@database "ar231.guide" @Node MAIN "Amiga Report Online Magazine #2.31 -- November 8, 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 "THE Online Source for Amiga Information!" Copyright 1994 Skynet Publications All Rights Reserved // =====================================//==================================== == November 8, 1994 \\// Issue No. 2.31 == =========================================================================== @endnode @node "menu" "Amiga Report Main Menu" @toc "menu" =========================================================================== == Main Menu == =========================================================================== @{" Editorial and Opinion " link P1} @{" News and Features " link P2} @{" Reviews " link P3} @{" Reader Mail " link P4} @{" FTP and Product Announcements " link P2-2} @{" About AMIGA REPORT " link P5} @{" Dealer Directory " link P6-3} Contact Information and Copyrights Amiga Dealer Addresses and Numbers @{" Where to Get AR " link P5B} @{" Commercial Products " link P6} Mailing List & Distribution Sites Online Services, Dealers, Ordering ______________________________________________ // | | // ========//====| Amiga Report International Online Magazine |======//===== == \\// | Issue No. 2.30 October 24, 1994 | \\// == ==============| "THE Online 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 WOC in Cologne Press Releases AmiTCP HowTo Humor Department REVIEWS CD-1401 Monitor CyberStorm Arcade Pool CD32 Super Stardust AGA @endnode =========================================================================== == The Amiga Report Staff == =========================================================================== @node P8-1 "Editor" @toc P5-1 =========================================================================== == EDITOR == =========================================================================== Jason Compton ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Internet Address -------- ------- jcompton@cup.portal.com 1838 Chicago Ave. #419 jcompton@bbs.xnet.com Evanston, IL 60201-3806 USA Fax Phone --- ----- 708/491-4064 708/332-4599 @endnode @node P8-2 "Assistant Editor" @toc P5-1 =========================================================================== == ASSISTANT EDITOR == =========================================================================== Robert Niles ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Internet Address -------- ------- rniles@pnw.net P.O. Box 8041 Yakima, WA 98908 FidoNet Fax ------- --- 1:3407/103 509/248-5645 @endnode @node P8-3 "European Editor" @toc P5-1 =========================================================================== == EUROPEAN EDITOR == =========================================================================== Michael Wolf ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Internet -------- MikeWolf@bonebag.tynet.sub.org @endnode @node P8-4 "Contributing Editor" @toc P5-1 =========================================================================== == CONTIBUTING EDITOR == =========================================================================== David Tiberio ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Internet -------- dtiberio@libserv1.ic.sunysb.edu @endnode @node P8-5 "Copy Editor" @toc P5-1 =========================================================================== == COPY EDITOR == =========================================================================== Katie Nelson ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Internet -------- Kati@cup.portal.com @endnode @node P1-1 "compt.sys.editor.desk" @toc P1 =========================================================================== == compt.sys.editor.desk By: @{" Jason Compton " link P8-1} == =========================================================================== It's becoming downright infuriating. The rest of the computer world marches on as Pentiums get (relatively) dirt cheap and Apple tries to convince the US market that there's a Mac your 3 year old kid can do a video presentation on that will get you a promotion at work. And the waiting continues for the Amiga buyout to be completed. November 4th was another one of those "guidelines", this time for Commodore UK's MBO to sign their contract. If they did sign it, by the rules of the buyout, the proceedings will go to a public bid in a month, at which point any party that wants to can bid for the Amiga, and the last bid is the one for the most money. However, CEI, unhappy with the way things were going, decided to go to the liquidators with a new proposal: They would sign a new contract, based on their own private bid, and take the Amiga immediately, asking that the public bid be eliminated. This was the middle of last week. On November 4th, I