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Below is AMReport 2.03. I am posting this as a service to the network community and in doing so do not necessarily endorse anything written here. Comments, questions, or contributions should be sent to the editor's address, not to mine. ============================================================================= *---== AM-REPORT INTERNATIONAL ONLINE MAGAZINE ==---* -------------------------------------- "The Online Magazine of Choice!" from STR Publishing Inc. ----------------- May 20, 1992 Volume 2.03 ========================================================================= > 05/20/92: AM-Report #2.03 The Online Magazine of Choice! -Desktop Video Show -Commodore Earnings -Commodore Tax Problems -S&P on Commodore -Mac Emulator News -TexTiles -MiGraph OCR -GVP Color Splitter -High Density Floppies -* Black Belt Speaks Out *- -* Amiga TeX Review *- -* PD & Shareware Gems *- -* Much, Much More *- TODAY'S NEWS ..TODAY! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > AMReport's Staff The regulars and this week's contributors! ================ Publisher - Editor ------------------ Ralph F. Mariano PC DIVISION AMIGA DIVISION MAC DIVISION ----------- -------------- ------------ Robert Retelle Charles Hill R. ALBRITTON Contributing Correspondents --------------------------- Mike Todd (CIX) Jim Shaffer, Jr. (UseNet) 70117,634 on CompuServe cbmvax.commodore.com!vanth!jms Andrew Farrell Australian Commodore and Amiga Review & Professional Amiga User Magazine Mike Ehlert, SysOp: PACIFIC COAST MICRO BBS -- FidoNet 1:102/1001 IMPORTANT NOTICE ================ Please, submit letters to the editor, articles, reviews, etc... via E-Mail to: Compuserve.................... 76370,3045 Internet/Usenet............... 76370.3045@compuserve.com **************************************************************************** EDITORIAL ~~~~~~~~~ Well, well, another issue and not even a week has passed by! Since the last issue was the first one for months, I had a glut of information just waiting to go. Combining that with the new information I received and I had 73K of stuff by Monday. [Actually it is guilt, but I'm not going to admit it! :-)] This issue has some interesting items. Commodore's last quarter numbers (the complete numbers) are out and seem to conflict with other information I have. Word is that CBM sold 800,000 C64 units last year, most of them in Eastern Europe, the ex-Soviet Union and many "Third World" nations. Folks, that is the biggest year *EVER* for the C64. That also puts a nice foot in the door for future upgrades to, say, the new A600. GVP has finally finished the color splitter they were working on for the IV24 board and the real good news is that they are giving it away to all the people who purchased the IV24 and didn't get one. Future IV-24 purchases will include the color splitter. (Call your dealer for the splitter.) The Amiga finally has OCR software, but it doesn't come cheap. Migraph's price is $299 U.S. and 2.5 megabytes of RAM. Four megs and a 68030/25 are recommended. I have more specs on Emplant from Utilities Unlimited. I should be getting some brochures early next week. Rumors floating around include the fabled '386 Bridgecard, Workbench/Kickstart 2.1, an A3000 Toaster, a digital Toaster, an Amiga compatible laptop, a part number for the elusive high-density floppy drive, nice prices on Amigas and the possibility of Commodore being acquired in the near future. Now that I'm back in business, if anyone who is supposed to be getting AMR through email, isn't, let me know. AM-Report is available through email (internet, usenet, ATT Mail, & MCI Mail) for those who don't have access to it otherwise. Thank you for your support! -Chas AM-Report ============================================================================ DESKTOP VIDEO SHOW ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Desktop Video '92 is pleased to announce the addition of the largest Newtek exhibit ever to its San Francisco show, being held May 21-23 at The Hyatt Regency, San Francisco Airport. In addition to Newtek, other major exhibitors include Matrox, Videomedia, RGB Computer & Video, Paltex and more. Representatives from Sony and Panasonic will be on-hand to discuss their latest entries in the DTV market. Three different Seminar tracks will discuss everything from Video Production to Video Business. Classes will be offered in Desktop Video, Audio for Video, Graphics, Animation, Video Business, and the Video Toaster. Class seating is limited to 25 people. Keynote speakers will include producers of PBS' The '90s. Submissions for The '90s will be accepted throughout the show; 3/4, Hi8 or VHS formats accepted, include a SASE for return of tape. Tickets are $25 for all three days and include everything excepts classes. Pre-register by May 15th and save $10. For more information call 800-322-6442 or 914-741-6500. Desktop Video '92 is produced by Computer Performance Inc. ============================================================================ COMMODORE SETTLES TAX PROBLEMS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (March 25, 1992) Commodore International Ltd. says it has settled "all major issues" related to its US tax litigation for the years 1981 through 1986. In a statement from New York, the company said the agreement "results in no tax liability, other than certain obligations for restricted interest, estimated by the company to be about $2 million, which amount has already been reflected in the company's financial statements." The Internal Revenue Service asserted tax deficiencies amounting to $109 million, the statement noted. ============================================================================ COMMODORE EARNINGS REPORT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ NEW YORK (APRIL 29) PR NEWSWIRE - Commodore International Limited (NYSE: CBU) today reported earnings of $4.1 million, or $0.12 per share on sales of $194.6 million for the third fiscal quarter ended March 31, 1992. This compares with net income of $1.4 million, or $0.04 per share after extraordinary charge on sales of $246.3 million in the year-ago quarter. For the nine months ended March 31, 1992, Commodore reported net income of $49.5 million, or $1.47 per share on sales of $770.3 million. This compares with net income of $44.9 million, or $1.37 per share after extraordinary charge on sales of $830.7 million in the prior year. The decline in sales for the quarter was primarily due to the dis- continuation of the unprofitable low-end MS-DOS range, and a reduction in C64 sales, due to economic softness in certain markets. This was partially offset by a 10 percent increase in unit sales of the Amiga line along with continued growth in the Professional PC line. Gross profit for the quarter declined, primarily reflecting the impact of lower revenues, partially offset by the favorable impact of hedging activities. Operating expenses were reduced by 25 percent vs. the prior year. These factors resulted in net income for the quarter of $4.1 million. Irving Gould, chairman and chief executive officer stated: "Revenues and profitability for the quarter were adversely impacted by the weak global economic environment. However, we are encouraged by the continued growth in the Amiga and Professional PC lines. Furthermore, Commodore's range of products has been enhanced with the recent introduction of the Amiga 600 and 600HD, a new line of consumer products which have been well received in the marketplace." COMMODORE INTERNATIONAL LIMITED AND SUBSIDIARIES Consolidated Balance Sheets (Unaudited; $000's) March 31 1992 1991 Cash and Investments $60,800 $101,300 Accounts Receivable, Net 255,400 221,300 Inventories 202,200 245,300 Other Current Assets 9,400 8,800 Total Current Assets 527,800 576,700 Other Assets 108,200 91,400 Total $636,000 $668,100 Current Debt (A) $ 71,800 $ 99,800 Other Current Liabilities 165,800 195,200 Total Current Liabilities $237,600 $295,000 Long-Term Debt and Other 60,300 72,700 Shareholders' Equity 338,100 300,400 Total $636,000 $668,100 (A) At March 31, 1991 includes reclassification of $59.5 million long-term debt. Consolidated Statements of Operations Periods ended Three Months Nine Months March 31 1992 1991 1992 1991 Net Sales $194,600 $246,300 $770,300 $830,700 Cost of Sales 140,300 166,660 538,300 552,300 Gross Profit 54,300 79,700 232,000 278,400 Operating Expenes 49,100 65,300 168,600 