@database "ar406.guide"
@Node MAIN "Amiga Report Online Magazine #4.06 -- April 23, 1996"
===========================================================================
  April 23, 1996              @{" Turn the Page " link MENU}             Issue No. 4.06
===========================================================================
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                 "THE Online Source for Amiga Information!"

                      Copyright 1996 FS Publications
                            All Rights Reserved
@endnode
@node MENU "Amiga Report Main Menu"
@toc MAIN

===========================================================================
==                               Main Menu                               ==
===========================================================================

    @{"  Editorial and Opinion   " link OPINION}             @{"    Featured Articles    " link FEATURE}

    @{"         Reviews          " link  REVIEW}             @{"  News & Press Releases  " link NEWS}

    @{"      Aminet Charts       " link     FTP}             @{"       Reader Mail       " link MAIL}

                     ---------------------------------

    @{"    About AMIGA REPORT    " link ABOUT}             @{"    Dealer Directory     " link DEALER}
 Contact Information and Copyrights     Amiga Dealer Addresses and Numbers

    @{"     Where to Get AR      " link WHERE}             @{"     Advertisements      " link COMMERCIAL}
 Mailing List &  Distribution Sites     Online Services, Dealers, Ordering
               ______________________________________________
         //   |                                              |       //
========//====|  Amiga Report International Online Magazine  |======//=====
==   \\//     |  Issue No. 4.06              April 23, 1996  |   \\//    ==
==============|  "THE Online Source for Amiga Information!"  |=============
              |______________________________________________|
@endnode
@node JASON "Editor"
@toc STAFF

===========================================================================
                                  EDITOR
===========================================================================

                               Jason Compton
                               =============
             Internet                                  Address
             --------                                  -------
     jcompton@shell.portal.com                1203 Alexander Ave
     jcompton@xnet.com                        Streamwood, IL 60107-3003
                                              USA

               Fax                                      Phone
               ---                                      -----
           847-741-0689                             847-733-0248
@endnode
@node KATIE "Assistant Editor"
@toc STAFF

===========================================================================
==                           ASSISTANT EDITOR                            ==
===========================================================================

                             Katherine Nelson
                             ================

                                 Internet
                                 --------
                            Kati@cup.portal.com
@endnode
@node KEN "Games Editor"
@toc STAFF

===========================================================================
==                             GAMES EDITOR                              ==
===========================================================================

                               Ken Anderson
                               ============

               Internet                             Address
               --------                             -------
             kend@dhp.com                      44 Scotland Drive
         ka@protec.demon.co.uk                 Dunfermline
                                               Fife KY12 7TD
                                               Scotland
@endnode
@node WILLIAM "Contributing Editor"
@toc STAFF

===========================================================================
                            CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
===========================================================================

                               William Near
                               ============

                                 Internet
                                 --------
                              wnear@epix.net
@endnode
@node ADDISON "Contributing Editor"
@toc STAFF

===========================================================================
                            CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
===========================================================================

                              Addison Laurent
                              ===============

                                 Internet
                                 --------
                       addison@jobe.shell.portal.com
@endnode
@node EDITORIAL "compt.sys.editor.desk"
@toc OPINION

===========================================================================
    compt.sys.editor.desk                          By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON}
===========================================================================

The Jay Miner Memorial Third Annual April Amiga Upheaval is officially
underway!

You all no doubt remember the inaugural April Upheaval '94, held in the
Bahamas, when Commodore International Ltd., second parent company of the
Amiga technology, filed for bankruptcy, prompting a year's worth of
uncertainty, trans-Atlantic sniping, and rampant tension.

April Upheaval '95 was held in New York City.  Still fresh in our memories,
Escom purchased the assets of Commodore from the liquidation trustees.
They then set up Amiga Technologies, to administer the Amiga, and a new
Commodore OEM branch to repackage every PC component under the sun with
their newly acquired Commodore label.

April Upheaval '96 is being held in Germany this year.  This time, it's
Escom selling Amiga Technologies to VIScorp of Chicago, USA.  Those who
have been paying attention to the news will remember VIScorp as announcing,
mere days after Escom's Amiga acquisition, that they would be licensing the
technology for a new set-top box.

Amiga users are once again faced with uncertainty.  While VIScorp
officials, notably Carl Sassenrath, late of Amiga Corporation and
Commodore-Amiga, have been doing a decent job of trying to quell the
deepest fears of Amiga users, questions still remain.  VIScorp's press
materials make it quite clear that their set-top ED is their top priority,
but they reassuringly say that they will keep Amiga Technologies in place
as an Amiga computer sales and development company.  

But in the shadow of this news, Amiga Technologies took the resignation of
one of its presidents, Stefan Domeyer, and laid off other employees.
(Reports range from 10 to 13 personnel, including Dr. Peter Kittel--one of
AT's first employees)  No official information on the layoffs was available
at the time of press, but both Gilles Bourdin of Amiga Technologies and
Florine Radulovic of VIScorp, the respective press officers, acknowledge
the layoffs took place.  Ms. Radulovic added that the layoffs were not done
under sanction or instruction of VIScorp, as VIScorp has not yet acquired
the company.

So far, solid information has not been in abundance.  One thing is
clear--panic won't help anybody.  Much as I hate uncertainty, getting
needlessly excited is only going to cause problems.  Over the next few
weeks, the details should begin to unfold and we'll have

At least one source I have been in contact with for several months informs
me that in his experience, VIScorp is not all they appear to be, and our
WOA reporter's run in with the CEO of VIScorp leaves a lot of unanswered
questions.  On the other hand, VIScorp's design team seems very serious
about their work and the expansion of the Amiga technology.

We will see.

Jason

PS: Due to the absolutely staggering amount of news and the very thorough
WOA UK reports, we've had to remove the BBS listing and hold off on some
reviews just to keep the magazine a decent length.  We'll try to catch up
in AR 4.07.

@endnode
@node COMMERCIAL "Commercial Products"
@toc MENU

===========================================================================
                            Commercial Products
===========================================================================

@{"        Editor's Choice        " link EDITORCHOICE}  Jason's picks

@{"   Portal Information Systems  " link PORTAL}  A great place for Amiga users.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode
@node MAIL "Reader Mail"
@toc MENU

===========================================================================
                               Reader Mail
===========================================================================

From: Erlend Pettersen <Erlend.Pettersen@fix.no>

One of the things I miss on the Amiga now, is good 2D-games. Everybody seems
to have been taken by 3D-mania.

I can remember a lot of good 2D-games. The Turrican-series, Giana Sisters,
The New Zealand Story, World/Summer/Winter-games, Syndicate, North and South,
and a lot of other good games that came out in the Amiga's golden days.

I can't remember any really good 3D-games, that I have played for many hours.

So, why can't the software-publishers make any good 2D-games? I miss it, and
I'm sure many others do too.

--------------

From: Rick Lui
      ismail@ionsys.com

SUBJECT: AGAExtender: 24bit+chunky on AGA without GFX board.

[The AGAExtender is not the only device of this type in existence.  There
are at least two other AGA RGB attachments that provide chunky displays.
-Jason]

AGA obsolete for multimedia, image processing, games and SFX?  Perhaps not.
Thanks to an independent hardware designer in Italy who discovered that the
AGA computers can (at maximum bandwidth) achieve a LOT more than most think
possible.  With the help of a small, low cost external adapter in the RGB
port the Amiga becomes a superior graphics and sound system.  This is
achieved through a clever design that does NOT require a DSP for 16 bit
sound and does NOT require a SVGA chip for 24 bit graphics.  This
relatively simple circuit is based on a line buffered design and uses a
constant maximum AGA bandwidth (Lisa chip supplies an SHRES signal).  This
means low cost to manufacture and full compatibility with all AGA systems
independent of CPU type and speed. 

The concept is simple; we can avoid having to upgrade to a new graphics or
sound chip by easily exploiting the tremendous untapped resources
(bandwidth) of the standard AGA machine.  The aim is to upgrade to 24 bit
graphics and get 16 bit sound.  All the extra features delivered by the
AGAX design would not implicate additional costs but are simply the fallout
of a versatle design (free goodies).

- plugs into RGB port of any AGA machine (does not hinder existing HW)
- true colour (24 bit) plus 8 bit Alpha channel for SFX 
- YUV conversion for fast MPEG/JPEG display
- resolution independent of scanning frequency (hardware mode promotion)
- chunky screen modes (optional chunky+planar combination) 
- real-time zoom effects (CPU-free!)
- parallax effects and sprites (quad playfields and transparency)
- hardware image flips and rotations
- crossfading & cross-transparency (CPU-free!)
- vertical/horizontal anti-aliasing (linear interpolation)
- 4 channel 16 bit 3Dsurround sound (44KHz; independent & asynchronous)
- 4 separate audio connectors (2 Amiga+2 AGAX) for 4 way speaker systems
- fast and safe software switch from AGA to AGAX 
- agaextender.library in development to provide complete OS legal use 

The AGAExtender gives programmers and hobbyists virtually unlimited
capacity to create and develop MS rear kicking software.  For example,
hardware scaling and a chunky screenmode will free the CPU to show full
screen MPEGs at a very high frame rate (who says you need a 100MHz Pentium
to do that!) Another example, Scala multimedia type software using hardware
crossfading and cross-transparency running with little or no CPU overhead.
Think of all the extra CPU power left for other combined special effects! 
Imagine AlienBreed3D with 8 bit Alpha channel "fog/light" effects and 3D
surround sound with real-time echo and reverb so true to life that you can
locate exactly where the monsters are with your eyes closed!

Bizzetti's design is like a gift from heaven for AGA owners providing
compatibility with all current software and hardware and delivering many
things that the PC's SVGA chips could never do (CPU-free crossfading,
CPU-free scaling, Alpha channel playfield, etc.) not to mention the AGAX
audio capabilites.  The beauty of it all is that it is relatively simple
and inexpensive to build.  Unfortunately, Bizzetti does not have (likely
never will) the financial or R & D backing of AT.  AT is moving in the
opposite direction (PowerAmiga) and their differences in philosophy may be
irreconcilable; perhaps a 3rd party manufacturer would be interested in
making lots of money and becoming very popular. 

Bizzetti's dream is to take the million or so AGA Amigas into the year 2000
with the reassurance that Amiga does possess the absolute best technology
which no PC box can offer.  He needs the support and encouragement of the
entire Amiga community.  Don't look at this as a sad plea to save our
beloved AGA Amiga.  Instead, see it as a chance for Amiga to reign supreme
in audio and visual once again!  Let Bizzetti, AT and Amiga dealers know
that there is a demand and need for this innovative product (otherwise we
may never even see a prototype). 

"Nowadays the competition is MultiMedia, and the Amiga needs a
revolution...  millions of already installed machines cannot and must not
become obsolete.  The solution exists, and it's optimal both technically
and commercially." - Fabio Bizzetti

The designer (Fabio Bizzetti) can be reached at <bizzetti@mbox.vol.it>
Please download the file AgaEXTENDER.lha (on Aminet or this BBS) for design
details, illustrations and low level operations (all you VLSI/ ULSI
engineers should take a look at this and give some feedback.

--------------

From: Tak Tang <tst92@ecs.soton.ac.uk>

Dear AmigaReport,

Regarding Mike Erasmus' letter (AR 405) -

No, unfortunately there are no Visual Basic type software for the amiga
(yet), although there are a few promising GUI editors, which take much of
the drudgery out of coding a gui, and could form the basis of a VB type
program.  I guess the closest we ever got to point and click programming
was AmigaVision, although the pro version was only available to CDTV
developers.  Regarding compilation - I'm told that VB2 compiled the code
into 'p-code', rather than machine code.

Finally, regarding SQL.  I'm trying to get hold of ASQL, by Charles
O'Reilly.  I understand its still being worked on, though it has an arexx
port, which could be used to tie things together.

Regarding Ron Upton's letter (AR405) -

You could try MainActor, which comes in three versions - shareware,
available on aminet; professional and broadcast, both available in the UK
from BlitterSoft (I think).

I also have a (commercial) program named AWorks.  I got it from a cover
disk, though I cant remember which.

Both the above programs will read the animations from disk, so memory is
not a problem.

Regards,

Tak

----------------------------

From: Carlos M M Rodrigues <l39597@alfa.ist.utl.pt>

 Jason,

I'am an avid reader of AR for a long time (2 years to be more precise) and
I would like to give my congratulations for the excellent job that you and
all the AR staff have been doing on this magazine, but I write this letter
mainly to express my frustration for the type of support, or lack of it,
that some Amiga developers give.

I read with interest the letter wrote by Shane Kuntz in AR405 and I'am
forced to agree with the points exposed there, but what I don't really
understand is that, we have finally a company decided to bet on the Amiga
and some developers decide that it's time to leave the machine behind and
go to machines like the BeBox, simply because they think the machine will
not have any great future.

Before continuing let me say that I know the technical characteristics of
the BeBox and I even have screen shots from the GUI.  At first sight it
appears to be a great machine but let me remind what happened to a machine
called NeXT.

If those developers stopped supporting the Amiga, only to concentrate on
the PC or Mac market, I would understand, but leaving a machine that
already has the market position and the support that the Amiga has and go
to a platform like the BeBox is something I really don't understand.

For the first time we see people, with years of programing experience on
the Amiga, involved in the PPCAmiga OS project, for the first time we see
machines like the Walker that will give us the possibility not only to buy
Amigas at prices commonly practiced in the PC market, but even to use PCI
peripherals and it is precisely at this time, that some developers start to
lose their hope on the future of the machine.  As Shane Kuntz said, a
pessimistic Amiga community sucks but a pessimistic Amiga developer
community sucks even more.
@endnode
@node OPINION1 "The Joker Survey"
@toc OPINION

===========================================================================
                             The Joker Survey
  By: Jason Mulligan                             manwe@valinor.hna.com.au
===========================================================================

Hi Jason,

Well those comments about the german Amiga survey came out and I just
couldnt let it pass without saying something.  I must say some of the
figures were interesting, like the figure of 12% owning AT-1200's (I guess
they are selling somewhere).

>- Only 7% of the readers also own an PC-clone.  This supports my opinion
>  that many Amiga owners only still cling to their Amiga because they have
>  not seen and played about with today's PeeCees too much.  If they did,
>  many would already have left the Amiga in no time (especially when it
>  comes to games) :-(

Now this, I certainly wouldnt agree with.  I'm sure most Amiga owners have
used PC's (it's pretty hard to avoid 'em these days).  For me, with the
collapse of C= the only reason I had to move on to a PC was to get games. 
My Amiga did and still does everything I need it to do except play new,
advanced games.  For me, I just cant justify spending such large quantities
of cash on a P120 or greater just so I can play the latest PC games at a
reasonable speed.  Considering the survey results, I'm pretty sure alot of
Amiga users are in the same boat.

In my case, to get my games fix I spent a fraction of what it would cost
for a high-end PC and bought a Sony Playstation console.  The combination
of Amiga for real work and Playstation for fun IMHO is a better combo
(functionally and wallet-wise) than any PC could be.

Anyway, keep up the great work. With ACAR and other mags dissapearing we
need you now more than ever.
@endnode
@node NEWS1 "W.F.M.H. LocalePL v2"
@toc NEWS

[It's largely in Polish, I know.  They insisted. -Jason]

TITLE

     W.F.M.H. LocalePL - Complete polish envirionment for your Amiga
                       - Polski system operacyjny dla Twojej Amigi

VERSION

2

AUTHOR

Marcin Orlowski

E-Mail......: carlos@dedal.man.szczecin.pl
MAXsNet.....: 86:30042/203
FidoNet.....: 2:481/22.2
GlobalNet...: 52:4800/6
Packet Radio: SQ1BSC @ SR1BBS.#SZ.POL.EU

DESCRIPTION

This complete polish envirionmet for all Amigas equipped OS2.1 and better.

Wszystko czego potrzebujesz aby Twoja Amiga polubiîa jezyk polski...
  

FEATURES (PL)

* Kompletny zestaw plików umoûliwiajâcych spolszczenie systemu
  operacyjnego, czyli wszelkich moûliwych komunikatów bâdú tekstów
  wykorzystywanych przy komunikacji komputera z uûytkownikiem, poczâwszy od
  wersji 2.1 systemu a skoïczywszy na najnowszej, 3.1.  Ponadto, plik
  zawierajâcy podstawowe dane charakterystyczne dla danego kraju, np.
  format zapisu daty bâdú oznaczenie waluty, plik zawierajâcy nazwy
  poszczególnych miesiëcy oraz ich stosowanych skrótów oraz tekst pomocy
  nt.  programu AmigaGuide.

* Polskie czcionki...

* Program FONTPLPATCH umoûliwiajâcy zastâpienie zawartych w ROMie Amigi
  czcionek TOPAZ 8 i 9 na odpowiadajâce im TOPAZPL 8 i 9, dziëki czemu
  wszystkie programy uûywajâce klasycznego TOPAZa, a nie przewidujâce
  zmiany czcionki przez uûytkownika, bëdâ pozwalaîy na korzystanie z
  polskich znaków narodowych.

* Sterowniki do najpopularniejszych modeli drukarek, umozliwiajâce wydruk
  tekstów zawierajâcych polskie znaczki narodowe w trybie tekstowym

* Dodatkowo, dla uûytkowników MagicWB, spolszczone czcionki z tego pakietu:
  XenPL, XHelveticaPL oraz XCourierPL.

* Mapa klawiatury zgodna (tak jak i caîy pakiet LocalePL) ze standardem
  AmigaPL w angielskiej i niemieckiej wersji klawiatury

* Polskie pliki dla ponad 50 róûnych programów.

* Wygodne w uûyciu konwertery tekstu pozwalajâce szybko "przetîumaczyê"
  teksty z polskiego na nasze.  Zaîâczone gotowe definicje 8 formatów,
  moûliwoôê prostej definicji dodatkowych formatów uûytkownika

* Tablice konwersji dla systemowego CrossDOSa

* Program sortujâcy a'la systemowy SORT, jednakûe z uwzglëdnieniem
  wszelkich reguî stosowanych w danym jëzyku, czyli oczywiôcie takûe w
  polskim.

* Poprawki do systemowego programu SAY oraz do speak.handlera, pozwalajâce
  na poprawnâ wymowë polskich sîów.  W zestawie takûe plik zawierajâce
  zasady polskiej wymowy dla najnowszej wersji translator.library v42+!

REQUIREMENTS

AmigaOS 2.1+

AVAILABILITY

W.F.M.H. LocalePL Home BBS: Silver Dream!'s BBS:
   +48 91 540431   (section Files/W.F.M.H. Support)

WWW page:
   http://dedal.man.szczecin.pl/~carlos/PL/locale.html

Aminet, for example:
   ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/misc/misc/Locale20.lha

REGISTRATION

(UK) To register send 15 zl (foreign users: US$10) to:
(PL) Oplata rejestracyjna: 15 zl

Marcin Orlowski
ul. Radomska 38
71-002 Szczecin
Poland

DISTRIBUTABILITY

Demo version may be freely distributable in unaltered form.
@endnode
@node NEWS2 "Amiga Convention in Japan"
@toc NEWS

EVENT NAME

Amiga Convention in Japan 

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

An Amiga convention planed/managed by Amiga users group in Japan.

LOCATION

HAMAMATU SHOUKOU-KAIGISYO 10F
Hamamatu city,Shizuoka Pref,JAPAN

TIME

1 day,
Sunday,April 28th

- optional:
You can stay from the evening of 27th.  Please contact us for details.

CONTENT

- How to get Amiga items from overseas. Never mind distance.
- lecture on 3D graphic.
- MOD show.
- etc   

ENTRY PRICE

1,000YEN(almost $US10)

URL

http://www.vier.mech.nitech.ac.jp/~umashika/

HOW TO CONTACT

Email:sdi00828@niftyserve.or.jp   Shinji Miyoshi

TEL(Japanese):+81-53-455-4468 Junya Nagai

TEL(English)/FAX:+81-564-27-8035 Joe Yamasaki<joeyama@infonia.or.jp>

AUTHOR INFORMATION

This is few chance to meet another Amiga users in Japan.Come and Visit!

NIHON NO MINASAN E:

HAMAMATSU DE AMIGA NO TAIKAI WO HIRAKIMASU. ZEHI OKOSHI KUDASAI.
OKIGARU NI OTOIAWASE KUDASAI. See you in HAMAMATSU! (^_^)/~~~
@endnode
@node NEWS3 "Almathera WWW Presence"
@toc NEWS

Almathera are in the process of setting up a significant WWW presence to
promote and support its range of Amiga products.

As part of this commitment, and because we are all heavy uses of Amiga
shareware software ourselves, we intend to offer a service to all Amiga
shareware authors to enable them to accept credit card (and eventually
electronic cash over internet) registrations, either via electronic mail,
telephone, fax or postal mail.

MasterCard, Visa, Access and, in the UK, Switch, can be accepted.

This will be a service ONLY available to individuals and/or groups of
amateur Amiga programmers, and at a very low cost.  Commercial software
authours can contact us for options for commercial electronic distribution
and publishing.

If you would like to take credit card payments for your software
registration contact me at

jralph@cix.compulink.co.uk

We are trying to keep the costs for this service at the bare minimum as a
service to the whole Amiga community (they will be comparable with the
normal charges credit card companies demand).  I will post a longer message
later this week with full details once these costs and operating procedures
have been sorted out.

Jolyon - Almathera 
@endnode
@node NEWS4 "Final Writer Release 5"
@toc NEWS

At long last SoftWood is happily announcing Final Writer Release 5.  Ship
date is estimated to be the first week of May, 1996.  This first
announcement is in the form of a list.  Over the next week or so more
details will be given both here and on our web site. 

The following list is not in any order of importance.  Some features are
minor while other are major.  This list contains everything we have done to
Final Writer in Release 5.

1.  Added "Font" menu item that bypasses TypeSpecs requester and goes
directly to the font requester.
2.  Added predefined zoom magnification levels to the "View" menu.
3.  Made the "Define Styles" requester operate in immediate update mode
for faster more intuitive operations.
4.  Implemented "Next" style.
5.  Implemented "Based On" style.
6.  Increased maximum main styles from 16 to 256.
7.  Named Preference sets.
8.  Named Stylesheet sets.
9.  Begin new documents using templates.
10. Updated Grammar Correction System to the latest version.
11. AutoCorrect--correct as you type.
12. Datatype support for graphics.
13. Option to show section click-tabs without showing page click-tabs.
14. Added TypeSpec definitions to macros which can be named, saved and
activated by buttons or menu items.
15. Ability to create a new style based on where the insertion point is.
16. Ability to modify existing style based on where the insertion point is.
17. ASL file requester option.
18. Ability to rearrange main sections.
19. FW's custom screen is now public.
20. Font preferences--ability to specify fonts to be preloaded.
21. Tables.
22. RTF import/export--this is a full, useful implementation unlike...
23. HTML export--create a useful web page from a Final Writer document.

-- 
Woody
@endnode
@node NEWS5 "Chris's Button Strip  v2.0"
@toc NEWS

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.
@endnode
@node NEWS6 "VDisk V2.6"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

VDisk V2.6 (Update from V2.5)

AUTHOR

Etienne Vogt (Etienne.Vogt@obspm.fr)

DESCRIPTION

 vdisk.device is a driver for a recoverable RAM disk. Main features are :

 - Up to 16 units with virtually unlimited size (512 MB)
 - Dynamic memory allocation and (optionnaly) deallocation
 - Full support of all AmigaDOS Filesystems.
 - Will survive the heaviest system crashes as long as its own data is not
   corrupted.
 - In case of a recovery failure, the cause can be reported by a support 
   command.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

VDisk requires AmigaDOS 2.04 or higher (V37).

AVAILABILITY

On any aminet site. It was uploaded to :
ftp://ftp.cnam.fr/pub/aminet/disk/misc/vdisk26.lha (22534)

PRICE

Free.

DISTRIBUTABILITY

Freeware (C) Copyright 1994-1996 by Etienne Vogt.

CHANGES

Some minor bugfixes and improvements to help surviving reset on some
configurations. See the documentation for details.
@endnode
@node NEWS7 "Letter From Carl Sassenrath"
@toc NEWS

[This piece of mail has become the most ubiquitous letter in the Amiga
community in the past week or so.  Not only is it worth a read, but it gave
me a chance to use the word "ubiquitous."  From Carl Sassenrath, Viscorp's
Director of Software, to a concerned Amiga user. -Jason]

From: Carl S.[SMTP:carl@sassenrath.com]
Sent: Friday, April 12, 1996 2:51 PM
To: Peter Ostrowski
Subject: Re: amiga?

At  2:19 PM 4/12/96 -0400, Peter Ostrowski wrote:
>HI carl..  Im a happy amiga user who just found out the company you work
>for has just bought (almost) the amiga..  DO you have any mor einfo on
>this..  I aslo heard that you worked on amiga dos os..  THATs cool..  Best
>Dam Os I have ever used...  If you have any info the what viscom has
>plans for the amiga, Please email them to me..  I would be for ever
>greatful..  > >thanks!   >Pete >Peteo@student.umass.edu > >THe Amiga: Back
for the Future

What I have been telling people is not to worry.  We are all Amiga lovers
here.  Unlike ESCOM or even Commodore, VIScorp does not have a single IBM
PC person in the development group.   We are all solid Amigans from the
very beginning.  Personally speaking, I don't plan on killing the Amiga.
In fact, I'm hoping to build one killer Amiga!

   Carl Sassenrath
   Director of Software, VIScorp
   URL: www.vistv.com

PS: Please feel free to post or forward this anywhere and
everywhere, as I am getting swamped with the same email
question from so many dedicated Amigans.  Keep the faith!
This is for the better!

__________________________________________________________
Valid Addresses:
    EMAIL: carl@sassenrath.com  (Please try this one first)
       or: carl@pacific.net     (Only, if the above fails)
       or: carl@vistv.com
      URL: www.sassenrath.com
       or: www.vistv.com
     POST: PO Box 1510, Ukiah, CA 95482, USA

NOTE: NO LONGER ON Compuserve, AOL, AppleLink, BIX, CIX or videostream.com
@endnode
@node NEWS8 "Oberon System V4"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

Oberon System V4 for Amiga

VERSION

1.2

AUTHOR

Stefan Ludwig, Claudio Nieder, Ralf Degner

E-Mail: ludwig@inf.ethz.ch, degner@pallas.amp.uni-hannover.de

S-Mail: Stefan Ludwig
        Institut fuer Computersysteme
        ETH-Zentrum
        CH-8092 Zuerich

DESCRIPTION

Oberon System V4 for Amiga (O4A) is a full implementation of ETH Zurich's
Oberon System V4.

Oberon is both a programming language and an operating system developed by
Prof.  N.  Wirth and Prof.  J.  Gutknecht.

The Oberon System in key words:
 - Single-process multitasking
 - Garbage collector - memory will be released automatically if
   not needed anymore
 - Commandos: procedures that can be called like programs
 - Dynamic loading: modules are loaded and linked to the system
   during run-time (if necessary)
 - Text as a built-in abstract data type (for example a
   Minesweeper game as a letter (like OLE and OpenDOC))
 - Graphical user interface

A special advantage is the very high compatibility of the systems between
implementations on different computers.  System V4 implementations exist
for Amiga, Mac, Power Mac, Windows (NT), Linux, IBM-RS6000, Sun-Sparc,
HP-Workstations, NeXt, ...  You can use a program written on one
implementation on any other without change.

O4A is a full implementation of the Oberon System V4 with all usual
programs.  The system runs in its own task and therefore you can use O4A
and the Amiga OS at the same time.  Specific features of the Amiga
implementation are its incremental heap allocation, support of the Amiga
clipboard and the capability of accessing IFF files.

The O4A package contains:
 - A full Oberon-2 compiler
 - Development tools (Browser, Analyzer, Disassembler, ...)
 - XE, a comfortable 'editor' with layout functions
 - Kepler, an object-oriented 2D vector drawing program
 - Paint, a simple pixel-oriented paint program
 - A lot of additional tools (Draw, RX, AsciiCoder, ...)
 - Various text elements
 - VT100 terminal emulation
 - Games: Tetris and Minesweeper (with source)
 - Example sources and online documentation

To get more information about the programming language and operating system
Oberon have a look at the "Oberon and Amiga" WWW page:
http://sun1.rrzn.uni-hannover.de/~nhbidegn/oa-e.html There you will find
links to other Oberon information resources.

NEW FEATURES

- Problems with > 16 colors fixed
- New Text-Elements
- New docu (ReferenceCars.ps, Prog.Guide.Text, ....)
- Several bugs fixes
- Dialogs.lha     - advanced GUI and very nice programming example
- Expressions.lha - mathematical expressions within text documents
- and many, many more (see Release.Notes.Text)

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

- Amiga with OS2.0 or higher
- at least an MC68020
- a minimum of 1.5 MB free memory (2.5 MB recommended)
- about 3 MB disk space
- FPU for floating point calculations
  (without FPU Oberon-NonFPU.lha is required)

AVAILABILITY

The Home of Oberon is the ETH Zurich.  There you can find many Oberon
System implementations, especially the Amiga version:

ftp://ftp.inf.ethz.ch/pub/Oberon/Amiga/V1.2/

Oberon.lha (1.1 MB)        - main archive
Oberon-NonFPU.lha (100 KB) - to use O4A without FPU
Oberon-Src.lha (700 KB)    - the full source of O4A
Oberon-Fonts.lha (390 KB)  - additional fonts
Dialogs.lha (250kB)        - advanced GUI
Expressions.lha (130kB)    - math expressions within text documents

It is available in the Aminet directory dev/obero, too.