was unable to reach either CEI or C= UK, and a call to the liquidator's office told me he wasn't in. Today (Monday), my budget only allowed me to try calling CEI, and neither Alex Amor nor Dave DiFelici were in. In short, I don't know anything at this point. If something momentous happens, Amiga Report readers will be the first people I tell. Just hold on...a bit longer... Jason PS - As this issue is going out, CEI has had a contract written up to purchase the Amiga. The liquidators met with them Monday in CEI's hometown, and are now going over the contract. C= UK has not yet signed their own contract. If they don't, and CEI does sign, it will go up for court approval. @endnode @node P1-2 "The Amiga Community" @toc P1 =========================================================================== == The Amiga Community By Celso Martinho == =========================================================================== Hi there, This is my second article to AR. It's 3 am and I'm bored so I decided to write it while I'm eating some peanuts. If you're reading this crap is just because the AR editor had nothing better to put here and decided to waste some network bandwidth. :-)) Back to the main subject, Amiga! Is the Amiga community falling apart ? Amiga users lost the faith in Amiga and don't believe anymore that it can yet be a well succeeded machine in the market ? I wouldn't blame them. At the time when I wrote the 1st article (this is was 2/3 months ago) the Amiga owners were to be known next week. Surprisingly, to many, the answer to this 2 questions, to my point of view, is NO! I can't believe that in the last 3 months, so many good software was developed to the Amiga. Mostly Public Domain/Shareware as commercial houses don't have a reason to waste money. Who is going to buy a Word Processor or a Image Processing program for the Amiga these days knowing that there is the possibility that the company will drop support ? Not me! Aminet continues growing. Everyday I see software for free or for a minimal contribution fee that has the quality of some commercial products for other platforms. Amiga is really a winner here. Some people say that the Amiga was becoming over-priced. Those tend to forget that it's not only hardware that costs money but also software so I ask: Can you get so much for so less in any other platform ? I never thought that the Amiga was over-priced, even considering only the hardware. What I must say is that the Amiga is not for dummies or people that want a computer to turn on, write the document, print, turn off. The Amiga is a computer to be explored and for open minded people. Those know that they have Localbus, Autoconfig, Deluxe preemptive multitasking and much more. And they know that they paid much less for it than they would for other systems. Some call Amiga users a community and I agree. There is this unexplainable commitment with the Amiga feeling that *we*, that know it well, can't find anywhere else. I remember the defunct Commodore advertising the Amiga in the early days saying "The limit is your imagination". So I thought, a machine w/o any limitations ? I'll buy one :-)). That was my first A500. It will really depress me if the Amiga dies. I hope it doesn't but the future isn't very bright is it ? Don't get me wrong, I know it's only a machine, a bunch of electronic components put together in a box. But I guess that after all these years, the Amiga has gained the right to be personalized to some. The saddest news I had in last weeks was the announcement from SAS that they will drop SAS/C developing and support in December. I don't think there is a reason to worry tho. Whoever buys the Amiga knows that there must exist a well supported commercial package for software developing. AmigaDOS was already being upgraded using SAS-C. If the Amiga survives, SAS/C does for sure. Good news. There is a another Unix clone for the Amiga coming and it multitasks with AmigaDOS. The Emplant PC is *almost* a reality and for some messages I've seen from betatesters, it seems that it really works as expected. The Networking software is one of areas in which the Amiga is becoming better and better every day and it's really a dream having your Amiga connected to the net with such a great OS running in the background. [I'm out of peanuts] Well, I don't have much more to say anyway... As in the "Bon Jovi" song, the one in the CD-32 FMV demo CD, keep the faith (Hmmm.. ?) ! :-) Celso Martinho / Portugal. @endnode @node P4 "Reader Mail" @toc "menu" =========================================================================== == Reader Mail == =========================================================================== From: Miles Goodhew Subject: GPFax review - comments. Hello, I