@database "ar509.guide"
@Node MAIN "Amiga Report Online Magazine #5.09 -- November 17, 1997"
===========================================================================
  November 17, 1997           @{" Turn the Page " link MENU}               Issue # 5.09
===========================================================================

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                 "THE Online Source for Amiga Information!"

                      Copyright 1997 FS Publications
                            All Rights Reserved
@endnode
@node MENU "Amiga Report Main Menu"
@toc MAIN

Amiga Report 5.09 is sponsored in part by:

@{" Amiga Informer Magazine " link AD1}  The fastest-growing American print magazine

@{" Catalyzer for ImageFX " link AD2}  ImageFX is the engine.  This is the Catalyzer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

    @{"     Where to Get AR      " link WHERE}             @{"     Advertisements      " link COMMERCIAL}
 Mailing List &  Distribution Sites     Online Services, Dealers, Ordering
               ______________________________________________
         //   |                                              |       //
========//====|  Amiga Report International Online Magazine  |======//=====
==   \\//     |  Issue No. 5.09           November 17, 1997  |   \\//    ==
==============|  "THE Online Source for Amiga Information!"  |=============
              |______________________________________________|
@endnode
@node JASON "Editor"
@toc STAFF

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

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

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

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

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

                                 Internet
                                 --------
                               kati@nwu.edu
@endnode
@node KEN "Games Editor"
@toc STAFF

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                      Bohus Blahut - Modern Filmmaker
                      ===============================

                                 Internet
                                 --------
                              bohus@xnet.com
@endnode
@node EDITORIAL "compt.sys.editor.desk"
@toc OPINION

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

I worry sometimes about Amiga users and their future sometimes, but it has
nothing to do with OS upgrades, processor changes, MIPS or Microsoft.

A lot of different things drew us to buy Amigas in the first place, but
there's at least one common thread that's made us keep them over the past
few years--a certain high tolerance for adversity.  It's much easier to
give in than keep struggling against it.

This has a lot of positive points.  It can get negative, however, when it
turns into a love for adversity and people start seeking it out where it
doesn't exist.  Suddenly, the world is full of conspiracy.  Anybody who
doesn't have an engineering degree is an idiot who wants to destroy the
Amiga.  Little off-handed remarks turn into flashpoints for a pointless
argument.  Hard-working members of the community who are trying to help
people out are accused of being criminals.

This sort of thing isn't just unproductive but it's downright destructive,
moreso than any external problem.  Because the key to wanting to stick with
the Amiga is that one enjoys using it more than anything else, for whatever
reason and whatever application.  Or maybe because the company amongst the
users of other computers isn't as nice.  But when the company you're
keeping starts acting as I just described, suddenly the Amiga is a much
less enticing option.  What company would you rather keep?

I don't think I'm being alarmist or overreacting.  Some people just can't
turn off their self-defense mechanisms and see everything as a threat, a
conspiracy, a challenge to their thinking.  But sometimes, there really are
good things.  Sometimes someone really is trying to help.  And sometimes
the other guy isn't out to get you, he's just not interested in helping you
out.

PS: After 107 regular issues and two special reports, it's time to close
the book on the AmigaGuide format of Amiga Report.  It's been a good
workhorse but we've decided to move on to HTML.  Objection has been slight
but vocal, and as a partial compromise we're going to put out a very
low-frills plaintext version created from the HTML for those unwilling or
unable to read the HTML magazine.  More information on changes in AR
distribution can be found in the News section.

Also, I'm going to put off the latest installment of "People who work
harder than me" until next issue, but some sort of special achievement
award is due to Ken Anderson, who put together one of the most ambitious
articles ever to run in AR--a reader survey of your top 100 favorite games.
Be sure to check it out.

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

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

@{"      Catalyzer for ImageFX    " link AD2}  ImageFX Tutorial Videotape

@{"     Amiga Informer Magazine   " link AD1}  The USA's fastest growing magazine

@{"             CalWeb            " link ZONE}  The new home of the Amiga Zone

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode

@node AD1 "The Amiga Informer Magazine"
@toc COMMERCIAL

Would you like to win a brand new, accelerated Amiga 1200, or fantastic
Amiga software?

Well, now's your chance!  Just visit http://www.amigainformer.com!

The Amiga Informer, Pantheon Systems Company, and the top Amiga vendors in
the industry have joined together to create the ultimate online prize
giveaway!

Enroll in the Amiga University Online Sweepstakes at The Amiga Informer's
web site, and you'll automatically be eligible to win fantastic Amiga
prizes, including Aladdin 4D 5.0, DrawStudio 2.0, PageStream 3.3, or even a
fully-equipped Amiga 1200 computer complete with the Jet Fire 134
accelerator and 8 MB of fast RAM!

All you have to do is visit http://www.amigainformer.com and follow the
links to Amiga U.  Answer the Amiga University's challenging Amiga trivia
questions correctly, and you'll increase your chance of winning!  Plus,
you'll be eligible for the Amiga U Dean's List, the Hall of Fame of Amigans
in the know.

New trivia questions will be posted every two weeks, so you'll have plenty
of chances to increase your odds, and while you're at it, you'll get a
sampling of the best The Amiga Informer Web Site has to offer the Amiga
public.

The Amiga University features prizes provided by Soft Logik Publishing,
Haage and Partner, Nova Design, Software Hut, and Paxtron Corp., and is
administrated by Pantheon Systems Company.  The Amiga Informer looks
forward to your participation in this fantastic prize giveaway!


Ted Wallingford
Pantheon Systems
Amiga Informer Webmaster
twalling@mich.com

Thanks for your support,

Fletcher Haug, Editor
PO Box 21
Newburgh, NY 12551-0021
eldritch@mhv.net
Phone/fax: 914-566-4665

@endnode

@node AD2 "Catalyzer: Tutorial Video for ImageFX"
@toc COMMERCIAL

Legacy Maker is putting ImageFX in a whole new light.

ImageFX is the engine.

Your Amiga's tank is full of gas.

This tape is the Catalyzer.

Catalyzer is a project-based approach to learning how to create
professional-looking effects with one of the Amiga's most powerful tools.

Hosted by Bohus Blahut, the man responsible for Nova Design's latest
ImageFX demonstration tape, Catalyzer explores the limit of ImageFX's
capabilities to put you in control.

To order, contact Legacy Maker at 773-465-5158, or order from one of these
fine Amiga establishments--

Wonder Computers (http://www.wonder.ca)
Safe Harbor      (http://www.sharbor.com)
National Amiga   (http://www.nationalamiga.com)
Compuquick       (http://www.infinet.com:80/~comquick)

Catalyzer is US$39.95 suggested retail plus $5.95 shipping direct from
Legacy Maker in the US.  Available now.

@endnode
@node MAIL "Reader Mail"
@toc MENU

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

From: Johan Bjornson (johan.bjornson@rocketmail.com)

I don't know if I'm allowed to make a 'puff' for my Amiga bitmapped
typeface "Flodis"...  Anyway.  My starting-point is the XEN 9 pts,
fixed-width font from the Magic Workbench package.   Since kick-off I've
tidied up quite a little bit and used quite a large amount of time
ameliorating the font.

By way of example, it's furnished with 
o serifs
o medieval digits
o sigma, omega and pro mil signs
o 66 and 99 styles of quotation marks 
o lots of ligatures e.g. fi, fl, ff, ffi, ffl, oe
o integral italic 'f'
o s with 'inverted circumflex'
o Polish 'overstroken' l 
o silence mark (three consecutive dots)

Unlike the bulk of bitmapped fonts, "Flodis" complies with the 'Ép height':
the diacritics don't encroach on the orginal upper-case height.

You'll find the "Flodis" Web space at:
http://expage.com/page/flodisxen/


-    I guess here's your answer--yes, you're allowed. -Jason

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

From: Eike M. Lang (elang@neuss.netsurf.de)

Hi Jason,

First of all:

ArtEffect2.0 absolutely and positively runs on Picasso96 and has done so
for quite some time (the same applies to Version1.0).  You might want to
clarify this in the next issue of AR.

As for the loading capabilities you forgot to mention that AE2.0 supports
Datatypes for image-loading which makes the range of supported load-formats
actually quite extensive.

Secondly I do not agree with your view that the only Image-saving formats
of interest are JPEG and IFF.  Most notably TIFF is still used widely in
the professional world.  The additional image formats provided by SView are
more esoteric and will probably not be used by anybody.  Another format
that deserves better than "of little interest" is PNG, which is recommended
for Web-use by the W3C and slowly gaining acceptance.

As a closing word I have to comment on the new "real HTML"-AR: I have not
yet seen it but I don't like the idea of HTML-pages being
"BrowserXZY-optimized" - this is a Microsoft-ish attitude IMO.  Proper HTML
will look good with any proper browser - specially optimized HTML
contradicts the actual idea behind HTML.


-    Correction made, although I was basing my erroneous P96 compatibility
     information on a report from CU Amiga's Mat Bettinson, who informed me
     of the problem he was having after I completed my review for that
     magazine.  As for the HTML being "BrowserXYZ-optimized", it was a poor
     choice of words on my part.  The real meaning was that when the pages
     were designed they were primarily TESTED using one particular browser
     (IBrowse) so we were certain that the magazine would look good in that
     browser.  Since 5.08 Katie has made a number of changes to the HTML to
     better suit the HTML to AWeb and Voyager.  (AWeb's table handling has
     been better catered to, and Voyager users shouldn't have any more
     invisible text.) -Jason

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

From: Emannuel Henn (deckard@hs-hom.handshake.de)

Hi,Jason !

Thanks for the newest Areport, which AGAIN was full of important news and
informations.

I was a bit disappointed by the "ART EFFECT2"-review, though, because You
only mentioned Photoshop, Art Effect and ImageFX.

I don`t want to turn down ImageFX, but as you`ve tested Art Effect, which
has a real nice GUI, and compared it to Photoshop, also GUI, I wonder why
You didn`t mention Photogenics2, too !?

Photogenics2 is sure a real competitor on the market of
Amiga-image-processors, it uses layers, offers great filters (and many of
them!) and is really a joy to use.


-    I'm still a big fan of Photogenics2, but with Almathera out of
     business and no publisher of the software, I didn't feel it was
     responsible or fair to the currently supported products to feature
     it as prominently.  -Jason


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


From: Martin Skowronski (martman@netrox.net)

Jason,

I read your review of ArtEffect in Amiga Report with much interest.  I
would like to commend you on a very nice job.  I would also like to offer
you a slightly different perspective of ArtEffect and how it is really much
more than simply an image manipulation package.

I create all of the graphics that my company uses in the development of
its' business seminars.  Before ArtEffect was released I did all of my 24
bit painting with a program called Painter by Fractal Design.  I was able
to do this courtesy of my Emplant's Mac emulation.

Fractal's Painter is arguably the *best* 24 bit paint package on any
platform.  It has powerful natural media tools (chalk looks and acts like
real chalk, water color brushes *feel* very realistic etc), yet for all of
it's sophistication Painter is extremely easy to use.

Prior to the introduction of Art Effect, there was little available for the
Amiga Artist as far as purely software based, natural media, 24 bit paint
programs.  Opal Paint was great in it's time, but it required the
Opalvision card and was limited to NTSC screens.  Alpha Paint is also nice,
but, requires the presence of the Video Toaster.  That leaves TVPaint and
XiPaint, both of which do not offer true natural media tools.

IMHO, the Amiga is in dire need of a Fractal Painter type program.  Art
Effect is definitely a step in the right direction.  It offers many of the
best features of Painter, and is improving all the time.  When one
considers the natural media paint tools of Art Effect, along with it's
image manipulation capabilites, one begins to better appreciate just how
valuable Art Effect is to anyone interested in creating cutting edge 24 bit
images with their Amiga.

IMHO, ArtEffect is a must have program for any Amigaphile who wants to
create serious true color paintings.  In that respect it is a bargain.

If Norman Rockwell used an Amiga to do his work, he would be using Art
Effect :-)

Martin Skowronski
ProActive Images
www.proactive.net

@endnode

@node NEWS1 "Vulcan Software November News"
@toc NEWS

------------------------------------------------------------------------
VULCAN SOFTWARE LTD - ON-LINE NEWS SERVICE - NOVEMBER RELEASE
------------------------------------------------------------------------

*The Uropa2 CDRom is now officially released*

You are the newest edition to the Centurion Task Force, your mission is to
save Uropa2 from destruction at the hands of the Kapone droids.  
Communications with the moon have ceased and the fate of the colonists is
unknown.  Your task is to rescue any colonists that have survived, destroy
the Kapones and ultimately seek out the mastermind behind their rebellion.
Uropa2 offers a unique gaming experience!  Your mission based adventures
cover a multitude of 3D Isometric locations connected by a 3D Vector
Light-Sourced environment in which you will need to master the arts of
Hovar flight and battle skills.

Minimum Specs
-------------
Any Amiga, Hard Drive, 68000 CPU, 2Mb Memory (1Mb Chip, 1Mb Any) 4x speed
CD ROM Drive.

Game Specs
----------
10 Gigantic, Strategy Based Missions
3D Isometric Action Adventure
3D Vector Light-Sourced Locations
Myriad's of tactical Problems to Solve
Full Digital Speech Throughout
Progressive Weapons and Status Capabilities
Linear Plot Progression
Full Blown 3D Rendered Intro Animation
Highly Configurable to allow for Individual Preferences
Extra Hovar Wars Game with Serial Link Up for Two Players

In addition, Uropa2 supports the following languages:
English, German, Italian, French, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, 
Danish, Portuguese and Czech

R.R.P. - 29.99 (UK Pounds)
Available from all good retailers around the world or direct from our
primary distributor 
Weird Science Ltd (0116) 246 3800

------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMING SOON
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE FINAL ODYSSEY - This masterpiece of a game will be released at the end
of November.  Best described as an Action/Adventure/Puzzler, the Final
Odyssey combines detailed and entertaining graphics and gameplay to
perfection.  You play the part of Theseus on his quest to free six rather
lovely maidens from the evil clutches of the Minotaur.  The Final Odyssey
is so vast that we have been unable to reach the end (somewhat disturbing
as we're supposed to be testing it) but then rather unsurprising as some of
the levels reconstruct themselves everytime you play......

Peter Spinaze is Vulcan's multi talented developer of this fine game.  The
beautifully crafted graphics in The Final Odyssey have won Peter a
scholarship at Silicon Studio which is a state of the art international
facility dedicated to training digital artists.

Silicon Studio is one of only 3 flagship training centres world-wide and is
the most advanced digital media training centre in the industry in the Asia
Pacific region to date.

Peter's particular scholarship is a 3D Animation scholarship.  He is using
Alias/Wavefront PowerAnimator as his 3D Rendering software and using the
latest Silicon Graphics hardware.  The same gear they used to make Jurassic
Park etc.  The hardware consists of O2's, Octane's, and an Onyx2 Infinite
Reality supercomputer.

We are all very proud of him here at Vulcan but not at all surprised.

Kind Regards
Lisa Tunnah
Vulcan Software Limited 
http://www.vulcan.co.uk
Lisa@vul-soft.demon.co.uk
@endnode
@node NEWS2 "AWeb-II 3.0b Patch Release"
@toc NEWS

===========================================================================
AmiTrix      PRESS RELEASE November 3, 1997
===========================================================================

    AWeb-II, 3.0b patch update for v3.0 now available!
    --------------------------------------------------

An update for version 3.0 to 3.0b of AWeb is now available from our website
as a patch archive for download by all 3.0 owners.  You must have installed
AWeb-II version 3.0 previously before you can install this patch, and you
will need your original 3.0 disks.

New in this version
-------------------
 o Fixes the following bugs:
   - AWeb could hang or crash (01000008, semaphore in illegal state)
     sometimes.
   - Large paragraphs of text could be messed up.
   - Small images on a line by themselves could take up too much
     vertical space.
   - Scrolling horizontally, then going back would not display the
     document correctly.
   - Opening a new window could load the document again.
   - Reload of a redirected page when the redirection changed (like random
     Yahoo) didn't display the new page.
   - With image loading set to "maps only", other images already in memory
     weren't displayed.
   - Submitting a form from an unloaded image "button" didn't always work.
   - ... and a few more minor items.

 o Added support for image scaling for nontransparent images when using the
   internal (datatype based) decoder.
 o Added support for all Windows characters in the range 128-159.
 o Added support for RAmiga-C in text form fields (copy contents to
   clipboard).

MSRP remains unchanged at $45.00US / $60.00CAN plus $5.00 shipping on
direct orders.  For Canadian orders only, add 7% GST to the above for a
total of $69.55CAN.

Current owners of AWeb v2.x or the shareware version may upgrade to the new
version 3.0 for $20.00US / $27.00CAN, plus $5.00 shipping.  For Canadian
orders only, add 7% GST to the above for a total of #34.24CAN.  Please
include your current registration number with the shipping information.

Customers purchasing or upgrading to AWeb-II v3.0 will receive a free
update to v3.1 when it becomes available at a future date.  Some items to
be added in this update include JavaScript support, internal mail & news,
HTML 4.0 features, support for MiamiSSL, and other improvements.

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

NOTES:- We now have VISA for direct sales!  Orders should be submitted via
=====   FAX or MAIL, with card details and signature for authorization.  
Do not send your card number by email.  VISA orders will be charged
in CAN $, less GST on International sales.  Note that this is our 
banks requirements, we are not trying to be difficult.

      - For those that prevously had probelms with our fax, our phone lines
have now been replaced and everything is working again.  Our
appologies for any inconvenience you may have encountered.

Dealer and Customer inquiries welcomed!  For more information, ordering
AmiTrix products or dealer locations, contact us at:

AmiTrix Development,
5312 - 47 Street,
Beaumont, Alberta, T4X 1H9
Canada

Email: sales@amitrix.com (Preferred, no phone orders please!)

WWWeb: www.amitrix.com

Phone or Fax: 1+ 403-929-8459

(Please leave your mailing address, phone/fax number, &/or email address 
on phone messages when requesting information by mail.)
@endnode
@node NEWS3 "Honorable Mention Hits 500"
@toc NEWS

To:  All Amiga fans accross the Internet.

Just to let you know that the Honorable Mention web page has exceeded 500
total articles.  As you probably know Honorable Mention indexes positive
mentions of the Amiga computer in the non-Amiga specific press so you can
find out what is being said about our favorite computer.

Many of my articles includes links to full text, mail to links to the
authors, and links to the news sources home page.

Some new features I have added in HM include a Recent Articles page so you
can quickly link to stories dated within the last two months as well as
links to model specs, technical terms and company home pages whenever
mentioned in an article.

Please stop by at http://www.rust.net/~mignash/hm.html to view news
coverage of the Amiga from the latest word, all the way back to reviews of
the Amiga Inc.  Joyboard and Powerstick 13 years ago, and everything in
between. 

-- 
Mathew R. Ignash

Webmaster of Honorable Mention, The MCUG Amiga SIG Web Page and Amiga 
 Decade, Matt's Amiga Dictionary And Reference, and Matt's Original Rifts 
 Material.
 (http://www.rust.net/~mignash/)
Webmaster of The C64/128 Web Directory.
 (http://www.cucug.org/c64128.html)
@endnode
@node NEWS4 "Asimware New Contact Info"
@toc NEWS

Asimware Innovations Inc. Telephone Number Update

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Tammy Lynn Rodley

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

 (905)575-1042

November 10th, 1997

Effective immediately, Asimware Innovations' main and fax telephone numbers
have changed.  Please update your records to include the new numbers:

      * Main:       (905)575-1042
      * Fax:(905)575-0095
      * Technical Support:  (905)575-1507

Our address remains unchanged, as below:
      Asimware Innovations Inc.
      600 Upper Wellington Street, Unit D
      Hamilton, Ontario  L9A 3P9
      Canada
@endnode
@node NEWS5 "Amiga Forever Preview Shipping"
@toc NEWS

Amiga Forever 1.0 Preview Edition Shipping

Given the strong interest expressed by users after the original
announcement of Amiga Forever, a special "Preview Edition" of Amiga
Forever, with a version number of 1.0, has been released, slightly ahead of
the planned schedule.  This version allows the more technically-experienced
users to immediately explore many of the features of the final release,
without paying an additional price (the list price of the upgrade from the
preview version to the final version will not be higher than the difference
between the two).

For additional information please refer to the Amiga Forever Home page
at http://www.cloanto.com/amiga/forever/. The page has been recently
extended with a Frequently Asked Questions section.

@endnode
@node NEWS6 "Amiga User Group Network Formed"
@toc NEWS

Amiga User Group Network Formed

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts: Wayne Martin
  Designer and Co-Founder
  email: tb@amiga.org

  Wayne Hunt
  Co-Founder and Technical Web Coordinator
  email: webmaster@amiga.org

Amiga Inc, in association with Amiga.org wish to announce the formation of
the Official Amiga User Group Network.  Designed with both Amiga User
Groups and Amiga, Inc.  in mind, the User Group Network (UGN) will allow
User Groups and Amiga, Inc.  to interact in close cooperation.

The User Group Network is an internet-based system intended to get
essential news out to the users as quickly and efficiently as possible by
presenting a unified interface between Amiga, Inc.  and the user groups.
News from Amiga, Inc.  is fed directly to the User Group Network, then
broadcast to all of the network members via direct e-mail. 

To join the User Group Network, please visit the User Group Network site at
http://www.amiga.org/usergroups to fill out a quick and easy web form.
Your group's information is then placed in the Official User Group Registry
which will be available for everyone.

More information about this project can be found at the User Group Network
site on Amiga.org (http://www.amiga.org/usergroups).

-- 
Wayne Hunt
webmaster - Amiga.org
http://www.amiga.org
@endnode
@node NEWS7 "dignet.library 4.0b Final Release"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

   dignet.library

VERSION

   4.0 (beta) MAJOR UPDATE (AREXX) - FINAL RELEASE!

AUTHOR

   Kenneth "Kenny" Nilsen/
   Digital Surface

   EMail: mailto:kenny@bgnett.no
   URL:   http://www.bgnett.no/~kenny/

NEWS

  - ARexx host added. Now you can use almost all functions in the
    library from ARexx scripts.
  - 12 new functions added such as conversing text, setting flags in
    an easy way and more (some still private - see FD file).
  - special version provided for kickstart 1.3 users.
  - should work with any CPU (MC68000(?)-MC68060).
  - improved include files (Asm, SAS/C, Modula 2, Basic).

DESCRIPTION

This is a library that will make serial network handling easy.  It contains
a set of functions that will do most of the "dirty" work for you.  All you
need to do is to allocate a net and then read and write to/from that net. 
Net here is a device, for example serial.device or a compatible device
(such as the duart.device, artser.device ..  and so on).

With help from this library you can connect games and programs via
nullmodem cable or modem in a relativly comfortable way.  It has it's own
modem functions to deal with modem dial-up/receive.  Ideal if want to
create your own BBS package or want to connect programs via modem.

The library provides integrated resource tracking.  The resource tracking
allows you to free memory, ports, devices that is used by a program that
are suspended or terminate without a clean-up.  The resource tracking also
prevents you from free-ing an invalid pointer to a net.  These functions
are public available.

Now the library also provides an integrated ARexx host so you can use
almost every function in the library from your ARexx scripts.

Archive includes developer information, demo sources and full charset
converter tables (eg.  IBN <-> ISO and more).

Some of the important features of this library:

- ARexx (from 4.0)
- resource tracking (from v2.1+)
- easy use, just like DOS functions (open(), read/write()..)
- own functions for dial-up/receive modem calls
- string/text/binary support (all-in-one)
- text converting (PC/Amiga)
- is painless and straight forward to use - only five basic
  functions needed to provide networking in your programs.
- provides pointers if you need more advanced usage
  (eg. Wait(), signals, DoIO() etc.) It still can do the dirty
  work creating a device IO request a.s.o.
- fully re-entrant (more connections open at the same time)
- ready-for-use when allocating a net successfully
- easy to set and change default parameters
- fast and small routines (written in assembler)

Read the guide file or autodoc for more information.

This will be the last release on my part.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

   Required:
      OS 2.04 or better

AVAILABILITY

Aminet
  ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/util/libs/DigNet.lha

  and other full mirror Aminet sites.

Source code
  - Example sources on how to setup and use the library included
    (a simple terminal program).
  - Also includes ARexx script examples.

PRICE

Free

DISTRIBUTABILITY

Distributed as freeware.

Special notes/distribute conditions:

Freeware authors: The library file can be distributed as a standalone file
in your own archive as long as you include a credit (read autodoc) or
include the readme file of the library in the same directory as the library
file exists.  You may distribute the whole archive as it came from Aminet
without the need for a credit in the program or the readme file included in
your archive.

Shareware/Commercial authors can also include the file as a standalone
file, but they should under any circumstances include a visable (to user)
credit in their programs.  If the library does more than about 25% of the
functionallity in the program, then the library is not allowed to be used
without a license agreement.  Shareware or commercial authors can buy
themselves free from the credit requirement in their programs.  I also
consider the purpose of the program and what the fee is for the particular
program.  Take contact for more information/requests.

dignet.library is Copyright (c) 1997 by Kenneth "Kenny" Nilsen/ Digital
Surface.
@endnode
@node NEWS8 "MoveToMirror 2.5"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

   MoveToMirror

VERSION

   2.5 Emailware

AUTHOR

   Kenneth "Kenny" Nilsen/
   Digital Surface

   mailto:kenny@bgnett.no
   URL:   http://www.bgnett.no/~kenny/

DESCRIPTION

This tool is used locally to move the files you have in your download
directory to a local Aminet mirror on your harddisk.  The program uses the
*.readme files and the "Type:" field to determine where to put the files. 
If drawer(s) of the Type: field don't exists MTM will create them when
needed.  It also uses the Short: field (which is required in Aminet readme
files) as filecomment for the main archive.

NEWS

o  New options.
o  Checks filesize on old files and dumps it before copy/move
   (in verbose mode only).
o  Bugfix: "couldn't create dir .." is fixed - was due to problems
   with files downloaded via a PC which add character code 13
   (RETURN code) to each line of the readme.
o  Bugfix: make comment before moving/copying file.

FEATURES

o  Uses the README file to determine where to put the files.
o  If sub dirs of the destination (e.g. "util/misc") don't exist MTM will
   create the sub dirs.
o  It can add file comments using the "Short:" field of the readme file.
   If used, the original file comment can be moved to the readme file.
o  Can add short: as a file comment before move in case if there is
   missing a type: field.
o  Can clone the original file's attributes such as file comment, date,
   and protection bits.
o  Can use pattern matching to move certain files.
o  Can either copy the files or move them (deletes the originals).
o  You can choose to only copy the main files and exclude the readme files.
o  You can choose to uppercase or lowercase all the sub dir names.
o  Auto-corrects bad "type:" settings (ie. types with spaces).
o  Debug/verbose option to watch every action.
o  Prints size of the existing file (if any) and the new file size.
o  Very fast copying routine (large-buffered).
o  Small in size (core ~5 KB + texts and startup) and quick due to
   beeing written in assembler.

Please read the guide file for detailed information!

