Shareware Grab Bag/Shareware Grab Bag.iso/098/amiga.net

Text File | 1985-09-04 | 35.5 KB | 915 lines

Article 1 (22 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (Eric Lavitsky)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga,net.micro.cbm,net.micro
Subject: Welcome!
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 27 Aug 85 20:22:50 GMT
Date-Received: 29 Aug 85 03:21:07 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 24

--MORE--(39%)
Hi,

 net.micro.amiga is finally here. As a proud owner of a Commodore Amiga,
I would like to open this newsgroup with an offer. I have now had a few
days to play with my machine and go through much of my documentation.
Please post questions (technical please, not 'where can I get one'), and
I will do my best to answer them on this group. I hope to be able to post
a few sources and code examples soon, but am unable to do so at this time.

 I am very excited about this machine, though most people won't be able
to get their hands on one till the end of September, I hope to spread
some of that enthusiasm around. I will try to answer questions with a
minimum of overhead, but please forgive me if I lose myself now and
then and ramble about how great the machine is etc.

Here we go!...
Eric
--

ARPA:   LAVITSKY@RUTGERS
UUCP:   ...{harvard,seismo,ut-sally,sri-iu,ihnp4}!topaz!eric
SNAIL:  16 Oak St., Flr 2
        New Brunswick, NJ  08903
(Mail) End of article 1 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 2 (21 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (Laurence C. Roberts)
Subject: Is this group legit?  plus AmigaWorld
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 29 Aug 85 03:49:19 GMT
Date-Received: 29 Aug 85 05:22:58 GMT
Distribution: net
Organization: St. Olaf College, Northfield MN
Lines: 45

--MORE--(16%)I'm a little uncertain about the pedigree of this newsgroup, but it will
probably have to be created eventually, provided that the Amiga is not VW.
Gene Spafford should probably remove this group and then re-create it
officially.  Enough of this net.guerilla stuff.

Oh well, may as well contribute while it's Here.

I of course don't yet own an Amiga, but I did go out and buy a copy of Amiga
World, the Amiga magazine to be published 6 times a year (MacWorld is 12x)
It's the same humungous conglomerate as MacWorld and practically any other
computer mag with "world" in the title.  AW really looks a lot like MW,
although it tends more towards screen-shots than graphic dumps of computer
output - graphics that is.

The Magizine is pretty much hype.  They like it.  It's funny to note that
every shot of the Amiga not in an ad has the down-arrow key on sideways-
obviously the same sole machine.  One close-up of the mouse makes it look badly
tooled.  According to Byte, the case is pretty flimsy - low-grade plastic.

Electronic Arts has been doing Amiga dev. on IBM's with graphics cards &
cross-assemblers.  Apparently the machines are in short supply.  Hey you
who have one, are they production models, and how are they?

I compared this issue to the primere issue of Macworld for fun.  Suprisingly,
there's more advertisers in the index of AW.  However, the software doesn't
look nearly as finished on the Amiga.  They show beautiful "paintings", but not
the mechanics of the painting software as MW did.  All it seems capable of
doing are these neat "color cycles" and also dotted lines and "airbrushes".
They showed a prototype of intuition and also EA's Financial Cookbook- about
the only screens with text on them I saw.  You can draw good pictures with
anything if you're talented - Saul Bernstein's famous Einstein on the Apple ][
was done with really primitive software, nowhere near Macpaint.  Software looks
grim, unless you like MS-dos & 5-1/4's.

