@database "ar124.guide"
@Node MAIN "Amiga Report 1.25, September 17, 1993"

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                       International Online Magazine

                
September 17, 1993                                                 No. 1.25
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


                            From STR Publishing

                        [S]ilicon [T]imes [R]eport

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/// 09/17/93 Amiga Report 1.25   "Your Weekly Source for Amiga Information"
    --------------------------
    · The Editor's Desk     · CPU Status Report    · New Products
    · Dealer Directory      · AR Online            · A1000 Reviewed???
    · SHI News              · Emulation Examiner   · A.M.I.G.A.
   
                          » SHI Virus Warning! «
                        » Apple's Newton Revealed «
                           » WOCA Show Reports «

===========================================================================
                 Amiga Report International Online Magazine
                 "Your Weekly Source for Amiga Information"
                            » FEATURING WEEKLY «
                  Accurate UP-TO-DATE News and Information
      Current Events, Original Articles, Tips, Rumors, and Information
              Hardware · Software · Corporate · R & D · Imports
===========================================================================
            DELPHI · PORTAL · FIDO · INTERNET · BIX · AMIGANET
===========================================================================
@node P1-1 "From the Editor's Desk"
@toc "menu"

/// From the Editor's Desk                        "Saying it like it is!"
    ----------------------


Okay, so who HASN'T seen Seaquest DSV?  What did you think?  The special
effects were great, at least as good as in Babylon 5, if not better.  I'm
not sure about the storyline though.

The World of Commodore Show in Pasadena has come and gone, and it appears
to have gone well.  Some good announcements were made, but I won't go into
that now.  We have two complete show reports later in the issue that are
quite informative!

Chad Freeman's A.M.I.G.A. column and Jason Compton's Emulation Examiner
have returned.  Delphi has had some trouble with Internet Mail lately,
and a lot of mail got lost.

Which reminds me... Jason -- the reason you don't seem to be getting my 
mail is because everything I send to your current address gets bounced 
back.  If you have an alternate Internet address, please drop me a note!

That's it for this week.  We have a big issue, so I'm not going to ramble
any longer.  Enjoy!

                            Rob @ Amiga Report


@endnode
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@node P2-2 "AR Staff"
@toc "menu"

The Amiga Report Staff                          Dedicated to serving you!
======================

  
                                    Editor
                                    ======

                                 Robert Glover

 Portal:                             Rob-G
 Delphi:                             ROB_G
 FidoNet:                           1:285/11
 Internet:                      ROB_G@Delphi.COM


                                Associate Editor
                                ================


                              Technical Department
                              --------------------

                                  Robert Niles

 Portal:                            RNiles
 Delphi:                            RNILES
 FidoNet:                         1:3407/104
 Internet:                   rniles@imtired.itm.com


                   ________________________________________
 


                         Contributing Correspondents
                         ===========================
                                Jason Compton
                                Chad Freeman
                                Matt Guthrie
                                 Rob Morton
                                 Dan Zerkle




          PC DIVISION           ATARI DIVISION           MAC DIVISION
          ===========           ==============           ============
          Roger D. Stevens      Ralph F. Mariano         R. Albritton


@endnode
***************************************************************************
@node P4-1 "Delphi"
@toc "menu"

/// Delphi:  It's Getting Better All The Time!
    ------------------------------------------


 Amiga Report International Online Magazine is available every  week  in
 the  Amiga Forum on DELPHI.  Amiga Report readers are invited to join
 DELPHI and  become a part of the friendly community of computer
 enthusiasts there.


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

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

  DELPHI's best plan is the 20/20 plan.  It gives you 20 hours each month
  for the low price of only $19.95!  Additional hours are only $1.50 each!
             This covers 1200, 2400 and even 9600 connections!

          For more information, and details on other plans, call
                 DELPHI Member Services at 1-800-544-4005

                  DELPHI - It's getting better all the time!


@endnode
***************************************************************************
@node P1-2 "CPU Status Report"
@toc "menu"

/// CPU Status Report                     Late Breaking Industry-Wide News
    -----------------




QVC MAY BID FOR PARAMOUNT

NEW YORK -- A group led by QVC Network Inc. emerged Thursday as the
most likely to make a rival offer to Viacom Inc.'s $8 billion bid for
Paramount Communications Inc.

Speculation grew that the cable-shopping network and its chairman, former
movie mogul Barry Diller, were seriously considering an offer that would top
Viacom's proposal, based on a Wall Street Journal report that influential
investment bankers Allen & Co. were advising QVC.

Diller is widely believed to have approached Paramount about a merger earlier
this summer, but he reportedly was turned down by Paramount Chairman Martin S.
Davis, who fired Diller nine years ago from his post as head of Paramount's
movie studio.

QVC, of West Chester, Pa., called the reports "speculation" and refused to
comment.

QVC, currently trying to close a $1.16-billion acquisition of Home Shopping
Network Inc., is believed to be able to raise as much as $6 billion.

New York-based Allen & Co. was an adviser on the $4.8 billion sale of
Columbia Pictures to Sony Corp. in 1989 and the $6 billion sale of MCA Inc. to
Matsushita Industrial Electric Co. in 1991.

Many analysts have indicated that they consider the $69.14 price Viacom is
paying for Paramount to be high enough to prevent other bidders. They also
have noted that such a bid, to be significantly better than Viacom's, would
have to be all-cash, which would be difficult in the current environment.

Still, Viacom's bid calls for payment of about $9.10 a share in cash and the
rest in Viacom stock, so if Viacom stock continues to decline, holders of
Paramount stock could develop objections to the deal. Additionally, the Viacom
deal will need several months to close, giving QVC at least several weeks to
assess the situation.

If Diller were to make a bid, it would probably include cable giant Tele-
Communications Inc., which controls QVC through its Liberty Media affiliate,
and cable concern Comcast Corp., which also has a QVC stake.

Davis and Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone have pledged they would oppose a
rival bid, saying the synergies from the merger make it a unique one that
cannot be matched by other companies.



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



APPLE, KODAK EXPECTED TO RELEASE 'FILMLESS' CAMERAS


CUPERTINO, Calif. -- Apple Computer Inc. and Eastman Kodak Co. are
expected to introduce two "filmless" digital cameras that can transfer
photographs directly into personal computers.

The first camera, code-named Venus, may be rolled out in November at the
Comdex computer industry trade show in Las Vegas, Nev., and cost about $600.

The second camera, code-named Mars, is expected to cost more than $2, 000,
and may be unveiled at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco in January.

Apple, of Cupertino, Calif., and Kodak, of Rochester, N.Y., have declined to
comment on the cameras and recent published reports about the devices in the
Wall Street Journal and trade publication MacWeek.

The cameras are expected to be sold to advertising agencies and desktop
publishers, rather than to individual consumers. The Apple-Kodak cameras are
expected to be able to produce photos that are of much higher quality than
filmless cameras currently on the market.

The Venus is believed to have been designed to take up to 25 pictures and
capture the images on a computer chip, which would then be plugged into an
Apple Macintosh personal computer. The pictures could then be edited on the
computer and printed out through color printers or color laser copiers.

The images from Venus are not expected to be detailed enough for reproduction
in magazines, but the Mars camera may have the capability of generating
pictures good enough for such use. MacWeek said Mars would store its images
on mini compact disks made by Sony Corp.

Apple, which moved recently into the consumer electronics area with the
hand-held Newton MessagePad, is expected to market the cameras.

Apple has reported strong early sales of the Newton MessagePad, which is
designed to recognize handwriting better than previous computers and can link
written commands to stored files of information such as addresses or telephone
numbers. The barebones version of the device has been selling for about $700.



            __________________________________________________




AST TO INTRO HANDHELD PEN COMPUTER

IRVINE, CALIFORNIA -- AST Research has been busy these days with its purchase
of the manufacturing facilities of Tandy Corporation, price cuts on notebook
computers, and its moves into the lucrative Chinese market. However, as it
hinted in the announcement of the Tandy purchase, AST will demonstrate its 
first handheld, pen-based computer at the Mobile World Show in San Jose this 
month. 

AST is getting Grid, Tandy's pen-based computer technology company, along with
the other Tandy manufacturing facilities in a $105 million purchase announced
in May. Because AST is acquiring fewer assets and will assume more trade
accounts payables than originally expected, the purchase price has been cut
significantly from the original estimate of $175 million. 

Tandy/Grid France is also part of the agreement and AST says the French
addition will cost it less than $10 million. 

Officials at the company hinted to Newsbytes AST would take advantage of its
access to the pen-based technology offered by Grid. This new handheld computer
to be demonstrated is the first of AST's new products aimed at the popular
personal digital assistant (PDA) market. The company claims the new handheld
computer it will introduce will offer integrated communications options and is
also boasting the unit will add ruggedness and a format for utility
applications that outshines any similar small form factor product yet announced
or shipped. 

To increase its manufacturing capacity, AST is looking to China and announced
the opening of a Tianjin facility, 60 miles southeast of Beijing, for the
manufacture, repair, and distribution of personal computer (PC) systems. The
new plant is expected to employ 400. Number one in the rapidly expanding $440
million Chinese computer market, AST claims it holds 25 percent of the pie -- a
pie that is expected to grow at the break-neck rate of 22 percent annually
through the year 2000, according to International Data Corporation. 

Price cuts on its award-winning notebook computers were also announced this
week. The company said it cut retail prices nearly $900 on the 386 Grid
Convertible and the pen-based Penexec Convertible from $2,495 to 1,599. The 486
Convertible was reduced to $1,999 from $2,699. The Grid Convertible was voted
Best Pen Convertible computer at the recent Penexpo Show in Boston,
Massachusetts. 

Headquartered in Irvine, California, AST has garnered praise for its products
from World Trade, PC Magazine UK, PC World, Consumer's Digest, and Infoworld.
Part of Fortune Magazine's top 500 US companies, AST has also gained the
distinction of being ranked 15 on the World Trade's 1992 list of "Top 100"
mid-size multinational corporations. AST reported foreign sales of $393 million
in 1992 and $582 million in international sales in fiscal year 1993. 



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



COMPANIES TEAM UP TO DEVELOP HAND-HELD MOBILE PCs 

HOUSTON, TEXAS -- Saying its no longer possible for a single vendor to offer
the whole solution, Compaq Computer Corporation President Eckhard Pfeiffer
announced this week Compaq will team up with two other companies to develop a 
class of hand-held mobile computers that will allow the user to tap into 
their personal computers and networks anytime, anywhere. 

Pfeiffer said the number-three PC maker has joined with software company
Microsoft Corporation, chipmakers Intel Corporation, and VLSI Technology to
develop what Compaq calls "a hand-held mobile companion device." 

Compaq said the devices, which could be available as early as next year, will
be powered by VLSI's Polar chip set, which is based on designs by Intel.
Microsoft will support the chip sets with its Microsoft At Work operating
system. Compaq will integrate the chip set and the software into a machine. 

Pfeiffer said he sees the venture as a survival strategy in which computer
firms and component suppliers must work together. "We must integrate. No vendor
can offer the whole solution any more. Alliances, powerful alliances, are the
answer." Pfieffer declined to provide details about the new device's content. 



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



WESTERN DIGITAL'S ROCKETCHIP IN THINKPAD, 540 MB HD 

IRVINE, CALIFORNIA -- Western Digital has announced its Rocketchip video
graphics liquid crystal display (LCD) controller has been designed into 
IBM's new Thinkpad 750 notebook computer. The company also said it is 
shipping a one-inch high, 540-megabyte (MB), 3.5-inch form factor hard
disk drive and has passed the one million mark on shipments of its 340 MB
Caviar AC2340 hard disk drive introduced a year ago. 

Western Digital boasts the Rocketchip WD24 is the first video accelerator for
portable computers. The Rocketchip is designed to operate in the low power 3.3
volts necessary for portable computers. The company claims the video
accelerator speeds up Windows from 5 to 6 times over competing products by
offering hardware-integrated, commonly used functions such as bit block
transfer, line drawing, area fill, color expansion, and hardware cursor.
Western Digital pointed out its Rocketchip products have been previously
selected by IBM for integration into the Thinkpad 500, 700, and 720 product
lines. 

In the hard disk drive arena, Western Digital says its 540 MB (formatted
capacity) Caviar AC2540 is aimed at the Pentium, Power PC, and 486-based
personal computer market. Features of the drive include an average seek time of
less than 11 milliseconds (ms) as well as an adaptive multisegmented read cache
and write cache. In addition, the drive supports enhanced integrated drive
electronics (IDE) features including support for high host transfer rates via
input/output Channel Ready (IORDY) operation and Type B and Type F direct
memory access (DMA). 

Western Digital says these enhanced IDE features make the drive very
competitive with features available on the higher-cost small computer systems
interface (SCSI) drives. Gateway 2000 is reportedly the first adopter of the
new 540 MB drive. 

The company also said it has shipped nearly 3 million of its Caviar
Architecture I-based drives in a year's time. Of the drives shipped, one third
were the 340 MB Caviar AC2340, the first 340 MB two-platter, 3.5-inch hard disk
drive. Western Digital is making nothing in a 3.5-inch form factor smaller than
170 MB and no 5.25-inch hard disk drives at all, company officials said.
Consumers can expect to pay about a dollar a megabyte for hard disk storage.
Smaller sizes with larger capacities will continue to be the trend, officials
added. 


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



IBM SHIPS PRODUCTION VOLUMES OF FIRST POWERPC CHIP 

SOMERS, NEW YORK -- IBM has started to ship production volumes of the 
PowerPC 601, the first of four microprocessors the company is producing out 
of the PowerPC alliance between IBM, Motorola, and Apple Computer. 

The PowerPC 601 is designed for use in low-end to midrange desktops, a company
spokesperson told Newsbytes. IBM began sampling the microprocessor among OEMs
in May, he added. 

Motorola is also developing PowerPC chips, but IBM's PowerPC 601 is being
billed as the first edition of the part to be available to the "merchant
market." 

Other microprocessors that will support the RISC-based crossplatform PowerPC
environment include the PowerPC 603, for laptop, handheld and other portable
systems; the PowerPC 604, for servers and high-end desktop systems; and the
PowerPC 620, an ultra-high-performance 64-bit chip for workstations and
servers. 

The PowerPC chips conform to a specification created by IBM, Motorola, Apple,
Bull, Thomson-CSF, Harris, TadPole Technology and other members of the
PowerOpen Association for a hardware and software interface that will allow
binary-compatible Unix and Apple Computer Macintosh System 7 applications to
run across compliant systems from multiple vendors. 

In related news, IBM plans to unveil its first PowerPC computer systems next
week. The PowerPC systems will be part of a new series of RISC System/6000s
models to be announced on Tuesday at Unix Expo in New York City. 



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



PSION LAUNCHES $500 PDA WITH DIGITAL VOICE PROCESSING 

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS -- Psion has launched the Series 3a, a new personal 
digital assistant (PDA) priced at under $500 and billed as the first in 
the category to offer on-board digital voice processing.

Designed to fit comfortably into a jeans or jacket pocket, the 6.5-
by-3.3-by-0.9-inch unit features a microphone, loudspeaker, and a
record-and-playback application for making quick voice messages and for
recording sounds to be used as personal alarms. 

The new PDA also incorporates a large, 480-by-160 pixel LCD screen, a windowed
GUI, a page preview option, built-in database, time/agenda management, word
processing, and spreadsheet applications, the ability to share documents with
desktop PCs, and drivers for 16 popular printers. 

"The Series 3a heralds the beginning of real voice interface development. In
the future, we expect to see combined computer and telephony products, and also
a degree of voice recognition," said David Potter, chairman of Psion PLC,
announcing this latest pocket computer in his company's long line of machines. 

Barry Balcourt, vice president of Psion Inc., told Newsbytes that the Series 3a
uses a proprietary multitasking operating system running on an 8088
microprocessor. 

The 80 character-by-17-line screen is equivalent to that of a standard computer
monitors, he added, in an interview with Newsbytes. A variety of fonts and font
sizes are available. The PDA never switches off, and can run for months on two
AA batteries without battery replacement, according to Balcourt. In the near
future, Psion plans to support the Series 3a with gateways to specific e-mail
systems, he told Newsbytes. 

The Series 3a will be sold in 5000 European retail outlets, as well as all in
major chains and many independent stores in North America, Balcourt noted. 

The product is on the cover of this week's Sharper Image catalog, and will be
available in all 75 stores operated by that North American chain. Other large
North American outlets include Sears, CompUSA, Silo, Circuit Cities Impulse
Stores, The Wiz, Lechmere, J&R Computer World, Best Buy, and Good Guys. 

The new PDA is priced at $495 for a 256K model and $595 for a 512K model,
according to Balcourt. Shipment starts today. 



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



NEC TO UNVEIL POWER SAVING MONITORS IN OCTOBER 

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA -- While exact details are under embargo until October 5, 
Newsbytes has learned that Japanese electronics giant NEC has a new range of 
power saving monitors streaming off its production lines for an October 5 
launch in the US and Australia, as well as October 15 in Europe. 

With the US government taking the lead in demanding drastic power cuts from new
PCs -- especially those to be purchased for government use -- many
manufacturers are readying their 'green' product lines. In the case of PCs,
most will have progressive shut-down procedures that sense when the machine is
not being used. They will have to consume less than 30 watts at rest, or around
a quarter of the normal consumption. 

Many users already have a screen-saver program running on their computer, but
rather than save power, this simply prevents an image from being burned into
the screen. New monitors such as the NEC range are expected to reduce power at
rest by turning off all drive to the picture tube, by shutting down some
sections of the electronics, as well as reducing power to the picture tube
heater. This means that the system will not re-start instantly, but will take a
couple of seconds to come back to full intensity. 

As the monitor itself will not be able to detect when a machine is idle (an
unchanging screen alone is not a guide as the user may simply be reading the
screen) most will rely on a signal from the PC. And this really means a video
driver card that is capable of indicating a power-down signal such as by
suppressing one of the drive circuits going to the monitor. 



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



IBM CUTTING FACILITIES 

WHITE PLAINS, NEW YORK -- For Sale. For Lease. The signs are going up on 
former IBM facilities across the United States and around the world. 

The company plans to cut its office holdings in the US from 44 million to 26
million square feet by the end of this year, spokesman Jon Iwata confirmed for
Newsbytes. That is part of a worldwide plan to reduce real-estate holdings by
15 percent from the present 172 million square feet over the next few years. 

IBM expects to save $500 million per year worldwide by making the cuts. 

While IBM will not leave any city where it currently has facilities, Iwata
said, it will move out of some of its space in a number of locations. This will
mean breaking leases in some cases and selling company-owned facilities in
others. 

Among the sites IBM is leaving is a 425,000-square-foot facility in Purchase,
New York, that formerly was home base for the company's North American sales
force. The sales force has moved "down the street" to a company-owned facility
in neighboring White Plains, Iwata said. 

A 600,000-square-foot facility in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, is also being
sold, and the company plans to lease out several more floors of its midtown
Manhattan office building at 590 Madison Ave. Some space at the IBM Plaza in
Chicago will also be leased out, Iwata confirmed. 

IBM announced a special $8.9-billion charge against earnings in the second
quarter of this year to cover the cost of job cuts and capacity reductions. At
that time IBM said it would cut an additional 35,000 jobs beyond the cuts
already announced. The company's total staff has shrunk from more than 400,000
in the late 1980s to just under 300,000 now. 

In 1992, IBM lost $4.96 billion. Its second-quarter loss this year, after the
special charge, was $8 billion. 



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



RADIO SHACK INTROS "GREEN PC" WITH LOCAL BUS VIDEO 

FORT WORTH, TEXAS -- Radio Shack has introduced the Tandy 3100, the first 
Tandy personal computer to carry the Energy Star logo, and also the first 
in the line-up to come with local bus video. 

Aimed at small business and home office users, the new 33 megahertz (MHz)
80486SX-based "green PC" also provides a 212 megabyte (MB) hard drive, a
built-in SoundBlaster audio card, and bundled software estimated at more than
$380 in value. 

The computer's compliance with the Energy Star program will save users money on
their electric bill, and the local bus video feature reduces the time needed to
draw and process sophisticated graphics, officials stated. 

According to Tandy, the SoundBlaster card allows easy upgradeability to a
"multimedia PC" with the addition of speakers, a CD-ROM (compact disc - read
only memory) drive, and multimedia software, the company maintained. 

Applications software that comes pre-installed includes Microsoft Works for
Windows, the America Online communications package, and productivity tools for
managing family schedules, personal finances, and household inventories. 

The new PC also sports Windows 3.1, Super VGA graphics, 4 MB of memory
(expandable to 64 MB), three expansion slots, a 3.5-inch floppy drive, an open
device bay, a parallel port, two serial ports, a 101-key enhanced keyboard, and
a two-button mouse. 

Priced at $1,299, the new PC is available at nearly 6,600 participating Radio
Shack stores and dealers nationwide, according to the company. A one-year
warranty is included in the purchase price. 



