http://www.cucug.org/sr/sr9611.html (Amiga Plus Extra No. 5/97, 05/1997)
The November 21st meeting will be one of CUCUG's split SIG meetings. The Amiga SIG will be seeing the latest cool things Ed Serbe has found to run on his CD32 since he treated us to his set up soon after he acquired it. The Macintosh SIG will be taken behind the scenes of the Macintosh Web Directory by its developer, Jim Huls. Jim will show us the tools and techniques he uses to create this wonderful Macintosh resource. C64/128 folks... the agenda is yours to do as you will. Another interesting evening for those who come out.
The title says it all! I am unable to continue as Amiga Sig Chairman past December.
As of now, no one has come forward to replace me. It would be a shame for the sponsor of the Amiga's best support on the Internet World Wide Web to not have enough interest by it's membership to have Amiga support in its own home town!
C'mon folks! We need you! Step up and be counted. I know the Amiga is in limbo, but we aren't! (yet)
I can be contacted my email at jlewis@cucug.org, phone at 217-355-7000 or in person at the next CUCUG meeting in November if you have questions.
Let's keep the Amiga support in CUCUG!
$1997 - A4000T - 850MB/6MB
$2699 - A4060T - 850MB/6MB
$3249 - A4060T - 2GB/18MB/6X CD-ROM
$3999 - A4060T - 4GB/34MB/8X CD-ROM
Factory Direct trade-up for A4060T Accelerator - $749 - To qualify for trade-up, user must return a Tower '040 CPU card along with proof of purchase. For further details see: http://www.amigasupport.com/quikpak/ad.html [or below].
Congratulations to Charles Earle and Yours Truly for winning the back issue coupons from LOADSTAR. Each won one coupon at the last CUCUG meeting. (I was able to pick up issue #141, the only one I lacked going back to issue #59.) This month, LOADSTAR will strike again by having another pass around issue, LS#148. This is a 2 double-sided disk set that will be free to any CUCUG member who shows up at the next meeting! Some of the highlights are: King's Ransom and Starship Invasion (two well-done games), the fourth segment of Flags & Anthems (a great multimedia presentation), some GEOS, some puzzles, some general information and chat about what's going on with the C-64 these days, some programming tips and utilities, and some "how-to" files. I passed the issue on to one of my students in class, and he and his parents were totally amazed at what was still available for the 64. I think they will subscribe, because he was verifying that the number on the disk was the subscription number. As usual, a terrific assortment of programs and information for anyone who still believes in the power of the C-64.
Since we are on that subject, there is some news from Commodore World that I'd like to pass along. LOADSTAR Letter is now subscription only (800-594-3370), and it has merged with Underground. Sounds like a good marriage. People who did subscribe to the Underground will be picked up by LOADSTAR. Scott Eggleston (former editor of the Underground) says that although there will no longer be an Underground disk, back issues of the disk will be available from Tom Adams of Meeting Commodore Users Through the Mail. Threshold Productions International has been taken over by Arkanix Labs, and Performance Peripherals, Inc. (PPI) will no longer be servicing the Commodore market. They will not be making any more products, but will continue to sell the present inventory until it is depleted. SuperSnapshot, Action Replay, Super 1750 Clone, VDC RAM Expansion kits, and the FD4000 are also history, unfortunately. If you don't have one of these items, but still want one, check the used market and good luck!
Now for a couple of upbeat notes. (I'm pretty sure you could use some about now!) Initial reports on the SuperCPU 64 have been extremely favorable. 20MHz on a 64? Are you crazy? CMD can prove you wrong for only $199. ($179 when you resubscribe to Commodore World.) Matthew Desmond is reportedly working on a DesTerm upgrade, NovaTerm 9.6 is shipping (on disk, not cartridge - and it's HOT!), Maurice Randall's geoFAX and geoShell are both realities (new versions are being developed), and Jim Brain continues to be a powerful force on the Web. Not too bad for a machine that is called, by some, obsolete. How do you find out more? Join a user's group (like CUCUG), subscribe to Commodore World or to LOADSTAR, or talk up your 64/128 to people around you. Chances are you'll find someone that has and still uses one. There are still plenty of people out there who do!
We've put together a collection of tips that will help you get the most out of the industry's premier Web browser - tips on everything from maximizing screen space to speeding performance. Whether you use Navigator on a Mac or a PC, whether you're a neophyte or a pro, you'll find plenty of ways to enhance your browsing experience.
If you already own a Navigator 1.x license, for $29 you can purchase the Major Version Upgrade, which gives you the right to download 2.0. Or you can opt for the Jump Start subscription for $46, with which you can download version 2.0 and any major and minor upgrades released within one year of the purchase date, and you can change platforms.
It's worth taking the time to build a screen configuration that looks good to you, makes reading easy, and keeps the Navigator controls in the background as much as possible. You can make these alterations using the Options/General Preferences menu item.
If only those darn Web pages would load faster! You could upgrade to a 28.8-kbps modem (if you don't already have one) or invest in an ISDN line, but there are many things you can tweak in Navigator itself without forking over any more cash.
Just when you think you've equipped your copy of Navigator with all the latest and greatest plug-ins, along comes another one. Yes, it's difficult to keep up with fast-changing Web tools, but that's just part of the fun, isn't it?
Plug-ins are add-on applications that let you do things you can't do with Netscape alone. They stay in the background and pop up when they're needed to help run optimized audio, video, text, and animation sequences in Web pages. If you're missing one you need to load a particular page, a polite message will appear, indicating that something can't be opened. Some Web page designers are kind enough to point you in the right direction so you can download what you need.
Not many software applications need a central organizational system as desperately as Web browsers do. Unless you never plan to revisit any of the Web sites you've come across, you'll spend less time hunting and more time browsing if you take advantage of bookmarking.
Netscape handles email and newsgroups quite competently, but it requires some setup and a little know-how to get them running smoothly.
Here are some great ways to be a smart, efficient Netscape Navigator user.
Kathy Yakal is a freelance writer who has been covering the computer industry since 1983.
Connecting an Amiga to the Internet, has until recently, been a somewhat difficult task, due to the difficulties of installing and configuring a TCP/IP stack, the software that allows the Amiga to communicate with other computers via the common language (protocol) of the Internet. The only available TCP/IP stacks for the Amiga, were AmiTCP and AS225 (or Inet225, as it is known in its commercial incarnation). AmiTCP is somewhat difficult to set up, even for a net Guru. For the beginner, it is a nightmare. There is no GUI. To change any of the configuration settings, you had to run the install script over again. Additionally, AmiTCP did not directly support dial-up connections. You either had to dial the provider from a terminal program, set the modem to stay online, release the serial port and then run AmiTCP, or you had to install one of the shareware GUI front-ends to do this for you. In all fairness, the latest commercial version of AmiTCP is supposed to have a rudimentary dialer, but I haven't had the opportunity to use it. I've never had the opportunity to try out AS225 or Inet225, so I don't know how difficult they are to use.
Added to the installation difficulties is the fact that AmiTCP and AS225 use different Application Programming Interfaces (API), the language that the client programs, such as FTP, use to communicate with the TCP/IP stack. Clients written for AmiTCP would not work with AS225 and vice-versa. In the past year or so, libraries have been available to allow clients to work with either stack transparently. Still, the Amiga desperately needed a TCP/IP stack that was simple to use.
All that has changed with the recent introduction of two new TCP/IP stacks for the Amiga: Miami and TermiteTCP. Miami is a shareware program that currently is only available from the author's WWW and FTP sites. TermiteTCP is a commercial program published by Oregon Research. Both of these programs were designed specifically for dial-up connections, with ease of use a primary consideration. The focus of this review is to compare these two programs.
First off, let me say that Miami and TermiteTCP are not suitable for direct LAN connections. Neither has any support of Amiga ethernet cards. Both programs are limited to dial-up connections only, although Holger Kruse, the author of Miami has hinted that he may produce a Miami Professional version if there is enough interest. However both programs have settings for use with a null modem cable to connect two Amigas directly via the serial ports.
TermiteTCP was also fairly easy to configure. Configuration is accomplished in the main program, however, you need to know all the information in advance, and set the configuration before attempting a connection. The only exception is the login script. It also has a script recorder, and it worked flawlessly once I figure out how it worked. I had to look in the manual to figure out how to start and stop recording and save to disk. Not terribly difficult, but not immediately obvious either (Miami starts and stops the recorder automatically). Total elapsed time was about 25 minutes.
Miami has many more configuration options than TermiteTCP, especially for PPP. You can tweak the configuration for better performance or use the defaults (there is no PPP configuration settings in TermiteTCP, so you are stuck with the internal settings). TermiteTCP is limited to the standard modem settings and provider information. There is only provision for one phone number. DNS servers are limited to 2 entries, and there is no setting for MTU. Miami gives you many different options for TCP/IP/PPP settings. TermiteTCP does not support SLIP/CSLIP protocols. You must have a PPP connection to use it. Miami supports SLIP/CSLIP/PPP connections. I haven't tested TermiteTCP with TIA yet. TermiteTCP does not claim to work with TIA or Slirp. It may not work since it doesn't have a "Fake IP" option.
Both Miami, and TermiteTCP claim to have a quick auto-reconnect feature, that allows you to skip dial-in and negotiation after a system crash, if you have set the modem to stay online. Only Miami's seems to work, however. The TermiteTCP manual mentions it, but doesn't give any specifics on how to get it to work. The default config hangs up the modem on a loss of DTR signal, but after changing it so the modem would stay online, TermiteTCP apparently still insisted on trying to redial and/or renegotiate PPP. It's possible my provider does not allow renegotiation of PPP. Either way, Miami's reconnect feature that allows bypassing both dialing and renegotiation works with my provider.
Oregon Research 16200 S.W. Pacific Hwy., Suite 162 Tigard, OR 97224 phone 503-620-4919It will most likely be available through most Amiga Retailers. Miami can be downloaded from the Miami WWW or FTP sites.
WWW - http://www.nordicglobal.com/Miami.html
FTP - http://www.america.com/~kruse/amiga/Miami_dl.html
(Version may change)
The author has indicated that version 1.1 will be uploaded to Aminet.