I'm not buying an Amiga until I see Apple's January stuff.  Probably the Amiga
will be that late anyway.  One of EA's guys said that if Apple had had the
Amiga hardware and the Mac's software, they would've beat IBM.  I doubt
Commodore presently has the Mac's software, however.  We'll see.
Who was the first to have opened-symbol closed-symbol?  I think Atari, Apple,
and Commodore have all done it now, right?  Aren't the Atari ST ads cheesy?
--
                           Laurence Roberts
                                ...ihnp4!stolaf!robertsl

                I bet that J. S. Bach never wore legwarmers.
(Mail) End of article 2 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 3 (20 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (David Herron, NPR Lover)
Newsgroups: net.news.group,net.micro.amiga
Subject: Yet Another Undiscussed Newgroup (YAUN)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 28 Aug 85 03:18:43 GMT
Date-Received: 30 Aug 85 02:14:24 GMT
Organization: U of Kentucky, Mathematical Sciences, Lexington KY
Lines: 27

--MORE--(36%)What is this with people????

One would think that even if EVERYBODY else at a site ignored
the net.announce.newusers stuff, that at LEAST the SA would have
read the stuff.

But once again we have a newgroup (net.micro.amiga) that wasn't
discussed in net.news.group as they're supposed to be.  And wasn't
discussed anywhere I read (I read most of net.micro.all and bunches
more groups).

        W H A T   G I V E S????

On the other hand there's probably ample reason for a net.micro.amiga
to just let this one go on through.  Though, I would like to suggest that
the ST machines should be included in the same newsgroup.  Or maybe
not.  I dunno.

Maybe we need a moratorium on newgroups for awhile, make everybody re-read
the rules, then in a month we can let people create groups again.
--
--- David Herron
--- ARPA-> ukma![e-mail]
--- UUCP-> {ucbvax,unmvax,boulder,oddjob}!anlams!ukma!david
---        {ihnp4,decvax,ucbvax}!cbosgd!ukma!david

Hackin's in me blood.  My mother was known as Miss Hacker before she married!
(Mail) End of article 3 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 4 (19 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (b.d.szablak)
Subject: Amiga questions
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 29 Aug 85 22:53:23 GMT
Date-Received: 31 Aug 85 09:51:43 GMT
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Holmdel NJ
Lines: 37

--MORE--(28%)From: [e-mail] (Eric Lavitsky)
I want to thank Eric Lavitsky for offering to answer questions on the
Amiga (you may regret it). I will try to make my questions to the point:

What is your configuration?

What graphics primitives are supported in hardware, and which in software
(such as lines, circles, points, area-fill, etc.)?

What sound primitives are supported?

Assuming you have the C compiler, how complete are the standard libraries?

Are there any inter-process communication facilities (pipes et. al.)?

Describe any screen orientated text and/or graphics (sound?) editors.

Is there a debugger?

Is there a utility to make disk copies on a single disk drive system?

Is there any file transfer utilities (XMODEM etc.)?

How long does it take to boot?

How long does it take to compile: main(){printf("hello world\n");} ?

How long does it take to fill a 1/2 screen circle, triangle, and box
in 640x400, 640x200, and 320x200 modes (do it a hundred times).

How long does it take to invoke an editor on a 1-10k byte file and save
it?

Is the software copy-protected, or are there any provisions for creating
copy-protected software (i.e. encoded serial #)?

and much, much, more...
(Mail) End of article 4 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 5 (18 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (Rich Rodgers)
Subject: Info wanted
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 29 Aug 85 21:48:11 GMT
Date-Received: 2 Sep 85 04:00:21 GMT
Distribution: net
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 30

--MORE--(31%)Why? *** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***

I was so impressed with the two demonstrations of the AMIGA that I saw
that I dumped off my Macintosh and am waiting with anticipation to see
what Amiga software developers can come up with.  The Electronic Arts
demo has a digitized womans voice that had 6 engineers looking for the
hidden tape recorder!  I have a few questions directed to Lavitsky@Rutgers.

Can anyone give me a usenet path to contact Rutgers?

What quality and quantity of documentation did Commodore give in the
developers manual?

Was the monitor you received the high resolution one found in the ads,
or the low resolution one I saw with the two demos :-(.  Mono sound and
flicker are not for me!  In particular does the monitor flicker when
interlaced or streak when non-interlaced.

What version of the OS did you get?  I have seen version 28.14!

Please list all software that came with the developers kit.  Any
example programs in C or 68K ASM?  Could you please describe the C
compiler.

