@database "ar405.guide" @Node MAIN "Amiga Report Online Magazine #4.05 -- March 31, 1996" =========================================================================== March 31, 1996 @{" Turn the Page " link MENU} Issue No. 4.05 =========================================================================== ,a c4%&; 1%%%b 9%=~ " m; mmmm; nmm mmmmm .,pmq,. m; j#6 ##6 j### ### ,#'~ ~`g, j#6 ##&; ##&; #### ### ,#f `# ##&; jP##6 ###6 jP### ### .##' " jP##6 #'$#&; #$#&; #'### ### i## #'$#&; jP l##6 #l##6 jP ### ### &## jP l##6 #' $#&; # $#&;#' ### ### &## #' $#&; j#mmmd##6 # l##6P ### ### ?## mmmw j#mmmd##6 #' $#&; # $##' ### ### ##; $#$ #' $#&; jP l##6 # l#P ### ### `#l ,&#'jP l##6 #' ###mm # $' mm###mm mm###mm `#q,.,p#' #' ###mm (R) "~^~" &&&&q, , ,P `b d' tm d' ,P d&&&P ;P .,d' ,c&&q, &&&&q, ,c&&q, q&,e&q ;P' d&&&P ;P' `& d' `b ;P' `b dP~ `P d' ;P'`&; dB&&&&P ;P ,P d' P ;P ;P d' `&; &, , d' .,d' &, .,d' d' d' , &&& &&'`&&&P' ;B&&&P' `&&&P' &&& `&P' d' ;P &&& "THE Online Source for Amiga Information!" Copyright 1996 FS Publications All Rights Reserved @endnode @node MENU "Amiga Report Main Menu" @toc MAIN =========================================================================== == Main Menu == =========================================================================== @{" Editorial and Opinion " link OPINION} @{" Featured Articles " link FEATURE} @{" Reviews " link REVIEW} @{" News & Press Releases " link NEWS} @{" Aminet Charts " link FTP} @{" Reader Mail " link MAIL} --------------------------------- @{" About AMIGA REPORT " link ABOUT} @{" Dealer Directory " link DEALER} Contact Information and Copyrights Amiga Dealer Addresses and Numbers @{" Where to Get AR " link WHERE} @{" Advertisements " link COMMERCIAL} Mailing List & Distribution Sites Online Services, Dealers, Ordering ______________________________________________ // | | // ========//====| Amiga Report International Online Magazine |======//===== == \\// | Issue No. 4.05 March 31, 1996 | \\// == ==============| "THE Online Source for Amiga Information!" |============= |______________________________________________| @endnode @node JASON "Editor" @toc STAFF =========================================================================== EDITOR =========================================================================== Jason Compton ============= Internet Address -------- ------- jcompton@shell.portal.com 1203 Alexander Ave jcompton@xnet.com Streamwood, IL 60107-3003 USA Fax Phone --- ----- 847-741-0689 847-332-6243 @endnode @node KATIE "Assistant Editor" @toc STAFF =========================================================================== == ASSISTANT EDITOR == =========================================================================== Katherine Nelson ================ Internet -------- Kati@cup.portal.com @endnode @node KEN "Games Editor* @toc STAFF =========================================================================== == GAMES EDITOR == =========================================================================== Ken Anderson ============ Internet Address -------- ------- kend@dhp.com 44 Scotland Drive ka@protec.demon.co.uk Dunfermline Fife KY12 7TD Scotland @endnode @node WILLIAM "Contributing Editor" @toc STAFF =========================================================================== CONTRIBUTING EDITOR =========================================================================== William Near ============ Internet -------- wnear@epix.net @endnode @node ADDISON "Contributing Editor" @toc STAFF =========================================================================== CONTRIBUTING EDITOR =========================================================================== Addison Laurent =============== Internet -------- addison@jobe.shell.portal.com @endnode @node EDITORIAL "compt.sys.editor.desk" @toc OPINION =========================================================================== compt.sys.editor.desk By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== Walker, new. Schmitt, out. Jost, in. What's going on here? As many of you may have heard by now, Amiga Tech showed their new Amiga Walker prototype machine at March's CeBit. A very unconventional case hid a somewhat conventional 030/40, AGA based Amiga with some very new features, such as a PC industry Super I/O chip and a new CPU/Expansion bus. After staggering losses in 1995, Manfred Schmitt departed Escom. He has been replaced by Helmut Jost. Jost ran Commodore Germany and left in 1993 for Escom's Sales and Marketing position. He subsequently left Escom in late 1995 to run IBM's German PC sales division, but is now back, this time at the helm of Escom. Meanwhile, company founder Manfred Schmitt is presumably free to retire at a young age or pursue his dreams elsewhere. What does this mean for the Amiga and Amiga Technologies? No mention of what his policy towards AT might be has been made. Amiga Technologies employees seem cautiously optimistic that this change may bring good things to the company. In the past fortnight or so, the Amiga community got two new relatives. The new baby, the Walker, is an odd shaped piece of machinery, but it's got the right bloodline. The new patriarch, Helmut Jost, is a question mark. But let us here at Amiga Report be among the first to welcome both to the party. It really can be a fun place sometimes. Speaking of fun, enjoy the issue. Jason PS-- How many of you realized that our 100th issue passed without comment? It was very tempting to have a flashy, dramatic celebration, but then I remembered the last magazine to brag about its 100th issue. Amiga World was cancelled a few months later. So we'll stick with the low-key approach. :) @endnode @node COMMERCIAL "Commercial Products" @toc MENU =========================================================================== Commercial Products =========================================================================== @{" Editor's Choice " link EDITORCHOICE} Jason's picks @{" Portal Information Systems " link PORTAL} A great place for Amiga users. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- @{" News " link NEWS} @{" Opinion " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{" Reviews " link REVIEW} @{" Charts " link FTP} @{" Adverts " link COMMERCIAL} @endnode @node MAIL "Reader Mail" @toc MENU =========================================================================== Reader Mail =========================================================================== From: bono@post.almac.co.uk (Bono) Jason, As with the majority of mails you undoubtedly receive, I am going to start by saying... Wow! After having heard about AR for a long time from a variety of sources I eventually, and somewhat sceptically, downloaded #401 and was utterly blown away, by the overwhelming graphics, great print quality, glossy paper, 50% advert content, and paid-by-the-letter writers. No, I'm being serious, it's what AR doesn't have that makes it so special, just look at price as an example. I pay about $10 every month for a particular Amiga magazine and what do I get: all of the above and worse. Only 6 reviews of any use at all, and the majority, (I speculate) influenced by a very nice corporate lunch. (not like I'm a cynic or anything. :) I look at my $10 worth and compare it with my 10-second-phonecall copy of AR. Need I say more? Please keep up the good work, the whole Amiga community in indebted to all the writers and editorial staff at AR, a very big Thankyou on behalf of all of us. All the Best, Alastair Angus (Bono) Well, you're welcome. It makes me proud to know that AR is considered in the same, or a better, caliber than the print magazines that abound out there. I would like to point out that while I can't speak for previous years, I think the current crop of my print colleagues out there are a pretty honest bunch who fully understand the impact of their commentary and their responsibility to the market. -Jason - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From dturner@bhk1.bhk.l.chiba-u.ac.jp Thu Mar 21 21:30:08 1996 Reading the editorial comment in the latest edition of AR, I feel inclined to agree about the situation of the Amiga. Being conservative about products in the computer world doesn't work that well - especially if you don't have a computer that has a good reputation. The Amiga has to WIN people over - people that are probably using the Win95 platform. To do that, it has to be shown that the Amiga has comparable technology and low prices. Generally, the Amiga does not require as powerful resources as the Win95 world, but the recent release of AT's version of the A1200 and A4000T have shown to be overpriced even for current Amigans. The brutal reality about the Amiga is that it must develop into a hardware setup that mirrors many of the easily available PC parts. Things like floppy drives, hard drives, memory - everything must be similar so that Amiga prices can be comparable to the millions of IBM clones being sold. Furthermore, AT should present a variety of models that have slightly different specifications. For example, have 3 or 4 different processors, memory setups, hard drive capacities and so on. Then simply have different names. This gives the potential Amiga buyer the impression that there are a variety of different models. Moving to a new platform when there are only two models available (even if older models exist) gives the impression that the market is small. This is all about marketing. Generally, it has worked well for Apple, who has simply changed the badge name on some of its Macs (using basically the same equipment) to achieve a broader range of computers. This would also enable the introduction of more computers over the year - without the huge cost of a completely new machine. For example, a version of the A1200 should now be out with an accelerator card in the expansion slot, a 500 meg HD, and 6 Meg of ram. This would fill the gap between the current A1200 and the A4000T as well. As far as the cost would go, AT only has to add a few more parts, and vary the price accordingly. The work hours are almost nil. In todays computing world, computer manufacturers have to provide solutions, not just the machine. In the days of Commodore, many people were buying Amigas, and then later going out and buying accelerator cards - this shouldn't have been necessary. Commodore should have provided competitive solutions themselves. At least with AT they are collaborating with third parties (eg. Phase 5) to reduce their own expenses, yet ensure that the initial Amiga they sell is a good product. Commodore was too pig-headed about developing their OWN product. AT can do more, on this front as well. More models, cheaper prices, and the use of at least Escom in Europe to promote the Amiga will give AT a footing, and then they may have the support to really start expanding the Amiga market. Regards, Duncan Turner. On some fronts, AT has begun to do these things. Let's hope the trend continues. -Jason - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: me@hca.co.za (Mike Erasmus) Jason, As the editor I'd like to thank you for the truly execellent you and the other staff at AR for producing this cool magazine. As I don't have access to UseNet at WORK, (Who want to pay for Internet when you can get it for free...) I am unable to make this request via the UseNet. Since my daily bread and butter comes from working on the DREADED and pathetic PeeCee, but one thing it has which is truly excellent. That is Visual Basic, among a few. As I am doing development/maintenance on in-house developed systems, I'd love to know: ** Are there ANY programming tools like Visual Basic on Amiga ? ** I feel the current lack of a decent database development system, is breaking the speed at which the Amiga can be considered a real machine for business. Whereas the PC has invaded Amiga terrritory on every single front, most noteably the absance of Amigas on shelves for a long time has made the PC gain a foothold in the Graphics arena. To name but just one. Recently I paged through an American "3D-Artist" mag, on a few pages there were mentions of the Amiga. Or as it was put in one of the articles about the development of Computer Gfx : "The Amiga was the PC which has started graphics on non-SGI systems." Well, as I said before. We need some decent Database development software. I mean, really HEAVYWEIGHT stuff, like VB4.0, even Visual Basic V3.0 will do, thanks a lot. Not even to mention things like Delhpi. Whereby the creator of the software, using this AmigaVisualBasic will distrubute fully-working run-time versions of the program, like compiled AMOS files. I am aware of SuperBase 4 for Amiga which I undserstood was quite powerful. But is there still support for it? [Yes, but not a lot. -Jason] We aren't all fond of devlving deep into the likes of the Amiga ROM manuals, let alone stuff around in endless pages of code. I'm talking C/C++ now. What a waste of development time. It should of course, also support some form of SQL. Support for Servers isn't a necessaity. Just be able to use your modules over a shared network. Something like the Access-SQL will be verrrry, very nice to have. Please, I'm standing on my knees. I'm begging the Amiga developers community. Consider a tool like this, as the PC is an absolute NIGHTMARE to work on. Greets, Mike Erasmus - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: fass003@ariel.macarthur.uws.EDU.AU (Anthony Ikeda) Here is my idea. Why can't the Amiga be card based, by this I mean allowing the various ports to be an option for example the Serial, Parallel, external drive, scsi and midi ports could each be supplied on a card that slips in the back like the FMV card for the CD32. Therefore the FMV could also be included with the card. This could be known as the Amiga Studio. Perhaps the serial and parallel ports could be separate but the others are options that fit together. I mean how many people are going to use these as soon as they get their Amiga???? Maybe you think this is stupid but if it will reduce the cost of the Amiga I think it's the best option. Well, it all depends on whose cards you're using. If you're building custom cards, it's probably going to wind up more expensive in the long run. If you're talking about plugging industry-standard cards in, that's another matter. PCI is supposed to be coming on PowerAmigas, which would make this sort of architecture easy and obvious. Until then, however, it seems AT will be stuck with custom boards. -Jason - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: Michael Jacula Hi Jason! I am writing in response to the reader mail in AR4.03 concerning the Derringer 030 and OS3.1 I have an A2000 with a CSA Derringer 030/33 with 8MB of RAM installed. I am running v1.0 of the D3 utility with no problems under OS3.1. Has the reader checked for incompatibilities in his utilities/commodities that he runs upon bootup? I am running MCP 1.05 (020 version) and ToolsDaemon. I maintain complete ability to use all arguments of the D3 utility. Just letting you know that it is possible to run the D3 utility under OS3.1... - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From: Ron Upton Dear Katherine I am searching for a program, PD or commercial, which will allow me to join animation files created in DPaint (OP-5 format). CyroUtil's CombineANIM, 1989, works perfectly for two very small files. It appears that the program is unable to take advantage of all CyroUtil's CombineANIM, 1989, works perfectly for two very small files. It appears that the program is unable to take advantage of all of the available fast ram. I would be pleased to receive any information or advice relating to this matter from readers of ar. Many thanks Ron Upton ronu@guru.apana.org.au P.S. Thank you for the great magazine. @endnode @node OPINION1 "The Magic Wand." @toc OPINION =========================================================================== The Magic Wand. Shane Kuntz Shane.Kuntz@heimdall.sdrc.com =========================================================================== Many Many bitches, moans, complaints. Many MANY flames. Many Amiga users thought that Escom/AT had a magic wand and after the long buyout process and auction E/AT would fix everything overnight. It hasn't happened and anyone that thought E/AT would do feats comparable to Jesus himself have been fooling themselves. Let's look at some simple facts and then put yourselves in AT/Escoms shoes. Commodore started it's decline long before they went bankrupt in 1994, losing marketshare and developers as they sat on their rumps. Liquidation started in 1994 and lasted an entire year. Other companies forged ahead, more developers lost, more users lost. April 1995. Escom wins auction with a 10+ million dollar bid. Escom starts sorting through the mess left by Commodore's demise. Within the 10 months they have owned the technology: - Hire the needed Amiga personnel. - Form Amiga Technologies. - Reconstruct a dealer network. - Find distributors in various countries. - Choose a manufacturing line for the machines. - Retool that line for Amiga products. - Negotiate the addition of software to be included in the Magic Pack. - Reintroduce the A1200 and the A4000T. - License the Amiga Technology to Viscorp. - Chose the PowerPC chip as the next CPU for Amigas. - Start Developing the new machine and cooperate with Phase5 to get the job done. - Introduce the Amiga Surfer pack a all-in-one package to get your amiga online. - Introducing a new machine with more processing power and expansion. - Attended numerous shows/expos pledging their support for the Amiga and showing off their offerings. - Held Developers meetings to try and draw back/keep developers on the Amiga. This list isn't all encompassing of course as I don't know everything that goes on at AT. Just with the things I've listed here, AT has been HARD at work in the last ten months for the Amiga. Think about the above list for a while and what AT has done for the Amiga. It is a lot in 10 months of buying the remains of a liquidated company. The one thing that is a major gripe point is *price,price,price* How many companies could accomplish the above with out taking on an enormous amount of debt/cost? NONE. If AT continues to price their models high it will destroy the Amiga, if they bring their price down as they become more and more stable everyone should be happy. (some are never happy though) If it weren't for the price, what has AT done that is so *bad*??? Absolutely nothing. They haven't played every card perfectly but they have done some very good things for the Amiga in 10 months. Think about this, if Dell had bought the Amiga Tech there would be no new Amigas at *any* price. I ask all Amigans to look at the *whole* picture when looking at Amiga Technologies. Applaud them for bringing back the Amiga, developing new Amigas, taking a chance. Write them about the high prices and suggest to them your ideas and opinions where you think they could improve. Quit looking at the half of the glass that's not full and look at the glass that is full of many accomplishments. A pessimistic Amiga community sucks. We have enough people beating on the machines we use/love than to have ourselves give into it also. I'm guilty of it once in a while too. @endnode @node NEWS1 "Demo of Amiga Surfer Package" @toc NEWS -------------------------------- DEMO OF THE AMIGA SURFER PACKAGE -------------------------------- On wednesday the 3rd of april '96 the Amiga-club 'The Brain' will host a demo of Amiga Technologies' internet package. The demo will take place at the CCVG De Kam, Beekstraat 172, 1970 Wezembeek-Oppem (in Belgium) and starts at 8PM sharp. Doors open at 7.30PM. Everybody is welcome. The Brain was founded in the eighties to help it's members with the use of the Amiga computer. At the moment we hold a monthly meeting in De Kam where we introduce Amiga-related products. For more information: Web page: http://igwe.vub.ac.be/~johanf/brain/ (Contains more info about The Brain and a route description to De Kam) Johan Fabry : johanf@rave.org FIDO 2:291/708.42 Wim Peeters : FIDO 2:291/708.72 Cserve: 101665,3216 tel: +32-2-731.57.37 @endnode @node NEWS2 "Off Piste #1 for Sale" @toc NEWS OFF PISTE #1 IS RELEASED FOR SALE! Off Piste is finally finished and released. The magazine will NOT be sold in the Norwegian "Narvesen" kiosks, but in Denmark it will be distributed in Dansk Blad Distribution's kiosks nationwide. For 1 issue mailed directly to your mailbox, including postage & packing: Enclose $6/Ł4/40 kr along with your name and address and mail to: Off Piste c/o F. Erikson, Symrevegen 18, N-6100 Volda, NORWAY. It can be paid into this postalgiro account (Postgirokonto): 0803 2349413. Address: Off Piste/F.Erikson, Symrevegen 18, N-6100 Volda, Norway. Subscriptions: 1/2 year (3 issues): $15/90,- kr 1 year (6 issues): $25/150,- kr 2 years (12 issues): $40/250,- kr Direct your web-browser at our new site: http://www.sn.no/~frodeer (e-mail: fe@stud.hivolda.no) WHAT IS OFF PISTE? [It's produced using Amigas. That's what the press release is doing here... -Jason] Off Piste is an alternative urban youth culture mag (on paper, in English), focusing on topics such as music, entertainment, computing/communication, youth travel, subcultures, and philosophy. It is written and designed by skilled young talents who report directly from the core of what's happening around the globe. THE FIRST ISSUE FEATURES THIS: -THE TRUE SPIRIT OF SATANISM Off Piste Editor Frode Erikson takes an in-depth look at the ideology behind this rapidly expanding and church-burning subcult. He talks with a member of the Church of Satan in the U.S, and interviews a Christian theologist to get his viewpoints. -GRAFFITI ARTISTS - JUST VANDALS WITH HANDLES? Can sprayed walls be looked upon as artistic images, or is it just vandalism, like the general public like to believe? Our UK correspondent Simon Carless investigates the issue on a trip to Washington D.C. -URBAN LIFE IN DURBAN AND CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA Hasty impressions by Norwegian freelancer Tor Ketil Solberg from a continent which is mostly known for starving young children and civil wars. -STAND-UP POETRY Stand-up Comedy become immensely popular in the 80's, bringing us stars like Eddie Murphy and Billy Crystal. Stand-up Poetry is the new hip thing of the 90's. In N.Y., there are already 10 cafe's devoted to this new way of expressing lyrical art. Off Piste's correspondent in Copenhagen, Martin Serup, reports on how this new scheme has been brought into action in Europe. -The paragraphs BREAKTHRU: Music/Computing/Zines and .NETSTORM and IF YOU'RE HEADED TO.. Things to do for urban youth on vacation. As well as: Underground cartoon by the promising artist Borge B. Bredenbekk, essay(s) by Frode Erikson, Op-Ed columns and more articles! How to reach Off Piste: Snail-mail: Off Piste c/o F.Erikson, Symrevegen 18, N-6100 Volda, NORWAY Voice/Fax : +47-70079179 Mobile : +47-90092497 eMail : fe@stud.hivolda.no (Frode Erikson) http : //www.sn.no/~frodeer BBS : Mordor ABBS (Session WHQ): +47-57787379 (Host: Crude) : msg to user: Cesium Session frode erikson (cesium/session) /off piste editor-in-chief/ @endnode @node NEWS3 "Manfred Schmitt Resigns" @toc NEWS Manfred Schmitt removed as Escom CEO Translated from Die Welt by Sven Tegethoff (cheetah@ius.gun.de) Managing director of "Escom AG" forced to resign Founder of discount-retailer for computers draws consequences from last years high losses - Helmut Jost announced to be the successor. Berlin - After high losses of 125,000,000 DM, the managin director of the computer company located in Bochum, Manfred Schmitt, is going to leave the company by the end of the month. Yesterday, Escom announced that the board directors appointed Helmut Jost as the new Managing director from the first of April. 