@database "ar235.guide"
@Node MAIN "Amiga Report Online Magazine #3.01 -- January 3, 1995"

                               @{" Turn the Page " link "menu"}

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                       International Online Magazine

                 "THE Online Source for Amiga Information!"

                   Copyright  1995 Skynet Publications
                            All Rights Reserved

                                      //
=====================================//====================================
== January 3, 1995                \\//                    Issue No. 3.01 ==
===========================================================================

@endnode
@node "menu" "Amiga Report Main Menu"
@toc "menu"

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

    @{"  Editorial and Opinion   " link P1}             @{"    News and Features    " link P2}
                                    
    @{"         Reviews          " link P3}             @{"       Reader Mail       " link P4}

                     @{" FTP and Product Announcements " link P2-2}

                     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    @{"    About AMIGA REPORT    " link P5}             @{"    Dealer Directory     " link P6-3}
 Contact Information and Copyrights     Amiga Dealer Addresses and Numbers

    @{"     Where to Get AR      " link P5B}             @{"   Commercial Products   " link P6}
 Mailing List &  Distribution Sites     Online Services, Dealers, Ordering
               ______________________________________________
         //   |                                              |       //
========//====| Amiga Report International Online Magazine   |======//=====
==   \\//     | Issue No. 3.01             January 3, 1995   |   \\//    ==
==============| "THE Online Source for Amiga Information!"   |=============
              |______________________________________________|

    c.s.a.editor.desk      Amiga News               Dealer Directory
    Distribution BBS's     Product Announcements    Reader Mail
    Emulation Rambler      AR Reader Survey         AR Wants You!
@endnode

===========================================================================
==                        The Amiga Report Staff                         ==
===========================================================================

@node P8-1 "Editor"
@toc P5-1

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

                               Jason Compton
                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             Internet                                  Address
             --------                                  -------
     jcompton@cup.portal.com                   1838 Chicago Ave. #419
     jcompton@bbs.xnet.com                     Evanston, IL 60201-3806
                                               USA

               Fax                                      Phone
               ---                                      -----
           708/491-4064                             708/332-4599

@endnode
@node P8-2 "Senior Editor"
@toc P5-1

===========================================================================
==                             SENIOR EDITOR                             ==
===========================================================================

                               Robert Niles
                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~
            Internet                                   Address
            --------                                   -------
      rniles@rniles.pnw.net                        506 W. Orchard
                                                   Selah, WA 98942

            FidoNet                                      Fax
            -------                                      ---
           1:3407/103                                509/697-5064

@endnode
@node P8-3 "Assistant Editor"
@toc P5-1

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

                             Katherine Nelson
                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                                 Internet
                                 --------
                            Kati@cup.portal.com

@endnode
@node P8-4 "European Editor"
@toc P5-1

===========================================================================
==                            EUROPEAN EDITOR                            ==
===========================================================================

                               Michael Wolf
                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~

                                 Internet
                                 --------
                      MikeWolf@bonebag.tynet.sub.org

@endnode
@node P8-6 "Games Editor"
@toc P5-1

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

                               Sean Caszatt
                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~

             Internet: Sean.Caszatt@f512.n2601.z1.fidonet.org

@endnode
@node P8-5 "Contributing Editor"
@toc P5-1

===========================================================================
==                          CONTIBUTING EDITOR                           ==
===========================================================================

                               David Tiberio
                               ~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                                 Internet
                                 --------
                      dtiberio@libserv1.ic.sunysb.edu

@endnode
@node P1-1 "compt.sys.editor.desk"
@toc P1

===========================================================================
==  compt.sys.editor.desk                           By: @{" Jason Compton " link P8-1}  ==
===========================================================================

Support.

That's what computing is all about.  Support, who's giving it, how it's
available.

When it comes down to it, there's as much support for a computer platform
as the individual user perceives there to be.

Take Commodore 64 users.  While their numbers are certainly no longer the
many millions-strong legion it once was, they still exist and, yes, even
thrive.  Because they FEEL that they do.  There are companies such as CMD
which still actively support the 64, there are Internet resources...in
short, everything that these users FEEL they need.  So their computer
platform is supported.

Take your average PC user.  They feel supported because their numbers ARE
legion, and so is the number of companies that produce software for their
machine.  They are surrounded with positive reinforcement and FEEL secure,
so they FEEL supported.  

So, now it falls to the Amiga users.  Do we FEEL supported?  Well, I
suppose so, since we're still here.  Of course, not everyone is, many have
left to pastures which they perceive as more supported.  There is no parent
company left to support is, and many developers are gone.  But, support is
still there.  It's all a question of perception.

The task for the New Amiga Corp will be to create that illusion of support.
Oh, real support would be wonderful as well, but to draw users, you have to
create the illusion of Support For The Lowest Common Denominator.

Good luck to them, whoever they wind up being.

On the buyout front:  As of today's writing, this information is
available:

Apparently, no decision has been reached yet.  CEI's bid was supposed to
expire last Friday, but they have extended the deadline to this Friday.
After that, CEI will request its deposit check back.

Commodore UK's press release (available elsewhere in the issue) struck me
as rather vague.  A request for clarification and/or more information was
denied by C= UK, so we're left with the question..."What does 'accepted'
mean?"

-Jason

PS.  Please check out our new survey, and watch for the results of Katie
Nelson's surveys in AR3.02.

PPS. Thanks for sticking with Amiga Report, now in our third year!

@endnode
@node P4 "Reader Mail"
@toc "menu"

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

From: dimas@maze.mazanet.es (Dimas Caparros Gomez)
Subject: Hey!

Hey Jason!  How is you scrubber?.  i want to send you a letter for 'the
reader mail' or somewhere else...  :-)

'I am a spanish guy.  Here, the very only source of information (out of my
country) is Amiga Report.  We expect ansious every Amiga Report.  And of
course, the response (I am dreaming with it!) of the global Amiga world:
Who is the buyer, hell?.  Well, and of course we like to see the online
conferences.

    I would like to know if Jason could ask CEI (or C=UK) the questions we
have, as we have not direct InterNet address!  (and it would be VERY
expensive!).

    -What are the plans of you for South Europe (Spain...)?

    -You said a cheaper A1200 is not possible.  Maybe a A1200/030 at the
same prize as now?  Perhaps 040?  :-)

    BTW, I would like that jason on AR or CEI (C=UK) keep a
comp.sys.amiga.amiga where Amiga Int.  put the current things they are
working on.  We want news, and hot news from the makers of our dreams!

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

Hi Jason,
Heres a little letter I've written in defence of David Plesance.  (He seems
to be getting a bit of a rough ride in the US)

 Well there seems to be some difference of opinion in the two buyout camps.
Dave Plesance says he is under orders not to discuss the buy-out and Alex
Amor says he is not.  Obviously David P is Lying.  Alex Amor is willing to
discuss the buyout with other groups - Dave P says this is Illegal.  The
list gos on.  And in every case you lot in the USA believe Alex and call
David P a liar, and I'm getting fed up with it.  Now you have joined the
mob after Dave P said 'It is BELIEVED that CEI have lost their backing'

 Note he said Believed - he didn't know for sure.  yet you used this to get
at him.

 Lets deal with the complaints and misconceptions shall we?

1) David P.  will Ignore the USA and concetrate on the UK - I think this
stems from the early stages of the Buyout.  The backing C= UK's MBO got was
from a proposal based on projected sales in the UK/Europe only.  David P
has NEVER said he will not sell to the USA.  In fact the phrase 'The key
markets for the Amiga......the USA for the top end products..' occurs in a
recent interview.  Also if he is going to abandon the States why is he
keeping C= Canada and R&D in Norristown?  I can't see engineers working on
a machine they won't be able to use.

2) David P will concentrate on low end.  Obviously!  the low end makes
money.  More than enough to keep the company running.  Concentrating on the
low end does NOT mean abandaning the High end OK?  Got it now?  Anyway
there are two facts that need to be mentioned.  ACE is one I know has been
mentioned on the net.  It means Amiga Centres of Excelence.  These are
places where potential buyers can get advice on Amiga based multimedia
systems.  Hardly the product of someone who does not realise the potential
of the Amiga.  Remember Dave has a recording studio based around Amigas.

 The second is changes made to A1200 packs while Dave has been in charge at
Commodore UK.  As I'm sure your aware low end Amigas are often sold in
packs over here.  When D.P took over he changed these from being games +
DPaint to packs which show off the A1200 as a Home computer - the last
(Before C= went under) was a double sided one.  Computer Combat on one side
and Inovations on the other.  This included:- Total Carnage, Brian the Lion
and Zool 2 for games, Wordworth 2 AGA, Digita Print Manager, Day by Day and
Personal Paint 4 for productivity.  You will notice that this is more
productivity software than games.  So where does this Idea that Dave P does
not see the serious side of the Amiga come from?  Not from any facts about
him thats for sure.

 Dave has also been getting a lot of unjustified stick for not joining in a
conference etc.  He is forbbiden from doing this.  Before you say 'Alex
Amor isn't' consider that Alex Amor has been lying the ones he's been
doing.  I am refering to David Plesances comment about 'discussions between
biders being Illegal under US law' I went to my local University and within
20 minutes found the appropriate passage.  It is in Title 11 - Bankruptcy
Article 363 note 28 -'Avoidance of Sales for collusive biding' Whenever
Alex is asked about joint bids with UK/other groups he says 'the door is
open' Any discussion which reduces the bid value for the creditors is
Illegal!  Is Alex saying he is prepared to break US Law?  Personally I
think this is an attempt to dirty the name ofDavid Plesance and the UK MBO
(A successful one.)

 The other question I have for Alex relates to his comment in the CEI
conference in AR228.  In this he says he had discussions in the early part
of the buyout.  C= UK's bid was on the table first.  So when these took
place CEI Cannot have been a bidder.(see above) So what were these
discussions about and who started them?

 I will end with a little thought for you.  Consider if there had been no
C= UK bid.  We would still be waiting as Alex A seems to like to wait until
the last minute before doing anything.

 Now consider if there was no CEI bid.  C= UK would have had A1200's and
CD32's for the UK and A4000's for the USA on sale for Xmas.  Probably only
in small quantities I'll Admit.  (C= UK were all ready to conculde the deal
in september until Alex Amor Placed his bid ONE DAY before the deadline.)

I hope you will think on these points and I await your answers.


-   I dealt with the concerns here individually.  Some of the more
    significant ones warrant some reply...
    
    I actually liked the C= UK 1200 packs.
    
    There is no evidence to suggest that the C= UK bid would have been
    immediately accepted in the absence of a CEI bid.  In fact, C= UK
    failed to sign a contract when they were offered one.  In the same way,
    there's no evidence to suggest machines could have been available for
    Christmas.
    
    The problem with the "UK only" "misconception" is that it has been some
    time since Pleasance has completely and comprehensively summed up the
    goals of the MBO.  An online conference would give him the perfect
    chance, but he says he's not allowed to discuss the buyout, yet that is
    exactly what his articles in numerous UK magazines do.

    
@endnode
@node P2-1 "Press Releases"
@toc P2

===========================================================================
==                            Press Releases                             ==
===========================================================================

                               *Photogenics*

Photogenics combines the features of a powerful image manipulation
package with the ease-of-use and creative freedom of a traditional
paint program. 

You can load a variety of different images (JPEG, GIF, IFF, etc.)
and save them in different formats, but Photogenics is much more than
just a simple conversion system. If your longing is to paint then use
one of the multiple built in natural brushes ( chalk, pencil, pastel,
etc...) or simply retouch the picture with the airbrush. Through the 
variety of operations and the powerful visual alpha channels, image 
manipulation has never been so enjoyable.

You can edit multiple images - each in its own resizable window. The
realtime HAM-8 display gives you full-colour painting without needing
a 24-bit graphics board (with AGA machine). 

Designed for graphics artists and serious painters, Photogenics gives
a professional working environment offering many features not even 
found on PC or Mac packages. The open-architecture design gives 
programmers the freedom of writing their own loaders, savers or effects.
The minimum system is an Amiga 1200, floppy drive, Kickstart 3.0 or
higher and 2Mb Ram, (4Mb ram and hard drive recommended).

Photogenics is available for a Price of UK #54.95 + #2.50P&P 
Almathera is on +44-181-687 0040 or write to Almathera, Southerton House, 
Boundary Business Court, 92-94 Church Road, Mitcham, Surrey CR4 3TD
Contact:jbsajno@cix.compulink.co.uk

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

Maidenhead, 22nd December 1994

The Management Buy-Out team of Commodore (UK) Limited announced that
following a meeting of Commodore International (CIL) US Creditors in New
York on Tuesday, 20th December, the liquidators of CIL have
accepted the UK team's offer to acquire the assets of CIL and has
requested that they move with all possible speed to completion.

Whilst there remain many obstacles in the road to success, the team are
delighted to move one large step closer to their goal of
re-establishing the Amiga in its rightful place as a leading product in
the multimedia/home computer markets.

                        --- --- --- --- --- --- ---
Eureka
Adsteeg 10
6191 PX Beek(L)
The Netherlands

International:
Tel. +31-46370800
Fax. +31-46360188

For immediate release 
september 1994

The Communicator II for CD32 dramatically improved

The Communicator II makes CD32 an intelligent 2 way computer with CD-rom
contro lled by the amiga. 

You can view PhotoCD's, Create Full motion video* or Audio presentations
with th e Communicator-, Scala- and Mediapoint- driver.  Or you can just
use it as 2 way CD-rom with speeds of upto 210000 baud. 

One of it's unique new features is the virtual CD disk concept which
enables users to configure the Communicator II in order to automatically
boot the progr am used most. 

Also new is CD-rom device support, the integrated menu /program system and
added high speed modes.

"The Communicator is a great success and has become the default add-on for
CD32, now we've made it even better" according to Frank Hoen, general
manager of Eureka.

"The new Communicator II soft- and hardware doesn't just add a CD-Rom drive
to your system(as many people think) but it adds a complete Amiga with
600Mb CDrom 2Mb of Ram and AA chipset to your existing machine.  The
additional digital video and audio make it nothing short of spectacular!"

"CD32 still has the best price/performance of the interactive CD market
with the Communicator being the logical add-on for every CD32" concludes
Frank Hoen.

SOFTWARE IMPROVEMENTS
 
SPEED
The Communicator II speed is dramatically improved when compared against
the ori ginal Communicator.  Speed can be reached of upto 210000 baud!  (on
A4000).  Transfer speed can be tuned and tested for optimal performance on
every amiga. 

VIRTUAL DISKS
This unique new feature of the Communicator II software will change the use
of Interactive CD systems.  By using the non-volatile ram of the CD32, the
user can select which menu program he wants to boot with.  The next time he
inserts the Communicator II CD, the requested program start im mediately
making it appear that he is working with more than 1 disk.  This prevents a
lot of reboots of the CD32 and is perfect when using the CD32 as
Multi-media player or CD-rom.

USER  INTERFACE
The bootup Menu and Communicator program are integrated into 1 easy to use
program.  Also it is now possible to test the maximum speed you can reach
with your machine.  The baudrat e can be reset to default preventing
locking up of the CD32.

VISUAL FEEDBACK
Next to the totally redesigned user interface, visual feedback is given
when the CD32 receives commands.  This enables the user to check if the
requested function is performed correctly.  Examples of visual feedback are
playing CDžs, setting the baudrate, showing whe n files are being
transferred etc.

FILE TRANSFER
The Communicator II now has 3 ways  of  transferring  files:
        Safety
        1.The Communicator II Zmodem file transfer enables the user to
          securely transfer and start files from and to the CD32.
        CD-rom
        2.A CD rom device driver offers an easy to use option of
          transferring fi les from and to the CD32.  This works in the same
          way as accessing žnormalž CD-roms except for the fa ct that you
          can also send data to the Cd32.
        High-speed CLI
        3.A high speed CLI orientated program enables you to transfers
          files fas t with speeds of upto 210000 baud ( A4000/030).

The Communicator II file transfer capabilities have improved compatibility
with ISO 9660 CDžs and are generally improved in terms of performance and
relia bility.

PHOTOLITE CD32 
This PhotoCD program included on every Communicator CD was not changed. 
PhotoLite can be started instantly using the virtual disk feature .

CD32 AGA VIEWER  (also for non aga machines)
View pictures and animations from CD or amiga in 16.7 Million colours.  The
viewer functions as framebuffer for non-aga machines enabling you to view
AG A pictures in 16.7 Million colours.  The Viewer was upgraded and now can
make use of datatypes .

Pictures can be viewed on CD32 directly or first uploaded and then viewed.
More advanced time control is now possible.

WORKBENCH
A newer version of Workbench is installed for increased compatibility and
performance. 

Also Workbench can now be started from the Menu directly or instantly
started us ing the virtual CD concept.

Testing the Communicator II is now even easier with the inte- grated test
button which tests the quality of the connection between the CD32 an d
Amiga automatically.

MEDIAPOINT 
For the popular Mediapoint program the Communicator is now supplied with
the new Mediapoint Full motion video* (Mpeg) and Audio Xapp offering
advanced audio and video control.  A Scala driver is already included.

NEW PD SOFTWARE 
Eureka includes several new PD programs for transferring data to and from
CD32.  Also a demo version of the animation viewer MainActor is inclu ded.

HARDWARE IMPROVEMENTS

The new Communicator II hardware case has an extra A2000/3000 keyboard plug
next to itžs standard CD32/ A4000 keyboard plug.  Also the serial cable to
t he amiga is now a DB25 serial to RJ10 jack (telephone) plug.  The serial
cable can be easily changed and has a cable guard.  The Communicator to
CD32 connector is strengthened even more and the Communicato ržs LEDžs are
now on the front for even better visibility.  This added to the st eel
plated case makes for a very robust design.

The low cost Communicator Lite II has the same features as the full blown
Commun icator II except it doesn't have LED's, a MIDI, keyboard interface
and the advanced power control of the Communicator.

UPGRADES
For Communicator users software upgrades can be obtained from their
Communicato r dealer or directly from Eureka at extra charge.

Eureka company backgrounds
Eureka, based in Beek(L) near Maastricht, the Netherlands was founded in
1989.  In 1992 Eureka started developing hardware products for the Amiga. 
It's first pr oduct was the Eurocomp, a broadcast quality composite and Y/C
video encoder.   After some custom hardware projects for the Dutch
government, Eureka decided to concentrate on designing products for the
Amiga market.   Eureka is currently also involved in custom interactive-TV
hardware projects based on PC. 

Further products are the Afterburner 50mhz 68030 turbo for the A4000/A3000
and Photolite PhotoCD software for CD32.

FOR MORE INFORMATION OR EVALUATION UNITS CONTACT EUREKA, MR.  FRANK HOEN AT
+3146370800 FAX +3146360188

The Communicator II program was written with the powerful Helm authoring
system by Eagle Tree Software.  Copies of this authoring system can be
supplied for review.

All trademarks are owned by their respective owners.

* Needs Full Motion Video cartridge.

Commodore Distribution & Development

Press release

For more information:

Eureka, Frank Hoen
Adsteeg 10, 6191 PX
Beek(L) The Netherlands
tel. +3146370800
fax. +3146360188

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

EUREKA
Adsteeg 10
6191 PX Beek(L)
The Netherlands

International:
Tel. +31-46370800
Fax. +31-46360188
For immediate release 
December 1994


New Helm sets higher standards in the world of authoring systems.


Helm is the most powerful authoring system for the Amiga and will soon be
avail able (Mid '95) for the PC running Windows.

With Helm, users can create custom image editors, personal information
managers, presentations, kiosks, free form databases, or educational
courseware.  Helm includes a freely distributable browser for distributing
applications without extra licenses or fees.

Eagle Tree Software is currently working on versions of Helm for several
different platforms.  When the Windows version is completed, authors of
applications using the Amiga version will be able to convert their
applications to run under win dows.  Helm will be able to do most of the
conversion for authors because all versions will be file compatible with
each other.

Helm is both an authoring system and a powerful graphics program.  It
combines draw, paint, and image processing tools with a scripting
language, a hypermedia da tabase manager, and a rich assortment of user
interface objects.

In Helm, users create objects directly on the pages of electronic
books.Users work on the page, attaching actions or scripts to the objects.
They can immediately test their applications as they work out the design.
Usersfocus on their appli cations and not on the intricacies of the
authoring system.  And with Helm's paint and draw tools, they do not have
to switch to outside programs to create or modify their artwork.

Helm's objects include buttons, graphs, imagefields, shapes, textfields,
radio boxes, check boxes, sliders, scrolling lists, clocks, pop-up menus,
timers, and file selectors.  The textfields support multiple font, color,
and style changes; hypertext; color fonts; proportional fonts; and mouse
scrolling.  Paint directly on the imagefields with custom brushes and using
paint types that include gradients, dithering, edge detection, tinting, and
custom co nvolution.

Multimedia developers can program an object by adding a list of
preprogrammed ac tions or a script that is written in an English-like
language.  Helm can import s ound (8SVX), music (SMUS), images (IFF-ILBM),
animations (ANIM-5), and fonts dir ectly into a book.  It features support
for the Amiga clipboard, visual effects, PostScript(r) printing,
compatibility w ith AGA display modes, and automatic browsing with a
joystick or timer.

Helm (Amiga version) has a suggested retail price of HFL 299 (DM 249)

What Independent Reviewers Say:

Helm, as we shall see, has many of the most important attributes of the
current crop of existing programs and combines them with some unique
features of its own to provide what is probably the most comprehensive
integrated multimedia authoring system available.
            --Andrew Gould, Amiga User International, January 1994

Easily the best page orientated multimedia presentation system available. 
More features than Hyperbook, easier to use than CanDo.
            --Nick Veitch, Amiga Format, December 1993

Helm features a collection of exquisite graphics tools, many of which rival
and surpass those found in top Amiga paint programs.
            --R. Shamms Mortier, Amazing Computing, October 1993

The claims that Helm is easy to use and extremely flexible are certainly
well-founded.  I found the adjustable interface a pleasure to work with.
            --Graeme Sandiford, Amiga Shopper, May 1994

Helm puts to shame programs like Hypercard for the Macintosh, which,
despite years of funding, cannot handle color graphics and animation and is
no match for Helm's graphics tools and simplicity of programming.  Despite
its modest origins, Helm packs a real multimedia punch.
            --Daniel Greenberg, AmigaWorld, January 1994

Eagle Tree Software Announces Appointment of European Distributor of Helm

Eagle Tree Software is pleased to announce that Eureka, a company based in
the Netherlands, will handle exclusive European production and
distribution of the Helm multimedia authoring system for the Amiga
computer.  Jerrell Nickerson, develo per of Helm, said, "This new
arrangement with Eureka will make it a lot easier for European users and
dealers to obtain Helm as we seek to make it the premiere multimedia
development system"

Eureka was founded in 1989 and is located in Beek(L) near Maastrict, the
Netherl ands.  In 1992, Eureka started developing hardware products for the
Amiga.  Its fi rst product was the Eurocomp, a broadcast quality composite
and Y/C video encoder.  After some custom hardware projects for the Dutch
government, Eureka concentr ated on designing products for the Amiga market
including the Photolite software and the Communicator interface for CD32's.
Eureka is now designing PC multi-media hardware.

Eagle Tree Software was founded in 1987 and has produced several products
for th e Amiga including Butcher, Distant Armies, and Chinese Chess.  Eagle
Tree is currently developing Helm as a cross platform authoring system for
the Amiga, the Macintosh, and Windows-based PC systems. 

For more information or samples , contact

Frank Hoen
Eureka
Adsteeg 10
6191 PX Beek (L)
The Netherlands
Fax:    +31(0)46360188
Voice:  +31(0)46370800
Email: hoen@iaehv.iaehv.nl

Helm is a trademark of Eagle Tree Software.  Amiga is a registered
trademark of Commodore-Amiga, Inc.  PhotoLite and Communicator are
trademarks of Eureka.

