08/1997
@database "ar319.guide"
@Node MAIN "Amiga Report Online Magazine #3.19 -- October 26, 1995"
===========================================================================
October 26, 1995 @{" Turn the Page " link MENU} Issue No. 3.19
===========================================================================
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"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. 3.19 October 26, 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 EDITORIAL "compt.sys.editor.desk"
@toc OPINION
===========================================================================
compt.sys.editor.desk By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON}
===========================================================================
Innovation...that's one of the things we're supposed to look for in our
computers, right?
For a while, we seemed to be stagnating a bit. Sure, there was a lot of
talk, but not too many developments shot out. Software development
similarly seemed to be caught in a bit of a rut, with existing publishers
putting out upgrades, but not too many totally new products poking their
heads out into the world. All eyes watched the auction, waiting.
Now, for some reason, dealers and manufacturers are reporting record sales,
dealership chains are having banner months, new products are emerging in
new forms, and the gears are in motion once more. Even new hardware
products (and sorely needed ones, I might add) are in the design and
prototyping stages, including new I/O cards and graphics solutions.
And in the midst of all this, what do we hear? That Petro will be telling
the world, in just a few short days, that Amiga Technologies is going to
announce the new processor for Amigas.
You know, I've given Escom and AmiTech a hard time since the beginning, and
they're not going to get off the hook just yet. But it is heartening to
see that, finally, distribution details on 3 continents have been nailed
out (although I know that AR readers in Brazil, South Africa, and Russia
will hardly be excited to learn that Australia and North Americans will be
receiving Amigas soon), and the new technology direction will be upon us.
Unfortunately, I won't be able to give AmiTech a hard time in person, as my
plans to attend Cologne have been derailed. Assistant Editor Katherine
Nelson and myself will both be at the WOA Toronto, but sadly AmiTech has
declined to attend and will send new distributors SMG in their place.
There's always innovation somewhere in any computer market. In the PC
market, raw horsepower innovations come out seemingly every week. In
California, Be, Inc. has put together what looks to be a very capable
PowerPC box using standard parts and a clever OS. In the 64 market,
inventive software and hardware engineering is providing 20 mhz machines
with stunning capabilities. And here we are, plugging along--and finally
getting our turn at the innovation wheel.
Keep it up, guys.
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
===========================================================================
How about some?
@endnode
@node OPINION1 "Amiga Advantages"
@toc OPINION
===========================================================================
OPINION: Amiga Advantages
Nickolas Marentes skazoullis@eselink.ecn.net.au
===========================================================================
The Amiga is truly an impressive machine. No other mass market personal
computer can boast such an innovative set of features and refined
performance. The Amiga oozes with design excellence and custom
integration. Yet, the Amiga is by large a forgotten architecture. One
reads the newspapers and computer journals and there is never a mention of
the Amiga. Instead, it is filled with news on the IBM PC world and to a
smaller extent, the Apple Macintosh/Power PC. We read in the papers about
how Microsoft has unvield the next generation of PC operating system
featuring pre-emptive multi-tasking, long filenames, a true desktop graphic
environment and improved stability.
The Amiga had these features as standard from its very first day of release
yet for the majority of the general 'computer illiterate' public, these are
'new' features. Even Apple is having a tough time making the public aware
that it too had these features for years.
When first introduced in 1985, The Amiga was truly a revolutionary
computer. It was so far ahead technologically that for many, its technical
merits were not instantly recognizable. The Amiga would demonstrate high
quality, jitter free animations accompanied by realistic stereo sound but
the public would shrug the display off as a "neat trick" with no real
application.
Now, ten years later, 100 Megahertz PC's equipped with 8 megabytes of RAM
and a CD-ROM drive are creating these same displays. They now call this
"phenomenon", multimedia.
The truth is that PC's are catching up. To the computer illiterate , the
Amiga is not spectacular. In specification it has less RAM, a smaller hard
drive and lower clock speed than your average PC. The look of the Amiga
1200 reminds people of the Commodore 64 while the price of the 4000 shuns
buyers aways as they compare it to most PC's.
So, with all this doom and gloom, what can be done to set things straight?
I believe the Amiga still packs several features which neither Mac or PC
can beat due to hardware and design limitations.
1. True broadcast standard video. The Amiga can create high resolution
VGA (31Khz) displays for professional applications as well as low frequency
(15Khz) output for direct connection to television equipment and video
editing equipment without the extra expense of video converters. The
ability to display a true overscan television image is perfect for video
titling and genlocking and means no black borders as on the PC when
displaying "full screen" images and movies.
2. A high performance, low overhead pre-emptive multi-tasking operating
system. The entire operating system minus graphic user interface is
contained on a 512K ROM. This along with the low cost, custom designed
Amiga chipset make it a very economical yet feature packed solution for
many custom applications such as cable set-top boxes and micro controllers.
3. Hardware auto disk-sensing. Like the Macintosh, the Amiga knows when a
disk is inserted or removed from it's drives. Unlike the PC's, when a
program prompts a user to INSERT DISK 1, the user does exactly that and
nothing else! This makes the Amiga more intelligent and user friendly.
4. Custom designed circuitry, designed to work together to achieve maximum
performance and throughput. The Amiga can achieve high quality graphics
animation even when running a rather slow CPU (14MHz 68020). PC's run at
100MHz or more nowadays yet much of the graphic animations and
multi-tasking that they create are riddled with jerky movement and sound
breakup.
The Amiga needs to develop applications in which these features are
optimised. In other words, the Amiga needs to locate niche markets.
Markets which the Amiga and only the Amiga can excel in. Take NewTek's
Video Toaster card for example. This card alone opened the doors to
hollywood for the Amiga. Set-Top boxes is another area which must
addressed ASAP.
New developments in the PC will soon have the PC playing high quality MPEG
movies. Several companies are already making inroads into the refinement
of the PC architecture. It cannot happen overnight but it will happen.
Amiga Technologies needs to get there first and it must do it at a lower
price. The Amiga has the right technology and it has it now!
@endnode
@node NEWS1 "Amiga Atlanta Celebration"
@toc NEWS
Amiga Atlanta wants you to participate in our 10th Anniversary Celebration
on Saturday, January 20th at 7 p.m. at the Terrace Garden Inn, 3405 Lenox
Road in Buckhead.
We hope to have such Amiga legends as Dave Haynie, Fred Fish, R.J. Mical
and Jason Compton with us and - all the way from Germany, representatives
from Amiga Technologies as our featured speakers for the evening.
If you would like to promote your business to the Amiga community, we
highly recommend you become a banquet sponsor. We offer several affordable
sponsorship packages for your business. They are:
Package A - Have your company's banner hung in the banquet room during the
dinner and program (approximately 4 hours), and a merchandise table for
your company's products outside the banquet room. You also receive a
1/2-page camera-ready ad run in 12 issues of Amiga Atlanta's newsletter,
The Workbench, as well as sponsorship mention in the special section of our
web page for a full year. All this, plus four complimentary banquet
tickets for your company's representatives. Cost: $500.00.
Package B - Your company's camera-ready 1/2-page ad run in The Workbench
for 12 issues and sponsorship mention on Amiga Atlanta's web site for a
full year. Plus, two complimentary banquet tickets. Cost: $350.00.
Package C - A merchandise table for your company's products outside the
banquet room; your company's banner in the banquet room; plus, two
complimentary banquet tickets. Cost: $300.00.
Package D - A merchandise table for your company's products outside the
banquet room; plus, two complimentary banquet tickets. Cost: $200.00.
Package E - Your company's banner hung in the banquet room during the
dinner and program, plus one complimentary banquet ticket. Cost: $125.00.
If you are interested in being a banquet sponsor, call Lamar Morgan
(locally 404-365-0670; outside Metro Atlanta 1-800-235-3162), or e-mail at
lamar@mindspring.com.
Representatives to our banquet should make plans to arrive in Atlanta on
Friday, January 19th and take time to see the sights of the city long
before the Olympic Games begin. Amiga Atlanta has arranged for Bear
Stearns Travel to handle flight, hotel and banquet reservations. To make
reservations, simply call 1-800-915-2327 and ask for Cindy Bensen, our Bear
Stearns Travel representative.
This should be a very exciting event and we look forward to your
participation.
Amiga Atlanta, Inc.
P.O. Box 49103
Atlanta, GA 30359-1103
--- --- --- --- --- ---
Amiga Atlanta invites you to come to Atlanta and participate in the 10th
Anniversary Celebration of Amiga Atlanta - one of the oldest Amiga user
groups in the United States. We have a banquet planned for Saturday,
January 20th at 7 p.m. at the Terrace Garden Inn, 3405 Lenox Road in
Buckhead. We hope to have such Amiga legends as Dave Haynie, Fred Fish,
R.J. Mical and Jason Compton with us and - all the way from Germany -
representative from Amiga Technologies as our featured speakers for the
evening.
By traveling to Atlanta you not only have a chance to meet many fascinating
Amigans, but also take a tour of the Olympic venues before the crowds
arrive. It is indeed an extraordinary opportunity. And, Amiga Atlanta
will help make it happen for you. Our club has made arrangements for Bear
Stearns Travel to handle all out-of-town travel arrangements. All it takes
is one toll-free call to Bear Stearns Travel, a credit card and all your
all your flight, hotel and banquet reservations can be made. To make your
reservations, simply call 1-800-915-2327 and ask for Cindy Bensen, our Bear
Stearns Travel representative.
If no one is available to come to Atlanta for our special fun weekend in
January, please do as one famous Amiga user by the name of Dick Van Dyke
did. Send us a promotional 8x10 glossy. We would like to display 8x10
glossy photos of Amiga user groups at our banquet. Afterall, this is a
special time for us and we would like to involve other Amiga user groups as
much as possible.
@endnode
@node NEWS2 "Australian Distribution"
@toc NEWS
Australian Amiga Distribution Announced
Megatron, of Victoria, Australia, will handle Amiga distribution in that
country. The company reportedly distributes the Atari Jaguar as well. No
complete press release is available, but this fragment from a dealer letter
arrived in our mailbox... (Machines will be available in mid-November.)
Megatron Electronic Industries P/L ACN 008 819 885
Unit 4, 156-160 New Street
Ringwood
Victoria
Australia 3134
Tel: +613 9870 4844
+613 9870 4017
Fax: +613 9879 2856
John Barber is the guy to speak to.
"Megatron will be undertaking a national advertising campaign to
reastablish the Amiga name in the market place. It is our intention to
promote the Amiga only through specialised dealers, and not through chain
stores. We are currently looking for dealers interested in promoting and
selling this range."
The Recommended Retail Prices were also included-
RRP
A1200 AU$1095
A1200 HD AU$1245
A4000 040 AU$4945
A4000 060 AU$5445
1438S Monitor AU$695
(1 AUS$ roughly equals US$0.74)
@endnode
@node NEWS3 "Cloanto Kara Collection CD"
@toc NEWS
New from Cloanto: The Kara Collection
Quality Amiga CD-ROM
This CD-ROM includes for the first time the complete collection of
ColorFonts, AnimFonts, Starfields and Plaquegrounds, plus a full set of
support tools by Kara Computer Graphics and Cloanto.
This is not a compilation of public domain material. Kara fonts are used
by the finest professionals on different computing platforms. They are
great for pictures, animations, titling effects and presentations. The
CD-ROM contains 79 Amiga ColorFonts (with effects like Brick, Glass,
Chrome, Chisel, etc.), plus hundreds of alternate color palettes. All
ColorFonts are also supplied in different formats used by video titling
packages. The CD-ROM includes the Personal Fonts Maker software, which
allows the user to apply changes to the ColorFonts, and includes additional
printer-downloadable fonts in black & white.
AnimFonts use animated brushes to render effects like handwriting, rotating
characters, fuse-like sparkles, etc. The fonts can be used to create
animations with any Amiga package supporting Anim-Brushes. The CD-ROM
contains a software upgrade with Anim-Brush extensions for users of
Personal Paint, plus ARexx scripts to automate the rendering process.
The set of Starfields animations includes moving stars seen from different
perspectives, plus animated space objects. The collection of Plaquegrounds
contains textures and backgrounds (e.g. granite, marble, sand-stone, wood,
etc.) stored in different syles and sizes (as 24-bit images and in other
popular formats). Starfields and Plaquegrounds can be used alone, or as a
background for the ColorFonts as AnimFonts.
Cloanto has a tradition of quality packages at an affordable price. This
CD-ROM contains ten years of artwork by Kara, at a price of less than one
tenth of the original disk-based packages. Most of the material in The
Kara Collection is being brought to the public for the first time,
exclusively on this CD-ROM.
List price: GBP 39.95, USD 69.95, DEM 79, FRF 299, ITL 89 000
Availability: November 1995
For more information:
Cloanto Italia srl Tel +39 432 545902
PO Box 118 Fax +39 432 609051
33100 Udine Bbs +39 432 545905
Italy E-mail info@cloanto.it
Prices and technical specifications subject to change without notice
@endnode
@node NEWS4 "Nova Design/ImageFX IRC Conference"
@toc NEWS
Amiga Report Nova Design/ImageFX IRC Conference
On November 19th, at 9pm Eastern US time (3am London time), Amiga Report
will be holding an IRC conference with Nova Design, authors and publishers
of the popular ImageFX 2.1 graphics manipulation package.
Comments and questions will be fielded, and "rad cool door prizes" will be
given out.
For the first time, this Amiga Report conference will be on UNDERNET IRC,
channel #imagefx.
If you are unfamiliar with Undernet-generally, connecting to /server
undernet.org gets decent results. However, for maximum efficiency, it is
recommended you connected to us.undernet.org in North America, or
xx.eu.undernet.org, where xx is your country domain.
Elsewhere, try one of the two and see if you can find a more local server
by asking around.
@endnode
@node NEWS5 "IPISA '95 Home Page"
@toc NEWS
IPISA '95 Home Page
The Italian conference known as IPISA '95 now has a web page. Access it at
http://www.dsi.unimi.it/Users/Students/zandonad/ipisa.html
@endnode
@node NEWS6 "The AGA Experience CD-ROM"
@toc NEWS
PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT: NFA AGA EXPERIENCE CD COMING SOON!
NFA (famous for their 'Word' diskmag, and Bodyshop slideshows amongst
others), and SAdENESS are very proud to present their first Amiga CD-ROM
disc - The AGA Experience. This is the first CD dedicated to A1200/A4000
owners, and features the very best AGA-only software released over the past
3 years. Some of the main features are as follows:
- EXCLUSIVE NFA PRODUCTIONS. These quality titles were created by leading
Amiga group NFA especially for this CD. These titles include AGA
Slideshows, Klondike cardsets and others. The CD features every AGA NFA
release to date, including the brilliant 'Word' diskmag and 'Out of
Space' Alien multimedia diskmags. These titles are official NFA
releases.
- READY-TO-RUN. Most of the contents run straight from the CD. There is
no need to spend ages extracting disks. Well over 300meg of ready-to-run
hot utilities, diskmags, text files, demos, games and much more. Only
those titles which NEED to be compressed have been, these include Demos
and slideshows which have to be stored in DMS format. Extracting these
is as simple as double-clicking an icon in Workbench.