43 year-old Mr. Jost was already active once in Escoms board of directors from 1993 to 1995, before taking over the management of IBM's PC-business. An Escom spokesman in Heppenheim said, that Escom-Founder Schmitt had offered his position by his own wish after the huge deficit, and annouced he wants to take the full responsibility. Escom, with a turnover of 2,350,000,000 DM, were following some ambitious goals, but went out of financial breath on them. Schmitt pushed the building up of an own retail chain in Great Brittain, for example. Though these investments seemed to be the strategically correct steps into foreign markets, they took too much capital, and didn't bring enough income. The english PC market proved itself to be just as tired as the German one nowadays. Generally, the weak demand and the enourmous drop of prices on the PC market forced down Escom's turnover and margins. Escom-Chief Schmitt's Multimedia-Plans also proved as too high. Their potential partner RWE Telliance, a daughter of electricity provider RWE, retired from their interest because of Escom's financial situation. Banks and shareholders promised the company 100,000,000 DM of financial support (60,000,000 DM from a raise of assets), to overcome the financial bottleneck. The telephone company from Kiel by the name of "Hagenuk", which Manfred Schmitt privately bought out from the "Preussag" in Oktober, caused further Irritations among Escom's stockholders "Quelle" (25%) and "Siemens Nixdorf" (SNI, 12.5%). It was Schmitt's plan to let the company sell cellular phones via his Escom shops, about which the aforementioned two shareholders didn't agree at all. Even after his retirement to the board of shareholders, Schmitt is still currently holding 23% of Escom's assets. Escom's share price rised up to 13DM yesterday, after 12.7 DM on Tuesday. @endnode @node NEWS4 "StormC v1.0" @toc NEWS TITLE StormC: ANSI C & C++ Development System VERSION 1.0 COMPANY HAAGE & PARTNER Computer GmbH Mainzer Str. 10A 61191 Rosbach v.d.H. Germany Phone: ++49 - 6007 - 93 00 50 Fax: ++49 - 6007 - 75 43 Compuserve: 100654,3133 Internet: 100654.3133@compuserve.com Homepage: http://home.pages.de/~haage DESCRIPTION StormC The versatile programming system for you and your Amiga! ======================================================== At the COMPUTER 95 we were introducing our brand-new C/C++ development system called StormC. It is a highly integrated software development system, containing an editor, compiler, linker, debugger and a RunShell with some very special features. The heart of StormC is its project management tool, which differs from the traditional MAKE because really every part of the project including source, includes and documentation can be managed by it and represented graphically. The very fast editor displays key-words colourfully. This option gives the programmer a good control while he is typing the source code, because it is a kind of syntax check and it improves the readability of the text. The StormC compiler handles ANSI C and C++ code and generates optimised code for the whole Motorola 68xxx family (including 68060 and 68881/882). The RunShell is a run-time system that monitors the running application and prevents it from crashing the system. It also offers resource tracking, i.e. it controls the use of resources by the program and handles cases where it neglects to free them. Another feature of the RunShell is the option to start the debugger. This can be done during (!) the run-time of the program. So you don't have to decide for debugging before compiling. The debugger is integrated into the editor. This means that while you are debugging and setting breakpoints you are working in the editor. The structure and the colouring of the source code are still there. This is a very handy feature that makes debugging a fast and easy process. The Features of StormC ====================== StormC contains all development tools imperative for efficient engineering: Flexible project management - StormShell - management of multiple projects - hierarchical projects with section folding - Drag&Drop - automatic file-type recognition (sources, libraries, object files, documentation...) - Toolbar with Tooltips (help function) - full configurable (>50 option requesters) Fast source editor - StormED - multiple-window editor - syntax colouring - user defined dictionary - perfect source structuring - unlimited Undo/Redo - fast search&replace - runs on graphics boards Very fast ANSI-C & C++ compiler - StormC - 2-in-1 compiler system: ANSI-C & C++ (AT&T standard 3.0) - exception handling & templates - high-speed compiler - very good turn-around - code generation for all Motorola 68xxx (incl. 68060, 68881/68882) - single-pass compiler - powerful inlining - highly compatible with SAS/C, DICE, Aztec C, MaxonC, GCC - precompiled headers or header caching - multiple-pass optimiser Optimising Linker - StormLINK - very fast linker - near-code optimiser - type-save linking - generates ROM code - easy generation of shared libraries - compatible to SAS/C- and MaxonC libraries Run-time system - RunShell - run-time system - resource tracking - controlled program interrupt - any time start of debugger Comfortable source level debugger - StormDEBUG - multiple windows - output into editor window - easy breakpoint settings - automatic value refresh - inspect windows for variables, structs, classes - editable typecasting - HEX editor Further features - fully localised (German, English, soon: French/Italian) - localised error reports - full multitasking - customised environment - extensive libraries for ANSI-C, C++, Amiga OS - OS 3.1 system include files NEW FEATURES Many enhancements since the first Preview/Demo. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS any Amiga model hard drive AmigaOS 2.0 or higher required 3 MB RAM (some functionality is only available with a minimum of 6 MB RAM) AVAILABILITY I will upload it to Aminet this week (19.02.-23.02.96) ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/lang/c/stormc.lha (1,3 MB) Other sites: ftp://members.aol.com/StormSUP (1,3 MB) PRICE StormC 598 DM (~398 $) Upgrade 398 DM (~269 $) (from any commercial programming language) DISTRIBUTABILITY Copyright by HAAGE & PARTNER COMPUTER GMBH 1996 OTHER HAAGE & PARTNER COMPUTER announces a special PowerPC version of StormC for the 3rd quarter of 1996. This version will be developed in tight deliberation with Amiga Technologies and PHASE 5 digital products. Programs developed with StormC can be ported to PowerPC Amiga directly. Because of the native code the increase of speed should be enormous. @endnode @node NEWS5 "Ensemble Verbes v1.7" @toc NEWS TITLE Ensemble Verbes VERSION Version 1.7 (2/3/96) AUTHOR Peter E. Janes E-mail: Peter_Janes@cableshare.ccmail.compuserve.com Regular mail: 6868 Egremont Road R. R. #8 Watford, Ontario, Canada N0M 2S0 DESCRIPTION Ensemble Verbes is a program to help students practise and master French verbs in the most common tenses of the language. It is designed to support classroom work, not to replace it. The shareware version contains only -er verbs and present, present subjunctive and present participle. The registered version of Ensemble Verbes features: * Over 75 verbs, including -er, -ir, -re, reflexive and irregular conjugations * Seven tenses: present, compound past, imperfect, future, conditional, subjunctive present and present participle * Full online, context-sensitive help via AmigaGuide tm * Close adherence to Amiga User Interface Style Guide * Sound support * Support for international keyboards * Locale support (English, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish catalogs included) Registered users can also obtain The French Student's Dictionary & Guide, Second Edition, a 158-page book featuring: * French/English and English/French sections * Most commonly used vocabulary, in context * Many easy-to-understand examples to help in selection of vocabulary * Many idiomatic expressions * Regular and irregular verb charts * Reference grammar guide * Over 5700 entries NEW FEATURES This is an update to Ensemble Verbes 1.6. It contains a new German catalog and fixes some bugs in the Installer scripts. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS Any Amiga running AmigaOS 2.04 or above. AmigaGuide/MultiView and Installer are recommended. AVAILABILITY All files can be found on any Aminet site. The unregistered version of Ensemble Verbes may be found at: ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/misc/edu/Verbes.lha (74248 bytes) Patch files for registered versions may be found at: ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/misc/edu/VerbesRegPch17.lha (44018 bytes) ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/misc/edu/Verb @endnode @node NEWS6 "Boulderdash3d" @toc NEWS Silltunna Software will be publishing Boulderdash3d (demo in aminet/games/demo) on the Amiga and PC. We would very much like your ideas and comments based upon the demo however NOT regarding any gfx or gfx bugs. We are well aware of them and 'normal' resolutions are already supported, as are gfx cards to a certain extent (EGS). ECS machines are not currently supported but a version hasn`t been ruled out, at least for those with graphics cards and an 020 processor. We *do* want your gameplay ideas and comments posted directly to : rich@xtreme.demon.co.uk or myself of course. ----------------------------------------------------------------- | Alex Amsel : Silltunna Software Lead Programmer : Black Magic | | XTremeRacing 1x1 TMapping and Stunning Gameplay on AGA Amigas | | Alex@teeth.demon.co.uk | Steve Bull is Back | *PWEIPWEIPWEI* | ----------------------------------------------------------------- @endnode @node NEWS7 "MetaTool v40.5" @toc NEWS TITLE MetaTool - The Amiga MIME GUI VERSION 40.5 AUTHOR Ellis Pritchard DESCRIPTION MetaTool is an integrated mail program for the Amiga supporting the full MIME standard. It also supports multiple mailboxes, has a built in address book and has extensive multithreading, all combined with an easy to use, intuitive, user interface implemented using MUI. MetaTool is alone among MIME capable mailers for the Amiga in that it's totally *FREE*. Yes, quality FREEWARE still survives in a world that will soon be charging a $15 registration fee for a "Hello World" program... NEW FEATURES A relatively minor revision, version 40.5 includes the following enhancements: - Outgoing Mail Archive - Auto Update - Easy external Mailbox addition - Even faster operation - More flexible ENV: variables usage - A handful of new features - Fixes all known bugs - Some MUI 3.1 support - 68000 and 68020/30 opt versions included SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS - MUI 3.1 or higher - AmigaOS 3.0 or higher (may work on 2.04+) - Some capability for sending mail, e.g. SMTPpost from INetUtils or UUCP sendmail, putmail etc. AVAILABILITY MetaTool 40.5 will be available on Aminet in directory comm/mail as MetaTool.lha, or, pending the problems current with Aminet, directly from the author or his Web site: ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/pub/aminet/comm/mail/MetaTool.lha http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~nuke/MetaTool.html (available from 23-Feb-1996) PRICE *FREEWARE* - totally without cost. DISTRIBUTABILITY Freely distributable to individuals and non-profit making organizations. Magazines are expected to pay some kind of fee, which could be just a copy of the publication, profit making organizations my use MetaTool for free unless they want technical support. Full details with documentation. OTHER For further information, please contact Ellis Pritchard at ellis@cam-ani.co.uk, or point your browser at http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~nuke/MetaTool.html. @endnode @node NEWS8 "Amiga CDROM Guide v1.5" @toc NEWS TITLE Amiga CDROM Guide VERSION 1.5 AUTHOR Anders Bakkevold. (andersb@intercom.no) DESCRIPTION Amiga CDROM Guide (ACDG) was made to help Amiga-owners to pick the right CDROM for their needs. It doesn't include commecial games or photoCD-discs, but all Amiga PD/clipart/fonts/modules collections. - It is in the Amigaguide-format. - You will find all the vital information on a CDROM, like price, contents, publisher etc. - Covers 314 CDROMs! - 145+ of the CDROMs have a review - If you're interrested in for instance raytracing, click on the keyword "Raytracing" to get a list of all CDROMs that can be assosiated with raytracing. - Other keywords: Clipart, fonts, pictures, utilities, GNU, text-files, fish etc - It's up-to-date with the latest CDROM releases. - It is completely independent All in all: 680kB of pure information! NEW FEATURES v1.5 Sixth release. Contains information about 314 CD-ROMs. - 30 CD-ROMs Added: Advanced Military Systems All Dogs Go To Heaven Aminer 10 AMUC CD 4 Animatic CD-ROM World Atlas CD32 Gamer Issue 10 CD32 Gamer Issue 6 CD32 Gamer Issue 8 CD32 Gamer Issue 9 Clipart & Fonts CD Demos & Tools 1 Desktop Publisher's Dream 2 Digital Orchestra EMC Index CD EMC Phase 4 Encounters FractalPro Image Library 1 Gamers' Delight 2 Glamour Girls Lightwave 3D Enhancer Netnews Offline 1 Nothing But GIFs AGA Octamed 6 CD Publisher's Companion Sexy Sensations Syndenis 3D-ROM Texture Heaven 2 The New Basics Electronic Cookbook XiPaint v3.2 - the ISBN field has been removed because it took too much space, and not many CDs used it. The ISBN number will now appear in the "comments" field. (Saved ~35kB!) - a lot of info added, for instance many reviews from Amiga Format - 145+ of the CDs have a review SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS You will need a program able to display Amigaguide files, like Multiview or xkpGuide. AVAILABILITY Amiga CDROM Guide is available from any Aminet site, for instance: ftp://ftp.amigalib.com/pub/aminet/docs/hyper/ACDGv15.lha You can also email me (andersb@intercom.no) and I will send you the latest version uuencoded. There is also a WWW version available here: http://www.intercom.no/~andersb/acdg/MAIN.html PRICE Amiga CDROM Guide is freeware. DISTRIBUTABILITY Amiga CDROM Guide v1.5 is copyright 1995 Anders Bakkevold. All rights reserved. You may copy it as you like, as long as no changes are made to the archive, and you don't charge more than #2.00 for the media and copying fees. @endnode @node NEWS9 "RoutePlanner v1.6a" @toc NEWS TITLE RoutePlanner VERSION RoutePlanner 1.6a (22.2.96) AUTHOR Chris Lawrence DESCRIPTION A highway trip planner, based on Jim Butterfield's RoadRoute. Includes a graphical user interface, database editor, and a conversion utility (converts RoadRoute format files to RoutePlanner format). Enhancements to RoadRoute include "highway classifications," up to 20 intermediate destinations ("Via cities"), state line notification, preferred routing, abbreviated output formats, and "leg" subtotals. Includes a database with complete coverage of about 95% of the lower 48 United States and basic coverage of the remainder of the U.S. and Canada. Full coverage of Canada and U.S. expected within 3 months. NEW FEATURES Fixes a serious bug introduced in version 1.5. Improvements to the North America database file and documentation. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS AmigaDOS 2.04 or higher MultiView or AmigaGuide Magic User Interface (release 3.2 or later) 1.5 MB minimum RAM, 2 MB or more preferred AVAILABILITY On any Aminet host, for example: ftp://ftp.netnet.net/pub/aminet/biz/dbase/RoutePlanner.lha DISTRIBUTABILITY RoutePlanner and the RouteConv conversion utility are freely distributable, but copyrighted. RouteEdit, the database editing program is copyrighted shareware. Terms as provided in documentation included. RoutePlanner may be used for non-commercial or commercial purposes under the same terms. May be included in certain specified CD-ROM distributions without prior authorization. PRICE US $5 for RouteEdit keyfile (only) by electronic mail US $10 for full distribution (plus a selection of my other FD/Shareware products) on disk, anywhere worldwide. @endnode @node NEWS10 "sort v1.49" @toc NEWS TITLE sort VERSION 1.49 AUTHOR Ruediger Werner E-Mail: wernerr@iee1.et.tu-dresden.de rw2@irz.inf.tu-dresden.de URL: http://home.pages.de/~wernerr http://www.inf.tu-dresden.de/~rw2 http://eeetw0.et.tu-dresden.de:8080/~wernerr S-Mail: Ruediger Werner Stresemannplatz 2 01309 Dresden GERMANY DESCRIPTION Sort does, what its name says -- it sorts ASCII-files in alphabetical order. There are many features (see doc-file) for manipulating the file(s) which have to be sorted. It works from shell only. The sorting algorithm is very fast (Try it!!). NEW FEATURES (registered version) * dividing a file into two, according to the given pattern, FEATURES (unregistered version) * sorting files alphabetically (ascending, descending) * distinguishing and ignoring capitals and lower case * erasing of empty lines (registered version) * sorting files alphabetically (ascending, descending) * sorting with columns, variable length of sort string * removing and replacing of characters * picking out lines * throwing out lines * joining files * operating in a given range only * distinguishing and ignoring capitals and lower case * erasing of empty lines * erasing of double lines * reversing of the file (without sorting) * verbose function SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS none AVAILABILITY via aminet or from my homepage (under AMIGA): http://eeetw0.et.tu-dresden.de:8080/~wernerr/amiga.html the latest version will be available from my page PRICE 5 US$ for registration (binaries) & sending by e-mail 8 US$ for registration (binaries) & sending by post or equivalents in DM registration see doc-file DISTRIBUTABILITY The unregistered version is freely distributable if it is done in a noncommercial way and the contents of the archive are kept intact. The registered version is not freely distributable. Ruediger Werner @endnode @node NEWS11 "Nova Design, Inc. Acquires Aladdin 4D" @toc NEWS Nova Design, Inc. Adds A New Dimension To Their Product Line! For Immediate Release Tuesday, March 26, 1996 Contact: Bob Fisher Nova Design, Inc. 1910 Byrd Avenue, Suite 214 Richmond, VA 23230 804-282-5868 Richmond, VA - March, 1995. Nova Design, Inc. is extremely pleased to announce their recent acquisition of Aladdin 4D, the premiere 3D modeling, rendering, and animation package from Adspec Programming. "It's a perfect fit!", said Bob Fisher, Marketing VP of Nova Design. "Like ImageFX, Aladdin is an incredibly powerful product with features unique to the Amiga 3D market." Some of Aladdin 4D's more advanced features include Procedural Textures, Real World Gasses, Particle Systems, and Path-based Animation. Greg Gorby, owner of Adspec Programming and creator of Aladdin 4D, explained his selection of Nova Design: "We had many other offers, but Nova's