@database "ar224.guide" @Node MAIN "Amiga Report Online Magazine #2.25 -- August 22, 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 Biweekly Source for Amiga Information." Copyright 1994 Skynet Publications All Rights Reserved // %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%//%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% August 22, 1994 \\// Issue No. 2.25 %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% @endnode @node "menu" "Amiga Report Main Menu" @toc "menu" @{" Columns and Features " link P1} News, Reviews, and More! @{" About AMIGA REPORT " link P2} Contact information and copyrights @{" Dealer Directory " link P3} Amiga Dealer Addresses and Numbers @{" Commercial Online Services " link P4} Sign-Up Information @{" FTP Announcements " link P5} New Files and Announcements @{" AR Distribution Sites " link P2-1} Where to get AMIGA REPORT ______________________________________________ // | | // %%%%%%%%//%%%%%| Amiga Report International Online Magazine |%%%%%%%//%%%%% %% \\// | Issue No. 2.25 August 22, 1994 | \\// %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%| "Your Biweekly Source for Amiga Information" |%%%%%%%%%%%%%% |______________________________________________| c.s.a.editor.desk Amiga News Dealer Directory Distribution BBS's Product Announcements Reader Mail Emulation Rambler AR Contest! AR Reader Survey AR Wants You! SPECIAL FEATURES Important Notes for 2.x -> 3.1 Upgraders ....................Dan Barrett CSAReview: Greek Workbench ...........................Georgios Tsoukalas CSAReview: D.A.S.MP 3.2a ..............................Andreas Jelvemark Review: Daewoo 15" monitor ..................................Calum Tsang Review: CD Exchange Volume 1 ..............................Jason Compton Review: Micro R+D CD-ROM Volume 1 .........................Jason Compton ShaREview: Pete W. Storonskij's works .....................Jason Compton D.A.S.MP Registration Competition ..........................Pauli Porkka Interview: Jim Carey .................................Douglas Nakakihara NewTek/Commodore News ................................Douglas Nakakihara %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% @{" X-NET " link P4-6} @{" DELPHI " link P4-1} @{" PORTAL " link P4-2} @{" FIDO " link P2-1} @{" INTERNET " link P4-5} %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% @endnode @node P1-1 "compt.sys.editor.desk" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% compt.sys.editor.desk by @{" Jason Compton " link P8-1} %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Welcome back to Amiga Report! Again, thanks to everyone who has stuck with us through this bizarre summer. I'd like to announce a few things. First, Michael Wolf joins AR as its new European Editor, and Alan Buxey has the newly-created honor of being AR's UK Correspondent. Hopefully, the pair will get cracking and write something relatively soon. Once more, the Amiga community sits around waiting. It's really getting a bit infuriating. David Pleasance continues to make himself the most-talked about man in the Amiga community, taking the top spot previously shared between Irving "Sold a bunch of CD32's at $90 apiece because they were his loan payment" Gould and Medhi "Why are you calling me, you idiot?" Ali. Most of the talk is either rehashes of his recent statements (he sent a letter to dealers outlining his plans) and his interview in the latest Amazing Computing. The rest tends to be speculation, and while not all of it is positive, the "David Pleasance wouldn't know the truth if it bit him on the ass" comments have subsided. In an attempt to stay on top of the news, this week's AR contains his most recent letter printed in CU Amiga, in which he tries to dispel the rumors that his plans included the death of the 4000 and the holdup of future development. Amazing Computing's interview pulls out some rather interesting points... from the way the conversation went, Pleasance sounded (to me) as though he would be happy as can be if he could do great business in the UK alone...just about every reference to North America had to be dragged out by the interviewer, AC Editor Don Hicks. Of course, all of this is meaningless if Pleasance and crew are not successful. Who does that leave? By most accounts, Creative Equipment, Samsung, and Amstrad. Still no word from Samsung or Amstrad, and CEI is still serious and is waiting for more word from the liquidators. Amiga Report will do its utmost in the upcoming weeks to secure and distribute information to you. In the meantime, it's worth mentioning that AC plans to interview other interested parties in the Commodore saga in upcoming issues. However, let's pretend for the moment that the Pleasance/Proudfoot/ other unnamed associates buyout goes through. Pleasance has made it rather clear that the UK will be the center of virtually everything except R&D (but WILL be the center of production). What has not been made clear is exactly how vigorously the other markets of the world will be explored. At times, Pleasance seems to communicate that if he can sell his entire production capacity in the UK, he will do so with no second thoughts. This is unacceptable. I suggest that anyone with ANY sort of contact with Commodore UK, Pleasance, Proudfoot, CEI, Samsung, Amstrad, or even can write to a magazine make it VERY clear to ANY interested party that the Amiga community has suffered through selective and/or widespread neglect for long enough and that it will not be tolerated under any new regime. Better to kill us quickly. Enjoy the magazine, and try not to get too upset. @endnode %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% The Amiga Report Staff %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% @node P8-1 "Editor" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% EDITOR %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Jason Compton Internet: jcompton@bbs.xnet.com FAX: 708-741-0689 @endnode endnode @node P8-2 "Assistant Editor" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% ASSISTANT EDITOR %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Robert Niles Portal: RNiles FidoNet: 1:3407/103 Internet: rniles@hebron.connected.com Fax: 509-248-5645 US Mail: P.O. Box 8041 Yakima, Wa 98908 @endnode @node P8-3 "European Editor" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% EUROPEAN EDITOR %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Michael Wolf Internet: MikeWolf@bonebag.tynet.sub.org @endnode @node P8-4 "Contributing Editor" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% CONTIBUTING EDITOR %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% David Tiberio Internet: dtiberio@libserv1.ic.sunysb.edu @endnode @node P4-5 "Amiga Report Mailing List" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Amiga Report Maillist List, the WWW, Aminet, and UUdecoding %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% AR Mailing List ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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 listserv@bbs.xnet.com and in the body of the message put: ADD armag ie: ADD rniles@goofy.com armag 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. Joining the Amiga Report Coverdisk list is just as easy, but REQUIRES that your mail site be able to handle messages in excess of 600k. Place the following in the body of a message to listserv@bbs.xnet.com: ADD ardisk ie: ADD rniles@goofy.com ardisk Many thanks to X-Net Information Systems for setting this service up for us! ** 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! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ World Wide Web ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AR can also be read with Mosaic (in either AmigaGuide or html form). Reading AmigaReport with Mosaic removes the necessity to download it. It can also be read using programs found in UNIX sites such as LYNX. Simply tell Mosaic to open the following URL: http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/Web/People/mjw/Computer/Amiga/AR/MainPage.html Mosaic for the Amiga can be found on Aminet in directory comm/net, or (using anonymous ftp) on max.physics.sunysb.edu Mosaic for X, Macintosh(tm) and Microsoft Windows(tm) can be found on ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Aminet ~~~~~~ To get Amiga Report from Aminet, simply FTP to any Aminet site, CD to docs/mags. All the back issues are located there as well. (ftp.cdrom.com or ftp.wustl.edu are two sites) UUEncoding/Decoding (thanks to Bob Tomasevich for the quick tutorial) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ What is uuencoding and uudecoding? ---------------------------------- uuencoding is converting a binary file into text (ASCII) which can be sent through mail or Usenet. uudecoding is reversing the process (e.g. converting the file back to binary). Why would I want to do this? ---------------------------- You have to send a binary file to a user who does not have FTP access, or the user is too lazy to FTP the file. What is the normal procedure? ----------------------------- 1. Convert the binary file into ASCII, using uuencode. 2. Send the file, through email, to the user. 3. The person on the receiving end gets the email, which may be split into parts. If the email is split into parts, the parts must be combined, in the order received, into one file. 4. Receiving person converts the file back into binary, using uudecode. What does a uuencoded file look like? ------------------------------------- The start always has: begin 644 So, for the file happy-happy-joy-joy.txt, it would look like: begin 644 happy-happy-joy-joy.txt The encoded file begins right after: M1TE&.#=A@`+@`9<````$`*QB15=2.+&/@R(Y)XM8.=J]H+*%7BL6#8]F6EP_] M*$=E5"L?L-Z8A-:#60\@$,9P27-4-YB#;4HY)U!L9KZNE\O"O["#;8]82SDF> M&[%J4FI',.&:E`48#="4@SE41M61(`)N(`-^(`1.($5>($9N($=^($A.((E>((IN((M^((Q.(,U>(,YN(,]^(-!+ &V"\"`@`[& `` end <-- the end of the encoded file size 151341 <-- size of the original file So, how would I do this on the Amiga? ------------------------------------- There are many uuencode/decode variants out there, but most usually have kept the old UNIX command line, which can be confusing to novices, or, require you to remove all mail headers and other, non-uuencoded text. Luckily, Asher Feldman took the time to write UUxt. What is UUxT? ------------- It is a program which performs both the uuencode/decode operations in one executable, AND, can also pack/unpack LhA archives. Tell me more. ------------- The UUxT archive contains UUxT, the CLI version, and UUxtGUI, the Workbench interface. I will give a short summary of how to use both. Detailed instructions are included in the UUxT archive. CLI Version: ------------ Running UUxT without any options gives the following: UUxT Version 2.1a Copyright (c)1993 Asher Feldman USAGE: UUxT [option] [archive name] options: a - encode l - LhAencode x - decode u - LhAdecode showing the format of the command line and the valid options. Some example command lines: 1. Normal encoding - UUxt a filename.uue filename-to-archive 2. Normal decoding - UUxt x filename.uue 3. LhA archiving and encoding - UUxT l filename.uue filename.lha file1 file2 ... 4. Decoding and LhA unarchiving - UUxT u filename.uue For LhA encoding and decoding, you will need LhA by Stefan Boberg. Workbench (GUI) Version: ------------------------ Below is a ASCII rendition of the UUxT-GUI window (from UUxtGUI doc): ____________________________________________________________ |+| UUxT-GUI Frontend v1.0 (c)1993 Asher Feldman | +------------------------------------------------------------+ | ______________________ ______________________ | | |InFile | | |OutFile| | | | +-------+--------------+ +-------+--------------+ | | (1) (2) (3) (4) | | ____________ _____________ | | Operation |@| Decode | Lha Name | | | | +-+----------+ +-------------+ | | (5) (6) | | _________ | | | START | | | +---------+ | | (7) | +------------------------------------------------------------+ (1) Clicking on this brings up a requester to select the file you want to perform the operation shown in gadget (5). (2) You can manually type here the filename of the file affected by the operation indicated in gadget (5). (3) Used only for encoding, brings up a requester to select where the encoded file should go. Selecting an existing file will cause the existing file to be replaced by the encoded file. You can also use this requester to create directories. (4) You can manually type the filename of the file to be the encoded file. (5) The operation to perform on file shown in (2). The operations are the four provided by UUxT (uuencode/uudecode/LhAEncode/LhADecode). (6) The name of the archive created with the LhAEncode option. Ignored when any other operation is selected. (7) Does the encode/decode/LhAEncode/LhADecode and pops up a requester indicating if the operation was successful or not. I need this! Where can I get it? --------------------------------- If you use the Internet from a local BBS, you may find it there. If not you can FTP it from wuarchive.wustl.edu, in the directory pub/aminet/arc/UUxT.lha It should also be on the Aminet mirrors. Thanks for the explanation! How can I reach you if I have questions? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Internet: bob.tomasevich@nezuld.com bobt@ais.net @endnode @node P1-2 "Amiga News" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Amiga News %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Late-Breaking News! Commodore US Liquidation Sale! --------------------------------------------------- Thursday, September 8, at 10 AM, liquidation will commence on Commodore US. For a free brochure, contact Ross-Dove Co., Inc. at: 800-892-6182 voice 617-938-7400 fax A message from Amiga World's editor: ------------------------------------ August 16. No Commodore Deal Yet. While rumors abound that David Pleasance's Commodore UK Management Buy-out was a done deal, that's not the case. We talked with Pleasance last night in London, and he doesn't expect a decision until the end of the first week of September. His bid is in, his financial backing is in order, and he makes his final presentation this week in the US before the liquidators and Commodore's creditors. He is, however, very confident that his bid will carry a lot of weight because it is for the entire company and product line--not solely for the technology, or a portion of the inventory, or for part of the operation. However, CEI, Samsung, Philips, and maybe one or two others are still in the picture, so it will be a few more weeks before any decision is made. On another matter: AmigaWorld has taken some hits lately because the size of the magazine has shrunk over the last few issues. No kidding? Everyone--most notably the developers and vendors who advertise in our pages--is stressed out over the Commodore liquidation. Most are holding their wallets pretty tight and reluctant to invest their advertising dollars until this situation gets resolved. When advertising dwindle, so do the editorial pages. Overspending your budget for three or four issues in a row during times like these is akin to financial suicide. Since AmigaWorld plans to be around for a good long while, we have to avoid those kinds of mistakes. Nobody, including us, likes to be in this position--but if you want to be around in the long run, you have to endure the lean times with the fat. When the dust settles and things start moving again in the Amiga market, we'll be able to quickly beef up the size of the book. Lets hope Mr. Pleasance or another pro-Amiga group like his gets things rolling again soon. When that happens, AmigaWorld is committed to help the new owners jumpstart the process. Dan Sullivan Editor-in-Chief -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Three-Way Merger Creates Desktop Video "Super Company" August 17th, Sacramento, CA - A merger between three desktop video pioneers was announced today. The companies are Digital Creations, Progressive Image Technology, and a group of eight senior staff members who left Video Toaster maker NewTek earlier this year. Working seperately the three groups launched and dominated the successful desktop video market on the Amiga computer. By joining forces the companies have set their sights on redefining the desktop video market for PC compatible computers. The new company, Play Incorporated,will be headed by Mike Moore as Chairman, Paul Montgomery, as President, and John Botteri, as CEO. "Between the three groups we've shipped over 50 products" said Botteri, "Each of us has dominated in our own area: hardware, software, and marketing. Together, we will be the leader in PC video." The Progressive Image Technology team, led by Mike Moore and including former Grass Valley Group engineering talent, began creating hardware for personal computer in 1978. Progressive has been a pioneer in computer video since the early eighties when they engineered desktop video products for both IBM and Apple. Since then Progressive has designed many successful video peripherals including video effects hardware, overlay cards, genlocks, digitizers, and time base correctors. Digital Creations, headed by John Botteri, has been a leader in video applications on the Amiga since 1986. In addition to marketing and writing the applications software for all of Progressive's desktop video products, Digital Creations developed three breakthrough video paint systems. Exploiting the expertise in real-time graphics, Digital also created several award-winning entertainment titles for Electronic Arts. The group from NewTek includes former Vice-President Paul Montgomery as well as NewTek's former directors of sales, marketing, and software development. The group also includes key software engineers from the Emmy-award winning Toaster team and Kiki Stockhammer, the industry's best-known spokesperson. "Helping create the Video Toaster and with it the desktop video industry, was a fantastic seven year adventure," commented Montgomery, "Now we've found the perfect partners to take the desktop video revolution to the next level". Play is owned entirely by its employees and is debt-free. The new company is based in Sacramento, California and will begin shipping the first of its PC video products within 90 days. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And, it wouldn't quite be an Amiga magazine these days without the obligatory message from Mr. Pleasance. Reprinted from CU Amiga. COMMODORE WRITES As you might have gathered, things have been pretty hectic here recently. In case you've been living on Mars for the last few weeks and havenn't heard, Colin Proudfoot and myself are heading up a team busy working on a management buy-out of Commodore. If we succeed, and I'm very confident that we will, this means that there will be a new, UK-based team manufacturing and selling the Amiga. We'll be independent - ie no American parent - and we'll be benefiting from investment from some of the UK's biggest financial institutions. Why am I confident we'll succeed? Well, we've managed to satisfy the liquidators of Commodore International that we've got financial support. And now they've got to make up their minds whether to recommend our bid or someone else's. But we're pretty sure they'll go with us. Either way, we should know by the end of August. Good news so far. But: Can we supply Amigas in time for Christmas? It will be tight, for sure. But if our bid is successful, we'll be manufacturing in the UK which means we can press the button immediately we know we've won the bid. And because we haven't got to ship product halfway round the world anymore, we are confident in getting products to the shops just at the right time to take advantage of the expected high level of demand that Christmas promises. What about software? Software publishers never release much at this time of year which is traditionally quiet for the games business. But they've been amazingly supportive of the management buyout (MBO) and are even more supportive of the Amiga 1200 and CD32. They know it's a big business. And they'll be launching plenty of new titles in the run up to Christmas. I expect the first announcements to be made at the ECTS trade show in early September. What about the high-end Amigas? Here the message is 'don't believe everything you hear'. The MBO team is 100 percent committed to the Amiga 4000. It's far and away the best machine for specialist users and knocks spots off the competition as a multimedia platform. PLUS, it's a really low-cost development platform - particularly for CD32 titles. So not only will we be pushing it very hard, we'll be devoting plenty of R&D resources to growing this end of our range. Which brings me on to: Future products - will there be any? We don't need telling you that without R&D and new products coming downstream there isn't a long-term future for the business. Lew Eggebrecht - the guy who's been responsible for most of the Amiga's recent technological strides - has reconfirmed that a team of experienced Amiga engineers based in the states have some wonderful new products at various stages of development. You will not be disappointed. Will we have enough money to promote the Amiga range? Again, we know that all this is no good if no one knows what's going on. So we've ensured that we've built a comprehensive marketing budget into the plans for new business. That means you'll be seeing us at three shows between now and Christmas: Live '94 at Earls Court in September, The Motor Show at the NEC in Birmingham in October and last, but certainly not least, at the European World of Amiga at Wembley in November. Plus, we'll be advertising as usual and making sure you've all got plenty of chances to win equipment and software in the press and TV. I hope I've given you a brief look into what we're planning. Of course, I really hope that the MBO succeeds and that we're around running the new company and making sure the Amiga continues to be the only choice for right thinking people everywhere. But rest assured. Even in the extremely unlikely event that we don't pull it off and Commodore ceases to exist, the Amiga won't die - especially with people like you to support it. It's bigger than Commodore and bigger than any new company we run. There are a lot of you out there. About five million loyal and devoted fans. And there are a lot of Amiga titles - about 4,000. And there are a lot of Amiga-specific magazines - about 600,000 copies are sold a month. And that doesn't include all the manufacturers of peripherals, the servicing agents and so on. It's a huge industry. And it will go on regardless. But you can't get rid of me that easily- I'm confident that I'll be celebrating when I write again in September. Wish us luck! @endnode @node P1-14 "CSAReview: Greek Workbench" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% CSAReview: Greek Workbench By: Georgios Tsoukalas %% %% u8989370@aix00.csd.unsw.oz.au %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% PRODUCT NAME "Greek Workbench" (The actual product name is in Greek.) BRIEF DESCRIPTION WorkBench 2.1 plus all extensions such that any Workbench supporting locale is totally localized in Greek. A lot of supporting tools. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: AC Software Engineering Author: Kostas Tsaousis Address: Themistokleous 84B Nikaia 184 52 Athens GREECE Telephone: 4962494 LIST PRICE 8.000 drx. (Greek currency) I bought it on Jan 84, so pricing might have changed. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE Kickstart 37.175+ SOFTWARE None (Other than WorkBench 2.04 or above that is expected to come with your machine.) COPY PROTECTION Many tools have a popup window that closes automatically after any action occurs in the Workbench. The window includes the particulars of the purchaser. The executables seem to be serialized (multiple serial numbers). Legal action will be taken against anybody pirating!! The program installs on a hard drive. To install you follow the same process as installing any Amiga operating system (consult your original OS manual) I rate the protection as annoying, although it's only for some tools. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 3000/25, 6 MB Fast RAM, 2 MB Chip RAM. 1 internal 1.76 HD floppy Quantum 240 meg, Maxtor 120 Meg, Quantum 52 Meg internal hard drives. Standard VGA monitor. AmigaDOS 2.04 (Upgraded to 2.1 with this product) AmigaDOS 3.1 (Which I switch to on startup. 3.1 being the default) Amiga 500, 4.5 MB Fast RAM, 0.5 MB Chip RAM. 1 internal 880K floppy. Quantum 40 MB internal hard drive. GVP Series II controller AmigaDOS 2.05 (Upped to 2.1) INSTALLATION As part of the program is the actual WorkBench 2.1, it installs exactly as Commodore WorkBench 2.1 is installed. REVIEW This product comes in two forms. One is Greek WorkBench 2.1, which is an eight disk set, and the other a WB 3.0, which is a four disk set. WorkBench 2.1 is a complete Workbench and is sold to those that want to upgrade the Workbench to 2.1 as well as have the Greek extra tools. The WorkBench 3.0 is a four disk set that appears to be only the extensions to WB 3.0. It is expected that you have WorkBench 3.0 to start with. There is no difference between the two products. It seems to be a subset of the 2.1 disks. (WB 3.0 specific files included in the 2.1 release.) The reason I wanted this product is that I wanted to find out how the Greek character set was arranged on the Greek Workbench, as well as the Greek versions of the standard Amiga fonts. I got much more than I bargained for. Even though I mostly use 3.1, the 2.1 version works well under 3.1. Given there are two major components to this product I will concentrate only on the Greek extension rather than Workbench 2.1. All that I will say about WorkBench 2.1 is that it introduces locale. It allows you to make your Amiga environment use any language you wish (and is supported). The only other point to note is the inclusion of the narrator device and the speak program in this version. It appears to be the latest, and the last version included in any Workbench. It looks much nicer than the one included in WB 2.04 having only one window to type in the spoken words. It appears that normal WB 2.1 didn't even include a narrator device. The extra diskettes that have Greek names include updates to the Workbench that can be installed in both WB 2.1 and 3.1. They are a variety of tools. After the full installation, all menus appear in Greek. The error command in the Shell, the requesters, and virtually everything on the Workbench is totally in Greek. It appears to be a very detailed job. It's an unfamiliar environment as there is an argument among all non-English speaking countries: should technical terms be translated or transliterated? A lot of terms tend to be very long, as it seems a direct translation ends up being a long word compared to the familiar few letter words in English. To me the locale was a novelty that wore off pretty quick. I was not disappointed though as that's not what I wanted from the package, and English is more natural to me when it comes to technical terms. There are many other tools that assist in using the Greek language in conjunction with the English language. First, note the peculiarity of the Greek language. The Greek character set is almost totally different from the English one. As a result, the current solution for using Greek was to use a Symbol font. The problem with that was that I wanted accents, as well as the fact the font selection was limited. I wanted to swap from English to Greek the way the Macintosh achieves it. That is by pressing Command-Space you can flick between Greek <-> English keyboard. In the Amigas case, with the use of a commodity, Amiga-space-bar achieves the same result. The Greek characters are encoded in the high 128 positions of the ASCI set. There are also other commodities that configure the Amiga depending on what keyboard is active. Menu keys are mapped such that while in Greek mode, all keyboard short-cuts are still available. For example, typing Amiga-C would copy a selected item to the clipboard. While the Greek keyboard is active, what you would actually be pressing is Amiga-Psi, a Greek character. It all works great though. It's supported by all programs; i.e., PageStream and excellence! In my WBStartup I have: MenuMapSwapper, so that short-cut keys are swapped. KeyMapSwapper, so that the KeyMap is swapped. MenuKeySwapper, so that menu keys are swapped. MenumapAnalyser, a tool that shows the complete character set such that any character can be selected and the key combination to get to it is shown. In the package are many printer drivers. They are the same Amiga printer drives but they include an Elot standard as that appears to be the IBM standard character set for Greek printers. I am not sure if this is part of the AmigaDOS 2.1 package in Greece or the Software Engineering package. Also included is a program that can convert documents from different character arrangements that are written in Greek. Along with it are included many different filters. Another program converts file names written in Greek by another standard to the current one. Looking into my L:filesystem_transl/ directory, I found the following extra files among the standard Amiga files. I don't know how to use them other than they are used by CrossDOS and are selectable by a configuration screen in CrossDOS. GrIBM.crossdos GrMAC.crossdos GrWindows.crossdos The standard bitmap fonts like topazgr, perlgr, rubygr and the others have Greek characters in the high ASCI 128 positions, otherwise they are the standard Amiga fonts. With the use of the FF program the system is patched such that all programs that insist on using topaz can use the Greek font topazgr in them. Also included are the following fonts for popular application programs: dpaint.font (Deluxepaint 4) Scala.font (Scala) SWScrFontA (FinalCopy) SWScrFontB (FinalCopy) Also included are two Compugraphic fonts, CSTimesGR and CSTimesTrimvirateGR. They are not as good quality as the original CSTimes and CSTriumvirate. DOCUMENTATION The documentation is neat, written in Greek from cover to cover. I didn't get the WorkBench 2.1, manuals but the WorkBench 2.1 software is included with the permission of Commodore Greece. There is no index but there are only 29 pages I hardly read. I preferred to work my way through it as I am familiar with Workbench. LIKES It's a great value for money. Considering the small market, a lot of professional effort has gone into the design of the product. Tools conform to the style guide. The labels and the manual are nice. There are many different tools in it. DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS The protection ... oh that protection. Upon start-up I get a small window opening up noting my name and passport number. The reason being that is they wanted my ID number to serialize my copy, I only had a passport number. Well I needed it, I gave it to them :-) But the window vanishes immediately. Greek locale and the keyboard should have been supplied by Commodore Greece. As the equivalent is done so by Macintosh Greece for free. I have no complaints though as it was good value for money. A little complaint is the box it comes in. It's just a VHS video casing. It sort of loses some of the professional look it deserves. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS I have not used and I don't know of any other such product on the Amiga. Although there should be for other languages. On the Macintosh computer I have used a patch that swaps the keyboard and works with Amax II very well. I know of a Greek desktop for the Macintosh (I am comparing Greek computer interfaces here) It should work just as well although I don't think it has the power of local. There also exists a Greek Windows 3.1. BUGS None found. Only one not directly related with the product. The FF program included (and available in PD) that patches the system to change the original topaz font does not work in 3.1. VENDOR SUPPORT I have had no reason to contact the vendor. It's a long distance call to Greece which I don't think I will be doing. I have had no need, though. WARRANTY 30 days on the magnetic media. CONCLUSIONS I am very impressed by this product. It does much more than I wanted so I am pleased. I give it a rating to 4 out of 5. An extra 1/2 would be given if it wasn't for the copy protection. I do understand it though as Greece is quite notorious for piracy. COPYRIGHT NOTICE This review is copyright such that Dan Barrett the Moderator can do as he pleases. My guess is PD but he can make money out of it if he wishes. :-) (Good luck Dan) [MODERATOR'S NOTE: I designate this review as freely distributable under the distribution conditions found in the "Introduction to comp.sys.amiga.reviews" article posted monthly in this newsgroup. - Dan] @endnode @node P1-15 "Monitor review: Daewoo 15 inch flatscreen SVGA" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Monitor Review: Daewoo 15 inch SVGA By: Calum Tsang %% %% Another alternative for Amigans tsangC@io.org %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% [Hey kids, I finally upgraded my aging 2000HD to a nice fast 3000/25. In purchasing this new machine, I also had to find a monitor. From the incredible choice in Toronto, I personally feel the CMC-1501 is the best value for your Amiga spending dollar. But don't take my word for it, check it out for yourself. I assume no responsibility for people buying a monitor they themselves don't like.] Introduction: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Looking for a monitor is downright annoying. Commodore has a few, of decent quality, but there is such variety in the PC SVGA market. Why not buy a monitor made for a PC? Visiting the electronic superstores and the like, there are a multitude of choices. There's quite a range: Cheap ones from strange manufacturers whose names you can't pronounce, and nice ones from big names like NEC and Sony. Feature for feature, price for price, the Daewoo 15" is difficult to beat. I intended to use the monitor for a flickerfixed 3000. Note the warning about EGS type graphic boards at the end of this article. In the last month or so, DayTek Canada, the Canadian branch of Daewoo, has introduced the Daytek 1501, which also has the added benefit of the EPA's EnergyStar compliancy. This monitor is perfect for owners of A3000's, A2320 deinterlacers, and EGS boards. Specifications: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Daewoo 15" (260x190mm) FlatScreen Monitor MPR II Emission Compliant AntiGlare Etched Analog RGB Type (SVGA) 50-90Hz vertical scan rate 31-60KHz horizontal scan rate 1024x768NI maximum resolution Price: ~~~~~~ $490-500 Canadian Platforms Used for Testing: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Commodore Amiga 3000/25 68030-25 / ECS Denise, Agnus and Amber 4 MB of RAM / 52 MB HD Kickstart 2.04 / 2.1 Onboard deinterlacer (A2320 Type) A2300 NTSC Genlock A2088 XT Bridgeboard Supra SupraRAM 2000/2 It Weighs A Ton and Looks Ugly: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The first thing I noticed about all the Daewoo SVGA monitors is that they all look ugly. If you've seen the new IBM monitors with the wide bezel or the new NEC Multisync 3GFx's, it's very much like that. The colour is that olivy-white complexion, like Brent Spiner's face in Star Trek. The monitor also is quite large and heavy-it is noticeably more volumous than my original 1084S or 14" SVGA monitor. This is most likely due to the added 15" dimension. It looks decent ontop of my 3000, but seems more styled to fit a PC. A store demo unit ontop of a IBM ValuePoint, confirmed this. It's tolerable though, and the monitor itself is near perfect. I wish clone and other less well known companies would spend the money to design nice cases for their products-it would make them much more attractive to potential buyers. The Manual: ~~~~~~~~~~~ The manual, a torrid 18 page affair, is filled with wonderful English like this: "2) The Way of Adjustment When you want to adjust the screen, please Refer to No.1-No.12 of ninth and tenth page." You'd figure a nice monitor made in Korea by a multinational corporation should at least be able to pay a nice guy to write a proper manual that one can read through without laughing. The content of the manual, grammar aside, is quite good. It guides you through attaching, configuring and installing the monitor. Plenty of useful specifications are availible for tinkerers. Cute little cartoons in the front to amuse you about safety