-=========================================================================- _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || Amiga Update -News and Rumors /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ ||(A Very Ocassional Newsletter) / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ || BACK FOR THE FUTURE || -=========================================================================- AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga Technolgies, GmbH --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 960412 A M I G A T E C H N O L O G I E S S O L D C O N F E R E N C E W I T H D A V E H A Y N I E N E W P R O D U C T A N N O U N C E M E N T S Just when we though things were settling down and the Amiga community was rebuilding, we learn that AT is being sold by Escom. The company making the purchase is VIScorp, the Chicago based firm that recently forged an aliance with AT to use Amiga technology in the emerging TV set top box market. So the Amiga is going to be an American computer again - but will VIScorp have any interest in continuing the computer line? I don't know but I will admit to being concerned - despite the fact that the right sort of things are currently being said. As usual, we hope for the best and will try to keep you informed. See below for full details. We came across a conference with noted ex-Amiga engineer Dave Hayney recently. It's worth reading. Haynie explains why the aging Amiga hardware can still do things PCs can't, even though they should be able to outperform most Amigas in many ways. He also has some encouraging words about the upcoming (or are they, VIScorp?) Power PC Amigas, which will modernize Amiga hardware. Finally, some recent product announcements culled from the Amiga newsgroups on the Net. At least one should provide some amusement. Just about anybody with something to sell can post a notice, and many do, as you will see. Keep in mind product announcements from this source cover mostly small firms and individual programmers, not the major commercial houses. We hope you enjoy this issue and hold on folks, here we go again on another uncertainty trip. Brad Oh - there are some new subscribers today who didn't know they were on our mailing list. We often send to Net connected Amiga owners in the Wisconsin area when we hear about them. If you decide you don't want to receive this now-and-then newsletter, just let us know. Addresses are at the bottom. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A T E C H N O L O G I E S T O B E S O L D VIScorp USA and Escom AG Announce Letter of Understanding for Acquisition of Amiga Technologies by VIScorp Heppenheim, Germany and Chicago, IL, April 12, 1996 -- ESCOM AG, a German computer manufacturer and reseller and Visual Information Services Corp. (Nasdaq: VICP, Bulletin Board), a developer of interactive TV (ITV) set-top-boxes to enhance television use and viewing by providing Internet access and electronic communications function, today jointly announced that a binding letter of understanding has been signed between the companies. The letter states that Chicago-based VIScorp would acquire Amiga Technologies, including the intellectual properties of the former Commodore Business Machines, excepted Commodore trademarks. The transaction value is approximately US $40 million. Terms were not disclosed, and the pending acquisition would be subject to approval by both companies' boards of directors. "This intended acquisition is part of VIScorp's strategy to build market leadership in the fast-growing field of ITV", said William Buck, Chief Executive Officer. "As a result, we would own Amiga intellectual properties, including several that are currently used in our set top-box, Electronic Device (ED(). We would also have control over the supplied chip sets used in ED as well as Amiga inventories and access to the company's current sales and distribution channels." Commenting the proposed acquisition, Helmut Jost, chief executive of ESCOM AG, said: "VIScorp has a clear vision of the Amiga technology potential for ITV applications. We are eager to support and work together over the term of the letter of understanding to ensure a smooth transition between the two companies. VIScorp anticipates the support of ongoing European sales of popular models such as the A4000T and the A1200 as well as the current developments and future releases of Amiga Technologies." Petro Tyschtschenko, president of Amiga Technologies stated "I am looking forward to being able to take advantage of the research and development support potential that an Amiga-related company like VIScorp can provide." Commenting that the primary objective of the proposed acquisition is to give VIScorp full access to the Amiga technology to support development of its ITV