205,100 Operating Income 5,200 14,400 63,400 73,300 Interest Expense, Net 2,800 3,100 11,200 12,000 Other Expense (Income) (1,900) 400 (100) 4,400 Income Before Income Taxes 4,300 10,900 52,300 56,900 Provision for Income Taxes 200 300 2,800 2,800 Income Before Extraordinary Item 4,100 10,600 49,500 54,100 Extraordinary Item (A) --- (9,200) --- (9,200) Net Income $ 4,100 $ 1,400 $ 49,500 $ 44,900 Earnings Per Share: Income Before Extraordinary Item $.12 $.32 $1.47 $1.65 Extraordinary Item (A) --- (.28) --- (.28) Net Income $.12 $.04 $1.47 $1.37 Average Shares Outstanding 34,137,000 33,586,000 33,782,000 32,847,000 ============================================================================ TEXTILES IMAGES ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Mannikin Sceptre Graphics Ships TexTiles Volume I & II Mannikin Sceptre graphics announces TexTiles, a premier collection of true-color seamless images for use in three-dimensional rendering, image processing, page-layout and design programs. TexTiles will ship in 24 bit IFF format for the Amiga and NewTek's Video Toaster on June 1, 1992. Subsequent releases will include 24 bit TIFF for the Apple Macintosh and IBM compatible graphics packages. TexTiles are algorithmically generated textures which simulate a wide variety of real and surreal surfaces. Each texture measures 256 by 256 pixels, reducing memory requirements and allowing users with minimal memory configurations to enjoy the benefit of true-color image mapping. Power users will appreciate the increased number of textures they can load and use. Edge mapping ensures seamless transitions for tiling fills in paint programs and texture mapping in three-dimensional rendering and modeling software. TexTiles are compatible with all software packages which support 24 bit IFF ILBM graphic file format. Pricing and Availability TexTiles will be available through resellers and directly from Mannikin Sceptr Graphics for a suggested retail price of $39.95 per volume. Each volume contains forty true-color images on ten low density disks. The initial release will be comprised of two volumes- Volume I: Things That Go Bump and Volume II: MegaMaps. Demo disks are available for $5.00, postage included. Mannikin Sceptre Graphics 1600 Indiana Ave. Winter Park, FL 32789 Phone: (407) 384-9484 FAX: (407) 647-7242 ============================================================================ FREITAG ON COMMODORE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Standard & Poor's Corp. analyst Larry Freitag was quoted by Reuter's news wire that "there is a general concensus Commodore will eventually be acquired by someone." Freitag estimates Commodore's stock will rise to 25 dlrs within a year based on fundamentals, and would go for 35 dlrs in a takeover. He said Commodore was an attractive purchase because of its unique dealer/distribution network in Europe, but noted its heavy exposure overseas also brought foreign currency risks. Commodore gets 90 pct of its sales from overseas. Freitag said he sees Commodore's sales growing to 1.6 billion dlrs in fiscal 1995, from 1.1 billion in fiscal 1991. He projected profits of 2.10 dlrs per share in fiscal 1992. ============================================================================ MIGRAPH OCR ~~~~~~~~~~~ Migraph has a new piece of software that is supposed to make your computer literate. Migraph's OCR (optical character recognition) software for the Amiga is out and here are the specs... Migraph OCR is an interactive program (currently no ARexx port, but one is in the works) that can be launched from CLI or Workbench. The program can read monochrome (2 color) IFF or TIFF files. Fonts from 8 to 18 points can be recognized. The software comes with 20 popular fonts pretrained and can train to any font, any language, any character (within the point- size limit). Both fixed space and proportional fonts are supported. 300 dpi scans of NLQ or LQ text yields the best results. Columnar text scans are supported. Migraph OCR works with KS 1.3 and 2.04 but requires more than two megabytes of free RAM and likes four or more. While the system will work with an MC68000 based machine, Migraph recommends at least a 25 Mhz 68030 for anything more than occasional use. Suggested list price is $299 (U.S.) and Migraph OCR can be purchased direct from Migraph by calling them at 1-800-223-3729 during regular business hours (west coast time). Migraph OCR should soon be available from your favorite Amiga dealer. Migraph also sells a hand-scanner and scanner tray for those who don't have access to a scanner. ============================================================================ MAC EMULATOR ~~~~~~~~~~~~ A T T E N T I O N E M U L A T I O N F A N S ----------------------------------------------- This notice is to officially announce Utilities Unlimited's new hardware/ software emulation platform "EMPLANT". This package is an open-ended emulation platform designed to allow the emulation of virtually any computer at hardware-related speeds. The package consists of one EMPLANT board (fits internally for A2000-3000 in a ZORO II/III slot - on the expansion bus for A500-1000), and a software driver for MAC IIx emulation. The MAC IIx emulation is a full blown color MAC IIx with ALL of the same features available on a real MAC IIx. Video display drivers allow the use of 3rd party video boards to allow full 256 color emulation. Device drivers allow the use of virtually any storage media. A normal MAC IIx uses a 68030, however, Apple did provide exception handling routines for the 68000 (odd, eh?), so 68000 users will be able to take advantage of this emulator too. The MAC IIx emulator will run all known MAC software, so compatibilty at this point is 100% (when used with an MMU). The emulator completely multi-tasks with the Amiga, allowing files to be transferred to/from AmigaDOS to MAC from either OS. The way that this hardware is designed, by simply changing the ROM-SIMM module (MAC IIx uses a 256K ROM-SIMM), and the software driver (emulator software) we can change what computer is being emulated. Because of this flexibility, we *will* be emulating the MAC IIfx and QUADRA computers by the fall. A simple software upgrade is all that will be required. Support for high density drives (such as CBM's 1.76 drive) have been included, as well as support for the 800K MAC disks with the SYBIL hardware. Also included on the hardware board are 4 sockets (28 pins) that can be used for BIOS ROMs, static RAM, or utility programs. ALL of the custom chips used in the MACs are emulated through hardware, so speed is identical (or faster) than the real thing. The retail price for these units is $199 for EMPLANT, and $249 for EMPLANT and the SYBIL system. April 27th, 1992 Information reguarding the product "EMPLANT" from Utilities Unlimited, Inc. This information is freely re-distributable and may be placed on any BBS or network except Q-Link. What is EMPLANT? ---------------- EMPLANT is a hardware/software product that is designed to allow the emulation of virtually any computer using the Amiga. A simple software driver and ROM(s) from the computer to emulated are all that is required. Features and software compatibility will depend on the software driver. About the hardware ------------------ The hardware holds the key to emulation speed. Every effort was made to make the hardware virsatile enough that we should never have to upgrade it to handle the emulation of forth comming computer systems. For this reason, we have included components that may never be used, however, this does insure the fact that we are prepared for the future. The MAC series of computers, although different from one another, share the same basic technology. We can replicate this technology by emulating the MAC's custom chips through a reliable hardware system. All timers, interrupts, and clocks are handled on a hardware level so that speed is identical (or even faster) than the real computer being emulated. Support for custom EPROMs, static RAM, and SIMM modules makes our hardware compatible with all existing methods of storing a computer's operating system. This versatility also allows us to create adapter boards if some new method of OS storage becomes available. The EMPLANT hardware has four empty 28 pin ROM/RAM sockets provided for use with operating systems that are stored in DIP format (such as 128K MAC+ ROMs are). These sockets can also be used to store your own utility