- MAGIC WORKBENCH colour scheme and icons. We have spent months making
this CD the very smartest looking CD available today. Almost every
program has a suitable MagicWB icon. We have even created custom
Ray-Traced icons for the CD, any Amiga owner is guranteed to be
impressed!
- OVER 80 Klondike cardsets. There is also a ready-to-run version of the
brilliant Klondike card game, with 10 built-in cardsets. These include
many quality cardsests we have created ourselves, and these are only
available on this CD.
- LICENSED Amiga Report Diskmags. The entire 1995 collection so far -
ready-to-view. A great resource for any Amiga owner. [Actually, this
has yet to be determined. -Jason]
- LOADS of MagicWB icons, backdrops etc. All you need to add a
professional appearance to your Workbench.
- HUNDREDS of programs never before seen on CD. Mostly downloaded from
BBSs from around the World, and straight from the Internet.
- ALL AGA Amiga Doom clones. If you thought Doom was impossible on the
Amiga - take a look at this CD for a real surprise!
- THE LATEST AGA mega-demos. If you like being impressed by your Amiga,
you'll find a great selection of demos on offer. There are many which
are so new, that you won't have even heard of before - let alone seen!
- HIGH-QUALITY artwork and packaging. You'll be more than impressed with
the quality of the Amiga-created artwork and packaging!
- PLUS hundreds of demos, games, slideshows, utilities, diskmags, texts,
fonts, 3D objects etc. etc.
The AGA Experience is soon to be released, and will retail for just
19.99(UKP)!
We are already taking orders, and copies are limited so get your order in
now!
For more details, or to place an order please contact us.
SAdENESS PD / NFA.
13 Russell Terrace,
Mundesley,
Norfolk.
NR11 8LJ.
ENGLAND.
TEL / FAX: +44 (01263) 722169
E-Mail: Richard_Brown@metnet.demon.co.uk
TRADE ENQUIRIES WELCOME.
@endnode
@node NEWS7 "Digita Organizer 1.1"
@toc NEWS
ORGANIZER 1.1
Soft-Logik is pleased to announce Digita Organizer 1.1. This is a free
online update to Organizer 1.0 and is primarily a maintenance update.
The differences between 1.0 and 1.1 include:
- 1996 Diary themes have been added.
- the A...Z printing bug has been fixed.
- the Calendar would not display some months on some screen sizes.
- Auto Start problems.
- a few other minor bug fixes.
A patch will be uploaded shortly so that owners of 1.0 can upgrade to 1.1.
Customers who do not wish to download the patch can order the new version
on disk for $10.
Regards,
Michael
Soft-Logik (tech@slpc.com)
@endnode
@node NEWS8 "Greek Amiga Club"
@toc NEWS
--------------------------------------------------
P R E S S R E L E A S E .
--------------------------------------------------
(For Immediate Release)
Subject:
-------
Concerning the establishment of "Greek Amiga Club", the first non-profit
organisation supporting the Amiga in Greece and officially recognised by
the Greek law as such.
Athens, October the 16th, 1995.
By means of this "press release" through your magazine, we would like to
inform the international Amiga community on the establishment of "Greek
Amiga Club", the first Amiga computer club officially recognized by the law
in the country of Greece.
The creation of our Club became a reality under very difficult
circumstances and at a time when the Amiga's position and future in the
market were more than uncertain. However, we decided to found this Club at
all possible costs because exactly NOW is the time that the Amiga needs it
most here in Greece. We are committed to supporting and helping both users
and distributors.
We'll be grateful to anyone wishing to contribute to our efforts in
properly supporting Amiga users in Greece and Cyprus and also effectively
promoting the Amiga in several professional applications fields. We
encourage both distributors and "Amiga Technologies" to co-operate with us
in order to implement what we think will satisfy our mutual needs and
wishes. We would also like to welcome any possible offers or donations to
our Club on behalf of individual users, foreign users' associations,
hardware or -especially- software developers worldwide. Given the fact
that finding and purchasing original Amiga software in Greece is not an
easy thing to do (as there are currently no dealers or official
distributing agencies), we would be grateful to any software developer
willing to make an offer -or even a donation- to our community. We are
also willing to help developers 'localise' their programs in Greek, thus
overcoming any problems caused by the peculiarities of the Greek alphabet.
(Furthermore we would like to inform developers that we are willing to get
involved in software evaluation and "beta-testing".)
----------------------------------------
"Greek AMIGA Club" Profile:
( Follow the Club's vital statistics: )
----------------------------------------
Contact Names/Addresses:
(a) President: Stephanos Papamichael,
Derpfeld 9 Str.,
Patissia 111 44, Athens .
[tel/FAX. : 0030 12027973]
(b) Secretary General: Stephanos Siopoulos,
52 Silivrias Str.,
N.Smyrni 171 23, Athens.
[tel.: 0030 1 9349963]
(c) Representative for northern Greece:
Vassilis Maniadis, Fidiou 2 Str.,
Alexandroupoli 68100.
(d) E-mail address:
anaconda@compulink.gr (attn: "Greek Amiga Club")
konem@prometheus.hol.gr (attn: "Greek Amiga Club")
Level of acceptance:
Anyone, as long as he/she is serious about his/her Amiga. We've got enough
of the "gamesmachine" label ...
Club BBS:
Currently N/A, but we're working on it. We currently utilise a network of
BBSs in order to keep in touch with members and other users. We're also
examining the possibility of setting up a Internet WWW server. (HTML pages
are already under construction)
Number of members:
Given the fact that we are . . . newly born, we're
currently just 89. We hope, however, that by the
end of the year we'll be many more as our contacts
already inlude more than 200 persons.
General interests and aims:
To promote and support the Amiga as a
serious tool instead of a "Games only"
machine here in Greece. To unite all
serious Greek Amiga users. (Greece and
Cyprus are estimated to have some 100,000
Amigas up and running! We'll try to help increase
the above number anyway !)
Particular interests:
DTP, C and AMOS Programming, Graphics, Sound, Multimedia, Video.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Brief Analysis of "Greek AMIGA Club" 's Aims and Activities:
--------------------------------------------------------------
Our main ambitions and aims right now are: firstly to fully exploit our
machines' potential (in many fields: DTP, graphics, animation etc..) and
secondly to actively help and contribute to the promotion of the Amiga here
in Greece; for, unfortunately for the 90,000 -or so- Amiga users here, the
Amiga is treated like a mere 'gamesmachine', whereas PCs are considered to
be the only "Pro" machines, with the Apple Mac holding some niche areas
(particularly DTP). What raises a bit Amiga's profile, is that for years
it's been considered to be an aspirational machine for home-use and that it
is still the machine of choice when it comes to cost-effective Desktop
Video (titling etc...) and local or 'tight budget' TV Stations.
As a Club, we have already some plans and specific ideas on promoting the
Amiga, especially through ads here in Greece. Plans which -we think-
should be heard by the people who are responsible and also financially
capable of implementing them. We need Amiga Technologies' permission to
use Trademarks and also their financial assistance in order to be able to
publish and distribute our own Amiga-supporting flyers, stickers, etc.
which are already being created using Amiga software. The same should be
encouraged worldwide.
Apart from the above, our specific goals for 1995 and 1996 include:
1) An attempt to considerably increase the number of our members.
The purchase of equipment (more powerful Amigas, a laser printer,
etc...)
2) The creation of workshops in Graphics, DTP, AmigaDOS etc . . .
3) The publishing of a bimonthly newsletter or fanzine. (Issue1, is
already out)
4) PD software distribution. Creation of a Greek PD club.
5) The creation of DEMOS showing off the Amiga's capabilities.
6) The creation of interactive slideshows/presentations covering
quality serious Amiga software (with screenshots and text). Later
on, we'll transfer the demos on video tape.
7) Contacts with both foreign User Groups and Amiga Technologies
people.
8) Publishing and distribution of Amiga-supporting literature.
9) The organization of shows (or exhibitions) to show off the Amiga.
10) The establishment of a BBS dealing with users' needs, a help-line
on O.S. and Applications use, FAQ sector, News distribution, PD
distribution etc . . .
@endnode
@node NEWS9 "CD32 Expansion: SX 32"
@toc NEWS
[Originally printed in Amiga Magazin, September 1995.]
CD32-Expansion: SX 32
=====================
The SX 32-expansion system turns Amiga Technologies' CD32 to a full Amiga
1200. The module plugs easily into the expansion slot of the CD32 and
offers all connectors needed.
If you already have Amiga-peripherals like Genlock, Printer, Modem etc.,
you still can use all this. A 15-pin monitor plug for VGA-monitors (e.g.
Microvitec) is also there.
Iside the SX 32 a 2.5 inch harddrive can be installed or memory (fast ram)
with up to 8 MB via a PS/2 SIM slot. A battery backed up clock is also
integrated. Price: 450 DM. Those who want to be betatesters for DCE will
get it for 333 DM.
DCE Computer Service GmbH
Kellenbergstr. 19a
D-46145 Oberhausen
phone: **49-(0)208-660673
fax: -630496
@endnode
@node NEWS10 "XiPaint 3.2"
@toc NEWS
[From the author, Thomas Dorn.]
XiPaint 3.2
Recently, I made a CD with over 520 MB. There are XiPaint 3.2-Versions on
it for 68000, 68020+ and 68040, all drivers I have ever written, many
textures and other pictures, ready usable fonts (with minipics) ...
Output is possible
* HAM6, HAM8
* 256 Colors
* Cybergraphics
* Retina
* Picasso
* EGS
* VD2001
* Framemaster 2
* Graffity (includes Merlin, Omnibus, Domino)
Supports Wacom Tabletts.
XiPaint 3.2 offers since 3.1
* modular concept with loaders, savers, scanners, filters, printers
all absolutely asynchronious
* Drag&Drop (for colors)
* Easier interface
* New Minipic-Browser, also asynchronius
* Systemsettings adjustable in Notebooks
* many new configuration-possibilites like Working-Colors etc. * New
paintmodes
* ...
It is available from Ossowskis Schatztruhe or all dealer who handles his
products ...
--
thomas
-----
Thomas Dorn internet: tdorn@xipaint.co.at
Kerpengasse 69 Fido: 2:310/98.0
A-1210 Vienna Mailbox/Fax: ++43-1-2714549
@endnode
@node NEWS11 "XTreme Racing"
@toc NEWS
XTreme Racing
---------------
XTreme Racing is the new AGA texture mapped racing game from Silltunna
Software/Black Magic. The game is similar in style to Super Mario Kart on
the SNES, but of course, not so cute! Features are :
High Speed 256 colour Texture Mapped Graphics in 2x2/2x1/1x2/1x1 resolution
Enhanced for fast ram/accelerators(020/030/040)/CD32
1-8 players, 4 on a single machine, serial + modem link abilities
8 different cars, including a police car, Ferrari, VW Beetle
Intelligent Computer cars (you select the amount of cars to play against)
Lots of tracks, a large variety of graphics including a water world,
radioactive world, normal roads, space tracks where you can fall off the
edge (or hit someone else off the edge)...etc....
Battle mode where the players simply have to kill each other - All kills
will be recorded of course.
3 difficulty levels + Cup Races + Championship Modes
Saved Screen Preferences (different for different number of players)
Extra Camera - can be placed anywhere, including on other cars and on the
back of your car, and on the track etc.... Includes Zoom
modes, rotate modes, Tracking modes.
A variety of objects, such as a Lemming to run over, Sharks, Barrels....
A variety of weapon pick-ups, including missiles (some of which fly around
the track), homing sheep(!), mines, etc.....
Extra track features include Jumps, curbs and the ability to squash cars!
Cash for the championship mode - upgrade your engine, brakes, tyres etc...
Full Race Replays
In Game Music (yes, you can turn it off!)
HD Installable
HUGE amounts of playability & Loads of options
Screen Shots
--------------
The Screen Shots are from the 1x1 version (which I can use on my 020-28).
Make of them what you will - laptime, position and lap number information
is also on the screen in the game but just isn't in the screen shots. We
also have a nice AGA sky which we couldn't save out.
More Details
--------------
The game should be released in time for XMAS'95 under the Black Magic label
- Black Magic were of course responsible for the hugely popular Gloom.
Sales information will be released soon.
We Want Your Games & Artwork
------------------------------
We are currently looking for some new programmers and artists for the Amiga
and PC. In particular we are looking for somebody who is an expert at 3D
rendering software and would like to make a career in the games industry.
Please send us some of your work and it will be kept completely private,
and will only be seen by the 3 of us at Silltunna Software. Be warned - I
give very honest comments back, so if your work isn't of the highest
quality, DON'T send it.
Contact us at :
alex@teeth.demon.co.uk or Tel 01295 678 173 (midday -> 2.00 am any day)
Warn me before sending large UUEs
BBS : 01295 842105 10pm -> 7am (UK)
Sysop : Richard Whittall
Snail Mail :
Alex Amsel (Silltunna Software)
The Grange Stables
Radway
Warks
CV35 0UE
Credits
---------
3D + Game Code : Alex Amsel
Additional Code : Mark Fitt
Graphics : Richard Whittall
Design ; Alex & Rich Productions Ltd (tm)
Music : Simon Speight/Mark Fitt/Tony Farrell
Special Thanks to Mark Sibly, PeterM (don't know your surname!) & Juergen
Fischer.
Quick Greets to all of you who have helped make this game possible - see
the greets list in the game when it is released for actual names! You know
who you are :)
See me on Comp.Sys.Amiga.Games/Misc
@endnode
@node NEWS12 "U4ia Music"
@toc NEWS
[U4ia's not making MODs anymore, he's making "real music." Here's the
press release on his latest...]
After the success and popularity of the first demo tape *"For Gods Sake
Give Us A Chance", U4ia & Skye are proud to bring you "Mind Your Head".
Another compilation of mind stretching sounds and experimentation. Over 80
minutes of music, ranging from the mad drums of "Violent B**tard" to the
acid helicopter sounds of "T.Y.F.M.O." to the bouncing style of "6 Months".
This tape is once again a copy of a demo tape U4ia & Skye have been sending
out to companies, this tape will NOT be available in the shops with these
tunes on!
Included on "Mind Your Head" are:
A: Side B: Side
1: U4Reso1 1: Liquid Bass
2: Violent B**tard 2: A Free Mind
3: T.Y.F.M.O. 3: Psychosis
4: What 2 Say RMX 4: 6 Months
5: Lou's Theme 5: Abuse 'Live'
6: Beneath
7: Trace Value
* Also available on the order form is 'For Gods Sake Give Us A Chance"!!
This information and the order form is also available at :
http://sw.cse.bris.ac.uk/public/jim/order.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
ORDERS FROM WITHIN THE UK:
The price of each tape will be 6 UK Pounds Sterling plus 2 UK Pounds for
post and packaging. For each tape thereafter add an additional 6 UK Pounds
for a tape and 1 UK Pound sterling for post and packaging.
IE: 1 TAPE WILL COST 8 POUNDS IN TOTAL
2 TAPES WILL COST 15 POUNDS IN TOTAL
3 TAPES WILL COST 22 POUNDS IN TOTAL .. ETC
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ORDERS FROM OUTSIDE THE UK:
The price of each tape will be 6 UK Pounds Sterling plus 3 UK pounds for
post and packaging if ordering from outside the UK. For each tape
thereafter add an additional 6 UK Pounds for a tape and 1 UK Pound Sterling
for post and packaging.