PRICE

It's free, but not PD.
Please note the ReadMe file in every archive. 

DISTRIBUTABILITY

Oberon System V4 for Amiga is (C)opyright 1990-96 by Claudio Nieder, Stefan
Ludwig, Ralf Degner and the Institute for Computer Systems ETH Zurich. 
Some files in the archives are (C)opyright by other persons (for example
Dialogs and Expressions).

All files in the archives are freeware.  You can use it in any way you like
but you must not include part of it in a commercial product.
@endnode
@node NEWS9 "AmIRC v1.0"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

AmIRC - The AmigaOS IRC Client

VERSION

1.0

AUTHOR

Oliver Wagner <owagner@lsd.wupper.de>

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).  Shareware 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.
@endnode
@node NEWS10 "Shock v1.2"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

Shock - SlideShow editor and player

VERSION

1.2

AUTHOR

Vittorio Ferrari

email: vega@tilink.ch
       Vittorio.Ferrari@unifr.ch
fido : 2:301/231.39@fidonet

DESCRIPTION

A picture displayer that is able to generate and visualize SlideShows
(sequences of images appearing in a defined order). 

Main features are :

- Various graphic effects applyable to your pictures
- Allows music modules to be played during the SlideShow
- Continous visualizing (without stop and return to Workbench)
- Images crypter
- Shows every picture in a selected drawer, a single image or a 
  SlideShow
- Adapts fade effects to your graphic coprocessor (AGA or OCS/ECS)

In the package you will find the player and an editor, wich will allow you
to define your own SlideShows, selecting the sequence of pictures and their
various features (maximum displaying time, appear and disappear effects,
and so on).  A short demo of Shock's skills is also included.  Shock is
particoulary designed for graphic astists, who can crypt their pictures,
assemble them in an amazing SlideShow, add them a music background, and
release something more attractive than a simply list of their images.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

OS 2.0 required by the editor.
AGA chipset increases fading effects quality (Altought is NOT 
required)

AVAILABILITY

ftp://ftp.uni-paderborn.de/pub/aminet/gfx/misc/shock.lha (392478)

PRICE

Requested shareware fee is $8 US.

DISTRIBUTABILITY

The version available via aminet is a fully functional but old version; it
is freely distributable.  Registered users will receive the last version,
wich is NOT freely distributable.

OTHER

For any question or suggestion please email me !
@endnode
@node NEWS11 "MasterISO v1.23"
@toc NEWS

TITLE:    MasterISO

VERSION:  v1.23

COMPANY:  Asimware Innovations Inc.
          600 Upper Wellington St., Unit D
          Hamilton, Ontario
          Canada  L9A 3P9

          Phone:  (905)578-4916
            Fax:  (905)578-3966
          EMail:  info@asimware.com


MasterISO v1.23 Maintenance Release
-----------------------------------

We would like to announce the availability of MasterISO v1.23, which was
released as of March 11th, 1996.  This is a maintenance update for the
MasterISO v1 package.

Registered uses may contact us directly for information on obtaining this
update.

MasterISO v1.23 adds support for the Pinnacle RCD-5040 CD-R drive.

With the recent decrease in CD-Writer pricing and the great interest in
Amiga CD mastering, Asimware Innovations Inc.  has decided to agressively
reduce the cost of MasterISO.

Our new retail price is $199.00 (US $), or $249.00 (Canadian $)!

We hope that this new pricing will greatly increase the Amiga's stature in
the CD mastering environment and provide a cost effective CD mastering
solution to Amiga users.

About MasterISO...
------------------
The MasterISO software package allows a user to control a CD-R recorder to
create custom CD-ROM and CD-Audio discs.

CD-ROM discs are formatted in the universal ISO 9660 format, compatible
with Amiga, IBM, Macintosh and virtually any other CD-ROM equipped
platform.

CD-Audio discs are formatted to the Red Book standard and offer universal
compatibility with standard CD players.

For reference, our current list of supported CD-R drives is:
     - Yamaha CDR-100, CDR-102
     - Sony CDU-920
     - Pinnacle RCD-1000, RCD-202, RCD-5040
     - Philips CDD-522, CDD-521, CDD2000
     - Pioneer DW-S114X
     - HP 4020

Please contact us for a current list of tested CD-R and SCSI controller
combinations.

Asimware Innovations Inc.  is an Amiga software development house
specializing in CD-ROM and CD-Recordable technologies.  Our current product
line includes AsimCDFS, MasterISO, Texture Heaven, Texture Heaven 2 and
PhotoCD Manager.

Sincerely,
Paul Reeves
Asimware Innovations Inc.
March 11th, 1996
@endnode
@node NEWS12 "fMSX Amiga 0.8"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

fMSX Amiga 0.8

AUTHOR

Hans Guijt (h.guijt@inter.nl.net)

DESCRIPTION

fMSX Amiga emulates an MSX computer on an Amiga. Features include:

- Full emulation of the MSX1 system.
- Partial emulation of the MSX2 system (to be expanded in the future).
- Support for reading/writing MSX disks.
- Support for the SCC sound system.
- Support for MSX memory sizes of up to 4Mb.

(for those not in the know: MSX is an 8-bit computer system, similar to the
C64)

Software is not included with the package, but many packages (mostly games)
can be found on FTP sites:

ftp.saitama-u.ac.jp/pub/msx/
altair.komkon.com/pub/MSX/
ftp.funet.fi/pub/msx/
riaph.irkutsk.su/pub/

Hundreds of games are available from these sites, and some form a worthy
addition to the Amiga software collection.

Of course fMSX Amiga is fully multitasking, runs in an intuition screen,
and has a font-sensitive user interface.

NEW FEATURES

v0.8 at last supports two joysticks!

MSX2 features were expanded.  VDP emulation is complete now, and screen 5
features sprites (admittedly in the wrong color but enough to make it
useful).

Two more megarom mapper options are now available, and the others have been
improved.

Many small improvements were made to the user interface, mostly on request
by users.

v0.8 is quite a bit faster than v0.7, and several bugs were removed.  The
most notable of these is the 'Konami-corrupted-graphics' bug.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

Required are:

- Amiga OS 2.0
- 68020 processor
- 400 kilobytes chip ram
- 900 kilobytes other ram

Recommended:

- 68030 processor, at least 25MHz
- Those 900 kilobytes of 'other' ram had better be fast ram!

Note that fMSX Amiga does *not* require the AGA chipset.  In fact it runs
on any chipset upto and including graphics cards!

AVAILABILITY

fMSX Amiga 0.8 is available from any aminet site, such as:

ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/misc/emu/fmsx_0.8.lha

PRICE

It's free.

DISTRIBUTABILITY

fMSX Amiga 0.8 is publically supported freeware.  If you are interested in
the source, and you're not afraid of function pointers and huge amounts of
assembly intermixed with C, you can request it from me.

If someone wants to do a special version (and I can think of several
possibilities, such as a version that uses the MMU for optimized Z80
emulation, or a version that has been optimized for the CyberGfx system),
contact me.
@endnode
@node NEWS13 "PLog v1.1"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

PLog

VERSION

1.1

RELEASE DATE

03.04.1996

AUTHOR

Kai Hofmann (i07m@zfn.uni-bremen.de)
(http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~i07m)

DESCRIPTION

Generates log-file entries in PhoneLog standard (SGML) format.
Similar to AmiLog, can be used with AmiTCP/IP.

NEW FEATURES

New installer-script for AmiTCP/IP 4.3

AVAILABILITY

ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/comm/amiex/PLog.lha
And all other Aminet sites.

PRICE

For NON-COMMERCIAL USE this is Giftware!

Permission for COMMERCIAL USE is only given by an extra available
commercial license that must be validated!  Contact me directly for this
license, because it will be individually handed out per your needs!

DISTRIBUTION

You can copy and distribute this source code as long as you do not take
more than $5 for one disk or $40 for one CD!
@endnode
@node NEWS14 "AmiFTP v1.264"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

AmiFTP

VERSION

1.264

AUTHOR

Magnus Lilja
e-mail: lilja@lysator.liu.se
Postal Address: Magnus Lilja
                Alsättersgatan 9C:17
                S-582 51 LINKÖPING
                SWEDEN

DESCRIPTION

AmiFTP is an easy to use ftp-client with a GUI built on the
ClassAct BOOPSI system. Some of the features are:

* Localized (Danish, Dutch, Finnish, German, Icelandic, Italian, 
  Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish catalogs are available at the moment)

* ARexx interface

* Resume transfer

* Multiselect when up/downloading files

* Caches the 5 latest directories

* Has hotlist with submenus

* Online AmigaGuide-help

Make sure to use the installerscript and follow the instructions there
before you start AmiFTP.  This is really necessary in order to install the
ClassAct classes on your system.

NEW FEATURES

The major new features are the possibility to have submenus in the hotlist
and that AmiFTP now supports both bsdsocket.library (AmiTCP) and
socket.library (as225-alike) TCP/IP-stacks in one binary.

The ARexx command-set has also been extended.  An Aminet search script
written in ARexx (by Sami Itkonen) is also included.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

   AmigaDOS 2.0 or higher.
   One of the following TCP/IP stacks:
   AmiTCP 3.x or higher
   AS225r2,
   I-Net 225,
   CPR TCP/IP Base Kit

   or mlink.

AmiFTP also needs ClassAct gadgets, which are included in this archive.

AVAILABILITY

AmiFTP 1.264 is on Aminet, in comm/tcp/AmiFTP-1.264.lha.

ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/comm/tcp/AmiFTP-1.264.lha (216503)

It's also available from the AmiFTP www-page:
http://www.lysator.liu.se/~lilja/AmiFTP.html

PRICE

AmiFTP is Shareware.  This version is not crippled in any way which means
that there's no extra features available for those who register, but this
shouldn't stop you from supporting this program.

The Shareware fee is $15.  See the documentation in the archive for more
information.

DISTRIBUTABILITY

AmiFTP is Copyright 1995-1996 by Magnus Lilja.  Read AmiFTP.guide for
information about distributing AmiFTP.
@endnode
@node NEWS15 "UMS RFC v0.12"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

   UMS RFC

VERSION

0.12

AUTHOR

Stefan Becker

E-Mail:         stefanb@yello.ping.de

World Wide Web: http://www.ping.de/sites/yello/

Address:                Bonner Ring 68
                D-50374 Erftstadt
                        GERMANY

DESCRIPTION

UMS (Universal Message System) is a database system specialized in the
handling of mail and news messages.  UMS RFC is a package for UMS which
allows you to receive and send mail and news messages with the following
protocols:

   - UUCP (Unix to Unix CoPy)
   - NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol)
   - POP3 (Post Office Protocol V3)
   - SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)

NEW FEATURES

Changes since UMS RFC 0.11:

   - Library interface changed.  Please make sure that you only use the
     programs and library of this version together.
   - Support for systems without own domain name added.
   - The variable rfc.pathname is now optional.
   - Support for ESMTP added.  Currently implemented is the SIZE extension.
   - Added new tool umsrfcprint for printing RFC messages.
   - Added Installer script.
   - Several bug fixes.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

   - AmigaOS 2.04 (V37) or better

   - UMS V11 or better

   - AmiTCP 3.0 or better (if you want to use NNTP, POP3 or SMTP)

AVAILABILITY

UMS RFC 0.12 is available on Aminet, e.g.

ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/comm/ums/umsrfc.lha (341744)

PRICE

Free

DISTRIBUTABILITY

Freely distributable, (c) 1992-96 Stefan Becker
@endnode
@node NEWS16 "Analay v1.12"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

Analay

VERSION

1.12

AUTHOR

Marc Necker
(Marc@buster.apl.s.shuttle.de)

DESCRIPTION

There were some people who had problems with the printout in the Layout
Mode.  This bug fix should eliminate this bug.

What is Analay?

Analay is an analysis program which provides all the standard functions
such a program needs.  The special feature of this program is the
integrated DTP mode which allows you to layout a page with full WYSIWYG!
The program is divided into two independent parts running at the same time
as separate tasks.

The Math Mode contains all functions for plotting and analyzing function
graphs.  It's no problem to create the derivative of functions or to
calculate the zeros or the area between functions to name only three of the
many facilities.  Moreover, the design of the graphs can be changed in many
ways.  You also can place texts, points, etc.  in the windows or hatch an
area.  Tables, lists and legends can be created as well.

The Layout Mode contains a small, but complete DTP program with full
WYSIWYG and Intellifont support!  It allows you to layout a page with
function graphs, tables, lists, legends, text blocks, etc.  Moreover, it
knows formulas which no program apart form TeX was able to display or print
up to know!  The page can be printed in highest printer resolution!

NEW FEATURES

None since V1.11.  I'm currently working on V2.0 which will have a
fontsensitive and resizeable GUI.  It will be completely multithreaded and
support drag and drop.

DISTRIBUTABILITY

The Analay archive without key file can be distributed freely as long as
all files are kept together.  You also may place it on PD-collections or
CDs.

REQUIREMENTS

Analay runs on every Amiga with AmigaOS 2.04 or higher and at least
1.5MByte RAM.  It's better if you have got more RAM and a harddisk.

To use all of the program's features AmigaOS 3.0 or higher is required
(e.g.  color printout).

RELEASE DATE

February 24, 1996

HOST NAME

Any AmiNet-Server

i.e.
ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/misc/math/Analay112Patch.lha (91422)

PRICE

Shareware-fee of 20US-$/30DM.  See the documentation for further
information.  Some functions are disabled in the unregistered version, e.g.
the print-function.

This update is free of any charge.
@endnode
@node NEWS17 "PhoneLog Developer Kit v1.1"
TITLE

PhoneLog Developer Kit

VERSION

1.1

RELEASE DATE

15.03.1996

AUTHOR

Kai Hofmann (i07m@zfn.uni-bremen.de)
            (http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~i07m)

DESCRIPTION

Generator and parser for programs that want to write and read log file
entries about modem connections in a standard SGML format.  Full ANSI-C/C++
source code included.

NEW FEATURES

     - Important bug fixes
     - Improved code

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

ANSI-C or/and C++ Compiler.

AVAILABILITY

ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/dev/c/PhoneLogDevKit.lha
And all other Aminet sites.

PRICE

For NON-COMMERCIAL USE this is Giftware!
(Non-commercial includes Giftware and Shareware!)

Permission for COMMERCIAL USE is only given by an extra available
commercial license that must be validated!  Contact me directly for this
license, because it will be individually handed out per your needs!

But in both cases you have to follow the guideline below:

You "must" send me a full version of your product at no cost including free
updates!

DISTRIBUTION

You can copy and distribute this source code as long as you do not take
more than $5 for one disk or $40 for one CD!
@endnode
@node NEWS18 "PopPhone v2.2"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

PopPhone

VERSION

2.2

AUTHOR

Jon Rocatis - jon@funcom.com

DESCRIPTION

PopPhone is a freely-distributable phone/address book commodity.  It hasn't
got a zillion features, but is instead small and effective.  (Executable is
approx.  24K)

FEATURES

    - 100% font sensitive

    - Supports the Clipboard

    - Keyboard and/or mouse operated

    - Your Amiga can dial the phone numbers for you if you have a modem

    - Online context sensitive AmigaGuide help (English and German)

    - Print option. Prints a single entry or the whole phonebook

    - Style guide compliant

    - Localized (English, German, French and Danish at the moment)
      Catalog files included for making additional languages

    - Easy to install. Uses "Installer"

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

MUI 2.3 or better installed
AmigaOS 2.0 or better
AmigaOS 2.1 or better is required for the localization

AVAILABILITY

Available on Aminet

ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/biz/dbase/pphone22.lha (approx. 26K)

PRICE

Kind words to the author :-)

DISTRIBUTABILITY

Freeware
@endnode
@node NEWS19 "Muse Interface Development System"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

Muse Interface Development System

VERSION

Release Version 1

AUTHOR

Michael Sparks.
mps102@bridge.anglia.ac.uk
csbs94mps@bridge.anglia.ac.uk
http://www.anglia.ac.uk/~mps102
     (nb under construction! Is also Muse's web site!)
40 James Street, Cambridge, CB1 1HX.
Tel: 01223 563995  (+44 1223 563995)

DESCRIPTION

Muse is an evolving project with its end goal being highly usable, user
configurable, interchangeable, extensible programs.  This version is the
first step towards that goal, and is aimed at programmers using the
language AmigaE.  The system is a set of modules with the following
features:

   The ability to define most multiply windowed interfaces (including
   menus, gadgets, keyboard shortcuts etc) which can be script controlled
   via REXX, just by declaring them.  The processing of these many and
   varied inputs however is via a simple and standardised system consisting
   of two components: The events processing system and virtual variables.

It is also efficient - the example paint program had to have code inserted
into it to slow it down, and I work on an A600...  The same program is
about 30K in size compiled...

 The distribution includes:
   o A full tutorial taking you from opening a window and customising it,
     all the way through to a paint program and simple database.  The
     source to the simple examples is included in a hypertext form as well
     as plain text form so that ease of reference when reading the tutorial
     is not sacrificed when it comes to compilation.

   o A _FULLY_ hypertexted on-line reference document - with plain
     text version for those who don't like hypertext (?!) - which
     deals with every part of Muse from the syntax of minor parts
     to conceptual explanations of other major parts.

   o Two quick reference guides for day-to-day use containing the
     key information needed to use Muse to the full. (each fits
     on one side of A4 when printed)

   o 52 standard images (supplied as icons since everyone who has
     a workbench disk has an icon editor) for use in _MENUS_ and
     gadgets.

   o Although the support modules are subject to change 5 of them
     which are useful in their own right have had their useful bits
     documented 

And if all that wasn't enough for you, it even has it's own web page as
on-line support.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

An Amiga with 2.0x upwards of the operating system.  Amiga E version 3.x
upwards REGISTERED!  (It's worth it) (However some of the sub-code will
work with the unregistered version, so it's still worth a look)

AVAILABILITY

Aminet, dev/e directory: (eg)
ftp://ftp.luth.se/pub/aminet/dev/e/muse.lha (168303)
ftp://ftp.luth.se/pub/aminet/dev/e/muse.readme (3.5K)

website: (This contains current documentation)
   http://www.anglia.ac.uk/~mps102

PRICE

FREE!  (Copy as you like - make no profit) If you use it though, you are
required to let me know what you think of it.  Politely of course!

DISTRIBUTABILITY

FREEWARE, I retain the copyright.

OTHER

Amiga E is Wouter van Oortmersson's BRILLIANT programming language.  It is
his ideal for a programming language (according to his docs).  Muse is my
idea of a decent interface programming system.

April will see the availability of a printed manual.  Mid '96 will see the
availability of the registered version.  Try it!  You might like it.  (It
is free after all!)

Enjoy!
@endnode
@node NEWS20 "Audio Hardware Interface"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

AHI - Audio Hardware Interface

VERSION

Beta release 1

AUTHOR

Martin Blom <lcs@lysator.liu.se>

DESCRIPTION

Device-independent audio, first try.

This is a beta release of the AHI audio system.  The intention of this
release is to gather opinions about the design and attract programmers
using the system and/or contribute with sound card drivers.

Quick overview:
     
* Driver based

Each supported sound card is controlled by a library-based audio driver.
For a 'dumb' sound card, a new driver should be written in a few hours.
For a 'smart' sound card, it is possible to utilize an on-board DSP, for
example, to maximize performance and sound quality.  Avalable today are
working but unfinished drivers for Paula (8/14/14c bit) Wavetools

* Fast, powerful mixing routines (yeah, right... haha)

The library's mixing routines mix 8- or 16-bit signed samples located in
Fast-RAM and outputs 16-bit mono or stereo (with stereo panning if desired)
data, using any number of channels (as long as 'any' means less than
128...).  Tables can be used speed the mixing up (especially when using
8-bit samples).  The samples can have any length (including odd) and can
have any number of loops.

* Support for non-realtime mixing

By providing a timing feature, it is possible to create high- quality
output even if the processing power is lacking, by saving the output to
disk, for example as an IFF AIFF or 8SXV file.  A driver for sample
rendering is not available yet, but it is being worked on.

* Audio database

Uses ID codes, much like Screenmode IDs, to select the many parameters that
can be set.  The functions to access the audio database are not too
different from those in 'graphics.library'.  The library also features a
requester to get an ID code from the user.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

AmigaOS release 2.

68020 processor or higher.

AVAILABILITY

Aminet, for example:
ftp://ftp.luth.se/pub/aminet/dev/misc/ahi.lha

WWW:
http://www.lysator.liu.se/~lcs/ahi.html

PRICE

Free.

DISTRIBUTABILITY

Copyright ©1994-1996 Martin Blom.
Freely distributable in unmodified form.
@endnode
@node NEWS21 "Aminet CD 11"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

Aminet CD 11

AUTHOR

Urban D. Mueller  (umueller@aminet.org)

CONTENTS

Aminet CD 11 contains, you already guessed it, about 1 gig of freely
distributable software.  The newest archive included is from March 2nd.  
Apart from the new software, the CD concentrates on maps collected from
various sources.  The space is used as follows (after decompression):

      670M of software newer than Aminet CD 10 (all time high!)
      150M of high resolution maps covering most areas of the world
       80M of top downloads
       20M of commercial software: XiPaint 3.2, full version

XiPaint is a nice 24-bit paint program that works gfx boards and just about
any image format.  It is licensed to the buyer of the CD only, and not
freely distributable.  Check the upgrade offer that comes with it.

The freely distributable part is composed as follows:

500 mods, most of them new
200 utilities
200 communcations programs
800 programs of other categories

plus 700 maps in 24-bit JPEG format, covering most areas of the world.  The
maps have an index that is sorted by continent, and a search facility.

ACCESS SOFTWARE

Still the well known Amigaguide based user interface with extensive search
facilities.  Some bugs fixed.  Included is now a search tool for owners of
single Aminet CDs (ie people who do not own Aminet Sets).

PRICES

The CD can be ordered from the following addresses: (credit cards OK)

Germany: Stefan Ossowski          (English spoken)
         Tel:   +49-201-788778
         Fax:   +49-201-798447
         Email: stefano@tchest.e.eunet.de

         Price: DM 25

USA:     Fred Fish
         Tel:   +1-800-804-0833
         Email: orders@ninemoons.com

         Price: $19.95

Prices exclude shipping.  Subscriptions are available.  A complete index is
found in docs/lists/Aminet-CD-11.lha

Authors of software on the CD are entitled to one free CD.  Send HELP
FREEBIES to aminet-server@wuarchive.wustl.edu for more info.

Aminet Set 1 and Aminet Set 2 are still available and give you, together
with CD 9 to 11, a complete snapshot of Aminet.
@endnode
@node NEWS22 "MoronCX v1.0"
@toc NEWS

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
      0
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.
@endnode
@node NEWS23 "Tyschtschenko's Speech"
@toc NEWS

Keynote from Petro Tyschtschenko, April 13 1996
Press conference at World of Amiga in London

Ladies and Gentlemen,

First of all, I'd like to thank you for being here at this first World of
Amiga show in the UK this year.

As you might most certainly have heard already, our company, Amiga
Technologies GmbH is about to be sold by ESCOM to VIScorp.  The process,
engaged by the signature of a binding letter of understanding between
ESCOM, VIScorp and Amiga has been announced on Thursday this week.

I will use this opportunity to introduce you Mr.  William Buck, president
and CEO of VIScorp.  I'm quite sure that Bill will say a few words
afterwards.

A lot of questions arise.  Why is this happening ?  Who is VIScorp ?  What
does this mean for Amiga ?

In 1995, when ESCOM took over the intellectual property of the former
Commodore, ESCOM was in a financially good shape.  The year 1994 had been
excellent and the corporate policy was set to expansion.  A multimedia
company was formed.  The decisions taken at this time were good and ESCOM
saved the Amiga computer from its bad destiny.

Amiga Technologies was founded and Amiga computers were brought back to a
demanding market.  Strategic decisions were taken to ensure the venue of
new technology based models as soon as possible.  We have achieved all this
and we are proud of that performance.

Of course, all these projects and plans are to be financed.  it was clear
from the beginning that it would take some time for a break-even point to
be reached.  The company created in may 1995 only could begin with sales in
mid-September.  We have then sold 40 thousand A1200 , 13 thousand monitors
and 2000 A4000T machines worldwide until now, which is a satisfying result.

As you might be aware of, ESCOM is currently facing a quite difficult
financial situation.  A bad christmas season and inventory write offs were
the main reasons for this.  This situation of course is also directly
affecting Amiga Technologies.  The fact is that ESCOM currently does not
have the financial resources needed to support the still ongoing costs of
our operation, especially advertising and research & development.

To continue a successfull Amiga business, a solution to this situation has
to be found.  I checked a lot of possibilities, I looked into a lot of
alternatives.  Ladies and Gentlemen, I personnaly think that VIScorp is one
of the best solutions.  It is a very interesting opportunity for our
future.

Last year, in december, a license agreement was signed between Amiga
Technologies and VIScorp, for the making of the Amiga set-top box.  This
product is network oriented and needs a system like the Amiga with its
video abilities and tight operating system.  The relationship between Amiga
Technologies and VIScorp built up from this time on became closer and
closer.

VIScorp is a research & development oriented company.  These research
efforts are based on the Amiga technology for use in set top boxes.  Former
Commodore engineers work for VIScorp, which will of course be an
appreciable synergy for the development of Amiga in general.

The set-top box market is huge and will be a fantastic engine for our
activities.

As I told our staff yesterday, this procedure is not affecting our daily
business and ongoing projects, as well as my position as the president of
the company.  We want the migration to be made as smooth and transparent as
possible, for our company and also for our business partners and the Amiga
community.

I am confident that this is a good chance for us to be successful in the
future.

When this deal will be finalised, the Amiga technology will return to an
American company, which understands our technology and its manufacturing.

Thank you very much.

Regards,
Gilles Bourdin
--
Gilles Bourdin / Amiga Technologies GmbH
Public Relations
Email to: gbo@amiga.de  URL: HTTP://www.amiga.de
@endnode
@node NEWS24 "Wonder Computers International"
@toc NEWS

WONDER COMPUTERS INTERNATIONAL LAUNCHED

April 8, 1996--Ottawa, Canada

Some resurrections take longer than others.

In late January, Wonder Computers Incorporated of Ottawa, Canada, one of
North America's largest Amiga-only corporations, entered bankruptcy
proceedings.  The company, consisting of a six-store retail arm, a budding
engineering division, a distribution network across the continent, and an
Information Technologies division responsible for the previous month's World
of Amiga show in Toronto, was unable to cover a recalled loan despite
record sales just a week prior to the crisis.  The company had little
choice but to submit to court-supervised liquidation. 

WCi founder and CEO Mark Habinski addressed a concerned Amiga public when 
the bankruptcy proceedings began.  He announced his intention to secure 
additional outside funding in order to procure some or all of the Wonder 
inventory, property, and holdings in order to start a new, more 
financially sound company to advance the cause of the Amiga in North America.

On April 4, 1996, over two months after the situation began, the
bankruptcy trustees from the firm of Ernst and Young announced that the
tender made on behalf of the new Wonder organization had been accepted. 
Pending completion of the transaction due on or before April 15th, Wonder
Computers International will pick up where Wonder Computers Incorporated
left off. 

Wonder Computers International acquired the inventory and capital 
equipment of the two largest and most successful WCi retail locations, 
Ottawa and Toronto.  In addition, the inventory and equipment of the 
Ottawa corporate headquarters was purchased, as were the rights to the 
Wonder name.

The new WCi will initially consist of a single retail and corporate
headquarters located in Wonder's strongest market, Ottawa.  This site,
coupled with a Sales office in Vancouver, British Columbia, will form the
nucleus from which a pattern of measured, financially backed growth into
more cities will be undertaken.  Habinski has indicated that a
Toronto-based retail operation will be launched as soon as possible, and
that a fourth operation in one of the remaining former Wonder markets is
possible before the end of the year.  In addition, it is quite possible
that at least one former Wonder retail location will join with the new
company as a privately owned affiliate. 

The primary markets for the new WCi will initially be in direct, retail 
sales and in product distribution across the continent.  The WCi 
Distribution branch plans to investigate and re-establish the 
distribution relationships of the old company, as well as forging new 
strong links in other sectors of the Amiga market.

In addition, Wonder Computers International has already begun 
investigating venues for the planned World of Amiga Toronto show, to be 
held at the end of 1996.

The new Information Technologies division will focus on working with
existing service providers in order to ensure easy, efficient network 
access for Amiga users--initially in Wonder home markets, but 
progressively across more of Canada and North America as time goes on.

Lazarus Engineering will not be a branch of the new company.  Wonder 
wholeheartedly wishes the new company the best of luck.

Mark Habinski will serve as President and CEO of Wonder Computers 
International and will sit on the Board of Directors.  The initial 
management and staff of the new company has been carefully hand-picked by 
Habinski from the ranks of the old, but as the company expands there will 
be a need for experienced Amiga-industry employees, and the ranks of the 
old company will be invaluable resources.

The uncertainty has ended.  From the ashes of Wonder Computers 
Incorporated comes Wonder Computers International, dedicated to serving 
the North American Amiga community.