precautions. Installation: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A detachable three prong machine type power cord was supplied as was a fixed 15 pin DB-15HD VGA connector. The VGA connector plugged into the A3000's Deinterlacer out port, and was screwed in place. The monitor was placed on top of the 3000's case. The weight did not pose a major problem, but one should remember to keep the case tightly screwed on to maintain rigidity. On boot up, via the ScreenMode pref panel, the A3000 was set to NTSC:HiResInterLaced (640x400) and the Overscan was adjusted to fit as large as possible. Shifting and enlarging of the image was handled through the CMC-1501BA's front panel digital controls. Other controls include Brightness, Contrast, and Pincushion. The Factory Reset button is right next to the control Select button, which made it easily pressed during mode setting. Quite annoying, since I pressed it at least three times by accident during setup. Some strange lines, were noticed during configuration. They flew across the screen and wrapped around. Changing the Overscan prefs removed them. However, they appeared later on in other screen modes. Removal of the A2300 Genlock remedied this problem. Genlocks tend to affect the synchronization of any Amiga system. In general, installation and configuration of the monitor was simple and quite easy. Safety and Health: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Daewoo 15" complies with Swedish government MPR-II regulations. It's low radiation, which supposedly means you won't die of some strange cancer or stop having children. Seriously, because of the larger screen size, I find myself less inclined to look closer at the monitor, which means less radiation hits me when I'm near the screen in the first place. The display is rather pleasing and doesn't hurt my eyes. At least not yet. Performance and Image Quality: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The picture quality is excellent. Images are very bright and contrast well on this monitor. The maximum resolution I can pull without touching the top line of overscan screen is 720x480 Interlaced (via the OverScan Prefs). The display doesn't seem as detailed as the Sony Trinitron tubes I've seen attached to Macintoshes, but that's mainly because the Mac doesn't use a four colour desktop. Running PC Emulation via AmigaJanus showed no problems, and neither did any other software. Certain dot patterns, like the ones used by Workbench's WBPattern, which have repetition of dots in a checkboard pattern, cause moire lines. This is common to all monitors, and lines aside, did not affect the flicker free output. Moire patterns did not show up in dithering screens either. Only in the repetitious ones. Text is visible and crisp at all resolutions. Publishing and graphic applications worked extremely well with the Daewoo and fonts and drawings were clean and clear. The added physical screen size makes looking at your pages easier. Digitized graphics from paint programs were clean. Good colour reproduction and uniform brightness. One unique aspect was the warmth of certain colours, much like the familiar Commodore 1084S line. The red and oranges come out vibrant, instead of the pale look of other VGA type monitors. The best advice I can give you, though, is to visit a dealer and examine the monitor yourself. Bring your Amiga there too, and show typical images that you will be working on, or run applications you frequently use during the course of a day. Don't let them show some dumb pictures of smiling women, monkeys and bowls of fruit-make sure they will let you see real world displays, which is what you're paying for. Also remember to bring a test pattern of fine lines and a grid to test for pincushioning and proper alignment. Modes, Modes, Modes: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NTSC and PAL running through the Deinterlacer ran perfectly, since the Daewoo can sync to 50 Hz and 60 Hz vertical for these two modes. With the deinterlacer disabled, the 15.75 KHz signal scattered the display-the monitor will not sync down to 15.75 KHz horizontal for normal NTSC displays. This means it is not ideal for A500, 600, 1200, 2000 and 4000 users without A2320 boards or EGS boards. Any 15 KHz mode was converted via the deinterlacer on, and any 31 KHz mode was passed through. Pure 15 KHz screen modes from standard Amigas without deinterlacers will not work with the Daewoo. 31 KHz modes like MultiScan:Productivity, Euro:36 and DoubleNTSC/PAL worked perfectly, and the Daewoo quickly resynced to each one as modes were switched. The digital controls made it easy to readjust the display for each mode. The only mode that would not run was Super72, the 800x600 mode, which requires a monitor to sync at 24 KHz. The deinterlacer could not/will not convert a 24 Khz signal into 31 KHz, only 15 KHz ones. It just passed it through, and the Daewoo will not scan so low. The lack of Super72 was not a big loss, since the Overscan NTSC:HiResLaced comes very close to matching the same resolution. Stuff I Like About This Monitor: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Big 15" Screen -I can see my work from across the room. No squinting. Image Quality -A good solid display. Uniform colour reproduction. Digital Controls -Big plus. Very friendly. Very convenient. and Memory Emission Control -I feel safer in front of this thing. It may not be worth anything, but at least I can be comforted with the label on the front, proclaiming it's low radiation. Pincushioning Control -Very professional feature. A good idea too, even on a flat screen. Flat Screen -Very little glare on the face of the monitor. Tilt and Swivel Base -Easy to move and reposition monitor. Stuff I Don't Like About This Monitor: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SVGA Sync Only -The monitor doesn't sync down to 15 KHz, the optimum for any Amiga. However, A3000 users won't care, and neither will graphic board owners. This is not Daewoo's fault-the market doesn't need a 15 Khz scan monitor. Ugly Design -Compared to Sony's or Apple's designs, the Daewoo is ugly. But who cares, it's the display that counts. Warranty -Only a year, and limited. This is the norm for all monitors, except the NEC MultiSync at 3 years. Slow Warm-Up -The Daewoo takes a while to come to full brightness. It's colours are all screwed up (far too yellow and lacking in contrast) until it warms up. This takes about five seconds or so. A Warning: ~~~~~~~~~~ The CMC-1501BA has trouble with my dealer's EGS type graphic boards. It's specifications seem to be perfect for one, but this monitor has been found incompatible with GVP's EGS Spectrum and other cards. The 17" Daewoo, seems to work perfectly with the EGS Spectrum and has a rock solid, high quality display. Also, ICD's AdFFV board seems to have trouble as well. Make sure you test your system out before buying. Bring your Amiga to the store and test it with the monitor. Actually after we found this monitor to be defective (read below), it might have been that one particular unit. Nonetheless, test before you buy. Oh no! I'm a chair! Have a nice umbrella! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A week and a half after my Daewoo was connected to the Amiga 3000, it fried. Yes, big frying. Like zzzt! sounds. It was returned to the shop which I purchased it at and sent to DayTek Canada, where it staed for over a month. While at the Comdex Canada 94 trade show, I spoke with a manager of DayTek casually. He said that the usual turnaround time is about a week. DayTek sent me a brand new unit and the new unit is working perfectly. Conclusion: ~~~~~~~~~~~ The Daewoo CMC-1501BA is a superb monitor for A3000 users, as well as anyone else who needs a high resolution graphic display. It has great specs for sync and resolution, and it's performance is near perfect. The digital controls are fun and useful, with the small annoyance of the Reset button being next to the Select button. Overall, it's a fine monitor. By the way, Daewoo is pronounced Day-woo. @endnode @node P1-16 "Review: CD Exchange Volume 1" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Review: CD Exchange Volume 1 By: @{" Jason Compton " link P8-1} %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% CD Exchange, much like Micro R+D (keep reading the magazine), were hit with a stroke of brilliance when they named this disc, a fully-Workbench-bootable compilation of quite a bit of stuff. Fully bootable? Oh yes. 1.3, 2.1, and 3.0 are included, meaning that just about everybody can take advantage of it. What's "it"? A strong assortment of games, animations (LOTS of animations. LOTS.), pictures, fonts, mods, sounds (most of the sounds are rather ridiculous, like "Ooohaaaah" and various renditions of "Yeah" and "Hey") and even some utilities and "useful" programs. The material is laid out in a fairly orderly fashion on the disc, or if you like and have an AGA machine, you can use the included "multimedia" menus. I recommend you don't. They're slow, sometimes run the wrong scripts, and are in general unnecessary. Good idea, poor implementation, you're better off just scrolling through the material and finding whatever you like. Particularly bad are the picture viewers...pick a category and be forced to see every picture in the directory like a slideshow. Not abortable from CD32 joypad, as far as I can tell. I'm actually pretty impressed by the collection that has been put together...of course, you can always look at a directory and say, "Well, why did they leave Progam X off the disc? It would have been PERFECT here!", and I've done it myself. And there are some stinkers, but that's inevitable. Overall, though, the compilation was well thought-out. The animations alone kept me clicking for 90 straight minutes, and I didn't nearly get through all of them. (Some are choppy since they're being loaded, in my case, from a 300k/sec drive, but there are ways around that, and ParNet is included on the disc). Some demos even show up, mostly in compressed form, which I find to be a nice bonus. As a CD32 boot disk, it does the job...sort of. NTSC users will need to switch to PAL in order to quit the autobooting "multimedia" menu system. A nice touch is that the CD32 joypad mouse emulator supports the blue button as the right mouse button, something that Lock 'n Load's program neglects to do. I'm happy with this CD once I quit from the menu system. That's gotta go, and will hopefully have improved if there is a CDEx Volume 2. Right now, CDEx is working on Makin' Music, a music/sound oriented CD-ROM for the Amiga, IBM, and Mac (all on one CD). Contact: CD Exchange Phone: 44(0)603 666202 Unit D5, Hi-Tech-House Internet: mm@cdex.demon.co.uk 10 Blackfriars Street Norwich, NR3 1SF England (UK) @endnode @node P1-5 "ShaREview: Pete W Storonskij's Works" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% ShaREview: Pete W. Storonskij's Works By: @{" Jason Compton " link P8-1} %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Reviewed: Mangled Fenders, Incinerator, Checkers Conquest About a month ago, Mr. Storonskij sent me three of his shareware creations. I played them and played them, but kept putting off reviews. Here they come... Mangled Fenders is a demolition-derby style car game: a bash-up to the death (well, to the explosion) of six vehicles, which can be controlled in a wide variety of ways if you've got a bunch of friends over dying to get in the action. The better you do (i.e. blowing up later in the match, or winning outright), the more money you get, and there is an assortment of upgrades for your vehicle. Power-ups appear on the playfield while the cars are bashing each other up, which, along with the fast gameplay, give Mangled Fenders an arcade feel. There is a rather important detail missing from the spartan documentation, though...apparently, demolition derby drivers back into their opponents, because driving head-on at them is more likely to damage you than them. This becomes painfully obvious as you land blows, hoping to take out your opponent, only to watch your damage meter get worse... The graphics and sound are functional and give enough atmosphere to the game to make it playable, but are far from revolutionary. Overall, a good deal for the money, as Storonskij doesn't ask much. Fun is the operative word here, and it IS fun to slam into other people. Incinerator: I didn't have a lot of luck with Incinerator. Essentially, it's like what Missile Command would be if you could shoot back at the other guys in turn, much like a strategy game. The graphics are 3D, and are not bad for a $5 shareware fee. My main problem with the game is that it seems to play itself no matter what I do (and no, I'm not watching a demo!) I'm not surprised that I can't find more info in the documentation, as there's only 4k of it.. This idea could have grabbed me if I had the faintest clue what was going on. It's tough to find out, though. Checkers Conquest: A very, very pretty game. Seriously. Even if you're not a checkers freak, this is a worthwhile program to take a look at. The board and pieces, while 2-D topdown view, are very pretty. The game has just about every feature a Checkers match can have and is pleasant to the eye at the same time. Of course, it's not an innovative concept, but the implementation is very good. For a lousy $3, if you play Checkers at all, you owe CC to yourself. The Upshot: Pete has put together some decent games at a combined price better than attending most amusement parks. What more can you ask for? If you want to contact the guy, here he is... Pete W. Storonskij 200 "A" Street Lincoln, Nebraska 68502 E-Mail: pws@cse.unl.edu @endnode @node P1-17 "D.A.S.MP Registration Competition!" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% D.A.S.MP Registration Competition! By: Pauli Porkka %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% W I N a FREE registration (key.file) for D.A.S.MP!!!!! ------------------------------------------------------- Three (3) key files will be given away. Registrations are for D.A.S.MP which registration normally costs 15 USD, 20 USD or 25 AUD. D.A.S.MP is a moduleplayer, newest version 3.3 is found in aminet/mus/play/DMODP33.LHA. You can enter to three different areas of "competition" which are: 1. Suggestion/idea for D.A.S.MP. Something new which is not available in any released module player (preferably something usefull). 2. Mention 3 module formats you would like to D.A.S.MP to support in the future. (Already supported are not valid) 3. Enter a usefull arexx script which utilizes D.A.S.MP. (The example scripts released with DASMP and only slight modifications of them are not valid entries.) For every area of contest one name will be drawn from the hat and key file will be delivered to the winner. RULES: Entries will be accepted from 12th August 1994 (12/08/94) to 10th September 1994 (10/09/94) via postal mail or e-mail. (If your entry was delivered through postal mail and the stamping date is 10th of September or less then it doesn't matter if the envelope gets delivered after 10th of Sep..) You have to state the method of key file delivery: either e-mail uuencoded (you will ofcourse need a valid e-mail account for this one) or via postal mail. Valid entry WILL have to contain name of the participant, postal mail address and e-mail address (if available). You can enter to one, two or three different "contests". If you win in one "contest" and you have entered others then your name will not be drawn again. Results for this little "compo" will be available in usenet in area comp.sys.amiga.misc and comp.sys.amiga.audio after 20th of Semptember. Already registered users will not get drawn unless they specify an other person and his/her name, mail & e-mail to whom the key file will be delivered instead of the actual participant. CONTEST FORM: Easiest thing to do is to fill out following and mail it to me. ********** Entry for the D.A.S.MP "Win the key file" contest: Name of the participant: Address: e-mail address: 1. Suggestion idea: - - - - 2. Supported formats: __________________________________ __________________________________ __________________________________ 3. Arexx script using DASMP: (Uuencoded (lha/other) files and pure ascii scripts are accepted) Mail the form to: e-mail: Pauli_Porkka@sonata.fipnet.fi or Pauli Porkka Innalantie 5D29 FIN-37650 VALKEAKOSKI FINLAND @endnode @node P1-10 "Amiga Report Contest!" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% AR Contest! %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Looks like we have another stumper here. After a few entries had been received, all of them came up with the same answer, which is no where near what I am looking for. But I assure you that if you figure out how to win, I will answer immediately! - THE PRIZE FOR NEXT MONTH - CONTEST BEGINS: 7-29-94 CONTEST ENDS: 8-26-94 The Amiga Report contest is still going on, and it is not too late to enter. This ongoing monthly contest allows Amiga Report readers a chance to win software by either solving a puzzle or by entering a random drawing. The prize this month is the Amiga/Toaster Reference Manual v2.221, from Area52. This is a 1,000 page help system for the Amiga and Video Toaster, covering the Workbench, AmigaDOS, Lightwave, and more ($34.95). The second prize choice is the FutureShock audio CDROM, which was produced using Amiga computers by SideWinder. There are some Sidewinder music modules on Aminet that you may want to look at for a sample of the audio CD ($12.95). Another possible prize is SubVersion, a strategy submarine hunt game by Point of View Computing. Both a Mac and IBM version is included along with the Amiga version. We have also been offered some AMINET CD-ROMs and some database software which have not arrived yet. Previously we have offered the ARexx Reference Disk by Merrill Callaway, which was awarded to a previous winner. Contact Whitestone for more information (505) 268-0678. More prizes will be announced as they become available. All monthly contests end on the morning of the first of the following month. Any entries beyond this date will be entered into the next contest. In the event that you were announced as a winner and did not receive your prize, please contact me by email. - THE MONTHLY DRAWING - To enter the random drawing, select a number from 1 to 262,144 and send it to me at one of my addresses listed below, either by the postal service or email through the Internet. Also, you may enter by solving the following puzzle. The winner of this puzzle will be decided within the same time frame as the random prize, to allow the contest information to filter through the networks, and to allow your letters and postcards to come in. - THE PUZZLE - Since people complained that the first contest was too hard, and that the second was too easy, I made one that anyone can solve with a little thought. The third problem should have been obvious... the first word was as big of a push in the right direction as you could get. Now we will try a more mathematical problem, which is very easy to solve. If you are not too familiar with matrix manipulations, just look for the right resources and you will find all the help you need (help is everywhere!). Of course, this is another one of those trick problems. There are two matrices, A and B. Each matrix will have a value applied to it, and you must determine the answer. The value is specified by x, and the answers you must provide are Ax = ?, and Bx = ?. x = (151647 - 61615) [ 7 8 9 ] [ 1 2 3 ] A = [ 4 5 6 ] B = [ 4 5 6 ] [ 1 2 3 ] [ 7 8 9 ] [ 0 0 0 ] [ 0 0 0 ] What does Ax equal, and what does Bx get you? Also provide your method of obtaining the answer. I understand that there may be cultural differences for this problem... not all math is the same (you should see how my mother does long division!). So just make a good guess ::heh heh::. With a little research, you can determine the answers. You may want to look for information on matrix multiplication. As a special bonus, the first person to successfully supply the correct answer will automatically win. If you feel that you definitely have the answer, get in touch with me with what you have learned. If you do everything correctly, I will answer to let you know :). As an additional clue, the x value has a special code in it that has to do with area. - TO ENTER - To enter, simply let your fingers do the talking and write an email and send it to dtiberio@libserv1.ic.sunysb.edu. You MUST put the word CONTEST in the subject line of the email header! Otherwise you run the risk of having your email deleted (don't ask, it is a long story!) or send a post card or letter to: Amiga Report Contest c/o David Tiberio 6 Lodge Lane East Setauket, NY 11733 Is it possible to win via snail mail? You might think that your chances of winning are better by entering in email (much faster of course), but last month's winner send in a letter that arrived the day before his winning number was drawn! In your letter or email, please provide the following: Your full name and address. Please keep in mind that many of you may have addresses that I am not accustomed to, so please include your country or any other information that I would need in case you win. An email address should also be included, if possible. You must also include a brief one sentence overview of the editorial in this issue of AMiga Report. Just to make sure you are reading it. :) You must also include the issue number. For example, if you read this in AR213, then include that in your correspondance. Also, a prize winner will be determined by a random number generator. Choose a number from 1 to 262,144. The closest winner or winners to the randomly generated number will receive the prize in the mail. Anyone who does not provide a number will have one assigned to him randomly. All prizes will be mailed within one week after I get my hands on the published version of AmigaReport. I am doing this for a few reasons. First, every winner so far has given the correct puzzle solution before I have received the editon of AmigaReport that announced it. :) Second, I don't like to go to the post office every day if I can avoid it. Third, you never know when someone's power supply might blow up (right Mr. Editor?!). - RULES AND REGULATIONS - 1. In the evnt that the editor's power supply fries, the contest for that month will have its deadline postponed to a later date, to be announced. Any contest entries for the random drawing will be added to the next month's drawing, to be held once per month near the beginning of the month. 2. All prizes are donated. I cannot be held responsible for any damage caused by a prize. For example, if you leave your prize on the stairs and your grandmother slips on it, I will not pay her medical bills. 3. We are not doing this for any profit, and cannot be held responsible if we go out of business or are otherwise financially unable to give you anything! We are actively looking for submissions from other software authors. 4. Good things come to those who read the rules and regulations! Here is a tip to help you win: every problem is a trick problem, or gives you clues that are not part of the problem itself. Read the whole entire contest entry looking for clues. And read my other articles for more clues. I give some very obvious clues :). 5. If for any circumstance you are awarded a prize but do not receive it, contact me at (516) 476-1615. I will promptly attend to any mistakes that have been made. 6. These rules are subject to change at any time without warning! 7. All entries so far have been using A, and that is why they are wrong! - THE DISCLAIMER - DISCLAIMER: This contest is being provided as a service to the Amiga community and all persons involved in running this contest cannot be held liable for anything that costs you money or lifetime pain and anguish. Rules are subject to change. All entries must be received by whenever TBA. Any entries beyond this date will be entered into the next contest, if any. - THE CHANCE YOU WILL WIN - Odds of winning are approximately 1:50 for the random drawing and 1:15 for the correct answer to the puzzle, based upon current entries. SPECIAL THANKS to SideWinder for donating the Future Shock albums for inclusion in our contest, along with Merrill Callaway for his ARexx Reference Disk! @endnode @node P1-3 "Reader Mail" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Reader Mail %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Just in case Creative Computers was starting to breathe a sigh of relief... ----------------------------------------------------------------- To all of you out there who love the Amiga and would like to hear about all the ups and downs about mail ordering. We all know we can save lots of monies by mail but, the question here is how much and is it worth the savings? Well, of course it all depends on who you order from and whether or not their service is any good or not. I would like to say at this time that for a lousy $5.00 to $10.00 savings that sometimes it is not. The reason I say this is, I have dealt just dealt with CREATIVE COMPUTER and boy was it a mistake! At least for the service and the time consumption. Nevertheless, the thought of loosing $160.00 I have read the past article about Creative Computer in this Report but, it was a little too late. So, I figured I'd add to the comments about Creative Computer and let you all out there know what I just went through. I just a couple weeks ago ordered a DKB High Density Floppy Drive for my Amy and received it next day delivery. I then installed it and had some problems with it recognizing HD floppies. No problem with 880k or 720k IBM how- ever, I called Creatives technical support and they said it was a defective drive that I would have to send it back. So, I was questionable about his reply and ask if, he had DKB's phone number. He said yes and gave it to me. I gave DKB a call and explained everything and I was told the same thing, Send it back. O.K. I replied. I called up customer assistance at Creative and asked for a R/A (return authorization) and they gave it to me knowing that this item was being sent back for a replacement due to defect. I sent it out Next Day UPS and at the time I was doing this I had been talking to my friend Mark Davidson whom is an authorized distributor of this report and magazine and he made a comment to me about sending it along with an A.O.D. form. This way they, Creative Computer that is has to sign for it when received. He had told me this based on the fact of reading the last article that was based on Creatives service and reputation. I took this very seriously and thank him alot for filling me in on this. That's I decided to read the report myself. Well, since I had sent it out next day UPS, I figure that after a week I should be able to call them and ask them if, they had received it and about when will I receive the new one. So, I called and I was told that he had to call me back in a half hour. ???????? was going through my mind saying, here we go just like the last article says about their reputa- tion. I waited a little over an hour and got no call. I called back! I talked to a different person this time and they told me it hadn't been received yet??????? Now, how or what would you be thinking after hearing about their reputation? I told this person that they were full of shit and that I had sent it out next day air and they gave me a crock of shit about Well, sir it is in UPSes hands and are the ones that determine when we get it. I said at this time, that i wasn't about to listen to anymore excuses and that I will be calling UPS myself and will soon return a third call. I called UPS at this time and they told me why, certainly Mr. Rizzo, your package was delivered ontime next day at 9:00 a.m. and signed by a person by the name of Hernandez! Bamm! now, all I had to do is call Creative back for a third time and let them know what I know. I called and now, I got another person whom I told everything that was going on and she said, that she would be happy to resolve this matter but, it would take her about an hour and a half! I said, Why the wait? She told me because she had to check the ware- house for the package. I again said o.k. and waited for 2 hours! You know what? I had to call a fourth time because I didn't hear from her. I called again, and asked for this person since I asked for her name prior to calling her back. She was now nowhere to be found but, the person who answered asked if, I would leave a message and she would be sure that the other woman would call me back. She said at this time could she help and I said listen.... I just spoke with 3 diff- erent people there at your office and have been doing nothing but, wasting my time and will not take anymore of this run around. I explained to her everything from the very first call to technical support up to right now. She said for me to hold on she will try and locate the other woman personnally for me. I waited probably 10 mins and finally got through to the other one who was going to check the warehouse for me. She now tells me that the package has arrived and that, they didn't have another one in stock!!!!! Of course you don't I said! Could you imagine that. She said she would put me on priority backorder so that, as soon as they got another one in I will receive it. Well, who knows when this will be but, I'll leave a comment in this report as to how long it takes to receive it for further reference. Maybe this will help all you out there who might have any questions about Creative Computers reputation and service. I hope this has been an interesting article and hope noone has to go through with what I just did. Please, whoever has any questions or comments themselves about Creative or any other computer mail order store, leave your gripes or questions on the T.B.P. Video Slate BBS (201) 586-3623. Comments will be listed on the next issue of Amiga Report and questions could be answered by myself by leaving me E-Mail. I am a member of this BBS and a friend of the Sysops. My name is Russell Rizzo and am listed as that on this BBS. If, I couldn't answer your questions I'm sure someone else could.:-) -= Russell Rizzo =- P.S. Thanx for reading and hope this helps! A quick set of reactions to the SX-1... To: rniles@hebron.connected.com X-Vmsmail-To: SMTP%"rniles@hebron.connected.com" Status: R Here is a mini-review or a letter-to-the-editor depending on how you want to use it. SX-1 Here are several other points about the SX-1 that I haven't seen in other reviews along with a few reiterations. The SX-1 case design should violate the warranty ;-) It appears to be designed without knowing what it is was going to be connected to. Paravision should add supports to relieve strain on the edge connector immediately. I see two ways to do this. One is to simply add a long thin strip of metal to the bottom of the SX1 case that extends under the CD32 case. This fix could be done at home, but really should be done at the factory. It is not a perfect fix either, since it doesn't activate until there is already some stress on the connector. There is a notch on the Cd32 case that appears to serve a similar purpose, but the gap is so big between the cases it doesn't help much, and it is only on one side. The second way would have to be done at the factory. The card that joins the SX-1 to the CD32 and FMV should have a molded bracket that bolts to the provided hole on the back of the CD32. This bracket could have a latch that would integrate with the SX-1 lid so that a quarter turn would quickly disconnect the SX-1 for removal. Although more expensive then the first solution, it would would provide more positive strain relief. The SX-1 does work with the FMV, and allows you to play movies on your rgb monitor. Since my monitors are in one room and the entertainment system is in another, a quick disconnect feature would be nice. I plan on placing the SX-1 mouse and keyboard in the computer room so I can parnet to my 4000, but I need to easily move the Cd32 to the home entertainment center for watching movies with friends. I've added a 4Meg simm module, and a floppy drive, and so far the power supply has held up. I haven't hooked up a hard drive yet for two reasons. One, I don't have a bigger power supply, and two, There is no scsi connector yet. I have a dataflyer scsi 270 meg drive, but according to Expansion Systems the IDE to SCSI cable they have has to be redesigned to fit the SX-1. They said they were working on it, but had no release date. Paravision did provide a hole in the case for the SCSI connector. Richard Norman REd kNight norman@eisner.decus.org Response: Expansion Systems SCSI+ works with the SX-1. There are currently two problems: cable length sometimes becomes inconvenient (too long for the SX-1), and the board does not function without an IDE drive attached. ES is working on the second (may have it fixed by the time I write this). The cable length may or may not be solved by pack-ins from the company. From: pietrosj@Bldg284.awacs.af.mil To: rniles@hebron.connected.com Subject: Flames... Hi Robert, Ignore all that those guys said about getting updates. I for one, appreciate getting word what's going on. You're providing a great service for us here, and I'd hate to see that jeopradized by a few people that can't control the the path from their brain to their fingers. Joe Response: Thanks for the support. Since I can see the dispute from both angles, I think my compromise will be enough. Of course, it would be ideal if I never have to give updates again... And now, the sort of mail that makes AR really worth doing... From: wingell@unx15.mro1.dec.com (Joshua Wingell) To: jcompton@bbs.xnet.com Subject: Amiga Report is great! There has been a lot of talk on Usenet lately about the incredible shrinking Amiga World and how Amazing Computing stays in business (How do they?). While all this talk was going on, I realized that neither of these two magazines is what I really look forward to. The one I really enjoy reading and anticipate each weekend is Amiga Report. Amiga World is good for the advertisements and features, and Amazing Computing gives good in depth tutorials. But the one magazine that really gets on top of things is Amiga Report. The Emulation Rambler, the Amiga News, and the Editor's column all grab my interest and keep me reading. As well, the reviews of current hardware and software are excellent! Does anyone remember the monthly ".info is great!" letter that was always publihed in the late great .info magazine? Well, I would like to start a new tradition...the weekly (soon to be bi-weekly) "Amiga Report is great!" letter. These guys deserve the praise for providing such a wonderful service to the Amiga community! Josh @endnode @node P1-4 "Amiga User Profile: Jim Carey" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Amiga User Profile: Jim Carey by Douglas J. Nakakihara %% %% One prolific, talented guy dnakikihara@BIX.com %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% /******************************************************************** NOTICE: This is the originally submitted text for an article that appeared in the Aug 8, 1994 issue (#126) of MICROTIMES magazine. (There are some slight edited differences between the published version and this one.) This article is freely-distributable as long as it remains unchanged and this notice and the copyright remain included. This article may not be re-published in any magazine, newsletter, or similar media, including those electronically distributed, without obtaining prior approval from the author. This provision does *not* apply to USENET or BBSs. Specific permission has been granted to Amiga Report. Copyright(C)1994 Douglas J. Nakakihara. The author can be reached thru Internet at dnakakihara@bix.com. MICROTIMES is published by BAM Media, Inc. 3470 Buskirk Ave. Pleasant Hill, CA 94523 (510)934-3700 MICROTIMES is available free at various distribution points (usually computer stores) throughout California. The Northern edition is over 300 pages, while the Southern edition is a little less than 200 pages. This is a multi-platform magazine, which includes Amiga coverage. About 200,000 copies are distributed each month. SUBSCRIPTIONS (13 issues): US: 3rd Class $32 (allow 3-4 weeks for delivery), 1st Class $60 (allow 1-2 weeks for delivery). MEXICO & CANADA: Surface Mail $50 (allow 4 weeks for delivery). Air Mail $70 (allow 1 week for delivery). OVERSEAS: Surface Mail $50 (Allow 6-10 weeks for delivery). Air Mail $165 (Allow 