IE: 1 TAPE WILL COST 9 POUNDS IN TOTAL
2 TAPES WILL COST 16 POUNDS IN TOTAL
3 TAPES WILL COST 23 POUNDS IN TOTAL .. ETC
IMPORTANT:
If ordering from outside the UK please send International Money Orders as
foreign cheques cannot be cashed at our end. International Money Orders
are available at your Post Office.
OTHER INFO:
American orders may send 20 U.S. Dollars in notes, per tape if prefered.
ALL International Money Orders should be made payable to "Mr. J.Young".
Normal cheques will not be accepted from outside the UK.
If paying by cheque, within the UK, please allow an extra 10 days on the
ordering time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ALL ORDERS SHOULD BE SENT TO :
MR. J. YOUNG
FLAT D,
134 BATH ROAD,
BITTON
BRISTOL BS15 6HS
ENGLAND
@endnode
@node NEWS13 "North American Distribution"
@toc NEWS
PRESS RELEASE
FOR RELEASE 9AM EDT, OCTOBER 24, 1995
Contacts:
Amiga Technologies GmbH the Service Management Group, inc.
Gilles Bourdin Rick Stine
Berliner Ring 89 10400 Little Patuxent Parkway, Suite 440
D-64625 Bensheim, Germany Columbia, MD USA 21044
Tel +49 (6252) 709-195 Tel +1 (410) 715-6850
Fax +49 (6252) 709-520 Fax +1 (410) 715-6859
New Amiga Distributor / Service Provider for North America
Amiga Technologies GmbH Selects the Service Management Group
Columbia, MD, October 24, 1995: The Service Management Group, Inc. (SMG)
of Columbia, MD has been chosen by Amiga Technologies GmbH, a subsidiary of
ESCOM AG of Bensheim, Germany, to distribute the Amiga product line in
North America. This distribution agreement covers the United States and
Canada.
The SMG has been associated with Commodore Business Machines, it's
distributors, dealers and customers since 1990. Amiga Technologies was
looking for a company that had competencies in service and support, and
could be more than just a distributor. The SMG fulfilled these
requirements and will bring the popular Amiga computers back to the North
American dealers and users.
Together with the SMG, Amiga Technologies GmbH will be represented at the
Video Toaster Expo from the 1st to the 4th of November in Los Angeles. A
press conference will be held on the 2nd of November. During the press
conference, Petro Tyschtschenko, Managing Director of Amiga Technologies
will reveal the name of the new processor that will be used in the next
generation of Amiga computers.
The Amiga 4000T will hit the shelves during the second week of November.
Amiga Technologies and the SMG will also have a booth at Comdex in Las Vegas
from the 13th to the 17th of November. The SMG will represent Amiga
Technologies at the World of Amiga in Toronto, Canada in December.
The Service Management Group has been a leader in Outsourcing Distribution
and Warranty Administration for high technology manufacturers since 1989.
For more information see our World Wide Web page at HTTP://www.Amiga.de
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please distribute freely.
Contact your Amiga dealer for specific prices, configurations and
availability.
Regards,
Paul Bielski
SMG / InTouch Systems
@endnode
@node NEWS14 "Amiga Dealers' Meeting in Spain"
@toc NEWS
===========================================================================
AMIGA DEALERS MEETING IN SPAIN
by Manuel Lopez Cossi email: lopezco@galeon.uca.es
Alberto Acosta Lozano
===========================================================================
(Our gratitude to Mr.Ismael Delgado for his assistance.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 7th, 1995, 10:00 am
The meeting started, by one side there were around 30 persons performing 15
dealers companies and, by the other side, there was Mr.Alfonso Rodriguez,
PiXeLMEDIA manager (oldnamed PixelSoft), exclusive distributor for Amiga
products in Spain and, finally, Mr.Joaquim Costa, Escom representative for
Amiga Technologies Iberia (Spain & Portugal).
"Good morning and thank you very much for your attendance here". The
meeting had just started.
Mr.A.Rodriguez starts introducing, one by one, the people meeting there and
his partner, Mr.J.Costa. He continued saying to the dealers "The begining
is not going to be easy..." but following he said that the big number of
new dealers that would like to sell Amigas was a great surprise.
The range of Amiga products that is going to be delivered very soon are the
following:
- A1200 -
There will be with and without hard disk. Manuals will be in spanish
language. The computer should be in the streets at this moment, but some
problems with the spanish keyboard has delayed it. First shipment is sold
out completely with dealers, and therefore, a second order is going to be
ordered at this moment.
They will be available on the second half of October, with a warranty of
six months. The price will be 69,700 ESP VAT inc. (566.66 US$) and 92,900
ESP VAT inc (755.28 US$) 170 Mb Hard disk version.
- A4000 Tower -
It will be a big tower, 5 zorro III and 2 video slots. 2+4 Mb RAM
expandable up to 128 Mb, 3'5" High density floppy drive and 1 Giga fast
SCSI II hard disk. Two versions will be available with 68040 (25 Mhz) &
68060 (50 Mhz) CPUs.
The 68040 version will be available on the first quarter of November and
the 68060 version on the second quarter. The price will be 428,000 ESP VAT
inc. (3,480 US$) and 498,800 ESP VAT inc. (4,055 US$) respectively, both
with a warranty of one year.
With each computer there will be a bundle software package containing the
following titles:
WordWorth 4SE (Word Processor by Digita)
Organizer 1.1 (Scheduler by Digita)
DataStore 1.1 (DataBase by Digita)
TurboCalc 3.5 (SpreadSheet by Digita)
Personal Paint 6.4 (Paint program by Cloanto)
Photogenics 1.1 (Photo Image Porcessor by Almathera)
Whizz (Platform game by Flair Soft)
Pinball Mania (Pinball Sim. game by 21st Century)
And one issue of Amiga.Info magazine by Info Technologies.
- Monitor M1438S -
Colour monitor with 14"inches 0'28 pitch, integrated stereo speakers, scan
rate 15-40 Khz. Will be available with first Amiga 1200, with a warranty
of six month along. The price will be 55,900 ESP VAT inc. (454,47 US$).
"This is the starting point for Amiga Technologies. Anyway there is a team
working to develop in a near future new products" said Mr.Rodriguez.
- Technical support -
Amiga Technologies will sign a contract with a 36 geographic points company
in the country, experienced in Amiga products repairs. The name of this
company was not said because this contract was not officialled signed yet.
- Marketing Policy -
"Amiga" computer name don't have too much prestige here, due to last owners
of the company didn't make a fine work here. To change this it's neccesary
to do a hard work, next to a fine advertising campaign. Amiga Technologies
will wait to the first shipment of computers to start his own campaign.
In a paralell way, PiXeLMEDIA is doing his own campaign, and ask to dealers
to start a joint venture with them. Mr.Rodriguez gives the floor to
Mr.J.L.Gonzalez, person in charge of the actual PiXelMEDIA advertising
campaign, and starts to explain this advertisement.
" 'Back to win.' is the slogan choosen that explains the desire of all
these great users that Amiga have. Clarify that Amiga is here, continues
in this world and with a big future. In Spain, the word Amiga has been
relationed always with a game-machine. For that reason, in this campaign
we have omitted all relations between games and the computer
characteristics, and we have emphatized the real advantages that this
computer has over the others, like multi-tasking, multimedia, open
architecture, etc..." (Mr.J.L.Gonzalez is manager of Logomotion company and
a Amiga user since 1986)
Mr. A.Rodriguez gives the floor now to Mr.F.Martin, Chief editor of the
great Amiga.info spanish magazine:
Starts showing his magazine to all. "We are the only spanish language
magazine that exists, but we would like that there would be more like us.
We have been working for one year, and we were born when Amiga-World
(spanish edition) died. Actually we sold 2000 issues in Amiga dealers
shops, but we hope that very soon will be available on newsstands.
Periodicity is bi-monthly, but as of November it'll be monthly. Watch for
Christmas issue, with a CD-ROM and more pages included. Our magazine is
very technical and dense. Up to 120 pages in bi-month issues and 100 pages
in monthly issues. Lot of tutorials about programming and commercial
progs. 100% made with Amiga".
Continues Mr.A.Rodriguez:
"Above mentioned campaign has started in this magazine. In the last page
you can check this advertisement, like Mr.J.L.Gonzalez explained. We
choose this magazine because has a big quality, even better than other
foreign publications. Anyway, it's necessary to expand this campaign to
others publications here, like video, computer and multimedia magazines.
For example, Byte spanish ed., Mac Format spanish ed., Video Popular, etc.
[ Last rumours indicates that will be 6 different publications.]
It's our intention to make some demos packs for the dealers, so they can
show Amiga capabilities easier. It will be a national contest to make a
"First steps" program for the newest users.
Amiga is actually used in video, graphics, etc., but there is others
productivity aplications we can bases on. For example, Walt Disney is
making a new film of 'Goofy' (will be released on next summer), primary
animation made 100% with five A4000 network. In Granada (a Spanish city)
there is a company that installs an automatized irrigation system based on
Amiga. In Barcelona, another company is especiallized in complete medical
Chiropodist systems. THIS IS PRODUCTIVITY and can be used to demostrates
the professional Amiga uses.
Following Mr.Joaquim Costa:
"Good morning, we haven't had no measure of time since Escom bought
Commodore... I was the last Commodore Manager in Portugal (CBM UK and
Portugal went the last sites to close out).
After CBM assets, Escom founded two companies: Amiga Technologies and
Commodore. They are totally different and independent. AT is 100%
independent, with own developments of hard, soft and marketing techniques.
This is the reason for the foundation of a general department of Amiga
dedicated to sales, marketing, etc. and another to software. This
software department is located in U.K.
The most important thing was the launch of the first Amigas as soon as
possible, to show that Amiga market is alive. This is a task that we can't
do alone, so we need your best collaboration. Until end of year, it's our
objetive to produce 100.000 A-1200. So this is the way that Escom can
recover the initial investment, and look the future. And the future is to
go for the RISC architecture.
I'd like to get in contact with dealers in semestral reunions, because you
have the best view of the spanish Amiga market, which it is very similar
to the european. But in Spain, Amiga market is smaller than Germany or
U.K.
Most software houses are in U.K. It's very important to revive the Amiga
market so this software houses starts the production. Two weeks ago, some
of these companies dedicated themselves to start the Amiga software
production (games and productivity). This is the reason for the software
office we have located in U.K.
A.T. wants to support local software developers, also in Spain, to produce
general and specific Spanish software.
Another objetive of A.T. is to have an official dealers network, with a
future vision on their minds, and not only with a vision market. It's more
important quality than quantity.
We want to explain to everybody in Spain that Amiga is here again, so we
are going to celebrate a press conference here on the last week of October.
Also we are going to support local magazines like Amiga.info magazine,
following the rules of A.T. in the rest of Europe.
Basically it will be two ways of distribution: Low-end range (A-1200)
through "El Corte Ingles" chain of big stores, and Low-High-end range
(A-1200 / A-4000) through PixelMedia dealers.
This year, publicity on T.V. will not be possible. Anyway, it will be
another kind of advertisements by A.T. next to Christmas.
@endnode
@node NEWS15 "Amiga Texturemapping Conference"
@toc NEWS
Amiga Texturemapping Conference
Steffen Hauser is organizing another Amiga Texturemapping IRC conference
for the 31st of October at 17:00 GMT. The conference will be held on
channel #amitmap.
@endnode
@node NEWS16 "WOA Toronto '95 Update"
@toc NEWS
WOA Toronto '95 Update
Resurrecting an annual tradition, the World of Amiga show will be held
again in 1995 at the Toronto International Centre on December 8, 9, and
10th.
The official show hours are:
Friday 4:00pm - 10:00pm
Saturday 10:00am - 6:00pm
Sunday 10:00am - 6:00pm
If you would like to be kept current on developments in the show, send
Internet EMail to woa@wonder.ca and you will be automatically added to our
show mailing list.
For more information on the World of Amiga show, feel free to contact:
WCi InfoTech Div.
c/o Wonder Computers
371 Old Kingston Rd.
Scarborough, ON
M1C 1B7
+1 416 201 2333 Voice & Fax
EMail: infotech@wonder.ca
WWW: http://www.wonder.ca
@endnode
@node NEWS17 "MegaBall4"
@toc NEWS
Drexel Hill, PA (26 October, 1995) Intangible Assets Manufacturing today
announced that it is shipping the new Amiga game MegaBall4.
MegaBall4 is classic Amiga brick-busting action in a brand new commercial
package. The Mackey Brothers (famous authors of Ball and MegaBall) dazzle
you with exploding blocks, plus poofing, growing, locking, unlocking, and
green-sliming bricks as well. The fast-paced play and devious interactions
will challenge your mind as well as your mouse. Experience the thrill that
has kept Amiga users glued to their monitors for more than half a decade.
Includes three disks packed full of new action and new music! Includes
board editor. Compatible with all Amigas (requires 1.3), enhanced when
used with AGA. Requires 1mb RAM. List Price $30.
Includes special free fourth bonus disk: Ami-FileSafe Floppy.
Upgrades
MegaBall4 is the first commercial release of this product, and games aren't
typically upgradeable anyway. Still, we at IAM want to give something to
those who made the effort to register earlier shareware versions with Ed
and Al. In North America, you can receive 10% off your total of an order
of any IAM products directly from IAM. To be fair to our dealers, such
orders must include proof of MegaBall registration, and must be received by
mail, email or fax at IAM no later than November 20, 1995. (Sorry, but we
can't make such an offer outside North America because of our exclusive
distribution arrangements.)
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, MegaBall4, 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.
European Distribution through
Fourth Level Development
sales@flevel.co.uk
http://www.flevel.co.uk
31 Ashley Hill Montpelier
Bristol England BS6 5JA
tel +44 117 955 8225
fax +44 117 955 9157
@endnode
@node FEATURE1 "GPSoftware Conference"
@toc FEATURE
===========================================================================
GPSOFTWARE CONFERENCE
===========================================================================
Recently, the Amiga Zone on the @{" Portal online service " link PORTAL} held a conference
with Greg Perry and Jon Potter, the minds behind GPFax and DirOpus 5,
respectively.
The entire contents of this edited transcript are Copyright and Copy 1995,
Harv Laser, All Rights Reserved. Contact harv@cup.portal.com for reprint
permission. Special permission has been granted to Amiga Report Magazine.
[To begin the conference, the contents of this letter were sent to the
forum]
Dr Greg Perry/ GPSoftware - A Bio
I started out life as an Organic Chemist then moved into computing in the
early '80s, initially using Commodore PETs for scientific analysis then
between jobs started writing applications and custom software for assorted
machines. This 'hobby' then turned into a profession and led to a couple
of books on C64 Programming and Sound and Graphics on the VIC20 and C64,
numerous articles in worldwide magazines in UK, US and Australia on C64
programming, into our first moderate commercial success with GPTerm for the
C64, assorted custom accounting software and several games for the C64 and
C128, then to GPTerm on the Amiga and I have been with the Amiga ever
since. To date, GPFax is my best commercial success outside Australia.
