chicago, Illinois-based company was established specifically to develop proprietary and Amiga-based set-tops boxes and has ex-engineering staff from Commodore International Ltd among its development team. Amiga is developing a set-top box based around the Amiga operating system and a new and modified version of its A1200 core. Full details of the product were not available as we went to press but a spokesperson for Amiga said that the set-top box will be available next September and will come equipped with a CD-ROM drive, floppy drive, printer port and serial modem connection or a built in modem. Another US company, Omnibox is licensing Amiga's technology to develop its own set-top box devices. --- Cleveland Constabulary in the North of England is using touch-screen kiosks to keep in contact with police officers and the public. It has spent UKP150,000 on 30 kiosks, using 26 of them to relay messages to its 1,500 employees. The other four will be in public locations to raise awareness and understanding of police activities. The system is based on Scala InfoChannel. Information is entered into the network by the TV and Video Unit at police headquarters in Middlesbrough and is sent to the screens using British Telecommunications Plc ISDN links. The system runs on an Amiga 4000 home computer fitted with an MPEG video board. @endnode @node NEWS13 "Amiga Atlanta Banquet" @toc NEWS Amiga Atlanta Banquet Amiga Atlanta, Inc. cordially invites computer enthusiasts to the Amiga Atlanta 10th Anniversary Celebration Banquet, Saturday, January 20, 1996 at 7 p.m. at the Terrace Garden Inn, 3405 Lenox Rd.(across from the Lenox Square Mall) in Atlanta, GA. This is not only the 10th anniversary of one of America's oldest Amiga user groups, it is also the 10th anniversary of the Amiga platform. It is anticipated that Amiga users, developers and retailers from all over the United States - and possibly abroad - will be in attendance. Amiga legends such as Dave Haynie, Fred Fish, R.J. Mical and Jason Compton are expected to attend. A representative from The Governor's office will be on hand to issue a special proclamation. And, the new owners of the Amiga platform, Amiga Technologies - all the way from Germany - are expected to give the keynote address. There is more to do on Saturday, January 20,1996 in Atlanta than go to a history-making banquet, however. Many of those coming to Atlanta for the banquet should also take the Grey Line Bus Tour of Olympic Venues. Yes, see all the Olympic venues and see where Olympic history will be made before the crowds come to town. Space is limited. Banquet reservations are just $28/person. So, make your banquet reservations now. Local reservations can be made by calling Lamar Morgan at (404)365-0670. For those traveling to Atlanta from within the United States and in need of flight and hotel reservations as well as banquet reservations, call Bear Stearns Travel at 1-800-915-2327 and ask for Cindy Benson. For those traveling to Atlanta from overseas for the banquet, call Bear Stearns Travel collect at 1-816-880-3108 and ask for Cindy Benson. For more specific information regarding the banquet, check out the AAi Home Page: http://www.mindspring.com/~amigaatl; or, send email to: lamar@mindspring.com Believe me, this is one banquet computer enthusiasts should not miss. Lamar Morgan President Amiga Atlanta, Inc. @endnode @node NEWS14 "Light-ROM 3" @toc NEWS L I G H T - R O M 3 I S R E A D Y ! ( for all versions & platforms of Lightwave 4.0 ) LIGHT-ROM 3 is a 3 CD-ROM set and sells for only $49.95! LIGHT-ROM 3 consists of; ROM #1 - Over 6,500 Lightwave objects from BBS's, Internet Sites and exclusive contributions from all around the world! All of the objects include thumbnail renderings for easy previewing. All of the Lightwave content has been renamed & restructured to fit the requirements of Lightwave 4.0 and their "Content Directory" function for easy loading with Lightwave 4.0 as well as early versions of Lightwave for the Amiga. The previous versions of LIGHT-ROM do NOT have this compatability between ALL versions of Lightwave! ROM #1 also includes a selection of useful PC & Amiga PD/Shareware programs, demos, plugins, text files, tutorials and a stunning 360 frame Jpeg image sequence created with World Construction Set Version 2 available soon for several platforms by Questar Productions. ROM #2 - Includes a collection of 100 megs of 3D Studio objects, 175 megs of Imagine objects, 30 megs of Sculpt 3D objects, 7 megs of Real 3D objects, over 700 Jpeg textures (with thumbnail renderings for easy previewing), PD/Shareware programs for PC & Amiga for graphics and a VideoToaster directory with CG fonts, wipes and text files. ROM #3 - Bonus "DEM-ROM" consists of over 1,100 digital elevation maps for use in World Construction Set, VistaPro and Scenery Animator on ALL platforms! Each DEM is represented with a thumbnail rendering of its topographical map. LIGHT-ROM 3 sells for $49.95 plus $4.95 shipping & handling to the U.S. & Canada, $6.95 for international orders. MasterCard & Visa is accepted. If you are interested in receiving a free copy of LR3, contributions to a future issue of LIGHT-ROM will be accepted. You must contact me by writing or Email for the details. Generally, your work has to be approved, and of sufficient quality to qualify for a free copy of LR3. In other words, a logo or a single 10K chair will NOT qualify for a free copy! You are only granting me the rights to publish your work on any CD-ROM I may produce. Your work is still your own & you may use it to contribute to other CD ROM collections if you wish. 3D Lightwave objects are preferred, but homemade professional textures can also be accepted. If your contribution is submitted and not accepted, I will not use it. If you have a collection of quality, Lightwave objects you qualify for a free copy of the complete 3 CD-ROM set. If you only have one or two Lightwave objects to contribute, if accepted, you will receive the first CD-ROM (1 CD-ROM) of Lightwave objects only. Advertising for LIGHT-ROM 3 starts this November with full page color ads in VideoToaster User, LightwavePro, Amazing Computing and 3D Artist magazines. LIGHT-ROM 3 is published by Graphic Detail Inc. Any distributors (domestic or foreign) who are interested in selling LR3 are encouraged to contact Michael Meshew at (502)363-2986 or michael@iglou.com for information. Thank You! Michael Meshew Graphic Detail Inc 4556 South Third Street Louisville, Ky. 40214 (502)363-2986 voice & fax 1-800-265-4041 toll free order number michael@iglou.com LIGHT-ROM 3 is a registered trademark and DEM-ROM is a trademark of Graphic Detail Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. @endnode @node NEWS15 "SqOpal v1.4" @toc NEWS TITLE SqOpal VERSION Version 1.4 AUTHOR Steve Quartly (steveq@sndcrft.DIALix.oz.au) DESCRIPTION The ultimate image viewer for OpalVision! SqOpal is a image viewer for the OpalVision graphics card. If superview.library is installed you can show all the image formats supported by superview. Without superview you can show all the image formats supported by OpalPaint. FEATURES - Loads over 20 different image formats (superview required) - Images can be re-saved into another image format (superview required) - Full image scrolling - Proportional image positioning - Automatic image centering on loading - Scaling of images to fit the screen - Full control of screen format (High Res/Interlace/Overscan) - SqOpal is a commodity - SqOpal has a appicon - Workbench/CLI interface - Multi-select images from ASL requester - Use Opal OR ASL requester - Slide-Show mode with delay time for multi selected images - Fully configurable - Latch the Opal display for Workbench backdrops - Full mouse and/or keyboard support Added in version 1.4: - Bug Fix - when SqOpal was started iconified or cx_popup=hidden, it would crash the machine. Now ok. - Bug Fix - Scrolling palette mapped pictures when loaded with superview would crash the machine. Now ok. - Bug Fix - Changing resolution of palette mapped images when loaded with superview would change the image to grey scale. Now ok. - Bug Fix - The mouse pointer was the incorrect colour when scaling an image. Now ok. - Bug Fix - If a load error occured when the menu was turned off during slideshow mode, SqOpal would not recover properly. Now ok. - Percentage displays have been changed to progress indicators. - There is now a progress indicator for buffer conversion. - You can now force a screenmode when Opal is used to load an image. However this does take slightly longer and need more memory. - Added the CENTERIMAGE/NOCENTERIMAGE Tooltype/CLI documentation to the SqOpal.guide file. I missed it originally. - I have changed the operation of the clear screen gadget. - A file containing a list of files can now be loaded. - Added Online Help facility. - Superview Operators have now been implemented. - I have changed the operation of the latch display gadget. Latch display is now a toggle and will unlatch a display as well. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS - OpalVision graphics card - superview.library (Available from Aminet pub/aminet/gfx/show) (Not essential but HIGHLY recommended) AVAILABILITY Any Aminet site. ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/gfx/show/SqOpal14.lha - (52461) bytes PRICE ShareWare, US$20. DISTRIBUTION Freely redistributable as long as archive is intact. All rights reserved. Not to be re-sold, except for duplication/disk costs ($4 max), or with express written consent from the author. @endnode @node NEWS16 "Master ISO v1.21b" @toc NEWS TITLE: MasterISO VERSION: v1.21b COMPANY: Asimware Innovations Inc. 600 Upper Wellington St., Unit D Hamilton, Ontario Canada L9A 3P9 Phone: (905)578-4916 Fax: (905)578-3966 EMail: info@asimware.com MasterISO v1.21b Maintenance Release ----------------------------------- We would like to announce the availability of MasterISO v1.21b, which was released as of October 19th, 1995. This is a maintenance update for the MasterISO v1 package. Registered uses may contact us directly for information on obtaining this update. About MasterISO... ------------------ The MasterISO software package allows a user to control a CD-R recorder to create custom CD-ROM and CD-Audio discs. CD-ROM discs are formatted in the universal ISO 9660 format, compatible with Amiga, IBM, Macintosh and virtually any other CD-ROM equipped platform. CD-Audio discs are formatted to the Red Book standard and offer universal compatibility with standard CD players. For reference, our current list of supported CD-R drives is: - Yamaha CDR-100, CDR-102 - Sony CDU-920 - Pinnacle RCD-1000, RCD-202 - Philips CDD-522, CDD-521 Please contact us for a current list of tested CD-R and SCSI controller combinations. Asimware Innovations Inc. is an Amiga software development house specializing in CD-ROM and CD-Recordable technologies. Our current product line includes AsimCDFS, MasterISO, Texture Heaven, Texture Heaven 2 and PhotoCD Manager. Sincerely, Paul Reeves Asimware Innovations Inc. October 25th, 1995 @endnode @node NEWS17 "CompactPlayer v1.4" @toc NEWS TITLE CompactPlayer VERSION 1.4 AUTHOR Osma Ahvenlampi [Editor of the Amiga Report Technical Journal! -Jason] DESCRIPTION CompactPlayer is a CD Audio player for SCSI CD-ROMs, similar to MCDP, YACDP, CDPD, or CDP. CompactPlayer is compatible with MCDP's CD index files. In fact, MCDP had a heavy influence on CompactPlayer, in particular the SCSI routines. CompactPlayer has been developed and tested on an Amiga 3000 and Toshiba XM3601B, using AmigaOS 3.1. The SCSI chip used was the -4PROTO model. Compatibility with other CD-ROM devices is unknown. CompactPlayer uses the ClassAct GUI toolkit. Source has been included as a demo of using ClassAct in an application. However, CompactPlayer can not be recompiled without the ClassAct developer kit. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS A SCSI-2 CD-ROM or some other CD-ROM device that can be accessed with SCSI-Direct commands. Some IDE drives attached to A1200 or A4000 IDE interface might apply. Preferably a couple of audio CDs ;) Some ClassAct gadget classes, included in the archive and installed by the provided Installer script. AVAILABILITY CompactPlayer has been uploaded to Aminet (ftp.netnet.net) and should be available shortly at the URL: ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/disk/cdrom/CompactPlayer.lha (124570) PRICE GiftWare. A small gift or donation would be appreciated if you use CompactPlayer frequently. This would also encourage me to continue development and add features such as programs, random play and intro play, as well as perhaps a cd.device and/or CD-DA (through SCSI and Amiga audio) player module. DISTRIBUTABILITY CompactPlayer is Copyright ) 1995 Osma Ahvenlampi ClassAct is Copyright ) 1995 Phantom Development CompactPlayer may be distributed by any channels not owned or financially sponsored by Microsoft or its subsidiaries. @endnode @node NEWS18 "Virtual Karting" @toc NEWS TITLE Virtual Karting VERSION N/A AUTHOR Fabio Bizzetti (bizzetti@mbox.vol.it) Music : Ruben Monteiro PUBLISHER OTM 5 Albert Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 7JN, UK Tel. 01827 312 302 Fax. 01827 670 10 Email: OTM@OTMltd.demon.co.uk DESCRIPTION A fast frenetic, seat of the pants 3D virtual racing game, for those who want to fly without wings! VK is the fastest, smoothest, most detailed full-screen texture mapped game the Amiga has ever seen. Combining all the fun and action of karting into a totally realistic and mind numbingly fast driving experience. VK is fast! - 25 frames/second full screen action, its fast! - Full texture mapped circuits and scenery - Fly-by helicopter circuit previews - Full 3d or 2D overhead game views - Qualifying and intelligent computer opponents - Realistic kart fx. - Beginners, advanced, and Expert tracks - 100cc and 125cc karts - Hard disk installable - Amiga 1200 (AGA) only - even faster on accelerated machines! REQUIREMENTS All Amiga AGA machines (A1200 & A4000) Makes full use of extra memory or accelerator. Hard Disk installable AVAILABILITY Release Date : 10th October '95. Commercial game. Available from most high street shops, if not, why not! Also available direct from OTM mail order on +44 (0)1827 312 302 and available now by credit card. Playable demo on most Amiga mag coverdisks across Europe over the next month or two (Nov-Dec 95). PRICE 24.95 (UK-Sterling) DISTRIBUTABILITY (c) Fabio Bizzetti. Commercial release - NOT freely distributable @endnode @node NEWS19 "Jukebox 2.1" @toc NEWS TITLE JukeBox 2.1 VERSION 2.106 (22.1.95) AUTHOR Franz-Josef Reichert Internet: fjrei@kbsaar.saar.de DESCRIPTION JukeBox is a program to play compact digital audio discs by emulating a graphical user interface similar to common CD players. It provides a command line oriented, fully programmable ARexx user interface as well. It will work on CD-ROM players plugged to a scsi-hostadapter or CDTV. JukeBox will open its windows on the workbench (or any other public screen) and do its best to allow a font sensitive layout. The main goal during development was to create a very comprehensive, self- explanatory utility. Features: Full Intuition interface ARexx port Fully programmable Keyboard shortcuts Supports any release of AmigaOS French, dutch, swedish, danish, italian and german localization with Workbench 2.04/2.1/3.0/3.1 Any screenmode or depth supported Windows on workbench or any public screen Tested with Enforcer and MungWall Common CD player functionality Catalogization, label and title recognition of your own discs. Shuttle-wheel for pickup positioning Play/Pause, Fast Forward/Backward, Shuffle Play, Repeat Mode, Skip Track Forward/Backward, A-B cuts REQUIREMENTS AmigaOS 1.2, 1.3, 2.04, 3.0, 3.1 or later. The use of release 2.x or 3.x system software is strongly recommended. arp.library recommended for use with any OS release former to 2.04. This library is not included. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS SCSI/AT/IDE host adaptor and a CDROM device. Currently supported are: SONY CDU-8002/1.8g player module 2.0 (19.12.93) PIONEER DRM-18 player module 2.0 (1.6.95) NEC player module 2.1 (1.9.94) TOSHIBA player module 2.0 (16.12.93) Commodore CDTV/A570 player module 2.0 (28.11.94) MATSUSHITA CR-5xx player module 1.2 (18.3.93) TEXEL DM-xx2x player module 2.1 (23.12.93) TEAC CD-50 player module 2.0 (19.12.93) SONY CDU-8003/541 player module 2.0 (19.12.93)
CHINON CDS-431 player module 1.1 (14.6.93) TANDEM player module 2.1 (27.3.94) PIONEER player module 2.0 (7.10.94) HITACHI player module 2.0 (27.8.94) SANYO player module 2.0 (13.12.94) NAKAMICHI player module 2.0 (20.2.95) ANSI_player_module 2.9 (16.07.95) ATAPI_player_module 2.3 (18.06.95) SONY CDU-8002/1.8g player module 1.0 (18.11.93) TOSHIBA_SCSI-1_player_module 1.1 (08.02.94) ARCHOS_player_module 2.2 (16.06.95) HOST Any Aminet site, e.g. ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/disk/cdrom/jukebox21.lha (352017) PRICE Unregistered release is freely distributable, anybody is hereby encouraged to include it in freely distributable software libraries. Registered release with full functionality available from author. Printed manual (german) available. Suggested shareware donation is US$ 30.00 / DM 50.00. DISTRIBUTION Freely distributable release (limited features); see documentation. Shareware release available from the author. @endnode @node NEWS20 "QuietSCSI v1.1" @toc NEWS TITLE QuietSCSI VERSION 1.1 (20.10.95) AUTHOR Franz-Josef Reichert fjrei@kbsaar.saar.de DESCRIPTION Can you sleep in the same room when your computer is on? I can not! The harddisks make too much noise. Well, the power supply fan makes noise, too. But since I got a temperature controlled model, I can stand it much better. And there's another problem. The power led. Yes, it's so bright that I can read books! Speaking of SCSI harddisks, there is a mechanism to switch the motor off. It will just stop to spin as if you switched your computer off. But the drive is not dead. It's just q-u-i-e-t. It won't allow you to read or write data, though. But the controller electronic on the harddisk is still alive, and it might get a command to restart the drive at any time. Then it will behave just as if you switched your computer on. The motor will spin up again, and the drive will be ready to read or write data. This little program does exactly this. It monitors all read and write accesses to the drive. It also monitors all input events. If there is inactivity for a certain period of time, it will spin down the drive motor and dim the power led. If the next command arrives, it will spin up the motor and switch to led back to bright. REQUIREMENTS A SCSI harddisk AVAILABILITY Any AmiNet site ftp://uni-paderborn.de/pub/aminet/disk/misc/quietscsi11.lha (8980) PRICE Giftware, small donation appreciated. DISTRIBUTION freely distributable, anybody is hereby encouraged to include it in freely distributable software libraries. @endnode @node NEWS21 "RTrack v0.1" @toc NEWS TITLE RTrack VERSION 0.1 (15.8.95) PROXITY SOFTWORKS Proxity Engineering and Technical Support Usenet: pets@amiuni.tynet.sub.org Fidonet: 2:246/1416.0 (pets) AUTHOR Boris Folgmann Address: Friedrichstrasse 7 71546 Aspach Germany Usenet: Internet: WWW: Fidonet: 2:246/1416.41 (Boris) IRC: PRX PGP Fingerprint: 82 84 70 38 26 5E 50 5A 9C DB CA CA 62 0A 31 52 Phone: ++49-(0)7191-23439 Fax: ++49-(0)7191-2604 DESCRIPTION RTrack.lib is a link library for resource tracking for AmigaOS 2 and better. All resource allocations are maintained in a linked list and automatically freed before exiting. The linked list is located in a memory pool, so the small allocations don't fragment memory. One RTrack list node is only 12 bytes in size and the list handling is so fast that you won't have any overhead. Experimental version for discussion in comp.sys.amiga.programmer. This version works 100% but the set of supported routines is not complete yet. Please contact the author if you need a specific function in your program. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS Kickstart 2.04 or later Workbench 2.0 or later amiga.lib V40 for memory pool functions AVAILABILITY PRICE Free DISTRIBUTABILITY Freeware (C) 1995 by Proxity Softworks @endnode @node NEWS22 "C-Shell v5.48" @toc NEWS TITLE C-Shell (csh) VERSION 5.48 AUTHOR Andreas M. Kirchwitz (csh 5.20+), based on csh 5.19 by Urban D. Mueller E-Mail: csh-fan@zikzak.in-berlin.de DESCRIPTION C-Shell is a replacement for the AmigaDOS command line interface. Many builtin Unix-like commands, very fast script language, file- name completion, command-name completion, comfortable command line editing, pattern matching, AUX: mode, object oriented file classes, abbreviation of internal and external commands. Supports multiple users. C-Shell is easy to install and to use. Online help for all commands, functions and various subjects. ARP-free! NEW FEATURES Changes since version 5.42 (summary): - Redirected output to a file can now be examined by other programs while Cshell is still filling up the file. (files for redirection are now opened "shared" instead of "exclusivly") - Enhanced pipe functionality. Made "echo mem | csh" work again. - Built-in command "copy" now has (optional) new output format which prints full path of files being copied. (just try option "-x") - Supports "muSetProtection" if MultiUser is installed. - Built-in commands "chown" and "chgrp" now accept also user and group names (as well as numerical IDs). Does only work with "MultiUser". - Fixed bug in built-in commands "chown" and "chgrp" which could crash under OS 2.x. - Fixed fatal bug if non-interactive input line was too long. - New option "-t" for built-in command "sleep": wait ticks. - Built-in command "window" resizes/moves window much more faster now. - Built-in command "version" now behaves more like Commodore's command "version". - Fixed a problem with localized date strings. See file "HISTORY" in archive csh548.lha for complete listing of changes and new features. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS AmigaOS 2.0 (or higher) AVAILABILITY FTP/Internet: AmiNet and mirrors ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/util/shell/csh548.lha (201791) ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/util/shell/csh548src.lha (144892) UUCP/E-Mail : mail-server@cs.tu-berlin.de Send mail to the address above and put the line "send /pub/aminet/util/shell/csh548.lha" in the body. (same for "csh548src.lha") The archive "csh548.lha" contains binary and documentation, while "csh548src.lha" contains C source code (for SAS/C 6). DISTRIBUTABILITY Freely distributable, Copyright by the individual authors. @endnode @node NEWS23 "AsimCDFS v3.4" @toc NEWS TITLE: AsimCDFS VERSION: v3.4 COMPANY: Asimware Innovations Inc. 600 Upper Wellington St., Unit D Hamilton, Ontario Canada L9A 3P9 Phone: (905)578-4916 Fax: (905)578-3966 EMail: info@asimware.com AsimCDFS v3.4 Maintenance Release --------------------------------- We would like to announce the availability of AsimCDFS v3.4, which was released as of October 24th, 1995. This is a maintenance update for the AsimCDFS v3 package. The update highlights include: - support for Rock Ridge volumes; - additional support for the Sanyo 254 CD-ROM drive; - support for the Pioneer DRU-124X CD-ROM drive; - support for the Nakamichi MBR-7.4 quad-speed 7 disc changer; - the addition of some newer AmigaDOS packets; and, - a few minor bug fixes. Registered users can obtain this release via our BBS or ftp site. - ftp: ftp.asimware.com - BBS: 905-332-9207 In either case, you will need your AsimCDFS serial number to obtain access. About AsimCDFS v3... -------------------- The AsimCDFS software package is a CD-ROM control system which allows the user to read most CD-ROM discs with an Amiga computer and a suitable CD-ROM drive. AsimCDFS is equipped with the following advanced features: - access to ISO 9660, High Sierra, Rock Ridge and Macintosh HFS CD-ROM formats; - FishMarket, a CD-ROM disc containing the public domain Fred Fish collection; - AsimTunes, an audio librarian/controller providing advanced librarian and playback features; - support for direct digitizing from standard audio CDs and playing audio via the Amiga hardware; - CDTV and CD32 emulation modules, complete with autobooting from CD-ROM discs; - integrated support for Kodak and Corel PhotoCD discs. Colour WorkBench icons are created for easy identification. Support for resolutions from 192x128 up to 3072x2048; - preferences editor for all AsimCDFS settings; and, - full ARexx command set available for all programs. Asimware Innovations Inc. is an Amiga software development house specializing in CD-ROM and CD-Recordable technologies. Our current product line includes AsimCDFS, MasterISO, Texture Heaven, Texture Heaven 2 and PhotoCD Manager. Sincerely, Paul Reeves Asimware Innovations Inc. October 24th, 1995 @endnode @node NEWS24 "shutdown.library 1.0" @toc NEWS TITLE shutdown.library 1.0 COMPANY SHW Wabnitz Grabenstrasse 33 53225 Bonn Germany Tel.: +49/(0)228/97289-0 Fax.: +49/(0)228/97289-50 email: shw@shw.com AUTHOR Bernhard Fastenrath (fasten@shw.com) DESCRIPTION shutdown.library distributes shutdown messages to programs which use it. A shutdown command is included with the library. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS none AVAILABILITY AmiNet, ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/util/libs/shutdown.lzh PRICE Free. (Software authors are requested to send a registration to amiga-dev@shw.com with a short description of their software). DISTRIBUTABILITY GNU Public License @endnode @node NEWS25 "Upgrade to THOR" @toc NEWS Upgrade from AmiQWK to THOR - discount ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ THOR is the premium offline reader on the Amiga, supporting a wide range of formats like SOUP, UUCP, QWK, Fido, TCP/IP Mail/News (SMTP, POP, NNTP), Bluewave, ABBS/MBBS, Hippo and Omen. As many of you know, Jim Dawson will not make any new versions of AmiQWK on the Amiga. As a courtesy to registered AmiQWK users, we are now offering a $10 discount to register THOR for registered users of AmiQWK. If you are a registered AmiQWK user and want to use this offer to upgrade to THOR for a discount on the registration price, you must do the following: - Follow the instructions in THOR.guide and send the registration fee to Eivind Nordseth. - Instead of sending $30, which is the normal fee for registering THOR, send $20. This is a $10 discount for registered user of AmiQWK. - Please make sure that your full name, address, postal code, city and country is included. If you have an Internet email address, please include that one too. Make sure you include your AmiQWK serial registration number and your key ID. This offer is only valid when using our central registration site in Norway. The THOR team would like to thank Jim Lawson for his long support of the Amiga and for providing us with his registration database. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. For the THOR Team, Petter Nilsen THOR support : thor@hstud6.cs.uit.no THOR WWW page : http://www.cs.uit.no/~kjelli/thor.html BBS : Ultima Thule BBS: +47-776-13205/+47-776-81999 Mailing list subscription : listserv@hstud6.cs.uit.no In the body: "sub thor-l Firstname Lastname" Mailing list postings : thor-l@hstud6.cs.uit.no @endnode @node NEWS26 "Amiga Typeface Engine 1.4 Beta 4D" TITLE Amiga Typeface Engine VERSION 1.4 Beta 4D AUTHOR Main engine and data files: Gordon Fecyk (ME) (gordonf@freenet.vancouver.bc.ca) post.library and PS init files: Adrian Aylward distributed under his license in POST 1.7 (free with freely distributable software) FunkyFont by Radical Eye Software, originally distributed with Post 1.7. DESCRIPTION Amiga Typeface Engine (ATE) is my answer to Adobe Type Manager (tm Adobe Systems Inc) for the Amiga. It allows apps using the OS to draw text with, to use PostScript typefaces like any other Amiga font. ATE draws fonts character by character on demand, to improve performance and make it actually usable on 68000 systems. NEW FEATURES Compared to ATMbeta3d, ATE beta4d supports HWGPOST and fixes big problems with KS/WB 3.0 systems. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS Amiga with KS/WB 2.04 or later (V36 diskfont.library), 2 MB total memory, hard drive, some CLI savvy if you plan to install more typefaces. Recommended: 68020/881 combination or better, typefaces from ATM (tm) for Windows (Times, Helvetica, Symbol, Courier). Support files included for those typefaces. AVAILABILITY Aminet, via: ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/util/misc/Atebeta4d.lha (251404) and all Aminet mirrors. Also available from me via UUencoded E-MAIL on request, and from Amiga Computing UK's November 1995 issue. PRICE: Free. Commercial version using a Bullet style library with optional patches and gadtools/ASL user interface in the works. DISTRIBUTABILITY As per Availability only, please. You can ask me if you want to re-distribute ATEbeta4d. I'll probably approve as this is just for tracking. @endnode @node NEWS27 "Motor Duel v1.1" @toc NEWS TITLE Motor Duel VERSION 1.1 AUTHOR David Jameson (ae553@yfn.ysu.edu) DESCRIPTION A 3d driving/shooting game for one or two players. In the one player game you have to try to reduce the computer car's energy to zero by shooting and firing missiles at it before the time limit runs out. The two player game can be played if you have a null-modem cable and two Amigas -- there is no time limit, and the idea is to kill the other player before they kill you. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS Should work on any Amiga with at least 1 meg of RAM. AVAILABILITY Aminet: ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/game/shoot/Motor_Duel.lha (324219) DISTRIBUTABILITY Motor Duel is freeware. It may be freely distributed as long as the documentation is included. OTHER Motor Duel was previously released as licenceware in the UK via CLR. It has been re-released as freeware by the author with the permission of CLR. @endnode @node NEWS28 "InfraRexx v1.7" @toc NEWS TITLE InfraRexx (and InfraJoy hardware design) VERSION 1.7 (and InfraJoy version 4.0b) RELEASE DATE 21-Oct-95 AUTHORS Leon Woestenberg (leon@stack.urc.tue.nl) Jeroen Steenblik (jeroens@il.ft.hse.nl) DESCRIPTION The InfraRexx software along with the InfraJoy hardware serve as an ARexx-Infrared interface, that adds the function of an infrared remote controller to your Amiga, and more. With this software and hardware you can: o Control external audio/video devices via ARexx commands. o Control Amiga programs via a common remote control unit. o Learn and edit new remote control infrared commands. For example you can control a moduleplayer via your compact disc player remote control unit. Or, control your video tape recorder via a graphic user interface or an ARexx script. The main features are: o Seperate editor (with learner) and ARexx host commodity. o Multitasking-friendly infrared sampling monitor, with very low system overhead during monitoring; can also be disabled. o Font-sensitive, style-compliant graphic user interface. o Supports localization under Workbench 2.1 (or better). o Uses AmigaOS 3.x functions and gadtools features if present. o Modular lowcost hardware for joystickport, with throughput. o Uses the Amiga Installer Utility to install onto (hard)disk. CHANGES o Sizeable main window. o Added Commodore CDTV codeset. o Added codeset for Reflex television. o Added codeset for Samsug video cassette recorder. o Several small bugfixes and optimalizations. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS InfraRexx needs at least AmigaOS version 2.04, and the commodity needs RexxMast to be running in order to be useful. The software is useless without the small InfraJoy hardware add-on, off which the design and full building instructions are included. The hardware can also be ordered from one of the authors. AVAILABILITY ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/pub/aminet/util/rexx/InfraRexx1_7.lha (168071 bytes) PRICE Free. The optional registration fee is USD 10. The minimal required hardware costs about USD 10 if self-built. The complete hardware can be ordered for the amount of USD 28, which offers free registration and one free update. DISTRIBUTABILITY Freeware; freely distributable software and hardware design. InfraRexx Copyrights 1994-1995 by Leon Woestenberg. InfraJoy hardware design Copyrights 1994-1995 by Jeroen Steenblik and Leon Woestenberg. @endnode @node NEWS29 "Amiga Elm v8.20" @toc NEWS TITLE Amiga Elm VERSION 8 (8.20) AUTHOR Andreas M. Kirchwitz E-Mail: elm-fan@zikzak.in-berlin.de DESCRIPTION AmigaElm is an "Electronic Mail Reader" which allows you to read and write mail. Normally you'd need a properly installed UUCP or IP package (eg, AmigaUUCP, Feulner-UUCP, Dillon-UUCP, wUUCP or AmiTCP plus INetUtils) to receive and send mail, but AmigaElm is highly configurable so that you can take a mail-folder from a UNIX box, answer the messages and bring the answers back to the UNIX box. AmigaElm is easy to install and to use. The user interface is very intuitive and similar to the well-known UNIX "elm". Beginners can control all basic functions with menus and some nice GadTools requesters. Advanced users can use aliases, prioritized message tagging, various filename-offers when saving messages and lots of options to configure AmigaElm to fit your needs. In a system with multiple users, AmigaElm allows separate configuration files for each user. AmigaElm can be invoked in a special "terminal mode" (all input/output from/to console). This is useful for running AmigaElm in the current shell window or over a serial line (eg, with AUX-Handler). AmigaElm offers basic internal MIME (multimedia mail) functionality (eg, sending 8-bit-text and binaries over 7-bit-lines) and supports "MetaMail" (a full-featured package for handling all kinds of MIME messages -- also available on AmiNet, see section "AVAILABILITY") and "ReqTools" library 2.x (reqtools.library is included). AmigaElm has built-in support for cryptographic applications (eg, PGP). Encryption and decryption of messages is user-configurable. NEW FEATURES Changes since version 7: (summary) - New config variable to iconify Elm's window with close gadget. - Enhanced "get-string" code to get string from user in terminal mode. - Built-in function "jump to msg #" now allows to edit the first digit you've typed. - After changing the folder ("c") Elm was sometimes confused if it should store read mail really in the received folder or if the current folder already was a received folder. This has been fixed, neither Elm nor its author can be confused any longer ;-) - Some changes in documentation. (see file "History.Txt" for complete list of changes) SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS AmigaOS 2.0 (or higher) And for normal usage: a properly installed UUCP or IP package. But can be configured to run without a UUCP or IP package for processing ready-made mail-folders (eg, from your work or university). AVAILABILITY FTP/Internet: AmiNet and mirrors ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/comm/mail/AmigaElm-v8.lha (214025) UUCP/E-Mail : mail-server@cs.tu-berlin.de Send mail to the address above and put the line "send /pub/aminet/comm/mail/AmigaElm-v8.lha" in the body. DISTRIBUTABILITY Shareware, Copyright by Andreas M. Kirchwitz Source code only available to registered users. @endnode @node NEWS30 "ShutUp 1.3.5" @toc NEWS TITLE ShutUp 1.3.5 UPS Software COMPANY SHW Wabnitz Grabenstrasse 33 53225 Bonn Germany Tel.: +49/(0)228/97289-0 Fax.: +49/(0)228/97289-50 email: shw@shw.com AUTHOR Bernhard Fastenrath (fasten@shw.com) DESCRIPTION ShutUp monitors a UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) and shuts down your AmigaDOS, Netware, Unix or OS/2 system before a power failure can do so. The AmigaDOS version broadcasts shutdown messages with shutdown.library and calls an AREXX script. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS UPS AVAILABILITY Contact SHW Wabnitz (sales@shw.com) for further information. PRICE introductory price: $35 DISTRIBUTABILITY (c) 1995 by SHW Wabnitz @endnode @node NEWS31 "UniversalXiPaintModule v2.0" @toc NEWS TITLE UniversalXiPaintModule for XiPaint 3.x VERSION 2.0 AUTHOR Helmut Hoffmann Rubensstrasse 4 41063 Moenchengladbach Germany EMail: hhoff@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de DESCRIPTION An universal picture loader module for XiPaint supporting over 20 file formats. Module is designed for very high loading speed and support of many picture file format variants (see below for detailed list). In addition the module supports loading of pictures by Datatypes. Internally supported formats for loading: 1) IFF-ILBM (1 to 24Bit incl. HAM6/HAM8) 2) PhotoCD (Base format 768x512 or 512x768 (portrait)) 3) PPM/PGM/PBM (P1&P4 b&w, P5 grey, P6 color) 4) QRT (also known as dump format by PD raytracers as POV-Ray) 5) Targa (compressed & uncompressed) 6) PCX (compressed & uncompressed) 7) BMP (compressed & uncompressed) 8) TIF (packbit-compr./uncompr.) 9) EGS7.x window icons 10) DEEP (compressed & uncompressed) 11) YUV 12) VLAB raw 13) RGB 14) HHsYUVSq sequence format 15) IFF-PBM (DPII) 16) ACBM 17) FBM 18) Sun raster (uncompressed) 19) MacPaint (b&w compressed 1Bit format; datafork only) 20) HHsXRL formats 21) binary-EPS bitmaps (RGB and CMYK) 22) TBCPlus frames The additional DataType support extends this list by many formats; DataTypes can e.g. be found on Aminet in util/DType. The DataType support is very fast, so that you can also view pictures in GIF or other formats quite fast for which Datatypes exist. The module can be used with both older XiPaints (3.0/3.1: invocation of the module with an included ARexx script) and newer XiPaints (3.2 and up: direct support of external loader modules). NEW FEATURES New since V2.0: Direct external module support for XiPaint 3.2 SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS XiPaint 3.x (commercial painting program) AVAILABILITY Any Aminet site ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/gfx/misc/xipaintmodul20.lha PRICE Shareware fee: Special add-on price: 10DM or 8US$ (only valid if you order the module together with one of my shareware programs EGS-TV, EGSPhotoAlbum or CyberShow) Registration of just the module: 20DM (europe) or 18US$ (worldwide) Registration of the module if you are already registered user of one of my shareware programs EGS-TV, EGSPhotoAlbum or CyberShow: 15DM (europe) or 13US$ (worldwide) DISTRIBUTABILITY Copyright by Helmut Hoffmann 1995 Limited demo version is freely distributable; registered users will receive a keyfile which enables all features. OTHER The freely distributable version has some restrictions (all pictures will only be loaded in greyscales) which disappear after you pay the shareware fee and receive a special personal keyfile (together with the latest version). Once registered, you can use new freely distributable versions as update with your keyfile. A similair loader module is also available for ImageFX (FastIFXModules46) and PhotoGenics (UniversalGIO 2.0). @endnode @node NEWS32 "CyberShow Professional v5.2" @toc NEWS TITLE CyberShow Professional VERSION 5.2 AUTHOR Helmut Hoffmann Rubensstrasse 4 41063 Moenchengladbach Germany EMail: hhoff@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de DESCRIPTION A slideshow presentation program (including transition effects) and universal picture viewer (incl. PhotoCD support) and converter for all Amigas and esp. for Cybergraphic users. This program can display pictures in many file formats (see below) directly in windows on the Workbench (default public screen), in windows on public screens or on it's own screen. It also offers (borderless) viewing as slideshow. Optional transition effects can be used to make viewing multiple files more interesting. You can even zoom into pictures to magnify parts or zoom out to get even large pictures fully on screen very quickly. An automatic presentation mode (configurable delay time) incl. optional loop mode is also implemented. If you have a suitable graphic board with Cybergraphic WB emulation installed you can even watch the pictures in full color quality (HiColor/TrueColor) on your Workbench. Without Cybergraphics the normal color restrictions (2 to 256 colors) will lead to a reduced quality, but smart pen allocation during displaying will still give surprisingly high quality with 256 colors. You can switch forward and backward between images and scroll images in their resizable windows. An automatic preloading feature will reduce waiting time to a minimum. While you watch one picture (and maybe scroll it around), the next picture will already be loaded, so that it will be there if you decide to switch... You can select down- scaled loading for viewing in reduced size. Unlike many viewers, this viewer reduces most pictures during loading and will thus be faster for reduced size loading. Additional features include conversion to some 24Bit formats (incl. JPeg, IFF-ILBM24, Targa) and fast direct transfer to famous image processing and painting programs (ImageFX, XiPaint, ArtEffect/PicoPainter). Internally supported formats for loading: 1) IFF-ILBM (1 to 24Bit incl. HAM6/HAM8) 2) PhotoCD (Base format 768x512 or 512x768 (portrait)) 3) JPeg (color and greyscale) 4) PPM/PGM/PBM (P1&P4 b&w, P5 grey, P6 color) 5) QRT (also known as dump format by PD raytracers as POV-Ray) 6) Targa 7) PCX 8) BMP 9) TIF (packbit-compr./uncompr.) 10) EGS7.x window icons 11) DEEP 12) YUV 13) VLAB raw 14) RGB 15) HHsYUVSq sequence format 16) IFF-PBM (DPII) 17) ACBM 18) FBM 19) Sun raster (uncompressed) 20) MacPaint (b&w compressed 1Bit format; datafork only) 21) HHsXRL formats 22) binary-EPS bitmaps (RGB and CMYK) 23) TBCPlus frames The additional DataType support extends this list by many formats; DataTypes can e.g. be found on Aminet in util/DType. The DataType support is very fast, so that you can also view pictures in GIF or other formats quite fast for which Datatypes exist. NEW FEATURES New since V5.2: + Optional smoother cursor scrolling (with Shift) or faster scrolling (with Alt) New since V5.1: + Supports viewing of partially defective pictures + Faster JPeg loading + Transition effects now usable in all viewing modes New since V5.0: + Zooming functions to zoom into and out of pictures + More file formats supported + German documentation now included New since V4.3: + Automatic presentations with selectable presentation time; useful for slideshows etc. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS OS3.0 (unlike previous versions OS3.1 is not needed anymore) 4MBytes FastRAM recommended Optional for TrueColor/HighColor viewing: cybergraphics.library V40 or higher and a suitable graphic board. The Cybergraphics emulation is compatible with many graphic boards (e.g. CyberVision, Piccolo, SD64, Spectrum, Picasso2, Retina-Z3, Domino) AVAILABILITY Any Aminet site ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/gfx/board/cybershow52.lha PRICE Shareware fee: CyberShow Professional 30DM (in europe) or 25US$ (worldwide) Together with CyberShow you can order fast loader modules for several image processing/painting programs at the special add-on price of 10DM or 8US$ each; currently available: FastIFXModules (ImageFX), UniversalGIOModule (Photogenics) and UniversalXiPaintModule (XiPaint) DISTRIBUTABILITY Copyright by Helmut Hoffmann 1995 Limited demo version is freely distributable; registered users will receive a keyfile which enables all features. OTHER The freely distributable version has some restrictions (e.g. all pictures will only be displayed in greyscales) which disappear after you pay the shareware fee and receive a special personal keyfile (together with the latest version). Once registered, you can use new freely distributable versions as update with your keyfile. @endnode @node NEWS33 "Amiga CDROM Guide v1.3" @toc NEWS TITLE Amiga CDROM Guide VERSION 1.3 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 246 CDROMs!!! - 80+ 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 raytracing. - Other keywords: Clipart, fonts, pictures, utilities, GNU, text-files, fish etc - It's up-to-date with the latest CDROM releases. All in all: 500kB of pure information! NEW FEATURES v1.3 Fourth release. Contains information about 246 CDROMs. - 89 (!) CDROMs Added [ List removed in the interests of space] - A new system for showing compatability. The new system is smaller, thus saving 40KB! - A "Language:" field showing the language of the CDROM. (EG English, Deutsch) - New keywords: Coverdisc (Like CD32 Gamer Coverdiscs) Multimedia (Multimedia encyclopedias, etc) Bundles (CDROM Bundles) - A lot of new info (MANY Release dates) - Some spelling errors corrected. 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/ACDGv13.lha PRICE Amiga CDROM Guide is freeware. DISTRIBUTABILITY Amiga CDROM Guide v1.3 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 œ2.00 for the media and copying fees. @endnode @node NEWS34 "DoIcon v1.6" @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://www.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. Features: o Displaying of icon all related values... o Manipulation of these values... o Many different tooltypes manipulation functions o Copying of most icon values into a destination icon o Various icon image manipulation functions o Search & replace functions for defaulttool and tooltypes (with pattern support) o Multiple files and file patterns are supported o Full locale support, you can use DoIcon in your preferred language o ... 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+. AVAILABILITY on any Aminet site: ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/util/cli/DoIcon16.lha (80055) or on the author's homepage: http://www.unix-ag.uni-siegen.de/~sfx/programs/ RELEASE DATE 8. September 1995 PRICE DoIcon is ANYWARE! :-) (This means that you must send the author _anything_ to register DoIcon.) DISTRIBUTABILITY The DoIcon archive is freely distributable, but it is copyright 1994-1995 by Lars Eilebrecht. @endnode @node NEWS35 "RO v1.10" @toc NEWS TITLE RO VERSION 1.10 AUTHOR Oliver Rummeyer Hochbergstrasse 49/1 D-88213 Ravensburg Germany/Europe DESCRIPTION RO is a new Intuition-controlled, fully user-configurable file manager for OS 2.04 and newer. You can use RO to copy, move, rename or delete files, and you can perform a filetype sensitive action command (e.g. show pictures or texts, play sounds, etc with one single command button) on files via GUI. RO's mighty features will assist and help you on your daily work with your Amiga. With RO there is no need to learn those cryptic shell commands, because you have the complete power of your Amiga in one hand. Some features are: o uses MUI o very small executable o highly configurable o user configurable filetypes o supports datatypes o supports XPK, PP and ARCHandler o path name completer o more than 50 internal commands o user menu support o hotkey & hotdir support o powerful arexx port o very fast directory and file operations o appicon launches progs for defined filetypes o english, french and german documentation & catalog o supports middle mouse button o nice preference program NEW FEATURES - Version 1.10 (16.10.95) o Included preference program. o Config now stored in 'ENV:RO/' o Fixed some minor bugs. o Catalog files changed. o Minor code cleanup. o Added config variable FRAMES. o Added config variable MIDDLEMOUSE. o Config supports '^' as esc character. o Other minor changes. REQUIRENTS RO requires Magic User Interface (MUI) version 2.3 or later. AVAILABILITY RO 1.10 is available on Aminet, e.g. ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/util/dir/RO_V110.lha (299811) PRICE Shareware fee US$ 20 or 30,- DM DISTRIBUTABILITY Shareware, RO 1.10 is (c) 1994,1995 by Oliver Rummeyer @endnode @node NEWS36 "amiCheck v1.80" @toc NEWS TITLE amiCheck v1.80 - checkbook/account manager os2.04+ VERSION 1.80 The demo version is fully functional except there is a limitation of 30 transactions. A key file is used to remove the limitation. COMPANY Shareware, registered version available from the author: Douglas M. Dyer 5124 Observation Way Alexandria, VA 22312 USA Attn: amiCheck Registration involves receiving a keyfile. The keyfile may be used to download all future updates of amiCheck and register them by plugging in your key. This is not the same program as "Ami-Check", a circa-1990 (?) program by Jeff Hoag. Questions/comments: dyer@alx.sticomet.com AUTHOR Douglas M. Dyer DESCRIPTION amiCheck is an easy checkbook/ Account package for OS2.04+ systems. It has many automation capabilities and can be driven almost entirely by keyboard if desired. The interface is font-sensitive, style-guide compliant. NEW FEATURES Below list briefly some additions since the last post here. (which was v1.31): * Budget grouping * ARexx + Internal as well as external control + Final Data Export and other macros provided * On-line, context-sensitive help * Check printing + Printer-check construction to support custom forms or to modify an existing one to suit your taste or printer. + 1-800 number to order free sample checks for amiCheck (good for either the demo or registered version), or real printer checks (including optional custom artwork :) * Various data-entry features added (including GUI enhancements) * Import/export * New preference settings and tooltypes/cli parameters * Screen mode options ... etc. If you are a registered user before the keyfile system was adopted, contact me and I will email you your keyfile. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS AmigaOS 2.04 and better AVAILABILITY A full demo is available on AMINET. One such site is wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4) The file name there is amicheck1_80.lha, and is 239309 bytes. It will be located in the /pub/aminet/biz/misc directory. The URL listing is: ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/biz/misc/amicheck1_80.lha (239309) PRICE The registered version is $25.00 in the US exchange rate. Money orders, Euro checks, personal checks (US or foreign) accepted. DISTRIBUTABILITY The demo on aminet is freely distributable, the registered version "keyfiles" are not. amiCheck is Copyright (C) 1994,1995 Douglas M. Dyer @endnode @node NEWS37 "HTML-Heaven v1.2" @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 exciting 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 ®, æ and þ 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 NEWS38 "UniversalGIO Module for Photogenics" @toc NEWS TITLE UniversalGIO module for Photogenics VERSION 3.1 AUTHOR Helmut Hoffmann Rubensstrasse 4 41063 Moenchengladbach Germany EMail: hhoff@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de DESCRIPTION The UniversalGIO module set now consists of two modules: 1) Universal loader module An universal GIO module for Photogenics supporting over 20 file formats. Module is designed for very high loading speed and support of many picture file format variants (see below for detailed list). In addition the module supports loading of pictures by Datatypes. Internally supported formats for loading: 1) IFF-ILBM (1 to 24Bit incl. HAM6/HAM8) 2) PhotoCD (Base format 768x512 or 512x768 (portrait)) 3) PPM/PGM/PBM (P1&P4 b&w, P5 grey, P6 color) 4) QRT (also known as dump format by PD raytracers as POV-Ray) 5) Targa (compressed & uncompressed) 6) PCX (compressed & uncompressed) 7) BMP (compressed & uncompressed) 8) TIF (packbit-compr./uncompr.) 