commitment to the Amiga, and the high-quality-at-a-reasonable-price attitude that they've shown with ImageFX, convinced me that they were the right company for Aladdin." Before releasing Aladdin 4D, Nova Design will modernize and enhance the interface, re-write the manual, and add a few new surprises to breathe new life into this already superb Amiga product. Aladdin 4D 5.0, expected to ship in early third quarter 1996, will be available to registered owners for a special upgrade price. Nova Design remains excited about the future possibilities of the Amiga market. While some companies have chosen to abandon the Amiga, Nova Design continues to provide new and innovative software to Amiga users worldwide. Nova Design, Inc., 1910 Byrd Avenue, Suite 214, Richmond, VA 23230. For customer support or information call (804) 282-6528, or fax us at; (804) 282-3768. For more information on ImageFX call (804) 282-6528, or fax (804) 282-3768. ImageFX and Aladdin 4D are trademarks of Nova Design, Inc. All other trademarks are held by their respective owners. @endnode @node NEWS12 "World of Amiga" @toc NEWS THE WORLD OF AMIGA ================== SHOW NEWS: MARCH 4th, 1996 SHOW TO BE LAUNCH VENUE FOR NEW BULLETIN BOARD SOFTWARE - BY ZEUS DEVELOPMENTS Zeus, a new bulletin board software package for the Amiga, will be given its first public showing at the World of Amiga Show which opens at the Hammersmith Novotel Exhibition Centre on April 13th. Software house Zeus Developments will be giving visitors hands-on demonstrations of the program throughout the two day show. Zeus Developments will be unveiling the latest version of Zeus for the first time at the World of Amiga Show. "Zeus contains a revolutionary new communications standard for the Amiga which features an attractive graphical user interface, sound and vision capabilities and an increased operating speed.", said Zeus's Nick Loman. Zeus will also be available at a discounted price for the duration of the show. A world-wide group of distributors is already is place and there are support boards up and running in France, Germany, Holland, Sweden, Norway, Japan, Australia, USA, Canada, Italy, Portugal, Greece and Switzerland. The package contains many industry standard communincations protocols - including: - Hydra - RIP Graphics - IEMSI Logons - It also supports many links to the Internet with users having the ability to be allocated Email addresses, read UseNet newsgroups and download the latest files from the Amiga software directory. Please direct trade enquiris to Peter Brameld at PBA Events on 01462 480024 and press inquiries to Ken Hughes at Cape Cowley Associates on 0161 480 9811 World of Amiga Exhibitor List Amiga Technologies Amiga Technologies Amiga Technologies Amiga Technologies Blittersoft ClickBOOM Digita International Emap Images Emerald Creative Technology Epic Marketing EM Compugraphic Eyetech Group Ltd. Future Publishing Gasteiner Gasteiner HiSoft HiSoft HiQ HiQ IDG Media LH Publishing Micronics PD Soft PD Soft Power Computing Power Computing Scala UK Siren Software Snap Computer Supplies Ltd. Zeus Developments To be confirmed: Softwood Fourth Level Developments ... quite a few others if rumours are to be believed. --- Nick Loman (zeus@mistral.co.uk) @endnode @node NEWS13 "The Amiga Walker Prototype" @toc NEWZ The Walker While we don't have any CeBit reports ready for Amiga Report yet, the biggest news was the Amiga Walker prototype on display. Amiga Tech isn't far enough along that they're showing off PowerAmiga hardware yet. The Walker is a stopgap measure, one more AGA machine to carry the line across. The design is quite unconventional. The Walker a black appliance, totally unlike a desktop computer. Pictures have been placed on Aminet and on the Web. Walker Specsheet While IRC conferences, speculation, and FAQs have abounded, not all of the information in them has been complete or accurate. So Amiga Report went straight to the source--Michael Metz, Amiga Product Manager at Amiga Technologies. He provided this quick look at the specifications of the Amiga Walker. Here's a short summary: 1. 68030 Processor w/ 40 MHz (EC) 2. 2 SIMM sockelts for max. 128 MB of RAM on board 3. AGA Chipset 4. Additional SuperIO Chip w/ a: PC HD floppy support b: EIDE support (perhaps up to 4 devices) c: 2 * fast serial device with FIFO d: Enhanced parallel port with bitronic support 5. Bay for internal DD (880 KB) floppy support 6. Complete motherboard at 40 MHz access (except for AGA) for fast memory access 7. New designed system bus which will be compatible to the PPC AMIGA. This system bus will include all needed signals regarding PCI and ZORRO III. The slot itself needs a doughter board where third party manufacturers may expand the system to a CPU and a ZORRO or PCI bus. 8. The AMIGA comes with a quad speed CD ROM, a hard drive and 5 MB of memory (1 MB chip mem which may get expanded to 2 MD and 4 MB Fast memory on SIMM socket. Because of a very new design, the AMIGA may get expanded from a mini tower to a big tower by just taking off the upper part with the CD ROM and the floppy and inserting slices for further expanstions (hard drives, zorro slots, PCI slots, more floppy drives etc.). The new system will run on a 40 MHz base with a bridge to the AGA chips. The design is meant to be accepted by new users. The idea was that each user has a very intense relationship to his AMIGA so the design should be something which supports this relationship. Pictures are available on the net. Sites which contain Walker information and pictures include- http://www.amiga.de/de/Aktuelles/Walker-GB.html (The official page is located here) http://www.doremi.co.uk/walker/ http://www.ozramp.net.au/~morden/ http://www.bangor.ac.uk/~eeu013/walker The Walker FAQ, not entirely complete, is at http://www.intercom.no/~andersb/walker.html @endnode @node NEWS14 "eWorld Shuts Down" @toc NEWS [Commodore and Escom haven't been the only companies who have been hurt by the computer industry. Apple's cutbacks included shutting down eWorld, their online service. This is the letter its users received to deliver the news.] Fellow eWorlders: As promised last Friday, I am writing this letter to update you further on what is happening here at eWorld. While we're still working out some of the details about our future, we wanted to give you information as soon as we could so you can start making your plans. The first thing I want you to know is that we are indeed closing down eWorld on March 31st, 1996. While all of us here and in Apple management acknowledge the wonderful community you have created here, it's important for everybody to understand that in this rapidly-evolving information industry, change is a constant. We have to respond to market and business realities, and we have to be constantly on the lookout to make sure we make the right, long-term decisions. The way we see it, the smartest move for Apple to make is to greatly expand our presence on the Internet. And the best way to structure that presence is with a portfolio of web sites and services for particular customer groups-not a general online service like eWorld. All of us here know that this will be a blow to some, and an inconvenience for many of our members. And I want to personally say that I am sorry for that. But we studied this issue long and hard, and believe it's the right move. The second thing I want you to know is that we're working to make the transition out of eWorld as easy as possible for you. First, we have in place a mail forwarding program that should facilitate you receiving e-mail messages and attachments until July 1st, 1996. All you have to do is let us know where you will be establishing your new Internet or online presence, whether through an Internet Service Provider or other online service (we'll have more info on how to do this later). Second, we are making available to you-at a good price-the Apple Internet Connection Kit (AICK). With AICK, you have an easy-to-use, all-in-one kit that can get you connected to the Internet in as little as 15 minutes. Third, as we said earlier, we are going to be significantly increasing our overall Internet presence. You'll see new pages on a variety of exciting new subjects-including our innovative QuickTime Live! page that allows you to participate in Apple WebCasts, an interesting new interactive way to experience entertainment events. We look forward to sharing more transition details with you shortly. We are literally working on these issues on an hour-by-hour basis. You have been very loyal to us here at eWorld. We truly appreciate your commitment as we work out the final transition issues over the coming days. As the week progresses, we will be posting a detailed Q&A covering the options available to you. In the meantime, I have scheduled an auditorium conference tomorrow, March 5, at 6:30 pm PST where you and I can discuss this transition and I can answer questions as best I can at that time. Please join me for this discussion (Shortcut=stage 1). Your patience and understanding is appreciated in more ways than you think. Please watch this spot for further updates. Our best, Diana Keith, Director of Internet Productions. Transmitted: 96-03-04 13:04:07 PST @endnode @node NEWS15 "Helmut Jost New CEO of Escom AG" @toc NEWS Helmut Jost new CEO of ESCOM AG Manfred Schmitt to quit Board Bochum/Heppenheim, 27 March, 1996. The Supervisory Board of ESCOM AG has appointed Helmut Jost (43) as Member of the Board of ESCOM AG with effect from 1 April, 1996. He will replace Manfred Schmitt as the company's CEO. Mr. Schmitt's desire to leave the Board of ESCOM AG has been accepted by the Supervisory Board. He is to quit his post on 31 March, 1996. Mr. Schmitt will continue to serve the company as a consultant. Helmut Jost has been in the European PC Business for many years. After moving up the ranks at Commodore (where he was ultimately the Managing Director of Commodore GmbH and Vice President International), Helmut Jost accepted a post on the board of ESCOM AG in 1993, where he was responsible for the Sales and Marketing functions and for the management of subsidiaries. Since November 1995, he has been head of IBM's German PC business. In Helmut Jost, ESCOM has succeeded in winning back a man with an outstanding knowledge of the company and its markets. @endnode @node NEWS16 "The AGA Experience Vol 2" @toc NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT: NFA/SAdENESS Software AGA EXPERIENCE Vol 2 CD COMING SOON! Since the release of The AGA Experience Volume 1, we have been inundated with requests for a follow-up, so here it is!. If you own an AGA Amiga, or own a Graphics card - this is the CD for you!!! This is the first (well, second really) CD dedicated to A1200/A4000 owners, and features the very best AGA-only software since the release of The AGA Experience Volume 1. The AGA Experience Volume 1 was loved by the reviewers, and its owners. Here is a selection of the review scores it achived in the Amiga press: 93% - Amiga Format (Format Gold!). 90% - CU Amiga. 90% - Amiga User International. 90% - Amiga Shopper. 8/10 - Amiga Computing. Reviews for Volume 2 to follow.. Great things are expected ;-) Some of the main features, and improvements since the first CD are as follows: - EXCLUSIVE COMMERCIAL DEMOS. We have contacted many of the Amiga's best software companies and they have created special demos of their best titles just for us! These include a demo of the BRILLIANT Capital Punishment - with special speech samples, and a 1-player vs computer game, with 2 different characters! An EXCLUSIVE demo of the GREAT XTreme Racing! Including a special track made for us (which even includes our logo on the track!!). Also included are several goodies for Xtreme Racing owners - like the lemmings patch and several graphical improvements! We also have a great demo of Nemac4 - the latest 3DTexture-Mapped Amiga game. Including special 060 fixes for you lucky 060 owners!! You'll also be the FIRST to see the great new AGA flight and combat sim - Microlyte warriors! Plus other goodies like exclusive Worms levels, a demo of Pinball Prelude, a demo of Watchtower, a demo of BlitzBombers and much more I have probably forgotten! - EXCLUSIVE HTML DOCS AND AWEB. Yvon Rozijn has created us a special version of AWeb, and we have created some exclusive HTML Internet-style documents! You will see full-colour pictures, and you can even run some of the CD's highlighted programs directly form the interface! - NFA PRODUCTIONS. Including The GREAT Word diskmags! - READY-TO-RUN. Most of the contents run straight from the CD. There is no need to spend ages extracting disks. Well over 500meg of ready-to-run hot utilities, diskmags, text files, demos, games and much more. Only those titles which NEED to be compressed have been, these include Demos and slideshows which have to be stored in DMS format. Extracting these is as simple as double-clicking an icon in Workbench. IMPROVED since Volume 1 - there are now MANY less DMS archives to mess about with! - MAGIC WORKBENCH colour scheme and icons. We have spent months making this CD the very smartest looking CD available today. Almost every program has a suitable MagicWB icon. We have even created custom Ray-Traced icons for the CD, any Amiga owner is guranteed to be impressed! IMPROVED since Volume 1, with all the drawers in a clearer lay-out and neater look. - LICENSED Amiga Report Diskmags. The entire 1996 collection so far - ready-to-view. A great resource for any Amiga owner. - LOADS of MagicWB icons, backdrops etc. All you need to add a professional appearance to your Workbench. - HUNDREDS of programs never before seen on CD. Mostly downloaded from BBSs from around the World, and straight from the Internet. - ALL AGA Amiga Doom clones since the release of Volume 1. If you thought Doom was impossible on the Amiga - take a look at this CD for a real surprise! INCLUDING, wait for it,, a demo of Alien Breed 2 - The Killing Grounds! You won't believe your eyes! - THE LATEST AGA mega-demos. If you like being impressed by your Amiga, you'll find a great selection of demos on offer. There are many which that are so new, you won't have even heard of before - let alone seen! INCLUDING a massive 15Mb+ WILD PARTY Demo! - FULL COMPATIBILTY INFORMATION. We have listed where possible the compatibilty requirements for the various demos on this CD. It will tell you required RAM, Processor and even whether it will exit back to Workbench! When you load a demo, it will tell you the requirements and give you the option to 'RunIt' or 'Cancel'. All you Amiga owners with 030+ will LOVE this feature!! ;-) - HIGH-QUALITY artwork and packaging. You'll be more than impressed with the quality of the Amiga-created artwork and packaging! MUCH improved since the release of Volume 1! - VIRTUALLY 100% indexed. There is now a more comprehensive index file, with most things fully described. - PLUS hundreds of demos, games, slideshows, utilities, diskmags, texts, fonts, 3D objects etc. etc. The AGA Experience Volume 2 is soon to be released, and will retail for just 19.99(GBP)! We are now taking orders, and copies are limited so get your order in now! Pre-order prices are available - contact us for details.. RELEASE DATE: Hopefully for the World of Amiga Show UK! ------------ For more details, or to place an order please contact us. SAdENESS Software. 13 Russell Terrace, Mundesley, Norfolk. NR11 8LJ. ENGLAND. TEL / FAX: +44 (01263) 722169 E-Mail: rich@sadeness.demon.co.uk (TRADE ENQUIRIES VERY WELCOME.) @endnode @node NEWS17 "ESC Contact Address Changed" @toc NEWS ESC Contact Address Changed The contact address for the ESC organization mentioned in a recent Amiga Report is now 9517693@ul.ie. @endnode @node NEWS18 "Wonder Computers Tender List" @toc NEWS Wonder Computers Tender List [While the tender deadline outlined in here actually expired before we could get this issue to print, the results have not yet been announced, and as mentioned in the letter, the liquidators do not necessarily have to sell the goods in this fashion. So the information may still be relevant to interested parties... -Jason] Lots of Amiga equipment Notice of Sale by Tender Assets of Wonder Computers, Inc. Sealed tenders will be recieved by the undersigned until 2:00 o'clock in the afternoon EST, Thursday March 28, 1996 for the purchase of the Trustee's right, title and interest in the following assets: Listing of parcels available can be obtained from Ernst & Young Inc. Tender must be accompanied by a certified cheque payable to Ernst & Young Inc. for 15% of the amount of the tender price as a deposit which will be returned if the tender is not accepted and forfeited to the undersigned on account of liquidated damages is accepted and the sale is not accepted by the tenderer. The balance of the tender price will be payable by certified cheque or banker's draft on closing. Tenders may be made for individual parcels or en bloc but en bloc tenders must stipulate a separate price for each parcel. Tecnders will only be accepted in sealed envelopes, clearly marked "Tender Wonder Computers Inc." The highest or any tender will not necessarily be accepted. All tenders shall be subject to the Conditions of Sale which shall form part thereof ad amy be obtained from the undersigned. Notice is hereby given that the conditions set forth under Rule114(8) of the General rules under the Bankruptcy Act apply to this sale subject to additions, modifications ot omissions in whole or in part in the Conditions of the Sale drawn up by the Trustee. The assets may be inspected on Wed. March 20 and Monday March 25, 1996 and an arrangement for an inspection time should be made with the Trustee. Tenders will be opened and announced on Thursday March 28, 1996 at 4:00PM at the office of the Trustee at 55 Metcalfe Street, Suite 1600, Ottawa and all tenderers are invited to attend. A more detailed description of the assets may be obtained by contacting Ms. Nicoletta Chow or Mr. Damian Papps at telephone 613-232-1511. ERSNT & YOUNG INC. Trustee in Bankruptcy of Wonder Computers Inc. Suite 1600, 55 Metcalfe Street Ottawa, Ontario K1P 6L5 Fax: 613-232-5324 @endnode @node NEWS19 "The Death of ACAR" @toc NEWS IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT ====================== After considerable deliberation over various alternatives, the future of Amiga Review magazine has been finalised. We apologise for the extremely long delay in publication of the next issue, and thank you all for your patience. We did not want to go to press on another issue without being able to annouce the future of the magazine. The APRIL issue, which will go on sale mid-April, will be the last issue of Amiga Review as a stand-alone magazine. It will be the normal size and price. The good news is that we will continue to cover the Amiga scene in a brand new publication call Multimedia and Desktop Video. The first issue, June/July 1996, will be published on May 22nd. This new publication will cover Amiga, Mac and PC multimedia and desktop video applications. Several leading Amiga software packages are now out on the PC and other platforms (including Lightwave and Scala), so discussion of these programs will expand to cover other hardware. PLEASE NOTE: A dedicated section of the magazine will focus exclusively on Amiga products, including non-multimedia and video related software and hardware. All of the major advertisers from Amiga Review have committed to moving across to the new magazine - so you will still be able to keep up to date. Continuing Amiga Review as a stand-alone magazine has been very difficult for some time now. We struggled on through 1995, hoping things would pick up. However the sudden jump in paper prices around July and a gradual fall in readership and advertising through-out the year, put an end to any hope of improving the situation. IPC have indicated there is still a possibility they will pick up exclusive distribution of the Amiga in Australia. We hope they do. However, the sad reality is that regardless of what Amiga Technology have planned for the platform, software development has slowed to trickle and it is our belief that things are now unlikely to turn around in the short term. Nevertheless, the Amiga remains one of the least expensive entry level computers, and is still cost effective for 2D/3D animation, non-linear digital video editing and titling, and live presentation graphics. If the Amiga scene does pick up, having Amiga coverage in a broader publication will extend the opportunity to grow the market. In a best case situation, the Amiga section could one day be split off into a separate magazine once again. SUBSCRIBERS will automatically receive Multimedia and Desktop Video, unless we are notified otherwise. You may also transfer across to PC Review magazine. Regardless of which magazine you decide to receive, the total number of issues remaining will apply. Of course, if you're not happy with this offer, we will cheerfully refund the balance of your subscription due. We hope you will at least consider receiving the first issue of Multimedia and Desktop Video before making a choice. As the editor of Amiga Review, I have seen some incredible events in the world of Commodore and the Amiga - enough to fill a good book (Hey, there's an idea!). The last 14 years have been