@database "ar136.guide" @Node MAIN "Amiga Report Online Magazine #1.36 -- December 3, 1993" @{" Open Magazine " link "menu"} _ ____ ___ ______ _______ _ d# ####b g#00 `N##0" _agN#0P0N# d# d## jN## j##F J## _dN0" " d## .#]## _P ##L jN##F ### g#0" .#]## dE_j## # 0## jF ##F j##F j##' ______ dE_j## .0"""N## d" ##L0 ##F 0## 0## "9##F" .0"""5## .dF' ]## jF ##0 ##F ##F `##k d## .dF' j## .g#_ _j##___g#__ ]N _j##L_ _d##L_ `#Nh___g#N' .g#_ _j##__ """"" """"""""""" " """""" """""" """"""" """"" """""" ###### ###### ###### ###### ###### ######## TM ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## #### ## ## ## #### ## ## ## #### ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ### ###### ## ###### ## ### ## International Online Magazine "Your Weekly Source for Amiga Information." December 3, 1993 No. 1.36 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// / Winners Don't Use Drugs / /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Copyright © 1993 SkyNet Publications All Rights Reserved @endnode @node P2-1 "Where to find Amiga Report" @toc "menu" /// WHERE TO FIND AMIGA REPORT Distribution Sites! -------------------------- Click on the button of the BBS nearest you for information on that system. //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// / FidoNet Systems / //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// FREQ the filename "AR.LHA" for the most current issue of Amiga Report! @{" OMAHA AMIGANET " link P2-1-9} ..................................Omaha, Nebraska @{" NOVA " link P2-1-1} .............................Cleveland, Tennessee @{" CLOUD'S CORNER " link P2-1-3} ............................Bremerton, Washington @{" BIOSMATICA " link P2-1-4} .........................................Portugal @{" AMIGA JUNCTION 9 " link P2-1-5} ...................................United Kingdom @{" BITSTREAM BBS " link P2-1-6} ..............................Nelson, New Zealand @{" REALM OF TWILIGHT " link P2-1-7} ..................................Ontario, Canada @{" METNET TRIANGLE " link P2-1-8} ......................Kingston Upon Hull, England @{" AMIGA-NIGHT-SYSTEM " link P2-1-10} ................................Helsinki, Finland @{" RAMSES THE AMIGA FLYING " link P2-1-11} ...........................................France @{" GATEWAY BBS " link P2-1-12} ..............................Biloxi, Mississippi @{" TALK CITY " link P2-1-13} ...............................Waukegan, Illinois //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// / Non-FidoNet Systems / //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// @{" IN THE MEANTIME " link P2-1-2} ...............................Yakima, Washington @{" FREELAND MAINFRAME " link P2-1-50} ..............................Olympia, Washington @{" LAHO " link P2-1-51} ...............................Seinajoki, Finland @{" FALLING " link P2-1-52} ...........................................Norway @{" COMMAND LINE " link P2-1-53} ..................................Toronto, Canada @{" RENDEZVOUS " link P2-1-54} ......................................New Zealand @{" LEGUANS BYTE CHANNEL " link P2-1-55} ..........................................Germany @{" STINGRAY DATABASE " link P2-1-56} ...........................Muelheim/Ruhr, Germany @{" T.B.P. VIDEO SLATE " link P2-1-57} .............................Rockaway, New Jersey @{" AMIGA CENTRAL " link P2-1-58} .............................Nashville, Tennessee @{" CONTINENTAL DRIFT " link P2-1-59} ................................Sydney, Australia @{" GURU MEDITATION " link P2-1-60} ............................................Spain @endnode Non-AmigaGuide Users: See the end of this document for numbers to each BBS. ___________________________________________________________________________ /// 12/03/93 Amiga Report 1.36 "Your Weekly Source for Amiga Information" -------------------------- · The Editor's Desk · CPU Status Report · New Products · FTP Announcements · Dealer Directory · AR Confidential · Usenet Reviews · AR Online · The Humor Department · Emulation Rambler · Frontier · Reader Mail » Zen and the Art of Desktop Publishing « » New modem coming from Supra « » Commodore Shareholder Movement Update « /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Amiga Report International Online Magazine "Your Weekly Source for Amiga Information" » FEATURING WEEKLY « Accurate UP-TO-DATE News and Information Current Events, Original Articles, Tips, Rumors, and Information Hardware · Software · Corporate · R & D · Imports /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// / DELPHI · PORTAL · FIDO · INTERNET · BIX · AMIGANET / /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @node P1-1 "From the Editor's Desk" @toc "menu" /// From the Editor's Desk "Saying it like it is!" ---------------------- We have a new writer this week, who will hopefully become a regular face around here. Brian Gawor is the author of our new Zen and the Art of Desktop Publishing. It's a very entertaining and informative article. Even if you don't get into DTP, you should read it. It's good! I'd still like to find a few more people interested in regular, or semi- regular contributions. I welcome all submissions, so if you have something you've written, or something you'd like to write, drop me a note. I'd like to hear from you! The Commodore Shareholder Movement is moving right along. You'll find a short update from Mike Levin. Please take a look at it, and pass this info along to everyone you can. We'll be having more updates as they become available! Remember, get this information out. If we act together, we can force Gould and Ali out and turn Commodore into a respectable company again. I was in Software Etc the other day, and happened to ask the manager if they had any plans on carrying CD32. He flatly said NO. He says Commodore is a bad business risk. Same with Atari. They also have no intention of carrying the Jaguar. I can understand them not wanting to carry an Atari product. Remember the Lynx? Well, everybody was carrying it at first -- Toys R Us, Software Etc, Babbages, Electronics Boutique, etc. Then Atari decided to cut the price way down, and left everybody with overpriced units they couldn't sell. Dealers had to take a big loss to get rid of them, and swore never again. Furthermore, the computer dealers have been screwed again. Atari has discontinued all Falcon development, and all efforts are going into Jaguar. So their 'magnificant' (yeah right) Falcon is sitting high and dry until Jaguar is out the door in force, which is sometime in January (maybe). I feel really sorry for people that have bought Falcons. And I'm sure glad there's more support for the Amiga! But anyway, the manager at Software Etc did venture to say that if CD32 and Jaguar sell well in the USA, they will consider picking up the lines. Rob @ AR \|/ @ @ ----------------------------------------------------oOO-(_)-OOo------------ @endnode *************************************************************************** @node P4-1 "Delphi" @toc "menu" /// Delphi: It's Getting Better All The Time! ------------------------------------------ Amiga Report International Online Magazine is available every week in the Amiga SIG on DELPHI. Amiga Report readers are invited to join DELPHI and become a part of the friendly community of Amiga enthusiasts there. SIGNING UP WITH DELPHI ====================== Using a personal computer and modem, members worldwide access DELPHI services via a local phone call JOIN -- DELPHI -------------- Via modem, dial up DELPHI at 1-800-695-4002 then... When connected, press RETURN once or twice and.... At Username: type JOINDELPHI and press RETURN, At Password: type AMIGAREPORT and press RETURN. DELPHI's best plan is the 20/20 plan. It gives you 20 hours each month for the low price of only $19.95! Additional hours are only $1.50 each! This covers 1200, 2400 and even 9600 connections! For more information, and details on other plans, call DELPHI Member Services at 1-800-695-4005 SPECIAL FEATURES ---------------- · Complete Internet connection -- Telnet, FTP, IRC, Gopher, E-Mail and more! (Internet option is $3/month extra) · SIGs for all types of computers -- Amiga, IBM, Macintosh, Atari, etc. · Large file databases! · SIGs for hobbies, video games, graphics, and more! · Business and world news, stock reports, etc. · Grolier's Electronic Encyclopedia! DELPHI - It's getting better all the time! @endnode *************************************************************************** @node P2-2 "AR Staff" @toc "menu" /// The Amiga Report Staff Dedicated to serving you! ---------------------- Editor ====== Robert Glover Portal: Rob-G Delphi: ROB_G FidoNet: 1:285/11 AmigaNet: 40:200/10 Internet: General Mail: ROB_G@Delphi.com Submissions: Rob-G@cup.portal.com Assistant and Technical Editor ============================== Robert Niles Portal: RNiles Delphi: RNILES FidoNet: 1:3407/104 (Private) Internet: rniles@imtired.itm.com Contributing Correspondents =========================== Andrew Clayton Jason Compton Brian Gawor Adisak Pochanayon @endnode *************************************************************************** @node P1-2 "CPU Status Report" @toc "menu" /// CPU Status Report Late Breaking Industry-Wide News ----------------- ** Sun to Invest in NeXT ** Sources say that Sun Microsystems Inc. is ready to invest in Steve Jobs' NeXT Computer Inc. It's reported that Sun will invest $10 million in NeXT for 1.5% of the company's stock and access to NeXT technology. A Sun spokesman told the press the partnership involves Sun investing in NeXT's object-oriented software development, but declined further details. NeXT initially produced workstations that ran the company's NeXTStep operating system software, but later withdrew from the hardware business to focus solely on the NeXTStep software. Last spring, Dell Computer Corp., Epson America Inc. and NEC announ- ced plans to ship products with NeXTStep installed. Hewlett-Packard Co. also has marketed some PCs with the NeXTStep inside and NeXT's products also have been backed by Canon Inc. and IBM. ** Micron Semi Intros 1MB SRAM Chips ** Micron Semiconductor has announced engineering samples of its one meg static random access memory (SRAM) chips for use as cache memory in per- sonal computers. The company says the chips are available in 64kb x 16, 128kb x 8, and 256kb x 4 organizations. The chips use a center-pin power and ground design Micron says allows faster operation and minimizes noise at the higher speeds. Micron also claims the chips are designed specifically for cache me- mory in workstations, file servers, desktops, and portable PCs, and will be available in both five- and 3.3-volt versions. The five-volt chips are available in speeds as fast as 12 nanoseconds (ns) and the 3.3-volt versions in speeds as fast as 15 ns. ** Microsoft Co-Founder Buys into Ticketmaster ** Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft, has agreed to buy a majority share in the parent of Ticketmaster Corp, a leading computerized ticket- er that serves 2,500 clients in 40 states, Europe, Canada and Australia. Paul Allen retired a billionaire from Microsoft in 1983 at the age of 31 and is a major shareholder in America Online, a computer-based infor- mation service. It is thought that Allen probably has some sort of link in mind to connect Ticketmaster's computerized ticketing and the tens of millions of personal computers that can tap into it through Amercia Online. Sources say that Allen invested well over $300 million in Ticketmast- er and will probably become Ticketmaster's chairman. ** Computer 'Unfaithfulness" Leads to a Divorce Petition ** An Israeli man seeks a divorce, alleging his wife was unfaithful be- cause of her use of "filthy computer games." Reports say the unidentified man said in a written plea to a Tel Aviv rabbinical court, "My wife watches a lot of porn movies and what's more she likes to cheat on me in her thoughts by playing filthy computer games." He added, "There is no difference between a woman who has a physical relationship with other men and a woman who imagines it." The petition called the wife a "theoretical adulteress." If the court accepts that the woman has committed adultery, divorce is granted automatically in Israel where rabbis have a monopoly on mar- riage, divorce and burial for Jews, practicing or not. ** New York Computer Business Owner Arrested for Virus Threat ** The owner and a technician of a Manhattan computer business have been charged with threatening to unleash a computer virus that could potenti- ally do $500,000 in damage to a New York business owner. Michael Lafaro, owner of MJL Design, surrendered this week to Nassau County (New York) police for his role in the plot to force a complaining client to pay his bills in full. The MJL Design technician, John Puzzo, was arrested Nov. 12 after he removed the virus he allegedly installed at Forecast Inc., a video fur- niture company in Westbury, N.Y. Police said that William Haberman, owner of Forecast, bought a compu- ter program from MJL Design on Nov. 10, but after complaining to Lafaro about its effectiveness, he made only a partial payment. Lafaro then allegedly had Puzzo install a computer virus and sent Haberman a message saying that if full payment was not received, the virus would destroy all data on the computer on Nov. 15. If that hap- pened, the action would have cost Haberman about $500,000 in damages. After contacting police, Haberman was told to pay Lafaro on the con- dition he Puzzo return to Forecast to remove the virus. When the techni- cian did this, he was arrested. Computer tampering became a felony in New York on Nov. 1. Coercion was already a felony. Each crime carries a penalty of four to seven years on conviction. ** Ambra Targets Power Users With PCI-Based Pentium PCs ** Ambra Computer, the US IBM spinoff launched last August, has announ- ced a new line of Pentium computers based on the PCI local bus. The new PCI-based machines are highly customizable, and targeted at the budget- conscious enhanced or "power" user, according to Craig Conrad, a company spokesperson. At the low end of the new Ambra DP60 PCI lineup is a machine that of- fers a 60mhz superscalar Pentium processor, a 340-meg hard drive, 8 megs of memory, a 256k processor cache, a 3.5-inch diskette drive, seven ex- pansion slots, six storage bays, a PCI graphics accelerator, and a 14- inch Super VGA color monitor. Also included are MS-DOS, Microsoft Win- dows, a mouse, and a keyboard, for a total price of $2,799. A high-end model, priced at $3,499, substitutes a 440-meg hard drive and 15-inch flat-square monitor, while adding a double-speed CD-ROM (compact disc - read only memory) drive and Diamond Viper PCI graphics accelerator complete with 2-meg of video-random access memory (VRAM). ** Rebate Offered on ClarisWorks and Quicken Bundle ** Claris Corp. this week announced a rebate offer on ClarisWorks for Windows. Customers who purchase ClarisWorks for Windows bundled with Intuit's Quicken finance program will receive a $50 rebate directly from Claris. The offer will be available in the U.S. through Jan. 31, 1994, when the bundling promotion ends. The ClarisWorks-Quicken for Windows bundle is currently available at Claris' authorized resellers for a suggested promotional price of $129. With the rebate, the price to the user comes down to $79. ** Apple, Two Others to Distribute Catalogs on Compact Discs ** Distributing mail-order catalogs on Macintosh-compatible compact discs is the goal of a project dubbed En Passant being launched by Apple Computer Inc. and two other companies. Reports say Apple will distri- bute its first disc to 22,000 homes and 8,000 businesses next month. Offered on the CD-ROM discs will be products from 21 catalogs, in- cluding Lands' End Inc., Patagonia Inc., L.L. Bean Inc. and Tiffany & Co., as well as Apple. The disc is designed to run only on Macintosh systems, but backers says if the test is successful, Apple will design a similar marketing system for the computers running Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system. Working with Apple will be Electronic Data Systems Corp., which will provide a phone exchange system for the venture, and Redgate Communications Corp., which will put together the disc contents. ** Apple, Fujitsu to Work Together on CD-Rom Software Projects ** Apple Japan Inc. and Fujitsu Ltd. are going to work together to de- velop compatible applications for Apple's Macintosh and Fujitsu's FM TOWNS platforms, first by exchanging proprietary program data. Reports say Apple and Fujitsu also will trade data on the distribu- tion of CD-ROM titles to foster a growing multimedia environment. ** Aldus Ships FreeHand 4.0 for the Mac ** Aldus Corp. this week announced it has begun shipment of Aldus Free- Hand 4.0 for the Apple Macintosh, a major upgrade to its advanced graphic design and illustration software program. The software's new capabilities include enhanced text controls, in- tuitive color controls, a streamlined user interface, extensive graphic capabilities and multi-page layout functions. Aldus FreeHand 4.0 for the Apple Macintosh is System 7 - savvy. The recommended system configuration is any Apple Mac IIci series or great- er, PowerBook, Macintosh Quadra, 8MB of RAM, a 120MB hard drive, a mouse or a drawing digitizing tablet with stylus. Availability and pricing Aldus FreeHand 4.0 for the Macintosh costs $595. Registered users of prior versions can upgrade for $150. ** New Macintosh Products ** Here is a brief look at some new Macintosh products on the market: File Clerk software, ColorScript Laser1000 printer, PowerBook 145B Plus Pack, Americans in Space CD-ROM, new Adobe Typefaces. Nisus Software announced File Clerk, software due this fall designed to make it easier to track down information on data-packed Macs. To organize and retrieve files, users navigate through a hierarchy of keywords assigned to files, selected through pop-up menus. These des- criptive keywords are pre-assigned to files using File Clerk. The file selection list shrinks as more keywords are chosen in a search. This list can be filtered by creator, volume and creation/modification date as well. Once found, the file, whether text, graphics, sound or video, can be previewed or launched. Suggested list will be under $100. For more information, call 619/481-1477. ColorScript Laser1000 - QMS is shipping a $12,499 color laser prin- ter, and claiming a price that is half that of competing products. It features four-color 300dpi laser printing, color matching capabilities and PostScript Level 2 emulation. It prints 24-bit-color images as halftones, instead of as continuous-tone color images, with a printing speed of two to eight pages per minute. Sixty-five resident typefaces and 12MB of RAM are standard. Mobile, Ala.