@endnode
@node NEWS25 "VIScorp Acquires Amiga Technologies"
@toc NEWS

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.

Contact :
Gilles Bourdin
Amiga Technologies
Berliner Ring 89
D-64625 Bensheim

Tel +49 6252 709 195
Fax +49 6252 709 520
email: gbo@amiga.de
HTTP://www.amiga.de
@endnode
@node NEWS26 "Lazarus Engineering Corporation"
@toc NEWS

                   LAZARUS ENGINEERING CORPORATION
---------------------------------------------------------------------
      Ottawa, Ontario * (613) 798-3617 * Fax: (613) 798-6923

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date:    April 15, 1996
Contact: Lynda Harju
         v: (613) 798-3617, f: (613) 798-6923,
         e: lazarus@achilles.net

Lazarus Engineering Corporation Secures Amiga Intellectual Property

Ottawa, Ontario - Lazarus Engineering Corporation would like to announce
that it's tender to purchase the Intellectual Property assets of the former
Wonder Computers Inc.  has been accepted by their trustees in bankruptcy.

Commercial software products included with the transaction include:
DesignWorks, PowerManager, Flow, QuickWrite, Profonts, WordMaker, Mac2Dos,
Dos2Dos and Disk2Disk.  Commercial hardware products included the KB-10
IBM-Amiga keyboard protocol converter.  All other intellectual property
including unfinished software and hardware projects, marketing materials,
commercial graphics, in-house as well as out-sourced developed utilities,
and production stock were also included in the transaction.

Mr.  Steve R.  Cockwell, President and CEO of Lazarus Engineering, has
renewed his committment to the Amiga platform with this acquisition.  "Our
strength is in the people around us.  From our talented engineers,
technical writers, graphic artists, and support staff to the customers
around the world that have shown us their support through the EMails, Faxes
and letters that we have received in the past few months.  It takes an
entire community to make a company like this possible, and we are proud to
say that we are a part of the one called Amiga."

Mr.  Cockwell also noted that production will soon begin again for Lazarus
Engineering's newest commercial products: KB-10 and DesignWorks 2.0, and
that a special promotion for these will be announced shortly.

Lazarus Engineering Corporation was founded in 1993 by Steve R.  Cockwell,
a long-time veteran of Corel Corporation in Ottawa, Ontario.  The company
can be reached for comment about any of the above information during
regular office hours (8:30 to 17:00 EST, Monday to Friday) or via EMail at
the above address.
@endnode
@node NEWS27 "Team Amiga Call To Arms"
@toc NEWS

*** From: Gary Peake (1:106/7511.1)

A CALL TO ARMS FOR ALL TEAM AMIGA MEMBERS:

In this time of shuffling, it is very important that VisCorp have a
clear understanding of the support and unity of the Amiga Computer
user base.

I have seen the hard work put in by many of the managers at Amiga
Technologies. I have seen some of our staunchest vendors hanging tough
with us because they care and they believe. I have seen and heard from
many of the user base who really want to see a resurgance of the
Amiga, it's vendors, and it's market position. I have had email after
email from programmers asking for info on developer support for the
Amiga.

Before the pundants and gloomers crank up their Macs and clones, it is
important that we take a moment to really 'think' about what is
happening. VisCorp was in this almost from the beginning with
Escom/Amiga Technologies. They see the value of the Amiga custom
chipset and it's slim OS for the set top box market. They are willing
to pay $40 million (US) for the tech and all that comes with it. They
are very interested in having an Internet box in the low end market
and they have said that they will continue supporting the big box
market as well.

I could be totally wrong in my analysis. That will be for history to
judge. But, my take on the sale of Amiga Technologies to VisCorp is
that this is a good move that will give some needed working capital to
the platform we all love.

Change is not always bad. Many times change is needed to advance the
ideas that we hold dear. I really think that this change may be the
very spark needed to get the Amiga it's North American presence in a
way that will benefit all of us as well as helping to increase the
user base in the European markets.

Many have followed my lead and have listened to my predictions here. I
will make one more 'Mystic Meg' for all concerned ... stay the course,
do not bend in your avid support, show VisCorp that we are united
behind them the same way we have been with Amiga Technologies, and
they will make us proud!

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This weekend I have received literally hundreds of emails from Amiga users
all over the world that have gotten my email address either from Fido or
from posts on Usenet.  Each and every one is asking what to do.

I have chatted with both VisCorp and Amiga Technologies and have been
assured by both sides that all is well.  But, I am still not positive that
VisCorp understands that we want and need the 1200, the 4000T, the Walker
and the Power Amiga.

I have also spoken with some of the most ardent supporters of the Amiga who
are urging that we all take some united stand in a POSITIVE way to let
VisCorp know our feelings on keeping Amiga Technologies and the R&D for
Walker and Power Amiga ongoing.

I have given this a lot of thought.  I really feel that it may be the right
time to let VisCorp know what we are willing to buy from them and from
Amiga Technologies.  BUT, this MUST be done in a very professional,
non-FANATICAL manner!  Acting a fool will get us no where!

The following are email addresses to VisCorp and Amiga Technologies. 
Please send a nice, one or two paragraph note telling them that you support
the Walker, the Power Amiga, the 1200, the 4000T, Amiga Technologies, and
Viscorp!  Let them know that we are a united user base and that we care
about what happens to the Amiga platform and are willing to put our money
where our mouths are!

Amiga Technologies   info@amiga-tech.de          general mail bot
                     gbo@amiga.de                Gilles Bourdin

VisCorp              fradulovic@aol.com          Florence Radulovic
                     drosen@ix.netcom.com        David Rosen 
                     kreck@ix.netcom.com         Steve Kreckman 
                     carl@sassenrath.com         Carl Sassenrath

Again ...  NICE will get their attention and a positive response!

Do NOT delay!  Pass this to every bbs in your area!  Get anyone and
everyone you know with an Amiga to send an email message now so that
VisCorp can see that there IS a market across the world for the Amiga
platform!

(Team AMIGA is a grassroots movement designed to give support to all AMIGA
users, to Amiga Technologies, VisCorp, and AMIGA vendors!)
@endnode
@node NEWS28 "ESC Membership Form"
@toc NEWS

ESC Membership Form (European Software Creators)

------------] ESC Application Form [-------------

Name:

Email:

Computer Type (eg. PC, MAC, SunSparc):

Computer Details (ram, harddisk etc):

Software Tools (ie. programming languages etc):

Interests/Reasons for joining ESC:

Membership type: __  Existing Shareware Author
                 __  ESC Developer
                 __  Existing Group

-------------------------------------------------
[Existing Author]

Please include the names and details of any 
applications you currently have developed and
wish to release through ESC.

-------------------------------------------------
[ESC Developer]

1. Can you write HTML?
2. Are you interested in doing Research?
3. Would you be interested in helping standardise
   and create standards for ESC?
4. Would you be interested in beta-testing?
5. Do you have news access?
6. Do you currently have any ideas for a new application?
7. Would you be interested in working on a new OS?
8. What platform/computer would you be mainly interested in 
   developing for??
9. Do you have a WWW Homepage?
10. Please feel free to add anything else :>

-----------------------------------------------------------
[Existing Software Group]

1.What is the name of the group?
2.Have you developed any applications?
3.Are you currently working on any applications?
4.What is the main type of application you develop?
5.What is your main interest in joining ESC?
6.Is your group a company or a usergroup/voluntree arrangement?

------------------------------------------------------------

Please add any further information here ->

------------------------------------------------------------

Return to 9517693@ul.ie

@endnode

@node NEWS37 "Ravebusters Homepage"
@toc NEWS

I'd like to announce The Ravebusters Homepage for inclusion into Amiga
Report.

The Ravebusters mainly are 3 people from Germany (Saarland) who have
already done 322 modules (all on the Amiga of course) ranging from house to
hardcore-techno.  A couple of those modules have been uploaded to the
Aminet and have already made it to the top downloads.  The Ravebusters have
done their first live-act recently with a second to come on the 4th of
March - and all that with ProTracker-made modules on the Amiga :)

The homepage gives you the opportunity to get information about the people
behind songs like the greatly acclaimed "95RaversMegaMix" or
"95HouseMegaMix", the ability to download 6 of their songs and much more. 
Try it at "http://coli.uni-sb.de/~rade/rbs/the_rbs.html"

Have a nice time,

Ralph Debusmann
@endnode
@node NEWS29 "The Internet Starter Package"
@toc NEWS

INTRODUCING THE INTERNET STARTER PACKAGE FOR THE AMIGA: NOW SHIPPING ACROSS
CANADA

The Internet Starter Package contains all the preconfigured software and
instructions to get your AMIGA connected to the Internet.  Included is your
first months access through the Internet Direct and Istar Networks.  Local
dial-up numbers are provided for 85% of Canada.  The retail price is $29.95
Canadian, which is the regular price of one months access to the Internet.

Included is the following preconfigured software:
 AmiTCP 4.0 Demonstration version:
 Magical User Interface 3.3
 Auto Dialer for Slip or PPP connection
 Amosaic 2.03 and 1.2 WWW browsers
 GUI-FTP  Graphical FTP client
 Telnet Client
 Term 4.5 for all your communication needs ; BBS and Slip/PPP
 
Minimum Requirements:
 Any Amiga with Workbench 2.x or better,
 One half meg of CHIP RAM
 2 megs of fast ram 
 A hard disk with 6 megs of free space

Recommended System:
 020 or better processor
 Workbench 3.x
 AGA or 24 bit graphics card
 2 megs Chip RAM
 4 megs fast ram
 Hard disk with 20 megs free space (for downloading/ftp)

This package is fully supported with online help via Email,
amiga@idirect.com or amiga@inforamp.net and FTP sites containing all the
latest Internet software for the Amiga, pretested and approved for our
subscribers.  Regular Updates are available from
ftp.idirect.com/pub/amiga/slip or at ftp.inforamp.net/pub/amiga as well as
the web pages at http://web.idirect.com/~amiga and
http://www.amiga-support.ca (available April 30 1996)

The Amiga Internet Starter Kit is NOW available at the following dealers:

CONPUTE 333 King Street West Oshawa, Ontario L1J 2J8 (905)433-7033
http://web.idirect.com/~conpute conpute@idirect.com

Comspec 85 Wingold Ave. Toronto, Ontario  (416)785-3553
http://www.comspec.com  comspec@idirect.com joe@comspec.com

Computer & You  6 Points Plaza Toronto, Ontario (416)231-0205
comyou@idirect.com

National Amiga  Oakville, Ontario  (905)845-1949
http://www.interlog.com/~gscott/NationalAmiga.html national@idirect.com

Randomize Computers  Tottenham, Ontario  (905)939-8371
randomiz@idirect.com

Visual Visions  GeorgeTown, Ontario  (905)873-4959
visualvz@idirect.com

To order by phone, if you do not have an Amiga Dealer in your City, call
1800-848-6786.  Quote Vendor Certificate number "250010 AMIGA" and you will
be given instructions for downloading the Amiga Internet Software.

For More Information please call 905-723-0930 voice or 905-576-1997 fax

iSTAR Dialup Points of Presence

NOVA SCOTIA
AMHERST          (902)667-4096
ANTIGONISH       (902)863-0211
BRIDGEWATER      (902)527-1300
HALIFAX          (902)494-7726
KENTVILLE        (902)679-2246
MIDDLETON        (902)825-6454
NEW GLASGOW      (902)755-1280
PORT HAWKESBURY  (902)625-1262
SHUBENACADIE     (902)758-4290
SYDNEY           (902)567-1162
TRURO            (902)897-0007
WINDSOR,NS       (902)798-0275
YARMOUTH         (902)742-4547

NEW BRUNSWICK
MONCTON          (506)858-1019

QUEBEC
MONTREAL         (514) 954-1704
QUEBEC CITY      TBA

ONTARIO
KINGSTON         (613)384-4833
LONDON           March 31, 1996
OSHAWA           (905)404-6691
OTTAWA           (613)780-9933
PEMBROKE         (613)732-5401
TORONTO          (416)363-2815

MANITOBA
WINNIPEG         (204) 947-2604

ALBERTA
CALGARY          March 31, 1996
EDMONTON         March 31, 1996

BRITISH COLUMBIA
VANCOUVER        (604)669-8216
VICTORIA         TBA

Internet Direct Dial up Points of Presence

Toronto          416-233-1735   416-233-2999   416-233-0127
Oshawa Whitby    905-427-5958   905-427-5120
Burlington       905-847-1456
Georgetown       905-455-4519
Newmarket        905-713-2422
@endnode
@node NEWS30 "Neather Realm Software Releases"
@toc NEWS

From: Neather Realm Software <R3MWK@VM1.CC.UAKRON.EDU>

The following are our current products that have just been released:

Retail:  US  $39.95
International Flow Charter : Flow Charting for engineers, marketing
                             or what ever you need.  The same as
                             Flowcharting 3 on the IBM by Patton&
                             Patton.

Retail:  US  $29.95
NRS Publisher Fonts Vol I  : 50+ Fonts divided into 3 sections,
                             Serif, Sans Serif, and Script. HD install

Retail:  US  $29.95
NRS Publisher Fonts Vol II : 50+ Fonts divided into 2 sections,
                             Old Style, Decorative. HD install inc.

      Soon to be released:

Retail:  $49.95
NRS Developer's Book For Blitz Basic

       Neather Realm Software
       2930 8Th Street
       Cuyahoga Falls Ohio 44221
       (330) 928-1738   FAX
@endnode
@node NEWS31 "VIScorp: The Phoenix Strategy"
@toc NEWS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Posted to WWW.VISTV.COM, COMP.SYS.AMIGA.MISC, 19-APR-96
Permission Granted to Distribute without Alteration

VISCORP and AMIGA: The Phoenix Strategy

Much has been said and written about the recent announcement of the signing
of a letter of understanding between VIScorp and Escom AG Germany.  In
addition, VIScorp has received hundreds of telephone, fax and Email
communications requesting information as to the status of the deal and our
plans for the Amiga.  We are providing this posting to inform those
interested in the knowing about the current arrangements -- and will
provide additional information as the they develop.

1.  VIScorp is currently conducting a thorough due diligence assessment of
    Escom's Amiga holdings.  This process is painstaking and extremely time
    consuming; however, without full disclosure, no satisfactory deal can
    be concluded.

Due to the letter of understanding, VIScorp is restricted from releasing
information relating to the negotiations until they are completed.  Until
such time, Amiga remains the asset of Amiga Technologies/Escom and all
inquires relating to current Amiga operations should be directed to Amiga
Technologies/Escom.

2.  VIScorp currently holds a license to the Amiga OS and chip sets and is
    developing a family of TV-based products that utilize the Amiga's
    unique functionalities.

3.  Many of VIScorp's senior management have previously worked for
    Commodore and have a thorough knowledge of the Amiga.

Our intent to purchase the Amiga comes out of (i) an appreciation of the
core technology and its importance to VIScorp's long-term business
development and (ii) a belief that the Amiga can -- like the Phoenix --
rise from the ashes and become a profitable technology for the future.

Over the coming days and weeks we anticipate to see a flood a
mis-statements in the press, on the Net and via voice communications --
some will be made out of ignorance, others out of malice.  We will do our
best to keep the Amiga community regularly informed.  We have received
hundreds of messages and anticipate many more to be received until final
resolution of formal negotiations is completed.  While we are making every
effort to do so, please excuse us if we do not respond to your individual
message.

David Rosen
Vice President, Business Development
April 19, 1996
@endnode
@node NEWS32 "IPISA '96"
@toc NEWS

                                 IPISA '96

  Incontro dei Programmatori Italiani per lo Sviluppo Amiga Sixth Edition

                              Call for Papers

                       November 1996 - Milano, Italy

IPISA is an annual meeting autonomously organized by a group of people
interested in computer science, programming and applications of the Amiga
line of computers.

The meeting is dedicated to the presentation and diffusion of projects,
experiences and commercial products which have been developed using Amigas.
As in the previous events, it will be possible to discuss research programs
or job contacts with people otherwise difficult to reach.

The organizers invite authors to submit proposals in the form a short and
detailed abstract, which must be received by June 1, 1996.  The submission
of papers to be published in the proceedings independently of their public
exposition is encouraged (if necessary, the space presumably occupied on
the magnetic support has to be specified).  The papers can be submitted in
English or Italian.

In case the author desires to personally exhibit his or her work, it is
necessary to specify the estimated duration of the talk.  The authors will
receive confirmation of their participation by July 1, 1996, and will have
to send the complete papers and related software for proceedings inclusion
by October 1, 1996.

Exact day, place (in Milan, Italy) and subscription directions for the
Conference will be disclosed in future press releases.

Subscription costs are aimed to cover all, and only, expenses, and will be,
all being well, less or equal to 50,000 italian lire (50 DM, 40 US$).

Surface Mail
(preferred for papers submission)

IPISA '96
c/o Roberto Attias
via A. Lissoni 5
I-20162 Milano MI

Internet  attias@mirtillo.usr.dsi.unimi.it (Roberto Attias)
          spisser@dsi.unimi.it  (Reinhard Spisser)

Web: http://www.dsi.unimi.it/ipisa/
@endnode
@node NEWS33 "SystemPrefs v3.7"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

    SystemPrefs - Preferences for CPU (up to 68060) and RAMSEY.

VERSION

    3.7

AUTHOR

    Richard Koerber
    E-Mail: rkoerber@tfh.dssd.sub.org

DESCRIPTION

This is a preference editor for steering the processor caches, RAMSEY, VBR
and Audio Filter.  Gain the maximum speed out of your AMIGA!  SystemPrefs
fully supports 68060 and DraCo!  :^)

FEATURES

- Supports Instruction- and Data-Caches, Copyback, Write Allocate
- Supports 68060's Branch Cache, Superscalar mode, Store Buffer and Half
  Cache Size Mode
- Supports RAMSEY FastMode (60ns RAM access !!!)
- Supports audio filter
- Supports VBR to Fast RAM
- Font adaptive GUI
- Shows your system setup (System,CPU,FPU,MMU,...)
- new: Shows Graphic OS (CyberGraphX, ProBench, EGS, ...) using
  expname.library V2+
- 100% MacroSystem's DraCo workstation compatible :^)

LANGUAGES

German, English, Svenska

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

Requires AmigaOS 2.04+, 68010+ should be present

AVAILABILITY

- Your next AmiNet site:  util/wb/SystemPrefs37.lha
- My home page:           http://www.bg.bib.de/~a2h4ko
- V3.4 available on AmiNet CD 10 (util/wb/SystemPrefs34.lha)

PRICE

FreeWare!

DISTRIBUTABILITY

Free distributable with the usual restrictions.  See documentation for
further details.
@endnode
@node NEWS34 "ExpName v2.1"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

ExpName - Get full expansion board names from expansion ID

VERSION

2.1 (major update)

AUTHOR

Richard Koerber
E-Mail: rkoerber@tfh.dssd.sub.org

DESCRIPTION

This system shared library decodes the manufacturer and product ID of
hardware expansions, as you can get them from the system's
expansion.library.  It returns the full name (if expname knows the IDs) or
a simple number.

Since V2.0, this library returns information about the Amiga system it runs
on, too, as e.g.  main processor, FPU, MMU, OS version, RAM size or Graphic
OS (CyberGraphX, ProBench, EGS, ...).

With your help, I hope to get as much full names as possible.  So please
send the name, manufacturer ID and product ID of all your expansions to:
"rkoerber@tfh.dssd.sub.org".  You can get the IDs by using ShowConfig or
the included tool ListExp.  Thank you!

FEATURES

- knows the name of 160 expansion boards
- may even get the board name of not yet known boards
- new: get information about the system (supports DraCo)
- full assembly and c support (new: GCC inlines)
- new: boards.library replacement, for full future compatibility
- English and German documentation (.guide and .dvi)

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

Requires AmigaOS 2.0+ (V1.3 *could* work, but is not supported)

AVAILABILITY

- Your next AmiNet site:  util/libs/ExpName21.lha
- My home page:           http://www.bg.bib.de/~a2h4ko
- You can also get an uuencoded version via e-mail, on request.
- Maybe on the next AmiNet CD?! ;-)

PRICE

FreeWare!  It can be used in commercial products without prior permission.

DISTRIBUTABILITY

Free distributable with the usual restrictions.  See documentation for
further details.
@endnode
@node NEWS35 "New North American Distribution"
@toc NEWS

New Distribution in North America--SMG Is Out

Service Management Group, the company initially selected as the North
American distributor and warranty service provider for Amiga Technologies
products, has been terminated by Amiga Technologies president Petro
Tyschtschenko.  QuikPak, the manufacturer of the Amiga Technologies Amiga
4000 Tower, will now be free to sell at distributor pricing to any company
which meets a minimum order requirement--something SMG had been failing to
do.

Three distributors have already committed to keeping stock of 4000T's:

MicroPace of Champaign, IL, Software Hut of Philadelphia, PA, and Creative
Equipment International of Miami, FL.  Dealers are encouraged to place
their 4000T orders with these companies.

QuikPak is committed to providing warranty service for any machine they
assembled and sold.

For more information, contact:

QuikPak:      610-666-8080
MicroPace:    217-356-1884
Software Hut: 610-586-5704
CEI:          305-266-2800
@endnode
@node NEWS36 "Champion Manager 2 Delayed"
@toc NEWS

Domark have announced that the eagerly awaited follow-up to the successful
Championship Manager has been delayed.

Due to the delays, Domark reconsidered the development of Amiga games, and
now they they are "unlikely to be producing Amiga titles in the future".

More news on Championship Manager 2 as we get it.
@endnode
@node FEATURE1 "Using Multiple ISPs With Your Amiga"
@toc FEATURE

===========================================================================
                    Using Multiple ISPs With Your Amiga
  Robert Davis - Amateur Radio K0FPC                       rdavis@nyx.net
===========================================================================

Robert Davis
1107 Mary #4
Emporia, KS 66801

For the month of April, 1996, I am comparing the Internet Service Providers
of Emporia, Kansas.  My plan is to choose the best of the three and drop my
accounts on the other two.

So I have to make my Amiga, running AmiTCP 4 and ppp 1.45 alternately
connect to the ISPs, which we shall refer to as C, V, and S ...  because
their real names don't matter.

I had been starting my Internet connection by typing internet from a shell.
That script (sys:s/internet) looks like this:

.bra {
.ket }
.key param
; Installed with iNTERiNSTALL 1.51
path >nil: amitcp:bin add
;
run >nil: execute >NIL: amitcp:bin/startinternet {param}

The startinternet script reads the ppp0.config file (env:sana2/ppp0.config)
which tells the program to use the ppp.dial script (env:sana2/ppp.dial) to
actually call the Internet Service Provider.

So to call multiple ISPs, I created a separate ppp.dial script for each
one.  Those files are stored on my hard drive as:

envarc:sana2/Vppp.dial
envarc:sana2/Cppp.dial
envarc:sana2/Sppp.dial

In these files, the telephone number of the ISP, username, and password are
different for each script.  Of course, other differences may exist in the
logon procedures.  Those differences may require additions or other changes
to the scripts.  Every ISP is different from all the others.

Then, instead of one sys:s/internet script, I created three different
scripts:

sys:s/callV
sys:s/callC
sys:s/callS

Here is the callV script:

.bra {
.ket }
.key param
; Installed with iNTERiNSTALL 1.51
path >nil: amitcp:bin add
;
copy envarc:sana2/Vppp.dial envarc:sana2/ppp.dial
copy env:sana2/Vppp.dial env:sana2/ppp.dial
;
run >nil: execute >NIL: amitcp:bin/startinternet {param}

And that script copies the appropriate ppp.dial script to the necessary
directories on both the hard drive and the ram disk before calling the rest
of the procedures which accomplish the connection to the Internet.  Except
for the first letter of the filename to copy from, the other two scripts
are identical to this one.

So instead of typing internet to start my internet connection, I type
either callv callc or calls and my Amiga calls the Internet Service
Provider of my choice. 

If you normally click on an icon to start your Internet connection, you
will have to create separate icons for each ISP, and probably use xicon to
execute the scripts.  I shall leave that as an exercise for the reader.
@endnode
@node FEATURE2 "World Of Amiga 1996"
@toc FEATURE

===========================================================================
                          The World Of Amiga 1996
  Alan L.M. Buxey                                kccil@central.susx.ac.uk
===========================================================================

Finally I regress to my days as Amiga Reports' UK Correspondent for what
was probably the most exciting event for the Amiga in the UK for a few
years!  What am I talking about?  Well, the title of this report says it
all.  "The World Of Amiga" exhibition held in the Novotel Exhibition Centre
in London on 13th and 14th of April 1996.

The place was totally packed, they could have easily booked it for a larger
place....say Olympia or Earls Court and that would have attracted even more
people from both the consumer and the supplier sides of the industry.  As
it was, mid morning the queues were building up outside and announcements
made on the internal system asked whether people wouldn't mind leaving for
an hour of fresh air and come back in with their ticket-stub later on (an
offer that I took up at about 1pm for a lunch break).

So, who was there?  Escom, Amiga Technologies Ltd., Scala, HiSoft, Power
Computing, ZEUS (hi guys!!), Team 17, Amiga Computing, CU Amiga, Amiga
Format, Power Computing, Analogic, Blittersoft, Wizard developments,
Microniks, Digita, E.M.  Computergraphic, EM Magazine, Epic Marketing,
Eyetech Group Ltd., HiQ, ICPUG, SNAP supplies, Siren software, Gasteiner
and more!  (Sorry if I missed you out).   Who was absent?  Silica, Phase 5,
loads of companies that usually sell massive amounts of software packages
(e.g.  Special Reserve and the game companies :( )

Walker!
-------

Of course, the thing on everyone's mind was this new machine from Amiga
Tech.   What would it be like in reality?  How well did it perform?  When
will it come out?  What exactly has it got to offer?  Should I keep my
A4000?  Who chose the design????  etc.

Well.....I liked it!  The design really does look good when you are there
with it.  It looks futuristic (but not too much so) it looks like it can
really integrate into a setup that would make the user appear to be a
computer utilizer rather than nerd.  It would give a large amount of cred
to anyone who owned one (I reckon :) )

There are plenty of documents around the Net already shouting out its specs
and all the recent mags have articles on it, so I wont say much more than
1) I am glad its going to have a HD Floppy and come with HardDrive and
CDROM drive as standard, 2) I am almost overjoyed by the new IO chip 3)
pleased that the power supply is inside and NOT a power brick 4) amazed by
the expansion slot g- it really is a marvel!  (There is no reason why a
third party cannot make a card to slot into it that would give a PCMCIA
port, an A1200 trapdoor slot, a few Zorro III slots and a couple of PCI
slots next to a gfx card slot!!)

But, PLEASE Amiga tech.  what did you think you would achieve by displaying
the "walker" that wasn't encased in a cabinet in such a fashion.  This new
machine was sitting there with just a 4-colour plain WB3-style screen with
no-background picture, no fancy icons..  Nothing!  They didn't even bother
to try to get the thing to run the new "Amiga Surfer" pack :( (More on the
setup in musings down below)

All in all, the Walker looked a great bit of kit to look forward to!

Amiga Technologies Ltd.
-----------------------

Apart from the "walker", AT were showing off an Amiga running scala
presentations - these ran every half-hour roughly (see musings down below)
and there were 4 A1200s lounging around on stands.  All were beautifully
Magic-Workbenched and looked a real treat.  AT had BIG problems getting the
Amiga Surfer display running for the simple reason that the internal phone
system has to have a zero dialled, followed by a pause and hen the number
to connect to (they didn't know this for quite a long time....) The rest of
the Amiga were doing their things (one of them was actually being used to
play some games - which has been supplied by Epic Marketings CD people)

Big news on everyone's lips (well, anyone is the business) was the recent
news of the VISCORP takeover.  A few Escom people knew about it, but when I
approached the AT staff, there was a barrier....until I pulled out my
printed email that had all the details taken from the Amiga Web page
(http://www.amiga.de) (thanks to Mat Bennisson and his cu-announce mail
list!) They then started to talk a bit - but not much.   They said I'd have
to go to the press room and talk to Gilles Bourdin (who was there) but I
didn't have a press card on me so I couldn't :( )

Magazines
---------

All the magazines were there trying to sell latest issues, subscriptions
and a few games....nice to see them supporting the machine they make their
living out of...CU Amiga had either talked to Team 17 beforehand, or they
had basically hi-jacked Team 17 at the show since they shared the same
booth!

Team 17
-------

...were very busy showing off "Alien Breed 3D II - The Killing Grounds"
(and if that title gets any longer, there will be quite a few people
complaining!  :) ).  It looked great running on an A1200 powered by a 50MHz
060 Blizzard card (from Phase 5).  Unfortunately, it didn't go so well on
full screen 1x1 but that can ONLY be blamed on the AGA chipset

Team 17 WILL develop AB3DII-TKG for graphics cards so long as the gfx card
companies can support them!  They are getting NO developer stuff from ANY
of the companies.  They have got access to Cybergfx stuff on the Aminet -
but that doesn't get them a 24-bit card to try as well!

The game was running very well.....when confronted about the speed on an
030 card, the replied "Oh!  Well, when its optimized, THIS will be the
speed it will run on an 030" !!  - wonder what the 060 version will be like
THEN :)

The serial link in TKG worked well, and most of the afternoon on the Team
17 stand was spent holding a death-match competition!