GPSoftware was always designed to be a small 'cottage-based' operation
centered on R&D and software development while allowing us to work from
home. After occasional discussions over several years, I found that Jon
Potter was at a loose end in '94. Since I was working on the new
accounting package, EasyLedgers IIon and I joined forces in October 94,
initially to continue development of the mythical 'Wombat' fax software,
but this changed to a complete redesign and development of the Opus 5
program in November '94.
GPSoftware currently supplies the following
Directory Opus 5 - THE file management utility and Workbench Replacement
($99)
GPFax - Amiga fax software for Class 1 and Class 2 modems ($79)
EasyLedgers II - fully integrated Accounting software ($299)
GPTouch - Touch Screen drivers for MicroTouch Touch Screens ($200)
All these products are available direct from us or from Micro R&D in the US
(Phone 308 745 1243)
Amiga Zone *SPECIAL* with Jon Potter & Dr. Greg Perry (Harv)
Greg: Hello all I finally made it after a fight with the fast photo shop!
Harv: GREG, I ALREADY SCROLLED THE TEXT YOU SENT ME. CARE TO SAY ANYTHING
ELSE?
Harv: OK. BEFORE WE SHIFT INTO FORMAL MODE, LET'S LET OUR GUESTS KNOW WHO
OF YOU OWN/USE THEIR STUFF......
Bjarian: Own and USe
rjhanson: GPFax
AROCK: me do
Harv: USING THESE CODES: DO4, DO5 AND GP, PLEASE TELL THEM IF YOU USE
DIROPUS 4, 5, OR GPFAX
Question Queue: Opus (v3)
jwaller: I use Gpfax 2.342
harsh: DO5
Bjarian: GPfax
DrTed: I use gpfax to send my bills to a local cable company...
Question Queue: DO3
SBurroughs: DO4
RoyT: I have GpFax and Opus 1-5.
AROCK: do4 and GP
BillyYank: Own DOpus5 USER
DrTed: Use DO3.41
Greg: Jon askes that you also supply the serial numbers ;-)))))
Harv: heh
harsh: Greg: Which one?
Harv: OKAY, APPARENTLY NEARLY EVERYONE HERE USES ONE, THE OTHER OR BOTH.
Harv: SO LET'S GET STARTED.
rjhanson: 1234567
Harv: KEVIN WILL KEEP THE QUESTION QUEUE.
DrTed: (australian humor, Harv...)
Question Queue: <- Kevin
rjhanson: For both. Hows business?
Harv: GREG/JON.. ARE YOU THERE? RJHANSON HAS ASKED HIS QUES.
Drakon: suing only feeds lawyers, ICBMs are easier to use
Greg: Apparently I'm management so I'll answer that. Fair.
jonp: business is ok I guess, considering the computer hasn't been made for
the last couple of years...
Bjarian: G'day. I was wondering what the mood of amiga followers was in
Australia, and whether you will continue to do Amiga software. Do you
get any help from Escom?
Greg: Well we are all waiting with bated breath to see what Escom actually
do..
Bjarian: Why do intel fax modems not work with gpfax?
Greg: No idea why intel does not follow the TR29 standards
RoyT: what new features planned for diropus?
jonpfast: there are lots of new features planned for the next version of
Opus (5.2). We have addressed many of the main complaints and taken
suggestions from many users over the last 6 months. 5.2 will be a
significantly more powerful program.
Harv: (note: I am on the diropus mailing list and it generates about 50
emails per day... way too much to read)
harsh: Sorry about that! What happenened to the reseleect button, Jon?
jonpfast: reselect is back in 5.2 :)
Question Queue: jwaller, soft-logik, Harv, AROCK
jwaller: Thanks, Dr. Perry, I have "Gpfax 2.342" What is the latest
version? And how would I get upgraded?
Harv: PERHAPS WE MIGHT ADD TO THAT, HAVE ANY NEW FEATURES BEEN ADDED TO
VERSIONS PAST 2.342 GREG?
Greg: The current version is 2.347. We have done free upgrades Available
as an upgrade for earlier versions.. so we now do a cost upgrade for
US$30. Includes new manual/return airpost.. return original disk to
me plus VISA or greenbacks. There are no major features.
Consolidation of the various modem typesinto one program. Or correctly
one for Class 2 and one for Class 1... some bug fixes and tweakes for
different modems and some changes for.. EOP problems..
Question Queue: I hate to bring this up, but some of us have to use PC
computers sometimes and directory utilities for the PC really suck...
Any chance of an OPUS for Windows?
jonpfast: there's every chance of an Opus for windows, if someone would
like to pay for the development... :)
Question Queue: I'll send you $99
jonpfast: seriously, we have thought about opus for windows, but nothing
has been decided yet...
Harv: to greg... "fax on demand" or "faxback" services are more common
lately. every large co. seems to have one. it usually requires a
real fax machine with a dialing pad. can GPFax handle this?
Greg: GPFax currently cannot handle this. (Except through some v.smart
Arexx programs). The Wombat program will...
Harv: OKAY.. PLEASE TELL US BRIEFLY WHAT WOMBAT IS.
Greg: Wombat is the codename for the new fax sofwtare. This has been in
development for some time now. Maybe we will finish it one day. I
have someone working full time on.. it but it takes time..
Harv: Greg - you said 'except thru some v.smart arexx.... does such an
arexx script for gpfax actually exist? where does it live?
Greg: No. But one could possibly write one. Would mean parsing the Remote
ID number and then faxing back. We actually quoted to do a commercial
system for Optus (sub of Cable and Wireless..) to do a full diagnostic
fax back analysis service using Zyxel modems. Unfortunately Zyxel
would not come to the party. (We actually won the contract over PCs!!)
Harv: I, for one, (and I'm sure many others) would be incredibly interested
in a fax on demand feature, be it in GPFax or a Wombat. please keep us
advised. thanks.
AROCK: will Opus have built in Fax capabilities? :)
Harv: DO YOU PEOPLE KNOW OPUS5 CAN BE USED AS AN FTP CLIENT?
Greg: Not as such. It will develop into more of a WB replacement but I
don't see how we can really incorporate it. We have included FTP in
opus.. but I do not really see how we could readily incorporate FAX. GA
ScottJ: Dr. Perry, does GPFax support both version 2 and 2.0 protocols?
Greg: GPFax supports Class 2 and Class 1. We have a proto 2.0 but I have
problems with the USR implemtation so I have not released the program
as such... If anyone seriously can justify why they NEED 2.0 I will
supply a test version.
Greg: Question: how many people have tried the Opus FTP module ?
Harv: <--has tried it a few times.
harsh: Greg: I was screwed up by the LHADIR warning.
Drakon: Okay you say that Opus can be used as an FTP client.. can it
support any other file sharing systems? how about nfs or smb?
jonpfast: Opus supports any amiga filesystem.. the FTP support in Opus is
via a special module...there is a pd FTP filesystem out there that
works fine with Opus, along with the arc filesystem and anything else
that looks like a standard amigados device. Opus works fine with NFS,
since that looks just like a normal filesystem to the amiga
DrTed: Two parts... Will there be a major upgrade for GPFax before Wombat
is released???? When will DO 5.2 be released???
Greg: There will not be any major upgrade to GPFax before wombat (whenever
that is released) I MAY release the 2.0. The Opus versiuon 5.2 is
under development and will be released when it is finished as a cost
upgrade for about 40 bucks I guess. Maybe around Xmas or early next
year...
Harv: (btw, gpfax works pefectly with that cheapie linelink modem a lot of
us bought a while ago0)
RoyT: How about a disk with button already set for diff uses, maybe neat
for new users.
jonpfast: We were planning to make several different configurations
available but never really had a chance to get them together... We're
trying to collect configurations from users out there to put together a
compilation... We also kind of wanted to force people into doing the
configuration themselves, as that's the best way to really learn Opus
Despite what most journalists would have you believe, it's really
better not to use it as an Opus4 clone..
Harv: 1) i'd really like to see YOUR personal opus configuration if you
could put it or a screenshot on aminet or something.....
Greg: NO NO .I have seen it!!!
Harv: 2) you remember I haranged you to get opus5 to talk to parnet and you
did it (yay) but it still says any of my parnetted devices are "3.3
gig" or something.. could you look into that?
jonpfast: my opus config is really very boring.. I spend all my time
writing it, I never have time to configure it :) I would have thought
that a program that gave you gigabytes of storage for free was a pretty
good deal :) but yes, I'll look at it :)
DrTed: Will Wombat include voicemail functions with suitable modems???
Greg: This is planned. I was waiting for the Rockwell standard to be
accepted.. by most manufacturers but this seems slow in developing...
Harv: Greg - do you still produce a GPTerm? I doubt any usa amiga users
have ever heard of it. (as you know we hve ONE remaining Amiga print
magazine now)...
Greg: Yes but we only seel it in Australia. Abouts 1 a month! I am using
it now (hence the spelling errors..)
Harv: oh. well that' why we've never seen it. :-/ thanks
BillyYank: How do I specify an Application Stack size? Crash alot11 on
DOPus5 that is.
jonpfast: my term program is better anyway :))))
Greg: my telescope is larger !
jonpfast: if you're launching workbench applications the stack size is set
from the icon like under workbench... if they're functions you've set
up as AmigaDOS from a button or whatever, you need to add a line... to
the function definition to set the stack size manually... eg..
AmigaDOS stack 16384
AmigaDOS dh0:work/myprogram
or whatever...
DrTed: Our linelink 14.4 modems and my Magnum 28.8 modem use Rockwell
chipsets. .. what are the competing standards???
Greg: Well the standards are set by Intl standads etc. Rockwell themselves
are pretty good are following them but some modem manufacturers like to
tinker. Know what they say about standards. "There are so many to
choose from."
AROCK: jon: you may want to look into the fact that there is a pretty
awesome Opus look alike out there as share ware for the PC's (I've been
told)
jonpfast: there's a clone of Opus 4 for OS/2 that I've seen.. it looks
visually very similar.. I'm not really worried about it because the
OS/2 market isn't something we're ever likely to want to go after..
one dead-end computer system is enough :)
DrTed: Follow up... is there another manufacturer competing for the standard??
? GA
Greg: The fax standards are set by ITU. Manufactures sometimes invent
their own. Such as the V.fast etc.
Harv: Jon - you are 22 now. Opus has been out for years. How old were you
when it was first shipped? Also I am glad your product is now in good
hands, after learning what Inova did to you.
jonpfast: I started Opus on christmas day 1989, inovatronics picked it up
in late 91 I think
Harv: so when they shipped it you were 18. remarkable.
harsh: Greg: you mentioned that an upgracxde would be $40. Is that Opus5.2
and US$???
Greg: These have yet to be decided. Many producers ship direct but we work
through repulable distributors so we have to work out an effective
price with them yet but I expect around this US$40 price. There is a
great deal of work in the new version.
RoyT: Have you had contact with ESCOM? GA
Greg: We have limited contact with ESCOM. We have had some dealings with
AT in the UK. and have not really come out on top. In fact I am not
particularly happy at the treatment we received. We will be attending
the Cologne show in November so ma be able to meet the ESCOM people
then. We have had no direct approaches from ESCOM and have some fears
that we in Australia will be left out in the cold (again!)
Harv: THANKS TO GREG AND JON FOR THEIR TIME, THEIR ANSWERS, THEIR
RAINFOREST, AND MOST OF ALL THEIR EXCELLENT PRODUCTS. (YOU MAY
APPLAUDE AND/OR HOLLER APPROPRIATELY AT THIS POINT IN TIME)
Drakon: clap,clap,clap
Bjarian: YEah! Great work guys!!!!
rjhanson: Thanks!
harsh: Huzzah!
RoyT: Great Products!!
BillyYank: DOPus forever!!!
jwaller: clap clap clap clap,clap
Greg: Many thanks for you support of our products. We will attempt to keep
Amiga alive for a little longer.
jonpfast: has everyone here seen the Opus 5 questionaire?
Harv: I belive the questionaire is in the library. try searching for "opus"
Greg: Incidentally we suggested to ESCOM that they bundle Opus (at a very
very cheap price) but they rejected the idea.
@endnode
@node FEATURE2 "AT/Escom on German TV"
@toc FEATURE
===========================================================================
AT/ESCOM ON GERMAN TV
Thomas Tavoly ttavoly@amiga.ow.nl
===========================================================================
This morning, Sunday 22nd of Octobre, Gilles Bourdin and Manfred Schmitt
appeared on the third German television station WDR (West Deutsche
Rundfunk) announcing the rebirth of Amiga.
The presenters seemed pleased to announce this item of about a quarter of
an hour (or at least one, since at the end they use to hold up their
thumbs, saying "one bit for ..", one of them said _Atari_ (a little
spitefully it seemed), the other said Amiga).
First Gilles Bourdin appeared telling about the Amiga, it's multitasking
capabilities since 1985 and it's video/sound capabilities. The A1200 was
shown with a demo of Scala MM300 (smooth scrolling stuff with sound, but
not that awesome for the seasoned Amiga veteran :). This was shown on an
Amiga 1438S monitor (=Microvitec 1438 + builtin speakers).
Then they moved to the Amiga 4000 (desktop model, no tower in sight). It
was sitting in front of a bigger monitor (17" I think) also with the label
Amiga on the front, in the middle on the bottom. It seemed to have a lot
of icons and Magic Workbench installed, although not too much colour. They
didn't demonstrate anything on it, just told that it has the same
capabilities as it's smaller brother, the A1200, and you can expand it with
graphic cards, MPEG and whatnot, just like a PC.
Nothing was mentioned in the way of what processors were used and what
configuration was installed, except that the A1200 had a 170 MB HD.
Gilles made a relaxed and cheerful impression and they talked some about MS
Windows 95 = Mac 89 = Amiga 85 :^) Lastly Bourdin made the announcement of
AT/Escom being present at the Cologne show, taking place on 10-12 november
(World of Amiga 95)
After that a Commodore multimedia PC (midi tower) was shown, with a small
(but good looking) keyboard (MIDI, I guess) attached. The Qwerty keyboard
had two small speakers built in on either side at the top. They didn't
show anything of it's capabilities, just mentioned it. I'd guess it does
everything a normal PC does, bundled with some 'multimedia' software.
Then the camera moved to Manfred Schmitt, sitting with the other presenter.
He first asked Schmitt to tell what happened to Commodore and why Escom
purchased them. Manfred told him that Escom purchased Commodore and the
Amiga (he seemed to stress that), because of two reasons: Firstly the names
Commodore and Amiga have the second largest brand recognition after IBM in
Europe and have a good name, and also due to the size of this recognition
it is more difficult to change that recognition or image. (Sounded like a
tongue in cheek reference to the Amiga's bad reputation overseas)
Secondly: although Escom is one of the biggest customers of
Intel/Microsoft products on the European continent and they have quite
good relationships with aforementioned vendors, Escom regards them as being
monopolistic and therefore harmful to the market as a whole in the long
term. This is quite a big thing for a computer industry representant, he
might burn some bridges there :)
The presenter then asked if they were planning to break that monopoly with
the Amiga, and Manfred replied to the effect of: "certainly" :^) But he
also stated that he regards the PC as a workplace tool, for wordprocessing,
spreadsheet and the like, while the Amiga is more suited for multimedia
purposes. He again stressed it's capabilities regarding multitasking,
video and such.
