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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 21, 1993 No. 1.10 ============================================================================== Amiga Report International Online Magazine ============================================================================== From STR Publishing [S]ilicon [T]imes [R]eport ----------------------------------------- * NOVA BBS * Amiga Report Headquarters * RUNNING STARNET BBS * FidoNet 1:362/508 An Amiga Software Distribution Site (ADS) 615-472-9748 Supra V.32bis 24hrs - 7 days Amiga Report can be FREQ'd from Nova 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 ----------------------------------------- ______________________________________________________________________________ > 05/21/93 Amiga Report 1.10 "The Original * Independent * Online Magazine!" ========================== - The Editor's Desk - CPU Report - New Products - Dealer Directory - AR Online - AR Confidential - Usenet Reviews - Who What Where - SuperFrog - SupraTurbo 28 - NAB Show Report - Warez Out There -* Amiga 1400 This Fall? *- -* Future Of The 68000 Line *- -* Sierra Losses Again *- ============================================================================== 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!" ====================== Here it is, another week has passed since you last read my ramblings. A few noteworth items... Mike Troxell's column, Rendered Reality, is going on hiatus until he gets enough memory in his A1200 to actually RUN some of his graphics programs. He told me the other day that it's pretty hard trying to write about stuff you can't even run. Between that and the limitations of his 40 meg hard drive, he can't even get more than maybe two or three major graphics applications on his system. Morph Plus lone takes about 8 meg, and Imagine takes scads more. He can't decide whether to get a CSA 12-Gauge now or wait for ICD's Viper. I guess complacency is in these days. The two times I've requested that people write in -- once with letters for a collective mailing to Commodore, and last week, with mail order stories -- I've had no response at all. I did get quite a bit of feedback concerning the decision to go to an Amiga Guide format. That's still up in the air. It hinges on whether or not we go every-other-week. If we do, you'll probably see at least an attempt at Amiga Guide. If not, I doubt it. Amiga Report is certainly a widely-read publication. I received word today that a project to translate each weekly issue into Japanese is underway. I have a distributor in the UK that posts the magazine on CIX and other UK systems, plus the sysop of our headquarters BBS, Nova, has reported callers from Canada and Germany, to name just two. I'm very pleased to see that we have become so popular. I want to thank everyone who have sent their comments. They are a valuable tool to determine if we are doing a good job. If there is something you'd like to see, please let me know. If there is a way for us to do it, we'll certainly try. If there is something you don't like, again, let us know. Thanks again to everyone, and have a great weekend! Rob @ Amiga Report ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Amiga Report's Staff DEDICATED TO SERVING YOU! ==================== Editor ====== Robert Glover Technical Editor Graphics Editor Contributing Editor ================ =============== =================== Micah Thompson Mike Troxell Tom Mulcahy GEnie: BOOMER.T M.TROXELL1 FidoNet: 1:362/508.5 1:260/322 Delphi: 16BITTER Bix: HELMET Contributing Correspondents =========================== David Andrew Clayton Eric Dietiker Robert Niles Berend Ozceri Scott Withington 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: Delphi........................ ROB_G GEnie......................... ROB-G Internet.......................ROB_G@Delphi.COM FidoNet........................1:362/508.6 (NOTE: I can receive NetMail, but I cannot send it -- yet!) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > CPU STATUS REPORT LATE BREAKING INDUSTRY-WIDE NEWS ================= MOTOROLA OUTLINES FUTURE OF 68000 CHIPS AUSTIN, TEXAS -- Motorola's Semiconductor Products Sector, part of its Micro- processor and Memory Technologies Group, says the future for its 68000 chip family is bright and will spark new revolutions in electronic products. The company says its strategy calls for rapid progress on a number of fronts, including basic processing technologies, design engineering, chip fabrication, and quality. That will include higher chip density, integration, increased performance, and reduced design cycles. Part of Motorola's vision for the 68000 series includes personal computers that are easier to use, are more powerful, and have greater versatility than anything currently available. It also predicts smaller, smarter machines that include palmtop nomadic computers, interactive home entertainment systems, and hand-held global positioning and navigation devices for motorists, boaters, and hikers. The company says its higher density chips can increase chip density from the present 68,000 transistors on the original 68000 processor and the 1.2 million on the current 68040 model to a transistor count approaching 100 million by the year 2000. With that kind of density, Motorola designers expect to be able to place multiple CPUs (central processing units), megabyte-size caches, and multiple parallel pipelines on a single chip. Within the next two years, Motorola expects the 68000 family of processors to surpass 100 million instructions per second, and that number will reach one billion instructions per second by the end of the decade. That's similar to the computing power of today's top-of-the-line supercomputers. In the functional arena, the company says as transistor count climbs, integrated processors will be able to pack logic equivalent to a large motherboard on a single chip, and that chip could include multiple specialized processors, a full complement of system peripherals, and even several megabytes of memory. The company is also working on fuzzy logic, neural networks, digital signal processing (DSP), wireless communications, and other leading edge technologies. Production time will also shrink, says Motorola, with the process of adding peripheral logic to a core processor taking as little as one week from specification to final mask by the year 2000. Engineers also see lower power requirements for the greater capacity chips in the future, saying that the next few years will see a static, 3.3-volt version of the 68040, called the 68040V, as well as a low power 68030 processor. The 68060 and subsequent CPUs will have a fully static 3.3-volt design from the outset, and Motorola designers expect to be producing processors in the 1.5-volt range by the end of the decade. In terms of functionality, Motorola predicts general purpose CPUs, streamlined embedded processors, low power chips, and specialized processors for applications such as data communications, interactive CD players, portable computing, and engine control. Applications are also envisioned for speech recognition and advanced real-time video and animation. The company says the consumer computing market is characterized by price sensitivity and high volume production. By integrating the right mix of functions for a given application, reducing the chip count, and providing low-voltage chips, consumers should have available a variety of portable and hand-held devices. As Motorola puts it, "The best is yet to come." SIERRA LOSSES AGAIN, TSN CLOSER TO BREAK-EVEN OAKHURST, CALIFORNIA -- Sierra On-Line is still struggling despite a 15 percent revenue increase for 1993. The company is reporting losses of $8.4 million for its 1993 fiscal year and again says the resources went into its graphical bulletin board service, The Sierra Network (TSN). Most of the company's losses were in its last quarter of the year with $6.2 million in losses reported. The largest revenues were in its fourth quarter as well, with revenues of $11.9 million, an increase of 21 percent over the $9.9 million reported for the same period of fiscal 1992. Sierra has been reporting losses each quarter since November of 1992 and is facing a class action suit from its shareholders. While the company says it is experiencing revenue increases in its software products sales, it is finding the products have a reduced shelf-life. This is in spite of the fact that market research firm PC Research indicated Sierra had the largest market share of entertainment products in the holiday season. Sierra is blaming an increase in game titles from other manufacturers and new disk formats as the shelf-life culprits. For example, market demand for 5.25-inch diskettes, a format the company has invested heavily in, has dropped dramatically, the company added. However, the real culprit behind the company's continued losses is the Sierra Network. The company principles said last year The Sierra Network could be profitable if it could get 50,000 subscribers. The company went to flat rate fees, and has added innovative enhancements such as on-line amusement parks and the ability to compose a picture of yourself which you can choose to have displayed to others who interact with you on-line. Like other on-line services, such as GEnie, Sierra offers multiplayer games with graphical interfaces, such as flight simulations with other players in other planes. In addition, the company has attracted popular computer industry columnist and radio host John Dvorak. Plans are to link the on-line service directly with Dvorak's radio show "Dvorak On Computers," which is syndicated by SNP Radio Network and is estimated to have about a half-million listeners. This is not a new idea, as conservative political radio show host Rush Limbaugh promotes interaction with listeners via the on-line service Compuserve. Sierra has also invested in heavily promoting The Sierra Network and says it has pushed revenues up from $0.3 million during fiscal 1992 to $3.0 million for fiscal 1993. Revenues for the quarter were nearly double last year's at approximately $1.4 million, the company added. Nevertheless, The Sierra Network has not reached that critical mass, and is showing a loss of $1.9 million for the fourth quarter and ($5.4) million for fiscal 1993. The company said the losses were caused by attempts at expansion including "aggressive" marketing programs to attract new subscribers and providing additional customer support. The announcement of Sierra's earnings does not seem to have discouraged investors. The stock, which closed May 19 at 11 was up today 0.875 in light trading. The interest from investors may come from Sierra and AT&T's recent announced the two companies are negotiating concerning The Sierra Network. No specifics have been forthcoming, but representatives of Sierra told Newsbytes it could mean The Sierra Network would become a joint venture between AT&T and Sierra On-Line. ATARI PLANS TO FIGHT JUDGE'S DECISION FOR NINTENDO SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA -- In the big money legal wars between video game makers, the Atari unit of Time Warner has lost the last round to Nintendo. District Court Judge Fern Smith, of the US District Court in San Francisco, said that Atari did infringe on Nintendo's patents. This is the same Judge, who in March of last year, issued an injunction against Atari, saying Atari "decided to make its cartridges functionally indistinguishable from Nintendo's own games by admittedly copying more than was needed to make a game work on the NES console." The battles between the two companies started in 1988 when Atari Games broke off a licensing agreement which had allowed it to sell Nintendo compatible game cartridges. Atari engineers found a way to break the security code of the Nintendo chip, a so-called lock-out chip, and have been using it ever since. Nintendo sued, charging patent infringement. Atari countersued, charging the Japanese entertainment giant with illegal