@database "ar202.guide" @Node MAIN "Amiga Report Online Magazine #2.02 -- January 14, 1994" @{" Turn the Page " 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." Copyright © 1994 Skynet Publications All Rights Reserved // %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%//%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% January 14, 1994 \\// Issue No. 2.02 %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% @endnode @node P2-1 "Where to find Amiga Report" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Where to find Amiga Report %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% 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 @{" THE STYGIAN ABYSS " link P2-1-15} ................................Chicago, Illinois » Non-FidoNet Systems « ------------------- @{" IN THE MEANTIME " link P2-1-2} ...............................Yakima, Washington @{" FREELAND MAINFRAME " link P2-1-50} ..............................Olympia, Washington @{" LAHO " link P2-1-51} ...............................Seinajoki, Finland @{" FALLING " link P2-1-52} ...........................................Norway @{" COMMAND LINE " link P2-1-53} ..................................Toronto, Canada @{" RENDEZVOUS " link P2-1-54} ......................................New Zealand @{" LEGUANS BYTE CHANNEL " link P2-1-55} ..........................................Germany @{" STINGRAY DATABASE " link P2-1-56} ...........................Muelheim/Ruhr, Germany @{" T.B.P. VIDEO SLATE " link P2-1-57} .............................Rockaway, New Jersey @{" AMIGA CENTRAL " link P2-1-58} .............................Nashville, Tennessee @{" CONTINENTAL DRIFT " link P2-1-59} ................................Sydney, Australia @{" GURU MEDITATION " link P2-1-60} ............................................Spain @endnode @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 ____________________________________________ // | | // %%%%%%%%//%%%%%| Amiga Report International Online Magazine |%%%%%%%//%%%%% %% \\// | Issue No. 2.02 January 14, 1994 | \\// %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%| "Your Weekly Source for Amiga Information" |%%%%%%%%%%%%%% |____________________________________________| · The Editor's Desk · Computer Product News · FTP Announcements · The Grapevine · Dealer Directory · The Listening Post · The Humor Department · Reader Mail · Distribution BBS's » SPECIAL FEATURES « Amiga on the Internet......................................Robert Niles The Emulation Rambler.....................................Jason Compton Lesser-Known Amiga Models.................................Jason Compton Amiga 3000 Video Speckle Defect..........................Julie Peterson Real Programmers Don't Need Databases - Or Do They?..........Ivo Kroone CES Report..................................................Marty Chinn CES Report: 32/64-bit Video Games.......................Author Unknown CES Report: Commodore Launches Game Console...........James K. Willcox Usenet Review: ImageFX.................................Per Espen Hagen Usenet Review: AmiCDROM v1.4.............................Dylan McNamee %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% @{" DELPHI " link P4-1} · @{" PORTAL " link P4-2} · @{" FIDO " link P2-1} · @{" INTERNET " link P4-5} · @{" BIX " link P4-6} %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% @endnode @node P1-1 "The Editor's Desk" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% The Editor's Desk By Robert Glover %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% To all of you who have put in requests to be 'official' Amiga Report Distribution Sites... if you don't see your systems listed yet, please be patient. I've been swamped with requests and just haven't had time to get them into the magazine. One thing that would help immensly is if you would format them the way you see the current sites listed. Some requests lack information -- BBS software being used, location of system (city, state), and so on. It wouldn't be so bad if I weren't working 55+ hours a week. It's driving me nuts because I don't have nearly enough time to spend at my Amiga! Hope- fully, my hours will change for the better over the next month or so, and I can finally put more time into the magazine -- like have longer editorials! For now, this is it. I get all of my good ideas at work, and can never remember any of them by the time I get home. Ugh. Rob @ AR \|/ @ @ ----------------------------------------------------oOO-(_)-OOo------------ @endnode @node P4-1 "Delphi" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Delphi Internet Services -- Your Connection to the World! %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% 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 %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% 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: 1:3407/103 Internet: rniles@imtired.itm.com @endnode @node P1-2 "Computer Product News" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Computer Product News %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ** New Family PC Magazine to be Launched by Disney and ZIFF ** This week, the Walt Disney Co and Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. announced the creation of a joint venture to publish 'Family PC', a new computer magazine for parents and children. It's anticipated that Family PC will be launched in the third quarter of this year. Jake Winebaum will be the publisher and editor-in-chief. J. Scott Briggs, president of the Ziff-Davis Consumer Media Group said, "Jake Winebaum created the family magazine category with the la- unch of FamilyFun. We're convinced that he'll create a hot new category with Family PC. He's shaped much of the thinking that's gone into this magazine, played a major role in putting this joint venture together, and has the editorial and marketing expertise to make it a big success." Family PC will publish two issues this year and will appear monthly in 1995. The magazine's circulation and advertising rates will be an- nounced at a later date. ** Worldwide Computer Sales Up in 1993 ** According to a survey from Dataquest, a market research firm, sales of computer systems worldwide grew by $7.1 billion in 1993 to a total of $120.7 billion. This was due in large part to the increased sales of personal computers. Reports say that personal computer revenues were up 16.2% to $66.3 billion, while workstation revenues grew by 8.6% to $10.1 billion. Mainframe revenues dropped 9.5% to $21.2 billion, and midrange com- puter revenues slipped 3.7% to $21 billion. Supercomputer revenues grew 6% from $2.06 billion to $2.2 billion. ** IBM and Apple to Seek VCR Standards ** Rumor has it that IBM and Apple Computer Inc. have joined an inter- national group seeking to standardize digital video cassette recorders for use in high-definition TV sets. According to reports from Japan's business daily, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, the two firms decided to take part in the 3-month-old industry council on expectations that the computer business would be further involved in home-electronics markets in the future. The council was formed by 10 international electronics manufacturers, aiming at completing standardization of digital VCRs by December this year. Japanese participants include Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Indust- rial Co., Hitachi Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corp. Victor Co., Sanyo Electric Co., Sharp Corp. and Toshiba Corp. Other council members are the Netherlands-based Philips Electronics and French concern Thomson Consumer Electronics. ** Adobe Cuts Type Library Prices ** Prices on its Type Library for Macintosh and IBM systems are being lowered by Adobe Systems Inc. Adobe says it hopes the price reduction will make its typefaces more available and will help existing customers expand their type libraries. Overall, individual typeface package prices are reduced by 25%. "For example," Adobe said, "Lithos prior to the price reduction had a sugges- ted retail price of $185 and is now $145. Special typeface combination packages and products, such as Adobe Wild Type, Adobe Type Basics, and the Adobe Font Folio, will retain their current pricing." If you are interested, you can contact Adobe at 800/83-FONTS. ** CD-Rom Sales Reach $97.1 Million ** According to new figures from the Software Publishers Association, sales of software on CD-ROM disks reached $97.1 million on 3.86 million units for the first three quarters of 1993. The SPA's survey of 53 leading software makers in the CD-ROM market indicates sales grew progressively. The third quarter saw $38.3 million in the total sales on 1.3 million units. Second quarter sales were $28.3 million on 1.2 million units, while in the first quarter sales were $30.4 million on 1.3 million units. The survey also found: -:- 59% of the CD-ROMs reached the user from the original equipment manufacturer, while the remainder were distributed through other channels. -:- Because of higher unit prices, revenues were split 69% to 31% in favor of non-OEM channels. -:- The average price was $42.28 per CD for sales through non-OEM channels, compared with $13.09 for OEM-direct purchases. -:- Traditional operating systems (DOS, Windows and Macintosh) acco- unted for 85% of sales in the first three quarters (90% in the third quarter). -:- Content-based CDs continued to be the largest selling category, accounting for 40% of sales in both the third quarter and the first three quarters. Home education software accounted for 21% of sales through the first three quarters. Games and other home software accounted for 27% of sales. ** Six Face Chip Theft Charges ** Five men and one woman in San Jose, Calif. have been indicted on cha- rges of conspiracy and attempted robbery in an alleged scheme to steal $6 million in computer chips. The six, all arrested Dec. 17, are being held on $5 million bail each with arraignment is set for next week in Santa Clara County Superior Court. The suspects are accused of trying to hijack a truck they thought was carrying Intel Corp. chips on U.S. Highway 101 in South San Jose. The alleged heist was really a sting operation by San Jose police and the FBI. ** SPA Raids 3 Singapore Firms ** Announcing raids on three operations in Singapore, the Software Pub- lishers Association says it is taking its first action against software pirates in Asia. Three retail stores were targeted by SPA representatives, who, accom- panied by Singapore police officials, seized software at the locations, including business application software, education and home software, CD-ROM applications and games. Also seized were copyrighted manuals and other program documentation, according to a Washington statement from the SPA. Says the statement, "Under Singapore law, copyright infringement is both a civil wrong and criminal offense. Remedies under a civil suit would include an injunction, damages including exemplary damages, dis- covery and legal costs. Maximum criminal penalties for persons convicted of copyright infringement is a $100,000 (Singapore Dollars) fine and/or five years' imprisonment." ** Lotus Makes Big Software Sale ** Lotus Development Corp. and accounting giant Coopers & Lybrand anno- unced this week that Coopers has signed a contract to equip 28,000 of its PCs worldwide with Lotus' SmartSuite and Lotus Notes products. The companies say the initial order will be distributed to 15 Coopers & Lybrand firms and is likely to eventually increase to 40,000 PCs. ** Intuit Offers New QuickPay ** Intuit Inc. has announced enhanced versions of its QuickPay software for DOS and Windows. The firm says QuickPay 3.0 provides more complete, faster and more flexible payroll-processing capabilities. Among QuickPay 3.0 new features are printing capabilities for W-2 and W-3 information on standard forms and additional payroll reports such as those showing year-to-date employee earnings, withholdings, hours worked, sick and vacation hours, company payroll taxes and a liability report listing all payroll liability account balances. Both DOS and Windows platforms are included in a single package selling for $74.95. ** Microsoft Introduces Multimedia Schubert ** Microsoft Corp has introduced Multimedia Schubert: The Trout Quintet, a multimedia software program for IBM-PC compatible computers. Reports say that the CD-ROM software highlights composer Franz Schubert and one of his most popular works, "The Trout Quintet." It features a digital stereo audio track that allows the novice or trained listener to explore and experience this lively work of music with a freedom and depth unequaled by albums and printed references. "The music exploration series brings significant pieces of music to life on the home computer and gives both expert musicians and new com- puter users a chance to experience music on a new level," said Nils von Veh, product manager, consumer division at Microsoft. "High-quality interactive products like Multimedia Schubert allow users to signifi- cantly expand their knowledge of music and important composers with commentary that lets them actually see the shape of the music as they listen to it. Full-color reproductions of art works that are expressive of Schubert's era heighten the experience." Other titles in the CD-ROM music exploration series from Microsoft are Multimedia Beethoven: The Ninth Symphony; Multimedia Mozart: The Dissonant Quartet; and Multimedia Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring. Multimedia Schubert will be available this month and will sell for $79.95. ** Microsoft Unveils New Mac Products ** Microsoft Corp. announced that it's bringing three of its popular Windows multimedia titles to the Macintosh. The Microsoft Encarta multimedia encyclopedia 1994 Edition, the Mic- rosoft Cinemania 1994 interactive movie guide and the Microsoft Book- shelf 1994 CD-ROM reference library are scheduled to become available in March. "We are delighted to respond to requests from our Macintosh customers for these award- winning titles that demonstrate the extraordinary range, power and ease of interactive multimedia," says Tom Corddry, manager of the family reference business unit at Microsoft. "Encarta, for example, is more complete and extensive than a printed encyclopedia because it includes more than the full text of a major, printed ency- clopedia, plus color photos, video, animations and hours of audio not collected anywhere else. Our editorial staff for Encarta, headed by a former senior editor from World Book, has been very busy with this latest release." Microsoft Encarta 1994 Edition for the Macintosh has a suggested re- tail price of $139. Microsoft Cinemania 1994 for the Macintosh has a suggested retail price of $79.95. Pricing details for Microsoft Book- shelf for the Macintosh will be released upon the product's availa- bility. ** Claris Ships MacWrite Pro 1.5 ** Claris Corp. reports that MacWrite Pro 1.5, a new version of its Macintosh word processor, is now available. MacWrite Pro 1.5 works with System 7 Pro, the new Macintosh operating system from Apple Computer Inc. System 7 Pro includes support for AppleScript, QuickTime and PowerTalk, a new feature that allows users to exchange electronic mail and documents. Also new to MacWrite Pro 1.5 is a Table of Contents feature that lets users create a customizable table of contents for complex documents. MacWrite Pro 1.5 is available now for a promotional suggested retail price of $99. The offer runs through May 31, after which the price will rise to $249. Claris is also offering "Bonus Bundle" coupons in the box. ** New Spreadsheet Aimed at Younger Users ** Davidson & Associates Inc. has developed a spreadsheet program for younger Macintosh users. The company is now shipping The Cruncher, an easy-to-use, talking, animated spreadsheet program targeted to users ages 10 and up. Using step-by-step tutorials, The Cruncher teaches spreadsheet and math fundamentals. By using real- world examples such as party