was just reading your review of GPfax in AmigaReport #?, and thought I might give you some feedback. I couldn't find a general return address for AReport, so it seems that your address is the one. Yes, Greg Perry's a doctor (philosphical type, not medical - No, I don't know what field it's in either). I've met him, and he's got a beard to prove doctorial status! You were saying something along the lines of "goofy near-pastel colours", and "own custom screen with a custom GUI". If you ask me, better descriptions would be "nasty hack of a hardwired interface with a full-screen containing 8-or-so buttons which could all be replaced by menus" (but seriously, how often do you need to get "About" info - does it therefore need an easy-to-access button?). I may sound like I hate this program, but ti's really only the interface which is bad, functionally it's quite good. Indeed, compared to all the other fax programs I have (i.e. none), it excells in all areas. Another minor quibble is the fact that it DEMANDS!! that I enter a business name, even though I want to use GPfax for personal use only (lots of faxed from "Chickensexers, inc.", I suppose) - the manual's a bit calmer on this point. Another thing is that A4 paper (as opposed to USLetter) is the standard in Australia, and Europe (and indeed most of the world outside North America, possibly excluding Japan, as far as I know), which is why it's the default for GPFax. A4's a more versatile form, as you can do "cute" things like cut an A4 page in half and get two pages of exactly half the size (surprise, surprise), yet still the same shape (A5). Similarly you can stick two together to get an A3 page (albeit a rather tacky one). - The wonders of A-size pages! Thanks, a good review. Miles. - The business name demand may be more a function of fax "regulations" and standards than Dr. Perry's cruelty. Thanks for the paper tutorial. ------------------------- From: Robert_Bjvrn@p44.f404.n204.z2.fidonet.cd.chalmers.se Subject: Some comments about AR Hello Jason! I've been reading Amiga Report since it started. I think it's an *excellent* source of information. The only one I trust, as a matter of fact. And I loved the CEI conferences! I have some general comments/suggestions: 1. There seems to be some problems with the Installer script. Here's what I get when trying to install: "Sorry... an Error Has Occured! Interpreter: Executing non-function". I also have some problems viewing pictures (I can't view the pictures in all my AR's). 2. I like the new layout. There seems to be a tiny "bug", though: MultiView thinks that there is more text to read to the right of every article (the horizontal scrollbar has plenty of space left, to the right). But when I drag the scrollbar to the right I see just emptyness. This "bug" occurs on about every page, even the table-of-contents. This was not the case of the former Amiga Report layout. 3. I would love to see some articles about the new programming language, Amiga-E. It seems like a very exciting language. It apparently has most features of C, but seems much more easy to use and understand. Finally, keep up the good work! I still can't understand how you people can make such a great mag for free... Best regards, _ _ /_) /_) / \obert /__)jvrn EMail: RobertB@augs.se FidoNet: 2:204/404.44 - As for the installer...I sometimes have problems myself. We'll fix it...eventually. The side-scroll problem should be fixed this time. As for articles on E...anybody want to write one? - We're not sure how we do it, either. ------------------------- From: DARKSEID Subject: Suggest/Request for Amiga Report Greetz from Darkseid This might come as a shock but I'd like to suggest something to you and all the Amiga Report subscribers/readers/contributors. Many people out there in the 'real' world :) will be familiar with Pc's & Macs :( and so will very probably use Microsoft software in one form or another....:( Now this aint so bad as it is quite good ;) on occasion, eg Word6 handy idiot typer corrrector (I need it.....:) ). Now wouldn't it be nice to have Microsoft Products for our dearly (departed ;) ) beloved machine the Amiga, even if it was just AGA + Now some of you will howl (and prob flame) how dare I suggest such a thing well, I dare because it makes sense, if we can get the big name software we can get more attention and sales ie the Amiga doesnt go the way of the of the atari falcon (he heh heheh ;) ). What I would request/suggest is all Amiga Report'ers would e-mail Bill Gates and pester him as to why he hasnt produced software for the Amiga (we've had windows for years...) and if he intends to, if he gets enough mail he'll pay attention..... :) His E-mail tag is billg@microsoft.com, mail him, but do it nicely