@database "ar401.guide"
@Node MAIN "Amiga Report Online Magazine #4.01 -- January 16, 1996"
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  January 16, 1996            @{" Turn the Page " link MENU}             Issue No. 4.01
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Subject: BLAZEMONGER rules I was overjoyed to see the news about the BLAZEMONGER port. I've been a big fan for many years. That was in a previous life, of course, and now I'm a man (though a floor mat would be a better description) - you didn't really think that fans could write e-mail, did you. I was especially enthusiastic about the invention of the MUTILATION USER INTERFACE. I've always wanted to be able to configure the appearance, size, and location of every monster in BLAZEMONGER. Unfortunately until now BLAZEMONGER's "Customer Service" department only enabled me to configure the appearance, size and location of my own facial and bodily features. Now my only question is: when will BLAZEMONGER be ported to Weirdos 95. I still keep my A500 for playing BLAZEMONGER, but all my friends tell me that I must forget the Amiga (and OS/2) and put Weirdos 95 on my PC to play the latest games. They make a very convincing point (some of them probably freelance for the BLAZEMONGER "Customer Service" department). But if I move to Weirdos, I won't be able to play BLAZEMONGER. What should I do? --- The answer seems simple enough. Simply insert the BLAZEMONGER (any version) floppy into the drive on your Weirdos 95 box. The resulting matter-antimatter reaction should be enough to deter you from any further considerations of Weirdos 95 use. If that isn't enough, contact your local BLAZEMONGER sales office, who I'm sure will be happy to, uh, encourage local retailers to carry more BLAZEMONGER-platform compliant software. -Jason @endnode @node OPINION1 "Defining an 'Amigan'" @toc OPINION =========================================================================== Defining an "Amigan" By: Guy Nathan =========================================================================== "You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one..", the Amiga's return can be compared to this line from a famous song. Many said the Amiga couldn't survive Commodore's demise, but through it all Amiga users kept believing, having faith, in something which was much more to them than the average PC. It has been said only the Amiga could've died and come back again, any other platforms would have merely died off all together. And this feeling has been echo'd by Amiga users, corporations which support the Amiga, and industry critics themselves. So on this return of the Amiga I will attempt to define an Amigan. Those of you who have kept up with Amigas over the years, who have read magazines, participated in Amiga Computer user support groups, participated in mail echos such as comp.sys.amiga areas on the internet, and Amiga related echos through Fidonet and Amiganet, will know most likely of the sort of feeling certain Amiga users have about their machine. In this article I will discuss some of these feelings expressed in the things mentioned above, and other matters which I believe help to define an Amigan. As a bit of background, I will start off by first discussing what the Amiga was designed to be. The Amiga was designed to be the Ultimate Games Machine, and was developed and built by a dedicated bunch of computer experts in 1982-5, who wanted to make a machine which people would think of as something they would be proud to own. The bunch of experts were made up of people such as RJ Mical and Jay Miner(RIP), who designed part of the Amigas custom chipset, and who is known to many as the "father" of the Amiga. Due to a lack of funds originally supplied by a trio of doctors, the development company could no longer afford to continue development without the aid of being bought out by a larger company. To make a long story short as to who bought what, when, and where the company which ended up with it in the end is as many of you know was Commodore. When Commodore got hold of it, they changed several aspects of the machine, and introduced a Disk Operating System based on Tripos. This was coded by Bristol-based Metacomco, a company which only prior to that had developed for mainframes. This helped the machine to change from a purely games machine to a proper personal computer. Since the A1000's release there have been subsequent releases of newer, "better", and faster Amigas. HAM mode found in Amiga's wasn't supposed to have existed, and Jay was going to remove it, but at the last minute he changed his mind (due to external influences) and kept it. The best way to characterize an Amigan, is probably to meet one yourself and talk about their feelings about the Amiga PC. An Amigan, is a computer user who has an above average knowledge about computers in general, as opposed to your average Mac and PC user who buy a computer because it has the label "Multimedia" on it, or "Free 5 hours user of the Information Superhighway". An Amigan, is generally a person who is not afraid to explore the limits of their machine and try to take it one step further. They are innovative, creative, well opinionated, and many things more. The average PC or Mac user, when they run into a problem, will generally ring a company for support to come in and fix it, where as an Amigan will usually solve the problem themselves in a small amount of time, and continue going on whatever they were doing prior to it. Those of you who have read Amiga magazines and participated in Amiga mail areas, will be all too familiar with Amiga Vs's X Machine debates. An Amigan is the type of person who is not afraid to speak out in a crowd of PC and Mac "experts", and voice their opinion in regards to the Amiga Vs's PCS and Macs. They are generally well equipped with facts and other related information about the Amiga and machines on other platforms, whether it be information on a Pentium (tm), a Mac Quadra (tm), or even a PowerPC. There is a real 'flame' in an Amigans heart to defend their machine through thick and thin, and not falling for the sheep syndrome when times are tough. The real test for Amigans has been the demise of Commodore. The Amiga gameplayers (not to be mistaken at all with Amigans), were the first to go, and went off and jumped platforms. Other non-dedicated Amiga users went next, attracted by the likes of Doom I and II, Excel, and Word 6/7, even though chances are, they wouldn't use any more features than on their Amiga counterpart software which is also far cheaper. Other people who were real Amigans unfortunately had to leave for other platforms, not by choice but due to financial and job matters. The most recent test for Amigans has been ESCOM'S (tm) buyout of Commodore International (tm), and the formation of ESCOM's "Amiga Technologies" division. Opinions on what they can provide the Amiga with, has been heavily disputed, and left some Amigans rather heartbroken at the thought of it. As a result of this, in very recent times these people have jumped platforms as well, but being Amigans, as they still are, they have kept their Amigas for use, whenever they feel like it. An Amigan who jumps platform are usually the smartest of the PC and Mac users around. Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting up with an Amigan who was one of the first Amiga owners in the world (the Amiga was purchased from the first batch of Amiga 1000's to ever hit Australia), and was also one of the very first Amiga Developers here in Australia. They told me of the experiences they had with meeting Jay Miner, and other "famous" people in the Amigas history, with much joy and enthusiasm as if it was only yesterday, praising these people who put the "heart" in the Amiga. After meeting with them I felt a link to them in a way, like a family, ethnic community, race, or religious link because they were another Amigan. An Amigan is not determined by race, religion, or anything else like that, but by ones feelings towards a machine which makes you think it really has a heart, and your ready to defend that machine against all odds. In magazines you read of people who say, "I have an Amiga but my friends have bought PCs. I tell them the Amiga is a better machine and they say 'Ha! That crappy thing?? It cant do anything but play some really old games, it doesn't even have doom!' (No jokes about ShapeShifter running DoomII go here =) ). But I know, and im right when I say my Amiga will provide me with much more enjoyment than their PC will ever". It is this dedication which makes an Amigan. Those who have noticed the number of programs on the Amiga which are freely distributable, will know that a lot of Amiga authors do it for the love of their machine, gaining no profit what so ever, but maybe some fame. It is this sort of dedication, willingness to provide something for nothing, that makes an Amigan. The programs which are Shareware, are usually products which are of commercial standard, but at a non-commercial price. On the PC, I have found many applications which are freely distributable on the Amiga, come at a great expense on the PC (eg. Screenblankers, general purpose utilities :^)). Amigans know that although initial costs of hardware for their machine far out weighs that of the existing competition, when it comes down to buying applications after purchasing their machine, the Amiga user usually comes out fairly to well infront. For example, the price of Final Writer 4 or WordWorth 4, if they were PC only applications would cost the user many times more than what is currently charged, and although some Amiga users complain that software is too expensive, they would find if they were after the equivalent on a competing platform the costs would be higher. The Amiga is STILL the cheapest low-cost, true-multimedia, true-multitasking machine with an OS which isn't system resource heavy. Before I go on though, it must be said that words alone can't describe the feelings involved here. Is it Magic? Who knows? Amiga Tech's new "Amiga Magic" pack may be a good way to describe the Amiga, Magic. The announcement of a PPC (PowerPC) Amiga has left some un-sure whether this will be just another jazzed up "Multimedia" (note quotes) PowerPC (a bebox? =) ), or a real Amiga, with a big step-up in the processing power department and probably in the graphics department too. I don't believe I can judge whether an Amigan can be determined by which one of the above two they choose to believe. But with Vapourware, something founded by Commodore ;), Amiga users have over time become more sceptical about 'promises' made, and things to be released 'real soon' which change into being released days, months, years later, or maybe in the end, never. What ever happens, the release of upgrades for our Amigas are more than welcome, as people's patience wades more and more for the Amiga to be able to come once again up to scratch against the competition, or to once again be innovative and do for the Computer industry again what it did back in '85. I believe all Amigans would support this idea. Some of us Amigans are stupid, actually we almost all are! Why? Because we defy Economics, defy Business logic, defy Industry standards, defy common sense (?? :)), and more. But especially the fact we spend more on our machines to turn them into powerful beasts, than Mr/Ms/etc average PC owner would. We spend amounts on accelerators which would buy us much faster PC CPUS, we spend amounts on Graphics cards which are a fraction of the price on PCs, we spend more for hardware especially made for the Amiga when cheap clones exist which can do more for less cost on the PC. PC owners can buy their P5's for less than we spend on getting a 060 Upgrade CPU for our Amigas. But all costs aside, all dollars/pounds/etc spent, PCs still don't come up to scratch in many areas. Their multitasking is still far from perfect, although their "pseudo" multitasking in Win95 is noticeably improved. Above all PCs are still limited by their XT-originated architecture, some thing that with all the marvels of modern PC technologies, they still have not totally overcome. An Amigan recognizes this, and as a result sticks with a machine which still truly does most of what they want, and can run Shapeshifter to do things it doesn't ;). It is without argument though, the PC has way more 'flashier' games now-a-days (not necessarily better), with their 'c00l' interactive movies (ie. spot the section where you actually get to make a decision what to do next and watch the pretty sequences), and the like, and obviously a lot more games are released for this 'Business' platform =) than on our humble Amigas. But despite this Amigans still keep their machines, and some have gone out and bought a Next Gen console for the purposes of playing those 'c00l' games found on the PC, and the rest of us have generally been happy with our Colonizations, Pinball Illusions, Fears, our Gloom, our Alien Breed 3D's, our Lemmings, and so on. Amigans live in a world dominated by PCs, Macs, UNIX Boxes, and so on. We don't have as many magazines as other platforms do, we don't have as much support by companies as other platforms do, so what do we have? We have Amigas, we have magazines dedicated to our machines, we have a general ignorance about our machine in the general public, okay, so we don't have it all, but what counts is that we've stuck by this wonder of a machine, and still care about it just as much. Ignoring what the competition has is just ignorance, once you have learnt about the competition, you can then go and say how bad it is =). But when it comes down to defining an Amigan, in reality I can't, neither can any other article attempt to, what I have given you here though is a bit of an insight into what I believe might constitute an Amigan Vs's anyone else. Feel free to discuss this on c.s.a.