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Amiga Update (2000-07-18)
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_ __ _ <>_ __ _ ||
/\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || A M I G A U P D A T E
/__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || -News and Rumors-
/ \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_|| (An Occasional e-mail
"SO THE WORLD MAY KNOW" || News Source)
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AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga, Inc.
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000718
D ' A M I G A I S D ' T H I N G
U P D A T E F R O M A M I G A
M A T H E N G I N E T O T A O P L A T F O R M
A M I G A I N C . & S O F T W A R E H U T A G A I N
. . . A N D C O M P U Q U I C K
A M I G A F E S T M O V E S F O R W A R D
A M I W E S T U P D A T E
A M I W E S T D E V E L O P E R S ' M E E T I N G
A M I G A Z O N E A T A M I W E S T
S E A L O R A M A S O M E W H E R E I N U K
O P E N L E T T E R F R O M C S & E
N O , N O T _ T H A T _ D I G I T A . . .
D O C D A T A T Y P E S U P D A T E N E W S
D E V E L O P E R N E E D E D !
A M I G A J O B S S T A T U S R E P O R T
G A U H P I L U P D A T E
A M I G A S U R V I O R - D O E S
A N D A M I G A F U T U R E H A S E N G L I S H
M A S T H E A D F O R N E W A M I G A N S
D R Y I C E I N D E V E L O P M E N T
N O T E F R O M H O L G E R K R U S E
Editor's Thoughts and Introduction:
Fun things this time around. Lots of Amiga shows coming up and a
bewildering blizzard of annoucements and strategic aliances from
Amiga. Hope the items below help to make it all clear.
First, some AU business. The contest for the Amiga 2000 is over. All
entrants should have received a notice from us by now. In case some
got lost in the mail, here's the note we sent to everyone who DIDN'T
win:
"Hello from 'Amiga Update'
"I hate suspense, so here it is - the winner of the Amiga 2000
drawing is:
"Gerald B. Gibbons
"Congratulations Gerald!! You should have already received a separate
note with information on contacting Pat Hammond, the generous donator
of the computer.
"I'm sending this note to everyone who expressed interest, but will
do so without revealing individual e-mail addresses.
"We received nine requests from readers who wanted to be included in
the drawing. All names were written on same sized slips of paper, and
placed in an old "AmiEXPO" hat (you have to have been around a while
to remember those shows). The winner was drawn by Mrs. Webb. We held
the drawing at "Amiga Update" World Headquarters on the 4th of July,
allowing a few days from the end of the month in case some late
entries might have been caught in the Internet mail flow.
"We hope Gerald enjoys the Amiga 2000 for quite a while, and thanks
to everyone who participated.
"Brad Webb,
Editor/Publisher
'Amiga Update'"
We'd like to give another big "thank you!" to Pat Hammond for making
the computer available!
And while we're dealing in fun things, we've picked up on a
persistent rumor, which seems to have been repeated word for word in
several places, including supposedly the UK's entertainment industry
publication "MCV". Here are some quotes:
"The long forgotten Amiga system is to make a comeback.
"Amigas have been destined to the dustbin of time after the advent of
consoles, and after the ill-fated Amiga CD-32, it was thought that
Amiga would not be resurfacing.
"However, a new Amiga games machine is on its way - and it's likely to
be some kind of handheld games unit. The machine will use the Amiga OS
but is unlikely to be manufactured by Amiga Inc themselves. Third
party manufacturers such as Dell, Gateway and IBM have expressed
interests in the minature Amiga handheld, while Amiga will supply the
badge and operating system.
"A new Amiga desktop machine called Amiga One will also be launched in
November this year, and will be targeted at home users. We welcome
back the Amiga with open arms."
We suggest you don't put too much faith in that "story" but it
certainly is interesting.
Finally, word has reached us that Sun has announced today the source
for its "StarOffice" product will be made available for others to
port. "StarOffice is an office suite of productivity software much
beloved in the Linux environment and provides the closest thing there
is to Microsoft competition. Anyone out there interested in porting it
to the Amiga?
We hope you enjoy this issue,
Brad Webb,
Editor
----------------------------------------------------------------------
E-mail to the E-ditor:
Dear Friends,
I think, yours is a very good idea, please keep on and sign me on
too.
The Amiga used to be my joy, a great machine, especially the A1200
which I bought after my first computer, the A2000.
Great machines, super interface, the best.
I left Europe in 1996 to do a 3-year contract on the island of Aruba
and because of my work, (I am an architect working with autocad on
pc`s) and the fact that nobody does the Amiga on that Island, I lost
some track of the Amiga.
I hope to see a new generation Amiga on the market soon and I like to
keep in touch with some news on these developments. I will be joining
for sure.
Thanks for being Amigans. John
~~~~~~
John,
Thanks for writing and welcome! There's a lot going on in at Amiga
Inc. as this issue shows. We hope to bring the highlights to you and
the rest of the Community.