device, Mr. Buck noted: "Our intention is to rapidly develop and begin manufacturing TV set-top interactive boxes -- products that give home users capabilities such as telephone reception and dial up capabilities, facsimile, video games, pay-per-view options, electronic mail, and access to on-line services, including the Internet." Product names mentioned herein may be trademarks and/or registered trademarks of their respective companies. Regards, Gilles Bourdin Gilles Bourdin / Amiga Technologies GmbH Public Relations Email to: gbo@amiga.de URL: http://www.amiga.de/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- C O N F E R E N C E W I T H D A V E H A Y N I E The following excerpts and commentary have been retrieved from Amiga newsgroups on the Internet. The next comments are those of the moderator. Brad These are excerpts form an online conference Dave Haynie held on Compuserve sometime before CeBit. I think this will probably put some things in perspective, and maybe even change some people's opinions... You never know. :-) For those who don't know Dave Haynie is one of the most prominent and most widely known ex-CBM engineers. His words are more or less accepted as gospel all through Amiga community who usually sees him as Mr.Amiga himself. This is on the longish side, but it's worth it, believe me... (1-26,Mr Challeron) Dave: How do you view AT's efforts to "mainstream" the Amiga, i.e., with PPC chip, OS porting, etc? (1-18,Dave H) AT is doing the right things. (1-18,Dave H) Before C= folded, I was looking into using more standard parts, going to RISC for extra performance, PCI bus for standard cards, etc. These are all good and necessary moves. At the high end at least, a Power Amiga can be PPCP compliant, so you can run any PPC OS on it. That's extra security for Amiga fans who are nervous about buying a new system. That will let Escom sell systems to people who would never buy AmigaOS systems, and perhaps turn a few on to the AmigaOS in the process. That will make it easier for Amigaoids to get Amigas past the corporate system-censors. And it'll allow 3rd parties like Macrosystems, Phase 5, etc. to make real Amiga clones if they like. Everyone wins. ga (1-14,Mike Webb) In reference to the consultation with AT, what do you think they should do with the next generation of Amigas as far as graphics/video/sound hardware (custom chipset vs. graphics board, etc.) are concerned? (1-18,Dave H) Strangely enough, the next generation "multimedia subsystem" is one of the things they're asking me to look into. I have plenty of ideas; there are things being done now at both established chip companies and startups that are as far beyond the Amiga chipsets (even AAA) as the original Amiga was above PClone stuff at the time. These things will show up from time to time on PClones, but no one's really going to take advantage of anything on a PC that doesn't fall neatly into a Windows API. The Amiga has no such constraints -- it's whatever its designers say it is, in HW and SW. ga (1-5,Eric Douglas) What is your idea on what the amiga will be like in 2 years, and what is the most promising news you have heard about anything. (1-18,Dave H) I would hope that in early 1998, AT has sold their first million Power Amigas, the OS is now totally PowerPC code (at least as much as that matters, legacy stuff might stay in 68K code as it does on the Mac), etc. Your low end machine goes for about $500on the street, while mid and high end systems start at $1200 or so. Two companies so far have entered the "Amiga Clone" market, shipping the PPCP version of AmigaOS as standard on their systems. The basic Power Amiga of the time does at least 1280x1024 noninterlaced graphics, 24-bit if you spring for the graphics memory. It can also do NTSC and PAL, and it can do MPEG playback, full screen at 30fps. It has some 3D support hardware as standard for graphics, as well as the fast blitter. General MIDI and 16-bit digital audio I/O are also standard. That's what I can hope, and none of that is impossible. I guess the most encouraging news so far has been that AT asked me about this stuff, so I have some idea that this might actually happen. ga (1-13,RoyP) Dave AT has had problems getting HD drives for the A4000... (1-13,RoyP) how do you see that situation and do you know of a solution for them... Also - why did it take so long for C= to even think about CD Rom drives. ga (1-18,Dave H) The real problem is the custom nature of the Amiga HD drive. These were specified by C=, made only by Chinon. Now Chinon, being a big old supplier of C= parts, was apprently owed buckets of money by C=. You would think that AT coming along, offering to take any inventory of these drives off their hands would be a good thing for all involved, but apparently Chinon didn't want