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

   Required:
      OS 2.04 or better

AVAILABILITY

   Aminet, e.g.
     ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/util/misc/MTM.lha

PRICE

   Free

DISTRIBUTABILITY

   Distributed as Emailware.

   Support and maintainance is based entirely on feedback.

   MoveToMirror (MTM) is Copyright (c)1996-1997 by Kenneth "Kenny" Nilsen/
   Digital Surface.
@endnode
@node NEWS9 "CallMan 1.2"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

    CallMan 1.2

AUTHOR

    Alexander 'Sascha' Fichtner
    Vulpiusstr. 99
    81739 Muenchen
    Germany

    fichtner@informatik.tu-muenchen.de

DESCRIPTION

CallMan is an integrated phone dialer, logfile analyzer, cost calculator
and small address manager.

CallMan uses MUI.

CallMan saves you the time looking for your address book and allows you to
manage your addresses using its database.  Using a modem connected to your
Amiga you can let CallMan dial up any of the persons in your database.  As
soon as dialling has been completed the phone call will be returned to your
telephone.  Some informations on each phone call (date, time, duration,
conversation partner) will be saved to a logfile.

Furthermore CallMan can switch to "TelephoneBill" mode, calculating the
total costs of your phone calls within regular (free adjustable) intervals.
As a bonus CallMan can analyze the ASCII logfiles of the following programs
and add these costs to your total costs: Miami (TCP/IP stack), Term and
NComm (terminal software), MultiFax (fax software), MultiTerm/KIT (BTX
software), Trapdoor (FIDO point program).

CallMan offers the possibility to analyze these logfile.  You can view a
list of all phone/modem calls, the total time of all calls, and their total
costs.  You can restrict the analysis using different criteria.

Using the statistics option you can have a look at the number and costs of
all the different calls.

NEW FEATURES

- Trapdoor scanner/analyzer

- extended "Analyze" window

- support for external logfiles in "Analyze" window

- modem statistics

- extended database

- support for multiple phone numbers

- ASCII import module

- several bug fixes

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

- Requires: AmigaOS 3.0, MUI 3.3+, 1 MByte RAM.

- Recommended: AmigaOS 3.1, hard drive, additional memory and
  an accelerator, a Hayes-compatible modem and a telephone
  hooked to the same phone line.

AVAILABILITY

    Available via FTP from Aminet sites.
    ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/comm/misc/CallMan12.lha
    (177802 bytes)

PRICE

    Shareware registration fee is $15 or DM20 (or equivalent).

DISTRIBUTABILITY

    Shareware. Archive is freely distributable.

    CallMan is Copyright (C) Alexander 'Sascha' Fichtner 1997
@endnode
@node NEWS10 "Geek Gadgets Info Packet"
@toc NEWS

OVERVIEW

This message is regarding the Geek Gadgets CVS repository.  If you do not
know what Geek Gadgets is, the following URL should help:

   ftp://ftp.ninemoons.com/pub/geekgadgets/current/README

Additional info is available from the following URL for the AmigaOS version
of Geek Gadgets, refered to as "Amiga Developers Environment":

   http://www.ninemoons.com/ADE/ADE.html

If you are unfamiliar with CVS, the following URL should help:

   ftp://ftp.ninemoons.com/pub/geekgadgets/README-cvs

I have made some changes in the Geek Gadgets CVS repository which will make
it much easier to expand the group of volunteer Geek Gadgets maintainers,
giving them more flexibility to add new packages to Geek Gadgets, update
existing package to newer releases, fix bugs, and do new platform specific
development work.

Currently the entire world has anonymous read-only access to the master
repository on cvs.ninemoons.com, but only a handful of people have write
access.  This negates some of the effectiveness of using CVS and has
resulted in much development work languishing in my Geek Gadgets staging
area because I've not had the time to review it, test it, and check it in.

I would like to see more people become involved in Geek Gadgets development
by becoming official maintainers for one or more existing packages (or
adding new packages they are interested in) and giving them write
permission so they can do their own CVS checkins for the packages they are
responsible for.

NEW STABILITY BRANCHES

I have created two new branches in the Geek Gadgets CVS repository, one for
m68k AmigaOS and one for PPC BeOS.  Each of these are "stability" branches,
from which releases will be made for their corresponding targets.  The
corresponding CVS branch tags are "m68k_amigaos_branch" and
"ppc_beos_branch" and can be used to check out copies of each branch with
the CVS "-r" option.  The points at which the branches split from the main
trunk of the CVS tree are tagged as "m68k_amigaos_branchpoint" and
"ppc_beos_branchpoint" respectively so the branchpoints can always be found
easily.

For doing AmigaOS builds, snapshots, and releases, I will use the
m68k_amigaos branch on my Amiga and for doing the BeOS builds, snapshots,
and releases I will use the ppc_beos branch on my BeOS system.  Nobody but
myself should check in any changes on these stability branches, although
everyone is free of course to check them out and use them for their own
local builds.

The idea is to make the GG CVS environment more open for maintainers of
individual packages to update existing packages, check in development work
that might cause short term instability but which is important to get into
the repository, and to add new packages.  The main trunk of the repository
will become the "development branch" for people to do this work on, without
worrying about whether they will be making de-stabilizing changes that
affect the GG release process for any given target.  Any changes people
make in the main trunk of the CVS tree will only be migrated to the
stability branches at carefully controlled times.

CODE MIGRATION TO BRANCHES

When I'm satisfied that I've hit a stable build point on a branch I will
check in any changes made in the checked out source tree for that branch,
tag that point on the branch with a tag like
"m68k_amigaos_stable_19970917".

I can then use CVS to merge additional new code from the main CVS trunk to
the branch, and start the build and test process again.  This way I'm
isolated from changes in the main trunk except at points when I choose to
bring over and try out new updates, fixes, or development work.  It should
also be the case that at any given time, the head of the stability branch
represents the latest stable build and test point.

When I make a patch on either stability branch, I'll be sure to check in a
corresponding patch on the main trunk and if important to other stability
branches, on those as well after testing.  All major changes should happen
on the main trunk and on the vendor branch.

I will use some additional tags on each stability branch and the main trunk
to identify points at which the most recent merge was made.  I.E.  if I
merge the latest gcc changes from the main trunk to the m68k_amigaos
branch, then I will retag gcc on the main branch with "m68k_amigaos_export"
and retag gcc on the m68k_amigaos branch with "m68k_amigaos_import" to
identify the syncronization points.

When I go to do the next merge, I simply have to ask CVS to merge changes
on the main trunk, from the last m68k_amigaos_export tag to a temporary tag
at the current head of the trunk, into the branch I'm working on.  This
will also make it easy for people to find out which changes on the main
trunk have not yet made it into any stability branch, and remind me if
necessary to try them out at the next opportunity.

GG MAINTAINERS

People who would like to volunteer to become the GG maintainer for a given
package or set of packages should send me email at fnf@ninemoons.com.  If
more than one person wants to act as maintainer, that is fine.  CVS makes
it very convenient for a small team of widely separated individuals to work
effectively with a common source code base.

If you are doing a port of any freely distributable software from a POSIX
type environment to either AmigaOS or BeOS, that software is suitable for
inclusion in Geek Gadgets, and you have a reasonably good connection to the
Internet, then there are a number of advantages to doing your development
using the Geek Gadgets repository:

(1) If for some reason you have a problem you need help with, it is very
simple for any interested party to check out a current copy of the same
source you are working with, assuming you regularly commit your changes to
the repository, and help you out.

(2) If you "run out of steam" and can't continue with the port, or just
want to take a break for a while, it is very easy to "pass the torch" to
another developer and let them continue from where you left off.

(3) If your house burns down you know that another copy of the source
exists somewhere else.  :-)

(4) When the port is complete enough, it can be incorporated into the
normal Geek Gadgets build process.  The build process results in the
package being rebuilt on one or more systems other than your own, thus
ensuring that it is possible for someone else to rebuilt it.  It also helps
to ensure that your port integrates cleanly with the ports of other
packages when there are some mutual dependencies.

(5) When ready, it can be incorporated into the normal Geek Gadgets release
process.  The release process results in regular snapshots and releases
being made available to the developer and user community, though of course
you are free to do your own releases as you see fit.

(6) Everyone has a common focus for at least one place to find source and
binary copies of common packages when a port for their platform already
exists, rather than having to scurry around on the Internet collecting bits
and pieces from multiple locations, where those bits and pieces may not
play well together.

-Fred
@endnode
@node NEWS11 "AmigaZone Free CD For New Members"
@toc NEWS

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Oct. 29, 1997

AmigaZone offers a free CD to all new members!

AmigaZone, the premiere online service for Amiga owners and lovers, will
give you a FREE Compact Disc full of software when you join. 

Sign up with our host, CalWeb Internet Services, say "AmigaZone Sent Me!  
when you do, and upon verification of your new membership, you'll get our
welcome letter and a list of CD titles from which you can choose your free
gift. 

To join, just phone 1-800-509-9322 and say "AmigaZone Sent Me!" or visit
http://www.calweb.com, CalWeb's page, and select the new user application
link, then choose the "Tier 4" option, select "Amiga" as your operating
system, and enter "AmigaZone Sent Me!" in the "other" box.  (The $20 signup
fee will be waived!)

Upon notification of your signup, the AmigaZone will ship you a free CD of
your choice - choose from many CD titles by Graphic Detail and Fred Fish! 

Offer good while supply lasts

--
AmigaZone has been online, serving the needs of Amiga owners since 1985. 

Members can telnet into our text-style interface, or use our slick, fast
Web interface, our members-only FTP site, and our POP3 email server to
access over 40,000 Amiga files, (including thousands of files you won't
find on Aminet or anywhere else!) 40,000 articles in Amiga Usenet
newsgroups, Amiga Fidonet newsgroups, over a dozen popular Amiga mailing
lists, participate in our live, nightly chats and join our Sunday chat
where we give away even MORE free stuff every week! 

$19.95 a month (billed to your credit card or invoiced in the mail) gets
you unlimited 24/7 access to everything in the Zone, plus your own CalWeb
shell account with 10 meg of storage (for your own personal Web site). 

We also offer a totally free, two-week trial account (limited to 120
minutes of usage per day) to try us out.  (The free CD gift applies only to
new, paid signups, whether or not you use the two-week trial account
first). 

Visit our Web site, www.amigazone.com, for more info. 

Harv Laser
AmigaZone Sysop
@endnode
@node NEWS12 "IconDeluxe Full Version, Source Available"
@toc NEWS

[A message from Brian Tietz...]

A few years ago I wrote a program called IconDeluxe.  It was an icon editor
for use under Workbench 2.04 and up.  It was favorably reviewed in several
Amiga magazines, and was shareware, with a price of $10 or $15 (I can't
remember anymore)...

I'm not developing Amiga software anymore, and have moved on to develop for
BeOS.  If you don't know about it, you should definitely find out!  It has
been referred to as Amiga '97 by Amiga fans, and a large number of
developers for it are ex-Amigans (and current Amigans, for that matter). 
BeOS is a truly modern operating system and is amazing!

Anyway, I'm not developing for the Amiga anymore, in fact I don't even have
my old A500 now.  The registrations have stopped coming in, but people have
been requesting updates occasionally, which I can't provide.  (Even when I
had my A500, I couldn't properly develop IconDeluxe for the then new AGA
machines).  So I've decided it's time for a change.  I'm making the full
version publicly accessible.  It'll still be shareware, so if you use it,
please register, I did put a lot of work into IconDeluxe and I can still
use the money, but it's more of an if-you-feel-like-it-and-you
are-really-nice kind of shareware.  I won't even specify a price; whatever
you think it's worth.  The registered version still contains the old
copyright messages, etc., but I suppose this public announcement is
sufficient to negate that.

It is available at
http://www-biology.ucsd.edu/~btietz/Amiga-software.html

I'm also making the source code publicly available, so if anyone wants to
update it to work well on AGA macines, work with the other icon tools that
are out there, or just update the copyright information to reflect its
current state, go ahead, it would be nice to see IconDeluxe continue to
mature even after it has left my hands.  Distribution of modified versions
of IconDeluxe is fine, I just ask that my name and email address, and
current street address (9122 Regents Rd., Apt.  I, La Jolla, CA 92037 USA)
remain in the credits with a suitable shareware request consistent with the
status of IconDeluxe that I've described here.  Anyone who releases
modified versions of IconDeluxe is free to add himself or herself to the
credits.  Modified versions may be placed in any public archive.  If you
make a modified version and release it publicly, please release it with the
modified source code as well, so that if other people want to modify it
further they will be able to build from there instead of having to
duplicate effort.  Also, if modified versions are publicly released, please
send me an email and let me know where to get it.  I'd like to add
important modified versions to my IconDeluxe web page archive.

A word of warning: A while after the demo version of IconDeluxe was
released (it wasn't crippled, but had a save delay) a pirate version
surfaced in which the save delay was removed.  I got pissed off and added a
land mine to the public version: if the save delay was removed, it would
erase the cracker's hard drive if he wasn't careful in how he modified the
program (hehehe).  This code is still in the source.  It is encapsulated in
#ifdef PUBLIC, and is conditional on the save delay having been removed to
trigger the trap, but make sure to be careful and remove that code anyway.

BTW if any pirates stepped on the land mine, and are reading this now, send
me an email.  I'm just curious and it would be good for a laugh (maybe you
can laugh back at it too so long after the fact).  This isn't a trap
either, it's a public and legally binding guarantee of amnesty.  As I said,
I'm just curious.

If anyone has any questions, I can be reached by email at
btietz@biomail.ucsd.edu. 

Brian Tietz
@endnode
@node NEWS13 "SubTitler Demo v2.02"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

SubTitler - Demo Release v2.02

AUTHOR

   Ott M. Aaloe
   P.O. Box 410
   EE0090 Tallinn
   Estonia

   email:ott@lbi.ee
   http://www.lbi.ee/home/ott/subtitler
   Phone: +372 50 15845

DESCRIPTION

SubTitler is a program for displaying subtitles.  What makes SubTitler
different from others is that it can read SMPTE Time Code directly from the
Amiga's serial port in real time without any additional hardware.  Just
connect your Amiga to a VTR (presuming you have a VTR equipped with an
RS-232c interface) and start recording Time Code to every page you need to
show later.  Once recorded, you can start SubTitler in 'Player' mode in
which it waits for the VTR to be in 'PLAY' state and starts showing
subtitles according to the current Time Code in a way they were recorded
earlier.  The benefits of that is that you don't need to have two master
tapes - (one original and one with titles) instead, you have just one
original.  Record the Time Code once, and after that, you can make as many
subtitled copies as you want.  That way you can sustain the quality to your
end product as one pre-recording session is skipped.  Most importantly, you
can run SubTitler in real time; 'on the air' so to speak (i.e.  master tape
running, your Amiga reading the Time Code in real time, while overlaying
the subtitles and outputting directly to the air.  In other words, Amiga,
genlock and SubTitler software can be used instead of the expensive
subtitling machine.  Of course you can also use SubTitler completely
ignoring it's Time Code support and just use it by adding subtitles by hand
(having 2 VTRs - one for playback and one for recording).

To make all above mentioned work you'll need, like mentioned above, a VTR
equipped with RS-232c interface (the same one used on computers).  In case
you don't have time code supporting VTR then there's built in time code
simulator which helps record and playback without external time code but of
course the synchronization won't be that easy in that case. 

Features:

* External RS-232c SMPTE EBU Time Code support (25 FPS).
* Basic subtitling effects like italic text, centering, lineup
  (titles appear on upper are of frame).
* The ability to have IFF ILBM picture for background or create
   slide shows (AGA supported).
* Built in VTR commands for editing: Tape Pre-Roll, Fast Forward,
   Play, Stop, Rewind and Pause.
* Built in text editor.
* The ability to import files directly from PC (MS-DOS ASCII
   character remapping).
* Supports most non standard ASCII characters (could add more if
   there is demand).
* Unlimited number of pages (limited only by available memory)
* Pre-antialiased fonts included for Super Hires (one font in two sizes
   sizes (one in demo), 8 colors) and Normal Hires (two fonts
   (one in demo), two sizes (one in demo), 4 and 8 colors). 
   Additional fonts under development.

Limitations to demo release:

* Max 20 pages can be edited/loaded.
* Saving is disabled.
* During Displayer mode only simulated timecode is used.

SubTitler has been tested and it IS working perfectly with Sony UVW 1200
Betacam Player and Panasonic AG-5700 S-VHS Recorder.  If you're using
different brand VTR then I can't guarantee that SubTitler will work
properly.  Included protocols are designed for Sony and Panasonic VTRs, but
if you provide me with the exact RS-232c protocol your VTR is using then I
could try to add it to SubTitler. 

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

SubTitler has been tested on PAL Amiga 1200, Amiga 1200+030/50MHz and Amiga
4000/040 but it should work with any PAL Amiga equipped with AmigaDOS 2.0
or greater and at least 1-2M free memory.  HDD is not required but
recommended as saving and loading from/to disks is very slow.
ReqTools.library has to be present in libs:

AVAILABILITY

Demo available via FTP from Aminet sites:

ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/gfx/show/SubTitler.lha (204951 bytes)

And also from the SubTitler homepage at:

http://www.lbi.ee/home/ott/subtitler

The full version is available directly from the author (Ott M. Aaloe).
Contact me by sending me an e-mail (or snailmail) containing info on
your comapany and/or yourself and your requirements/suggestions.

PRICE

The price depends on way you would want to use SubTitler.  Note, that there
is no category for plain home use as the SubTitler was written for
commercial purposes in the first place so I thought it is better to keep it
that way.

There are two price categories: 

* CAT 1:
 Usage: for adding titles by having 2 VTRs, one for playback and
 one for recording. Limitation: External (RS-232) Time Code support
 is removed. Price: US$ 225.-

* CAT 2:
 Usage: Like CAT 1 plus external RS-232 Time Code can be used which
makes it possible to use SubTitler in real time 'on the
air'. Useful for TV companies. Comes with two licenses -
permission to run SubTitler on two computers (Player and
Recorder).
 Limitation: None.
 Price: US$ 375.-

Price includes shipping.  Both versions come with printed manual and free
technical support (e-mail or phone).


DISTRIBUTABILITY

Demo version of SubTitler is freely distributable.
SubTitler is Copyright (c) Ott M. Aaloe 1997
SubTitler full package is commercial, copyrighted material and is
NOT freely-distributable.
@endnode
@node NEWS14 "PC-Task 4.3 Released"
@toc NEWS

PC-Task 4.3 has now been released!  This major upgrade and demonstration
version is available from the PC-Task web site at:

http://www.ozemail.com.au/~pctask

PC-Task 4.3 now has the ability to run Windows 95*.  With higher
compatibility, ability to use up to 64Mb RAM under MS-DOS, and improved
video support, this new version can run most modern-day software.

* We do not recommend you try to install Windows 95 unless you have a very
  fast Amiga (68060).  While it will work, the slow speed would make it
  very painful to use.

PC-Task 4.3 Specifications
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With 80486 compatibility, now you are able to run that much needed
software, and with the development of Dynamic Compilation you are able to
experience major speed increases over previous versions.  PC-Task is the
fatest PC software emulation available on the Amiga, and is a necessity if
you need to run PC software.

See below for a full wrap-up.

TITLE

  PC-Task 4

VERSION

  4.3

AUTHOR

  Chris Hames

PUBLISHER

  Published exclusively by:

    Quasar Distribution
    P.O. Box 101
    Vermont
    Victoria      3133
    Australia

    Phone +61 3 9887 2411
    Fax   +61 3 9887 2511
    
    E-Mail pctask@ozemail.com.au
    Internet:  http://www.ozemail.com.au/~pctask


DESCRIPTION

  PC-Task 4 is the fastest software 80486 emulator for the Amiga range of
  computers.  

  The following features are included in this release:

  - 80486 compatibility
  - FPU Emulation
  - The fastest software PC emulator for the Amiga
  - Uses Dynamic Compilation for speed.
  - Support for up to 64MB RAM (63MB extended) under MS-DOS
  - Up to 2 floppy drives and 2 hard drives supported
  - Supports multiple hard disk files and hard disk partitions
  - High density floppies and CD-ROM support
  - Select from MDA, CGA, EGA, VGA and SVGA (512K-2MB) video modes
  - Support for up to 256 colours on AGA machines
  - Compatible with graphic boards (eg. Cybergraphics, EGS Spectrum, Picasso)
  - Parallel, Serial and PC speaker emulation
  - Mouse support, including Serial Mouse emulation
  - Run multiple PC-Task processes on the same machine
  - Run MS-DOS applications in a window on a public screen (eg. Workbench)
  - Transfer files between your Amiga and MS-DOS
  - Support for David Salamon's GoldenGate bridge cards
  - Compatible with MS Windows 3.0 - 3.11 *
  - Compatible with Windows 95 (not recommended unless you have a 68060)

  * Windows 3.1 requires 1.5 MB contiguous RAM and sufficient hard disk space

  NOTE:  MS-DOS is NOT included.


AVAILABILITY

  PC-Task 4 is available now in both English and German versions.


AUTHORISED DISTRIBUTORS (Current as of October 17th 1997)

Australia (and anywhere else not listed)

  Quasar Distribution
  P.O. Box 101
  Vermont
  Victoria  3133
  Australia

  Phone +613 9887 2411
  Fax   +613 9887 2511


U.K.

  Wizard Developments
  PO Box 490,
  Dartford, Kent
  England       DA1 2UH

  Phone +44 (0)1322 527800
  Fax   +44 (0)1322 527810


Germany

  GTI Grenville Trade International GmbH
  Carl-Zeiss-Str. 9
  79761 Waldshut-Tiengen
  Germany

  Phone: 07741 83040
  Fax: 07741 830438

  WWW: http://www.grentrade.com 


Canada & North America

  Wonder Computers
  1315 Richmond Road
  Ottawa, Ontario
  K2B 8J7
  Canada

  Phone: 613-721-1993
  Fax: 613-721-1994


Italy

  AG Computer
  Plebis Rea, 25 A/B
  92100  Agrigento
  Italy

  Phone: 0922/21954
  Fax: 0922/27805


New Zealand

  Haydon Computers
  P.O. Box 12018
  Christchurch
  New Zealand

  Phone/Fax: ++64 3 3899674


Norway

  DataKompaniet
  Prof. Brochs gt. 6
  N-7030 Trondheim, Norway

  Phone: +47 7354 0375
  Fax: +47 7394 3861


All distribution enquiries should be directed to Quasar Distribution.


SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

  An Amiga computer with AmigaOS 2.0 or greater, a 68020 or greater and
  a minimum of 2Mb RAM.


PRICE

  Please contact your local distributor for pricing and availability.


UPGRADES

Registered users of Version 3.0/3.1 of PC-Task can upgrade for a cost of
AUD$60 (including delivery).  Please remember to supply your registration
number.

Users of the Quasar Distribution package who have not returned their
product registration card, should contact Quasar Distribution, or their
local authorised distributor for upgrade pricing and availability.

Registered users of version 2.0 or before can upgrade for AUD$84.00
including delivery.


DEMO VERSION

A demo version of PC-Task 4.3 is availble from our web page at
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~pctask

You will also find this on most Amiga BBSs and Amiga Internet archives,
such as Aminet (will be in misc/emu/PC-TaskDemo43.lha).
@endnode
@node NEWS15 "tcpdl 2.3"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

tcpdl

VERSION

2.3

AUTHOR 

Tim Corringham
Ramjam Consultants Ltd 
http://www.ramjam.demon.co.uk/
mailto:support@ramjam.demon.co.uk


DESCRIPTION

tcpdl is a program which downloads files from a http host.  It can follow
links (across sites if required), and can be configured to ignore certain
file types.

It makes full use of AmigaDOS multi-tasking, and can download up to 15
files at a time.  A status window reports current activity.

tcpdlpp is a post processor for html files downloaded by tcpdl, which
converts all links to those files downloaded to relative URLs.  Links to
files that have not been downloaded are made to explicitly refer to the
site where they can be found.

tcpdlpp provides a summary of the number of occurances of every link found,
for both downloaded files and remote URLs.

Using these programs together allows you to make a local copy of selected
sites, which can be browsed off-line.  Links to files that have not been
downloaded can be followed when you are on-line. 


NEW FEATURES

tcpdl 2.3 has the following new features:
- support for proxy servers
- configurable timeouts and number of retries
- better memory management, reducing memory fragmentation
- several minor bug fixes


SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

tcpdl requires a TCP/IP stack, and an Internet connection.


AVAILABILITY

The most recent version of tcpdl is always available from:
http://www.ramjam.demon.co.uk/software/tcpdl.lha  (50260)
or via e-mail to support@ramjam.demon.co.uk

PRICE

The tcpdl 2.3 distribution is FREE!

DISTRIBUTION

tcpdl 2.3 and tcpdlpp 1.4 are Copyright (c) 1997 by Ramjam Consultants Ltd.


The complete distribution may be distributed without charge for
non-commercial use.

There is no requirement to register its use, but anyone who does so will be
kept informed of future updates.
@endnode
@node NEWS16 "Fiasco 2.1"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

    Fiasco 2.1

AUTHOR

    Nils Bandener
    Dekanatsgasse 4
    34369 Hofgeismar
    Germany

    mailto:nils@dinoex.sub.org
    mailto:nilsb@amigaworld.com

DESCRIPTION

Fiasco is an easy to use and powerful database program.  Many different
types of databases can be created with Fiasco.  The structure of a database
is defined with the mouse in a style guide compliant mask editor.  While
designing the mask you can choose from a wide range of field types,
including listview fields and datatypes fields.  To add complex
functionality, Fiasco features an ARexx port and a formula system for
calculated fields.  The record access system is dynamic, thus you can use
databases that are larger than your available RAM.

Additional features include an import/export function, a print function and
a powerful search function.

NEW FEATURES

- Support of formulae for calculated fields
- Improved search function that can search by several
  fields and by formulae.
- Revised ARexx port.
- Var String fields may be displayed in the list window.
- Float, date and time fields use locale.library for
  formatting.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

The minimum requirements for Fiasco are Amiga OS 2.04 and 1 MB RAM.  The
recommended configuration, that allows the use of all Fiasco features, is
Amiga OS 3.x, 68020 processor, 2 MB RAM and a hard disk.

Fiasco 2.1 requires gtlayout.library (v42 or highet).  It is included in
the distribution archive.

AVAILABILITY

    Fiasco can be downloaded from the Fiasco support homepage

http://www.amigaworld.com/support/fiasco/

    or from any Aminet mirror, e.g.:

ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/biz/dbase/fiasco_main.lha
ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/biz/dbase/fiasco_doc_eng.lha
ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/biz/dbase/fiasco_doc_deu.lha

PRICE

    Fiasco 2.1 is shareware. The price is 25 US Dollars or 30 DM plus
    shipping. Senders of gifts for Fiasco 1.x can get a free
    registration.