Brad
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D ' A M I G A I S D ' T H I N G
July 13, 2000 - Amiga Inc., Snoqualmie, WA, today announced
manufacturing and distribution agreements with Wonder Computers
International Inc. in Ottawa, Canada and Software Hut, Inc. in West
Chester, PA. These agreements will allow the manufacture of d'Amiga
Authorized Developer Workstations in North America.
Both Software Hut and Wonder Computers are well known and well
regarded figures in the Amiga community. Their involvement dates back
well over a decade.
Amiga, Software Hut and Wonder Computers share the same vision and
strategy to establish the Next Generation Amiga as the preeminent
media platform and operating environment for the future.
``It gives us great pleasure to have released the Software
Development Kit (SDK) on schedule and to follow up with such excellent
value to the community with the d'Amiga Developer Workstation. It
gives us equal pleasure to have the support of Software Hut and Wonder
Computers behind this release. Through this developer machine, we
achieve our goal of providing excellent value in superior hardware to
realize our cross platform binary compatibility promise for
developers. This will no doubt come as great news to those in the
community seeking value of their dollar as they develop for the great
number of target platforms that Amiga supports," said Randall Hughes,
Vice President, Sales and Strategic Alliances at Amiga Inc.
"We at Software Hut are extremely excited to have been selected as
the official US Distributor for the authorized d'Amiga Developer
Workstation. Many of our customers and dealer partners have been
looking for a machine with all the specifications to run the Amiga SDK
in one bundled package. Our combined efforts, along with Amiga Inc.'s
and Wonder Computers', will ensure that all developers will have easy
and affordable access to the tools needed to develop software that
will revolutionize computing as we now know it," said Joseph Muoio,
President of Software Hut, Inc.
"We are proud to be a part of this quantum leap forward in computing
technology, and look forward to working closely with Amiga and
Software Hut on this project in the weeks and months to come. The
developer machine is more than just a tool. It represents the first
significant opportunity for Amigans and former Amigans everywhere, to
join forces and help bring about a real change in the way computers
work. The developers machine can also be configured to run Amiga
Classic software through emulation, adding further to its potential
value for anyone considering a purchase," extolled Mark Habinski,
President of Wonder Computers International Inc.
The developer machine represents unparalleled value, uses brand name
parts of the highest quality, and is bundled with a comprehensive
warranty on hardware and an enhanced level of support from Amiga Inc.
The workstation also includes the Amiga SDK. "We at Amiga are proud to
have our name on the d'Amiga Authorized Developer Workstation," said
Mr. Hughes, in reference to its significant value and competitive
price. Such a price/performance achievement is not possible using
clone hardware. If it does not have the official Amiga Boing insignia,
it is not an authorized Amiga Developer Workstation. Please see
www.amiga.com for full details.
Other d'Amiga information:
The d'AMIGA represents outstanding value to our community in its
functionality and support. Feature for feature, it represents the most
affordable performance and comprehensive support available on a
standardized platform to Amigans and other Amiverse developers.
The d'AMIGA developer workstation is available through your preferred
dealer via distribution of the following, in their respective
territories:
o USA - Software Hut Inc.
o Canada - Wonder Computers International Inc
o UK - Eyetech Group Ltd.
o Europe - KDH Datentechnik
o Australia - Unitech Electronics
Please contact your preferred dealer or the above mentioned
distributors to arrange for delivery and regional pricing of your
d'AMIGA Developer Workstation today!
Following are the system specifications:
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
o Motherboard Gigabyte GA-5AX
o CPU AMD K6-11 3D 500Mhz
o Memory 128 Mbyte SDRAM DIMM PC100
o Hard Drive 10 Gbyte IDE
o CDROM 40X
o Floppy 1.44 Mbyte
o Sound Creative Sound blaster Live PCI-16
o Video Matrox G400 Dual Head
o Speakers 160 W
o Network Linksys NC100 v2.0
o Warranty 2 year 'Sealed Case' P&L
Software:
o Redhat Linux 6.1 PreInstalled
o AMIGA Software Development Tool Kit
o Amiga Inc ADN Support Package Trailblazer Level. A $1000 value
o 24 Hour turnaround on issues, requests, information, tools,
documents and beta builds from point of availability versus
7 days to community at large
o Beta software accessible from the ADN
o Faq-O-Matic
o Developer conference discounts 15%
o Discount on Printed and Softbound documents 15%
o Searchable database of bugs, beta testers and developers
o Full listing of issues, status of issues taken from Bugzilla
and Faq-O-Matic, all maintained in a prioritized online
database
o Bugzilla
o Code Samples
o All developer materials, the online Developer Mall and other
Web Accessible tools
o Message Boards
o Online developer docs
o Mailing Lists
o Internet Messaging
o IRC with internal Amiga Inc. programmers and senior management
o Monthly CEO feedback to developers- No more surprises!
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U P D A T E F R O M A M I G A
{Note: yes this story carries a date of the 19th - tomorrow where we
are - but we really did obtain it on the 18th. We just bring you the
news really, really fast! Slightly edited for easier reading in the AU
format. Brad}
Update From Amiga Inc on AmiOpen
(19 July, 2000) - Gary Peake
I would like to announce that Douglas McLaughlin will be writing his
own version of ICQ for the new AmiVerse.