* if you wish, debate over it, whatever. Hopefully we'll see some responses to this in the letters to the Ed section in future issues of AR (or any other place this article may be copied/duplicated to/in). Down with the Be/Pc/Mac - Long Live the Amiga! Additional Note: I give full permission for this article to be re-printed in any magazine (electronic or print), but it must be an Amiga-related one, and have someone preferably email me first to tell me please. @endnode @node NEWS1 "Amiga-Link/Envoy Price Reduction" @toc NEWS ======================================================================= AmiTrix PRESS RELEASE January 02, 1996 ======================================================================= Amiga-Link/Envoy Networking Package Price Reduction --------------------------------------------------- AmiTrix Development is pleased to announced they have just reduced the price of their Amiga-Link/Envoy networking package for all Amigas. Amiga-Link is a complete solution to your Amiga peer-to-peer networking needs. With the included software and hardware, you can share your hard drives, printers, and also run other network applications as well. The package is compatible with all Amigas, using the external floppy port for maximum compatibility across all models, while keeping the rest of the ports available for their intended uses. The Amiga-Link package comes with both the standard AmigaLink software and also the Amiga Envoy software. The Amigalink software's advantage is that it works with Amiga WB 1.3, providing compatibility with older machines. Amiga Envoy requires 2.04 or higher, but provides superior reliability, device sharing, and an API that allows for the development of third-party networking applications, with many already available. New MSRP for the basic 2 unit package is $275.00 US, or $350.00 CAN. Expansion kits, floppy port splitters, cable options and accesories are also available. Dealer and Educational Institution inquiries welcomed. For more information or ordering AmiTrix products, contact us at: AmiTrix Development, 5312 - 47 Street, Beaumont, Alberta, T4X 1H9 Canada Phone or Fax: 1+ 403-929-8459 (Please leave your mailing address on phone messages when requesting) (information, or contact us via email at the addresses shown below.) Email: sales@amitrix.com or: support@amitrix.com http://www.networkx.com/amitrix/index.html @endnode @node NEWS2 "Persistence of Vision v3.0" @toc NEWS FREE RENDERING PROGRAM NEARS COMPLETION FOR AMIGA [Persistence of Vision is a cross-platform project to create a free rendering package. We hope to run a review in the near future. -Jason] Persistence of Vision RayTracer verison 3.0 is currently nearing completion on most platforms, including an updated command-line version for Amigas. A GUI version is being worked on also (GUI renderer, as yet no modeller) for release soon thereafter. The 3.0 Amiga version is being developed with full support for OCS/ECS/AGA and CyberGFX displays, and will take advantage of windowing and color sharing on WB3.0 systems. Currently beta-testing is being done on versions for 68020,68020/881,68030/882, and 68040. For release the 68020 plain version will probably be downgraded to 68000 version, for usability on any Amiga system (provided enough memory is present). Information on the features new to V3.0 and some sample images are contained in an archive called 'pov3prev.lha' in the gfx/3d section of Aminet. Information is also presented on the groups FTP and WWW sites, 'ftp.povray.org' and 'http://povray.org'. The team asks that inquiries as to release date be withheld: as soon as it's done it will be on the net, Amiga versions will hit Aminet within hours of completion. Amazing Computing/Amiga magazine's December issue highlighted an article about this renderer, but covered only version 2.2, and failed to mention that 3.0 is under beta testing, expected to be released early 1st q quarter 1996, and incorrectly lists Dave Park as the Amiga representative (he left the team after V2.2) Joel NewKirk 102627.1152@compuserve.com @endnode @node NEWS3 "Pentium-Class Bridgeboard" @toc NEWS NEW PENTIUM-CLASS BRIDGEBOARD APPEARS? According to Anti-Gravity Products of California, Eagle Computer of Germany has created a new, unique Pentium-class bridgeboard for Amiga 4000s, which they will distribute in North America. The board actually consists of a custom A4000 daughtercard and custom tower case, which the A4000 motherboard must be installed in. The new daughtercard gives the Amiga seven Zorro-III slots and two video slots, as well as a dedicated (to PC) PCI bus of 4 slots, one of which is inline with the special Pentium processor card. The bridging software will share certain input devices and a clipboard between the Amiga and PC sides. For more information, contact Anti-Gravity Products, 800-7-GRAVIT. [We would welcome contact information for Eagle as well. -Jason] @endnode @node NEWS4 "PRETIUM Personal Finance" @toc NEWS PRETIUM Amiga Personal Finances Software Innovative Digital Dynamics introduces PRETIUM, a personal finances software package for the Amiga. It is designed to be as simple to use as writing in your checkbook, but advanced enough to take advantage of the power of your Amiga. To record a transaction (such as a deposit or withdrawl from your checking account), simply enter the information the same way you would record the transaction in your checkbook. Pretium keeps your transactions sorted by date and check number and displays a running balance. To better organize your finances you can assign categories and subcategories to transactions and enter extra information in the memo field. To mark a transaction as cleared just double-click it and the transaction is marked with a checkmark and the on-screen cleared total is instantly updated. If you want a clearer picture of where your money is going, you can have it print a report at the click of a button. You can generate categories reports, account reports, or reports summarizing several accounts at once. Reports can be limited to transactions over a range of dates and sorted by amount, date, or category. You can view a report on-screen or send it to your printer. It also handles more than just checking accounts. You can use Pretium for keeping track of: * Checking accounts * Saving accounts * Credit card charges and payments * Petty cash funds * Cash transactions In fact, you can work with up to 100 separate accounts on-screen at one time. Pretium also imports and exports Quicken data files. *** FOR MORE INFO SEE *** PRETIUM Financial Software for the Amiga Pretium requires AmigaDOS version 2.04 or better. It is hard drive installable, or it may be run from a single floppy. A printer is optional but but recommended. Price: $49.95 (includes shipping & handling) Please send a check or money order to: Innovative Digital Dynamics 209 Brom Bones Lane Longwood, FL 32750-3821 Fax: 407-331-3175 E-mail: davido@grove.ufl.edu (fast reply guaranteed!) *** Support Amiga software development *** Quicken is a registered trademark of Intuit Inc. @endnode @node NEWS5 "ImageFX Driver for Snappy" @toc NEWS PLAY, INC.'S SNAPPY TO GET AN IMAGEFX DRIVER? The Snappy is Play, Inc.'s first product. Play was formed by the union of two largely Amiga companies and a splinter group of Newtek employees. The Snappy has no Amiga software support. However, it may come to pass that Nova Design, creators of ImageFX, will obtain the necessary code from Play to create an ImageFX Scanner module for the Snappy, allowing access to the $200 device for Amiga users. Play's marketing department can be contacted at: markr@play.com 916-851-0800 Nova Design can be reached at: kermit@cup.portal.com. @endnode @node NEWS6 "'Wonder Power' A1200 Packs" @toc NEWS WONDER COMPUTERS TO OFFER "WONDER POWER" AMIGA 1200 PACKS IN NORTH AMERICA January 11, 1996, Ottawa, Canada -------------------------------- Wonder Computers' retail division today announced the new, limited edition "Wonder Power" Amiga 1200 bundle in North America. Despite the current unavailability of NTSC Amiga 1200s, Wonder has obtained a number of previously unsold Commodore Amiga 1200s and built a high-power, high-value Amiga workstation around them. The Wonder Power pack includes the following: A New Amiga 1200, NTSC standard, boasting a DKB Cobra 68030/28mhz processor and 4 additional megs of Fast RAM for a total of 6 megs of onboard memory. A 210 meg Seagate internal 2.5 inch hard drive, with a top transfer speed of nearly 2 megs/second. A NEC 3D Multisync monitor, capable of displaying all of the A1200's AGA modes. (Refurbished by NEC, with a 1 year warranty) Two games: Nigel Mansell and Zool 2 on floppy. The Amiga 1200 is backed by a 1-year Wonder Computers warranty. The price of the Wonder Power Amiga 1200 is $1499 Canadian (Approximately $1099 US). Contact your nearest Wonder Computer retail outlet for ordering information. @endnode @node NEWS7 "Alien Breed 3D Competition" @toc NEWS THE GREAT ALIEN BREED 3D II COMPETITION Do you have an overactive imagination? Are you plagued by visions of bug-eyed aliens with writing tentacles and large teeth? Are you regularly pursued by terrifying monsters in your dreams? YOU ARE? EXCELLENT! We are looking for a few good aliens for Alien Breed 3D II - the latest in the stunning Alien Breed series. If you fancy yourself as a sprite artist who knows how to use DPaint (or any other Amiga animation program), you could find your way into Alien Breed. Not only will the winner have his/her/its sprite used in Alien Breed 3D II (name subject to change), but they will also be credited in the manual and receive all sorts of wonderful Team 17 goodies! What you need to do Produce animations of your alien which fit into the following specifications : * 256 Colours * maximum size 128 by 128 pixels * 6 frames of animation for each of the following views : + Front view + Left view + Right view + Back view + Death * 2 frames of movement for : + Aiming & shooting (or about to bite & biting, depending on your alien) E-mail your entries to Phil Quirke-Webster. Alternatively, you can send them by post to : I've got an alien that wants to meet you Phil Quirke-Webster Project manager Team 17 Software Longlands House Wakefield Road Ossett W Yorkshire WF5 9JS @endnode @node NEWS8 "AmigaTech UK Relocation" @toc NEWS Amiga Technologies PRESS RELEASE ------------- Date: 10 January 1996 Amiga Technologies are to relocate their offices from Maidenhead to Stansted as from Monday January 29th 1996. Full address and telephone numbers will be given once new telephone lines have been established as we will occupy part of the Escom building, close to Stansted Airport, which are more spacious and prestigious than those we have currently. Stansted has always been a consideration but Maidenhead allowed the company to become up and running more quickly last year for the re-emergence of Amiga computers. As there is a team of approximately forty people in Germany supporting areas such as finance, product evaluation and technical support, some staff will not relocate. John Smith / Jonathan Anderson [In plain English, all but two Amiga Technologies UK staff are no longer working for the company. -Jason] @endnode @node FEATURE1 "Amiga Internet Terminal" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== The Amiga as the Internet Terminal By: @{" Addison Laurent " link ADDISON} =========================================================================== This is an open letter to Amiga Technologies, developers, and users. Currently, one of the hotter Topics in the internet magazines, is the concept of the "Internet Terminal". Similar to the old dumb terminals hung off of mainframes, but with access to