====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || A M I G A U P D A T E /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || -News and Rumors- / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_|| (An Occasional e-mail I'LL BELIEVE IT WHEN I TAKE DELIVERY || Newsmagazine) ====================================================================== AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 991120 P A X T R O N B O U G H T B Y C E N T S I B L E G A T E W A Y A N D A O L D E A L O S 3 . 5 A V A I L A B L E N O W A M I G A V O L U N T E E R P R O J E C T A M I G A 2 K N E W S R E P O R T - I W I N R E S U R F A C E S L A T E S T O N I W I N O P E N S O U R C E G R O U P A C T I V E O P E N L E T T E R T O T H E P R E S . P R O J E C T I M P U P D A T E O N " A M I N O - T H E C O M P A N Y " A M I G A P R O D U C T P L A C E M E N T S E R V I C E N E W S F R O M G A U H P I L O P U S M A G E L L A N A T C O L O G N E N O V A D E S I G N D I S T R I B U T O R F O R O Z , N Z D I G I T A L A L M A N A C I I A W E B 3 . 2 T O 3 . 3 U P D A T E P A T C H E L B O X P R O D U C T N E W S B O X E R N E W S Q N X U P D A T E I M A G E F X R E B A T E H & P A N D I M A G E F X H & P R E L E A S E D E V E L O P E R C D N E W P I C A S S O 9 6 V E R S I O N A N E W A M I G A S T O R E I S L A U N C H E D U N I T Y B O A R D W I P T E O U T 2 0 9 7 O N M A R K E T M I K R O M O R T A L T E N N I S Editor's Thoughts and Introduction: The big Home Electronics World show has come and gone (November 12 - 14, in Cologne, Germany), and there were interesting items for Amiga users. Amiga International had their large booth set up, and seemed to generate a fair amount of interest. We weren't there, but are told Petro Tyschtschenko was (almost) as upbeat as ever. However, reflecting reality, there were fewer vendors than last year. The mood was reportedly less positive, but that seemed to be based mainly on there being no clear direction to the future, not fears of an imminent death of the Amiga market. The folks at Haage & Partner demonstrated a 400 Mhz G3 Power PC board, based on the IBM CHRP spec. It also featured PCI and AGP slots. There are rumors a native PPC based AmigaOS port is being considered for this board. If so, that's the most realistic possibility for a future Amiga system we've seen yet. We understand the board was presented as a development system though, not as a future Amiga. However, and perhaps very significantly, Petro T. is quoted in an article about HEW on the amiga.org website as stating "My first priority now is to convert the OS to the PowerPC." Indications are that Haage & Partner are willing to do the conversion. Is Amiga willing to license it, providing the formal approval to call it Amiga? We don't know, but feel this would be important to keep developers focused, instead of trying to cover many different future possibilities and spreading themselves too thinly. If CHRP can be abandoned in order to bring down the price of a PPC board, then the future looks even better for a PPC system. There are indications that this could become possible, with IBM leading the way to a less expensive PPC standard. As we hear more about possible Amiga PPC futures, we'll let you know. The Met@Box (AmiJoeG3) G3 Board for the A1200 was also demonstrated at the Cologne Show. This is a PowerPC based accelerator, which does not sport a 68K co-processor. Also of interest was the Unity Net Ethernet card. We've a story on that product below. Finally, once again there was no BoXeR Computer to be seen, or so we've been told. Over at Deja.com, a poll is being held on the most popular operating system. Looks like the voting may be in several stages on different features. Regardless, when we checked in Amiga OS was actually leading the voting! It was way ahead of MonopolySoft's Windoze, and even ahead of Linux. Most interesting and yes, it left me with a very smug feeling. And, despite the current situation in the Amiga market, there's a lot for you to read in this issue. We hope you enjoy it. Brad Webb, Editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E-mail to the E-ditor: 19 Oct 1999 Brad , Just wanted to say thanks for all the hard work you do to publish this newsletter to all of us die hard Amiga Fans, I am truly sorry to hear what Gateway has done to this fine machine. I just wonder what the cutoff point for that company was, all that money, time and effort just to throw it away when they were close to releasing the next OS , and all the other interesting B.S info they leaked to the press. But as Any Modern Day Technical Guru , I own Amigas , Mac's and PC's , I use all the Operating Systems, Linux 6x , BeOS ,Amiga OS , winblows 95/98/nt/2k whatever, I try not to bash each OS for what it Cant do, just appreciate all that they can do... But I will never Ever Buy anything gateway again for what they have done... Iceman. ~~~~~~ Iceman, A lot of us have tried to figure out what Gateway was trying to accomplish and how things ended up as they did. I personally believe it was a combination of loss of nerve in the face of Microsoft, and internal Gateway corporate politics. Sad to say but many far reaching decisions have been made with even less reasoning. The bottom line is simply - will the company stay profitable? As you, I will not buy anything Gateway made at this point. Thanks for the kind words! Regards, Brad ====== 5 Nov 1999 Hi Brad I have appreciated this resource of amiga news, please keep up the excellent work. But, I have a question about one of the statements you made a couple of months ago. It was in response to another readers letter and concerned other attempts to revive the amiga other than the official Amiga company. You stated that you didn't think that it was appropriate for this news-letter to cover the other attempts to revive the Amiga such as the A.R.P. or the work at QNX. Why not? Doesn't this put all your eggs into one basket? And also is this the only feasible way that the best solution to reviving the Amiga will be attained? Thanks - Jim ~~~~~~ Jim, First, my apologies for shortening your letter, but space considerations made that necessary. You ask a very good question. What I had to do to your letter points to the answer - we just don't have the space to cover all the permutations out there. We also don't have the staff or the time. I wish we did. What we will do is cover the Amiga itself, whatever that might be going forward, until such time as it seems appropriate to drop the Amiga entirely in favor of something else - if that ever happens. (If we do get to that point, we'll share the decision with you, the readers.) We will also cover whatever looks to us to be the leading efforts in the "alternative Amigas" field. And finally, we will also cover to some extent significant events in all Amiga related areas, where these events seem to have some real promise for the Amiga community. This is a pretty complicated mission statement, but we've actually been doing this for some time and it seems to be working. I have no doubt we could miss