Let's hope the Amiga catches on with the general public and becomes
supported as the next generation computer that it is!!!!
--
                                Rich Rodgers

                                tektronix!iddic!richr
(Mail) End of article 5 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 6 (17 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (FricklasK)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga,net.micro.cbm,net.micro
Subject: Re: Welcome!
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 30 Aug 85 09:16:43 GMT
Date-Received: 2 Sep 85 04:01:51 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
Lines: 48

--MORE--(23%)->Okay. Let's start asking questions!

->1) How good are the sound capabilities of the Amiga? Is there any good
->software that uses it? Will there be software like MusicWorks and
->ConcertWare?

It blows AWAY anything so far available!  You can digitize the output of your
stereo! And Electronic Arts is coming out with come great software for it!!
And commodore is coming out with a plug in digital keyboard for it!! And you
can use its memory as a sequencer!!! And I'm going really heavy on the exclams!!! !!!! !!!! !! !!!!! !!
(etc!)
Software for it will include:
   Harmony (Commodore) composition software, optional keyboard.
   Instant Music (Electronic Arts)
   Deluxe Music Construction Set (Electronic Arts)
All available at release, with more due out in November.


2) What's the resolution of the screen? How many colors can the Amiga
display at the same time? Tell us all about the graphics.
Resolution:
     640x200 16 colors, non-interlaced.
     320x200 32 colors, non-interlaced.
     640x400 16 colors, interlaced.
     320x400 32 colorsm interlaced.
Composite, digital RGB, and analog RGB outputs.  (need analog monitor to take
  full advantage of the 4096 possible colors.)
"Hold and modify" mode to display all 4096 colors at once.

Eight hardware sprites,  up to 16 pixels wide by any height, ap to 12 colors.
Graphics coprocessor ("copper").
Dedicated processor that moves around pieces of the screen ("Blitter").
Built in animation routines in ROM.
Custom peripheral/sound chip, creates complex waveform sound generation.

That's the basics.  If you want to get technical, Lavitsky will have to
answer.
   '`'`'
    Ken
   '`'`'
Friends of Amiga
Boulder's First Amiga User Group (or shouldI say fan club)

--
Danny Espinoza
...!bellcore!dje or [e-mail]
(Mail) End of article 6 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 7 (16 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (Jere Marrs)
Subject: Monitors
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 30 Aug 85 04:28:41 GMT
Date-Received: 2 Sep 85 04:05:27 GMT
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 23

--MORE--(36%)
        I have a question about monitors for the Amiga. If one should plan to
acquire an Amiga but also a C128 to update the ol' trusty 64, what is the
optimum monitor?

        It appears that the Amiga uses analog RGB as a monitor output. The
C128 is alleged to have an RGBI output sometimes referred to as a "digital"
RGB. How do these differ? What is digital about RGBI? Will the 1902 work with
both the C128 and Amiga and have enough resolution fro both^K
                                                on for both?

        The demo Amiga I saw had a monochrome monitor hooked up and it looked
rather good. I understand that the C128 will output to a composite monitor
or monochrome monitor only in the 64 mode.

        The picture isn't clear, or perhaps my bandpass is too low. Any
comments?

                                Jere M. Marrs
                        {ihnp4,decvax,allegra,ucbvax,...}!tektronix!tekgvs!jerem
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tektronix, Inc. Beaverton, Oregon
(Mail) End of article 7 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 8 (15 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (Tony Sumrall)
Subject: Libraries and such
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 30 Aug 85 14:59:27 GMT
Date-Received: 2 Sep 85 04:17:13 GMT
Distribution: net
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 9

--MORE--(62%)Oh Boy!!!  Finally, a SOURCE!!

