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Amiga Update (1997-02-01)
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_ __ _ <>_ __ _ ||
/\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || A M I G A U P D A T E
/__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || -News and Rumors-
/ \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_|| (An Occasional Newsletter)
BACK FOR THE FUTURE ||
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AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga Technologies, GmbH
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970201
F I N A L B I D S F O R A M I G A A R E I N
C O R R E C T I O N ! ! - W E P R O V E W E ' R E H U M A N
N A G R A F F L E S A M I G A 4 0 6 0 T
I M A G E F X / A L A D D I N D E M O T A P E S
M U I 3 . 7 A V A I L A B L E
N A S A U A T I E E E , A L A B A M A
O B E R O N 1 . 4 A N N O U N C E D
N E W T E K N E W S
Editor's Thoughts and Introduction:
We goofed. Last issue we carried a story about the winners of the
Best Amiga Banners on the Net contest. We attributed the contest to
the good people at the Amiga Web Directory. While they've done many
fine things for the Amiga, the credit for this contest belongs to the
Amiga Link Exchange (a service of Amicrawler). We regret the error
and hope we didn't confuse or offend anyone. We're blaming it on
writing that part of the newsletter while fighting a bout of winter
flu (we'll take any excuse we can get). One thing remains the same -
all the good things we said about the Amiga Web Directory are
completely accurate.
A year or so ago, our lead story would have made us quite happy - a
definite date for the closure of the Amiga ownership mess. However,
it seems we've seen final deadlines come and go recently with little
meaning to the words. We hope this time is different, and frankly, we
suspect it will be. Keep in mind if the deadline is as meaningless as
others, that does NOT reflect on the bidders, but the process they're
having to go through.
The members of the Northwest Amiga Group in Portland, Oregon are
staging a raffle for an A4060T. At $5 a ticket, this could be of
interest to a lot of people. We've not had any personal contact with
anyone in NAG, but thought you'd like to know about this anyway.
Members of user groups and Amiga graphics professionals will probably
be most interested in the demo tapes of ImageFX and Aladdin available
from Nova Design, Inc., but all Amiga users could find them
worthwhile. Check out the details below.
Spotted a short note in the Amiga newsgroups that version 3.7 of
Magic User Interface is available. If you use MUI, it's time for an
upgrade.
Readers in the Southern US, or anyone further north looking to escape
the cold for a bit, may want to wander in to Huntsville Alabama's IEEE
Computer Fair (February 7-8. 1997). The North Alabama Society of
Amiga Users (NASAU) will make that a worthwhile event for any Amigan.
The full story is below.
We spotted another short posting on Usenet that will be of some
interest to Amigans. The Be Box computer, hailed so recently as the
next wave of innovation, is apparently dead before it was really
alive. A quick check of the Be Web site confirmed the posting. The Be
box was probably of more interest to Mac users than Amiga users, but
we know a number of you were interested so we thought we'd pass the
word along. (We didn't include the very short posting in this issue.)
A new version of Oberon has just been announced, and we have the
information below. Oberon is both a programming language and an
operating system, created by Professors Nicholas Wirth and J.
Gutknecht. Professor Wirth is probably best known as the author of
Pascal and Modula.
We've included a copy of the most recent posting from NewTek, for the
benefit of Amiga graphics professionals. There's a great deal
happening with the Video Toaster crew.
And finally, we'd like to announce the first official Web mirror for
"Amiga Update", just brought online in Australia. Paul Morabito is the
person in charge. You can check the site out at
www.comcen.com.au/~paulm/index.html. We hope this will make it easier
for our friends in the land of cockatoos to keep an eye on us.
All this in one issue. It seems the end of year doldrums have passed
and Amiga news is flowing. Despite the amount of news, we intend to
keep AU around 20K in size, for those with limited mailboxes.
Brad
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Q U I K P A K P L A C E S F I N A L B I D F O R A M I G A
Title: Open Letter to the Amiga Community
Norristown Pennsylvania
January 31 1997
11 PM EST
As per the request of the German liquidator Of Amiga Technologies
GMBH, QuikPak Corporation Of Norristown Pennsylvania, has submitted a
final comprehensive bid for the assets and intellectual properties of
Amiga.