software in EPROM format. We plan to release a utility package that will be literally "at your fingertips". Another option is to fill the four sockets with 32Kx8 static RAMs, giving you 128K of extra RAM that you could write protect and make auto-booting, which would be handy for floppy-only customers. The hardware comes in two forms: a plug in card that occupies one of the Zoro II/III slots on your A2000/2500/3000, and a plug in card that fits on the expansion bus on your A500/1000. For the A500/1000 version, there is a pass-thru that allows you to plug in your existing equipment. The Apple Nu-Bus expansion ports are not emulated through hardware because they are now RAM-based device drivers which operate faster than a MAC's own hardware. * AVAILABLE HARDWARE OPTIONS * HIGH SPEED MAC SERIAL PORTS/APPLE TALK SUPPORT The MAC serial port is not emulated, it is duplicated - using the exact same standard dual high speed serial interface IC. Apple Talk is completely supported through this port like the MAC, via a 8 pin mini-din connector. This dual high speed serial port can be used on the Amiga side as well, allowing the connection of two serial devices operating independantly. Communication speed on these ports are a maximum of 230.4K baud, which is the speed at which Apple Talk runs. Maximum modem speed is generally limited to 57.6K baud. SCSI INTERFACE A simple, non-autobooting SCSI controller using NCR8490 high speed controller IC. Capable of non-DMA transfers up to 800K per second. Support for up to 7 SCSI devices including CD ROMs, tape backup units, and hand scanners. This SCSI interface can be used on both the Amiga side and the MAC side, independantly or simotaneously. About the MAC IIx emulation software ------------------------------------ The MAC IIx emulator software is relatively simple since the majority of the emulation is done on a hardware level, giving both better compatibility and equally important, emulation speed. The software reads the MAC ROM SIMM module that is installed on the EMPLANT board, dumps the ROM image into a block of memory, and patches the image to run on your Amiga. One intelligent move on the part of Apple was to define "global" variables for their operating system. This makes it relatively simple to move the code around without a lot of hassles. Since the MAC IIx is a 68030 based machine, it has a AMU or PPMU to map memory into various locations. Using a 68020/30/40 with an MMU allows virtually 100% compatibility when running MAC software on the emulator. Another big advantage of having a MMU in your Amiga is that the emulator will multi-task with the Amiga. You can transfer files back and forth between file formats without the need of transfer software. The MAC IIx operating system supports a FFS (Foreign filing system). This is the link to the Amiga. ANY AmigaDOS device can be used on the MAC side. This means that floppys, hard drives, CD ROMs, and even non-standard AmigaDOS devices (such as MessyDOS) can be used as valid devices on the MAC side. Full color (up to 256 colors) can be emulated with various 12bit and 24bit video boards. Support for DCTV, HAME, Firecracker, and others is provided by video device driver software modules. Up to 16 colors can be displayed using the standard Amiga video output. Sound is emulated exactly via PAULA. The MAC IIx has 4 channel stereo sound nearly identical to the Amiga, so this is easy to emulate on a software level using the existing Amiga hardware. The MAC 400/800K disk format is emulated by using the already successful SYBIL hardware package. High density (1.44mb) floppys are supported via the CBM 1.76mb drives, as well as "do-it-yourself" high density drives that many people have built themselves. Complete interface schematics will be provided (along with information where to find the necessary components and the high density drive mechanics) with EMPLANT so that anyone with the basic soldering skills can build their own high density floppy drive. Future emulation ---------------- Since the EMPLANT's hardware is so versatile, a completely new and different computer can be emulated by just changing the emulation software patch and the ROM(s). MAC IIfx, MAC QUADRA, Mega ST, and IBM AT (386/486) emulators are planned in the future. Price and availability ---------------------- Current retail price for the basic EMPLANT system is $199 + shipping. Basic EMPLANT system with High speed serial ports/Apple Talk support is $259.00 + shipping. Basic EMPLANT system with high speed SCSI interface is $259.00 + shipping. Deluxe EMPLANT system with both high speed serial ports/Apple Talk support AND high speed SCSI interface is $299 + shipping. All EMPLANT packages described above come with the MAC IIx emulation software and necessary device drivers. The EMPLANT systems will be shipping no later than the third week in July of 1992. * Product specifications and prices are subject to change without notice * To be placed on a mailing for more information, please contact Utilities Unlimited at: 1641 McCulloch Blvd. Suite #25-124 Lake Havasu City, AZ 86403 (602) 680-9004 We have found that Apple currently *is* allowing the sale of 256K (MAC IIx), 512K (MAC IIfx), and 1meg(QUADRA) rom simm modules. The average price is about $90 for each. ************************************************************************* * Jim Drew - Vice President - Utilities Unlimited of Arizona, Inc. * * 1641 McCulloch Blvd. Suite #25-124 * * Lake Havasu City, AZ 86403 * * Support BBS: (602) 453-9767 Office: (602) 680-9004 * ************************************************************************* ============================================================================ GVP COLOR SPLITTER ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ With the Splitter release, GVP has fulfilled it's promise of a complete product. Any person that does not have asplitter needs to contact their dealer to order it. It has a software update in the package. All new IV-24's will be shipping with splitters, but at this point, we are going to handle all splitter orders before we ship new IV-24 packages. the New packages will have the splitter in it. The versions are: IV24-NTSC/VIU-S IV24-NTSC/VIU-CT There are PAL versions, but they are only available through our foreign distributors in areas where PAL is the standard. The -S is the standard splitter. The -CT is the Component Transcorder. Here are the stats: -S Inputs -CT Composite 1 Composite 1 Cpmposite 2 Cpmposite 2 S-Video (Y/C) S-Video (Y/C) R/G/B R/G/B Composite Sync Composite Sync Digital Keyer Digital Keyer Analog Keyer Analog Keyer Y R-Y B-Y Outputs Composite Composite S-Video (Y/C) S-Video (Y/C) External keyer External Keyer R/G/B Composite Sync Y R-Y B-Y VGA Monitor port I don't have prices. Sales/Marketing can help you with that. Contact them if necessary. GVP Technical Services Robert Miranda ============================================================================ BLACK BELT SPEAKS OUT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Black Belt's Response to the April 1992 "Adpro 2 Vs. Imagemaster" review by Geoffrey Williams ===================================================== Response Authors: Ben Williams & Mike French - This is a re-edited version of our original response - Why we wrote this: ------------------ We feel that the article, although nominally positive, unfairly contrasts the two products. We think that Imagemaster more than deserved it's own review, rather than being crowbarred into just short of two pages with another highly complex product which also could take pages to do even minor justice to. We are in no way saying that ASDG's Art Department Professional v2 is anything less than it should be, nor that it isn't a worthwhile product for very good reasons. We want you, the reader, to get "the rest of the story"; We feel that the AmigaWorld article falls far short of what we would consider responsible reviewing. How to read it: --------------- The form of this response will be to quote the first portion of each paragraph in the review, enough so that you can clearly orient our comments with regrad to the review. In addition, we will number the paragraphs. You will need a copy of AmigaWorld to follow the comments; we suggest you number the paragraphs in the review as we have numbered them here to make it easier to follow along. The original form of the review contained the entire text of the review from AmigaWorld, however