Could you please explain the library concept, its (their?) use and some
examples of the routines available therein?  With any luck, your response
will be LONG :-).
--
Tony Sumrall                       ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,amd,sun}!amdahl!acs

[ This reflects no one's opinions. ]
(Mail) End of article 8 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 9 (14 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (Kim DeVaughn)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga,net.micro.cbm
Subject: Re: Welcome!
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 30 Aug 85 09:14:46 GMT
Date-Received: 2 Sep 85 04:22:11 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Organization: mips ... where RISC is a way of life
Lines: 54

--MORE--(22%)[ ... yum ... yum ... yum ... ]

> Hi,
>
>  net.micro.amiga is finally here. As a proud owner of a Commodore Amiga,
> I would like to open this newsgroup with an offer. I have now had a few

I'm very happy to see net.micro.amiga appear, and since you've offered,
there *are* a few (thousand! :-)) questions I have:

1 - Can you give us your impressions of the "robustness" of the OS; how
    solid is it thusfar?

2 - I'd like to get an early machine so as to have the writeable "control"
    store, but I would want to be able to keep the OS up-to-date.  Do you
    have any information on the upgrade policy for "kickstartable" Amigas?
    And what about a possible conversion over to ROMs at a later date; has
    Commodore made any commitments?

3 - Can you elaborate on the memory map?  There are alot of areas marked
    "reserved" in the August Byte article; any info on their various
    functions?

4 - What s/w is available; I would be primarily interested in development
    s/w, initially?

5 - How good is the technical documentation, and in what depth?  Does it
    include schematics?  Is the bus well-defined?  Could I (for example)
    find out if the access time to the "control-store" RAMs is shorter
    that to the (future) ROMs?

6 - How good is the hi-res color monitor?  Dot pitch?  Crispness?  Any
    flicker in the 600x400 pixel mode?  Interlaced?

That should do to get the ball rolling, I think (and I didn't even ask how
you managed to get one so early ... hmmmm).

>  I am very excited about this machine, though most people won't be able
> to get their hands on one till the end of September, I hope to spread
> some of that enthusiasm around. I will try to answer questions with a

Shouldn't be too hard to spread around ... I think alot of us are just as
excited as you are (well, maybe not quite ... we don't have one yet :-))!

Thanx n advance,
/kim

UUCP:  {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!mips!kim
DDD:   415-960-1200
USPS:  MIPS Computer Systems Inc,  1330 Charleston Rd,  Mt View, CA 94043
--
UUCP:  {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!mips!kim
DDD:   415-960-1200
USPS:  MIPS Computer Systems Inc,  1330 Charleston Rd,  Mt View, CA 94043
(Mail) End of article 9 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 10 (13 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (Burch)
Subject: Amiga Printers
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 30 Aug 85 22:34:54 GMT
Date-Received: 2 Sep 85 04:48:29 GMT
Distribution: net
Organization: Analysts International Corp; Chicago Branch
Lines: 8

--MORE--(58%)Hello! Has anybody got any thoughts abt amiga printers? None of the articles
I ahve seen have touched upon this important subject. Is there going to be
something like the Imagewriter, and if so, will it have color?

Also, of the software mention in the magazines, how much of it is "vaporware"?

TNX for the data.                                       -Ben Burch
                                                         AIC
(Mail) End of article 10 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 11 (12 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (D.B. Knudsen)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga,net.micro.cbm
Subject: Amiga "hold and modify" capability
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 30 Aug 85 19:38:02 GMT
Date-Received: 2 Sep 85 04:52:53 GMT
Distribution: net
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Whippany
Lines: 18