NO RUDE OR IMPLOITE FLAMES< WE WANT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY...... Also Would it be possible to get Him/Microsoft on the conference to answer questions or a discussion etc ?? How bout it JC ???? Ah well Id better sign out now, thangyooovermuchh for readin - We'll see. At this point, I doubt MS would blink an eye. Maybe if the new company, when it comes about, puts a positive face on the whole thing... @endnode @node P2-1 "Press Releases" @toc P2 =========================================================================== == Press Releases == =========================================================================== From lamar.morgan@index.com Worldwide News Media Wake-Up Call w/Flowers Today was the day to send a floral arrangement to your favorite news media person and request a news investigation of the Commodore situation. I have gotten positive feedback from ABC News, again. Apparently, they think the Commodore situation would be more suited to Prime Time Live than Turning Point. If you sent flowers today and received positive feedback, please let me know by leaving an e-mail message. I really appreciate your taking the time, effort and money to make a positive impact on the news media for the sake of the Amiga platform. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Martyn Brown, one of Team17's directors, gave some details about Alien Breed 3D. A "Doom-esque" game, it will feature the most advanced engine on the Amiga. As they admit, this means it won't be the fastest, but it will feature "Multi-angle-walls, Light-Source[d], 18+ objects on screen, Optional full screen display, support for HD, Accelerated machines"... it is not yet completed. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Colin Proudfoot, co-Managing Director of Commodore UK, has declined Amiga Report's invitations to conferences. He suggested I contact him again in two weeks. CEI will be holding an online conference on IRC in the near future. It is slated for November 23, beginning at 4:30 Central US Daylight Savings time. More information will be available in the next issue of Amiga Report and on Usenet. All interested participants should meet in IRC channel #amiga, where they will be informed by Jason Compton, the moderator, which channel the conference will be held on. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Intangible Assets Manufacturing will be releasing DiskSalv 3 as a commercial product in the near future. Suggested price is US$40. A press release should be available for next issue. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - NOVA DESIGN, INC. ANNOUNCES IMAGEFX 2.0 RICHMOND, VA., November 4th, 1994. Nova Design, Inc. officially announced the release of ImageFX 2.0 which will begin shipping towards the end of this month. ImageFX is the complete Amiga image manipulation system that combines image processing with amazing special effects technology and professional painting tools that can simulate artistic styles. ImageFX's suggested list price is $349.95 US. Upgrades from any previous version of ImageFX are only $124.95 US to registered owners. For upgrade orders you may call (804) 282-1157. Nova Design, Inc., 1910 Byrd Avenue, Suite 214, Richmond, Virginia 23230, Customer Support/Information (804) 282-6528, Fax (804) 282-3768 ImageFX, PaintFX, AutoFX and CineMORPH are trademarks of Nova Design, Inc. All other products named are trademarked by their respective companies. ImageFX 2.0 Feature List New System Features ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Image Thumbnails Load and save images via interactive visual interface. Preview effects on thumbnails before applying them. Multiple Buffers Work on an unlimited number of image buffers and brushes. New Region Controls Add, subtract, or invert regions. Create painting stencils and masks. Text Generator Create multiple lines of text with justifications and anti- aliasing. Preview fonts before using them. Image Compositing New compositing methods including Fast Matte, HSV Matte, Multiply, Divide, Minimum and Maximum. AutoFX New "cookbook" style batch processor with prewritten scripts to perform hundreds of batch operations and animated effects! ImageFX Browser Visual image cataloging system for maintaining libraries of pictures and animations. Documentation Completely rewritten manual with over 400 pages of tutorials and reference. Expanded online help system. Hardware Support ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Graphics Boards Supports all Amiga modes, Retina Z2/Z3, Picasso II, Piccolo, Firecracker 24, IV-24, DCTV, HAM-E, Harlequin, and any EGS- comp. hardware such as the Spectrum, Talon, and Rainbow III. Scanners Expanded Epson 300/600/800 scanner controls and