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



SHARP TO INTRO DOS-COMPATIBLE PDA/NOTEBOOK HYBRID 

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA -- Sharp is planning to introduce a new pen-based 
consumer electronic device which it describes as a mix between a personal 
digital assistant (PDA) and a notebook computer. The PT-9000, expected to 
be officially announced in the fourth quarter of this year, has a new 
acronym -- personal information assistant (PIA). 

Sharp, which manufacturers the Newton Messagepad PDA for Apple Computer, has
decided upon a DOS-compatible Geos graphical user interface (GUI) for the
steno-pad sized PIA. Sharp announced its own version of the Messagepad, called
the Expert Pad, that uses Apple's Newton operating system technology, but
Geoworks boasts the power- saving Geos operating system won out for use in the
PT-9000. 

The PT-9000 has not been officially announced, but Newsbytes has learned the
unit will have a detachable keyboard, use 6 AA batteries for 25 hours of
operation, weighs under two pounds, offers an "instant on" facility, and the
entire top portion of the unit is a screen that can also accept pen-input via
an included pen. 

The Geos operating system offers built-in software applications including the
Geowrite word processor, forms-based database Geofile, and the spreadsheet
Geocalc. Also included is the software for accessing the electronic information
service American Online, as well as utilities for file management and games.
The Geos operating system is also compatible with DOS- based personal computers
(PCs) and a connection kit is being developed for desktop computers by Los
Altos, California-based Palm Computing. 

Palm Computing and America Online will be familiar names for those who are
awaiting the DOS-compatible competitor for the Messagepad, the Zoomer. Expected
from Casio and Tandy toward the end of this month, the Zoomer is a direct
competitor to the Newton Messagepad. Geoworks, the makers of the Geos operating
system, claim Geos makes the Zoomer and PT-9000 more attractive to consumers
because of its DOS compatibility and because of all the built-in applications
that come with it. 

To encourage software development for the new Zoomer PDA and PT-9000 PIA, Geos
is hosting a developer's conference, Monday and Tuesday, October 25-26, at the
Hyatt Regency in Burlingame, California. Attendees of the two-day conference
entitled, "Geos: The New Profit Platform," will each receive the Geos Software
Development Kit (SDK) without charge. 

In addition, attendees will be treated to a preview of the prototype PT-9000
and three Zoomer PDA's will be raffled off. Conference attendees who sign up
before October 6 can register for $445, a discounted price from the regular
conference fee of $595, Geoworks representatives added. 


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



TWO BIG TELECOM DEALS GO DOWN 

JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI -- Two major telecommunications deals were finalized. 
LDDS announced a mega- merger creating a new fourth long-distance network, 
while US West closed on its buy of part of Time-Warner's entertainment unit. 

The new number four long distance company, to be called LDDS Metromedia
Communications, will be based in Jackson, Mississippi, the home base of
President Bernard Ebbers. LDDS was formed by a series of mergers over the last
year, absorbing the former Advanced Telecommunications Corp., of Atlanta,
Resurgens Communications Group of Atlanta, and billionaire John Kluge's
Metromedia Communications Corp., of New Jersey. The Advanced-LDDS deal closed
last year. 

Kluge will chair the new company, and the entrepreneur, who's worth a reported
$6 billion and holds 20 percent of the new combine, won praise from financial
writers for putting the deal together. But it's clear that Ebbers, who put
together LDDS over the last several years by acquiring many smaller long
distance companies, is the key man. Shareholders of LDDS, after all, own 68.5
percent of the new company's equity. The deal also makes Jackson, which also
holds the head offices of Mobile Telecommunications Corp., or MTel, and
BellSouth's Mobilecomm paging unit, the South's unquestioned telecommunications
headquarters city. The new company has annual revenues of $1.5 billion, which

Press <RETURN> or <S>croll?s
still puts it way behind number three Sprint, and trades on the NASDAQ under
the ticker-symbol LDDS. 

The Time Warner-US West deal, announced in May, brings Time Warner Cable $2.5
billion with which to upgrade its systems so it can handle hundreds of channels
and more two-way services. 

Time Warner Cable is the nation's second largest cable operator, with about 7.1
million subscribers, and the company plans to spend $5 billion on the upgrade
over the next five years. The firm had to overcome an 18-month hurdle by the
Justice Department giving the new company time to divest itself of small cable
systems in US West's 14-state service area, although Bell Atlantic recently won
a District Court challenge to the prohibition against Bell company competition
in cable within their home territories. 


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



REAL 14,400 BPS MODEM FOR LESS THAN $200 

LANCASTER, PENNSYLVANIA -- A 14,400 bit/second data-fax modem, with software, 
for under $200? Yes, and that's just the retail price, according to Cardinal 
Technologies, which expects a $139 "street price" for its new MVP144DSP, part 
of its Cardinal Modem Value Pack series sold at computer "superstores" like 
Computer City and Comp USA. 

The new modem costs about $80 less than the current retail prices on Hayes
Accura and US Robotics Sportster models. It's based on an Analog Devices
digital signal processing chip, which means it can be upgraded through software
to even faster speeds, or new protocols and other features. The new modem also
bundles both Windows and DOS fax and data software, and features a limited
lifetime warrantee. The new modem will ship this month, along with a companion
9,600 bps model at $169 retail. 

At the same time, Cardinal has cut prices across its line by up to 38 percent.
The company makes 15 different modems now at its factory, and will increase
that to 23 this fall. In a prepared statement, president Harold Krall chided US
Robotics and Hayes as "recent converts" to the notion of affordable modems. He
also said that, this fall, Cardinal will roll out new pocket modems, and 19,200
bps Vterbo modems developed with AT&T. 

One of Cardinal's biggest successes has been its MVP Series, co- marketed with
Prodigy. The company said that the 2,400 bps MVP product now ranks Number four
on Ingram Micro's Best Sellers List, and has been in the Top 10 for over 40
weeks. 

While fighting the modem price wars aggressively, Cardinal is also trying to
branch out into other areas, spokesman Stacey Pierson told Newsbytes. "We also
released a multimedia upgrade kit two weeks ago," she said, which will be going
into the same channels. "We want to be known as more than just a modem company.
You can go to Cardinal for many different products and upgrades." 



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



ATI SHIPS 14,400-BPS MODEMS 

TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA, -- ATI Technologies has announced shipment of two 
new 14,400-bit-per-second (bps) data and facsimile modems -- the 14400 ETC-I 
and ETC-E units. 

The 14400 ETC-I is an internal model and the 14400 ETC-E is external. Both
support 14,400-bps data transfers using the V.32bis standard, and can also send
and receive fax messages at speeds up to 14,400 bps, ATI officials said. 

The modems also support commonly used data compression and error control
standards, including V.42bis, which ATI said can increase transmission speeds
by as much as a factor of four. The fax component of the modems is EIA Class 1
compliant and is claimed to be compatible with Group 3 fax machines and fax
cards. 

Both modems come with the full retail versions of the FaxWorks facsimile
software and COMit communications software from SofNet, both of which are
designed for use with Microsoft Windows. 

The internal modem comes with Multiple Interrupt Select (MIS) to allow serial
ports to be assigned to alternate interrupts for compatibility with multiple
expansion cards. The external version has an Easy-Set front panel meant to make
it easy to set frequently used functions such as auto-answer and redial without
using software. 

The 14400 ETC-I has a suggested retail price of US$249 or C$299. The 14400
ETC-E's list price is US$299 or C$369. Both are shipping now, company officials
said. 


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



INTEL, MCI TO INTEGRATE PHONES, PCs  

NEW YORK -- MCI announced it has signed a development deal with Intel to 
explore opportunities in integrating telephones and PCs. Applications include 
advanced PC-based data, audio, and videoconferencing. 

The idea is to marry Intel's expertise in computer hardware, video, and PCs
with MCI's expertise as a provider of intelligent network services. 

Earlier this year, Intel made a number of related announcements , including
support for the Microsoft Telephony Application Program Interface. It has also
signed separate alliance agreements with regional Bell companies Ameritech,
Bell Atlantic and Pacific Bell, and with European equipment makers Ericsson and
Siemens. Until now, it has been best-known in the telecommunication business
for its fax-data modems. 

Analysts speculate the new deal could put MCI's videophone technology, which
comes from GEC and Marconi of the UK, onto Intel boards for insertion in
Windows-based PCs. That could prove important to MCI, since videophone sales
have been slow because the MCI and AT&T offerings are incompatible. Intel could
also work with MCI on digital services used by videoconferencing equipment
makers like PictureTel. No money changed hands in the deal. 

Separately, MCI signed CompuLink Ltd., as a value-added dealer, meaning its
WorldLink gateway products could be cross-marketed with MCI services like MCI
Mail and MCI Fax. The company's products are designed to integrate data and
text-based services, which could provide powerful links between MCI Mail and
MCI Fax. 



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



AMERICA ONLINE SUBSCRIBER BASE EXPANDS 

VIENNA, VIRGINIA -- While Prodigy and Compuserve still have the lead in 
subscribers, America Online is now competing with GEnie for third place. 
America Online says it now has 350,000 subscribers. That would put it even 
with GEnie, based on recent market analyses by Jupiter Communications of 
New York. 

The company said the figure represents a gain of 100,000 subscribers in the
last six months, and an 80 percent increase in the last year. Over that time
the company has turned on local versions of its service in Chicago and
elsewhere, created alliances with a number of publishers for special forums,
and begun bundling its software with popular computers. The last move is
thought to have been the greatest spur to growth, according to company
officials. 

America Online has achieved success in part because it offers a graphical user
interface. Apple Computer recently signed a deal to switch to America Online's
GUI (graphical user interface) for its future online offerings. America Online
originally created its interfaces, for both Macintosh and PC-compatible
computers, when it was developing specialty services for computer
manufacturers. The company also went public in March, 1992, the only online
service to do that. 

America Online's chief financial officer, Lennert Leader, recently told
analysts he's comfortable with earnings estimates of 75-85 cents per share for
the fiscal year ending next June. He estimated the number of subscribers could
grow to 500,000 by the end of the year, which would probably put it well ahead
of GEnie, now in third place behind Prodigy and CompuServe, among US consumer
online services. GEnie, which is a unit of General Electric, is highly
profitable, according to Jupiter's Josh Harris. 



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



ONEBBSCON - BBS's ARE KEY TO CLINTON'S DATA HIGHWAY

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO -- The more than 70,000 private and public 
bulletin board systems (BBS) are the key to President Bill Clinton's widely 
touted data highway of the future. 

That's what Jack Rickard, organizer of the second annual Online Networking
Exposition Bulletin Board Systems Convention (ONE BBSCON) being held this week
in Colorado Springs, Colorado, says. "That network already exists to some
degree, but the national highway is a conceptual problem. What they are
proposing to do all can center on an infrastructure for the data highway part,"
says Rickard. 

"Implicit in that is to bring K-12 education onto this data highway, but some
of their concepts are a little naive. There are 16,000 school districts in this
country, and about 80,000 schools. The infrastructure that is the Internet now,
or even that could be built with a fairly large application of money, tends to
be more technical than these people are going to adopt as an interface." He
also cited the enormous cost of teaching educators to use the system. Rickard
believes bulletin boards will wind up being the interface between the Internet
and the actual data highway. 

BBS operation has become a big business, with thousands of boards, both public
and private, now in operation worldwide. About 2,000 of those operators, called
sysops (system operators), met this week to hear talks by industry experts and
participate in discussions about subjects as diverse as legal issues, media
relations, bulletin boards for government agencies, programming languages,
copyright issues, and women online. They also got a chance to play some golf,
see some Colorado scenery, take in a mountain barbecue, and rub shoulders with
their counterparts as well as the big names in the industry. 

The subject matter found on the thousands of boards is as varied as the people
that operate them, sometimes general in nature and sometimes very specific.
Newsbytes talked to Julie Silverman, sysop for the National Process Servers
BBS. Five years ago Silverman, a real estate agent, was calling boards to get
information about properties for sale. She now owns a legal processing service
company in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and set up her board to provide a common
ground for process servers and investigators in Minnesota and western Wisconsin
to share information and exchange jobs. The monthly charge to access
Silverman's board is $49.95. "That's to cover the cost of the equipment and
phone lines," she told Newsbytes. 

While this year's show didn't have a specific theme attached to it, Rickard
told Newsbytes there are several main issues being discussed. "There is an
intense interest in, and we have a lot of sessions about, the Internet
connection for bulletin boards systems. Another has to do with the legality of
adult images, and the third, which is related to the second, is how to present
images online as we move towards a more graphical user interface." 

The attendees are also getting a look at the latest technology in hardware and
software. "They (the vendors) are coming in with all kinds of secret stuff, new
products, new presentations, and special show discount deals," says Rickard. 



                The preceding stories are © 1993 NewsBytes.
                        Reprinted with permission.


            __________________________________________________




AMD DISCLOSES INCORPORATION OF INTEL IN CHIP

Advanced Micro Devices has disclosed that its scientists may have
incorporated parts of Intel's computer language in its new "built from
scratch" microprocessor. An AMD spokesman said the development will not
significantly delay release of the new chip, which could occur as early as
this month or in October. AMD had previously pledged that it would release
the AM486SX chip during the current quarter. The new chip was designed to
be a non-cloned version of Intel's 486 with the circuitry largely
reverse-engineered from Intel's. The chip will be "pin-compatible" -
that is, like other AMD chips, it will be able to be plugged into
sockets designed for Intel chips.



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



COMPUTER ORDERS RISE

A government report on factory goods orders, released earlier this week
shows that demand for computers is rising sharply. Overall, orders for all
products made in U.S. factories and manufacturing shops is growing
slowly, rising 3.7 percent from July 1992 to July 1993. But orders for
computers and office equipment climbed 21.6 percent in that one-year
span. Computer and office equipment orders each month this year: -up
8.1 percent, July; down 5.3 percent, June; up 6.1 percent, May; down
2.5 percent, April; down 4.8 percent, March; up 9.6 percent, February;
down 0.8 percent, January.


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



HP ANNOUNCES TAKE BACK PROGRAM

Hewlett Packard has announced a pilot program to collect used
inkjet printer cartridges. The cartridges are used in HP's
market-leading DeskJet brand printers, as well as in its inkjet
plotters and fax machines. In the U.S. program, customers may return
their used cartridges to any participating dealer. HP will provide
dealers with cartridge collection bins and retrieve the cartridges
periodically at no cost to the dealers. After the cartridges are
collected, they will be sent to processing facilities where the
precious metals (gold and copper) used in the cartridges will be
reclaimed. Ore smelters will use the remaining plastic parts as an
energy source. The plastic, which can be burned at extremely high
temperatures, is a much cleaner source of energy than traditional
fossil fuels.


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



ATARI REPORTS SECOND QUARTER RESULTS

Atari recently reported its operations for the second quarter ended June
30, 1993. Net sales for the quarter were $5.7 million as compared to $23.3
million for the same quarter in 1992. During the quarter, Atari incurred an
operating loss of $4.0 million as compared to an operating loss for the
second quarter of 1992 of $45.0 million. In addition, during the quarter
the company incurred loss on exchange of $3.1 million and had other income
items totalling $0.5 million, which resulted in a net loss for the second
quarter of 1993 of $6.6 million as compared to $39.7 million in 1992.
Commenting on the results, Sam Tramiel, president of Atari, said, "The
company has focused all of its efforts on the development and launch
of its new multi-media video entertainment system called Jaguar, which
will be launched in the fourth quarter of this year in the New York
and San Francisco markets. We have approximately $35 million in cash."


@endnode
                      ------------------------------
@node P1-3 "Status Report - Amiga"
@toc "menu"


 PRESS RELEASE
 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 Contact: Ellen Kazmaier                            (314) 894-8608
 Director of Marketing                              (800) 829-8608

 Soft-Logik Presents An In-Depth Preview Of PageStream 3.0!

 St. Louis, Missouri (September, 1993)   Soft-Logik Publishing
 Corporation will present an in-depth preview of PageStream 3.0.
 PageStream 3 is a completely new version of the #1 desktop
 publishing program. Adding a comprehensive list of features
 that users have requested, PageStream 3 surpasses its competition.

 PageStream 3 is the ideal program for any desktop publishing
 project. It can be used to write letters, produce high-end color
 separations and publish complex books with multiple sections and
 chapters. The new trapping and plate control features makes
 PageStream 3.0 a leader in the emerging pre-press field.

 PageStream 3 breaks new ground with a dual paragraph and character
 style system that allows style override, style ripple and object
 styles. The new style system makes applying attributes to text and
 objects easier than ever before.  PageStream s flexible toolbox
 allows users to choose between small, large, vertical and horizontal
 toolbox layouts. There are even floating panels for fonts, colors,
 styles, macros and pages to make editing easier.

 PageStream 3 offers an incredible array of document formatting
 features. Auto-kerning and auto-hyphenation have been added, and text
 styles are configurable, including changing the shadow type and offset,
 and the underline method. The tab feature allows left/center/right
 alignment on any character, and dot leaders (filled tabs) can be made
 with any character.

 PageStream 3.0 now supports the PANTONE  Color System. PageStream 3.0
 uses this industry standard to provide printed color accuracy with
 guaranteed results.  In addition to PANTONE support, PageStream 3.0
 offers support for spot and process color, and CMYK, HSV, and RGB
 color models.

 PageStream has always been the import format champion with numerous
 formats supported. Import a Word Perfect file and export a Final Copy
 document. Or import an IFF ILBM and export it as TIFF. Import an Adobe
 Illustrator 3.0 EPS file, interpret it into a structured drawing, and
 dissolve it into component shapes and paths.

 And the newly added format of translating Professional Page documents.
 Users of Gold Disk s Professional Page desktop publishing program can
 now make the transition to PageStream painlessly. Converting a
 Professional Page document for use in PageStream is a simple task.

 PageStream 3 adds the power of ARexx without adding the complexity.
 ARexx scripts can be written from scratch or recorded within the
 program. Scripts can then be played back, without knowledge of ARexx
 programming. PageStream 3 features are an extensive ARexx command set
 that will satisfy any power-user.

 The PageStream 3.0 publishing system comes with the PageLiner 2.0 text
 editor and the BME 2.0 bitmap editor. These programs are linked to
 PageStream with the included HotLinks 2.0, the Amiga data exchange
 standard.

 PageStream 3.0 will be available in early fall for $395. Customer who
 purchase a full copy of PageStream 2.2 after March 15, 1993, are
 eligible for a free upgrade to version 3.0 by mailing their registration
 card, proof of purchase and $5 for shipping and handling, to Soft-Logik.
 Previous purchasers can upgrade for $125 if they own PageStream 2.0 or
 higher, or for only $95 if they also own HotLinks Editions. Professional
 Page owners can upgrade to PageStream for $175. (limited time offer)

 PageStream 3.0 will change the way you think about publishing.

 Mark @ Soft-Logik Publishing


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


Introducing...

                       The Elysian Archive
           A Collection of Freely-Distributable Amiga Files
           
   This collections has been painstakingly assembled over a period of 
   6 months.  It includes over 600 Meg of Amiga Files, complete with 
   full descriptions.  The CD-ROM is in ISO-9660 format, for 
   compatibility with both Amiga and PC BBS's.  Features include:

   · Over 700 SoundTracker/NoiseTracker modules, painstakingly 
     duplicate-checked.

   · Over 200 EuroDemos and MusicDisks - show off the Amiga's 
     capabilities!

   · Over 80 animations representing the best work displayable on all 
     Amigas

   · Low cost!  Only $30...
   
For more information, please send NetMail to 1:280/316.0, or call 
(816) 587-3352 (voice).  Or, send Internet mail to:

   ricketts.je@shocker.ee.twsu.edu
   


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



                              TeleText V1.10
                         (c) 1993 Jan Leuverink


 Long Description:

    This project makes it possible to view Teletext (also known
    as Teletekst, Videotext, Ceefax, Skytext, Supertext etc.)
    on your Amiga. It is suitable for any PAL Amiga, because
    it uses the parallel port to interface with the hardware.
    An electronic switch is provided to easily switch between
    the TeleText decoder and a printer. The project consists
    of a small piece of hardware and some software.

    The software is Shareware. This means that if you use the
    program longer than 3 weeks, you have to register or stop
    using it. Some features will only be available to registered
    users.

 Some features:

    - fully localized
      languages currently supported:
             * nederlands
             * deutsch
             * dansk
    - needs KS2.04 or higher and a PAL Amiga to run
    - can hold up to 4 teletext-pages, each page can
      contain a maximum of 50 subpages
    - saves pages in IFF, ASCII and its own TT format
    - loads pages in TT format
    - uses reqtools.library (included in archive) for
      requesters
    - the hardware needs a CVBS-videosignal containing
      teletext-information   (can be obtained from the
      SCART/AV connector of a TV/VCR)


 Future support :

    - AREXX support
        * This will allow you to write Arexx scripts,
          that can fetch specified pages, save them, etc.
        * It will also include the ability to request a
          specific sub-page instead of all sub-pages
          of a given page.
    - The ability to click on a number on a page, so that
      that page is being looked for. Handy for index-pages
      etc., just click on the pagenumber you want to read.
    - Special version for use with the gameports (instead of
      the parallel port).
    - Graphics-hardcopy of currently displayed page.
    - Improved docs: more technical details about how the
      teletext system works, how the I2C-bus works etc.
    - Support for the NTSC screen modes.