monopoly of the game business. Paul Liu, chairman of American Video Entertainment (AVE), told Newsbytes that Nintendo changed the internal design of its hardware so the machines will no longer play his company's game cartridges. Liu is in the process of suing Nintendo for $105 million. While Nintendo is winning in the courts, the Federal Trade Commission has been pursing the game giant. In 1991 alone, reports from industry insiders indicate Nintendo may have paid as much as $25 million in FTC fines for anti-trust violations. The entire computer industry is watching these video game maker battles because they could set a legal precedent that prohibits software developers from producing compatible applications for a computer without a license from the designer of the computer hardware. A similar, long-term battle between Sega and Accolade, also expected to be a precedent setting one, was just settled out-of-court last month. Atari officials say that the company will continue to fight and is planning an appeal of Judge Smith's decision. The preceding stories are Copyright (c) 1993 NewsBytes. Reprinted with Permission. ------------------------------ WORDPERFECT CORPORATION INTRODUCES WORDPERFECT 6.0 FOR DOS Worldwide announcement marks the beginning of a new standard in information processing OREM, Utah March 24, 1993 WordPerfect Corporation officially introduced WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS today, the first upgrade in more than three years to the company's best-selling DOS word processor. The new version, scheduled to be released later this spring, was unveiled during press conferences in Germany, Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. Version 6.0 is the successor to WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS. Version 5.1 has consistently been a best seller for the company since its introduction in 1989. That trend continued in 1992, as WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS outsold all other software applications. "Like version 5.1, WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS will set a new standard in information processing," said Alan Ashton, president of WordPerfect Corporation. "The hundreds of new and enhanced features in WordPerfect 6.0 allow people to accomplish tasks never before possible with a word processor," said Ashton. Spreadsheet functionality, for example, is now built into WordPerfect. Computing functions and cell formatting features are now a part of Tables and allow users to accomplish most spreadsheet functions without having to use a separate spreadsheet package. WordPerfect 6.0 users will also be able to fax directly from within WordPerfect. Version 6.0 supports FaxBIOS technology and will ship with the necessary drivers for Class 1, Class 2, or CAS-compliant fax devices. "WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS is a product that goes beyond word processing by providing solutions to a variety of day-to-day tasks," said Todd Ashman, product marketing director for WordPerfect for DOS. "The new fax, sound, e-mail and spreadsheet capabilities found in this upgrade help make WordPerfect the application from which all personal computing originates." Version 6.0 is also the first DOS word processor from WordPerfect Corporation to be fully developed using the new WordPerfect Usability Center. "Usability testing helped us to develop a new version of WordPerfect which is not only more powerful, but easier to use than competing word processors," said Jim Millecam, director of WordPerfect development. "The new WordPerfect Coach feature, for example, takes WordPerfect ease-of-use to a new level and is unavailable in any other word processing application," said Millecam. The Coach feature allows users to access their own personal tutor for selected functions. The Coach will then guide the user by giving step-by-step instructions regarding how to execute the specific function. Hundreds of other user enhancement requests have been added to the product. A few of the most powerful new additions include: WYSIWYG Editing Users can choose among three different interface modes while editing. The Text Mode is similar to the only mode currently available in version 5.1. Working in Graphics Mode allows users to see a graphical representation of fonts, graphics, colors etc. The Page Mode offers the same functionality as the Graphics Mode, but also shows headers, footers, footnotes, page numbers etc. All three modes are fully editable, mouse compatible and can be accessed at any time in the program. Scalable Fonts WordPerfect 6.0 supports four types of scalable fonts: Type 1, Intellifont, TrueType and Bitstream Speedo. WPFI, a utility that ships with the product, will install additional scalable fonts if the user desires. WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS will also ship with a number of customized scalable WordPerfect fonts. The scalable font technology in WordPerfect 6.0 makes true DOS-Windows-OS/2 font compatibility a reality. Selectable Merge Users can select the fields of the data records they would like included in a merge and then set the criteria by which those records are selected (all of the Jones who live in New York City, for example.) QuickFinder First available in WordPerfect 5.2 for Windows, QuickFinder is an innovative way to search local or network directories quickly and effectively. Indexes created with QuickFinder allow users to quickly search for documents based on user-defined criteria. Other new and enhanced features include color printing, drag-and-drop graphics, irregular text wrap around graphic images, Grammatik 5, the ability to work with up to nine documents at a time, Undo, enhanced envelope creation and more powerful macro capabilities. "The new graphical interface is a powerful enhancement to the product," said Bill Kesselring, an analyst at DataQuest in San Jose, California. "The overall combination of new and enhanced features in version 6.0 make WordPerfect the easiest DOS word processor to learn and use." WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS will have a retail price of $495 for a full package. Full package upgrades, for existing WordPerfect customers, will have a retail price of $129. A competitive trade-up package will also be available for $149 to customers who own a competing word processing package. ----------------------------- INSTALLER GAME AVAILABLE FOR FTP TITLE InstallerGame.lha ESCAPE FROM COMMODORE!! VERSION 1.0 AUTHOR Greg Simon InterNet: gs@teetot.acusd.edu DESCRIPTION This is a game written for the Commodore Installer Utility. (no, I'm not kidding) It runs on the Installer, however it installs nothing. Installer just provides an interface to a simple adventure game, where the goal is to "escape from Commodore!" SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS The Installer binary, v1.24 or higher. Whatever system runs installer (show me one that doesn't) HOST NAME ftp.luth.se [aminet] (130.60.80.80) (pending) DIRECTORY /aminet/game/hack FILE NAME InstallerGame.lha PRICE Nada. FreeWare. Enjoy it. I'm just not responsible for it. DISTRIBUTABILITY Everywhere your heart desires. ----------------------------- ARGONAUTS NEWSLETTER INTRODUCED TO WIDER AUDIENCE INTRODUCING ARGONAUTS. After a favorable reception among registered developers it is being introduced to a wider audience. Argonauts is a quarterly newsletter for the commercially active Amiganaut. It seeks to help build a business infrastructure that will make our live easier and more profitable. Regular features include first person business accounts of product development, business opportunities, research papers, news from overseas, a developers roundtable and more. Currently we are building a registry of amiga talent, (publishers, programmers, artists, technical writers). Next issue we will be introducing $500 challenge prizes. These will be in the centuries old tradition of offering a prize to the first person to achieve some specified goal in a set time. Argonauts is also about putting some fun back into being in this market. Too many people have forgotten that is why they originally came here instead of the PC or Mac. The current issue has articles about Objective-C, DevCon 93, DICE, European CD-ROM, the registry, developers roundtable and more. Authors include Sarah Bell, marketing director for Stepstone Corp, developers of Objective-C, Dan Weiss, VP R&D Soft-Logik, Carl Rollo, Matt Dillon who needs no introduction and Janet Bickerstaff from the UK ICPUG. So take a chance and spend 29 cents to write for a free sample copy and subscription information ($24.95 US) to: Argonauts, Dept. A Box 94 Pearl River NY 10965 - 0094 USA Please feel free to upload this to other services such as GEnie, BIX, etc. Marc P Seybold Publisher, Argonauts ----------------------------- SOFT-LOGIK ANNOUNCES THE NEW SOFT-LOGIK GRAPHIC LIBRARY St. Louis, Missouri (April 20, 1993) Soft-Logik Publishing Corporation, the developers of PageStream, the premier desktop publishing system for Amiga computers, is pround to announce the first two volumes of the Soft-Logik Graphic Library. The first volume, 3D Flags of the World, contains 190 full-color flags of countries and international organizations. The flags have beveled edges which give them a unique 3D appearance. The bevels can be removed in a compatible illustration program to create normal flags. The flags are stored in Adobe Illustrator 88 EPS format. With PageStream 2 or Art Expression they can be printed to any type of printer. 3D Flags of the World is available for Amiga, Macintosh, PC and Atari computers on double-density 3.5" disks. The second volume, Amiga Computer Art, contains over 70 full-color illustrations of Amiga computers and related equipment. The realism of these drawings is stunning. The subjects range from the Amiga 1000 to the Toaster WorkStation and include a hard drive card, genlock, HP printers, Shown 60%, press <SPACE> for more, 'q' to quit, or 'h' for help PCM card, handheld and flatbed scanners, and much more. The illustrations are stored in Adobe Illustrator 3 EPS format. Amiga Computer Art is available for Amiga computers on double-density 3.5" disks. The suggested retail price of each volume is $125, but they are available at an introductory price of only $67 each. The next volume to be released will be a collection of PC and Macintosh computers and related equipment. To order, contact Soft-Logik Publishing at: sales 800-829-8608 international sales 314-894-8608 fax 314-894-3280 Soft-Logik Publishing Corp. 11131F South Towne Square St. Louis, MO 63123 USA Samples from the Clip Art collection may be downloaded from the Soft-Logik BBS (314) 894-0057 and from the Portal Communications service. ----------------------------- "CRAP" NEWSLETTER AVAILABLE ON FIDONET . _________ ______ . __ _________ . . | / _______// ____ \ * / \\ _____ \ | -*- / / . / / . \ \ / /\ \\ \ . \ \ -*- . | * / / / /_____/ / / /__\ \\ \___/ / * | / / * . / _____ _/ / ______ \\ ___/ . / / / / \ \ / / \ \\ \ * * . / / . / / . / // /_ . _\ \\ \__ /\ * \ \ *\_\ /_/*\___\ /___/*\___\*/ / | \ \______________________________________/ / -*- \________________________________________/ | . * . | -*- * . Crappy Ritten Amiga Paper * | . ------------------------ ------------------ ---------- ----- Announcing the newest online amiga newsletter. Crap contains all the latest (and some of the oldest) information on games, hardware, music, programming, coding, reviews, announcements, and more... Trust me its good. It's so great, I can't even bring myself to type out the words to explain it. So you will have to find out for yourself. Not convinced? Shown 47%, press <SPACE> for more, 'q' to quit, or 'h' for help Listen to what some of these people had to say: "Crap Is So Good, I Stayed In The Bathroom For Two Hours, With My Printed-Out Copy." -- Gene Babinsky "When You Print Crap Out, It Makes Great Wall Paper" -- Anonymous "Amazing, Outstanding, The Best Movie of 93" -- Siskely & Edgbert (Sorry Wrong Announcement - ed.) So your