The levels look great - some work needed here and there - but there wont be
a chainsaw among the 10 available weapons but worst of all, there wont be
any Worms in the game to kill!  ;-)

Talking of Worms, the AGA version sounds very nice and won't be long in
coming out.

AB3DII - TKG  will be released at the end of May.

Digita
------

Digita were very busy trying to get everyone to use WordWorth 5 as THE
Amiga wordprocessor and I must say, it looks very nice indeed.  I might
finally have to leave the Softwood stables myself if Digita can keep this
up!  They also has all their other products on display but I was pushed
along to.....

Wizard
------

Wizard developments has all their Amiga gadgets present but most exciting
of all was the demoing in public (for the first time?) of Directory Opus
5.5 This package is really going from strength to strength.  Fortunately I
am a shell man myself but anyone who doesn't know a single command line
argument for any dos command should really get this package - money well
invested (Wizard just mail me a royalty okay ;^))

David Pleasance
---------------

Yep!  the ex-MD of C= UK was there himself too!  We talked for a short time
just before I went off for lunch.  He was selling his "Everyone's
Girlfriend" CD - a tribute to the Amiga.  Nice to see some enterprise from
people using Amigas...why AT didn't pick him up I'll never know (just
because he was competition.....)

ZEUS Developments
-----------------

ZD were almost the closest stand to the entrance and were proudly showing
off their BBS program ZEUS BBS...very rightly so since this really is an
awesome package.   The show price was 90 UKP and if my cashflow wasn't so
tight my credit card would have flown straight into their hands :) Such a
powerful program for the price beating everything else hands down...well
maybe (sorry, cant be too biased reader).  ZEUS even has ZAPP - Zeus
Asynchronous Packet Protocol now (very nice!) For more info on ZEUS BBS,
try the following,

Tel: +44-1273-505474
Fax: +44-1273-382524
BBS: spa..58 +44-1273-474352 24 hrs. 33k6 support
BBS: BoeBingo +44-1273-383524 24 hrs. 22k8 support
email: zeus@mistral.co.uk
    2:441/58.0@fidonet
    39:139/122.0@amiganet
WWW: http://www.mistral.co.uk/zeus

Just tell them that I (Alan Buxey) sent you their way (and that I should
get a free copy 8-) ) - see the bottom of this to find out how I can be
contacted

EPIC marketing
--------------

EPIC were selling a vast range of CDs.  The stand was a couple of people
deep throughout the show (who said that CDROM drive owning Amigas were
rare?) A few cheap bargains for all!

Eyetech
-------

Want a good HD kit?  This was the place to be - the drive, installation and
cables were all available for a very good price.  GG2+ bridgeboard drivers
were also available - use PC ethernet, serial, modem cards etc.  as Amiga
devices!  Videomaster PCMCIA was also being demoed - looked like a good
piece of kit!

HiSoft
------

Surf Squirrel!  Yes, it was on display!  Running the surf-pack that HiSoft
have put together.  This PCMCIA card was linked up to an "Enterprise
28800" modem and it flew!  A very competent piece of kit to own (and a good
reason why PCMCIA should be available in some form on the Walker - just to
support people who upgrade)

Squirrel MPEG - This new device was also on display, showing flawless MPEG
video from a linked up CDROM drive.  No artifacts or jerkiness..surprise
surprise, "Startrek" was being shown when I passed by.

"Cinema 4D" was also being demoed - it really does produce some stunning
images (and is a lot cheaper than "Lightwave 4".....)

The Net/Web software that HiSoft are selling costs 39.99.  It comes with an
old version of AmiTCP, install software (at last!), a news reader, a mail
reader and a version of IBrowse.  The full version of IBrowse will soon be
available from HiSoft and can be bought separately for 29.99 UKP very soon.
("MindWalker", the Web Browser in the "Amiga Surfer" pack from AT still is
ahead of the field though - we are going to see a great battle between
these two products...at least Softwood and Digita aren't involved this
time ;-) )

ICPUG
-----

(when are you changing your name guys/girls?) were at the show too A good
group of people to get to know...I didn't spend much time here though since
I wanted to check out....

MicroniK
--------

MicroniK has so many towers and configurations...its almost unbelievable! 
Case upgrades to suit any upgrade from any Amiga seemed totally possible.
Want to give your A1200 5 Zorro II slots, 5 PC slots space for 5.25" and
3.5" drives?  Get one of these towers!  I must say that these are only for
the real enthusiasts since the price is still a bit too high for such a
piece of kit.  HOWEVER, anyone wanting to buy a good tower from the start
would be MUCH better off buying an A1200 and putting it in one of these
towers than buying an A4000 - the price saving is enormous!

Scala
-----

Scala UK were busy showing off their multimedia products and given huge
reductions on their range - slashing over half the price away on some
titles!

Power Computing
---------------

Want a piece of hardware for you Amiga?  This was the place to be.  One of
the only other Amigas in the show to have games played on it (!) was to be
seen here.   "Breathless" left everyone in that state after they played it
on an 040 card.

-----------------------------

So that was basically it all really.  New products everywhere, new Amiga on
display, thousands of UK Amigans turning up to see everything and make
everyone wonder why this wasn't sooner(!) and in a bigger place.  I think
the show was probably one of the best Amiga events I've been to for a few
years now.  Since my machine is 4 years old now, I was expecting to find my
next machine been shown off....and it was.  Now I am caught between a rock
and a hard place.  "Walker" machine or the PPC Amiga in the next year....it
might just be the "walker"!

Musings #1
----------

There are 3 "walkers" in this world.  They are worth 1,000,000 pounds each
as valuable one-off prototypes.  2 were at the show, one back in Benheim.
One at the show as on display in a case with documents.  One was out on
full display.  Linked up to a keyboard, mouse and monitor. 

I crashed it twice ;-)

This is nothing to do with the machine - or with my flippant use of a
machine that should really have been out of bounds - it was to do with a
desire of getting the thing to look presentable (they had left it bare!) So
I went into the prefs drawer and gave it a background pattern, added some
colours.  Then ran some software.  SCALA worked fine - albeit all in
German.  Wordworth 5SE also worked well.  PPaint didn't, it did some disk
access, then mouse froze up.  We finally decided it was the s/w not the
machine since everything has registration files someone must have been
playing around earlier.

Oh, my proof of crashing it? When it reboot it comes up with a red alert

    Beta test version
Developers only

(or something similar).  Hell, if I buy an Amiga, I want to know whether I
can at least crash the thing!  ;)

Presenter - "The machine actually costs 1 million pounds!"

Me - "Oh no!  I've heard of stupid pricing policy on Amigas before but are
they really planning to sell any at THAT price!!??" 8-)

Musings #2
----------

A group of us near the "walker" machine.

Me - "Its important that this machine gets 2MB of RAM.  It would die if it
loaded up my current A1200 config - there wouldn't be enough ChipRAM"

Man - "No, since if it has no more ChipRAM, it puts it into FastRAM and
displays it from there..."

Everyone - "Err, no it wouldn't"

Man - "Yes, I have a 1.8MB picture file that I can view with no problems on
my A4000 but it doesn't load on my chipRAM only A1200"

Me - "Hmmm......sounds like you've got a gfx card in your machine!"

Man - "I don't know what's inside, I got it for 550 UKP not long ago"

Everyone - "What!?  Oh no!  I want to go home!!" :)

Me - "When it [your machine] boots up, do you see a message such as
`CyberGfx' or `Opalvision' or `Retina' or something?"

Man - "Yes, yes I do! `Opal..something'"

Me - "You got a gfx card!!"

We then discussed what it would look like when he opened up his machine
that night!  8-) Oh, if you don't feel sick enough already at the fact that
he had an 040 A4000 desktop with an OpalVision card an 12MB FastRAM for
just 550 UKP, console yourself with the fact that he could only view
Workbench through a 17" monitor that came with it!  (aaargh!)

Musings #3
----------

Nice to see those software errors happening now and then throughout the
day....eh lads?  ;-)

Musings #4
----------

Large AT stand with massive screen that would be doing Scala/Amiga demo -
WOULD be if it wasn't for the prompt on the screen saying "script not
found".....so I went over to someone manning the stand.

Me - "Err, there are some people hanging around and sitting down but its
doing nothing - doesn't look good"

Man - "Well, its got jammed at some point, Do you now how to run Scala
without a mouse?"

Me - "But of course!" :)

A few key pushes later, the demo was thumping away, a large group has
gathered around and everyone is pleased.

They really do need some good people to sell the Amiga at such shows (oh,
Peter or Gilles, if you're reading this....you know my address ;) )

------------the end-------------------

This report was written by Alan Buxey, a freelance journalist working in
England under the guise of doing a Chemical Physics PhD ;)

EMail kcci1@solx1.sussex.ac.uk
WWW   http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/kcci1
BBS   Scratch BBS +44-1273-709799
@endnode
@node FEATURE3 "One Of Those Days In England'
@toc FEATURE

===========================================================================
         "One of those days in England" - The World of Amiga Show,
 Saturday the 13th of April, 1996, Novotel, Hammersmith, London, England.
  Luke Osbaldeston                                          lo3@ukc.ac.uk
===========================================================================

'Osbaldeston's 1st Law of Computer Shows' states that there will always be
at least one loser at a show in a Pink Floyd T-shirt with long hair (often
receding) and a geek-like voice, usually wearing spectacles, and, if they
can manage to grow it, a bit of bum-fluff they hope will pass off as a
beard and / or moustache.  Certainly, this show had more than its fair
share of those who confirmed this law as absolute.  In fact, this law could
have been written solely to describe Nick Veitch, sometime editor of Amiga
Format, who certainly had the Pink Floyd, voice and hair aspects off to a
tee.  More on him later.  For the record I like Pink Floyd, and have
longish hair myself, so I'm not impervious to the law either.  No flames
about these subjects then please.

Oh well, I guess a lot of us will know the sort of person (usually male)
who hangs out at these shows, and I doubt if they're much different the
whole world over.  The event was taking place on two days, Saturday, the
13th of April and Sunday the 14th of April.   It opened at 10.00 am on both
days, and closed at 5.00 pm on the Saturday and 4.00 pm on the Sunday.  I
went to the Saturday show in search of some hot news about the Amiga, and
actually found some I guess, along with everyone else there who bothered to
go to the press conference which took place after the show had finished on
Saturday, at approx.  5.30 pm in the Champagne Suite of the Novotel.

Before I try and recall what took place at the press conference though I'll
try and remember what I can of the show itself.   I arrived at 11.00 pm to
find a large queue outside of the building.  I remember the advert for the
tickets saying "avoid the queues, buy a ticket" or something like that, so
it didn't look too promising at first.  I then discovered that the big
queue was for people who were paying on the door, and there was a smaller
queue for people like myself with tickets.  I still had to wait to get in
though, approx.  twenty minutes or so, as the organisers were only letting
people in as other people left, it was that full in the hall itself.

After browsing the free show guide whilst queuing, the word came along the
queue that Gasteiner ( one of the exhibitors ) had ram at low low prices. 
They had the first stand in the hall, right near the entrance.  They
certainly did have ram going cheap - I bought an 8 MB simm from them for 75
pounds ( times that roughly by 1.5 for USA dollars I think ) - a bargain. 
If I had had the money I would have bought a 16 MB simm, as these were only
199 pounds, and the guys serving were open to bartering too, so it probably
could have been got for even less if you were prepared to haggle.  They
didn't have anything ground breaking on show or any machines set up either,
just lots of bargains to be had - by the end of the day 50 Mhz PGA FPU's
were going for 50 pounds.  It was worth visiting their stand just to see
what was on offer.

Once you were in the hall itself, standing near Gasteiner's stand, you
could appreciate how small the room was that the show was in.  The last
Computer Show I had been too was at Olympia some years ago, a cavernous
venue also in London.  It made this show look like a car-boot sale ( read:
garage sale for the USA.  ) It brought it home just how far the Amiga has
slipped down in terms of relative popularity.  I felt a little sad upon
thinking this, perhaps I had the notion that this might be the last ever
Amiga show in this country, or perhaps even anywhere else.

Going clockwise and keeping to the perimeter of the hall, next to
Gasteiner's stand was the bar.  Just thought I'd mention it.  I'll tell
you, you needed to save some money on bargains at some of the stands,
because the bar prices were outrageously expensive.  The thieving bastards.
It didn't stop people from drinking though.  Next to the bar was Tangent
Music Design Ltd.  This, as some of you might know, is a business involving
naughty David Pleasance, ex head- honcho of Commodore UK, and, as if by
magic, there was the man himself, on the stand, with another guy, flogging
a load of crappy old Amiga software amongst other things.  He also had the
company's Amiga produced CD, called Everybody's Girlfriend, for sale, which
he was playing through a CD32.  Price - 9.99 pounds.  He seemed to be
selling a few too.  The main thing was seeing him though, strange, after
only ever seeing pictures of him in various Amiga mags to see him in the
flesh.  There isn't as much of him as you might think, he is quite a short
guy, around 5.8 I'd say.

I felt a bit sorry for him in a way - a year ago he was gonna save the
Amiga with a brave new Company, now here he is as a barker, trying to sell
dodgy old gear.  Oh well.  Perhaps he's a millionaire for all I know.  Some
guy asked him some questions about the Amiga, so I decided to eavesdrop on
what he said in reply, though it was nothing earth-shattering.  Just some
stuff about how when he had seen triple A it had been done but was only
about 80% finished and still unstable, about how it was being run through
hardware and yet was still awesome, about how they had some risc- based
machine on the go which of course has never happened because of CBM's
demise etc.  etc.  I was gonna ask him about why he wasn't employed by
Escom after their swoop, but it didn't seem right, so I didn't bother.
There weren't any computers set up on the stand.

Next to the Tangent stand was Snap Computer Supplies.  They sell
consumables and what have you, probably had some bargains but inkjet
cartridges et al.  didn't really figure in my plans, so I passed to the
next stand which was Wizard Developments.  They're well known in the UK,
mainly for selling Directory Opus.  They certainly had a good crowd at
their stand nearly all day.  They had a couple or three machines set up,
and were demoing Opus 5.5 ( not that all you soft sods who use pirate
copies will be interested - please avert your eyes ) which now has some FTP
support.  From what I saw of it it looks pretty good.  You could buy the
latest version of Opus ( not 5.5, I don't know the version number ) for 30
pounds at the show, a good saving and no mistake, but sadly I couldn't
afford it, and I'm still happy with 4.12 for the time being, though I
realise that you can't keep on using old stuff forever, otherwise you end
up like all those A500 owners who complain about lack of software for their
machine.

Wizard had some other bits and pieces, but nothing special, I think Opus
was the main draw.  Next to Wizard was Digita International, makers of such
splendid software as Wordworth, which is what I'm using right now to type
this text into, albeit version 2 AGA.  Oh dear, seems I'm guilty again of
using old software again ;-) I was planning on buying Wordworth 5 at the
show, but just couldn't afford it after buying the ram ( and an FPU.  ) A
real shame, because they were selling it for 39.99 pounds, which is a very
very good deal indeed.  I will upgrade as soon as I can afford it though. 
Not that I really need the new features mind you, but it seems right to
support the company.  They had all their other software for sale too, you
know the stuff, Personal Paint, Datastore, Money Matters etc.  They didn't
have any computers set up though on which to demo the software, which I
thought was a bit poor.  Their stand was long and narrow compared to the
other stands.   They seemed to be doing good business, and it was good to
see a software company still supporting the Amiga.  I think Wordworth 5 was
the latest and greatest thing that they had there though.

Next to Digita was Micronik.  Now, Micronik have been running ads recently
in the UK paper magazines for their Infinitiv ( their spelling ) tower
systems and other hardware gizmos, so I was looking forward to seeing what
they had to show.  I was a bit disappointed though.  Although they had a
tower system there, I don't know, it just kind of left me cold.  They had a
kind of PC & Amiga combined machine around on the other corner of their
stand ( which was a sort of capital L shape ) but the main problem was that
all the software that they were running was in German, and my German being
rusty to say the least, it kind of spoiled it as regarding having a go at
using any of it.  They had some other bits and pieces such as rom sharers
and that kind of thing, and looking at their flyers now, they seem to
concentrate on that kind of thing, small hardware items.  However, the
tower thing seems like it might be okay, does similar things to the HiQ
affair of the same name, i.e.  Zorro II & III ports ( depending on which
version of the tower you go for ) on an A1200 fitted internally into their
tower box.  These things will have to be a bit cheaper I think though if
they are to catch on.  I'm sure that they are well made though, they seemed
it, and German goods as a whole seem to be of a superior build quality to
most other stuff, apart from possibly the late, lamented GVP's early stuff,
such as the HD8+ ( it remains the favourite add-on I've ever bought.  ) It
strikes me that with Phase 5 working on a new Kickstart / Workbench for
risc ( assuming that this is true ) as well as risc board(s) too ( and who
knows what else ?), and Infinitiv working on cases and tower stuff, that
they could get together and pretty much build a new Amiga between
themselves.  I can vouch for the quality of Phase 5's stuff, it is
excellent - their A1200 accelerators are simply the best.  It's a thought
anyway.

There was a bit of a gap, and then the next stand was Scala UK.   I've
never used Scala and doubt I will, so although I looked at their stand,
there didn't seem to much of interest going on there, although they were
selling a few copies of their products, at cheaper show prices, for
example, MM 400 was 199 pounds, a saving of 100 pounds from what I gather.
They also had a 'theatre' ( since when has a large Sony TV with a few
chairs around it been a theatre ?  ) on the Amiga Tech.  stand opposite,
but more of that later.

After Scala was the Emap and Team 17 stand, though I think officially, this
was just an Emap stand.  Emap for those who don't know publish CU Amiga ( I
hope !  ) or at least one of those Amiga mags anyway.  I don't buy the
magazine being a dyed in the wool Format buyer ( but for how much longer ?
see later on.  ) Now, this stand was busy, just about all day.  The reason
?  Some major hardware ?  A bargain perhaps ?  Nope.  Just a couple of
A1200's running a demo of Alien Breed 3D II.  And Matt Bettinson's 3000 as
well.  At least I think it was him, I wouldn't know him from Adam
personally.  I found his 3000 more interesting that AB3DII, as he seemed to
have some interesting software running on it, which on later examination
turned out to be the Surfer Software, i.e.  AMIrc, MindWalker, all the rest
( so it seemed.  ) Certainly it was an impressive display, I assume he has
a decent graphics card in the machine because the overall display it gave
out, with all the various programs running on it, was pretty impressive,
and colourful too.

I've a feeling the version of AB3DII was networked between the 2 A1200's,
and that people were playing against each other on the game.  It was
crowded anyway as I've said.  They were also selling their mags too, with
some subscription offer for the show.  They had their editor as well as
other staff, and some Team 17 people were their, including Steve McGill,
ex-Amiga Format games editor / staff writer, who now works for Team 17,
though in what capacity it was hard to discern. 

Next to the Emap stand was E.  M.  Computergraphic & Magazine stand.  They
do all clip-art and that kind of stuff, and seemed to be doing a reasonable
business, but there wasn't anything too exciting on their stand for me.
They didn't have any machines set up.  Next to them was Golden Image who
make some quality products for the Amiga, such as mice and track-balls,
that kind of thing.   They do scanners too.  It goes without saying that I
had a look, but there wasn't anything on their stand I hadn't seen before
so I passed on to the next stand.  Again, no machines set up.  I'm sure
they had some bargains though if you were looking.

IDG Media were adjacent to Golden Image.  No machines again, as I remember.
They do storage devices mainly ( I think ) so they had Zip drives there,
cartridges and what have you.  Again, this wasn't that exciting for me, so,
as I had done with every stand, making sure that I wasn't missing something
special, I moved on to the next stand, which was Analogic.  They specialise
in Amiga repairs, and were also selling some computers pretty cheaply.
Seeing as I wasn't after either, I wandered past.  Yet again no machines
set up.  Next up were Siren Software, a company who sell various things for
the Amiga, from Apollo accelerators ( which seem a bit dodgy to me ) to
modems, consumables, various bits and pieces.  They had one of the better
stands in terms of stuff for sale, and I did have a good look, but there
wasn't anything there that really stood out, perhaps apart from their new
Apollo 1240, an A1200 68040 based accelerator, that ran at 33 Mhz (
allegedly, they, along with most other stands, didn't have any computers
set up ) to give performance of 30 mips ( assuming you have got some fast
fast-ram ), which if it is true, is very good.  The price ?  440 pounds to
you guv'nor.  A bit steep, but a better buy I think than Power's Falcon
68040 board, which is 400 pounds for a card that runs at 25 Mhz and 19
mips.  Still, ya pays ya money and takes ya chance I guess.  I'd have
either if they were being given away.

Then came Eyetech, the people behind the new SX expansion for the CD32.
They had this and some other pretty impressive hardware on show, including
some sort of fancy genlocking type thing, which was linked up to an Amiga.
They had a good demo disc in their souped-up CD 32, which had the original
UK TV advert for the same on it amongst other things.  Certainly their
stand was one of the better in the whole show I think, looking back.

Next to Eyetech were Zeus Developments, the only people I hadn't heard of.
Their ambit, according to their flyers, is to produce "high quality Amiga
Bulletin Board Software." They had a couple of machines set-up which were
running ZAPP ( I think ), Zeus Asynchronous Packet Protocol, which allows
you do various things comms wise.  They seemed well-tooled up tech.  &
software wise, and looked like they knew what was what ( if you can
understand that.  )

I don't think that they actually had anything for sale, but judging from
the demos they had of their software, it looks good.   Well, that was the
entire perimeter of the hall.  You might be wondering where the likes of
Amiga Tech.  and Future Publishing were ?  Well, they and some others had
stands that were in the middle of the hall, so now I'll describe them,
again clockwise, from the stand closest to the entrance, which was Hi Soft.

The Hi Soft stand was doing great business when I first arrived.   They had
a large tv showing the film Star Trek 6 on it.  Always a good bet at
computer shows is anything to do with Star Trek, as you just know that
there will be some Trekkies there.  In fact, 'Osbaldeston's 2nd Law of
Computer Shows' states that wherever computers are on public display, at
least one of the people in the crowd watching will be a "Star Trek fan", or
"person most in need of a life" for short ;-) Actually I like Star Trek as
well, but I'm not one of those people who lives for it, unlike other people
I'd normally pretend not to know.

You might wonder why Hi Soft were showing Star Trek, or indeed even had a
tv on their stand at all ?  Well, it was to demonstrate their new Squirrel
MPeg player thang, and the quality ( apart from the acting that is ) was
excellent on the tv, much better than just about any other MPeg I have ever
seen, even better than Sony's MDec system in the PlayStation.  The itself
was pretty neat too, compared to most of the other stands, Hi Soft had gone
in for a specific theme on their stand which was to call it all Net&Web,
the name of their new Web software ( Ibrowse, MUI, some other gubbins.  )
Their stand was also predominantly black, with a neon sign on it ( unlit
for some reason ) saying Net&Web.  They also used the very clever ploy of
just having a Fender Strat ( I think ) just lying around on their stand,
which always excites the anoraks at these shows, I think it stirs their
dormant virility.  Yes, this years academy award for most useless item on a
stand goes to Hi Soft for their sepia Stratocaster, just pipping all the
Amiga Technologies staff into second place ;-)

I got chance to have a play with the Web software and it seems okay, though
I think Mindwalker looks slightly better.  You need MUI ( they had v 3.4
there ) to use IBrowse ( v 0.98 ), and I would rather live without MUI than
with it, even though I have plenty of ram and a fast Amiga.  Of course, Hi
Soft could be banking that most of us Amiga owners already use MUI for
AMosaic, so it shouldn't bother us to use it for IBrowse.  Well, maybe.
Still, what do I know, right ?  The software package, called Net&Web just
in case that wasn't clear, was selling for 35 pounds, which was pretty
reasonable I guess.  You got various things with it, and it does seem a
good deal.  Hi Soft seem to have struck a deal with Demon Internet ( a
service provider here in the UK ) that you get when you buy the software, I
guess to make it all as easy as possible to get started on the Internet
etc.  and good luck to them.  I hope they sell truck loads.  They might
have to strike now, though, before the Amiga Tech.  bundle comes out.
Still, although I have said it before about Digita, it is good to see a
company like Hi Soft still supporting the Amiga with some decent new
products, and praise indeed is due to both these stalwart companies, mind,
I'm sure they don't just do it for the love of the task alone.

Hi Soft had some other cheap stuff for sale too, including Aura, Cinema 4D,
Hi Soft Basic & Pascal, Surf Squirrel ( though I heard that they weren't
actually selling those ) oh you know, the usual stuff.  Pity I couldn't
afford to buy any of it.  Which reminds me, they sold out in a few hours of
their Net&Web package.  I heard an employee telling a punter that they were
hoping to get more stock in before the end of the day, whether they did or
not I don't know.   They will have slipped up if they didn't.

Next to Hi Soft was HiQ.  The make and sell various things for the Amiga,
including their naughty Tower system.  They have also come up with a new
thing, their Siamese system, which is something like an Amiga and PC in the
same box.  Their stand was popular, and looked quite good too.  Looking at
their flyer again they also sell other small items for the Amiga, I'm sure
you can guess the sort of thing, internal hd's for the A1200, accelerators,
nothing really out of the ordinary, apart from the tower stuff.  They had
several machines set up, running various things, one of which was probably
the eponymous Siamese thing.  Not being that interested really in having a
PC & Amiga in the same box, I can't tell much more.

On the other side of the HiQ Stand was the ICPUG (Independent Commodore
Products User Group).  I was surprised and pleased to see these people
still going.  They must have had the highest ratio of staff on their stand
to the public than just about any other exhibitor.  I picked up some info
about Demon Internet off their stand.  They had some bundles of other stuff
for sale, and a few machines set up, but not really doing anything special,
so that was that.

There was a small gap for walking through, then the next stand, which was
PD Soft.  They are a pd mail-order company.  They seemed to be doing a
roaring trade for quite a while, I don't know why because their prices
didn't seem that much different to their normal advert prices.  Takes all
sorts I guess.  No machines or anything set up, just lots of pd software.

Next to them though was Future Publishing, home of Amiga Format, reputed to
be worlds biggest selling Amiga magazine, though for how much longer I
don't know, and I think I might have an idea why.   Their stand was poor,
especially compared to Emap's.  They only had a single machine set up,
running a copy of Capital Punishment, which some might know is a beat 'em
up.  It looked okay, but I think the A1200 the had it running on was a bit
ropey, as, to use that nice Americanism, it kept crapping out.  Mind you
some kids moved it once and I think the monitor lead was jolted out of the
back of the machine slightly.  The game looks okay though, better than I
thought it would be, smoother.  It seemed popular enough, but then everyone
loves a beat 'em up don't they ?  Witness Rise of Robots, possibly the
worst beat 'em up ever, but it still sells today, so someone must like beat
'em ups.

Future had some staff from some of their Amiga Magazines at the show,
namely the aforementioned Nick Veitch, and David Taylor, who writes mainly
for Amiga Shopper.  They spent time wandering about though, often to the
bar, or that way in general.  As I've said, compared to the roaring
turnover the Emap stand had, Future wasn't doing nearly so well, which
seems an indictment of sorts of Amiga Format itself, which has gone from a
circulation of approx.  140,000 copies a month some time ago to just 60,000
a month now, with each issue getting more feeble.  This seemed to me to be
reflected later on at the press conference.  Of course, only some of the
blame for this probably lies at Future's door.

On the other side and to the right of Future was Epic Marketing, another PD
mail-order company.  Again, their prices didn't seem that cheap to me
compared to their usual adverts in the magazines.   Still, they too seemed
to be doing a good trade.  No machines set up or anything, just pd stuff,
cd roms, the usual gear.  However, special, very special, mention must be
made of the Epic stand.  It featured the guy who must win this years
academy award for "destined to run through a mall with an automatic weapon
in 10 years time." Epic have sold cd roms for some time featuring 'glamour'
pictures of women.  I don't know the nature of these pictures, as I've been
fortunate enough to never come across ( no pun intended ) one of their cd's
myself.  However, now they have bettered themselves.  They are now selling
a cd rom full 'glamour' pictures of women in, yes, believe it, 3D !  Not
just that, but, you also got a pair of 3D glasses with the cd to view them
with.  The slightly faster of you will have got their ahead of me with this
one - yep, that's right, this guy actually went up and bought one of their
cd's.  I can still picture the fat guy on the stand selling it to him.  Oh
dear.  I was non-plussed.  Bloody 3d soft-porn pictures ?  The mind
boggles.  If your that guy who bought that cd then shame on you !  At least
he had the sense to wait until late in the afternoon to buy it, when the
stand was quieter.

Behind Epic was Power Computing.  They are well known in this country, and
sell some quite good gear, though often a little pricey.  Their main
products are stuff like the Viper 1200 accelerators, not as good as Phase
5's stuff, but not bad, the old GVP line of things, Breathless ( a 3d Doom
clone for those who don't know it ), cd rom drives, graphics tablets, oh,
I'm sure you can guess.  There didn't seem to be too many bargains going
there though, unless you consider a few quid off Breathless a bargain.  
They did have a few machines set up, one running Breathless which was
popular, and one with a graphics tablet connected to it and some art
package running.  Some of their prices were exactly the same as their
magazine adverts, such as their Falcon A1200 accelerator.