they contacted us with some copyright concerns which we addressed by modifying our response to only quote a portion of the article. Note that no copyright infringment is intended in this version or the original version; the entire AmigaWorld review directly bears upon our product and this document was created only to correct the numerous mistakes, oversights and to some extent the superficiality of the review in AmigaWorld. Our comments will be interspersed thoughout the partially quoted review text, set off by an additional visible indent of that text. ------------------------------------------------------- "Art Department Professional 2 ASDG Imagemaster Black Belt Systems Taking the choice out of image processing." by Geoffrey Williams - Amigaword, April 92, pp 24,76,77 Our first objection is right here, in the title and on the front page of the magazine. They clearly indicate which version of AD Pro they are talking about (version 2) but they do NOT indicate what version of Imagemaster they reviewed. This immediately causes a problem because we can't be exactly sure what version WAS reviewed and so can't be too specific about many things they may have missed - we don't know if they were missed because they were not there yet, or because the author failed to take them into account. In some cases, as with color printing and color separations, the author of this comparison clearly "missed the boat"; in others, we said nothing because we were not sure that he had actually had the opportunity to see the features in question. (1) "WHEN IT COMES to image processing, ASDG's Art Department Professional 2 ($299) is the first product..." We have no disagreement with this premise; in fact it is the position we have taken all along. AD Pro and Imagemaster are differently oriented tools, the similarity is in the target market; both products are aimed at the same set of users. This comparison, interestingly enough, seems to be aimed at what we consider our forte, though - image processing and composition. If we're "shoulder to shoulder" with AD Pro in these capabilities, it's the way Arnold Schwartzenagger and Danny DeVito were in the movie "Twins" - and, WE are Arnold. (2) "These programs complement each other very well. For the most part, both have a full range of image-processing tools, although..." We disagree strongly here with the second assertion. We wouldn't even consider Imagemaster to have a "full range" of image- processsing tools, and it has so many more than AD Pro 2 as to make the attempt at comparison absurd. A different approach? This we agree with, certainly. Serious Business (3) "Both of these programs work in true 24-bit, even when you are manipulating standard Amiga images in 16 or 32 colors. This..." Using AD Pro in 1 MB for 24-bit image processing isn't just "unrealistic", it's downright impossible. Both programs require significant amounts of RAM to operate. Imagemaster can run in 1.5 megabytes if you want to process images that are 50x50. We don't talk about it this way because it's not how the software will be used, and we know it. Further, Imagemaster manages memory much more efficiently than AD Pro does. Imagemaster takes memory in multiple chunks; AD Pro requires large, contiguous blocks of memory which it allocates on program startup in a system-hostile manner - by which we mean it doesn't know it's going to need it, but it takes it anyway. Imagemaster takes memory in multiple small chunks, as needed and on demand, freeing the rest of your system memory for other operations if you're not actually using the memory in Imagemaster. Given the same image to process, Imagemaster is more likely to be able to handle the job when memory limits are tight. (4) "Both programs offer sophisticated ARexx control, which helps you with batch processing operations such as manipulating..." (5) "While both programs have button-based interfaces, they differ vastly. With AdPro 2, you cycle..." Once you have used Imagemaster for even a little while, finding buttons is easy. Further, the interface is much, much faster than either of AD Pro's interfaces (forward-reverse buttons or lists), even for the new user. Imagemaster has far more functions to present to the user than does AD Pro, and our concise button interface is highly effective at presenting these features. The bottom line here may be a matter of taste; certainly both interfaces work well. (6) "Imagemaster and AD Pro 2 both let you create composites by layering images together, offering a variety..." Absolutely. Interestingly enough, the review never really says much about how this is so, and whether it is a benefit to the user for either program. This seems to us to be a serious fault throughout this review. Keep that "worlds apart" line in your mind as you read on. Who Is That Masked Image? (7) "Imagemaster provides over 15 different ways to select a section of the work screen. You can use complex color masks or..." So much passed over in one small paragraph. Let us put it clearly, since the comparison's author did not: AD Pro can process ONLY the entire image. Imagemaster can process not only the color keys, rectangles, polyarcs and ellipses the author wedged in here, but also freehand areas, polygon areas, the previous region (This is ReDo for composition and image processing; it's mentioned further on as a paint feature, but the author neglects to tell you that it is also available here), with logical union, intersection, and complement of previous regions available as modifiers for ANY area selection. There are also two types of rectangular selections available, and both rectangles and ellipses can be completely re- positioned even while being constructed with the mouse. And of course, like AD Pro, Imagemaster can process the entire image. Worlds apart, wouldn't you say? (8) "These two programs share most of the basic image-processing features, such as Brightness, Contrast, RGB and..." He's named a few of Imagemaster's image-processing features, but he has a very large proportion of AD Pro's. There's a subtle difference between that and the implication of the last sentence, which may leave the reader thinking that there are a large number of AD Pro's image-processing features left unmentioned. There aren't. (9) "Imagemaster has so many unique and interesting features that it would be impossible to list them all with detailed..." We won't quibble with features the author found to be his favorites; but we do think that the number of specific image processes he did NOT mention here should be quietly pointed out. In addition to the group the author initially mentioned as "to name just a few", and his favorites here, which seem to come to 23 but actually represent some 73 completely different processes, Imagemaster offers yet another one hundred and forty more - not counting image composition, analysis, painting, rendering or scaling tools. Just one of those little things that got glossed over. (10) "AD Pro has nowhere near the number of image-processing applications that Imagemaster has, and most..." Faster? Sometimes - keeping in mind that to be useful, you must process the entire image, and that Imagemaster's virtual image display and masking scheme comes into play almost every time you do something, while AD Pro has no equivalent sophistication. Easier? We think not. In AdPro under 1.3: Pick a button, again, and again and again, possibly as many as twenty times to find your function. In AD Pro under 2.0: pick a button, get a list-based requester. Scroll the requester until you locate your function, requiring a physical interaction the entire time (under both operating systems). For Imagemaster, under either 1.3 or 2.0: Press "Process", on the main panel, then "Contrast" from the process panel (just for instance). Again, this can be a matter of GUI taste more than anything else; but since the author makes such an issue of it, we have to say that his opinion is not necessarily definitive nor representative of how YOU may feel about this. (11) "One of AD Pro's real strengths is it's ability to load and save a wide variety of formats, and the new 2.0 version supports..." (12) "While Imagemaster also loads a variety of formats, it encounters some difficulty with DCTV files, which lose resolution..." These last two paragraphs are some of the poorest in the comparison, for several reasons. It's hard to know where to start, so we'll just work from the beginning onwards. He talks