License Fees: Contrary to what the SDK says, there will be NO license
fees on any applications, tools, or ports in the year 2000. We are
reviewing this policy for 2001 and beyond and as soon as I have the
info I will post it here. Also, there is and never will be license
fees on open source apps or tools.
Developer Web Site: Sorry about the delay with the web site. Part of
the delay was waiting to see which ways we would go with certain web
based applications and another part of the delay has been getting my
family situation worked out and all of my family up here to the great
Northwest. That accomplished, the web site updates will begin in
earnest now. Stay tuned for more developments there.
Thanks for your patience
Gary Peake
Director - Support
Amiga Inc.
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M A T H E N G I N E T O T A O P L A T F O R M
Oxford and Reading, England - July 4th 2000, MathEngine PLC, the
leader in real time dynamics software - which allows complex,
physics-based interactive simulation - today announced it will make
its technology available on Tao Group's intentTM media platform.
The intentTM platform is a lightweight, high performance media
platform for running systems and content across a broad range of
digital networked appliances from PCs and game consoles to set top
boxes and mobile phones. This means that developers can write code
that can be easily ported to run on many different current and future
hardware platforms. Example areas of use for MathEngine's libraries
include the creation of realistic physics behavior for next generation
consoles and PC games. By including MathEngine technology in the
intentTM platform, MathEngine is able to make its technology available
in a highly optimised form on this broad range of hardware platforms.
"MathEngine is contributing a very important suite of high value
technologies to the intentTM environment," said Francis Charig,
Chairman of Tao. "Our recent range of announcements involving
multimedia partners is now further complemented by the immediacy and
reality brought by MathEngine's software. It is increasingly
recognized that only Tao can combine the enabling of true multimedia
content, across many different Internet appliances, with conformance
to global standards. Our partnership with MathEngine will make that
content both different and even more exciting."
The new Tao environment, including MathEngine technology, will be
available on general release later this year but will be available to
selected partners in advance.
MathEngine has found Tao to be an ideal partner in the Internet
appliance space. With MathEngine already running its software on games
platforms such as PCs and video game consoles, the relationship with
Tao is one way in which MathEngine can branch out to new markets such
as digital television, set top boxes and smart phones.
Lincoln Wallen, Chief Technology Officer of MathEngine said,
"Integrating our technology into Tao's intentTM media platform allows
developers already working with our products on PC and game consoles
to make their titles available more easily on other emerging
platforms. The partnership will enable MathEngine to branch out into
new markets and design specific solutions for new consumer devices."
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A M I G A I N C . & S O F T W A R E H U T A G A I N
Snoqualmie, Wa. USA - On June 17, 2000, Amiga announced a partnership
with Software Hut, Inc. of West Chester, Pa. USA for distribution of
the new Amiga SDK and Classic Amiga products. Software Hut, Inc., the
leading distributor in North America of Classic Amiga products, will
now make available existing Classic Amiga products as well as the next
generation SDK to all Amiga dealers, end users, and developers.
"We are pleased offer easy access to all our products, both Classic
and Next Generation, through Software Hut. They have been a strong
supporter of the Amiga Community for the past 12 years and have the
widest selection of Amiga products in stock in North America," said
Randy Hughes, Vice President Sales and Strategic Alliances at Amiga
Inc. "Their enthusiasm and expertise will be of great help in
supplying our existing Classic market with products for years to come
as well as developing and expanding our ability to distribute our Next
Generation Products. We join the community in welcoming Software Hut
to our future."
Gary Peake, Director of Support at Amiga Inc. said, "I am very
pleased to have Software Hut on board as one of our Regional
Distributors for North America! Joe and Trish have devoted the last
eleven years of their life to supporting the Amiga community with
friendly and knowledgeable service, good pricing, and ethical
standards that make doing business with them a pleasure."
Software Hut, Inc., a well-known name in the current global Amiga
community, is excited about distributing the new Amiga line. Joseph
Muoio, President of Software Hut, commented, "We are extremely excited
to be able to offer Amiga products to the entire community. We have a
great relationship with our dealers and end-users worldwide, and we
hope to further our relationship with them. We thank everyone who has
supported our efforts to remain Amiga-specific in the past and ask for
your continued support as we unite with Amiga Inc. to distribute a
successful, revolutionary new Amiga that will take the by storm."
Software Hut, Inc. began as a small, family-owned business in 1982,
specializing in Apple products. After the release of the AMIGA 1000,
Software Hut, Inc. realized the market potential of this superior
graphics system and has spent the last 12 years devoting all of its
efforts into promoting and selling the Amiga line of products. The
Amiga's popularity and incredible graphics applications has
transformed Software Hut from its humble beginnings to one of the
largest Amiga distributors in the world.
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. . . A N D C O M P U Q U I C K
June 28, 2000
Snoqualmie, Wa. USA - Amiga Inc. is pleased to announce their
partnership with Compuquick Media Center, of Columbus, Ohio, USA, to
distribute the new AMIGA SDK (Software Development Kit), as well as
the AMIGA CLASSIC products.