DISTRIBUTABILITY

    Fiasco Copyright 1995-1997 Nils Bandener.
    Shareware.
    Distribution archives may be freely distributed.
@endnode
@node NEWS17 "AIFF2Studio16"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

AIFF2Studio16

VERSION

1.1 (public release)

AUTHOR

   Kenneth "Kenny" Nilsen/
   Digital Surface

   EMail: kenny@bgnett.no
   URL:   http://www.bgnett.no/~kenny/

DESCRIPTION

This tool is capable of converting AIFF files, whether 8 or 16-bit, mono or
stereo to the file format that Studio 16 3.x uses.  AIFF 8-bit files are
automatically converted to 16-bit size.  Mono files are converted to be
PAN'ed in center.  A stereo AIFF file will produce two Studio 16 files
which are PAN'ed to left and right accordingly.  The files also get their
own extensions.

Since the Sunrize company went down a few years ago there has been very
little development for the Sunrize audio cards (I only know of about one
program (commercial) that has beeb developed afterwards that can handle
Studio 16 files).

To get information about the Studio 16 fileformat get the package off any
Aminet site, eg.
  ftp://ftp.doc.ic.ac.uk/aminet/dev/misc/Studio16frm.lha

FEATURES

 - Can convert both mono and stereo AIFF files
 - Converts 8-bit to 16-bit automatically
 - Uses sample rate from an AIFF file if it is in Studio16's HZ table,
   or the one which is closest to the table entry.
 - Auto extended and auto PAN'ed (mono files are centered while
   stereo files are put in left and right channel).
 - Dumps AIFF file (COMM) info.
 - FAAAST converting - Assembler with big load/convert buffer.
 - Small in size.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

Required:
  - OS 2.0 or better
  - Sunrize AD516/AD1012 and Studio 16 v3.0 is recommended, but not
    needed to use the tool.

AVAILABILITY

Aminet
  ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/mus/misc/AIFF2S16.lha

PRICE

Free

DISTRIBUTABILITY

Distributed as freeware.

AIFF2STUDIO16 is Copyright (c)1997 by Kenneth "Kenny" Nilsen/
Digital Surface.
@endnode
@node NEWS18 "CAAUG Now Online"
@toc NEWS

Cleveland Area Amiga Users Group (CAAUG) Now Online

CLEVELAND, OH, August 24, 1997 -- One of the nation's oldest computer
support groups, the Cleveland Area Amiga Users Group (CAAUG), is now on the
Internet.  Their address on the World Wide Web is

  http://www.ca-aug.org/


The CAAUG Website contains news of upcoming CAAUG events, membership and
contact information, as well as suggestions for browsing other Amiga
related sites.

Founded more than a decade ago, the CAAUG is dedicated to the advancement
and understanding of the Amiga computer.  The group is a non-profit
organization open to all who support the Amiga and are interested in having
fun with other Amiga enthusiasts.


Contact:
Mike Rozack
President, CAAUG
mrozack@infinet.com

www.ca-aug.org
ca-aug@ca-aug.org
@endnode
@node NEWS19 "Amiga E 3.3a"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

     Amiga E

VERSION

     3.3a (update to 3.2a).

AUTHOR

     Wouter van Oortmerssen (wvo96r@ecs.soton.ac.uk).

DESCRIPTION

This is an update to v3.2a.  Please read the documentation for a full list
of new features.  For those who have never seen E before:

E is a powerful and flexible object oriented / procedural / unpure
functional higher programming language, mainly influenced by languages such
as C++, Ada, Lisp etc., and Amiga E a very fast compiler for it, with
features such as speed of >20000 lines/minute on a 7 Mhz amiga, inline
assembler and linker integrated into compiler, large set of integrated
functions, great module concept with v40 includes as modules, flexible
type-system, quoted expressions, immediate and typed lists, parametric and
inclusion polymorphism, exception handling, inheritance, data-hiding,
methods, multiple return values, default arguments, register allocation,
fast memory management, unification, LISP-Cells, gui-toolkit, (macro-)
preprocessor, very intuitive and powerful source-level debugger, easy
.library linking, and much more...

AVAILABILITY

ftp://ftp.luth.se/pub/aminet/dev/e/amigae33a.lha (1692229)

DISTRIBUTABILITY

This _distribution_ is Freeware.  It contains only a limited compiler, a
registered compiler is available separately.
@endnode
@node NEWS20 "MidiTracker 1.2"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

     MidiTracker V1.2

AUTHOR

     Sven Thoennissen
     Karlsgraben 35
     52064 Aachen
     Germany

     svent@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de
     sa80@corona.tng.oche.de


DESCRIPTION

MidiTracker is a MIDI sequencer that uses the 'tracker' concept for
composing songs, hence the name.  :-) Unlike other tracker programs that
have MIDI capabilities, MidiTracker has been designed specifically for MIDI
composing and does not use amiga audio (except for the metronome).  If you
have used trackers before, then it shouldn't take you too long to get
accustomed to MidiTracker.

The intention with MidiTracker is to keep everything as dynamic as possible
thus giving you more freedom and control over your MIDI data within a
tracker environment.  For example, have you ever had the problem of wanting
to realtime record pitchbend, modulation, aftertouch and sustains but the
tracker either didn't get the notes properly or wasn't capable of doing so?
Miditracker can do it.


NEW FEATURES

Important changes since 1.1:

- Midi access with Midi-Lib available!
  Now you can play samples with a sample-player program!

- PC Keyboard option

- Metronome functions enhanced.

- Channelscope: New HiFi-look and peak-hold

- Sysex-Editor

- Quickloader-menu

- New Block operation functions

- Export SMF Type-1 files.

- Main window trackdisplay changes

- Tempo value is now with two decimal places.

- Synth support for: QuasiMIDI Quasar
                     Roland MC-303
                     Yamaha-XG
                     Yamaha CS1x

- Editable preset names for the supported synths

- Editable control sources (name + reset value)


SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

- Kick 2.04, better 3.0+
- 68020 with fastram would be good
- MIDI interface plus equipment (e.g. synthesizer, keyboard)
  strongly recommended for composing


AVAILABILITY

MidiTracker is available on all Aminet sites. e.g.

  ftp.doc.ic.ac.uk:/aminet/mus/midi/MidiTracker.lha

It is also available at its support mailbox in Germany:
Corona BBS, Sysop is Mathias Frankenbach.
+49 241 39164   USR V34+
        24846   V34 Zyxel D
        4090012 V34 Zyxel 2864ID (ISDN + V34)
        4090013 ISDN Master
Login: MidiTracker
Password: MidiTracker


PRICE

Shareware DM 50,- or US $35.00 or AUS $45 (at the Australian Registration
Site).


DISTRIBUTABILITY

MidiTracker is Shareware.  The archive as provided by myself may not be
altered.  It can be distributed everywhere if done so free of charge.
MidiTracker is Copyright 1996-1997 Sven Thoennissen.
@endnode
@node NEWS21 "Amiga RC5 Team Tackled RC5-64 Challenge"
@toc NEWS

The Amiga RC5 Team effort is proud to announce the next step in continuing
participation in the RSA Secret Key Challenge contest: to break the RC5-64
key challenge.  After only 61 days of participation in the 210 day RC5-56
challenge the Amiga RC5 Team effort reached a seventh overall ranking out
of over 4000 teams with an estimated 30,000 computers participating.  On
the last day of the effort the gathering speed of amongst others over a
thousand Amigas culminated in a third daily ranking, which proves the
vigour with which the Amiga community attacked the problem.

The Amiga RC5 Team effort has successfully and beyond expectations entered
the rankings and laid the foundation for a worldwide bundling of the Amiga
community, and proves beyond doubt the spirit and enthusiasm living for a
platform many have believed to be dead.  The past effort has proven that
these people were wrong; the acquisition of the Amiga technology by one of
the largest computer manufacturers worldwide, Gateway 2000, can only
underline this fact.

To enhance further exposure for the Amiga and its enthusiastic following
the Amiga RC5 Team effort has started tackling the 64 bit key challenge.
We believe that our showing can be even better with the coming PowerPC
client and the participation which now starts at the very beginning instead
of playing catch up.

The future holds other promising cooperative efforts as well, the next
generation client can be used to participate in other efforts such as
Search for Extra Terrestrial Life (SETI), Mersenne primes, a distributed
chess engine and perhaps searching the human genome for cures to various
diseases.  Therefore this effort not only serves as a vehicle for promoting
the Amiga, but also lays the foundations for projects that at some time in
the future will benefit all of mankind.

The Amiga RC5 Team effort is also providing a mailinglist as a forum for
the discussion on above topics and the effort in general.

For additional info on how to participate and more in depth explanation,
please visit the Amiga RC5 Team effort homepage at:
http://www.cistron.nl/~ttavoly/rc5

Sincerely,

Amiga RC5 Team effort coordinator
Thomas Tavoly - rc5@amiga.cistron.nl
@endnode
@node NEWS22 "Studio 16 File Format Documentation"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

   Studio 16 File Format description

VERSION

   1.0

AUTHOR

   Kenneth "Kenny" Nilsen/
   Digital Surface

   EMail: mailto:kenny@bgnett.no
   URL:   http://www.bgnett.no/~kenny/

DESCRIPTION

This package contains description on the Studio 16 2.0 file format.  It
also contains include files for assembler and C.  The purpose is to
increase development for the great Sunrize audio cards and the Studio 16
software.  The package is quite useful for making tools that convert other
sample formats to Studio 16 2.0 format files, but also the other way of
course.

SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

Required:
   None really, but Studio 16 is recommended however.

AVAILABILITY

   Aminet
     ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/dev/misc/Studio16frm.lha

     and other full mirror Aminet sites.

   Source code
     - Example source on how to init a sample header. Includes a demo
       sample and a converted sample.

PRICE

   Free

DISTRIBUTABILITY

   Distributed as freeware.
@endnode
@node NEWS23 "MECCA BBS CD-ROM"
@toc NEWS

TITLE

  The MECCA BBS CDROM

PUBLISHER

  RBProductions
  835 West Warner Road
  Suite 101-251
  Gilbert, AZ 85233
  (602) 545-6162 voice & fax
  http://www.goodnet.com/~cyrano
  cyrano@amigazone.com

DESCRIPTION

  o The full file databases (400+Mb) from the MECCA BBS.
  o A special preview edition of the Scientific Amigan CDROM,
    soon to be released by RBProductions.
  o HTML-front end.

Though issued primarily for MECCA (Motorola Experimental Computer Club of
Arizona) members, this compilation is being offered to the public at large.

FILE CONTENTS

  All BBS files are organized in the same databases as on the
  BBS proper:

  Base Category               Files Size
  ----------------------------------------
  2    Animations               73    23M
  3    ARexx                    16   622K
  4    Audio,Music & MODs      338    50M
  5    DataTypes                31   1.3M
  6    Demos, Euro, etc.         8   5.0M
  7    Desktop Publishing      366    33M
  8    Documents & Textfiles   197   9.5M
  9    E-Zines                 158    15M
  10   Emulation                22   4.6M
  11   Encrytion & Compression  38   3.2M
  12   Games                   140    29M
  13   Hardware                 57   4.5M
  14   Miscellaneous           186    12M
  15   Networking              132    17M
  16   Patches (commercial)     27   4.5M
  17   Pictures                249    22M
  18   Programming             160    21M
  19   Scientific               72    19M
  20   Screen Blankers          16   1.3M
  21   Telecommunications      163    21M
  22   Utilities - Graphic      22   5.3M
  23   Utilities - System      407    21M
  24   Video & Multimedia        2   323K
  25   Virus Checkers           13   2.5M
  26   Applications             90    27M
  27   CoverDisks              228    22M
  28   CNET BBS Stuff          224   9.3M
  29   Compute Disks             7   3.2M
  
SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS

 CDROM drive;  Hard drive suggested.

AVAILABILITY
  
  Directly from RBProductions.

PRICE

  US$14.95, domestic shipping included.
@endnode
@node NEWS24 "Cloanto's Amiga Forever"
@toc NEWS

Presentation: Cloanto's "Amiga Forever"

Last week, Cloanto acquired from the group of owners of Amiga technology
(Gateway 2000, Inc., Amiga International, Inc.  and Amiga, Inc.) a license
covering all Amiga operating systems from version 1.0 to version 3.0, to be
published by Cloanto in a package named "Amiga Forever".  (A few minor
files will be missing or changed as agreed in this license, without
affecting the emulation's Amiga compatibility.  Certain Asian territories
are excluded by the license.)

The license also covers Amiga ROMs, Amiga patents, the use of the word
"Amiga" in "Amiga Forever" and "Amiga Explorer", the official "Powered by
Amiga" logo, and other intellectual property and every permission required
to legally publish a fully working Amiga emulator.  (It must be considered
that, without a proper license, emulation as well as other Amiga
compatibility solutions may infringe not only on Amiga copyrights, but also
on Amiga patents and trademarks.)

Amiga Forever includes "Amiga Explorer", a new Amiga-to-PC networking
software developed by Cloanto.  The Amiga Explorer user interface is an
object-oriented extension to the Windows Desktop, where the Amiga appears
as a networked computer.  The Amiga and the PC can be connected via a
serial (null modem) or parallel (Windows/LapLink/InterLink/Norton standard)
cable.  A future upgrade, expected to be available later this year (at no
cost to Amiga Forever users on the Cloanto web site), will extend the
networking capabilities to support TCP/IP.

Amiga Forever also includes a variety of famous old Amiga games, demos and
other material of historical interest (with an exclusive, never before
released, interview with the late Jay Miner, "Father of the Amiga"), plus
Personal Paint and other up-to-date productivity software by Cloanto and
other companies.

The Amiga operating systems, ROMs, and Amiga emulation software are
preinstalled on Amiga Forever for easy use and installation.  The user just
needs to insert the CD-ROM in a PC, and with one mouse click a fully
working Amiga will appear on the screen.  The Amiga emulation software,
which is based mainly on a new version of the well-known UAE software
(which will continue to be freely distributable) includes for the first
time drivers for Picasso 96 screen modes (up to 256 colors, as well as
16/24-bit true color modes).

The initial release of Amiga Forever is scheduled to include a CD-ROM with
software for the Amiga and the other platforms, plus a floppy disk with a
copy of the Amiga-side networking software (for Amiga systems with no
CD-ROM drive).  The exact platforms which will be supported by the
emulation software, in addition to Windows NT, Windows 9x, DOS and Linux,
will be defined and announced shortly.  The official Amiga Forever web
address http://www.cloanto.com/amiga/forever/ will allow users to obtain
information and support, and to easily upgrade their software directly from
the Internet.

Amiga Forever will be presented to the public on November 14, 1997, at the
Computer '97 Show in Cologne.

For additional and up-to-date information, including a section on "Thoughts
and Technology Behind Amiga Forever's Emulation Software", plus additional
links and graphics, please visit the Amiga Forever home page at
http://www.cloanto.com/amiga/forever/.
@endnode
@node NEWS25 "GameSmith Development System"
@toc NEWS

*********************************************
   O F F I C I A L  A N N O U N C E M E N T
*********************************************

Bithead Technologies has resumed all responsibilities concerning the
GameSmith Development System for the Amiga.  The license agreement between
Bithead Technologies and Oregon Research for the sale of GameSmith has
expired, and all GameSmith materials destroyed.  Further sales, inquiries,
customer support, etc.  should be directed to myself at:

John Enright
Bithead Technologies
24945 Meier Rd.
Calhan, CO 80808
(719) 683-5681
johne@webaccess.net
@endnode
@node NEWS26 "IPISA '97"
@toc NEWS

                              IPISA '97
      Seventh Edition - November 29 and 30, 1997 - Milan, Italy
                   http://bilbo.di.unipi.it/ipisa/

IPISA is an annual computer conference that is held in Milan, Italy.  This
year the conference program features over 27 talks, and among them:

                                   -----

                      Be Europe - Paris, France
       BeOS Preview Release Demo (PowerPC and Intel versions)

Thomas Bushnell - Free Software Foundation, Cambridge, Mass., United States
                   HURD: The GNU Operating System

Richard Stallman - Free Software Foundation, Cambridge, Mass., United States
   The GNU Project: its mission, its history, and its future plans

                          Sun Microsystems
                       The Java Platform (TM)

              Aaron Digulla et al. - Konstanz, Germany
                 AROS: Amiga Replacement OS Project

                 Haage & Partner - Rosbach, Germany
              Optimizing software for the PowerPC Amiga
                and platform independent development

                     Urban Muller - Switzerland
            Aminet, or: How to bring Power to the People

              Wouter van Oortmerssen - The Netherlands
          Aardappel Programming Language and Amiga E update

                                   -----

On our web page:

                        http://bilbo.di.unipi.it/ipisa/

you should find everything you need to know about IPISA, some
pictures and maps, and how to attend it. 
@endnode
@node NEWS27 "Monthly Schatztruhe Competition"
@toc NEWS

NEW! The monthly Schatztruhe competition!

Win a Phase5 PowerPC board for your Amiga 1200/2000/3000/4000.

Just visit our web site (http://www.schatztruhe.de), read the instructions
for the competition carefully, solve the riddle and with a bit of luck
you'll be the winner of a PowerUp board from Phase 5!

The deadline for this competition is November 30, 1997.

We wish you much luck!
@endnode
@node NEWS28 "Amiga University Sweepstakes"
@toc NEWS

Attention all Amiga University sweepstakes participants!

Round 2 of the Amiga University competition exam is now underway!  The
trivia is tougher, but you'll increase your chances of winning that
accelerated Amiga 1200 computer with every correct answer you submit!

Not enrolled in the Amiga University yet?  Just go to
http://www.amigainformer.com to join the scholarly race to win great Amiga
prizes, including Aladdin 4D 5.0, DrawStudio 2.0, PageStream 3.3, or the
grand prize: a brand-new Amiga 1200 computer complete with a JetFire 134
accelerator and 8 MB of fast RAM.

The Amiga University is brought to you by the Amiga Informer magazine,
Pantheon Systems Company, Soft-Logik Publishing Corp, Software Hut, Paxtron
Corp., Nova Design, and Haage & Partner.

Ted Wallingford
Pantheon Systems
Amiga Informer Webmaster
twalling@mich.com
@endnode
@node NEWS29 "ClickBOOM Amiga Web Ring"
@toc NEWS

CLICKBOOM AMIGA WEB RING
------------------------
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Toronto, Sep. 30, 1997

Dear Amiga users,
we would like to introduce you to a brand new concept called

                   "CLICKBOOM AMIGA WEB RING"

No, it's not a new game, as a matter of fact, it has very little to do with
games.

"clickBOOM Amiga web ring" is our non-profit project intended to connect
all (personal and commercial) Amiga web sites on Internet!

It's a brave plan, and for it to ultimately succeed we need all Amiga web
site owners to join this magnificent way of making the Amiga web presence
stronger and more organized. 

If you have an Amiga-related web site, this absolutely FREE way of
promoting is a must.  It will improve traffic on your site, while also
contributing to linking all Amiga web sites in the most efficient way.

We will outline the basic principles and benefits of Amiga web ring here,
but for the complete information and application form, please visit
http://www.clickboom.com .

1. How does it work?
2. Benefits for web surfers
3. Benefits for owners of personal home pages
4. Benefits for commercial web sites


HOW DOES IT WORK?
-----------------
Imagine for a moment that every Amiga web site on its front page has a
simple control panel, similar in looks to that of a CD player.

A visitor to any site in this "Amiga ring" can simply click on the "next"
button to jump to the next site in the ring.  He can then explore this new
site, and at any time use the panel from this site to go to the next one in
the ring. 

Going from one site to another would allow a user to eventually visit all
Amiga web pages and after making a "full circle" he would be back to the
site where he started from. 

In addition to this, the ring allows a user to go in both "directions",
skip, see the next/previous five sites, or jump to a random site in the
ring. 

This might seem like a complicated thing, but once you see it on the main
page of clickboom.com or pxlcomputers.com , you will realize how simple,
yet effective it can be.


BENEFITS FOR WEB SURFERS 
------------------------
clickBOOM Amiga ring is a dream come true for any surfer looking for Amiga
information on the web:

1.  A simple uniform control panel allows for easy "flow" from one Amiga
site to another.  This will discover hidden Internet Amiga gems - and
that's what surfing the Net is about. 

2.  Visit all Amiga related sites, no matter how small or large - from a
personal web site of an Amiga user in Alaska to a manufacturer or retailer
carrying Amiga products.  No more same few links, over and over on every
web site. 

3.  No need to use search engines to look for Amiga sites.

4.  No dead links!  As soon as any site is removed from the web, it is also
removed from the ring, and panels on all sites are instantly "informed" not
to use that site anymore. 


BENEFITS FOR OWNERS OF PERSONAL HOME PAGES 
------------------------------------------
1.  Adds traffic to web sites.  ANY VISITOR to ANY SITE in the clickBOOM
Amiga ring is a potential visitor to your site, as well! 

2.  A site next to a high traffic one like clickBOOM will receive all the
hits from surfers who choose "next" from such a site! 

3.  No programming, or maintenance necessary.  Once the HTML code is added
to the page, it automatically handles traffic from and to the web site. 

4. It's absolutely, positively FREE! 


BENEFITS FOR COMMERCIAL WEB SITES 
---------------------------------
No matter how popular a site is, it can never have too many users visiting
it.  Amiga web ring will increase traffic on any site, guaranteed. 

1.  ANY VISITOR to ANY SITE in Amiga ring is a potential visitor to your
web site! 

2.  All surfers to use the ring are Amiga users looking for more
information on the web. 

3.  Commercial web sites can even use an alternative panel without a
clickBOOM logo, no questions asked.  (contact us first to obtain such
panel)

4.  It's FREE! 

Thanks,
clickBOOM
@endnode
@node NEWS30 "Tiger's Bane"
@toc NEWS

Longbow Digital Arts
General Delivery,
Providence Bay, ON,
P0P 1T0, Canada

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: longbow@sympatico.ca

November 13, 1997 - Earlier this week Longbow Digital Arts (LDA) announced
the release of Tiger's Bane, its first shareware release for the Amiga
family of personal computers.  Tiger's Bane is a mix of side-scrolling
action game and flight simulation, letting the player experience modern
helicopter warfare through a combination of fast action graphics and
realistic flight controls, weapon systems, and battlefield hardware.

Tiger's Bane isn't your average action game, according to Seumas McNally,
the game's designer, "I wanted to create a game that would blend the
excitement and action of a side view shoot-'em-up with some of the realism
of a flight simulation.  In Bane you have to think before mindlessly firing
off your weapons, and you have to think about which weapons and helicopters
to bring along in the first place."

The registered version of Tiger's Bane features 5 Operations with more than
80 missions in total, 7 flyable helicopters, up to two computer controlled
wingmen, F-16 and A-10 air support, over 25 different enemy and allied
ground, air, and sea units, weather effects, night and day missions,
multiple skill levels, and a random mission generator.

Tiger's Bane is currently available from the Longbow Digital Arts web site
at "http://www.kanservu.ca/~longbow/", or through your local AmiNet archive
mirror site as "/pub/aminet/game/shoot/TigersBane.lha".

ABOUT LONGBOW DIGITAL ARTS:  LDA is a computer software and 3D animation
production company; founded in 1997, they are currently developing action
and strategy games for the Amiga, BeOS, and Windows operating systems.

Amiga is a registered trademark of Gateway 2000, Inc.  BeOS is a trademark
of Be, Inc.  Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
@endnode
@node NEWS31 "REBOL/Core Alpha"
@toc NEWS

REBOL/Core Alpha to be Released...

The Alpha-test version of REBOL/Core is in its final stage of development
and internal testing.  Over the last month the software has become stable
enough to use for important jobs, such as running our email list server
(Rebot) and converting our reference documentation to HTML.  Over the week
ahead we will be finishing a few important documents and will begin to
distribute the main program, documentation, and examples to the people on
our Email Announcement List who have asked to test it.

Why just an Alpha Release?

This release of REBOL/Core is packed with many useful datatypes and
functions; however, we consider this to be an Alpha because some of the
main concepts are still evolving.  We need the freedom to continue to
improve REBOL's core technology without concern for compatibility of an
application base.

In other words...  function names and operations are subject to change as
testing proceeds.  (Prototypes testers should expect that the Alpha will be
different from the earlier versions.) In addition there are a number of
crucial features that are not currently implemented that we would like to
include in the Beta release.

REBOL on Multiple Platforms!

During October Carl ported the REBOL/Core to a few other platforms,
primarily as a test of kernel code computability.  The Alpha version now
runs on the Amiga, Linux (X86), PC, and Macintosh.  All of these will be
available for Alpha release, and we expect to add other platforms in the
months ahead.

How to obtain REBOL

REBOL is not yet available for general distribution.  However, if you would
like a private copy of the Alpha release for testing, join our Email List
for information and instructions.

What Does it Cost?

We are planning to release REBOL as shareware ($50 US) for private
non-commercial and educational uses.  This will be a fully enabled version,
with no sly shareware limitations, tricks, or gimmicks.  Commercial,
packaged, and licensed versions will also be available for businesses,
institutions, and government use.  However, we remain open to your comments
on this topic.

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

                               What is REBOL?

REBOL is the Relative Expression-Based Object Language designed over
several years by Carl Sassenrath, the software architect known for the
Amiga multitasking operating system.

REBOL offers an easy way to share and exchange information and functions
between computers and applications.  It is designed for organizing data and
executing simple tasks.  REBOL is meant for users, hobbyists, educators,
web writers, multimedia authors, technicians, experimenters...  anyone who
seeks solutions to various problems that they face in the modern world of
network computing.

If you've written HTML or shell scripts, you can write REBOL.  It is a
messaging language, not a programming language.  In essence, REBOL scripts
treat the Internet as if it were your own personal computer.  Messages can
be transferred using existing Email, Web, and FTP (file transfer), but it
will also allow direct communications through a new type of message port. 
Messages can be as simple as a single line or as complex as a
mini-application.

How is REBOL pronounced?  We say it as in the noun rebel, which means "a
person who resists authority, suppression, or domination".  (And, a lot of
people like to add the words "of Microsoft" to the end of that definition.)

REBOL Examples

A few examples will quickly provide you a general sense of how REBOL can be
used.  If you want to print text, you can do so with a single line such as:

print "Hello World!"

or, if you want to send that text as an email message to a friend:

send friend@domain.com "Hello World!"