any part of it. That's what I heard, anyway. So AT is left with no manufacturer of Amiga HD drives (the trick being primarily the drive going 1/2 speed when you insert an HD disk, and transmitting Amiga disk code for the appropriate floppy format). The only viable solution for existing machines is to make this kind of drive, but AT doesn't have enough volumes to interest drive makers. The best solution for new systems is to use off-the-shelf floppy controllers; even if that's going to limit them to 1.44MB rather than 1.76MB, it's the only cost-effective solution. [hate to say 'told you so', but... Told you so! -jpop] (1-11,Bronwen Pitchford) do you have any general advice or messages of good cheer for us amiga faithful? (1-18,Dave H) I believe the Power Amiga is possible, even in this day of Wintel dominance. If I didn't, I wouldn't waste my time, or AT's. I'm not at AT, and not in a position to say just what will happen, but if they do what I'm suggesting, I think they have a good shot at an Amiga Renissance. (1-13,RoyP) Do you see them having any really great announcements at CeBit or maybe Demos that we aren't already expecting. ga (1-18,Dave H) They have a concept I think they're showing at CeBit, which I really liked. Since I don't know if it's showing public, I can't fill in the details. But I can say they have a different machine idea than anything you've seen before from C=. [I guess this is refering to Walker, actually... :-) -jpop] (1-26,Mr Challeron) Dave: I'm a little unclear on the AAA chipset, and your discussion of it earlier, because you started using "past tense", and ended up talking about what it "is". Has the whole project been dropped, or is AT working on "off-the-shelf-close-enough", and going to tweak the rest in software? ga (1-18,Dave H) Well, there's what AAA does today, on two existing machines. But AAA itself is no more. That's the right decision, it's just too late, there's too much left undone on it, and it would cost a fortune to complete it. I can buy $15 SVGA chip with better graphics specs and faster blitters. That's a function of the way the compuyter industry has gone. Back in the Amiga's early days, no one did systej specific ASICs of any kind, except C= and a few other mass marketers. C= was a good match for the Amiga becuse of this, and the Amiga chips really were something special. You got roughly 68020 class performance on the A1000 thanks to the blitter, at a time when the '020 was a workstation CPU. And having something like an '020 doing your graphics freed up the 68000, so the system was just that much better than anything else. Over time, the PC Clone industry spawned a new class of chip makers. These guys made glue chips for PC Clones, at first, basicallyt making the "Gary" and "Buster" equivalents for PCs. Gradually, they started cloning IBM's graphics chips, and that led up to today. The companies that specialized in graphics chips were rewarded. A good systems house of today, IBM, Compaq, Apple, etc. might ship 5 million systems a year, if it's a good year. But these graphics chip companies are shipping 10's of millions of chips. They're getting expertise and volume unavailable to systems houses. Add the growth of multimedia concerns (if not good OSs to drive real MM), and you find that it's going to be very difficult to make a decent graphics chip today. If you don't have 3 years, 3 million buck, and a practiced team of 10-20 chip designers handy, you don't even step up to the plate. (1-14,Mike Webb) Please clear this up if I have a serious misunderstanding, but I've seen a number of fairly modern PC's in recent years, and not one of them has been able to keep up with my 68030 ECS machine in animation -- would these cheap SVGA chips, for all their high resolutions and more colors, really have a dream of keeping up with a newer, more powerful Amiga chipset at animation? (1-18,Dave H) Sure. A good SVGA chip of today has a CPU to "chipram" bandwidth of 50MB/s-100MB/s. The best you get on an Amiga is 7MB/s. Similarly with the blitter. What you don't have on the PC, plain and simple, is the AmigaOS. SVGA chips can double buffer, they can give you a vertical blanking interrupt, and they're wicked fast in their modern incarnations. But what do you run, Windows or MS-DOS? It's like letting a monkey drive that hot new Porsche you just bought (well, I didn't, but you get the picture). (1-18,Dave H) Look at it this way: the PC has graphics 10x-50x faster, it has CPUs 5x-20x faster, and it costs less. And yet, the Amiga is doing stuff you can't do on the PC. Plain and simple. How else would you explain this? Scala has spent the last 2.5 years writing their own OS to allow Amiga-like things to happen on the PC. Software really is the key factor these days. Hardware evolution, if anything, was hastened by the PClone busines. Software evolution, on the other hand, has been hampered. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- S O M E N E W P R O D U C T A N N O U N C E M E N T S F R O M T H E A M I G A U S E N E T G R O U P S With moderator comments where appropriate. Brad TITLE The AlphaSpell GUI v1.6 AUTHOR Fergus Duniho E-mail: fdnh@troi.cc.rochester.edu Homepage: http://www.ling.rochester.edu/~duniho/index.html DESCRIPTION Spell checking with your text editor is now fast and easy. The AlphaSpell GUI is a powerful and sophisticated ARexx controlled GUI that lets you use AlphaSpell to spell check documents in tandem with your favorite text editor. The AlphaSpell GUI works with nearly any text editor that has an ARexx port, and it comes with scripts for fourteen text editors: AmokEd, Annotate, BlacksEditor, DME, Ed, FrexxEd, GoldEd, GNU Emacs, SkoEd, Textra, TJM DME, TKEd, TurboText, and XDME. If you think it seems to be what you've been searching for, check out its documentation for further details. NEW FEATURES Fixed bug that sometimes kept the last release from working. Other bugs fixed. Support for ten more editors added since the last release. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS Varexx: ftp://aminet.com/pub/aminet/util/rexx/varexx.lha AlphaSpell: ftp://aminet.com/pub/aminet/text/edit/ASpell.lha ReqTools.library and RexxReqTools.library: ftp://aminet.com/pub/aminet/util/libs/ReqToolsUsr.lha A text editor with an ARexx interface. AVAILABILITY Any Aminet site, for example: ftp://aminet.com/pub/aminet/text/edit/ASpellGUI.lha (102043) It is also available from the AlphaSpell support site on bitnova: ftp://bitnova.com/duniho/ASpellGUI.lha (102043) PRICE The AlphaSpell GUI is free, but AlphaSpell itself costs $20.00 to register. DISTRIBUTABILITY Freeware. Copyright ) 1995-6 Fergus Duniho. WEB PAGE http://www.ling.rochester.edu/~duniho/AlphaSpell.html SUPPORT SITE Telnet: bitnova.com FTP: ftp.bitnova.com .......... TITLE AmIRC - The AmigaOS IRC Client VERSION 1.0 AUTHOR Oliver Wagner DESCRIPTION AmIRC is a fully featured GUI IRC Client, including builtin-DCC and ARexx scripting support. See the WWW site or the Readme for a thorough description of features. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS AmigaOS 2.04 is required (OS 3.1 suggested) Requires a TCP/IP stack compliant to the AmiTCP or as225r2 API. (e.g. AmiTCP 4.0demo, AmiTCP 4.2, as225r2, inet-225, Mlink). MUI 3.0 (3.3 suggested) AVAILABILITY http://www.vapor.com/AmIRC/ ftp://ftp.vapor.com/support/AmIRC/amirc10.lha ftp://ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de/pub/amiga/comm/amirc/amirc10.lha Also available on Aminet in /comm/tcp. PRICE Shareware (unrestricted demo version). Sisisware fee ] is DM 35,-- or US$ 20. DISTRIBUTABILITY (C) 1995-96 Oliver Wagner (owagner@lsd.wupper.de) All Rights Reserved The package is freely distributable in unmodfied form. /********************************************************************** * Oliver Wagner * Voice ++49 231 9700 925 * * Fuzzy Demonstrations-Zentrum Dortmund * Fax ++49 231 9700 929 * * im Informatik Centrum Dortmund ICD e.V. *************************** * Joseph von Fraunhofer-Str. 20 * * D-44227 Dortmund * ********************************************/ .......... [ Note: The moderator, when he imagines he has time for such ] [ things, often edits posts like this for grammar and spelling. ] [ Considering the theme, though, it seemed most appropriate to ] [ leave this one unsullied.... Enjoy. -Dan ] TITLE MoronCX - The commodity which does not suck VERSION 1.0 AUTHOR Thomas Eicher Hans-Schmidmayerstr. 26 85435 Erding t.eicher@hsp.zer.de thomas.eicher@x3network.net http://royal.owl.de/~eicher/ DESCRIPTION Basically, this is a programm that will increase the coolness factor of your amiga by severals degrees. If your amiga sucks, this program might work as a de-sukka-pacator. Right. See, for the Mac there's a program called SimB&B. It will play random Beavis and Butthead samples at random intervals. But Macs suck, because there's no multitasking. So you can either have a Mac which does not suck (running SimB&B) but can't do anything else or you can have a Mac which sucks. Well, I got an Amiga which does not suck by definition. It got multitasking, so the only thing missing is SimB&B. Well, actually MoronCX is a lot better than that. FEATURES o It plays _your_ favorite 8SVX samples off your disk drive, you aren't limited to built-in samples o You can still work as if it weren't running o Like every good CX, MoronCX can be given a hotkey, or be remote controlled via Exchange. o You can determine the exact minimum and maximum delay between two samples o You can have MoCX shuffle your samples, or arrange them in a order you like o It is startable from WB, from WBStartup or from a shell o It will always load and save it's config from and to it's icon's tooltypes. o You can select a volume which will be calculated into the sample's internal volume level. o It doesn't use MUI o There will be lotsa ready-to-run sample packs for MoCX You're still reading ? Reading sucks. Better install MoCX now. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS AmigaOs 2.0+ Some 8SVX samples or sample pack While you're at downloading, why not try Aminet:util/cdity/MoCX_BnB.lha AVAILABILITY The package has been uploaded to AmiNET so it should be available from your local AmiNET provider, for example: ftp://ftp.uni-paderborn.de/aminet/util/cdity/MoronCX10.lha 54265 Bytes PRICE If you are the programmer of a shareware product for the Amiga, I consider it only fair that you send me a registered version and/or a keyfile for your product. If you use this program regularly, please send me an email and consider registering. Registering is free. DISTRIBUTABILITY MoronCX is copyrighted 1995,96 by Thomas Eicher. Permission to use is granted to everybody. All rights reserved. It may be freely distributed in its original form and with its unmodified documentation. mfg, Tom. t.eicher@amc.cube.net http://royal.owl.de/~eicher/ -- Friends don't let friends use MS-Windows! Just say no, kids! .......... TITLE Chris's Button Strip (CBS) VERSION 2.0 AUTHOR Christopher Schnurr Email : cjs@icbl.hw.ac.uk Snail : Sandstich Combe Lane Widemouth Bay Bude Cornwall UK DESCRIPTION CBS is a set of three button strips for Final Writer which cover most aspects of HTML editing. Using Final Writer's User extendable menus and button strips, a number of Arexx scripts have been written to allow both point and click and keyboard short cuts to the most used HTML web designing codes. FEATURES NWYSIWYG (NearlyWYSIWYG) viewing as editing : centered text is centered, italic text is italicised, headings are larger, etc.. o Keyboard and menu shortcuts o intelligent cursor and code positioning o Automatic list and table generation systems o 40 most common HTML codes in Arexx code (incl. tables & forms) o Equivalent text clips for use without Arexx o additional 20 customisable textclips o transparent saves to Ascii .html o use of HTML3.0 templates o different colours / fonts for HTML code o Source code of macros is not compiled or encrypted :) o fully documented in HTML format SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS CBS requires: * Final Writer R3 or above with Arexx support (for greatest benefit) (Final Writer Lite is untested but should work.) * ARexx (bundled with Workbench 2.04 and above.) * 217k of disk space (including html-ised documentation) * No special memory requirements (apart from running Final Writer) AVAILABILITY - WWW - http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/~cjs/cbs/index.html - Most Aminet sites. Examples of which are: USA: ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/text/misc/cbsv16.lha EUR: ftp://ftp.luth.se/pub/aminet/text/misc/cbsv16.lha PRICE This editing suite is Chocware. To register, send chocolate particular to your home country. Once registered you will receive Version 2.0 and free further updates. Example Fees: Mint Hershey Bar (US) Dark Chocolate (Belgium) Viennese Truffles (Austria) Small Thorntons bag (UK) Irish Cadbury's product (EIRE/NI) DISTRIBUTABILITY The unregistered version is freely distributable if done in a non- commercial way. It is *NOT* to be distributed on magasine coverdisks or similar without the owner's explicit written consent. The registered version is *NOT* freely distributable. This suite of programs is copyright 1995, 96 by Christopher Schnurr. OTHER To encourage users to register (I'm hungry), version 1.6 has only the Arexx macros for button strip 1. This does however include most of the commonly used HTML codes, except for those needed for tables or forms. Version2.0 has three button strips and approximately 60 different functions involved in web authoring. -- Grasping the bird's tail... --------------------------------------------------- | . o ,o o o o o o o | | `-( `|\ )=, `-) `-( '-) '-) '-( | | /< /< /< /< < \ < \ /< < \ | --------------------------------------------------- cjs@icbl.hw.ac.uk http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/~cjs/ video : (+44)-131-451-5686(ISDN-2) -=========================================================================- _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || Brad Webb - available at: /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || webb@malamute.med.ge.com /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || bandr@globaldialog.com / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ || Portal -- XJumpdisk -=========================================================================-