@database "ar226.guide"
@Node MAIN "Amiga Report Online Magazine #2.26 -- August 31, 1994"

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

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                       International Online Magazine

                "THE Online Source for Amiga Information."

                   Copyright  1994 Skynet Publications
                            All Rights Reserved

                                      //
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%//%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% August 31, 1994                \\//                   Issue No.  2.26 %%
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@endnode

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

@{"    Columns and Features    " link P1} News, Reviews, and More!
@{"     About AMIGA REPORT     " link P2} Contact information and copyrights
@{"      Dealer Directory      " link P3} Amiga Dealer Addresses and Numbers
@{" Commercial Online Services " link P4} Sign-Up Information
@{"     FTP Announcements      " link P5} New Files and Announcements
@{"   AR Distribution Sites    " link P2-1} Where to get AMIGA REPORT

                ______________________________________________
         //    |                                              |       //
%%%%%%%%//%%%%%| Amiga Report International Online Magazine   |%%%%%%//%%%%
%%   \\//      | Issue No. 2.26             August 31, 1994   |   \\//   %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%| "THE Online Source for Amiga Information!"   |%%%%%%%%%%%%
               |______________________________________________|

    c.s.a.editor.desk      Amiga News               Dealer Directory
    Distribution BBS's     Product Announcements    Reader Mail
    The Humor Department   UK Crosstalk             AR Wants You!

                            SPECIAL FEATURES

    Review: G-Force 040 2000 ................................Maxwell Daymon
    Have Two Amigas?  ParNET 'Em! ......................Philip A. Vedovatti
    Review: Desktop Magic V2.0 ................................William Near
    Review: Micro R+D CD-Rom Volume 2 ........................Jason Compton
    Review: Brian the Lion ....................................Katie Nelson

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%%             @{" X-NET " link P4-6}  @{" DELPHI " link P4-1}  @{" PORTAL " link P4-2}  @{" FIDO " link P2-1}  @{" INTERNET " link P4-5}          %%
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@endnode
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%% compt.sys.editor.desk                              by @{" Jason Compton " link P8-1} %%
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%%                        The Amiga Report Staff                         %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
@node P8-1 "Editor"
@toc "menu"
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%                                EDITOR                               %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

                              Jason Compton

Internet:                  jcompton@bbs.xnet.com
FAX:                          708-741-0689

@endnode

endnode

@node P8-2 "Assistant Editor"
@toc "menu"

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%                           ASSISTANT EDITOR                          %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

                              Robert Niles

 Portal:                         RNiles
 FidoNet:                      1:3407/103
 Internet:             rniles@hebron.connected.com
 Fax:                         509-248-5645
 US Mail:                     P.O. Box 8041
                            Yakima, Wa 98908

@endnode

@node P8-3 "European Editor"
@toc "menu"
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%                          EUROPEAN EDITOR                            %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

                             Michael Wolf

Internet:           MikeWolf@bonebag.tynet.sub.org

@endnode
@node P8-4 "Contributing Editor"
@toc "menu"
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%                        CONTIBUTING EDITOR                           %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

                             David Tiberio
 Internet:          dtiberio@libserv1.ic.sunysb.edu

@endnode

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

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%     Amiga Report Maillist List, the WWW, Aminet, and UUdecoding     %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

AR Mailing List
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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 listserv@bbs.xnet.com and in the body of
the message put:

ADD <mailaddress> armag

ie: ADD rniles@goofy.com armag

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

Joining the Amiga Report Coverdisk list is just as easy, but REQUIRES
that your mail site be able to handle messages in excess of 600k.
Place the following in the body of a message to listserv@bbs.xnet.com:

ADD <mailaddress> ardisk

ie: ADD rniles@goofy.com ardisk

Many thanks to X-Net Information Systems for setting this service up
for us!

** IMPORTANT NOTICE:  PLEASE be certain your host can accept mail over
** 100K!  We have had a lot of bouncebacks recently from systems with a
** 100K size limit for incoming mail.  If we get a bounceback with your
** address in it, it will be removed from the list.  Thanks!

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

Simply tell Mosaic to open the following URL:
http://www.cs.cmu.edu:8001/Web/People/mjw/Computer/Amiga/AR/MainPage.html

