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Silicon Times Report Issue 1214
Silicon Times Report
The Original Independent OnLine Magazine"
(Since 1987)
April 05, 1996 No. 1214
Silicon Times Report International OnLine Magazine
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04/05/96 STR 1214 The Original Independent OnLine Magazine!
- CPU Industry Report - USR I-Modem - ISDN Series V
- Access Software News - Phila. Trial Coverage - Gov't TAPS Net
- Kid's Corner - MSN & ISDN - Silicon Famine?
- BattleMorph - People Talking - Tempest 2m
IRS Computer Project a Fiasco?
Prodigy Buyout Effort
MCI Refunds $44 Million
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The Staff & Editors
Florida Lotto - LottoMan v1.35
Results: 3/23/96: 1 of 6 numbers with 1 match in 19 plays
From the Editor's Desk...
Happy Easter and Best Wishes to all Celebrating the annual High Holy
Days of Springtime. The Resurrection of Christ. And Passover. In stark
truth, we are also celebrating the unjust accusation, trial and ultimate
crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Obviously, mankind as a whole hasn't learned
very much about being Just or Righteous. Someday.. maybe but we have a very
long way to go. God help us all.
Every now and then. something comes along that deserves everyone's
attention. In the computing community its usually new software, new
hardware, a merger etc.. Lately though, it seems there are more and more
"Control Freaks" jumping up trying to force their intentions (right or wrong)
upon the computing community en masse. Folks, its up to each and every one
of you, who feels you are intelligent and mature enough, to make your own
decisions relative to what you read, view and/or believe in to contact your
political representatives. Regardless of how you may or may not hold them in
contempt. please call or write `em and tell `em how you feel about all this
censorship and control that's being tried. There seems to be this tight knit
"core group" in government, local and national, who seem to insist the
population is not capable of fending for itself. We must, each and every
one of us, show them and the entire "herd" of "Control Freaks", from The Hill
to the City Council, that we are indeed not only capable but will vote them
out if they do not accurately represent us.
We see Janet Reno's "posse" in all corners of the media trying to make a
"big name" for themselves as hot and heavy investigators and enforcers of
what's right and proper. Hmmm IF the Unabomber's brother hadn't blown the
whistle on him. these high dollar "feebs" would still be tilting at
windmills. Not to mention their continued chasing headlines, pursuing
cultists, surrounding farms and "building fantastic sounding cases against
these simple country people. Too bad they didn't think of these things when
they were recently "partying and barbecuing".
Montana's Freemen.. Sounds like Oregon's Anderson's and/or the Waco-
Koresh deal all over again. Remember?? When they could not get the public
to go for the "insurrection and heavily over-armed" shtick. they came in a
few days later with the "child molestation" nonsense. One can only wonder
what sort of contrived, constructed or whatever "deal" they'll come up with
before they charge into the Freemen and slay the majority. I pray they don't
do this sort of thing again.. I hate to regard our government as murderous
and lawless.
One can only wonder about the act of invading a country, kidnapping
their President and then putting that kidnapped leader on trial. Especially
when we, as a nation, paid this guy for almost a decade to do what we tried
him for! But only after he stopped being a "CI" (Co-operating Individual)
for two or more government agencies! What ever became of The U.N., The
Monroe Doctrine, The Organization of American States or basically, the rights
of and the respecting of fellow mankind? What would this nation have done
if another nation had swept into Washington DC and kidnapped Bush or North
and then put either of them on trial?? This nation's international
lawlessness over the last decade has been setting a very dangerous and highly
volatile precedent. God help us if any other nations of the world do unto us
as we have done unto others. Did you know that the United States of America
has, at this time and in history, the largest percentage of its population
under lock and key than any other nation in the world? More than even Nazi
Germany and Imperial Japan combined during the 1930's and 1940's??
One last point, many are considering Robert Dole to be "the salvation"
of this nation. While Clinton & Co. are no "GEMS". at least we have a pretty
good idea of who most of the "players are" and where they're located in the
government. Must we hazard another three or more years getting to this point
all over again? Personally I say no. Let's not change things at this time.
After all, we all know Gore's stand on censorship and especially his wife's.
Clinton and Hillary are almost an open book. Its easy to understand them and
deal with them as we have all laid down the ground rules. The Commerce
Secretary, Ron Brown, was under all kinds of headhunter investigation until
the plane crash. Now, his eulogies make him appear almost Saint-like. Yep..
we know what and who is in Washington DC now. must we gamble again? Do we or
the nation have the time?
Additionally, how many have actually heard. "Yessir I'm voting for
Dole!!" I have heard it so many times I now have a natural reflex reaction.
I immediately ask; Are you really voting for Dole (74 years old!) or in fact,
voting for his yet to be named, Vice President??? Do you really believe Dole
can physically last through his first term?? Take a good look at Clinton the
next time you're watching the news.. In the short time he's been in office.
he's gone completely grey! In all my years of political observing, one point
has become abundantly clear. The President's Office is truly a very
stressful position for any man to be in. Therefore, one must take this into
strong consideration when election time rolls around. The truth is.. in the
next election, Bob Dole's Vice President stands a bigger chance of finishing
Dole's term than Dole. Better think real hard about who you are actually
voting for when you choose Dole. Would you vote for Dole if his running mate
were perhaps the likes of a Buccanan, Agnew, Quayle or Ford type?? Yep.
better think real hard.
I myself would indeed vote for Dole if. his not yet known running mate
was younger (much younger) and as strong if not stronger than Dole when it
came to Human Rights (primarily at home in the States), Reduction of BIG
Government, Balancing the Budget, reinforcement of the Sherman Anti-Trust
Laws, being more forthright and truthful with the country's citizens and
finally, stopping the hard core drug flow into this county. There is no
excuse for the continued flow of coca paste, cocaine and heroin into this
country. It can be stopped if the government really wanted to do so. That
is, unless of course, IF the billion dollar per year enforcement,
incarceration and legal industry devoted to the drug trade is willing to be
shut down or, have its resources put to better use.
These are my opinions. I could be wrong. I'd also like to hear from you
..let me know what you think..
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STReport Headline News
LATE BREAKING INDUSTRY-WIDE NEWS
Weekly Happenings in the Computer World
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Germans Want to Clarify Net Laws
In Bonn, Germany, officials are considering a new law they say will make it
clear that companies providing access to the Internet are not expected to
police cyberspace on the lookout for pornography or neo-Nazi propaganda.
Edzard Schmidt- Jortzig, Germany's justice minister, told Andrew Gray of the
Reuter News Service firms that offer Net links would be punished only if
they discovered illegal material was available via their service and did
nothing about it.
He added, "Someone who opens a door cannot know what the people who walk
through it are going to be carrying. And if there were body searches for
everyone going through your door, people would simply choose to go through
another." Reuters says Chancellor Helmut Kohl's government probably will
present the draft multimedia law before parliament's summer recess in a bid
to banish indecent and illegal material from cyberspace without regulating a
booming new industry to death, adding, "The provider could only be punished
if he had the ability to take action but did not do so."
The wire service says the comments will come as "a big relief" to executives
at companies providing a gateway to the Internet, who feared they could be
held personally responsible for the content of millions of pages created on
the network all across the world. Net regulation has been a recent issue in
Germany, where earlier this year child pornography investigators ordered
CompuServe to block access to some 200 Internet newsgroups they considered
obscene. Since then, CompuServe has restored access to most of the groups.
Reuters says German authorities also are investigating several other online
services as part of a probe into pornographic and neo-Nazi material found on
the Net, "but so far prosecutors have not been able to bring any charges,
partly because legal experts are unsure where new companies stand under laws
drafted long before they existed." The international nature of the Net
poses problems for regulators.
For instance, neo-Nazi propaganda, which is protected under free speech laws
in the U.S., often is illegal in Germany. "Although the bill may be
presented before mid-year," adds the news service, "it could be a long time
before it becomes law. Germany's powerful regional states have indicated
they may challenge on constitutional grounds Bonn's right to legislate on the
issue."
CEO Seeking to Buy Prodigy?
The New York Times reports this morning that Prodigy CEO Edward Bennett is
seeking financing to help him buy the online service outright. Prodigy is
jointly owned by IBM and Sears, Roebuck and Co., though as reported in
February, Sears has said it is seeking a buyer for its half of the service.
The Reuter News Service notes neither company has commented on the Times
article.
Prodigy Buyout Effort Planned
Investment banker Wasserstein Perella Securities Inc. reportedly has been
retained by Prodigy's management team in its effort to buy out the ailing
online service and possibly take it public. Quoting executives familiar
with the talks, reporter Jared Sandberg of The Wall Street Journal writes
this morning the Prodigy management hopes to buy the service from its
parents -- IBM and Sears, Roebuck & Co. -- for about $250 million, "a number
far smaller than the $500 million Sears was reportedly seeking for only its
50 percent stake this February."
Adds Sandberg, "It's unclear whether Sears and IBM, which also is looking at
dumping its stake, would accept such an offer after investing more than $1
billion in Prodigy. Moreover, some observers wonder how successful
Wasserstein will be at finding investors to buy into a service that's losing
ground to competitors." The paper quotes industry executives as saying
Sears hasn't had any serious suitors for its stake, which it wanted to unload
by the end of the first quarter.
One unidentified Prodigy executive told the Journal, "The window opened once
the owners realized that no one's going to come along and buy a 50 percent
share. All of a sudden, the kids want to take over their parents' business."
Sony Promises 'Different' PC
Sony Corp. says that its first home PC, which it will launch by next March,
will differ significantly from today's boxy desktop machines. Reporting
from Tokyo, The Wall Street Journal says this morning, "Sony isn't saying
exactly what its machine will look like, but Kunitake Ando, head of Sony's
information-technology unit, said it will be more at home in users' living
rooms than their offices."
Ando told the paper the machine will emphasize connectivity to the Internet
and will be more entertainment oriented. He said it will be his employer's
first major attempt to create a new kind of computer by fusing its expertise
in consumer electronics with the fast-paced world of PCs. The Journal says
Sony's plans aren't limited to PC hardware, that the company also "has high
hopes for its recently released 'Apertos' operating system, a so-called
microkernel program that would run appliances such as enhanced televisions."
Micropolis Sells Drive Business
Micropolis Corp. has closed a $55 million deal to sell its disk drive
business to Singapore Technologies and will change its name to StreamLogic
Corp. Reporting from Los Angeles, United Press International says the new
company will specialize in software and subsystems designed for the
movement, storage and management of video and data. (It has applied for a
new stock ticker symbol, STLC, and expects to start trading under that symbol
shortly.)
StreamLogic will remain headquartered in the Los Angeles suburb of
Chatsworth. It has received $29.7 million from Singapore Technologies and is
entitled to two additional payments. UPI says the disk drive assets will be
renamed Micropolis Pte Ltd. The new Micropolis said it is expanding its
manufacturing capability by moving into a new 400,000 square foot factory in
Singapore and debuting three new drives, including an Aries 2 for desktop
workstations. It will keep its research and development center in Chatsworth
and continue operating plants in Singapore and Thailand.
Seagate Acquires Software Publisher
Seagate Technology Inc. has paid $13 million to acquire OnDemand Software,
publisher of the WinINSTALL network software distribution utility. Seagate
notes that OnDemand will add network management technology to Seagate's
enterprise management software group. WinINSTALL automates the installation,
upgrading and uninstallation of network applications throughout an
organization.
"The integration of WinINSTALL continues to fulfill our commitment to deliver
the best point and suite network management solutions to the market," says
Tom Yerkes, president of Seagate's enterprise management software group.
"WinINSTALL's ability to provide integration and support for all major
network management systems further illustrates our overall strategy to
support our industry colleagues and their platforms."
"We share a common vision and are proud to join the Seagate Software team,"
adds Neal Ater, president of OnDemand Software. "This will enable us to
achieve levels of integration previously unobtainable." OnDemand has a
sales, marketing and support organization located in Naples, Florida and a
development team located in Takoma Park, Maryland. In the new organization,
Ater will serve as chief operating officer of the Naples operation; the
Takoma Park site will report to Yerkes.
Epson Ships Zip Drive
Epson America reports that it has begun shipping its Epson Zip Drive to
distributors throughout the U.S. and Canada. Based on storage technology
developed by Iomega Corp., the $199 Epson Zip Drive works like a floppy drive
but has the speed of a hard disk. The unit is designed for backups and
storing large files, such as graphics and video. The Epson Zip Drive uses
Iomega-compatible 100MB and 25MB capacity Zip disks.
The Epson Zip Drive is available in both SCSI and parallel versions, and is
compatible with Macintosh and DOS/Windows computers. The drive weighs one
pound and can sit vertically or horizontally. It has a seek time of 29
milliseconds with a sustained transfer rate of up to 1.25MB per second. The
PC model has a throughput of up to 20MB per minute with a parallel interface
that connects directly between a PC and printer.
The Mac/PC SCSI model has a throughput of up to 50MB per minute.
Microsoft to Make Over Computing
Word is Microsoft Corp. is set to unveil plans for a new device that combines
the ability to gain access to the Internet with the functions of a PC and
other household appliances. The New York Times reports this morning the
product -- to be called the Simply Interactive Personal Computer, or SIPC --
will include the functions of a stereo, videocassette recorder and
television and also will feature data transmission speeds much faster than
most current PCs.
This appears to run counter to the current trend toward simple, inexpensive
machines that will offer only Internet access, such as the $500 Network
Computer being developed by Oracle Corp. In The Wall Street Journal this
morning, reporter Don Clark says Microsoft chief Bill Gates will lay out his
plans for "a broad makeover of the personal computer" in a speech Monday at
the company's annual hardware engineering conference in San Francisco.
"The initiative will take at least two years and require support from
numerous hardware companies," Clark says. Sony Corp. is expected to play a
major role, along with other partners, such as electronics giant Toshiba
Corp., Compaq Computer Corp. and Intel Corp. Says Clark, "Microsoft is
facing strong pressure to act. Recent studies suggest that affluent U.S.
households, the most ready market for new home technology, are approaching
saturation of conventional PCs.
Meanwhile, competitors such as Oracle Corp. Chief Executive Officer Lawrence
Ellison are promoting the idea of new, $500 network computers that would
weaken the need for Microsoft's flagship operating software." Insiders tell
the Journal Microsoft will unveil a set of hardware specifications and
other technology that, says Clark, "is designed to help migrate Microsoft's
Windows 95 operating system and other PC programs to the living room, rather
than replace them with an entirely new computing platform."
The Journal says SIPC also could lead to new types of networks for handling
home automation functions, "such as playing a video image of a person at the
front door on a big-screen television set." The paper adds the SIPC
specifications will include a proposed standard cable connection that could
send data among components at 400 million bits per second, more than 30
times faster than typical PC connections today.
"Another key concept, dubbed On Now, would bring computers to life in three
to five seconds, rather than the boot time that can delay PC usage by
several minutes," says the paper. Clark reports a computer designed to the
SIPC specs might fit on a shelf with other electronic components, playing
audio through an external stereo system or displaying video from he coming
generation of video disk players. It also might serve as a telephone
answering machine or a videophone system.
Apple to Focus on Reliability?
Word is the strategy of the new chieftain at Apple Computer Inc. is to make
computers so reliable and sturdy that customers will pay a premium price for
them. Quoting Apple employees and an internal company memorandum, The New
York Times reports this morning that new Apple Chairman Gilber Amelio has
told a group of technical staff members the company could not compete on the
same level as makers of computers based on Intel Corp. chips and Microsoft
Corp. operating systems because of higher research-and-development costs
associated with its own hardware and software specifications.
Instead, says The Times, Amelio will turn the company toward the creation of
premium-priced computers that will be the "Maglite of Computers", (referring
to a brand-name, premium-priced flashlight known for its durability).
According to the Reuter News Service, the move "would mark a shift from
previous strategies of price cuts and direct competition with the rest of the
PC industry."
Communications Pioneer Honored
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has announced the winners of its fifth
annual Pioneer Awards. According to the EFF, the Pioneer Awards recognize
individuals who have made significant and influential contributions to the
development of computer-based communications or to the empowerment of
individuals in using computers. Robert Metcalfe, executive correspondent
for InfoWorld and vice president of technology for International Data Group,
is being honored with a Pioneer Award for his invention of Ethernet, the
widely-used local-area network protocol.
Peter Neumann, principal scientist at SRI International, is being honored
with a Pioneer Award for his extensive involvement with computer
communication systems and the social and technological issues caused by
computers. He is also being honored for his work in security issues. The
EFF is honoring Shabbir Safdar, co-founder of the Voters Telecommunications
Watch (VTW), for his policy work regarding Internet censorship and federal
interference in telecommunications. VTW, a watchdog group dedicated to
monitoring encroachments on civil liberties in telecommunications policy,
has fought the FBI's blanket wiretap proposal, federal and New York state
attempts to muzzle free speech on the Internet and the Clinton
administration's "Son of Clipper Chip" program.
Matthew Blaze, a computer scientist for AT&T Research, is being honored for
his discoveries and influence in cryptography. He is one of seven experts
who wrote the recently released paper "Minimal Key Lengths for Symmetric
Ciphers to Provide Adequate Commercial Security," which examined the security
problems with U.S. policy limits on key encryption exports. His work, says
the EFF, has been instrumental in establishing Internet security standards
and in improving both the understanding and effectiveness of cryptographic
systems.
"With the growing presence of the Internet and the public debate surrounding
civil liberties, the contributions of this year's award winners deserve
special recognition. In keeping with EFF's mission, they have each
contributed to the advancement of electronic communications in a way that
also benefits society," says Esther Dyson, the EFF's chairman.