new support for the VLAB YC framegrabber. Printers Direct support for the Primera color printer in full color. New Painting Features ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Improved soft edge modes and anti-aliasing. Realtime painting tools that emulate traditional media such as Airbrushes, Charcoals, Chalk, Oil and Fingerpaints, Felt Tip Markers, Watercolors, and Crayons! New Draw Modes like Smudge, Roughen, Disperse, Sharpen, and others. Drawing Styles to allow rub through to other images, alpha channels, mandala creation, realistic brush stroke fading, and much more. New Image Conversion Formats ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Amiga Toaster Framestore DPS PAR loader Applied Magic Jstream Macintosh PICT, including vector and JPEG variations! Improved TIFF loader MSDOS PIC format for all resolutions and color depths GRASP/GL animation frame loading DL animation frame loading Silicon Graphics SGI RGB Wavefront Softimage Others MPEG animation creation and frame extraction X-Windows Abekas A60 series Sun Raster C64 Koala FITS/PDS/Vicar (NASA) image frames New Special Effects and Image Processing ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Realistic lightning bolt generator Map images onto spheres Pond ripples and waves Swirl images Advanced lens flares generator Apply paper/canvas textures Water/Glass distortion Image warps and lens effects 3D perspective rotation Expanded 2D rotation PaintFX automatic painting generator Star and supernova generator Crystallization effects Circular blurring effects Standard or circular mosaic effects Straw-like distortions Random tiling effects Median/Minimum/Max. filters Sobel edge-detection Ramping edge-detection Controllable NTSC/PAL Video filters Histogram Equalization tool ImageFX 2.0 works with any model Amiga with at least two megabytes of Chip or Fast RAM and a minimum of five megabytes of available hard drive space and AmigaDOS 2.04 or higher. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - AS&S have just announced a 64bit Zorro III gfx board, the CyberVision64. It is based on the Vision864 graphics chip by S3 and allows for a maximum of 4MB DRAM. Running with a pixel clock of 135 Mhz, the maximum resolution is 1280x1024 256 colours at 72Hz. 24bit modes are available up to a resolution of 800x600. It has no pass through for the amiga video signal, but a feature connector for add-ons such as JPEG or MPEG boards. The only software included so far is a workbench emulator. The board will be introduced at this years WOC in Cologne and will be shipping by the end of this year for DM 649.- ($ 406.-) (2MB Version). - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MacroSystem are now shipping their Retina boards with the new XIPaint 3.0 Software, which rivals TVPaint's flexibility. XIPaint is available for existing Retina users as an update (ca. $ 40), users of the Picasso II board can get it for $125.-. EGS and Amiga AGA versions are planned. The VLAB Y/C and the Retinas are now shipped with the DigitalImage image processor. @endnode @node P2-4 "From Across the Pond: WOC in Cologne" @toc P2 =========================================================================== == The Voice from Across the Pond By: @{"Michael Wolf" link P8-3} == == WOC in Cologne == =========================================================================== Phew, I just got back from the WOC in Cologne, I just installed and tested my new MultiFace III Board, and I am relaxing with a cup to tea now. Time to give you an overview of the show. Well, the Amiga part of the show was only about one half of a hall, most of the important german companies where there, mostly selling their stuff. The other 3/4 of the was dominated by PC games, with the Amiga showing up every now an then. The Amiga booths were extremely crowded, there was no way to fall on your face, as there were simply to many people standing around. CR Roms were sold like hot cakes, I also spotted a few people sneaking away with CD 32s. So, let me give you a brief summary of the new and exciting things on the show: The OpalVision Roaster chip/board is finally beeing sold, at a price that is much higher than excpected (around DM 4000, $2500) , but fair considering what you get for the money. Now with the Roaster and LightWave PAL, who needs a Toaster in Europe ? The Digital Broadcaster 32 was beeing demoed, alongside a Warp Transputer System. The DBC32 seems to be fairly stable now, the image quality is excellent. While the WARP System looks quite nice, I could not see it working as it had just crashed before I arrived. The specs are very impressive and that beast is fast. It basically allows you to load off cpu intensive tasks to Transputer boards using the Warp