the internet, and one would presume some basic built in software. Running programs remotely, through a graphical interface. While many current internauts laugh at such a supposition, in large measure, that is where the use of the WWW is taking us. A browser connects, downloads graphic data, and the server handles the vast majority of the CPU needed in case of programs. With developments such as JAVA, the load can begin to be distributed, and a "Internet terminal" becomes more feasible. Programs can be loaded from a remote server instead of the local drives. The question is not if this will come, but when, and how it will look. One need only look at the growth in CGI-BIN programming on web pages to realise the potential. There are currently several companies scrambling to make a Internet terminal, aiming for a artifically defined $500 limit in cost. One that can be purchased, hooked up, and connected. No fuss, no muss. I would like to propose that one of the greatest opportunities for the Amiga exisits right now. We almost have that box. Now. Not in development. Not in theory. Currently. The Amiga 1200 is almost perfect for that description. With a very minor amount of work, I feel that it could _be_ a defining standard for said Internet Terminal. The current basic configuration has aged, however, to where it is not quite competitive. It would require a minimum of 4M FAST RAM, and a 33 megahertz 68030. Easily available from several distributors. A built in 250 megabyte hard drive. Again, easily done. The only complex part is the graphics. AGA isn't fast enough. We need a display similar to that enjoyed by those of us with Zorro buses and graphics cards. I have heard that there is a 1200 tower out, that converts a 1200 motherboard to a tower case with Zorro-III slots. This proves the feasibility of passing the Zorro-III information to a set of chips. While it would be a hack, a kludge, it would allow _fast_ development and deployment. For the Amiga to get into the forefront, fast movement will be essential. Using any of the current chips used in third party graphics cards would simplify porting CyberGraphics to said card - which would then bring the basic Amiga to a level to be competetive with the rest of the field. This raises the complexity considerably, but not above the level of ingenuity already exhibited by Amiga developers. Is this impossible? I don't think so. Improbable? Possibly. Something on the scale of this would require Amiga Technology's resources. Package deals with chains. Marketing. Distribution. _Store_ sales. Mass merchandising. Remember the C-64? Things that a single Amiga Distributor can't guarantee, without Amiga Technology's help. And, if they did what I (and others) propose, what would it gain us? Why bother? Simply put - its a niche the Amiga can own, and defend. Of all the "Internet Terminals" I have heard described, ALL are being developed from the ground up. All will require new teams of developers, new tools, new everything. The Amiga's got it. Now. Developers. Compilers. 1200's to test on. Internet utilities _out there now_. Not in 6 months. Now. This turns the whole argument against the Amiga on its ear - usually you hear "not enough developers developing quality software". Given a brand new niche, suddenly the Amiga has loads of experienced developers with impressive resumes. A single glance at Aminet should be enough for any doubters. Instead of a completely new machine, which has to built support gradually, you have a machine with Internet resources that are stunning. Places for new users to visit and download software. peripherals on the market to buy. Upgrade paths to newer, bigger, better machines. A reason for dealers to stock computers, parts and have expertise. A standard basic unit, suitable for basic use. What would the competition be? I cannot think of any current competition which would not require at least 8 megabytes of RAM (not counting graphics cards) to be able to perform decently. And lets not forget, the Amiga _can_ display on the TV, at the worst. $250-500 monitor not needed. SUN? Very nice machines, but no experience in the consumer market, and it would be hard to get a machine to do UN*X (where their experience lies) well with a $500 sale price. WinTel boxes? Again, the $500 sale price. With a completely re-written OS, an Intel chipset could do well. But that would require said re-written OS, losing many of the development tools, programs, and compatibility. Converted Game Machines? This, I think, would be the greatest threat. Developers for games are out there. Several of the Chipsets are much faster that the 1200s. Distribution channels exist, and are being used. Marketing is underway, and with effect. How many have been planned with a keyboard and more memory, I do not know. I do not write this to establish single-handedly the idea. I've heard similar ones for a while. I am trying to drum up support, and particularly get a dialog started. This opportunity will not last forever. I doubt there is an Amiga owner who does not know about the previous missed opportunities. The HP cable boxes. The Sears distribution. The list goes on and on. I, and I feel most other Amiga owners, do not want to see another opportunity to which the Amiga is so well suited pass us by without a shot at it. @endnode @node REVIEW1 "Review: WBStartup+ V2.5" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== REVIEW: WBStartup+ V2.5 By: @{" Katherine Nelson " link KATIE} =========================================================================== WBStartup+ by John Hughes is an easy-to-use utility that lets you enable and disable the execution of the different programs in your WBStartup drawer more quickly and easily than before. It also allows you to use your Workbench while it loads your boot-time programs, which is great for those of us in a hurry. It is somewhat hard to classify this type of utility. Some people would have no use for it at all, if they consistantly wish to load everything they put in their WBStartup drawer. For others, like myself, who may need to make sure one or two programs are not loaded because they may conflict with something that is to be run, it can be quite time-saving and well worth using. The utility comes with its own installer, so starting to use it is hassle-free. It places the main program and two new drawers inside the WBStartup drawer. One of the drawers is for the programs that should be enabled at boot time, and the other drawer is for those that are not to be loaded for the next boot/reboot. The only drawback to this setup is that when you install another program that you wish to run at boot time, you must place it in the "Enabled" drawer, rather than the main WBStartup drawer. (It will still run if it is in the main drawer, but WBStartup+ will then not have any control over it). If a program comes with an installer, you most likely have to take that extra step on your own. To use the program once it is installed, you open up your Prefs drawer, and run WBStartup+ Prefs. This reveals a window that lists everything in both the enabled and disabled startup drawers, with a check in front of the enabled ones. To the right of the name of the program is a column which lists its STARTPRI value, found also in the tooltype area of the program's icon. This value can be changed by clicking on it in the WBStartup+ Prefs program, or just by changing the tooltype value in the icon. Note that the STARTPRI only determines the order in which the programs are to be executed -- it has nothing to do with the running priority. The program list can be sorted either alphabetically or by priority, whichever you prefer. This is a nice touch in case you're tired and want to know the order in which your programs will be run and you don't want to figure it out for yourself. A nice ability is to be able to create several different defaults, with different combinations of startups. To do so, you select the items for the group you wish to create, then choose "Create Group" from a menu option, and you have it. Then, if you need to use that configuration for your next boot, you just choose "Select Group" from the menu in WBStartup+Prefs, and it sets it up for you with less hassle. I have settings for "Minimum", "Normal", and "Extra". The minimum is so that just about everything I have is guaranteed to run. The "Normal" is for everyday use, and "Extra" is for a more flashy Workbench. The downside, is that in order to use one of these groups, you have to save the configuration. So if you're going to be using the "Minimum" group that you created (if you have done so). then that group will always be loaded at boot until you change it back to "Normal". I personally am somewhat forgetful, so it would be nice to be able to choose to only use settings for the next boot only, rather than for all following. Another nice feature is that you can select one of the programs in the WBStartup+Prefs list, and then choose the "Icon Window" from the menu. This brings up the Information in the .info file for the selected program, allowing you to make your changes more quickly and with less trouble. It is somewhat interesting that you can not bring up the icon window for WBStartup+ itself, especially because there are one or two features of the program itself that can only be changed in the tooltypes, rather than from the Prefs program. The tooltypes for WBStartup+ include options for the paths of the enabled and disabled drawers (allowing you to place them anywhere if you choose), whether or not to show a progress window when loading the individual programs (see more about the progress window below.), whether or not the progress window should have a background picture (for WB 3.X only), and the name of the public screen on which to open. There are also tooltypes in the Prefs program, which include the paths to the enabled and disabled drawers. I think that this repetition, while no doubt making the programming much easier, is kind of... silly. But it's a small point. There is also an option for the default listing of the programs to be alphabetic or in STARTPRI order. Anyway, about the progress window. I, personally, like it. It does lend somewhat of a "Mac" type feel to your boot, with the icon of the program currently being loaded shown next to a progress bar. Others may say that it just adds fluff, and has no real purpose. It can be disabled, so either way, it's not a problem. Contributing to the Mac feel, but of even greater use, I think, is the fact that if you hold down shift during boot, WBStartup+ stops any of the boot programs from running. I have used this feature more than a couple times, and I think that it is actually one of the more important aspects of the program itself. One feature that I would really like to see added to this useful utility, is the ability to have a boot-menu as well if desired. Personally, I don't wish to have a boot-menu each time I start the computer, because more often then not, I'd be choosing the same configuration, and would just get irritated at the delay. However, if it were implemented in such a way that the left shift key, instead of disabling all the programs, brought up a list of the user-defined "Groups", allowing you to choose one, I would be a very very happy camper. This would also eliminate the problem of reseting your preferences each time you wanted to boot with a different config, and the fact that you have to boot up your machine to change what happens when you boot up your machine. WBStartup+ is Postcardware, so it's well worth the price. This is a good utility to have if you have use for it. It also has the potential to be an even greater one. WBStartup+ V2.5 John Hughes 901 Highview Rd. East Peoria, IL 61611 USA johughes@heartland.bradley.edu @endnode @node REVIEW2 "Review: Supra 28.8k FaxModem" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== REVIEW: Supra 28.8k FaxModem By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== 28.8k modems are getting cheap enough to give them a serious look. Supra is one of the most respected names in the business, so when they wanted me to review their modem I was all for it. Months of using it later, I'm FINALLY getting around to writing the review. The Supra comes as two different packages: A Mac or a PC bundle. You'll want the PC bundle as that one will come with a 25-to-25 serial cable compatible with the Amiga. As cables go, it's nice. The modem also ships with some PC telecom and fax software, but you're on your own as far as getting Amiga software goes. Note, however, that you're not entirely on your own as an Amiga user when it comes to this modem. Supra sold a number of Amiga-specific hardware products in the past and unlike many other companies, they haven't forgotten the business of the Amiga