9) EGS7.x window icons 10) DEEP (compressed & uncompressed) 11) YUV 12) VLAB raw 13) RGB 14) HHsYUVSq sequence format (see below) 15) IFF-PBM (DPII) 16) ACBM 17) FBM 18) Sun raster (uncompressed) 19) MacPaint (b&w compressed 1Bit format; datafork only) 20) HHsXRL formats 21) binary-EPS bitmaps (RGB and CMYK) 22) TBCPlus frames The additional DataType support extends this list by many formats; DataTypes can e.g. be found on Aminet in util/DType. The DataType support is very fast, so that you can also view pictures in GIF or other formats quite fast for which Datatypes exist. A new feature is available as preferences option: You can load pictures in downscaled form. This is useful if you don't have enough memory to load pictures in full size into Photogenics! 2) Animation saver module for HHsYUVSq animation format With this module you can create TrueColor animations for playback e.g. with CyberTVPlayer. CyberTVPlayer can show such animations on your Workbench incl. TrueColor displaying with CyberGraphX. NEW FEATURES New since V3.x: Animation saver module included Support for downscaled loading New since V2.1: Extended file format information string for pictures loaded with Datatypes New since V2.0: Support of binary-EPS and TBCPlus loading SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS Photogenics (commercial image processing/painting program from Almathera; Photogenics Lite is NOT sufficient; to use the Datatype loading or downscaled loading at least Photogenics V1.2 is needed) AVAILABILITY Any Aminet site ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/gfx/edit/universalgio31.lha PRICE Shareware fee: Special add-on price: 10DM or 8US$ (only valid if you order the module together with one of my shareware programs EGS-TV, EGSPhotoAlbum or CyberShow) Registration of just the module: 20DM (europe) or 18US$ (worldwide) Registration of the module if you are already registered user of one of my shareware programs EGS-TV, EGSPhotoAlbum or CyberShow: 15DM (europe) or 13US$ (worldwide) DISTRIBUTABILITY Copyright by Helmut Hoffmann 1995 Limited demo version is freely distributable; registered users will receive a keyfile which enables all features. OTHER The freely distributable version has some restrictions (all pictures will only be loaded in greyscales) which disappear after you pay the shareware fee and receive a special personal keyfile (together with the latest version). Once registered, you can use new freely distributable versions as update with your keyfile. A similair loader module is also available for ImageFX (FastIFXModules46) and XiPaint 3.x (XiPaintModul20). @endnode @node NEWS39 "AutoPEG v2.0" @toc NEWS TITLE AutoPEG VERSION 2.0 AUTHOR John Corigliano 1327 Gilpin Ave. Wilmington, DE 19806 USA jcorig@strauss.udel.edu DESCRIPTION AutoPEG is a program that allows programs that can read 24-bit IFF images to also be able to read JPEG compressed files. It operates in a manner that is completely transparent to the program. Probably, its biggest use is to allow you to JPEG all your textures/images and then use those textures/images in your favorite 3D program (if it doesn't support JPEG). NEW FEATURES - Only works with user-specified tasks - Re-uses already decompressed files - New prefs program SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS WorkBench 2.0+ 68020+ MUI is required for prefs program, but not for AutoPEG. AVAILABILITY [Aminet] ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/gfx/conv/AutoPEG20.lha (59.929) PRICE Free. DISTRIBUTABILITY AutoPEG is copyright 1995 John Corigliano. Freely redistributable in its unaltered entirety. @endnode @node NEWS40 "Offline Orbit v0.80" @toc NEWS TITLE Offline Orbit VERSION 0.80 (16-09-95) AUTHOR Janne Siren (siren@mikrobitti.fi) DESCRIPTION Offline Orbit is a multi-format shareware offline message reader for the Amiga. It supports the Blue Wave, OMEN, QWK, SOUP, and WWF message formats. Some features: o User friendly, font sensitive graphical user interface. o Small disk space and memory consumption. o AmigaOS 3.0 and ReqTools are supported, but not required. o Replies can be edited after being entered. o Automatic message format and compressor recognition. o Optional joystick controlled message reading. o User list for storing user names and addresses. o Messages can be appended to existing reply packets. o Locale support (Finnish localization included). o Built-in Puzzle game. NEW FEATURES Some of the changes in Offline Orbit since version 0.76: o Offline Orbit is now shareware. o Joystick controllable listviews. o Option for stealing tag lines. o Locale support. o Support for the numeric keypad when browsing messages. o Option for case sensitive search. o Better error checking for packing replies. o Revised set of alternative icons. o Bunch of bugs fixed. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS AmigaOS 2.04 (V37) or higher. Memory requirements vary, depending on the message bundles processed. AVAILABILITY Aminet ftp://ftp.luth.se/pub/aminet/comm/mail/oo080.lha (235382) http://www.mikrobitti.fi/~siren/oo/ PRICE Shareware fee of $20 USD (70 FIM). DISTRIBUTABILITY Freely distributable evaluation version (not crippled). Copyright (C) 1993-1995 by Janne Siren, All Rights Reserved @endnode @node NEWS41 "NetMail v1.3" @toc NEWS TITLE NetMail VERSION 1.3 AUTHOR Riccardo Solmi Via Lemonia 49 40133 Bologna ITALY Email: slme10k1@bologna.nettuno.it vat0062@iperbole.bologna.it DESCRIPTION NetMail is an electronic mail program with several interesting features: - Graphic User Interface for all operations - Shell interface for scripting purposes - Autoconfiguration (as possible) - Autorecovering and enhanced security - On-line Help (incomplete) - Designed for Internet, works with UUCP and terminal connections - Arexx drivers for many readers, editors, encoders, SMTP & POP clients - Multiple users - Multiple accounts - Multiple signature files - User definable Groups to collect mail - Automatic deletion of older messages in Groups - Nicknames of users, groups, groups of groups, groups of groups of... - Nickname Capture - Rules-based message filtering and macro execution - Sender Capture with automatic Nickname, Group and Filter creation - Mailing-List Capture with automatic Nickname, Group and Filter creation - Delayed message composition - File attachments (MIME, UUencode) NEW FEATURES - Few minor bug fixes - Organization field support - New drivers configuration window - Drivers for GoldED and Dme - Mail-Archie client - Enhanced bug report form - Import and export of mailboxes - Readers support to MIME quoted-printable - Send messages written by someone else - Save configuration files on the fly SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS ZedRexx by David Junod is required to start NetMail. AmiTCP, POP & SMTP clients, UUencode & MIME encoders are also required in order to use all program features. (Note: NetMail configures them automatically) AVAILABILITY NetMail 1.3 is available on aminet: ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/aminet/comm/mail/NetMail-13.lha (132857) PRICE NetMail is shareware. The registration fee is USD 30 or DM 40 or Lire 50000. DISTRIBUTABILITY NetMail is SHARWARE and (c) 1995 Riccardo Solmi. It may be freely distributed in its intact form. If you use it as your primary mail program you must register. @endnode @node NEWS42 "Aminet CD 8" @toc NEWS TITLE Aminet CD 8 AUTHOR Urban D. Mueller (umueller@wuarchive.wustl.edu) CONTENTS Aminet CD 8 contains over 1 gigabyte of freely distributable software. The newest file included is dated September 8th. Besides the new software, the CD concentrates on music modules. The space is used as follows (after decompression): 620M of software newer than Aminet CD 7 450M of images 50M of top downloads These consist of: 1900 mods (800 of them multichannel) 1100 tools 160 pictures 140 games 100 demos The modules were collected from various sources besides Aminet, and will show up on Aminet eventually. ACCESS SOFTWARE Amigaguide based user interface, allows easy unpacking and viewing using a single mouse click. Extensive search facilities. Finds words in descriptions or readmes, and outputs matches as an index that allows immediate viewing. New access features on this CD: - DeliTracker is now the default module player, handling all the multichannel modules very nicely. - 'Find' lets you search all CDs now anytime, and lets you extract files from other CDs than the current one. - The Files.BBS and Files.MSD index files have been adapted to the needs of various BBS programs. - Various minor bugs have been fixed. PRICES The CD can be ordered from the following addresses: (credit cards OK) Germany: Stefan Ossowski (English spoken) Tel: +49-201-788778 Fax: +49-201-798447 Email: stefano@tchest.e.eunet.de Price: DM 25 USA: Fred Fish Tel: +1-602-491-0442 Email: orders@amigalib.com Price: $19.95 Prices exclude shipping. Subscriptions are available. More information, including distributors in other countries, is found in the text file docs/misc/CD-Orders.txt on Aminet. A complete index is found in docs/lists/Aminet-CD-8.lha Authors of software on the CD are entitled to one free CD. Send HELP FREEBIES to aminet-server@wuarchive.wustl.edu for more info. Still available: Aminet Set (the complete Aminet as of Jan 95 on 4 CDs), Aminet 6 (Jun 95, highlighting demos) and Aminet 7 (Aug 95, focus on clip art). @endnode @node NEWS43 "Intangible Assets Manufacturing Announcements" @toc NEWS Intangible Assets Manufacturing Announces Ami-FileSafe available in North America Eight Freely Redistributable Disks to Connect Your Amiga! IAM's New European Distribution Ami-FileSafe Drexel Hill, PA (27 September, 1995) Intangible Assets Manufacturing today announced that it has started shipping Ami-FileSafe to dealers and end-users in North America. Upgrade your Amiga's performance and reliability with new system software -- replace FFS with a faster, high data-integrity filesystem. With Ami-FileSafe (AFS), your directory listings will be smoothly displayed, and software accessing the disk will run faster. More importantly, AFS ensures your data is safe from invalidation caused by machine crashes and accidental reboots. AFS is always validated -- you will never have to put up with invalid disks again. The consumer version is limited to one 650mb (or smaller) HD. The professional version, perfect for video and audio and other intensive use, includes support for HDs to 9gigs and multi-user security. Independent tests reported by CU/Amiga magazine show AFS using 7-11% less disk space, with write times up to six times faster, and read times up to twice as fast as the best previous file systems. CU/Amiga tested AFS reliability by resetting, powering dow n and removing SCSI cables while writing to the drives. "Not once through all these heinous eye watering tests could we corrupt the AFS partitions!" List prices are: Consumer $40, Professional $99.95. (An AFS FAQ is available on both our Web site and our FTP site.) 8 FRD Disks 2 CYA Drexel Hill, PA (15 September, 1995) Intangible Assets Manufacturing today announced the availability of it's "Eight Freely Redistributable Disks to Connect Your Amiga!" Save yourself the inconvenience of having to download all the files you'll need to get started on the information highways. We've done it for you. Terminal programs, Internet programs (TCP/IP, SLIP, PPP, Web, etc.), virus checkers, compression utilities a nd more. Our charge for the disk set is a service and media charge, not a purchase of the software itself. IAM is not the author of any of this software. Some is shareware and requires that you pay a registration fee direct to the author for continued use , some is completely free. Sold as-is, without support from IAM. $27 disks only, or $49.95 for a package including the disk set and the book "Connect Your Amiga! A Guide to the Internet, LANs, BBSs and Online Services." European Distribution Drexel Hill, PA (15 September, 1995) Intangible Assets Manufacturing today announced that it has concluded a distribution agreement with Fourth Level Development in the UK. IAM will be the exclusive North American distributor for Fourth Level Development products, particularly Ami-FileSafe. Fourth Level Development will be the exclusive European distributor for IAM products. It will also be extending it's distribution throughout the rest of the world exclusive of North America. Dale L. Larson, el Presidente, Intangible Assets Manufacturing, said, "We are pleased to be working with Fourth Level because of their high standards of professionalism in the Amiga market. This deal works for everyone involved. Our products will see furt her economies of scale and wider distribution. Fourth Level will increase their product line. Our current distributors will continue to get good prices and will get improved service through the better physical proximity of FLD. Our customers will be able to get product more easily and less expensively. Everyone wins." See our Web page or AmigaGuide catalog for a complete list of distributors. Contact Information Intangible Assets Manufacturing http://www.iam.com (the best and latest info) ftp:ftp.iam.com/biz/iam/iam.lha (AmigaGuide catalog/ordering information) info@iam.com (infobot) 828 Ormond Avenue Drexel Hill, PA 19026-2604 USA tel +1 610 853 4406 (orders only) fax +1 610 853 3733 All IAM products are available from Amiga dealers world-wide. If your dealer doesn't stock our products, ask her to. Europeans must order through our European distributors. North Americans may purchase direct from IAM as well as from their dealers. IAM also publishes "Connect Your Amiga! A Guide to the Internet, LANs, BBSs and Online Services", "Eight Freely Redistributable Disks to Connect Your Amiga!," DiskSalv3, Amiga Envoy 2.0b, and "The Deathbed Vigil... and other tales of digital angst," and the "Connect Your Amiga" T-Shirt. It distributes Ami-FileSafe. Dale L. Larson, el Presidente, IAM, is a former Software Engineer with Commodore's West Chester R&D facility, is the author of many Amiga articles and an Amiga book, and has spoken at dozens of Amiga shows and conferences. Fourth Level Development afssales@flevel.demon.co.uk http://www.flevel.co.uk (coming soon!) 31 Ashley Hill Montpelier Bristol England BS6 5JA tel +44 117 955 8225 fax +44 117 955 9157 @endnode @node FEATURE1 "Video Toaster Report" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== Video Toaster Report Ken Krebs kkrebs@netcom.com Robert Reiswig rcr@netcom.com =========================================================================== The K&R Report for Video Toaster User Expo '95 Universal City Hilton November 1-4, 1995 Our idea for doing this "review" was to try to get a normal Amiga users overview of the show, if there is such a thing. These are our views and thoughts from the show with comments thrown in... And we're on our way ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Well when we heard that the Video Toaster User Expo '95 was on we had to go. Of course this being the only major "Amiga" show in the USA this year, how could we miss it? The round trip was 680.4 miles and took 11 hours and 40 mins making for a very long drive. It cost $35 USD in gas, along with $6 USD in parking and $15 USD each to get into the Expo. Oh, and we made 6 or 7 pit stops along the way for food and leg streches. If you do plan to take long drives with someone, like we did, make sure you can chat with the other person. This will make the time go by much faster. If you don't know what Interstate 5 (I-5) in California is like, just picture a _bad_ for, next loop with interesting smells thrown in. Hundreds of miles of road with similar looking scenery with cattle farms and rest stops to break the monotony. We visted the Expo on Saturday November 4th 1995. We were there from opening 10:00am to about 12:00pm. Approximately 2 hours. Now for the review of the booths. If we left out a booth, it could be for many reasons. Either the booth didn't catch our eye, didn't belong there or it was very old news. Let the browsing begin! THE BOOTHS ~~~~~~~~~~ AMIGA TECHNOLOGIES GMBH / SERVICE MANAGEMENT GROUP, INC. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: This was my second visit to a computer show of any kind. The first show I ever visited was AmiExpo in Oakland. My ranking of this booth on a scale of 1-10 would probably be about a 3. The booth consisted of 3 long counters made into a square with a partition completing one side of the square. On the counters, there were about 3 A4000Ts and about 2 A1200s. All the computers seemed to be running Pinball Mania except for one running some Scala advertisement. The weird thing was that NONE of these Amigas had any speakers plugged into them! I told the guy in the booth that a set of speakers would make loads of difference for their display, the guy said "Well, it's loud enough here as it is! No need for us to add to the noise." "WHOA!" I thought, "this guy needs to learn how to attract someone's attention with a computer!" The first rule is to have your display actually running something interesting. The second rule is to make it LOUD! I had forgotten that the monitors were supposed to have speakers in them too so I didn't look for that. Apparently, the guy forgot too :) The A1200 looked just like any other A1200 I had seen. There's still a blank key near the shift key. Wonder if they will ever get rid of that :-B The A4000T looked pretty slick.. but as soon as you open the door, it looks just like any other PC Tower case. This, of course, isn't all that bad - it's just that I like to have Amiga's have their unique look to them. (Like the Amiga 3000) One cool thing was that they had several CU Amiga magazines out on the counter as freebies. I thought that was a smart move. It made me happy, anyway. :) Rob: After seeing many CBM booths at many shows I would rank this as a 3 or a 4 on a scale of 1-10. I am sure this is due to the fact that it was their first show. First, it was very good to see the A4000T in its "final" stage. One thing that I heard was that the A4000T was still using the 880K floppy, no one in the booth could answer questions about this. When we visted the booth, Gilles Bourdin was giving a speech and Petro Tyschtschenko was with him backing him up. The people helping in the booth seemed to be a mix of everything from dealers to writers. They did have the A4000T and A1200 up and running on the new M1438S 14" color monitor. Also they had an open A4000T for people to look at. The case on the A4000T was not as clean looking as the A3000's case but I did think it was better then the A4000 case! One thing I did not understand is that it seemed all the machines were running Pinball Mania, or whatever the pinball game is that's bundled with the A1200. Even though I did not get any of my real questions answered and the booth did not look like a million bucks I was very glad to see Amiga Technologies was present and showing the Amiga in the USA! It's only a matter of time until the Amiga is back at full steam in the USA! (The spec sheets for the products were very nice!!) NEWTEK ~~~~~~ Ken: Newtek's corner looked pretty cool. It was set up so there was a bunch of chairs in front of an almost cylindrical type of booth where they had a big monitor mounted so you can view what the demonstrator was showing. They were mostly demoing the Flyer. It didn't keep my interest much. I miss Kiki. She always seemed so much more alive than this guy. Granted, if you want to know how something works, it shouldn't matter who's demoing it. It's just that Kiki added a lively twist to demos - she was extremely fun to watch. There were a few more setups to the sides of the booth. Ppeople could go one on one with Newtek reps and have features shown to them on demo machines. There was also a table set up at the front of the booth where two Newtekkers were handing out brochures and answering questions. This booth was pretty professional looking and gets a big thumbs up from me. Rob: Newtek had a nice booth and as always there were a lot of people around. All I can say is that I wish that I was rich enough to afford a Flyer. James H. was showing how you could, within a matter of seconds, edit together a segment of video... WOW! AIRWORKS MEDIA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: Airworks Media was one of the first booths you see as you walk in the door. They had a bunch of chairs set up and a lady sitting on a stool with a microphone headset sort of deal. On display was their program called TuneBuilder. TuneBuilder does just that - build tunes! This program is great for those who need to add background music to animations or video productions. The interface allows you to select the style, mood, speed, etc. of the tune you need and then TuneBuilder will piece a tune together. If you didn't like the way it came out, you can always just click on a button and it will reassemble the tune in a different way. You could also take pieces of the tune and manipulate them in the order you want. TuneBuilder uses CD-DA from CD-ROMs and copies it to the hard disk to assemble. So you need a lot of HD space. They have Mac, Windows and Amiga versions of the program. Airworks sent me a beta of this a while back and I was really impressed. They sent a CD-ROM with the Mac and Windows versions and a disk with the Amiga version. It's nice to see companies support all three platforms! Rob: I did not look to close at this booth... I'm not really into making music. ANTI GRAVITY PRODUCTS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: This booth was basically an Amiga shop. It was easily the sloppiest looking booth at the show. They were getting traffic though, so it must not have been too bad. They had clear plastic walls that they taped their product behind and put the price on them. Their prices were pretty decent. Rob: These were the only guys at the show selling a mix of products at the show. They did have some good deals. They had LinkIt! for $45 while the Authors of LinkIt! were selling it for $50. ASIMWARE INNOVATIONS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: I didn't look at this booth too much. Just heard the high price of MasterISO and kinda avoided the booth after that. :) Plus, there was always someone blocking my way. I wanted to check out AsimCDFS, but didn't have the patience to wait for the people to move. Rob: They were showing Asim and MasterISO. This was a nice booth. I think they were showing AsimCDFS 3.4. An idea to think about might be to release a AsimCDFS Lite. Just the CD FS, this way you can use the other tools from AmiNet or elsewhere and use their nice filesystem to access the cd. B & H PHOTO-VIDEO ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: They had a whole wall lined up with video cameras and stuff. No one seemed to be around so I just looked at the cameras as I passed by. Rob: At all the shows that I've been to, these guys are always packing up the booth before the last day of the show. COMPUTER DISPLAY SOLUTIONS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: They were displaying several monitors that support the Amiga modes. I Just glanced at this booth. I was looking for CD-ROMs like Rob was :) Rob: Funny thing about this booth is that it was referred to as the CD SOLUTIONS booth. I kept looking for CD ROM drives :) The monitor they were showing looked good. If you are looking for a monitor that displays all the amigas resolutions you might take a look at them. NEWTEK SYSTEMS GROUP/DESKSTATION TECHNOLOGIES ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: This display was just a whole bunch of Raptors and other computers set up all ready for rendering. I didn't spend much time here, just watched some people setting up an animation to render. Most of them were Raptors. Man were these babies FAST! Rob: WOW ... these guys put together some _fast_ machines! LightWave on a 300MHz Alpha 21164 running under NT is just SCREAMING! DESKTOP IMAGES ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: I believe this booth was selling instructional video tapes. I didn't stick around this booth much as the lady there was almost always talking to someone. I don't blame 'em either, she was cute 8) Rob: I take the 5th KILLER TRACKS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: Passed by the booth, didn't stop. Rob: Did not stop by their booth, but it looked like they were selling a CD with "killer" tracks. LEGENDARY DESIGN TECHNOLOGIES ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: This booth was selling a few software products. One was PC-Task 3.1 and another was LinkIt! I was more interested in LinkIt! because it is a file transfer program that will link between 2 Amigas, 2 PCs or between Amiga and PC. I have been using TwinExpress to transfer files between my Amiga and PC and it is extremely slow. LinkIt! is supposed to be able to use the parallel ports to transfer files which is LOTS faster. If they had a box with a parallel cable in it instead of a serial cable, I would have bought one on the spot. The PC side requires Windows, Windows95 or WindowsNT and the Amiga side just requires AmigaOS 2.04 and up I think. (Are people still using 1.3 and lower???) Rob: They were selling and showing their new product Link It! This looks like a commercial TwinExpress. What it does is let you "link" an Amiga to an Amiga or an Amiga to a PC. It does have a GUI interface for both PC and Amiga. I was going to pick one up but they were only selling the Serial version. They do support parallel transfers (twin does not do this). Also the interface looked like it was locked to 640x200 and 600x400 screens. So if you run CyberGraphX or EGS, it might not take advantage of bigger screens. MACROSYSTEMS ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: They had the DraCo on display! Unfortunately, I didn't get to play with it. It seems they had one with the case open to look at. I must have missed the one they had running :( I really wanted to play with it to get a feel for how fast and compatible it is. Rob: I was hoping to see one of the DraCo machines up and running... but there was not one when I stoped by. I asked if they were shipping and they were... Also they are working on an 040 option to get more out the door (guess they cant get 060s either). Thanks to Doug for answering my silly questions. NOVA DESIGN ~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: This was a simple, but nice looking booth with flyers galore. The author was there demoing ImageFX. Nice to see them present at the show. Rob: I was glad to see the author of ImageFX at the show answering questions and showing his great work. LOS ANGELES VIDEO TOASTER USERS GROUP ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: At this booth they were handing out copies of their newsletter and also copies of Video Toaster Magazine. I made sure to get those. :) They were also signing people up to the group. Other than that, not much to talk about. Rob: Every time I walk by their booth at a show.. I always wonder if its ok to take a Magazine. They needed a sign with "Free Samples" on it :). QUESTAR PRODUCTIONS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: Now this booth was a real treat. 