saying, how do I get my copy of crap? Well... Via Fidonet, Request CRAP from 1:272/80.0 Call The Dead Fish BBS (Or your local BBS, it should have come through SAN by now) at (914) 425-6015 Via Amiganet, Request CRAP from 40:714/14.0 Via ICN, Request CRAP from 91:914/7.0 or 91:914/600.0 Via Magnet, Request CRAP from 100:900/17.0 Via UUCP, email me at Aaron_Wald@dfbbs.linet.org (in order for me to email you back a uuencoded copy you are gonna really have to beg, not little begging, not hard core all out begging...) ------------------------------ ANNOUNCING AMOS MAILING LIST Attention all AMOS, AMOS Pro, and Easy AMOS coders! The AMOS mailing list run by David Tiberio is now gone! :( Let's all thank David for his help in setting up the first AMOS mailing list! (HOOOORAY!) However, do not despair! A new AMOS mailing list is here! Being the most obnoxious and loudest AMOS advocate on the network, I have decided to continue the list! That's right, I have assumed control! To subscribe to the new AMOS list, send mail to: amos-request@access.digex.com In the body of the message, please put: SUBSCRIBE <your email address> For example, if I wanted to subscribe, I would put: SUBSCRIBE aj639@Cleveland.Freenet.edu (It is not case sensitive so do not worry about it) Okay, now that you have subscribed, this is how you send a message to everyone on the list. Compose your message as normal and send it to: amos-list@access.digex.com That is all you do! Everyone, including yourself, will get a copy of your message. What a great way to find out about updates and ask questions about anything relating to AMOS! If you want to send me mail concerning the list, such as to unsubscribe, heaven forbid, send it to the amos-request address. If you are unsubscribing, heaven forbid, put UNSUBSCRIBE in the Subject line. So what are you waiting for? Subscribe then send a message to amos-list introducing yourself and telling everyone what you do with AMOS! For those unaware of what AMOS, Easy AMOS, or AMOS Pro is, here is short description: All AMOS flavors (Easy, Pro, Creator) are a BASIC language with many advanced commands to give you complete control over your Amiga. AMOS is geared toward providing the most power with the least amount of work on the part of the coder. There are over 700 commands that allow you to open screens, play music, move sprites/BOBs, detect collisions, create menus, change fonts, scroll text, math computations, disk access, and interface with machine language code. AMOS Pro is the most powerful. Easy AMOS is designed for beginners and AMOS the Creator is in the middle. If you have questions about what else AMOS can do, just send a message to the list and I am sure several people will answer. If you are not subscribed you may want to say this in the message to make sure that those replying will mail you directly. ------------------------------ MULTIPRINT V1.12 AVAILABLE FOR FTP TITLE MultiPrint VERSION 1.12 13-May-1993 This is an update to version 1.9 released on the 28th of April 1993. AUTHOR John Matthews 4 Wadham Grove, Tawa, 6203 Wellington New Zealand Phone 64 4 232-7805 Fax (by arrangement) email: Internet : tribble@gphs.vuw.ac.nz ( Irregular Monitoring ) DESCRIPTION MultiPrint is a program initially designed to print document files, and other text files, to as few sheets of paper as possible. It has since had other features such as bold/italic/font support, Compugraphic support, paragraph reformating and full justification added for improved flexability and readability. MultiPrint prints text files to multiple columns, on both sides of the sheet automatically, with no need to shuffle the pages. Pages are printed with a footer, with margins, page numbers, and with a gutter to allow easy stapling, or hole punching. NEW FEATURES Version 1.12 fixes a few bugs that were found in the last released version, and adds a few significant features. 1.10 May 4, 1993 Bugs fixed : 1. Graceful exit if fonts or printer not opened. 1.11 May 11, 1993 Bugs Fixed : 1. Fixed bugs in handling of CSI type bold/italic etc codes, a) not switching off b) adding spaces in non-justified mode Thanks to Andrew Harrison for spotting this 2. LineSpacing argument changed to only work for increasing spacing. 1.12 May 13, 1993 Bugs Fixed : 1. Top margin bug in Hewlett Packard direct driver code. Caused problems 2. Fixed problem with Ctrl-C not working once all the pages were prepared, and awaiting printing. Added Features 1. HPUniDir flag in printer environment variable, to slightly improve quality on HP DeskJets. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS MultiPrint requires 2.04 or higher. MultiPrint works best with page oriented printers, such as lasers and HP deskjets. A fast printer helps. MultiPrint provides better output with the use of Scalable fonts, and better italics/bold if you have a complete family (or more) of Scalable fonts. HOST NAME This version can be found as MultiPrint18.lha on amiga.physik.unizh.ch (130.60.80.80), where I uploaded it in the new directory. You could also try wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4). In New Zealand, you can try kauri.vuw.ac.nz. DIRECTORY Should end up in /pub/aminet/text/print, where the last version was put. FILE NAMES MultiPrint112.lha, MultiPrint112.readme PRICE MultiPrint is shareware, basically. If you find the program useful, or need anything added, and want to encourage me, a donation is welcome, but not essential. I would like to make enough money from MultiPrint to replace the Ink Cartridge I used most of in testing MultiPrint. Suggestion, US$20 or equivalent, NZ$ if you can get them. Any amount is fine though. Hey, here's ambition ... maybe I could make enough to buy a laser printer! :-) DISTRIBUTABILITY Shareware. Distribute to whoever, but if you plan to include it in a magazine's cover disk, or anything like that - let me know first. No matter what, leave the documentation intact. ------------------------------ TOOLMANAGER V2.1 AVAILABLE FOR FTP TITLE ToolManager VERSION 2.1 AUTHOR Stefan Becker E-Mail: stefanb@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de stefanb@yello.adsp.sub.org DESCRIPTION ToolManager is a full featured program for either Workbench or CLI tool management. Includes the ability to add menu items to the 2.x "Tools" menu, add Workbench icons or dock windows. The configuration is based on a object-oriented concept and handled by a preferences program. ToolManager supports ARexx, localization, networking and sound. NEW FEATURES Changes since version 2.0: - New Exec object types: Dock, Hot Key, Network - New Dock object flags: Backdrop, Sticky - New object type: Access - Network support - Editor main window is now an AppWindow - Gadget keyboard shortcuts in the preferences editor - New tooltypes for the preferences editor - Several bug fixes - Enhanced documentation SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS Needs OS 2.04 or higher. Localization requires OS 2.1 or higher. Harddisk is recommended for unpacking the complete distribution. HOST NAMES amiga.physik.unizh.ch [130.60.80.80] /pub/aminet/os20/utils ftp.dfv.rwth-aachen.de [137.226.4.105???] /pub/amiga/utilities and of course all AmiNet mirrors... FILE NAMES ToolManager2_1bin.lha - Binaries and Documentation (ASCII, AmigaGuide, TeX) ToolManager2_1gfx.lha - Anims, Brushes and Icons ToolManager2_1src.lha - Source code and Programmer support files PRICE ToolManager 2.1 is GiftWare. Recommended donation is US $10-$20 or 10-20DM. DISTRIBUTABILITY Freely Distributable, (c) 1990-93 Stefan Becker ------------------------------ ANNOUNCING "FORAY" (TM) MUSHROOM INFORMATION & IDENTIFICATION DATABASE TITLE FORAY Mushroom Information and Identification Database VERSION 1.0 - Pre-release demo/evaluation version SAVE is disabled in this demo, but printing is left working. AUTHOR Marlin Greene eye2eye design 1633 6th Ave. West Seattle, Wa. 98119 206-281-9165 DESCRIPTION When enthusiasts get together to collect, identify, and learn more about mushrooms it's called a "foray." With a keen interest in extending that feeling of fun and discovery, eye 2 eye design is pleased to announce "FORAY" ... a pictorial mushroom information and identification database for the Amiga. Even someone who has never picked a wild mushroom, and doesn't intend to, can enjoy FORAY as a pictorial information source. You can modify the included records, add new records, or create entire new databases. FORAY is also designed to assist the serious mycologist, offering the matrix for an extensive multi-genus database. FORAY follows the same Group, then Genus, then species naming convention found in mushroom books and field guides. The present version of FORAY supports the four major mushroom Groups: Agarics, Boletes, Chanterelles, and Polypores. (Future upgrades will add more.) Records may be retrieved by Genus, Genus.species, common name, or by selecting feature keys and initializing a search. Features associated with any mushroom record may be changed, providing the opportunity to fine-tune an entry. Individualized comments and "field notes" may be saved with any record. Each mushroom entry can have a picture. The included pictures are a study of how the Amiga's basic 16 colors may be expanded to accurately reproduce the much wider palette of mushrooms in the wild. Using an Amiga paint program, you can create new pictures to add to the database. FORAY opens on its own hi-res screen on any Amiga with 2.0 or greater. It has its own proportional font, picture gadgets, and a beautiful, easy-to-use interface. All the pictures are original, created with DPaint... nothing was scanned. Please do not separate the pictures from the program. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS FORAY requires Amiga operating system 2.0 or greater, and likes a non-flickering screen. LHA to unpack the archive. SUGGESTED ENVIRONMENT At least 1M of memory, OS2.0 or greater HOST NAME/FILE NAME ForayDemo.lha 184660 bytes ForayDemo.readme 342 bytes These two files can be retrieved via anonymous FTP from all 12 AmiNet sites in the directory: /pub/aminet/util/misc Three of these sites are: wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4) amiga.physik.unizh.ch (130.60.80.80) ftp.luth.se (130.240.18.2) PRICE So that we can get FORAY launched, we are making the standard "introductory- buy direct" offer. You can get the FORAY program disk, the pictures disk, and a printed manual for only $40. The "release" version will have all four mushroom Groups and 40+ pictures in the databases. (include $3 for shipping + 8.2% sales tax for WA residents- $46.53 total) FORAY is copyright 1993 by eye 2 eye design. All the graphics and pictures are copyright 1993 by eye 2 eye design and may not be reproduced for sale without permission. If you need more information about the program contact us. Marlin Greene Email contact: eye2eye design crystal@glia.biostr.washington.edu 1633 6th Ave West Seattle, Wa 98119 206-281-9165 DISTRIBUTABILITY The demo version can be freely distributed, provided that the contents of the archive remain intact. However, the demo version is only intended for evaluation. FILES that should be on the disk: readfirst readfirst.info ForayBasics.txt short instructions ForayBasics.txt.info Boletes.db database of Bolete Group Agarics.db database of Agaric Group logo.pic title screen picture FORAY Demo of program FORAY.info MUSHPICS (dir) contains the pictures *** PLEASE KEEP ALL THE FILES TOGETHER IF YOU PASS IT ON *** OTHER You can run the demo from the floppy by simply clicking on the icon. It may also be installed on a harddisk. The release version of FORAY is hard drive installable. It will include at least 48 pictures and database records and a printed manual. This Usenet announcement and the files themselves were uploaded by Crystal@glia.biostr.washington.edu with permission from the author. ------------------------------ MULTIUSER V1.3 AVAILABLE FOR FTP TITLE MultiUser RELEASE 1.3 AUTHOR Geert Uytterhoeven uytterho@cs.kuleuven.ac.be SHORT Many users live in harmony on one