====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || A M I G A U P D A T E /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || -News and Rumors- / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_|| (An Occasional Newsletter) BACK FOR THE FUTURE || ====================================================================== AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Gateway 2000, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 970917 F I R S T A M I G A I N C . D E V C O N I C O A O F F I C I A L D E V E L O P E R S U P P O R T A M I G A S K E E P T H E T R A I N S R U N N I N G P A R T S F R O M T H E S O U R C E A M I E X P O R E V I V E D C R A C K T H E C O D E A N D S U P P O R T A M I G A D I C E F O R F R E E A M I B E N C H A N N O U N C E D D I R E C T O R Y O P U S U P G R A D E S P M P R O I S T O U T E D S O O N F R O M V U L C A N D A N N E W S - F O R N E W S , O F C O U R S E M A D E O N A M I G A S I T E SPECIAL SPECIAL SPECIAL SPECIAL SPECIAL SPECIAL SPECIAL SPECIAL T H E H I S T O R Y O F T H E A M I G A Part one Editor's Thoughts and Introduction: Much has happened in the couple of weeks since we've send an issue your way. We've learned more about Gateway 2000's second Amiga subsidiary, Amiga Incorporated. To be located in its own building apparently near the rest of Gateway in South Dakota, it is already concentrating on development for the Amiga's future. Amiga International in Germany remains active in sales and licensing. Launched without any noise at all, Amiga Incorporated seems to us to be a strong signal of Gateway's commitment. We have information on their efforts to start a dialogue with developers this time. We have other stories to pique your interest as well - everything from a special report by Paul Morabito in Australia to a somewhat biased but enthusiastic report on PMPro by the folks responsible for that product. All in all, a lucky 13 articles this time, plus a very special treat. I've seen many histories of the Amiga, some good, some not so good. We recently came across the best so far in my opinion. Written by Philip S. Moore, this article originally appeared in "Computer Bits" magazine. We run it here with the kind permission of the author. The story is told in a "flashback" format - a piece of current history, then some from the past. When all is said, it's an excellent overview. We'll be running it in serial form, the number of installments depending on how many other items we have for each issue. We're sure you'll enjoy it as much as we did. Brad Webb, Editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- F I R S T A M I G A I N C . D E V C O N Gatway 2000's South Dakota based subsidiary Amiga Incorporated will be hosting its first Developers Conference at the 1997 the 1997 Midwest Amiga Exposition (MAE) which will be held in Columbus, Ohio on November 1 and 2. The show is being staged by the Amiga Central Ohio Network (AMICON) user group. "Amiga Update" has learned that around 250 developers have already expressed interest. This first Developers' Conference will set the groundwork for future conference to be held at various international sites, including Cologne Germany, Milan Italy, St.Louis Missouri, and London. Amiga Incorporated is also making plans to develop a network of registered Amiga developers. For now, developers can register at either the ICOA web site or that of "CU Amiga" magazine in Great Britain. Addresses for both sites are noted in the following story. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I C O A O F F I C I A L D E V E L O P E R S U P P O R T 7 Sep 1997 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE The ICOA {Industy Council for Open Amiga}will be the official developer support interface between Amiga Inc and the development community. We will assist Amiga, Inc. by handling developer registration as well as aiding with developer conferences. An official press release with more information will be made by Amiga, Inc. at the Mid West devcon in ??? {presumably the MAE show noted in the previous story. Brad}. Due to a misunderstanding, the person at Amiga, Inc. organizing this was not aware that the ICOA has a new web site ready to go online. This led to accepting the generous offer from CU Amiga to handle developer registrations from their web site. A solution for the dual registration sites is being worked on. In the meanwhile, all registrations from the CU Amiga site will be forwarded to the ICOA, so both sites can be used. ICOA web site: http://www.lapcopaintball.com/icoa/ CU Amiga web site: http://www.cu.cug.co.uk/news/devreg.html ICOA Temporary Steering Committee ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A S K E E P T H E T