@database "ar137.guide" @Node MAIN "Amiga Report Online Magazine #1.37 -- December 10, 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 10, 1993 No. 1.37 /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// / 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 @{" AMIGA BBS " link P2-1-14} .........................Estado de Mexico, Mexaco //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// / 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. ___________________________________________________________________________ /// 12/10/93 Amiga Report 1.37 "Your Weekly Source for Amiga Information" -------------------------- · The Editor's Desk · CPU Status Report · New Products · FTP Announcements · Dealer Directory · AR Confidential · The Humor Department · Reader Mail · AR Online · Guru Amiga Book · Compton's MM Patent · Big Fun on the Internet » The WOCA Toronto Reports Begin! « » Nova Design Announces Contest « » Commdore Shareholder Movement Conference « /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 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!" ---------------------- Not much to babble about this week really... the reports from the WOCA show in Toronto are appearing all over the place. This week, we have a report from four different people who attended the show, so you'll get four different points of view. Meanwhile, here's a note I got from the man behind DRC: *** Area: NET_1_285_11 Date: 7 Dec 93 22:18:00 *** From: Douglas Cootey (1:312/18.0) *** To : Robert Glover (1:285/11.11) *** Subj: oops... @Mr. Glover, Please announce to your readers that from this moment until March 30th, I will be awarding a free six month subscription to every fifteenth purchaser of a Digital-Collage and Digital- Collage24 sampler disk. This is my way of apologizing for not posting my address and phone number with issue 1.35's press release. This is one month earlier than was advertised, and is available only to readers of your publication. These sampler disks are $7.95 for the HAM/IFF version, and $14.95 for the IFF24 version. They feature 10 texture tiles, and 5 full overscan video backdrops. Digital-Collage also features 15 motion clips for use with DeluxePaint's(tm) "Move" requester. Each month, we also take time to include tips and suggestions so that our customers can better utilize the images of our collection. These tips range from rendering ideas for each individual texture to palette considerations when using text with our backdrops. We are committed to be the best in the digital texture field, and welcome all comments and criticisms. Questions about our product can be directed to me, Douglas Cootey at: 1:312/18..............................................fidonet DOUGLAS_COOTEY@f18.n312.z1.fidonet.org................internet or we can be contacted by voice at 1.801.373.9579. To purchase a sampler disk, send a (US) check or money order, including $1 s&h ($2 Canada, $3 South and Central America, $4 Overseas) to: DRC Sequential Graphics 57 East 400 North #9 Provo UT 84606-2987 We welcome all your readers to join in our first year celebration. We're proud of our product, and hope to award many free subscriptions over the next four months. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Douglas Cootey DRC Sequential Graphics <> Digital Collage24 <> 1.801.373.9579 ------------------------------ Pretty nice of him, huh? Oh well... that's it for now. All I have to do is figure out how to come up with $900 to fix my car... 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 =========================== Thomas Baetzler Darren Eveland Brian Gawor Markus Illenseer J. Moore Ray Park Jeremy Smith @endnode *************************************************************************** @node P1-2 "CPU Status Report" @toc "menu" /// CPU Status Report Late Breaking Industry-Wide News ----------------- ** 15 More Companies to Write Software for the Jaguar ** Atari Corp. has announced that 15 additional leading software compa- nies have signed agreements with Atari for Jaguar -- the world's first 64-bit system. This brings the total number of Jaguar licensees to 35. The following new companies have signed with Atari: Accolade, 21st Century Software, Activision, UBI Soft, International Software, UBI Soft Inc., Microprose Ltd., Interplay Microprose Ltd. (U.S.), Millenium Interactive Ltd., Phalanx Software, Brainstorm Gremlin Graphics Ltd., Virgin Interactive Entertainment Ltd., 3D Games "We're pleased to add more of the top software companies to the Jaguar family, " said Sam Tramiel, president of Atari. "With jaguar, developers enjoy unsurpassed ease in creating real-time, 3D virtual worlds. They are not bound by the technological limitations of antiquated systems or stringent programming requirements. Jaguar gives developers the freedom to spend more time on the creative process, producing games for Jaguar players that are rich in color, animation, texture and sound." Jaguar is the only video game system manufactured in the United States. Atari has contracted with IBM Corp. to manufacture the Jaguar in its Charlotte, N.C., facility. ** High Speed PC-Cable TV Modem Demo'd ** Intel Corp. and General Instrument Corp. have demonstrated high-speed modem technologies that will enable home PC users to access a new range of services via the cable TV at speeds that are 1,000 times faster than present modems. The Intel-GI development effort is aimed at providing the increasing- ly powerful home PC with richer, faster data transmission through what is known as "broadband" communications used in the cable network. Both companies are contributing technologies and expertise from their respec- tive fields to enhance the home PC using the cable network as the data pipeline to the home. The home PC market is the fastest growing segment in the PC arena, with approximately 31% of U.S. households owning at least one PC, according to market researcher Link Resources Corp. of New York. Cable TV is present in more than 60 million homes. The companies say the combination of PC and cable TV technologies will offer consumers virtually instant response from familiar online services as well as a range of new services as program developers take advantage of the fastest communications pipeline to the home. ** Five Companies to Jointly Develop New Telecommunications Services ** Five U.S. companies have agreed in principle to form a joint venture to develop new telecommunications services using digital video, fiber optic and wireless technologies. Comcast Corp, Continental Cablevision Inc., Cox Cable Communications, Tele-Communications, Inc. and Time Warner Entertainment plan to create new telecommunications business lines that are enhanced and differenti- ated from those currently offered by existing wired or wireless commun- ications providers. The potential new business lines include Personal Communications Ser- vices (PCS), video telephony, energy utility communications and data communications services. The joint venture will also include local business and competitive access services provided through Teleport Communications Group. In addition, national service organizations and local service pro- viders will be established through the joint venture. The five companies are seeking additional participation and investment by cable operators in various local regions. ** Online Service Make Cable Moves ** Three major players in the online computing have announced plans to test data delivery through cable television. CompuServe Inc. announced it has allied with Continental Cablevision and the Teleport Communications Group for a test of delivery of online information via cable lines beginning this week. The pilot program links Continental Cablevision subscriber households in Exeter, N.H., to CompuServe. In a prepared statement, David Eastburn, CompuServe vice president of product marketing, said, "As the market leader, we're pleased to involve our members in determining the future direction of online services. Cab- le access is one of several alternative delivery methods we are explor- ing as we move toward multimedia delivery of a wide variety of informa- tion via CompuServe." Prodigy and America Online Inc. also announced plans to deliver con- sumer online services through cable in a project with Intel Corp. and General Instrument. America Online's experimental services will be delivered as part of Viacom International Inc.'s trial in Castro Valley, Calif. and a Comcast cable market trial, both planned for early 1994. ** SIA Says Resin Shortage Averted ** The Semiconductor Industry Association says a potential shortage of high-grade epoxy resin used to package computer chips has been averted. The SIA said this week's resumption of operations at Sumitomo Chemical Corp.'s plant in Niihama, Japan -- rocked by an explosion last July 4 that shut down the facility -- will boost production of the resin to meet worldwide semiconductor industry needs for the foreseeable future. One person was killed in that blast. As noted earlier, prior to the explosion, the Japanese facility prov- ided the chip industry with 50% to 60% of the world's supply of epoxy cresol resin. ******* General PC News ******* ** Astound Multimedia Presentation Prgm For Windows ** Move over Mac, Gold Disk has unveiled a Windows-based counterpart to Astound for Macintosh 1.0, a presentation program initially introduced last December. Like the existing package for the Mac, the new Astound for Windows 1.5 allows for the creation of multimedia as well as static presentations, company officials said. Astound for Windows 1.5 will read Astound for Macintosh 1.0 files in fully editable form. In addition, an Astound for Windows file can be saved as an Astound for Macintosh file. The new release for Windows is also bundled with a CD-ROM containing more than 1,200 animations, graphics, sound effects, and musical and video clips that can be added to presentations. Astound for Windows 1.5 is available for a special introductory price of $129 through January 31, 1994. After that, the software will be priced at $395. ** Canon To Show Interactive 3D Software For Windows ** Canon says it is getting into the software development business to offer workstation performance without a big price-tag. The company is holding a conference on Friday to demonstrate software from its new subsidiary formed to develop interactive, three dimensional (3D) software for the Microsoft Windows graphical environment. Historically, workstation computers have been known for their power- ful performance in manipulating 3D graphics, but at a cost that makes these computers unrealistic for the mass market. Canon is claiming, how- ever, that its new software will provide interactive 3D graphics at one tenth the cost of current workstation-based products. Canon has said the new software it will announce on Friday will not only work with Microsoft Windows, but with the Motorola microprocessor- based Macintosh and with Sun's workstation hardware as well. ** Radio Shack announces new Tandy Sensation! MPC for '94 ** Tandy Corporation continues to lead the way in personal computing for the '90's with the 1994 Tandy(R) Sensation!(R) Multimedia Personal Com- puter. Available at Radio Shack(R), the '94 Sensation has new state-of- the-art features that make it even better than its award-winning predecessor. The system includes a fast 486-based processor, advanced audio and video technology, send and receive fax capability, Photo CD compatibi- lity and an incredible array of bundled software in a fully integrated, energy-efficient, cost-saving package. It is ideal for use in a home, home-office, small business or educational setting. With a one-year warranty, the suggested retail price for the 1994 Tandy Sensation MPC is $1,799 ($1,999 with a SVGA color monitor). ** AMD Intros Local Bus SCSI Controller, Single-Chip PCI SCSI ** The PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) local bus specification continues to gain in popularity, as does SCSI (Small Computer Systems Interface) technology. Now Advanced Micro Devices has announced, what the company claims is, a "complete, low-cost hardware and software package facilitating the design of SCSI onto PCI local bus personal computer motherboards." AMD says that its PCSCSI is a single-chip Fast SCSI-2 controller paired with software in order to support a wide range of operating systems and SCSI peripherals. It is reportedly optimized for use on PCI local bus motherboards and provides a "glueless interface to the PCI bus." AMD claims that the cost to implement SCSI on the motherboard with PCSCSI (including all passive components and software) is less than $30. ** Microsoft Cuts Price Of Works For Windows 3.0 ** Microsoft has temporarily reduced the price of Works for Windows ver- sion 3.0, and will bundle it with its personal financial management software. Until January 31, 1994 buyers who purchase Microsoft Works for Windows 3.0 will get the integrated software suite for $89. If they buy Works before January 1, 1994 the company says it will throw in a copy of Microsoft Money 2.0. Once the introductory period is over the suggested retail price for either version of Works for Windows will be $199. Current users of Windows or DOS versions of Works can upgrade by buy- ing the new product and sending in the $10 rebate coupon that is in the product box. System requirements include at least a 386 microprocessor, four mega- bytes (MB) of memory, a hard disk with at least four MB, and preferably 15MB, of available space, MS-DOS 3.1 or higher, a VGA or better display, Windows 3.1 or higher, and a high-density (1.44MB) floppy drive. To use the multimedia edition a CD-ROM drive is required, along with a sound board and headphones or speakers. ** Dell In Black Again ** Dell Computer Corp., has returned to profitability in the third quar- ter of this fiscal year. Dell says earnings for the third quarter are 60% below what they were a year ago, and Chairman Michael Dell said sales will not meet the company's $3 billion sales target for the year. The company reported earnings of $12 million, or $0.26 per share, for the third quarter, which ended October 31. For the same period last year earning were reported at $29.6 million, or $0.72 per share. Revenue for the third quarter was $757.3 million, up 33 percent from the $570 million reported for the same period last year. ** C Learning Center Opens ** ITC, a developer of interactive multimedia training products, has announced the opening of its first ComSkill Learning Center franchise. The new learning center is located in Wilmington, Del. Over the next several years, ITC plans to establish a nationwide network of ComSkill Learning Centers. ITC describes its ComSkill Learning Centers as innovative, state-of- the-art personal computer educational facilities. It notes that students will gain hands-on experience and master a broad range of PC skills, applications and operating environments. The centers will also sell and rent courseware and provide individual student training. ComSkill's courseware combines full-motion video, audio and graphics on a PC. Instruction is both self-paced and interactive. ** Hitachi Rolls Out Parallel Units ** Massive parallel computers are to be introduced on the Japanese market next year by Hitachi Ltd., which says it is aiming to sell them mainly to government agencies. Hitachi will sell a machine with 128 pro- cessors and a processing speed of 20 giga flops (or 20 billion instruc- tions per second). Sources say that massively parallel systems, which use more proces- sors than ordinary computers, "have won kudos from the supercomputing community for their high speed." ** Compaq Offers Software Distribution CD with Presario ** Compaq Computer Corp. and InfoNow Corp. announced that they are offering users of Compaq's multimedia Presario personal computers the ability to purchase software directly from a compact disc. The Compaq QuickChoice CD, developed and supported by InfoNow, is shipping with each Presario CDS model and enables users to read elect- ronic literature, test drive and instantly purchase industry leading applications including Microsoft Excel, Word and Office. The disc allows Compaq users to purchase nearly 100 business and entertainment software titles that are loaded on the QuickChoice CD in an encrypted or locked form. ** New Line of Pentium PC's ** A new line of PCs based on Intel Corp.'s new Pentium microprocessor has been introduced by Zeos International Ltd. Officials of the company said the new line, called "Pantera," includes the PC interface technology, Peripheral Component Interconnect, as well as business audio capability in every system. The prices for Zeos Pantera start at $3,495. __________________________________________________ » US Robotics Ships Free Guide To Online Services « SLOUGH, BERKSHIRE, ENGLAND, 1993 DEC 6 (NB) -- US Robotics Limited, the UK operation of the US-based modem manufacturer, has confirmed it is shipping "The Sportster Guide To Online Services," a free color booklet that is designed to extol the benefits of high speed modems to potential first-time buyers of modem technology. Although the booklet was pre-announced last month at a press conference in London, the company has only today announced the color booklet, which contains what must arguably be the UK's most comprehensive guide to online services, detailing most services available, as well as a selection the most popular bulletin board services (BBSs). According to Clive Hudson, Managing Director of US Robotics, around 300,000 of the booklets have been printed and are being distributed as inserts in the PC press, as well as offered via computer dealers in the UK. The booklet will also be made available to schools, colleges and public libraries, "The modem has moved from