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Amiga Update (1996-12-10)
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/\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || Amiga Update -News and Rumors
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AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga Technologies, GmbH
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961210
M O R E W O R D S F R O M J A S O N C O M P T O N
A R E P O R T F R O M A M I G A F E S T
N E W P E N T I U M S O F T W A R E E M U L A T O R
Q - B L U E M A I L R E A D E R
Editor's introduction and thoughts:
Last issue we carried an unverified resignation announcement from
VIScorp's Jason Compton. Since then, we've seen verification that Jason is
leaving his post as the Amiga Communications manager. Below are a few lines
we clipped from a recent posting by Jason to the Internet. They provide
some clarification on his time with VIScorp.
We want to extend a big AU "Thanks!" to Steve Collins for posting a report
on the recent Canadian Amiga Fest show. He put it on the net with
permission to repost it so we run it here. There are some eye openers in
his report. We're sure you'll enjoy it.
One of the things that makes it easier to be an Amiga user in an IBM
biased world is the ability to use IBM programs when you must. There have
been some hardware and software solutions to this matter over the years,
some good and some not so good. A new software Pentium emulator has just
appeared from Blittersoft. We've taken a preliminary look at the
demonstration version and find it very promising. Press release is below.
One of the more interesting mail readers for the Amiga is Q-Blue and we've
got a press release on the new 2.2 version. If you do a lot of e-mailing,
this may be something you'll want to look at.
Finally, we seem to be spreading around on the www a bit. The folks at
www.amigacom.com have incorporated "Amiga Update" into their news page.
Stop by and check their site out if you're a web surfer, and take a look.
We appreciate their vote of confidence and have added them to our "footer".
We hope you enjoy this issue.
Brad Webb, Editor
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M O R E F R O M J A S O N C O M P T O N
Yes, I'll emerge from this scathed but alive, and definitely wiser.
I've learned a lot--not all of it negative. I still stand by the fact
that after working on the inside, I appreciate more fully the sort of
difficulties in a business transaction like this, and that I was wrong
to bring the sort of heat I did on the pre-Escom parties and Escom/AT
after them.
I've been accused of being a liar and a bunch of other things. As I
see it, if I've committed any sin it was a sin of pride. I didn't
fully evaluate the hazards of taking a job like this, and I felt that
somehow, for me it would work out differently than it did for Gilles
and countless, nameless, oft-blamed Commodore reps before him. That
was where I was wrong, and for that I owe everyone an apology.
{The consensus on the Net seems to be that no, Jason doesn't own anyone in
the Amiga community an apology. We concur. Brad}
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A M I G A F E S T S H O W R E P O R T
By Steve Collins
The following is a brief description of Amiga Fest '96 which took place
Nov. 29 thru Dec 1. The Canadian Amiga show was produced jointly by
Amazing Software and the people from Computer Fest.This material is by no
means comprehensive and may not be 100% accurate. With that out of the way
here is my take on Amiga Fest '96.
Arriving at the show Friday I found the Amiga section of Computer Fest
(The main show which Amiga Fest was a part of) tucked away in the back
corner of a giant warehouse. It seamed to have all the organization of a
back yard barbeque, but there was definitely more here then met the eye.
Quikpak
Their slogan "Now things are happening with the Amiga"was basically true.
Quikpak introduced two new computers. The A5050 is a tower 4000 computer
with a Pentium CPU card, Zorro, PCI, and ISA slots. With a touch of a
button one can swap from the Amiga to the PC side. The prototype on
display also had an LCD monitor built into the side of the tower. When
flipped on its side the monitor flips out making it the worlds largest
portable computer. This was a "surprise" feature and would only be
implemented if there were enough demand.
Quikpak also introduced the A4060 L which was definitely a hit, at least
with me. Basically a complete A4000 with an attached LCD monitor,
keyboard, and 060 processor. The A4060 L was more compact than I imagined.
This computer brings the dream of a portable Flyer system to reality. Now
if someone would design a portable, hot-swapable, hard drive box, I'd be
set. NewTek and Quikpak should get together on this one.
There was also great news that Quikpak is now the front-runner for the
purchase of Amiga technologies. This would make sense because they have a
vested interest in the Amiga. They hoped to make an announcement
"shortly".
NewTek
Don Ballance was demonstrating the Flyer, and even though I own one and
use one every day I was still struck by the simplicity and power of its
interface.
It was also implied by a source that NewTek had no immediate plans to
incorporate Firewire with the Flyer and that this was best left to Third
parties.
Phase 5
Wolf Dietrich was showing off their Power PC/'060 board. For
demonstration purposes Wolf played an Mpeg movie in one window while in
another window he used a fractal generating program. As Wolf zoomed in and
out of the fractals the Power PC chip recalculated and re-drew the fractal
in real-time. The Mpeg movie, being played by the '060 side never missed a
beat (can you say dual processing?).Wolf went on to say that the board
would be 10 to 20 x faster than a '060 and significantly faster than a
Mac running an equivalent chip.
On a side note, Phase 5 is talking to NewTek about possible ports to their
Power PC board. When asked if the Power PC board would run Windows NT for
the Power PC chip, Wolf replied in a Schwarzenegger accent, "we won't be
getting into that our main concern is Power PC Amiga." He did imply that if
someone wanted to get Windows NT up and running on their board he would not
stop them.
Wolf also went over the specs for Phase 5's proposed A/Box machine.The
A/Box will run an Amiga compatible 3.1 operating system. It will also run
Unix and Linux, in windows directly from the Amiga compatible operating
system.
Asimware
Asimware displayed their Audio Thunder software along with their CD
recording software and a 100 disc CD-R machine.