The four award recipients will be honored today at the Sixth Conference on
Computers, Freedom and Privacy. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a non-
profit organization founded in 1990 to ensure the protection of civil
liberties, such as privacy and freedom of expression, as new communications
technologies emerge.
Government Taps Computer Network
The first use of a court-ordered wiretap on a computer network has led to
charges against an Argentine man accused of breaking into a Harvard
University computer. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Boston, 21-
year-old Julio Cesar Ardita of Buenos Aires used an Internet-linked computer
belonging to Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences as a staging point to
crack into numerous computer sites, including several belonging to the
Department of Defense and NASA.
The wiretap, placed during the last two months of 1995, resulted in the
filing of a criminal complaint against. An arrest warrant has been issued
for Ardita. According to the complaint, Ardita invaded the Harvard computer
through the Internet, and once in the system allegedly stole a series of
accounts and passwords. Using these accounts as his base, Ardita reportedly
gained unauthorized access to computers at various U.S. military sites across
the country, including the Navy Research Laboratory, NASA's Jet Propulsion
Laboratory and Ames Research Center, the Los Alamos National Laboratory and
the Naval Command Control and Ocean Surveillance Center. He also tried
repeatedly but unsuccessfully to enter the Army Research Laboratory computer
system, according to the complaint.
Government officials say Ardita was identified by using a specially
configured monitoring computer that conducted the complex searches needed to
isolate his activities. On December 28, 1995, Ardita's computer files and
equipment were seized at his home in Buenos Aires by authorities acting on
information supplied by Telecom Argentina which U.S. authorities had
contacted for assistance in tracking the intruder.
Attorney General Janet Reno and United States Attorney Donald K. Stern of the
District of Massachusetts note that a wiretap order, typically employed to
monitor telephone conversations of organized crime and drug suspects, was
used to trace and identify the illegal intruder while preserving the
confidentiality of legitimate communications. Reno notes that Ardita
obtained access to computer systems containing important and sensitive
information in government research files on satellites, radiation and energy
related engineering. Ardita wasn't accused of obtaining classified
information related to national security.
According to Reno, Ardita was believed to have illegally entered computer
systems at additional U.S. universities, including Cal Tech, the University
of Massachusetts, and Northeastern University, and sites in other countries
such as Korea, Mexico, Taiwan, Chile and Brazil. "This is an example of
how the Fourth Amendment and a court order can be used to protect rights
while adapting to modern technology," says Reno. "This is doing it the right
way."
Study Says Ads Target Cyberkids
A new report concludes advertisers and marketers are exploiting kids by
promoting products online in ways that manipulate children and violate their
privacy. The Federal Trade Commission is looking into whether laws have been
violated. Issued by the Center for Media Education, the study urged the FTC
to develop safeguards for kids, saying marketers peddling children's
products are using a variety of techniques on computer online services and
the Internet to collect detailed data and compile individual profiles on
kids.
CME President Kathryn Montgomery told Roger Fillion of the Reuter News
Service, "Never before has there been a medium with this kind of power to
invade the privacy of children and families." The study finds nearly a
million children use the Internet's World Wide Web and that 3.8 million have
access to the Web. CME says kids are being offered free gifts such as T-
shirts and chances to win prizes in exchange for filling out surveys that
detail their e-mail address, home address, sex and other personal
information.
"Tracking technology," says Reuters, "makes it possible to monitor every
interaction between a child and an advertisement, allowing firms to create
personalized ads for a child."
Penthouse Ranked Top Web Site
Adult magazine Penthouse is claiming the title as the most popular
publication-based site on the Internet, saying its World Wide Web pages had
54 million hits from Dec. 21 to Jan. 20. Backing up with its claim with data
from an independent Nielsen/Internet Profiles survey, officials with the
publication told United Press International an average visit to the
Penthouse Internet site lasted 12 minutes and 57 seconds, during which 25.35
hits were recorded.
Also:
ú The most popular time for a visit was shortly after midnight and the
least popular about 6 a.m.
ú American visitors constitute 68.8 percent of visitors to the site,
followed by Australians with 6.7 percent, Canadians with 3.7 percent and
Japanese, Germans and South Koreans with just over 2 percent each.
ú Universities accounted for 86,500 visits during the month, led by the
University of Minnesota with 8,751 visits followed by the University of
Wisconsin and the University of Washington, with 7,337 and 7,166
respectively.
ú Visits originating from computers linked to the Internet through
corporate access systems were led by IBM (4,556), Apple Computer (4,462) and
AT&T (3,805).
Three Charged With Net Joy Ride
Three Alameda County, California, students are charged with stealing their
high school's Net access code and going on a cyberspheric joy ride,
downloading stolen credit card numbers for an online shopping spree. "These
are bright kids," investigating officer Sgt. Casey Nice told United Press
International in Castro Valley, California. "They just kind of did something
foolish and got in over their heads."
The wire service says the youths were charged with computer crimes, a felony
charge carrying a minimum prison sentence of 16 months. They were released
to their parents, and a date has not yet been set for their arraignment. UPI
says the alleged crime spree started when a 15-year-old Castro Valley High
School student got the school's America Online user name and password. He
joined with two friends, a 15-year-old San Lorenzo High School student and a
14- year-old student from Alameda's St. Barnabas School.
"The trio logged on to the Internet using the school code and one of their
home computers, downloaded stolen credit card numbers and started shopping,"
UPI says. "Police were tipped off to the fraud in mid-February when packages
started showing up at a vacant home up for sale near one of the boys'
houses." Adds UPI, "The owner of the home called authorities to report
mysterious shipments of CD-ROM games, compact disks, a 'Beavis and Butt-head'
CD-ROM, computer equipment and other merchandise showing up at his home
addressed to people he didn't know."
Officials figure the youths stole at least $5,000 worth of merchandise, but
it may be more because items they ordered still are arriving, Nice said.
Net Enables Father-Son Reunion
A three-minute search on a new World Wide Web site on the Internet called
"The Switchboard" has enabled a 48-year- old toolmaker Roseville, Michigan,
to find the man he believes is his long-lost father. Michael Spangler told
Associated Press writer Kelly Kurt that his mother always refused to talk
about the sailor she met in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1947 and married a
couple of weeks later. The two lost contact after Dallas Spangler shipped out
a few days later and the marriage was annulled.
Reared by his grandparents who told him what they knew about his father,
Michael Spangler went twice to Oklahoma City where he believed Dallas
Spangler lived. He had no luck, however, until a friend told him two weeks
ago about The Switchboard, a Net site that contains some 93 million phone
numbers for residences and 11 million for businesses. A quick search turned
up two Dallas Spanglers, one in Tulsa. Michael Spangler telephoned. The 68-
year-old man on the other end of the line didn't quite know what to think.
"I had no idea I had a son," he told AP. "It was kind of shocking." The
Switchboard site can be reached at Web address
http://www.switchboard.com/.!
Gates Gets Ansel Adams Rights
Bill Gates has scored electronic rights to the works of late nature
photographer Ansel Adams, some 2,500 images of the American wilderness. The
Associated Press -- which notes about 9 million books, posters and calendars
based on the stark and moving photos have been sold - says the Corbis Corp.,
the Bellevue, Wash., company owned by Microsoft Corp. chief Gates, is in
the process of putting together an enormous digital library.
As reported earlier, Corbis last fall purchased the Bettman Archive and its
collection of millions of historical photos. The wire service says specific
terms of the Adams deal were not disclosed, but The New York Times reports
today Corbis will have exclusive rights to distribute Adams' photos
electronically for 20 years. The paper also says Corbis' initial payment to
the family of Adams, who died in 1984 at age 82, will be small, but Gates
hopes to eventually sell digital images on computer discs or over computer
networks. Corbis President Doug Rowan told the paper his company already
has made "many millions of dollars" selling copies of its digital images to
media companies.
ISDN Series STR Focus "Fully Understanding ISDN"
A Guide to Setting Up MSN to Work with ISDN
Contents
Introduction
ISDN Modems that Work with MSN
Installing your ISDN Modem to work with MSN
Signing up for MSN using ISDN
How MSN Supports ISDN
Frequently Asked Questions
Introduction
MSN is now offering ISDN support, which provides access to MSN and the
Internet at twice the speed of a 28.8 modem. ISDN modems also provide more
reliable connections than do standard modems. To use an ISDN connection, you
must have an ISDN modem (see list below), and be in a location where MSN
provides a phone number that supports ISDN access. There is no extra charge
for ISDN connections from MSN, although your local phone company will charge
for ISDN service.
ISDN Modems that work with MSN
Currently MSN will support any ISDN modem because they behave exactly like
modems. We have tested the following:
ú Motorola BitSURFR
ú Motorola BitSURFR PRO
ú 3com Impact
ú USR Courier I-Modem V.34
ú Digi Datafire (Win95)
ú Digi PCIMAC (Win95)
ú Diehl Diva (Win95)
Installing your ISDN Modem to work with MSN
There are instructions for setting up the above ISDN modems in the Easy ISDN
Access Forum. To get to the forum, on the Edit menu, point to Go To, and
then click Other Location. Type the GO Word EasyISDN. To get the
instructions from the forum, double-click the vendor's folder (i.e. Motorola
ISDN Products), and then double-click the Software BBS. (i.e. Motorola
Software). In that BBS you will find messages that contain the setup
instructions.
New! Windows 95 ISDN Accelerator Pack.
A new set of drivers has been released by the Windows 95 team which allows a
whole new class of ISDN adapters to be used with Windows 95. Check out the
Win95 folder in the forum for more details on these drivers or follow this
web link. The adapters listed above with (Win95) require the Windows 95 ISDN
Accelerator Pack to work with MSN.
Signing Up for MSN using ISDN
If you are already a member
You do not need to sign up again. Continue to use your existing MSN account.
To get ISDN service you need to call an "Internet and The Microsoft Network"
phone number. To set the phone number, on the Tools menu, click Connection
Settings, and then click Access Numbers. Select the Internet and The
Microsoft Network service type, and select the closest phone number.
If you are not an MSN member and you have an analog modem in addition to your
ISDN modem.
Setup up your analog modem as your default device. Double click the MSN icon
and follow the normal setup procedures. During setup make sure to select MSN
and full Internet Access, then select "ISDN access to the Internet and MSN".
If you do not have the option "ISDN access to the Internet and MSN" choose
"Internet and the Microsoft Network". A full list of ISDN phone number will
be posted i
If you only have an ISDN modem
You must use an analog modem to set up MSN. Once MSN setup is complete, you
can use your ISDN modem to connect to MSN. Microsoft is aware that this is a
problem and will be fixing this.
How MSN Supports ISDN
An ISDN line has three channels, 2 B (bearer) channels and one D (data). The
D channel is used for connection negotiation and out-of-band signaling, while
the B channels transport the data. The D channel is rated at 16Kbps and each
B channel can transport at either 56Kbps or 64Kbps depending on your phone
company. These B channels can either be used separately or combined
together to make a single 128Kbps connection.
Currently MSN supports ISDN with only 1 B channel. This means that the
connection speeds will be either 56Kbps or 64Kbps. Dual channel ISDN access
(using 2 B channels) is not currently supported, but will be Q2 '96.
Frequently Asked Questions:
What is ISDN?
ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) is an international standard which
brings high speed data transmission to the desktop.
How can I find the ISDN phone number nearest me?
Check the ISDN phone Number Icon which is the current list of ISDN phone
numbers.
How do I change the phone number I use to connect to MSN to one that supports
ISDN?
On the Tools menu, click Connection Settings, click Access Numbers, and
then select the Internet and the Microsoft Network service type.
What is the phone number I should call for various Telephone Companies?
US WEST: 1-800-898-9675
GTE: 1-800-GTE-4WCN
Ameritech: 1-800-419-5400. (Home Professional & ISDN service)
PAC BELL : 1-800-4PB-ISDN.
NYNEX: 1-800-588-9648
Bell Atlantic: 1-800-204-7332
Bell South: 1-800-204-7332
South Western Bell: 1-800-SWB-ISDN
How much does ISDN phone service typically cost?
Currently the rates vary widely depending on your telephone company. The
rates for basic ISDN service range from $20 - $45 a month for basic service,
with additional per minute charges of $.00 to $.10.
How can I get compression to work?
We currently do not support compression.
How fast is an ISDN modem?
An ISDN modem speeds range from 56Kbps to 144Kbps. Currently MSN supports
only 56kbps and 64Kbps connection. We do not support faster connections to
MSN because we only support a single channel.
Can I use 2 or more channels?
Currently MSN does not support dual channels. We plan on supporting 2 channel
access in Q2 1996.
Can I connect to MSN with dual B channels using MP?
Not at this time. MSN will be supporting this feature in 1996.
When will the USR 128k Sportster be supported?
The USR 128k Sportster is not currently supported because USR has not
provided any drivers to the Win95 team for inclusion in the ISDN Accelerator
Pack for Win95. The USR driver should be released within a few weeks as far
as we can tell.
How much throughput should I expect?
In our tests we have found anywhere between approximately 40,000 bps and
65,000 bps.
Can I use ISDN to get on the Internet or just MSN?
You can use an ISDN modem with the Internet and ISDN.
Where can I get ISDN driver software? Support?
The ISDN Software Files BBS holds all the drivers for all the different ISDN
boards we have received. You could also look in the specific vendor's folder
if you do not find what you need.
Internet Phone Numbers
Updated: 3/29/96
We are working hard to make high speed Internet access widely available,
first in North America, then worldwide. For technical reasons, we need to
build an entirely new network in order to give you the performance and
functionality we believe you'll want. As soon as we get the network built in
your area, you will be able to access both the Internet and MSN, at speeds up
to 28.8kb/s, for the same price that you pay for MSN alone.
We are also in the process of enabling ISDN access for those customers who
have ISDN lines and ISDN terminal adapters. To see if ISDN support is
available in your area, please refer to the ISDN Support column below. Also,
please note that ISDN support is only available to those customers who are
beta testing our next upgrade to MSN. If the comment under ISDN Support
indicates "verifying", we are in the final stages of confirming local ISDN
access for those phone numbers. These "verifying" numbers may only be
accessible from in the local area and we are working with our beta partners
to confirm successful connections. If you have any questions regarding ISDN
issues, please see the ISDN Forum.
Please be patient as we configure and test this new network--we expect to add
new cities regularly for the next several months.
We have two sets of phone numbers: released numbers that are available to you
when you change phone numbers online, and a second set of numbers that we are
currently testing. If there is no released phone number in your area, you may
be able to use a phone number from the beta phone number list below.
How to Update Your Phonebook
This is a list of currently released Internet access numbers. To get the
latest phone numbers, while online go to the Tools menu, click Connection
Settings, click Access Numbers, and then click Change. (Note that the
"phonebook" and this list are not necessarily posted simultaneously to MSN -
there may be differences between the two during the period of time when
updates are happening.)
ISDN Support
City Phone Number 56k 64k
United States
Alaska Anchorage Coming Soon!
Alabama Auburn/Opelika +1 (334) 5028036 Yes No
Birmingham +1 (205) 3220856 Yes Yes
Decatur +1 (205) 3535029 No No
Gadsden +1 (205) 5430504 No Yes
Huntsville +1 (205) 5330409 Yes Yes
Mobile +1 (334) 4316706 Yes Yes
Montgomery +1 (334) 2230902 Yes Yes
Arizona Phoenix +1 (602) 6403907 Yes Yes
Tucson +1 (520) 6200872 Yes Yes
Arkansas Fayettville +1 (501) 4425203 Verifying
Ft. Smith +1 (501) 7825043 Yes No
Little Rock +1 (501) 3751590 No No
Pine Bluff +1 (501) 5342288 No Yes
California Anaheim +1 (714) 8710966 Yes Yes
Carlsbad +1 (619) 9298643 Yes Yes
Chico Coming Soon!
Concord +1 (510) 6096318 Yes Yes
Englewood +1 (310) 3389007 Yes Yes
Fremont +1 (510) 7420207 Yes Yes
Fresno +1 (209) 4951007 Yes Yes
Huntington Beach +1 (714) 3770278 Yes Yes
Livermore +1 (510) 4490339 Yes Yes
Long Beach +1 (310) 6249090 Yes Yes
Los Angeles +1 (213) 6208910 Yes Yes
Modesto +1 (209) 5740196 Yes Yes
Oakland +1 (510) 7048599 Yes Yes
Ontario +1 (909) 4601214 Yes Yes
Palm Springs +1 (619) 3202378 Yes No
Palo Alto +1 (415) 3220489 Yes Yes
Pasadena +1 (818) 5850100 Yes Yes NEW!
Rancho Cucamonga +1 (909) 4819468 Yes
Yes
Redding +1 (916) 2258634 Yes Yes NEW!
Rialto +1 (909) 8752490 Yes Yes
Sacramento +1 (916) 4473613 Yes Yes
Salinas +1 (408) 7510530 Yes No
San Bernadino Coming Soon!
San Diego +1 (619) 3380612 Yes Yes
San Francisco +1 (415) 3579923 Yes Yes
San Jose +1 (408) 2680582 Yes Yes
San Luis Obispo Coming Soon!