2 or 3 systems set up running WCS. I was mostly impressed by the looping videotape they had. It showed the power of World Construction Set. The output from this program looked LOTS better than Kai's Power Tools: BRYCE. In the tape, they were showing beaches with waves rolling onto them! Yes, these waves even had whitecaps and would break on the beach! The clouds were fantastic, too! You could even see the shadows the clouds would make when they passed in front of the sun. Other features of this program are: Astronomical Features (sun, moon, planets), Trees (a whole library of them! You can even add your own.), and Rock. As Rob mentions below, the learning curve of this program is pretty high. But if you want the best Amiga landscaping program, WCS is it. Oh, one more thing... it uses MUI. That will probably make a lot of people cringe, but oh well. :) Rob: This is the company that makes World Construction Set (WCS). They were running demo video tapes showing animations that WCS had rendered. They looked very nice. What they didn't really show was the large learning curve that you need to overcome to make such a nice anim. They are porting WCS to "Intel NT/3.1/3.11/95", MIPS/PowerPC/Alpha running NT and UNIX/SGI. SILENT PAW PRODUCTIONS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: Well, one of the main things I had wanted to see was this PAWS portable solution for Amigas. I've been seeing advertizements in Amiga mags for quite a while now and haven't really heard many facts about it. Well, I finally was able to see 'em for my own eyes. They had cases for the A600, A1200 and A4000 on display. The A600 and A1200 cases were made out of formed sheet metal and were heavy as can be. The A1200 version is supposedly 14 pounds for a fully loaded system and the A600 version is 11 pounds. The Active Matrix LCD screens measured 10.4" and have a resolution of 640x480. It has provisions to use 2 Duracell DR31 laptop batteries common in Compaq portables. He said they provide about 1.25 hours of running time. (That's with the thing sitting there turned on.) He said they were supposed to be ready "next month." Yeah right. :) Not a single one was running. You'd think a person would have a working prototype when the real ones would be ready "next month." The A4000 case was big and apparently, from what the guy said, is a standard luggable pc case. It was made out of molded plastic and looked pretty decent. Maybe it shouldn't be called luggable, but draggable. These things are HEAVY and could use a set of wheels on em. :) I wanted to see the Gecko video converter running but alas, nothing. Also available was the PAWStrac trackball. It's basically a mouse with a small trackball on the top with 3 buttons around the ball. He had a pile of PAWS pins sitting there and I snagged one. I'm a sucker for freebies :-B Rob: After seeing this product last year and thinking "WHY?" I was glad to see it was much better this year! By better I mean it did not look like a high school shop project. The cases looked very nice. I was hoping to see one up and running, but none were. Also the price (around $2800us) seemed a bit high... but if there is a market this it will sell. STORAGE PATH BY SYS CORP. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: Boxes. Big expensive boxes with blinking lights. My eyes glazed over at this booth because I knew that these things were almost the price of a car. :) Rob: They were showing a RAID setup. While saving a file to the drives you could pull out a drive and it would continue to work. This is one of the booths that you need to win the lottery to really get interested in. T.S. COMPUTERS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: When I came to this booth there was a guy there who immediately started yapping away. I just wanted to look at what was in the booth but the guy kept trying to make conversation. Unfortunately, this made me want to walk away and I did. I avoided the booth after that. Rob: TS had a small but packed booth showing many things... They had DPS's new digital video card, Perception (very nice). They are a dealer in Hollywood that realy look like they support the Amiga. As always James answerd all my questions. VIDEO TOASTER USER MAGAZINE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: Free Magazines. Whee. :) Rob: I take the 5th (They need a "Free Sample" sign too.) VILLAGETRONIC MARKETING ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: Visiting the VillageTronic booth was quite a surprise. They had 2 computers set up, one Mac and one Amiga and each was running their own Picasso card. Yes, you heard right - the Mac was running a MacPicasso card. This was pretty impressive. It was able to genlock and overlay computer images onto video. They were using a very nice looping animation of a rendered dinosaur to show it off. The animation was running very smooth on the Mac but very choppy on the Amiga. One of the other things I saw them demo was a toaster like effect of making it seem like an old film. It had lint and particles and things all over the screen. Didn't look too convincing but I bet with some work, it would look pretty cool. They seemed to be more interested in pushing the Mac version of the Picasso card. I don't blame them, there's a bigger market there. I just wish they had put a little more emphasis on the Amiga version. Around the booth were empty boxes of AmigaOS 3.1, AmiTCP/IP and I think I saw an Ariadne box too. Rob: This booth looked the same as it had in the last 3 or 4 shows that I have seen them at. They had the Picasso II running along with their new board, the MacPicasso. The card uses a Cirrus chip (better than the Amiga Picasso). It's a "Picasso" for NuBus/PCI/PDS and does 640x480 up to 1280x1024. 24bits at 1024x768, 16bits at 1152x900 and 8bit at 1280x1024. It comes with 2MB and can be expanded to 4MB. They had AmiTCP box there and the other products they sell. Not sure if Holgers German to English was correct but he said that the MacPicasso features would be available on the Amiga maybe in late Spring. XAOS TOOLS ~~~~~~~~~~ Ken: I was looking for this booth but didn't find it at the show. I was kind of anxious to see what a big name graphics company like Xaos would have for Lightwave. Unfortunately I found out later that Xaos was supposedly in the Newtek booth. :( Wish I could have seen 'em. Rob: I take the 5th Summary ~~~~~~~ Ken: After we left the expo, I felt a bit let down. I was hoping to see a much flashier Amiga Technologies booth, but I guess they just didn't get too much time to prepare it. The expo was also a bit smaller than I expected. Still, it's good to see Amiga Technologies participating in the American Marketplace. Having left the expo, we decided to visit Fry's Electronics in Woodland Hills. This is the Disney Land of hi-tech electronics and computer equipment. I used to work for Fry's up in the Bay Area and actually had a hand in setting up the Software Department at the Woodland Hills store. Inside it's decorated in an Alice in Wonderland theme and looks like you've just walked into a Theme Park with computers, software and electronics everywhere. It's HUGE and and is a must visit place for those visiting the area. Driving home was the worst part of the trip. I had been up for 24 hours and I felt like a limp rag. After arriving at Rob's house, I had yet another hour to drive home. I didn't even go to sleep when I got home - I went straight to my Amiga and logged into IRC to tell my #Amiga buddies of our Video Toaster Expo Adventure. :) Rob: The show was about what I expected to see. Not the best show ever but worth a visit if you were close. What I did not understand is why they don't push the "amiga" part of the show more. It was the _only_ show where Amiga people could come and show there stuff in the USA. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Some Pointers releated to the review: @{" Speech by Petro Tyschtschenko in Los Angeles " link FEATURE7} http://www.amiga.de/de/aktuelles/PTYLASpeech.html AMG, Inc. http://www.portal.com/~amg/ Aminet AmigaTechBroch.lha docs/anno 314K+AmigaTech Product Brochures ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Or next review might be of MUIwine95 1.0oj, an MUI uninstaller. If you are interested in getting your product/program or service reviewed by The K&R Report you can email us at k&r@vgr.com This review is )1995 By Ken Krebs and Robert Resiwig. This review may not be reproduced without expressed consent by the authors. You may contact us individually at the following addresses: Ken Krebs (kkrebs@netcom.com) Robert Reiswig (rcr@netcom.com) This review is dedicated to: Ken: Heidi and Biggus. Rob: Vic and Al @endnode @node FEATURE2 "Cologne Amiga Show Report" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== Cologne Computer '95 Show Report Jeroen T. Vermeulen jtv@xs4all.nl Hans Guijt h.guijt@inter.nl.net =========================================================================== WOA Cologne, day 1 (Friday november 10th) We've just come back from the World of Amiga show in Cologne; in one word: MAGNIFICENT! The Amiga really is back. Our impressions are reported below. There were two halls: One for the Amiga, and one for the "other platforms" (PC, Mac, Acorn). The "other" hall was fairly quiet, and we visited the Amiga side mostly. Amiga Technologies logos and the much-advertised slogan "Back for the Future" were everywhere. A1200 Magic Packs were sold by many companies, as well as the new M1438S monitor. Although there was relatively little new software, the atmosphere was very upbeat--which was perfectly appropriate. We stopped at several stands for a closer look: AMIGA TECHNOLOGIES: AT had a big attractive-looking stand in the middle, manned exclusively by representatives of 3rd-party developers (4th Level Development, Haage & Partner, Interworks, and others) in cool black T-shirts with the AT logo. Machines were mostly high-end: Very sexy A4000Ts, all fitted with MagicWB and ethernet/arcnet/ graphics cards etc. Next to each machine was a summary of the goodies inside. There were also several A1200s showing off the I-Glasses, and even one with synthesizer keyboard for the musically inclined. The AT stand made a very fresh, bright, professional impression. While the machines were all equipped differently and manned by staff from different companies, the overall look was still consistent and well-organized. I would sure buy a computer from those people ;-) In any case, we bought some very flashy T-shirts with the new logo. Many people were wearing similar ones with the "Intel Outside" logo on the back, but I don't know where they got them. PHASE 5: Believe it or not, the Phase 5 stand had a real PowerPC development board! It contains two CPUs (68030 and a 604 PPC chip) and appears to be a prototype of the PowerUp card which should be available sometime next year at prices in the 1000-2000 DM price range. It will be available in both 603e and 604 versions. According to a leaflet we picked up, Phase 5 is porting Exec to native PPC code and other libraries will follow. Old programs will be run under 68k emulation. Partners mentioned ("we are not alone") include Softwood, Almathera and Maxon. Commercial developers are to receive their boards early '96. Also at the Phase 5 stand was the 2-GO! DSP card which combines four DSP processors with a 50 MIPS RISC controller and a 100 MFLOPS FPU. Internal data throughput is said to be 4.2 Gigabytes per second, external throughput is 32Mb (Zorro III). The card is supposed to execute 2 BILLION instructions per second! The card can be used for things like encoding or decoding JPEG pictures and MPEG animations, and realtime sound and graphics manipulations. Encoding a JPEG picture (res. 352*240) takes only 8 milliseconds! As the slogan said: "Where do you want to be tomorrow?" We also learned that the 3.0 release of CyberGraphX will include 3-D primitives. CyberGraphX 3.0 will also be available for the PowerUp and 2-GO! boards. MS MACROSYSTEM GMBH: These good people were showing off their 060-based Draco with the XiPaint graphics package which seemed to be selling like hotcakes. One machine was quietly mixing away at some real-time video input, while the eager masses were lining up to get the feel of Final Writer on another. It was quite an impressive sight; pages were flying by at a speed that must have been close to the monitor's refresh rate! One of our "mission objectives" was to find out whether WordPerfect will run on the Draco. The staff were very helpful and even let me run WP from my own disk, which I had brought along for this purpose. It gave us no trouble during our very brief test (although the representative told us this did depend on using Topaz 8 as the screen font) and felt very responsive and flashy compared to our "good old" WARPEngine/040/40! MacroSystem GmbH has nothing whatsoever to do, by the way, with either MacroSystem Development (of WARPEngine fame) or with the less well-known company MakroSystem. On the price list, curiously enough, was also a 33MHz "Draco 040" for DM 4495. The 060 version costs DM 5995, and includes CD-ROM and 4Mb of graphics memory. MUI 3.0: Tons of pamphlets told us the new version of the Magical User Interface has now been released. It was available at Hirsch & Wolf's stand for DM 40. One of these little pamphlets was actually the first thing we saw as we came up the stairs. Advertized features include Bubble Help, Drag-and-Drop and many that we've forgotten. We apologize. MAXON COMPUTER GMBH: We were much impressed by a video produced by Tobias Richter using their Cinema 4D product range. Some of this stuff even looked better than Babylon 5! The package is being ported to Mac and Windows, and a small demo rendering on the PowerMac of a spiral staircase and a few smaller objects took just a few seconds; the Windows port wasn't as far along yet. For good measure we asked to see a demonstration of their C++ compiler as well, but they weren't really planning to give any. Unfortunately no free demo version was available either. Casually mentioning our plans to write a report on our experiences *almost* worked miracles: On the verge of giving us a free copy including manuals, manager Harald Schneider finally understood that we were not writing for a magazine. More on this below. HAAGE & PARTNER: Out of the blue, there is a shiny new C/C++ compiler for the Amiga! It's called StormC and comes with a very intuitive graphical user interface. There appears to be some kind of relationship with Maxon, which Maxon's manager didn't seem very eager to discuss--mostly due to being in a hurry, I must add. We got ourselves a preview version of StormC and plan to post a review later on; unfortunately we won't be able to compare it to Maxon's compiler. Perhaps I dropped the term "c.s.a.misc" a little too casually, giving the manager the false impression that this was a magazine we were writing for (oh well, if ever we do start an Amiga magazine I guess CSA Misc would be as good a name as any other). There was some confusion as to the relationship between StormC and Maxon C++; according to one Maxon representative, StormC was based on the Maxon compiler. He even told us that some requesters in StormC used the name Maxon in stead of StormC, but searching the entire preview distribution for that word yielded nothing. Perhaps this was just a misunderstanding. The Haage & Partner representative said they had been working on StormC for just under a year with a team of five programmers, but it was easier because they used a lot of "older" code--whatever that may mean. At any rate, the compiler looks GREAT! It has intelligent Drag-and-Drop, clickable error messages, easy project management, an editor with syntax highlighting, a debugger which interacts with the editor, and even resource tracking. If SAS comes back (and I hope they will) they could face some stiff competition from this newcomer. That's all folks. After today, there can be no doubt that AT is serious about the Amiga! @endnode @node FEATURE3 "Cologne Amiga Show Report" @toc FEATURE ========================================================================== Computer '95 Amiga Show - Cologne, Germany - A Review Thomas Tavoly aTmosh@amiga.ow.nl ========================================================================== I went on Friday, the first of three days to avoid the crowd and get there while there is still any hardware left :) Here are my impressions: Amiga Technologies was present with Dr. Peter Kittel, Petro Tyschenko (sic?), Gilles Bourdin and others. They showcased the A1200, the AT1438S monitor and A4000T. The atmosphere was good, although the presentation was not quite complete: Most machines were old stock with stickers bearing the AT logo hurriedly stuck on or just layed on equipment, a haphazard collection of monitors and fonts/screenmodes on the Workbenches. Most not even running background pictures or some kind of enhancement like MagicWB or NewIcons, also in very little colour. Unsharp and dreary 4 colour WB's is not the way to show it off.. If they had some tinkerer (like me :) who would have played with the showmachines for a day or so they could have made them look great.. They showed the I-glasses with the A1200 and a simple 3D view, this was somewhat disappointing too, but I guess you would need some programs that take advantage directly of the hardware or movies specially made for them. Again it seemed like a hurried job, showing how busy they are with other things. I talked to Dr. Peter Kittel, mainly about the AT1438S monitor and some other tidbits, nothing shocking that we already didn't know came out though. He stated that the genlock problem will be solved (top line flickering) and that later bigger monitors (e.g. 17") will be available under AT tutelage. He agreed with me that a horizontal width adjustment would be welcome and maybe Microvitec will implement it for AT in time. I didn't really invest the time though to quiz him or other AT representatives thoroughly enough since I was hunting some hardware and other interests of my own :) I ran into Ruud Dingemans and Michel van der Ven, editors of the Dutch Amiga Magazine, they did some deeper probing, maybe they'll post about it. (Plug, plug) Buy Amiga Magazine and read about it in the next issue, you may find some articles of yours truly too :) All in all the atmosphere was relaxed and friendly, yes, optimistic is the word. My faith in AT has been strengthened somewhat by their presence, although the booth was not the perfect example of marketing. In some way similar to the first showcasing days of the 'dancing fools' I guess :) Apple was present too, surprisingly enough, with a flashy booth and some high tech stuff like a three monitor, stereo speaker flight simulator controlled by some hip looking analogue 'flight equipment'. I liked their monitors well enough.. Flash, but little content though, there was a far more vibrant 'buzz' on the AT grounds. I also ran into Fred Fish, briefly expressing my gratitude for the great work he has done in the past. Next to the AT booth was Phase 5's stand, featuring the much talked about PowerUp card. Among some socketed developmental chips there was a PPC604FE66 chip and an MC68030 on a CPU daughterboard type card. The design looked clean though and it surprised me that Phase 5 has done this already, it looked indeed like a real card instead of a mock-up. Upon quizzing the representatives it seemed like it was very new to them too, the lady (I suspect little technical background) told me that it was basically a very early prototype, not running anything like AmigaOS yet :) She gave me a professional looking brochure and told me that she just got it too. Some of the highlights from the four page brochure: - two types: low-end: MPC603e 100+ MHz, availability towards mid 1996 - high-end: MPC620 up to 300+ MHz (drool), though this is as yet vapourware - 64 bit wide memory expansion bus - 64 bit wide Local Bus system (with optional PCI bridge) - Prices around 1000 DM up to 2000 DM - A1200, A3000, A4000 versions and maybe others later (A2000? A500? :^) - CyberGraphX 3.0 Native And the most interesting feature: - porting of AmigaOS (native exec and 68k emulator on top of that), compatible with KS3.0+ - at first 68k emulation of the rest of the OS, later gradual porting to native code with the help of new libraries It elaborates on the native CyberGraphX 3.0 software: it will speed up graphics enormously on graphics cards, but with AGA only too. Say 'chunky to planar' 3 times in a row, fast :) I know where my money is going next year.. The CyberGraphX software will also include interfaces for 3D (say I-glasses) and multimedia applications of the next generation. (VR Netsurfing, hello William Gibson :^) 'We're not alone' The PowerUp project is, according to the brochure, supported by Almathera, Maxon Computer, ProDad and Softwood amongst others. Many productivity applications will be ported by the time the PowerUp board is shipping. Evaluation Boards will be available to developers in the first quarter of 1996, development tools are in the works. Thorough support and coordination planned, of strategic applications even in conjunction with Motorola. I would wager that to be VR and related features that maybe require some custom hardware enhancements. Very good news indeed. On the bottom of page three there is an informational coupon; one of the items you can tick off is 'UpGrade' programs for CyberStorm card owners. Interesting. Also, software developers, be it commercial or PD/shareware are asked to fill in the form. This is a very good move too, something the old Commodore never quite understood. The UpGrade program consists of downpricing the PPC board for 68k based accelerator card users who purchased after 01-Sep-95. For 68060 accelerator card users a replacement upgrade will be offered. For further information contact: Phase 5 digital products Tel. : +49-6171-583787 In der Au 27 Tech. Hotline: +49-6171-583788 D-61440 Oberursel Fax : +49-6171-583789 Germany Their motto is 'Where do you want to be tomorrow' :) And now for something completely different: MUI 3.0 is out and was on sale for 40 DM. I haven't had the time to take a look at it yet, but have an autographed copy :) Personally, I am not impressed by the MUI 2.3/AMosaic beta-beta-pl-something combo, so I asked one of the beta testers for IBrowse, who was present too, how long it will take until we see it. He replied with: "One month.. two months.. I don't know". Hmm.. My list of acquisitions was topped by the VoB EIDE/ATAPI CD-ROM 4 way adapter and quadspeed CD-ROM player annex CD32 emulator software/hardware combo package, heh :). 