-based QMS can be reached at 800/523-2696 or 215/633-4300. This PowerBook 145 package, distributed through such channels as Cir- cuit City, Montgomery Ward, Best Buy, Staples, and Officemax, combines a 4/80 PowerBook 145B with an internal Global Village Powerport Bronze send/receive fax/modem and a software bundle. The software includes Touchbase Pro, Datebook Pro, Macintosh PC Exchange, AppleLink, and Zterm terminal emulation software. Prices in the retail outlets are expected to be between $1,549 and $1,699. For info, call Apple at 800/776-2333. Americans in Space - This new CD-ROM turns your Mac into Mission Con- trol for American space flights, allowing you to view crew photos, hear audio clips, and watch video or animation of the American space program. It includes over sixty minutes of video clips, including the last launch of the shuttle Challenger, and more than 90 minutes of narration. There are also nearly 600 images, including crew and mission photos and artists' renditions of the space station Freedom. Suggested retail price is $69.95. For more info, call 206/622-5530. New Adobe Typefaces - Twenty-eight new Adobe typefaces include designs from type foundries such as ITC, Monotype and Berthold, bringing the total number of typeface packages in the Adobe Type Library to over 360. Adobe has also announced the new Sanvito and Caflisch Script multiple-master typefaces for the Macintosh. Multiple-master faces allow users to modify many characteristics of the typefaces to suit their preferences. Through December 31, Sanvito and Caflisch Script and the other multiple-master typeface packages are available for $89 through Font & Function, Adobe's recently updated type catalog. After December 31, Sanvito and Caflisch Script will be available for $185 and $95 respectively. For more info, call 415/961-4400. @endnode ______________________________________________________ @node P1-3-1 "Adorage - 2D Animation Package" @toc "menu" » Adorage - 2D Animation Package « PRODUCT Adorage U.S.A. DISTRIBUTION : Spectronics International U.S.A. Attn: Eddy Coopmans 34 East Main Street #23 Champaign. IL 61820 USA Phone : +1 (217) 352 0061 Fax : +1 (217) 352 0063 BBS : +1 (217) 352 7627 DESCRIPTION Adorage is a 2D animation package, offering a range of video-effects from simple fade-in and fade-out to more complex effects such as page-flips and explosions. Selection and implementation of these F/X is icon-driven and very easy. Adorage partially supports the SSA (super smooth animation) standard which allows the playback of animations up to 60 fields per second, and is AGA compatible. Adorage scene transitions are very fast due to algorithms developed for this purpose. FEATURES * 3D effect groups (spirals, cubes, comet,...) * user definable parameters for most effects, creating a virtually unlimited number of parameters * Icon driven user interface is very user-friendly, even for beginners * Supports AGA and automatically configurs for the processor type present * Most effects (even 3D effects) don't require pre-rendering * Very fast, even on slower Amigas * Great number of effects RECOMMENDED Workbench V2.X+, Kickstart V2.04+, 3MB RAM, Hard disk AVAILABILITY Now shipping PRICE US$ 179.00 -- Eddy Coopmans Daytime phone : (217) 352 0061 Spectronics Int'l USA Fax : (217) 352 0063 BBS : (217) 352 7627 @endnode @node P1-3-2 "Clarissa Animation Player" @toc "menu" » Clarissa Animation Player « PRODUCT Clarissa U.S.A. DISTRIBUTION : Spectronics International U.S.A. Attn: Eddy Coopmans 34 East Main Street #23 Champaign. IL 61820 USA Phone : +1 (217) 352 0061 Fax : +1 (217) 352 0063 BBS : +1 (217) 352 7627 DESCRIPTION Faster than any other anim-player, thanks to especially developed algorithms which are definable for different configurations. Clarissa automatically optimizes anims so that they can be played back at the highest possible speeds. The SSA animation format eliminates most of the problems normally encountered when playing back 2D and 3D animations (slow play back, jerky movement, etc...) FEATURES * 30% Higher playback rate as opposed to other anim-players * Integrated virtual memory feature (which works even without an MMU) allows playback and editing of large animations. * Cut and Paste function, with graphic display of animations, allows easy editing * Dynamic anim-clipboard functions allow for inserting or deleting of frames or ranges of frames, creating pauses within an animation and many more professional manipulations * 20% speed increase when loading or saving anims * Lace compensation calculates the animation in half the vertical resolution and plays back in full resolution, giving a 50% increase in speed when creating animations. * Stand alone anim-player included. This player is a CLI command, usable from within every multimedia package. REQUIREMENTS Workbench/Kickstart V2.04 or higher, 2MB RAM, accelerator AVAILABILITY Now shipping PRICE US$ 179.00 @endnode @node P1-3-3 "CyberHouse - 3D Object Set" @toc "menu" » CYBERHOUSE - 3D Object Set (for Imagine) « TITLE Cyberhouse COMPANY Cybergraf Synthiotics P.O. Box 5851, Hanover Center Wilmington, NC 28403-0879 Order Line: (910) 762-5776 Tech Support:(910) 762-5776 DESCRIPTION Cyberhouse is a set of Imagine objects to construct a fully furnished three bedroom house. All components of the house will be objects, including the exteriors. FEATURES 3 complete bedrooms 1 full bathroom 1 half bathroom 1 master bathroom 1 breakfast nook 1 dining room 1 kitchen 1 living room SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS Any Amiga model with at least 3MB RAM (512K CHIP or greater) PRICE & DISTRIBUTABILITY $150.00 US Suggested Retail Price Cyberhouse is a commercial product Copyright 1993 Cybergraf Synthiotics @endnode @node P1-3-4 "24-bit Realtime Animation Playback w/Sound" @toc "menu" » 24-Bit Realtime Animation Playback with Sound Support « From Terra Nova Magic Lantern is a program designed to create, edit and display delta compressed animations in real time. It takes as input IFF picture and sound files created from other sources (such as DPaint, Imagine, Lightwave, Real-3d, etc) and creates animations that run on various frame buffers in up to 24 bit color. Magic Lantern plays sound effects through the Amiga sound chip. Once an animation is created, it can be edited; such editing might include adding or removing sound effects and frames, or moving frames around. All of these functions are accessible through a very friendly, Workbench 2.0 compliant graphical user interface, and/or an ARexx port. Lantern also provides a means to create animations that are larger than available memory, and a separate utility to play them back from disk. The ARexx port was designed to allow the user to do anything that he/she could do through the graphical user interface; this allows the user to create powerful, automated scripts for batch processing or other uses which the developers of Lantern did not foresee. Magic Lantern includes highly optimized assembly language routines for playing back animations on supported display devices, including frame buffers which store pixels in chunky format. The program also provides numerous compression options which allow the user to optimize animations for size, playback speed or both. Due to its modular nature, Magic Lantern can be updated to support new display devices as they become available. Features: · Supports the Retina in 8, 16 and 24 bit modes · Supports the Picasso II in 8, 16 and 24 bit modes · Supports the Opal Vision in 8, 15 and 24 bit modes · Supports the GDA in 8 bit mode · Supports the Amiga custom chipset, including all AGA modes, DCTV, HamE, etc. · Over 10 different compression algorithms · Synchronizes sound to the animation · Can enforce a playback rate · Hard drive playback of animations · ARexx port, assembly language animation routines, breaks up animations into IFF components, much more. Coming soon: Support for Spectrum, Picallo, Merlin and EGS! Magic Lantern is now available from Terra Nova Development for $95 (US funds, check or money order), postpaid. California residents add $6.89 state sales tax. Send orders to: Terra Nova Development PO Box 2202 Ventura CA, 93002-2202 Reqirements: Workbench 2.0 or greater. One megabyte of memory. Recommended: Hard Disk, more memory. @endnode @node P1-3-5 "PhotoworX" @toc "menu" » PhotoworX Photo-CD Image Reader « PRODUCT PhotoworX U.S.A. DISTRIBUTION : Spectronics International U.S.A. Attn: Eddy Coopmans 34 East Main Street #23 Champaign. IL 61820 USA Phone : +1 (217) 352 0061 Fax : +1 (217) 352 0063 BBS : +1 (217) 352 7627 DESCRIPTION Gives the possibility to access KODAK (tm) Photo-CD from an Amiga equipped with an XA compatible CD-ROM drive. Access to photos is made incredibly easy with PhotoworX. Each photo is represented as a small slide on a so-called "contact-sheet". FEATURES * Allows loading of images by double clicking on their on screen representations. * Supports all Amiga resolutions, AGA screens and a great number of graphic boards. * Includes several image processing routines (detail magnifying, cropping and scaling, color corrections, mirror imaging, negative,...) * Allows saving in any Amiga IFF compatible file format from 16 colors to 24 bit. * Supports all Amiga compatible printers REQUIREMENTS Workbench/Kickstart V2.04 or higher, 2MB RAM RECOMMENDED Hard disk drive, 68030/68040 processor AVAILABILITY Now shipping PRICE Suggested retail price : US$ 199.00 Includes : PhotoworX software Free photo-CD Manual @endnode @node P1-4 "VxP500 Video Record and Playback Processor" @toc "menu" » VxP500 Video Record and Playback Processor « At Comdex this year, AuraVision unveiled the VxP500 Video Record and Playback Processor, a product that incorporates far-reaching PC video processing functionality in a single chip. Also at the show, Creative Labs, Dolch Computers, Diamond Computer Systems, and a dozen other vendors have introduced the first PC video boards to be based on AuraVision's new integrated circuit (IC). Microsoft, Adobe, Asymetrix, Xing Technologies, Mathematics, Canyon, and Lenel have announced software support for the chip. SGS-Thomson, C- Cube, and Zoran have also hopped aboard the AuraVision bandwagon, deve- loping reference designs for building complete PC compression systems with the VxP500. The new VxP500 supplies all the capabilities of a traditional board- level video processor and more, explained Steve Chan, president and founder of AuraVision. The chip is equipped with hardware acceleration capabilities that al- low full-motion (30-frame-per-second) video to be displayed at full- screen resolution without the usual visual degradation, said Mark Hopper, sales director for the Fremont-CA-based startup company. The product also features a unique time scaling feature that eliminates the "jerkiness" of motion common to other systems, he maintained. Although separate audio hardware is still needed, the VxP500 allows simultaneous capture of video and audio in real time, added Tommy Lee, senior applications manager. In contrast, other processors require video and audio to be captured in different sessions. Also unlike competing video processing systems, the VxP500 supports color keying as well as chroma keying, according to Lee. Color keying refers to overlaying graphics on top of video, while chroma keying refers to overlaying video on top of graphics. By integrating all video processing into a single IC, the VxP500 sup- plies cost savings to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that will in turn be passed on to end users, Lee said. The price of the VxP500 to OEMs is less than $100, and boards based on the chips will sell to end users for as low as $300, he estimated. "In comparison, (other) boards now on the market cost $400 or more, and the quality of their output isn't nearly as high," he asserted. The VxP500 can capture video in RGB, Palettized VGA, YUV, and YUV com-pressed formats under Microsoft Video for Windows, and in RGB, YUV, and Palettized VGA formats under AVI. Support is provided for all AVI video codecs, including JPEG, MPEG, Indeo, Cinepak, and Captain Crunch. The VxP500 also supports VGA, NTSC, and PAL input, and VGA, NTSC, and Control/L (LANC) videotape output. NTSC support is available for both the composite video and S-Video formats. The chip permits display of up to 16 million colors at up to 1024-by-786 resolution, he said. AuraVision's hardware zoom technique allows the picture to be expanded without graininess, he explained. The use of vertical interpolation reduces "motion artifacts," or ghosts, and also promotes more realistic colors. Video for Windows software, available to OEMs for bundling with VxP500-based boards, makes it possible to capture audio from a separate sound board into a .wav file and to combine the video and audio in an interleaved format for synchronized playback, he said. The chip's time scaling feature comes into play when a system lacks sufficient bandwidth to store 30-frame-per-second video, according to Lee. Video processing systems deal with this situation by dropping some of the frames. Time scaling is designed to drop frames in a smooth and even way. In a press conference at Comdex, Orchid Technologies rolled out a whole family of VxP500-based boards, including the Vidiola Pro/D full digital video editing; the Vidiola Pro/C for "cuts only" video editing without hard disk video storage; and the Vidiola Premium, a daughter board supplying MJPEG (motion JPEG) compression and decompression. Aside from Orchid, Creative Labs, Dolch, and Diamond, other OEMs announcing VxP500-based boards at Comdex included U-Max Data Systems, Micro Star, Hauppauge Computer Works, CEI, GVC Technologies, VisionEx, Micro Star, ASCO Corp., Leadtech Research, Lung HWA Corp., and Resonant Research. In addition to Microsoft's Video for Windows, the following third- party software is available to OEMs for bundling with the boards: Premier for Windows and Photoshop from Adobe; Compel and MediaBlitz! from Asymetrix; Lenel's Multimedia Manager; Xing Technology's Picture Prowler and MPEG Prowler; Mathematica's Tempra Pro authoring package; and ICap video capture software from Canyon. The VxP500 is the first product to be released by AuraVision, a com- pany established by Chan in July 1992. Chan had previously served as corporate VP and general manager at Chips & Technologies, VP of engineering for Headland Technology, VP of ASIC design for LSI Logic, and staff engineer at Ampex Corp. @endnode _____________________________________________ @node P1-5 "Philips Confused over Matsushita Reports" @toc "menu" » Philips Confused Over Matsushita CD-I Reports « UNION CITY, NEW JERSEY, U.S.A., 1993 DEC 1 (NB) -- Despite widespread reports to the contrary, Tokyo headquartered Matsushita Electric Industrial Company, says it has no intention of abandoning the Compact Disc-Interactive (CD-I) format. Matsushita appears to have made a long-term commitment to the manufacture of the 3DO player and CD-I manufacturer Philips said it finds Matsushita's statements confusing. Telegraaf, an Amsterdam newspaper, claims a research and development director at Matsushita said CD-I was "dated" and was being abandoned in favor of the newer 3DO format. Several other publications are echoing the report as well. However, Matsushita says any reports concerning the abandonment of CD-I are erroneous. Company representatives emphatically stated that Matsushita has not stopped developing CD-I and has no intention of stopping CD-I development. Representatives from Philips said they are confused as to why Matsushita feels a need to make a statement concerning CD-I, either positive or negative. They say the statement is even more puzzling considering the fact that Matsushita has never brought a CD-I player to the US market, despite its repeated displays of prototype units at CD-I trade shows. A representative at Matsushita told Newsbytes the report appears to be amisunderstanding. However, the New York Times said Wall Street analysts are advising clients to sell their 3DO stock now, at a loss, because of concern that 3DO might not be able to live up to its high claims. Software developers for the 3DO platform have quietly expressed similar concerns to Newsbytes. San Mateo, California-based 3DO, started by Electronic Arts founder Tripp Hawkins, went public this year without a product and was enthusiastically greeted by Wall Street. Matsushita picked up the manufacture of the hardware for the platform and is manufacturing it under the brand name Panasonic. Contrary to its flying start, 3DO appears to be struggling. The company reported losses so far this year and is now in a quiet period upon the issuance of more stock. CD-I was introduced nearly three years ago, but now has a broad base of titles available and also offers playback of popular movies on CD through a partnership with Paramount. Philips is also advertising heavily in the form of "infomercials" concerning the CD-I player and products. 