community. You'll find an Amiga tech support number listed in the manual, and they have Term on their ftp.supra.com FTP site, as well as GPFax drivers. The modem itself is housed in a small rectangular case, virtually identical to their 14.4k model. The power button is front-mounted, as are four flashing LEDs and a small LED letter display, used for a variety of purposes. The letter display indicates your state of connection, any errors that arise, and updates you on the current connect rate and compression. The internal flash ROMs are constantly being updated. While Supra has in the past created Amiga-specific flash programs, a recent revision of the romcode gave the modem a special self-flashing mode which allows you to upload new ROMs TO THE MODEM itself. The latest ROM is nearly two months old and still has no Amiga flasher, and the FTP site encourages Amiga users to either use a different machine to flash or use the built-in mode. The Supra supports the official v.34 high-speed protocol. The built-in speaker is about as annoying as any modem's, but recent ROM updates have made the speaker act more "silent" while truly off. (Earlier, even an atm0 would not stop the modem from clicking when dialing was initiated and hangups were made.) As far as connections go...well, real world usage is the best way to test. Real world use of the modem in an MLink network setup to Xnet at 28.8k tends to give me in the range of 2700-3000 usable CPS. (That is, I can have an FTP session pull down 2600-2800 CPS while text-based clients continue to update). Real world benchmarks: Machine 1 is an A3000, 030/25, with Supra 28.8k FaxModem, running Terminus, using artser.device. Machine 2 is an A1200, 020/14 stock, with Supra 28.8k FaxModem, running VLT, using serial.device. Thanks to Steve Judd for Machine 2 for testing. Tests are done on crosstown phone lines of questionable quality, which resulted in a connect rate that fluctuated between 26 and 24kbaud. Machine 1 -> Machine 2 at 57.6k serial rate ------------------------------------------- File Type Time of Transfer Average CPS --------- ---------------- ----------- 283529 byte file, LZX'ed 1:43 2753 Result reflects 3 errors in transfer. We then set the serial rate down to 38.4k. Machine 1 -> Machine 2 at 38.4k serial rate ------------------------------------------- File Type Time of Transfer Average CPS --------- ---------------- ----------- 282285 byte file, text 1:20 3529 755549 byte file, LHA'ed 4:13 2986 Machine 2 -> Machine 1 at 38.4k serial rate ------------------------------------------- File Type Time of Transfer Average CPS --------- ---------------- ----------- 113549 byte file, LHA'ed 0:44 2581 282285 byte file, text 1:21 3485 Remember that the rates reflect a very non-ideal situation, in which our modems were unable to negotiate a true 28.8k connection to each other over the phone lines. The modems do renegotiate on the fly, and watching the 26 and 24 displays flip is not an uncommon sight for me. Is the Supra a high-performance product? In my experience, yes. I'm certainly getting significantly increased transfer rates over a 14.4k modem. Our benchmark test between two Amigas returns some results that may be lower than you'd expect, but the A1200 was hampered by a lack of accelerator or fast RAM. (It's in the shop.) The company is still well aware of the Amiga and makes an effort to accomodate its users. At the same time, they put out a high-quality piece of hardware at a decent price--I've seen mail order offers around US$190. If you're looking to give your Amiga a communications boost, and want to get continued support for your machine, the Supra 28.8k FaxModem is a good choice. Supra Corporation 7101 Supra Drive SW Albany, OR, USA 97321-8000 (503) 967-2400 Main line (503) 967-2493 AMIGA & Other Products {9A-12N M-F} supratech@supra.com, amigatech@supra.com @endnode @node REVIEW3 "Review: Digita's Organiser v2" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== REVIEW: Digita's Organiser v2 By: @{" William Near " link WILLIAM} =========================================================================== Have you ever forgotten an important birthday, anniversary, project deadline, or possibly a school paper due date? If it's one of the former then you will never hear the end of it from the family member or loved one whose birthday or anniversary you forgot -- if it's one of the latter then you may lose your job or find that your grade has fallen due to your forgetfulness. Maybe it's just an important address that has slipped your mind or you need to know what magnitude the star Betelgeuse has in the Orion constellation! Enter Digita's Organiser with the answer to all your prayers. Digita's Organiser is a combination address book, calendar, daily diary and task manager all rolled into one neat package. When you start up the Organiser program you are presented with a screen that resembles a daily planner opened to a yearly calendar with a set of icons running across the top and down the left hand side of the screen. Click tabs for Calendar, Diary, Tasks, Addresses and Supplements are located on the side of the current page. Clicking on any one of the days in a particular month will instantly take you to the diary page for that day. From here you can enter a specific event for that day or just browse that day's events. If you decide to enter an event then you simply click on the diary event detail's icon and enter the information that is required for that specific event. The information that may be entered consists of any single one or combination of: title, notes, priority, end date, start and end time, alarm, repeat frequency, and auto start options. You could, for instance, set an important meeting's starting and ending time along with important notes associated with that meeting and have the Organiser remind you a week, or even a day, before the meeting's date. You can even have the Organiser automatically start up a word processor or make a backup of your hard drive on a specified date by using the auto start feature. Once you have entered all the information into the diary event's requestor you can either exit this process or enter another day's events into the Organiser. When finished, all the information you have entered will be inserted into the correct dates in the Organiser's Diary. There are four views for Diary, Task, and Address pages depending on whether you want to see one, three, four, or seven day's listings per page on the screen. There is also an "at a glance" icon that toggles between just showing the first line of information or all lines of information per event on each day in the Organiser. Flipping to the next or preceding page in the Organiser is as easy as clicking on the lower outside edge of either the left or right hand page currently displayed. Deleting or repeating a specific event is only a mouse click away, so is the option to search for a specific field or other data contained in a particular day's listing of events. An undo option has also been included. Another feature of the Organiser is the entry of Tasks. Tasks can be anything you'd like them to be, such as a report that is due on a certain date. You simply enter the pertinent data for the task at hand and the Organiser will insert it into the due date. When the task's due date has past, the task will turn red in the Organiser and the number of days that the task is overdue will be displayed. There is also a check box which you can click in once the task is completed. This can be very handy when having many tasks due on the same day. The Address book feature of the Organiser is just like the type you will find in the local supermarket. The letters of the alphabet appear in click tabs down the right hand side of the screen. Clicking on any one of the letters will take you to the specified page in the Address book. Entering address information is a simple process of clicking on an icon and entering the information in a requestor. My only complaint about this area of the Organiser is that it is geared with the UK and Europe in mind. There is no entry area for a state instead there is an area for county and country! I just used the county area to enter the state for the address. A link feature has been implemented whereby you can link related items together. You could, for example, link an address to a birthday and then have the Organiser remind you to buy a birthday present. The final area of the Organiser are the Supplements. Supplements are those sometimes handy pages of a daily planner that contain such things as: weights and measures, important holidays, first aid procedures, etc. While the Organiser comes with loads of such information, the majority of it is again geared towards the UK and Europe. Information specific to North American is very sparse. While many of the included Supplements are quite informative they are wasted on most North American users of the Organiser. The Organiser also offers a printing feature that can be used to print out any of the section's information in a whole plethora of options. Digita seems to have thought of every conceivable way that you may want to print the information contained in the pages of the Organiser, including mailing labels! I did find one glitch in the printing process, however. If the printer is not turned on when you click the print icon then the Organiser program seems to have a hard time dealing with this. The usual resume/cancel print requestor will pop up via AmigaDOS, but clicking on cancel will not halt the process. Clicking on the Organiser's stop button in the print window seems to have no apparent effect either. I was effectively locked out of the program -- only a reboot seemed to remedy this! Context-sensitive on-line help is just a press of the HELP key or click of an icon away. The Amigaguide help function is very thorough and easy to understand. A tutorial section is also included. Digita's Organiser seems to be a very complete package for the businessperson, student, or just plain old Joe who wants to keep track of important dates and events in their lives. My only gripes would be the lack of North American Supplements, the annoying way of entering the day and then the month (although you can enter it as month-day, but the program will automatically reverse them in the requestor) in the event requestor, and the lack of a state entry area in the address book. They also need to look into the printing problem I pointed out earlier. If Digita would release a new version with the above suggestions implemented (why not ask what country the user lives in when installing Organiser and implement the appropriate data entry layout and Supplements?) then they would have an absolute winner in this category on the Amiga platform. As it stands, Digita's Organiser is a nearly perfect product. @endnode @node REVIEW4 "Review: Virtual Karting" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== REVIEW: Virtual Karting By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== When Steven Rennocks materialized on comp.sys.amiga.games, it was the answer to a hope I never quite knew I had. Steve was promoting his new Amiga publishing company OTM and their first release, Virtual Karting. For someone to pop out of nowhere into what has been a shaky gaming market at best and release a new product takes guts--the kind of guts the Amiga needs. As publishers lose interest in the Amiga, it is not so much important to "convince" them that they've made a mistake as it is to make sure NEW publishers get into the business. OTM has done just that, and it's a good thing. VK was hyped and hyped and hyped, given favorable previews in several magazines, and finally released. At its heart, VK is a racing game based around professional karts. The author himself is a kart driver and reportedly was striving for exceptional realism when he created the game. You take the place of a kart driver, with a choice of a 100 or 125cc engine. That may not sound like much, but when you consider the kart doesn't have much weight you understand how it flings you across the track at such high speeds. Your view is configurable, with a camera either just behind your kart (Pole Position style), with adjustable angle and horizon settings, or a top-down view. You choose your input device from among digital or analog joysticks or the mouse, and can choose automatic (recommended) or manual shifting. The game itself can be summed up in one word--"difficult." A pre-race "helicopter" camera flying over the track is supposed to give you clues to your racing strategy, but even with that in mind, the word of the game will be practice, practice, practice. You'll spend most of your first races going off the track and watching helplessly as your opponents zoom past you. It is worthwhile to run yourself