[SR Editor's Note: I contacted Holger for his comments on the article below and here is what he said. ]
This article seems to be a compilation of several messages that appeared on
the Miami mailing list (and on alt.sys.amiga.miami) a few weeks ago. Some of
the information is from me, others is from other users. It is (AFAIK)
accurate.
Holger Kruse
kruse@nordicglobal.com
http://www.nordicglobal.com
Ensure that your serial baud rate setting is 38.4K and no higher. ...
That is pretty much the limit for fast Amigas without a high speed serial
card installed and applies even to a 68060/50. ... I have done extensive
testing regarding this and the problem seems to be with the CIAs and not
nearly as much with the CPU speed. ... Amigas with 68000/10 CPUs should not
exceed 19.2K serial baud rates, regardless of modem speed. These are precisely the default settings set by MiamiInit. Anyway, the max serial speed depends on a lot of things. There are instances when even 192000 is too much, and other cases when 57600 bps is safely possible.
The problem is not so much with the CIAs, but with the very small hardware buffer (only one byte) in Paula and the latency of the serial.device interrupt, usually caused by bus delays. The only problem the CIAs can cause are related to RTS/CTS timing, but these problems are rather rare compared to the others.
Here is an (incomplete) list of factors that affect the max serial speed. Please note that these effects have "absolutely nothing" to do with Miami. Data Loss occurs at and below serial.device, not at the application level:
Actually, chip mem bus congestion starts earlier: for ECS machines at 16 colors lores, or 4 colors hires, or 2 colors productivity/dbl-ntsc/dbl-pal; and for AGA machines at 16 colors productivity/dbl-ntsc/dbl-pal, but the effects only become really bad for the modes listed above.
This is not a problem if you have a graphics board that works independent of chip mem, of course.
No, this is not correct. The number of DMA slots per second on the Amiga chip mem bus is fixed, and can be derived from the base clock (around 7.1 MHz depending on PAL-NTSC).
What a larger overscan area does is it increases the ratio of used vs. total DMA slots, i.e. it "decreases" DMA availability for the rest of the system, so a smaller overscan area is beneficial for serial.device speed.
With this we also gain possibility to play samples at up to 56400 Hz with dbl-PAL (AGA though) max o-scan (compared to CDDA's 44.1 KHz). It's all in the references, so don't ask anymore, coz I might flood you with numbers ;-)
You are describing a different effect here: The audio sample rate is tied into the horizontal display timing, i.e. the higher your line frequency the higher the max sample rate.
This has nothing to do with the overscan setting though (because the overscan setting does not affect the line frequency).
Audio sampling uses "synchronously" allocated DMA slots (i.e. its DMA is not preempted by Blitter/Copper/CPU activity), and just benefits from a higher line frequency. However, CPU bus access uses "asynchronously" allocated DMA slots, i.e. it does not depend on the line frequency at all, but only on the number of available asynchronous DMA slots. For large numbers of colors, the number of available asynchronous DMA slots "decreases" as the overscan area "increases".
By the way, this effect is easy to measure, e.g. on an AGA machine: set dbl-NTSC overscan to 640x400. Then open a, say, 400x100 window and scroll some text in it, and measure the time for it. Then set overscan to the max setting. Again, open a 400x100 window, and scroll the same text. This time it takes longer, even though the same amount of data is copied, because the chip mem bus availability for the Blitter is lower.
[Source: The Ohio Valley Amiga Users Group's newsletter, October, 1996. OVAUG's address is P.O. Box 428539, Cincinnati, OH 45242-8539.]
MUI (Magic User Interface) is getting to be something of a system requirement. There are a lot of programs out there that use the MUI library for their Graphic User Interface, so you have no choice but to use MUI or go without a lot of excellent programs.
I need to clear up something here. A lot of people seem to have a misconception of what MUI is. The main thing it isn't is a "hack." A hack, in computer terms, (although not necessarily a bad thing) is something that modifies the way that your system operates. MUI doesn't modify your system in any way. If you don't run any programs that use the MUI interface, then MUI just occupies space on your hard drive. What MUI does is provide some standard (and very powerful) routines for programmers to use when they design the Graphic User Interface (GUI) for their program. If you run a program that requires MUI and you don't have it, that program doesn't run. Whether to run MUI or not to run MUI is not a decision that a user can make ... it's a decision that a programmer makes when he writes his program. Some programmers choose not to use MUI, but an increasing number are climbing on board the MUI train. How come? It makes programming easier and it's a very nice looking interface. MUI doesn't provide anything that the programmer couldn't provide himself, but why should he re-invent the wheel?
Anyway, if you haven't installed it, it's about time you did. [The current version - MUI v3.6] is required by some new programs, notably IBrowse, so even if you already use it, it's time to upgrade.
The October 17th meeting began with the introduction of club officers (so you know who can help you if you need it) and an idea of what each SIG was to cover this evening. President Rollins then opened the floor to our Question and Answer Session:
President Rollins also highlighted Jim Huls' recent national notoriety for finding a bug in Netscape's Navigator web browser. It appears if you are very short of disk space and you have a particularly large bookmark file (one that will not fit in the remaining disk space when the Navigator writes it back to disk on closing), you only get as much of your bookmark file saved to disk as will fit. No warning that you are about lose part of your bookmark file. No thought to leaving your original bookmark file alone, rather than deleting it. Boom - gone -snipped.
CUCUGMAC #38:
Stuffit Expander (decompression/dearchiving tool for the Mac), Air Puck (Air hockey game), Bert (Q*Bert-sort-of-clone game), Eclipse screen saver that runs as an application avoiding the problems associated with many other commercial screen savers - next to FAX software, blanker cause the most problems), GifScan (extract detailed information about GIF files), PhoneBook Plus (a multi-featured Rolodex phone program for those who've never found the perfect one).
CUCUGMAC #39:
Stuffit Expander (see above), NotePad Deluxe (a replacement of Apple's NotePad), Commander (change the command key settings of almost any menu on your Macintosh), DropConvert (powerful text conversion utility; mends files to the right creator), Jigsaw (convert just about any TIFF file into a Jigsaw puzzle), Jot (one of the fastest and smallest text editors available for the Macintosh - SimpleText on steroids), MacBinary (Converts Macintosh files into a form that may be transmitted via any computer), SunBlock (a full-featured screensaver with password protection), and TitlePop (an extension that turns a window's title into a pop-up menu - hold down the Option key, click on a window's title bar and a whole host of features unveil themselves).
After the Library demonstration, the meeting was adjourned for the break before the SIG gatherings.
The Amiga SIG was treated to the sight of an Amiga up and running on the World Wide Web. Not an unusual sight, you might think, if you've used other platforms, but for anyone who has attempted to configure the brutal AmiTCP, it is nothing short of astounding. Quentin Barnes brought in his Amiga 2000 (with a GVP 25 MHz '030 card and high speed serial Multiface III card) and showed how, by using IBrowse and TermiteTCP from Oregon Research, the task has become relatively simple (as it should have been in the first place).
Addressing the hardware first, Quentin said that his stock A2000 had a little trouble keeping up with his U.S. Robotics Sportster 28.8K modem, so he put in the Multiface III high speed serial card. In addition, his computer has one megabyte of Chip RAM and 8 MB Fast RAM to handle the graphics of the Web. He also has an Amber video card.
[Editor's Note: After reading the "Miami Support Tips" article, it became apparent that the two cards Quentin had added to his system greatly affected IBrowse's performance, so I emailed him for some further comments on them:
The Amber card is the [Commodore] A2320. It didn't have anything to do with any problems. ... It allows me to use SVGA monitors (31.5 KHz) on a A2000 without needing a multisync monitor that scans down to 15.25 KHz.
The Multiface III card is useful for high speed modems. It handles 28.8K modems, which require a 115.2K baud [serial port] connection, without dropping characters, like the built-in port can do if you don't have an accelerated machine, or do other system activity such as disk I/O.
I've always had the Multiface III card since having a 28.8K modem, so I've never had any problems.]
Then turning to the software, Quentin said his browser (as well as almost every other Amiga web browser) requires Workbench 3.1. They need the datatypes that were implemented in WB3. Quentin said one of the only visible differences in WB3 from WB2 is a white title bar. All the improvements lie under the hood. He said the installation of TermiteTCP, IBrowse, and MUI (Magic User Interface) went without a hitch, so he didn't bother showing how to do that. He said he has been aware of the war between those who love MUI and those who hate it, so he was leery of putting it on his machine. But, since IBrowse requires it, he went ahead and installed it and was pleasantly surprised that it is pretty harmless. He was using version 3.5 of MUI. The version of IBrowse Quentin is using is 1.0.
When preparing to get on the Web, most people will need to sign up with an ISP (an Internet Service Provider). These are the people that actually have the connection to the Internet. Quentin is lucky in that he works for Motorola and his wife works for the University of Illinois, so he is able to get his connection through either of those two sources rather than having to sign up with an ISP. For this evening's demonstration he connected through Motorola, negotiating the formidable security that company has to its resources. Staring with TermiteTCP, Quentin showed its primitive interface and its use of a login script. As happens with most demonstrations, something was a little amiss and his login script generated an Enforcer hit. As he was going along, Quentin explained that TermiteTCP can auto generate this script for you. Of the available connection methods, Quentin was using SLIP. Once connected, he fired up IBrowse which generated another Enforcer hit and his machine crashed. This type of thing has been known to bad things to a hard drive, similar to some of the problem Netscape can and has caused. Restarting his machine, Quentin went through the sequence again. This time with no Enforcer hits from Termite the second time. And IBrowse ran flawlessly as well. Quentin was running it in 16 colors on the ECS and it did amazing well. Jim Lewis later said, "That's drop dead gorgeous for 16 colors."
Hitting his stride, Quentin said that a 14.4K modem will service OK for web duty. Popular sites tend to be real busy, which slows down your throughput, and a 14.4K can usually keep up with that.