something significant along the way but we'll try to avoid that. If we do, I'm pretty sure some readers will call our attention to the event, and we'll then try to get the word to the rest. Regards, Brad ====== 19 Oct 1999 While in St Louis last March conversing with Petro, it was stated by him that, "the shipment of containers from Quikpak of the remaining parts had been received and inspected. It contained less than 2 dozen usable 4000 motherboards." Now this was casual conversation between 4 of us, but I have no reason to doubt it's truthfullness. Petro did make it possible for me to launch the CDTV 3.1 upgrade project, and that was all verbal between him and me in March of 98. Ben Deemer "thedoctor" not MD. ~~~~~~ Ben, Thanks for answering Mike's question from a previous issue. It's very disappointing there weren't more resources available for making A4000s - I suspect Amiga could still sell quite a few. Regards, Brad ====== 19 Oct 1999 There used to be a document on the Amiga Inc. web page concerning Y2K issues with the Amiga. I haven't been there in quite a while, so I don't know if it's still there. If it's not still there, I'm sure there are plenty who know all the gritty details. But... As far as I can remember, Workbench will have no trouble, but AmigaDOS itself doesn't handle four digit dates. You might get invalid date stamps on files. Hopefully the guys at H&P have addressed this in OS 3.5 or working on it for 3.6(?). As for the RTC {Real Time Clock, we presume. Brad}, that's another issue. As I recall, the document stated that the RTC found in the A2000 is not Y2K compliant. The only possible fix is a software patch to the OS. Carlos ~~~~~~ Carlos, The Y2k page is still available at amiga.com, and has a link right off the first page after the home page. Anyone with Y2K questions should refer to that document for information. We didn't notice anything in particular about the A2000, but the different versions of the operating system, the clocks, etc., have different considerations. Thanks for your help in answering a reader's question. Regards, Brad ---------------------------------------------------------------------- P A X T R O N B O U G H T B Y C E N T S I B L E 28 Oct 1999 {Posted to the net by Bill Griffin. Thanks, Bill} Centsible Software has just recently bought out Paxtron. Right now, they are in the midst of moving all the inventory from New Jersey to Berrien Springs, Michigan. It should take about 2-3 weeks to get it all sorted, catalogued counted, etc. After that, things should be back in full swing from the new location. In the meantime, if you have any queries or parts needs, you can Email Scott (the owner of Centsible Software) at support@centsible.com {Note: since obtaining this information, we have been informed "Paxtron" has dropped all Amiga support. We have not yet confirmed this. Brad} ---------------------------------------------------------------------- G A T E W A Y A N D A O L D E A L On October 20, CNET News ran a story by Jim Davis and Michael Kanellos detailing an agreement reached by Gateway and America On Line. The deal will bring an $800 investment in Gateway from AOL. AOL becomes the Internet service for Gateway customers, and the backbone of Gateway.net. The following quote from the story should be of interest to Amigans: " Many observers have speculated that hardware companies will have to hook up with service providers to make money on appliances. Under the new alliance, Gateway will begin to market devices for the "AOL Anywhere" strategy. 'There's clearly a possibility that Amiga will play a part in this marketplace,'" according to Jeff Weitzen, chief operating officer of Gateway. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- O S 3 . 5 A V A I L A B L E N O W 18. October 1999: AmigaOS 3.5 is available !!! The delivery of AmigaOS 3.5 started punctual. The first packages were sold at an Amiga show in The Netherlands last weekend. Delivery of all orders might last about 1-2 weeks. The areas for registrations and support will be opened in a few days. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A V O L U N T E E R P R O J E C T 16 Nov., '99 The long version Today is there pretty much Amiga software and there is new software coming but it takes long time and it might result in lots of bugs. We started to discus whatever there was a way that we could do something about that problem and after some long hours we found the answer in TAVP. Now we are in a early stage and we need your support because that is what this project feeds on. Right now we are contacting all kinds of Amiga developers about if and what area they need help. We need people that are prepared to work for no pay but only for the good will and you dont have to be an expert in whatever you do. We want everything, coders, musicians and so on because there is always someone that needs that. We are also contacting different PC developers about ports to the Amiga that we can sell so the project might get some money(no of the founders will get any money)that might be used to different things. We as mentioned before that this project depends your support and we hope that as many of you skilled persons out there will join us. The short version What is TAVP(The Amiga Volunteer Project)? The TAVP is an non profit project that will support the development of new software to Amiga. What you have think of before you join is that you will not be paid because as mentioned before is this an NON PROFIT organisation. Why do we do it? We are all long time Amiga users and decided that now was the time for us to active support the Amiga. At the moment there is pretty much software but the development takes long time but if this project works it will maybe speed up the development a bit. How will we do it? to make this project come true we need you. We need skilled amigians in any directions and you dont have too be the best coder in the world you only have to be pretty good. If you are interested go to the join section and fill out the form and we will contact you or send a mail to denebis@algonet.se. What will we do? As mentioned before we will support the Amiga market by helping different developers with skilled people but that is not the only thing that we will do. We will also try to convert PC software to the Amiga. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A 2 K N E W S 6 Nov 1999 Hello Amiga fans, Just to let you know two items about Amiga 2K, the latest Gateway Computer Show hosted in St. Louis by Amigan-St. Louis. {Note to non-Americans: NOT Gateway the company. Gateway in this case comes originally from St. Louis as "the gateway to the American West" and later the Gateway Computer Club of St. Louis. Brad} 1. The show dates are Saturday April 1 & Sunday April 2, 2000. (If you didn't hear, we changed them due to a conflict with NAB. That's the National Association of Broadcasters show, also in April.) 