San Mateo +1 (415) 3128208 Yes Yes
San Rafael +1 (415) 4720761 Yes Yes
San Ramon +1 (510) 8671220 Yes Yes
Santa Ana +1 (714) 7269031 Yes Yes
Santa Barbara +1 (805) 8922163 Yes No
Santa Clara +1 (408) 4921481 Yes Yes
Santa Monica +1 (310) 4511209 Yes Yes
Santa Rosa +1 (707) 5221314 Yes Yes
Sherman Oaks +1 (818) 3402888 Yes Yes
Stockton +1 (209) 4630351 Yes Yes
Vacaville +1 (707) 4485608 Yes Yes
Visalia +1 (209) 6350181 Yes Yes
Colorado Colorado Springs +1 (719) 3861680 Yes
Yes
Denver +1 (303) 5756188 Yes Yes
Ft. Collins +1 (970) 2822080 Yes Yes
Connecticut Hartford +1 (203) 7240636 No No
Stamford +1 (203) 3577638 No No
Delaware Wilmington +1 (302) 5760357 Yes Yes
District
of Columbia Washington +1 (202) 2221021 Yes Yes
Florida Bradenton Coming Soon!
Daytona Beach +1 (904) 2550389 Yes Yes
Feathersound +1 (813) 5730863 No No
Ft. Lauderdale +1 (305) 4867918 Yes
Yes
Gainesville +1 (904) 3711332 Yes Yes
Jacksonville +1 (904) 3532059 Yes Yes
Lakeland Coming Soon!
Melbourne +1 (407) 7231064 Yes Yes
Miami +1 (305) 3586951 Yes Yes
Orlando +1 (407) 6482090 Yes Yes
Panama City Coming Soon!
Sarasota Coming Soon!
Tampa +1 (813) 2477863 Yes Yes
West Palm Beach +1 (407) 6819506 Yes Yes
Georgia Albany +1 (912) 4300136 Yes Yes
Athens +1 (706) 2080448 Yes Yes
Atlanta +1 (404) 8178166 Yes Yes
Augusta +1 (706) 8210025 Yes Yes
Columbus +1 (706) 6419942 Yes Yes
Macon Coming Soon!
Savannah +1 (912) 6519899 Yes Yes
Smyrna +1 (770) 4324637 Yes Yes
Hawaii Honolulu Coming Soon!
Idaho Boise +1 (208) 3816880 Yes Yes
Illinois Bloomington +1 (309) 4346030 Yes Yes
Champaign +1 (217) 3983250 Yes Yes
Chicago +1 (312) 9862476 Yes Yes
DeKalb +1 (815) 7483932 Yes Yes
Elk Grove +1 (708) 2287840 Yes Yes
Franklin +1 (312) 9841580 Yes Yes
Hinsdale +1 (708) 2415600 Yes Yes
Irving +1 (312) 5092301 Yes Yes
Naperville +1 (708) 5058070 Yes Yes
Northbrook +1 (708) 4803110 Yes Yes
Springfield +1 (217) 5273440 Yes Yes
Stewart +1 (312) 8730070 Yes Yes
Indiana Bloomington +1 (812) 3234330 Yes Yes
Evansville +1 (812) 4333080 Yes No
Indianapolis +1 (317) 9771010 Yes Yes
Lafayette +1 (317) 7723000 Yes Yes
South Bend +1 (219) 2392090 Yes Yes
Terre Haute +1 (812) 2385600 No No
Valparaiso +1 (219) 5314152 Yes Yes
Iowa Cedar Rapids +1 (319) 3681500 No No
Davenport +1 (319) 3332000 No No
Des Moines +1 (515) 3237000 Yes Yes
Iowa City +1 (319) 3413020 Yes Yes
Kansas Topeka +1 (913) 3689804 Yes Yes
Wichita +1 (316) 3830018 Yes Yes
Kentucky Lexington +1 (606) 2525628 Yes Yes
Louisville +1 (502) 5834400 Yes Yes
Louisiana Baton Rouge +1 (504) 3836126 Yes Yes
Monroe +1 (318) 3222121 Yes Yes
New Orleans +1 (504) 5253564 Yes Yes
Shreveport +1 (318) 6760748 Yes Yes
Maine Portland +1 (207) 8421300 Yes Yes
Maryland Baltimore +1 (410) 7270315 Yes Yes
Frederick +1 (301) 6638403 Yes No
Annapolis +1 (410) 2633325 Yes Yes
Massachusetts Boston +1 (617) 9274200 Yes
Yes
Braintree +1 (617) 3803400 Yes Yes
Burlington +1 (617) 2210500 Yes Yes
Cambridge +1 (617) 6790500 Yes Yes
Danvers +1 (508) 7395000 Yes Yes
Framingham +1 (508) 6284600 Yes Yes
Springfield +1 (413) 8464500 Yes Yes
Waltham +1 (617) 6727400 Yes Yes
Michigan Ann Arbor +1 (313) 2132220 Yes Yes
Belleville +1 (313) 9571268 Yes Yes
Detroit +1 (313) 2254994 Yes Yes
Farmington +1 (810) 4420016 Yes Yes
Grand Rapids +1 (616) 4593620 Yes Yes
Lansing Coming Soon!
Southfield +1 (810) 2623138 No Yes
Warren +1 (810) 5759931 Yes Yes
Minnesota Minneapolis +1 (612) 3217960 Yes Yes
Mississippi Biloxi/Gulfport +1 (601) 8633593 Yes
Yes
Jackson +1 (601) 3554521 Yes Yes
Missouri Columbia +1 (314) 8868621 No No
Harvester +1 (314) 9403200 Yes Yes
Kansas City +1 (816) 2830607 Yes Yes
Springfield +1 (417) 8756902 Yes Yes
St. Louis +1 (314) 2137700 Yes Yes
Montana Butte Coming Soon!
Nebraska Omaha +1 (402) 2337768 Yes Yes
Nevada Las Vegas +1 (702) 3828340 Yes Yes
New Hampshire Nashua +1 (603) 5946600 Yes Yes
New Jersey Cherry Hill +1 (609) 3211995 Yes Yes
Hackensack +1 (201) 2870315 Verifying
Holmdel +1 (908) 3321001 Yes NEW!
Long Branch +1 (908) 9331114 Yes Yes
Mercerville +1 (609) 5867747 Yes Yes
Morristown +1 (201) 9842407 Yes Yes
New Brunswick +1 (908) 4632172 Yes Yes
Newark +1 (201) 6221592 Yes Yes
Paterson +1 (201) 2791225 Yes Yes
Pleasantville +1 (609) 5697800 No No
Rahway +1 (908) 3820026 Yes Yes
Trenton +1 (609) 7775551 Yes Yes
New Mexico Albuquerque Coming Soon!
New York Albany +1 (518) 4266070 Yes Yes
Binghamton +1 (607) 7621280 No No
Brentwood +1 (516) 2312680 Yes Yes
Buffalo +1 (716) 8433000 Yes Yes
Garden City +1 (516) 2281980 Yes Yes
New York +1 (212) 2384220 Yes Yes
Port Chester +1 (914) 9332820 Yes Yes
Poughkeepsie +1 (914) 4514240 Yes Yes
Rochester +1 (716) 3277189 No No
Rome/Utica +1 (315) 3386900 Yes NEW!
Syracuse +1 (315) 4421220 No No
White Plains +1 (914) 6813900 Yes Yes
North Carolina Ashville Coming Soon!
Charlotte +1 (704) 3422422 Yes Yes
Durham +1 (919) 3619127 Yes Yes
Fayetteville +1 (910) 3233915 No No
Goldsboro +1 (919) 7368100 No No
Greensboro +1 (910) 5742663 Yes Yes
Raleigh +1 (919) 8726557 Yes Yes
Rocky Mount +1 (919) 9720919 No No
North Dakota Fargo Coming Soon!
Ohio Akron +1 (216) 2539990 Yes Yes
Cincinnati +1 (513) 6212600 Yes Yes
Cleveland +1 (216) 5792593 Yes Yes
Columbus +1 (614) 2220025 Yes Yes
Dayton +1 (513) 6408391 Yes Yes
Toledo +1 (419) 2462010 Yes Yes
Oklahoma Oklahoma City +1 (405) 2700346 Yes Yes
Tulsa +1 (918) 5820535 Yes Yes
Oregon Beaverton +1 (503) 6772210 Yes Yes
Eugene +1 (541) 3020140 Yes Yes
Portland +1 (503) 2945600 Yes No
Salem +1 (503) 3162070 Yes Yes
Pennsylvania Allentown +1 (610) 7972140 Yes Yes
Altoona +1 (814) 9411280 Yes Yes
Conshohoken +1 (610) 9419491 Yes Yes
Erie Coming Soon!
Greensburg +1 (412) 8539601 Yes Yes
Harrisburg +1 (717) 7200671 Yes Yes
Hershey +1 (717) 5334574 Yes No
Paoli +1 (610) 7259325 Yes Yes
Philadelphia +1 (215) 4480370 Yes Yes
Pittsburgh +1 (412) 3942280 Yes
Yes
Wilkes-Barre +1 (717) 8252150 Yes Yes
Rhode Island Providence +1 (401) 2767700 Yes Yes
South Carolina Charleston Coming Soon!
Columbia +1 (803) 7998828 Yes Yes
Greenville Coming Soon!
Florence +1 (803) 6730446 Yes Yes
South Dakota Sioux Falls +1 (605) 3673553 Yes Yes
Tennessee Chattanooga +1 (423) 7563630 Yes Yes
Jackson +1 (901) 4224222 Yes Yes
Knoxville +1 (615) 5245333 Yes Yes
Memphis +1 (901) 7613312 Yes Yes
Nashville +1 (615) 7488011 Yes Yes
Texas Abilene +1 (915) 6271900 Verifying
Amarillo +1 (806) 3547500 Yes No
Austin +1 (512) 4331957 Yes Yes
Baytown +1 (713) 4272418 No No
Beaumont +1 (409) 8338627 No No
College Station +1 (409) 8466549 Yes
Yes
Corpus Christi +1 (512) 8884226 No No
NEW!
Dallas +1 (214) 7411839 Yes Yes
El Paso +1 (915) 5445156 No No
Ft. Worth +1 (817) 8509253 Yes Yes
Harlingen +1 (210) 4287010 No No
Houston +1 (713) 5670439 Yes Yes
Irving +1 (214) 4386536 No No
Longview +1 (903) 2342700 No No
Lubbock +1 (806) 4721003 Yes No
Midland +1 (915) 4982003 Yes Yes
Odessa +1 (915) 4982004 Yes Yes
Richardson +1 (214) 2353493 Yes Yes
San Antonio +1 (210) 3529934 No No
Temple +1 (817) 7781025 No No
Waco +1 (817) 7557212 No No
Westheimer +1 (713) 6259900 Yes Yes
Utah Ogden +1 (801) 3991119 Yes Yes
Provo +1 (801) 3432720 Yes No
Salt Lake City +1 (801) 3214980 Yes No
Vermont Burlington Coming Soon!
Virginia Fredricksburg +1 (540) 3723058 Yes Yes
Lynchburg +1 (804) 9479090 Yes Yes
Manassas +1 (703) 3315982 Yes No
Norfolk +1 (804) 5335140 Yes Yes
Princess Anne +1 (804) 5639922 Yes Yes
Richmond +1 (804) 6749183 Yes Yes
Roanoke +1 (540) 8570700 Yes Yes
Washington Everett +1 (206) 2611320 Yes Yes
Kennewick +1 (509) 7340697 Yes Yes
Olympia +1 (360) 3571091 Yes Yes
Redmond +1 (206) 7390181 Yes Yes
Seattle +1 (206) 4412632 Yes Yes
Tacoma +1 (206) 5978996 Yes Yes
West Virginia Charleston +1 (304) 3440141
Yes Yes
Clarksburg +1 (304) 6244023 No No
Huntington +1 (304) 5220301 Yes Yes
Morgantown Coming Soon!
Wheeling +1 (304) 2340229 No No
Wisconsin Green Bay +1 (414) 5929060 Yes Yes
Madison +1 (608) 2526580 Yes Yes
Milwaukee +1 (414) 2271301 Yes Yes
Wyoming Laramie Coming Soon!
Canada
Alberta Calgary +1 (403) 7815200 Yes Yes
Edmonton +1 (403) 4235600 Yes Yes
Quebec Montreal +1 (514) 8667181 Yes Yes
Ontario Ottawa +1 (613) 5949044 Yes Yes
Toronto +1 (416) 3639625 Yes Yes
British Columbia Vancouver +1 (604) 6021506
Yes Yes
Manitoba Winnipeg +1 (204) 9561440 Yes Yes
Australia
NSW Sydney +61 (2) 2965000 Yes Yes
Victoria Melbourne +61 (3) 92900000 Yes Yes
Queensland Brisbane +61 (7) 33614000 Yes Yes NEW!
Canberra Canberra +61 (6) 2170700 Yes Yes NEW!
Beta Phone Number List
This is the list of cities undergoing testing. You are welcome to use these
numbers during the testing period, but you should realize that they may not
be available for extended periods, as we reconfigure the network and run our
own tests.
If you encounter any problems with these numbers please report them via the
normal support channels located in Member Assistance.Member Support. Enjoy!
Phone Number ISDN Support
United States
California Bakersfield +1 (805) 8610826 Yes
Florida Fort Pierce +1 (407) 4620510 Yes NEW!
New York Ithaca +1 (607) 2664300 Yes NEW!
Virginia Harrisonburg +1 (540) 5742554 Yes NEW!
Washington Pullman +1 (509) 3325402 Yes NEW!
Australia
Western Australia Perth +61 (9) 2625000 Yes
NEW!
Courier I-modem for PC and Macintosh
Access Both High-Speed ISDN Networks and Analog Modems or Fax Devices
Courier I-modem brings ISDN connectivity and analog compatibility together in
a single device. It is the ideal desktop solution for high-speed corporate
LAN connections, graphic intensive Internet access, data intensive file
transfers, and access to online services. The Courier I-modem features an
integral analog device port that provides the flexibility to send or receive
a fax, talk on the phone, or log an answering machine message at the same
time as a data transfer. Desktop and ISA card versions available.
ú High-Speed File/Imaging Transfer
ú Telecommuting
ú Internet Access
ú Universal Connect
ú Software Downloads via Flash ROM
ú Integrated V.34 Fax/Modem
ú Robotics V.Everything Technology
ú Integrated Analog Device Port
ú Integrated NT-1
ú Asynchronous/Synchronous PPP
ú Windows95 Enhancements
ú Multi-Vendor Interoperability
ú User Configurable Dial Security
ú Microsoft Plug 'n Play Support
ú Five-year limited warranty; factory repair or replacement.
EDUPAGE STR Focus Keeping the users informed
Edupage
MICROSOFT PITCHES NEW PC CONCEPT
In a counter to Oracle's promotion of a new $500 Internet device, Microsoft
has plans to develop a Simply Interactive PC, or SIPC, designed to move from
the home office to the living room to perform functions such as controlling
the stereo, video disk player, household security system, etc. while
enabling family members to surf the Net or play interactive games. "I
think what Gates is doing is preemptively striking past where Ellison is at,"
says one analyst. "By comparison, the network computer is so limited."
Microsoft has been working on the SIPC idea since last summer and
specifications include a proposed standard cable connection that could send
data among the various components at speeds 30 times faster than today's
typical PC connections, and a boot-up sequence that would take only three to
five seconds. (Wall Street Journal 29 Mar 96 B7)
CHARGES AGAINST ARGENTINEAN
FOLLOW FIRST COMPUTER WIRETAP
An Argentine resident of the U.S. has been charged by federal investigators
with using a Harvard University computer as a staging point to illegally
enter numerous other Internet sites, including ones at Caltech's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory, the University of Massachusetts, and Northeastern
University, along with other sites in Mexico, Taiwan, Chile, Brazil, and
South Korea. An investigator said that with a court-authorized wiretap "we
intercepted only those communications which fit the pattern [of illegal
entries]... We limited our initial examination ... around the telltale sign
to protect the privacy of innocent communications." (Los Angeles Times 30
Mar 96 A10)
ATLANTIC MONTHLY SETTLES ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING SUIT
Atlantic Monthly has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by a Rutgers
University professor, who charged that the magazine violated his commercial
rights when it placed excerpts of his book in the Lexis-Nexis database, which
sells its contents to customers. The magazine admitted to no wrongdoing,
but says in the future, it will negotiate with freelancers specific rights
to post and distribute works via CD-ROM, online networks, databases, and in
other electronic formats. "In terms of the correct view of copyright law,
there are no implications at all," concludes Time Inc.'s general counsel.
(Wall Street Journal 29 Mar 96 B5)
IRS COMPUTER PROJECT CALLED
A FOUR-BILLION-DOLLAR FIASCO
Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin has admitted to a congressional committee
that his department doesn't have an overall master plan or blueprint for the
multibillion modernization effort intended to replace the Sixties-era
mainframes now in operation at the Internal Revenue Service and to link IRS
offices across the nation. Congressman Jim Lightfoot characterized the
project as "a $4-billion- fiasco that is floundering because of inadequate
planning." Secretary Rubin says the only plan that exists (and which he has
not read) is a highly technical 6,000-page document that "is not what we
need." (Los Angeles Times 29 Mar 96 D1)
WIRELESS AUCTION NO-GO
Go Communications of Alexandria, Virginia, is dropping out of the Federal
Communications Commission's auction of wireless communications licenses,
saying it couldn't match the "exorbitant" bids of companies such as Netwave
Personal Communications, which has bid $3.7 billion for licenses that would
allow them to serve markets containing 81 million people. Go's president
says that "the FCC is, in essence, providing subsidized government financing
to large Korean conglomerates that have provided the majority of Netwave's
funds." (New York Times 30 Mar 96 p23)
CLINTON ADMINISTRATION BACKS UNIVERSAL ACCESS
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has asked the
FCC to pass rules that would make subsidized telephone service more readily
available to disadvantaged and rural citizens. NTIA noted that a telephone
not only connects "an individual to neighbors and loved ones but with the
addition of a computer and a modem, it furnishes a pathway to the
Information Age, offering enhanced employment and educational opportunities."
