Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Amiga Update (1997-03-27)
======================================================================
_ __ _ <>_ __ _ ||
/\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || A M I G A U P D A T E
/__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || -News and Rumors-
/ \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_|| (An Occasional Newsletter)
BACK FOR THE FUTURE ||
======================================================================
AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga Technologies, GmbH
----------------------------------------------------------------------
970327
*******
EXTRA!!
*******
B I D F O R A M I G A T E C H N O L G I E S A C C E P T E D !
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I A M C O M M E N T S O N G A T E W A Y O W N E R S H I P
F F N E W S N E W S R E A D E R A N N O U N C E D
P O W E R C O N ' 9 7 C O M I N G
A M I G A D E V E L O P E R N E T W O R K
I E E E A N D N A S A U
H O L G E R K R U S E O N P O R T I N G T O P P C
E A G L E & P I O S C O O P E R A T E
U S E R T E S T I M O N I A L F O R P A G E S T R E A M
V I R T U A L W I N D O W M A N A G E R A V A I L A B L E
Editor's thoughts and introduction:
When it finally happened, it snuck up on me. I wasn't expecting a
resolution to the seemingly neverending Amiga ownership issue but it
happened today. Probably. As the press release below states, the
sale is subject regulatory approval. Assuming no surprises in that
process, we have as satisfactory a resulution as we could have wished
for. Gateway has the resources to do something with the Amiga - if
they so choose - and the marketing know how that ever eluded poor
Commodore. There's never a guarantee for the future, but we probably
couldn't have hoped for more at this stage.
Others are hopeful as well. Read the thoughts from Intanigble
Assets Manufacturing, below. They say it well.
There are other news items to bring your way, though all take on new
meaning in light of the ownership story. We have a modest announcement
of a news reader for you Usenet people. We've been using FFNews at AU
for a while, and find it a fine product.
Up in Canada they're planning a party and convention for those
interested in the Power PC Processor. Since that's come in for much
discussion as a candidate for use in future Amiga's, we bring you the
details below.
The folks at the The North Alabama Society of Amiga Users are among
the Amiga's best friends and promoters. We have two stories from them
this time. We think you'll find both of interest.
Holger Kruse, author of AmiWin and Miami, among others, has some
interesting thoughts on porting to the Power PC. You'll find them
below.
There's also a mystery of sorts we discovered on the Eagle Computer
home page on the Web. We hope to bring you a solution in the near
future, but for now all we have is questions.
Every once in a while we run across a posting that helps you remember
why you like your Amiga. We have such a testimonial below from a user
of Pagestream.
Finally, we've the announcement of an interesting new product called
VWM.
We hope you enjoy this issue. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to try
and find a very old bottle of champaigne I stashed someplace around
here long ago ...
Brad Webb,
Editor
----------------------------------------------------------------------
G A T E W A Y 2 0 0 0 N E W O W N E R O F A T ! !
Gateway 2000 acquires assets of
Amiga Technologies GmbH
North Sioux City, 8.D.March 27 1997 - Gateway 2000 Inc. (Nasdag:
Gate) today announced that the company has made an offer to aquire the
assets of AMIGA Technologies including all patents, trademaks and
trade names. The Company is a subsidary of ESCOM AG, a German-based
computer company that went into bankrupty in July of 1996. Amiga led
the industry in combining computer graphics, animation, and film
sequences with stereo sound known today as multimedia.
The offer has been accepted by the court-appointed Administrator in
Bankruptcy in Germany acting on behalf of AMIGA. The agreement is
subject to regulatory approval.
"This acquisition is good news for Gateway and customers of AMIGA,"
said Rick Snyder, president and COO of Gateway 2000. "It will
strengthen our intellectual property position and invigorate a company
that has been a pioneer in multimedia solut- ions and operating
systems technology."
AMIGA Technologies will be renamed AMIGA International. The company
will operate as a separate business unit and will retain its current
president, Petro Tyschtschenko, who will work to develop new products
for the AMIGA market.
"Gateway 2000 will give us new life and energy for the future," said
Tyschtschenko.
About Gateway 2000
Gateway 2000, Inc., a Fortune 500 company founded in 1985, is a global
leader in the direct marketing of PCs. The company, headquartered in
North Sioux City, South Dakota, has manufacturing facilities in the
United States, Ireland and Malaysia, and employs over 9,700 people
worldwide. Gateway 2000 products and services consistently win top
awards from leading industry publications. In 1996, the company
shipped 1.9 million systems and reported revenues of $5 billion and
net income of $250 million.