system DESCRIPTION You've got an Amiga with Kickstart 2.04 or higher and several people are regularly fooling around with it ... Last week your sister deleted your 20MB GIF collection by mistake and you don't want this to happen again ... Well, here's the answer: MultiUser! MultiUser allows you to create a *IX-like environment where several users live together in harmony, unable to delete each others files, unable to read those private love-letters of other users ... And this even if several users are working on the machine at the same time (on a terminal hooked up to the serial port) ... You are the sole user of your computer? Well, make sure it stays that way by installing MultiUser! People without a valid login ID and password won't be able to access files you have made private with MultiUser. If you make all files private (not readable for others), the only useful thing they could do, is boot from a floppy ... NEW FEATURES Owner change during execution, and a lot more... SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS AmigaOS Release 2.04 or greater HOST NAME amiga.physik.unizh.ch (AmiNet) DIRECTORY os20/util FILENAME MultiUser13.lha DISTRIBUTION Freeware ------------------------------ SOFT-LOGIK ANNOUNCES LICENSING OF THE SERIALS TYPECOLLECTION St. Louis, Missouri (May 4, 1993) Soft-Logik Publishing Corporation today announced that it had licensed the Serials Typecollection from B&P Graphics for sale on the Amiga and Atari platforms. B&P Graphics is one of Europe's leading type houses. The Serials Typecollection is made up of 1000 professional fonts in PostScript Type 1 and TrueType format on an ISO9660 compact disk. This CD-ROM can be used on Amiga, Atari, Macintosh and PC compatible computers. It is accompanied by a small Type Specimen guide which shows all the fonts in the collection. A full-size Type Specimen book is also available separately. The fonts in the Serials Typecollection are compatible with leading Amiga and Atari applications, including PageStream, Art Expression, TypeSmith and Lightwave. A sample floppy disk with 12 fonts is available to those who would like to test the fonts with their applications first. Pricing: Serials Typecollection on CD-ROM: $499 Serials Typecollection on CD-ROM and two 44MB Syquest cartridges: $674 Serials Typecollection on CD-ROM and one 88MB Syquest cartridges: $624 Serials Typecollection on CD-ROM and copied to user's Syquest cartridge(s): $524 Serials Type Specimen Book (3 ring binder with 170 pages): $45 Sample Disk (with 12 fonts): $10 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > ONLINE WEEKLY Amiga Report Online People... Are Talking! ================================= From the Amiga International Echo on FidoNet -------------------------------------------- * AMIGA 1400 A REALITY??? * Area: AMIGA (MAIL:Fido/AMIGA/) From: Rakim Isadoor To: All Subj: AMIGA 1400 Date: 15 May 93 11:57:00 There has been a lot of replies and questions regarding my original post where I stated that an Amiga 1400 was going to be Commodore's next Amiga. I will answer all of the questions in this post. Where did I here about it? I heard about it from a Commodore hardware beta tester. I cannot betray his confidence and reveal his name (he did not want me mentioning it in the first place). He was right about the 1200 and he was right about the AGA chips way before anything was confirmed, so I believe him to be right this time also. When will it be available? He says that it should hit the dealers around November at the present schedule and maybe as much as a month sooner. SPECS: * It will be AGA just like the 1200. In fact it is almost identical to the Amiga 1200 in every regard except for a few very important improvements. * It will have a 68020 running at either 25 or 28 MHz. His model has a 25 MHz 68020 in it. * It will have a detachable keyboard similar to that of a 4000. * The main case will be the sleekest and smallest that Commodore has ever made for the Amiga (looks kind of like a Mac Performa 400). * It will have a PCMCIA slot just like the 1200. * Although the case will be small, there will more room for hard drives allowing the owner to purchase larger dimensions (and cheaper) hard drives. You are no longer limited to those expensive 2.5 inch ones. * It will come standard with the same high density floppy disk drive that the Amiga 4000 comes with. It will also allow reading and writing of the older double density variety. * there will be a small internal fan. * There will be a 5.25 drive bay for tape drives/ cd rom etc. * Two megs of Chip RAM. * Standard configuration will be with 4 megs of ram and a 80 meg hard drive. How much will it cost? Well, he says it should cost about a hundred more than a 1200 with a similar set up. They can do this because the 3.5 inch hard drives are A LOT cheaper in mass. Also expect the price of the 1200 to drop about $60.00 after the 1400's release. By Christmas, the Amiga 4000/030 should be selling for $1699. Hope the info clears up all of the questions I have been getting. From the Amiga_Video echo on FidoNet ------------------------------------ Area: AMIGA_VIDEO (MAIL:Fido/Amiga_Video/) From: Ron Kramer To: All Subj: NewTek - cool company Date: 10 May 93 15:52:54 Well I had my toaster go bad - and called Newtek to find out what the costs would be to fix it. I was told "we fix em for free" - My unit was about 2 years old and out of warranty (I would guess - I don't pay much attention to warrantys) anyway, I sent it out last monday... it arrived today - monday, one week later. Free of charge. It included a stock letter stating "we tested it and couldn't find anything wrong with it" I thought OH NO - I'm stuck with the same old problem and wasted a weeks time! Upon closer inspection I find a BRAND NEW TOASTER and registration card (stamped REPLACEMENT) for me to fill out and send in... Those turkeys gave me a NEW card for my two year old card! - now thats support! From the Amiga.User area on BIX ------------------------------- amiga.user/main #2177, from drchip, 888 chars, Sun May 16 11:26:28 1993 4MB 32 bit SIMMs come in several configurations that are all the same to many ay applications. Without parity the normal structure is 1MBx32 and usually this is done with 8 1Mx4 chips and there is no reason to put anything on the back. With parity you will either find 8 1Mx4 chips and 4 1Mx1 chips or 8 standard 1Mx4 chips and a "quad CAS" 1Mx4 chip (internally structured as 4 1Mx1s but on a single chip - these are reasonably new and reasonably scarce). When 12 chips are used instead of 8 or 9 (which is common on a 1Mx36 (32 bit with parity) and there is a need to conserve space it is usual to put chips on both sides. If a larger SIMM is tolerable they are put on a single side. Single chips that are 16 bits or 18 bits wide are now being made and this will eventually redsult in smaller high capacity SIMMs or two chips on the mothrboard for 32 bit memory with or without parity. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Warez Out There =============== By Tom Mulcahy TITLE - A.I.B.B. Version 6.1 VERSION - Version 6.1, an update to the recent 6.0 release AUTHOR - LaMonte Koop lkoop@tigger.stcloud.msus.edu (GP acct) f00012@kanga.stcloud.msus.edu (Enginnering acct) BIX: lkoop Mail: LaMonte Koop 1001 Summit Ave. North #125 Sauk Rapids, MN 56379 DESCRIPTION - A.I.B.B. Amiga Intuition Based Benchmarks Program Release Version 6.1 Copyright 1991-1993 LaMonte Koop Version Change Information Version series' 4.x-6.x of AIBB is a complete re-write from the original code used for the previous versions 1-3. Being that this is the case, it is quite important that the documentation be read thoroughly in order to completely understand all aspects of the program performance. The changes to this version series are detailed below. Changes to version 6.1: -- Some modifications were made to the way AIBB does MMU table translations (such as looking up the ROM image location) on 68040 machines to correct a few problems and wrong results which occured with this. -- General code clean up and reduction has resulted in an approximate 10K of size reduction in AIBB's executable. -- A few more boards were added to AIBB's internal expansion board database. AVAILABLITY - BIX: amiga.exchage DELPHI: recent uploads GENIE: Amiga RT, file #19286 FILENAME - AIBB_61.LHA - 205,003 bytes ------------------------------ TITLE - Scenery Animator v4.0 PREVIEW VERSION - Version 4.0, an update to version 2.x AUTHOR - Natural Graphics PHONE: 1-916-624-1436 FAX: 1-916-624-1406 MAIL: 4603 Slate Court Rocklin, CA 95677 DESCRIPTION - SA4, due for release before the end of May, 1993, and still carrying a retail price of US$99.95, has many enhancements, not the least of which is AGA rendering modes and the ability to load, scale, rotate and place VideoScape 3D ASCII ".geo" format 3D objects into your landscapes. There's no need to whine and moan about VS3D .geo being an old format. There are nice object converters out there which will convert your LightWave, Imagine, and other format objects into .geo format for loading into SA4. If you are serious about Amiga 3D then you probably already own an object converter. SA4 will come with a limited number of simple public domain objects. This new version also gives you the ability to plop down oak and redwood trees anywhere you want to, thanks to the new ZOOM mode on the map screen capable of up to 512x magnification for extremely precise object/tree placement. There are many other improvements in SA4, which will be detailed in Natural Graphics' forthcoming magazine ads, the inevitable reviews, and a recent postcard sent to the company's mailing list of customers. SA4 requires a minimum of 3 MEG of RAM to operate, and will be supplied in both a standard 68000 version and a faster 680x0/6888x accelerated version on the same disk. Two other medium res 16 color pics are in this archive. One of them shows the main screen of SA4 with the two objects visible in the landscape in the main preview window. The other is of SA4's map screen showing the object list requester, and a slightly zoomed map of the landscape showing placement of the two objects. The city object is selected and thus red. The spaceship is de-selected and thus white. SA4's interface details are still subject to revision since these pictures came from a Beta copy of the program. AVAILABILITY - DELPHI: recent uploads INTERNET: aminet GENIE: N/A FILENAME - sa4pic.lha - 74,035 bytes ------------------------------ TITLE - Deluxe Paint 4.5 -> 4.6 patch file VERSION - Version 4.6, an update to 4.5 AUTHOR - Electronic Arts PHONE: (415)572-ARTS MAIL: 1820 Gateway Drive San mateo, CA 94404 DESCRIPTION - ******************** DeluxePaint® AGA Patch ReadMe File ********************* Thank you for purchasing DeluxePaint AGA. Electronic Arts would like to thank all those customers and beta testers who provided us with great feedback and reports on how to improve the program. We would also like to remind everyone that we are always looking for suggestions on how to make this program the best it can be. We want to keep making better versions of DeluxePaint, but remember piracy and "lending your software" hurts everyone. Spread the word, not the software. Version 4.6 - Advance release module - 2/26/93 You will need the following to install this patch: 1. Your original DeluxePaint AGA Install Disk 1 2. Your owner registration card. 3. Pre-installed DeluxePaint AGA on a hard drive or floppy disk. 4. An Amiga running Amiga DOS version 2.04 or greater. Dpaint.pch is an update module that converts your unregistered DeluxePaint IV AGA version 4.5 program file to a version 4.6 file. This new version adds two special enhancements to DeluxePaint AGA: 1. Improved support for the Trimedia Inc. pressure sensitive graphic tablets. 