3DO is using a similar approach to advertise its product, but only four titles are available for the unit to date though more are promised soon. This story is © 1993 Newsbytes. Reprinted with permission. @endnode _____________________________________________ @node P5-1 "Filelogger v1.31" @toc "menu" » FileLogger v1.31 available for FTP « TITLE FileLogger VERSION Version 1.31 AUTHOR Arun Kumar EMAIL: A.KUMAR@REA2102.WINS.ICL.CO.UK DESCRIPTION Filelogger is a program which lets you log files from floppies to a database file. A few features : - Log all/selected files from a floppy to the database. - Give your own file type and remarks to each file. (Over 30 file types can also be automatically recognized). - Do a search (with wild cards) on Disk Name/File Name/File Types/Remarks. - Optionally do a multilevel sort on the above fields when searching. - Print reports of the sorted/searched list of files. - WB 2.0 like interface even on WB 1.3 Amigas, with tape deck style 3D buttons. - All logged files are held in the memory (and can later be saved). Even with 512K memory you can have about 200 disks in the log. This is a demo version with a few features disabled. For full details as to how to register yourself, see below for more information. NEW FEATURES New for version 1.31 : - You can now have your own default file types codes which you can specify in a preferences file. - Even more file types are recognised, bringing the total to 30 types. - A file requester has been added. - You can stop the sort/search and read from the disk by pressing the right mouse button. - The file comment of every file on disk will now be read into the remarks field of the log. - Now recognizes a NTSC machine and accordingly adjusts itself. - Has a new menu option to disable the irritating screen flash on display of messages. - Has a new menu option to change to colours of the screen to that of the workbench. - Some bugs have been fixed in the sorting and reading routines. - Amiga Guide format of the doc file included now. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS None. Works with 512K memory (CHIP or FAST), Version 1.3, 2.1, 3.0 OS, PAL or NTSC system. No other external files or libraries is required. HOST NAME Aminet at wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4) and other Aminet sites. DIRECTORY /pub/aminet/disk/misc FILE NAMES FileLoggerV1_31.lha 67K PRICE This is a demo version of the program with a few features disabled. For the fully working version, please send 5 UK Pounds or equivalent to the address given below. Arun Kumar 27, Durand Road, Earley, Reading RG6 2YU United Kingdom. Future upgrades are free to registered users if they send a disk and postage. DISTRIBUTABILITY The demo version of FileLogger is freely distributable in original and unmodified form. FileLogger is (c) Copyright 1993 by Arun Kumar @endnode @node P5-2 "Hangman v1.2" @toc "menu" » Hangman v1.2 available for FTP « TITLE Hangman VERSION Version 1.2 AUTHOR Arun Kumar EMAIL: A.KUMAR@REA2102.WINS.ICL.CO.UK DESCRIPTION This is the Amiga GUI implementation of the old *NIX game of Hangman, where you have to guess a word in a set number of chances. A few features : - A full GUI interface (both keyboard and mouse can be used). - Opens a window on the Workbench. - Partly localized (on OS 2.1/3.0) for defaulting to a particular language. - User can specify his own data file. - English, French, German, Spanish, Swedish and Dutch data files included. (Over 200 KBytes of data per language) - A useful Hint and Show All feature when you are stuck with a word. - AmigaGuide Online Help also available. NEW FEATURES First Public Release SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS Runs on all OS 2.0 (and above) Amigas. HOST NAME Aminet at wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4) and other Aminet sites. DIRECTORY /pub/aminet/game/think FILE NAMES HangmanV1_2.lha 377K PRICE This is a Shareware program. If you like the game, please send 5 US Dollars or equivalent to the address given below. Arun Kumar 27, Durand Road, Earley, Reading RG6 2YU United Kingdom. DISTRIBUTABILITY This version of Hangman is freely distributable in its original and unmodified form. Hangman is (c) Copyright 1993 by Arun Kumar @endnode ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @node P1-6 "Amiga Report Online" @toc "menu" /// Amiga Report Online News Eavesdropping on the world! ------------------------ » FidoNew News « ------------ *** Area: AMIGA Date: 25 Nov 93 16:36:59 *** From: Gary Stimpson (1:348/706.2) *** To : All *** Subj: CD32 Titles 1/2 ################################# ### ## #### #### ### ## ## ## # ## ## ## ## ## The FidoNet AMIGA CD32 Titles List # ####### ## ##### ###### ## Compiled by Gary Stimpson # ####### ## ### ##### ### Last Update: 25-Nov-93 # ####### ## ##### ### ##### ## ## ## # ## ## ## ## ## Additions/Corrections? Mail me! ### ## #### ### ## ################################# * = New since last update, $ = Out now (go buy it) ---- 1884........................................(Millenium) 1869........................................(Flair) 7th Guest...................................(Virgin) Akira.......................................(Ice) Alfred Chicken..............................(Mindscape) Alien Breed Original........................(Team 17) <*> Alien Breed 2...............................(Team 17) Alladin.....................................(Virgin) <*> Ambermoon...................................(Thalion) Amiga CD Football...........................(Plattsoft) B 17 Flying Fortress........................(Microprose) Battlestorm.................................(Titus) Biosphere...................................(Electronic Arts) Body Blows 2................................(Team 17) Body Blows Galactic.........................(Team 17) <*> Body Blows Original.........................(Team 17) <*> Brion The Lion..............................(Psygnosis) <*> Burning Rubber..............................(Ocean) Cannon Fodder...............................(Virgin) Captive 2...................................(Mindscape) Case of the Cautious Condor.................(Tiger Media) Chaos Engine The............................(Renegade) Cinderella..................................(Discus) Civilization................................(Microprose) Compilation Disk............................(Mindscape) Composer Quest..............................(Virtual Entertainment) Connoisseurs of Fine Art....................(Lascelles) Creation....................................(Bullfrog) Dangerous Streets...........................(Unknown) Daughter of Serpents........................(Millenium) Day Of The Tentacle.........................(LucasArts) <*> Defender of the Crown II....................(Sachs Entertainment) Diggers.....................................(Millenium) <*$> Dino Worlds.................................(Millenium) Dogfight....................................(Microprose) Donk!.......................................(Supervision) <*> Dracula.....................................(Psygnosis) Drive Fractalus.............................(Mindscape) Dune [2]....................................(Virgin) D/Generation................................(Mindscape) <*$> Elfmania....................................(Renegade) <*> England World Cup '94.......................(Grandslam) Epic........................................(Ocean) F117A Stealth Fighter.......................(Microprose) F17.........................................(Team 17) FA Premier Soccer...........................(Ocean) Fantastic Voyage............................(Centaur) First Contact...............................(Ocean) Flashback...................................(US Gold) Flight of the Amazon Queen..................(Renegade) Formula One GP..............................(Microprose) Frontier....................................(Konami) Genesis.....................................(Flair) <*> Global Chaos................................(Hex) Grolier Encyclopedia 2......................(Xiphias) Guiness Books Of Records II.................(New Media) Gunship 2000................................(Microprose) Hero Quest-Legend of Soracil................(Gremlin) Heroic Age of Space Flight/NASA.............(Troika) Impossible Mission..........................(Microprose) Indiana Jones FOA...........................(Lucasarts) Inferno.....................................(Ocean/DID) Innocent Until Caught.......................(Psygnosis) Insight Technology..........................(Optonica) International Championship Golf.............(Ocean) James Pond: Operation Starfi5h..............(Millenium) <*> James Pond 2: Robocod.......................(Millenium) <$> Jet Strike..................................(Rasputin Soft) John Doe....................................(Ocean) Jurassic Park...............................(Ocean) Lawnmower Man The...........................(Storm) <*> Legacy The..................................(Microprose) Legacy Of Sorasil...........................(Unknown) Lemmings Trilogy............................(Psygnosis) <*> Liberation..................................(Mindscape) Lionheart -rumoured-........................(Thalion) Litil Divil.................................(Gremlin) Long Hard Day at the Ranch..................(Discus) Lotus Turbo Trilogy.........................(Gremlin) Magic Carpet................................(Unknown) Manchester United 2.........................(Krisalis) Micro Machines..............................(Code Masters) Microcosm...................................(Psygnosis) Monkey Island...............................(Lucasarts) Monkey Island 2.............................(Lucasarts) Monkey Island 3 -perhaps-...................(Lucasarts) Morph.......................................(Millenium) Mortal Kombat...............................(Acclaim/Probe) Moving gives me a stomach ache..............(Discus) Mr. Nutz....................................(Ocean) Mud Puddle..................................(Discus) Musicolor...................................(Virgin) Nick Faldo's Championship Golf..............(Grandslam) Nigel Mansell GP............................(Gremlin) Ninja Trilogy The...........................(System 3) North Polar Expedition......................(Virgin) One Step Beyond.............................(Ocean) Oscar.......................................(Flairsoft) <$> Overdrive...................................(Team 17) Pinball Dreams..............................(21st Century) Pinball Fantasies CD........................(21st Century) <$> Pinball Illusions...........................(21st Century) Pirates! Gold...............................(Microprose) <*> Prehistoric.................................(Titus) Premier Manager.............................(Ocean) Project X Original..........................(Team 17) <*> Project X2..................................(Team 17) Pugsy.......................................(Psygnosis) <*> Putty 2.....................................(System 3) <*> Quack.......................................(Team 17) Reach Out For Gold..........................(Unknown) Return to the Lost World....................(Mirage) Rise of the Robots..........................(Mirage) Rough and Tumble............................(Renegade) Ryder Cup Golf..............................(Ocean) <*> Sabre Team..................................(Krisalis) Second Samurai..............................(Virgin) Sensible Soccer.............................(Renegade) <*> Sim City 2000...............................(Mindscape) <*> Sim City....................................(Maxis) Sim Farm....................................(Mindscape) <*> Sim Life....................................(Mindscape) Sleepwalker.................................(Ocean) Snooker/Pool 2..............................(Virgin) Soccer Kid..................................(Krisalis) Space Junk..................................(Mirage) Space Simulation............................(Gremlin) Stamps of France and Morocco................(Seriat) Star Trek 25th Anniversary..................(Unknown) Starlord....................................(Microprose) Subwar......................................(Microprose) Super Frog Original.........................(Team 17) <*> Super Frog 2................................(Team 17) Surf Ninjas.................................(Flair) <*> Syndicate...................................(Bullfrog) T-Rex.......................................(Millenium) <*> Tale of Peter Rabbit........................(Discus) TFX.........................................(Ocean/DID) The Cure....................................(Ice) Theatre of Death............................(Psygnosis) Theme Park..................................(Bullfrog) Trivial Pursuit.............................(Domark) Trolls......................................(Unknown) TV Sports Pack..............................(Mindscape) <*> Two Towers The..............................(Unknown) Ultima Underworld...........................(Mindscape) Uridium 2...................................(Renegade) Utopia 2....................................(Gremlin) Various Games Pack..........................(Mindscape) Whale's Voyage..............................(Flairsoft) <*$> Wing Commander..............................(Mindscape) Wing Commander 2............................(Mindscape) Winter Super Sports.........................(Unknown) World Circuit Grand Prix....................(Microprose) Zool [2]....................................(Gremlin) ::: THE END - For Now ::: *** Area: AMIGA Date: 15 Nov 93 0:41:00 *** From: Jon Peterson (1:383/25.0) *** To : All *** Subj: FFish1000th Anniv Fund Here is the list of donors for the tenth week of the FFish 1000th Anniv thingy. * Jon Peterson Matthew L. Schultz Chris Nelson Asha DeVelder Marshall Freedland Jeremy Friesner Michael Phipps Darrin & Lisa Zimmerman (Amiga Un-Sig of Southern Michigan) Eric V. Peterson (Canada) Eric Zimmer Fred M. Hamilton Michael Meredith (England) David Jennings (Australia) Gary Delzer David Gomme Gateway Amiga Club, Inc. Abilene Amiga Users Group Rick Russell Niagara Amiga (Users) Group N.A.G. (Canada) - BIG THANKS Julla O. Kouppinen (Finland) A long distance thanks very much! (This is finally getting international.... Where's Hong Kong??) Interesting, some of the donors who feel thanks enough to reach into their pockets and join the drive. Total donations as of 11/14/93 are $436.50. Got a ways to go folks to purchase the (?A4000T?). There is pretty reliable info that FFish does in fact already own an A4000 (shoot!). Suggestions??? Please talk this up with all concerned (Amiga users) and pass the word on to your Users Groups. If you haven't joined the effort, slip that hand into the pocket and pull out some bucks, put it into any envelope and send it in. Let's show what the Amiga community is all about. Check over some of the programs you have benefitted/are benefitting from. Register them and/or pitch in for FishFund. * Reminder to everyone PLEASE!!! Pass the word at any Users Group meetings y ou attend. This should be a group effort on behalf of all the Amiga users throughout the world. Please donate whatever you can afford - or even better, what you honestly think FFish's work has been worth to you through the years. You think speed kills? Try apathy! Let's make this thing happen. Thanks. BTW, there have been some very nice comments to/about FFish included in the envelopes with donations. As I have been saving these, think I will include them along with the donation "pot"/A4000T when the time comes. » AmigaNet News « ------------- *** Area: NEWS_AMY Date: 26 Nov 93 22:49:00 *** From: John Preston (40:800/910.0) *** To : All *** Subj: HACKER ON THE LOOSE!!!! I would like to warn all of you of a BAD hacker (there are good ones and I'm proof of that). He decided to break into my system (probably using a word cypher though he won't admit to it). I got luck and caught him while he was online and here is the excerpt of the log: ME>so who guessed my password :) HIM>hhehe, just your friendly neighbor hacker, oh, and a real hacker doesn't GUESS passwords ME>:) So