Some of these features will only be available to registered users.

                      ===============================
                      Required DOS: WB 2.04 or higher
                           Computer: Amiga (PAL)
                            Ram: approx. 100 kb
                      ===============================

Files / Size: TT110.lha    - 124.909 byte
Released: 11-SEPT-93

The file is requestable at 'The Amiga Workbench', Fido-node: 2:283/410.
'The Amiga Workbench' +31-5430-24097

It will also be distributed via ADS/SAN.



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



Announcement For Gene 1.0


TITLE

           GeNe - a commercial invoicing and stock management program

VERSION

           1.0 (15 September 1993)

AUTHOR

           Ivan Pintori
           mc8420@mclink.it

COMPANY

           MangaZone Advanced Services
           Via Grandis 1
           00185 Roma
           ITALY
           Tel: ++39-(0)6-7028955
           Fax: ++39-(0)6-7028955
           EMail: mc8420@mclink.it (Ivan Pintori)

DESCRIPTION

        GENE is a complete invoicing and stock management package for those
who need to clean their desktops from calculators, pens and info sheets on
products.

        Providing a clear interface, compliant to the User Style Guide by
Commodore, MangaZone Advanced Services has made the most powerful invoicing
and stock management program available for the Amiga(tm).

FEATURES

Many features but the most important are:

        -       Over 4 billion invoices per year can be made;
        -       Over 4 billion clients can be tracked at any time;
        -       Over 4 billion products can be tracked at any time (even
                out of productions!);
        -       Over 4 billion producers;
        -       Over 4 billion orders per year;
        -       Complete stock management with loading of stock and
                automatic unload via invoicing;
        -       3 prices per product, that are automatically associated to
                each type of client;
        -       Full importation ready;
        -       255 different currencies supported;
        -       255 categories of products;
        -       255 types of products per each category;
        -       255 VATs can be associated to any Category-Type;
        -       Every product, client, producer is given a unique serial
                number to be used in bar codes;
        -       Reads, stores and uses currently used barcodes;
        -       A 228 characters description can be included per each
                client, product and producer;
        -       E-mail address per each client;
        -       Products can be goods (subjected to stock) or services;
        -       Products can be marked out-of-production and later on
                retrived;
        -       Client can be of 3 different types;
        -       Invoice layout is totally customizable via intuition;
        -       Invoices can be retrived for archive printing;
        -       Prices can be calculated after user definable formulas;
        -       All via an easy Intuition Interface;

REQUIREMENTS

        Any Amiga Computer with OS 2.04 and 1Mb of RAM.  Hard Disk and BarCode
reader strongly raccomanded.

DISTRIBUTABILITY

        This program is Commercial.  MangaZone Advanced Services is looking
for companies interested in taking care of distribution in thier own
country.

Italy: RRP Lire 89000 IVA inclusa
International: RRP US$99.95

MangaZone Advanced Services
Via Grandis 1, 00185 Rome, ITALY
Tel/Fax:++39-(0)6-7028955


@endnode
                      ------------------------------
@node P5-1 "JIStoJi v1.3"
@toc "menu"


JIStoJi v1.3 Available for FTP


TITLE

        JIStoJi

VERSION

        1.3 (first general release)

AUTHOR

        Gerald B. Mathias
        Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures
        University of Hawaii at Manoa
        Honolulu  HI 96822
                 Internet: mathias@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu
                 Compuserve: 72017,1005

DESCRIPTION

        JIStoJi reads (displays) Japanese text electronically encoded in
        Old/New JIS, EUC JIS, or Shift JIS formats.  It also prints
        hardcopy in 16X16-dot characters (24X24-dots if the user has the
        public domain fonts).

        It runs under Kickstart 1.3 or 2.0.  It can be run from a floppy,
        and has no great memory requirements (unless reading a huge text).

        The archive contains the program, the fonts, documentation, and
        short sample texts in each format.

HOST NAME

        ftp.hawaii.edu (128.171.44.70)

DIRECTORY

        pub/amiga/apps

FILE NAME

        jistoji.lha (159860 bytes)

PRICE

        Free

DISTRIBUTABILITY

        Freely distributable as archived, but copyright 1993 by author


@endnode
                      ------------------------------
@node P5-2 "ReOrg v3.1"
@toc "menu"


ReOrg 3.1 Available for FTP


TITLE

     ReOrg

RELEASE

     3.1

AUTHOR

     Holger Kruse (kruse@cs.ucf.edu)

SHORT

     Disk optimizer with DC-FFS support

DESCRIPTION

     ReOrg can be used to optimize (defragment) volumes in any floppy
     disk-like device, like trackdisk.device, ramdrive.device,
     hddisk.device and most third-party harddisks. This usually results
     in faster directories and can also result in faster file access,
     shorter boot times etc.

     In addition to optimizing a disk, ReOrg can also convert the
     filesystem of a disk during the optimization, e.g. from OFS to
     DC-FFS.

     Compared to most other disk optimizers ReOrg is quite fast and has
     many options to customize the optimization to your specific needs.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

     ReOrg requires Kickstart 2.04 or higher and
     Workbench 2.04 or higher

NEW FEATURES

     Major new features since V2.33:

     - support for directory-caching (DCFS: DOS\4, DOS\5).
     - support for blocksizes <> 512 bytes.
     - implemented filesystem conversion during optimization.
     - all windows and requesters are font-sensitive.
     - added option "Keep Locks" that allows you to continue your
       work after optimizing the boot partition without having to
       reboot the system.
     - improved directory optimization algorithm used under Kick2.0.
       Side effect: icons appear faster on Workbench.
     - localization (even when running under Workbench 2.04).
     - online help function using AmigaGuide.
     - numerous bug fixes and enhancements.

HOST NAME

     Aminet (e.g. wuarchive.wustl.edu)

DIRECTORY

     /pub/aminet/disk/optim

FILE NAME

     ReOrg3_1.lha        (program, language files and online-help)
     ReOrg3_1dvi.lha     (dvi-files for written documentation)

PRICE

     ReOrg is shareware (US$ 10).

DISTRIBUTABILITY

     The archives are freely distributable in original and
     unmodified form. See documentation for details.

     ReOrg is (C) Copyright 1992/93 by Holger Kruse.


@endnode
                      ------------------------------

@node P5-3 "Zodiac Point v3.2"
@toc "menu"


Zodiac's Point 3.2 available for FTP


TITLE

     Zodiac's Point

VERSION

     Release 3.2 Version 37.73 (3.9.93)

AUTHOR

     Ralph Seichter             Z-Netz: R.SEICHTER@DARKNESS.ZER
     Deutscher Ring 6           Usenet: rseichter@darkness.gun.de
     50354 Huerth
     Federal Republic of Germany

DESCRIPTION

     Zodiac's Point is designed for the Z-Netz, a computer network
     which already covers Germany and many locations in Switzerland
     and is spreading further in the European Community. The base
     for this network is the Z3.8 mail exchange format.

     As it is a Z-Netz "point" software package, Zodiac's Point 3.2
     handles message transfer, import/export of data and all sorts of
     message processing you'll need. The GUI follows the Commodore
     style guides very closely, so even beginners will be able to use
     Zodiac's Point without problems with mouse and/or keyboard.

     An online help system is included and the program is completely
     localized. English catalog and documents are included, the built-
     in language is German.

     Compared to "TheAnswer II", another widely used point program,
     Zodiac's Point is significantly faster in operation and causes
     a far less hard disk fragmentation.

NEW FEATURES

     This is the first release available for FTP, so I won't give a
     detailed list. Every user of previous versions should upgrade
     because most of the features requested by registered users have
     been implemented since the last release.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

     Zodiac's Point will run with any Amiga. AmigaOS 2.04 is required,
     localization naturally requires AmigaOS 2.1 or better.

HOST NAME

     Any Aminet host, i.e. ftp.uni-kl.de (131.246.9.95).

DIRECTORY

     /pub/aminet/comm/misc

FILE NAMES

     ZPoint32.lha

DISTRIBUTABILITY

     This program is shareware. Minimum fee is 10,- DM (US $8), but you
     are free to give whatever you believe Zodiac's Point is worth.

OTHER

     Note that ZCONNECT(tm) is not yet supported as this standard is
     still under discussion.


@endnode
                      ------------------------------
@node P5-4 "ScreenManager v1.31"
@toc "menu"


Announcement for ScreenManager 1.31


TITLE

         ScreenManager - a utility to control public screens


VERSION

         1.31 (9 Sep 93)


AUTHOR

         Bernhard Mvllemann
         EMail: zza@rz.uni-karlsruhe.de (Bernhard Moellemann)


DESCRIPTION

         ScreenManager opens public screens supporting nearly all
         features of the AmigaOS. It can show the properties of
         screens and displaymodes, too.


FEATURES

         ScreenManager opens public screens supporting all basics like
         size, colors, pens and displaymode. Additionally it features

          - Automagic closing of a screen when the last visitor
            disappears

          - Closegadget attached to a screen

          - Interleaved bitmaps with OS 3.0

          - support of Parent/Child screens

          - Hotkeys via cx.lib to move screens to front or make
            them default

         Additionally ScreenManager can list all available screenmodes
         and can show all available information about these modes from the
         display database.

         This applies also to the new displaymodes of third party
         graphics boards.


NEW FEATURES

         This is an update to ScreenManager 1.13c.
         ScreenManager now supports the OS 3.0 features interleaved
         bitmaps, parent/child screens and various other flags.


REQUIREMENTS

         Any Amiga computer with at least OS 2.04


HOST NAME

         wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4)
         ftp.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de (134.106.1.9)

DIRECTORY

         /pub/amiga-boing/incoming/utils/  on wuarchive
           /pub/amiga/incoming/utils/        on ftp.informatik.uni-oldenburg

         It seems archives in this directories will not move.

FILE NAME

         sm_1_31.lha


DISTRIBUTABILITY

        Freely distributable as long as the contents of the archive
        are kept intact. You must not make any profit by selling,
        distributing or copying this package.


@endnode
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@node P1-4 "Online Weekly"
@toc "menu"

/// ONLINE WEEKLY Amiga Report Online                The lines are buzzing!
    ---------------------------------



From Portal's AmigaZone
-----------------------

.../General Q&A, Announcements, and Help!/Portal "party" at WOCA/Pasadena
16026.3.584.15 The Party
9/14/93 10:40 35/1706 Harv

We held a Portal party/eating fest at Burger Continental in Pasadena
last Saturday night for WOCA attendees. I handed out about 200
invitations at the show (and gave some to some friends to hand out)
and about 40 people showed up for the party. I had asked for a setup
in the burger joint's outdoor patio area but instead they stuck us
in a room next to the patio which had about the worst acoustics
imaginable - it was VERY loud and echoey in there, which turned
talking into shouting.

The beer was flowing freely, and everyone chowed down from the
ample menu and seemed to have a good time. I didn't keep a list
of all those who attended but they ran the gamut from Portal
"regulars" and wannabees, to a couple current and former CBM
employees, Usenet devotees and such.

Everyone in attendance received a free copy of the Nutshell UNIX
guidebook, which Portal will send to any Portal user free of charge
for the asking (so write to "cs" via email if you want one). It's
a fairly basic bonehead guide to getting started using a UNIX
shell account, giving the most basic commands for creating and
moving around files and directories, sending email and such.
It doesn't cover the more popular topics such as Internet (FTP, IRC,
Telnet, etc.) but there are excellent guides here online for those
things if you need them.

At any rate, everyone at the party appeared to enjoy themselves...
we hung out there for about two hours till people had their fill
and started to drift away.

I asked everyone there to shout out their name and affiliation
so we all know who each other was, and hopefully some folks who
had seen each other online but had never met got the chance to
make some new pals :)

Harv


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



16026.3.598.1 ImageFX and the WOCA Pasedena
9/16/93 09:33 43/2164 Kermit

For everyone who missed WOCA at Pasedena (and you missed a really great
show!), here are a few of the highlights that related to our products
ImageFX and CineMorph.

On Saturday Rusty Mills, an Animation Director at Warner Bros, described
the use of the Amiga and ImageFX at Warner Bros. for use in the new
animated series "Animanics" to an overflow crowd in the auditorium.  In
short, Warner Bros. uses ImageFX to create the titles that open every
segment of the shows.  They also color correct and retouch backgrounds
on occasion.  Rusty also ran, later at the GVP seminar stage, a
hysterically funny segment from the Animaniacs series called, "Hooked on
a Ceiling".  Hooked on a Ceiling continued to run throughout Saturday
and Sunday to crowded aisles.

The, ah, rather controversial product Lightrave came out and included
support for ImageFX amongst support for many display cards.

MacrosystemUS, makers of the Retina display card, were showing an early
version of their exciting new product for video professionals.  The
product, known as MultiLayer, is a multiple layer compositing tool
allowing WYSIWYG control through multiple Workbench windows over 100
layers of digital images over a visible timeline.  There is absolutely
nothing like this on any platform, except the Amiga now, and it requires
ImageFX to perform it's amazing compositing work!

At least two major vendors of 24bit imaging products tentatively
committed to adding MAGIC (a system that allows applications to share
images - the archive for it is here online GEnie) image sharing support
to their product line.  This will be a major boon for Amiga imaging
professionals!

On Sunday GVP and Nova Design gave a presentation on morphing that
packed the auditorium again.  Many tips and tricks for achieving
production level morphs in short periods of time were demonstrated.

A few more vendors are also promising ImageFX supporting software
packages for some VERY interesting applications.  I look forward to
being able to talk more about these soon!

We really enjoyed ourselves and look forward to the next WOCA show!

Kermit Woodall
Nova Design, Inc.



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




From FidoNet's Amiga International Echo
---------------------------------------


Area: AMIGA                                   Date:  8 Sep 93 16:48:00
From: Jon Peterson (1:3640/10.0)
To  : All And Sysops
Subj: FF1000th

 ******************* A Proposal ***********************

For years and years, the work of Fred Fish in the organization,
culling and distribution of non-commercial programs to the Amiga
community has been of great benefit to us all.  Programmers have
been able to present their best efforts and we, of course, would
have had doubtful access to some of the most innovative programs
written - for any computer platform.  As the vast majority of us
Amiga users are aware, Fred Fish is coming up on the 1000th disk
issue of this outstanding collection. This, in my humble
opinion, is a milestone that should not go unnoticed. His
contribution to the Amiga community certainly ranks alongside
those that created this outstanding machine.  As such,
participants on FidoNet have proposed the Amiga community show
our appreciation at the issuance of the 1000th disk by sending
in donations to gather sufficient funds to purchase an A4000T
(if and when available) or comparable machine when the time
comes.  Now is the time to get this thing going. If estimates
are correct, at the present rate of publication, the 1000th disk
should be out in approximately three to four months. Donations
are being sent to:

                    Concho Valley Computer Users Group
                             FFish 1000th Fund
                              c/o Jon Peterson
                               P.O. Box 2661
                           San Angelo, TX 76902

Your assistance in posting this message on the BBSs you use or
run would be greatly appreciated (sysops, how about a bulletin
on logon?). Also request everyone pass the word at any Users
Group meetings you attend. This is a group effort on behalf of
all the Amiga users throughout the world. Please donate whatever
you can afford - or even better - what you honestly think


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


Area: AMIGA                                   Date: 13 Sep 93  6:57:02
From: Jon Peterson (1:383/300.0)
To  : All
Subj: FFish 1000th Aniversary

Well, here is the list of donors for the second week.  I suggest
simply posting names and fund total.  If everyone wants the
names and donations it can be done.

Jon Peterson
Matthew L. Schultz
Chris Nelson
Asha DeVelder
Marshall Freedland
Jeremy Friesner
Michael Phipps

Total donations as of 9/12/93 are $100.00.  Got a ways to go
folks.  Please talk this up with all concerned (Amiga users).
Request everyone keep this thing going.  Paying a shareware or
sending in a donation is too easily forgotten.  Try to get an
envelope and a check out today and do your part for what we've
all appreciated and utilized.



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



Area: AMIGA                                   Date: 15 Sep 93 13:53:00
From: Manny Casao (1:208/202.0)
To  : All
Subj: A1200 Tower

Just got off the phone with Amibitious Technologies makers of the Toaster Oven
for the A3000/4000. This expansion unit transfroms your 3000/4000 into a Tower
Workstation that includes 2 video slots plus 5 Zorro 3 slots that are NOT
blocked when using a Toaster 4000.
 
The reason I called was to find out the status of their A1200 Tower version.
 
I was suprised to find out that development has been halted because they were
afraid that there would not me a market for this item.
( NOTE: This item would retail for about $650.00 )
 
The felt that if anyone wanted such expansion, they would simply purchase an
A4000, Not a 399.00 A1200 unit.
 
I then mentioned to him that there were many other A1200 users besides myself
that would like the features of the A4000, but could not initially aford to
shell out 2,000 for an A4000 unit.

I was then told that they would need to sell atleast 100 unit to make the
project worth while.
 
Lemme give you a few details on the unit.
 
Basically same specs as the A4000 Toaster Oven.

2 Video Slots * Opalvision compatible NOW! * Soon to be T4000 compatible.
5 Zorro 3 Slots
2 PC AT slots
10 Drive bays
300 watt Power supply

You can still use ANY A1200 expansion device that you have on you A1200
including trapdoor cpu devices.

The unit is pretty close to completion but has been put on the back burner.

If this expansion device interests you and you think that you would be wiling
to purchase it if it were released give them a call and let them know or
reply back to me with your name and # and I will foward all messages to them
myself. They just want to know that a reasonable userbase is there.
 
I am in no way connected with the company, I would just like to have one of
the units.
 
Toaster Oven
The Ultimate Expansion
A1200/A3000/A4000 AMIGA Workstation
9 SLOTS available at the same time
10 drive bays
Install ANY card in your system. Always upgradable.

Ambitious Technologies
1519 w. 134th Street
Gardena,CA 90249

310-532-0787
310-532-0785 FAX

Be sure to mention that you saw this on FidoNet.



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



From Delphi's Amiga SIG
-----------------------

 
18815 13-SEP 23:22 General Information
     RE: woca (Re: Msg 18808)
     From: 16BITTER     To: PIPISTRELLO (NR)
 
Here's a little stuff from UseNet:
 
Xref: news.service.uci.edu comp.sys.amiga.graphics:18621
comp.sys.amiga.hardware:50533 Path: news.service.uci.edu!usc!
howland.reston.ans.net!agate!library.ucla.edu!nnt p.ucsb.edu!mcl!uhenric From:
uhenric@mcl.ucsb.edu (Henric Jungheim) Newsgroups:
comp.sys.amiga.graphics,comp.sys.amiga.hardware Subject: Some WoCA info / Re:
Which Amiga to get? Date: 12 Sep 1993 18:41:08 GMT Organization: University of
California, Santa Barbara Lines: 79 Message-ID: <26vqg4$bij@hub.ucsb.edu>
References: <CD7yCq.Gpq@ccu.umanitoba.ca> <1993Sep12.084528.21729@csus.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: mcl.ucsb.edu
 
In <1993Sep12.084528.21729@csus.edu> jwalkup@sfsuvax1.sfsu.edu (Jeff Walkup)
writes:
 
> That's why the A2000 is actually a better choice if you need to add 2
> TBC's, a DPS PAR and/or VScope, etc etc.  Or wait for the mythical 
> A4000T which may or may not ever see the light of day...
 
It has been _done_ for some time now.  The hangup is production capacity. Lou
E. said it should be in production by the end of the year... perhaps by Nov.
 
> (I actually heard that the 4000T is supposed to have TWO video slots....) It
> does... I counted them myself.
 
Oh... I was at WoCA on Sat.  Neat show, but I got a sore throat just from
walking from the show to the car.  The smog was the worst I've ever
experienced.
 
Also... since I'm posting anyway.  Some random thoughts about the show.
 
The CD32 looks neat.  CBM demoed the MPEG module w/ a couple of music videos.
There were a few glitches if on really looked closely, but it seemed better
than my VHS VCR.  Really... it was pretty amazing. The MPEG option should be
available in a couple of weeks.  It will only be widely avail. in Europe at
first.  Don't look for it in the US for a while yet. CBM is churning out
20,000 units per week in their new factory, but it is apparently selling quiet
well in Europe. The MPEG module will generate it's own video signal which will
be genlocked to the CD32's normal video.  This means that the CD32's chip ram
won't be saturated w/ by the video stream (Lew E. said that the CD32 itself
would not be doing very much while just decoding MPEG.  The only thing the
CD32 _would_ be doing is taking the 150k/sec data stream from the CD-ROM and
feeding the audio stuff to the MPEG audio chip and the video stuff to the
video chip [the MPEG chips are from C-Cubed]).
 
The DPS PAR is pretty amazing.  I have no experience in high-end video stuff,
but the quality seemed as good as what I have seen on laser disc. They were
playing a video of a couple of bimbos dancing around (I must point out that
they were using a 12 or 13" monitor for that demo).
 
The EGS-28/24 was there and looked real nice. It should be avail. "soon". The
Piccolo (sp?) was there and would be shipping in the US as soon as the English
docs were finished.  The Picasso II was there, but unlike the ZIII boards,
they were selling them at the show.  Even the high resolution modes (I think
the one they were using was the same as the NeXT had used) in 256 color seemed
noticably faster than the 256 color AGA modes on my 4000/040.
 
The DSP hardware is on _hold_.  CBM is looking to continue the project after
Jan 1 or so.
 
The AAA chips should be in a prototype AAA machine by the Q1 94.  If
everything works out it may be avail. for sale Q3 94 (that's what Lew E.
said...) The are expecting a performance boost of about 10-20x (I assume they
meant over AGA.  I didn't hear, but I think he said that...)
 
RTG is set to be released with AAA (which will probably require it); it has
been on hold with the DSP stuff.
 
CBM was offering some stuff they did not have the resources to produce
themselves to anybody who wanted to produce them (under a royalty free, but
non-exclusive license).  He (Lew E. or Jim D., I don't remember) named the
Ethernet board and the multi- serial board as examples.
 
The 4091 should be back in production "soon".  Apparently the problem was (as
w/ the 4000T) lack of resouces to produce the thing; especially when beginning
the production of the CD32.
 
RISC could be expected in the Amiga in '95.  (Lew E. again)
 
The CD module for the a1200 _will_ take the cpu slot.  There may be room for
extra FAST RAM on the card, tho.
 
Oh... Lou E. == Lou Eggebrecht (VP of Eng.) and Jim D == Jim Dionne (Pres. of
CBM USA)
 
Henric Jungheim uhenric@mcl.mcl.ucsb.edu
 
 
Also I dunno if you heard there was a company showing LightRAVE.. it let's you
run lightwave withOUT the toaster.  It is a device that attaches to ANY
Amiga.. they supposedly had it runnin on an A500.  I don't know what NewTek
had to say about this i'm waiting for more info on this one.  Thing is You
can't buy a stand along version of Lightwave but you can buy the UPgrade kit
for $795 retail or used for about $500 and apparently anyone can purchase the
upgrade kit.  I guess the people who would be MOST intersted in this is people
who already own the Toaster and want to run just lightwave on another machine
perhaps.  Interesting device nonetheless.  It was going for $300 at the show.
 
 16BiTTER


@endnode
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@node P4-5 "Amiga Report Mailing List"
@toc "menu"


/// Amiga Report Mailing List
    -------------------------


Are you tired of waiting for your local BBS or online service to get
Amiga Report each week?  Have you been spending more money that you want
on long distance phone calls to download it from one of our Distribution
Sites?  If so, have we got a deal for you!

If you have an internet mailing address, you can receive Amiga Report
in UUENCODED form each week as soon as the issue is released.  To be put
on the list, send Email to Amiga-Report-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu.  Your
account must be able to handle mail of any size to ensure an intact copy.
For example, GEnie has a limit of about 40K per message, and most of our
issues are well over that limit.

Please do not send general Email to Amiga-Report-Request, only requests
for subscription additions or deletions (or if you are not receiving an
intact copy).  All other correspondence should be directed to the editor
at ROB_G@Delphi.COM.

Many thanks to Bob Caron for setting this service up for us!

P.S.:  Please be sure to include your Email address in the text of your
request message, it makes adding it to the list much easier.  Thanks!

** 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 immediately.

@endnode
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@node P1-5 "SHI News"
@toc "menu"


/// SHI News:  Virus Warning!                          Here we go again!
    -------------------------



      ATTENTION: FROM MICHAEL ARENDS @ the SHI Regional Virus center

                 P.O. Box 1531,- Lynnwood, WA  98046-1531
              -----------------------------------------------

      A ANNOUNCEMENT FROM ERIK LOVENDAHL SOERENSEN the founder of SHI



                   SAFE HEX INTERNATIONAL VIRUS WARNING 


Please  take care for the new blased "Descriptor 3.0" trojan bomb, which
is being spread worldwide.   Please spread  this  text  file  to your
favorite  BBS's.   Please  write a letter to all your users at your BBS to
tell,  that this text file is called:  "Warn2793.lha", and ask them to read
this  warning.   Please  place  this  txt.file and all future in your virus
killer area at your BBS.

In the above mentioned way you can maybe help a lot of people to avoid to
get a damaged harddisk or bulletin board.


                          Thank  you  very  much.
  

                              *      *      *


ATTENTION SYSOP's 
---------------
Please delete or change the following:

1. Concerning  Virwarn-1.lha 6186 please delete this old file, if uploaded.

2. Only use the new updated version:  Warn2693.lha length 9277 bytes.

3. If  you have a text file 9277 byte called Virwarn-1b.lha or VirWarn2.lha  
   please rename this file 9277 to Warn2693.lha. 

4. The  above is because I try to update you from time to time with the 
   latest virus news. And I try to release it as Warnxxxx.lha, where the
   xxxx are the week (in the 2 first digits), and year (the next 2 digits).


                              *      *      *


HERE YOU HAVE SOME FACTS ABOUT THIS NEW VERY NASTY TROJAN BOMB:
--------------------------------------------------------------

This virus is original spread as descr4.0.lha or -z-speed.lha = 3484 
bytes, from some pirate BBS'es:


  descr4.0.lha  3484 bytes     The  new  DescriptorV4.0  with new POWER 
                               Snap... Run  without  Snap in background 
                               and you will see the new Powersnap 120 % 
                               faster in copy Descriptions.


    -z-speed.lha   3484 bytes    ZENITH MODEM SPEEDER

 
When  unpacked  you  got  a  file:  descr4.0.exe 7016 bytes (When spread
as descr4.0.lha file.  I dont't know anything about the -z-speed.lha yet)


HERE YOU HAVE SOME FACTS:
------------------------

1. There  is  no  docs with this file, but the program looks like a kind of 
   scene-utility or like.

2. The unpacked "Descriptor 3.0" bomb is 7016 bytes. Please remark IT ISN'T 
   ......the 4.0 version, but a 3.0 version!  

3. The "Discriptor 3.0" needs a file named "descriptions.txt" placed in the
   S/Dir, if not the descriptor guru.

4. In this pack you can see how the Discriptor bomb looks, if you run the 2
   files named: @{"DescriptorDump1.IFF" system "Ar_viewer DescriptorDump1.IFF"} and  @{"DescriptorDump2.IFF" system "Ar_viewer DescriptorDump2.IFF"}. 

5. If  executed  the  "Discriptor  bomb"  will  tell,  that it need  a file 
   called "Snap" in memory or tries to load it from the C/Dir., Don't trust 
   this...

6. Infact you Amiga will get the following command: Delete :#? all

7. And OH, NO...your whole harddisk or disk will be deleted!
 
8. This trojan can't infect and be spreaden. It can ONLY DAMAGE IF EXECUTED!



                            *    *    *    *    *



HERE YOU HAVE A LITTLE ASCII SHOT-CUT OF THE DESCRIPTOR BOMB:
------------------------------------------------------------
Descriptor V3.0 User Interface
Search for Group Name
Reload Descriptions
About
Quit
List all Names
View next Logo
Pop Screen back
Window backpop
raw:0/11/640/102/Descriptor V3.0 by Colorboy of Submission 
on 29-JUN-1993/nosize
raw:0/11/640/186/Descriptor V3.0 by Colorboy of Submission 
on 29-JUN-1993/nosize
S:Descriptions.TXT
Cannot find the Text file called 'S:Descriptions.TXT
Press Return to Exit!
Enter new Name! 
Descriptions displayed !! 
HI Cannot allocate Memory!Press Return to Exit!
Sure that File format us correct Press Return to Exit!
There is a further Description 4 diz Group
END OF LIST
Press any key to continue - Q or X to exit
Error opening 'gadtools.library'.
Error opening gadget.
Error opening window.
Hey yo lame bastard! What about kick 2.0?
Either I couldn't open a reply port or find the 'clipboard.device'.
HSnap is not in memory. I try to load it from C-Dir.          
Use underlined characters as hotkeys and follow the directions.
COULDN'T COPY TO CLIPBOARD!        Update by  MCI         
Submission 93
topaz.font
FORM
FTXTCHRS
    ../\......./\....../\..................            Credits
    :/  ¯¯¯¯¯|/  ¯¯¯¯|/  ¯¯¯¯¯|SUBMISSION`:    
    /    |___|   |  _|    |___|:..........:       CODING       BY COLORBOY
    \/\__    \       \/\__    \:THE:SIGN`::        DEZIGN &IDEA BY MCI
    /    |   /   |   /    |   /::..OF....::              
    \  _____/\______/\_____  /:::STYLE`::::       TYPE IN A GROUP NAME NOW!
    `\/  [32m    DESCRIPTOR  [31m  \/B-S::.....:(C)OPYRIGHT SUBMISSION 93

-÷!÷-  Your HD is deleted ... Happy Birthday -MCI-/DCS AHHAHAHAHAHAHA  -÷!÷- 

                              *      *      *

SHI VIRUS KILLER UPDATES
You  can  do  a valuable help to send new viruses to Safe Hex International
for  update  this  new SnapShot killer (SnapShot20.lha), and a lot of other
killers  eg.:   Virus  Checker,  BootX, VT and VirusZ.  Did you for exampel
know,  that  SHI  have  made  the  virus test programming in D-Copy 3.1 and
in the commercial X-Copy program version april 93?


NEW BULLETIN BOARD KILLER
Look  out  for  our  new SHI special BBS Killer "Supervisor", which will be
released within a few months and please help us to get more viruses for the
update of this quite new kind of virus killer. 

Please ..help us with the later mentioned wanted viruses and of course help
yourself  and  your  Amiga  friends  too.  Safe Hex International need your
help to combat against all these nasty viruses.


                             THANK YOU VERY MUCH! 



                          *     *     *     *     *
   


SHI REWARD NOW $5000 - VIRUS PROGRAMMER WANTED!
----------------------------------------------
Do  you know a virus programmer? You can get a reward of $1000 for his name
and  address. The fact is that the law punishes data crime very, very hard.
Please note that your name will be confidential, known only to me.



                    Several  people  have asked me  about our 
                    reward  $  1000  for  the name of a virus
                    programmer,  and  a few have phoned to me
                    or have written to me to get the reward. 

                    One  of  the  askings  was about if other 
                    than Amiga viruses was inclued the reward
                    ?......Of cause we pay the reward for ALL
                    different  kinds  of viruses both PC, MAC 
                    and like.

                    To-day  I  don't  have  got a valid virus
                    announcement. If you know a virus program
                    -mer, therefore please state:

                    1. The  virus  name  (must be wellknown).
                    2. The address and name of the virus pro-
                       grammer.
                    3. The  name  and  the  address  of other 
                       people,  who maybe know that the virus 
                       programmer have spread this virus.
                    4. If  you  know, which way the virus was
                       spread please state this, (spread e.g. 
                       by modem) 
 
                    I can ensure, that your name will be held
                    100 %  confidential,  when we contact the 
                    police, if you want that!

                    Please  contact  me, and  I will send you 
                    more info:

                            SAFE HEX INTERNATIONAL
                            Erik Loevendahl Soerensen
                            Snaphanevej 10
                            4720    Praestoe
                            Denmark

                            Ph.   + 45  55 99 25 12
                            Fax   + 45  55 99 34 98




                          *     *     *     *     *



    N E W   V I R U S   U P D A T E S   F O R   M O D E M   U S E R S:

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

If  you have modem.  Send new viruses direct to the "Safe Hex International
special restricted virus area  J 7  at:



BITS'N'CHIPS BBS: +45 31 31 87 42             Sysop: Henning Larsen
                                              (24 hours - HST 14.4)

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


Or please use our new excellent SHI bulletin board:

SAFE HEX INTERNATIONAL BBS: 

      ISDN    : + 45 87 25 00 03                      Sysop: Benny Petersen
                                                      24 hours support
      DUAL/STD: + 45 86 62 72 16


:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::


                             GOOD VIRUS HUNTING


      *   *   *   THANK YOU VERY, VERY.. MUCH FOR YOUR HELP   *   *   *




                                       KIND REGARDS YOUR AMIGA FRIEND

      
                                          ERIK LØVENDAHL SØRENSEN
                                           SAFE HEX INTERNATIONAL


@endnode
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@node P1-6 "WOCA Report"
@toc "menu"


/// 1993 World of Commodore Show Report
    -----------------------------------
    By Dan Zerkle
    (zerkle@cs.ucdavis.edu)


Part ONE

This report details my trip to the World of Commodore Amiga show held in
Pasadena, California on September 10th, 11th, and 12th. Through interviews
and material, I have a pretty good idea what is going on with Amigas in the
United States just now.  I'll try to get most of that across to you.

This section goes into the detail of my trip.  The next section discusses
the seminars I attended.  The later sections detail the vendors' booths.
There is going to be a lot of that, as I visited, collected materials,
interviewed, and generally schmoozed at every single vendor booth.
Addresses of companies will show up at the end of each of the sections in
which they are mentioned.

I drove in from the south by way of I-15.  Those poor unfortunates who flew
in had to deal with all the traffic between the airport and Pasadena.  From
listening to the reports on the radio, they were lucky to survive.  They
certainly didn't get there any faster than I did, and I drove from San
Diego.  The air was hot and visibly smoggy.  My houseplant named "Jennifer"
was in the car, so I parked in an underground garage to keep it from baking
(don't ask).

I picked up my all-important press badge, bought my tickets, and headed in.
The guards at the door said I didn't need tickets with the badge!  I got my
money back, but I was still annoyed, as I was made to buy a ticket last
year.

I first cruised around getting a feel for the place.  Notable by their
absence were NewTek, Supra, and ASDG.  Commodore had a big booth in the
back, and Centaur had a very splashy booth at the front with audience chairs
and big speakers.  Sunrize had a very noisy booth near the back, and GVP had
their usual monstrosity, complete with a projection monitor to show
cartoons!  There were at least four dealers there, selling stuff like crazy.
There were also several user groups, three magazines, and even a BBS!

The first face I recognized was that of Michael Todorovic, from our UCSB
days together.  He was hanging out with Brad Schenck in their Terra Nova
booth.  I promised him the first interview.  I found Harv Laser next.  This
was important, since we were supposed to share a motel room that night.
Then came a quick cruise through the Commodore booth, where I snagged a
press kit.

I had a feel for the show by this time.  The big news was, as expected, in
video and graphics.  Lots of MPEG boards were out, plus scads of high-end
video cards.  For those who don't know, MPEG is a method of compressing
video frames to digital form.  With the proper hardware and software, these
can be played back in real time.  Because of the compression, much less
disk space is required.  More on this later.  The other big news, of course,
was the US introduction of CD32.  Just behind that was OpalVision's video
stuff.  They have a lot of new product on the way.

By then, it was time for the press conference.  As I waited for it to start,
I was shocked to find that a writer for CCN (a Northern California computer
journal) knew who I was and with whom I was staying that night.  News
travels fast, I guess.  Unfortunately, I lost the magazine and business card
he gave me, so I can't tell you who he was.  However, I'm sure he's reading
this, so I guess you'll find out.  I have to get the address of CCN into
this report.

As the press conference started, John Delulu introduced himself as Irving
Gould, and explained that the soft drinks we were just served were $1, and
the sandwiches were $2.  Either he needed to boost the bottom line a bit, or
the US operations don't approve of what's going on at the international
level.  I never did find out what Delulu's actual position in Commodore was.
Gould (who did not attend the show) is, of course, president and major
stockholder of Commodore International.

After the press conference, I started interviewing.  This meant taking lots
of notes, collecting reams of publicity paper, and looking at wads of
product demonstrations.  About half the time, the interviewee would
suddenly crane his/her neck strangely, look at my badge, and ask, "So, what
magazine are you from?"  The responses were everything from "Use-what?" to
"Oh, so _you're_ Dan Zerkle."  I had to explain the whole concept of Usenet
and comp.sys.amiga.announce to several people.  It seemed that the higher
up in the company these people were, the harder it was to explain.  If
things went well, I recruited the company for electronic announcements.
This involved swapping my home-brew business card with those of the other,
and plugging Portal to anyone without e-mail access.  Next time, I'm going
to find some card stock.  Hopefully, we'll be getting announcements from a
few more commercially oriented companies in the near future.  In particular,
I think I'll be getting stuff from Commodore again.

Axiom had a seminar that afternoon that, on a whim, I attended.  The seminar
was off on the other side of the building.  I had to chase signs around
through another convention to find it.  After that was the big event:
Commodore's keynote address.  The audience seemed _much_ more hostile than
they were at the press conference.  One guy started mouthing off about how
he couldn't get a high-density drive.  Jim Dionne (President of Commodore US)
didn't seem to be aware of the supply problem of stand-alone high density
drives, and the guy in the back didn't know about the mail order firms that
do have it.  Some folks in the audience yelled various helpful comments at
the loudmouth in the back, but he wouldn't shut up, and we wanted to hear
the next question.  I finally yelled at him to "buy one with a 4000 wrapped
around it."  The resulting chuckle from the audience finally clammed him up.

When I checked into the motel that night, I discovered more Amigoids also
checking in.  Of course, I forgot their names (I was done taking notes), but
they seemed to know who I was.  I saw them later at the show.  The three of
them had press badges and a video camera.  They seemed to be interviewing
people at random.  I never did figure out what they were doing.  Maybe
they'll tell me, so I can let you know in my next section.

Harv had a friend by that night.  Again, I wasn't taking notes, but he was
from Sweden and his name was something like Pyotor or Pieter.  Apparently,
this guy is active on IRC (Internet Relay Chat, a multi-user electronic
"talk" forum on the Internet), and is the author of an IRC robot called
"Mama."  He was there to check out OpalVision to see if his company could
use it for video production.

The next day was mostly more interviewing.  I did get to the Opalvision
seminar, though.  It was pretty clear that they intend to compete directly
with NewTek's video toaster.

That night, though, was interesting.  Harv and a bunch of Portal people got
together with anyone they could invite at a nearby noisy restaurant and
generally made it noisier.  About 40 folks showed up, and most introduced
themselves.  I noticed some former Commodore employees.  As Harv said,
there seemed to be a lot of that going around.  Michael Todorovic's
sister (Natasha) managed to embarrass her brother pretty thoroughly.

After that, several of us went back to the motel room for a little party.
It was a different sort of party in that someone was on Portal and IRC
through Harv's "portable" CDTV the whole time, commenting on the party.  I
refuse to confirm or deny any rumors about this party except to say that
yes, I did unstop the toilet when it backed up.  Anyone else at the party
who wants his/her name mentioned can do it him/herself.

Sunday was a lot quieter than Saturday.  I attended a different version of
the keynote address, interviewed the remaining vendors, and cleared out.
Boy was I exhausted.  I took a whole yellow legal pad full of notes (49
big pages).  I had a stack of glossy publicity paper two inches thick.  I
had a sore back, throat, and feet.

Hopefully, this report will be worth all that.  If you attended the show
and think I've missed some important point, feel free to contribute your
own report of that vendor or event.  Also, come to think of it, I missed 
one vendor:  MegageM.  Anyone with a report on their booth is welcome to 
ontribute it.

Next section:  A report on the seminars, addresses, and press conferences.



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



PART TWO:  Commodore's Press Conference, Address, and Booth


This is part 2 of my report from the World of Commodore Amiga
show held in Pasadena, California, on September 10th, 11th, and
12th.  This section details what I learned about Commodore from
their press conference, keynote address seminar, and booth.  I
will continue to post sections each night until I finish.  There
should be at least four more sections.

First, a couple of corrections from last night's report:  The
gentleman I met at the press conference was Robert Du Gaue,
contributing writer/editor for California Computer News.  The
name of the mysterious business executive who pretended to be
Irving Gould is spelled "John DiLullo," not the way I had it
spelled.  He's head of public relations.  Gould's correct title
is in fact "Chairman of the Board of Commodore International."
It was in fact Jim Dionne who made the smart-alec comment at the
press conference about paying for sandwiches.  The friendly guy
from Sweden is named Pjotr Sjostrom.  Not only did he write the
"mama" robot on IRC, he also runs the Aminet site, ftp.luth.se.
Many thanks to Harv Laser for filling in the gaps here.

I could have sworn that it said "Delulu" on that guy's badge,
though.


PRESS CONFERENCE

The press conference was held at 11:00 on Friday the 10th.  The
crowd seemed remarkably subdued, probably because many of them
were still a little worn out from the travel.  Video and film
cameras, laptops, tape recorders, and even ink pens were visible
in the group of about 30 reporters.  The reporters managed to be
remarkably polite except for one from a competing electronic
publication.

Jim Dionne, president of Commodore's US operations, gave most of
the address.  He had a tremendous amount of trouble getting a
microphone clip on his tie.  He then started in with a status
report of the main Commodore products.