339 DM later I can confirm that their 'Speedup' software works like a charm and even the CD32 disc of Impossible Mission 2025 that I bought runs perfectly. Unlike the name suggests I haven't seen any speedup though: my system, being an Amiga, still runs just as smoothly :^) Next item of interest was what I came for really: The CyberVision card. Priced as low as 625 DM for the 2 MB version, I almost couldn't resist taking my wallet out again, was it not for a shocking telephone bill just received the day before :( After quizzing one of the programmers of CyberGraphX about the planned MK II version it became clear that I really need one :) The MK II will feature a faster memory structure by what I think I heard to be new VRAMs. Also the blitter will be upgraded, ninehundred something is the version, though this again was not quite clear. Further cross examination revealed (in spite of tight lipped 'no comment'-s :) that AT is working with Phase 5 to include CyberGraphX into the next coming release of AmigaOS, though this could be gleaned from their PowerUp brochure already. Seems like Phase 5 is the hardware partner, not Be Inc. :) On the way out I picked up a poster with the red-square-jumps-out-of-grey- mass-of-balls theme, proudly stating 'Amiga, back for the future'. There is only so much room left on the walls of my room, I hope AT is going to bring only one more poster saying 'Bill Gates? Who's that?' which will stay valid until the plaster drops off ;) There were not as much visitors as last year, though this is mainly attributable to the fact that last year I went on sunday and this year on a working day. The general feeling was a sharp contrast to last year's too: the buzz is back! Instead of last year's apprehensive and even somewhat threatened, aggressive feeling this year was a light hearted affair, smiling and energetic faces everywhere. Amiga Technologies did well to attend the show, in spite of the rough edged presentation that a perfectionist like me would like to see done better. Though maybe adding that feeling of 'David is back with a vengeance, watch it Goliath!' :-) This might not interest the reader, but for the comic relief content: on the way back we managed to get lost in some German villages that had only uphill roads, for a nice scenic detour of nearly two and a half hours :) I tried to phone the local radio station where I work on fridays with the little change we had left: "Hi, I can't make it, I'm lost in Germany!".. Some baffled moments later: "But, but, you have to sit here! We're on the air already!", "But I'm in Germany and I'm lost! And my money is running.. >CLICK< ..out.." %) I am thinking of publishing the 'Hitchhiker's Guide to Europe: How to get anywhere without turning left'. :^) @endnode @node FEATURE4 "Cologne Amiga Show Report" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== Report of the Computer '95 Show in Cologne, Germany Andreas Malerz malerz@athene.informatik.uni-bonn.de =========================================================================== Report of the Computer '95 Show, 10.-12.11.1995 in Cologne (c) by Andreas Malerz (malerz@zeus.informatik.uni-bonn.de) You may use this article in your *free* online-magazine, if you leave the copyright-note completly intact. Commercial publications should ask for written permission from the author. Special permission to Jason Compton is granted to publish this article in AmigaReport. ----------------------------------------------------------- Remark: I am using my Amiga for programming and playing, sometimes some graphics with bitmap-orientated software. That's why I am not very competent in writing about eg. video- or sound-applications. Furthermore, english is not my native language. Hopefully I will not make too many mistakes. ----------------------------------------------------------- The "Computer '95" differs greatly from shows as the "CeBit" in Hannover or the "Systems" in Munich. It is a user-based show, for end-users to take a look on existing hard- and software and finally to spend lots of money on them. That's why there were many booths just selling hardware like mad. Well, I will not describe them at all, they were not so interesting. I will concentrate on the news. First, guess what: AMIGA TECHNOLOGIES: They had a very big booth, in which lots of workplaces were installed to demonstrate professional applications on Amigas, eg. Internet-access, Rendering, Video, MultiMedia (> Scala), Sound and Music (in combination with a keyboard) and, very interesting for me, a brand new C/C++ compiler. To show the Internet access, they had some A1200s with AMosaic and any TCP/IP-installation, I don`t know which, because I was not able to work with the machines by myself. It was very impressing, because the buildup of the pages was fast and the gfx very nice. Lots of guys, who had probably never seen WWW, became big eyes. Video-cutting, titling and whatever was shown on plain(-looking) A1200 and an A4000. The demonstration of Scala was really good, they had lots of pre-made scripts and the guy on the machine was able to create complex scripts in a few minutes. The results were shown on monitors and also on some TVs. One Amiga was connected to a keyboard (electronic piano, of course) and a young boy of perhaps 16 years was playing and manipulating a lot of sounds. As mentioned before, I am absolutly ignorant about that, so I skipped the demonstration. I spent the time in a talk with the programmer of "Storm-C/C++". His company based in Germany has developped a C/C++ development enviroment including editor, compiler (no frontend as SAS), debugger and make-utility. They sold a preview version of their system, which is not finished completly, but should be shipped in the beginning of 1996. The editor was not very strong compared to eg. GoldED, but the main features were included, furthermore some special abilities as keyword-highlightening, setting breakpoints (for debugging) directly in the editor, compiling from editor etc. I cannot say anyting about the compiler, because I have not seen very much of it. The same about the debugger. The enviroment did not a typical "make" with make-file etc, but a gui-make which was completly controlled via drag'n'drop. It seemed very comfortable, but I am not sure, if it really useable. (A developper from Switzerland suggested to abandon such senseless crap and to include a SAS-compatible "make") I have heard, AT has talked to SAS about continuing development of their C/C++ compiler and to another company here in Germany. So I asked the guy if AT would like to make this programm to their new development-tool. He answered, AT is up to now not really sure about the new OS and the new computers. This is due to the fact that they are travelling from one show to the next at the moment. In the end of this year, when the main shows are finished, these questions should be answered. I seemed to me a bit slow, since they announced to present a Prototype of the new generation of Amigas next year. Well, we will have to wait and see. All in all, I was very satisfied with the presentation. The guys at the machines were very competent and the software was stable and (in that hardware-configuration) powerfull. It seemed to me that lots of users got the opinion, that the Amiga is a small, but nevertheless powerfull and easy-to-use computer. The next booths are listed in alphabetical order: ACORN Computers: This might be out-of-topic, but I think it is not bad to look over the brim of the plate (if you do not understand this, you should learn german :) They introduced their new Risc-PC 700. Man, I was really impressed. It was mainly used for image-processing and DTP, and it was really fast. Compared to the DTP-soft for Apple (a few meters away), it seemed to me comparable powerfull, but much faster. In their prospects, they wrote, the soft is about six times faster than a standard 486/66. I would say, even faster. On the other hand, the price was impressive, too. 4200 DM with 8 MB RAM, 2 MB V-RAM, 850 MB HD, CD-ROM and an additional processor-board with 486SX. (With the last mentioned board, the RiscPC is fully PC-compatible, it can run eg. "Windows" in a window on the desktop at a reasonable speed.) Well, the Amiga 4000 was sold at 4300 DM.(minimum) ACT ELECTRONIC: They had developped the Apollo 4040/4060 acclerator board and were demonstrating and selling it. This board is very compact and can be used in A3000 and A4000. It has a SCSI-II controller onboard and room for 128MB RAM. (two PS/2-slots). The Apollo 4040 was priced with 1799 DM. AMIGA OBERLAND: The had the new Reflection V3.0 with them, demonstrating it on an Amiga 4000 and on a PC with Windows 95. I am not very competent with raytracers, but the guys watching it seemed very impressed by the gui and the new effects. Furthermore AmigaOberland is the distributor of all Softwood-products here in Germany. I asked for a demonstration of FinalWriter 4 and FinalCalc, but they had no machines for that. Hrmmpf. APPLE: Well, Apple was there, too. Their demonstration was very loud and remembered me of one of these very foolish game-shows on TV. I didn't stay for long. ASCON: They had three games: Pole Position (or so), a business-game dealing with formula one which is also converted for Amiga, Elisabeth I. (don't know if it will converted) and a heli-sim, which will not be ported. Elisabeth I. looked very nice and complex, but the guy explaining me the game was very boring. BLACK LEGEND: They had a big booth with some PCs with "Tower of Souls", but nobody was there to answere questions. You could only play the game, which was a bit difficult, because I didn't know the story or my task. BLUE BYTE: The first thing I did was going to Blue Byte to take a look on Albion, their new role-playing game. (The team of Ambermoon did it.) Man, it is absolutly great. Fantastic! Superp! (You have found out, that I am not able to keep objective on that.) Then Eric Simon told me, that it will NOT ported to Amiga or Mac. After I got first aid, I was thinking of buying a PC just to play that game. All in all, Blue Byte is not going to port anything for our computer, since they believe that the situation of Amiga is not safe at the moment. Hopefully, this will change. COMPEDO: Every year, this company has a big booth just for selling ink for printers etc. I always wonder, how they make profit with this, but probably they do. CORPORATE MEDIA: Very funny. The were listed in the booklet to the show, but not on the plan and I was not able to find them. I was very dissapointed, since they are distributors of the Emplant emulators. Maybe I was too stupid to find them. D.I.D INTERNATIONAL: They had a booth full of high-end machines (DraCo, Pentium 120 etc.) for modelling and rendering. It looked very interesting, but I didn't understand a word. ELECTRONIC ARTS: They showed games from Origin, Bullfrog and themselves. First pictures and films from Wing-Commander IV (so boring, cinema is better!), an impressive demo of Dungeon Keeper (very fast -but on which machine!?!- and great!) and some football game with a strange perspective. It looked really good, but I am not sure if it will be as playable as Sensible Soccer. Needless to say, that nothing will be ported to our beloved Amiga. Sniff. FISCHER HARD & SOFTWARE: They are the official distributor of Amigas here in Germany. Needless to say, they were selling Amigas like mad and lots of other hardware like acclerators, hard-disks, CD-ROMS etc. HAMA: The big producer of genlocks was there with a big booth to demonstrate their genlocks for Amiga. Well, the results looked very impressing, but I do not understand the technique beyond this. HIRSCH & WOLF: In former times, they distributed the developper-material for Commodore. At the moment, they have no license to do it, but they sold lots of Hardware from various producers as MacroSystems USA, DKB USA etc. Furthermore, they had the GURU-book from Ralph Babel and, absolutly new to me, MUI 3. Unfortunately, there was no demonstration and no update from MUI 2.3, they only sold it for 40 DM. (which was, in my opinion, too much, since all SASG-products cost 30 DM. HISOFT SYSTEMS: Unfortunately, they only showed some hardware, but no programming languages. I saw the "Squirrel", a SCSI-interface for the Amiga 600/1200, a music-sample hardware with powerful software. (They said, it is powerful, I don't know!) It is a sampler, which can save 8-bit data directly to disk, it has a midiinterface and a sequencer. HK-COMPUTER: Besides lots of standard-hardware (harddisks, RAM, whatever) they showed the "Graffito", a real-time 24-bit digitizer with their software. I only saw some results, but not the software, since the booth was everytimes full, I reached it. Sorry about this. IBM: They had a very big booth to demonstrate their OS/2 operating system. The main presentation was very loud and the guy doing it talked about the "other" crap-operating-systems for the PC. I think, he meant MS-DOS, but I'm not sure, because I left the scene very quickly. The demonstration of OS/2 on some workplaces were not so interesting for me, since I have no PC. INFOGRAMES: They had a big booth with some terminals with games for children on it and some absolutly stupid persons around there, not knowing the difference between a harddisk and ROM. I didn't stay too long. IRSEESOFT: The main thing on their booth was, as every year, the new version of TurboPrint. (It was Version 4) The booth was full of prints from good color-printers, which looked great. Furthermore they had Picture-Manager 3.0 with them, this is a kind of database for pictures, but with additional functions for image-processing, conversions and, of course, viewing. Compared to AdPro, the functions were kind of poor, but this was not the intention of it to be as powerful as AdPro, it is simple a specialized database. LEISURESOFT: On their booth, there were "21st century", "Black Legend", "Magic Bytes" and "Microvision". They had lots of computers for playing their actual games, but the guys around were just selling-personal, not very competent. M-TEC HARDWARE DESIGN: As you might know, they bought the rights of GVP. There were no new products, they just sold there hardware. (and made a good profit, I suppose) MAXON COMPUTER: I'm not sure how known MAXON is in the USA, but in Germany, they are very well known as a producer of applications for Amiga. They put stress on their raytracer MAXON CINEMA 4D, Version 3. It is a powerful and fairly fast raytracer, which is used very often here in Germany, as far as I can say. Furthermore they had a landscape-generator and a "plant-generator" for the raytracer. The results looked very good, but it is difficult to explain it now. You should take a look on it, if you are interested. They had also a new version of MaxonTOOLS with them, something similar to DOpus V. To me, it looked very useful, but not so good as DOpus. MERIAN: They had a small booth to demonstrate their "Database Prof. 3.0" and some masks for Organizing, a video-database and some business-masks. It seemed to me, that they made a small, but nevertheless powerfull database, which is worth to look at. Unfortunatly, I do not understand lots of databases, so you should take a look on it, if you are interested. MICROPROSE: They had the new formula-one game with them and some others. I didn't looked too much on them, because they told me, no Amiga-ports are planed up to now. Sid Meier was not there, otherwise I would have talked to him, and the other guys around there seemed very boring. MICROSOFT: HARHARHAR. They had a booth as big as our guest-toilet to sell some programs. I did not talk to them. MS MACROSYSTEM COMPUTER: Their booth was full of DraCos with lots of Video-Equipment. Whow. I talked to one competent-looking guy and told him (the only one I did) I would like to write an article for Amiga Report. He kissed my feet and asked me to talk to someone else because he is not competent for me. He then talked to someone else to help me, I was promptly told everything I would like to know. The guy who was talking to him before got kicked. (Next time, I will tell them, I am the son of Bill Gates and Hillary Clinton and I would like to get a few DraCos for free. :) The DraCo itself is an amazingly fast machine. Firstly I asked for the standardsoftware as raytracers, dtp and so on. He showed me some programs as MaxonCINEMA 4D and some others and they were very fast. After that he showed me the special software for video-works. Certainly I'm not very competent on that, because I don't know what is possible with other systems, but the guy got great results in just a few seconds. For example, he got a small film from me with his camera, got it directly on the harddisk, manipulated it with some scripts and showed me the result. Huh, great! I was really impressed. I think they did a real professional system to work with. PHASE 5 DIGITAL PRODUCTS: I was a bit disappointed with their booth, because it was just for information and nothing for sale. They showed their complete range of acclerators, gfx-boards etc. Impressing to see an Amiga 4000 with Cyberstorm 060 and Cybervision 64 and an 20"-monitor, but not new at all. The Cyberstorm 040 is not produced any more. Interesting was a prospect for a new project, called PowerUP. They plan to do a PowerPC-card. As they said, some software-producers as Softwood, Almathera etc. are doing native versions for their board. As far as I can say, they plan to provide a second processor, which can be used by special software, which is probably very cpu-consuming as raytracing etc, but also by "normal" software, since th PowerPC would provide a drastic speed-increase. The also mentioned, that the CyberGraphX-software will completly ported to the new platform. The release-date of the new board will be in the middle of 1996. An upgrade from "phase-5"-acclerators is planned. PRODAD SOFTWARE: They offered a big range of software to work and manipulate videos. Very interesting for proffessionals were their complete-systems including genlocks, cutting-systems, video-effects, animation, titling... R2/B2 COM-SERVICE: They developed a new energy-supply for Amiga 500/600/1200, so that it is possible to add lots of hardware to these computers as harddisks, CD-ROM, acclerators, SCSI-controllers etc. It seemed to me nothing really difficult, but I haven't seen such a thing before and the idea is very good, since the A4000 is very expensive at the moment. STEFAN OSSOWSKIS SCHATZTRUHE: They are selling lots of CD-ROMs for Amiga, eg. Aminet, Meeting Pearls, GoldFish etc. Furthermore they had some commercial software as Wordworth, XiPaint, TurboCalc 3.5 etc. It was mentioned in the booklet about the show that Fred Fish, Urban D. Mueller and some others would be on the booth, but I have not seen them. VIDEOCOMP: They were at the booth of phase 5 and showed mainly Lightwave 3D on some high-end machines as Pentium 90, SGI Indigo, Amiga 4000/60 and DEC Alpha. It was not very interesting for me, since I will never ever have such machines. VILLAGE TRONIC: The main thing I saw on their booth was the network-card "Ariadne" combined with AmiTCP/IP. There were some workplaces with AMosaic running and I found out that Bill Clinton plays Golf. The system was really fast and stable, it was good fun to play with it. WARNER INTERACTIVE: As you might know, they have bought Renegade and are distributing lots of games. I saw Sensible Golf for PC and "Z". I was not able to find out, what you have exactly to do, but it has great graphics and animation. Lots of the play-gfx is handdrawn and creates a great atmosphere. They were not sure, if it is converted for Amiga, the main development is on a PC. Well, that's it. All in all, Amiga Technologies did a good job in presenting their computers, only the price of the A4000 was (and is) much too high. The Amiga 1200 was sold very well, I have seen so many people carrying their new computer or monitor, but I haven't seen any boxes of A4000. Maybe they are not produced in big numbers yet. As far as I have heard, Scala has ordered 1000 units and perhaps NewTek will order another 1000. Probably they will satisfy them first. From the view of a user of tools, utilities, databases, video-apps etc., this show was a great success. Lots of producers of professional soft and hardware were present. There is a lot of development in this area, exspecially here in Germany. From the view of a game player, this show was IMHO very disappointing. Most new games to be seen are only planned for the PC. I have not seen any games especially for Amiga. I really hope, AT has built up some connections to german companys such as Blue Byte, Ascon and Software 2000 and certainly also to some other companys as MicroProse, Origin or Bullfrog. Otherwise we will not seen many new games for our machine. That was my report. Hopefully you find it useful in some way. Certainly this was in lots of cases not very objective, but I tried my best to give you some infos about one of the biggest computer shows here in Germany. @endnode @node FEATURE5 "Unveiling the PAWS" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== Unveiling the PAWS Fabian Jimenez fabian@cais.cais.com =========================================================================== On October 21st, the members of the National Capital Amiga Users Group were treated to the first public unveiling of the Portable Amiga Workstation (PAWS) laptop kit from Silent Paw Productions of Manasas, Virginia. The PAWS laptop kit has been in development of almost two years with the goal of creating portable Amigas for those Amiga owners who need to take their computers on the road, but don't care for lugging those 1084 monitors with them. Shawn Randolph of Silent Paw Productions conducted the presentation. Displayed at the meeting were the PAWS 600, 1200, and 4000 laptop kits. A soon to be released 3000 kit will complete the PAWS line-up by December. No plans exist for making PAWS kits for the venerable Amiga 500 or 2000. The suggested retail price of the PAWS kit is around the $3200 US range for all three models. Mr. Randolph stated that two thirds of the cost can be attributed to the active matrix color LCD screen. Included in the purchase of your PAWS is CrossDos 6 Professional, Link-It file transfer software, and a PAWS Track (mouseball). Oh, batteries are not included, but can be had at your local computer superstore. Less expensive dual scan and greyscale LCDs may be pursued in the future. However, Mr. Randolph claimed such lower priced displays did not do to well with live video processing. As you may have notice, I use the word "kit" to describe this product. This is because you must provide your own Amiga for the innards of the PAWS unit. Mr. Randolph did state that some dealers will sell assembled units for those who request it. Before you run out a pay extra for dealer assembly know that the PAWS does not require any soldering, splicing, or dicing. Just drop the innards into the kit, shields and all, connect some calbes and screw shut. Physically the PAWS kits are larger than your standard PC laptop of today. In fact the 600 and 1200 kits look more like those portable typerwriters you took off to college. The 4000 kit is about the same size of those lugable suitcase PCs of many moons ago. The units were an off white color, but are also available in black. The 600 and 1200 case are mostly aluminum (any Ohio Scientific fans out there?). This is due to the fact that Silent Paw needed to make a custom case for these units, and to make such a case in plastic is significantly more expensive. The 4000 case is a slightly modified OEM case, and is made of the more traditional plastic. The weight of these units are 11 lbs for the 600 kit, 14 lbs for the 1200 kit, and 17 lbs for the 4000 kit. All ports including the PCMCIA slot on the 600 and 1200 are accessable in the PAWS kit. The exception is the RGB port which is used to feed the video signal to the LCD panel. The panel has a diagonal measurement of 10.4 inches for all three units. As for your various ad-ons, as long as you didn't have to hack your Amiga to make it fit, then it will easily fit inside the PAWS. The 3000 and 4000 card slots will be accessed through a sliding door on the side of the unit. The 600 and 1200 kits use a Duracell DR-31 (aka Compac Extended Life Battery) as well as a normal power cord. The battery life for these units is roughly an hour and fifteen minutes. The 3000 and 4000 kits will not use any battery whatsoever due to power demands. The batteries in the 600 and 1200 units can be recharged while inside the unit, but only in a special sleep mode. Also, the PAWS will not allow "hotspoting" or switching batteries on the fly. As stated earlier, the RGB port is used to provide the signal to the color LCD panel. This means that once inside the PAWS, you cannot use a monitor as a display. Future versions of the PAWS may include a pass-through feature. Since the RGB signal is incompatible with the LCD panel, Silent Paws devised a driver board to convert the signal into an acceptable LCD signal at a resolution of 640x480 non-interlaced. No matter what resolution you select on