To execute a REBOL script stored on a web site:

do http://www.rebol.com/scripts/address-book.r

or, from an FTP site (anonymous login used here):

do ftp://rebol.com/scripts/address-book.r

If you want to grab a web page and save it as a file, you could write two
lines:

file: load http://www.cnet.com
save %cnet.html file

or just the line:

save %cnet.html load http://www.cnet.com

But, what if you need to send that page to a friend:

send friend@domain.com load http://www.cnet.com

Or, maybe you want to examine your email, but you don't want to remove it
from the server quite yet:

foreach message mailbox [print message]

However, suppose you need to do a few, more sophisticated operations, like
getting information from your friend's address book application:

info: ask rebol:domain.com/friend/address-book [
    find-name "billy"
]

which you're going to store in your own address book application running as
a separate program on your computer:

send rebol:/address-book/new-entry info

Another friend wants you to email all the files in your current directory:

files: load %*
foreach file files [send ami@there.net load file]

or, perhaps all the files should be sent as a single message:

message: ""
foreach file files [copy tail message load file]
send ami@there.net message

In thinking about it, you decide now would be a good time to send your broker
that stock transaction (which her computer receives and auto-executes):

send broker@sell-it-now.com {
    Company: "Microsoft"
    Symbol:  MSFT
    Shares:  1000
    Price:   132.54
    Action:  sell
]

Your boss wants several web pages emailed to him at 10:30AM each morning
for the next ten days.  So, you fire up a separate unattended REBOL task:

bossy: make task! [
    pages: [
        http://www.cnet.com
        http://www.rebol.com/docs/doc.html
        http://www.news-wire.com/news/today.html
    ]
 
    loop 10 [
       wait 10:25AM  ; (boss likes stuff early)
       foreach page pages [send boss@work.net load page]
    ]
]
do bossy  ; (make it happen)

Or (this one is "complicated"), your friend is going to send you an email
with a REBOL script that you need to execute as soon as it arrives, then
send the result back to her:

wait mailbox
foreach message mailbox [
    if ? find message hillary@wh.gov [
        send hillary@wh.gov do message
    ]
]

You get the idea!  But, how would you ever know it could be this easy?  To
start, we will provide 101 basic scripts on our WWW.REBOL.COM web site.  In
addition, we will archive thousands of scripts written by others...  as
source code that you can use to create your own messages and scripts.



REBOL v.s. Java

They are totally different.  REBOL, as was said above, is for sending
messages, organizing data and executing simple tasks...  and, it is meant
for users, hobbyists, educators, web writers, multimedia authors,
technicians and experimenters.  The examples above give you an idea of how
it can be applied.

Java is an advanced object-oriented distributed programming language meant
for software engineers and application designers.  It is very good...  what
C++ should have been ten years ago.  In Java the "Hello World" example
above would be:

class HelloWorld {
    public static void main (String args[]) {
        System.out.println("Hello World!");
    }
}

To those who understand object-oriented programming, Java is good stuff. 
Programmers love it!  But...  more casual users might want other choices
too.


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

                              Other Information

Contributions!

If you like what you see, you can contribute in a several ways:

  1. Send us a $50 contribution (we need it!)
  2. Tell others about REBOL or ask them to visit WWW.REBOL.COM
  3. Join our Email Announcement List
  4. Add web links to WWW.REBOL.COM (banner: jpg gif)
  5. Test REBOL Alpha and send us comments and bugs
  6. Translate documents into other languages
  7. Help write examples and documents about REBOL

The development of REBOL has been our full-time occupation for more than a
year now!  There is no other funding other than from you!  This is a "do it
or bust" vision, and we need your support.  Contributions can be made from
anywhere in the world with First Virtual or send it directly to us at:

Carl Sassenrath
PO Box 264
Calpella, CA 95418
USA


E-Mail Announcement List

If you would like to be kept informed of REBOL news and releases, please
send a message to our REBOL "BOT" (written in REBOL of course):

To: rebot@sassenrath.com (yes rebot, not rebol)
Subject: Add

You will receive a confirmation that you have been added to the list, and
you can remove your name at any time.  More features will be added to Rebot
in the future, such as allowing you to request documentation, examples,
program updates, registration, applications, etc.

Reference Manual Changes...

Due to a shortage of resources, the REBOL Reference Manual previously
published on this Web site has fallen behind actual changes.  Although the
basic ideas remain the same, a few of the details have changed and new
concepts have been introduced (many aspects of the system have not yet been
published, e.g.  the concepts of Paths, Ports, and Tasks).  We will be
publishing the manual again, once it has been updated.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                      Copyright Š Carl Sassenrath 1997
                   REBOL is a Trademark of Carl Sassenrath
@endnode
@node NEWS32 "Wildfire PPC Routines"
@toc NEWS

Official Wildfire announcement

On the 10th of October 1997 Wildfire starts the PPC competition!

After over 2 years of development for the Amiga Version and after
some really hard weeks where almost all time was spent for
converting some routines to use the PPC Boards from Phase 5
we are more then proud to present the first Alpha Version of
THE special effect animation/picture processor for the PPC-Amiga.
It works together with the Phase5 software Solution, there will
be no support for WarpUp.

On the Aminet there is a demoversion:

--> All needed files to run the PPC AND Amiga Version of WF:

     biz/demo/WildfirePPC.lha     1968373  Bytes

--> Additional Special Effect Operators:

     biz/demo/WildfirePPC2.lha     718103  Bytes

If there is NO PPC in your system then Wildfire will use the
normal routines, otherwise the PPC routines for selected
operators will be loaded. You have the possibility to turn
on/off the PPC routines of Wildfire allowing you to compare
the speed very easy.

At the Computer`97 in Cologne (14. - 16. November) the full Version
of Wildfire Amiga and Wildfire PPC will be available at
Oberland Computer.

There you have the possibitly to talk directly to Andreas Maschke,
the program author and to Andreas Kuessner, the Wildfire Project
Manager. The Amiga Version and the PPC version will be shown
live at the fair, of course.


If you have any questions about Wildfire do not hesitate to contact
us at:

Wildfire-Support      : eksec@eure.de        (Andreas Kuessner)

Wildfire-Homepage     : http://www.oberland.com/amiga/wildfire/


Wildfire Distribution:  Oberland Computer
                        In der Schneithohl 5
                        61476 Kronberg
                        Germany

                        Tel. ++49-(0)6173-6080

                        email: info@oberland.com


This early preview of the forthcoming commercial
Wildfire version "5\PPC" includes:

 -full CyberGraphX-support
 -full PPC-support (using another type of "PlugIns": ELF-modules)

Because most of the planned features are already implemented,
this preview version is one of the first APPLICATIONS
for the brandnew PPC-boards.

Highlights you may enjoy:
 -Truecolor-support:
   *24 Bit-Previews (many operators seem to work "in realtime")
   *24 Bit FilmStrips
   *24 Bit Thumbnails
 -PPC-support
   *3D-engine (all of the 3d-operators like Wave3D, LWOB, ColorCube, ...)
   *DLA
 -the new ColorWindow (CreateImage, DLA, Text, ...)


Performance-Tests (time in seconds)
-----------------------------------------------------------
A) Procedures (Image-Size: 640x480)

 Procedure     M68060 50 MHz       PPC 604e 200 Mhz    Notes
 iScale           3.34               0.66
 iCrop            0.02               0.02
 iDisplace        4.00               0.26
 iHalve           0.14               0.02
 iDLA           133.88               4.34
 iLUT             0.14               0.04
 iMedianFilter  113.08              19.90
 iOilTransfer   182.78              25.66
 iNegative        0.12               0.06
 iRotate          6.64               1.84
 iTileBrick       0.12               0.04
 iColorToGray     0.14               0.06
 iTwirl           5.88               1.48
 iWater           6.10               0.46               (without rendering)
 iWave3D          3.58               0.32               (without rendering)
 iTwirl3D         7.92               0.46               (without rendering)
 iRender3D       41.23               6.80               (quadrangles)
 iRender3D       20.76               3.84               (phong-shading, triangles)

These values were obtained from the Shell-output after starting
wf with the "-debug" option. Note, that you may switch on/off the
PPC-code from within the Preferences-Window during runtime.

B) Example-Images (of different size)

 Image         M68060 50 MHz       PPC 604e 200 Mhz    Operators
  he2_f          68.48              17.34               LoadImage, Bump3D,
  (640x480)                                             Wave3D, Magnet3D

  parPlot24      23.66               6.66               ParPlot, Axis3D,
  (960x768)                                             ColorCube

  WFLogo         70.36              33.24               CreateImage, Text, Compose,
  (unknown)                                             Convolve, Neon, Threshold, LUT,
                                                        LoadImage, TileBrick, Bump3D,
                                                        Transform3D, Wave3D
@endnode

@node NEWS33 "Amiga Report Distribution Info"
@toc NEWS

Fred Fish and Cronus have come through for Amiga Report again!

Effective immediately, a new mailing list for Amiga Report readers is
available.  The list will be used for general announcements about the
magazine--usually, to inform readers that a new issue of the magazine is
now available and online for viewing and downloading, for those who prefer
to browse online or FTP from Aminet rather than receive AR in their
mailbox.

To subscribe to this list, send e-mail to majordomo@ninemoons.com and in
the body of the message, place the text:

subscribe areport-announce

You will be added to the list.

Amiga Report will be distributed in HTML archives on the current, main
mailing list.  If you wish to continue receiving AR in this form, do
nothing.  If you are not presently on the list and want the HTML archives
sent to you, send to the above address but place

subscribe areport

in the body.

Similarly, if you wish to stop receiving Amiga Report in the mail, send

unsubscribe areport

to the above address.

So, for example, if you are presently an Amiga Report subscriber but wish
only to be told when AR is available so you can view it on your favorite AR
mirror, you would want to send

subscribe areport-announce
unsubscribe areport

to majordomo@ninemoons.com.

@endnode

@node FEATURE1 "Amiga Report Top 100 Games"
@toc FEATURE

===========================================================================
                The Amiga Report Top 100 Games of All Time
                            By: @{" Ken Anderson " link KEN}
===========================================================================

RESULTS

The votes are in, the sums have been done, and finally, after much blood,
sweat and broken calculators we can bring you the results of the first
Amiga Report Top 100 (hereafter known as the AR100).

We had over 750 direct votes from the main web page, and another few dozen
e-mails, all voting on the author's personal favourite 10 Amiga games from
the last 12 years.  We were quiet overwhelmed by the response, and glad to
see there's still such enthusiasm and vigour in the Amiga scene.

Of course, nothing went as smoothly as we'd have liked.  I (Ken) changed
jobs in mid-July, meaning for a while, half of the votes were stuck on a
server I couldn't access.  Also, the e-mail acknowledgement system
steadfastly refused to work from day one, so apologies to everyone who's
still waiting for a reply e-mail.

The range of votes was staggering.  Games I've never heard of popped up in
every second vote, and there were just as many nominations for shareware or
PD games as commercial.  A couple of people got very confused and voted for
Miami, Voyager and AWeb - strange games indeed.  And a couple of wags voted
for Myst - obviously in crystal ball mode, and there were more than a
couple for Doom and Quake.

More surprising were the games which DIDN'T appear.  No Bubble Bobble -
it's stuck at #141.  Wizkid made #207.  SuperCars II, #186.  And not one
single person voted for Troddlers.  I'm shocked and stunned, ladies and
gentlemen.

When counting the votes, we've decided that each separate game should
count, even if they're a sequel or even just a new version.  That's why
Worms and Worms DC both feature in the AR100.  In cases where people voted
for a game without specifying a version number - for example, Megaball -
we've taken the vote are referred to the latest version.  Most votes,
however, were quite clear about which title in a series they were
nominating.  Any votes for "all of the Lemmings series" or "Monkey Island 1
and 2" had their vote distributed evenly between each title.  And don't
worry, no-one from Amiga Report voted.

Finally, I'd like to thank Matt and Sean at the Data Haven Project (DHP)
for the web space and excellent service, aTmosh for adding the IRC FAQ, Nik
Shearer and Mark Wilson (tecno on IRC) for testing, Seppo Typpo for the
explanations on his vote, and finally Carter USM for the soundtrack to the
votecounting.

So, in true Miss World fashion, we'll start at number 100 and work our way
to the top ...

                 --- THE AMIGA REPORT TOP 100 : 1997/2 ---

#100 BLOOD MONEY (Psygnosis/DMA Design) - 55 points

Dave Jones chucked in a job in the Timex factory in Dundee, Scotland (the
city where I work, fact fans) to found DMA Design.  The first release was
Menace, a simple shoot'em'up, and it was quickly followed by Blood Money;
another shoot'em'up, pushing the Amiga further than anyone else had at the
time.  The game now looks ridiculously simplistic with set-pattern aliens
and boring graphics.  The intro can still impress, however, and it's good
to see people taking a long-term view to Amiga games rather than only
thinking about the last two years.

#99 MORTAL KOMBAT II (Virgin/Probe) - 55 points

Long after the craze for simple martial arts games had died away (leaving
IK+ as one of the greats; sadly, it's unlisted this time), the whole
beat'em'up thing flared up again, this time with combination moves, special
powers and alien players.  Mortal Kombat was converted from the arcade with
mediocre success; Kombat II manages things better and faster, with only the
lack of a hard drive installer marring things for the angry player.

#98 DUNGEON MASTER II SKULLKEEP (FTL) - 56 points

Although the original Dungeon Master already had a sequel of sorts - Chaos
Strikes Back - it was really little more than a level add-on kit, and the
world waited for the true follow-up.  Six years afterward, it finally
arrived, and unfortunately little had changed.  The characterisation of the
Eye of the Beholder series or the imagination shown by Tony Crowther's
Captive and Liberation hadn't rubbed off on FTL, and we still were forced
to use an archaic control system and predictable - and frankly, boring -
level design.  The legion of Dungeon Master fans could forgive this, and
soon began reliving memories of exploring and slashing around in grubby
dungeons.

#97 RAINBOW ISLANDS (Ocean/Grafgold) - 57 points

The follow-up to the classic Bobble Bubble, Rainbow Islands is perhaps the
only game in the AR100 that can really be dubbed "arcade perfect".  The
graphics were taken directly from the coin-op original, and the gameplay
has been carefully honed to mimic the arcade parent perfectly, even down to
the infinitely complex bonus system.  The Braybrook and Turner partnership
at it's very best.

#96 SHANGHAI (various) - 58 points

The ancient Chinese game of tile-picking seems popular with our readership.
No-one bothered to specify which Shanghai they were voting for; somehow,
I'd tend to favour one of the public domain versions rather than the
Activision "official" release.  If in doubt, pick your own favourite.

#95 ANGBAND (public domain) - 59 points

Another Un*x port, basically NetHack with a different name.  The usual
character-based dungeons and goblins style romp.

#94 THE KILLING CLOUD (Mirrorsoft/Vector Grafix) - 59 points

Three-dimensional flying fun, set in a lawless cyberpunk city.  The Killing
Cloud was one of a handful of games to attract the attentions of civil
rights group Amnesty International.  A subgame involved "interrogating" a
suspect, using various dubious methods of torture to get your information.
Amnesty appealed to Mirrorsoft's owner, the late "Capt'n Bob" Robert
Maxwell, who intervened and removed the scenes by proxy.

#93 MECHFORCE (Shareware) - 60 points

BattleTech clone, in which you pit two huge lumbering piles of technology
against each other, armed only with Windows 95 and a soldering iron.

#92 SPEEDBALL (Mirrorsoft/Bitmap Brothers) - 60 points

Second in line to the throne of futuristic sports sims (the crown belonging
to the sequel), Speedball has the Bitmap trademarks of groovy graphics and
superb sound coupled with the charms of football and extreme violence.
It's very much the poor brother of the sequel, but it set a standard on
it's release.

#91 INDIANAPOLIS 500 (Electronic Arts) - 62 points

Before Formula One Grand Prix, Indy 500 provided the most realistic way to
race on your Amiga.  Fast(ish) filled vector graphics and plenty of ways to
tinker with your car made up for the fact you were really only roaring
around the same track for infinity.

#90 DUNE (Virgin/Westwood Studios) - 63 points

Westwood, better known for the Eye of the Beholder series, took on the
challenge of converting the cult book and film into a computer game.
Inferior to the classic sequel, more on which appears below.

#89 SWIV (Virgin/The Sales Curve) - 64 points

..  or SilkWorm Is Vertical, as it was dubbed at the time.  The unofficial
follow-up to the classic Silkworm (appearing below) combined great gameplay
with technical excellence.  Using a technique only seen before in an
obscure Sales Curve coin-op conversion, "St. Dragon", SWIV avoided the
traditional "please wait" messages usually encountered when accessing the
floppy by continually loading the next area of the playfield.  As a
consequence, SWIV had no real levels, just one big long
vertically-scrolling area to drive your helicopter or jeep through.  
Detailed graphics and thumping, woofer-shaking explosions help SWIV earn
its rightful place in the AR100.

#88 ALIEN BREED (Team 17/Andreas Tadic/Rico Holmes) - 65 points

The game that made Team 17, and the first entry from ex-demo coder Andreas
Tadic, who brought the Amiga the once-popular sequencer Games Music
Creator.  Alien Breed was little more than a Gauntlet clone with familiar
graphics and squelchy sound effects, but it provided atmosphere and
terrific entertainment.  The storyline worked well with the format,
providing opportunity for manic dashs to lifts and exits whilst being
chased by acid-spitting baddies.  Special mention must go to Alistair
Brimble's classic soundtrack - one of the best pieces of Amiga music ever.

#87 XENON 2 MEGABLAST (Mirrorsoft/Bitmap Bros) - 66 points

A huge hit at the time of it's release, partly due to the incredible hyping
it got in the flourishing 16-bit press, mainly due to the soundtrack.  The
Bitmaps obtained the rights to use the track Megablast, formally a minor
hit for Tim Simeon's acid/house group Bomb The Bass.  David Whittacker was
drafted in to convert vinyl to module, and a brilliant job he made of it. 
The game was little more than a vertically-scrolling shoot'em'up, with nice
big weapons and reasonable graphics.  It's dated terribly since then, and
the music remains the most memorable feature.

=85 BATTLE CHESS (Electronic Arts/Interplay) - 67 points

Battle Chess caught the public imagination soon after it's release; the
merging of the traditional with the latest technology was an perfect
vehicle for new Amiga-owning teenagers to demonstrate the power of their
purchase to technophobic parents.  The chess engine behind the gloss isn't
a particularly strong one, and the graphics can become monotonous.
However, Battle Chess is still one of the games user's load after buying
their first hard drive, just to see if it's any better without the
horrendous delay in loading the animations from floppy.

=85 DELUXE PACMAN (Shareware/Edgar M Vigdal) - 67 points

The best adaption of the arcade classic.  Featuring the cult Eighties'
hypochondriac pill-popper, Deluxe Pacman keeps the adrenaline, the ghosties
and the "wokka wokka wokka chomp" effects, and introduces the Amiga's
presentation skills in all the right places.

#84 SILKWORM (Virgin/The Sales Curve) - 68 points

Near-perfect arcade conversion, with the winning combination of a jeep and
chopper blasting the baddies along a horizontally-scrolling landscape.  The
sequel, SWIV, did it the other way around with perhaps more technical
flair, but the original's simplicity places it higher up the chart.

#83 INDIANA JONES IN THE LAST CRUSADE (LucasArts) - 70 points

Another point'n'click graphic adventure from the team behind the Monkey
Island series.  The graphics, involving plot and wry sense of humour kept
many people puzzling long into the night.

#82 SKIDMARKS (Acid/Guildhall) - 71 points

Popular with the Amiga magazines purely for the opportunity to crack cheap
gags, Skidmarks was a cheap'n'cheerful racing game, with lightening-fast
buggies roaring around the screen and into each other.  Skidmarks was
blighted by featuring the system stability of a one-legged man doing the
hokey-cokey; in other words, regular players could expect one guru every
half hour.

#81 F/A-18 HORNET (Domark?) - 73 points

More flying fun; not overly technical, which is usually a good thing for a
flight sim, but with enough aeronautical nonsense to keep the odd
frustrated fighter pilot satisfied for a few weeks.

#80 AMBERMOON (Thalion) - 74 points

Spooky role playing from the German masters of hardware bashing, Thalion. 
It's yet another dungeon romp, but with plenty of expert coding pushing the
Amiga to the limits, creating a very intense atmosphere from the poor
Amiga.

#79 BATTLE SQUADRON (?) - 75 points

One of the first games really to push the power of the Amiga's fledgling
chipset.  Battle Squadron, a shoot-em-up with few frills, could easily be
mistaken for a mid-eighties arcade game.

#78 BLACK CRYPT (Electronic Arts) - 76 points

A game which placed much of it's appeal in the fact you required a 1Mb
Amiga to play it; at the time, meg Amiga's were the preserve of the rich
socialite, rather than the poor common A500 owner.  Still a reasonable
D'n'D romp.

#77 THEME PARK (Electronic Arts/Bullfrog) - 77 points

Bullfrog's last game for the Amiga (or is it?), they took on Maxis (of Sim
City/Earth/Ant fame) and almost beat them at their own game.  Little people
wandering around, paying money to go on your rides, eating your hamburgers
from your stalls and eventually throwing up on your nice clean grass is
cute fun.

#76 KICK OFF 2 (Anco/Dino Dini) - 79 points

Kick Off dominated the Amiga world for a few weeks; Kick Off 2 followed on
and brought things to a standstill for months.  There was a kind of
hysteria about the game; Future Publishing (publishers of Amiga Format) had
a severe problem with the staff spending all day playing the game and not
writing magazines.  Nowadays, it appears dated, with a lack of control in
the gameplay meaning it's more like pinball than football.

#75 POWERMONGER (Electronic Arts/Bullfrog) - 80 points

Bullfrog established themselves with Populous, but they went one step
beyond with PowerMonger.  Taking a slightly different approach to the
God-sim genre, PowerMonger presents itself in a pleasing rotatable
three-dimensional landscape, and is more strategic and long-term in it's
gameplay than Populous.  For extra entertainment value, leave one of the
farmers alone on a hillside with a sheep for ten minutes, and watch closely
...

#74 GOAL (Dino Dini) - 82 points

Until the release of Sensible Soccer, Dino Dini's Kick Off games held the
Football Simulation cup.  However, after Sensible shook things up, Dino
fell out with his old software house, Anco, and disappeared for a year or
so, only to re-emerge with Goal, his last attempt at regaining the
premiership title.  However, it may be that there was just too much ground
to make up, and Sensible kept the momentum and the pressure building.
However, Goal is the best of the Kick Off series (Kick Off 3 wasn't a Dini
creation), and is still good for the odd un-Sensible kick about.

#73 THE GREAT GIANA SISTERS (Rainbow Arts) - 84 points

An early Amiga title, first released when the Nintendo NES/Famicom was
still going strong and everyone wanted to play Super Mario Brothers.  Giana
Sisters has all the elements of the famous Mario series: horizontally
scrolling levels, bricks to headbut and secret passages to explore. 
Nintendo got a bit twitchy about the similarities, and eventually managed
to remove the game from sale.  The Amiga version had escaped, however, and
soon found its way onto a thousand pirate single-file collections.  I'd be
willing to bet most of the people who still have a copy of Giana Sisters
are faced with a bouncing "Red Sector" logo every time they load it up...

#72 MEGABALL (Shareware/Intangible Assets Marketing) - 85 points

A breakout clone which started it's life as a shareware title, before
gaining sufficient popularity to go commercial, being sold by the US dealer
Intangible Assets.  Megaball takes the traditional breakout/Arcanoid route
of bats'n'balls with knobs on, rather than the refreshing approach of
Poing.

=69 THE BARD'S TALE (Electronic Arts) - 86 points

Old-fashioned role playing, dating back originally to the Commodore 64 and
character-based displays.  Still a favourite of those looking for authentic
nostalgic goblin-bashing.

=69 SUPER SKIDMARKS (Acid/Guildhall) - 86 points

A revamped outing for the multi-player racer, with more fault tolerance for
less off-screen crashes.  Also includes the unforgettable cows on wheels.

=69 TV SPORTS: FOOTBALL (CinemaWare) - 86 points

Slightly wobbly American football sim by the (by then) reformed adventurers
CinemaWare.

#68 NETHACK (Public Domain) - 87 points

A Dungeons'n'Dragons game, steeped in almost as much legend and mystery as
the genre it portrays.  Nethack developed and grew with the underground
hacker culture, mainly in UNIX-ridden West Coast America.  The hacker's
bible, "The New Hacker's Dictionary" (aka Jargon) described Nethack as "a
dungeon game similar to rogue but more elaborate, distributed in C source
over Usenet and very popular at Unix sites and on PC-class machines.  
Nethack is probably the most widely distributed of the freeware dungeon
games)".

#67 PROJECT X (Team 17/Andreas Tadic/Rico Holmes) - 88 points

Another classic from the winning Tadic/Holmes combination.  Team 17, in
their first few years of business, approached every classic genre of arcade
game and tried to deliver the best yet, with varying results.  Project X
put forward impressive graphics, the usual excellent Alistair Brimble
soundtrack and a fair wallop of speed, throwing graphics onto the screen at
a rate of knots.  It was just a bit on the difficult side, and the whole
game showed no real innovation, unlike the excellent Apidya - sadly,
unrated in this AR100.

#66 F-18 INTERCEPTOR (Electronic Arts/Bob Dinnerman) - 89 points

Popular in part because it was bundled with the best-selling "Batman" Amiga
500 pack and others worldwide, but mostly because it is perhaps the most
approachable of any flight simulator.  It doesn't waste time by confusing
the player with unnecessary jargon or controls; neither does it sacrifice
detail for playability.  It entranced a whole clutch of people who would
normally steer well clear of any flight sim, and is still played by many
today.

#65 CHAMPIONSHIP MANAGER (Domark) - 92 points

Ever since Kevin Tom's sat down at his ZX81 and gave the world "Football
Manager", the European computer gamer has been fascinated with soccer
management simulations.  Night after night many an adolescant sat staring
at screenfuls of figures and performance statistics, determined they could
do on better on screen what the men in sheepskin jackets couldn't do in
real life.  Years later, the world was blessed with high resolution, high
colour graphics with which to display the screenfuls of figures and
performance statistics.  Championship Manager engrosses the faithful with
the best of them; here's looking forward to the sequel ...

#64 GUNSHIP 2000 (Microprose) - 101 points

Gunship 2000 is a game which achieves the tricky task of balancing
technical accuracy with playability.  It doesn't bog the player down with
endless pages of numbers and statistics, and you can happily bounce your
helicopter off the ground without worrying about falling out.  It has lots
of scope, starting the player off on simple fly-about missions, and giving
the opportunity to retire and play general by directing others about.  The
kind of game that could keep the occasional player going for months.

#63 TURRICAN (Rainbow Arts) - 102 points

Rainbow Art's first crack at the Turrican format: silky smooth sprites,
funky tunes and huge levels.  They didn't get it quite as good as the hoped
for, but righted the wrongs in Turrican 2: essentially the same game tarted
up, and it's coming up later ...

#62 FAERY TALE ADVENTURE (Electronic Arts/Microillusions) - 103 points

I have to admit, I know absolutely nothing about this game.  If you're a
fan, please feel free to mail me and tell me more; this high a placing is
sure to make the AR100 next time around.

#61 MARBLE MADNESS (Electronic Arts) - 104 points

One of the very first Amiga games; so old it can be persuaded to run on an
original A1000 with Kickstart 1.0 and 256K of memory.  It's actually an
arcade conversion, being the first of a whole clutch of forced-perspective
manoeuvring games.  Marble Madness was the first for the Amiga, and
inevitably the public, used to inferior 8-bit conversions, were wowed by
the arcade-realistic graphics and mouse controls.