2. Petro Tyschtschenko has agreed to attend our show. Petro said he wouldn't miss a show that we put on. Please visit our web site at: http://www.amiga-stl.com for more information as it becomes available. If you wish to exhibit, please fill out the exhibitor form. We are accepting exhibitors now. If you cannot do this, or you have a question, then please email me at bscharp@icon-stl.net. Best Regards, Bob Scharp Owner Amigan-St. Louis ---------------------------------------------------------------------- R E P O R T - I W I N R E S U R F A C E S 5 Nov. '99 Robert Jant, chief of a group of former Iwin employees, has announced today that he together with other former Iwin employees and with the help of a large German bank has bought back the rights for the Internet domains www.iwin-corp.com and www.iwin-corp.ge, furthermore the rights for the name Iwin Corporation and for the projects of the C-Series and Server computers. "It was a logical decision" said Robert Jant. "Focke Systems didn't want to continue development of the C-Series and Servers and didn't want to sell them either. "This is the reason why we have decided to try to buy back the rights on them. We were working very hard for a long time on these projects and didn't want to see them frozen. We know that it will be a very hard way to finish the projects and bring them into the stores. We won't bring these computers into the stores as it was initially planned, but we are sure they will be successful." Iwin Corporation will open again on the 15 of November 1999 and will also ship the first computers on this date to dealers. On the 15 of November, Iwin Corporation will also again be reachable by phone, fax and email. {Since this press release was issued, Iwin sites are indeed back in operation. The computers now include something called the G-MCC, I-MCC and iPhantom computers all of which reference Amiga compatibility. It is unclear what the Amiga compatibility actually is - it appears to be some sort of software emulation, perhaps UAE. Brad} ---------------------------------------------------------------------- L A T E S T O N I W I N 6 Nov. 1999 Iwin Corporation has been split into three independent firms. 1. The Software business was sold to ``Focke Systems'' and will now be fully integrated into this firm. 2. The Consulting business was also sold to ``Focke Systems'' and will be ``Focke Consulting'' in the future. 3. The Hardware business was first also sold to ``Focke Systems'' but then bought back by some former Iwin employees. This firm will now be called ``Iwin Corporation''. This website will be the future site of this firm. The new firm will start business on the 15th of November 1999 and will sell various graphic workstations based on x86 and PPC technology as well as server computers. For all people asking about the announced ``Amiga compatible'' computers, please use these contact possibilities in the meanwhile: Either by FAX in the US: (208)-279-6497. Your question will be answerred within two work days. Please understand that currently we cannot answer any questions by email or phone. On the 15th of November this site will have changed to the new Iwin site and will contain a toll-free (US and Germany only!) number for your questions regarding the Amiga compatible workstations and all other hardware products. If you need help or sales support for former Iwin software products, please refer to Focke Systems. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- O P E N S O U R C E G R O U P A C T I V E 19th October 1999 About Us The Campaign to Open Source AmigaOS is a coalition of individuals, organisations and user groups from the Amiga, Open Source and Linux communities. The Campaign to Open Source AmigaOS was formed on the 4th October to bring together these usually unrelated groups for a common cause: to present our case to Amiga, Inc. for open sourcing the Amiga operating system. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- O P E N L E T T E R T O T H E P R E S . Open Letter to Amiga, Inc. President Thomas Schmidt October 18, 1999 Dear Mr. Schmidt: First of all, we want to congratulate you on your new position as president of Amiga. We are sure that you have many exciting plans for the future of Amiga, Inc. and that we can expect many new innovations from your company in the months and years ahead. This is indeed an exciting time for the computer industry, a time of great upheaval and change, and holds much promise for the success and growth of ambitious upstart companies like Amiga, Inc. We have been following the recent events at Amiga, Inc. with great interest. We feel, like many, that the recent resignation of Jim Collas was unfortunate. Many people in the community trusted Collas to successfully lead the company into the future. Wherever he is now, and whatever he is doing, we in the community wish him well. But this is not a time to be looking back on events of the past. It is a time to be focusing on what lies directly ahead in the future of the computing industry. We feel our organisation is unique in the Amiga community. We have tried to understand both the needs of the Amiga community, balanced against the needs of Amiga, Inc. We do not believe, like some in the community, that the wishes of the Amiga community and the needs of Amiga, Inc. are mutually exclusive. Likewise, we do not believe that success of Amiga, Inc. as a company is mutually exclusive with satisfying the needs and expectations of the Amiga community. Our group was formed with a simple goal: to find a mutually-satisfactory solution to current tensions that exist between many in the community and Amiga, Inc. - a solution that would be satisfactory, indeed beneficial, to both groups. We believe, after several weeks of discussion and exchanging of ideas, that we have found such a solution. We believe that this solution is to open-source the Amiga operating system. We present our reasons for believing this in our report, "AmigaOS: The Case for Open Source," a copy of which should have been sent to you alongside this letter, by Amiga Vice President Mr. Petro Tyschtschenko. Our report is the result of several weeks of work and consultation with many individuals in the Amiga, Open Source and Linux communities, including famous open-source advocate Eric Raymond, who acted as a consultant for Netscape on their open-source strategy. We believe our report presents a powerful case that open-sourcing the Amiga operating system would bring many advantages, and future business opportunities, to Amiga, Inc. and would at the same time satisfy the needs of the Amiga community for continuity and continuous improvement of the Amiga operating system. We therefore respectfully submit our report, "AmigaOS: The Case for Open Source," for your review and consideration. We, of course, do not expect the report to fully and complete answer each and every question you may have on the subject of open-source, or why we believe it is the ideal solution to the current volatile Amiga situation - but we do, however, believe it is a good start, and we hope that you will be made curious enough by the contents of the report, to establish a dialogue with us on the matter, and to consider working with us