planning, family budgeting and baseball statistics tracking, the $59.95 software illustrates how to use math and spreadsheets in everyday life. "Everyone knows what a spreadsheet is, and many adults use them every day," says Jan Davidson, president and founder of Davidson & Associates. "But never before has a spreadsheet been designed specifically for students -- one that helps them understand how a spreadsheet works, how it can be useful in their lives and how it can be fun to use. The Cruncher does just that and it teaches math concepts at the same time." ** Apple Unveils Online System ** A new online service called eWorld has been announced by Apple Com- puter Inc. Apple says the service is expected to be available in the U.S. this spring and worldwide later. Reports from Apple's Cupertino, Calif. headquarters say, "The service will only work on Apple's Macintosh computers initially. However, Apple will expand it to the much wider base of IBM-compatible PCs running Microsoft's Windows software later this year and to devices based on its Newton technology." The computer maker says initial services on the system will be sup- plied by the Boston Computer Society, Dow Jones Business Information Services, InfoWorld, MacWorld, Regis McKenna Inc. and Reuters America. The basic monthly subscription will cost $8.95, including two free hours of evening or weekend use. Each subsequent hour of weekend or evening use will be $4.95. There will be an additional network surcharge of $2.95 an hour during business hours. ** WordPerfect Extends Introductory Upgrade Special ** WordPerfect Corp. has extended to March 15 its $59.95 introductory upgrade pricing for WordPerfect 3.0 for Macintosh. Besides allowing current WordPerfect Mac users to upgrade to 3.0, the program also enables users of competing word processing package to trade for WordPerfect 3.0 for $99. In a statement from its Orem, Utah, offices, WordPerfect said sales of WordPerfect for Macintosh have doubled with the release of version 3.0, and channel sales have exceeded company expectations. The $495 package runs on any Mac with a hard drive and 2M (System 6.0.7 or higher) or 4M (System 7.x) of RAM. Apple Computer's eWorld To Change The Shape Of Online Services CUPERTINO, California--January 3, 1994--Apple Computer, Inc. today added a new dimension to the world of electronic information services by announcing eWorld , a new family of online services which will bring the world of electronic information within reach of millions of people across the globe. eWorld services will keep people in-touch, informed, and entertained, at home, at school, and at work. eWorld for Macintosh will be the first of a series of eWorld interactive services, and will be available to Macintosh personal computer users in the United States in Spring 1994, with releases for the global market later in 1994. eWorld for Macintosh will be distinguished by its collection of meaningful information and transactional services from popular, well-known publishers and service providers, initially targeted to meet the needs of professional users at work and at home, via a simple, intuitive and engaging interface. These publishers and service providers are expected to include such industry leaders as the Boston Computer Society (BCS), Berkeley Macintosh User Group (BMUG), Claris Corporation, Dow Jones Business Information Services, Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc., Inc. Magazine, INDIVIDUAL, Inc., InfoWorld, MacWorld, Regis McKenna, Inc., Reuters America, Inc., Tribune Media Services, USA TODAY Information Center, WordPerfect Corporation, and ZiffNet/Mac, among others. Following the introduction of eWorld for Macintosh, Apple will also provide eWorld interactive services for Windows-based PCs, and for devices based on Newton technology. The first eWorld messaging service for Newton , NewtonMail , was announced in November 1993 and will become commercially available during the first quarter of 1994. Real World Metaphor Recognizing the appeal of the familiar, eWorld is modeled on a real world metaphor, presenting people with a bird's eye view of a colorful and attractively-illustrated online community. The eWorld community consists of an electronic neighborhood of buildings, each representing a specific area of the online service--the Library for research, the Newsstand for news and sports publications; the Business and Professional Plaza for business information and services; the Arts and Leisure Pavilion for after hours entertainment and hobbies; the Computer Center for computer assistance and software; the Marketplace for purchasing products and services; the eMail Center for worldwide electronic mail; and the Community Center for interactive communications ("chats" and discussion areas) and online events. As people explore eWorld--to read up-to-the-minute news, to plan a business trip, or to scan reviews of the latest movies--the online experience is made familiar and comfortable through the use of a consistent interface design. This extension of the real world metaphor is supported by color-coded organizational schemes, a carefully-designed language of icons representing standard eWorld functions, and a thoughtful sound design to provide useful cues and helpful feedback. For example, each area of eWorld is distinguished by a different color, and each online publication within eWorld is represented by a unique icon. Both these navigational aids prevent subscribers from getting lost or disoriented, and clearly indicate when they have moved from one area of the eWorld community to another. This attractive, understandable, and familiar interface empowers people to filter and select information according to their professions, their interests and their needs. eWorld enables people to find what they want efficiently, and revisit that location quickly; to purchase goods and services conveniently; and to exchange information interactively in real time. Communications eWorld provides customers with a powerful, easy-to-use global e-mail service that offers professional features and reliability. eWorld users can also easily communicate with users of the Internet, as well as many other electronic mail services, through mail gateways that allow the use of simple address abbreviations instead of complex network addresses. eWorld offers a range of real-time interactive communications capabilities, including lecture and information sharing forums, or town meetings, that enable up to 250 people to participate simultaneously. People can witness lectures, debates, and discussions of topical issues by experts in a wide variety of fields. Smaller groups of eWorld users can chat and collaborate electronically in both public and private forums. In the future, eWorld's communications capabilities are expected to include incorporation of Apple's Open Collaboration Environment (AOCE) technologies to provide integration with PowerTalk services. Global eWorld is uniquely designed to be a global online service. Incorporated into eWorld"s distributed architecture are numerous capabilities specific to supporting worldwide operation. These include support for multiple languages for both content and applications, a global/local content model that allows publishers of all sizes to reach a global market and still offer information of local interest, and network services from multiple vendors providing local access points around the world. While initial availability will be provided in the United States, eWorld services will steadily expand their reach toward worldwide access and availability. English language versions of eWorld for Macintosh will be extended to countries around the world in 1994, followed by native language versions for German, Japanese, and French. Cross-Platform eWorld services will be made available on a range of devices, including Macintosh personal computers, Windows PCs, and Newton devices, and people will be able to access common features across the different platforms. For example, an eWorld customer will be able to use the same e-mail address and mailbox from any supported device, allowing consistent communications across a variety of situations. An eWorld customer who uses a desktop computer for electronic mail in the office or at home will be able to use a Newton MessagePad, or other device based on Newton technology, to send and receive e-mail while traveling. Services and information will also be consistent across supported platforms, allowing Macintosh and Windows users to interact in forums, post messages to bulletin boards, send mail, and perform transactions without boundaries related to platform. Publishing Tools Publishers will find eWorld an appealing environment, rich with intriguing business opportunities. Building on the principles of empowerment which Apple pioneered with great success in the desktop publishing industry, Apple Online Services has designed powerful publishing tools to simplify dramatically the creation and maintenance of online publications. Under the name eWorld Press, these tools allow publishers to design and prototype new online products and then to update those products cost-effectively by migrating information from the publisher's existing repositories to eWorld's global servers and online services infrastructure. Pricing In the United States, the basic monthly subscription fee will be $8.95 which will include two free hours of evening or weekend usage. Each subsequent hour of evening or weekend usage will be $4.95. An additional network surcharge of $2.95 per hour will apply during business hours in the United States. For customers who receive the software bundled on their hard disk, there is no sign up fee. Neither is there a surcharge for use of the Internet Mail gateway or 9600 baud access. Pricing for services outside the United States will be announced later. Availability eWorld for Macintosh will begin beta testing in January of 1994 with commercial launch slated for Spring of 1994 in the United States. Some of the publishers currently working with Apple will be furnishing eWorld with pilot versions of their services during the beta testing period. eWorld for Macintosh will be bundled in most Macintosh computers by the end of 1994 in the United States. eWorld services will be made available outside the United States in stages, starting with native language versions in French, German and Japanese. @endnode @node P1-3 "Amiga Report Online" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Amiga Report Online News %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% » Portal News « =========== .../Message Bases/General Q&A, Announcements, and Help!/CBM @ Winter CES Vegas 16026.3.667.1 They're heeeeere.... 1/7/94 07:53 28/1307 Harv Commodore has a room/booth at the Winter Consumer Electronics Show (CES) now going on in Las Vegas, NV, USA. The show runs four days (Jan 6-9) and 80,000 people are expected to attend and visit the 1500 or so booths spread across 2 million sq. ft. of exhibit space. Commodore's booth is not on the main show floor but it is in the main convention hall upstairs where many other vendors also have room-booths. It is not invite-only, it's quite open to any CES attendees. I visited it briefly today (and plan to go to their press conference Fri. morning) and chatted briefly with Jeff Porter and Lew Eggebrecht who told me that there have so far been appx 100,000 CD32 units sold and that CBM's Philippines plant is still cranking out appx 20,000 per week. USA marketing is in the works. A number of CD32s are on display in teh booth and the optional MPEG module is there too including a display of its packaging. They were demoing games and VideoCD stuff. There are also a couple A4000s (I didn't see the A4000T there, but I might have missed it) and I also noticed that Ms. Karen Jewell, who has been running the WOCA shows for some time now, was sporting a CBM employee name tag as well. More to follow, including photographs which I will upload to Portal and Aminet after i get home next week. Harv @endnode @node P4-5 "Amiga Report Mailing List" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Amiga Report Maillist 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 P1-4 "CES Report" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% CES Report By Marty Chinn %% %% (drknight@garg.campbell.ca.us) %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Greetings from Las Vegas, and welcome to Day 2 of the 1994 Winter Consumer Electronics Show (CES). This report is brought to you by C & C Card Factory/Video Source. As many of you know, I run a small mail order business with some of the lowest prices for mail ordering. We handle all systems and both American and Japanese games. First off before I start getting into the games and information, I would like to inform you that I am making a video of the CES and will be selling them for 12 dollars plus 3 for shipping. A total of 15. Please make a check or money order out to Linda Chinn and send it to: Video Source 973 Foxglove Dr. Sunnyvale, CA 94086 So far on the video is both versions of NBA Jam, Super Metroid, new SFX games, Project Reality, VR Racing, and other new games soon to be released. Now on to what everyone has been waiting for, the CES report. First off, I want to apologize now for the poor writing and the unorganized format. I'm doing this quickly because I have to get back. The first thing that I saw when I walked in was from AT & T and it was the Edge unit. As some of you know, the Edge allows you to play Sega Genesis games over the phone, kind of like a modem. The game they had on demo was VR Racing, but I am not sure if it was working or just an example. It looks like a small console, kind of like a copier that fits on top of the Genesis with a cartridge slot on top of the Edge. I didn't get a chance to find out when it is coming out or how much it will costs, but look for this information in the next two reports. Many of you have been waiting for my report of the Atari Jaguar, so I'll start that now. Upon finally finding the booth, I was all excited as I saw the large sign that said Atari Jaguar, as shown on the video. I then noticed a life size alien figure standing next to a huge screen and on the screen was Alien Vs Predator. I started filming immediately. Well it is a Doom like game with great texture mapping on the walls. It does have a floor and ceiling to it as well. The scrolling was very smooth. Graphically, I could ask for anything better. It moves a bit slower than Doom, but nothing to complain about. In my opinion, it fell short of what I was expecting, but then again it wasn't complete. Unfortunately I don't think it will be out in January. Reasons are, you couldn't get hit, nor could you control the Predator or the Alien in the game. You only had access the soldier. It seemed as if the options were not operating either. I couldn't change weapons or anything. Also it seemed as if there was nothing you could pick up in the game or shoot other than another Alien and Predator. What I did not see were the eggs. The radar on my screen didn't work either. Maybe with all these options added in, it will live up to what people are expecting, and don't get me wrong, this game is very well done so far and impressive. What it needs is a final touch to it to make it top notch and hopefully Atari will do this. Besides this game, there were three other non released games. Checkered Flag was a big disappointment in my opinion. Hopefully it wasn't completed. The play control was poor and if you ran into a wall, the game ended. Basically if you watch the video, you will see what a hard time I had controlling and how often I crashed. Graphics were ok. Its not like VR Racing though. I liked VR Racing on the Genesis better. Another game there was called Brutal Sports Football. There wasn't much to it and the graphics didn't look to spectacular. All they showed was a stadium then a character punching out another one. That's it. The game is from a side scrolling view. Kind of like Tecmo Super Bowl. The last game I saw was Tempest 2000 which looked to be really fun. It does well for bringing Tempest home. My gripes are, after Atari claiming to have 15 games in February, all they had shown were 4 new games, and the 4 that are out. Like someone speculated, I have to agree with his number of 8 games instead of 15. Nothing shown at the CES was spectacular for the Jaguar, and defiantly not 64 bits of power. From the glimpses of 3DO at the CES, the 3DO looked more powerful when Atari claims its twice as powerful. I am an owner of the Jaguar, and love it a lot, but even as an Atari Jaguar fan, I am greatly disappointed. So far everything is only by word and not anything hard to go on. Here is a list of current 3rd party companies that are working on the Atari Jaguar. This was posted on a wall. Ocean Software Ltd.