Jerrell Nickerson
Eagle Tree Software
P.O. Box 164
Hopewell, VA, 23860
U.S.A.
Telephone (Fax or Voice): 
(804) 452-0623

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

Videology, Inc
72-6 Newtown Rd, Suite 210
Danbury, CT 06810
(203) 270-9000
 VIDEO TOASTER/FLYER SPECIFICATIONS - DECEMBER 21, 1994

Software Specifications:

Switcher/Editor
   Simultaneous playback of two video streams with instantaneous rewind,
fast-forwardand pre-roll
   Editing and sequencing of video clips, framestores and effects    Clips
(as croutons on the edit screen) placed next to one another on the
storyboard will perform a cut
   True A/B roll is acheived by placing a transition between the clips   
Clips whose sequence produce an A/B roll situation will have the B clip's
overlapping frames moved to the other harddrive without user input,
producing a full two video stream input to the Toaster Switcher
   Any sequence made up of video clips, framestores, CG pages, and Toaster
transitions may be viewed immediately as no rendering is required    Since
most of the effects requiring realtime video compression cause the
Switcher to produce a video image with pixelized images, the Feral Effect
board is available for realtime, non-pixelized compression.    For effects
not available with the Toaster Switcher, or to replace effects that cause
pixelization, the effects may be rendered from the Flyer clips, through
the use of LightWave, producing clean, broadcast quality transitions,
limited only by the user's imagination
   Special effects/transitions may be created by the inexperienced user by
using Hollywood F/X, selecting one of the many packaged effects, telling
the program what features you want, and it will render it for you. A newer
version, available by February '95, will allow the user to create the
effect.
   Insert editing (overlaying a longer clip with audio with a shorter
video clip) is possible
   Visual framestore representations (thumbnails)
   New file management capabilities built into the editor
   Fully automatic A/B roll editing
   Multiple video quality modes
   Play forward from any point
   Disk to disk high speed direct copy
   Over 100 new effects in Version 4.0

   Using stereo RCA connectors, unbalanced stereo audio input and output
can be recorded simultaneously with the video
   Two background stereo audio tracks may be added with a separate disk
installed on the third SCSI interface
   Independent audio level control on all tracks
   Independent In and out audio points may be set creating a "split edit"
with overlaping audio
   Stereo audio can be played from two video clips simultaneously, with
independent volume level and face controls.
   All four stereo tracks (eight channels) are mixed down to final stereo
output using the Flyer's on board DSP chip


ToasterCG
   Ability to rotate, resize and shear text
   Unlimited CG pages stored independently
   Extensive ARexx controllability
   Improved brush preview operation
   Spell Checker

ToasterPaint: (Amiga 4000 systems only)
   All-new interface
   Full-screen, full-color paint on the A4000
   High-Performance airbrush
   Stencil
   Alpha Channel
   Alpha Channel painting
   New color editing with HSV color wheel
   PostScript text support including rotate, resize and shear
   New ARexx macro interface
   User definable palette
   Global flood fill

LightWave
   LightWave output to Flyer
   Basic inverse kinematics
   "Unaffected by fog" option for objects
   "Unseen by Rays" option for objects
   Improved shadow mapping and soft filtering
   Anamorphic option for NTSC widescreen or CinemaScope
   Item selection by clicking in LightWave view

Modeler
   Enhanced control of Bones
   Multi-level undo and redo

Features Not Yet in .9
   SMPTE recording
   Sequencing of CG overlays, scrolls and crawls
   New ToasterPaint for Amiga 2000 systems
   ChromaFX croutons
   Archive utilities
   Cutting Room: Bulk digitizing, audio stripping, stripping of
still-stores, segmenting of long video clips

Hardware Specifications

Flyer Technical Specifications
   Video Signal Tolerances
    Differential Phase: <2
    Differential Gain:  <3%
    Chroma Bandwidth: Maximum available (NTSC standard)

   Compression   Data Rate   Data Rate   Luminace          Signal to   
Mode          Peak        Variance    Bandwidth         Noise Ratio 
   Top Quality   <8.0MB/sec  1.4-8MB/s   >6.00 MHz @ -3dB  56 dB

   High Quality  <3.7MB/sec  1.4-3.7MB/s >4.20 MHz @ -3dB  >50 dB 
   Low Quality   <3.7MB/Sec  0.7-3.7MB/s >2.75 MHz @ -3dB  >50 dB 

Note: Add 1.76K/sec(0.176MB/sec) for stereo audio recorded with video. 

Top Quality is true D2 quality which is 60 fields per second, full
overscan (752 pixels wide by 480 lines high)

 Internally the Flyer works with D2 data so there is no D2/Composite
transcoding
 The Flyer uses Newtek's Video Toaster Adaptive Statiscal Coding (VTASC).
VTASC relies on reducing the quality of the video signal (i.e. dropping
from D2 to Beta SP) instead of picture quality, as do JPEG, MPEG and
WaveLet. The resulting degradation looks more like noise associated with
video, since there is no visible pixelization. Using the faster, 9GB
drives, lossless D2 quality can be acheived.
 The audio is 8 bit sample at 14.3 MHz using state of the art A/D, D/A
converters

Flyer Hard Drives

   IBM  3.5"x1.6"     2GB    70G8493
   Seagate 3.5"x1.6"  4GB    ST1515ON
   Seagate 5.25"x3.2" 9GB    ST41080ON

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

THE PORTAL INFORMATION NETWORK, INC.

Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
                                      Contacts: 

                                      Julie Mueller 
                                      The Portal Information Network 
                                      408/973-9111

                                      Laurie Windham
                                      Windham/Lang Group 
                                      415/563-4545

                                      Donna Loughlin 
                                      NetManage, Inc. 
                                      408/973-7171

                      NEW INSTANT INTERNET(TM) 
            FEATURES THE PORTAL INFORMATION NETWORK(TM) 
Access to Leading Internet Provider Pre-Programmed into NetManage's
           New Internet Chameleon(TM) Software Package

CUPERTINO, CALIF -- DECEMBER 7, 1994. The Portal Information
Network(TM), a leading provider of interactive network services,
announced today that it is featured in NetManage's new Internet
Chameleon software package.  Access to The Portal Information Network
is preprogrammed into Instant Internet(TM), an application within
Chameleon, so that users can automatically sign-up for a new Portal
Internet account.

Portal, an Internet service provider for more than nine years, focuses
exclusively on the dial-up Internet access. Its experience and focus
provides its end users and partners with the best worldwide coverage,
highly reliable, fast access and response, and the most affordable
prices in the industry.

"NetManage has addressed the issues that have traditionally made
Internet access difficult for most users," said John Little, Founder
President and CEO of The Portal Information Network.  "The instant
Portal sign-up feature greatly simplifies getting on to the Internet
and is especially effective at reaching the world wide web which is
rapidly becoming the `killer' Internet application."

After signing up for a new Portal account, users can instantly connect
directly to the Internet and use Internet Chameleon's suite of
applications including: the WebSurfer(TM), a worldwide web navigation
tool that allows users to browse multimedia documents on the Internet,
Archie, a popular graphical search tool, and Mail. A key convenience
featured of using the Portal Internet service is that users can opt to
have monthly service fees charged directly to their credit cards.

"Convenient Internet access is what Instant Internet is all about."
said Bob Williams, Vice President of Marketing, NetManage. "Portal's
worldwide coverage and high network availability are critical elements
to making the Internet a truly convenient and reliable communications
vehicle."

BEST WORLDWIDE COVERAGE

The Portal Information Network has the best worldwide coverage of any
Internet service provider. Portal is accessible through a local phone
call by an estimated 95% of the U.S.  population because of its
connections to a nationwide network of 1,100 local access numbers and
150,000modems. In addition, Portal is accessible from the public data
networks of about 100 countries. The benefit of Portal's worldwide
coverage strategy is overall lower cost to its end users. A recent
independent study by Clark Communications showed that Portal's
nationwide rates are, on average, 48% lower than NetCom, PSI and
UUNet.

HIGHLY RELIABLE, FAST ACCESS AND RESPONSE

The Portal Information Network gives its users and partners reliable,
fast access and response because of built-in system redundancy.
Portal's fault tolerant, client-server architecture, called the Portal
Interactive Platform, allows for automatic correction of hardware and
software failures without human intervention. The platform
automatically detects failed machines and reroutes traffic to
functioning machines.

As a result of Portal's Interactive Platform, Portal offers the best
network availability amoung the leaders in the industry. In the Clark
Communications study comparing frequency of successful network
connections among Portal, PSI and NetCom, Portal's network was
accessible 35% more often than its competitors 24 hours a day/seven
days a week. During peak network hours, such as weekday mornings,
Portal was available as much as 90% more often than the competition.

"The ultimate goal of the Portal Interactive Platform is that users can
always connect to the Internet, whenever they want," said Dave Labuda,
Vice President of Engineering, The Portal Information Network. "The
Clark Communications study validated that our engineering goals have
been realized and that we are achieving network availability far
superior to other industry players."

PRICING AND AVAILABILITY

Users of Instant Internet receive our standard low rates of $19.95 per
month and $2.95 per hour, plus a $25 rebate from The Portal Information
Network.  Internet Chameleon is available through Egghead and directly
through NetManage, Inc. For more information about Internet Chameleon,
call NetManage at 408/973-7171.

ABOUT THE PORTAL INFORMATION NETWORK

The Portal Information Network is a leading provider of nationwide,
interactive network services, focused on offering dial-up Internet
access and customized networks to a broad range of markets via
strategic partnerships.

Historically, Portal has been an innovator in making electronic
communications more useful to all types of business and individuals.
Portal was first to offer commercial Internet mail gateway and
commercial Usenet access and was the first worldwide Internet access
provider to business and individual users. In addition, Portal was
first to provide an easy-to-use connection to the Internet, offering
email, Usenet, content management tools, chat and forums.

Today, Portal provides interactive network services through its Portal
Internet Family(TM) of dialup services and its Custom Network Services.
Founded in 1985, The Portal Information Network is privately-held and
headquartered in Cupertino, California.

                               # # # 

The Portal Information Network is a registered trademark of Portal
Information Network, Inc. Portal Internet Family, Portal Interactive
Platform, Portal Transaction Services and Portal Information
Architecture are trademarks of Portal Information Network, Inc., and
should be treated as such. All other brands and products are trademarks
or registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be
treated as such.

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

             THE PORTAL INFORMATION NETWORK(TM) ANNOUNCES
               AVAILABILITY OF CUSTOM NETWORK SERVICES
           Strategic Expansion of Internet Service Business

CUPERTINO, CALIF. - DECEMBER 7, 1994. The Portal Information Network, a
leading provider of interactive network services, today announced its
offering of Custom Network Services, a range of services and
technologies designed to facilitate the creation of "private label"
networks. The new service offering represents a strategic expansion of
Portal's traditional Internet service provider business. Catapult
Entertainment, Inc. is one of the first customers of Portal's new
Custom Network Services.

With Custom Network Services, Portal works with its customers to apply
its proprietary technologies to unique network solutions. Portal's
Custom Network Services include technologies and services for providing
nationwide network connections, transaction processing, credit card
authorization and billing, account administration and customer
tracking. A unique element of Portal's technology strategy is its
points-of-presence coverage. Through Portal, 95% of the U.S. population
can access the network with a local phone call. This means that by
working with Portal, companies implementing a private label network
have easy access to customers, nationwide.

"Providing interactive network services requires many layers of complex
technology and expertise. Successfully executing on all those
requirements is a daunting task for any company. Portal has chosen to
focus on the core interactive network technology components that
leverage our years of experience in providing Internet access," John
Little, Founder, President and CEO, The Portal Information Network. "Our
partners add their unique value in providing content, end user
interfaces and marketing know how to promote their networks to their
respective customers."

PARTNERSHIP WITH CATAPULT ENTERTAINMENT, INC.

Much of what Portal is offering as Custom Network Services was applied
as a part of a partnership with Catapult Entertainment, Inc., creators
of the XBAND(TM) Video Game Modem and Network for the Genesis(TM) and
Super NES(R) game platforms. Portal worked with Catapult in designing
the XBAND Network, and currently provides local network access in all
Catapult's markets, links players together, processes transactions,
manages the customer data base and supports and maintains the network.

"Catapult is pleased to be working with Portal to take advantage of
their technologies in networking, electronic communications, and
transaction processing," said Adam Grosser, President and CEO of
Catapult Entertainment, Inc.

Catapult's XBAND Video Game Modem and Network service is now shipping.
The company expects significant growth in the months ahead. In 1995,
the XBAND Network will support more than 500,000 active users and
handle tens of thousands of transactions per minute.

PRIVATE LABEL NETWORKS - AN EMERGING MARKET

As companies work to capture the potential in the emerging interactive
network services market and develop applications for consumer and
business users, they are faced with choices on how to implement the
network. Some are offering products and services via on-line service
providers. Others are evaluating ways to provide their own private
label network. For these companies, contracting with outside companies
such as Portal to provide network services is a viable alternative.

"Many companies have the marketing presence to have their own network.
But they have decided that internally developing the technical
competencies required to implement a network does not make strategic
business sense," said Dave Labuda, Vice President of Engineering, The
Portal Information Network. "We work with those companies to design the
optimal network. This gives them total control over the final product
and assures them that they have a network that will grow with their
business volume."

As a part of its new offering, Portal provides world wide web (www)
services. Customers of these new www services will be companies who
want to provide content via the www, but want to outsource operating
and maintaining the web site. By partnering with Portal, companies can
quickly get their information onto the www while reducing the cost of
entry.

PORTAL PROPRIETARY TECHNOLOGIES

Portal has developed three core technology components which are applied
to custom network solutions: Portal Interactive Platform, Portal
Transaction Services and Portal Information Architecture.

The Portal Interactive Platform is a suite of highly optimized
communications technologies for fault-tolerant networks and access to
nationwide points of presence. The client-server platform is the
foundation for building an electronic information service and is
designed to scale quickly to handle increased customer, traffic and
transaction volume.

Portal's Transaction Services address the key functions in transaction
processing and customer management such as account creation and
administration, customer support and monitoring, invoicing, credit card
authorization and billing, and customer history tracking. To provide
maximum security, Portal has taken an end-to-end encryption approach,
where every byte of data transferred is secure. Its hierarchical access
list tightly monitors which users are allowed on the network and what
they are authorized to do. Combined with Portal's object-oriented
communications protocol, the hierarchical access list enables security
rules to be rapidly created and adjusted by the network administrator
and other designated people.

The Portal Information Architecture manages the information that is
stored in the Portal system and is based on a large-scale,
object-oriented, application built on top of an Oracle Corporation
database. The object-oriented design is key to enabling new
applications, users and transaction types to be rapidly implemented on
a custom network.

ABOUT THE PORTAL INFORMATION NETWORK

The Portal Information Network is a leading provider of nationwide,
interactive network services, focused on offering dial-up Internet
access and customized networks to a broad range of markets via
strategic partnerships. The company offers the broadest nationwide
network coverage available, enabling 95% of the U.S. population to
reach the network with a local call.

Portal has been an Internet Service provider since 1985. Historically,
Portal has been an innovator in making electronic communications more
useful to all types of business and individuals. Portal was first to
offer commercial Internet mail gateway and commercial Usenet access and
was the first worldwide Internet access provider to business and
individual users. In addition, Portal was first to provide an
easy-to-use connection to the Internet, offering email, Usenet, content
management tools, chat and forums.

Today, Portal provides interactive network services through its Portal
Internet Family of dial-up services and its Custom Network Services.
Founded in 1985, the Portal Information Network is privately-held and
headquartered in Cupertino, California.

                  # # #

The Portal Information Network is a registered trademark of The Portal
Information Network, Inc. Portal Internet Family, Portal Interactive
Platform, Portal Transaction Services and Portal Information
Architecture are trademarks of the Portal Information Network, Inc.,
and should be treated as such. XBAND is a trademark of Catapult
Entertainment, Inc. Super Nintendo Entertainment System is a registered
trademark of Nintendo of America Inc. Genesis is a trademark of Sega
Enterprises LTD. All Rights Reserved. All other brands and products are
trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and
should be treated as such.

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

AURA - Advanced Sound Sampling for your A600/A1200
--------------------------------------------------

The following text is the given info (press release) for the package.

Audible Reality
---------------
Aura is a brilliant new concept in high-performance, yet affordable sound
sampling for your Amiga A600 or A1200 computer. This breakthrough is brought
about by revolutionary hardware which plugs into the PCMCIA slot to achieve
extraordinary sampling performance in glorious 12-bit stereo, with optional
direct-to-disk recording.

The Software
------------
The Aura audio/sampling suite is probably the world's most pwerful, flexible
and easiest-to-use Amiga sound software package to date! This is no idle
claim, just look at some of the features of this superb sound sampler:

-> Record/Play/Edit 16- or 8- bit, mono or stereo sounds to memory or 
   direct-to-hard disk.
-> Real-Time monitor of audio input with moving spectrum analyser and 
   oscilloscope displays.
-> Amazing range of editing facilities including cut, paste, insert, 
   delete, fade and volume. Editing controls work on both samples in 
   memory and on hard disk.
-> Record samples into memory at rates in excess of 60KHz (A1200, 
   12-bit stereo) and direct-to-hard disk recording at rates in excess 
   of 40KHz (A1200 12-bit stereo with Fast RAM).
-> 15 fully programmable, single source (one tap) sound effects can be 
   used in real-time and on samples held in memory or even on hard disk,
   plus effect preview.
-> Block-orientated Sample Sequencer built-in.
-> Advanced digital filtering with 3-dimensional Fast Fourier Transform 
   (FFT) interactive display.
-> Real-Time playback of samples under MIDI control (requires extra MIDI
   interface and keyboard).
-> Load and save IFF, RAW and AIFF sample formats.
-> Over 60 fully programmable, MULTI-SOURCE, sound effects on samples in
   memory, in real-time and to memory or hard disk (with effect preview);
   a unique feature.

Package includes:  Aura hardware, complete software, comprehensive 130-page
manual, stereo phono-to-phono lead and registration card.

The Hardware
------------
Aura is supplied with 12-bit stereo sound sampling inputs and outputs to
obtain the ultimate digital quality of your recorded soundtrack, all in 
an attractive case.
-> Achieves a signal-to-noise ratio of 72-db - equivalent to most computer
   based 16-bit systems at a fraction of the cost.
-> PCMCIA credit card connection for maximum performance and expandability.
-> 12-bit quality sampling with 8/12/16-bit and mono/stereo versatilty
   built into the software.
-> Enhanced 12-bit quality phono outputs with Amiga audio mixed through 
   as well.
-> Very high sample record/playback speeds (over 60KHz in 12-bit stereo 
   mode on A1200).

Octamed compatible
------------------
OctaMED is the leading Amiga sample sequencer; now, version 5.02 and above
include a dedicated 16-bit sample editor which is 100% Aura compatible and
can play 16-bit samples through the Aura hardware while sequencing MIDI
and normal Amiga 8-bit sounds.

This powerful combination provides stunning performance and sound quality
for maximum impact.

Aura is another quality music product for your Amiga from HiSoft/Microdeal

RRP Price:  99.95 UKP.

HiSoft
The Old School,
Greenfield,
Bedford,
MK45 5DE
UK

Tel:  +44 (0) 1525 718181
Fax:  +44 (0) 1525 713716


Alans Quick Preview
-------------------

Yep, just like normal, I was one of the first to get a hands-on go at this
bit of equipment, so lets see what impressions I gained....

First thoughts: The hardware looks nice, comprising of a "wedge-box" that
is colour co-ordinated to the A1200/A600 and slots in nicely to the 
left-hand side of the machine [PCMCIA slot]. Out of the back come several
phono sockets - some in, some out. So, it looks nice, but does it do the
job in hand?

The job in hand: I want nice clean high-quality samples for music
production, so does this package cut it? My first samples gained were 
disappointing on this front - as to be expected from my lack of
knowledge of the software and hardware. But then, putting my knowledge to
the fore, I managed to get some very respectable samples. This was done 
by firstly changing the sound source to a decent source - out went the tape,
in went the CD source. Moving the unshielded phono leads from all
interference causing sources also helped (at home I have better leads 
than the ones supplied...which isnt to say they [supplied] arent good, 
its just that they're not gold and shielded). The effects that can be 
applied are wide ranging and behave very well. The possibility of applying
MANY effects at once becsame a reality - and I got some excellent
results. The hard disk sampling is also a joy to behold (one usually has
to have a much more expensive card to do this function).

Some of the other touches (eg  FFT) are not really needed for amateur 
users - but for the pros it is great that such functions are present 
already (and not in updates) because they enable the sample to be judged
for its full range/depth; enabling the song to be completely within 
dynamical range whatever the frequency. These functins work a dream on 
faster machines. At least an A1200 with fastRAM is recommended! :)

Hopefully, I will be able to give a full review - in association with a 
professional musician - in the near future. This will be including a report
of how well it works with OctaMED (version 5.04). I will also highlight
some other things to bear in mind with this unit - and possible problems
with it - more of that in the review though! :)

Until then, I hope you have a happy Christmas and New Year!! 

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

Team17 Announces...

-  All Terrain Racing

Featuring six cars onscreen at 50hz refresh rate.
Bridges, tunnels, ramps, jumps, moving barriers, short-cuts and more.
Three different vehicle types
Power ups and weaponry
Varied terrains, from icy to rocky to futuristic.
36 maps in circuit race, more in other game modes.
Simultaneous two-player battle mode.

Available Jan/Feb '95 for ECS, AGA, and CD32 Amigas.
(No price provided)

-  Pussies Galore  (A platform game with cats...)

The upshot of the plot is that the kittens of the world are under an evil
spell and you, an alley cat, have to rescue them.  Hence the name.

Four enormous worlds with a number of missions to be completed.
Rescued kittens can be used to complete tasks.
Each discovered kitten must be guided to its own individual exit point.
Keys, power-ups and bonus rooms.
64-color play screen with masking.
Parallax scrolling play area.
50hz scrolling

Available March/April '95, AGA and CD32 Amigas.

-  Worms ("How Hard is Your Worm?")

"...A cross between Lemmings and Cannon Fodder, perhaps?"

Up to four platoons of four worms battle it out over a multi-directional
scrolling landscape with a variety of weapons at each worm's disposal.
The winner is the person who has a worm (or worms) surviving at the end of
the fracas.

Bazookas, homing missiles, dynamite, hand grenades and much more with which
to worminate all other worms.  Worm to worm combat abilities.  Call in air
strikes on enemy positions, build bridges over water obstructions, climb to
the top of trees to gain vantage points.  Enjoy the charateristic speech
that is individual to each worm.  Even add your own speech!  Modify the
game to suit you: define time limits in which you must make your move, play
in teams or play every worm for himself, determine the number of rounds in
a match, etc.  Multi-player option - a maximum of 16 people can play at any
one time.  A networmed version will be even bigger and better!
@endnode
@node P2-3 "The C65"
@toc P2

===========================================================================
==  The C65                                          By:  @{"Jason Compton" link P8-1}  ==
===========================================================================

In the happy days of Commodore, when all was right with the world and the
masses were buying 64s like mad, Commodore decided that the 64 wouldn't
last forever and that they needed new, bold machines to take them into the
mid-80s.

The May, 1984 issue of Ahoy! magazine outlines the 264 and 364 machines
(and features quotes from Irving Gould on the monstrous success of the
64).  The 264 hit the market as the +4, and its younger, stupid cousin,
the 216, became the 16.  Both were sufficient departures from the 64
architecture to make them pointless to buy, and they failed miserably.

The 364 was designed with voice synthesis and even more built-in software
than the +4, but never hit market.

Of course, around this time Commodore bought out Amiga, so the low-end 8
bit market wasn't all that important anymore.

Well, sort of.  Around 1988-1989, someone decided that it wouldn't be such
a bad idea to try to pick up some more money in the low-end.  Thus was
born the 65 (or 64DX, depending on what you're reading.)

The machine was to be, in many ways, a large departure from standard 64
architecture.  It was developed in part by the same people working on
Amigas, made evident by the similar PCB layout, case construction, and the
leading names on the motherboard, "FISH/NINES".

So, what is it?  Well, a mega-64, really.  It has a 3.5mhz 6502-ish
processor, a DMA engine, a built-in 3.5 inch floppy (cleverly mounted in
the front of the one-piece machine, creating a drink ledge), 4 cursor
keys, and rather nice screen resolutions (320x200x256 up to 1280x400x2). 
128k ram standard, with space for memory expansion (trap-door, up to 8
megs with bank switching!)  Dual SIDs for stereo sound, a cartridge port,
"user port", two types of serial port, and RGB, RF, and "64-ish video
port" out.  And, of course, a 64-fallback emulation mode.

Development lasted until around 1991.  Only "pre-alpha" models were built.
Mine is serial #76.  Some of the units belong to former C= staff, others
were sold to Grapevine Group a little over a year ago in C= US'
warehouse-cleaning sale to raise money, and the rest were sold in the
Commodore US liquidation auction in September.

So, what happened?  Why was it never built?  Well, all sorts of
explanations are possible.  First off, it's unclear whether the 65 was a
really bad idea finally recognized for what it was when it was cancelled,
or a really good idea cancelled by idiots.  While the wisdom of developing
a new 8-bit machine in the late 80s can be questioned, the 65 would have
been a formidable computer if it had been completed.  And, 1991 roughly
marked the advent of Bill Sydnes, He Whose Name Is Associated With Evil in
Commodore Engineering.

At any rate, the 65 is certainly not the most popular platform on the face
of the planet-some demo disks exist, and other owners have taken to writing
software for the small elite club that exists.  The machine itself is PAL
(wow, demos look much nicer here now), but the 64 emulation is not 100% by
any stretch, there is no easy way to disable the internal drive (which
completely throws off copy-protected software) and Basic 10.0 for the 65
side is VERY incomplete, with loads of ?Unimplemented Command errors.

For a Commodore closet item, though, it certainly has character.
@endnode
@node P2-4 "Interactive Future"
@toc P2

===========================================================================
==  TVI Interactive Viewpoints                       By:  Duncan Fraser  ==
===========================================================================

Will interactive television be dominant on PC or ITV?

The interactive future which will be delivered by Cable, Telco or Satellite
systems will not necessarily need a desktop computer as the communications
component.  People will prefer to get those services through their TV
meaning set top boxes which will be an important component of those
systems.  (Set Top boxes are small electronic enclosures that attach to a
television and provide the intelligence for the TV to interact with an
information provider) Solutions that are designed today with the vision of
making them available for interactive television will provide those
companies who invest in them a head start in the information revolution
that broadband two-way communications systems could provide.

TVI Interactive Systems currently deliver Amiga CD32 CD-ROM entertainment
systems with interactive television based applications that bridge the gap
between the limited number of TV based systems and the promise of future
offerings.  Our planned broadband interface will integrate with the current
system as services from the communications vendors come on line giving
users an upgrade path to ITV.  The systems we deliver today include on-line
interactive banking and related products developed for VanCity Savings
Credit Union.  VanCity is Canada's largest credit union with over 200,000
members and over 4 billion dollars in assets.  VanCity will offer
interactive television banking early in 1995 to its 200,000 plus members
enhancing its other well regarded customer service options.

In a recent study by ALI (American Lives Inc.) for Hewlett Packard a sample
of more than 6,000 consumers pointed out that even the technologically
advanced would prefer interactive TV over a PC solution.  This gives
VanCity's decision to develope interactive television based applications
another positive endorsement.