Although the administration was careful not to specifically include Internet
access in its proposal, the director of telecommunications and technology
studies at the Cato Institute worries that might come next: "When they first
talked about universal service as a system of subsidies for rural service, I
could live with that. But what concerns me now is that they seem to want to
extend the universal service doctrine to Internet access, cable TV access...
It's always been the case that rich people buy things before poor people do.
Natural penetration rates are different for different products. You can't
second-guess the
market." (Los Angeles Times 30 Mar 96 D1)
GATES ISN'T CRYING OVER PC SALES SLOWDOWN
Microsoft's Bill Gates has a sarcastic response to worries over slowing PC
sales: "Name an industry that's going to grow faster than the PC industry.
Now, don't start crying. It's very sad; this is sad news. This is going to
be tough for you: We might only grow at 18 percent! Now that's on top of
60 million units a year. This has got to be rough, very rough."
(Upside Apr 96 p38)
BRITISH TELECOM IN MERGER TALKS
WITH CABLE & WIRELESS
British Telecommunications PLC and Cable & Wireless PLC are holding
exploratory discussions about the possibility of merging to create a $50
billion telecom conglomerate. British Telecom has a partnership with MCI,
which is the second-largest long-distance in the U.S. (New York Times 29 Mar
96 C5)
SILICON FAMINE
Analysts at Dataquest and Rose Associates are predicting a shortage of
silicon wafers used to manufacture microprocessing chips that will hamper
chipmakers' ability to meet demands for the next few years. According to
Dataquest estimates, the silicon drought could last into the next century, at
least for the 200-millimeter size wafer. The problem arises from the non-
stop demand since 1990 -- historically up until then, demand had slackened
every three years or so, giving silicon suppliers a chance to catch up. But
with chip output rising to record levels over the past few years, "the whole
food chain is stretched right to a thin hair," says the president of Rose
Associates. (Business Week 25 Mar 96 p82)
CYBERTOT MARKETING IS CRITICIZED
The Center for Media Education, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit research
and lobbying group, says that many of the micromarketing strategies aimed at
children engaged in online interactive activities are "manipulative,
deceptive, and exploitive." The group's president says: "I believe the
online medium will be the dominant medium in children's lives in the 21st
century, and I don't think people realize this. Parents see it as an
alternative, and computers still have this 'halo effect' as something new
and wonderful, something they'd rather have kids do than sit in front of the
TV. But it's in no way safe from the kinds of advertising and marketing
practices that can harm kids. Most parents can't see the possibilities;
they don't even know how to log on." (New York Times 29 Mar 96 A12)
SOLVING TRAFFIC JAMS ON THE INTERNET
A recently announced National Science Foundation grant program is aimed at
funding scientific and engineering projects that require innovative ways of
regulating traffic flow on the Internet. "We need to take a deeper look at
this, not just try to expand capacity and stay ahead of demand," says Mark
Luker, manager of NSF's network connections program. "Some traffic needs
better or different service than other traffic." The hope is that new ways
of prioritizing data streams according to their needs will result from the
funding effort. "There's a vision here of a more effective Internet - one
that has different qualities of service for different needs and can
guarantee the kind of service you need to what you want to do," says Luker.
(Science News 23 Mar 96 p181)
MCI REFUNDS $44 MILLION FOR OVERBILLING
MCI will refund about $44 million to collect-call customers who might have
been overbilled because of a programming bug that caused some customers to
be overbilled an average of 18 cents for automated collect calls. (New York
Times 30 Mar 96 p9)
EDUPAGE IN CHINESE
We are pleased to announce a Chinese edition of Edupage, which will be
produced and distributed by Alex Chiu and Huey-Ping Chang in Taipei,
Taiwan, Republic of China. Welcome to our Chinese-speaking readers of
Edupage! <Chinese big5 characters follow> ~wT PUP ~qo\ Edupage SSS TCoI
oy'eB ~AouY#R¥ Big-5 XTCoooAPpTG+zP>o> O TSP oAODog'Hup
alexchiu@hope.hinet.netoC <End of Chinese> To receive the Chinese edition
(Big5 code) of Edupage, just write to alexchiu@hope.hinet.net. [Besides
English, Edupage is now available in Chinese, French, German, Hebrew,
Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish editions.]
BELLS, BELLS, BELLS: AND THEN THERE WERE SIX
The number of Bell companies will shrink from seven to six when Texas-based
SBC Communications receives the expected regulatory permission to buy
California-based Pacific Telesis for $17 billion, forming this country's
second- largest phone company (after AT&T), with more than $21 billion in
annual revenues and a service market area of more than 30 million phone
lines in seven states: California, Nevada, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas
and Missouri. The new company will increase (by 1000), rather than reduce,
the total number of positions now held by the 100,000 employees of the two
companies -- and industry analysts say the acquisition is focused not on cost
reduction but rather on market expansion. More than 50% of all
international calls to Mexico are in states served by the newly combined
company, which is headquartered in San Antonio and already owns a 10% equity
stake in the Mexican national phone company, Telefonos de Mexico. (New York
Times 2 Apr 96 A1)
MICROSOFT EXCHANGE CHALLENGES LOTUS NOTES
Microsoft rolled out its Exchange Server software this past weekend in a
challenge to Lotus Notes' dominant position in the corporate groupware
market. Exchange allows users to set up internal BBSs, set up meetings with
a group-scheduling feature and send e-mail with links to the Web. Notes'
advantages include a feature that automatically synchronizes all changes
made to a document in a collaborative editing session. Notes runs on a
variety of servers and operating systems while Exchange runs only on Windows
NT. "I'm tired of shadowboxing," says Lotus's executive VP. "We are going
to have a slugfest, and they are going to get their nose bloodied." (Wall
Street Journal 1 Apr 96 B5)
JUNK E-MAIL LAWSUIT
In what lawyers say is the first of its kind, a small electronic advertising
company has sued America Online in federal court for interfering with its
attempts to send "junk e-mail" advertisements over the AOL system. Cyber
Promotions, which went into business last year as Promo Enterprises, says
AOL attempted to put it out of business by sending "e-mail bombs" to Cyber's
e-mail accounts, crashing the servers of two out of three of its Internet-
service providers. Cyber had signed contracts to send the junk e-mail on
behalf of its customers. "In general, mass e-mailing is a violation of
America Online's terms of service, and we frequently hear from our members
who consider it an annoyance and a disruption of the network," says an AOL
spokesman. (St. Petersburg Times 1 Apr 96 p8)
FEDERAL FUNDING IS ESSENTIAL
TO TECHNOLOGY, SAYS COMMERCE
Commerce Under Secretary for Technology Mary L. Good says cuts proposed by
congressional Republicans could jeopardize U.S. leadership in developing
emerging and enabling technologies. "These cuts would deliver a devastating
blow to our nation's current R&D infrastructure, eliminating more than 35,000
scientists and engineers from the U.S. R&D enterprise." Areas affected
include environmental, food safety, civilian aviation safety and educational
technologies. Good warned that although attention has focused on Europe and
Japan as the most likely competitors in the technology field, countries such
as Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, China, South Korea and Indonesia all are
working aggressively to acquire technology and develop indigenous technology
resources. (BNA Daily Report for Executives 29 Mar 96 A25)
SMALL PHONE COMPANIES WANT INTERNET REGULATION
Small telephone companies, faced with new technology that enables phone
calls, particularly long-distance ones, to be placed over the Internet, are
clamoring for more government regulation of Internet activities. While
Internet access is defined as an "enhanced service," free from federal
access charges, telephone companies must pay FCC fees when they provide long-
distance service. "The Internet completely shatters the model that has been
established to keep those subsidies alive," says a Heritage Foundation
policy analyst. "The really scary thing is extending FCC price regulations
into the computer sector. Just because we have an existing system in place
and one group is getting stuck, doesn't mean we have to go stick it to
another group." The America's Carriers Telecommunication Association has
petitioned the FCC to stop the use of the Internet for long-distance
service, and the FCC has extended the comment deadline to May 8.
(Investor's Business Daily 2 Apr 96 A4)
CABLE VS. TELCO INTERNET PLANS
Cable operators aren't worried about the recent announcements by both MCI and
AT&T that they will offer low-cost Internet access to their customers.
"They can do all the deals they want to, but the physical links into the home
still remain the same," says a Comcast VP. While phone companies must
accelerate their plans to upgrade their systems, cable companies are
confident their existing 10 Mbps modems will outstrip phone companies'
offerings. "We have a different service paradigm." (Broadcasting & Cable
25 Mar 96 p72) Meanwhile, researchers at Canada's Northern Telecom are
working on a new digital format that is cheaper than telephony's ADSL
(asymmetric digital subscriber line) but about as fast, at receive rates of
2 Mbps and send rates of 500 Kbps. While the receive rate is much lower than
cable's touted technology, the "upstream" speed may actually be higher in
real-world terms than what cable companies ultimately are able to offer.
"The telcos are in a stronger position than many would believe," says a
Northern Telecom VP. (Business Week 1 Apr 96 p87) And MCI plans to be the
first carrier to upgrade its Internet backbone from 45 Mbps to 155 Mbps.
"The explosive growth of the Internet has led to rush-hour traffic conditions
for many users," says MCI VP Vint Cerf. "We're going to do what we can to
eliminate any contribution to that congestion." (Information Week 25 Mar 96
p32)
CONSUMERS PRESS FOR 911 CELL-PHONE SERVICE
Consumer groups such as the Ad Hoc Alliance for Public Access to 911 want the
federal government to require the cellular telephone industry to guarantee
that all cell phone owners have 911 access. Currently, only people who
subscribe to a cellular service have guaranteed access. The Cellular
Telecommunications Industry Association maintains that requiring cellular
companies to complete 911 calls for callers who have not subscribed to a
service would aggravate cellular fraud. (St. Petersburg Times 1 Apr 96 p9)
RECYCLING TECHNOLOGY
Duke University has turned to recycling its old computers, refurbishing them
and donating them to a local high school. The result is a 60-computer
network connected to the high school's existing server. Meanwhile, Boise
State University has shipped more than 1,000 used computers to Idaho schools
during the past year. The dean of Boise's College of Education and
Instructional Technology calls the program a "win-win deal" for the
community. (Chronicle of Higher Education 5 Apr 96 A19)
CORBIS WINS RIGHTS TO ANSEL ADAMS PHOTOS
Corbis Corp., owned by Bill Gates, has acquired exclusive rights to
electronically distribute photographer Ansel Adams's works via CD-ROM or
online. The Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust has requested a strong
commitment from Corbis to ensure the quality of the digital images, and
retains veto power over the use of each photograph. The trust will receive
about $20,000 up front, plus a relatively large share of future royalty fees.
(Wall Street Journal 2 Apr 96 B5)
MICROSOFT WANTS TO SURROUND YOU AND START YOU UP
Further blurring the lines between TV and PC capabilities, Microsoft is
planning to integrate Dolby Laboratories' six- speaker Surround Sound
technology into personal computer software. (Atlanta Journal-Constitution 2
Apr 96 F3) ... Microsoft also says it will use the OnNow standard to allow
PCs to turn on instantly and be immediately (like toasters and other
consumer appliances); Microsoft executive Jim Allchin says: "Users are
demanding that PCs become more convenient to access and use. They want
their PC to be instantly available to answer the phone, display new e-mail,
browse the Internet or run an application." (Financial Times 2 Apr 96 p19)
AMELIO'S FLASHFLIGHT STRATEGY FOCUSED ON QUALITY
Positioning Apple as a maker of higher-quality computers for which customers
will be willing to pay more than for competing products, CEO Gil Amelio has
illustrated his point by comparing a cheap flashlight with the one he owns
himself: a higher quality Maglite flashlight that is more expensive to own.
Amelio told the staffers that Apple can not compete directly on cost with
PCs based on Intel microprocessors and Microsoft operating systems, because
Apple's smaller size relative to those companies means that it has higher
per-unit costs attributable to research and development. Amelio's two
immediate predecessors went different ways, with John Sculley focusing on
making Apple computers different from PCs and Michael Spindler focusing on
making them price-competitive. Both left their jobs under pressure. (New
York Times 2 Apr 96 C20)
WorldNet to offer CompuServe access
WorldNet, AT&T's Internet access service, plans to offer its customers access
at discounted prices to CompuServe. A similar arrangement is already in
place between WorldNet and AOL, and additional alliances of this nature are
in the discussion stage. (New York Times 4 Apr 96 C4)
PRODIGY MANAGERS ATTEMPT BUYOUT
Prodigy Services' management team has hired investment banker Wasserstein
Perella Securities Inc. to attempt a management buyout of the commercial
online service. The team is hoping to make the purchase for about $250
million, less than a quarter of what Prodigy parents Sears, Roebuck & Co.
and IBM have plowed into it. The potential buyout offer takes advantage of
Sears' desire to get out of the business in a hurry. "The window opened once
the owners realized that no one's going to come along and buy a 50% share,"
says one executive familiar with the situation. "All of a sudden, the kids
want to take over their parents' business." (Wall Street Journal 4 Apr 96
B6)
MCI PREMATURELY PULLS THE PLUG ON BIG BLUE
When IBM broke the news to MCI that it had decided to switch to AT&T for its
$3 billion voice and data transmission services contract, MCI apparently
decided to cut off service before IBM's old contract had expired. MCI's
unexpectedly abrupt departure left AT&T scrambling to fill the gap,
marshaling the services of 1,000 employees over the weekend to ensure
continuity. IBM for many years has been MCI's biggest customer, with their
relationship dating back to the 1980s. (Wall Street Journal 4 Apr 96 B1)
BROAD SOFTWARE PATENT SPARKS MORE LAWSUITS
A small New Jersey company is claiming it holds a patent on technology for
distributing software, images, type fonts and information via electronic
networks, and has filed a lawsuit against 22 companies for patent
infringement. E-data Corp., which bought the patent in 1994 from computer
scientist Charles Freeny, has sued a total of 43 companies to date, and has
convinced IBM to purchase a license to use the technology. VocalTec Ltd.
also settled after being sued. A company spokesman says they're in
discussions with at least half a dozen other companies regarding settlements.
(Investor's Business Daily 4 Apr 96 A8)
SUN'S NEW E-MAIL PACKAGE
Sun Microsystems isn't resting on its Java -- its latest Internet e-mail
system integrates the new IMAP4 (Internet Message Access Protocol) recently
devised by the Internet Engineering Task Force. The new standard provides
superior support for remote mail users.
A beta version of the Solstice Internet Mail Server is available on Sun's Web
site < http://www.sun.com/ > (Information Week 25 Mar 96 p16).
ACADEMIC SYSTEMS GETS AN A
California State University at Northridge reports a higher percentage (70%)
of students are passing math classes that incorporate Academic Systems'
algebra instruction programs. This rate compares with a less than 50% pass
rate without the programs, and several other colleges have made similar
findings. The Academic Systems product relies on CD-ROM software that's
linked to the instructor's PC, so the teacher can monitor each student's
progress and step in for individual assistance when needed. "Before this
I've always felt I never met a technology that didn't ultimately just cost me
more money," says CSU Northridge's VP for academic affairs. (Wall Street
Journal 3 Apr 96 B6) ... See the July/August issue of Educom Review for an
interview with Academic Systems chairman Bernard Gifford.
IBM'S INTELLIGENT MINER DIGS OUT THE GOOD STUFF
IBM plans to offer companies "data mining" software and services, allowing
them to make better use of disparate pieces of information stored in their
computer systems. The Intelligent Miner software will be available on IBM's
RS/6000 servers by the fall, and on other platforms by year end. The
company also plans to develop Intelligent Decision Server software for local
area network-based information analysis. (Investor's Business Daily 3 Apr 96
A9)
CYRIX JOINS PC WARS
Microprocessor maker Cyrix Corp. is building a line of PCs based on its 6x86
chip, priced in the $2,400 to $5,200 range. The computers are targeted at
power business users, small businesses and home offices, and will come
equipped with Windows 95 or NT. The company is using a direct sales
strategy, similar to Gateway 2000 and Dell. (Investor's Business Daily 3
Apr 96 A8)
AT&T COLLEGE NETWORK
AT&T has launched a new Web site aimed at helping college students find a
job. The AT&T College Network <http://www.att.com/college/ > provides links
to other Internet job listing sites, along with tips on job-hunting and
career strategies. A recent AT&T poll shows 80% of college students plan to
use the Internet as a job search tool. (Investor's Business Daily 4 Apr 96
A4)
POLICING THE WEB
PICS (Platform for Internet Content Selection), a new technology for
filtering out objectionable material on the Word Wide Web to prevent its
access by children, will be launched this month by the World Wide Web
Consortium, a nonprofit association of academics, public interest groups and
computer companies. Similar to V-chip technology, PICS will allow parents
to provide different levels of access for children of different ages.
(Ottawa Citizen 2 Apr 96 A9)
TV CHANNELS FOR EUOPEAN PC USERS
The National Broadcasting Company hopes to develop -- probably in partnership
with Microsoft -- a number of European TV channels that would offer a mix of
educational and promotional material of interest to computer users.
(Financial Times 3 Apr 96 p16)
PERSONAL NEWS NETWORK
The Canadian Broadcasting Company, in partnership with Bell Canada, Telesat
Canada, Newbridge Networks, Oracle Corp. and Televitesse System, is trying
to develop a news service that would scan television and other sources
according to user specifications, then save articles for viewing later on a
personal computer. The target market for the Personal News Network will be
companies and government agencies that want news in selected fields.
(Montreal Le Devoir 2 Apr 96 B2)
IBM EXECS IN ARGENTINA CHARGED WITH FRAUD
Five current and former executives of IBM's subsidiary in Argentina have been
charged with offering bribes to win a $249 million contract with that
country's national bank. IBM itself has not been charged, and an IBM
spokesman says the indicted executives failed to follow "established IBM
business procedures." (Financial Times 4 Apr 96 p14)
Edupage is written by John Gehl (gehl@educom.edu) & Suzanne Douglas
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Educom -- Transforming Education Through Information Technology
Kids Computing Corner
Frank Sereno, Editor
The Kids' Computing Corner
Computer news and software reviews
from a parent's point of view
In the News
Reader's Digest Home Repair CD-ROM
Reader's Digest and Microsoft have jointly produced the Reader's Digest
Complete Do-It-Yourself Guide on CD-ROM. Based on the best-selling Reader's
Digest New Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual, this program for Windows 95
includes over one thousand photographs, sixty-five videos, fifty-five
animations and thirteen hundred illustrations. It features twelve guided
project tours, step-by-step "action how-tos" and printable instructions (very
handy for when you can't take the computer to the job site). Other features
of the program are a built-in estimator, a search engine for finding
information quickly, and it even gives advice on when to call for
professional help and how to prepare your home for sale.
Reader's Digest Complete Do-It-Yourself Guide is scheduled to be available
for retail sale on April 11 wherever Microsoft products are sold. The CD-ROM
can also be purchased directly for $39.96 by calling 1-800-213-8900.
Reader's Digest is sponsoring a special promotion on America Online. Through
Father's Day, June 16, visitors to the do-it-yourself site can register to
win copies of the CD-ROM in weekly drawings. At the conclusion of the
contest, the first-prize winner will receive $1000 worth of American Online
time. Use the keyword Readers Digest to navigate to the contest site.
National Geographic to Go Online
The National Geographic Society and Magnet Interactive Communications (MIC)
have developed an interactive web site to be available on the World Wide Web
and on CompuServe. The site will open on June 20 and will content-intensive
and interactive.
Web surfers will be able will not only be able to view National Geographic's
many resources, but they will also be able to role-play in virtual
adventures. Users will be able to seek sunken treasure in simulated dives,
take mountain treks in the Peruvian Andes, learn about photography or play
educational games. They will also be able to communicate with the expert
staff of National Geographic's publications.
Edmark Announces Special Offer for Imagination Express
Edmark has released two new additions to the Imagination Express software
series. Destination: Time Trip, USA and Destination: Pyramids were created
specifically for school use. Children in kindergarten through eighth grade
can use these programs to create interactive electronic books or beautifully
illustrated printed works based on the theme or destination of each program.
All Imagination Express software is available on dual-format CD-ROM's for
Windows and Macintosh computers.
Destination: Time Trip, USA follows the chronological advances in a fictional
New England village. Children can travel through time to see the village in
its infancy in the 1600's on to the present day. They will see accurate
representations of fashion, architecture, inventions and entertainment during
each period. An electronic Scrapbook gives perspective on certain dates in
history through letters, news clippings and other information.
Travel back to ancient Egypt in Destination: Pyramids. Children explore the
varied scenes and lifestyles of Egyptians during the days of the pharaohs.
Story settings include a temple, a palace and a village. An electronic Fact
Book contains dozens of pages of information about Egyptian culture.
The greatest benefit of Imagination Express is the creativity it inspires in
children. Writing and communication skills will be enhanced. Children can
also learn about history, culture and environmental concerns in the themed
Destinations. Each Destination comes with the complete Imagination Express
authoring software. You can purchase any individual Destination and be ready
to begin producing electronic books without having to purchase a master
program or additional software.
Destination: Time Trip, USA and Destination: Pyramids will be available as
school versions for the special price of $29.95 through June 30, 1996. All
other Destinations are on sale also. (Destination: Castle is my son's
favorite!) School versions include a Teacher's Guide in a three-ring binder
that includes lesson ideas, activity sheets, toll-free technical support and
a lifetime disc warranty. These can be purchased directly through Edmark
Customer Service by calling 800-691-2985 or you can contact your local
educational dealer.
Activision Uses New Video Technology to Enhance Games
Spycraft: The Great Game and Zork Nemesis offer full-screen, full-motion
cinematic video through the use of TrueMotionr, a software-only video
compression technology created by Duck Corporation. This video algorithm can
be used without dedicated decompression hardware across all platforms
including PC, Macintosh, UNIX, 3DO, Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation and new
systems. This technology promises to give gamers the most realistic video
seen to date.
New York-based Duck Corporation was founded in 1992 to develop TV-quality
video playback and interactivity on computer and videogame platforms. Its
other core technology is Comprendingr, a technique which combines
compression, rendering and blue-screen techniques to create realistic, 3D
applications.
# # #
Battlefield Warriors
MSRP $14.95
for Ages 8 to Adult
Memorex Software Series
N-TK
18000 Studebaker Rd
Suite 200
Cerritos, CA 90703
310-403-0043
Program Requirements
OS: DOS 5.0
CPU: 386/33
HD Space: 8 MB
Memory: 2 MB
Graphics: VGA, 320 x 200 with 256 colors
CD-ROM: single-speed
Audio: 8-bit sound card
Other: mouse, joystick
reviewed by David H. Mann
Battlefield Warriors is a collection of three games, Jetfighter 2 Advanced
Tactical Fighter, Project X, and Operation Combat 2. The three games install
on your hard drive. With a few modifications to your memory (for each one)
and CPU speed, you're ready to go (almost).
Jetfighter 2 was the most worrisome of the bunch. It would not run on a 486
DX2 66 in turbo mode.
It had some problems with some of the TSRs used in normal DOS operations
(smartdrive and the CD-ROM drivers in particular). Even after all that, the
game locked up a few times. The vga colors were basic (16 colors), but
graphics were tight. As flight simulators go it was OK, but I found the
controls confusing.
Project X is a space side shooter reminiscent of the old Atari 2600. There
are various enemies with a boss at the end of each level. The attack angles
are varied and quick, but the game is only 16 colors. It also needs expanded
memory, so you'll have to play with DOS again. The game will hold the
attention of a first time gamer, but not an experienced one.
Operation Combat 2 is a boardgame-like strategy game that pits one army
against another. Players can play via modem, head to head, or against the
computer. There a time limit, but you can make as many moves as possible in
the amount of time given. The game is played on a map and moves are made with
a mouse on the action area of the map. You can see the results of your moves
in actual animation. The graphics are blocky and again there are only 16
colors, but its fun to see if you can make more moves than the computer in
the amount of time given.
Together, Battlefield Warriors is a good starter set for someone who is new
to gaming and has an older system. But for someone who wants high powered
graphics and blistering sound effects, you won't find it here. However if you
are nostalgic and like the older graphics and shy away from realism, this
might be the perfect collection for you.
# # #
Carmen Sandiego Junior Detective Edition
Dual-format CD-ROM for Windows and Macintosh
approximate retail $40
for ages 5 to 8
Broderbund Software
500 Redwood Blvd.
Novato, CA 94948-6121
Program Requirements
IBM Macintosh
OS: Windows 3.1, Windows 95 OS: System 7.0.1
CPU: 386DX/33 CPU: 68030/25
HD Space: 1 MB HD Space: N/A
Memory: 4 MB Memory: 5 MB
Graphics: 640 by 480 with 256 colors Graphics:
256 colors, 13" monitor
CD-ROM: Double-speed recommended CD-ROM: Double-speed
recommended
Audio: 8-bit Windows compatible sound card
Other: mouse Other: printer,
microphone
reviewed by Frank Sereno
Carmen Sandiego Junior Detective Edition is a delightful game of exploration
and deduction for children ages five and up. This simplified version of the
Carmen Sandiego game engine enables younger children to discover the
countries and cultures of the world as they apprehend the criminals of
V.I.L.E.
You have joined the ACME Detective Agency. This organization fights crime
around the globe. An evil crime cabal named V.I.L.E. is constantly stealing
the treasures of the world. Your duty is to track the criminal, then capture
him and return the treasure. You will have several assistants who will aid
you in your quest. Acme photographers will attempt to capture an image of
the dastardly fiend you are chasing. Zack and Ivy, a brother and sister
detective team, will help you to decipher the clues. Occasionally, your
boss, The Chief, will lend assistance over the video phone. Stretch the
crime dog will help you make the collar!
You will accomplish your mission through the use of a unique computing
device, the GizmoTapper. The Tapper's most important feature is Dee Jaye,
the built-in voice of the unit. She will provide narration for your
adventure and she will give hints and help when you click her call button.
The Tapper includes a large view screen, the Location Window, to display
maps or the view your current location. The cursor becomes a magnifying
glass when passed over the screen to help you look for clues. The Tapper
displays a row of magnifying glasses beneath the Location Window. These
indicate the number of clues to found at this location. Unfortunately, your
Tapper is battery powered. Pay attention to the battery meter. If you take
too many wrong turns, you will run out of energy and the criminal will go
unpunished. The Map Button will place a map on the Location Window. You
just need to compare the symbols for the clues you have found to the symbols
next to each country and pick the one that matches. Click on the country and
away you go!
The Tapper has three more features. The video phone is your link to The
Chief. He offers advice and praise, but if you leave the Tapper alone for a
few minutes, he will remind you to get back to your assignment with sometimes
unfriendly remarks. The Photo-Fax machine receives the photographs from your
field team. Unfortunately, they only get part of the image at each country,
so you must put the pieces together on the wanted poster. Once you complete
the puzzle, the criminal will be identified and a warrant will be issued for
his arrest.
The interface is a very easy point-and-click design. Online help is built in
with Dee Jaye. The user manual is quite thorough and also has activity pages
to continue the learning fun. Broderbund includes a small troubleshooting
pamphlet with the documentation to help solve any technical glitches. If
that is unsuccessful, help is available for free via phone, U.S. Mail or the
Internet.
The graphics are excellent. The animations are smooth and character's
movements are very natural. The full screen animation of the criminal's
capture is equal in quality to most Saturday morning cartoons. The still
photography is quite beautiful. Carmen Sandiego Junior Detective Edition
features wonderful voice characterizations, amusing sound effects and a
wonderful collection of cultural music.
The game is fun and easy to play. The amusing animations will make your
entire family laugh. With over fifty crimes to solve, your child will spend
many hours playing Junior. The game provides lessons in geography and
culture as your child learns the location of countries on the world map and
gathers clues about their products and climate. The game also builds
memorization skills as he must remember the clues to pick the correct
destination. In higher levels, players have to remember as many as four
clues.
Broderbund always provides excellent value in their products. In addition to
a reasonable price, the company backs its products with a fantastic ninety-
day satisfaction guarantee and free technical support. Carmen Sandiego
Junior Detective Edition is a fine value. This program will educate and
amuse your children for many hours. Don't be surprised if you don't find it
to fun too. I know that I do!
Ratings
Graphics . . . . . . . . . 9.5
Sound . . . . . . . . . . . 10.0
Interface . . . . . . . . . 9.5
Play Value . . . . . . . . 9.0
Educational Value . . . 8.5
Bang for the Buck . . . 9.5
Average . . . . . . . . . . 9.33
Portable Computers Section
Marty Mankins, Editor
ACCESS Software NewsWire STR Focus
It's Official -- LINKS LS
Coming Soon!
Access Software Inc. President, Bruce Carver has announced that the company's
eagerly-awaited next generation golf product, LINKS LS, will begin shipping
May 28th. Access has taken the software industry's most popular series of
golf simulators, and totally re-designed the golf engine, adding enhancements
that bring everything to the game but fresh air and sore muscles. LINKS LS,
the most visually stunning and physically accurate computer gaming experience
ever developed, has raised the standard by which all entertainment products
will be judged. LINKS LS now boasts graphics resolutions up to 1280 X 1024 in
16 million colors and 1600 X 1200 in 65 thousand colors! "Users will be
absolutely captivated by the realism on their computer monitor -- that's our
pledge!" said Carver.
"As a sign of our conviction that the newest version of our series will be a
gaming paradigm for years to come, the acronym 'LS' was added to the name.
The letters 'LS' stand for LEGENDS IN SPORTS." Added Carver. "LINKS has
always set the industry standard, and we're proud of the great advances in
'LS', which will carry on the tradition. The advanced technology of the LINKS
LS series will stun players both visually as well as in the nuances of play."
KAPALUA RESORT
LINKS LS features the Kapalua Resort in Maui as its 'home' resort. LS users
may play either the Plantation or the Village course. Included are special
multi-media presentations of many highlights of the area. Of special note is
that LS owners may explore the clubhouse with full 360 degree movement via
Access' "Virtual World Engine" (first used in the smash hit "Under A Killing
Moon").
ARNOLD PALMER
Included with LINKS LS is the first in the 'LINKS Tour Player' series
featuring golf legend Arnold Palmer at the La Trobe Country Club. The user
may play as 'Arnie' or with 'Arnie'. The golfing escape at La Trobe is
heightened with a multi-media tour-de-force, including an in-depth look at
Arnie's personal library and workshop!
ADDITIONALLY:
ú User selectable "camera angles" to view each shot. Up to four cameras
may be selected.
ú With the modem or network play feature, users can play with a partner
anywhere in the world!
ú Several modes of play, including Stroke Play, Match Play, Best Ball and
Skins.
ú "Live Action" stereo sound that automatically tracks the action.
ú Dozens of additional equally exciting features.
COMPATIBILITY
Of course the new LINKS LS will be compatible with all existing LINKS 386 Pro
courses. In addition to the Links Championship Course series two extra course
series will be available with the LINKS LS: The TOUR PLAYER SERIES and the
RESORT SERIES.
The Pandora Directive
The government has hidden the 20th century's greatest secret...
Until Now.
It's April, 2043 and you--as Tex Murphy, the last of the old-style gumshoes--
find yourself racing against time in the most dangerous game of your life.
What is the truth behind the rumored UFO crash at Roswell, New Mexico? Why
did the military suddenly shut down and seal off the Roswell complex? And why
the frequent references to the lost Mayan civilization?
It starts out like a thousand other cases. $500 a day (plus expenses) to
track down a missing person. As you pick up Thomas Malloy's trail, you
realize you're not the only one looking for him. By the time you discover
that he's ex-military and knows what really happened on July 6, 1947, it's
too late. The government's biggest secret of the twentieth century has gotten
loose and you're trapped in a deadly game of cat and mouse with the most
powerful and ruthless agency in the world. Welcome to Access Software's
latest Tex Murphy Interactive Move
The Pandora Directive
An outstanding Hollywood cast, starring Barry Corbin (Northern Exposure, War
Games), Tanya Roberts (View to a Kill, Beastmaster), and Kevin McCarthy
(Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Just Cause).
The Pandora Directive features
ú Access Software's unique "Virtual World" engine. Step into a completely
interactive three-dimensional world, and explore with full freedom of
movement.
ú The most replayability of any interactive movie to date. Follow any of
three paths through the story leading to seven different endings. On each
path you'll see unique scenes, new puzzles and plot twists.
ú Cinematography and direction by Hollywood editor/director Adrian Carr
(Quigly Down Under, Man from Snowy River, Sex, Lies and Videotape).
Two levels of play. The first level offers a complete on-line hint system to
help you through the tougher puzzles. The second level--for expert gamers--
has no hints available, but rewards players with higher bonus points, extra
puzzles and multiple solutions.
Coming soon to a software store near you!
Second Quarter 1996.
STR Special Coverage
A TRAGIC STORY ABOUT A WIRETAP
by Shabbir J. Safdar, VTW Board (New York, NY)
This week most of VTW's staff attended the Computers, Freedom, and Privacy
conference in Cambridge Massachusetts. I go to the conference every year to
recharge my batteries, put names to faces, and enjoy the synergy that can
only come with face-to-face dialogue.
This year the debate over encryption seemed focused on three panels, the only
novel one being a panel which was a "moot court". Presided over by five
real Federal judges, attorneys for plaintiffs and the government argued over
the Constitutionality of a mock law that would require escrowing of
encryption keys. Aside from this, the conference added no new material to
the encryption debate.
One valuable experience happened on the way home, however. I picked up the
New York Times and came across a story in the New York Times Magazine about
a corrupt New Orleans police chief, and how he reacted to a woman who filed
a police brutality complaint against him.
The story goes this way: the FBI was wiretapping a number of New Orleans
police officers who were allegedly guarding a 286 pound shipment of cocaine.
During that time the FBI overheard a conversation between the police chief
and several other police officials that the FBI alleges was a murder plot.
The intended victim had previously filed a police brutality complaint
against the chief.
Although the FBI had the conversation in hand, they were unable to decode the
police chief's "street slang and police jargon" in time to prevent the
murder. The woman who filed the complaint, a 32 year old mother of three,
was shot while standing in front of her house.
It's easy to be angry about this incident. One could (and should) be angry
with the murderers and their conspirators. However out of this comes two
important observations on the encryption policy debate.
One, while wiretaps have probably been effective in other cases, they were
not effective in this one. While we can grant law enforcement the benefit
of the doubt in other cases, the existence of this one shows that a wiretap
is not the "silver bullet" of law enforcement that we have been led to
believe.
Another observation that can be made is that this parallels the key escrow
debate very closely. No reasonable person is objecting to the FBI's right
to conduct a wiretap. However what is being debated is the extent to which
individuals and law enforcement can go to accomplish their duties. The
Clinton Administration is striving for a world where everyone is forced to
speak in a form of encryption that is easily decoded by law enforcement. The
public and industry is striving for a world where they continue to have
private conversations.
The situational parallel to this would be if the Administration had pushed a
law that requires everyone to speak on the telephone in plain English,
without slang and without any double meanings. This is the equivalent of key
escrow.
However, would this have really saved the person so tragically killed above?
Unlikely. Individuals involved in criminal conspiracies will continue to
use whatever means at their disposal to obscure their activities from the
police. The corrupt police chief who allegedly ordered the murder would
have still used slang and code, regardless of any laws banning such use. He
was allegedly conspiring to committ a murder, why should he care?
Such laws will, however, affect law abiding citizen's attempts to gain
privacy. Law-abiding citizens that may be speaking to their doctors,
attorneys, loved-ones, or business partners will continue to be targets of
industrial espionage, private investigators, and, in a few cases, trusted
individuals abusing that trust.
This example from the New York Times Magazine (3/31/96, p.32) shows that
while we can certainly give a little to law enforcement on their arguments
about the effectiveness of wiretaps, they need to give a little in the other
direction on the practicality of forcing people to speak in a law-
enforcement-understandable code. Obviously, criminals don't care about such
rules. Since that is the case, is it really worth handicapping all
technology, and exposing individuals to privacy intrusions when such
measures won't even be effective at attaining their stated goals?
You can receive BillWatch via email, gopher or WWW:
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BillWatch can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.vtw.org/billwatch/
and in Gopherspace at: gopher - p1/vtw/billwatch/ gopher.panix.com
Copyright 1994-1996 Voters Telecommunications Watch. Permission is granted
to copy and distribute this document for non-commercial purposes only,
provided that the above banner and this copyright notice appear in all
copies. For other uses, see our Copyright Policy at
http://www.vtw.org/copyright.html End VTW BillWatch Issue #41, Date: Wed
Apr 3 12:41:46 EST 1996
Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition Trial Update No. 7
Evening Update - April 1, 1996 10:00 pm ET
http://www.cdt.org/ciec/
ciec-info@cdt.org
CIEC UPDATES intended for members of the Citizens Internet Empowerment
Coalition. CIEC Updates are written and edited by the Center for Democracy
and Technology (http://www.cdt.org). This document may be reposted as long as
it remains in total.
** 30,000 Netizens Vs. U.S. Department of Justice. **
* The Fight To Save Free Speech Online *
Contents:
1. Evening Update - Recap of Last Day o f CIEC/ACLU Testimony
2. How is the CIEC case fairing so far?
3. Preview of DOJ defense - Don't worry, CDA's not too broad..
4. Summary of today's testimony
5. Subscription Information
6. More Information on CIEC and the Center for Democracy and Technology
(1) EVENING UPDATE - RECAP OF FINAL DAY OF CIEC/ACLU TESTIMONY
Testimony in the battle to overturn the Communications Decency Act resumed
Monday (4/1) before a three judge panel in the Philadelphia federal court.
Witnesses for the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition and the ACLU gave
the court an overview of the availability of parental controls on Commercial
Online Services and the further illustrated the concerns of commercial and
non commercial content providers that the CDA threatens the free flow of
information and the free exchange of ideas online.
Witnesses testifying today included:
ú Bill Burrington, Director of Public Policy for America Online (CIEC)
ú Andrew Anker, CEO of HotWired Ventures Ltd. (CIEC)
ú Barry Steinhardt, Associate Director, National ACLU (ACLU)
ú Howard Rheingold, Author (ACLU)
ú Stephen Donaldson, President of Stop Prisoner Rape (ACLU)
A summary of the testimony is included below.
Monday was the third and final day of testimony from Citizens Internet
Empowerment Coalition (CIEC) and ACLU witne
sses. Testimony resumes on April
12 and 15 when the Justice Department will call witnesses to defend the
constitutionality of the CDA. CIEC and ACLU lawyers will have an opportunity
to rebut the DOJ testimony during a final session scheduled for April 26.
HOW IS THE CIEC CASE FAIRING?
The first three days of testimony have established a solid record for the
basis of the legal challenge. The CIEC legal challenge to the CDA is based
on two arguments:
ú The Internet is a unique communications technology, different from
traditional broadcast mass-media, and
ú The content regulations imposed by the CDA are not the "least
restrictive means" of protecting children online, and is therefor
unconstitutional.
The court has heard testimony from Internet businesses, access providers, and
Libraries, and commercial and non commercial content providers describing
the nature of the Internet and how it functions (including a live
demonstration of the Net and parental control technologies), as well as
numerous examples of constitutionally protected materials which would be
prohibited under the CDA. The Judges, while giving little indication of
their positions, are asking numerous questions and appear to have taken a
keen interest in the Internet.
DOJ: DON'T WORRY, THE BILL AINT THAT BAD...
After 3 days of hearings and cross examination by Justice Department
attorneys, a picture of the government's strategy for defending the CDA is
beginning to emerge. Although we will learn much more when testimony resumes
on April 12, the government appears to be arguing that CDA will restrict
only the most extreme sexually explicit material, and that the defenses to
prosecution are broad and do not place undue burdens on content providers. In
other words, the terms "indecent" and "patently offensive" should be
construed narrowly, and the defenses construed broadly.
Under this argument, the government appears to be overlooking several
fundamental aspects of past indecency cases and the actual language of the
CDA. In past indecency cases, including the Pacifica case which the authors
of the CDA cite as precedent for the legislation, the term "indecent" has
been read very broadly to prohibit material even if it has redeeming social,
literary, educational, or scientific value. In addition, during the debate on
the CDA, Congress explicitly rejected the "harmful to minors" standard,
which includes a test for redeeming value.
The government also appears to be arguing for a broad interpretation of the
CDA's defenses. The defenses available under the CDA provide immunity for
content provides who take "good faith, reasonable steps", including adult
access codes or credit card verification, to restrict minors access to
"indecent" material. Throughout the course of the testimony, the DOJ has
asked questions of witnesses implying that implementing PICS standards or
other HTML tags would be relatively easy for content providers, suggesting
that they believe content labeling would be a "good faith" defense under the
CDA. Here again however, it is important to note that the House/Senate
Conference committee rejected parts of the White amendment which would have
created a more explicit defense for content labeling.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
CDT will continue to provide updates on the case when testimony resumes on
April 12. In addition, transcripts of the first 3 days of testimony will be
available on CDT's web page later this week. Please continue to visit
http://www.cdt.org/ciec for more information.
(2) SUMMARY OF TODAY'S TESTIMONY
Bill Burrington, Director of Public Policy for America Online, told the Court
that while AOL can and does exert some control over content on its on
network, it is impossible for service providers to control content on the
global Internet. Testifying both on behalf of AOL as well as the entire
commercial online services industry (including Compuserve, Prodigy,
Microsoft Network, etc.), Burrington stated that while some online material
may be inappropriate for children, "... effective protection of children
from exposure to inappropriate material can only occur at the level of
individual users".
Burrington outlined the various parental control measures available on
commercial online services. On America Online, parents have the ability to
restrict their children's access to Usenet newsgroups, binary downloads, chat
rooms, and other features of the service. He also argued that the
"indecency" restrictions imposed by the CDA will effectively ban
constitutionally protected speech for adults and reduce online-speech to
information and discourse only appropriate for children. Burrington argued
that fear of criminal liability under the CDA could motivate AOL to remove
health related information, online forums, and other content from the
service.
HotWired CEO Andrew Anker testified that some of the material available on
HotWired, including a recent stories on the poet Allen Ginsburg and the
atl.sex.bondage newsgroup could be considered "indecent", but that it would
be impossible and extremely expensive for the company to verify the age of
every visitor to the site. In response to a question from the Justice
Department, Anker stated, "I don't understand what indecent and patently
offensive mean, or what community's standards apply". As a result, Anker
stated, HotWired fears criminal liability under the Communications Decency
Act.
Stephen Donaldson of Stop Prisoner Rape, a group dedicated to educating the
public about prison rape and helping victims recover, testified that because
some of the content on his World Wide Web site uses sometimes explicit images
and "street language" to describe prison conditions, he fears criminal
liability under the CDA.
Similarly, Barry Steinhardt of the ACLU testified that some of the material
on the ACLU's web site, including the '7- dirty words' in the text of the
Pacifica Decision, and because the ACLU hosts chat sessions on America
Online, the ACLU could face huge fines and prison terms unless it censors
itself and its members. When asked if he felt that the text of the bible or
Shakespeare's Hamlet could be considered "indecent" under the CDA, Steinhardt
argued that community standards vary throughout the United States and that
in some places, "That kind of material ... has been the subject of
censorship" in parts of the US, and "there are many people who regard that
material as Indecent."
Howard Rheingold, author and expert on the subject of Cyberspace Communities,
described some of the many benefits the online world can bring to education
and a sense of community. Rheingold argued that, although it is technically
possible to restrict minor's access to MUDs and MUSEs, it is difficult to
determine what material should be would be illegal under the CDA.
2. Subscription Information
As CIEC members, you have been invited to join this list in order to receive
news updates and other information relevant to the CIEC challenge to the
Communications Decency Act.
If you ever want to remove yourself from this list, send email to: ciec-
members-request@cdt.org with 'unsubscribe ciec-members' in the SUBJECT LINE
(w/o the 'quotes'). Leave the body of your message blank.
3. For More Information
For more information on the CIEC challenge, including the text of the
complaint and other relevant materials:
* World Wide Web -- http://www.cdt.org/ciec/
* General Information about CIEC -- ciec-info@cdt.org
* Copy of the Complaint -- ciec-docs@cdt.org
* Specific Questions Regarding the
Coalition, incuding Press Inquiries -- ciec@cdt.org
* General information about the
Center for Democracy and Technology -- info@cdt.org
end ciec-update.7
4/1/96
Atari Interactive - software/Jaguar/Computer Section
Dana Jacobson, Editor
From the Atari Editor's Desk "Saying it like it is!"
The calendar says that it's Spring, so where is it?! It's still pretty
cold for this time of the year. Spring fever has definitely reached
epidemic proportions around these parts lately! It's been pretty quiet
around these parts lately, but we hope that will change shortly. Our U.K.
friends have some projects in the works that we'll be passing along to you in
the coming weeks.
In the meantime, let's see what's on tap for this week in the grand
world of ..all things Atari.
Until next time...
WWW 130 RELEASED (mkII)
From: Nicholas Flintham
Well since my first post doesn't seem to have been sent properly (demon
loosing news articles again?) here is another announcement of the
availability of WWW130.
It has the following included with it:
ú STiK, originally by Steve Adam (Australia) and now by Dan Ackerman
(USA). This does the low-level networking stuff to the Internet.
ú CAB, by Alexander Clauss (Germany). The HTML/WWW browser.
ú CAB.OVL, originally by Tim Newsome (USA) and now by Dan Ackerman (USA).
This is the missing link between STiK and CAB.
ú Antmail, by Dan Ackerman (USA). A POP3 based E-mail program.
ú Telnet, by Jim Baumgardner and Dan Ackerman (both USA). This is a remote
login terminal program.
ú Setup, by Guy Harrison (UK). Sets up STiK for you with no hassles
guaranteed.
Stik is at version 1.08
Cab at 1.1a
Cab.ovl 1.12
Antmail 0.7.4
Telnet 1.01
Setup 000
You can find them at the following places:
My web page (http://www.unn.ac.uk/~cju920/)
Hensa (replaces old www116)
ftp.uni-kl.de (pub/atari/incoming)
I also tried to upload to ftp.cnam.fr and atari.archive.umich.edu but ran
into problems. I may try again later.
< Nicholas Flintham >
> Nick@Flinny.demon.co.uk <
< N.P.Flintham@unn.ac.uk >
> Http://www.unn.ac.uk/~cju920/ <
> Falcon 030/4/1160/FPU/LINUX <
Jaguar Section
Battlemorph Review! Atari Games Sold!
Defender 2000 & NBA Jam TE Tips!
Yak Does VLM!
And more!
From the Editor's Controller - Playin' it like it is!
A lot of interesting stuff for you this week. Reviews are starting to
be finalized and we've included one for Battlemorph this week. The sale of
Time Warner Interactive (formerly Atari Games) has been finalized and
Williams now owns it. Ever want to be able to edit your own effects for the
Jaguar VLM? Now you can with some useful tips from the VLM master himself,
Jeff Minter.
How about some Defender 2000 tips? Or tips for NBA Jam TE? We've got
them for you in this issue! And more on the way!
I'll let you continue reading while I throw in a Jag CD and resume the
"battle"!
Until next time...
Industry News STR Game Console NewsFile - The Latest Gaming News!
WMS Industries completes acquisition of Atari ...
CHICAGO (April 1) BUSINESS WIRE -April 1, 1996--WMS Industries Inc.
(NYSE:WMS) announced today that on March 29, 1996 it completed the
acquisition of Atari Games Corporation, an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary
of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE:TWX), for a minimum purchase price of
approximately $9.8 million and a maximum of $23.8 million based upon gross
profit of the Atari business over the next four years. The purchase
consideration consists of $2 million in cash and the balance in non-recourse
notes. The acquisition substantially increases WMS' pipeline of coin-
operated arcade games and home video games and further strengthens the
Company's industry-leading design and engineering capabilities with the
addition of Atari game designers who will be based in Milpitas, California.
The additional arcade and home video game offerings provide WMS with
opportunities for design, engineering, manufacturing, and marketing
efficiencies and economies of scale which should enhance the operating
performance of the combined company. Atari has been responsible for creating
arcade and home video games such as Pong, Asteroids, Primal Rage, Area 51,
Centipede and Missile Command. WMS expects to release home versions of
Atari's extensive library titles in "greatest hits" formats in addition to
developing, marketing and distributing new Atari games. Headquartered in
Milpitas, California, Atari Games is a developer, manufacturer, marketer,
licenser and publisher of coin operated video arcade games under the Atari(R)
name and interactive electronic and game entertainment products for use with
home video games currently marketed under the Time Warner Interactive name.
Atari Games/Time Warner Interactive is a licensee and publisher for Nintendo,
SEGA, Sony, Jaguar and 3DO and personal computer CD-ROM platforms. No rights
to the names Time Warner or Time Warner Interactive are included in the
transaction. Atari Games is not related to Atari Corporation, the
manufacturer of the Jaguar home game systems. WMS Industries Inc. is engaged
in the design, manufacture and sale of coin-operated amusement games, home
video games, video lottery terminals and gaming devices, and the ownership
and operation of hotels and casinos.
CONTACT:
WMS Industries Inc.
Harold H. Bach, Jr.
312/961-1111
or
Jaffoni & Collins Incorporated
Joseph N. Jaffoni
212/505-3015
New Version Marks SimCity Milestone
Maxis Inc. is celebrating the sale of the 3 millionth copy of SimCity/SimCity
2000 with the release of SimCity 2000 Special Edition. The "celebration
edition," packaged in a silver foil box, contains 100 new building graphics,
ranging from a circa- 1930 ballpark to a space-age skyscraper. A video
interview with SimCity designer Will Wright, provided on the CD-ROM, offers
an insight to the history and future of the "Sim" game family. Also included
is the City 2000 Urban Renewal Kit, which permits players to design their
own buildings, and 10 predesigned scenarios. "SimCity mania has become an
international phenomenon," says Sam Poole, president of Maxis. "Just
recently, the National Youth Council of Singapore included a copy of SimCity
2000 in a time capsule representing national youth culture. We hope the
special edition will add new fans to the millions who have enjoyed SimCity
and SimCity 2000 worldwide."
SimCity 2000 Special Edition is available in a DOS/Windows 3.1/Windows 95
hybrid version and a Macintosh/Power Macintosh version. Each version is
priced at $49.95.
Apple Releases Game Kit
Apple Computer Inc. has released Apple Game Sprockets, a new software
development kit (SDK) that aims to help game developers create advanced
multimedia and Internet-enabled games for Mac OS-based computers. According
to Apple, Game Sprockets lets developers design games that can feature real-
time 3-D graphics, 3-D sound, Internet support, speech recognition and input
device/monitor control. The kit also includes the final release of QuickDraw
3-D RAVE (Rendering Acceleration Virtual Engine), a multiplatform technology
that enables game developers to incorporate plug- and-play 3-D acceleration
hardware into their programs.
"The business of making great games is a classic example of evolution -- you
get cooler quick, or you get left behind," says Ben Calica, senior product
manager of game technologies at Apple. "Our job is to provide developers with
unique, game-centric technology that shows off the power of the Macintosh by
helping them create the hottest titles on the market." Game Sprockets is
available royalty-free to all developers, says Apple.
NTN, CompuServe in Game Deal
NTN Communications Inc. has signed a deal with CompuServe Inc. to provide at
least 24 interactive games to CompuServe during a two year period. NTN's
Countdown, an online trivia show, and QB1, an NFL-licensed play-a- long
football game, will headline NTN's product menu for CompuServe. The games are
set to debut in May. The deals terms weren't disclosed.