1 week for delivery). SAMPLE ISSUES: $4 ($6 for overseas) to cover postage. BACK ISSUES: $6. Although, efforts have been made to ensure the above information is correct, there is no guarantee and prices are subject to change without prior notice. /******************************************************************** Amiga User Profile: Jim Carey By Douglas J. Nakakihara Since meeting Jim Carey a few years ago, I've often been puzzled by the range of work he does: a producer on this, an editor on that, an animator on this, etc. etc. Jim is unique, a jack of all trades and an amateur at none. He has worked on everything from low budget industrial videos to very high-end commercials. One of his current projects is doing some of the graphics for the Emmy-nominated FOX Saturday morning cartoon "Where in the World is Carmen San Diego." "Carmen" is a slick blend of traditional cartoon, 3-D, and short computer animations. Carey, along with David Kahn (producer), Kent Butterworth (storyboards and characters), and Mike Kast (co-animator), handle the later. He refers to it as "animated image processing", a computerized take-off from the cut-and-paste Monty Python style of animation. I had a chance to talk with Jim at his place in Westlake, California and look at some of his current work. How was this piece put together? The animation itself is in 256 colors. But then this animation is 256 and the next animation is 256, so I would use ADPro (ASDG) to bridge them together. Of course when you're using ADPro you're in 24-bits, so there's like three different elements that are coming together here. Because I had the luxury of going a frame at a time and compositing at the last minute to an Exabyte drive, I could do my transitions in 24-bit in ADPro. You actually would go directly to it? Yeah, directly to it. For instance I would have a 24-bit background and I would have two or three animations each with their own 256-color palette and the ARexx script would throw it together. How do you know it came out OK? I do check-animations back off the drive. In the beginning I would do a lot more testing because I was unsure of the format. Out of all that animation, we had maybe two or three bad frames. That's just amazing. So basically you did a lot of stuff in 256-color independently and just composited it in ADPro. Right. Especially if I have a real nice background which I would want to keep the color fidelity as high as possible. This background is 24-bit because it had such a nice gradient, this Wolfgang Mozart piece. Little Mozart, the second character, and the piano were a single 256-color DeluxePaint (Electronic Arts) animation. So with ADPro I would just take the background and composite the animation frames over it. I had to get this one (another animation) done fairly quickly so I just maximized one 256-color palette. I would take a look at all of the characters necessary and I'd assign a certain range in the palette for characters' costumes, and a certain other range for the background, and another range for the cutout of the heads. But you can see--even though it's just 8-bit--you still have a wide enough range of colors. I would have guessed that the head was 24-bit. Yeah. It's not, on this one I probably assigned just 32 colors, dithered the head in ADPro and it worked fine. So, especially with dithering--random dithering--you see all of the rest of the characters come in using just 256 colors. You really don't have that much disk capacity. How do you store all of this stuff? The backgrounds are just static and this is what we provide the client, 8mm tape. A 120 minute (tape) will hold about 10 GB. A 60 minute will hold a little over 3,000 frames. You use ARexx to control ADPro quite extensively. Aren't there programs that do this for you? I don't mind writing ARexx scripts because a lot of times you have to do very specific things. Now ProControl (ASDG) does quite a bit and so does Multiframe (MacroSystemUS). They both have things that are really handy. But there are some times you need to get so specific you gotta write it. Thank God for ARexx. I would say 70 percent of the animations that I did on Carmen San Diego had an ARexx script to do the final compositing. No way I could have turned out 30 minutes of animation in that period of time, of that type of single frame animation, without ARexx. And I am excited that DeluxePaint 5 (a forthcoming upgrade) will support ARexx. It's amazing how powerful DeluxePaint is. It's much more powerful than I think people realize. The surprising thing, at Electronic Arts, they never think of DeluxePaint, even DeluxePaint 5, as a professional program--this is a program for amateurs. That's the way they look at it. Of course, I'm always urging them to do a little bit more. There are a few more things I would like in there, which they probably won't be able to put in because they don't think many people would take advantage of it, because they don't view it as a professional program. What's the definition of "professional." Exactly. Some of your techniques seem to break tradition. That's true. In fact, you want to stay away from tradition. The thing about it is, you usually have to learn the tradition before you can learn how to stay out of it. Rules are usually written after somebody's done something enough times. By the time they are codified, it's time to break them. (But it's a necessary evolution.) You get used to things and you have to take it a step at a time. I think that's true for the artists and animators, as well as the audience--you kind of have to grow up into it. I don't think you can just sit down and listen to a symphony by Beethoven and immediately grasp what you're suppose to grasp. You have to bring some information along with you. Do people care that you do things on an Amiga? I've gone to see a few companies and there is a prejudice when they find out I'm using an Amiga. I think I've lost some jobs because they know I'm using an Amiga--even though I know the stuff they're working with--but yes I have run into that preference. I would say well over half of the clients out there don't care. Part of that is because they don't know what the platform is doing anyway and the people that do know about the Amiga, appreciate it. I guess the director you were telling me about early was at the opposite end of the spectrum. Yeah, because he hadn't seen this on any platform. A platform where he came to my office, sat down, and saw all of the equipment right there in front of him that it was being done on. I showed him a few clips from the Carmen San Diego show and he was just amazed. "You did that on this computer?" He couldn't believe some of the things I was doing, especially the pans and scans on animated pieces, and some of the image processing. You have to be a little worried now about the Amiga. Have you investigated Mac and PCs? I was worried when I first learned about what was happening with Commodore--I've since regained a little optimism. So I started looking at what is available for what I do on the Mac and the IBM. I can put together a number of programs together on the Mac and IBM that would be far more expensive than I am used to paying for on the Amiga. The biggest limitation is I have yet to find a comparable program to DeluxePaint. I wish someone would tell me about a program that animates as easy while still allowing me to work in 8-bit and in video resolution, 724 x 482--I haven't found it yet. Right now, I can do essentially everything I want to do 2D-wise with ADPro and DeluxePaint. What machine out there, what IBM or Mac is going to have the Toaster, plus ADPro, plus DeluxePaint, plus multitasking, plus... I can't imagine another machine giving me the productivity that this machine has given me, without multitasking. I'm always running two programs, sometimes three. The other big advantage I've found is the Amiga community itself. The programs that I use have great tech support. I find I can get a hold of somebody on the phone and they listen to my problem. It's obvious they listen to users because the programs that I use are upgraded constantly and have just gotten better. I mean, look at ADPro, DeluxePaint--it's just a constant improvement. And often you get to talk to the actual programmer. Right! More times than not, I do talk to the programmer. And I have been in a situation more than once, where I've talked to the programmer and gotten an upgrade to solve a particular problem. With ASDG on Carmen San Diego, we got the new 8505 Exabyte and they upgraded their software for us--I understood or moved up the upgrade date--and we got it. They downloaded it to me directly and I was using it an hour later. I can't imagine that in the IBM world. Can you summarize your feelings on the Amiga? The thing about the Amiga which is most important to me are the programs I've chosen to use, which have become so easy for me to express my creativity. Because of the way the programs are written, because of the user-friendliness of the Amiga, because the Amiga multitasks, I can eliminate the technique and work right on the creative process, putting it together. If I have an idea, I can get right to it, and I won't lose that idea. Because of the depth of the programs, like ADPro and DeluxePaint, I can solve problems. If I want to do something, I can figure out how to do it with these programs. I probably could do it with other programs, but I grew up with ADPro and DeluxePaint, and now the VideoToaster. Because it's not that easy for me to learn a program, I struggle... But once I learn one, I stick with it. Jim Carey (805)495-2745 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * @endnode @node P1-6 "NewTek and Commodore News" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% NewTek and Commodore News by Douglas J. Nakakihara %% %% More news is more news dnakikihara@BIX.com %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% /******************************************************************** NOTICE: This is the originally submitted text for an article that appeared in the Aug 8, 1994 issue (#126) of MICROTIMES magazine. (There are some slight edited differences between the published version and this one.) This article is freely-distributable as long as it remains unchanged and this notice and the copyright remain included. This article may not be re-published in any magazine, newsletter, or similar media, including those electronically distributed, without obtaining prior approval from the author. This provision does *not* apply to USENET or BBSs. Specific permission has been granted to Amiga Report. Copyright(C)1994 Douglas J. Nakakihara. The author can be reached thru Internet at dnakakihara@bix.com. MICROTIMES is published by BAM Media, Inc. 3470 Buskirk Ave. Pleasant Hill, CA 94523 (510)934-3700 MICROTIMES is available free at various distribution points (usually computer stores) throughout California. The Northern edition is over 300 pages, while the Southern edition is a little less than 200 pages. This is a multi-platform magazine, which includes Amiga coverage. About 200,000 copies are distributed each month. SUBSCRIPTIONS (13 issues): US: 3rd Class $32 (allow 3-4 weeks for delivery), 1st Class $60 (allow 1-2 weeks for delivery). MEXICO & CANADA: Surface Mail $50 (allow 4 weeks for delivery). Air Mail $70 (allow 1 week for delivery). OVERSEAS: Surface Mail $50 (Allow 6-10 weeks for delivery). Air Mail $165 (Allow 1 week for delivery). SAMPLE ISSUES: $4 ($6 for overseas) to cover postage. BACK ISSUES: $6. Although, efforts have been made to ensure the above information is correct, there is no guarantee and prices are subject to change without prior notice. /******************************************************************** NewTek and Commodore Update Just by chance, NewTek was working on their next promo tape close to where I work and I received a surprise invite from NewTek Marketing head Donetta Colboch and Toaster trainer extrodinaire Lee Stranahan. I also finally met NewTek president Tim Jenison and his wife Leslie. Everyone was extremely nice and I hope I don't end up on the proverbial cutting room floor. With some help from Brad Peebler, while at the studio I had a chance to really play around with the Flyer. Now I know where the name came from. The hand-made prototype board I saw had three PC board fans mounted on it and two PC box fans balanced on the edges of the opened A4000's case--any minute it was about to take off! I don't want to say too much about it now, other than it is an awesome product. Lightwave 1.5 should be shipping by the time you read this, both in standalone and VideoToaster upgrade versions. There are several improvements, most notably the new Metaform feature that can help you literally turn a 2-D rectangle into a beautiful 3-D sports car in minutes. At the L.A. Video Toaster Group meeting, Jenison spoke and provided some frank information on the future of the Amiga. According to Tim, two of the bidders are Samsung and a group headed by Jim Dionne, the former president of Commodore US. Dionne knows the Amiga and it would be wonderful to have him at the helm. Tim also indicated that the bankruptcy trustees have made it clear that buyers must promise to get Amigas in production as soon as possible. NewTek seems to be totally confident that the Amiga will survive and that ample supplies of machines exist until production can resume. @endnode @node P1-8 "The Emulation Rambler" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Emulation Rambler by @{" Jason Compton " link P8-1} %% %% News updates from the Rambler jcompton@bbs.xnet.com %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Just a few notes from the past couple of weeks... Emplant 4.7 is out. Jim Drew told me he's made major changes and improvements to the sound-handling code. I haven't had a chance to get a hold of it yet, however. Apple_2000 1.2's release is imminent, and will pretty decidedly be the last release of the emulator. Kevin Kralian (interviewed in the last AR) called me up to let me know how things were going. He's landed a job with a software development company and is currently working on the Sega Saturn. His message, other than to tell me that 1.2 is coming out in a week or so? He has "no regrets" for moving off the Amiga. Maxwell Daymon has taken over the review of the GG2 Bus+ (once known as the GoldenGate II) card...it seemed like a good idea, since I've got plenty to do these days being Editor and all. I'm still looking for fresh emulators...although it is worth mentioning that I've received a copy of the new AGA-only Spectrum emulator, but have yet to give it a go on my CD32. (why it's AGA-only, nobody is quite sure). I'll keep you posted. It IS worth mentioning that I received the same postcard that Emplant owners got, inviting me to pre-order my copy of the Emplant PC emulation module. It's ALSO worth mentioning that, despite the fact that someone requested that I be allowed to see the emulation to reassure users that it exists, Drew has told me I have to wait until the module is released. The wording on the postcard is clever...my favorite part is "How soon? SOON!", the only date on the card aside from the postmark. More news to follow in a couple of weeks. Keep the emulators warm. @endnode @node P1-9 "Micro R+D CD-ROM Volume 1 Review" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Micro R+D CD-ROM Volume 1 Review by @{" Jason Compton " link P8-1} %% %% A collection of varied and sundry... jcompton@bbs.xnet.com %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% One thing they didn't spend a lot of time on at Micro R+D was the title of their CD-ROM line. That's just fine. Based largely around 3-d objects and fonts, with a healthy (actually, rather huge) collection of pictures, some utilities, and even books and literary works from over 20 authors (Ever want to read The Scarlet Letter again in its entirety?). Thrown in as an afterthrought are some games and sounds and a dozen or so MODs...in all, the disc is over 500 megs of material, capped off by Transition, the picture format processing program from DarkSoftWare. So, what's good and bad about this CD? The manual to Transition has been recreated in the CD jacket, but unfortunately hasn't been edited to take out things like hard drive installation (it can be run directly from CD). The CD is non-bootable, which isn't tragic to many people, but for CD32 users it can be annoying to be denied access so summarily. (SX-1s help alleviate the problem, but you STILL need 3.0 from somewhere.) Since Transition requires 4 megs to run, though, the question is academic to stock CD32 users. I like it. At times, it seems a bit too cluttered with too many directories, but there ARE some rather conveniently placed indexes along the way. The assortment of Lightwave and Imagine is formidable, and many of the goodies on the disc are LHA compressed...irritating again for CD32 users, but it means you're at least getting your money's worth in filled space. Besides, you can't beat free books. There are all sorts of interesting goodies...many look like they've been taken from Aminet, like the directory of IRC pictures. Some early Eric Schwartz animations are here. There's even two copies of GuitarSlinger if you REALLY love that mod. It's always tough to review a CD-ROM like this...the best advice I can give is this: if you want some 3d objects and a load of pictures heaped with a helping of utilities, a few games, and an image conversion program (a rather flexible one at that), then by all means, pick up this CD...after all, Transition alone retails for US$40. Micro R+D Phone: 800-527-8797/308-745-1243 P.O. Box 130 721 'O' St. Loup City, NE 68853 USA @endnode @node P1-11 "Review: D.A.S.MP V3.2a" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Review: D.A.S.ModulePlayer V3.2a By: Andreas Jelvemark %% %% jelvemark@homeros.ct.se %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% [Ed: The review of D.A.S.MP and the start of the author-sponsored D.A.S.MP are in no way related. They just happened to arrive at the same time. This review was not commissioned by AR, but was submitted jointly to AR and to comp.sys.amiga.reviews.] PRODUCT NAME D.A.S.ModulePlayer V3.2a BRIEF DESCRIPTION DASMP (short for D.A.S.ModulePlayer) does what the title claims; i.e., play music modules. It is capable of playing modules of various formats such as ProTracker, S3M, MTM, MED/OctaMED, QuadraComposer and FutureComposer. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Pauli Porkka Address: Innanlantie 5 D 29 FIN-37600 VALKEAKOSKI FINLAND E-mail: paporkka@freenet.hut.fi FidoNet: 2:221/112.4 LIST PRICE DASMP is shareware, and the current price is $20 (US) or an equivalent amount in any other currency. There are two registration sites mentioned in the manual, situated in North America and Australia, which simplifies registration for the users located in those countries. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE None. At least 1 MB of memory is recommended due to the size of some modules. More is recommended if you want to use the program to its full potential. Works on all processors (68000-68040). A faster processor is recommended if you want to play any of the multichannel modules with a high mixing rate. SOFTWARE MUI (Magic User Interface) is required. AmigaDOS 2.04 or higher is required. Having AmigaDOS 3.x enables some extra features in DASMP. COPY PROTECTION None. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 1200, 2 MB Chip RAM, 8 MB Fast RAM. 120 MB Conner HD. Kickstart version 39.106, Workbench version 39.29 (AmigaDOS 3.0). C= 1940 multisync monitor. INSTALLATION DASMP features an Installer script to simplify the process of installing. It works like a charm. :-) BACKGROUND Playing modules has been an essential need of any Amiga user since the first NoiseTracker program was released. Various module players have been released over the years, some of them better than others, and some even worse. Today, there are a number of different module file formats to look out for, and compatibility with the various formats is a necessity. Another option that is strongly needed is the possibility to crunch/archive modules in order to save hard disk space, since modules are getting bigger. A nice interface is of course a feature that should not be neglected. DASMP features all this and much more. EXTERNAL PLAYER LIBRARIES DASMP supports S3M, MTM, MED(OctaMed), QuadraComposer and FutureComposer modules through External Player Libraries ("EPLs"). This modular approach allows the user to choose what libraries to install and what libraries to use with the player, giving the user greater control of how much resources the program should be allowed to use. S3M and MTM are multichannel PC formats which are getting more and more followers. I've tested only S3M modules because I haven't been able to find any MTM modules on my local BBSs. The S3M format supports the use of 4-32 channels, and DASMP allows you to configure what mixing rate to use for each type. (Higher mixing rate values make the module sound better but it also intensifies the workload of the processor. It is recommended that you adjust the settings to suit the power of your system.) You can also choose play modes that consist of the following features: Mono, Stereo, Surround, Real Surround, and Stereo 14-bit. The playing of these modules works perfectly, and the user will not notice that you are playing them after you have enabled and configured the EPL. Another commonly used EPL is the MED(OctaMED) library. It requires the medplayer.library and octaplayer.library to be present in your system, and when they are present, MED/OctaMED modules are played like any other module. For those who haven't got access to huge amount of Chip RAM which is often required to play big modules there is a solution trough the use of dasFAST.library. It plays ProTracker-compatible modules from Fast RAM using a technique that is everything but perfect, according to the author. It seems to work well for me, however, and I hardly noticed any loss in quality when playing some of my modules from Fast RAM. You may choose the size of the modules to use this player, the priority of the player, the mixing rate, and some different playing modes. PACKED MODULES DASMP supports mainly XPK-packed modules. Through the use of the XPK package, you can get it to play PowerPacked modules too. Another great feature is the ability to play modules that are archived in almost any format; e.g. LHA, ZIP, ZOO, etc. It even allows the handling of multiple files within the same archive, and it can also play XPK-packed modules from within an archive. I recommend the use of the SQSH-library which is especially well suited for packing 8-bit sound data. It gives you an excellent result. Decrunching speed is quite fast, but if speed is your main priority, use the xpkFAST.library or xpkNUKE.library instead. THE INTERFACE The interface to the user is perhaps the most vital part of any program. Due to the use of MUI, DASMP features all advantages of that package; i.e., tremendous configurability. You can rearrange almost the whole GUI to your liking. DASMP features a "special" menu which allows you to enable and disable certain groups of gadgets to give you some quick possibilities to change the interface. DASMP's strongest point is without question the module list handling. To be able to play modules, you add them to the listview using the appropriate function. When the list is created, you are able to configure each entry separately. Fade speed, preload, volume and FAST relocation are selectable for every module. (FAST relocation means that DASMP will put the song data in Fast RAM in order to save as much Chip RAM as possible.) The name of the module in the listview doesn't need to be the same as the name of the "real" module, and there is a "Get" function which is able to fetch the real name of the module from within the module. DASMP also features a unique author system that allows you to enter an author and a style for each module. To play just the modules in a particular style, click the "Au" button of the main window and select your desired style from the listview that pops up. The module list will then change to contain only the modules in your selected style. It is as simple as that! There is one disappointment with this feature, however: it is impossible to select an author and a style at the same time. Even if most composers produce work in only one style, this is indeed a limitation even if it is a small one. DASMP supports the use of two groups called group A and group B. For example, group A could contain the modules that you have easily accessible (on your hard drive), and group B could contain the modules that aren't easily accessible (e.g., on your floppy disks.) When you want to play a group B module, you just double-click it and DASMP will ask you for the required disk. Since you are able to choose which groups to show in the listview, this is a great option, and you don't have to scan all your disks in order to find a particular module once you've added the modules to the group. To add a module, you select the "Add" button and a requestor (ASL or ReqTools, depending on your configuration) allows you to select modules to be added to the list. There are three options which should be mentioned: Normal, Date updating and Check. Date updating adds only modules newer than your current module list date, suitable for the inclusion of newer modules that you've copied into your module directory. The Check option checks if there is a real module that corresponds to the listview entry, suitable for updating the listview when you've erased modules from disk without notifying DASMP. Of course, no player program would be complete without programming and randomizing functions. Programming is dead easy when using DASMP's listview capabilities. Just delete from the listview the modules that you don't wish to play, and play the remaining ones. The new module list can be saved as any other module list, and you can have as many "programs" as your hard disk allows. Another nice feature of DASMP is that it shows and remembers the playing time of the modules. There are four different clocks. One shows the the total time of the currently playing module and how long it has been playing. The second shows the total playing time of all modules which currently are in the module list. It is (IMHO) actually quite amazing to know that all my modules have a total playing time of 5 hours and 32 minutes. The third shows the total playing time for today, and the fourth shows the played time of a module and the remaining time to be played. DASMP also supports the use of some effects: QuadraScope, DoubleScope and a big QuadraScope that is scaled using some new functions in AmigaDOS 3.0. The effects contain a bug that sometimes messes up your display, and the author has no clue what is causing the problem. I've encountered the same problem while using another module player's effects so it isn't a problem that is all that special for DASMP. It is advised, however, that you use the lowest priority available for the effects to reduce the problem. DASMP has a full-blown ARexx port which is very valuable to simplify the process of playing modules; e.g., from within a directory utility. It also supports a few very useful tooltypes that allow you to load a module list automatically during startup and define an AppIcon for DASMP. DOCUMENTATION The documentation is in standard AmigaGuide format and explains everything that you need to know about using the program. Like any good program, DASMP has on-line help available by just pressing the HELP key. The program recognizes in which state it is currently in and shows the appropriate section of the documentation. The documentation is quite easy to understand, but unfortunately there is no section for the novice. But if you have a bit of patience, you will most certainly be able to have it configured shortly. Some features are omitted from the manual of version 3.2a. It seems like the manual hasn't been updated to fit the current version, and there isn't any on-line help when you are configuring the EPLs either. I would like an explanation of what the different playing modes do. (By the time you read this, I will have notified the author.) LIKES I like everything about the product! It gives you everything that you could ask from a module player and more. The most useful feature is indeed the unique handling of modules in the listview which makes your setup so much more professional. DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS I have only one small dislike about the product. It isn't possible to save the bpm (beats per minute) setting separately for each module. I have some modules that should be played at a different speed and it is annoying that you have to change the tempo slider each time you want it to be played at correct speed. It would be nice if you were able to multiselect both an author and a style at the same time, but this isn't as important as most composer stick to one style in their work. But it would be a nice feature. The documentation in version 3.2a isn't entirely up to date. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS I've used quite a lot of different module players -- more that I can remember really -- but my needs haven't been fulfilled until I got hold of DASMP. The other players either had too few features or an awful GUI. BUGS There is a problem with the effects messing up the display. The author is aware of the problem. VENDOR SUPPORT The support of Pauli Porkka is one of the strongest points of DASMP. Pauli claims that he will answer *all* e-mail that has to do with DASMP, and he has always done his best to answer my sometimes silly questions. DASMP has been developed with a lot of user interaction, and it shows on the result. WARRANTY None. It's shareware, for God's sake! CONCLUSIONS DASMP is the best module player for the Amiga platform today (IMHO). I rate it 5 stars out of 5 with a slight minus due to the lack of handling the bpm of modules separately. Finally, I would like to say that it is really a great program and you should try it out immediately if you haven't done so. AVAILABILITY You can always find the latest version on Aminet in the /pub/aminet/mus/play/ directory. COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1994 Andreas Jelvemark. All rights reserved. - Andreas Jelvemark andreas.jelvemark@homeros.ct.se @endnode @node P1-12 "Important notes for 2.x -> 3.1 upgraders" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Important notes for 2.x -> 3.1 upgraders By: Dan Barrett %% %% (No, it's not a BLAZEMONGER message) barrett@cs.umass.edu %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Here is some advice for everyone upgrading from AmigaDOS 2.x to 3.1. I discovered these things the hard way -- through trial and error (and help from Net friends). If you are having weird problems after the upgrade, maybe you will find a solution below. PREFERENCES FILE PROBLEMS (especially mouse pointer problems) Are you experiencing any weird preference behavior like the following? o The busy pointer does not appear. o The mouse pointer is the wrong color. o Pointer preferences (and others) don't get saved between reboots. o The Workbench screen turns strange colors. o WBPattern backdrops don't work correctly. The prefs file format apparently changed from AmigaDOS 2.x to 3.x. To solve such problems, (1) Run all of your preferences programs and write down (on a piece of paper) all your settings. (2) Go to the directory ENV:sys and delete all the files with names ending in ".prefs". (You can copy them to another directory first, if you want to be safe.) These are your preferences settings that are created when you click "Save" in a preferences program. (3) Go to the directory ENVARC:sys and, as above, delete all files with names ending in ".prefs". (4) Run all of your preferences programs and re-create all your desired preferences settings (that you wrote down on paper in step (1).) Click "Save" after running each program. (5) Reboot. All should be OK now. DO NOT simply run the 3.1 preferences programs, change the settings and click "Save." YOU MUST DELETE YOUR PREFS SETTINGS FILES FIRST. COMMODITIES If you are using the SwitchNTSC commodity, get rid of it. It will crash your system under 3.1 due to (I believe) changes in the Screen structure. CPUBLIT If you are using CPUBlit, start using the "-b" option, or else it may not work. See the CPUBlit documentation for more details. DATATYPES NOT WORKING? If you assign LIBS: somewhere in your user-startup file, beware!! The AmigaDOS 3.1 startup-sequence has a new "Assign add" line: Assign >NIL: LIBS: SYS:Classes ADD If you reassign LIBS: and forget to include SYS:Classes, your datatypes will not work. For example, MultiView and WBPattern will work incorrectly or refuse to run. WSHELL 2.0 If you are using the PATH: handler from WShell 2.0, and reassign LIBS:, beware of the problem mentioned above. For example, I had in my user-startup: assign LIBS: PATH:sys:libs,another:libs and forgot about sys:classes. I changed it to assign LIBS: PATH:sys:libs,sys:classes,another:libs MUI (Magic User Interface) If you use MUI, watch out for a conflict between sys:classes and the MUI "classes" directory. If your datatypes are not working or MUI does not work, this may be the problem. For me, with WShell 2.0's PATH handler, I had to do: Assign Libs: PATH:sys:Libs,sys:Classes Assign Libs: usr:Lib/Classes ADD If you don't use WShell, you might not have a conflict. THAT'S ALL - GOT ANY MORE TIPS? If anybody has more AmigaDOS 2-to-3 tips, please mail them to me, and I'll keep this list up-to-date. Dan @endnode @node P1-20 "AR Reader Survey" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% AR Reader Survey %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Comments are ALWAYS welcome by the AR staff, but at certain times we like to drag them out of readers. This is one of those times. I plan to have a larger survey later in the fall, but for now, there are a few questions that I really would like some input on. If possible, E-Mail your answers to jcompton@bbs.xnet.com. If you need to use standard postal mail, please wait until mid-September, when I will print my new address. 1. Do you approve or disapprove of Amiga Report's format change to biweekly? 2. Would you like to see Amiga Report get involved in promotional selling to readers of selected products? That's it. Easy, isn't it? Your input is anxiously awaited... Jason @endnode @node P1-13 "AR Wants YOU!" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% AR Wants YOU! %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% A lot of people say they'd write for Amiga Report, if only they had a topic. Well, here are some things we need: PD/Shareware software updates and information Terminal software information Humor! Reviews, reviews, reviews. If you've got it and like, love, dislike, or hate it, tell the other readers about it! News. Technology moves quickly...help keep everyone else on top of it! Donations in the form of software or hardware or books or whatever you'd like, to be given away as prizes for contests. AR is the magazine it is because of readers who contribute. Help keep the trend going... @endnode @node P1-21 "AR Coverdisk #3 Contents" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% AR Coverdisk #3 Contents %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% The next AR Coverdisk will be out this weekend. At the time of press, only these programs are confirmed, but about 150k worth of material will be added. Feature Item: A64 V3.0 Demo by Questronix AmigaGuideWriter V1.02 by D.L McPaul InfoTaskForce Infocom Interpreter Amiga V1.55 by ITF and David Kinder Information on subscribing to the Coverdisk may be found in the Internet distribution section of this magazine. The Coverdisk is also available on a network of distribution BBSes and the Aminet. @endnode @node P5-1 "CD Exchange Volume 1" @toc "menu" TITLE CD EXCHANGE Volume 1 VERSION Volume 1 (23.5.94) COMPANY CD EXCHANGE AUTHOR CD EXCHANGE Unit D5 Hi-Tech House 10 BlackFriars Street Norwich, Norfolk NR3 1SF UK Internet: mm@cdex.demon.co.uk ----------------------------------------------- Tel: +44 (0)603 666202 / Fax: +44 (0)603 662066 ----------------------------------------------- DESCRIPTION CD EXCHANGE Volume 1 is a ShareWare/Public Domain CD, Containing a vast amount of Software ranging from - Music Modules, Sound Samples, Utilities, Mass amounts of Clip-Art, and 100's Adobe/Compugraphic Fonts, Lots of Games and Graphics. The utilities section has various type of utils ranging from Music to Art to Commodities, Virus Killer, Demo Creators, Business, and more. CD EXCHANGE Volume 1 has front ends to allow viewing of Pictures, Listening to Music, Viewing Fonts and Clip-Art if prefered you can access all from Workbench. It also has a great File Transfer section, allowing CD32 & CDTV owners to connect their machines together with any Amiga Computer and Transfer files to & from each. It even gets over the reset problem on the CD32, thus allowing you to access non-bootable CD ROMS like Aminet and many PC CD Roms (ISSO 9660 format) from your CDTV/CD32 and transfer the files to your Amiga. There are around 280 Music Modules of good quality and around 1000 sound samples, Approx. 