The ALI HP Report quotes: "On Relation to Technological Advancement"

" An interesting finding has surfaced in HP's recent focus group and survey
results.   Despite what may have been the initial conventional wisdom
regarding technologically advanced consumers, the way that these early
adopters and innovators want to actually receive interactive services has
changed dramatically.  These innovators, many whom have laptop computers,
fax modems, on-line services and other computer peripherals want
interactively through the television rather than the computer.

Survey respondents were categorized into four groups: laggards, average,
intermediate and innovators (based on the number of technological or
consumer electronics products owned and services used).

The market is at an early stage of development, so most people among the
whole sample (59%) did not know enough to compare the two or were neutral.
However, among those who had an opinion, ITV wins by more than two to one:
28% prefer ITV over the PC, vs.  12% who prefer PC over ITV.

Laggards:       Not asked because they either owned no computer (or had no
                plans to purchase one within two years) or had no cable.

Average:                TV-35%  PC-15%  Don't know-47%

Intermediate:           TV-37%  PC-15%  Don't know-48%

Innovators:             TV-45%  PC-16%  Don't know-39%

Whole Sample:           TV-28%  PC-13%  Don't know-59%


As far as desired applications for the innovator group, enhanced news
(which includes financial information) came out on top (again preferred on
TV vs.  PC).  Approximately 39% of innovators like enhanced news vs.  26%
of average respondents.  Other desired applications by innovators included:
home shopping (35% vs.  21%), games (23% vs 14%) and education (22% vs.
15%)."

This study allows us to conclude that developing interactive applications
with only the PC as a platform may be short sighted as they may be
superceded by TV based applications or need to be reworked for ITV.

The Amiga which is one of TVI's development platforms, lends itself very
well to creating these television interactive applications, due to the many
TV based graphics and interactive multimedia development tools available
for it as well as standard NTSC or PAL television outputs provided on all
Amiga products.
@endnode
@node P2-5 "CEI Conference on GEnie"
@toc P2

===========================================================================
==                        CEI Conference on GEnie                        ==
===========================================================================

On Thursday, December 22nd, The *StarShip* on GEnie was pleased to have
Alex Amor, of CEI, as our guest.  He brought the latest developments and
news after making their bid for the Commodore assets last week.

Please feel free to give this important transcript widest possible
distribution in the Amiga Community.  There were more than 150 people here
in attendance, and not all questions were answered.  Please watch for a
supplemental document to be released after the holidays with other
questions and answers in it from the folks who did not get a chance to ask
at this conference.

<deb> Welcome and we're very glad you are here, Alex.  I think you've got
           some opening remarks?
           
<CEI-ALEX> Thanks deb...
           To update all of you the following events occured within the last 7
           days.  CEI submitted an offer accompanied with a cash deposit to
           the liquidator for the assets of Commodore.  It is my understanding
           that at least another party also submitted an offer due to the
           non-standard bid form these offers were presented to the creditors
           to be analysed. We have been asked to submit additional
           documentation. But, my understanding is that the bid is currently
           the highest bid for the assets.  I expect the creditors to
           determine the leading bid within the next seven days and set a date
           for the auction no matter were we end up we are planning on
           submitting a bid at the auction if we are not succesful in this
           round.  The signs are good since our deposit check was cashed by
           the creditors. Now we'll see the next steps. That concludes the
           update.  Any questions?


<Zibri> Hi, Alex, this question was already asked before, but i wish to know
           what are the "close future" plans of CEI for Amiga and what will be
           the logo instead of the usual C= ??  if they changed or something i
           mean

<CEI-ALEX> Plans for the new Amiga Corporation would be to have a world-wide
           logo contest.  We are hoping to move the Amiga forward
           technological and do something that C= failed to do (MARKETING).
           There is room at the top to move the Amiga forward (68060, RISC,
           better graphics, CD-ROM drive, etc.) he operating system needs to
           improve as the sophistication improves.


<Robert in Fargo> My fear is that the new Amigas will not be priced
           competitively.  One can buy 486 PC's and '030 and '040 Macs with
           CD's for about $1600.  Will Amiga prices compete?

<CEI-ALEX> Yes, I fully understand where the current market is at.  We will
           always be slightly more expensive simply due to the lower volumes.
           But, I visit the major computer stores and see what Apples and PCs
           are selling for. There has never been a reason for the extreme high
           prices other than greed on C='s part.


<Mike Simmons> Is Amiga the only platform for all formats,with Congress's
           step and the White House to make Gov smater,faster and more
           efficient can Amiga go the distances with the Mac's and IBM's when
           Amiga gets back up and running?

<CEI-ALEX> OK...
           The Amiga will never be the standard when it comes to computers You
           kitchen does not have only one appliance...a toaster, microwave,
           etc. The Amiga's benefits are clear.  We need to emphasize the
           strong points and attempt to move the technology forward and closer
           to the main stream.


<Jason-AR> How about the chips, chipsets, designs, etc. that Commodore has in
           closets that wouldn't be a priority to the new Amiga company?  How
           seriously would you pursue licensing or selling off those
           technologies?

<CEI-ALEX> C= had a number of projects on the drawing board, unfortunately
           many of these projects were in early stages.  Our first goal is to
           produce the existing machines which there is a huge demand for,
           next the diferent technologies need to be analysed and a direction
           determined.  Is the future AAA or 3D RISC or matbe even something
           else?  As far as licensing the technology the answer is YES.. Some
           of our partners want to utilize the technologies in other
           applications and we have agreed.


<Jason-AR> What I was really driving at was the past technology-things that
           were never even Amigas-i.e. licensing/selling off the 64
           technology.  GA

<CEI-ALEX> I dont believe there is a lot of demand for the C64 technologies.
           If someone is willing to pay us for it the FAB!:)


<DanWied> Does CEI have the source codes for Amix? And if so, how can the
           development of Amix be continued when AT&T sold the source code to
           Novell which now sells it as UnixWare?

<CEI-ALEX> No, remember CEI does not own any of the intellectual property
           at this time.  Part of the acquisition will be Amix.  .... We
           believe that it is very important for the future of the Amiga to
           have multiple OSs.


<Rob Boyce> SMG has not shipped anything for a month (they said their
           computer was down). When do you expect that spare parts will become
           available for our amigas? e.g. rev11 buster, motherboards, etc. and
           what about warrenty for buyers >april 93? GA

<CEI-ALEX> Obviously, I cannot speak for SMG. We are attempting to repair
           as much product possible.  Our repair staff has been doubled in the
           past few weeks.  Our contract manufacturer is aware of the need for
           spare parts and that need is being addressed.


<Gary> Will those of us awaiting new A4000 motherboards under warranty
           replacement get motherboards with the 3.1 ROMs?

<CEI-ALEX> All new Amigas will ship with 3.1.  We will implement a special
           price policy for C='s warranty repair customers.


<Lewis> I read in Amiga World a couple months ago that CEI was working on
           something secret that tey would produce as soon as they got the
           rights to Amiga. Is this true and if so, what isi it?

<CEI-ALEX> We promised a surprise when we complete the acquisition of C=.
           Time will tell.!


<James Santiago> You have talked about licensing technology. Any plans for
           the other way around as in an existing 060 board or maybe Sound
           Blaster type

<CEI-ALEX> The Amiga technology can be the cornerstone of new derivative
           products.  There is no reason why we shouldn't attempt the "Trojan
           Horse" syndrome i.e. An Amiga inside a PC.


<Zibri> On IRC conference you said that C= forgot the "low-price/good product
           credo" in the last years (expecially about A4000 and A3000)...what
           are YOU gonna do ? and what did you mean with "slightly more
           expensive simply due to the lower volumes"? it sounds like a
           "PILATO's HAND WASH" and will newer amiga have CROSS-MAC, EMPLANT
           or PC-TASK-like applications in it's newer Operating System ?

<CEI-ALEX> Be REALISTIC, PC makers produce millions of PC in a typical year.
           The Amiga has traditionally sold hundreds of thousands of units in
           a year Their cost on chips, hard drives, etc is less.


<Zibri> yeah, but how much expensive? i am afraid of another A4000 syndrome...

<CEI-ALEX> At the same time there was no reason an Amiga 4000 should cost
           $2500.  Commodore was greedy.  The intelligent customer is willing
           to pay a few bucks more but not be racked over the coals.  If you
           think that you'll purchase an Amiga 4000T for for less than a 486Sx
           then I think you are going to be dissappointed.
<CEI-ALEX> PS Multiple OS are important, yes Cross-Mac, yes Cross-Dos....


<Zibri> that's fine... but i think that commodore sold more a1200 witho
           powerfull board instead of a4000.

<CEI-ALEX> The market for the A1200 is completely different than the 4000
           market.  Most 1200s are sold in Europe.  The consumer wants
           performance, connectivity with a television and the lowest price
           (sounds a lot like the old 64)....


<Zibri> and A4000 doesn't even have a composite line out...lots of users use
           amigas for home videos and titling and i think they can't be forced
           to by VIDEO boards or other stuff.

<CEI-ALEX> There is no reason we can't capitalize on this formula.
           Yes, all Amigas should have audio in/out, video in/out.


<Sean> a couple of related questions: How has the liquidation delay affected
           your profit projections, in light of having missed the Christmas
           season, and how do you plan to fund a significant marketing
           campaign against the poor public perception of the Amiga?  Will you
           be aiming marketing to first time buyers or previous owners?

<CEI-ALEX> Our projections never included Christmas.  At the same time we
           believed that we would have control of the assets in Aug.  This has
           affected the timeframe and the profit projections We have a large
           task ahead of us.  First filling demand and trying to keep the
           existing user base in check.  Then comes the real tough job which
           is attractive the new buyer.  Enough funds have been set aside to
           accomplish this.  Our marketing funds exceed C='s marketing funds
           for the last 2 years of operations.


<Gary Wolfe> Alex, I think Amiga fans everywhere are ecstatic!   What are your
           plans for the mass market?  Myhope is for A1200's to sell ike
           C-64's.  A cash cow is needed to continue all levels of
           development, I'd think.  (1200's sell here [in Jax,FL]! Also, don't
           forget the user groups!  Cheap form of advertisement...

<CEI-ALEX> The best form of advertisement is our existing user base.  We
           have close to four million salespeople out there.  It's going to be
           tough to get wide market appeal but, we hvae to start somewhere.
           Since being involved with the Amiga we have always supported the
           local user groups and hope to expand that world-wide once we are
           operational.


<kevin s. frost> how long will it take for a next generation amiga to see
           the light of day, and do your plans for advertising include TV
           spots in the US?

<CEI-ALEX> Development will resume immediately.  Typically it takes 9 months
           for new models, 18 months for new technology.


<Robert in Fargo> Currently one can buy an '030 Mac with 4 meg + 160 HD,
           CD-rom, monitor, and software for $1299 in Fargo.  Will you be able
           to make and sell a 1200 package with HD and AGA-compatable monitor
           for $800 or so to compete?  GA

<CEI-ALEX> It's tough to discuss exact pricing until everything is
           operational.  The short answer is yes the A1200/CD/Monitor for
           under a $1000 is possible.


<deb> Alex, Kevin asked before and you must have overlooked it, about TV
           spots for the US?

<CEI-ALEX> No, the intial budget does not call for US TV spots.  That would
           have to come at a later time as distribution is improved in the US.
           In Europe the need for TV is more important.


<Evil Genius> Some folks say that the C= buyer will simply produce enough
           machines to fill demand, and then halt production. What assurances
           do you offer about this speculation? Being orphaned once is enough
           for me. Make me feel safe.

<CEI-ALEX> We've looked at that possibility and must admit it makes
           financial sense.  But, the difference is that I believe in the
           technology, I have been involved with C= for 16 years.  In other
           words my heart, not only my wallet is in this venture.


<Mike Simmons> Alex, What attempts will be made to get some of the past
           software developers and distributors that have dropped the Amiga
           line re-interested in the Amiga here in the U.S.?

<CEI-ALEX> That looks like a two part'r.
           First, if the Amiga is going to suceed we need all the developers
           back. we can accomplish this by bundling products, co-marketing
           programs, financial incentives, and hanving a true partnership.
           Distribution is important also.  Many times the consumer wanted to
           purchase products and no dealers were available.  We have hired a
           consulting firm to locate and create a nation-wide dealer network
           in North America.  Many of the old dealers are willing to come
           back.


<Scott Sawyer, Egad Intl.>  #1 Which markets will get Amigas first, U.S. or
           European? (I'm a CEI dealer, I need Amigas... :-) #2  And, when
           will the COD thing with CEI dealers end? GA

<CEI-ALEX> Plans call for both markets to get computers at the same time.
           Once we announce our manufacturing partner it will become evident
           of how this is possible.  Unfortunately, due to the unstable market
           with C= filing for liquidation, a few bad apples spoiled it for the
           good dealers.  As soon as the new corporation is operational,
           dealer terms and conditions will be provided to existing
           dealers.(Based on merit ;) )


<Jack> In previous conferences you said, that AAA Amigas will NOT be
           produced, instead R&D will focus on RISC Amigas. Is this still
           true?  If so, I'm wondering, isn't it easier to produce AAA
           machines which are 95% done (according to Dave Haynie), instead of
           making whole new Amigas, with OS that has to be basically
           re-written for RISC machines?

<CEI-ALEX> Jack, its hard to make firm decision without owning any of the
           assets.  I will have to take a look at the work in progress before
           firm decisions are made.  Do you realize that the AAA has been
           around since before 1992? What I'm saying is lets take a look and
           determine if its still viable today.


<Kelvin> What is your opinion of the new Amiga clone announced by
           MacroSystems Germany?  Will you support this type of clone machines
           and willing to license the OS for it's use?

<CEI-ALEX> An Amiga clone is not an Amiga clone unless it can run ALL the
           software and hardware.  Macrosystems has a great idea a a lot of
           work ahead.  With the proper terms I see no reason why the OS can't
           be licensed to them.

<CEI-ALEX> PS Macrosystems is a great developer and supporter of the Amiga.


<Jason-AR> Clarification: The DraCo is like an Amiga, minus the custom
           chipset, plus a Retina for display hardware.  The full announcement
           is available in AR 2.34.


<daryl> What requirements will you but on new and current Dealers
           and how will the buying effect your other services

<CEI-ALEX> This is not the forum to discuss dealer specifics.  Existing
           dealers that are proven are not a problem.  Coverage in new areas
           are deemed.. priority.


<floater> Assuming the situation resolves in a few weeks, when do you expect
           to have product available? And I think you should work to have a
           competent NYC dealer - which there hasn't been for YEARS!

<CEI-ALEX> Input taken on NYC. Amigas can be available in 60 to 90
           days after court approval.


<Doug Cotton @ CMD> Following up on Jason's question on the older
           (64/128) technology: Someone is indeed interested. Who should they
           contact at CEI to discuss that further?

<CEI-ALEX> If you are interested in purchasing the 64 technology call
           Dave Defelici at (305)266-2800 ext 108.  Tell me its true PLEASE;)

<Doug Cotton @ CMD> It is.


<Demetri [Speed Demon]> What are the chances of getting back the old Amiga
           crew, like Dave H, Mike S, Brian.Darren, etc, since  with no more
           people left at C= (USA), how do you plan to enhance the Amiga with
           new features? Seems without the people who knew about the OS, the
           hardware, its like starting over from scratch with a new crew.  And
           how about the floor scrubber, will it get upgraded?? :)

<CEI-ALEX> Jason is in charge of the floor scrubber....we have been in
           contact with engineers who have left C= in the past 4 years.  As a
           general rule (no specifics) most of them are committed to the Amiga
           and are willing to return if the conditions are right (free Pizzas
           every night) ;).  At he same time I believe that bringing in some
           new blood might ad new.. perspective to our technology.

<Jason-AR> As for the floorscrubber, we are already planning to make sure
           that the new flooscrubber technology is backwards-compatible with
           all Amigas, and are working on a PCMCIA battery recharge interface.


<Alan> Alex, what would CEI's plans be for the CD-32?  Would you market it
           aggressively against the Sega and Nintendo in the U.S.?

<CEI-ALEX> Reality sets in.  There is a market for the CD32 and we will
           support it aggressively.  But there is no feasible way of competing
           head to head agaisnt Nintedo and Sega.  Their ad budgets are beyond
           belief.  Let's concentrate on our strenghts and lets dominate those
           markets.


<Rob Boyce> what was the status of the stuff in the warehouse in the
           Phillipeens any thing of value? i have started to collect amigas
           and am curious ;) CD32 will sell themselves once they become wide
           spred

<CEI-ALEX> The inventory in the Far East is in shambles.  It will take many
           months to sort out all the parts.  There really is nothing a real
           value there.


<Sam Ormes> New company name ?   Headquarters location ?  Will Miami store
            remain ? Manufacturing locations ? GA

<CEI-ALEX> The working name is Amiga Technologies International but, that
           is subject to change as things get closer.  Based on the majority
           of engineers residing. in the Philadelphia area we are looking for
           facilities there.


<ERIC MORRITT> Given all the information about the intent to continue
           manufacturing the AMIGA, dou you think it would be wise to base a
           computer graphics business on the AMIGA technology?

<CEI-ALEX> If I had to answer your question today I'd say NO.  We need to
           move the Amiga forward and have it gain wide acceptance in a number
           of new fields.  Six months from now the answer should and will be
           YES.


<Shane @ DUP> How will CEI support small programming companies like Dark
           Unicorn Productions (developers kits, etc)?  Also, is there any
           truth to the rumor that MicroSoft is backing CEI? :( (Recommend
           MUTT from Litil Divil as CD32 character! :)

<CEI-ALEX> The Amiga developer has been traditionally been a small home based
           creator. Its important to remember this when setting prices on
           development tools and providing the information for reasonable
           costs.

<CEI-ALEX> Excuse me, that was Bill on the phone ;)

<CEI-ALEX> I'm sorry but do to the nature of the beast I am not able to
           disclose who our partners are.


<Bill> and MacTV as seen on Mind Extension University's channel? If you're
           not aggressive, nobody new will buy. GA
<Bill> Sorry
<Bill> Will you be agressive with your marketing like Apple is?

<CEI-ALEX> YES. Special pricing for schools, developers, print ads, direct
           mail, etc. We realize that we must be aggressive.


<Odie> Will initial releases of the 1200 see 3.1 or any other changes?
           How about future 1200's - 030? Akkiko? HD Floppys? CDROM? etc. GA

<CEI-ALEX> Yes 3.1 on the initial 1200s.  The 1200s have a lot of room for
           growth Built in CD, faster processors, more space for HDs, on board
           memory expansion and much more.


<deb> [Gang, Alex is getting tired.  No more /raises, or he'll be here _all_
night.]


<DavidM> Will there be any upgrade deals for current A4000 owners, ie like the
           old trade up deals of yore, or possibly upgrade kits like a real
           tower case kit with lots of slots and a larger power supply?

<CEI-ALEX> One of the few things which C= got right most of the time was
           their upgrade policies.  By utilizing standard form factor on
           boards this becomes.. easier.


<Peter> Will you be the CEO of this new Amiga company? Do you plan to intro a
           better OS (with RTG, networking, etc ...) before the next
           generation of hardware? This does not include 3.2.

<CEI-ALEX> Titles are not important.  Yes, RTG is something the Amiga needs
           sooner than later.  I see the ability to release yearly updates to
           the operating system and price them reasonably. Instead of
           releasing a new OS and charging an arm and a leg.

<CEI-ALEX> Improvements which I would like to see include RTG, networking
           support, a more professional look, faster, etc.


<Mark> Have you had any recent contacts with the C= UK management team, and
           if so what was the substance of those contacts? Competition at the
           bidding stage is understandable, but when all is said and done, the
           UK had the most successful and complete advertising machine, and
           the UK market earned much of the bread and butter which went to
           feed the production of the `high-end' AMIGAs so beloved in the US.

<CEI-ALEX> Mark, we have made a number of overtures to the UK management
           team, unfortunately the decisions are not up to them. The opposing
           group is composed of a red chinese investor and an Australian
           financier.  Yes, we are willing to work with them when all is done
           and said.


<Keti> How much of the new tecnolgy will be made of off-the -shelf technology?

<CEI-ALEX> With RTG in place the ability to utilize off the shelve technology
           becomes more attractive.


<Don> will we see beefer machines not 25 mhz stuff more like 40+ mhz...
           it has to be cheaper for you to do it than for me to spend $1300
           after I buy my new 4000T

<CEI-ALEX> YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES YES


<Bill Hinkle> Have you had discussions with any major retailers to sell
           hardware and/or software?

<CEI-ALEX> Yes, in the past few months we have had plenty of opportunity to
           speak with major retailers.  All of them expressed reservations
           about C= but, are willing to work with a new entity if the
           conditions are right.


<deb> OK, folks, It is nearly midnight for Alex and he's tired.  And I"m still
           looking at a queue of over 2 dozen people with questions. If you
           will leave me your question in email, either "Mail to sysops" at
           menu or to me directly, I'll fax them to him and he'll get answers
           back to you.  Fair deal?

<deb> [Now that nobody else can talk, how can they argue?]

<deb> Thank you Alex, we have been keeping our fingers crossed.

<deb> We will continue to keep our eyes peeled for news.

<Jason-AR> (Or, they can always e-mail me and I will just call CEI and harass
           the receptionists until someone owns up to actually being in the
           building.) :)

<Jason-AR> Thank you, Alex, for once again violating your bedtime to have this
           conversation with us.

<CEI-ALEX> Thank you for the opportunity and support...

<CEI-ALEX> In the past week we have received hundreds of notes, calls and
           letters of support and ideas.  THANK YOU ALL!

<deb> A big round of applause!
@endnode
@node P2-6
@toc P2

===========================================================================
==  ISDN-Amiga Development Crusade                   By:  @{"Jason Compton" link P8-1}  ==
===========================================================================

An individual by the name of Giorgio Gomelsky has, in cooperation with
Amiga Report, started a crusade to target applications that ISDN makes
possible and to develop them for the Amiga.

ISDN is the Integrated Services Digital Network, or put more simply, an
inexpensive high-speed solution to digital telecommunications.

Gomelsky has worked with many ISDN applications for other platforms and
knows what it is capable of, and has asked the age-old question, "Why not
for the Amiga?"

If you're interested in getting involved, can lend some technical
expertise, or want to know more, contact him as gio@phantom.com.

From time to time, updates and progress reports will be printed in Amiga
Report.
@endnode
@node P2-7 "Grand Gala Amiga Report 1995 Reader Survey!"
@toc P2

===========================================================================
==            The Grand Gala Amiga Report 1995 Reader Survey!            ==
===========================================================================

It's that time...time for us to figure out how we're doing, what we should
do in the future...basically, the pulse of the Amiga Report public.

Please fill out whatever you like, and get back to us.  If you can reply
by E-mail, please do.  Otherwise, send your replies to-

1838 Chicago Ave #419
Evanston, IL 60201
USA

So, let's get underway.

Part I-Tell us about yourself.

1.  Please tell us what system you use (briefly, we don't need to know
every peripheral and card, just the model number and processor).

2.  Would you consider your machine and your usage to be that of a
high-end, middle, or low-end?

2a. How long have you been an Amiga user?

2b. How many Amigas do you own currently, and how many have you owned
lifetime?

3.  What other Amiga magazines do you read?

4.  How often do you read Amiga Report, and how?  (Are you on the mailing
list, a distribution BBS, FTP, on a non-affiliated BBS...?)

4a. How long have you read Amiga Report?

5.  Do you have full internet access, E-Mail/Usenet, or no internet
access?

6.  Please tell us what country you hail from, and what language or
languages you are fluent in.


Part II-Tell us about the magazine.

1.  What sections of the magazine do you consider the best or most
important?

1a. What sections of the magazine do you consider the worst or least
important?

2.  (For those who have seen earlier layouts) How does the current layout
of the magazine compare to previous incarnations?

3.  How does Amiga Report's feature quality compare to other Amiga
magazines?  (Be as specific as necessary)

4.  Do you feel information is clearly and fairly presented in Amiga
Report?

5.  What do you think we're missing?  What would you like to see more of?

5a. On the same token, what do you think we shouldn't have?  What would
you like to see less of?

6.  Of the following sections of the magazine, please indicate how you
feel about them by the following classification-
Always Read / Sometimes read / Rarely read / Never read

News/Press Releases/Features
Reviews
Opinion/Editorial
Reader Mail
FTP Announcements
Dealer Directory
Distribution BBS list

7.  Back in 1993, Amiga Report carried more general-industry news.  Would
you like to see that return?
@endnode
@node P2-8 "VTU Expo Report"
@toc P2

===========================================================================
==  Video Toaster User Expo Report                   By:  @{"David Tiberio" link P8-5}  ==
===========================================================================

(David Tiberio, our Contributing Editor, runs Area52, which sells Amiga
products.  He was at the Video Toaster Expo as a demonstrator.)

When we arrived, our booth just didn't seem right.  We had measured my
friend's dining room to the exact size of the booth, and set up all of our
equipment, yet when we got to the show, it just didn't fit right.  Well,
the floor plans to the show ended up being 11 feet wider than the the
actual room, soo all the booths were not sized properly.  The Media 4 booth
was moved from next to ours to behind ours, and I am sure many others had
to be adjusted.

I met the owner of Macrosystems Germany that morning.  He talked to us
about the VLAB Motion card and the Draco Amiga clone.  Apparantly they are
working on a machine that will partially run Amiga OS-compliant software
without the Amiga chipset.  It will instead use the Retina ZIII, Toccata,
and VLAB Motion cards for some technical wizardry.  They also did a video
demo with the movie Terminator.  It showed some nice video effects.  My
friend did the banners for NoahJi's, and other than that we exchanged some
ideas about working on some future software projects.

DPS was running some demos on PC based machines, running Windows NT.  They
had some sort of non linear editor for the PAR, and showed small scalable
video clips.  We had some interesting discussions about supporting PAR
boards with some of our new software.