About AMIGA
Since the introduction of the AMIGA A1000 in 1985, AMIGA has
represented the embodiment of the efficient use of memory and hard
drive capacity, while pioneering industry developments in multimedia,
32-bit multitasking and autoconfiguration.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I A M C O M M E N T S O N G A T E W A Y O W N E R S H I P
Date : 28 Mar 1997 00:17:26 GMT
RESPONSE TO AMIGA ACQUISITION
PHILADELPHIA, Pa., March 27, 1997 /UseNet News/ -- Intangible Assets
Manufacturing President, and former Commodore-Amiga Software Engineer,
Dale L. Larson, has issued the following statement in reaction to
today's news that Gateway 2000 has purchased the Amiga assets subject
to regulatory approval:
"I'm thrilled that the Amiga Technologies have finally been purchased,
more so that they have been bought by a company with such tremendous
resources, visionary management, and customer-service orientation as
Gateway 2000. From their statement that they 'will work to develop
new products for the AMIGA market,' we conclude that the Amiga has a
newly bright future ahead of it. I trust that this will re-invigorate
the Amiga community and renew interest in our markets. We're looking
forward to a surge in sales of our Amiga products in the coming months
as a result of this announcement."
Intangible Assets Manufacturing produces a line of Amiga products,
including the book "Connect Your Amiga! A Guide to the Internet,
LANs, BBSs and Online Services", DiskSalv4, MRBackup, MegaBall4 and
others. IAM also publishes Internet-related books "Torn Shapes of
Desire: Internet Erotica" and "Lineland: Mortality and Mercy on the
Internet's Pynchon-L@Waste.Org Discussion List." Web site:
http://www.iam.com
-0- 03/27/97
Dale L. Larson Intangible Assets Manufacturing Books from the Net:
el Presidente http://www.iam.com Lineland (coming soon!)
dale@iam.com Books, Amiga Torn Shapes of Desire: Internet Erotica
----------------------------------------------------------------------
F F N E W S N E W S R E A D E R A N N O U N C E D
25 Mar 1997 07:18:56 -0600
FFNews is a new NNTP newsreader for any Amiga with OS3.x. It has a
built-in email subsystem, transparent mailing list support, cookie
shuffle, simple address book, intuitive MUI interface and a lot more.
It supports several MUI custom classes to display Terminal- like text
(term.mcc), HTML'd text (HTMLText.mcc) and /styled/ text
(Mailtext.mcc). One can use it either as an online or as an offline
newsreader, depending on the cache settings.
Though it has some central flaws (a little slow) it should make
reading news highly comfortable for the user. The installation
procedure is very simple, and two example settings are provided for
easy starting up.
The actual version is FFNews 1.56 and is uploaded to Aminet as
comm/news/FFNews156.lha. The current release is Shareware (US$20 or
30DM) but not crippled in any way (except a nerve requester). Within
the thirty day evaluation time one should be able to decide whether
FFNews suits the personal needs :-)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
P O W E R C O N ' 9 7 C O M I N G
Mon, 17 Mar 1997 14:15:58 -0500
PIOS /\ /\ ProDAD
/ PowerCon'97 - PowerPC - The Future Is Here! \
\ Learn about alternative computing solutions /
BeOS \/ There *IS* life after WINTEL! \/ Motorola
HTTP://WWW.MOEBIUS.QC.CA/PowerCon97/
On the 19th of July, in Montreal, the first annual PowerPC Convention
will take place! This convention will gather the PPC community
together from all across the world to show its support for the various
PowerPC platforms - The BeBox, PIOS/1, A/Box, Amiga/PowerUP, PowerMacs
& Clones, IBM and Motorola...
TO ALL MAGAZINES AND NEWS MEDIA:
We would greatly appreciate any mention of PowerCon'97 in your
publication, so here goes: Permission to reproduce the content of
this file, in part or in its entirety, is hereby granted, providing
the organizers are advised, before or after the fact, by email or by
phone. Also, please contact us if you would like to have an article
written for your magazine after the convention about what happened at
PowerCon'97.
Please e-mail [moogy@datrox.ca]
[tessier@moebius.qc.ca]
[steve.pruneau@mcbbs.magicnet.com]
The PowerCon'97 Information file follows:
**********************************************************************
NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS NEWS
**********************************************************************
- Dave Haynie (V.P. Engineering @ PIOS Computer) will be attending
the Con and will be giving a conference on PIOS and their vision.
- PowerCon'97 WWW is now online! You can access the latest
information regarding PowerCon97 at:
(http://www.moebius.qc.ca/PowerCon97/). Thanks to Moebius
Technologies Inc. for hosting the site.