OS. You can add as many boards as you want to your system, increasing performance proportionally. The base board does around 50 Mips and installs in a Zorro slot. The other boards (Warp Twin 70 Mips, Warp Tripple 105 Mips) are then connected to the base board. System comparisons to an Amiga 4000/40 are quite impressive, a render that took around 1 hour on an A4000/40 took around 50 seconds on a 1000 Mips Warp system. A rendering engine for Aladdin 4D is available, others (Real3D, Lightwave) are to follow. Software especially written for the Warp boards is supposed to be beeing developed now. Helfrich demoed the SD64 64 bit graphics board based on the EGS software, a tablet driver for Genius tablets (which looks promising, Genius tablets are very cheap), Scala MM 400, VideoCruncher and the Peggy MPEG board. The SD64 is a ZorroII/ZorroIII autosensing gfx board with a max pixel clock of 110Mhz. It is compatible with the Piccolo, the only main difference is that it is faster, more expensive and allows for a max of 4MB Ram. The tablet driver has some nice features, allowing you to put keyboard/mouse events or ARexx/Dos scripts on any part of the tablet. The final version will allow you to load your tablet template as an IFF file and directly define the areas that cause actions to happen. Scala MM400 has some new features such as direct VLAB/IV24/Framemaschin support, loads different file formats (TIFF, BMP, FLI/FLC, PhotoCD, GIF, PCX and Datatypes), has 5 types of antialiasing and allows you to run audio/video editing tools directly from Scala. AS&S were of course demoing the Cyberstorm60/50, which will be available as soon as Motorola ships the 68060 in quantities.Lightwave rendering times are very impressive, the TextureExamples scene included with Lighwave takes 3:42 (minutes / seconds) to render on an A4000/40 25Mhz, 1:32 on a Cyberstorm 40 40 Mhz and 0:54 on a Cyberstorm 60 at 50 Mhz. AS&S also plans to release an 060 board running at 80Mhz as soon as the cpus become available. The Mips ratings are: A4000/40 15.447, Cyberstorm 40 24.896, Cyberstorm 60 82.190 (!). The 060 at 80Mhz is supposed to rate at around 130 Mips. They also showed their new gfx board, the Cybervision64. It is a pure ZorroIII board based on a 64bit chip by S3. The pixelclock lies around 135 Mhz. The Workbench emulation seemed to be quite stable, it is rumoured to be by the same people who did the Picasso emulation. It also features planar to chunky conversion hardware (a kind of Akiko I guess, just the ther way around), which ought to speed up the emulation. It is available with 2 and 4 MB and a pass through for the Amiga signal. A VRam version of the board is also planned (unconfirmed !).. AS&S also showed their new range of A1200 turbo boards, which basically offer the same performance at a lower price. Now to a goody I discovered at the booth of one of the smaller companies. It is simply called 32-bit Sequence Processor, and does just that at a list price of DM 499 ($ 312). It allows you to composite 24 bit animations using alpha channels. It offers fades, layering, colour manipulation and other operators. It is not unlike ADPro, but especially made for animations. The rendering calculations are performed at a breathtaking pace due to optimized assembler code. The system is very easy to use and, for example, allows you to composite images using spline paths. This is the kind of programm I would want to write (because I need it ;-). Excellent stuff here, let's wait and see if the guy finds a distributor in the US. Gee, I've been writing for more than an hour now, time for a cigarette. Excuse me... Back again. Well, again I went to the MacroSystems booth, wondering whether they would show a better demo of the VLab-Motion this time. Well, they did. The software is advancing and looks really nice now. The image qualitiy is still not up to PAR (excuse the pun), but ought to be enough for industrial use. The software will not use the M-JPEG chips for JPEG coding/decoding, but MS promised to include highly optimized coding algorithms with the next software update which should cut down thew coding time to around 2 seconds (on a WarpEngine40). A file system for the VLab-Motion is out of the question, said the programmer, because you just can't delete frames in the middle of a sequence. He will think about a file system that allows to write files once only though. The VLab-Motion Software now also fully supports the Toccata audio board during editing. MS also demoed XI-Paint, which features an OS3.x look on a 24 bit screen and offers some nice features (image layering for example). This is line 116 ! What else is there to say ? I wasn't to inclined to stay on the expo much longer, it was just too crowded and those PC