Also the efficiency of the Amiga was spoken of, the way it's OS can run in
512 KB, if need be from a floppy drive. Schmitt stated that today you need
8 MB for Windows and 2 MB for an Amiga, and again stressed how much
advantage the price difference between a multimedia PC (2000+ DM) and an
Amiga (implying 1200, below 1000 DM) makes. Also the way the custom chips
make the design cost effective. That was good marketing ;)
The whole interview emanated a modern, 'lean, mean, fighting machine'
image.
Then they talked some about the recent purchase of [can't remember the
name, sounded like Hageka or Hakema] the telecommunications company. The
presenter asked a lot of quick questions whether the Amiga would also be
utilized in the communication business, to which I couldn't get a firm
impression, Manfred Schmitt gave some answers, but they were kind of vague
promising. (That and that I just got up and nearly fell asleep again by
this time..).
At the end Manfred Schmitt again stressed the Amiga's capabilities (they
seemed to talk little about Commodore :) and the position of
Intel/MicroSoft and the Amiga's future. The presenter vaguely implied (he
was guessing it seemed) forthcoming news next year regarding new models to
which Manfred answered with a subtle smile..
The presenter then closed the show with stating that in the future there
will be more Amiga items.
Manfred Schmitt made a relaxed impression too, it was a good interview.
I might be forgetting something here and there, since I'm still sleepy, but
thought you would like to know that finally they have come out of the bush
a bit and started marketing the damn product, even though nothing was said
we already didn't know. At least the general public now gets the message
(the show is quite popular in Germany, at least among the computing
public). BTW, I love those guys, they slagged off Windows 95 pretty badly
about a month ago, due to it's installation-horrors, unstableness and
bloatedness :^)
The show will be aired again tomorrow, Monday 23rd Octobre at 06:00 and
23:45 CET. You might also catch it on the Astra satellite, though I don't
know which channel that would be (WDR).
@endnode
@node FEATURE3 "PiggyBacking"
@toc FEATURE
===========================================================================
PiggyBacking
James Burton James@Snark.apana.org.au
===========================================================================
Riding on the clone's back.
---------------------------
For too long the Amiga world has been riding on the back of other
organisations. Amiga shops were Amiga shops only because they sold Amiga
hardware and software, fair enough you might think - but they also sell
clone software and hardware. While there is nothing intrinsically wrong
with a shop doing this, shops are small businesses after all and it is
difficult for small businesses to survive in this cutthroat industry, it
seems to me that there is plenty wrong with it. The complaint I am making
is that the shops are FORCED to sell clone equipment because they cannot
make enough money to survive by only selling Amiga equipment. Shops are
not the only place where we can see this problem. Just look at what has
been happening in magazines. Only in Britain are there enough magazines
solely devoted to the Amiga to support the needs of that country. In
Australia we only have one magazine that is sorely in need of competition,
and that survives mostly because of it's sister magazine which is PC based.
I understand that the same problem exists in the U.S. Even in the
supposedly good old days around 1990 companies like Electronic Arts - an
Amiga company through and through still felt it necessary to make money
from the world of clones. Nowadays of course they have dropped most of
their Amiga lines. How many of you remember the days before AmiNet? Do
you remember ftp'ing to ab20.larc.nasa.gov? Do you remember that the best
way to get Amiga programs was to go to your local usergroup and copy a few
Fish discs? Or maybe to concatenate and uudecode the pieces that came
through on the newsgroup comp.binaries.amiga, if all the pieces appeared.
To me these are all exaples of how NOT to run the Amiga community. By
relying on mechanisms put in place for other communities, and by leaving
problems up to others - it is on this that I believe we can place the blame
fairly and squarely. The blame for what? The blame for the Amiga's
seeming lack of success. Despite almost all the odds being in the Amiga's
favour, technical superiority, far better prices, more interesting software
etc., we still got so close to extinction that it is not funny. We must
never get that close to disaster again. Let's think ahead, look at the
long term prosperity and find the energy and self confidence to boost the
Amiga community up so far it won't come down for another ten years if at
all.
Backbone
--------
So far I have only told you half the story. I conveniently left out the
best part until now to make a point. The point that needs to be made is
that we as Amiga users have already been standing on our own. We have
enough backbone to carry us forward. It's just that the backbone we have
only has 1 or 2 instances and needs much development. Think about what
Urban Mueller and the AmiNet crew have done, and Fred Fish before them.
These are examples of how Amiga people have used their creativity and
skills to build their own organisational structure. To put it plainly -
the Amiga would be nothing without Fred Fish. There would be a few BBSs
around the world doing their best to find non-commercial Amiga programs and
for the rest of their applications users would rely on expensive commercial
programs. Fred Fish collected and made available an enourmous library of
public domain, freely redistributable and shareware programs. He
distributed Eric Schwartz's award winning animations. He essentially
created the drive for the public network scene we have today. He also
single handedly kept the prices of commercial software right down.
Around 1991 when FTP became feasible for more than a few universities in
North America, the floppy disc based distribution system that Fred set up
started to wear out. Authors of various freebie products started uploading
their material directly to ab20.larc.nasa.gov. This rendered Tad Guy's
work on comp.binaries.amiga less popular as well. It was then that Urban
Mueller and the AmiNet crew stepped in. They set up (again like Fred an
Amiga first) the best public distribution network in the world. Today it
is still the envy of users of other platforms. Info-mac is just not the
same somehow. Most of the Microsoft archives are commercial. Only the
Amiga crowd have done it right. lets hear the important keywords again;
PUBLIC, WORLD-WIDE, AMIGA SPECIFIC. It seems to me that it is all about
the self confidence to see a problem, work out an innovative solution, and
implement it properly the first time around. You'll wince when I say it,
but Apple does this regularly. They created eWorld - their online service
(nice idea, pity about the implementation). But they are brave enough to
try.
Actually there are many other efforts at collaboration currently happening
in the Amiga community. Everything from Amiga Report, the UNIX port crews
(Linux and NetBSD), the AmigaOS Replacement Project just to mention a few.
But the problem with these is that they are small fragmented pieces of
order in a large sea of chaos. What we as the Amiga community really need
to do is to create our own backbone. Why not start our own international
online service? Why not start our own international chain of Amiga shops?
But we still need glue to stick these pieces together no matter how large
the pieces are. We need a structure to make these seemingly impossible
tasks quite possible. This is where the International Amiga Society comes
into the picture. What other platform has a single unified international
user group? Answer: none. This will be an Amiga first again (all these
Amiga firsts are getting boring). The International Amiga Society (IAS for
short) is an attempt to band together Amiga users everywhere into a single
organisation. It will not work if we fragment or follow self interest. It
will not work properly unless we all join in. But knowing the history, the
story of Amiga people it will definately work.
The IAS
-------
Currently the IAS consists of a group of dedicated people who want to build
this backbone slowly but surely. We have some small and simple ideas to
start with and then we can build up to larger ideas that might perhaps
require funding at a later stage. The first priority is to find out who is
in, and who is out. Once we have built a database of all Amiga usergroups,
then we have access to every Amiga user worldwide. What can we do with
that? Well thousands of things. It gives us a lot of power as a group.
If we can use that power for the good of the community, rather than letting
it dissipate then we will have really achieved something. Perhaps one of
the most important things to use that power for is to influence the new
owner of the Amiga, Amiga Technologies. This is of course a very new
company, and they are very much still finding their feet, let alone forging
ahead with new products (as many people expect them to be doing). But no
matter what they are going to turn out to be like, they are a company
nonetheless, just like Commodore was. And it is because they are a normal
company that we should worry about whether they will survive. At crucial
points there may be things that we, as an organised userbase can do to help
the company.
As an example, although you should remember that we have many many ideas
that could very easily be implemented with the IAS fully operating, lets
look at the problem of name brand recognition. Name brand recognition
means that the name of a particular manufacturer is known casually to
everybody in the marketplace. It is a serious goal for large companies.
It is very hard to sell a product when your market has never heard of the
manuacturer. So in attacking for example the U.S. market, Amiga
Technologies will be very concerned that any advertising or promotion they
do will fall on deaf ears, because nobody has heard of the company. What
better project for a group of hundreds of thousands of American Amiga
users? The IAS would coordinate teams of Amiga users to distribute
stickers, posters, press releases, magazine adverts, local paper adverts,
and anything else that's cheap, but time consuming. Even a letter writing
campaign to the editors of major newspapers like the New York Times.
Anything is possible, with the correct coordination. With such a
gargantuan effort on their side, Amiga Technologies could afford to try a
small advertising campaign, nowhere near the size of DIGITAL, Microsoft or
Apple's recent campaigns but significant nonetheless.
We need you
-----------
Of course the first thing that each of you must do is to register with the
IAS. This costs no money and has many benefits. If you are a member of a
usergroup then get a spokesperson from that usergroup to register the
group. The same goes for dealerships, developer companies, suppliers and
any other Amiga related organisation, or organisation that uses Amigas.
Once we have a complete database then we can move forward like never
before. We (The IAS) plan to set up activities and projects that we could
only dream of up until now. We will inject more excitement into the
computing world than it has ever known before. So to make this work we
really need you. We need you for your ideas, we need you for your
organising skills, we especially need creative people who can do graphics,
write programs, collect information to put on web pages, but most of all we
need your energy, enthusiasm and commitment. Just to give you an idea of
what we are planning, here is our schedule:
(1) launch IAS (October 5 1995)
- this happened on the 5th of october
(2) create database giving access to ALL amiga users around the world
- we are currently still trying to provoke people to register
(3) start small projects
- Workbench snap of the month competition
- Anthology of funny Amiga stories (talk to
johan@artworks.apana.org.au)
(4) build a large strong community
- the Amiga has always had a community feeling, we need to
encourage that feeling to grow by scheduling regular events
- The Jay Miner awards (person who has done the most for Amiga this
year...)
- Annual Amiga cultural festival (latest mod music technology,
latest video hardware, live presentations by Amiga artists)
- Monthly IRC meetings for all members
- Internet radio Amiga (gloabl radio station)
- eventually Amiga T.V., VR-chat system
- theme weeks (first week of each month has a theme, a good time to
release relevant products, hold conferences, other events.)
- hall of Amiga fame (Fred Fish, Dave Haynie, Dale Larson, RJ
Mical, ...)
(5) start large projects
- large software or hardware development projects
- development support structure (not just software and hardware)
- Name Brand Recognition campaign
As you can see there are no times on the schedule, that is because we don't
yet have many people who can make these ideas into reality. If you have
ideas we would be delighted to hear from you, and to help you set yourself
up to implement them. Please feel free to ask questions or to discuss
anything with us. A registration form is included below. The contact
email address is IAS-Queries@ArtWorks.apana.org.au
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
IAS - Internation Amiga Society Registration Form
to be sent to IAS-Register@ArtWorks.apana.org.au
or by mail to the address
The International Amiga Society
P.O. Box 201
Kingsbury 3083
Victoria, Australia
Full Name : __________________________________________________________
Commonly used Nickname : _____________________________________________
Address : ____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
Country : _______________
Organisation/Company : _______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
Email Addresses : ____________________________________________________
WWW Page : ___________________________________________________________
+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
@endnode
@node FEATURE4 "An Open Letter to Amiga Technologies"
@toc FEATURE
===========================================================================
AN OPEN LETTER TO AMIGA TECHNOLOGIES
Jake Hamby hamby@aris.jpl.nasa.gov
===========================================================================
As a former Amiga developer, I was very interested to read about Escom's
plans for the Amiga and your intention to provide good support for
developers, and more importantly, support and marketing to encourage users
to buy Amiga computers. I think you've done an excellent job so far, but
you've concentrated very little on your plans for the vast United States
market. Selling the Amiga in the U.S. will definitely be a challenge,
because the majority of computer buyers primarily care about Microsoft
DOS/Windows compatibility, but the North American market is too big to
ignore, or handle poorly. I've given this area a great deal of thought
through the years, and I have 10 fundamental suggestions which will enable
Escom to sell at least 10,000 (and potentially many more than that) Amiga
computers in the U.S. and Canada next year.
1) Recognize the Amiga's advantages. If you only compare raw price to
performance ratios, the PC appears to come out ahead, and in terms of raw
graphics and CPU performance, SVGA and Pentium CPUs have passed up the
Amiga. However, the Amiga is still a force to be reckoned with, even in
1995. Features such as "Plug and Play" of peripherals (which the Amiga
pioneered with their unique AutoConfig system, and which the PC still has
severe problems achieving), and a tradition of innovative software are
strong points the Amiga can advertise. Another advantage, shared by the
Macintosh and graphic workstations, but not with the PC market, is the high
use of SCSI peripherals, which, although the initial cost is higher than
IDE, are infinitely more expandable and versatile, as well as higher
performing. In fact, the only major disadvantage of the Amiga in 1995,
ironically, is the lack of DOS compatibility. This issue is covered in
suggestion #5.
2) Find a target audience. While there is a market in Europe for the Amiga
as a game machine (a niche the A1200 was designed to fill), Americans
wouldn't even think to buy a machine with a keyboard to use as a game
machine. So don't try to sell the idea of a game machine that can also be
used as a computer, or you will fail miserably. Instead, when Americans do
want to buy a computer, they expect something reasonably powerful and
expandable. Also, don't expect to target the first-time computer buyer;
they would be disappointed and probably confused to buy a computer that
wasn't a PC or a Macintosh. Instead, I have three specific types of users
who would be interested in buying an Amiga:
Developers of vertical applications: Many custom software solutions do not
depend on DOS or any other specific software compatibility concerns. A
programmer developing a data collection program for a factory or an
inventory system for a retail store only wants a solid, maintainable
development platform that they can quickly deploy within their company for
their custom application. For example, many such programs have been
written on the PC using Linux, a free Unix clone, because the developers
were impressed by its built-in networking, development system, and robust
performance. The Amiga has similar advantages, including extremely low
memory requirements, high performance multitasking, and an easy-to-program
GUI. To position the Amiga in this market, you simply need to advertise in
magazines read by developers (such as Dr. Dobbs Journal or even Linux
Journal), describing the Amiga platform's technical advantages, and provide
a C/C++ compiler (most likely SAS/C) for a low price, such as US$100. You
may even consider bundling a C compiler with the operating system.
Internet Service Providers: As I'm sure you're aware, the Internet is the
fastest growing and most visible segment of the computer industry right
now, and the world-wide demand for Internet service providers is at an
all-time high. An ISP's primary requirement for hardware is a system with
fast Ethernet and hard drive performance, and a solid TCP/IP system. The
Amiga provides all of these things, thanks to SCSI and AmiTCP. Providers
requiring the highest performance can run either NetBSD/Amiga or
Linux/Amiga, two popular free Unix clones with good Amiga versions. To
succeed in this market, start producing Amiga Ethernet cards for a low
price, such as US$150, bundle AmiTCP with AmigaDOS, and advertise the
Amiga's advantages in Internet publications and on the World Wide Web.