According to David Robinson, US legal counsel for Mr. Hembach, all
offers must be in by January 31, 1997, midnight. During February the
offers will be reviewed and a winning bid will be selected by the 28th
of February, 1997.
QuikPak remains committed to the future of the Amiga Platform. We
believe we have submitted a "winning" offer. As soon as the outcome
of the bidding process is evident we will make the appropriate
announcements to the public.
QuikPak would like to take this opportunity to thank all the
Distributors, Retailers, Developers and especially the customers and
end users who have shown their support for us in these troubled past
months. We have continued to manufacture and develop Amiga Products
because of our respect for the original creators of the Amiga. We
share their vision of affordable multi-tasking, multimedia computing
for the family. Although it may have seemed that our focus was aimed
at the video professional, we remain committed to reintroducing the
entry level Amiga back to the marketplace with 1997 features.
Dan Robinson
Director of Business Development, Amiga Computers
QuikPak Corporation
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E - M A I L T O T H E E - D I T O R
Thanks for the newsletter. Keep 'em coming. I like everything Amiga.
Amiga miga boom. Long live Amiga. Amiganauts hack the planet!
Richard
---------
Brad-
I just want to thank you *very much* for putting me on the newsletter
mailing list. I have not had time to stay current on Amiga news, so
your email deliveries are most welcome. A high-quality production, I
must say!
- lois
---------
{Thanks for the kind words - though we may have some reservations
about hacking the planet ;-) There's a symmetry, we suppose, in
receiving a couple of pats on the back when we also need to make a
correction. Reminds you you're human. The most important thing - if
you readers are happy, then we're happy. Brad}
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C H A N C E T O W I N A N A 4 0 6 0 T !
Northwest Amiga Group - RAFFLE - RAFFLE - RAFFLE
Date: 31 Jan 1997 19:22:54 GMT
Organization: the Northwest Amiga Group
Portland, Oregon
Northwest Amiga Group is to raffle an A4060T. There will be a total
of 1000 tickets sold. When all tickets are sold the raffle will
occur. Tickets are $5.00 US each.
For more information please refer to URL:
http://www.rdrop.com/users/bern/raffle/
Thanks
Daniel Reichen - Northwest Amiga Group
Web Master - Homepage & Web-NAJ
Some details:
First Prize A4060T!
System includes:
A4060T - 68060 50MHz processor
850 Meg Hard Drive
10 Meg RAM (2 Chip/8 Fast)
Amiga Technologies Software Bundle
Second Prize: 100 Meg IOmega ZIP DRIVE w/one cartridge
Third Prize: $50 Gift Certificate to AmiTech Electronics
[Amiga Dealer]
Tickets are ONLY $5 Each!
Update: 1/12/97 - 250 tickets sold
Raffle time & place:
Northwest Amiga Group General Meeting
Tenative date: 2/25/97
7:00 pm PST, at Portland Cable Access TV Studio
(Sorry not televised)
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D E M O T A P E S F R O M N O V A D E S I G N
ImageFX and Aladdin 4D Demo Tape Now Shipping!
For Immediate Release
Richmond, VA - Friday, January 31, 1997. Nova Design, Inc. announced
that its video demo tape for its ImageFX and Aladdin 4D products is
now shipping. This tape features exciting footage from videos and
films using ImageFX and Aladdin 4D and shows the power and the
possibilities in these two packages. Other segments of the tape
feature specially commissioned sequences showing off all the newest
features of ImageFX. You'll see animated fires, blue screen
composites, lightning, distorts, morphs, liquid effects and much more!
This demo tape is excellent for user group meetings, store demos,
shows and much more!
Dealers and User Groups
The video tape is free to all Amiga dealers, Video Toaster/Flyer
dealers, or stores carrying Amiga software. All Amiga user groups are
also welcome to a free ImageFX video tape. The tape may be freely
copied and given away to anyone. Dealers should call to order a copy
of the tape. User groups may get a copy of the demo tape by
contacting Nova Design, Inc. and then putting Nova on their
subscriber list for their newsletter.
We also have full color product sales sheets and full color reprints
of ImageFX reviews freely available in quantity for dealers and stores
as well.
Did You Say Free?!