R A I N S R U N N I N G Amiga News Central Special Report Amiga in Australian and New Zealand Railways A few months ago I received a tip off from a friend who alerted me to the possibility that Amiga's were in use throughout railway network in Sydney, Australia. Recently the New Zealand Railway's purchased 1200 Amiga's for an unknown usage. Sound a little interesting? My source informs me that the device which is not immediately distinguishable as an Amiga is used to announce the arrival and departure of trains over the Public Address System. The device reportedly uses hacked A1200 motherboards and is controlled through a keypad interface. The device also has an LCD screen. It works by each train route being assigned a certain code. When the relevant train arrives the user need only enter the code and the system will announce the arrival of the train including the route it will travel over the public address system.Apparently this is acheived by sampling the voice and storing it on the systems hard drive and using specially designed software to control the system. I have been informed that the system at least in Australia is still in pilot testing but it is quickly being taken up by Sydney railway stations. Australian Amiga distributor [http://www.megtron.com.au] Megatron who have a large presence in the industrial market have refused to confirm or deny the story.It is rumoured that they are involved in delicate negotiations at the moment and a Non Disclosure Agreement may be in place. By Paul Morabito. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- P A R T S F R O M T H E S O U R C E AMIGA International, Inc.: Spare Parts Spare Parts for sale From now on, everybody can order spare parts directly from AMIGA International, Inc.! Before ordering, please read our TERMS OF BUSINESS in addition to the following terms: · All stated prices are in DM including 15% VAT. Outside Germany we   ship via DPD (a German parcel service), only / Cash in advance · When you placed an order you will get a proforma invoice including all costs · The goods will be shipped as soon as we received the remittance on our bank account · Orders could be placed by fax, mail and e-mail · Price and availability are subject to change without notice · Software is non-returnable · Shipping and handling charge is non-refundable · We do not guarantee hardware and software compatibility · We are not responsible for any typographical errors The following Amiga model series are included: A500 A600 A1200 A2000 A3000 A4000 Take your browser to www.amiga.de to order. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I E X P O R E V I V E D AmiExpo New York "Ami Expo" will be the next Amiga show in New York, brought to you by AMUSE, the New York Amiga Users Group, in cooperation with several other organizations. We have been waiting for an appropriate time to begin the ressurection of the premiere Amiga show, and we thought we could join with the new Amigas in time for the Christmas market this year. Unfortunately, the market is a bit slower than we anticipated, and our New York City venue could no longer be held for the dates we wanted. Sooo, we are still aiming for a good show, but it will take a while longer. Yes it sounds like the Amiga scene in general, but we want to do this one the right way. We're now looking at a date in February, with a show size of about 20,000 sq. ft. If your organization is interested in participating in this show as a vendor or as a production associate, please send e-mail to the address below. HOT LINK http://www.tiac.net/users/linusly AMUSE, the New York Amiga Users' Group (since 1985) Please check in with us for the latest news on AmiExpo... * We are now talking with a major show producer about a possible combined show. Stay tuned... and keep in touch below! Email: hinckley@mail.idt.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------- C R A C K T H E C O D E A N D S U P P O R T A M I G A Join the Amiga Effort to Crack the Code and Beat the RSA Secret-Key Challenge September 8th 1997 For Immediate Release: The Amiga RC5 Team is pleased to announce the continuing effort to bring the Amiga in the limelight by participating in the Bovine/RSA Secret Key challenge.In order to achieve this, we aim to rise in the statistics to a top 100 placement out of almost 20,000 teams/participants before the challenge is over and perhaps even winning by finding the right key. By bundling the spare CPU cycles of Amiga users worldwide and their various machines the Amiga RC5 Team effort members have already achieved a top 200 ranking in the first 19 days of the effort, and a top 15 daily ranking. To reach above goals, advertise the Amiga community's enthusiasm and ultimately