being a rather dull technical product to a consumer product with a wide range of possibilities, We felt the guide would stimulate increased use of the amazing range of services that are out there," Hudson said, "It's not just the big boys though, We have included a number of smaller BBS operator and we will be offering a hotline for anyone who wants information they cannot find in the booklet," he added. Readers of Newsbytes who want a copy of the guide should contact Sally Roberts at the company. » Captain Kangaroo Scolds Violent Video Games « WASHINGTON, DC, U.S.A., 1993 DEC 2 (NB) -- At a press conference held in Washington on Wednesday, beloved children's program pioneer Bob Keeshan, known to tens of millions as Captain Kangaroo, joined two Senators in criticizing the graphic violence found in some video games. Mr. Keeshan said this violence is interactive, resulting directly from the action of the player, making it far more threatening than mere passively viewed violence seen on television and in movies. Senator Joseph Lieberman (D. Conn.) and Herbert H. Kohl (D Wisc.) joined Captain Kangaroo in calling for voluntary labeling of such violent programs and suggested that if the publishers don't take action on their own that Congress will. Specifically cited in the Wednesday press conference were two SEGA games, Mortal Combat, and another which shows graphic abuse of women. There have been increasing calls for television networks to label programs according to their violence level and even demands from some Senators for physical devices built into TV sets which parents could set to block such programs. » Cable Modem Shakes Online Industry « ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1993 DEC 2 (NB) -- The demonstration of a modem running at 10 megabits per second over cable television lines shook up the industry at its annual Western Show. Because it comes at the end of the industry's fiscal year, when capital budgets are being set, the Western Show has long been one of the industry's main technology showplaces, alongside the National Cable Television Association show itself. The focus of the excitement was really a simple demonstration of technology which General Instrument Corp., a leader in supplying set-top converters and other equipment to cable operators, and Intel plan to bring to market next year. To serve customers with the new modems, a General Instruments spokesman indicated to Newsbytes, cable operators will merely need to feed a digital line from a major phone company into their cable head-ends, and connect it to one of their existing channels. Many operators already have, or are planning, such links in order to get into the alternative access business, moving calls from large businesses to long distance networks. Teleport Communications Group, the leader in this business, is now owned by five cable operators. While Zenith has had a similar product available for some time, cable companies are comfortable dealing with General Instruments, and they're further impressed by Intel, the leading supplier of chips, in the deal. With 31 percent of US homes now owning at least one PC, they also see that the online market is moving into an area they're familiar with serving. The companies estimated it will cost consumers about $500 to buy and install such a modem, with the first buyers likely to be telecommuting engineers and computer programmers who need fast-access to data and programs on corporate mainframes. At the show Comcast and Viacom, both major cable operators, said they would field-test the technology next year. Online services like America Online, Prodigy, and CompuServe, all announced they'll support the new modems with versions of their services at the higher speed. Prodigy was the first into this market, and has a test of its services planned with Cox Enterprises' San Diego cable system already. Online services are very interested in cable because, while they have about four million customers among them, cable has 60 million customers. Prodigy is especially keen on the market because many consumers have complained its service is slow at the 9,600 bit/second speed available on most PC modems used on phone lines. The cable modem was just one of many computer-related announcements at the Western Show. Time Warner joined the group of cable operators which own Teleport, the largest alternative access company, which should make most major US cable systems cable modem-ready in short order, since those systems will be used to offer services to business customers anyway. Scientific/ Atlanta and Motorola joined with Kaleida Labs in launching a new chip called Malibu, which they'll put into set-top converters accessing interactive systems. S/A and Hewlett-Packard both said they'll begin supplying set-top converters to Tele-Communications Inc., the largest cable operator, and H-P will begin delivering printers that work with video images to Time Warner for its full service network in Orlando. Finally Eastman Kodak said its Picture Exchange, an online imaging service which allows for the sharing of photos over cable, is now operational. The one warning note was given by America Online President Steve Case at a Western Show news conference. While joining Intel and GI in a test of the new cable modem, and working directly with GI on services for interactive television, he warned that the financial impact from all this won't be apparent for 3-5 years. "We are investing early in these new technologies because we believe they represent the future and will move interactive services into the mainstream," he said in a press statement released at the news conference. » Multimedia Trade Group Poised To Fight Compton's Claims « ANNAPOLIS, MARYLAND, U.S.A., 1993 DEC 3 (NB) -- The Interactive Multimedia Association (IMA), populated by 260 organizations involved in the multimedia industry, says it will support legal efforts against the claims of Compton's Newmedia that it holds a patent on multimedia. But more importantly, the IMA is concerned over the issuance of such broad, non-technical multimedia patents by the US Patent Office. Philip Dodds, IMA director, said, "The Patent Office is issuing extremely sweeping patents that are for basic computer and multimedia processes that have been used for many years which are obvious and not novel." One multimedia developer told Newsbytes: "Next someone will be getting a patent for driving on the right side of the street." Compton's Newmedia announced at Comdex computer trade show it was issued a patent number 5,241,671 for the "Multimedia search system using a plurality of entry path means which indicate inter relatedness of information." Compton's patent states: "...it is contemplated that this invention can be used with any information that can be stored in a database. While the present invention has largely been described with reference to an encyclopedia, other databases of published graphical or textual information could be included." The IMA asserts that Compton's claim that it invented multimedia and wants royalty payments as a consequence stunned the multimedia industry. Representatives from Compton's said the patent isn't dependent on the delivery method for multimedia and therefore covers not only software but interactive television and graphical online services as well. Evidently, the Compton's patent is not the first questionable multimedia patent the US Patent Office has issued. Educational multimedia software developer Optical Data Corporation (ODC) of New Jersey received two patents in 1992, "Interactive method for the effective conveyance of information in the form of visual images" and "Curriculum planning and publishing methods." ODC sent letters in early 1993 to several companies claiming patent infringement as well as letters to three state education superintendents to inform them other products could be infringing. Videodiscovery of Seattle, Washington, also an educational multimedia publisher, filed a complaint in August 1993 against ODC in the US District Court, Western District of Washington, in Seattle. The complaint asked the two patents be declared invalid based on the "obviousness" of the both. Last month, on the day ODC was to answer in court, it issued a press release saying it was donating the first "Interactive method..." patent to the public and asked the Patent Office to re-examine the other rather than have the validity of the second determined by legal processes. Joe Clark, chief executive officer of Videodiscovery maintains: "It's obvious that the Office of Patents and Trademarks needs more expertise and data in the area of software and multimedia as shown by the awarding of these patents. These represent at best nuisance patents and at the worst, a severe hindrance for the growth of the multimedia industry." One of the suggested answers to this dilemma is the suggestion that Patent Office form an industry commission made up of those in the field of multimedia to review pending patents. The IMA is a leading multimedia trade group, headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland. The group's board of directors and officers include: Victoria Vance of Apple Computer, Sueanne Ambron of Paramount Technology, Michael Braun from IBM, Nat Goldhaber representing Kaleida Labs, Joe Clark of Videodiscovery, Robert Harris from Philips, Hal Josephson of 3DO, Georgia McCabe representing Eastman Kodak, and Robert Pearson from Sun Microsystems. » Chip Resin Supply Back On Stream « LONDON, ENGLAND, 1993 DEC 3 (NB) -- First the good news -- the resin shortage that has caused the surge in chip prices since July is over. The bad news is that DRAM (dynamic random access memory) chip prices will not fall as quickly as they went up. This week has seen the Sumitomo Chemical Company's resin production plant in Japan, which blew up on July 4, resume production. According to the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), the current shortage will soon be alleviated. The story at the sharp end of the industry in the UK is somewhat different, however. Fergus Campbell, senior product specialist with Datrontech, a major supplier of chip products to dealers in the UK, said that the market has advanced since the July explosion. "The problem is that supplies of the 4Mbit SIMMs have been cut back as manufacturers move to 16Mbit. But 1Mbit users have migrated to 4Mbit SIMMs (single inline memory modules), meaning that the 4Mbit chips are still in short supply," he told Newsbytes. Datrontech's prices on 4Mbit SIMMs are currently just under UKP100. Three months ago, they were at an all-time high of UKP145. A year ago they were 70. Campbell said that it would be a long time before the UKP70 price point was realized again. Mike Lunch, general manager of Toshiba's Personal Systems division, said that easing of shortages in DRAM supply, rather than a price fall, was good news for the company, since it would allow memory card supplies to get back up to volume. "Although chip prices make up only a small part of our end user pricing, DRAM shortages have caused up problems with memory cards for our portables. These cards add value to our portables," he said. The previous stories are © 1993 by NewsBytes. Reprinted with permission. @endnode __________________________________________________ @node P1-3 "ImageFX Arts & Sciences Contest" @toc "menu" » The ImageFX Arts & Sciences Contest! « ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Nova Design, Inc. and Great Valley Products (GVP) are pleased to announce the ImageFX Arts and Sciences contest. This contest seeks to find the best in art, animation, and programming utilizing the run-away best selling image processing/painting/everything package; ImageFX! Grand Prize winners and runners up will share in the fantastic prizes provided by GVP. These include the EGS Spectrum - the top of the line graphics display card, PhonePak VFX - the Amiga voice mail/fax system, and the DSS-8+ - the premier Amiga sound digitizer and music editing system! The Categories: As the contest name might imply, there will be two categories for judging: Arts; which will include still images, animation, and video sequences created via ImageFX and/or CineMorph. Grand Prize: EGS Spectrum Runner Up: DSS 8+ Sciences; which includes any programs or Arexx macros created for use with or in ImageFX. These can be ImageFX demos, special effects "hooks" or any ImageFX-style modules, and Arexx macro scripts that recreate artwork onscreen as a combination of Arts and Sciences. Grand Prize: PhonePak VFX Runner Up: DSS 8+ The Time and the Place: The contest begins with this announcement and will close on March 1st, 1994. Judging will be completed over the next month and the winners will be announced at the World of Commodore/Amiga in New York City in April, 1994. How to Enter: Entries should be submitted privately via regular mail carriers or electronic mail (Email). Entries must not be uploaded to any public forum or electronic network. Mailed entries should be sent to Nova Design, Inc., c/o Great Valley Products, 657 Clark Avenue, King of Prussia, PA 19603. Emailed entries should be sent, uuencoded, to one of the following email addresses: Internet: Kermit@cup.portal.com GEnie: K.WOODALL1 Compuserve: 71021,2753 GVP BBS: (215) 337-5815 / upload to the sysop The Judges: All entries will be judged by Nova Design, Inc. All decisions will be final. The Rules: All entries must be the sole creation of the submitter(s) with no rights being held against the entries by any other parties. Entries must be new and original works that have not appeared previously; either commercially or via any shareware or freeware distribution. Artwork must not be based off of any copywritten material (eg: video, television, film, print, or any other previously published material). Programs must work with, or in, ImageFX and not rely on any other shareware or commercial software in order to function once compiled or executed. All programs must also be accompanied by full source code. All entries become the sole property of Nova Design, Inc., it's assigns, or it's heirs. Submitters, by entering this contest, grant Nova Design, Inc. and GVP the right to use their names and/or likenesses for promotional purposes. Kermit Woodall Nova Design, Inc. @endnode @node P1-4 "AMUC announces New Amiga CDROM" @toc "menu" » The Amiga Users Of Calgary (AMUC) Announces New Amiga CDROM « » priced AT ONLY $20 CDN (APPROX $15 US) « (Calgary, Alberta, Canada --- December 6, 1992) The Amiga Users of Calgary Society (AMUC) has just cut a CDROM consisting of the best of what was on it's BBS. This CD-ROM is over 610 megabytes in size. Production is complete and it is ready to ship. So what's on the disk? Since this contains some of the best on the AMUC Express (AMIGA ONLY) BBS you can expect to find a huge number of IFF and JPEG pictures, animations sounds, mods, 3D objects, clipart, fonts (bitmap and structured), text files, programs and demos from all over the world. The files are primarily stored as LZH, LHA or DMS files. There is also a separate directory tree which contains minaturized images of nearly all the pictures on the Walnut Creek GIFS_Galore CDROM, useful as a quick means of searching for a particular picture. There are FILES.BBS and 00_INDEX.TXT files in all the directories, as well as long descriptions of most files stored in a separate description file tree. The directory names are a maximum of 8 characters with 3 character extensions, so it is usable on PC based systems. The disk is an ISO9660 format disk. Pricing: The disk costs CDN$20.00 (Canadian dollars, which is about US$15.00 at current exchange rates) plus CDN$3.00 for shipping and handling. We accept VISA and MasterCard so the currency exchange is automatic. COD shipping: The disk can be shipped COD to Canadian addresses for an extra CDN$3.00, in the USA this appears to be US$5.00. Terms: cash or certified check only. Ordering: You can call us toll free throughout North America with: 1-800-561-4877 or outside North America call (403) 242-2507 (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) or you can send a postal money order payable to AMUC: AMUC P.O. BOX 34230 #19, 1200 -- 37 St. S.W. Calgary, Alta T3C 3W2 Shipping: Orders will be shipped on a first come, first served basis. The CD-ROMs have been pressed and are ready to go. AMUC is a non-profit organization dedicated to the support of Amiga Users and the promotion of the Amiga computer. @endnode @node P1-17 "CBM Shareholder's Online Conference" @toc "menu" /// The Commodore Shareholder Movement Online Conference ---------------------------------------------------- This is a heavily edited transcript of a capture of a live chat which took place in the Amiga Zone on Portal on the evening of Sunday, Nov. 28, 1993. The subject was the Commodore Shareholders Movement and the guest speakers are introduced below. The conference took the form of a Q&A session The conference lasted approximately two hours in real time. Most all of the superfluous chit chat, hellos and g'byes have been removed to make it easier to read. User groups, non-commercial BBSes, public FTP sites, and Amiga Report online magazine have our explicit permission to republish this transcript in its entirety only. - Harv Laser, AmigaZone Sysop ------------[ Edited Transcript Begins Here]------------ Harv: Tonite we have another special guest chat. Our guests tonite are Marc Rifkin and Mike Levin, the spokesmen of the Commodore Shareholders Movement. You may or may not be aware of their efforts over the last year or so. If not then tonite you will learn what this is all about. If so this will be your chance to find out their plans and ask them questions. Without any further rambling, it's my pleasure to introduce Marc R. Rifkin and Mike Levin, of the CSM. Gentlemen, the floor is yours. Mike&MarcCSM: Hello everyone. Thanks for being here tonight. We are here to answer your questions about who we are and what we're doing... Most of what we're about is answered in our Q&A document and Survival Kit, for those who haven't seen it. We'll answer your questions in person. But first, we have one: Who here considers themselves a part of the CSM? (Three people responded) DMcCoy: Is owning stock a prerequisite? If not, I do. If so, I'll buy stock. :) Mike&MarcCSM: Owning stock is NOT a prerequisite. Harv: Before we start taking questions, I have a poll. If and only if you own any CBM Int'l stock, please state "Yes" and the # shares you own if you're willing to say. Harv: Yes, 20 soft-logik: Yes, 600 DeckApe: Yes, 30 drchip: Yes, 500 harsh: Yes, 600 Mike&MarcCSM: Yes, 540 Harv: Be advised that you can visit *any* stockbroker and buy just 1 or 2 shares. And ask to hold the certificates yourself. The broker will take a small fee. The stock will cost you less than $4 per share. xterm: Ok, have you two been doing anything directly with Little Irv & Mehdi? Mike&MarcCSM: We've sent certified letters out to both of them. No response so far... Mike talked to both in person at the 1991 Shareholders Meeting. PKB: Be honest. Are you haveing any real effect at CBM? Mike&MarcCSM: Yes. In 1991 we had a great effect. CD32 and the 1200 are in part the results of our efforts... We are now trying to make an ongoing relationship with the management... So that we are not limited to just speaking at shareholder meetings... We have the support of everyone we have spoken to across the board. Harv: Please explain how CD32 and the 1200 are in part the results of your efforts. Mike&MarcCSM: At the 1991 meeting, Mike described products he felt needed to be developed... They both had the promise of success like that of the C64... CD32 and the 1200 match those descriptions. NES-Bill: 1. How many people are involved in the movement so far? 2. How many shares does that represent? 3. What makes you think that it is enough to make any real difference to how the company is run? Mike&MarcCSM: 1. Over 500 people have stated their support... 2. About 200 shareholders... 3. Most of the shareholders are also customers. Their opinions are the most valuable to Commodore. We can identify with about 1% of the company ownership. There are 33 million shares. All CBM directors have 20% a total. Teletran: You've mentioned the upcoming shareholder meeting in the text files, but when iis it? Mike&MarcCSM: We called CBM last tuesday. Hock Tan (Shareholder Relations) is never available... His secretary said the meeting was not being held that week (when it has been held in previous years). DMcCoy: Not having owned stock before, is there a minimum amount required before one can be taken seriously? Mike&MarcCSM: No, everything counts. Harv: Okay.. I have a couple questions. #1 - Your earlier texts mentioned that you wanted our proxies so you could nominate new people to the board, yet later you seemed to have backed off on that saying that you were going to work with existing management. Please explain. Mike&MarcCSM: We do still want proxies... We have not closed off that option but working with the management is more aligned with what we really want to achieve, which is to restore Commodore to a position of leadership in the industry. Harv: #2 - Do you have any reason to believe that Gould is or is not going to avoid shareholders by holding the annual meeting in the Bahamas rather than in New York as they were for many years? And, are you guys willing to go to the Bahamas if required? Mike&MarcCSM: Mike went to the Bahamas in 1991 and we are prepared to go this year. Harv: #3 - What about Al Haig? I and many others would like to see him off the board. What are your thoughts on this? (Yes, this is the same Al Haig who used to be the Secretary of State and shows up on political talk shows all the time). Mike&MarcCSM: Al Haig probably does some good for Commodore as far as favors. We could probably suggest some better Directors. Teletran: I assume that Commodore legally HAS to let the shareholders know when the meeting is? Also, Can they stretch it out like they did the 4Q & 1Q '94 reports? GA. Mike&MarcCSM: We've written to the SEC. Their position is that as a "foreign private issuer," Commodore is not subject to the U.S. proxy laws. This means that they probably do not even need to announce the Shareholder Meeting. The five directors make a quorum. The shareholder meeting can be held in secrecy. It would be contested by shareholders, but that would be after the fact. soft-logik: Do you think Commodore has a future? Given the pressures of the industry that have even hurt companies like Apple? Can yet another proprietary operating system have a place? Do you advocate Commodore supporting UNIX? Focusing only on game machines? Mike&MarcCSM: YES... CD32 can become a C64-like success. This success can be used to carry the Amiga product line forward by sinking profits back into R&D and turning the Amiga into a machine which can compete despite whatever machines are out there. DeckApe: 1) Is CBM a subsidiary of Commodore Ltd? 2) Is CBM completely held by C= Ltd? 3) What kind of response have you gotten so far to your request for a show of support? Mike&MarcCSM: CBM is a wholly owned subsidiary by Commodore Ltd. Harv: CBM = Commodore Business Machines. They (in West Chester PA) are the USA mfg and sales USA HQ office. There is also a CBM Canada, and many other countries, all subsidiaries of Commodore Int'l Ltd. a Bahamian company :) DeckApe: I take it that means we can't buy stock in CBM (which I assume is a U.S. company?) Harv: You can only buy stock in Commodore Int'l. Ltd., the Parent. Mike&MarcCSM: We receive about a dozen E-Mail messages, a half dozen faxes and a handful of calls every week. We've spoken to almost every major Amiga developer and distributor. We have everyone's support in spirit, and the shareholders and customers support in practice. xterm: Ok, my question -- do any major corporations have a stake in C= anymore besides the Big 5 and the "little people"? Who? Mike&MarcCSM: Yes... Prudential Securities and over 70 other financial institutions according to the last Nelson Directory. Only Irving Gould owns a controlling interest in shares. DocPierce: I was wondering a few things. Is there anything that non shareholders can do? How much does stock cost and where is a good place to go? How far do you have to go to accomplish your goal in terms of "you're 50% there, 75%, etc"? Mike&MarcCSM: Non shareholders can state your support for the CSM publicly in letters to Commodore and the Press, on electronic nets and turn this media event. Harv mentioned already how to get stock (contact a broker or your bank, it should be less than $4 a share). We are 50% of the way to achieving our first objective which is to initiate ongoing cooperative efforts with Commodore officers. DocPierce: Can you provide us with addresses and names to write to? DeckApe: FYI: I recently purchased 20 additional shares of stock - I paid $3.25 a share, and the broker only cost me $11. As of Wednesday, C= was trading at 3-3/4 a share. Harv: Anyone can buy stock. Call any broker. I use Paine Webber but there are many big name ones. You can buy 1 or 2 shares. Make SURE you tell the broker "I want to hold the certificates myself". The broker will do the trade for you, will tell you what he bought at and you will have x days to pay his bill. Mike&MarcCSM: We will put out a text file with all of the places to contact. Start with your favorite magazine. SkyPilot: I have 3 questions: 1. Can the CD-32 be used as a cd-rom. 2. What development is progressing with an AAA machine 3. How serious is Commodore about staying in business? A basic no-show at Comdex?? I will be going to WOC. Harv: #1 is not really covered by this chat. #2 - See the Dave Haynie transcript in the library (text files, near the bottom). Mike&MarcCSM: We cannot answer for Commodore, but we are serious about them staying in business. Harv: Commodore had a booth booked at Comdex but turned it over to Centaur at the last moment. Commodore does plan to have a booth at CES/Vegas Jan 5-9 to unveil CD32 to the full USA market. harsh: Clearly the Amiga is a competitive machine, but the current Commodore leadership doesn't seem to get it. What specifics will you propose to them to put Commodore back on the map? Mike&MarcCSM: First, Appoint a new officer capable of acting as President and CEO of Commodore. Then forge relationships with the Commodore community. Then carry out strategies to direct your (the customers) enthusiastic evangelism. And establish a feedback system (eg., Harv) to measure success. soft-logik: Do you guys have any idea why Commodore stock didn't fall through the floor after the financials were released showing the company with a negative book value? Mike&MarcCSM: There are several ideas. Buying activity propping the stock value up... Speculative purchasing by investors... Reports of European CD32 sales... And the stock being considered as "bottomed out." GA xterm: [btw -- Ken Dyke of C= quoted me 70,000 CD32s moved as of last week] Harv: You guys indicated in your last .txt posting that you would be reducing your roles in CSM. since you've been the driving force, what's gonna happen next. Are successors in place? Or what's the deal? Mike&MarcCSM: We are working on successors. We'd like to talk to anyone here who is interested. DeckApe: #1: Please explain (for those ignorant like me) what exactly gives Irv "Controlling Interest"..... #2: Who is your potential candidate for Prez/CEO of C=? What are his/her qualifications? Mike&MarcCSM: Irving has 20% or 6 million shares. No one else has over 1 million. We have spoken to several people including those in the Amiga community. No one there can risk the involvement (risk to their own business). We have now settled on an electronics industry veteran. We can say that he as been the President of several large companies. His name is not widely known. (not a celebrity). DonM: 1. I'm just a full-time electronic tech and part-time airplane driver. I've never news media'ed anything in my life. Any suggestions? 2. What signs, if any, do you see of C= not getting finances because of recent posted loss? GA Mike&MarcCSM: 1. Write to editors of any magazines you think appropriate. State things in your own words and get lots of other to do the same. Also think television, radio and newspapers. Harv: Write to New Media magazine. They claim Amiga coverage but generally blow their nose on us. Also write Compute and demand they reinstate the Amiga edition. Mike&MarcCSM: So long as Commodore is selling product and has a positive cash flow, they can always get more money. (Prudential extened their loan to January). SteveX: It sounds like everybody is counting on CD32 to save Commodore. We keep hearing that they are rolling off the production lines, and they are selling all they can make. 20,000 a week is the number we keep hearing. My question is whether or not they are making any money on these things. If they make 20,000 a week all year, that's a million machines, and if they make $50 on each machine, that's $50 million in sales - but if they only make $5 on each machine, then it's only 5 million in sales for the whole year (since they don't seem to be making anything else). What do you think? If they're betting the farm on CD32, they better not be selling it as a loss leader! Harv: (Haynie said the C= factory in philippines has 4 production lines, 3 are making CD32 and the fourth makes mainly 4000s or whatever they have orders for) Mike&MarcCSM: According to our numbers, Commodore has a 25% profit margin and should have made about $150 million by now on CD32 sales. SteveX: 25% profit margin at that low US retail price? It seems like a double-speed CD-ROM drive, 2 meg of ram, power supply, case, and all that should cost more than what they are selling it for. Mike&MarcCSM: Commodore's greatest ability is producing high value machines at low cost. DeckApe: My question: should we ease up on the mismanagement angle or hit it full force? Mike&MarcCSM: It has to be dealt with, we want Commodore to accept a new officer at their level who can manage the company competently. He has to be given enough leeway so that he wouldn't be afraid of being fired. GA harsh: Assuming that Commodore has its meeting tomorrow and chooses to ignore you completely and keeps things going as usual, how will you change your approach? Mike&MarcCSM: Give the story to the Wall Street Journal, NY Times, Forbes, Business Week, Time, and everyone else. JWolf: Any idea how to get CBM to get companies to acknoledge the Amiga and port their software? Mike&MarcCSM: Commodore would need to build a strong corporate identity, increase the user base and potential markets and offer the right incentives to software developers including developer loans and cooperative advertising. DeckApe: mentioned a while back that he thought Irv owned Prudential. True or false? Mike&MarcCSM: False. Medhi Ali used to work for Prudential and probably still represents their interests. colins: I have no doubt that CBM can compete on the low-end with a machine like CD32. If marketed correctly there is no reason it can't be the next Sega or Nintendo. Whether it will or not remains to be seen. But, in what markets do you believe CBM can competein the mid and high-end categories, with their existing technologies? Mike&MarcCSM: Video, interactive communication, workstations, home computers, and just about anything else - the Amiga is the most versatile computer. DeckApe: Laptops? (Hint!) Mike&MarcCSM: We believe strongly in an Amiga laptop! Harv: Thus endeth the formal portion of tonight's chat. Thanks to Marc Rifkin and Mike Levin for their time, their answers, and the work they've put into the CSM. Be sure to get their latest text file out of our text files library near the bottom. "CSMKIT.LHA". Mike&MarcCSM: Also, watch the next issue of Amazing Computing! Harv: And go buy a few shares of Commodore Int'l, kids. It won't cost you much, and it will give you a vote in the company's present and future. Call any stock broker. Tell him you want to buy a few shares of CBU and you want to hold the stock certificates yourself. To learn all about the CSM, get "CSMKIT.LHA" out of the text files library here and read it. And act on it. ------------[ End of Transcript ]----------- @endnode @node P1-5 "CBM-Amiga has full time job openings" @toc "menu" ===================================================== | Amiga Graphics Software Development - Permanent | ===================================================== Commodore Amiga Software Engineering has several full time software engineering openings in the area of Amiga graphics: The ideal candidate has a background as a developer of graphics intensive applications on the Amiga or other platforms. Experience with Amiga graphics (graphics.library) and Amiga chipsets (ECS and AA) is a plus, but not a requirement. The candidate should have a strong background in raster graphics, including up-to-date understanding, and preferably experience with, current popular graphics architectures and devices in the personal computer market. Working knowledge of 3D graphics and video standards and issues is a definite plus. C language and/or 68k assembly experience is required, and Amiga or multitasking OS development experience is strongly desired. Experience with low-level system programming is desired. As a member of the graphics team the individual will: - develop next generation graphics.library for new chipsets. - contribute to new chip design - participate in architecting new OS's. If your skill set and experience doesn't exactly match the lists above, feel free to forward your resume anyway, since I will be looking for other types of software engineers in the near future. The successful applicant will be hard working, self-motivated and able to work well with peers. Writing and communications skills are a definite plus. As a member of a small entrepreneurial team, each engineer is a significant contributor through the actual market introduction of his/her product. As a member of a large international corporation, each engineer benefits from the resources that Commodore can provide. AND you're working with the Amiga, a pioneer in multitasking, GUI and multimedia. Become a member of the strong, innovative team wich developed AmigaOS. For immediate consideration, please send resume, including applicable experience and salary history, to: Dr. Allan Havemose, Director Systems Software Commodore Business Machines 1200 Wilson Drive West Chester, PA 19380 FAX: (215) - 431 9156 Email: havemose@cbmvax.commodore.com If you have code examples you're proud of, send them on! Commodore is proud to be an equal opportunity employer m/f/h/v. Must be U.S. citizen or permanent resident of U.S. Dr. Allan Havemose Director, Systems Software 12/8/93 @endnode @node P5-1 "BigAnin v3.5" @toc "menu" » BigAnim 3.5 available for FTP « TITLE BigAnim VERSION 3.5 (29-Nov-93) AUTHOR Christer Sundin, d8sunch@dtek.chalmers.se DESCRIPTION BigAnim is an animation player, capable of "direct from disk" playback, with user selectable buffer size and playback speed. BigAnim can display IFF ANIM animations of types 5 and 7, and makes use of the new graphics.library double-buffering routines when run on an Amiga with Kickstart 3.0 or later. NEW FEATURES These are the changes since version 3.3: o Buffer utilization statistics added o Playback speed can be changed during playback, by pressing one of the digit keys o Several bug fixes and minor improvements REQUIREMENTS Kickstart 2.04 or higher. BigAnim will take advantage of Kickstart 3.0 and 68020+ processors if found. HOST NAME Aminet. Several sites are available, for instance: ftp.luth.se 130.240.18.2 (Scandinavia) ftp.uni-kl.de 131.246.9.95 (Germany) wuarchive.wustl.edu 128.252.135.4 (USA) DIRECTORY /pub/aminet/gfx/show FILE NAMES BigAnim35.lha DISTRIBUTABILITY BigAnim is freely distributable, as long as BigAnim and all related files are distributed unchanged. @endnode @node P5-2 "BuildAnim v2.0" @toc "menu" » BuildAnim 2.0 available for FTP « TITLE BuildAnim VERSION 2.0 (30-Nov-93) AUTHOR Christer Sundin, d8sunch@dtek.chalmers.se DESCRIPTION BuildAnim is an animation utility, and it can do three different operations: 1) It can build an animation out of individual ILBM pictures, 2) it can split an animation, and save the frames as ILBM pictures, or 3) it can convert an animation from one ANIM compression type to another. Several compression types are supported: 2, 3, 5, 7 and 'J', but BuildAnim can only create type 5 and 7 animations. NEW FEATURES These are some of the changes since version 1.5: o Completely rewritten using C. The compression and decompression routines are kept in assembler, though. o BuildAnim can now also split and convert animations. o Reading and writing is buffered, to maximize throughput. o BuildAnim can read ANIM types 2, 3, 5, 7, and 'J', and write ANIM types 5 and 7. o Options can be saved in an envrinoment variable. REQUIREMENTS Kickstart 2.04 or higher. HOST NAME Aminet. Several sites are available, for instance: ftp.luth.se 130.240.18.2 (Scandinavia) ftp.uni-kl.de 131.246.9.95 (Germany) wuarchive.wustl.edu 128.252.135.4 (USA) DIRECTORY /pub/aminet/gfx/conv FILE NAMES BuildAnim20.lha DISTRIBUTABILITY BuildAnim is freely distributable, as long as BuildAnim and all related files are distributed unchanged. @endnode @node P1-6 "Amiga Envoy Available" @toc "menu" » Amiga Envoy Available from IAM « PRODUCT Amiga Envoy DESCRIPTION Amiga Envoy is the standard Amiga peer-to-peer networking software developed by Commodore's Amiga Networking Group. Its performance, user-interface and API are consistent with the philosophy of the Amiga Operating System. Amiga Envoy provides a simple messaging interface for the easy development of reliable network applications. Included applications enable connected Amiga computers to share hard disks, CD-ROMs, and printers transparently. Third-party applications can provide functionality such as electronic mail, remote computer access, multi-user databases and multi-player games. To make Amiga Envoy available to end-users immediately, Intangible Assets Manufacturing has licensed Amiga Envoy from Commodore. IAM has produced a manual written by Dale Larson, one of Amiga Envoy's original designers. The manual eases you through the set up and use of a simple network. Additional documentation will be available (at an additional charge). It will explain how to internetwork with Amiga Envoy, how to develop software for it and how to use its security features. Intangible Assets Manufacturing supports the copies of Amiga Envoy it distributes. Support is provided through electronic and physical mail and by answering questions in such public forums as UseNet's comp.sys.amiga.datacomm, on CompuServe, and on Bix. REQUIREMENTS Workbench 2.04, Kickstart 2.04, 512k RAM, SANA-II compatible networking hardware (see COMPATIBILITY). RECOMENDED Workbench 2.1 or later, Kickstart 2.1 or later, 1MB RAM, Hard disk with 300k free in SYS:. AVAILABILITY Now. PRICE List Price: $59.95 (2-user) COMPANY AND ORDERING INFORMATION Direct electronic inquiries to: info@iam.com Direct postal mail to: Intangible Assets Manufacturing 828 Ormond Avenue Drexel Hill, PA 19026-2604 USA To order Amiga Envoy, check with your computer dealer, or order direct from IAM by mailing a check or money order drawn on a US bank and payable to Intangible Assets Manufacturing. In the continental USA, shipping is included in the $59.95 price. PA residents add sales tax. Outside of the continental USA, include an additional $10 for shipping and handling. Dealer and distributor inquiries welcome. COMPATIBILITY Any SANA-II networking hardware may be used with Envoy, including Ameristar A2066, AmiLink, ASDG LanRover, Commodore A2065 or A2060 and SLIP (serial port). Additional non-IP, SANA-II compatible networking protocol stacks may be run at the same time as Amiga Envoy over the same networking hardware. AS225r2 is the version of Commodore's TCP/IP package which is compatible with Envoy (through SANA-II compatibility and close cooperation regarding IP packets). It is expected to be available from Intangible Assets Manufacturing soon. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOR DEVELOPERS Developers of any Amiga networking products or networking compatible products are encouraged to contact Intangible Assets Manufacturing regarding inclusion of their products in the forthcomming "Amiga Networking Handbook." We want to make sure that Amiga users can find out about every networking product that they may need. We hope to do this by publishing information on all of the products that are available. Applications developers who wish to add networking features to their products are encouraged to contact IAM regarding developer support and/or consulting services. The Amiga Envoy documentation produced by IAM is available for license to third-parties wishing to distribute Envoy with their products. Custom documentation can also be produced for third party networking hardware and software products. Similar AS225 documentation is expected to be available soon. LEGAL Amiga is a registered trademark of Commodore-Amiga, Inc. Workbench and Kickstart are trademarks of Commodore-Amiga, Inc. Envoy is Copyright 1985-1993 Commodore-Amiga, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Distributed under license from Commodore. NetWare is a trademark of Novell, Inc. @endnode @node P5-3 "Garshneblanker v2.7" @toc "menu" » Garshneblanker 2.7 Available for FTP « TITLE Garshneblanker - A modular screen blanking package for Commodore Amiga computers. ( Previously titled: Blanker - A name most thought too generic. :) VERSION Release 2.7 Version 37 Revision 11 AUTHOR Michael D. Bayne (baynemd@nextwork.rose-hulman.edu) DESCRIPTION Garshneblanker is a complete modular screen blanking package designed with AmigaDOS 2.04+ in mind. This software takes advantage of all the new features of ADOS 2.04+ in order to make it as upward compatible with new releases as possible. A few of the features are listed below: Screen Mode Database use in each module, Full Commodities interface, Font sensitive window, Public screen support, GadTools interface, IFF Preferences files, Use of tool types to support global and local prefs, AppWindow support, AGA Support in all modules! (Beautiful 256 color displays) Additionally, to ease use and installation I have provided the following: o "Installer" installation script o "AmigaGuide" format documentation SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS AmigaDOS 2.04 or greater is required (ADOS 3.x is supported). HOST NAME ftp.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4) and other Aminet sites DIRECTORY /pub/aminet/util/blank FILE NAMES Gblanker2.7.lha -- All binaries and support files. Gblanker2.7.src.lha -- Source to program and modules. PRICE Free. DISTRIBUTABILITY Garshneblanker is distributed with full source under BSD-like constraints. It is freely distributable with very few restrictions on reuse of the source or the executables. Please read the documentation accompanying the distribution for further information. @endnode @node P5-4 "F2C Amiga v1.0" @toc "menu" » Fortran 77 to C Translator Amiga Port « TITLE F2C - Fortran 77 to C translator. Amiga port for use with gcc 2. VERSION Version of April 28, 1993. (F2C doesn't use version numbers). Version 1 of the Amiga port for gcc 2. AUTHORS Copyright 1990 by AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bellcore. F2C is under development by David Gay (AT&T Bell Labs) Stu Feldman (Bellcore) Mark Maimone (Carnegie-Mellon University) Norm Schryer (AT&T Bell Labs) Amiga port by Torsten Poulin Nielsen Banebrinken 99, 2, 77 DK-2400 Copenhagen NV Denmark email: torsten@diku.dk DESCRIPTION F2C converts Fortran 77 source code to C (or C++) source files, that can subsequently be compiled and linked with gcc. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS Needs Markus Wild's port of gcc 2 and ixemul.library. Memory requirements: 4 mb, mainly because of gcc. Not tested under KS 1.3. Several versions of gcc are available from Aminet. The ixemul.library is included in the gcc distributions. HOST NAME Available via anonymous FTP from Aminet (e.g., ftp.luth.se) DIRECTORY /pub/aminet/dev/lang FILE NAMES f2c-amiga1.lha 695692 bytes. PRICE Free. DISTRIBUTABILITY Copyright 1990 by AT&T Bell Laboratories and Bellcore. Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that the copyright notice and this permission notice and warranty disclaimer appear in supporting documentation, and that the names of AT&T Bell Laboratories or Bellcore or any of their entities not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific, written prior permission. @endnode ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @node P1-7 "Amiga Report Online" @toc "menu" /// Amiga Report Online News Eavesdropping on the world! ------------------------ » FidoNew News « ------------ *** Area: AMIGA Date: 5 Dec 93 3:13:00 *** From: Jon Peterson (1:383/25.0) *** To : All *** Subj: FFish 1000th Disk Fund Here is the list of donors for the twelfth week of the FFish 1000th Disk 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) Julla O. Kouppinen (Finland) Gary Simpson Robert Sudbury Jon Peterson (Asha's FF1000th Auction Check Pin) New Orleans Commodore Klub Amiga Group Wow, four donations this week alone! (This is finally getting international.... Where's Hong Kong??) Total donations as of 12/4/93 are $507.50. 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? A CD32 looks to be the most popular alternative. 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 you 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. Christmas is on the way for all you 'Lil old Santa's helpers. Let's see if you can pitch in and squeeze him down the chimney with something for good ol' Fred. As always, donations to me at: CVCUG %FFish 1000th Disk Fund P.O. Box 2661 San Angelo, TX 76902 » Portal News « ----------- .../Files & Messages/Message Bases/Creativity - The Arts/PhotoCD and OpalPCD 12/6/93 16:34 83/4095 Harv I was down at Creative Computers' store in lawndale yesterday and noticed they had a portable NEC CD ROM drive connected to one of their demo 3000s with a Retina card and nice big monitor on it so I sat down to see what they had in the drive and it was the Corel PhotoCD sampler disk which has 100 beautiful PCD images on it amongst other things. "What are you using to bring the PhotoCD files into the Amiga?" I asked and they told me they were using the new AsimWare PhotoCD conversion utility that comes with the 2.0 version of that company's CD ROM driver software. So I messed with the thing a bit. It reads in one or more PhotoCD files tagged from a directory requester then converts each in turn into an IFF24 file (with the output size selected in a pull dow menu, the largest of which that was un-ghostable was 768x512) and then writes the results to the drive one specifies. The process of convresion is painfully slow. I couldn't fathom why it was so slow. It took on the order of (guessing) nearly two minutes to convert each image, and it didn't even display them during the load > convert > save process. The 3000 had about 10 MEG of RAM in it. Having just gotten my NEC CDR25 portable drive back from NEC's service (it was flakey when I took possession of it a couple months ago) I then remembered that I had that same Corel PhotoCD sampler disk in my possession and that I had seen a freely distributable program called OpalPCD on Centaur's OpalVision Support BBS but I'd never tried it. So I tried it. What a difference! OpalPCD (sorry I forget the author's name... pretty sure it's on Aminet, and it's also on Portal in the Centaur/Opal vendor are) performs pretty much the same function as AsimWare's PhotoCD image converter, however on my 33Mhz 030/882 2500, the process takes under 18 seconds for OpalPCD to load one of the 3 to 5 meg PhotoCD images from that CD, display it on my OpalVision and then a few more seconds to save it back out to disk as a 768x512 IFF24 file. Total of maybe 20 seconds to load, display and save... roughly (guessing) 6 to 8 times faster than the AsimWare PhotoCD utility. Now admittedly, my 2500 is a tad faster (sysinfo sez 1.47 x as fast) as Creative's 3000, but that wouldn't, by itself, account for the tremendous speed difference in these two programs. I'm no programmer but it seems to me that if OpalPCD can perform the load/display/save function on the same PhotoCD file in the same resolution in 20 seconds that AsimWare's program takes nearly two minutes to do, AsimWare should go back to the drawing board for some re-coding :) I have converted, using the method described above, a number of "swimsuit/lingerie" PhotoCD pics from my Corel Sampler CD, JPEGged them with ADPro and put them in the Amiga Zone new uploads library today. They can be viewed on any Amiga (preferably with some kind of deep color display, but this is not an absolute requirement) with JPEG loading/viewing software. A 24 bit RGB display like Opal or Firecracker would be the best. AGA would suffice :) These pics will eventually be moved into our Adult Pinups library. Now here's a funny sidenote: Corel sells over 100 PhotoCD discs. (See their ads in magazines such as "New Media"). One of these used to be a Lingerie disc. However due to the pratice of political correctness (ugh) and the complaint of a Corel employee, this CD has been yanked from the market. The Sampler CD original contained these sexy pics that I have converted and uploaded as JPEG but the Sampler CD that I messed with down at Creative, as mentioned above, despite coming in the same jewel box cover and with the same disc label, was missing these pictures. So apparently I have a rare, now "banned" Corel PhotoCD sampler disc :) There are a lot of other gorgeous pics on the sampler - scenics and nature shots and buildings and such, and I will convert some of those too and upload them shortly. If you have an OpalVision and have or are getting a CD ROM drive, you really owe it to yourself to try out OpalPCD. It works beautifully and it's fast! Harv » AmigaNet News « ------------- *** Area: AMY_TECH Date: 30 Nov 93 22:11:24 *** From: Dave Gomme (1:261/1147.5) *** To : All *** Subj: C= advertisements, part II Remember a few months months back when all the ideas for MAiga commercials came though? Well, better late than never, I was sitting around this morning doing a little thinking (where all my best thinking gets done) and I came up with a couple ideas inspired by the recent slew of Mac commercials. Commercial #1 [Fade from black. Picture of an Amiga 4000 with WorkBench running, beige cloth background] "This is your average Amiga 4000 from Commodore." [Switch to generic PC-clone on light blue cloth background with windows (maybe generic software) running] "This is your average PC." [Same blue cloth background, from above (god's-eye view) show memo/one page paper floating down in leaf-like action to ground.] "This is an average document created with a PC." [Switch back to Amiga on beige. Animation of film-style countdown (5-4-3-2-1) being shown.] "This is an average document created with an Amiga..." [10 (5?) second sub chase clip from SeaQuest. Subtitle, "Created with the Video Toaster and Commodore Amiga"] [Fade to Times-italic "Amiga" on black background.] "Which would you call a multimedia computer?" [Fade in subtitle, "When you want the best, you want the original"] [Fade in new subtitle, "The original multimedia computer"] There should be a message about being about to produce papers with the Amiga in there somewhere. I haven't been able to insert it and retain the fluidity of the commercial. The second commercial would use the same format, and compare Video for Windows with the full-screen 30fps capability of the 4000. A shot of a clown "clowning around" would be great for Video for Windows, and in the subtitle "Extra hardware required". Some circus music and a little "Woo-hoo" near the end of the shot would work nicely as a soundtrack. For the A4000's animation the clip from Star Wars would be great (if the rights were available). A price point comparison would also be nice, comparing the A4000 with a "multimedia capable" name brand PC without naming names, of course. ...Dave @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 P1-8 "WOCA - Toronto Reports" @toc "menu" /// WOCA Toronto Reports -------------------- » Part One: By Darren Eveland (develand@uoguelph.ca) « --------------------------------------------------- Yes, I just got back from WOCA Toronto. Here is my quick and dirty summary: CD32 - Yes, they were for SALE. NTSC Version. Apparently C= had them flown in from their plant the night before, and the C= rep I talked to said they managed to squeeze one production run in for NTSC units. But that is it. The rest are PAL versions headed for Europe. Don't expect general availability in N. America until after Jan 1, 1994. Price in CDN dollars was **** $489.00 ****, which translates to about $366.00 US. MPEG module will be available in Europe beginning DEC. 11/93. No date was given for N. American availability. I expect the price to get lower by sunday (the end of the show). The MPEG Module was QUITE impressive. They were playing STAR TREK VI: The Undiscovered Country. Apparently this was hot off the press and had only been available for a week. They also had Top Gun, but they were told "not to show that" yet. Hmmm. No sign of the Bon Jovi video, but they did demo a music video called "killer". MPEG quality was equal to or better than current VHS technology. The freeze (pause) was awesome - crystal clear and no "noise". Oh ya, they had the European TV Commercial too - were showing that in MPEG and CDXL. GVP - GVP was demoing the EGS Spectrum (w/EGS paint), ImageFX for EGS (beta), TBC Plus, various accelerators, etc... A fairly large booth. I am not going to say much about the Spectrum since I have already bought one. But, they were selling for $599 CDN ($450 US) (2 meg ver.). EMPLANT - Jim Drew was there along with a lady taking orders and another tech guy from UU. Emplant was looking nice. UU both was almost right across from Simon Douglas (programmer of A-MAX IV Colour) and his demo (rather uncomfortable!!!). Jim was saying how he has 11 patents pending on emplant. Emplant was selling for about $360 CDN (basic model). A-Max IV Colour - I talked to Simon Douglas about A-MAX IV-Colour, which was selling for $429 CDN ($322 US). They had been working on the software/hardware part of it since last January, and had been beta testing since august. Looked quite impressive, with lots of configuration options for memory, video, scsi, etc... Actual emulation looked nice, and was pretty fast. Expert Services had A-Max IV Colour running on a large monitor with the Picasso Video board hooked up. This *WAS* impressive. Very fast. Had 256, thousands, and millions colour options. Bug fixes are free, and major upgrades may cost a small fee. What can I say? Emplant and A-Max IV Colour both do good jobs at emulating a mac. You'll have to make your own decision about which is better. A4000T - Well, where was it? I didn't find it...but maybe I didn't look too hard. Amiga CD32 external units ------------------------- C= had hoped to show them at WOCA, but for some reason they were not there. I did learn that both will be external units. C= officials would not tell me how it will hook up to either machine. Only users with AGA machines will get to use these drives though. Look for them in Q1 94. PageStream 3.0 -------------- All I can say is: Looked impressive. Price for PS 2.2 was 199 CDN (tax included, ($149 US)), which will get you a free upgrade to 3.0 when it is released Q1 94. There was A LOT of stuff going on at the show, so this is just a highlight of what products I found interesting...I'm going back again on saturday to return a HD A3000 floppy which does not work :-(, so maybe I'll glean some more info from C=. I'll try to sit in on the C= "future directions" seminar with Lou E (head of engineering). Maybe he'll know some goodies about AAA. See ya! » Part Two: By Roy Park (roy.park@canrem.com) « -------------------------------------------- Hello everyone... (ya ya, it's Roy Park again) :) Since I went to WOCA Toronto CBM keynote addressing session, I thought I'd let ya know some stuff that was said *note: the following is what I think I heard.. so if there's any mis- information, blame my ears, not me! First, WOCA in general: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - CD32 was for sale at $499 CDN - the MPEG module for CD32 was NOT available at the show (I'll get into that later) - a very few number of vendors attended (IMO) - about 3 local Amiga dealers were present, busy selling CD32 - lots of interesting stuff: Picasso II, Piccolo, Spectrum, Studio16 3.0, LightRave, PageStream 3.0 demo, and lots of CD32 for the people to touch and experience(!). - ONE CD32 unit with MPEG module was playing "StarTrek VI: Undiscovered Country " at the show... many 'WOW's from the crowd. Now, the news from CBM..: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ - There are over 120 registered software developers for CD32. - The MPEG module (or FMV) is now in production! It will be available very soon (within a couple weeks time.. about 2 weeks I guess) and the NTSC CD32 owners can buy FMVs early from European market (if they wanted them that bad) since FMV recognizes NTSC/PAL correctly and output at a right freq. - Commodore has just licensed PhotoCD from Phillips. (not from Kodak) Lew says they can now say "PhotoCD compatible" on CD32, but not "Kodak PhotoCD compa- tible"... I'm not sure how this works legally. - Commodore is hiring back some of old Software Engineers (!) and they'll be working on to complete RTG. *note: they could be NEW software engineers, he didn't exactly say 'hiring back'...it's my imagination. So ex-CBM engineers, don't quit your day job! - AAA stuff: 1) the chips are 95% ready (in other word, the chips they have works 95% of the functionality from what they planned originally).. and some MINOR bugs has to be found. 2) the 2 of the chips will go into 2nd pass soon, and the other 2 will go into 2nd pass in February. From what I hear, if everything goes well (meaning they get the chip they want from 2nd pass) the actual AAA machine wouldn't take too long to come out. 3) Commodore finally decided to use Intel's PCI for the system bus purposes. 4) DSP will be an integral part of AAA. CBM's expecting to be using AT&T 3210 DSP for this. (with VTOC or something.. which I don't know how to spell, nor know what it is) - "Beyond AAA" (from Lew's words) Commodore has already assigned two engineers for systems beyond AAA chipset. He said it's CBM's intention to have some sort of 3D workstation by the end. Currently the new projects are: 1) 30 million pixels per sec graphics rendering engine 2) 3D rendering engine Well, that's about it! I tried to be most accurate as possible to what Lew Eggebrecht said, so don't be throwing those nasty hot flames at me! L8er! » Part Three: By J. Moore (1:229/15.0 on FidoNet) « ------------------------------------------------ These are my personal observations and thoughts and not really an attempt to be comprehensive. The size of the thing was about the same as last year, with some smaller booths for many vendors but larger booths for the stores. No shows included Opal, who probably don't want to hear any more questions about when the modules are appearing. Big shows included the Montreal Toaster distributors, whose demo guy gave the exact same presentation he's been giving for as long as I've seen them (it's getting a little old guys -- you're gonna make the Toaster look dull) and Scala, which was very nice. The Scala seminar/demo was one good show as well, and the biggest shock for me was seeing the guy run the whole thing from a 1200 with an '020 and 4 MB ram. And he ran it out through the RF port to a projector TV and it looked GREAT! Scala is the one program that looks better every time I've seen it; like real easy to use and effective. They were showing Scala MM300, which has more wipes, anti-aliasing for their fonts, and other little goodies like the clicking sound you get when you hit the buttons. They are also working on many goodies, among them an editing setup for prosumer vcrs with infrared sensors, Toaster controllers, etc. etc. etc. If you're doing presentations or even thinking of it, get it! (IBM did.) The price at the show: C$250 (US$190) for MM210 (approx. C$130 to upgrade to MM300, available in a month or so). The other big shock of the show was prices: bargains were to be had for a change. Americans were spotted leaving the show with 5 A1200s in their arms. A1200s were C$499 (US$378), CD32s were C$475 (US$360), Sunrize had Studio 16 for around C$1350 (about US$1000). The Scala price at C$250 was good, but a buddy and I got it for 2 for C$425 (C$212.50 each = US$161). Usually Canadians have gone to the States for deals, but now Americans were doing the cross-border shopping. Saw a good feature on PhotoCD. OS 3.1 will have CD support as part of the OS (and maybe PhotoCD support as well -- I didn't go see Lew Eggbrecht's talk wherein he gave out the offical word on C='s dealings with Kodak re PCD). Saw the CD32 stuff; sorry, I'm not into games enough to give a good review. They looked fine to me, and the MPEG module's playback looked okay: about like something you recorded on a mid range VHS deck in the 4-hour mode instead of SP. Emplant had a booth, and was selling boards at some sort of deal, but didn't bring any deal for the dealers, which annoyed them (annoying your dealers doesn't seem like the best marketing strategy to me); they didn't even have boards to sell. With Amax for sale at the show with a free upgrade path to the upcoming "same as Emplant"-type software, it seems like Emplant picked the wrong time to let their dealers down. I'm sure other news will be posted -- that's the stuff that struck me as most interesting. TTYL. » Part Four: By Sean Caszatt (1:2601/512 on FidoNet) « --------------------------------------------------- Well, I made the trip to Toronto this weekend for the World of Commodore Amiga show there and here's a little of what I saw: CD32 - great system, horrible games. Sorry, but that's the way I feel. The CD32 "arcade" that was set up had JAMES POND 2, OSCAR, SLEEPWALKER, PINBALL FANTASIES, a really cool flight simulator (no name), ARABIAN KNIGHTS, and a side-to-side shooter that looks sort of like PROJECT X. If they release one more platform game, I'm going to scream. A BMD rep (who was importing a lot of CD32 titles) told me that the sales of the CD32 were disappointing because of the lack of available software titles. Only about 8 games were available for actual sale. BMD's shipment of about 20 games were held up in customs and would probably not make it to the show on time. At no time did I see anyone carrying a CD32 around (after purchasing one). I still saw a lot of A1200's walking around with people though. Commodore's booth also had a number of CD32's running stuff, but it was a lot more promising to see the stuff there. They had STAR TREK VI running on CD (a CD-I cd-video). A woman was freezing the motion, rewinding, fast-forwarding all with the CD32's controller. That was impressive. MICROCOSM was there and looked great. I've been hearing about it forever, and seeing it was really cool. Of course, the Toaster and SCALA were there showing the multimedia side of the Amiga. Studio 16 v3.0 was there. Pagestream 3.0 was there. Emplant was there (the first time I've had a chance to see it...impressive!). A-Max IV was directly across from Emplant, and looked slow...but it works. The A4091 was there in DKB's booth. (They've picked it up and will be marketing it.) Piccolo, Picasso II, and the EGS Spectrum card were all there (in separate booths of course.) On the gaming side of things: MORTAL KOMBAT was there, running on an A1200...and it was very impressive. Looked as good as my SNES version (and, yes, it has the blood.) It was fast and fluid too (very much UNLIKE STREET FIGHTER II) No CD32 version though, not yet anyway. When it makes the transition, it will be just as good as the console versions are now. JURASSIC PARK was on sale there, but I didn't see any demos of the game anywhere. It was only available for the A1200/A4000. My whole impression of the show was dampened by the CD32's poor showing. The console has the potential to kick ass, and is being given meager titles to run. MICROCOSM and the unnamed flight simulator (called FLIGHT DEMO by someone there) gave a glimpse of what the machine can do. They were the most impressive AGA-type titles I've ever seen. I hope those titles come fast and furious. @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 *************************************************************************** @node P1-9 "Big Fun in the Internet with Uncle Bert" @toc "menu" /// Big Fun in the Internet with Uncle Bert --------------------------------------- By Jeremy Smith (jeremy@kira.csos.orst.edu) Yer luvin' Uncle Bert stumbles through the gateway, scurries across the 'Internet land, eyes agog, then has Big Fun in the nether regions. [These are all ftp, telnet and email sites all over the world that have all kinds of neat resources available. At the end of this file are the info, about, and usage notes.] General Fun =========== === freenet (free internet account, email, USA Today Headline News) 35.208.17.4 m-net.ann-arbor.mi.us login: newuser (The Once & Future M-Net) 129.22.8.82 freenet-in-a.cwru.edu (& ftp) login: new (Cleveland Freenet) 130.253.192.68 nyx.cs.du.edu login: new (Nyx, The Spirit of the Night) 134.117.1.25 freenet.carleton.ca login: guest (The National Capital Freenet) 192.55.234.27 yfn.ysu.edu login: visitor (Youngstown Free-Net) 18.72.1.146 techinfo.mit.edu (Information service including lyrics database) 128.6.60.6 quartz.rutgers.edu login: bbs (discussions) 152.2.22.81 sunsite.unc.edu pub/docs/about-the-net/cwis/cwis-l (Freenets) === Coke Machines & fortune cookies 128.105.2.6 coke@cs.wisc.edu finger 128.2.209.43 bargraph coke & mnm@coke.elab.cs.cmu.edu finger 128.2.222.173 coke@cs.cmu.edu finger 128.193.124.2 almanac@oes.orst.edu message: send quote (or moral-support) 129.21.60.132 graph@drink.csh.rit.edu info@drink.csh.rit.edu finger 129.32.1.100 astro.temple.edu 12345 telnet (fortune cookie) 129.32.32.102 argo.temple.edu 12345 telnet (fortune cookie) 129.173.4.4 franklin@ug.cs.dal.ca finger (Trek cookie) 130.95.100.3 coke@gu.uwa.edu.au finger 132.26.65.78 twinbrook.cis.uab.edu 7777 finger (Unleavened cookie) === IRC (Internet Relay Chat p CB radio, IRC access) 128.2.54.2 bradenville.andrew.cmu.edu 143.248.1.53 ara.kaist.ac.kr login: irc === Internet Talk Radio info@radio.com announce-request@radio.com sites@radio.com message: General Reference ================= === WorldWindow 128.252.173.4 library.wustl.edu (window on the net(world)) === hytelnet (hyper-telnet: like this list on hypercard - must see!) 128.233.3.1 access.usask.ca login: hytelnet hytelnet/pc/HYTELN.ZIP 128.252.135.4 wuarchive.wustl.edu /mirrors/msdos/hypertext/hyteln66.zip === Geography 130.11.48.2 isdres.er.usgs.gov (US Geological Survey Maps) 141.212.100.9 martini.eecs.umich.edu 3000 (returns long/lat of town, zip... ) === NBS Time 128.138.140.44 india.colorado.edu 13 telnet (exact time) (202) 652-1079 1200e71 (sunrise, sunset, moonrise, satellite transit, UCT ) === Weather (National Weather Service) 35.1.48.150 hermes.merit.edu login (Which Host?): um-weather (forecasts) 141.212.196.79 madlab.sprl.umich.edu 3000 login: um-weather (forecasts) 128.174.5.98 vmd.cso.uiuc.edu wx/*.gif (hourly satellite weather photos-US) 129.215.168.19 cumulus.met.ed.ac.uk images/gifs/[norden|uk|world].[vis|ir].gif 128.178.36.30 liasun3.epfl.ch pub/weather/ (Europe, Scandinavia, UK, World) 137.219.16.14 marlin.jcu.edu.au JCUMetSat/*last JCUMetSat/utilities/*(Aussie) (301) 899-1214 2400n81 login: NWS password: TEMPPASS === Earthquakes 128.95.16.50 quake@geophys.washington.edu finger pub/seis-net/README === Solar Flares solar@drao.nrc.ca finger (latest daily 10cm solar flux) === Religious Studies 137.122.6.16 pub/religion/electric-mystics-guide.txt === Harris Polls, USA Today Polls, Atlanta Journals, Carolina Polls 152.2.21.5 uncvm1.oit.unc.edu login: irss1 password: irss === Philosophy 130.150.102.33 atl.calstate.edu login: apa (American Philosophical Assoc. APA) === Dictionary 132.239.68.1 chem.ucsd.edu login: webster 128.174.5.50 uxc.cso.uiuc.edu 621 (accessible by uiuc & uic only Webster's) 146.169.22.42 wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk 70 gopher (dictionary, computing, acronyms) 129.67.1.165 black.ox.ac.uk wordlists (Aussie Chinese comp.. Swedish Yiddish) 192.31.231.42 ftp.cs.vu.nl dictionaries/words.* (German French Dutch Italian ) === Encyclopaedia (I'm still looking :-() === Math (Interactive Math algorithm bibliography) 192.20.225.2 research.att.com login: walk 130.44.1.100 e-math.ams.com login: e-math pwd: e-math (American Math Society) yalevm.ycc.yale.edu login: math1 passwd: math1 operatorID: math1IMD === Statistics 128.2.241.142 lib.stat.cmu.edu login: statlib (datasets, xlibstat, Splus, SAS) === Chemistry 131.174.82.239 camms.caos.kun.nl 2034 telnet ( graphic periodic table) UMinnesota gopher gopher/libraries/reference/periodic table === Physics 131.243.48.11 muse.lbl.gov telnet login: pdg_public (sub-atomic particles) === Complexity 192.12.12.2 bbs.santafe.edu login:bbs ftp.santafe.edu pub/(Santa Fe Institute) === History 129.71.32.152 byrd.mu.wvnet.edu pub/history 129.237.1.30 ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu telnet (interactive history database) 130.18.80.10 ra.msstate.edu pub/docs/history 192.12.72.60 clusl.ulcc.ac.uk login: ihr-uk passwd: ihr-uk (history database) === Chess (chess@valkyries.andrew.cmu.edu) 128.2.232.4 valkyries.andrew.cmu.edu pub/chess/uploads (Internet Chess Server) 192.41.245.90 elof.iit.edu 5000 (interactive play/watch) 192.80.61.5 eve.assumption.edu 5000 (interactive play/watch) === FDA bulletin board (consumer info & news releases of FDA) 150.148.8.48 fdabbs.fda.gov login: bbs === PEN pages (Agricultural and weather data) 128.118.36.5 psupen.psu.edu login: PNOTPA === Space (NASA news, shuttle schedules & satellite updates) 192.149.89.61 spacelink.msfc.nasa.gov telnet 18.75.0.10 nasanews@space.mit.edu finger (NASA headline news) 192.101.147.11 lpi.jsc.nasa.gov login: lpi (geology, geophysics, astronomy) 134.4.10.118 ned.ipac.caltech.edu login: ned (NASA Extragalactic Database) 128.183.36.25 nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov login: nodis (Space Science Data Center) 128.183.36.23 nssdca.gsfc.nasa.gov login: nodis (Space Science Data Center) 130.199.112.132 bnlnd2.dne.bnl.gov login: nndc (Nuclear Data Center) === Gateways (How to email between any network:Compuserve Fido Genie Internet) 129.89.7.4 csd4.csd.uwm.edu pub/internetworkmail.guide posted monthly on Usenet:comp.mail.misc pub/bigfun/gateways.{txt|wp6|ps} 16.1.0.2 gatekeeper.ec.com gateway.txt (decwrl: ftp by email) === Fax (email ---> fax) remote-printer.[/organisation]@<#.x.a.f.>tpc.int message: mail tpc-faq@town.hall.org mail tpc-coverage@town.hall.org example: remote-printer.Jeremy_Smith/CodeSmith@8.2.0.0.7.5.7.3.0.5.1.tpc.int (fax # +1(503) 757-0028 in reverse separated by dots, _ = space, / = newline) info@antigone.com (fax --> email, $39/year+$1/page) (Antigone Press - faxlinq) === Compuserve (even parity, 7 bits, 1 stop bit) 35.1.48.150 hermes.merit.edu login: compuserve (connection uses tymnet) 128.196.128.234 hopey.telcom.arizona.edu login: TO_CSERVE HostName: compuserve === World News (NASA news, shuttle schedules & satellite updates) 152.10.1.1 conrad.appstate.edu login: info === Education suvm.acs.syr.edu login: suinfo (tn3270 emulation required) (ERIC) === Disabilities 129.189.4.184 handicap.shel.isc-br.com (disability-related files and programs) === EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) mail archive-server@eff.org message: index eff(access by email) 192.88.144.4 gopher.eff.org 70 (access by gopher) 192.88.144.4 wais.eff.org 210 (access by wais) ftp.eff.org pub/ (net policy papers) (access via ftp) === Whitehouse (president@whitehouse.gov vice-president@whitehouse.gov) 192.73.224.100 almanac@esusda.gov message: subscribe wh-summary === UFO stuff 128.255.21.233 grind.isca.uiowa.edu info/paranet/ (InfoPara(Net) & Abduction) Internet Reference ================== White Pages (find somebody) 18.70.0.224 sipb.mit.edu pub/whois/whois-servers.list (list of whois servers) 128.138.243.151 bruno.cs.colorado.edu login: netfind (Netfind User Lookup) 130.18.80.11 ftp.MsState.edu pub/docs/finding-addresses (find email addresses) 132.151.1.1 nri.reston.va.us 185 (type in real/login name of person, Knowbot) 134.82.1.8 sol.bucknell.edu 185 (Knowbot) 192.33.4.21 wp.psi.net login: fred (front end to the directory) 192.33.33.22 ftp.nisc.sri.com 192.112.36.5 mail service@nic.ddn.mil message: whois name usenet: comp.mail.misc FAQ: How to find people's email addresses === archie (all these sites, login: archie) (find files & software) 128.6.18.15 archie.rutgers.edu (Rutger's University, New Jersey) 128.167.254.194 archie.sura.net (SURAnet, College Park, Maryland) 128.214.6.102 archie.funet.fi (Finland) 129.12.21.25 archie.hensa.ac.uk (UK/Ireland) 129.93.1.14 archie.unl.edu (University of Nebraska, Lincoln Nebraska) 130.195.9.4 archie.nz (New Zealand) 130.240.18.4 archie.luth.se (Sweden) 130.54.20.1 archie.kuis.kyoto-u.ac.jp (Japan) 130.83.128.111 archie.th-darmstadt.de (Germany) 130.195.9.4 archie.nz (New Zealand) 130.240.18.4 archie.luth.se (Sweden) 131.130.1.23 archie.univie.ac.at (Austria) 132.206.51.250 quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (original archie site, Canada) 133.4.3.6 archie.wide.ad.jp (Japan) 139.130.4.6 archie.au (Australia) 140.78.3.8 archie.edvz.uni-linz.ac.at (Austria) 140.115.19.24 archie.ncu.edu.tw (Taiwan) 146.169.11.3 archie.doc.ic.ac.uk (Imperial College, London UK) 146.193.0.153 archie.inesc.pt (Portugal) 147.225.1.3 ans.net pub/archie.doc.usenix.paper.ps.Z (great archie docs) 147.225.1.10 archie.ans.net (ANS, New York) 163.239.1.11 archie.sogang.ac.kr (Korea) 198.49.45.10 archie.internic.net (AT&T) example: mail archie@archie.internic.net message: prog === DNS --> IP# mail resolve@cs.widener.edu message: site machine.site.domain (returns IP#) === Usenet type rn, trn or nn (see below under notes for more details) 18.172.1.27 rtfm.mit.edu pub/usenet/news.announce.newusers/List_of_Active_New* 129.89.2.1 uwm.edu 119 (post to usenet via telnet) 128.59.64.40 sol.ctr.columbia.edu 119 (post to usenet via telnet) 129.69.1.12 rusmv1.rus.uni-stuttgart.de 119 (post to via telnet) 130.133.4.250 gibb.math.fu-berlin.de 119 (post to via telnet) mail @cs.utexas.edu (post to usenet via email) mail @pws.bull.com (post to usenet via email) === ftp 128.6.7.38 pilot.njin.net pub/ftp-list/ftp.list (anotated list ftp sites) 128.167.254.179 ftp.sura.net pub/nic/guides (help on email, ftp, telnet) 130.86.90.1 csus.edu pub/ftplist/ftplist (annotated list of all ftp sites) === RFC (Request For Comments - all the Internet specs) 192.112.36.5 nic.ddn.mil rfc/rfc-index.txt rfc/rfcnnnn.{ps|txt} (nnnn < 1432) === BBS 141.224.128.4 aug3.augsburg.edu files/bbs_lists/nal006.txt (internet BBS list) Internet Access =============== (See also `freenets' in General Fun, above) === Subscriber services - see PDIAL (below) for complete list (net acce$$) vox:(800) 848-8199 (compuserve packet network) (800) 877-2006 n81 vox:(800) 736-1130 (PC pursuit) 35.1.1.48 info@merit.edu hermes.merit.edu telnet Which host? help(michnet) 38.145.211.6 ftp.psi.com all-info@psi.com vox:(703) 620-6651 (psi-world-dial) 38.145.211.6 ftp.psi.com psilink-info@psi.com vox: (703) 620-6651 (psilink) 156.151.254.3 info@portal.com vox:(408) 973-9111 725-0561 login:info (portal) 157.151.0.1 info@holonet.net info/ (510) 704-1058 2400n81 (holonet) 192.74.137.5 office@world.std.com world-info/description 617-739-WRLD (world) 192.80.63.1 walthowe@delphi.com login:JOINDELPHI passwd:INTERNETSIG (delphi) 192.82.108.1 support@igc.apc.org pub/ (415) 322-0284 n81 login:new (IGC) 192.100.81.100 info@netcom.com vox: (408) 544-8649 (netcom) 192.102.249.3 nic.cerf.net cerfnet/dial-n-cerf/ help@cerf.net (dial 'n-cerf) 192.132.30.5 info@well.sf.ca.us vox: (415) 332-4335 (well) 198.7.0.2 alexis@panix.com login:newuser vox: (212) 877-4854 (PANIX) 198.67.13.2 info@tmn.com vox: (703) 243-6622 (The Meta Network TMN) === PDIAL & other internet access lists (Public Dial-up Internet Access List) 128.126.220.104 VFL.Paramax.com pub/pubnet/nixpub.[long|short] (nixpub) 128.138.213.21 csn.org pub/net/PDIAL 192.100.81.100 info_deli_server@netcom.com message: send PDIAL 198.41.0.4 ns.internic.net infosource/getting-started/getting-connected/ providers-na/internet-access-providers-list === Mail servers, internet by email (See `remote ftp' in Notes, below) 16.1.0.1 ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com message: get README.ftp (DECwrl) 18.70.0.209 mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu message: help (USENET archives) 128.112.129.99 Bitftp@PUCC.Princeton.edu (@PUCC.Bitnet) message: help (Bitftp) 128.113.26.10 Listserv@vm.its.rpi.edu message: get pdget help 134.129.111.1 Listserv@vm1.nodak.edu message: get pdget help 134.214.100.25 ftpmail@grasp.insa-lyon.fr message: help ((France) Europe only) 146.169.33.5 ftpmail@doc.ic.ac.uk message: help 148.81.18.1 bitftp@plearn.edu.pl message: help ((Poland) Europe only) 192.33.33.51 mail-server@nisc.sri.com message: send HELP 192.88.97.13 bitftp@vm.gmd.de (bitftp@dearn.bitnet) message: help (Germany) Internet (Resource) Guides ========================== (catalog of catalogs, directory of directories, index to indices, list of lists, pointers to pointers) === Zen and the Art of the Internet (GET! -A beginner's Guide to the Internet) 147.31.254.132 ftp.cs.widener.edu pub/zen/zen-1.0.{PS|tar.Z} 192.33.33.22 ftp.nisc.sri.com introducing.the.internet/zen.txt (ascii version) === Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet 192.77.172.4 ftp.eff.org pub/Eff/papers/bdummy.txt === The Incomplete internet Guide 141.142.20.50 ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu Education/Education_Resources/Incomplete_Guide/Incomp.Guide.July.[txt|PS.Z] === The Internet Companion (with foreword by Al Gore) 192.74.1137.5 world.std.com OBS/The.Internet.Companion/The.Internet.Companion* === NWnet resource Guide (very comprehensive) 128.95.112.1 ftphost.nwnet.net nic/nwnet/user-guide === SURAnet Internet Resource Guide (help:info@sura.net) (catalog of catalogs) 128.167.254.179 ftp.sura.net pub/nic/infoguide.{m-dd}.txt (updated weekly) 128.167.254.179 ftp.sura.net pub/nic/network.service.guides (ftp, telnet, vi) 192.102.249.3 nic.cerf.net internet/resources/library_catalog/library-catalog-0 5-92.txt === Non-electronic reference The Internet Complete Reference, by Harley Hahn &al 1994 Osborne McGraw-Hill The Whole Internet Catalog & User's Guide, by Ed Krol. 1992 O'Reilly & Assoc. === Internet Resource Guide 128.6.60.6 quartz.rutgers.edu pub/internet/sites/high.weirdness.by.email 128.89.1.178 nnsc.nsf.net resource-guide/ mail resource-guide-request@nnsc.nsf.net === Interactive Resource Guide, white, yellow pages (Directory of Directories) 198.49.45.10 mailserv@ds.internic.net login: archie pub/help message: help === lists of internet services 129.89.7.4 yanoff@csd4.csd.uwm.edu finger pub/inet.services.txt (Yanoff) pub/bigfun/bigfun.{ps|txt} (pointer to pointers) ftp.rpi.edu pub/communications/internet-cmc (decemj@rpi.edu) (CMC) (see also Resource Catalog at the end of Ed Krol's The Whole Internet 1992) === MaasInfo 129.120.1.4 ftp.unt.edu ARTICLES/MAAS/MAASINFO.TOPINDEX (index of indices) === Dr Chaos (I have a Master's Degree) (fun views of internet computer news) 128.253.194.202 pelican.cit.cornell.edu pub/ccv0[1|2].ps pub/gif/tims.gif mail chaos-request@pelican.cit.cornell.edu (get on Chaos Corner mailing list) === listserver list (List of lists) 192.33.33.22 ftp.nisc.sri.com netinfo/interest-groups mail mail-server@nisc.sri.com message: send netinfo/interest-groups mail listserv@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu message: list global mail listserv@bitnic.bitnet message: list global mail mlol-request@wariat.org (music list of lists) === Interactive menu of resources 192.54.81.128 pac.carl.org telnet (information databases) 128.183.10.3 dftnic.gsfc.nasa.gov login: dftnic (online aid - Nicolas) === CNI Coalition for Networked Information (Craig A Summerhill craig@cni.org) cni-directories@cni.org message: subscribe cni-directories first_nam last_name === listserver resource guide mail listserv@arizum1 message: get listservguide === Bibliography of computer communications materials 129.100.2.13 hydra.uwo.ca libsoft/ 141.209.1.16 listserv@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu message: send netstart info comserve@rpiecs.bitnet message send compunet biblio === Directory of Electronic Journals and Newsletters 441495@acadum1.uottawa.ca mail listserv@uottawa message: get ejourn{11|12} directory mail listserv@kentvm message: get acadlist file* wais www gopher prospero mime veronica ====================================== === wais (a multi format finding system) (wide area information server) 192.31.181.1 quake.think.com login: wais 128.109.157.30 ftp.oit.unc.edu pub/wais/UNC/DOS wais 1.02 for DOS 129.100.2.13 hydra.uwo.ca libsoft/wais_servers.txt (list of wais servers) === www (a hyper text system) (world wide web) 128.141.201.74 info.cern.ch pub/WWW/ === gopher (a browsing oriented system for mousing around the internet) 128.101.95.9 consultant.micro.umn.edu login: gopher 128.174.33.160 gopher.uiuc.edu login: gopher 128.255.63.234 panda.uiowa.edu login: gopher 129.120.1.42 gopher.unt.edu login: gopher 129.16.221.40 gdunix.gd.chalmers.se login: gopher 131.210.1.4 gopher.uwp.edu login: gopher 134.84.132.2 boombox.micro.umn.edu pub/gopher (gopher sources) === prospero (a front end to archie) mail info-prospero@cs.washington.edu 128.95.1.4 cs.washington.edu pub/prospero.tar.Z === mime (email sound, graphics, docs) (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) 192.112.36.5 nic.ddn.mil rfc/rfc1341.{ps|txt} (MIME specification) === veronica (Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to Computerized Archives ) To try Veronica, select it from the "Other Gophers" menu on Minnesota's gopher server, or point your gopher at: Name=Veronica Type=1 Port=70 Path=1/Veronica Host=futique.scs.unr.edu Bitnet ====== === User help (Bitnet for the Complete Idiot) mail listserv@bitnic.educom.edu (@bitnic.bitnet) message: get bitnet user help === Interbit (to get internet address of bitnet node) mail bitnodes@american.edu message: whois sitename Books & Documents ================= === Almanac 128.193.124.2 email almanac@oes.orst.edu message: send catalog send guide === Book Reviews CARL, item 60 192.54.81.128 pac.carl.org telnet 128.174.5.58 garcon.cso.uiuc.edu 625 (or login: ioplus) (journal bibliography) === Net Maps 16.1.0.2 gatekeeper.dec.com pub/maps/{a4|letter}/*.ps (world) 35.1.1.48 ftp.merit.edu maps/ (Michnet) 35.1.1.48 nis.nsf.net maps/*.ps (national & regional US) 128.167.254.179 ftp.sura.net pub/maps (SURAnet - east coast US) 128.183.112.71 nsinic.gsfc.nasa.gov maps/ (world) 192.26.119.1 eunet.fi /nic/pub/netinfo/maps usenet:comp.mail.maps-ps (net maps, postscript files posted monthly) === FAQs (answers to Frequently Asked Questions) 18.172.1.27 pit-manager.mit.edu pub/usenet// === Project Gutenberg hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (classics freely available) 128.174.201.12 mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu etext/ 152.2.22.81 sunsite.unc.edu pub/docs/books/ (includes Quran, Koran) === Online Book Initiative 192.74.137.5 world.std.com obi/ (freely available classics, books and papers) === The jargon file (The New Hackers Dictionary) eric@snark.thyrus.com 128.6.18.15 dorm.rutgers.edu pub/jargon/jargon.2.9.10 === Dante (All of Dante's and Shakespeare's works on line) 129.170.16.11 library.dartmouth.edu login: connect dante === Shakespeare 24 histories 17 comedies 10 tragedies grady@btr.com 129.170.16.11 library.dartmouth.edu login: select file 131.210.1.4 vacs.uwp.edu pub/etext/shakespeare/ === U.S Constitution 137.39.1.9 ftp.uu.net doc/USconstitution.Z === Journals and Artworld 130.150.102.33 atl.calstate.edu login: lewsnts mail comserve@vm.ecs.rpi.edu message: send ejournal{1|2}.sources === Zipcodes database 128.210.1.3 zeus.mgmt.purdue.edu pub/zipdocs.zip lookup.exe === lyrics, music 131.210.1.4 vacs.uwp.edu pub/music/lyrics/files/ 131.210.1.4 cs.uwp.edu pub/music pub/lyrics 129.186.150.150 ftp.iastate.edu pub/lyrics === PostScript (PostScript language specification files, news, programs) mail ps-file-server@adobe.com message: help === Random other book stuff 128.121.50.7 nisc.jvnc.net login: nicol(electronic publishing service - Nicol) 137.39.1.9 ftp.uu.net nutshell (Info about O'Reilly's Nutshell books, guides) Pictures ======== === Images from Space and scads of other space related info (Voyager &) 128.102.18.3 ames.arc.nasa.gov pub/SPACE/CDROM{|2} (Magellan missions) pub/SPACE/SOFTWARE/imdisp78.zip imdispd.zip (PC viewer for space images) 128.155.23.47 vab02.larc.nasa.gov gifs/space/orien.gif 140.147.3.12 seq1.loc.gov pub/soviet.archive (text and .gifs of soviet docs) 146.154.11.34 sseop.jsc.nasa.gov login: photos passwd: photos (from shuttle) === gif archives sites 152.2.22.81 sunsite.unc.edu pub/academic/computer-science/virtual-reality/3d === Otis The Operative Term Is Stimulate (ed@cwis.unomaha.edu) 141.214.4.135 cwis.unomaha.edu projects/stmulate(art distribution collective) 152.2.22.81 sunsite.unc.edu pub/multimedia/pictures/OTIS === 3D 128.3.112.84 csg.lbl.gov pub/listserv/photo-3d/3d.prod.serv 129.131.31.11 avalon.chinalake.navy.mil pub/objects (3d objects) Software ======== === The Archives 16.1.0.2 gatekeeper.dec.com 128.32.184.254 ocf.berkeley.edu 128.174.5.59 ftp.cso.uiuc.edu (world's largest BBS, Exec-PC files mirrored) 128.219.128.17 netlib@ornl.gov message: send index (NetLib) 128.252.135.4 wuarchive.wustl.edu (Saint Louis) (includes Simtel20 & PCBlue) 128.255.32.1 sca.icaen.uiowa.edu login: iscabbs(much public domain software) 134.114.64.24 rainbow.cse.nau.edu 136.176.5.253 erratic.bradley.edu 137.39.1.2 netlib@uunet.uu.net message: send index (NetLib) 137.39.1.9 ftp.uu.net 139.130.4.6 plaza.aarnet.edu.au 141.210.10.117 oak.oakland.edu (Detroit, MI) (mirrors Simtel20) 141.211.182.23 archive.umich.edu === Random files and software 18.24.0.12 export.lcs.mit.edu /contrib/xtroff.tar.Z (troff previewer) 18.71.0.38 prep.ai.mit.edu pub/gnu/ghostscript-2.5.2.tar.Z (PostScript) 128.32.131.177 anarres.cs.berkeley.edu pub/ucblogo.* (Logo) 128.59.39.2 watsun.cc.columbia.edu kermit/bin (Kermit) 129.79.20.84 ftp.cica.indiana.edu pub/pc/win3/games/dogcow.zip 128.153.12.3 sun.soe.clarkson.edu pub/src/pbmplus.tar.Z (unix graphic --> fax) 128.153.12.3 sun.soe.clarkson.edu pub/packet-drivers/drivers.zip (PC ethernet) 128.174.5.50 uxc.cso.uiuc.edu pub/crack-4.1.tar.Z (password checking program) 128.174.5.59 ftp.cso.uiuc.edu doc/pcnet/compression (compression programs) 128.250.77.2 ftp.ee.mu.oz.au pub/text/ (Rocket Roger, Toxic Custard Workshop) 128.252.135.4 wuarchive.wustl.edu mirrors/msdos/graphics/gif2jpg5.zip (PC gif/jpeg graphic converter) mirrors/msdos/modem/uwpc201.zip (run multiple remote unix shells from PC) mirrors/msdos/zoo/zoo210.exe (latest zoo compression program) mirrors/msdos/graphics/frail611.zip (fractal generating program) mirrors/msdos/sound/remac.zip playbwc.zip playmac.zip (play mac sounds on PC) mirrors/msdos/compress/comp430d.zip ([un]compress .Z files on PC) mirrors/msdos/filutl/pdtar.arc ([un]tar .tar files on PC) mirrors/msdos/txtutl/qt201.zip (PC fortune cookie program) 192.48.96.9 ftp.uu.net systems/ibmpc/msdos/simtel20/gif/cshw80a.zip (cshow) mail customer-support@borland.com (Borland price lists, maintenance upgrades) === Free Software Foundation 18.71.0.38 gnu@prep.ai.mit.edu message: send info === League for Programming Freedom 18.71.0.38 prep.ai.mit.edu pub/lpf === Graphics 130.231.240.17 pub/incoming/mpeg2_0/mpexe.zip (win 3.1) (MPEG viewers) 192.239.77.4 merlot.welch.jhu.edu gopher Search & Retrieve Software/Graphics Library stuff ============= === Library of Congress 140.147.254.3 locis.loc.gov telnet seql.loc.gov pub/LC.Online (Lib of Congress) 192.65.218.43 dra.com telnet (eg: t=Dr. Fegg, find identity of Uncle Bert |-) === CARL Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries (access to library databases) 192.54.81.128 pac.carl.org === Melvyl (access to library databases) 31.1.0.1 melvyl.ucop.edu telnet 31.1.0.11 next.stanford.edu telnet === bibliography database (find journals) 128.2.232.60 cmulibrary.andrew.cmu.edu telnet === library software 129.100.2.13 hydra.uwo.ca libsoft/ === library catalogs (Internet Accessible Library Catalogs & Databases) 130.157.2.3 vax.sonoma.edu login: LIBS (FLASH! a searchable online catalog) 192.102.249.3 nic.cerf.net cerfnet/cerfnet_info/internet-catalogs-mm-yy (get!) 128.101.4.33 ariel.umn.edu library/internet.library === online libraries and accessing online bibliographic databases 129.120.1.1 ftp.unt.edu library/libraries.{txt|ps|wp5|adr|contacts} (get me!) 128.48.108.25 dla.ucop.edu pub/internet/libcat-guide (libraries access) 128.104.198.20 nls.adp.wisc.edu telnet (Network Library System - NLS) 144.13.12.1 lib.uwstout.edu (Readers Guide to periodical literature) 152.2.22.80 bbs.oit.unc.edu login: bbs (UNC BBS; access to nations libraries) === Law 137.113.10.35 liberty.uc.wlu.edu login: lawlib pub/lawlib (law library) 129.78.136.1 sulaw.law.su.oz.au pub/law Handheld Computers ================== === palmtop sites: (Usenet: comp.sys.palmtops faq: sokay@mitre.org) 18.62.0.6 eddie.mit.edu distrib/hp95lx/ (HP 95) 128.32.183.94 math.berkeley.edu (sharp wizard) 128.101.101.103 mail.unet.umn.edu pub/fin (freyja memutil HP calcs) (HP 95) 129.89.7.4 csd4.csd.uwm.edu pub/Psion (Poqet Psion II OPL) 141.211.164.8 atari.archive.umich.edu usenet:comp.sys.atari.st (Atari PoFo) 146.169.7.4 src.doc.ic.ac.uk public/packages/psion (Psion) mail agserv@ukmug.uk.mugnet.org message: send {help|index|newsletter} (AgendA) +44 0271-24458 AgendA BBS (AgendA) === handheld sites (can also telnet hpcvbbs login: new) 15.255.72.15 hpcvaaz.cv.hp.com pub/ 15.255.72.16 hpcvbbs.cv.hp.com pub/readme login: newuser 15.255.176.57 hplsci.hpl.hp.com 15.255.240.16 hpcsos.col.hp.com pub/ 36.14.0.43 calvin.stanford.edu new_uploads/ 128.214.6.100 nic.funet.fi pub/archive/comp.sources.hp48/index 128.252.135.4 wuarchive.wustl.edu systems/hp/hp48 129.174.1.8 gmuvax2.gmu.edu new/hp48sx 129.186.99.31 telnet DIAL: me\16125 (Iowa State) 129.242.16.93 hpservl.cs.uit.no 130.84.202.10 hplyot.obspm.circe.fr hp48/ hp48/mirrors/cbs.cis.com 130.235.48.11 ftp.efd.lth.se 131.130.39.27 ftp.itc.univie.at pub/hp48 (mirror of seq.uncwil) 134.129.111.64 plains.nodak.edu pub/hpcalc/hp28 comp.sys.handhelds, hp-28 131.188.34.43 faui43.informatik.uni-erlangen.de hp28/ 198.60.17.3 gx.cis.com cbs.cis.edu pub/hp48g (206) 881-0395 RPN (Really Pluvial Node) rpnbbs@u.washington.edu (48/95) (414) 362-3592 Milwaukee HP48BBS 9600n81 noon sat-7am mon, 6pm-7am weekdays (416) 968-6633 Raiders of Lost Arg 38400n81 john.ricciuti@can.rem.com (48/95) (517) 886-0836 Dan's BBS Extravaganza 2400n81 dunham@cl-next4.cl.msu.edu (617) 487-6947 HP BBS Edmonton (708) 304-0666 Nybble's Byte 10pm-7pm m-f 10pm-noon s-s (28/42/48/71/75/95) (801) 756-0905 '48 Files BBS Notes ===== (which is how to use (this section (this file (the internet)))) === Key 111.222.333.444 machine.site.domain port# login: login_name (telnet) 111.222.333.444 machine.site.domain directory/files_of_interest (ftp) 111.222.333.444 server@site(server@site.Bitnet) message: commands (mail) 111.222.333.444 person@machine.site.domain finger (finger) 111.222.333.444 person@machine.site.domain gopher (gopher) (area code) phone number settings BBS_name (dial-up BBS) 111.222.333.444 is the IP number (Internet Protocol). machine.site.domain is the DNS name corresponding to the IP number. port# is a port number (1-5 digits), which is required if shown, for telnet access (see below). The entries are compressed as much as possible. In the following example you can finger entity@machine.site.domain as well as ftp machine.site.domain to access : 111.222.333.444 entity@machine.site.domain finger directory/files_of_interest === telnet telnet allows you to log in to a remote machine as if you are connected to a directly attached terminal. Allows realtime interactive sessions, browsing through information, not usually file transfers unless kermit or some such is enabled. From your terminal prompt type ( is required if given): telnet machine.site.domain [port#] At the login prompt put (it is not given if none is required): login: login_name Some sites must be logged into from an actual internet node rather than something connected to one (like a PC connected with a SLIP link to a node). telneting a port: (site name instead of IP# can be used) telnet 128.235.1.10 2000 (this normally works) telnet 128.235.1.10..2000 telnet 128.235.1.10::2000 telnet 128.235.1.10/port=2000 === ftp ftp allows you to logon to a remote site and list and get (and put) files. ftp machine.site.domain (or ftp IP# if ftp'ing the sitename isn't working) login: anonymous (anonymous is usual public access name) password: (sometimes guest) (not required but preferred) cd directory (usually pub/) cd sub_directory (often self descriptive) get README |more (more's README to your screen without actually getting file) type binary (see below) get file_of_interest (download file_of_interest) To switch to binary mode for file transfers type at the ftp prompt: bi (shortcut) binary (often works) type binary (usually works) set file type binary (kermit format, sometimes works) tenex (if remote host is vax) Success is indicated by a message saying: set to type I or some such. During file transfer the mode (ASCII, binary ) is usually indicated. Some ftp sites perform automatic switching between modes. === remote ftp - Bitftp Mail the following ftp script file to Bitftp@PUCC (Bitnet) or Bitftp@PUCC.Princeton.edu (Internet): help (to get the bitftp help file) ftp site.domain uuencode user anonymous (eg. binary, ls, get file_name) quit === remote ftp - DECwrl Mail the following ftp script file to ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com: connect machine.site.domain (defaults to decwrl.dec.com) get README.ftp (the help file @decwrl.dec.com) (eg. chdir , binary, ls, get ) quit === mail mail server@machine.site.domain site means send a mail message to that site with the message indicated on the first line, put each option on a new line (subject: don't care, unless indicated). They usually take only a few minutes to respond, and if you err they'll send messages explaining the problem, so you can `chat' to them. mail machine.site.domain Subject: don't care (usually not read, or read as if it's part of the message) help (usual for getting general help for that site) send (get the file; generic files are help & index) quit (sometimes used to end a mail transaction) === finger finger person@machine.site.domain displays a file (hopefully of some useful information) that has made available. === gopher gopher machine.site.domain to show a menu of resources available at that site. Many gopher sites include access to other gopher sites all over the net. If gopher is not available at your site get one, or you can telnet a gopher client (see above, and Yanoff's list for a full list). === Usenet usenet:newsgroup indicates the newsgroup readable on usenet news. Usenet is the global news service that runs on many internet and other sites. Mail is posted by you and me to specific newsgroups, and is read everywhere in the world where that newsgroup is fed. See news.announce.newusers for a list of all the newsgroups (and a dozen 10-page articles about usenet). On unix boxes newsreaders are invoked with a command like nn (No News), rn (read news), trn (threaded read news), or other such incantations. On other systems, who knows? Many folks can't access news directly, but can get on mailing lists often provided for this contingency. Get the list of lists to see the mailing groups, and be aware of bitftp (Bitnet users) or decwrl (others) if you can't ftp directly (see both above). === Glossary .gif gif (graphic interchange format) are encoded pictures .ps postscript file preformatted for postscript printers and viewable on all platforms with various viewers (pageview on sun, ghostscript on any platform). .tar unix tape archive format. To tar files on a PC get pdtar.arc from wustl (see under random files above). To tar a bunch of file into file.tar: tar cvf file.tar file1 file2 file3 to untar the files: tar xvf file.tar (tvf instead of xvf to just see the contents) .tar.Z On unix, filenames may contain numerous extensions. uncompress file.tar.Z to generate file.tar, then untar file.tar to get the contents. .Z unix compression. To compress on a PC get comp430d.zip from wustl. To compress a file type: compress file (generates file.Z) To uncompress a file.Z type: uncompress file.Z (regenerates file) .* wildcard, means .whatever {options}: nixpub.{short|long} means nixpub.short or nixpub.long === Feedback (what would make this file more useful to you?) This compendium has been growing over a few years of internet travelling, and has been posted on the net every 6 months or so since Summer 1992. It represents the minimum amount of information of the happy net wanderer. It consists of sites of interest to me (which is why there is a section on handheld computers), and hence includes sites of direct relevance to exploring the net. I have tried all sites listed, but some not so recently. These usage notes are little more than an introduction or refresher for the less frequent traveller. Sites such as SURAnet have great help files, as do some of the books (see Internet Resource Guides above). I also highly recommend getting Scott Yanoff's internet services list (see above under Internet (Resource) Guides). Another file I have been culturing for some years is Gateways, Keys to the Matrix, (above) which is a good adjunct to this file. Also see John Chew's internetworking guide (above). Sites do change their contents, services, and locations. I welcome any additions, corrections, deletions, reorganizations, and suggestions @: jeremy@kira.csos.orst.edu Jeremy |-) Smith December 3, 1993 @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 P1-10 "Usenet Review - The Amiga Guru Book" @toc "menu" /// Usenet Review: The Amiga Guru Book ----------------------------------- By Thomas Baetzler and Markus Illenseer (s_walter@irav1.ira.uka.de) PRODUCT NAME The Amiga Guru Book BRIEF DESCRIPTION The Amiga Guru Book is probably the ultimate programming reference for the Amiga. It details the inner workings of the commercial C compilers, the OS, and places special emphasis on DOS and related topics. Lots of usable source code provides a practical, hands-on approach. Unlike its predecessor, "Das Amiga-Guru-Buch", the Amiga Guru Book is completely written in English. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Ralph Babel publishes the Amiga Guru Book by himself, so there is no ISBN number. This means that you probably won't be able to order it from your local bookstore. For Germany, the official distributors are: Buchhaus Gonski Buchhandlung Bouvier Neumarkt 18a Am Hof 32 D-50667 Koeln D-53113 Bonn Voice: +49 (221) 20909-72/76 Voice: +49 (228) 72901-69 Fax: +49 (221) 20909-59 Fax: +49 (228) 72901-78 Hirsch & Wolf OHG Mainhattan-Data Mittelstrasse 33 Schoenbornring 14 D-56564 Neuwied D-63263 Neu-Isenburg Voice: +49 (2631) 8399-0 Voice: +49 (6102) 588-1 Fax: +49 (2631) 8399-31 Fax: +49 (6102) 51525 (VISA, Euro) (VISA, Euro, AmEx) DTM-Computersysteme Unlimited GmbH Dreiherrenstein 6a Kehrstrasse 23 D-65207 Wiesbaden D-65207 Wiesbaden Voice: +49 (6127) 4064 Voice: +49 (6127) 66555 Fax: +49 (6127) 66276 Fax: +49 (6127) 66636 (Euro) Currently, there is no official distribution set up for foreign countries. If you live outside of Germany, please feel free to give any of the above listed dealers a call to find out whether they will send you a copy, and how much it will cost you. I have indicated which dealers will accept payment by Credit Card. Dealers accepting Eurocard will also accept MasterCard! Hirsch & Wolf will definitely accept foreign orders, and payment via Credit Card. Pricing will depend on the method of shipment. LIST PRICE Suggested retail price is DM 79.-. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS The Amiga Guru Book is intended for the advanced Amiga programmer. You really should have some working knowledge of C and/or assembly language, as well as the Amiga OS's innards, before you proceed to study the book. You should have a working C compiler and/or Assembler if you want to test or use the provided examples. Although the book is published in Germany, it is written in English, so you will need to know the language. The writing style is technical and clear. REVIEW Reviewing a book like the Amiga Guru Book isn't done easily. If you wanted to do it fullest justice, you'd have to be able to understand everything, something I don't claim for myself. GENERAL The Amiga Guru Book is a thick paperback with about 730 pages. It was typeset using the TeX system, which has probably contributed to the book's clarity, good chapter organization, and high-quality, high-resolution Linotype printing. Ralph's writing style is generally concise and to the point, which makes the Guru Book good a technical lecture. However, he manages to slide in an ironic remark every once in a while to keep the reader amused. If you like his dry humor, you'll enjoy the chapter headings even more, since they feature hand-picked quotes taken from computer literature and various Amiga personalities. The recommended way of reading the Guru Book is to work through it once to understand what is said where, and then return to the chapters you are interested in on a need-to-know basis. The large and well-organized index helps a lot when proceeding this way. Throughout the book, obsolete features have been marked with a superscript dagger symbol, while new AmigaDOS 2.0-only features are marked by double daggers. The Guru Book is organized into three parts: "Programming", "System Internals" and "Amiga DOS". The first few chapters especially should be considered basic reading, as they help you to understand much of what's going on later in the book. Besides that, even this early in the book, you can find useful information like how to determine your program's stack size, system resources and such. The experienced programmer might want to skip this part, but it is really not recommended to do so, as he/she might miss some very interesting inside information about the Amiga internals. PART I: PROGRAMMING The first part details the use of data types throughout the book, with special regard to the Motorola 68000 and its derivatives. Here, Ralph explains the features and differences of the currently available CPUs, and their extensions. Also featured are general programming guidelines and notes on programming in assembly and C. Users of other programming languages might complain that the emphasis on C is too heavy for their taste. But as a matter of fact, the book's notes on C programming and especially the compiler comparisons between Aztec and SAS/C aren't superfluous at all. They give you a basic understanding of how those compilers handle things, which is quite useful if you want to port programs written in C --- like all of the examples provided in the book --- to another language, or if you want to interface existing code with your own programs. This leads to a comparative description of SAS/C 5.x and Aztec C compiler switches, the contents of amiga.lib, and a chapter on ROMWack, a powerful, built-in remote debugging tool for probing the deep internals of the Amiga. PART II: SYSTEM INTERNALS The second and overall shortest part of the Guru Book covers Amiga system internals such as the memory maps of various Amiga systems, the way the reset works, and how custom code may be added to the reset routine. It also deals with Alerts and Gurus, and their inherent meanings. This part also includes a detailed description of the system startup and the meaning of the screen colors. Even the secret of the Amiga 1000's startup melody is revealed. The description of the hardware is closed with a rundown on the way the CPUs of the Motorola 68000 family handle their exceptions. PART III: DOS By far the largest part of the Guru Book is devoted to AmigaDOS and its inner workings. It contains basically what you'd expect to see if there were such a book as a "ROM Kernel Manual: AmigaDOS". If you have grown exasperated with the Bantam AmigaDOS Reference Manual, you'll just love this! There's basically everything you need to know about dos.library, filesystems, handlers and much more. Both Kickstart 1.3 and 2.0 dos.library functions are mentioned. All new functions which were introduced in OS 2.0 are clearly marked as such, so that the discerning programmer can adapt his/her programs so that they'll work on both versions of the system software. The only drawback I was able to detect is the rather short chapter on the current filesystems. I would have liked to see more information about the new DCFS (Directory Caching File System), which was introduced with AmigaDOS 3.0. However, such information is still confidential and available to registered developers only. CONCLUSION The Guru Book is a very interesting source of hints and examples never seen before. For example, when reading the chapter about the CLI, one might expect a simple description of CLI internal commands, variables or script handling; but what one really gets is far more than that. You can learn how to write a User Shell, program shell I/O streams... and as a bonus, you get completely functional source code examples. The book also contains basic computer knowledge, such as a rundown of BCPL, the ISO 6429.2 character set, and internals of the Motorola CPUs. This gives the Amiga Guru Book a nice edge over the completion. LIKES AND DISLIKES The Amiga Guru Book is not easily digested. You'll want to return to it over and over again to read up on special topics. The level of accuracy and detail maintained throughout the book is amazing. Thus, it is a reliable source of information and in my opinion a successful attempt to merge common references such as parts of the ROM Kernel Manuals and other Amiga literature into one book. Ralph Babel's unique humor makes the book a good and interesting read. Each chapter of the book is introduced with a few funny and topical quotations taken from literature or the Net. The words of famous Amigans like Leo Schwab, Andy Finkel and Mike Sinz are quoted from the newsgroups net.micro.amiga and comp.sys.amiga, way back when the Amiga was first discussed on USENET. Or take a look at the Software Failure right on the cover of the book. Can *you* make sense of "Error: 8703 80001 Task: C7E4D9E4"? (In case you can't, here's the answer in ROT13, as not to spoil your fun: Gur reebe pbqr vf bs pbhefr "qbf.yvoenel: Pna'g bcra rkrp.yvoenel". Gur pbqr vf n ovg zber qvssvphyg: vg'f gur fgevat "THEH" rapbqrq va RQPOVP.) Chapter 6, "Reference Charts for SAC/C and Aztec C" is a bit outdated, since it describes SAS/C 5.x style command line switches, and version 6 is already available. However, the reference is still useful in conjunction with the examples given in Commodore's ROM Kernel manuals, because those rely heavily on SAS/C 5.10. All the examples in the Guru Book, though, have been designed for use with both SAS/C 5.x and 6.x, and Makefiles are supplied for both versions. Throughout the Amiga Guru Book, you can find many interesting source code fragments and listings. Most of them are meant to illustrate the practical use of functions and techniques discussed in the code, but there are also fully functional and useful programs. The latter also contain checksums, which can be verified after you have typed in and compiled the supplied checksum program. I'd love to see them available on electronic media, since I'm usually too lazy to type them in myself. Ralph Babel himself has indicated that he currently doesn't plan to release the sources, as he fears that this would hurt the sales of the book when people would just pick up the sources. My only gripe is that I would like to see more examples about how to handle AmigaDOS in all details. However, this is no real drawback, as all the DOS functions are well described and the references to ANSI C standard I/O are commented. You'll just have to work it out yourself. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS The Amiga Guru Book is based on the older German edition "Das Amiga-Guru-Buch". While the German edition was based on Workbench 1.3, the new release is now fully OS 2.0 compliant. Even the "Guru Meditation" on the old cover has mutated to a full-fledged OS 2.0 "Software Failure". As for reference works, the obvious comparisons are the ROM Kernel Reference Manuals from Addison-Wesley and The AmigaDOS Manual from Bantam. The Guru Book does its best to supplement the information contained in the former, and to replace the latter. There have been many other attempts to write reference books for the Amiga, but not a single one matches the Amiga Guru Book in the richness of detail and depth of background. CONCLUSIONS Along with the ROM Kernel Manuals, The Amiga Guru Book is one of the essential reference works every serious Amiga programmer should own. You might get along without it; but if you need in-depth information on the workings and usage of the OS and especially AmigaDOS, this book is a must. With more than 700 pages, it sets the new standard for quality in Amiga references. I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1993 Thomas Baetzler & Markus Illenseer. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. You can contact the authors at: Thomas Baetzler, Herrenstr. 62, 76133 Karlsruhe, FRG s_walter@irav1.ira.uka.de (will be forwarded to me.) thomas_baetzler@mil.ka.sub.org (usenet, slow but reliable) Medic BSS, 2:2476/454.2@fidonet (fidonet, what do you expect) Markus Illenseer, Kurt Schumacherstr. 16, 33613 Bielefeld, FRG Voice: ++49 (0)521 103995 markus@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de @endnode ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @node P1-11 "Reader Mail" @toc "menu" /// Reader Mail ----------- From: "Ricketts, Joel E.; EE-U" Subject: Addendum. Just read A.M.I.G.A. Is there a fund somewhere to help this guy out? The Chad Freeman Rehab fund? Funny article, I have to admit. No, I think that Commodore needs to re-market the Amiga. Take whatever they're paying all the bozos in their marketing department, fire the deadweight, and then contract with a private firm already active in Amiga to do marketing. Personally I think they ought to approach NewTek about it; those guyz have to have set a record for most free advertising for a single product. I think the best strategy would be to re-introduce the Amiga. That's right: anyone who already knows about the Amiga wouldn't be affected by it; they 'know!'. But they need to give the impression that it's a totally new, totally awesome computing platform. Maybe sell it in a slick-looking black case instead of white, like the NeXT. Example AD: Are you weary of Windows? Do you think OS/2 was outdated the day it came out? And have you decided DOS should be dropped in the dustbin? And have you ever wished there was something better! You're not alone. There IS a better way! The new Commodore Amiga 4000 computer system is changing the way computing is done. Instead of spending time waiting on your computer, now you can own a system that waits on you! Superb efficiency, powerful processing and intelligent design combine together to make this the Computer for the Creative Mind. So if you don't have time to adjust to your computer, get the system that adjusts to you! The Commodore Amiga 4000! Coming soon to a dealer near you. For example. Joel @endnode ----------------------------------------------------- @node P1-12 "The InterNet via Email" @toc "menu" /// The InterNet via Email ---------------------- by Robert Niles (rniles@imtired.itm.com) Continuing the InterNet via Email series this week we bring you GOPHER via Email. Gopher is an Internet resource in which users interactively search for files of all types. Finally I found a site that brings the services GOPHER provides to those who only have Email access to the Internet. It's called GopherMail, which was written by Fred Bremmer, and he talks about it below. GopherMail's Internet address is: gophermail@calvin.edu About GopherMail GopherMail is a gopher client that uses electronic mail to interact with the user. Messages containing menus and gopher link information are mailed to users in response to their requests. Users reply to these messages and indicate which menu items they want. It lets people use Gopher without requiring them to have an account directly on the Internet, because it communicates through email messages instead of direct "live" network connections. Until now, Gopher could only be used by people with Mac's, PC's, NeXTs and Suns, etc. which are "live" on the Internet, or through login accounts on Internet machines. Gopher client programs would make a direct network connection to the Gopher server on the host with the desired information, anywhere on the Internet, anywhere in the world. Thanks to the GopherMail program, most of the resources of Gopher are now available to everyone with email-only access to the Internet. One estimate says that there are more than 10 million people who are off the Internet, but can reach it with email. Wow. Getting Started You can get started by sending mail to gopher@calvin.edu with any or no subject and any or no message body. GopherMail will reply by sending you it's main gopher menu. You then use your email program to reply to that message, including it in the text of your reply. Mark which menu options you want to follow-up by putting an "X" (or "x") anywhere near the beginning of the line, before the menu numbers for those options. From there you can just keep repeating the process, sending replies back to gopher with the desired items marked with an X. To make it more efficient, you could edit your replies so they contain just the gopher link infor- mation for the items that you want. You'll find all the link information after the menu, at the bottom of the menu messages that GopherMail sends to you. Some items on gopher menus are database searches and college phone books. To search for a particular name or keyword(s), you simply send them on the "Subject:" line of the message in which you've Xed the phonebook or WAIS database menu option. Options GopherMail's options include: - Message splitting after a certain file size - Menu splitting after a certain number of menu items - Re-using links saved in a "Bookmarks" file - Requesting the Gopher menu for a specific hostname - Requesting this help file - Selecting menu items using fewer keystrokes - Requesting items from the Info-Mac Archive - Requesting gopher items with their raw link information Since many email gateways have size limits on email messages, it's possible to split GopherMail output into several messages when it exceeds a certain size. This can be done by specifying a maximum number of menu items to send in one message, or by specifying a maximum size in bytes for text, HQX, binary and sound files. There are a couple of ways to do this. The first way is to put "Menu=50" and/or "Split=30000" (for example) in the "Subject:" of your message when requesting gopher menus and/or files. This would limit the output to 50 menu items per message, and would send files in messages of approximately 30,000 bytes each, maximum. The other way is to include these same instructions in the body of the message, on separate lines. For example: Split=25K You may have text after the "25K". The "K" or "k" becomes "000". Menu=75 Yes, I know 1K = 1024, but it was easier to write this way. Lines like these already appear in menu messages, you can find them after the menu items and before the link information. They contain the default values. You should edit these lines to contain the values that you want. All subsequent menus will contain your preferred "Menu=" and "Split=" values. Setting these values to 0 (zero) has the effect of not splitting messages at all. The default is to split menus after 100 items, and files after 27,000 bytes. If "Split=" or "Menu=" appear in the Subject: of the message, these will override the values set in the message body. You can specify a different host when requesting a top level gopher menu by placing a fully qualified domain name as the "Subject:" of your message (such as gopher.micro.umn.edu). You can also specify a port other than the default of 70 by placing it after a fully qualified domain name in the subject (e.g. darth.sdsc.edu 800). The most efficient way to use GopherMail is to mail just the link information for one or several gopher items. You can build a type of "bookmarks" file by saving the links that you want to use again. If you mail just the link information for a gopher connection, GopherMail will follow the link and mail you the output. Here's what you need: Name=About GopherMail <- This is optional, it returns in the Subject: Type=0 <- This is required, see below for a list of types. Port=70 <- Port 70 is assumed, required only if different. Path=0/gophermail <- This is usually required, depends on the link. Host=gopher.calvin.edu <- Required. This MUST be the last line of the link. Supported Types are: 0 -- Text File 1 -- Directory 2 -- CSO name server 4 -- Mac HQX file. 7 -- Full Text Index (these are often WAIS database searches) 9 -- Binary File s -- Sound Binary and Sound Files are sent as uuencoded files. If you send the word "help" as the subject (no quotes), GopherMail will send you this help file. To save a few keystrokes, instead of putting X's in front of the menu lines, you could also just insert lines at the top of the reply which contain an "X" followed by the menu number that you want, such as: x3 X15 Macintosh Programs and other files uploaded to the Info-Mac Archives on Sumex at Stanford can be easily requested through GopherMail. Just send mail to gopher with the complete "Archived as" line for each file, such as: [Archived as /info-mac/dir/file-name.hqx; 400K] GopherMail will recognize these as Info-Mac requests, and retrieve them from the gopher server on sumex-aim.stanford.edu. Since mail programs like Eudora can automatically de-binhex only complete HQX files, the default for Info-Mac files is not to split them into parts. This can easily be overridden by supplying a "Split=" value on the Subject: line. GopherMail also recognizes gopher link information in "raw" form, which means tab-delimited on one line. A typical link might look like: 0About GopherMail#0/gophermail#gopher.calvin.edu#70 The "#" marks represent tab characters. This may not seem very useful, but it allows you to copy a link from a program like GopherApp and paste it into a message to gopher for processing by GopherMail. Why GopherMail? I was afraid that after leaving my job at Calvin in 1993, I might not be able to get an account which has direct "live" access to the Internet, and therefore have no more cool gopher access. I expect that no matter where I live, I'll manage to at least find a service (free, cheap, or commercial) that will let me send email to Internet addresses. My GopherMail program lives on an Internet computer, such as this Sun at Calvin where it started, or the computers at U of Minn, or maybe someday on every gopher server on the net, and it accepts email requests from anyone, on or off the Internet. It makes the gopher connections on the Internet, then it emails the results back to the person who requested them, to whatever their email address is. Credits GopherMail was written in Perl by Fred Bremmer in September 1992. Nick Hengeveld helped with the TCP portion, and Matt Ranney provided the book on Perl and helped with some regular expressions. Several friends helped to find bugs and suggest improvements. For help, to report bugs, or for more information, send email to gophermail-admin@calvin.edu Note: A good portion of this article was taken directly from the help file sent to me from the GopherMail address @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 P1-13 "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 Intenet: rniles@imtired.itm.com FidoNet: Robert Niles 1:3407/103 US Mail: ITM Distribution P.O. Box 8041 Yakima, Wa 98908 Thanks to all of you who have already sent in the questionaire!! Keep them coming!!! We will continue to accept replies until Wednesday the 29th of December 1993. 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 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ /// AR Confidential We heard it through the grapevine! --------------- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ @node P1-14 "Humor Department" @toc "menu" /// The Humor Department Jokes, Quotes, Insults, Shameless Plugs -------------------- From Mark Brader (msb@sq.com) :You know you've been hacking too long when... * not only do you check your email more often than your paper mail, but you remember your {network address} faster than your postal one. * your {SO} kisses you on the neck and the first thing you think is "Uh, oh, {priority interrupt}." * you go to balance your checkbook and discover that you're doing it in octal. * your computers have a higher street value than your car. * in your universe, `round numbers' are powers of 2, not 10. * more than once, you have awakened, recalling a dream in some programming language. * you realize you have never seen half of your best friends. @endnode @node P2-3 "In Closing" @toc "menu" /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// Amiga Report International Online Magazine December 10, 1993 * YOUR INDEPENDENT NEWS SOURCE * No. 1.37 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 /// 12/10/93 Amiga Report 1.37 "Your Weekly Source for Amiga Information" -------------------------- · The Editor's Desk · CPU Status Report · New Products · FTP Announcements · Dealer Directory · AR Confidential · The Humor Department · Reader Mail · AR Online · Guru Amiga Book · Compton's MM Patent · Big Fun on the Internet » The WOCA Toronto Reports Begin! « » Nova Design Announces Contest « » Commdore Shareholder Movement Conference « /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// 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 @{" ImageFX and GVP Announcement " link P1-3} Arts and Sciences Contest! @{" Amiga Users Group of Calgary " link P1-4} Announces a new CDROM! @{" CBM-AMIGA has Full Time Openings " link P1-5} CBM is looking graphics engineers @{" Amiga Envoy Now Available " link P1-6} Peer to peer networking software @{" Online Conference " link P1-17} CBM Shareholder's Movement @{" Online Weekly " link P1-7} The lines are buzzing! @{" WOCA - Toronto Reports " link P1-8} The latest information! @{" Big Fun on the Internet " link P1-9} With Uncle Bert @{" UseNet Review " link P1-10} The Amiga Guru Book @{" Reader Mail " link P1-11} The readers speak! @{" The InterNet via Email " link P1-12} GopherMail @{" Amiga Report Questionaire " link P1-13} Fill it out and send it back! @{" The Humor Department " link P1-14} Jokes, Quotes, and Shameless plugs! @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" @{" BigAnim v3.5 " link P5-1} Animation player with direct from disk playback @{" BuildAnim v2.0 " link P5-2} Versatile Animation Utility @{" Garshneblanker v2.7 " link P5-3} A modular screen blanker @{" F2C - Amiga v1.0 " link P5-4} Fortran 77 to C translator @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 24 hrs - 7 days InterNet: stace@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil FidoNet: 1:3604/60.0 601-374-2697 Hayes Optina 28.8 V.FC 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 P2-1-14 "Amiga BBS" @toc "menu" * Amiga BBS * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site * Running Excelsior! BBS * Alejandro Kurczyn, Sysop FidoNet 4:975/7 First Amiga BBS in Mexico (5) 887-3080 9600 V32,MNP Estado de Mexico, Mexico @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