2. Direct exchange of data in memory between DeluxePaint AGA and Art Department Professional version 2.3. Use following format: spatch -o[newfile] -p[patchfile] oldfile If you experience problems with DeluxePaint AGA version 4.6, please check to see if these problems also exist in version 4.5 before contacting Customer Support at Electronic Arts. Please consult your manual for information on making working copies or installing to a hard drive. DeluxePaint IV © 1985, 1993 Electronic Arts All Rights Reserved. DeluxePaint is a registered trademark of Electronic Arts. Art Department Professional is a registered trademark of ASDG Inc. AGA is a registred trademark of Commodore-Amiga Inc. AVAILABILITY - DELPHI: recent uploads INTERNET: aminet GENIE: N/A FILENAME - dpaintpatch.lha - 107,439 bytes ------------------------------ TITLE - Force Monitor v3.10 VERSION - Version 3.10, an update to version 3.09 AUTHOR - Michael Illgner Theodorstr. 27 W-4790 Paderborn Germany PHONE: 05251/26488 or 05251/60-2331 INTERNET: fillg1@uni-paderborn.de DESCRIPTION - *************************************************************************** * * * This magnificient piece of software is real PD, so you do not need to * * send any money to me, but I would like to receive some good sourcecodes * * especially for OS2.0 [ amiga, of course ;-) ] or better. * * * *************************************************************************** *************************************************************************** * * * F o r c e M o n i t o r v3.10 * * * *************************************************************************** ForceMonitor is written as a commodity, so it should belong to your WBStartUp-drawer and will be started and used as any other commodity. ForceMonitor patches OpenScreen and OpenScreenTagList, to open most screens in a given displaymode. Using Exchange you can disable ForceMonitor, which will bypass the patch. Due to security reasons, the patch will only removed at program end. Sorry, I cannot include the sources yet, because I am not allowed to own the 3.0 AutoDocs and Includes ;-) (Hello CATS, we need them !!!!!) History : V3.5 fixed some small bugs. The NewLook flag was always set. ForceMonitor now checks ToolTypes from the icon it was started from, not from the program icon itself. Thanks to Markus Stipp (corwin@uni-paderborn.de) for discovering these. V3.6 The ConfigWindow now gets to the front if opened. V3.7 Implemented the Reject-Screens-and-Tasks ListView, now you can specify some Screens and Tasks, where ForceMonitor will not work. Changed the SaveConfig() routine, now >all< unknown ToolTypes are saved, not only "DONOTWAIT" !! The version string is updated on every compilation now !! ForceMonitor now uses 68020 code instead of 68040, so Amiga 1200 owners are happy :-) V3.8 Implemented some menus. Corrected the Reject-Screen-and-Task Gadget enabling and activation. Removed bug in MyOpenScreenTagList() which caused enforcerhits on screens without title. Removed ugly bug in GetMonitorList() ForceMonitor will now popup the ConfigWindow, if no correct configuration could be read from the icon. V3.9 ForceMonitor will activate the ConfigWindow if openend. V3.10 Implemented an Enable Gadget to en/-disable ForceMonitor from ConfigWindow. Thanks to Mario Kemper (magick@uni-paderborn.de) for this suggestion. AVAILABILITY - INTERNET: aminet BIX: amiga.exchange GENIE: Amiga RT, file #19023 FILENAME - forcemon310.lha - 10k ------------------------------ TITLE - LX VERSION - Version 1.00 AUTHOR - Jonathan Forbes Xenomiga Technology Toronto, Ontario M5S 2Z4 Canada DESCRIPTION - LL XX XX LL XX XX LL XXX LL XX XX LLLLLL XX XX Version 1.00 Written by Jonathan Forbes Copyright © 1993, Xenomiga Technology 1 - Distribution This version of LX is freely distributable for non-commercial use, including distribution on the Fred Fish disks; i.e. there is no "shareware" (or other) fee for non-commercial use. Permission is hereby granted to include the unmodified Version 1.00 LX executable by itself (i.e. without this documentation) with any PUBLIC DOMAIN or SHAREWARE package, provided that a brief credit note is included in the program's documentation. 2 - Introduction LX is a fast dearchiver/decompressor for the Commodore Amiga. It is compatible with LZ, Lhunarc, Lharc, LharcA, and LhA (all for the Amiga), and Lharc and LHA for MS-DOS. LX is the third generation of LZH utility released by Xenomiga Technology, following Lhunarc and LZ. LX is also an extremely small program (~ 16K) which makes it ideal for floppy disk users to keep on a terminal disk. Since LX reads and writes data asynchronously, the speed of the source and destination devices (if they are different devices), be they floppy drives, hard drives, or CD-ROM's, does not cripple LX as is common with the other Amiga archivers. This makes LX ideal for use in floppy-to-hard drive installation programs. In fact, this is one of the purposes for which it was written. 3 - Performance 3.1 LX speed LX is, at the time of release, the fastest LZH/LHA dearchiver available for the Amiga. It goes without saying that the decompression routines were written entirely in highly optimised assembly language. LX was written with caching microprocessors in mind, and will perform better the larger the size of your CPU's cache. LX's decompression code should run almost entirely within the cache of the 68040. 3.2 LX/020 LX/020 is a version of LX which has been optimised for the Motorola 68020 and later processors in the 680x0 generation. It has been most optimised for the 68030, since LX was developed on an Amiga 3000, although it will run on a 68020. It will not run on a 68000 or 68010 machine, however. The speed increase is reasonably small (approximately 7% on an A3000), but if you have a 68020 or better, it makes sense to rename LX020 to LX and use that. 4 - System requirements LX requires AmigaDOS 2.0 or later to run. LX/020 requires, in addition to the above, at least a Motorola 68020 CPU. LX will run on an Amiga with 512 KB of RAM or more. LX does NOT require arp.library. 5 - Compatibility LX is intended to be compatible with all other LZH/LHA utilities, and supports many of the Amiga-specific extensions to the standard LZH format. LX can process archive headers of level 0 or 1, but does not process archive headers of level 2, since the presence of such headers is essentially non-existent on the Amiga, and would only incur additional overhead into the program. Note that LZ 1.92 and earlier can only process archive headers of level 0. LX 1.00 Benchmark File ============================================================================== See bottom of file for benchmarking setup. A. Test 1 View all archives on DH1: (29 -lh5- archives, totalling 8 MB) Utility Version Time (sec) Command line ------- ------- ---------- ------------ 1. LV 1.00 12.07 LV >nil: -q dh1:#? 2. LhA 1.38 12.07 LhA >nil: -q v dh1:#? 3. LX/020 1.00 12.10 LX020 >nil: -q v dh1:#? 4. LX 1.00 12.14 LX >nil: -q v dh1:#? 5. LZ 1.92 13.38 LZ >nil: -N v dh1:#? Comments: As you can see, LV, LhA, LX and LX/020 operate at almost exactly the same speed for the viewing operation. B. Test 2 Test all files in archives on DH1: (29 -lh5- archives, totalling 8 MB) Utility Version Time (sec) Options ------- ------- ---------- ------- 1. LX/020 1.00 92.45 LX020 >nil: -q t 2. LX 1.00 95.23 LX >nil: -q t 3. LhA 1.38 103.72 LhA >nil: -q t 4. LZ 1.92 115.67 LZ >nil: -N t Comments: LX and LX/020 show their speed, a combination of optimised assembly language, and asynchronous disk i/o. C. Test 3 Test one large file in RAM: (410K archived, 1500K decompressed, -lh5-) Utility Version Time (sec) Options ------- ------- ---------- ------- 1. LX/020 1.00 4.93 LX020 >nil: -q t 2. LX 1.00 5.35 LX >nil: -q t 3. LhA 1.38 5.42 LhA >nil: -q t 4. LZ 1.92 10.98 LZ >nil: -N t Comments: Testing entirely in RAM, the asynchronous disk i/o advantage of LX is nullified, and, in fact, becomes a deficiency, although it remains faster than LhA. D. Test 4 Test one large file in RAM: (410K archived, 1500K decompressed, -lh1-) Utility Version Time (sec) Options ------- ------- ---------- ------- 1. LX/020 1.00 12.25 LX020 >nil: -q t 2. LX 1.00 12.75 LX >nil: -q t 3. LhA 1.38 15.34 LhA >nil: -q t 4. LZ 1.92 22.35 LZ >nil: -N t Comments: LX and LX/020 are far faster at decompressing -lh1- archives. E. Test 5 Test all files in archives on DF0: (1 -lh5- archive, total 817K) Utility Version Time (sec) Options ------- ------- ---------- ------- 1. LX 1.00 55.22 LX >nil: -q t 2. LX/020 1.00 55.30 LX020 >nil: -q t 3. LhA 1.38 80.68 LhA >nil: -q t 4. LZ 1.92 96.27 LZ >nil: -N t Comments: Demonstrates the advantage of LX's asynchronous disk i/o. As a sidenote, here are the stats for the 'copy' command (copy the archive from DF0: to RAM:) Utility Version Time (sec) ------- ------- ---------- Copy 38.1 39.21 The above benchmarks were performed using: Amiga 3000 (25 MHz 68030) 6 MB Fast RAM, 2 MB Chip RAM 52 MB Quantum LPS All archivers and the timing program (RTimer) were in RAM: All console output was suppressed in all tests. The computer was re-booted between each test to avoid memory fragmentation. The Data and Instruction caches of the 68030 were enabled, as was BURST mode (for both Data and Instructions). These benchmarks provide a very general idea of the speed improvement of LX over other archives. Your mileage will vary. AVAILABILITY - BIX: amiga.exchange GENIE: Amiga RT, file #19166 FILENAME - lx100.lha - 24,576 bytes ****************************************************************************** :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 ****************************************************************************** > AR Review: SupraTurbo 28 MHz Accelerator ========================================= By Robert Niles (RNiles@Delphi.com) PRODUCT NAME SupraTurbo 28 BRIEF DESCRIPTION 68000 28MHz accelerator for the Amiga 500 or the Amiga 2000 (tested device is the A2000 version, BETA unit) AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Supra Corporation 7101 Supra Drive Albany, OR 97321 Telephone: 503-967-2440 Tech Support (9 am - 4 pm PST, M-F) 503-967-2400 General (same) 503-967-2410 Sales (same) 503-967-2444 (BBS Number 1200-14.4k) FAX: 503-967-2401 EMAIL: America Online: SupraCorp2 BIX: SupraCorp GEnie: SupraTech RETAIL PRICE Currently about $169.00 through some mailorder companies. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE Amiga 500 or the Amiga 2000 with 68000 processor. Expansion RAM to run SupraTurbo at full speed. SOFTWARE None COPY PROTECTION N/A MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 2000 rev 4 1/2 Meg Agnus WorkBench 2.1, KickStart 2.04 2 MB Micron RAM Board A2090A HD Controller, Rodime 3259T 200MB HD REVIEW Shortly after being advised that I would be beta testing the SupraTurbo 28 it arrived in the mail. I opened the box to find the SupraTurbo board, a disk, and a manual which was a photocopy of the original preliminary manual, which consisted of 15 pages. The SupraTubo 28 board is aprox 1/2" in height, 5" long, and at the widest part, around 1.5", which was connected by a wire to a toggle switch. I opened up the Amiga, took out the 2MB board and the Controller, removed the plate in the rear of the computer that belonged to the accelerator slot. As per the intructions I took the toggle switch (which is mounted on its own late) and screwed it in where I removed the plate. I next took the SupraTurbo and plugged it into the the accelerator slot. There's only one way you could really fit it in there, and the instructions where precise, with pictures and all... no need to worry here. I re-installed my other boards, put the cover back on, reconnected the wires and powered it up. From beginning to end it took me about 20 minutes to install. The speed increase was noticably faster... in powering up through the startup-sequence to loading the BBS program I run. On the supplied disk is one program in which you can select whether do disable the SupraTurbo or not. The toggle switch works the same way by selecting ON or OFF. The position of the toggle switch determines which mode the computer will be in upon power up. The toggle switch can be in either position for the software to affect it. The SupraTurbo 28 contains a 16K onboard static RAM cache, which is the main reason for the overall speed increase. This RAM caches information stored from system ROMs and any expansion (fast) RAM you have. You need at least some expansion RAM in order to get the greater speed increase, otherwise performance is only increased by about 10-20%. Here are some tests I did unarchiving some files, using SysInfo 3.15 and with AIBB 6.1: Unarchiving Ncomm20.lha (252727 bytes) SupraTurbo turned On: 14 seconds " " Off: 35 seconds Unarchiving Sunsethd.lzh (143722 bytes) A Dyna-HiRes picture SupraTurbo turned On : 16 seconds " " Off: 52 seconds SysInfo v3.15 ------------- Central Processing Unit Type................... 68000 DMA/Gfx Chip................................... STD AGNUS - 512K Display Mode................................... NTSC:High Res Display Chip................................... STD DENISE SPEED COMPARISONS AGAINST KNOWN MODELS & PERIPHERALS A500 512k or A600 with 1MB CHIP ONLY........... 4.83 B2000, A2000, A1000 or A500 with fast ram...... 3.66 A1200 68EC020 ................................ 