Addressing the actual IBrowse package, Quentin said IBrowse comes with a nice manual. Using MUI, you can design your own buttons. They're all dynamic. With a program called HLCovert you can convert your Netscape bookmarks to IBrowse format (sort of). It can be found at http://www.df.lth.se/~krille. IBrowse always you to open a second (or more) browser window. He demonstrated this feature, but the demo gremlins reared their ugly heads once again and his machine crashed soon thereafter. He said this evenings difficulties were very unusual. Continuing, he said IBrowse has full ARexx support.
Quentin said the installation size of his browsing system was about 10MB, but most of that was MUI, of which he'd done a full install of everything (not necessary). He showed the Network settings window. He'd set up a custom screen for IBrowse using MUI, a feature he did not show us.
IBrowse is comparable to Netscape 2 (plus) in its abilities, Quentin said. It does tables, but not frames. He then talked about ways to enhance IBrowse's performance. He spoke about support programs for IBrowse, going to www.hisoft.co.uk to look at a few. He also made IBrowse's cache bigger which helped somewhat.
People then started tossing up sites to go to. Kevin Hopkins suggested he show Iomega's "twitchy" site. IBrowse handled the rapidly changing material of that site quite well.
As he was going to these new sites, Quentin commented that IBrowse had no Open Location key or menu option, as most of the mainstream browsers do. You have to just type it in above your viewing window.
Jerry Feltner wanted to go to OCE-USA, so Quentin obliged by doing an AltaVista search for it and, once locating the URL:, went there. Jerry was suitably impressed.
Kevin Hopkins suggested that he then take us to onsale.com. Quentin said that was a site he liked and he had another along the same lines called ebay.com. He said the online auction sites like ebay are replacing what the .marketplace newsgroups used to do.
Quentin then took us to switchboard.com and performed a search for Ed Serbe and found him. Ed, sitting in the front row, seemed impressed, since he'd never been online. He openly wondered how they had information on him. Quentin then performed a search for a friend of Ed's but was less successful. Quentin said a site like Switchboard was very useful in updating his Christmas card list.
After the formal presentation ended, Jim Lewis got up and spoke to those assembled, saying he had enjoyed being the Amiga SIG Chairman but that he would be unable to continue next year. So, he put out the call for a volunteer to take his place. He explained the duties of the Chairman, saying they are not that difficult nor are they all that time consuming. It just takes someone to do it. Getting no immediate takers, Jim asked everyone to think about it.
A few more points that came out about IBrowse in the informal discussion that took place afterwards are that it downloads programs fine, it has drag and drop of addresses, and MUI will let you move stuff around on your display to customize it any way you want. Quentin showed how to do this latter trick by dragging his link buttons around.
The SIG meeting began with Rich Rollins telling a tale of what he had gone through to get his brand new Power Computing Power Base. The Power Base is a Mac clone with a 150 MHz 604 processor, 16MB RAM, 1MB VRAM, One Gig hard drive, 4X CDROM and 17" MAG monitor. Rich had literally just gotten it a couple hours before the meeting so he was sorely tempted to just play with this wonderful toy. But he was prevailed upon to begin the originally scheduled presentation on "How to clean up your system." To facilitate this Rich had Mark Bellon install System 7.5.3 on a ZIP disk and then update that to 7.5.5. They then set about stripping out all the things you don't need. The principle active participants in the discussion that followed were Richard Rollins, Mark Bellon, Edwin Hadley, Gary Bernstein, and Jim Huls.
As an aside, Rich mentioned a shareware program called InformInit that he deemed well worth the $5.00 fee. The program tells you, in better detail, what each init in your system is for. Several people described it as "the program you need if you don't have Mark Bellon sitting right next to you." Rich also suggested some helpful web sites. When asked later by Kevin Hopkins, Rich said, "The site I recommended by showing the "The InformInit v1.2" listing is http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/DEF/InformInit.html.
Also, the Mac Pruning Pages are great, http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/DEF/." A problem common when using a lot of inits is that they can get in each other's way. To read about some of the known troubles, check out the Complete Conflict Compendium "located at http://www.quillserv.com/www/c3/c3.html. Also I mentioned the site for all the control strips. It's http://www.phasedeux.com/members/dsytsma/csm/index.html."
Starting with Control Panels, Rich went through each one, then Extensions, and finally Apple Menu Items:
Views Keep
Users & Groups Trash This is used in networking. If you're not
networking anything, throw away all the
network software. If you have a stand-alone
machine you don't need it. But, if you have
more than one machine and you network
them together (Apple Talk) for file
sharing, etc., you need it.
Close View Trash This is a magnifier if you vision problems.
PowerBook Trash If you don't have a portable PowerBook
you don't need any of the control panels
that say PowerBook except Control Strip.
Control Strip optional For PowerBooks but usable on Desktops.
040 Cache Trash Unless you have an 040 machine.
Desktop Patterns Keep Obvious
Easy Access Trash For handicapped to change commands
General Controls Keep Obvious
Extension Manager Keep Obvious
Color Sync Keep It corrects the perfect digital color in the
computer to what you think the color
should look like on the monitor or printer.
Trash it if you don't have a color printer.
Keyboard Keep Obvious
Labels optional If you like or want to use labels keep.
Launcher optional Rich & Mark didn't care for this one much.
File Share Monitor Trash Networking. Only used if you have
multiple computers. See "Users & Groups."
Easy Open Keep To teach your machine where you want
certain type files opened with which application.
Memory Keep Obvious
Monitor/Sound Keep Software control of monitor and speakers.
Map Keep Set Map to the right time zone. Certain
applications need it.
MacTCP or TCP/IP Keep TCP/IP is for Open Transport. You need one or the other.
Mouse Keep Obvious
Numbers Keep Obvious
PC Exchange Keep Lets your Mac recognize DOS disks.
PowerBook Security Trash For PowerBooks only
Network Trash AppleTalk. Ethernet. Only needed if you
have more than one computer. See "Users
& Groups" and File Share Monitor."
Screen Trash For PowerBooks
Sharing Setup Trash Which groups can and can't use your stuff
on a network.
Serial Switch Trash
Text Trash For changing the language of your script.
If you change it to Hebrew and you don't
know how to read Hebrew, you'll have real
trouble changing it back.
Window Shade Keep
Startup disk Keep
Speech Trash Only if your computer reads to you
Token Ring Trash Networking. Old, old thing.
Track pad Trash Unless you have a track pad (PowerBook)
A/Rose Trash Old networking idea no one uses.
Upgrade 5400 Trash Unless you have a 5400
7200 Graphics Trash Unless you have a 7200 or a 7200
compatible.
Extensions Mgr Keep
About Apple Guide Trash Read once
Apple Guide Trash If you don't use it, you can save 696K.
Apple CDROM Keep
Apple Built-In Ethernet Trash Networking
Color Style writer
Color Style writer Pro Trash Only keep the extension for your printer.
Ethernet CS,LC Trash
Nubus Trash
Token Ring Trash
Apple Photo Access Keep For the CDROM - how to look at pictures.
AppleScriptLib Keep Your system uses AppleScript &we could
all use it more. Jim Huls recommended a
web site dedicated to AppleScript for those
interested - http://www.scriptweb.com/.
Apple Modem Tool Keep
Modem Control Boxes Other Trash
Apple Script Keep
AppleShare Trash Networking. See "Users & Groups", etc.
Apple Visions Guide Keep
Caps Lock Keep
Audio CD's Keep
Color Picker Keep
Clipping Extensions Keep
Demo Movies Keep
Color Sync Keep
Energy Saver Keep Works together with ON/OFF
Desktop Printer Trash For multiple printers. Must run the installer
program for your particular printer and
turn off the Desktop Printing Option or it
will come back to the Desktop Printer.
Energy Guide Trash
Networking Trash
Finder Help Keep
Ethernet Compat Trash 7.5.5
EtherTalk Trash 7.5.5
Find File Keep
High Sierra ISO9660 Keep
Foreign File Keep
Graphic Accelerator Keep
Finder Scripting Keep
Generic Card modem Trash
IICI Trash
Input Fax Support Keep 7.5.5
Macintalk 2 or 3 Keep
Token Ring Trash
LC Mon Trash
Mac Guide 2 Trash
Object Support Lib Keep
Open Transport Lib Keep
PowerBook Trash
PowerBook Mon Trash
Printer Share Trash
Power PC Mon Keep
Printer Monitor Keep Trash if your printer has its own. Print
Monitor just tells you what's going on.
QT Musical Instruments Trash Unless you're doing MIDI.
QuickTime Keep
Quadra Mon Trash unless you have a quadra.
Scripting Editions Keep Some of the functionality of the Finder
uses Apple Script which uses Scripting
Editions. Programmers use this to
communicate between programs.
Serial Built-in Keep
Shared Lib Mgr Keep In general, keep all library files.
Serial Tool Keep
Text Tool Keep
Speech Mgr Trash unless you want your computer to talk
System AV Keep
Token Ring Trash
Video Startup Trash
Voices Trash
World Script Keep
World Script II Keep
World Script
Power Adapter Keep
Audio Vision Trash
Stickies optional Jigsaw puzzle Trash Shut down Trash if you use shutdown from the desktop Find File Keep Apple CD Audio Player optional Chooser Keep Graphic Calc optional Control Panel KeepA few other incidentals were mentioned. Concerning fonts, it was suggested that you use only the basic system fonts and keep any others you may want to occasionally use on a disk. Having a huge number of fonts is a waste of resources and slows down the loading of every program that uses fonts, since they are all loaded in every time you use one of those programs.
Don't touch any Open Transport stuff. Leave it.
Any Guide files, like Simple Text Guide, are basically to be read and discarded or archived.
When the discussion turned to Java use on the web, Mark Bellon said that Java is just another language. However, he said, by allowing it to enter your machine to load up applets, you are opening yourself up to viruses. Mark said he has turned it off in his copy of Netscape.
Some noted trouble spots are "After Dark" and the Apple Menu Items driving software itself. They are the number one culprit for trouble. Also, do not move the Find File" program from the Apple Menu Items folder, as you'll get yourself into a bunch of trouble if you do.