(UK), Rebellion Software Ltd., Tradewest, Virgin Games, Activision, Id Software, Interplay Productions Inc., Accolade, Anco Software, ASG(All Systems Go), Beyond Games, Brainstorm, Dimension Technologies, Euro-Soft, Gremlin Graphics Software Ltd., High Voltage Software, Krisalls Software Ltd., ICD Inc., Loriciel S.A., Maxis Software, Micropose LTD.(UK), Micropose Software Inc., Microids, Midnite Software, Millenium Interactive Ltd., Phalanx Software, Retour 2048, Photosurealism, Silmarlls, Telegames, Tiertex Ltd. Titus, Trimark Interactive, US Gold, UBI Soft, Virgin Games(UK), Argonaut Software Ltd. Rebellon Software, DTMC, Epic Megagames, and V-Reel Productions. Games in progress are: Return to Zork by Activision. The next generation of classic Zork adventures makes its triumphant 64-bit debut! The closest an interactive computer game has ever come to cinematic quality production, Return to Zork fully showcases Jaguar's powerful graphic capabilities by combining a mix of full-motion video live action scenes, and photo realistic animation. This amazing 64-bit adventure is filled with danger, intrigue and low cunning. It's loaded with fascinating puzzles, and a revolutionary interface, an original cast of real Hollywood actors, more than an hour of spoken dialogue and 200 CD-quality musical themes. Doom by Id Software. Doom is an ultra-fast virtual reality showcase that plunges you deep into a brutal 3D world filled with enough graphic violence to earn this monster its very own warning label. As a renegade space marine, you must utilize state-of-the-art weaponry and technological artifacts to fend off legions of gruesome fiends, and use your wits to solve hundreds of lethal puzzles. Dramatic, high-speed animation and Jaguar's uncompromising multimedia realism bring this fantastic and grisly adventure to life. Tiny Toon Adventures by Atari. Leap inside a real cartoon! Based on the popular Warner Bros. characters, this zany platform scroller is a true showcase of Jaguar's rich animation capabilities. Bad boy Montana Max has a new toy: an Acme TiToonium Converter. But the only place he can get TiToonium is on a planet Aurica, and the removal of Titoonium is causing grave ecological damage to the Toon-filled universe. Armed with an Acme Crazy Net, follow Buster Bunny, Babs Bunny and Plucky Duck as they embark on a mission to shut down the Acme TiToonium-Gold Converter--and save planet Aurica. European Soccer Challenge by Telegames. Goooaaaal! The Atari Lynx sports favorite comes to the Jaguar. This proven soccer program delivers an expanded season and playoff format, 170 teams and complete team/individual stats. In addition, each player possesses his own personality and performance capabilities. You even have the option to make trades. For Sport fanatics, European Soccer Challenge is a 64-bit kick! Ultimate Brain Games by Telegames. The popular Lynx mind bender comes to the 64-bit format. Test your moves against the only system qualified to accommodate all the CPU horsepower required for a real chess challenge. Work your way to master status on a full-scale battlefield with classic chess--and checkers, and backgammon. There's a challenge here for every skill level and member of the family. Extended features--such as specific game set-up for the computer solution and digitized graphics--make this product a must for your video game library. Hosenose and Booger by ASG Technologies, Inc. Here's one for the sick and twisted. Hosenose has a cold and as fate would have it, he's managed to sneeze and suck his girlfriend Hotsnot deep into his brain. In a unique gaming experience that fully showcases Jaguar's monster graphic capabilities, you'll take a nose-dive into Hosenose's sinuous nasal passages in search of the lovely yet cerebral Hotsnot. Through every organ and orifice you'll meet a wild cast of disgusting characters, including Mickki Mewkus, Logjam Sam, Vicki Virus, and the Evil Dr. Bile. An off-beat animated adventure only the 64-bit power of Jaguar can deliver. Club Drive by Atari. You've never experienced racing like this! Designed especially for the Jaguar, Club Drive pulls you into a fully rendered 3D environment. There are no rails here--just 70 square miles of San Francisco to race through and explore. Go anywhere as you chase down your opponent in a fast-paced game of tag through the craggy canyons and frontier towns of the Old West. Crash and score as you test your wheels in a futuristic skateboard park--for cars! Experience what it's like to be a toy car and race through your neighbor's house, around coffee tables and under the television. It's your chance to do things with a car Henry Ford would've never dreamed of. Commando by Microids. Take an in-depth, first-person perspective into the trenches of 64-bit warfare. As the Officer in Charge of a team of crack commandos, you'll experience all the rigors of gritty jungle combat through the eyes of a real soldier as you patrol, set ambushes, destroy key structures, rescue personnel...and ultimately win one for your Commando team. Jaguar's sophisticated animation and audio processors bring you front-line combat so real, extended play may cause flashbacks! Dungeon Depths by Midnite Software, Inc. Long ago in an ancient, uncivilized world, man built great castles to close himself off from the grunts of the earth. And beneath these castles he built miles of dungeons to imprison you and your repressed minions. Get ready for a medieval multiple-player role-playing arcade adventure as you battle "surface dwellers" in an effort to rise up from the clutches of the aristocracy. With rich, vibrant graphics, this 3D textured underworld epic makes full use of Jaguar's real-time rendering, advanced 3D texturing and high-speed animation capabilities. Ultra Vortex by Beyond Games. Ultra Vortex is street fighting to the 64th power! History has seen the rise and fall of many warriors. All fell to the power of the Vortex Guardian, who has dominated mankind for thousands of years. It's 2045--time again for the Testing. You and nine other able warriors have been choosen from America's top underground gangs to fight for the right to take on the Guardian. Drawing on the mesmerizing powers of the Vortex, you must master deadly street fighting and martial arts skills--including the lethal "Vortex Annihilator"...destroy a field of formidable champions...and ultimately crush the Guardian! Battlewheels by Beyond Games. Buckle up for 64 bits of metal-mashing arcade action. 2021 AD. Humankind has turned to an increasingly dangerous spectator sports for its entertainment. Welcome to Battlewheels! Drive solo or team up with as many as eight of your buddies for a futuristic demoltion derby to the death. Custom equip your suicide vehicle from the ground up with machine guns, missiles, flame-throwers...and compete for "kills," cash and glory against a vicious band of road warriors-- through treacherous deserts and ghost cities of a bygone era. Yeeehaw! Evidence by Microids. The magic of the movies meets the power of Jaguar. This 3D interactive feature combines unbridled 64-bit technology with incredible motion picture effects. As a young reporter wrongly charged with murder, you must find a way to escape from prison and expose the party responsible for putting you behind bars. Full-motion video and digital sound effects are Evidence of a gaming experience only Jaguar can deliver. Car Wars by Midnite Software, Inc. Earth, 2094. Advances in technology eliminated tires, refueling and, in general, made the roads a safer place--at least within the city limits. Outside the clean cityscapes--in the Arena, where bloodthirsty drivers clahs in massive road beasts to battle for what is yours, and what you think should be yours--is where you do your driving. It's a futuristic off-road carnage bonanza that takes full adventure of Jaguar's stock graphic processors. One last final note. I will only be stopping by there again to ask a few questions, so don't expect too much more about the Jaguar. Still read however as you will find bits of information in future posts. Oh yeah, one other thing, there was no Jaguar CD-ROM there on display. I will ask information on it tomorrow though. What is up with the Super Nintendo? There wasn't much that was impressive or ground breaking. Super Metroid was among one of the first few games I checked out. The game looks huge from what I played. The play control isn't great, but its good. Its graphically perfect for a 16 bit translation, and it feels like the original Metroid. In my opinion, it felt more like the original than Mega Man X did with the original Mega Man. How good is it? I didn't get a chance to get too far into it but it looks like its going to be another hit. Great animation to the main character. FX Trax was there in custom built cars that you could sit in with speakers to each side of your head and a huge screen in front of you. Very nice set up. As for the game, the SFX chip shows its power as you race as a polygon car on a polygon background. It looks a lot better than Star Fox did. It had very sensitive play control but great execution. It also has a two player split screen mode but I did not get a chance to view it. The game looks greatly improved of what I saw before and could be a great new title. A must see to believe game. The other SFX game that is in progress was shown but I only caught a glimpse of it so I'll get to that tomorrow. Bugs Bunny's Rabbit Rampage had beautiful graphics that look even better than all of the other Loony Toon titles made by Sunsoft. I didn't get a chance to play it so I'll talk more about this one tomorrow. Superman died over a year ago and DC was making a forture off it. Now DC has licensed Sunsoft to make a game called, The Death of Superman. In the first level you are the original Superman and it is a side scrolling fighting game, kind of like Batman. The graphics are great, and Superman has cool special abilities and moves. Later in the game you get to play as the other Supermen. Again, I will post more on this game when I get a chance to play it. By now you'll notice I didn't play too much. I played a game here and there but mostly looked around and taped stuff. Tomorrow I plan on doing more of the playing. Sunsoft is also releasing Speedy Gonzales. This title looks like a Sonic type game. Maybe Sunsoft's goal is to surpass Sonic in speed. Ken Griffy Jr. Baseball looks to be one of the best baseball games to be made. It has great animation and speedy game play. Magazines say its supposed to be one of the most realistic baseball games to date. I saw a home run and the guy did a little dance to taunt the other team as he crossed home plate. Very funny to watch, and cool. The game uses every stadium and all the teams but I'm not sure yet if it has real players. Terminator: The Arcade Game looks absolutly beautiful in graphics. Some of the best graphics I've seen to date on the SNES. It is more colorful and is much more eye appealing than the Genesis version. The last game I will brief you about is Wolfenstein 3D. It has very smooth scaling and rotation but the game just lags because of the censorship. It just looks odd if you're used to the PC version. Not a bad translation though. Project Reality was there. Well kind of. Still on SGI developing systems. If it looked like anything I saw and what you will see in the video, good bye Jaguar and 3DO. NBA Jam comparison. They had three versions there from what I noticed, SNES, Genesis, and Game Gear. I didn't really pay attention to the Game Gear version, so I'll talk about that tomorrow. Graphics between the two? Damn close, but the SNES wins by being a bit sharper. I have them on tape, back to back, and you swear its the same version throughout the whole time. Sound was very faint, but from what I heard, the Genesis had very well sampled speech. They could however be fuzzy since I couldn't hear them well. It had lots of speech, and is supposed to have more speech than the SNES version. What I did notice is the characters don't scale like they do in the arcade. Also something about the game just doesn't feel like the arcade. The slams don't seem to be much of an impact as they were in the arcade, but then again, I only had limited hands on play. One game on each version. The FMV is in the half time screen for each version. I didn't get a chance to see the options but it did have a save feature in the game, just like the arcade. I did like how the SNES controller was laid out. It was either Y or X for Pass and Steal, B or A for Shoot and Block, and R and L(?) for Turbo. Bascially my thumb can rest on either Y or B and hit either one at will, and my index finger rests on the R button and can also hit that at will. The Genesis version uses A to Shoot or Block, B for Turbo, and C for Pass or Steal. Instead of holding the controller where I use my thumb to hit the buttons, I had to change the position of my hand so that three fingers were resting on the pad. Its unusual for me to hold a controller that way but not unbearable. I hope there is an option screen where you can configure your buttons. I personally would have liked it if the A and C button were switched. Each game is 4 players and its just not the Genesis version like others have stated. The Genesis version plays a bit faster than the SNES version, but not to were its unbarable to play the SNES version. To sum it up, both are equal in overall. The SNES has better graphics, and maybe better sound but it was too loud to compare, while the Genesis version is faster. The play control is great on both versions. In the end, its NBA Jam. Oh yeah before I forget, there is no Shaq in this game. Finally to Sega. I felt Sega had more to show than Nintendo did at the show. One thing that I saw that blew me away was the Sega Genesis CDX. This is a new SMALL system that will be released in March of 94. It will retail for around 399. Now you guys are wondering what so expensive could be so great. Well what it is, is a Sega Genesis and a Sega CD built in as one unit, at a very small size. Say the size of your disc man. Yes that small. Its 7.8 inches in width, by 5.5 inches in depth, by 1.8 inches in height. Pull out your rulers and you'll see that is small. It weighs around 1.3 pounds. Its a Genesis, Sega CD and a portable discman in one. The discman will run on 2 AA batteries, but to play the Genesis or Sega CD, you must use a AC adaptor. Included in this package for 399 is the Genesis CDX unit, 6 button arcade pad, AC adaptor, Sonic CD, Ecco CD, and Sega Classics Arcade Collection CD. Pretty well worth the price in my opinion. Sonic 3 looked great, and had an improved 2 player mode where the sceen is not cramped but adjusted to the size of the split screen. VR Racing looked great. Although the graphics aren't as good as the arcade, the speed and control make up for this. It had excellent play control, in fact perfect play control and moved at a speedy rate. It uses the 6 button controller, and I'm unsure of how it works with a 3 button pad. It can also be played by two players at once in a split screen mode. Lunar fans look out. Vay by Working Designs is on its way and it blows away Lunar from what I've seen. Beautiful cinema scenes with fighting scenes like 7th Saga. Is it Lunar 2? I don't think so but it looks like Lunar except updated and better. Great demo shown but wasn't playable. No sight of Saturn. Well I'll cut it short here. There is just so much to say and so little time. I have glanced at everything once, I think, but haven't really had a chance to film and play everything yet. Let alone ask questions. I will go over some of the games I briefed today more in depth within the next two posts. If anyone has any questions on the game, or any questions you'd like me to find out, please privatly mail them to me as soon as possible so I get them before I leave Sunday afternoon, also post them in public so other people can see and so I can reply to it when I return home. Leaving the question in mail is just like a note to me and then the one in public will be where I answer. Welp I still have 3DO to check out and Sony and more of each of the companies. Ta ta for now, and enjoy this small report of the Winter 94 CES. @endnode @node P1-5 "CES Report - 32/64-bit Game Platforms" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% CES Show Report: 32/64-bit Video Game Platforms Author Unknown %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% No new players entered the ring at this year's Winter CES. Sega and Sony, both preparing to enter the fray within the year, chose not to tip their hand and show machines to the general public yet. Therefore, 3DO, Commodore, and Atari were left to slug it out for the time being. The Booths: There was a wide range of booth sizes and players at the show, ranging from 3DO's near saturation of two pavilions to Commodore's seek-and-ye-shall-find conference room on the second floor. 