- PIOS, maker of the new CHRP PowerPC computer, the PIOS/1, will be
present to demonstrate their new products (http://www.pios.de),
- ProDAD, a company developing a new OS called pOS, which looks
similar to the AmigaOS, will also be present. pOS is currently being
ported to the PowerPC, a 68k version is already available
(http://www.prodad.de).
**********************************************************************
PowerCon'97 PowerCon'97 PowerCon'97 PowerCon'97 PowerCon'97
**********************************************************************
WHY
---
We are organizing the PowerCon'97 to support our favorite
computers.
We feel that there is a place for the PowerPC platform within the
WINTEL monopoly.
WHERE
-----
The Howard Johnson Hotel in Montreal.
ADDRESS
-------
Howard Johnson Hotel
475 Sherbrooke West Street
Montreal, Quebec
Canada
H3A 2L9
514-842-3961
WHEN
----
On the 19th & 20th of July 1997, 10:00 - 20:00 (8:00 PM) Saturday
09:00 - 18:00 (6:00 PM) Sunday
ENTRANCE
--------
7 Canadian dollars
SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT COMPETITION:
---------------------------------
See how your software compares to the competition's and if it can
stand our panel of judges!
1st place prize : $800 Cnd
2nd place prize : $300 Cnd
3rd place prize : $100 Cnd
TABLE RATES
-----------
$150 - 1 day, $250 - 2 days, for one table of 6' by 3' and
chairs. These tables are for dealers and developers.
FREE TABLES
-----------
We will also have free tables, for anyone who wishes to bring their
OWN PPC system, whether to show off something cool, or just to help
someone else who might need one at the time. However, access to these
tables is on a first come first serve basis, space is limited, and you
cannot sell products at the tables! That is strictly for the rented
tables.
ACCESSIBILITY
-------------
The show is easily accessible by bus and subway from anywhere around
the Island, and there is plenty of parking space.
WHY SHOULD DEALERS COME?
------------------------
We offer tables at an incredibly low rate; there is no surcharge for
electrical outlets and electricity. You also get a chance to show and
sell your wares to a crowd of computer enthusiasts looking for
alternate computing solutions, all of whom have money to spend and
are influenced by how big a presence you have at the show.
WHY SHOULD PEOPLE (YOU) COME?
-----------------------------
We will have stands from many major dealers and developers. You will
learn about all the new PPC developments, and Amiga owners will
FINALLY get a chance to see that options are available to them.
We will also have a lot of friendly PPC owners there, plus a
booming sound system and TV setup that will show crazy demos and
products. It will be a wild time for all! BRING YOUR PPC AND HAVE A
BALL!
**********************************************************************
PowerCon'97 PowerCon'97 PowerCon'97 PowerCon'97 PowerCon'97
**********************************************************************
* Just 5 minutes walking distance from the Metro Station McGill, in
the heart of Montreal!
* We will have Audio/visual equipment setup for presentations of
demos, programs, hardware, new products, etc.
* The Howard Johnson Hotel has a Restaurant, a Bar, and more!
* SPECIAL ROOM RATES FOR THE FIRST 20 RESERVATIONS.
Please contact the hotel and specify that you are coming for
the PowerCon'97.
**********************************************************************
CONTACT INFORMATION
**********************************************************************
To get the latest info about the PowerCon'97 and get more details
about it please check out our WWW sites at:
http://www.moebius.qc.ca/PowerCon97/
If you need to reserve a table, need more information on the show,
orjust want to talk to the organizers, e-mail us at:
moogy@datrox.ca
tessier@moebius.qc.ca
steve.pruneau@mcbbs.magicnet.com
(514)-649-9756 (in Canada) and ask for Frederic
(514)-933-8095 (in Canada) and ask for Jeremy.
You can also snailmail the organizers at:
Frederic Tessier
922 Deschamps
Sainte-Julie (Quebec)
J3E 1N9
Canada
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A M I G A D E V E L O P E R N E T W O R K
Huntsville, AL - March 26th, 1997. The North Alabama Society of Amiga
Users is proud to announce their newest web venture, the Amiga
Developer Network. The new site at http://www.amiga.org/developer is
dedicated specifically to all aspects of development for the Amiga
Computer, past, present and future.
We're still in the process of adding things on an almost constant
basis but you can expect to find discussion bases, technical
specifications, developer contact information and about everything we
can find to post to help you develop for the best (and some would
argue ONLY) multimedia personal computer in the world.
All questions and constructive feedback is welcomed as we're working
hard to make this effort a central point for the Amiga developer
community.