"We are happy to ensure high availability of our Classic and Next
Generation products through Compuquick. Mr. Jesrani has been both a
familiar and a highly regarded member of the community since 1987. It
is both our honor and privilege to be associated with Compuquick. We
aniticipate their continued commitment and expertise, knowing that the
community will be well served. We join you in welcoming Compuquick to
the future of Amiga," said Randy Hughes, Vice President Sales and
Strategic Alliances at Amiga Inc.
Compuquick Media Center, a well-known name in the AMIGA community, is
excited to be a part of Amiga Inc.'s plans for the future. They look
forward to continued success in distributing the new AMIGA SDK as well
as any other products that may be contemplated by Amiga. Randhir
Jesrani, President of Compuquick Media Center added, "We are very
pleased to be able to offer Amiga products to the community and look
forward to helping the community grow. We have an excellent
relationship with our Amiga friends throughout the world and are keen
to hear from our many friends who have come back to Amiga. Once an
Amigan, always an Amigan."
Compuquick Media Center has a 10 year legacy of satisfied clients and
is a constant fixture at all Amiga trade shows. Compuquick has devoted
their focus to the sale and service of Amiga systems, software and
peripherals and is the leading supplier of Video Toaster and Flyer
systems. Compuquick has demonstrated their expertise and is a leader
in the sales of Amiga products to the educational and to the graphic
artist communities and count animators at Disney and the suppliers to
the Armed Forces as just a few of their many customers.
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A M I G A F E S T M O V E S F O R W A R D
03 July, 2000
AmigaFest 2000, the show within a show at Dayton's Fall Computerfest®
is a go!
AmigaFest will have its own area within Computerfest® and we will
have more control over the layout than last year. Last year we had
about 15 exhibitors and we hope to have many more this year.
The Fall Computerfest® is Sat. & Sun. August 26 & 27 at Hara Arena on
the northwest side of Dayton, Ohio.
This show has a big advantage for the Amiga Community because it will
give you access to several vendors who are Amiga specialists and also
well over a hundred vendors selling the general equipment you need,
drives, printers, memory, storage media, etc. at really great prices.
In effect, everything you need and want in one place.
For Amiga vendors and exhibitors it give you access to a croud of
over 30,000 attendees, and, while most are PC people, an amazing
number of Amiga people will be there. Many are Amiga users who do not
buy the magazines and are not in user groups and are there for the
cheap goodies and will be really happy to have access to Amiga gear.
This also gives you access to a tremendous crowd most of who know
nothing about Amiga and many who once owned one and it will surprise
you how much interest having AmigaFest 2000 within the show will
generate. This is also an excellent forum to let the non-Amiga world
know what is happening. Most important, it is an inexpensive show to
participate in. The cost is $60 per 8 ft. table. This is really a
bargain for a show of this magnitude.
Amiga, Inc. is providing two A1200s and a selection of other items to
be raffled at the show. We are also planning to have a get together on
the Saturday evening of the show at a restaurant so we can all relax
eat, maybe drink a little, socialize a lot, and generally have a good
time.
If you are interested in more information on the show, directions, or
being an exhibitor, email me at schwartr@gemair.com or phone/fax at
937-434-2144.
Ron Schwartz AmigaFest Coordinator/AmiTech-Dayton
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A M I W E S T U P D A T E
05 July, 2000
On June 6, Amiga Inc. and Eyetech Group Ltd entered into a strategic
relationship for Eyetech to manufacture the first release of the Next
Generation Amiga Development Machine. Eyetech will be coming to
Sacramento, California for AmiWest 2000 and will be showing off the
Next Generation Amiga Development Machine coupled with a Classic A1200
at the show.
Eyetech is the leading UK developers and Worldwide mail order
retailers of Amiga technology products for the home and for industry.
They are the manufacturers and distributors of the EZDev-Plus and
EZDev-Tower Dev Boxes in the UK and Ireland under a partnership
agreement with Amiga Inc. and parent company of the Eye-Play
(www.eye-play.com) games publishing and distribution for the Classic
and Amiga OE platforms.
Products at the show will include: EZRack 2U x 380mm 19" rack system
containing a full EZDev and Classic A1200 platform networked in the
same case; EZBoot silicon floppy disk allowing direct booting from
CDROM on all WB3+ Amigas; the AMON low distortion automatic monitor
switcher for the Cybervision64-3D and scandoubled AGA outputs; the
EZLink AREXX-controlled infrared controller 'learning'
receiver/transmitter for all WB2+ Amigas; the EZ-Net 5-click
Linux-Amiga, Win-Amiga & Amiga-Amiga networking software and
installer; the EZ-VGA range of scan doublers and flickerfixers and
much more.
A rolling presentation under SCALA MM400 will show some of the
products that we physically couldn't bring with us, but regularly send
to the US by mail order. These include: the full range of EZDev
configuration options, the EZTower-Z4 A1200 tower system with Z4
expansion board (3 x Z2, 2 x hi-speed Z2, 2 x 19MB/s Z4, 4 x clock
port slots) and many more products.
