====================================================================== ________ _________ ____ _|__ __ __|_______ _________ __\ _____ \\\\ \_ _/ //___// _____//______\ _____ \\ // \\\\ /. \\\\__ \/ __// \\ \\____. /// \\\\ /. \\ \\___\¯ /___///___\ /___\ \\_________//\\___\¯ /___// ¯ \/ ¯ ¯ \/. |¯ ¯|z!o ¯ ¯ \/ ¯ A M I G A | 040930 | U P D A T E |________| "SO THE WORLD MAY KNOW" ====================================================================== AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- N O V A D E S I G N S E L L S M I L L E N N I U M C D T V R E G I S T R A T I O N A N N O U N C E D T V C A R D D R I V E R S F R O M E L B O X C O D E R N E E D E D - A R E Y O U T H E O N E ? D I R O P U S D E V E L O P M E N T S T O P S X B A Z E D A T A B A S E E N D S B E T A W I R E L E S S D R I V E R A V A I L A B L E O S 4 V C D G E A R I S A V A I L A B L E I M P R O V E D A M I B L I T Z 2 D I S T R I B U T I O N M E T A L W A R R I O R A M I G A V 1 . 1 Editor's Thoughts and Introduction: Don't know about you, but I would sure like to hear something - anything - from the folks at KMOS. The silence is deafening, to quote an old saying. In the meantime, the community certainly hasn't been silent. We have a number of interesting items this month. Unfortunately, a couple of them have to do with long time Amiga community stalwarts ending their efforts. You can read all about them below. Along similar lines, there seems to be a gradual die-off among the Aminet sites. The main US site seems to be gone, due apparently to disk failure, and may not be revived. Mirrors seem to have vanished as well. We'll try to keep an eye on this through October and perhaps we'll have better news on this topic next month. There have been some Amiga parties and smaller Amiga shows in the recent past. Unfortunately we haven't gotten notification of most to let you know in advance. Please - if you have an Amiga event coming up, let us know in time to help you get the word out! Keep in mind we generally publish at the end of each month at present. If you get the information on an upcoming event to us even on the last day of the month before the one in which the event happens, we can include it in AU. We're happy to help. Brad Webb, Editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E-mail to the E-ditor: 1 September, 2004 I'm somebody who finally sold his last Amiga a couple of years ago -- I was a long holdout, but eventually too frusturated by the ongoing stagnataion of Amiga, and the continual hot-potato status of the Amiga system. (I think it was after Gateway tossed the hot potato on that I finally decided Amiga would never go anywhere any time soon enough to really make a difference.) Where I've gone is Linux. Linux captures a lot of what I had liked about the Amiga. It's not Microsoft, and it's got a community of people who use it who use it because they love it, not because "it's what everybody uses." Also, the ethics and adherence to freedom of the Free Software community is something I find very attractive. Given that: I was rather taken aback by your editorial which, right after admitting that the "problems" Munich and others raise regarding open source software come from any company being ready to sue at any time, suggest that the solution may be just to cave to the ignorant forces out there trying to stop people from using free software. That the solution is another proprietary system. And, as somebody who used to love the Amiga, but finally regretfully gave up on it after the ownership of it was in question for so long, it was rather... odd to see you suggest that "no ownership questions" is one of the strengths of the proprietary Amiga operating system. {Edited for space reasons.} -Rob ~~~~~~ Rob, The ownership of Amiga OS has never been in question. It belonged to whoever owned the Amiga intelectual property. That's bounced around a great amount, but there have been no meaningful legal issues surrounding the ownership. The problem has been the changes in ownership and the capabilities (or lack of capabilities) of the owners to do something - anything - with Amiga OS. The problem was not that users had to worry about ownership issues resulting in licensing problems, as it is with Linux. It doesn't matter if the people trying to keep computer users from using Linux are ignorant or not. The legal situation exists, regardless of whether it should. I personally am not impressed by their fear campaign. If I ever leave the Amiga camp, Linux is where I'm going. However, many companies have to be more cautious than individual users, and the Amiga OS as an alternative would be a good one because of the lack of legal issues. There have even been some comments already on websites along the lines of "a second alternative to Windows would be a good