And that was it.  "Eh, what about Amiga Technologies ?" some of the more
perspicacious of you might be asking.  I've saved them till last.  They had
the biggest stand at the show, one half being 'devoted' if that is the best
word to the new Amiga products, the other half consisting of the Scala
'theatre'.  I'll describe the theatre first.  This was a large Sony ...
oh, you read that bit did you ?  Okay.  An A4000 was linked to it running
MM400 ( I think ), and they were using this to display what Scala could do.
Quite impressive.  That was it really.  If you've seen Scala running
before, then I'm sure you can imagine what it looked like.

The Amiga Tech.  side of things consisted of various machines.  Yes yes,
for those of you who haven't yet lost the will to live ploughing through
all this and may have been reading it all just to for this part, they had
two of the 'new' Walker Amigas there, one set up, the other in a glass
case.  Yes, I have touched the new Amiga - I am the chosen one !  For those
of you who haven't yet seen the pictures of them, well, if you imagine a
dark grey mini-tower case, squashed slightly, and heavily rounded with a
scoop out of the top curving down to the rear of the machine getting
steeper as it goes, then your getting there.  In the front is a cd rom
drive and a single 3.5 " floppy.  At the back were the usual ports but
minus a few, which they were I'm not entirely sure, as non of them were
marked at all.  Of course, you could guess certain ports, like psu supply,
monitor, sound etc.  but some of the others ...  who knows.  They were all
standard sizes and shapes though.  The case is metal in case people aren't
sure, and has four little pointy feet on it.  It reminded me of something
out the original Flash Gordon adventures featuring Harry 'Buster' Crabbe as
Flash - anyone remember those brilliant space ships that they had in them ?
The ones that used to fire great gobs of flames at each other.  It looked a
bit like one of them anyway.

The shape did grow on me after a while - I like it.  Perhaps not the colour
so much, but it's okay too I guess.  The machine had Kickstart 43.1 in it,
which was copyright 1996 Escom, and a newer version of Workbench too, but I
think it could have been 3.1 at a push.  The cpu was a 68030 @ 40 mhz.  We
never saw it really doing that much though because the Amiga Tech.  guy who
was on the stand near it wouldn't really let anyone have a go on it.  So we
never saw the cd rom doing anything, just the machine running a slide-show
of sorts I think.  Not really that impressive.

The Amiga Tech.  guy who was by the machine was talking to people,
answering questions that they were asking him etc.  You know, I don't
really think that guy knew a lot about Amigas somehow.  Wonder why I think
that ?  Well, when asked whether or not a new A4000 T they had on display
was a 68040 or 68060, not only did he not know, he didn't know how to find
out.  Fortunately you could kind of have a go on that machine, and the guy
playing with it went straight to Tools on the sys: partition and ran
ShowConfig ( as myself and probably a few others were thinking of
suggesting ) and lo and behold, we discovered that it was a 68040.  Wow !

As I say, this guy, who wore glasses for any John Hegley fans interested,
from Amiga Tech., who was 'demoing' the Walker, didn't seem to know but two
things about the Amiga, Jack and Shit, and Jack left town ;-) He did speak
about David Pleasance to one guy though, and he said something along the
lines of "he wanted the Amiga all for himself" in reply to whatever the
question was.  I also heard Pleasance speak about Amiga Tech.  now I think
of it, he said something like, on several occasions to a guy who was asking
him things, "I can't understand why they haven't done X, I can't understand
why they haven't done Y ...  " etc.  etc.  There was a little info about
the Walker stuck on the display case the other machine was in, which gave
out some technical specs, along the lines of what I have already said.
Going to be released around September / October if you believed what you
read.  Price - around 700 to 750 pounds.  It will also come with a quad
speed cd rom drive, half gig hd, 5 mb of ram ( 1 chip, 4 fast - go figure
that one out ) and will be highly, nay, infinitely, expandible, according
to Amiga Tech.  I guess these things may be subject to change though before
the release, if it ever is released.

Amiga Tech.  did have some other machines at the show as I've mentioned,
mainly German A1200 hd's, the 4000 T, and that was about it.  Fortunately
there was a guy there, who worked for Escom, called Ash, also manning the
stand.  He was a student at Brunel University amongst other things, and
seemed to know a fair amount about the Amiga, and was very familiar with
using it.  He was using AMIrc at one point, on channel #amiga ( where else
?  ) as AshWOA if any of you spoke to him.  I believe Matt Bettinson was on
too on his 3000.   The Surfer Software does look pretty good to me, even on
a vanilla A1200 it works pretty well.  There were at least 3 Amigas at the
show that were connected to the Internet, the Emap 3000, the Amiga Tech.
A1200, and the Hi Soft A1200, which was good to see.

That was it really for Amiga Tech.  Their flyers were just the usual stuff,
Q Drive, 4000 T, Surfer Bundle etc., you know the score.  Their stand had a
bit of a cheap look about it ( and with hindsight we know why now ...  ),
and was also predominantly black too, like Hi Soft's.  If it has seemed
like I've been down on the stand I suppose that isn't really fair, but I'm
sure some people will agree that it could have been better.

There were a few well known faces at the show round and about, apart from
those mentioned previously were Andy Davidson ( author of Worms amongst
other things, and who had a splendid run-in with the boss of Viscorp - see
later ), Jeff Walker ( looking pretty scruffy ), Gilles Bourdin, Petro
Whatishisname from Amiga Tech., the editor of CU Amiga whose name I don't
know, the editor of Amiga Computing, whose name I also don't know ( do
these two count as well known faces then ?  ), Anthony Jacobson, publisher
of Amiga User International, and I think that was about it.

With the show being as small as it was, and with the crowds thinning later
on, I completed many 'laps' as it were of all the exhibitors at the show,
and saw every stand many times over.  I was satisfied with the show once I
had seen it all a few times, and just looking at it from a pecuniary
perspective, there were killings to be made in some areas.  I wasn't sure
as to what time I was going to leave the show at, as at around 3.00 pm, I
had seen everything plenty of times, and thought that there wasn't much
point hanging on.  For some reason though I couldn't tear myself away, and
stuck around till 4 pm.  At around this time, I saw the Amiga Tech.  guy
called Ash on AMIrc, and he told someone that there was going to be a press
conference after the show was over at 5.30 pm.

After finding this out I decided I would stick around until the show
finished, and try and gate-crash this press conference, to see what was
'going down'.  So I wandered around some more until it started to approach
5.00 pm, when the show closed.  A few announcements came over the P.A.
system asking people to leave etc.   now that the show was drawing to a
close.  At just after 5.00 pm I left the hall where the show was and went
upstairs into the Novotel to the Champagne Suite.  There was a bar just
outside the suite where some people were gathering waiting to get into the
conference.  I sat down at a table near a group of people from Team 17, and
eavesdropped on what Andy Davidson had planned for the next version of
Worms, amongst other things.  Earlier on I had heard him telling a guy
something which I found very interesting indeed.  This may be well known in
certain quarters, but I had never heard it before.  According to what he
said, Commodore, around November 1991, a full year practically before the
A1200 & A4000 were released, had a new machine ready to release called the
A3000+.  Apparently it was AGA, and had various other new features in it
which would have really been dynamite for the time, and would have kept the
Amiga still to the forefront of the cutting edge, technology wise.

However, Commodore, in their infinite wisdom, sat on the machine.   The
reason ?  They had made the cases for the A4000 and wanted a machine to
fill them.  Well, this is what I heard anyway.  It seems that the A3000 is
still regarded as the best machine Commodore ever made.  Oh well, who knows
how things might have turned out if such a machine had been released ?
Back to the press conference - I waited around until just after 5.30 pm.
From what I had heard and could gather, the press conference was just for
press ( never ;-) ), exhibitors, and business, and seeing as all these
people at the show had been wearing badges saying this sort of thing on
them, I didn't think I'd get in.  But I thought I'd give it a try anyway,
just front it out and hope no-one tried to stop me from getting in.   I
needn't have worried, there seemed to be quite a few members of the public
who had thought along similar lines to myself who were already inside.

[The actual story of the 3000+'s cancellation does not directly hinge on
the "A4000 case" crisis.  The 3000+ was ready well before the 4000 was
built, but it was cancelled due to the management's call for a mid-range
ECS machine which never made it to market. -Jason]

I took a seat near the back ( the suite was almost full, at least 200
people I'd say, nearly all seated, with a table and mic at the front from
where the speeches were going to be given.  ) It struck me as odd that the
ticket, nor any other official info I had seen, mentioned the fact that
there was going to be a press conference after the show.  It was just luck
really that I had found out about it.  A moment after I had sat down, the
conference began.

First up to speak was a guy called Peter Brameld, who was the Director,
World of Amiga '96 Ltd.  He had organised the show pretty much ( so he said
) and just said a few things about what was going to happen in the next
minutes etc.  He named all the people sitting at the front table, which
seemed to contain a few Viscorp staff for some reason - I suppose the
writing was on the wall from that moment on.  He introduced Petro
Whatishisname, who came to the mic.   Being at the back it was difficult to
see any facial expression as he spoke.  However, what he said was clear
enough.  At this point I wish I had taken a tape recorder, but I'm sure his
speech will have been transcribed already by various people.  The gist of
it was this :- Amiga Tech.  has sold the Amiga to Viscorp of Chicago, USA.
Pretty simple really.

Of course, he said more than that.  He explained why this had taken place,
and why it had had to take place it you get my drift.   The only thing that
shocked me ( for I was shocked ) more than hearing this was the fact that
he had intimated in his speech that some people already knew what was going
on.  Well, I'm sure the Viscorp guys already knew what was going on ;-) It
may be that all sorts of rumours have been going around the internet
suggesting the same - if so, I must have missed them all, not having time
to read the newsgroups etc.  Some people didn't seem that surprised by it,
but then again, some of us did.  The guy sitting next to me seemed as taken
aback as I was.

Petro went on to mention Escom's losses, other things that had contributed
to the decision, I'm sure some of will have read 'em.   He also said that
they had sold 40,000 units of the A1200 since restarting production of it,
which he thought was quite respectable, and I think I would agree, along
with 2000 units of the A4000.  Then he called up Bill Buck, the president
of Viscorp.   Bill wouldn't let Petro sit down for a moment, he kept him
standing whilst he thanked him for all he had done for the Amiga, however,
he only got a lukewarm round of applause for 'all he had done' from the
crowd.  David Pleasance was sitting 3 chairs away from me, and I noted that
he didn't applaud Petro at all.  I wonder why ?  ;-)

Once Bill had let Petro sit down, he cracked on with what he had to say.
The gist of it was this :- Viscorp had paid Amiga Tech.  40 million dollars
for the Amiga Tech.  Were they mad to have done this he wondered when Escom
had paid only 10 million or so for Commodore ?  No, of course not, because
Escom had spent a lot more than 40 million dollars getting the Amiga into (
a funny ) shape again ( the Walker shape !  ) ( see later on for more info
about this figure of money though.  )

After naming a few people who worked for Viscorp who were with him at that
moment, he said that they had a number of ex-Commodore employees, one of
whom did the marketing and PR for the CD-TV which made me giggle - like
this was impressive or something ?  Another guy had also done something
else which was pretty poor, it may have been the A500 cd rom drive fiasco.
Either way, naming these as credentials about the staff in question hardly
filled me with confidence anyway, these people sounded exactly like the
type of people who really buggered things up for Commodore in the first
place.  Oh well, I guess like what Viscorp does in general we'll have to
see what happens, and give them the benefit of the doubt.

He ( Bill ) then went on to outline, as best he could, as details were
still pretty sketchy as the ink was still wet on the deal, what Viscorp's
plans were for the Amiga.  This is where the fun really started ...  their
main plans are to stick the Amiga hardware into a television so people can
use it to access the internet.  Yep, that pretty much says it all.  He did
say that Viscorp were going to carry on with what Amiga Tech.  had been
doing with the Amiga itself, but also go down this set-top box route, with
the emphasis firmly on the set-top box.  Well, of course people already
knew that Viscorp had a licence to do this anyway.  Why might they buy the
Amiga then to do a set-top box when they already had a licence to do one ?
It seems that Bill was more than a little worried that the 'Chinese' ( he
never mentioned any company in particular ) were about to come and get a
licence also for making a set-top box along similar lines to Viscorp's, and
he didn't want that to happen at any cost, so by buying the Amiga itself,
they don't have to sell any licences to people who might want to make a
set-top box.  Other licenses would be sold though for people to do things.
He didn't actually say the thing about the Chinese in his speech, it was
afterwards in conversation with a group of us that he mentioned that.

["The Chinese" would seem to refer to the company Escom initially pegged
for Amiga manufacture last year.  They seem to indeed hold an Amiga
license. -Jason]

After saying a bit more about what he was about, he then started to take
some questions from the floor.  I can't remember every question, and didn't
hear them all anyway, as some people didn't speak in a very loud voice.
The were a few pretty good questions though.  A notable one was asked by
Anthony Jacobson, big cheese at AUI.  He asked for some information about
Viscorp, like where they were based, how long they had been going, their
capitation ( is that the correct word ?  ), turnover, number of employees
etc.  Bill didn't answer every part of this ( in fact he seemed to
intentionally dodge certain parts of it ) but he did say that Viscorp was
worth around 200 million dollars ( I think ) and had about 40 employees,
that from 1990 onwards they had centred around a particular goal, this
being visual information or something like that.  He said something
unintentionally funny, along the lines of the internet was like
electricity, and he wanted to make a set-top box that could be plugged into
it.  It made a guy laugh out loud behind me, one of the Team 17 crew I
think.  It did sound very corporate and American.

Nick Veitch timidly asked a poor question, which I didn't catch all of, but
it wasn't very good, and this Bill, who has very likely done a psychol.
course in power talking snapped him up easily.   However, one guy who
really got under Bill's skin was Andy Davidson, yes, author of Worms etc. 
who I have mentioned before.  He asked the 64 million dollar question, the
question I'm sure had been in a lot of people's minds ( mine anyway ) since
Bill had described what he wanted to do with the Amiga.  The question was
along the lines of "are you going to continue with research of a new Amiga
computer, as well as your set-top box ?"

It was a worthy question, and although Bill tried to argue that he had
already answered it ( he hadn't really, other than alluding to continuing
what Amiga Tech.  had started ) Davidson kept hounding him for a straight
answer over it, and rightly so, as the more Bill tried to explain what he
wanted to do, the more it became apparent that he couldn't ( or wouldn't )
really answer the question to Davidsons' ( and the rest of our )
satisfaction.  Davidson really had him on the backfoot for a while,
eventually Bill said he thought he was being rude, and took a question from
elsewhere.  This didn't go down well with Davidson and his surrounding
group.  He had certainly made a point.

Someone else asked about the development of a PowerPC based Amiga - Bill
said that they were meeting with Motorola on Wednesday of this week ( the
17th I think ) and it would depend on what might happen with the meeting. 
He also said ( to a lot of disgruntlement amongst the audience ) that the
"Amiga uses the 68000 right ?  Well, we're gonna keep on with that." Oh
dear, that didn't make him Mr.   Popular either.  He didn't seem to know
too much about the Amiga, or so it appeared to me, or even that much about
Amiga Tech.  / Escom for that matter, but he is a guy who can think on his
feet that is for sure, and managed to keep a flow going pretty much all the
time.  He also mentioned that there would be another press conference on
the 24th of this month ( in Chicago I think ) where more details would be
made available to people about what was happening.

Also, in answer to another question, about whether or not research and
design would be moved back to the USA, he said that Viscorp had research
facilities already in West Chester (where have I heard that name before?)
with a few guys there.  He said that Viscorp would continue to use Escom as
a retail outlet along with other stores ( I wouldn't have thought Escom
were a good choice personally ) and also that he wanted to thank everyone
for coming and supporting the Amiga, and that he wanted our input as much
as anything.  If any of us have any good ideas, we should get in touch with
him, or someone at Viscorp, no matter what, let them know what we think. 
He seemed in earnest over this, and if you have got a good idea, and tell
Viscorp about it, you might just find yourself a job there, who knows ? 
Also mentioned was that the whole deal had apparently made the front page
of the European Wall Street Journal - perhaps if anyone saw this they might
comment?  Bill said he had been in touch with Manfred Schmitt recently
twice as well about the affair.

After answering quite a few questions, he sat down again ( to applause,
whether it was for sitting down or for what he said I don't know ;-) ) and
Peter Brameld stood up again.  He now said a few words of thanks to
everyone who had come along to the show for making it a success.  He had a
go at the exhibitors and other people who had decided not to go to the show
( and there were indeed a few notable missing companies, namely Silica,
Almathera ( busy working on a new cd rom based Photogenics so they claim ),
Gordon Harwood ( I'm sure they would have sold a good few accelerators at
the show if nothing else ) and one or two more ) for whatever reason.  He
told a little anecdote about having organised quite a few of these shows,
and then said that there was a drinks party immediately after the press
conference finished, that there were free drinks and food ( though mainly
drink ) and to have a good time.

Well, that was a bit of a bonus really.  Before he had stopped speaking,
people were off towards the bar, which was at the back of the suite.  Some
tables had been set out, with baskets of crisps and salted nuts in them.  I
made my way to the bar, grabbed a glass of white wine, and went and sat
down.  Hey, it wasn't bad wine either.   After sitting for a few minutes,
eating the crisps and drinking more glasses of wine, I decided to circulate
to see what was going on.

I saw, surprisingly, Andy Davidson and Bill shaking hands within a group of
people, so I guess they must have patched up their differences.  Pity I
didn't hear what they had been saying to each other.  I was a little
concerned how all the Viscorp guys ( I think it was all but one anyway )
were wearing grandad shirts, that is shirts without a tie-collar, just a
button.  I stood in a group around Bill and listened to what he had to say
to the people who were quizzing him over things.

Bill stood around and spoke some more, whilst the editor from CU Amiga ( I
think - a Scottish guy anyway) did a bit of creeping to him (Bill)
though he did make some good points whilst crawling.   Stuff was mentioned
such as local telephone rates, not trying to re-educate the market like
Trip Hawkins has tried to do with the 3DO, about how the tv was a good idea
for using the internet as people use the tv all the time, that sort of
thing.  I'm not sure just how much the European market might mean to
Viscorp, that was an impression I kind of got from the way how Bill spoke
of things here.  I don't think he knew too much of how things work in
Europe.   After a while his sidekick, a guy he had introduced earlier at
the conference, David Rosen, came and joined the group, whilst Bill excused
himself and went off somewhere.  Anyone remember the guy out of Die Hard
who tries to strike a deal with the terrorists ?  Well, he wasn't exactly
the same, but I could see some similarities.

Anyway, this guy Rosen, apart from looking and even sounding a bit like
Dawber (spelling?) out of US sitcom Coach, seemed okay.   He was being
asked various questions by people.  I spied a chance to speak and grasped
it.  Remembering my Amiga Report lore about Alex Amor and CEI, and bearing
in mind what he had just been talking about, namely, selling licences for
the Amiga, I asked thus :- "If someone like Alex Amor of CEI of Miami
wanted to carry out research into a new Amiga whilst you did your set-top
box, would you sell him a license ?" I thought I'd try and ask something
that firstly, made him sit up and think, as he may be surprised about me,
an English person having heard of, or perhaps even knowing, Alex Amor,
someone from the USA and prominent Amiga person to boot, and secondly,
would be the sort of thing Amiga Report readers would want to know.  The
gist of his answer was thus :- "Oh yes of course, we'll sell licences to
anyone." I asked him further did he know Alex, just to try and pin him down
a bit.  "Oh yes, we know of Alex, of course." Well, that was my 2 cents
worth.  Thinking about it, on the one hand, Viscorp bought the Amiga to
stop other people doing a set-top box with it (so they say) and yet on the
other they say that they will sell licenses for the technology to anyone
more or less.  Seems a bit of a contradiction there (if anyone really wants
to buy a licence for the technology.) I suppose that they might stipulate a
contract saying what they are going to use the technology for, to stop
people from using it to make a set-top box.   I don't know.  It makes me
wonder, as Robert Plant sang.  He also mentioned that Viscorp hadn't really
paid 40 million dollars for the Amiga, nor would they be doing so, it was
just a good figure to use, it sounded feasible.  Charming.

Some other people were kind of brown-nosing to this guy Rosen, and I stood
and listened for a little while longer, then went off elsewhere.  One of
the editors of an Amiga mag ( not sure which one ) recorded his answer to
an important question he asked him, though Rosen said that he didn't want
to be held to anything he might say, jokingly.  I got a card off Rosen -
however, it was starting to approach 7.00 pm at this point, and I had to go
somewhere else that evening as well, so after a few more glasses of wine, I
made a final tour of all the little groups in the room whose conversations
I could listen to surreptitiously !  There was an interesting table with
David Pleasance, the boss of Digita and a few other exhibitors on it who
all seemed to be deep in conversation, doubtless putting the Amiga
bang-to-rights.  Oh yes, whilst I remember, David Pleasance had the
1,000,000 Amiga A500 with him at the show, gold coloured, with a
certificate of authenticity.

There was another tall American guy from Viscorp, I think he might have
been ex-CBM, had a few people around him, but he didn't seem to be saying
much of interest.  There was a guy wearing a suit from Viscorp, short and
stocky, obviously the Joe Pesci of the company (joke) telling people to
cheer up.  He should realise that us British are always lugubrious looking
;-) I think he went off to get a 50 lb.  bag of lime.  I started to reflect
about what American Amiga people might think of what had occurred at the
show.  It struck me that many of them will be delighted that the Amiga is
'coming home' as it were.  Well, I'm not so sure myself, but all we can do
is wait and see what happens.  What I heard straight from the horses mouth
of Viscorp didn't exactly instill a great deal of confidence in me
concerning the future of the Amiga - in fact you might be forgiven for
thinking that the Amiga as a computer doesn't really have a future.  The
truth is neither I nor anybody else knows what is going to happen, probably
not even Viscorp themselves at the moment.

To sum the show up then overall I guess I'd say it was probably a success,
and I certainly enjoyed it, and found it most worthwhile.   Even if I
hadn't been fortunate enough to make the press conference it would have
been a good show (at least bargains wise), but being able to attend the
announcements as they were made (and drink the free booze !) was a real
bonus.  It did make me sad, when I remembered shows of a few years back,
many times the size of this one, all based on the Amiga.  The phrase "how
the mighty have fallen" seems appropriate there.  A good question I was
going to ask Bill was why did he think Viscorp could make a go of the
Amiga, when it had been at least partially responsible for the troubles in
2 big companies already, and also what did he think of the claim that Escom
had just washed its hands of the Amiga, but I never really got the chance.

At this point, it is hard to know what will become of the Amiga.   They
seem to be something of an enigma - I've just spent over 400 minutes typing
over 10,000 words into my trusty A1200 ( using Wordworth 2 as I mentioned )
and all simply to share a few recollections and opinions about some show in
a place many have never been to.  It's not a life or death thing with them,
but I can't help but feel that if they should disappear that the world
would be a slightly worse place for that.  I should take this chance to say
a few things about this piece too.  I have very likely made some mistakes
whilst writing this.  Shows can be noisy distracting places ( hence the
name 'show' after all.  ) If I have said something which is slightly
erroneous, misquoted a price or what someone said, then I am sorry, I never
intended too.  Just about every speech I have quoted is only a paraphrase,
I hope I have made that clear by using the word 'gist' judiciously.  As I
have typed this entire thing from memory, it is indeed possible I have made
some mistake or other, and probably forgotten a few things I wanted to say
that I thought were important.  I was going to provide a list of all the
email address and web pages that the I got from the various company flyers
I picked up but it doesn't really seem worth it, the information is
probably available elsewhere.  What I will provide is David Rosen's email
address and Viscorp's URL.  Both David and Bill were very keen as I have
said about people submitting their ideas to Viscorp, so get to it, if you
think you can help what have you got to lose ?  Mind you, it might be an
idea to make sure your idea is copyrighted first, just in case.  If anyone
should want to mail me about this, then my address is at the top of the
piece.

David Rosen - email: DROSEN@VISTV.COM

Viscorp     - URL  : www.vistv.com

Postal address - David Rosen
  VP Business Development
  111 N. Canal Street
  Suite 933
  Chicago, Illinois 60606 USA

As I went to leave the Champagne Suite at 7.13 pm, Bill was about to come
through the door I was using in the opposite direction.  Of course, I
stopped and held the door for him.  He said "thank you" as he went through.
I'd had enough time to reflect at this point upon what I had seen and heard
at both the show and the conference, and said to him, in a voice he
probably couldn't tell was either being sincere or cynical, "It's the least
I could do." He turned and gave me a very strange look, half grinning, half
frowning, mumbled something, and walked away.
@endnode
@node FEATURE4 "Lightwave 5.0 Preview At NAB"
@toc FEATURE

===========================================================================
                        Lightwave5.0 Preview At NAB
  Bohus Blahut - Modern Filmmaker                          bohus@xnet.com
===========================================================================

  "imitation is the sincerest form of copyright infringement"
©1996 Bohus M. Blahut

                 ========================================

LightWave 5.0 Preview at NAB

  NewTek's booth attracted users from all computer platforms once again,
their demos often being six people deep.  NewTek employees and artists
demonstrated the award winning Video Toaster, the Video Flyer, and
LightWave for both PC and Amiga.  We will publish a full features list of
Amiga LightWave 5.0 as soon as we receive it. 

  NewTek is currently shipping LW 5.0 for PC, and promise to have an Amiga
version 30 days from now.  Though Amiga LW 4.0 came out only a few months
ago, the Kansas company is wasting no time getting Amiga LW 5.0 to market,
and promise reasonable upgrade fees.

  The following is by no means a complete list of the new and exciting
things planned for the Amiga 3D future, but they stand out as being
vehicles for more creativity than ever before.

  One of the most significant improvements of PC LightWave depends on the
PC's openGL architecture.  This allows for color previews in both Modeler
and Layout.   While not fully textured, these stand-ins are in the model's
basic color, and let Layout's lights to play off the models in real time. 
Moving lights has real-time effect on the illumination of the model.
Unfortunately this highly useful feature won't be making it to the Amiga,
due to current Amiga's lack of horsepower.   However all non-openGL
features will be present in both Amiga and PC versions.

  Modeler now features several NURB (Non-Uniform Rational B-spline) based
modeling techniques.  The demo I received was using a tool called "meta
NURB".   The best analog I can draw is to a lump of clay.  While "metaform"
allows the modeler to take rough and squared off shape and erode it in a
wind tunnel, metaNURBS allow you to start with a soft primitive shape, and
use the mouse to tug at it.  The demonstrator modeled the head of a bunny,
and a smooth hair dryer in seconds.  In the September 1995 issue of
LightWave Pro, Stuart Ferguson (programmer of Modeler) cautioned that NURBs
are simply a 3D package "buzzword", and NURBs would probably never make it
to LightWave.  I'm glad that he's changed his mind.  Now if only we could
get Layout's bones only to deform specific surfaces...

  Surfacing has always been limited to a single surface per surface name. 
Now, one may layer an unlimited number of surfaces on atop the other, all
on the same surface name.  The PC also features a surfacing preview bar
that lets you see the surface mapped onto a ball in the surfacing menu.
This gives you a "down and dirty" look at the actual surfacing and image
maps, and the openGL lets you see a single color preview in Layout.

  LightWave has also expanded exponentially its collection of Plug-Ins for
both Modeler and Layout.  Ori Furikawa (creator of FreeForm; a shareware
spline modeler for LightWave) has contributed an interesting plug in for
modeler that allows one to apply a surface in modeler, and also tile and
stretch a bitmap onto the face of your object.  All of this happens
interactively, using the mouse to move the surface around in real time.  No
more fussing around with figuring out the texture's center, and shifting it
around.

  Another highly necessary plug in has finally arrived.  This allows you to
"train" an object to a behavior, and to get other objects to also use this
"training" For example: take a vehicle with four wheels, and rotate one of
them through 360 degrees.  Once this is done, you can set the other three
wheels to follow the first wheel, and get all four to execute turns, go in
reverse, etc.  The example that NewTek had pre-rendered was of six
termites, each with six legs.  The insects all walked toward the center of
the screen at varying rates, backed up, and moved on about their buggy
business.  Setting keyframes for all of this leg action in the past
would've served more as a Zen exercise in patience than effective
cinematography.  LightWave Pro featured an article and a plug-in of their
own that would calculate rotation of wheels on the ground so that the
wheels wouldn't appear to slip.  While a testimony to the innovation of
LightWave modelers out there, this plug in makes those calculations
unnecessary.

  Many of the Plug-Ins invoke post-processing effects.  An example of this
type plug-in is the "glow" attribute in LW 4.0.  First LightWave renders
the scene, then searches out the portions of the picture that have glowing
activated.  Then LightWave's image processing takes over, "glowing" the
appropriate parts of the picture in a smooth bath of light.  The fact that
LightWave can communicate polygon location to in-built IP routines has
several important applications. 

  Theoretically, LW could call on an external facility to replace its
motion blur.   The current invocation of motion blur takes the trailing
edge of the object and appears to stamp it down multiple times.  More often
than not, the effect works, but is often quite visible in LW animations
I've seen.  Thought I'm unfamiliar with the programming difficulties that
this might entail, it would be nice if LW could call an actual blur
routine, or perhaps invoke ImageFx's smooth looking motion blur.