either someone who found it somewhere like where though :) HIM>oh, a good hacker doesn't reveal his secrets either, and I hate you dam amercian sysops, you guys stay home to much, ME>? HIM>ah nothing ME>So Mr. cracker (hackers are useful :) who are you anyway, not that I'm upset since I knew that the password would get broken sooner or later... Main reason there is nothing but BBS stuff on this machine :) ME>well, please to term me a cracker, I am not, I go by the name, "The Moz", I assume you will be hearing a lot about me in the coming days, as I have figured out a method to infiltrate ANY amiga based BBS, but seeing how nice I am I haven't destroyed anyting. I have been doing this for about a half year and just now when an american sysop cauht me a couple of days ago I decided to go to town, not wrrying my little precious face about when the sysops might be up ED: Anyone who breaks into a system that is protected from unlawful entry is a cracker. IE Safe CRACKER. ME>:) No, wont bother me anyway... If it is a hole in DLG I can believe it. not bothered to see if there is one. Yea I cought ya two ways... one I don't log in remote anymore because I don't have that need (I'm here enough to use the local terminal) and second it is the holidays so I was wondering why it seemed someone was calling back a few times (like a bad LD connection). HIM> it is holiday? ME>Turkey day here in US. I have paid vacation from Yesterday, today and then the weekend (4days). HIM> oh btw it is not a hole as you put it in DLG, this method I have come to use on DLG E! CNET and my personal favorite Xenolink ME> OK. So you have a word cypher or something then? HIM> oooooh, no no, much simpler he he, but I digress ED: Only other thing I could think of is a hold in TRAPDOOR. ME> OK. Well anyway, I guess I'll have to make it more fun next time. BTW there won't be much to find on the BBS cept PD stuff. I don't get into cracking preaking or pirating. Just a good ol' clean BBS. The A4000 and the A500 on the next desk are where the goodies are stored (all 700megs not including two 1.3 gig tapes). HIM> are you ready to play The Moz's "Let's make a deal?" ME> ?? HIM>This is the deal, ok, I can get into your system no matter what you do, this is fact, I do not destroy systems, I take files, look around and leave. ok got that, this is the deal, you will not mention this to anyone, as I monitor all DLG/ and sysops echos (yes your echo :), If I find you do, I will (hate to say it) delete everything on your hd, no prelblem since you have backups you say, but I will also insall my time-release viruses and sooner or later you will tire of backing up, so.... you say nothing, and I promise never to return to your system ME>I don't take kind to threats. Since I am clean. I will simply call FCC, BELL and INTERPOL and leave it up to them. As for backups and tapes, well go ahead. I have 10 backups of the BBS dated a week apart and I will simply install a previous one eacy time and the virus will never show up. Now that you have warned me. That is exactly what I will do (for the BBS software). I can back up files seperatly and since I'm too busy to bother downliading and unarching all files in the BBS I will never catch your virus. My users may but not me. ME>Sorry. Had you asked simply for to mess around without me knowing that you were getting in (that is if you get in and I don't catch you then there is not much I can do except say, Moz got in again ah well. But now that you have threatend me. I don't think I can take that lightly. ME> Ah so now I know :) HIM> no what? ME> :) Oh I don't know. Whatever. I just got my new secure digital phones for voice now I guess I gotta get rest of stuff secure :) ED: I forgot to tell him that one of my customers is US Secret service. They will love it when I tell them I got a euro hacker breaking into one of my systems! HIM>he he, yes I have all your users password, just thought I'd let you know. Did you hang up on me?? ME>I don't take to threats and if threated I call frends who have power to hurt those that threaten. You have their passwords? How? I will have to check the logs again but I don't see any downloads from CLI ... HIM>I deleted your logs ME>You did? Na, I'm not sure about that. If you did then you left the logs exactly right from the last time I allowd somone to transfer a file from CLI :) ED: he did not know I rewrote XPRTRANSFER and a few other programs to create their own logs of usage. He did delete my TRAPDOOR and normal DLG and DLGMAIL logs. HIM> hmm, well I'm gonna say how I did it, nut anyways, I will explain to you why I threaten you, you see, if this method gets out, other hackers will figure it out as well, I and I know many hundreds of sysops don't want this, this is why I ask you know to say anything, if you do, the method MAY b discovered, as of now, I am very sure I am the only one who knows how to do this HIM>hello ME>Sorry got distracted looking at my logs again :) No, I will not leak such things. I don't like to propagate insanity and that is exactly what would happen... Now if this were how to break into MAXIMUS or some other IBM board :) nope, only amiga sosrry ME> :) I mean then it may pay to get back at the IBM guys :) Nah, I'm not that cruel either. I'm the type that could write a virus but instead try to do some other clever stuff at the low level (useful)... HIM>hmm, well anyway, I am glad you understand, but I'm not sure, there are other systems, that I have hacked, and did not get a chance to clean-up my work, so the word maybe getting out soon. I will ask if I may finish the download on the file ED: check your files guys. ME> The file? which file? HIM> I was downoading the dlg_099 bbs archive, I have mostofit already ME> I would rather you do not. It *IS* my BBS minus the security keys. HIM>I already have manypeoples security keys, I just want the newest version of DLG, I ru Xenolink, but I like to mess around with DLG ME>The newest is 1.0 and that is what I'm running now. HIM>can you give me the archive? ME> It is not archived. I installed it from the disks I just got. HIM>ah, it would be nice to have the disk archives :) ME>:) Yea not sure I want to archive those since I know they will have my keys in them and they also may be hidden on the disk in other places. You know those DLG boys they were veminent about pirating their stuff. HIM>yeah ok well I understand, I just didn't want to go hack another DLG board for it, but I guess I will have to eh? Oh by the way, I like your lha.key "For everyone" haaha ME>Yea I need to change that. I got that from someone before I realized that the keyfile was ripped. I will probably drop back to 1.38 since it works well or I will try to get the UNIX version to compile again. I got close the last time. HIM>well, I guess if you will not give me the dlg disk, I will be leaving, on to yet another system, maybe DLG HQ :) HIM>:) If you can get it from there then I guess you deserve to have it in your posession! No, I'd rather not distribute the BBS. If it were some other application, maybe, but the BBS is kinda vital (same can be said about my C compiler). HIM>hehe yes, I've been looking at the c source for your gwterm and I guess your starting a rIpterm, ED: A mistake I had copied the entire dir to the BBS when I transfered an older version to the BBS. If he looks closly he will see the executable does not match the sources. ME> Yea. It's been postponed by another program (a more commercial venture), however this holiday will get me some time to work on it and some of the other PD/share/free programs I have. HIM>do you have the bbs number for tpt tech? ME>Hold. I know it is in nodelist 403-347-3262 is HST HIM>this is cannpij pidj dpij HIM>this is canada?? ME>Yes 403-347-3269 is v32 not sure if it is .bis 14.4 I think it is. HIM>ah nevermind, let's just say Canada's phone system is a little more "ambitous" for my taste ED: Damn. I was hoping he would try so I could tel TPT to double capture all logs. ME>:) Yea I hear ya. I'm not sure how much longer ma-bell and all the other junk (sprint/mci) will finally decide to catch up and attempt to be modern. Its a joke to see how bad the security of those systems are. And living here in Ft LauderDale I've discovered that a guy down the street has been listening in on other folks cordless conversations (not that I also do that :) but he has equipment to also TALK on the same freqs and thus if someone leaves their hand set off the charger, well then he could make some free phone calls :) HIM> he he, well I guess I will be off, I may come and "visit" sometime in the future ME> Just leave a note if you get in. If you are able I cannot really stop you, but I'd just like to know if you did. You don't have to say when but just so I' wont get confused when I see that I dropped to dos when I havent :) HIM> well, I'll leave your logs alone next time HIM> OK. That'll help. Thanks for being honest about being the one who did... Of couse if you really have all the passwords how do I know this is really you :) ANyway... You never did say how you got in... HIM> haha and I never will (Actually when all my funis over, I will be anonymously netmailing all bbs authors and a "fix") ED: all authors? so is it a TD thing or a BBS thing? ME> OK. That should be adquate. Sounds like your just having fun. Just don't make it too expensive on the phone companies here. I don't want to see my phone rates go up! :) HIM> eh, I pay for my calls. ED: Then why was he scared to call canada? ME> OK. Well then it is really for the fun of it then eh. OK.. WIll let you go find another system. Thanks for not taking too much from this one. HIM> :0 So now that you have seen this I wonder how many other systems he has gotten into. I have called the FCC and the local BELL (Actually got someone on the holiday!). And I will be talking to my friends in some of the other federal departments (esp Secret Service) as the last thing I need is someone trying to break into my systems. To prevent phone phreaking and credit card fraud, I have informed MCI and BELL of numbers I call, what times and for how long on both data and voice. I have frozen my credit cards and all other credit. Don't need them anymore since I now have a more steady paycheck :). I have changed my BBS so that even I do not have SYSOP or drop to dos capabilities. This will BITE when I want to change/add/delete menus or validate files, however I will be writing some utilities to allow me to do this only on this machine. This guy has me really pissed. First he guesses (cracks guesses cyphers all the same) a really good password, then he tries to rip off my software, then he threatens me which all causes me to remove my own privledges (remote sysop accesses) just to protect me from him. Well I will have to wait and see if he gets in again. In the mean time I have protected the BBS by making it so NO-ONE, not even myself, has the right to drop to dos. NO-ONE, not even myself has the right to the SYSOP MENUS to change/edit a user account so they can drop to dos. As for the VIRUSES, I have a way around that as well. Even if he gets in, he will not be able to change any of the BBS's executables (no it is not C:LOCK, or C:PROTECT since I know you are reading this echo). I'll keep this one underhat. All I will say is that only I will be able to protect the executables this way. I'm one who likes low level system stuff so I will be writing some special software to monitor breakins (the XPRTRANSFER and other loggers were written to monitor some of my co-sysops in IOWA and they just happen to see what was going on so there will be other tasks I will write to monitor and log discretely other activities such as dos command execution and what tasks spawned other tasks and such. So be warned that there is someone out there trying to crack in and steal your software! I'm waiting to see this guy come back and mess with this system. I love dealing with law enforcment agencies. @endnode ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @node P4-5 "Amiga Report Mailing List" @toc "menu" /// Amiga Report Mailing List ------------------------- No Official Amiga Report Distribution Site in your local calling area? Are you tired of waiting for your local BBS or online service to get Amiga Report each week? If so, have we got a deal for you! If you have an internet mailing address, you can receive Amiga Report in UUENCODED form each week as soon as the issue is released. To be put on the list, send Email to Amiga-Report-Request@imtired.itm.com. 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. Please do not send general Email to Amiga-Report-Request, only requests for subscription additions or deletions (or if you are not receiving an intact copy). All other correspondence concerning the mailing list should be directed to Robert Niles at rniles@imtired.itm.com. Also, please do not send subscription list requests or changes to the editor. Many thanks to PORTAL Communications for setting this service up for us! P.S.: Please be sure to include your Email address in the text of your request message, it makes adding it to the list much easier. Thanks! ** 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 P1-7 "CBM Shareholder Movement Update" @toc "menu" /// Commodore Shareholder Movement Update ------------------------------------- By Mike Levin (mikel@netaxs.com) Anyone who is going to be at the Toronto World of Commodore Show, please ask questions and talk about the Commodore Shareholder Movement. We have appealed to Commodore management with no reply. The Shareholder Meeting is seriously delayed. We are determining our next action. Legal actions can be initiated on various grounds (something we hesitate to do), or we can issue a public offering for Commodore stock (a buy-out). Please inform me of any help you may provide. We will be announcing a Press Conference shortly. Please repeat this message to others. Thank you. @endnode ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @node P1-8 "Usenet Review - Frontier" @toc "menu" /// Usenet Review: Frontier ------------------------ By Andrew Clayton (dac@prolix.apana.org.au) PRODUCT NAME Frontier (also known as Elite II) BRIEF DESCRIPTION Frontier is a space exploration/trading/shoot-em-up game that is a sequel to "Elite," a very successful program available for a number of computing platforms. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: GameTek UK (Konami is also mentioned) Address: 5 Bath Road, Slough, Berks SL1 3UA England Telephone: None supplied FAX: None supplied LIST PRICE I paid $69.95 (Australian) for this product from a local computer software shop. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE 1 MB of RAM is required. Works with all Amigas. 68020 CPU and upwards provide smoother animations and better detail, but the gameplay is supposedly the same on any CPU. SOFTWARE Works under all Kickstart versions. The program does not use the operating system, and will not multitask. The program requires a stack of at least 70,000 bytes, but most people feel safer with a stack setting of 100,000 bytes. COPY PROTECTION "Look up a word in the manual" protection. The program is hard drive installable, but works from floppies. The program is a single executable. Save-game data can be saved on any read/write device. (Floppy, hard drive, recoverable RAM disk, etc.) The copy protection mechanism gets a rating of "acceptable": you notice it, but it is not too bad. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 4000/40 2MB Chip RAM, 4MB 16bit Fast RAM, 16MB 32bit Fast RAM Kickstart 39.106, Workbench 39.29 1.1 gigabytes of hard disk space INSTALLATION The program may be played by booting on the master floppy disk, or it can be copied to the hard disk by any normal Amiga mechanism (drop the icon, use the Copy command, or use a directory utility program such as Directory Opus). This is a very simple operation. Anyone who has used an Amiga for more than 30 minutes should be able to cope. I created a Frontier directory on my GAMES: partition, and copied the executable and the six "saved game" files into this directory. REVIEW Years ago, my father raved about a game he was playing called Elite. I didn't take much notice, at the time, until I saw it available for the Amiga. I purchased it and was entranced. Although I didn't get anywhere near the rank of Elite, due to an unfortunate conflict between the game and my Amiga 1000, I did have a great deal of fun and "wasted" many hours playing the game. Late in 1992, the British computing magazine "The One" had an interview with David Braben, the programmer of Elite, and revealed that he was working on the successor to Elite, with the inspiring title of "Elite II." The working title was revised to be "Frontier" sometime in late 1992. Rumours of this game's existence and "imminent release" were rife within the comp.sys.amiga.games newsgroup, but the official news was always bad, with unexpected delays, and broken release-date promises galore. Then, the Frontier demo was uploaded to the Aminet ftp sites and much ooh-ing and ahh-ing (and slamming of the demo for being lame) was to be heard. The demo turned out to be the opening sequence for the game itself, and sparked off a huge discussion in comp.sys.amiga.games. Eventually, news came from people who had actually seen and played the game. The rush was on; and after a few weeks of scouring the local scene, I finally acquired a copy from a local computer software shop. The installation was a breeze; once done, I put the original disks away in their box, and set about playing the game. Commander Dac, in charge of his shiny inherited Eagle Long Range fighter, snapped into existence. Firing away with his powerful engines, he took off from the spaceport on the planet Ross, and was promptly shot down by hordes of angry police ships, sent by a militant base commander who was offended by my lack of manners in not asking for take off clearance. Game time: two minutes. Real time: five minutes. And I was toast. A quick succession of restarting the game, and wild attempts to evade authority always ended up with my being declared a criminal and getting shot down by the atrociously piloted police ships. I decided that asking for clearance to take off isn't just a formality, it's the LAW. Later on in the game, when I accrued some fines for doing something considered illegal, I managed to evade the police ships and escape; however, I was spontaneously killed for not obeying the police, whilst minding my own business beside an asteroid, trying to blow it to smithereens. The moral is PAY YOUR FINES! The game isn't lenient here: you either pay your fines, or you die. Frontier is based on the same principles as Elite. You have a spaceship with a Hyperdrive, and you carry cargo from one planet or spaceport to another, hoping to make a profit in the process. On the way, you meet with other spacefarers, most of whom look at you and decide that you're easy pickings, and start shooting first. They do not desist until you obliterate them or they destroy you. Space combat is an integral part of the game. During the early stages it is very difficult to fight other spaceships - your firepower is limited to a 1-MWatt pulse laser that fires once every 5/8ths of a second, and you have no shields to protect you from the clumsy pilots of other spaceships. Later, combat becomes less life-threatening and more tedious. With a 20-MWatt beam laser, you rarely get touched before you've atomised any prospective opponents. However, "rarely" doesn't mean "never." Sometimes, you get only a blip of a warning, and you're suddenly breathing space, and the dreaded "Game Over" tombstone is on your screen. Tactics and weaponry play an important part in the game. I find combat to be quite a simple affair these days with my 4-MWatt continuous beam laser. Some people think combat is too easy, and they even go back to 1-MWatt pulse lasers to have some challenge. I think they're ego-tripping though. Getting to where you want to go is one of the main problems with Elite. Your interplanetary systems can get you going only a few thousand kilometers per second. Distances within solar systems are realistically portrayed in Astronomical Units or AU's (one AU is the distance from the Earth to the Sun, or about 150,000,000 kilometers). Travelling more than 50 AU's is a tedious process. The system map is a scalable, three-dimensional representation of the various stars, planets, satellites and space stations in your star system. The mouse controls your point of view. Zooming is accomplished using the function keys F7 or F8, or by clicking on their icons on the screen. Everything "works" in the system map - you can watch moons orbiting planets, and planets orbiting stars, and other spaceships going about their business. All of this functionality is fairly intuitive. Braben has supplied an option to reverse the left/right up/down function of the mouse if "real motion" confuses you. You can zoom in to look at planets, and then look at the surface of the planet and see starports. Orbital starports or orbital cities are also displayed, with movement in real or accelerated time so you can plan how to get there in the least amount of time. Frontier's galactic map is huge. The galaxy is about 75,000 light years across in this game, and the central part of the galaxy has many star systems within a light year of each other. Navigation is fairly simple, but there doesn't seem to be much out there to look for outside of the Core systems and the Imperial sector. The responsiveness when updating in the system display is very pleasing. Details such as gas-giant rings are visible, with background scenery (space dust, stars, motion indicators) selectable on or off, in the main program options page. Zooming in on planets, asteroids, space stations or other spaceships is all possible. So is communication, but this aspect of the game is very limited. The premise of Frontier is trading between the two star-faring groups - the Core Systems, centred on Sol, and the Imperial Sytems, centred on Achenar. The Imperials are wholly capitalist: almost nothing is banned, and police protection must be purchased. Lots of contraband items are available - drugs, slaves, weapons - and life can get hectic, due to the increased pirate activity in Imperial space. The Core systems are more "refined" and actively clamp down on drug-runners and slave dealers. Do not go to a Core system with a hold full of slaves! Each faction has a ratings system - the Imperial side choosing serfs, squires, prince and that sort of thing, whilst the Core systems have Colonels and Majors etc. Acquiring medals, awards, and passes is almost essential to advance in the game. Ship types are many and varied, ranging from 4 tonne planet hoppers, with only interplanetary drives, to 2,000 tonne cargo behemoths (which turn really slowly, and chew through fuel like it was going out of fashion). A very large ship will cost you about 500,000 credits. Considering you start off with 100 credits, this might take a while to acquire (if it weren't for the bugs... see below). Some trade runs are extremely profitable, and these sort of runs will be your bread and butter for the first few hours of the game. You upgrade your ship with bigger and better weapons, defenses, and add-ons such as scanners, radar viewers for scanning other ships, Electronic Counter Measures to foil missiles, automatic hull repair systems, and Large Plasma Accelerators (weighing in at 900 tonnes!). The game supplies you with a seemingly endless stream of hopelessly piloted enemies who seek to destroy your ship. With adequate shields and a steady hand, you can wipe out most opposition easily. But not all opponents are braindead. Some are plain deadly, and running away would be the best option when you encounter them with their shielded ships and 20-MWatt beam lasers. Frontier has a huge scope, but most players I know have expressed some disappointment that 99% of the galaxy is either unexplored or uninhabited. In this review, I haven't discussed the special missions you can take, the "small parcel" deliveries, paid passenger services, assassination offers, military missions, mining asteroids, mining planets, blowing up Lynx bulk Ore carriers, the way the police Vipers tend to crash into each other, the penalty for not having atmospheric shields, or how simple it is to die repeatedly in situations that are seemingly standard fare. I do hope I've given some useful information to some people though. The bugs can be irritating. The flight simulation is excellently handled with Braben's smooth 3D graphics engine. I like this game a lot, and recommend that any ex-Elite players check out this game. DOCUMENTATION Frontier comes with three manuals and a quick reference card. A reference manual, 106 pages long, provides most of the information about how the program interface works, and a guide to what functions are available, enhancements and upgrades to ships, weaponry, and miscellaneous devices. A 40-page "Gazetteer" contains descriptions of several dozen star systems. It also contains clues about the game. "Stories of life on the Frontier" is 82 pages long. It contains several chapters of short stories about various characters in the game. I haven't read this manual much, but what I have read indicates that it contains clues about possible game strategies and locations of interest. The quick reference card indicates how to start the game, what the various icons indicate, and situations in which the icons do become available. The game controls are minimally explained. There is no further documentation on the two disks. I found the documentation to be of adequate quality. There are a number of glaring typographical errors and incorrect pieces of information. Most of the information you need to play the game is buried in the game manual, which lacks an index (but does have a table of contents). I would say that the documentation is aimed at people who have played this sort of game before. I didn't have any specific problem other than the lack of an index. LIKES AND DISLIKES LIKES: I really liked the processor support for 68040's. The program is smooth and responsive on my computer, and works without having to disable caches, play with memory settings, or turn off the AGA chipset. Hard disk installability was a key selling point. I have reached the stage where I refuse to purchase programs that will not load onto my hard disk. This is a problem specific to the Amiga computing community. The PClone users of the world aren't treated to idiotic floppy-disk based games and protection schemes, and haven't been for years. I'm pleased that Gametek marketed the game in this format. DISLIKES I dislike the Save Game "requestor," which consists of a screen full of drive names and directories. AmigaDOS "Assigns" are invisible. Finding saved-game files is a matter of knowing which drive to look at, and finding the directory. I resorted to saving games into a recoverable RAM drive and then copying the saved games back to disk when I finished playing the game. David Braben originally programmed the game so that it was "system clean", and would exit back to the AmigaDOS operating system when you quit the game. For some inane reason, the game was distributed with this feature disabled, so the only way to exit the game is to reboot your computer. Very unfriendly. The program doesn't multitask, since it takes over the display, but neither does it clobber what is already running on your system. A patch exists (by Teemu Suikki, tsuikki@cc.lut.fi) which enables you to modify the Frontier executable, and quit back to the operating system. I highly recommend this patch. I am constantly disappointed with the number of program bugs that my version (1.00) has. Apparently later releases (up to 1.05 at the time of this review) have fixed some bugs, but other bugs remain. Most can be circumvented, but some of them require you to go back to a saved game, or have the ability to ruin the gameplay, by giving you unlimited sums of money if you do certain bug-affected sequences. A word of warning: money is a signed value, and anything over 214,000,000.00 Cr will "roll over" to negative values. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS Frontier is a logical extension to David Braben's Elite; and as such, the game most resembles Elite. It could also be compared to Warhead, StarFlight 2, Universe 2, or any of the other "pilot a space ship and trade, whilst killing anything that moves" sort of games. BUGS There are many bugs: far too many to enumerate. One Usenet poster was disappointed that any attempt to hyperspace into to Beta Lyrae causes the program to crash (replicated on the IBM version of the program). There is an annoying bug with the Bulletin Board showing items from the Stockmarket. This can be circumvented by accelerating time until the next day, when the Bulletin Board will be reset. Many people report not being able to "take off" from planetary surfaces, even though they have refueled their internal engines. Apparently maximum time acceleration will get you going, but your ship may suffer considerable damage as it crashes through various obstacles (walls, buildings, mountains, etc.) There are a number of bugs involving money. One planet "sells" usually expensive items for negative amounts of money! Take one tonne of material, and they GIVE you 3,000 credits. Very silly. Another bug lets you sell your ship for the going rate, but not complete the transfer -- you get to keep the money but not change the ship. Do this a few hundred times, and you can make a hundred million credits in a few minutes of furious mouse-clicking. Surely ruins the game though. One ship has an unfortunate knack of being able to aim its turret laser at itself. Excellent way to commit suicide. There are many more. Most of them can be avoided, and the general advice given in comp.sys.amiga.games is to SAVE THE GAME a lot, unless you want undue heartache. VENDOR SUPPORT I haven't contacted the company, and doubt the efficacy of a support request directed at a British company, coming from Australia. WARRANTY There is a registration card that does not mention any kind of warranty. CONCLUSIONS I like the game a lot. It recaptures the feel of Elite, with some upgraded graphics and a much larger galaxy to explore. I hope that David Braben comes out with the (rumoured) add-ons to this program, since most of the galaxy is unexplored and lifeless. The 3D graphics engine used in the game is very smooth. Certainly this is what I expected of something like Wing Commander (which was a great disappointment on the Amiga). The introduction sequence (available as a "Frontier Demo") is quite neat, and I'm sure it sold more than a few copies of this game. I'd have preferred to have had a properly tested game, with the major bugs removed, but I still recommend that people go out and buy the game. It's a whole lot of fun. @endnode *************************************************************************** @node P4-2 "Portal" @toc "menu" /// Portal: A Great Place For Amiga Users -------------------------------------- Portal Communications' Amiga Zone The AFFORDABLE alternative for online Amiga information ------------------------------------------------------- The Portal Online System is the home of acclaimed Amiga Zone, which was formerly on the People/Link System. Plink went out of business in May, 1991 and The Amiga Zone's staff moved to Portal the next day. The Zone has just celebrated its second anniversary on Portal. The Amiga press raves about The Amiga Zone, when compared to its competition. If you live in the San Jose, CA area, then you can dial Portal directly. If you live elsewhere, you can reach Portal through any SprintNet (formerly Telenet) indial anywhere in the USA. If you have an account on another Internet-connected system, you can connect to Portal using the UNIX Telnet programs, from anywhere in the industrialized world. Delphi and BIX users can now Telnet into Portal for a flat $19.95 a month, with *unlimited* use. Some of Portal/Amiga Zone's amazing features include: · Over 1.5 GIGabytes of Amiga-specific files · The *entire* Fred Fish collection of freely distributable software, online. · Fast, Batch Zmodem file transfer protocol. Download up to 100 files at once, of any size, with one command. · Twenty Amiga vendor areas with participants like AmigaWorld, ASDG, Soft-Logik, Black Belt, Apex Publishing, Stylus, Prolific, NES. · 35 "regular" Amiga libraries with thousands of files. Hot new stuff arrives daily. · No upload/download "ratios" EVER. Download as much as you want, as often as you want, and never feel pressued doing it. · Live, interactive nightly chats with Amiga folks whose names you will recognize. Special conferences. Random chance prize contests. Famous Amiga folks aren't the exception on Portal, they're the norm. · Vast Message bases where you can ask questions about *anything* Amiga related and get quick replies from the experts. · Amiga Internet mailing lists for Imagine, DCTV, LightWave, HyperAmi, Director and Landscapes are fed right into the Zone message bases. Read months worth of postings. They don't scroll off, ever! No need to clutter your mailbox with them. · FREE unlimited Internet Email. Your Portal account gets you a mailbox that's connected to the world. Send letters of any length to computer users in the entire industrialized world. No limits. No extra charges. No kidding! · Portal has the Usenet. Thousands of "newsgroups" in which you can read and post articles about virtually any subject you can possibly imagine. · Other Portal SIGs (Special Interest Groups) online for Mac, IBM, Sun, NeXT, UNIX, Science Fiction, Writers, amateur radio, and a graphics SIG with thousands of GIF files to name just a few. ALL Portal SIGs are accessible to ALL Portal customers with NO surcharges ever. · The entire UPI/Clarinet/Newsbytes news hierarchy ($4/month extra) An entire general interest newspaper and computer news magazine. · Portal featues an exciting package of Internet features: IRC, FTP, TELNET, MUDS, LIBS. Free to all Portal customers with your account. Internet Services is a menu driven version of the same kinds of utilities you can also use from your Portal UNIX shell account. · All the files you can FTP. All the chatting you can stand on the IRC. And on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) you can talk live, in real time with Amiga users in the U.K., Europe, Australia, the Far East, 24 hours a day. · Our exclusive PortalX by Steve Tibbett, the graphical "front end" for Portal which will let you automatically click'n'download your waiting email, messages, Usenet groups and binary files! Reply to mail and messages offline using your favorite editor and your replies are sent automatically the next time you log into Portal. (PortalX requires Workbench 2.04 or higher) · And Portal does NOT stick it to high speed modem users. Whether you log in at 1200 or 2400 or 9600 or 14.4K you pay the same low price. How does all that sound? Probably too good to be true. Well, it IS true. Portal Signup or for more information: 408-973-9111 (voice) 9a.m.