Special dealer and User Group pricing will be available at the show.
Eyetech can be reached on the web at http://welcome.to/amiga.world.
Remember, AmiWest 2000 is being held on Friday through Sunday, July
29-30, 2000 at the Holiday Inn, Sacramento NorthEast, in Sacramento,
CA. Classes and seminars will be held throughout the day on both
Saturday and Sunday with the exhibit hall being open on Saturday, July
29th from 10 A.M. - 5 P.M and Sunday, July 30th 10 A.M. - 4 P.M.
Specially priced tickets for AmiWest 2000 are available in advance by
mail. Prices are: two day admission tickets, $12 and one day admission
ticket, $8. If you elect to purchase tickets at the door, the prices
are: two day ticket at the door, $15 and One day ticket at the door,
$10. If you are ordering a one day ticket by mail, please specify
which day (Saturday or Sunday) you are attending.
There will be a buffet banquet on Saturday evening, July 29th, with
Bill McEwen, President of Amiga Inc., as the guest speaker discussing
the progress made to date on the new Amigas. Price is $35 per plate.
Banquet tickets must be purchased in advance. They will NOT be sold on
Friday nor Saturday due to the hotel needing attendance figures for
planning the banquet.
You can mail your requests for advanced admission and banquet tickets
to:
AmiWest 2000
c/o John Zacharias
10004 Vanguard Drive
Sacramento, CA 95827
Make checks payable to "AmiWest".
A form for ordering tickets can be found on the AmiWest web page at
http://www.sacc.org/amiwest/ where you can learn more about AmiWest
2000.
Petro Tyschtschenko, Managing Director, Amiga Deutschland Inc., will
be joining Mr McEwen in attendance at AmiWest 2000. Special hotel room
rates are available at the Holiday Inn for those attending AmiWest
2000. Room rates are $ 79 (Single) and $ 89 (double) if reservations
are made by July 7. You must mention that you are attending AmiWest to
get the special rate. You can phone the Holiday Inn at 1-916-338-5800
or 1-800-388-9284 (Tool Free - Hotel directly) to make hotel
reservations.
You will also be able to purchase the recently announced Software
Development Kit (SDK) for the new Amigas at AmiWest 2000. The SDK is
being sold by several of the exhibitors at the show. This weekend
event will again showcase the progress that IS the Amiga Community.
Hope to see you at AmiWest 2000 on July 29-30, 2000.
John Zacharias,
chairperson AmiWest 2000
jzachar@calweb.com
http://www.sacc.org/amiwest/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A M I W E S T D E V E L O P E R S ' M E E T I N G
17 Jul 2000
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Developer's Meeting at AmiWest 2000!
Kermit Woodall of Nova Design will be conducting an informal
developers meeting at AmiWest 2000 to discuss future development
trends on the Amiga. The meeting will be held during the vendor setup
period between 8 pm and 9 pm on Friday evening, July 28, 2000 on the
Terrace in front of the main AmiWest exhibit hall. Questions
concerning the new Amiga SDK will be entertained and hopefully
answered during this meeting.
A special reception for vendors and developers with food and drink
and sponsored by AmiWest will also be held during the vendor setup on
Friday evening.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A M I G A Z O N E A T A M I W E S T
(17 July, 2000) - http://www.amigazone.com/
For the third year in a row, AmigaZone will be exhibiting at the
AmiWest show. (Show location and hotel details and all the other
relevant poop about AmiWest is at http://www.sacc.org/amiwest ).
Sign up for AmigaZone in person at the show with me and you will be
given a free AmigaZone logo baseball cap!.
There is a glorious, no-expenses-spared, super 3D rotating
confetti-spewing Playmate-filled *multimedia presentation of the hat
at http://www.amigazone.com/images/cap.jpg *or maybe it's just a lame
picture ;)
As a special "instant rebate" --> flashing neon --> BONUS <--
flashing neon <-- and while supplies last, to those who join AmigaZone
at AmiWest in person, along with your hat you will be handed a brand
spankin' new, freshly-minted, brilliant uncirculated year 2000 dated
United States "Golden Dollar." (Actual cash value of the dollar is one
dollar :) (For more info on what the new Golden Dollar is, visit
http://www.usmint.gov ).
You'll be able to demo AmigaZone for your own self, live, online, at
my booth, on my 060 machine in glorious Cybergrafx, on a big monitor
with live modem connection, ask me all the questions you want to
(excet the ones I can't answer, like 'bout birthin' babies..) and just
have a damn good time at the show.
Please, no pushing and shoving, stand on the throbbing blue line, and
keep your hands to yourself. Thank you! If you are already an
AmigaZone member and joined before I started this whole hat thang, you
may purchase a hat at my booth for $7.50. Non-members may purchase one
for $12.00 unless they ask really really nicely and then maybe they
can have one for $10.00. (See
http://www.amigazone.com/pages/disclaimers.html for the fine print).
See you at AmiWest, Sacramento, July 29-30, 2000!