enjoyable, although it was a great shame that only at the end of the magazines life did I have the opportunity to make improvements to Amiga Review (like having it produced on the Amiga) I had hoped to see for so long. Multimedia and Desktop Video will tap into one of the most interesting aspects of desktop computer technology in this decade. I enjoy sharing the potential of interesting technology with others. As an Amiga user, you are no doubt fascinated by this area of computing too. I'm sure you'll find our new magazine informative and worth while. I am happy to discuss feedback to this change in this forum or by email. Regards, Andrew Farrell Editor/Publisher Amiga Review Magazine @endnode @node NEWS20 "New Games Editor For AR" @toc NEWS Ken Anderson Signs on as Amiga Report Games Editor Ken Anderson, editor of the popular Grapevine disk magazine, has joined Amiga Report in the long-vacant position of Games Editor. Mr. Anderson will bring expanded gaming coverage to Amiga Report, and will maintain contact with the industry's leading publishers and developers. His experience and enthusiasm are a valuable addition to the AR team. Feel free to contact Mr. Anderson with industry news, whispers, tips, or review material. Ken Anderson 44 Scotland Drive Dunfermline Fife KY12 7TD Scotland. kend@dhp.com ka@protec.demon.co.uk @endnode @node NEWS21 "Amiga Magazine Subscription Offer" @toc NEWS _ _ / | | /_\ ._ _ o _ _. |\/| _. _ _._ o._ _ \_|_| / \| | ||(_|(_| | |(_|(_|(_|/_|| |(/_ Subscription news. _| _| STOP PRESS After torrents of E-Mail and many many requests from overseas readers, managment has relented and applied the UK '12 for 8' special offer to the rest of the world too. Not only this but realising that many people may be uncertain with their Amiga computing future, we've also brought in 6 monthly subscriptions. With these special rates you not only get a great price on the best Amiga Magazine going but you also get it on time, every time. Yes you even get the CD as well as the floppys for special CD-ROM issues. SPECIAL OFFER - 12 months United Kingdom and British foreign legion post offices - #38.00 Europe/Eire Air Mail - #60.00 Rest of the World by Air Mail - #78 Rest of the World by Surface - #58 NEW 6 MONTH SUBS PRICES United Kingdom and British foreign legion post offices - #27.00 Europe/Eire Air Mail - #45.00 Rest of the World by Air Mail - #58.50 Rest of the World by Surface - #43.50 SUBSCRIPTION DETAILS Tower Publishing, Tower House, Sovereign Park, Lathkill street, Market Harborough, LE16 9EF. Phone: +44-(0)1858-468888 Payment acceptable with; Cheque, Post Order, International Money Order, Access and Visa credit cards. Orders payable to EMAP Images Ltd. @endnode @node NEWS22 "World Construction Set V2" @toc NEWS Announcing World Construction Set V2 for the Amiga Questar Productions is pleased to announce continued development for the Amiga line of computers with the prerelease of WCS V2. WCS V2 is full of professional features suitable for use by animators, geologists, foresters, cartographers, architects, engineers, game developers, teachers, students and anyone with an interest in earth sciences and art. It has powerful tools for those who need them, but with its new wizard technology even a novice can get great looking pictures fast. WCS V2 prerelease is shipping now. In appreciation of the support Questar has received from the Amiga community, the price for Amiga WCS V2 is considerably less than the price for WCS V2 on other platforms. Amiga users who order WCS V2 prerelease will receive a FREE upgrade to the final version, complete with new manuals. Meanwhile World Construction Set V1 is still available -- but only for the Amiga. WCS V1 received rave reviews while breaking new ground in powerful terrain creation and animation. It's a great way to start using WCS if you're on a budget, and it's upgradable to WCS V2 should you need the additional power in the future. We think WCS V2 is the best terrain animation program available on any platform. WCS V2 includes these advanced features: - Spline based keyframe animation with over 100 animatable parameters, including motion, color and ecosystem parameters. Create landscapes that change over the course of a few minutes, a day, a week, a hundred years, or even millions of years within a single animation. - Interactive editing and display of parameters with a graphic interface that shows the camera view, an overhead view and a spline-based timeline editor. - MUI-based interface takes advantage of large screen displays with resizable windows you can arrange the way _you_ want. We have found MUI to be fast and stable, and it has helped us concentrate on giving you great terrain animation features while presenting a very powerful interface. - Highly detailed rock textures complete with stratification and folding. - 3D evolving clouds. - Waves, breakers and reflections on the water. - Automatic beaches with support for tides. - 3D-shaded scaled image textures for very realistic trees and plants even close-up. A variety of foliage is included and you can even create your own custom trees. - The ability to render any number of DEM files in a single project -- even the entire earth! - A coordinate system that knows the earth is not flat and always takes the curvature of the earth into account. Mountains appear realistically from over the horizon as you move. Orbits are automatic. - LightWave 3D scene and object export for combining LW objects with WCS landscapes. - WCS V2 even gives you the sun and moon! Questar first developed WCS on the Amiga, we like the Amiga, and we are continuing our Amiga support with WCS V2. We also support other Amiga developers by using Amiga software for business, graphics, manual production and video editing. We are proud of the advances made with WCS V2 and we think it will make a great addition to your graphics software toolkit. We ask for your continued support of World Construction Set on the Amiga. WCS V2 Prerelease is now available through dealers and distributors. If your favorite retailer does not have WCS in stock, have them contact us: Questar Productions 1058 Weld County Road 23.5 Brighton, CO 80601 USA 303/659-4028 wcsinfo@arcticus.burner.com For more information and to see some great pictures, please check out our web site: http://www.dimensional.com/~questar Long live the Amiga! Thanks for your support, Gary Huber, President Questar Productions (All trademarks are the properties of their respective owners) @endnode @node NEWS23 "New Virus Checker Owner" @toc NEWS New Ownership of Virus Checker ============================== -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- >From John: As of tonight (31/3/96) Virus_Checker has changed ownership. The new owner of the code is David Dustin. Dave lives here in New Zealand not far from me and now has the code and is looking over it. The previous sale is now null and void as I did not receive any money from them in time. The contract I signed with them means nothing. If anything should surface that is using this other code then please inform me so I can put a stop to it. Dave will write a bit in here shortly to inform you whats going on. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- >From Dave: I have purchased the source-code and rights to further develop `Virus Checker' by John Veldthuis, and pending final settlement, hope to have a new version available within 4-6 weeks. It will take me a while to familiarise myself with the code, and do conversions to my system, but from the initial examinations I foresee no real problems. Some background information about myself: I am a devoted Amiga developer, and have been since the A1000's first hit New Zealand's shores. I have owned pretty much all of the Commodore range, and still use many of the machines. I had been a registered developer with CBM since 1990, but have been programming long before that. I am proficient in Assembly, E, C/C++ and a number of "useless" languages. Those who registered with John will still be classed as Registered Users with me (once I get the list from John), but will require "re-registration" with me, but at no cost. More information will be made available in an announcment once I get things worked out. In the mean time, I would like to ask you, the users, to please complete the following questions so that I may better understand what is wanted from the future `Virus Checker'. 1. Which interface method should I use? Pick one... [ ] GadTools [ ] ClassAct [ ] MUI [ ] BGUI [ ] Triton [ ] Other: __________________________ 2. What sort of support for crunched files? Pick as many as you want... [ ] Only uncrunched files [ ] XFD Library [ ] XPK Library [ ] Decrunch Library [ ] LhA/Lzx Archives [ ] Compressed Disk Images (DMS, PackDev etc...) [ ] Other: __________________________ 3. How should the program exist? Pick one... [ ] Single executable with virus code self-contained [ ] Main executable, with separate brain files [ ] Other: __________________________ 4. What features do you count as most important? Pick as many as you want... [ ] ARexx port and support [ ] AppIcon [ ] File Watching [ ] Full disk scans [ ] Automatic scanning of new disks [ ] Regular memory checks [ ] Localisation [ ] User creatable brain files Please list any extra features you want me to consider... 5. What sort of Shareware restriction would you prefer? Pick one... [ ] Requester upon startup/exit [ ] Certain features disabled [ ] Limited trial period [ ] None. Rely on users honesty. :-) [ ] Other: __________________________ Please send the answers as well as any comments or suggestions, via e-mail to: vc@eclipsnz.manawatu.gen.nz Thank you... Dave Dustin Eclipse Software PO Box 4598 Palmerston North 5301 New Zealand @endnode @node FEATURE1 "Scala IRC Conference" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== Scala IRC Conference =========================================================================== LOG from the IRC conference with John Chang, Tech Support Manager, Scala US. From Thursday 21'st of March 1996. Independantly organised JPChang | Thanks to everyone for coming and waiting patiently. As you may know, CeBIT closed as of yesterday. From the few pieces of news, I understand that Scala was a big hit. We'll see what the press has to say in the coming weeks and months. A number of notable Amiga publications were in attendance. So things are looking very good. Welcome all. Thanks for coming back and glad you've been patient. That's it. Let the questions, comments, complaints, ideas, begin! Blast_SSP | Thanx for coming again Johnny first. :) Sorry Johnny for being a bit off topic, but Dave Haynie... What is his status ? Is he still working at scala or has he resigned? And to what platforms is Scala still doing MM/IC ? Like what are you doing and what are you planning on doing? JPChang | Dave Haynie still works for Scala and has no intentions of leaving. There was some rumor running around that AT had offered him a deal and that he would be moving to Germany. Not true. He may do some consulting for AT on the side, but that's about it. MM and IC is still available for the Amiga and of course, will soon be available for the PC. Other platforms are being considered, but no decisions yet. We still have low-level business activities with AT, but we may have to wait until the first prototype Power Amigas become available to port our new "BackBone" technology to the Amiga. BackBone is our new and much, much, much improved software technology. [Dave Haynie IS, and has been for months, a contract employee of Amiga Tech. His primary responsibility is helping AT define a specification for a PowerAmiga. He's doing it from the comfort of his New Jersey home. -Jason] NiteFlite | With Dave Haynie's involvment with the PowerAmiga, Amiga Techs development of the Walker and PowerAmiga, etc. ... is there a chance Scala will change their minds on this "wait and see" approach with the Amiga. It sorta is a slap in the face. JPChang | I don't see how its a "slap in the face". We could conceivably do a port of BackBone to the ECS and AGA platforms, but by the time we release the software, most will be working with the new Power Amiga platforms. Truthfully, we can't count on the existing market to cover the cost of R&D, marketing, sales, distribution and support. Power Amiga, on the other hand, promises more. Including cross-platform compatibility. Please keep in mind that we are a business and we have comitments to our investors. Also, some assume that Scala is very profitable, etc. While I can't actually disclose numbers, this is simply not true. We will continue to do everything possible with the Amiga market and work more dilligently with AT. KarmaComa | Will there be a version of Scala with CyberGraphX support (or atlest not only 15kHz PAL/NTSC) for Amiga if you decide to stick with it (the Amiga)? And; what's this about a Scala set-top box? Info? ETA? JPChang | We've discussed this in prior IRC sessions, but the fact is that we can't do EGS/RTG support with the existing code that we developed for our Amiga products. Its possible to do with our new BackBone technology and more than likely, will be possible with the Power Amiga platform. I seriously doubt if we can do it for the existing ECS/AGA systems. MrDaniel | Note: Scala runs in most AGA screen modes, even >15kHz modes. Like for example DblPAL, Multiscan etc. JPChang | As to the set-top box, we are writing the playback/authoring software for General Instrument Digicipher II box for Primestar. A direct satellite service similar to RCA and USSB DirecTV. Blast_SSP | It's me again Johnny :) This new Scala backbone... Is it your plans on calling all Scala produced with the new backbone 1.0 again and so forward ? Instead of continueing the 5.00+ version numbers ? Why did you call the PC version 1.00? Was it because of you see the new BackBone as some kind of a ReBirth? :) Thanx for your answers :)) JPChang | It was marketing's decision to call it MM100, as it is the first version available for the PC. Yes, it would be our first product with BackBone applied. Also, it help tech support distinguish which product the user is talking about. If he says MM100, we know he means the PC version, if he says MM400, then we know he's talking Amiga. HeadQuake | Evening. :-) PC MM100, compared to other so called MM authouring applications on Wintel machines.. what are the Scala advantages? How will you market MM100? JPChang | Well, first things first, it doesn't run under Windows, which has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that we can use the hardware much more efficiently, than Windows or Win '95 can. All the wipes you expect of the Amiga, can now be applied to the PC version. Well, its reasonably close. Nothing quiet performs like an Amiga. :) The bad news is that we can't take advantage of all the Windows resources like MCI, DDE, OLE, etc. Not that its a great loss in my opinion. :) If you've played PC games, you know how fast and powerful the graphic speed and animation is. As we all know, a Windows based application program, simply can't achieve that. Simply because Windows limits these types of capabilities. I believe Scala will be the first multimedia presentation program to take advantage of all these game graphic techniques. MM100 and IC100 will come with literally HUNDREDS of wipes! While the nearest Windows based multimedia app may give you at most, 100! You can even create your own wipes, either using "Picture" wipes or using the scripting language. As to marketing, well, considering that we don't have as much money as Microsoft, who does, we have to use gurella(sp) tactics. We have to take advantage of the kindness of magazine reviewers, use the Internet and of course do as many "grass roots" campaigns at tradeshows, expositions, etc. Blast_SSP | Ok. here comes me again :) When will any new demo version be out for any platform? When will any new VERSION be out on any plat- form? What version number is it ? When is MM100 out ? And what's the pricing of MM100, IC100, MMx00 (Amiga) and ICx00 (Amiga) ? JPChang | We're working on the demo version for MM100 for the PC. It will be distributed throughout the Internet and we are thinking of doing a demo CD-ROM for in-store merchandising. Both MM100 and IC100 for the PC, is expected to be released on May 1st of this year. MM100 for the PC has a Suggested Retail Price of $249 USD, IC100 is $2,500USD and $1,000USD for the IC Player. MM400 is $399USD and IC500 for the Amiga is $2,500 and $800USD for the IC Player. You can find all of this information and more at our website at http://www.scala.com or http://www.scala.no. MrDaniel | Tell us what happened after Rick Salmon plugged in his A1200 at the multimedia seminar in Washington DC, three years ago. :) GA. JPChang | Well, it was pretty neat. Everyone turned around to see Rick plug the computer into the socket and the audio line-in jacks to the mixer and the composite output to the projector. Rick already had "ScalaTime" set up on autostart. So, you got the usual "This is a journey into sound... After it was over, I think everybody was stunned. Then came some applause. Then Rick proceeded to show everyone the power of the Amiga and Scala. Like I said, in the newsgroup, Scala and the Amiga was the only one to get a near standing ovation. :) Oh, yes. We got plenty of inquiries. :)) HeadQuake | How about TCP/IP support in MM100/(IC100) (?) Having one server (Pentium) doing CPU/disc work, and have many players/clients (486's). Also, please tell us how a 'normal' working day for you at Scala US is like. :) (a lot eh?) JPChang | Yeah, all you need is to have the DOS based TCP/IP hardware/ software and that's all there is to it. Since it's peer-to-peer you can load/save to any drive, although we do assign volumes. For example, if you have the server array, say 10 GB, called BFG and its assigned driver letter Z: You can set a directory by doing set scala_dir=BFG: Otherwise, you can do peer-to-peer by using ScalaNetto transfer files from BFG to the individual drives on the players. My working day... First thing in the morning is to go through my voicemail. Do callbacks for the urgent ones. I usually try to do a callback all at the same time, but many live in different time zones, so I have to wait for the Californians to have their first cup of coffee. Then I answer eMail, newsgroup messages, America Online messages, CompuServe messages. Then its whatever needs to be done during the day. Which includes call in technical support, inside technical support (training), then projects. Then there is the studying at night. Gotta keep up with all the trends, new hardware, new software, etc. Its a lot but someone has to do it. Blast_SSP | Will MM/IC PC have some kind of dongle or other hardware protecttion? Like the AMIGA version has ? It has got to have some kind of protection right ? Or will you maybe do SGI style protection? If you know what I mean that is :) JPChang | MM will not have a dongle, but IC will. Blast_SSP | well I was wondering more about making some kind of SGI styke protection.. JPChang | No. The dongle will be the standard ones like HASP and the like for the parallel port. Harv | hey John Chang - did you work there when I reviewed the original Amiga Scala for .info magazine years ago? (came in a green box with a guy climing up a ladder). wonderd if you read my review. :) feel fre to upgrade me anytime, John :( HeadQuake | The ladder is still there. (MM400) :) JPChang | I did read your review Harv, but I joined Scala shortly thereafter. Erm I think it was June of '90. Or maybe it was '91? eMail me your address Harv and I'll see what I can do. :) Spock | I have a wierd question here: Why can Scala MM300 run in one meg chip, 2 fast, but not 2 chip, one fast? Also, what kinda fades do you get with 2 meg chip/020? JPChang | Erm, I think its a memory allocation thing. Also, if you attempt to run a 2MB wipe, it usually hangs or crashes. :( Spock | What kinda wipes aren't available with one meg chip I should ask. JPChang | As to wipes with 2 MB, I think you get all of the "push" type wipes or any wipes that have two images up at the same time. Erm, I think with an '020 or faster onboard, you get to use the "Ants" wipe and the "Dissolve" wipe. More importantly, you get real smooth, no pause scrolls and stuff like that. HeadQuake | Would MMU and/or FPU ever be of any use with Scala MM/IC ? JPChang | On the current Amiga products, no. No need for an MMU or FPU. We thought about changing the code to support an MMU for virtual memory support, but found it was too difficult, rotten performance and very unstable. Sigh. MrDaniel | Assuming there will be a Scala PowerMM400, will it be fully multitasking with the Amiga, have a AREXX interface etc... Or is Backbone a complete, "handle it all" operating system? JPChang | No, no, BackBone will be complimentary to the Power Amiga OS. So, you'll still have ARExx, clipboard, intuition, etc. Keep in mind that BackBone is scalable, we can add or remove features as necessary. As you may know, MS-DOS needs all the help it can get. :), thus the robustness of BackBone, more specifically MMOS (Multimedia Multitasking Operating System). With the Power Amiga OS, I suspect we'll use MMOS only to handle EXes and "glue" to the file system and graphics, but that's about it. JPChang | Hiya Commando. Umm, yeah it is possible to do scaling or zoom type wipes. We can't make an image wrap around an object and spin away and stuff like that, but you will get real "fly-ons" and "fly-offs" and other really cool wipes. If you get to see the PC version, you'll see the wipes that could be available for the Power Amiga version. Which brings me to another subject, I wonder if the Power Amiga OS, will ever have a 3D chipset API (Applications Programmers Interface)? Only time will tell. HeadQuake | (CyberGraphics 3.0 (Amiga PPC RTG) will do 3D routines etc.) JPChang | Ah, well that answers that. Hmm, I'm sure we'll come up with some interesting stuff. HeadQuake | Just curious John, WHY did you buy an Amiga? JPChang | When I was younger, I wanted to get into advertising and I knew that computers were going to play a big part in that. The advent of Desktop Publishing saw to that. So, in 1985, look what was available? There was the Mac. Yeah it was cute, but had a small screen and was only in B&W. Then there were IBM PC-ATs and the clones. 