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_ ____ ___ ______ _______ _ d# ####b g#00 `N##0" _agN#0P0N# d# d## jN## j##F J## _dN0" " d## .#]## _P ##L jN##F ### g#0" .#]## dE_j## # 0## jF ##F j##F j##' ______ dE_j## .0"""N## d" ##L0 ##F 0## 0## "9##F" .0"""5## .dF' ]## jF ##0 ##F ##F `##k d## .dF' j## .g#_ _j##___g#__ ]N _j##L_ _d##L_ `#Nh___g#N' .g#_ _j##__ """"" """"""""""" " """""" """""" """"""" """"" """""" May 28, 1993 No. 1.11 ============================================================================== Amiga Report International Online Magazine ============================================================================== From STR Publishing [S]ilicon [T]imes [R]eport ----------------------------------------- * NOVA BBS * Amiga Report Headquarters * RUNNING STARNET BBS * Wayne Stonecipher, Sysop FidoNet 1:362/508 An Amiga Software Distribution Site (ADS) 615-472-9748 Supra V.32bis 24hrs - 7 days Cleveland, Tennessee ------------------------------------------ * IN THE MEANTIME BBS * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site * RUNNING STARNET BBS * Robert Niles, Sysop FidoNet 1:3407/104 509-453-7004 Supra V.32bis 24hrs - 7 days Yakima, Washington ------------------------------------------ Amiga Report can be FREQ'd from these two boards each week. Use the filename AR.LHA and you will always get the latest issue. ----------------------------------------- * THE BOUNTY BBS * Home of STR Publications * RUNNING TURBOBOARD BBS * 904-786-4176 USR DS 16.8 24hrs - 7 days ----------------------------------------- ______________________________________________________________________________ > 05/28/93 Amiga Report 1.11 "The Original * Independent * Online Magazine!" ========================== - The Editor's Desk - CPU Report - New Products - Dealer Directory - AR Online - AR Confidential - Usenet Reviews - AR Staff Bio - DevPac 3 - Long Notes - Oh Yeah?! - A2000 PowerUp -* GEnie Announces New Rates *- -* A Moronic, Inane and Gratutious Column *- -* Babylon 5 to Become TV Series *- ============================================================================== Amiga Report International Online Magazine From STR Publications [S]ilicon [T]imes [R]eport The Original * Independent * Online Magazine -* FEATURING WEEKLY *- "Accurate UP-TO-DATE News and Information" Current Events, Original Articles, Tips, Rumors, and Information Hardware ~ Software ~ Corporate ~ R & D ~ Imports ============================================================================== GENIE ~ DELPHI ~ NVN ~ BIX ~ PORTAL ~ FIDO ~ INTERNET ============================================================================== IMPORTANT NOTICE! ================= Amiga Report International Online Magazine is available every week in the Amiga Forum on DELPHI. Amiga Report readers are invited to join DELPHI and become a part of the friendly community of computer enthusiasts there. SIGNING UP WITH DELPHI ====================== Using a personal computer and modem, members worldwide access DELPHI services via a local phone call JOIN -- DELPHI -------------- Via modem, dial up DELPHI at 1-800-695-4002 then... When connected, press RETURN once or twice and.... At Password: type STREPORT and press RETURN. DELPHI's Basic Plan offers access for only $6.00 per hour, for any baud rate. The $5.95 monthly fee includes your first hour online. For more information, call: DELPHI Member Services at 1-800-544-4005 DELPHI is a service of General Videotex Corporation of Cambridge, MA. Try DELPHI for $1 an hour! For a limited time, you can become a trial member of DELPHI, and receive 5 hours of evening and weekend access during this month for only $5. If you're not satisfied, simply cancel your account before the end of the calendar month with no further obligation. If you keep your account active, you will automatically be enrolled in DELPHI's 10/4 Basic Plan, where you can use up to 4 weekend and evening hours a month for a minimum $10 monthly charge, with additional hours available at $3.96. But hurry, this special trial offer will expire soon! To take advantage of this limited offer, use your modem to dial 1-800-365-4636. Press <RET> once or twice. When you get the Password: prompt, type IP26 and press <RET> again. Then, just answer the questions and within a day or two, you'll officially be a member of DELPHI! DELPHI - It's getting better all the time! ****************************************************************************** > From the Editor's Desk "Saying it like it is!" ====================== The holiday weekend is upon us! Everyone is gathering their inner tubes, beach balls, boats, and so forth for a traditional party weekend. Hopefully more people will have the sense to know when to say when -- and not try to drive after they've been drinking. I'd like to hope that everybody that reads our magazine each week will be alive and well to read it next week. Speaking of next week, that will be our last weekly issue for a while. I have to keep mentioning it, so people don't start wondering when an issue doesn't show up on June 11th. The issue after next week's (June 4th) will be June 18th. This week, we welcome aboard a new staff member. Robert Niles will assume the position of Assistant Technical Editor, providing additional material on technical and other subjects. Mr. Niles runs a BBS in Yakima, Washington, which will become an official Amiga Report distribution site. This should take some of the load off of Nova BBS, which has reported many new callers and file requests from all over the globe. That's it for this week. Y'all have a great weekend! Rob @ Amiga Report ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Amiga Report Staff DEDICATED TO SERVING YOU! ====================== Editor in Chief =============== Robert Glover Associate Editors ================= Technical Staff GEnie Delphi BIX FidoNet --------------- ------------------------------------------------------ Micah Thompson BOOMER.T Robert Niles RNILES 1:3407/104 Graphics Staff -------------- Mike Troxell M.TROXELL1 1:362/508.5 Contributing Staff ------------------ Tom Mulcahy 16BITTER HELMET 1:260/322 Contributing Correspondents =========================== John Deegan Chad Freeman Barry McConnell Lloyd E. Pulley, Sr. PC DIVISION ATARI DIVISION MAC DIVISION =========== ============== ============ Roger D. Stevens Ralph F. Mariano R. Albritton ************************ *** IMPORTANT NOTICE *** ************************ Please, submit letters to the editor, articles, reviews, etc... via E-Mail to the Editor: Delphi........................ ROB_G GEnie......................... ROB-G Internet.......................ROB_G@Delphi.COM FidoNet........................1:362/508.6 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > CPU STATUS REPORT LATE BREAKING INDUSTRY-WIDE NEWS ================= Computer Products Update - CPU Report ------------------------ ---------- Weekly Happenings in the Computer World Issue #21 By: John Deegan JUDGE BACKS NINTENDO OVER ATARI - In San Francisco, U.S. District Judge Fern Smith has backed Nintendo of America's contention that Atari Games infringed its patent for the security system for the Nintendo Entertainment System. Judge Smith granted Nintendo's motion for summary judgment, finding that Atari, a unit of Time Warner Inc., had infringed Nintendo's patent. Earlier, the judge issued an injunction against Atari after finding its representatives had misled officials at the U.S. Copyright Office to obtain Nintendo's copyrighted source code for its video-game cartridges. Atari Games vows to appeal a federal judge's ruling it infringed the patent for the security system in the Nintendo Entertainment System. Editor's Note: Atari Games is not connected with Atari Corp. MOTOROLA PLANS NEW CHIPS - Motorola Inc. plans to introduce three new microprocessors for portable computers that it says will provide a range of price and performance options demanded by low-power products such as video games, home entertainment systems and pocket organizers. Motorola Vice President Bob Growney, general manager of Motorola's Paging and Wireless Data Group, is quoted as saying, "Our goal of anytime, anywhere communications requires specialized technology." In addition, Vice President Jack Browne said Motorola expects its chips to supply at least a third of the personal communicator market, estimated by some industry analysts to reach $500 million by 1995. IBM UNVEILS OS/2 2.1 - IBM has unveiled OS/2 Version 2.1, an enhanced version of its 32-bit operating system for Intel-based personal computers. OS/2 2.1 supports Windows 3.1 applications, and features 32- bit graphics and longer battery life for mobile PC platforms. It also is more powerful and faster than version 2.0. OS/2 2.1 will be generally available June 14 at a list price of $249. A 90-day promotional offering of $99 for CD-ROM versions and $119 for diskette versions is available to users who order an upgrade through IBM's toll free number -- 1-800-3IBM-OS2 . In addition, OS/2 users who upgrade to 2.1 will receive a $30 rebate by filling out a coupon in the 2.1 box and mailing it with the first page of their 2.0 manual. NEC OFFERS 64-BIT RISC CHIP - A new 64-bit microprocessor is being introduced by Japan's NEC Corp. which says the chip's low power consumption will bring desktop computing power to portable systems. Supposedly the VR4200, based on MIPS Technologies Inc.'s RISC (reduced instruction set computing) architecture, consumes less than 1.5 watts, "making it suitable for portable PCs that run off batteries and have limited cooling systems." NEC says the chip will enable notebook users to run application programs under Windows NT, the new operating system Microsoft Corp. plans to put on general release later this year. STUDY TO EXAMINE LINK BETWEEN VIDEO GAMES AND EPILEPSY - British researchers have announced they will launch a study to examine whether there is a link between video games and epileptic seizures in children. The study, funded by the Department of Trade and Industry, aims to establish the degree of risk posed by the games to people who are photosensitive to flashing lights and to determine if the games trigger fits in children with no previous history of epilepsy. Photosensitivity, reacting chemically or electrically to light, is usually identified only when a person has a seizure. Researchers will estimate the number of new cases of photosensitive epilepsy in Britain per year and describe risk factors such as time of day, tiredness, duration of play, distance from screen and type of screen. They will also compare the effects of computers and video games on people with photosensitive epilepsy, as well as the effects of television, flashing lights or computer graphics. INTEL SETS PRICES AND SHIPS PENTIUM CHIP - Intel Corp. has set prices for its Pentium microprocessors of $965 each for the 66-MHz version and $878 each for the 60-MHz version in 1,000-unit quantities prompting several announcements from computer manufacturers about new models featuring the state-of-the-art chip. Intel is now shipping production versions of the chips and expects to ship hundreds of thousands of the Pentium microprocessors this year and cross the one million mark in 1994. Among those announcing new computers based on the Pentium