your Amiga, it will be displayed at 640x480. The good news is that all programs, including games, should work without a hitch since no modifications are made to your Amiga's display chips. This display driver card is also the basis of Silent Paw's Gecko box that allows your Amiga to use a VGA monitor in any screen mode. It was here that I was going to state my impressions of the PAWS in action. However, the units were not powered up due to a ongoing modification to the display driver board. Silent Paw decided to design PAWS as kit instead of making a true laptop because they are a small company with limited resources. To make a true Amiga laptop you would need to design a new motherboard and chipset that would be condusive for such a unit. To design these needed components you will spend close to a million dollars or more. This is usually more than many Amiga developers have lying around. I asked Dave Haynie what his impressions were, as well as any efforts by Commodore, in making an Amiga laptop. Dave stated that the engineers would have loved to make such a thing, but that Commodore was never big on laptops. He related a story to me in which Commodore could have came to market with a LCD based laptop like the Tandy 100 that could have made them a major, but management shot it down. Toward the end of Commodore, monies for new projects were virtually non-existant. Engineers were always fighting for enough to keep the desktop Amigas viable. For a true laptop to be made, a completely new motherboard and chipset were needed. A special consideration would be to make an Amber chip that ran LCD protocals. Most of the chipset on your standard Amiga are comprised of the power hungry NMOS variety. Even with a CMOS chipset, the power demands would still be significant. "If I were to do this? the first thing I would do would be to dump the custom chps," stated Dave. "Technically speaking you could make the current chipset work in an LCD system, if power were no consideration." In the future Silent Paw Productions hopes to make a true Amiga laptop called the Puma. Mr. Randolph claims to have 2/3s the parts and technical knowhow to make one. However, Silent Paw would need the financial backing of an interested party (read Amiga Technologies). Dave added, "At least he knows what he is talking about here. I've occasionally been the victim of where a company didn't have a clue how much it costs to design hardware, and would bail on a project they hired me for." Mr. Randolph claimed that a company called Newer Technologies actually made an Amiga laptop several years ago called the PL1. However, according to Mr. Randolph, Commodore threaten Newer Technologies with all sorts of legal action if they even brought such a unit to production. Eventually a licensing agreement was reached a month before Commodore went belly up. Mr. Randolph contacted Newer Technologies for their technical input in making PAWS. The PAWS will be available directly to most dealers, except in Canada and Germany where Silent Paw has signed exclusive dealership agreements. PAWS will be demoed at Video Toaster Expo, AC Montreal, and possibly in Cologne, Germany. @endnode @node FEATURE6 "Video Toaster User Expo" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== Video Toaster User Expo Harv Laser Harv@cup.portal.com =========================================================================== I spent the day today at the Universal City Hilton hotel for the 2nd annual Video Toaster User expo. Here's a tiny recap - I'll have more to post later along with photos after I get the film developed and scan them. In a half-hour speech to a packed ballroom of about 500 people, Petro Tyschtschenko (say "ta-SHEN-ko"), a very gung-ho and good English-speaking guy, pulled up a black cloth and revealed a brand new production Amiga 4000 Tower, and also showed, cased in lucite, no less, an actual A1200 motherboard produced by AmigaTech along with a German sales packed-A1200 full of bundled software. He then, with much suspense, announced the next generation Amigas will use Motorola's PowerPC CPU and will be dubbed the Power Amiga. Petro, along with his young Press Relations Guy, Gilles Bourdin, explained that Escom has already spent many times its initial $12million investment in the intellectual properties of Commodore, whom they bought out earlier this year. That They know what the Amiga is, unlike Commodore's former top management, and that "We didn't just buy the Amiga for Christmas." He insisted that the Amiga is back and that development will carry on through the last of the 68xxx processors, the 68060, and then onto the PowerPC. He did not name any ship dates for Power Amigas of course, although scuttlebut says expect them in early '97. Petro further said that so far, 15,000 A1200s have been sold in Europe. Not just shipped, sold. To customers. And that over 80,000 more are backordered at dealers and are being made as fast as the factory can crank them out. Amiga Tech GmbH is forming a strategic alliance with Apple Computer, since they have already been before where Amiga is going, from the 68k family of CPUs to the PPC. After Petro spoke, Tim Jenison, Pres. of Newtek took the stage and gave a very moving, tearful speech in tribute to Jay Miner, father of the Amiga. This was a speech unlike anything I have ever heard Jenison give before. He was on the verge of tears many times as he recounted his early meetings in Los Gatos with Jay and the early Amiga engineering crew, showing them the first Digiview pictures, how Jay was constantly amazed and thrilled at the things developers were making his little creation do. I took pictures at the press conference and also in the exhibits hall of various people and products and will scan and upload them in the next couple days, putting them on Portal in the Amiga Zone library and on Aminet, so look for them soon. That's enough for now. I'm pooped. Harv harv@cup.portal.com http://www.portal.com/~harv @endnode @node FEATURE7 "Tyschtschenko at VTU Expo" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== Speech by Petro Tyschtschenko at Video Toaster Expo Conference =========================================================================== Petro's Speech Taken from the Amiga Technologies Homepage (http://www.amiga.de, which is now featuring a bunch of English information)... -------------------------- Ladies and Gentlemen, distinguished guests. I am very glad to be here in Los Angeles at our first conference and Video-Toaster Show in the United States. But let me introduce myself, my name is Petro Tyschtschenko, I'm President at Amiga Technologies. I used to work 12 years at Commodore and I was responsible for the world-wide logistics. I will now say a few words about our organisation and how we set it up. Amiga Technologies GmbH is a 100% subsidiary of ESCOM AG. ESCOM AG is a public company. 25 % of the shares belong to Quelle, the first retail chain in Germany, 12.5 % to RWE, one of the biggest German cable and wire providers, 10 % to Siemens-Nixdorf and 38.5 % to Manfred Schmitt, founder and chairman of the board. 14 % are splitted among other shareholders. In August 1994, almost one year before the 21st of April, when ESCOM AG took over the rights of Commodore, Manfred Schmitt, Chairman at ESCOM AG, told me "Petro, I want the Amiga". From this day on, I was in charge of setting up the deal that the Amiga Community was waiting for: Taking over the rights and patents of Commodore International and give the Amiga a new home. It was a very difficult task, the situation with Commodore was complicated and many companies were also interested in getting the baby. But our strategy to keep silent about what we did helped us to be faster and more efficient. Nobody knew about ESCOM before the deal was completed. The next goal was to build up the company. This was announced officially during our press launch in Frankfurt, 30th of May, 1995. Amiga Technologies is now located in Bensheim, 60 km southwards of Frankfurt and a few miles away from Heppenheim where ESCOM has its headquarters. We currently employ about 40 people and are growing on a daily basis. During our last press conferences, we made lots of promises and commitments. Today, I will rather show you something more concrete: Here is an Amiga 1200 and here is the first Amiga 4000 Tower. These two products you can see here today represent the tremendous work done by our team in Germany, together with our strategic partners in only three months. Ladies and Gentlemen, we have sold our first 20,000 Amigas 1200 in Europe. These were not only sold to our distributors and dealers, all of them went over the shelves to the end-users. Our Backlog is still 60,000. The demand is more than satisfying. We are happy to see that the Amiga didn't lose its appeal towards the customer. The success is like in earlier Commodore times. The difference is that now a new management of competence is installed. Motivated people who love and know the Amiga are taking care of the business. Our strength is that we are a dynamic team. We react quickly to new situations. And we also learned from the mistakes Commodore made. Some people over here think that ESCOM AG acquired the intellectual property of Commodore just to build a few computers for the Christmas season and leave the market afterwards. Ladies and Gentlemen, that is neither my style, nor the kind of business I like to do. Amiga is a long term project, we want to re-establish a market and give the Amiga the position it deserves because we believe that our product is a good alternative to PC's and Macs. Escom invested several times the amount of money that was spent for the takeover of Commodore. We want this investment to fructify in the future. The US market is very important for us. Ladies and Gentlemen, I want to make a commitment here: We do not intend to concentrate our efforts only on Europe. Our location is in Bensheim. But our market is world-wide. The A4000T is the product that is wanted most in the USA. We are currently thinking of the possibilities that we could have to market the A1200 here too. The American market is not only important to us for selling hardware. There also is a great potential of development intelligence here. Newtek for instance is an important strategic partner for us. We want to support the Video Toaster and are currently negotiating with Newtek to build up a strong partnership and set up license agreements to get new products basing on the Video Toaster technology. Another partner for the American market is our new distributor SMG. SMG will take care of distribution and spare parts for the North-American market. SMG is well known and appreciated as a service provider for a long time. The Set-Top-Box is an important topic at Amiga Technologies. We have now finalised several agreements in the USA. I will mention our agreement with Viscorp that has just been finalised a few weeks ago. Omnibox in Connecticut is another company we are currently dealing with. Through Set-Top-Box systems, we are confident that the Amiga platform will enter into millions of households. No other computer manufacturer is able to provide a system that multitasks with 2 megabytes of memory. Our partnership with SCALA brings MM300 to the user out of the box. All Amiga models fitted with harddrives include that popular multimedia package. More than a partner, SCALA is also an important customer for Amiga Technologies. SCALA purchased 1000 Amiga 4000 Towers to provide their customers with high-end multimedia systems. My understanding is that Newtek will be following with another 1000 units for the Video Toaster market. The demand for the Amiga 4000 T is also very high in Europe. We know that the price tag has been set quite high. This is due to the fact that the Amiga 4000 T is actually a new product for us. Setting up its production was an expensive task that needed the competencies and know-how of many people. My special thanks to Jeff Frank and Georges Robbins. The production costs are currently about 40 % higher than in Commodore times. Actually, we planned to bring out the Amiga 4000 T before the Amiga 1200, but the complexity of this product made it impossible to respect the schedules. But finally it is available, the first models came out of the lines this week. It was a great moment for us when the first Amiga board was finished in our A1200 production facility in France. It happened on the 13th of September 1995. Here it is, just for your eyes. Ladies and Gentlemen, please be aware, the Amiga is the only computer which has a multitasking operating system that is not in alpha or beta stage. Of course, we look at our competitors. I recently went to a fair where a computer manufacturer proudly presented its new machines. I asked one of the guys at the booth to demonstrate me the multitasking abilities of his system and he replyed "Please wait a few minutes sir, as soon as this disk formatting is completed, I will show you real multitasking......." I said: "No further questions." It is really encouraging to have a strong feature and to find out that some competitors don't even know what it is. Ladies and Gentlemen, our strength, more than the hardware platform, is our Operating System. AmigaOS is excellent and will become even better. We have decided to port it to other platforms as soon as possible. Of course, we are also aware of the features that our system lacks. Long awaited features like memory protection, virtual memory and strong network abilities are on top of our todo list. The next version of Amiga OS will hopefully include all these important things. We also need software for the Amiga. It is absolutely necessary to continue development on existing products as well as getting new applications developed or ported to AmigaOS. We are setting up the support for Amiga developers. This will be working through BBS systems and Internet. The german node cbmehq is already up and running in Bensheim. We now also have an Amiga Technologies Web page. We will be very active on the Internet in the future. Ladies and gentlemen, it is more and more evident every day that the combination of Intel and Windows 95 is not satisfying for many people. It is also a threat for the computer market that a monopoly like this tends to establish itself. Therefore, it is important that systems like Amiga improve their market position, so that the user can still find an alternative way. To improve our market position, we know that we need to improve the product. This improvement has to be done on the hardware and the software side. The 68000 processor family from Motorola which is still powering our models will end its evolution after the 68060. We knew from the beginning that we had to look for a new processor. There were many options possible. Motorola proposed the Power PC, there was also the HP PA, the Minisparc or DEC Alpha processors. All of them had advantages and disadvantages, the choice was very hard indeed. Ladies and Gentleman, we made our choice. The next Amiga will be called Power-Amiga. We removed PC for aesthetical purposes. Let me now explain this choice. The Power PC processor is fast... Especially when it runs a decent Operating System. We believe that with an Operating System like AmigaOS, the Power PC processor will show all the power that it has, it will be faster than with other operating systems. Another important reason for our choice is the strategic partnerships that this processor brings to us. Apple already did the experience of a migration from 68000 processors to Power PC and we can take advantage of this experience. Motorola and IBM will also be precious partners for the Power Amiga project, on the software side as well as on the hardware side. Of course we are also in talk with IBM and Apple. Ladies and Gentlemen, all in all the Power Amiga project will be involving more than a dozen companies. We are confident and think that such a synergy will make things happen very fast. Our team is ready to go. Thank you for your attention. @endnode @node FEATURE8 "Comdex Show Report" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== Comdex Show Report Harv Laser harv@cup.portal.com =========================================================================== Today I found Amiga Technologies GmbH's booth at COMDEX/Fall, in Las Vegas, the largest computer trade show ("faire" for you Euro types) in North America. About 200,000 people are expected to attend. AT's booth is attached to the Virtual I/O 3D glasses booth in the Sands Expo center, booth #3550. COMDEX runs Nov. 13-17 this year. Their booth space was small, but there they were, and that's the impootant thing. There were four A4000 towers, one with an 060, and as many A1200s set up. Two of the towers were driving lovely 21" monitors with Picasso cards. Sigh. What a glorious display that was. I sat down and had a yak with Gilles Bourdin, Amiga Tech's Press Relations guy, and Peter Tyschtschenko, their Managing Director. Also there was George Robbins, Jeff Frank, and Pia Brockmann, AT's Dir. of Marketing & Sales. Petro T as always looked and sounded very upbeat and friendly. He told me they've now sold 25,000 1200s in Europe/UK. Sold. To customers. Out the door. He said that they had tons of them at the just-concluded Computer Fair in Cologne ("Koln") Germany and people were buying them as fast as they could whip out the cash. Although I still couldn't get one of those nifty new Amiga posters (as seen in my recent VTU Expo photo-scan uploads), Gilles did give me a photo slide of it. Guess I'll take it to a photo store and get it made into a print and scan that, so we can have a decent head on, clean upload of it. They also gave me a pile of Amiga logo stickers.I was all set to slap one on my 1200 back at my hotel room but it's just a little to big to fit anywhere on the top of the case :-/ Petro told me that he had been interviewed by many computer journalists already, so hopefully this will turn into some good press coverage in upcoming issues of various magazines that are covering COMDEX and the zillions of new products that come out of this massive expo. Following my comments here I'm going to include four recent speeches by both Petro and Manfred Schmitt, who is Escom's president. These were handed to me by Gilles off his Escom (Intel) Laptop running Windows in German :) I shot a pic of him typing on it and he said "hey hey, no pictures of me using an 'IBM'" :) so maybe that one'll get uploaded and maybe it wont. I did shoot pics of their booth which will get scanned and uploaded after I return home in a few days. So there ya go.. yet another show report. Yet another day of Harv dragging his butt around millions of square feet of expo halls, and coming back to his hotel room to collapse. :) @endnode @node FEATURE9 "Amiga-Messe Speech by Manfred Schmitt" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== Amiga-Messe Speech by Manfred Schmitt =========================================================================== [Manfred Schmitt speaking at the Amiga-Messe during Computer '95 in Cologne - 11/11/95] Ladies and Gentlemen, Since we have many guests from outside of Germany here, this conference is going to be held in English. My name is Manfred Schmitt, I am founder and chairman of ESCOM AG. I would like to welcome you to this software evening and also thank you very much for attending. You surely all know ESCOM as one of the leading PC retailers in Europe. In the past fiscal year 1994, we had a turnover of 1.85 billion Deutschmarks, employed 2300 people and sold 410.000 PC's throughout Europe. With 450 outlets, we cover 9 european countries. Core markets are Germany, where we run some 140 shops, and Great Britain. In the UK, we are the biggest dedicated PC retailer with 200 shops by the end of the year. But PC dealer is no longer the appropriate term that characterizes our business. Our strategy is changing from a mere PC retailer into a multimedia company. And on this path, the acquisition of the intellectual property of Commodore and Amiga half a year ago was an important milestone. You surely might confirm that Amiga is a leverage for the growing multimedia market. And you might also ask me what the guys from ESCOM have done in the past months with the Amiga and what they are going to do in the near future. Amiga Technologies has grown to a small but efficient multinational company and now employs 40 people. The Amiga product range is back on the market as announced and distributed in more than 20 countries. This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the result of the determination, motivation and competence from the Amiga team, led by Petro Tyschtschenko and Stefan Domeyer. The plans have been respected. Congratulations to all of them. We all know, the Amiga is an amazing computer. It is even more than just a computer. It is an institution with user groups, a community, fans and even lovers. There are Amiga-fairs, Amiga-magazines, Amiga clubs, even T-shirts and tea cups ! Usually, in the computer business, when the leading product disappears, the market collapses immediately. The Amiga was gone for one and a half year but the market, even if it shrunk a bit, was still there and remained significant. This is something that is quite remarkable. It shows the quality of the Amiga-concept and the dedication of the user-base. I think that some of our competitors are underestimating the power and potential of what the name Amiga represents. We do not. We perfectly know what we have and believe me, ladies and gentlemen, we are going to make something out of it! The Amiga is not only gifted by its user-community, it also has one of the best developer bases. Public domain and shareware programs on the Amiga are better and the quantity available is unmatched on other platforms. The utility of such a developer community dedicated to the Amiga is evident. It provides good software and very often, commercial products emerge and expand the software-market. This is something essential and therefore, developer support is one of our top-priorities. It will be mainly available as on-line services via Web pages or FTP servers. We intend to simplify as much as possible the certification procedures. Please feel free to ask for information during the fair at our booth or later this evening during the questions and answer session. The person to contact is Mr Hohmann. We also set up contacts with software-editing companies to make sure that their development for Amiga products is resumed. New contacts to non-Amiga editors are also on our todo list. Since we started-up the Amiga operations, there have been several rumours about our future plans. One of these rumours said that Amiga is just a quick shot for the Christmas season and that the project would be dropped shortly afterwards. Ladies and gentlemen, this is most certainly a dream of the competition! Indeed, Amiga is not a short-term project, it is a strategic element in our multimedia strategy as I mentionned before. To give the Amiga the future it deserves, as a major platform for Multimedia, video and 3D applications, it is necessary to upgrade its present capacities. That's why we have decided to leave the Motorola 68000 range of processors and upgrade the system with the power PC processor next year. The future machines will of course run with Amiga OS. The choice of the Power PC was made for its speed, and also because it is actually the only RISC processor that is currently used in personal computers, which will insure us that needed quantities will be available at attractive prices on a mass market. Amiga OS is actually what makes the strength of the platform it runs on. We are aware that we have an operating system that has real multitasking from the beginning without the need of excessive amounts of memory like other operating systems. This is the reason why we will concentrate on improving and porting Amiga OS to other processors. It is the best way to enlarge the installed base and to gain market shares over Windows and Macintosh systems. The implementation of the Power PC processor will be a first step in that direction. Later, this processor will replace the 68000 chips in the rest of the Amiga product range. This is possible thanks to the range of versions that Motorola provides, from the 602 up to the 604. Multimedia does not only mean sound and Animation but also communication. We will use the Amiga-technology to provide very cost effective on-line solutions. These can be marketed as set-top boxes or as Amiga computers equipped with the necessary hard- and software. To be a player in the on-line market, one has also to provide on-line-services like Web pages or FTP servers for the Internet. This has already been done for Amiga, Commodore and ESCOM. Our customers can now use the Internet to find information and support for the computer they are using. The actual computer market is widely occupied by Intel and Microsoft platforms. We think that this combination is not satisfying for all uses. There is a strong market for the home computing below 1000 DM. For Internet surfing, spending 2500 DM for a PC is not what I would call a home oriented solution. These are definitely market segments where the Amiga 1200 can be more competitive. Ladies and Gentlemen, I hope that this meeting