in an attempt to find a mutually satisfactory solution to the current Amiga situation. Your nomination to president of a young, ambitious, innovative upstart company like Amiga, Inc. could not have come at a better time. The next several months and years will be an exciting time to be a player in the ever-changing fast-paced computing industry. Whatever direction Amiga takes, we wish you and Amiga, Inc. every success in the future. We look forward to your response. Respectfully, Steve Crietzman (president@savetheamiga.org.uk) President, Campaign to Open Source AmigaOS http://www.savetheamiga.org.uk/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- P R O J E C T I M P 23 Oct. 1999 "News from Project IMP - the Independent Multimedia Platform We have now our own webserver: www.project-imp.org, or for german visitors www.project-imp.de. The website had been completely redesigned and you will find there lots of new information about the project. Most important news are our support for the Campaign To Open Source The AmigaOS (www.savetheamiga.org.uk) and AROS (www.aros.org). About Project IMP: Project IMP had been founded just after Jim Collas left Amiga and the AmigaMCC had been canceled. It is our intention to keep the Amiga platform alive and give it a future. This goal can only be reached by making the operating system and the hardware open source. Without getting the rights at Amiga to do so, we have to write our own, free OS which will be as much as possible compatible to the existing AmigaOS as a basing for further developments. We will support any group or project that is working in that direction in order to organize and bundle all developments. If you have further quistions, just mail to me: postmaster@project-imp.org Sincerely, Volker Mohr Initiator of Project IMP ---------------------------------------------------------------------- U P D A T E O N " A M I N O - T H E C O M P A N Y " 21 Oct 1999 {Post to the Team Amiga site from Fleecy Moss. Brad} We are legal now -Bill {McEwen} gave me the wa.gov website which I have now lost where you can find out all about us is splendid Interneticolour. Everything is ready to go from a partner, technology, and employee perspective. We are tying up the financial side. Unfortunately ppl don't just give you millions because you have a good idea. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A P R O D U C T P L A C E M E N T S E R V I C E Waldshut-Tiengen, Germany 19. October 1999 : OPEN OFFER FROM GTI GRENVILLE TRADING INTERNATIONAL GMBH, SPECIALISED INTERNATIONAL DISTRIBUTOR OF AMIGA PRODUCTS GTI Grenville Trading International GmbH, the German-based international distributor of Amiga products today made an open offer to those manufacturers of Amiga products looking for increased sales worldwide. OFFER TO MANUFACTURERS OF AMIGA PRODUCTS LOOKING FOR INCREASED INTERNATIONAL SALES GTI Grenville Trading International GmbH distributes Amiga products (main emphasis - software) to Amiga re-sellers on an international basis. Our customers are based throughout Europe, and in North America and Australasia. With 12 years of experience in the Amiga market, and having built up a ongoing network of clients on a wholesale-only basis (we do not sell to end-users) over the last five years, GTI Grenville Trading International GmbH is in a unique position to ensure availability of Amiga products to Amiga businesses in many countries. Currently well over 250 Amiga products are listed and distributed by GTI Grenville Trading International GmbH. As the market decline of the Amiga has continued, dealers have found it increasingly difficult to source and stock Amiga products. Manufacturers have found it well nigh impossible to supply the thinly-spread network of Amiga dealers with product. GTI Grenville Trading International GmbH now makes the following offer to manufacturers of Amiga products worldwide. We will stock your Amiga products on a turnkey basis ! This basically means that we are prepared to list and sell Amiga products on your behalf to our network of Amiga dealers on an international basis. Under this scheme, we are willing to price products according to manufacturers preferences, and remit proceeds of sales minus an agreed commission fee back to manufacturers on a regular basis. We offer producers the possibility of reaching a large number of Amiga dealers with the minimum of paperwork and fuss. We are happy to list Amiga products and sell on your behalf without ANY minimum quantity - thus enabling even specialised products to obtain an international listing and succeed by their own quality. This scheme is particularly suited to North American manufacturers looking for increased sales of their products to the European Amiga trade and thereby to European Amiga users. Additionally we are able to offer support to those manufacturers offering their products directly to end-users through the internet. Our logistics facility offers a centralised European warehousing for your products, and delivery to end-users on your behalf throughout Europe. We are also able to supply invoicing, cash-collection, marketing, and translation services as and when required. This scheme is particularly suited to North American manufacturers looking for increased sales of their products through E-Commerce to end-users throughout Europe. We would like to invite producers of Amiga products looking for increased product sales to take advantage of one or both of the above schemes and contact us with a view to expanding their market presence on an international basis. CONTACT INFORMATION : Richard Small, Managing Director, E-Mail : amiga@grentrade.com GTI Grenville Trading International GmbH Carl-Zeiss-Str. 9 D-79761 Waldshut-Tiengen Tel : +49 7741 83040 Fax : +49 69 25577025 UK Tel/Fax : +44 207 6813472 US Tel/Fax : +1 212 504 2719 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- N E W S F R O M G A U H P I L 30 Oct 99 Göttingen, Germany Dietmar Knoll Hi Amiga-Fans! Here are some news about recent changes on the GAUHPIL, the "Geographical Amiga Users Home Page Internet List", which holds currently more than 850 homepages of Amiga users! The GAUHPIL has moved again. Now it is free of any commercial banners - at the 7th URL!!! The redirector-URL is still valid. You should never have problems to find the GAUHPIL at: http://GAUHPIL.home.pages.de/ During the last months, I did some checking and changing. I found the first ever Amiga user in Antarctica! And now I added the 35th country: Philippines! Some names are new on the list, some others disappeared. You find some of the latter on the Lost Links List. There is also one totally new page: the New Links List, which shows recently added/changed names on the GAUHPIL. If you didn't visit the GAUHPIL in the recent time, you might be interested in the References List and the Related Sites page. Please note, that my e-mail address has also slightly changed. Please update your addressbooks now, to the following address: dknoll@myokay.net Thanks a lot for all your suggestions, comments and hints in all those years! Special