The October meeting of the CUCUG executive board took place on Tuesday, October 22, 1996, at 7PM, at Kevin Hisel's house (address and phone number, both in the book). Present at the meeting were Richard Rollins, Dave Witt, Jim Lewis, Jim Huls, Mark Landman, Kevin Hopkins, Jon Sago, Kevin Hisel, and Emil Cobb.
Richard Rollins: Richard began by lining up the programs for the November meeting. Jim Lewis reported that the Amiga SIG would be viewing Ed Serbe's discoveries for his CD32 since his last presentation. The Mac SIG had nothing pre-planned but later in the meeting Jim Huls volunteered to show "the steps and tools" he uses to create and maintain the Mac Web Directory.
Turning to last months meeting, Richard enthused about his new Power Computing Mac clone. He said the meeting was well received and that he will probably do a similar program in the future.
Concerning Mac membership generated through CU-Online, Richard reported that CU-Online had made their payments current, so all is well there.
Dave Witt: Dave said, "The meeting was good on the Amiga side. I wish I had known about this stuff when I had my A500 up and running." After that, Dave discussed his job at Apex computers and the struggle to serve Macintosh customers there.
Jim Lewis: Jim said, "Quentin did an exemplary job showing IBrowse." Despite a few Enforcer hits and a Guru or two, it all worked out.
Jim reported his plea to the Amiga SIG membership for someone to step forward and take the Chairmanship for next year. As of yet, there has been no takers.
When the subject came up, Jim stated that the report that Apple made money this last quarter "was all smoke and mirrors." They made less than 1% of sales in profit. A discussion of the finances of the industry in general followed.
Jim Huls: Jim stated, "Good little meeting over on the Mac side." Jim said he even learned a thing or two, specifically about A/ROSE.
Jim then said, "I think we need to seriously consider a big monitor for the Mac SIG." If the people coming to that SIG are unable to see, we cannot reasonably expect it to grow, as people will cease to come. We need to address it. After rather involved discussions, it was finally decided that we would swap the SIG meeting areas. The Amiga SIG will move to the west end of the room and the Mac SIG will remain in the east end, rather than having to buy another large monitor or physically transfer the one that we have. The Board wants to do this on a trial basis and see if it doesn't inconvenience too many people.
It was at this point in his presentation that Jim offered to do next month's Mac SIG demo on the Mac Web Directory.
Jim closed with asking for an updated Mac SIG flyer to hand out where he works.
Mark Landman: Mark said that the Mac SIG presentation was interesting and that he may be joining that SIG soon, depending on what new hardware purchases he makes in the near future. He then discussed his recent, very disappointing PC purchase. Bottom line was that the machine was very flaky and wound up being returned. Mark is looking for alternatives for his video production needs.
Turning to Treasury matters, Mark reported that the club's Certificate of Deposit will mature November 1 and he wanted to know how the Board wished to proceed. After some discussion the Board advised Mark to seek the best rate of return he could reinvesting the money and an additional some was added to our balance to make it an even amount.
In sum, the Treasury is doing very well.
As a side note, we have had our first bounced check from one our web members. This person will be contacted. His membership will obviously be suspended until the matter is sorted out.
Mark then asked if the 1997 Membership Cards had been printed yet. The answer was no, so this was addressed after the formal meeting.
Kevin Hopkins: Kevin distributed the mail to the appropriate officers, presented the exchange newsletters for those that desired to look at them and gave Kevin Hisel a disk that came back in the mail.
Kevin reported that CUCUG's current membership numbers 143 which is the highest it has ever been. He brought in an updated membership list on disk for those officers who needed it, as the web server seems to be ill. Kevin was unable to log in for three days prior to the Board meeting. Kevin Hisel reported that Unknown is broken, although still serving web pages properly. Babba is fine. He would say more during his portion of the meeting.
Kevin requested an accurate "Rollover List" for next year's membership from Mark Landman, which Mark said he would provide.
Kevin brought up the subject of the election of next year's officers. After some discussion, all the current officers said they would again run for the offices they presently hold.
Kevin then brought up a letter from a woman wanting to sell a Primera Pro color printer. Anyone with any interest can contact Kevin.
Kevin asked about the state of the BBS termination plans. They are still in the advise state, at least until the end of the year. We still would like input from the membership on this subject.
Kevin said he would particularly like to thank Rich Hall for taking notes of the last Mac SIG. Kevin felt it was an important session, as was the Amiga SIG, and being unable to attend both meetings, he was grateful for Rich to pitch in and help. Thanks Rich.
On a personal note, Kevin asked around if anyone had an old Aminet CD collection from which he might get the IBrowse demo. Quentin's demonstration was so good, Kevin was willing to tackle the Web on the Amiga once more.
As a final topic, Kevin asked if it might not be time to suspend the C64/128 SIG. None of it's members have attended a meeting in many months. If no interest is shown, the space in the newsletter can be put to other uses. Some discussion followed.
Jon Sago: "Quentin did a good job," Jon said. "IBrowse did a great job with 16 colors." Jon confessed that his own Amiga knowledge was starting to get stale. Jon has moved on to Windows NT which he says is "very cool." It's TCP stack will allow you ten numbers and will dial down them until it connects.
Kevin Hisel: Kevin acknowledged the "Kill the BBS" movement by pointedly noting that there was no "Save the BBS" movement.
Referring back to the difficulties Kevin Hopkins said he was having with the web server, Kevin said that Unknown is dying. "We are moving the web site over to a new machine. To the end user there will be no difference."
As Chief Librarian, Kevin reported that there had been no disk sales at the last meeting - they were at their "nadir."
Returning to the web, Kevin informed us that Net User, a UK magazine, has awarded the Amiga Web Directory its Five Star Award. Kevin stated that we are also working on establishing our sixth mirror site, this one in the UK as well.
Turning to matters closer to home, Kevin said that the Gateway Amiga Club of St. Louis is going to sponsor another Gateway Computer Show on March 15 and 16. Kevin said we ought to think about attending. By promoting this event on the AWD, Kevin thinks we can get some favorable treatment when it comes to admissions and perhaps a table. There was a discussion about this event and its predecessors. A bus trip to the show is in the tentative stages of planning.
Emil Cobb: Emil reported attendance at the October General meeting at 47. Emil brought up the topic of the chatting on the BBS that seems to be lost by the move to the web. There is a CUCUG newsgroup on Prairienet, but the goes completely unused.
I. Offices available
A. The President - basically, the coordinator for the entire club.
Appoints committee chairs and presides over the general meetings.
B. The Vice President - performs the President's duties in
his absence.
C. Treasurer - in charge of the financial affairs of the club. He/she
pays the bills.
D. Secretary - in charge of keeping all of the procedural
documentation, e.g., meeting minutes, as well
as correspondence with members, non-members and other clubs.
E. Corporation Agent - in charge of all matters dealing with CUCUG's
corporation status.
II. Candidates
A. Potential candidates should contact the chairman of the
Election Committee prior to the November meeting so
that they may coordinate the forum, etc. Kevin Hisel 217-352-1002
B. Nominations will be accepted from the floor at the November
meeting.
C. Candidates will be given equal time in a forum to express
their views or present their platforms at the
November meeting.
D. The Nominating Committee will verify that anyone nominated is a
member in good standing.
Otherwise, they will not be allowed a forum.
E. Candidates' names will be published in the December newsletter.
III. Voting
A. Who can vote
1. Every member in good standing (i.e., dues paid) may vote.
2. Must have and present the current (1996) membership card.
B. Voting at the general meeting in December
1. Secret ballots will be distributed to each member
that presents a valid membership card at the
December meeting.
2. The Secretary will prepare the official ballot forms.
No candidates' names will appear on the ballots
themselves. Candidates' names and the offices they
seek will be posted at the meeting place by office
and then alphabetically by candidate.
C. Proxy voting
1. If you cannot attend the December meeting, you
may request a special proxy ballot from Kevin Hisel
217-352-1002 no later than December 9, 1996.
2. Place filled-in ballot in a blank, sealed envelope.
3. Place blank envelope along with your valid membership
card in another envelope.
4. Address this envelope to: CUCUG, P.O. Box 716,
Champaign, IL 61824-0716, clearly print the word
BALLOT on the front and mail it.
5. These proxy votes will be opened and verified only
by the Tellers at the December meeting and
counted along with the general ballots.
6. All proxy ballots must be received at the CUCUG post office
box no later than December 19, 1996
(the day of the meeting).
D. Who you may vote for
1. You may vote for anyone. Write-in (non-nominated) votes
will be accepted and counted.
The candidate with the most votes for a particular
position wins that position. In the event of a tie, the
Tellers will require a recasting for that position only.
2. To assume office, a candidate must be a member in good
standing both in 1996 and in 1997. If a
winning candidate cannot be verified, the office
goes to the next verifiable candidate with the most
votes. If there are no verifiable winners, a second balloting
will take place. Proxy ballots will be counted each time.
IV. Chronology
A. October meeting
1. Announce protocol to general membership.
2. Solicit candidates.
B. November newsletter
1. Re-cap the election protocol.
C. November meeting
1. The membership will appoint a Nominating
Commitee.
2. Accept nominations from the floor.
3. Nominations will close.
4. Candidates will be given equal time in a forum to
express their views or present their platforms.
D. December newsletter
1. Candidates' names will be published in
alphabetical order with the offices they seek.
E. December meeting
1. Nominated candidates names and the offices they
seek will be posted in alphabetical order.
2. The President will appoint 2 or more Tellers to
distribute ballots and count the votes.
3. Votes will be taken and counted by the Tellers.
Winners names will be announced by the President.
F. January newsletter
1. Winners names will be published.
G. January meeting
1. New club officers will be installed.
ToC
Meetings are held the third Thursday of each month at 7 p.m. at the IBEW Local 601 Union Hall (352-1741), located at 2901 Research Road in the Interstate Research Park in northwest Champaign. To get there, go north on Mattis over I-74 and turn right at the second stop light, onto Interstate Drive. Then take the first "real" left at Research Road. The Electrician's Hall is the third building on your left. There's a big flag pole right out front and it's directly across the street from one of Hobbico's signs. You should park and enter the building in the back.