--MORE--(43%)Can anyone answer the following:
1) Is this the same as a "frame grabber"?
2) What type of TV source is required? VCR? Video camera? Videodisc player?
3) Before I do the "hold" do I see the video picture on the Amiga's monitor?
4) What is the resolution of the held picture? 640X400? Less?
5) How long does it take to grab the picture?  Can I cleanly extract a
   single frame from motion video?
6) Do Amiga characters and graphics overlay the held frame without modifying
   it?
7) Does the bare Amiga have this capability?  If not, how much extra will it
   cost (aside from the video source)?
and finally,
8) Are user manuals/documentation/hardware manuals for Amiga available separ-
   ately?  I assume it's easier to turn up printing presses than production
   lines.
                                Don Knudsen
                                AT&T Bell Labs
                                ..allegra!bwkna!dbk
(Mail) End of article 11 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 12 (11 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (Sid Shapiro)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga,net.micro.cbm,net.micro
Subject: Re: Welcome!
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 30 Aug 85 13:04:46 GMT
Date-Received: 2 Sep 85 04:53:39 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Sid Shapiro)
Organization: Wang Institute, Tyngsboro, Ma.  01879
Lines: 25
Summary:

--MORE--(38%)Thanks for the offer.  A short question which you may not know the
answer to, just to keep things interesting.

I saw the presentation of the Amiga at the BCS the other day.  There
was IBM emulator software.  The demonstrator had 2 machines going.
One specifically to show off the emulator.  He loaded the emulator,
then booted a PCDOS disk, then fired up lotus.  But then he switched
to the other machine for the full blown amiga demos.  Can you not run
the emulator in one window and normal amiga stuff in other windows?
Do you have to do a machine reset to get back to native amiga world?
And finally does the emulation handle graphics (ibm graphics, not
amiga)

One comment:  I was blown away by the demo.  This looks like a very
exciting machine - particularly when the price is mentioned.  But I
wonder, will the price still be great when it finally hits the
stores?

Anyway, thanks for the group and the of information.  Looking
forward to lots of good stuff here.
--
Sid Shapiro -- Wang Institute of Graduate Studies
    [apollo, bbncca, ucadmus, decvax, linus, masscomp]!wanginst!ss
    [e-mail]
          [phone]
(Mail) End of article 12 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 13 (10 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (crandall)
Subject: Amiga Color Monitor Question
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 31 Aug 85 00:17:58 GMT
Date-Received: 2 Sep 85 06:30:20 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 11

--MORE--(48%)What is the dot pitch on the Amiga's monitor? I find text on a 640 x 400
0.28 mm PGS intolerable (using a special graphics board) and it is the
best I've seen on PC type machines. I also tend to prefer fine B&W displays
to things like Tek 4115s where text is concerned.

                Steve Crandall
                ihnp4!mhuxt!evans

The above represents only my opinion and not those of my employeer or ferrets
(they probably wouldn't appreciate a 2000 x 2000 0.10mm color monitor -- even
though it might be tolerable)
(Mail) End of article 13 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 14 (9 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (scott bigger)
Subject: What do you get?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 30 Aug 85 20:11:49 GMT
Date-Received: 2 Sep 85 07:19:20 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Scott Bigger)
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 14
Keywords: amiga data

--MORE--(46%)
I just saw a video tape of the Lincoln Center introduction of the amiga.
Slick.  My question could be answered with a phone call to Commadore but
I'm sure everyone would like the info, namely, does anyone have a data
sheet on the amiga, i.e., what do you get for $1295?  What I got from the
tape was essentially, 68000, 256K ram, the kickstart disk.  Anything else?
What all comes on the disk? (I saw BASIC, a symbolic debugger, a line
editor, a screen editor, and presumably the windowed OS.)  If anyone could
just type in their marketing spec sheet, that would be peachy.  They're
talking about a September availability date.  How firm?  When in Sept?

Thanks in advance,
Scott Bigger
tektronix!iddic!scottb
(Mail) End of article 14 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 15 (8 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (cyrus)
Subject: Unix for the Amiga?
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 31 Aug 85 18:42:48 GMT
Date-Received: 2 Sep 85 08:26:11 GMT
Organization: Symplex Communications, Ann Arbor MI
Lines: 12

--MORE--(52%)I, like many others, are very impressed with the hardware support on the Amiga.
In articles I've read they keep talking about multi-tasking.
The real question is when will Unix be sold for it and who will support it.

I would prefer a complete v7 as opposed to an unbundled sysV.

Anyone have details?