thanks to those of you that linked the GAUHPIL on your site. You are listed on the "Hall of Fame" (see: References & Banners page) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- O P U S M A G E L L A N A T C O L O G N E 8 Nov. 1999 Opus Magellan 5.82 with OS 3.5 Support to be Shown at Cologne FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: GPSoftware is proud to demonstrate its continuing support for the Amiga with the release of a new version of Directory Opus Magellan which supports the new palette mapped icon system of OS 3.5. The product will be demonstrated on the Schatztruhe stand at the Cologne show, November 12-14th November 1999 by Dr Greg Perry. Opus Magellan is available world-wide from good Amiga dealers and GPSoftware distributors. Or you may support the developers by purchasing direct. Free Update Patch available. OS 3.5 causes some superficial problems with earlier versions of Opus because of the new palette mapped icon system which is not transparently compatibility with earlier programs. With the help of Olaf Barthel, we have now added support for the new V44 icon library in OS 3.5. A free update patch from Opus 5.81 is available from our web site at http://www.gpsoft.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------- N O V A D E S I G N D I S T R I B U T O R F O R O Z , N Z 8 Nov. 1999 Effective immediately, Amiga Innovations has begun handling sales and distribution of Nova Design, Inc. products in Australia & New Zealand and areas of Asia Pacific within their distribution network. Nova Design are the creators and publishers of ImageFX, the Amiga's top selling and top rated image editing and special effects package, and Aladdin 4D, the Amiga's coolest and best entry-level 3D modeling, rendering and animation package. If you've been thinking about buying ImageFX 4.0 with the new animation features, now is the perfect time to do so! Nova Design, Inc., in cooperation with Amiga Innovations and all participating dealers, is offering an Instant $40 Rebate when you buy ImageFX v4.0. However, this special offer is for a limited time only! Amiga Innovations can be found at: Amiga Innovations P.O. Box 114 Osborne Park, Western Australia Ph./ Fax +61 (08) 9349 0889 Mobile: 0408 929 827 Contact: Dwayne Osborne Email: dwark@vianet.net.au Internet: http://surf.to/amigainnovations Nova Design can be found at: Nova Design, Inc. 1910 Byrd Avenue, Suite 204 Richmond, VA 23230 Ph.(804) 282-1157 Fax.(804) 282-3768 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- D I G I T A L A L M A N A C I I Digital Almanac II is available! Suggested Retail Price DM 69.00 US$1.00 = DM 1.82 given current exchange rates. ****** Ordering information: The most convenient method of placing an order is to use our electronic order form located at http://www.schatztruhe.de/order.html. You can also send an E-Mail to stefano@schatztruhe.de including your address and the products you wish to order. ****** Digital Almanac II Digital Almanac is an astronomy program which offers lots of possibilities. The program is permanantly improved, so that new versions are at your disposal. Digital Almanac offers: o Star database with ca. 500,000 stars up to 16m. o Cross-index for SAO, PPM, HD, YBS und GC catalogs. o About 40000 deep-sky objects (Messier, NGC, IC, UGC, Abell, Zwicky and other misc objects). o More than 55000 minor planets and asteroids as well as the comets Halley, Hyakutake and Hale-Bopp. o Highly accurate calculation of Moon and planets with JPL's integration tables (DE404). Accuracy partly «0.1'' over a period of some thousand years !! o Jovian, Saturnian and Uranian moons. o Textures for all planets and moons. o Milky way structure. o View the sky from any solar system object. o Save animations in IFF-ANIM, QuickTime or MPEG format. o Loading and saving of configuration files. o Highly optimized algorithms for maximum speed, mostly written in assembler. Recognizes CPU for maximum speed. o Lots of configuration possibilities. o Online and menu help with HELP-key and MUI's bubblehelp. o Full Drag&Drop support. o Creation and export of ephemeris tables. o Picture galery creation. o User editable database of orbital elements. o Implemetation of the Hubble GSC starc catalog. o Control program with ARexx scripts. Supported software: o CyberGraphX for true/hicolor screens. o Xpk system to store images in IFF-RGFX format. o Turboprint V3 or higher. Minimum system configuration: o OS 3.0 + AGA o MC68020/68881 (FPU required!) o 4 MB free FastRAM o Harddrive o MUI 3.8 (included) Recommended system configuration: o OS 3.1 o MC68040 or MC68060 o 16 MB FastRAM o Graphic card with CyberGraphX 3.x/4.x ****** Stefan Ossowski ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A W E B 3 . 2 T O 3 . 3 U P D A T E P A T C H 17 Oct., '99 3.2 to 3.3 Update Patch Some of the new features: o Menus are fully configurable. o Navigation buttons are fully configurable, and can be hidden. o Displayed pages can be saved as IFF. o Improved JavaScript handling. o Option to suppress advertising pop-up windows. o Handles more JPEG formats. o Passive FTP option for better operation through firewalls. o Better cookie compatability. o Additional ARexx commands. o ... and more. This is an incremental upgrade from AWeb-II 3.2 to 3.3, you should only use this patch over an existing AWeb-II 3.2 install. You will also need the original AWeb-II 3.x disks during the installation. Here's all the other 3.3 updates in one place: Name Version Size (bytes) Description: ====================================== AutoSearch 3.0 10380 Enhances the AWeb 3.x autosearch function. AWebNews 1.98 57697 AWeb News client. CacheControl 1.4 37180 (3.3 only) A new GUI with advanced controls for AWeb's caching. DropZone 1.2 35437 (3.3 only) Drag and Drop on WorkBench even if AWeb is on its own private screen. HTTX 2.0 88965 HTML to TEXT converter Netsearch 11085 Query multiple search engines. Modes 1.2 34310 (3.3 only) Change various AWeb modes from a brand new GUI window. ToolBar 1.3 39408 (3.3 only) Add a floating Tool Bar to control all your AWeb windows. Translate 1.4 37308 Language translation plugin. GIF plugin 1.8 16123 JFIF plugin 1.8 39674 PNG plugin 1.8 41284 http://www.amitrix.com/aweb.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E L B O X P R O D U C T N E W S 9 Nov., '99 ELBOX FastATA4000 Controller is finally available! Features: * High-speed FastATA-3/EIDE Controller for Amiga 3000/4000. * Fully autoconfig ZORRO III card. * The first Amiga 3000/4000 EIDE controller supporting fast PIO-3 and PIO-4 modes (for up to 16.6MB/s). * Data transfer is several times faster than in any ZORRO II or Fast ZORRO II EIDE controllers. * Compatible with PIO-0 to PIO-4, UDMA-33, UDMA-66 devices. * Two 3.5" IDE ports allow to connect 4 EIDE devices (HDD, CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW, ZIP, LS-120, DVD) working at full speed. * Autobooting from ZIP and LS-120 drives enabled. * Supports HDDs > 4GB (SPLIT to 4 GB, NSD, TD64, DirectSCSI). * The set includes very advanced FastATA4000 software for controlling EIDE devices and the fastest CD file system: AllegroCDFS. * More than one ELBOX FastATA 4000 controller can be installed simultaneously. FastATA'99 & AllegroCDFS ELBOX Computer are very pleased to provide you with the latest version of software for ELBOX FastATA(PowerFlyer/Winner) High Speed EIDE ontroller for A1200. FastATA'99 v4.7 is 100% OS3.5 compatible. In FastATA'99 you will find the automatic update for the newest version of the fastest Amiga CD file system - AllegroCDFS. AllegroCDFS is over twice as fast as other Amiga CD filesystems. Automatic updates will work only if you own a registered AllegroCDFS. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- B O X E R N E W S October 12th, 1999 AntiGravity.com Announces 4 new BoXeR Models Anti Gravity Products announces 4 new BoXeR models. The Base model will be similar to those sold in Europe with a wide variety of upgrade options available. The Neila Phase-498 will be available only to those who preordered them. Visit our new Build-A-BoXeR page under the BoXeR button at AntiGravity.com for more details. Everyone who preordered an Alien BoXeR system will be given the option to receive a BoXeR configured closely as possible to the original Neila Phase-498, or switch to one of the current models. More information will be forthcoming in the next few weeks. Access and Blittersoft indicate the the BoXeR is on schedule to ship at the end of November. Prototypes will be in the hands of the Beta Testers by the end of October, with the Home Electronics Show in Cologne, the third week in Novmber, as the likely launch date. Stay tuned... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Q N X U P D A T E November 1, 1999 Here's an update on what has been happening since we made the announcement to release the QNX development system to Amigans: How is the Phase 5/QNX alliance proceeding? We are currently waiting for boards from Phase 5. Due to the delay we don't expect to have a Phase 5 solution this year. We will continue to provide status updates as we know more. How will the beta program be handled? Historically, we have always had small beta programs because it allows us to spend more time with each beta developer to better address their issues and suggestions. We plan to do the same with this upcoming beta. We will expand the group quickly as we progress. The first beta release for the initial smaller group is planned for early November. This beta will be a full-featured self-hosted development environment. Over the ensuing months, we will be updating the betas with more tools, drivers, and applications. What will the beta development package include? Our first beta is targeted at x86-based computers. The beta will contain: o QNX Neutrino operating system, including tools and drivers. o Photon microGUI windowing system, including a suite of applications, drivers, and development tools o x86-hosted development environment for x86 targets (compiler will be GCC with GBD for debugging) o Online documentation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I M A G E F X R E B A T E If you've been thinking about buying ImageFX 4.0 with the new animation features, now is the perfect time to do so! Nova Design, Inc., in cooperation with your favorite Amiga dealers, is offering an Instant $40 Rebate when you buy ImageFX from any participating dealer. However, this special offer is for a limited time only! ImageFX 4.0 This new release of ImageFX adds built-in features for editing animations that are easy to use and powerful. They can be used for editing Amiga ANIMs, video animations, or web animations. Keyboard controls, visual controls, and VCR-style controls let you access your animations easily. ImageFX animation features are built on the amazing ImageFX layering system which can also allow you to build up complex images from layers of composited imagery that can be individually altered anytime you need. Of course ImageFX has all the other features that have made it the Amiga's Top Rated image editing and special effects package. Paint tools, image file format conversion, batch processing, and amazing special effects that are in use by professionals worldwide. Upgrading Old ImageFXs If you own a version of ImageFX prior to version 2.0 your upgrade price is only $149.95. ImageFX 2.x owners can upgrade for only $99.95. ImageFX 3.x owners can upgrade to ImageFX 4 for only $79.95. Shipping adds $10 in the continental US, $15 everywhere else in the world. Remember though, the rebate does not apply to the upgrades - only to new purchases! You can order via 1-800-IMAGE-69 in the US and Canada or call (804) 282-1157 elsewhere. Orders can also be faxed to (804) 282-3768 or mailed to our address. Offer Details To qualify for the Instant $40 Rebate offer you must buy ImageFX from a participating reseller, in the U.S. or Canada, between September 20th and December 31st at their regular pricing. The rebate will be applied immediately at the time of purchase - you will not have to send anything in and you will not receive anything in the mail, and you'll get a $40 rebate instantly. You can buy ImageFX with this instant rebate at Software Hut, Safe Harbor and many other Amiga resellers. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- H & P A N D I M A G E F X Nova Design, Inc. teams up with Haage&Partner November 5th: Nova Design, Inc. and Haage&Partner announced today that they have teamed up for the distribution of ImageFX in Germany. Nova Design, Inc. and Haage&Partner are the two largest Amiga developers worldwide and collectively make and distribute most of the Amigas top imaging applications software. This partnership will enable ImageFX to reach new markets and new users in Europe. ImageFX has been the Amiga's leading image editing and special effects application for over six years since it's introduction and is the flagship product of Nova Design, Inc. ImageFX will be immediately available for purchase from Haage&Partner at their booth at the Home Electronics Show in Cologne, Germany this November. Haage&Partner will also be selling upgrades from previous versions of ImageFX and will also be carrying PowerStation - the PowerPC module package for ImageFX. Other exciting announcements regarding ImageFX and the German market will be made at the Cologne show and the news will be released afterwards on the Internet as well. Haage&Partner is the leading manufacturer of Development Systems and Applications for the Amiga family is also the developer and/or distributor of several cutting edge applications including: StormC, WarpUP, AmigaWriter, and many others. Our mission is to provide the Amiga market with the most effective tools and applications possible. Nova Design, Inc. is the developer and producer of the Amiga's leading graphics applications: ImageFX, PowerStation, and Aladdin 4D. Our longtime presence in the Amiga developer community have put us in the forefront of many Amiga developments, and our involvement and background in the Amiga community itself keep us traveling worldwide supporting Amiga events and promoting our products. Nova Design, Inc. 1910 Byrd Avenue, Suite 204 Richmond, VA 23230 USA Customer Support: (804) 282-6528 Business: (804) 282-5868 Fax: (804) 282-3768 www.novadesign.com Haage&Partner Computer GmbH Schlossborner Weg 7 61479 Glashuetten, Germany Phone: +49 (6174) 966 100 Fax: +49 (6174) 966 101 www.haage-partner.