into the water, just to see the race-ending result. But the computer is a merciless (and unconfigurable) opponent and you'll need to get up pretty early in the morning to have a chance of beating it. While I'm pleased with the attempt to make the race truly realistic, I cannot accept the fact that going offroad even the slightest bit automatically drops your speed to 15 km/h. VK was designed in AGA, with the goal of providing realistic-looking 25 fps performance on a stock A1200. And author Fabio Bizzetti got it--at a very high price. Bizzetti discovered that if he dithered the screen in black, he could generate an acceptable display and get the speed he wanted. Acceptable, perhaps, to some. But the black-gauze dithering technique looked awful the first time I saw it, on a C-64 demo designed to give the illusion of over 100 colors. That was on a 1702 monitor, no less. On a 1084 or multiscan monitor, it's positively annoying. On a TV, apparently, the effect is minimal. But the option to enable a fully rendered display just isn't there, which means the action flies by on our A4000/040 but looks like the monitor is very dirty. A VK demo is available on Aminet, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a racing challenge. If you discover that the thrill of the chase, not to mention the adventure of learning to drive a different sort of vehicle, is for you, then by all means patronize OTM and buy a copy of the game. I find the display extremely distracting, and find it takes away from what should be a really enjoyable game. However, I may just be overly picky. The manual, while extremely spartan, is printed in English, German, French, and Italian. Distributed by Guildhall Leisure and published by OTM: Phone: 44 1827 312 302 Fax: 44 1827 670 10 e-mail:otm@otmltd.demon.co.uk @endnode @node REVIEW5 "Review: Gamers' Delight 2 CD-ROM" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== REVIEW: Gamers' Delight 2 CD-ROM By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== Let's see, 1070 games for $40 works out to be...something really small per game. That's the reasoning that Schatztruhe is hoping will pervade the thinking of Amiga CD-ROM owners, at least. And it's not such a bad idea, putting tons and tons of games and game demos on a CD-ROM for a reasonable price. The problem is that the bulk (1000) of the games are just the Aminet "game" directory. They don't hide it, which is actually a good thing, all things considered. There's even the familiar Aminet search icon to let you look for what you want. The other 70 are, allegedly, full versions of commercial titles. Maybe I don't get out enough, but I can say without reservation that I have never seen a single one of these games sold as a commercial title. Some are old enough that they would be before my time, others (even 1994 and 1995 titles) I have heard nothing about. Be that as it may, some of them are worth playing, to be sure. A reasonably nice front-end in English or German leads you through the selection of the 70 highlighted games with a short description and instructions, and I actually got the occasional surprise of being able to quit one game to play another through the menu. It's a shame that the menu is in PAL and makes no effort to let you switch out of NTSC, though. For the Aminet games, the AmigaGuide interface familiar to Aminet CD-ROM owners is used. Functional and quick, as ever. All things considered, the Aminet collection is going to be the way to go. The problem there is that if you're an Aminet user with a decent enough connection or a regular subscriber to Aminet CD-ROMs, having the collection of Aminet games on this CD-ROM is totally superfluous, so you're actually only buying 70 new games, at best, for the cost of the CD. Which now works out to be...well, something still really small but this time it's measurable, and I'm not sure the Space Taxi clone or Galaga 94 are dying to be played that much. There is something to be said for having information at your fingertips and not having to store hundreds of megs of Aminet games on your hard drive, or being able to load them off your CD-ROM at 600k/second instead of a modem connection of, at best, 3k/second. If that's 200 times more convenient for you, splurging on Gamers Delight 2 will be worthwhile, and will certainly keep you occupied. On the other hand...Aminet 9's focus is on the games archive, which means it contains just about everything this CD does, minus those 70 special titles. Something to think about... Published by Stefan Ossowski's Schatztruhe Distributed in North America by Amiga Library Services 610 N. Alma School Rd. Suite 18 Chandler, AZ 85224-3687 800-804-0833 info@amigalib.com @endnode @node REVIEW6 "Review: Meeting Pearls III CD-ROM" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== REVIEW: Meeting Pearls III CD-ROM By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== The bank slip is back! Andrea Schmidt and friends decided one day it would be a good idea to put together a low-cost CD-ROM full of good, useful, and new freely redistributable Amiga software, sell it, and encourage people to send in donations if they liked it, making it more convenient by including a direct bank transfer slip in the CD case. Sharecompilation, it was called. That worked well enough that they decided to do it again. That worked even better, so they've done it yet again and are already planning a fourth Meeting Pearls CD party. 650 megs is a lot of stuff. So, what do you get? You get a more friendly and helpful installer than I remember in the past. MP I, in particular, was a bit overly insistent on proper assigns and installation. However, Achtung!--when using Novice mode, it defaults to German if it sees a CD-ROM filesystem it doesn't like (the OS 3.1 version, for example) You also get an AmigaGuide interface for browsing the CD-ROM. Sound familiar? Well, yes and no...it's not a clone of the Aminet interface, it actually allows you to configure virtually all of your preferences (viewers, MetaTool use, etc.) through AmigaGuide. Some very clever scripting is going on here... The FindPearls utility is comprehensive, allowing more "attractive" searching than plowing through a directory utility or using the AmigaGuide interface. It comes in handy if you're not up for a marathon session of exploring the CD. Also of note is the special CD-Write demo included. The version included will allow you to CD-Write only to the MP III CD, but will give you an idea of the workings of the program and of course try to convince you that you can't live without it. Pictures and text from the meeting itself are included, along with bios on many of the Meeting Pearls admins, for those who really want to see Angela Schmidt on a unicycle. But there really are more useful items on the CD than that. Although it's not necessarily everyone's cup of tea, PasTeX 1.4, all 96 megs or so of it, is included on the disc. At the other end of the horizon, the game selection is pretty small but largely consists of the best available in free redistribution. Some HTML documents are included, driven by an AMosaic 2.0 frontend. Roughly 10% of the CD's archives are text files of some kind, including Amiga Reports 3.01 through 3.18 with an included text search tool. Picking up one of these for the search tool alone is a good idea--more than once, I've searched through a tool such as this one to find out "just when did we do that review, anyway?" AmiTCP 4.0 and a selection of useful tools and add-ons are provided for the network-minded. My heart skipped a beat when I saw what appeared to be a registered version of Holger Kruse's PPP driver, but it requires a keyfile which, obviously, is NOT included. If you're curious, a fan, or have discovered the bizarre phenomenon known as Baconizing (attempting to trace actors and their film appearances back to Kevin Bacon), you'll be interested in the complete Internet Movie Database. The disc overall seems very application, development, and text oriented, but a respectable amount of music and pictures and the aforementioned games are provided for variety's sake. The layout of the "good stuff" is roughly the same as the Aminet structure, of short, easily recognizable subdirectories. There may not be a lot of love lost between the Meeting Pearls and Aminet camps, but at least there is some sort of agreement on logical structure. There are only so many ways to call a "game" directory a "game" directory... In all, MP III is quite professionally put together, with a lot of attention given to providing an eclectic blend of Amiga software, even if the fun stuff does give a little way to the likes of the mammoth PasTeX. The Pearlers have come a long way since the first disc, and I wish them continued success. The bottom line on this CD is that for the suggested price of US$12 (15 DM), it's really, really hard to say no, unless your CD-ROM tower is overflowing. Published by Stefan Ossowski's Schatztruhe (say that 3 times fast) Veronikastr. 33 45131 Essen Germany ++ 49 201 788 778 @endnode @node REVIEW7 "Review: R3 (Registered)" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== REVIEW: R3 (Registered) by Bruce Webster By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== Thrust! Thrust! Thrust! I got Thrust as part of a two-game el-cheapo Firebird disk years ago on the 64. Sadly, the Thrust disk has been corrupted. But Bruce Webster has captured the fun of that game and mixed it with his own rather bizarre sense of humor to create the eminently playable R3. For those of you unfamiliar with the genre, R3 puts you at the controls of a spaceship. In R3, your goal is to fly your spaceship across a large virtual world to retrieve cargo for the aptly named Nice People of the Universe or something like that. The bad guys, who have an unpronouncable name, have stolen it. Standard plot. At your disposal to start is 1000 credits, which you can use to buy one of the 3 Class 1 vessels. (Classes 2-5 are out of your price range at the start.) Luckily for you, the introductory levels are easy, because these vessels, with quite graphic names, aren't much to rely on for defense, offense, or maneuverability. You get paid for blowing up bad guy installations such as guns that shoot at you, as well as retrieving the cargo. Each ship has a fuel tank, a cargo carrying capacity, a certain amount of shields, a missile launcher with a certain number of ordinance, and a gun or three. The Schmu, the top of the line vessel, has an extremely powerful engine, a small turning radius, two high-power fast-repeat guns, and more missiles than you can count. The Fart, the bottom of the line vessel, has a tough time getting off the landing pad, makes horrible noises (I'm not making this up), and you're likely to run into whatever you're trying to kill before its gun is in range. One or two players can work to rescue cargo through the game's many levels, or they can face off in a Dogfight game with levels designed specifically for the purpose. In Dogfight, each player gets an initial generous outlay of cash and is sent off to fend for themselves. The goal is to kill the other guy, or alternately to let him kill himself. Big money can be had here just racking up destroyed enemy installations. The game has a split-screen, where the left hand side (in 1-player mode) shows the outside view of the ship and its surroundings (the game playfield is 2 dimensional, you can move up, down, left, right, but not "in") with the right side as the Missile-Cam, which tracks your missiles. This isn't horribly useful in most cases, but if you want to know if enemies lurk around a corner or down a passageway, firing a missile through isn't a bad idea. The camera stays locked at the missile's detonation or impact point until another is fired. In 2-player mode, each gets a side of the screen, with no missile cams. Under each display is a diagram of your ship showing damage incurred when shields drop to zero. When this happens, you'll want to immediately find a red cross station which will repair some or all of your damage and shield loss. Ironically, your home base will only refuel you and repair your system damage but will not recharge your shields. Military cutbacks, I guess. Although the author is from New Zealand, for some reason he smiled upon North America and wrote the game in NTSC. It runs best in 1 meg or more of RAM (1 meg CHIP highly recommended) but will work in a 512k 1.3 machine, with lousy sound effects. You really ought to have a better machine than that, though. The graphics are ECS, but still attractive. Flying through water is fun. Flying in zero gravity is even better. Despite its silliness, R3 is really a great game. It is not without flaws, the most obvious being that you can get yourself stuck in a wall (which is often rectifiable