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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 01 Issue 29
Volume 1, Issue 29 Atari Online News, Etc. September 17, 1999
Published and Copyright (c) 1999
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- CC: Classic Chips
With Contributions by:
Bengy Collins
Benjamin Smith
Carl Forhan
Brian Gudzevich
Albert Dayes
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To download A-ONE, set your browser bookmarks to one of the
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Visit the Atari Advantage Forum on Delphi!
http://forums.delphi.com/m/main.asp?sigdir=atari
=~=~=~=
A-ONE #0129 09/17/99
~ MS, US Still Fighting! ~ People Are Talking! ~ X-Box, No Rumor!
~ Encryption Limit Eased ~ Seagate Reports Layoff ~ BattleSphere, RSN?
~ Notebook Prices To Drop~ IBM's New S80 Computer ~ 'New Way' DTV!
~ Dreamcast Has A Glitch ~ Dreamcast Sales Record ~ Atari At Gravity
-* Free E-mail, At What Costs?? *-
-* Internet Taxes Fail To Catch Fire!! *-
-* Sony To Release PlayStation2 In March 2000 *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Well, Hurricane Floyd bore down on New England Thursday night and dumped a
ton of rain in our local area. By the time it got to us, the hurricane had
been downgraded to a tropical storm. Regardless, it wasn't a night to go
out and see the sights!
We were "late" getting our pool closed, but we did manage to get it closed
up and covered the night before. We anticipated a lot of "stuff" getting
blown around and likely ending up in the pool. We thought it prudent to
prefer cleaning any debris off of the cover than having to worry about it
next spring! I'm not looking forward to seeing what lies in wait for us in
the yard!
I don't know how many of you have been through a hurricane, but it's
definitely something I don't relish having to worry about too often. We've
been fortunate here in the northeast the past couple of decades. I remember
going through at least one powerful storm when I was much younger. It was
exciting for me as a youngster, but now it's not so much fun. Hopefully,
our readers on the east coast didn't have to experience too many problems
due to Floyd! I wonder how Ralph managed to weather the storm...
Well, enough excitement for one week. Right now I have to "convince" the
dogs that they really don't want to go out in this mess for their evening
romp around the yard!
Until next time...
MGC 99 Announcement
From: "Bengy Collins" <collins@bulli.com>
Hello all,
In the rules of the MagiC Game Contest, anyone who wanted to enter the
contest must have registered by September 15th, 1999.
However, we did not plan on Atari.org going down, but because it has we
have cancelled this registration date as it is unfair to many. We will
announce a new entry deadline later this month.
(This change came when a programmer who wanted to enter the contest
informed me that the registration form on the contest pages does not
work - a result of the gem.atari.org server being offline.)
Bengy Collins collins@bulli.com
Atari Meeting in Portland, Oregon USA
From: Benjamin Smith <bensmith@user2.teleport.com>
If you have an Atari and live in Portland, Oregon. U.S.A. or vicinity,
you are cordially invited to attend a Meeting of the Portland Atari
Club. You don't have to be a member to attend. We meet the 2nd Tuesday
of each Month. Our Next meeting will be Tuesday, September 14th, 7 pm
at the Pizza Baron at 2604 S.E 122nd Avenue in Portland, Oregon. Get
together with other Atarians. Make friends, meet new people, maybe find
an old friend. Eat Pizza, drink Pop & Beer in a decorative atmosphere.
Bring your family to a family friendly place. For more info try:
http://pac.pdxweb.net
e-mail: atari@benjamin.net
For more information or directions, please call our Vice President
Ben Smith at (503)256-9974 See you there!
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
jmirando@portone.com
Hid ho friends and neighbors. I've made a decision that most of you out
there are probably going to appreciate. I'm not going to mention using a
PC this time around. Don't ask me why. Just don't ask. Most of you with
Windows experience will have a rough idea of why.
So, now that that's out of the way, let's talk about something else. How
about free email accounts through Atari-Users.Net? Have you taken a look
yet? It's a very usable system and, like I said before... IT'S FREE!
I keep meaning to get around to trying out that overlay or whatever it
is that lets you use ASH's I-Connect with StinG/StiK clients, but I
simply don't have the time. I know, I know, I'll get no sympathy from
you because you're in pretty much the same boat. But then again, I'm not
really looking for sympathy, just explaining it. As a matter of fact, I
have conversed less and less with one of my very good friends in the
past year or so. We've both watched our free time diminish, and we both
understand that the lack of communication isn't a sign of anything other
than the fact that we're both busier than all get-out. On the upside,
it's nice to get email from someone who you know is just as busy as you
are.
Things have gotten so frantic these days that I often wonder if
computers have made it easier, or if they have actually helped cause it.
Should YOU somehow find the time to check it out, please email us and
let us know what you think.
Well, let's get on with all the news, hints, tips, and info to be found
on the UseNet.
From the comp.sys.atari.st NewsGroup
====================================
Hallvard Tangeraas posts:
As most of us know, the "Atari.org" site has had problems for a very long
time. Fortunately, things have started working again, but there are still
problems, and although having mailed them I haven't had any response, so
perhaps someone reading this can tell me/us what the current status
is..."
Nicholas Bales tells Hallvard:
"Rich Davies has written down basically what's up with the server.
http://www.atari.org/news/index.php3?id=article&number=220
It seems they have had problems with aging hardware and power surges.
The server died and all the disks blew up, so they had to reinstall
everything by hand on backup hardware. They are still in need of a new
server, but don't have the finances to get one."
Mike Robillard asks for info and opinions about printers:
"I'm planning on buying a new printer for my FALCON.I would appreciate
any suggestions on what brands I should consider and the ones I should
avoid."
Daniel Dreibelbis tells Mike:
"I just purchased an Epson PhotoStylus for both my Falcon and my Quadra,
and I must say I am VERY impressed with the results I'm getting from it.
You'll have to get NVDI 5 to make full use of an Epson, but it'll be
worth it.
Note - I'd suggest getting hold of something like the 740 or 740i if you
have more than one system at home, as it uses parallel, Apple serial and
USB. (this will be important if you own an iMac or want to get the
USB-equipped Centek or Milan 500).
You might also want to check out http://www.epson.com, as the Company
makes refurbs available from time to time at good prices. If you only
want to use it with the Falcon, you could go for a 440 or 640 for
excellent results."
Claes Holmerup adds:
"If you're planning on using it with Cubase Audio, get a laser printer
that's HP laserjet compatible and there won't be any problems. You need a
printer that can print in DOS, so don't get the cheaper Windows-printers
as they won't work.
Many inkjets use special commands to enable the graphics, which means you
have to get special drivers for them. If you use "normal" programs, you
can probably use NVDI-drivers and use some inkjets fully, but NVDI
doesn't work with Cubase (other than the screen speedup) - so don't count
on getting the best performance out of a new inkjet - if it works at
all..."
James Smith asks a hard drive question:
"I have just been to a local Computer Show and picked up a Seagate
Barracuda 4.1 gig hd real cheap.
When I got home and opened the box I got a couple of surprises:
1. The drive is double height and
2 the scsi connector is unlike any of the ones on my current hds i.e. not
'normal' and not scsi2 (like the connector on the Falcon. (I suspect the
connector must be one of these 'wide' or 'ultra-wide' types I have heard
about ?)
Can I get an adaptor to be able to use it in my tower ?
Finally, there is a sticker on the drive which says 'Single End'. Can
anyone explain what this means ?
If anyone there had been selling SyJet carts I would not have these
problems..."
Kevin Dermott tells James:
"I have a Barracuda in an external box with an adaptor to the existing
cable and it works fine."
James tells Kevin:
"I have since learned a little more about my purchase. I went to the
Seagate site and got the spec sheet; it is apparently a SCSI-2 Fast Wide
mechanism. Hopefully a trip to a local computer shop will provide me with
the adaptor I need.
I also spotted that Seagate supply manuals on-line to download, so I got
the one for this drive (about 800k).
Unfortunately, it was only available in .PDF format (Adobe Acrobat?)!!
Can anyone suggest a way of converting it to ascii on the Atari ?"
Nicholas Bales, helpful as ever, tells James:
"If the PDF file is online, then Adobe has an online PDF to HTML
converter through which you can pass it. I don't know the URL, but surely
you can start looking at http://www.adobe.com"
John Garone asks:
"Has anyone heard of a program (for a Falcon030) that plays .MP3 music
files?"
Didier Mequignon tells John:
"Maybe you can look on my page, it's a beginning, please wait for a final
version in 68K/DSP (without FPU), now I wait 1 mn for listen an MP3 44,1
KHz 128 Kbits/s stereo of 22 seconds on my centurbo II.
Now the FPU is always used and only 2 stages use DSP.
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/didierm/files/anip208b.zip (beta-version)
And you have another project, FalcAMP from Sector One, at this URL:
http://deunstg.free.fr/sct1/falcamp.htm"
Chris Crosskey adds:
"There's supposed to be one in development...from what I've read a Falcon
will just about have enough MIPS to do it if the DSP is used properly and
you have an FPU fitted...it's marginal and I doubt if the machine can
even display a screen whole it does it, though I'd lover to be proved
wrong and have an MP3 player that only used the DSP and left everything
else for my PCB CAD package..."
Steve Sweet asks for help with aFTP:
"I'm having problems with aFTP version 1.54b. I cannot connect to a lot
of sites, I get an error, cannot resolve host, almost instantaneously. I
found a different TCP module yesterday and tried this tonight with no
success.
I suspect it's a configuration cock-up. some sites I can connect to, such
as ftp.sofa.dartnet.co.uk, but the one announced in here regularly
ftp.chapelie.rma.ac.be, refuses to play ball. Could some of you offer me
your experience please?"
Michael Freman tells Steve:
"I've had the same problems from time to time. I don't know if they only
allow access at certain times of day, but I've only been able to access
that FTP site at certain times of the day and not others.
This is with both aFTP 1.53 and 1.54. Or it could also have been
something to do with my ISP, I guess, I don't know."
Martin "Nightowl" Byttebier adds another possible reason for the problem:
"You are using the wrong address for the Belgian ftp-site. It's
'chapelie.rma.ca.be' or '193.190.204.128'. Do NOT add 'ftp' to the
address."
Jacob Maier asks for help with using an Atari Laser Printer with a PC:
"I just found a SLM804 which appears to be in good repair. However I am
now running a PC. So I want find a cable or set of adapters that would
allow me to plug into a regular printer port. I will also need to run
some sort of driver. Any help would be appreciated."
Roger Cain tells Jacob:
"Sorry, Jacob, the SLM804 uses the ST RAM as a page buffer. You can't get
a PC to behave in this way."
Peter Schneider tells Jacob that it's...
"Impossible! The only chance you have is to install a small network with
an Atari as printer server..."
Well folks, that's it for this week. Another short column, I know, but I
guess that as the summer winds down people just have other things to do.
I'm sure that as fall brings the temperature down lower and the sun down
sooner people will again turn to the UseNet and bring us more pearls of
wisdom.