will be a start-up for a good co-operation between Amiga Technologies and software publishers. Thank you for your attention. @endnode @node FEATURE10 "Tyschtschenko at Cologne" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== Speech by Petro Tyschtschenko in Cologne =========================================================================== Koln 11/11 Ladies and Gentlemen, Thank you very much for attending this software evening, it is nice to see so many people interested in developing software on the Amiga. Amiga Technologies began as a production company in May 1995. Its goal was then to ramp up the production of Amiga computers to bring them back onto the market. We have done it. Then, as soon as the products were available, Amiga Technologies evolved to a computer sales company to distribute its products world-wide. We had to meet the demand that has been waiting for more than one year. We have done it. Now, Amiga is turning into a true Computer manufacturer, we are finally building up our Research and Development team in Bensheim. We are hiring former Commodore engineers as well as new talented people to be able to respect the announced schedules for the Power Amiga. Lets do it! Ladies and Gentlemen, we want to show our commitment to the Amiga platform, not as a quick money maker for the Christmas season, but as one of the most important strategic challenges in the ESCOM group. Amiga shall become the best platform for Multimedia, 3D software, graphics processing, Internet and many more applications. The software market is always looking for powerful platforms. Especially 3D software needs great amounts of MIPS. This is going to be addressed first with the 060 board that we will market in early 96. Then, in 1st quarter 97, the Power PC 604 will replace the 060 in the new high-end model. Of course, the operating system will have to be ported to the new RISC-Processor. This will be done internally at Amiga Technologies by our R&D department. In the meantime, there will also be new products based on the A1200 concept. We plan to present the A1200 + in May. This model will feature either the Coldfire processor from Motorola, or the 68030 at 40 MHz. SIMM sockets will be integrated directly on the motherboard to allow easy memory expansion. The A1200 + is scheduled for the CEBIT in March 96. Another product will be the black box. This is a set top box that will feature an enhanced A1200 core, along with all connectors needed for communication, printing, audio in and out and a remote control. It will have a HI-FI-like design that will be created by Frog design. The product will of course be equipped with a CD ROM drive and a floppy disk drive. We are also making an Internet package with all software needed to become an unbeatable surfer. These networking features are planned to be part of the OS in a near future. It will first be marketed as a complete package including modem and cables, with the software preinstalled on the harddrive. A plug and play solution. We also plan the Q-Drive to be available shortly after the fair. This quad speed CD ROM drive plugs into the PCMCIA connector and is provided with software to enable it to play CD 32 titles. Ladies and Gentlemen, as you can see, the Amiga family will become larger very soon. To welcome these products that will without doubt be very successful on the market, we want to encourage you to produce software for them. We now have a developer support set up and running. Let me tell you a few words about its organisation. There will be a secured section on the WEB server, only accessible to registered developers. The address of the WEB server is www.amiga.de We will have two types of developers: Non-commercial and commercial developers. To become a non-commercial developer, the candidate has to show an existing program or product, even public domain. The annual fee is 100 USD. For becoming a commercial developer, one has to provide proof of a commercial product, either completed or in advanced stage of development. The fee for becoming a commercial developer is 300 USD a year. Former registered Commodore developers will have to register again with Amiga Technologies. This is necessary for us because we do not have the complete Commodore developer database and also because an Amiga Technologies NDA has to be signed. All developers will also have access to the beta versions of the AMIGA OS for testing purposes, they will have access to development tools, to hardware documentation and to our restricted newsgroups. Developers will also have special purchase conditions on Amiga hardware. There will also be a periodical newsletter. The support for developers will be accessible from the Internet and through a closed network as in former Commodore times. If you have further questions about software support, you are welcome to ask after the session. We know that there are many people who are convinced that Amiga is the best system and those people believe in the Amiga platform as well as we do. This, Ladies and Gentlemen is very encouraging for us. I believe that most of the people attending here are Amiga enthusiastic and am glad to see such a strong commitment. There is one thing I would like to tell you: write software for the Amiga, Amiga will help you to do this. We managed to revive the Amiga hardware Now it's to you, together with us, to revive its software. Negotiations with many software houses world-wide have started. Our common goal should be to strengthen the Amiga software platform for the future. Please take this message: Amiga is working tightly together with hardware companies to get new extensions, license our technology and create new exciting products. We are motivated by the success we had with our current models and look forward to bring you new products very soon. Thank you for your attention. @endnode @node FEATURE11 "Tyschtschenko at Bradford" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== Speech by Petro Tyschtschenko at Bradford =========================================================================== [This transcript came directly from Gilles Bourdin's laptop and as such is annotated for delivery, not a direct transcript of what was actually said. -Jason] Ladies and Gentlemen, distinguished guests. I am pleased to be here at our first common press conference with Microvitec. My name is Petro Tyschtschenko, I am President at Amiga Technologies GmbH. The company was founded in May 1995, just after ESCOM AG acquired the rights to the technology and patents of the former Commodore Company. Amiga Technologies GmbH is a 100% subsidiary of ESCOM AG. ESCOM AG is a public company. 25 % belongs to Quelle [explain], 10 % to Siemens-Nixdorf, 12,5 % to RWE [explain], 38,5 % to Manfred Schmitt, founder and chairman of the board, 14 % splitted to other shareholders. You surely have heard about the last ESCOM deal in the UK concerning the Rumbelows shops. Before working at ESCOM AG, during my time at Commodore, for 12 years, when I was Director for international logistics, I always used to trade with manufacturers and accessory providers in the far-east. Commodore partners in this regard were notorious companies like Hyundai, Samsung, Daewoo or Philips, all famous names in the monitor business. Logically, the first thing I did when I began setting up the operations of Amiga Technologies GmbH was to revive my contacts. According to asian courtesy, I got many promises to help Amiga and to send propositions. I am known as being an impatient man. I wondered if there wasn't a possible solution in Europe. In the Amiga-Magazines I saw advertisements for Microvitec Monitors and was surprised because I knew the name from the banking and industrial sector. In Munich, at a big press meeting, I had the opportunity to talk to many people from the monitor and Amiga busines, and I heard many positive comments about Microvitec. This convinced me to keep heading towards a european solution. I arranged meetings in Bensheim with Mr H President at Microvitec Germany and adressed him our technical requirements, prices and quantities for an Amiga monitor. I quickly understood that the Microvitec deal would be the best solution from the technical point of view. Instead of choosing a low cost product, I decided to go for the mid-level and to prefer good quality. Another advantage with Microvitec:was the location in Europe, our main Amiga market. This was going to enhance our logistics tremendeously and keep costs at a low level! Now, ladies and Gentlemen, we decided to call the monitor M1438S. The initials stand for Monitor and Stereo. 14 represents the size and 38 means that the monitor can sync all horizontal frequencies from 15 to 38 Kilohertz. This is just what is needed for a multimedia computer like the Amiga. We already got very satisfying tests in the Amiga-press. A little restriction concerning the use with genlocks has been detected but Microvitec engineers are already working on it. Distribution Our first deliveries of the M1438S began in mid-September. After a few startup difficulties, we have everything under control. For the last quarter 1995, we will have sold all forecasted 15000 units. For the UK market, we can ship directly from the Bradford facility, which saves us time and money. The deliveries for continental Europe are made from our service-and-spare-center in Braunschweig. As you can see, ladies and Gentlemen, Logistics is an important thing for us and I think the we have reached quite an acceptable level of optimization here. Now, let's talk about our plans for 1996. What shall we do? Go back for far east production or continue our cooperation with Microvitec? The decission has been taken....... Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, we decided to continue the british experience, how could it be otherwise? For us, of course, the price question is an important one. But I am convinced that Microvitec will be very cooperative on this issue, we are currently discussing this. Concerning the product range, we think of three different models. For the first quarter, we will continue with the 14 inch model. For the CEBIT fair in Hannover, we have a 15 and 17 inch model on schedule. Our goal is also to replace the 14 inch by the 15 inch model as soon as possible, during the second quarter, and this without increasing the price. Ladies and gentlemen, we know that the 17 inch monitor will be a breakthrough in the Amiga market. We allready presented first prototyspe samples at the IFA fair in Berlin and the great response from the public convinced us to market it as soon as possible. Be aware: this monitor is able to adapt itself automaticcaly to horizontal frequencies from 15 up to 64 Kilohertz. This monitor can be used on high end Amigas fitted with 64 bit graphic boards and can display video as well as high resolution VGA screens. There is actually no competition for this product on the market and we know that our Amiga monitor will be appreciated by those who do video applications, even on the PC and Macintosh side. Our forecasts for 1996 are set on 60.000 monitors, which will represent a turnover of about 20 million UK Pounds. We will begin with 10.000 14 inch models during the first quarter, negociations are still being made for the forthcoming quarters. Ladies and gentlemen, as you might allready know, we will not only sell monitors. We plan to bring 100.000 Amiga 1200 and 20.000 Amiga 4000 T on the market. Regarding the 060 Motorola board for the Amiga 4000 T, I'm afraid that we will have delays until next year, dued to availability difficulties with Motorola and other component providers. Our turnover at Amiga Technologies will be around 100 Million DM, which is about 45 Million UK Pounds. For the coming year, I will not make any comittments but if everything keeps going as well as this year, we expect to ship 500.000 Amiga 1200 and 50.000 Amiga 4000T. Since then, there will also be new models available in the entry-level as well as in the mid-range. We also intend to present our new A1200 CD-ROM drive on the Amiga fair in Colone. Ladies and Gentlemen, we are very pleased that we could contribute to increase the utilization of industrial capacity in Bradford. We hope that this will also help to improve the social situation here. We think that with our action based on "european location and partners", we showed that a computer manufacturer can be competitive without having to transfer ist production to the far east, like Commodore did. We think that we are quite innovative in this regard and we hope that our experience will be followed by other computer manufacturers. Our main market is currently Europe. But there is also a great potential in the United States. In our forecasts, we did not include America because we are currently in negociations with distributors and future partners to find a solution to cover the north-American market. These negociationas are quite promising. One of the distributors overseas has allready ordered 500 monitors. Ladies and Gentlemen, we are proud to export british Monitors to the USA and I will make you a confidence about one of my dreams I am about to realize: To export european made monitors to Asia. This would indeed be a nice reward for the excellent work made by Microvitec and Amiga Technologies. Thank you for your attention. @endnode @node FEATURE12 "Tyschtschenko at Bordeaux" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== Speech by Petro Tyschtschenko - Press conference Bordeaux =========================================================================== Ladies and Gentlemen, distinguished guests Good afternoon... Welcome to our first press conference here with Solectron and thank you very much for attending. Let me introduce myself, my name is Petro Tyschtschenko, I am the president at Amiga Technologies GmbH. I have the great pleasure to be here to tell you about the backgrounds of the Amiga rebirth. Amiga is back, back for the future. It finally happened ! Amiga is back on the market. This was an amazing task to accomplish and many people from several companies helped to make impossible things possible. I would like to thank the people from Solectron for their involvement, their competence and professionalism. What they achieved in the last two months is truly an exceptional logistic performance. I would also like to thank Motorola for their precious help and cooperation in making the rebirth of the Amiga possible. Thanks to Mitsumi for supplying us just in time our special Amiga keyboards. Thank you also to Microvitec, who I believe provided us the best Amiga monitor ever. As you can see, the Amiga project involved several companies in a remarkable team and the ambitious goal was reached in time. Our Amiga story began in 1985. The first Amiga was presented in New York. Since then, it has established itself as the platform of those who want true multitasking and integrated Multimedia. More, ladies and gentlemen than just typing letters or numbers on a PC. Amiga Technologies GmbH is a 100% subsidiary of ESCOM AG. ESCOM AG is a public company. 25 % belongs to Quelle, 10 % to Siemens-Nixdorf, 12,5 % to RWE, 38,5 % to Manfred Schmitt, founder and chairman of the board, 14 % split to other shareholders. Amiga Technologies GmbH was founded in May 1995. We are a young company but we already have historical dates : here is the first Amiga 1200 board made by Solectron. which I just received from Mister Gallant. It came out of the line on the 13th of September 1995. A rebirth in France. To be quite honest this one was faulty, it had two condensators soldered with reverse polarity. This board functioned only a few minutes. But the error was recognized quickly... fixed... and for the forthcoming boards, all tests passed successfully. Be aware: For all machines, we do systematic testing on each unit. Now lets talk about the story of the Amiga rebirth: Everything began in June 1995, after ESCOM AG acquired the rights to the Amiga Technology from the former Commodore company. I went to the Far East first to the Philippines, Cavite, the city where the old Commodore company had a manufacturing facility. My goal was to make sure that we could get the component stocks left there by Commodore. Everything there was an enormous mess and nightmare, nothing was organized. I have had first doubts that we never could do it at all. June: raining season in the Philippines Typhoons time and floods. Pinatubo ? quiet, thank god. But I didn't give up and with the help of Mr. Gwynne Thomas, who I'd like to thank for the wonderful job he made, we succeeded in making things move in this complicated component business. Taylor made Amiga components were gathered together through liquidators all around the world and shipped from the Far East to Europe and the USA. It was really a difficult task. Originally, it was planned to produce Amigas in the United Kingdom, because there were people there that had great experience with Amiga production. But we finally decided to go for a partnership with Solectron here in France. We didn't leave the UK though, since we have our partner Microvitec for Monitors. Our M1438S monitor has already been celebrated by the Amiga-press for its perfect compatibility with Amiga video-modes. There will be a press conference in Bradford on the 17th of October to celebrate this cooperation. Bordeaux is perfect for us. Not only the wine, we also appreciate the pleasant surroundings and the competencies of the people at Solectron. Solectron, maybe you have noticed this already, won the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award, which guaranteed us that our machines would be reliable. Now that the first units went over the shelves and that we get the first positive impressions from our customers, we know that we have made the right choice. I have learned here in Bordeaux: "impossible n'est pas Solectron". Our Amiga production that has been set to 100.000 units for the three last months of 1995 is already sold out in preorders. All these machines will be produced in Bordeaux. We are pleased by the demand from our dealers. We are also pleased to hear from the Amiga press that they are flooded with phone calls from people who want to know where they can get Amigas. To satisfy this demand, our logistic system is working perfectly. We can ship directly from Bordeaux to our different customers. Indeed, with such a system, we are a sales company and not a warehouse company. This enables us to keep down stock costs to a minimum. Ladies and gentlemen, as I said before, this is a very special day for my team and myself, we are proud that we did it. I am very satisfied of the people at Amiga Technologies, who were available anytime during four months to help building up our company. In spite of all the rumors spread by doomsayers on the market, we respected the schedules and the Amiga is back as promised. I would also like to thank the Amiga press for their support and the Amiga users for their endless patience. "AMIGA 95 SERA LE CRU DE LA RENAISSANCE" @endnode @node FEATURE13 "A Trip To Be" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== A Trip To Be, Inc. (or: Mr. Compton Goes to Menlo Park) By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== Schedules and plans can turn out to be funny things. I was supposed to be at the Cologne Computer '95 show (commonly, but not really accurately, referred to as the WOA), but that didn't work out. I found out, after the fact, that I could have called in a favor to go out to the Toaster show. Luckily for me, we've had so many reports for both shows in I almost feel like I was there. Equally lucky, the weekend didn't go wasted. I was able to change plans and get myself a trip to Menlo Park, home of the suddenly de-cloaked Be, Incorporated. For those who aren't aware of Be or their first product, the BeBox, here's a quick summary. Be, Inc. was founded in 1990 by Jean-Louis Gassee, who left Apple as a head engineering exec. His company set to work to create a new computer platform on the premise that multiprocessing is a good thing. To that end, the BeOS was geared to take advantage of up to 8 of them, initially AT&T's Hobbit RISC, later the Motorola/IBM/Apple PowerPC. The BeBox is the first computer to implement the BeOS, and sports PCI and ISA busses, SCSI and IDE as standard, and a boatload of onboard I/O including stereo in and out, MIDI, and IR ports. The box is driven by two PowerPC 603 chips. Be's staff hit the computer world with a blitz, first at a trade show and then with extensive information on the net. With such touted features as a multithreaded, pre-emptively multitasking OS with all the niceties like memory protection Amiga users have been asking for and compatibility with industry standard (read: inexpensive) video cards, monitors, and peripherals, my interest was caught. Besides, at the time I heard about it, the PowerAmiga announcement hadn't been made yet. So I did some talking with Gassee and he arranged a flight for me. (It was on United, which isn't nearly as nice as Kiwi, but I'm not going to get picky now.) I arrived at San Francisco airport, took a limo out to the office building, and went in. I had envisioned their office might be in a 15-story glass and metal cube building where all sorts of companies would sneer at me behind closed doors with all sorts of top secret technology I'd never see. (This is, after all, Silicon Valley.) Fortunately, it was a much more tame building than that and Be had the entire third floor so there was a minimum of intimidation. (There were an awful lot of mirrors on the first floor, but nothing I couldn't handle.) So there I was. Maureen Hendrickson, the office administrative assistant, fetched Gassee, and off he went to grab Melissa Rogers, Project Manager, Benoit Schilling, 5-year Be veteran in software, and another gentleman whose name escapes me. Gassee and I held a brief meeting, and then I was whisked off for a short tour of the office floor (very sparsely furnished, lots of old couches and tables, though.) Then came the demo. The BeBox was set up in a special room designated for demos. They have a pretty high-quality stereo setup in there, along with a prototype BeBox case, an old Hobbit-based machine, and the demo unit, housed in an open case under the table. The machine was equipped with a PCI GXE #9 graphics card running at 800x600x256 (presently, the maximum implemented resolution), a standard ISA PC Ethernet card, and a special keyboard/mouse ISA card hacked up for temporary use, as there has been a software problem with the Be's standard ports. In addition, there was some rather large amount of disk space and 32 megs of memory. Screenshots of the BeOS are available on Be's web site (listed later on.) But a description of the "feel" is in order. The influence of the Mac System isn't very hard to find--the general paradigm is the same. There's the single-screen desktop, windows that open on it, and tasks that switch either by clicking on their window or by selecting them from a list, accessed in the upper left hand corner of the screen. Amiga users will feel pretty at home opening up a "newsh", though, a bash variant shell that has full control over the filesystem. In fact, the entire OS is so tightly threaded through the built-in database that, for example, renaming a folder in a shell will immediately update all on-screen GUI references to that folder. My demo "chaperone" proceeded to show off various aspects of the BeBox--the speed of a Mandelbrot recalculation, the musical capabilities, and the interprocess clipping. Then, of course, all of them at once (two Mandelbrot zooms while two MIDI tracks and a sampled CD track played with three animation windows running.) Yes, the system slowed down (you could watch the processors fall out of sync in the Mandelbrot zooms, since each processor handles odd/even lines.) But it kept chugging along, rather nicely, too. All the while the old Hobbit box next to me ran a landscape-generating screen saver that hid an old texture-mapped game demo that wasn't exactly stable. Then it was time for more important things, like lunch. Over lunch, about a dozen Be employees gathered around. We discovered that I was the only person present who hadn't worked for Apple in some way in my lifetime. Of course, the "God I hated Apple I'm so glad I'm not there anymore" stories started flying...and there was something very eerily familiar about them. Stories of incompetent, overbearing engineering management. Stories of over-delayed product releases (Melissa was the Project Manager for Mac's Copland OS prior to coming to Be. She told us that her Apple sources indicate Copland will likely be as late as December 1997.) I got myself back behind the wheels of the BeBox for a bit longer after lunch...played around with the GUI and shell (you are arbitrarily limited to opening up 6 shells. Sorry to those Amiga folks who like opening up dozens of shells to see how many you can get, but they just set a limit and are done with the matter), and then with a Descent-like game in beta stage. All very fluid. The TCP stack seemed competent, as was their quickie web browser that was whipped up in-house. I spent time talking at length with Joe Palmer, head of hardware for Be. He described the production process (contracted out to a company who profited from an Apple loss, buying up a highly modern but abandoned production facility of theirs) and walked me through the motherboard. We also did a lot of talking about the face of the computer marketplace, the future of the Web, and earthquakes. Gassee and I had some time to talk again afterwords. He reiterated what he's been saying all along, that the BeBox is for computer enthusiasts, hackers, and those who aren't looking to just run Microsoft Office. They're not expecting to put a computer in every home, just in the homes of people who don't want the everyday. And the cost of admission reflects it, at least for now--a base unit is $1600, and that comes with essentially just the motherboard and I/O card, you supply graphics, memory, storage, and monitor. Be projects about $2500 for a "reasonably equipped" machine of 16 megs of memory and the other accessories. 