16 colors and lousy DOS programs. @endnode @node FEATURE2 "The $5.00 Clock Fix" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== The $5.00 A4000 Clock Fix (A Tale of Joy and Sorrow) By: Craig Nori cnori@usa.net =========================================================================== I recently discovered that the clock on my A4000/030 was failing to keep accurate time. The following is the fix I came up with in order to correct this situation. BE WARNED!! THIS FIX REQUIRES THAT THE SYSTEM BOARD BE REMOVED AND SOME SOLDERING BE DONE ON THE BOARD. NO WARRANTY IS IMPLIED OR GIVEN AND ALL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE USE OF THIS FIX IS UP TO THE OWNER OF THE BOARD. IF YOU ARE NOT COMFORTABLE WITH THE USE OF A SOLDERING IRON, DON'T EVEN THINK OF ATTEMPTING THIS FIX!!! ALL RESPONSIBILITY IS LEFT TO THE READER!!!! ANY REMAINING WARRANTY FROM THE MANUFACTURER WILL MOST CERTAINLY BE NULL AND VOID. IN OTHER WORDS, IF YOU MESS UP YOUR MACHINE, IT IS NO ONES FAULT, OR RESPONSIBILITY, BUT YOUR OWN. If that hasn't discouraged you so far, perhaps my experience with this fix will. But more on that later. After pulling the top cover off, I got my trusty multimeter out and discovered that the lithium battery, BT176, was dead. I decided that replacing the dead battery with the same type would only result in my having to do the replacement again at a later date as the battery wore down. A better solution, I thought, would be to install a battery holder for easy battery replacement. The first step was to get the old battery out in order to find a suitable replacement. Understand that the following steps assume two things. First, you are going to use proper ESD protection in doing this fix. (If you don't know what ESD protection is, should you be doing this fix? Probably not.) And second, my 4000 doesn't have a processor card plugged into the system board. The 68030 chip is on the system board so you might have to remove the processor card as well, at the appropriate time. This fix involves the following steps: 1. Remove the top cover. 2. Inspect for battery BT176. It is a silver coin shaped thing on the left edge of the system board just ahead of the mouse and joystick ports. Etched in the top is a big + (plus) sign and 3V meaning a 3 volt battery. If you can't find it as described, put the cover back on because these directions do not apply. 3. Remove the internal hard drive and cable. 4. Remove all Zorro cards. 5. Remove the riser frame. This is the strip of metal holding the riser card down. There are two screws, one at the front and back. NOTE the slots on the frame where it rests on the riser card. 6. Remove the riser card. 7. Remove the front panel. 8. Remove the front drive bay and cables. 9. Unplug any remaining cables from the system board. 10.Remove the 9 screws holding down the system board and remove it. 11.Get out your solder sucker and remove the battery from the system board. There are 3 connecting points. After completing the disassembly, with the battery in hand, I headed down to the nearest Radio Shack and found a coin type battery holder and new battery for my ailing Amiga. The catalog numbers for the replacements are: Cat# 270-430 Battery Holder Cat# 230-162 3 Volt Coin Battery The cost to me was right at $5.00 USD. The new battery is physically smaller than the old one, but not to worry, it works GREAT. The legs of the new battery holder aren't a perfect match, so I CAREFULLY bent and formed the legs to match the fresh holes made by the old battery. The orientation of holder is the + pins along the left edge of the system board. I soldered the holder in place, slipped the new battery into the holder, and reassembled my Amiga using the above removal instructions in reverse. The new holder looked like it was always meant to be there. I reset the time, powered off the system and waited about 15 minutes to power back up. When I did the time was correct and it looked like another successful repair was completed. My clock was working and I now could easily replace the battery in the future. A happy ending you say? I thought so too until I realized that my speakers were making a faint whistling noise and all the lights on my external modem were on. I tried to get some noise from my speakers by firing up Octamed Player. It started up, then the system crashed with a GURU. Needless to say, my heart sank into my shoes, and a little tear started to form. I couldn't think of anything I could have done to cause such a disaster. In a panic, I raced into the next room and tore through several of my Amiga magazines, searching the ad's for a price on new CIA chips. My mind tends to multitask better when I panic and several thoughts were going at once. Should I attempt surface mount repairs on my own? Straight soldering of the chips or surface mount sockets? Where could I send off my Amiga for repair? Could I live without my machine during the repair time? My cries of agony caught my wife's attention. After explaining to her what had happened, she suggested that I take a deep breath, drink a beer, and walk away for a bit. Good advice, I thought, but then she is smarter than I am. I took that deep breath and cracked a cold one. Sitting and drinking, the events of the project started stepping through my mind. One thing I did mentally note, as I was disassembling my machine, was that some of the system board mounting screws were loose as I was removing them. The plan was to make sure that they were all tight during the re-assembly. I wanted to make sure they were, as this was important to the grounding of the board. And you know, the loose screws were in the same area as the CIA chips. My heart was working its way back up to knee level when I started pulling everything back out of my Amiga. When I got the system board back out, I flipped it over and there it was. On the land patterns near the CIA chips was a small splotch of solder. I carefully scraped it off and crossed all fingers and toes as I put everything back together. I powered up and watched my modem. One light on as normal, so far so good. Starting Octamed Player resulted in music coming out of my speakers. In stereo! Nothing was permanently damaged and it all worked out fine. My theory is, that during the last days of Commodore, quality control was not at a very high standard. Perhaps the loosening of the system board screws was an acceptable fix for a sloppy soldering job. And my tightening of the screws caused the solder to short the CIA lines. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Hardware hacking can be fun and rewarding. It can also be disaster and heartbreak. Or in the case of this project, BOTH. Which brings me to the moral of this rather long tale: BE CAREFUL and DON'T PANIC! And if you must panic, as in my case, remember to step away for awhile if things don't go right. Lastly, BE CAREFUL. Did I mention you should BE CAREFUL? @endnode @node FEATURE3 "A TWIN APIW Overview" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== A TWIN APIW Overview Porter Woodward Porter_Woodward@internet.kronos.com =========================================================================== [In recent times, quite a bit of effort has been expended by people who are trying to figure out just how to use the very modular construction of Windows applications to work to the advantage of the rest of the computing world who would rather not run Windows itself. One of these approaches is outlined here, submitted for AR by an alert reader. -Jason] There is currently an application out for some other platforms that is called the "TWIN APIW" (yes I know it's a silly sounding thing). It's actually pretty remarkable. It allows one to run Windows binaries on a non-windows machine! Yes, you read that correctly. Currently they have OS/2, Macintosh, NetWare, and Unix versions precompiled. However, they are making the package available (both source and binary) for personal/noncommercial purposes for FREE! As you can imagine, this has created quite a stir with Microsoft. Although, many of us would deny it with our last dying breath that there is nothing Windows can do that we would want to, this could be a major chance for the Amiga, and other platforms in general... A quote from their web site might be useful, and better explain just what this thing is... ******************************************************************* TWIN APIW Overview Willows APIW Cross-Platform Development Kit (TWIN APIW) is a set of tools and libraries that extends the number of platforms upon which Microsoft Windows™ API-based applications may be developed. With the TWIN APIW, developers may now use a single set of sources to develop and deploy applications for Windows, UNIX and the Macintosh. Additional platform support is currently under development, please contact info@willows.com for additional information. Portable Source code is available for TWIN APIW which allows those that are proficient and interested to port TWIN APIW to other platforms themselves. Willows Software has programs in place to assist those developers wishing to port applications, or the TWIN APIW itself, to other platforms. TWIN APIW includes the libraries and tools necessary to bring Windows API-based applications and dynamic link libraries to alternative platforms. The product includes debug and optimized versions of the library to help you work in both environments. TWIN APIW also includes shell tools to port sources, resource compilers that allow you to include menus, bitmaps and icons in an application and a module definition compiler for building shared libraries. TWIN APIW Architecture Willows TWIN APIW is made up of three major components: Willows Library Willows Drivers Willows Binary Interface The Windows compatible application interacts with the Willows Library the same way that the application works in a Windows environment: calling API functions receiving messages loading resources launching other Windows applications. The Willows Library interacts with the Willows Driver layer: making requests for graphical, window, or system operations receiving responses or asynchronous messages. Existing Windows applications and modules interact with the Willows Binary Interface to access the native implementation of the Willows API across all platforms. This layer accepts all Windows API requests to allow a non-native application to achieve native performance. TWIN APIW is capable of recognizing binary Intel objects such as third-party DLLs, Visual Basic controls (VBX), drivers (DRV) and custom controls. This unique facility allows the inter-mixing of source and binary modules within an application. This feature allows developers to bring their applications to market faster by not having to wait for the third party vender to port the object to non-"Wintel" architectures. Resource files, bitmaps and icons may continue to be used without change. Applications may continue to load resource from existing DLLs, without modification. Features Win-Help Support via TWINView Multi-tasking DDE MFC library support Communications MDI Native and Binary DLL Support Scalable Fonts WNET Support for .ini, .hlp, and .rc files Symbolic debugger Font Source file preparation scripts Binary Emulation Printing TWINView configuration editor Resource compiler Metafiles Custom Configuration Flags Diagnostic Tools WinSock Post-script printer driver Common Dialogs Replace Module Definition Compiler API Profiling Tools Binary printer drivers Serial Driver Color Registration Database DDEML Find Clipboard operation Print Open Save As Window 3.11 API Support Platforms Supported Macintosh SUN SunOS SUN Solaris Netware HP-UX IBM AIX Linux SCO UnixUnixware DEC OSF/1 SGI IRIX (MIPS ABI) For More Information The following documents are available as resource information. If you need further information, you may email info@willows.com or call Steve Champion at +1 408 777 1820 x222. ********************************************************************** So, primarily it is a development tool. However, if the Amiga was included in this sort of initiative - developers could no longer keep claiming it is too time consuming to _port_ to the Amiga. Additionally, we could gain the facilities to process Windows apps as "native" apps. This is a powerful thing. I urge the Amiga community not to pass up this chance. We won't loose our OS, but our OS will gain the capability to use Windows stuff if we wanted to! It would only strengthen the Amiga's market position. If someone asks, "Does it run Windows?" we can respond "Yes" If someone asks if the Wintel box can run AmigaDOS, No. We could gain an expansive, extensible system from this, and a level of flexibility never before seen on any computer system. Additionally, as mentioned before, people could no longer claim they can't spend the time and money to develop for the Amiga (serious apps only). I think this news is too important to ignore. For more, technical information, see http://www.willows.com/ @endnode @node FEATURE4 "Amiga Joker Survey" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== Surprising results of a huge survey Ralph Debusmann rade@coli.uni-sb.de =========================================================================== German games magazine "Amiga Joker" (AJ) has recently made a survey about their readers' Amigas, and the results of it are pretty surprising. 10000 readers took part in the survey of the world's biggest Amiga magazine. The first result of it was the release of "Primal Rage", which had been postponed by Warner due to considerations that not as many Amiga owners as necessary have 2 Megs of RAM. As not all results of the survey are of interest for a international and non-AJ-reading public I'll only give you the (IMHO) most important and surprising facts. - most readers have an A1200 (54%), 12% possess a new Amiga Technologies (AT)-A1200. 43% own an A500(+) or A600, 9% have an A2000 and about 10% have an A4000. Dunno where the CD32-owners are, I guess they had to pick "A1200 w/CDROM" on the chart .... - very few readers are interested in buying an AT-A1200 in the near future (5%), but 35% are interested in "coming models" like the new Amiga announced on the AT-webpages "http://www.amiga.de" - 23% even say they are not only interested but *plan* to buy a "coming model". - Only 7% of the readers also own an PC-clone. This supports my opinion that many Amiga owners only still cling to their Amiga because they have not seen and played about with today's PeeCees too much. If they did, many would already have left the Amiga in no time (especially when it comes to games) :-( - another interesting figure is that 67% have their Amiga for over a year. But (to my surprise) there are also 33% who have recently bought one. - 46% of the readers claim themselves to be "advanced", 38% even say they are "experienced". Only 16% are "novices" :) I guess we are lightyears ahead of Peecee-people in this aspect. - 54% claim to have more than 30 originals, 28% have up to 20 originals (the rest has up to 5 or up to 10) - most prefered genres are: strategy (73%), adventures (60%) trading (54%) and "3D-dungeons" (D**m-alike, 53%). I think these are more German preferences, as I guess players in the UK prefer footie-sims and arcade games. The remaining breakdown by category: Action (47%) Sports (46%) Multiplayer (42%) RPG (37%) Technical Sims (36%) Arcade (28%) Thinking (16%) - 96% of the readers buy their games after reading the magazine (AJ), 63% support their "opinion-building" by reading the reviews in concurring magazines. 33% claim their opinion influenced by adverts, 42% also buy by "mouth propaganda". This somewhat implies -> bad reviews -> bad sales! I guess this wouldn't be so drastical if we had more and better game demos like the PeeCee-crowd has. This virtually always sucks on the Amiga - we get too few demoversions and if we get them, they are often too short, just one level or so to get a real impression. - 84% buy their software via mailorder, only 56% buy in shops, only 7% claim to get pirated games. This number seems to be not too representative IMHO :-( - To the most important part - the configuration of the readers' Amigas ... 42% have a CD-ROM (mostly double-speed), 26% plan to buy one 86% have a HD, 4% plan to buy one 9% own a graphic card, 5% plan to buy one 16% own a HD-floppy, 18% are interested in one and 4% plan to buy one 35% own a joypad 82% have upgraded their memory, 7% plan to do this soon (50% have 4 Megs, 30% have even more mem) 42% own an accelerator card (mostly 030s), 21% plan to buy one 88% own a second floppy So, please make your own conclusions after reading this. For me it is astonishing that 86% have a HD and 82% have expanded their memory, and that not only from 512KB to 1M in their 500 ;) That's one reason for games like "BIING" being such a huge success in Germany (it required more than 3 Megs of mem and a HD). Also please note that in the near future 68% will have a CD-ROM and 63% an accelerator card. And please think about how much more people would upgrade if enough great games would force them to! My conclusion is that for Germany, probably the biggest market for Amiga software, you could go along well with games on CD-ROMs or at least HD-only-games which also require extra mem. THERE IS A MARKET! And I repeat, if for example "Day of the Tentacle" would be ported or TFX the number of reasonably upgraded Amigas would increase even more. As a small addition I'd like to add the present game sales-top ten in Germany: 1. SWOS 96 2. Obsession 3. Gloom Deluxe (020 needed) 4. Breathless (AGA needed) 5. Worms [2 meg CHIP highly recommended] 6. Soccer Stars 7. XTReme Racing (AGA needed) 8. Super Tennis Champs 9. Flight of the Amazon Queen 10. Black Viper Where at least number 3 and 4 demand a bigger machine than the stock A500. See you can actually SELL AGA-titles if they are good enough. In the UK HMV-charts SWOS also is No.1, Worms No.3, followed by a big bunch of Playstation titles. So in the UK the situation doesn't seem to be as good as in Germany. I wouldn't conclude that this is situation is like paradise. We all know that 030s aren't state of the art (to express it carefully). But hey, these figures are MUCH BETTER than I supposed and I hope this will change the minds of game company bosses a bit. It has already changed Time Warner's minds :) @endnode @node REVIEW1 "Review: Blizzard 1260 Accelerator" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== Review: The Blizzard 1260 Accelerator John Scotto jscotto@wazoo.com =========================================================================== The Blizzard 1260 is an accelerator for the Amiga 1200 built by Phase V Digital Products of Germany. It is distributed by Softwood in the United States.This is (to my knowledge) the first Amiga 1200 accelerator utilizing the Motorola 68060 cpu. The 68060, for the non-technical among us, is Motorola's answer to the Pentium. The 1260 as I received it has a surface mounted 68060 clocked at 50 MHz. The board also has a single simm socket which accepts one 72 pin simm. Due to the very small size of the board and the angle at which the simm lies, only single sided simms can be used according to the manufacturer. The board has one jumper which is used to enable/disable remapping the kickstart roms to fast ram. There is also a connector for Phase V's scsi connector which was not yet available as I wrote this review. My overall impression of the board's construction in favorable. The 1260, unlike many A1200 accels, fits fairly easily into the "belly slot" of the A1200. The simm socket is an easy to use standard connector and is fully auto-configuring. The board does come with disk which has a new 68040 library and a 68060 library. There is also an installer to put these into the appropriate directories for the user. The manual suggests installing the software and ram before the board is connected and that is what I did. The trickiest part is still physically connecting the accelerator but as I alluded to there is enough spare room to allow the user to push the 1260 in without too much trouble (one only need open the belly slot not the 1200's case). Excluding manual reading the total time for installation was about five minutes at the end of which my system was