Yes! This tape is being made available for free to all Amiga dealers
and User Groups. Dealers may request the video tape, and the free
promotional literature, by calling our dealer sales line at (804)
282-5868 Monday through Friday between 1pm and 5pm eastern time.
Dealers may also fax requests for the video and literature to (804)
282-3768 anytime.
User groups may order the video by putting Nova Design, Inc. on their
newsletter subcription list. Include a letter requesting the demo
tape with the first newsletter mailed to our address above. Include
instructions on who and where to mail the video tape to.
Others wishing a copy can get one for $10, $5 more if shipping outside
the continental US, that covers our manufacturing costs and shipping
charges. Those interested in ordering their own copy MUST call
1-800-IMAGE-69, or (804) 282-1157, Monday through Friday between 1pm
and 4pm eastern time, to place their order.
ImageFX, and Aladdin 4D are trademarks of Nova Design, Inc. All other
trademarks are held by their respective owners.
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M U I 3 . 7 A V A I L A B L E
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 17:46:22 -0600
Declan Kennedy scribed this on Tuesday :
Hi everyone,
Just a quick note to say that MUI 3.7 is out. It's available
at the main wustl aminet site in util/libs.
Dex.
--
______ ______ __ __
===| _ \| ____)( \/ )======= dexco@thenet.co.uk ======
===| |_) | ___) ) (===== www.thenet.co.uk/~dexco ====
===|______/|______)(__/\__)===== Fidonet: 2:440/302.34 =====
{IMPORTANT!! There's already a patch for MUI 3.7. Be SURE you get it
as well!! mui37tu1.lha is the file name. Brad}
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N A S A U A T I E E E ' 9 7
25 Jan 97
---------------------
For the eighth straight year in a row, the North Alabama Society of
Amiga Users (NASAU) will be on hand to demonstrate the Amiga and its'
capabilities to the public at Huntsville Alabama's IEEE Computer Fair
(February 7-8. 1997). This two-day event, sponsored by the
Huntsville section of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic
Engineers (IEEE), is designed to showcase the latest in computer
technology and typically draws attendance of up to 25,000 people.
Best of all, there is no entrance fee.
Think the Amiga's all but forgotten? SURPRISE!! For the last several
years, NASAU has been able to put together the largest, most exciting
User Group exhibit of the entire fair, regularly stealing attention
(and interested bystanders) from the likes of Silicon Graphics' "Magic
Bus" and other professional players. This year is setting itself up
to be even better with running demonstrations and one-on-one
instruction in several Amiga predominant areas:
Desktop/Broadcast video Several volunteers will have their Desktop
Video Equipment available to demonstrate the capabilities of the
Amiga, Video Toaster, and Flyer. ProWave, the authors of ProMix,
AudioBlackBox, and RenderFX will be on hand to demonstrate their
products and how to create professionally mixed audio/video from start
to finish!
Wanna Be a Star?
In a new twist designed to emphasize the capabilities of the Amiga,
NASAU will be creating a real-time, computer rendered short film in
which we can make you the star of the show!*
Professional Software Displays
So, you think that there isn't any "real" software for a "games
machine"? You couldn't be further from the truth! There will be
running exhibitions on everything Amiga, from Word processors and CAD
programs, to how to install TCP/IP stacks and dial-up networking.
We'll even show you step-by-step how to use your Amiga to build and
maintain your own website!
Emulators
One of the many strengths of the Amiga is its ability to emulate other
platforms. Come see the Amiga emulate a Macintosh, PC, and other
systems while still giving you complete access to its native operating
system.
Audio and MIDI
John Evans, our local MIDI, music and .MOD affectionado will be on
hand to demonstate the Amiga's offerings in the way of audio mixing,
sampling, and output..
For more information on the 1997 IEEE Computer Show, check out its web
site at:
www.carsonpub.com/ieee.html.
If you're within reasonable distance, and even if you're not ;-), We
heartily invite you to attend what's sure to be a great show!
For more information about NASAU or anything at all, please contact
webmaster@amiga.org
-------------------------------------------------
* There will be a minimal cost to cover the expense of the tape.