Here in the northeast we are, at this very moment, weathering the forces
of hurricane Floyd. The rain has been unbelievable here, and the winds
are picking up even as I type this. It's nowhere near as bad as it could
have been, but it's still troublesome. All in all, I'd say that the
entire east coast of the United States got fairly lucky.
Stay safe, stay dry, and always... always... listen to what they are
saying when...
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Sony Announces PlayStation2 Date!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Sega Sets Sales Record?!
PSX2 Details! Dreamcast Glitch!
Microsoft's 'X-Box'! Songbird News!
Battlesphere News! And much more!
->From the Editor's Controller - Playin' it like it is!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
All kinds of gaming news this week! The Dreamcast has been available for a
little over a week now; already news about it has died down. Sony has
recently announced their target date for releasing the PlayStation2.
Microsoft is dodging questions about their reported new set-top box, code-
named "X-Box". And more.
Out of all of the articles I've read this week, the one that really caught
my eye referred to the report that Sega's Dreamcast set a sales record for
an entertainment product. Here's the paragraph to which I'm referring:
Sega of America, a unit of Japan-based Sega Enterprises Ltd ,
claimed the tally made Dreamcast the biggest selling entertainment
product ever on its first day on the market, eclipsing the $28
million first-day box office total of ``Star Wars: Episode I - The
Phantom Menace'' earlier this year."
What a beautiful piece of marketing! Taken literally, this "fact" is true.
Sure, Sega had $97 million in sales - to consumers or retailers, or both?
But who's splitting hairs?! <g> As an Atari Jaguar fan, let's "Do the
Math!". How many Star Wars tickets sold did it take to result in $28
million first-day sales? Let's estimate that tickets were $10.00 each.
That's 2.8 millions tickets sold the first day!
How much is the Dreamcast? Twenty times the cost of a Star Wars ticket?
It doesn't matter for my peeve! According to another article (both are
included in this issue), Sega sold 372,000 Dreamcast units, in the first
four days - for a total revenue of $133 million. Do the math....
It's all marketing garbage. And people eat this hype up; they believe the
numbers without understanding what they mean! Who had the greater impact:
Star Wars with 2.8 million first day ticket-buyers, or Sega with less than a
half million buyers? Who had more dollar bills? Simple, the one with the
higher-priced product! This is not brain surgery!
What's my point? Understand what you read, especially as a consumer. Don't
get caught up in the marketing hype. Sales figures - especially those
coming directly from the company - are to be taken with a large grain of
salt. There's no breakdown for the revenue, for obvious reasons. Just my
two cents worth...
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Sony Names Launch Date For Playstation 2
Sony Corp. will begin selling its PlayStation 2 video game player next
March, three months later than originally planned, but the delay is
unlikely to threaten its dominance of the $6.3 billion a year video-game
industry, analysts said Monday.
The state-of-the art PlayStation 2 console will go on sale in Japan on
March 4, in other Asian countries next summer, and in the United States and
Europe next autumn.
Sony had been expected to begin selling the enhanced version of the world's
top-selling video game player -- and biggest contributor to its bottom line
-- by December in Japan.
It will be priced at 39,800 yen ($368) in Japan, where a staggering one
million units will be shipped in the first week, officials at Sony Computer
Entertainment, a Sony unit, told a news conference.
Industry sources say Sony had earlier told its parts and chip makers that
sales of PlayStation 2 would begin within this year. Analysts have
speculated that Sony's lack of experience in turning out super-fast chips
to be used in the new console may have contributed to the delay.
Sales of the current PlayStation accounted for around 40 percent of Sony's
consolidated operating profit in the past year to March.
Analysts don't expect the delay to have much impact on Sony's forecasted
net earnings of 110 billion yen for the current business year ending on
March 31 because of the heavy volume of PlayStation 2 machines expected to
be shipped within March.
``Sony's planning to sell one million consoles in the first two days of the
launch and then at least another 500,000 in the next few weeks," said
Universal Securities analyst Motoharu Sone.
``They had forecast two million units for this business year so its not
going to mean that big a difference."
Sega Enterprises Ltd. has beaten rivals Sony and Nintendo Co Ltd. to the
punch in releasing a more powerful game player. Tokyo-based Sega has
already released its $199 Dreamcast machine, the first to feature 128-bit
computer chip technology and Internet capability.
Dreamcast enjoyed whopping first-day sales of near $100 million when it hit
the U.S. market last Thursday, double the company's original estimate.
Its success is seen as make or break for Sega after its predecessor, the
1995 Sega Saturn, flopped badly. Since then, the company has seen its U.S.
market share slide to one percent from 50 percent in the early 1990s.
Kyoto-based Nintendo, the world's second-largest video game player maker,
plans to begin selling a next-generation game console, the Dolphin, in time
for the 2000 Christmas shopping season.
But even with a year's lead in the United States, analysts expect Sega to
be little more than an minor irritant to rivals Sony and Nintendo.
In the United States the current PlayStation has around 60 to 70 percent of
the market for larger video game consoles, with most of the rest going to
the Nintendo 64 console, analysts said.
In most other regions of the world, PlayStation dominance is overwhelming.
Many consumers are likely to be willing to wait for PlayStation 2 because
it will be the first ``backwards compatible" console allowing existing
Sony games to be played on it.
It will also have Internet capability, superior graphics and use digital
video disc (DVD) technology that will allow it to hold around five times
the data of Dreamcast.
PlayStation to Form Basis for E-Distribution Business in 2001
Sony Computer Entertainment Charts PlayStation2 Network Strategy
Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Monday announced that it will establish
its revolutionary computer entertainment system, PlayStation2, as a
platform for Internet-based electronic distribution of digital content in
2001.
The PlayStation changed the business model for interactive content
distribution through the use of CD-ROM as a delivery medium. CD-ROM
provided shorter lead times resulting in better inventory and distribution
management, removing many of the difficulties associated with mask-ROM
cartridges. PlayStation2 offers a further improved packaged media
distribution model by employing both CD-ROM and DVD-ROM.
In addition to packaged media and recognizing the potential of broadband
networks to offer the consumer a vast selection of content and the
convenience of download capability, Sony Computer Entertainment will
establish broadband distribution of digital content, beginning with the
PlayStation and PlayStation2 software libraries. With an Ethernet
connection to a broadband network such as digital cable, PlayStation2 users
will be able to download data-intensive computer entertainment content to
hard-disc drives to be provided by Sony Computer Entertainment.
Sony Computer Entertainment will develop an electronic transaction system,
including authentication and encryption technology, to support the
e-distribution system. The company will also include in 2001 a PlayStation2
expansion module as a network adapter (PC card interface) and establish an
e-distribution server.
Content Developers, Publishers, Software Tool
Makers Gather to Support PlayStation2
More Than 200 Companies Worldwide Announce
Support For New Computer Entertainment Platform
Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCEI) today revealed massive third party
support for its new computer entertainment platform, PlayStation2.
The long list of companies includes not only prominent game publishers
currently supporting the PlayStation, but also famous names from a wide
range of entertainment fields. This expansive support exceeds that of the
launch of the original PlayStation, whose success has been due in great
part to the broad variety of third party content available for the
platform.
In Japan, where the system is set to debut on March 4, 2000, 89 publishers
have signed license agreements to develop content for PlayStation2.
Additionally, 46 North American companies and 27 European companies have
signed letters of intent in preparation for the overseas launch of
PlayStation2 in Fall 2000.
Interest is also strong among tool and middleware developers with 45
companies indicating strong support. In addition to software development
libraries supplied by SCEI, the crucial tools and middleware these
companies bring to the platform ensure an environment in which software
developers can create the very best entertainment content for PlayStation2.
PlayStation2 Accessories
New Digital Analog Controller `Dual Shock'2
Large Capacity Memory Card Unveiled
Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. announced the release of two new
accessories for its revolutionary computer entertainment system,
PlayStation2.
Product Name: "Dual Shock"2 Analog Controller
SCPH - 10020
Suggest Retail
Price: 3,500 Yen (tax not included)
Available: March 4, 2000
Product Name: Memory Card (8MB)
SCPH - 10010
Suggested
Retail Price: 3,500 Yen (tax not included)
Available: March 4, 2000
With the exception of the ``start" and ``select" buttons, all the
functions of the ``Dual Shock"2 are analog, making for a wider variety of
user operations and a more compelling interactive experience. The ``Dual
Shock"2 is also backward compatible with all PlayStation software
supporting the original ``Dual Shock" analog controller.
The new memory card has a storage capacity of 8MB of data, and a data
transfer rate up to 250 times faster than the current memory card. In the
interests of data security for potential future network applications, the
memory card incorporates the authentication and encryption security system,
``MagicGate."
Microsoft Developing Games Console
Microsoft Corp is secretly developing a PC-based computer games console to
compete in the market dominated by Sony, Sega and Nintendo, the Sunday
Times said Sunday.
While Microsoft officially denies the existence of the set-top box for home
computers, codenamed the X-box, the Sunday Times said a number of
developers were briefed with the details at a trade show in London last
week.
They were taken to a nearby hotel and asked to sign non-disclosure
agreements, the newspaper said, adding Microsoft said it never commented on
speculation or rumor.
Microsoft is already involved in games development and has contributed
technology to Sega's new Dreamcast console. Sony, the market leader, and
Nintendo are to launch their next-generation platforms, PlayStation 2 and
Dolphin, next year.
The Sunday Times quoted Chris Deering, president of Sony computers in
Europe, as saying, ``If there is any truth in these rumors, the move seems
to be a signal of disappointment, and one of loss of confidence in Sega's
new Dreamcast in which Microsoft is a partner."
Sega Dreamcast Sales Near $100 Million In One Day
Sega of America on Friday said its new Dreamcast video game player had
whopping first-day sales of $97.9 million, more than doubling company
expectations for the product's first 24 hours on the market.
Sega of America, a unit of Japan-based Sega Enterprises Ltd , claimed the
tally made Dreamcast the biggest selling entertainment product ever on its
first day on the market, eclipsing the $28 million first-day box office
total of ``Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace" earlier this year.
Retail stores across the company began selling Dreamcast just after
midnight on September 9.
Dreamcast is Sega's new game player with faster playing speeds than its
rivals, Sony's Playstation and Nintendo 64. It also includes Internet
capabilities like chat, e-mail and browsing on the Dreamcast Network.
Sega Dreamcast Breaks Another Industry Record, Tops Total Units Sold Mark
Sega Dreamcast Sells Through More Than 370,000 Units in Four Days,
Beats Previous Industry Record
Sega's 128-bit, Internet-ready Sega Dreamcast videogame console continued
to fly off the shelves at retail outlets across the country this weekend
following its record-setting launch on 9.9.99.
Sega officials announced today that Sega Dreamcast has surpassed the
previous record for total units sold in the first four days of
availability, bringing total revenue to $132,712,000. Sega sold a total of
372,000 Sega Dreamcast systems in just four days, easily surpassing the
previous industry record holder, Nintendo 64, which took six days to hit
350,000 when it launched in 1996. In the first 24 hours of availability,
Sega Dreamcast netted more than $97 million at retail, more than tripling
the past entertainment industry record set by Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
at $28 million on its first day(1).