configured thus: A1200 with OS 3.0 850 meg IDE hard drive(internal) High density floppy (internal) Blizzard 1260 18 megs ram (2 chip/16 meg simm on 1260) And away we go..... In a nutshell this thing is fast. I was previously used to a 68030@50 Mhz which is no slouch but the 1260 made the machine visible faster at booting, starting programs and executing instruction. Measuring just how fast is somewhat of a problem as there is no Amiga benchmark utility which understands the 68060. However, for those of you who want benchmarks here is what Sysinfo 3.23 says: 38.9 mips 27.89 mflops 8.05 times the speed of an A3000/030@25MHz 2.04 times the speed of an A4000/040@25MHz 30.62 times the speed of a basic A1200 *cpu is read as a 68040@392 MHz* The last line should indicate that Sysinfo results are to be taken with a grain of salt. My subjective opinion is that Sysinfo underrates the 68060's performance. As I was unable to get AIBB 6.5 to run without crashing the machine, thats all I've got for the bean counters out there. Now I'll give the less precise measurements of system performance that have convinced me that Sysinfo is wrong. Once installed my boot time went from about 15 seconds with the '030 to about 5 seconds. As I call up a number of progs on start, to include Magic WB, virus checkers, a commercial cd filesystem, mouse utility and etc., this was fairly impressive. Final Writer 4.01 loads in a second or two even when called via ToolsDaemon (which adds a small delay) and seems fully compatible with the 1260. Final Calc results are the same. I tried three web browsers (AWeb, IBrowse and AMosaic) and each worked well with AWeb fairly leaping along with the 1260. Even a cumbersome program like Thor operated visibly faster. Gloom operated very well and was exceptionaly smooth in full screen, maximum resolution mode. Aladdin AGA and a pd game called Parrot Island required the 060 be disabled in order to run (did I forget to mention that you can fall back to 020 via a key combo at startup? :^) Finally came the big tests. I am not a graphic artist and do not "render" anything on my machine. I have no LightWave comparisions to give you but I do have both PC-Task 3.1 (reg) and Shape Shifter 3.3 (reg) on my computer. To my mind the 1260 would be made or broken by how much it helped me effectively use my emulation packages. First PC-Task - this PC 80286 emulator was useable but dreadfully slow on my 030. Now with the 1260 Windows 3.1 boots as quickly on my 1200 as on my laptop (DX2/50). Word 6.0 takes only a few seconds longer on the 1200 than on the laptop. Nothing earth shattering but very respectable for software emulation. In short PC-Task on the 060 is very useable and acceptably fast. Second - ShapeShifter 3.3 - this Mac emulator ran fairly quickly on 030. Now it runs even more quickly (surprise). Operations seemed to occur about as quickly for me as on my friend's Quadra. In 16 color mode cpu operations are swift but there is a noticeable lag caused by screen updates since the Amiga's graphics chips are not affected by the cpu upgrades a point I will return to later. I did have make one change to my Shapeshifter configuration. I cannot get the utility PrepareEmul to work properly if called in my startup-sequence - it endlessly loops. I now must call it via a shell and thenlaunch SS. Aside from this quirk SS seems to work as well as before but considerably quicker. In short I am well pleased with my emulation capabilities now that the 1260 is installed. In summary the Blizzard 1260 is well built, easy to install, transparent to use once the included software is installed, and generally compatible with my software at least. The exceptions that I have noted above are both games. If you want speed this provides it in spades. What it does not do is change the AGA chip set's capabilities. If your primary need is more colors on screen this board will not help you. If you need computing power the 1260 is for you. I like this board and consider it money well spent. Ahhh...he finally gets to price. Yes I have avoided this because in the realm of Amiga speed has always been expensive and there does not seem a rhyme or reason as to how to gauge relative value here. Suffice it to say that you can expect to pay $900.00 (US) + shipping costs. If all you need is a little more speed to play Gloom thats pretty expensive. If you want to build a powerful rendering farm then its cheaper and faster than an A4000. If you are like me - well I've gained a fast Amiga, a faster Mac and a reasonably fast PC to boot! You draw your own conclusions. Now I realize this is not an exhaustive trial such as a professional reviewer would do. However, I believe that I am an "average user" or at least reasonably so and that the subjective view is what most people want anyway. Mips, mflops and megahertz do not mean much to most users and I have tried to give my first impressions to other "average users". In the ensuing weeks I will keep testing the 1260 for compatibility with more software and some hardware too and will send the results to AR (if they'll have any more from me that is). I leave you in the hope this has been of at least peripheral value to you. @endnode @node REVIEW2 "Review: Personal Suite CD-ROM from Cloanto" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== Review: Personal Suite CD-ROM from Cloanto By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== It STILL amazes me how far the Amiga CD-ROM industry has come in just a few short years. Besides the largely failed CDTV experiment, there seemed to be some Fred Fish disk collections...and not much else. Then, spurred in the commercial market by CD32, and by Aminet CDs on the compilation side, things began to take off. The art of the shareware CD-ROM has been pretty well explored, by Aminet, Fred Fish, and others such as the Meeting Pearls crowd. On the other end of the spectrum, we've seen multi-disc collections from Almathera. Games are still released on both floppy and CD format, although CD32's premature demise as a going concern has curbed the expansion of gaming CDs. Now, slowly but surely, CD-ROM is finally gaining the sort of legitimacy for commercial applications that it has enjoyed for years on other platforms. A major step in this direction is the Personal Suite CD-ROM from Cloanto, the shining beacon of Amiga development in Italy. Personal Suite sets out to be just that--a collection of utilities an individual user will find a great deal of use for. Headlining the CD are the "Personal" applications: Personal Paint 6.4, Personal Write, and Personal Fonts Maker from Cloanto and Personal SBase 4, from Oxxi. Also included are a set of Kara fonts, Cloanto's DirDiff tool for watch-dogging and protecting extremely large file copies, and the PNG datatype. To round out the CD, a collection of Amiga artwork and animation is supplied, as well as some classic novels, which have all of a sudden become a very popular item for CD-ROM compilers. Personal Suite ships in a container very much like a film can--a metal tin just big enough to hold the CD. No paper. All documentation is online in AmigaGuide format, in the Big Four Amiga languages, English, German, French, and Italian. The majority of the books are in English, with a small assortment in Italian. It is the hope of any CD such as this to be more than the sum of its parts. But to understand if this is the case, it is best to take a look at the parts first. Personal Paint 6.4 ------------------ Clearly, the headliner of the headliners. Personal Paint has come a long way, and it is essentially the only game in town for 8-bit (and below) paint applications that is still undergoing development, DPaint and Brilliance being abandoned programs. PPaint is, at heart, a paint and animation program with a great deal of features. Most notable is support for a wide range of filetypes for loading and saving (including datatype support under OS 3.x), and the built-in image processing features, allowing any one of a great deal of present effects or programmable convolves to be applied to an entire image or any user-definable area, a process as easy as picking an effect and "lasso-ing" a region. The new version provides support for graphic cards through the display database, and I was considerably impressed by its performance on my Retina Z-III running CyberGraphX. The speed, and solidity of the display, was astounding. In addition, the new manual offers helpful tips and tricks for Amiga artists, including advice on dealing with the varying sizes of pixels in the Amiga environment versus the rest of the world. PPaint allows you to force square pixel usage. Such features as multiple-level undo, built-in virtual memory, and the DPaint-paradigm multiple function buttons (filled/unfilled objects, for example) are all welcome. PPaint alone pretty well makes the CD-ROM worth the price of admittance. Personal Write -------------- Personal Write is an odd one. It is billed as a word processor, but to my mind it fits better in the category of text editor. Still, few text editors allow flexible Postscript output and rudimentary grammar checking. I suppose what throws it off is a total lack of WSIWYG. Instead, a display very much like that of the text editor of your choice greets you. But PWrite allows mail merging. The interface clearly hearkens back to an era of OS 1.3, despite the updated 1995 copyright notice. No concept of a display database exists, instead you can choose to toggle interlace, A2024 mode, and the like. I did find that a forced promotion to a 640x480x16 CyberGraphX screen worked acceptably. PWrite isn't really as comfortable to use as most text editors. For example, text highlighting is not done by merely clicking and dragging, it is a mode that must be toggled. The one saving grace of PWrite is its ability to translate ASCII data into a number of international and cross-platform modes. It's worth a look, but it won't be the document generator of choice here any time soon. Personal SBase 4 ---------------- Oxxi software has become pretty hard to get a hold of lately, so a line on one of the few databases for the Amiga is a worthwhile cause. Like Twist 2, and unlike Final Data, SBase is a relational database. In oversimplified terms, this means that data in one file has access to data in another file, which can be used interactively and cooperatively in such applications as forms and invoices. There's a lot of learning to do if you're going to get a relational database to jump through hoops for you. Still, the potential to do some great work is there. The manual includes a guide to get you up and running somewhat comfortably in 15 minutes, but that's only the beginning. Personal Fonts Maker, Personal Fonts Maker 2 -------------------------------------------- PFM pretty much announces what it is--a tool to generate your own bitmapped fonts. Not being a typographer, it's admittedly difficult for me to comment on the relative usefulness of such a program. I've always been quite happy with the existing wealth of fonts, but can see the appeal to having access to modifications. PFM2 adds color capabilities and the ability to use a larger (in fact, unlimited) bitmap. Unfortunately, it is hardcoded for AGA, and will not promote to a CyberGraphX 256 color screen. PFM similarly suffers from being built from an old interface, however. It does not properly promote. The neatest, and highest-level, tool is the Printer Driver Modifier, allowing you to mess with escape codes sent to your printer. Use only if you know what you're doing. A number of fonts are included as object lessons and examples, and for your general use. Artwork, Books, PNG Toolkit --------------------------- Any artwork collection with Eric Schwartz in it is ok in my book. Of course, you'll want to check out the E. S. Productions CD-ROM for the complete story. Legendary Jim Sachs is featured, as are Karl Bilheimer and Dr. Chip. The books? Classics are great. AmigaGuided in one big file for your reading pleasure. PNG is the GIF-replacement standard Cloanto helped develop after the GIF patent fiasco of recent times. It is only fair to credit Cloanto for the amount of work put in documenting the various unsavory actions of Unisys and Compuserve throughout the GIF saga, encouraging the support of a new standard. Both the datatype and a developer's kit are included. The Verdict ----------- Personal Suite street-prices around US$70 (or about UKP 50). What are you getting for that price? In all honesty, two high-quality productivity packages, one of which (Personal Paint) is a very mature and powerful piece of software. SBase is showing a bit of age and disrepair, largely where the interface is concerned, but is still a useful package. You get two commercial applications which, while useful, have definitely seen better days. Personal Fonts Maker is functional and really can be a useful tool, and while Personal Writer is worth a look, it won't be superceding Digital Quill any time soon. Kara fonts are nothing to sneeze at. Consider yourself lucky to have access to them. Rounding out the CD to a comfy 646 megs are the additional artwork, fonts, and books. No complaints here. Top that with an AmigaGuide interface linked to the applications, full manuals in multiple languages, and it seems to be a steal. It is. My hat is off to Cloanto for paving the way for more CDs of this quality. Cloanto Italia srl PO Box 118 33100 Udine Italy ++39 432 545902 voice ++39 432 609051 fax ++39 432 545905 BBS info@cloanto.it e-mail @endnode @node REVIEW3 "The Emulation Rambler" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== The Emulation Rambler By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== Ah, it's good to ramble once more! As of late, I've been playing lots of games on Kevin Kralian's Apple2000 emulator--long out of development, but still a very stable piece of work. Right now I'm building a career as an Allied Intelligence Agent in Beyond Castle Wolfenstein. But that hasn't taken up so much of my time that I haven't had a chance to check out some other offerings in the emulation world. A wealth of new 8-bit machine emulators are out there just dying for a mention. TRS-80 Model 3 emulator by John Fehr ------------------------------------ Like all good emulators, this was a study in nostalgia for the author. The TRS-80 Model 3, a favorite of hardware hackers, is one of those machines just on the edge of the computer explosion in the early 80's. In this day and age, however, it is implemented as a "virtual screen" on an NTSC High Res screen, where you are free to assign up to four disk drives (virtual, of course) to load up DOS and various programs. Like most 8-bit machines out there, the support on the net is growing and if you do a little digging, you'll be sure to find a treasure trove of software just waiting for you on an FTP site. The emulator also has the interesting distinction of being the first emulation ever implemented on a BeBox. John Fehr can be reached at efw492@freenet.mb.ca, and model3.lha can be found on any Aminet site in misc/emu. ftp://ftp.netnet.net/pub/aminet/misc/emu/model3.lha Atari800 by David Firth ----------------------- Actually a port from the Unix version with some minor changes, Atari800 is a fairly complete, but very resource hungry emulator of the Atari 800 computer, long hailed as an early work of Jay Miner's genius. Unfortunately for Amiga users, the translation from high-power Unix workstation to Amiga desktop computer leaves the Amiga starving for more horsepower to keep up with the C-compiled program. Even though it seems to properly promote to CyberGraphX modes (providing some speed improvement), on the 030/25 A3000 it is so slow as to be unusable. An 040/25 under AGA is little improvement. There was the signs of potential when we tried it out on a Draco, however. The 800 is such a neat machine I picked up one for my very own recently, for a blowout price. It never got the widespread support of the Commodore 64, but has a lot going for it, including being the platform that spawned Alternate Reality. I have made some inquiries with the author as to the possibility of integrating an assembly 6502 emulation into the emulation to provide a speed burst, but to date nothing has come of it. The entire source is available in the package, however, and I welcome anyone who will take it upon themselves to either further encourage Mr. Firth to enhance the Amiga version, or to make the changes themselves. David Firth can be reached at david@signus.demon.co.uk. The Atari800 emulator can be found in: ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/emulators/atari/ Note--this site has notoriously poor connections outside of the UK. Don't feel bad if you don't get in first try. A-CPC by Kevin Thacker AmiCPC by Ludovic Deplanque --------------------------- The Amstrad CPC line was quite popular, apparently, in the UK. Being an American, I've never physically laid eyes on it...which makes it all that much more appealing to have it as an emulator, since it's a machine I may never get to touch but through the magic of software, it lies at my disposal. Both programs set out to emulate this machine. A-CPC allows for the 464, 664, and 6128 configurations (with enhanced model support in the registered version), and AmiCPC emulates a 6128. Seeing that I am at a disadvantage when it comes to information about this machine, I instantly prefer to use Mr. Thacker's program, as it is far better documented in English. Only minimal documentation in English is provided with AmiCPC, although more comprehensive (or at least longer) information is provided in French. Both authors advise the use of at least an 030 processor, although A-CPC allows for 68000 users at their own risk. My experience on an 030/25 tells me that while I would be more comfortable with a faster processor, I'm not too badly off. However, mode promotion is not very healthy for either emulator. A surprisingly large collection of software is out there on the net for these machines. Definitely worth a look. A-CPC can be found on any Aminet site in misc/emu. ftp://ftp.netnet.net/pub/aminet/misc/emu/acpc_dem.lha Author: K.E.W.Thacker@cs.cf.ac.uk AmiCPC is a bit harder to come by. Try the ftp site ftp.ibp.fr, in pub/amstrad. ftp://ftp.ibp.fr/pub/amstrad/ (No net address) Amoric by Jean-Francois Fabre ----------------------------- When I started to get interested in emulators, one of the appeals was the ability to run new software for current platforms, such as the Mac. Another was to recapture lost youth through C-64 and Apple II emulators. But when I came upon the Sinclair Spectrum emulator, I realized there was a very important third appeal--using machines I might never have a chance to use elsewhere. I briefly commented on this in the CPC section, I know. But with the Spectrum and the CPC, I had at least remotely heard of the machines in one passing form or another. But I had never in my whole life heard of the ORIC Atmos, the machine emulated in Amoric. From what I've gathered from Mr. Fabre's testimonial and my own experience, the Oric is roughly analagous to a middle ground between a Vic-20 and a Spectrum. The Oric is a fun little machine, in the Z80/AY-3-8912 vein like its contemporaries, the Spectrum and Amstrad. (As an aside, does anyone have any theories or explanations as to why European 8-bit computing seems to have revolved around the Z80 while American 8-bit computing revolved around the 6502/6510?) Amoric includes a method to pull Oric software off of the original tapes. In addition, a large archive is floating around out there for the picking. The Oric is an interesting cultural study if nothing else, as it was a very French phenomenon. Personally, I don't associate the nation of France with computer gaming much, but here you have it. The emulator itself seems quite stable on a number of programs. I find the interface a little uncomfortable and am disappointed in the lack of promotability, but you can't have everything, I suppose. Amoric is available on any Aminet site, misc/emu. ftp://ftp.netnet.net/pub/aminet/misc/emu/AmoricV1_4.lha The author can be reached at fabre@cert.fr. An Oric web site can be found at http://arlesienne.ensica.fr/LOCAL/ORIC/ Ah, there you have it. Four new 8-bit machines to emulate away on. I know they'll keep me busy for quite some time. Into the Eagle's Nest, anyone? How about some Cabal? Or I could just go back to Hitler's bunker one more time... @endnode @node REVIEW4 "Review: Shapeshifter 3.4 by Christian Bauer" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== Review: Shapeshifter 3.4 by Christian Bauer By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== I really have no excuse for not getting to this sooner. ShapeShifter, in just one short year, has become the new de-facto standard for Macintosh emulation on the Amiga. And really, it only took a few months. When released by Christian Bauer last year, ShapeShifter sent shockwaves through the Amiga community. A shareware Macintosh emulator? The full version a mere US$50 or so? No hardware to buy, and it works more or less as well as Emplant? Yes, really. And since that initial release, ShapeShifter has paved the way for the continuance and spread of Mac emulation on the Amiga. At the same time, its open architecture has encouraged third-party