====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || A M I G A U P D A T E /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || -News and Rumors- / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_|| (An Occasional e-mail "SO THE WORLD MAY KNOW" || News Source) ====================================================================== AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 000923 M E T E R N E T A N D A M I G A T E A M A S D O A M I G A A N D H Y P E R I O N C O N C E R N O V E R P E T R O B U S I N E S S P L A N S S T A R T F O R A M I G A 2 0 0 1 F I N N I S H U S E R S G R O U P A N N U A L M E E T I N G T E X A S G R O U P F L E A M A R K E T A C E I N A U S T R A L I A N E W S F R O M C R Y S T A L I N T E R A C T I V E H A A G E & P A R T N E R N E W S E L B O X A I R S C O M P L A I N T I N N O V A T I V E M O V E S O N . . . . . . A S D O E S E P I C M A R K E T I N G . . . A N D A S I M W A R E ? M R . M Y S Z A M O U S E A D A P T E R T H E P R E D A T O R F R O M E Y E T E C H Editor's Thoughts and Introduction: There's a stong dichotomy in this issue's stories. There are a number of items showing a clear move forward on Amiga's part into the future with its new generation of software and hardware standards. There's an equally clear picture presented by other stories of the Classic Amiga market shutting down. We don't think there will be any problem with those of us dependent on classic machines surviving until there are new computers with new software to move to, so there's no reason for panic. There is, however, every reason to see the transition as real and happening now. It's about time, but we can't deny it's always a bit frightening to move into a new existence and see the door to the old closing behind you. Keep in mind it's an entire community making the transition, and we're all in it together. You will also find in this issue many stories showing just how strong our Amiga community remains. Brad Webb, Editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E-mail to the E-ditor: 27 Aug 2000 Brad, I was glad to see that some users out there still have the A2000 and A3000! Mine are not in operating mode at present. No fault of mine. An expensive tradesman repair gone sour. But perhaps there is hope. I loved those Amigas! I thought these old favorites would be left in the dust of the 1200, and the new products I saw displayed by Bill McEwen on The Screensavers TV show on ZDTV! Quite an impressive introduction to the new Amiga. Lee ~~~~~~ Lee, Hang on, things are just starting to roll out for the new Amiga. As noted in my comments above, you can really see the transition from the old Amiga to the new taking place right now. At the moment, though, the A2000s, A3000s and beyond are still working very well for many Amigans, including me. Brad ====== 28 Aug 2000 Tell Johan that we're working on getting up more Music-x stuff, there's a bit up on our site in the meantime in the Music section: http://www.amigau.com/ Kevin Orme amiga university www.amigau.com ~~~~~~ Kevin, Message delivered, and we've included your note for the benefit of anyone else interested in Music-x. Brad ====== 28 Aug 2000 Thank you for the continued newsletters. I'm still an active Amiga user and any Amiga news is greatly appreciated. My "other computer" is a MacIntosh and news/tips having to do with Mac/Amiga interaction would be of interest. (File exchanges via Consultron's CrossMAC program allows some things on a Mac and Amiga to work very well with each other). Has anyone used Castlewood's Orb drive on an Amiga? I hadn't found any information regarding that yet and was wondering if their headerless approach presents special problems for developing an Amiga driver, or what special considerations might exist for implementing an Orb drive on a SCSI-equipped Amiga (like my A3000UXD). My experience with the Orb drive on a MacIntosh system is positive so far. It seems to work equally well on the Mac's standard SCSI or from an Ultra SCSI card. The price of the drive and the media are certainly reasonable enough to make it an attractive option for Amiga owners if it could be made to work on one. Thanks for any information you may have. -- Dave -- ~~~~~~ Dave, As I do with any topic I'm not fully familiar with, let me throw this one out to the readership. Can anyone help Dave? Brad ====== 27 Aug 2000 I have an A4000/060 with an internal CD-ROM drive and an A500/030 and an external ZIP drive (now, also a 2Gb Jaz drive). I just copied the OS 3.5 data onto a ZIP disk, moved the drive over to my A500 and installed from there. Gary ~~~~~~ Gary, Thanks for the suggestion. We hope this information can help some of those at least who've asked us about installing OS 3.5 on systems without CD/ROM drives. It'll require finding someone else with an Amiga, a CD/ROM drive and a Zip or similar, but looks like it can be done fairly easily. Brad ---------------------------------------------------------------------- M E T E R N E T A N D A M I G A T E A M Snoqualmie, WA - Reno, NV-September 20, 2000 - Business Wire - Targeting the millions of computerless and offline consumers worldwide who will soon be