Equally as impressive as the hardware sales of Sega Dreamcast, were related
software sales in the first four days. First and third party software sold
at an average tie ratio of three to one -- three games for each system
sold. Contributing to the software sales success was the availability of 18
titles at launch, another videogame industry record. Toys 'R Us announced
on Friday they had completely sold out of Sega Dreamcast in all of their
705 retail outlets by 1 p.m. that day.
``We have no doubt that the Sega Dreamcast system will continue its record
selling pace," declared Chris Gilbert, senior vice president of sales,
Sega of America. ``Retailers are already proclaiming it the 'must have'
product for the holiday season. With our low price point at $199, Internet
connectivity and 40 titles by year end, consumers will have plenty of
reasons to pick up a Sega Dreamcast in the upcoming months."
On September 9th, Babbage's, Etc., parent company of the Babbage's and
Software Etc. retail chains also had a record sales day -- more than
doubling their previous high sales day -- and were well on their way to
selling through all of the more than 100,000 pre-sell orders.
``There is simply no comparison to the launch of Sega Dreamcast," said
Daniel DeMatteo, president, Babbage's, Etc. ``This launch easily surpassed
our expectations and we expect consumer demand to get even stronger as we
head into the important holiday shopping months."
In addition to its sales figures, Sega also announced today they had begun
shipping systems and games to replenish store shelves left bare following
last Thursday's launch. In addition, the company began distribution of new
game discs and Sega Dreamcast web browser discs to replace the very small
quantity of software that was found to be defective on Friday.
Anyone with a defective game disc is encouraged to return it to the retail
outlet where it was purchased for an exchange. Consumers with defective web
browsers are asked to go to sega.com and click on customer service or call
877/383-3291 to have a new disc sent to them directly.
Sega's Dreamcast Has a Glitch
Sega Enterprises Ltd. acknowledged Friday that some of the software for its
new Dreamcast video-game system doesn't work, only a day after the
much-hyped system hit store shelves.
Sega spokeswoman Jennifer Walker said that only a small quantity of some of
the new Dreamcast games were affected, blaming it on a manufacturing
problem.
The games affected were Blue Stinger, Sonic the Hedgehog, Hydro Thunder and
Ready to Rumble. The company emphasized the problems were not related to
the Dreamcast console.
Struggling Sega has been counting on Dreamcast to vault it back to the top
of the U.S. video-game market, and analysts had warned that any problems
could be devastating to the company.
Retailers said, however, that glitches weren't immediately impacting sales,
which were going quite well. Toys R Us said that all of its 705 stores
nationwide sold out of the Dreamcast console on Thursday.
Sega said late Friday that it had recorded $97 million in initial sales of
equipment and games on Thursday, easily surpassing the company's
expectations.
Sam Kennedy, news editor of the San Francisco-based videogames.com Web
site, said that even a minor glitch could be a big problem for Sega.
``They had a lot of hype for this system and they had a great launch up
until now," he said. ``This may not seem like a big deal, but they can't
really afford any problems right now."
Customers quickly noticed that some of their games weren't working,
retailers said.
``We started hearing stuff from some of the consumers who had come in at
midnight. Their games weren't loading properly. We started making Sega
aware of what we were hearing," said Peter Roithmayr, vice president of
merchandising of video games at the Electronics Boutique chain, based in
West Chester, Pa.
Roithmayr said customers were not very upset.
``It is certainly not a panic thing. We have a small problem and it isn't a
hardware issue - which is good because a hardware problem is a lot tougher
to fix."
At Software Etc. in New York City, manager Charles Stanley said several
customers have come in to complain.
``We've been fortunate, though. I've heard about lot of problems from
people on the Internet and they aren't happy."
Sega said the affected software amounts to less than 1 percent of the games
and 1 percent of the WebBrowser CDs, used to help connect Dreamcast users
to the Internet. The company said it would send out all new WebBrowser CDs
on Monday.
Sega said customers with problems can send e-mail to support(at)sega.com or
call 1-877-383-3291.
Sega Burns the Competition With 'CART - Flag to Flag' for Sega Dreamcast
Get ready to put your Sega Dreamcast into overdrive! Sega of America
announced Wednesday the release of the action-packed racing title,
``CART - Flag to Flag" for Sega Dreamcast, the superconsole with a
built-in 56K modem that brings the most-advanced and realistic video
gameplay ever developed to consumers. Based on the official Championship
Auto Racing Team (CART) license, ``CART - Flag to Flag" offers gamers all
the authenticity of a true-to-life CART race. From 19 challenging courses,
intense 3D graphics, screechingly realistic audio and your choice of all
the real CART vehicles and drivers, ``CART - Flag to Flag" will leave its
competitors in the dust. The renowned CART champion racing team ``Team
Rahal" also added their input to help make the title burn rubber! ``CART
- Flag to Flag" is available at retailers nationwide for $39.95.
``CART - Flag to Flag" features real-time racing that takes into account
environmental conditions that would affect the performance of the cars.
When it rains, the tires on your car will change to adjust to the slick
surface of the track. From the motor oil flying onto your windshield to
changing weather conditions that affect the racer's view, players will be
so immersed in realism, they'll think the race is truly taking place in
their living room.
``Sega Sports' goal is to set all new standards in sports and racing
games," said Greg Thomas, vice president of product development, Sega of
America. ``With 'CART - Flag to Flag,' Sega Sports is bringing gamers the
best in fast-action racing, 3D graphics and detail. What more could players
want?"
Gamers have a choice of 27 official CART drivers from 17 different teams to
race in the fastest form of closed-circuit auto racing in the world.
Individual drivers have their own unique cars with their actual sponsor
names printed on them. While racing, players can select up to five
different camera perspectives whether it be behind the car, or head on.
Sega also recorded actual engine sounds from CART Champ cars, including
Bryan Herta, to help to heighten the realism surrounding the game.
It doesn't stop there; ``CART - Flag to Flag" is revving with realism.
Players have the ability to set their own car during the practice and heat.
To mark the fastest time in the championship, players can modify the angle
of the front wing, rear wing, gear ratio and tires.
Using the advanced 128-bit graphic engine of the Sega Dreamcast system,
``CART - Flag to Flag" delivers detail and incredible gameplay not seen in
other racing titles. Players are engulfed in exact replicas of actual
racing courses right down to the minute detail of chain links in the track
fences. Racing in either Motegi, Japan, or Long Beach, California, players
will see every detail specific to each individual track. Even the sponsors'
names are clearly seen on the cars and around the tracks and not just a
blur that resembles the names like in conventional racing games.
``CART - Flag to Flag" is available at retailers nationwide and at
sega.com for $39.95.
Sega Sports NFL 2K for Sega Dreamcast Sets an All
New Standard in Realistic Football Action
Forget all sports videogames from the past. A new era of sports gaming is
now a reality with Sega Sports ``NFL 2K" for Sega Dreamcast, the
superconsole with a built-in 56K modem that brings the most-advanced and
realistic video gameplay ever developed to consumers. Named ``Best Sports
Game" at the 1999 Electronic Entertainment Expo, ``NFL 2K" for Sega
Dreamcast redefines the true videogame sports experience with an
unsurpassed level of detail in all aspects of the game. See sharp TV-style
presentations that look like real video highlights from an actual game,
players who fall based on the direction and force of tackles, team-specific
plays and playbooks and all the signature touchdown celebrations you know
from the real game. ``NFL 2K" is available at retailers nationwide for
$49.95.
Developed by Visual Concepts for Sega Sports, ``NFL 2K" is chock-full of
industry firsts. ``NFL 2K" runs at 60 frames per second, making it the
fastest console sports game on the market today. The game features more
than 1,500 motion captured moves which allows for more realistic tackles,
two-player wrap tackles and true-to-life animations. But it doesn't stop
there. Other firsts include on-field play-calling, play-calling on the
controller using the Sega Dreamcast Visual Memory Unit to keep plays
secret, twelve hours of audio commentary and incredible graphic detail. See
breathe strips on players noses, the breath coming out of players' mouths
on a cold day, watch the ball spiral as it flies through air and see all
your favorite players individually scaled to perfection. No sports game on
any platform has achieved this high level of detail that makes every play
feel like it is coming straight out of the NFL.
``After experiencing 'NFL 2K' for Sega Dreamcast, anyone who has ever
played another sports game will never want to go back," said Greg Thomas,
vice president of product development, Sega of America. ``Sega Sports has
redefined what 'a great football game' means and you'll see this when you
play 'NFL 2K."'
``NFL 2K" features more than 40 teams to choose from including 31 NFL
teams, three all-pro teams and six alumni teams. The Fantasy Draft features
allow gamers go head-to-head with the computer to bid for the best players
in the league and a Tutorial Mode teaches beginner players the in-and-outs
of the game. ``NFL 2K" also features an uninterrupted season mode,
practice mode and four different types of tournament modes. Gamers can
create their own teams, create a custom season and even put themselves in
the game using the create-a-player mode that allows players to scale
individual body parts.
Motion capturing more than 20 athletes and stuntmen, Sega Sports has hit
their mark in their attempt to re-create the unique qualities of every
position in the NFL. Sega also enlisted the help of real NFL coaches to
make sure each play looks exactly right. Individual 3D player models were
used to differentiate NFL player positions and gameplay reflects
true-to-life physics. Lineman move slower (as 300 pounders tend to do),
while wide receivers dash with lightning speed to pinpoint passes on
crossing patterns. Due to advanced 3D collision techniques, players respond
and fall based on where they are hit. The game detects exactly where and
how hard the player is hit on the body and from there, the artificial
intelligence (AI) determines the result -- players may fall, or they may
just stumble. No other game on the market comes close to this level of
accuracy.
In addition to the momentum-based physics, ``NFL 2K" features an advanced
AI perception system that creates a new gameplay situation on every play.
Don't even think about running the same play each time, the AI will learn
your moves and use them to beat you! Unique to ``NFL 2K," actual NFL
coaches assisted with each play to ensure that gamers will recognize each
team's playing tendencies as being true to life. There are also
team-specific plays and playbooks and a whopping 1,400 unique plays to
choose from! If that's not enough, players are also equipped with a
hands-on, easy to use Play Editor for the real armchair quarterbacks out
there!
Calling plays has never been better. No more little windows with misleading
information, ``NFL 2K" features the first-ever on-field play calling
feature, allowing users to see a receiver or a running back's route
directly on the field. Football fans will also be able to use the VMU to
gain strategic advantage over rivals. Gamers can selecting game plays and
strategies on the VMU, adding an all new level of strategy to the game.
The advanced audio model of ``NFL 2K" simulates an experience amazingly
close to what you'd hear at an NFL stadium. Not only are team-specific
sounds/chants and regional music trends accurate, but the implementation of
spatial effects deliver a degree of realism never heard before in any
sports-genre videogame. To top off the stunning audio, a roaming
three-person television commentary team delivers more than 10,000 lines of
smart commentary with the action of the football game as it happens. If you
run a bad play, don't be surprised if they make fun of you!