Wayne Hunt
North Alabama Society of Amiga Users
World-Wide Amiga Online
Amiga Developer Network
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I E E E A N D N A S A U
In February, the North Alabama Society of Amiga Users (NASAU) once
again participated in the annual IEEE computer show held in
Huntsville, Alabama. With show attendance recorded at 23,000 for the
two day event, NASAU had its usual opportunity to show the versatility
of the Amiga line of computers. As has been the case for several
years, NASAU had the largest user group setup at IEEE and attracted
Amiga users from Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia as well as our own
state. The club provided demonstrations of the video toaster and
flyer, midi/music composing and recording, computer animations,
internet applications as well as a table to buy, sell and trade Amiga
related products.
We would like to thank Danny Wong of Toysoft and Prowave for providing
software and demonstration time at the NASAU booth. Danny Wong,
author of AirMail, sent us a copy of the commercial release to demo.
Let me say that if you use MUI on your Amiga, this is the email
program to have! Danny has developed this versatile application into
a comprehensive and competitive product that is worth buying. Prowave
gave excellent demonstrations of the Amiga and its use in video
productions. Their setup was stealing crowds from all the other user
group booths at IEEE and it still amazes us when someone inevitably
says, "Amigas can do that!?" Another comment that we enjoyed came from
a former Amiga user who said, "It's nice to see that a machine that
has been through all of the trouble that the Amiga has seen can still
turn heads at a computer show". And, not to be left out, the Eric
Schwartz CD (which was running almost the whole show) attracted so
many passers-by that I often had to play the same animation twice in a
row so everyone could see it. Eric, you still got it.
So what is the verdict for NASAU at IEEE '97? Another success, of
course. Many people were not aware that Amigas are still in
production, let alone still available as new purchases. We fixed
that. Many Amiga owners who put their trusty 2000s into the closet a
few years ago so they could buy a computer that would connect to the
internet have now set those same Amigas back up with PD internet
software we provided. We even had a few Apple and Microsoft sales
people come up to us and say "we didn't think you guys still existed."
-- WE FIXED THAT.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
H O L G E R K R U S E O N P O R T I N G T O P P C
Fri, 28 Feb 1997 16:24:57 -0600
To summarize: Phase-5 has announced the availability of PPC boards
for A1200, A3000(T) and A4000(T).
To avoid part of the inevitable flurry of questions :-), here is a
statement on the topic "porting my software to PPC":
Yes, I want to do it :-), and I have been a registered "Silver"
developer with Phase-5 for a long time.
However:
At the moment there appears to be NO operating system for PPC boards.
From what I can tell the PPC is currently only used for a few portions
of the OS which *have* been ported (mainly CyberGraphX AFAIK).
The PPC can currently also be used for "subtasks" within a program,
but these subtasks then may not call OS functions, which makes this
feature only suitable for rather long and computationally expensive
tasks (like ray-tracing).
Since all of my software (ReOrg, ppp.device, AmiWin, Miami, "work in
progress" :-)) is very tightly integrated into AmigaOS, it cannot
reasonably use this feature, so porting my applications *at this time*
would make no sense.
I will only port my software to PPC once a native PPC environment for
the Amiga operating system exists. This will probably take a while...
Even then porting my software will depend on other things as well,
like, in the case of Miami, the existance of SANA-II or serial drivers
for PPC, porting the bsdsocket.library API to PPC (so applications can
be ported to PPC as well), a MUI PPC port, and possibly other things.
Please don't hold your breath quite yet. Yes, this PPC development is
exiting, but don't expect much support from applications (other than
stuff like ray-tracing, as mentioned above) any time soon.
--
Holger Kruse
----------------------------------------------------------------------
E A G L E & P I O S C O O P E R A T E
!! Neue Kooperation !!
! PIOS und eagle bringen den PIOS ONE mit Siamese integriert !
!! New Cooperation !!
! PIOS and Eagle bring the PIOS ONE with integral Siamese ! (???)
The above German appeared reacently on the Eagle Computers web page.
Unfortunately, the link goes nowhere so what you see is all we know.
The English translation is AU's and may be faulty. PIOS of course is
a developer of an Amiga like system. The Siamese we assume referes to
the product distributed by HiQ Ltd. that intesgrates an existing
Amiga and PC into one more or less seamless computer. On the other
hand, we could be completely wrong about all this. Our notes to Eagle
(written in English since we really don't speak German at AU) have
gone unanswered. Interesting though, isn't it? Brad.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
U S E R T E S T I M O N I A L F O R P A G E S T R E A M
11 Mar 97 21:52:21 +0100
From: Manou BILLA
Subject: Xperience with PGS 3.1 AMIGA and PageMaker 5 (PC)
Hi everybody
I just want to tell you about my experience with PageStream 3.1 AMIGA
and PageMAker 5 (PC). I know this is somehow off topic but I want to
lt you know that PGS is great!