Harv -- Founder of AmigaZone. Supporting Amiga owners since 1985!
Go here for info or to join: http://www.amigazone.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
S E A L O R A M A S O M E W H E R E I N U K
{The story we got didn't say where in the UK. We'll bring you that
information when we get it. Brad}
It's Here!!
On Sunday September the 10th 2000, SEAL (possibly the most active
Amiga User Group in the known universe), is holding the first ever
SEAL-O-RAMA!
o Buy Bargains!
o Win Prizes!
o Play Games!
o See Demonstrations!
o Meet Fellow Amigans!
o Watch Exhibitions!
o And So Much More!
Amiga have donated two Amiga 1200s and loads of other branded goodies
for you to win!
Analogic Computers
Analogic will be donating some great prizes for the competitions
running during the show. They are also offering free gifts and special
discounts to anyone who subscribes to Clubbed magazine at the show!
Have a look at the exhibitors attending, and the funky stuff they are
hoping to show off to you. Some of it to be seen for the very first
time!
Times
The show will open at 12:00 midday and will close at 17:00.
Admission
Entry to the show will cost £1 per person, which includes entry to
win one of the A1200 Magic Packs.
See you there!
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O P E N L E T T E R F R O M C S & E
7 July, 2000
Dear friends,
It won't come as a shock to most within the community that advance
sales of our forthcoming Amiga titles have been disappointing. On the
classic Amiga we are fighting with hands tied behind our backs due to
the lack of new hardware sales and in addition we are being hit below
the belt by piracy. It is with deep regret that I announce CS&E has
cancelled all future games development for this system. This was a
difficult decision for me to make but financially impossible for me to
ignore.
More positively, remember we arrived on the Amiga scene in
anticipation of a new machine - hence we will develop for the new
Amiga and I have great pleasure in announcing that CS&E will be giving
away development kits free to all Amiga developers who pledge to
release their forthcoming titles through our network. In addition our
£1,000 competition will be carried over to the new Amiga so that
£1,000 will definitely be given away in advance to the developer of
what CS&E judges to be the best software offering, now extended to the
end of 2,000. By taking these steps CS&E is making development for the
Amiga pay and ensuring the best quality in gameplay and service for
our customers. Nothing has changed since we entered the Amiga market
on the back of successful PC releases last year, our quality,
originality and commitment to Amiga speaks for itself.
Amiga Survivor will play a key role in being one of the most
respected sources of information for the Amiga community through the
launch of the new Amiga. AS has recently been put in the hands of an
independent team of budding journalists from all over Europe and is
the premier independent magazine for Amiga news and reviews. Issue 10
will be the first release in the new format on August 10th, after
which you will get regular bi-monthly release dates.
Look out for more news at http://www.CSandE.co.uk coming soon!
Kind Regards,
David Connolly
Managing Director
Crystal Software and Electronics Ltd
----------------------------------------------------------------------
N O , N O T _ T H A T _ D I G I T A . . .
27 Jun 2000
Innovative brings Digita(TM)-power to your AMIGA!
Innovative has developed a driver for DigiCams running the Digita(TM)
Operating Environment. Digita(TM)-enabled DigiCams offer much more
flexibility and abilities than everything else currently on the
market. Digita(TM) is used in high-end-cameras of different companies,
runs on PowerPC- and Coldfire-CPUs and allows you to run scripts,
applications and games (incl. MAME!!) on your camera. The developers
of Digita(TM), Flashpoint(TM) (http://www.flashpoint.com/) wants to
make Digita(TM) the standard for DigiCams and specified a standardized
communication-protocol between computer and camera. With the now
available VHI-driver, AMIGA-users finally get access to these amazing
cameras and can download and rework pictures from these cameras.
Currently available Digita(TM)-enabled DigiCams are
· Kodak DC 220, DC 260, DC 265, DC 290
· Minolta Dimage 1500 EX, Dimage 1500 3D
· HP PhotoSmart C500, C619, C912,
· Pentax EI-200, EI-2000
P.S.: In this case, Digita(TM) has nothing to do with the developers
of Wordsworth but is the name of a product by Flashpoint(TM).
----------------------------------------------------------------------
D O C D A T A T Y P E S U P D A T E N E W S
12 July, 2000
The latest version of DocDatatypes, v39.40, is now available. The
main changes from version 39.30 are that the RTF datatype and filetype
descriptor have been updated to support most if not all RTF file
types. A new datatype for First Word(plus) documents is now included
as is full support for WordPerfect 4, including file type descriptors.
A DocDatatypes mailing list also has been created. A working 68000
version of Orbit 0.7 (you'll need a 060) is available. You can also
download a version with networking enabled! The PPC version will get
network support soon.
http://www.crosswinds.net/~internetpages/docdatatypes/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
D E V E L O P E R N E E D E D !