the Amiga itself, we need as many people to participate as possible, already more than 250 machines of various calibers down to Amiga 500 and CD32 consoles have been working together on the solution. In addition to the above, a Corporate Hall of Fame section has been added; Amiga oriented companies pledging support are included with their banner and a link to their respective webpages. A mailing list for participating members is soon te be operational as well. The working client does not impact multitasking as it runs with a low priority in the background. For further information on how to join and ample explanation of the effort details, please visit the [] Amiga RC5 Team effort homepage at http://www.cistron.nl/~ttavoly/rc5 Regards, Team coordinator, Thomas Tavoly rc5@amiga.cistron.nl ---------------------------------------------------------------------- D I C E F O R F R E E 9 Sep 1997 I have finally found the time to release the source to the DICE compiler. It's pretty much as-is, I'm sorry to say, but still a pretty good piece of work even now. The release is roughly equivalent to the last commercial release that we (OIC) did. The core source will compile on the Amiga and can also be compiled on most UNIX platforms. It generates 68000 output and all files are output in the amiga's binary, object, and library file formats. Embedded 68000 support is included, which is basically what I use it for these days. Sources for the complete system: dcc, dcpp, dc1, das, dlink, and dobj have been released along with a bunch of other stuff. Since I still use DICE for embedded hardware projects, it isn't *totally* obsolete. The code should easily compile on an Amiga or a FreeBSD box and ought to compile reasonably well on other UNIX boxes. The code can be retrieved from the Obvious Implementations Corp. web site: http://www.obviously.com/ I haven't done much work on the Amiga recently. Some of you might have heard that I got caught up in an ISP startup . That was about 3 years ago and I've been working at it ever since. Thank god we don't have to deal with Microcruft NT. It's FreeBSD all the way. I'm doing mostly UNIX work these days... back to my root's, in fact, as I was using BSD 4.2 at UC Berkeley a couple of years before the Amiga came out. In anycase, DICE is probably my finest piece of code. I hope people get some use out of the core and libraries. -Matt ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I B E N C H A N N O U N C E D 10 Sep 1997 Its been some six months since We first had the idea for "AmiBench", its been a long hard struggle, sometimes We thought that We wouldn't make it. But here it is, Please look at - Http://thunderstorms.org/AmiBench/index.html . This is a Unique Service for the Amiga, it's a live constantly updating free advert site - this means you can post an advert for Amiga goods that you wish to sell, Not only to the local Amiga Community, but to the International One too. This site is still in development, But We felt the need to alert the Amiga world to the services its already running. This free advert service is open to anyone in any country, at any-time of the day or night, 365 days a year. We hope its going to be a success, but for it to succeed we need you and the Amiga Community's help. All you need to do is USEn the service, and tell others, that's it. It really is that simple. You can contact us Via Email at AmiBench@tecnobab.stayfree.co.uk Thanks for the help, We hope AmiBench can help you too Mark Wilson : Member of the AmiBench team. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- D I R E C T O R Y O P U S U P G R A D E S Directory Opus Magellan Upgrades Now Available September 8th 1997 For Immediate Release: GPSoftware is pleased to demonstrate its continuing support for the Amiga with the release of new upgrade patch files for Opus Magellan. For registered Opus users, these patch files are available free from our from our web site to upgrade the original Opus Magellan 5.6 versions to versions 5.62 and 5.65.For more detail please see [http://www.gpsoft.com.au/] http://www.gpsoft.com.au/ Dr Greg Perry, GPSoftware, Brisbane. Regards, Dr Greg Perry GPSoftware, PO Box 570, Ashgrove, Qld Australia 4060 Ph/fax +61 7 33661402 Internet Email: greg@gpsoft.com.au WWW : http://www.gpsoft.com.au/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- P M P R O I S T O U T E D Picture Manager Professional V4 (PMPro) is an excellent commercial image catalogization program with a large number of features for creation and handling of thumbnail tables. It is a powerful database and allows loading, processing and displaying images via SuperView-Library and includes an automatic conversion function for catalogs of images, which