As an added bonus for novice gamers, the Coach's Pick feature in the game
allows players to select a play for the user. Coaching Mode calls the plays
without controlling players on the field, this feature is key for players
who aren't good at performing special moves or maneuvering with the
joystick.
``NFL 2K" is officially endorsed by the NFL, Players Inc. and by NFL great
Randy Moss, Minnesota Vikings wide receiver and spokesperson for ``NFL
2K."
Berkeley Systems Launches Two New Jacks Back to Back
The Irreverent Quiz Show Party Game Debuts on the PlayStation
Berkeley Systems, Inc., a division of Sierra On-Line, Wednesday announced
YOU DON'T KNOW JACK Offline and YOU DON'T KNOW JACK for the PlayStation
game console officially shipped. YOU DON'T KNOW JACK Offline brings the
best of the award winning YOU DON'T KNOW JACK the netshow (www.bezerk.com)
to CD-ROM while YOU DON'T KNOW JACK for PlayStation finally brings the game
based on a television game show to the player's living room TV. Created in
partnership with Jellyvision, Inc., of Chicago, these titles fall under the
Sierra Attractions brand of casual games.
``YOU DON'T KNOW JACK Offline has classic JACK trivia with new twists and
surprises for the traditional JACK fan, while YOU DON'T KNOW JACK
PlayStation is going to zap a completely different group of players," said
David Houghtaling, Jellyvision's director for YOU DON'T KNOW JACK Offline.
Jellyvision's director for the PlayStation game console edition of YOU
DON'T KNOW JACK, Dan Fiden, added, ``Um. Yeah. What he said. (pause) Both
new JACKs rock!"
``The JACK family of products keeps getting bigger and better," said Lori
Tranquilla, marketing manager for Berkeley Systems. ``We're excited about
extending the possibilities for JACK fans new and old."
Recreating the swift pace of a TV game show and the sarcastic musings of a
game show host, YOU DON'T KNOW JACK for the PlayStation game console takes
players on a wild ride with two CDs full of hilarious trivia. The 1,400
questions in this edition of YOU DON'T KNOW JACK combine great trivia with
pop culture references in a witty, brain-twisting mixture that is as
challenging as it is entertaining. The game, developed in partnership with
Starsphere Interactive, features brand new questions and hilarious dialogue
in addition to support of PlayStation peripherals such as the Dual
Shock analog controller. YOU DON'T KNOW JACK for the PlayStation game
console takes the tradition of social gaming to a new level by letting up
to three players compete while lounging in the comfort of their own living
room.
YOU DON'T KNOW JACK Offline features the best of the award winning YOU
DON'T KNOW JACK the netshow. In addition to 800 vintage netshow questions,
this edition of JACK also has 200 all-new questions. High culture and pop
culture collide in this classic yet contemporary JACK experience. The game
is decked out with new graphics and a brand new question type based on
``Pissed About a Question" letters sent by JACK fans. The game features
vintage JACK material that cannot be found anywhere else. In addition, YOU
DON'T KNOW JACK Jumbo will also be available this September and includes
the entire JACK series, Volume One through YOU DON'T KNOW JACK Offline.
YOU DON'T KNOW JACK for the PlayStation game console retails for $39.95,
and YOU DON'T KNOW JACK Offline is available as a Macintosh and Windows
95/98 compatible CD-ROM for $29.95. YOU DON'T KNOW JACK Jumbo represents a
great value at $49.95.
Hasbro Interactive Announces First Games
Developed for State-of-the-Art Sega Dreamcast
Hasbro Interactive strengthens its position as an all-platforms games
publisher today with the announcement that it will release two titles this
Fall for Sega Dreamcast -- Centipede under the Atari brand and Worms
Armageddon under the MicroProse brand.
``Sega Dreamcast represents the current state-of-the-art in console video
games," said Tom Dusenberry, President of Hasbro Interactive. ``The
superior graphics offered by Sega Dreamcast makes it an excellent platform
to further our goal of bringing the finest in video games to console
players. The updated classic console gaming action of Centipede and the
comic mayhem of Worms Armageddon are particularly well suited to this new
system."
In Centipede players take the role of Wally, the village's humble bean
counter, as he is quickly recruited to man the village bug shooter and sent
off to save the colony from the ruthless QueenPede and her destructive
subjects - the spiders, scorpions, and fleas - as she sets out to conquer
the peaceful wee people. Atari Centipede for Sega Dreamcast will take full
advantage of the awesome computing power offered by this new gaming
console, with additional adventure levels that will add increased variety,
additional gameplay, and new dynamics to the game. Superior graphics and
special effects will also be featured.
The third and final game in the award-winning Worms series, Worms
Armageddon challenges the player to become supreme conqueror of the
worm-scape by using their wits and a wacky assortment of weapons. It
enhances original gameplay with exotic new weapons such as aqua sheep,
earthquake, skunk and mole bomb, fantastic new single-player modes and 33
individually crafted missions. The scrappy, earth-dwelling stars of Hasbro
Interactive's new Sega Dreamcast title will keep players laughing and
scratching their heads in thought through level after level. Hasbro
Interactive's recent release of Worms Armageddon for the PC has received
critical acclaim from reviewers.
Midway Puts on its Gloves And Ships
Ready 2 Rumble Boxing for Sega Dreamcast
Game Features Voice of World-Renowned Boxing
Announcer Michael "Let's Get Ready to Rumble" Buffer
Let's Get Ready to Rumble! Midway Home Entertainment, one of the industry's
leading video game publishers and developers, today announced that it has
released Ready 2 Rumble Boxing for Sega Dreamcast. Midway expects the game
to sell at a one-to-one ratio with the quantity of Sega Dreamcast consoles
available at the system's launch. Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, the ultimate
boxing video game experience, will also be released for the Nintendo 64,
PlayStation game console and Game Boy Color later this year. Featuring the
most famous voice in boxing, Michael ``Let's Get Ready to Rumble" Buffer,
Ready 2 Rumble Boxing mixes hard-hitting arcade-style boxing action with
tongue-in-cheek humor.
``Ready 2 Rumble Boxing expands the niche in to the boxing genre adding a
new brand to Midway's trademark over-the-top sports games, says Paula Cook,
director of marketing for Midway Home Entertainment. "Ready 2 Rumble
Boxing combines the thrill of arcade-style game-play, realistic moves and
strategy with a sarcastic comic twist that has become a Midway trademark.``
In Ready 2 Rumble Boxing, players can compete as one of 16 boxers, each
with their own fighting style. Each boxer is hyper-realistic with an
unlimited number of punch combinations for both realistic and over-the-top
boxing styles. Players can compete in arcade-style mode, contending for a
championship belt, or play head-to-head on the system. Ready 2 Rumble
Boxing also features Championship Mode, in which players take on the role
of boxer and manager, assuming control of managing money used to sign
boxers and buy equipment for the gym. Players use the equipment to train
and build up power, speed, stamina, punches and durability.
The Gate has Dropped!!! "Championship Motocross
Featuring Ricky Carmichael" Races Onto Store Shelves
THQ Inc. Monday announced the release of ``Championship Motocross Featuring
Ricky Carmichael." THQ and Funcom have teamed up to bring all the grit and
intensity of motocross racing to motocross and PlayStation racing game
enthusiasts.
Boasting the exclusive endorsement of three-time AMA National Motocross
Champion Ricky Carmichael, ``Championship Motocross Featuring Ricky
Carmichael" is available at major retail outlets nationwide at a suggested
retail price of $39.95.
```Championship Motocross Featuring Ricky Carmichael' is the most
accurate motocross racing simulation available for the PlayStation,"
stated Alison Locke, senior vice president sales and marketing, THQ.
``Coupling Ricky Carmichael's growing notoriety among the millions of
hardcore motocross racing fans with truly fun gameplay positions THQ
perfectly for the release of our first motocross franchised game."
``Playing the game with the fans at the pro and amateur events over the
past few months has been a blast," said Ricky Carmichael, who recently
seized his third consecutive AMA National Motocross Championship title.
``It's awesome that THQ has been able to get it into the kids' hands so we
could all see just how excited the real fans are about the game."
``Championship Motocross featuring Ricky Carmichael" gives racers the
opportunity to compete as three-time AMA National Motocross Champion Ricky
Carmichael. Players will enjoy superb graphics and visual effects like
flying dirt, exhaust smoke and real-time track and biker lighting, as they
maneuver through twelve unique tracks from around the world.
Funcom's proprietary `RMD' (Real Motocross Dynamics) bike physics system is
the first to deliver realistic and responsive rider dynamics both on the
ground and in the air. ``Championship Motocross(TM) Featuring Ricky
Carmichael" enjoys licensing support from Kawasaki, Fox Racing, Oakley,
Bell Helmets and Alpinestars.
In 1998, Carmichael was the first rider in history to win every race in the
125cc Supercross Series, winning the Eastern Regional title and the
East-West Shoot-Out in Las Vegas. Since turning professional in 1996, he
also has three AMA National Championships to his credit. Carmichael has
dominated the 125cc class like no other rider in the history of the sport.
His next race is the THQ US OPEN, the world's richest indoor motocross
event. The THQ US OPEN will be held at the MGM Grand Hotel Garden Arena in
Las Vegas the weekend of Oct. 9-10.
989 Sports Dominates Hockey Videogame Category
With All-New NHL FaceOff 2000
Fastest Hockey Videogame On the PlayStation
Returns With All-New Gameplay Features
989 Sports announced Monday that NHL FaceOff 2000, the fifth edition of
the highly touted hockey videogame series for the PlayStation game console,
will be available Wednesday.
NHL FaceOff 2000 has all the NHL teams and players, authentic two-man
commentary featuring New Jersey Devils play-by-play announcer Mike Emrick
and ESPN's Darren Pang, interactive crowds, enhanced Artificial
Intelligence, and a dramatic new TV-style presentation and ``puck halo"
feature.
``NHL FaceOff 2000 complements 989 Sports' strong videogame heritage in
being able to capture the realism, excitement and fun of hockey action,"
said Jeffrey Fox, vice president, marketing, 989 Studios. ``The NHL FaceOff
2000 development team has truly captured the hard-hitting energy and
intensity of hockey and delivered it right into the hands of the
videogamer."
Last year, NHL FaceOff `99 was the first hockey videogame to have motion
capture animations performed on ice. It featured moves from St. Louis Blues
winger Scott Young and former San Jose Sharks goaltender Kelly Hrudey. This
year, NHL FaceOff 2000 has built on the success of the NHL FaceOff
franchise to include motion capture animations from Chicago Blackhawks
winger Tony Amonte and Phoenix Coyotes goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin --
totaling more than 150 new player animations. Every subtle and personalized
move is perfected to amazing detail.