  Both Warner Brothers animator Rusty Mills and I found the "cell look"
plug-in to be amongst one of our favorites.  This renders out individual
frames, and through a post-processing technique makes each frame resemble a
hand drawn cell.  Many of the demos of that facility resembled Japanese
style animation.  This style also embraces animating to the 2's or 3's. 

  Current animation most often isn't rated at a full 30 cells per second,
but often every other frame or 3rd frame is created.  This is why classic
studio animation from the 40's i.e.  Bugs Bunny, Disney cartoons, look so
lavish and move so fluidly.   In those days, animation ran at a strict 30
fps.  Today, only Disney, and some Warner's, features that kind of
fluidity. 

  It's obviously less expensive to have artists creating only every few
frames.  This "limited" animation style was pioneered by the animation
sweatshops of Hannah Barbera.  Their slogan being, "if a scene doesn't fit
under the crack of the head animator's door, it's too long.  Japanese
animators were able to embrace limited animation as a style instead of a
limitation.  The upshot of this is that if you are creating animation to
emulate the look of Japanese "mango" animation, you only need to render
every frames using LightWave's "frame step" window in the render menu.

  This preview of Amiga LightWave 5.0 should whet the appetite of even the
most seasoned 3D animator.  Many of the cyclic animation features rival
those of the Microsoft-owned package: softImage.  It is to NewTek's credit
that they continue to produce software for their Toaster and Flyer user
base.  In coming issues, look for a complete review of LightWave 4.0, and
then the step up to LightWave 5.0, when available.

Bohus Blahut (BOH-hoosh BLAH-hoot)                           Bohus@xnet.com
Modern Filmmaker                                              312.465.5158
Panjandrum/Creative Strategy Director- DraCo Systems
@endnode
@node REVIEW1 "Review: Hillsea Lido"
@toc REVIEW

===========================================================================
                           Review: Hillsea Lido
                            By: @{" Ken Anderson " link KEN}
===========================================================================

Published by: Vulcan Software

As I write this, summer has apparently just arrived in Scotland.  The
clocks have just jumped an hour forward, the spring has sprung, and it's
almost time for a holiday.  And here comes HillSea Lido, right on cue.

Lido sets you up as the manager of 30m (that's 9 yards for all you Imperial
types) of beach and promenade.  You are allocated a budget of 1,000,000
somethings, and the challenge is to make much much more.  Personally, if
anyone gave me a million and a stretch of beach, I'd sell the latter to the
first property developer and head to the airport ...

Sites on the promenade and beach can be allocated to various stall-holders
and businesses.  A postcard stall will attract lots of punters, but won't
make you much margin on each item.  On the other hand, motor boats hires
makes lost of profit, but not everybody wants to hire a boat.

A pavilion hall can play host to a number of entertainers, all who have
their price.  Still, the more you pay, the bigger the name, and the more
people who'll pay for a seat.  That's if you pay for advertising, of
course.

"Hang on Ken", I heard you tell your monitors, "this is all sounding a bit
Theme Park-esque, isn't it?".  Predictably enough, you're right.

Hillsea Lido is Theme Park Jr.  There is no doubt whatsoever that the
Bullfrog classic had a major part to play in the design of Hillsea Lido. 
Let's see: security guards, litter collectors, "intelligent" tourists,
wholesalers, all pretty much as they are in Theme Park.

But how many of you out there ever played Theme Park on "realistic" mode? 
Haggling with union bosses over wages?  Placing security guards in exactly
the right place to stop trouble?

Lido cuts out a good deal of the "administration" required in keeping your
enterprise going.  Ordering stock is a simple matter of setting how many
you want, and then ...  click!  ...  it's ordered.

This simplicity has it's price: interest in the running of things will soon
wane.  After you've set up all of the shops, seen all of the acts and got
things running pretty smoothly, there isn't much else to do.  On the other
hand, it's only 13UKP.

Pros: Effortless gameplay, and enough pace and character to keep you
interested.

Cons: Limited appeal.  May not be enough of a challenge for some people.

Overall: Cheap, fun entertainment.  If Theme Park was too much for you, try
this.

[Additional notes from Jason Compton:  Initially, I was going to review
Hillsea, but when Ken signed on it took a load off.  Still, I have a few
comments to make...]

Hillsea Lido does suffer from simplicity in a few parts--and this evil
crops up in Theme Park as well.  It can get mind-numbing simply trying to
afford the next most expensive attraction or shop, and that seems to ALWAYS
be what the customers are looking for, without fail.  Bleah.

Lido has the one thing Vulcan seems to have mastered--cuteness ALMOST to
the point of sickness, but not quite.  They've quite economically and
unobtrusively mixed in their trademark speech snippets as well.

Lido is ECS compatible and installs effortlessly to hard drive.

Vulcan Software Ltd.
Vulcan House
72 Queens Road
Buckland
Portsmouth
Hants PO2 7NA
@endnode
@node REVIEW2 "Review: TimeKeepers"
@toc REVIEW

===========================================================================
                            Review: TimeKeepers
                            By: @{" Ken Anderson " link KEN}
===========================================================================

Published by: Vulcan Software

Time is relative, apparently.  Time also flies when you're having fun,
according to the saying.  I must be having fun.

When TimeKeepers first landed in the hallway of FabWhack Towers, I didn't
think much of it.  My summary for this review was already planned:
"Top-View Lemmings".  A cute, simple little game which involved shoving
cute, simple little characters around cute, simple little landscapes.

A week later, my view has become much more objective.  Cute, yes.  Little,
no.  Simple ...  if only.

It _is_ top-view Lemmings.  You act as coordinator to 14 TimeKeepers, who
have to be guided from their starting position in each level to the
teleport exit.  Directional arrows are dropped onto the
vertically-scrollable landscape which instruct the next TimeKeeper who
makes contact with it to move in that direction.  Just like in Lemmings,
there are hazards to be avoided: water, bottomless pits, land mines.

And so it goes on for 15 levels.  It's easy as first; take one TimeKeeper,
work out where he should go, what he should avoid, and plonk all the arrows
in the correct place.  First level over and done with.

Then things get a little tricky.  Switches have to be pressed to open doors
and activate bridges, and this demands one of the little chaps to be there
to press it.  TimeKeepers can be made to jump certain things or made to
wait around, otherwise they tend to wander around, bumping into each other
and getting killed with increasing regularity.  Unlike Lemmings,
TimeKeepers don't arrive one by one at a certain position, the all arrive
in the level at the same time.  Before you know it, the one arrow you put
down has caused one guy to bang into another, and 10 of them are off to a
watery grave.  That's before you meet the enemies who are wandering about
the levels.

It's frustrating, but addictive stuff.  The graphics are fine, the sound
functional but unremarkable.  At only 13UKP, you can't really complain: it
will appeal to the puzzle fan who doesn't mind playing a level 20 times to
get it right.

Pros: Easy to understand and play. Addictive and challenging.

Cons: Not enough levels to satisfy the seasoned puzzler. Can be _very_
frustrating. [This is being alleviated by a new low-cost level disk.
-Jason]

Overall: Throw this on your hard drive, and you'll play it until it's
finished.  Just try to stop yourself clicking that icon ...

Vulcan Software Ltd.
Vulcan House
72 Queens Road
Buckland
Portsmouth
Hants PO2 7NA
@endnode
@node REVIEW3 "Review: Slam Tilt"
@toc REVIEW

===========================================================================
                             Review: Slam Tilt
                            By: @{" Ken Anderson " link KEN}
===========================================================================

Published by: 21st Century Entertainment under licence from Liquid Dezign

When a bunch of Scandinavian ex-crackers wrote "Pinball Dreams" in 1992,
they can't have known what they were about to start.  Before then, pinball
was the about the only thing programmers had tried to emulate with any
degree of success.  Games such as TimeScanners and Pinball Wizard suffered
from wooden ball movement, unresponsive controls, and the lack of any kind
of "feel".  Pinball Dreams set the standard with catchy music, fast
graphics, and such addictive gameplay that it became an overnight success,
if not a huge commercial one.

Since then, we've had Fantasies, Illusions, Preludes and Quests with which
to play the silver ball.  REAL pinball games evolved; out went the
two-flippers-and-a-stainless-steel-marble numbers, and in came the
all-singing, all-dancing super tables, with enough balls to take on Mike
Tyson, and more flippers than the entire cast of SeaQuest DSV.  Pinball
sims followed suit; first came the extra flippers, then the hi-res
multiball modes.  Purists complained that the programmers were sacrificing
the gameplay for technical excellence; others said all the games were
becoming the same.  It looked like it was all over for pinball games.

Now we have SlamTilt (which deserves an award just for not being called
"Pinball Mysteries" or something similar) hailing from another scene group,
Liquid Dezign.  And it's good.  Very very good.

There are four tables; Road, Pirate, Ace of Space and Night of the Demon. 
Buying any other pinball game usually results in a feeling of slight
disappointment, as there's always one table which is simply awful.  In a
break with pinball sim tradition, all of SlamTilt's tables are actually
worth playing.

The action takes place on a now-familiar scrolling screen, with a simulated
LCD panel at the top.  User-definable keys control the flippers, nudging of
the table (forwards,left and right nudging) and the firing of the ball. 
There's provision for up to 8 players, high scores can be saved, bonuses
can be bonused, extra balls can be won.

It's all pretty standard stuff, and nothing much is new until 3 minutes
into play when you hit a sub-game.  There are 42 sub-games in all, some of
which take place exclusively on the LCD panel, some which involve both the
display and the main table.  Night of the Demon has "Escape from the Mega
Mutant Meatball", in which each feature hit increments a ticking timer; all
accompanied by a dinky animation on the LCD display and a bouncy
tongue-in-cheek tune.  Ace of Space has you destroying asteroids or zooming
through a space corridor; Pirates gives you another bonus game if you blow
up an enemy ship.

The sub-games add to the addition factor considerably.  Rather than just
mindlessly battering the ball around the table in the hope of a memorable
score, the sub-games give the proceedings a sense of purpose.  The LCD
display, however, can be distracting - you're so busy watching the reward
for hitting your target, the ball is racing down the screen and out of
play.

The sound effects are pretty basic click-clack noises, with the addition of
different spot effects for each table: zooms for the space table, splats
and screams for the zombie sub-game in Night of the Demon.  The music is of
good quality, with plenty of differing ditties for each table.  The volume
of both the music and SFX are adjustable.

I can't find much to fault about Slam Tilt, apart from the fact it's still
just a pinball game.  Anyone who thinks the Amiga games scene is dead
should take a look at this sharpish - it will take something extremely
special to top this.

Pros: Smooth, fast, playable.  The sub-games are great fun.  Extremely
addictive.  HD Installable.

Cons: Pinball is pinball. It doesn't have any music from "Tommy".

Overall: The best pinball game there is on the Amiga (and anything else). 
All it needs is an add-on to swallow your change, and it's perfect.  If you
like pinball games, buy this.  If you don't, buy this and you soon will.
@endnode
@node REVIEW4 "Review: Quarterback v6.1"
@toc REVIEW4

===========================================================================
                         Review: Quarterback v6.1
                            By: @{" William Near " link WILLIAM}
===========================================================================

I'll admit it; I'm guilty of using the original HDBackup program that comes
with Workbench for quite some time now.  That is, until Quarterback v6.1
came my way a few weeks ago.  I guess I was just too lazy to check out more
than a few of the Shareware/PD offerings in this area.  After all, HDBackup
had done an acceptable job of backing up my data onto floppy disks.  When I
bought my SyQuest EZ135S drive, all that changed.

HDBackup would not recognize my EZ drive as a valid device to backup my
data to; although it would recognize it as a valid source device to backup!
Go figure. 

Enter Quarterback from Quasar Distribution. [Note: For those of you
confused by this, keep in mind that Quasar obtained Quarterback from the
liquidated New Horizons assets. -Jason]

Quarterback installs easily onto your hard drive using the Commodore
(should I still use such a profane word?) Installer.  Upon first starting
the program, you are presented with the main Quarterback screen that
consists of: a listing of all devices and assigns, four buttons (Backup,
Restore, Enter, and Back), and a series of pulldown menus.

The first thing you must do is configure Quarterback to your liking by
setting a series of options from the pulldown menus.  The Backup options
are the first in line.  You must select whether you would like to make a
Selective or Complete backup of the data, what media you would like to use
to backup the data on, e.g., floppy, removable media, tape, or an AmigaDOS
file.  You must also select what type of Compression you wish to use (none,
12-16 bit, or device compression).  Keep in mind, the higher the
compression value the less space you will need to make the backup, but the
longer time it will take to make the backup.  There are also settings for:
password protection, setting archive flags, verifying data after write,
warning if destination is an AmigaDOS volume, and if you'd like the entire
directory structure backed up. 

The Restore options are next.  You can choose between Restore, Compare, and
Test as possible restore options.  The Compare option will check the
content of the destination against the source's content after a backup is
completed, showing any discrepancies in the data.  The Test option will
read all data from the destination device and make sure that there are no
errors present.  The same options for selecting the various device types
are present, as well as: replacing files with earlier or later dates (yes,
no, or ask), set file dates (current date, backup date, or original date),
restore empty drawers, restore archive flags, and whether to keep the
directory structure intact when restoring data.  This last option is
critical, as it can cause a restore of data to be placed entirely in the
root directory of the destination device!  This could make for quite a mess
as none of the original directories will be used for the restored data.
Making sure that this option is set will save you from having to delete
possibly thousands of files from your root directory.

Quarterback generates a Catalog of activities when making a backup.  This
Catalog is saved to the beginning and end of the backup data so that if one
Catalog becomes unreadable then the other one can be accessed by the
program.  There are several configuration options available to control what
is included in the Catalog and how the information will look.  The options
are: file information (show file size, protection flags, date modified, and
time modified), time format (show seconds and/or AM PM), sort by (name,
size, date, group drawers first), and the date format.

During a Backup or Restore a Session Log is generated in the output window
of Quarterback.  You can select what will be displayed in the Session Log
from these options: errors only, errors with drawer names, errors with
drawer and file names, rate in megabytes per minute, compression
efficiency, no Session Log displayed while the operation is in progress,
and options for saving the Session Log.

There are settings for the Buffer options too.  These include: backup and
restore buffer sizes ranging from 1K to 8192K, what type of memory to use
for the buffers (graphics, 24-bit, or any), and whether to use asynchronous
I/O (this is faster, but some SCSI controllers do not fully support it.)
The thing to keep in mind here is just how much memory do you have to spare
for making the program run faster?  I used 1024K for both buffers on my
machine.

Tape backup options for auto-retensioning inserted tapes and rewinding
after a backup or restore are also present.  I could not test either of
these, though, since I don't have a tape backup drive.

Finally, there are Preferences for flashing the screen and playing the
system alert sound upon disk completion and/or error notification.  Also
included are preferences for including icons with Quarterback files,
warning on invalid filenames, and if you would like assigned directories
included in the device listings.  Printer preferences are included in
another menu for outputting the Session Logs or Catalogs generated by
Quarterback to your printer.

Quarterback also includes some other utilities.  Tape Control options for
rewinding, tensioning, erasing, and advancing a tape are included.  A SCSI
Interrogator utility allows you to get information about any SCSI device
attached to your computer, e.g., device type, vendor, model, revision,
block size, and media size.  Up to ten macros can be called from the
Function keys or by pulldown menu choices to execute ARexx scripts that the
user has defined.  The list of Macro Language Commands available in
Quarterback seems to be quite extensive and two example scripts are
included too.

Enough of the boring details, let's make a backup!

The first step is to click on a device name in the window that you wish to
backup.  After doing so, the number of disks required for the backup will
be shown in the window if you are backing up to floppy.  Clicking on Start
will begin the process.  A list of all files and directories will begin to
appear in the window and the progress will be indicated by way of
files/bytes tagged and files/bytes completed status lines, and a percentage
completed line.  If you chose a complete backup then Quarterback will jump
directly into the backup process; otherwise, Quarterback will scan the
entire source device and present you with a list of directories and files
from which to tag only those you wish to backup.  Jumping into a directory
to tag just a few files is as simple as double-clicking on the directory
name and tagging the desired files.  The are also buttons to enter and exit
directories.

When using the floppy backup option an indicator will unghost representing
each of the drives available to the system.  These indicators show the
status of all floppy drives on the system at all times.  You are shown when
a new disk needs to be inserted and into which drive it belongs.  The
floppy swapping routine seems to be pretty much idiot-proof.  I also used
my EZ drive to backup my hard drive partitions.  While the manual states
that the backup process will work across volumes, I found this not to be
true in the case of the EZ drive.  I had to use the AmigaDOS file backup
option to use my EZ drive.  This option just creates one huge file on the
destination device.  This worked just fine, but I would have rather used
the tape/removable option with my EZ drive.  I contacted Quasar and they
are working on the problem with recognizing the SyQuest EZ drive in this
particular mode.

When the backup is completed, the backup rate, compression reduction,
number of errors, and date/time of the backup are displayed in the window.
If you enabled the verify-data-after-write option then the newly completed
backup will have already been tested for errors.  Of course, you could do
the verifying and comparing (Test and Compare) as a separate step from the
Restore menu if you so choose.  It took 3:30 hours to complete the backup
and compare of my WORK partition (173 Mb of data) to the SyQuest drive.
The only thing I didn't like about using the AmigaDOS file backup option is
that if you run out of room on the disk, Quarterback will just tell you
that the volume is full and commences with deleting the entire archive!
Who cares if you have just waited two hours for the backup?   Quarterback
should have a way of estimating the needed space when using the AmigaDOS
file option.

Restoring a backup is a simple process.  Just click on the device to
restore to and set the options for source device, etc.  You can also select
which files to restore or just restore the whole backup to the destination
device.   All the same on-screen information that was presented while
backing up a device will also be shown during a restore.  It took 1:41
hours to do a complete restore of my WORK partition from the SyQuest drive.

One other note: you can pause a backup or restore at any time by clicking
on the pause button.

Just for your curiosity, here is the data from my hard drive archive:

* Restore rate: 0.- megabytes per minute
* Compression reduction: 28%
* Number of errors: 0
* Restore finished Apr 14, 1996 at 7:33:22 PM

Quarterback also includes a separate program called Schedule Pro.  This is
a program that allows Quarterback to perform automatic backups on a
one-time basis or on a preset schedule.  I have Schedule Pro's icon in my
WBStartup drawer and I have it set to remind me to backup the hard drive on
the first day of each month.  You can also use Schedule Pro to remind you
of birthdays and other special events, as well as having the program
execute any AmigaDOS program or ARexx macros at any time you specify.   It
makes for a nice addition to the Quarterback program.

Quarterback seems to be a very complete archival program.  It is very
intuitive to use and you shouldn't really need the manual all that much.  
Speaking of the manual, it's well written and includes many screenshots
too, but it lacks an index, which makes it hard to find specific items.
The table of contents is usable, but it doesn't really show you where some
of the finer details of the program's functions are located in the manual.
There is a nice section explaining incremental backup strategies and a
troubleshooting section. 

Generally, Quarterback v6.1 seems to be a fine piece of work and it's well
worth the money, especially if you're still using HDBackup!  Once the
problem with the EZ drive not being recognized under the tape/removable
option is fixed (remember, you can still use the EZ drive -- you just have
to use the AmigaDOS file option, providing you have enough free space on
the cartridge ahead of time!) and an index is added to the manual, I won't
have any complaints.
@endnode
@node REVIEW5 "Review: Inet-225 TCP/IP Software"
@toc REVIEW

===========================================================================
          Review: Inet-225 TCP/IP Software From InterWorks, Inc.
  By James Melin
===========================================================================

System Requirements:

     AmigaDos 2.0 or higher
     At least 2 megabytes of RAM (6 to 8 is recommended)
     A Hard Drive is recommended (Though floppy install is possible)
     Any 68000 family processor (Though at least a 68020 is recommended)

Inet-225 is a fairly complete implementation of TCP/IP for the amiga and is
based upon AS-225r2 orginally created but never released by Commodore
Business Machines and features many things commonly used in the unix world.
These features include SMTP, FTP, NFSd, GMail a GUI based mail program,
NNTPpost, NNTPxfer, NNTPxmit, NcFTP, rSH and others.  INet-225 also
includes a built in dialer that may be used to dial an Internet Service
Provider and establish a slip connection.  Inet-225 supports the following
network protocols: ARP, ICMP, IP, TCP and UDP.

Inet-225 is published by InterWorks of Temecula California and has a retail
price of $350.00 for a 5 node license.  This price may first seem to be
quite high for what Amiga owners are used to paying for software however,
this price include 90 days of FREE technical support calls to the
InterWorks Technical support staff to resolve any problems that might arise
with the software.  At this time, InterWorks does not have a single node
license package available but are considering a package for single node use
that will be somewhat more limited in the features that it offers.
InterWorks has not decided at this time what the possible differences in
functionality will be should they produce a single node license version of
Inet-225.

Installation:

For this review I recieved the pre-release version of Inet-225 and after
speaking with Allen Brooks, the company President I expected no
difficulties with the installation process.

Installation of Inet-225 was purported to be very easy and I was somewhat
surprised to run into difficulties with the installation script.  These
problems turned out not to be the fault of the user nor even the fault of
the installation script, but due to a flakey version of the Installer
utility.  I spoke to the individual who is currently re-writing the
Inet-225 installer script about my problem and was most cheerfully given a
copy of Installer version 2.17 which solved the problem.  It should be
noted also that Installer version 1.24 will also install Inet-225 with no
problems.  This problem will be taken care of before the final release
version is frozen.   With the updated installer running on my system I was
able to easily and quickly install Inet-225 on my A3000 and my A2000.  You
must have the following information from your service provider in order to
install Inet-225 sucessfully. 

    1) Address of the host system you obtain service from
    2) The Domain Name of your service provider (e.g.  scotland.com)
    3) The address of your machine (Static Slip/PPP only.  Dynamic
       connections do not require a dedicated IP address. 
    4) The name of your machine will use on the net (e.g.
       sheep.scotland.com)

    5) The address of the domain name server you will use for translation
       of ip names into ip addresses. 

    The Inet-225 installer script shipped with the pre-release version of
the software quickly allowed me to set up my initial environment including
the establishment of the first user account, but the pre- release installer
script does not have any capability of allowing easy modifcations to the
installed package.  To change to PPP from Slip one must re-install the
package completely, and there is no facility for a GUI driven user
management system or GUI driven configuration tool to allow multiple
interfaces on one machine at a given time.  (e.g.  2 amigas connected via
Ethernet or Arcnet with one machine serving as a gateway and the other as a
user of that gateway)

  At this time I have not tested the new installer script for Inet-225 but
I hope that at some point in the near future these types of reconfiguration
tools will be built into the installation script. 

 Network Startup

   Inet-225 Installer will create an icon in the INET drawer with the
tooltypes that reflect the choices you made during install.  Double click
this icon to start the network once you have used a dialer program to
establish your modem connection.  You will be prompted to login after the
network startup has finished.  If you have not set your password during
install your login password will be null and you should click on the OK
gadget on the LOGIN requester to continue, otherwise, type in your password
and press enter to continue. 

   At this time, you may begin running whichever TCP/IP related
applications you need, such as an FTP client, a Web Browser, and IRC
client, a News reader, mail reader or even the Network File System. 

 Possible startup problems:

   There area only a couple of situations that may cause a problem during
network startup.  Inet-225 absolutely requires that the modem connection to
the service provider be established and that the dialer program, what ever
it may be is not in control of the serial port being used for the network
connection.

   In the case of no network connection being established, Inet-225 will
report that it cannot connect to the network and indicate a possible
connection problem.  This is remedied by dialing the service provider and
making certain that the slip or PPP connection has been established
properly.  Once this is done, double click the StartInet icon in the INET
drawer to start the network as normal.

   In the case of the network connetion being established but the dialer
program still being in control of the serial port, Inet-225 will report
similar errors to the above mentioned scenario and fail to start. 
Termination of the dialer program and clicking the startnet icon again will
not work.  The network software will not properly initialize and the Amiga
must be rebooted in order to clear this up.  If your modem is set up to not
recognize DTR loss as a hangup your modem connection should remain on the
modem and as soon as your system completes booting you may double click the
StartInet icon and continue.  00530400

 Network Shutdown

   To shut down Inet-225 the command StopInet is used.  Stopnet will inform
you you if there are other tasks still using network resources and it may
refuse to completely shut down.  Make certain you have ended all TCP/IP
related programs before attempting to shut down the network.  using the
status command from a CLI windo will show any active tasks.  StopInet will
display a message 'Network is completely shut down' when it has detected
that all processes have completed.

 Possible shutdown problems:

   Inet-225 uses a commodity called Login to handle user login. 
unfortunately, this task does not get signalled to terminate when the
StopInet command is issued.  Although the interface for the login commodity
at this will show a shutdown button, it does not appear to actually
terminate the Inet-225 TCP/IP software.  This still must be done manually.
In order to manuall shut down the network the login commodity must be
stopped.  Use the Exchange program or another commodity manager in order to
either remove the login commodity or to display the user interface and
select the shutdown icon.  In either case, you must then manually enter
'StopInet' from the CLI or from the execute command requester of workbench.
If StopInet insists that there are still tasks using the network and those
tasks cannot be terminated, a reboot of the Amiga is required in order to
remove Inet-225 from the system.  Software compatibility:

  Inet-225 works with the following software programs.

    GrapeVine       IRC client
    AWEB            World Wide Web Browser
    Envoy           Peer to Peer amiga networking package
    Enlan DFS       Ethernet peer to peer networking package
    AmIRC           IRC client
    AmiWin          X windows client
    Chimera         World Wide Web Browser for AmiWin
    Amosaic         World Wide Web Browser (Requires AS-225r2 version)
    Ibrowse         World Wide Web Browser (Requires AS-225r2 version)
    DaFTP           GUI driven FTP client
    AmiFTP          GUI driven FTP client
    Telser.device   TCP/IP modem emulator/telnet daemon

    In addition, any program writte to be compatible with AS-225r2 will
have no difficulties functioning with Inet-225.  However, AmiTCP specific
software will not function with Inet-225 at this time. 

  Software found not to work with Inet-225:

    AcuSeeMe        CuSeeMe client (requires AmiTCP)

Questions and Answers with Allen Brooks, president of Interworks

AR: What are the differences between Inet-225 and AS225?

IW: In bullets, we have the following changes:

      o  More Unix-type clients and servers than AS225
      o  Significant numbers of bug fixes
      o  Elimination of inet.library
      o  Significant efficiency enhancements
      o  Replacement of old buggy ports of some clients with new ports
      o  The additional of the commercial version of INetUtils
      o  A graphical newsreader (commercial GRn)
      o  A graphical mailreader (commercial GMail)
      o  tn3270.device (a telnet/rlogin/3270 emulator for use with a
         terminal program such as VLT).

    We've taken all the bug reports from the BIX networking developers
    area, and from the adsp.networking newsgroup (a closed newsgroup for
    Amiga developes in Europe) and addressed all of those bugs.

    Several clients have been rewritten from scratch.  Other have been
    re-ported from scratch.

    The stack is significantly more stable, faster, and just plain better
    than AS225r2 ever was.

AR: Due to CBM's failure to release AS225-R2 as a product, AmiTCP a
    competing TCP/IP protocol stack has entrenched itself in the amiga user
    community.  Are there any plans to include compatibility software in
    Inet-225 so that AmiTCP specific applications will run under Inet-225?
    (Similar to BSDSocket.library in AmiTCP which provites AS225-R2
    compatibility)


IW: We do not have an AmiTCP emulator, however, we have written our
    software in such a way as to allow AmiTCP and standard UNIX
    applications/utilities to be easily converted and recompiled to support
    our stack WITHOUT extensive modification.  (I will ask the programming
    staff to add to this!)

    As Allen has said, we have no specific plans to release an "AmiTCP
    compatibility library".  However, a beta-tester has indicated an
    interest, and we've provided him with sufficient information to create
    this.

    In general, we provide an include file for programmers,
    "amitcptoiw225.h", which provides most of the hooks which should be
    required for converting an AmiTCP application to an I-Net 225
    application.  For most applications, a simple recompile is all that it
    should take.

AR: The pre-release installer does not offer any reconfiguration capability
    (I.E.  I cannot run the installer to change address information, user
    ID and information or other general stuff) Is there an improved version
    of the installer script planned and if so, what features will it have?

IW: I am referring this to the programmers too.  We do have plans, however,
    the exact timing has not yet been determined.

    A GUI configuration utility for most items exists in the package,
    called WConfig.  It can deal with some simple changes.

    We intend to create a more in-depth re-configuration utility, after 1.0
    is released.  If sufficient time presents itself prior to final 1.0
    lockdown, there may be some further improvement to the installation script.

AR: With the Advent of ESCOM purchasing the Amiga, what is the status of
    INet-225?

IW: I-Net 225 is, for all intents and purposes, owned by Interworks, Inc. 
    due to the amount of work we've done on the product.

    As you may be aware, a portion I-Net 225 is the basis for the "Surfer
    Pack" being sold by AT; and of the "SurfWare" soon to be sold by AT.

    I-Net 225 is being continuously developed and enhanced by Interworks. 
    It expected and hoped that we will have a long, mutually beneficial
    relationship with AT.