250 Adobe & Compugraphic fonts and around 5000 Images of Black & White Clip-art in IFF format. Features: Menu Driven interface Workbench 2.04/2.1/3.0 5000 Images of b/w Clip-Art Approx 200 Adobe & Compugraphic Fonts Approx 280 Music Modules Approx 1000 Sound Samples A great collection of Utilities SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS CD EXCHANGE Volume 1 will work with any Amiga equipped with a CD ROM Drive including - CD32, CDTV, Amiga 500 + A570, Amiga 1200 CD, A4000 CD It has Workbench 1.3, 2.1 & 3.0 in amongst it's files. Mouse & Keyboard Recommended. PRICE UK 19.99 UK 14.99 for E-Mail Orders (address above) postage & packaging included DISTRIBUTABILITY Compilation Copyright 1994 CD EXCHANGE Individual Programs have there respected Copyright (ShareWare/PD) @endnode @node P5-2 "Physics Laboratory in Mechanics - Demo" @toc "menu" TITLE Physics Laboratory in Mechanics - Demo VERSION Demo1 COMPANY Opportunity With Learning (O.W.L. Software) 460 Summer Avenue Reading, MA 01867-3819 E-mail: owl@davinci.reading.ma.us Phone: 617-944-1745 BBS: 617-942-7216 AUTHOR Lori Vinciguerra (President) e-mail: owl@davinci.reading.ma.us DESCRIPTION Physics Laboratory in Mechanics is a multimedia program which uses an experimental approach to teach high school level mechanics. Seven topic areas cover the concepts of Kinematics, Newtonian Dynamics, Statics, Universal Gravitation, Work & Energy, Impulse & Momentum, and Rotational Motion. Each topic area has beginner, intermediate, and advanced level experiments for a total of 21 different experiments. A laboratory notebook describes each experiment and allows the user to simulate the experiment with the computer. The experiment can also be performed by using everyday objects found around the home. Physics Laboratory in Mechanics allows multiple users to retain data in computerized notebooks. It also includes history segments explaining how the physical concepts were discovered, a math reference section, a units reference section, and a program to allow you to convert units to the MKS system of measurement. A hall of fame with pictures of notable scientists will include an entry for the user upon completion of the entire set of experiments. NEW FEATURES This program is a free demo version of Physics Laboratory in Mechanics. It has a slide show of some of the programs features, a list of the 21 experiments and one experiment which can actually be run. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS Demo requires AmigaDOS 2.0 or greater. You will need to set one assignment to run demo. (see README in archive) HOST NAME Any Aminet site including ftp.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4) DIRECTORY incoming - /pub/aminet/new eventual - /pub/aminet/biz/demo FILE NAMES Plabdemo.lha PRICE Demo version is free. DISTRIBUTABILITY Freely Distributable. Program copyright 1994 OWL Software. OTHER Several people have asked to see a demo. Hope this helps. @endnode @node P5-3 "KingFisher 2.1" @toc "menu" TITLE KingFisher VERSION 2.1 AUTHOR & AUTHOR'S ADDRESS (inquiries, registration, technical support) Udo Schuermann 6000 42nd Avenue, Apt. 405 Hyattsville, MD 20781-1518 USA email: walrus@wam.umd.edu DESCRIPTION KingFisher 2.1, the successor to the popular KingFisher 1.40, a disk catalog tool originally aimed at Fred Fish's Amiga Library collection, but now capable of a more general purpose format, real multi-user capabilities, and a lot more. KingFisher began as a tool to catalog, maintain, and search Fred Fish's AmigaLibrary disks ("Fish Disks.") It has been redesigned into a multi-purpose, multi-user, multi-database cataloging tool capable of delivering detailed information on software using Fred Fish's new Product-Info Specification. As such, it can be used to catalog not only the Fish Disks, but your club's selection of software, as well, even the contents of Aminet itself. PRE-RELEASES (KingFisher 2.0) Pre-release versions of KingFisher 2.0 have been available since March on Fred's FreshFish, FrozenFish, and GoldFish CD-ROMs, but only now has the program achieved the envisioned set of features that make a first public release feasible. FEATURE OVERVIEW KingFisher 2.1, the product of nearly 20 test releases over a beta test period of three months, offers some of the following capabilities (features marked with {*} are new or significantly improved over the older KingFisher 1.40): {*} - Fully resizable GadTools interface operating on the default public screen; uses the default screen font (even if proportional) for all menus, gadgets, and displayed text. {*} - Multiple copies of KingFisher 2 can operate simultaneously, using a minimum of additional RAM overhead through the use of Client-Server technology. {*} - Multiple copies of a supplied program, RexxFisher, provide ARexx ports at the cost of approximately 25K per client. This contrasts sharply with achieving the same goal with KingFisher 1.40 where the cost was 350K for a complete, secondary copy of KingFisher. {*} - Supplies any number of independently accessible databases to multiple clients (such as KingFisher, RexxFisher, etc.) {*} - Search Sets can be built (as well as saved and restored) to select from a list of matching software that a previous search produced. Matching records are listed and can be selected for instant viewing through a standard listview. {*} - Any number of search expressions are memorized by KingFisher 2 and can be recalled at the press of a button to save typing. {*} - The layout of information used for the display, printing, and exporting can be re-defined to suit individual taste or need. {*} - Uses locale.library and comes supplied with Dansk, Deutsch, Nederlands, and Suomi language catalogs. More are expected. - Context sensitive and fully integrated AmigaGuide(R) documentation. - Includes a complete, ready-to-use database of descriptions for Fish Disks 1-1000! REQUIREMENTS RAM requirements are less than for KingFisher 1.40 and merely a fraction thereof when multiple copies are run: approximately 200K. Also required is Kickstart V37 (2.04) but V38 (2.1) is required for localization. COMPATIBILITY Tested with 68000 through 68040 CPUs, V37, V38, V39, and V40 system software, Picasso II graphics board. Enforcer and Mungwall used during testing. HOSTS Any AMINET site such as: ftp.wustl.eduinet: DIRECTORY fish/docs/ FILENAME KingFisher21.lha (759K) PRICE KingFisher 2.1 is shareware and costs $20(US) or DM30. A registration site in Germany is available for European users. The unregistered version is limited to two simultaneously running clients (KingFisher or RexxFisher.) @endnode @node P5-4 "SSAPatch [pi]" @toc "menu" TITLE SSAPatch VERSION 3.14159265358979 (first and only version) COMPANY Not worth mentioning AUTHOR Eyal Teler e-mail (not for long): teler@cs.huji.ac.il DESCRIPTION SSAPatch allows ClariSSA v1.1, given on the July 94 coverdisk of Amiga Format, to run under Kickstart 1.2. Note that you'll get a lot of messages about not having ARexx, and won't be able to use a lot of the features the program offers. I don't know if it's like this on all Worbench 1.3 machines, or perhaps the program is saying to itself "I'm not running on Kickstart 1.3, so this must be 2.0 or higher". You'll still be able to convert animations to SSA format. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS ClariSSA v1.1 is needed (or course). Kickstart 1.2 is not required, but let's face it, you don't need this program if you don't have it (and frankly, you'd be better off upgrading it anyway). HOST Aminet, for example on ftp.wustl.edu [ I'm not really supposed to use FTP, but hey, it's for a good cause ] DIRECTORY /pub/aminet/biz/patch FILE NAME ssapatch.lzh PRICE This program is BLAZEware (for lack of a better name). It's free, but if you find it useful, and you're feeling generous, you should send the latest version of the BLAZEMONGER archive to my snail mail address (since I'll be off the net soon). Users of this program (and others) are also encouraged to play the Amber Diceless Role Playing game, and read the Hellrider fanzine. DISTRIBUTABILITY This program is in the public domain. [Ed's note: I'm not really sure why I included this.] @endnode @node P5-5 "World Construction Set v1.0" @toc "menu" TITLE World Construction Set, Demo Kit VERSION Demos from and information about v1.0 AUTHORS Gary R. Huber Christopher Eric "Xenon" Hanson (Xenon@Arcticus.burner.com) SHORT High-end terrain renderer and animator. DESCRIPTION World Construction Set is a powerful program for rendering photorealistic landscapes from USGS DEM (Digital Elevation Model) data or other sources. Many types of ground shading and foliage are supported, with spline animation, import/export facilities and an elegant non-modal user- interface. FEATURES General Program Features: Uses Magic User Interface -- Amiga User Interface StyleGuide compliant Provides public screen on user-specified ScreenMode Enhanced display board (with Intuition emulation) compatibility 68000, 68020/68030 and 68040 optimized versions Import / Export Features: IO LightWave motion files I U.S. Geological Survey Digital Line Graphs (USGS DLG) I World Data Bank global vector data I AutoCAD DXF vectors (LINE, POLYLINE, POINT primitives) I USGS 3 arc second ASCII Digital Elevation Models (DEM) IO WCS Binary DEM IO Future support for Vista binary DEMs IO IFF and Sculpt image formats IO IFF-ZBUF and raw array Z-Buffer data IO Convert between any 2D binary data array and an image/DEM Mapping Features: Extensively configurable algorithmic ecosystem mapping Multiple ecosystem types: Water, Bare, Rock, Grass, Conifer, Deciduous Visual sensitivity (ViewShed) analysis and display Summagraphics tablet support (future generic tablet support) Animation Features: Automatic turn banking and lookahead options Spline control of all motion, color and ecosystem parameters Individual Tension, Continuity and Bias for each spline channel Interactive 3D wireframe layout display Timeline (motion graph) editing of all splined parameters Rendering Features: 24 bit output with 4 bit (16-color) progress display Field Rendering for 60fps video output Any aspect and resolution up to 32767 x 32767 (memory permitting) Detailed 2D trees for realistic vegetation density within realistic rendering time-frames Supports Z-Buffered background compositing (IFF-ZBUF, Raw array) REQUIREMENTS Amiga OS 2.04 or later. 3-4MB RAM required. Recommended: 68030/68040, 8-16MB RAM, large hard disk, hires display card. HOST NAME All Aminet sites including: ftp.luth.se (130.240.18.2) wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4) Also will be available on CompuServe, Genie and other networks and BBSes. DIRECTORY biz/demo FILE NAME WCSdemokit.LHA DISTRIBUTABILITY All demo materials are Copyright )1994-1994 by Questar Productions, but may be freely distributed for non-profit uses. World Construction Set v1.0 is Commercial software, and is not freely distributable. PRICE World Construction Set retails for $250.00, but initial v1.0 orders before October 30th 1994 will be discounted to $195. COMPANY Questar Productions 1058 WCR 231/2 Brighton, CO 80601 (303) 659-4028 wcsinfo@arcticus.burner.com TRADEMARKS (All trademarks are the properties of their respective owners) @endnode @node P5-6 "Universal Message System 10.9" @toc "menu" TITLE Universal Message System, Public Release VERSION This is Release 10.9 of the UMS installation package. AUTHOR This package contains software from many different authors. Take a look at the various documentation files for further information. The installation package was originally put together by Kai Bolay and has been updated for 10.9 by Oliver Knorr (E-Mail: olk@johann.nbg.sub.org). DESCRIPTION The Universal Message System (short "UMS") is a system for managing all kinds of messages ('e-mail' and 'news') as universally and efficiently as possible. It uses its own, network-independent format, thus allowing the user, the 'newsreader' and tool-programs to read and treat messages from different networks in a unified way. Special programs called 'importers' and 'exporters' deal with the specific formats of all these networks. In this release importers/exporters are supplied for QWK, UUCP, FidoNet, Mausnet (German) and Z-Net (German) as well as for a proprietary format. UMS supports multiple users and manages individual access-rights for each user. UMS provides a common interface ("ums.library") for access to the message-base, which is used by all programs dealing with UMS. Developer-material for using UMS in Amiga-Oberon, ARexx, C and Modula-2 is included in this package. Also included: - all binaries and tools needed for the central data-base - two messagereaders for reading and writing news and mail. One very nice and intuitive one (needs MUI), and one "not-so- intuitive" one that works on every Amiga- or VT100-console. - many tools that are useful and/or intructive in how to use UMS and write other tools. - an Installer ((c) Commodore-Amiga, Inc.) script to install UMS with any of the above networks in a simple setup (i.e. a "point" or "leaf-node"). NEW FEATURES About 20 of the included packages have been updated since 10.8 and a couple of bugs in the installer script have been fixed. IMPORTANT: There are still a few updates and new packages that ========== did not make it into this release! Most important, the included Maus and Z-Netz drivers are *not* the current releases. You have to get and install these separately. Sorry for the inconvenience. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS AmigaOS >=V2.0, >=3 MB RAM, >=2 MB hd MUI (Magic User Interface, (c) by Stefan Stuntz) is needed if you want to use the IntuiNews messagereader. HOST NAME Any AMINET mirror, for example ftp.uni-erlangen.de. DIRECTORY /pub/aminet/comm/ums FILE NAMES UMS109_1.lha (Installation Disk 1, 625637 bytes) UMS109_2.lha (Installation Disk 2, 700184 bytes) DISTRIBUTABILITY Copyrighted, Freely Distributable, no fee @endnode @node P4-1 "Delphi" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Delphi Internet Services -- Your Connection to the World! %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Amiga Report International Online Magazine and the Amiga Report Coverdisk 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 AMIGAUSER and press RETURN. For more information, 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. An active Amiga SIG hosting conferances, Usenet, Latest wares, and FTP Gopher coming soon 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 P4-2 "Portal" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Portal: A Great Place For Amiga Users %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% The Portal Information Network's Amiga Zone The AFFORDABLE alternative for online Amiga information ------------------------------------------------------- The Portal Online System is the home of acclaimed Amiga Zone, a full- service online SIG (Special Interest Group) for Amiga owners and users. You can dial into Portal to access the Amiga Zone in various ways: direct dial to our San Jose, CA area banks of high-speed modems (you pay for the phone call if it's not local), or though any SprintNet indial anywhere in the USA, (with a small hourly fee) or via the World-wide Internet "telnet" program to portal.com (no hourly fee). Even Delphi and BIX users can Telnet into Portal for a flat $19.95 a month, with *unlimited* use. Portal is NOT just another shell account. Its Online system is fully menu-driven with on-screen commands and help and you can easily customize it for your terminal program and screen size. Some of Portal/Amiga Zone's amazing features include: 2.5 GIGabytes of Amiga-specific file space - we have so much Amiga Stuff online, we've lost count! The *entire* Fred Fish collection of freely distributable software, online. ALL 1000 disks! 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, Elastic Reality (ASDG), Soft-Logik, Apex Publishing, and others. 38 "regular" Amiga libraries with over 10,000 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. We've given away thousands of bucks worth of Amiga prizes - more than any other online service. 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, EGS, Picasso, OpalVision & others feed right into the Zone message bases. Read months worth of postings. No need to clutter your mailbox with them. FREE unlimited Internet Email with 5 meg of free storage. A FREE UNIX Shell account with another 5 meg of free storage. 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, UNIX, Science Fiction, Disney, and dozens more. ALL Portal SIGs are accessible to ALL Portal customers with NO surcharges ever. You never worry "Ooops.. Am I paying for this area?" again! The entire UPI/Clarinet/Newsbytes news hierarchy ($4/month extra) An entire general interest newspaper and computer news magazine. Portal was THE FIRST online service to offer a full package of Internet features: IRC, FTP, TELNET, MUDS, LIBS. And you get FREE unlimited usage of all of them. 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) 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. To join Portal or for more information call: 1-800-433-6444 (voice) 9a.m.-5p.m. Mon-Fri, Pacific Time or 1-408-973-9111. 1-408-725-0561 (modem 3/12/2400) 24 hours every day 1-408-725-0560 (modem 96/14400) 24 hours every day or enter "C PORTAL" from any Sprintnet dial-in in the USA, or telnet to "portal.com" from anywhere. 