"I want my AH MEE GAH"  -Cyrus Azar [phone] || ihnp4!umich!symplex!cyrus
                                Symplex Communication Corporation
                                5 Research Drive Ann Arbor, MI  48103
(Mail) End of article 15 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 16 (7 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (Chris Gray)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga,net.micro.cbm,net.micro
Subject: Re: Welcome!
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 29 Aug 85 17:41:28 GMT
Date-Received: 3 Sep 85 04:58:59 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Myrias Research, Edmonton
Lines: 27

--MORE--(40%)..

You're gonna get flack about building this news group, but I'm on your
side - long live net.micro.amiga!!

Here's a couple of questions for you:

- how wide is the on-board data bus 8? 16? 32?

- how wide is the data bus that goes off board?
  does it require any extra wait states?

- Does your machine have the DOS in ROM or RAM?
  (I think most of us would prefer the RAM variant - maybe we can
  pursuade Amiga/Commodore to forget about ROMing it.)

- I gather the coprocessors can do line drawing. About how many lines
  per second can they draw? How much does bogging the coprocessors
  down really slow down the 68K?

- How's the documentation you get? How much, how complete?

- What software do you get with it? (BASIC and/or Logo I don't care about)

There, that should keep you busy for a while!

                Chris Gray        {...,ihnp4}!alberta!myrias!cg
(Mail) End of article 16 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 17 (6 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (Danny J. Espinoza)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga,net.micro.cbm,net.micro
Subject: Re: Welcome!
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 29 Aug 85 00:21:19 GMT
Date-Received: 3 Sep 85 05:07:54 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Bell Communications Research, Inc
Lines: 36

--MORE--(31%)>
> Hi,
>
>  net.micro.amiga is finally here. As a proud owner of a Commodore Amiga,
> I would like to open this newsgroup with an offer. I have now had a few
> days to play with my machine and go through much of my documentation.
> Please post questions (technical please, not 'where can I get one'), and
> I will do my best to answer them on this group. I hope to be able to post
> a few sources and code examples soon, but am unable to do so at this time.
>
>  I am very excited about this machine, though most people won't be able
> to get their hands on one till the end of September, I hope to spread
> some of that enthusiasm around. I will try to answer questions with a
> minimum of overhead, but please forgive me if I lose myself now and
> then and ramble about how great the machine is etc.
>
> Here we go!...
> Eric
> --
>
> ARPA: LAVITSKY@RUTGERS
> UUCP: ...{harvard,seismo,ut-sally,sri-iu,ihnp4}!topaz!eric
> SNAIL:        16 Oak St., Flr 2
>       New Brunswick, NJ  08903

Okay. Let's start asking questions!

1) How good are the sound capabilities of the Amiga? Is there any good
software that uses it? Will there be software like MusicWorks and
ConcertWare?
2) What's the resolution of the screen? How many colors can the Amiga
display at the same time? Tell us all about the graphics.

--
Danny Espinoza
...!bellcore!dje or [e-mail]
(Mail) End of article 17 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 18 (5 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (John Draper)
Subject: Amiga tools
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 30 Aug 85 21:31:03 GMT
Date-Received: 3 Sep 85 05:22:14 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail] (John Draper)
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA
Lines: 10

--MORE--(47%)
I have been told that the Amiga has  C compiler and a good set of
development tools.   I heard it was Lattuce C.   Would anyone please
comment on the tools,  Also I heard that the C compiler had to be used on
an IBM PC, then cross compiled to the Amiga,  is that true?  or is it
native to the Amiga.   I will be getting mine in 6 weeks from now
and want to know as much as I can about what I am getting myself into
as far as development of software.   I certainly dont want to plunk
down $1500 plus $500 for a C compiler that will only run on an IBM PC
Any summary on the development tools would be appreciated.
(Mail) End of article 18 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 19 (4 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (Tom Granvold)
Subject: File Transfer Protocals
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 2 Sep 85 01:01:15 GMT
Date-Received: 3 Sep 85 05:22:31 GMT
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Tom Granvold)
Distribution: net.micro.amiga
Organization: Tymnet Inc., Cupertino CA
Lines: 30
Summary: What is the best way to transfer files?