3DO's presence at the show was greatly aided by having two equally huge 'booths' at the show. The Panasonic display in the south pavilion was very much like the one used for the Summer CES in Chicago last year. A large stage with a video wall behind with dominated the large open area (probably the largest open area of any booth at the show). Along the back of the stage and along the opposite wall of the area were lines of REAL kiosks similar to what will likely be used in stores. Each kiosk was running a released or pre-released game, and the video wall ran a looping promotional video. Panasonic reps abounded and most of the major developers who had titles on display were nearby as well to help users and answer questions. Every 15 minutes or so there was a Panasonic PR person who got up on stage and did a live (and loud) demonstration over the PA which usually drew a crowd. Rock music and live game-playing (usually Total Eclipse) on the video wall added to the 'show' atmosphere of the booth. 3DO's other representation was in the 3DO company booth in the north pavilion. This was setup quite differently. The outside of the booth along the 'hall' was lined with the same kiosks used in the Panasonic booth. An even larger selection of titles played on these machines, with some titles shown here that were not represented at the Panasonic booth. In the interior of the display area were the usual conference rooms (where deals are made) and some more specialized displays. Part 2 of this report contains in-depth listings of what was shown. Also in this area was a working Sanyo 3DO player and a mock-up of the AT&T box (non-functional, just a physical case design under glass). There was also a Sanyo player present in the Sanyo booth but it was not given much prominence there. Most REAL boxes were scattered throughout the show with different vendors such as Alias (whose tools are often used to create the 3D source material). Atari's booth was not located near the Multimedia and Home Stereo area like 3DO and Panasonic, but rather was in closer proximity to Sega and Nintendo systems. In the corner of this building, Atari had an area about 1/2 the size of the 3DO and Panasonic booths highlighting both the Jaguar and the Lynx. Nice kiosks were used to display both units and different titles were shown on each kiosk. In addition, there was a large-screen TV in the front of the booth where star titles were demonstrated for the public and press. Most of the time it seemed it was running Alien Vs. Predator, but sometimes I am told Tempest 2000 was being shown. Atari was displaying some of the awards they had won at the show above the TV. Scattered about the booth were quotes from various sources (magazines, CNN, developers) about the system. Women in revealing catsuits handed out buttons. One complain I had was the kiosks were very crowded into the interior of the booth which made it uncomfortable to maneuver and play the games on display. Commodore's 'booth' was actually a conference room on the second floor of the main hall. This greatly reduced the foot traffic the display received (you would not have seen the CBM booth unless you were actively looking for it). On display were several CD32 boxes playing various games (all of which, as far as I can tell, have already been released in Europe). There was also an A4000 running the latest version of Video Toaster software. The area had a much more businesslike atmosphere than the other displays mentioned above. Mostly it seemed Commodore people in suits talking to other Commodore people in suits. Announcements: There were very few surprises at this year's show in terms of new announcements or press releases. Commodore, as predicted, announced the US rollout of their @endnode @node P1-6 "CBM launches game console" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Commodore Launches Amiga Game Console by James K. Willcox %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% [Harv's note: This is transcribed from the 1/9/94 issue of TWICE CES DAILY, the free, large format daily CES magazine handed out at the show which just ended, in Las Vegas, Nevada USA. This report sounds like it was based mainly on the writer's attendance at Commodore's press conference held during CES. Approx. 82,000 trade people attended Winter CES, which is up from last year but down from the all-time high attendance of 106,000 in 1988.] Here at CES, Commodore officially launched its Amiga CD32 video game console, saying it hoped to sell between 300,000 and 500,000 units during its first year in the market. The company also said that more than 150 companies are developing titles for the system, with approximately 100 games being available when the system begins selling in March, and more than 200 expected to be ready by next Christmas. The Amiga CD32 is a 32-bit CD-based game system built around the Amiga 4000 computer platform, but contains specially optimized Amiga chips for game and video performance. The system carries a suggested retail price of $399, and will come bundled with two to four titles which are still being determined. In addition to CD-based games, the Amiga CD32 will also play audio CDs, CD+Gs, and with a separate software upgrade, Photo CDs. When used with an optional full motion video module, expected to be priced just under $250, the Amiga CD32 will be able to play Video CDs and Philips' CD-I Digital Video Titles. Despite the number of systems heading to or already on the market, Jeff Stilley, Commodore's president and general manager, believes Commodore will be able to gain a significant foothold in the advanced video game market, describing his competitors as "unable to deliver titles or stumbling along in 16-bit technology." Stilley says Commodore's distribution plan for Amiga CD32 will target mall-based software outlets, TV home shopping channels, select consumer electronics retailers, video rental stores and mass merchants and toy stores. Marketing efforts will include direct mail pieces to Amiga users, promotions at sporting events, malls and other high-traffic events, and retail training and POS (point of sale) material for dealers, while advertising efforts will consist of page-dominant news paper ads, full color national and children's magazine ads, and 30- to 40- second TV commercials. Commodore is also establishing a membership card club which will offer special discounts on software and other related products. During a question and answer period, Stilley said Commodore was open to licensing Amiga CD32 technology to other mfrs who might want to market such systems, and described Commodore's software licensing program as liberal, with fees based on the amount of softwar sold. Asked about Commodore's stance on the issue of game ratings, Stilley said that it was more an issue for publishers than for Commodore since it doesn't create content, but added that Europe recently addressed that issue by establishing a four-tier rating system administered by a video game standards committee. @endnode @node P1-7 "CBM A3000 Video Speckle Defect" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% COMMODORE A3000 Video Speckle Defect By Julie Peterson %% %% (LadyHawk@cup.portal.com) %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% We have discovered a pattern, for at least 4 people and want to know if there are more. If so send me email and I'll consolidate information. Here are the symptons: - Horizontal speckles appearing on the display, worse in programs that have a lot of screen refreshes or moving objects or text. Most people initially suspect a monitor problem, but it's NOT a monitor problem. - Problem is gradually progressive over a period of weeks or months, depending on how often you use the computer and in my case, may have caused the eventual shutdown of my system. - Programs which save what's on the video display are a particular problem, as they will save the glitches also (e.g. DPaint images will save what you draw *and* the intruding glitches). - ghosting, double images in flashes, and worse along the edges and scrollbars are typical as problem worsens. - the actual RUNNING of programs is not affected. You can boot workbench and applications just fine, the 'workings' are not effected, just the video output and in some cases, screen saves with garbage added. I will have more empirical information soon, but one person reported swapping all chips without locating problem, some people have done partial swaps without discovering source, or solving the problems. I am looking for patterns and help for all concerned. If you have these symptoms, please email: Full description of symptoms Age, model, and serial number of the machine Stock machine? Or add-ons? Length of problem Steps you have taken to try to solve it If you have it, is it progressive in your case? And ESPECIALLY, if you got it solved, let us know. One of the things we need to find out is if this is a factory defect in a particular production run, and of course, we want to know how to fix it. Thanks! I'll consolidate stories and post. Julie (LadyHawke@cup.portal.com) Responses from users: 1. My display began doing strange things in early november. Primarily just flashing and occasional bits of garbage (none lasted more than an instant). About a week later the problem became worse and bits of garbage began showing up and staying. These bits became progressively, over the month of november, worse and worse until heavy garbage and frequent screen flashing showed up. 2. Not sure if this is the same problem as I have it on an A2500. Yes. Particularly bad in text displays or windows that fill the whole screen. On the workbench sometimes a pull down menu will leave a garbled ghost behind. Or an icon will turn to garbage --but still work. > - ghosting, double imames in flashes, and worse along > the edges and scrollbars are typical YES!! > - the actual RUNNING of programs is not affected. You > can boot workbench and applications just fine, the > 'workings' are not effected, Yes. Also: IT GOES AWAY! It is not happening now for instance. Making a text window smaller than the screen diminishes it when it is happening. It has come and gone for a year or so. It's been more frequently recently. Seems to last 3 or 4 days. I tried checking that chips were socketed firmly, particularly Agnus. When I have the chance (and tools) I want try swapping or reseateing Agnus. 3. roblems: On leaving the computer on for more than 2-3 hours (on a cool day) I get weird things happening. (Happens in less than 30mins on a warm day) Mostly static on my screen (concetrated on/around scroll bars). Terminus prints weird characters. When I ran a BBS, the computer would crash on uploads (not sure if same problem, worth mentioning), while the exact same BBS software would work fine on friends 3000. Attempts to fix: Tried removing commodities, things in Startup-Sequence... Placed the computer on wooden blocks... Screaming at the computer repeatedly.. None worked. [Julie's Note: thought this sounds only partly like other descriptions, it's worth noting that some people had disk AND video problems with similar symptoms, but which were NOT related to the CIA chips 8520s.] 4. The glitches I notice are a horizonal dash, usually 8 pixels wide. They would 'fly' around the screen, sometimes sticking. And you could then capture the display with the glitches. The glitches could also show up on a screen not currently to front. Made for an ugly surprise when returning to WB screen. :( Problem suddenly showed up mid Oct '93. Owned since July '91. At first, I thought it may have been some new software I may have installed, but symptoms happened under a stock WB. The flying glitches also showed up during heavy program activity, that appeared not to be related to screen rendering, like during a page print from Pagestream. But this process may have been using CHIP ram for its purpose. Sorry, can't tell you if they are in color or not, as I use a 2024 mono monitor. These glitches occurred under all screen modes. - ghosting, double images in flashes, and worse along the edges and scrollbars are typical These symptoms occurred a few weeks later, and that is when I found that the entire 2nd bank of CHIP ram had gone bad. Bad bits and a bad address line (#15). NEC brand. Replaced the chips, edges cleared up, but speckles remain. Programs worked OK, no unexplained GURUs. TROUBLESHOOT: All memory and system checkers that I could find indicated the machine was in perfect shape. (note: If a 3000 has bad CHIP ram, memory checkers will fail to find it. The chips must be removed and tested in a chip checker, or installed in a 2091 and tested with the software that comes with it. This is how I found out I had a meg of bad CHIP ram.) Swapped Agnus, CIAs, Paula, and Denise, to no avail. Did not swap out Ramsey, Gary, DMAC, CPU or FPU. I was finally able to make it happen all the time. The glitches occurred when the available CHIP ram was less than 1 meg free (system using the 2nd bank of CHIP ram). This was my solution, to return the machine to 1 meg CHIP ram. :( But, no more glitches! I did not pull the soldered bank of CHIP ram, as the glitches are gone when using just this bank of ram. Still could be bad though. My unconfirmed suspicions is that the problem is in the 'Bridge' ram system where the CPU can access the CHIP ram. Machine is about 2.5 years old, running nearly 24 hours a day, using appropriate surge suppressors on ps and phone line. A3000 desktop Rev 7.0 mb, factory upgraded to 7.3, rev 6.1 daughter bd All original chip revs Gary -02; Ramsey -04; Buster -06; SDMAC -02; Proto WD SCSI chip SuperKS 2.04, WB 2.1 2 meg CHIP, 4 megs FAST (1x4 SC ZIP) 8. I am writing in response to your report of "speckles" on your A3000. I have experienced the same thing as well....usually flashing green dots that only appear on some programs screens. Doesn't happen to often, but on programs that have a gray background this usually happens. (Not WB surprisingly though). By local Amiga repairman made a guess that it was badly installed ROM chips. You might want to try that....I don't really know. [Julie's Note: This sounds similar, but not quite the same as the problem reported by others. The horizontal blip or speckle tends to show up on most screens and is not color-related. Whether it is a few dots or a lot depends more on the number of screen activity and refreshes than on color combinations, but I included this message just in case they're related.) 