allows to convert between all file formats SuperView-Library does support ... AND MORE ... It even can directly scan LHA and LZX archives for images. The ENGLISH version of Jürgen Schäfer's Picture Manager can be obtained from Blittersoft 6 Drakes Mews Crownhill Industry Milton Keynes, MK8 OER Voice: +44-(0)1908-261466 United Kingdom Fax: +44-(0)1908-261488 Or from any distributor. The official pricing as of August 1997 has been 49.95 UK pounds (no guarantee). Ask them for it. Blittersoft also are the distributors of many other Amiga hard and software products, among them Village Tronic and phase5. Blittersoft WWW page: http://blittersoft.wildnet.co.uk/pmpro.htm Blittersoft: sales@blittersoft.com The GERMAN version of Jürgen Schäfer's Picture Manager can be obtained from IrseeSoft SPCS Meinrad-Spieß-Platz 2 D-87660 Irsee Voice: +49-(0)8341-74327 Germany Fax: +49-(0)8341-12042 Or from any distributor. The official pricing as of August 1997 has been 129 DEM (no guarantee). Ask them for it. IrseeSoft also are the manufacturers of the TurboPrint V5 high quality printer driver enhancement system. A CD-ROM containing catalogues of more than 25000 graphics from Amiga CD-ROMs as well as a full version of PM 2.0 and demo versions (german) of PMPro 4 and TurboPrint 5 is available for 29 DEM (no guarantee). It's the first one of a new CD-ROM series - the second one just has been released and does contain graphic catalogues for Aminet 1-16 and Aminet Set 1-4 CD-ROMs. IrseeSoft WWW page: http://home.t-online.de/home/IrseeSoft/ IrseeSoft: IrseeSoft@t-online.de ---------------------------------------------------------------------- S O O N F R O M V U L C A N 30 Aug 1997 HARD TARGET ----------- Vulcan's answer to a `Virtua Cop` clone for the Amiga is now entering full steam in development. This full screen animated 3D Scenic Shoot em up with fully raytraced characters will need AGA, 2Mb Chip, 8Mb Fast, 4 x Speed CDRom and reflexes to match. Screenshots from the first level are now available from our website for publication. Not sure of release date at present but probably early next year. Live Long & Prosper..... Paul Carrington BA (Director) Vulcan Software Limited ---------------------------------------------------------------------- D A N N E W S - F O R N E W S , O F C O U R S E 2 Sep 1997 TITLE DanNews 1.6 AUTHOR Tim Corringham Ramjam Consultants Ltd http://www.ramjam.demon.co.uk/ mailto:support@ramjam.demon.co.uk DESCRIPTION DanNews is a NNTP news unbatcher. It is much faster than RNews, and can cope with relatively small amounts of free memory. NEW FEATURES DanNews 1.6 copes even better than DanNews 1.5 with corrupt news batch files (corrupt news batch files commonly result from dropped connections to newsservers). SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS DanNews requires Kickstart 2 or later, and a news set up which stores news articles in UUNEWS: AVAILABILITY The most recent version of DanNews is always available from: http://www.ramjam.demon.co.uk/software/DanNews.lha (21318) or via e-mail to support@ramjam.demon.co.uk PRICE DanNews is FREE! DISTRIBUTION DanNews 1.6 is Copyright (c) 1997 by Ramjam Consultants Ltd. It 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- M A D E O N A M I G A S I T E 15 Sep 1997 TITLE Made on Amiga WHAT Web Site, Directory, Search Facility. DESCRIPTION "The Internet's most comprehensive *searchable* directory of web sites made, created, or maintained on Amigas." 'Made on Amiga' is a searchable directory (in the style of Yahoo) of web sites which have been made or created, or are maintained on Amigas. Each site listed is categorised and individually reviewed. 'Made on Amiga' is not a directory of Amiga sites. Sites relating to any subject are inlcuded, the only requirement being that the site is made or maintained on an Amiga. 'Made on Amiga' has been running since April but has gone through a couple of major overhauls since then. The major result of these changes is that 'Made on Amiga' is now searchable by keyword as well as by category. 'Made on Amiga' also carries a selection of images for inclusion on listed sites. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS A graphical, tables enabled browser is recommended, but not essential. Any HTML browser should be able to view the pages in some form. AVAILABILITY URL: http://www.gonmad.demon.co.uk/moa/ PRICE Free. There is no charge for access, and there is no charge for being listed. OTHER INFO 'Made on Amiga' is a non-profit making, private venture. 'Made on Amiga' is associated with the 'Built with Amiga Software for the Internet' campaign. POSTED BY Dan Gibson - Made on Amiga Webmaster. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SPECIAL SPECIAL SPECIAL SPECIAL SPECIAL SPECIAL SPECIAL SPECIAL T H E H I S T O R Y O F T H E A M I G A Part one The following "Amiga Update" Special Feature is presented by permission of the author. It was originally published in "Computer Bits magazine". Uncontrolled Execution: The strange saga of the Amiga Uncontrolled Execution ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The strange saga of the Amiga ... by Philip S. Moore As the creditors sit around the table, they consider the ever-worsening situation. For the umpteenth time a deadline has come and gone, and again a letter of intent faded away without a tangible offer. At this point, it probably would have made sense to liquidate and take what they could get for the pieces, but Amiga is a going business generating a small profit. And given the magnitude of the disaster they are dealing with, the receivers don't want to throw away any opportunities, no matter how small. Amiga -- the name was synonymous with innovation. Created in 1984 by a prototypical Silicon Valley startup company and absorbed by industry giant Commodore Business Machines, the computer offered a graphical interface and computing power equal to Apple Macintosh, as well as pre-emptive multitasking and a facility for mixing video, images, text and sound unmatched in the entire industry for almost another decade. In addition, due to its use of a patented processor chip set and innovative operating system design, the Amiga could do all that with very little RAM. In an era when memory cost $100 per megabyte, this was an important advantage. Only 512 kilobytes of RAM would easily handle virtually every business and personal computing need. With only slight modification and under 2 MB of RAM, the Amiga became a "Video Toaster" capable of far-reaching "multimedia" applications. Despite its technical superiority, however, Amiga was an also-ran in the world of personal computers. The technically primitive IBM PC, with an operating system only slightly improved from the original Altair 8080 personal computer, was the top seller for business applications. The Macintosh, technically sophisticated but still lacking important multitasking and multimedia capabilities, ruled the educational and graphic arts markets. That left Amiga a few computer gaming fans it shared with Atari, which introduced the equally innovative XT computer systems, the video production market and a slender slice of the home/hobbiest market. It wasn't enough. Sorting through the financial wreckage and tens of million of dollars in unpaid bills and unsold inventory, it was difficult to realize that just a few months before, Escom International had been Europe's largest electronics retailer with stores throughout the EC and Scandinavia. Escom had looked like the answer to a prayer for the creditors of Commodore, finally at the end of an acrimonious and lingering death watch. Escom's flamboyant chief executive, Manfred Schmitt, vowed to put Amiga at the forefront of the new international personal computer market. It was not to be. Escom was a mirage, built on debt. Seven months after coming to the Amiga's rescue, the mirage began to fade. Amiga's fate was probably sealed by a man who left Commodore even before Amiga became part of that company: Jack Tramiel. ------ Born in Lodz, Poland, in 1927, Tramiel saw the arrival of the Nazis when he was 12 years old. Through determination and luck, he survived the Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen death camps to be one of only 970 of Lodz's 200,000 Jews to survive the Holocaust. Virtually penniless, Tramiel arrived in New York in 1947, determined to make something of himself. By 1954, he started a typewriter repair business in the Bronx called Commodore Portable Typewriter. In 1956, he moved to Toronto and went into the manufacture of adding machines. That company was called Commodore Business Machines. Admired and hated, often by the same people, Tramiel was frugal to excess and a relentless taskmaster. He worked his employees hard, paid poorly and aggressively negotiated with suppliers and distributors. In 1966, when he needed money to expand, he made what would turn out to be a fateful move and sought out Canada's leading financier, Irving Gould. They were a good match at the time. Gould's hands-off investment style perfectly matched Tramiel's hands-on approach, and as long as the profits kept rolling in, everybody was content. As the market for business machines changed, so did Commodore. First, Tramiel went into making pocket calculators, earning a large share of the market before being burned in the market collapse of the early 1970s. Next, he turned his attention to computers. Tramiel saw a potential consumer