about AD Pro having "real strength" in it's image format handling. He mentions that you can buy additional loaders and savers. He mistakenly lumps the IV24 display driver in as a file format, where it really belongs in the next paragraph - we'll talk about that there. All this is fine. Except, you'll note that the same is not said for Imagemaster. Why not? Look at the list of image types that Imagemaster can deal with: JPEG (we were the first commerical Amiga program to do this, by the way), DPaint IIe (we call them LBM files), Framegrabber, GIF, HAM-E, Digi-View (we even directly interface the Digi-View device), Impulse (we call this RGBx), QRT, DKB, Sculpt (we call this "RAW"), AHAM, SHAM, DHR, DCTV (more on this one in a second), NASA FITS, PMBC (he calls this our "proprietary format", and it is), all standard IFF, Targa, and UPB8. The comments he makes about the DCTV loader "having problems" are highly inaccurate; there are several issues here. First, if you look at the loaded DCTV images on a 24-bit display, you will see a better image in almost all cases than you will on an actual DCTV display on a monitor. Second, note that we had to reverse engineer this format, as Digital Creations would not release it - AD Pro cannot load DCTV images at all, so as a comparison, Imagemaster wins hands down. We will of course use any library that Digital Creations releases, if and when it happens. <comments continued next page> In the meantime, you can be assured that loads of DCTV display files will result in extremely high quality images devoid of any serious degradation. He mentions that you can buy additional loaders and savers for AD Pro, which is perfectly true, but he does NOT mention that you can get loaders, savers and drivers from us for much, much less - for instance, you can download them for free from our BBS, CompuServe and so on. He also neglects to mention that since October when Imagemaster was released, we have released more additional modules than has ASDG for AD Pro. (13) "AD Pro can directly render into Commodore A2410, Firecracker 24, HAM-E, DCTV, Harlequin and other devices, including..." Imagemaster, although it's not described that way here, can also interact with hardware display and image capture devices, just as AD Pro can. Some of those we support include the FireCracker, DCTV, HAM-E, Framebuffer, and the DMI Resolver (via SAGE). In addition, we have the versions he mentions here (Imagemaster F/c and Image Professional) which actually _operate_ on the target displays, allowing direct editing in the native modes. These last are completely separate products, not just render output additions, and we sell them separately. (14) "AD Pro's dithering routines are the best I've ever seen, and if you want to create standard Amiga-format images from..." Here we have an update for you, rather than a disagreement with what the author says. At the time he wrote the article, what he says here is right on the mark. AD Pro would produce better Amiga mode images. However, as of Imagemaster v 7.04, the reverse became effective. Imagemaster now creates significantly better Amiga mode renders than does AD Pro. We completely rewrote the Amiga mode rendering code, to which we confess we had not paid as much attention as we should have. All things considered, we're very pleased with the authors remarks here - because if he thought AD Pro's rendering was good (and it was!) then we clearly come out of this smelling like roses, as the saying goes. As the author would no doubt say, Imagemaster is the only choice. (15) "ASDG, the developer of AD Pro has long been a leader in dealing with color imaging and printing. Once of the unique..." This is pretty funny - Imagemaster not only can do this, it did it before the capability was released in AD Pro. The two programs approach the task somewhat differently, but both have it, now. The problem in the comparison is the author (we presume) simply missed the feature. (16) "AD Pro also saves images as Postscript files, which can later be sent to a PostScript printer or loaded into programs..." We don't do this yet - and it's very, very cool. One of the very many reasons to own AD Pro, certainly. (17) "AD Pro's 12-or 24-bit nonPostScript color separations can be RGB, three color (CYN), or four-color (CMYK). You have..." Hum. We have all of the same non-postscript color separation tools that AD Pro has. No mention of that in the comparison... not only do we have the same set of tools, but we can save individual configurations for various printers so you only have to do the work once. (18) "In professional environments, most 24-bit graphics are created though compositing, using individual elements..." Two Sumu Wrestlers We don't understand the section title here, or what it was intended to imply: Are we supposed to be wrestling with AD Pro for masking / area selection capabilities? From the text of the comparison, you should be able to see that Imagemaster's area selection and masking are so superior it's no contest, even with the constant downplaying of Imagemaster's capabilities that seems to us to pervade the entire article. So... what DOES it mean? Maybe someone will tell us, becase we really can't figure it out. (19) "As previously mentioned, Imagemaster lets you create sophisticated masks from within the program. You can have..." "Fairly Limited"? It's very hard for us to respond to that politely. Let's say that it's "No Comparison", since that's what the article was billed as (although we, and probably you, are having severe doubts if it actually is one). (20) "With over 30 options in Imagemaster's compose panel, you can assemble composite images with antialiasing, emboss one..." (21) "Imagemaster also includes a complete 24-bit paint program that you can use even if you do not have a 24-bit display or..." (22) "You can use an image from any buffer as a brush and make use of Imagemaster's full complement of drawing tools. It even has..." (23) "All the professionals I know who work with Amiga graphics use Art Department Professional as one of their most important..." Although we could go on and on and on about capabilities in Imagemaster that were (a) not mentioned here and (b) things that would make you want to get it in addition to AD PRo 2, we won't. We'll mention only one thing, which we feel is important above all others: Imagemaster offers a "Public Interface". This is a specially constructed interface to the program which allows ANY developer, or even a moderately technical user, to directly access the images maintained inside Imagemaster and create new capabilties such as image file load and save, digitizer and display drivers, inter-program sharing of images, effects, composition operations and anything else that can be imagined. This feature is so important as to overshadow almost anything else we could mention. Imagemaster is an OPEN system, and anyone can make it grow. Support for scanners, digitizers, effects, load and save operations, G1 FAX and color image transmitter/receivers is already in place, and more is coming all the time - and we offer any modules we make for FREE - how good can it get!? Product Updates (24) "As this review was going to press, AmigaWorld received word that ASDG was about to ship a revised version..." (25) "The new version is reported to enhance AD Pro's file-transfer capabilities by incorporating a new IFF..." (26) "In addition, ASDG reports that version 2.1.0 will provide a new, visually oriented frame editing program (FRED) designed..." (27) "The new version also provides enhancements for video use, including new roll and broadcast operators. Additionally..." (28) "Also, Black Belt has announced the addition to Imagemaster of true infinite morphing, a technique..." Look at all that editor's space for ASDG; and one measly little sentence for us! And for REAL morphing, no less, which is easily the most exciting effect in cinema and video today... Imagemaster is the first program for a desktop system to offer it at an affordable price to "normal" users. We're not talking about that crippled, uncontrollable thing in DPaint IV they called morphing... this is the real McCoy! Guess the editors must have been asleep, eh? Well, we can remedy the lack of after-the-fact coverage here, at least for those readers who also are active on telecomm networks: Imagemaster's Amiga mode rendering was completely rewritten, resulting in a switch of the previous condition, where