was Compaq Computer Corp., whose chief of European operations, Andreas Barth, predicted the new chip will tap fresh markets for Compaq. Other companies introducing Pentium-based computers today include Unisys Corp., NCR Corp., AST Research Inc., Dell Computer Corp. ZIFF DISCONTINUES PC SOURCES - Magazine publisher Ziff-Davis Publish- ing Co. says it will discontinue publication of PC Sources and change the format of its Corporate Computing, making it a monthly newsletter published by its subsidiary, The Cobb Group. CHIP MARKET TO GROW 20 PERCENT - The Semiconductor Industry Associa- tion predicts the worldwide chip industry will grow 20% this year to $71.9 billion by the end of the year. SIA is quoted as projecting the growth being led by the North American market, which will see a 28.1% gain in 1993 shipments to $23.6 billion. AT&T OFFERS NEW MODEM CHIPS - A new, high-speed modem chipset has been announced by AT&T Microelectronics. AT&T says the chips provide reliable data communications over the existing cellular phone network and make it easy for vendors to provide interfaces between modems and cellular phones. AT&T signed a patent license agreement with Spectrum Information Technologies Inc. last month under which AT&T V32Cell modem chipset customers "can design and sell modems based on the V32Cell chipset without concern about infringing Spectrum's patents," Reuters reports. AT&T Microelectronics is the only chipmaker able to provide modem chipsets covered under Spectrum patents. __________________________________________________ TELECOM SOFTWARE FOR HEARING IMPAIRED DEBUTS HOUSTON, TEXAS -- Futuresoft Engineering has announced that it is shipping an enhanced version of it's DynaComm 3.1 Windows communications program which features special on-screen visual clues for hearing impaired users. Although it is obvious visually impaired computer users face formidable obstacles when it comes to using telecommunications software, it may not be as obvious to most people that hearing impaired users will also require special software to make bulletin board and other services easy to use. The latest release of DynaComm provides special animated Windows icons that activate during operation to display the same information normally provided by audio signals from the user's modem. Since most feedback for dial tone acquisition and exchange of protocol settings are signaled by sounds, the lack of this feedback for hearing impaired users can make telecommunications tasks quite difficult. Although external modems do provide signal lights or a combination of lights and LCD text display to indicate modem status, this is not true for most internal modems and in any case, the visual indicators supplement, but do not replace the audio indicators. Icons supplied by the new FutureSoft communications software include those which indicate a busy signal, a broken connection, and other normally audible signals. These same icons are also highly useful for non hearing impaired workers who are either situated remotely from the actual modem or can't hear the signals for other environmental reasons such as being in a noisy location. A free copy of the upgrade is available to hearing impaired users of registered copies of DynaComm 3.1. ------------------------------ EPSON ANNOUNCES PC TUNED FOR NEXTSTEP TORRANCE, CALIFORNIA -- Hard on the heels of the official announcement of the Nextstep operating system for Intel-based personal computers, Epson has announced the availability of the Progression NX. The company says that the NX is the first in a line of PCs optimized to run Nextstep. Nextstep is the operating system developed by Apple Computer co- founder Steve Jobs at his new company Next for the futuristic, black, cube workstation computer, also called Next. However, five months ago Next announced it would stop producing the Next computer and focus entirely on being a software company, moving the Nextstep operating system to the Intel personal computer (PC) platform. The resulting operating system is the Nextstep 486 and Next says it already has commitments for 25,000 copies of the new operating system. Next says the Nextstep operating system will run Windows and DOS applications as well. The Progression NX offers an Intel 486DX2/66 processor with support for future Intel Overdrive processors, including the new Pentium-class. It comes with 36 megabytes (MB) of random access memory (RAM) standard, expandable to 68 MB on the motherboard board via single in-line memory modules (SIMMs) and offers Epson's proprietary memory architecture, Virtualcache. To meet the special video needs of the Nextstep operating system, the Progression NX has 2 MB of video RAM standard, with random access memory digital-to- analog conversion (RAMDAC) support for 1120 by 832 resolution. To accommodate the sizeable portion of disk space the Nextstep operating system and its applications consume, the Progression NX comes standard with a 525 MB small computer systems interface (SCSI) hard disk drive, six industry standard architecture (ISA) slots, five drive bays, a multimedia sound card, and a Ethernet local area network (LAN) adapter. Epson is also planning the Epson NX, a sister machine to the Progression NX, but with the Nextstep operating system pre- loaded. The Progression NX is aimed at independent software vendors (ISVs) and power users while the Epson NX is aimed at the end user, Epson representatives said. Planned for release this summer, the Epson NX will offer a 170 MB integrated drive electronics (IDE) hard disk drive and 20 MB of RAM expandable to 68 MB, four ISA slots, and three drive bays. It will also come standard with 2 MB of video RAM with RAMDAC support for 1120 by 832 display resolution. The Progression NX is currently available to Nextstep beta sites and Next-authorized independent software vendors for $5,349. The Epson NX will have an estimated selling price of less than $3,700, company representatives said. Epson also announced the Progression 4 series aimed at the Microsoft Windows user market. The Progression 4 PCs feature CHIPS & Technologies' Wingine local bus graphics and the Epson's proprietary memory architecture designed to offer faster Windows performance. Suggested retail prices for the Progression 4 line start at $1,339. ------------------------------ APPLE TO BUILD PCI LOCAL BUS MACINTOSHES ATLANTA, GEORGIA -- Apple Computer has aligned itself with the group of vendors who announced support for the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) Local Bus standard in their future systems. The bottom line is Apple's adoption of the PCI Local Bus will make its computers compatible with the same peripherals IBM-compatible computers will use. Originally introduced by Intel, the leader in central processing units (CPUs) for the IBM-compatible personal computer (PC) market, the PCI standard is a core architecture, offers data transfer capability between computer expansion cards, and is aimed at multimedia. The PCI Local Bus has been described by the PCI Special Interest Group (SIG) as a high-performance local bus architecture designed to eliminate bottlenecks between a computer's processor and its high band-width peripherals, such as networking, video, and graphics. Intel has announced PCI as an open standard and has offered free PCI licenses to the PC manufacturing market in order to promote it. One PC vendor said Intel didn't want PCI to become another Microchannel. Microchannel is IBM's architecture standard for the PC bus which never gained wide acceptance. The purpose of the PCI SIG is to work on the specification. Intel is a permanent member of the steering committee of that group, but 150 other PC companies are involved, including IBM. Apple's Vice President of its Desktop Products Group, Eric Harslem, said the companies involved in the PCI SIG are interested in leveraging off of each other's research and development investments. "Apple's participation in the PCI Steering Committee will ensure that PCI will become the de facto industry standard local bus," said Mike Bailey, PCI Steering Committee chairperson. "With Apple's support of PCI, we are gaining momentum for a unified bus strategy that connects the PC industry by supporting different CPUs, architectures, and platforms." Apple's adoption of the open PCI standard will mean more choices at a lower cost to future Macintosh users. The choice of cards for Apple's current Nubus system architecture has been limited by the fact that manufacturers have been forced to develop a separate product for the Nubus, Harslem said. The adoption of PCI by Apple should mean that users can buy any card off the shelf and it will work in a Macintosh, an IBM compatible system, and perhaps even a workstation -- if workstation manufacturers also adopt the PCI standard, according to Harslem. "When the XT bus was introduced in 1986, Apple chose not adopt the standard because we felt it was too limiting," Harslem said. "However, the adoption of PCI is a good move for Apple." Plans are to adopt the PCI architecture in second generation PowerPC-based Macintosh computers. Apple this month showed the first prototype of the PowerPC-based Macintosh, a CPU it announced with IBM and Motorola in October of 1991. "Power" is an acronym based on IBM's Performance Optimization with Enhanced RISC (reduced instruction set computing) technology. Harslem said that, just like the PC community's investment in its extended industry standard architecture (EISA) will mean a slow move to PCI as a standard, Apple has a large investment in the Nubus for the PowerPC-based Macintosh. Notwithstanding, users can expect to see the first PCI Local Bus Macintosh PowerPCs in the first half of 1994, Harslem added. ------------------------------ COMPUTER CITY NAMES THIRD EUROPEAN LOCATION FORT WORTH, TEXAS -- Tandy Corporation division Computer City has announced the location of its third SuperCenter in Europe. The company said this week that the third European outlet would be in South Stockholm, Sweden. The company already operates SuperCenter stores in Stockholm and Copenhagen, Denmark. The new SuperCenter will be located at Kings Corner, across from the IDEA furniture store, and will occupy about 1,485 square meters when it opens in the third quarter. Computer City SuperCenters in Europe sell Apple, Commodore, Compaq, Canon, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Victor personal computers and peripherals, as well as a selection of software, telephones, fax machines, copiers, and furniture. Computer City spokesperson Ron Trumbla told Newsbytes the company employs an average of 60 people in each of its US outlets. In addition to its European outlets, the company operates 20 SuperCenters in the US, and says it will add 15 additional superstores this year and 16 more each year over the next two years. Computer City estimates sales will approach the $1 billion mark in 1994, the third full year of operation. Trumbla told Newsbytes the next US Computer City SuperCenter, the 22nd, will open in the Fort Lauderdale, Florida area this summer. The 25,000-square-foot facility will be located in the Sawgrass Mills Shopping Center in Sunrise. Another store is scheduled for opening in Santa Ana, California, also this summer, and construction