16 megs is definitely a must, as the 32-meg BeBox--which wasn't running any major items worth noting--took about 11 megs to boot. The minimum OS footprint is 4.5 megs. I talked for a while with CK, Be's head of developer support. A veteran of Apple dev support, CK was largely concerned with how to get the next 670 machines to the developers that want them. (a dozen already have them.) We also talked at length about the Web and how it made his job infinitely easier--no more phone calls or mass mailings, just put it on the web site and be done with it. The BeBox is definitely for the networked crowd, or as Gassee put it, "If you come into my shop and want to buy a BeBox, but don't have an Internet account, I don't want you to buy one." After about 5 hours in the company of the Be staff and machines, it was time to call it a night. I did have dinner with Benoit the following night, where it was time to buckle down and get to some more meaty issues, like... Q: Is Be really going to focus on selling their operating system over selling machines, as the web site indicates they're inclined to do? A: Well, Benoit doesn't think so, anyway. It could easily go either way, but he and I are in agreement that we just don't see it being overly attractive to buy an operating system. Q: How easy/difficult is it to add extra processors to the BeOS, since you're supposed to be able to use up to 8 in the OS? A: At least at first, there will have to be specific OS versions for any extra processors (and extra machines, since there is no provision for changing processors on the BeBox). They are considering doing a generic version that would simply adjust to its environment, but memory overhead issues come into play. Q: Are there going to be, say, Unix variants ported to the BeBox? A: Benoit feels it would be such a difficult task it wouldn't really be worth the trouble, but the logic analyzers are available to developers if they really want to give it a shot... There was also quite a bit of questioning coming FROM Be about the Amiga, both on Thursday from the staff (including Be's webmaster who wanted to make sure Amiga users would have access to the Be developer manual) and from Benoit Friday night. But that's only fair, they paid for me to pick their brains. Quite a lot of the response to their product announcement came from Amiga users, but the subsequent announcement of upcoming PowerPC Amiga development has quelled that surge somewhat. So, the question I've been asked a lot is, "Is the BeBox the next Amiga?" Well, it all depends on what you think the Amiga is. If the Amiga is doing amazing things with relatively limited resources, the answer is clearly no--Amiga Technologies is shipping machines with less than half the memory the BeOS needs to BOOT. If you see the Amiga as simply being an example of a well-constructed alternative in the computer market, then the answer is yes, after a sense. The BeBox isn't going to be touted as a giant-killer, there are no plans to target Compaq, IBM, Dell, and Microsoft and take them out of commission. At least in Europe, the Amiga is aimed a bit more at these sorts of markets than the Be is. On the other hand, the Be has the hardware advantage at the moment--Dave Haynie has implicitly and explicitly said that the BeBox is a rough example of where the Amiga SHOULD be now, all things going according to plan and there not being an extended suspension of Amiga development. Is the BeBox a good reason to throw your Amiga out the window? Mine's staying planted on my desk. But just when it seemed that the Amiga might fade away into obscurity for good and the face of Windows would overwhelm the landscape, Be came out with a pretty impressive bang. Competition in the computer market pleases me, and I think it may have been directly responsible for Amiga Tech's sudden willingness to talk a bit more specifically about the future. I saw a lot of good things. I saw a compact but loose company with a group of talented people who enjoy working with each other and believe in what they're working on. I saw a machine that had a real personality and feel to it (No, no dragging screens up and down, but it has a feel), a real viable alternative to the Intel/Microsoft wave, a potential ally against a common foe, you might say. And I saw the reason AmiTech's been more open to their customers. So the trip was a success, even if I didn't walk out with a new computer. The Flip Side: Of course, there are always those details that are worth mentioning that just don't fit the flow of the article... Robert Reiswig (who co-authored one of the VTU Expo reports in this issue) and I got together Saturday night for a drive and a couple of rounds of Virtual Worlds Battletech. As far as we can tell, it's still all driven by Amiga 500s, and there were lots of 1084Ses in sight. Rob pretty much blew me away most of the time, but I did finish with 5 kills versus 6 times killed, and kept my score in the positive numbers. Two Be employees, at different times, pointed out that one of the things they remembered the most about the Amiga was the screen dragging. The BeBox has an application that allows you to monitor the processor usage. You can also shut off a processor to watch the load increase (useful for debugging, I'm told.) You can also shut BOTH of them off. Oops. I didn't get heckled wearing either my Amiga (PC-Task) or Be t-shirts over the weekend. Man, it's really different being in the Silicon Valley. @endnode @node REVIEW1 "Review: ImageStudio 2 v2.3.0" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== Review: ImageStudio 2 By: @{" William Near " link WILLIAM} =========================================================================== SOFTWARE: ImageStudio 2 v2.3.0 AUTHORS: Andy & Graham Dean 14 Fielding Ave. Poynton, Stockport, Cheshire, SK12 1YX England Email: adean@eleceng.ucl.ac.uk (Andy) ELA95GND@sheffield.ac.uk (Graham) ORDERS: LH Publishing 13 Gairlock Ave. Bletchley MK2 3DH England DESCRIPTION: File conversion and image processing program PRICE: Shareware fee of 15 pounds sterling or US$30 overseas SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS: Amiga running Workbench 2.04+, a hard drive and at least 1 MB of RAM 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, multisync monitor PACKAGING: The program, when retrieved from the Aminet, consists of two compressed files that must be written out to two floppy disks and upon registration you will be sent the latest registered version of ImageStudio on two floppy disks and a very nice 72 page manual. INSTALLATION: ImageStudio uses the Commodore Installer program to create the necessary files on your hard drive. During the installation process you are given the choice of installing either a 68000 or 68020+ version of ImageStudio depending on your machine's configuration. FEATURES: ImageStudio is a midrange image processing and conversion program. It lacks some of the high-end features found on some Amiga graphics programs, but what it lacks in professional features it easily makes up for in ease of use and simplicity. ImageStudio uses virtual memory to manipulate color-mapped or 24-bit images. The user sets up a destination directory on his hard drive to be used by ImageStudio as virtual memory, which does a nice job of allowing multiple buffers to be used without the necessity of having several megabytes of RAM. A full-featured ARexx port is included that allows the user to write, edit, and run ARexx scripts from within ImageStudio itself. The authors have even included a blank template to help get you started on the path to ARexx bliss. Six separate tutorials are included to walk the user through several of the basic processes that ImageStudio is capable of performing on an image. Each tutorial is illustrated in the manual making each step easy to follow. The Prefs requestor contains 27 separate user settings in three categories (Text, Numeric, and Boolean.) Everything from what external viewers to use and whether or not you would like the Amigaguide on-line help enabled to saving the positions of the windows in ImageStudio can be controlled from this requestor. Some of the other major features of ImageStudio are: * 100 level Undo/Redo * CyberGraphX compatibility (graphics board support) * Internal and external image viewer support * Loading, saving and manipulation of AGA image formats on non-AGA machines * Maximum image size of 32,000 x 32,000 * Clipboard support * On-line help function by way of Amigaguide * Ability to import: IFF-ILBM, BMP, IFF-DEEP, JPEG, PCX, PNM, QRT, SGI, Targa, TIFF, and VMEM file formats * Ability to export: IFF-ILBM, BMP, EPS, GIF, IFF-DEEP, JPEG, PCX, PNM, QRT, SGI, Targa, TIFF, and VMEM file formats * Datatype support with Workbench 3.x * Color Balance applicable in separate RGB components or Brightness, Gamma, and Contrast settings * 17 Convolution filters are supplied (such as: Blur, Chisel, Emboss, Shake, Slash, Texture, etc.) along with the capability to create custom filters * 12 Effects are supplied (such as: Dynamic Range, Flip X & Y, Roll X & Y, Negative, Pixelize, etc.) * Scaling of image * Color Reduction * Zoom (in/out) IMPRESSIONS: ImageStudio is one of the easiest to learn image processing programs I have ever run across. The menus and requestors are very intuitive and easy to use. Sample images are supplied that coincide with the tutorials in the manual. By running through each tutorial I was able to quickly master the basics of image manipulation with ImageStudio. The floating palettes for: Balance, Convolves, Effects, Scripts, InfoBar and Coordinates are easily arranged anywhere on the screen, as well as being able to resize the image window. Among the supplied ARexx scripts is a Demo that runs through several of the features of ImageStudio. This is well worth running through to help familiarize yourself with the abilities of ImageStudio. Another set of scripts allow you to do various batch processes on selected files. Applying an Effect or Convolve is as easy as outlining a portion, or the entire image, with your mouse and then selecting the appropriate function from one of the palettes on the screen and applying it. The possibilities are virtually endless as to image manipulation. An ARexx Command Shell option is included. An ARexx command my be executed from here or help on the syntax of any command can be obtained by typing help from within the Shell. The effect of any ARexx command is immediately visible upon executing it from the Command Shell. This allows experimentation with various ARexx commands before they are added to an actual script. The manual also includes ARexx common problems and tip sections. Converting an image to another file format couldn't be easier. Just load in the image to be converted and then select Save from the menu. A requestor will pop up with the options to specify a new filename, the format to convert to (from a scrolling window) and any options associated with that particular file format. Click on the Save button and the rest is performed by ImageStudio. Finally, an Uncrash utility is included. In the event of a system crash this program should be run immediately after rebooting the computer. An attempt to recover the swap files from the hard drive will be made. This utility should be run before executing the ImageStudio program to ensure that the swap files will not be overwritten. SUMMARY: ImageStudio is a very nice piece of Shareware. It allows the casual user to manipulate and convert images with ease and excellent results can be expected. The program was very easy to install ala the Commodore Installer program and the printed manual and Amigaguide documentation is top notch. The authors are easily contacted via Email and they respond quickly with helpful replies. Their commitment to this program is outstanding and continued development is virtually guaranteed with added Shareware registrations from its users. [Or additional commercial purchases, now that LH Publishing is in the game...-Jason] @endnode @node CHARTS1 "Aminet Charts: 30-Oct-95" @toc FTP | The most downloaded files from Aminet during the week until 30-Oct-95 | Updated weekly. Most popular file on top. | |File Dir Size Age Description |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- SmartWB.lha util/wb 4K 0+Boosts up Workbench's windows refres zaxxon.lha game/shoot 131K 0+The c64 classic Zaxxon perfectly con FView20.lha gfx/show 91K 0+FastView for IFF/GIF/BMP/JPG/PCX pic Magic64.lha misc/emu 249K 1+A C64 emulator for the Amiga V1.0 SysPic.lha util/boot 72K 0+V2.02-The best boot-time picture dis Amiga_SLIP_11.lha docs/help 12K 1+Beginner's Guide To Amiga Slip, Amig UltimatePatchS.lha util/misc 78K 1+Very powerful patch system. CrossDOS602.lha biz/patch 79K 0+Update CrossDOS 6.00 and 6.01 -> 6.0 Executive.lha util/misc 482K 0+UNIX-like task scheduler (V1.20) mcx218.lha util/cdity 46K 0+Multi Function Commodity VGB_Amiga.lha misc/emu 64K 1+Nintendo Gameboy emulator V0.3 MagiC64N.lha misc/emu 250K 0+C64 Emulator V1.01 (A1200 Bug fixed) truview.lha dev/misc 10K 1+614125 colors on AGA (FAST!!) beinfo.lha docs/misc 255K 1 Technical info (+ pics) on the BeBox prop3d_4063.lha util/boot 9K 0+Improve the look of the GadTools pro Speed18.lha game/misc 192K 1+Upto 4-played car racing game AutoAssign.lha util/wb 18K 0+V1.12-Automagically makes assigns & IconAlign.lha util/cli 9K 0+Arranges Workbench icons orderly SeriousBackgmn.lha game/board 128K 0+The ultimate Amiga backgammon game SystemPrefs32.lha util/wb 89K 1+Preferences for CPU (up to 68060) an | The highest rated programs during the week until 30-Oct-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 |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- thor21_main.lha comm/mail 774K 6+Offline Reader for BBS/Internet usag JaysTale.lha docs/misc 72K 4+Jay Miner's tale of the Amiga nsp.dms game/demo 455K 129 Demo of No Second Prize, motorcycle MangledFenders.lha game/misc 385K 62+Top view 6 car demolition derby game CGraphX212u.lha gfx/board 152K 0+CGraphX gfx extension update 2.12 Midnight208a.lha util/blank 363K 48+The ultimate screen saver! (OS2.0+) Executive.lha util/misc 482K 0+UNIX-like task scheduler (V1.20) term-030.lha comm/term 669K 3+V4.5, MC68020/030/040/060 version ARTv1i3A.lha docs/mags 34K 5+AR Tech Journal, Vol 1 Issue 3 in Am F1GP-Ed.lha game/misc 266K 3+Formula One Grand Prix / WC Editor V DGalaga26C.lha game/shoot 544K 4+Galaga clone with lots of extra feat Motor_Duel.lha game/shoot 317K 3+Updated version of BattleCars (2 plr AmiWin20d.lha gfx/x11 1.4M 12+X11R6 package for AmigaDOS V2.0d gfft-1.12.lha misc/sci 296K 59+FFT spectrum analysis of sample file JustForBlues.lha mods/jazz 129K 53 Jazzband by Dizzy 2:45 ** XModule34.lha mus/edit 226K 18+Multiformat Module Editor And Conver snoopdos30.lha util/moni 128K 58+System monitor, many new features ad. ADPCM_Package.lha util/pack 79K 0+Highly effective sample compression ShapeShift3_2a.lha misc/emu 240K 5+Macintosh II emulator, V3.2a cp5.lha comm/tcp 114K 1+V5.6 of the AmiTCP front end package ACM.lha dev/c 443K 125+Amiga C manual w/ many examples Eldritch.lha game/role 375K 1+V1.32 : Top-view adventure hack-and- Iconian2_96.lha gfx/edit 336K 2+OS3.0 icon editor, NewIcon support. PC-TaskPatch31.lha misc/emu 292K 31+PC-Task 3.10 Patch. Updates 3.0 to MathScript21.lha misc/math 253K 21+Mathematical Formula Editor. V2.1 AlgoMusic1_4.lha mus/misc 103K 0+Creates and plays great algorithmic muchmore46.lha text/show 97K 32+Soft scrolling text viewer with xpk- ARCHandler2_0c.lha util/arc 144K 3+2.0c - filesystem, use lha as direct @endnode @node CHARTS3 "13-Nov-95" @toc FTP | The most downloaded files from Aminet during the week until 13-Nov-95 | Updated weekly. Most popular file on top. | |File Dir Size Age Description |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- mn_ansitest.lha comm/mebbs 3K 20+ANSI Test Door for MEBBSNet MagicWB20e.lha biz/demo 270K 0+The standard for the Amiga workbench FastIPrefs4012.lha util/boot 9K 0+IPrefs has been rewritten for KS 3.1 html20gu.lha docs/hyper 47K 0+Complete HTML 2.0 reference in Amiga thor22_main.lha comm/mail 804K 1+Offline Reader for BBS/Internet usag Magic64.lha misc/emu 310K 0+A C64 emulator for the Amiga V1.1 thor22_inet.lha comm/mail 84K 1+Internet archive for THOR 2.1 (TCP/S BootGauge03.lha util/boot 20K 1+Shows a gauge bar while booting, BET NetFace1_2b.lha comm/tcp 38K 1+Beta Gui frontend for AmiTCP. Visage.lha gfx/show 145K 0+Picture viewer for OS 3.0+. V39.2 RynoIcons2.lha pix/mwb 94K 1+A set of Magic Workbench style icons Eldritch.lha game/role 390K 0+V1.34 : Top-view adventure hack-and- DungeonHero.lha game/role 136K 0+Fantastic RPG like Dungeon Master mcx222.lha util/cdity 47K 0+Multi Function Commodity vscan31.lha util/virus 160K 1+V3.1 of a SHI antivirus, recognises ZeusIIe.lha misc/misc 18K 1+AI software to impress your friends! girlact.lha game/shoot 40K 0+Girl Actions - A simple "Galaxians" fastMC.lha gfx/show 58K 1+Fastest truecolor-emulation (jpeg, p AmigaFrom2214.txt docs/misc 25K 0+The Amiga Resistance in 2214. READ I varexx.lha util/rexx 74K 0+A GUI system for Arexx. | The highest rated programs during the week until 13-Nov-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 |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- hdsleep.lha disk/misc 11K 3+Turns your hard drives motor off. v1 Knights242.lha game/2play 223K 53+Two-player violent dungeon bashing Team17_Demos.dms game/demo 680K 34+Demos of Alien Breed 3D and King Pin CGraphX212u.lha gfx/board 152K 2+CGraphX gfx extension update 2.12 DamageWolf3D_2.lha gfx/misc 292K 1+A ROTT (PC game) walkaround demo; 3D ShapeShift3_2a.lha misc/emu 240K 7+Macintosh II emulator, V3.2a RomIcons9.lha pix/icon 336K 23+New MagicWB2.0 Icons/ImageDrawers/.. TolleUhr13.lha util/time 89K 21+Beautyful analogous clock, v1.3 DosMan121.lha util/wb 145K 24+Complete GUI Dos Manual NetMail-13.lha comm/mail 130K 3+E-mail program with GUI, groups, fil tin130gamma.lha comm/news 182K 14+TIN 1.3 PL0 Beta 950726. UUCP/NNTP N Interplay40b.lha disk/cdrom 53K 1+CDPlayer (Archos/CD32/PowerCD/SCSI/+ ReOrg3_1.lha disk/optim 326K 114+Disk optimizer with DC-FFS support DiskSalv11_32.lha disk/salv 118K 18+Dave Haynie's DiskSalv version 11.32 ViperAGA12.lha game/2play 390K 54+Updated AGA Snake game with 6 player VK_DEMO.lha game/demo 765K 1+Virtual Karting playable demo F1GP-Ed.lha game/misc 266K 5+Formula One Grand Prix / WC Editor V MagiC64N.lha misc/emu 250K 2+C64 Emulator V1.01 (A1200 Bug fixed) gfft-1.12.lha misc/sci 296K 61+FFT spectrum analysis of sample file AB3Dicon.lha pix/icon 2K 1+Icon for Alien Breed 3D - MWB Style. MagicMenu_1.29.lha util/cdity 106K 102+PopUp menus for OS 2.x and newer Executive.lha util/misc 482K 2+UNIX-like task scheduler (V1.20) snoopdos30.lha util/moni 128K 60+System monitor, many new features ad NewMultiView09.lha util/sys 8K 4+A frontend for MultiView truview.lha dev/misc 10K 3+614125 colors on AGA (FAST!!) Bloodfest1.lha game/role 515K 1+Captive & HiredGuns style 3d adventu Bloodfest2.lha game/role 598K 1+Captive & HiredGuns style 3d adventu BikiniCards.lha game/think 590K 44+New card set for Klondike AGA KlondikeIII_1.lha game/think 712K 38+Newest version of REKO Klondike! @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.sci.muni.cz/ar/ http://metro.turnpike.net/P/panther/main.html http://www.lysator.liu.se/amiga/ar/ http://www.lysator.liu.se/(bg,4)/amiga/ar [fancier graphics] http://ArtWorks.apana.org.au/AmigaReport.html The following AR sites also have a mailto form, allowing you to mail to Amiga Report from the web site. JPEG tool @{" Offline Orbit v0.88 " link NEWS40} An offline message reader @{" NetMail v1.3 " link NEWS41} A mail reader/sender --------------------------------------------------------------------------- @{" Opinion " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{" Reviews " link REVIEW} @{" Charts " link FTP} @{" Adverts " link COMMERCIAL} @endnode @node FEATURE "Featured Articles" @toc MENU =========================================================================== Featured Articles =========================================================================== @{" Video Toaster User Expo " link FEATURE6} Harv Laser's version @{" Video Toaster User Expo " link FEATURE1} The K&R Report @{" Tyschtschenko at VTU Expo " link FEATURE7} The boss speaks out @{" Cologne Amiga Show Report " link FEATURE2} By Vermeulen and Guijt @{" Cologne Amiga Show Report " link FEATURE3} By Tavoly @{" Cologne Amiga Show Report " link FEATURE4} By Malerz @{" Manfred Schmitt at Cologne " link FEATURE9} The BIG boss speaks out @{" Tyschtschenko at Cologne " link FEATURE10} A progress report... @{" Tyschtschenko at Bradford " link FEATURE11} ...Here as well... @{" Tyschtschenko at Bordeaux " link FEATURE12} ...and here. @{" Comdex Show Report " link FEATURE8} What AT was up to at the big show @{" Unveiling the PAWS " link FEATURE5} Is the laptop worth it? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- @{" Opinion " link OPINION} @{" News " link NEWS} @{" Reviews " link REVIEW} @{" Charts " link FTP} @{" Adverts " link COMMERCIAL} @endnode @node REVIEW "Reviews" @toc MENU =========================================================================== Reviews =========================================================================== @{" ImageStudio 2 v2.3.0 " link REVIEW1} A look at the low-cost image processor --------------------------------------------------------------------------- @{" Opinion " link OPINION} @{" News " link NEWS} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{" Charts " link FTP} @{" Adverts " link COMMERCIAL} @endnode @node FTP "Aminet Charts" @toc MENU =========================================================================== Aminet Charts =========================================================================== @{" 30-Oct-95 " link CHARTS1} @{" 13-Nov-95 " link CHARTS3} --------------------------------------------------------------------------- @{" Opinion " link OPINION} @{" News " link NEWS} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{" Reviews " link REVIEW} @{" Adverts " link COMMERCIAL} @endnode @node ABOUT "About AMIGA REPORT" @toc MENU =========================================================================== About AMIGA REPORT =========================================================================== @{" AR Staff " link STAFF} The Editors and writers @{" Writing Guidelines " link GUIDELINE} What you need to do to write for us @{" Copyright Information " link COPYRIGHT} The legal stuff @endnode @node STAFF "The Staff" @toc ABOUT =========================================================================== The Staff =========================================================================== Editor: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} Assistant Editor: @{" Katherine Nelson " link KATIE} Senior Editor: @{" Robert Niles " link ROBERT} Contributing Editor: @{" William Near " link WILLIAM} Contributing Editor: @{" Addison Laurent " link ADDISON} @endnode @node WHERE "Where to Get AR" @toc MENU =========================================================================== Where to Get AR =========================================================================== @{" The AR Mailing List " link MAILLIST} @{" Aminet " link AMINET} @{" World Wide Web " link WWW} @{" Distribution Sites " link BBS} @{" Commercial Services " link PORTAL} @endnode @node BBS "Distribution Sites" @toc WHERE =========================================================================== Distribution BBSes =========================================================================== Arranged by Continent: @{" Australia " link BBS_AUSTRALIA} @{" Europe " link BBS_EUROPE} @{" North America " link BBS_NAMERICA} @{" South America " link BBS_SAMERICA} Sysops: To have your name added, please send @{"Email", link JASON} with the BBS name, its location (Country, province/state) your name, any internet/fidonet addresses, and the phone number of your BBS @endnode @node DEALER "Dealer Directory" @toc MENU =========================================================================== Dealer Directory =========================================================================== The Dealer Directory does not appear in this issue due to size constraints. Look for it in the next issue. --- --- --- --- --- Dealers: To have your name added, please send @{"Email", link JASON} with the name, address, phone, and net address (if available) of your establishment. @endnode