"This agreement with NTN is an important step in the evolution of
CompuServe's game strategy," says Srini Vasan, CompuServe's director of
games, chat and conference. "We are very excited about our new relationship
with NTN because 'Two Way' (interactive) games are very attractive to the
global online audience." "We are confident that as fast as the consumer can
access NTN products at home, the growth in demand will be exponential," adds
Dan Downs, president and chief operating officer of NTN, which is based in
Carlsbad, California.
Jaguar Game Title STR Review - "BattleMorph"
"BattleMorph"
By Thomas Sherwin
Published by: Atari
Price: $59.99
If you're a "long-time" Jaguar owner, you probably had no choice in getting
Cybermorph with your system. I don't know about many others, but I found it
a cute pack-in yet hardly something that I would buy if it was sold
separately. Great... fly around and pick up pods. OK graphics, kinda lame
sound FX... it could have been so much better.
BattleMorph is the attempt to make Cybermorph what it should have been from
the start. Some of the premise hasn't changed: fly around to different
systems and complete your objective on each planet. You still have your
cyber-buddy Skylar to say a few words. And each world is still "fly
anywhere" scenario (i.e. you're not "on rails"). And here's where the
similarities end...
BattleMorph gives you more things to do on each planet. Sometimes you have
to set off a detonator and get off the planet before it's too late,
sometimes you have to collect data pods (OK, SOME things are the same), and
sometimes you have to destroy objectives (usually an enemy base of sorts).
To hinder you in your quests, there are obstacles like force fields, portals
which can only be opened by hidden keys, and enemies galore.
Not only can you fly around in the "open skies", BattleMorph adds the ability
to go underwater. There are still enemies down below, too, so it isn't
always a sanctuary. Some water actually "heals" you, some water hurts.
There's also underground tunnels to fly through, and they can be stocked
with more enemies. Maybe you need a key to get in. Maybe you just need to
shoot through the door. It's up to you to figure it out.
Graphics:
Not exactly system-selling, but a vast improvement over Cybermorph. The
landscape is still gouraud shaded, but doesn't "pop" into view as
drastically as CM. There's a smattering of texture mapping with the enemies
and the buildings (tastefully done, too). The frame rate has improved
slightly and made those "major" encounters a little easier to deal with.
There's still some slowdown, but the game is quite playable 95% of the time.
Given the graphics are more complicated and there's usually more stuff going
on all at once, it's obvious the graphics engine from CM was either
seriously rewritten or replaced.
The most noteworthy graphics effect is when the ship goes underwater. The
screen "waves" like a cheesy "dream scene" from the Brady Bunch. But it's
actually pretty cool (in this context) and doesn't seem to affect the frame
rate in the least. And the transition from land/sea/tunnel is
instantaneous. The explosions are vaguely Iron Soldier-ish and replace the
same cheesy bitmap fireclouds in CM.
And since BM comes on CD, they have to add the obligatory full motion video.
The scenes are limited to the beginning of the game (where a Sean Connery
sound-alike tells you the story) and to the send-to-planet/come-back-from-
planet sequences. If these annoy you, you can turn off the FMV from the
options screen or just press "Fire" to interrupt it. Regardless, the FMV is
all computer generated and goes quite smoothly. It shows off what the Jag
can do when someone takes the time to do a good job.
Sound FX/Music:
Yes, Skylar is still there... and her voice doesn't seem to have changed
much. But she's not around as often and doesn't get on your nerves. But if
you wait to long to move (or do anything), she calls out "Helloooo?" and
"Ready when you are." Glad to see she hasn't lost that rapier wit (remember
"Where did you learn to fly?" .
Like CM, most of the sound FX are pretty innocuous. Not good, not bad, just
there. But there's now some background music which changes according to
your locale (the music is different for land, sea, and tunnels/underground
rooms). I actually like the music and think it should have been in CM, too.
Your mileage may vary according to your tastes. Should you not like it, you
can turn it off.
Control:
Very similar to Cybermorph. Thankfully, you can select your "special weapon"
using the keypad instead of having to cycle through using the Option button.
But all of the other controls are the same. One step backwards is when you
use reverse. In Cybermorph, just tapping on reverse would either slow you
down just a little bit or make you go backwards for a short distance. In
BattleMorph, it seems that a tap can sometimes get out of hand and bring your
ship to a halt or send it careening backwards into a canyon wall (or worse).
I wish it weren't so sensitive and I still can't get it right.
I don't know how well it does with the Pro Controller.
Manual:
It spends way too much space showing you the enemies and not enough time
outlining what you can actually do. This doesn't really hurt your ability
to do well since there's a mission briefing before each planet and always a
"hint capsule" once you get there. Still, it would be nice to have more
explanation about your objectives. You probably won't even need to read it.
Entertainment:
To me, this is the area that is the greatest improvement over Cybermorph. On
the bad side, after playing six or seven planets, it starts to run out of
variety of what your main objective it. But on the good side, how you get to
your objective is always a challenge. Maybe you just need to find the
right tunnel. Maybe you need to get a key to turn off the power station to
turn off the force field to get the key to the tunnel... ad infinitum. Each
world is a different "puzzle" to solve and as you progress in the game, it
takes longer and longer to complete each world, even if you know where you
need to go.
There's still the bonus world for each system where you can stock up on free
weapon reloads. You just have to find the magic tower on the right planet
and blow it up. Free ships are given out as "prizes" in the worlds, not
according to your point total. And there is a greater variety of weapons
available for your War Griffon. Before each planet, you get to select four
weapons out of whatever ones you've collected, one for each "weapons bay".
Unfortunately, you can't load more than one bay with the same weapon.
Between the puzzle aspect of finding everything for your objective and the
strategy of picking the right weapons for the right situations, BattleMorph
has finally succeeded in being a competent "fly anywhere" game.
Odds and Ends:
One thing that I noticed was the relatively quick load times from the CD.
There's virtually no long waits whilst the game loads, even if you interrupt
the FMV sequences. Maybe it's just how they arranged the data on the CD, but
whatever it is, more developers should do this (I wish Primal Rage could be
like this).
And since it's a CD game that goes on for a LONG time, the Memory Track is a
must-have. It saves your score, number of ships, and weapons inventory.
Graphics: 8.0
Sound FX/Music: 6.0/8.0
Control: 7.5
Manual: 5.0
Entertainment: 8.5
Reviewer's Overall: 8.5
Summary:
If you never liked these kinds of games, BattleMorph may not change your
mind. There's nothing SO outstanding about it to make you go "Holy Moly!".
If you like Cybermorph's game "genre" but didn't like CM, give BattleMorph a
try. You'll probably think like I do: THIS is what Cybermorph should have
been from the start. But if you even remotely liked Cybermorph, BattleMorph
is a must buy. The improved graphics and enhanced gameplay will keep you
coming back for more for a long time to come.
Jaguar Cheats, & Hints STR InfoFile - Solving Those Riddles!
NBA Jam! TE Tips!!
Codes to be entered at the "TONIGHT'S MATCH-UP SCREEN":
ú Big Head - Up,C,A
ú MiniHeads - Up,Up,Up,B,C,A,A,A,A,A
ú Slippery Court - B,A,Down,A,B,Right,Right,Right,Right,Right
Secret characters to be entered at the "ENTER INITIALS SCREEN":
ú Larry Bird - enter 'BRD' with these buttons while holding down OPTION,
in this order: 'ACA"
ú Suns Gorilla - enter 'GOR' with these buttons while holding down OPTION,
in this order: 'BB*', * = use any key without OPTION to enter the 'R'.
ú Mike D of the Beastie Boys - enter 'MKD' with these buttons while
holding down OPTION, in the order: 'C*C', * = any key without OPTION to enter
'K'.
ú AdRock of the Beastie Boys - enter 'ADR' with these buttons while
holding down OPTION, in the order: 'BC*', * = use any key without OPTION to
enter 'R'.
ú MCA of the Beastie Boys - enter 'MCA' with these buttons while holding
down OPTION, in the order: '*BB', * = use any key without OPTION to enter
'M'.
ú Adisak, Jag programmer - enter 'ALP' with these buttons while holding
down OPTION, in the order: 'CBA'.
ú Phil Gelber, Lead Tester - enter 'FIL' with these buttons while holding
down OPTION, in the order: 'BAB'.
ú Leonard Tramiel, Mr. Atari - enter 'LAT' with these buttons while
holding down OPTION, in the order: '*CB', * = use any key without OPTION to
enter 'L'.
Hints for Defender 2000
Classic Mode
ú This is pretty much identical to the original arcade version of
Defender. Fast reflexes and superb coordination are two things that will
take you far in Classic Mode.
ú On higher levels, learn to perfect the art of protecting one or two
Humanoids and carrying them on your ship at all times. If all the remaining
Humanoids are on your ship, then you don't have to worry about your planet
exploding since the Landers will have nothing to pick up!
Plus Mode
ú Be sure that when playing Plus Mode, you always hold down the fire
button while firing. This will give you the fastest possible firing rate.
ú As in Classic Mode, on higher levels you'll want to keep one or two
Humanoids dangling from your ship as insurance that your planet doesn't blow
up.
ú If you haven't already noticed, the spinning cube (warp gate) spins
faster as the number of Humanoids you are carrying increases. If you have
four or more Humanoids on your ship and you fly through the warp gate, you
will warp the number of levels that is equal to the number of Humanoids that
you had on your ship.
ú Also, if you fly through the warp gate (with fewer than four men on your
ship) while a Humanoid is being captured, you will hyperspace to the section
of the level where that Humanoid is being captured so that you can rescue
him.
ú To see a cool effect, try to fly through the warp gate when a Humanoid
is being captured on the same screen so that when you hyperspace , you will
hyperspace directly on to the warp gate again!
ú Don't forget about your Lightning Laser. It doubles as a tractor beam
to pull in Humanoids if they are falling and is extremely useful on higher
levels.
2000 Mode
ú As in Plus mode, always hold down your fire button to achieve your
maximum firing speed.
ú Being able to quickly rescue a Humanoid on a level is essential to
success. Practice this until it becomes second nature. Acquiring that extra
fire power early in the level is a necessity on higher levels.
ú Remember: The more Humanoids on your ship, the more fire power that you
have.
ú Humanoid's shots don't hurt other Humanoids. Be sure and use this to
your advantage.
ú Perfect the art of flying backwards while firing. This is a vital
trademark of any true Defender player.
ú Be sure and acquaint yourself thoroughly with your radar as you will
most likely need to use that more than the game screen in order to survive.
ú Be sure and collect those power-ups! If you get four of the dark purple
ones, you will warp to a bonus level where you will have the opportunity to
warp an additional five levels.
ú Try to catch a final Humanoid as you are zooming off of a level. This
will get you an undocumented bonus which, when done successfully, can boost
your score to around one million by Level 10!
ú The enemies that shoot straight horizontal lines are a pain in the butt
if you don't let them bunch together in a group before smart bombing them.
ú Let your AI Droid take care of the Mirror Balls for you.
ú On levels with Pointy Fingers, be sure and keep moving. If you stop and
wait around, you'll be finger meat.
ú When you progress to around Level 80, beware of the Lander Generator
ships. They will not fire at you, but instead will generate Landers. It may
seem like the level never ends, but that is only because that ship is
generating more Landers. Kill them quickly and early.
ú Above all, keep at it. Practice is your biggest ally here. Once you're
used to the game you should be able to stockpile loads of extra ships in the
early levels to get you through the tough parts later on.
Plasma Pong
ú To "pull out" Plasma Pong, you need to enter a name of a legendary
Atarian at the high score screen. Hint: Think PONG!
Jaguar Online STR InfoFile Online Users Growl & Purr!
YaK's Quick Intro to VLM Hacking
From: yaK <llamaman@ix.netcom.com>
Hacking the VLM - A Brief Introduction
ú The Good News
There is a backdoor left in the VLM which allows the user to get at the edit
mode that was used to create the banks of VLM effects. You can get in there
and roll-your-own FX, and it's not hard to come up with stuff that is a *lot*
better than many of the default FX.
ú The Bad News
There is no provision for saving your hacks. They are entirely transient,
and you can wave them bye-bye as soon as you switch to another FX bank -and
unfortunately, whenever you open the lid of the Toilet to change the CD, it
switches banks into a special Jaguar-logo bank, and it's bye bye hacks.
Bummer, I wish it didn't do that, 'coz otherwise I'd just leave my VLM on
all the time and evolve 9 banksworth of top hacks...
Also, the edit interface is buggy and pretty user-hostile; it's got no error-
checking and it's possible to crash the VLM, or slow it down to a crawl, if
you tweak certain parameters out of range. Hell, it was never intended for
end-users, only for use by a certain deranged bovine.
ú Why Bother Then?
Because it's fun. Because if you're interested, you can find out a lot about
how the VLM works. Because a lot of the default FX are fairly non-optimal,
largely 'coz at the time I was designing the banks I had pneumonia and was
feeling like Bovine Backscatter, and I always find that I make better FX
when I feel good. And although you can't save the hacks, you can do what I
do, and keep a tape in the VCR and lay down some vid whenever you come up
with a particularly nice one.
ú How do I get there?
Easy. Select the effect you want to base your hack on. Then, in VLM-mode,
hold down *,1,3,0 on the Jaggi control pad. This should bring up a menu
called Spectrum and Triggers. That's not it though - that was just a red
herring to confuse people looking for the hack ;-) While on the Spectrum and
Triggers screen, press up,down,up,down... 8 times (so the cursor wraps from
Trigger 1 to Trigger 5 and back again 8x) and then the display will change to
Edit Mode. At that point you're in.
ú What do I do when I get there then?
Okay, first it helps to have some idea of what is going on inside any
particular VLM setting. Each individual setting consists of up to six
effects, each of which can take a shitload of parameters, which define how
that effect changes over time. Parameters can be attached to waveform
generators, to user control from the joypad, or to the spectrum triggers to
create an audio-responsive effect.
The most common types of effect you will see in the VLM are:
Digital Video Feedback area:
DVF is what gives you all those cool swirly screen-filling patterns and
persistence fields. It is, however, quite an expensive effect in terms of
proc power (one is throwing rather a lot of pixels around doing scaled
rotates of the entire screen)... if you can live with a smaller DVF area on
some of the effects the speed and responsiveness of many of the effects can
be greatly enhanced. I have a whole new class of 60Hz feedback FX that I
could kick myself for not putting in the default banks...
Draw Spectrum As Intensities:
This basically plots the output of the FFT through the symmetry generator.
On its own, or combined with DVF, this is a good setting to use for effects
that you want to be precisely audio-reactive. Put it over some nice DVF or a
persistence field, lovely.
Draw a Ring of Pixels:
Does just that, through the sym generator, with various parameters applied so
you can change phases, number of points,pixel size, etc... a very versatile
thing, simple though it is.
Draw Plasma:
Draws a tile of plasma on the screen. Useful for putting in the middle of a
nice DVF field as a source effect. Can be programmed to flash on trigger
band events too. Try hooking oscillators up to the XY position when it's in
a 60Hz DVF field - yummy.
Empty slots cannot be edited. Time was when pushing B on an empty slot would
bring up two pages' worth of FX that you could build in there, but sadly that
came out. I wish I had never taken it out now. Damn, and I wish I had not
removed Save Bank either...
There are a few others, starfields and the like. Play with them. Some of
them are quite cool.
Fiddling Around With Stuff
When you press B to edit an effect, you are presented with three choices -
Edit source function, which allows you to see and tweak the parameters that
make up the basis of the effect; Edit symmetry generator, which allows you to
twiddle with the sym generator, for effects that go through that pipe (not
all FX do - DVF and the plasma don't use the sym gen at all, so changing
stuff on theyr sym generator pages does nothing useful); and Edit Source
Waves. Each effect has 8 programmable waveform generators which can be
attached to any of the parameters defining the effect or the symmetry. Edit
Source Waves is where you go to adjust the speed, waveform etc of the
waveform generators.
Edit Source Function
If you enter this menu, you will be presented with a list of the variables
which control how that effect is displayed. In a DVF effect's Source
Function menu, for example, you will see parameters controlling the Window
Size, Scale, Rotate Angle, etc. You are free to cursor around this menu,
twiddle the values, and see what happens to the display. (It helps to have
a CD playing while you fiddle, so that all the effects are active and you can
see what you are doing). Menu items with (X,Y) after them represent pairs of
variables. When you select a variable to edit, you will be presented with a
slider, a 2-way slider, a position marker, or crosshairs, depending on the
effect. Just use the joypad to change the values. Anything you change will
stay changed for the life of your hack (that is until you change banks or
open the Toilet).
While editing a variable, you may see the message 'Press * to Attach
Waveforms'. If you press *, it takes you to the Attach Waveforms screen,
which has a totally crappy and confusing UI, but which is nonetheless the key
to the cooler aspects of VLM usage. It works in conjunction with the
Waveform Edit page, and in a sane and rational world, would have been
integrated in with that page. The wonderfully-informative Attach Waveforms
screen presents two rows of the numbers 1-8. The top row represents
waveform generators linked to this variable. If one or more of these numbers
are highlighted, it means there are generators already linked to this
variable. You can attach or detach a generator to the variable by pressing
the corresponding number key 1-8. You can attach as many generators as you
like - the resultant waveform is the sum of all the input waveforms.
You also can adjust the amplitude of the waveform here. Dismally, there is
no display actually showing you the amplitude - you just have to watch the
display to see the result and kinda fish about. Also, for some inane reason,
if the waveform is attached to an X-component you adjust the amplitude with
left/right, and if it is a Y component you use up and down. I think I was
planning to put in an actual display of the waveforms here, but I got ill and
never finished it off. As it is, it's sucky and counterintuitive. Oh
well... The bottom row of 8 numbers allows you to modulate the attached
waveform(s) with the output of an envelope generated by any of the five
spectrum trigger generators. You press #, then the number of the trigger 1-5
(6, 7 and 8 are for the three joypad buttons) to toggle the trigger attach.