has begun on a store in the Seattle area. ------------------------------ SPINNAKER REPORTS THIRD QUARTER LOSS, RENEWS TRADITIONAL FOCUS CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS -- Spinnaker Software has announced a $19.03 million operating loss for the third quarter, along with plans to sell its line of data access products, and focus more fully on personal productivity software, its traditional strong suit. About $14.05 million of the loss was due to a one-time charge for purchased research and development relating to Spinnaker's March 30 acquisition of Power Up, another top player in the personal productivity segment, officials reported in the company's latest financial statement. The Power Up product line consists of a variety of personal productivity tools for DOS, Windows, and the Mac, including Calendar Creator Plus, FormWorx, Express Publisher, Labels Unlimited, Quick Schedule Kit, Address Book Plus, and Name That Disk. Spinnaker's previously-established product lines include the PFS: and Easy Working suites of DOS- and Windows-based software for the small business and home office arena, in addition to Plus and Personal Access data access software for corporate enterprise use. Spinnaker hasn't yet set an asking price for Plus and Personal Access, said Dan Chmielewski, a company spokesperson, in an interview with Newsbytes. "The client/server (data access) software didn't work out very well for us, but we've been consistently successful in the small business and home office market," Chmielewski said. Developers from Spinnaker and its new Power Up subsidiary are now at work on several new applications, and these will be announced as products this summer, he told Newsbytes. Spinnaker's third quarter ended March 31. Also during the period, the company's quarterly revenues dropped to $5.11 million, down $2.37 million from $7.48 million for the same quarter the previous year, according to the financial statement. In the statement, C. David Seuss, president, cited two negative impacts on revenue for the quarter: a general slump in retail sales throughout the US, together with price protection allowances provided to dealers, distributors and direct customers to support repricing in Spinnaker's PFS:Pretty Fantastic Savings promotion. In Pretty Fantastic Savings, the prices of PFS branded products have been reduced to below $50 from previous levels of about $80. Spinnaker expects the lower pricing to generate incremental revenue and profits in current retail outlets and to provide entrance into new stores, but the timing of its introduction was too late for significant third quarter benefits, said Seuss. "Pretty Fantastic Savings is still going on, and it's been very well received," Chmielewski commented. Spinnaker will launch more promotions for the personal productivity products this quarter and the next, he added. Power Up brings important synergies, officials said. Where Spinnaker has emphasized retail distribution, Power Up has concentrated on building direct catalog reach. IBM, Apple, Compaq, Dell, NEC, ZDS, Acer, Fountain and Tandy are all bundling Spinnaker or Power Up software with PCs. For 1992, Spinnaker reported revenues of $28 million and Power Up reported revenues of $34 million, a total that would put Spinnaker in 17th place in the 1993 SoftLetter top 100 list of independent PC software companies in the US. Chmielewski told Newsbytes that Power Up is the number one competitor in the PC calendar market. Spinnaker is the leader in resume software, with a combined market share of 70 percent from Easy Working Resume Kit and PFS:Resume and Job Search Pro, he said. A Windows version of Resume and Job Search Pro is slated to join the DOS edition in the marketplace soon. Chmielewski corroborated previously published press reports that some technologies from Power Up might be integrated into Spinnaker products. But when asked to confirm that Calendar Creator Plus might be incorporated into one of Spinnaker's desktop publishing software, he declined to comment. "We're looking at how (Spinnaker and Power Up) can best complement each other over both the short- and long-term in the next generation of products," he told Newsbytes. The previous stories are (c) 1993 NewsBytes. Reprinted with permission. __________________________________________________ BABYLON 5 ANNOUNCES 22 EPISODES The Prime Time Entertainment Network has finalized plans to add a new series, Babylon 5, to its schedule. This move will expand its programming base by fifty percent. The series Babylon 5, based on the highly-rated telefilm of the same name, has been given an order for 22 episodes set to debut on the PTEN schedule in January, 1994. The series follows on the success of the original telefilm, which aired on PTEN in March 1993 and achieved a 10.3 GAA national rating, out-rating the strong two-hour premiers of Kung Fu: The Legend Continues (10.2), The Untouchables (10.2), and Time Trax (8.4). Babylon 5 will fill the Wednesday, 8:00 (PT) time period previously held by Time Trax, which will now be scheduled in prime time on a second night. ------------------------------ NEW CD-ROM ANNOUNCED FOR THE AMIGA NOTICE TO ALL! Announcing development of the "Spectral Sensation" JPEG CD-ROM for the Amiga and IBM platforms. Having already accumulated several megabytes of JPEG digitized, rendered, and original art JPEG's, I've decided to produce a JPEG CD-ROM for myself and other's to enjoy. Along with the 24-bit JPEG pictures most of them will be rendered in Ham-8 plus an IBM format for quick viewing. And of course there will be the usual Graphics utilities, PD and Shareware Image Processing software, plus other goodies. If there is any room left over, I will try to fit a few DCTV or HAM- 8 animations on the disc. At this time I'm asking for artist contributions. One thing I do believe in is the intellectual property rights of artist's, so do not want to use someone's work without their permission. So if you have some 24-bit IFF, JPEG, or other format pictures, rendered or original photography that you are willing to contribute, please let me know via Genie Mail. If enough of your pictures are used on the CD I will create a special directory for your contributions, plus send you a freebie CD just for thanks! I've already received permission from several artist's and hope to include your work for the CD, so dust off the scanner, 3D rendering software, and paint programs! Thanks for your Support! John Gager - KBSoft Home: 509-525-5272 Work: 509-522-6380 FAX: 509-522-3422 GEnie: J.GAGER Bix: JGAGER ------------------------------ ADEV11 V2.0 AVAILABLE FOR FTP TITLE: ADev11 VERSION: 2.0 AUTHOR: Stan Burton Internet: sburton@dres.dnd.ca BIX: sburton DESCRIPTION: ADev11 is a complete development system for the Motorola MC68HC11 processor. Separately compiled/assembled source files are linked to produce an S-record file. Includes C compiler, assembler (a highly modified version of DAsm), linker, librarian, disassembler and serial downloader. Additionally, the assembler, linker and librarian handle source for 6800, 6303 and 68HC16. For those that dislike S-records there is a converter which converts to memory dump. Source for the converter is included. REQUIREMENTS: AmigaDos 1.3 or later SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS: None NEW FEATURES: C compiler, bug fixes, some new features and additional library functions. Multiple processor support for downloader. FTP LOCATIONS: File name: ADev11_2_0.lha Aminet sites, ex. wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4): pub/aminet/dev/cross BIX: amiga.user/listings PRICE: US $0.00 DISTRIBUTION: Freely Distributable. ------------------------------ MAINACTOR V1.0 AVAILABLE FOR FTP TITLE MainActor VERSION 1.00 AUTHOR Markus Moenig markusm@tolkien.adsp.sub.org DESCRIPTION MainActor is a modular animator package. It allows you to create, edit, and play animations of the provided animation formats. You can convert any format into any other, allowing you to convert for example a range of pictures into an animation format of your choice, or resave the frames of an animation to an picture format, or simply to convert different picture formats. The following modules are included in this release: Animation Loader Animation Saver ---------------- --------------- IFF-Anim5 IFF-Anim5 IFF-Anim7_16 IFF-Anim7_16 IFF-Anim7_32 IFF-Anim7_32 IFF-AnimBrush Picture Loader Picture Saver -------------- ------------- IFF IFF ICON Features:- -Intelligent caching/tracking, MainActor can cache your animations and picture lists, if you have not enough memory it will directly access your data from any device. This makes it for example possible to create/edit/play a 400MB animation on your 2MB Amiga. -If you run OS 3.0 or higher, you will get an extra speed bonus on animations through the use of the new graphics routines. For OS2.0/2.1 users there are specific routines in the modules, which will give them the best playback speed possible on their system (and my knowledge :)). -Under OS 3.0 you will get the extra features of showing pictures or playing animations in a scrollable, resizable window on your MainActor or Workbench screen. The colors will be properly adjusted to your screen attributes. -The modules have play routines of their own, so it will be possible to redirect the input/output of special modules to graphic cards or other hardware. -The play routines support a timecode per frame option. A Sound Module (per frame) option will be there in one of the next releases. -MainActor has a totally user reconfigureable GUI. The settings of your sessions can be saved, this includes the size/position of windows as well as the status of the projects. -MainActor has an arexx port, nearly all functions can be accessed through it. You can for example scale or dither whole animations through the use of an image processor, scripts are included. -MainActor lets you setup and save nearly everything concerning the display mode for playing an animation or showing a picture. For example you can set the X/Y offsets, the display mode ID of your screen (view) and so on. -MainActor supports localization. HOST NAME MainActor should be available on all Aminet sites. DIRECTORY gfx/edit FILE NAME MainActor1_0.lha SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS OS 2.0+ PRICE The shareware fee is $50 DISTRIBUTABILITY MainActor is shareware. This version is fully functional and uncrippled. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > ONLINE WEEKLY Amiga Report Online People... Are Talking! ================================= From the Amiga RT on GEnie -------------------------- Ty Liotta (T.LIOTTA) details his Toaster 4000 experiences... Welp Bob, and everyone else, I have gotten more of a chance to play with the Toaster 4000. The new version of the character generator is very nice. It is somewhat similar to the old CG in apperance, but once you get into it, you discover it is significantly different in terms of functionallity. Everything is now mouse driven. You can use function keys if you like, but this is not needed. NewTek includes a multitiude of new fonts in addition to the old ones. The vast majority of these are of the scalable or postscript variety. When a scalable font is selected, you can type in any point size between 10 to 400 scan lines and the font will be scaled to the proper dimensions. All of the normal shadow and outline settings are mainly the same, but the color requester has been moved to the program screen (you no longer have to look at the preview monitor to set your color). The color requester is also a lot faster, since it does not have to update the toaster's screen when you are manipulating the sliders. Moving your lines of text around is a breeze. Just click and drag to move text anywhere on the screen. There are no pre-defined "lines" of text, and therefore letters can be placed anywhere, even on top of each other. Graphical elements can also be imported easily to enhance your CG creations. These are really 24bit brushes from ToasterPaint, but they are treated just like fonts. They are chosen from the font requester and can be dragged about the screen. Graphics can be placed on top of, or below text and can even have automatic drop shadows created, just like fonts. My only gripe with the new CG lies in the area of moves. There are no new moves for text whatsoever. We are still stuck with the typical scroll and crawl moves from the previous software. Text can be fliped or turned by luma keying it and using an effect (as before) but it looks lousy when you do this. I really wish NewTek could have come up with some other option. Anyway, I'll of course talk more in later messages. I'm sure that we'll all be able to read in great detail about the Toaster 4000 in the next issue of Video Toaster User, assuming it ever comes out. Also of interest, Commodore is offering a new pricing program for the Amiga 4000. If you own an Amiga 2000 you can trade up to the A4000 and get a discount. You rip off the first page of your A2000 manual, write your serial number on it, and bring it to your local Amiga dealer. This will get you a price of about $2300 for the 68040 version of the A4000 (120MB hard drive, 6 megs ram). Supposedly if you use this program, New Tek will also give you a discount on the purchase of a Toaster 4000, but I do not know excatly what that will be, and they have not annouced any specifics yet. To get back to Bob's question... I do think the A2000 has reached it's last days. Now that the A4000 can use the new and improved Toaster, there is really no reason for the A2000 to stick around. Commodore has not officialy stopped production of the A2000, but I am sure they soon will. The A2000 will make a very good rendering engine for Lightwave (or other 3D software) because it can run faster versions of the 68040 than the A4000, but this is probably about it. I am also planning on uploading some JPEGed images generated on the Toaster 4000. Probably some pictures of a few effects in mid transition (I'll run the output of the Toaster 4000 to our other toaster and do a grab) and some examples of the new CG. I'll try to get them uploaded some time next week. ------------------------------ From the Amiga International echo on FidoNet -------------------------------------------- James Street explains why the Mac ToasterLink is worthwhile... To clear a few things up on the Mac... First off, I've seen asked several times "How a Mac could contribute to a Video Toaster setup?" The answer is simple, the Mac, with its true 32-bit graphics (no 256,000 color limit), and software like Adobe Photoshop (vs. ADPro) and Electric Image and Stratavision (vs. Lightwave/Imagine/and Caligari pro) and Fractal Design's Painter 2.0 (vs. Toasterpaint/Deluxe Paint) could in software terms, outperform any Amiga. I was a HARD Amiga fan, untill I finally saw the light of photoshop, it makes ADPro look pretty shabby. The Mac is allready the platform of choice for many 3D artists, but I am indeed impressed with the feature list of Lightwave 2.0. And no current paint program could match the finesse of Fractal's Painter, an absolutely wonderful program when coupled with a drawing tablet (digitizer). So the Mac could be used VERY effectively as a front end for graphic processing with the toaster doing the video work. I admit that Newteks's ToasterLink is far from a complete product. A 25Mhz 030 Mac is the LCIII (recently realeased), which is fully 32-bit, one expansion slot, and ability to put up to 32 megs on the motherboard. It also includes 16-bit graphics standard (over a 32-bit look-up table), real SCSI on the motherboard (not IDE junk), and it is also a much more aesthetically designed machine than a 4000/030, although the 4000 may offer more expansion. (EDITOR's NOTE: The opening sentence of the second paragraph was damaged, so I had to best-guess the exact wording. My apologies for any errors.) ------------------------------ Joey McDonald asks about a super new display mode... ANOTHER QUESTION HAS POPPED INTO THE EVER SO ACTIVE NOGGEN OF THE OFFICIAL AMIGA IDIOT AND SELF PROCLAIMED LOON.... Joey McDonald (The only Amiga user brave enough to ask the stupid questions) --------- THE QUESTIONS BEGIN ---------- DYNA-HIRES is achieved by displaying a different set of 16 colors per scan line on a hi-res screen, giving a simulated 4096 colors in hi-res. Because the hardware is limited to 16 colors in hires, each scan line has the 16 color limit. But because of ham, lowres doesn't have this limit, right? WHAT ABOUT DYNA-LOWRES ???? Forcing the copper to display 4096 "DIFFERENT" COLORS ON EACH SCAN LINE giving a simulated 198,400 colors ????? or what about MEGA-HALFBRIGHT ? 64 "DIFFERENT" COLORS ON EACH SCAN LINE giving a simulated 24,160 colors ????? THIS SOUNDS GREAT! THERE HAS GOT TO BE A WAY TO GET MORE COLORS FROM A STOCK ECS AMIGA... AND I THINK THIS IS THE WAY?!? TAKE A LOOK AT A P.D. PROGRAM CALLED PHOTOCHROME3.0 for the Atari ST/STE. It offers the following modes with software ONLY! SPECTRUM 512 - 42/45 colors per scan line out of 512 (ST) SPECTRUM 4096 - 42/45 colors per scan line out of 4096 (STE) PCS-ST 48 - colors per scan line from 4096 (STE) SUPER-HAM - all 4096 out of 4096 on an ST or STE STE-PHOTOCHROME - 19200 colors out of 32768 on an STE ALL OF THESE MODES WITH SOFTWARE! ON A STOCK ATARI NO LESS! It even claims it's superham mode is superior to the amiga's! !!!! SOMETHING MUST BE DONE TO TOP THIS !!!! ANY responses would be appreciated! AS ALWAYS I END THIS MESSAGE WITH THE IMMORTAL WORDS: AM I A GENIOUS OR A LOON? (sooner or later I've got to win) ------------------------------ From the Internet ----------------- Bjorn Stenberg gives us a list of 15 kHz-compatible monitors... I've compiled a list of all the monitors I could find which are capable of 15kHz horizontal scan rate. Here you go: List Size Horiz Vert Model Manufacturer Price (inch) kHz Hz -------------------------------------------------------------------------- MS-8431 Amazing Tech. $399 14 15-36 ? AML-1402 Adara Technology $650 14 15-36 45-90 CM-324 AOC International $549 14 15-36 50-90 CM-324H/M AOC International ? 14 15-36 50-90 CM-326 AOC International $649 14 15-38 50-90 Auto-Trak 714 Conrac Display ? 13 15.5-37 45-80 Auto-Trak 9250 Conrac Display $3,850 13 15-37.5 48-90 Model 7126S Conrac Display $3,995 26 15-32 48-75 Model 7211 Conrac Display $4,120 13 15-37.5 47-80 Model 7211 Conrac Display $4,120 19 15-37.5 47-80 Model 7241 Conrac Display $2,995 19 15-37 47-80 Model 9214 Conrac Display ? 13 15-38 50-80 Multiscan 3436 CTX International $780 14 15-38 50-90 TSM-1431 Darius Technology $699 14 15.5-39 50-90 ECM 1410 Electrohome, Ltd. $1,195 14 15-40 45-90 ECM 2010 Electrohome, Ltd. $3,195 20 15-38 45-120 Eversync Color Everex Systems $599 14 15.5-35 50-70 FMS Falco Data $750 14 15-38 47-90 MTS-9608S Forefront Technology $499 14 15-38 50-90 TY-1411 Golden Dragon ? 14 15.5-3 50-120 Idek MF-5017 IDEK/Iiyama North Amer $1,275 17 15-40 50-90 Idek MF-5021 IDEK/Iiyama North Amer $2,695 21 15.5-38 50-90 C21LV-65MAX Image Systems Corp. ? 21 15-65 55-90 C24LV-65MAX Image Systems Corp. ? 24 15-65 55-90 CM-1403 Intra Electronics USA $300 14 15-38 40-100 GD-H4220US JVC Information $2,895 19 15-37 45-87 CMON M Leading Edge $599 14 15.75-39 50-90 MagicVIEW 20 Mac $1,999 20 15.75-36 50-100 Model 2014/LP Microvitec ? 14 15-40 45-100 Model 2020 Microvitec $2,495 20 15-38 ? Model 710MH Mitsuba Corp. $415 14 15-38 50-90 Diamond Pro 26M Mitsubishi Electronics $11,300 25 15-38 45-90 HC-3505SK Mitsubishi Electronics $11,300 26 15.7-38 45-90 XC-3315C Mitsubishi Electronics $5,495 33 15-38 40-120 XC-3715C Mitsubishi Electronics $7,599 37 15-36 45-120 AM-2752A Mitsubishi Electronics $3,700 27 15.6-36 45-90 AM-3151A Mitsubishi Electronics $5,200 31 15.6-36 45-90 AM-3501R Mitsubishi Electronics $6,900 35 15-35.5 45-70 MG-3430 Modgraph $985 9 15-35 50-70 DM-2710 NEC Technologies $3,995 27 15-38 40-100 PanaSync C1391 Panasonic Communicatio $899 13 15.5-36 40-80 Ultra 1200 Princeton Graphic Syst $450 12 15-38 45-120 Ultra 1400 Princeton Graphic Syst $899 14 15-38 45-120 Ultra 1600 Princeton Graphic Syst $775 16 15-38 45-120 AlphaScan Sampo Corp. of America $649 14 15.75-36 50-87 CE-8 Sceptre Technologies $995 14 15-38 50-90 CM-3 Sceptre Technologies $795 14 15.5-36 50-70 CPD-1302 SONY Corporation of Am $995 13 15.75-36 50-100 GVM-1310 SONY Corporation of Am $1,295 13 15.75-36 50-100 GVM-2020 SONY Corporation of Am $1,595 20 15.75-36 50-100 Tuff/CRT Talon Technology Corp. $6,000 14 15-35 47-73 Omniscan CM-1495H Tatung Co. of America $899 14 15-37 40-120 MultiVision 770+ TAXAN America $895 14 15-37 50-90 MediaScan 3+ TVM Professional Monit ? 14 15-38 46-100 TM-5414 TW Casper Corp. ? 14 15.5-35 50-70 -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, have we got anyone maintaing a FAQ here? Perhaps this list (or part of it) belongs there, together with the actual scan rates required by the new AGA display modes. (Does anybody know?) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Amiga Tip of the Week ===================== By Robert Niles A few weeks ago Micah wrote an article using the tilde charactor to exclude files or directories within a LISTing or DIR search. Well, I got to playing with it a bit and thought that there should be a way to search through a hard drive partition, or a large directory for a file or collection of files. I often forget where I put a file... even where I put the archive which does much the same thing as what I'm going to explain here (I know put it in the C: dir....but I already have *SO* much in there already <grin>). Say you are looking for the collection of that wonderful Amiga Report magazine... the archives are called AR101.LHA, AR102.LHA, and so on. You know they are on the hard drive, but searching through each and every directory would just take too long. Even doing a "DIR ALL" would create a listing so large that it would scroll past you on the screen so fast, you couldn't even say, "Bob's your Uncle" before it pass by you, much less read it. Of course, holding down the right mouse button will help, but let's see if we can make it even easier. Ok... you know the files are on DH0: somewhere, so all you have to do is type: LIST DH0:(#?/#?AR10#?) [FILES] The result would be something like this: Directory "bb1:text" on Friday 21-May-93 ar109.lha 42368 ----rwed Sunday 16:58:57 ar103.lha 28028 ----rwed 13-Apr-93 10:31:50 ar104.lha 49447 ----rwed 13-Apr-93 10:22:48 ar105.lha 55118 ----rwed 19-Apr-93 12:03:27 ar108.lha 56832 ----rwed 08-May-93 21:25:40 ar106.lha 73539 ----rwed 25-Apr-93 09:34:39 6 files - 610 blocks used Now you know it is located in the directory called "text". You found it! Now this assumes that the files you are looking for are on DH0: and only one directory deep to go even deeper just add another "#?