game players were getting on my nerves. Fred Fish was there, giving away autographs. I'd did ask him to confirm the rumours that he will be producing an audio CD entitled "Fish Styx" next, featuring him and other famous Amiga persons on vocals and instruments. All he said was: "No comment !". Knowing how show biz is, I assume he's got something up his sleeve. He said he quite enjoys Germany. He must be familiar with Cologne by now, as he seems to be here every autumn. Oh, Imagemaster r/t was on sale, for as low as $112 ! And I didn't buy it, damn. Acorn was there as well btw, with a massive booth right in the middle of the Amiga area. These Acorn Riscs are nice machines, but if they want Amiga users to join them (in case something happens), they better get some decent 2D/3D animation software out. The next Risc OS will, for example, allow paralell processing. You can then basically stack Acorn PC units on top of each other (they have connectors on the top and bottom), and scale your system to the cpu power you need. Maybe D. Pleasance ought to have a chat with them if he wins the bid. Anyhow, 'nuff said. I'm off to bed, I have to go to Bavaria to school for the next two weeks ( ... but I'm taking my Amiga with me ;-) Good night ! @endnode @node P2-5 "AmiTCP 3.0b2 HowTo" @toc P2 =========================================================================== == AmiTCP 3.0b2: A HowTo By: Keith Christopher == =========================================================================== Ok so you're back in school and you dailup the Academic computing center. You are riding down the information super highway sitting behind the cockpit of an amiga, It's unfortunate that you have this masterful multitasking machine and you are limited to one serial connection. Oh the things you could do if you could open more than one win- dow and while that ftp to the local aminet site that travels obiviously through a 56K line somewhere has you reading the jolt cola can in your hand was happening you could be surfing along the internet dropping by all your favorite road side stops. My kingdom for a A2065 card and a network connection. A little more time goes by and you are reading the 5 empty cans on your desk as you download the latest bounty you've ftp'd from the aminet archive. You know there's something BIG going on in #amiga on the irc server, yet you have to wait; after all you only have one modem, one serial port, and no network connection. Sound familiar ? No?! Maybe you are in your basement and you have di- aled into the local on-ramp to the information super highway, same situation. There you are flipping screens between Adpro and Deluxe paint, you've already drawn your name several hundred times, there has to be more. Where's that #?S($*# on-ramp brochure. Hmm, lets see. . . Meanwhile back at school you have decided that you will now be up all night pumped with caffiene and need to solve this problem, where did I put the Aca- demic Computing notes and announcement bulletin ? Like an Archeologist you begin to explore the depths of the piles of disks and cables, then you spy it! Blowing the dust off reveals a big wad of gun stuck in the middle covering some bold face type, lets just carefully scrape it off. . . The only thing missing in this brochure is a bikini clad girl sitting behind a terminal. . . you open the brochure breaking the little white edge seal, oh there she is, what's this next to her ? You begin to read. . . As the gum comes off you begin sweating as you try not to damage the hidden informatin below. Worse yet, it's not even your gum. Your eyes light up as you see the message below. .. Your mouth slowly mo- tions out the word. . . SLIP. . . That's it slip! You dance around a little happy with your new found information, then when the glow of discovery wears off you stop and begin thinking. . . Now what. While the above may be fictitious I do know one thing for sure, the end result is the same. Whether you come on via an on-ramp or have a connection via work or school, one sure begins to miss the network connection once at home. 10megabits per second over ethernet makes 1650 CPS via 14.4 dialup pale in comparison. The ability to connect multipule times from work leaves one dry at home with a single serial con- nection. This is where SLIP comes into play, sure there are other protocols and I will talk about them later, but one of the most common is SLIP. SLIP stands for Serial Line Inter- net Protocol. Basically TCP/IP style connection over standard serial lines. While a multi- tude exist for the various other computers, in my opinion the Amiga has only one hard core performer. AmiTCP (current version 3.0.) While several programs exist that simulate a SLIP or network connection, they