broadband enabled, Amiga and MeterNet have teamed to develop and deliver a series of broadband SimpleBox Internet Devices powered by the next generation Amiga. MeterNet's SimpleBox Program is dedicated to bringing best of breed solutions to their embedded platforms and target markets. Each device incorporates a tailored SimpleBox User Interface (UI) on top of rugged solid state hardware with no moving parts. Along with providing simple navigation and operation, the SimpleBox UI offers optional feature-packed integrated web based eMail that is optimized for display on TV and VGA screens. The initial Mid Class product to be released powered by Amiga is the SimpleBox Java Internet Device (JID) model wb8616JID. The Simplebox wb8616JID is value packed with a robust v4. browser, audio/video streaming, instant messaging and fast ethernet for easy broadband connection via cable, dsl, satellite and local area networks. Unlike other currently available devices from America Online (AOL), Microsoft (MSFT), Ravisent (RVST), Web-2U (MUCP) and others, the SimpleBoxJID powered by Amiga contains a Sun Authorized Virtual Machine, a very high performance, memory efficient solution for running JavaTM technology based media content MeterNet and Amiga are also developing a low cost Internet Radio Device for worldwide consumer markets targeted for release early 2001. Amiga Incorporated is the emerging leader in multiplatform, multimedia Operating Systems. The Amiverse offers a multi-media digital environment that provides developers with a true write once run anywhere opportunity. Amiga has both leveraged and expanded upon its rich 15-year history of industry leadership in the development of what we know as multi-media. MeterNet Corporation develops and markets broadband Internet devices, turn-key services and tailored integrated programs. Past satisfied clients include Ziff-Davis, America Online, Alta Vista, Shopping.com and IBM. Since 12/99 we have shipped our SimpleBox Entry Level wb6400 series worldwide. Phase One SimpleBox wb8616JID production is limited to 10,000 units with shipments to commence in early December. For more SimpleBox JID program information and to place an email order reservation visit: http://world.simplebox.com All Trademarks are the Property of their Respective Owners. All Rights Reserved. ## ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A S D O A M I G A A N D H Y P E R I O N Snoqualmie, WA. Aug 30, 2000 Amiga Inc. and Hyperion Entertainment are pleased to announce a long-term alliance to bring Hyperion's impressive list of award winning games to the Amiverse. Hyperion's games are a testament to the high standard set by the Amiga community. Much like the New Amiga, Hyperion has raised the bar to a higher level. We are proud to include Hyperion in our future. We are equally pleased to see such a steady stream of notable developers validating our platform.'' Said Randy Hughes, Vice President Sales and Strategic Alliances at Amiga Inc. The initial list of titles being developed for the Amiverse include: Heretic II: Already released for Classic Amiga PPC, Heretic II is a gothic-style first-person shooter. Sin: A super realistic ego shooter in a not-too-distant future with an intriguing plot to solve and many levels to "clean-up". Sin is due in Q3 2000. Shogo: Fight with your Mobile Armor Division Mech through futuristic cities and natural sites. Face a civil war in Mech mode or Soldier mode in this award winning ego shooter, written with the famous LithTech 3D Engine by Monolith. Shogo is also slated for Q3 2000. Freespace: Development has already begun and is to be completed in Q4 2000. Freespace offers many space flights combats and mission for this space opera among stars and nebulas. A great simulation for a great story of space war. Alien Nations: Development is just under way. In the style of Age of Empires II, Alien Nations will allow you to lead your people to survive attacks from your enemies. Live long and prosper in the levels of this great Real Time Strategy game. Soldier of Fortune: The highly acclaimed ego shooter of the year will come to the Amiga. Designed with the help of SEAL people, SOF is one of the most realistic ego shooter. Experience fights against terrorists and criminals, train to be better and always remember to shoot first. "Hyperion will announce new games in the near future, as we negotiate deals with new licensors including some of the industry's biggest names. We want to bring the Amiga the hottest and most recent games, as it was the case in the great Amiga gaming times. With the arrival of new hardware such as faster graphics cards, the Amiga will enjoy a new level of performance allowing the Amiga to keep up with bigger and better games. Keep your Amiga updated, stay tuned and roll on the Amiga One!" said Ben Yoris, PR Manager of Hyperion. About Hyperion Hyperion Entertainment is a privately held Belgian company founded in April of 1999. Hyperion aims to bring top-class entertainment software to leading alternative platforms including Amiga. Hyperion Entertainment has license agreements with many of the top names in the industry including Interplay, Activision