developers to improve on it. ShapeShifter consists of a shareware demonstration program, offering all of the features of the main program except one--the ability to use whole hard drive partitions as Macintosh partitions. This is a notable restriction, as this is the fastest method of access, but not an insurmountable one, as SS supports the slower "filedisk", a large AmigaDOS file containing a virtual partition. To function, ShapeShifter requires a 512k or 1 meg Mac ROM image. While virtually every Mac has a different ROM, ShapeShifter supports most of the flavors, and these ROMs can be found on currently used 680x0 Mac models--meaning there is not likely to be a supply shortage any time soon. Unlike the Emplant, no direct hardware method is provided for imaging the ROMs in the Amiga itself. Instead, the legal theory is that you purchase the ROMs and take the image from a real Mac using the included utility. In effect, your purchased ROMs are the "legitimacy" for ripping the ROMs from an office machine or the local computer store. ShapeShifter, like other multitasking Amiga emulators, requires a special boot program to remap a small section of memory. SS allows the configuration of one or two monitor use (if you have an external graphics card). It allows you to use the Amiga Workbench (largely for show, as it is not a very fast option), a standard ECS or AGA screenmode (rather slow in more than 2 colors, more so than Emplant was), EGS or CyberGraphX. In addition, the specification for an external video driver is included, and to date there have been several, including one speeding up AGA performance (at the cost of additional fast RAM) and one allowing use on an A2410 card. The Amiga pointer can be substituted for the Mac's. ShapeShifter supports Amiga high density floppies as Macintosh compatible. Some problems have been reported with the Dell high-density floppy, but when CrossDOS 6 is present (as is recommended for proper Dell use), these seem to clear up. SS allows the use of a direct SCSI connection for CD-ROMs and the like. Memory constraints are similar to those found on SS's predecessors, Emplant and A-Max IV. Count on losing a few megs to emulation overhead. In addition, 040+ users are strongly nudged towards using the 1 meg ROM. Graphics cards require fairly large allotments for proper buffering. Under all these circumstances, therefore, consider 10 megs of RAM to be a functional minimum. Direct Amiga serial and parallel support is available, as is the ability to use Amiga networking hardware. It is even possible to run MacTCP in conjunction with AmiTCP, but I have not personally attempted this. In action, ShapeShifter floors me. To be fair to Emplant, SS is not as impressive as Emplant is in native Amiga screenmodes, except monochrome. But once a graphics card is added, SS really shines. The continuing support and expansion of ShapeShifter to accomodate more cards and more systems has been quite impressive, however, in stark contrast to the "Emplant PCMCIA" fiasco. One of the real benefits to being a ShapeShifter user is the ready support found worldwide. A number of "starter filedisks" exist, including the freely distributable System 7.0.1 and 32-bit extension, to get novice users up and running with minimal fuss and without having to deal with floppy headaches. As ShapeShifter has recently become Draco-compatible, it seems only fair that the benchmarks should be reserved for such a copious display of power. At this time, our Draco benchmarks are not yet available, however. We hope to have them ready soon. If you're at all interested in Mac emulation, you owe it to yourself to check out ShapeShifter. Available on Aminet in misc/emu. Christian Bauer Max-Planck-Str. 60 55124 Mainz Germany bauec002@goofy.zdv.uni-mainz.de @endnode @node REVIEW5 "Review: The Creative Magic of Ron Thornton" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== The Creative Magic of Ron Thornton: Spacecraft Surfacing Techniques Bohus Blahut - Modern Filmmaker Bohus@xnet.com =========================================================================== Part II In issue #4.04 of Amiga Report we began the review of this two videotape set. The first tape: Spacecraft Model Design, is a two hour video tutorial hosted by Ron Thornton, president emeritus of Foundation Imaging. This first tape stays primarily in LightWave 3D's modeler, and outlines techniques in constructing a Babylon 5'esque spaceship. The tape does an excellent job of leading the intermediate modeler through steps to get a render-efficient, yet good looking model. The tape also sets up video #2 in the series: Spacecraft Surfacing Techniques. Does tape #2 live up to the quality of the first offering? The answer is a resounding "yes". All that's laudable in the first tape is in ample measure in tape two. Thornton uses Photoshop and LightWave on the PC to create all of the surfaces for the model, but what's important here is not the software or the platform, but the techniques that he shares. I was able to complete the spaceship using a combination of LightWave 3.5 and 4.0 for the Amiga along with ImageFX 2.1 to replace PhotoShop on the video. I'm fairly adept with both softwares, but for those who aren't, I'll include some Photoshop to ImageFX jargon conversions in this review. A future article may include all of the changes that I made to the video's techniques to accommodate Amiga users. I used an '060 DraCo with 32 megs of RAM to run both softwares at the same time. (gotta love that multitasking.) Included with both tapes is a helpful guide card that lists the topics of the tape in order along with real-time counter information. For those of you using a real-time VCR, simply zero your VCR's counter at the beginning of the tape, and you'll be able to whiz to specific references according to the card. For those of you who lack this VCR feature, it's useful at least to know what order things go in for when you are scanning through the tape. As I suggested in my last review, skim the tape first without actually sitting at a computer. There are a few occasions where Thornton's surfacing goes in a specific direction, with no explanation, but is usually explained a few minutes later on the tape. To avoid these kinds of creative surprises, have a good general knowledge of the flow of the tape before you even warm up the computer. There are two major components in any 3D model: the object's geometry, and the object's surface. LightWave takes a different approach to surfacing 3D objects than other major softwares. Many other pieces of software incorporate surfacing design into the modeling stage. Once you've constructed your wireframe object, you use surface tools in the software's modeler to apply surface color and texture. The drawback to this approach is that often you cannot see how your model will interact with the lighting in your scene until you actually import the model into your scene and render. If there are any modifications, you must bring that model back into the software's modeler, and go to work. This also makes it difficult to get a "feel" of how your models look together in an environment until you actually bring everything together in the software's stage layout. LightWave allows you to apply surfaces in the Layout portion of the program. This makes tweaking easier, also allowing you to see more quickly overall adjustments in the scene's environment. If you were to look around yourself, you could categorize every surface of every object that you see (note to Mike Danger: how DO you do it, man?) by it's color, it's diffuseness (the way that light plays across the surface), and it's specularity (it's shininess). There are several parameters to surfaces, but Thornton uses these three elements alone to get a gritty "mech" spacecraft look. At Foundation Imaging, they know the value of being frugal with system resources. Though they have replaced their Amiga network with many high powered PC stations now, there's no reason to be wasteful. Efficient models mean more time to experiment and be creative, more time to render longer and more intricate scenes. Those of you with '030 machines will appreciate Thornton's approach to render-friendly modeling. Thornton chooses a good order to accomplish tasks in this video, in that he starts with the most intricate tasks first, to build up the user's technique. We spend a good deal of time in the creation of the first imagemap. Later elements build on these techniques, and so Thornton makes the most of our time together by glossing over points that would be redundant. Since much of the model is composed of structural primitives (simple shapes like tubes and cubes), much of our surfacing work will involve creating a flat image in a paint program, then bringing it into LightWave and wrapping it around a cylinder or a box. We start, though, with one particularly tricky part to surface in this model: the wing section. This part of the ship is a metaformed pair of wings and rear fuselage. Metaforming is a fantastic modeling tool introduced in LightWave 3.5. It allows one to take simple shapes i.e. a few boxes, and smooth them into organic shapes. Effectively it's like placing a hard geometric object in a wind tunnel, and wearing it's edges away. While surfacing the wing, I found several flipped polygons in the wing's modeling. Polygons, when flipped, don't render correctly, appearing as holes in the finished product. I used some techniques that I learned from the first tape to rectify this problem. In Modeler, pick a few polygons in the wing, then click OPTION- SEL CONN [select connected]. The whole wing section should be highlighted. Click POLYGON- ALIGN and this will flip all polygons the same direction. If you were to create a square shaped mech surface for the wing, it would get hopelessly distorted when applied to the wing shape (square peg, round hole, etc.). This is why Thornton uses the model to determine its surfacing. By facing the wing section towards Layout's camera, we can get a good idea of the wing shape. Also, be setting the Camera's zoom factor to a huge 70, we can see the model with no perspective distortion. We render this out and save to disk, then load up this template into ImageFX. In the spirit of efficiency, this model doesn't use any 24 bit textures. It gets its rich look from a pair of 256 grey scale maps, and a four color image. Theoretically you could complete this model using an ECS amiga with Dpaint III, but I wouldn't recommend it. AGA Dpaint will probably do the job, but I heartily recommend that you use ImageFX. Its combination of image processing, and superlative paint and touchup tools make this surfacing biz a polygonal piece of cake. In several ways, I was able to actually improve on Photoshop's techniques due to dedicated tools in IFX (Kermit, are you listening?). In fact many essentials that Thornton accomplished through multiple menus seemed downright awkward compared to the few keyboard shortcuts that I used. Of course, I am much more familiar with IFX than Pshop, so this may be an unfair comparison. Once loaded into IFX, we begin by breaking up the wing into squares that will serve to look like panels. A point that Thornton stresses is that many 3D artists just slap panels down anyplace, and that makes their models look very plastic. As he stretches the straight line tool, he goes into some of the reasoning and design behind his choices in panel placement. Once the wing is divided into logical panels, he uses Contrast and Value adjustments (like on your TV) to alternately lighten and darken various panels. I expanded on this technique by occasionally putting a subtle gradient in a panel, and also playing around with the ROUGHNESS slider in all of IFX's paint tools. This gave the effect of a mottled panel that perhaps had been replaced, and was made from different metal than the rest of the ship. Once the panels are divided up, Thornton uses some brushes he created in Pshop to airbrush streaks of dirt onto the model. Here's one way to achieve these streaks in IFX. Go into a blank buffer in IFX. Load one of IFX's included brushes into the buffer as a picture. Let's use the soccerball (football for you purists) as an example. You'll note that it's a little greyscale picture on a black background. Now load up a picture of some kind, and load the soccerball as a brush using BRUSH- LOAD BRUSH. Click in the picture somewhere. You get a stamped version of the picture that you saw earlier, a soccerball on a field of black. Now choose the AIRBRUSH drawing tool (it looks like a spraycan), and pick a red out of your palette, and stamp the brush down. Now there's a red soccerball in your picture. Adjust BLEND and ROUGHNESS sliders and take note of the effects that you get. Here's how it works: the greyscale brush acts a sort of alpha channel. White (RGB 255, 255, 255) areas of the brush receive 100% of the paint color that you've chosen. As areas of the brush get darker, those areas receive less and less paint, until you reach black. Black (RGB 0,0,0) areas receive none of the paint color and are effectively invisible. A clear example of this is the IFX brush "big ball". This is a circular gradient that is bright white at the center, and gets darker as it radiates outward. This is the basis of the IFX technique for making streaks. In PALETTE, create a grey scale palette that starts at white and SPREADS to black. How many steps this range should be depend on how subtle you want the steps between colors to be. I found that around 8 steps was sufficient. Highlight one end of this color spread, and with the RANGE cycle gadget set to R1, click RANGE then click the other end of your color spread. You'll see little pips appear in the colors in your range, and now this particular color spread has the identity: R1. Double click on the corner of the CIRCLE TOOL that contains the FILLED CIRCLE. This accesses every draw tool's options. In the TYPE: gadget select GRADIENT fill, and if it's not already selected, choose R1 as the range to use. If you make a long thin circle, you'll see the outline of the circle, and a line attached to the pointer. You can imagine your cursor as having the leftmost color of your range attached to it. (Many users mistakenly believe that the lightest color is always assigned to this gradient placement selector. Calling it a 'hotspot' indicator is a misnomer.) The palette "reads" from left to right, and so colors in a spread that are to the left are "first". In our case, we have white attached to our cursor. In this scenario, your mouse click will be the point of purest white. Other colors in your range will radiate out from your click point until you reach black. In a smallish buffer (I used a black buffer that was 30 x 10 pixels) create a long thin circle that stretches off of your buffer, so you have the bottom half of this thin circle on your buffer. Click the cursor at the top of this half circle, and you'll have a gradient that is white at the top and fades to black as it stretches to the bottom. Make several of these in various thicknesses and lengths. Again, you may want to experiment with various settings in the ROUGHness slider. Crop these little buffers close to the streaks without actually chopping into the detail that you're creating. Pick them up using the scissors tool, and save them as brushes using the BRUSHES- SAVE AS BRUSH menu item. If you skim the tape, you'll notice that Thornton uses a big blob (similar to the "big ball" brush mentioned earlier) to depict engine dirt on the wing section of the craft. I used a combination of "big ball" with a blob that I made, combined with the included brushes "sponge" and "smoke". Once you've created these dirt streak brushes, apply then with the airbrush, and a black palette color. I also recommend that you turn the BLEND slider in the AIRBRUSH options (double click spraycan) down to between 20 and 40%. This allows you to have subtle variation with the same brush through multiple clicks. Load your streak brushes into IFX using BRUSH- LOAD NEW BRUSH and choose between them using BRUSH- SELECT BRUSH. You can use Thornton's technique of selecting regions on your wing section, then airbrushing dirt onto these stenciled off areas by doing the following. In your region selector, choose whatever type of region you intend on using i.e. BOX and select a region in your picture. In REGION OPTIONS check off "ENABLE PAINTING", and paint away. In order to choose your next region, you must go back into REGION OPTIONS and disable "ENABLE PAINTING" before moving on. This range selection- masking- painting- process will grow into an efficient routine that will become second nature by the time you've finished this tape. Another time and labor saving technique is to work on only half of the texture map, then mirror it where it is symmetrical. It obviously depends on your needs, but for most people, the repetition in the pattern will hardly be noticeable while the model is in motion. One could also mirror the partially finished panels, then work on each side individually to yield at least some time savings. Once you have your greyscale paneling and dirtying down finished, you'll save this as you diffusion map. This tells LightWave how light will play across your model. Darker grey areas will appear to be darker in color and so on. One could place this greyscale picture directly onto the model, but by having the map reside in the diffuse channel, this means that you can choose any color or combination of colors for the surface color, and still retain all of the detail of the specular map. Thornton takes advantage of this to add some pinstriping to our model. Another advantage is that if you want a whole fleet of these ships, you can have a single diffuse map loaded into LightWave's memory, but have several different 4-color maps applied to the various ships in the scene to offer a sense of variety. The Diffuse Map also acts as a guideline for the Specularity Map. Thornton shows you how to take the Diffuse Map and heavily contrast it to yield the Specular. LightWave's Specular channel allows you to load an image map onto a model that controls how shiny a model will be. Brighter panels will be shiny while the dark dirt streaks will be matte. Thornton even goes through including little white dots throughout the model that will appear as very shiny. Though almost imperceptible to the eye, the mind will pick up on these little flecks of shininess as parts of the ship that have little dings and dents and flecks of paint missing. Once you've completed the wing's surfacing, you have the knowledge of the techniques to finish the rest of the model. Thornton makes rather short work of the rest of the model. It'll still take the modeler some time to create all of the image maps featured rather quickly in the rest of the video. Not to worry, Thornton does give the viewer intermediate screen shots of his work, along with periodic color renders, so that the viewer can follow along. Once finished with the custom image mapping, the rest of the task is left up to the LightWave modeler's best friend, Fractal Noise. This creates the overall metallic grit on the rest of the model fairly quickly. Though only a 90 minute tape, these techniques will make good on the viewer's in-depth investment of time. Though I'd set aside a morning to follow these techniques, I spent the better part of a day exploring these methods in other types of modeling. Again Desktop Images delivers a fantastic instructional tape at a knockout price. I'm only sorry that it's over. I'd love to see a tape that dealt purely with the basic aesthetics and design topics only touched upon briefly by Thornton in these tapes. Other good topics, especially if one could get more presenters of the calibre of Ron Thornton, would be 3D cinematography, effective lighting, special effects, and perhaps more intermediate modeling that isn't targeted specifically toward making spaceships. This is a hearty recommendation to the modeler looking to increase his professional and personal modeling to get these tapes now. As I mentioned last time, I'll post a picture of the completed model on the Web. I don't intend to release my LightWave model of the ship because I think that the LightWave community would benefit greatly from every modeler making their own version of this ship. Instead of littering AmiNet with multiple copies of the same ship, let's try to create new and exciting models using these techniques and share those instead. I can hardly wait to see the first non-spaceship non-submarine application of some of these techniques. @endnode @node REVIEW6 "Zoom FaxModem V.34X" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== Review: Zoom FaxModem V.34X By Jeremy Nixon jeremyn@injersey.com =========================================================================== How do you choose a modem? How do you even tell the difference? There I stood, in Computer City, staring at a wall of modems. I wanted a 28.8k, V.34, external modem. At least half the options qualified, with prices ranging from about US$150 to $300. Anything over $200 was immediately ruled out. The "helpful" sales associate informed me, quite seriously, that it is "impossible" to use a Mac modem on a PC, or vice versa, regardless of what sort of cable you have. "They just don't work