AD Pro's rendering was better than Imagemaster's - currently, Imagemaster makes consistantly better images than AD Pro. This is true as of version 8.02, the currently shipping version of Imagemaster, and version 2.0 of AD Pro, the latest we have to compare against; A complete "FilmStrip" capability was added, providing the user with sophisticated animation preview and a visual record of image results after each effect, process, paint or composition tool was applied; A "Sequence Processor" was added, which gives Imagemaster users the capability to batch process any number of images, or any image a number of times, using automatically "tweened" processing operations for true animated effects over any number of frames; Metadigm announced a complete scanner capability that can be used with Imagemaster (using our Public Interface) which drives the EPSON ES-300c series of scanners (and compatibles); We have added the capability to read NewTek Video Toaster 2.0 frames to the list of formats already supported by Imagemaster; Finally, version 9.0 of Imagemaster, scheduled for release in early April, will have a reorganized interface (which will address to some extent the wisecrack under the illustration in AmigaWorld which depicts one of our many processing panels, which said "Imagemaster's button mania". A new, more structured organization has been applied to the many processing functions and the end result should be easier to use, although it will require one more mouse click in some cases to access a function. Other changes are coming in 9.0 as well; what are they? Wait and see! ============================================================================ REVIEW OF AMIGA TEX ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AUTHOR: Stewart Russell <scruss@cix.compulink.co.uk> SUBJECT: Amiga TeX 3.1h LOCATED: comp.sysamiga.reviews [This review is one of many located in the Usenet comp.sys.amiga.reviews echo. AM-Report has been granted permission by the echo editor, Jason L. Tibbits, III to reprint reviews of products found in the comp.sys.amiga.reviews echo. In return, AM-Report has granted permission to comp.sys.amiga.reviews to archive and reprint all reviews found in AM-Report International. -- Ed.] AmigaTeX is a full implementation of the TeX document preparation and typesetting system for Amiga computers. It includes automatic font generation using Metafont, virtual font mapping, PostScript font support, and Encapsulated PostScript and IFF graphics extensions. AmigaTeX makes good use of the Amiga's facilities, and at US$300, offers superb value for money. [ This review appeared in issue 12 of Jeff Walker's Just Amiga Monthly (JAM) magazine, but in a slightly different form. I tried selling this around most of the UK Amiga magazines, but they weren't interested. Feel free to use this review in any user magazine --- contact me at the Reply To: address if you want some pictures. I don't get around on Usenet much, so if you need me, use the Reply To: address. This review was not really intended for TeXperts, so please excuse any totally obvious bits. Stewart C. Russell Glasgow, Scotland. ] Page layout is a skilled job. Anyone who has looked at a badly DTP'd page will know this. Typesetting is a very skilled job, especially when difficult layouts such as mathematical formulae are involved. Universities generally have a large computer installation, and the facilities for publishing books papers written in house. Computers are great at keeping track of large numbers of measurements, which is essentially the basis of typesetting. The TeX Cycle TeX creates documents in its own special way. First, create your source file; AmigaTeX has no text editing facilities of its own, so you can use whatever editor you are happiest with. Next, run your source through the TeX program to create a device-independent (DVI) file, which contains all the page layout information. Then preview the layout on the screen viewer, which gives as good a picture of each page of the document as is possible on a computer screen. If you are happy with what you got out of the previewer, you send the DVI file through one of the printer drivers. With luck, you will have a document to cherish, output at the best quality your printer can manage. On a standard implementation of TeX, you would need to exit the text editor before running TeX, then exit TeX before running the previewer, and so on. With a 1 MB Amiga, you will probably be forced to do the same with AmigaTeX. With more memory, TeX and Preview can coexist. Preview responds to signals from TeX, telling it when it is free to display a page. With an ARexx-compatible text-editor, the whole package becomes completely interactive, with errors in the source being highlighted via a return code from TeX. Since Usenet's graphics facilities tend to zero, it's not worth including any TeX source or output here. Wander across to a university library, and flick through some books on TeX. You'll see what TeX source looks like, and more importantly, the superb results it can create. Macros TeX requires macro packages to become usable. AmigaTeX comes with two general purpose packages, Plain and LaTeX. Plain TeX allows control over every aspect of the page layout. Sometimes this means that the document gets so full of command sequences that it becomes impossible to read. LaTeX tries to maintain the flow of the document. It lacks some of the powerful primitive commands of Plain TeX, but has high level functions such as automatic section numbering, citation databases, instant footnotes and index generation. It's what most people use first, because it is straightforward to use. A common criticism of TeX documents is that they all look the same. With LaTeX, this is intentional; a standard document such as a PhD thesis should be uniformly laid out, since it is the content and not the presentation which is to be considered. Many TeX documents look the same because many users never bother to learn the more complex structures required to create new layouts; the power is there, if only people looked for it. TeX treats words as boxes, which are stuck together with glue that is free to stretch or shrink by a set amount. The lines of text, which can be independent of the lines on the input file, are also in boxes which can move about very slightly according to the current glue settings. Words cannot stretch or shrink, but they can be hyphenated across two lines. TeX has some very clever rules about this, and manages to hyphenate most instances correctly. A hyphenation dictionary is used for those difficult words. Fonts TeX uses a very elegant set of vector fonts, all designed for maximum readability at their design scale. These fonts are defined in units smaller than the wavelength of visible light, so no advance in phototypesetting will ever render TeX fonts obsolete. The Computer Modern series of fonts created by Donald Knuth are designed to be pleasing to the eye, without being simply derivatives of the existing classics. Since TeX is for serious publications, they are only available in sizes ranging from 5 to 17 points, all fully hinted, with an inch-high font for headlines. Scaling to any size is possible, but gross font scaling is not recommended, since the character stroke widths look correct at sizes close to the design scale. TeX does not use the vector fonts directly, since it must print to some sort of raster device. Compressed bitmap versions of the vector fonts are used, since there is approximately ten minutes calculation (on a standard A500) involved in generating one font at a given resolution. These fonts are what make up the bulk of the AmigaTeX distribution. There's around six megabytes of fonts with the basic package alone, more with each printer driver. Each font disk is colour coded, and AmigaTeX asks for them by name as it requires a certain font. A cache of these font bitmaps is built up on the hard disk, speeding up print times if the font is needed again. If you wish to use a strange sized font, AmigaTeX will ask you if you wish it generated in the Previewer. If you really need the font, the Metafont font generator is launched, and the font will appear in the fullness of time. Metafont isn't required too often once a mature cache has been established, so the time delay can be lived with. Metafont can also be used to design your own fonts. It uses a straightforward ASCII language to do this, the intricacies of which are explained