but occasionally not), and the fact that sometimes certain explosions will leave "shadow" explosions behind somewhere else. These don't get in your way, but look ugly. What do you get for registering? For your US$15 or equivalent, you get the ability to play all of the included levels in the shareware package, as well as all of the levels in the recently released add-on pack. That gives you hundreds, all told, between 1 and 2 player and dogfight levels. You also get a very clever and relatively easy to use level editor. Nearly infinite enjoyment if you have the time. You also get Tritus from Davin Pearson, a 3-player competitive Tetris clone that has to be seen to be believed. At one point, I found myself much more drawn to Tritus than to R3--and I like R3. You can play against the computer or 1 or two human opponents. Certain diabolical weaponry comes into play, such as the slimy creature that eats your lower bricks, a huge nasty thing that shakes the screen and gives your opponents lines of junk to deal with, and a way to disable the walls between you and your opponents and drop YOUR pieces on THEIR stack in nasty ways to screw them up. If there was a way to make Tetris a combat sport, this is it. Two games, a low price, and two registration locations. It's a pretty good deal. To register, send your (real) name and address and the registration fee TO: Ellen Johnstone (pounds preferred) 11 Abbey Rd Scone Perthshire Scotland U.K. PH26LW OR Bruce Webster (NZ$ preferred) 29 Tika St Christchurch New Zealand 8004 EMAIL: b.webster@student.canterbury.ac.nz @endnode @node REVIEW8 "Review: TurboCalc 2.1 CD-ROM" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== REVIEW: TurboCalc 2.1 CD-ROM By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== Back in AR 3.15, we had a look at TurboCalc 2.0, which for the price (US$40) was an unbeatable deal for a very usable spreadsheet. The deal just got a lot better. TurboCalc 2.1 CD-ROM has emerged at the ridiculously low price of US$15. What do you get? A rather innocuous looking CD-ROM which contains the TurboCalc 2.0 binaries in English, German, French, and Italian, and full online documentation in English and German. Yes, for $15, you give up having a printed manual. There has been a recent push to put more application software on CD-ROM, and this is an excellent way to do it. After all, TurboCalc 3.5 is out, published by Digita instead of TC 2.1's publisher, Schatztruhe. For those looking for new features and options, going with the newer version is worth investigating. However, since TC 2.1 also comes with the TurboCalc 3.5 demo, it's a no-lose "try before you pay a lot" concept. For a lousy $15, you get a CD-ROM with a quality application and a peek at the next version. If you're interested in getting more, fine, upgrade. TC 2.1 is an incredibly cost-effective way of delivering software--one that more publishers should look into. Sure, there's no box, no printed manual, and you need a CD-ROM drive. But you get thorough online documentation and really should have a CD-ROM drive anyway, if for no other reason than to catch deals like this. If you think you may need a spreadsheet, you probably do. It's worth your while, then, to pick up a copy of TurboCalc 2.1. If it meets your needs, you've just gotten a great deal. Published by Stefan Ossowski's Schatztruhe Distributed in North America by Amiga Library Services 610 N. Alma School Rd. Suite 18 Chandler, AZ 85224-3687 800-804-0833 info@amigalib.com @endnode @node REVIEW9 "Ami-File Safe Filesystem" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== REVIEW: Ami-File Safe Pro filing system from Fourth Level Development By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== Filesystems scare me. I've had more than my share of run-ins with corrupt root blocks, weird checksum errors, and lots of lengthy re-validations. I'd really rather just leave them alone. But Fourth Level Development came up with AFS, and IAM sent me a review copy, so with my heart in my throat, I bravely created a whole new partition so I wouldn't damage any of my data. :) Ami-File Safe sells itself on the following ideas- 1. It's faster than FFS. 2. If your machine crashes or blows up during disk access, your partition won't have to be revalidated. 3. Did we mention fast? AFS is sold in two configurations, the User and Pro versions. The User restricts your installation in size--not partition size, DRIVE size. You also are allowed fewer partitions. Pro, the version we are reviewing, has unlimited usage. It's also considerably more expensive--$40 vs. $100 (or equivalent). But if you're going to invest, you may as well go with the unrestricted package. No point in finding out you need to buy something twice... Installation of the package is pretty benign. After that, you're free to install a new partition christened AFS: and format it. You'll be up and running in no time. But I have to take time out here to enter a major complaint. I got my hard drive partition up and running DESPITE the manual, not because of it. For something as major and system critical as a new file system, I'd like to hear the hows and whys, in detail, of its functionality, even if I don't fully understand it. AFS asks you to put your data in its hands with 13 pages of documentation, and it never really ventures into the "how and why" area, just "what." So far so good, but forewarned is much more confident. AFS recommends you use at least 50 buffers. Actually, the documentation basically demands it. So you may find yourself using more memory than you might have chosen to otherwise, but buffers do tend to be useful. AFS hard drive partitions can be made bootable--this is something to consider for me, because the biggest cause of my machine crashes come from my DH0: partition. However, call me a wimp, but I'm just not willing to trust my system files to 13 pages of documentation, despite its impressive performance on a storage drive. I've reinstalled my OS too many times for that. AFS does come with floppy version, and there is an AFS demo that allows floppy sharing among those who don't own AFS. AFS claims to be exceptionally good with huge directories. I honestly haven't noticed a big performance difference, except instead of hitting the hard drive for directory information, AFS seems to have it cached away in memory. It still took a considerable amount of time to bring up the larger listings. Down to benchmarks... For those who absolutely LOVE benchmark tests, here's your big chance. Click @{" here " link BENCH} for the entire DiskSpeed 4.2 rundown. (Note that DiskSpeed is unable to generate CPU ratings on the AFS drive) The test system is my trusty A3000 with standard 030/25, 2 megs of chip and 8 megs of fast RAM. The drive is a Quantum Fireball 730 on the A3000's SCSI port. Is it fast? Well, the directory tests for AFS in general beat the hell out of FFS. On virtually every read/write/create test, AFS scores higher, and once the higher buffers come into play, the difference is astonishing. But benchmarks can be so...sterile. So here's a real-world test, a copy of a really large file from RAM to each partition, and between the two. Test: 4483434 byte file (text), the Aminet 9 file database. From RAM to: FFS: 10.12s AFS: 6.39s From AFS to FFS: 12.87s From FFS to AFS: 6.44s Here, with no disk caching of any kind in place, AFS again looks to be a whole lot faster than FFS. The upshot: AFS is an excellent high-speed performance filesystem, which I do recommend highly if you are frustrated with your current hard drive performance. Remember that the A3000's controller, while it supports SCSI-II commands, does not take advantage of the impressive SCSI-II speed enhancements, yet speeds well in excess of 1 meg/second were being piped out of the filesystem in testing. For the brave at heart, a utility is enclosed that will automatically convert your FFS partitions to AFS. Good luck! Published by Fourth Level Developments afssales@flevel.co.uk 31 Ashley Hill Montpelier Bristol, England BS6 5JA tel: 0117 985 4455 fax: 0117 955 9157 Distributed in North America by Intangible Assets Manufacturing http://www.iam.com info@iam.com 828 Ormond Avenue Drexel Hill, PA 19026-2604 USA tel: +1 610 853 4406 (orders only) fax: +1 610 853 3733 @endnode @node BENCH "AFS vs. FFS Benchmarks" @toc REVIEW9 MKSoft DiskSpeed 4.2 Copyright © 1989-92 MKSoft Development ------------------------------------------------------------ CPU: 68030 AmigaOS Version: 40.68 Normal Video DMA Device: dh1: Buffers: 30 Comments: FFS drive CPU Speed Rating: 1372 Testing directory manipulation speed. File Create: 46 files/sec | CPU Available: 40% File Open: 72 files/sec | CPU Available: 28% Directory Scan: 193 files/sec | CPU Available: 21% File Delete: 142 files/sec | CPU Available: 17% Seek/Read: 74 seeks/sec | CPU Available: 60% Testing with a 512 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 89152 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 28% Write to file: 96192 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 28% Read from file: 103488 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 21% Testing with a 4096 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 392893 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 46% Write to file: 464896 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 46% Read from file: 569344 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 37% Testing with a 32768 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 576095 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 64% Write to file: 720488 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 67% Read from file: 974848 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 60% Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 917504 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 65% Write to file: 1139756 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 73% *Read from file: 468114 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 30% * - Seems to be an anomalous reading. Testing with a 512 byte, MEMF_FAST, WORD-aligned buffer. Create file: 82752 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 20% Write to file: 85120 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 22% Read from file: 87936 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 17% Testing with a 4096 byte, MEMF_FAST, WORD-aligned buffer. Create file: 275968 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 21% Write to file: 310784 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 18% Read from file: 307200 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 11% Testing with a 32768 byte, MEMF_FAST, WORD-aligned buffer. Create file: 360800 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 24% Write to file: 419267 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 20% Read from file: 427408 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 8% Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_FAST, WORD-aligned buffer. Create file: 469063 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 15% Write to file: 525524 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 12% Read from file: 477609 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 7% Testing with a 512 byte, MEMF_FAST, BYTE-aligned buffer. Create file: 85760 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 26% Write to file: 32960 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 46% Read from file: 95552 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 20% Testing with a 4096 byte, MEMF_FAST, BYTE-aligned buffer. Create file: 96256 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 33% Write to file: 34671 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 48% Read from file: 105472 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 24% Testing with a 32768 byte, MEMF_FAST, BYTE-aligned buffer. Create file: 89186 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 37% Write to file: 34695 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 48% Read from file: 107240 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 25% Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_FAST, BYTE-aligned buffer. Create file: 95325 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 35% Write to file: 34044 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 49% Read from file: 106812 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 25% Testing with a 512 byte, MEMF_CHIP, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 89280 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 27% Write to file: 95744 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 26% Read from file: 103936 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 19% Testing with a 4096 