-5p.m. Mon-Fri, Pacific Time 408-725-0561 (modem 3/12/2400) 24 hours every day 408-973-8091 (modem 9600/14400) 24 hours every day or enter "C PORTAL" from any Sprintnet dial-in in the USA, or enter "portal" from any Tymnet "please log in:" prompt, USA & Canada or telnet to "portal.com" from anywhere. PORTAL'S CURRENT RATES: All prices shown are in U.S. Dollars Total Total Total Total Cost Cost Cost Cost Fee 1 hr. 5 hrs. 10 hrs.30 hrs. Startup Monthly Per Per per per per Fee Fee Hour month month month month $ $ $ $ $ $ $ Portal 19.95 19.95 2400/9600/14.4Kbps, *direct 24 hrs 0.00 19.95 19.95 19.95 19.95 2400/9600bps nonprime Sprint 2.50 22.95 32.45 44.95 94.95 2400/9600bps prime Sprint +% 5.50-10 29.95 69.95 119.95 varies 2400/9600bps non prime # PCPursuit 1.00 20.95 24.95 29.95 49.95 * plus cost of phone call if out of Portal's local dialing area Direct rates also apply to connections made to Portal using the UNIX "telnet" program from an account you may already have on an Internet-connected system. % 9600 bps Sprintnet and Tymnet available in over 300 cities areas + $10 rate prevails at smaller US Cities # PCPursuit is a service of US Sprint. Portal is a PCPursuit "Direct Access Facility" thus connection to Portal with a PCP account is simply a matter of entering C PORTAL,PCP-ID,PCP-PASSWORD at the SprintNet login prompt instead of C PORTAL. Note: Portal Direct 9600/14400 bps service is availble for both USR HST modems, and any V32/V32.bis modems. There are dozens of direct-dial high speed lines into Portal. No busy signals! SprintNet 9600bps service is V.32 modem protocol only. Again, Portal does NOT surcharge high speed modem users! Portal subscribers who already have an account on an Internet-capable system elsewhere, can use that system's "telnet" program to connect to Portal for $0.00 an hour. That's right ZERO. From anywhere in the world. If you're in this category, be sure to ask the Portal reps, when you signup, how to login to Portal from your existing Internet account. Call and join today. Tell the friendly Portal Customer Service representative, "The Amiga Zone and Amiga Report sent me!" [Editor's Note: Be sure to tell them that you are an Amiga user, so they can notify the AmigaZone sysops to send their Welcome Letter and other information!] That number again: 408-973-9111. Portal Communications accepts MasterCard, Visa, or you can pre-pay any amount by personal check or money order. The Portal Online System is a trademark of Portal Communications. @endnode *************************************************************************** /// Another Moronic, Inane and Gratuitous Article --------------------------------------------- By Chad Freeman (cjfst4+@pitt.edu) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @node P1-9 "The Emulation Rambler" @toc "menu" /// The Emulation Rambler --------------------- By Jason Compton (jcompton@tcity.com) Aaargh! It's getting difficult to keep up with all of the CSAE conversation these days. In a nutshell: nobody seems to know exactly what patents Readysoft may or may not have been or are infringing upon, lots of people are mad at Jim Drew for either no discernable reason or because he believes in putting patents on software, and I STILL don't know what happened to A-Max III. So I'll move on to other things... You may have read about the Quadra 610 DOS-Compatible rumor two weeks ago in CPU Status Report. Maybe you read the full-feature article confirming it last week. In case you didn't, Apple has announced a Quadra with a full 486/VGA board installed. It allegedly has a shared clipboard (we'll see just how practical that is) and both sides are accessable with a dual keypress (Left Amiga-M?). Ever since I read the first file two weeks ago, it set me to thinking. Now, with the confirmation, I'm thinking even more. Why would Apple do something like this? Why would they release a dual-platform machine after all that work on PowerPC? PowerPC, the chip that was supposed to do all of this wonderful cross-platforming, right? In my estimation, Apple Computer is doing one of two things: 1. It is either trying to soak its customer base for every penny it can get, selling a cross-platforming computer now so they can turn around and sell a PowerPC cross-platformer in a year, claim it's something that everyone needs, and take more thousands from people who just bought the Quadra 610. Nasty and un-Commodorelike though it be, it's good business sense for Apple, and a distinct possibility. The other possibility is that PowerPC simply isn't everything that it's been hyped up to be, and Apple knows it, and has released a 486/VGA board as a sort of apology. After all, we've been hearing about PowerPC for a year, but the first word about this computer came to me two weeks ago. (Oh, just as a note: the 486/VGA board is said to be "under $500", meaning $499.99, no doubt. I have to admit: that's less than the current Amiga solution.) Like I've said, this is the time for Amiga cross-platforming to take center stage...it's obviously something the computer community wants to hear about. We've been doing it since the first XT bridgeboard came out. Let's remind them. A quick benchmark for ya: Yep, we lose. Actually, some of the other benchmarks aren't as bad... Centris 040/20 Amiga 3000 (030/25) SoftPC PC-Task SI: 16.1 SI: 1.6 Yep, we lose this one. Not all of the benchmarks turned out with this much difference, which I attribute to the difference in speed as well as SoftPC's 286 emulation. It IS faster. @endnode ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @node P1-10 "Zen and the Art of Desk Top Publishing" @toc "menu" /// Zen and the Art of Desk Top Publishing -------------------------------------- By Brian Gawor Disclaimer: This article contains little on zen philosophy, except that which is applied through common sense reasoning (zen philosohy). How can the average person reach thousands of people effectively with a few hours of work and some good text? What concept has changed the entire publishing business in the past few years? What would spur a high school student to read an entire manual dedicated to "dumb" people by David Pogue in a week? Desktop Publishing, both a scourge and a savior to thousands of people. In fact, the author of this column predicts that every person in the United States that has enough gumption to sit in front of a computer will do some form of desktop publishing before they die. There were 14,588 postings on the America Online Desktop Publishing message board last time I checked, and more converts are entering the field every day. Since everyone will do it anyway, I'm going to share some of my mistakes. I am the editor of a news publication which I produce entirely on a few Macintosh computers. Before anyone decides that this column is worthless because it was written by a user-friendly-computer-using person with little experience, let me make a confession. This user-friendliness is the worst curse I have. It allows me to embellish my work with complex images and layouts that do nothing but confuse my readers. This is the biggest mistake any beginning desktop publisher can make. The fact that I am not a professional means nothing -- I have hundreds of dollars of shareware software written by 12-year-olds. I am constantly criticized because I am still learning. This may be the biggest asset any one can have in this field. The term 'layout' comes from the process that used to be needed to create a publication; actually physically manipulating bodies of text, etc. Keyline, paste-up, typesetting, and other terms used a few years ago are fading away. This is due to the advent of easy to use, easy-to-purchase, and easy-to-learn computer systems that take entire job markets and throw them out the window in a few years. Progress has allowed an underexperienced punk like myself to make brochures, pamphlets, ads, business cards, etc. after just a few months (weeks) of learning. The only problem is that very few of us have any idea what we're doing, outside of what we learn through application. A layout has two major purposes. To inform the reader, and to catch their attention. These two goals must always be kept in mind when laying-out a publication. They bear an inverse relation to each other. When a publication gets too informative, the reader puts it down. Sorry to break it to everyone, but America could never pride itself on attention span. In fact, every newspaper story in the country is written so that all the really important information is in the first paragraph, or the first sentence if the writer is any good. Then, facts are listed in descending order of importance, because the author by no means expects the reader to finish the story. If a layout gets too eye-catching and creative, too disarming, often ease of information is lost. If a publication becomes too gray (filled with text, devoid of graphics and pictures), no one will pick it up. So an intricate balance must be set. This is the hardest job a desktop publisher has: How to use all this intricate, creative technology to display, and possibly enhance the meaning of an authors words. This can be accomplished with well-placed pictures or graphics; things not too completely overbearing to detract attention from the story (no cover shots, etc.). The best graphics to use in desktop publishing are original (nix on clip-art) works with good contrast. Editorial cartoons and such should fit these criteria. Everyone looks at the cartoon first, and if it is interesting enough, they may continue on to read the story that accompanies it. Pictures should take up full column lengths of horizontal space. Any text rap on a news article is bad text wrap. Many a lay-out competition I have bombed by forgetting this. Keep the words straight if they are meant to be taken straight. Go ahead and embellish on a spread, or other less structured environment. Hand the rough lay-out to a friend. If they struggle even a bit to read where a story move along, there is something wrong. Where do you learn layout? From readomg existing, successful publications. They are read for a reason -- they're easy to read! This is the invisible hand of DTP. Search for the personality of your publication. This will be apparent in the words, in the themes, and sometimes in the magazines lying on the tables of the writers who contribute. A layout can do amazing things for the mood of a piece. Don't tell me everyone buys Spin and Wired, and Ray Gun just for the words. These magazines are part of the Deconstructionist movement, which I would like to say I follow in my work. Beautiful is not always beautiful. Sometimes ugly is beautiful in the 90's. The editors of some of theses magazines do very enterprising things to get the effect these "on the edge of sanity" effects. I have been told that sans seriff fonts (Helvetica, anything Roman) can be greatly accentuated by printing them out on a bad printer and tracing around them rough up the edges of you work. But remember the golden rule: Keep it readable, keep it clear. These are just a few of the questions all DTP's are faced with: "What am I going to do with this text", and "how do I get people to read this?" Take a look at what you read, keep the work simple but eye-catching, and don't make it to the printer at 11:45 when the job needs to be done at noon. It makes them really nervous. @endnode --------------------------------- @node P1-11 "Internet Mail to Commercial Systems" @toc "menu" /// Internet Mail to Commercial Systems ----------------------------------- by Robert Niles (rniles@imtired.itm.com) Whether you are part of one of the major commercial systems, like Compuserve, Delphi, Portal, America Online, etc., it helps to know that you can communicate with friends, relatives, and associates no matter what online service they are on ...or you are on. If you have access to Internet email, whether you are on a commercial system, or not. Then you can send email to most anyone on one of the larger systems. Here's information on how to send mail to the commercial services: - America Online (AOL) Users on AOL, PC-Link, or Promenade can be accessed using their screen name as the username and adding @aol.com as the domain. For example: User "Robin F" would recieve mail addressed to robinf@aol.com - AppleLink AppleLink users can be addressed via internet email as: username@applelink.apple.com - AT&TMail Send to: accountname@attmail.com - BIX (Byte Information Exchange) Simply send email to username@bix.com - Compuserve The most commen way to send mail to a user on Compuserve is to simply change their account number containing a comma to the same number but containing a period (Compuserve users have a "user ID" usually in the format of something like xxxxx,yyy, such as 78422,482) and add @compuserve.com ie: 78422.482@compuserve.com - Delphi Sending mail to a user on Delphi is quite simple. Simply add @delphi.com to their username, ie: rob_g@delphi.com - GEnie Simply append @genie.gies.com to the username, ie: d.duck@genie.gies.com - MCIMail MCI has three addressing structures. Knowing the format of the receipient's online name helps accountname@mcimail.com mci_id@mcimail.com full_user_name@mcimail.com - Portal Communications For the most part you can easily send mail to a user at Portal by using the following convention: username@cup.portal.com (ie: rniles@cup.portal.com) At times a user does not frequent the "Online" system, but instead uses the Portal Shell. To send mail to a user on the shell send to: username@shell.portal.com (ie: rniles@shell.portal.com) - SprintMail SprintMail was supposedly going through some changes. So the format to them is not certain. I called SprintMail and talked with one of their representatives. He didn't know, and told me I might want to talk to someone who manages the Internet. I talked to someone there and they weren't sure. I'll do some more fishing around and see what I can come up with. For information on how to send email from a commercial system to another, or any other site on the internet, contact the customer representatives on your system. Special thanks to the authors of: !%@:: A Directory of Electronic Mail Addressing and Networks By Donnalyn Frey and Rick Adams Published by O'Reilly and Associates, Inc. @endnode **************************************************************************** @node P4-6 "BIX" @toc "menu" /// BIX - Byte Information Exchange Lots of information! ------------------------------- BIX is the premier online service for computing professionals and enthusiasts. While other online services cater to computer novices, BIX is the place for knowledgeable people to go for answers to tough questions. You're likely to find many others in similar situations who can offer advice, give technical assistance, or point you in the right direction. BIX is divided into areas called conferences, each devoted to a particular area of interest. They range from algorithms to windows, from writers to amiga. Conferences are categorized into groups, usually referred to as exchanges, so that you can browse through whatever groups interest you and see a list of the conferences it contains. These are some of the exchanges on BIX: amiga.exchange - the place for Amiga developers and enthusiasts byte - the full text of each issue of BYTE magazine; source code too e.and.l - Entertainment and Leisure; music, pets, games, more ibm.exchange - everything from OS/2 to PC clones mac.exchange - Mac news, support, software, advice professionals - consultants, engineers, financiers gather here programmers - some of the best brains in the business! wix - the Information Exchange for Windows; Windows Magazine online writers.ex - the professional and amateur writer's exchange *** FULL INTERNET ACCESS! *** BIX also features access to the Internet - you can use FTP to transfer files from sites all over the world, telnet to log on to other online services, schools, and research sites, and send Internet mail to millions of people at services like DELPHI, CompuServe, America Online, MCI Mail, and other sites and services. Services like "WHOIS" and "Finger" are also available, with more features on the way (like USENET newsgroups; our newsreader is currently being tested and should be available very soon!) There are no usage fees or special charges for Internet access - it's all part of your BIX subscription. ============================== Rates and Connect Information: ============================== BIX membership costs $13 per month, plus connect time. There are several different ways to connect: SprintNet* $3/hour evenings/weekends $9/hour weekdays Tymnet:** $3/hour evenings/weekends $9/hour weekdays (SprintNet and Tyment rates shown are for 48 contiguous US states only.) Tymnet Canada: $4/hr