do not talk IP. One of the most popular being Dnet by Matt Dillion of DICE fame. Dnet brought some tools to the Amiga that were under development on other platforms, and I still think it has one of the nicest irc clients available. (hint hint Matt, write one for AmiTCP !) The second being AUW. This program is much easier to install than Dnet but doesn't have the expanse of the tools as available for dnet. It does however, work well. By far AmiTCP is becoming one of the fastest and most popular packages available on the Aminet. Before I begin in the setup and configuration of AmiTCP, I will first need to explain a few terms I will be using. These are necessary to help you as the first timer, or the person stuck and not sure what to check an idea of how things work and how they relate to your setup. Internet Protocol or IP: The protocol used by internet hosts to communicate with one another in a standard format. Internet Protocol Address: An address or series of numbers seperated by or IP address peroids assigned to a machine that "talks" IP which identifies it to ALL other machines on the internet. This should be a unique number. e.g. 129.235.23.1 also known as dot notation.? Domain Name service or DNS: A service that "resolves" hostnames into its unique Internet address. e.g. If a machine is named amiga.net.com with an IP address of 129.235.23.1, and one wanted to connect with this machine, I could telnet to amiga.net.com, IP however, cannot understand this and the name must be "looked up" to find out it is known to the network as 129.235.23.1 routing Tables that tell a host what "route" to take to send a message to another host on the network. i.e. send it to this machine and then this machine to this machine until it hits it's destination. This is a very critical part of talking on the internet, if the tables are incorrect the computers may lose the ability to talk to anyother machine off of their local network. Ok now the moment you've been waiting for. The AmiTCP has lots of files associated with it, there is the bin or binary archive. This is the one that has the main programs in it to get AmiTCP up and running. There are many many network programs available for AmiTCP like finger, ping, ftp, telnet, napsaterm(a vt100 emulator), an irc client, a gopher client. . . the list goes on and more are produced everyday. This is a very well supported package. The basic installation requires OS 2.04 or better, 1MB of RAM and approx 2MB of diskspace. Upon un-archiving the package and double clicking he drawer icon one is greeted by a very welcomed sight, an installer icon ! I do recommend that you unarchive the package in it's final resting place. i.e. Comm:AmiTCP30b2 This will save alot of time in the installation process. If there is an old version of AmiTCP it must be removed first and then install the new version. Once you've figured out where you want to store AmiTCP, double clicking on the install_AmiTCP icon starts the ball rolling. Before doing this however I have assembled a checklist of information in the order it is requested by the install script. Hopefully it will help you streamline your thoughts. Please look this over and have the information written down. 1. hostname your computer will be assigned (without the domain): 2. Domain name: 3. Type of connect SLIP or CSLIP: 4. serial.device number (unit number): This number is usually 0 unless you have a second serial port. 5. your machines IP address: 6. NetMask: 7. Gateway: 8. Domain Name Server IP and Name: 9. default router IP address:(same as #7) 10. SLIP dialin number: 11. SLIP login and password: Now that you have the information ready lets begin by double clicking on the Install_AmiTCP icon. This is a standard installer script so it should feel fairly familiar, if this is your first time using the installer script, please read each section carefully and proceed slowly. It is another nice to notice the "Help" button, there is alot of useful information behind each one. Be sure to check them out. Default selection (intermediate [if you were an expert you wouldn't need this article would you ?] ) Install for real and you decide if you want to log it all.select the directory you want to install AmiTCP in. Selecting the default directory will save you lots of copying time and this is the main reason I suggest you unarchive it in its final home on your harddisk. Next installer will ask you the name of your host without the domain. Installer will ask you for your domain name. It will now prompt you to decide if you want to set any enviroment variables using set- env or envarc, I recommend envarc. Next it will prompt you for any aliases you wish to use for this hostname. The installer will ask you to select a device driver.