Unix users: Millions of people, from hobbyists to professional developers,
have discovered the benefits of running Linux, FreeBSD, or other Unix
operating systems on their PC. In addition, Unix (on PC's and
workstations) is widely considered to be a robust operating system suitable
for almost any mission critical application. The Amiga has the advantage
of two free Unix clones, in addition to AmigaDOS, which is very similar to
Unix in many ways. To position the Amiga to Unix users, who would be very
interested in its innovative solution, simply follow the same steps as the
other two markets: Sell inexpensive Ethernet cards and C++ developers kits,
and advertise in Unix publications describing the Amiga's technical
advantages for running Unix (such as SCSI hard drives and accelerated
graphics performance for X Windows).
3) Satisfy the Potential market with Innovative hardware: I know you have
hinted you plan to port the Amiga to RISC and continue on the AAA chipset,
but there are more cost-effective innovations you can introduce today. A
perfect example of this is the Iomega Zip drive: This drive is extremely
impressive because it combines low price (US$200 for the drive, US$20 for
each disk), high capacity and performance (100MB per disk, 1MB/sec transfer
rate), rugged construction, and quiet operation. Power Computing, a maker
of PowerMac clones will soon be bundling Zip drives with their computers;
Amiga should do the same. After all, the Amiga 4000 has a built-in SCSI
port, why not take advantage of it?
If you include an internal Zip drive with every system, then you can
distribute the OS and bundled software on a single disk, which would allow
users to run the software directly from the disk, or install it on their
hard drive if they desire. This kind of simple, innovative solution is
something the Amiga really needs. I would strongly discourage you from
spending too much effort on long-term projects, such as RISC, when you can
introduce this kind of new technology today. On the other hand, I would
also discourage you from trying to introduce low-end PC-clone technology,
such as IDE hard drives, which lack the kind of open expandability that the
Amiga has always had, and which would make the Amiga no different from the
ordinary PC clone.
4) Build an affordable, powerful machine: The A1200 is far too underpowered
to sell in the U.S. market, as I've already mentioned, so the A4000 should
be the system of choice. You should build an economical A4000 model,
perhaps with a fast 68030 instead of a 68040, 4MB of RAM instead of 6MB, an
800MB hard drive instead of 1GB, and/or a desktop case instead of a tower.
However, do NOT try to cut the price by removing critical features such as
SCSI, the floating point coprocessor or memory-management unit (because a
machine without both an FPU and MMU can not run Unix!), or other important
features that give the Amiga a competitve edge.
Bundle the computer with the operating system and basic applications (the
software you are currently bundling is perfect), plus an Iomega Zip drive,
and sell the whole thing for US$1700 (without monitor). Make sure that the
user can use an inexpensive VGA monitor (this will probably require
modifying the motherboard with something like the A3000's flicker fixer),
and people will be knocking down your door to buy one (assuming you follow
the next six suggestions too)!
5) Advertise to your potential market: I can not stress this enough! The
primary reason Commodore failed in the marketplace was that they weren't
spending their advertising dollars effectively. Escom should not try to
advertise in the United States through expensive television campaigns, nor
should they rely on word-of-mouth advertising (i.e. Amiga fanatics
preaching to their friends to buy Amiga). The solution is to target each
of the three audiences I've mentioned through trade magazines and the
World-Wide Web.
6) Provide adequate sales channels: Another area where Commodore failed was
trying to sell the Amiga through mass-market retail channels (department
stores such as Montgomery Wards and discount stores such as Kmart, for
example). After all, the Amiga will not sell to the average American who
only wants PC compatibility, so why try to target this unreceptive
audience? Similarly, retail clerks would require extensive retraining,
because many of them have never heard of the computer, and so would have
difficulty selling it (I hear that you have this problem in your European
Escom stores).
Instead of this, you should primarily sell the Amiga through mail order and
through a dealer network of Amiga or Amiga/Mac computer stores (I'm sure
many of these stores have remained in business after Commodore's bankruptcy
by selling Mac hardware, and many of them would be interested in selling
Amiga again, if it was a viable option). I suggest that you start a
toll-free number, such as +1-800-AMIGA-96 for people to call and ask for
their nearest Amiga dealer or mail order catalog.
7) Even though the target audience for the Amiga in the U.S. may not
require DOS compatibility every day, the PC is pervasive enough that nearly
every user will require the ability to run DOS programs when necessary.
Commodore has already developed the 486 PC Bridgeboard, all you need to do
is update it to use AMD's 486DX4 100MHz CPU, which is high performance,
100% compatible with Intel, and very affordable. In fact, if you can
provide a 100MHz 486 Bridgeboard for US$300 (assuming it can run Windows
95!) you will easily make 50,000 extra sales a year. Simply put, if you
can give the buyer two computers for the price of one, they will be a
customer for life. And since Shapeshifter, an excellent shareware
Macintosh emulator, is available, you are actual giving the users THREE
computers for the price of one!
8) Don't forget the Developers: As I've mentioned above, providing a cost-
effective C++ compiler and development environment is critical to the
success of the Amiga. Developers should also be provided with the
documentation for programming Workbench 3.1 and other specifications that
have not been available since Commodore's bankruptcy. To save expenses,
you should make this information available on the World Wide Web, perhaps
requiring developers to pay a small membership fee (such as US$40 per year)
to receive access to this information.
9) Don't forget existing Amiga users: Our experience and confidence has
helped Escom's position immensely, and you will need to rely on the
existing user base to make your sales (in the United States as well as
worldwide) successful. One way you can say "thank you" to existing users
is by providing the current system software (Workbench 3.1) to all Amiga
users for no more than US$100, which would more than cover the cost of
documentation, disks, and ROMs.
10) Provide a great system for a reasonable price, stand behind your
products, and the United States market will be a great success for Escom.
Don't try to be the next Macintosh, but instead concentrate on market
niches that will most appreciate the Amiga. Similarly, don't try to turn
the Amiga into a PC, because they are two very different markets. In
summary, here are the kind of components you should be selling, and the
price I believe customers will be willing to pay (all prices in U.S.
dollars):
$1700-$2500 - A4000 system (range from low-end with 68030/4MB RAM/850MB HD
to high-end 68060 system. All systems include bundled software,
keyboard, mouse, floppy drive, and Iomega Zip drive.
$200-$1000 - Monitor (ranging from 14" standard VGA monitor to 17"
multiscan)
$300 - 486DX4 100MHz PC compatibility card
$250 - Quad-speed SCSI CD-ROM drive (price if bundled with the system,
otherwise users can add their own internal/external CD later)
$150 - Amiga Ethernet card
$100 - C/C++ compiler/developers kit
@endnode
@node FEATURE5 "Eye on Lightwave"
@toc FEATURE
===========================================================================
EYE ON LIGHTWAVE
Scott Bragg edreams@pd.org
===========================================================================
Greetings Lightwavers and Amigans in general. Welcome to the first
installment of what I hope will be a long running column touching on many
topics near and dear to myself and you, the reader. The main focus of this
column is Lightwave 3D and the Video-Graphics industry in general. Even
though I will trend towards Amiga related news and topics, like it or not,
other platforms are becoming increasingly more important to the livelihood
of 3D animators accross the globe.
The most asked question I see on the #lightwave irc channel is "Where can I
find some good objects and image maps?" With the "for free" unsaid. There
are increasingly more and more places to find quality information on the
internet.
First, FTP sites:
ftp.newtek.com --> this is an obvious one. Contains a lot of good
information as well as objects, image maps, utilities and updates to both
Lightwave and the Flyer/Toaster.
avalon.viewpoint.com --> This is the old avalon.navy.mil site that has been
taken over by Viewpoint Datalabs. All the objects and such are still there
but is not Lightwave specific. Good objects, but will probably need some
tweaking before being usable in Lightwave.
tomahawk.welch.jhu.edu --> I save the best Lightwave site for last. The
tomahawk site has tons of great objects (not all are public domain, read
the info files carefully) image maps, tutorial files, an archive of the
Lightwave-L mailing list, utilities, updates, and animations. Also there
is a great collection of images and framestores from Lightwave animators
around the world, and in the incoming/irc directory is a gathering of
pictures of those enigmatic irc users. Now you can put a face with the
nickname.
Second, WWW (World Wide Web) sites: There are many, many of these, I only
include the main one and one with tons of great links. Ask around, most
internet savvy animators now have home pages.
www.newtek.com --> Again, this is obvious. The home page of our favorite
Topeka, Kansas based company.
There are more...
Finally, other resources.
IRC #lightwave --> real time interactive chat with anywhere from three or
four to as many as twenty animators at a time. Some of the biggest names
in the Lightwave community hang out there. You never know who will drop
by. Newtek also has a fairly strong presence there so what gets said will
be heard.
News groups. --> comp.sys.apps.ligthwave is the definitive source for
lightwave information and help. All the big guns read here. Even been
some celebrities float through now and then. Just lurking can be very
educational.
Mailing list: There are two of these that directly relate to Lightwave.
They include a general Lightwave list and a more specific and much more
intense Lightwave Developers list.
To subscribe to the Lightwave mailing list, send email to:
lightwave-request@webcom.com and put SUBSCRIBE in the subject.
That about wraps up this installment. If there are any areas you want
covered or a tutorial you would like to see, email me at the following
address. I can be found most nights on the #lightwave irc channel under
the nick of edreams or E_Dreams.
Scott Bragg
Owner/Animator
Electron Dreams
edreams@pd.org
IRC Nick: edreams or E_Dreams
http://www.pd.org/~edreams
@endnode
@node FEATURE6 "Report on the PAWS and the Gecko"
@toc FEATURE
===========================================================================
REPORT ON THE PAWS AND THE GECKO
John Scotto JScotto@Wazoo.Com
===========================================================================
I have just had a rather interesting conversation with one of the gentlemen
of Silent Paw Productions (SPP). In case you're not aware SPP advertises
the Portable Amiga Work Station (PAWS) - a kit to make a laptop type Amiga
- and the Gecko a video adapter for the Amiga to allow the use of VGA
monitors. I really hadn't intended to pass on my conversation initially so
I will be forced to paraphrase for most things. However, I do believe that
folks may be interested in the information I was able to gather.
First I must say that I was rather surprised to actually get a human to
answer the phone at SPP - I took this as a good sign as their phone message
had previously said that they would begin voice phone support as PAWS was
about to become available. After the necessary introductions I asked the
obvious questions "When will PAWS be available?" and "How much will it
cost?". SPP was very forthcoming with these answers: PAWS is in production
right now and will be displayed at the VTU Expo in November. Initial
release models have a 10.5" active matrix screen and will cost around
$3000.00 (US). I was told that PAWS is developing a cost reduced LCD
adapter that will allow use of dual scan and/or passive matrix LCDs but
that model is not yet available. SPP was careful to point out that the
included video adapter does not add anything to the Amiga's native video
capability i.e. your screen and adapter can display much more than your
Amiga can output. I asked about he possibility of complete PAWS setups
with motherboard pre-installed and was told such options will be up to the
distributors. Unfortunately, I was not able to get a complete list of
distributors. My final PAWS question was about peripherals and the
gentleman told me that if it works in a 1200 without modifications it
should work in PAWS he was however unsure about 3.5" hard drives. At this
point the conversation turned to another SPP product - the Gecko.
The Gecko was described as an adapter which will allow Amigas to use
standard VGA (31.5 KHz) monitors. It will basically intercept the Amiga
RGB signal and convert it to a 31.5 KHz one. He did say "most" modes and I
can only assume that some modes which output at around 24 KHz may be the
exceptions. The Gecko is slated to be released "in November" and will be
as "low cost as possible". SPP's goal being a product that makes it more
cost effective to buy than simply paying extra for a multiscan monitor.
Overall the tone of our conversation was very friendly and helpful. The
PAWS is clearly aimed, initially, at a high end market with a more more
middle of the road product to follow as sales warrant. Gecko is going
right for the heart of an Amiga community suffering monitor envy of our PC
friends and their lower priced 15" and 17" monitors. It was also good to
hear from another serious developer who has stayed with the Amiga, the last
hobbyist computer.
@endnode
@node FEATURE7 "24 Hours Under The Georgia Sun"
@toc FEATURE
===========================================================================
24 HOURS UNDER THE GEORGIA SUN
By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON}
===========================================================================
Lamar Morgan's has been a familiar voice on my answering machine. For a
long time now...something like a year, we've talked about the Amiga and
where it's going.
In addition to being the guy who calls me from work a lot, Lamar's also the
president of the Amiga Atlanta user group. So when he invited me out to
Atlanta, expenses paid, for a taping session of a documentary on Amiga
users, how could I say no?
After all, Dave Haynie and Fred Fish would be there, too. I'd already met
Dave in Calgary, but the idea of meeting Fred Fish was good enough for me.
Anyway--Amiga Atlanta is comprised largely, although certainly not
exclusively, of a bunch of guys with more video experience in their little
fingers than I have in my entire family. They've produced Amiga demo tapes
off the job, and it occurred to them that it would be a good idea to
document the users of the Amiga as well. So, with professional equipment
in hand, they set out amongst their club, filming hour after hour of
testimonial and interview. After 23 hours of that, they decided it was
time to branch out, so they called the three of us.
It was a really pleasant day in Atlanta when I arrived on Kiwi Airlines.
(Note: If you're in the Eastern US and get a chance to fly them, do it.)
I was met at the airport and taken over to Video Tape Associates, the
company where the work was being done. After taking a quick tour and
sitting around during Fred's interview, killing time with Dave and the
guys, it was time for lunch. I got to meet Fred--if you've never met him,
but are familiar with American TV and want some sort of insight, just think
of a younger, nicer looking Archie Bunker.
After lunch came The Haynie Sessions. Something like 3 hours of tape went
by as Dave related stories of product development, highs and lows in
engineering, and a special tour through some of his finished and unfinished
hardware items, such the world's first 16 meg Zorro-III, the world's first
040 card, and the "2000 to 3000" card which provided an 030 and SCSI to the
2000. That guy can talk, let me tell you.
Finally, it was my turn. The guys moved the equipment from the conference
room where they'd taped Fred and Dave to the lobby for my interview. They
miked my shirt, set up the lights, and started asking questions...and
suddenly, it was over, 80 minutes had passed and I'd barely started
talking, it seemed. But no, we'd actually done 80 minutes of interview,
with the time flying by so quickly it seemed more like 10. The only reason
we stopped, other than the fact it was already around 5:30 at night, was
that they were completely out of tape--Beta SP 30 minute tapes at $30
apiece, to be exact.
So Dave and I returned to our hotel room for a brief while until the dinner
party they'd arranged at a local pizza dive was on. All day long (and for
weeks beforehand) Lamar had tried to get the local news media to cover our
presence there, both at the taping and at dinner, but they just didn't
bite. They did get an exec from a regional Internet service provider,
Mindspring, to come for the food, and he seemed pretty impressed with the
event as a whole. Me, I've had better pizza, but the company was great.
Other than the really great gifts we got (two t-shirts and a demo tape, for
example), we were awarded lifetime memberships in the club and, maybe most
importantly, got to hear really nice things about ourselves that we
probably don't deserve.
After beating Dave at a round of Galaga, splitting a pizza with Fred and
talking to countless AAi members, suddenly it was after midnight and
everyone was getting very sleepy. We went back to the hotel room, found
out that Atlanta TV is no better at night than any other TV, and then it
was the morning and time to leave.