and Monolith with more deals to be made public soon. Whilst Hyperion's primary expertise is in the field of 3D engines (LithTech, Quake 2), the company has recently been working with its publisher Titan (www.titan-computer.com) on expanding its line-up with strategy and RTS games as well as RPG's and simulators. The results of these efforts will be announced over the course of the next few months. Hyperion Entertainment is also investigating the possibility of applying its expertise in the field of 3D graphics to non-entertainment related areas. For additional information, please see www.hyperion-software.com . ---------------------------------------------------------------------- C O N C E R N O V E R P E T R O B U S I N E S S A recent posting on the Amiga-news.de website created a mini-uproar in the Amiga community. The posting stated that Petro Tyschtschenko, long time bastion of the Amiga community and head of Amiga Deutschland, had founded a new company in partnership with a Frank Basta. The company, called Power Service BmbH, appears to be a supplier of tempory workers for software firms. A response from Petro posted on the Czech Amiga News site indicated no intent to leave the Amiga community or Amiga itself behind: "Sorry but I have no plans to quit. I have only invested 50 % in Power Service, which is a company I believe in. It is no Computer Company and no competition... Power Service is a Job agency for IT Specialists. I will continue with my beloved AMIGA. Best regards and thanks for your mail...Petro" Several web sites carried the following quote from Amiga Inc's CEO Bill McEwen at the time the original announcement was made: "I would be shocked and personally hurt to find out that Petro has not been making Amiga his first priority, and that he has been using his Amiga paid trips to India for his own personal gain. We pay him a wonderful salary, we pay for his Mercedes, his cell phone, and his beautiful offices. He has never spoken to me about any issues or problems, and if he has truly been using our money and time to promote his own company I will be extremely disappointed. I hope that Amiga-News is wrong in their findings." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- P L A N S S T A R T F O R A M I G A 2 0 0 1 28 Aug 2000 Amiga Fans everywhere, Amigan-St. Louis is proud to announce that the next Gateway Computer Show... Amiga2001, will be held on March 30, 31 and April 1, 2001. This exciting event, Amiga2001 - An Amiga Odyssey, will be our best yet. Due to the demise of the Henry VIII hotel, it's being torn down, we had to move our venue to a new location. The good news is that this place has lots to offer. The show will be hosted at the Sheraton Westport Plaza. This Sheraton has the same old world charm that the Henry VIII did, but offers much more. It has parking for over 3,000 cars. It's location, at West Port Plaza is really terrific, as that puts it in the middle of entertainment, restaurants, pubs, shopping, eateries, movie theaters, live theater, a jazz club and much more. Under cover parking is available too. We'll be posting something on our web site by the end of September, so keep an eye out. In the mean time, get your vacations lined up for March 30 - April 1. Perhaps you'd like to come early or stay longer and arrange a little fun in St. Louis. This is an exciting town, and your family would be certain to enjoy it if you bring them. http://www.amiga-stl.com Amiga2001 - An Amiga Odyssey Sheraton at Westport, St. Louis, MO. USA Friday March 30 thru Sunday April 1, 2001 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- F I N N I S H U S E R S G R O U P A N N U A L M E E T I N G ESPOO, FINLAND - September 21, 2000 - Finnish Amiga Users Group will host its annual user group meeting on Saturday September 30th from 14:00 to 17:45 in Espoo, Finland. The event will start with a formal meeting, and an informal part will follow after 15:30 o'clock. An Amiga dealer will be present with various Amiga items for sale. The user group will also demonstrate the Amiga Software Development Kit on Linux. Other highlights include various Amiga magazines for reading, demonstration of licensed Amiga mobile phone covers and plenty of good company. Admission is free of charge and free soft drinks will be available. Please visit http://batman.jytol.fi/~saku/ or our mirror site http://tzimmola.tky.hut.fi/saku/ for instructions on how to get there, latest news, IRC coverage, webcam and more. E-mail inquiries may be sent to Anu Seilonen (thoriel@sci.fi). About Finnish Amiga Users Group Finnish Amiga Users Group (Suomen Amiga-käyttäjät ry.) is a non-profit organization for promoting Amiga computing and helping Amiga users in Finland. Also known as Saku, after its e-zine, the group is trying to accomplish its goals by organizing meetings and by publishing an e-zine. Since 1993 the Finnish Amiga Users Group and its predecessors have released over thirty issues of the magazine and held several public gatherings. Other accomplishments include the Web site and Sakunet, a national Fidonet style network of Amiga related bulletin board systems. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- T E X A S G R O U P F L E A M A R K E T 18 August, 2000 Flea Market Extravaganza '00 Where: The Brookside Convention Center, Hurst, Texas When: Saturday, October 14, 2000 Time: 12:00 to 4:00pm Admission: Free Background This year we are putting on our fourteenth annual computer Amiga show. So come and join us and show your support for the Amiga. Amiga Computer Flea Market Hardware and Software for Amiga computers, from members and non-members, will be for sale. The flea market will be open to members for a fee of 5% on items sold. A fee of 10% will be charged to non-members on items sold. This year tables will be available to rent for the show to individuals. The cost for one table will be $15.00 for members and $20.00 for non-members. Please make arrangements in advance, space is limited. o Sellers: Items for sale must be turned into a club representative. Prices are set ahead of time and sales are handled by club representatives. Arrangements MUST BE MADE IN ADVANCE. Items will NOT be accepted on the day of the show. There will be no exceptions. For further details please contact the club or one of the club's representatives. Items to be sold at the flea market may be turned in at one of the chapter meetings or you may make arrangements with one of these club representatives: Mark Stodola Cedar Hill (972) 299-6824 Ned Kelly Arlington (817) 277-5825 David Owens Fort Worth (817) 847-5486 Dan Stockelman Dallas (972) 985-8522 o Buyers: Cash and checks accepted from members. Cash only accepted from non-members. Prices will be reduced at 3:00 pm. Door Prizes A drawing will be held at the end of the day. You must be present to win. Amiga Computer Dealers Space is available to rent for dealers, companies or user groups. Please inquire on rates. MCCC Amiga Library The entire MCCC library of Amiga computer disks, over 2,000 disks, will be available. Special Membership Offer 13 months for the price of 12. This offer is good for new or renewed memberships. Jay Miner Memorial Tape The MCCC will be offering a two hour VHS tape of highlights of past METCOMs and a short club history. The centerpiece of the tape is Jay Miner's speech and question and answer session at METCOM 89. The cost will be $9.00 for members and $15.00 for non-members. A PAL version is also available at a slightly higher price. A limited number will be available at the show, but if the response is good orders will be taken. Directions & Parking: The Brookside Convention Center is located at 1244 Brookside Drive in Hurst. To get to the Convention Center get to Highway 183/121 and take the Precinct Line Road exit and drive south on Precinct Line Road. After approximately 0.3 miles turn left (east), on Bedford Euless Road. Drive 0.4 miles to Brookside Drive. The Convention Center is on the southeast corner. There is plenty of parking space, and parking is free. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A C E I N A U S T R A L I A Alternative Computer Expo Including: Linux - ACE Amiga Computer Expo Apple Computer Expo Acorn Computer Expo Australian Connectivity Expo ACE is about Alternatives. ACE is about Connecting people. ACE is about Enhancing the user experience. It's about using computers. It's about solutions. It's about the best operating systems. When: Saturday 21st October 9am - 6pm Sunday 22nd October 9am - 5pm Where: The Grand Prix Pits, Aughtie Drive Albert Park Lake, Albert Park (in the middle of the park!). The show makes provision for families, children and those on lower incomes. Entry fees: $10 General $7 Students & concession $20 Family Children under 12 free Globally the largest Amiga participation. While ACE 2000 is being well recieved by the computing public of many platforms. It is particularly significant for the Amiga community. ACE 2000 is now expected to have the largest Amiga participation of any show this year. This is easily larger than any Australian Amiga show of recent times. All Australian dealers of Amiga products are planning to attend! A number of overseas dealers are also in the process of confirming. Power Computing (UK) expected to attend. ACE to host OS/2 install-fest! Apple's new OS X to be on display. Linux install-fest proposed for ACE. Dozens of flavours of unix to feature at ACE! The Australian newspaper published a large article about the show in their IT section. IRC IRC conferences are planned at regular intervals. Keep an eye on this site for times and dates. Paul Demark has offered to moderate the IRC sessions. Email lanky@connect.net.au for more info. http://www.ace2k.net/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- N E W S F R O M C R Y S T A L I N T E R A C T I V E 19/09/00 Crystal Interactive Software are please to announce that we have chosen Blittersoft for world wide distribution of our Amiga game software. Blittersoft being an established and well respected company within the Amiga community will take on exclusive distribution of all Amiga games we produce. Blittersoft can be contacted on +44 (0)1908 225454 or email sales@blittersoft.com 13/09/00 Crystal Interactive Software are please to announce our merger with fellow Hertfordshire based games developers Clearwater Interactive. This merger expands Crystal and Clearwater game developments to almost all computer and console platforms More information on Clearwater can be found at www.cw-i.