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N E W O B E R O N V E R S I O N I S H E R E
TITLE
Oberon System V4 for Amiga
VERSION
1.4
AUTHOR
Stefan Ludwig, Claudio Nieder, Oliver Joos, Ralf Degner
E-Mail: ludwig@inf.ethz.ch, degner@pallas.amp.uni-hannover.de
S-Mail: Stefan Ludwig
Institut fuer Computersysteme
ETH-Zentrum
CH-8092 Zuerich
DESCRIPTION
Oberon System V4 for Amiga (O4A) is a full implementation of
ETH Zurich's Oberon System V4.
Oberon is both a programming language and an operating system
developed by Prof. N. Wirth and Prof. J. Gutknecht.
The Oberon System in key words:
- Single-process multitasking
- Garbage collector - memory will be released automatically if
not needed anymore
- Commandos: procedures that can be called like programs
- Dynamic loading: modules are loaded and linked to the system
during run-time (if necessary)
- Text as a built-in abstract data type (for example a
Minesweeper game as a letter (like OLE and OpenDOC))
- Graphical user interface
A special advantage is the very high compatibility of the systems
between implementations on different computers. System V4
implementations exist for Amiga, Mac, Power Mac, Windows (NT),
Linux, IBM-RS6000, Sun-Sparc, HP-Workstations, NeXt, ...
You can use a program written on one implementation on any other
without change.
O4A is a full implementation of the Oberon System V4 with all
usual programs. The system runs in its own task and therefore you
can use O4A and the Amiga OS at the same time. Specific features
of the Amiga implementation are its incremental heap allocation,
support of the Amiga clipboard and the capability of accessing
IFF files.
The O4A package contains:
- A full Oberon-2 compiler
- Development tools (Browser, Analyzer, Disassembler, ...)
- XE, a comfortable 'editor' with layout functions
- Kepler, an object-oriented 2D vector drawing program
- Paint, a simple pixel-oriented paint program
- A lot of additional tools (Draw, RX, AsciiCoder, ...)
- Various text elements
- VT100 terminal emulation
- Games: Tetris and Minesweeper (with source)
- Example sources and online documentation
To get more information about the programming language and
operating system Oberon have a look at the "Oberon and Amiga"
WWW page: http://sun1.rrzn.uni-hannover.de/~nhbidegn/oa-e.html
There you will find links to other Oberon information resources.
NEW FEATURES
- All interface modules rewritten
- Amiga font support
- Many small bugs fixed
SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS
- Amiga with OS2.0 or higher
- at least an MC68020
- a minimum of 1.5 MB free memory (2.5 MB recommended)
- about 3 MB disk space
- FPU for floating point calculations
(without FPU Oberon-NonFPU.lha is required)
AVAILABILITY
The Home of Oberon is the ETH Zurich. There you can find many
Oberon System implementations, especially the Amiga version:
ftp://ftp.inf.ethz.ch/pub/Oberon/Amiga/V1.4/
Oberon.lha (1.1 MB) - main archive
Oberon-NonFPU.lha (100 KB) - to use O4A without FPU
Oberon-Src.lha (700 KB) - the full source of O4A
Oberon-Fonts.lha (390 KB) - additional fonts
Dialogs.lha (250kB) - advanced GUI
Expressions.lha (130kB) - math expressions within text documents
CoCo.lha (130kB) - compiler generator
It is available in the Aminet directory dev/obero, too.
PRICE
It's free, but not PD.
Please note the ReadMe file in every archive.
DISTRIBUTABILITY
Oberon System V4 for Amiga is (C)opyright 1990-97 by
Claudio Nieder, Stefan Ludwig, Ralf Degner and
the Institute for Computer Systems ETH Zurich.
Some files in the archives are (C)opyright by other persons
(fo example Dialogs and Expressions).
All files in the archives are freeware. You can use it in any
way you like but you must not include part of it in a
commercial product.
--
Ralf Degner
Mail: degner@pallas.amp.uni-hannover.de
WWW : http://sun1.rrzn.uni-hannover.de/~nhbidegn
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N E W T E K N E W S
24 Jan 97
This edition contains news of interest to all NewTek product owners.
Product Line Update
*Now Shipping!*
PowerMac and Amiga LightWave 5.0 are now shipping in quantity. Price
is US$1495 for these packages.