All in all, the experience was great. I'm anxiously awaiting the results
of the now 33+ hours of footage Amiga Atlanta has on file-the initial
concept was a one hour video, but with that much volume I have a hard time
imagining doing one comprehensive tape. If there's one thing I regret it's
not having a better memory for faces and names, but when you meet dozens of
people in a 24 hour period, it's hard to keep everyone straight. But the
entire day was well-planned and executed, and I was honored to have been a
part of it.
Random Snippets of Trivia:
AR Contributing Editor Addison Laurent drove for hours just to make it to
the dinner party.
One of the T-shirts was a standard-issue AAi membership polo-style shirt.
The other was an absolutely gorgeous black t-shirt with the best Amiga
rebirth emblem I've ever seen. "Death is only the beginning..."
A number of people brought Dave their machines for autographing. Oh, and
we discovered that yes, the batteries in A2000s/3000s/4000s tend to leak
and corrode the contacts and even possibly the motherboards if you let them
discharge, then re-charge them.
Oh, did I mention I beat Dave at Galaga? :)
The tram in the Atlanta airport has a speech synthesizer to tell you things
like (to paraphrase) "hold on so you're not flung around." The synthesis
is provided by a C64.
@endnode
@node REVIEW1 "Review: GameSmith Development System"
@toc REVIEW
===========================================================================
REVIEW: GameSmith Development System
By: @{" Dave Haynie " link DAVE.HAYNIE}
===========================================================================
PRODUCT NAME:
GameSmith Development System
BRIEF DESCRIPTION:
A development system for writing video games. For use with C and
Assembler (versions included). Provides high performance APIs for
display, animation, and other game related programming.
AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION:
Oregon Research
16200 S.W. Pacific Highway
Suite 162
Tigard, OR 97224
MACHINE USED FOR TESTING:
Amiga 3000/25, A3640
16 MB Fast RAM
2 MB Chip RAM
Internal HD floppy
Quantum 500 MB HD, SCSI
CDC Wren 750 MB HD, SCSI
44MB Syquest, SCSI
NEC CD-ROM, SCSI
Kickstart 40.60 and WB 40.42.
oMniBus display system
CTX 17" monitor
===========================================================================
ON WRITING GAMES
Like many people, I began my computer career with games. The first
computer game I played was a version of the classic "NIM", running on an HP
Desktop calculator (which originally cost more than a loaded A4000 does
today). Not coincidentally, I also programmed my first games on this
machine, then later via dial-up account to a big CDC Cyber 72 computer.
Games at this level were meant to be played on a teletype of some kind,
they were written in BASIC, and they were very, very simple.
My world changed in 1977 when my best friend bought one of the first
PET systems. Here was not only a more powerful BASIC than on the CDC, but
it was on a screen! I started messing around with games on the PET, then
two years later I bought my own computer (an Exidy Sorcerer, I've never
exactly followed the pack) and managed to sell four games to Creative
Computing Software. These were BASIC/Assembler combinations, and were
distributed on cassette tape.
Lots of things have changed since then. The computer games of today
are several generations beyond these early games, and the best of them are
coded by some of the world's best programmers. They're typically written
in fast assembly language, based on libraries of fine-tuned assembly code
and programming models, secret to each game company, developed over years
of games programming.
On the non-professional side of things, programmers write games in
various languages, though BASIC is still, about twenty years after it first
gained popularity, a popular language for games programming. But like
the games, BASIC has changed quite a bit. Early BASIC was like assembly or
C language, in that it had only general purpose functions; if you wanted to
draw a circle on the screen, you wrote a routine to draw a circle. In
today's AMOS, BlitzBasic, and a few others, things are completely
different. BASIC comes with a wide variety of graphics functions,
including animation routines, collision detection, drawing routines,
scale/rotate functions, mouse and joystick inter- faces, etc. There are
compilers that speed up the generated code and allows a stand-alone version
to be released. And most modern BASICs come with a set of object editors,
to make drawing and animating very easy.
ENTER C/ASSEMBLER
So, one might well ask, how could C or Assembler seriously be
considered for writing games? Either you're playing, and write in BASIC,
or you hunker down, write a killer set of graphics routines, and turn pro.
Until recently, that's probably just how it was for most people. But
thanks to the GameSmith Development System, from Oregon Research, there is
now an alternative road to take. The GameSmith system provides
sophisticated routines for display control, animation, collision detection,
timing, and other essential elements of any video game.
GameSmith comes compressed on three floppy disks. Via the standard
Amiga installer, it loads the various components of the system onto your
hard disk: the GameSmith linker library, includes for C and assembler, the
CITAS object animation tool, some examples, a tutorial, and optionally, a C
compiler (a special version of Obvious Implementations' DICE), and an
assembler (a special version of HiSoft's DevPac3), and of most interest,
the GameSmith library. GameSmith can be used with most other C compilers
or standard Amiga assemblers. As of this writing, it does not come with
the full set of Amiga include files, only because in the absence of
Commodore, there was no way to officially licence the include files.
DISPLAY AND GRAPHICS
The first thing you'll need in any game is a window and, usually, some
kind of background. GameSmith handles a variety of displays: Intuition
Window, Intuition Screen, or custom "take over the display" displays.
Custom displays are based on the Amiga's graphics.library. They support
double buffering, smooth scrolling over a large bitmap, multiple viewports,
"parallax" viewports (scrolling with smooth wraparound), and even AGA
features. User-define copper lists can be added, too. The kind of display
is up to the programmer; GameSmith functions unrelated to display control
don't care about the kind of display. There's even a GameSmith function
that identifies the type of Amiga chipset, so the display can be tailored
to the system in use.
Once you have a display, the next step is to put something into it. An
IFF/ILBM image from disk is easily loaded into an existing bitmap, or a new
bitmap sized to the image on load. For double buffer support, the same
image can automatically go into two bitmaps. The bitmap can be encrypted
for security (see below).
Simplified blitter functions allow images to be blitted into a
background, optionally saving or restoring the background as necessary.
Single pixels can be set, complemented, and tested. Colors can be set
individually, or by whole palette.
A nice set of "vector" routines calculates coordinates of the best line
between any two points in a display. While you can use this to draw lines,
it's just as useful for moving things along a straight line.
ANIMATION AND CITAS
The Animation system is the high point of GameSmith, and the piece that
takes from being "a good idea" to "something really cool". As an
experienced Amiga programmer, I wouldn't have a real problem doing most of
the other GameSmith functions myself, though GameSmith certainly does quite
a few of the tricky bits for you. The Animation system is so slick,
though, it would take months if not years of programming animations on the
Amiga before you had something going nearly as well. And, of course, the
GameSmith system is general purpose, you get to reuse it for any new game.
The main point of the animation system is to automate the movement of
objects across a playfield, and manage their interaction with each other
and with the playfield. This is a very sophisticated setup, though. An
object can be a simple animation, a set of individual pictures which, when
played one after another, form some kind of motion (though one-frame
animations are also allowed). Fancier movements can be done using a
"complex animation", which groups different animation sequences as one
item. For example, I might have a running character in my game. He can
run left or right, maybe also jump or duck. That can be represented as a
series of six animation sequences. All the programmer need worry about is
telling the animation system which sequence applies at any given moment.
Integral to the animation is CITAS. CITAS is a user friendly,
style-guide compliant tool for editing animations, complex animations, and
various collision relationships. It can save any work to disk in files
that can be loaded by the GameSmith library routines, or convert directly
to C or Assembler, to allow the data to be embedded in the game itself.
While individual movement images must be drawn in a bitmap editor,
CITAS can aid in assembling the animation. It can flip images horizontally
or vertically, and rotate them by 90 degree increments. Each cell in an
animation can be shifted for smooth alignments, and animations can be
previewed. Complex animations can be built from any defined simple
animations.
Up to 32 collision types can be defined for each animation. Once the
types are defined, interactions between the types (what collides with what)
can be defined. For each frame of an animation, rectangles corresponding
to any of the collision types may be defined. Collisions between object
and background may also be defined.
OTHER COOL FEATURES
The GameSmith sound system can load an IFF 8SVX or raw sample from
disk, and automatically play it for you. The sound data can be buffered in
fast RAM (only a small amount of chip RAM is needed), and it can be
automatically looped from any single loop point in the sample. Volume and
period can be set, and various automatic fades can be defined; reasonable
period constants for five octaves worth of notes are defined in an include
file. Each of the four Amiga sound channels can be driven individually.
Timing is a big concern, especially if you aim to support Amigas from
the original A500, A1000, and A2000, through the latest 68060-accelerated
A3000s and A4000; roughly a 100:1 performance range on many operations.
The key is tying performance to a constant, the most common constant is the
vertical blank. Every 1/60th of a second on NTSC systems, 1/50ths of a
second on PAL systems, a normal video "frame" has been displayed, and must
be restarted. This is called the vertical blank, due to the fact that the
display is blanked during this period (that's why you don't see anything
beyond the active overscan area of a screen). Many elements of the
GameSmith system, animation and sound, for example, are automatically based
on vertical blank. Additional functions provide a count of elapsed
vertical blanks, and allow an arbitrary function to be called during the
vertical blank.
GameSmith supports a simplified joystick input function, which can
return the button and direction settings of a digital joystick in either
port. For mouse or analog joysticks, you'll have to use AmigaOS functions
(or hardware banging, if that's your perferred method) directly.
ADDITIONAL TOOLS
Unlike some BASIC systems, GameSmith is not completely stand-alone.
You will need a bitmap editor, such as Deluxe Paint, for creating
backgrounds, ANIMs, and other graphic objects (of course, ANIMs can be
created from bitmaps in CITAS). For professional work, this is reasonable;
a real bitmap editor is much more flexible than any of the tiny editors
you'll find in most BASIC systems.
Similarly, for sound you're going to need some way of creating effects,
music, or anything else that's going to play in a game. An 8-bit audio
sampler and waveform editor is probably your best bet for building custom
sound effects.
PROFESSIONAL CONCERNS
The first professional question to ask is, "could I use GameSmith for a
commercial game". You certainly can. The development system, obviously,
is copyrighted software and may not be given out. The run-time system, the
bits of the GameSmith library that are compiled into your game, however,
have no listed restrictions at all. This is a very nice attitude, and
definitely what professionals expect. Some compiled BASIC systems restrict
their run-time systems to some extent, and course uncompiled BASIC can't be
distributed at all.
Another concern is the integrity of your program and its artwork. When
you have external images, animations, and sounds, you may not want users
taking these for their own programs. GameSmith provides some help here.
You can lock an animation, such that other programs can't load it, and you
can check to make sure no alternate animation was substituted. Animation
files are always encrypted; the "Save Anim Final" function in CITAS does
this, preventing any re-load back into CITAS. IFF ILBM and 8SVX files can
also be encrypted on disk, and they'll be automatically decrypted by the
proper key when loaded. The encryption functions are provided, but can be
replaced if desired. While these might not fend off a determined cracker
with cryptographic experience, they're more than enough to dissuade most
users.
THE HELP BUTTON
A valid concern of any programmer is the availability of technical
support for a new programming interface. The first line of defense is, of
course, the included manual, and the 354 page GameSmith manual is fairly
complete. In the usual fashion, the manual details the use of each
subsystem (Display, Animation, CITAS, Sound, and Utilities), then details
each specific GameSmith function.
Another included resource is the set of include files themselves. Much
like the normal Amiga include files, the GameSmith include files are
commented. I have found this kind of commenting extremely valuable,
especially once you're started to understand the programming system and
getting into more detailed work.
Finally, there's technical support from Oregon Research themselves.
When you return the registration card, you're entitled to 90 days of free
support via letter, phone, FAX, or email. After the 90 day period, you can
still get free support via letter. If you want more, for a nominal fee
Oregon offers two lifetime support programs which include phone, FAX, and
email support, a newsletter, access to their BBS, and optionally, free
incremental upgrades. Obviously, their support is intended for the
GameSmith system itself, not C/Assembly programming or general AmigaOS
questions.
While the GameSmith system can be considered stand-alone (assuming you
can track down some C or assembler include files, the Fred Fish CD-ROM
series is a good place for these), you will need the standard set of
programmer's documentation on the AmigaOS itself. GameSmith doesn't
attempt to replace what the AmigaOS does well already, it's more of an
addition to it. So you'll still use Amiga routines for memory allocation,
some disk I/O, etc.
MY GAME
I went into this thinking, "hey, a BASIC-like game library for C, I'll
crank out a quickie game to go along with this review". Well, I did start
writing a game, and I have made real progress. But GameSmith isn't as
quick and dirty as your typical BASIC, and that's a good thing, really.
Because, as it turns out, GameSmith is far more powerful and considerably
faster than any BASIC I've played around with.
So my game's not accompanying this review. Hopefully I'll have time to
finish it, stay tuned to AmigaReport for news. GameSmith is certainly fun
to work with, and the idea of writing something that can approach
professional quality is invigorating. If you don't get there, it's your
idea, your artwork, etc. that's sub-par, it's not likely to be GameSmith
in the way.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The GameSmith Development System is an excellent way to get into game
development. While it might not hit the performance levels of the best
custom routines used by the top game authors, it's probably close enough
for most purposes. There's certainly a learning curve here, you're not
going crank out Lemmings on your first day with the system. But you could
eventually write something like Lemmings with it.
Of course, nothing's perfect. I did get an Enforcer hit, apparently
when a GameSmith program closes down. This should be harmless. The
GameSmith system is an evolving thing at present, so there's a good chance
this will be fixed in future releases.
While the animation system is excellent, the sound system is a bit
lacking. While it's certainly possible to build an 8SVX file that plays a
tune, some support for converting MOD or MIDI files would be real useful.
Simple tunes could can represented with several short loops and a table of
pitch and duration values, but constructing this by hand would be tedious.
The bottom line is that GameSmith is a real good idea, though perhaps
not for everyone. It's usually harder, though by no means impossible, to
learn C or Assembler, even as a first language, rather than BASIC. Well
written assembler will push a system as fast as it's capable of being
pushed, as long as the algorithms don't get in the way. With a good
compiler like SAS or DICE, C code can approach the efficiency of Assembler,
and if nothing else, good C code is more maintainable than most BASIC or
Assembler, and it's a marketable skill.
@endnode
@node DAVE.HAYNIE "Dave Haynie"
===========================================================================
BREWMASTER
===========================================================================
Dave Haynie has been involved in computers since age 12. He worked at
Commodore for over ten years, and was involved in the hardware design of
the Commodore 128 and Amigas 2000, 2500, 3000, and 4000. He's also the
author of the popular DiskSalv programs, and the creator of the
end-of-Commodore video, "The Deathbed Vigil and other tales of digital
angst". He's currently working days at Scala, Inc., and nights working on
the next DiskSalv release, surfing the nets, and writing music and the
occasional magazine article.
email: dhaynie@zeus.jersey.net
@endnode
@node REVIEW2 "Iconian 3"
@toc REVIEW
===========================================================================
REVIEW: Iconian 3 by Chad Randall
By: @{" Katherine Nelson " link KATIE}
===========================================================================
[Note: All example icons (in the IconianExamples directory) except
"BevelBox.info" have a MagicWorkbench version and a 32 color version. The
palettes are included. If the 32 color icons still don't look right after
using "ClickForColors_32", then flip to another screen, click on it, and
flip back. If that still doesn't work, I've included a ProcurePens config
file ("ProcureConfig") which lists the RGB values for the pens.]