2.00 A2500 A2620 68020 14MHZ card.................. 1.24 A3000/25 SCRAM ICACHE IBURST DCACHE NODBURST... 0.55 A4000 68040 ICACHE DCACHE COPYBACK............ 0.14 CPU Million Instructions per Second............ 2.67 Speed of Chip Memory vs A600 Chip Memory....... 1.86 Dhrystones per second.......................... 2560 Comment........................................ >>>>>>>>>>>Lets go CPU speed in MHZ............................... 28.90 AIBB v6.1 Tests --------------- Test Name: Dhrystone Parameters: 68000 based standard code Multitasking: DISABLED Test Code Location: Memory Node #2 Test Data Location: Memory Node #1 Test Result: 4761.90 Dhrystones/Second (Higher = Better Performance) This Machine: 2.98 A600-NF: 1.00 (68000 | SC Math) Base System A1200-NF: 2.01 (68000 | SC Math) A3000-25: 5.57 (68000 | SC Math) A4000-40: 19.20 (68000 | SC Math) Test Name: Writepixel Parameters: Not applicable to this test. Multitasking: DISABLED Test Code Location: Memory Node #2 Test Data Location: Memory Node #2 Test Result: 3384.41 Pixels/Second (Higher = Better Performance) This Machine: 2.69 A600-NF: 1.00 (68000 | SC Math) Base System A1200-NF: 3.00 (68000 | SC Math) A3000-25: 3.48 (68000 | SC Math) A4000-40: 15.33 (68000 | SC Math) DOCUMENTATION The 15 page manual I had was a preliminary release yet I experienced no difficulties following the directions. It contained plenty of illustrations, and was written for the layman. The manual contained an introduction, explained what to expect from the SupraTurbo as far as speed increases, directions for both the A500 and A2000 models, instructions on using the software, known incompatabilities section, and a short troubleshooting guide. LIKES AND DISLIKES I like it!! I run a BBS and I'm archiving and unarchiving files on a regular basis. The BBS itself runs MUCH faster than before. Users have even noticed the difference. Other than the BBS, all my productivity software runs faster, as well as a few games, like Falcon (from Spectrum HoloByte). I have no dislikes (I've had it for about 4 months now). COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS Since I haven't run any other accelerators of this type, I have nothing to compare this with. It should be at least as twice as fast as ICD's AdSpeed. BUGS None known, although it will not run with 4 layered A2000 systems that were made in Germany in 1986. Some devices such as bridge boards will not work unless you have at least 4 MB of fast RAM becuase of some memory conflicts. The SupraTurbo must be turned off when using a bridge board without 4 MB of fast RAM. Also a small decrease in performance will be noticed with a bridge board attached and SupraTurbo turned on. I suspect that some games that address the Amiga illegally will also have problems running. Disabling the SupraTurbo would solve this problem. VENDOR SUPPORT Support is given by the telephone numbers listed above, and through Email on several commercial systems, and by the Supra BBS by leaving private mail to SUPRATURBO. WARRANTY Unknown. Call for warrenty information. CONCLUSIONS If you are looking for something to increase the speed of your Amiga 500 or 2000 and have a limited budget, buy it. It's faster than the A1200 with a 68020 (no fast memory), and faster AND cheaper than the 14MHz AdSpeed unit (price comparisons in the AmigaWorld magazine list SupraTurbo 28 at about $10.00 cheaper than AdSpeed). Supra Corporation did this one right! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Usenet Review: Superfrog ========================= By David Andrew Clayton PRODUCT NAME Superfrog BRIEF DESCRIPTION Superfrog is a platform game in the style of Super Mario Bros. or Sonic the Hedgehog. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Team 17 Software, Ltd. Address: Marwood House, Garden Street Wakefield, WF1 1DX England Telephone: +44 0924 201846 [Monday to Friday, 10am-4pm] LIST PRICE #26.99 (British Pounds) $69.95 (Australian) I'm not sure about American prices ($1.00 Australian = $0.70 US), but they are bound to be much lower, since Australia has OUTRAGEOUS software prices. End of rant. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE A joystick. SOFTWARE None. COPY PROTECTION Disk protection: non-AmigaDOS floppies, not copyable by normal AmigaDOS utilities. Not hard disk installable. (When will hard disk installability become standard!?) MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 4000/40 Seagate 130MB IDE hard drive GVP Series II SCSI hard disk controller, Quantum 200MB hard drive 2MB Chip RAM, 4MB Fast RAM (16-bit), 16MB Fast RAM (32-bit) ASDG Dual Serial Board NEC3D multisync monitor AmigaDOS 3.0 (Kickstart 39.106, Workbench 39.29) Competition Pro 5000 joystick REVIEW I purchased Superfrog after seeing wild praise for the game from many people in comp.sys.amiga.games. I'm not particularly adept at platform games, but I do find them enjoyable. The price of this game did put me off at first; yet, I succumbed to the claims of playability, such as: "Finally, a Sonic the Hedgehog killer for the Amiga!" Sonic is, apparently, a hard act to follow. But on with the review. The game's premise is that you're a magic Prince, complete with a bride-to-be. The wicked witch has turned the prince into nothing more than a little green frog. The frog found a strange bottle, and drank from it, and became Superfrog. Superfrog is a platform game, along the lines of "The Great Giana Sisters", "Super Mario Bros", "Wonderboy in Monster Land", "Turrican", "Hard and Heavy" and "Robocod". You control the Superfrog with your joystick, and hop around trying to collect pieces of fruit, coins, crowns, gems, and various items, as well as the ubiquitous Lucozade bottles which give the frog his super status. Collection of coins determines when you can leave a specific level, since each level has a toll, so you can't just find the exit and leave. You have to work at collecting the prerequisite number of coins first. The game itself consists of 6 levels, each split into a number of distinct stages. The game gets progressively more difficult as you play, starting out very easy, and ending up being rather difficult and frustrating, as do most platform games. Without this difficulty hike, such games would be too easy and hence boring. Many of the levels have secret areas, tunnels, and holes in the ground. There are also caches of coins hidden behind objects, which can prove tricky to find. Superfrog has a sidekick, "destructo-spud", a green potato with a single cyclopean eye. This is your single weapon against the array of baddies you have to get by, and it has to be found lying around on the ground before it can be used. Be warned that destructo-spud doesn't affect all (or even most!) of the denizens of magic land. And if you die, you lose your destructo-spud until you find another one in the maze. You can also jump on some baddies to kill them. Superfrog can also acquire frog-wings in its travels, which enable the frog to stay in the air a bit longer after it has jumped. However, the amount of time you can stay up in the air is limited, and you always fall back down to the ground, no matter how many times you press the button to flap the wings. While you are in the air, you cannot fire destructo-spud at your enemies. You can, however, jump on top of many enemies to disable them. Having wings also helps to overcome some of the obstacles placed in your path. The action is fast-paced and very smooth. The frog is very responsive to the joystick, and you can tell when you've made a mistake, so the gameplay isn't all luck like some badly coded games turn out to be. Each time the frog does something that it shouldn't, it loses some energy. After five such mistakes, the frog will die, using up one of its "lives." You can build up your energy again by acquiring more Lucozade bottles. Some actions are instantly fatal (landing on or touching silver spikes), but most actions only make you lose a unit of energy (touching a monster, or getting zapped by a nasty). Team 17 seems to be proud of the musical accompaniment, and so they should be. There are eight different scores, and those that I have heard are light and entertaining. The general sound effects are well done, and the game would be lessened if you took them away. An options screen, accessible before starting the game, lets you start out with three, five or seven lives (as opposed to the documentation which states 1, 3 or 5 lives), and play in either "easy" or "normal" mode. Easy mode slows down the gameplay a little and lets you have more time to finish each level. You can save your high scores to an optional (user-provided) high-scores disk. There is an optional "level code" entry line which allows you to go directly to a particular level by entering a code. Such codes are gained in a little side-game fruit (poker) machine. The fruit machine appears when you finish each stage of the game, unless you decide just to take your bonuses as points. It allows you to gamble your level bonuses earned, try and increase your score, get extra lives, or get the code for the level you have just completed. Some people find the machine tedious, but others think it is amusing. It's the only way to get the level codes though, and is a necessary part of the game. I like the game immensely. It's cute, fun to play, and the responsiveness to joystick actions is superb. There are, of course, bugs. (See BUGS, below.) DOCUMENTATION The game comes with a small, multilingual booklet. Languages included are British English, Francais, Deutsch and Italiano. Americans will just have to puzzle over the weird English section. :-) LIKES AND DISLIKES I like the game because it is captivating and fun to play. The gradual increase in difficulty complements the skills you acquire while playing the game. Finding the secret areas in each level is rewarding, not tedious like in the PC game "Wolfenstein 3D." I INTENSELY dislike having to pay $70 (Aus) for a game! I would also greatly appreciate hard disk installability, though I realize this would effectively bypass the floppy disk copy protection scheme. The wait time to load the game from floppy disk, plus the non-multitasking while the game is running, both marginally detract from an otherwise excellent game. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS Superfrog is definitely one of the better platform games. It is as good as Turrican 1, and better than Robocod. BUGS Ah, yes, the bugs. Firstly, the introduction sequence by Eric Schwartz doesn't work unless you turn off the AGA mode of the A4000. This is a minor bug, since you would only ever want to see the introductory storyline animation once or twice. The game works fine UNTIL it comes to changing disks. When you insert disk 2 and press the fire button to indicate the disk has changed, the A4000 resets itself. This is plainly mismanaged code. Turning off the 68040 caches stops this bug from presenting itself. You can also circumvent the problem by inserting the second disk *before* it is called for. I can see that some A4000 owners will lose high scores due to this bug. Sometimes some aspects of the game, especially the "moving spikes," can get out of synchronization, so that it becomes impossible to get past without losing some energy. I found that moving away from that part of the screen, and then coming back, will usually fix the problem. I don't know if this behaviour is a bug or a feature. VENDOR SUPPORT I haven't had cause to contact them. WARRANTY None that I can see. CONCLUSIONS An excellent, addictive game, with style and playability that will be hard for other software companies to beat. ****************************************************************************** > 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. ****************************************************************************** > AR Special Feature: NAB Show Report ==================================== By Scott Withington and Berend Ozceri (swithing@libserv1.ic.sunnysb.edu) (bo24+@andrew.cmu.edu) EMPLANT BY UTILITIES UNLIMITED ------------------------------ One of the most talked about products on the net has been the Emplant board by Utilities Unlimited. In addition, the president of Utilities unlimited, Jim Drew, has been accused of being everything from an overconfident fool to a disreputible con-artist. While at the world of Commodore-Amiga, I had an opportunity to talk to Jim Drew and to see the Emplant board in operation. First, my impressions of the controversial Jim Drew: Jim Drew appeared to be a friendly, intelligent man in his late 20's. He answered all of the questions he was asked (including some of the really stupid ones and some of the ones that he had probably been asked a thousand times during the show) in a forthright manner. He did not appear to hold a grudge against anyone (except maybe the infamous Marc Barrett: He laughed, when I mentioned that Marc was about the only one who fell for my April fool's Day prank (about the new high-end chip to be shown to developers at WOCA-NYC)). He said that he recieved one apology from one of the many peo- ple who attacked him over the net. In other words, none of the accusations people made about him appear to have any truth. Now on to Emplant: By now I assume that most people have seen pictures of the product and descriptions of it's features, so I will skip over them. However if you don't know, then you can get one from the Usenet archives. The Emplant board was demoed on two amigas, an A4000 with a 1960 monitor, and an A3000 with a 1084s monitor (which was used to show the way it would look on an accelerated a2000 or 500. On both Amigas, they were running a variety of Mac programs multitasking with Amiga software. He demoed MS Word, Excel, Adobe Photoshop, Quark Express, and several others. The 3000 version was running in 16 color interlaced 640 x 480 (overscan) mode and the 4000 in 640 x 480 productivity 256 color mode. All software was running and looked good (especially on the 4000). I asked him if he had had any reports of software incompatabilities. He responded that the only program incompatible with the current version of the emulation software was Apple's own disk copier (he said that it broke every rule for Mac software). He commented that he could produce a patch to fix it (Microsoft software, which also breaks Apple's rules, has been patched to work). I also asked him if and when he would have an emulation of the Mac 32K color mode. He looked over at his Mac programmer, who responded "about 6 hours after we get back." Plans for the next version: Addition of ability to access Amiga files from the Amiga partition on the Mac desktop, 32,000 color mode on AGA amigas, and possibly addition of a patch to allow the use of an ec030 accelerator (the Mac color system uses the MMU extensively). He says that the ability to use all of the other Mac ROMs should be completed by the end of September, and 386/486 emulation by the end of the year or the beginning of next year. All, in all I feel that the Emplant appears to be an excellent product and Jim Drew seems very dedicated to the enhancement and expansion of its capabilities and features. His policy of making upgrades in the emulation free and expansion (such as 386 emulation) cheap (~ $70), show him to be committed to customer satisfaction. I predict that Jim Drew will soon be a very successful businessman. CENTAUR DEVELOPMENT AND OPALVISION DEMONSTRATION ------------------------------------------------ Centaur Development had a fairly large booth with lots of chairs, where they seated audiences for their OpalVision demonstrations. They had two people in the demonstrations one of which was a marketing person, and the other a programmer. I had never seen OpalVision before, so the demo that I attended was my first hands-on (more like eyes-on) exposure to this product. The demonstration started with a short speech by the marketing person, who informed us that although the add-on modules were not "absolutely" finished yet, they would be finished and shipping within 60 to 90 days after the show. He explained that they decided not to demonstrate fully finished products. Then he went on with a comparison of the OpalVision main-board with the VideoToaster. (Some info. for those not familiar with the OpalVision product- line: OpalVision is a 24-Bit frame buffer and display-device with a maximum resolution of 768x480 (580 PAL). It operates in the video-slot of the host Amiga and utilizes its custom graphics co-processor for powerful stencil modes, transition effects, animation, etc.) Here is what he said in his comparison: OpalVision VideoToaster ------------------------------------------------------------ Native RGB signals. Much Compsite NTSC analog inputs. more discrete than NTSC analog signals. Both NTSC and PAL support. Only NTSC available. 9 inputs and 5 outputs. Also 4 inputs, 2 outputs. a key input/output. (This is with the OpalVision Video Suite module) 5 stereo pair audio inputs. No audio support. (This is again only avaiable with the Video Suite module) 35ns character generator. 35ns character generator. Any 3D program can output to Supported only by Lightwave 3D. OpalVision. Luma, chroma, and sandwich Only luma keying. effects and keying. Vector based effects enabling Non-vector based transitions. custom effects to be programmed by the user. Interlaces live in-coming video No de-interlcing. and Amiga video. Has OpalPaint Has ToasterPaint. He then said that the OpalVision main board was priced at $995. He also said that each of the add-on modules would be priced at $995 also. After the conclusion of his speech, the programmer took over and he gave a demonstration of the OpalVision board and OpalPaint. I must say that I was very impressed by OpalPaint. Having seen professional graphics platforms like Pixars and SGIs, I can say that OpalPaint easily measures up to them. In the demo, nearly all aspects of OpalPaint were demonstrated. The ease of use, and the quality of the output amazed. I am not going to try to describe the demo, only because I can't; it is one of those things that you just must see! LEE STRANAHAN PRESENTS NEWTEK'S VIDEO TOASTER --------------------------------------------- Even though the title of this demonstration was "Lee Stranahan Presents NewTek's Video Toaster," it was much more a demonstration of the new version of LightWave 3D. I can't say that people complained. First, Lee Stranhan talked about the Toaster and LightWave in general, demonstrated a couple of features of the Toaster Switcher and the Character Generator. One thing that he mentioned over and over was that NewTek would never ship LightWave 3D without the Toaster. (Now that I think about it, when asked, he also mentioned that there was no Amiga 4000 Toaster in NewTek's plans, but the Toaster 4000 has premiered at the NAB early this week. ;) ) Anyway, then he started the world premiere showing of the new version of LightWave 3D. I have experience with Imagine as a 3D program and have never used LightWave before; the stuff that I saw made me drool! The first thing Lee did was to create a simple scene, and to put a light in it. The light was a conical light, and to align it on one of the objects in the scene, he switched the view mode to light; yes, you can look from a light's point of view. This is incredibly handy for aligning lights. When you are aligning a conical light, you can also see exactly where the light is falling; amazing! Then he explained that in LightWave 2.0, items would move strangely in the layout screen, when the view direction was anything but straight ahead; "Not any more!" exclaimed Lee, as he demonstrated how easy it was to move and place objects in the layout screen. Then he rendered a scene. All I can say is, it was fast. There were shadows and everything, but it was fast. Lee explained the instead of using full ray- tracing, LightWave now used a method called shadow-mapping to create shadows, which was very, very fast! The anti-aliaser was also very cool; the way it worked was, LightWave rendered a portion of the scene, then the anti-aliaser performed edge-detection on it and smoothed those; cool, and very fast! The next thing Lee demonstrated was Modeler's PostScript font support. Yes, you heard me say that, and I saw it with my eyes. If you want to create flying 3D logos, just open a PostScript font and type. The result is incredibly smooth letters. When extruded and bevelled, these 3D texts look simply awesome! Next on Lee's list was Modeler's spline tools. With splines, you can just put down a couple of points, let Modeler connect them with a spline, and there you go; smoothly shaped objects! You can also create spline patches, which makes the creation of organically shaped objects very easy. Modeler now supports ARexx! With ARexx macros, the use of Modeler is one more step easier. Each ARexx macro can have a graphical-interface for taking parameters from the user and suppying feed-back during processing. ARexx macros can do anything from centering object to creating mathematically described objects. Modeler's new boolean operators supply you with tools like Drill, Core, Add, Subtract and others. Lee demonstrated this by subtracting a cow from a sphere. Pretty funky! Back to LightWave. Lee introduced LightWave's much talked about "Lens Flare" feature. He explained that LightWave was the first 3D computer program to incorporate computer-generated lens flares. He demonstrated this feature in a simple scene again and the resulting image was once again, very good looking. The last, but not the least part of the demonstration was LightWave's character animation capability. He explained the LightWave programmer Allen Hastings has developed a method to incorporate a skeleton into objects for bending and twisting objects without doing any morphing. He demonstrated this feature once again with his favorite cow object. When he loaded the cow object with the skelton, you could actually see "joints" and "bones" in the cow. Then he made the cow turn his head and bend his leg by just playing with the skeleton. Once again, very cool. That was the end of the demo, but he mentioned that there were more additions to LightWave that he didn't have time to demonstrate including support for displacemnt mapping (as opposed to bump mapping which is only apparent), clip mapping, motion blur, particle blur, depth of field, etc. That was one cool demonstration! Thanks Lee! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Usenet Review: Who! What! When! Where! ========================================= By Eric Dietiker PRODUCT NAME Who! What! When! Where! version 1.3i BRIEF DESCRIPTION Who! What! When! Where! (WWWW) is a personal organizer program containing a Directory (or phone/address book), Appointment Calendar, and "To Do" list. The program supports multiple users, each with his/her own private Directories and Appointment lists. There are a host of other related features such as an alarm clock, address label printing, and an auto dialer. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: The Blue Ribbon Soundworks Ltd. Address: North Highland Station PO Box 8689 Atlanta, Georgia 30306 USA Telephone: (404) 315-0212 LIST PRICE $99.95 (US). I paid nothing, but I had to buy $100 of BRS products to get this deal from Creative Computing. They are now advertising WWWW for around $10. COPY PROTECTION None. The program installs easily on a hard disk. INSTALLATION WWWW comes with an install program which runs the first time you start WWWW, configures some data file locations, and installs the "wwwwtimer" program if you want it. The install program edits your s:user-startup file to start the background timer program. Every so often, WWWW seems to get confused and re-run the install procedure on startup. WINDOWING INTERFACE The program runs in a number of windows on the Workbench. There are separate windows for the Directory, Calendar, Appointment List, Alarm Clock, To Do List, and Clock. When WWWW starts up, you are presented with the Directory window. It contains a scrolling list of the people in your directory, and a panel with the currently selected entry on the list. When this window is closed, a WWWW icon is placed on the WorkBench. Double-clicking on the icon re-opens the Directory window. Other parts of the program are available through the Directory window's menu. Selecting items which activate other functional parts of the program, such as the To Do List or the Appointment List, will cause the Directory window to disappear and the new window to pop up. One notable exception is the Calendar window, which co-exists with any of the other windows. In some cases, such as the To Do List, there are no menu items allowing movement to other windows, though you can always bring up the Calendar window. In general, I like the multiple window approach to the problem of a single program which is really an application bundle. In some cases, the implementation of WWWW is a little intrusive. One thing that bothers me is the fact that WWWW hides windows without really being told to. When I move from the Directory to the Appointment list, I must wait while WWWW hides the Directory window, then pops up the Appointment window. It is a little unsettling to see windows appearing and disappearing all over the screen. Another minor annoyance is the fact that when I select an appointment from the Calendar window, the Appointment window pops to the top of the window stack whether I want it to or not. Usually I prefer my windows to stay where I leave them. DIRECTORY As I mentioned above, the Directory window contains a scrolling list of a user's addresses and a panel displaying the currently selected entry. The list is sorted alphabetically by name. If you want your list sorted by last name, you must enter last name first in the Name field for the entry. The selected entry panel contains fields for name, address, home and work phone numbers, birthday, groups and notes. Most of these are obvious. You can use the Groups string to categorize your address list. Then you can have WWWW display only the entries in a certain group by performing a search on the list with only the group specified. If you enter the birthday of a person on your list, you can have WWWW notify you when that birthday occurs. Once you select the person you wish to contact, you can have WWWW dial the phone for you by selecting either Home or Work from one of the menus. You can also print an address label for that person. APPOINTMENTS This functionality is the real reason I bought this program. I can never keep track of when my wife is working, or when we are expected at Relative X's for dinner. We use Synchronize at work on our UNIX workstations to keep track of everyone's meetings; I need a program at home for much the same reasons. One thing I usually don't need is granularity of less than a day. All I want to know is what day to drive to Relative X's. Several parts of the program interact to provide the Appointment setting and notification functionality. They are the Appointment window, the Calendar window, and the background program "wwwwtimer." Appointments are entered via the Appointment window which is arranged much like the Directory window. To enter a new appointment, click on New in the window and fill in the Who, What, When, Where, Phone and Notes fields. The When field always defaults to the current date and time, which means it is always wrong. Using the menu, you can bring up the Appointment Parameters window and set default parameters, or parameters for a particular appointment. You can set the time in advance of an appointment that the program reminds you by selecting any of weeks, days, hours and minutes, and entering a value in the associated text gadgets. [Oh my God - WWWW's alarm clock just went off and told me to go to bed. I nearly fell out of my chair!] If you have WWWW remind you in advance of an appointment, it will remind you once in advance and once when the appointment starts. The Parameters window is also where you set an appointment to repeat. You are limited to once, daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, and yearly. Once the appointment is entered, it shows up in the Calendar window. The Calendar window can display either Appointments or To Do items. The month and year are displayed in the upper left corner. Clicking on the month brings up a pop-up menu from which you can select another month. Clicking on the year activates a text gadget; you can edit this to change the year. Clicking on the Calendar display on a day which has an appointment brings up a list of the appointments for that day. The list contains the Who field and the time of the appointment. You can configure the calendar so that selecting an item from this list either selects, moves, or copies an appointment. You can also have it create an appointment when you click on a day. When you select or create an appointment the Appointment window is brought to the front of the screen with the selected appointment or a newly created appointment. When you move or copy an appointment, a box appears around the entry, and you can then drag it to the correct day and drop it. I don't know how you could move it from one month (today) to the next (tomorrow). Once you've created an appointment, the background timer program starts monitoring it. When the appointment comes up a window comes up to the front reminding you of the appointment. This window will override your (well, my) screen blanker until you acknowledge it. The program will also speak to you, play a sound effect (some are provided), ring a bell, flash the screen, and run and ARexx script when your appointment comes up. THINGS TO DO The Things To Do window consists of a list of "To Dos" and a small panel with the currently selected item. An item has a What and a When field. There are buttons to create a new entry, delete the selected entry, and put a check-mark by the selected entry. A Thing To Do will be carried forward until you check-mark it and use the Update menu item to clear out the old To Dos. ALARM CLOCK In the Alarm Clock window you can set a simple alarm to go off at some future time. There is a What field you can use to remind yourself of why you set the alarm. CLOCK DISPLAY You can have WWWW display a clock with the current date and time if you wish. The clock displays on the title bar of an iconified window, much like the standard WorkBench 2.1 clock in digital mode. PRINTING You can print phone numbers, your entire directory, appointments, things to do, address labels, and a monthly calendar. The output is either Draft or Letter quality, depending on how you've set your Printer Preferences. LIKES AND DISLIKES I like the easy access to entries in the directory and the ability to group entries (and thus limit the size of the scrolling list). I like the small touches that show a lot of thought went into the program; for example, the act that you can select a person in your Directory, then bring up the Appointment window containing only your appointments with that person. I dislike the somewhat quirky window scheme, and the flat, "Workbench 1.3-like" interface. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS I've recently downloaded a copy of the OnTheBall ("OTB") demo. This program looks great and has a few features missing from WWWW. It displays a small calendar on the WorkBench, through which you access your appointments for a specific day. The program uses only one other window for all its functionality. There is a row of buttons at the bottom of the window you use to select between Appointments, Addressbook, To-Do List, and NotePad (not in WWWW). You can also display a calendar for the currently selected week, month or year, and print any of these. There are more options for repeating appointments, such as repeating on selected days of the week. The calendars print in graphics mode using CG fonts, so they look beautiful. I wish my word processor could do as well! Some things in WWWW missing in OTB are the ability to have multiple users, the great variety of notification methods, and the ability to use the mouse to copy and move appointments. This last is important to me when I enter a month's worth of my wife's work days. To be fair, I haven't done a full evaluation of OTB, or even seen the manual. There are probably a lot of other features I am unaware of. BUGS The displayed clock is often wrong for periods of time. I haven't checked to see whether this affects the timeliness of the notification. When I click on an appointment in the Calendar window, the appointment pops up. After it disappears, my screen is corrupted along the borders of where the window was. VENDOR SUPPORT When I last spoke to Blue Ribbon, before I bought WWWW, the person I spoke to said they had sold out of all their stock, and weren't sure whether they were going to continue manufacturing or enhancing the program. However, she assured me they would continue *supporting* the program. I haven't called with the clock problem mentioned above to see just what support they'll provide. CONCLUSIONS Though it shows its age in the flat and quirky user interface, Who! What! When! Where! is a good personal organizer program. It has features, such as multi-user support and drag-and-drop appointment moving, that are probably not available elsewhere in the Amiga market. If you can live with the idiosyncrasies I described above, and don't care that the program may never be upgraded, I think you'll find it worth owning. On the other hand, make sure you check out OnTheBall, which looks quite cool. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > Amiga Report CONFIDENTIAL "Rumors Tidbits Predictions Observations Tips" ========================= NEW CABLE SYSTEM ANNOUNCED May 17, 1993 -- Time Warner and US West Communications announced today a joint venture to provide a new form of cable television and other similar services. The new system will offer regular cable television, video games, shopping services and more. These products will be transmitted to sub- scribers over conventional telephone lines, thus negating the need to install new wiring. The project is set to commence in Orlando, Florida later this year or in early 1994. No date has been set for availability in the rest of the country. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > 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 "Quotable Quote" ================== "The American Dream: Smoke pot, cheat on your wife, and become President!" - From a user on Delphi, Referring to Bill Clinton ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Amiga Report International Online Magazine ~ STR Publications -* [S]ilicon [T]imes [R]eport *- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ AR Online! ~YOUR INDEPENDENT NEWS SOURCE~ May 21, 1993 Amiga Report Copyright (c) 1993 All Rights Reserved No. 1.10 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 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. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~