SunRize was in the booth next to us, selling AD516's for $995 and AD1012's
for a blowout price of $99.  Many dealers bought a couple of the AD1012's
at this price just so they could resell themm.  They also demoed their
audio editing software during the show.

I was also in view of the Raptor II's.  4 of these machines were playing
small animating clips with some strange 3D modeler interface.  Nice looking
case, but unfortunately it was tainted by Windows NT.

Dynamic Realities had beta versions of IMPACT!, the matured version of
Newton's Law physics module.  While they had some machines on display, some
of the options are not 100% yet, such as object collision.  However, they
had been taking orders and seemed to be doing fairly well.

I could see the NewTek displays of Lightwave for the PC from my booth. 
Sure, it worked as far as I could tell, but there was nothing major about
it that I wnted to know about.  During the key note speeches.  I heard that
not one mention of the word Amiga was made.  In fact, some people that came
to our booth did not know what an Amiga was.

I went with FOCUS GbR, publishers of graphicRECALL.  They had three
machines running, and A2000, A3000, and A1200.  The A2000 was attached to a
Betacam deck and was being controlled by graphicRECALL PVTR, which logs
tape footage and indexes time codes.  The other two machines were showing
Photo CD databases, displaying thumbnail images and animations on the
Workbench from the CD.

Last of all, my boot had the latest verson of the Amiga/Toaster Reference
Manual v3, with a full color interface, scalable fonts, text wrapped around
graphics, etc.  Bye bye AmigaGuide, hello true multimedia!  I also had
Plantation available, which is the only distributed rendering software for
Lightwave that works with more than 2 machines (from InterVisual).

That about wraps up my row.  In another issue, I will go througsome of the
other exhibitors which were not in my immediate area.

While I was there, I met a large number of people who I had talked to over
the years but never met in person.  I also met some new people, such as
Andrew Gould from Premier Vision (no relation to our old pal Irving).  We
later went out around LA, seeing the Walk of Fame, Hollywood, Beverly
Hills, Universal City, etc.  The Hollywood sign was not lit, but I saw it
from a huge distance at the airport while waiting for my flight (could
barely read what it said).  We saw Dick Van Dyke's hands and feet at the
Chinese Theater (he was at the show too talking highly of the A4000).  And
I walked out with blisters from the Tacky Pizza incident (now I know better
than to touch a candle on a garbonzo bean).  The next day I got a few more
scratches while climbing a palm tree too.

When I was at the booth, I saw the waitor from the Thai restaurant we went
to the night before, and we all said hello and talked about Amigas (he just
bought one a month ago).  While joking around, I mentioned that we would go
back to the restaurant again that night, and when we did, he had called and
asked for them to take care of us (we saw him as we were done eating and
walking out the door).

I also met Dave Defelici, Harv Laser, Eric Schwartz (not the animator),
Mark Holland from VTU, Fred Fish, and too many more to list.
@endnode
@node P3-1 "Final Data Review"
@toc P3
===========================================================================
==  Final Data Review                                By:  @{"Katie Nelson" link P8-3}   ==
===========================================================================

Final Data is Softwood's response to the Amiga users' demand for business
software.  It is a simple, yet effective database program that is
well-suited for the average user.  However, users of the more "heavy"
databases available for the PC clones may find it a bit too simple.

Having little need for an extravagant database (Amiga Report doesn't pay
well enough to have to keep track of a bunch of assets, etc..) Final Data
suited me perfectly.

I was a bit hesitant of reviewing Final Data because I had always heard
that learning to use a database would take a great amount of my time. Not
so.  In fact, I didn't even have to open the manual.  All of the menus and
options are very self-explanatory.

There are five menus. The standard "Project" menu with preferences for
saving/outputting the database, and options to create a new database, open
a saved one, define a new database format, and save/"save as" a database.
The Edit menu is pretty much standard, too, with only the basic
Cut/Copy/Paste/Clear and Select All.

The third menu is the "Row" menu, which obviously controlls the rows in the
database.  The only options there are New Row, which just gives you a blank
row, Delete, to delete a row (duh), Move, to shift the position of a row
(which does the same as NewRow in the correct place, copying row in wrong
place, pasting to the new row, and then deleting the old one.  It's a
timesaver.), and finally Sort.

The Sort option is more detailed than I expected.  It brings up a requester
that lists all the columns that you have, and you can sort whichever you
choose low to high or high to low.  Also, in case you have several items
with the same name/amount in that particular column and you want to sort
the database further, you have the option to have secondary priority on
another column of your choice.  You can select the priority sort order for
just the one column all the way up to all of them.  And all columns do not
have to be sorted the same way.  For example, your secondary sort column
could be sorted from high to low even though your primary is being sorted
low to high, and so on.

Furthermore, if you have a particular column selected in the sort
requestor, there is a slidebar showing which priority it has.  You can
simply adjust it's priority with that bar if you choose, rather than having
to click on each of the columns in a particular order.  The other columns'
priorities automatically compensate.  There are also two handy little
buttons that allow you to either reset all of the priorities or remove a
particular column from the sort list.

Next is the Column menu.  The first two options here are Sort Low to High,
and Sort High to Low.  This is for quick sorting when secondary (and
further) priorities are not an issue.  Find and Replace are the next two
options, and their purpose is self-explanatory.  If you're using the
database as an expense tracker, it's nice to be able to search for "Visa"
and find all of the charges you've made on your card without having to
just sort the list for that column and look for "V".  I have not found a
need for "Replace" for myself, but I'm sure one does exist.

New Column is next on the menu.  A nice feature of the requester that this
brings up is the ability to add more than one column without having to
select this option from the menu again.  Also, all columns in use are
listed and can be deleted using this same requester.

Following New Column is Redefine.  This brings up the same requester as
New Column.  All current columns can be edited, along with the ability to
add new ones.  Each column can have its own defined "type", either text,
date, time, amount, or calculation can be used.  Plenty of features to use
for a checkbook program, a small inventory, or the like.

Each of those types have their own preferences, such as the entry format
for a date, and how it should be displayed after it is entered (two
separate options, allowing you to enter in MM/DD/YY or DD/MM/YY and have
the program convert to Month Date, Year format.  Text can be entered as
simply letter characters, letters spaces and numbers, or any character.
Although percent is not an option for a calculation, the simple mathematic
operations that are available allow you to do the same thing.  Even more
options are available, but listing them would take much too much time, and
bore even the most determined reader.

The last option in the menu is to delete a column.  This is another
shortcut to using the column requester brought up by New Column and
Redefine.

Finally, the last menu is the ARexx menu, and its only option is to start
an ARexx script. Having had little experience with ARexx, I was unable to
fully test this feature.  However, all ARexx options are fully documented
in the manual, and from what I could tell, there were a good amount of
them.

Once you have all of your data entered, using all those cool menus and
neato requestors, there are a variety of ways to print out your reports.
You can print to the printer, or you can print to an ASCII file.  Printing
to ASCII allows you to either separate items in a row with commas or tabs.
Furthermore, you can choose whether or not to include the column titles as
the first row of data.  Final Data also supports print merging with Final
Copy II and Final Writer.

Final Data also has the option to print labels (mailing labels and lables
of other sizes).  I was somewhat disappointed that standard label formats
weren't included (such as Avery labels), but it isn't very difficult to
enter in the dimensions of the label sheet(s).

On the subject of compatibility, I had no problem running Final Data on my
4000/040.  I was happy.

To sum up, if you're looking for a professional and detailed database,
this isn't it, and (right now, unfortunately) you're using the wrong type
of computer.  But for pretty much everyone else, this is perfectly
adequate, as long as you like the Softwood interface.

(BTW - This would be almost a perfect small database for pack-in with new
Amigas, if anyone important is listening...)

@endnode
@node P3-2 "Full Motion Video Review"
@toc P3
===========================================================================
==  Full-Motion Video Review                              By: Devophile  ==
===========================================================================

Devophile's CD32 Full Motion Video Review

I really don't know a eniterly huge amount at how JPEG and MPEG
compression work, so do not expect a huge lengthy explanation on
all the facets of digital video compression. All I'm here to do
is to review what I've seen and what I feel is good and bad about
digital video.

THE FUN STUFF
=============

There are many names for video on CD, some are FMV (Full Motion
Video), VideoCD, CDV, DV, etc. They all mean pretty much the same
thing, full video and stereo audio on a compact disc that can be
viewed using a special player.

This works via pretty much the same concept as any other video in
the sense of images. Single frames played back rapidly to produce
the illusion of motion, yeah yeah we've heard it before. But the
amazing thing is, look at the math. A compact disc can store up
to around 660MB of data, or around 660,000,000 bytes. That is a
rather large number. Now, we are presented with problem. How to
cram 132000 24bit pictures onto a single CD.

An average high-quality 320x240 24bit IFF is around, oh, 150K. The
CD32's data read rate is around 300K/sec. That means it can only
load around 2 frames a second, let alone the computing time needed
for rendering these pictures. This is by far not ideal. In order
to accomplish the 30fps rate, you would have to read 4.5MB/sec.
This could be accomplished with a SCSI2 drive, but still rendering
the pictures is still a problem. Unless you go to hardware based
rendering. But who has a SCSI2 drive with a full 32.4 gigabytes
(32,400,000,000 bytes) of data lying around for a 120 minute film?
Not anyone on a middle class budget, I can tell you. Plus, who
ships films on SCSI2 drives? No one that I know of. Big problem.

Still then, if we used IFFs on  CDs, we'd only get around 146
seconds of video per CD. Which means you'd need 50 discs for a
120 minute long movie. You'd be changing discs every 2.4333333
minutes. What about AUDIO? Overwhelmed yet?

Enter: MPEG. MPEG stands for Motion Picture Experts Group.
A bunch of high tech wizards that set out to develope a digital
video standard. They have. It's not too bad. Allow me to explain.

MPEG uses the popular JPEG image compression format to compress
each frame and string them all together for reading/decompressing
and displaying. Those who know what they know about JPEG know that
it takes a long time to uncompress because your computer is having
to emulate the decompression through software. Not fun for your
CPU. That's what hardware based decompression if for. It's fast,
it's furious, it's quality... sort of.

JPEG is known for loss of quality depending on the compression
level. MPEG uses a rather high level of compression to achieve its
goal of 74 minutes of video per CD. Thus, much image quality is
lost. BUT, we regain the quality playing chance with 30 frames per
second. Hoping that the lost details in the previous frame will
appear in the next. Usually it works out quite well - sometimes it
doesn't. We'll get into that later.

For those who are interested: MPEG1 compresses audio/video to
around 4K to 5K per frame. Resulting in about 132000 frames per
disc, or 4400 seconds, or 74 minutes. The CD32 can easily read the
150K of data per second used by MPEG, as could any good single
spin CDROM. This is a good thing. What's the bad thing?

Decompression. Think about it. Decompressing 150K of MPEG into
around 23MB of image data per second is no easy task. That's what
hardware decompression (as stated above) if for. Amazing isn't it?
The FMV cartridge for the CD32 is designed for the sole purpose of
decompressing MPEG data. It's very fast. Very VERY fast. All those
numbers to crunch. And for only $299US, it's a steal almost. If
you like watching CD videos.

THE MOVIE STUFF
===============

So far, I've got around 4 CD movies. All of which display a wide
spread of good/poor qualities. Star Trek 5, A Fish Called Wanda,
Sliver, and The Hunt for Red October round out my list. I've seen
Star Trek 6 on FMV, it's comparable to 5.

Star Trek 5: Quality is perfect in nearly every aspect. Most of
             the film is better than VHS quality. Very crisp,
             clean, and well done. Good job Paramount!

Fish Called Wanda: Very nice, indeed. Same as above. Excellent
                   quality.

Sliver: Aside from being an excellent movie, this film's
        conversion to CD Video is slightly less than the above,
        it has very strong points, and is mainly better than VHS
        in all aspects except for an occasional "block" in a
        facial display, the colours mixed improperly. But it is
        not something that the average Joe would notice. Quality
        in all respect!

Hunt for Red October: Stinker. Good film ruined by crap convert
                      to CD Video. The whole movie appears out of
                      focus, grainy, blurry, etc. The underwater
                      scenes are blocky as hell. What was
                      Paramount thinking? They score VERY low on
                      this one. This conversion ranks around the
                      same as an EP quality VHS dub!

USING IT
========

The cartridge simply plugs in the back of the CD32 unit. It is
nearly flush with the back of the case and has no cords/wires.
Seamless.

To use it, simply put in a CD Video and reset the machine. It takes
it from there. You will be escorted to a nice GUI where you can
select the tracks you wish to view. Great job.

Bad job: C= did not make it so it recognises CDI's "chapters."
On a CDI machine you can jump to a "chapter" in the film, chapters
are listed in the CD case's pull-out. This is very handy. CD32's
lack of support for this feature is a very low point. But beggars
can't be choosers, eh?

THE VERDICT
===========

Most are very good, and you usually will not go wrong. Watch out
for first generation films. They were put out in a hurry and they
certainly show it. But in most films, you will be pleased.

I particularly enjoy the freeze frame and slow-mo, very crisp and
sharp. Excellent.

If you are an avid fan of getting new technology, I urge you to
get one if you can find it. If you are not a fan of the "latest"
hardware, but have $299US to spend, get one if you can find it
and hope it becomes a "wave of the future." If it does, you'll be
in the know first and be the envy of all your friends!

Unless you fall into a catagory above, getting a FMV cartridge is
probably not something you want to do at this point. When and if it
catches on, devices will become cheaper and more widely used - then
you should get one. Until then, just hang out at the dealers' and
watch theirs.

As for me, I've gotta have it - I'm "in the know" you know. And
it was a big ego-device for my CD32. I got it because it's there
and I am so desperately hoping to be on the tip of a new iceberg.

PROBABILTY
==========

It probably wont catch on, but don't quote me.

Thanks for putting up with this review. Feel free to ask me for
more info on FMV. I'm not an expert, but I can answer most
small questions.

  - Devophile
    email: devo@gonix.com
    irc: Devophile channel: #amiga
    thanks to: oleg, jkay, rst38h, and anyone else who offered
               info to "fill in the gaps" on my jpeg knowledge.
@endnode
@node P3-3 "Rise of the Robots"
@toc P3
===========================================================================
==  Rise of the Robots                                By:  @{"Sean Caszatt" link P8-6}  ==
===========================================================================

Hello!  A few issues back, Jason mentioned that Amiga Report would be 
getting a Games Editor.  Well, I've finally made it aboard.

I guess a small introduction is in order.  I used to write a newsletter 
called Amiga Entertainment Monthly, an Amigaguide publication like Amiga 
Report.   Over the past 10 months, I reviewed as many games as I could get
my hands on for both the Amiga and CD32.  Mail (both electronic and 
regular) is still arriving on a daily basis, so I apparently succeeded
in reaching some of you out there.  Hopefully, by moving the reviews to 
Amiga Report, I can now reach more of the Amiga faithful.  

I'd like to thank Jason Compton for the opportunity to write for Amiga
Report, a publication I've been reading for quite a long time.  (I also
appreciate his patience as I moved from AEM to Amiga Report.)

Those familiar with AEM will notice a few changes in my review methods.
I will not be using the percentage ratings that I had in the past.  I 
will simply rate the games in three categories by rank from 10 (best) 
to 1 (worst).  The categories are Playability, Graphics, and Sound.  
Playability is a combination of the addictive quality of the game and 
the actual controller response.  Sound and Graphics, I hope, are 
self-explanatory. 

Now...let's get to the good stuff!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recently, probably due to the Christmas season than anything else,
the Amiga has seen an explosion in game releases.  I can't remember 
the last time this many games have burst onto the scene in such a high 
number.  These aren't generic, no-name titles either.   Games like PGA 
EUROPEAN TOUR, MORTAL KOMBAT II, JUNGLE STRIKE, SUPER STARDUST, RISE OF 
THE ROBOTS, TOP GEAR II, ALIEN BREED: TOWER ASSAULT and CANNON FODDER 2 
have all been released over the last few weeks.

Since these games are all very new, I haven't had a chance to sit down and
give them the necessary attention for a complete review.  I will be doing 
complete reviews of as many as I can as soon as possible.

I've had time to review one of them as completely as possible.  That game 
is RISE OF THE ROBOTS.

RISE OF THE ROBOTS has been on the tip of everyone's tongue in one form or
another over the past year.  The game, planned for release on every major 
gaming platform today, had been heralded as the first true grafting of 3D 
rendering technology and a truly playable action game.  3D rendering has
provided adventure games like LABYRINTH OF TIME on the CD32/CDTV and MYST
on the PC with some truly amazing scenery.

In most cases, games with 3D rendered graphics have not exactly been 
action packed.  RISE OF THE ROBOTS was to be the game to change that.  
It was also, for some people anyway, to be the game to show what the CD32 
could do when given the opportunity.  The game would give gamers a better
idea of where each game system stood in comparison with the others.  
Because it was to be released on the Amiga (in both AGA and non-AGA 
versions), the CD32, Jaguar, IBM PC, 3DO, SNES and the Genesis, it would 
give an accurate benchmark on which of these systems really could handle 
gaming in the future. 

Of course, that is what was _supposed_ to happened.  The game was 
scheduled to be released in the spring.  It finally hit the shelves on 
November 18th.  The Jaguar and 3DO versions are not out yet.  I'm not 
aware of the Genesis or SNES versions being available yet either.  The 
Amiga, CD32 and PC (disk and CD) versions made it.

(I know this is a big build up.  Stick with me for a few more seconds.)

Is this game the "next big thing?"  Is it the true blend of an arcade game
and 3D rendering technology it was cracked up to be?  Is this game the best
beat-em-up game ever released?  Was it worth the wait?  Uh, well, the 
answer to all of the above is a resounding NO!

RISE OF THE ROBOTS emerges from the hype and reveals itself as a 
good-looking but rather unwieldy beat-em-up.  The game, in all of the
currently available versions, is just not that good.  I don't know
how much of the disappointment comes from pre-release expectations.  I'm 
sure it would be fair to say most of it does.  This is not an 
earth-shattering game at all. 

Looking back at pre-release screenshots, the game is not exactly what
was promised.  It looks nowhere near as smooth or awesome as what we were
shown.  I can accept that.  It's not all that unusual for a game to 
arrive in a slightly different version from that which was originally 
announced or previewed.

Let's look specifically at the Amiga related versions:

In terms of pure beat-em-up action, RISE OF THE ROBOTS is outclassed by 
the barely-better-than-16-bit BODY BLOWS games.  ROTR is quite poor in 
the "special moves" area of beat-em-up gaming.  The moves are controlled 
in a rather awkward way that requires the player to hold down the 
fire button to increase the power of a move and then perform the
move before losing the stored power.  What that translates into is a player
will find their onscreen character performing the same move over and over
again.  (And still beating the tar out of the computer controlled 
opponents.)  

In terms of variety, there are a few interesting characters to choose 
from.  Because they are just machines, and presented with very little 
development or introduction, they just don't seem very intriguing no 
matter how cool they look.  Mainly, in a one player game, you'll just 
fight the other characters as the "cyborg", the big blue guy that's 
featured on the box and the advertisements for the game.

The introductory animation is fun to watch (as long as you've got it 
installed on a hard drive or own a CD32...swapping floppies to see it is 
really not worth it.)  Unfortunately, like most intro animations, it's fun
to watch once and then you'll only show it to friends that haven't seen it
yet.

The "soundtrack" by Queen's Brian May doesn't exactly rank with his best
work.  It's best described as a very irritating guitar power chord over
and over again.  I reached for the volume knob on my monitor everytime I
heard it.

The graphics?  Well...the animations (or cinematics, as the game refers 
to them) are good.  The characters, when still, look very good too.  When
moving they are anything but realistic looking.  Their movements are jerky
and very repetitive.  This is not a big surprise.  I had my doubts that 
they'd be able to pull off extreme realism, but it would have been nice to 
see them get a little closer than they did.  Coupled with the poor control,
the game falls into the "boring" category very quickly.

If the game occupied two or three disks, it might be possible to think 
that maybe they just couldn't fit it all in.  However, when a game 
announces that it takes up 40 megabytes on the hard drive and it comes on 
over ten disks, it had better all be in there!  Of course, the CD32 
version  should be even better, right?  Nope.  It suffers from all the 
same problems as the Amiga versions.

What's different in each version?  Not a lot.  All of them suffer from the
poor control and jerky animation.

The AGA version takes half an hour to install on the hard drive.  It looks
good color-wise, but that doesn't help the gameplay.

The non-AGA version takes less time to install on the hard drive
than the AGA version.  (Which is a bonus if you're anxious to play.)  The
reason for the faster installation is that some of the "cinematics" have
been taken out.  They're not much of a loss really.  This version also 
looks pretty good considering the number of colors onscreen.  It
seems to play a tad faster too.

The CD32 version is the most impressive of the three.  Because it combines
the good looks of the AGA version with the ease of popping in the disc and
playing.  No hard drive installation woes, no disk swapping and all the 
"fun" of the poor control method.  However, it's not the premier beat-em-up 
on the CD32 by any stretch of the imagination.  (That honor still belongs
to ULTIMATE BODY BLOWS.)

Disappointment is the key word here.  The game promised so much and
delivered so little.  I guess one good thing is that, for once, the
PC suffers from the exact same problems.  


RATINGS:        WORST <------>  BEST

Playability:    * * * * - - - - - -     4 out of 10
Graphics:       * * * * * * * - - -     7 out of 10
Sound:          * * * * * - - - - -     5 out of 10

Overall:        * * * * * - - - - -     5 out of 10

Video Mode:     NTSC (all versions)

Manufacturer:   Time-Warner/Mirage      

Sean Caszatt
Amiga Report Games Editor (still getting used to this one)
@endnode
@node P3-4 "Archos Overdrive CD-ROM"
@toc P3
===========================================================================
==  Archos Overdrive CD-ROM                   By:  Paul Moore            ==
===========================================================================

PRODUCT INFO

Archos Overdrive CD-ROM for Amiga 1200.  Also known as the `Zappo' CD-ROM
drive in the UK.  With version 9.0 of the driver software.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION

The Overdrive CD is a PCMCIA device that allows you to access Amiga CD-ROMs
such as the Aminet and FIsh range and also to read discs intended for the
IBM PC and Apple Mac.  In addition to this it also comes with CD32
emulation which gives yo u the ability to run most games software for C='s
console.

COMPANY INFO

I got mine from Special Reserve, a games club in the UK.

P.O. Box 847, Harlow, CM21 9PH 
Tel. 0279600204

The UK distributors are 

       Name:       Indi Direct 
       Address:    1 Ringway Industrial Estate,
                   Eastern Avenue,
                   Lichfield,
                   Staffs
                   WS13 7SF
     
       Telephone:  0543 419 999
       FAX:        0543 318 079

In the US, several companies have started stocking the Zappo version, such
as Amiga Warehouse (1-800-258-0533) and the Software Hut (1-800-93-AMIGA).
Check out their ads in Amiga World for the best prices.

PRICE

I paid 185 UK pounds for mine, a basic drive and installation s/w.  At the
moment there is a packae being sold containing several games for around 225
UK pounds.

REQUIREMENTS

An Amiga 1200 or 600.  The CD32 emulation will not work with the A600.  The
s/w will run from floppy but a hard drive is recommended.

Your PCMCIA slot must be free as this is the method used by the CD-ROM to
connect to your computer.

COPY PROTECTION

None.

MACHINE USED FOR TESTING

Amiga 1200 2mb chip, 4mb fast with GVP A1230-II 030-40/4 accelerator.
(Tested without accelerator) 1 internal 880k floppy drive.  1 external
880k Power computing PC880B floppy drive.  IBM 170mb internal IDE hard
drive.  Amigados 3.0

INSTALLATION

The program installs from two 880k floppy disks.  However there is
apparently a bug in the installation which prevents installation on
systems with 1 disk drive .  Necessitating manual installation.  Special
Reserve, where I got my drive have re-written the script for those with
only one floppy.

REVIEW

The Overdrive CD comes with a PCMCIA interface which connects easily to the
slot , providing you have enough space.  The interface lead I was supplied
with was quite short, so the drive has to be close to your setup.  Phono
leads are supplied which you use to pass through the Amiga audio so you can
hear both internal Amig a sounds and CD soundtracks.  I was supplied with a
very large power supply which prevents another plug being next to it on my
extension lead.

As I had two drives floppy installation was not a problem.  Using the
standard Commodore Installer it was a simple matter to install the
software to hard disk.  This involves altering the startup-sequence names,
so be aware that some software that doesn't use the s:user-startup may
write to the wrong file - the startup-sequence is renamed
startup-sequence.std . 

If you are booting from CD, you must hold down either the left or right
mouse button at bootup.  The left button brings up a CD startup control
screen from which you can select keyboard settings (to patch the CD32
controller to) 3.1 or 3.0 graphics emulation, whether to use fast memory
or not and whether to boot up kick start 3.1 from a file if you have it.
The settings are saved to disk so that you can use the right mouse button
to boot directly.

The drive comes with several utilities, a Photo CD viewer called Carousel,
A CDD A Audio player program and a little program which opens the CD door
when you click on a button on screen.  A file is automatically set up in
sys:env/sys/ to direct saved game files to a directory of your choosing.

Soundwise it has been said that on some models the mixing levels of Amiga
and CD audio are a little low.  I didn't find any problems with my unit,
the audio is v ery clear.

Okay, to work! I'll look at various CD formats and how they were handled.

Standard AmigaCD-ROMs.

A standard IS0-9660 level 2 Amiga CD-ROM presents no problems at all.
Having access to one of the PD CD's is simply amazing - all that software
available to you , and no download times or costs.  I tested Aminet 3 and 4
and they both worked perfectly. 