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- H A A G E & P A R T N E R N E W S 14 September 2000 ArtEffect Workshop reworked Due to the development of ArtEffect there were some inconsistencies in the old workshop, but those are settled now. We also redesigned the complete website. In 12 chapters you experience the amazing functions and effects of ArtEffect. Workshop 28 August 2000 Storm C Announcement The new version of the well-known development system will be a quantum leap: Network capabilities, distributed Make, CVS, modified GCC compiler with Amiga Hund format, global full text search, extended editor, debugging of tasks and shared libraries and the new StormDOC. 06 September 2000 H&P increases personnel In October of the past year, we already hired a new programmer, namely Markus Poellmann. He mainly cares for StormC, and also works on AmigaWriter. At the beginning of 2000, a new co-worker was found, Ute Gottschalk, who takes care of accounting and datatyping. Stefan Robl has just finished a practical period for his computer studies, in which he created a new and portable version of StormRexx. At the beginning of September, Alexander Bramm and Simon Neumann brought two new co-workers. Their main concern is support, and managing of new projects. 06 September 2000 Further co-workers wanted For proof-reading of our website texts, press releases and manuals we are looking for an additional English native speaker. A good knowledge of English grammar etc. is essential. Surprisingly we already got about 18 applications, but we only need one or two people to help on this. Thank you very much. www.haage-partner.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E L B O X A I R S C O M P L A I N T Elbox Computer Krakow, 21 Sep 2000 OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT We, Elbox Computer company, the company involved with microcomputer technology for over 18 years, the company with the principles of reliability, honesty and care for our clients, feel obliged to release this announcement to protect interests of Amiga users. For several weeks now, the Eyetech company has been involved in a propaganda action against our breakthrough product for Amiga computers: the MEDIATOR PCI. Eyetech publish and disseminate untrue views on MEDIATOR, the exceptional busboard, and compare this high-end product with their announced device. It is not our way to comment on others' activities, yet under the current circumstances we feel obliged to explain this situation and Eyetech's accusations to Amiga users and to comment on the idea indicated by Eyetech (or any other company behind the Eyetech nametag). BLIZZARD PPC LOCAL BUS LIMITATIONS: Eyetech announced releasing a product they called competitive to our MEDIATOR high-end card. Technical specification of this product has been announced in such a way that Amiga users would have to misread it. The idea of connecting a PCI/AGP busboard directly to Blizzard PPC cards gives worse performance than MEDIATOR because: 1. This solution is only for owners of Blizzard PPC accelerators. You have to stick with your Blizzard PPC 603e for ever. No change, no open structure, no versatility. 2. Practical average data transfers over the busboard connected directly to Blizzard PPC cards will not be higher than achieved with MEDIATOR - due to technical limitations of Blizzard PPC cards. 3. Connection of a busboard to the connector used for inserting a BVision card renders further use of the BVision card impossible. MEDIATOR OPEN SOLUTION: The MEDIATOR high-end busboard is the best solution for Amiga computers to offer high-speed support for PCI cards. The MEDIATOR busboard is a well-thought product, with long-standing history of design development and a vision for its lasting evolution, to give Amiga users power they have not had so far. Our basic idea is that MEDIATOR is an OPEN solution, capable of hosting ANY turbo cards from the Amiga market. MEDIATOR is not reduced to a Blizzard PPC-bound concept. MEDIATOR gives you the possibility to have any turbo card you want. MEDIATOR has been designed specifically for all the available cards and each and every turbo card works with MEDIATOR at the maximum speed available for the given card. MEDIATOR PCI may offer transfer of data from/to any Amiga turbo card at the maximum speed of up to 132 MB/s. The only practical limitation lies in the design of the specific turbo card. MEDIATOR is expandable, even more: it is ready for any new Amiga cards that will be available in the future - this gives you freedom that you have never had before. You can use MEDIATOR with any turbo cards: Blizzard 1230, Blizzard 1240, Blizzard 1260, Blizzard PPC, Apollo 1230, Apollo 1240, Apollo 1260, Elbox 1230, MTec 1230, etc. and with any future concepts like Amijoe and more... MEDIATOR ADVANTAGES: MEDIATOR has been designed optimised for any turbo card type, so that the maximum possible performance is obtained in the given hardware configuration. MEDIATOR