#60 SENSIBLE SOCCER (Virgin/Sensible Software) - 105 points

When veteran software coders Sensible Software announced they were going to
have a go at beating Kick Off by writing a better soccer simulation, not
many people took notice - others had tried and failed.  Sensible actually
delivered a beautifully playable game, popular even with those who hated
football in real life.  The realistic ball control, the twee players and
the comprehensive and up-to-date team database all added to the annoyingly
addictive gameplay.  The only fault was the goalkeepers, who seemed to
swing from unbeatable to utterly hopeless.  And this was to be corrected in
Sensible World Of Soccer ...

#59 SIMCITY 2000 (Maxis) - 110 points

Way ahead of it's older brother, SimCity 2000 added isometric graphics,
more buildings and took away the speed and, sadly, much of the playability
and character of the original.

#58 LOTUS ESPRITE TURBO CHALLENGE (Gremlin Graphics/Magnetic Fields) -
112 points

The sequel appears later, but the original Lotus makes a entry at #56. 
Magnetic Fields - former by ex-Gremlin coder Shaun Southern - made their
name with car games such as the Lotus and SuperCars series, before striving
to be different with the quirky platformer Kid Chaos.  On it's release,
Lotus took sprite-based racing games further than ever before, with
extremely smooth and playably fast action.

#57 IT CAME FROM THE DESERT (CinemaWare) - 114 points

CinemaWare's graphical ability and the tackiness of a sixties B movie were
made for each other.  Placed as a stereotypical hero in a stereotypical
town facing invasion by huge styrofoam ants, there's lots of
tongue-in-cheek entertainment packed into It Came ...  it even prompted a
rare sequel, AntHeads, which was more of the same.

#56 TV SPORTS BASKETBALL (CinemaWare) - 115 points

Gorgeous still graphics and simple gameplay brought CinemaWare fame, but
not enough sales to keep them in the market. They reinvented themselves
with new programmers and a company shake-up, and started out in the arcade
game with the TV Sports series. The most playable of the lot is Basketball,
but then basketball sims aren't exactly thick on the ground, probably due
to the fact not a lot really happens in basketball, full stop.
[While not a big basketball fan myself, I just thought I'd say on behalf of
everyone who might be that saying that not a lot happens in basketball is,
well, arguable.  Ken probably hasn't played NBA Jam.  -Jason]

#55 INDIANA JONES IN THE FATE OF ATLANTIS (LucasArts) - 117 points

Yet Another LucasArts Adventure, with the same quality of graphics,
gameplay and gags as it's stablemates.

#54 POPULOUS II (Electronic Arts/Bullfrog) - 125 points

The sequel to the ground-breaking classic, Populous II tidied up some of
the loose ends and introduced a few new tricks to keep the would-be God at
the computer.

#53 SUPER STARDUST (Acid/Bloodhouse) - 134 points

Asteroids brought kicking and screaming in the nineties.  On the surface,
Stardust's ray-traced boulders bear little resemblance to the jaggy,
monochrome vector graphics of the Atari seventies arcade.  However, the
same shoot-or-avoid gameplay remains intact, with the addition of a
stunning tunnel sequence between levels.  Not the deepest or the most
addictive of games, but a fine addition to the one hundred.

#52 EMPIRE (Interstel) - 135 points

A bare nuts'n'bolts war game that delivers exactly what many players want -
a nuts'n'bolts war game.  No fancy graphics, extraneous options or unwanted
clutter, Empire delivered a strong opponent for the war fan.  Empire was
also popular with the pirate mail-traders, thanks to the play-by-mail
option, where a file was saved to floppy and loaded on the other players
machine.

#51 EYE OF THE BEHOLDER (SSI/Westwood Studios) - 136 points

The game that took on Dungeon Master and won.  EOTB took DM's gameplay and
folklore, added to the atmosphere, and gave it a small but vitally
important extra - a plotline.  This brought the characterisations alive,
and gave the genre a new, dynamic edge.  It still had the same dragons and
spellcasting approach that people still love, but the added American gloss
provided by SSI meant that DM's days as the top Role Playing Game were
over.

#50 PIRATES (Microprose/Sid Mier) - 137 points

Swashbuckling fun courtesy of the king of sims.  Nowhere nearly as
sophisticated as Sid's later titles, but plenty of fun for the seafairing
players, charging around the oceans, being generally unpleasant to as many
people as possible.

#49 DEFENDER OF THE CROWN (CinemaWare) - 141 points

The screenshots echo'd around every fledgling 16-bit magazine for months;
the graphics were beautiful, as was to be expected from CinemaWare.  The
gameplay wasn't quite as complete, however; great fun for a few rounds, but
not a game to keep the player enthalled for months, especially combined
with the horrendous floppy disk access; hard drives were still the preserve
of the rich in the mid-80's.

#48 LEMMINGS II (Psygnosis/DMA Design) - 142 points

Following up Lemmings was always going to be a difficult task.  Tinkering
with the simple game mechanics could spoil the appear; so DMA decided to
keep the basics and build on it.  Larger levels and various new lemmings
were the main changes.  For some, it was enough, for others, the extra
additions and lack of two player mode spoiled the broth.

#47 POPULOUS (Electronic Arts/Bullfrog) - 144 points

One of the many games in the AR100 that can claim to have created a whole
new type of game.  Populous casts you as an semi-omnipotent God, who can
shape and control a world in which your followers must prosper, grow and
ultimately beat up the baddies.

#46 HIRED GUNS (Psygnosis/DMA Design) - 146 points

The only notable post-Lemmings release from Scottish coders DMA, Hired Guns
took the first-person isometric game style away from the castles and crypts
of Dungeon Master and Eye of the Beholder, and into a futuristic
environment (a la Captive, which I'm surprised to say didn't make the
AR100).  Hired Guns also broke ground by allowing four players to take part
at once, one player to control all 4, or a combination of both.  Gorgeous
hi-res graphics and atmospheric sound create a wonderful atmosphere; fans
of Hired Guns tend to be almost religious in their praise for it.

#45 GODS (Renegade/Bitmap Bros) - 149 points

Mythology, puzzles for the lateral thinker and platforms made Gods a
surprise hit at the time of it's release, but the brilliant graphics and
curiously intelligent enemies hooked many a gamesplayer for weeks.  The
Bitmaps took the Gods engine, changed the graphics and released Magic
Pockets six months later, but it couldn't match it's predecessor for sheer
class.

#44 CHAOS ENGINE (Renegade/Bitmap Brothers) - 152 points

The Bitmap's had long been working towards creating a more intelligent
opponent in their games.  Two-player games are fun, but there are always
occasions where the player is alone, and computer opponents or assistants
were usually wooden and predicable.  The Bitmap's finally cracked it with
the Chaos Engine, a top-down maze game, slightly reminiscent of Gauntlet,
but with the puzzle element of Gods, and the usual pixel-perfect graphics.
The Heath Robinson-esque backgrounds combined with the brilliant level
design made a game which many people spent far too much time playing to the
bitter end.

#43 PINBALL ILLUSIONS (21st Century Software/Digital Illusions) - 154 points

The final instalment of the Pinball saga from Digital Illusions; the men
who left the demo/pirate scene to bring the world's first decent computer
pinball simulation added multiball and a high resolution mode to the
proceedings.  This time, however, there were only three tables in the set
to play, and as usual one of them was a duffer.  The other two were up to
the usual high standard, but one can't help feeling DI had lost the
momentum by this point, and it took Liquid Dezign's Slam Tilt to show how
things really could be done.  However, there is no beating the "Babewatch"
table and it's superb Beach Boys-style music ...

#42 SUPERFROG (Team 17/Andreas Tadic/Rico Holmes)  - 155 points

Coded by Team 17's founders, Andreas Tadic and Marco Holmes, Superfrog was
one of T17's finest hours, and certainly one of the Amiga's best
platformers.  Yes, it was cliched and stole ideas wholesale from other
games (Sonic and Mario being the main influence), but Superfrog carried it
off with a superb feel, a gentle difficulty curve and a touch of humour.

#41 LOTUS ESPRITE TURBO CHALLENGE II (Gremlin Graphics/Magnetic Fields) -
156 points

The pinnacle of sprite-based racing simulation, Turbo Challenge 2 improved
on the technical excellence of it's little brother and delivers a stunning
ride.  The speed and smoothness of the corners and hills still impress
people today, even in the age of texture-mapped Ridge Racers.  Not quite as
groundbreaking as the predecessor, with the lap-based format being dropped
in favour of a multi-stage course, but a classic game earning a respectable
placing.

#40 WING COMMANDER (Origin) - 157 points

The Wing Commander series is legendary in PC circles for it's involving
plot, superb filmed sequences, intriguing character-based sections and
complete lack of gameplay.  Luckily, the latter curse only effected the
sequels, and the original is a fine space shoot'em'up, using gourad-shaded
graphics and dramatic orchestral music to get the pulse roaring.  Not so
much fun on a plain A500, but anything a bit more powerful should have no
trouble.

#39 SIMON THE SORCERER (?) - 162 points

A graphic adventure of the usual making; perhaps with slightly inferior
graphics to LucasArt's Monkey Island and Indy games, but making up for it
in puzzles and plotline, with the obligatory daft sense of humour.

#38 GLOOM (Acid/Guildhall) - 163 points

The first real Doom-clone to hit the Amiga; it's actually more a
Wolfenstein clone, having a strictly two-dimensional map rather than the
floors and ramps of Doom and Alien Breed 3D.  Still, it's a hugely
enjoyable blast'em'up romp, and everyone should be looking forward to the
forthcoming Gloom 3; hopefully we'll see it in the next AR100.

#37 PINBALL DREAMS (21st Century Software/Digital Illusions) - 166 points

The game that proved pinball could be transferred to home computer. 
Nintendo and Sega had laughable attempts at bringing the silver ball to
their consoles; Atari even tried an arcade game - TimeScanners - with a
computer conversion by Activision (under their Electric Dreams label), but
no-one managed the fluid ball movement, the realistic flippers and bumpers
and the flashing lights in a way which convinced.  Then Digital Illusions,
having cut their coding teeth as Scoopex on the pirate/demo scene
(responsible for many games in this chart), came from nowhere with Pinball
Dreams; 4 simulated tables of pinball bliss, with secret bonuses, great
music and compulsive gameplay so addictive people had to be physically
removed from the shift keys.  Dreams led to a few sequels, but more
importantly it proved pinball could be done on the small screen.

#36 ANOTHER WORLD / OUT OF THIS WORLD (Delphine Software) - 171 points

The predecessor to Flashback, Another World has rather more primitive
graphics but with the same quality of animation and detail.  By using
filled vectors rather than sprites, the designers were free to zoom in and
out of the action as the game required.  Delphine's adventure background is
evident in Another World, but despite this Another World suffers from being
just a bit easy to complete.

#35 EYE OF THE BEHOLDER II (SSI/Westwood Studios)  - 176 points

Using much the same game engine as it's prequel, Beholder II is superior
due to better level design, more non-player characters and acres of
dungeons and crypts to wander through.  Extremely involving, and the sense
of accomplishment on completing the game is enough to provoke you to start
all over again.

#34 ALIEN BREED 3D - (Team 17/Andy Clithero/Ocean) - 177 points

The Amiga public almost demanded that their favourite Alien romp follow the
trend and have a go at being a Doom clone.  The result was a brilliant
game, using a blocky but fast engine, wonderful squelchy sound effects and
intelligent aliens.  Unlike the sequel, the difficulty curve was just about
perfect, and the plotline makes sense.  The best feature is the level
design; clear, sensible and with plenty of opportunity for exploration.

#33 BREATHLESS (Power Computing/Field of Dreams) - 179 points

Yet Another Doom; probably comes off second best technically with The
Killing Grounds, but still a fine romp for the beefier Amiga.

#32 CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AGA (ClickBoom) - 185 points

Modern-day beat'em'up; the genre has been slowly dying since the heady days
of Ye Ar Kung Fu and The Way of the Exploding Fist.  The pinnacle of Amiga
beat'em'ups was probably IK+, which despite the simple gameplay and fact it
shipped on a single disk, provided just the right "feel" for the player; as
the old Chinese saying goes, "a game that feels right is a game that is
played often".  After Street Fighter II, a beat'em'up HAD to include
strange alien characters (complete with unpronounceable names),
extra-sensory/kinetic powers, and enough pixels flying around the screen as
to confuse ten players at once, never mind the standard two.  Capital
Punishment is the Amiga's answer to all of this; forgoing the constraints
of emulating an arcade game, and concentrating on using the Amiga's
hardware to the maximum and delivering a fine, playable bout of non-serious
violence.

#31 ELITE (Firebird/David Braben/Iain Bell/Mr Micro) - 186 points

It's hard to imagine anyone doesn't know of Elite by now; suffice to say
it's probably the ultimate space combat and trading simulation.  First
released for the BBC Micro (all 32K of it), it's been ported to every
format imaginable, including a fairly respectable Amiga conversion
(complete with the "Blue Danube" docking theme).  Sadly, the Braben and
Bell partnership disintegrated soon after Elite was written; it is Iain
Bell we have to thank for Elite's gameplay - Braben was all for making
Elite far more like the sequel, "Frontier", an ambitious project for a 32K
machine.

#30 SHADOW OF THE BEAST (Psygnosis/Reflections) - 202 points

Probably sold more Amiga's than all of Commodore's advertising, ever.
After all this time, Beast still looks drop dead gorgeous, with countless
layers of paralax scrolling, smooth animation and photographic stills.
There's very little game behind all this gloss, of course, but who wants to
play when you can just drool?

#29 RAILROAD TYCOON (Microprose/Sid Mier) - 206 points

An early attempt by Sid at corporate simulation, and is really the
predecessor to the more Maxis-influenced A-Train.  Still, the old school
style appeals to many, and like all of Meier's games it's curiously
compulsive.

#28 XTREME RACING (Acid/Guildhall) - 216 points

One of only two attempts at recreating "Mario Kart" on the Amiga.  XR is
technically very clever, but the level designs are a bit naff; however,
there are plenty of replacement tracks available in the PD, and
multi-player racing is a guaranteed laugh.

#27 CANNON FODDER (Virgin/Sensible Software) - 221 points

Richard Joseph's music kicks in - "War has never been so much fun", the
vocals sing, and you feel good.  And then you're into a sombre, beautiful
soundtrack accompanying a field full of gravestones and recruits - the
cannon fodder - lining up at the gate, and you begin to realise what a
waste of time war really is.  A true game of conflicting interests, Cannon
Fodder is perfect in just about every respect; the controls allow the
player to activate a whole range of manoeuvres without moving their hand
from the mouse, the difficulty level is pitched steeply but not unfairly
so, and there's the odd macabre humour which never really goes so far as to
offend.

#26 TURRICAN II (Rainbow Arts) - 222 points

Hardware banging at it's best.  Super smooth platform action, Turrican II
isn't massively different from it's predecessor; it's almost as if the
author's went back to Turrican and decided to polish it up a bit.  Lovely
half-chip, half-sample music and the same gameplay polished up and buffed,
Turrican II can still impress; indeed, it has become the de facto game with
which to test Amiga emulators on other platforms.

#25 SPEEDBALL II - BRUTAL DELUXE (Mirrorsoft/Bitmap Brothers) - 228 points

The highest placed of the five Bitmap Bros games in the AR100.  Based on
the same "sport" as the prequel, it's slicker, better, faster and more of
the same; build up a technologically-enhanced team of brutes, barge each
other around the pitch and score goals whilst beating each other up.  Great
soundtrack with the classic "ice cream!" sample between goals.

#24 FLASHBACK (Delphine Software) - 233 points

The sequel to Another World; combining the two-dimensional filled vector
graphics of the original and beautiful rotoscoped characters, giving a
realism of movement in the animation of the main character not seen since
Broderbund's Prince of Persia.  It's a large game, too, with an intriguing
plotline and fine attention to detail.  The fluidity of the graphics make
it a great game to watch as well as play.

#23 PINBALL FANTASIES (21st Century Entertainment/Digital Illusions) - 236 points

The second, and in the eyes of the AR100 the best, of Digital Illusion's
famed Pinball series.  Not much was added technically, but the design
carried through the same quality of tables which made Pinball Dreams such a
success.  The "Party Land" table remains probably the finest computer
pinball table ever.

#22 FORMULA 1 GRAND PRIX (Microprose/Geoff Crammond/Pete Cooke) - 237
points

The legendary Geoff Crammond built on the success of his classic BBC Micro
game Revs and presented us with Formula 1 Grand Prix.  The vector graphics
may look a little primitive today, with the evolution of texture mapping
and shading, but the engine is still one of the most realistic around, and
a whole legion of racers still compete for the best lap times.

#21 SIM CITY (Maxis) - 240 points

The first, and most would say best, of the Sim games.  Curiously, Sim City
is available in two Amiga versions: the European version and the far
superior US version.  I've no idea which one everyone was voting for, but
it's irrelevant, as Sim City was a trend-setting game, converting action
game fans to the more sedate world of strategy games.  You just can't help
joining up those little roads to make a bypass, and then adding another
department store, and then making another little road, and ...

#20 STUNT CAR RACER (Microprose/Geoff Crammond) - 259 points

Another vintage title, Stunt Car is a combination of simulation and
fantasy.  Racing an almost-indestructible car along roller coaster tracks
is improbable but excellent fun, especially in two-player serial link mode.
Unfortunately, the twelve tracks aren't enough after almost a decade, and
the often promised follow-up hasn't made it to our screens ...  yet.  In
the meantime, however, for the best results we would recommend as big a
viewing screen as possible.  Playing on a 21" monitor, expect to experience
vertigo and that sinking feeling in your belly ...

#19 DELUXE GALAGA (Shareware/Edgar M Vigdal) - 288 points

The most popular shareware game in the AR100, Deluxe Galaga is a revamped
version of the old 80's coin-op, Galaga.  It's Space Invaders with knobs
on, but those knobs fairly spice things up.  Money to be spent in shops,
memory games, asteroid belts, and more aliens that is entirely sensible,
Deluxe Galaga have been tweaked across several versions to provide just the
right feel to the controls and enemies.  It's a shame development seems to
have stopped now, and I hope the author, Edgar M.  Vidal, is inspired by
your votes and starts the next version as soon as you've all paid your
shareware fees.

#18 COLONIZATION (Microprose/Sid Mier) - 290 points

The long-awaited follow-up to the hugely successful Civilization.  The
gameplay was loosely similar to Civ, taking the exploring and developing
concept a little closer in, but still keeping the engrossing gameplay.  The
Amiga version was a particular delight, as it broke the mould of PC ports
by taking advantage of the Amiga's multitasking and comprehensive GUI
facilities.

#17 SYNDICATE (Electronic Arts/Bullfrog) - 306 points

Bullfrog finally shook off the ghost of Populous and delivered Syndicate, a
storming blend of shoot'em'up, strategy and corporate capitalism.  The
player aims to achieve world domination by corrupting, kidnapping,
assassinating and usurping, which of course makes it jolly good fun,
especially with the sound turned up.

#16 UFO - ENEMY UNKNOWN (Microprose/Julian Gollop) - 311 points

Julian Gollop is a legendary name in certain RPG circles; he wrote many
classic 8-bit games, still played by many nostalgia freaks on the multitude
of emulators.  Bringing his talent to the Amiga, UFO is a huge exploratory
romp, seeking out the alien intruder without being squashed - all in a
strategic way, based on thought rather than reactions.  Long-term
entertainment for the more cerebal player.

#15 SENSIBLE WORLD OF SOCCER (Renegade/Sensible Software) - 327 points

Sensible's world class Soccer game, backed up by an unusually complex
management and fronted by an easy-to-use interface.  The goalkeepers even
behave properly in the soccer game to end all soccer games; thanks to
regular team updates and the multitude of ways to play, SWOS remains the
best soccer game on any platform, ever.

#14 SLAM TILT (21st Century Entertainment/Liquid Dezign) - 334 points

Truly a case of the young pretender usurping the throne.  Liquid Dezign
entered the pinball games area from nowhere and immediately resigned
Digital Illusion's series of games to the second division.  Slam Tilt had
all the standard features - multiball, tilts, themed tables - but added
enjoyable fun sub-games, and for once every table was worth playing.  We
called it "Smooth, fast, playable" and "extremely addictive", and at number
twelve, we're glad you agree.

#13 WINGS (CinemaWare) - 336 points

CinemaWare's finest hour, according to our voters.  The usual quality of
graphics and characterisation, with even more character and depth of
gameplay than would normally be expected of the author's graphic
adventures.

#12 ALIEN BREED 3D 2 - THE KILLING GROUNDS (Team 17/Andy Clithero) - 338
points

The culmination of the legendary Alien Breed series, The Killing Grounds
throws everything it can at the Amiga hardware.  With a powerful enough
machine, TKG provides the ultimate "Doom" engine, with superlative lighting
effects and super-intelligent opponents.  On a less porky box, it crawls
slightly; furthermore, the difficulty curve, so well pitched in the
prequel, climbs like a rocket and makes things very tricky, even in the
early levels.  This said, TKG is the best way to convince PC owners that
the Amiga can still cut it when it comes to first-person perspective games.

#11 THE SENTINEL (Rainbird/Geoff Cramond) - 343 points

A real surprise.  Over ten years after it's release, The Sentinel appears
as Geoff Cramond's top game.  The Sentinel is almost totally unique - set
on a mountainous chequered 3D landscape, the player must teleport their way
up to the highest position and absorb the ever-watching "sentinel".
However, get in it's line-of-site and it'll absorb you.  Basic graphics
enhance rather than detract from the atmosphere, and there's a curiously
eerie air as you hunt for the hunter.

#10 FRONTIER - ELITE 2 (Gametek/David Braben) - 371 points

The world waited for the follow-up to Elite, and waited, and waited, until
finally Frontier appears, and many were more than a little disappointed. 
The game map had been expanded beyond belief, making it very easy to get
lost, and the dogfighting, so beloved of the original, was made so easy as
to make it irrelevant.  Die-hard fans immersed themselves in the game, and
reaped the rewards; the legends of wormholes and secret ships soon popped
up and continue to do the rounds on Usenet.  Truly a game that gives back
what you put into it.

#9 SETTLERS (Blue Byte) - 374 points

Unlike other "God-sims", The Settlers is a much gentler game.  There's none
of the fire and mythology of Populous, or the cut'n'dried world of SimCity.
The Settlers is almost rural in it's approach, very laid back and therefore
quiet relaxing to play.  The calm way in which your worker saunter around
the playscreen, chopping trees, fishing in the rivers or feeding the pigs
(with the absolutely delightful oinks eminating from the speakers), it's an
undemanding but treacherously addictive game.

#8 DUNGEON MASTER (Mirrorsoft/FTL) - 419 points

Probably responsible for the sale of more Amiga peripheral hardware than
any other game.  Dungeon Master was originally released on the Atari ST to
critical acclaim.  The port to the Amiga should have been a simple one;
however, once Intuition and the background system had grabbed it's chunk of
the memory, the game itself wouldn't fit into the standard half meg of
memory the vast majority of the A500-owning market possessed.  Sales of
half meg trapdoor expansions rocketed.  Nowadays, Dungeon Master looks
dated compared with Eye Of The Beholder or the clutch of first-person
perspective games, but it started the market and still can grab the
attention of the role-playing fanatic.

#7 WORMS (Team 17/Andrew Davidson/Ocean)  - 439 points

It's less than 2 years since Worms was released, yet it's firmly entrenched
in the Amiga's history as a gaming great.  Critics say it's just an
artillery clone, but what a clone - silky-smooth presentation, polished
beyond belief, with dozens of unorthodox weapons and an extremely silly
sense of humour.  What makes it more remarkable is that it was written by
just one guy (the infamous Andy Davidson), using a single Amiga and a copy
of Blitz Basic, and from there it's gone on to be a best-seller on every
format from PC to PlayStation.

#6 THE SECRET OF MONKEY ISLAND 2 - LECHUCK'S REVENGE (LucasArts) -
445 points

Just as much fun as the original, and with even more disks.  In the days
before adventures came on CD-ROMs with voice-overs and huge animated
sequences, Monkey Island 2 managed to cram a whole film, complete with
sub-plots, witty dialogue and believable characters onto thirteen (count
'em) disks.  The same quality as it's prequel, just more of it.

#5 WORMS - THE DIRECTOR'S CUT (Team 17/Andy Davidson/Ocean) - 465 points

Little surprise the both "Worms" games make it to the top ten of the AR100.
The Director's Cut adds a few extra weapons to the original game, along
with more options to design levels and customize the game.  Underneath it
all, however, it's just Worms, and only the most fanatical fan will own
both.  On the other hand, every Amiga owner should own at least one, and
Worms DC is the logical choice.

#4 THE SECRET OF MONKEY ISLAND (LucasArts) - 492 points

The humour, the graphics, the plot, the scale, what can you say about
Monkey Island that hasn't been said before?  It is _the_ classic graphic
adventure, carving a place in adventuring history as much as The Hobbit did
in 1984.

#3 DUNE II (Virgin/Westwood Studios) - 550 points

After the impressive but little-bought prequel, it was a bit surprising
Westwood decided to follow on.  However, Dune II set the foundations for
the hit PC game Command & Conquer, several clones of which are making their
way to the Amiga this year.  Dune II has the quality Westwood coding, the
gameplay of Sim City and the ambition of Civilization, and hopefully the
C&C clones will carry through the good qualities set by this classic game.

#2 LEMMINGS (Pysgnosis/DMA Design) - 562 points

Probably the best known Amiga game ever.  Lemmings was released at the very
peak of the Amiga's popularity, and even though it hence appeared on every
format thinkable, it's still thought of as very much an Amiga title.  On
the face of it, guiding tiny stick figures from A to B doesn't sound much
fun, but Lemmings was a game where losing was almost as much fun as winning
- with the "bler!" as they smack into the concrete after a long fall, the
"oh no!" as they detonate, and the unrivalled pleasure of nuking a whole
gaggle of lemms and watching them pop into tiny tiny pieces ...  couple
this with the much-underrated (and unique to the Amiga, it would seem)
two-player mode, and it's a real pleasure to see Lemmings achieve such a
high place in the AR100.

#1 CIVILIZATION (Microprose/Sid Mier) - 873 points

This is it - the game that you've decided is the best Amiga game ever, and
I must say it caught me by surprise.  Sid Mier's conquest game is
intriguing and addictive; challenging the player to evolve with their
charge through the ages, from primitive man to present day and beyond.
Hugely absorbing, the game sucks in the player and has been responsible for
many late nights and bleary eyes.  The recent re-issue on CD should ensure
Civ stays at the top of the AR100 for a while yet.

                 --- THE AMIGA REPORT TOP 100 : 1997/2 ---

So there we have it.  By my calculations, the Bitmap Brothers come level
with CinemaWare as the top coders, and Team 17 have seven games in the
AR100, making them the premier publisher.  Sad that all of these talented
people have deserted the Amiga ...