byte, MEMF_CHIP, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 390656 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 40% Write to file: 459264 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 39% Read from file: 569344 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 27% Testing with a 32768 byte, MEMF_CHIP, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 577536 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 54% Write to file: 716041 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 55% Read from file: 980588 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 42% Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_CHIP, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 927094 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 49% Write to file: 1142595 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 53% Read from file: 1121643 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 50% Testing with a 512 byte, MEMF_CHIP, WORD-aligned buffer. Create file: 76288 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 20% Write to file: 80768 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 20% Read from file: 83840 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 16% Testing with a 4096 byte, MEMF_CHIP, WORD-aligned buffer. Create file: 227978 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 18% Write to file: 254976 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 14% Read from file: 264704 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 11% Testing with a 32768 byte, MEMF_CHIP, WORD-aligned buffer. Create file: 289009 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 18% Write to file: 324958 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 13% Read from file: 358209 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 6% Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_CHIP, WORD-aligned buffer. Create file: 356746 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 9% Write to file: 384422 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 7% Read from file: 395482 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 5% Testing with a 512 byte, MEMF_CHIP, BYTE-aligned buffer. Create file: 81152 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 24% Write to file: 32576 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 45% Read from file: 88704 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 19% Testing with a 4096 byte, MEMF_CHIP, BYTE-aligned buffer. Create file: 71528 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 44% Write to file: 31677 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 50% Read from file: 80384 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 37% Testing with a 32768 byte, MEMF_CHIP, BYTE-aligned buffer. Create file: 68074 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 47% Write to file: 31647 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 50% Read from file: 81583 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 37% Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_CHIP, BYTE-aligned buffer. Create file: 68385 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 47% Write to file: 31145 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 51% Read from file: 83370 bytes/sec | CPU Available: 36% Average CPU Available: 32% | CPU Availability index: 439 MKSoft DiskSpeed 4.2 Copyright © 1989-92 MKSoft Development ------------------------------------------------------------ CPU: 68030 AmigaOS Version: 40.68 Normal Video DMA Device: dh4: Buffers: 200 Comments: AFS Test CPU Calibration shows that CPU availability tests would be inaccurate in the current system state. No CPU Speed Rating -- CPU % not available. Testing directory manipulation speed. File Create: 126 files/sec File Open: 235 files/sec Directory Scan: 1443 files/sec File Delete: 226 files/sec Seek/Read: 67 seeks/sec Testing with a 512 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 276544 bytes/sec Write to file: 322624 bytes/sec Read from file: 108352 bytes/sec Testing with a 4096 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 528384 bytes/sec Write to file: 561152 bytes/sec Read from file: 635904 bytes/sec Testing with a 32768 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 1462272 bytes/sec Write to file: 1634314 bytes/sec Read from file: 1626112 bytes/sec Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 1650536 bytes/sec Write to file: 2181819 bytes/sec Read from file: 1966080 bytes/sec Testing with a 512 byte, MEMF_FAST, WORD-aligned buffer. Create file: 269056 bytes/sec Write to file: 321088 bytes/sec Read from file: 96640 bytes/sec Testing with a 4096 byte, MEMF_FAST, WORD-aligned buffer. Create file: 522240 bytes/sec Write to file: 556544 bytes/sec Read from file: 337920 bytes/sec Testing with a 32768 byte, MEMF_FAST, WORD-aligned buffer. Create file: 572009 bytes/sec Write to file: 590231 bytes/sec Read from file: 492537 bytes/sec Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_FAST, WORD-aligned buffer. Create file: 626389 bytes/sec Write to file: 647269 bytes/sec Read from file: 530529 bytes/sec Testing with a 512 byte, MEMF_FAST, BYTE-aligned buffer. Create file: 233344 bytes/sec Write to file: 263936 bytes/sec Read from file: 103872 bytes/sec Testing with a 4096 byte, MEMF_FAST, BYTE-aligned buffer. Create file: 369664 bytes/sec Write to file: 458240 bytes/sec Read from file: 459776 bytes/sec Testing with a 32768 byte, MEMF_FAST, BYTE-aligned buffer. Create file: 839680 bytes/sec Write to file: 880640 bytes/sec Read from file: 835584 bytes/sec Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_FAST, BYTE-aligned buffer. Create file: 942029 bytes/sec Write to file: 1015808 bytes/sec Read from file: 961408 bytes/sec Testing with a 512 byte, MEMF_CHIP, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 264192 bytes/sec Write to file: 305984 bytes/sec Read from file: 107136 bytes/sec Testing with a 4096 byte, MEMF_CHIP, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 487424 bytes/sec Write to file: 511488 bytes/sec Read from file: 616448 bytes/sec Testing with a 32768 byte, MEMF_CHIP, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 1306624 bytes/sec Write to file: 1638400 bytes/sec Read from file: 1626112 bytes/sec Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_CHIP, LONG-aligned buffer. Create file: 1928490 bytes/sec Write to file: 2187253 bytes/sec Read from file: 1969308 bytes/sec Testing with a 512 byte, MEMF_CHIP, WORD-aligned buffer. Create file: 210560 bytes/sec Write to file: 283200 bytes/sec Read from file: 88448 bytes/sec Testing with a 4096 byte, MEMF_CHIP, WORD-aligned buffer. Create file: 435200 bytes/sec Write to file: 456192 bytes/sec Read from file: 282112 bytes/sec Testing with a 32768 byte, MEMF_CHIP, WORD-aligned buffer. Create file: 395679 bytes/sec Write to file: 403838 bytes/sec Read from file: 400556 bytes/sec Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_CHIP, WORD-aligned buffer. Create file: 425080 bytes/sec Write to file: 436906 bytes/sec Read from file: 426746 bytes/sec Testing with a 512 byte, MEMF_CHIP, BYTE-aligned buffer. Create file: 198080 bytes/sec Write to file: 225216 bytes/sec Read from file: 98048 bytes/sec Testing with a 4096 byte, MEMF_CHIP, BYTE-aligned buffer. Create file: 342016 bytes/sec Write to file: 355328 bytes/sec Read from file: 353792 bytes/sec Testing with a 32768 byte, MEMF_CHIP, BYTE-aligned buffer. Create file: 545454 bytes/sec Write to file: 563136 bytes/sec Read from file: 563136 bytes/sec Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_CHIP, BYTE-aligned buffer. Create file: 592944 bytes/sec Write to file: 618724 bytes/sec Read from file: 633198 bytes/sec @endnode @node REVIEW10 "Aminet 9 CD-ROM" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== REVIEW: Aminet 9 CD By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== Aminet's Christmas release is out, and appropriately enough, Santa is on the cover. I'm pretty sure it's just an image from somewhere rather than Urban Mueller in a big red suit. Anyway, following closely on the heels of Aminet Set 2, Aminet 9 puts all of the archive's games on the CD-ROM, including 5 aging commercial titles that you're not supposed to give away. Hey. Wait a second. This sounds awfully familiar... Yes, released at just about the same time, Aminet 9 offers just about everything, except the 70 "special commercial" titles, from Gamers' Delight 2. In addition to the ~190 or so megs of compressed games, Aminet 9 boasts a slew of material more recent than the 4-disc Aminet Set 2 (to be reviewed in AR 4.02, backwards though that may be) and a superset slew of stuff more recent than Aminet 8. Older chart-topping material is included as well to round out the disc to a comfortable 628 compressed megs. The "new since Aminet 8" category is not specially indexed, but the "since Set 2" is. The former is explained as being because of the large amount of new material (except the game archive), but considering the number of "top download" material included, a special index would have been nice to have for completists. Nothing has changed much in the interface. AmigaGuide as ever with external prefs, you now get a lot of new mod file descriptions, only when viewed in their individual directory. Which is too bad, since the playlist is really convenient. Speaking of mods, it seems that more than usual are on this particular CD, which is not necessarily an unwelcome feature--just unusual. In fact, as sheer space goes, the music directory far outweighs the other major directories-nearly 100 megs, while its closest competition, docs, trails at 75 megs. Most of the 75 megs in docs are the docs/etext directory, the Project Gutenberg archives. The 5 commercial games on the disc are indeed from Gamers' Delight 2, and are fairly nondescript. You may have a good time in Jumpman for a while, but for me their inclusion was less interesting than the registered version of Delitracker Aminet disc owners got recently. Some 50 megs of demos are included, categorized generally by what will and will not work on an A4000/040, which is a nice touch. Unless you're IV'ed to the Aminet, it's tough to beat the convenience of having it for yourself on CD-ROM, and the price, which hovers around US$20, isn't bad at all for the ease of use and promptness of the material. Aminet 9 doesn't come with the best "gifts", but then again I remember the days when it didn't come with any "gifts" at all, and the CDs were still good. Published by Stefan Ossowski's Schatztruhe Veronikastr. 33 D-45151 Essen Germany ++ 49 201 788 778 stefano@tchest.e.eunet.de @endnode @node CHARTS1 "Aminet Charts: 01-Jan-96" @toc FTP | The most downloaded files from Aminet during the week until 1-Jan-96 | Updated weekly. Most popular file on top. | |File Dir Size Age Description |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- Gloom_Deluxe.dms game/demo 575K 1+One level demo of Gloom Deluxe. WebMaker1.0.lha text/hyper 72K 1+HTML Pages Maker (using MUI3.x and O xtrndemo.lha game/demo 680K 0+XTreme Racing Net Demo MagiC64.lha misc/emu 352K 0+The fastest C64 emulator for Amiga V WebMaker1_0.lha text/hyper 72K 0+HTML Pages Maker (using MUI3.x and O ABackup510.lha disk/bakup 299K 0+Backup software w/ GadTools GUI mcx236.lha util/cdity 51K 0+Multi Function Commodity NT70.lha hard/hack 4K 0+72hz NTSC monitor driver WORKS! MagicPtr10.lha util/cdity 51K 0+HighRes Busy Pointers.Includes Anim MPEGIntuition.lha gfx/show 115K 0+Ver 2.3 MPEG with SOUND (GUI 4 mp & MagicCX12.lha util/cdity 623K 1+Great modular commodity system PNG_dt.lha util/dtype 79K 11+Datatype for PNG pictures. V43.1 Visage.lha gfx/show 146K 1+Picture viewer for OS 3.0+. V39.4 thor222_main.lha comm/mail 790K 0+Offline reader, main archive (requir VMM_V3_3.lha util/misc 267K 1+Virtual memory for Amigas with MMU ar322.lha docs/mags 111K 1+Amiga Report 3.22, December 18, 1995 duck.lha game/shoot 199K 0+A fun little shoot em up ADMail.lha comm/mail 62K 1+GUI EMail package, v1.7 (updated) FW_Tables.lha util/rexx 20K 0+Powerful FW-Macro to create tables V mui31usr.lha dev/gui 771K 5+MagicUserInterface V3.1, user files | The highest rated programs during the week until 1-Jan-96 | Updated weekly. Best program on top. Please rate all the programs you | download. To do so, send to aminet-server@wuarchive.wustl.edu : | RATE | where is the file you want to judge and is a mark from 0..10 | with 10 being the best. You can rate several programs in one mail, but | don't rate your own programs. Example: RATE dev/gui/mui23usr.lha 8 | |File Dir Size Age Description |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- imdbDiff951222.lha biz/dbase 704K 0+Diffs for the Internet MovieDatabase IPDialv19.lha comm/tcp 93K 4+SLIP dialer; stdin/out terminal prog DiamondCave2_3.lha game/misc 563K 1+The