/" right after the left parenthesis. The "FILES" flag searches only files...just in case you have a directory named something like what is in the search pattern (the search pattern being "AR10") and you don't want the directories listed. You can replace FILES with DIRS if you know you are looking for a directory instead of a file. If you want to get a print out of ths listing you could direct it to do so by adding ">prt:" (or ">>prt:") right after the LIST command. Like this: LIST >>PRT: DH0:(#?/#?AR10#?) FILES Or you can even direct it to a text file. If one doesn't exist it will make it for you. Try this: LIST >>SYS:Example.list DH0:(#?/#?AR10#?) FILES Using >>SYS:Example.list will add this to a text file if it already exists. Using only one ">" will rewrite over an existing "Examples.list" file, or create a new one if it doesn't exist. Well I hope this helps...if you want to see something more specific drop me a note. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > GEnie's New Pricing AR InfoFile ================================ GENIE ANNOUNCES NEW PRICING: SIMPLER, MORE AFFORDABLE AND, AS ALWAYS, THE BEST VALUE ONLINE An Open Letter to GEnie Subscribers From John Barber, General Manager of GEnie: On July 1st, a new pricing structure goes into effect at GEnie. It's a big day for us -- the result of months of planning, number-crunching, monitoring and maneuvering around the competition. And once again, we're looking forward to showing the online community that no one offers a better value than GEnie. We have to admit that over the last few months, it's been difficult to watch the other major online companies, one after another, proclaim that their new prices make them "the ultimate value." But rest assured, we do not intend to give up our leadership position as the best value online. GEnie has always offered its subscribers the best combination of sophisticated services, information, entertainment -- and affordability. And we've done it once again. Starting July 1st, GEnie will offer you the lowest hourly connect time of all the major online services; combined with a highly-competitive monthly subscription fee; and credit each month for up to four hours online. Effective July 1st, this is GEnie's new U.S. pricing structure: - Our monthly subscription fee becomes $8.95 a month. - Our standard hourly connect rate drops to $3.00 an hour. - And every month, you'll get a credit for up to 4 hours of standard $3.00 connect time. It's about that simple. For our Canadian and international PDN customers, a complete price chart is available as menu option #2 on this page. It also contains the fine print regarding prime time, baud rates, etc., so it's worth taking some time to look over. SIMPLY BETTER You might notice one more important benefit to our plan. We kept it simple. It's easy to understand, easy to live with. For starters, we've simplified the pricing. All the services formerly in GEnie*Basic and in GEnie Value are now treated equally, and available at the same low price -- $3.00 an hour in non-prime time. Multi-player games, downloading, computing bulletin boards, real-time conferences -- they're all just $3.00 an hour. (Half what you've been paying for GEnie Value services!) GEnie*Basic services, yes, they're now included in the $3/hour group, too. GE Mail -- it's $3.00 an hour, with no limit to the number of messages. Internet Mail is now $3 an hour, with no registration fee. And don't forget. You also get a credit for up to four hours of $3/hour time, every month. OK, NOW WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO MY MONTHLY BILL? Let's cut to the chase. This is what everyone really wants to know. The answer is -- for the majority of our users, it means very little change at all, or a change for the better. When we started working on the price change, we studied the usage patterns of our active members to see who would be affected, and to what extent. We concluded that more than 85% would see about the same or lower bills at the end of the month. For the people who like to keep to a strict budget each month, this plan offers a lot of flexibility and a broader range of services than before. You have a set subscription fee. And for that fee, you get a credit for four hours of standard connect time to spend just about anywhere on GEnie. There's no asterisk-chasing to make sure you haven't strayed into Value services. Less worry of credit card shock. You can even explore areas of GEnie you thought you couldn't afford before. For the active users who spend significant hours a month on GEnie, especially in the former GEnie Value services, you should see a tremendous savings. The hourly rate is half what it was before -- and the best in the business! Now -- who will see prices rise under the new system? Generally speaking, anyone who's accustomed to making unusually heavy use of GEnie*Basic services will have to change his or her usage to keep monthly bills down. SO WHY CHANGE? Maybe you're wondering why we're bothering to change the rate, if so few people are affected. After all, GEnie has had flat fee pricing for three years now. Well, we did it for a couple of reasons. With our new pricing, we can continue to stay competitive in the marketplace, and we can continue to improve our service to you. We found that, under the former pricing, a small number of our customers were making heavy demands on our service -- demands which began to outpace our infrastructure and capacity. The result was a level of performance that pleased no one. Not you. Not us. And yet, while other companies were eliminating or reducing their flat-rate access, we were holding to ours. Something had to change. And a price restructuring was the best solution for the majority of our users. Now, with the new rates, no one group of members is unduly favored; GEnie can continue to stay highly competitive among online companies; and we can continue to improve our service to you. OTHER IMPROVEMENTS IN THE WORKS There are other changes involved here besides our prices. "Staying competitive" means offering you better products, better service and better system performance. Right now, we have a number of improvements in the works. We're developing new front-end software packages for Windows and Macintosh systems -- look for more on that over the coming months. We're making technical improvements to enhance our performance and speed. We'll be adding new services soon, along with new bulletin boards and of course, we'll continue to update our software libraries with more valuable files. SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE GEnie has always been the very best service for people who really enjoy being online, and who expect great products and the best value for the time they spend with us. That's not going to change. In fact, this new pricing structure should make it even easier for you to enjoy everything we have to offer. We're looking forward to seeing you online. Sincerely, John Barber General Manager, GEnie G E n i e P r i c i n g (effective July 1, 1993) +-----------------+----------------------+ GEnie Services | U.S. (U.S.$) [5]| CANADA (CAN $) | +-----------------------------+-----------------+----------------------| |Monthly Subscription Fee | $8.95/month | $10.95/month | +-----------------------------+-----------------+----------------------+ |Hours Credited Per Month [1] | Up to 4 hours | Up to 4 hours | +-----------------------------+-----------------+----------------------+ |Hourly Connect Charge | $3.00/hour | $4.00/hour | +-----------------------------+-----------------+----------------------+ |GEnie Premium Services |Prices vary per individual service. | | |These include: Charles Schwab Brokerage | | |Services (not available in Canada), Dow | | |Jones News/Retrieval (R), The Official | | |Airline Guides Electronic Edition (R) | | |Travel Service, QuikNews clipping | | |service, Telebase Investment | | |ANALY$T (SM),ARTIST (R) gateway. | +-----------------------------+----------------------------------------+ Additional Charges (where applicable) [4] +-----------------------------+----------------+-----------------------+ |Prime Time Surcharge [2] | $9.50/hour | $12.00/hour | +-----------------------------+----------------+-----------------------+ |9600 Baud Surcharge | $6.00/hour | $8.00/hour | +-----------------------------+----------------+-----------------------+ |Communications Surcharge: | | | | 800 Service [3] | $6.00/hour | -- | | Extended Network | $2.00/hour | -- | | SprintNet | $2.00/hour | -- | | Datapac | -- | $6.00/hour | +-----------------------------+----------------+-----------------------+ | [1] Credit for up to 4 hours of standard $3.00 U.S. ($4.00 CAN$) | | connect time. Hours credited apply to current month only. | | [2] Prime-time: 8 a.m. - 6 p.m. local time on weekdays only. The | | prime-time surcharge is in addition to $3/hour charge. Prime- | | time surcharge is waived for selected holidays. Residents of | | Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana, Arizona and Puerto Rico, please verify | | hours with GEnie Client Services. | | [3] "800" Service surcharge waived at 9600 baud. | | [4] State taxes will apply in some areas. | | [5] International PDN subscribers billed in U.S.$ at U.S. rates. | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ Other notes: 1. There will no longer be additional charges or registration fees for Internet mail gateway use. 2. Club pricing options will be eliminated effective July 1. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Usenet Review: DevPac 3 ======================== By Barry McConnell PRODUCT NAME DevPac 3, version 3.02 BRIEF DESCRIPTION Integrated editor and 680x0 assembler/debugger environment. COMPANY INFORMATION Name: HiSoft Address: The Old School Greenfield Bedford MK45 5DE England Telephone: +44 525 718181 FAX: +44 525 713716 PRICE It can be had mail-order for under 50 UK pounds, which translates to roughly $60 (US) after taking away UK VAT. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE Runs on all Amigas. 512K RAM required, 1 MB recommended. 2 floppy drives or a hard drive recommended (not required). SOFTWARE Runs under AmigaDOS 1.3 and up. Two different versions are supplied in the package: one for AmigaDOS 1.3, and another for AmigaDOS 2.0 or greater. COPY PROTECTION None. Installs on a hard drive. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING I tested the program on an A2000 with a GVP 120MB HD, in both 68000 mode (3MB RAM in total), and with a 68030 (11MB RAM in total). I have never tried the 1.3 version, but the 2.0 version runs fine under 2.04, 2.1, and 3.0. REVIEW I bought this product over a year ago, when I started to get really into assembly language programming on the Amiga. (The freely distributable assembler A68K is just too slow!) Nowadays I program in C; I am just writing this review because it was requested by USENET readers in the monthly "comp.sys.amiga.reviews Request List." The product comes in a sturdy box and contains a professional ring-bound manual (264 pages plus the index), a "Pocket reference guide" to the 68000/68008/68010/68012 (but unfortunately doesn't cover the 68020+), and a disk wallet. This contains four disks: two for the Workbench 1.3 and 2.0 include files (but no AutoDocs), one for the Workbench 1.3-version of the program (which simulates a 2.0-style interface under 1.3), and the last one for the Workbench 2.0-only version which correctly uses GadTools. I am really pleased that there is not just one "generic" version of the program like with so many other applications. As AmigaDOS gets upgraded, the 2.0-version of DevPac will benefit. For example, under Kickstart 3.0, the scroll bar gadgets get the nice new appearance. Applications which have hard-coded the image data for the 2.0-style gadgets in order to run under 1.3 will not benefit. There is no "install" script; instead, you simply drag the "DevPac" and "Includes" drawers to wherever you like on your hard drive. The first thing you see when you double-click on the main program icon is a very professional text-editor. It is very much like TurboText, although there are a few differences to make it worthwhile buying TurboText separately (like I did). DevPac's editor has no ARexx port, and the editing facilities are not quite as comprehensive. However, it should suffice for all but the most power-hungry users, and indeed can be just used as a stand-alone editor. It has all the major features you would expect, like cut-and-paste via the clipboard, macros (but no ARexx scripts, as I mentioned), bookmarks, multiple views on the one document, multiple documents, etc. The editor is the most fully Style Guide-compliant application I know of. I just cannot fault it. Everything has hotkeys, it's fast, it's friendly, and it's extremely professional. It uses the correct (Screen) font for menus, has a setting for the (non-proportional) text font in the main window, and then uses Topaz 8 for all the gadgets (it would be nice to allow any font here, but very few applications can cope with this, as it is very hard to program, without using something like GadToolsBox). It also uses the ASL file requestor, unlike the current version of TurboText. Where the program comes into its own is in the completely integrated assembler environment. All the assembler (GenAm) and linker (BLink) options are controlled via standard ListView gadgets, string gadgets, and checkboxes. You can generate code for a 68881/2, MMU, 68000 up to 68040, control where the include files are stored (it is also possible to preassemble them, although I found this quite difficult to do), and turn on any of 13 different optimizations. This last feature allows optimizations to be made automatically, or for just a message to be given saying where an optimization could be made. It is only on an instruction-wide basis, and not a "peephole optimizer" like with SAS/C, but it always finds many savings I could have made in my own code. Every possible "extra" assembler feature you could think of has been implemented; e.g., macros, conditional assembly, loops (to save you typing the same sequence of instructions many times), local labels, alignment, etc. All the new 68020+ instructions and addressing modes are present, along with the FPU-specific mnemonics. The "Program" menu contains the important options that you would not find in a normal text editor. "Assemble" will automatically check, assemble, and link your code, and optionally attach an icon to the executable. "Check" performs the same operation as "Assemble", except it does not write out the resulting code to a file. It does however still keep a copy of it in memory, so you can use the debugger on it (see below). This is useful for floppy-only systems, where writing a file can be time-consuming. On my '030 and fast Quantum HD, with the include files assembled in the RAM disk (I actually store them in ENVARC: so they automatically get copied there when I boot up), assembling is VERY fast indeed. Probably not quite as fast as ArgAsm, but far ahead of a typical C compiler like SAS/C. If there were errors in the program, the "Find Error", "Next Error", and "Previous Error" options are useful. (They all have keyboard shortcuts too.) These also jump to the instructions where GenAm made an optimisation, as well as to any syntactical errors. There are many other options available from the editor, and I won't discuss all of them here. Some of the nicer ones include being able to indent the cursor automatically on a new line (since the first column is used for the opcode, and is usually skipped over), make backups of a file, print the currently selected block, and select the arguments passed to your program when the editor runs it (another facility available from the "Program" menu). Of course, if your mouse is broken, you can run DevPac from the Shell. The manual fully documents all the command-line arguments which GenAm and Blink accept, and they also have default settings files to save you typing 200-character command lines every time.... The other aspect of DevPac is the debugger, MonAm. This can be loaded from Workbench or DevPac itself (the latter automatically loads in your most recently assembled program for you). I am sure this could form a separate review in its own right. It runs on a custom screen (interlaced if you wish), and basically consists of a number of windows (not Intuition windows though), through which you can view the CPU's registers, contents of memory, program disassembly (including labels if you allowed them in the assembly options), etc. It has to be said that this part of DevPac is not as intuitive as the editor. There are no menus: just hotkeys. I must admit I didn't use it too often, as it meant constant referring to the manual to remember which keypress did what (e.g., control-Z means "single-step"). It is a powerful debugger, however, with all the features you would expect: break points, disassemble to printer or disk, search memory for bytes, mnemonics, or text, etc. The on-screen layout is very clear and professional. However, it does change the mouse pointer to a "bug" image. Some people may prefer to use the standard Amiga pointer. VENDOR SUPPORT There is some kind of ongoing telephone service available for a fee, but I didn't use it. I did get a chance to speak with a HiSoft representative at the Amiga Shopper show in London last summer. At the time, I only had v3.01 of the software, and a friend of mine who bought it at the same time as me (not from the same place) had v3.02. I had brought along my original disks in the hope that they could upgrade them at the show, but was told the only copies of DevPac they had were for new customers, and I would have to go through the normal channels to get the upgrade. I also asked him about the possibility of having a user-selectable font for the settings windows (although even Commodore haven't done this in Kickstart 3.0!), mentioning that Bryan Ford (author of MultiPlayer - hi Bryan; what's your new e-mail address?) had written a custom user-interface builder. He gave me a business card and the name of the DevPac programmer, suggesting Bryan write to him about it. I don't know if anything came of this. I have never received upgrade information from HiSoft. CONCLUSIONS This is a superb piece of software. I would give it 10 out of 10. It closely follows the Style Guide, has a great manual, is very powerful, very fast, and very user-friendly. The debugger could be made friendlier with the addition of a proper Intuition interface, but with the manual open beside you to remind you of the keys (you would of course learn them very quickly if you used it often), it is easy to use. To anyone seriously intending to write Amiga software in assembly language, this is almost certainly the best choice. Plus it is very cheap! ****************************************************************************** :HOW TO GET YOUR OWN GENIE ACCOUNT: _________________________________ Set your communications software to Half Duplex (or Local Echo) Call: (with modem) 800-638-8369. Upon connection type HHH (RETURN after that). Wait for the U#= prompt. Type: XTX99587,CPUREPT then, hit RETURN. GEnie costs only $4.95 a month for unlimited evening and weekend access to more than 100 services including electronic mail, online encyclopedia, shopping, news, entertainment, single-player games, and bulletin boards on leisure and professional subjects. With many other services, including the biggest collection of files to download and the best online games, for only $6 per hour. MONEY BACK GUARANTEE! Any time during your first month of membership if you are not completely satisfied, just ask for your $4.95 back. GEnie Information copyright (C) 1991 by General Electric Information Services/GEnie, reprinted with permission ****************************************************************************** > Amiga Report Bio: Robert Niles, Technical Editor ================================================= Hello, I'm Robert Niles, a new member of the Amiga Report Technical Staff. I thought I'd give you a little background info on myself. My computer career began when I was little, running down to the local Radio Shack and marveling at the idea of a machine being able to play Blackjack and other word games. I kept the salesmen busy asking question, changing their demos, and whatever, so I could get a peek at what a "computer" really was. I remember the little thing cost about $1000, and somehow these "games" and such were stored on a little cassette tape... WOW! Well I kept doing this every day until they got tired of me and kicked me out. That started me... I bought a C-64, and a 1541 floppy drive. I was in Techno Heaven. I purchased a modem -- those little 300-baud thing-ma-jigs, and plugged myself into various networks. Later, I dropped out of the computer scene except for a few courses on computer programming... until I met the AMIGA! The A1000 had been out for a little while and the A500 and A2000 had just come out. I bought the A500 with my measly income tax return, and after buying the A501 and another drive, I bought a modem. A 2400 baud model... this baby cooked! This was a major jump from before. Colored BBS's,..even a BBS with a point and click interface. I soon started my own. The A500 I had was a compilation of some old equiptment. I had the SubSystem 500 (a box which sat under the A500 in which you could add two A2000 cards), in it I had the Micron 2MB board (now let's see who knows of that one) and a Pacific Peripherals OverDrive controller. The controller connected to a box that a SysOp down in El Paso traded me, containing a 32MB RLL HD with the Adaptec SCSI->RLL converter. It was a strange system, but it worked. Since then I have moved to Washington State, where the board is again up and running. The kid has the A500, and I purchased a used A2000. I slapped in the Micron RAM board (yup, still have it) and added a 200MB HD to the A2090A controller -- a bit old still, but it suits my needs nicely. I've been operating the Amiga for quite a while now...telecomputing throughout the world, and helping others learn more about the Amiga as much as I can. It's something I fully enjoy, and hope to do it for quite some time to