thing" in response to the work on Amiga OS 4.0. Meanwhile, there have been many groups which planned to leave Windows for Linux which have reconsidered their plans due to the unsettled legal climate of open source software in general and Linux in particular. Regards, Brad =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= N O V A D E S I G N S E L L S M I L L E N N I U M 4 September 2004 Chicago, Illinois & Richmond, VA - August 31st, 2004 -- Visual FX company DiscreetFX LLC Inc., acquired all remaining stock and all rights to the Amiga Video Toaster Flyer software package Millennium held by Nova Design, Inc. "Earlier this year the CEO of DiscreetFX approached us about buying out Millennium and I am now happy to report we have reached an agreement and completed this.", stated Kermit Woodall; Nova Design CEO. DiscreetFX has purchased all remaining copies of this great add-on software toolset for the Amiga Video Toaster Flyer. DiscreetFX CEO Bill Panagouleas stated, "Millennium represents a good fit for the direction my company is going. DiscreetFX has some interesting plans for Millennium that will be made public very soon." If you are not aware of the many powerful features that Millennium gives your Amiga Toaster/Flyer, DiscreetFX will shortly be making available a video that demonstrates its features for only the cost of shipping. DiscreetFX also welcomes feedback and suggestions from the Millennium community, and we want your feature requests and suggestions on the direction you would like to see this software package go in the future. For more information about Millennium please access the following web link. http://www.novadesign.com/exoops/modules/freecontent/index.php?id=12 About DiscreetFX DiscreetFX has been creating software products for the Amiga, video editing, computer generated graphics (CGI) industry since 1995. The Amiga computer defined and created the video editing, computer graphics market with its birth in 1985. DiscreetFX creates Real-time transitions and effects seen on over 100 television programs including Blind Date, 5th Wheel, Shipmates and more! You can also see DiscreetFX software used on the following networks HBO, Showtime, Discovery Channel, PBS, Fox and many more! About Nova Design Nova Design, Inc. is an award-winning software company that has been creating graphics software for over a decade. It's product line includes ImageFX and Aladdin 4D for the Amiga, and Cinematte for Windows/Macintosh. It's products have been used by companies big and small. It's products have been used in major television science fiction series on the SciFi Channel and in syndication, major Hollywood films, and plenty of non-major films! See us on the internet at www.novadesign.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- C D T V R E G I S T R A T I O N A N N O U N C E D 21 September, 2004 13 years after the CDTV/CD-1000's (Commodore Dynamic Total Vision) market launch, this Amiga computer still stands the test of time. Back then Commodore was far ahead of its time with the idea behind the CDTV, which is something we can benefit from even today in the year 2004, as the CDTV is used in many homes as a CD-player next to a DVD-player or similar devices. In case playing back AudioCDs isn't enough for you, the CDTV can be expanded with the MAS-Player Pro to play the wide-spread MP3-format. But the CDTV is capable of more than just playing back AudioCDs and MP3 tracks, with corresponding hardware better graphics, MPEG-decoding for (S)VCD movies, more memory and an ethernetport could be possible, and all of this could be realised on a circuit board for the CDTVs expansion slot. One should not forget what application area Commodore intended the CDTV to be used for: entertainment, presentation, encyclopedia and education. Unfortunately, no new hardware expansion has been developed for the CDTV in quite a while. On the one hand, a lot of hardware companies turned away from the Amiga computer and on the other hand, it's hard to estimate how many people still actively use their CDTV. For this very reason, the CD32-Allianz decided to introduce a "CDTV registration" on our homepage to perhaps one day realise something in terms of hardware expansions. It's worth a try by all means! Thus the favour I want to ask you, please support us, because we will only be able to move something and be strong as a "union"! You can reach the CDTV registration via the following link: http://cd32.emubase.de/?page=hardware/cdtv On a side note we'd like to mention that our homepage can now be viewed at a screen resolution of 800x600 as well. We will add a lot of updates in the near future, that's why we'd like to invite you to visit us from time to time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- T V C A R D D R I V E R S F R O M E L B O X 14 