--MORE--(35%)References:

-
    Now that all of us Amiga owners (actually hoping to be an Amgia owner soon)
and admirers have our own news group, I'd like to bring up a couple of
questions. I'm hoping that there will soon be lots of public domain programs
for the Amiga. There certainlly has been a lot for the MAC and we should be
able to do as well as they have.

    What kind of file transfer protocals would be the best to pass programs,
data files, etc. for the Amiga over USENET? I know that some have been
worked out for the MAC, but I do not know any of the details of them.
Could someone explain the MAC protocals to me?

    Beyond the fundementals, I see two important funtions that need to be
considered.

        How to transfers binary data.

        How to handle compression of data.

    Any suggestions on these? It would be a great idea to have a set of
programs available early on to allow file transfers. Mail your ideas to
me and I will post interesting ones to the net.


P.S.  Is there a terminal emulator available for the Amiga? Is anyone working
on one?

Tom Granvold
Tymnet
ucbvax!oliveb!tymix!granvold
(Mail) End of article 19 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 20 (3 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (Wm Leler)
Subject: Re: Welcome!
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 30 Aug 85 21:36:20 GMT
Date-Received: 3 Sep 85 06:19:00 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Wm Leler)
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 60
Keywords: wow
Summary: Brief subjective rundown of Amiga features

--MORE--(19%)If you would like to learn more about the Amiga there is
a long article about it in Byte magazine this month.
I've also seen a videotape of the "launch" in NYC, which
features a long demo, and have some of the technical manuals.
I have played with one only briefly, not long enough to find
any weaknesses.

Summary of Amiga -

You can read the specs anywhere, so I will give a (very) subjective
rundown.  I was most impressed by the sound generation facilities.
I heard a demo of a variety of sounds, including tom-toms, and
a heavy-metal distorted guitar that sounded like the real thing.
Sounds can be "recorded" digitally and reproduced, or you can
generate new sounds.  There are four channels, two of which
can be used for envelope control (attack, decay, etc.).
You have complete control over waveform and envelope.  Sound
generators are DMA driven, so they don't tie up the 68000.
There is also builtin speech generation that can generate
speech from unrestricted text.

The graphics resolutions are fairly standard, either 320 by 200
(non interlaced) with 32 colors, or 640 by 400 (interlaced) with
16 colors.  There is a 12 bit color lookup table.  There is also
a mode where the pixel value is taken to be a signed difference
from the last pixel, so all 4096 colors can be shown on the same
screen.  It takes 3 pixels to change color completely this way,
but that is not really a drawback since the eye's spatial frequency
response to color is rather limited (the NTSC standard does not
allow a full color change per pixel, for instance).  There are
also 8 hardware sprites.

The user can have multiple screens, each with a different resolution.
Each screen can have multiple windows.  The Amiga has true multitasking,
so more than one application can run simultaneously.

The impressive part about the Amiga graphics is the animation.
One of the custom chips is a co-processor that can perform actions
based upon the state of the display, so animation can be synchronized
with display refresh.  There is also support for collision detection,
fast polygon filling, line drawing, and bit-bliting.  This system
is fast.  I saw a demo of the flight simulator that everyone has
seen on the Apple and IBM, except that instead of line graphics,
it had full filled polygons running in real time.

Other cute features - an IBM PC emulator that lets you run MS-DOS
software unmodified (at around 70% processor speed, 100% I/O speed).
Genlock option so you can synch graphics with video.  Modem
that can answer the phone and talk to people.

My personal opinion is that this is the machine the Mac should
have been.

The only concern I've heard about this machine is that it might
be too late to grab any market, but who cares?  I'm going to
buy one.  It uses a 68000, and can run MS-DOS, so there is
going to be plenty of software for it.  Besides, what software
hacker could resist it?