AR: Is there currently an Interworks Web site?

IW: Currently, the only specific site we have with publicity is
    http://www.iam.com/amiga/interworks.html -- after we finish polishing
    1.0, that will change.

AR: What is the Current pricing and availability of INet-225?

IW: As of today, General Availability is only for the 5-user version of
    I-Net 225, at $349.

    Within a few short weeks, we will start shipping a single-user version
    of I-Net 225 for $150.

    Obviously, Amiga Surfer is available in Germany, and soon SurfWare will
    be.  An upgrade from Amiga Surfer and/or SurfWare to the full package
    will be available as well.

AR: What is the status of NFSd?

IW: Available at an extra cost of $80.  Enhanced over the one in AS225r2 in
    terms of speed and reliability (but, before you ask, it still requires
    a mapfile).

Purely subjective opinion of Inet-225 as a whole:

  I personally found Inet-225 to be easier to deal with than AmiTCP/IP.  It
seemed easier to install and operated with more stability than my
experience with AmiTCP/IP.  I was able to see a small improvement in
throughput when severely loading the connection, but under normal use there
does not seem to be much of a performance difference.  I liked the Gmail
mailer, and I liked several of the clients I played with.  I found
Ineterworks to be very helpful when I ran into problems with installation
or configuration, most of which were solvable by liberal application of the
RTFM princible of software installation :) They have a generous tech
support policy which, with the full license package include 90 days free
technical support.  I do not have a policy on the single users package, but
I would wager it will be similarly generous.

  In short, if you read the manual, you should have no trouble with the
installation of this package.  A basic working knowledge of TCP/IP and
networking will be invaluable however.

Ordering and other information:

To request current pricing info and ordering information
 e-mail: Info@iworks.com
@endnode
@node REVIEW6 "Review: Cinema4D"
@toc REVIEW

===========================================================================
                             Review: Cinema4D
  By: Bohus Blahut - Modern Filmmaker                      bohus@xnet.com
===========================================================================

  Cinema 4D began life as a German 3D modeler and stage program.  The
British company HiSoft cooperated with Maxon to produce an English manual,
and perform updates.  Cinema 4D has been developed for both Amiga and PC. 

  The Amiga version ships on 6 low density floppy disks which decompress
into almost 6 1/2 megs of hard drive space.  The manual's recommended
system is a 3.x system with 3 megs of RAM, and a 68040 processor.  Cinema
4D will work with a 2.x system, and even render on a 68000 system, though
if you've done any kind of rendering work on this kind of processor, you'll
realize that an accelerator is a necessity. 

  I installed Cinema 4D onto my 50 mhz '060 DraCo with 32 megs of Ram.  The
DraCo uses CyberGraphx to route the display to the Altais Graphics card.
The display is a 17" Iiyama monitor.  The 1024x768 screen allows me to have
several windows open at the same time.  A smaller monitor with lower
resolution will work as well.  The program is strictly style-guide
compliant, with special attention paid to keep the display from flickering
on non-sync monitors.

  Cinema 4D has proven to be one of the most option laden softwares that
I've ever used on the Amiga, while not being difficult to operate.  The
program features no less than six rendering algorithms for varying degrees
of detail.  When one clicks the render button, a pop-up list allows mouse
selection of a particular rendering method.  By hitting the shift key while
selecting any of these options the user can define preferences for each
method.  This ease of use is pervasive throughout the program. 

  There are also 18 types of light sources.  While it's true that one can
create these type of lighting effects in other packages, it's quite handy
to have them available as presets.  One lighting effect here, that I've
seen nowhere else is a time-lapse type light that takes your object from
"day" till "night".  Building architects will like this feature.

  C4D also features more structural primitives than anything else that I've
seen.   When modeling, it's often a good idea to first break up your model
into its most basic shapes.  Then use primitives to start the basic
construction, then edit individual polygons to fine tune the model.  C4D
features the regular assortment of primitives, and each has the preferences
function mentioned earlier.  An interesting distinction about sphere
creation is that C4D can create a mathematically perfect sphere, instead of
creating it out of polygons.  No matter how far the camera zooms in on the
perfect sphere, there will be no indication of polygonal lines. 

  In addition to the basic shapes (i.e.  cone, cylinder, disc) there are
several primitives I've never seen before.  There's a torus (a donut
shape), pyramid, tetrahedron, a user-defined sided polygon, star, even a
stylized flower.  There's also a stylized human figure.  It's already set
up for inverse kinematic motion, and makes a good starting point for
animation.

  The bound manual is well written, with a generous number of
illustrations.  My suggestion to HiSoft is that a sophisticated program
like Cinema 4D that requires the user to look back and forth from the
manual to the program should have a manual that can lay flat on a desk.
While wire bound works fine, I'm partial to the 3 ring binder approach.
This allows the user to add blank pages for notes and techniques, and also
makes it easier on the publisher when it comes time to add or change pages
for updates to the software.

  When started, Cinema 4D opens several windows on the Workbench.  The
first to grab your attention is the large perspective window.  This window
can be changed from a single large window into three smaller windows that
show the X, Y, and Z sides of your object (much like LightWave's modeler)
along with the perspective view in the fourth window.  The program does
take a slightly different approach to 3D in that the modeling of objects,
and the placement of those objects in a scene happen in a single interface.
This is much like building props right on the movie set.  This has the
advantage that when building objects, one can render them out in color and
see how light plays on them, and not have to flip back to a modeling
interface top make changes.

  Another window that opens is a long control window that can be dragged
anywhere on the screen.  It's a tool palette that can be dragged and
minimized just like any intuition window.  Here again is more of C4D's
flexibility, the idea that the user doesn't need to adapt to the program,
but vice-versa.  The screen controls object movement and placement, and
also starts rendering.  All of the windows feature useful on-line help.  As
the mouse pointer passes over the various buttons, a single line appears in
the menu bar informing you of what a particular button does.

  Other floating menu bars that can be opened and placed anywhere on the
interface are tool palettes for texturing and for the selection of object
primitives.   Texturing controls feature the ability to wrap a texture
spherically, cylindrically, or to lay flat.  Also, we can tile and mirror
textures.  The objects tool palette allows one to choose from the
primitives mentioned earlier.  More special primitives are a fractally
generated landscape, the ability to emboss a picture into a flat sheet of
polygons, even to add a ground plane (instead of having to create a polygon
and place it flat on the ground) and add the sky.

  The manual has a good tutorial section designed to get the modeler
started right away.  These walk the user through simple object creation and
manipulation, to the creation of an inverse kinematic animation.  Inverse
kinematics is a much sought after animation feature.  This allows the user
to create an object hierarchy, much like the directory hierarchy in a
computer.  The same way that you can have a file inside a directory, inside
another directory, inside a different directory, inside a volume, it's
possible to set up 3D objects in the same way. 

  Imagine the human form.  After modeling all of the different parts, you
could set out to create the hierarchy i.e.  finger, hand, wrist, forearm,
elbow, upper arm, shoulder, etc.  Before inverse kinematics, the only way
to move these objects would be to animate from the top down.  This would
entail starting at the shoulder, then moving the upper arm, etc.  Instead,
IK lets us move the hierarchy from the other end.  This allows us to move
the entire arm around just by pulling one of the fingers. 

  It's amazing to have this high end feature included in software that's
low-end in price.  There are many other Cinema 4D facilities that are quite
advanced in their nature.  The program's ray-tracer is adaptive.
Ray-tracing is the time-consuming method that computer programs use to
create reflections and precise shadows.   C4D only raytraces the parts of
the picture that need it, as opposed to the whole picture.  This is a
definite performance boost.

  Also present in the program are two animation techniques: keyframe and
path.   Keyframe animation lets you move and object into place, then
snapshot (keyframe) it.  Move to another frame, create another key, etc.
Path based animation lets you actually draw a path with the mouse, and have
the object follow it.

  There's even a timeline based interface for special effects.  You can
trend changes in object size (individual letters in a logo change in size
according to a specific waveform), and object rotation (get those same
letters in the logo to spin around individually).  How about deformation
effects like Melt.  This takes any object and crushes it down the Y-axis,
while extending it along the X&Z axes making the object look like it's
melting into a pool.  Explosions are another built in effect.  This takes
any multipolygonal object and bursts it into its separate polygons.  Look
for other effects like Morph, Wind, and various lighting effects.

  While there is going to be the inevitable comparison between Cinema 4D
and LightWave, these two programs do have different markets.  C4D does have
a good number of features, especially at its price point.  My main goal is
to see if I can get the same kind of cinematic good looks out of C4D as I
can with other packages.

  As you can see, there is such a wealth of features here, that it is
impossible to list them all in detail.  Over time, we will investigate many
of these features in the future and see how they benefit the 3D modeler.
If you're interested in seeing the results of C4D's modelling, find the
LightWorks CDrom (Schatztruhe). 

  This disc contains a C4D demo version, and also a wealth of objects
created with the program.  For the most part, these objects are outer-space
themed and show off the abilities of the software reasonable well.
Obviously, since these are models of recognized scifi spaceships, many of
them can't be used in your own productions, but they do serve as a good
lesson on how to get started.  The CD also has completed pictures of the
models in action, so you can see what the end result of your work is going
to be. 

Cinema 4D retails for about US$300.

Cinema 4D
by Maxon Computer and HiSoft
Distributed and supported in America by: 
  Oregon Research
  16200 S.W. Pacific Highway
  Suite 162
  Tigard, OR 97224

  vox: 503.620.4919
  fax: 503.624.2940
  orres@teleport.com
@endnode

@node REVIEW7 "Falcon 1200/040 Review"
@toc REVIEW

===========================================================================
                   Review: Falcon 040 A1200 Accelerator
                             By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON}
===========================================================================

For years, people said it was impossible to get an 040 into an A1200.  It's
too hot, they said.  It'll never fit, they said.  Why would you want to?
they said.

But someone (actually, by now, several someones) have gone ahead and done
it.  Macrosystem Netherlands' Falcon 040 was one of the first cards on the
market that pulled the feat off.  The Falcon's standard configuration is a
68040 RC 25 mhz, but also is advertised as an EC part and as a 33 mhz RC
unit.  In addition, the Falcon is 060 upgradable, but the 060 upgrade is
not yet available.

In this, the first of two parts of this review, we'll deal with the
installation of the device...because it can get tricky if you're not
careful and patient.  Next issue, we'll talk about performance.

The Falcon comes in a relatively nondescript box, with a short illustrated
installation manual and a few basic notes on the operation of the device.

The card itself is a very large affair.  It takes up the entire available
space in the A1200's trapdoor slot, which actually means it's a very snug
and stable fit.  Um, once you get it in, that is.

You're going to need to crack open your A1200 to get this installed.  The
card is laid out so that the majority of the chips are on the top of the
card, and the single SIMM slot and the SCSI controller chip are on the
bottom.  The SIMM slot runs the SIMM parallel to the card, but that means
the socket itself is rather large and requires a custom trapdoor
replacement (or you can hack up your own, or just leave it off, but this
means your card is exposed to the desk below.  The Falcon is supposed to
ship with this custom trapdoor...mine didn't.

So, open your A1200, remove the keyboard, and you're ready to go to work.
Slide the card in from the bottom of the machine, and slide it upwards.  It
should "snap" into place reasonably well.  At this point, you will want to
install your SCSI connector board into the small socket that leads to the
back of the machine and the little punch-out SCSI door.  However, my unit
didn't come with one and GVP is still waiting for a shipment from Europe.

The SCSI on the Falcon is a different concept than most other A1200
peripherals.  Generally, you buy an accelerator which has an external
connector.  If you buy the SCSI attachment, you hook it up to this header.
The SCSI attachment contains the SCSI chip and logic necessary to control
external SCSI devices.  The Falcon puts the SCSI chip directly on the
accelerator card.  This means that the SCSI connector unit is far cheaper
(advertised for about US$35) but means that if you don't need or want SCSI,
you pay for the bulk of it anyway when you buy the card, as the SCSI
connector card is essentially just a header.

Now it's time to make sure your computer doesn't melt.  The 68040/25 RC is
a rather hot chip.  A fan is included in the Falcon.  (You're going to love
tihs.)  In order to install the fan and keep it in place, you position the
fan on roughly one third of the chip, aligning one of the corners of the
fan with an open space in the RF shield between the Falcon and the floppy
drive.  Then, you DRIVE A SCREW THROUGH the bottom of your Amiga's case,
holding the fan securely in place.

Sounds like fun, doesn't it?  This will enable you to place the keyboard
and cover back on your Amiga 1200.  Alternately, if you scoff at FCC
violations and don't want to bore a hole through your computer, you can
take a different, much more hackish approach.  The present Falcon setup on
my desk is as follows:  The top of the case is on a shelf.  The fan is
actually attached to a small piece of plywood, which is being held in place
by the cushion-spring positioned on the floppy drive to keep it from being
crushed by the keyboard.  The keyboard rests on this setup.  This of course
means the 1200 is pretty much exposed, but it does keep the chip reasonably
cool.

Power up your Amiga 1200.  With luck, you'll have a full 68040 with MMU and
FPU at your disposal!

Actually, the initial installation process was pretty easy, and I've
installed it on two different machines.  For both, the actual physical
process of getting the card in place and wiring up the fan was 10 minutes.
Toying with the fan for maximum cooling took a little bit more work, but
that was nothing appreciable.

So, what to do with an 040?  We'll talk about it next issue.

@endnode
@node CHARTS1 "Aminet Charts: 15-Apr-96"
@toc FTP

| The most downloaded files from Aminet during the week until 15-Apr-96
| Updated weekly. Most popular file on top.
|
|File              Dir        Size Age Description
|----------------- ---        ---- --- -----------
FTPMount-1.0.lha   comm/tcp   113K   0+Mounts FTP sites as part of a filesy
AWebHotlist.lha    comm/tcp     4K   0+Compose a well designed AWeb hotlist
VirusZ_II130.lha   util/virus 171K   0+VirusZ v1.30 by Georg Hoermann
AirMail3_MUI.lha   comm/mail  148K   0+AirMail 3.0 MUI internet mailer
PictDT43.lha       util/dtype 183K   0+Picture.datatype V43.713 for AGA/CGr
Gui-FTP.lha        comm/tcp   352K   0+Gui-FTP V3.0 GUI based FTP client
AmiPhone1.5B.lha   comm/net   113K   0+AmiTCP based voice chat program
AmIRC_OPSv2.lha    comm/tcp     3K   0+AutoGreet and AutoOp script for AmIR
SysPic301.lha      util/boot   55K   0+The best boot-time picture displayer
urouhack17.lha     util/wb    127K   0+Sysihack&framepatch, XEN-style butto
Appetizer.lha      text/hyper 246K   1+EASY! Point & Click Web Page Maker
s2meter37.2.lha    comm/net    68K   0+SANA-II network device statistics mo
ALTTCP43icn.lha    pix/icon     6K   0+Icons For AmiTCP 4.3 PRO
mwm101.lha         text/hyper  73K   1+Magic Web Maker v1.01 - BugFixed Ver
atcp43scripts.lha  comm/tcp     7K   0+My AmiTCP4.3 Startnet script (slight
MCF4AmIRC.lha      comm/tcp    17K   0+MCF V1.0 ARexx Integrated Scripts fo
Patch2AmiTCP43.lha biz/patch  514K   0+Patch AmiTCP/IP 4.1/4.2 to AmiTCP/IP
mwm103.lha         text/hyper  73K   0+Magic Web Maker v1.03 - The story co
AllowBad.lha       disk/misc   15K   0+Format damaged floppies (like BForma
xfd113.lha         util/pack  116K   0+Decrunch almost every packed file (e

| The highest rated programs during the week until 15-Apr-96
| Updated weekly. Best program on top. Please rate all the programs you
| download. To do so, send to aminet-server@wuarchive.wustl.edu :
| RATE <path> <num>
| where <path> is the file you want to judge and <num> is a mark from 0..10
| with 10 being the best. You can rate several programs in one mail, but
| don't rate your own programs. Example: RATE dev/gui/mui23usr.lha 8
|
|File              Dir        Size Age Description
|----------------- ---        ---- --- -----------
MagicMenu_1.29.lha util/cdity 106K 124+PopUp menus for OS 2.x and newer
term-030.lha       comm/term  655K   3+V4.6, MC68020/030/040/060 version
VoxelEngine25.lha  gfx/aga     71K   4+Landscape routine. V2.5
ReqToolsDev.lha    util/libs  284K  13+ReqTools 2.4 - the requester toolkit
AWeb.lha           comm/tcp   253K   3+New fast non-MUI WWW browser. V 1.0a
thor222_main.lha   comm/mail  790K  15+Offline reader, main archive (requir
DeliTracker224.lha mus/play   736K   2+Enhanced/bugfixed players, e.g. s3m
Play16_1.6.lha     mus/play    91K   9+Plays WAV, IFF, MAUD, etc, 14 bit ou
aglogo.lha         pix/misc    44K   5+AMIGAmes 'logo' picture (Finnish Ami
BlacksEditor.lha   text/edit  222K   1+Wonderful Text Editor (Version 1.01)
FTPMaker.lha       comm/misc   40K  11+Help you to configure your ftpaccess
AmiPOP118.lha      comm/net    98K  29+Amiga POP3 Client V1.18
AmiTCP-demo-40.lha comm/tcp   738K  76+TCP/IP protocol stack
ass_gfx.lha        demo/euro  579K 140 Top 10 pics from Asm93 gfx compo
Odyssey.lha        demo/file  3.3M  42 Demo by Alcatraz, ECS, 1st at TP91
mui33dev.lha       dev/gui    585K   6+MagicUserInterface V3.3, developer f
ar402.lha          docs/mags   75K   9+Amiga Report 4.02, January 31, 1996
Angband-279v5.lha  game/role  688K   3+Angband 2.7.9 (v5)
voxel087.lha       gfx/aga    788K   1+Voxel Engine 0.87 by Silicon Motion
amiwm0.19pl29.lha  gfx/x11     56K   3+X window manager WB like.
DI-DrmSeq.lha      mods/slow  248K   4+DI - "Dream Sequence" - 16:06
worms.jpg          pix/trace  264K   4+Cinema4D rendered picture
MCP110.lha         util/cdity 395K  10+MAJOR UPDATE! The mother of the WB-U
VMM_V3_3.lha       util/misc  267K  16+Virtual memory for Amigas with MMU
DragIt4.lha        util/wb     48K 118+Move and size a window from anywhere
YAM12.lha          comm/mail  135K   4+MUI Internet mailer for AmiTCP
ar404.lha          docs/mags   85K   3+Amiga Report 4.04, March 14, 1996
sfx-bin_20.lha     mus/edit   300K   5+V 3.31 Binary for 68020
sfx-bin_30m.lha    mus/edit   285K   5+V 3.31 Binary for 68030+FPU
@endnode
@node MAILLIST "Amiga Report Mailing List"
@toc WHERE

===========================================================================
                        Amiga Report Mailing List
===========================================================================

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** 100K!  We have had a lot of bouncebacks recently from systems with a  **
** 100K size limit for incoming mail.  If we get a bounceback with your  **
** address in it, it will be removed from the list.  Thanks!             **
@endnode
@node UUENCODE
@toc MAILLIST

===========================================================================
                          UUDecoding Amiga Report
===========================================================================

If you receive Amiga Report from the direct mailing list, it will arrive in
UUEncoded format.  This format allows programs and archive files to be sent
through mail by converting the binary into combinations of ASCII
characters.  In the message, it will basically look like a lot of trash
surrounded by begin <filename> and end, followed by the size of the file.


To UUDecode Amiga Report, you first need to get a UUDecoding program, such
as UUxT by Asher Feldman.  This program is available on Aminet in

     pub/aminet/arc/

Then you must download the message that it is contained in.  Don't worry
about message headers, the UUDecoding program will ignore them.

There is a GUI interface for UUxT, which should be explained in the docs.
However, the quickest method for UUDecoding the magazine is to type

     uuxt x ar.uu

at the command prompt.  You will then have to decompress the archive with
lha, and you will then have Amiga Report in all of its AmigaGuide glory.

If you have any questions, you can write to @{"Jason Compton" link JASON}

@endnode
@node AMINET "Aminet"
@toc WHERE

                                  Aminet
                                  ======

To get Amiga Report from Aminet, simply FTP to any Aminet site, CD to
docs/mags.  All the back issues are located there as well.

Sites: ftp.netnet.net, ftp.wustl.edu, ftp.luth.se, ftp.doc.ic.ac.uk

@endnode
@node WWW "World Wide Web"
@toc WHERE

                              World Wide Web
                              ==============

AR can also be read with Mosaic (in either AmigaGuide or html form). 
Reading AmigaReport with Mosaic removes the necessity to download it.  It
can also be read using programs found in UNIX sites such as LYNX.

Simply tell Mosaic to open one of the following URLs:
     http://www.omnipresence.com/Amiga/News/AR/
     http://www.pwr.wroc.pl/AMIGA/AR/
     http://mm.iit.uni-miskolc.hu/Data/AR
     http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/amiga/ar/
     http://ramiga.rnet.cgi.com/~AR
     http://www.sci.muni.cz/ar/
     http://metro.turnpike.net/P/panther/main.html
     http://www.lysator.liu.se/amiga/ar/
     http://ArtWorks.apana.org.au/AmigaReport.html
     http://www.vol.it/mirror/amiga/
     http://www.cucug.org/ar/ar.html
     http://www.acropolis.net/clubs/amiga/amigareport/
     http://www.bengala.saccii.net.au/ar/main.html

The following AR sites also have a mailto form, allowing you to mail to
Amiga Report from the web site.  <Make sure your reader has forms
capability).
     http://www.pwr.wroc.pl/AMIGA/AR/
     http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/kcci1

Amiga information can also be accessed at this URL:
     http://www.cucug.org/amiga.html

Mosaic for the Amiga can be found on Aminet in directory comm/net, or
(using anonymous ftp) on max.physics.sunysb.edu
@endnode
@node COPYRIGHT "Copyright Information"
@toc ABOUT

===========================================================================
                Amiga Report International Online Magazine
                  April 23, 1996          Issue No. 4.06
                       Copyright 1996 FS Publications
                             All Rights Reserved
===========================================================================

Views, Opinions and Articles presented herein are not necessarily those of
the editors and staff of Amiga Report International Online Magazine or of
FS Publications.  Permission to reprint articles is hereby denied, unless
otherwise noted.  All reprint requests should be directed to the editor. 
Amiga Report and/or portions therein may not be edited in any way without
prior written permission.  However, translation into a language other than
English is acceptible, provided the editor is notified beforehand and the
original meaning is not altered.  Amiga Report may be distributed on
privately owned not-for-profit bulletin board systems (fees to cover cost
of operation are acceptable), and major online services such as (but not
limited to) Delphi 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 US).  CD-ROM compilers should contact the editor. 
Distribution on for-profit magazine cover disks requires written permission
from the editor.  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.  Amiga Report is not affiliated with Escom AG.  All
items quoted in whole or in part are done so under the Fair Use Provision
of the Copyright Laws of the United States Penal Code.  Any Electronic Mail
sent to the editors may be reprinted, in whole or in part, without any
previous permission of the author, unless said electronic mail is
specifically requested not to be reprinted.

===========================================================================
@endnode
@node GUIDELINE "Amiga Report Writing Guidelines"
@toc ABOUT

===========================================================================
                      Amiga Report Writing Guidelines
===========================================================================

The three most important requirements for submissions to Amiga Report are:

     1.  Please use English.

     2.  Please use paragraphs.  It's hard on the eyes to have solid
     screens of text.  If you don't know where to make a paragraph break,
     guess.

     3.  Please put a blank line in between paragraphs.  It makes
     formatting the magazine much much easier.

     4.  Please send us your article in ASCII format.

Note:  If you want to check ahead of time to make sure we'll print your
article, please write to the @{"Editor" link JASON}.

Please stipulate as well if you wish to retain copyright or hand it over to
the editor.
@endnode
@node EDITORCHOICE "Editor's Choice"
@toc COMMERCIAL

===========================================================================
                              Editor's Choice
===========================================================================

These are selected products, reviewed by myself, that I've liked.  So, I've
landed them and decided to sell them.

All prices are in $US.

John McDonough's The Music Maker, a Contemporary New Age CD composed on the
Amiga, is available through Amiga Report.

The crisp, clean sounds and calm melodies present a welcome alternative to
many pounding alternatives.

Available for US$12.00 plus $3 shipping in the US.  Non-US orders, please
contact before ordering.  Check or money order accepted addressed to
@{" Jason Compton " link JASON}, shipments made by the artist.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

|                                | Issue    | Approximate  | Amiga Report |
|           Product              | Reviewed | Retail Price | Reader Price |
---------------------------------|----------|--------------|--------------|
|                                |          |              |              |
|GPFax Amiga Fax Software        |   2.30   |   $100.00    |    $60.00    |
|    (Class 1 and 2)             |          |              |              |
|                                |          |              |              |
|Micro R+D CD-ROM Volume 1       |   2.25   |    $69.00    |    $30.00    |
|    (Includes early Transition  |          |              |              |
|    graphics converter and loads|          |              |              |
|    of artwork)                 |          |              |              |
|                                |          |              |              |
|Micro R+D CD-ROM Volume 2       |   2.26   |    $99.95    |    $46.75    |
|    (Includes entire Nature's   |          |              |              |
|    Backdrop series)            |          |              |              |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Orders may be placed via check, money order, or postal cheque, made out to
Jason Compton.  Visa/Mastercard accepted via post or E-Mail.  No CODs.

Mail all orders to @{" Jason Compton " link JASON}.  Orders will be processed by
Amiga Report and drop-shipped from Micro R+D.

In the US, add $5/$10/$20 for UPS shipping, ground/blue/red label,
respectively.  Overseas: It is recommended that you consider $20 to be the
minimum cost for shipping.  If you plan to order more than one item, E-mail
for shipping cost.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sidewinder's Future Shock II CD is now available through Amiga Report.
Featuring 15 Amiga-generated tunes totalling 71 minutes, Eric Gieseke's
work is captured on an Amiga-independent media.

Available for US$12.00.  Please add $5 for shipping.

Make check or money order payable to @{" Jason Compton " link JASON}.  Orders will be
drop-shipped from Sidewinder Productions.

For overseas orders, please contact through E-Mail before ordering.
@endnode
@node PORTAL "Portal"
@toc ONLINE

===========================================================================
                  Portal:  A Great Place For Amiga Users
===========================================================================

                The Portal Information Network's Amiga Zone

          The AFFORDABLE alternative for online Amiga information
                  "Not just another UNIX Shell account!"

          -------------------------------------------------------

Portal is the home of acclaimed Amiga Zone, a full-service online SIG
(Special Interest Group) for Amiga owners and users.  We promise, and WE
DELIVER ongoing & aggressive Amiga support!  Now, more than ever, with so
many Amiga magazines gone or shrunken, you need a viable,
professionally-maintained resource for information, software, and a link to
the world-wide Amiga community.

You can dial into Portal to access the Amiga Zone in many ways: direct
dial to our San Jose, CA high-speed modems (you pay for the phone call
if it's not local), or though any SprintNet or Compuserve indial anywhere
(with a small hourly fee) or via the World-wide Internet "telnet"
program to portal.com (no hourly fee).

Even Delphi and BIX users can Telnet into Portal for a flat $19.95 a month,
with *unlimited* use.

Portal is NOT just another shell service!  Its Online system is fully
menu-driven with on-screen commands and help, and you can easily customize
it for your favorite terminal program and screen size.

Some of Portal/Amiga Zone's amazing features include:

 * 2.5 GIGabytes of Amiga-specific file space - we have so much Amiga Stuff
      online, we've lost count!
 * The *entire* Fred Fish collection of freely distributable software,
       online.  ALL 1100 disks!
 * Fast, Batch Zmodem file transfer protocol. Download up to 100 files or
      100 email letters at once, of any size, with one command.
 * Amiga vendor areas with many companies participating.
 * So many incoming lines you'll probably NEVER get a busy signal
 * 40 "regular" Amiga libraries with over 12,000 files.  Hot new stuff
       arrives daily.
 * No upload/download "ratios" EVER. Download as much as you want, as
      often as you want, and never feel pressured doing it.
 * Live, interactive nightly chats with Amiga folks whose names you will
      recognize.  Special conferences.  Random chance prize contests.  We
      have given away thousands of bucks worth of Amiga prizes - more than
      any other online service.
 * Message bases where you can ask questions about *anything* Amiga
      related and get quick replies from the experts.
 * Amiga Internet mailing lists for Imagine, AMosaic, LightWave, ImageFX,
      Picasso II & others feed right into the Zone message bases.  Read
      months worth of postings.  No need to clutter your mailbox with them.
 * FREE unlimited Internet Email with 5 meg of free storage.
      Your email is private, secure, and never censored or monitored.
 * A FREE UNIX Shell account with another 5 meg of free storage.
      You can run AMosaic and other Browses via your shell and explore the
      vast World Wide Web!  Intermediate to advanced users can use
      any standard UNIX mail and news utilities, compilers, and other
      tools.  Ask for your free UNIX book when you sign up.
 * A home for your own Web page!  Your UNIX Shell on Portal is linked
      to Portal's Web Server. Create your own WWW pages for the whole
      world to access. No extra charges!
 * Portal has the Usenet.  Thousands of "newsgroups" in which you can read
      and post articles about virtually any subject you can possibly
      imagine. Newsgroups are not censored!
 * Other Portal SIGs (Special Interest Groups) online for Mac, IBM, Sun,
      UNIX, Science Fiction, Disney, and dozens more.  ALL Portal SIGs are
      accessible to ALL Portal customers with NO surcharges ever. You
      never worry "Ooops... Am I paying more for this area?" again!
 * Portal was THE FIRST online service to offer a full package of Internet
      features: IRC, FTP, TELNET, MUDS, LIBS wrapped into user-friendly
      menus.  And you get FREE unlimited usage of all of them.
 * Our exclusive PortalX by Steve Tibbett, the graphical "front end" for
      Portal which will let you automatically click'n'download your waiting
      email, messages, Usenet groups and binary files!  Reply to mail and
      messages offline using your favorite editor and your replies are sent
      automatically the next time you log into Portal.  (PortalX requires
      Workbench 2.04 or higher)
 * Portal does NOT stick it to high speed modem users. Whether you log in
      at 1200 or 2400 or 9600 or 14.4K you pay the same low price.