September, 2004 Elbox Computer is pleased to have completed development of drivers for a series of new TV card models, these drivers being released today. See the Mediator Driver Guide for the current list of PCI TV cards supported in MEDIATOR busboards. The MM CD 1.26 update is free for all registered Mediator Multimedia CD users. Additionally, the new tv.library ver. 4.0 has added Stereo-NICAM TV sound processing for TV cards fitted with a single-chip Digital TV Sound Demodulator-Decoder TDA9874A by Philips. The new library has added processing of the new Front End by YMEC: TVision 5V TVF-8533B/DF. These Front Ends are installed in the latest Prolink TV cards, e.g. in the now-supported PixelView PlayTV Pro MPEG (model M4800). New Front Ends are much more sensitive than those fitted in older TV card models. Quality of the broadcast is now excellent, even when the antenna signal is relatively weak. The new library has added processing of the new radio sets installed in the latest TV cards. These are single-chip, digitally tuned FM stereo radio sets TEA5767 by Philips. To ensure handling new radio sets, the API of tv.library was expanded. The current developer's documentation (ver. 4.0) is available from the Mediator Multimedia CD 1.26. The new tv.library is compatible backwards with all the previous tv.library functions maintained. As a result, the current versions of TV card control GUI--like TvR and SuperTV--work with the new tv.library without any modifications. The MM CD 1.26 update includes also the new driver for Fast Ethernet 10/100Mbps cards. The FastEthernet.device ver. 1.15 driver has been reworked for AmigaOS4 compatibility. Take advantage of MEDIATOR! Info on the current versions is available in the DOWNLOADS | Mediator section. The current list of supported PCI cards is available in the Mediator Driver Guide. The info about Mediator-related sources you will find in the COMMUNITY section. http://elbox.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- C O D E R N E E D E D - A R E Y O U T H E O N E ? 29 September 2004 Intermediware is currently searching for Amiga Coder who want to port their game Psychoballs (Information at: www.intermediaware.de/lan=english) to Amiga 68k/OS4 and/or MOS. He will get support from the original developers with Source, Graphics and SFX/Musicfiles. The game is a clone of the classic Amiga game Logical from Rainbow Arts. Please contact us at amigadev@intermediaware.de. A short overview about your knowledge would be nice. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- D I R O P U S D E V E L O P M E N T S T O P S 8 September, 2004 The following statement by Jacek Rzeuski was made concerning Directory Opus 4: "The development is on hold and I have no idea when I'll resume it. The GUI changes towards BOOPSI are only partially completed and I stuck on handling RMB on bankbuttons. Intuition doesn't pass RMB clicks to BOOPSI gadgets so I have to find a way to emulate it and notify gadgets manually. "If someone needs an updated version for AOS4 or even a native AOS4 version then feel free to get sources from the CVS at sourceforge.net then modify and compile them. The BOOPSI changes are not committed to the CVS so the sourcetree should compile and work." "If you'd like to have a go at compiling (or even improving) Directory Opus, it might be a good idea to subscribe to our mailing list, as at least one or two people are already trying to compile the CVS source tree. Note that the CVS only contains the sources for Pre19, the sources for Pre20 and Pre21 are lost..." http://dopus.free.fr/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- X B A Z E D A T A B A S E E N D S 4 September, 2004 XBaze 7.3 is the last version. Development of XBaze is closed. Requirements: OS: AmigaOS 3.0 or later. Status: Cardware XBaze is very flexible database with very easy fields and layout editor (you can delete, add or move field at any moment). This program uses dynamic memory management, which means that number of records and fields depends on amount of free me mory. FEATURES: easy to use GUI (font sensitivity, shortcuts, tooltypes, appwindow, appicon, iconification, full localization, popup menus) six kinds of fields handle URL addresses using openurl.library use system clipboard full configurable fields drag&drop layout editor view and definition of fields can be modify at any moment many kinds of fields for every project localized sorting of records flexible sort and search option pattern or another operator can be used for searching record configurable printing option Save/load files in ASCII format (CSV and TSV) ARexx port (over 80 commands) statistics option http://members.lycos.co.uk/xbaze ---------------------------------------------------------------------- B E T A W I R E L E S S D R I V E R A V A I L