automatically recognises the turbo card type and executes the best procedures to guarantee the highest performance possible in this configuration. This is an unrivalled feature. This approach is much more time- and effort- and money-consuming than the concept of supporting Blizzard PPC cards only. Besides, the idea of connecting a PCI/AGP busboard directly to Blizzard PPC cards does not give you, the Amiga user, any additional speed gains when compared with MEDIATOR - you will only feel that Eyetech's design is simpler and possibly definitely cheaper. We feel very sorry that Eyetech in this context is apparently discrediting MEDIATOR's performance while being well aware of their fallacy. ABOUT ELBOX: We have been developing and producing electronic equipment since 1982. Our superb Amiga designs include: * E-BOX tower systems and ZORRO busboards for A1200 and A4000 (also known as Power Tower in the UK and Winner Tower in Germany); * Elbox FastATA controllers for A1200 and A4000 (known also under the name of Power Flyer in the UK and Winner HighSpeed Controller in Germany); * Memory expansion cards for all types of Amiga computers and many other minor accessories, e.g. PC Mouse interfaces (Mroocheck, Punchinello), others. Elbox is also the owner of Twin Spark Soft, a company producing software for Amiga computers (in the Polish language only). Besides Amiga devices, we design and produce industrial controllers (e.g. for injection moulding machines) and many other high-end devices in the fields of radio- and telecommunications (e.g. call systems, pagers, speech coding devices). NEW: Please look for our further releases about ELBOX products for Amiga computers to be on sale by the end of this year: 1. MEDIATOR evolution line (A4000 and A3000); 2. The TOTALLY NEW breakthrough turbo cards for Amiga computers (A4000, A3000, A1200). Mariusz Wloczysiak ELBOX COMPUTER, Press Department ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I N N O V A T I V E M O V E S O N . . . 11.9.2000 Innovative announces future plans Innovative, known as the developers of popular AMIGA®-titles such as fxPAINT, fxSCAN, VHI Studio and Ultraconv today announced the future plans of the enterprise. fxSCAN 3.0 with intelligent OCR-engine (OCR = Optical Character Recognition) fxSCAN will soon be available in version 3.0. It will be a major update including the following new features: · intelligent OCR-engine · Support for free BetaScan-drivers · comfortable Copymachine-function · reworked user-interface · JPEG-files are now loaded via PPC · many small improvements The price for V3.0 will be at 69.- DM/35 EURO/35 US$. An update from V1.0/V2.0 will cost 59.- DM/30 EUROR/30 US$. We won't offer updates from V1.0 SE (ScanQuix-special edition). fxSCAN 3.0 can already be ordered from Innovative's online-shop (http://www.innovative-web.de/) and will be delivered as soon as the final product becomes available. A completly new fxSCAN-website will be online at the time the new version is introduced. The present Innovative regards the AMIGA®-market as too small to further exist only from revenues of this market. The enterprise doesn't see any tendencies towards improvement, as key-enterprises have either left the AMIGA®-market or went out of bussiness and important hardware- products are only available as long as they are still in stock. Faster, more up-to-date or completly new hardware doesn't seem to be within reach and major improvements of the current Classic-AmigaOS® are not to be expected in near future. The AMIGA® SDK is a highlight, but it is not a garantor for the future existance and maintenance of the new AMIGA®-Operating-/Computersystems. The current situation forces Innovative to look for new markets and to no more _exclusivly_ work in the AMIGA®-market. The future After the availability of fxSCAN V3.0, Innovative will intensify work on a new technology (details are not available due to reasons of protecting Innovative's intellectual property). Programs developed with the aid of this new technology (Codename "InNT") will be more comfortable to use and will have an even more spectacular optic. Furthermore programs developed with it will be highly portable to other platforms and CPUs. Indeed porting an application is expected to take only a few days, cutting down both the amount of development-time and -money that has to be spent for that task. As soon as the first version of this new technology is finished we will start porting already known Innovative-titles to the new technology and a variety of different platforms. Besides the AMIGA®-market, the Windows®- and Linux®-market will be target of the developments of the company. It's also planned to hand out licences for this new technology, but this still has to be decided. The result of the decision will be announced in a later, seperate press release. The AMIGA®-conversions We regret to say that our new technology will most probably not be able to run on 68K-PPC-Dual-CPU-Systems as it is currently used in some AMIGA®s, as a seperation of the GUI and the program will be hard to perform and a 68060 definatly seems to be too slow for fluid and comfortable work. Once the development