New I.C.E. AI(TM) (Intelligence Comprehension Execution Artificial
Intelligence), developed with eight-time Stanley Cup champion and Red Wings
head coach Scotty Bowman, has players playing and reacting just as they do
in the NHL. Icon Passing and Icon Switching bring incredible realism and
control to players as they battle for the puck in offensive and defensive
zones. The new ``Puck Halo" will make the puck easier to see, and play
within the corners and in front of the goal. Players can sprint across the
blue line on a breakaway, and glide in and unleash a slap shot that hits
the post or goes too high and hits the boards.
With the use of actual blueprints, arenas are re-created in amazing detail.
The new 3D player models capture every nuance with real texture-mapped
faces, which are true to the facial features of NHL stars. Increased camera
angles, pop-up stats and in-game panels work in cadence with the authentic
audio of play-by-play announcer Mike Emrick and color commentator Darren
Pang, creating the best TV-style presentation available for a hockey
videogame.
NHL FaceOff 2000 incorporates all 28 NHL teams for the 1999-2000 season
(including the Atlanta Thrashers) with updated rosters and the ability
to play through an entire season. Gamers can track more than 30 individual
and team stats and compete for any of 15 NHL awards, including the Hart
Memorial, Art Ross, Vezina, Conn Smythe, Presidents and the Stanley Cup.
NHL FaceOff 2000 features Philadelphia Flyers All-Star winger John LeClair
on the package.
NHL FaceOff 2000 Key Features:
-- Every player and team for the 1999-2000 season is included --
even the Atlanta Thrashers. In addition, eight international
teams are also included
-- New I.C.E. AI (Intelligence Comprehension Execution Artificial
Intelligence) allows players to play and react just as they do in
the NHL. Red Wings coach Scotty Bowman consulted on the
development of I.C.E. AI, providing his insight into offensive
and defensive strategies
-- Realistic 3D player models based on player size, weight and
facial appearance
-- Unrivaled 3D game engine
-- TV-style presentation features two-man commentary, including New
Jersey Devils' acclaimed announcer Mike Emrick and ESPN's analyst
Darren Pang
-- New action camera provides impressive TV-style telecast
-- Realistic skating physics lets players and puck glide naturally
across the ice. Players utilize cross-over steps when turning and
skating backwards -- just as in the NHL
-- More than 150 new player animations
-- Motion captured animations performed on ice provide the most
realistic hockey action available. Players motion captured
include Chicago Blackhawks winger Tony Amonte, Phoenix
Coyotes goaltender Nikolai Khabibulin, St. Louis Blues winger
Scott Young and former San Jose Sharks goaltender Kelly Hrudey
-- New "Puck Halo" makes the puck easier to see and play within the
corners and in front of the net
-- Interactive crowds include: Team chants, yells and special
animations such as hats being thrown onto the ice after a hat
trick
-- Seven different game-play camera angle option settings and
countless cut-aways, zoom-ins, pop-up stats and in-game panels
-- NHL arenas presented in lifelike detail -- each arena's
characteristics are included, even the championship banners and
Jumbotrons
-- New licensed music with arena favorites like: "Respect", "Shout",
"Mony Mony", "Louie Louie", "That's the Way, I like it", "Whooly
Bully" just to name a few
-- Refined Icon Switching on defense and Icon Passing on offense
translate into the most realistic hockey control available
-- On-the-fly strategy control lets the gamer change his attack with
the touch of a button
-- Full season and game statistics available in every offensive and
defensive category
-- Create and manage teams with complete rosters -- draft, trade,
release and sign free agents
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE Gaming Online - Online Users Growl & Purr!
"""""""""""""""""""
BattleSphere Update: 9/13/1999
From: Brian Gudzevich <atarian@mediaone.net>
Originally posted at thunderbird's Garage
http://home.sprynet.com/~thunderbird/
The clock is ticking!
4Play is proud to announce that it will only be a matter of weeks until we
will have utterly defeated the encryption code for BattleSphere. We are
using a proprietary method which will allow us to encrypt the binary
without using any hardware bypassing techniques.
After carefully considering the options, a software scheme seemed like the
right thing to do. While hardware bypassing is currently an alternative, it
adds significant cost to the manufacturing. Hardware bypass would require
an entirely new circuit board be designed and fabricated. All existing
circuit board stockpiles are relegated worthless by hardware bypass
techniques. Since the market is small for Jaguar games and we don't have
the economy of scale to offset production costs, designing new boards adds
a large cost to the price of a cartridge. However, we are working very
carefully to reduce these unnecessary costs while delivering the polished,
professional product the Jaguar Community deserves. Price has been a
primary concern to many of you, so we determined that a little more work to
insure a reasonable price is worth the effort. Hence, we invented this
ingenious method for software encryption.
Our clever software scheme employs a "brute force" method of cracking
encryption by utilizing a bank of 8 specially modified Jaguar consoles with
a custom patched version of the standard Boot ROM and a few modifications
to the BattleSphere executable itself, which runs in a hardware hacked
EPROM cartridge. The exact details of our technology will be revealed in
the future, as we do not wish to give an advantage to our competition in
the cartridge manufacturing market. Suffice it to say that this bank of
Jaguars is constantly booting a self-modifying binary and checking if the
Jaguar Boot ROM has failed or passed the software encryption. Once the
binary boots, the encryption is successful! Our calculations indicate that
it should take a maximum of 125 days for this process to try ALL the
possible encryption combinations, but the odds are evenly distributed
around 1/2 that amount of time.
Keep your fingers crossed!
Atari Zone Fanzine Update
From: Dan Iacovelli
Vol 9 #6 of the Atari Zone Fanzine is now finished!!!
This issue mostly covers the 2 biggest conventions that happened this
year (JagFest'99 and CGE'99).
If you're a fanzine/e-zine member than this issue will be mailed to you in
a week or so. If you're not than you can request the issue for free by
using the club information form at the website.
Dan Iacovelli
Atari Video Club chairperson
Editor of the Atari Zone Fanzine and E-zine
Webmaster of AVC Online
Dan@AVC
(ICQ #14050168)
AVC online=Http://www.angelfire.com/ia/AtariVideoClub/AVC.html
Songbird Productions Update
From: Carl Forhan <forhan@midas.millcomm.com>
The Songbird Productions catalog has been updated with a variety of new
items, from Desert Strike to Sokomania to Hyperdrome. Be sure to check it
out at http://songbird.atari.org, and place your order today.
PLUS:
The "September Sizzle" promotion -- buy any single Lynx game for $39.95
(Ponx, Lexis, etc.), and buy SFX for only $27.95 more or Joust for only
$7.95 more. Mention "September Sizzle" on your order form, and postmark
the order by September 30th. Email first to confirm availability.
Look for *Jaguar* items such as Aliens vs. Predator, Fight For Life,
Attack of the Mutant Penguins, and more to be added soon!
Carl Forhan
Songbird Productions
http://songbird.atari.org
AtariNews: On The Prowl
09/14/99
From: Brian Gudzevich <atarian@mediaone.net>
It's now September, and there's still news from the Classic Gaming Expo
1999 coming in. The new version of Stella Gets a New Brain is out, there
is a new Lynx game available, and many things Atari are happening on the
web. In the last issue, we told you Hyperdrome for the Lynx was
available. Although it's not listed on Telegames website, it is
$39.95 plus shipping at www.telegames.com. Watch for the November issue
of Gamefan. Skyhammer and Protector are to have a two page review in that
issue. Also, we'd like to know what you think of the new AtariNews setup.
Send your comments to atarian@mediaone.net.
STELLA GETS ANOTHER NEW BRAIN
Several years back, a group of people released a CD called Stella Gets A
New Brain. On this disc was almost every game released for the Starpath
Supercharger, a device designed in the early 80's to load games from a
cassette into the Atari 2600. Sadly, only about 350 of these CD's were
released. A few weeks back at CGE '99, Cyberpunks Entertainment released
version 2.0 of Stella Gets A New Brain. This disc has most of the
contents of the original disc, as well
as twelve more games, the song
"Atari 2600" by Splitsville, and many new files for use on the PC. The
cost of this 73 track disc is $30 + $3 S&H US. and it can be purchased at
the address below.
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/1698/cyberpunks/index.html
NEW INFORMATION ABOUT THE NEW ATARI 2600 GAMES RELEASED AT CGE '99
Some general information about the two new Atari 2600 games released at
CGE '99 are available on the Ebivision home page. Merlin's Walls is the
first real time 3D game available for the 2600. You have to find your
way out of the 3D maze before the timer runs out. The other game is
Pesco. This is a Pac-man clone, where you are a fish, eating plankton
while trying to avoid three crabs. Information about these games as well
as Alfred's challenge can be found at:
http://www.ebivision.com
SOKOMANIA IS AVAILABLE NOW!
Sokomania is now available for the Atari Lynx. The idea of this strategy
puzzle game is to push boxes to their destination in a warehouse. This
game was developed by MW Software and will be available for purchase from
Songbird Productions on September 15th for $39.95.
http://songbird.atari.org
THE ALL ATARI AUCTION
Are you a frequent user of eBay, or another auction service to find your
Atari Products? Now there's a new site you may be interested in, called
Atari Auction. Here you will find nothing but Atari stuff up for auction.
If you have Atari products you'd like to sell, you can also auction them
here, and be sure they are seen by other Atari users.
http://www.atariauction.com/
WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH ATARI.ORG?
Atari.org is still currently having network problems. All subdomains
are now back up and running, as is email. But hosted sites are still not
back up, and nether is Pop3 email access. Their server, made out of all
second hand parts, was hit with a power surge during several power
outages, and was fried. They are still working to revive the backups, and
are looking into other alternatives to get the system back online. If you
would like to find out more, or even better, try to help out in any way,
then go to:
http://www.atari.org
Send any comments or submissions for "AtariNews: On The Prowl" to:
Brian Gudzevich (Editor) at: Atarian@mediaone.net
AtariNews: On the Prowl is sponsored by The
Atarian Atmosphere and Songbird Productions.
Atari Jaguar Games Poll Still Underway
From: Songbird <forhan@midas.millcomm.com>
If you haven't voted yet, please visit:
http://apps3.vantagenet.com/zpolls/poll.asp?id=981715950
and vote for the upcoming Jaguar games you plan on purchasing. These
numbers will be used to gauge how many carts to manufacture, so your input
is important! There is only one question to answer in the survey.
Thanks,
Carl Forhan
Songbird Productions
http://songbird.atari.org
Atari Shown At Gravity Games
Last week, at the Gravity Games in Providence, RI, Hasbro Interactive
unveiled several of it's upcoming games to the public. Among the games
shown were Pong (PSX), Nerf Arena Blast (PC) and Centipede (Dreamcast).
Hasbro is putting a large marketing force behind its Atari brand, and the
Gravity Games is just one of the many places consumers will see the Atari
logo.
"It's a big priority for Hasbro to re-launch these classic games," said
Rich Cleveland, VP of marketing for Hasbro Interactive. "It's the right
time for Atari... The Atari brand is classic gameplay and has stood the
test of time."
Hasbro Interactive is the exclusive toy and game sponsor on the inaugural
Gravity Games, and will be running TV ads throughout the Games, which will
be televised on NBC.
"The Gravity Games and Atari are a perfect fit," said Tom Dusenberry,
president of Hasbro Interactive. "Among the youth that watch and
participate in the high-energy sports of the Gravity Games, the Atari fuji
is an icon that they relate to in a very positive manner. Atari games are
legendary for their fast gameplay and competitive, score-based premises.
The Gravity Games is a great association for our Atari games and a great
venue to unveil our new Atari releases to the public."
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Microsoft Chairman's Credibility Attacked By U.S.
Video testimony by Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates at the software company's
antitrust trial was "bizarre" and ``simply not credible," the U.S.
government said in a court filing submitted Friday.
Microsoft, filing its own written arguments, matched that harsh rhetoric by
accusing the government of offering "bluster" instead of facts.
The written arguments came in response to hundreds of pages of documents
submitted by both sides in federal court last month, and pave the way for
oral arguments Sept. 21.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson will sort through the arguments
to help him decide what was proved as fact during 76 days of trial
testimony in his Washington, D.C., courtroom. He is expected to issue his
findings of fact in October, and then there will be more papers and
arguments so the judge can reach conclusions of law.
The Justice Department and 19 states say Microsoft holds monopoly power in
the Windows operating system for personal computers.
The government alleges that Microsoft abused its monopoly power to defeat
would-be rivals such as Netscape -- now a unit of America Online Inc. --
which makes an Internet Web browser that competes with Microsoft's.
Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft issued a flat denial to the charge in its
filings Friday, asserting: ``Microsoft is not a monopolist."
The government told the judge he could not believe much of the testimony
offered by Microsoft's witnesses, arguing that company employees in their
testimony had contradicted memos and electronic mail messages they had
written earlier.
But the government saved its harshest words for Gates himself, who appeared
in hours of videotaped testimony shown at the trial.
The government said evidence at the trial showed Microsoft recognized in
mid-1995 that Netscape's browser ``seriously threatened to erode" one of
the pillars of its monopoly. The government said the evidence for that
proposition was undisputed, ``except for bizarre assertions by Mr. Gates in
his deposition."
Gates had written memos in mid-1995 raising a red flag about Netscape's
competitive abilities, and those memos were among the documents offered by
the government in evidence. But in his taped testimony, Gates said in
mid-1995 he was unaware of any threat posed by Netscape.
The government said that in the face of all the evidence, Gates' assertion
``that he was not aware at the time even what Netscape was doing ... is
simply not credible."
For its part, Microsoft dismissed many of the assertions of the government
by saying that the ``fanfare of the trial is over; it is now time to look
at what the evidence shows."
By Microsoft's lights, the government evidence does not show much.
``Despite their bluster, plaintiffs have failed to prove their case," it
said.
For example, Microsoft noted that the government's leading economic
witness, Franklin Fisher, had testified that Microsoft charged less than
the maximum possible price for its Windows operating system.
Microsoft said such restraint shows ``there are real constraints on
Microsoft's ability to charge higher prices." Economists say price
constraints demonstrate a company is not a monopolist.
The government's Fisher said Microsoft used some of its monopoly power to
keep would-be competitors at bay instead of charging top dollar.
The government also said Microsoft unfairly and illegally "welded" its
Web browser to Windows and gave it away for free in an attempt to make
Netscape's browser irrelevant.
But Microsoft said that an appellate court decision it won in a related
case in June 1998 buttressed its right to make any changes it wanted.
It quoted the appellate court as saying the test of whether it had a right
to integrate any new feature should be ``merely whether there is a
plausible claim that it brings some advantage."
Final Claims Made in Microsoft Case
Microsoft Corp. used its final written legal brief Friday to attack the
government's broad antitrust case against it, arguing its widely used
Windows software doesn't afford it monopoly power over the high-tech
industry.
The government, in its written summary of the 76-day courtroom battle,
responded that Microsoft's software runs more than 90 percent of the
world's personal computers, and said no candidate capable of displacing it
is likely to emerge for years.
U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson had given the two sides until
Friday to file their final written versions of the facts in the landmark
case. The dictionary-size documents ran hundreds of pages each.
Friday's exchange was expected to be the last before the first phase of the
judge's two-part ruling. That could come as early as late October.
Courtroom arguments were set for later this month.
The government criticized as ``bizarre assertions" Microsoft Chairman Bill
Gates statement in a deposition before the trial that he wasn't closely
monitoring activities by rival Netscape Communications Corp. during the
mid-1990s.
Microsoft, for its part, said the government's earlier summaries of the
case were ``rife with internal inconsistencies and contain stunning
concessions that undermine the claims alleged."
Microsoft said the government wrongly interpreted statements by computer
makers when it told the judge that Microsoft's control was so great that
reasonable alternative to its Windows software was available to consumers.
Microsoft said it faces fledgling competition from an array of new
technologies, including the upstart operating system called Linux, which is
freely available on the Internet. An operating system controls the most
basic functions of a computer.
``What it shows instead is that if consumers express a desire for operating
systems other than Windows, (computer makers) will promptly meet that
demand - as they have started to do with Linux," Microsoft said.
The government said Microsoft was pointing to an array of technologies,
``presumably with a straight face," that never will actually challenge the
dominance of Windows, such as new hand-held computers and other high-tech
devices.
``Even Microsoft's economist concedes that the speculation that the future
may bring a competitive alternative to Microsoft's captive customers is no
more than speculation," the government said.
Microsoft urged the judge to note that, after testimony in the trial ended,
Dell Computer Corp. agreed to sell Linux pre-installed on some desktop and
notebook computers. It said Linux and another niche operating system, from
Be Inc., ``remain serious threats to Windows' category leadership and well
could displace Windows over time."
Microsoft lawyers also argued that the government was wrong in repeatedly
asserting that other companies face unusually steep barriers to compete
with Microsoft products.
They noted the announcement last month by Sun Microsystems Inc. that it
would begin distributing free on the Internet a package of business
software programs - including a word processor and spreadsheet - called
``Star Office."
The first phase of the judge's ruling, called his ``findings of fact," is
expected to telegraph in many ways the eventual second part of his verdict,
which probably will come early next year unless the sides settle.
The judge's factual findings also are particularly important because
appellate courts rarely challenge a trial judge's decisions on the facts of
a case, but typically focus on his application of the law in the second
phase.
New IBM Computer Raises Pressure
IBM is selling a powerful new business computer that fills an important gap
in its product line and steps up pressure on rival sellers of machines that
use the Unix operating system, a competitor to Microsoft's Windows program.
IBM's move is a counterpoint to a recent flurry of publicity for Sun
Microsystems Inc.'s popular line of Unix computers. Hewlett-Packard Corp.
also is a major maker of Unix computers.
IBM plans to unveil its new S80 computer on Monday, which it says
outperforms rivals' comparable products, able to handle more than 40,000
computing operations a second. The new model in IBM's RS 6000 line costs
$290,000 and uses up to 24 microprocessors made with copper, which performs
better than the traditional aluminum used in chips.
IBM, also a maker of computer chips, was the first major company to switch
to copper.
IBM officials said the new Unix machine is aimed at helping businesses
handle heavy-duty corporate tasks, such as running Web sites, managing
networks of desktop computers and processing millions of transactions.
``This is clearly a gap we've had in our product line," said Rod Adkins,
general manager for IBM's RS 6000 unit.
IBM's announcement comes after Sun took the spotlight last week by
unveiling a bare-bones machine that never needs a software upgrade and is
far simpler than conventional desktop computers. Customers need to buy a
powerful Sun computer in order to run a network of the simple machines.
A week earlier, Sun said it bought a small maker of office productivity
programs and intends to distribute the applications for free over the
Internet, to anyone with a Web browser. That way, users don't have to load
bulky and expensive programs directly onto their computer desktop.
Handspring Ready To Launch PalmPilot Competitor
The inventors of the held-held computer that rocked the high-tech world are
back -- this time with a new product aimed at knocking their own successful
invention, the PalmPilot, off its pedestal.
Handspring Tuesday will take the wraps off the new product that's been
cloaked in secrecy over the past year.
The hand-held computer will be unveiled on the company's Web site then and
will only be sold online until early next year, when it is launched to
retail channels, sources near the company said.
The Palm's creators last year bolted from 3Com Corp., which owns Palm
Computing, to found their new company, now known as Handspring, to compete
against Palm in the hand-held computing market.
And if trade industry and media reports are accurate, the security was
cloaking a product that's basically an upgrade of the original Palm, and
Handspring may have been trying to keep competitors from knowing exactly
which features would be added.
With the new product, named ``Visor," the Palm's inventors apparently
haven't strayed far from their initial idea. Like the PalmPilot it's a
personal desk assistant that can be linked to desktop computers and
networks. But it may do a better job of delivering updated features,
according to analysts who were briefed.
A Time magazine reporter, Joshua Quittner, received a press briefing, and,
despite being ``bound by one of those silly nondisclosure agreements"
reported: ``If it's as good as it looks in demos, I can't imagine why
anyone would want to buy anything else."
ZDNet, the online news service, reported that the Visor comes with modules
that can make it work as a digital camera, music player, pager and wireless
telephone, updating it for a consumer market with far more advanced digital
devices and wireless services than when the Palm first appeared.
At $149 for the lowest-price version, Visor also significantly undercuts
the cost of the Palm, whose price has reached a bloated $500-plus level in
its latest incarnation, the newly launched Palm VII, according to ZDNet.
The upstart Handspring would ``neither confirm nor deny" the details that
have leaked out during a period of briefings given to the trade press and
general media, but said that a product launch will take place.
Handspring will have its hands full trying to supplant its own creation,
PalmPilot, which has a loyal following with about 4 million users and
15,000 software applications written for it.
But the new company is counting on strong demand among consumers for new
portable computing devices that take advantage of Internet and wireless
computing.
Breakthroughs in the speed and price of wireless applications are expected
to boost the device market dramatically, which already is at $1 billion.
Dataquest has forecast 30 percent annual growth in the handheld computer
market, with sales reaching 21 million units a year by 2003.
The PalmPilot, invented by Handspring's Donna Dubinsky and Jeff Hawkins,
dominates that market now, with nearly 80 percent of the total. But the
machines are aimed primarily at office users whos share data with their
desktop. Visor, with its modular approach that uses Palm's software,
appears to be trying to hit more market segments, ranging from the general
consumer to the office user.
'New Way' Of Digital TV From Cablevision, Sony
Cablevision Systems Corp. and Sony Corp. have joined forces to develop a
digital system allowing viewers to watch movies, play video games and send
e-mail, all from one box on top of their set.
The system, described Thursday by Cablevision President and CEO Jim Dolan
as ``a whole new way of looking at your television set," is expected to be
launched in the New York area in a year's time and reach an estimated three
million homes.
Dolan said his company -- the sixth largest cable operator in the United
States with 3.4 million subscribers -- would pay around $1 billion to Sony
for the set-top boxes and the system could result in a reduction of monthly
bills for customers.