That's it over with for now.  The AR100 will be back early next year, so
keep watching for details of how to vote again.  If you've spotted any
mistakes or errors in the chart above, please let me know so that we can
get it right next time.  Thanks once again for making the AR100 a success,
and we'll do it all again in six months ...
@endnode
@node FEATURE2 "Pianeta Amiga"
@toc FEATURE

===========================================================================
                               Pianeta Amiga
  Pietro Bianchi                                         pietro@rcnet.net
===========================================================================

In September 20-21 has happened in Empoli (Italy) a new Amiga fair, called
"Pianeta Amiga", organised from Jasa Communications S.r.l.
(http://www.sigea.it/jasa/pianetaamiga/pajasa.html), a society of services
that is concerned with organisation of shows and fairs and of telematic
information  for private and public corporate body. Jasa Communications,
for his realisations, use exclusively Amiga. A new fair for Amiga, to the
his first edition, I think that it is an unique case in the actual
landscape of demonstrations for our preferred computer. The new fair was
greeting very enthusiastically from the Italian Amiga users, that felt the
need of a point of rendezvous where not only speak about the system and
programming (for this there is already the convention of IPISA), but also
for can find hardware and software to preview and try. In fact, after the
fall of the Commodore, the shops that sell material for Amiga in Italy is
enough few, and best part of the consumers is constrained to buy for
correspondence, without can preview first that that purchase, based only of
the celebrity of the product and of the proofs on the specialised magazines.
Arriving to the Palaesposizioni of Empoli, where the fair was held, one see
the big share of people from the work of find a park near it. To the ticket
office, after have paid the entry (Ł10.000, about $6, or Ł 5.000, about $3,
for whoever had sent the discount's ticket publicised on Amiga Magazine and
Enigma Amiga Run), came given a depliant in five languages that illustrated
the actual production of Amiga International and an sticker. Entering, the
first thing that era was noticed an exposure of the computers made by
Commodore, from the VIC-20 to A4000, passing by C64, PLUS 4, A1000.... 
(oddly missing only A1200). Surely a covers homesick of the past of many
Amiga users. To the side the stand of the Amiga Group Italy, the
organisation that group all the Italian groups of Amiga users, present in
practice on all the Italian territory (http://www.inmedia.it/Amiga) (Note
for the Italian Amiga users that they don't know it: there is a group also
in your city, if you want to know other people with the yours same passion
and change experiences contact them).

To the inland of the fair the chaos reigned sovereign. The share of the
public was beyond the best forecasts of the organisers: only in the day of
Saturday 20 there has been beyond 1000 entries. The more crowded stand was
surely the Nonsolosoft's one, probably the most greater Italian retailers
of software for Amiga (catalogue on Aminet in docs/hyper/ZCD.lha). Among
the more required CD there was the new Aminet Set 5 and Aminet 20, both in
preview for Italy, beyond to the AmyResouce series (a series of CD realised
in Italy with the best of the shareware software and commercial programs,
presented in Italian). They grabbed the bookings of the n°5 (unfortunately
still not ready for the fair), and showed the European/USA release, that
they pick up the good than till now appeared on the series, but the all
realised in English. They to the stand were present the representatives of
Haage & Partner, that show their C/C++ compiler working on PowerPC603 card.
In vision also the card Picasso IV of the Village Tronic, in the last
release that corrects some dysfunction with AGA chip and complete of all
the additional modules.

Other stand much frequented was that of Class X, that they exposed their
programs for the videoproduction: X-DVE, FontMachine and the new VideoFX.
Here the programmers, together to those of H&P, were realising the porting
of X-DVE on PowerPC. Spectacular speed is announced. In front the System
Shock, a BBS in Florence based on Amiga, that illustrated the offered
services. The corner of the home-sickness had given by an A1000 on which
Marble Madness could be played from all. Close to them the Underground
Software exposed the demo of his game, "The Golem", that had given in exit
for Christmas.

The V.C.S.: (Video Systems Computer) exposed Draco and Casablanca, the
videoproduction machines, of which they declared themselves to be new
importers for Italy. The machines, with the Adorage software 2.5 AGA will
show also to the dedicated fairs to the videoproduction in Italy. Also the
Fractal Minds presented software for animation, the celebrated Maxxon Movie
4D, arrived now to the release 4.0 Pro and italianized, and the last
release of Turbo Print. To the Micronik stand cards with 68060 and PowerPC,
more the usual tower case for A1200. The Power Computing instead didn't
sell, but it accepted bookings for hardware to send from England, also for
GVP's hardware. To another stand sold shirts, caps and pins with the
written "Pianeta Amiga" and the logo of the fair, very nice and very
required.

The more curious thing in absolute was the Amy Car Racer: a Fiat 126
(perhaps the smaller italian car) with an A1200 connected to most important
auto functions: they on the monitor could be seen the state of the lights,
speed and RPM, the climatic control and, through a small camera set near
the rear glass, do to see an image to use in place of the small rear-wiew
mirror. The all had commanded from a remote control through Infrarexx. The
car was painted like Amiga boing-ball, with red and white square tiles. The
well informed assure that the car also succeeds to travel. To side the
stand of the Hurricane Software (http://www.aleph.it/franza/hurricane),
that publicised a graphic adventure for A1200, "Escape towards the
unknown", and another soccer game.

The expected moment was the conference of Petro Tyschtschenko, president of
Amiga International. Together with him were present Luciano Cutrini and
Enrico Senesi of the Jasa Communications, organiser of the show, Romano
Tenca, manager of Amiga Magazine, and Michael Iurillo, manager of Enigma
Amiga Run, the two Italian specialised magazines for Amiga. Mr.
Tyschtschenko has spoken about the history of Amiga, likening his adventure
to a trip in spaceship. The intervention was fairly disappointing, and
there has not been big novelty. Is had created a society of search and
development, Amiga Inc., in the Dakota (near to the head-office of the
Gateway 2000?) with an organic of around 50 peoples, where it will be bends
the development of the system. Is having announced the exit of the new
release of the operation system (3.5) for the next spring, both kickstart
and workbench, to a very competitive price (~ DM. 100, about Ł 100.000 or $
60), and a new computer for the autumn of the 1998. Of this new computer
the processor is not known not even, it must be the PowerPC but now is no
more certain for the recent diatribe among Apple and Motorola/ IBM. Mr.
Tyschtschenko has insured that won't be an Intel processor (great
applause). Surely it will climb on custom chip. More greater indiscretions
will be given to the Cologne Computer Show in November. Mr. Tyschtschenko
has asked to all (many times) to be patient until to then. In Cologne
should be presented also the support's program to the developers, with
which there will be a meeting. For what concern the licenses, he has
announced a big number of licenses, for the hardware and the software, with
future liable accords with Pios, REC (a chinese society) and an interest of
Scala to take back the development for Amiga; also for Italy there is 
contacts with Cloanto. The plans of Amiga International are to develop and
commercialise in just (but also jointly with partner) the new computer and
the software, and above all of continue the politics of the licenses for
avoid the isolation of Amiga. He has told clearly that the brand "Amiga" is
protected.

Afterward there have been the interventions of Michael Iurillo, manager of
Enigma Amiga Run, and of Romano Tenca, manager of Amiga Magazine. The two
have judged positively the new stability of the Amiga International Inc.,
but they have asked: more publicity to the computer, especially on their
magazines, certain news about the future of Amiga and better speed in the
development for recover the existing gap with the other computer (PC and
MAC). Mr. Tyschtschenko has announced that the throwing of the new computer
will have effected with an ample advertising campaign, and that the novelty
would have been announces to Cologne. Then follow the interventions of the
spectators, some contented of the novelties, other more critical toward the
behaviour of the Amiga International. Asking to clarify the financial
reports among Amiga International and Gateway 2000, mr. Tyschtschenko was
very vague, declaring the freedom among the societies, but from some
affirmations look as if Amiga International (currently in active) pay
interest on the capital given from Gateway 2000. For the shortage of spare
parts, he has announced that they could be bought directly to the Amiga
International through their web site. For the problem of the difficulty to
find monitor that is able to display all the frequencies of the Amiga, he
has told that they are looking for the system for increase the frequencies
in exit, and so use monitor for PC, most economic than dedicated ones.
At the end of the conference the people has started to go out, and had
organised the classical "pizzata" (pizza-dinner) among Amiga users (to
which I could not have gone). Appointment to the next edition.
@endnode

@node FEATURE3 "Midwest Amiga Exposition Report"
@toc FEATURE

===========================================================================
                      Midwest Amiga Exposition Report
                            By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON}
===========================================================================

Midwest Amiga Exposition Show Report

It seemed like a long time in coming, but then when it arrived it seemed
like the last one was just yesterday.

Amicon's Midwest Amiga Exposition in Columbus, Ohio on November 1-2 was the
first show with good planning and more than a local scope since March's
St. Louis show, but time seems to run together when you find yourself at
the venue seeing the same people again...

The show brought Petro up to give the opening speech, and he worked his
usual Petro magic--taking a small bit of substance and turning it into a
long speech that actually sounds pretty good.  The substance here was
mainly news of the DCE Amiga clones, new machines based around new
motherboards that will apparently ship with 040 and 060 configurations, as
well as substantial hard drives and memory endowments as standard.  He did
go on record early as saying that he didn't have any earth-shattering news
but that people were welcome to join him in Cologne in what was then two
weeks' time if they wanted to hear more.  (This got a good laugh).

The Amicon organizers really worked their hearts out to put on a good show.
And by and large the show itself was a success.  The aisles were fairly
well packed, vendors looked happy and a lot of people walked around with
new booty.  There were also training seminars given, with the time
partially but not entirely monopolized by Nova Design-related products
ImageFX and Aladdin4D.

A look at the (inevitably not quite complete, but it was the best I could
do) attendance list compiled from my notes of the show is below.  I suppose
advance apologies are in order for the one or two exhibitors I will have
omitted.

Nova Design: Nova had a few tables and was pushing ImageFX 2.6 and the new
Aladdin 4D 5.0 through Kermit Woodall and ImageFX expert Corinna Cohn, who
put on both of the seminars.  Kermit was, of course, his usual affable
self.

Wonder Computers: Wonder made the trip down from Ottawa with a wide variety
of product to sell.  Most notable was there large stock of Delfina Lite DSP
cards and their fascinating wedge shape, something I've never seen quite
like that on a computer card.  Or maybe it was the Phase5 PowerUP cards
they were selling?

Compuquick: At the other extreme of the hall from Wonder was local dealer
Compuquick, who were very well stocked with new machines, monitors, and
other Amiga sundries.  (I believe, but cannot remember for certain, that it
was Compuquick who sold the Picasso IV audio module, which was one of the
new products of the show)

Legacy Maker: I managed to hold out on the self-promotion this long. :)  I
was there along with my partners in Legacy Maker, showing off our latest
creation, an ImageFX tutorial video dubbed Catalyzer, along with a couple
of other products.

Asimware: Also making the trip from Canada, Asim was showing off their
MasterISO CD creation software, which really does look impossibly simple to
use.

Amazing Computing: Editor Don Hicks was there, with copies of Amazing
Computing, an unbelievably good deal on a stack of back-issues you had to
mail away for, and his usual good humor.

The Informer: Editor Fletcher Haug and contributor Jerimy Campbell were
there for the Informer, the newer bimonthly Amiga publication in North
America.  Aside from pushing his own magazine, Fletcher was hosting a
couple of other products, including a new tiny external scan doubler which
is supposed to sell for just $25.  It's not perfect yet, though.

ProvTech: Also in the "neat product" department is Provtech and their
"anti-ZIP chip" products, which allow you to put SIMMs in a 3000 or on a
386 bridgeboard.

Gamasoft: Gamasoft had hoped to show off Finale Development's flagship Web
Cruiser at the show but that didn't come through in time, so instead they
pushed some of Finale's existing Internet tool product line, including
Voodoo, New York, and WebFTP.  A review of the new WebFTP is forthcoming.

Prowave: Have questions about Lightwave or the Toaster/Flyer?  Then Prowave
was willing to sell you a ton of tutorial tapes.  (One of the Prowave guys
was Wayne Hunt, the webmaster behind amiga.org.)

Aurora Works: Canada's "other" Amiga game company, Aurora Works was showing
off their H-Bomber game preview and trying to recruit help on other
projects.

Aaron Ruscetta and Robert Hamilton: Two boys from Atlanta were at the show
sharing a little space.  Aaron was selling a RS-422 to 232 converter and
other video-related tricks, while Robert had Amiga "License-wear" for sale,
a variety of shirts and sweatshirts with Amiga themes.  They were later
joined by Atlanta expatriate Joe Torre, now a hardware engineer with Amiga,
Inc., who set up a contraption that shot a small boing ball up a long
plastic tube.

AEMail: A new e-mail client was being displayed at the show by John
Zacharias.  AEMail can work in conjunction with a variety of other net
clients, and supports MIME and UUencoding natively.

IAM: Dale Larson was onhand, pushing the non-Amiga books he has published
as well as his full line of Amiga software and support products.

Kidstop: Proving that educational software never really goes away, Kidstop,
a very clever program for young children, was being shown off.  Although
best used with a touchscreen (and there was one on hand!), Kidstop works
with a mouse or keyboard as well.  It consisted of a variety of mini-games
and activities for learning kids, was fast, responsive, and very
audiovisual.

Vulcan USA: Steve Ocepek who formerly called his operation Sagittarius
Software was pushing the newest Vulcan Software game releases as their
official US distributor.

SRE: SRE's main item was the GGBusII+ card, the bridgeboard that doesn't
emulate a PC but allows you to use selected PC cards in your Amiga.  The
price was $125, not too shabby on the whole considering that you can pair
it with a PC ethernet card that's practically free and beat the price of
damn near any other ethernet solution for a slot-box Amiga.  (A1200 and
A600 users, damn their eyes, now have a wonderful little driver to allow a
range of cheap PCMCIA ethernet cards to be used.)

TUGALUG: If you wanted to check out what a Flyer can do, the
Toaster/Lightwave user group was happy to show you.  Lots of Toshiba TIMM
20" monitors were on the scene at the show, these guys were just one of the
many employing them.

Only Amiga BBS: Don Slane, sysop, had what seemed to be one of absolutely
anything and everything for sale.

Rounding out the people for whom I have notes are Amitech (including Eric
Schwartz), the St. Louis Gateway User Group (promoting next March's show),
NCAUG, FWD Computing, and ASK.

As I said, the show itself was a success.  It ended fairly early on Sunday
(about 2:30 or 3 PM), but this was actually a good thing--it allowed for a
reasonably comfortable teardown period and let people with long drives
ahead get out at a decent hour.

Saturday night, a banquet was held (which I skipped out on), followed by a
developer conference, sponsored by the ICOA and Kermit Woodall and the
faction he represented (which subsequently got absorbed into the ICOA.) On
hand for the ICOA were Fleecy Moss, Dean Brown, and Andy Finkel.

What can you say about a developer conference where most of your attendees
are not in fact developers?  Not a lot of positive things, I'm afraid.
While some developers or employees of developers asked questions that
related to their business, the evening got bogged down VERY quickly into
petty bickering about future OS revisions, their cost, and the upgrade
paths.  The key issue seemed to be all about spending extra money for a ROM
upgrade that may or may not exist.

This sort of format was tried at St. Louis and was not any more successful.
I think before the next attempt is made it needs to be given a serious
re-examination.

But a small group of us went out for beer after in Columbus' brewery
district.  That's the great equalizer.

I had a very good time at the MAE this year despite spending a lot of time
at the Legacy table.  (Shows are overall more fun, and slower, if you're
just there to observe and not to push product and sell.)  But it was
certainly a lot more relaxing than last year, where I was the shell-shocked
representative of VIScorp and only a man named Mike Latinovich saved me
from being eaten alive.  This time I'm really looking forward to next year.

@endnode

@node REVIEW1 "Emulation Rambler: Mac Games & More"
@toc REVIEW

===========================================================================
                    Emulation Rambler: Mac Games & More
                            By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON}
===========================================================================

FUSION Reviewed
---------------

It's been an interesting history in the Mac emulation market on the Amiga
if you've been keeping score, and much of the developments over the past 4
or 5 years have revolved around Jim Drew and his lesser-sung partner in
crime Joe Fenton.

Mac emulation began with the A-Max, A-Max II and A-Max II+ from Readysoft
of Canada.  Black and white, back in the days of System 6, and the
emulation took over the Amiga--but you could reliably emulate a Mac for a
variety of purposes.  Then full-page ads started appearing in magazines for
an emulator (Emplant) which would be full-color, full-multitasking Mac
emulation.  While it got off to a shaky start and required several software
revisions to stabilize, Emplant eventually delivered.

Readysoft tried to counter with A-Max IV, which offered similar features
to Emplant but didn't keep step with upgrades and eventually fell by the
wayside.

Emplant ruled the scene for quite some time.  Then came ShapeShifter from
Christian Bauer, and for the first time Amiga users didn't have to pay
hundreds of dollars for a hardware and software based emulation package.
ShapeShifter was shareware.  It didn't take all that long for Emplant to
follow suit with a version that did not require the custom Zorro board of
earlier versions.

But the market spoke and seemed very happy with Shapeshifter, which was
being frequently updated and was widely available.

Drew and Fenton were hardly done, though.  They started regrouping and, in
the meanwhile, Bauer discovered Be, Inc. and their fledgeling BeOS.  Much
of his development efforts have shifted over to that platform, making
Shapeshifter upgrades few and far between.

Enter FUSION.  Drew and Fenton (now operating under the Microcode Solutions
name) have released a hardware-independent Mac emulator which seems to
offer the features of Shapeshifter along with a more active level of
support.

FUSION, like any Mac emulator, requires the native Macintosh ROM to
function properly.  If you're interested in Mac emulation, by now you
probably know the standard things to expect.  It's the new stuff in FUSION
that's quite interesting.

FUSION has a wide variety of graphics board drivers, including some very
speedy CyberGraphX and Picasso96 "direct" modes, offering increased speed
at the expense of some graphical glitches if you switch over to another
screen and the Mac screen keeps updating.  It also has the best Mac/Amiga
filesharing I've seen on a Mac emulator.  You can mount Mac partitions on
AmigaDOS, making them accessible through Workbench and the shell, as well
as any other programs you like.  (DirOpus 5 can address them as well
although you need to manually call them up through a lister.)

FUSION has a "pseudo 24-bit" fallback emulation mode for those programs
which are not 32-bit clean (but purport to be--you can't run the really old
stuff this way.) I've so far only found one game that this applies to, but
there may be other software out there that you would find it useful with.

FUSION will make use of AHI as well, offering full 16 bit support.
ShapeShifter can use AHI but only pumps 8-bit audio through the AHI device.

Modem and printer Port support, the little annoying but necessary memory
patch utility, they're all here.  FUSION's CD-ROM support was pretty touchy
and wouldn't recognize a number of discs until Jim Drew put out a new
driver (See below.)  I no longer find myself installing software on
Shapeshifter so I can run it under FUSION.

FUSION's price varies worldwide but you should expect to pay under US$80 to
run it.  If you're not using FUSION 2.0 you should upgrade, as they fixed a
number of the annoying glitches from the earlier versions.  It looks like
Drew has regained the dominant market position for Mac emulation on the
Amiga once more.

FUSION is published and distributed worldwide by Blittersoft.
Phone: ++44 01908 261466
http://blittersoft.wildnet.co.uk


FUSION and PCx CD-ROM problems fixed
------------------------------------

Those of you who have followed my reviews of PCx and have heard me talk
about FUSION know that I've never had good luck with the CD-ROM support.
Well, most of the problems seem to be solved.  Microcode Solutions just
released a new CD support device for both emulators which does a far better
job recognizing real-world CD-ROMs.


Microcode to release Atari and Apple II Emulators...free or shareware?
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Some time ago, Microcode promised to release a low-cost emulation bundle of
an Atari 8-bit and Apple II emulator on CD-ROM.  These plans were stalled
and now it looks like the emulators may simply be distributed online as
free or shareware.  The PowerMac incarnation of the Microcode Atari
emulator has already been released.  I was fortunate enough to see an early
version of the Amiga emulator and was very impressed...and am very
embarrassed to report that I subsequently lost it.  The Apple II emulator
didn't seem to offer much of anything that we didn't have already through
Apple 2000.  We'll see what happens when they're finally released.


Nintendo Emulator Overview
--------------------------

The floodgates have opened and we've been inundated with Nintendo
Entertainment System (NES) emulators for the Amiga lately.  No less than
four authors or teams are working to bring high-quality NES emulation to
the Amiga.  Some are doing a better job than others...

DarkNESs: To my recollection, the first one released and the one who got
the ball rolling.  Mark Van Hal has also tried his hand at Sega
MasterSystem emulation and his standard is the same here--shoot for high
graphical support, including graphics cards.  DarkNESs is stable although
not always the speediest emulator.  It supports double-buffering and
frameskipping.

AmiNES: From Juan Antonio Gomez, who also created AmiGameBoy, AmiMSX, and
AmiMasterGear.  Never intended to be finished, Gomez' emulator works fairly
well for the limited range of games it is compatible with.  Takes over the
system, and when you quit a guru is probably not too far distant in the
future...

CoolNESs: And the puns keep rolling in.  CoolNESs from Fredrik Olsson
offers sound support (only to registered users--the thing to get you to
register.  But if you don't know how good the sound support is before
paying...), generally quicker graphics than DarkNESs, and a straight PAL
AGA display.  The documentation claims that some games run at full speed
even on an 030/25, although on games I'd really like to play there were
still the occasional glitches on an 060/50.  (Contra in particular.) The
speed is quite respectible, however.  The CD32 gamepad is supported, a
significant improvement over using the keyboard.

A/Nes: Just don't pronounce it as one word and we'll be fine.  A/Nes from
Fredrik Schultz and Morgan Johansson offers the most polished GUI of all of
the emulators, and is probably the overall best to use, although CoolNESs
still performs better on some games (like Contra).  CD32 gamepad and sound
support requires registration.

All of the emulators are available from Aminet in misc/emu.


Mac Gaming through Shapeshifter and Fusion
------------------------------------------

For the November 1997 issue of CU Amiga, I was asked to do a feature on
using Mac emulators to play Mac games on the Amiga.  I wound up writing way
too much.  What got published was really just an overview--below are some
game capsule reviews which would be a shame to let go to waste.

Doom Clones: The obsession of the Amiga gaming market for years now, which
as of this writing has still not produced a major title legally ported
across from another system.  But the Mac has a ready supply waiting for
your killing urges.

The forerunners of the genre, Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, are available, but
they're somewhat passe, n'est-ce pas?  Instead of revisiting old territory,
here's what's more current.

Duke Nuke'm Atomic Edition: This was the 3D game that shook people out of
their funk while they waited for Quake to come along.  Duke took the basic
Doom approach but gave it a set of really fun, sometimes campy weapons
(shrink ray, anyone?), a ridiculously macho hero, and a great attention to
design and atmosphere and created a game that doesn't become repetitive
after the first three levels.  Duke on the Mac was welcomed by the
game-starved masses, who wanted to hear Duke preen for a mirror and say
"Damn, I'm lookin' good!"

One of the complaints about Duke is that the variety of enemies was
limited--this is definitely true in the first mission but was improved upon
for the other three.  The levels range from very linear to large and mazey,
although most stay away from being so complicated "hunt the key" wise that
they become boring.  And the cheat codes are included in the manual, so
what's there to complain about?

Duke can be played on a fast 030 system and AGA, but I'd recommend using
FUSION or one of the go-faster Shapeshifter video drivers if you don't have
access to a video card.  On an 060/CyberGraphX system, Duke completely
hauls.  The game offers hints for keeping the speed playable--smaller
window size is always obvious, but you can also choose to draw only every
other line and play at a lower difficulty level (less monsters=less CPU
time spent controlling them.) Even if the game looks ok while you run
around, leave a safety cushion--combat tends to slow things down, as do the
scary little _Alien_ knockoff beasties.  (When half a dozen hatch and come
after you, it's frightening enough trying to get away without the game
seizing up on you.)

Duke is a lot of fun.  Turn the speakers up and put on a smirk.  The game
doesn't take itself seriously, so you can just have a good time.
Stars: *****
Requires: Fast 030 or better, CD-ROM.  040 and graphics card recommended
Compatible: Both Shapeshifter and FUSION.
Price: About US$45

Dark Forces: When I first saw Dark Forces, it was an alpha version running
on a 486/100 on a table at the Chicago CES in 1994.  It was so primitive
that nobody could shoot at anybody, and the bad guys had a habit of walking
through walls, floors, and ceilings.  The game came along quite nicely, I'm
happy to report.  While it got written off as mediocre in the PC mags, I
think Dark Forces is the most clever and enjoyable "man against the world"
Doom clone I've ever played.

Perhaps it's got an unfair advantage since it draws on the Star Wars
universe, but the game creates a sense of atmosphere above and beyond most
of the carbon-copy first-person shooters out there.  I'm not the world's
biggest Star Wars fan, but there's a certain level of extra satisfaction in
shooting an Imperial officer than there is in killing some impossible demon
monster.  The use of the angled gun which doesn't shoot in a straight line
straight in front of you is an excellent innovation as well--and the extra
challenge is probably what those lazy PC reviewers hated.
Stars: *****
Requires: Fast 030 or better, CD-ROM.  Graphics card recommended.
Compatible: Shapeshifter, Fusion (both w/System 7.5).  Seems incompatible with
System 7.6 and Shapeshifter.
Price: About 30 UKP

Marathon: The Mac market's big home-grown 3D shooter: its AB3D, or Gloom,
if you prefer.  Like most of these games, it's you against the world.
"You" in this case are the sole (to your and the computer's knowledge)
survivor of an attack by an unknown alien force on your spaceship, the
Marathon.  All you have at the outset is a pistol, a few clips, and the
occasional advice of the computer--and even that is unreliable after a
while.  The aliens are funny-looking guys in a variety of colors who carry
pain sticks or various energy weapons.  Your goal is to survive, find out
who the aliens are, and repel them.

Marathon's graphics are a nice change from the mega-chunky look of most
games of this ilk--the spaceship looks polished and smooth, and the
monsters look fairly lifelike, although their animation is stilted.  Combat
is pretty difficult since aiming is fairly picky, and ammunition is very
difficult to come by--making the game more cerebral than some others.  The
pace is good and you do get the sense of urgency as you and the computer
race against the bad guys.

The strange thing about Marathon's engine, which I found very difficult to
work around, is the way you move.  It's much more like gliding than
walking--rather like Wolfenstein 3D, but in a way worse because Wolf3D was
cartoonish and it fit the overall design better.

Marathon is decent, but definitely not best of show.  The demo is available
practically everywhere, so it won't hurt to see if you disagree with my
evaluation.  Any 040 should be enough to run Marathon near full capacity.

Stars: ***
Requires: Fast 030 or better.
Compatible: Both.
Price: About US$30

Damage, Inc.: I had never heard of Damage Inc.  before it arrived in the
box from MacSoft.  After playing it, I have to say I'm completely shocked.

I am a little sick and tired of being pitted against the world with just a
pistol in my hand, taken completely by surprise at the hordes of aliens or
mutants or rednecks who want to kill me.  I want professional planning, air
support, and a team I can rely on when I do my killing.  Damage, Inc.
gives me exactly that.