that way--they have completely different programming." I thanked BrainBoy for his help and sent him on his way, daring not mention that I have neither a PC nor a Mac. The sales staff, apparently, was not going to be of much help. After much box-reading and option-weighing, my choice was the Zoom FaxModem V.34X. I have to admit the reason was a combination of price and nice packaging. I paid US$169, on sale; the price was listed (in Computer City) at $199. The modem doesn't come with a cable, so I had to get a 25-to-25 modem cable, too. SPECIFICATIONS As you probably know, if you read the specs on any six V.34 modems, you will begin to have a sense of deja vu. The Zoom supports all the stuff you'd expect it to support: speeds up to 28,800bps. V.34, V.FC, V.32bis, V.32, V.22bis, Bell 212A, V.22...well, you get the point. Fax (Group 3, Class 1 and 2) up to 14,400bps with V.33, V.17, and on and on. Flow control with RTS/CTS, XON/XOFF, etc. DTE speeds up to 115,200bps. Auto speed sensing. V.42bis and MNP5 compression. MNP10EC error correction. Non-volatile memory. About the only thing it doesn't have is built-in Caller ID. You can get an upgrade kit for that, though I don't know what it entails. You also get several blank disks--er, I mean, free offers from online services, including AOL (of course), Compuserve, and GNN. And some DOS software, in case you've got a PC sitting next to your Amiga. INSTALLATION Quite easy. Plug the modem cable into the modem, plug the other end into your serial port, plug the power cable into the modem, plug the other end into an outlet, and you're off. DOCUMENTATION The Zoom comes with a nice manual of 56 pages. Parts of it deal with installing the internal version into a PC and thus can be skipped. You can also be walked through the procedure of choosing an init string, in case you're not familiar with AT commands. The ten-page troubleshooting section seems comprehensive, though I haven't had to put it to the test. You also get a nice chart of AT commands, including the modem's default settings, which comes in handy if you already know how to use them and just need to look one up. And beginners will welcome the six-page glossary of terms. One interesting fact about the manual: nowhere does it specify what kind of modem it's talking about. The word "Zoom" appears only in a line-drawing of the modem. GETING UP AND RUNNING I don't know if this is unusual, but the Zoom worked perfectly the first time I tried it. I looked through the manual and assembled an appropriate init string for Term (AT&F&C1&D2W1), set my serial port speed for 38400 (more on this later), dialed, and there was my UNIX account. For PPP, I used the same init string, changing the &D2 to &D0, which assumes the DTR (Data Terminal Ready) is on. That worked just fine, too. The only problem I encountered was when using PPP, and I've seen several questions relating to this on the newsgroups. When you first power up the modem, several lights come on, one of which is CD, for carrier detect. I believe this to be a byproduct of the default &D0 setting (which can be changed). When you attempt to start the PPP device, it dumps out with an error. I found that starting Term, and allowing it to send its init string to the modem (with the &D2), the CD light would turn off, and I could then quit the program and use PPP. A better workaround would be to change the modem's default settings, but I use my UNIX shell account about 95% of the time anyway, so I didn't bother. The point is, if PPP gives you an error, look for that CD light. This isn't a problem specific to the Zoom, of course. PERFORMANCE I'm pretty happy with the Zoom's performance. But, as with any modem, you have to set your DTE (computer-to-modem) speed on your serial port to a speed your hardware can handle in order to obtain the best results. On my machine, the best speed I can get is 38400bps. If I try to drive the modem any faster, the transfer rates drop like a brick, because the Amiga's serial hardware just can't handle it. I suggest you try a variety of speeds to see what your machine can do; I've heard from several people who can use 57400 just fine, and one who can even use 115200, though on an Amiga I'd have to see that to believe it. Basically all I use the modem for is to call my Internet provider, and I almost always get a full 28800bps carrier with the Zoom. I should note, however, that I have very good telephone lines in my area. I once also used it to call across the country (California from New Jersey) and I got 28800 then, too. The slowest speed at which the Zoom has ever connected is 26400bps. Driving my serial port at 38400, my Zmodem downloads and uploads range from 2900-3700 characters per second, using the "sz" and "rz" UNIX programs in my shell account, and xprzmodem.library in Term. I don't know what accounts for the differences in speed--it could just be usage load at my ISP. The absolute fastest download speed I've seen on a file of reasonable size was about 3950 cps. Bumping my serial port speed to 57400 makes these numbers drop to about 1400-1500 cps. 115200 is almost unusable. However, this is not at all the fault of the Zoom, but rather the outdated serial hardware in the Amiga. The Zoom also supports faxing. I don't have fax software, or access to a fax machine to test it with, so I can't comment on it. THE BOTTOM LINE I am very happy with the Zoom. I was able to plug it in and forget it (until I wrote this review, at least) and it gives me great performance for a competitive price. So go ahead and buy one. Zoom Telephonics, Inc. 207 South Street Boston, MA 02111 (USA) (617) 423-1076 http://www.zoomtel.com TEST SYSTEM Amiga 500 (rev. 8a PCB) OS 3.1 & ECS CSA Derringer 030/882 2 megs chip + 16 megs fast RAM AdIDE controller w/100 meg HD --------------------------------------------------------------------------- This article is Copyright 1996 by Jeremy Nixon, All Rights Reserved. It may not be published anywhere except Amiga Report without specific prior permission from the author. @endnode @node REVIEW7 "Spreadsheet Faceoff: Final Calc vs. TurboCalc" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== Spreadsheet Faceoff: Final Calc vs. TurboCalc, Part 1 By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== It really makes me proud to see things like this--two application programs in honest competition with each other, in an area not traditionally "Amiga". Until I found out, not so long ago, that spreadsheets could really do some fantastic stuff, I could have cared less. But now I know better. While they're not necessarily indispensible tools for everyone, you may be surprised to find out what you really can get done. It's only fair to take a look at the two big players in the market right now, TurboCalc 3.5 from Digita and FinalCalc 1.03 from Softwood. And it's only fair, given the complexity of the programs, to split up their evaluation over a few issues. This time around, I'll deal with some basic interface issues and cover the tutorial aspects of each program. In the future, some of the unique features, shared strengths, and individual weaknesses will be revealed. TurboCalc 3.5 ------------- TurboCalc needs little introduction. It's been bouncing around for some time now, most recently as an extremely low-cost CD-ROM in version 2.1. Recently, Digita acquired the English language publication rights, presumably to solidify their position as a full-service Amiga application company. To settle you into using a spreadsheet, the manual covers the basics--how to get around, how to use cells, and the difference between relative and absolute addressing. It also talks you through a short demonstration. Of more interest is the included tutorial script, which upon loading takes the user through the basic financial appliaction outlined in the manual. Once through that example, you're more or less left to your own devices to explore the dozens of sample projects in the package, some of which illuminate very basic concepts (how to get an X/Y graph to look right), others which add programming commands to the toolkit, and even a project which allows you to play Connect 4 against a friend. The sample sheets often could stand a bit more explanation and documentation for first time users, and I found the occasional usage of German commands internally where the English command was explained to be confusing. Still, they do a good job of exhibiting the power of the system. The GUI is very tight and efficient, with flexible coloration, font selection, and screenmode support. As a rule, it is fairly responsive, although some scripting jobs cause pauses and flashes that get distracting. Final Calc 1.03 --------------- Softwood isn't a stranger to the Amiga applications market, but Final Calc is a relatively new entry. Based on years of work by Khalid Aldoseri, who developed it to assist him with his business, Final Calc brings a lot of high-end performance to the Amiga. It does so in a fairly stark style, however, at least for starters. Its default opener on an NTSC: High Res screen took me slightly aback, as did the gunmetal grey color scheme. A little quick work in Preferences got that sorted out, but it does lack a bit of elegance. On the other hand, nobody uses a spreadsheet because they're attractive. After a brief overview of the nature of spreadsheets, Final Calc's manual delves into issues of tools and applications. The tutorials come as a collection of sample projects--not nearly as many as TurboCalc, but interesting in their own right. They show off Final Calc as a number cruncher with several real-world applications (such as generating calendars for any month, any year, with any day of the week as the first position). The most interesting project is the graph demo, which includes dozens of graphs generated on a large data set, to show off the power of Final Calc in creating presentations and displays. Like TurboCalc, the more intricate coding aspects are not entirely explained as this goes on. You do get a definite feel for the power of the package, although more samples would have been nice to have. And the manual is always available to describe the commands more specifically. Final Calc also comes with a tool that is becoming popular in many different applications--a "crash recovery" program, which actually searches through memory not corrupted by a reset to try to locate FinalCalc project data. This could come in handy if ever a random guru knocks you out just as you are about to save. While neither Final Calc nor TurboCalc take you by the hand and parade you through their entire set of options, they do have intelligent and helpful introductory projects. Next time, we'll take a look at what happens when you actually start USING them. @endnode @node CHARTS1 "Aminet Charts: 20-Mar-96" @toc FTP | The most downloaded files from Aminet during the week until 20-Mar-96 | Updated weekly. Most popular file on top. | |File Dir Size Age Description |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- YAM12.lha comm/mail 135K 0+MUI Internet mailer for AmiTCP ToolManagerUpd.lha util/boot 26K 0+Update to ToolManager 2.1 (V2.1b) AmIRC10.lha comm/tcp 590K 0+Fully featured GUI IRC Client FastBootV1_0.lha util/boot 14K 0+Lets you boot your Amiga VERY fast. mn_ansitest.lha comm/mebbs 3K 39+ANSI Test Door for MEBBSNet ar404.lha docs/mags 85K 0+Amiga Report 4.04, March 14, 1996 Iconian2_97.lha gfx/edit 315K 0+OS3.0 icon editor, NewIcon support. AmiFTP-1.264.lha comm/tcp 211K 0+Easy to use GUI FTP client for OS 2. Haynie.lha docs/misc 23K 0+Transcript/Dave Haynie Compuserve Co AmiPhone1.41B.lha comm/net 112K 0+AmiTCP based voice chat program IB_TransAnims.lha comm/net 164K 0+Set of Transfer Anims for IBrowse AT_FAQ1_1.txt docs/anno 6K 0+A FAQ about the exciting new Walker A-Start07.lha util/wb 45K 1+V0.72 of the BEST Win95-StartButton- Breed96.lha game/misc 168K 0+Space colonisation/exploration game telser140.lha comm/tcp 251K 0+Telnet(d)/rlogin(d) device/handler f BOMBv1_2.lha game/2play 480K 0+Amiga Format award-winning game ABackup511.lha disk/bakup 299K 0+Intuitive and very powerful backup p PPP1_45.lha comm/net 105K 1+SANA-II PPP.device evaluation versio TrappedPreview.lha game/demo 1.0M 0+March preview of Trapped, a 3D game Best_DBLPAL.lha hard/drivr 5K 0+DBLPAL:784x550 monitor driver for AG | The highest rated programs during the week until 20-Mar-96 | Updated weekly. Best program on top. Please rate all the programs you | download. To do so, send to aminet-server@wuarchive.wustl.edu : | RATE | where is the file you want to judge and is a mark from 0..10 | with 10 being the best. You can rate several programs in one mail, but | don't rate your own programs. Example: RATE dev/gui/mui23usr.lha 8 | |File Dir Size Age Description |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- FTPMaker.lha comm/misc 40K 7+Help you to configure your ftpaccess AmiPOP118.lha comm/net 98K 25+Amiga POP3 Client V1.18 AmiTCP-demo-40.lha comm/tcp 738K 72+TCP/IP protocol stack ass_gfx.lha demo/euro 579K 136 Top 10 pics from Asm93 gfx compo Odyssey.lha demo/file 3.3M 38 Demo by Alcatraz, ECS, 1st at TP91 IdodDisk1.lha demo/sound 594K 1+A MeTaL MuSiC DiSk By DeGeNeRaTiOn IdodDisk2.lha demo/sound 641K 1+A MeTaL MuSiC DiSk By DeGeNeRaTiOn VoxelEngine25.lha gfx/aga 71K 0+Landscape routine. V2.5 FastECS040.lha misc/emu 2K 2+FastECS for 68040 based Amigas BlacksEditor.lha text/edit 204K 1+Wonderful Text Editor (Version 1.0) lzx121.lha util/arc 161K 1+The Ultimate Archiver V1.21 Fixes/+S lzx121r.lha util/arc 193K 1+The Ultimate Archiver V1.21R Registe MCP110.lha util/cdity 395K 6+MAJOR UPDATE! The mother of the WB-U MagicMenu_1.29.lha util/cdity 106K 120+PopUp menus for OS 2.x and newer DragIt4.lha util/wb 48K 114+Move and size a window from anywhere AmigaBase22.lha biz/dbase 462K 17+Powerful programmable database with YAM12.lha comm/mail 135K 0+MUI Internet mailer for AmiTCP thor222_main.lha comm/mail 790K 11+Offline reader, main archive (requir IPDial20.lha comm/tcp 55K 1+SLIP/PPP dialer with shell terminal cdguide_200.lha docs/hyper 154K 1+List of AMIGA-CDROM`s V2.00 (German ValIandIISolve.lha game/hint 27K 1+Solve for Valhalla I & II sfx-bin_30.lha mus/edit 301K 1+V 3.31 Binary for 68030 sfx-bin_40m.lha mus/edit 287K 1+V 3.31 Binary for 68040+FPU sfx-data.lha mus/edit 228K 1+V 3.31 Data sfx-doc_eng.lha mus/edit 78K 1+V 3.31 Docs english Play16_1.6.lha mus/play 91K 6+Plays WAV, IFF, MAUD, etc, 14 bit ou aglogo.lha pix/misc 44K 1+AMIGAmes 'logo' picture (Finnish Ami VirusZ_II129.lha util/virus 164K 1+VirusZ v1.29 by Georg Hoermann @endnode @node CHARTS2 "Aminet Charts: 01-Apr-96" @toc FTP | The most downloaded files from Aminet during the week until 1-Apr-96 | Updated weekly. Most popular file on top. | |File Dir Size Age Description |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- AWeb.lha comm/tcp 253K 1+New fast non-MUI WWW browser. V 1.0a awebftp.lha comm/tcp 3K 0+FTP plugin for Aweb (FTPMount requir awebmail.lha comm/tcp 3K 0+Mail plugin for Aweb (TCP: required) mn_ansitest.lha comm/mebbs 3K 40+ANSI Test Door for MEBBSNet term-030.lha comm/term 655K 1+V4.6, MC68020/030/040/060 version ZGIFDT39.18.lha util/dtype 7K 0+The FASTEST gif.datatype there is. AWebdoc_ps.lha comm/tcp 87K 1+Documentation for AWeb 1.0 in PS for urouhack14.lha util/wb 50K 0+Sysihack&framepatch, XEN-style butto AgaEXTENDER.lha docs/misc 37K 0+AgaEXTENDER: Fast 24bit gfx on AGA term-libs.lha comm/term 127K 1+V4.6, XPR and XEM libs PutMail.lha comm/tcp 70K 0+Native Amiga SMTP Client term-doc.lha comm/term 226K 1+V4.6, AmigaGuide format and library term-extras.lha comm/term 242K 1+V4.6, HydraCom, ARexx scripts, sound Fast_Exec.lha util/batch 10K 0+Moves exec into fastmem. OS 3.0+. V3 taskbar5_2.lha util/wb 30K 1+Win95 style taskbar v5.2 (Speed incr PictDT43.lha gfx/board 178K 0+Picture.datatype V43.695 for AGA/CGr FTPMount-0.8.lha comm/tcp 109K 16+Mounts FTP sites as part of a filesy | The highest rated programs during the week until 1-Apr-96 | Updated weekly. Best program on top. Please rate all the programs you | download. To do so, send to aminet-server@wuarchive.wustl.edu : | RATE | where is the file you want to judge and is a mark from 0..10 | with 10 being the best. You can rate several programs in one mail, but | don't rate your own programs. Example: RATE dev/gui/mui23usr.lha 8 | |File Dir Size Age Description |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- MagicMenu_1.29.lha util/cdity 106K 122+PopUp menus for OS 2.x and newer term-030.lha comm/term 655K 1+V4.6, MC68020/030/040/060 version VoxelEngine25.lha gfx/aga 71K 2+Landscape routine. V2.5 ReqToolsDev.lha util/libs 284K 11+ReqTools 2.4 - the requester toolkit ReqToolsUsr.lha util/libs 156K 11+ReqTools 2.4 - the requester toolkit VWorlds.lha misc/sci 735K 0+Images of sky from any planet or com BlacksEditor.lha text/edit 204K 3+Wonderful Text Editor (Version 1.0) AWeb.lha comm/tcp 253K 1+New fast non-MUI WWW browser. V 1.0a thor222_main.lha comm/mail 790K 13+Offline reader, main archive (requir aglogo.lha pix/misc 44K 3+AMIGAmes 'logo' picture (Finnish Ami FTPMaker.lha comm/misc 40K 9+Help you to configure your ftpaccess AmiPOP118.lha comm/net 98K 27+Amiga POP3 Client V1.18 AmiTCP-demo-40.lha comm/tcp 738K 74+TCP/IP protocol stack ass_gfx.lha demo/euro 579K 138 Top 10 pics from Asm93 gfx compo Odyssey.lha demo/file 3.3M 40 Demo by Alcatraz, ECS, 1st at TP91 IdodDisk1.lha demo/sound 594K 3+A MeTaL MuSiC DiSk By DeGeNeRaTiOn IdodDisk2.lha demo/sound 641K 3+A MeTaL MuSiC DiSk By DeGeNeRaTiOn mui33dev.lha dev/gui 585K 4+MagicUserInterface V3.3, developer f mui33usr.lha dev/gui 797K 4+MagicUserInterface V3.3, user files ar402.lha docs/mags 75K 7+Amiga Report 4.02, January 31, 1996 Angband-279v5.lha game/role 688K 1+Angband 2.7.9 (v5) amiwm0.19pl29.lha gfx/x11 56K 1+X window manager WB like. FastECS040.lha misc/emu 2K 4+FastECS for 68040 based Amigas DI-DrmSeq.lha mods/slow 248K 2+DI - "Dream Sequence" - 16:06 worms.jpg pix/trace 264K 2+Cinema4D rendered picture lzx121.lha util/arc 161K 3+The Ultimate Archiver V1.21 Fixes/+S lzx121r.lha util/arc 193K 3+The Ultimate Archiver V1.21R Registe MCP110.lha util/cdity 395K 8+MAJOR UPDATE! The mother of the WB-U VMM_V3_3.lha util/misc 267K 14+Virtual memory for Amigas with MMU @endnode @node MAILLIST "Amiga Report Mailing List" @toc WHERE =========================================================================== Amiga Report Mailing List =========================================================================== If you have an internet mailing address, you can receive Amiga Report in @{"UUENCODED" link UUENCODE} form each week as soon as the issue is released. To be put on the list, send Email to majordomo@amigalib.com Your subject header will be ignored. In the body of the message, enter subscribe areport The system will automatically pull your e-mail address from the message header. 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. ** IMPORTANT NOTICE: PLEASE be certain your host can accept mail over ** ** 100K! We have had a lot of bouncebacks recently from systems with a ** ** 100K size limit for incoming mail. If we get a bounceback with your ** ** address in it, it will be removed from the list. Thanks! ** @endnode @node UUENCODE @toc MAILLIST =========================================================================== UUDecoding Amiga Report =========================================================================== If you receive Amiga Report from the direct mailing list, it will arrive in UUEncoded format. This format allows programs and archive files to be sent through mail by converting the binary into combinations of ASCII characters. In the message, it will basically look like a lot of trash surrounded by begin and end, followed by the size of the file. To UUDecode Amiga Report, you first need to get a UUDecoding program, such as UUxT by Asher Feldman. This program is available on Aminet in pub/aminet/arc/ Then you must download the message that it is contained in. Don't worry about message headers, the UUDecoding program will ignore them. There is a GUI interface for UUxT, which should be explained in the docs. However, the quickest method for UUDecoding the magazine is to type uuxt x ar.uu at the command prompt. You will then have to decompress the archive with lha, and you will then have Amiga Report in all of its AmigaGuide glory. If you have any questions, you can write to @{"Jason Compton" link JASON} @endnode @node AMINET "Aminet" @toc WHERE 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. Sites: ftp.netnet.net, ftp.wustl.edu, ftp.luth.se, ftp.doc.ic.ac.uk @endnode @node WWW "World Wide Web" @toc WHERE 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 one of the following URLs: http://www.omnipresence.com/Amiga/News/AR/ http://www.pwr.wroc.pl/AMIGA/AR/ http://mm.iit.uni-miskolc.hu/Data/AR http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/amiga/ar/ http://ramiga.rnet.cgi.com/~AR http://www.sci.muni.cz/ar/ http://metro.turnpike.net/P/panther/main.html http://www.lysator.liu.se/amiga/ar/ http://ArtWorks.apana.org.au/AmigaReport.html http://www.vol.it/mirror/amiga/ http://www.cucug.org/ar/ar.html http://www.acropolis.net/clubs/amiga/amigareport/ http://www.bengala.saccii.net.au/ar/main.html The following AR sites also have a mailto form, allowing you to mail to Amiga Report from the web site.