of the first version of the new technology is finished, Innovative will evaluate the possibilities of a portation to MorphOS and APUS Linux and is currently planning a portation to these platforms. The Tao® Elate®-based new AmigaOS® will be supported by Innovative as far as it is available. This way, AMIGA®-users will be able to continue enjoying the high-quality and highly innovative software by Innovative. The current products It can't be denied that future plans are in conflict with the further development of the current product-line for AMIGA®-computers. Nevertheless the currently existing products will be developed further and updates will be available at a regular basis though not as often as in the past. As soon as the versions developed with the new technology are available, users get an update-offer. So everybody buying an Innovative-product today, buys a product that will be developed further in future and that he will be able to use even after switching to other OSes like Windows®, Linux® or "Amiga® NG" as well. The webservices We will stop offering webservices, as the amount of time and money spent can in no way be justified with the resulting revenues. Existing contracts will continue to exist for a yet undefined time whereas we won't do any new contracts. Of course we will continue to offer special solutions for companies in the future and we'll also keep updating the "Amiga Link Directory". Frequently asked questions Question: So you'll stop development for the AMIGA ? Answer: No. Please read the paragraphs "The AMIGA-conversions" and "The current products" carefully. Question: You're always talking about a new technology, what is it ? Answer: Our intellectual property. Therefore no information on this will be made available to the public on request (please don't send us EMail, letters, call or fax us) but exclusivly on our own initative via our website. Any information not found on our website isn't true. Question: When will you have finished works on the new technology ? Answer: As we don't want to put us under pressure with this strategically important development, we won't release any time-table in near future. Question: Which products do you plan ? Answer: Our information policy doesn't foresee the announcement of new products at this time. Question: I'd like to license this new technology. How much is it for a license ? Answer: We think about handing out licenses at a later time, but we haven't come to a decision on this yet and therefore can't give you prices.. Question: I'd like to betatest. Simply send me a beta! Answer: We won't send out betas. Disclaimer: AMIGA® is a registered trademark of Amiga, Inc. Windows® is a registered trademark of Microsoft. Linux® is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Elate® is a registered trademark of the Tao Group. All informations are subject to change without notice. You can not derive demands/rights from this piece of information. 2.7.2000 VHI Studio reads from Sony® Memorysticks Thanks to a new VHI-driver (sony_msac_sr1.vhi), AMIGA®-users finally can access Sony® Memorysticks®. The driver uses the "Sony® MSAC-SR1"-reader for the serial port, that is shipped with most Sony®-cameras. If you want to see Memorysticks® and Compactflash®-cards compared regarding their size, visit our website and click on "Press release" below to see some pictures. EMail: info@innovative-web.de WWW: http://www.innovative-web.de/ Phone: +(0)049 (0)9132/735163 Fax: +(0)049 (0)69/791247970 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- . . . A S D O E S E P I C M A R K E T I N G 12 September, 2000 Epic Marketing Germany waves goodbye after 4 years on the Amiga market, our company is set to close on septembre 30. But this is no reason for despair. After October 1 there will not be one but two new Epic companies in the market. Epic Interacticve Entertainment software will primarily focus on the development and distribution of top notch games for the Apple Macintosh market. The Amiga One and the Atari Milan computers will be supported once they see the light of day. Epic Multimedia will enter the market in October too. You will find information on their products, which will include games, infotainment and edutainment for various computer systems (Apple Mac, Windows, Linux, Amiga One, Milan) on our webpage from mid octobre. For the Classic Amiga Epic Interactive will develop and distribute the titles "Simon The Sorcerer 2", "Earth 2140" and Dafel: Bloodline". Whether they continue to support the platform in the future is heavily dependant on the success of these titles. "Earth 2140" can now be preordered for DM 89.95 until October 15th. After that it will cost 99.95. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- . . . A N D A S I M W A R E ? {The following item was found on the Czech Amiga News site, a resource which can be counted among the most reliable. Brad} 22.9.2k Asimware discontinues Amiga Support Len Carsner: "After recently purchasing MasterISO 2.6, I emailed Asimware with a question concerning a problem I was having. I received a form letter which stated "Effective September 6th, 2000 all production, development, and support for Amiga products is discontinued. Sales of MasterISO will still be available through Software Hut. Our Amiga products will NOT be released to the public domain. Thank You for eight great years." At the end was a statement promoting their PC software." Len Carsner via ANN ExiE ---------------------------------------------------------------------- M R . M Y S Z A M O U S E A D A P T E R 3 September, 2000 Merlancia Industries is pleased to announce the upcoming release of the Mr. Mysza PS/2 Mouse adapter. Finally! After all this time, all Amigans can now share in the world of PS/2 devices made for IBM/PC compatible systems! From the super-cool Crystal Trackball to the Kensington optical mouse, you now have a full range of up-to-date, current, mice and mice alternatives. Specs: The Mr. Mysza also supports up to four buttons and the scroll mouse (utility drivers included) for additional ease of use. The Mr. Mysza is fully "plug and play". Just plug in the Mr. Mysza, and your choice of literally thousands of PS/2 devices and you are set to go! All you need is the adapter and a PS/2 mouse device to get up and going. There is no need for additional software to use Mr. Mysza! (Except to use features such as the scroller on scroll mice.) Price: The Mr. Mysza will be be at about the $25 mark, much less then the current serial mouse converters. There will also be bundles of Mr. Mysza and the Crystal Trackball available for about the $50 mark. Availability: The Mr. Mysza will be available in about 7 to 14 days. The first batch of Mr. Myszas is almost complete... What is included?: Included in the package is the Mr. Mysza adapter, a disc containing the software to use the scroller on scroll mice and additional buttons on 3+ button mice, and a manual. Also upcoming is the RedBoard adapter, and infa-red keyboard adapter for Amiga computers. A separate press release will follow with information about the RedBoard. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- T H E P R E D A T O R F R O M E Y E T E C H 3 September, 2000 From The Eyetech Group Ltd The Predator: 3xPCI + 1xAGP + SDRAM expansion with direct PPC processor interface for the A4000 desktop and towered A1200 As part of our ongoing discussions with top end games developers, one of their major concerns is how to get sufficiently fast graphics cards on the installed base of A1200 / A4000 PPC machines. The Permedia 2 chipset, although still the best graphics solution currently available on the A1200, is now quite dated in its 3-D performance. The Elbox Mediator is a partial solution, but is severely hampered because all A1200 accelerators - including the Blizzard PPC - only bring 24 address lines out to the edge connector meaning that all data transfer has to be carried out within the 8MB Zorro2 address window. For modern graphics cards this will inevitably involve 4 fold or greater multiplexing thus crippling the transfer rate between processor and graphics card. In addition, PCI graphics cards themselves are now increasingly hard to obtain and will be obsolete in a few months time. So what are we doing about it? The Predator expansion bus will come in separate versions for the A1200 and A4000 desktop (an A4000 tower version will be produced later if there is sufficient demand). Each will come equipped with 3xPCI slots and 1xAGP (graphics card) slot (with an additional regular A4000 video slot in the A4000 version). In addition there will be a single SDRAM (PC100 DIMM) socket for up to 256MB. As the bus is fully PCI 2.1 compliant, including bus mastering and DMA facilities, this SDRAM can be used directly by either or both of the PPC CPU and the AGP graphics card. By directly connecting to the expansion connector on the BlizzardPPC and CyberstormPPC the expansion bus has the full 4GB of address space of the PPC CPU without the penalties of any existing Zorro 2 conflicts or address space multiplexing. The bus itself runs at 66MHz x 4 bytes wide for unprecedented transfer rates (for a classic Amiga) both between cards (using bus mastering and DMA) and - more importantly - between the AGP connector and the PPC CPU. The board has been designed as a full multilayer PCB with 2 ground planes and signal path length equalisation. Work on porting the Voodoo-5 3D drivers (to be shipped with the board) is already underway. And the best news of all is that this state-of-the-art expansion bus will be available ub late September / early October at a target price of just £169.95 including VAT. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Amiga Update on the net: All back issues available at: http://www.globaldialog.com/~amigaupdate/index.html Stop by and check out our archive! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2000 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified. ====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ A M I G A /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ A M I G A U P D A T E /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ U P D A T E / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ amigaupdate@globaldialog.com ======================================================================