eves/wkends $9/hour weekdays Tymnet Hawaii: $10/hr eves/wkends $20/hour weekdays Telnet(via Internet): $1/hour, round the clock Direct dial (Boston): $2/hour, round the clock (up to 9600 bps) * SprintNet daytime hours are from 6am to 7pm, M-F, ET. ** Tymnet daytime hours are from 7am to 6pm, M-F, ET. To find your local SprintNet number, call SprintNet at (800) 877-5045, ext. 5. Internationally, call (404) 859-7700. To find a local Tymnet number, call Tymnet at (800) 937-2862. Internationally, call (703) 442-0145. ================ There is no surcharge for 9600 bps access via either telecom carrier. There is no surcharge for up to 10mb of Internet mail per month (sent and received). There will be a charge of $1 per 100,000 bytes thereafter. ================ 20/20 PLAN OPTION (for USA-48 users only): Volume users can choose the 20/20 Advantage Plan, which is $20 per month and includes the first 20 hours of access by any combination of methods from the contiguous United States. Additional use is $1.80 per hour (additional use for telnet access is $1 an hour). The 20/20 Plan's cost is in addition to the $13 monthly fee. INTERNATIONAL USERS: If you wish to connect internationally through Tymnet or SprintNet, please contact your local PTT. BIX accepts prepaid international calls, direct dial, or telnet connections. In order to make a "collect" (not prepaid) call to BIX, your account must be verified before the charges are accepted. When you complete the registration, we'll mail you a BIX Membership Agreement by regular US Mail. Whe you receive it, sign it and return it to us by mail. When we receive it here, we'll authorize your account to make reverse charged calls. If you want to access BIX right away, contact your local PTT to set up a prepaid account. You'll pay your local carrier for your calls to BIX in advance, so there's no waiting period or verfication needed. Or, connect at BIX via telnet to x25.bix.com. SprintNet international calls from most locations are $24 an hour. Tymnet international charges vary, but are generally between $20-$30 an hour. ==================== Billing Information: ==================== You can charge your monthly BIX membership fees to your Visa, Mastercard, Discover, or American Express card. You may have your company invoiced for one or more BIX memberships with a BIX Corporate Account. To do so, send by US Mail or fax a Purchase Order including a Purchase Order number, invoice address, contact person, a phone number where we can reach the contact person, and the company's fax number. Please direct it to the attention of Connie Lopes, who handles corporate accounts. Our fax number is 617-491-6642. Your corporate account will generally be set up within 24 hours. =================== To Sign Up For BIX: =================== Dial by modem 1-800-695-4882 or 617-491-5410 * (use 8 data bits, no parity, full duplex) Press a few carriage returns until you see the Login:(enter "bix") prompt, then type bix At the Name? prompt, type bix.amrpt * Users already on the internet can telnet to x25.bix.com instead. At the USERNAME: prompt enter bix, then bix.net at the Name? prompt. Once your account is registered, you can connect the same way, except at the Name? prompt you'll enter your BIXname and then your password. Using the above procedure will allow users in the 48 contiguous United States to take advantage of our special "5 for $5" offer. This offer lets you use up to 5 hours of evening/weekend time on BIX during the current calender month (whatever month you sign up in), for $5. Additional time is $1.80 per hour ($1 per hour for telnet). At the end of the calender month, you will be placed into our standard rate plan, at $13 monthly plus connect charges. You may also join the 20/20 Plan at this time. If you have other questions, please contact BIX Member Services at (800) 695-4775; send a fax to BIX at (617) 491-6642; or send Internet mail to info@bix.com. BIX Member Services hours are 12pm - 11pm, Monday through Friday, ET. @endnode ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @node P1-12 "Usenet Review - RCS 35MHz 68040 for the A2000" @toc "menu" /// Usenet Review: RCS 35 MHz 68040 accelerator for Amiga 2000 ----------------------------------------------------------- By Adisak Pochanayon (pochanay@cae.wisc.edu) Well, It finally happened. After being on a waiting list for four months, I finally got my long awaited and much anticipated 35 MHz 68040 Fusion Forty accelerator from RCS Management of Quebec, Canada. It was beginning to take so long to get my board that at first I was worried that RCS had gone out of business and stole my money. Well, I was mistaken and I owe RCS a large apology. I was the happy owner of a 28 MHz Fusion Forty 68040 board for several years and I am now the extremely happy owner of the 35 MHz beast. This is a screaming board. Using AIBB 6.1 for speed tests and my old 28 Mhz 68040 Fusion Forty as a comparison base I get the following results. TEST 28 MHz FF 35 MHz FF A 4000 EmuTest 1.00 1.28 * 0.78 - WritePixel 1.00 - 1.09 2.41 * Sieve 1.00 1.48 * 0.57 - Dhrystone 1.00 1.26 * 0.89 - Sort 1.00 1.27 * 0.84 - Ellipse 1.00 - 1.14 1.71 * Matrix 1.00 1.39 * 0.69 - IMath 1.00 1.25 * 0.88 - MemTest 1.00 2.00 * 0.41 - TGTest 1.00 - 1.04 1.41 * LineTest 1.00 - 1.06 1.63 * Savage 1.00 1.26 * 0.90 - FMath 1.00 1.27 * 0.94 - FMatrix 1.00 1.45 * 0.58 - Beachball 1.00 - 1.25 1.26 * InstTest 1.00 1.31 * 0.62 - Flops 1.00 1.32 * 0.96 - TranTest 1.00 1.38 * 0.71 - FTrace 1.00 1.26 * 0.90 - CplxTest 1.00 1.26 * 0.89 - * = winner of category for speed. - = loser of category for speed. As you can see, in a comparison of the three 68040 contenders, the 35 Mhz 68040 Fusion Forty from RCS did not lose in a single category. As a matter of fact, the only categories where it didn't win were graphics categories where the A4000's 32-bit path to CHIP memory and 3.0 ROM calls (graphics library is rewritten for 3.0) aided it. However, in general, the A4000 lost out most of the time to both RCS accelerators. Notice that the Fusion Forty 35 is in general twice as fast as an Amiga 4000. This is mostly due to its special 64-bit memory subsystem. This is a very fast interleaved memory system which allows high speed burst access to memory. From what I understand in speaking to the people at RCS, it lets the 70 ns SIMMs I have in my board work as fast as 40 ns SIMMs in other boards (like GVP's). The memory performance of the the Fusion Forty 35 is almost five times faster than the A4000 and twice as fast as the older Fusion Forty. However, RCS is coming out with a memory accelerator for the Amiga 4000 that will be using this same memory subsystem. It is supposed to double the performance of the 4000 and from what I have seen on this machine, I don't doubt that claim one bit. What do I think of my new board? I'm in heaven!!! I waited four months but this baby was definitely worth the wait! I have 16-megs of killer fast speed memory on a screaming 35-MHz accelerator. After several months of waiting and $100 of phone calls, I am sitting pretty. RCS was a little slow in getting the board out, but they had some design problems early on that they have overcome. When I did call them, they explained the problems they were having. Also a recent move slowed them down in getting some equipment out. However, they are now getting ready to go full speed ahead with their 68040's at 35 MHz and the Amiga 4000 memory accelerator (code named Excaliber or something like that). RCS *IS* finally shipping this long awaited product. They are currently backordered and only shipping to those who prepay but if you are waiting for a board, your wait is almost over. Mine is!!! But do I have any gripes about the board? Well, the manual is a little skimpy... actually, it's on disk except for the installation instructions. However, installation couldn't be simpler. You just plug in the board, run a simple program and add a single line to your startup-sequence. My board contains the plug & go ROM's, so weird rebooting is necessary like with the older 28 MHz boards (if you didn't upgrade the ROMs that is). I guess a manual is almost redundant. When I first booted up though, only 8 megs of my 16 appeared. A simple call to RCS cleared things up and now all 16 megs appear on boot-up. RCS does have great support for their products! This appears to be a very fast and solid product. I would recommend it heartily as the fastest accelerator for the Amiga I have ever used! RCS has a new address and phone number: RCS Management 6755 Taschereau Blvd. Suite 211 Brossard, Quebec J4Z 1A7 Canada (514) 926-3755 I am in no way affiliated with RCS other than being a satisfied customer. E-mail me if you have questions. @endnode ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @node P1-13 "Reader Mail" @toc "menu" /// Reader Mail ----------- #1 22-NOV-1993 13:46:28.94 NEWMAIL From: IN%"UH9311@VicVX1.Vic.UH.EDU" To: IN%"ROB_G@delphi.com" CC: Subj: AMIGA VS IBM I work with IBM's all day. I use an IBM PS/2 Model 77 66mhz 486 with XGA/2. At home I also have an IBM Reply 55sx-486SLC 50 mhz. For those of you who are thinking of switching. There is no comparison between IBM and Amiga. I have 12 megs on my work machine and it works fine but it is definitely slow despite it's "fast" chip and SCSI-2 and XGA-2. Its an architecture comparison. What is local bus but just a modification so that they can run their bus at the speed of the chip , this however after 3 or more devices brings your machine to a crawl. Why switch? Software maybe. I personally wish for Excel for Amiga but I seriously doubt it will happen. The architecture of the Amiga with its coprocessors etc make the machine of choice Amiga. The operating system is much better than Windows. Windows stinks. I had 4 programs running and I could barely switch between them without major hard disk thrashing. Very slow switching. Slow program execution. (many would argue however, "compared to what." their aren't many Windows programs that have matches in the Amiga world.) DOS is at least 20% slower running under Windows. OS/2 is ok but it still is slow swapping and you have to have 18 meg to do anything then have 30 or so disk space for storage to run. Think about these things Amiga 500 multitasks with floppies and 512k better than my IBM 486-66mhz in Windows or OS/2 with 12-megs and 300meg hd with XGA-2. It comes to peer pressure I guess, but remember Windows is new to the average user many using Windows still exit programs before running another because it slows the system down. IBMers are new to GUI's and Multitasking they think Windows is great. Show them your machine and tell them the specs. a 68000 machine that came out a little after the AT still works as great in the OS as Windows or OS/2 (Forget NT they're pushing it as a client server not an OS. Disk I/O great everything else rates like OS/2) Shane Bumpurs IBM Worker with Amiga 4000 dreams @endnode **************************************************************************** @node P3 "Dealer Directory" @toc "menu" /// Dealer Directory Serving our readers! ---------------- Almathera Systems Ltd Challenge House 618 Mitcham Rd Croydon, Surrey CR9 3AU England VOICE: (UK) 081 683 6418 Internet: (Sales) almathera@cix.compulink.co.uk (Technical) jralph@cix.compulink.co.uk Amigability Computers P.O. Box 572 Plantsville, CT 06479 VOICE: 203-276-8175 Internet: amiga@phantm.UUCP BIX: jbasile (Send E-mail to subscribe to our mailing list) Apogee Technologies 1851 University Parkway Sarasota, FL 34243 VOICE: 813-355-6121 Portal: Apogee Internet: Apogee@cup.portal.com Armadillo Brothers 753 East 3300 South Salt Lake City, Utah VOICE: 801-484-2791 Internet: B.GRAY@genie.geis.com Brian Fowler Computers Ltd 11 North St Exeter Devon EX4 3QS United Kingdom Voice: (0392) 499 755 Fax: (0392) 423 480 Internet: brian_fowler@cix.compulink.co.uk CLICK! Microcomputer Applications B.V.B.A. Boomsesteenweg 468 B-2610 Wilrijk - Antwerpen Belgium - Europe VOICE: 03 / 828.18.15 FAX: 03 / 828.67.36 USENET: vanhoutv@click.augfl.be FIDO: 2:292/603.9 AmigaNet: 39:120/102.9 Computers International, Inc. 5415 Hixson Pike Chattanooga, TN 37343 VOICE: 615-843-0630 DataKompaniet ANS Pb 3187 Munkvoll N-7002 Trondheim Norway - Europe VOICE/FAX: 72 555 149 Internet: torrunes@idt.unit.no Digital Arts 122 West 6th Street Bloomington, IN 47404 VOICE: (812)330-0124 FAX: (812)330-0126 BIX: msears Finetastic Computers 721 Washington Street Norwood, MA 02062 VOICE: 617-762-4166 BBS: 617-769-3172 Fido: 1:101/322 Portal: FinetasticComputers Internet: FinetasticComputers@cup.portal.com HT Electronics 275 North Mathilda Avenue Sunnyvale, CA 94086 VOICE: 408-737-0900 FAX: 408-245-3109 Portal: HT Electronics Internet: HT Electronics@cup.portal.com Industrial Video, Inc. 1601 North Ridge Rd. Lorain, OH 44055 VOICE: 800-362-6150 216-233-4000 Internet: af741@cleveland.freenet.edu Contact: John Gray MicroSearch 9000 US 59 South, Suite 330 Houston, Texas VOICE: 713-988-2818 FAX: 713-995-4994 Mr. Hardware Computers P.O. Box 148 59 Storey Ave. Central Islip, NY 11722 VOICE: 516-234-8110 FAX: 516-234-8110 A.M.U.G. BBS: 516-234-6046 MusicMart: Media Sound & Vision 71 Wellington Road London, Ontario, Canada VOICE: 519-434-4162 FAX: 519-663-8074 BBS: 519-457-2986 FIDO: 1:221/125 AmigaNet: 40:550/1 MaxNet: 90:204/1 iNET: koops@gaul.csd.uwo.ca PSI Animations 17924 SW Pilkington Road Lake Oswego, OR 97035 VOICE: 503-624-8185 Internet: PSIANIM@agora.rain.com Software Plus Chicago 3100 W Peterson Avenue Chicago, Illinois VOICE: 312-338-6100 Wonder Computers Inc. 1315 Richmond Rd. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2B 8J7 Voice: 613-596-2542 Fax: 613-596-9349 BBS: 613-829-0909 (Dealers: To have your name added, please send Email!) @endnode ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @node P1-14 "The Great Amiga Report Questionaire" @toc "menu" /// The Great Amiga Report Questionaire ----------------------------------- by Robert Niles (and Amiga Report) rniles@imtired.itm.com Well to help end this "Amiga Report" year, AR would like to conduct a survey. This will help us find out a little bit more about our readers and the Amiga community in general. If you could just take a moment, please fill out the questionaire and send it to rniles@imtired.itm.com Or if you don't have the means to send it via email send it via US Mail to: ITM Distribution P.O. Box 8041 Yakima, Wa 98908 Thanks to all of you who have already sent in the questionaire!! All replies will be kept confidential. ------The Questionaire------------------------------------ 1. How old are you? 2. What AMIGA computer(s) do you own? 3. What other computers do you own? 4. What external peripherals do you have? 5. What internal peripherals do you have? (modems, RAM, video, etc) 6. What do you do for a living? (job, student, nothing, etc.) 7. Do you use your Amiga in a business? 8. What do you primarily use your Amiga for? (games, educational, bbs, etc.) 9. What would you really like to see made for the Amiga? Either, hardware, software, etc. 10. Name one of your most liked pieces of Hardware that you have with your Amiga. 11. Name one of your most liked pieces of Software that you have with your Amiga. 12. Would you buy the Amiga CD32? 13. How often do you read Amiga Report? 14. What would you like to see in Amiga Report? 15. Do you prefer the AmigaGuide style, or should we go back to simple ASCII text? 16. Comments? Thanks for completing the survey. We'll gather all responces and post them in the last issue of this year's Amiga Report. @endnode @node P1-15 "AR Confidential" @toc "menu" /// AR Confidential We heard it through the grapevine! --------------- · Albany, Oregon ---------------- Supra Corp. announced that they have no plans on marketing a voicemail product for the Amiga, however, a Mac version is currently shipping, and a PC version is under development. "We would certainly be open to discussion with third party vendors about developing voice products for the Amiga," a Supra Corp. representative said. Supra also plans to release a V.FC, 28.8Kpbs modem in the near future. A tentative release date for this product is January, 1994. No price has been announced. @endnode ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @node P1-16 "Humor Department" @toc "menu" /// The Humor Department Jokes, Quotes, Insults, Shameless Plugs -------------------- Every now and then a good one comes along.... From the Macintosh Roundtable on GEnie - Cat. 40, Topic 5, msgs 239-240 From M.STEFANI [MCH] Before I make any purchase, I generally like to make a list of 'pros' and 'cons' to aid me in the final decision. Some of my thoughts: == TOP TEN REASONS TO STILL CHOOSE AN ATARI OVER A MAC == 10) Just one model in production (Falcon) makes selection a 'no- brainer.' 9) Tramiel's multimedia computer development in a 'class by itself.' 8) Still sports the largest collection of 'masochistic' programmers. 7) Less time wasted reading thick, glossy monthly periodicals. 6) No portability 'problems' due to no portable notebooks or laptops. 5) Extensive collection of 'two' games available for the amazing Falcon. 4) Limit of one dealer per metropolitan area promotes close friend- ships. 3) One-piece design featuring 'mushy' keyboard way ahead of it's time. 2) Ergonomically-placed joystick ports good practice for fumbling & cursing. 