ultimate Boulder Dash Clone V2.3 ZXAM20b.lha misc/emu 494K 21+ZXAM Spectrum Emulator v2.0b bs131.lha util/boot 49K 5+Try it now! No BootScreens, but sele Remind1.52.lha util/cdity 55K 16+Never forget an important event agai snoopdos30.lha util/moni 128K 67+System monitor, many new features ad thor222_inet.lha comm/mail 81K 1+Internet archive for THOR 2.22 (TCP/ thor222_main.lha comm/mail 790K 0+Offline reader, main archive (requir AmigaFAQ.lha docs/misc 468K 1+Amiga: Frequently asked questions 5 nemac4d1.lha game/demo 441K 3+3D T-mapped game demo 1/3. Read .rea nemac4d2.lha game/demo 695K 3+3D T-mapped game demo 2/3. Read .rea nemac4d3.lha game/demo 698K 3+3D T-mapped game demo 3/3. Read .rea Child_Murd_AGA.lha game/role 2.3M 38+Text/graphics adventure in horror ge ShapeShiftr3_3.lha misc/emu 258K 3+Macintosh II emulator, V3.3 spice3f5r2_020.lzh misc/sci 929K 26+R1.2 of Analog Ckt. Simulator (020/F pip_v22.lha util/misc 35K 4+View any screen in a window on anoth Executive.lha util/misc 527K 5+UNIX-like task scheduler (V1.30) SlateGames.lha comm/tcp 13K 1+Backgammon and Reversi for AmiSlate slipcall4.lha comm/tcp 97K 0+Dialer for AmiTCP, release 4. NEW!! melchior.lha demo/aga 1.4M 10+Melchior 1/1 *AGA* ar322.lha docs/mags 111K 1+Amiga Report 3.22, December 18, 1995 s3m_realize.lha mods/8voic 211K 77+S3M-Mod by Necros/PM Typeface11.lha text/misc 153K 8+Bitmap font editor SysPic211.lha util/boot 84K 1+The best boot-time picture displayer NewMode_V39.lha util/cdity 63K 12+Screen promoting utility @endnode @node CHARTS2 "Aminet Charts: 08-Jan-96 @toc FTP | The most downloaded files from Aminet during the week until 8-Jan-96 | Updated weekly. Most popular file on top. | |File Dir Size Age Description |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- ar323.lha docs/mags 80K 0+Amiga Report 3.23, December 31, 1995 PAL_on_SVGA.lha hard/hack 3K 0+Use 15kHz PAL on SVGA monitors! IT W VarkNET1.lha comm/net 731K 0+The Internet Installer Disk1 VarkNET2.lha comm/net 780K 0+The Internet Installer Disk2 mcx239.lha util/cdity 53K 0+Multi Function Commodity PatchOverscan.lha util/boot 9K 1+REMOVES Overscan limits, V1.0, 23.12 VarkNET3.lha comm/net 533K 0+The Internet Installer Disk3 MotoWB-1.1.lha util/wb 36K 0+Motorola backdrops for MagicWB v2. V floppy.lha disk/misc 13K 0+Trackdisk.device alternative, store GloomC2P10.lha game/demo 26K 0+Alternative c2p files for Gloom Delu ftype.lha util/misc 33K 0+V1.0, Neural network learns about fi mcxp212.lha util/cdity 54K 0+MUI Preferences for MultiCX MWB_Stuff_5.lha pix/mwb 571K 0+MWB Icons, Patterns and stuff DTview1.3.lha gfx/show 7K 0+DataType picture viewer & converter, SwazBlanker240.lha util/blank 529K 0+Modular screen blanker SView532.lha gfx/show 737K 1+SuperView V5.32 + Library 12.6 (22.1 cedpatch10.lha biz/patch 7K 0+Make CygnusEd v3.5 look better cosmc247.lha game/think 633K 1+Tactical space combat simulator. v2. KSSFAQ12.lha docs/help 63K 0+Klaatu's ShapeShifter Guide and FAQ Orbz.lha game/think 552K 0+An AGA strategy/think game | The highest rated programs during the week until 8-Jan-96 | Updated weekly. Best program on top. Please rate all the programs you | download. To do so, send to aminet-server@wuarchive.wustl.edu : | RATE | where is the file you want to judge and is a mark from 0..10 | with 10 being the best. You can rate several programs in one mail, but | don't rate your own programs. Example: RATE dev/gui/mui23usr.lha 8 | |File Dir Size Age Description |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- imdbDiff951222.lha biz/dbase 704K 1+Diffs for the Internet MovieDatabase AmigaFAQg.lha docs/misc 489K 2+Amiga: H ufig gestellte Fragen ( 5.0 ParrotIsland.lha game/demo 761K 1+Very great adventure like Monkey Isl DiamondCave2_3.lha game/misc 563K 2+The ultimate Boulder Dash Clone V2.3 ZXAM20b.lha misc/emu 494K 22+ZXAM Spectrum Emulator v2.0b Remind1.52.lha util/cdity 55K 17+Never forget an important event agai snoopdos30.lha util/moni 128K 68+System monitor, many new features ad thor222_inet.lha comm/mail 81K 2+Internet archive for THOR 2.22 (TCP/ thor222_main.lha comm/mail 790K 1+Offline reader, main archive (requir AmigaFAQ.lha docs/misc 468K 2+Amiga: Frequently asked questions 5 nemac4d1.lha game/demo 441K 4+3D T-mapped game demo 1/3. Read .rea nemac4d2.lha game/demo 695K 4+3D T-mapped game demo 2/3. Read .rea nemac4d3.lha game/demo 698K 4+3D T-mapped game demo 3/3. Read .rea Child_Murd_AGA.lha game/role 2.3M 39+Text/graphics adventure in horror ge ShapeShiftr3_3.lha misc/emu 258K 4+Macintosh II emulator, V3.3 spice3f5r2_020.lzh misc/sci 929K 27+R1.2 of Analog Ckt. Simulator (020/F hip222.lha mus/play 304K 1+Modplayer for kick1.2+. Try it. pip_v22.lha util/misc 35K 5+View any screen in a window on anoth Executive.lha util/misc 527K 6+UNIX-like task scheduler (V1.30) SlateGames.lha comm/tcp 13K 2+Backgammon and Reversi for AmiSlate slipcall4.lha comm/tcp 97K 1+Dialer for AmiTCP, release 4. NEW!! melchior.lha demo/aga 1.4M 11+Melchior 1/1 *AGA* ar322.lha docs/mags 111K 2+Amiga Report 3.22, December 18, 1995 tmapfaq151.lzh docs/misc 48K 2+Amiga Texturemapped games /demos FAQ s3m_realize.lha mods/8voic 211K 78+S3M-Mod by Necros/PM headtrip.lha pix/anim 1.7M 105+AGA animation Typeface11.lha text/misc 153K 9+Bitmap font editor zip201x.lha util/arc 129K 113 Archiver for .zip files @endnode @node CHARTS3 "Aminet Charts: 15-Jan-96" @toc FTP | The most downloaded files from Aminet during the week until 15-Jan-96 | Updated weekly. Most popular file on top. | |File Dir Size Age Description |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- taskbar.lha util/wb 15K 0+Win95 style taskbar for the Amiga ReqToolsUsr.lha util/libs 156K 0+ReqTools 2.4 - the requester toolkit cedpatch10.lha biz/patch 7K 1+Make CygnusEd v3.5 look better AmiPhone1.2B.lha comm/net 99K 1+AmiTCP based voice chat program Voodoo-1.103.lha comm/mail 424K 0+Very nice GUI MIME E-Mail reader for urouhack06.lha util/wb 22K 0+Sysihack and frame-patch clone, XEN- mcx241.lha util/cdity 53K 0+Multi Function Commodity Tetriz.lha game/think 149K 0+Polished tetris clone. Great sfx & g IdentD1_2.lha comm/tcp 12K 0+RFC 1413 Authentication Daemon for A GVPPatch17.lha biz/patch 5K 0+Reliable SER xfers using a GVP Serie HTML-Heaven.lha text/hyper 319K 0+Add HTML command-editing to editor. cybershow60.lha gfx/board 96K 0+SlideShow&Viewer(incl.PCD)for CybGfx ReqToolsDev.lha util/libs 284K 0+ReqTools 2.4 - the requester toolkit ShowFont.lha text/font 9K 0+Shows Amiga fonts. Working on ALL Am ar323.lha docs/mags 80K 1+Amiga Report 3.23, December 31, 1995 AmigaTecM1438S.txt docs/rview 9K 0 REVIEW: Amiga Technologies M1438 mon MultiReset3_0.lha util/wb 75K 0+No longer boring resets! PatchOverscan.lha util/boot 9K 0+REMOVES Overscan limits, V1.1, 28.12 CGWBPattern103.lha util/wb 210K 0+Replacement WBPattern (supports. CGf ACDGv14.lha docs/hyper 109K 0+AmigaGuide to *ALL* Amiga CDROMs! v1 | The highest rated programs during the week until 15-Jan-96 | Updated weekly. Best program on top. Please rate all the programs you | download. To do so, send to aminet-server@wuarchive.wustl.edu : | RATE | where is the file you want to judge and is a mark from 0..10 | with 10 being the best. You can rate several programs in one mail, but | don't rate your own programs. Example: RATE dev/gui/mui23usr.lha 8 | |File Dir Size Age Description |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- imdbDiff951222.lha biz/dbase 704K 2+Diffs for the Internet MovieDatabase AmigaFAQg.lha docs/misc 489K 3+Amiga: H ufig gestellte Fragen ( 5.0 ParrotIsland.lha game/demo 761K 2+Very great adventure like Monkey Isl DiamondCave2_3.lha game/misc 563K 3+The ultimate Boulder Dash Clone V2.3 ZXAM20b.lha misc/emu 494K 23+ZXAM Spectrum Emulator v2.0b Remind1.52.lha util/cdity 55K 18+Never forget an important event agai snoopdos30.lha util/moni 128K 69+System monitor, many new features ad thor222_inet.lha comm/mail 81K 3+Internet archive for THOR 2.22 (TCP/ thor222_main.lha comm/mail 790K 2+Offline reader, main archive (requir AmigaFAQ.lha docs/misc 468K 3+Amiga: Frequently asked questions 5 nemac4d1.lha game/demo 441K 5+3D T-mapped game demo 1/3. Read .rea nemac4d2.lha game/demo 695K 5+3D T-mapped game demo 2/3. Read .rea nemac4d3.lha game/demo 698K 5+3D T-mapped game demo 3/3. Read .rea Child_Murd_AGA.lha game/role 2.3M 40+Text/graphics adventure in horror ge ShapeShiftr3_3.lha misc/emu 258K 5+Macintosh II emulator, V3.3 hip222.lha mus/play 304K 2+Modplayer for kick1.2+. Try it. pip_v22.lha util/misc 35K 6+View any screen in a window on anoth Executive.lha util/misc 527K 7+UNIX-like task scheduler (V1.30) SlateGames.lha comm/tcp 13K 3+Backgammon and Reversi for AmiSlate slipcall4.lha comm/tcp 97K 2+Dialer for AmiTCP, release 4. NEW!! melchior.lha demo/aga 1.4M 12+Melchior 1/1 *AGA* ar322.lha docs/mags 111K 3+Amiga Report 3.22, December 18, 1995 tmapfaq151.lzh docs/misc 48K 3+Amiga Texturemapped games /demos FAQ s3m_realize.lha mods/8voic 211K 79+S3M-Mod by Necros/PM headtrip.lha pix/anim 1.7M 106+AGA animation zip201x.lha util/arc 129K 114 Archiver for .zip files NewMode_V39.lha util/cdity 63K 14+Screen promoting utility mcx241.lha util/cdity 53K 0+Multi Function Commodity xpkDisk37_8c.lha util/pack 101K 39+A compressing disk device v37.8; use TinyMeter_V402.lha util/wb 197K 0+Shows memory, volumes, time and date @endnode @node MAILLIST "Amiga Report Mailing List" @toc WHERE =========================================================================== Amiga Report Mailing List =========================================================================== If you have an internet mailing address, you can receive Amiga Report in @{"UUENCODED" link UUENCODE} form each week as soon as the issue is released. To be put on the list, send Email to jcompton@xnet.com. As you will be writing to a human, ask nicely to be added to the list. However, due to the recent disappearance of both AR mailing lists, we ask that if it is feasible for you to read AR by FTP or WWW, that you do so. Your account must be able to handle mail of any size to ensure an intact copy. For example, many systems have a 100K limit on incoming messages. ** IMPORTANT NOTICE: PLEASE be certain your host can accept mail over ** ** 100K! We have had a lot of bouncebacks recently from systems with a ** ** 100K size limit for incoming mail. If we get a bounceback with your ** ** address in it, it will be removed from the list. Thanks! ** @endnode @node UUENCODE @toc MAILLIST =========================================================================== UUDecoding Amiga Report =========================================================================== If you receive Amiga Report from the direct mailing list, it will arrive in UUEncoded format. This format allows programs and archive files to be sent through mail by converting the binary into combinations of ASCII characters. In the message, it will basically look like a lot of trash surrounded by begin and end, followed by the size of the file. To UUDecode Amiga Report, you first need to get a UUDecoding program, such as UUxT by Asher Feldman. This program is available on Aminet in pub/aminet/arc/ Then you must download the message that it is contained in. Don't worry about message headers, the UUDecoding program will ignore them. There is a GUI interface for UUxT, which should be explained in the docs. However, the quickest method for UUDecoding the magazine is to type uuxt x ar.uu at the command prompt. You will then have to decompress the archive with lha, and you will then have Amiga Report in all of its AmigaGuide glory. If you have any questions, you can write to @{"Jason Compton" link JASON} @endnode @node AMINET "Aminet" @toc WHERE Aminet ====== To get Amiga Report from Aminet, simply FTP to any Aminet site, CD to docs/mags. All the back issues are located there as well. Sites: ftp.netnet.net, ftp.wustl.edu, ftp.tas.gov.au, ftp.doc.ic.ac.uk @endnode @node WWW "World Wide Web" @toc WHERE World Wide Web ============== AR can also be read with Mosaic (in either AmigaGuide or html form). Reading AmigaReport with Mosaic removes the necessity to download it. It can also be read using programs found in UNIX sites such as LYNX. Simply tell Mosaic to open one of the following URLs: http://www.omnipresence.com/Amiga/News/AR/ http://www.pwr.wroc.pl/AMIGA/AR/ http://mm.iit.uni-miskolc.hu/Data/AR http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/amiga/ar/ http://ramiga.rnet.cgi.com/~AR http://www.sci.muni.cz/ar/ http://metro.turnpike.net/P/panther/main.html http://www.lysator.liu.se/amiga/ar/ http://ArtWorks.apana.org.au/AmigaReport.html http://www.vol.it/MIRROR2/EN/AMIGA/ The following AR sites also have a mailto form, allowing you to mail to Amiga Report from the web site.

http://www.cucug.org/ar/ar401.guide

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08/1997