come. So I'll leave you with my hellos, and ask you to drop me a line if you have a question or comment, or would like to just chat a bit. Robert ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Another Moronic, Inane and Gratuitous Article ============================================= by Chad Freeman (cjfst4+@pitt.edu or cjfst4@cislabs.pitt.edu -- Internet) (cjfst4@PITTVMS.BITNET -- BITnet) (cfreeman -- BIX) The era of the on-line magazine has come to the Amiga (with a resounding Gee! from the audience). That's right, folks, you can now get information that is only outdated by WEEKS instead of MONTHS like in those print magazines. After a long day of reading all of those on-line messages, you can go back and RE-READ them in your favorite on-line magazine! But one thing is missing from these on-line magazines, a void I, having no particular motivation (or writing skill) whatsoever, have decided to fill. Thus the 'Another Moronic, Inane and Gratuitous Article' column by yours truly, the bane of seriousness everywhere. Well, ok, I'm lucky if I get a chuckle, but if I get to poke fun at the Amiga community AND possibly get my name in phosphorescent glow, it may boost my fragile ego (in other words, pleasepleasePLEASE put me in your magazine!). So, without further ado (or previous ado), lets get on with it. First, the joke of the week. Thanks to the guy who posted it on the internet (I'm too lazy to look up your name). Q. How long does it take Bill Gates to change a light bulb? A. He doesn't; he just declares darkness to be a standard! I figured all of you self-concious Amigans would get a kick out of slamming Bill Gates (the guy IS a nerd, isn't he?). We'll show HIM for not developing on the Amiga (although I hear he uses one to hold his recipe file). Anyway, now that I've endeared myself to you, let's talk about Commodore, shall we? I have a little theory about why Commodore is SO BAD at what it does. You see, secretly Irving Gould (maybe we can convince HIM to buy Microsoft?) doesn't want Commodore to be in the computer business at all, he really wants to get into the fried chicken business! 'Where did you get a scatter-brained idea like that?!?' you ask. Well, remember those stupid Billy commercials Commodore aired in what has been a long string of failed advertising? Remember what Tip O'Neil got thrust into his hand as he entered the house? FRIED CHICKEN! And there are more seemingly ODD coincidences that leave me without a doubt that Irving is forcing a drastic change in market for Commodore. The very name of the company, for instance. What would compete with Colonel Sander's chicken but Commodore Gould's chicken? Give a little facelift to that C= logo and it turns into a chicken's head! And we all know the entire marketing department is a bunch of clucks! Ever notice how, if you removed the guts from an Amiga 2000, it would be the perfect size for a Jumbo Carry-Home Pack of chicken with biscuits and gravy? But the most amazing proof of all is the infamous 'secret message' built into the 2.04 kickstart ROMs. Until now this message has remained a corporate secret, awaiting the day when West Chester Broiled Chicken unveiled its first outlet, but now I bring it to you. Now, you can't see this message through a simple hex dump of the ROM; oh no, it is ENCODED using PGP! So you MUST go through the following steps to see the message: 1. Hold down the left amiga key 2. Press your left and right mouse button SIMULTANEOUSLY 17 times 3. Keep that left amiga key down! Now, press escape, F6, the ) keypad key, and the space bar, and while holding them all down, repeatedly tap the return key while ejecting a disk in DF0: and removing the mouse cord from the mouse port. 4. Continue holding down the above key combination for 5 hours, tapping the left cursor key every 12 and a half minutes, and you will see the secret message! Well, have fun trying this out; I think you'll be surprised by the result (if your fingers don't cramp before the 5 hours are up). I consider it UNEQUIVOCABLE proof that Gould has it in for our beloved computer maker, Commodore! Chicken, indeed! Of course, a change like this probably WOULD increase Commodore's stock prices considerably... That's all for this week, tune in next week, same BATTY-time, same BATTY-channel, for another installment of A.M.I.G.A., the article that goes where no politically-correct man has been dumb enough to go before... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > OH YEAH?! AR Feature The grass is greener? ===================== BIG IRON LAMENT =============== Compiled by Lloyd E. Pulley, Sr. From the Jerry Pournelle RT on Genie - Written by Steve Clayworth... Here I sit, a dinosaur Coding on a Cretaceous machine, Fearful of a meteor Taking aim on this sad scene. The little rats are taking over. The PC's, workstations, networked systems, All around, they wait and hover, While the light of mainframes dims. I still cherish this terminal dumb, Where a mouse is a rodent, and not a device For navigating a GUI slum. I shant point 'n click; it isn't nice. Alas, poor Cobol, I knew you well, But C and Windows are now the rage. Once in splendor I did dwell, Now I rust in an old glass cage. "Take some classes", the converts say. "Orient on objects", the pundits utter. "But VM and CICS still fill my day", I often tell them in a timid mutter. What's this, they're putting on my table? Oh, no, a box, with screen and keyboard; This four-eighty-six, with dangling cable Hooked to a server. Oh, save me, Lord! Okay, okay, I'll give it a try. I'll read the manuals, I'll be a good lad, But don't think I like it, I say with a sigh, As I try out this game--, hey, not bad! ****************************************************************************** > NVN WANTS YOU! AR InfoFile Another Network Supports Amiga! ========================== National Videotext Network (NVN) National Videotext Network (NVN) has recently added an Amiga Forum to it's growing lists of available services. The Amiga Forum is ready and waiting for you! Order an extended NVN Membership of 6 or 12 months, pay for it in advance and receive a bonus in connect time at no additional charge. Choose from two subscription plans: 6-Month Membership ------------------ Pay just $30 for a 6-month Membership and receive a usage credit that entitles you to $15 of connect-time in the Premium services of your choice. Your total savings using this plan would be over $20!* 12 Month Membership ------------------- Pay $50 for a full year's Membership and get even more free time online. We'll give you a $25 usage credit to use in your favorite Premium services or try out new ones. You could save as much as $45.* For more information about either of these plans, give us a call at 1-800-336-9096. NVN HIGHLIGHTS ============== For the newcomers.... - Introducing a great new tool to make your JOBSEARCH more effective. - Amateur Radio comes to NVN! Old-timers and newcomers, visit the Ham Shack. - The secret of *fast* sales prospecting... - Attachment Capabilities are now in Email!!! - Subaccounts are now blocked from Premium Plus services... - Go Treasure Hunting with the folks in the Numismatic Collectors Forum. - Why wait an extra day to see U.S. Gov't product/service procurements?. - The NVN On-line Billing Service is Back - with Enhancements! - Shake the Last of the Winter Blues the EAASY Way! - What are eight *advantages* of searching online for information?... - NVN's Movie Forum presents....You Pick The Oscars contest... - Tell the best FISH STORY and WIN time on NVN! - Introducing the Mental Health Forum with a registered Psychiatrist on board! -=* 9600 BAUD USERS *=- $6/hour non-prime time - $9/hour prime time You can join NVN one of two ways. By voice phone 1-800-336-9096 (Client Services) or via modem phone 1-800-336-9092. ****************************************************************************** > LONG NOTES AR Feature Casual but profound observations.. ===================== THE NOTEBOOKS OF LAZARUS LONG Issue #1 Compiled by Lloyd E. Pulley, Sr. Various real-life sayings (some attributed, some not) that could fit in- to the Notebooks of Lazarus Long. From the Jerry Pournelle RT on Genie Experience is the best teacher. But her pop quizzes can be MIGHTY tough. If you're going backwards, the odometer always reads zero. A single daisy, hand delivered, is better than a dozen roses delivered by the florist. Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance. You can prove anything if you make up your data. You can prove _almost_ anything if you are allowed to exclude data that don't fit. A dog does not bite the hand that feeds him. That is the principal difference between a dog and a man. A gentleman is one who never inflicts pain. ---Cardinal Newman. ...unintentionally. ---Oscar Wilde Just because you ignore the facts, does not mean they cease to exist. "Solutions are the larva of new problems." ---Jim Wells, 1993 Knights in shining armor are easy targets. Children generally survive their parent's best intentions. The concept of an "inalienable right" is a legal fiction. No religion endorses the concept, and Darwin certainly never heard of it. Statistics are like a Bikini What they revel is very nice What they conceal is even more important. Oliver Wendell Holmes told us that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. We want a refund. Always place your clothes and your weapons where you can find them in the dark. You can lead a man to knowledge, but you cannot make him think. Turning the other cheek works, until you run out of cheeks. Turn the other cheek and get two purple hearts. We'd be in serious trouble if we got all the government we pay for. Today's bugs are tomorrow's program features. If all you have is a hammer, you have to treat every problem like a nail. If you torture the data enough, it will confess. "You know, some day an American politician is going to do what he thinks is right, instead of what the pols tell him. And it's going to look revolutionary." ---Michael Crichton Life's tough, but it's tougher if you're stupid. Here lies a technophobe, No whimper, no blast; His life's goal accomplished, Zero risk at last. "A mind is like a parachute. It's only useful when it's open." Take off and nuke it from orbit - it's better to be sure. If you're coasting, you're going downhill. A job not worth doing is not worth doing well. "There are three kinds of lies -- lies, damned lies and statistics." The only thing faster than the speed of light is the speed with which a rumor travels. A good leader fixes the problem -- not the blame. ---Colonel F. Porciello, USAF Never use one hydrogen bomb when two will suffice. When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to make a decision. --- Lord Falkland Never miss an opportunity to keep your mouth shut. ****************************************************************************** The Portal System's Amiga Zone The AFFORDABLE alternative for online Amiga information ------------------------------------------------------- The Portal Online System is the home of acclaimed Amiga Zone, which was formerly on the People/Link System. Plink went out of business in May, 1991 and The Amiga Zone's staff moved to Portal the next day. The Zone has just celebrated its first