To join Portal or for more information call:

   1-800-433-6444 (voice) 9a.m.-5p.m. Mon-Fri, Pacific Time
   1-408-973-9111 (voice) 9a.m.-5p.m. Mon-Fri, Pacific Time

   1-408-725-0561 (modem 3/12/2400) 24 hours every day
   1-408-725-0560 (modem 96/14400) 24 hours every day

   or enter "C PORTAL" from any Sprintnet dial-in, or "portal" at any
   CI$ network dialin, or telnet to "portal.com" from anywhere,
   and then enter "online" and then "info"

   or send email to "sales@portal.com"

Visit the Amiga Zone Web page at http://www.portal.com/~harv

Call and join today.  Tell the friendly Portal Customer Service
representative, "The Amiga Zone sent me."  Ask for the "Interactive"
account to get the Amiga Zone, the Online System and a UNIX Shell for
only $19.95 a month.

The Portal Information Network accepts MasterCard, Visa, or you can pre-pay
any amount by personal check or money order.  The Portal Online System is a
trademark of The Portal Information Network.  SLIP, UUCP, custom domain
and corporate accounts are also available.
@endnode
@node DEAL_ASIA "Dealers - Asia"
@toc DEALER

===========================================================================
                              Dealers - Asia
===========================================================================

                                 -=JAPAN=-
                             Grey Matter Ltd.
                           1-22-3,Minami Magome
                        HillTop House 2F suite 201
                             Ota-ku,Tokyo 143
              Tel:+81 (0)3 5709-5549   Fax:+81 (0)3 5709-1907
    BBS: +81 (0)3 5709-1907   Email: nighty@gmatter.japan-online.or.jp

@endnode
@node DEAL_AUSTRALIA "Dealers - Australia"
@toc DEALER

===========================================================================
                            Dealers - Australia
===========================================================================

                              -=QUEENSLAND=-

                               Image Domain
                               92 Bridge St
                        Fortitude Valley, Brisbane
                     E-mail: s322698@student.uq.edu.au
                 Voice: 617-3216-1240   Fax: 617-3852-2720


                             -= NEW ZEALAND =-

                                CompKarori
                         LG/F Karori Shopping Mall
                            Karori, Wellington
                          Tel/Fax: +64 4 476-0212
                       Email: sales@compkarori.co.nz

@endnode
@node DEAL_EUROPE "Dealers - Europe"
@toc DEALER

===========================================================================
                             Dealers - Europe
===========================================================================

                                -=AUSTRIA=-

                   A.R.T.  Computeranimation Ges.m.b.H.
                              Feldstrasse 13
                              3300 Amstetten
                Tel: +43 7472/63566-0 Fax: +43 7472/63566-6

                                -=BELGIUM=-

                               CLICK!  N.V.
                            Boomsesteenweg 468
                        B-2610 Wilrijk - Antwerpen
           VOICE: +32 (0)3 828.18.15     FAX: +32 (0)3 828.67.36
           INTERNET: vanhoutv@nbre.nfe.be      FIDO: 2:292/603.9


                               -=BULGARIA=-

                           KlubVerband ITA Gmbh
                                1309 Sofia
                          P.F.13, KukushStr.  1-2
                  Tel: +359-2-221471   Fax: +359-2-230062
          Email: KVITA@VIRBUS.BG     Contact: Dr.  ING B.  Pavlov


                                -=DENMARK=-

                               Data Service
                           Att.  Soren Petersen
                              Kaerhaven2a 2th
                              6400 Sonderborg
          Phone/Fax: +45 74 43 17 36   EMail: sorpe-95@sdbg.ih.dk

                              Nemesis Amy BBS
               EMail: boersting@hoa.ping.dk   Fido: 2:238/43
                       USR 33k6 V.E.  +45 75-353726


                                -=FINLAND=-

             Lincware Computers Oy / Lincoln Technologies Ltd
                              Lovkullankuja 3
                               10300 KARJAA
            Voice: +358-(9)50-5583720   Fax: +358-(9)11-205415
                      EMail: linctech@freenet.hut.fi


                                -=FRANCE=-

                            ASCII Informatique
                             10 Rue de Lepante
                                06000 NICE
               Tel: (33) 93 13 08 66   Fax: (33) 93 13 90 95

                            Quartz Infomatique
                          2 bis, avenue de Brogny
                              F-74000 ANNECY
                  Tel./Fax (automatique): +33 50.52.83.31
                          E-Mail: tcp@imaginet.fr


                                -=GERMANY=-

                           AMItech Systems GmbH
                              Ludwigstrasse 4
                             D-95028 Hof/Saale
               VOICE: +49 9281 142812   FAX: +49 9281 142712
                       EMail: bsd@blacky.netz.sub.de

                    dcp, desing+commercial partner GmbH
                               Alfredstr.  1
                              D-22087 Hamburg
                 Tel.: + 49 40 251176 Fax: +49 40 2518567
                 EMail: info@dcp.de WWW: http://www.dcp.de

                          Hartmann & Riedel GdbR
                               Hertzstr.  33
                           D-76287 Rheinstetten
          EMail: rick@p22.aop.schiele-ct.de   Fido: 2:2476/12.22
              Voice: +49 (7242) 2021     Fax: +49 (7242) 5909
             Please call before visiting, or we may be closed.

                             Hirsch & Wolf OHG
                              Mittelstra_e 33
                              D-56564 Neuwied
            Voice: +49 (2631) 8399-0   Fax: +49 (2631) 8399-31

                           Pro Video Elektronik
                                Roßmarkt 38
                           D-63739 Aschaffenburg
                 Tel: (49) 6021 15713 Fax: (49) 6021 15713


                                 -=ITALY=-

                              C.A.T.M.U.  snc
                            Casella Postale 63
                             10023 Chieri (TO)
                          Tel/Fax: +39 11 9415237
       EMail: fer@inrete.it (Ferruccio Zamuner)   Fido: 2:334/21.19

                            Cloanto Italia srl
                           Via G.  B.  Bison 24
                                33100 Udine
                 Tel: +39 432 545902   Fax: +39 432 609051
              E-Mail: info@cloanto.it   CompuServe: 100145.15


                              -=NETHERLANDS=-

                               Chaos Systems
                               Watermolen 18
                           NL-1622 LG Hoorn (NH)
            Voice: +31-(0)229-233922   Fax/Data: +31-(0)229-TBA
     E-mail: marioh@fwi.uva.nl   WWW: http://gene.fwi.uva.nl/~marioh/


                                 -=SPAIN=-

                               Amiga Center
                               Argullós, 127
                              08016 Barcelona
                Tel: (93) 276 38 06     Fax: (93) 276 30 80

                           Amiga Center Alicante
                                Segura, 27
                              03004 Alicante
                            Tel: (96) 514 37 34

                               Audio Vision
                               San Jose, 53
                             Gijon (Asturias)
                           Tel.  (98) 535 24 79

                        Centro Informático Boadilla
                                Convento, 6
                     28660 Boadilla del Monte (Madrid)
                Tel: (91) 632 27 65     Fax: (91) 632 10 99

                                Centro Mail
                            Tel: (91) 380 28 92

                                  C.R.E.
                             San Francisco, 85
                          48003 Bilbao (Vizcaya)
                Tel: (94) 444 98 84     Fax: (94) 444 98 84

                               Donosti Frame
                           Avda.  de Madrid, 15
                      20011 San Sebastián (Guipuzcoa)
                Tel: (943) 42 07 45     Fax: (943) 42 45 88

                            Eurobit Informatica
                    C/.  Gral.  Garcia de la Herran, 4
                           11100 - San Fernando
                                   Cadiz
                           Tel/Fax: (956) 896375

                                 GaliFrame
                           Galerías Príncipe, 22
                             Vigo (Pontevedra)
                Tel: (986) 22 89 94     Fax: (986) 22 89 94

                                 Invision
                             San Isidro, 12-18
                     28850 Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid)
              Tel: (91) 676 20 56/59     Fax: (91) 656 10 04

                                 Invision
                               Salamanca, 53
                              46005 Valencia
              Tel: (96) 395 02 43/44     Fax: (96) 395 02 44

                                  Norsoft
                                Bedoya, 4-6
                               32003 Orense
                Tel: (988) 24 90 46     Fax: (988) 23 42 07

                                 PiXeLSOFT
                              Felipe II, 3bis
                              34004 Palencia
                Tel: (979) 71 27 00     Fax: (979) 71 28 28

                                 Tu Amiga
                             Plaza Pedro IV, 3
                       08120 La LLagosta (Barcelona)
                Tel: (93) 560 76 12     Fax: (93) 560 76 12

                                  vb soft
                               Provenza, 436
                              08025 Barcelona
                Tel: (93) 456 15 45     Fax: (93) 456 15 45


                                -=NORWAY=-

                             DataKompaniet ANS
                        Trondheim Innovation Centre
                           Prof.  Brochs gt.  6
                             N-7030 Trondheim
                  Tel: +47 7354 0375   Fax: +47 7394 3861
EMail:datakompaniet@interlink.no  WWW:http://www.interlink.no/datakompaniet

                              Sezam Software
                              Ulsmågveien 11a
                              N-5o5o Nesttun
                       Tel/Fax: +47 55100070 (9-20)
           ABBS: +47 55101730 (24t)   Email: oleksy@telepost.no


                                -=SWEDEN=-

                                DataVision
                                 Box 1305
                              753 11 Uppsala
                     Street Address: Sysslomansgatan 9
 Orders: +46 (0)18-123400   Shop: +46 (0)18-124009   Fax: +46 (0)18-100650


                            -=UNITED KINGDOM=-

                           Almathera Systems Ltd
                Southerton House / Boundary Business Court
                             92-94 Church Road
                         Mitcham, Surrey / CR4 3TD
            VOICE: (UK) 081 687 0040     FAX: (UK) 081 687 0490
 Sales: almathera@cix.compulink.co.uk     Tech: jralph@cix.compulink.co.uk

                        Brian Fowler Computers Ltd
                           90 South Street / Exeter
                              Devon / EX1 1EN
               Voice: (01392) 499 755   Fax: (01392) 493 393
                Internet: brian_fowler@cix.compulink.co.uk

                             Visage Computers
                              27 Watnall Road
                           Hucknall / Nottingham
           Tel: +44 (0)115 9642828   Tel/Fax: +44 (0)115 9642898
                        EMail: visage@innotts.co.uk

@endnode
@node DEAL_NAMERICA "Dealers - North America"
@toc DEALER

===========================================================================
                          Dealers - North America
===========================================================================

                                -=CANADA=-

                          Animax Multimedia, Inc.
                         196 Joseph Zatzman Drive
                          Dartmouth, NS / B3B 1N4
                 Ph: (902)468-AMAX     Fax: (902)468-4341
                       EMail: animax@ra.isisnet.com

                           APC Computer Services
                            402-5 Tangreen Crt
                         Willowdale, Ont.  M2M 3Z1
                         Voice/Fax: (416) 733-1434
  EMail: shadow@interlog.com   WWW: www.interlog.com/~shadow/apccomp.html

                           Atlantis Kobetek Inc.
                           1496 Lower Water St.
                           Halifax, NS / B3J 1R9
               Phone: (902)-422-6556     Fax: (902)-423-9339
                     E-mail: atkobetek@ra.isisnet.com

                Atlas Computers & Consulting - Derek Davlut
                       400 Telstar Avenue Suite 701
                           Sudbury, ON / P3E 5V7
                Phone: (705) 522-1923   Fax: (705) 522-1923
                   EMail: s2200147@nickel.laurentian.ca

                      Computer Shop of Calgary, Ltd.
                          3515 - 18th Street S.W.
                         Calgary, Alberta T2T 4T9
                 Ph.  1-403-243-4358   Fx: 1-403-243-2684
        Email: austin@canuck.com   WWW: http://www.canuck.com/cshop

                           Computerology Direct
                             Powell River, BC
                                  V8A-4Z3
               Call 24 hrs.  orders/inquiries: 604/483-3679
          Amiga users ask for HEAD SALES REP for quicker response!

                        Comspec Communications Inc
                              74 Wingold Ave
                         Toronto, Ontario M6B 1P5
 Computer Centre: (416) 785-8348  Sales: (416) 785-3553  Fax: 416-785-3668
      Internet: bryanf@comcorp.comspec.com, bryanf@accesspt.north.net

                             ElectroMike Inc.
                         1375 Boul.  Charest Ouest
                           Quebec, Quebec G1N2E7
         Tel: (418) 681-4138, (800) 463-1501   Fax: (418) 681-5880

                         GfxBase Electronique, Inc
                              1727 Shevchenko
                             Montreal, Quebec
                  Voice: 514-367-2575   Fax: 514-367-5265
                             BBS: 514-769-0565

                              National Amiga
                             Oakville, Ontario
              Fax: 905-845-3295   EMail: gscott@interlog.com
          WWW: http://www.interlog.com/~gscott/NationalAmiga.html

                        Oby's Amigo Computing Shop
                             765 Barrydowne Rd
                         Sudbury, Ontario P3A-3T6
                         VOICE/FAX: (705)524-5826
                    All Amiga Computer Store Since 1990

                            Randomize Computers
                                 R.R.  #2
                         Tottenham, Ont.  L0G 1W0
                   vox: 905-939-8371   fax: 905-939-8745
     email: randomize@interlog.com   www: www.interlog.com/~randomize/

                            Software Supermart
                            11010 - 101 Street
                         Edmonton, Alberta T5H-2T1
                Voice: (403) 425-0691   Fax: (403) 426-1701
                       EMail: ssmart@planet.eon.net

                         SpectrumTech Electronics
                       412-1205 Fennell Avenue East
                           Hamilton, ON L8T 1T1
                Voice: (905) 388-9575   BBS: (905) 388-2542
           E-Mail: ste@spectrum.gryn.org   Contact: Derek Clarke

                             -=UNITED STATES=-

                               A&D Computer
                               211 South St.
                          Milford, NH 03055-3743
                Voice/Fax: 603-672-4700   BBS: 603-673-2788
                         Internet: amiga@mv.mv.com

                             Alex Electronics
                            597 Circlewood Dr.
                            Paradise, CA 95969
                  Voice: 916-872-0896  BBS: 915-872-3711
     EMail: alex@ecst.csuchico.edu   WWW: http://www.km-cd.com/~alex/

                           Amigability Computers
                               P.O.  Box 572
                           Plantsville, CT 06479
                            VOICE: 203-276-8175
                         Internet: caldi@pcnet.com

                              Amiga-Crossing
                                PO Box 12A
                        Cumberland Center, ME 04021
        VOICE: (800) 498-3959 (Maine only)   VOICE: (207) 829-3959
              FAX: (207) 829-3522   Internet: amiga-x@tka.com

                          Amiga Library Services
                          610 Alma School Rd, #18
                          Chandler, Az 85224-3687
                Voice: (800) 804-0833   Fax: (602) 491-0048
                        E-Mail: orders@amigalib.com

                           Amiga Video Solutions
                           1568 Randolph Avenue
                            St.  Paul, MN 55105
                 Voice: 612-698-1175     Fax: 612-224-3823
           BBS: 612-698-1918     Net: wohno001@maroon.tc.umn.edu

                          Applied Multimedia Inc.
                              89 Northill St.
                            Stamford, CT 06907
                           VOICE: (203) 348-0108

                            Apogee Technologies
                          1851 University Parkway
                            Sarasota, FL 34243
                            VOICE: 813-355-6121
            Portal: Apogee     Internet: Apogee@cup.portal.com

                            Armadillo Brothers
                            753 East 3300 South
                           Salt Lake City, Utah
          VOICE: 801-484-2791     Internet: B.GRAY@genie.geis.com

                            Computer Advantage
                             7370 Hickman Road
                           Des Moines, IA 50322
                          Voice/Fax: 515-252-6167
                       Internet: Number1@netins.net

                             Computer Concepts
                   18001 Bothell-Everett Hwy, Suite "0"
                             Bothell, WA 98012
                           VOICE: (206) 481-3666

                               Computer Link
                              6573 middlebelt
                           Garden City MI 48135
                 Voice: 313-522-6005     Fax: 313-522-3119
                         clink@m-net.arbornet.org

                            The Computer Source
                          515 Kings Highway East
                            Fairfield, CT 06432
                Voice: (203) 336-3100   Fax: (203) 335-3259

                       Computers International, Inc.
                             5415 Hixson Pike
                           Chattanooga, TN 37343
                            VOICE: 615-843-0630

                          Computerwise Computers
                              3006 North Main
                              Logan, UT 84322

                              CyberTech Labs
                               PO Box 56941
                         North Pole, Alaska  99705
 Vox: (907) 451-3285   BBS1 : (907) 488-2547   BBS2 & Fax: (907) 488-2647
            EMail: 71516.600@CompuServe.com   Fido: 1:355/17.0

                              DC Productions
                          218 Stockbridge Avenue
                            Kalamazoo, MI 49001
                       (616)373-1985   (800)9DC-PROD
                    Email: dcpro!chetw@heifetz.msen.com

                               Digital Arts
                             1321 North Walnut
                              P.O.  Box 5206
                        Bloomington, IN 47807-5206
          VOICE: (812)330-0124   FAX: (812)330-0126   BIX: msears

                              Digital Castle
                       4046 Hubbell Ave.  Suite 155
                         Des Moines, IA 50317-4434
                           Voice: (515) 266-5098
                          EMail: Sheep@netins.net

                           Electronic Connection
                               635 Penn Ave
                          West Reading, PA 19611
                  Phone: 610-372-1010   Fax: 610-378-0996


                              HT Electronics
           E-Mail: HT Electronics@cup.portal.com     BIX: msears

           422 S. Hillview Dr.          211 Lathrop Way, Ste. A.
           Milipitas, CA 95035          Sacramento, CA 95815
           V: (408) 934-7700            V: (916) 925-0900
           F: (408) 934-7717            F: (916) 925-2829


                           Industrial Video, Inc.
                           1601 North Ridge Rd.
                             Lorain, OH  44055
         VOICE: 800-362-6150, 216-233-4000     Contact: John Gray
                  Internet:  af741@cleveland.freenet.edu

                            Kipp Visual Systems
                          360-C Christopher Ave.
                          Gaithersburg Md, 20878
                               301-670-7906
                           kipp@rasputin.umd.edu

                     The Lively Computer - Tom Lively
                             8314 Parkway Dr.
                             La Mesa, CA 91942
                   Voice: 619-589-9455 Fax: 619-589-5230
                        Net: tlively@connectnet.com

                                Magic Page
                            3043 Luther Street
                          Winston-Salem, NC 27127
           Voice/Fax: 910-785-3695   E-mail: Spiff@ix.netcom.com
                          Contact: Patrick Smith

                                MicroSearch
                        9000 US 59 South, Suite 330
                              Houston, Texas
                 VOICE: 713-988-2818     FAX: 713-995-4994

                         MicroTech Solutions, Inc.
                         1885 N.  Farnsworth Ave.
                               Suites 6-7-8
                           Aurora, IL 60505-1162
        Voice: 708-851-3033   Fax: 708-851-3825   BBS: 708-851-3929
           Email: info@mt-inc.com   WWW: http://www.mt-inc.com/

                          Mr. Hardware Computers
                      P.O.  Box 148 / 59 Storey Ave.
                          Central Islip, NY 11722
                 VOICE: 516-234-8110     FAX: 516-234-8110
                         A.M.U.G. BBS:  516-234-6046

                         OverByte Industries, Inc.
                       661 Blanding Blvd.  Suite 391
                        Orange Park, FL 32073-5048
            Voice: 904-858-3348   E-mail: overbyte@jax.gttw.com
          URL: http://www.jkcg.com/Webmaster/Overbyte/index.html

                            Paxtron Corporation
                              28 Grove Street
                          Spring Valley, NY 10977
     Voice: 914-576-6522    Orders: 800-815-3241    Fax: 914-624-3239

                              PSI Animations
                         17924 SW Pilkington Road
                          Lake Oswego, OR  97035
                           VOICE:  503-624-8185
                     Internet:  PSIANIM@agora.rain.com

                          Raymond Commodore Amiga
                            795 Raymond Avenue
                         St. Paul, MN   55114-1521
                 VOICE: 612.642.9890     FAX: 612.642.9891

                           Safe Harbor Computers
                          W226 N900 Eastmound Dr
                            Waukesha, WI 53186
                 Orders: 800-544-6599   Fax: 414-548-8130
                       WWW Catalog: www.sharbor.com

                               Slipped Disk
                               31044 John R
                      Madison Heights, Michigan 48071
                           Voice: (810) 546-3475
                  BBS: (810) 399-1292   Fido: 1:120/321.0

                           Software Plus Chicago
                         2945 W Peterson Suite 209
                             Chicago, Illinois
                           VOICE:  312-878-7800

                        System Eyes Computer Store
                          730M Milford Rd Ste 345
                         Merrimack, NH 03054-4642
               Voice: (603) 4244-1188   Fax: (603) 424-3939
                  EMail: j_sauter@systemeye.ultranet.com

                              TJ's Unlimited
                              P.O.  Box #354
                        North Greece, NY 14515-0354
                  VOICE: 716-225-5810   BBS: 716-225-8631
           FIDO: 1:2613/323   INTERNET: neil@rochgte.fidonet.org

                                Zipperware
                             76 South Main St.
                           Seattle, WA  98104
                 VOICE: 206-223-1107     FAX: 206-223-9395
   E-Mail: zipware@nwlink.com   WWW: http://www.speakeasy.org/zipperware

@endnode
@node OPINION "Editorial and Opinion"
@toc MENU

===========================================================================
                           Editorial and Opinion
===========================================================================

@{"   compt.sys.editor.desk   " link EDITORIAL}  Oh, wow.  April again!

@{"     The Joker Survey      " link OPINION1}  A reaction to the survey

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode
@node NEWS "News & Press Releases"
@toc MENU
===========================================================================
                           News & Press Releases
===========================================================================

@{"  VIScorp To Acquire Amiga Tech " link NEWS25}  The Escom chapter draws to a close

@{"     Tyschtschenko's Speech     " link NEWS23}  Petro addresses WOA UK on the future

@{" VIScorp: The Phoenix Strategy  " link NEWS31}  VIScorp clears the air a bit

@{"  Letter From Carl Sassenrath   " link NEWS7}  As does one of their employees

@{"    New North American Dist.    " link NEWS35}  SMG out, QuikPak calls the shots

@{"   Amiga Convention in Japan    " link NEWS2}  Join some Amiga enthusiasts!

@{"           IPISA '96            " link NEWS32}  In Italy, too.

@{" Wonder Computers International " link NEWS24}  Wonder is back.

@{"    Lazarus Engineering Corp.   " link NEWS26}  A Wonder-successor company

@{"     Final Writer Release 5     " link NEWS4}  The latest revision  

@{"     Neather Realm Software     " link NEWS30}  Innovative products

@{"     Almathera WWW Presence     " link NEWS3}  A service to resellers

@{"      ESC Membership Form       " link NEWS28}  How to join

@{"  The Internet Starter Package  " link NEWS29}  A one-stop Canadian package

@{"      W.F.M.H. LocalePL v2      " link NEWS1}  Polish locale

@{"   Chris's Button Strip v2.0    " link NEWS5}  HTML authoring in Final Writer

@{"           VDisk V2.6           " link NEWS6}  Recoverable RAM:

@{"        Oberon System V4        " link NEWS8}  Language/OS revision

@{"          AmIRC v1.0            " link NEWS9}  The MUI IRC client

@{"           Shock v1.2           " link NEWS10}  Slideshow presentation

@{"        MasterISO v1.23         " link NEWS11}  The latest in CD-ROM mastering

@{"         fMSX Amiga 0.8         " link NEWS12}  The great MSX emulator...

@{"    Team Amiga Call To Arms     " link NEWS27}  Motivation for the changes

@{"           PLog v1.1            " link NEWS13}  Analyze phone log statistics

@{"         AmiFTP v1.264          " link NEWS14}  A ClassAct FTP client

@{"         UMS RFC v0.12          " link NEWS15}  E-mail and newsgroups...

@{"          Analay v1.12          " link NEWS16}  Mathematical analysis

@{"  PhoneLog Developer Kit v1.1   " link NEWS17}  Parse phone log files

@{"         PopPhone v2.2          " link NEWS18}  Organize addresses...

@{"  Muse Interface Devel. System  " link NEWS19}  Interchangeable application environment

@{"    Audio Hardware Interface    " link NEWS20}  A step towards RTA

@{"          Aminet CD 11          " link NEWS21}  The latest incarnation

@{"          MoronCX v1.0          " link NEWS22}  For morons.

@{"        SystemPrefs v3.7        " link NEWS33}  CPU configuration

@{"          ExpName v2.1          " link NEWS34}  Check on your expansion cards

@{" Championship Manager 2 Delayed " link NEWS36}  The footy manager...

@{"      Ravebusters Homepage      " link NEWS37}  Hundreds of mods

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode
@node FEATURE "Featured Articles"
@toc MENU

===========================================================================
                             Featured Articles
===========================================================================

@{"    One Of Those Days In England     " link FEATURE3}  The mammoth report

@{"         World Of Amiga 1996         " link FEATURE2}  The slimmer report

@{"    Lightwave 5.0 Preview At NAB     " link FEATURE4}  An advance look...

@{" Using Multiple ISPs With Your Amiga " link FEATURE1}  Juggle service providers

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode
@node REVIEW "Reviews"
@toc MENU

===========================================================================
                                  Reviews
===========================================================================

@{"          Cinema4D          " link REVIEW6}  Maxon's entry into the 3D market

@{"    Falcon 1200/040 Accel   " link REVIEW7}  The first of two parts--installation

@{"        Hillsea Lido        " link REVIEW1}  If you like your seaside managed

@{"  Inet-225 TCP/IP Software  " link REVIEW5}  The high-end networking package

@{"        TimeKeepers         " link REVIEW2}  Save the universe and solve puzzles

@{"      Quarterback v6.1      " link REVIEW4}  Keep your backups backed up

@{"         Slam Tilt          " link REVIEW3}  Pinball!

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode
@node FTP "Aminet Charts"
@toc MENU

===========================================================================
                               Aminet Charts
===========================================================================

                            @{"    15-Apr-96    " link CHARTS1}

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode
@node ABOUT "About AMIGA REPORT"
@toc MENU

===========================================================================
                            About AMIGA REPORT
===========================================================================

@{"        AR Staff         " link STAFF} The Editors and writers

@{"   Writing Guidelines    " link GUIDELINE} What you need to do to write for us

@{"  Copyright Information  " link COPYRIGHT} The legal stuff

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode
@node STAFF "The Staff"
@toc ABOUT

===========================================================================
                                 The Staff
===========================================================================

               Editor:               @{" Jason Compton    " link JASON}

               Assistant Editor:     @{" Katherine Nelson " link KATIE}

               Games Editor:         @{" Ken Anderson     " link KEN}

               Contributing Editor:  @{" William Near     " link WILLIAM}

               Contributing Editor:  @{" Addison Laurent  " link ADDISON}

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode
@node WHERE "Where to Get AR"
@toc MENU

===========================================================================
                              Where to Get AR
===========================================================================

                         @{"   The AR Mailing List   " link MAILLIST}

                         @{"         Aminet          " link AMINET}

                         @{"     World Wide Web      " link WWW}

                         @{"   Distribution Sites    " link BBS}

                         @{"   Commercial Services   " link PORTAL}

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode

@node BBS "Distribution Sites"
@toc WHERE

===========================================================================
                            Distribution BBSes
===========================================================================

BBSes will appear in the next issue.

Sysops: To have your name added, please send @{"Email" link JASON} with the BBS name,
its location (Country, province/state) your name, any internet/fidonet
addresses, and the phone number of your BBS

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode

@node DEALER "Dealer Directory"
@toc MENU

===========================================================================
                             Dealer Directory
===========================================================================

                          Arranged by Continent:

                          @{"      Asia       " link DEAL_ASIA}

                          @{"    Australia    " link DEAL_AUSTRALIA}

                          @{"     Europe      " link DEAL_EUROPE}

                          @{"  North America  " link DEAL_NAMERICA}

Dealers: To have your name added, please send @{"Email" link JASON} with the name,
address, phone, and net address (if available) of your establishment.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode