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

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


                     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Aminet
~~~~~~
To get Amiga Report from Aminet, simply FTP to any Aminet site, CD
to docs/mags. All the back issues are located there as well.
(ftp.cdrom.com or ftp.wustl.edu are two sites)

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

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


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


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


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

    begin 644 <encoded file's name>

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

    begin 644 happy-happy-joy-joy.txt

The encoded file begins right after:

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

.. more lines like the above ..

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


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

Luckily, Asher Feldman took the time to write UUxt.


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


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

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

  Running UUxT without any options gives the following:

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

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


  Some example command lines:

  1. Normal encoding - UUxt a filename.uue filename-to-archive

  2. Normal decoding - UUxt x filename.uue

  3. LhA archiving and encoding -

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

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

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


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

  (1) Clicking on this brings up a requester to select the file you want
      to perform the operation shown in gadget (5).

  (2) You can manually type here the filename of the file affected by the
      operation indicated in gadget (5).

  (3) Used only for encoding, brings up a requester to select where the
      encoded file should go.  Selecting an existing file will cause the
      existing file to be replaced by the encoded file.  You can also use
      this requester to create directories.

  (4) You can manually type the filename of the file to be the encoded file.

  (5) The operation to perform on file shown in (2).  The operations are
      the four provided by UUxT (uuencode/uudecode/LhAEncode/LhADecode).

  (6) The name of the archive created with the LhAEncode option.  Ignored
      when any other operation is selected.

  (7) Does the encode/decode/LhAEncode/LhADecode and pops up a requester
      indicating if the operation was successful or not.


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

                          pub/aminet/arc/UUxT.lha

It should also be on the Aminet mirrors.


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

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

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

Response to the last issue's mini-survey has come in so quickly I've
decided to act on what I see so far.

So far, most readers seem capable of living with the biweekly format.
Some feel that AR loses its edge, since the longer the wait, the older
the news...others want a daily AR with a large Sunday edition, but that
won't QUITE happen any time soon.

But I WILL make a deal with you, readers.  AR will continue to be
released no LATER than biweekly.  But this issue isn't quite two weeks
after the last one.  There's a reason for that.  My "ar226" directory has
200k worth of material in it, and 200k is roughly the maximum size I can
put in an issue and still get the archive mailed successfully to users
with a 100k limit on E-Mail (long established as a safe range for readers)

So, here's the offer.  Fill my drive with articles, reviews, news, humor,
anything printable.  If my directory is at 200k, I'll do an issue as soon
as possible and send it out.  Otherwise, an issue two weeks after the last
is guaranteed anyway.

On the issue of selling selected hardware and software: almost all of the
respondents were either indifferent or enthusiastic about the idea.  A
handful dissented, either on ideological grounds (which I fully
understand) or with concerns about the "ads" taking up valuable magazine
space (which I also fully understand.)  So, I'll make yet another deal.

Everything I sell will be reviewed in the magazine.  As such, no final
decisions on selling an item will be made until I get a chance to review
it.  This way, there will be no hype for an item, just a reference to
an earlier AR for information.  The prices will be low and the ads will
be small.  They will also be in their own secluded section: a new menu
from the main, just like Columns and Features.  I can't make a better
offer than that.


Thanks to everyone who responded...I realize I didn't reply to everyone.
A major AR survey should be showing up in about a month.

Incidentally, be sure to check out Maxwell Daymon's massive G-Force 040
review.  It's even AmigaGuided for easy reading, which is, as far as I
remember, the first such review in Amiga Report.  If you like that
format...write a couple of reviews in it.

Enjoy the magazine.

Jason

P.S. The News section is rather large this time...quite a bit of info
in there.
@endnode
@node P1-2 "Amiga News"
@toc "menu"
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Amiga News                                                           %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

EUREKA's COMMUNICATOR II FOR CD32 DRAMATICALLY IMPROVED

Eureka's Communicator II makes CD32 an intelligent 2 way
computer with CD-rom controlled by the amiga.

Maastricht, 1st September 1994

You can view PhotoCD's, Create Full motion video* or Audio presentations
with the Communicator-, Scala, and Mediapoint- driver.  Or you can just
use it as a 2 way CD-rom with speeds of upto 210000 baud.
One of its unique new features is the virtual CD disk concept  which
enables users to configure the Communicator II in order to automatically
boot the program used most.

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

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

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

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

SOFTWARE IMPROVEMENTS

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

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

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

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

FILE TRANSFER
The Communicator II now has 3 ways  of  transferring  files:

        Safety
        1.The Communicator II Zmodem file transfer enables the user
          to securely transfer and start files from
          and to the CD32.

        CD-rom
        2.A CD rom device driver offers an easy to use option of
          transferring files from and to the CD32. This
          works in the same way as accessing þnormalþ CD-roms except
          for the fact that you can also send data
          to the Cd32.

        High-speed CLI
        3.A high speed CLI orientated program enables you to transfers
          files fast with speeds of upto 210000 baud ( A4000/030).

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

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

CD32 AGA VIEWER  (also for non aga machines)
View pictures and animations from CD or amiga in 16.7 Million colours.
The viewer functions as framebuffer for non-aga machines enabling you to
view AGA pictures in 16.7 Million colours.  The Viewer was upgraded
and now can make use of datatypes. Pictures can be viewed on CD32 directly
or first uploaded and then viewed.More advanced time control is now
possible.

WORKBENCH
A newer  version of Workbench  is installed for increased compatibility and
performance. Also Workbench can now be started from the Menu directly or
instantly started using the virtual CD concept.

Testing the Communicator II
Testing the Communicator II is now even easier with the integrated test
button which tests the quality of the connection between the CD32 and
Amiga automatically.

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

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


HARDWARE IMPROVEMENTS

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

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

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


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

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


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


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

All trademarks are owned by their respective owners.

* Needs Full Motion Video cartridge.

[Expected price: US$69 for the lite version, and around US$110 for the
full Communicator II package.  -Jason]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
A sampling of the equipment up for auction from Commodore's headquarters
in West Chester, PA, USA, on September 8 starting at 10:00 AM:

Electroglass 2001XA prober with pattern recognition

Teradyne z 1860 board tester

MCT 4600E PLCC handler with 68 PLCC kit

Megatest prober

Nikon V-12A profile projector with Quatra check 2000 digital micrometer

An IBM AS400 9406-E45 System unit, with 16 megs memory, 1.28 GB storage

Digital VAX models 8600 and 11/750

"Selection of high-speed printers" and "Computers, components, parts,
monitors, modems, power supplies, computer chips, & much more!"  It's
worth mentioning that the picture complementing the latter is a pile
of C-64/128 equipment, save for what looks like a 2000.

Over 40 Herman Miller late model accoustical [sic] workstations

Executive office furniture, several complete conference rooms, and various
pieces of cafeteria equipment

And, my favorite: Advance Machine 5000 BHM floor scrubber with 293 hrs.

Someone tell me who gets the floor scrubber.  Ross-Dove, liquidators,
can be contacted at 617-983-7400 voice and 617-932-9290.

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

In my neverending quest for an information source, I first contacted
Doug MacGregor, head of Commodore Canada.  He first confirmed that the
Western Canadian office had been closed.  He then told me that Lew
Eggbrecht had left Commodore.  (Lew was VP of Engineering)

Besides that, he had little to offer me.  Both he and Duncan Fraser are
very embittered at being stranded with what they both consider to be
well-supported and supportive dealers but nothing to sell.  Of course,
they both hide it well behind their Canadian accents.

He did answer my question about Jim Dionne, though.  (To bring those
unfamiliar with rumors up to date: Jim Dionne was one of the last heads
of Commodore US, who left shortly after WOCA Pasadena last year.  He has
been rumored to be involved with the Commodore buyout.)  According to
Mr. MacGregor, Jim was involved at one point but is no longer.

I decided, just for kicks, to call up the Norristown, PA office of
Commodore.  I got Tom Matson, assistant to the liquidators.  Before
hanging up on me (roughly 90 seconds after answering my call), he
told me that the equipment being auctioned in West Chester was stuff
no longer being used by the R+D team.  The rest of my questions were
evaded.

I then called Alex Amor of Creative Equipment, (CEI), one of the
bidders for Commodore.  Here's what I got:

1.  CEI's bid should be finalized Monday, August 29th.  They expect
a decision 4-6 weeks after that.

2.  CEI will have a rep at the West Chester auction, although Amor feels
that the equipment "isn't worth $10,000."

3.  The AAA chipset "won't see the day of light." (I think he was just
flustered and meant "light of day.")  Instead, new Amiga models would be
based around a new generation chip that had been in development for about
a year.

4.  According to Amour's information, Dionne had never been involved
in the first place.

5.  If CEI were to be successful, they would boost engineering to 110
and "rush the next generation machine to market."  To announce their
success, they have a PR firm on standby, ready to take out a full-page
ad in "every major newspaper" in the US.

6.  In the event that C= UK's coalition is successful, CEI would be
willing to play a role as the next "Commodore US."

On Tuesday the 30th, I contacted Amor again.  The bid was finalized and he
still expects, realistically, a 4-6 week wait on a decision.  He also
provided me with a bit of information about the "next generation" chip,
3D-RISC.

Essentially, from the information he gave me, it is a high-power graphics
chip in its own right, but not a CPU.  Coupled with a Pentium or PowerPC,
it would make for a formidable system.  The engineers have been working
on it for a year.  I have not yet been able to contact C= engineers to
confirm this.  He also tells me that it is Samsung's main interest in the
Commodore assets.

CEI has also made arrangements with the subcontractors that formerly
produced Commodore products and apparently would be set to go in the event
that they are successful.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE



FARCAST, INC. BEGINS COMMERCIAL OPERATION OF ITS NATIONWIDE AGENT-BASED NEWS
AND INFORMATION SERVICE FOR DESKTOP AND MOBILE E-MAIL USERS;  THE ALL-DIGITAL
DELIVERY OF DAILY NEWS TO END-USERS ACHIEVES BREAKTHROUGHS IN CONVENIENCE AND
  COST AS PERSONAL INFORMATION ROBOTS ENABLE ADVANCES IN CUSTOMIZED CLIPPING
               AND PERSONAL NEWS FILTERING FOR BUSINESS USERS


MENLO PARK, CA, July 6, 1994 - Farcast, Inc., a privately-held company in the
heart of Silicon Valley's information alley, announced today that its nation-
wide, agent-based news and information service has begun commercial
operation, serving business users and individuals with up-to-date, electronic
delivery of headline news; company announcements; sports scores; weather,
entertainment, science, and political news; financial reports; and free daily
stock market quotes.

Farcast(TM) is a first of a kind news and information service.  Farcast
subscribers receive access to the latest news and information from The
Associated Press, United Press International, Businesswire, and PR Newswire,
as well as a stock quote feed.  Farcast's information robots, called
"Droids"(TM), present these information sources to users by performing
searches, retrieving articles, and broadcasting information.  All interaction
with the service occurs through e-mail messages sent to Droids.  To search
Farcast's "Newsstand," for example, a subscriber sends an e-mail message to
the Newsstand Droid.  The Droid processes the message, performs the search,
and returns the results to the subscriber's e-mail inbox.  Subscribers can
even maintain their own set of "personal" Droids that monitor Farcast's
information sources for articles of interest.  Farcast's agent-based
information service comes at a flat-rate cost of less than $1 per day,
which includes unlimited search and full-text article retrieval.

"Farcast is extraordinary.  The news is delivered to me wherever I am via
e-mail, and the power of their agent-based technology means that I have a
customized clipping service to watch my clients' companies and the subjects
of interest to me," said Dr. Marc Gerstein, Visiting Scholar, MIT, strategy
and organizational change consultant, and author of "The Technology
Connection and Organizational Architecture." "Delivery via e-mail means
that there's nothing new to learn, nowhere else to look -- a fresh copy
of my personalized newspaper is simply waiting in the mailbox 24 hours
a day.  I can't imagine living without it."

With its unique combination of advanced features and low price, Farcast
challenges conventional thinking about agent-based information services.
"With Farcast, we set out to prove that you don't need to wait ten years
for an 'intelligent network' or other unworkably-complex system to deliver
the benefits of software agents to end users," said Jayson Adams, Farcast's
chief scientist, president and co-founder.  "We also set out to prove that a
system of Farcast's sophistication doesn't require hundreds of thousands of
dollars worth of minicomputers and modems.  Our processing plant's low cost
allows us to deliver all the benefits of software agents at an affordable
price."

Farcast's affordability also stems from the strategy to target the millions
of e-mail accounts capable of sending messages through the Internet.  "The
brute force approach to building an information service includes constructing
a dedicated communication network of modems, high-speed phone lines, etc.
With the recent explosive growth of 'Internet-aware' e-mail accounts,
however, we realized we could leverage the Internet as our communication
network.  The beauty of this strategy is that almost everyone with an e-mail
account today can already access Farcast.  No special service numbers to
dial, no new software clients to install and learn, and no connect time
charges to pay.  Using Farcast is as easy and convenient as sending an
e-mail message to a colleague or friend," said Scott Love, Farcast's CEO
and co-founder.

Today's announcement marks the first in a series of breakthrough personal
information services from Farcast.  Farcast is a privately-held start-up with
headquarters located in Menlo Park, CA.  Its mission is to deliver affordable
information access through software agent technology to business users and
individuals.

To learn more about the Farcast news and information service, send an e-mail
message to info@farcast.com, with the subject "hello." Direct subscription
inquiries to subscriptions@farcast.com (e-mail) or (415) 327-5603 (fax).

Copyright 1994 Farcast, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.  Farcast and Droids are
trademarks of Farcast, Inc.
@endnode
@node P1-4
@title "A2000 G-Force 040 review by Maxwell Daymon - August, 1994"
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%  Review: A2000 G-Force 040/33 Combo              By: Maxwell Daymon  %%
%%  A comprehensive review of the GVP accelerator   mdaymon@rmii.com    %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

The A2000 G-Force 040/33 combo (G-Force) is a multifunction accelerator
board from GVP for the Amiga 2000 series of computers.  It features:

 * 8-layer PCB design with surface mount technology

 * 33MHz 68040 microprocessor

 * Full 68040 Burst mode support

 * SCSI-2 hard disk controller (not FAST or WIDE)

 * High speed 9-pin RS-232 compatible serial port (up to 614,140 bps)

 * Centronics compatible parallel port (Amiga/IBM mode selectable)

 * RAM expansion (4, 8, 12, 16, 32, 48, and 64 Megabyte @{"configurations" LINK MAD_040RAMCONFIG})

 * Custom 32-bit bus for speed intensive products (e.g., @{"EGS 110/24" LINK MAD_040EGS})

@{" COMPANY INFORMATION                 " LINK MAD_040GVPINFO}
@{" HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS  " LINK MAD_040REQ}
@{" MACHINE/SOFTWARE USED FOR TESTING   " LINK MAD_040USED}
@{" INSTALLATION                        " LINK MAD_040INSTALL}
@{" MC68040                             " LINK MAD_040PROCESSOR}
@{" SCSI HOST ADAPTER                   " LINK MAD_040SCSI}
@{" I/O EXTENDER (SERIAL/PARALLEL PORT) " LINK MAD_040IO}
@{" DOCUMENTATION                       " LINK MAD_040DOCS}
@{" COMPARISON TO SIMILAR PRODUCTS      " LINK MAD_040COMPARE}
@{" BUGS                                " LINK MAD_040BUGS}
@{" LIKES, DISLIKES AND SUGGESTIONS     " LINK MAD_040LIKE}
@{" VENDOR SUPPORT                      " LINK MAD_040VENDOR}
@{" WARRANTY                            " LINK MAD_040WARRANTY}
@{" CONCLUSIONS                         " LINK MAD_040CONCLUSIONS}
@endnode

@node MAD_040RAMCONFIG
@title "A2000 G-Force 040/33: RAM configurations"

                           --------------------
                            RAM CONFIGURATIONS
                           --------------------

The G-Force 040/33 can use either 4 or 16 megabyte 64-pin GVP 32-bit SIMMs.
SIMMs may be installed in increments of one, but they cannot be mixed.
There are two 16MB configurations.  The first 16MB configuration, four 4MB
SIMMs, allows you to use 68040 burst mode.  The second, one 16MB SIMM, does
not allow burst mode.  If using 16MB SIMMs, you must buy four 16MB SIMMs to
enable burst mode.

All four RAM banks must be full to enable 68040 Burst mode.
@endnode

@node MAD_040EGS
@title "GVP A2000 EGS 110/24 for the G-Force series of accelerators"

The A2000 EGS 110/24 is a high performance graphics system specifically
designed for the G-Force series of accelerators that offers:

* Programmable pixel rates from 5 - 110 MHz

* 24-bits per pixel color resolution (16,777,216 colors)

* 4 and 8 MB configurations

* Attaches to the 32-bit bus on GVP's A2000 combo boards

* Uses the EGS system to retarget existing Amiga applications to the new
  modes provided by the 110/24 and provides a 24-bit application environment.
@endnode

@node MAD_040GVPINFO
@title "A2000 G-Force 040/33: Information about Great Valley Products"

                           ---------------------
                            COMPANY INFORMATION
                           ---------------------

    COMPANY: Great Valley Products, Inc.

    ADDRESS: 657 Clark Avenue
             King of Prussia, PA 19406
             USA

  TELEPHONE: 215-354-9495
        FAX: 215-337-9922
        BBS: 215-337-5815 (14.4K, v.32bis, v.42)

     E-MAIL: 72662.51@COMPUSERVE.COM (fax preferred)
@endnode

@node MAD_040REQ
@title "A2000 G-Force 040/33: Hardware and software requirements"

                    ----------------------------------
                     HARDWARE & SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
                    ----------------------------------

   HARDWARE: Kickstart 2.04 (or higher) in ROM
             Open A2000 Processor Direct slot
             At least one SIMM (a 4MB SIMM is included)

             A mounting bracket (piggyback) board is recommended if you
             are also installing a 1" low-profile hard drive.

   SOFTWARE: OS 2.04 required.
             OS 2.1 or higher is recommended by the reviewer.
@endnode

@node MAD_040USED
@title "A2000 G-Force 040/33: Hardware and software used for testing"

                        --------------------------
                         MACHINE USED FOR TESTING
                        --------------------------

   COMPUTER: Amiga 2000 (6.2B motherboard) 1MB Chip RAM

      CARDS: Picasso II (2MB)
             GVP Series II HC8+6/xxx

     DRIVES: Quantum LP52S
             Quantum LP120S
             Quantum LP240S
             IBM 0663L12 (SCSI-2 only)
             Fujitsu M2616ESA
             Texel DM-3024 CD-ROM 1.11K

  KICKSTART: 2.04 (37.175)
  WORKBENCH: 2.1 (38.35)
@endnode

@node MAD_040INSTALL
@title "A2000 G-Force 040/33: Installation"

                              --------------
                               INSTALLATION
                              --------------

   *********************************************************************
   ** IF YOU ARE GOING TO INSTALL THE BOARD YOURSELF, READ THE MANUAL **
   *********************************************************************

                                HARD DRIVE

There are a number of ways to install hard drives.  You can install hard
drive(s) in the 3.5" or 5.25" drive bays which is very straight-forward.
I chose to purchase the optional hard drive "piggyback" board which allows
you to install a hard drive on the G-Force itself. You can also install a
hard drive on a separate host adapter if desired.

In most cases, you will get the best performance from the on-board SCSI
host adapter.  However, you may want to use a controller such as the
Oktagon 2008 that has even better performance, or a non-DMA adapter that
doesn't interfere as much with the serial port.

It is not necessary to install a hard drive and the SCSI host adapter can
be disabled with a jumper in such cases.


                              PIGGYBACK BOARD

The G-Force piggyback board sells for about $40.  It's a sheet of aluminum
with metal bolted to the sides to hold a 1" hard drive in place.  It sits
very close to the G-Force and can act as a heat sink to the hard drive.
I've never had any problems with it overheating the G-Force.  There is
about 0.5cm between it and the G-Force which seems to let enough air though
to keep the G-Force from getting too hot.  It mounts to the G-Force with a
screw, two clips (part of the folded aluminum) and a piece of metal that
hugs the G-Force on top.  It works out to be a solid installation and I
can't forsee any problems with it falling apart.  I felt it was a very
valuable addition to the G-Force and would recommend that it be purchased
along with the accelerator if you have or are buying a 1" high hard drive
to complement the G-Force.  The price seems steep for such a product, but
considering its functionality, it's worth it.


                               RAM EXPANSION

Soon after buying the standard model with 4MB of 32-bit RAM, I realized it
wouldn't be enough for my needs.  I purchased a 64-pin GVP 4MB SIMM for
$210 at a local dealer.  It came in an unusually large box (23 x 15 x 4.5cm)
and was wrapped in a thick, pink anti-static plastic bag.  It snapped into
the SIMM socket and held firmly without any adjustments.  The RAM was
detected and used with no need for special "addmem" utilities in the
Startup-Sequence.  This allows more of the operating system to load into
the faster 32-bit RAM than with an addmem utility.  Unlike some SIMM
sockets, it's very easy to remove these SIMMs without special extracting
tools and they seem strong - unlike the sockets on some other products.


                              G-FORCE 040/33

Before actually installing the card, you need to make some decisions.  You
need to tell the card what type of SIMM(s) are installed, whether you want
the parallel port to be IBM or Amiga compatible (among other small changes,
Amiga compatible mode puts 5V on pin 14, used by some sound samplers and
video digitizers), and whether you want burst mode or not.  Burst mode
requires that all SIMM sockets be filled with 4 or 16MB SIMMs.

Installing the card is somewhat difficult.  The case of the A2000
interferes with the serial and parallel ports on the rear of the G-Force.
A slip of paper that came with the G-Force suggests that you remove the
plastic guide in the front of the A2000.  If that isn't enough, remove
remove the screws from the power supply to allow the case to bend slightly.
The idea of having the most expensive card in my system not secured in the
front did not please me.  I chose to unscrew the power supply and all the
cards in my system to allow the case to bend enough for the G-Force to fit.
It worked and did not cause any damage to the case.  You must be VERY
careful not to allow the G-Force to bend.  If you allow the case to "snap
back" while installing the G-Force, you might break your accelerator!

After installing the card itself and securing it by two screws, you must
choose whether or not you want the Mac compatible DB25 external SCSI
connector.  If you decide to use it, you may install it in the second open
position next to the CPU plate, or in an unused bracket (Zorro II)
position.  A plate and bracket are provided.  I put it in the position next
to the CPU plate (where a MIDI interface normally goes) and installation
was next to effortless.

Some of you may be the type to "shoot first and read the manual later." DO
NOT DO THIS WITH THE G-FORCE.  There are a number of points you should be
aware of when installing this board including a number of "user-decisions"
that must be made prior to installation.


                                 SOFTWARE

Installing the software was painless.  The installation took advantage of
Commodore's "Installer" software and put hard disk prepping utilities, a
patch to make using the internal serial port more reliable at high speeds,
a "ShowConfig" type of utility, utilities for controlling the serial and
parallel port, 68040.library 37.30, and setpatch 40.16.  The installer
automatically put a command to remap the Kickstart to 32-bit RAM in the
Startup-Sequence.
@endnode

@node MAD_040PROCESSOR
@title "A2000 G-Force 040/33: The MC68040RC-33"

                             ----------------
                              MOTOROLA 68040
                             ----------------

The primary feature of the G-Force is the Motorola MC68040RC-33
microprocessor.  Some features of the 68040:

* 6 stage pipeline, MC68030 compatible integer unit

* MC68881/882 compatible FPU

* Independant instruction and data MMUs

* Simultaneously accessible, 4K instruction and data caches

* Multimaster/multiprocessor support via bus snooping

* Concurrent IU, FPU, MMU, and Bus Controller operation

* 4 Gigabyte address space

I am very impressed with the performance, and it is quite a step up from my
28MHz 68030/68882.  The acceleration suffers a very noticable loss of speed
without the 68040's special modes (cache, burst, @{"copyback" LINK MAD_COPYBACK}) but still stays
leaps and bounds faster than a comparable 68030.  The 68040 has a fan and
heatsink mounted on the chip.

As long as there is available 32-bit RAM, you can expect full speed from
your system.  If there is any 16-bit fast RAM, you can expect RAM access to
be SLOWER (it will run at ~98% of the speed of an unaccelerated A2000)
*when* you run out of 32-bit RAM.  This is to be expected.  16-bit RAM is
not a good idea in an accelerated system.  If present, it should be clearly
understood that the system will perform very poorly when the 16-bit RAM is
used.  I eventually got rid of all my 16-bit RAM.  The RAM is placed
outside the 24-bit address space of Zorro II, so using cards that need that
space such as 24-bit video cards, bridgeboards, and RAM expansions are not
affected.

There is also a software selectable fallback mode which disables the 68040,
but you lose both the SCSI host adapter and all RAM expansion.

Before you view the "benchmarks" remember that benchmarks can be
misleading.  Ultimately, the only way to realize the value of any product
you need to try using the system yourself.  Note that the RAM seems
somewhat slow compared to an A3000.  This is due to the copyback cache and
the fact than my particular G-Force is not in "burst" mode.  AIBB reports
that the RAM runs at 0.9 times the speed of an A3000 with copyback, 1.52
times faster without copyback.

@{"View benchmark information" LINK MAD_040BENCH}
@endnode

@node MAD_COPYBACK
@title "Copyback Cache"

There are basically two types of caching used with the 680x0 series:
   write-through cache (68020, 68030)
   copyback cache (68040)

Although you can use just a write-through cache with the 68040, most
programs are significantly sped up by enabling the copyback mode.

In simple terms, the write-though cache keeps frequently read data cached
in the processor, while writes go straight "through" to RAM.  The copyback
mode caches both reads AND writes, only flushing written data in the cache
to RAM when needed.  Large reads and writes to/from RAM will be slower with
a copyback cache, but most real-world applications will be significantly
faster with copyback mode enabled.
@endnode

@node MAD_040BENCH
@title "A2000 G-Force 040/33 Benchmarks, ratings, and comparisons"

                               ------------
                                BENCHMARKS
                               ------------

                 Results from KickSpeed 1.2 by Nic Wilson
                 ========================================

         68000, 1MB Chip, 0MB Fast: 5.53 seconds to read Kickstart 10 times
G-Force 040/33, 1MB Chip, 8MB Fast: 0.21 seconds to read Kickstart 10 times

The G-Force offers a 2,633% performance increase over a stock machine when
referencing the OS.  This means that anything that calls the OS in any way is
sped up considerably!


                  Results from SysInfo 3.23 by Nic Wilson
                  =======================================

24.85 MIPs, 6.30 MFLOPs, 36.30 effective MHz.


                 Memory access time results from AIBB 6.1
                 ========================================

AIBB 6.1: CPU/Memory access latency index: 4.2

For comparison -        G-Force 040-A4000: 5.0
                         Warp Engine 4040: 4.1
                              Stock A4000: 8.1




            BusSpeedTest 0.07 (mlelstv) Buffer:    16384 Bytes
            ==================================================

                     -= 68000 =-                   -= 68040 =-

loop overhead:     58.8ns                   loop overhead:      4.1ns
register move:    590.4ns                   register move:     29.8ns

memtype   op      cycle      bandwidth          cycle      bandwidth
fast      readw  2007.8ns    1.0MByte/s          69.3ns   28.8MByte/s
fast      readl  3014.4ns    1.3MByte/s         129.0ns   31.0MByte/s
fast      readm  2387.6ns    1.7MByte/s         129.1ns   31.0MByte/s
fast      writew 1876.7ns    1.1MByte/s         197.3ns   10.1MByte/s
fast      writel 2767.9ns    1.4MByte/s         405.8ns    9.9MByte/s
fast      writem 2011.4ns    2.0MByte/s         412.3ns    9.7MByte/s
chip      readw  1176.1ns    1.7MByte/s         987.4ns    2.0MByte/s
chip      readl  1765.9ns    2.3MByte/s        1566.8ns    2.6MByte/s
chip      readm  1401.0ns    2.9MByte/s        1565.5ns    2.6MByte/s
chip      writew 1176.9ns    1.7MByte/s         689.3ns    2.9MByte/s
chip      writel 1765.0ns    2.3MByte/s        1282.9ns    3.1MByte/s
chip      writem 1325.1ns    3.0MByte/s        1283.3ns    3.1MByte/s
rom       readw  1176.0ns    1.7MByte/s          70.7ns   28.3MByte/s
rom       readl  1766.0ns    2.3MByte/s         128.2ns   31.2MByte/s
rom       readm  1395.8ns    2.9MByte/s         137.0ns   29.2MByte/s


                      RAM TEST (MOVING 10,000,000 BYTES)
                      ==================================
                 68000                                 68040

                                 CHIP to CHIP

Time to move: 18533 ms                 Time to move: 7817 ms
Which is 539000 bytes/sec              Which is 1279000 bytes/sec
Which is 1855 ns/byte                  Which is 781 ns/byte
Which is 7 color clock cycles/byte     Which is 3 color clock cycles/byte
Which is 23 12Mhz 68020 cycles/byte    Which is 10 12Mhz 68020 cycles/byte
Which is 45 25Mhz 68040 cycles/byte    Which is 19 25Mhz 68040 cycles/byte


                                 FAST to FAST

Time to move: 21567 ms                 Time to move: 1150 ms
Which is 463000 bytes/sec              Which is 8695000 bytes/sec
Which is 2159 ns/byte                  Which is 115 ns/byte
Which is 8 color clock cycles/byte     Which is 1 color clock cycles/byte
Which is 27 12Mhz 68020 cycles/byte    Which is 2 12Mhz 68020 cycles/byte
Which is 52 25Mhz 68040 cycles/byte    Which is 3 25Mhz 68040 cycles/byte


                                 CHIP to FAST

Time to move: 19967 ms                 Time to move: 4583 ms
Which is 500000 bytes/sec              Which is 2181000 bytes/sec
Which is 2000 ns/byte                  Which is 458 ns/byte
Which is 8 color clock cycles/byte     Which is 2 color clock cycles/byte
Which is 25 12Mhz 68020 cycles/byte    Which is 6 12Mhz 68020 cycles/byte
Which is 48 25Mhz 68040 cycles/byte    Which is 11 25Mhz 68040 cycles/byte


                                 FAST to CHIP

Time to move: 20450 ms                 Time to move: 4000 ms
Which is 488000 bytes/sec              Which is 2500000 bytes/sec
Which is 2049 ns/byte                  Which is 400 ns/byte
Which is 8 color clock cycles/byte     Which is 2 color clock cycles/byte
Which is 25 12Mhz 68020 cycles/byte    Which is 5 12Mhz 68020 cycles/byte
Which is 49 25Mhz 68040 cycles/byte    Which is 10 25Mhz 68040 cycles/byte


The G-Force gave my Picasso II quite a boost.  This is a @{"comparison" LINK MAD_PICASSO}
between a Picasso II in a 25MHz 68030 based system versus the G-Force 040.
@endnode

@node MAD_PICASSO
@title "Picasso II performance. 68030 @ 25MHz vs. 68040 @ 33MHz"

Computer            : Amiga 3000-030 @ 25 MHz vs. A2000-040 @ 33 MHz
Graphic Board       : Picasso II Rev 1.2, with 2 MByte RAM
Software            : OS2.1, Kick 37.175, Picasso Release 1.9

(All tests are measured in actions per second. A higher number
 means better performance.)

---------------------------------------------------------------
PICASSO:640x480x4     68030 @ 25MHz     68040 @ 33MHz   % Gain

      Write Pixel              9409             21862   132.4%
        Line Draw               231               586   153.7%
 Filled Rectangle               204               331    62.3%
  Scroll Vertical                39               135   246.2%
Scroll Horizontal                10                18    80.0%
      Draw Circle                61               178   191.8%
  Text w/o Scroll               225               308    36.9%
   Draw Rectangle               309               436    41.1%
     Window Layer                 3                 5    66.7%
      Size Window                11                16    45.5%
      Move Window                27                45    66.7%
     Line Pattern               228               591   159.2%

---------------------------------------------------------------
PICASSO:640x480x3     68030 @ 25MHz     68040 @ 33MHz   % Gain

      Write Pixel             10397             24016   131.0%
        Line Draw               305               770   152.5%
 Filled Rectangle               263               428    62.7%
  Scroll Vertical                56               177   216.1%
Scroll Horizontal                13                23    76.9%
      Draw Circle                71               215   202.8%
  Text w/o Scroll               256               353    37.9%
   Draw Rectangle               389               561    44.2%
     Window Layer                 4                 6    50.0%
      Size Window                10                17    70.0%
      Move Window                35                47    34.3%
     Line Pattern               301               777   158.1%

---------------------------------------------------------------
PICASSO:640x480x2     68030 @ 25MHz     68040 @ 33MHz   % Gain

      Write Pixel             11597             26814   131.2%
        Line Draw               448              1129   152.0%
 Filled Rectangle               371               599    61.5%
  Scroll Vertical                75               224   198.7%
Scroll Horizontal                20                37    85.0%
      Draw Circle                81               273   237.0%
  Text w/o Scroll               297               416    40.1%
   Draw Rectangle               526               791    50.4%
     Window Layer                 5                 8    60.0%
      Size Window                15                25    66.7%
      Move Window                46                62    34.8%
     Line Pattern               443              1142   157.8%

---------------------------------------------------------------
PICASSO:640x480x1     68030 @ 25MHz     68040 @ 33MHz   % Gain

      Write Pixel             12777             29848   133.6%
        Line Draw               835              2120   153.9%
 Filled Rectangle               624              1007    61.4%
  Scroll Vertical               188               225    19.7%
Scroll Horizontal                44                74    68.2%
      Draw Circle                95               375   294.7%
  Text w/o Scroll               354               506    42.9%
   Draw Rectangle               813              1342    65.1%
     Window Layer                 7                13    85.7%
      Size Window                16                25    56.3%
      Move Window                56                81    44.6%
     Line Pattern               826              2139   159.0%
@endnode

@node MAD_040SCSI
@title "A2000 G-Force 040/33: SCSI Host Adapter"

                     ---------------------------------
                      GVP SERIES II SCSI HOST ADAPTER
                     ---------------------------------

                               SCSI HARDWARE

The SCSI controller on the G-Force is very fast compared to SCSI-1
adapters.  Out of all the drives I tested, the Quantum LP240S was the
fastest at over 1.8MB/sec (32K buffer).  Although the A3000 SCSI controller
was consistently 5 - 10% faster for all the drives, the G-Force is capable
of using a SCSI-2 drive that the A3000 cannot.

If you plan on using a hard drive at all while using the Amiga's built-in
serial port, you may have problems.  Anything above 4,800 bps is subject to
hardware @{"overruns" LINK MAD_HARDOVER}.  This is common to all DMA host adaptors, although it
seems particularly bad with the G-Force when coupled with a fast drive.
GVPpatch (included) helps a bit by breaking down large data requests into
smaller ones while the serial port is in use.  You can apply this patch to
virtually any device that might have a conflict, you merely have to specify
the device name (e.g., gameport.device, gvpser.device, empser.device, etc.)
You may run GVPpatch as many times as needed for as many devices as
necessary.


                               SCSI SOFTWARE
                           FASTPREP & EXPERTPREP

These programs look nice, but they don't conform to the Amiga style
guidelines and they open on a custom 640x200 screen.  Although they
promote, they would look much nicer with a font-sensitive OS2.x compliant
Workbench interface.  A major complaint I had with the programs is that
newer versions don't seem to write @{"Rigid Disk Blocks" LINK MAD_RDB} that are compatible
with each other.  If you write a RDB with version 2.0 of Expert Prep, and
then get a new version such as 2.5, read the data, and re-write the RDB you
can loose your partitions!

Upon loading, FastPrep will read the drive information and suggest
splitting it into a number of partitions (usually two).  In the case of a
1GB hard drive I tried, it wanted to split it into three partitions.  It
allows you to define up to eight partitions per drive, and you simply
choose the number of partitions and enter how many megabytes per partition
you want.  It's possible to lose a little space when using FastPrep if you
type in specific amounts, because the program will just leave the last bit
of space unused.  You can lose up to 999K of space this way.

ExpertPrep is similar to FastPrep, but with some additional options.  You
can specify OFS, FFS, or N/A (none) for your filesystem.  You can also set
buffer memory type, DMA mask, MaxTransfer, and Boot, Mount, Nomount,
Disconnect, Last Disk, Last LUN, and Synchronous flags.

ExpertPrep does not let you define many things that an "expert" prepping
program should such as:  DriveInit code, BytesPerBlock, BlockPerTrack,
Heads, Cylinders, TotalBlocks, CylinderBlocks, Interleave, RDBLow, RDBHigh,
MinCylinder, and MaxCylinder.  It also doesn't allow altering (per
partition or globally) of BlockSize, Surfaces, BlocksPerTrack, Reserved
Blocks, PreAlloc, and DOS Interleave.  I can understand the lack of these
options in FastPrep, but it's inexcusable in ExpertPrep.  "Maintenence
Mode" only allows for two additional options:  Low level format and Bad
block remap.

Neither program allows management or addition of alternate file systems
such as MuFS or CrossDOSFileSystem, and they do not let you know whether a
hard drive is loading FastFileSystem from the RDB or ROM by default.  They
also impose an artificial limitation of one boot partition per drive.  This
is very unfortunate for developers and users wanting to test programs in a
"clean" environment.  I keep a small partition with a virgin installation
of OS 2.1 available for testing programs and select it from the Boot Menu
of Kickstart 2.04 when I want to use it.

This does not mean that the G-Force is a dead-end street for those needing
more flexibility.  You can set partitions destined for alternate
filesystems as "N/A" and write a mountlist entry for it, to be mounted
after boot time.  Unfortunately, this solution does not allow for different
filesystems on the boot partition, so it won't work for some people.  Also,
you must boot from a disk with the mountlist definitions and filesystems on
it or you can't get to your partitions.

If you need an advanced drive prepping utility that's compatible with the
G-Force, look for RDPrep from Microbotics.  It is freely distributable and
has all the options I listed above, and more.  It's more user friendly in
laying out partitions, and supports alternate filesystems at the Rigid Disk
Block level.  RDPrep also integrates an "easy" mode and a "complex" mode in
the same program very effectively.  RDPrep can generally do a
non-destructive read and rewrite of a FastPrep or ExpertPrep RDB, but do
not try to go the other way.  ALWAYS back-up your hard drive for safety.
Changing the RDB is a risky operation that should not be taken lightly.
It's always a good idea to start and stay with one prepping utility, so
choose before you put hundreds of megabytes worth of data on your drives.
@endnode

@node MAD_HARDOVER
@title "Hardware Overruns"

A hardware overrun occurs when the data in the serial port buffer is not
moved in time to another location before new data "overruns" it.  Hence, a
"hardware overrun." The Amiga's built-in serial port is very poorly
buffered and any system activity can "steal" the window of opportuinity
when the data from the serial port would nomally be shifted out.  The GVP
SCSI host adapter makes this problem especially bad since large transfers
from a fast device can saturate the bus for long periods of time.

(See the @{"I/O Extender" LINK MAD_040IO} or the @{"SCSI" LINK MAD_040SCSI} section for more details.)
@endnode

@node MAD_RDB
@title "Rigid Disk Blocks"

A Rigid Disk Block (RDB) contains all the information needed to mount and
boot partition(s) on a hard drive.  They contain vital information such as
how many logical heads and cylinders your drive is divided into, and the
start and end cylinders of all your partitions.

Although it is possible to change RDB's without damaging your partitioning
information, it is a risky operation that you do "at your own risk."
Changing a partition from being bootable to non-bootable won't usually
damage the information on the partitions, while changing the starting and
ending cylinders of a partition always will.
@endnode

@node MAD_040IO
@title "A2000 G-Force 040/33 I/O Extender"

                              --------------
                               I/O EXTENDER
                              --------------

                               SERIAL PORT

There are a lot of problems when using the hard drive host adaptor with the
Amiga's serial port (see:  @{"SCSI HOST ADAPTER" LINK MAD_040SCSI} for more information), so GVP
put a 16-byte FIFO buffered serial port directly on the G-Force.  Normally
this would be very exciting, but I couldn't get it to work properly.  When
using the G-Force serial port, my computer eventually locks up (it doesn't
crash - it just freezes right after it spews garbage through the serial
port.) Any rate above 38,400 doesn't seem to "sync" up with some devices.
These problems make the port virtually unusable for high speed transfers
while multitasking.  This brings up another point.  I got many errors when
I tried formatting three floppies simultaneously while on-line at 38,400
with the G-Force port, but hard drive activity didn't cause any problems.

I did a number of things in an attempt to fix the problem including
changing the various buffer sizes, using different cables, and trying
different devices.  GVP informed me that increasing the buffers isn't
necessarily the correct thing to do, as it could cause more problems than
it fixes.  Indeed, this proved to be true.  Keeping the buffers between
4,096 and 16,384 bytes seemed to yield the best results, keeping the
machine from locking up for a longer period of time.  There was even a
program on AmiNet called "GVPIOPatch" (not related to GvpPatch) whose
description claims that the current serial drivers (1.7/1.8) use only 2
bytes of the 16-byte buffer on the port!  The patch claimed to fix that and
some other small bugs.  Using the patch did seem to free up some CPU time
during high speed transfers, but I can't say for sure whether GVP really
doesn't use the extra buffers or not.


                               PARALLEL PORT

The parallel port worked with the four printers I was able to test it with
Panasonic KX-P 1091i, Panasonic KX-P 2123, Epson LX-80 Spectrum, and
Brother HL-10H Laser Printer).  I had no problems sending data.

The problem I encountered was getting programs to redirect their output to
the new port.  Some programs (especially ones with PostScript® support)
will allow you to specify a port to print to, most programs will not.
GVP's solution, GVPIOcontrol, will forcefully redirect output at the
expense of simultaneously using your internal parallel port.  ALL
references to your internal parallel port, not just the PRT: device, will
be redirected to the port chosen in the IOControl preferences.

There is a program available on AmiNet called "ParPrefs" which is a much
better solution.  ParPrefs will allow you to redirect output to ANY device
(not just gvppar.device) meaning that it's compatible with other cards,
too.

Another solution involves AmigaOS 3.x and a release called "prt4248.lha",
which is an updated Printer Preferences program and printer.device.  Since
I do not have OS 3.x, I was not able to install the new Printer
Preferences.  However, I have read that it will allow you to select the
printer device and unit number and includes support for up to 25 printers
running simultaneously.

The final solution I have to offer requires a seperate program to watch one
of your directories (similar to "watch" folders on the Macintosh).  Art
Department Professional comes with just such a utility (File Sentry).  In
this case, you would create a spool directory and set up the watch daemon
to check for files written in it.  If you want to print a file through the
GVP port, you will then run the "CMD" utility that came with your OS and
make sure you redirect the output to the watch folder.  By default, CMD
redirects output to the RAM disk.

@endnode

@node MAD_040DOCS
@title "A2000 G-Force 040/33 Documentation"

                              ---------------
                               DOCUMENTATION
                              ---------------

The G-Force comes with a 72 page wire-bound manual and miscellaneous
supplemental files on disk.  The quality of the manual (printing, binding)
is above average compared to other hardware products I've seen and sits
open nicely for reference.  There are a number of tables and illustrations
which make things easier to understand.  The disk is a bit more polished
than previous GVP software and includes two hard disk prepping programs.
FastPrep for novice users and ExpertPrep for (obviously) Expert users.

The manual tells you a lot about basics and what you need to know to get
the board working; beyond that, details are sparse.  It lists MANY jumpers
simply as "reserved" and tells you to how they should be set.  This is very
bad.  I tried two different cards and both of them were shipped with the
same jumper in the opposite position as listed in the manual.  Since both
boards were shipped this way, I am unsure of which way is correct.  It
would be nice if I could call them and ask which way it should be.  As it
is I have to prepare a fax and hope that it gets someone who knows what's
going on.  If the function was listed, it might not be any trouble at all.

The documentation is written for beginners and spends a good deal of time
explaining what a jumper block looks like, how to find pin one on a jumper
block, what "open" and "closed" means, etc.  If you are not familiar with
the insides of a computer, I would suggest reading it even if you are going
to have someone else install the board for you.  It's interesting to read.
Sadly, the manual leaves out details about more advanced issues that you
must pursue elsewhere, and does not contain any developer information that
is necessary for development of Amiga versions of UNIX.  Also, I could find
no reference to setting tooltypes in the various programs even though a
number of features are accessable by those means.
@endnode

@node MAD_040COMPARE
@title "A2000 G-Force 040/33: Comparison to similar products"

                               ------------
                                COMPARISON
                               ------------

I have not tried any other 68040 boards in my Amiga 2000, but I have seen
other boards in other systems.  The fact that the G-Force uses custom
(64-pin) SIMMs is a blessing and a curse, but mostly a curse.  The primary
complaint about GVP custom SIMMs is price.  However, you are guaranteed a
certain part with a certain quality, precision, and warranty.  One 68040 I
tried for the A3000 had very loose, low quality SIMM sockets and the posts
of the sockets had to be "whittled" with a knife to get the "industry
standard" SIMMs to snap on correctly.  There are no such problems with the
G-Force.  In all, I would have preferred industry standard SIMMs, but it
wasn't enough to keep me away from this beautiful accelerator.

There are three competing boards that I know of:

* Zeus '040 from Progressive Peripherals & Software (discontinued)

* Fusion Forty from RCS Management

* Magnum 40/4 from CSA

The Zeus is an overclocked board (28 instead of 25, and 35 instead of 33).
The problem with overclocking is that it shortens the life of components
and can cause problems not immediately obvious, but with disasterous
results later.  Since PP&S is out of business there is no easy way to get
the board repaired when the board does break down.

I don't know very much about the Fusion Forty except that it uses some sort
of custom boot ROMs that must be upgraded to use various operating systems.

I have never seen the CSA Magnum 40/4 and was not aware of its existence
until just recently.  I guess that says something about advertising.  ;-)

@endnode

@node MAD_040BUGS
@title "A2000 G-Force 040/33: Bugs"

                                  ------
                                   BUGS
                                  ------

The serial port in itself seems to be a bug.  It is very picky about almost
everything.  I have never gotten it to work reliably with any device, and
rates above 38,400 are almost always trouble.  GVP sent a replacement
board, but nothing much changed.  It seems almost as if the software driver
and support utilities for the serial port were about 90% done and never
"polished up." The preferences "GVPSerial" and "GVPIOcontrol" seem to crash
depending on phases of the moon and although they have a 3D look, they do
not look like OS2.x/3.x gadgets.  GVPSerial's gadgets all have double thick
borders and the text is topaz 8, while GVPIOControl has gadgets that don't
invert properly with more than four colors and the cycle gadgets don't look
like standard gadgets.  I expect more out of a high end product.  I expect
more consistency and more stability.  Since OS 2.04 or higher is required
anyway, I don't see the point in using custom routines and gadgets.

The 68040 has the potential to be very incompatible with older software,
even moreso than the 68030.  This is not a bug, but a side effect of the
features of the 68040.  If the 68000 fallback mode is unacceptable and you
want to run software that is having problems, try disabling the caches,
copyback, bursts, VBR and SSP relocation, and FastROM (relocation of
kickstart in 32-bit memory for enhanced speed).  This will make it as much
like a 68000 as possible without falling back.

@endnode

@node MAD_040LIKE
@title "A2000 G-Force 040/33 Likes, Dislikes, and Suggestions"

                      ------------------------------
                       LIKES, DISLIKES, SUGGESTIONS
                      ------------------------------

This product really gave my Amiga 2000 a new lease on life.  I find myself
waiting when using a stock A4000.  With coupled with a third party 24-bit
graphics board, the G-Force turns the A2000 into a very serious performer.
The speed up when compared to a 28MHz 68030 is astounding and the fast hard
drive controller is like a breath of fresh air.

I was disappointed with the lack of consistency in the look and feel of the
software, the serial port problems (which may be a factor of the software),
and the inability to use much less expensive 16MB SIMMs.

I'd like to see GVP abandon their "custom" 64-pin SIMMs.  I'd also like to
see them improve the quality, reliability and consistency of their software
and read the Amiga User Interface Style Guidelines.  These points take a
lot away from an otherwise fine product.
@endnode

@node MAD_040VENDOR
@title "A2000 G-Force 040/33: Vendor Support"

                             ----------------
                              VENDOR SUPPORT
                             ----------------

I have contacted GVP on a number of occasions for support on this and other
products.  When I was experiencing problems with the old 68040.library, I
was sent a new installation disk with the latest version at no charge.  GVP
has been responsive to the problems they are able to solve, but they have
not been able to help with the serial port problems.  I would like to see a
major maintenence release of the support software.

Some have complained that GVP no longer offers "live" tech support via
telephone.  I have never been all that fond of day-time long distance rates
and invariably being put on hold during such times.  Being able to fax
during low-rate hours is not so bad.  Although it's annoying to not be able
to just pick up the phone and call, it's not something that's completely
unacceptable.  Support is still free, unlike support for most products in
the clone world.  There have been times that it would have been very
convenient to call, but I have saved money on long distance and I'm sure
when I did send my board in for repair it wouldn't have been turned around
so quickly if they were answering "@{"SysInfo says I don't have an MMU" LINK MAD_040NOMMU}"
complaints all day.

GVP also has a support BBS with a large file base to download upgrades
from.  I called after I got my G-Force and discovered a new version of
ExpertPrep which I downloaded right away.
@endnode

@node MAD_040NOMMU
@title "Where's my MMU!? You said I have an MMU! Liars! I'll kill you all!"

For a time after SysInfo and some other system diagnostic utilities came
out there was a rash of callers to the various accelerator manufacturers
from concerned customers suspecting that they got a "low-quality" 68EC030
or 68EC040 chip.

The problem started with misinformation and assumption.

Back when Motorola first released the 68EC030 (EC stands for Embedded
Controller) it was described as a full 68030 with the MMU portion disabled.
This made the chip less expensive to produce and brought the price of
accelerators down substantially.  The MMU was "disabled" from the
production standpoint, meaning that it wasn't even put into the die.
Motorola did not make a bunch of 68030s and then cripple them after the
fact.  The 68EC030 is intentionally designed without the MMU.  It is not a
full 68030 that failed the MMU portion of testing, as some have wrongly
inferred.

The MMU is a component of the full 68030 and 68040 that is not necessarily
used, and the AmigaOS is an example of software that does not automatically
use it.  System information software accurately reported the MMU as
"DISABLED" (as opposed to "ENABLED").  Well, a lot of people took this to
mean that it was REMOVED from the chip and hence they decided that the
various accelerator companies must have slipped in an EC style chip
thinking the world wouldn't notice.  Many of the companies took upwards of
hundreds of phone calls per day with irate customers demanding full
processor upgrades.

They spent a lot of time and money telling people the same thing over and
over, "You have a full chip, you're not running anything that "enables" the
MMU, and once you do SysInfo will say so." Nic Wilson, the author of
SysInfo decided that he would change the wording to something a little less
confusing to the average user: "IN USE" and "NOT IN USE". Thanks Nic.

This is probably one of the many items that led up to the discontinuance of
live tech support from GVP.  When a company pays technicians to answer
questions like this all day, they lose money.
@endnode

@node MAD_040WARRANTY
@title "A2000 G-Force 040/33: Warranty"

                                ----------
                                 WARRANTY
                                ----------

GVP accelerator products have a 2 year warranty.  GVP has never hassled me
about a warranty repair.  I did send in the G-Force for warranty service
regarding the serial port.  They replaced the G-Force, but it didn't solve
the problem.  I suspect the board was never really "broken" to begin with,
rather that the I/O driver is simply lacking refinement.
@endnode

@node MAD_040CONCLUSIONS
@title "A2000 G-Force 040/33: Conclusions"

                               -------------
                                CONCLUSIONS
                               -------------

This product is somewhat of a Pandora's Box.  Part of the reason I
purchased the product was for the serial port which doesn't operate
reliably in my A2000.  The G-Force certainly does give an old A2000
workhorse some kick.  If you are interested in processing power for
general-pupose use, and Zorro 3 is not a concern, it's a fine product.

If you are interested in anything that might demand more than 16MB of RAM,
consider going into a different machine (like a used A3000, 3000T, or 4000)
along with an accelerator.  The reason for this recommendation is based on
the fact that the other products use industry standard SIMMs.  There is
really no excuse for GVP to continue using proprietary 64-pin SIMM memory.
High density 16MB GVP SIMMs can run you $1,200 per unit, as opposed to
~$750 for "standard" SIMMs, and they aren't mixable with 4MB SIMMs.  Other
systems offer much more RAM configuration flexibility.  If you aren't going
to go over the 16MB mark (at which point 16MB SIMMs will be needed), then
the 4MB SIMMs are reasonable enough that it's not much of a problem.

I give this product 3 of 5 stars.  If they released a RAM module for the
virtually wasted custom 32-bit bus that took 128 or 256MB of RAM via
industry standard 72-pin SIMMs, fixed the serial port, and released a
rewrite of the support software, I'd give it 5 of 5 stars.
@endnode

@node P1-5 "Have Two Amigas?  ParNET 'Em!"
@toc "menu"
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Have Two Amigas?  ParNET 'Em!                     Philip A. Vedovatti %%
%%                                             vedovatt@u.washington.edu %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Like many Amiga users, last year I upgraded my system from an Amiga
500 to an AGA machine, the A4000.  Having put a fair amount of money into
my old system (an '030 accelerator, hard drive and so on), I decided
to keep it so I could run old demos and play games on it.  As most A500
owners know, even today it's quite a functional machine.  However, the
500 somehow ended up packed in its original box, under my bed.  Maybe
it was lack of desk space at the time, or just my excitement of using
the A4000, but the 500 just wasn't getting any use.

I started to miss some of the old programs that would only run on my
500, so I pulled out the old machine and set it up.  I had moved to a
new city and had a little more desk space, so the A4000's little brother
got its place next to the other machine.  The A500's hard drive had lots
of music files, IFF images and other useful programs.  I thought there
must be a way I can hook these two machines together so I can access all
the goodies on the 500 from my 4000.  I didn't really want to spend a
lot of cash for networking hardware, and I didn't want a null modem setup
since you can only access the other machine through a terminal program.

Enter ParNET.  Back in 1988, Doug Walker and John Toebes of the Software
Distillery developed a software package to allow one to connect two Amigas
together using a modified cable that connects the two parallel ports.
Matt Dillon, of DNet fame, wrote the original parallel device for Parnet.
Since that time there have been several other programs developed to
utilize the Parnet connection, and I will talk about them later in this
article.  I decided to set up a ParNET network between my two Amigas a
few weeks ago.

THE CABLE -- MAKING THE CONNECTION
----------------------------------

To develop any kind of network, you need, of course, some kind of hardware
piece to connect the two machines together.  The ParNET cable is fairly
easy to make from a standard DB-25 printer cable if you have a little
knowlege in electronics, and a tester to make sure your connections are
correct.  I opted to do it the easy way and buy a cable.  There are
several sources for ParNET cables;  I ordered mine from Redmond Cable,
a reputable computer cable company.  The cost was $24 U.S., plus $3
for shipping.  Just ask for a ParNET cable, they'll know what you're
talking about.  The parallel port of the Amiga 1000 is different from
the other Amigas in that its port has a male connector, whereas the
other Amigas use a female connector.  A1000 owners will need either
a different cable, or an adaptor to make the cable fit.  Once you have
your cable, just connect each end of the cable to the parallel ports of
the two machines.  You will, obviously, have to disconnect any printers
connected to the machines if they use the parallel ports.  One word of
warning: Do NOT connect a standard parallel printer cable between your
Amigas.  You need to use a modified ParNET cable, or you may damage
your parallel port hardware.  Also make sure your machines are OFF
before disconnecting or connecting cables.

THE SOFTWARE -- Setting up the NET:
-----------------------------------

Obtaining the ParNET software is relatively easy.  The original ParNET
package is available on Fred Fish Library Disk number 400.  If you
get it from there, you will have to install all the files by hand.
There is a better solution, however.  Vernon Graner, formerly of
Commodore, put together an excellent installation package called
"ParBENCH", which uses the Commodore installer utility to put all
the files where they need to go, and set up the scripts for a point-
and-click network setup.  I highly recommend this package; it is
available on Aminet for Internet users, and several PD houses carry
it as well.  You will have to edit a script file called "ParNET-DriveList"
on each machine.  This file is used to tell the other machine what
devices are available, i.e. hard drive partitions and floppy drives.
Once you've installed everything, you're ready to go.  You should be
able to connect machines with different operating systems.  My A4000
is running Kickstart 3.0 while the A500 is running 2.04.  Lastly, if
you want icons to appear for the devices that you access on the network,
copy the file Node.rinfo to each partition.  If you want an icon for
the ramdisk you will have to copy it each time you power up.  You can
edit the network startup script to copy it automatically when you start
the network.

USING THE NETWORK -- Couldn't be easier!
----------------------------------------

To run the sofware after installing with ParBENCH, all you have to
do is click on the "Boot.Host" icon on one machine, and click on the
"Boot.Client" icon on the other machine.  It doesn't matter which is
the client or host, since the network is peer-to-peer; that is, each
machine can access files on the other without restriction.  Once you
have done that, a disk icon will appear on each machine with the volume
name of "Network".  If you know how to access drawers on the Workbench
(duh!) with the mouse, then you already know how to use the network.
Just double click on the Network icon, and you will see icons for each
of the devices on the other machine (if you have copied the Node.rinfo
file to each device).  You can delete, copy, transfer files, and run
programs just as if they were on the machine in front of you.

You can easily access the network from the shell as well.  The device
name for the network is NET: so if you want to access the ram disk
on the other machine, you type cd Net:ram (notice there is no trailing
colon.  ParNET accesses devices as if they were drawers).  To access
the Utilities drawer on the other machine, you would type:

cd Net:sys/utilities

If you are using OS 2.04 or higher, there are a few caveats.  When
using the shell, some commands do not work properly.  Most seriously
are the dir, list, and copy commands.  Never fear, there are several
fixes for this.  First, you can use some of the PD "list" or "ls"
commands instead, such as Nico Francois' "llist" which works quite
well.  An even better solution is getting a program called "NetPatch"
by Matthias Scheler which patches the system to allow you to use
the dir, list and copy commands normally.  I used NetPatch version 1.1
and it worked on both my 2.04 and 3.0 machines.  I have since added
a line in my Boot.Client and Boot.Host scripts to run this patch when
the network starts up.  There is another, newer ParNET filesystem
written by Olaf "Rhialto" Siebert floating around the nets, which
is supposed to fix the above problems as well.  It's called ParNFS.
Unfortunately, I couldn't get the setup script to make a valid connection
between the two machines.  Olaf, if you read this and you have any
solutions or updates, please e-mail me and I will pass the information
on to the readers.

OTHER GOODIES -- Adding further functionality to your network
-------------------------------------------------------------

Several authors have contributed useful utilities to enhance the power
of ParNET.  One of my favorites is MShell by Massimo Brogioni.  Essentially
what this does is allow you to type `rlogin' from your native shell, and
this starts up a remote shell.  Thus, anything you type in the window is
as if you were typing it FROM the other computer.  That means you can
run programs remotely on the other computer.  This has some very interesting
uses.  I like to use it to run a slideshow program on the other machine,
which works as a nice screenblanker as well when I don't need to look at
the monitor of the other machine.

Another useful, but unfortunately buggy program is called PNetKeys, which
is included in the ParBENCH package.  This utility does something very
cool.  When running, if you press `Left-Amiga P', the mouse pointer in
front of you will freeze, but if you look over at the other monitor, you
will be controlling the mouse and keyboard on the other machine!  The
mouse response is quite snappy, and typing across the net is real time.
To revert control back to machine #1, press the key combination again.
This could be extremely useful for CDTV or CD-32/SFX users that don't
have a detachable keyboard.  Unfortunately, I don't think this program
likes OS 3.0.  After using it a while it tends to lock up the network.
Again, if anyone knows of an update, please let myself or the editors
know, and we'll pass the information along.

For more advanced networking, S.A. Pechler, has written "Spar", a SANA-II
compatible device driver for ParNET.  It allows you to make ParNET
connections using several network protocols, such as AmiTCP, Envoy, or
AS225.  I have not tested this out, but it looks very useful, especially
if you are using a SLIP connection to connect one of your machines to
the Internet.  There is a similar package by Timo Rossi, called NetFS,
which looks equally promising.

LIMITATIONS -- What you can't do with ParNET
--------------------------------------------

First off, ParNET ties up your parallel ports.  That means you can't
run any parallel printer while running the network.  As far as I know,
if you have a multi-parallel port card, you cannot use it either while
ParNet is running, presumably because it ties up your parallel.device
access.  A parallel port switch box would be handy for when you need
to use the printer (and are not using the network at the same time).
The ParNET cable documentation mentions possible interference
with the serial port.  So far I have not had any problem with it, and
I've made many modem connections with the network running.

The second limitation is that ParNET only limits you to a two machine
network.  There was a lot of discussion on the nets about this last
year.  I know some people have tried to connect 3 or more machines
together, but I haven't heard of any successes.  It appears that ParNFS
may allow this to work however, as it describes it in the documentation.

In terms of performance speed, I have found ParNET to be relatively quick.
Certainly, it's not as fast as accessing a hard drive directly, but it's
quite a bit faster than floppy drives.  I'm getting transfer rates between
40-60 KB/sec.  That's about 3 seconds for a 150,000 byte file.  I'm
using an '030 optimized version of the parnet.device on both machines,
which was included in the ParBENCH distribution.

CONCLUSIONS -- Is it right for you?
-----------------------------------

Were it not for third party programs like AmiTCP, Envoy, and ParNET,
The words `Commodore' and `Networking' could rarely be used in the same
sentence.  If you are looking for a low cost, very functional network
to connect a couple of Amigas together, ParNET is a dandy solution.
It's uses are really limitless.  If you are into 3D, with a little
ingenuity, you can create your own mini render farm.  CDTV and
A590 CD-ROM drive owners can use these machines as inexpensive CD-ROM
servers for BBS setups.  I'd be interested in what some of you are
using your ParNETworks for.

If Jason is interested, I'd be happy to gather up the ParNET related
files I have for the AR Disk.  If you have any ParNET related materials
that are NOT on Aminet, feel free to send them to me in uuencoded form
to my e-mail address above and I will add them to the compilation.

[Yes, I'm interested...looks like a Coverdisk #4 release.  -Ed]

If you have a second Amiga that's gathering dust somewhere, get a
ParNET cable and try it -- you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Happy Networking!

COMPANIES MENTIONED
-------------------

Redmond Cable
17371 - A1 NE 67th Ct.
Redmond, WA 98052
(206) 882-2009

The Software Distillery
405 B3 Gooseneck Drive
Cary, NC 27513

Intangible Assets Manufacturing (Envoy)
828 Ormond Avenue
Drexel Hill, PA 19026
(610) 853-3733

@endnode
@node P1-6 "Review: Desktop Magic"
@toc "menu"

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%  REVIEW: DesktopMagic v2.0                    By: William Near       %%
%%  More than just a screen blanker...           W.NEAR@genie.geis.com  %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Program: DesktopMagic v2.0

Publisher: Mediadesk
           1875 S. Bascom Ave.
           Bldg. 116, Suite 204
           Campbell, CA  95008-2359

           1-800-30-MDESK * Order & Product Info
           (510) 548-7117 * Order Fax
           (408) 374-7595 * Tech Support Hotline
           (408) 374-7596 * Tech Support Fax
           mdesk@netcom.com * Tech Support Internet
           73211,660 * Tech Support CompuServe


Description: DesktopMagic is advertised and described in the user's manual
as a complete system enhancement. It consists of a screen saver, mouse
speedup utility, and sound enhancements for the Workbench.

Suggested Retail Price: $39.95 + $5.00 S&H (direct from Mediadesk)
                        I paid 29.95 + $5.00 S&H from Creative Computers

System Requirements: 1MB RAM, Workbench 1.3 or higher, hard drive or second
floppy drive. Claims to support all major graphics boards for the Amiga.

System tested on: Amiga 2000, Workbench 3.1, GForce '030 accelerator @
50MHz., 1MB CHIP + 6MB FAST memory.


PACKAGING

DesktopMagic came with a colorful, 44 page manual, three disks, a
registration card and an order card for a friend, all shrink wrapped
together. If you can get a friend to purchase their own copy of Desktop-
Magic directly from Mediadesk then you will receive two Sound and Artwork
disks for free.


INSTALLATION

DesktopMagic (DM) uses the standard Commodore Installer program which
makes the program easy to set up on either your hard drive or on floppy
disks. I installed DM on my hard drive which used approximately 2.1 MB of
storage space. DM does not create its own drawer, so make sure that you
create one either before you run the Installer program or from within the
Installer; otherwise, you'll have the DM files scattered all over your hard
drive partition. During the installation process you will be prompted for
which effects you want to be installed. The choices are:

     OCS/ECS/AA - if you have the following: A500, 600, 1000, 1200, 2000,
                  2500, 3000 or 4000

     Graphic Card - if you have a graphics card installed in your system

     All Effects - if you would like to have every effect installed (it is
                   noted in the manual that all effects may not run
                   properly if the correct hardware is not installed on
                   your system i.e. some effects will only run correctly on
                   a graphics card equipped Amiga or on a WB 2.x+ system)

At the end of the installation process you are asked whether or not you
want DM to automatically run upon booting up your system. If you answer yes
the Installer will add a line to your S:User-Startup file. I chose not to
have the Installer add the line to my User-Startup and instead placed the
DM icon in my WBStartup drawer.

NOTE: If you have an A1200 or 4000 and a multisync monitor, you must be
certain that your monitor supports a 15kHz scan rate for some of the
effects to run properly. Also, if you have a graphics board you must be
certain that it offers Workbench emulation.


 INTERFACE

 DM has a nice user interface which opens a small window on the Workbench
 screen. To access the interface you can select the DesktopMagic menu choice
 from your Tools pulldown menu on the Workbench or press <Shift> + <F1>. On
 pre-2.x systems you can use the <Shift> + <F1> option only. The interface
 consists of: an effects window with scroll bar, About, Demo, Global, Hotkey,
 Effect, OK, Save, Audio, Quit and Cancel buttons, and finally Audio and
 Effects check boxes.

 * Effects window - This window lists all of the installed screen blanker
 effects and uses a scroll bar to access them.

 * About - This opens a small window with information about Mediadesk.

 * Demo - When you press this button the highlighted effect will open its own
 screen and run. Clicking the mouse button will return to the user interface.
 While some effects are running a gadget box will open on their window for
 user-defined settings.

 * Global - When this button is selected the following choices appear on the
 interface window:

      Timer - This sets the amount of time to wait until the
 screen blanker takes effect. The allowed range is between 10
 seconds and 10 minutes.

      Volume - This controls the tunes and sound effects volume.
 The setting range is between 0 and 64.

      Pri - DM's priority can be manually set from here. The
 range is between -30 and 0 with the default set to -20.

      Mouse - This is a mouse speedup setting. The available
 range is from .25 to 4.0. I found 2.0 to be about right for my
 taste (this is somewhat faster than the highest mouse movement
 speed under WB preferences.)

      CPU Idle - This controls the amount of idle time that the
    CPU has available before the blanker will activate.
 If the CPU does not have at least this amount of idle time
 then the blanker will not be executed. The range of this
 setting is between 0% and 99% This is a very nice feature,
 especially if you've ever used the C= Blanker
 and had it freeze on the screen while printing
 or doing some other CPU intensive activity.

 * Hotkey - The Hotkey button allows the user to define two key
 combinations, one to open the DM interface and one to instantly activate the
 chosen screen blanker.

 * Effect - When this buttons is selected the screen information displays two
 input fields. One field is for entering a sound file to be executed and the
 other field is for selecting the tune that will be executed whenever the
 chosen blanker is activated. Also, any parameters specific to the chosen
 blanker will be shown at this time i.e. number of objects on the screen,
 speed, etc.

 * OK - Selecting the OK button after making adjustments to DM's operation will
 save any new changes to DM's operation and close the user interface.

 * Save - Saves the user's changes to DM's operation and leaves the interface
 window open.

 * Audio - The audio section allows the user to assign sound files to be
 triggered when certain system events occur. The user can assign sounds to:
 Events, Keys, Program, Text and Time.

 The Events include: Alert - Visual warning message similar to
               system crashes.

                     ASLReq - A program opens a requester window.

                     AutoReq - The OS opens a message window.

                     Open screen - A screen is opened.

                     Open window - A window is opened.

                     Close screen - A screen is closed.

                     Close window - A window is closed.

                     Disk - A disk or removable cartridge is
              inserted or removed from the drive.

                     DisplayBeep - A warning message given by an
                                   application.

                     Left Button - Pressing the left mouse
                     button.

                     Right Button - Pressing the right mouse
                      button.

                     Start DM - Starting the DM program.

                     User Timeout - After a user-specified amount
                       of inactive time the sound
         will be triggered.

 The Keys include: ALT, Left Amiga, Right Amiga, CTRL, ESC, F1-F10, Numbers
 0-9, RETURN, SHIFT, SPACE, DEL, HELP, etc.

 The Program selection will assign a sound file to be played each time the
 specified program is loaded.

 The Text choice allows the user to assign a sound to a text string.

 The Time choice allows the user to assign a sound to clock functions
 including: full hour, Midnight, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 hours. This is a nice feature
 for making your clock chime with different sounds at several time intervals.

 NOTE: DM does not use standard digitized sound samples or have support for the
 use of standard MOD formats. You must purchase a program called Face the Music
 from Mediadesk in order to compose your own songs to be used with DM. All of
 the sound samples are in the .HSN format, the samples are created with a
 program called CrazySounds by, you guessed it, Mediadesk. CrazySounds is NOT
 available for the Amiga, only for the Atari and Windows platforms. I think
 that this is not a very good idea considering the vast number of MODs that are
 available to the Amiga community and IFF sound samples. Could Mediadesk just
 be trying to get a few extra bucks out of the end-user?

 There is a RAM/DISK cycle gadget which enables the user to decide if the sound
 files should be preloaded into RAM or loaded from disk as needed. Loading from
 disk can slow things a tiny bit, but it will save on the use of CHIP memory.

 A sound priority cycle gadget is included which allows the user to prioritize
 the execution of triggered sounds. These priority options are mainly useful if
 you have sounds assigned to the
 keys and the mouse buttons. When you press a mouse button and then you
 instantly hit a key you can decide in which order the sounds should be played.

 * Quit - Exits from the DM interface without saving any changes made.

 * Cancel - Closes the DM window and saves any changes made but does not
 activate those changes.

EFFECTS

DM comes with 29 effects for blanking the screen. The effects include:
     Aquarium - See the fish swimming in the tank. This is a nice effect.

     Blackscreen - Just as the name implies, it turns the screen black. A
                   boring effect for a screen blanker, but it doesn't
                   require as much CHIP memory as the other choices.

     Blanctris - This one is a Tetris game which is played by the computer.
                 It comes in two versions, one for ECS machines and one for
                 graphics board equipped machines. A nice blanker.

     Checkered Race - A checkerboard pattern scrolling towards the horizon.
                      Sort of a nice effect, but the horizon is gradually
                      shaded and doesn't seem to ever change. I thought the
                      idea of a screen blanker was NOT to leave the same
                      image on the screen for a long period of time.

     Clock - The current system time can be displayed either digitally or
             in analog mode on the screen. You can have the clock move
             around the screen or stay stationary.

     Cockroaches - Cockroaches crawl around the Workbench screen and smear
                   things up with their little feet.

     CrazyWorms - Worms move across a copy of your Workbench screen and eat
                  it up as they go. I tried this blanker and it didn't seem
                  to eat a copy of my Workbench, instead it put up its own
                  screen to use (disappointing.)

     Curtain - A little creature pulls a curtain down over your Workbench
               screen. This effect just turns your Workbench a solid color.
               Very boring.

     Eyes - Opens pairs of eyes on the screen that blink periodically. Nice
            blanker.

     Fireworks - Rockets fire up onto you Workbench screen and explode in
                 several different colors. This one has options to change
                 how the fireworks look. You can make the explosions
                 glimmer or fade. This is a very nice blanker.

     Flying Breakfast - Cups of coffee, eggs, egg cups, jars of jelly and
                        alarm clocks fly across the screen.

     Fractal - This one comes in two versions, one calculates the fractals
               with normal accuracy while the other calculates the fractals
               with double accuracy. The double accuracy calculations run
               at half the display speed of the normal version, but they
               look nicer.

     LFigures - Animated curves and lines randomly drawn using Lissajous'
                formula. Nice!

     Life - Graphic interpretation of the Life Algorithm. I found this one
            especially boring.

     Lightning - Lightning flashes across the screen with a variable number
                 of branches on each bolt. Very nice effect, especially in
                 a darkened room.

     Lines - A takeoff on the standard Workbench blanker. A nice effect.

     Meltdown - Watch your Workbench screen melt before your very eyes.
                Another nice effect, but this one should have some user
                defined parameters such as: the speed of the melting and
                the size of the chunks that melt etc.

     Messages - Places a scrap of paper on the screen with a user defined
                message written on it. Nice for an office environment.

     Mountain - Uses fractal algorithms to calculate a 3D mountain in
                either wire frame or solid modes. This one requires a high
                amount of CPU usage, but is one of the best blankers avail-
                able in this package.

     Mower - A small man with a lawn mower appears to mow your Workbench
             screen and turn it into a field of grass. This one has poten-
             tial, but the man and mower are crude renditions and it never
             did mow my Workbench screen, instead it used its own screen.
             Disappointing at best.

     MyAnimation - Allows the user to place one of his own IFF-ANIM format
                   animations in the program to be used as a blanker. A
                   nice addition if you're handy with DPaint's animation
                   creator.

     MyPicture - Another nice addition that allows the user to load one of
                 his images (IFF) and use it as a blanker. The picture then
                 moves randomly around the screen.

     Password - Lock the system from unauthorized use. After this blanker
                kicks in, with a black screen (yawn), whenever the mouse is
                moved or a key is pressed the user is prompted for the
                correct password. This would have been better implemented
                in the user interface as a separate option which would
                coexist with another selected blanker. As it stands, you
                have to choose between system security and a neat blanker.

     Plasma - Colorful wavelengths of color scroll across the screen.
              Another one of the better effects available in DM. You can
              adjust the wavelength for varying effects - nice.

     Puzzle - Breaks up your Workbench screen into little blocks and
              shuffles them around the screen. This is another blanker with
              great potential, but the user has no control over the speed
              at which the blocks are moving around the screen. If you've
              ever used the Tiles effect in BlitzBlank (PD) you'll see the
              pieces fly around your Workbench screen at lightning speeds
              (depending on your CPU), but they just pathetically crawl
              under DM's control. What could be more impressive to users of
              other platforms than seeing your Ami move graphics around at
              top speed? This used to be one of my favorite effects, but
              not DM's version of Puzzle.

     Rain - Raindrops fall from different directions across a darkened
            Workbench screen. Boring.

     Spotlights - This one is supposed to move spotlights around a darkened
                  Workbench screen, but I could never get this one to work!
                  The documentation states that a four color Workbench is
                  required. I certainly don't want to limit myself to four
                  colors on my Workbench just so I can use this effect.
                  BlitzBlanker had a very nice version of this one which
                  was another of my old favorites.

     Stars - This blanker comes in two versions, one for ECS machines and
             one for graphics board equipped machines. This one scrolls
             stars forward or sideways (sidewards as the manual states!) on
             a black screen. The stars can be made to spin left or right,
             or you can just leave them going straight ahead. This is
             another one of the better effects in DM.

     Tunnel - This one moves rectangular shapes in a night sky. Sort of
              like flying through a tunnel made up of shapes. Nice.

All of the aforementioned effects require varying amounts of CPU usage
ranging from Very Low to High. If you want to use some of the nicer effects
then you'd better have an accelerated machine. Also, most of the effects
require a lot of CHIP memory.


LIKES: I liked the easy installation of DM using the standard Commodore
       installer program. I had the program up and running in a matter of
       minutes.

       The user interface is well thought out and easy to use.

       Most of the screen blanking effects are nice, but most of them
       require large amounts of CHIP memory and don't offer much user
       configurability.

       The addition of the pulldown menu choice under the Tools menu on
       Workbench makes it easy to access DM's user interface.

       The sheer number of features included with the package make it worth
       the cost for the most part.

       Even though the program was written in Germany, the manual and
       interface lack the presence of misspelled words, grammatical errors,
       and punctuation errors so often found in imported software. Bravo!


DISLIKES: The lack of a built-in mouse blanker. Some of the screen blankers
          also blank the mouse, but others leave the pointer on the screen
          - not a good feature of a screen blanker.

          The user should be able to select which screen mode the blankers
          will run in i.e. Hi-Res Lace, Euro36, etc. As the program is
          written you have no control over the screen resolutions used or
          the number of colors.

          DM lacks a random feature that would allow the user to specify
          which blankers should be active and then have the program
          randomly select a blanker from that list. Now, you must select
          only one blanker and stick with it. If you want to switch blan-
          kers you must manually enter the DM interface and select a new
          blanker to use. There should also be an option that would
          randomly select a blanker from the active list and run the first
          one for a user specified amount of time and then switch to the
          next blanker in the active list etc. This feature alone would add
          much more flexibility to DM and cut down on the boredom factor
          when seeing the same old blanker time and time again.

          The blankers should have the option of being loaded from disk, as
          needed, like the sound files can.

          The Password feature MUST be implemented separately from the
          blankers. Why can't we have system security and a neat blanker at
          the same time?

          Some of the blankers need more user control settings and some of
          them have no control at all when they really should.

          DM should support standard MOD formats for the tunes and IFF
          digitized sound samples. The user has to either buy the tunes
          creation program for his Amiga or suffer with the limited tunes
          supplied by Mediadesk. Also, the sound samples are in a weird
          format which is supported by a single program that isn't even
          available for the Amiga.

          I've saved the BIGGEST fault of DesktopMagic for last. When DM is
          loaded directly from its Workbench icon or from the WBStartup
          drawer upon booting ALL associated files are loaded into your
          CHIP memory! What this means is that on a 1 meg CHIP machine you
          can end up with as little as 250k of CHIP memory left. I usually
          start out with 800k of chip on my Amiga 2000 after all the other
          Workbench launched programs are executed and all devices are
          mounted. I've watched as DM eats as much as 500k of CHIP memory
          from my 1 meg (CHIP) system. This forces the user to choose
          between using DM and using ANY other application due to the
          shortage of precious CHIP memory. I turned off all sound file
          loading and this saved about 100k, but I was still down to about
          350-400k of CHIP memory. This doesn't lend itself to running more
          than one small application, let alone ANY multitasking.


SUMMARY: I would recommend DesktopMagic to any user who has 2 megs of CHIP
memory in their machine. If you have two megs of CHIP memory to spare then
you won't really miss the memory that DM eats and you could enjoy all of
the benefits that this program has to offer. On the other hand, if you have
a 1 meg CHIP machine then I would say avoid DM until this major problem is
resolved in a future update. With only 1 meg of CHIP memory you will be
limited in the number of other small applications you can safely run. With
a 512k CHIP and 512k FAST memory (total 1 meg) machine I believe that you'd
only be able to run DM and nothing else - that's if DM didn't GURU your
system trying to use all of your CHIP memory!

I contacted Mediadesk's tech support by phone and by Internet mail. The
representative acknowledged the CHIP memory problem (yes, he called it a
problem too!) and said that the programmers will be working on it for the
next release. As it stands, I have chosen not to run DM on my system after
spending $34.95 for it because I can't do any serious work on my system
without the extra 500k of CHIP memory used by DM. I've gone back to my old
Commodore Blanker and will await the update to DesktopMagic, which I WILL
purchase.
@endnode

@node P1-7 "UK Crosstalk"
@toc "menu"

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% UK Crosstalk                                  By: Alan Buxey         %%
%% Our UK Correspondent starts a massive survey  kcci1@uk.ac.susx.solx1 %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Welcome, Amiga owner/user, to my first 'Amiga Report' column (though not
the first time that my words have appeared in this magazine - some of my
CD32 mini-reviews got here first..

I hope that you do own or use an Amiga - otherwise this weeks column
will be of no use to you at all!  Let me explain....

It seems that the first task for me here at AR is set for me already -
to find out exactly WHO I am corresponding to.

What do I mean by this then? Well, let me pose the simple question
"What Amiga do you own?". In the beginning, this would have been easy to
answer and forecast - as all Amigas were the same:
A1000 , 68000 , 256K, OCS, 880K floppy...

But not now....oh dear me no.. .

Arguements are continually brought up on the internet as to what the
current "average" owner has:
Is it 1MB or 2MB (and is that Fast or Chip RAM
ECS or AGA? Harddrive present or not?

But no longer!! For, coming soon, is

                "The 1994 Amiga Internet Survey"

The mother of all Amiga surveys! (and i Mean it! :) )

lets see exactly why this problem has to be answered..

Scenario
--------

A developer has a game. it may be an original Amiga title, it may be a
PC port (and theres nothing wrong with that!). Whatever, its a game and
it's to be released on the Amiga format.
        But the game has to be good, the developer doesnt want the game
to suffer from bad reviews - hence bad sales.
        The game _really_ needs a harddrive (it could fit onto 3 or so
floppies and have swapping - but some of the graphics and sound would
have to go. And the graphics have already been cut down from 256 colours
to allow the game to fit onto few floppy disks). Should the developer
just go for it - releasing a hardisk only AGA game - or maybe 2
versions, one a cut down version on floppy.
        But are there enough 020+ powered OCS/ECS machines out there to
cope with the polygons?

Now that you have a handle on the dilema, you can see the obvious
solution. tell the developer all the info he needs about the Amiga
platform / user base.

....and that's where I come in....

Solution
--------

The survey will be extensive and water tight (well.... ;) )

The data-capture form is currently being designed - it leaves no stone
unturned ...or rather... it will do when finished - because this is
where YOU step in.

I want you to E-Mail me with questions that _YOU_ would like to know
about fellow Amiga users/owners. It could be such technical stuff as
what size harddisk they have <if any> (though THAT has already been put
on the form ;) ), it could be their favourite sport -> ideal question
for developers wanting to do a sport game...

....and talking of developers; many MAJOR Amiga developers have been
contacted about this survey and they too have put forward questions to
be asked about you!! 8-)

Developers such as Team-17, 21st Century, Almathera, Decandence,
Mindscape .... who all want to develop good titles that make the most of
the Amiga.

What about CD32?
----------------

CD32 too? Of course!! It _is_ an Amiga. And the survey is definately
going to be searching deeply into CDROM details -> an important step in
the Amiga life.

The End
-------

Well, for you it is...all you have to do is E-Mail me some nice,
searching questions(which I hope you will do..)
As for me, I've got to finish the design of the form to make is as
simple and easy to complete as possible - post it out - and await all
the replies. I then have to analyse all the data. And, as the form has
been designed to allow for any question to be answered (within any
permutation hopefully) - THATS a lot of analysing! %-)

And there's the corresponding to do too!!
Its not an easy life here on the InterNet ;)

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

CD32 Charts and Release Dates
-----------------------------

The latest 'list'/'Gallup' chart for the CD32 places the top games as..


1.      Gunship 2000            Microprose
2.      Heimdall 2              Core design
3.      Liberation              Mindscape
4.      Ultimate Body Blows     Team 17
5.      Impossible Mission 2025 Microprose
6.      Global Effect           Millenium
7.      Wembly Soccer           Audiogenic
8.      Zool                    Gremlin Graphics
9.      James Pond 3            Millenium
10.     Morph                   Millenium


Hot products to look out for in the next chart (and predicted entries)
are;

Simon The Sorceror  (1)
Banshee             (2)
Litil Devil         (4)


Will we see no end to Milleniums domination of the top 10????

Will Microproses success with the CD32 be enough for them to finally
release F1GP to the maddening crowd?

Only time will tell.....

alan

Hi,

Just some quick, rough'n'ready release dates for your CD32...

This month coming
-----------------

Marvin's marvellous adventure           21st century
(who said that they were dropping the Amiga??)

Scavenger 4                             Psygnosis
(yeh, right - sure you dont mean next year THIS time lads? :) )

World Class cricket                     Audiogenic
(whey hey!! a cricket simulator - try THAT on another console! ;) )

Arcade pool                             Team 17
(great game! and this time, you'll feel like your IN a pub -> soundtrack)

Alien Breed Tower Assault               Team 17
(comes with FREE Alien Breed 2 and demos of other games!!)

Superfrog                               Team 17
(the wierd and wacky platformer goes onto the silver disc - about time too!)

October
-------
Jungle Strike                           Ocean
(follow up to desert strike - liscence from EA only just agreed)

MegaRace                                Mindscape
(this game might make the 3DO owners wish that Road rash was even better!)

Pinball Illusions                       21st Century
(ANOTHER release from that hard working team! ;) )

Undated
-------

The educational foreign language package - "Micro French" is to be
released for the CD32.

This marks the first real steps for educational packages on the platform
-> and will be followed by their other language courses.
@endnode
@node P1-8 "Review: Micro R+D CD-ROM Volume 2"
@toc "menu"
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% Review:  Micro R+D CD-ROM Volume 2               By: @{" Jason Compton " link P8-1} %%
%% Nature's Backdrop and NASA pics in a big pile...                     %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Micro R+D's second foray into the CD-ROM market is all about pictures.
Specifically, the Nature's Backdrop series of 72 attractive, crisp,
professional-looking files.  To cap it all off, a large collection of
NASA pics is on here as well.  That's just about it, and it takes up
a lot of space.

Admittedly, a lot of the space is taken up by the fact that each
Backdrop picture is stored in framestore, IFF, TIFF, GIF, and JPEG
formats.  Essentially, just about ANYBODY can get at these, making
it a viable multi-platform CD-ROM.  To make it cater a bit more to
Amiga users, demos of Montage and Broadcast Titler are included.

What do I think?  The pictures are pretty.  There's no questioning
that.  For artists or video production personnel, this CD is a great
place to pull material from: the backdrops really look natural as they're
very well done.  The NASA pictures are of varying quality and
usefulness (there are quite a few of those "Crewman in EVA gear flyby"
pictures)  If this is the sort of thing you need, go for it.

Be wary of the price, however...I've seen this disc sell at a dealer
for over US$70, quite a bit more than the Volume 1 that was sitting
opposite it on the shelf.  If you want Nature's Backdrop with some
space pictures thrown in and value it highly, grab this.  If you're
just in the mood to see some pretty pictures, I can always send you
one of my fiancee.

@endnode
@node P1-9 "Review: Brian the Lion"
@toc "menu"
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%  Review:  Brian the Lion                         By: Katie Nelson     %%
%%  By Psygnosis                                    knelson@bbs.xnet.com %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Brian The Lion -- Psygnosis

Brian the Lion, although pretty much the standard (well-done) platformer
in play-style, is set apart from other games by its spectacular graphics.
This is one of the best games an ECS (and a good one for an AGA)
Amiga owner could have.  If you're sick of your Sega or SNES (you're
STILL friends with them?  :) ) talking about how arcade-like and
wonderful their games are, show them this game.  The backgrounds
especially are amazing.

Brian himself boasts wonderful animation, and unlike most platformers,
not just in his head and feet.  His entire body is animated, and the
expressiveness of the character increases the entertainment.  Even the
small characters that show your status are animated, with the
punching-glove "hit" point character grimacing every time you get hit,
and looking as if it is screaming when you fall down a bottomless pit.
Unfortunately, the "enemy" characters are not so well taken care of, but
you don't see them for very long anyway as you race by trying to beat
the clock.

Oh, and one of the neatest-looking parts (it makes me dizzy, in fact) is in
one of the bonus rounds.  In order to get there, you have to beat the
clock as you complete a level, which is somewhat difficult, actually.
One of the better places to do this is the first secret "place" off of the
very beginning level.  When you are presented with your choice of
bonus levels (there are three, if I remember correctly), choose the cloud
one.  But don't stand still, clouds aren't very sturdy.

To add to the great graphics is wonderful sound.  Many game
soundtracks become tiresome after about 3 run-throughs, and you end
up shutting off the sound and blasting your stereo.  Fortunately, Brian
shows a great variety of music, which happily is becoming more
common in the newer platforms.

The plot:  It has one.  To me, at least, the plot isn't important (in this
type of game).  You're supposed to save your friend.  Standard-type-thing.
To do this, you need to get through all the levels.  Standard-type-thing.
On the way, you can pick up crystals which let you buy stuff that helps
you on your way.  Pretty much a standard-type thing.

Oh, but in order to get to some of the secret levels, you'll need high
jumping ability, which you need to buy.  And each "cloud" shop (yes,
look, for the small cloud, and run into it.)  has different prices from the
others, and some shopkeepers are more friendly than the others.
Which is amusing and a nice touch.

One of the very few problems with Brian the Lion is that it's HARD.  I
mean, maybe not a great deal more than average, but in order to get a
password you have to get pretty far in the game.  After the first, they
become a bit more regular.  Of course, if you stop off to the semi-secret
levels (where you still can get killed), it makes the path that much
longer.  Still, an earlier password would have been a big help.

The second quibble I have with the game is the fact that since the
backgrounds are so wonderful, they had to use a great many colors for
them.  Therefore, colors are re-used for Brian and all other characters.
While I understand that this is conservation in order to give the
appearance of an even greater number of colors, sometimes characters
(especially the frogs at the beginning) seem to blend into the
background, making it a bit more difficult to get past them.

The final criticism I have is:  Put something at the bottom of the pits that
characters fall down.  Bottomless pits, bah!  As if somewhere in the
jungle there's a hole that you can fall down that takes you through the
center of the earth and right off the planet.  Would you see people falling
in the other direction?  Is this mighty hole situated anywhere near West
Chester, PA?

All (minor) faults aside, unless you hate platform games, Get This One.
Even if you don't like the play, it'll look good when you show it off to
friends.
@endnode
@node P1-11 "The Humor Department"
@toc "menu"
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%% The Humor Department                                                 %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

David Pleasance annonunced the new Amiga bundle for the coming Christmas.
New Amigas will now come with the Spanish Inquisition bundled.

Market analysts commented, "We knew that Pleasance had to come up with
a new shocking bundle, or else the Amiga will not survive, but we
didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition!"

Several men dressed in nice red uniforms, and lately seen with Mr.
Pleasance, replied: "NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!"

P.S.    Rumours have it that the new slogan in Amiga adverts will be
        "buy it or else...".
P.P.S.  It's a vicious lie that Amigas sold with this bundle will
        receive free "support" from BLAZEMONGER's "Customer Service".

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

In an earth shattering announcement, Intel said it will stop producing
computer chips as of this September. It will instead start producing a new
line of computer fries. A company spokesman said "Intel has always been an
innovator, as our x86 CPU line clearly demonstrates. Now we have leapfrogged
the entire industry by introducing what may well be the most important
invention of the century."
  Computers incorporating the new line of fries will now be marked by a
"Filet Inside" logo. Indeed all such computers will come with a slice of
cooked fish inside. "People have said in the past that some of our processor
chips are hot enough to cook on. This is indeed a feature, and our new
fries line will take full advantage of this," said Intel's spokesman.
  The first in the series of fries will be the Aquarium. This replacement to
the Pentium has the advantage of having enough space to put a fish on it.
In addition all new Intel fries will have a built-in FPU, or Food Processing
Unit. "In the past there were always cases when the CPU wasn't fast enough for
the application, and people had to go and make a cup of coffee while waiting
for the computer. With our new fries this will no longer be necessary. Now,
when the CPU is busy working, the user will be able to open the machine, and
a hot cup of coffee will already be waiting for him."

  More information on this new "Filet and Fries" initiative will be posted
as soon as it becomes available.

[Thanks to Eyal Teler for a good laugh. -Ed]
@endnode
@node P1-12 "AR Wants You!"
@toc "menu"
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%  AR Wants You!                                                       %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

In case you missed the editorial, the mission this time is simple.  If you
want a weekly magazine, write and fill my current AR drawer with articles.
When I get 200k worth of a magazine, I'll put one out.
@endnode
@node P5-1 "InfraRexx 1.3"
@toc "menu"
TITLE

     InfraRexx
     (and InfraJoy hardware design)

VERSION

     1.3
     (InfraJoy version 3)

RELEASE DATE

     19-Aug-94

AUTHORS

     Leon Woestenberg (leon@stack.urc.tue.nl)
     Jeroen Steenblik (jeroens@stack.urc.tue.nl)

DESCRIPTION

     The InfraRexx software along with the InfraJoy hardware serve as an
     ARexx-Infrared interface, that adds the function of an infrared
     remote controller to your Amiga, and more.

     With this software and hardware you can:

       o Control external audio/video devices via ARexx commands.
       o Control Amiga programs via a common remote control unit.
       o Learn and edit new remote control infrared commands.

     For example you can control a moduleplayer via your compact
     disc player remote control unit. Or, control your video tape
     recorder via a graphic user interface or an ARexx script.

     The main features are:

       o Seperate editor (with learner) and ARexx host commodity.
       o Multitasking-friendly infrared sampling monitor, with very
         low system overhead during monitoring, can also be disabled.
       o Font-sensitive, style-compliant graphic user interface.
       o Localization for Workbench 2.1 users, and newlook menus for
         Kickstart 3.x users.
       o Lowcost hardware for joystickport, with optional throughput.
       o Uses the Amiga Installer Utility to install onto (hard)disk.

CHANGES

       o Removed major bug that caused learning and sending to only work
         once on certain machines.
       o Minor bugfixes/corrections and additions in programs and
         documentation.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

       InfraRexx needs at least AmigaOS version 2.04, and the commodity
       needs ARexx Master to be running in order to be useful. The
       software is useless without the small InfraJoy hardware add-on,
       off which the design and full building instructions are included.
       The hardware can also be ordered from one of the authors.

HOST NAME

       Aminet FTP servers, like ftp.doc.ic.ac.uk (146.169.2.1)

DIRECTORY

       /pub/aminet/util/rexx

FILE NAME

       InfraRexx1.3.lha (100536 bytes)

PRICE

       Free. The optional registration fee is US$10. The minimal required
       hardware costs about US$8 if self-built, but can also be ordered
       for the amount of US$16, which provides free registration.

DISTRIBUTABILITY

       Freeware; freely distributable software and hardware design.
       InfraRexx Copyrights 1994 by Leon Woestenberg. InfraJoy hardware
       design Copyrights 1994 by Jeroen Steenblik and Leon Woestenberg.
@endnode
@node P5-2 "MCalc 1.4"
@toc "menu"
TITLE

     MUIProCalc (MCalc) MUI'Programmer'Calc

VERSION

     1.4

COMPANY

     None working for

AUTHOR

     Kai Iske
     Brucknerstrasse 18
     63452 Hanau
     Germany
     Tel.: +49-(0)6181-850181

     email: kai@iske.adsp.sub.org
            iske@informatik.uni-frankfurt.de

DESCRIPTION

          MUIProCalc is a MUI-based calculator much like Jimmy Yang`s
     Calc 3.0.  It still lacks the plotter, but it offers a quite
     flexible history facility for inserting previously entered
     expressions.  Different output formats offered and plenty of
     functions the user may choose from.  Furthermore the look of the
     calculator may be customized.  ARexx Port for ease of
     calculating from within an editor.  Some functions are able to
     return TeX compatible output.  Results or inputs may be copied
     to the Clipboard.

          MUIProCalc comes with a fancy GUI you may configure to your
     needs.  Function gadgets may be flipped through using pages so
     that they don`t eat up too much of space.  MUIProCalc supports
     an input/output history you may configure so that you may
     re-insert previously entered expressions/results.  History
     entries may be copied to a userdefiniable clipboard unit.  It
     features various display/output bases such as decimal,
     hexadecimal, octal, and binary and of course calculation sizes
     ranging from 8 Bit to 32 Bit width.  Angles may be displayed as
     radians or degrees.  MUIProCalc offers an ARexx port you may use
     to calc expressions externally.  These commands are able to
     return TeX compatible output such as "1\cdot 10^{-5}".  It comes
     with two example scripts for use with CED Pro.

     NEW FEATURES

     - This version fixes some bugs, which are :

      - MCalc didn`t even care about Percent calculations
      - atan() wasn`t definied for some ranges (somehow)
      - The InputString will be default object now
      - Recompiled with Scanner generated by flex 2.4.6


SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

     Only OS 2.x and MUI (MagicUserInterface by Stefan Stuntz)

HOST NAME

     wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4)

DIRECTORY

     /pub/aminet/os20/util/

FILE NAMES

     MCalc14.lha

PRICE

     GiftWare, i.e. anything you like ;)

DISTRIBUTABILITY

     GiftWare
@endnode
@node P5-3 "ForceIcon 1.6"
@toc "menu"
TITLE

     ForceIcon

VERSION

     1.6

COMPANY

     None working for

AUTHOR

     Kai Iske
     Brucknerstrasse 18
     63452 Hanau
     Germany
     Tel.: +49-(0)6181-850181

     email: kai@iske.adsp.sub.org
            iske@informatik.uni-frankfurt.de

DESCRIPTION

     ForceIcon is an utility mainly for users of CDRom drives
     or users of networking software capable of sharing devices
     and icons. Since one can not snapshot the position of a
     volume`s icon (on read only media), nor replace it by a
     user-defined one, I wrote this utility. ForceIcon allows
     you to set the position of a disk`s icon and/or replace
     it by a different image/icon which doesn`t have to be a
     disk.info file. All types of ".info" files may be selected.
     Special features include inheritance of device specific
     settings, specifying the root drawer`s size/position
     and display flags/modes.

NEW FEATURES

     - Using ForceIcon you may even "SnapShot" Disk icons now.
       Use SnapShot and then select SAVE from the Prefs program

     - No more quit requesters will be shown
       (Requested by : Bernhard Moellemann)

     - You may now even enter relative coordinates (relative to
       Workbench Screen`s width/height) for the icon`s position.
       This is accomplished through negative values for
       IconX/IconY
       (Requested by : Bernhard Moellemann)

     - IconPosition window is smaller now
       (Requested by : Bernhard Moellemann)

     - Sort routine could create enforcer hits!

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

     Only OS 2.x and up
     MUI (MagicUserInterface) version 7 (MUI 2.0)

HOST NAME

     wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4)

DIRECTORY

     /pub/aminet/util/wb/

FILE NAMES

     ForceIcon16.lha

PRICE

     GiftWare, i.e. anything you like ;)

DISTRIBUTABILITY

     GiftWare
@endnode
@node P5-4 "MagicA2024 1.0"
@toc "menu"
TITLE

    MagicA2024

RELEASE

    1.0

AUTHOR

    Klaus Melchior (kmel@eifel.oche.de)

SHORT

    Patch to remap MagicWB icons for A2024

DESCRIPTION

    MagicA2024 is a commodity and patches the private routines of the
    icon.library to recolor MagicWB icons to the four A2024 colors.
    The bitmap is adjusted on the fly, extra chip memory is needed
    for the new image, the blitter is used.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

    MagicA2024 requires AmigaDOS 2.04 or higher.

HOST NAME

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

DIRECTORY

    /pub/aminet/util/wb

FILE NAME

    MagicA2024_1_0.lha

DISTRIBUTABILITY

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

    MagicA2024 is Giftware,
    (c) Copyright 1994 by Klaus Melchior.
@endnode
@node P5-5 "Spot 1.3"
@toc "menu"
TITLE

     Spot

RELEASE

     1.3

AUTHOR

     Nico Francois
     nico@augfl.be
     nico.francois@scala.com

SHORT

     Spot 1.3 - FidoNet point tosser/editor

DESCRIPTION

     Spot is a FidoNet tosser/editor for points.  It features a
     userfriendly font-sensitive GadTools interface that is fully
     localized.  Spot uses a custom message base format for fast
     importing and exporting.

     Some of Spot's main features:

     o Supports new 3.0 features (newlook menus, memory pools,...)

     o Automatically creates new areas for you, no tedious work

     o Optional - fully transparent - message base crunching

     o Message list with powerful functions (e.g. search body text)

     o Excellent support for multiple character sets (LATIN-1, IBM,...)

     o Built-in, fully asynchronous, Fido file request

     o Multi-bossing and multi-domain capable

     o Userlist editor

     o ARexx port (100+ commands)

NEW FEATURES

     o Twitlist!  Automatically get rid of messages written by or to
       certain persons or with a specific subject.

     o Sound!  Add an optional sound to several events (message to you,
       message deleted,...).

     o Improved layout and look of several settings windows.

     o Skip thread function added.

     o Automatic readdressing of netmail.

     o Improved FSC-0035 support.

     o New ARexx commands: `messageadvance', `getkludge' and
       `getusername'.

     o Several ARexx commands have been improved.

     o Includes updated catalogs.

     o Several other smaller enhancements to make your life easier.

     o All known bugs and quirks have been fixed.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

     AmigaOS Release 2.04 (V37+) or higher.

HOST NAME

     wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4) [AmiNet]

DIRECTORY

     /pub/aminet/comm/fido

FILENAME

     Spot13.lha
     Spot13pch.lha (patch for Kickstart 2.0 users)

PRICE

     Shareware fee, US$30

DISTRIBUTABILITY

     Shareware, Copyright (c) 1991-1994 Nico Fran=E7ois
@endnode
@node P5-6 "ReqTools 2.2c"
@toc "menu"
TITLE

     ReqTools

RELEASE

     2.2c (38.1266)

AUTHOR

     Nico Francois
     nico@augfl.be

SHORT

     ReqTools 2.2c - the requester toolkit library

DESCRIPTION

     reqtools.library is a standard Amiga shared, runtime library.
     The purpose of ReqTools is to make it a lot quicker and easier
     to build standard requesters into your programs.  ReqTools is
     designed with Commodore's style guidelines in mind, all
     requesters have the look-and-feel of AmigaDOS Release 2.

     ReqTools features the following requesters:  a query requester,
     a string requester, a number requester, a file requester, a
     font requester, a palette requester, a volume requester and a
     screenmode requester.

     Also included are RTPatch (1.3) and RexxReqTools (1.2e):

     RTPatch is a small program that will re-route functions from
     most popular requester libraries to ReqTools.  Libraries
     currently supported are Arp, Req and Asl.  RTPatch will also
     patch some functions in Intuition to give you improved system
     requesters.

     RexxReqTools gives ARexx users easy access to a large family of
     requesters.  All requesters are easy to use; they require one
     or no arguments.  But the requesters also have a lot of power
     through several optional arguments and through tagstrings.
     RexxReqTools itself doesn't implement any of these requesters,
     it is a link between ARexx and ReqTools.

NEW FEATURES

    o Since using VideoControl() to get the visible display clip only
      seems to work when the screen in question is the frontmost
      screen the rtGetVScreenSize() function now falls back to using
      QueryOverscan() for screens that are in the back (thanks to
      Dietmar Eilert for reporting this).

    o Changed method of filtering DOS devices that are shown in the
      file and volume requesters again.

    o Window size and gadget layout is now calculated in a sysihack
      compatible way.

    o Polish translation included.

    o Some small bug fixes...

HOST NAME

     wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4) [AmiNet]

DIRECTORY

     /pub/aminet/util/libs

FILENAME

     ReqTools22c.lha
     ReqTools22c_user.lha (user archive, no includes/libs/etc...)

PRICE

     Shareware fee, US$25

DISTRIBUTABILITY

     Shareware, Copyright (c) 1991-1994 Nico Fran=E7ois
@endnode
@node P5-7 "MagicCX 1.0"
@toc "menu"
TITLE

     MagicCX

VERSION

     1.0

COMPANY

     None working for

AUTHOR

     Kai Iske
     Brucknerstrasse 18
     63452 Hanau
     Germany
     Tel.: +49-(0)6181-850181

     email: iske@informatik.uni-frankfurt.de
            kai@iske.adsp.sub.org

DESCRIPTION

     MagicCX is the definite commodity/system enhancer for
     any Amiga running OS 2.x or better. It is a very
     powerful and flexible system.

     - It incorporates many, many features known from
       other commodities, while offering new, unseen
       features

     - External preferences program allows full control
       over MagicCX

     - It offers a special module design, known from
       Workbench. You may install/use modules/functions
       by simply dragging them to a Modules directory, if
       not used, move them to a storage directory.

     - Offers ModulesManager program for Users of OS 3.x
       and up

     - Comes with manuals in English and German

     - Localized under OS 2.1 and up. English, German
       translations available

     - Utilizes Installer for installing MagicCX to your
       system

     - Compact system installation. Only a few files
       will be spread around your system. All others
       are kept in a single directory

     - Only basic functions (window activation and such)
       are built into the main program. The remaining
       features were put into external modules

     - MagicCX comes with 18 (for now) different modules
       you may choose from.

     - Flexible blanker system with two internal blankers
       and 8 (for now) external blanker modules

     - Utilizes powerful gadget layout library

     - Plenty of features, take a look.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

     OS 2.x and up (Harddisk recommended but not needed)

HOST NAME

     wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4)

DIRECTORY

     /pub/aminet/util/cdity/

FILE NAMES

     MagicCX10.lha     ; program, AmigaGuide docs

PRICE

     Shareware according to SASG prices

     - DM   30.-
     - FF   120.-
     - SFr  30.-
     - #    15.-
     - US$  20.-
     - Aus$ 30.-

DISTRIBUTABILITY

     Shareware
     (Keyfile protected, all features available)
@endnode
@node P5-8 "Oberon-A 1.4"
@toc "menu"
TITLE

    Oberon-A

VERSION

    Release 1.4

AUTHOR

    Frank Copeland -- fjc@wossname.apana.org.au

DESCRIPTION

    Oberon-A is a freely-distributable Oberon-2 compiler. Oberon-2 is a
    modern object-oriented language designed by Niklaus Wirth, the creator
    of Pascal and Modula-2, and Hanspeter Mvssenbvck. Oberon-A is an
    implementation of the language for the Amiga computer, ported from a
    compiler written by Niklaus Wirth.

    The archive contains the compiler, an error lister, a pre-link
    utility, a linker (BLink), a programmer's environment and other
    utilities. A complete interface to the Amiga operating system
    (Release 3.1) and a collection of library modules in source code form
    is provided. Documentation is in AmigaGuide and plain ASCII formats.
    The full source code for the compiler and utilities is available in a
    seperate archive.

    Release 1.4 is a preliminary release with a limited module library
    and requires testing.

FEATURES

    - The compiler directly generates MC68000 machine code in standard
      AmigaDOS format object files.
    - Both ALink and BLink can be used to link object modules and support
      for other linkers will be progressively added.
    - A garbage collector for memory (with some limitations) is built in to
      the run-time support code.
    - Language extensions include:
      - Escaped characters in strings (big deal :-)).
      - Support for BCPL and C pointers.
      - Inline calls to Amiga system libraries.
      - Vararg parameters to pass tag lists to Amiga library calls.
    - The compiler is currently CLI-only, but a programmer's environment
      utility provides Workbench access.
    - Interactive and batch compilation is supported.

NEW FEATURES

    - Amiga interfaces upgraded to Release 3.1.
    - An error listing utility.
    - A module definition utility.
    - Compiler options to generate stack checks and NIL pointer checks.
    - Simple foreign code interface (to be improved).

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

    Oberon-A requires 1MB of memory and a hard disk is strongly recommended.
    A text editor is required and must be obtained seperately.

    Oberon-A now officially requires AmigaOS 2.04 or greater. Most of the
    package will still run under AmigaOS 1.3, but this will not last.

HOST NAME

    Oberon-A has been uploaded to AmiNet.  It is available from
    ftp.wustl.edu, archie.au and other AmiNet sites.

DIRECTORY

    ftp.wustl.edu:/pub/aminet/dev/obero
    archie.au:/pub/micros/amiga/aminet/dev/obero

FILE NAMES

    Oberon-A_1.x_bin.lha -- Binaries and documentation.
    Oberon-A_1.x_lib.lha -- Library source and examples.
    Oberon-A_1.x_src.lha -- Source for compiler and utilities.

    x is the update number, currently 4. The bin and lib archives are
    required, the src archive is optional.

PRICE

    Kind words to the author :-)

DISTRIBUTABILITY

    Freeware, distributed under the GNU General Public License and the GNU
    Library General Public License.
@endnode
@node P5-9 "FGP 2.03"
@toc "menu"
TITLE

    FGP2

VERSION

    2.03

AUTHOR

    Simon Austin (austins@sol2.uel.ac.uk)

DESCRIPTION

    At the start of this Formula One season Autosport magazine started
    running a Fantasy Grand Prix competition. FGP2 is a program which
    allows you to avoid at the tedious working out how many places your
    driver gained on his grid position and just how many points did
    Rubens Barrichello score by coming third. FGP2 has a simple command
    line and takes most of its input in the form of human-readable
    ascii files which can be created on any text editor. FGP2 comes
    with all the current driver/team data files required and can handle
    up to 50 different teams. Example files are also included for the
    files you have to create yourself.

UPDATE

    Version 2.03 is an update to version 2.02a. It contains some minor
    bug-fixes and a slight rule change. This distribution also contains
    the results for the German Grand Prix.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

    None.

HOST NAME

    Any aminet site e.g. ftp.luth.se (130.240.16.3)

DIRECTORY

    /pub/aminet/game/misc

FILE NAMES

    fgp203.lha        24278 bytes
    fgp203.readme      1923 bytes

PRICE

    free, gratis, nada, nuthin', nowt.

DISTRIBUTABILITY

    Freely distributable.
    Program Copyright 1994 Simon Austin.
@endnode
@node P5-10 "EyeCandy02"
@toc "menu"
TITLE

     EyeCandy02 - Generates various designs:
                  Spirograph(tm?) simulator of the spiral-drawing toy,
                  "YarnBall", "CircleStar", "RotoBoxes", "RotoAngle"
                  and "PolyGen".  Simple, fun and addictive!

VERSION

     This is version 02 which replaces EyeCandy01.
     See "NEW FEATURES" below for enhancements.

COMPANY

     No company, just an AMINET upload by "yours truly".

AUTHOR

     EyeCandy02 was written by me, Chuck Kenney.  My particulars
     (address, etc.) are included in the user document in the archive.

DESCRIPTION

     EyeCandy02 generates various "eye candy" designs.  Currently these
     are:  "SpiroDraw", "YarnBall", "CircleStar", "RotoBoxes", "RotoAngle"
     and "PolyGen".  Future releases of EyeCandy will likely have more
     designs programmed in.  "SpiroDraw" simulates the Wheels-and-Rings-
     and-Pens SPIROGRAPH drawing toy. "YarnBall" ... well generates designs
     that look like balls of yarn. "CircleStar" generates designs that look
     like 3D checkerboard stars.  "RotoBoxes" generates "spirally, tunnelly"
     designs by rotating squares about a central axis,  "RotoAngle" is a
     bit like "RotoBoxes" but uses lines and angles instead of squares.
     "PolyGen" generates "tunnelly" designs using concentric polygons.
     "EyeCandy" Allows the user to specify different values for many of
     the parameters which dictate the sizes and shapes of the designs -
     "Drawing Wheels, Drawing Rings", number of "YarnBall" spokes, sizes
     and angles of change, etc.  There is also a "Random" function for
     each design.  The use of a computer to generate the various SpiroDraw
     and other designs actually enhances some of the capabilities!
     "EyeCandy02" is all mouse-driven (MENUs, GADGETs, etc.).
     It is a fun _and_ addictive program!  .. but I'm biased, of course!

     EyeCandy02.lha also contains a very nice little freely distributable
     "screen-to-IFF" saver utility by Preben Nielsen (thanks, Preben) so
     that "EyeCandy" designs can be imported into and animated with
     "paint" programs.

     "EyeCandy" is shareware but does not nag the user in any way (except
     if the user selects the "About" MENU item) and all features are fully
     functional.

NEW FEATURES

     Three new design generator functions were added to EyeCandy02:
     "RotoBoxes", "RotoAngle" and "PolyGen".  Many improvements have
     also been made to the user interface.  EyeCandy02 has also been
     compiled under a new version of the compiler, "ACE" by David Benn,
     which enabled further enhancement and enjoyment of the user-
     interface in terms of look, feel and functionality.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

     There are no special requirements that I know of.
     EyeCandy02 has been tested on an Amiga 2000HD (OS 2.1)
     and an Amiga 1000 (OS 1.3).

HOST NAME

     EyeCandy02.lha has been uploaded to the AMINET site,
     ftp.etsu.edu (192.43.199.20) and is also available on
     all other AMINET sites.

DIRECTORY

     EyeCandy02.lha and EyeCandy02.readme reside in the
     "aminet/gfx/misc" directory.

FILE NAMES

     EyeCandy02.lha is 80,331 bytes long.

PRICE

     The asking shareware price is the amount sent to me by my first
     shareware contributor to SpiroDraw, EyeCandy's predecessor.
     This requested shareware fee is $5.00 (US), in the hope that
     many little sharewares will add up to more than a few bigger ones!

DISTRIBUTABILITY

     This program is freely distributable as long as the documentation
     accompanies the program but is a copyrighted (1994) shareware
     program by me, Chuck Kenney.  If this program is included in any
     CD-ROM collection, I ask that a copy of the CD-ROM be sent to me.

OTHER

     EyeCandy02, and other programs in progress are coming out of my
     basement as a result of the availability of a truly wonderful
     "BASIC-but-much-more!" compiler, "ACE" by David Benn.  I would
     like to sincerely thank Mr. Benn for renewing my enthusiasm in
     programming and for making it possible for me to make my programs
     available to more than just my friends and immediately family!
@endnode
@node P5-11 "GhostRider 1.0"
@toc "menu"
PRODUCT NAME

    GhostRider V1.0


BRIEF DESCRIPTION

    GhostRider (GR) is a new program for debugging and viewing/changing
    memory contents in hex, ascii and (dis)assembly form, independant of
    system resources, which "normal" debuggers rely on. This is in general
    known as a (hardware) monitor. GR features most "standard" functions,
    but also many things not normally found in this type of software.


AUTHOR

    Name:       Jesper Skov
    Address:    (Check ghostrider.guide for snail address)

    EMail:      jskov@iesd.auc.dk


DESCRIPTION

    GhostRider (GR) is a new hardware monitor written in pure assembler. The
    most important difference between GR and other monitors of this kind is
    that GR is build up from scratch - not a (simple) modification of some
    old CON-based monitor. Before starting this project I tried to figure
    out what single feature of a monitor is more important. Since a monitor
    is to be used by many different people, I decided that the most
    important feature would be the ability of configuration according to the
    user's needs. Therefore GR comes with a preference editor which will
    allow you, the user, to configure the "feel" of GR... See below for a
    list of some of the features in GhostRider:

    - Works on all (well, most :) Amigas; AGA, ECS, NTSC, PAL,
      MC68000-MC68040/MMU/FPU.
    - Does _NOT_ rely on the system to be around.
    - Fast screen handling.
    - Powerfull input parser, support use of symbols.
    - Copper-list locater.
    - System, NMI, reset (also GURU) & BreakPoint entry modes.
    - Text snapping/pasting with the mouse.
    - Full dis/assembler support for the M68k family (well, not the 'o6o).
    - "Standard" block dump as well as editor environments for
      disassembling, HEX-viewing, ASCII-viewing and Memory-Peeking (bitmap).
    - Memory hunt featuring; long strings, jokers (wildcards), NOT-data,
      case(in)-sensitive text hunt, branch hunt and PC-relative hunt.
    - Memory fill featuring; long strings and jokers.
    - Breakpoint support.
    - Full control of CustomRegister contents at exit.
    - Results from hunt/compare operations are kept in a buffer for fast and
      easy access.
    - Capable of resuming (some) interrupted commands.
    - Disk system with UN*X like parsing of path.
    - Includes system interface (ghostrider.library) which allow usage in
      your own programs (for easy debugging).
    - Full documentation in AmigaGuide format.


NEW FEATURES

    GhostRider V1.0 contains following updates from version V0.32E:

    - GhostRider is now shareware - this release is fully functional.
    - Full configuration of screen mode (PAL/NTSC/MULTISYNC).
    - The disk routines using DOS (save/load/del/dir/cd) now use a UN*X like
      path parser.
    - GhostRider now run on _all_ tested Amigas (also the A4000/o4o).
    - Track display.
    - Disassembly speed improved.
    - It is now possible to change CPU register contents (d0-a7).
    - It is now possible to edit the code in the disassemble editor.
    - The (memory) size of GR has been reduced.
    - Many bug fixes and extra prefs.


SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

    GhostRider should run on all systems, but the DeckRunner and Preference
    Editor require Kickstart 2.04+ (V37+).


HOST NAME

    ftp.luth.se     (All AmiNet sites)


DIRECTORY

    dev/moni


FILENAME

    GhostRiderV10.lha


PRICE

    The shareware fee is 100DKr/20$US/30DM. If you use this program I ask
    you to register.


DISTRIBUTABILITY

     Shareware, Copyright ) 1992-1994 Jesper Skov.
@endnode
@node P5-12 "MultiTool II 2.0d"
@toc "menu"
TITLE

         MultiTool II

VERSION

         V2.0d

AUTHOR

         Boris Jakubaschk
         (Boris@alice.tynet.sub.org)

DESCRIPTION

         MTool provides all standard features of a directory utility:
         You can use it to copy, move and delete files, analyze a file
         type and perform an action on it (i.e. show pictures or ani-
         mations, play mods, edit texts...).

         MTool handles LHA-archives like ordinary directories. You can
         doubleclick the name of a LHA-archive and its contents will
         be displayed in the filelist. Files can be deleted or copied
         to and from the archive.

         The layout of MTool resembles the good old DiskMaster (V1.4).

         MTool has been developed using the look and feel of OS2.04
         and WB2.1. It works with WB2.0 (not localized, no screen mode
         requester); KS1.3 is not supported any more. It can be run on
         an own screen, a public screen or on the Workbench (resizable,
         position and size can be configured).

         Docs and/or catalogs are included in English, German, Swedish,
         French, Norwegian, Danish and Italian.

NEW FEATURES

         V2.0d:
         - Some bugfixes (crash on ESC-Hide, garbled devicelist)
         - French manual
         - improved French catalogs

DISTRIBUTABILITY

         MTool is shareware. It is freely distributable, as long as
         you distribute all files! Feel free to include it in public
         domain collections (i.e. fishdisks).

REQUIREMENTS

         Workbench 2.04 or higher

         To use the archive support of MTool, you need any version of
         the LHA archiver (not included)

         To view pictures or animations, to play mods etc you need
         programs that can be included in the configuration of MTool.
         (i.e. VT, Player...)

         To install MTool with its installation script, you need the
         commodore installer (not included)

RELEASE DATE

         August 24th, 1994.

HOST NAME

         Any Aminet server

         i.e. wuarchive.wustl.edu (128.252.135.4)

DIRECTORY

         /pub/aminet/util/dir

FILE NAME

         MTool20d.lha

PRICE

         Shareware fee of $15 US / DM25
         (MTool is slightly crippled in the unregistered version: One
         requester at startup and some less important features are
         disabled)
@endnode
@node P5-13 "FreeForm3D 1.7"
@toc "menu"
TITLE:

     FreeForm3D Bspline Modeler

VERSION:

     1.7

AUTHOR:

     Fori Owurowa
     1873-75 Cropsey Ave
     Brooklyn, NY 11214
     718-996-1842 12 noon to 7pm Eastern
     enigma@dorsai.dorsai.org

DESCRIPTION:

    FreeForm 3D Bspline modeler brings truly affordable,
    superfast Bspline modeling to your current 3D program
    rivaling that of high end workstations.  FreeForm can output
    to Lightwave, Aladdin4D, Real3D2, Imagine and Caligari.
    (POV and Rayshade are currently being added) FreeForm has
    realtime object and point editing in all views; and a
    real-time, 3D space, through the camera perspective view.
    In addition to the standard 3D tools, FreeForm has tension
    adjustment to Bsplines(giving NURB like control),
    deformations, rail extrusion, morph extrusion, cross
    sectional skinning, automatic Bones creation, real-time
    Bones manipulation and on-line help.  FreeForm even gives
    Real3D2 users a faster, easier to use Bspline environment.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

    1. 68020 or higher.
    2. Math co-processor.
    3. 1.2 Megs of RAM minimum.
    4. OS 2.04 or higher.

HOST NAME

    Usable demo of version 1.7 on
    1. Aminet i.e. ftp.wustl.edu(128.252.135.4)
       in pub/aminet/gfx/3D
    2. Lightwave ftp tomahawk.welch.jhu.edu (128.220.59.75)
       in pub/LW/utils
    3.  Check for the file names on your local on-line service or BBS,
        they maybe there too.

FILE NAMES

     FreeForm3D1.7.lha   Size 290k
     FreeForm3Dpic.lha   Size 380k

PRICE

    Cash, check or money order for
    $70

DISTRIBUTABILITY

     Copyrighted by Fori Owurowa 1993,94
@endnode
@node P4-1 "Delphi"
@toc "menu"

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


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

                          SIGNING UP WITH DELPHI
                          ======================

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

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

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

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

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

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

                  DELPHI - It's getting better all the time!

@endnode

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

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


              The Portal Information Network's Amiga Zone

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

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

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

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

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

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

  2.5 GIGabytes of Amiga-specific file space - we have so much Amiga
   Stuff online, we've lost count!

  The *entire* Fred Fish collection of freely distributable software,
  online.  ALL 1000 disks!

  Fast, Batch Zmodem file transfer protocol. Download up to 100 files at
   once, of any size, with one command.

  Twenty Amiga vendor areas with participants like AmigaWorld, Elastic
   Reality (ASDG), Soft-Logik, Apex Publishing, and others.

  38 "regular" Amiga libraries with over 10,000 files.  Hot new
   stuff arrives daily.

  No upload/download "ratios" EVER. Download as much as you want, as
   often as you want, and never feel pressued doing it.

  Live, interactive nightly chats with Amiga folks whose names you
   will recognize.  Special conferences.  Random chance prize contests.
   We've given away thousands of bucks worth of Amiga prizes - more
   than any other online service.

  Vast Message bases where you can ask questions about *anything*
   Amiga related and get quick replies from the experts.

  Amiga Internet mailing lists for Imagine, DCTV, LightWave, EGS,
   Picasso, OpalVision & others feed right into the Zone message bases.
   Read months worth of postings.  No need to clutter your mailbox with
   them.

  FREE unlimited Internet Email with 5 meg of free storage.

  A FREE UNIX Shell account with another 5 meg of free storage.

  Portal has the Usenet.  Thousands of "newsgroups" in which
   you can read and post articles about virtually any subject you can
   possibly imagine.

  Other Portal SIGs (Special Interest Groups) online for Mac, IBM, Sun,
   UNIX, Science Fiction, Disney, and dozens more. ALL Portal SIGs
   are accessible to ALL Portal customers with NO surcharges ever.
   You never worry "Ooops.. Am I paying for this area?" again!

  The entire UPI/Clarinet/Newsbytes news hierarchy ($4/month extra)
   An entire general interest newspaper and computer news magazine.

  Portal was THE FIRST online service to offer a full package of
   Internet features: IRC, FTP, TELNET, MUDS, LIBS.
   And you get FREE unlimited usage of all of them.

  Our exclusive PortalX by Steve Tibbett, the graphical "front end"
   for Portal which will let you automatically click'n'download your
   waiting email, messages, Usenet groups and binary files!  Reply to mail
   and messages offline using your favorite editor and your replies are
   sent automatically the next time you log into Portal.
   (PortalX requires Workbench 2.04 or higher)

  Portal does NOT stick it to high speed modem users. Whether
   you log in at 1200 or 2400 or 9600 or 14.4K you pay the same low
   price.

To join Portal or for more information call:

   1-800-433-6444 (voice) 9a.m.-5p.m. Mon-Fri, Pacific Time
   or 1-408-973-9111.
   1-408-725-0561 (modem 3/12/2400) 24 hours every day
   1-408-725-0560 (modem 96/14400) 24 hours every day

   or enter "C PORTAL" from any Sprintnet dial-in in the USA,
   or telnet to "portal.com" from anywhere.

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

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

The Portal Information Network accepts MasterCard, Visa, or you can
pre-pay any amount by personal check or money order.  The Portal Online
System is a trademark of The Portal Information Network.  SLIP, UUCP
and custom domain accounts are also available.

@endnode

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

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%                           Dealer Directory                            %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

                           Almathera Systems Ltd
                             Southerton House
                          Boundary Business Court
                             92-94 Church Road
                              Mitcham, Surrey
                             CR4 3TD  England
                         VOICE: (UK) 081 687 0040
                         FAX:   (UK) 081 687 0490
              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
                     Internet:  B.GRAY@genie.geis.com

                           Atlantis Kobetek Inc.
                           1496 Lower Water St.
                       Halifax, NS, Canada, B3J 1R9
                          Phone:  (902)-422-6556
                          Fax:    (902)-423-9339
                          BBS:    (902)-492-1544
                    Internet:  aperusse@fox.nstn.ns.ca

                        Brian Fowler Computers Ltd
                                11 North St
                                  Exeter
                                   Devon
                                  EX4 3QS
                              United Kingdom
                           Voice: (0392) 499 755
                           Fax:   (0392) 423 480
                Internet:  brian_fowler@cix.compulink.co.uk

                       CLICK! Amiga Specialists N.V.
                            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

                        Comspec Communications Inc
                  Serving your computing needs since 1976
                              74 Wingold Ave
                             Toronto, Ontario
                             Canada   M6B 1P5
                     Computer Centre:   (416) 785-8348
          Service, Corporate & Educational Sales: (416) 785-3553
                            Fax:  416-785-3668
                   Internet:  bryanf@comcorp.comspec.com
                              bryanf@accesspt.north.net

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

                             DataKompaniet ANS
                             Pb 3187  Munkvoll
                             N-7002  Trondheim
                              Norway - Europe
                          VOICE/FAX:  72 555 149
                      Internet:  torrunes@idt.unit.no

                               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

                           Industrial Video, Inc.
                           1601 North Ridge Rd.
                             Lorain, OH  44055
                           VOICE:  800-362-6150
                                   216-233-4000
                  Internet:  af741@cleveland.freenet.edu
                            Contact:  John Gray

                                MicroSearch
                        9000 US 59 South, Suite 330
                              Houston, Texas
                           VOICE:  713-988-2818
                           FAX:    713-995-4994

                          Mr. Hardware Computers
                               P.O. Box 148
                              59 Storey Ave.
                          Central Islip, NY 11722
                           VOICE:  516-234-8110
                             FAX:  516-234-8110
                         A.M.U.G. BBS:  516-234-6046

                     MusicMart:  Media Sound & Vision
                            71 Wellington Road
                          London, Ontario, Canada
                           VOICE:  519-434-4162
                             FAX:  519-663-8074
                             BBS:  519-645-2144
                            FIDO:  1:2401/200
                        AmigaNet:  40:550/1
                          MaxNet:  90:204/1
                  InterNet: koops@gaul.csd.uwo.ca

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

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

                           Wonder Computers Inc.
                             1315 Richmond Rd.
                      Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K2B 8J7
                           Voice:  613-596-2542
                           Fax:    613-596-9349
                           BBS:    613-829-0909

                                CYNOSTIC
                               Office O1,
                     Little Heath Industrial Estate,
                            Old Church Road,
                                Coventry.
                                 CV6 7NB
                             UNITED KINGDOM
                        Tel: +44 (0)203 681687
                        Fax: +44 (0)203 638508
              David Cassidy email: bsupa@csv.warwick.ac.uk

                             DataService Oy
                               P.O. Box 50
                           Kuurinniityntie 30
                               02771 ESPOO
                            Findland, Europe
                      Voice: +358 (9) 400 438 301
                      Fax:   +358 (9) 0505 0037

                           Grey Matter Ltd.
                             Amiga RuleZ!
                         1-22-3,Minami Magome
                      HillTop House 2F suite 201
                          Ota-ku,Tokyo 143
                                Japan
                       Tel:+81 (0)3 5709-5549
                       Fax:+81 (0)3 5709-1907
               and of course the BEST Amiga BBS in Japan
       BBS:Grey Matter BBS +81 (0)3 5709-1907 (8N1 V32bis 24H )
               Email: nighty@gmatter.japan-online.or.jp

                         Amiga Video Solutions
                         1568 Randolph Avenue
                          St. Paul, MN  55105
                         Voice:  612-698-1175
                         BBS:    612-698-1918
                         Fax:    612-224-3823
                  Net:  wohno001@maroon.tc.umn.edu

                              Magic Page
                          3043 Luther Street
                       Winston-Salem, NC 27127
                        910-785-3695 voice/fax
                         Spiff@cup.portal.com

                             Keizer Tech
                           3881 River Rd N
                          Keizer, OR 97303
                                USA
                           Voice: 393-5472

                              Computer Link
                         Your Amiga/PC connection.
                              6573 middlebelt
                           Garden City MI 48135
                                    USA
                            313-522-6005 Voice
                             313-522-3119 Fax
                         clink@m-net.arbornet.org

                            VISAGE COMPUTERS
                            18 Station Road
                                Ilkeston
                               Derbyshire
                                DE7 8TD
                           UNITED KINGDOM
                      Tel/Fax: +44 (0)602 444501
                      Internet: floyd@demon.co.uk
          Suppliers of Amiga Hardware, Software and Public Domain.

                      HIGHLAND GREY CONSULTING, INC.
              Customer Service Centre            Head Office
              4704E - 49 Ave.                    R.R. 1
              Camrose, Alberta                   Ohaton, Alberta
              Canada                             Canada
              T4V-3K9                            T0B-3P0
                        VOICE:  (403) 679-2242
                        FAX:    (403) 672-0303
                  Sales and Service; Same Phone #'s!
             Apple, Amiga, IBM/Clone and Macintosh Systems

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


@endnode
@node P4-6 "X-NET"
@toc "menu"
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%                     X-Net Information Systems                       %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

            --==>  Public Internet Connectivity Today  <==--

                - LIVE Internet       - Over 6,000 Newsgroups
                - Telnet/FTP          - Worldwide E-Mail
                - Gopher/Archie       - Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
                - SLIP/PPP            - NCSA Mosaic

A system dedicated to the Amiga, IBM and Unix user.   System Admins
                                                      -------------
             Naperville : (708) 983-6435 V.32bis      Brian Vargyas
    NEW Hoffman Estates : (708) 882-1101 V.32bis      Brian Clark
            Voice / Fax : (708) 983-6064              Arthur Zards
               Internet : net.xnet.com

@endnode

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

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%                       _    _       __  ___    _                       %%
%%                      /\\  |\\   /| || //  \  /\\                      %%
%%                     /  \\ | \\ /|| ||(< __  /  \\                     %%
%%                    /--- \\|  \/ || || \\_||/--- \\                    %%
%%                   /______________________________\\                   %%
%%                  /                                \\                  %%
%%              Amiga Report International Online Magazine               %%
%%                     August 22, 1994  ~ Issue No. 2.25                 %%
%%                  Copyright  1994 SkyNet Publications                  %%
%%                           All Rights Reserved                         %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Views, Opinions and Articles presented  herein are not necessarily those of
the editors  and staff of Amiga Report International Online  Magazine or of
STR Publications.  Permission to reprint articles is hereby granted, unless
otherwise noted.  Reprints must, without exception, include the name of the
publication, date, issue number and  the author's name. Amiga Report and/or
portions therein  may not be edited in  any way  without prior written 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. All items quoted
in whole or in part are  done so under the  Fair Use Provision of the Copy-
right Laws  of the United  States  Penal Code.  Any Electronic Mail sent to
the  editors may be  reprinted, in whole  or in part, without  any previous
permission of the author, unless said electronic mail specifically requests
not to be reprinted.

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%


@endnode

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

@{"  compt.sys.editor.desk " link P1-1} Mini-Survey result and response...
@{"      Amiga News        " link P1-2} News and Announcements-lots of them.
@{"   Review: G-Force 040  " link P1-4} A huge review of GVP's accelerator
@{"      ParNET 'Em!       " link P1-5} An inexpensive solution for dual Amigas
@{"  Review: Desktop Magic " link P1-6} More than just a screen blanker...
@{"     UK Crosstalk       " link P1-7} CD32 news and a massive survey project
@{"Review: Micro R+D Vol. 2" link P1-8} Nature's Backdrop and NASA pictures
@{" Review: Brian the Lion " link P1-9} The Lion King-Of Platform Games
@{"  The Humor Department  " link P1-11} A press release.  Really.
@{"     AR Wants You!      " link P1-12} More requests.
@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
@{"  In Closing  " link P2-3} Copyright Information

@endnode

@node P2-2 "The Editors"

Feel free to contact any of the editors!

@{" Jason Compton " link P8-1} The Editor-in-chief
@{" Robert Niles  " link P8-2} The Assistant Editor
@{" Michael Wolf  " link P8-3} The European Editor
@{" David Tiberio " link P8-4} Contributing Editor

@endnode

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

@{"   Delphi   " link P4-1}  Getting better all the time!
@{"   Portal   " link P4-2}  A great place for Amiga users...
@{"  InterNet  " link P4-5}  Subscribe to the AR Mailing List
@{"   X-NET    " link P4-6}  An Internet site for everyone!
@endnode

@node P5 "FTP and product announcements"
@toc "menu"

@{"   InfraRexx V1.3   " link P5-1} An external infrared ARexx interface
@{"     MCalc V1.4     " link P5-2} A powerful, MUI-based calculator
@{"   ForceIcon V1.6   " link P5-3} Force icon locations for non-snapshottables
@{"  MagicA2024 V1.0   " link P5-4} Allow MagicWB to look nice on 2024s.
@{"     Spot 1.3       " link P5-5} FidoNet point tosser/editor by Nico.
@{"  ReqTools V2.2c    " link P5-6} A new version of the famous requester library
@{"    MagicCX V1.0    " link P5-7} A "lots-in-one" commodity.  Modular.
@{"   Oberon-A V1.4    " link P5-8} An Oberon-2 compiler.
@{"     FGP V2.03      " link P5-9} Fantasy Grand Prix: updated
@{"    EyeCandy02      " link P5-10} Like old drawing toys, but electronic.
@{"  GhostRider V1.0   " link P5-11} Debug/View memory contents
@{" MultiTool II 2.0d  " link P5-12} A directory-managing utility
@{"  FreeForm3D 1.7    " link P5-13} A flexible Bspline modeler

| The 10 most downloaded files from Aminet during the week until 28-Aug-94
| Updated weekly. Most popular file on top.
|
|File                Dir        Size Description
|------------------- ---        ---- -----------
Incinerator.lha      game/shoot 236K+Awesome 3D missile attack/defend game.
CAttack.lha          game/shoot  78K+A wonderful helicopter dogfight game.
ar225.lha            docs/mags   74K+Amiga Report 2.25, 22-Aug-94
bsp1.0.lha           gfx/misc    65K+Doom.wad walkthrough demo (ECS | AGA)
Arq1_83.lha          util/cdity  43K+The requester improver
MagicCX10.lha        util/cdity 574K+Great modular commodity system
uuxt30.lha           util/arc   110K+The Best UUcoder with full WB support
TauIcons17.lha       pix/icon   104K+MagicWB style icons, v1.7
Checkers.lha         game/think 146K+Checkers board game, fully featured.

 The Top 20 modules of August.

 place  last  title                               filesize
        month
  1     2     Guitar Slinger       (gslinger.mod) 406.354 Bytes
  2     1     Defloration          (deflorat.mod) 408.043   "
  3     3     Space Debris         (spdebris.mod) 347.582   "
  4     5     Digital Innovation 2 (digital2.mod) 137.124   "
  5     4     Beyond music         (beyond.mod)   402.166   "
  6     6     Free from guitar     (freeguit.mod) 190.698   "
  7     8     Boom! And she cums   (boom.mod)     284.004   "
  8     7     Somebody dance...    (dj-bobo.mod)  376.253   "
  9    10     What's up            (whats-up.mod) 604.676   "
 10     9     Don't you want me    (dontuwan.mod)  99.768   "
 11    11     Tribal dance         (tribalda.mod) 734.224   "
 12    12     U got 2 let the music(ugot2let.mod) 359.690   "
 13    13     Let the beat...      (let_the_.mod) 873.366   "
 14    15     What is love         (whatislo.mod) 723.886   "
 15    14     1989 - a number      (1989.mod)     210.304   "
 16    16     Ethnomagic           (ethnomag.mod) 414.864   "
 17    18     Enigma               (enigma.mod)   187.012   "
 18    17     Das Boot             (dasboot.mod)  351.546   "
 19    19     Exterminate          (xtermin8.mod) 329.648   "
 20    20     No Limit             (nolimit.mod)  268.222   "

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

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


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

@endnode
                ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-2 "In The MeanTime"
@toc "menu"

*** System down temporarily -- Don't call except for FAX ***

                          * IN THE MEANTIME BBS *
                  Official Amiga Report Distribution Site
                            * Running AXShell *
                            Robert Niles, Sysop
                            rniles@imtired.itm.com
                509-248-5645  Supra V.32bis  24hrs - 7 days
                            Yakima, Washington


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

Those who call for the latest edition of Amiga Report, and who do not with
to establish an account, at the first login: prompt type "bbs", at the
second login: prompt type "guest".

Once in type "ARMAG" (without the quotes) at any prompt.

@endnode
               ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-3 "PIONEERS BBS"
@toc "menu"

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

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


@endnode
                 ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-4 "CIUA BBS"
@toc "menu"

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

@endnode
                 ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-5 "Amiga Junction 9"
@toc "menu"


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

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

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

                   Internet:  user_name@junct9.royle.org

         Special Interest Areas: - Bjork / Sugarcubes Fan Club
                                 - Research of Lucid Dreaming


@endnode
                 ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-6 "BitStream BBS"
@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: 1:221/302
                             Fish: 33:33/8
                              24hrs - 7 days
                         519-748-9365  (2400 baud)
                         519-748-9026  (v.32bis)
                              Ontario, Canada


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


@endnode
                 -------------------------------------------
@node 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.fipnet.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 P2-1-12 "Gateway BBS"
@toc "menu"

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

@endnode
                 ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-13 "EMERALD KEEP BBS"
@toc "menu"

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


@endnode
                 ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-14 "Amiga BBS"
@toc "menu"

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

@endnode
                 ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-15 "The Stygian Abyss"
@toc "menu"

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

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

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

@endnode
                 ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-16 "Amiga Do PC BBS"
@toc "menu"

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

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

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

                Freq AREPORT for the newest issue avaiable.

@endnode
                 ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-17 "Comm-Link BBS"
@toc "menu"

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

@endnode
                 ------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-18 "Phantom's Lair"
@toc "menu"

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

@endnode

@node P2-1-19 "Tierra-Miga BBS"
@toc "menu"

                             Tierra-Miga  BBS
                              Software: CNet
                              Gib Gilbertson
                            24 hours -  7 days
                        FidoNet:       1:202/638.0
                        AmigaNet:      40:406/3.0
                        Internet:      torment.cts.com
                        Line #1:       619.292.0754 V32.bis
                        City:          San Diego, CA.
@endnode

                 ------------------------------------------
@node 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 *
                            Lenni Uitti, SysOp
                     Juha Mkinen, SysOp (Amiga-areas)
                      Tero Manninen, SysOp (PC-areas)
                        +358-64-414 1516, V.32bis/HST
                        +358-64-414 0400, V.32bis/HST
                        +358-64-414 6800, V.32/HST
                        +358-64-423 1300, V.32bis
                            Seinjoki, Finland

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

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

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

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

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

@endnode
                 ------------------------------------------
@node 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 P2-1-55 "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"

@endnode
                 -------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-56 "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
                 --------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-57 "T.B.P. Video Slate"
@toc "menu"
            _________________________________

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

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

@endnode
                 --------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-58 "Amiga Central"
@toc "menu"

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

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

@endnode
                 --------------------------------------------
@node P2-1-21 "Continental Drift"
@toc "menu"
*=====================================================================*

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

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

@endnode

@node P2-1-22 "Amiga Online Bs Heemstede"
@toc "menu"

                         Amiga Online Bs Heemstede

                   *  HeadQuarters of Online Products *

        Official Amiga Report Distribution Site -- The Netherlands

                         * Running Xenolink 1.90 *

                       Your SysOp is Michiel Willems

                      24 hours a day - 7 days a week

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

                  Line 1 +31-23-282002 14400 v32bis Supra
                  Line 2 +31-23-470739 14400 v32bis Supra

               Heemstede, The Netherlands, Europe, The Earth

                             Very nice menu's
                   660 Megs HD online - ALOT of software
                  ALOT of messages - VERY fast BBS program
                   Point support - Lot's of doors online
           Just freq AR of AR.LHA for the latest issue available

The system is running on an Amiga 2000 with a HARMS-Prof-3000 030
turboboard at 29Mhz and a copro at 50Mhz, 7MB RAM, 660 Meg HD space
and soon 1 Gigabyte HD space.

Every issue from Amiga Report Magazine online as far as the first issue.

@endnode

@node P2-1-60 "Guru Meditation"
@toc "menu"

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

@endnode
@node P2-1-20 "Moonlight Sonata DLG"
@toc "menu"

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

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

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

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

                         Keyboards: Erno Tuomainen

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

@endnode
@node P2-1-61 "LINKSystem LINK-CH1"
@toc "menu"

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

                   Mails and News from/to UseNet

                contact: rleemann@link-ch1.aworld.de

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

@endnode

@node P2-1-62 "Doom of Darkness"
@toc "menu"

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

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

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

@endnode

@node P2-1-63 "RedEye BBS"
@toc "menu"

                               REDEYE BBS
                    * Running EXCELSIOR/UUCP/AFAX *
       "Official Amiga Report Distribution Site Germany/Europe"
                         Sysop: Thorsten Meyer
                Internet: sysop@redeye.greenie.muc.de
                Line 1: +49-89-5460535 (V.32b, Zyxel EG +)
                Line 2: +49-89-5460071 (USR Courier V32b terbo)
                           24hrs - 7 days
                           Munich, Germany

                  Areas for Amiga, PCs, Lotus Notes Group,
                  Amiga Report, Game Byte, Graphic Stuff,
                  3D-Exchange, 3D-tools, 3D-objects,
                  McAffee, GUS, PAS, DOOM, WINDOWS-NT, OS/2
                  Online CD, Online Games, USENET, INTERNET,
                  FIDO ECHOS, Developer

@endnode
@node P2-1-64 "Virtual Palace BBS"
@toc "menu"

                            * Virtual Palace BBS *

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

                                916-343-7420

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

                                 P.O. Box 5518
                            Chico, California 95927

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

                      Leland Whitlock (Leland), Co-Sysop

@endnode
@node P2-1-65 "X-TReMe BBS"
@toc "menu"
                          -*+*/+ X-TReMe BBS +/*+*-
                              Pygor & The Doctor
                              +31-167064414 (24h)
                       Internet: u055231@vm.uci.kun.nl

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

@endnode
@node P2-1-23 "The Kobayashi Alternative BBS"
@toc "menu"
          T H E   K O B A Y A S H I   A L T E R N A T I V E   B B S
          -----   -----------------   ---------------------   -----
                    Supporting the Central Maine since 1985!

                     7 In-Dial lines (All 14.4 Compatable)
           Support for IBM/Windows, Amiga, MAC and CNet BBS Support
                            On-Line Games (over 100)
                      Internet Newsgroups and Usenet Mail
                   FidoNet Echo Areas   FidoNet: 1:326/404.0
                         (207)/784-2130 \   TKA
                         (207)/946-5665  \  Local
                         (207)/353-7224  /  Access
                         (207)/377-3214 /   Lines
@endnode
@node P2-1 "Where to find Amiga Report"
@toc "menu"
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%                      Where to find Amiga Report                       %%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

  Click on the button of the BBS nearest you for information on that system.

                             FidoNet Systems
                              ---------------

  FREQ the filename "AR.LHA" for the most current issue of Amiga Report!

@{"     OMAHA AMIGANET      " link P2-1-9} ..................................Omaha, Nebraska
@{"          NOVA           " link P2-1-1} .............................Cleveland, Tennessee
@{"      PIONEER'S BBS      " link P2-1-3} ..............................Edmonds, Washington
@{"        CIUA BBS         " link P2-1-4} .........................................Portugal
@{"    AMIGA JUNCTION 9     " link P2-1-5} ...................................United Kingdom
@{"     BITSTREAM BBS       " link P2-1-6} ..............................Nelson, New Zealand
@{"   REALM OF TWILIGHT     " link P2-1-7} ..................................Ontario, Canada
@{"    METNET TRIANGLE      " link P2-1-8} ......................Kingston Upon Hull, England
@{"   AMIGA-NIGHT-SYSTEM    " link P2-1-10} ................................Helsinki, Finland
@{" RAMSES THE AMIGA FLYING " link P2-1-11} ...........................................France
@{"      GATEWAY BBS        " link P2-1-12} ..............................Biloxi, Mississippi
@{"    EMERALD KEEP BBS     " link P2-1-13} .........................................Illinois
@{"       AMIGA BBS         " link P2-1-14} .........................Estado de Mexico, Mexico
@{"   THE STYGIAN ABYSS     " link P2-1-15} ................................Chicago, Illinois
@{"    AMIGA DO PC BSS      " link P2-1-16} .................................Campinas, Brazil
@{"     COMM-LINK BBS       " link P2-1-17} .......................Port Coquitlam, BC, Canada
@{"    PHANTOM'S  LAIR      " link P2-1-18} .......................Glendale Heights, Illinois
@{"    Tierra-Miga BBS      " link P2-1-19} .....................................SanDeigo, Ca
@{"  MOONLIGHT SONATA DLG   " link P2-1-20} ..........................................Finland
@{"   CONTINENTAL DRIFT     " link P2-1-21} ................................Sydney, Australia
@{" Amiga Online Bs H'stede " link P2-1-22} ..................................The Netherlands
@{"Kobayashi Alternative BBS" link P2-1-23} ............................................Maine
                           Non-FidoNet Systems
                           -------------------

@{"    IN THE  MEANTIME     " link P2-1-2} ...............................Yakima, Washington
@{"   FREELAND MAINFRAME    " link P2-1-50} ..............................Olympia, Washington
@{"          LAHO           " link P2-1-51} ...............................Seinajoki, Finland
@{"         FALLING         " link P2-1-52} ...........................................Norway
@{"      COMMAND LINE       " link P2-1-53} ..................................Toronto, Canada
@{"  LEGUANS BYTE CHANNEL   " link P2-1-55} ..........................................Germany
@{"   STINGRAY DATABASE     " link P2-1-56} ...........................Muelheim/Ruhr, Germany
@{"  T.B.P.  VIDEO SLATE    " link P2-1-57} .............................Rockaway, New Jersey
@{"     AMIGA CENTRAL       " link P2-1-58} .............................Nashville, Tennessee
@{"    GURU MEDITATION      " link P2-1-60} ............................................Spain
@{"   LINKSystem LINK-CH1   " link P2-1-61} ...............................Basel, Switzerland
@{"    DOOM OF DARKNESS     " link P2-1-62} ..................................Bremen, Germany
@{"       REDEYE BBS        " link P2-1-63} ..................................Munich, Germany
@{"   Virtual Palace BBS    " link P2-1-64} ........................................Chico, Ca
@{"      X-TReMe BBS        " link P2-1-65} ..................................Holland/Belgium
@endnode