ASCII text files of all recent Status Register newsletters are available for downloading on our BBS or our WWW site. Other user group newsletter editors may leave a comment to the BBS Sysop to request free access. To initiate a newsletter exchange, just send us your newsletter. As a matter of CUCUG policy, a newsletter exchange partner will be dropped after three months of no contact.
This newsletter was prepared with PageStream 2.22 on an Amiga 3000 25/100 and output to an HP Laserjet IIP plus. Pagestream was donated to CUCUG by Soft-Logik Publishing Corporation.
For further information, please attend the next meeting as our guest, or contact one of our officers (all at area code 217):
President: Richard Rollins 469-2616 rrollins@cucug.org Vice-President: Emil Cobb 398-0149 e-cobb@uiuc.edu Secretary/Editor: Kevin Hopkins 356-5026 kh2@uiuc.edu Treasurer: Mark Landman 398-2910 mlandman@prairienet.org Corporate Agent: Jim Lewis 359-1342 jlewis@cucug.org Board Advisor: Jim Huls 892-8730 jhuls@net66.com Librarian/Sysop: Kevin Hisel 352-1002 khisel@cucug.org Mac Librarian: Mark Bellon 337-5804 mbellon@urbana.mcd.mot.com
Call our Starship CUCUG BBS at (217) 356-8056, always online, up to 28,800 baud, supporting all CBM and Macintosh computers. Email us at
or surf our home page at
To get on the net free, call Prairienet at (217) 255-9000. Login as "visitor". Once you're on, just type "go cucug" for a good place to start.
From: Carl Sassenrath (carl@sassenrath.com)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Date: 13 Nov 1996 19:50:02 GMT
Dear Amigans,
Many of you have been wondering what's happening with VIScorp, the Amiga, and why my name is no longer on the vistv web site.
I hope this is not too long-winded for you, but here is a brief summary of my story:
I am unsure what the future holds for the Amiga. Perhaps VIScorp or some other company will scrape together enough cash to make the AT purchase. We can only hope.
As for my future, I am going to return to what I do best: operating systems and languages. You have not heard the last from me. I can imagine a system much better than the Amiga.... now to create it. Truely, only time will tell.
Stay in touch my friends.
Sincerely yours,
Carl Sassenrath
Ex-VIScorp OS Guy
carl@sassenrath.com
[Source: http://www.cucug.org/amiga/aminews/961116-sassenrath.html ]
$2699 - A4060T - 850MB/6MB
$3249 - A4060T - 2GB/18MB/6X CD-ROM
$3999 - A4060T - 4GB/34MB/8X CD-ROM
Factory Direct trade-up for A4060T Accelerator - $749*
"the Amiga OS remains one of the great operation systems of the past 20 years tremendous multitasking capability ithe single most reliable piece of equipment Iever owned high quality machinery to this day, there is very little a memory hogging, CD-ROM loading OS can do that an Amiga can
QuikPak Corporation, Manufactures Amiga 4000Ts right here in the U.S.A. This has made the promotional pricing in this ad possible immediately through the following QUIKPAK AUTHORIZED DISTRIBUTORS and their dealers.
Micro-PACE Distributors
Champaign IL. (217)356-1884
Fax: (217)356-0097
Email: micropace@micropace.com
Creative Equipment
Miami, FL. (305)266-2800
Software Hut
Philadelphia, PA. (610)586-5704
Cyberchannel
Wilmington, DE
1.800.292.2732
Fax: 1.302.529.1918
E-mail: Sales@CChannel.com
Comspec Communications
Toronto, ONT (416)785-3553
Full Warranty Center
Internet Orders
* To qualify for trade-up, user must return a Tower '040 CPU card along with proof of purchase.
[Source: http://www.amigasupport.com/quikpak/ad.html ]
The product - the data - the facts
October 22, 1996: phase 5 digital products are pleased that they are now able to announce the long-awaited specifications for the new computer system scheduled for 1997 and based on a powerful Custom Chip technology. Under the name of the current project, A\BOX, we are realising a trail-blazing visionary concept that explodes the barriers of today's standards. As an extremely powerful and creative personal workstation, A\BOX will appeal to all users who wish to work actively and creatively with the most modern technology and who have no desire to put up with the limitations imposed by mass hardware products that have fallen victim to a cost-cutting spree nor by the restraining software corsets of systems that are intended purely for passive consumers and users. With the enormous power it offers and its integrated functions the A\BOX project can claim to be implementing a computer design that is as innovative, as outstanding and as exceptionally cool as the Amiga 1000 was 12 years ago - a computer design that all Amiga enthusiasts can welcome as the reincarnation of their favourite computer system on a state-of-the-art technical level.
The hardware of the A\BOX
The computer project we announced has given rise to a great deal of inaccurate speculation, rumours and false information which have been bandied about in general discussion forums (in many Internet newsgroups for example) during the last few months. This is why we would first like to put the record straight and deliver a few basic facts about the A\BOX concept. The A\BOX project does not specify a system that builds up on standard technologies such as PCI-based graphical chips. We at phase 5 digital products take the view that a new innovative computer must also offer innovative hardware to match in order to stand out among the current PC designs and overcome the limitations they impose. On the other hand, this in no way implies that in designing an innovative computer we need to depart in any way from standards that are useful and meaningful for the user of the system (such as a PCI bus for simple expansions, the use of standardised RAM modules, standard interfaces etc.). The technological innovation, rather, is to be found on a level of integration which is of central importance in controlling the system. And despite the effort involved, which we will be going into later, today's modern methods of design and production make it possible to realise such an innovative concept in the form of ASIC's at an extremely competitive price. The central component of the A\BOX is a novel Custom Chip which is now under development at phase 5 digital and which will be responsible for many important functions in the system. These include complete memory administration and processor linkup, all DMA-like functions including video and audio DMA, blitter-type functions, I/O and control functions. A team of experienced chip and hardware designers are working on the realisation of this sophisticated concept, supported by software designers and aided by the most modern, high-level synthesis tools for VHDL-based designs. During the first half of 1997 major efforts will go into phases of simulation and testing, the result of which will be the production of the first silicon tapeout. This will be followed by the mass production of the ASIC's which, of course, will be put in the hands of one of the world's leading ASIC manufacturers.
In conclusion it can be said that the A\BOX project is an ambitious one which creates new techniques, a project in which we are by no means reinventing the wheel, but rather one in which we are making extensive use of the most modern techniques and development possibilities that are available today to an innovative company that is willing to invest in order to develop an outstanding, powerful and competitive product.
The Silicon Dream
The heart of the A\BOX is the system controller, CAIPIRINHA, which will realise the functional integration on which the A\BOX concept is based. CAIPIRINHA opens up new dimensions of power and technology. CAIPIRINHA will be implemented as a VLSI Custom Chip design in 0.35 um CMOS ASIC technology using a modern, probably 575-pole BGA housing. With a bus width of 128 bits to the memory bus, extensive dual-port buffers and FIFO's in the data lines, and clock rates of initially 100 MHz externally and 200 MHz internally, CAIPIRINHA can provide an intense data throughput and powerful additional functions which do not rely on the processor, such as support for 3D and multimedia applications.
The corner-stones of the CAIPIRINHA design:
Due to the integration of the video DMA into CAIPIRINHA the UMA memory can simultaneously be used as a display memory. CAIPIRINHA provides two video DMA engines: one 220 MHz high-performance video output for resolutions of up to 1600 x 1280 pixels with 24 bits and a refresh frequency of 75 Hz and a Genlock-capable 135 MHz video output for a second monitor or image output in video resolutions such as PAL/NTSC or S-VHS. The video output of the 135-MHz output can be superimposed as a window on the 220 MHz display while both video DMA's are in parallel operation.
Unlike conventional raster scan displays, CAIPIRINHA's video DMA engines function on the basis of a random memory access (Random Access Display), which makes it possible to display any data in visual form at any random screen positions. With this method windows, as hardware windows for example, can be superimposed and moved around anywhere with their full content, without any delay or jerkiness, even with moving animation or video sequences. Special pipelines and FIFO buffers within CAIPIRINHA's video DMA ensure a stable data throughput. The complex display possibilities are controlled by an integrated display-list RISC processor (DLRP). As the video DMA engines always have an output in 24-bit display mode, it is, of course, possible to mix any depth of shade at will. In this way, for example, on a memory-saving background with a colour depth of 8 bits it is possible to display 16-bit and 24-bit windows in any position. Of course CAIPIRINHA makes it possible to open and display virtual screens of any size and to make use of the capacity of the entire RAM. For example an image-processing application can open a virtual screen of 4000 x 4000 pixels in 24 bits in a system expanded to 72 M-bytes and scroll it in a display that can be represented on the monitor in 1280 x 1024 pixels without any delay or jerkiness. Another interesting feature of CAIPIRINHA's video DMA engines is the fact that windows need no longer be merely rectangular, but can assume practically any outlines. Last, but not least, video data in the RAM which are intended for output can be stored in various formats such as RGB, YUV or CMYK and displayed simultaneously.
It goes without saying that CAIPIRINHA has a highly complex functional unit (FAME, Flexible Area Movement Engine) for rapidly writing into, copying and linking memory locations or images, and which, in a similar way to the hardware windows that can be displayed with CAIPIRINHA, can assume practically any outlines and not merely the rectangular forms we know from classical blitters (block image transferers). At the same time a parallel DSP-RISC type processing unit is also integrated into this functional unit. With a very compact set of commands this allows fully programmable image and signal processing and matrix operations. This means that FAME supports special multimedia and 3D applications which can make optimum use of this supportive processing capacity which is available parallel to that of the CPU. Because it is a programmable DSP-RISC processing unit, however, FAME is not limited to today's standards. Its powerful features are also available for future standards such as new 3D or video-compression algorithms.
Audio output via CAIPIRINHA physically occurs via 2 channels in 16-bit CD quality. Internally the number of virtual audio tracks is limited only by the memory space available. FAME is able to engineer real-time generation and mixing of various audio tracks in any random format (e.g. also 24-bit audio) without making demands on the processor. It is also possible to generate various sound effects, a feature which is optimally supported by functions similar to DSP. In general digital samples, FM-synthesized sounds and envelope-VCO generated tones can be generated, modified, mixed and output via these freely programmable audio-DMA.