in another book by Prof. Knuth. Like TeX, it is powerful, and easy to use once you understand its way of doing things. The latest version of AmigaTeX is compliant with TeX 3.1, which implements virtual fonts. A virtual font can be made up of parts from any other font - you could have upper case taken from a 10 point serif font, and lower case using the upper case characters from an 8 point set, giving a neat small caps font. One of the neater uses for virtual fonts is to allow the use of PostScript fonts in AmigaTeX documents. Both Type 1 and Type 3 fonts are supported, the former having anti-aliasing `hints' to give better output quality. Fonts produced by Adobe Systems are very well defined, but do not have the extreme precision of TeX's own. They do have the distinct advantage of being rendered very quickly (two minutes per font) and can be used totally transparently by AmigaTeX. Virtual font bitmaps are cached like any other TeX font, so rendering is a once-only delay. Graphics Plain TeX (and LaTeX) have only very simple line drawing commands. To counter this, TeX has an extremely powerful command called \special, which is so powerful that TeX ignores it completely. It is passed intact to the DVI file, and it is up to the printer driver to do something with it. It is in this way that AmigaTeX can render IFF and Encapsulated PostScript graphics into a predefined box. Adrian Aylward's `Post' PostScript interpreter is used to render EPS graphics into bitmaps of the correct density. It does this quickly; most screen graphics are drawn in under a minute, and even very large graphics at 360dpi took no more than four on my ageing A500. EPS clips are scaled to the correct box size, an operation which requires the clip's %%BoundingBox comment to be read. Therefore the clip must conform to Adobe's structuring convention; most graphics I created in PDraw 2 did not, for some reason. But then, Gold Disk software has an unexplained aversion to running on my machine. Thankfully I have two disks full of clips produced on the Mac, and these worked well. Using IFF graphics is much quicker than EPS, but the quality does not begin to compare. Low-contrast bitmaps can appear rather muddy, but the same bitmap printed from PageSetter II appears as a solid pane of grey. The mechanism for including IFF graphics is provided by an external library. This filters the picture via standard algorithms (Ordered, Classic Halftone, Floyd-Steinberg and Thresholding) and allows various noise and smoothing corrections to be made. The end result is a black and white bitmap, reasonably free of low-resolution jaggies, but still no match for proper photographic halftones. Printer Support AmigaTeX printer drivers aren't simple routines. For the most part, they eschew Preferences, and send printer-specific data to PAR: or SER:. This might seem a very un-Amiga way of doing things, but there are extremely good reasons for this approach. The first is speed. Intuition is not known for its rapidity, and even the fine printer drivers from Wolf Faust can't help the overhead involved in going through several layers of operating system, rather than rendering and printing direct. I managed to get a whole page printed at 180dpi in a mere 22 seconds on my NEC P20 [that's the UK name; they're something different in other places - SCR]. Going up to 360dpi took around a minute for the same page, but was really too dark since the print-head sometimes made four passes. The second reason for avoiding PRT: is memory usage. AmigaTeX is quite conservative with memory, but even so, rendering large bitmaps with the Post interpreter takes up space. The printer.device steals quite a load of memory just to exist, and that memory might be needed by AmigaTeX. The drivers have to marshal fonts (including firing up Metafont where necessary), initiate PostScript rendering processes, call up the IFF picture filtering routines and decode the rest of the DVI file before a single dot hits paper. Considering most drivers are only around 42 KB long, it's a wonder that they can fit all of this functionality in such a small space. Drivers exist for most popular printers; see the list at the end. If, however, your machine is not listed you can use the Preferences driver, which although slower, should work with just about anything. One driver program renders pages to IFF ILBM graphics files. The resultant files tend to be very big, but are a good source for well-formed text banners for graphics and DTP work. The Manual The manual is a huge ring-bound affair, as befits a system as complex as TeX. The first half deals with the specifics of AmigaTeX, since it is considerably more smart than a plain vanilla TeX. Tom writes in an easy, informative style which is certainly very readable over coffee. My one criticism of this fine manual is that it's too easy to miss valuable gems of information; points are rarely reiterated, and are never printed in larger type. I only read manuals if I have to, so check lists and summaries are appreciated. The other half of the manual is a very brief reference for any TeX system. It includes a good tutorial on TeX, but it can be no substitute for Prof. Knuth's TeXbook. Indeed, every piece of literature pertaining to TeX makes references to The TeXbook. This peeved me until I bought the book, then I realised why; it's probably the best-written manual you could wish for. You will need it. Support [I haven't dealt with Radical Eye direct, but only with the UK distributors. - SCR] AmigaTeX is now supplied and supported in the UK and Eire by Industrial Might & Logic Limited of Brighton. They forward the Radical Eye newsletter about twice a year. IML also keep a large collection of AmigaTeX-related public domain including fonts, EPS clip art and utilities, and there is a useful support conference on the wonderful CIX. I've been extremely happy with the quality of the support I received from IML while writing this review. But then, it would be foolish to offer anything less for a product as complex as AmigaTeX. Conclusion I do not have a terribly large Amiga setup; an 1 MB A500 with half a megabyte of Chip RAM and an old 20 MB A590 with 2 MB RAM. After reading dire warnings of memory usage when printing PostScript graphics, I was very pleasantly surprised that my system proved adequate for everything I could throw at AmigaTeX. I reckon I used AmigaTeX every day for a month before writing this review, and it never misbehaved once. [That "one month" is now three months - and AmigaTeX still hasn't done anything stupid.] My first AmigaTeX installation was fraught with problems - I was still using ARP's bugged Execute at the time, and the script failed badly. Replacing this file with the CBM original removes the problem. [I had to reinstall the package after a hard disk failure.] Should you buy AmigaTeX, then? If you are wanting striking presentation, with WOBs and tints and other fripperies, go for PPage or Pagestream. If you want to produce highly readable documents quickly and beautifully, go for AmigaTeX. It is what the Amiga is made for. -- AmigaTeX 3.1h - published by Radical Eye Software Box 2081 Stanford CA 94309 USA Phone (415) 32-AMIGA BBS (415) 32-RADIO [Supplier in UK and Eire - Industrial Might & Logic Ltd 58 Cobden Road Brighton East Sussex BN2 2TJ Tel - (0273) 621393 ] An AmigaTeX demo disk is available free, on written request. -------- Pricing (All UK prices in Pounds Sterling; ASCII doesn't support pound signs, so we'll have to make do with hashes.) AmigaTeX main package (14 disks) US$200 #111.63 (#95+VAT) Printer Drivers and fonts US$100 #52.88 (#45+VAT) (All include Preferences and IFF drivers) Drivers available for - Laser (HP LaserJet, PostScript and DeskJet) Epson 9-pin NEC/Epson 24-pin ImageWriter II -- Stewart C. Russell University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland, UK ============================================================================ PD/SHAREWARE GEMS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ TD v2.0 by Preben Nielsen. I can't quite remember where I found this one, but I love it when ever I am using a floppy drive. TD stands for "Track Disk" and that is exactly what it does. TD brings up a titlebar with the name of the floppy drive (DF0:, DF1:, etc.) and the track that the head is located on. When the drive is accessed, you can see just where the drive head is going. The executable code is only 1412 bytes long, so downloading it takes only seconds at 2400 baud. TD v2.0 works fine with KS1.3 and 2.04 and has no problems with a 68000 based or 68030 based machine. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- SysInfo v2.68 by Nic Wilson Software for Progressive Peripherals & Software SysInfo is a program that gives you information about your computer system. It can identify expansion boards in slots; hard drive types, sizes and manufacturers; comparatively rate the system's speed and tell you about the system software. Here is a typical report generated by SysInfo v2.68: AM-Report A3000 System SysInfo V2.68 by Nic Wilson --------------------------- CopyBack Mode.................................. N/A Instruction Cache.............................. ON Instruction Burst.............................. OFF Data Cache..................................... ON Data Burst..................................... OFF Central Processing Unit Type................... 68030 Memory Management Unit Type.................... 68030 Floating Point Unit Type....................... 68882 Vector Base Register (VBR) Address............. $00000000 Ramsey Chip Revision (A3000)................... $D Gary Chip Revision (A3000)..................... $0 DMAC Chip Type (A3000)......................... OLD KickStart Size, Location & Version............. (512K) ($00F80000) V37.175 Exec Memory Type, Node Location & Version...... 32BitRAM ($07C007D8) V37.132 Workbench Memory Type, Node Location & Version. 32BitRAM ($07CC9270) V37.67 Intuition Memory Type, Node Location & Version. 32BitRAM ($07C0DC04) V37.318 Graphics Memory Type, Node Location & Version.. 32BitRAM ($07C07368) V37.35 Dos Memory Type, Node Location & Version....... 32BitRAM ($07C03FC8) V37.44 68040.lib Memory Type, Node Location & Version. N/A Agnus Type..................................... ECS 2 MEG Display Mode................................... NTSC Denise Type.................................... ECS 8373 Number of Floppies............................. 1 Number of Hard Partitions or Custom drives..... 2 Number of ram Drives (Rad: etc.)............... 0 Number of unrecognised drives (Others)......... 0 Total Memory available......................... 6290432 Free Chip Memory............................... 1825616 Free 16 Bit Fast Memory........................ 0 Free 32 Bit Fast Memory........................ 3165567 Total Free Memory available.................... 4991183 Hardware Clock installed....................... FOUND Fast Ram Speed increase vs Chip Ram............ +53% SPEED COMPARISONS AGAINST KNOWN MODELS & PERIPHERALS ---------------------------------------------------- A500 512k or A500 with 1MB CHIP ONLY........... 7.89 B2000, A2000, A1000 or A500 with fast ram...... 6.01 B2000 GVP A3001 28MHZ ALL CACHES & BURSTS..... 0.72 A2500 A2620 68020 14MHZ card.................. 2.10 A3000/25 SCRAM ICACHE IBURST DCACHE NODBURST... 0.91 A3000 PP&S 68040 ICACHE DCACHE COPYBACK....... 0.20 IBM PC/XT or compatible........................ 25.67 CPU Million Instructions per Second............ 3.65 FPU Million Floating Operations per Second..... COMPUTING MFLOPS Speed of Chip Memory vs A3000 Chip Memory...... COMPUTING MFLOPS CIA (A) timer accuracy test ................... 0.64 If Slow/Fast, Error in Ticks per Second ....... 1.05 Nic's Comment.................................. Passed CPU speed in MHZ............................... 0 ZOOMIN' Dude! START ADDRESS25.03 END ADDRESSSPEED COMPARISONS TOTAL SIZESPEED COMPARISONS The board identification screen looked like this: AUTOCONFIG BOARD INFORMATION Board Address Board Size Board Type Product Manufacturer Serial # ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ $00E90000 64K ZORRO II 2400zi MODEM Supra Corp. 0 $00EA0000 64K ZORRO II 9 2012 0 $00EB0000 64K ZORRO II IV24 GFX CARD GVP 0 The board it didn't recognize was a DKB SecureKey. I've left email to the author telling him the proper answers. The DRIVE and MEMORY options have more detailed information as well. The program is one of the beast I've seen of its type, and one I like having on my hard drive. The author can be reached at: Nic Wilson Nic Wilson Software 138d South Street Toowoomba Queensland 4350 Phone (076) 358539 A/H Voice only (076) 358384 W/H Fax or voice (076) 358522 W/H Voice only EMAIL cbmehq!cbmaus!wilson!nic@cbmvax.commodore.com ============================================================================ -* RUMORS *- 1. Commodore is getting ready to release a '386 based Bridgeboard (finally!) and the specs look like this: 20 MHz 80386SX 1 Mb RAM (can be increased to 8) CGA video on the motherboard (what a joke!) Uses the Amiga's serial/parallel/disk drives/hard drives/mouse The board is supposed to be a single-board package like the XT-Bridge, not a dual-board type like the AT-Bridge. That helps a bit, but the CGA video is a joke. It should have at least EGA if not 16-color VGA. The circuits for either don't take up enough space to really make that much difference. Still, the specs are only second-hand and I haven't seen silicon yet... Oh, yes. The expected price is $779 Canadian and at least one dealer in Canada set their price at $699 Canadian. The Board was supposedly on the February pricing list but again, I haven't seen it first-hand. 2. A beta-test copy of Workbench 2.1 has been floating around pirate BBSes and while I haven't seen it, and everyone denies its existance, here is the scoop: Beta copies went out to developers in mid Feburary, some idiot posted it to some boards. CBM has put out an official letter stating that it was a Beta and that it wasn't safe to run and did not accurately show what the final version will be. They reminded people of the copyright on it. Currently WB 2.1 is a five disk set. The Preferences options supposedly now support an 8-bit color range (256 colors) and a CrossDOS like alternate DOS system is built in for MS-DOS. A "locale.library" is used to increase support for non-English using Amigans. [I'd like to add that since WB 2.05 was shown in Germany with IDE drive support for the A600, I think that IDE support will be added to WB 2.1] 3. NewTek is supposedly working on two new versions of the Toaster. The first is the same-old Toaster with a modified backplane that can be user-altered to fit comfortably in an A3000. The second supports D2 or HDTV output as an option (as well as NTSC). Look for the first late this year or early 1993. No target date has been set for the second. 4. Newer Technologies, the company that has announced the Amiga laptop that CBM blasted, is rumored to be taking orders for two models that will be shipped WITHOUT CUSTOM CHIPS. The purchaser is supposed to supply the custom chips (hmmm...those old A1000s may be good for something after all). [Note that a number of early third-party Macintosh laptop/portable manufacturers used this trick with Mac ROMS. -- Ed.] [Just a side note. With the A600's motherboard being so small, and the integrated PCMCIA slot, it would be much easier to turn it into a laptop than any previous Amiga. There is still the problem of power- hungry chips, though...] 5. Some good news, the High Density floppies are now available from Commodore The Part# is 313248-01. Price approx. $159.00 Although they are currently out of stock. But you can place your order for them. 6. The Amiga prices are starting to be competitive. Just look at this list I got from a local dealer: Amiga 2000 . . . . . . . . . . .$ 999.00 Amiga 2000 w/ 1084S . . . . . . $1239.00 Amiga 2000HD . . . . . . . . . $1199.00 Amiga 2000HD w/ 1084S . . . . $1449.00 Amiga 3000 16/40 w/ 1950 . . . $1850.00 (while supplies last) Amiga 3000 25/50 w/ 1950 . . . $3099.00 ($2599.00 with rebate) Amiga 3000 Tower w/ 1950 . . . $4299.00 ($3799.00 with rebate) And best of all, on 25mz models, you still get the $500 rebate from CBM. [The rebate was originally scheduled to expire on March 31 but Commodore has extended it indefinitely! Tell your friends to hurry!] [All prices are $US and may vary from dealer to dealer.] ============================================================================ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- AMReport International Online Magazine Available through more than 10,000 Private BBS systems WorldWide! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- AMReport "YOUR INDEPENDENT NEWS SOURCE" May 20, 1992 16/32bit Magazine copyright 1992 Volume 2.03 -------------------------------------------------------------------------