Magazine CDs are pretty scarce at the moment, let's hope that this changes
in the future.  Amiga User International produced a series of CDs called
"Amiga CD!" of which there have been three so far.  I have the third and
found it to work very well.  You'll need a CD32 controller to get the best
of multimedia menus such as Amiga CD!'s CanDo interface. 

Amiga Format produce an occasional special called Amiga CD32 which contains
game demos and some interesting PD files.  It uses a multimedia interface
too which a gain requires a CD32 controller or use of keyboard emulation.

A magazine called CD32 Gamer is the most regular CD magazine at the moment,
which consists mainly of (unsurprisingly) games.  The issues of this I
tried all worked fine.

Audio (CDDA) CDs

The CDDA audio program supplied is pretty good.  Earlier version of the
software were a bit eratic, with tracks skipped sometimes, but v9 seems to
operate pretty well.  Insert an audio CD, click on the CDDA icon that
appears, and a similar interface to the CD32's audio player pops up from
which you can play/fast forward /rewind/skip/shuffle/random play to your
hearts content.  There is a time elapsed /to go option too.  If you prefer
a more Workbench friendly interface for Audio C Ds, a program available on
Aminet called YACDP works with the drive if you change the device to
cd.device rather than scsi.device.  Not all options work, but it's worth a
look.  In play, Audio is excellent.  Well, as long as you play something
decent :-)

CD32 Games

The big questions; Do they work? What about Akiko? How compatible is it? 

Yes, most CD32 games *do* work with the drive, especially with the new
version of the software.  You may need to do a bit of fiddling with the
boot options (CD) ocassionaly, but you should get there in the end. 

The first game I got for my drive was Microcosm...  couldn't resist it.
This is probably the only game that actually uses the Akiko chip, and the
only place it's use is evident is in the intro animation to Microcosm.  If
you play this full-screen it flickers quite a bit.  Play it quarter screen
(like the in-game anims) and it's fine.  The game plays fine - no flicker,
no slow down.  It works. 

Acid Software's Starwing/Starfox lookalike Guardian was next.  Again it
works okay, the only problem being you need to reset it after a game if
the music was on, which is a shame.  Other than that it's fine.

My favourite CD game so far though is Virgin/Revoloution's Beneath a Steel
Sky.   It's stunning.  It's a graphic adventure in true Monkey Island
style, but with an elegant interface, great graphics, sounds and on CD
Speech.  That's right, speech.  Every character comes to life with full CD
voices.  No problems there, except some might not like the code system for
saving games since you need to get to a code before switching off or
restart from the previous code.  Maybe they'll think of CD-ROM owners in
the future and provide a save to hard/floppy disk option.

Other demos I have, such as Simon The Sorcerer, Alien Breed: Tower Assault,
Marvin's Marvellous Adventure (which is a great little game IMO), Arcade
Pool, Litil Divil, Heimdall II and Banshee worked fine too.  Kid Chaos,
Cannon Fodder and Top Gear are three demos which I've been unable to load.

Bear in mind that these games need at the very least a joystick, preferably
a six button CD32 controller.  I use a Competition Pro controller which is
excellent and far superior to the Commodore model.

CD's intended for PC's

Why read them if you can't load the programs?  That may be true, but there
are a lot of resources you can source from PC's.  With Mainactor and
AmiFlick you could convert .AVI and .FLI animations to ANIM format (or just
run them but the speed won't be too great).  You can use Adpro, Image FX or
a shareware package like Im agestudio to convert the TIFF,BMP and PCX
pictures you'll find on PC CDs.  You can use AmiSox or Soundmachine to get
at the .WAV and .VOC samples on the CDs, and of course you'll be able to
read text files and soundtracker mod files.  3D fans could convert
3D-Studio objects for use in Lightwave and so on.  There is plent y you can
do with a PC CD, so the many coverdiscs for PCs can be of some use.  T hey
work fine with the Overdrive.  I found the PC Format magazine CDs to be the
best for graphics, mods, anims, sounds etc.  that could be converted, for
only a few pounds.

Macintosh CDs

As you may know every mac file has a resource fork and a data fork. WHen you ins
ert a Mac HFS disc this is accounted for by the drive which produces a
seperate file for the resource and data forks.  As with the PC CDs there is
no problem reading them and you can access sounds, pictures and so on.
There is a mac .snd dat atype on Aminet and you can access pictures with a
suitable image processor.  The commercial CrossMac or, from Aminet, Resgrep
provide tools to extract files fro m a resource fork in a similar manner to
the Mac's ResEdit.

Photo CDs

I was unable to test this feature as I didn't have any Photo CDs, but there
shou ld be no reason why it doesn't work.  The new version of Carousel
allows searching of non-kodak CD's to find Photo CD pictures (say on a
compliation of different Amiga programs).  The software seems stable
enough.

Other CD software

You may be aware of Commodore's video format, CDXL. If you have Dos 3.1 you can 
view CDXL movies with Multiview.  If, like me, you don't then you'll find a
program such as cdgsxl on a magazine or compilation.  CDXL movies work fine
and are very smooth.  I was impressed after seeing some very jerky mac
Quicktime movies.  It would be nice if an Amiga Quicktime player or
converter existed but to my knowledge, none do.

There is no room for a Video CD expansion on the drive, maybe a trapdoor
one will appear from someone in the future.  MPEG files can be played, in
software with a suitable player, but don't expect miracle speeds!

DOCUMENTATION

The Overdrive comes with a photocopied booklet in French, English and
German.  It is quite good, and explains the basics pretty well.  Ther is no
index, it is only 30 pages per language.

LIKES

Just having a CD-ROM drive makes a great difference.  The level of
compatibility is high, and the software supplied with V9.0 is very stable.
The use of the PCMCIA interface is very well thought of as it allows you
to continue to use your Tr apdoor expansions.

DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS

I dislike the size of the power supply for a start, but the type of supply
will probably vary as it's a generic one.  A longer lead might have been
better for some, although I'm happy enough.  I would like to see more
utils with the drive, pe rhaps a CDXL player with a GUI interface.  The CD
uses the CIA timer which interferes with the occasional PD application
such as PlaySID and the AGA Spectrum Emulator, necessitating disconnection
(or booting without loading the CD drivers) if you wish to use them.

COMPARISONS TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Gasteiner produce an interface, no CD included, which allows you to connect
a Mitsumi FX001 or FX001D (The Overdrive comes with the double-speed
FX001D) This in terface and CD combination turns out to be more expensive
than the Overdrive and the interface isn't as nice.

Hisoft are producing a SCSI interface for the A1200 and A600, which will
allow you to connect a SCSI CD-ROM.  This gives you a lot of choice, but
CD32 compatibility remains to be seen. 

If you have an accelerator with SCSI option (eg GVP A1230-II) you can connect a 
generic CD-ROM drive this way. CD32 compatibility will not be included though.

BUGS

The Install script on v9.0 of the software apparently has a problem with
one disk drive machines..  shouldn't be a problem if you know how to use
your Amiga, but could affect beginners.

After a buggy start in earlier versions, the new software seems pretty
stable.   One bug I found is in the CDDA player.  If your CD has more than
20 tracks (like say the new Beatles: Live at the BBC CD with 35 tracks on
one CD) you'll be unable to play track 21 and above with the supplied
program.  The program YACDP, a vailable on Aminet will allow you to play
those tracks though.

VENDOR SUPPORT

Excellent.  When I heard V9 was avaliable I wrote to Special Reserve and a
was phoned up by a very helpful chap who, before he sent out the update
made sure I had a second drive and wouldn't have a problem.

WARRANTY

There is a year's warranty on the drive. 

CONCLUSION

An excellent product which is a must have for all A1200 owners, and A600
owners wishing to get into CD-ROM on the Amiga.  Hopefully it will provide
a boost in terms of the number of Amiga CD products we'll see in the
future.

NOTICE

This review written by Paul Moore for Amiga Report and is freely distributable. 
Contact me if you wish at:

Fidonet: 2:259/2.19
Internet: Paul.Moore@p19.f2.n259.z2.fidonet.org
@endnode
@node P3-5 "Emulation Rambler: ZXAM Spectrum AGA"
@toc P3
===========================================================================
==  The Emulation Rambler: ZXAM Spectrum AGA           By:  Bob Colbert  ==
===========================================================================
                                                                 
A Review of ZXAM Spectrum Emulator AGA v1.3
Author: Antonio J. Pomar Rosselló

Initial Thoughts: I am a big emulation fanatic.  I drive my friends crazy
when they come over with the newest AGA demo in hand and I am playing an
old Apple // game on my A1200.  I have seen Spectrum emulators floating
around on the Internet for quite some time now and even downloaded one a
long time ago, but I never had anything to run on it.  I didn't think that
there was much software for the Spectrum, so I never bothered to pursue the
matter further.  I was intrigued to see an AGA emulation of such an old
computer, so I downloaded it.  I decided to do a little homework and found
an FTP site that had a bunch of games for the Spectrum.  The Spectrum
emulator allows the user to play some of the classic games that pioneered
the video game age.  I view the emulation as a means of playing games,
because I really don't think that there are any serious applications that
the emulation can do better than a native Amiga application.

Description: The ZXAM Spectrum Emulator allows the user to run Spectrum
programs on their AGA Amiga computer.  The emulator comes in two forms; The
FULL version that provides very accurate emulation, and the FAST version
that runs a bit faster than the full version at the expense of not
emulating all of the computer's functions.  Along with the executables is
documentation in both English and Spanish, instructions on creating a
cassette tape interface, IFF picture of the aforementioned cassette tape
interface, and an IFF picture of the Spectrum Keyboard Layout.

     Programs are stored in either the snapshot (.sna or .sp) format or on
an external cassette tape recorder.  The snapshots are "images" of the
Spectrum's 48k of ram and are either 49179 (.sna) or 49190 (.sp) bytes long
depending on the format used to save the image.  Loading an image is as
easy as pressing the 'load' gadget on the nice interface provided.  A file
requestor is then presented and you can then load the game of your choice.
One gripe that I have is that every time that I load a file, the entire
directory that I am in is reread.  Since I h ave my Spectrum games stored
on floppies this can take a long time.  An advantage of this emulation
over others that I have tried is that it allows PowerPacked snapshots to be
loaded directly, as long as the user has the powerpacker.library in the
LIBS: drawer.  This feature save A LOT of space.  PowerPacking games can
reduce the original size to as low as 7k!  Of course not all snapshots pack
that well, but when you have a couple hundred images it adds up.  The
emulation also allows you to make your own snapshots at the press of a
key, thus giving all games a 'Save Game' option.  As far as the cassette
recorder format goes, I have been unable to try it because I do not have
any games on tape.  A schematic of the interface needed to use the
cassette recorder is provided, along with a digitized picture of the
finished product.  It is a very simple circuit, and should cost no more
than a few dollars to produce.

     The program provides emulation of what is called the Kempston
Interface, which is just a joystick.  Most games allow you to chose what
type of input you will be using, but for those games that don't allow for
using the Kempston it would be nice to be able to map keys to the
joystick.  I don't like playing games on the keyboard. 
  
     Performance: The ZXAM Emulator seems to run all of the games that I
have tried, and it runs them well.  I was impressed with the speed at
which the emulation runs on my A1200 with 4 megs of fast RAM.  The FAST
version does indeed go faster than the FULL version, but its use does lead
to some interesting problems.  The main deficit of the FAST version is that
it does not emulate the microprocessor's Binary Coded Decimal (BCD) mode.
BCD mode allows the computer to work on the same number base as humans do
- base 10.  Without this, scores, times, and any other items represented
numerically are likely to be inaccurate.  Not all games use BCD and
therefore are not affected, and others you just might not care if the score
is correct (most of the time for me).

     Graphics seem to move around smoothly and the sound is very high
quality compared with other Spectrum emulators I have tried.
Unfortunately, the emulation does not multitask as it takes over the
system.  The emulation can be paused' and the system is returned untouched,
but playing a game while downloading the latest greatest AGA demo is out.
As I said I compared this emulation with a couple others that are
available, namely Spectrum-1.7 and zxspectrum4.71.  Spectrum-1 .7
multitasks, but the sound and movement are not as good as the ZXAM AGA.
Zxspectrum4.71 does not work well with AGA, the AGA graphics must be
disabled before a recognizable screen can be realized.

     Over all, the ZXAM emulator is a solid product, and best of all it is
FREEWARE!  It is available on Aminet under the misc/emu directory.  Also in
that directory is a program you should get called spconv-107-amiga, it
allows you to conv ert between most of the various snapshot formats, most
notably from the .z80 for mat that the ZXAM emulator cannot read into a
snapshot format.  If you have FTP access, you will be interested in
ftp.dcc.uchile.cl under the pub/Sinclair/snaps hots directory are hundreds
of games (and utilities) in alphabetic directories ( i.e.  games beginning
with a are in the a directory.)

Have fun!

                         Bob Colbert
                         bcolbert@s-cwis.unomaha.edu
@endnode
@node P2-2-1 "ShadowStart 1.1"
@toc P2-2
TITLE
         ShadowStart

VERSION
         1.1

AUTHOR
         Lars 'SFX' Eilebrecht 
         Glueck-Auf-Strasse 23
         57223 Kreuztal (Germany)

         SFX@appl1.hrz.uni-siegen.de
         Shadowfox@IRC

DESCRIPTION
         ShadowStart is a small utility that should be called from 
         the startup-sequence.

         If the space-bar is pressed down a requester pops up,
         asking you if you want the WBStartup-drawer, the 
         User-Startup script or both to be disabled.
         This means, you can bootup a "clean" Workbench, 
         without any programs in WBStartup or User-Startup executed!
         And also a new shell-window can be opened for changing 
         things befor executing the startup-sequence.
         (Source code is included.)
    
FUTURE
         Ideas and suggestions are always welcome!

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS
         ShadowStart needs at least Kick/WB 3.1
         (the 3.1 lowlevel.library must be available)

HOST NAME
         ShadowStart has been uploaded to the Aminet Site

         ftp.uni-paderborn.de  (131.234.2.32)

         and should be available on all other Aminet sites.

DIRECTORY
         pub/aminet/util/boot

FILE NAME
         ShadowStart11.lha

RELEASE DATE
         03. December 1994

PRICE
         ShadowStart is FREEWARE!
         (But the author would like to get some mail if you use it.)

DISTRIBUTABILITY
         The ShadowStart archive is freely distributable,
         but it is copright 1994 by Lars Eilebrecht.

OTHER
         If you have access to IRC (Internet Relay Chat), you can
         get the latest ShadowStart archive via "dcc".
         Just type "/ctcp Shadowfox shadowstart" and you will get a 
         dcc send request for it. 
         Accept the request with "/dcc get Shadowfox"
         (actions are described for standard IRC-II client).
         (The authors IRC-client normally is reachable 24h/day!)
@endnode
@node P2-2-2 "ImageStudio 1.2.0"
@toc P2-2
TITLE
        ImageStudio

VERSION
        1.2.0

AUTHOR
        Andy Dean and Graham Dean

        Email : adean@eleceng.ucl.ac.uk

        Post :  14 Fielding Avenue,
                Poynton,
                Stockport,
                Cheshire.
             SK12 1YX
                ENGLAND

DESCRIPTION
        ImageStudio is an image processor written for the casual
        graphics user who wishes to convert or manipulate various
        graphics formats on a modest Amiga system. The program
        tries to cover the most commonly performed operations
        like colour reduction, scaling and dithering in an easy
        to use Workbench2 style interface. Most of the commonly
        used file formats can be loaded or saved. Image processing,
        by its very nature, requires large amounts of RAM -
        ImageStudio includes its own virtual memory manager to
        reduce the ammount of RAM required.

        * Virtual memory
        * Upto 100 levels of undo / redo
        * Loads / saves IFF-ILBM (palette based upto 256 colours,
          HAM6, HAM8, extra halfbright), GIF, BMP, PCX, JPEG,
        Targa, EPS, datatypes.
        * User definable convolution filters.
        * Adjust colour balance (brightness, contrast and gamma).
        * ASCII and AmigaGuide documentation.
        * Requires no third party libraries or utilities.

NEW FEATURES
        * Faster and higher quality HAM saving
        * Faster and higher quality internal 24bit viewer
        * Faster preview redraw
        * Added greyscale JPEG read / write
        * Added dynamic palette expansion effect
        * Uses ASL screenmode requester with Workbench2.1+
        * Few minor bug fixes and improvements

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS
        ImageStudio requires:

        * Workbench 2.04 or above.
        * Around 1MB of free memory.
        * Several MB of free hard disk space (for virtual memory).

HOST NAME
        ftp.uni-paderborn.de (131.234.10.42) or any Aminet site.

DIRECTORY
        /pub/aminet/gfx/conv

FILE NAMES
        ImageStudio.lha
        ImageStudio.readme

PRICE
        10 UKpounds
        20 USdollars

DISTRIBUTABILITY
        The unregistered version is freely distributable.
        The registered version is *NOT* freely distributable.

        The program is Copyright 1994 Andy Dean and Graham Dean

OTHER
        To encourage users to register, the freely distributable
        version is limited to loading images of upto 250x250
        pixels - all other functions are available.
@endnode
@node P2-2-3 "YACDP (Yet Another CD Player) v1.2"
@toc P2-2
TITLE
    YACDP (Yet Another CD Player)

VERSION
    1.2

AUTHOR
    Frank Wuerkner (wuerkner@informatik.tu-muenchen.de)
    
DESCRIPTION
    YACDP will allow you to play audio CD's with your SCSI-2 CDROM.
    Some features are:
    o GUI that let's you access all functions of a normal CD-Player
    o is a Commodity
    o can display songnames and CD title, of course you once have to
      enter the names (about 150 CD texts are already included)
    o doesn't wastes memory
    o SCSI errors are displayed as text (95 known)
    o realtime stereo playback of audio on your Amiga, even on 68000 (*)
      machines (achieved by highly optimised assembler routines)
    o ability to save (parts of) songs as stereo IFF (8SVX) or
      RAW (CDR)                                                      (*)
    (*) CD-ROM must be able to send audio over SCSI bus

NEW FEATURES
    o powerfull AREXX port
    o localized for 2.1 and up (currently German)
    o `via SCSI' playback is now stereo
    o saveing stereo IFF's is now also possible
    o documentation now in AmigaGuide(R)
    o better support for NEC CD-ROM's
    o when using `via SCSI' the scsi_Length was set too large fixed
      (memory was trashed with some scsi devices)
    o fixed problem with some older versions of gvpscsi.device that
      returned IOERR_BADLENGTH when using odd buffer length

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS
    o OS2.0 (OS2.1 for using localization) or higher
    o reqtools.library (C) 1991-1994 by Nico Francois (thanks Nico!)
    o a SCSI bus adapter capable of sending SCSI direct commands
    o a SCSI-2 CD-ROM which can read CD-DA ("Red Book") encoded discs
      (i.e. you should see a headphone jack on the front panel)
    o optionally your CD-ROM should be capable of sending the audio as
      16-bit digital data over the SCSI bus

HOST NAME
    ftp.wustl.edu          128.252.135.4

DIRECTORY
    /pub/aminet/disk/cdrom

FILE NAMES
    YACDP1.2.lha (117246 bytes)

PRICE
    Shareware fee 20DM or US$15

DISTRIBUTABILITY
    The archive and its contents are freely distributable.   
    See documentation for details.    
  
    The package is (C) 1994 Frank Wuerkner
@endnode
@node P2-2-4 "ShadowStart 1.2 (V37/V40)"
@toc P2-2
TITLE
         ShadowStart

VERSION
         1.2

AUTHOR
         Lars 'SFX' Eilebrecht 
         Glueck-Auf-Strasse 23
         57223 Kreuztal (Germany)

         SFX@appl1.hrz.uni-siegen.de
         Shadowfox@IRC

DESCRIPTION
         ShadowStart is a small utility that should be called from 
         the startup-sequence.

         If the activation-key is pressed down a requester pops up,
         asking you if you want the WBStartup-drawer, the 
         User-Startup script or both to be disabled.
         This means you can boot up a "clean" Workbench, 
         without any programs in WBStartup or User-Startup executed!
         And also a new shell-window can be opened for changing 
         things before executing the startup-sequence.
         (Source code is included.)
    
FUTURE
         Ideas and suggestions are always welcome!

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS
         Two version of ShadowStart are included,
         one for Kick/WB 3.1 and one for Kick/WB 2.0+.

HOST NAME
         ShadowStart has been uploaded to the Aminet Site

         ftp.uni-paderborn.de  (131.234.2.32)

         and should be available on all other Aminet sites.

DIRECTORY
         pub/aminet/util/boot

FILE NAME
         ShadowStart12.lha

RELEASE DATE
         09. December 1994

PRICE
         ShadowStart is FREEWARE!
         (But the author would like to get some mail if you use it.)

DISTRIBUTABILITY
         The ShadowStart archive is freely distributable,
         but it is copright 1994 by Lars Eilebrecht.

OTHER
         If you have access to IRC (Internet Relay Chat), you can
         get the latest ShadowStart archive via "dcc".
         Just type "/ctcp Shadowfox shadowstart" and you will get a 
         dcc send request for it. 
         Accept the request with "/dcc get Shadowfox"
         (actions are described for standard IRC-II client).
         (The authors IRC-client normally is reachable 24h/day!)
@endnode
@node P2-2-5 "Fishing Report - Dec 12, 1994"
@toc P2-2
                   T H E    F I S H I N G    R E P O R T

                                by Fred Fish
                           Amiga Library Services
                                Dec 12, 1994

============
FRESHFISH CD
============

The FreshFish Volume 7 (Nov/Dec) CD's went into production on Nov 1st, and
started shipping on Nov 4th.  The next FreshFish CD, Volume 8, is expected
to go into production during the middle of January.
           
We have several planned improvements in the FreshFish CD, that we are
keeping under our hat for the moment, and that are expected to start
appearing with Volume 8.  We think our customers will be quite pleased with
the pending changes, and we will continue to strive for the highest possible
level of excellence in all our products.

============
GOLDFISH  CD
============

GoldFish Volume 1, a 2-CD set released in April of 1994, provides a complete
archive of the 1000 "fish disk" floppy library, with all the disks provided
in both archived and ready-to-run form.  It can be used to produce master
floppy disks for further duplication and distribution, using a simple to use
program that is provided on the CD-ROM.  It can also be used by BBS or
anonymous ftp sites to provide convenient electronic access to all the
material from the floppy library.

GoldFish Volume 2, a 2-CD set released in December of 1994, includes all the
new submissions included on the first 7 volumes of the FreshFish CD series,
with all the material updated to the latest available version as of the date
of completion of the GoldFish CD.  As with Volume 1, all of the material is
included in both archived and unarchived form.  It also includes the latest
versions of the "useful tools" included on each FreshFish CD, such as the
GNU utilities, reviews of hardware and software, etc.  This CD will start
shipping on Dec 13th.

============
LIGHT-ROM CD
============

In cooperation with Lightwave artist Michael Meshew, we now offer a new CD
called "LIGHT-ROM".  This is a 647 Mb CD dedicated to 3D artists all over
the world, and contains Lightwave objects, scene files, textures, bump maps
(JPEG, IFF, & TARGA), fonts, thumbnail renderings, and text files with
advice from the rendering pros.  It also contains a "Showcase Directory",
displaying the talents of selected Lightwave artists from all over the
world.

LIGHT-ROM will be updated at approximately 6 month intervals.  Contributors
will be eligible for a free copy.  The retail price is $39.95 plus $3.95 for
shipping and handling.

=============
FRESHFONTS CD
=============

In cooperation with fonts enthusiast Daniel Amor, we published a new fonts
CD in early November.  This CD was published as an experiment under
conditions similar to the Meeting Pearls CD, whereby users that find the CD
interesting and useful are expected to make a shareware like donation to the
creators of the CD.

Thousands of these CDs were distributed free of charge at the Computer '94
show to customers at Stefan Ossowski's Schatztruhe booth.  We have also
distributed almost all of the CD's that we had allocated for our customers
that receive other CD's during November and December.  So far the results
have been quite disappointing, with at most a few hundred dollars in
donations received.  We will declare the experiment officially over on
February 1st, 1995, and provide a summary of the results at that time.

==============
TURBOCALC V2.0
==============

We are an authorized U.S. distributor of TurboCalc V2.0, a very powerful
Amiga spreadsheet program.  TurboCalc has extensive formatting options,
supports many different font formats, more than 40 different number, time,
and date formats, more than 100 functions covering arithmetic and financial
needs, more than 120 ARexx and macro instructions, integrated database, and
more.  TurboCalc retails for $115 plus $6.95 for shipping and handling.

=========
AMINET CD
=========

We are an authorized U.S. distributor of the new Aminet CD.  Both the Aminet
Gold and the Aminet Share are available.  Subscriptions for both CD's are
also available, at $59.95 per year for the Gold version and $44.95 for the
Share version.  There are expected to be four releases per year, so the
subscription is actually for 4 CD's, regardless of when they actually end up
shipping.

The only physical difference between the Aminet Gold CD and the Aminet Share
CD is the front cover artwork.  Built into the price of the Aminet Gold CD
is an automatic contribution to the creators of the CD and sufficient margin
to make the disk attractive to low volume resellers and retail sales
outlets.  Users who purchase to the Aminet Share version are expected to
make their own contributions directly to the creators if they feel that the
CD is worthwhile and wish to support creation of future Aminet CD's.

We currently have Volume 4 (Nov 1994) in stock.

=================
MEETING PEARLS CD
=================

We are expecting to have the second pressing of the Meeting Pearls CD in
stock in the next few days.  This CD contains about 150 high quality and
high resolution fractals, a ready to run version of PasTeX which includes
fonts for FAX and 600 DPI printers, a ready to install version of the Amiga
NetBSD port, and many other ready to run applications including UMS, DaggeX,
a lot of utilities, games, etc.