Iconian 3 is an icon editing program for those of us who wish to express
greater creativity than allowed within IconEdit, part of our Workbench
installation. Iconian 3 is also for those of us who have no creative
ability, but wish to make our icons look reasonable well done. And
finally, Iconian 3 is for those of us that like to just screw around.
First off, it should be noted that Iconian 3 has a variable buffer size (up
to 128 X 100 in the unregistered version), a multiple-level undo feature
(the undo buffer can be up to 100k in the unregistered version), and
support for NewIcons. Iconian 3 also comes with several preset palettes
built in, including MagicWorkbench, NewIcons, RomIcons, JBCIcons,
Iconographix, and Magician. Iconian 3 can be run on the Workbench screen
or on its own screen, and can load and save preference files. Furthermore,
icon information and tooltypes can both be edited from within Iconian 3.
Among its vast array of features, Iconian 3 sports a variety of drawing
tools. There's the standard freehand drawing tools (dotted and connected),
the line tool, the empty and filled box tools, the empty and filled circle
tools, and the fill tool. Plus, the beveled box tool, the filled freehand
tool, the airbrush tool, the cut brush tool, the draw with brush tool, and
the font tool.
Skipping the familiar tools to IconEdit, we move on to the beveled box
tool. There are four basic shapes available, plus the reverses of those
shapes (recessed rather than projected), and each of those eight have
filled and open options, for a total of 16 different beveled boxes.
Unfortunately, there's no real way to tell the filled boxes from the open
boxes in the tool selection gadget (the filled ones are on the right), but
through the menu Paint/Bevel Box Type, it can be determined. At any rate,
these boxes allow for quick 3D appearances, and are most effective when the
normal view of the icon uses a projected box, while the selected view uses
a recessed box, or vice versa. The BevelBox icon included demonstrates the
styles available.
The filled freehand, cut brush, paste brush, and font tools are what
Brilliance and Deluxe Paint users would expect. Six different brush areas
are provided for ease in switching between them. The only difference with
the cut brush tool is that it can only cut in rectangular shapes. A
freehand cutting tool would be helpful in sizing down parts of program
icons to create imagedrawers and such, but I felt no intense pangs of loss
from its absence.
The airbrush tool is definitely fun to play with. It has three size
options and focus and drip options. With focus on, the random pixels that
are colored tend to be more centralized instead of distributed fairly
evenly throughout the range. The drip option creates a "wet paint" look,
with dribbles that are longer while moving vertically than horizontally. I
found that although this option was interesting, there were just too many
drips for whatever I was drawing to be recognizable. Perhaps a variable
amount of drip is in order.
A dithering option is available, which affects all of the fill and filled
object tools. The dithering can either be transparent, where the backround
color shows through, or non-transparent, where the 2 selected colors are
dithered together. Ten different levels of dithering are available, from
none to 94%. There are also horizontal and vertical bars type dithers.
One thing that I feel is missing (and was in previous versions of Iconian),
is a gradient dither feature. A gradient dither is very helpful in
creating MagicWB-like icons, and nice looking icons in general. Mr.
Randall, please put this back in your program. I miss it.
There are several ways to manipulate a brush. There is a scale option,
with halving or doubling in the x and/or y direction, the brush can be
flipped, stretched, or its handle can be changed. There are also a number
of ways to paint with a brush: matte, color, replace, complement, smooth,
and rub thru. My favorite one of these to play with is the smooth option,
which the Data icons illustrate quite nicely.
The image can be altered in much the same way as a brush. There are
options for flipping, either the full buffer area, or with the "smart"
option, just the area with paint. The image can be moved or scaled in any
direction. Also, the image can be recolored in one or more of several
reversible ways: 1.3 to 2.0, 3 to 8 plane, use 2 planes, recolor one pen
with another, and swap 2 different colors. These recoloring options alone
make Iconian 3 a helpful utility for fixing icons for the "non-standard"
number of colors, or updating icons from older programs that had the 1.3
coloring.
Before we move on to one of the most useful features of Iconian 3,
importing images, I would like to remind Iconian 3 users that when 32
colors+ palettes are used, the pointer colors are included in the palette.
If an image is imported and uses one or more of the pointer colors, and
then the pointer colors are later changed, the icon will no longer look
correct. Also, even if the pointer colors are all set to, say, black,
which is already in the palette, Iconian 3 has the habit of using the LAST
of the similar colors in the images. Therefore, while creating the icons,
change the colors in the 3 pointer places to colors that are not even close
to being in the picture you will import. A feature I would like to see in
future versions of Iconian would be the ability to set certain pens as
unusable in the images, and therefore eliminate this problem.
The image importing feature of Iconian 3 is quite useful for creating
interesting icons, thumbnails icons for pictures, or just about anything
else. Iconian 3 uses datatypes, so this feature can only be used on WB3.X
machines. It is nice to be able to import any image that I happen to have
a datatype for, and therefore I don't feel limited to any one type.
Iconian 3 can perform scaling operations while importing an image. An
image can be stretched to fit the buffer or its aspect can be changed.
Using a 1:1 aspect ratio and not choosing to stretch to fit will just leave
empty space in the buffer where appropriate if the picture does not have
the same x:y ratio as the buffer.
The images can be automatically remapped to the current palette, and there
are several different types of color quantization available when scaling.
I just used the default method, as I couldn't notice a large difference
between them.
Dithering can be enabled or disabled when importing a picture, and if
enabled, there are several different styles. I couldn't really tell the
difference between the styles, however, because of the small working area.
Perhaps the more discerning artist would be able, though. The Cat and
MaxHead icons demonstrate the differences with and without dithering. The
unselected images have the dithering off, and the selected images have the
dithering on.
In the Cat icon, the dithering makes it too fuzzy in the MagicWorkbench
version, and too yellow in the 32 color version. I found that in general,
dithering caused a lot of yellow and green pixels to be introduced, but
that is most likely just a fault with my palette. The MaxHead icon, on the
other hand, looks better with the dithering in both icons. The MagicWB
icon loses the lines on the right hand side without dither, and the colors
seem more correct in the 32 color version with dither on.
Iconian 3 is a very useful utility for anyone who needs to create icons, or
wishes to improve upon others. Even for the non-artists, the different
functions of Iconian 3 make it useful for simple changes and customization
of icons. Basically, this package is for just about everyone, and comes at
a very reasonable price ($15 US, or $10US with E-Mail address or SASE). It
is certainly worth a look or two.
Iconian 3
Chad Randall
229 S. Washington Street crandall@msen.com
Manchester, Michigan http://www.msen.com/~crandall/
48158-9680
@endnode
@node REVIEW3 "Emulation Rambler: Re-Enter tthe 64!"
@toc REVIEW
===========================================================================
The Emulation Rambler: Re-Enter the 64!
By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON}
===========================================================================
Ahhhh...sometimes it's nice to forget I'm the editor, kick back, and just
write about a topic I find fun--emulators.
We could also talk about my usage of punctuation. In the above sentence,
for the first time in memory, I've caved in to the complaints I get about
my use of dashes, and used the "proper" form of two consecutive hyphens
rather than the single hyphen some people seem to find distracting.
Now that I've gotten that out of the way, let's talk C-64 emulators.
The last time I really touched on this subject was A64 V3. Wow, that was a
while ago. A64 was in development for a long time but seems to have fallen
off the face of the planet. Perhaps because while the author did a very
admirable job of providing "modify-on-the-fly" options, the emulation
didn't multitask and didn't do a very good job of playing old games and
demos. It did come with a nice, if slow, 1541 interface, and its own
emulated ROM code, although stripping the ROM code from your 64 and
transferring it over was highly recommended.
Anyway, a few people (three, in fact) have decided that isn't a very
efficient way to do things. So Christian Bauer, Borge Nost, and Michael
Kramer sat down and created, respectively, Frodo, AXF-64, and MagiC64. All
three are currently in development (although understandably, Frodo
sometimes takes a back seat to Bauer's other emulation masterpiece,
ShapeShifter, which will be getting some MUCH deserved and MUCH overdue
coverage in the next issue of AR), and all three bring different advantages
and baggage to the party.
Frodo V1.5 from Christian Bauer
Frodo is a fully multitasking 64 emulator that aims to provide the maximum
in system compatibility (it supports EGS, CyberGraphics, Picasso, and
Merlin graphics cards) while emulating the 6510 and VIC chips of the 64 at
a high level of usability. Sound emulation is borrowed from the A64's
6581sid.library, or can be added by building a custom Zorro-II SID card.
An impressive array of specific modifications can be made to the timings
Frodo uses, to allow for special tinkering.
You'll be wanting OS 2.1 or better, some fast memory, and a REALLY fast
processor. Frodo is slow, there's really no way around it. Even the
documentation points out that on a 4000/040 the speed is roughly half that
of a real 64.
When it does get around to running programs, though, it tends to have a
high level of compatibility. Programs that halted AXF with unimplemented
opcode errors got by on Frodo. On my 030/25, sometimes I almost wished
they hadn't, but playing Giana Sisters on a 4000/040 and Spectrum card
running CyberGraphics was quite enjoyable.
Frodo is also the only one of the three emulators to provide direct
possibilities for access with real C64 floppies and printers--schematics
are included for a quick 'n dirty interface, and Bauer theorizes that the
A64 box may work. We haven't had a chance to check yet, but will by the
time the next review of these three rolls around. The program also allows
you to read AmigaDOS directories as 64 devices.
Loading from these AmigaDOS devices, even RAM:, seems needlessly slow-not
nearly as slow as a real 1541, but still rather sluggist.
For those who want to test Frodo's demo-supporting capabilities, some quick
implementations of common 64 demo tricks (DYCPs and the like) are included
WITH Frodo, for evaluation.
Frodo comes with an AmigaGuide manual, in German and English, and is
freeware.
AXF-64 Alpha 30 by Borge Nost
Unlike both Frodo and MagiC64 which provide a GUI for control settings, AXF
relies on only a few command-line options. Also, it is the only emulator
of the three that doesn't allow Amiga multitasking--and requires you to
quit if you want the Amiga back. (A64 disabled the Amiga's tasks but
allowed you to freeze the emulation and return to the Amiga through a
special keypress.)
AXF is rather sparsely documented, coming only with a 10k README, about
half of which is dedicated to update information from previous versions.
The keyboard mapping isn't explained, but is designed to be "like a real 64
keyboard" meaning shift-2 is once again your quotation mark key.
Obviously, you'll want to have some familiarity with a real 64 before using
it.
Certain other 64 traits are missing. DOS is only partially
implemented-most notably, you can't get a directory from within the
emulator, so you have to start it knowing what you want to load. There is
no implementation of the RESTORE key.
AXF's emulation uses the standard, real 64 ROMs. No utility for obtaining
them is provided, but can be found in the A64 package or typed in from the
Frodo documentation. (Nost uses Frodo as a model of sorts to spring off
of.)
AXF's aim is to provide the fastest 64 emulation possible, not the one with
the most frills. Unfortunately, I'm having a difficult time finding
software that is both compatible with AXF and faster than the other
offerings. I'll keep you posted.
AXF is now listed as Shareware, with $15 getting you a floppy and your name
on the list of donating users.
MagiC64 by Michael Kramer
The latest addition to the emulation line, MagiC64's options and features
closely parallel Frodo's (GUI layout, timing options that can be modified
on the fly, 6581sid sound, etc.) but stands out in its support of .D64,
.T64, and .P00 files.
On the PC, where 64 emulators are quite stable and quite fast, file formats
have been devised to make transferring 64 disks and files from place to
place easier. MagiC64 supports the most popular of these.
The upside is that it will be easier to acquire 64 software from online
sources, if that's your thing. The downside is that support for AmigaDOS
and real-1541 devices isn't there. This can be a big problem if you have
no way to generate these file formats. (There is a program on the PC that
will convert from the 64's ZIPCode format into .D64, but none for the
Amiga.) However, for disks with filenames that are AmigaDOS-illegal (such
as those which consist of a directory-style slash), the formats are
lifesavers.
Graphic display uses the Amiga display database, but did not function on my
A2410 EGS emulation, forcing me to use NTSC modes. Speed was, well, less
than spectacular on the 030/25.
MagiC64 allows you to use built-in ROM emulation, but as usual, real ROMs
are recommended.
While file compatibility is reasonable, I found the keyboard emulation the
least reliable (with AXF's handling slightly better response-wise than
Frodo's). Characters were eaten, added, and returns ignored much of the
time.
The PAL/NTSC 64 emulation switch is a feature unique to MagiC64.
MagiC64 is $25 worth of Shareware, which gets you the ability to save your
preferences and hear sound. It is worth noting that Frodo provides both
for free...
There's no "best" emulator, and if you're serious about 64 emulation, it's
well worth your while to investigate all three-provided you have at least
an 030, a few megs of fast RAM and a good deal of patience, not to mention
some way to get 64 software on your machine. They can be found on the
Aminet site of your choice in pub/aminet/misc/emu.
As for these emulators versus A64, they haven't accomplished the 680x0 code
recompilation A64 featured, nor the built-in ML monitor, nor the extensive
serial/parallel support, nor the GEOS support. But a programmer's work is
never done...
@endnode
@node CHARTS1 "Aminet Charts: 9-Oct-95"
@toc FTP
| The most downloaded files from Aminet during the week until 9-Oct-95
| Updated weekly. Most popular file on top.
|
|File Dir Size Age Description
|----------------- --- ---- --- -----------
term-030.lha comm/term 669K 0+V4.5, MC68020/030/040/060 version
VChk718.lha util/virus 146K 1+Version 7.18 of Virus_Checker. Amiga
term-libs.lha comm/term 126K 0+V4.5, XPR and XEM libs
term-doc.lha comm/term 216K 0+V4.5, AmigaGuide format and library
term-extras.lha comm/term 215K 0+V4.5, HydraCom, ARexx scripts, sound
Eldritch.lha game/role 371K 0+V1.30 : Top-view adventure hack-and-
JaysTale.lha docs/misc 72K 1+Jay Miner's tale of the Amiga
Unzip512x.lha util/arc 97K 0+UnZip 5.12, Info-Zip Portable Un-zip
DGalaga26C.lha game/shoot 544K 1+Galaga clone with lots of extra feat
term-roadmap.txt comm/term 28K 0+V4.5, Introduction to the distributi
term-locale.lha comm/term 273K 0+V4.5, Locale and blank catalog table
term-main.lha comm/term 671K 0+V4.5, Distribution for all Amigas
DTpref20.lha util/wb 75K 0+Prefs-Editor for Datatypes with GUI
NetMail-12.lha comm/mail 109K 0+E-Mail program with GUI, groups, fil
Dig_Universe.lha biz/demo 3.3M 0+The Digital Universe demo, Astronomy
Motor_Duel.lha game/shoot 317K 0+Updated version of BattleCars (2 plr
NewMode_V39.lha util/cdity 63K 0+Screen promoting utility
ABackup501.lha disk/bakup 270K 0+ABackup 5.01
SSpeed11.lha util/moni 338K 1+Very good Speedtester! About 100 tes
ShapeShift3_2a.lha misc/emu 240K 2+Macintosh II emulator, V3.2a
| The highest rated programs during the week until 9-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