13 Jul 2000
APC&TCP search a c++ developer for work with our team on the game
Phönix. please write to: info@apc-tcp.de
thanks,
Andreas Magerl
APC&TCP
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A M I G A J O B S S T A T U S R E P O R T
28 Jun 2000
"Free Amiga Jobs" - Status Report, June 2000
Cologne/Germany, 28-June-2000 - The Amiga market is moving. Just a
look at Free Amiga Jobs, the free employment agency service for the
Amiga, shows how many projects are planned or running right now by
established and startup-companies. You can make a contribution to the
development: work for the Amiga!
Here are the known changes since the last status report:
new jobs (since last update): 18
filled jobs (since last update): 15
filled jobs (overall): 28
open jobs (currently): 36
open jobs (overall): 62
"Free Amiga Jobs" is hosted by Amiga plus and
Amiga-News.de at "http://www.amiga-news.de/jobs/".
Sincerely,
Nico Barbat, Amiga plus
----------------------------------------------------------------------
G A U H P I L U P D A T E
16 Jun 2000
Hi Amigans!
This is just to let you know about some changes on the Geographical
Amiga Users Home Pages Internet List (GAUHPIL). Most pages are now
bilingual (English & German) and the navigation links have therefore
changed on most pages:
http://GAUHPIL.home.pages.de/
I will be on holidays for the next three weeks. Please go on sending
me your updates and hints. I will check them all when I'm back home.
Thanks for your attention and support!
Dietmar Knoll
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A M I G A S U R V I O R - D O E S
The magazine is now under new ownership and has a whole new team of
writers as well as an experienced Graphics designer and Webmaster.
Issue 1 should be on sale from the 10th of August, priced at
£3.99. To order your copy, e-mail csande@csande.com, putting "AS
Issue 1 Order" in the Subject line.
In the meantime, we need readers letters for our "Letters to the
Editor" pages - send them to: editor@asurvivor.freeserve.co.uk. We
also welcome all comments and suggestions for improvements to the
magazine.
PREVIEW OF ISSUE 10 - Our "first" issue will introduce the team and
hopefully give you some idea of what to expect from future issues.
We'll also have plenty of news, reviews of ArtEffect and Pagestream
(and possibly an Amiga Writer Exclusive!), interviews and plenty
more!
ISSUE 10 OF AMIGA SURVIVOR - ON SALE AUGUST 10th 2000!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A N D A M I G A F U T U R E H A S E N G L I S H
24 Jun 2000
Now in english.
The german homepage from the print magazine Amiga Future now includes
a translation tool. The users can now read all our news, interviews
(every week 1-2 interviews) votes, and so on.
http://www.amigafuture.de
----------------------------------------------------------------------
M A S T H E A D F O R N E W A M I G A N S
16 Jul 2000
The magazine, "the NEW AMIGANS" will soon be announcing the winning
of their "Masthead" contest. The contest (for subscribers only) is to
find a unique "Masthead" for the magazine and the winner will be
announced at the AmiWest show in Sacramento, California on July 30. To
find out more about the magazine see our website at
http://get.to/t.n.a
Sorry, I forgot to put the initial contest announcement out through
all the channels. I've been trying to get things caught up to the
point where the magazine makes it out before the first of the month
each month.
Bill Griffin,
G&G Publishing Enterprises
Home of "the NEW AMIGANS" magazine
Ask about our new, US-based, Amiga Magazine
Or check out our website at http://get.to/t.n.a ..
----------------------------------------------------------------------
D R Y I C E I N D E V E L O P M E N T
{Information for this product is taken from its web site. You can
download "Dry Ice" from the site, but the author points out it's
really to buggy to be used at this stage. Brad}
18 July, 2000
About Dry Ice
Dry Ice is a graphical web browser for the Amiga. It is being written
especially for the Amiga, there is no bloated code ported from another
platform. The intended features of Dry Ice is to offer full HTML 4.0
support, and full scripting support of whatever is the current
scripting language.
Progress and Current Features
(as of 17 July 2000)
Extensive Feature List
----------------------
Browser features
+ URL parser (complies with URI's in the HTTP/1.1 standard), can
distinguish between an URL and a local filename without the need for
"http://" or "localhost://..." etc.
+ Automatically caches all visited pages in memory, currently there
is no way to purge the memory cache, and no limits on the memory cache
+ When the browser window is resized the page is refreshed from its
cache, this operation is very quick
+ "Back" and "Forward" menu items, the items are disabled when
appropriate
+ "Refresh" menu item, will reload the document from its source
Browser window using BOOPSI gadgets allow for a complete
font-sensitive, resizable user-interface
+ Other windows use a font-sensitive GadTools interface
+ "About" window, displays free memory, and public screen, and TCP
stack
+ Public screen settings, the user can set gadget font, screen font,
any public screen to open on, or Dry Ice's own public screen -
settings are saved automatically on exit
+ The browser window position and size is remembered on exit
+ HTML Font settings, the user can set fonts for Normal, H1-H6, Font
size 1-7
+ Multi-browser windows, achieved through re-entrant code, and a
manager process, can open new browser windows, close them, when the
last is closed the browser quits
+ Multi-threaded HTML Parser, the parser and the layouter run
separately
+ Large pages (ones that are higher than the screen height) are
stored representationally in fast ram, this eliminates eating lots of
chip ram when it came to large pages (this doesn't work yet!)