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- H & P R E L E A S E D E V E L O P E R C D 4 Nov., '99 AMIGA Developer CD 2.1 This CD contains all the material you need to start developing software for Amiga computers. This includes: The new 3.5 Native Developer Kit: o Updated and revised `C' and assembly language header files and linker libraries o Updated and revised system documentation and tutorial texts o Example code covering the AmigaOS 3.0, 3.1 and 3.5 features o The NewIFF v39 package o The AmigaGuide adn DataType documentation and example code o WarpUP (PowerPC) developer documentation and examples Additional developer material: o BOOPSI gadget and image classes ReActor BOOPSI toolkit and example code o The AmigaOS 2.04 example code, as part of the original 2.04 Native Developer Kit o The RKM 2.04 code examples o Tables listing which operating system modules were added, removed or updated in subsequent AmigaOS releases o The complete set of registered IFF forms o IFF example and stress test files o All IFF packages released by Commodore-Amiga, Inc., covering 1986 through 1992 o The camd v37.1 MIDI developer kit o The SANA-II standard package and developer kit o The Installer v43.3 package o The CDTV developer disks International support material: o Sample text using the full ISO-8859-1 character set o Translation guidelines Reference material: o The collection of Amiga Mail Volume 1 articles, covering Spring 1987 through January/February 1989 o The complete Amiga Mail Volume 2 articles in AmigaGuide format, covering January/February 1990 through March/April 1993; also included are the printable issues in PostScript and PageStream format o The Includes & Autodocs in AmigaGuide format. o Revised Amiga ROM Kernel Reference Manuals in AmigaGuide format HTML versions of all AmigaGuide format manuals Historiacal developer material: o DevCon Disks (1988-1993) o The CD32 developer package o 1.3, 2.0, 3.1 Native Developer Kits Packages contributed by 3rd parties: The StormC 68K C/C++ developer package o The WBPath and ActionFSSM packages, courtesy of Ralph Babel o The Personal Paint, CopyIcon, MailBX and DirDiff packages, courtesy of Cloanto o The INet 225 developer kit, version 2, courtesy of Interworks, Inc. o The Picasso96 developer kit, courtesy of Alexander Kneer and Tobias Abt o The Miami SDK, version 2.1, courtesy of Nordic Global, Inc. o The CyberGraphX V4 developer kit, courtesy of Frank Mariak o The MMUlib package, courtesy of Thomas Richter; this package includes the MuForce tool which is derived from the Enforcer package developed by Mike Sinz o The Kiskometer and MakeCD packages,courtesy of Angela Schmidt and Patrick Ohly o The Enforcer v37.64, courtesy of Mike Sinz o The Envoy v3.0 developer kit, courtesy of Heinz Wrobel o The Wipeout, Blowup and Sashimi debugging tools and the "CheckGuide" AmigaGuide file syntax checker written by Olaf Barthel The AMIGA Developer CD 2.1 will be officially available beginning November 15th. It will first be sold at HOME electronics world in Cologne. Price: 49 DM (~27 US$) Haage&Partner Computer GmbH Schlossborner Weg 7 61479 Glashuetten, Germany Phone: +49 (6174) 966 100 Fax: +49 (6174) 966 101 www.haage-partner.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- N E W P I C A S S O 9 6 V E R S I O N Version 2.0, November 16th 1999: * version bump due to large improvements. * first Draco Altais support. o *NEW FEATURE*: added functionality to patch the most common native Amiga chipset screen modes to use a Picasso96 board to ease use and installation of Picasso96 on systems that don't have a native Amiga chipset (like the Macrosystem Draco) or that have no monitor attached to the native chip set signal connector or that don't have a flicker fixer and no 15 kHz capable monitor. To enable this feature add the tool type "FakeNativeModes=Yes" to the monitor driver of one of your cards (defaults to "Yes" with the Draco Altais and "No" for all other cards) and remove all native Amiga monitor drivers (!). Now, when the system uses one of the native Amiga screen modes (currently only LowRes, HighRes and SuperHighRes and their interlaced counter parts), a 640x480 31kHz 60Hz screen mode on the graphics card will be used. Note: this mode is not configurable and it is not intended to be, because you should use real Picasso96 screen mode IDs whenever you can. Its only intention is to get the workbench on a VGA compatible screen when the current screenmode.prefs contains an invalid mode id. May also be useful for some (stupid) programs that default to a custom screen with a native Amiga screen mode after installation. o *NEW FEATURE*: software sprite routines will use on-board blitter when available. Therefore boards which have a blitter reserve about 12 KB of their memory for sprite and back buffers. This might affect the size of the largest screen that can be opened in some systems (mostly with 1MB cards). o *NEW FEATURE*: alerts (Alert(), DisplayAlert(), TimedDisplayAlert()) now are rendered into the front most screen if it is a Picasso96 one. After termination of the alert, the display is restored. o *NEW FEATURE*: board drivers can now prevent the loading and attaching of settings files. Useful for the UAEgfx driver that creates its own modes and cannot use standard settings definitions at all. o *NEW FEATURE*: new environment variable "DisableAmigaBlitter" which even forces blits on standard planar Amiga bitmaps to be performed by the CPU. Set to 'yes' to enable this feature. If you don't use native Amiga screens, this could improve some operations on fast processors. On the other hand, Amiga screens will be slower. Defaults to 'No'. o *NEW FEATURE*: new environment variable "PlanesToFast" which when set to 'Yes' will allocate planar bitplanes to fast memory except when the caller requested a visible or standard bitmap. Defaults to 'No'. o *NEW FEATURE* user can now allocate private bitmaps that do not need to be locked. Especially useful for programs that need temporary fast memory bitmaps for rendering. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A N E W A M I G A S T O R E I S L A U N C H E D 16 Nov 1999 A new Amiga store is open in Phoenix, Arizona. We have Amiga computers, software, peripherals, and more! New A4000Ts! O/S 3.5, etc. Visit www.merlancia.com/store.html for details. Also check out www.merlancia.com for more info. -Ryan E. A. Czerwinski Merlancia@aol.