``The interactive TV top box puts the customer in charge of the service,"
Dolan told reporters in a conference call. ``The potential new service is
limitless, and since the customer is in control of the technology, it could
almost lower monthly bills."
He declined to give further details, and a Cablevision spokesman could not
say if the set-top box would have to be bought separately by the subscriber
or if it would be included in the monthly bill. Dolan did not rule out the
boxes being distributed through the Cablevision-owned The Wiz stores.
Howard Stringer, chairman and CEO of Sony Corp. of America, said the
advantage of the cooperation for Sony was that "Cablevision wants to be
the industry leader in the biggest market in America with the richest
customers."
Exactly what services would be available, would depend on feedback from
subscribers, Stringer said. ``We are building this as we go along."
The proposed services includes a wide range of movies on-call, television
programming, e-mail, interactive games and new programming. The system
would also be ready to convert to new high definition television (HDTV).
Sony has access to the movie catalog of Columbia TriStar Pictures and its
television division, and also markets both video games like PlayStation and
recorded music.
Cablevision operates the American Movie Classics and Bravo cable networks,
as well as Madison Square Garden network and owns the New York Rangers
hockey team and basketball's New York Knicks.
``For Sony, we see this as another critical step in our strategy to marry
the power of our electronics and technology assets with our vast
entertainment holdings to create a compelling 21st century lifestyle
experience," Stringer said.
However, Sony said the arrangement with Cablevision was not exclusive,
suggesting that it could set up similar deals with other cable companies.
Asked by reporters about reports that Cablevision would pay $1 billion for
three million set-top boxes, Dolan said: ``The one billion figure is
roughly correct.
``This goes well beyond any satellite-delivered service," he said. ``This
is not just a cable company introducing another set-top box. It will be a
whole new way of looking at your television."
He said Cablevision had ``a firm commitment" for three million Sony boxes
and will begin ``aggressively deploying them in the summer of 2000."
Under the agreement, Sony will provide the system design and software
integration of equipment and both companies will collaborate on development
of digital entertainment services.
Intel: Sub-$1,000 Notebooks Possible
Could notebooks break the sub-$1,000 barrier? It's not outside the bounds
of reason, according to Intel Corp.
"We're thinking that by the holiday season next year, there could be a
switch in what you're seeing for notebook prices, versus desktops. The
delta could be a lot smaller," said Sam Wilkie, a product manager in
Intel's Mobile and Handheld Products Group.
Intel rolled out new 433MHz and 466MHz mobile Celeron processors on
Wednesday. And notebook vendors Gateway and Dell Wednesday announced new
systems with the Celeron chips, starting around $2,000.
However, once Intel's mobile Pentium III hits the market this fall and an
ongoing LCD panel shortage lifts, though, that $2,000 price tag could fall
sharply.
"When people look at less than $2,000, they say, 'That has to be a Celeron
processor'," Wilkie said. "That will change in the beginning of next year.
We would expect to see Pentium III (notebooks) below $2,000 in the
beginning of next year.
Once that occurs, "the Intel Celeron processor would definitely be a
sub-$1,500 brand," Wilkie said.
And what about sub-$1,000 Celeron notebooks? "I think that is a
possibility, long term, but it has to do with (LCD) panel availability and
price," he said.
Gateway and many other vendors currently sell notebooks that are priced
around $1,500. Its Solo 2500 model, for example, costs $1,549 with a 400MHz
Celeron chip.
Andy Klopstad, Gateway Inc.'s consumer portable product manager, agrees
that LCD panels will be a key component in sub-$2,000 laptops. "When you
say sub-$2,000, it will also come down to what size panel these people are
offering. Right now the panel is controlling that large percentage of the
cost of notebooks," he said.
Wilkie would not detail specifics, but other Intel officials have said the
mobile Pentium III chip will start at 400MHz, 450MHz and 500MHz. Notebooks
will also get a boost from an increase in system bus speed from 66MHz to
100MHz, which is supported by the chips. The system bus is the pipeline
over which data flows between the chip and the rest of the system
components, such as memory.
Intel's 433MHz and 466MHz Celeron announcement brought with it new models
in Gateway's Solo 9300 lineup, with support features, such as a
CD-Rewritable drive from Gateway Inc.
Intel, however, feels this is an anomaly and that, given the chance,
Gateway would have introduced CD-RW technology on a high-end Pentium II or
Pentium III machine. The company considered releasing 433MHz and 466MHz
mobile Pentium II processors, however "it didn't make sense because the
Pentium III is so close," Wilkie said. "With the intro of the Pentium III
processor you'll see new technology aligned with our premium brand," he
said.
Gateway agrees, to some extent.
"CD-RW is an enthusiast product, still. At launch, the majority of people
that would want the product would also want the 15-inch screen, the 18GB
hard drive ... and the Pentium II," said Klopstad, adding that "there's no
reason why someone who wants a CD-RW drive couldn't go with Celeron to save
money."
Intel's mobile Pentium III is expected to debut in October.
And, while mobile Celeron will be low-cost, it won't be low on performance.
"Next year, We'll add even more performance to the Intel Celeron
processor," Wilke said.
Intel will beef up the chip's performance in the first half of next year by
moving it to Intel's 0.18 micron manufacturing process, he said. The
benefits of the process, utilized by the forthcoming Pentium III, will be
increased performance and lower power consumption.
Microsoft Reportedly Plans Web-Based Software
Software giant Microsoft Corp. plans to announce Monday a new strategy
acknowledging that software developers are focusing more on the Web than on
stand-alone computers, the Wall Street Journal reported in Monday's online
edition.
Under the plan set to be unveiled in San Francisco, Microsoft will offer
Web developers the ability to pull technology components from the Redmond,
Wash.-based company's MSN Web site, the Journal said.
The Journal said the company is calling these components "megaservices,"
which include an Internet identification and payment technology named
Passport.
The components will also include the LinkExchange system for exchanging
banner adds, the Hotmail and Instant Messenger communication technologies,
and Windows Update, a way of sending software upgrades and patches
electronically, the paper said.
The paper said Microsoft is reorienting all of its products around this new
approach called Windows DNA 2000, which the Journal said represents its
``most decisive shift" away from a personal computer based approach.
The Journal said the company will also use a standard technology known as
Extensible Markup Language, or XML, which identifies different types of
data on Web sites and can be used to automate processes that now must be
executed manually.
``It's going to have as profound effect on the investments we make at
Microsoft as the Internet did," Paul Maritz, group vice president heading
Microsoft's relations with software developers told the Journal. ``This is
what the company will be about."
Seagate Announces Layoffs, To Take $200 Million Charge
Seagate Technology Inc. said Tuesday it would cut its global work force by
up to 10 percent in a move the world's largest computer disk drive maker
said would save it $150 million a year.
The Scotts Valley, Calif.-based company said the reductions would be
carried out over 9 months and would result in a restructuring charge of
$200 million in its current quarter.
The cuts are also Seagate's latest move to restructure its operations amid
intense pricing pressure and excess production that has plagued makers of
disk drives and other memory storage components.
Most of the cuts would be in manufacturing operations in the Asia-Pacific
region, with some being made in the United States and Europe, said Seagate
spokesman Phil Montero.
Seagate has factories in Singapore, China, Malaysia and Thailand, and
employs about 80,000 worldwide, Montero said.
A drive to streamline operations and improve its products meant Seagate
needed a smaller, better-educated global workforce, it said.
``The resources required for this 'factory of the future' include a smaller
and much more technically skilled workforce than that which has
traditionally been sought by disk drive manufacturers," Seagate said.
Workers would be phased out through natural attrition, voluntary departures
and elimination of some jobs, the company said. Seagate expected to incur
further charges ``as necessary" as it further improved efficiency, it said
without elaborating.
Earlier this month, Seagate said it would incur a $216 million charge as it
revamped its software unit. Last year it cut 10,000 jobs worldwide.
Shares in Seagate fell $1.06 to $31.94 in composite trading on the New York
Stock Exchange Tuesday. The job cuts were announced after the close of
trade.
News Corp. Says Not In Talks With Ziff-Davis
Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Ltd. denied Tuesday that it was involved with
any talks to buy computer-trade magazine and on-line publisher Ziff-Davis
Inc.
``The persistence and volume of rumors that News Corp and Ziff-Davis are
involved in discussions requires us to depart from our (no comment) policy
and to deny that any such discussions have taken place or are scheduled to
take place,'' the company said in a statement.
The denial follows a report in Britain's Observer newspaper that News
Corp., which owns most of the television and movie company Fox
Entertainment Group Inc. and dozens of newspapers around the world, was
considering a Ziff-Davis deal that could be worth up to $1.5 billion.
A Ziff-Davis spokesman denied the report Monday.
Internet Taxes Fail to Catch Fire
House Republican leaders warned an Internet tax commission Tuesday that the
GOP-led Congress is in no mood to expand taxes on electronic commerce,
including sales taxes on purchases across state borders.
``This idea is not a popular one in Congress or among the American
people," wrote three dozen GOP lawmakers in a letter to the Advisory
Commission on Electronic Commerce, which is holding its second of four
meetings.
The 19-member panel of business and government officials was created by
Congress last year to recommend future tax policy on Internet business and
is supposed to finalize recommendations by April. That same law imposed a
three-year moratorium on new Internet taxes.
The GOP letter, signed by House Majority Leader Dick Armey and Majority
Whip Tom DeLay, both of Texas, said many Republicans were troubled by
indications that the panel was examining ``how to tax the Internet, rather
than whether to tax the Internet."
The lawmakers urged the panel to focus on the international implications of
U.S. tax decisions and on how American business might be affected by
``complex and excessive state and local taxes on e-commerce."
``You should also know that there are many members that will oppose any new
taxes on the Internet," the GOP letter said. ``An academic exercise on new
ways to tax the Internet is not productive and does not reflect the intent
of Congress in establishing the commission."
Such a position puts the House Republicans at odds with many state and
local government officials, who fear growth in Internet commerce will
siphon away sales tax and other revenue needed for schools, roads, fire
protection and law enforcement.
``If state and local governments lose billions, be assured county
governments will have to incrase property taxes or income taxes to make up
the difference - or cut esential community services," said Larry Naake,
executive director of the National Association of Counties.
A major question for the commission, and ultiimately for Congress as well,
is whether to devise a way for states and local governments to require
collection of sales taxes on Internet purchases across state borders.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that only Congress can force companies to
collect and remit sales taxes unless the firm has ``nexus" in that state -
a store, a warehouse, or some other physical presence. This applies to
catalog operations as well as Internet commerce.
Some proponents of sales tax reform say there are ways to develop software
that would allow companies to collect sales taxes based on the destination
of the goods purchased. Meanwhile, Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., has
introduced a bill in Congress to impose a 5 percent national sales tax on
all remote sales, including Internet and catalog.
The commission also heard Tuesday from several telecommunications and
business representatives who urged a recommendation that Congress repeal
taxes on telephone service, including the 3 percent federal excise tax.