Wm Leler
(Mail) End of article 20 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 21 (2 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (Eric Lavitsky)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga,net.micro.cbm
Subject: Re: Welcome!
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 2 Sep 85 01:30:46 GMT
Date-Received: 4 Sep 85 06:23:58 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 46

--MORE--(26%)Hi,

        Well, here's my first attempt at answering some questions.
I will begin by telling everyone what I got in my developer's package:

        For $1900:

                        1 256K Amiga PC
                        1 256K Memory Add On
                        1 External 3.5 inch floppy
                        1 Analog RGB Monitor - 640x200 (Model 1070)
                        Lattice C Native development system
                        Lattice C MS-DOS Cross compiler
                        Assembler and Linker
                        AmigaDOS User's Manual
                        AmigaDOS Developer's Manual
                        AmigaDOS Technical Reference Manual
                        AmigaDOS User Interface Guide
                        Amiga Hardware Reference Manual
                        Amiga ROM Kernel Manual
                        Lattice Manual (Preliminary)
                        Various Updates to certain manuals

I don't know too much about the marketing end of this machine. Commodore
has said that they are still deciding on what their policy regarding ROM
upgrades will be. The OS is very robust, though the documentation needs
a little more. I am having a little trouble figuring this whole mess out -
I am hoping that the next release of the documentation will be more complete
(some sections like sound are missong from my set now). There are no
schematics in my documentation, and I can`t make total sense of the expansion
bus pinouts (though I'm no EE).

I have a few different releases of the OS - V27, V28.9 and V28.11. The latest
version does crash now and then, but V29 is supposedly available now. I
managed to grab a beta-release of graphicraft and musicraft. The colors and
sound are both crisp and impressive. My stereo does a nice job - I can't
wait for the final versions of these programs (and Marble Madness too!).

More to follow.
Eric
--

ARPA:   LAVITSKY@RUTGERS
UUCP:   ...{harvard,seismo,ut-sally,sri-iu,ihnp4}!topaz!eric
SNAIL:  16 Oak St., Flr 2
        New Brunswick, NJ  08903
(Mail) End of article 21 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 22 (1 more) in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (Eric Lavitsky)
Newsgroups: net.micro.amiga,net.micro.cbm,net.micro
Subject: Re: Welcome!
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 2 Sep 85 01:33:44 GMT
Date-Received: 4 Sep 85 06:24:06 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 15

--MORE--(57%)Hi,

 I did manage to grab a pre-release of the PC emulator as well. Once
going in PC mode, that`s all you can use the Amiga for. No nice windows
or multi-tasking. You must totally reset the machine to recover to the
Amiga OS. I don't know if the emulator handles graphics for things like
Flight Simulator as I don't have a 5-1/4 inch drive.

Eric
--

ARPA:   LAVITSKY@RUTGERS
UUCP:   ...{harvard,seismo,ut-sally,sri-iu,ihnp4}!topaz!eric
SNAIL:  16 Oak St., Flr 2
        New Brunswick, NJ  08903
(Mail) End of article 22 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

Article 23 in net.micro.amiga:
From: [e-mail] (Eric Lavitsky)
Subject: Re: Info wanted
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 2 Sep 85 01:37:06 GMT
Date-Received: 4 Sep 85 06:24:17 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 14

--MORE--(59%)Hi,

        Unfortunately, I received a non-interlaced monitor, and I
haven`t tried using the 640x400 interlaced mode on it. I will post
one or two of the C examples that came with my system soon. The latest
OS version that I have is 28.11 !

Eric
--

ARPA:   LAVITSKY@RUTGERS
UUCP:   ...{harvard,seismo,ut-sally,sri-iu,ihnp4}!topaz!eric
SNAIL:  16 Oak St., Flr 2
        New Brunswick, NJ  08903
(Mail) End of article 23 (of 23)--what next? [npq]

End of newsgroup net.micro.amiga.

********   1 unread article  in net.news.notes--read now? [ynq]