anniversary on Portal. The Amiga press has consistantly raved about The Amiga Zone, when compared to its competition. (Quotes available upon request). If you live in the San Jose, CA area, then you can dial Portal directly. If you live elsewhere, you can reach Portal through any SprintNet (formerly Telenet) "indial" node anywhere in the USA or through Tymnet from anywhere in North America. If you have an account on a university or commercial or military Internet-connected system, you can connect to Portal using their UNIX Telnet or Rlogin programs, from anywhere in the industrialized world. Here are some of Portal/Amiga Zone's noteworthy features: - Over 1 GIGabytes of Amiga-specific files, now online, 24 hours a day. Portal has dedicated a 1.6 GIGabyte disk drive to the Amiga Zone. We have unlimited space for files and new uploads. Whenever that drive fills up, we'll add another one! - PLUS.. The Fred Fish Disk collection of freely distributable software, online 24 hours a day. - Fast, Batch Zmodem file transfer protocol. Download up to 100 files at once, of any size, with one command. - Twenty Amiga vendor areas with participants like AmigaWorld, ASDG, Soft-Logik, Black Belt, Apex Publishing, Stylus, Prolific, NES, and many others including Compute's Amiga Resource with over 4 Megabytes of exclusive Compute magazine disk stuff you won't find elsewhere. - 35 "regular" Amiga libraries with thousands of files. Hot new stuff arrives daily. Since Portal has FTP connections we can get a new program online within MINUTES of its being announced on Usenet. - No upload/download "ratios" EVER. Download as much as you want, as often as you want, and never feel pressued doing it. Start downloading files with your first session on Portal. - Live, interactive nightly chats with Amiga folks whose names you will recognize. Special conferences. Random chance prize contests. Famous Amiga folks aren't the exception on Portal, they're the norm. - Message bases galore where you can ask questions about *anything* Amiga related and get quick replies from the experts. - Amiga Internet mailing lists for Imagine, DCTV, LightWave and HyperAmi are ported right into the Zone message bases. You can read months worth of postings. They don't scroll off, ever! No need to clutter your mailbox with them. - FREE unlimited Internet Email. Your Portal account gets you a mailbox. Send letters of any length to computer users in the entire industrialized world. No limit. No extra charges. No kidding! Portal email has some amazing features: you can even run a mail session "inside" another mail session to send blind carbon copies for example. Grab Usenet articles and store copies in your mailbox. Email a program to a friend in Australia or Sweden or just about anywhere. - The USENET hierachy of thousands of "newsgroups" in which you can read and post articles about virtually any subject you can possibly imagine. Usenet feeds into Portal many times each hour. There are 14 Amiga-specific Usenet newsgroups with hundreds of articles posted every day, including postings by Commodore personnel. Since Usenet is distributed worldwide, your questions and answers can be seen by literally hundreds of thousands of people the same day you post it. - Other Portal SIGs (Special Interest Groups) online for Mac, IBM, Sun, NeXT, UNIX, Science Fiction, Writers, amateur radio, and a graphics SIG with thousands of GIF files to name but a few. ALL Portal SIGs are accessible to ALL Portal customers with NO surcharges ever. - The entire UPI/Clarinet/Newsbytes news hierarchy ($4/month extra) This optional package gets you headline news, bulletins, stories, features, sports, weather, and computer industry news and press releases fed into Portal many times each week. Stay on top of the worldwide computer industry without having to wait for a weekly paper to arrive. - Now Open: an exciting and unique package of Internet goodies: IRC, FTP, TELNET, MUDS, LIBS. Free to all Portal customers with your account. Internet Services is a menu driven version of the same kinds of utilities you can also use from your UNIX shell account. All the files you can FTP. All the chatting you can stand on the IRC. And on IRC you can chat live, in real time with Amiga users in the U.K., Europe, Australia, the Far East! Portal's Internet Services opens up the entire world to you. Those expensive competing systems don't, can't, and probably won't ever offer these features. - NOW RELEASED!: PortalX by Steve Tibbett, our graphical "front end" for Portal which will let you automatically click'n'download your waiting email, messages, Usenet groups and binary files! Reply to mail and messages offline using your favorite editor and your replies are sent automatically the next time you log into Portal. (PortalX requires Workbench 2.04 or higher) How does all that sound? Probably too good to be true. Well.. it's true. Portal Signup or for more information: 1-408-973-9111 (voice) 9a.m.-5p.m. Mon-Fri, Pacific Time 1-408-725-0561 (modem 3/12/2400) 24 hours every day 1-408-973-8091 (modem 9600/14400) 24 hours every day or enter "C PORTAL" from any Sprintnet dial-in in the USA, or enter "portal" from any Tymnet "please log in:" prompt, USA & Canada or telnet to "portal.com" from anywhere. All prices shown are in U.S. Dollars Total Total Total Total Cost Cost Cost Cost Fee 1 hr. 5 hrs. 10 hrs.30 hrs. Service Startup Monthly Per Per per per per Fee Fee Hour month month month month $ $ $ $ $ $ $ Portal 19.95 19.95 2400/9600/14.4Kbps, *direct 24 hrs 0.00 19.95 19.95 19.95 19.95 2400/9600bps nonprime Sprint or Tymnet 2.50 22.95 32.45 44.95 94.95 2400/9600bps prime Sprint +% or Tymnet 5.50-10 29.95 69.95 119.95 varies 2400/9600bps non prime # PCPursuit 1.00 20.95 24.95 29.95 49.95 * plus cost of phone call if out of Portal's local dialing area Direct rates also apply to connections made to Portal using the UNIX "telnet" or "rlogin" programs from an account you may already have on an Internet-connected system. % 9600 bps Sprintnet and Tymnet available in 100 major metro areas + $10 rate prevails at smaller US Cities # PCPursuit is a service of US Sprint. Portal is a PCPursuit "Direct Access Facility" thus connection to Portal with a PCP account is simply a matter of entering C PORTAL,PCP-ID,PCP-PASSWORD at the SprintNet login prompt instead of C PORTAL. Notes: Portal Direct 9600/14400 bps service is availble for both USR HST modems, and any V32/V32.bis modems. There are 48 direct, high speed lines into Portal. Busy signals are rare! SprintNet 9600bps service is V.32 modem protocol only. Tymnet 9600bps services is V.32 modem protocol only. Again, Portal does NOT surcharge high speed modem users! Portal subscribers who already have an account on an Internet-capable system elsewhere, can use that system's "telnet" or "rlogin" programs to connect to Portal for $0.00 an hour. That's right ZERO. From anywhere in the world. If you're in this category, be sure to ask the Portal reps, when you signup, how to login to Portal from your existing Internet account. Call and join today. Tell the friendly Portal Customer Service representative, "The Amiga Zone sent me!" That number again: 408-973-9111. Portal Communications accepts MasterCard, Visa, or you can pre-pay any amount by personal check or money order. Sorry, no American Express or "checkfree" at this time. ****************************************************************************** > Amiga Report CONFIDENTIAL "Rumors Tidbits Predictions Observations Tips" ========================= Fort Worth, TX -- Insiders report that Tandy Corporation has sold its Tandy Factory Direct (TFD) facility to AST for $110 million. This move may signal the end of what has been said to be a failing operation for quite some time. Tandy is said to be interested in expanding and improving on its retail chains, including Radio Shack, Video Concepts, McDuff's and Incredible Universe. Cincinnati, OH -- Cincinnati Microwave announced a new top-of-the-line radar detector. The Passport 4500 SuperWide with Laser offers the same DSP technology found in the second-generation Escort, which offers the greatest detection range. The Passport 4500 covers all bands... X, K, Ka (the entire Ka range from 33.4 to 36 GHz band), plus Laser. Cincinnati Microwave said they are taking advance orders for the Passport 4500, which will go on sale in July for $229. 800-433-3487. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > AR Dealer Directory These are not ads -- just a reader service! =================== Armadillo Brothers 753 East 3300 South Salt Lake City, Utah VOICE: 801-484-2791 GEnie: B.GRAY Computers International, Inc. 5415 Hixson Pike Chattanooga, TN 37343 VOICE: 615-843-0630 Finetastic Computers 721 Washington St Norwood, MA 02062 VOICE: 617-762-4166 Portal: FinetasticComputers Internet Mail: FinetasticComputers@cup.portal.com MicroSearch 9000 US 59 South, Suite 330 Houston, Texas VOICE: 713-988-2818 FAX: 713-995-4994 PSI Animations 17924 SW Pilkington Road Lake Oswego, OR 97035 VOICE: 503-624-8185 Internet Mail: PSIANIM@agora.rain.com Software Plus Chicago 3100 W Peterson Avenue Chicago, Illinois VOICE: 312-338-6100 (Dealers: To have your name added, please send Email!) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Amiga Report's "EDITORIAL CARTOON" ================================== A blind man walks into K-Mart with his seeing-eye dog. The man picks up his dog by the tail and swings it around in a circle above his head. The store manager approaches... "What are you doing?" The man replies, "Looking around!" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Amiga Report International Online Magazine ~ STR Publications -* [S]ilicon [T]imes [R]eport *- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Amiga Report ~YOUR INDEPENDENT NEWS SOURCE~ May 28, 1993 Online Magazine Copyright (c) 1993 All Rights Reserved No. 1.11 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Views, Opinions and Articles presented herein are not necessarily those of the editors and staff of Amiga Report International Online Magazine or of STR Pub- lications. Permission to reprint articles is hereby granted, unless otherwise noted. Reprints must, without exception, include the name of the publication, date, issue number and the author's name. Amiga Report and/or portions therein may not be edited in any way without prior written permission. However, trans- lation into another language is acceptable, provided the original meaning re- mains intact. Amiga Report may be distributed on privately owned not-for- profit bulletin board systems (fees to cover cost of operation is acceptable), and major online services such as (but not limited to) Delphi, GEnie, and Portal. Distribution on public domain disks is acceptable provided proceeds are only to cover the cost of the disk (e.g. no more than $5). Distribution on for-profit magazine cover disks requires written permission from the editor or publisher. Amiga Report is a not-for-profit publication. Amiga Report, at the time of publication, is believed reasonably accurate. Amiga Report, its staff and contributors are not and cannot be held responsible for the use or misuse of information contained herein or the results obtained there from. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~