And for some reason, like it was never properly debugged, when you toggle a
trigger off, often the digit in the bottom row will not de- highlight. Oops.
After you have attached waveforms, you will probably want to mosey on over to
the:
Edit Source Waves
menu. Here, you can select a waveform generator by cursoring up and down.
While the cursor is on a generator, that wave is displayed in the blue box.
You can increase or decrease the frequency with A and C, and slipthe phase by
Left/Right. You can change the wave type by pressing a number on the numeric
pad. User X and User Y translate to the 'position controlled by the joypad
in VLM Interactive mode.
Edit Symmetry Generator
is a very interesting place to be for all those particle effects and anything
else that goes through the sym generator. In this menu you can twiddle,
attach waveforms to and generally piss about with everything to do with
symmetry.
The sym generator uses two basic kinds of symmetry, planar 8-way reflection,
which is quick, and rotational, which is very nice but considerably slower.
The two types can be combined. Many of the items on the Symmetry page only
apply to Rotational symmetry, and will have no effect if Rotational is
switched off.
You set the sym types under the Symmetry Type menu, not surprisingly.
Pressing 9 on this page toggles rotational sym off and on, and due to quite
possibly the same bug as on the Waveform Attach screen, often the '9' in the
middle will be incorrectly highlighted. It's usually pretty obvious when
rotational is on though. Keys 1-8 toggle on and off the planes of the 8-way
symmetry. Set up your types, and then go and have a fiddle with the
parameters as in the Edit Source Function mode.
Since you can't add or delete effects, the nature of your hacks will be in
part defined by what effect types are in the bank you choose to edit, so if
you want to do a lot of DVF stuff, try bank 3 or 4, and if you like
particles, bank 1 or 2, and so on. You can switch between, and hack, all
effects within a bank, but *if you change banks they are lost*. Be careful!
And, basically, there we have it (as I said to Flossie as I led her into the
concealing darkness of the sheep-shed). Enough stuff to get you started
playing about with VLM editing. Apologies for the crappy UI, but I never had
time to really bring it up to scratch before I got that bloody pneumonia. As
it is it was about a year between finishing the VLM code and the release of
the CD-ROM, and I wish I had been able to spend a few more months at it.
Both the FX and the edit mode could have been a lot nicer! Oh well, next
time... I've already got some awesome stuff running on [closes his muzzle and
remembers the three letters N, D and A] ;-)
and oh yeah, I better mention:
CAVEATS: Here Be Bugs'n'Beasties!
The error checking on the UI is at best sucky and at worst nonexistant. It
is quite possible to either choke up the VLM with some incredibly intensive
sym mode that will have it doing one frame per Sunday, and you and even kill
it with an honest to Ghu, thank-you-and-goodnight, little-silicon-legs-in-the-
air crash. There are a few danger areas which I shall warn you of now:
ú Positioning a DVF window too far off the edge of the screen can kill the
system
ú Attaching waveforms to DVF window size and position can be fatal. Look
out!
ú Attaching waveforms to the Rotational Symmetry Order can cause it to
wrap to negative, whuch translates to something greater than 32767, which,as
a sym order, will cause the system to choke most heinously. Won't killit, but
the frame rate will be measured in minutes per frame hehe...
Don't worry, killing the system will not do any permanent damage. The
default banks are tucked away snug in ROM and will be restored when you
restart the system, no matter how badly you take it down.
Well, I shall go and post this now... have fun and Happy Hacking!
\
(:-) - the Beastly Boanthrope
/
ONLINE WEEKLY STReport OnLine The wires are a hummin'!
PEOPLE... ARE TALKING
On CompuServe
compiled by
Joe Mirando
73637,2262
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. Well, I'm back and ready to talk (when
aren't I, huh?). I missed last week's column because I was sick with a
nasty little stomach virus. It seems that each year this little beastie adds
yet another "trick" to its repertoire. So take my advice folks: Avoid
nieces and nephews who "got over the flu a few days ago".
So, what's been going on the past few weeks?? As I'm sure you're aware,
Atari is blowing out some old, used, stock at some truly incredible prices.
It's just easier for them to sell the units at rock-bottom prices than it is
to move it all to their new warehouse. Yes, last week's offer is for real,
but quantities are limited. And supplies won't last long because "they're
prices are so low they're almost giving it all away".
I'm sorry folks, I just couldn't resist. Let's take a look at the CIS
scuttlebutt before I say something else corny.
From the Atari Computing Forums
When, in the midst of a hardware conversation, Bill Anderson asks about my
choice for ST-related repair, I tell him:
"...I've trusted MegaByte with several machines several times and have never
been disappointed. They do very good work at a very fair price.
The info I have for them is as follows:
MegaByte Computers of North Texas
941 Melbourne Hurst, TX 76053
(817) 589-2950
I haven't had to contact Robert and crew for quite a while (I've stayed out
of my computers' guts for almost a year now <grin>), so you might want to
give them a call and double-check the address.
A phone call will also give you an idea of what kind of folks they are. They
are quite professional and good-natured at the same time. I find that to be
a rare combination in the computer world.
A cute story:
Two years ago, my boss sent me to call on a customer in "nearby" Sherman, TX.
Since I had to call Robert anyway, I asked him about the town. It turns out
that "nearby" in Texan terms means anything under 150 miles. Sherman was
somewhere around 80 miles north, he said, and since Hurst is 15 minutes from
Dallas/Fort Worth Airport, I should detour in that direction and see him.
When I asked if he knew anything about the town, he said "no, but hang on a
second...." Then he called to an employee "Hey, E.R., what do you know about
Sherman?" I heard E.R. pause for a moment and then he said "Well, he was
always very nice to Mr. Peabody!"
I guess you had to be there, but we all got a good chuckle over that. I
never did get to make that detour and I wish that I had."
Bill, who is also from Texas, tells me:
"Yes, you do get used to that sort of thing. I miss it when I'm away for any
length of time. Thanks for the info. I'll give them a call. So, what part
of the world do you live in?"
I reply:
"I live up here in New England (Connecticut). I can't say enough about
MegaByte. They're great folks." I hate to sound like a commercial for
MegaByte, but they are my first choice for repairs. DAK jumps in and adds
his thoughts:
"I thought I'd jump in here, being one of the Genie refugees to dive in here
after the huge rate increase over there. At work I use PC's still using Win
3.1 on 486/33's with a slow network (even DOS lives there!). At home I have a
Power Mac 7500. After getting used to the Mac I like it alot and have quite
a bit of native software, most recently Deck 2.5.1, a hard disk recording
program that's great and amazing to me, even if the Falcon purportedly does
the same. Other essential-type stuff I have that are native to the Power
Mac is Word Perfect 3.5, Now Up-to-date Contact 3.5.1 (PIM), Quicken 6
Deluxe (beats pants off of Phasar 'cept Phasar prints checks much faster...),
Norton Utilities Mac which several components are PPC native, ClarisWorks
4.04, PPC versions of both Netscape and Mosaic I still use the MSTE for
sequencing but eventually will move to the Mac.
There are little in the way of native sequencing programs. Dr. T's Omega 2
is great but I long for the integration of notation, piano roll, event
lists, all on one screen working together. I think Logic for Mac might be
native but I'm still waiting. Also, there isn't a good fax program for the
Mac. People tout the program that is bundled with Global Village modems as
superior to the commercial products! Thus, Straight Fax still gets a work-
out now and then. I think the Mac is a cooler and more elegant machine than
Win 3.1. Win '95 I don't know. If the virtual shoe fits, wear it!"
I reply to DAK:
"On all of the native PPC stuff, I wasn't implying that there isn't any good
software available, just that I had no idea what was or wasn't available.
I'm glad that people are finding what they need! I like the idea of the PPC,
and of competition in general... it's what keeps progress going."
Frank Heller jumps in and adds his thoughts on another online service and
Atari computing:
"Those miserable, worthless sacks had the nerve to RAISE their prices? Ha ha
ha ha.
Boy am I ever glad I left that cyber-wasteland 2 years ago. I should point
out that the Atari section was run by some very nice, people...and I was
sorry to leave them behind...but the GEnie O/S and baud rate was overidingly
puh-thetic as well as the Midi forum (they had sysops who couldn't and
hadn't uploaded files in close to a year). Steinberg closed up shop because
of that very problem. Oh well....that's progress.
I still have a 1040Ste and a C-LAB 030mk-II along with a a MAc Powerbook 520C
and a PPC7500/100 like yourself. Aint it cool when native stuff runs like
greased lightning? There is still some wonderful sequencing software
available for the Atari platform. SMPTE Track, Logic and Cubase Audio all
come to mind. For audio, SoundPool and Zero-X still make some great
recording and editing programs....
...and this coming from someone who has to test the stuff...I can tell you
for sure: the Atari platform STILL has the best timing. Aint nothing made
for the Mac *yet* (either in 68k or PPC emulation) that comes close. Native
PPC?...watch for Cubase Audio 3.0XT. This is strictly a native PPC program
that will turn the industry on its head. Mark my words: This program is
going to be the one that gets copied by the rest of the pack."
Dom Alvear asks Bill Anderson about his source for TT upgrades:
"Could you give me a contact number for Jeff Wilner/Anson Memory Systems? I
really want to get my TT to 26MB's!"
Bill tells Dom:
"Jeff can be reached at: (817) 467-7478 or: jef@why.net"
While on the subject of the Atari TT and RAM, my buddy Gregg Anderson asks
Bill about RAM quantities and other things:
"Let me know what the cost was for going from 2 to 8 Meg on that board.
Heck, I doubt you could even FIND a new ST ram board these days..." So far
as I hear, most emulations on the PPC tend to run quite a bit slower than on
their native platforms... The fact that they run at all is increadable but
they don't do well enough to make the emulations a primary factor in buying
the unit... IMHO
Like I said, the only reason I keep looking longingly at Pentiums are the
great games they have.... Otherwise It would be a MAC based PPC since it's
the closest thing out there to our Atari interface's look & feel...."
I reply to Gregg:
"From what I've heard, the key [to being happy with a Power PC] is to find
things you need that will run in PPC "native" (or what ever they call it)
mode. Emulation will probably always be slower than the real platform that
the software was intended for (given equal processors). I just wonder how
much is available that has been optimized for the PPC."
Frank Heller jumps in and tells me:
"There is a utility called Speed Doubler designed specifically for PPC 68000
emulation. While it's true that the PPC runs 68k stuff pretty wanky, the
SPeed Doubler utility does increase the efficiency by a significant amount.
Ever see the difference between stuff running with and without WARP9 or
NVDI? Same thing. Believe me, I know. I now have a 1040e, C-LAB 030 Mk-II,
Mac 520C PowerBook and a PPC 7500/100 to make these observations from."
I tell Frank:
"Cool! It sounds like I should get Speed Doubler first and then tell my wife
"But Honey, I've already got this great utility, I've got to get a Power
PC!".... Yeah, she'll buy that. I know I'm going to have to make a switch
eventually, it's just a question of PPC vs. MicroSoft/Intel (and finding the
bucks to do it)..."
Frank replies:
"I guess it all depends upon what you want to do with the computer. If you
only have space for one multi-purposed computer...there is no denying that
it is getting tougher and tougher to keep an Atari on the desk, in light of
all the stuff available for the PC and Mac. For instance: I will NEVER dial
CompuServe again with my 1040STe. I must've wasted hundreds of dollars with
various lame front ends available for it.
However, for midi sequencing...nothing tops an Atari. For rock steady timing,
the machine can't be beat. And I have used all kinds of sequencing programs
on all major platforms. I'll tell you one thing: it'll be a cold day in hell
when they pry Cubase and my Falcon from my dead, lifeless hands."
Bill Anderson adds:
"My neighborhood Apple dealer was happy to supply me with an impressive list
of PPC "native" software. Surely you could find the same."
In a slight fit of attitude, I tell Bill:
"I probably could... except for the fact that "my" local Apple dealer is more
interested in the pomp & circumstance of what I like to call Pond
Companies... large but shallow. They prefer to bask in the glow of
yuppiedom and collect large sums of money for annual service contracts and
then refer problems and repairs to outside agents.
They have forgotten that in 1980 (or was it 81?) I was their third
visitor/customer. Of course, at that time, they promoted the Atari 400 over
the Apple ][ and spent most of their time actually using the machines instead
of paying someone else to do it for them. I was much more impressed with
the guy in short sleeves who mused about STAR RAIDERS being the "coolest"
thing around than by the shiny 3-piece suit who now extols the virtues of
mediocrity in today's fast-paced corporate structures.
Representative of today's Apple dealers?? No, I know that this is not the
case but, in my area, it's them or nothing so... it's nothing. In any case,
I believe that the computer/OS used is less important now than it was back
then and that it will become even less so in the future. I'm sure that the
PPC does have a large and gratifying list of available software but what
frightens some folks (both users and developers) off is the shrinking
marketshare held by all platforms but one. Just look at the Atari
platform's last five or six years. Sure, the available software was
comparable to that of the other platforms, but you had to hunt and dig for
some of it. Then of course, you had to explain to others that it was "just
like [fill in the blank] on the other platform".
While all of this is okay with me, I know that it won't be with lots of folks
and that will affect development of new machines and software. A good
friend of mine just jumped ship to a PPC and he loves it. He's a picky
bugger, so I know that it's a good machine but he's already complaining
about not being able to find things like he's seen "for
Windows"."
My good friend Myles Cohen tells me:
"My advice is to save your pennies now so that you can purchase the next new
wave of machines that are going to be coming along any minute now..."
I reply to Myles:
"As always, your advice is right on the mark. I believe that in a short
amount of time Motorola and Intel will have some major competition in the
processor market. Whoever it is will be a newcomer, hungry and willing to
take a risk (or risc??) and break out of the mold. The established
processor manufacturers probably won't even see it coming. And if they do,
they'll probably say "nah, it'll never sell".
I have no idea if these new advances will be Gallium Arsenide instead of
Silicon, or optical processors, or perhaps even "biological" processors that
can be grown in petri dishes, but change will come as certainly as semi-
conductors arose to supplant the vaccuum tubes of the '50's. Perhaps new
machines like Oracle's NC and whatever Sony comes out with will be the
beginning, but I tend to think that they'll be only an abberation in the
general trend of today's market... Faster, stronger, cheaper, easier.
My one great fear is that computer manufacturers will go the "designer" route
with "decour options" like esthetically pleasing cases, brightly colored
cases, and things like that. "Buy a NUPRIN! Little... Yellow...
Different... Better." <GACK> As for saving up my pennies, now is not a
good time. Every penny I come across is already spoken for. Luckily, my
MSTE has agreed to last several more years! <grin>"
Peter Joseph tells me:
"..."biological" processors that can be grown in petri dishes???
Perish the thought! Just think of all the possible viruses! <big grin>"
I tell Peter:
"DARN! I wish that _I'D_ thought of that! <very big grin>"
Myles Cohen picks up the thread and tells us:
"Here is what I see for the not so distant future:
A microscopically small wire that acts as an antenna...introduced thru the
ear canal that will tap one of the "unused" portions of the brain which can
then be employed as a personal computer...using broadcast power and external
commands. That will be fairly primative...later we will use individual body
cells powered by their own mitochondria as computers...thought
controlled...of course... Til then, like you, I'll be using my ATARI..."
Mark Kelling quips:
"My CPU has the flu, I can't come to work today. <frown> " I just can't wait.
<big smile>"
Peter Joseph adds:
" And think of all the new company offshoots:
Silicon Graphics Pharmaceuticals
Penicilicon and TetracyliNET
CTRL-ALT-DISINFECT!"
Hey, we sure know how to make our own fun, don't we folks? Meanwhile
Sysop Bob Retelle asks:
"... what would be wrong with an "esthetically pleasing case"...? My current
PC is in a typical light tan midi-tower case, identical to millions and
millions of similar cases... it's OK, and functions just fine, but what
would be wrong with a case that looks better..? I've recently seen
"generic" cases in black... and they look pretty sharp..!
(Unfortunately they're also a bit more expensive, doubtlessly because of a
smaller economy of scale) I'm thinking of going with one of these black
cases for the next PC I build for myself. Others might prefer a different
"brightly colored case"... adding a more personal touch to the "personal
computer"..."
I tell Bob:
"Nothing at all. I've seen the generic black cases as well and you're
right... they do look sharp. My problem is that I can see it becoming a
"form over content" thing.... "Sure, it's only a '386, but it looks great
with my coffee table". I remember seeing Mario Giorgio (sp?) at a show in
Asheville showing off Nathan Potechin's Candy-Apple red TT. That was one
cool box but I wouldn't have been impressed if it had been a 520.
I've even considered stripping my MegaSTE down and spraying the case a matte
black and adding a decal of my family crest but have never gotten around to
it. And I can tell you honestly that I drooled over DMJ's "for sale" TT in a
"stoned" case but, again, it wasn't my major consideration.
The only thing that could be worse than "form-over-content" machines would be
machines whose operating systems automatically install software for an
online service other than CompuServe and get that service up to a million
users in three months.... oh, sorry, was that out loud??"
Well folks, that's about it for this week. Tune again next week, same
time, same station, and be ready to listen to what people are saying when...
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
EDITORIAL QUICKIES
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