The CD32 (note:  the "32" should be superscripted, but that won't
work properly on Usenet) was introduced in the United Kingdom in
July, and has been shipping for a few weeks.  It is being
introduced in the US now, and will shipping by the Christmas
season in limited areas.  The main launch will be at the January
Consumer Electronics Show in January, after which it will be
available in all areas of the United States.

Dionne referred to the A4000 as a "remarkable success."
Apparently, the main problem is one of manufacturing enough of
them.  Apparently, there have been complaints from dealers who
would like to have them in stock.

He said that the A1200 has "done well" in the United States, then
moved on.

Dionne stated that he hopes the CD32 will become the next
Commodore 64.  Considering that the C64 has sold more units than
any other computer in history, I consider that unlikely, but
Dionne clearly considers the CD32 to be the best hope for
Commodore's future.  "We really do feel we've hit a home run
here," he stated.

After Dionne was done, Lew Eggebrecht, Vice President of
Engineering, took the stage to discuss the more technical details
of the CD32.  He took even longer to get the microphone clip
properly attached.

He then started into the technical specifications of the CD32,
calling it a "32-bit game console / interactive multimedia
player."  He emphasised that it solves many of the problems
apparent after developing CDTV.

It has basically the same chip set as the Amiga 1200, with the
same sound and AGA graphics.  The 14mHz 68EC020 it uses is a 32-
bit processor with a small cache that gives a performance of
about four million instructions per second.

It comes with two megabytes of RAM, all accessible by the
graphics and sound systems.  It also has one megabyte of ROM
(opposed to half that in an A1200).  This contains a special
version of AmigaDOS (equivalent to version 3.1).  It also
contains support for the CD file system and the game controller.
One kilobyte of non-volatile RAM (EEPROM, I believe) is used to
store high scores and saved games.

The CD-ROM drive is something very special.  It is a custom
double-speed, multi-session device.  Commodore used a Sony
mechanism and added their own magic, including custom microcode.
Apparently, this allowed the machine to be manufactured for a low
price.  I never did get a good explanation of what "multi-
session" means, other than that you need to in order to support
Kodak's Photo CD standard.

The sound output is either standard Amiga 8-bit, four-voice, or
the CD's 16-bit sound.  There is a mini-headphone jack with
adjustable volume control.  The video output is available as
standard RF, composite, and S-Video mini-DIN.  Apparently, the
S-Video gives a noticably better picture.

The game controllers are hard-wired, instead of the infrared
controller of CDTV.  They hook up to jacks that look like the
standard Commodore 9-pin controller jacks.  However, the
controllers are something new.  They are 11-button controllers
with a circular game pad.  Each controller port can daisy-chain
up to four controllers, for a total of eight on one CD32!  CD32
ships with just one controller.

There is an auxiliary port which is a combination keyboard and
serial connection.  It is shaped just like the keyboard port on
an A4000, so you can hook up a keyboard there for typing.  It
also can handle a serial connection, if it is set up right.

A hidden port is the expansion bus.  It provides all of the
singnal lines from the CPU, the video, and the audio.  You could
basically hook up whatever you wanted here.

A wide variety of formats is supported.  Audio CDs work, of
course.  The Karaoke format is supported, but those in the US
prefer to call it VideoCD.  If you are still into CD+G, you can
view it on CD32.  Commodore went to great pains to make sure that
the top 30 CDTV titles worked, although packages that only work
under version 1.3 of the OS or that don't follow programming
standards are likely to break.  Of course, there is also a new
CD32 format.

Eggebrecht then described the strengths of CD32.

First and formost, he emphasised the mature development
environment available to developers.  All the tools available to
develop games and other applications for Amigas will work to
develop for CD32.  A lot of people have had a lot of practice
programming for the Amiga.

He then mentioned the enthusiastic developer support.  Thirty
different developers are actively producing software for CD32.
These are not just companies that have registered as developers,
but people actually writing things.  Commodore expects 75 titles
to be ready before Christmas.  He did not make it clear if this
included the old CDTV titles or not.

Actually manufacturing software for CD32 is much less expensive
than for the cartridge-based systems.  It costs about one dollar
to produce a CD in quantity, while a cartridge costs from ten to
twenty dollars.  Cartridges require a long order time (four to
six weeks or more) as they are produced by some overseas company
that also sells the console.  Compact discs can be pressed by the
thousands in a single day by a local company, thus making
inventory much easier to manage.  Each cartridge manufactured
requires a large licensing fee.  Commodore's licensing fee is
small ($3 per disc) and need be paid only when the software is
actually sold.  Because of this, Eggebrecht stated that he
expected CD32 software to sell for 40% to 50% of the price of
cartridge-based software.

After finishing with CD32, Eggebrecht detailed some other news
from Commodore.  Some of this was covered in more detail at the
keynote address later in the day.

CD peripherals will be released for the A1200 and A4000.  These
will allow the computers to function as a CD32.

AmigaDOS 3.1 will be available soon.  This will have CD support.

RTG (Commodore's re-targetable graphics standard) is coming along
more slowly than expected.  Its release will be tied to the next-
generation chip set.

Commodore's networking will be available through third-party
licensing.

Engineering has conducted a six-month study on RISC (reduced
instruction set computer) processors.  They have not decided how
to use them, but intend to eventually use RISC technology to
provide higher performance.  They will stick with Motorola's
68000-series chip series until Motorola stops improving it.

The A4000T will be in production withing two months.

Finally, Eggebrecht dropped a few jaws by stating that
Commodore's new factory in the Phillipines is manufacturing
20,000 CD32's per week!

Eggebrecht finished up and introduced John Campbell to give a
demo of CD32.

The demo was a fancy multi-media show put together to impress
developers into producing software for the game console.  It had
dinosaurs, Porches, and jets zipping all over the place doing
their thing.  The jet launched a missile which a voice-over said
was "blowing away" the competition.  It was clearly poking fun at
the other machines.  The speed was quite good.  This complicated
demo loaded in a few seconds and continued with no glitches.

Campbell also had a CDXL preview of a Jurassic Park video game.
The film clips were pretty good, but the game demo looked
terrible, as though it was ripped off from a Nintendo console.
It probably was.  I noticed that one part of the game looked a
lot like Wolfenstein 3D.

At this point, Campbell mentioned that CD32 was good for more
than video games.  The audio-visual capabilities, massive CD-ROM
storage, and low price point makes it ideal for kiosk
applications.

Then, Campbell demonstrated the prototype MPEG module by playing
a Bon Jovi video from CD.  I was, quite frankly, startled.  The
picture quality was excellent--almost indistinguishable from
cable broadcast.  It was clearly better than VHS video.  The
sound was also excellent.  It was very close to audio CD, and
(again) spectacularly better than VHS audio.  A single CD can
hold up to 74 minutes of MPEG video, meaning that two of them can
hold a movie, for much less space and price than a VHS tape.  The
CD32 can overlay graphics on top of the MPEG picture, so MPEG
video could be used in many applications other than simple
playback.  As it was, the unit simply put a small logo in the
corner of the screen.

At this point, Eggebrecht and Dionne opened things up for
questions.  Here are some of the interesting answers:

The CD32 hardware is perfectly capable of supporting Kodak's
Photo-CD.  However, Phillips and Kodak are partners in a
competing product.  Commodore has not been able to get a license
for the technology.  Commodore expects to reach an agreement
soon.

The MPEG add-on module uses chips from C-cubed.  The price is not
decided yet, but will be less than the Phillips module, which is
expected to be about $250.

The sound from the MPEG disks is standard compressed MPEG sound.
It is like the mini-CD standard.

The software bundle included with CD32 will depend on the
country.  It is expected to change with different promotions and
seasons.

All of the software needed to run MPEG disks is included on the
MPEG hardware module.  Nothing additional is required to play
MPEG disks.

The US packaging for CD32 will be in English, French, and
Spanish.  Apparently, this has nothing at all to do with the
proposed North American Free Trade Agreement.

The motherboard is ready for the A4000T.  It should be available
sometime near the end of the year.  The MPEG module, on the other
hand, will be available in late November.

Advertising will be in the form of cable television spots and the
usual magazine ads, including video game magazines.  Commodore is
thinking of running infomercials!

The regions in which the CD32 will receive its limited launch in
the US this year have not been decided.

The expansion connecter will be able to accept expanded RAM, all
of which will be FAST RAM.


KEYNOTE ADDRESS

James Dionne and Lew Eggebrecht held the keynote address Friday
afternoon.  The crowd held mostly users, so it was much larger
then the press conference, and also noticably hostile!  Dionne
again had trouble attaching his microphone.  He commented, "These
things are as difficult to use as a DOS machine!"  After that, he
was considerably less upbeat than he appeared at the press
conference.  His presentation was quite serious.

First, Dionne presented a twelve-month review of business
activity since September of last year.  It was not good.  He
proceeded to list all the problems that Commodore has had,
partially blaming them on the general shakedown the the personal
computer industry.  He did say, though, that "a lot of this is
history."  Here is a list of the problems:

* The economic slowdown in Europe.  Commodore does 80% of its
business in Europe, so that hurt sales.

* The strengthening of the US dollar.  Commodore's sales are
reported in US dollars, so even if profits go up in a foreign
currency, they may go down once converted to dollars.

* Erosion of PC margins in Europe.  A considerable amount of
Commodore's business used to be in selling IBM PC compatible
computers in Europe.  The clone price wars reached Europe, and
the prices and profitablity of the PC's dropped.

* Write-downs in inventory of A2000's and A3000's.  Once the
A4000 and A1200's came out, the A500's, A2000's and A3000's were
worth considerably less.  Writing off this value resulted in a
considerable loss.  The results can be seen in the very low
prices available now for new A3000's.

That said, Dionne said that Commodore has "taken all the bad
medicine," and outlined plans for the future.  The strategy
involves the following:

* Major restructuring and inventory changes.  This is a nice way
of saying that they fired a whole lot of people.

* Commodore intends to make a profit in the US this quarter.

* More emphasis on the Amiga.  This means that they will drop the
low-margin European sales of PC clones and concentrate on the
proprietary Amiga hardware.

* All subsidiaries have reduced overhead to free up revenue for
marketing.  Again, they fired a lot of people.

* New products.  This is mainly the CD32, but more will be coming
out in the next year.

* New plant in the Philippines.  Apparently, there were a lot of
difficulties getting things started up, resulting in a shortage
of A4000 machines.  Now, the glitches have been cleared up, and
it is producing large quantities of CD32's and A4000's.

* A new emphasis on profitability.

* All US sales are through five distributors.  There are no
direct dealers any more.  This lets Commodore worry less about
distribution work and results in less overhead in supporting the
direct dealers.

* After-sale service has been out-sourced to another company.

* Warehousing and shipping has also been out-sourced, resulting
in lower cost.

* Commodore, a smaller company now, can now concentrate on its
core business.  That is, making and selling fancy multimedia
computer like the A4000.

* They intend to stress the markets of video, graphics, and
kiosks.

* They are now prepared to work harder on the low-end market.

Dionne then gave some more information about the A4000T.  It has
two video slots instead of just one.  It also has both IDE and
SCSI-2 interfaces built onto the motherboard.  Otherwise, it is
mainly a bigger A4000.

He then discussed the CD32.  This was mostly a repeat of the
press conference.

Lew Eggebrecht gave a status report of ongoing engineering work.

Work on the AAA chip set is proceeding well.  Commodore has
actually produced a silicon prototype and displayed 24-bit
graphics.  It has bugs, of course, but no fatal ones.
Engineering intends to produce an updated prototype each month
until it is done.  They expect to sell hardware using the chip
set by the middle of next year.  The AAA chip set will feature
much higher performance than the AGA set.  See last year's report
for a description of planned specs for the set.

The 4091 SCSI-2 controller will be shipping within 6-8 weeks.
There does not seem to be much interest in this product.  The
SCSI-2 controller will be included in the A4000T, and in later
versions of the A4000.

The DSP project has been suspended.  This project could give a
considerable amount of signal processing power to the Amiga,
resulting (mainly) in vastly improved sound.  It was suspended
because the engineering department was smaller and most people
were concentrating on CD32.

Eggebrecht then explained that a smaller company can not handle
all the engineering projects.  Commodore intends to give away
their developed technology for FREE to third-party developers on
a non-exclusive license!  That means that Commodore has already
invented several products.  If you have a company, you can sell
those products under your own name.  All you have to do is figure
out how to manufacture, package, market, and ship them.  You
don't have to develop them.  He then gave a list of projects that
Commodore wishes to give to third-party developers:

* scan converter board

* networking software

* DSP

* 4091

* multi-port board

* ethernet adapter

He then moved on to a couple more projects.

CD peripherals, which will allow an A1200 or A4000 to run CD32
games, will be available near the end of the year.

RTG development has been slowed down, due to lack of staff.  It
will be released at the same time as the AAA chip set, although
it will work on other chip sets.

Networking is mostly done.  Commodore is looking for a third
party to take over.

AmigaDOS 3.1 was completed last week.  It includes a SCSI file
system (I think he meant "CD file system"), support for CD32, a
better PostScript driver, and many bug fixes.

As time was running over, the question/answer period was very
short.  The only interesting point was that Commodore has no
plans to produce a portable, and that they do not intend to
license their chip set to anyone who might do it for them.


COMMODORE'S BOOTH

Commodore had a booth way in the back.  It was very lively, full
of CD32's, A4000's, and a few A1200's.  They also were demoing
the OpalVision and the Toaster 4000.

The CD32's were mostly set up to play games.  They also had one
set up to play music videos from an MPEG disc.  I particularly
liked one video by Enya.  The games looked pretty sharp.  One
machine was also showing Grolier's electronic encyclopedia.  You
could pull up some nice digitized pictures of various animals.
Very impressive.

I got a chance to grab a CD32 controller.  It had a very nice,
solid feel to it.  The buttons were different colors and sizes,
with start and pause buttons.  Then some kid grabbed it back to
play a game.  They were having a good time.  The adults seem to
like the football and pinball games.

A prototype of an A4000T was on display.  The front panel looked
very nice and professional.  There was no side panel, so I stuck
my head inside.  It had room for up to five half-height 5-1/4
inch external devices so you can have two floppy drives, a CD-ROM
reader, a tape drive, and a Syquest, if you like.  There was also
lots of space inside, but I didn't see any obvious place to mount
internal devices.  I found five Zorro 3 slots.  Two of these
lined up with video slots.  The rest lined up with PC-AT style
ISA slots.  There was also an extra ISA slot on the side that
didn't line up with anything else.


ANALYSIS

All of this gave me a few opinions about Commodore.  The
spectacular losses in revenue and share price have alerted
management that something needs to be done.  I heard executives
say more than once that if they kept going as they had been, they
would go out of business in the next six months, which wouldn't
help anyone.  Instead of letting that happen, they fired a lot of
people to make sure that they had a smaller, less expensive
company to run.  Now, all they have to do is to sell a lot of
machines.

Commodore marketing still needs some work.  They do not intend to
run _any_ broadcast television ads.  They are not clear where
they are going to sell CD32.  They have not ramped up for full
distribution before the all-important Christmas sales season.
Still, the infomercial idea is a good one.  What's more, if they
can get enough large stores to pick up the product at CES, it
will do well.  We'll have to see how they handle it.

Commodore has bet the farm on CD32.  They fired many engineers
and put most of the rest on getting CD32 out the door.  There are
no other real new products coming any time soon.  Commodore has
put all its eggs in one basket now, so CD32 better sell or the
cows are coming home to roost.

Or something like that.

It might work.  CD32 is a really good product.  The suggested
price of $399 is much, much better than the original price of
CDTV.  Commodore is aggressively pursuing game developers, and it
looks like there will quickly be more games for CD32 than for any
other CD-ROM game console.  Manufacturing is not a problem, and
the things are selling like crazy in Europe.

I noticed that the company really is smaller.  Many of the people
at other booths used to work for Commodore.  Some of the folks at
the Commodore booth itself were former Commodore employees hired
just for the duration of this show.  Still, they seemed dedicated
and attentive.  When I explained my problem with Sue West getting
fired, Dionne directed me to someone who might be able to get me
electronic versions of press releases.

MPEG on CD has tremendous potential.  The picture and sound is
the best you could expect from most television sets.  I did
manage to find a couple glitches, but only because I was looking
for them.  A couple CD's would be much less expensive to produce
than a standard video laser disc (typically $100).  Since it is
digital, it won't wear out like VHS tapes often do.  The total
$650 price tag is a bit steep for movie watching, though it might
be worth it if you consider the games as well.  Being able to
select music videos from CD, or to skip around a movie without
that bothersome rewinding has a lot of appeal as well.  I know,
given the choice, I would rather rent a movie on CD than on VHS.

If you are the daring type, now would be a really good time to
buy stock in Commodore.  It is now around 3 1/2 dollars per
share, where it used to be $12.  If CD32 works out, the price
will double in the next year.  If it doesn't, Commodore will
probably go bankrupt and the stock will be nearly worthless.  It
will certainly make life exciting....

Tomorrow:  Chapter 3, Seminars by Axiom and Opalvision, with the
first few booth interviews.

Addresses:

CCN (California Computer News)
9719 Lincoln Village Drive, Ste. 500
Sacramento, California, 95827

Commodore Business Machines
1200 Wilson Drive
West Chester, PA  19380
(215) 431-9100


@endnode
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@node P1-7 "Woca report - Matt Guthrie"
@toc "menu"


/// Usenet Repost:  WOCA Report
    ---------------------------
    By Matt Guthrie
    (mguthrie@plum.az05.bull.com)



First off, let me state that I thought long and hard about which
newsgroup to post this in.  Not all of it is directly hardware-related,
but I wanted a big audience, and I refuse to subscribe to .advocacy,
so I chose .hardware.  I thought about .announce, but I couldn't
find Dan Zerkle's email address, and all the articles have expired
at our site, so I couldn't look it up.  If he wants to post this, or
if Dan Barrett wants to post this to comp.sys.amiga.reviews, it's not
a problem.

I only attended Saturday, and only attended the two seminars by CBM:
one about Commodore's plans, and the second about the FMV card for
the CD32.  I took detailed notes at the first one, but left my
notebook in the car when we went for lunch, and didn't have it for
the second one.

The first seminar was by Jim Dionne, president of C= US, and Lew
Eggebrecht, VP Engineering for C=.

Jim started out by recapping C='s performance over the last year.
Obviously it wasn't good, but he gave some good reasons.  First
of all, 80% of C='s business is in Europe, and the worldwide recession
hit Europe hard last year, as it did the US in 90-91.  The dollar
rose against the British pound and the Deutsche mark, so that meant
less money for C= (because most of their business is in non-US
currencies).  European PC margins finally began eroding as they did
in the US a couple of years ago.  Due to this, C= had large inventory
writedowns and other accounting losses.  Jim stressed that most of
the loss was not an operating loss, and intimated that the company
is still healthy operating-wise.

He then explained the company's re-org plan.  C= will de-emphasize PC's
and concentrate on Amigas, since that's their area of expertise.  Like
most companies, they are reducing staff, consolidating, and
streamlining their operations to reduce costs.  A few major changes will
be:

   1)  changing the current policy of a distribution center in each
       country to having 2 or 3 major distribution centers for all of
       Europe,
   2)  Consolidating manufacturing to their new plant in the Phillippines,
   3)  their new and exciting products.

Specific to the US, Jim said:

   1)  C= will no longer sell direct to dealers -- they'll sell to a
       few regional distributors only.  This will allow them to
       streamline paperwork, accounting, etc.
   2)  They've out-sourced their service program.  Jim admitted that
       C='s service has had problems, and out-sourcing it to a company
       that only focuses on service will improve it.
   3)  C= will emphasize the 4000 in the video and animation markets.
       The 1200 is a tough sell against 386/486 systems, and while
       not abandoning the line, they're not going to put much behind
       it.

Some other notes:

   1)  C= will *really* stress the CD32, not just as a game machine, but
       for kiosk and corporate training/presentation systems.
   2)  The 4000T will be out before year-end.  Features include 2 video
       slots, SCSI on the motherboard, 5 Z3 slots, and 5 drive bays.
   3)  The CD32 will be introduced on a limited scale in the US in Nov.
       (One of the main reasons is C= can't build enough to satisfy the
       projected demand -- the Phillipines plant is producing 20,000 each
       week.)  The full-scale media blitz will begin with the January CES
       show in Las Vegas.  MSRP will be under $400 for the base unit.
   4)  The CD32 will be sold "everywhere Sega is sold."  That means
       Wal-Mart and similar stores.  Jim said they were considering
       some new advertising ideas, and specifically mentioned 30-minute
       info-mercials as a distinct possibility.
   5)  The CD32-compatible add-on CD drives for AGA Amigas will be
       available after the introduction of the FMV card for the CD32
       in November.
   6)  The cost of a CD32 + FMV card will be less than a 3DO system.


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


Lew Eggebrecht's talk was composed of two parts:  the CD32, and the status
of development projects at C=.