``You're taxing the very things that are driving growth," said Jeffrey
Eisenach, president of the Washington-based Progress and Freedom
Foundation.
U.S. Relaxes Encryption Export Limits
President Clinton Thursday relaxed U.S. controls on the export of data
encryption technology, a step long sought by the U.S. computer industry and
resisted by federal law enforcement officials.
The about-face came as lawmakers were weeks away from voting to overturn
the White House's strict export limits and just a day before Vice President
Al Gore visited California seeking votes and campaign donations from the
many high-tech firms there.
Once the realm of spies and generals, encryption has become an increasingly
critical tool for securing electronic commerce and global communications
over the Internet.
Until now, the White House had tilted its export policy toward the needs of
law enforcement and national security agencies, which feared that strong
encryption would be used by rogue nations and criminals to thwart U.S.
surveillance.
But the high-technology industry, Internet users and privacy groups appear
finally to have won the debate, arguing that the export rules were simply
handing a vast, international market to non-U.S. companies.
The previous policy was also a hindrance for Gore in his 2000 Presidential
bid. ``This has been a big thorn in Al Gore's paw for two years now and
they were finally able to remove it," a leading Republican lobbyist said.
The new plan will allow U.S. companies to sell the most powerful
encryption, used to keep everything from e-mail to cellular telephone
conversations private, to customers in all but a handful of nations such as
Iraq and Libya.
``This is going to be a severe blow to national security interests and it
is going to hurt law enforcement," said Stewart Baker, former general
counsel to the National Security Agency, the U.S. intelligence agency
charged with eavesdropping and codebreaking around the world.
But Baker, a lawyer representing high-tech companies, said the change was
inevitable, given the growing availability of encryption from non-U.S.
companies. ``If they had delayed much longer, there was a real risk that
large parts of the encryption technology would have moved off-shore
irretrievably," he said.
Virginia Republican Rep. Bob Goodlatte authored a bill that was sponsored
by more than half the members of the U.S. House of Representatives to gut
the existing export limits.
Goodlatte said he would reassess whether his legislation was still
required, noting its similarity to the new White House policy. ``You would
have a hard time shining very much light between this proposal and the
bill," he said.
Industry officials welcomed the change, which had been a major lobbying
priority for years.
``It speaks very highly to their ability to see the writing on the wall and
do exactly what they needed to do," said Lauren Hall, chief technology
officer for the Software and Information Industry Association.
The new rules largely abandon the case-by-case licensing approach that
applied to all but the weakest encryption products.
The slow and cumbersome licensing process made it extremely difficult for
U.S. companies such as Network Associates and RSA Security to sell their
popular computer security products overseas.
And for makers of mass-market software, such as Microsoft Corp. and IBM
Corp., the rules forced companies to weaken the security in Web browsers,
e-mail programs and other products.
Under the new rules, exporters will have to report who bought their
products, such as an overseas distributor, but not who the ultimate
end-user was -- an impossible requirement for programs sold in retail
stores to millions of customers.
The administration also asked Congress for $500 million to beef up
government computer security and additional funds to help law enforcement
agencies deal with encrypted criminal communications.
And the administration planned to ask Congress to pass a law establishing
legal standards for when law enforcement agencies can force encryption
users to crack open their encrypted data.
That could run afoul of civil liberties groups. Twice in the past few
months privacy groups have sounded the alarm over White House proposals to
enhance surveillance of ordinary computer users.
``This opens a new and very important debate about the circumstances under
which the government should have access to our most sensitive data," said
Alan Davidson, staff counsel at the nonprofit Center for Democracy and
Technology. ``We remain concerned that the standards being put forward will
not adequately protect privacy in cyberspace."
Developers Split On Proposed Web Language Standard
Efforts to craft a new language for building Web pages may stall because of
rifts within the development community, which is debating a proposed
standard.
Last month the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) proposed Extensible
Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML), turning it over to the development
community for a final review period, but since then the process has lost
some momentum. Developers have not been to agree on a naming convention
that orients Web browsers to their tasks.
XHTML would rewrite Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), the Web's most
commonly used language. The rewrite would make it easier for individual
industries to design Web pages that meet their specific needs.
At stake is how browsers will make sense of the Web when it is written in a
potentially infinite variety of individually tailored languages.
Web authors use HTML to design basic Web pages. HTML tags designate format
and page elements such as paragraph breaks, color, tables, and lists. With
XHTML, HTML would be rewritten in Extensible Markup Language (XML), a
technology for creating Web languages.
XML defines a tagging structure for the creation of industry--or
task-specific languages. One example is MathML, which creates Web pages
with mathematical content and functions.
Some XML developers are complaining that the XHTML proposed recommendation
is playing fast and loose with the use of namespaces. XML namespaces, which
the W3C recommended in January, let Web browsers distinguish between tags
from different XML-based languages. In other words, if a document had both
MathML tags and tags from another language, the namespaces would tell the
browser which tags belong to which language and how to interpret them.
The W3C's XHTML working group has proposed a trio of namespaces for XHTML.
But the working group's critics think there should be only one.
In current implementations of XML, browsers refer to a file called a
Document Type Definition, which defines grammar or syntax of a particular
XML-based language. One W3C effort is underway to define XML schemas, which
will give XML developers more power and flexibility in specifying how their
tags are interpreted. The schemas' specification, which has not reached
official recommendation status, is intended ultimately to replace the
Document Type Definition.
The current controversy arises over the practice of using Web addresses, or
URLs, as labels for separate namespaces. In other words, a Web document
would use a URL to tell the browser what kind of XML it is reading and how
to interpret its tags.
Though URLs traditionally point to a particular Web page, in the case of
namespaces they only differentiate one namespace from another, much like a
telephone number that doesn't connect to a phone line, but only provides a
unique identifying number for a person or residence.
But the W3C working group devoted to the new XHTML standard thinks the
namespace URL should not only function as a unique identifier, but also
should steer the browser to a definition of how the language corresponding
to that namespace works. The W3C working group wants the namespace URL to
do double duty in identifying the namespace and pointing to a document that
will tell the browser how to read the page.
Namespace purists oppose that move, in part because it will complicate the
interpretation of pages written in XHTML.
"What the working group is doing is building a Tower of Babel by dividing
up namespaces for a single language," said Don Park, president of XML
software and consulting firm Docuverse. "Everyone knows what the paragraph
tag means, but according to the working group proposal a single program
will have to identify three paragraph tags."
Working group members counter that the three namespaces within XHTML are
necessary to delineate three varieties of HTML: strict, transitional, and
frame-set.
Strict XHTML, the smallest namespace, excludes all presentational markup
tags; those tags are to be included separately in style sheets.
Transitional XHTML resembles HTML, which includes presentational markup
elements. Frame-set XHTML includes rresentational markup as well as the use
of frames, the common separate smaller panes within Web pages.
The debate over XHTML namespaces has dominated the discussion at the
"xml-dev" newsgroup for XML developers.
"Namespaces are about unique identification; they are not about meaning..."
wrote Sun Microsystems' Jon Bosak, chair of the W3C's XML coordination
group. "The main argument for specifying three namespaces for XHTML rests
on the assumption that there is a one-to-one association between namespaces
and schemas. This is not true."
W3C representatives characterized the contentious debate over XHTML
namespaces as a normal part of the W3C review process.
"This is all part of the process," said Ian Jacobs, editor of the XML
specification. "There is not yet a consensus in the community. If there
continues to be a huge disagreement, something may change."
XHTML's review period ends September 22. The W3C typically takes two weeks
to review comment before deciding whether to officially recommend a
proposal.
Millions Use Web for Floyd Updates
Millions of people are going onto the Internet for instant updates on
Hurricane Floyd along with weather maps, travel advisories and survival
tips.
Debora Wilson, president and chief executive of weather.com, said her site
got 14.9 million visitors Monday, five times the normal traffic. She
expected to break the record again Tuesday. The previous high was 12.6
million, when meteorologists tracked four hurricanes on Sept. 25, 1998.
``The Internet makes this information much more widely available in places
where people would not be naturally able to receive television or cable
services," she said. The site is affiliated with cable TV's Weather
Channel.
At www.redcross.org, visitors can learn what causes hurricanes and how to
prepare for one. The American Red Cross site offers guidelines for
assembling a disaster supplies kit and protecting property.
Another site, promising up-to-the-minute photos from southern Florida
beaches, ran into technical difficulties Tuesday. Yet another site updated
flight cancellations throughout the day.
There's also a site, www.4hurricanes.com, helping link visitors to other
sites with weather and emergency information.
The weather.com site offers news dispatches, maps and forecasts. It also
sets up chat rooms for visitors to message one another directly. Absent
owners of beach houses can ask detailed questions about local conditions.
Consumers Sometimes Pay The Price For Free E-mail
When it comes to free Internet services, sometimes you get what you pay
for.
Millions of Net users, particularly newer ones, are flocking to free
Web-based email accounts and free dial-up Internet service providers. But a
recent rash of outages, security snafus, postponed public stock offerings,
and privacy blunders have raised questions about the quality of service
consumers can expect when they get something for nothing.
Excite@Home's free Web-based email service Excite Mail has suffered limited
outages for the past two business days, the company confirmed Friday.
The company's problems come on the heels of recent outages at Microsoft's
competing free Hotmail email service, as well as a major security breach
that may have compromised Hotmail users' privacy.
The troubles for free Net services don't end there. For example, USA.net, a
Web mail service and outsourced corporate email company, pulled its planned
IPO in August.
Together, these shortcomings seem to constitute a worrying trend, leaving
consumers to wonder if free services are worth it, or if young Internet
industry can make good on its promises.
One explanation for the service problems: Free Net services often have
trouble handling a high volume of usage, company executives and analysts
say. Many times, free services--whether they are online or not--do not
properly anticipate the level of demand they create, they said.
"You're starting to see more and more people using these free services. The
network infrastructures might not be able to deal with the demands that the
customers are placing on the networks," according to Michele Pelino, an
Internet analyst at The Yankee Group.
Increased publicity surrounding free personal computers, free ISPs, free
cellular phones, and other pay-nothing technology equipment and services
has contributed to the increased demand.
"There's been a lot of press out there. Now people are taking them up on
[free services]," Pelino said. "They better be ready for the demand that's
going to happen."
Of course, many customers are immensely satisfied with their free Net
services. And, companies such as NetZero and AltaVista have made an impact
on the ISP industry in relatively short order.
Customer service is often another weak spot for free service providers,
analysts said, because the Internet's so-called newbies often flock to free
services and bombard customer service departments with frequent inquiries.
But quality concerns aren't the only questions with free Web services. Free
ISPs in particular are supported by tightly targeted advertising, and in
return for the service users agree to give up demographic data and allow
the ISP to track their movements online.
Analysts say this sharply limits the market, as many Web browsers are
unwilling to give up that amount of privacy in order to save roughly $20 a
month. A study circulated by AltaVista earlier this week bore this out,
finding that about two out of five Web users would be willing to give up
their privacy in exchange for free access.
=~=~=~=
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