In addition to these superb functions CAIPIRINHA offers a full range of additional controlling functions: an integrated PCI-bus controller controls the PCI expansion bus which is available for low-cost standard expansions in the lower performance range or for I/O applications with medium band width (e.g. Ultra-SCSI or ATM). A local 16-bit DMA bus is available for further I/O applications, and an interesting and easy-to-implement interface is specially available for hardware manufacturers who do not want to work with standard PCI components. Another important feature which will play a major role in future multimedia applications is the integrated IEEE 1394 firewire bus. A large number of electronic enhancements for computer and consumer can connected via this high-speed serial bus.
The general system design of the A\BOX
The A\BOX system will be implemented as a progressive and innovative concept of a personal workstation which offers extremely good value for money. As we have mentioned, the system builds up on the innovative CAIPIRINHA chip which serves as the functional heart of the system. The type of processor we intend to use will be the Initial PowerPC processors of types 603e and 604e. Theoretically these can be operated with clock frequencies of up to 500 MHz. At present, with the first A\BOX design, a maximum of two processors can be connected on the CAIPIRINHA processor bus; a corresponding expansion option for the second processor will be available in the A\BOX design.
The memory can be expanded by using inexpensive standard SDRAM modules with a width of 64 bits (168-pin JEDEC DIMMS). In future these SDRAMs will increasingly be replacing slower, traditional DRAMs. Eight slots will be available so that the memory can be expanded to a maximum capacity of 1 gigabyte. The slots can be expanded in pairs (due to the 128-bit mode).
As a standard feature the system provides two video outputs, one of which has a maximum pixel rate of 220 MHz and the second of which can be operated at 135 MHz. In addition to this, the second video output can be synchronised externally and is thus suitable for compatible analogue video applications.
Also available, naturally, are an integrated Fast SCSI-II controller with an external port and an integrated ISDN connection. Via standard video inputs two analogue video inputs can be simultaneously digitalised in Y/C quality and then processed in real time. The audio inputs and outputs also offered by CAIPIRINHA which it will, of course, be possible to synchronise with the video ports, are available in the form of Cinch jacks for processing high-quality audio data. Keyboard, mouse and other operating devices are connected up via a serial desktop bus. In addition to this, there are external connections for the IEEE 1394 firewire port, the serial interface and the parallel interface.
Due to the open design concept of A\BOX, the outstanding hardware features of the CAIPIRINHA system controller and the excellent operating system capacities, A\BOX offers itself as an ideal platform for unusual applications for third-party developers working both in the field of software and in the field of hardware. Any I/O expansions which may be required, such as ATM boards, Ultra SCSI or RAID controllers or others can be easily adapted via the PCI bus. In addition to this, the most versatile enhancements can be developed for the A\BOX via both the PCI and the 16-bit DMA bus.
At present all options are still open as far as the housing is concerned. The mainboard design of the A\BOX will, at all events, be geared towards the usual standards so that the option of choosing a more inexpensive standard housing will be kept open in addition to a custom housing.
A large number of options for the operating system software
A large number of options will be available for the operating system software of the A\BOX. In general the A\BOX project aims to implement an Amiga-OS-compatible operating system of a state-of-the-art technical standard and to provide it as a basic operating system for the A\BOX. Modern functions such as support for multi-processing are to be transparently integrated. The basis for this development has already been created in the form of the Amiga-OS 3.1 compatible operating core which is currently being tested in the software labs of phase 5 digital products. In the near future we will also be pressing ahead with more development work in co-operation with important software partners, for example on an updated GUI or other high-level components. An important aspect of this development work will be our efforts to make the operating system provide complete support for the superb possibilities offered by the hardware.
In addition to this we also plan to implement a NetBSD and a Linux version for the A\BOX in co-operation with other partners. The current concepts provide for a very close integration of these OS adaptations into the basic operating system of the A\BOX so that parallel operation of the two operating systems and of software applications based on these operating systems will proceed with extreme transparency and excellent coordination. A\BOX will also be open for other operating systems, especially including the ones that are already suitable for the PowerPC. In the future we might use attractive standard operating systems by way of licence agreements and emulation.
Open concepts for the future
The A\BOX concept which we have introduced here will be structured in such a way that it is forward-looking and open. The technology used in the CAIPIRINHA custom chip is upgradable on silicon level. This means that in the future it will be possible to implement compatible systems enhancing the functions with wider memory or wider processor buses and to realise faster versions of this custom design with higher internal clock rates. In addition to this it is conceivable that a downgraded 64-bit version will be implemented. This means that systems of average capacity (e.g. 24-bit screen resolution with a maximum of 1280 x 1024 pixels) but which possess the full functional power of the concept we have outlined can be implemented at a price range considerably below DM 1500 or USD 1000. In order to possibly implement such a low-price version of the CAIPIRINHA Custom Chip, phase 5 digital products in the near future will be seeking contact with partners who might possibly be interested and who offer the preconditions for the large-scale manufacture and distribution of such a product. But phase 5 will also be open for OEM partnerships with regard to the mass-produced A\BOX mainboards or the CAIPIRINHA system controller.
Worldwide availability guaranteed.
Worldwide availability guaranteed. For our own A\BOX systems, which will be sold in a price range starting from DM 3,000 (USD 2,000 or GBP 1,300) net (in the 150 MHz class with the basic features, i.e. a 16 M-byte memory, a hard disk in the 1 GB range and a CD-ROM disk drive) phase 5 digital products will be setting up an active international distribution system during the course of 1997, which will ensure that product and sales support is available as soon as delivery commences. This work will include selecting sales representatives, giving them preparatory training courses and opening up distribution and service branches as far as is necessary for professionally attending to important markets. The expansion of our Internet activities in the fields of sales, support, product support and marketing will make an important contribution towards distributing the system among an interest group that spans the four corners of the globe. These activities will guarantte for a worldwide availability of the A\BOX systems to interested users and customers.
Contact:
phase 5 digital products
In der Au 27
61440 Oberursel, Germany
Telefon: 06171/583787
Intl. Phone: +49 6171 583787
Fax: 06171/583789
Intl.Fax: +49 6171 583789
Email: mail@phase5.de
oder: aproject@phase5.de
Disclaimer: All rights reserved. All specifications are preliminary and
subject to change without notice. AMIGA is a registered trademark of the
respective owners. PowerPC is a registred trademark of the IBM Corporation.
Now, Davy, that's what we call Cool Stuff! Special thanks to competent
individuals such as Dr. Edward L. Hepler who spent some of their valuable
time to enlighten common newsgroup discussions with valuable comments. [Source: http://www.phase5.de/news/aboxe.html ]
Oberursel, 10/30/1996: After some delay in the first six months of 1996 due to the unclear situation at Amiga Technologies and the break-off of negotiations on a possible joint venture, the PowerUp project of phase 5 digital products is now really getting up steam. The start of deliveries of the PowerUp-Alpha Developer Boards to leading software developers who actively support the Amiga has given the green light for the birth of a new generation of high-performance processor cards. What this means is that Amiga will now be doing more than merely keeping step with the rising standards of performance in the field of personal computing. Due to the implementation of a novel dual processing technique which involves the parallel operation of 68k and PowerPC processors in an integrated, multi-tasking Amiga environment, this enormous boost in performance will go hand-in hand with full compatibility. The existing software runs as usual on the 68k side while new, optimised program versions supported by the strength of the PowerPC processor offer vast potential for an outstanding performance.
Power to the People!
The commercial PowerPC acceleration cards from phase 5 digital products, which will be ready for delivery by the end of the first quarter of 1997, are powerful, dynamic dual-processor systems in 64-bit technology. Here the two processors installed, either a 68040 or a 68060 together with a PowerPC processor, share the memory and the system bus as required. At the same time a complex interrupt system ensures dynamic distribution of the bus cycles, depending on the activity of the processors. The obligatory option of expanding the memory to 128 M-bytes is integrated as a 64-bit memory while full burst mode implementation for the 68k and PowerPC processors ensures a high data transfer rate so that both processors have rapid parallel access to the RAM. Due to this active parallel operation the power of both processors can be used simultaneously. The tasks running on the different processors are able to exchange data and signals via a message system. Of course both processors can access the entire available address space so that the PowerPC processor can write directly into the chip memory or into graphic cards. This integration allows software manufacturers or active programmers to easily optimise existing programs step by step on the PowerPC.
Extensive support from software developers
Many well-known software manufacturers for the Amiga greet the concept of phase 5 digital products as an avantgarde step which ensures the success of the Amiga system in the future and have announced their support. This means that Amiga users who decide in favour of the PowerUp board can already reckon with a wide range of programs optimised for the PowerPC as soon as the turbo cards become available. Some of the most important software manufacturers who will be giving their support to the PowerUp Project are (in alphabetical order):
Contact Cloanto under http://www.cloanto.com
Contact Digita International under http://www.digita.com
Contact GP Software under http://www.livewire.com.au/gpsoft
Contact Haage &Partner under: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Haage_Partner
Contact Holger Kruse under http://www.nordicglobal.com
Contact Maxon Computer under http://www.maxon-computer.com
Contact Nova Design under http://www.novadesign.com
Contact Oberland Computer under http://www.oberland.com
Contact ProDAD under http://www.prodad.de
Several of the above mentioned vendors plan to show first demos of software supporting the PowerUp accelerators already on the Computer 96 show in Cologne. In addition to these well-known names about 500 software developers have registered for the phase 5 PowerUp Developer Support Programme and it can be expected that they will develop numerous applications for the future especially in the shareware and PD field. In addition to this, phase 5 digital products will give particular support to special projects such as Linux porting and similar, with the result that such projects will probably have already produced results by the time that the PowerUp accelerator becomes available.
Show your Support!
All active Amiga users who are interested in PowerPc upgrades for their preferred system are invited to contact the vendors of their preffered software products and inquire for updated versions of these software applications which are optimized for the PowerUp accelerator boards. Send your requests or wishes by post, fax, or email to the vendors of the software you'd like to see reaching a new performance level - even to those vendors which are not (yet) listed here. Your strong feedback will help the software vendors to quickly realise the products that you are waiting for! Go ahead and show your support for a Power(PC)ful Amiga future!