Applied Magic
Applied Magic demonstrated their very impressive Broadcaster Elite,
non-linear editor. The quality of their digitized video was excellent.This
company's lack of advertising makes me wonder if they are just biding their
time until the PC port of Broadcaster Elite comes out.
Anti-Gravity
Anti-Gravity products were on hand along with their President Dan Lutz.
While I was video taping the A5050 T Dan tapped me on the shoulder and
asked me to take a look at a computer in his booth. Low and behold it was
a 200mhz DEC Alpha machine running Photogenics in a window right out of
Windows NT. This of course was due to the fact that the machine was
running a new version of the Siamese System by Hi-Q. If parts of AmigaDos
were to be ported to the DEC Alpha there would be great possibilities
here.I was informed that this was exactly what was happening and that the
Amiga Math Libraries would be the first to be ported!
On a side note, Dan Lutz is a knowledgeable Amiga enthusiast.I listened to
him turn several Amiga nay-sayers back on to the Amiga.
In conclusion I would have to say any time you get the hottest developers
together at a show it is a success. Most developers, retailers, and many
end users know each other on a first name basis - and it showed.
Developers, retailers, and users expressed there interests, ideas and hopes
to each other. The Amiga community is a unique one and definitely worth
saving. To coin a phrase, the results of the Amiga's death have been
greatly exaggerated.
You may post this article as you see fit.
Steve Collins
envisage@ptd.net
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P C X S O F T W A R E P E N T I U M E M U L A T O R
PCx - Software PC Emulation.
PCx is an all new 80x86 emulation. (Pentium and 686 instruction set,
including Intel undocumented P5 instructions).
A DEMO disk is now available for free download. This allows you to try
before you buy!
The speed is roughly 3 times faster than v2.3 of EMPLANT's e586DX emulation
in protected mode (like Windows, DOOM, etc.)
It is about 50% faster in DOS mode. This speed increase is without the CPU
transcription, which has finally been debugged.
There are restrictions on the DEMO version as follows :
* Limit of 4MBytes of total memory selectable.
* Video modes cannot be altered.
* Partitions cannot be selected.
* Hardfiles limited to 16MBytes.
* Only one device selectable.
* No serial or parallel support.
* Digital audio channel not supported.
* No transcription support.
* No turbo support.
* Configuration cannot be saved.
* pcxaspi.sys and pcxcd.sys are *NOT* included with DEMO!
Here are *some* of the features that are in the full release version:
* Runs on a*ANY* Amiga with a 68020 or later processor.
* Emulation is software-only, *NO* additional hardware (like EMPLANT) is
required.
* Slick user interface, without the mess of multiple windows.
* Self configuring.
* Intel Pentium Processor(tm) instruction set.
* Sound Blaster (mono) emulation.
* MDA/CGA/EGA/VGA support.
* CPU Transcription.
* CPU Turbo.
* Video board support.
* Graffiti Graphics box support.
* Selectable display modes (from display database).
* Does NOT require a BIOS.
* ASPI compliant SCSI manager.
* Ability to mount Amiga partitions on PC side.
* CD-ROM support.
If you are an owner of EMPLANT's e586DX emulation module, you can send in
your original e586DX disk and get PCx for half the normal retail price.
More features will be added and we reserve the right to make changes
without notice.
Price : £ 49.95 UKP (Europe)
Price : $ 59.95 USD (USA/Canada)
All orders MUST be placed through Blittersoft. US/Canadian orders shipped
from within the US.
Worldwide dealers can contact Blittersoft for trade pricing.
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Q - B L U E 2 . 2 A V A I L A B L E
28 Nov 1996 07:32:11 GMT
Okay, Q-BLUE 2.2 is finally out.
Q-Blue is the leading offline mail reader for Amigas, supporting QWK
and Blue Wave formats. Release 2.2 is a PUBLIC BETA version, to be
superseded by a final 2.3 release as soon as bug reports are resolved.
Unfortunately, because of a steep decline in shareware registrations,
v2.3 will probably be the LAST Q-Blue release for the Amiga.
If you have tried Q-Blue 2.0 or 2.1, then you are familiar with most of
2.2's features. The main thing that's new is extensive support for
Internet email. Q-Blue not only supports the new built-in Internet
features of the newest Blue Wave doors, it has full support for "kluge"
methods used with QWK packets or with FidoNet gating, including support
for proprietary methods used by PCBoard and Searchlight BBSes. Once
configured, Q-Blue can handle email with these methods as smoothly as
any other type of mail, automating the extra steps that have to be done
by hand in most offline readers.
Some other new features are:
- Better support for long subject lines with several QWK mail doors
- Support for Fido netmail in more QWK mail doors
- New offline configuration options for Blue Wave doors
- All features of type 3 Blue Wave packets are now supported, including
Usenet crossposting and FidoNet "MSGID" threading
- Commands to jump to the next unread message, and mark the current
message as unread
- Messages can now be created with blank Subject and To fields, if you
turn on this option for a particular BBS
- Title bar clock
Q-Blue is shareware. Until you register, reply packets are limited to
four messages. Registration is still only $20. Payment can be made in
several other currencies besides US dollars, as explained in the
"How-to-order" file. *>> Registered copies will be sent after the 2.3
non-beta release is finalized. *
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Amiga Update on the net: some issues available at:
http://www.sharbor.com/amiga/news/ (in html format)
http://www.amigacom.com (in ASCII text)
All back issues available (in ASCII text) at:
http://www.globaldialog.com/AdventureCentral/AU.html
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Copyright 1996 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified.
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_ __ _ <>_ __ _ || Brad Webb/AmigaUpdate
/\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || bandr@globaldialog.com
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