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!] The Portal Information Network accepts MasterCard, Visa, or you can pre-pay any amount by personal check or money order. The Portal Online System is a trademark of The Portal Information Network. SLIP, UUCP and custom domain accounts are also available. @endnode @node P3 "Dealer Directory" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% Dealer Directory %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Almathera Systems Ltd Southerton House Boundary Business Court 92-94 Church Road Mitcham, Surrey CR4 3TD England VOICE: (UK) 081 687 0040 FAX: (UK) 081 687 0490 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 Atlantis Kobetek Inc. 1496 Lower Water St. Halifax, NS, Canada, B3J 1R9 Phone: (902)-422-6556 Fax: (902)-423-9339 BBS: (902)-492-1544 Internet: aperusse@fox.nstn.ns.ca 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! Amiga Specialists N.V. 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: 519-645-2144 FIDO: 1:2401/200 AmigaNet: 40:550/1 MaxNet: 90:204/1 InterNet: 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 CYNOSTIC Office O1, Little Heath Industrial Estate, Old Church Road, Coventry. CV6 7NB UNITED KINGDOM Tel: +44 (0)203 681687 Fax: +44 (0)203 638508 David Cassidy email: bsupa@csv.warwick.ac.uk DataService Oy P.O. Box 50 Kuurinniityntie 30 02771 ESPOO Findland, Europe Voice: +358 (9) 400 438 301 Fax: +358 (9) 0505 0037 Grey Matter Ltd. Amiga RuleZ! 1-22-3,Minami Magome HillTop House 2F suite 201 Ota-ku,Tokyo 143 Japan Tel:+81 (0)3 5709-5549 Fax:+81 (0)3 5709-1907 and of course the BEST Amiga BBS in Japan BBS:Grey Matter BBS +81 (0)3 5709-1907 (8N1 V32bis 24H ) Email: nighty@gmatter.japan-online.or.jp Amiga Video Solutions 1568 Randolph Avenue St. Paul, MN 55105 Voice: 612-698-1175 BBS: 612-698-1918 Fax: 612-224-3823 Net: wohno001@maroon.tc.umn.edu Magic Page 3043 Luther Street Winston-Salem, NC 27127 910-785-3695 voice/fax Spiff@cup.portal.com Keizer Tech 3881 River Rd N Keizer, OR 97303 USA Voice: 393-5472 Computer Link Your Amiga/PC connection. 6573 middlebelt Garden City MI 48135 USA 313-522-6005 Voice 313-522-3119 Fax clink@m-net.arbornet.org VISAGE COMPUTERS 18 Station Road Ilkeston Derbyshire DE7 8TD UNITED KINGDOM Tel/Fax: +44 (0)602 444501 Internet: floyd@demon.co.uk Suppliers of Amiga Hardware, Software and Public Domain. (Dealers: To have your name added, please send Email!) @endnode @node P4-6 "X-NET" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% X-Net Information Systems %% %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% --==> Public Internet Connectivity Today <==-- - LIVE Internet - Over 6,000 Newsgroups - Telnet/FTP - Worldwide E-Mail - Gopher/Archie - Internet Relay Chat (IRC) - SLIP/PPP - NCSA Mosaic A system dedicated to the Amiga, IBM and Unix user. System Admins ------------- Naperville : (708) 983-6435 V.32bis Brian Vargyas NEW Hoffman Estates : (708) 882-1101 V.32bis Brian Clark Voice / Fax : (708) 983-6064 Arthur Zards Internet : net.xnet.com @endnode @node P2-3 "In Closing" @toc "menu" %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% %% _ _ __ ___ _ %% %% /\\ |\\ /| || // \ /\\ %% %% / \\ | \\ /|| ||(< __ / \\ %% %% /--- \\| \/ || || \\_||/--- \\ %% %% /______________________________\\ %% %% / \\ %% %% Amiga Report International Online Magazine %% %% August 22, 1994 ~ Issue No. 2.25 %% %% 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. Any Electronic Mail sent to the editors may be reprinted, in whole or in part, without any previous permission of the author, unless said electronic mail specifically requests not to be reprinted. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% @endnode @node P1 "Columns and Features" @toc "menu" @{" compt.sys.editor.desk " link P1-1} A warning to Commodore courters... @{" Amiga News " link P1-2} News and Announcements @{" Reader Mail " link P1-3} The lines buzz hotly once more @{" AR Contest " link P1-10} Can't win if you don't play. @{" D.A.S.MP Competition " link P1-17} A chance to win registration from the author @{" NewTek/Commodore News " link P1-6} Nakakihara gets some information... @{" Interview: Jim Carey " link P1-4} A look at a talented Amiga user @{" Notes for 2.x -> 3.1 " link P1-12} Dan Barrett offers some vital advice @{" CSAReview: Greek WB " link P1-14} A localization/customization package @{" Review: Daewoo SVGA " link P1-15} Another monitor option for Amigans @{"CSAReview: D.A.S.MP 3.2a" link P1-11} A look at the powerful music player @{" Review: CD Exchange 1 " link P1-16} A bootable, packed catchall CD-ROM @{" Review: Micro R+D 1 " link P1-9} A graphic-laden collection with Transition @{" ShaREview: Storonskij " link P1-5} Checking out 3 offerings from one guy... @{" Emulation Rambler " link P1-8} A64 Package V3.0, part 2 @{" AR Reader Survey " link P1-20} Just a couple of quick questions @{" AR Wants You! " link P1-13} Suggestions for budding writers... @{" AR Coverdisk #3 " link P1-21} The contents of the next coverdisk @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 @{" In Closing " link P2-3} Copyright Information @endnode @node P2-2 "The Editors" Feel free to contact any of the editors! @{" Jason Compton " link P8-1} The Editor-in-chief @{" Robert Niles " link P8-2} The Assistant Editor @{" Michael Wolf " link P8-3} The European Editor @{" David Tiberio " link P8-4} Contributing Editor @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 @{" X-NET " link P4-6} An Internet site for everyone! @endnode @node P5 "FTP and product announcements" @toc "menu" @{" CD Exchange Volume 1 " link P5-1} As reviewed this issue @{" Physics Laboratory Demo" link P5-2} A high school physics educational package @{" KingFisher 2.1 " link P5-3} A long-running cataloguing system @{" SSAPatch [pi] " link P5-4} A humorous offering... @{"World Construction Set 1" link P5-5} A rendering package for DEM files @{"Universal Message System" link P5-6} V10.9 of newsreaders and more... I was unable to get a hold of the wustl charts this fortnight because FTPMail has a rough time getting through. If anybody would like to submit them to me on a regular basis, please do. Jason @endnode ----------------------------------------- @node P2-1-1 "NOVA" @toc "menu" * NOVA BBS * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site Support BBS of The Chattanooga Amiga Users Group * Running MEBBSNet BBS * Wayne Stonecipher, Sysop AmigaNet 40:210/10.0 40:210/1.0 40:210/0.0 FidoNet 1:362/508.0 An Amiga Software Distribution Site (ADS) 615-472-9748 USR DS 16.8 24hrs - 7 days Cleveland, Tennessee All AR back issues are kept online. All new users receive access to the AR on the first call. Any AR issue may be file requested with proper name. To obtain the current issue you may FReq Proper name, AR.LHA or simply AR @endnode ------------------------------------------ @node P2-1-2 "In The MeanTime" @toc "menu" *** System down temporarily -- Don't call except for FAX *** * IN THE MEANTIME BBS * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site * Running AXShell * Robert Niles, Sysop rniles@imtired.itm.com 509-248-5645 Supra V.32bis 24hrs - 7 days Yakima, Washington ******* Notice ******* Those who call for the latest edition of Amiga Report, and who do not with to establish an account, at the first login: prompt type "bbs", at the second login: prompt type "guest". Once in type "ARMAG" (without the quotes) at any prompt. @endnode ------------------------------------------ @node P2-1-3 "PIONEERS BBS" @toc "menu" * PIONEERS BBS * ** A PREMIER GENEALOGY BBS ** ** WEST COAST - Amiga Virus Busters Support BBS ** ** CD32 REVIEW Support BBS ** AND NOW Official Amiga Report Distribution Site * Running EXCELSIOR! BBS * Michael & Marthe Arends, Sysops FidoNet: 1:343/54.0 206-775-7983 Supra 14.4k v32.bis 24hrs - 7 days EDMONDS, Washington New users can call and get ANY copy of Amiga Report. Just call using the Name "Long Distance" and the password "Longdistance"(without the quotes of course). Users using this account will have full access to ALL past and present issues of AMIGA REPORT starting with the premier issue. The latest issue of Amiga Report can be Freq'ed (FileREQusted) from here as "AR.LHA", Freq's are valid at ANY time. @endnode ------------------------------------------ @node P2-1-4 "CIUA BBS" @toc "menu" * CIUA BBS* Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Portugal * Running Excelsior/Trapdoor/AmigaUUCP/AmiTCP * Celso Martinho, Sysop FidoNet 2:361/9 Internet: denise.ci.ua.pt +351-34-382080/382081 (V32bis soon V34) 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.demon.co.uk 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 Voice: +44 (0)956 348405 (24hrs) Direct Sysop Voice Line Internet: user_name@junct9.royle.org Special Interest Areas: - Bjork / Sugarcubes Fan Club - Research of Lucid Dreaming @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: 1:221/302 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 "EMERALD KEEP BBS" @toc "menu" * Emerald Keep BBS * Official Amiga Report Distribation Site * Running DLG Professional * Michael mac Nessa, Sysop 24 hrs - 7 days FidoNet: 1:2250/2 AmigaNet: 40:206/1 618-394-0065 USR 16.8k DS Fairview Heights, IL @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 P2-1-16 "Amiga Do PC BBS" @toc "menu" * AMIGA DO PC BBS * Official Amiga Report Distribuition Site - Brazil * Running Excelsior! v 1.18 * +55-192-33-2260 Weekdays: 19-07 (-3 GMT) Weekends: 24 hours Fidonet: 4:801/44 RBT: 12:1212/1 Virinet: 70:101/17 Internet: fimoraes@dcc.unicamp.br Francisco Moraes, sysop Campinas, SP Freq AREPORT for the newest issue avaiable. @endnode ------------------------------------------ @node P2-1-17 "Comm-Link BBS" @toc "menu" * COMM-LINK BBS * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site * Running Excelsior Pro * 604-945-6192 USR DS 16.8 24 hrs - 7 days Fido: 1:153/210.0 AmigaNet 40:800/9100.0 InterSports: 102:540/305.0 PussNet: 169:1000/305.0 InterNet: steve_hooper@comm.tfbbs.wimsey.com Steve Hooper, Sysop Port Coquitlam, B.C. Canada @endnode ------------------------------------------ @node P2-1-18 "Phantom's Lair" @toc "menu" * PHANTOM'S LAIR * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site * Running CNET 3.0 * FidoNet: 1:115/469.0 Phantom Net Cooridinator: 11:1115/0.0-11:1115/1.0 708-469-9510 708-469-9520 CD ROMS, Over 15511 Files Online @ 2586 meg Peter Gawron, Sysop Glendale Heights, Illinois @endnode @node P2-1-19 "Tierra-Miga BBS" @toc "menu" Tierra-Miga BBS Software: CNet Gib Gilbertson 24 hours - 7 days FidoNet: 1:202/638.0 AmigaNet: 40:406/3.0 Internet: torment.cts.com Line #1: 619.292.0754 V32.bis City: San Diego, CA. @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 Juha Mkinen, SysOp (Amiga-areas) Tero Manninen, SysOp (PC-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.32bis Seinjoki, Finland Our host machine is a 386/33 with 20MB of memory, 1GB harddisk and a CD-ROM drive running in a Novell network. The BBS software is a Norwegian origin MBBS running in a DesqView windows. We have now (26th March 1994) over 10000 files online (mostly for the Commodore Amiga line of the personal computers.) Every user has an access to download filelist (LAHOFIL.ZIP), list of the Finnish 24-hour BBS's (BBSLIST.ZIP or BBSLIST.LHA) and every issue of the Amiga Report Magazine (AR101.LHA-AR???.LHA) even on their first call. The system has been running since 1989 and is sponsored by the local telephone company, Vaasan Lnin Puhelin Oy. BTW, LAHO stands for "LAtomeren Hyrylaiva Oy" = "Barnsea Steamship Co." Welcome on board! @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 28.8k 24hrs - 7 days EMail: christon@powertech.no @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 P2-1-55 "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 / / AR Coverdisk / / / CoverDisk 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. \______\________________\______\_\/ Download on the first call. Hardware: Amiga 500 Tower custom at 14 MHz, 350 Meg maxtor, 125 Meg SCSI Maxtor, 345 Meg IDE Maxtor, 2 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 P2-1-21 "Continental Drift" @toc "menu" *================================================================== ==* /\ C O N T I N E N T A L D R I F T B B S / \ (+61) 2 949 4256 / \______ Murray Chaffer * Andre Lackmann * Dale Cohen / / \ / / \ Amiga * IBM * Macintosh / / \ : : : :\ \ /\ \ : : :800Mb+ Online - USENET News - Internet Mail :\ \ / \ \ : : Local Mail - FIDOnet Mail - Shareware Regos : :\ \/ \ \ : :Online Games - Aminet, FISH, Euro CD-ROMs : :\ / /: : : : :\ / /: : :Amiga Report * CD-32 View * Frontier Consoles \ / / * Computer underground Digest * \ /\ / \ / \ / **Online shareware registrations** \/ \/ Files daily from Aminet * ADS/SAN *================================================================== ==* @endnode @node P2-1-22 "Amiga Online Bs Heemstede" @toc "menu" Amiga Online Bs Heemstede * HeadQuarters of Online Products * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- The Netherlands * Running Xenolink 1.90 * Your SysOp is Michiel Willems 24 hours a day - 7 days a week Fidonet : 2:280/464.0 DAN Host HQ : 55:100/1.0 Amynet Host : 39:151/1.0 NLA : 14:102/203.0 BOSnet Hub : 99:999/2.0 e-mail SysOp : michiel@aobh.wlink.nl Line 1 +31-23-282002 14400 v32bis Supra Line 2 +31-23-470739 14400 v32bis Supra Heemstede, The Netherlands, Europe, The Earth Very nice menu's 660 Megs HD online - ALOT of software ALOT of messages - VERY fast BBS program Point support - Lot's of doors online Just freq AR of AR.LHA for the latest issue available The system is running on an Amiga 2000 with a HARMS-Prof-3000 030 turboboard at 29Mhz and a copro at 50Mhz, 7MB RAM, 660 Meg HD space and soon 1 Gigabyte HD space. Every issue from Amiga Report Magazine online as far as the first issue. @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 @node P2-1-20 "Moonlight Sonata DLG" @toc "menu" M O O N L I G H T S O N A T A D L G * Amiga Report Official Distribution Site * * DAS ModPlayer Support * 2 Nodes *FREE PUBLIC* Amiga BBS MIDI-tunes, MIDI-utils, Modules, Amiga-files Messages, Door-games, MUD... Also patches for several synths! (About 100MB of ProTracker Modules!) Node #1 - +358-18-161763 - ZyXEL V32b 19200 Node #2 - +358-18-161862 - HST DS V32 14400 Fidonet: 2:221/112.0 Keyboards: Erno Tuomainen Amiga3000 25MHz - 1.3Gigs HD BBS Software: Dialog Pro BB/OS @endnode @node P2-1-61 "LINKSystem LINK-CH1" @toc "menu" LINKSystem LINK-CH1 Official Amiga Report Distribution Site - Switzerland in local newsgroup link-ch1.ml.amiga-report Mails and News from/to UseNet contact: rleemann@link-ch1.aworld.de +41 61 3215643 V32bis/Zyx16800 +41 61 3832007 ISDN X75/V110 +41 61 3832008 ISDN X75/V110 @endnode @node P2-1-62 "Doom of Darkness" @toc "menu" * Doom of Darkness * * Home of AmBoS * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Germany Marc Doerre (Marc_Doerre), Sysop (BBS-Owner/AmBoS-Support) Bernd Petersen (TGM), Sysop (Amiga-Software-Support) Gerhard Luehning (Klaro), Co-Sysop (Aminet-Support) Kai Szymanski (Kai), Co-Sysop (AR-Support/AmBoS-Support) Usenet: user_name@doom.ping.de Line 1 +49 (0)4223 8355 19200 V.42bis/Zyx Line 2 +49 (0)4223 3256 16800 V.42bis/Zyx Line 3 +49 (0)4223 3313 16800 V.42bis/Zyx Sysop Email: marc_doerre@doom.ping.de AR-Infoservice : kai@doom.ping.de @endnode @node P2-1-63 "RedEye BBS" @toc "menu" REDEYE BBS * Running EXCELSIOR/UUCP/AFAX * "Official Amiga Report Distribution Site Germany/Europe" Sysop: Thorsten Meyer Internet: sysop@redeye.greenie.muc.de Line 1: +49-89-5460535 (V.32b, Zyxel EG +) Line 2: +49-89-5460071 (USR Courier V32b terbo) 24hrs - 7 days Munich, Germany Areas for Amiga, PCs, Lotus Notes Group, Amiga Report, Game Byte, Graphic Stuff, 3D-Exchange, 3D-tools, 3D-objects, McAffee, GUS, PAS, DOOM, WINDOWS-NT, OS/2 Online CD, Online Games, USENET, INTERNET, FIDO ECHOS, Developer @endnode @node P2-1-64 "Virtual Palace BBS" @toc "menu" * Virtual Palace BBS * * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site * * Official Amiga Report Disk Distribution Site * 916-343-7420 300-14400 Baud V.42bis AmiExpress 2.40 700 Mbytes P.O. Box 5518 Chico, California 95927 Tibor G. Balogh (Tibor), Sysop Sysop Email: tibor@ecst.csuchico.edu Leland Whitlock (Leland), Co-Sysop @endnode @node P2-1-65 "X-TReMe BBS" @toc "menu" -*+*/+ X-TReMe BBS +/*+*- Pygor & The Doctor +31-167064414 (24h) Internet: u055231@vm.uci.kun.nl _______ .__ _____ /_ .__//_/ //.___/ Bitnet: u055231 at HNYKUN11 ./ //.__ .//.___/ Internet: u055231@vm1.uci.kun.nl /_//_/ /_//____/. BBS: +31-1670-64414 (24h) . ___ .____ ______________ _____ . . . / .\/ . // _ /_. __/ . //.__ .\ . / / / / // /_. / /./ / // __ \ / . /___//___//___/./_/ /___//_/. \_/ @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 @{" PIONEER'S BBS " link P2-1-3} ..............................Edmonds, Washington @{" CIUA BBS " 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 @{" EMERALD KEEP BBS " link P2-1-13} .........................................Illinois @{" AMIGA BBS " link P2-1-14} .........................Estado de Mexico, Mexico @{" THE STYGIAN ABYSS " link P2-1-15} ................................Chicago, Illinois @{" AMIGA DO PC BSS " link P2-1-16} .................................Campinas, Brazil @{" COMM-LINK BBS " link P2-1-17} .......................Port Coquitlam, BC, Canada @{" PHANTOM'S LAIR " link P2-1-18} .......................Glendale Heights, Illinois @{" Tierra-Miga BBS " link P2-1-19} .....................................SanDeigo, Ca @{" MOONLIGHT SONATA DLG " link P2-1-20} ..........................................Finland @{" CONTINENTAL DRIFT " link P2-1-21} ................................Sydney, Australia @{" Amiga Online Bs H'stede " link P2-1-22} ..................................The Netherlands 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 @{" 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 @{" GURU MEDITATION " link P2-1-60} ............................................Spain @{" LINKSystem LINK-CH1 " link P2-1-61} ...............................Basel, Switzerland @{" DOOM OF DARKNESS " link P2-1-62} ..................................Bremen, Germany @{" REDEYE BBS " link P2-1-63} ..................................Munich, Germany @{" Virtual Palace BBS " link P2-1-64} ........................................Chico, Ca @{" X-TReMe BBS " link P2-1-65} ..................................Holland/Belgium @endnode