Deliveries to software developers commence
When deliveries of the Beta Developer Boards start the worldwide support from active Amiga software developers will grow. All developers registered in the phase 5 Developer Support Programme now immediately have access to information on the PowerUp Beta Developer Boards and are able to order them. Delivery will commence by middle of November, according to developer status and in the sequence that the orders come in. The Beta Developer Boards are designed as plug-in boards for the Cyberstorm MkiI accelerators and allow professional software development in the accustomed software environment.
PowerUp Your Amiga!
The amazingly fast, 64-bit PowerPC accelerators which will be available soon mean that existing Amiga systems can be upgraded to a level of performance which is on a par with that of today's fastest personal computers at prices which will make the hearts of convinced Amiga enthusiasts beat faster. Switching to a PowerUp Board will become a worthwhile investment for practically any Amiga user and one which offers outstanding value for money.
In order to give you an impression of the prices for the coming 64-bit high-performance accelerators there follows a list of the prices currently anticipated for some typical PowerUp configurations, calculated on the basis of current market prices for components.
The table above gives you an informative overview of the coming PPC604e-based accelerators. The prices for the extremely low-cost PowerPC603e-based accelerators, which are also in the planning, have not yet been decided. But they will also offer attractive upgrade possibilities, particularly for Amiga 1200 users and the owners of blizzard boards for the Amiga 1200. As the PowerUp boards for the Amiga 1200 will make it absolutely essential to upgrade the A1200 with a tower housing (if only for EMC reasons), phase 5 digital products will be working closely with the manufacturers of the relevant systems. Look out for more - you will be receiving further information on a regular basis.
A pioneering step into the future
With the PowerUp project we will be taking an initial, pioneering step into the future, a step so long awaited by the Amiga community. We at phase 5 digital products and our partner firms mentioned here are aware of our commitment to continue to promote and support the outstanding concept of the Amiga. Providing accelerator cards in a performance class which puts the Amiga on a par with today's high-end PC's is a major step forward. An equally important step will be the active support from software manufacturers. More steps will follow. A 100 % Amiga-OS 3.1-compatible operating system core has already been realised in the development laboratories of phase 5 digital products and is currently undergoing intensive testing. We also anticipate further important innovations in this area - also in co-operation with major software developers and partners who are eager to enhance the system and pursue the Amiga vision. The final goal is to produce a full PowerPC-based operating system.
Contact: phase 5 digital products In der Au 27 61440 Oberursel, Germany Telefon: 06171/583787 Intl. Phone: +49 6171 583787 Fax: 06171/583789 Intl.Fax: +49 6171 583789 Email: mail@phase5.de oder: aproject@phase5.deSpecifications are subject to change without notice. AMIGA is a registered trademark of the respective owners. PowerUp is a registered trademark of phase 5 digital products. PowerPC is a registred trademark of the IBM Corporation.
[Source: http://www.phase5.de/news/pupspece.html ]
We are planning to offer VAX VMS and Solaris x86 versions of our software, but we haven't yet announced release dates.
We offer client software for the following operating systems, but we don't yet have server software for them:
* Windows 95 * Macintosh * OS/2 Warp * LinuxWe're aware of the demand for versions of Netscape software that run on the following operating systems, but haven't yet announced plans for such versions (it is possible we may offer support for these in the future):
* Amiga * Linux 68K * NeXTStepNetscape Navigator Personal Edition, Netscape Chat, and Netscape SmartMarks are currently available only for Windows 3.1, Windows 95, and Windows NT systems. These products are not available for Macintosh or Unix systems, and we have not yet announced plans to port them to Macintosh or Unix.
Netscape Communications Corporation
Corporate Sales: 415/937-2555
Personal Sales: 415/937-3777
Federal Sales: 415/937-3678
If you have any questions, please visit Customer Service.
[Source: http://home.netscape.com/assist/customer_service/notes/other-os.html ]
Apple Computer (AAPL) has introduced new PowerBook notebook computers, its first update of the line in more than a year.
The Apple PowerBook 1400 will be available in four different configurations. Three of the systems use a 117-MHz PowerPC 603e processor. One of the systems uses a higher-performance version of the chip running at 133 MHz with a level-2 cache to enhance performance.
The 1400s have 11.3-inch dual-scan or active-matrix displays, two PC card slots, 12MB or 16MB of RAM, 750MB or 1.0GB hard drives, and the option for a 6X CD-ROM drive.
Apple PowerBook 1400 configurations
Model 1400cs/117 1400cs/117 1400c/117 1400c/13
Processor 117 MHz 117 MHz 117 MHz 133 MHz
Cache N/A N/A N/A 128K
level 2
RAM 12MB 16MB 16MB 16MB
Drives 750MB 750MB 1.0GB 1.0GB
Expansion Floppy 6X CD/ 6X CD/ 6X CD/
Bay Floppy Floppy Floppy
Display Dual scan Dual scan Active Active
matrix matrix
Est. Retail $2,500 $2,900 $3,500 $4,000
Price*
Availability November November November January
*Prices are U.S. estimates only. Prices and availability of the systems may
vary among resellers and by country.
Expansion capabilities allow the use of a variety of storage options,
including a floppy drive, CD-ROM drive, additional hard drive,
magneto-optical drive, and Iomega Zip drive available in the first quarter
of 1997. A flip-up keyboard provides access to a memory expansion slot and additional expansion such as Ethernet networking.
All PowerBook 1400 models come configured with Mac OS system software Version 7.5.3 and productivity, utility, communications, and compatibility software. This includes ClarisWorks, Claris Organizer, Apple Internet Connection Kit software, and Claris Emailer Lite.
The 117-MHz configurations of the PowerBook 1400 are expected to be available in mid-November. Availability of the 133-MHz version is expected in January of 1997.
Apple stated that the supply of the new PowerBooks "will be constrained through January due to pent-up demand at introduction and until Apple reaches full manufacturing capacity of the product."
[Source: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,4476,00.html ]
Apple Computer (AAPL) has launched what may be the first of a series of product and price assaults on the PC market dominated by Intel, Compaq Computer, and Microsoft by announcing new, aggressively priced Macintosh Performas and lower pricing on existing models.
Apple has introduced new Performa 6360 and 6400 models for video editing and dropped prices on some of the 6400 line by as much as 21 percent.
"This is absolutely what Apple needed to do. It's a positive statement, along with the news of their quarterly results, that indicates they are getting costs under control," said Van Baker, an analyst with Dataquest.
"Apple's got to play well in the consumer market this season, and frankly we were concerned because Apple's prices were just not that competitive in the market. Now, [it is] so aggressive...[it] might even take in people not even thinking of Apple," Baker said.
The new 6360 Performa comes with a 160-MHz 603e PowerPC processor, 16MB of RAM, a 1.2GB hard drive, a 28.8-kbps modem, and an 8X CD-ROM drive for $1,499.
The Performa 6400 with a 200-MHz 603e PowerPC processor, 16MB of RAM, a 2.4GB hard drive, a 28.8-kbps modem, an 8X CD-ROM drive, and a level-2 cache is now priced at $2,199, down significantly from $2,799.
Apple has also introduced a new custom, high-performance Performa 6400/200 "Video Editing Edition," which is built to help small-office workers and home-video enthusiasts produce VHS-quality videos.
The system includes Avid Cinema, an editing system jointly developed by Apple and Avid Technology. Avid Cinema guides users through the entire video process, from planning shots to final output.
More than 24 sophisticated visual effects are possible, including wipes, peels, fades, and dissolves. The video production system is based on a 200-MHz Macintosh Performa 6400 with 32MB of RAM, a 2.4GB hard drive, 1MB of video RAM, 256KB of level-2 cache, an 8X-speed CD-ROM drive, and a 28.8-kbps modem. It is priced at $2,699.
Featured in all Performa systems, including the new 6360 and the 6400/200 Video Editing Edition, are more than two dozen software applications and 15 CD-ROM disks, Apple said.
The software includes ClarisWorks 4.0, Adobe Photo Deluxe, Quicken SE, and the American Heritage Dictionary. A complete multimedia reference library is also provided and includes an encyclopedia, dictionaries, an atlas, and a health reference guide.
In the next couple of weeks, Apple is also expected to rev up its handheld Newton computer with super-fast StrongARM processors, running as fast 160 MHz now and 200-MHz later. This could speed up functions such as handwriting recognition considerably, according to analysts.
A 160-MHz model is expected to be priced between $800 to $1,000 and will be slightly larger than the current Newton, said a source familiar with the rollout.
Other features which are expected include 5MB of memory (1MB DRAM, 4MB flash RAM), a 4.9-by-3.3-inch LCD with backlight, two Type II card slots, and a dual mode IR transceiver of up to 115 kbps (IrDA mode) and 38.4 kbps (ASK mode) within 3.28 feet.
[Source: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,4591,00.html ]
Exponential has officially introduced its PowerPC processor running at a ground-breaking speed of 533 MHz for the Macintosh platform. The X704 processor has strong backing from Apple, which is expected to use it in future very-high-performance Macintosh computers.
"The Exponential X704 has the potential to redefine PC multimedia computing and bring a major competitive advantage to the PowerPC platform," said Satjiv Chahil, senior vice president of marketing at Apple.
Sample versions of the processor will ship in the first quarter of 1997 and production versions in the second quarter. When it ships, it is expected to have clock speeds about twice that of Intel P6 family processors shipping at that time.
It will be pricey at first. The Exponential X704 will be priced at the $1,000 price point for large volume production orders. The X704 will also be available in 500 MHz and 466 MHz versions, the company said.
The Exponential processor is based on a radical design.
The main circuits of the chip use very-high-speed bipolar technology, as opposed to mainstream PC processors today, which consist mostly of a slower technology known as CMOS.
However, CMOS is used for a good reason: it offers a nice balance between speed and power consumption, which translate into heat. Pure bipolar technology, while delivering show-stopping speed, comparatively consumes a tremendous amount of power at high clock speeds and gives off an inordinate amount of heat.