1) Who really needs all those CD-ROMs anyway? @endnode @node P2-3 "In Closing" @toc "menu" /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Amiga Report International Online Magazine December 3, 1993 * YOUR INDEPENDENT NEWS SOURCE * No. 1.36 Copyright © 1993 SkyNet Publications ~ All Rights Reserved /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Views, Opinions and Articles presented herein are not necessarily those of the editors and staff of Amiga Report International Online Magazine or of STR Publications. Permission to reprint articles is hereby granted, unless otherwise noted. Reprints must, without exception, include the name of the publication, date, issue number and the author's name. Amiga Report and/or portions therein may not be edited in any way without prior written per- mission. However, translation into a language other than English is accept- ble, provided the original meaning is not altered. Amiga Report may be dis- tributed on privately owned not-for-profit bulletin board systems (fees to cover cost of operation are acceptable), and major online services such as (but not limited to) Delphi and Portal. Distribution on public domain disks is acceptable provided proceeds are only to cover the cost of the disk (e.g. no more than $5 US). Distribution on for-profit magazine cover disks requires written permission from the editor or publisher. Amiga Report is a not-for-profit publication. Amiga Report, at the time of pub- ication, is believed reasonably accurate. Amiga Report, its staff and con- ributors are not and cannot be held responsible for the use or misuse of information contained herein or the results obtained there from. Amiga Report is not affiliated with Commodore-Amiga, Inc., Commodore Business Machines, Ltd., or any other Amiga publication in any way. All items quoted in whole or in part are done so under the Fair Use Provision of the Copy- right Laws of the United States Penal Code. /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Only * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * _ _ __ ___ _ * * /\\ |\\ /| || // \ /\\ * * / \\ | \\ /|| ||(< __ / \\ * * /--- \\| \X || || \\_||/--- \\ * * /______________________________\\ * * / \\ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Makes it possible!! @endnode @node "menu" "Amiga Report Main Menu" @toc "menu" @{" Columns and Features " link P1} News, Reviews, and More! @{" About AMIGA REPORT " link P2} Staff, Copyright information @{" Dealer Directory " link P3} Amiga Dealer Addresses and Numbers @{" Commercial Online Services " link P4} Sign-Up Information @{" FTP Announcements " link P5} New Files Available for FTP @{" AR Distribution Sites " link P2-1} Where to get AMIGA REPORT /// 12/03/93 Amiga Report 1.36 "Your Weekly Source for Amiga Information" -------------------------- · The Editor's Desk · CPU Status Report · New Products · FTP Announcements · Dealer Directory · AR Confidential · Usenet Reviews · AR Online · The Humor Department · Emulation Rambler · Frontier · Reader Mail » Zen and the Art of Desktop Publishing « » New modem coming from Supra « » Commodore Shareholder Movement Update « /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Amiga Report International Online Magazine "Your Weekly Source for Amiga Information" » FEATURING WEEKLY « Accurate UP-TO-DATE News and Information Current Events, Original Articles, Tips, Rumors, and Information Hardware · Software · Corporate · R & D · Imports /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// / @{" DELPHI " link P4-1} · @{" PORTAL " link P4-2} · @{" FIDO " link P2-1} · @{" INTERNET " link P4-5} · @{" BIX " link P4-6} / /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// @endnode @node P1 "Columns and Features" @toc "menu" @{" From the Editor's Desk " link P1-1} Saying it like it is! @{" CPU Status Report " link P1-2} Computer Products Update @{" New Amiga Products " link P1-3} Announcements on new products @{" VxP500 Video Record and Playback " link P1-4} Video systems for PCs @{" Confusion at Philips " link P1-5} Matsushita carries 3DO @{" Online Weekly " link P1-6} The lines are buzzing! @{" CBM Shareholder's Movement " link P1-7} Update! @{" Usenet Review " link P1-8} Frontier @{" The Emulation Rambler " link P1-9} Emulating the Quadra @{" Zen and the Art of DeskTop Publishing " link P1-10} *New Column! @{" Internet Email to Commercial Systems " link P1-11} Email users on other systems! @{" Usenet Review " link P1-12} RCS 35MHz 68040 for the A2000 @{" Reader Mail " link P1-13} The readers speak! @{" Amiga Report Questionaire " link P1-14} Fill it out and send it back! @{" AR Confidential " link P1-15} We heard if through the Grapevine! @{" The Humor Department " link P1-16} Jokes, Quotes, and Shameless plugs! @endnode @node P1-3 "New Amiga Products" @toc "menu" @{" Adorage " link P1-3-1} 2D Animation Package @{" Clarissa " link P1-3-2} Animation Player @{" CyberHouse " link P1-3-3} 3D Object Set (for Imagine) @{" Magic Lantern " link P1-3-4} 24-bit Realtime Animation Playback w/Sound @{" PhotoworX " link P1-3-5} Photo CD Image Reader @endnode @node P2 "About Amiga Report" @toc "menu" @{" For Starters " link P2-1} Where to get AMIGA REPORT @{" AR Staff " link P2-2} The Editors, and Contributers @{" In Closing " link P2-3} Copyright Information @endnode @node P4 "Commercial Online Services" @toc "menu" @{" Delphi " link P4-1} Getting better all the time! @{" Portal " link P4-2} A great place for Amiga users... @{" InterNet " link P4-5} Subscribe to the AR Mailing List @{" BIX " link P4-6} For Serious Programmers and Developers @endnode @node P5 "Files Available for FTP" @toc "menu" @{" Filelogger v1.31 " link P5-1} Log files from floppy to database file @{" HangMan v1.2 " link P5-2} GUI implementation of UN*X's hangman @endnode ----------------------------------------- @node P2-1-1 "NOVA" @toc "menu" * NOVA BBS * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site * Running Starnet BBS * Wayne Stonecipher, Sysop FidoNet 1:362/508 An Amiga Software Distribution Site (ADS) 615-472-9748 USR DS 16.8 24hrs - 7 days Cleveland, Tennessee @endnode ------------------------------------------ @node P2-1-2 "In The MeanTime" @toc "menu" * IN THE MEANTIME BBS * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site * Running AXShell * Robert Niles, Sysop rniles@imtired.itm.com 509-966-3828 Supra V.32bis 24hrs - 7 days Yakima, Washington ******* Notice ******* After 13 September 1993, In The MeanTime will no longer be on FidoNet, thus we will no longer be accepting File REQuests (FREQs). We WILL be still accepting calls and will have the latest edition of Amiga Report online. Downloads to first time callers are still accepted. For the west coast call @{"Cloud's Corner" link P2-1-3} to FREQ the latest edition of Amiga Report. Those who call for the latest edition of Amiga Report, and who do not with to establish an account, log in as guest with the password of "guest". At the prompt type "ARMAG" (without the quotes). @endnode ------------------------------------------ @node P2-1-3 "Cloud's Corner" @toc "menu" * CLOUD'S CORNER BBS * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site MebbsNet/Starnet Support/Distribution Site West Coast USA * Running MEBBSNet BBS * Larry Cloud, Sysop FidoNet: 1:350/30 MaxNet: 90:180/10 Internet: larryc@hebron.connected.com 206-377-4290 USR HST DS 24hrs - 7 days Bremerton, Washington New users can call and get ANY copy of Amiga Report. These are considered "free" downloads, they do not count against any file ratio. The latest issue of Amiga Reports can be Freq'ed (FileREQusted) from here as "AR.LHA", as "AR" or as ARxxx.LHA where xxx is the issue number. Freq's are valid at ANY time. For users interested in reading AR, but who do not have access to AmigaGuide, you can freq ARBUL and get the AR in bulletin form. This service is provided for persons who do not have Amigaguide (such as IBM users). Please note that any pictures distributed with the "regular" Amiga Reports archive will NOT be sent with this freq. This file is not available for dial-in users, but you can read bulletin #5 with your capture buffer open and get the same file. @endnode ------------------------------------------ @node P2-1-4 "Biosmatica" @toc "menu" * BIOSMATICA BBS * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Portugal * Running Excelsior/Trapdoor/UUCP * Celso Martinho, Sysop FidoNet 2:361/9 +351-34-382320 V.32bis 24hrs - 7 days @endnode ------------------------------------------ @node P2-1-5 "Amiga Junction 9" @toc "menu" * AMIGA JUNCTION 9 * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- United Kingdom * Running DLG Professional * Stephen Anderson, Sysop Sysop Email: sysadmin@junct9.royle.org Line 1 +44 (0)372 271000 14400 V.32bis/HST FidoNet 2:440/20 Line 2 +44 (0)372 278000 14400 V.32bis only FidoNet 2:440/21 Line 3 +44 (0)372 279000 2400 V.42bis/MNP Internet: user_name@junct9.royle.org @endnode ------------------------------------------ @node P2-1-6 "BitStream BBS" @toc "menu" * BITSTREAM BBS * The BBS of the Nelson (NZ) Amiga Users Group Official Amiga Report Distribution Site * Running Xenolink 1.0 Z.3 * Glen Roberts, Sysop FidoNet 3:771/850 +64 3 5485321 Supra V.32bis 24hrs - 7 days Nelson, New Zealand @endnode ------------------------------------------- @node P2-1-7 "Realm of Twilight" @toc "menu" * REALM OF TWILIGHT BBS * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Canada * Running Excelsior! BBS * Thorsten Schiller, Sysop Usenet: realm.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca UUCP: ...!uunet.ca!tdkcs!realm FIDO: 1:221/202 Fish: 33:33/8 24hrs - 7 days 519-748-9365 (2400 baud) 519-748-9026 (v.32bis) Ontario, Canada Hardware: Amiga 3000, 105 Meg Quantum, 213 Meg Maxtor, 5 megs RAM @endnode ------------------------------------------- @node P2-1-8 "Metnet Triangle" @toc "menu" METNET TRIANGLE SYSTEM Official Amiga Report Distribution Site UK Support for Mebbsnet * Running Mebbsnet and Starnet 1.02a * Jon Witty, Sysop FIDO: 2:252/129.0 24 hrs - 7 days Line 1: 44-482-473871 16.8 DS HST Lines 2-7: 44-482-442251 2400 (6 lines) Line 8: 44-482-491744 2400 Line 9: 44-482-449028 2400 Voice helpline 44-482-491752 (anytime) Fully animated menus + normal menu sets. 500 megs HD - Usual software/messages Most doors online - Many Sigs - AMIGA AND PC SUPPORT Very active userbase and busy conference Precious days and MUD online. AMUL support site. @endnode ------------------------------------------- @node P2-1-9 "Omaha Amiganet" @toc "menu" * OMAHA AMIGANET * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site * Running DLG Professional * Andy Wasserman, Sysop 24 hrs - 7 days FidoNet: 1:285/11 AmigaNet: 40:200/10 Line 1: 402-333-5110 V.32bis Line 2: 402-691-0104 USR DS Omaha, Nebraska @endnode ------------------------------------------ @node P2-1-10 "Amiga-Night-System" @toc "menu" * AMIGA-NIGHT-SYSTEM * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site - Finland * Running DLG Professional * Janne Saarme, Sysop 24 hrs - 7 days InterNet: luumu@fenix.pp.fi FidoNet: 2:220/550.0 +358-0-675840 V.32bis Helsinki, Finland @endnode ------------------------------------------ @node P2-1-11 "Ramses Amiga Flying" @toc "menu" * RAMSES THE AMIGA FLYING * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- France * Running DLG Professional * Eric Delord, Sysop Philippe Brand, Co-Sysop Stephane Legrand, Co-Sysop Internet: user.name@ramses.gna.org Fidonet: 2:320/104 +33-1-60037015 USR DS 16.8 +33-1-60037713 V.32bis +33-1-60037716 1200-2400 Ramses The Amiga Flying BBS is an Amiga-dedicated BBS running DLG-Pro on a Amiga 3000, 16MB RAM, 2GB Disk space, 3 lines. We keep a dayly Aminet site mirroring, NetBSD-Amiga complete mirror site from ftp.eunet.ch (main site), Amiga Report, GNU Amiga, Ramses is the SAN/ADS/Amiganet French coordinator. @endnode ------------------------------------------ @node P2-1-12 "Gateway BBS" @toc "menu" * THE GATEWAY BBS * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site * Running Excelsior! BBS * Stace Cunningham, Sysop Dan Butler, CoSysop 601-374-2697 V.32bis 24 hrs - 7 days InterNet: stace@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil FidoNet: 1:3604/60.0 Biloxi, Mississippi @endnode ------------------------------------------ @node P2-1-13 "Talk City" @toc "menu" * TALK CITY * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site 708-372-0190 - 2400bps 708-372-0268 - V32 14.4K 708-372-0283 USR DS 14.4K Fido Net 1:115/372,0 Phantom Net 11:2115/2.0 Clink Net 911:6080/4.0 UUCP tcity.com Over 3 Gig of Files Online | More and More things everyday. With Three IBM CD-ROMs online, 10 lines, support for all platforms, and a REALLY dedicated sysop (The Mayor). @endnode ------------------------------------------ @node P2-1-50 "Freeland Mainframe" @toc "menu" * FREELAND MAINFRAME * Offical Amiga Report Distribution Site * Running DLG Progessional * John Freeland, SysOp 206-438-1670 Supra 2400zi 206-438-2273 Telebit WorldBlazer(v.32bis) 206-456-6013 Supra v.32bis 24hrs - 7 days Internet - freemf.eskimo.com Olympia, Washington @endnode ------------------------------------------ @node P2-1-51 "LAHO" @toc "menu" * LAHO BBS * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Finland * Running MBBS * Lenni Uitti, SysOp Tero Manninen, SysOp (PC-areas) Juha Makinen, SysOp (Amiga-areas) +358-64-414 1516, V.32bis/HST +358-64-414 0400, V.32bis/HST +358-64-414 6800, V.32/HST +358-64-423 1300, V.32 MNP Seinajoki, Finland Our machine is a 386/33 with 20MB of memory, 1GB harddisk and a CD-ROM drive. The BBS software is a Norwegian origin MBBS running in a DesqView windows. We have over 7000 files online (both for the Amiga and PC) + 650MB stuff on the Aminet CD-ROM disk. Every user has an access to download filelist (LAHOFIL.ZIP), list of Finnish 24-hour BBS's (BBSLIST.ZIP or BBSLIST.LHA) and every issue of the Amiga Report Magazine (AR101.LHA-AR1??.LHA) even on their first call. The system has been running since 1989 and is sponsored by the local telephone company, Vaasan Ladnin Puhelin Oy. @endnode ------------------------------------------ @node P2-1-52 "Falling BBS" @toc "menu" * FALLING BBS * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Norway * Running ABBS * Christopher Naas, Sysop +47 69 256117 V.32bis 24hrs - 7 days EMail: naasc@cnaas.adsp.sub.org @endnode ------------------------------------------ @node P2-1-53 "Command Line BBS" @toc "menu" * COMMAND LINE BBS * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Canada Canada's Amiga Graphics & Animation Source * Running AmiExpress BBS * Nick Poliwko, Sysop 416-533-8321 V.32 24hrs - 7 days Toronto, Canada @endnode ------------------------------------------- @node P2-1-54 "Rendezvous BBS" @toc "menu" * RENDEZVOUS BBS * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site - New Zealand New Zealand Excelsior! BBS Support Site * Running Excelsior! Professional BBS * David Dustin, Sysop Internet: postmaster@eclipse.acme.gen.nz +64 6 3566375 Supra V.32bis 24hrs - 7 days Palmerston North, New Zealand @endnode ------------------------------------------- @node P2-1-55 "Leguans Byte Channel" @toc "menu" * LEGUANS BYTE CHANNEL * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Germany * Running EazyBBS V2.11 * Andreas Geist, Sysop Usenet: andreas@lbcmbx.in-berlin.de 24 hrs - 7 days Line 1: 49-30-8110060 USR DS 16.8 Line 2: 49-30-8122442 USR DS 16.8 Login as User: "amiga", Passwd: "report" @endnode ------------------------------------------- @node P2-1-56 "Stingray Database BBS" @toc "menu" * STINGRAY DATABASE * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Germany * Running FastCall * Bernd Mienert, Sysop EMail: sysop@sting-db.zer.sub.org.dbp.de +49 208 496807 HST-Dual 24hrs - 7 days Muelheim/Ruhr, Germany @endnode -------------------------------------------- @node P2-1-57 "T.B.P. Video Slate" @toc "menu" * T.B.P. VIDEO SLATE * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site An Amiga dedicated BBS for All * Running Skyline 1.3.2 * Mark E Davidson, Sysop 24 hrs - 7 days 201-586-3623 USR 14.4 HST Rockaway, New Jersey Full Skypix menus + normal and ansi menu sets. Instant Access to all. Download on the first call. Hardware: Amiga 500 Tower custom at 14 MHz, 350 Meg maxtor, 125 Meg SCSI Maxtor, 125 Meg IDE Maxtor, Double Speed CD rom, 9 meg RAM @endnode -------------------------------------------- @node P2-1-58 "Amiga Central" @toc "menu" * AMIGA CENTRAL! * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site CNet Amiga Support Site * Running CNet Amiga BBS * Carl Tashian, Sysop Internet mail: root@amicent.raider.net 615-383-9679 1200-14.4Kbps V.32bis 24 hours - 7 days Nashville, Tennessee Hardware: Amiga 3000 Tower 68030+882@25MHz, 105 meg Quantum, 225 meg Seagate, Zoom 14.4k modem @endnode -------------------------------------------- @node P2-1-59 "Continental Drift" @toc "menu" * CONTINENTAL DRIFT BBS * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site * Running MAXsBBS software (DLG Pro is being delivered!) * Murry Chaffer & Andre Lackman, Sysops +612 9188375 24 hours - 7 days Sydney, Australia @endnode -------------------------------------------- @node P2-1-60 "Guru Meditation: @toc "menu" * GURU MEDITATION * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Spain * Running Remote Access * Javier Frias, SysOp +34-1-383-1317 V.32bis 24 hours - 7days Spain @endnode