Because the version of NetBSD expected to be included on the CD-ROM includes
encryption code that is restricted for U.S export, all imported CD's will
only be available for resale within the U.S.

=================================
SPECIAL BBS VERSION OF FROZENFISH
=================================

By special request from BBS operators, we are issuing a limited number of a
custom version of the April 1994 FrozenFish CD, updated with some new
material, and called "FrozenFish-PC".  This CD has the complete contents of
each floppy disk 1-1000 in a single archive and all directory and file names
are ISO-9660 level 1 compliant (8.3 format, uppercase only, etc).  This
means that the CD is completely compatible with IBM-PC based systems, unlike
our regular Amiga CD's which are closer to ISO-9660 level 2.

For at least the next month or so, each copy of this CD is an individually
created CD-R "gold disk", which is completely compatible with mass
production CD's and CD-ROM drives.  Sometime soon we expect to do a small
production run of this CD and people who received the CD-R versions can
upgrade to the production version for $5 plus shipping costs.  The price of
this CD is $24.95 for either version, because of the lower volumes and thus
higher production costs per CD.

=====================
ATTENTION ALL AUTHORS
=====================

Amiga Library Services is actively looking to expand our CD-ROM offerings.
If you are an Amiga user with a good idea for an Amiga specific CD-ROM,
please consider letting us act as your publisher.  We will handle all
details concerning actual production of the CD-ROM, advertising, sales, and
distribution.  All you have to do is have a good idea and to be willing to
spend the necessary time to create a ready-to-publish master file tree for
the CD.

===========================
FUTURE FLOPPY DISK RELEASES
===========================

After completing disk 1000 in the floppy library earlier this year, we made
arrangements with another party to continue the floppy library past disk
1000.  It has now been over six months since we were first promised a new
batch of floppy disks, based on selected material from the FreshFish CD's,
and we have yet to see any results.

While I was at the Computer '94 show in Cologne in early November, I made
tentative arrangements to have this task taken over by someone else with the
time and experience to do an excellent job of continuing the floppy library.
I expect to finalize this arrangement soon, and am sorry that it has taken
so long to bring the floppy distribution back on line.

======================
ELECTRONIC SUBMISSIONS
======================

Material for inclusion in the CD-ROM distribution can now be submitted
electronically via anonymous ftp.  Please upload your submissions as an lha
archive, one archive per submitted program, to the ftp incoming directory on
ftp.amigalib.com.  Please include a "Product-Info" file in the lha archive.
This file describes the material using a standard format that is recognized
by the new version of KingFisher and by tools that we use to automatically
generate information about the CD contents.  If you don't have a copy of the
Product-Info specification, it can be retrieved via anonymous ftp from
ftp.amigalib.com, in directory pub/amiga.

If you do not have access to anonymous ftp, you can still submit material
electronically by mailing a uuencoded lha archive to
"submissions@amigalib.com".

=================
ELECTRONIC ORDERS
=================

You can email orders to be paid via credit card (VISA or MasterCard only) to
"orders@amigalib.com".  All such orders must include the full name of the
card holder, the card number, the expiration date, and a daytime phone
number which can be used to verify the order.  We will attempt to
acknowledge all such received orders via return email, and to verify an
unspecified percentage via phone calls.

Please note that it is considered to be somewhat risky to send credit card
information via electronic mail without encrypting it.  We are not currently
ready to start receiving encrypted orders, but may be able to do so in the
future.  We cannot be responsible for any fraudulent use of credit card info
that is intercepted by a third party during it's transmission.

For further information about our CD's, or to obtain an electronic copy of
our order form, send email to "orders@amigalib.com".
@endnode
@node P2-2-6 "AmigaFaces"
@toc P2-2
TITLE

        AmigaFaces (faces)

AUTHOR

        Andreas S. Oesterhelt (oesi@paradis.rhein.de)

DESCRIPTION

        This is a little software package that allows different
        actions upon arrival of mail from specific adresses.

        With faces, you can let your Amiga sing Hallelujah, whenever
        mail from your girlfriend arrives or curse loudly, if mail
        comes in from your boss.

        It consists of two parts: the executable binary (faces) and
        and a user / action database file (faces.db). The binary is
        executed by your mail package's 'rmail' type command and must
        therefore be set up as a mail filter in the aliases file.
        Whenever a mail for a local user with a "|faces" piping entry
        in his alias arrives, faces parses the sender's address out 
        of the header and looks up faces.db.

        The database stores information on which action is to be
        executed upon arrival of mails from what address or class of
        addresses. An address specification may contain wildcards, an
        action specification is any valid dos command line, i.e.
        playing a sound sample, speaking text via 'say', opening a
        requester, etc.

SPECIAL REQIUREMENTS

        To properly use AmigaFaces, you need a mail system installed
        on your Amiga, which features aliases and piping.

        I have tested the program with AmigaUUCP (with and without the
        wusel patch), AmiTCP 3b / InetUtils v1.4. (Note: IU v1.3 won't
        work.) and with AmiTCP / in.smtpd. Whether it runs with a smtpd
        for AS225, I can't tell.

        Strongly recommended is a soundplayer. (I use PlaySound.)

HOST NAME

        Any Aminet site, i.e. ftp.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4).

DIRECTORY

        /pub/aminet/comm/net

FILE NAMES

        AmigaFaces.lha

PRICE

        No cost.

DISTRIBUTABILITY

        The program is Copyright 1994 by me. It is freely
        distributable, as long as no profit is made hereof.
@endnode
@node P2-2-7 "FetchRefs 1.1"
@toc P2-2
TITLE

     FetchRefs

VERSION

     1.1

AUTHOR

     Anders Melchiorsen
     Gammel Skivevej 39
     7870 Roslev
     Denmark

     and@scala.ping.dk
     FidoNet: 2:235/314.10

DESCRIPTION

     This is for the programmers among you -- the jargon may be annoying
     for others.  Sorry!

     FetchRefs is (yet another) utility to quickly look up stuff in
     AutoDocs and include files. When you are in your editor and want
     information on an unknown word you simply press a key. Through
     an ARexx script, this brings up a new window with the right part
     of an AutoDoc or include file in it. As just the required part
     of the file is read, this search is extremely fast.

     With support for both AutoDocs and C, Assembler, and E include
     files, most programmers should not feel overlooked. ARexx
     scripts are provided for several well-known editors: AmokEd,
     CygnusEd, DME, GoldED, and TurboText. Due to the ARexx interface,
     support for other editors is only a new ARexx script away!

     Other advantages include wild card support, optionally case
     sensitive search, a powerful GUI driven index file generator,
     support for "TagList", "Tags" and "A" postfixes to function names
     and a unique window with a list of all possibilities when you
     search for something that several references match (especially
     useful when combined with wild card searching.)

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

     FetchRefs needs Kickstart 2.04 or better.

     Triton and ReqTools are both required for the GUI of the index
     file generator. Triton is included and ReqTools may be obtained
     from Fish disk #794 or Aminet directory /pub/aminet/util/libs/ .

     Commodore's Installer and AmigaGuide utilities come in very handy
     when installing FetchRefs and reading the documentation but they
     are also not included.

HOST NAME                             
                                      
     All Aminet sites, e.g. wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4)
                                      
DIRECTORY                             
                                      
     /pub/aminet/dev/misc

FILE NAME

     FetchRefs11.LhA   115 KB

PRICE

     FetchRefs is free. It is requested that you send a postcard if
     you use it.

DISTRIBUTABILITY

     FreeWare. Source may be used in other projects but you may not
     release new versions of FetchRefs!
@endnode
@node P2-2-8 "KingFisher 2.6"
@toc P2-2
NAME
        KingFisher

VERSION
        2.6

PURPOSE
        KingFisher is a tool specifically designed to maintain and
        search one or more databases for software.  The program permits
        manual browsing, but offers a powerful expression parser through
        which you can explain to KingFisher exactly what you are looking
        for.

        The layout of database records for display is programmable, as
        is the format used for printing and that for writing records to
        a file.

        KingFisher uses a resizable GadTools window on the default
        public screen or on a custom screen, offers the choice of both
        smart and simple refresh windows, and supports proportional
        fonts (including scalable fonts) of nearly any size.

        KingFisher supports more than one database, and databases that
        are larger than a single disk volume, which are spread over any
        number of disks to be mounted on request.

        Using advanced Client-Server Technology, KingFisher supports
        multiple simultaneous users with a minimum of memory overhead
        (as little as 25K) for each user.  An ARexx-based interface,
        named RexxFisher, provides a BBS with the means to serve many
        databases to many users!

        KingFisher is localized.  Catalogs are supplied for Dansk,
        Deutsch, Espanol, Nederlands, Suomi, and Svenska.  More are
        expected as translators are found (hint, hint!)

        Context sensitive and fully integrated AmigaGuide provides
        help on gadgets, menu items, reference sections, etc. in over
        150K of widely cross-linked text.

        KingFisher comes with a complete, read-to-use database of
        descriptions for Fred's "Fish Disks" 1-1000!

NEW FEATURE OVERVIEW
        ----- KingFisher 2.6 ------------------------------------------
        Clipboard               - Reads & Writes clipboard unit 0
        Center window option    - Keep main window always centered
        Show all fields         - Shows ALL, even non-standard fields
        Select larger fonts     - Now lets you select fonts > 24 pixels
        Fast Reverse QuickIndex - Now as fast as Forward QuickIndex
        Trashed/vanishing Menus - Bug fixed
        Trash in .prefs file    - Bug fixed
        FD/Registered messages  - Actual distinction of messages :-)
        KingFisher2.guide       - Should now work again for KS2.x users

        ----- KFServer 2.6 --------------------------------------------
        Improved %usage report  - Provides uptime and accurate %use
        kfcSELECTDATABASE       - Cleaned up and fixed
        Creating New Database   - MAJOR cleanup.  Should work fine now!
        System Requesters       - No longer suppressed (option avail.)

        ----- RexxFisher 1.7 ------------------------------------------
        RF_ADDFISH              - Adds contents of file to database
        RF_SETVLINK             - Sets previous/next VersionLink values

REQUIREMENTS
        With Fish Disk Database (1.5MB), approximately 2.2MB of harddisk
        space is needed.  The program requires about 400K of memory to
        run, depending on the size of the database index files and some
        other factors.  Kickstart V37 (2.04) is required; V38 (2.1) is
        required for localization.

COMPATIBILITY
        Tested with 68000 through 68040 CPUs, V37, V38, V39, and V40
        system software, Picasso II graphics board.  Enforcer and
        Mungwall used during testing.

PRICE
        Shareware registration fee is $20(US) or DM30.  A registration
        site in Germany is available for European users.

RESTRICTIONS
        The freely distributable, unregistered (EVALUATION) version
        remains at version 2.3 with an update yet to be announced.  The
        unregistered version is limited to a maximum of two simultaneous
        users.  Register for the full version and show your support!

AUTHOR & AUTHOR'S ADDRESS (inquiries, registration, technical support)
        Udo Schuermann
        6000 42nd Avenue, Apt. 405
        Hyattsville, MD 20781-1518
        USA

        email: walrus@wam.umd.edu

LOCATION
        A patch file for the REGISTERED version of KingFisher 2.1, 2.3,
        2.4, and 2.5 (but not 2.2) is available on Aminet in 'biz/dbase'
        by the name 'KF-REGS-pch-26.lha'

        The EVALUATION version is available on Aminet in 'biz/dbase',
        as 'KingFisher21.lha' as well as 'KF-21-22-patch.lha' and
        'KF-22-23-patch.lha'

        Aminet's main ftp site is wuarchive.wustl.edu [128.252.135.4]
        Please use Aminet's mirror sites whenever possible!

 ._.  Udo Schuermann             "The future is not what it used to be."
 ( )  walrus@wam.umd.edu            -- G'Kar, Babylon-5, "The Long Dark"
@endnode

@node P5B-1 "Amiga Report Mailing List"
@toc P5B

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

If you have an internet mailing address, you can receive Amiga Report in
@{"UUENCODED" link P5B-1-1} form each week as soon as the issue is released.  To be put on
the list, send Email to jcompton@bbs.xnet.com and in the body of the
message ask nicely and briefly to be added to the list.

ie: Please add me to the mailing list for Amiga Report magazine.  My
     addresss is <your net address>.

Your account must be able to handle mail of any size to ensure an intact
copy.  For example, many systems have a 100K limit on incoming messages.

** IMPORTANT NOTICE:  PLEASE be certain your host can accept mail over   **
** 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 P5B-1-1
@toc P5B

                            UUEncoding/Decoding
                            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
             (thanks to Bob Tomasevich for the quick tutorial)

What is uuencoding and uudecoding?
----------------------------------
uuencoding is converting a binary file into text (ASCII) which can be sent
through mail or Usenet.  uudecoding is reversing the process (e.g.
converting the file back to binary).

Why would I want to do this?
----------------------------
You have to send a binary file to a user who does not have FTP access, or
the user is too lazy to FTP the file.

What is the normal procedure?
-----------------------------
1. Convert the binary file into ASCII, using uuencode.
2. Send the file, through email, to the user.
3. The person on the receiving end gets the email, which may be split into
   parts.  If the email is split into parts, the parts must be combined,
   in the order received, into one file.
4. Receiving person converts the file back into binary, using uudecode.

What does a uuencoded file look like?
-------------------------------------
The start always has:

    begin 644 <encoded file's name>

So, for the file happy-happy-joy-joy.txt, it would look like:

    begin 644 happy-happy-joy-joy.txt

The encoded file begins right after:

M1TE&.#=A@`+@`9<````$`*QB15=2.+&/@R(Y)XM8.=J]H+*%7BL6#8]F6EP_]
M*$=E5"L?L-Z8A-:#60\@$,9P27-4-YB#;4HY)U!L9KZNE\O"O["#;8]82SDF>
M&[%J4FI',.&:E`48#="4@SE41M61<R`@%R$\,9:.?&!Z=NWM_\V';H-D1TI`=

.. more lines like the above ..

M>(`)N(`-^(`1.($5>($9N($=^($A.((E>((IN((M^((Q.(,U>(,YN(,]^(-!+
&V"\"`@`[&
``
end              <-- the end of the encoded file
size 151341      <-- size of the original file

So, how would I do this on the Amiga?
-------------------------------------
There are many uuencode/decode variants out there, but most usually have
kept the old UNIX command line, which can be confusing to novices, or,
require you to remove all mail headers and other, non-uuencoded text.

Luckily, Asher Feldman took the time to write UUxt.

What is UUxT?
-------------
It is a program which performs both the uuencode/decode operations in one
executable, AND, can also pack/unpack LhA archives.

Tell me more.
-------------
The UUxT archive contains UUxT, the CLI version, and UUxtGUI, the Workbench
interface.  I will give a short summary of how to use both.  Detailed
instructions are included in the UUxT archive.

CLI Version:
------------

  Running UUxT without any options gives the following:

     UUxT Version 2.1a Copyright (c)1993 Asher Feldman
     USAGE: UUxT [option] [archive name] <LhA archive name> <file(s)>
     options: a - encode           l - LhAencode
              x - decode           u - LhAdecode

  showing the format of the command line and the valid options.

  Some example command lines:

  1. Normal encoding - UUxt a filename.uue filename-to-archive
  2. Normal decoding - UUxt x filename.uue
  3. LhA archiving and encoding -

            UUxT l filename.uue filename.lha file1 file2 ...

  4. Decoding and LhA unarchiving - UUxT u filename.uue

  For LhA encoding and decoding, you will need LhA by Stefan Boberg.

  Workbench (GUI) Version:
  ------------------------
  Below is a ASCII rendition of the UUxT-GUI window (from UUxtGUI doc):
         ____________________________________________________________
        |+| UUxT-GUI Frontend v1.0 (c)1993 Asher Feldman             |
        +------------------------------------------------------------+
        |   ______________________        ______________________     |
        |  |InFile |              |      |OutFile|              |    |
        |  +-------+--------------+      +-------+--------------+    |
        |    (1)          (2)               (3)         (4)          |
        |             ____________                 _____________     |
        |  Operation |@| Decode   |      Lha Name |             |    |
        |            +-+----------+               +-------------+    |
        |                  (5)                          (6)          |
        |                         _________                          |
        |                        |  START  |                         |
        |                        +---------+                         |
        |                            (7)                             |
        +------------------------------------------------------------+

  (1) Clicking on this brings up a requester to select the file you want to
         perform the operation shown in gadget (5).
  (2) You can manually type here the filename of the file affected by the
         operation indicated in gadget (5).
  (3) Used only for encoding, brings up a requester to select where the
         encoded file should go.  Selecting an existing file will cause the
         existing file to be replaced by the encoded file.  You can also
         use this requester to create directories.
  (4) You can manually type the filename of the file to be the encoded file.
  (5) The operation to perform on file shown in (2).  The operations are
         the four provided by UUxT (uuencode/uudecode/LhAEncode/LhADecode).
  (6) The name of the archive created with the LhAEncode option.  Ignored
         when any other operation is selected.
  (7) Does the encode/decode/LhAEncode/LhADecode and pops up a requester
         indicating if the operation was successful or not.

I need this!  Where can I get it?
---------------------------------
If you use the Internet from a local BBS, you may find it there.  If not
you can FTP it from wuarchive.wustl.edu, in the directory

                          pub/aminet/arc/UUxT.lha

It should also be on the Aminet mirrors.

Thanks for the explanation!  How can I reach you if I have questions?
---------------------------------------------------------------------

                                 Internet
                                 --------

                         bob.tomasevich@nezuld.com
                               bobt@ais.net

@endnode
@node P5-4 "Copyright Information"
@toc P5                         

===========================================================================
==                       _    _       __  ___    _                       ==
==                      /\\  |\\   /| || //  \  /\\                      ==
==                     /  \\ | \\ /|| ||(< __  /  \\                     ==
==                    /--- \\|  \/ || || \\_||/--- \\                    ==
==                   /______________________________\\                   ==
==                  /                                \\                  ==
==              Amiga Report International Online Magazine               ==
==                 January 3, 1995       Issue No. 3.01                  ==
==                  Copyright  1995 SkyNet 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
STR Publications.  Permission to reprint articles is hereby granted, unless
otherwise noted.  Reprints must, without exception, include the name of the
publication, date, issue number and the author's name.  Amiga Report and/or
portions therein may not be edited in any way without prior written
permission.  However, translation into a language other than English is
acceptble, provided 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).  Distribution on for-profit magazine
cover disks requires written permission from the editor or publisher. Amiga
Report is a not-for-profit publication.  Amiga Report, at the time of
publication, is believed reasonably accurate.  Amiga Report, its staff and
contributors are not and cannot be held responsible for the use or misuse
of information contained herein or the results obtained there from.  Amiga
Report is not affiliated with Commodore-Amiga, Inc., Commodore Business
Machines, Ltd., or any other Amiga publication in any way.  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 P6-1 "Editor's Choice"
@toc P6
===========================================================================
==                            Editor's Choice                            ==
===========================================================================

These are selected products, reviewed by myself, that I've liked.  So, I've
landed them and decided to sell them at the lowest price I'm authorized.

All prices are in $US.

                                 | Issue    | Approximate  | Amiga Report |
 Product                         | Reviewed | Retail Price | Reader Price |
---------------------------------|----------|--------------|--------------|
|                                |          |              |              |
|Swifty 3-button mouse           |   2.28   |    $39.95    |    $22.75    |
|                                |          |              |              |
|GPFax Amiga Fax Software        |   2.30   |   $100.00    |    $60.00    |
|    (Class 1 and 2)             |          |              |              |
|                                |          |              |              |
|Micro R+D CD-ROM Volume 1       |   2.25   |    $79.00    |    $53.95    |
|    (Includes Transition graphic|          |              |              |
|    converter and loads of      |          |              |              |
|    artwork)                    |          |              |              |
|                                |          |              |              |
|Micro R+D CD-ROM Volume 2       |   2.26   |    $99.00    |    $59.95    |
|    (Includes entire Nature's   |          |              |              |
|    Backdrop series)            |          |              |              |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

Mail all orders to @{" Jason Compton " link P8-1}.  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 P8-1}.  Orders will be
drop-shipped from Sidewinder Productions.

For overseas orders, please contact through E-Mail before ordering.
@endnode
@node P6-4-1 "Delphi"
@toc P6-4

===========================================================================
==       Delphi Internet Services -- Your Connection to the World!       ==
===========================================================================

Amiga Report International Online Magazine and the Amiga Report Coverdisk
are available in the Amiga SIG on DELPHI.  Amiga Report readers are invited
to join DELPHI and become a part of the friendly community of Amiga
enthusiasts there.

                          SIGNING UP WITH DELPHI
                          ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

       Using a personal computer and modem, members worldwide access
                  DELPHI services via a local phone call

                              JOIN -- DELPHI
                              --------------

                Via modem, dial up DELPHI at 1-800-695-4002
                               then...
                When connected, press RETURN once or twice
                                and..
              At Username: type JOINDELPHI and press RETURN,
              At Password: type AMIGAUSER and press RETURN.

                        For more information, call
                 DELPHI Member Services at 1-800-695-4005

                             SPECIAL FEATURES
                             ----------------

  * Complete Internet connection -- Telnet, FTP, IRC, Gopher, E-Mail and
       more!   (Internet option is $3/month extra)
  * SIGs for all types of computers  -- Amiga, IBM, Macintosh, Atari, etc.
  * An active Amiga SIG hosting conferances, Usenet, Latest wares, and
       FTP Gopher coming soon
  * Large file databases!
  * SIGs for hobbies, video games, graphics, and more!
  * Business and world news, stock reports, etc.
  * Grolier's Electronic Encyclopedia!

                DELPHI - It's getting better all the time!

@endnode
@node P6-4-2 "Portal"
@toc P6-4

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

                The Portal Information Network's Amiga Zone

          The AFFORDABLE alternative for online Amiga information
          -------------------------------------------------------

The Portal Online System is the home of acclaimed Amiga Zone, a full-
service online SIG (Special Interest Group) for Amiga owners and users.

You can dial into Portal to access the Amiga Zone in various ways: direct
dial to our San Jose, CA area banks of high-speed modems (you pay for the
phone call if it's not local), or though any SprintNet indial anywhere in
the USA, (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 account.  Its Online system is fully
menu-driven with on-screen commands and help and you can easily customize
it for your 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 1000 disks!
 * Fast, Batch Zmodem file transfer protocol. Download up to 100 files at
      once, of any size, with one command.
 * Twenty Amiga vendor areas with participants like AmigaWorld, Elastic
      Reality (ASDG), Soft-Logik, Apex Publishing, and others.
 * 38 "regular" Amiga libraries with over 10,000 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.
 * Vast Message bases where you can ask questions about *anything* Amiga
      related and get quick replies from the experts.
 * Amiga Internet mailing lists for Imagine, DCTV, LightWave, EGS, Picasso,
      OpalVision & 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.
 * A FREE UNIX Shell account with another 5 meg of free storage.
 * Portal has the Usenet.  Thousands of "newsgroups" in which you can read
      and post articles about virtually any subject you can possibly
      imagine.
 * 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 for this area?" again!
 * The entire UPI/Clarinet/Newsbytes news hierarchy ($4/month extra)  An 
      entire general interest newspaper and computer news magazine.
 * Portal was THE FIRST online service to offer a full package of Internet
      features: IRC, FTP, TELNET, MUDS, LIBS.  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 in the USA,
   or telnet to "portal.com" from anywhere.

Call and join today.  Tell the friendly Portal Customer Service
representative, "The Amiga Zone and Amiga Report sent me!"

[Editor's Note: Be sure to tell them that you are an Amiga user, so they
can notify the AmigaZone sysops to send their Welcome Letter and other
information!]

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 and custom domain
accounts are also available.

@endnode
@node P6-4-3 "GEnie"
@toc P6-4

===========================================================================
==              GEnie: Internet access, online games, more               ==
===========================================================================

* What is GEnie?

GEnie is a commercial on-line service that offers many services at a
reasonable monthly rate.  Some of the general services are:

     - Over 150,000 software files to download
     - Uploads to GEnie are free of any connect charges, so upload those
       Public Domain programs to add to the Starship Amiga Roundtable's
       vast selection of programs for free!
     - Real-time chat
     - Dozens of special-interest discussion areas
     - Challenging multi-player games with graphics (yes, there are Amiga
       front-ends)
     - Worldwide news, weather and sports
     - Electronic mail to and from the Internet
     - FTP Service which provides users with interactive access to any of
       the millions of files available for public access on the Internet
     - Usenet Newsgroups Service which allow users to participate in the
       global discussion areas collectively known as USENET
     - Outbound Telnet Service which enables users to connect to other host
       computers through the Internet
     - GEnie Mall with nearly 40 different vendors
     - Starship Amiga Roundtable which contains gigabytes of Amiga-only
       files
     - Commodore Roundtable for VIC-20, C-64, C-128 and other Commodore
       computers
     - Other Amiga software companies have their own Roundtables for
       customer support such as Soft-Logik where all the latest program
       patches and support files are available for their products
     - AmiAladdin Support Roundtable for getting the latest updates to the
       GEnie Aladdin software which is used to make maneuvering the GEnie
       menu system much easier and faster.  This is a specific area for the
       Amiga version of this software which is free of charge
     - Hundreds of other areas and services available

* How do I sigh up for GEnie?