But Exponential claims it has a handle on this. The company said it has done extensive testing in desktop and deskside boxes with typical air cooling.
[Source: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,4624,00.html ]
PC-consumer electronics convergence products based on the "FireWire" specification, including cameras, VCRs, and audio products, will blossom at Comdex.
FireWire technology - also known as "1394" - is significant because it bridges the gulf between consumer electronics devices and PCs. FireWire offers a high-speed port on a PC which connects to FireWire (1394)-compatible consumer electronics products such as video cameras and VCRs.
FireWire 1394 technology is expected to be used in Simply Interactive PCs (SIPC), computers due out in 1997 as well as other cutting-edge products. "This is the optimal interface for the creation of new technologies, such as interactive television and NetPCs," said Gary Hoffman, chairman of the 1394 Trade Association in a written statement.
The Universal Serial Bus (USB) connection found increasingly on new PCs, by comparison, is targeted at lower-data-bandwidth peripheral such as mice, keyboards, and scanners.
Major companies including Sony, Texas Instruments, Apple Computer, and Toshiba will have consumer electronics-PC convergence products to showcase at Comdex.
U.S. Robotics (USRX) is suiting up for battle on a new standard for 56-kbps modems against rival Rockwell International, while Net users and technology companies are anxiously waiting for the faster transmission speed to come to market.
U.S. Robotics today officially announced a new modem that will almost double current connection speeds over standard telephone lines. The faster modems, dubbed x2, will require the support of Internet service providers because they will have to reconfigure their software to support the 56-kbps protocols. More than 30 ISPs have already endorsed the new modems.
The top online services, such as America Online and CompuServe, joined ISPs such as Netcom, MCI Communications, Prodigy, IBM Global Network, and US West in making today's announcement with U.S. Robotics.
"We plan to aggressively deploy this new technology across the IBM Global Network's more than 500 local calling points in the United States," said Gary Weiss, general manager for the network.
The announcement may amount to an upset against modem vendors that threw their weight in September behind a different 56-kpbs modem chipset from Rockwell. These manufacturers include Cardinal Technologies and Hayes Microcomputer Products, as well as Shiva, a maker of remote networking products for small offices, corporations, carriers, and ISPs. U.S. Robotics modems are built around a chipset from Texas Instruments.
But without an established communications standard, modems from different manufacturers are likely to have interoperability problems, meaning that U.S. Robotics customers will have to hook up only with the ISPs that support its modems; the same goes for Rockwell. And because customers are likely to view this unfavorably, both companies are angling to have their chipsets adopted as the single new standard for 56-kpbs modems by the International Telecommunications Union.
U.S. Robotics says it has already submitted a proposal to the ITU. With today's announcement of ISP support, the company has probably gained the upper hand. After all, said John Grangaard, an analyst with GS2 Securities, the company already has a significant portion of the consumer market and a potential customer base of some 10 million more people if they all buy U.S. Robotics modems.
ISPs, for their part, are anxious to be perceived as helping solve the one of the Net's biggest problems: lag time, particularly with the exponential growth of rich multimedia content on the Net.
"We feel one of the biggest limitations is [slow] bandwidth," said Tom Firman, director of technology for MSN. "To be able to go to 56 kbps on analog lines is a very exciting development." MSN is in discussions with U.S. Robotics and is looking to upgrade some of its sites with the new technology, Firman added.
The 56-kbps technology can overcome the speed limits of current modems by using telephone companies' digital switches. Under ideal conditions, the new modems will be able to deliver transmission rates up to twice that of 28.8-kbps modems.
By using technology known as V.42 compression, they can increase data-transmission speeds to 224 kbps for downloading information and 115.2 kpbs for sending information. ISDN connections, in contrast, provide up to 128-kpbs data connections and cable modems up to 10 mbps.
U.S. Robotics will conduct field trials in November and begin shipping the x2 to ISPs and online services, as well as directly to consumers, during the first quarter of next year. The company did not announce cost, but Grangaard estimates that the new modems will be priced competitively at $250 to $300 for the basic model and $400 to $450 for a full-featured modem.
The company says that any Sportster 33.6 modem purchased after August 15 will require hardware upgrades for faster speeds, while the V.Everything modem will be upgradable with a software download.
[Source: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,4504,00.html ]
As the strain on phone lines stemming from increases in Internet traffic gets increasingly worse, phone companies are under pressure to spend billions of dollars on upgrades or risk delayed connections for regular calls. But the Baby Bells don't want to be stuck with the bill.
Instead, they argue, the Internet service providers that are creating the demand should be the ones to pay.
"Bad economics bring upon us the worst form of meltdown," Michael Fitzpatrick, chief executive of Pacific Telesis Enterprises, said in a speech yesterday at a conference in Anaheim, California. "Not just an electronic meltdown, but a customer confidence meltdown. And that is what could lead to the flameout of what promises to be a really incredible ride."
Even though only eight percent of California households are connected to the Net, some local switching centers are already encountering problems with dial tone and data loss, Fitzpatrick said. He predicted that a huge tie-up of the local network would occur if Internet use expanded to reach 15 percent of local households.
The price tag for the upgrades needed to support the demand generated by Internet usage would be a collective $1 billion for the seven Baby Bells over the next several years, according to a recent study by Bellcore, an industry research group.
The stakes are high, not only for the companies and their stockholders, but for consumers. The bottom line: You could wind up paying more for Internet access or, worse, having your calls occasionally not go through.
Nobody's saying that a phone network crash is imminent. But Pacific Telesis chief executive Phil Quigley, in a speech at an investment banking conference in San Francisco this week, offered this worst-case scenario to hammer home the point: "Those of you who live in earthquake country know what happens when everybody picks up the phone at once. For the rest of you, welcome to town."
Quigley is not alone in that assessment. "The question is not what it does to ISPs, but what it does to consumers," said Sky Dayton, founder and chairman of EarthLink Network. His fear: "People could use the Internet less."
If that happens, it would cause a ripple effect that could stunt the growth of a burgeoning industry.
To prevent that, the Bells have petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to step in and reregulate network access rates to help pay for the upgrade. The government petition includes making ISPs pay more for the infrastructure upgrade.
Quigley sums up the industry's position like this: "Don't look for local exchange carriers to step up to a role of dumb elephants who do the heavy lifting for peanuts; it ain't going to happen."
ISPs have already invested more than $1 billion in Net access hardware, according to market research firm Yankee Group. But that's not enough, the Baby Bells contend.
Pacific Bell, PacTel's subsidiary for phone service, is spending $14 million to $15 million for switch upgrades this year alone, a spokesman said.
But FCC officials said today that it is not expected to weigh in with an opinion any time soon and won't even set the guidelines for how to make rules about changing the rates until November at the earliest.
Meanwhile, Internet demand is increasing by the minute. Online services that provide Net connections are now subscribed to by about eight percent of U.S. households, but the number is growing rapidly. Moreover, the average Internet connect time has grown to more than 33 minutes from around 20 minutes in 1992, according to Pacific Bell.
The history of the problem goes back 13 years, when regulators let ISPs pay the Bells less than the going rate to carry their Internet traffic. The policy was intended to help the fledgling ISPs get off the ground. At the time, the Bells had limited objections.
Why? In those days, ISPs were little more than online bulletin boards for a limited number of users.
But that was then. Today, those Internet providers are barreling toward the mass market with tens of millions of subscribers. With new technologies, the services carry graphics and animation, which further strains the phone network.
But they still pay only about 12 percent of what long distance carriers such as AT&T, MCI, and Sprint pay to use the Baby Bells' network, according to the regional phone companies.
In fact, companies such as Netcom, Microsoft Network, and EarthLink now compete with the Bells as well, since many of the local telephone carriers now provide their own Internet access services.
As Quigley put it, "Now they're in flight, and it's time to pull the flaps."
But even the ISPs that say they sympathize with the Baby Bells' plight wonder if the new competitive picture has something to do with inspiring their recent complaints.
"Part of my concern is that these telcos are getting into the Internet business," said Jeffrey Rubenstein, president of the Florida Internet Service Provider Association and Cybergate, an ISP. "They're becoming our competitors, and now they're complaining."
The likely outcome of the fight is still unknown, although the phone companies do have one of the strongest lobbies anywhere, according to Jerry Michalski, managing editor of industry newsletter Release 1.0.
But so far, the Federal Communications Commission is being careful to adopt a neutral tone and hope the problem resolves itself. In a statement for the FCC, Chairman Reed Hundt summed up the commission's view like this: "I don't know what the full answer is to this problem. But I'm inclined to believe our best guidance is to let technology, competition, and access reform make the problem go away. We are working to open markets so these forces can operate most effectively."
[Source: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,4777,00.html ]
A coalition of high-tech giants will release a study early next month showing that complaints about Internet congestion are being greatly exaggerated by telephone carriers and can be readily solved with existing technologies, not new pricing models.
The group will argue that the flat-rate pricing for unlimited Net access should not be replaced by a pay-per-minute price scheme, as some telephone companies propose. Computer companies and Internet service providers (ISP) contend that metered-rate pricing would dampen demand for Net access and might cut into their profits. The group concedes, however, that prices may need to rise above current rates to upgrade the network, which wouldn't help consumers much.
"We're very concerned about the future health and growth of the Internet," said Paul Misener, a lawyer for Intel, who is helping to spearhead the effort.
Telephone companies have proposed metered, rather than flat-rate pricing, because they say Net usage is tying up the telephone network. The companies claim that this is leading to the risk of dropped connections for regular calls.
As previously reported, a group of companies including Intel, Microsoft, Compaq, IBM, Netscape Communications, Apple Computer, AT&T, and America Online have joined forces as the DATA Coalition to fight efforts by telephone companies to alter the pricing structure for Net access. The industry has taken a similar stand against telephone carriers for ISDN pricing.
But there is a bigger issue at stake that is often glossed over. Telephone carriers complain that under current laws, computer companies and ISPs aren't paying their fair share for Net access by consumers. The cost of a network upgrade could total $1 billion for the seven Baby Bells over the next several years.
Both sides are petitioning the Federal Communications Commission to step in and resolve the conflict. An FCC decision is not expected anytime soon.