market in the collection of hobbyist computers that followed the introduction of the Altair 8080 -- produced by another former calculator manufacturer -- and set out to design a personal computer that would be ready to operate, right out of the box, a novel approach at the time. That computer was the Commodore Pet. The successful Pet was followed by the hugely successful Commodore 64 personal computer and a variety of other specialty models, and for a time, Commodore enjoyed a dominant position in the PC market. The company's success, however, was built on aggressive price cutting and a scorched-earth approach to resellers, whom Tramiel loaded with Commodore machines, then undercut their price with the same computers sold to mass-market retailers. Bragging that Commodore made computers "for the masses, not the classes," he ignored the business market and vetoed development of a 16-bit computer to match the power of the Intel 8086-based personal computers. He got away with it for a couple of years, but by 1983, Commodore 64 sales were declining and stopgap replacements, such as the Commodore 128, were not successful at shoring up the company's eroding market share. By the Jan. 13, 1984 board of director's meeting, Tramiel could not provide the profits that Gould wanted, and would not offer a solution that Gould found acceptable. After a heated argument behind the closed doors of the meeting, Tramiel resigned from the company he created three decades earlier. Gould needed a new company president, and following the example of Apple, he reached outside the computer industry and appointed Marshall Smith, a steel industry executive. Smith knew they needed a new computer to put Commodore back on track. He also knew the company was heading toward its first losses and couldn't wait to develop its own. Smith needed to buy a dazzling new computer, and he needed it fast. He found it in a small facility outside San Jose. It was quaintly called the Amiga. ------ While everything else at Escom is falling apart, Petro Tyschtschenko knows what he has to do. Amiga Technologies division must keep going as if nothing is wrong with the parent company. To falter would mean shutdown, and for Tyschtschenko who had endured the liquidation of Commodore, another shutdown is unthinkable. In May 1995, just a few months before, Tyschtschenko was chosen by Escom to be co-president of their new subsidiary, Amiga Technologies GmbH, in cooperation with Stefan Domeyer, co-president for finance, research and development and market communications. Within weeks, everything was back on track, as if the Commodore bankruptcy had never happened. Over 40 people were working at the headquarters office in Bensheim, Germany, selling Amiga 1200s and introducing the new A4000T Amiga tower. The subsidiary was restoring old affiliations with suppliers and distributors, and expanding into the newly opened Eastern European market. Yet, they hardly had a chance to get the office furniture in place before ugly rumors started to spread about Escom. Financial market analysts warned that the company was expanding too fast. Soon, it became apparent that the personal computer market did not do well during the Christmas season and Escom has an alarmingly large inventory of unsold machines. Escom A.G. announced a $30 million loss in January. By February the loss is revised upward to $83 million and the German stock exchange suspended trading on the company's stock. A familiar scenario unfolds for the former Commodore people at Amiga Technologies. For a second time, Amiga is hostage to a bankruptcy. ... continued next time ... About the Author Philip S. Moore is a Camas, WA-based public relations consultant and computer hobbiest. E-mail to philip758@delphi.com. This article was originally published in the September 1997 issue of Computer Bits magazine, and is copyright (C) 1997 by Bitwise Productions, Inc., Forest Grove, OR, (503) 359-9107. All rights reserved. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Amiga Update on the net: some issues available at: http://www.sharbor.com/amiga/news/ (in html format) http://www.amigacom.com (in ASCII text) Australian Mirror Site: http://www.comcen.com.au/~paulm/index.html All back issues available (in ASCII text) at: http://www.globaldialog.com/AdventureCentral/AU/index.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1997 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified. ====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || Brad Webb/AmigaUpdate /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || bandr@globaldialog.com / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ || ======================================================================