HTML Support
Text
+ Bold (B)
+ Italic (I)
+ Underlined (U)
+ Headings (H1-H6)
+ Paragraph (P)
+ Break (BR)
+ Variable (VAR)
+ Emphasis (EM)
+ Strong Emphasis (STRONG)
Formatting, font styles
+ FONT
- size, color, face
+ BASEFONT
- size, color, face
+ BODY
- bgcolor, text, link, alink, vlink
+ Horizontal Rule (HR) (this is broken)
- width, height, noshade, align
Lists
+ Unordered lists (UL)
- type
+ Ordered lists (OL)
- start, type
+ List item (LI) (this is broken)
- value
+ Definition lists (DL) (these 3 are very broken)
+ Definition Title (DT)
+ Definition Data (DD)
Images + IMG (does not support any image formats - will only lay out
the space) - width, height, align
HTML Attribute Values
---------------------
+ HTML 4.0 Multilengths
+ HTML 4.0 Colors
Known Bugs
----------
+ The first time you choose "Select..." from the open file window,
Dry Ice will access location 0 and display 4 bytes in the ASL file
requester
+ Block tags usually start on a new line, Dry Ice's block tags start
on a newline and throw a newline after it's done rendering, this tends
to leave a big gap when such tags are used straight after each other,
it looks particularly bad when nesting lists
+ The list item number on ordered lists is not displayed
+ Using Color values in a text format ("red", "fuchsia", etc..) only
works _sometimes_
+ There are a thousand other bugs
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/andrewmarkwell/dryice/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
N O T E F R O M H O L G E R K R U S E
Ukiah, July 15th, 2000
Some of you may have noticed that I have been rather unresponsive to
email recently. Besides by new job at REBOL, which is keeping me busy
around 60 hours per week, sometimes on weekends, there is also a
technical reason for this:
In mid-June one of my network-grade uninterruptable power supplies
severely malfunctioned in a manner I still have not figured out, and
as a result three of my computers were damaged: my A4000T (main
development box) and two PCs, including my main Linux server which
runs DNS, email, mailing lists, registration etc. for Nordic Global.
So far the damage seems to extend "only" to the three power supplies,
one of the PC mother boards, two harddisks, and the contents of some
harddisk partitions.
The good news is: at the moment it seems that no essential data (CVS
repository of Miami(Dx) sources, email database, registration
database) was lost or damaged, but I have yet to do exhaustive
integrity checks on all data.
Over the last few weeks I have spent many nights and weekends
replacing defective equipment and swapping harddisks between
computers, testing/reconfiguring/restoring/reinstalling/backing up
many things etc., to at least keep the automated systems (DNS, email
reception, mailing lists, registration server, cgi backend of the web
site etc.) going as well as possible and prevent further damage or
loss of data. There have been some outages, but so far they have been
less than two days at a time each.
This process is still not quite finished. Some of the past changes
were only stopgap solutions, and there will be several additional,
more permanent, hardware changes and reconfigurations over the next
week or two, as the ordered replacement parts arrive and are
integrated. As in the last few weeks, most of the changes will not
affect users, except for temporary outages of my servers, for up to
two days at a time.
If you see warnings such as "could not send email for four hours" in
response to emails you sent, do not worry. I do not expect outages to
be long enough at a time for email to bounce, i.e. those warnings are
only temporary. Same thing if you get errors "connection timed out" or
"connection refused" trying to access servers: those outages are
temporary, so just try again later.
On the up side, after the changes are completed performance should
improve significantly, in particular the turnaround time for mailing
lists. As part of the changes the main Linux server for mailing lists
etc. is moving from my old now-defunct Cyrix P-150/48MB box to a
Celeron-333/64MB box.
For the time being I am afraid incoming email just keeps piling up. I
neither have the time to sort and respond to the over 800 emails that
have queued up, nor do I have enough access to my systems yet to
answer most questions, in particular questions related to
registrations or bugs/features in Miami or MiamiDx, dealer requests
etc. Most of my databases, scripts, etc. are still not operational
again yet.
I WILL respond to your emails, but it will take some time. Please...
- ... do NOT send emails repeatedly. This only gives me more work
later. I don't even get to start seeing emails again until (hopefully)
the weekend of July 22th. By then all repairs and upgrades should be
completed.
- ... do NOT send emails to REBOL. Not only did some of you get my
email address there wrong (and thus unknowingly annoyed our sysadmin
with non-REBOL-related requests), but without access to my systems I
cannot respond to those mails anyway. They only get forwarded to my
main email account and added to the normal mail queue.
- ... do NOT call me at home or at REBOL. My voice mail is already on
the verge of bursting, mostly with questions that I could not give
much information over the phone on anyway, without access to my
systems.
Thank you for your cooperation.
Holger Kruse
kruse@nordicglobal.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Amiga Update on the net:
All back issues available at:
http://www.globaldialog.com/~amigaupdate/index.html
Stop by and check out our archive!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2000 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified.
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U P D A T E /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ U P D A T E
/ \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_
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