Since the demise of ProPage I do use PageStream, though the first
version did crash my HD really severaly. The latest version I use is
PGS 3.1 on my A3000 (though the 68060 will come next week, even if my
signature tells the presence of the CyberStorm :-)). It's great!
It's fast. It's cool! And above all it's intuitive! Now I had the
chance to try PageMaker 5 on a Pentium (133 MHz/ 16 MB RAM). First I
don't like the HD file swapping, it takes ages and makes a nervous
sound. (but that's the Windows, file system). Second if you need
something you have to look in the menues. No icon bars like PGS. No
configurable icon bar as in PGS 3.2. Alignment isn't as usefull as on
PGS. Screen display is bad. I couldn't open more than 1 document,
though I don't know if it works. My doc, was just one page with 2
columns with only 30 words and 3 cliparts. It takes longer to load
this doc than on my A3000/68030 with PGS. I wasn't able to leave the
cliparts external, though I think it's possible. When I installed
PageMaker on another PC to finish the document, the fonts were missing
(they were not from PM 5 but from another Win prog) and my only choice
was to use courier font as substitute. No comfortable font requester
or font prefs as in PGS. It was even unable to load CorelDraw clips
(*.cdr), though PGS can't do it either, but MetaView can do it. BTW a
WMF datatype will be available after 19 april 1997! Can PGS use
datatypes?
The document even saves the printer to be used. So I get an annoying
requester that the saved printer isn't available on the other PC. And
I have to use the standard printer defined under Windows.
No graphic tools as PGS etc. etc.
I don't understand why people are crazy about PageMaker? Just because
magazines are printed with it? I think PGS can do that too.
I can't wait for my CyberStorm to get more speed.
There were only 2 things I liked many keyboard shortcuts are the same
as in PGS. And if one prints cropmarks on any printer, a color bar is
printed too, to check the colors. On PGS I do use the AddCropMarks
script. I think I found it on Aminet.
Long lives PGS! On won't use any other DTP prog. I can't wait for
version 3.2 to be finished!
Oh yes! In May I do teach MS Publisher! I played with it! A kids
proggy! Fun but not pro!
AMIGA progs rulz!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
V I R T U A L W I N D O W M A N A G E R A V A I L A B L E
TITLE
VWM - Virtual Window Manager
VERSION
1.2 (15-Mar-97) (first public release)
AUTHOR
Bahman Moallem
E-Mail: bamo@ctools.pp.se
World Wide Web: http://www.ctools.pp.se/
DESCRIPTION
VWM, the virtual screen aware window manager, is a small, fast,
and system friendly virtual screen aware program that gives you
100% control over windows' positions.
VWM features 2 ways of defining the new location for the target
window, setting an absolute or relative position (Co-ordinate
Positioning) or using a preset positioning technique usually
related to the mouse position (Preset Positioning Techniques).
VWM can force your programs to:
- open their windows in absolute positions related to the start
point (0x0) of the active screen.
- open their windows in absolute positions but related to the
point (0x0) of the "active part" of the screen (for virtual
screens).
- center their windows under the mouse pointer (FollowMouse).
- locate their windows under the mouse pointer but respect the
view, that is to locate the windows far enough away from the
closest edges of the visible screen but still under the mouse
pointer (RespectView).
FollowView(TM), known as RespectView in VWM, is Copyright (c)
1993-1997 Bahman Moallem and was first introduced in MagicWords,
the multilingual word translator for the Amiga
back in 1993.
- open their windows in the center of the visible part of the
screen (CenterWindow).
- open their windows in the corner of the visible part of the
screens which is farthest away from the mouse pointer position
(UseCorners).
SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS
AmigaOS 2.04 or better.
AVAILABILITY
VWM version 1.2 (app. 32 KB) is available on Aminet, e.g.
ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/util/misc/VWM12.lha
or in the author's WWW site:
http://www.ctools.pp.se/
PRICE
Freeware.
DISTRIBUTABILITY
VWM is freely distributable so long as all files accompanying
the VWM package remain intact and unchanged.
Unlimited non-commercial use is encouraged.
VWM is Copyright (c) 1995-1997 Bahman Moallem,
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1997 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified.
======================================================================
_ __ _ <>_ __ _ ||
/\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || Brad Webb/AmigaUpdate
/__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || bandr@globaldialog.com
/ \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ ||
======================================================================