The CD32 project began at the same time as the 1200.  C= learned a lot
from CDTV, one of the most important of which was if you advertise it
as being able to do all this stuff (as CDTV was), consumers get confused.
So, with CD32, they designed another highly-expandable system, but aren't
going to tell consumers about it.  It will be advertised as a game
machine, period.  (Until more software/hardware comes out, then they can
tell consumers, "By the way, your CD32 can do that and that and that,
too.")  Also, C= spent a lot of time asking customers, developers,
etc., what they wanted, and Lew thinks they've done it.

Since it's being billed as a games machine, it has to be competitive
with Sega.  At it's intro price of #299UK, it's less than the Sega CD
unit, and approximately 15X more performant.

Here are some technical specs:

 -- AGA chipset, Motorola 68EC020, 2MB RAM (Chip), 1MB ROM (ADOS 3.1).
 -- Sony CD mechanism with C= microcode (2X multisession-capable)
     (that means it can read PhotoCD's, but no Kodak license yet :( )
 -- 1KB EEPROM for hiscore tables, bookmarks, etc.
 -- 4 voice Amiga stereo, 16-bit CD stereo, stereo line out, headphone
    jack w/volume control
 -- RF out (built-in modulator), composite out, S-Video out (Lew said
    that S-Video out gives dramatic video improvement)
 -- with the AGA chipset, every pixel can be a different color at
    standard TV resolutions.  (I suppose that's not the case if you're
    using S-Video.)
 -- Aux. port with 2 serial ports, compatible with the Amiga keyboard.
    Possible add-ons include infrared boxes, virtual reality periphs.
 -- Expansion bus in back for 1 card.  Contains full CPU bus, full
    video bus, full audio bus.  (The MPEG card needs all of those.)
 -- 2 controller ports, with the capability to daisy-chain 8
    controllers per port.  That's right.  You could have a 16-player
    game.  BTW, the unit comes with 1 controller.  Additional ones
    will be sold separately.

Let's talk software.  The CD32 will play audio CD's, CD+G CD's, some
CDTV CD's, and Karaoke (aka VideoCD) CD's, in addition to CD32 titles.
One thing he mentioned is that a company is currently putting all of
the classic Star Trek titles on VideoCD for sale next year.  (heh heh,
cool, heh heh.)

Regarding the CDTV titles, Lew stated that 130 titles were made for CDTV.
C= researched the 30 most popular titles, and bent over backward to
make sure that those 30 work on CD32.  I requested a list from a C=
person; I'll post it when it gets here.

For a change, C= didn't have to pay developers to develop for CD32.
People were so excited about the new platform, they developed on their
own.  Lew said that there *will* be 50 titles available by Christmas,
and the actual number will probably be closer to 75.  One reason
C= is excited about their prospects for CD32 is production costs.
Cartridge cases cost about $10-$20 each, and since they're burned-in
PROMs, they require a 6-8 week lead time.  CD's on the other hand,
cost about $1 each, and need no lead time -- mastering houses can
pump out 20,000 CD's every day.  In the final analysis, producing
CD-games costs about 1/2 what producing cartridge games does.

OK.  I lied in the first post.  There will be 3 parts to this article.
The next part will be the status of other projects at C=, and my
impressions of the FMV card.


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


Lew finished his talk by discussing some of the ongoing projects at C=.

AAA chipset:

   First pass of silicon has been completed, and they had the OS up and
   running, "blitting around 24-bit objects" and such.  Second silicon
   pass is scheduled for this month.  C= expects to have a full-functioning
   AAA Amiga system by 1Q94.  Systems could be shipped by 3Q94, unless
   multiple more silicon passes are required.

4000 Tower:

   Production of this system has been delayed by the rampup of CD32.  There
   was a system (open to view) at the Commodore booth with a big sticker
   saying something like, "This product has not yet received FCC approval
   -- Not for Sale."  As I stated in part 1, they expect it to ship by
   year-end.

4091 SCSI-2 card:

   My notes get sketchy.  Something about "negotiations with 3rd parties
   not yet completed".  C= is restarting production and the 4091 should
   be available in 6-8 weeks.

DSP board:

   Project put on hold by CD32.  Will be restarted after Jan 1.

CD add-on for AGA Amigas:

   Will ship before year end, maybe slightly after Christmas.

RTG:

   Will be coupled with new AAA system, mid-late next year.

Networking:

   This was a little distressing.  C= is willing to give their
   networking technology away to a 3rd party, basically for free.
   Seems like they have no networking expertise left in-house
   and are counting on someone else to take up the slack.  If
   I only had a few hundred thousand to start my own company....

AmigaDOS 3.1:

   Available 6-8 weeks.  First release will be for A4000, later
   for older machines, but it will have a different nomenclature
   (i.e., it won't be called AmigaDOS 3.1).

RISC:

   First, Lew rhetorically asked, "Why RISC?"  He answered himself
   by saying that it would add graphics accelleration, i.e., realtime
   3D rendering, and multiple OS support like Windows NT and UNIX.  He
   said that C= has not made a final decision yet, and listed some
   of the choices, with pros and cons.  He did say that the Alpha
   was probably beyond C='s desired price point, and hinted that
   PA-RISC (by Hewlett-Packard) looks attractive due to their good
   multimedia support.  (My bet is this is the one C= picks.)

   He stressed that C= will continue to support the Motorola line
   and AmigaDOS, and that anything for RISC would be in addition to
   AmigaDOS.  Target for an Amiga RISC system is 1995.

   Regarding the Motorola line, Lew said he met with execs at Motorola
   last week, and support of the 68060 is assured, and Motorola even
   said they will continue to provide stuff beyond the 68060.


[end of Dionne/Eggebrecht seminar]


Well, this article is getting a little long, but rather than break it
into four parts, I'll just forge ahead and talk about the FMV card.

The second seminar I attended was by Jeff Porter and ??? (whoops, I
forgot his name) from C= International.  Let me first say that Jeff
Porter is absolutely hilarious and I'd really enjoy working for him
(yeah, right, like that's ever gonna happen).

As I said in part one, I didn't take notes at this, so there's a lot
I've forgotten.  What I do remember are the demos of the board.  I
can sum up my impressions in 3 words:  Absolutely Freakin' Amazing.
They had a demo CD with 3 music videos on it:  Bon Jovi's "Blaze of
Glory", one by Enya, and Seal's "Killer".  They had a projection-TV
setup, and I'm serious -- you could not tell it wasn't broadcast.
Full-screen, full-motion video.  The presenters pointed out artifacts
like the sun reflecting off Jon Bon Jovi's guitar, but it was *really*
nit-picky.  You have to know what you're looking for, and probably
have the original next to it to differentiate.

The interface for the VideoCD is very similar to the CDTV audio
CD interface.  It's a little cleaner, though, and the "compact disc
digital audio" logo is a nice touch.

They spent some time talking about MPEG and VideoCD technology, which
bored most everyone.  The demos were the thing, and they were mind-
blowing.


Some final thoughts.  There have been a lot of threads about C=
is doomed, C= can't do anything right, etc. (and I don't mean just
on .advocacy, because I don't read that one).  Well, from what I saw
at WOCA, C= is doing some things right.  It seemed very clear to
me that they're betting the farm on CD32 (Jim Dionne said they
expect it to be the next C64, which sold 17 million units).  If
you guys want to save C=, buy a CD32 and tell your friends
(not just your Amiga friends, but your Sega/Nintendo-playing
friends) to buy one, as well.   Stop whining about, "will it plug
into my 1200/4000/3000?"  Buy it to replace your Nintendo.  Invite
your friends over after you get one so they can see all the cool
games you have, then tell them it's less than the Sega CD system,
and *way* less than 3DO.  Try doing something constructive to help,
rather than whining all the time.

                                   Matt


@endnode
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@node P1-8 "Newton MessagePad"
@toc "menu"


/// The Newton MessagePad:  A First Look
    ------------------------------------
    By Robert Glover


Apple has broken new ground with the introduction of its Newton MessagePad,
a neat little computer with handwriting recognition and the ability to be
a veritable office for the briefcase, or the ideal accessory for the student!

The following text is taken from Apple's own spec sheet:

"The Newton MessagePad is the first in a family of communications assistants
from Apple.  By combining Newton Intelligence technology with sophisticated
communications capabilities, the Newton MessagePad helps you stay in touch
with friends and colleagues, organize your life, and keep track of your
ideas.  You can take notes.  Make a quick sketch.  Format and print letters.
Share and synchronize information with your personal computer.  Send a fax.
Receive pages and messages.  Tap into online services or electronic mail.
Even exchange business cards with a colleague via built-in infrared tech-
nology.  And wherever you go, the powrful, under-one-pound personal digital
assistant goes too, tucked in your pocket or briefcase.

"As easy to use as pencil and paper, the Newton MessagePad lets you leave
your notes handwritten or reads your handwriting and transforms it into
typed text.  If you prefer, you can type words using an on-screen keyboard.
It even cleans up your rough sketches.  And as time goes by, it learns about
you, your handwriting, and the way you work.

"Because the Newton MessagePad is designed to know how you work, it can help
you work smarter.  For example, the Newton MessagePad can find a phone number
and dial the phone for you, fax a note, format a letter, and even setup a
lunch appointment.

"The Newton MessagePad comes with built-in applications that include a note-
pad, to-do list, datebook, and name file to get you started.  When you're
ready, you can customize your Newton MessagePad to include Apple and third-
party software and hardware additions as well."


Features
--------

Built-in applications:

 · Let you capture, organize, and communicate all kinds of information.

 · Allow free-form notetakeing -- mixing ink handwriting, printed text, and
   graphics all on the same page.

 · Turn printed or cursive handwriting into typed text or leave it as ink.

 · Track tasks via a to-do list that helps you assign priorities, lets you
   check off completed tasks, and then updates the next day's list for you.

 · Let you create name files with a familiar, business-card look and feel
   that help you store information on hundreds of colleagues and friends.

 · Help you plan monthly, weekly, and daily calendars.

 · Include and assortment of information and productivity tools (such as
   time-zone maps, calculator, and currency-exchange formulas).


Communications capabilities:

 · Send notes or messages, schedule appointments, or exchange business cards
   with other nearby Newton users via built-in infrared beaming technology.

 · Print formatted letters and notes to serial and parallel printers.

 · Send faxes anywhere with an optional compact fax modem.

 · Receive and store wireless paging messages with the optional Newton
   Messaging Card.

 · Share information and keeps files synchronized and updated with personal
   computers running Microsoft Windows or with Macintosh computers (requires
   Newton Connection Kit).

 · Tap into electronic mail and online services with an optional compact
   fax modem.


Intelligent assistance:

 · Knows how you work and actively assists you in completing tasks.

 · Assists you in making phone calls, faxing, finding information, sending
   electronic mail, printing, scheduling meetings, and completing to-do
   lists.


Technical Specifications
------------------------

Newton Intelligence:

 · Newton Recognition Architecture
   - Recognizes handwriting:  printed, cursive or mixed word recognition
   - Recognizes graphics and the inherent symmetry in objects

 · Newton Information Architecture
   - Object-oriented data storage optimized for storing, finding, and linking
     small pieces of information
   - Easy creation of custom forms applications via the flexible graphical
     view toolbox
   - Easy data sharing using standard tags
   - Object-oriented database provides flexible view of data

 · Newton Communications Architecture
   - Provides single interface for all communications services
   - Integrated to support easy communications services
   - Designed in modules to suppoort new communications abilities

 · Intelligent Assistance Architecture
   - Assists users in completing repetitive tasks done in multiple
     categories, including communications, scheduling, finding, and
     reminding fuctions
   - Contains smart defaults to reduce complexity
   - Functions across applications transparently
   - Allows extensions by third-part developers

 · Newton Hardware Architecture
   - ARM 610 processor at 20 MHz
   - Apple custom system ASIC
   - Low-power, reflective LCD display (336 x 240 pixels)
   - Transparent tablet with passive pen
   - 4 MB of ROM
   - 640K of RAM
   - One PCMCIA type 2 card slot
   - LocalTalk compatible serial port
   - Low-power, half-duplex, infrared transceiver (9600 baud at 1 meter)


Communications Capabilities:

 · Print to Apple LaserWriters and StyleWriters with serial cable and to
   popular parallel printers using Newton Print Pack.

 · Fax with optional fax modem (9600 baud fax send, automatic cover-page
   generation, post-formatting).

 · "Beam" via infrared technology (send notes, name cards, appointments at
   9600 baud with 1-meter range)

 · Handle telephony needs with assistance for intelligent auto dialing
   (DTMF or modem dialing).

 · Receive and store wireless messages using optional Messaging Card

 · Send and receive NewtonMail to other Newtons, PC's and Macintosh
   computers with optional modem.


Size and Weight:

 · 7.25" H x 4.5" W x 0.75" D

 · Weight:  0.9 lb. (0.4 kg)


Operating Environment:

 · Temperature:  0° to +40° C

 · Storage temperature:  -20° to +60° C

 · Humidity range:  20% to 95% RH noncondensing


Power Requirements:

 · Power adapter:
   - Universal, 100 to 240 VAC, 50/60 Hz
   - Four plug configurations:  US, UK, Europe and Australia

 · Battery type:  Alkaline or nickel-cadmium
   - Alkaline output:  6.0V DC, 1.1 WH (nominal)
   - Nickel-Cadmium output:  4.8V DC, 200 mAh (nominal)

 · Lithium Cell:  CR2032
   - Operating range:  3V (nominal)

 · Power source:  AC adapter (included) or four AAA batteries (included)
   and optional Rechargable Battery Pack


System Requirements:

 · Works with personal computers running Microsoft Windows; requires
   connector cable and version 3.0 or later.

 · Works with Macintosh personal computers; requires connector cable and
   System 7.01 or later.


Printer Support:

 · Built-in printer support for the Apple StyleWriter and StyleWriter II.

 · All Apple PostScript laser printers from the LaserWriter Plus and up.

 · The Apple Personal LaserWriter printer.

 · Works with most popular PC printers, including the Hewlett-Packard
   LaserJet, DeskJet, Cannon BubbleJet, and Epson LQ and FX using the
   Print Pack option.


Fax Machine Support:

 · Supports Group 3 fax machines.


For more information, contact:

Apple Computer, Inc.
20525 Mariani Avenue
Cupertino, CA  95014
408-996-1010
TLX 171-576


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



Those of you that are still with me probably agree that this is one neat
little item!  I was able to play with one for about fifteen minutes.  That
wasn't nearly enough to really get acquainted with it, but I did learn a lot
about it.

The handwriting recognition is amazing!  There are preference settings that
allow the primary user (and several guest users) to prepare it for individual
styles of handwriting.  The speed at which the conversion is performed can be
adjusted from slowly and accurately, to quickly and less-accurately.  I had
it set fairly close to slowly and accurately.  It understood what I was
writing about 95% of the time, and took about four seconds to convert a word.
The settings can be tailored to printing, cursive, or a mixture thereof.
Since my writing is chicken scratch at best, I chose the latter, which worked
well.  Each user can go through and choose which way he or she draws each
letter, to allow Newton to more quickly and efficiently recognize their style.
For example, some people print a capital A as "A", whereas some may print it
in its cursive form.

Newton has built-in sound, though hardly modern.  The user can select from
Beep, Chime, Trill and Chord beep sounds, and set the volume level on-screen.
Same for the contrast.  The screen is very easily readable.  I think it's an
active-matrix screen, though I wouldn't swear to it.  The resolution is very
nice, but I'm sure future versions will have even better modes, and eventually,
Color.

My only real beef with the Newton is that it has only one PCMCIA slot.  There
are so many cool things coming out on PCMCIA cards that one slot is very
limiting.  My main use of a Newton would be as a portable modem machine.  But
that would wipe out my only PCMCIA slot.  Once the system matures, it'd be nice
to be able to pop in a PCMCIA hard drive, or a Flash-RAM card to save extra
data.  Or a network card.  I bet future versions of Newton will incorporate
similar features.

Also, while I'm at it, I don't like all of the extras that must be purchased.
The Print Pack, the Messaging Card (there goes the slot again), and so forth
bring an already expensive machine ($929 was what my local dealer wanted) to
an even higher price.  Heaven forbid you should drop it!  And insure it WELL.

I don't want to sound too hard on it.  I'm not.  I'm in love with the thing,
but at nearly $1000, I can have a nice 386SX notebook, which, for my
purposes, is a much better choice.



@endnode
***************************************************************************
@node P4-2 "Portal"
@toc "menu"

/// Portal:  A Great Place For Amiga Users
    --------------------------------------



                   Portal Communications' Amiga Zone

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

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+ $10 rate prevails at smaller US Cities
# PCPursuit is a service of US Sprint. Portal is a PCPursuit
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   Portal Direct 9600/14400 bps service is availble for both USR HST
   modems, and any V32/V32.bis modems. There are dozens of direct-dial
   high speed lines into Portal.  No busy signals!

   SprintNet 9600bps service is V.32 modem protocol only.
   Tymnet 9600bps services is V.32 modem protocol only.
   Again, Portal does NOT surcharge high speed modem users!

   Portal subscribers who already have an account on an Internet-capable
   system elsewhere, can use that system's "telnet" program
   to connect to Portal for $0.00 an hour. That's right ZERO. From anywhere
   in the world.  If you're in this category, be sure to ask the Portal 
   reps, when you signup, how to login to Portal from your existing
   Internet account.  

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!]

That number again:  408-973-9111.

Portal Communications accepts MasterCard, Visa, or you can pre-pay any
amount by personal check or money order.  The Portal Online System is
a trademark of Portal Communications. 



@endnode
***************************************************************************
@node P1-9 "A.M.I.G.A."
@toc "menu"


/// Another Moronic, Inane and Gratuitous Article
    ---------------------------------------------
    by Chad Freeman
    (cjfst4+@pitt.edu or cjfst4@cislabs.pitt.edu -- Internet)
    (cfreeman -- BIX)


      A.M.I.G.A. presents an AMTL (Amiga Mis-Testing Labs) review of:

                           IMPLANT by Jim Drieux

GENERAL INFO

IMPLANT is a general-purpose emulator board that is supposed to emulate
everything at some nebulous point in the future.  As of this writing
however, the only emulation availible is for the timex Sinclair 1000. The
version of IMPLANT used for this review is the IMPLANT 1200 (beta version)
with IMPLANT software version 9993.456 rumdinger.  AMTL received this card
after several letter-bombs and phone threats to Jim Drieux's personal
residence.  We thank Jim very much for his prompt response (and yes, we will
release your daughter).  Since this is a beta version of the IMPLANT 1200,
none of the following information will even be remotely accurate, but its
this kind of rumor-mongering that sells magazines, as we all know, so on
with it!

INSTALLATION

The IMPLANT 1200 measures .34 hogsheads by 16 rod-acres by -9.2 bushel-feet.
This makes it very awkward for anyone who has the Cray II board
already installed in the PCMCIA slot of the Amiga.  However, we found that
taking a hack-saw to the IMPLANT board and using the transporter to
metamorph the Cray II board into the shape of an ostrich not only allows
both to be used in the 1200, but also improves the MIPS on the Cray II board
by a factor of 10.  Unfortunately the droppings from the Cray II board are
quite smelly, but this is a small price to pay for the power of both boards.
After the above modifications, the IMPLANT board easily fit into the PCMCIA
slot.  Unfortunately the documentation does not mention that once installed,
the IMPLANT 1200 fuses itself into the slot, and can only be removed by E.T.
with his little light-up finger doodad.  Jim has been contacted about this
problem and assures us that the final version will be removable not only by
E.T. but by simply buying a new 1200.

Once the actual board is installed, one must go through an extensive 2
month software installation process.  AMTL recommends a rigorous cross-
raining course before this process, as it can be quite draining.  The
software also reconfigures your computer in such a way that, when turned on,
a small electric shock is generated in Bill Gates' office chair.  If enough
people buy this product, A.M.I.G.A. has promised to sponser a "simultaneous
turn-on event," which will hopefully provide enough voltage for Mr. Gate's
teeth to fall out.  Anyway, once the installation is complete, the product is
almost ready to boot up.  First, however, one needs to acquire a working
Timex Sinclair 1000 (or Casio data-bank watch, which uses the same
technology), rip the ROMs out, and plug them into the IMPLANT.  After
checking several states, AMTL finally found  a Sinclair 1000 being used as
a paperweight in a garbage disposal company, and installed the ROMs.  We were
ready to boot up.

RUNNING IMPLANT

IMPLANT fully multitasks with the A-MAX cartridge, but unfortunately not
with the Amiga operating system, except on the third Tuesday of every month
with an A in it.  This is an inconvenience AMTL would like removed, but we
understand the extensive technology involved and are more than happy to
settle with this restriction.  After practising the voodoo rituals described
in the manual, AMTL booted up the IMPLANT.  Several days and a few million
killowatt-hours later, we were presented with the completely unfamiliar
Timex-Sinclair startup screen.  Unfortunately, the text of the screen was in
Hebrew.  Upon contacting Jim, AMTL learned this is an unfortunate side-
effect caused by our Timex' ROMs not being spin-cycle clean.  Running the
SPINDRI program rectified the problem, and left our computer smelling
April-Fresh.  After rebooting and once again seeing the unfamiliar Timex
screen, but in English, AMTL sat around aimlessly for hours, wondering
exactly what could be done with the emulation.  Fortunately at that moment
Jim called to see how things were doing, and informed AMTL that the main
reason for running a Timex-Sinclair emulation was for the use of its
sophisticated Moose Cataloging software, Quirk MoosePress.  Having heard
this, AMTL realized what a complete waste of time this whole project was
and went out for a couple of beers.