The idea behind Damage Inc.  is that you are a field leader for FITICA, a
crack unit of the US Marine Corps dedicated to top-secret assault and
recovery missions.  You can assemble a team of marines (up to four), armed
to the teeth, typically with hand grenades, a pistol, and a rifle with
grenade launcher.  You are similary equipped, and given a set of mission
objectives--sometimes simply clearing an area of baddies to find an
entrance to an enemy base, or rescuing hostages, or something perhaps more
important to national security.  As you go on, you learn more about
FITICA's real objectives (after all, you're field personnel, not an
officer).

Damage is based on the Marathon engine, but forget the nasty things I said
about it, because the Damage crew fixed it up.  You travel through the very
convincing 3D environments at a very good clip, and the arsenal at your
disposal will cut down your enemies in a variety of effective fashions. 
But remember that team I mentioned?  They'll take their best shot at the
bad guys too--and most of the time they're better shots than you, too. 
They have rudimentary AI and can accept simple commands (explore a
direction, seek and destroy enemies, or follow you or another team member.)
Friendly fire does become a serious concern in heated firefights, and it's
up to you to make sure you don't blow away one of your own squad, or that
you don't take a shotgun shell in the back from an overzealous Marine.

It would probably be enough for the missions and the graphics to be as
engrossing as they are, but what really puts the game over the top is the
digitized speech.  Each of the twelve Marines has their own personality,
and they acknowledge all of your commands as well as offer their own
commentary on the subjects they hold dear.  One believes he's John Wayne,
another kills for Christ, one hates violence but is so dedicated to the
Corps he will solemnly kill anyone who threatens his teammates.  Of
particular interest is Banzai, who peppers the action with totally
inappropriate comments.  (After gunning down a white supremist, Banzai
offers: "I hope I don't meet him in the afterlife.  'Oh, hi, I killed
you.'")

Damage is a great cure for the sameness in a lot of 3D shooters.  Highly
recommended.

Stars: *****
Requires: 040, CD-ROM.  4X CD-ROM recommended to spool audio direct from
CD.
Compatible: Both.
Price: About US$40

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

Budget Bundles: While some software manufacturers on the Amiga have finally
taken to bundling several old titles at a single title retail price, few
have taken the logical step to doing it on CD-ROM, keeping their price
higher than it should be because they're copying all those floppies.  The
Mac market has moved beyond this, and you can find multi-CD sets for very
reasonable prices.

Budget Bundle #1: Aztech's Mac Pack Counter Attack.  Retailing at around
US$30, this pack contains 5 CD-ROMs with a variety of games and
"edutainment" commercial titles.  There are some hits and misses here.

Lunicus: Straight out of the bad old early days of multimedia CD-ROMs. 
This sad attempt at an engrossing space adventure RPG (sort of) was paid
for by Paramount, the massive Hollywood movie company.  It didn't do much
good.  Lunicus is slow and plodding, with plain graphics.  Lots of
digitized conversation isn't enough to make you care about the people or
the places you need to go to figure out why you're playing this game. 
Avoid.   
Stars: * 
Requires: 030, CD-ROM.  
Compatible: Shapeshifer.  FUSION can run the game but with garbled audio.

Sim City Classic: Just what it says, a classic.  The Mac version is
graphically rich and will run on a variety of systems.  Sim City isn't for
everyone (I personally find that many sim games try too hard to be
realistic, and that I'd just be better off getting a job as a theme park
manager and being paid for my efforts rather than slave over an unforgiving
simulation), but Sim City has, in my view, a pretty balanced system of
challenges and rewards.  Two versions, one with fewer colors and less
processor requirement, are included, meaning just about anybody should be
able to run Sim City.
Stars: ****
Requires: 020, CD-ROM.  Faster system recommended.
Compatible: Both.

Leisure Suit Larry 6: From the folks at Sierra, who also bring you the
King's Quest and Police Quest series.  Faced with the option of playing a
Sierra sequel or beating the proverbial dead horse, the latter often has a
lot of appeal.  The original Leisure Suit Larry was actually a tribute and
recreation of Sierra's early smash hit text adventure "Softporn Adventure",
and was whimsical and sophomoric despite not being everybody's cup of tea.
LSL6 has come a long way since the more primitive 16 color graphics of the
original, has added a fully digitized soundtrack (all game response is
verbal, not textual), and a whole new sex farce adventure to run that
squirmy little weasel Larry Laffer through.  It might be good for a laugh,
you might just enjoy puzzle solving for its own sake, but my guess is that
only Larry completists will run for this game.

Actually, LSL6 (and most Sierra games in general) wouldn't be so bad if it
weren't for the horrible interface they keep insisting on using.  Lucasarts
got it right, Sierra got it wrong, and their customers keep paying the
price.
Stars: ***
Requires: Fast 030 or 040 system, CD-ROM.  Faster system recommended.
Compatible: Both.

King's Quest VII: Included in the Counter Attack pack is another sequel to
the venerable King's Quest saga which made Sierra rich and made Roberta
Williams possibly the most famous woman game designer in history (and
in the top echelon of the co-ed list as well!)  KQ VII proved incompatible
with both emulators for different reasons: ShapeShifter crashed shortly
after the title screen, while FUSION can play the game but the audio is
garbled (as in Police Quest IV, see below).

Perhaps the most disappointing part of the Counter Attack pack is the
CD-ROM which neither emulator nor the Amiga's CD filesystem can read,
containing Outpost, Jump Raven, and Space Madness.  Another "watch and
see".

Counter Attack Pack overall rating: ***.  Will probably be a 4-star entry
if those CD-ROM issues get sorted out, although part of the problem is the
shoddy job Aztech did in their mastering process.  Not having access to
that disc of 3 games is a big problem.  If you have access to a real Mac,
you might want to try using it to shuttle these games across to your Amiga
system.

Budget Bundle #2: Aztech Mac Pack Sneak Attack.  After the Counter Attack,
Aztech drummed up more titles for a 4-CD release, again for about US$30. 
Here's how the notable games fare:

Blackthorne: The 1996 copyright on this game gives me the impression that
the market didn't respond too well to this one.  Blackthorne is an
unapologetic derivative of Prince of Persia, except instead of a lithe
martial artist, you're a burly guy with a huge shotgun and hover bombs.
You jump across lots of holes which are "just a little too long" to land on
your feet, so you have to pull yourself up, etc. etc.  One interesting
innovation which most side-to-side platform type games never get around to
implementing is ability to dodge--your character can stand flush up against
any wall, rendering him impervious to most of the things the bad guys shoot
at you.  It also means you can't shoot them, though.

Blackthorne is nothing special--the graphics are nice but there's not a big
hook to keep you playing.  If you decide you're interested, though, it
would occupy an afternoon or two.
Stars: ***
Requires: 030.
Compatible: Both.

Police Quest IV: Open Season: Sierra's not afraid to make sequels, although
for the Police Quest games they've tried to take their time to make games
which are procedurally accurate, and, since PQ 3, somewhat grotesque as
well.  PQ IV is similar to Leisure Suit Larry 6 in that all of the game
response is verbal rather than textual--this can be a real problem,
however, if the game gets slowed down and a stray mouse click skips over a
very important detail.  I can't help but think that a different
interface--any interface--would be better than what Sierra offers.

The colors in PQ IV are rather washed out, which is odd considering Mac
games if anything tend toward the garish--but this is an uninspired port
from the PC, the same thing Sierra did to Amiga users with unfortunate
regularity.
Stars: ***
Requires: Fast 030, 040 recommended.
Compatible: ShapeShifter.  (FUSION ran the game but audio was garbled.)

Shadow Wraith: Out of all the games I played for this review, this is
probably the most "Amiga-like".  You are the pilot of a super single-seater
jet plane in "cyberspace".  Oh, never mind where you're supposed to be,
it's a high-tech maze full of nasty little cubes and enemy fighters who
want to kill you in the worst way.  You have a machine gun, missiles,
mines, and grenades at your disposal as you whip through the maze,
collecting keys and hitting the afterburners to make it through to the next
level.

The smoothness of the graphics is phenomenal, and not in the artificial way
most Mac games tend to feel when they try to accomplish this.  If a little
hard to control with the keyboard (remember what I said about joysticks!),
Shadow Wraith is a lot of fun for those of you who hearken back to the
salad days of Psygnosis.
Stars: ****
Requires: 030.
Compatible: FUSION.  (Requires FUSION's "pseudo-24 bit" mode as Shadow
Wraith was somewhat poorly coded.)

Brain Dead 13: Oh, the irony!  Brain Dead 13 is the game Readysoft dropped
all of its Amiga development and support in favor of producing.  Among the
dropped products was A-Max IV, the Mac emulator!

Other than A-Max, Readysoft has one major claim to fame--they ported the
Dragon's Lair and Space Ace games to personal computers including the
Amiga, and developed sequels and knockoffs (like Guy Spy).  So, when in
1994 they wanted a new product, what else would they choose but a game in
the genre they knew best?  Of course, impossible and illogical animation
slideshows!

The quality of the animation in BD13 shows a lot of work--Readysoft claimed
in an interview I did with them at the time that they had over 100 artists
working on it.  But 1,000,000 artists can't make these games enjoyable as
anything other than walkthroughs, with the exact winning sequence of moves
ready at hand.  There is absolutely no way to be a "good" player of these
games--it requires you to be patient and figure out every move, usually by
trial and error, and keep at it until you win.  I saw a lot of copies of
Brain Dead 13 for the PC and game consoles get dusty at local computer
stores.  With good reason.

Stars: ** if you don't have the walkthrough, **** if you do
Requires: 040 and graphics card recommended.
Compatible: Both.

A-10 Attack!: Combat flight simulator.  The first thing you should do if
you really want to play this is print out the documentation--these Aztech
packs come with no printed documentation and it is impossible to
successfully fly a simulator unless you know what the buttons and knobs are
and how to use them.  The game puts you in the cockpit and allows you to
fly a variety of exploration and combat missions, although it mostly serves
as an ad for the game which followed, A-10 Cuba.  If you were disappointed
by JETPilot maybe you should take a look, but on the other hand F/A 18
Interceptor is still more fun.

Stars: **
Requires: 040.
Compatible: Both.

Masterpieces of Infocom: The nearly entire back catalog of Infocom text
adventures.  With the exception of Hitchhiker's Guide To the Galaxy (the
rights to which now belong to Douglas Adams, not Infocom) and a couple of
forgettable graphical games, this is the entire collection of Infocom's
work in the 80s, when they defined adventure games.  Comes complete with
Adobe Acrobat documentation--not as good as the toys and clever packaging
of the originals, but since you're paying so little for each game it's
difficult to complain.  While not every game was a "masterpiece", a great
number were.  Also includes 6 modern text adventures from 1995.

Stars: *****
Requires: 020 (faster processor recommended for Adobe Acrobat reader)
Compatible: Both.

Budget Bundle #3: Alone In the Dark Trilogy
For about US$30, you can pick up the Alone in the Dark trilogy series.
These games, originally developed by Infogrames (now called I-Motion),
tried to capture the elements of 3D gaming in a way fast enough for most
computers to run.  The result was a compromise--3D characters in a set of
static, conventionally drawn landscapes.  Combined with atmospheric
storylines, the games are still classics.

By far the best game is the original--it plays like a classic horror novel.
Its engine is perhaps a little less polished than in the later games
(although few changes were made for the future games--they were made
because the development cost was so low and the enthusiasm for the products
pretty high), but the unfortunate part is that the Mac implementation of
the first game was poor, so it does not run nearly as fast as the other
two.  You'll probably need to stay in 320x200 mode on any system, even the
fastest.  For 2 and 3 you can bump up the resolution.

Alone 2 and 3 pit you against more supernatural foes, but it starts to feel
a little played out.  The actual navigation of the worlds is a bit easier,
so they're worth checking out.

Stars: ****
Requires: Fast 030.  Faster processor and graphics card or third-party
driver recommended.
Compatible: Both.

Freeware/Shareware: Yes, the Mac has a pretty active free and shareware
developer base, too.  Not everything is a work of art (many are living
examples of why you maybe should NOT put a sampler port on every machine
you ship) but there are some games you should really check out given half a
chance.  The home of Info-Mac, the Mac shareware archive, is at
ftp.hawaii.edu.

Arashi: Ever wanted to play the arcade classic Tempest on your computer?
This is it, practically blow for blow.  The vector game looks great on a
decent configuration, and the mouse control is actually pretty comfortable.
Unless you've got an Amiga with a high enough spec to run Tempest through
arcade emulation, check out Arashi.
Stars: ****
Compatible: Both

Rescue!: Since time immemorial (we're talking decades, here), computer
geeks have written games based on Star Trek.  Up until the 80s, these were
text-based, where you entered warp speed and direction and gave phaser
energy to shoot at Klingons who wanted to blow up starbases.  Rescue took
this to an art form, with authentic graphics, sounds, and great action
gameplay for the 90s.  Unfortunately, the higher profile 90s meant that
Paramount, who owns Star Trek, saw his activities and didn't take kindly
to the heavy use of their trademarked material.  Rescue shed some of the
original Star Trek spellings in later releases, and it seems that in late
1994 he gave up the project entirely.

Which is a damn shame, because Rescue is a lot of fun.  Your job is to
rescue colonists from defenseless outposts, as a major invasion of Rulans
and Cardaians (remember that changed spelling) threatens their safety.  The
Kigons are your allies, and the Fengis are generally neutral (although
they'll pitch in with you if the odds are good, or take a potshot at you if
your shields are damaged.)  You have to ferry the colonists to starbases,
which can come in handy as resupply posts as well as teammates in a
fight--but even starbases can fall to the Rulan Superhawks, which can
cloak themselves.  You can face over 30 enemies, and if that's not enough,
you can set the game to send the Borg after you.  (Alternately, if you make
Q, who makes a guest appearance in the game, mad, he'll summon them to
waste you.)

Rescue is not enormously speed intensive--if you need to, you can kill the
sounds or play in monochrome mode.  The killer is that the interface is
somewhat large, spread out over several windows, so a standard Amiga NTSC
or PAL resolution display may make having everything easily accessible
difficult.  Even at 800x600, you can't fit all of the windows on the
screen--it's not always necessary, though.
Stars: *****
Requires: 030.  Graphics card recommended for large display.
Compatible: Both

Solarian II: If you have Mac owning friends who've told you about a game
they love, odds are pretty good it's Solarian II.  I'm not sure why,
however.  It's Space Invaders, with the twist that your enemies do not move
sideways across the screen but spin in circles at the top, and some of them
dive-bomb you with 100% deadly accuracy.  But it's tough to control and not
enough of an improvement on the original design to make it better or more
worthy than, say, Deluxe Galaga (or the arcade Galaga itself.)  The samples
are really annoying, too.
Stars: ***
Requires: 020.  030 recommended.
Compatible: Both.


This isn't a shopping list, it's an overview.  There's a lot more out
there.  If you want to look into these titles further, or want to buy and
can't find a source near you, try checking online:

Aztech: http://www.aztech.com
MacSoft: http://www.wizworks.com/macsoft/home.htm
Macplay: http://www.macplay.com

Remember--using your Amiga's resources to play these games isn't
"abandoning" the Amiga or somehow diminishing the efforts of Amiga game
programmers.  Mac emulators broaden the horizons of what your Amiga can
run, and you've got a unique opportunity to draw on two large software
libraries.  Enjoy the treasures out there.
@endnode
@node REVIEW2 "Review: LS-120 Floppy Drive"
@toc REVIEW

===========================================================================
                        Review: LS-120 Floppy Drive
  Gary Colville                                     gary@empire.u-net.com
===========================================================================

It's a sad fact that while high density floppy drives have long been
standard on PCs and Macs almost all Amiga owners still strugle on with
old double density drives. At some time or other, most Amigans will
have looked at ads for Amiga-adapted high density drives, thought
about buying one, then looked at the price and quickly dismissed the
idea. Emulation enthusiasts, who really need HD capability, are about
the only people who buy them.

Recently, removable-storage drives like the Iomega Zip have become
popular. They won't read high density floppies but they will let you
swap data with the many PC and Mac users who own one, and they make
great backup devices too. The Zip, however, isn't without it's own
problems. Zip disks are fairly expensive and the IDE version of the
drive has gained a reputation for working erraticaly on the Amiga.

Wouldn't it be great if there was a Zip-like removable drive that
could read HD floppy disks and worked okay with the Amiga's IDE port?

Well, now there is. The new LS-120 is an enhanced high density 3.5"
floppy drive that uses the ATAPI bus system and is capable of storing
120Mb on a special disk or 1.44Mb on standard HD floppy disks. Amiga
drivers for the LS-120 come included with IdeFix '97, which you can
find on Aminet.

It was the presence of these drivers that originaly got me thinking
about the LS-120. The few hands-on reviews of the drive that I could
find seemed mostly favourable so, cash in hand, I plodded off the the
local Wintel hardware emporium. Ten minutes and 89ukp later I
emerged clutching an OEM type LS-120 (the OEM package consists of the
LS-120 and a Dos/Windows driver disk. No manuals or cables or the
like).

The LS-120 is most often described as a 'Superfloppy' and you can see
why when unpacking it for the first time. It looks exactly like any
cheap floppy drive, right down to the layout of the PCB. The only
visible difference is the 40-pin connector on the back and the little
triangle-and-globe LS-120 logo on the dust flap.

Physical installation is quite easy; Just connect the IDE data cable
and set the Master/Slave jumpers. A word of warning here: My LS-120
came with the jumpers set to CS (Cable Select) and this can cause real
problems if it's not changed to MS (Master) or SL (Slave) before you
try installing the IdeFix drivers.

IdeFix 97 contains specific LS-120 support, and it performs admirably.
Running the "MountLS120" program produces a pair of new AmigaOS
devices: DF4 for disks formatted using OFS/FFS and PC4 for MS-DOS
disks. Also included are a couple of utils for low-level formatting
120Mb disks. Don't use these unless you really have to, as formatting
can take upwards of 40 minutes to complete.

The DF4 device provided by IdeFix treats the LS-120 like a huge floppy
disk (indeed, you can even access it via trackdisk.device as unit 4)
but you don't have to do it this way. The LS-120 can take a RDB and be
mounted via a normal DosDriver, just like any other IDE drive. If you
want to use an alternate filesystem like AFS, this is your only
option. RDPrep crashed every time I tried to use it to access the
LS-120, but HDToolBox coped without problems.

So, what's it like in use? Popping a fresh 120Mb disk into the drive
produced about 10 seconds of grinding before an icon appeared on
workbench. LS-120 media comes formatted for MS-DOS. Re-formatting for
FFS takes a while, but presents no problems unless the disk's
write-protect tab is engaged. Unlike some other removable drives,
write-protection on the LS-120 is physical. Once that tab is opened
nothing can write to the disk.

Copying a block of files to the drive showed it to be fast, but not
lightning quick. If feels much faster than my 4x CD-Rom even if the
benchmarks I've done suggest otherwise. Running a mixture of benchmark
programs on a blank 120Mb disk shows a transfer rate in the region of
350K/sec. The following figures were generated by DiskSpeed using a
blank 120Mb disk and 200 FS buffers. The Amiga used was a 33MHz 68040
based A1200T.


Testing directory manipulation speed.
File Create:          143 files/sec  |  CPU Available: 52%
File Open:            458 files/sec  |  CPU Available: 0%
Directory Scan:      2181 files/sec  |  CPU Available: 0%
File Delete:          526 files/sec  |  CPU Available: 0%

Seek/Read:             14 seeks/sec  |  CPU Available: 96%

Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer.
Create file:       351099 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 80%
Write to file:     360335 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 80%
Read from file:    374669 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 79%

Average CPU Available: 48%  |  CPU Availability index: 1902

Some tests using various filesystems and block sizes show the LS-120
is very sensitive to changes in either. Performance using FFS with
standard 512 byte blocks is nothing special, but increasing the block
size and/or switching to another filesystem (AFS or MSDOS) improves
things. Also, the LS-120 sometimes pauses for 5 or 6 secods to
re-calibrate itsself, so throughput in non-benchmark operations will
be a little lower than shown here.

One of the main reasons I bought the 120 was it's ability to read
1.44Mb floppies (but not, sadly, 880k or 1.76Mb Amiga-style disks).
Popping a PC disk into the drive results in a few seconds of very
nasty grinding sounds (you get used to these after a while) and the
normal disk icon appearing on Workbench. The LS-120 has a very natty
CD-style motorised eject, so now it's possible to eject floppy disks
without having to grope around for the eject button. The front panel
eject button has a small poke-a-pin-in hole to facilitate manual
ejection of stuck disks.

Although the drive is limited to 720K and 1.44Mb disks, and not 880k
or 1.76Mb, it's quite possible to format these using FFS or AFS rather
than the MS-DOS filesystem. It should also possible to use the LS-120
with Mac and PC emulators but in practice this is a rather hit and
miss affair. PCx and PC-Task refuse to see the LS-120. Shapeshifter
uses it perfectly in both floppy and 120Mb modes. I can't comment on
Fusion as I don't have access to it.

When accessing floppies the LS-120 shows significant speed advantages
over the standard Amiga floppy:

These results are from the LS-120, accessing a 1.44Mb disk:


Seek/Read:            769 seeks/sec  |  CPU Available: 70%

Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer.
Create file:        17961 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 98%
Write to file:      15489 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 98%
Read from file:     49164 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 96%

and these are from the standard internal 880k floppy:

Seek/Read:              4 seeks/sec  |  CPU Available: 97%

Testing with a 262144 byte, MEMF_FAST, LONG-aligned buffer.
Create file:        11200 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 96%
Write to file:      10813 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 96%
Read from file:     22767 bytes/sec  |  CPU Available: 97%


Nothing about the LS-120 stands out as being amazingly wonderful, but
lots of little things combine to make it a great drive. It's use of
the cheap and common IDE interface, large 120Mb disks, and ability to
read 1.44Mb floppies all add up to a very nice package. The biggest
point in favour of the LS-120 has to be it's price. Amiga HD floppy
drives sell for about 60ukp here, so a combined HD floppy and 120 meg
removable drive for less than 90ukp is almost too good to be true.

For some applications the LS-120 is a little slow, and I hope the
designers can reduce the 10 seconds needed to mount a 120Mb disk to
something a little shorter. It's quite noisey, too. The grinding and
clunking can be very noticible, particularly when mounting 1.44Mb and
720K disks. This isn't a problem for me as the PSU in my tower case
drowns most of the noise, but if you have a standard 1200 with a quiet
hard disk it could prove distracting.

After almost two months use my main feeling about the LS-120 is that
it's a superb drive sold at a crazily low price. If you have any need
for a removable storage drive, put the LS-120 right at the top of your
list. If just need an HD floppy, give serious consideration to
spending a little extra and getting an LS-120.

-------------------------------------------------------------------
This review is copyright 1997 Gary Colville (gary@empire.u-net.com).
It is freely distributable as long as it remains unaltered, and is
not used for any commercial purpose.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
@endnode

@node REVIEW3 "AlgoMusic"
@toc REVIEW

===========================================================================
                Review: AlgoMusic V2.2 by Thomas Schuerger
                            By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON}
===========================================================================

There are some applications that are Amiga-only in that they use special
features of the Amiga's architecture that you just can't find anywhere
else.

And then there are programs that are only found on the Amiga because it
takes a crazy Amiga guy to think of them.  AlgoMusic is solidly in this
category.

Simply put, AlgoMusic creates random songs of the "techno" variety from a
large stock of instrument and voice samples, according to algorithms of the
author's devising.  All you need to do is give it a random seed--or let it
generate one of its own.  AlgoMusic even comes up with a "title" for the
song based on a small dictionary of words.

AlgoMusic can be driven from the shell, or you can call up an MUI-based
prefs program.  You can change AlgoMusic's song as it plays, even from the
shell, although it's much easier to do from the prefs program.  And when
you tire of the roughly two megs of included samples, there are
instructions for creating your own.

AlgoMusic is so ridiculous it's amusing.  I've run it many times--it's easy
to just set it up and let it roll--and haven't heard the same song twice.
The algorithms do keep things pretty different.  But what is it that we're
doing here?  We're creating random silly techno tunes.  It sort of renders
a lot of MOD authors obsolete, it would seem.

Which, incidentally, brings up an important point--AlgoMusic is not a mod
player or tracker, and you can't save its work out as a MOD--if you want to
play a song again later because you love it so, you'll have to write down
the random seed to plug in at a later date (which as far as I can tell
requires you launching from the shell rather than inputting the seed in the
GUI--perhaps an innovation for the next release?)

Obviously, Mr. Schuerger has some sort of appreciation for the artform, but
I wonder if he intended AlgoMusic to be as much of a tribute as it is a
parody of the techno/acid music form.  It's a techno composer you just
double click on.  It will (quite literally) churn out an almost endless
stream of techno pieces.  Sounds like a lot of people, not just MOD
authors, could be out of work.

If you want to play around with AlgoMusic, the easiest way is just to mess
with the BPM (beats per minute) and Finetune (a sort of global frequency
setting) sliders.  You can go from body-flinging dance music to more, um,
"bedroom" sounds by bouncing between 84 and 200 BPM, and high or low
pitched vocal samples are always fun.

Schuerger will never be remembered with the great composers of the world,
but he has put together a reasonably good alternative to downloading every
new MOD on Aminet.  AlgoMusic is fun for the novelty value if nothing else,
sort of like Steve Headroom from a couple of years back.

What someone should do is pair AlgoMusic up with a MindEYE and an A1200,
place the whole contraption in a rack-mountable case and sell it to dance
clubs as the "Infinite DJ" at a substantial markup.  Feel free to cut me in
if you give it a try.

AlgoMusic is available on Aminet, in mus/misc.

@endnode

@node REVIEW4 "Jay Miner Memorial Video"
@toc REVIEW

===========================================================================
                     Review: Jay Miner Memorial Video
                            By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON}
===========================================================================

Jay Miner is the ultimate in Amiga cult icons.  While he is not necessarily
everyone's personal hero, it is generally accepted in the Amiga mythos that
more or less everything got its start with him, even if he was ultimately
burned and disgusted by Commodore and spent the rest of his life largely in
non-Amiga pursuits.  Jay did not live to see the Escom or Gateway eras in
the Amiga's history...whether we pity him or envy him for that is another
issue.

In 1989, the Metroplex Commodore Computer Club (MCCC) had Jay as their
guest for their annual METCOM Amiga gathering.  At the event, Jay gave a
talk and fielded questions from Amiga users, and someone was clever enough
to tape the event for posterity.  Now that Jay Miner has passed, the MCCC
decided that perhaps people might want something to remember the man by. 

The Memorial tape first replays Jay's speech, along with some of the
commercial Amiga advertising (yes, there really was some) of the time.
Jay's speech is largely very measured and consistent--he's not a rockstar
or a crowd-player, he's just recounting his story and the Amiga's story.
He then fields questions from the crowd, which range from everything from
an anachronistic discussion on the relative merits of MaxiPlan to a few
condemnations of Commodore (and another anachronistic reference to "twelve
[American] Amiga magazines"...we wish..).  Some stories you've likely heard
before, others are worth hearing for the first time.

After Miner's speech, the second half of the tape is devoted to more
MCCC-specific concerns.  Their first 5 METCOMs are documented, with various
footage (most of it in 1.3 blue and white given the timeframe, but the 1990
and '91 versions bring 2.x on to the screen) being shot from all sorts of
programs.  There's a neat demo of the GVP IV24 in the 1991 footage but it
doesn't really go much beyond using the card as a framebuffer, genlock, and
flickerfixer.

Obviously, the second half of the tape isn't going to be as engrossing as
the first.  The quality of the footage varies somewhat across the entire
tape--the Miner portion is well enough shot (Although a little dark) and
it's sometimes difficult to hear the questions being asked of Jay, although
his voice is clear.  It's a neat trip into the past.  There's no vitriol or
dirty jokes ala Deathbed Vigil, just one of the founding fathers of the
Amiga sounding off.  For US$15, I think it's a good buy.

MCCC
PO Box 813
Bedford, Texas 76095
Metroplex Computer Club

@endnode

@node CHARTS1 "Aminet Charts: 19-Oct-97"
@toc FTP

| The most downloaded files from Aminet during the week until 19-Oct-97
| Updated weekly. Most popular file on top.
|
|File              Dir        Size Age Description
|----------------- ---        ---- --- -----------
CamWatch10.lha     comm/tcp    34K   0+A program to watch web-based cameras
akJFIF43x.lha      util/dtype 226K   0+AkJFIF-dt V43.110 (JPEG, 68000-060)
akLJPG43x.lha      util/dtype 101K   0+AkLJPG-dt V43.110 (LJPG, 68000-060)
akPNG43x.lha       util/dtype 220K   0+AkPNG-dt V43.110 (PNG, 68000-060)
MetalWEB.lha       comm/www   344K   1+1.1 WYSIWYG html EDITOR! Frames supporte
akSVG43x.lha       util/dtype  86K   0+AkSVG-dt V43.110 (SVG, 68000-060)
AllocP.lha         util/boot    5K   0+AllocP - BetterAlloc (AllocMem/AllocVec 
BitmapShades.lha   util/misc    7K   0+Removes flickering stripes on A1200 high
danm_futureMUI.lha pix/icon   334K   0+MUI buttons and pat's, Oops! Prefsfile!
WebCam.lha         comm/tcp    42K   0+WWW Live Camera Viewer (ClassAct)
DT_MetaView.lha    util/dtype  63K   1+AMF,DR2D,DSDR,DXF,CGM,WMF,XFIG DataTypes
AllocP32.lha       util/boot    8K   0+AllocP32 - BetterAlloc (AllocMem patch f
amipet.lha         game/wb     54K   0+Amiga Pet V1.05b
ModePro4_35.lha    util/cdity 113K   1+Screenmode Promotion & Public Screen uti
WordConverter.lha  text/misc   55K   1+Converts Word 6,7,8 files to text, HTML 
rtgmaster_user.lha gfx/board  208K   0+Rtgmaster User Archive
amipet02.lha       game/wb      2K   0+AmiPet Sheep Graphics
BenchClock.lha     util/time   11K   0+BenchClock V1.55 - Real Digital Clock fo
amipet03.lha       game/wb      2K   0+AmiPet Spider Graphics
amipet01.lha       game/wb      4K   0+AmiPet Blob Graphics

| The highest rated programs during the week until 19-Oct-97
| Updated weekly. Best program on top. Please rate all the programs you
| download. To do so, send to aminet-server@wuarchive.wustl.edu :
| RATE <path> <num>
| where <path> is the file you want to judge and <num> is a mark from 0..10
| with 10 being the best. You can rate several programs in one mail, but
| don't rate your own programs. Example: RATE dev/gui/mui23usr.lha 8
|
|File              Dir        Size Age Description
|----------------- ---        ---- --- -----------
AlgoMusic2_2.lha   mus/misc   1.2M  14+Creates algor. techno tunes. Bugfixed!
AlgoMusic2_2u.lha  mus/misc   148K  14+Needs installed AlgoMusic V2.0+
Quine1_0.lha       misc/sci    11K  23+Quine McCluskey function resolver (MUI)
AmIRCMPEGA.lha     comm/tcp     2K  20+Mpega script for AmIRC
pirlaga-html.lha   docs/misc  129K  10+The PirlAGA Guide to HTML (italiano)
vbcc.lha           dev/c      1.0M  33+Free optimizing ANSI C compiler
Phonebill.lha      comm/misc    2K   2+Check the cost of your phone bill
fastuudecode.lha   comm/news    4K   2+Fast UUdecoder v1.0 (020+ Only)
phase6_06.lha      docs/mags  127K   1+Phase6 - German Disk-Mag issue #6
DeluxeGalaga_A.lha game/shoot 1.0M   6+Galaga clone with lots of extra features
DeluxeGalaga_E.lha game/shoot 857K   6+Galaga clone with lots of extra features
SinED.lha          mus/edit   221K  13+V1.15 the most powerful 16bit sample edi
ESCUtil.lha        text/print  37K   3+EPSON Stylus COLOR Series Utilitiy
mcx278.lha         util/cdity  65K   4+Multi Function Commodity
DiskMaster.lha     util/dir    86K   1+DiskMaster 2.3 and DM2.guide 1.58
VirusZ_II140.lha   util/virus 199K   2+VirusZ v1.40 by Georg Hoermann
DiskSafe.lha       disk/salv   45K   1+No longer non validated disks! 1.15
PhxLnk431.lha      dev/asm     60K   3+PhxLnk V4.31 Amiga DOS Linker
Crazy8.lha         game/misc  347K  30+Card game 1player vs computer music & so
Boum.lha           game/wb     17K  24+V1.1 MineSweeper/sound,Picasso96 support
HotMaps.lha        util/cdity   8K 155+Enables to use 2 keymaps in the same tim
NewIcons41.lha     util/wb    655K   1+The Ultimate GUI Enhancement System, V4!
MacSND-dtc.lha     util/dtype  19K  60+V1.9, Apple Macintosh "snd " sound resou
fmsdisk.lha        disk/misc    8K   3+Virtual floppy disk on Hard-disk.
CoolNESs.lha       misc/emu    22K   2+Cool-NES-emulator v0.45   97.09.29
NI-Backdrop_02.lha pix/nicon  362K 119+Backdrops for NewIcons Workbench
NI-Backdrop_03.lha pix/nicon  395K 119+Backdrops for NewIcons Workbench
NI-Backdrop_04.lha pix/nicon  298K 119+Backdrops for NewIcons Workbench
NI-Backdrop_05.lha pix/nicon  313K 119+Backdrops for NewIcons Workbench
@endnode
@node CHARTS2 "Aminet Charts: 26-Oct-97"
@toc FTP

| The most downloaded files from Aminet during the week until 26-Oct-97
| Updated weekly. Most popular file on top.
|
|File              Dir        Size Age Description
|----------------- ---        ---- --- -----------
VisualPrefs.lha    util/wb    245K   0+Configure the look of the Amiga GUI!
WebCam.lha         comm/tcp    42K   1+WWW Live Camera Viewer (ClassAct)
StreamLineOS2.lha  util/boot   22K   0+Dynamic System SpeedUp Patch.
PC-TaskDemo43.lha  misc/emu   261K   1+PC-Task 4.3 80486 PC Emulator using Dyna
IB2Mozilla.lha     comm/www     4K   0+Patch to make IBrowse pretend it`s Netsc
WordConverter.lha  text/misc   57K   0+Converts Word 6,7,8 files to text, HTML 
CamWatch10.lha     comm/tcp    34K   1+A program to watch web-based cameras
PC-TaskPatch43.lha misc/emu   301K   1+PC-Task 4.3 Patch.  Updates 4.2 to 4.3
AWeb.lha           biz/demo   415K   0+V 3.0bDEMO of this fast WWW browser
WinSoundv1.4.lha   util/cdity  34K   0+Workbench Sound Commodity v1.4
amipet.lha         game/wb     58K   0+Amiga Pet V1.10b Fixed!
i-timer.lha        util/time   21K   0+On-line clock, measures your online time
ExtenMgr2.0.lha    util/wb     52K   0+Macintosh style Extensions Manager V2.0
amipet02.lha       game/wb      2K   0+AmiPet Sheep Graphics
adosguide.lha      docs/help  258K   0+Detailed AmigaDOS Ref Guide. V2.0
amipet03.lha       game/wb      2K   0+AmiPet Spider Graphics
amipet01.lha       game/wb      5K   0+AmiPet Blob Graphics
NI4OpusT.lha       biz/dopus  229K   0+Toolbar NewIcons v1.03
dt_metaview.lha    util/dtype   6K  26+AMF,DR2D,DXF,WMF,XFIG DataTypes for Meta
mpgagui30.lha      mus/play    85K   1+THE real Gui for MpegA V3.0 and up

| The highest rated programs during the week until 26-Oct-97
| Updated weekly. Best program on top. Please rate all the programs you
| download. To do so, send to aminet-server@wuarchive.wustl.edu :
| RATE <path> <num>
| where <path> is the file you want to judge and <num> is a mark from 0..10
| with 10 being the best. You can rate several programs in one mail, but
| don't rate your own programs. Example: RATE dev/gui/mui23usr.lha 8
|
|File              Dir        Size Age Description
|----------------- ---        ---- --- -----------
AlgoMusic2_2.lha   mus/misc   1.2M  15+Creates algor. techno tunes. Bugfixed!
AlgoMusic2_2u.lha  mus/misc   148K  15+Needs installed AlgoMusic V2.0+
Quine1_0.lha       misc/sci    11K  24+Quine McCluskey function resolver (MUI)
pirlaga-html.lha   docs/misc  129K  11+The PirlAGA Guide to HTML (italiano)
Phonebill.lha      comm/misc    2K   3+Check the cost of your phone bill
fastuudecode.lha   comm/news    4K   3+Fast UUdecoder v1.0 (020+ Only)
pint.lha           comm/ums   205K  22+*THE* Reader for UMS, v2.1 (MUI)
BookCon.lha        comm/www    39K   1+Bookmark/Hotlist converter with GUI
phase6_06.lha      docs/mags  127K   2+Phase6 - German Disk-Mag issue #6
Geenie_148.lha     game/jump  239K  11+Geenie v1.48 by Backyard Brothers
DiamondCavesII.lha game/misc  436K   1+Emerald Mine - the next generation v1.0
SinED.lha          mus/edit   224K   0+V1.17 16-bit sample editor/generator
ESCUtil.lha        text/print  37K   4+EPSON Stylus COLOR Series Utilitiy
DiskMaster.lha     util/dir    86K   2+DiskMaster 2.3 and DM2.guide 1.58
VirusZ_II140.lha   util/virus 199K   3+VirusZ v1.40 by Georg Hoermann
DiskSafe.lha       disk/salv   45K   2+No longer non validated disks! 1.15
IFX.lha            util/cdity  76K   1+(V2.30) Sound FX for Windows/Screens/Mor
PhxLnk431.lha      dev/asm     60K   4+PhxLnk V4.31 Amiga DOS Linker
ar508-HTML.lha     docs/mags  225K   1+Amiga Report 5.08 in HTML
Delarith.lha       game/jump  236K   4+Delarith by Backyard Brothers
NSX_190U.lha       game/misc  344K  16+Nibbler Super eXtra v1.90 by BackBros
Crazy8.lha         game/misc  347K  31+Card game 1player vs computer music & so
NewIcons41.lha     util/wb    655K   2+The Ultimate GUI Enhancement System, V4!
MacSND-dtc.lha     util/dtype  19K  61+V1.9, Apple Macintosh "snd " sound resou
fmsdisk.lha        disk/misc    8K   4+Virtual floppy disk on Hard-disk.
TextView116.lha    text/show   57K   6+Textviewer for PP,XPK,AGuide,HTML,Pipes.
AnyMEM_v1.lha      util/misc    3K   3+Patch to re-direct fastmem allocation to
xpk_Develop.lha    util/pack   92K   4+V4.16 Compression package, developer cut
Alloc32P.lha       util/sys     8K   2+Alloc32P - AllocMem/AllocVec patch V2.0
@endnode

@node MAILLIST "Amiga Report Mailing List"
@toc WHERE

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

If you have an internet mailing address, you can receive Amiga Report in
@{"UUENCODED" link UUENCODE} form each week as soon as the issue is released.  To be put on
the list, send Email to majordomo@ninemoons.com

Your subject header will be ignored.  In the body of the message, enter

subscribe areport

The system will automatically pull your e-mail address from the message
header.

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


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

Fred Fish and Cronus have come through for Amiga Report again!

Effective immediately, a new mailing list for Amiga Report readers is
available.  The list will be used for general announcements about the
magazine--usually, to inform readers that a new issue of the magazine is
now available and online for viewing and downloading, for those who prefer
to browse online or FTP from Aminet rather than receive AR in their
mailbox.

To subscribe to this list, send e-mail to majordomo@ninemoons.com and in
the body of the message, place the text:

subscribe areport-announce

You will be added to the list.

Amiga Report will be distributed in HTML archives on the current, main
mailing list.  If you wish to continue receiving AR in this form, do
nothing.  If you are not presently on the list and want the HTML archives
sent to you, send to the above address but place

subscribe areport

in the body.

Similarly, if you wish to stop receiving Amiga Report in the mail, send

unsubscribe areport

to the above address.

So, for example, if you are presently an Amiga Report subscriber but wish
only to be told when AR is available so you can view it on your favorite AR
mirror, you would want to send

subscribe areport-announce
unsubscribe areport

to majordomo@ninemoons.com.

@endnode
@node UUENCODE
@toc MAILLIST

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

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


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

     pub/aminet/arc/

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

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

     uuxt x ar.uu

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

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

@endnode
@node AMINET "Aminet"
@toc WHERE

                                  Aminet
                                  ======

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

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

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

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

AR is also available on the WWW!  Some of the mirror sites include a mail
form, allowing you to mail to Amiga Report from the web site and some also
include a search engine allowing you to search recent issues for specific
topics and keywords (if your browser has forms capability).  Simply tell
your browser to open one of the following URLs (pick a location nearest you
for the best performance):

Australia
     http://ArtWorks.apana.org.au/AmigaReport.html
     http://www.deepwoods.saccii.net.au/ar/menu.html
     http://www.livewire.com.au/cucug/ar/ar.html (w/search and mail) 
     http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/~pec/amiga.html

Germany
     http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/amiga/ar/

Greece
     http://www.acropolis.net/clubs/amiga/amigareport/

Hungary
     http://mm.iit.uni-miskolc.hu/Data/AR

Italy
     http://www.vol.it/mirror/amiga/ar/ar.html

Poland
     http://www.pwr.wroc.pl/AMIGA/AR/

Sweden
     http://www.lysator.liu.se/amiga/ar/

United Kingdom
     http://ppewww.ph.gla.ac.uk/~gowdy/Amiga/AmigaReport/
     http://www.iprom.com/amigaweb/amiga.html/ar/ar.html (w/search and mail) 
     http://www.sussex.ac.uk/Users/kcci1

USA
     http://www.cucug.org/ar/ar.html (w/search and mail)
     http://www.omnipresence.com/Amiga/News/AR/

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

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

===========================================================================
                Amiga Report International Online Magazine
                 November 17, 1997        Issue No. 5.09
                       Copyright 1997 FS Publications
                             All Rights Reserved
===========================================================================

Views, Opinions and Articles presented herein are not necessarily those of
the editors and staff of Amiga Report International Online Magazine or of
FS Publications.  Permission to reprint articles is hereby denied, unless
otherwise noted.  All reprint requests should be directed to the editor. 
Amiga Report and/or portions therein may not be edited in any way without
prior written permission.  However, translation into a language other than
English is acceptible, provided the editor is notified beforehand and the
original meaning is not altered.  Amiga Report may be distributed on
privately owned not-for-profit bulletin board systems (fees to cover cost
of operation are acceptable), and major online services such as (but not
limited to) Delphi and Amiga Zone.  Distribution on public domain disks is
acceptable provided proceeds are only to cover the cost of the disk (e.g. 
no more than $5 US).  CD-ROM compilers should contact the editor.  
Distribution on for-profit magazine cover disks requires written permission
from the editor.  Amiga Report is a not-for-profit publication.  Amiga
Report, at the time of publication, is believed reasonably accurate.  Amiga
Report, its staff and contributors are not and cannot be held responsible
for the use or misuse of information contained herein or the results
obtained there from.  Amiga Report is not affiliated with Gateway 2000.
All items quoted in whole or in part are done so under the Fair Use
Provision of the Copyright Laws of the United States Penal Code.  Any
Electronic Mail sent to the editors may be reprinted, in whole or in part,
without any previous permission of the author, unless said electronic mail
is specifically requested not to be reprinted.

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

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

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

     1.  Please use English.

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

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

     4.  Please send us your article in ASCII format.

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

Please stipulate as well if you wish to retain copyright or hand it over to
the editor.
@endnode
@node ZONE "CalWeb"
@toc ONLINE

===========================================================================
                    CalWeb: The Home of the Amiga Zone!
===========================================================================

AMIGA ZONE MOVES TO CALWEB!

THE AMIGA ZONE MOVES FROM PORTAL TO CALWEB INTERNET SERVICES

For over ten years the Amiga Zone has been an online resource, home,
community, oasis, for Amiga owners.

For over ten years I've made my living running the Zone and supporting Amiga
users all over the USA, Canada, and the world.

Five years ago when American People/Link pulled their own plug, we had to
find the Zone a new home and we found a good one on the Portal Online
System. 

Well, it's happened again.. Portal has informed all of its customers that
its ten year history as an online service and Internet provider is coming to
an end on Sept. 30, 1996.  This is very sad, it's short-notice, and the
decision is completely out of my control, but it's also irreversible.  

Portal is changing its entire business plan from being an ISP to selling an
accounting system to other online services.  

So be it. It's sad, but like I said, the Zone went through this before and
now we'll go through it again, and come out the other side better and wiser.

THE AMIGA ZONE IS MOVING TO CALWEB INTERNET SERVICES.

CalWeb (http://www.calweb.com) is a two year old Internet provider located
in Sacramento, CA.  It has a good sized customer base, and very
knowledgeable support staff. 

It's also run by a long time Amiga owner who has been a friend of mine for
many years.

The world of modeming has changed much in the last ten years.  In 1985 you
had very few choices and you had 1200 baud.  These days, everyone and his
dog has an ISP running and a web page

But the vast majority of those providers don't know an Amiga from a hole in
the ground, and could care less about Amiga owners.  Say "AWeb" or
"IBrowse" to them and they'll say "Omega?  Amoeba?  What?  Huh?  They still
make those things?"

CalWeb is different because it's the new home of the Amiga Zone.

In October 1996, a new custom front-end menued system will be added to
CalWeb to host the Zone.  It'll have features for Zone users that neither
Plink nor Portal ever had nor were they willing to add.

The tradition of a friendly online Amiga community, run by long time Amiga
owners, users and lovers will continue. 

Message bases, huge file libraries (we plan to move over the 20,000+ files
we have on the Zone on Portal to CalWeb, MANY of which you'll never see on
Aminet or anywhere else), live nightly chats, vendor support and our famous
prize contests will continue.

We've given away tens of thousands of dollars worth of Amiga prizes in the
last ten years.  No one else even comes close. 

I urge any and all of you who were on Plink, or who are now on Portal or
who may have left Portal..  or even if you were never on either but used or
still use another online service to join CalWeb for the Amiga Zone.  I
personally promise you the best online Amiga community we can possibly
build.  You will not be disappointed.


CalWeb has arranged a special signup offer for you!

Call:
 1-800-509-9322
  or
 1-916-641-9320
  or telnet to calweb.com, login as "guest", and follow the prompts. 

You can join CalWeb for US$19.95 flat, a month.

CalWeb takes major credit cards or you can establish a monthly invoiced
account if you don't have plastic.

The signup is FREE.

To get this deal you must say "THE AMIGA ZONE SENT ME" when you call or
signup online. 

I hope to see lots of you join CalWeb.  You can telnet into it from
anywhere for no hourly charges at all.  Your $19.95/mo fee covers
everything and also gets you ten meg of storage which includes hosting your
own personal web page.  Naturally, when the Zone opens there, you'll have
unlimited use of all of its features and areas.  Never a "money meter"
clock to worry about.

Your personal or business CalWeb Web pages are maintained by you via FTP. 
It's pretty slick.  You can make a net connection to the server with any
Amiga FTP client, put your files onto it, the permissions are automatically
set (no "chmod-ing" required!) and flip to your running browser and see the
changes instantly.

The Amiga Zone's new home is already up at:

         http://www.amigazone.com

running on CalWeb's server.  Ckeck it out!

Please feel free to write to me at harv@amigazone.com or harv@cup.portal.com
if you want more information.

Remember to say "THE AMIGA ZONE SENT ME!" when you join.

A splendid time is guaranteed for all.  

Please plan to join us in the Amiga Zone on CalWeb!

@endnode
@node OPINION "Editorial and Opinion"
@toc MENU

===========================================================================
                           Editorial and Opinion
===========================================================================

@{"   compt.sys.editor.desk   " link EDITORIAL}  Conflicts and adversity

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode
@node NEWS "News & Press Releases"
@toc MENU

===========================================================================
                           News & Press Releases
===========================================================================

@{"  Amiga Report Distribution   " link NEWS33}  Changes in distribution methods

@{"           IPISA '97          " link NEWS26}  The latest international conference

@{"   Vulcan Upcoming Releases   " link NEWS1}  Vulcan Software announces their latest games

@{"  AWeb-II 3.0b Patch Released " link NEWS2}  AmiTrix makes an update available

@{"  Honorable Mention Hits 500  " link NEWS3}  Positive Amiga media coverage database

@{"   Asimware New Contact Info  " link NEWS4}  New phone/fax numbers for CD pioneers

@{"     PC-Task 4.3 Released     " link NEWS14}  Latest version supports Win95

@{"   Cloanto's Amiga Forever    " link NEWS24}  The official Amiga emulation package

@{"  Amiga Forever Preview Ships " link NEWS5}  Prerelease of Cloanto's Amiga emulation pack

@{"  Amiga User Group Net Formed " link NEWS6}  Info-sharing system for Amiga user groups

@{" dignet.library Final release " link NEWS7}  Last release of the serial dev toolkit

@{"       MoveToMirror 2.5       " link NEWS8}  Helps personal Aminet mirrors

@{"         CallMan 1.2          " link NEWS9}  Address book and logfile analyzer

@{"  Geek Gadgets CVS Info Pack  " link NEWS10}  Information on a Fred Fish project

@{"    AmigaZone CD Giveaway     " link NEWS11}  Free CD to new members

@{"       IconDeluxe News        " link NEWS12}  Full version and source available

@{"   SubTitler V2.02 Released   " link NEWS13}  Amiga subtitling shareware program

@{"          tcpdl 2.3           " link NEWS15}  Download from an http host

@{"         Fiasco 2.1           " link NEWS16}  Multi-structure database program

@{"      AIFF2Studio16 1.1       " link NEWS17}  Converts AIFF audio to Studio16's format

@{"      CAAUG Goes Online       " link NEWS18}  Cleveland user group web page online

@{"        Amiga E 3.3a          " link NEWS19}  New version of uniquely Amiga language

@{"       MidiTracker 1.2        " link NEWS20}  Modtracker-inspired MIDI composition

@{" Amiga RC5 Team Goes At RC5-64" link NEWS21}  The next challenge lies ahead

@{"  Studio 16 File Format Docs  " link NEWS22}  Developer information for Studio16

@{"      MECCA BBS CD-Rom        " link NEWS23}  Local BBS' extensive collection captured

@{" GameSmith Development System " link NEWS25}  New distribution arrangements

@{"   Schatztruhe Competition    " link NEWS27}  Win a PowerUP board

@{" Amiga University Sweepstakes " link NEWS28}  ...and some other stuff!

@{"   ClickBOOM Amiga Web Ring   " link NEWS29}  Just what it says.

@{"         Tiger's Bane         " link NEWS30}  New shareware game title

@{"       REBOL/Core Alpha       " link NEWS31}  Impending release.

@{"    Wildfire PPC Routines     " link NEWS32}  Another PowerUP-supporting program

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

===========================================================================
                             Featured Articles
===========================================================================

@{"  Amiga Report Top 100 Games  " link FEATURE1}  A survey of our readers' favorites

@{"        Pianeta Amiga         " link FEATURE2}  Report from Italy

@{"  Midwest Amiga Expo Report   " link FEATURE3}  Report from Ohio

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

===========================================================================
                                  Reviews
===========================================================================

@{"  Emulation Rambler  " link REVIEW1}  Mac games and more!

@{" LS-120 Floppy Drive " link REVIEW2}  The new "super-floppy" revealed

@{"      AlgoMusic      " link REVIEW3}  Endless dance music

@{"  Jay Miner Memorial " link REVIEW4}  A video record


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

===========================================================================
                               Aminet Charts
===========================================================================

                             @{" 19-Oct-97 " link CHARTS1}

                             @{" 26-Oct-97 " link CHARTS2}

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode
@node ABOUT "About AMIGA REPORT"
@toc MENU

===========================================================================
                            About AMIGA REPORT
===========================================================================

@{"        AR Staff         " link STAFF} The Editors and writers

@{"   Writing Guidelines    " link GUIDELINE} What you need to do to write for us

@{"  Copyright Information  " link COPYRIGHT} The legal stuff

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode
@node STAFF "The Staff"
@toc ABOUT

===========================================================================
                                 The Staff
===========================================================================

               Editor:               @{" Jason Compton    " link JASON}

               Assistant Editor:     @{" Katherine Nelson " link KATIE}

               Games Editor:         @{" Ken Anderson     " link KEN}

               Contributing Editor:  @{" William Near     " link WILLIAM}

               Contributing Editor:  @{" Bohus Blahut     " link BOHUS}

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode
@node WHERE "Where to Get AR"
@toc MENU

===========================================================================
                              Where to Get AR
===========================================================================

                         @{"   The AR Mailing List   " link MAILLIST}

                         @{"         Aminet          " link AMINET}

                         @{"     World Wide Web      " link WWW}

                         @{"   Distribution Sites    " link BBS}

                         @{"   Commercial Services   " link ZONE}

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode
@node BBS "Distribution Sites"
@toc WHERE

===========================================================================
                            Distribution BBSes
===========================================================================

Distribution BBSes do not appear in the AmigaGuide version of this issue of
Amiga Report.

Sysops: To have your name added, please send @{"Email", link JASON} with the BBS name,
its location (Country, province/state) your name, any internet/fidonet
addresses, and the phone number of your BBS

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode
@node DEALER "Dealer Directory"
@toc MENU

===========================================================================
                             Dealer Directory
===========================================================================

The Dealer Directory does not appear in the AmigaGuide version of this
issue of Amiga Report.

Dealers: To have your name added, please send @{"Email", link JASON} with the BBS name,
its location (Country, province/state) your name, any internet/fidonet
addresses, and the phone number of your dealership

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
@{"   News   " link NEWS} @{"  Opinion  " link OPINION} @{" Articles " link FEATURE} @{"  Reviews  " link REVIEW} @{"  Charts  " link FTP} @{"  Adverts  " link COMMERCIAL}
@endnode