You may sign up for GEnie service by one of two methods:

(1) Using your modem (8N1 half duplex 300/1200/2400 baud) dial
      1-800-638-8369.  Upon connection immediately enter HHH (Return),
      don't wait for any on-screen prompt.  At the U#= prompt type SIGNUP
      (Return).  You may use a major credit card account or your checking
      account (US only.)
(2) Call GEnie client services via voice at 1-800-638-9636 or
      1-301-251-6475 from outside the US and Canada.
@endnode
@node P5B-2 "Aminet"
@toc P5B

                                  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.  (ftp.cdrom.com
or ftp.wustl.edu are two sites)

@endnode
@node P5B-3 "World Wide Web"
@toc P5B

                              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 the following URL:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/Web/People/mjw/Computer/Amiga/News/AR/index.html

Or, for those in Europe, the Polish site is:
http://sun1000.ci.pwr.wroc.pl/AMIGA/AR/

Mosaic for the Amiga can be found on Aminet in directory comm/net, or
(using anonymous ftp) on max.physics.sunysb.edu

Mosaic for X, Macintosh(tm) and Microsoft Windows(tm) can be found on
ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu

@endnode
@node P9-A1 "Omaha Amiganet"
@toc P5B-4A

                            * OMAHA AMIGANET *
                  Official Amiga Report Distribution Site
                       * Running DLG Professional *
                           Andy Wasserman, Sysop
                              24 hrs - 7 days
                            FidoNet:  1:285/11
                           AmigaNet:  40:200/10
                      Line 1:  402-333-5110  V.32bis
                      Line 2:  402-691-0104  USR DS
                              Omaha, Nebraska

@endnode
@node P9-A2 "NOVA"
@toc P5B-4A

                               * NOVA BBS *
                  Official Amiga Report Distribution Site
              Support BBS of The Chattanooga Amiga Users Group
                         * Running MEBBSNet BBS *
                         Wayne Stonecipher, Sysop
                AmigaNet 40:210/10.0  40:210/1.0  40:210/0.0
                            FidoNet  1:362/508.0
                 An Amiga Software Distribution Site (ADS)
                 615-472-9748  USR DS 16.8  24hrs - 7 days
                           Cleveland, Tennessee

                     All AR back issues are kept online.
          All new users receive access to the AR on the first call.
             Any AR issue may be file requested with proper name.
                 To obtain the current issue you may FReq
                     Proper name, AR.LHA or simply AR

@endnode
@node P9-A3 "PIONEERS BBS"
@toc P5B-4A

                              * PIONEERS BBS *
                        ** A PREMIER GENEALOGY BBS **
              ** WEST COAST - Amiga Virus Busters Support BBS  **
                        ** CD32 REVIEW Support BBS **
                                   AND NOW
                    Official Amiga Report Distribution Site
                         * Running EXCELSIOR! BBS *
                       Michael & Marthe Arends, Sysops
                            FidoNet:  1:343/54.0
             206-775-7983 Supra 14.4k v32.bis  24hrs - 7 days
                             EDMONDS, Washington

  New users can call and get ANY copy of Amiga Report. Just call using
  the Name "Long Distance" and the password "Longdistance"(without the
  quotes of course).  Users using this account will have full access to
  ALL past and present issues of AMIGA REPORT starting with the premier
  issue. The latest issue of Amiga Report can be Freq'ed (FileREQusted)
  from here as "AR.LHA", Freq's are valid at ANY time.


@endnode
@node P9-A4 "CIUA BBS"
@toc P5B-4A

                               * CIUA BBS*
             Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Portugal
               * Running Excelsior/Trapdoor/AmigaUUCP/AmiTCP *
                           Celso Martinho, Sysop
                             FidoNet  2:361/9
                        Internet: denise.ci.ua.pt
          +351-34-382080/382081 (V32bis soon V34) 24hrs - 7 days.

@endnode
@node P9-A5 "Amiga Junction 9"
@toc P5B-4A


                           * AMIGA JUNCTION 9 *
         Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- United Kingdom
                       * Running DLG Professional *
                          Stephen Anderson, Sysop
                Sysop Email:  sysadmin@junct9.demon.co.uk

      Line 1  +44 (0)372 271000  14400  V.32bis/HST   FidoNet 2:440/20
      Line 2  +44 (0)372 278000  14400  V.32bis only  FidoNet 2:440/21
      Line 3  +44 (0)372 279000  2400   V.42bis/MNP

      Voice:  +44 (0)956 348405  (24hrs)  Direct Sysop Voice Line

                   Internet:  user_name@junct9.royle.org

         Special Interest Areas: - Bjork / Sugarcubes Fan Club
                                 - Research of Lucid Dreaming
@endnode
@node P9-A6 "BitStream BBS"
@toc P5B-4A

                             * BITSTREAM BBS *
               The BBS of the Nelson (NZ) Amiga Users Group
                  Official Amiga Report Distribution Site

        BITSTREAM BBS is running on an Amiga 2000/030 with 7MB RAM
            800MB of Hard Drive Space and a 650MB CD-ROM Drive

   Line 1 : 24 hours, +64-(0)3-548-5321, SupraFaxModem 28k8 VFast Class
  Modem Supplied by Supra.  Hard Drive Controller Supplied by Micro World

            We use the XENOLINK Professional BBS Software v1.91

             Sysop: Glen Roberts       Co-Sysop: Peter Lowish

               FidoNET 3:771/850.0       MaxNET 90:301/150.0
                           AmigaNET 41:644/850.0
@endnode
@node P9-A7 "Realm of Twilight"
@toc P5B-4A

                         * REALM OF TWILIGHT BBS *
             Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Canada
                        * Running Excelsior! BBS *
                         Thorsten Schiller, Sysop
                    Usenet: realm.tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca
                    UUCP:   ...!uunet.ca!tdkcs!realm
                             FIDO: 1:221/302
                             Fish: 33:33/8
                              24hrs - 7 days
                         519-748-9365  (2400 baud)
                         519-748-9026  (v.32bis)
                              Ontario, Canada


     Hardware: Amiga 3000, 105 Meg Quantum, 213 Meg Maxtor, 5 megs RAM


@endnode
@node P9-A8 "Metnet Triangle"
@toc P5B-4A

                          METNET TRIANGLE SYSTEM
                  Official Amiga Report Distribution Site
                          UK Support for Mebbsnet
                  * Running Mebbsnet and Starnet 1.02a *
                             Jon Witty, Sysop
                            FIDO:  2:252/129.0
                              24 hrs - 7 days
                     Line  1:   44-482-473871  16.8 DS HST
                     Lines 2-7: 44-482-442251  2400 (6 lines)
                     Line  8:   44-482-491744  2400
                     Line  9:   44-482-449028  2400
                Voice helpline  44-482-491752  (anytime)

                 Fully animated menus + normal menu sets.
                  500 megs HD - Usual software/messages
           Most doors online - Many Sigs - AMIGA AND PC SUPPORT
                Very active userbase and busy conference
             Precious days and MUD online. AMUL support site.

@endnode
@node P9-A9 "Amiga-Night-System"
@toc P5B-4A


                          * AMIGA-NIGHT-SYSTEM *
             Official Amiga Report Distribution Site - Finland
                       * Running DLG Professional *
                            Janne Saarme, Sysop
                              24 hrs - 7 days
                     InterNet: luumu@fenix.fipnet.fi
                           FidoNet:  2:220/550.0
                          +358-0-675840  V.32bis
                             Helsinki, Finland

@endnode
@node P9-A10 "Ramses Amiga Flying"
@toc P5B-4A

                        * RAMSES THE AMIGA FLYING *
             Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- France
                       * Running DLG Professional *
                            Eric Delord, Sysop
                         Philippe Brand, Co-Sysop
                        Stephane Legrand, Co-Sysop
                    Internet: user.name@ramses.gna.org
                            Fidonet: 2:320/104
                        +33-1-60037015 USR DS 16.8
                        +33-1-60037713 V.32bis
                        +33-1-60037716 1200-2400


Ramses The Amiga Flying BBS is an Amiga-dedicated BBS running DLG-Pro on a
Amiga 3000, 16MB RAM, 2GB Disk space, 3 lines.

We keep a dayly Aminet site mirroring, NetBSD-Amiga complete mirror site
from ftp.eunet.ch (main site), Amiga Report, GNU Amiga, Ramses is the
SAN/ADS/Amiganet French coordinator.

@endnode
@node P9-A11 "Gateway BBS"
@toc P5B-4A

                            * THE GATEWAY BBS *
                 Official Amiga Report Distribution Site
                        * Running Excelsior! BBS *
                          Stace Cunningham, Sysop
                            Dan Butler, CoSysop
                              24 hrs - 7 days
                   InterNet: stace@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil
                           FidoNet:  1:3604/60.0
                    601-374-2697 Hayes Optina 28.8 V.FC
                            Biloxi, Mississippi

@endnode
@node P9-A12 "EMERALD KEEP BBS"
@toc P5B-4A

                         * Emerald Keep BBS *
               Official Amiga Report Distribation Site
                     * Running DLG Professional *
                       Michael mac Nessa, Sysop
                           24 hrs - 7 days
                           FidoNet: 1:2250/2
                          AmigaNet: 40:206/1
                      618-394-0065 USR 16.8k DS
                         Fairview Heights, IL

@endnode
@node P9-A13 "Amiga BBS"
@toc P5B-4A

                               * Amiga BBS *
                  Official Amiga Report Distribution Site
                        * Running Excelsior! BBS *
                         Alejandro Kurczyn, Sysop
                             FidoNet  4:975/7
                         First Amiga BBS in Mexico
                        (5) 887-3080   9600 V32,MNP
                         Estado de Mexico,  Mexico

@endnode
@node P9-A14 "The Stygian Abyss"
@toc P5B-4A

                         * THE STYGIAN ABYSS BBS *
                    312-384-0616  14.4 USR Courier HST
                    312-384-6250  14.4 Supra V.32 bis (FREQ line)
                    312-384-0716  2400 USR Courier

  FIDONet-1:115/384.0    CLink-911:6200/2.0  NWNet-206:310/0.0--206:310/1.0
      PhantomNet Central States Cooridinator-11:2115/0.0--11:2115/1.0
      FaithNet Central States Cooridinator-700:6000/0.0--700:6000/1.0
                     AMINet Chicagoland HUB-559:2/5.0
                             Chicago, Illinois

     Over 4 GIGS of files  I  Over 3700 MODS  I  Over 120 On-Line Games
              Tons of digitized sounds  I  Over 15,000 GIFS
           Supporting:  Amiga  I  IBM  I  Macintosh  I C=64/128
              SIR SAMMY-SysOp     Enter.......If you dare!!

@endnode
@node P9-A15 "Amiga Do PC BBS"
@toc P5B-4A

                            * AMIGA DO PC BBS *
             Official Amiga Report Distribuition Site - Brazil
                       * Running Excelsior! v 1.18 *

                              +55-192-33-2260
                         Weekdays: 19-07 (-3 GMT)
                            Weekends: 24 hours
                            Fidonet:  4:801/44
                            RBT:      12:1212/1
                            Virinet:  70:101/17

                    Internet:  fimoraes@dcc.unicamp.br
                          Francisco Moraes, sysop
                               Campinas, SP

                Freq AREPORT for the newest issue avaiable.

@endnode
@node P9-A16 "Comm-Link BBS"
@toc P5B-4A

                             * COMM-LINK BBS *
                  Official Amiga Report Distribution Site
                         * Running Excelsior Pro *
                         604-945-6192  USR DS 16.8
                              24 hrs - 7 days
                         Fido:        1:153/210.0
                        AmigaNet     40:800/9100.0
                        InterSports: 102:540/305.0
                        PussNet:     169:1000/305.0
               InterNet:  steve_hooper@comm.tfbbs.wimsey.com
                            Steve Hooper, Sysop
                        Port Coquitlam, B.C. Canada

@endnode
@node P9-A17 "Phantom's Lair"
@toc P5B-4A

                            * PHANTOM'S LAIR *
                  Official Amiga Report Distribution Site
                           * Running CNET 3.0 *
                           FidoNet:  1:115/469.0
            Phantom Net Cooridinator:  11:1115/0.0-11:1115/1.0
                               708-469-9510
                               708-469-9520
                CD ROMS, Over 15511 Files Online @ 2586 meg
                            Peter Gawron, Sysop
                        Glendale Heights, Illinois

@endnode
@node P9-A18 "Tierra-Miga BBS"
@toc P5B-4A

                             Tierra-Miga  BBS
                              Software: CNet
                              Gib Gilbertson
                            24 hours -  7 days
                        FidoNet:       1:202/638.0
                        AmigaNet:      40:406/3.0
                        Internet:      torment.cts.com
                        Line #1:       619.292.0754 V32.bis
                        City:          San Diego, CA.
@endnode
@node P9-A19 "Moonlight Sonata DLG"
@toc P5B-4A

                  M O O N L I G H T   S O N A T A   D L G

                * Amiga Report Official Distribution Site *
                         * DAS ModPlayer Support *

                      2 Nodes *FREE PUBLIC* Amiga BBS
               MIDI-tunes, MIDI-utils, Modules, Amiga-files
                       Messages, Door-games, MUD...
                     Also patches for several synths!
                   (About 100MB of ProTracker Modules!)

              Node #1 - +358-18-161763 - ZyXEL V32b 19200
              Node #2 - +358-18-161862 - HST DS V32 14400
                           Fidonet: 2:221/112.0

                         Keyboards: Erno Tuomainen

                       Amiga3000 25MHz - 1.3Gigs HD
                      BBS Software: Dialog Pro BB/OS

@endnode
@node P9-A20 "Continental Drift"
@toc P5B-4A
*=====================================================================*

      /\                  C O N T I N E N T A L   D R I F T  B B S
     /  \                              (+61) 2 949 4256
    /    \______          Murray Chaffer * Andre Lackmann * Dale Cohen
   /     /      \
  /     /        \                   Amiga * IBM * Macintosh
 /     /          \ : : :
:\     \    /\     \ : : :800Mb+ Online - USENET News - Internet Mail
 :\     \  /  \     \ : : Local Mail - FIDOnet Mail - Shareware Regos
: :\     \/    \     \ : :Online Games -  Aminet, FISH, Euro  CD-ROMs
 : :\          /     /: :
: : :\        /     /: : :Amiga Report * CD-32 View * Frontier Consoles
      \      /     /             * Computer underground Digest *
       \    /\    /
        \  /  \  /             **Online shareware registrations**
         \/    \/              Files daily from Aminet * ADS/SAN

*=====================================================================*

@endnode
@node P9-A21 "Amiga Online Bs Heemstede"
@toc P5B-4A

                         Amiga Online Bs Heemstede
                   *  HeadQuarters of Online Products *
        Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- The Netherlands
        * Running Xenolink 1.95 - 24 hours a day - 7 days a week *

                       Your SysOp is Michiel Willems

                      24 hours a day - 7 days a week

       Fidonet : 2:280/464.0, 2:280/412.0    DAN Host HQ : 55:100/1.0
   Amynet Host : 39:151/1.0                          NLA : 14:102/203.0
    BOSnet Hub : 99:999/2.0      e-mail SysOp : michiel@aobh.xs4all.nl

    Line 1 +31-23-282002 14400 Supra, Line 2 +31-23-470739 14400 Supra

               Heemstede, The Netherlands, Europe, The Earth

                   2,0 Gig HD online - ALOT of software
           Just freq AR of AR.LHA for the latest issue available

 Every issue from Amiga Report Magazine online as far as the first issue.
@endnode
@node P9-A22 "The Kobayashi Alternative BBS"
@toc P5B-4A
          T H E   K O B A Y A S H I   A L T E R N A T I V E   B B S
          -----   -----------------   ---------------------   -----
                    Supporting the Central Maine since 1985!

                     7 In-Dial lines (All 14.4 Compatable)
           Support for IBM/Windows, Amiga, MAC and CNet BBS Support
                            On-Line Games (over 100)
                      Internet Newsgroups and Usenet Mail
                   FidoNet Echo Areas   FidoNet: 1:326/404.0
                         (207)/784-2130 \   TKA
                         (207)/946-5665  \  Local
                         (207)/353-7224  /  Access
                         (207)/377-3214 /   Lines
@endnode
@node P9-A23 "Highway to Hell BBS"
@toc P5B-4A

                          * Highway to Hell BBS *
                  Official Amiga Report Distribution Site

                     Sysop: Iain Black (iblack@dit.ie)
                   Cosysop: Damien Ryan (djryan@dit.ie)

                       Online from 22:00 - 08:00 GMT

                          Fidonet Node: 2:263/154
                              +353-1-847 5217
@endnode
@node P9-A24 "CUGI BBS"
@toc P5B-4A

                               * CUGI BBS *
              The BBS of the Commodore Users Group of Ireland
                Fidonet: 2:263/155 Phone: + 353 1 837 0204
                           Sysop: Matt Brookes.
                          V32bis/24 hours a day.
@endnode
@node P9-A25 "The Hell BBS"
@toc P5B-4A
                     -=-= T h e   H e l l   B B S =-=-
               -* Official Amiga Report Distribution Site *-

                       Running Xenolink BBS software
                Line #1 : +31-(0)70-3468783 (v32bis Supra)
                              24 hrs - 7 days

           Sysop : Robin Vermaat       Co-sysop : Tony Verschoor
                        GFX-sysop : Richard Willkomm
         Fido-Net : 2:281/418.0        NL Amiga-Net : 14:101/101.0
         e-mail : root@hell.xs4all.nl     Amiga-Net : 39:153/101.0
@endnode
@node P9-A26 "Creations BBS"
@toc P5B-4A
          .. _ _________              ____  _          _______ _ _ ..
                \  ____/_____________ \  /_(_)__ ______\  ___/
                / /  \  __\  _ \  __ `/ __/ / __ \  __ \\__ \
               / /___/ /  /  __/ /_/ / /_/ / /_/ / / / /__/ /
         .. _ _\____/_/   \___/\__,_/\__/_/\____/_/ /_/____/_ _ ..

      Mat Bettinson @ Creations BBS E-Mail: mat@darkside.demon.co.uk
                    2:254/524@Fidonet 39:139/5@Amiganet
     Line 1: +44-0181-665-9887 Hayes Optima 288 2400 - V.FC (24 Hours)
                        AReport file echo UK source.
@endnode
@node P9-A27 "Speed of Life"
@toc P5B-4A
                          --==> SPEED OF LIFE <==--
               FidoNet 2:332/505         AmigaNet 39:102/501

                         The AMIGA Alchemists' BBS

             ZyX 19.2k/V32/V32bis/V42bis     300/1200/2400 bps
                             +39-59-226454 24h
                               Modena, Italy
@endnode
@node P9-B2 "Freeland Mainframe"
@toc P5B-4B

                          * FREELAND MAINFRAME *
                   Offical Amiga Report Distribution Site
                       * Running DLG Progessional *
                           John Freeland, SysOp
                 206-438-1670  Supra 2400zi
                 206-438-2273  Telebit WorldBlazer(v.32bis)
                 206-456-6013  Supra v.32bis
                              24hrs - 7 days
                       Internet - freemf.eskimo.com
                            Olympia, Washington
@endnode
@node P9-B3 "LAHO"
@toc P5B-4B

                               * LAHO BBS *
             Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Finland
                             * Running MBBS *
                            Lenni Uitti, SysOp
                     Juha Mkinen, SysOp (Amiga-areas)
                      Tero Manninen, SysOp (PC-areas)
                        +358-64-414 1516, V.32bis/HST
                        +358-64-414 0400, V.32bis/HST
                        +358-64-414 6800, V.32/HST
                        +358-64-423 1300, V.32bis
                            Seinjoki, Finland

Our host machine is a 386/33 with 20MB of memory, 1GB harddisk and a CD-ROM
drive running in a Novell network.  The BBS software is a Norwegian origin
MBBS running in a DesqView windows.

We have now (26th March 1994) over 10000 files online (mostly for the
Commodore Amiga line of the personal computers.)

Every user has an access to download filelist (LAHOFIL.ZIP), list of the
Finnish 24-hour BBS's (BBSLIST.ZIP or BBSLIST.LHA) and every issue of the
Amiga Report Magazine (AR101.LHA-AR???.LHA) even on their first call.

@endnode
@node P9-B4 "Falling BBS"
@toc P5B-4B

                              * FALLING BBS *
             Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Norway
                             * Running ABBS *
                          Christopher Naas, Sysop
                   +47 69 256117  28.8k  24hrs - 7 days
                      EMail:   christon@powertech.no

@endnode
@node P9-B5 "Command Line BBS"
@toc P5B-4B

                           * COMMAND LINE BBS *
            Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Canada
                Canada's Amiga Graphics & Animation Source
                        * Running AmiExpress BBS *
                           Nick Poliwko, Sysop
                    416-533-8321  V.32  24hrs - 7 days
                             Toronto, Canada

@endnode
@node P9-B6 "Leguans Byte Channel"
@toc P5B-4B

                         * LEGUANS BYTE CHANNEL *
            Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Germany
                         * Running EazyBBS V2.11 *
                           Andreas Geist, Sysop
                    Usenet: andreas@lbcmbx.in-berlin.de
                              24 hrs - 7 days
                    Line 1:  49-30-8110060  USR DS 16.8
                    Line 2:  49-30-8122442  USR DS 16.8

                 Login as User: "amiga", Passwd: "report"

@endnode
@node P9-B7 "Stingray Database BBS"
@toc P5B-4B

                          * STINGRAY  DATABASE *
            Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Germany
                           * Running FastCall *
                           Bernd Mienert, Sysop
                 EMail: sysop@sting-db.zer.sub.org.dbp.de
                  +49 208 496807 HST-Dual 24hrs - 7 days
                          Muelheim/Ruhr, Germany

@endnode
@node P9-B8 "T.B.P. Video Slate"
@toc P5B-4B
            _________________________________
           /  /                          /_ /\     * T.B.P. VIDEO SLATE *
          /  /                          //// /     Official Amiga Report
         /  /     AR Coverdisk         /  / /    CoverDisk Distribution Site
        /  /                          /  / /  An Amiga dedicated BBS for All
       /  /                          /  / /      * Running Skyline 1.3.2 *
      /  /                          /  / /         Mark E Davidson, Sysop
     /  /__________________________/  / /             24 hrs - 7 days
    /      _______________________   / /         201-586-3623  USR 14.4 HST
   /      /  ___          /      /  / /              Rockaway, New Jersey
  /      /  /  /         /      /  / /
 /      /  /__/         /      /  / /      Full Skypix  menus + normal and
/______/_______________/______/__/ /                 ansi menu sets.
\______\________________\______\_\/            Download on the first call.

       Hardware:  Amiga 500 Tower custom at 14 MHz, 350 Meg maxtor,
           125 Meg SCSI Maxtor, 345 Meg IDE Maxtor, 2 Double Speed CD rom,
                                  9 meg RAM

@endnode
@node P9-B9 "Amiga Central"
@toc P5B-4B

                            * AMIGA CENTRAL! *
                  Official Amiga Report Distribution Site
                          CNet Amiga Support Site
                        * Running CNet Amiga BBS *
                            Carl Tashian, Sysop
                  Internet mail:  root@amicent.raider.net
                   615-383-9679  1200-14.4Kbps V.32bis
                             24 hours - 7 days
                           Nashville, Tennessee

Hardware: Amiga 3000 Tower 68030+882@25MHz, 105 meg Quantum, 225 meg
Seagate, Zoom 14.4k modem

@endnode
@node P9-B10 "Guru Meditation"
@toc P5B-4B

                            * GURU MEDITATION *
             Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Spain
                         * Running Remote Access *
                            Javier Frias, SysOp
                              +34-1-383-1317  V.32bis
                             24 hours - 7days
                                   Spain

@endnode
@node P9-B11 "LINKSystem LINK-CH1"
@toc P5B-4B

                        LINKSystem LINK-CH1
       Official Amiga Report Distribution Site - Switzerland
            in local newsgroup link-ch1.ml.amiga-report

                   Mails and News from/to UseNet

                contact: rleemann@link-ch1.aworld.de

                +41 61 3215643       V32bis/Zyx16800
                +41 61 3832007         ISDN X75/V110
                +41 61 3832008         ISDN X75/V110

@endnode
@node P9-B12 "Doom of Darkness"
@toc P5B-4B

                        * Doom of Darkness *
                          * Home of AmBoS *
         Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Germany

     Marc Doerre (Marc_Doerre), Sysop (BBS-Owner/AmBoS-Support)
        Bernd Petersen (TGM), Sysop (Amiga-Software-Support)
         Gerhard Luehning (Klaro), Co-Sysop (Aminet-Support)
      Kai Szymanski (Kai), Co-Sysop (AR-Support/AmBoS-Support)

                   Usenet:  user_name@doom.ping.de
            Line 1  +49 (0)4223 8355  19200  V.42bis/Zyx
            Line 2  +49 (0)4223 3256  16800  V.42bis/Zyx
            Line 3  +49 (0)4223 3313  16800  V.42bis/Zyx
               Sysop Email:  marc_doerre@doom.ping.de
                  AR-Infoservice : kai@doom.ping.de

@endnode
@node P9-B13 "RedEye BBS"
@toc P5B-4B
                               REDEYE BBS
                    * Running EXCELSIOR/UUCP/AFAX *
       "Official Amiga Report Distribution Site Germany/Europe"
                         Sysop: Thorsten Meyer
                Internet: sysop@redeye.muc.de
                Line 1: +49-89-5460535 (V.32b, Zyxel EG + / USR V.34)
                           24hrs - 7 days
                           Munich, Germany

                  Areas for Amiga, PCs, Amiga Report,
                  WAU Main Coordinator for Germany,
                  Game Byte, Graphic Stuff, 3D-Exchange,
                  3D-tools, 3D-objects, GUS, PAS, DOOM,
                  Online CD, Online Games, USENET, INTERNET,
                  FIDO ECHOS, Developer

@endnode
@node P9-B14 "Virtual Palace BBS"
@toc P5B-4B

                            * Virtual Palace BBS *

                  * Official Amiga Report Distribution Site *
                * Official Amiga Report Disk Distribution Site *

                                916-343-7420

                            300-14400 Baud  V.42bis
                          AmiExpress 2.40 700 Mbytes

                                 P.O. Box 5518
                            Chico, California 95927

                        Tibor G. Balogh (Tibor), Sysop
                     Sysop Email: tibor@ecst.csuchico.edu

                      Leland Whitlock (Leland), Co-Sysop

@endnode
@node P9-B15 "X-TReMe BBS"
@toc P5B-4B
                          -*+*/+ X-TReMe BBS +/*+*-
                              Pygor & The Doctor
                              +31-167064414 (24h)
                       Internet: u055231@vm.uci.kun.nl

 _______ .__ _____
/_ .__//_/ //.___/ Bitnet: u055231 at HNYKUN11
./ //.__ .//.___/  Internet: u055231@vm1.uci.kun.nl
/_//_/ /_//____/.  BBS: +31-1670-64414 (24h)
 . ___ .____ ______________ _____  .    .
. /  .\/ . // _ /_. __/ . //.__ .\    .
 / /  / / // /_. / /./ / // __ \ / .
/___//___//___/./_/ /___//_/. \_/

@endnode
@node P9-B16 "Vision Thing BBS"
@toc P5B-4B
             Vision Thing
             Infect East German HQ, Keks ASCII Design World HQ
             Running CNET 3.xx
             about 800 MB HD Space
             The Amiga Report downloader connects with
             Handle:    Amiga
              PW:       Report
             ++49(0)345 663914
             Speed up to 19200.