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- U N I T Y B O A R D 16 Nov., '99 Unity Overview Abstract: Unity alias Zorro1200 is an Autoconfig(TM) board for Amiga. It makes it possible to use Melody1200 and other expansions initially done for A1200's clock port for ZorroII/III Computers. A special property is variable bus speed. It's possible to run expansions nearly as slow as in A1200 but it's even possible to go up to twice that speed known from old Zorro boards like Melody-Z2 or Prelude. Why it's a must have: Unity together with: o Unity-Net 10 results in an efficient, small low-priced 10Base-2 or 10Base-T solution for Amiga different to other solutions Full Duplex-Mode (20Mbps) is supported. o Unity-Net 100 probably is the first and only 10/100BaseTx solution for Amiga. It's unique! o Melody1200 gives the final move for Melody 1200. being the market leader regarding audio precission + bandwidth inside every Amiga. Load is much lower compared to the traditional clock-port connection at A1200. This even means there is room for a Multichannel variant Melody1200. Do you want ous to do such solution? Tell ous! o Twister1200 primary results in higher throughput. The mayor topic is having a real Serial High-End Interface at Zorro-Amiga by not wasting a Zorro slot (since there is the possibility of having an on-board interface that option should be taken first loosing no connector). If there is anybody out there who likes to have three very fast serial interfaces this is possible now. o combinations of these and future boards gives maximum flexibility by using only one Zorro slot Features: o Zorro2 Autoconfig(TM) o Up to 3.5 MB/s bus bandwidth to CPU causing low system load, only o two connectors for Melody1200, Twister1200 and other boards o 16bits connector intended for Networkoption Unity-Net 10 or 100. Board is prepared (production time) for mounting further devices: o Twister1200-style HighSpeed Serial Interface Onboard o xxxx Interface Onboard (secret up to the show;-) Requirements: o Amiga mit Zorro Slot o oder Amiga 1200 mit Bus-Erweiterung Status: o very early prototype was presented at Computer'98, Cologne o final design presented at Home Electronics World in Cologne 1999 http://www.katodev.de/english/unity.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- W I P T E O U T 2 0 9 7 O N M A R K E T 9 Nov 1999 WipeOut 2097 (PPC) is available! Suggested Retail Price DM 99.90 US$1.00 = DM 1.88 given current exchange rates. ***** Ordering information: The most convenient method of placing an order is to use our electronic order form located at http://www.schatztruhe.de/order.html. You can also send an E-Mail to stefano@schatztruhe.de including your address and the products you wish to order. {Available from other Amiga dealers also. Brad} ***** WipeOut 2097 The famous 3D anti-gravity racing game! You'll need lightning fast reflexes in this high speed race-n-chase thriller. Your goal is to stay in first place and defend your glider against the other pilots. Extreme hairpin turns, gut-wrenching drops and jumps are boosting the gameplay, while you blast your opponents with incredible weapons. /Specifications/ o Highly detailed 3D graphics o 8 tracks with up to 15 ships racing o 3 race modes (timetrial/arcade/challenge) o 4 racing classes o 5 ship models with different characteristics o 8 weapons/extras o 9 CD audio tracks +- 16 bit sound fx o MPEG animations o Configurable control via Keyboard/Mouse/Joypad /Amiga specific features/ o Runs in a resizable workbench window o Supports triple buffering for maximum speed o Increased view distance during a race o Fogging effect o Mip mapping/trilinear filtering (with suitable hardware) o Gamma correction o Optional frame rate limitation o Brings optimum PPC and 3D gaming to the Amiga for the first time! /System Requirements/ o PowerPC 603e or better o 3D graphics card such as CyberVision64/3D, CyberVisionPPC or BVisionPPC o 1Mb hard drive space (minimum) o 24Mb Fast RAM (minimum) o CD-ROM drive o OS 3.0 or better o CybergraphX/Picasso 96 software o WarpUP V4 software (included) o Warp3D V2 software (included) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- M I K R O M O R T A L T E N N I S 28 Oct., '99 You wanted it here it is. Mikro Mortal Tennis aims to become the craziest game ever in the videogame history!! As you can guess from the title, it is basically founded on tennis game, but its goal is to eliminate your opponents, not simply to defeat them!!! To this purpose, players might make use of loads of Mortal-Kombat and Street-Fighter-like special moves, in addition to many others, directly taken from lots of famous videogames or films. Besides, there are bombs, Fire'n'forget rockets, heat-seeking missiles at their complete disposal... The game boasts an amusing animated intro which will explain the reason of such a strange tournamnet - by the way, your order is to climb a high mountain, just like the second episode of the Mortal Kombat saga; moreover, it features several victory and defeat pictures and an even more crazy final sequence than the intro!! Players can choose their characters from a range of twelve different guys, each distinguished with typical characteristics, which can be edited in the proper menu. Beyond every human conceiving, the game is spangled with lots of mad things, like referee-slaughtering, animals which will appear in the field, VIPs which will perform during the match, and a mysterious tapir named Fart (main character of the game, as you can be able to guess from the introduction) which will perform in a number of funny anims.. At the beginning of the match the players will enter the field and choose the field in which play with an incredible money trowing!! Of course, the sporting side of the game is not to be under-stimated.. You'll always have to win your match!! From this point of view, the game is classicaly structured: pitch type, number of sets to win, type of game (single, double or training),as well as the type of tournament to join; you'll be able to select, in addition to the above-mentioned MK-style tournament, an UNFRIENDLY tournament in which up to eight human players are allowed to take part, or a full season, where player will have to win as much as possible to travel all over the world, and in order to buy weapons and points which will help him in his short career. It's possible to save and subsequently restore your season from disc as well as every change made in the players editing menu, where you're able to change the name, the characteristics and the shirt colour of all the characters... Well, that's all, there's nothing left but wishing you to enjoy Mikro Mortal Tennis! Mikro Mortal Tennis supports all Amiga models with at least 1 Meg of Ram. Mikro Mortal Tennis authors are: Coding: Davide Mancusi - Marco Pacifico Graphics: Marco Pacifico - Sergio Rocco Additional graphics: Enrico Zerbo Musics & sfx: Alex Ascione Storyboard: Valerio Massari - Stefano Gualeni The game is expeceted to retail around the 15 ukp mark. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Amiga Update on the net: All back issues available at: http://www.globaldialog.com/~amigaupdate/index.html Stop by and check out our archive! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1999 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 ======================================================================