9. I had and fixed an obscure problem with my A3000 this year which may or may not be similar to that you described in your posting. The problem I had was primarily with the display and floppy drives. I started getting short random length horizontal lines, from one pixel to less than 1/8 inch, appearing on the display. Moving/resizing windows might add more "garbage". Resetting the workbench would clean up the display until new activity added more "garbage". I also would have windows in the back flash on the front screen during screen activity. [Julie's Note: This is a perfect description of the video problem.] I was also having problems with my floppy drives -- read and write errors. [Julie's Note: If you are using a hard drive and only read from floppies, you may not realize you have disk problems too (I didn't at first). Floppy disk problems show up most often on writes and formats. If you are having the speckle problem, check your floppy functions also.] I attempted to have my system repaired at a dealer, but was unsuccessful. [Julie's Note: Several other people reported their dealers not able to locate this problem. Agnus, Denise and CIA are most often checked, but often without results.] So it was left to me to fix my A3000. I observed that the problems manifested themselves after the system had warmed-up so it was likely a heat sensitive component. I also figured the problem was related to CHIP memory so I narrowed my troubleshooting to the CHIP memory subsystem. The memory test program I tried didn't show any problems, though I think it did lock once or twice. I purchased a can of "COMPONENT COOLER" at Radio Shack, opened up my A3000, and waited for the problems to appear... The problem turned out to be a heat sensitive PAL chip, U202, in the CHIP MEMORY sub-system. The P/N is 390526-02. The solution required me to purchase blank 16L8D PAL chips and make a copy of the original. CBM doesn't sell replacements, except as part of a motherboard swap. My system is like new now; except for a dead key on my keyboard. (It was the RETURN key until I moved it.) I have since added a 240 MB hard drive and an external CDROM drive. My configuration at the time of the problem: A3000/25-50, internal 880k floppy, 2MB CHIP, 8MB FAST S/N 0001024, Motherboard "B2" P/N 313313 Rev 9/03 Date of purchase 10/06/91 A1011 external 880k floppy 1084 monitor Firecracker display board I hope my ramblings have added to your knowledge base.... [Yes, thank you very much to ALL who responded. Hope this information can help, and if there's more, email me and I'll post further installments. Especially send solutions, and you might want to print this and take it to your repair person if you have problems you can't fix yourself.] 10. I'm running an older A3000 and my Screen Speckle problem started just recently. I started having problems with the display going black a few minutes after power on. Eventually I narrowed the problem down to a flaky fat agnus. When I first replaced the fat agnus, the vertical lines were wavy, I tweeked an adjustment to the rear of the fat agnus and the wavy lines dissappeared. It was just after replacing and tweeking that the speckling showed up. I've only seen it once or twice but have not had my machine up more than a few times since replacing the fat agnus. btw, the part I installed was an 8372B. There is some confusion in my mind about the correct part number. Some advertisments lead one to believe that you can use an 8275 chip. [Julie's Note: I'm not sure if this is the same problem or not, it sounds like one problem (the screen speckle problem does not cause the display to blank out) followed perhaps by a different one, which may or may not be the speckle problem. As a general note, there is a little nob on the back of the A3000 and a tiny plastic 'screw driver' that came with your operating system disks, when you get the A3000. In the A3000 manual (the little one) it explains how to adjust this pot to adjust the video. This may help some people's problems, but will not remedy the 'screen speckle' problem we're trying to remedy, but try it.] 11. Well I just read your post about A3000 video problems, I never had the 'speckle' problem, but sometimes when I would drag an icon it would 'smear' or leave ghost images. First I thought it was a problem with one of the chips (the Agnus) but I took it into a store and they replaced it even though the tech could not duplicate my problem when he was fixing it at the store. Well he told me it could be a heat problem, and it IS a heat problem. If you A3000 gets too hot then it starts messing up the gfx, but everything else runs fine. Lucky for me I like to keep my apartment cold, so I don't have that problem anymore. I only experienced this problem during the summer when my room would got very hot. I do not know of a 'real' solution besides keeping the area cool, maybe removing some of the plates in the back to get more air circulation, I dunno .. [Julie's Note: Different from speckle problem, but thought I'd include it for those with heat problems.] Email if you have the problem and if you've solved it, especially! Julie (LadyHawke@cup.portal.com) COMMODORE A3000 Screen Speckle Defect - Chapter 2 ================================================= First, clarification. People have emailed me with what is turning out to be a variety of similar (but not the same) video problems. This is fine, I'm posting most of them. This kind of information is still valuable, even if we're chasing more than one problem here. But I wanted to clarify, the problem I'm describing here specifically (and the fix that seems to be working) is a short 'blilp' that looks like a dash or hyphen. It extends only a few pixels horizontally (usually about 8 or so) and is only 1 or maybe two pixels high. It's like someone dropped an alphabet soup bag with only hyphens onto your screen, settling randomly and sometimes appearing to 'stick' there (specially in DPaint if you try to draw something) Second, GREAT NEWS. We're starting to get news back from people who are finding the solution. The posts I got from people who had found the problem and fixed it themselves (I have yet to get a single letter from someone who found a dealer able to diagnose this problem) point to a PAL chip and to Chip RAM. So check these out. The PAL chip is part number 16L8DCN (and it's inexpensive - yay!). A GAL can be used, as long as it's programmed for the PAL (16V8GAL). Both these chips are 10 nanoseconds. One person found the problem in the second socketed bank of Chip RAM, the other found it in the first, soldered bank of RAM (bad news), but check out the PAL chip first, maybe you'll be lucky. I'm happy to say, one of the folks on IRC got his computer back in order ($2.50) after being 3 months without it. That made my day. Julie (LadyHawke@cup.portal.com) COMMODORE A3000 Screen Speckle Defect - Chip Available ====================================================== OK! If your problem is genuinely the screen hyphen speckle problem, and not a different problem (or combination of problems), it appears as if HT Electronics can help. I just ordered the GAL (Gate Array Logic chip, I think) from them and they went to some trouble and experimentation to program it for the PAL parameters. They are happy to supply the solution to those who need it, but they want to be sure users understand that this is only a fix for this specific problem. If ou have another problem and order the chip, you can't hold them responsible if this doesn't fix it! So be fair to them; they're good guys. HT Electronics Sunnyvale, CA 1-408-737-0900 16V8GAL programmed to function like 16L8DCN PAL I was so thrilled, I didn't even ask what it was going to cost. I know the chip is cheap, but they had to find a programming solution and there's shipping too, so it's going to be a bit more, but better than a non- functional computer! Ask for Sales, if you call HT. Julie (LadyHawke@cup.portal.com) Classic - Concepts (LadyHawke@cup.portal.com) wrote: : COMMODORE A3000 Screen Speckle Defect - Chapter 2 : ================================================= [- stuff deleted -] : Second, GREAT NEWS. We're starting to get news back from people who are : finding the solution. The posts I got from people who had found the : problem and fixed it themselves (I have yet to get a single letter from : someone who found a dealer able to diagnose this problem) point to a : PAL chip and to Chip RAM. So check these out. The PAL chip is part : number 16L8DCN (and it's inexpensive - yay!). A GAL can be used, as : long as it's programmed for the PAL (16V8GAL). Both these chips are : 10 nanoseconds. One person found the problem in the second socketed : bank of Chip RAM, the other found it in the first, soldered bank of RAM : (bad news), but check out the PAL chip first, maybe you'll be lucky. : I'm happy to say, one of the folks on IRC got his computer back in order : ($2.50) after being 3 months without it. That made my day. : Julie (LadyHawke@cup.portal.com) Question? Is this PAL that fails the same component? In my case it was U202. If so, it could be either a bad batch of PALs used to make this component or that this device is being operated outside the recommended operating conditions leading to pre-mature failures. My U202 was a MMI PAL 16L8DCN 011G2KM. Inquiring mind wants to know... Joe Hanson: Hats off to Julie for this thread and for the solution. We were at our wits e with this problem; we swapped chips, cooled ram, removed chip ram all to no avail. HT provided the GAL, and presto! solved the problem. Julie has saved the State of California (and all U.S. taxpayers) the cost of a serious repair. The U.C. system thanks you. Ron A3000 Screen Speckle Defect - Installment 4 =========================================== I have more news about the screen defect problem and some confirmation... First, in answer to your question, yes the socket location is U202 (PAL). It is located in the forward left quadrant of the A3000 at the forward left point of the large square chip (U205) as you stand in front of it (not under the drives, thank goodness). I confirmed that my U202 chip was bad by opening a friend's A3000, removing his U202 and installing mine. The EXACT same speckle defect (horizontal blips about 1 pixel high and 2 - 8 pixels wide, especially bad near the edges of windows, and the bits tend to 'stick') appeared on his machine. I then took out the defective U202 and installed the original chip. Everything was fine. I then replaced the original chip with the chip sent/programmed by HT Electronics. It worked perfectly. Then I got brave. DON'T TRY THIS. You could fry not only the chip, but the motherboard as well (I've been doing hobby level chip swapping long enough to have fairly good instincts about this and haven't fried anything yet, but I don't recommend this seat of the pants approach to others.) One of the people who got an HT chip reported a gray screen and no fix. I was really worried about this, thinking that either he got a bad chip from HT, or I had guessed the problem incorrectly, so I decided to take the risk to find out. I deliberately installed the good chip in backwards. You will get a solid lightish gray screen that remains and displays nothing further. I removed it, tried it the right way [meanwhile writing out my will, since this is my friend's pride and joy], and [unfortunately, for my heirs] it works fine. It was worth the risk. We now know what happens if you get it in wrong. Shut off your machine IMMEDIATELY and rotate the chip. If your problem is not then solved, you either have a combination of problems, or your screen speckle is different from the one I've tried my best to describe here. One observation. How do you know which way to install the chip? Normally, the little indentation on one end indicates the end that matches the number on the circuit board. The indentation should be towards the *back* for this chip ... but, I discovered in all of this, that's not 100% true. In my A3000, there was one of each, but both LABELS faced the same way (turn your face left to read them. In Craig's machine, there was one of each (indents faced two ways before I removed anything), but again, the LABELS on the chips listing the part number both faced so you could read them by turning your head to the left. I can only guess this is sloppiness, different production runs, or that the label, not the notch, is the indicator (though it shouldn't be that way). The HT chip was correctly oriented. Oh, about cost. By the time you pay for the chip, the research HT did to figure out the programming, the downloading of the programming, and the shipping, you're looking at about $28. Since an hour in a shop trying to guess the problem often runs $35 - $60, this is a pretty substantial savings. Finally, get the information out so we can help others! You are welcome to reprint these posts in user group newsletters (so we can help people frustrated with this problem who might not have access to Usenet), just remember to tell them to get a qualified person to do it if they have no hardware experience, that it may void their warranty, AND that it's at their own risk. :-) Julie Petersen (LadyHawke@cup.portal.com) @endnode @node P1-8 "Lesser Known Amigas" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Lesser-Known Amiga Models By Jason Compton %% %% (jcompton@tcity.com) %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% In the spirit of my recent listing of Amiga models and their stats, I thought I would write up a quick list of those Amigas which never really made a splash... The Amiga 6000: Features a 6510, Z80, 8086, and a 68000 in parallel with three HP-PA RISC chips that can run up to 10 simultaneous copies of AmigaDOS 7.2 in 128k of RAM. Unfortunately, C= set up the design team in a small remote New Zealand village, which was completely destroyed in a freak storm. All of the plans (as well as the developers) were lost. The Amiga 1650: An intermediate machine between a 2000 and a 3000, featuring the short-lived 68025 chip. Only sold in Southern California and some small German border cities. The CD-RADIO: Commodore's low-end version of the CDTV. It didn't go very far, since it wasn't very visually exciting. The Amiga Gould: Originally titled the Amiga Gold, intended to be a re-issuing of a souped-up 1000. Irving stepped in, changed the project, drove out all of the people involved and put in an Adam emulator. The Amiga 10: A brain-installable version of the ECS chipset, CPU, and OS. It made keeping track of more than one thing much easier. There were two major drawbacks. First, remembering things that happened more than a year or so ago required a memory expansion that jutted noticably out of the wearer's head. Second, it was hard to quit a game of Lemmings, so the wearer would tend to walk around saying "Yippee!" a lot. And when that thing guru'd...people would get VERY afraid, as the wearer's eyes would flash on and off in green. The Air Commie: A short-lived partnership between C= and Nike yielded a shoe which would allow the wearer to jump in more than one direction. Only a few prototypes were produced, and when the NBA declared that the shoe would violate its rules, the project was scrapped. Finally, the AmiPad: A proposed project, containing a full 4000 system with multisync display, Video Toaster, and stereo sound in a case the size of a TI-85 calculator. Never developed due to lack of market. @endnode @node P1-9 "Programmers Don't Need Databases" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Real programmers don't need Databases -- Or do they? By Ivo Kroone %% %% (raymond@cs.vu.nl) %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Real programmers don't eat quiche. No they don't, but do they use easy-to- use environments like those offered by packages? Would they ever bother to use TeX or do they just write all escape sequences in a binary format for their printer? And for that matter would they ever bother to use a database language or do they write their own field-structure and index structure in C or assembly? In this article I'd like to show the use of the built in database language in various Amiga databases. Programming within Superbase, dBMan or for that matter AMOS or AmigaVision is often regarded as playing. They're not real programming languages and are therefore for quiche eaters, newbies and suits. Maybe. Where AMOS and AmigaVision have been made to achieve the same goals as other All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Codes, a language within a database can safe a lot of time and effort. If you ever write or want to write applications handling lots of data and maintaining large files, a database might be a good solution. Today's databases are mature and can talk to various other applications via ARexx. Classical applications for databases are address books, administration systems, invoicing programs and other boring business applications. Here are some applications one would not have expected from a database: -A BBS system All they do is register users, store messages, keep files and keep up with who-did-what. Perfect uses for a database. A BBS is the last program to be written in assembly or C. -A hypertext program Commodore is right for choosing an ASCII-compatible format for AmigaGuide, but big hypertext documents could be stored more efficiently and could work quicker when using a relational-database. -A program to register fuel consumption of a car It needs a file with fuel, distances and dates. An easy and perfect purpose for a database. -A fortune cookie generator Programs to show cookies are always 90% code to select a cookie and maintain some obscure file format. It could be written within Superbase in about 5 lines of code. -An adventure game Rooms and attributes can be stored in fields. The user and the path the user followed could be another file. An adventure within a database can be more complex yet easier to program and because of the possibilities the maker can offer: more fun for the player. The Amiga might not be the premier machine for databases, but those available are of excellent quality. Of course, if everyone uses a pirated copy the developers simply cannot keep up with the developments in the general computer market. Especially in this field of the Amiga buying your software is essential for the future of the Amiga as a platform not only to play games with. There are three kinds of databases available for the Amiga: 1. The easy to use personal database These can store addresses and store the contents of your video tapes and cassettes. No programming language of macros available. Plain store and look-up. Examples: MiAmigaFile-II (softwood) and Superbase Personal (Oxxi) 2. Professional multi-purpose databases These can store data in various files and link those files. The system offers lots of ways to customize so one can have another user browse trough the data without knowing it is a database program. Examples: Superbase professional (Oxxi) and dBMan (Vera Soft) 3. Look-up databases The so-called SQL language is a standard language to look up data. An SQL database can link files as well but has more than excellent ways to make the most complex queries. Example: SQLdb (public domain, can be found on any AmiNet FTP site) It's the second kind of database which is especially interesting for real programmers or those who want to be. Using a database like this saves a lot of work. The developers made an excellent file format, incredibly fast look up facilities and all the maintenance tools one can wish for. It is just a waste of time to develop all of this when there is a ready-made solution available. Superbase's language is much like a structured version of Commodore 64's BASIC V2.0, with some database commands added. One can make all kinds of looks and conditions. Something all of these build-in-languages will never do is use standard includes and headers or offer ways to access the internal memory directly. The only ways to reach the outside world are via ARexx and a Shell-script. A good use of a database would be writing the store-and-look up engine of the program. A user-interface could be written in a standard language but especially with Superbase's FormsEditor it isn't necessary. All advances and disadvantages of using a database for programming: - No standard includes or headers can be used. Libraries and devices can't be accessed directly. One has to stay within the database's boundaries. - Most database programs use an interpreted language. Therefore one always needs to run the database program simultaneously. dBMan has a compiler. Oxxi sells runtime versions so a user of you program doesn't have to buy the entire Superbase package. + Fast and well-thought-about file formats. Easy to alter file format without having to rewrite the main program. Easy to add, modify or delete data. + Excellent methods for looking up data. Not only for plain look up, but also for wildcards and cross-file-lookup. Smart and fast index files, no need to design your own file and index system. + Excellent methods for arranging data. Databases have build in query editors with which one can easily define groups, count totals or averages, sort using multiple indexes, set ranges, filter and format output. Report generators can be used to define standard forms or screens. + MultiUser support. The database handles all problems as to record or file locking, user access to certain files and user levels (add/modify/delete). Imagine the work handling network support would be when modifying a "normal" program. + For those who start programming: a language within a database is much easier to learn. Learning languages like assembly, C or E assumes knowledge of the Amiga system (Intuition), the compiler and that language. With a database language one only needs to learn the language. The developers of databases still have a lot of work to do for the Amiga. With only a handful of professional databases for the Amiga our platform is way behind. Those databases available are worth while, both the commercial packages as well as the ones in the public domain. Using a database when applicable saves time and could make Amiga programs better. Please take a look at what's available. @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 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 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 P1-10 "The Emulation Rambler" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% The Emulation Rambler By Jason Compton %% %% (jcompton@tcity.com) %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Back again. Here are some speed tests for the Cyrix 486 clipon attachment. Note that the tests are not done ON a bridgeboard, but the potential for bridgeboard owners is a real one. A rumor on CSAEmulations says that people have run the clipon on a C= bridgeboard with no problems. I'll pretty much quote what he sent me verbatim. Take it away, Shane... [Begin quote] Landmark 2.0 PC Magazine 7.0 I don't know if there are any copyright crap with PC Magazine's benchmark program but I'm sure Landmark is OK. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Landmark benchmark is a little archaic in how it measures performance but here it is: Model 70 with Cyrix Model 70 112 Mhz AT 287 5Mhz 24 Mhz AT with no mathco Sensing processor came up with this 486 14.092 386 19.971 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- PC Magazine Benchmarks looked like this. Cyrix 70 Model 70 40228 15703 16bit Prot.Mode Small Mix pass/sec 57431 18087 16bit Real Mode Small Mix pass/sec 104 76.2 16bit Prot.Mode Stand. Mix pass/sec 120 85.7 16bit Real Mode Stand. Mix pass/sec 329.86 163.49 Floating Point Emulation ops/sec Memory Timings - Not sure if this is influenced by the processor upgrade but they are different, so I'll list them. 1048576 1048576 Memory Test Start Address (decimal) 6549504 4452352 Memory Test End Address (decimal) 3700 1322 Ext Mem 8-bit Read Kbytes/sec 4634 1864 Ext Mem 8-bit Write Kbytes/sec 7343 2637 Ext Mem 16-bit Read Kbytes/sec 9179 3729 Ext Mem 16-bit Write Kbytes/sec 14464 5245 Ext Mem 32-bit Read Kbytes/sec 18358 7343 Ext Mem 32-bit Write Kbytes/sec String Sort and Move Test was not run Prime Number Sieve was not run Math Coprocessor was not run I did not include Graphics and Hard drive timings because the 70-Cyrix had a Reply-Cirrus SuperVGA card and is much faster than the standard VGA the machine comes with. If you want the hard drive timings and need the graphics and 3 excluded tests run mail me a message back. The Hard-drive timings take a while and the machines I am testings use very slow IDE hard drives that rate around 800 or less Kbytes/sec. [End quote: Thanks Shane!] Just to clarify: The stock Model 70 was a 386/20 with 4 megs RAM, while the "Cyrix 70" had the replacement 486sx and 6 megs. Emplant updates: First off, V3.7 of the Emplant Mac software is apparently available, fixing some FPU routines and perhaps a few other bugs. Emplant Mac is now MMU-independent, and has been for a few revisions. On the personal side, UU informs me that my board was shipped UPS Blue 2 day on Tuesday, meaning that I can expect it Thursday. You'll find out next week, and I'll find out tomorrow. Also next week, look for the most complete list of emulators ever to grace these pages (and probably many others), thanks to a lot of help from Angelo Carpi, another emulation maniac. Until next week...keep the emulators warm. @endnode @node P1-11 "The Amiga on the InterNet - The IRC" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% The Amiga on The Internet - IRC by Robert Niles %% %% (rniles@imtired.itm.com) %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% The next time you're on the Internet and if you have access to IRC (Inter Relay Chat). Drop by and say hi to the regulars there in the #amiga channel. Oh, they're a little shy, but friendly. Those guys (and the occasional gal) are listed under some strange names such as xterm, RKM, oleg, Dense, Monolith, KicStart, RedWine (somehow this guy has an umbilical cord connected to the IRC) and many more that have a "Frequent Chatting Plan". The Amiga IRC group is under the IRC label as #amiga. "Pjotr" is the "head-moderator" of this conference area, and he has set up a friendly "Bot" called Mama. Mama is capable of helping you find files that are on the Aminet, and sending those that you need. When you get on say "Hello" to Mama and type the command "/msg mama help" for more information. RBRUNER is one of the many people on the Amiga IRC group. He is the author of Note-It!, a fantasic but small program that will help reduce the amount of scaps of paper that some of us commenly have laying all over the desk. NoteIt! is a computerized version of those little sticky Post-Its. You can keep track of peoples names, addresses within this program, as well as anything else you would like. RBRUNER is also planning on expanding it further. If you get on there, ask him about it. Another member of IRC is Xed, the author of X-Comm. A nice terminal program that right now is still in the beta stages. Most of you have probably already seen it, but it will be reviewed here in the near future. So get on the Amiga IRC channel and say hi. There's many more people to chat with and they always have something interesting to chat about. They won't bite (normally) and it's a good way to socialize and meet Amiga users from all over the world. @endnode @node P4-6 "BIX" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% BIX - Byte Information Exchange %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% BIX is the premier online service for computing professionals and en- thusiasts. While other online services cater to computer novices, BIX is the place for knowledgeable people to go for answers to tough questions. You're likely to find many others in similar situations who can offer advice, give technical assistance, or point you in the right direction. BIX is divided into areas called conferences, each devoted to a particular area of interest. They range from algorithms to windows, from writers to Amiga. Conferences are categorized into groups, usually referred to as exchanges, so that you can browse through whatever groups interest you and see a list of the conferences it contains. These are some of the exchanges on BIX: amiga.exchange - the place for Amiga developers and enthusiasts byte - the full text of each issue of BYTE magazine; source code too e.and.l - Entertainment and Leisure; music, pets, games, more ibm.exchange - everything from OS/2 to PC clones mac.exchange - Mac news, support, software, advice professionals - consultants, engineers, financiers gather here programmers - some of the best brains in the business! wix - the Information Exchange for Windows; Windows Magazine online writers.ex - the professional and amateur writer's exchange *** FULL INTERNET ACCESS! *** BIX also features access to the Internet - you can use FTP to transfer files from sites all over the world, telnet to log on to other online services, schools, and research sites, and send Internet mail to millions of people at services like DELPHI, CompuServe, America Online, MCI Mail, and other sites and services. Services like "WHOIS" and "Finger" are also available, with more features on the way (like USENET newsgroups; our newsreader is currently being tested and should be available very soon!) There are no usage fees or special charges for Internet access - it's all part of your BIX subscription. ============================== Rates and Connect Information: ============================== BIX membership costs $13 per month, plus connect time. There are several different ways to connect: SprintNet* $3/hour evenings/weekends $9/hour weekdays Tymnet:** $3/hour evenings/weekends $9/hour weekdays (SprintNet and Tyment rates shown are for 48 contiguous US states only.) Tymnet Canada: $4/hr eves/wkends $9/hour weekdays Tymnet Hawaii: $10/hr eves/wkends $20/hour weekdays Telnet(via Internet): $1/hour, round the clock Direct dial (Boston): $2/hour, round the clock (up to 9600 bps) * SprintNet daytime hours are from 6am to 7pm, M-F, ET. ** Tymnet daytime hours are from 7am to 6pm, M-F, ET. To find your local SprintNet number, call SprintNet at (800) 877-5045, ext. 5. Internationally, call (404) 859-7700. To find a local Tymnet number, call Tymnet at (800) 937-2862. Internationally, call (703) 442-0145. ================ There is no surcharge for 9600 bps access via either telecom carrier. There is no surcharge for up to 10mb of Internet mail per month (sent and received). There will be a charge of $1 per 100,000 bytes thereafter. ================ 20/20 PLAN OPTION (for USA-48 users only): Volume users can choose the 20/20 Advantage Plan, which is $20 per month and includes the first 20 hours of access by any combination of methods from the contiguous United States. Additional use is $1.80 per hour (additional use for telnet access is $1 an hour). The 20/20 Plan's cost is in addition to the $13 monthly fee. INTERNATIONAL USERS: If you wish to connect internationally through Tymnet or SprintNet, please contact your local PTT. BIX accepts prepaid international calls, direct dial, or telnet connections. In order to make a "collect" (not prepaid) call to BIX, your account must be verified before the charges are accepted. When you complete the registration, we'll mail you a BIX Membership Agreement by regular US Mail. Whe you receive it, sign it and return it to us by mail. When we receive it here, we'll authorize your account to make reverse charged calls. If you want to access BIX right away, contact your local PTT to set up a prepaid account. You'll pay your local carrier for your calls to BIX in advance, so there's no waiting period or verfication needed. Or, connect at BIX via telnet to x25.bix.com. SprintNet international calls from most locations are $24 an hour. Tymnet international charges vary, but are generally between $20-$30 an hour. ==================== Billing Information: ==================== You can charge your monthly BIX membership fees to your Visa, Mastercard, Discover, or American Express card. You may have your company invoiced for one or more BIX memberships with a BIX Corporate Account. To do so, send by US Mail or fax a Purchase Order including a Purchase Order number, invoice address, contact person, a phone number where we can reach the contact person, and the company's fax number. Please direct it to the attention of Connie Lopes, who handles corporate accounts. Our fax number is 617-491-6642. Your corporate account will generally be set up within 24 hours. =================== To Sign Up For BIX: =================== Dial by modem 1-800-695-4882 or 617-491-5410 * (use 8 data bits, no parity, full duplex) Press a few carriage returns until you see the Login:(enter "bix") prompt, then type bix At the Name? prompt, type bix.amrpt * Users already on the internet can telnet to x25.bix.com instead. At the USERNAME: prompt enter bix, then bix.net at the Name? prompt. Once your account is registered, you can connect the same way, except at the Name? prompt you'll enter your BIXname and then your password. Using the above procedure will allow users in the 48 contiguous United States to take advantage of our special "5 for $5" offer. This offer lets you use up to 5 hours of evening/weekend time on BIX during the current calender month (whatever month you sign up in), for $5. Additional time is $1.80 per hour ($1 per hour for telnet). At the end of the calender month, you will be placed into our standard rate plan, at $13 monthly plus connect charges. You may also join the 20/20 Plan at this time. If you have other questions, please contact BIX Member Services at (800) 695-4775; send a fax to BIX at (617) 491-6642; or send Internet mail to info@bix.com. BIX Member Services hours are 12pm - 11pm, Monday through Friday, ET. @endnode @node P1-12 "UseNet Review - ImageFX v1.50" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Usenet Review: ImageFX v1.50 By Per Espen Hagen %% %% (per.e.hagen@ffi.no) %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% PRODUCT NAME ImageFX 1.50 BRIEF DESCRIPTION Complete image manipulation package, for image restoration, retouching, enhancement, analysis, painting, warping, and morphing; scanning and digitizing; printing; file conversion. Features a nice, configurable GUI and an extensive ARexx interface. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Great Valley Products, Inc. Address: 657 Clark Ave. King of Prussia, PA 19406 USA Telephone: (215) 337-8770 FAX: (215) 337-9922 LIST PRICE I paid GBP 170 ex. VAT. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE At least 3 MB RAM. More is recommended. Hard drive strongly recommended. Works with any CPU. 68020 or higher is recommended. FPU recommended for some operations, but not required. AGA chipset recommended, but by no means required. Image processing is of course one of the most CPU and memory intensive tasks there is. It goes without saying that a reasonably well-equipped Amiga is vital for any serious use of this program. SOFTWARE Requires AmigaDOS 1.3 or higher. AmigaDOS 2.0 or higher is recommended. COPY PROTECTION None. Hard drive installable. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 1200 HD with MBX-1200z. 14.2 MHz 68020/68881. 2 MB Chip RAM, 4 MB Fast RAM. Kickstart/Workbench 3.0. SysInfo rating: 4.80 x A600. AIBB ratings: ~0.6 x A4000/030 (integer), ~1 x A4000/030 (graphics), 3-20 x A4000/030 (FP math). INSTALLATION The program comes on 4 floppies, and installation to a hard drive is very easy. It uses Commodore's Installer program. By using the "Expert" mode of Installer, you may choose to install portions or all of ImageFX. If used from floppy, the first disk contains the main program, ready to use (that is, in uncompressed form). FIRST IMPRESSIONS ImageFX can be run the instant the installation process is finished; i.e., no reboots or other nasty operations are necessary. The various menus, windows, and requesters looked a little blocky on the default setup. I soon changed this by using an Interlaced Panel and the Helvetica/11 font. The normal display consists of two or three screens on top of each other: the Preview screen, the Palette screen (which can be turned off), and the Gadgets screen. The latter two screens can be toggled on/off by clicking the right mouse button. This multiple-screen concept is similar to that of ImageMaster and Brilliance. Generally, the program is VERY configurable. The preview mode can be any ScreenMode, screen type (normal/EHB/HAM), and depth supported by the Amiga (or one of several 24-bit graphics cards). For instance, I often use "Super72:Super-High Res Laced HAM8" for precise painting, cropping, etc., and "DblPAL:Low Res HAM8" for faster response on other operations. The gadgets screen has five primary buttons that change the program "mode": Scanner, Palette, Toolbox, Render, and Print. Each of these buttons, when pushed, brings up various other buttons and gadgets. The Toolbox panel can be customized completely. The screen layout is generally quite intuitive and user-friendly. FEATURES ImageFX is absolutely packed with features, so I can only give a few examples in this review. First of all, the package has support for loading and saving in most image file formats you can think of, including IFF-ILBM, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, Targa, PBM, BMP, ANIM5/7, FLI/FLC, and even Amiga icon format (".info" files). The loader support is a bit more extensive than the saver support, but both should be more than adequate for most people. ImageFX will also render to any Amiga OCS/ECS/AGA screenmode, as well as several graphics boards (including DCTV, Retina, and OpalVision). The AGA rendering quality is high, although the LUT selection can sometimes be very slow. There are even three different algorithms for LUT selection (MedianCut, Enhanced, and Tibbett), for better control of the process. The Toolbox is the heart of ImageFX. It features a decent range of 24-bit painting tools and modes: freehand, line, curve, box, airbrush, fill, brush, etc. One very useful feature is the Pantograph painting mode, where you copy from one part of the image to another. You can paint with varying degrees of Blend, use the Alpha buffer, and other options. The painting tools are quite useful for image retouching etc, but ImageFX certainly is no rival to Brilliance for image creation. Among the other buttons in the Toolbox are Balance, Composite, Rotate, Size, Color, Convolve, Transform, Filter, and Effect. Pressing any of these buttons pops up a small list of possible operations. Selecting any of these in turn usually causes a requester with detailed options to appear. For instance, you can select Convolve, then select Edge Detect from the list, and then set the detection threshold for edges. Press Okay, and the Edge Detect filter is run. I really like this method of organization. By dividing the operations into several groups, each list becomes short and synoptic (a quick summary). And if you don't like the default grouping of operations, you can always define your own. As for the operators themselves, many look strangely familiar for an ADPro (ASDG's Art Department Professional) user. The Balance window, for instance, is more or less identical to that of ADPro (except that you can select the colour space with ImageFX: RGB, HSV, or CMYK). Another difference is that ImageFX lacks the intermediate colour table of ADPro. Once you Okay any balance changes, these are applied to the buffer. This is unfortunate, as you lose some information each time you modify the colour balance (overflow/multiple-colours-to-one). Of course, ImageFX can Undo any changes, but that's hardly the ideal way of handling this. (Also, an intermediate colour map would probably be quite slow if the balancing was performed in the HSV colour space; but for RGB and CMYK, it would simply be a LUT for each RGB component.) HSV balancing means you can "rotate" the colours (purple becomes red, yellow becomes green, etc.), by adjusting the Hue. A fun effect, if not particularly useful. The way I use this feature is to try out the settings in a small region of the image (and Undo them again) until the results are satisfactory, then apply to the full image. So it's not so bad after all, just different I guess. One of ImageFX's biggest fortes is the processing of regions. Most of the above operations can be performed on any user-defined region of the image. (The operations that don't support it are the ones for which regional processing makes no sense, such as Size.) A region can be a box, polygon, or any free-hand closed shape. The region is defined simply by moving the pointer up to the Preview screen and drawing it. There are also three buttons marked R, G, and B, respectively, that can be used to select which one(s) of the Red, Green, and Blue buffers to operate on. For instance, you can deselect Red and Green, and run Dynamic Range. Minimums and maximums are then sought for, and modifications applied to, the Blue buffer only. Again, I find ImageFX's approach very sensible. The modular design makes it an extremely flexible and powerful program; almost ANY operator can be applied to almost ANY region of ANY subset of the RGB buffers, simply by clicking a button or three. I find the handling of regions very intuitive and easy to use. ImageFX also supports Epson and Sharp scanners, plus a few digitizers. I haven't tested any of these modules. There's also good printing support (Preferences and PostScript). Oh yes, and there's a great warping/morphing program supplied as well... a special version of CineMorph, which works in tandem with ImageFX (e.g., it can use ImageFX's Load, Save, and Render modules). And there's IMP (ImageFX's version of Sentry, more or less), and the well-known Viewtek image viewer. AREXX INTERFACE As I said, ImageFX is packed with features. Nevertheless, I find its ARexx interface adds even more power. ImageFX's ARexx port is definitely the most extensive I have ever seen in any program. Not just a tool for interprocess communication and macro generation, ARexx is of course a general programming language. This means that complete application programs can be written under ImageFX/ARexx, though speed might be a problem with an interpreted ARexx script. As one example of the range of ImageFX's ARexx port, I can mention the ComplexRequest command. This is used to build user-defined requesters! Such requesters can contain integer, string, checkbox, and cycle gadgets (and more). The gadgets are defined in an ARexx stem variable. Not all of the standard Intuition gadgets can be defined -- for instance, radio buttons and sliders (potentiometers), are missing -- but it has all that's NECESSARY for any requester. Other commands allow you to read and write the RGB values of any pixel of the current image, to draw "virtual" lines and boxes on the preview screen, to add wedges (like notifying an ARexx port when the left mouse button is clicked), and so on. Of course, all the regular stuff is there too -- load, operate, render, save, etc. Preview screen updating can be temporarily turned off via ARexx for faster operation. Many commands have synonyms - Mono2Grey can also be written MonoToGrey, Mono2Gray, and MonoToGray. Very elegant. One command that seems to be missing is a multiple-file requester. This isn't too much of a problem, though, as I use Rafael D'Halleweyn's RexxReqTools.library for these (and other) requesters anyway. About 200 pages of ImageFX's manuals are devoted to the ARexx interface. However, you can also create ARexx macros without ever reading the manual! ImageFX 1.50 has a "learn" mode, where all actions are "translated" to ARexx and stored in a file. For example, to create an anim from a set of individual files, you can (1) turn on learn mode, (2) set the desired rendering options, (3) load, render, and save the first image, (4) turn off learn mode, and (5) add a DO I=1 TO N loop to the script. ET VOILA, a complete ARexx script for creating anims. (Well, more or less...) ImageFX comes with very few pre-written ARexx scripts. This isn't really a problem if you're familiar with ARexx, but newcomers to this weird and wonderful language would probably have wanted more scripts. Of course, the need for pre-defined ARexx scripts is also alleviated by the Learn mode. OTHER ASPECTS I have to mention a few of the other features of this package. First of all, ImageFX contains a rather useful online help function. An operation-sensitive AmigaGuide manual pops up any time you press the Help key (except when ImageFX is busy). Although not more than a quick reference, it can save quite a few look-ups in the paper manual. ImageFX also comes with its own virtual memory system, which can be configured in several ways -- "Use Always", "Never", "When Needed", "Ask Before Using". You can specify the maximum amount of RAM to use, and the VMEM page size in KBytes. I find ImageFX's memory handling system good, but not ideal. With any setting except "Never Use VMEM", ImageFX automatically allocates and holds on to the specified maximum amount of RAM. This memory has to be contiguous. If you use Ask or When Needed, the program will use any extra (not necessarily contiguous) available RAM before it goes to virtual memory. One problem with this is that ImageFX sometimes runs out of memory when rendering (or, to be precise, when making histograms for CLUT selection. The histogram memory must also be contiguous). There might be a way to limit the amount of RAM to use for the buffer, but I haven't found it yet. If you select "Never Use VMEM", ImageFX allocates memory only when it is needed. The memory does not have to be contiguous. ImageFX needs only 3 bytes per pixel for the buffer. (ADPro always allocates 4 bytes per pixel, using the extra one for rendering.) After having used the "Ask Before Using VMEM" initially, I have now switched to "Always Use VMEM", with about 1.5 MB as maximum amount of RAM to use. This setting is good for multitasking (plenty of Fast RAM available), and I never have memory problems when rendering. If the whole buffer fits in the 1.5 MB of memory, VMEM isn't really used. I can also use huge 24-bit images (2000x1500, say) without any problems. (I am actually running ImageFX on another screen with a 1280x1024x24 picture as I am typing this... while playing a MOD with MultiPlayer, and running about a dozen other commodities, etc. And I still have (checking...) about 1 MB of free Fast RAM!) Unfortunately, at least one effect (Oil Transfer) will not work on disk-based buffers. I have no idea why. One last feature: ImageFX has a VERY useful Undo/Redo command. Multiple Undo is supported; the maximum number of Undos is user-specified. It's only limited by the free RAM and/or disk space of your machine. DOCUMENTATION As ImageFX 1.50 comes with approximately 600 pages of documentation, one might think that this subject was handled excellently. Wrong. In fact, the documentation is my one major gripe about this package. First of all, the main manual describes only ImageFX 1.03. All modifications and extensions for version 1.50 are described in a separate addendum. This is perhaps marginally acceptable for people who have upgraded to 1.50, but it's intolerable for new users. What are we supposed to do? Read both manuals at the same time? (It might seem that this is the intention, because the 1.50 addendum doesn't even fit into the original binder!) No, this isn't good enough, GVP. Secondly, I find the manual a bit too shallow. The explanation of some operators is rather superficial. For instance, what algorithm is used for "Smooth" scaling? Is it a bilinear approximation? The manual only states that "Smooth mode smoothly anti-aliases the image as it is rescaled"... wow, I would never have guessed! Well, I guess the manual is OK for beginners. It is definitely too shallow for advanced users. Thirdly, it's difficult to navigate the manual. As previously mentioned, the manual's coverage of the ARexx interface spans about 200 pages. Yet it is only given one line in the Contents, and there's no chapter introduction detailing the disposition. You have to browse through it to find that it contains (1) 127 pages of commands, (2) a 7-page Quick Reference, (3) loading commands, (4) rendering commands, and so on. This might sound awfully harsh, so I should say that the manual IS usable. As a matter of fact, it's about average for this kind of software. It's just not the same excellent quality as the rest of this package. LIKES AND DISLIKES I really like the flexible, extensible and customizable nature of ImageFX. It can be configured to suit pretty much anyone's taste. The program's number of features is formidable. Having used ImageFX extensively for about a month, I still feel like I'm only scratching the surface of this program (and I usually get the hang of programs very quickly). The ARexx interface is also brilliant. As is the regional processing, the 24-bit painting tools, the always-present Preview buffer, not to mention the consistent and pretty (once you've tailored it to your personal taste) GUI. Also, virtual memory and multiple Undo are wonderful features. Finally, I like the fact that everything is included in the basic package; no vital tools are sold separately. I dislike that some effects don't work with VMEM buffers. And I STRONGLY dislike the poorly written and assembled manual. Also, the AGA chipset is supported only for preview and rendering. For instance, the palette screen is only LoRes HAM6, with a 12-bit colour space (at least it looks that way to me). I would like to see more ARexx macros supplied with the package. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS It is of course impossible to test this package without comparing it to ASDG's Art Department Professional. I have used ADPro for some time, including the current version (2.3.0). I have only very slight experience with ImageMaster, so I can't really compare ImageFX to that product. ImageFX can do more or less everything that ADPro can. Quality and time consumption are also quite similar. But ImageFX can do much, much more than ADPro, and some operations are a lot easier to perform. Furthermore, ImageFX utilizes the Amiga's intrinsic advantages much better than ADPro does: o Multiple and "split" screens. o A HAM screen for the palette. o Images are rendered directly to auto-scrolling screens in Chip RAM (ultra-fast scrolling of large images). o Good memory usage (multitasking-friendly). o HAM8 preview mode. o Gadgets, requesters, etc. ADPro, on comparison, is designed almost as if it were a PC product. But sure, it works, and it's quite easy to get used to. And there are a few options that are unique to ADPro; e.g., the Antique operator. I seriously can see no reason why anyone would use ADPro once they get to know ImageFX. Being an image processing scientist, I have used quite a few IP packages professionally (under Unix and VAX/VMS). I can honestly say that ImageFX comes quite close to several of these. BUGS The program is reasonably bug-free. I've noticed a few minor bugs, but nothing really serious. ImageFX seems very stable; it has never crashed on my machine, without being SERIOUSLY provoked. One "bug" is that small rendering screens sometimes look like complete garbage. This is actually a bug of the AGA chipset, which apparently doesn't handle arbitrary screen widths. The screens look right when moved horizontally. However, if the machine is not meant to handle such screens, ImageFX should not try to open them. SUPPORT Author Tom Krehbiel and co-author Kermit Royce Woodall are both on the Internet. Kermit frequently answers ImageFX questions in the USENET newsgroup comp.sys.amiga.graphics. I have e-mailed Tom Krehbiel with a question, and he answered me a few days later. Telephone and fax numbers to GVP Technical Support are given in the manual. I haven't tried these. CONCLUSIONS ImageFX is a very good program, quite possibly the best Amiga program I have ever used. On a scale from 1 to 10, I'd give it a 9: The program and the UI are a solid 10, but the manual is hardly worth more than 6. ImageFX is highly customizable, and it really utilizes the Amiga (multiple/split screens, HAM, multitasking-friendly, ARexx, etc). The ARexx interface is the best I've ever seen, and allows for creation of complete new image processing applications. The program is also very stable. In my opinion, ImageFX is well worth its price. COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1993 Per Espen Hagen. All rights reserved. The author can be contacted on e-mail as per.e.hagen@ffi.no (or peh@ffi.no if you're lazy...) @endnode @node P1-13 "UseNet Review - AmiCDROM v1.4" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Usenet Review: AmiCDROM v1.4 By Dylan McNamee %% %% (dylan@cs.washington.edu) %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% PRODUCT NAME AmiCDROM version 1.4 BRIEF DESCRIPTION This is the first freely distributable CD-ROM filesystem for the Amiga. It supports the ISO-9660 standard, the Rockridge extensions, and Macintosh HFS. It includes source in C. It works. The program is available on the Aminet ftp sites in the file /pub/aminet/disk/cdrom/AmiCDROM-1.4.lha. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Frank Munkert Address: Zum Froschbruecklein 5 90411 Nuernberg Germany E-mail: ln_fmu@pki-nbg.philips.de LIST PRICE Free. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE Any Amiga with a SCSI host adapter supporting "SCSI Direct." A SCSI CD-ROM drive. SOFTWARE Apparently works with AmigaDOS versions 1.3 through 2.1. (I tested it only on version 2.1.) COPY PROTECTION None. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 2500/30 Commodore 2091 SCSI controller Apple CD300 CD-ROM drive (see a previous comp.sys.amiga.reviews review of this excellent drive) Kickstart 2.04, Workbench 2.1 INSTALLATION For AmigaDOS versions previous to 2.1, installation consists of slightly modifying a supplied Mountlist template, adding it to your DEVS:Mountlist file, and then copying the cdrom-handler file to your L: directory. For DOS version 2.1 and above, installation consists of dragging the "CD0" icon into the DEVS:DosDrivers drawer, changing the icon's "info" to specify your CD-ROM's unit number, and copying cdrom-handler to L:. It would be nice to have an Installer script, for newer Amiga users; but even as is, installation is quite easy. REVIEW Once installed, AmiCDROM makes a CD-ROM drive accessible by an Amiga. Operation is transparent and fast. Once you mount the CD device (e.g., "mount CD0:"), discs inserted into the CD-ROM drive show up on the Amiga Workbench, accessible just like an ordinary read-only device. It works as advertised. I was able to read the following discs with AmiCDROM: Aminet CD-ROM (from Walnut Creek CD-ROM) Kodak's PhotoCD sampler (came with Apple CD300) Lost Treasures of Infocom 2 CD-ROM Lemmings CDTV Hypermedia's Fish Collection Various Mac HFS CD-ROMS Various MS-DOS & Windows CD-ROMS (junk I had lying around) DOCUMENTATION The archive comes with a "README" and a "doc" file. The doc file is slightly technical but very readable. A simple AmigaGuide help file would have been useful, but this is an excellent first effort. LIKES AND DISLIKES I am amazed by this program. It has always seemed strange that all the CD-ROM filesystems for the Amiga were commercial, but the situation has persisted for years, effectively adding $40 to $90 (US) to any CD-ROM purchase. This program eliminates that extra cost for most CD-ROM users. Even more amazing is that it comes with source code, virtually ensuring a continuing stream of improvements and support. Frank mentions in the documentation that Amiga protection bits are currently not supported, but will be added in a future version. In addition, the program does not support discs with the following features, simply because the author doesn't have access to discs with these attributes: - Interleaved mode (ISO) - Multi-disk volumes (ISO) - Multi-volume disks (ISO) - Logical blocks other than 2048 bytes (ISO) - Deep directory relocation (Rock Ridge) COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS The only other CD-ROM filesystem I have used is CDROM-FS, from Canadian Prototype Replicas. CDROM-FS supports one less filesystem (no HFS support) and the same set of CD-ROM drives. It has a bug which caused me to try AmiCDROM in the first place -- using "lha" to extract large archives directly from CD-ROM always hangs my Amiga. I haven't reported this bug to CPR, because I haven't been able to contact them. (I wrote a letter over a year ago, trying to get an updated version of the software, and never received a reply. My current version of CDROM-FS was updated by my dealer, after much hassle.) Aside from CPR's CDROM-FS bug, the products are quite similar, except for the following cosmetic differences: o CDROM-FS displays non-Amiga discs on Workbench with a fancy icon. AmiCDROM displays them with a generic disk icon. o CDROM-FS comes with an Installer script and AmigaGuide documentation, and AmiCDROM does not. o CDROM-FS comes with a program to control the playing of audio CD's. This program is much like Jukebox (available on the Aminet ftp sites) which I have found to be an excellent substitute. A bug in previous versions of AmiCDROM prevented audio CD programs from working, but it has been fixed. A previous version of AmiCDROM has been compared to other CD-ROM filesystems, and was found to be slower, due to lack of caching. The current version has added caching, but I haven't heard of any more recent benchmarks. BUGS I found no bugs. (One net reader reports some Enforcer hits, but hasn't been able to attribute them to AmiCDROM for sure.) VENDOR SUPPORT You get source code, and Frank's on the internet. Support just doesn't come better than that. In the past couple months, AmiCDROM has had three updates. CONCLUSIONS I'm amazed by this program. Out of nowhere, this program reduces the cost of almost every Amiga CD-ROM drive by $40. Frank should be thanked and commended for his efforts (I guess that's what I'm doing here...). Thanks Frank! I give it a hearty two thumbs up. On a scale of 1 to 5 shiny discs, I give AmiCDROM a solid 4.9. If it came with an Installer script and an AmigaGuide help file, this would raise my rating to 5. @endnode @node P3 "Dealer Directory" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Dealer Directory %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% 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 Comspec Communications Inc Serving your computing needs since 1976 74 Wingold Ave Toronto, Ontario Canada M6B 1P5 Computer Centre: (416) 785-8348 Service, Corporate & Educational Sales: (416) 785-3553 Fax: 416-785-3668 Internet: bryanf@comcorp.comspec.com bryanf@accesspt.north.net Computers International, Inc. 5415 Hixson Pike Chattanooga, TN 37343 VOICE: 615-843-0630 DataKompaniet ANS Pb 3187 Munkvoll N-7002 Trondheim Norway - Europe VOICE/FAX: 72 555 149 Internet: torrunes@idt.unit.no Digital Arts 122 West 6th Street Bloomington, IN 47404 VOICE: (812)330-0124 FAX: (812)330-0126 BIX: msears Finetastic Computers 721 Washington Street Norwood, MA 02062 VOICE: 617-762-4166 BBS: 617-769-3172 Fido: 1:101/322 Portal: FinetasticComputers Internet: FinetasticComputers@cup.portal.com HT Electronics 275 North Mathilda Avenue Sunnyvale, CA 94086 VOICE: 408-737-0900 FAX: 408-245-3109 Portal: HT Electronics Internet: HT Electronics@cup.portal.com Industrial Video, Inc. 1601 North Ridge Rd. Lorain, OH 44055 VOICE: 800-362-6150 216-233-4000 Internet: af741@cleveland.freenet.edu Contact: John Gray MicroSearch 9000 US 59 South, Suite 330 Houston, Texas VOICE: 713-988-2818 FAX: 713-995-4994 Mr. Hardware Computers P.O. Box 148 59 Storey Ave. Central Islip, NY 11722 VOICE: 516-234-8110 FAX: 516-234-8110 A.M.U.G. BBS: 516-234-6046 MusicMart: Media Sound & Vision 71 Wellington Road London, Ontario, Canada VOICE: 519-434-4162 FAX: 519-663-8074 BBS: 519-457-2986 FIDO: 1:221/125 AmigaNet: 40:550/1 MaxNet: 90:204/1 iNET: koops@gaul.csd.uwo.ca PSI Animations 17924 SW Pilkington Road Lake Oswego, OR 97035 VOICE: 503-624-8185 Internet: PSIANIM@agora.rain.com Software Plus Chicago 3100 W Peterson Avenue Chicago, Illinois VOICE: 312-338-6100 Wonder Computers Inc. 1315 Richmond Rd. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2B 8J7 Voice: 613-596-2542 Fax: 613-596-9349 BBS: 613-829-0909 (Dealers: To have your name added, please send Email!) @endnode @node P1-14 "The Grapevine" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% The Grapevine %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% - Detroit, Michigan ----------------- Okay, it's not computer news at all, but it's interesting. On January 3rd, 1994, Bob Lutz, President and CEO of Chrysler Corporation, announced that the Dodge Viper GTS Coupe will see production. The vehicle will be a 1996 model, and will not go into production until the first quarter of 1996. Marketing strategies and pricing have not been set, and dealers cannot accept orders at this time. Stay tuned for future announcements. @endnode @node P1-15 "Humor Department" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% The Humor Department %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% From the Internet. Anyone who has used one of the new PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) devices like the Apple Newton or Tandy Zoomer will appreciate this: Q: How many Newtons does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: Foux! There to eat lemons, axe gravy soup. [Editor's Note: Get it??] @endnode @node P2-3 "In Closing" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% _ _ __ ___ _ %% %% /\\ |\\ /| || // \ /\\ %% %% / \\ | \\ /|| ||(< __ / \\ %% %% /--- \\| \/ || || \\_||/--- \\ %% %% /______________________________\\ %% %% / \\ %% %% Amiga Report International Online Magazine %% %% January 14, 1994 ~ Issue No. 2.02 %% %% Copyright © 1994 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. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% @endnode @node P1 "Columns and Features" @toc "menu" @{" From the Editor's Desk " link P1-1} Saying it like it is! @{" Computer Product News " link P1-2} Product Announcements and Info @{" AR Online " link P1-3} The lines are buzzing! @{" CES Report " link P1-4} A look at the games @{" CES Report " link P1-5} 32/64-bit game platforms @{" CD32 at CES " link P1-6} CBM launches the new games console @{" A3000 Sparkle Defect " link P1-7} Problems with the A3000? @{" Lesser Known Amiga Models " link P1-8} A look at those that didn't make it @{" Programmers and Databases " link P1-9} You don't need them ..or do you? @{" The Emulation Rambler " link P1-10} Cyrix 486 speed tests @{" The Amiga on the InterNet " link P1-11} The IRC @{" UseNet Review " link P1-12} ImageFX v1.50 @{" UseNet Review " link P1-13} AmiCDROM v1.4 @{" The Grapevine " link P1-14} We heard it through the grapevine! @{" The Humor Department " link P1-15} 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" No files are available @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.fipnet.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 P2-1-15 "The Stygian Abyss" @toc "menu" * THE STYGIAN ABYSS BBS * 312-384-0616 14.4 USR Courier HST 312-384-6250 14.4 Supra V.32 bis (FREQ line) 312-384-0716 2400 USR Courier FIDONet-1:115/384.0 CLink-911:6200/2.0 NWNet-206:310/0.0--206:310/1.0 PhantomNet Central States Cooridinator-11:2115/0.0--11:2115/1.0 FaithNet Central States Cooridinator-700:6000/0.0--700:6000/1.0 AMINet Chicagoland HUB-559:2/5.0 Chicago, Illinois Over 4 GIGS of files I Over 3700 MODS I Over 120 On-Line Games Tons of digitized sounds I Over 15,000 GIFS Supporting: Amiga I IBM I Macintosh I C=64/128 SIR SAMMY-SysOp Enter.......If you dare!! @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