@endnode
@node P9-B17 "Amiga Professional BBS"
@toc P5B-4B

                          AMIGA PROFESSIONAL BBS

                              +(39)-49-604488
                              24h - 365 days
                        ZyXEL V42/42bis MNP5, 16.8K
                    Hardware Amiga 3000T 1GByte SCSI-HD
                          Software AmiExpress BBS
                SysOp Claudio Zanella, 35133 PADOVA - ITALY
                  Official board of Amy Professional Club
                    Official WAU point North East Italy
                        Official Italian Amos Club
                  Official Amiga Report Distribution Site
              AMIGA ONLY, development, gfx, musix, no piracy

@endnode
@node P9-B18 "The Belfry(!)"
@toc P5B-4B

                             * The Belfry(!) *

              Sysop: Jesse Erlbaum (stiggy@dorsai.dorsai.org

                 An East Coast distributor of Amiga Report
                      Amiga-run BBS since August 1989

                               718.793.4796
                               718.793.4905
@endnode
@node P9-B19 "OdySSEY BBS"
@toc P5B-4B
                           <-+- OdySSEY BBS -+->
                . Official AMIGA REPORT Distribution Site --- GREECE
                . Supporting Amiga Message/File Areas ONLY
                . Supporting the A-net ! (Amiga only NET!)
                . The 1st Amiga BBS in Greece

                    *** SysOp :   Konstantiniadis Manos ***
                            -->email: konem@hol.ath.forthnet.gr
                                      2:410/128.17@fidonet
                    *** CoSysOp : Aggelos Poulakis ***
                            -->email: poumas@hol.ath.forthnet.gr

                  Line 1: +++ 301-412-3502 (MNP5,v42bis)
         (*ONLY* after 23:00 local time,due to technical problems)
@endnode
@node P9-B20 "Amiga Server BBS"
@toc P5B-4B
                           * Amiga Server BBS *
                       Largest Amiga BBS in Mexico.

                            Sysop: Jose Estrada
                              Number: 5158736

                        Now with 17 cd's available

                  Soon: Link with the soon to come 3D BBS
@endnode
@node P9-B21 "Ciceron"
@toc P5B-4B
           -----------------------------------------------------
                                * Ciceron *
             Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Sweden

                          * Running Excelsior!  *
                               +46 612 22011

                             SysOp: Per Peman
                        E-mail: peman@solace.mh.se
           ----------------------------------------------------
@endnode
@node P6-3 "Dealer Directory"
@toc "menu"

===========================================================================
==                           Dealer Directory                            ==
===========================================================================

                          Arranged by Continent:

                          @{"      Asia       ", link P6-3-1}

                          @{"     Europe      ", link P6-3-2}

                          @{"  North America  ", link P6-3-3}


          (Dealers: To have your name added, please send @{"Email", link P8-1}!)

@endnode
@node P6-3-1 "Dealers - Asia"
@toc P6-3

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

                           Grey Matter Ltd.
                             Amiga RuleZ!
                         1-22-3,Minami Magome
                      HillTop House 2F suite 201
                          Ota-ku,Tokyo 143
                                Japan
             Tel:+81 (0)3 5709-5549     Fax:+81 (0)3 5709-1907
               and of course the BEST Amiga BBS in Japan
       BBS:Grey Matter BBS +81 (0)3 5709-1907 (8N1 V32bis 24H )
               Email: nighty@gmatter.japan-online.or.jp

@endnode
@node P6-3-2 "Dealers - Europe"
@toc P6-3

===========================================================================
==                           Dealers - Europe                            ==
===========================================================================

                           Almathera Systems Ltd
                             Southerton House
                          Boundary Business Court
                             92-94 Church Road
                              Mitcham, Surrey
                              CR4 3TD England
            VOICE: (UK) 081 687 0040     FAX: (UK) 081 687 0490
 Sales: almathera@cix.compulink.co.uk     Tech: jralph@cix.compulink.co.uk

                           Amiga Center Alicante
                                Segura, 27
                              03004 Alicante
                                   Spain
                            Tel: (96) 514 37 34

                               Amiga Center
                               Argullós, 127
                              08016 Barcelona
                                   Spain
                Tel: (93) 276 38 06     Fax: (93) 276 30 80

                        Brian Fowler Computers Ltd
                                11 North St
                                  Exeter
                                   Devon
                                  EX4 3QS
                              United Kingdom
               Voice: (0392) 499 755     Fax: (0392) 423 480
                Internet: brian_fowler@cix.compulink.co.uk

                        Centro Informįtico Boadilla
                                Convento, 6
                     28660 Boadilla del Monte (Madrid)
                                   Spain
                Tel: (91) 632 27 65     Fax: (91) 632 10 99

                                Centro Mail
                                   Spain
                            Tel: (91) 380 28 92

                               CLICK!  N.V.
                            Boomsesteenweg 468
                        B-2610 Wilrijk - Antwerpen
                             Belgium - Europe
           VOICE: +32 (0)3 828.18.15     FAX: +32 (0)3 828.67.36
           INTERNET: vanhoutv@nbre.nfe.be      FIDO: 2:292/603.9

                                  C.R.E.
                             San Francisco, 85
                          48003 Bilbao (Vizcaya)
                                   Spain
                Tel: (94) 444 98 84     Fax: (94) 444 98 84

                                 CYNOSTIC
                Office O1, Little Heath Industrial Estate,
                             Old Church Road,
                                 Coventry.
                                  CV6 7NB
                              UNITED KINGDOM
             Tel: +44 (0)203 681687     Fax: +44 (0)203 638508
               David Cassidy email: bsupa@csv.warwick.ac.uk

                             DataKompaniet ANS
                             Pb 3187 Munkvoll
                             N-7002 Trondheim
                              Norway - Europe
                           VOICE/FAX: 72 555 149
                      Internet: torrunes@idt.unit.no

                              DataService Oy
                               P.O.  Box 50
                            Kuurinniityntie 30
                                02771 ESPOO
                              Finland, Europe
          Voice: +358 (9) 400 438 301     Fax: +358 (9) 0505 0037

                               Donosti Frame
                           Avda.  de Madrid, 15
                      20011 San Sebastiįn (Guipuzcoa)
                                   Spain
                Tel: (943) 42 07 45     Fax: (943) 42 45 88

                                 GaliFrame
                           Galerķas Prķncipe, 22
                             Vigo (Pontevedra)
                                   Spain
                Tel: (986) 22 89 94     Fax: (986) 22 89 94

                                 Invision
                             San Isidro, 12-18
                     28850 Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid)
                                   Spain
              Tel: (91) 676 20 56/59     Fax: (91) 656 10 04

                                 Invision
                               Salamanca, 53
                              46005 Valencia
                                   Spain
              Tel: (96) 395 02 43/44     Fax: (96) 395 02 44

                                  Norsoft
                                Bedoya, 4-6
                               32003 Orense
                                   Spain
                Tel: (988) 24 90 46     Fax: (988) 23 42 07

                                 PiXeLSOFT
                              Felipe II, 3bis
                              34004 Palencia
                                   Spain
                Tel: (979) 71 27 00     Fax: (979) 71 28 28

                                 Tu Amiga
                             Plaza Pedro IV, 3
                       08120 La LLagosta (Barcelona)
                                   Spain
                Tel: (93) 560 76 12     Fax: (93) 560 76 12

                                  vb soft
                               Provenza, 436
                              08025 Barcelona
                                   Spain
                Tel: (93) 456 15 45     Fax: (93) 456 15 45

                            VISAGE COMPUTERS
                            18 Station Road
                                Ilkeston
                               Derbyshire
                                DE7 8TD
                           UNITED KINGDOM
        Tel/Fax: +44 (0)602 444501     Internet: floyd@demon.co.uk
          Suppliers of Amiga Hardware, Software and Public Domain.

@endnode
@node P6-3-3 "Dealers - North America"
@toc P6-3

===========================================================================
==                        Dealers - North America                        ==
===========================================================================

                                AmegaByte!
                             5001 Garrett Ave.
                           Beltsville, MD 20705
                         INTERNET: amega@globe.net
              VOICE: (800) 834-7153   VOICE: (301) 937-1640
                            FAX: (301) 937-1658
                        A Computer Services Company

                           Amigability Computers
                               P.O.  Box 572
                           Plantsville, CT 06479
                            VOICE: 203-276-8175
               Internet: amiga@phantm.UUCP     BIX: jbasile
                    (E-mail to sub. to our mailing list)

                              Amiga-Crossing
                           176 Gray Road, Unit 5
                           Cumberland, ME 04021
      VOICE: (800) 498-3959 (Maine only)       VOICE: (207) 829-3959
   FAX: (207) 829-3522       Internet: ewhite42@portland.caps.maine.edu
                           CONTACT: Edward White
           Maine's Amiga Resource for: Sales, Support & Service

                           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

                            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

                           Atlantis Kobetek Inc.
                           1496 Lower Water St.
                       Halifax, NS, Canada, B3J 1R9
               Phone: (902)-422-6556     Fax: (902)-423-9339
         BBS: (902)-492-1544     Internet: aperusse@fox.nstn.ns.ca

                               Computer Link
                         Your Amiga/PC connection.
                              6573 middlebelt
                           Garden City MI 48135
                 Voice: 313-522-6005     Fax: 313-522-3119
                         clink@m-net.arbornet.org

                           Computerology Direct
                             Powell River, BC
                              Canada V8A-4Z3
               Authorized Commodore, AT&T/NCR Systems Dealer
               Call 24 hrs.  orders/inquiries: 604/483-3679
          Amiga users ask for HEAD SALES REP for quicker response!

                       Computers International, Inc.
                             5415 Hixson Pike
                           Chattanooga, TN 37343
                            VOICE: 615-843-0630

                        Comspec Communications Inc
                  Serving your computing needs since 1976
                              74 Wingold Ave
                     Toronto, Ontario, Canada M6B 1P5
                      Computer Centre: (416) 785-8348
                Sales: (416) 785-3553     Fax: 416-785-3668
      Internet: bryanf@comcorp.comspec.com, bryanf@accesspt.north.net

                               Digital Arts
                            122 West 6th Street
                           Bloomington, IN 47404
                VOICE: (812)330-0124     FAX: (812)330-0126
                                BIX: msears

                           Finetastic Computers
                           721 Washington Street
                            Norwood, MA  02062
                 VOICE: 617-762-4166     BBS: 617-769-3172
              Fido: 1:101/322     Portal: FinetasticComputers
               Internet:  FinetasticComputers@cup.portal.com

                      HIGHLAND GREY CONSULTING, INC.
              Customer Service Centre            Head Office
              4704E - 49 Ave.                    R.R. 1
              Camrose, Alberta,                  Ohaton, Alberta
              Canada                             Canada
              T4V-3K9                            T0B-3P0
               VOICE: (403) 679-2242     FAX: (403) 672-0303
                  Sales and Service; Same Phone #'s!
             Apple, Amiga, IBM/Clone and Macintosh Systems

                               HT Electronics
                         275 North Mathilda Avenue
                           Sunnyvale, CA  94086
                 VOICE: 408-737-0900     FAX: 408-245-3109
    Portal: HT Electronics     Internet: HT Electronics@cup.portal.com

                           Industrial Video, Inc.
                           1601 North Ridge Rd.
                             Lorain, OH  44055
                    VOICE: 800-362-6150,  216-233-4000
                  Internet:  af741@cleveland.freenet.edu
                            Contact:  John Gray

                                Magic Page
                            3043 Luther Street
                          Winston-Salem, NC 27127
                          910-785-3695 voice/fax
                           Spiff@cup.portal.com

                                MicroSearch
                        9000 US 59 South, Suite 330
                              Houston, Texas
                 VOICE: 713-988-2818     FAX: 713-995-4994

                          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

                     MusicMart:  Media Sound & Vision
                            71 Wellington Road
                          London, Ontario, Canada
                 VOICE: 519-434-4162     FAX: 519-663-8074
                  BBS: 519-645-2144     FIDO: 1:2401/200
                  AmigaNet: 40:550/1     MaxNet: 90:204/1
                      InterNet: koops@gaul.csd.uwo.ca

                              PSI Animations
                         17924 SW Pilkington Road
                          Lake Oswego, OR  97035
                           VOICE:  503-624-8185
                     Internet:  PSIANIM@agora.rain.com

                          Raymond Commodore Amiga
                            898 Raymond Avenue
                         St. Paul, MN   55114-1521
                 VOICE: 612.642.9890     FAX: 612.642.9891

                           Software Plus Chicago
                         2945 W Peterson Suite 209
                             Chicago, Illinois
                           VOICE:  312-878-7800
               Software and Service in Chicago - Will ship.

                           Wonder Computers Inc.
                             1315 Richmond Rd.
                      Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2B 8J7
                 Voice: 613-596-2542     Fax: 613-596-9349
                            BBS:  613-829-0909

                                Zipperware
                            626 S. Washington
                           Seattle, WA  98104
                 VOICE: 206-223-1107     FAX: 206-223-9395
               E-Mail: Jon.Funfar@p0.f203.n138.z1.fidonet.org
                    "Seattle's Last (great) Amiga Store!"

@endnode
@node P1 "Editorial and Opinion"
@toc "menu"

===========================================================================
==                         Editorial and Opinion                         ==
===========================================================================

@{"  compt.sys.editor.desk " link P1-1}  Support...
@endnode
@node P2 "News and Features"
@toc "menu"

===========================================================================
==                           News and Features                           ==
===========================================================================

@{"         Press Releases         " link P2-1} Stuff people want you to know.

@{"            The C65             " link P2-3} A Commodore Closet Orignal

@{"       Interactive Future       " link P2-4} TVI's VP offers some thoughts...

@{"    CEI Conference on GEnie     " link P2-5} This one wasn't our idea. :)

@{"          ISDN Crusade          " link P2-6} Quick lines and the Amiga.

@{" Grand Gala Amiga Report Survey " link P2-7} Tell us how we're doing.

@{"        VTU Expo Report         " link P2-8} A Toaster Show report
@endnode
@node P3 "Reviews"
@toc "menu"

===========================================================================
==                                Reviews                                ==
===========================================================================

@{"    Final Data Review    " link P3-1}  Softwood's database

@{"    Full Motion Video    " link P3-2}  A look at FMV on a CD32

@{"   Rise of the Robots    " link P3-3}  Caszatt debuts with a beat-em-up.

@{"      Overdrive CD       " link P3-4}  Turn the 1200 into a CD32...almost.

@{"    Emulation Rambler    " link P3-5}  A guest Rambler does the AGA Spectrum.
@endnode
@node P2-2 "FTP and Product Announcements"
@toc P2-2

===========================================================================
==                     FTP and Product Announcements                     ==
===========================================================================

@{"     ShadowStart 1.1       " link P2-2-1}  A "clean WB" boot utility

@{"    ImageStudio 1.2.0      " link P2-2-2}  Image processing/conversion

@{"        YACDP v1.2         " link P2-2-3}  Play audio CDs on SCSI-2

@{" ShadowStart 1.2 (V37/V40) " link P2-2-4}  Deja vu.

@{"      Fishing Report       " link P2-2-5}  Fred Fish speaks...

@{"        AmigaFaces         " link P2-2-6}  Make your Amiga react to mail.

@{"         FetchRefs         " link P2-2-7}  An AutoDoc/Include assister

@{"      KingFisher 2.6       " link P2-2-8}  The famous database searcher...

| The 10 most downloaded files from Aminet during the week until 18-Dec-94
| Updated weekly. Most popular file on top.
|
|File               Dir        Size Description
|------------------ ---        ---- -----------
jfif_dtc.lha        util/wb     77K+New JFIF/JPEG datatype (OS 3.0+)
PCFloppy2Amiga.lha  hard/hack   19K+Use 1.44 PC drives as Amiga HD drives.
ArtSer37_6.lha      comm/misc    4K+Bugfixed and optimised serial.device
                                       37.6
FastMath405.lha     util/libs   18K+Replaces the original math libraries
exept49.lha         util/boot   11K+ExecPatch 4.9 - KS 37.175+ Speedup
                                       Patch
ipatch33.lha        util/boot    9K+IPatch 3.3 - Interrupt Speedup Patch
fears.lha           game/demo  223K+Demo of a Wolfenstein3D-like game !
AmigaXv121.lha      gfx/edit   241K+Xv - Image processing program AGA/OS3.0
MacSND-dtc-107.lha  util/wb     19K+DataType subclass for Mac sound
                                       resources,
AIFF-dtc-110.lha    util/wb     16K+DataType subclass for AIFF sound files,
                                       v1

| The 10 most downloaded files from Aminet during the week until 30-Dec-94
| Updated weekly. Most popular file on top.
|
|File               Dir        Size Description
|------------------ ---        ---- -----------
jfif_FIX.lha        util/wb      4K+Bugfix for JFIF/JPEG datatype (AGA)
WBExtender201.lha   util/wb      7K+Workbench Extender  v2.01
AndroidNEW.lha      game/shoot 184K+A game of robots and rooms. very
                                       original.
ar234.lha           docs/mags  108K+Amiga Report 2.34, December 18, 1994
xanim3.lha          gfx/show   195K+XAnim - animation viewer amiga v3, at
                                       least
clipart.lha         pix/misc   390K+104 Clipart pictures
DiskMon3_0.lha      disk/moni   72K+DiskMon,FileMon,Optimizer,Undelete ...
XMasTheme94.lha     mods/pro   140K+XMasTheme94 By Pirat
WinTris_111.lha     game/wb     89K+Workbench Tetris Clone v1.11 (Kick2.0+)
@endnode
@node P5 "About AMIGA REPORT"
@toc "menu"

===========================================================================
==                          About AMIGA REPORT                           ==
===========================================================================

@{"        AR Staff         " link P5-1} The Editors and writers

@{"  Copyright Information  " link P5-4} The legal stuff

@endnode
@node P5-1 "The Staff"
@toc P5

===========================================================================
==                               The Staff                               ==
===========================================================================

               Editor:               @{" Jason Compton    " link P8-1}

               Senior Editor:        @{" Robert Niles     " link P8-2}

               Assistant Editor:     @{" Katherine Nelson " link P8-3}

               European Editor:      @{" Michael Wolf     " link P8-4}

               Games Editor:         @{" Sean Caszatt     " link P8-6}

               Contributing Editor:  @{" David Tiberio    " link P8-5}


                           Contributing Writers:
                           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

                              _Duncan Fraser_
                           duncan@tvi.wimsey.com

                                _Devophile_
                              devo@gonix.com

                               _Paul Moore_
                   Paul.Moore@p19.f2.n259.z2.fidonet.org

                               _Bob Colbert_
                        bcolbert@s-cwis.unomaha.edu

@endnode
@node P5B "Where to Get AR"
@toc "menu"
===========================================================================
==                            Where to Get AR                            ==
===========================================================================

                         @{"   The AR Mailing List   " link P5B-1}

                         @{"         Aminet          " link P5B-2}

                         @{"     World Wide Web      " link P5B-3}

                         @{"   Distribution Sites    " link P5B-4}

                         @{"   Commercial Services   " link P6-4}

@endnode
@node P5B-4 "Distribution Sites"
@toc P5B

===========================================================================
==                      Where to find Amiga Report                       ==
===========================================================================

                          @{"   FidoNet Systems   " link P5B-4A}

                          @{" Non-FidoNet Systems " link P5B-4B}
 

@endnode
@node P5B-4A "FidoNet Distribution Sites"
@toc P5B-4

                             FidoNet Systems
                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Click on the button of the BBS nearest you for information on that system.

  FREQ the filename "AR.LHA" for the most current issue of Amiga Report!

@{"     OMAHA AMIGANET      " link P9-A1} .................................Omaha, Nebraska
@{"          NOVA           " link P9-A2} ............................Cleveland, Tennessee
@{"      PIONEER'S BBS      " link P9-A3} .............................Edmonds, Washington
@{"        CIUA BBS         " link P9-A4} ........................................Portugal
@{"    AMIGA JUNCTION 9     " link P9-A5} ..................................United Kingdom
@{"     BITSTREAM BBS       " link P9-A6} .............................Nelson, New Zealand
@{"   REALM OF TWILIGHT     " link P9-A7} .................................Ontario, Canada
@{"    METNET TRIANGLE      " link P9-A8} .....................Kingston Upon Hull, England
@{"   AMIGA-NIGHT-SYSTEM    " link P9-A9} ...............................Helsinki, Finland
@{" RAMSES THE AMIGA FLYING " link P9-A10} ..........................................France
@{"      GATEWAY BBS        " link P9-A11} .............................Biloxi, Mississippi
@{"    EMERALD KEEP BBS     " link P9-A12} ........................................Illinois
@{"       AMIGA BBS         " link P9-A13} ........................Estado de Mexico, Mexico
@{"   THE STYGIAN ABYSS     " link P9-A14} ...............................Chicago, Illinois
@{"    AMIGA DO PC BSS      " link P9-A15} ................................Campinas, Brazil
@{"     COMM-LINK BBS       " link P9-A16} ......................Port Coquitlam, BC, Canada
@{"    PHANTOM'S  LAIR      " link P9-A17} ......................Glendale Heights, Illinois
@{"    Tierra-Miga BBS      " link P9-A18} ....................................SanDeigo, Ca
@{"  MOONLIGHT SONATA DLG   " link P9-A19} .........................................Finland
@{"   CONTINENTAL DRIFT     " link P9-A20} ...............................Sydney, Australia
@{" Amiga Online Bs H'stede " link P9-A21} .................................The Netherlands
@{"Kobayashi Alternative BBS" link P9-A22} ...........................................Maine
@{"   Highway to Hell BBS   " link P9-A23} .................................Dublin, Ireland
@{"        CUGI BBS         " link P9-A24} .........................................Ireland
@{"      The Hell BBS       " link P9-A25} ..........................The Hague, Netherlands
@{"      Creations BBS      " link P9-A26} ..................................United Kingdom
@{"      Speed of Life      " link P9-A27} ...................................Modena, Italy

@endnode
@node P5B-4B "Non-FidoNet Distribution Sites"
@toc P5B-4

                           Non-FidoNet Systems
                           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Click on the button of the BBS nearest you for information on that system.

@{"   FREELAND MAINFRAME    " link P9-B2} .............................Olympia, Washington
@{"          LAHO           " link P9-B3} ..............................Seinajoki, Finland
@{"         FALLING         " link P9-B4} ..........................................Norway
@{"      COMMAND LINE       " link P9-B5} .................................Toronto, Canada
@{"  LEGUANS BYTE CHANNEL   " link P9-B6} .........................................Germany
@{"   STINGRAY DATABASE     " link P9-B7} ..........................Muelheim/Ruhr, Germany
@{"  T.B.P.  VIDEO SLATE    " link P9-B8} ............................Rockaway, New Jersey
@{"     AMIGA CENTRAL       " link P9-B9} ............................Nashville, Tennessee
@{"    GURU MEDITATION      " link P9-B10} ...........................................Spain
@{"   LINKSystem LINK-CH1   " link P9-B11} ..............................Basel, Switzerland
@{"    DOOM OF DARKNESS     " link P9-B12} .................................Bremen, Germany
@{"       REDEYE BBS        " link P9-B13} .................................Munich, Germany
@{"   Virtual Palace BBS    " link P9-B14} .......................................Chico, Ca
@{"      X-TReMe BBS        " link P9-B15} .................................Holland/Belgium
@{"    Vision Thing BBS     " link P9-B16} .........................................Germany
@{"  Amiga Professional BBS " link P9-B17} ...........................................Italy
@{"      The Belfry(!)      " link P9-B18} ....................................New York, NY
@{"       OdySSEY BBS       " link P9-B19} ..........................................Greece
@{"    Amiga Server BBS     " link P9-B20} ..........................................Mexico
@{"         Ciceron         " link P9-B21} ..........................................Sweden


@endnode
@node P6 "Commercial Products"
@toc "menu"

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

@{"       Editor's Choice      " link P6-1} Jason's picks

@{" Commercial Online Services " link P6-4} Sign-Up Information

@endnode
@node P6-4 "Commercial Online Services"
@toc P6

===========================================================================
==                      Commercial Online Services                       ==
===========================================================================

   @{"   Delphi   " link P6-4-1}  Getting better all the time.

   @{"   Portal   " link P6-4-2}  A great place for Amiga users.

   @{"   GEnie    " link P6-4-3}  Internet access, online games, more.

@endnode