A B L E 19 September, 2004 {Ordinarily Amiga Update avoids annoucements of beta products as most fizzle before they ever are completed. We do make exceptions for items of unusual or specially significant interest and therefore present the following small item. Brad} A beta version of a new wireless network driver is available for download. It supports PCMCIA cards in the A1200/A600 and PCI cards on the AmigaOne. For potential compatibility information, see Absolute Value System's directory of wireless chipsets. If a card's chipset is listed there as Orinoco, Agere or Prism (except the SSF version) and its bus type is PCMCIA or PCI, it is likely to wor k. If the card is listed there but doesn't match these requirements, it will definitely not work. Download here http://www.cs.ucc.ie/~caffer/amiga/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- O S 4 V C D G E A R I S A V A I L A B L E 9 September, 2004 The VCDGear website now has a native AmigaOS4 port of the latest VCDGear console version 1.76 ready for download. VCDGear is a program designed to allow a user to extract MPEG streams from CD images, convert VCD files to MPEG, correct MPEG errors, and more -- all in a single step. Initially developed back in late 1997, the program has grown to do various extractions, conversions, and corrections on the fly. Cross-platform support will allow different machines to process and generate output that is compatible between one another. http://www.vcdgear.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I M P R O V E D A M I B L I T Z 2 D I S T R I B U T I O N 6 September, 2004 An improved AmiBlitz2 distribution is now available for download. Because of the large number of changes made, and their increased size, an update archive for installing over an earlier distribution doesn't make sense anymore. Update archives will however be available with the next version. Unfortunately, many things were missing in the last distribution. Thanks to Marco Möring aka Blackbird without whom the bugs and incompleteness of that distribution would probably never have been noticed. Next to Marco my thanks go to his wife Margit Möring. Together we three translated further guides into German. Thanks go of course to Bernd Rösch and Thilo Köhler who worked without a break on the future of AmiBlitz2. Changes: Much improved install/deinstall scripts. After the installation are all settings immediately available. After the deinstallation is the archive in its original condition and can be installed again in the particular version. New Ped.prefs for the NEWCOLORMODE. Important: works only in screenmodes with 8/16 colours. More German translation of AcidGuides. Two versions of all (English/German). Further includes by Thilo Köhler. New Usermacro.guide. Many errors removed. Contains now many missing components, e.g. MUI2.res. For more information, visit the official Website. (German Language only atm - Translation tools needed for other languages) http://www.amiforce.de/amiblitz/ab2.42-distri.lha ---------------------------------------------------------------------- M E T A L W A R R I O R A M I G A V 1 . 1 23 September, 2004 Metal Warrior Amiga V1.1 Originally written in 1993, improved and released in 2004 Compatibility: Kickstart 1.2+, 512KB minimum memory Programming, graphics, music and sound effects by Lasse Öörni Thanks to Xeron for OS-compatibility hints Like its C64 counterpart, the game is set in the violent future. Ian, the hessian Avenger, sets out to exact revenge on those who attacked his band, and to uncover any larger conspiracies... A multidirectionally scrolling action adventure. Released finally over 10 years after original completion, with some modifications (improved OS-compatibility, partially rewritten text, dead-end situations removed). Still, it's quite a weird and immature game so play at your own risk! Homepage Link: http://www.student.oulu.fi/~loorni/covert/games.htm (scroll down) Direct Link to the game: http://www.student.oulu.fi/~loorni/covert/games/mwamiga.zip Direct Link to the sourcecode: http://www.student.oulu.fi/~loorni/covert/games/mwasrc.zip =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Amiga Update on the net: All back issues available at: http://www.globaldialog.com/~amigaupdate/index.html Stop by and check out our archive! Now in our 11th year. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2004 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified. ====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ A M I G A /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ A M I G A U P D A T E /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ U P D A T E / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ amigaupdate@globaldialog.com ======================================================================