FINAL THOUGHTS

For those who wish to run Quirk MoosePress, the IMPLANT will be a valuable
addition to their system.  For those dumb enough to buy a card based on
claims it will eventually emulate every pocket calculator on the planet, it
keeps the company in business.  For those who think they're a pink elephant
with 5 legs and a cancerous pimple on their butt, get some help!  For AMTL,
its another week's pay goofing off with cool hardware.  Until next time,
this is AMTL signing off!


END REVIEW

Thank you, AMTL, for yet another moronic, inane and gratuitous review.
It's good to know they serve their purpose as a front to get me neat
hardware.  And I guess that about wraps things up for A.M.I.G.A. as well,
since its now 24 hours past my deadline, and I still have to run Jim's kid
back home.  Stay tuned next week for another exciting AMIGA, the only
article that dares to eat that little fat cube in the can of pork n beans!
Oh, but first...

QUOTES FROM THE MICROSLOTH QUOTE FILE:

     "Hey, why does my chair keep shocking me?"
                         -Bill Gaits, last week

@endnode

@node P1-10 "The Emulation Examiner"
@toc "menu"


/// The Emulation Examiner
    ----------------------
    By Jason Compton
    (Jcompton@mlinknet.uucp)


I can't stress enough how much I'd like to hear from somebody.  Anybody
at all, about these articles.

Whether or not you're ready, here's more emulation ramblings...

The elusive, over-hyped, and rather expensive PowerPC notwithstanding, 
there's really only one major emulation option available to the public which
does NOT utilize an Amiga for anything, and that's SoftPC.  I've been able 
to work, briefly, with SoftPC and noticed the following:

You need an awfully fast Mac to run the thing at all.  The box seemed to 
say you needed an '040, but I saw it run on an '030.

It emulates a 286, but from what I have seen of it (admittedly little,
but...) it needs.  It supports the internal Mac floppy and seems to handle
hard drive access reasonably well.  It uses the Mac II's graphic
capabilities to emulate VGA graphics.  I'm also fairly certain that it
provides parallel and serial port emulation.

So...what's the snag?  Well, I have my doubts about how genuine the 
emulation really is.  The IBM screen is generated on the Mac desktop 
(meaning it multitasks with the Mac, as well as anything is going to, 
although I believe it is quite a memory hog), but when Windows is run (one
of the deluxe packages comes with Windows in it...of course! Why would a 
Mac user want a command-oriented operating system?), the Mac closes 
the old screen and opens a new one, with a new title.  Before I get ahead 
of myself, I will point out that I realize that Janus' IBM display emulation

does something similar, opening up new screens in different resolutions as 
the IBM requests them.  But I wonder if the title change is just for effect,
or if the SoftPC emulation is actually changing the way it is handling 
programs.  I'm not sure.  I also would presume, for lack of evidence 
available to me, that SoftPC would fall prey to the limitation of not having
a true BIOS.  Then there are little details to tackle, like-IBM mice are at 
LEAST 2 buttons, yet the Mac still plods along with a single-all-purpose 
clicker.  The IBM XT keyboard, let alone the AT, is more expansive than 
the keyboard on, say, the Mac IIsi.  (Come on, Amiga even printed the
standard IBM keypad indicators on!). I have heard rumors that SoftPC would be
developed for the Amiga, if the project was seen as profitable enough. SoftPC
wouldn't replace a nice Vortex Golden Gate 386, but on a 4000 or accelerated
1200 might be a reasonable buy.  For an ECS owner, though, you'd probably be
better off going with a true bridgeboard.

Which brings me to my next point.  Now that the Amiga's operating and 
graphics system has evolved several times, I am seeing interesting trends 
in inter-Amiga emulation.  By that, I mean this.  First, I am seeing 24-bit 
video boards for the 2000 and 3000 being touted as AGA emulators, with 
framegrabbers and the like thrown in to offset the cost.  This is
interesting, not to mention logical, since to my knowledge C= decided not to
work on upgrading old machines, and an upgrade is only available from a third
party company for the 500.  A nice 3000 with an AGA emulator...er, 24-bit
video board might just be able to provide a workable alternative to the 4000. 
(While I'd like to say that it would be feasible with the 2000, since I own 
one, the lack of Zorro III capability is going to catch up with the 2000 
sooner or later, and has done so with some of the new 24-bit/AGA boards).

Retraction: Before I end this column, I would like to retract a statement I 
made in my last article. I said that the Emplant supported Mac color 
boards.  I lied.  It supports Amiga 24-bit boards.  I apologize to Utilities
Unlimited for misunderstanding and misreporting.

With any luck, I won't have to do that much more. Until the next time... and 
remember, the author does not challenge the copyright status of any of the 
above products.  He is simply not in the mood to clutter his article with 
(tm)s, but if anyone complains he will jump at the chance to do so.



@endnode
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@node P1-11 "WordPerfect 6.0"
@toc "menu"


/// WORDPERFECT 6.0 WINDOWS! STR FOCUS!  Word Perfect for Windows Announced!
    -----------------------------------
    Reprinted from STReport



       WORDPERFECT CORPORATION ANNOUNCES WORDPERFECT 6.0 FOR WINDOWS
       =============================================================



 New product is completely customizable 
 and makes the most of the Windows environment

      WordPerfect  Corporation announced  WordPerfect 6.0 for  Windows, the
 next release of its  best-selling Windows word processor.  WordPerfect 6.0
 for  Windows  offers  everything  needed  to  create  professional-looking
 documents   including:  powerful   word  processing,   drawing,  charting,
 spreadsheet functionality within tables, and direct integration with other
 Windows applications.  The product  is scheduled  to  ship fourth  quarter
 1993.

      "WordPerfect 6.0  for Windows has  been completely rewritten to  give
      users  the  best  in  Windows  word  processing,"  said Alan  Ashton,
      president  and  CEO  of  WordPerfect  Corporation.  "Virtually  every
      feature in the product  has been  improved  or  enhanced in  some way.
      These  improvements  are  the  result of  thousands of user  requests,
      feedback from focus groups, and extensive usability testing."
  
      WordPerfect  6.0  for Windows  is  designed to  give  users  complete
 customization, the easiest transition to Windows, and a product that makes
 the most of the Windows environment. 


 COMPLETE CUSTOMIZATION

 Interface.  WordPerfect 6.0 for Windows is fully customizable so users can
 personalize their word  processor for  any environment or  task. Virtually
 all aspects  of the interface can  be customized:   Button Bar, Power Bar,
 Ruler Bar,  status bar, keyboards  and menus.  Users can also select  Hide
 Bars for  a clean  screen, but still have  access to  the main menus  when
 placing the mouse pointer at the top of the screen.

 Button Bar.  The Button Bar is  the most versatile interface tool,  giving
 users access to any WordPerfect feature or macro with a click of a button.
 The Button  Bar can  be placed anywhere  on the  screen or  as a  floating
 palette. Users can  display buttons  with icons,  text, or  both, and  can
 create their  own icons and text.  Users can create as many Button Bars as
 they like and display up to three rows of buttons. The product  ships with
 sample Button Bars  for specific tasks such as graphics,  tables, outlines
 and page layout, as well as context-sensitive bars that will change
 according to task.

 Power Bar.   The  Power Bar contains icons  for quick  access to the  most
 common formatting  tasks. The Power  Bar remains at the top  of the screen
 and users can customize the bar by selecting from 81 options. When placing
 the mouse pointer over any Power Bar icon, help prompts appear at the  top
 of the screen to explain the icon's function.

 Templates.   Templates  revolutionize word  processing  by giving  users a
 quick and  easy way to create  professional-looking documents. WordPerfect
 6.0 will  ship with ExpressDocs, more than 45 predefined templates for fax
 forms,  memos, newsletters, and more. ExpressDocs are more than customized
 documents they are  interactive and can prompt users for  information such
 as  the name and  fax number  on a fax cover  sheet. Users  can edit these
 templates, or create their own with customized menus, styles, Button Bars,
 keyboards, abbreviations and macros.

 "Customization of the interface and templates gives users enormous control
 of their working environment, letting them personalize WordPerfect 6.0 for
 Windows  to work the way they  want to work," said  Todd Titensor, product
 marketing  director  of WordPerfect  for  Windows.  "Corporate  users will
 benefit by  being able  to  create standard  interfaces and  documents  to
 automate company tasks and maintain consistency."


 EASIEST TRANSITION TO WINDOWS

 Easiest Transition for WordPerfect DOS users.  WordPerfect 6.0 for Windows
 gives WordPerfect DOS users the easiest transition to Windows with feature
 and  file compatibility,  as well  as macro  conversions. Users  can write
 macros  that will work in both WordPerfect 6.0 for DOS and WordPerfect 6.0
 for Windows.  WordPerfect 6.0 for Windows also includes a WPDOS keyboard
 layout.

 "No other word processor makes it easier for WordPerfect DOS users to make
 the move  to Windows,"  said  Titensor. "No  other product  offers  better
 compatibility  with  existing  WordPerfect  files  and  macros, or  better
 cross-platform compatibility."

 Coaches.   Like  a personal instructor,  a Coach prompts a  user through a
 variety of common  tasks with step-by-step instructions.   Because Coaches
 are written with  WordPerfect's macro language, users can write  their own
 to add to the Help menu.

 QuickMenus.     Working  in  Windows  is   easier  with  context-sensitive
 QuickMenus that are accessed by clicking the right mouse button  virtually
 anywhere in WordPerfect. For example, clicking the
 right mouse button  anywhere in a document presents a QuickMenu  to change
 fonts,  spell  check,  or  center  text, while  clicking  the  left margin
 presents  a menu  to select  text, change  margins, or  add comments  to a
 document.

 Preview  Windows.   Preview  windows  in dialog  boxes let  users  see how
 changes in  a document--such  as columns,  margins and  line spacing--will
 look before making them.


 MAKING THE MOST OF WINDOWS 

 Program Launching.   Any Windows program or file can be placed on a Button
 Bar for quick access  from within WordPerfect.  For example, a  user could
 drag the program  file for Quattro Pro from the Windows  File Manager to a
 Button  Bar and  then  be able  to  launch  Quattro Pro  while  working in
 WordPerfect. Or a user could place a Microsoft Excel  file on a Button Bar
 and with a click of a button launch Excel and load the file.
      
 Direct  Spreadsheet  and   Database  Import.    Spreadsheet  and  database
 information  can be  linked  via  Dynamic Data  Exchange (DDE)  or  Object
 Linking  and Embedding  (OLE),  and  can also  be directly  imported  into
 WordPerfect 6.0 for Windows. All leading spreadsheet formats and a variety
 of  database formats  such  as  Paradox, dBase,  Oracle, and  popular  SQL
 servers  are supported.  Users can  perform queries  on database  files to
 extract only the
 needed information.
      
 File  Management.   The  powerful  functionality of  the  WordPerfect File
 Manager  is now  included in  the Open  File dialog  box.   With  the File
 Options  button, users can  copy, move, rename, delete,  print, and change
 file  attributes, as well as  create and rename  directories. Files can be
 displayed  and  sorted   by  filename,  extension,  size,  date/time,  and
 descriptive name and type.
      
 WordPerfect Draw.  WordPerfect Draw contains the sophisticated drawing and
 charting tools from  WordPerfect Presentations including Bezier curves and
 the  ability to  contour text on  a curve. The charting  module lets users
 turn tables and  spreadsheet data into  a variety  of charts:   3-D,  bar,
 line,  area, hi-lo, pie,  and exploded pie charts.  WordPerfect Draw works
 through OLE and is easily accessed by double-clicking any chart or graphic
 image. WordPerfect Draw also supports the TWAIN standard for direct access
 to scanners.


 OTHER NEW FEATURES

 Spreadsheet in Tables.  WordPerfect is  the only Windows word processor to
 include advanced  spreadsheet capabilities.   The  Tables feature contains
 nearly  100  built-in  formulas,  numerical  cell   formatting,  automatic
 calculation, data fills, and named ranges. 

 QuickFormat.   QuickFormat lets  users extract  formatting or  styles from
 text and quickly apply  it to other text in a document.  The mouse pointer
 changes to  a  paint  roller and  lets  users "paint"  the  formatting  to
 selected text.   

 Bullets and  Numbering.  From the  new Insert menu,  users can select from
 predefined  bullets  and numbering  styles or  create their  own. Numbered
 items are automatically renumbered if moved.

 Abbreviations.  The Abbreviations features will replace an abbreviation in
 a  document with  a longer  piece of  information  that can  include text,
 graphics, formatting--anything that can be placed in a document.  

 Borders.  A wide  variety of  borders and fill  patterns can  be used  for
 paragraphs, pages, columns, tables, table cells, and graphic images.


 IMPROVED FEATURES
      
 Simplified  Mail Merge.   WordPerfect's  powerful Merge  feature has  been
 enhanced  with an easy-to-use interface. The introductory Merge dialog box
 includes  the  three  elements  of a  merge--data  file,  form  file,  and
 merge--with  corresponding preview  windows.   Creating  and  editing data
 files is easy  using the Quick Data Entry  dialog box. WordPerfect 6.0 for
 Windows can directly use data files in other formats such as spreadsheets,
 database, SQL, or ASCII text files. Users can also select specific records
 to merge using  a query by example interface. Corresponding  envelopes can
 automatically be created and appended to a merge file. 

 Document Management.  The QuickFinder rivals standalone packages with some
 of  the fastest  indexing and  text retrieval in  the industry.  Users can
 index directories  or groups  of files  and  perform nearly  instantaneous
 searches. The QuickFinder  dialog box has been improved to  include access
 to Boolean operators, document components (such as first page only),  case
 sensitivity and word proximity.

 Document  Summary has  been  improved  to include  more than  50  document
 summary fields such as author, subject, date and abstract. QuickFinder can
 be used to  search any of these summary  fields. Document Comments can now
 include name, initials, date stamps and time stamps, and be represented by
 a colored icon  in the left margin. Users can have  specific colors so the
 document can be circulated for editing. Document Compare has been improved
 to compare by word, as well as by phrase, sentence and paragraph.

 Graphics  Editing.    An  Image  Tools  palette  offers in-place  graphics
 manipulation  to move, rotate, crop  and size  a graphic image.  Users can
 wrap  text  on  both sides  of  a graphic  image  or  contour text  around
 irregularly shaped objects.

 STYLES.   In addition to  character and document styles,  version 6.0 will
 include paragraph styles so  users can click  anywhere in a paragraph  and
 select a  style to  affect the entire  paragraph.  Users  can also  create
 styles  by clicking anywhere  in formatted text, then  clicking the Styles
 field on the Power Bar to give it a name. 


 PRICING AND SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

 The  suggested retail price of  WordPerfect 6.0 for Windows  will be $495.
 Upgrades from  any DOS,  Windows or  OS/2 version  of WordPerfect will  be
 available for $129. A  competitive upgrade will also be available for $149
 from any word processor with a suggested retail price of at least $395. 

 WordPerfect 6.0 for Windows will require a 386 machine or higher, at least
 4M (preferably 6M) RAM and Microsoft Windows 3.1.



@endnode
***************************************************************************
@node P4-3 "Holonet"                                    
@toc "menu"

/// Holonet:  Inexpensive Internet Access
    -------------------------------------


                                *** HOLONET ***


HoloNet is an easy to use Internet Access BBS.

HoloNet is based on custom BBS software which provides an easy to use menu
driven interface.  HoloNet is ideal for those looking for an easy way to
use Internet services.  HoloNet does not currently provide UNIX shell
access.

Services include:

    o  Convenient Access
       A local call in 850+ cities nationwide.

    o  Online Publications
       Include USA Today Decisionline, Newsbytes, Datanet Computer News,
       Eeeekbits, and Boardwatch Magazine.

    o  USENET
       Averages over 30MB of USENET news per day.  The following news
       readers are available: NN, TIN, and RN.

    o  Internet E-Mail
       Members have an Internet E-mail address similar to:
       member@holonet.net

    o  Internet Access
       Access to telnet, talk, finger, IRC, and FTP.
       (note: you must comply with the policies of any networks you use)

    o  Single and Multi-player Games
       Board, card, fantasy, and puzzle games.

    o  Support for Eudora
       Excellent off-line Macintosh e-mail reader.

    o  UUCP E-mail and USENET feeds
       Link LAN E-mail systems and BBSes to the Internet.

How to try HoloNet for FREE:
      Telnet: holonet.net
       Modem: 510-704-1058 (Berkeley, CA) at 1200, 2400, 9600, or
              14400 bps.  There are free demo numbers nationwide, for an
              automated response containg a list of access numbers, send
              e-mail to access@holonet.mailer.net

How to get more information:
      E-mail: info@holonet.net
       Modem: 510-704-1058 at 1200, 2400, 9600, or 14400bps
       Voice: 510-704-0160
         Fax: 510-704-8019

HoloNet is a service mark of Information Access Technologies, Inc.

           Copyright © 1992 Information Access Techologies, Inc.
                           All Rights Reserved.


@endnode
***************************************************************************
@node P1-12 "Amiga 1000 for a Second Computer"
@toc "menu"


/// Usenet Review: Amiga 1000 as a Second Computer
    ----------------------------------------------
    By Rob Morton
    (morton@wam.umd.edu)



PRODUCT NAME

        Commodore Amiga 1000 computer

        [MODERATOR'S NOTE:  I am sure that some of you are shaking your
        heads in disbelief that someone is reviewing an ancient Amiga 1000
        over 8 years after its release!  However, this review has an
        interesting perspective that might be helpful to some of you:  it
        views the A1000 as a cheap choice for a second computer.  With used
        A1000's available very inexpensively now, some readers may find this
        information useful.  - Dan]


BRIEF DESCRIPTION

        Can you think of a cheaper second computer??  The Amiga 1000 is able
to use most of your current software, and will not take up much room.  That
is what I wanted in a second computer, and that is what I got.


AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

        Name:           Commodore Business Machines
        Address:        1200 Wilson Drive
                        West Chester, PA  19380
                        USA
                        (Varies for other countries)

        Telephone:      (800) 66-AMIGA          (USA/Canada only)
                        (215) 431-9100


LIST PRICE

        This product has been discontinued; however, you can get one used
quite cheaply:  less than $100 (US).


REVIEW

        Well, I got this computer because I had never seen one before.  Since
I am trying to save enough money to go to college, I weighed the choices:
A1000 or college education.  So now that I own it and know what it looks
like, I figured others may want to know my impressions.

        The case of this computer is probably the best designed that I have
seen.  Being able to store the keyboard underneath the computer is a real
plus when working with no space (I just put it where I was thinking of
putting my books for college).  I may be dreaming, but imagine an AGA machine
in an A1000 case.  It would be grand.  The only design problem I see with
this computer is the poor keyboard layout. It feels great, but I keep
hitting the wrong keys.  Luckily, Commodore corrected the keyboard problem
with the rest of the Amiga line, and you can use an A2000 keyboard on the
A1000 with an adapter.  Doing this robs you of the ability to store the
keyboard underneath the computer though.

        As for running software, I have found nothing that does not work on
this machine.  Shadow of the Beast 3 worked flawlessly, as did Archon (this
can not be said for any other of the Amiga machines).  I do not have
anything that is AmigaDOS 2.0 specific, but I am sure with the proper
hardware, anything will run on it except AGA stuff.  I ran some old demos
and basically got to take a trip through history.  All of this for the price
of a used C64, monitor, disk drive, and (if you are lucky) a printer.

        There are ways to install ROM's, hard drives, and accelerators.
Many of these can be acquired used as well.  Even as an unexpanded system,
this makes for a nice new toy.  (I use the word "toy" not like a small
child's toy, but more like an overgrown child's toy.)


DOCUMENTATION

        Well I got the complete manuals for using the A1000.  I got Kickstart
disks for 1.2 and 1.1, and I have pretty much figured them all out (real
tough job there).  The documentation seems quite well written, and comes in
a three ring binder.  The pages for 1.2 were also added to this folder.


LIKES AND DISLIKES

        Well I really like having a second computer, and the price cannot
be beaten.  The keyboard garage is great.  You will never have the keyboard
getting in the way of the disk drive, or for that matter the keyboard cord
getting tangled with the mouse and joy stick cord.  I also like looking at a
computer that is 8 years old, and still working perfectly.

        I did not like the keyboard layout, or using Kickstart disks, but
like I said both of these can be corrected if they really irritate you.

        This computer cannot be improved, because it is not being made
anymore.  If Commodore were to come out with a new Amiga in a similar case, I
would like it.  With a 68030 CPU, hard drive, and AGA chips for less than
less than 1000 US dollars, and this would be the perfect Amiga.  These are
more redesigns than improvements though.


COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS

        I have an A2000, which the only real difference is the Kickstart
ROM, more memory, better keyboard, and better Agnus chip.  As for software,
while running the software I could not tell the difference in these machines.

        Comparing it to an A500 with Workbench 2.04 is the only other
comparison I can do.  Saying Workbench 2.04 is better than 1.2 is like
saying an F40 is better than a Yugo.  But as far as the design of the case,
I would much rather have an A1000 than an A500.  If you do any typing, then
a detachable keyboard is great.  If you only want to play games, then go
with whatever is cheapest.  Actually for any game that uses the keyboard, a
detachable keyboard is still great.


BUGS

        This is just a guess on my part, but Commodore probably had fewer
bugs in this computer than any since.  It also runs Amiga software better
than some other Amiga models.  I can run Archon, and I bet there are not too
many people who can say that. :)


VENDOR SUPPORT

        I have never had a problem with the support that Commodore has given
me.  Of course I have never had a reason to call them either, so I guess I am
an easy person to support.  I like their equipment, and it seems to be made
well enough to stand the test of time.


WARRANTY

        I doubt you will get any warranty unless you get a factory
refurbished A1000, but you can probably find better deals on the net.


CONCLUSIONS

        If you are looking for a cheap second computer, a cheap game system,
a hardware hacker's dream, or just a piece of history, I would say you can
not go wrong with the A1000.  It is old but still alive.  A1000's are
capable of doing almost anything that an A500 can do, if you want to
expand.  Basically if you have a spare $100 (US) and want to get some
enjoyment experimenting, then an A1000 is a good choice.

                                                Rob Morton


@endnode
***************************************************************************
@node P4-6 "BIX"
@toc "menu"

/// BIX - Byte Information Exchange             Lots of information!
    -------------------------------


BIX is the premier online service for computing professionals and enthusiasts.
While other online services cater to computer novices, BIX is the place for 
knowledgeable people to go for answers to tough questions.  You're likely 
to find many others in similar situations who can offer advice, give 
technical assistance, or point you in the right direction.

BIX is divided into areas called conferences, each devoted to a 
particular area of interest.  They range from algorithms to windows,
from writers to amiga.  Conferences are categorized into groups,
usually referred to as exchanges, so that you can browse through
whatever groups interest you and see a list of the conferences it 
contains.

These are some of the exchanges on BIX:

amiga.exchange - the place for Amiga developers and enthusiasts
byte - the full text of each issue of BYTE magazine; source code too 
e.and.l - Entertainment and Leisure; music, pets, games, more
ibm.exchange - everything from OS/2 to PC clones
mac.exchange -  Mac news, support, software, advice
professionals - consultants, engineers, financiers gather here
programmers - some of the best brains in the business!
wix - the Information Exchange for Windows; Windows Magazine online
writers.ex - the professional and amateur writer's exchange


************FULL INTERNET ACCESS!************

BIX also features access to the Internet - you can use FTP to transfer
files from sites all over the world, telnet to log on to other online 
services, schools, and research sites, and send Internet mail to millions 
of people at services like DELPHI, CompuServe, America Online, MCI Mail, 
and other sites and services.  Services like "WHOIS" and "Finger" are 
also available, with more features on the way (like USENET newsgroups; 
our newsreader is currently being tested and should be available very 
soon!)  There are no usage fees or special charges for Internet access - 
it's all part of your BIX subscription. 


================================
Rates and Connect Information:
================================

BIX membership costs $13 per month, plus connect time.  There are several 
different ways to connect:

SprintNet*              $3/hour evenings/weekends   $9/hour weekdays
Tymnet:**               $3/hour evenings/weekends   $9/hour weekdays
(SprintNet and Tyment rates shown are for 48 contiguous US states only.)
                                                        
Tymnet Canada:          $4/hr eves/wkends           $9/hour weekdays
Tymnet Hawaii:          $10/hr eves/wkends          $20/hour weekdays   
Telnet(via Internet):   $1/hour, round the clock
Direct dial (Boston):   $2/hour, round the clock (up to 9600 bps)
 
 * SprintNet daytime hours are from 6am to 7pm, M-F, ET.
** Tymnet daytime hours are from 7am to 6pm, M-F, ET.



To find your local SprintNet number, call SprintNet at (800) 877-5045,
ext. 5.  Internationally, call (404) 859-7700.

To find a local Tymnet number, call Tymnet at (800) 937-2862.  
Internationally, call (703) 442-0145.

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

There is no surcharge for 9600 bps access via either telecom carrier.

There is no surcharge for up to 10mb of Internet mail per month (sent
and received).  There will be a charge of $1 per 100,000 bytes 
thereafter.

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

20/20 PLAN OPTION (for USA-48 users only):

Volume users can choose the 20/20 Advantage Plan, which is $20 per month
and includes the first 20 hours of access by any combination of methods 
from the contiguous United States.  Additional use is $1.80 per hour 
(additional use for telnet access is $1 an hour).  The 20/20 Plan's cost is 
in addition to the $13 monthly fee.  

INTERNATIONAL USERS:

If you wish to connect internationally through Tymnet or SprintNet, 
please contact your local PTT.  BIX accepts prepaid international calls,
direct dial, or telnet connections.  In order to make a "collect" (not 
prepaid) call to BIX, your account must be verified before the charges 
are accepted.  When you complete the registration, we'll mail you a BIX
Membership Agreement by regular US Mail.  Whe you receive it, sign it 
and return it to us by mail.  When we receive it here, we'll authorize
your account to make reverse charged calls.

If you want to access BIX right away, contact your local PTT to set up a 
prepaid account.  You'll pay your local carrier for your calls to BIX in
advance, so there's no waiting period or verfication needed. Or, connect 
at BIX via telnet to x25.bix.com.

SprintNet international calls from most locations are $24 an hour.
Tymnet international charges vary, but are generally between $20-$30 an hour.

=========================
Billing Information: 
=========================

You can charge your monthly BIX membership fees to your Visa, 
Mastercard, Discover, or American Express card.

You may have your company invoiced for one or more BIX memberships with 
a BIX Corporate Account.  To do so, send by US Mail or fax a Purchase Order 
including a Purchase Order number, invoice address, contact person, a 
phone number where we can reach the contact person, and the company's 
fax number.  Please direct it to the attention of Connie Lopes, who
handles corporate accounts.  Our fax number is 617-491-6642.  Your 
corporate account will generally be set up within 24 hours.


========================
To Sign Up For BIX:
========================

   Dial by modem 1-800-695-4882 or 617-491-5410 * 
   (use 8 data bits, no parity, full duplex)

   Press a few carriage returns until you see the Login:(enter "bix") 
   prompt, then type  bix

   At the Name? prompt, type bix.amrpt

* Users already on the internet can telnet to x25.bix.com instead.
  At the USERNAME: prompt enter bix, then bix.net at the Name? prompt.
  Once your account is registered, you can connect the same way, except
  at the Name? prompt you'll enter your BIXname and then your password.


Using the above procedure will allow users in the 48 contiguous United 
States to take advantage of our special "5 for $5" offer.  This offer 
lets you use up to 5 hours of evening/weekend time on BIX during the 
current calender month (whatever month you sign up in), for $5.  
Additional time is $1.80 per hour ($1 per hour for telnet).  At the end 
of the calender month, you will be placed into our standard rate plan, 
at $13 monthly plus connect charges.  You may also join the 20/20 Plan 
at this time.

If you have other questions, please contact BIX Member Services 
at (800) 695-4775; send a fax to BIX at (617) 491-6642; or send Internet
mail to info@bix.com.

BIX Member Services hours are 12pm - 11pm, Monday through Friday, ET.  


@endnode
***************************************************************************

@node P3 "Dealer Directory"
@toc "menu"

/// Dealer Directory                               Serving our readers!           
    ----------------



                           Almathera Systems Ltd
                              Challenge House
                              618 Mitcham Rd
                              Croydon, Surrey
                             CR9 3AU  England
                         VOICE: (UK) 081 683 6418
              Internet: (Sales) almathera@cix.compulink.co.uk
                  (Technical) jralph@cix.compulink.co.uk


                           Amigability Computers
                               P.O. Box 572
                          Plantsville, CT  06479
                            VOICE: 203-276-8175
                        Internet:  amiga@phantm.UUCP
                             BIX:  jbasile
              (Send E-mail to subscribe to our mailing list)


                            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
                              GEnie:  B.GRAY


                CLICK! Microcomputer Applications B.V.B.A.
                            Boomsesteenweg 468
                        B-2610 Wilrijk - Antwerpen
                             Belgium - Europe
                         VOICE:  03 / 828.18.15
                           FAX:  03 / 828.67.36
                     USENET:  vanhoutv@click.augfl.be
                             FIDO:  2:292/603.9
                         AmigaNet:  39:120/102.9


                       Computers International, Inc.
                             5415 Hixson Pike
                          Chattanooga, TN  37343
                           VOICE:  615-843-0630


                               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


                               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


                                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:  519-457-2986
                            FIDO:  1:221/125
                        AmigaNet:  40:550/1
                          MaxNet:  90:204/1
                        iNET: koops@gaul.csd.uwo.ca


                              PSI Animations
                         17924 SW Pilkington Road
                          Lake Oswego, OR  97035
                           VOICE:  503-624-8185
                     Internet:  PSIANIM@agora.rain.com


                           Software Plus Chicago
                          3100 W Peterson Avenue
                             Chicago, Illinois
                           VOICE:  312-338-6100



          (Dealers:  To have your name added, please send Email!)

@endnode
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
@node P1-18 "AR Confidential"
@toc "menu"


/// AR Confidential                    We heard it through the grapevine!
    ---------------





@endnode
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

@node P1-13 "Humor Department"
@toc "menu"

/// The Humor Department           Jokes, Quotes, Insults, Shameless Plugs
    --------------------



  From a reader, regarding the pathetic Insider's Conference on GEnie:

  "Personally, I think DEEPMODEM and DEEPTHOUGHT are John Scully and
   Bill Gates, respectively."



@endnode
@node P2-3 "In Closing"
@toc "menu"

===========================================================================
                  Amiga Report International Online Magazine
September 17, 1993     * YOUR INDEPENDENT NEWS SOURCE *            No. 1.25
                     Copyright © 1993 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 per-
mission. However, translation into a language other than English is accept-
ble, provided the original meaning is not altered. Amiga Report may be dis-
tributed 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 pub-
ication, is believed reasonably accurate. Amiga Report, its  staff and con-
ributors 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.
===========================================================================
 
                                    Only
                  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
                  *       _    _       __  ___    _       *
                  *      /\\  |\\   /| || //  \  /\\      *
                  *     /  \\ | \\ /|| ||(< __  /  \\     *
                  *    /--- \\|  \X || || \\_||/--- \\    *
                  *   /______________________________\\   *
                  *  /                                \\  *
                  *                                       *
                  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
                             Makes it possible!!

@endnode

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

@{"    Columns and Features    " link P1} News, Reviews, and More!
@{"     About AMIGA REPORT     " link P2} Staff, Copyright information
@{"      Dealer Directory      " link P3} Dealer Addresses and Numbers
@{" Commercial Online Services " link P4} Sign-up information
@{"     FTP Announcements      " link P5} Files available for FTP
@{"   AR Distribution Sites    " link P2-1} Where to get AMIGA REPORT


/// 09/17/93 Amiga Report 1.25   "Your Weekly Source for Amiga Information"
    --------------------------
    · The Editor's Desk     · CPU Status Report    · New Products
    · Dealer Directory      · AR Online            · A1000 Reviewed???
    · SHI News              · Emulation Examiner   · A.M.I.G.A.
   
                          » SHI Virus Warning! «
                        » Apple's Newton Revealed «
                           » WOCA Show Reports «

===========================================================================
                 Amiga Report International Online Magazine
                 "Your Weekly Source for Amiga Information"
                            » FEATURING WEEKLY «
                  Accurate UP-TO-DATE News and Information
      Current Events, Original Articles, Tips, Rumors, and Information
              Hardware · Software · Corporate · R & D · Imports
===========================================================================
            @{" DELPHI " link P4-1} · @{" PORTAL " link P4-2} · @{" FIDO " link P2-1} · @{" INTERNET " link P4-5} · @{" BIX " link P4-6}
===========================================================================


@endnode

@node P1 "Columns and Features"
@toc "menu"

@{" From the Editor's Desk " link P1-1} Saying it like it is!
@{"   CPU  Status Report   " link P1-2} Computer Products Update
@{" Status Report - Amiga  " link P1-3} Updates and information on the Amiga
@{"     Online Weekly      " link P1-4} The lines are buzzing!
@{" SHI News - Virus Alert " link P1-5} Information on new virus, rewards, etc.
@{"      WOCA Report       " link P1-6} Inside WOCA '93 with Dan Zerkle
@{"      WOCA Report       " link P1-7} Another view by Matt Guthrie
@{" The Newton MessagePad  " link P1-8} A first look
@{"       A.M.I.G.A.       " link P1-9} Geezzz....another review on IMPLANT
@{" The Emulation Examiner " link P1-10} MS-DOS emulation ...on a Mac
@{"       STR Focus        " link P1-11} WordPerfect 6.0
@{"     UseNet Review      " link P1-12} Using the A1000 as a second computer
@{"  The Humor Department  " link P1-13} Who were those INSIDER guys anyway?!?
@endnode


@node P2 "About Amiga Report"
@toc "menu"

@{" For Starters " link P2-1} Where to get AMIGA REPORT
@{"   AR Staff   " link P2-2} The Editors, and Contributers
@{"  In Closing  " link P2-3} Copyright Information

@endnode

@node P4 "Commercial Online Services"
@toc "menu"

@{"   Delphi   " link P4-1}  It's getting better all the time!
@{"   Portal   " link P4-2}  A great place for Amiga users...
@{"  Holonet   " link P4-3}  Inexpensive Internet Access
@{"  InterNet  " link P4-5}  Subscribe to the AR Mailing List
@{"    BIX     " link P4-6}  For Serious Programmers and Developers
@endnode

@node P5 "FTP Announcements"
@toc "menu"

@{"     JIStoJi v1.3     " link P5-1} Displays Japanese text
@{"      ReOrg v3.1      " link P5-2} Optimize floppies, HDs, etc.
@{"    Zodiac's Point    " link P5-3} Point software for Z-Netz
@{" Screen Manager v1.31 " link P5-4} Utility to control public screens 
@endnode



                 -----------------------------------------
@node P2-1-1 "NOVA"
@toc "menu"


                               * NOVA BBS *
                  Official Amiga Report Distribution Site
                          * Running Starnet BBS *
                         Wayne Stonecipher, Sysop
                            FidoNet  1:362/508
                 An Amiga Software Distribution Site (ADS)
                 615-472-9748  USR DS 16.8  24hrs - 7 days
                           Cleveland, Tennessee
@endnode           
                ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-2 "In The MeanTime"
@toc "menu"


        
                          * IN THE MEANTIME BBS *
                  Official Amiga Report Distribution Site
                            * Running AXShell *
                            Robert Niles, Sysop
                            rniles@imtired.itm.com
                  FidoNet  1:3407/104 (Private - Disabled)
                509-966-3828  Supra V.32bis  24hrs - 7 days
                            Yakima, Washington


                          ******* Notice *******

After 13 September 1993, In The MeanTime will no longer be on FidoNet, thus
we will no longer be accepting File REQuests (FREQs). We WILL be still 
accepting calls and will have the latest edition of Amiga Report online.
Downloads to first time callers are still accepted. For the west coast 
call @{"Cloud's Corner" link P2-1-3} to FREQ the latest edition of Amiga Report.


@endnode           
	       ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-3 "Cloud's Corner"
@toc "menu"


        
                          * CLOUD'S CORNER BBS *
                  Official Amiga Report Distribution Site
               Starnet/MebbsNet Support Site West Coast USA
                          * Running Starnet BBS *
                            Larry Cloud, Sysop
                             FidoNet  1:350/30
                 206-377-4290  USR HST DS  24hrs - 7 days
                           Bremerton, Washington
@endnode
                 ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-4 "Biosmatica"
@toc "menu"


         
                            * BIOSMATICA BBS *
            Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Portugal
                    * Running Excelsior/Trapdoor/UUCP *
                           Celso Martinho, Sysop
                             FidoNet  2:361/9
                  +351-34-382320  V.32bis  24hrs - 7 days
@endnode
                 ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-5 "Amiga Junction 9"
@toc "menu"


                           * AMIGA JUNCTION 9 *
         Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- United Kingdom
                       * Running DLG Professional *
                          Stephen Anderson, Sysop
                   Internet:  user_name@junct9.royle.org
      Line 1  +44 (0)372 271000  14400  V.32bis/HST   Fido 2:253/510
      Line 2  +44 (0)372 278000  14400  V.32bis only  Fido 2:253/520
      Line 3  +44 (0)372 279000  2400   V.42bis/MNP   Fido 2:253/530
                  Sysop Email:  sysadmin@junct9.royle.org
@endnode
                 ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-6
@toc "menu:



                             * BITSTREAM BBS *
               The BBS of the Nelson (NZ) Amiga Users Group
                  Official Amiga Report Distribution Site
                       * Running Xenolink 1.0 Z.3 *
                            Glen Roberts, Sysop
                             FidoNet 3:771/850
               +64 3 5485321  Supra V.32bis  24hrs - 7 days
                            Nelson, New Zealand

@endnode
                 -------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-7 "Realm of Twilight"
@toc "menu"


                         * 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: 1:221/202
                             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 P2-1-8 "Metnet Triangle"
@toc "menu"


                          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 P2-1-9 "Omaha Amiganet"
@toc "menu"

                            * 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 P2-1-10 "Amiga-Night-System"
@toc "menu"


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

@endnode
                 ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-11 "Ramses Amiga Flying"
@toc "menu"


                        * 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 P2-1-50 "Freeland Mainframe"
@toc "menu"



                          * 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 P2-1-51 "LAHO"
@toc "menu"



                               * LAHO BBS *
             Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Finland
                             * Running MBBS *
                           Juha Makinen,  Sysop
                        +358-64-414 1516, V.32/HST
                        +358-64-414 0400, V.32/HST
                        +358-64-414 6800, V.32/HST
                        +358-64-423 1300, V.32 MNP
                            Seinajoki, Finland
 
Our machine is a 386/33 with 20MB of memory, 1GB harddisk and upcoming
CD-ROM drive. The BBS software is a Norwegian origin MBBS running in
a DesqView window. 

We have over 6000 files online (no CD-ROM yet) containing titles for PC
and Amiga or both like GIF-pictures, music-modules and text-files. The
upload/download ratio is a very lousy 1:100.  (i.e. you upload a 20k file
and may download 2MB).

Messages are mainly written in Finnish, but English is widely used by
Swedish-speaking and international callers.

Download-access will be granted when asked. Also Amiga-areas are available
for those who will need them to avoid 'wars' between PC and Amiga users.
Access to sex pictures and stories are only for persons over 18 years
and given when requested.

Every user has an access to download filelist (LAHOFIL.ZIP), list of
Finnish 24-hour BBS's (BBSLIST.ZIP or BBSLIST.LHA) and every issue of
the Amiga Report Magazine (AR101.LHA-AR1??.LHA) on their first call.

The system is 4.5 years old and sponsored by the local telephone company,
Vaasan Laanin Puhelin Oy.

   SysOps:   Lenni Uitti        (Main SysOp)
             Juha Makinen       (SysOp of the Amiga-areas)
             Tero Manninen      (SysOp of the PC-areas)
             

@endnode
                 ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-52 "Falling BBS"
@toc "menu"



                              * FALLING BBS *
             Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- Norway
                             * Running ABBS *
                          Christopher Naas, Sysop
                  +47 69 256117  V.32bis  24hrs - 7 days
                    EMail:    naasc@cnaas.adsp.sub.org
@endnode
                 ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-53 "Command Line BBS"
@toc "menu"



                           * 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 P2-1-54 "Rendezvous BBS"
@toc "menu"


                             * RENDEZVOUS BBS *
           Official Amiga Report Distribution Site - New Zealand
                  New Zealand Excelsior! BBS Support Site
                  * Running Excelsior! Professional BBS *
                            David Dustin, Sysop
                  Internet: postmaster@eclipse.acme.gen.nz
                +64 6 3566375  Supra V.32bis  24hrs - 7 days
                       Palmerston North, New Zealand


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@node P2-1-55 "Leguans Byte Channel"
@toc "menu"


                         * 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" 

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@node P2-1-56 "Dead Fish BBS"
@toc "menu"

                           * THE DEAD FISH BBS *
                  Official Amiga Report Distribution Site
                           * Running Excelsior *
                             Aaron Wald, Sysop
                       (914) 425-6015 V.32bis Supra
                               24 Hrs 7 Days
                        Internet:  dfbbs.linet.org
                           Amiganet 40:714/14.0


@endnode
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@node P2-1-57 "Stingray Database BBS"
@toc "menu"


                          * 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
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