Registered Toaster/Flyer or Amiga LightWave Standalone owners can
update to Amiga Lightwave 5.0 for their registered product for US$295.
*MIPS Cross-Platform Special*
Registered MIPS LightWave owners are being offered a special
"cross-grade" program. They can purchase the LightWave 5.0 Upgrade
(no hardware key included) package for Intel, Dec Alpha, or PowerMac,
at the update price of US$495. They would use their existing hardware
key on the platform they are switching to, if going to Dec Alpha or to
Intel. This offer available from NewTek only, subject to change or
cancellation without notice.
*Amiga Cross-Platform Special Continues*
Registered owners of the Video Toaster, the Flyer, or Amiga Standalone
LightWave may still purchase Lightwave 5.0 for the Intel, Dec Alpha,
and now the PowerMac, for the special price of US$895. Please contact
NewTek directly.
*New Price List*
The current price list is available on www.newtek.com, or from our
Customer Service Department (1-800-228-8000, or email
customerservice@newtek.com). All prices and specifications subject to
change without notice.
*Updates and Notes*
Amiga LightWave 5.0: A replacement for the LWPanels plugin has been
posted to all NewTek online services.
Intel LightWave 5.0: A replacement for the LightSwarm plugin has been
posted to all NewTek online services.
PowerMac LightWave 5.0: If not using the latest release version of
QuickDraw 3D, objects may ghost through control panels. Please update
to Quickdraw 3D version 1.5 to eliminate this problem. The file is
available from apple.com. Please check www.newtek.com for further
notes on commonly encountered problems for PowerMac users.
All Products: Software updates can now be downloaded directly from
our Web Page. The Technical Support section of the Web Page now has
the section "Software Updates", with direct links to the FTP site, and
a short note explaining each file. Simply click on the file you need,
in order to download it. Kudos to Sr. Technical Support staffer
Lloyd Slapar for creating the new page!
*Technical Support BBS Down For Moving and Alterations* The NewTek
Technical Support BBS will be down for a few days while it is changing
physical location and hardware. The BBS is also getting a new sysop,
Tech staffer Terry Mundy. Terry has been with the Tech Team since
June '96, as part of the telephone support staff.
The current changes will improve modem speed from 19.2 to 28.8 on the
modem ports, and will allow for more telnet ports. Future plans
include increasing the bandwidth for the telnet ports, and making the
BBS more friendly for WWW and Usenet users. We plan eventually to
replace the BBS's proprietary conferences with the appropriate
newsgroups and mailing lists.
New message areas are being built which are essentially
"Troubleshooter" databases for NewTek's products. The message titles
are either general topics or specific error messages, and the messages
include the product, revisions, and platforms affected by specific
problems. Since the BBS has filtered text string search capabilities,
users will be able to easily locate the information they need either
by scanning titles or by searching for particular words or phrases.
We also plan HTML versions of these files for the Web Page.
*Tech Online Support Staff Changes*
All of NewTek's online services are experiencing growth, and
accordingly we have made some changes in staffing. Dreux Doty, who
formerly provided support on the BBS, Compuserve, tech@newtek.com, and
supervised the FTP site, will now provide support on CompuServe, AOL,
and tech@newtek.com.
Terry Mundy is now the BBS Sysop, and will share FTP oversight with
Dreux. Ron Horton is providing support for the Toaster and LightWave
mailing lists and newsgroups. Other expansions to the online staff
are probable this year.
Our host system, newtek.com, is being updated to handle serving
mailing lists, and we will become the permanent home for the LightWave
and Toaster Mailing lists, currently administered by Cool Friend David
Warner, and the LightWave Plugin list, currently administered by
programmer extraordinaire Stuart Ferguson. Additional mailing lists
are in consideration, in conjunction with our BBS plans.
Chuck Baker -- NewTek, Inc., Technical Support Services
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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)
Australian Mirror Site: http://www.comcen.com.au/~paulm/index.html
All back issues available (in ASCII text) at:
http://www.globaldialog.com/AdventureCentral/AU.html
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Copyright 1997 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified.
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_ __ _ <>_ __ _ ||
/\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || Brad Webb/AmigaUpdate
/__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || bandr@globaldialog.com
/ \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ ||
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