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Amy Today Volume 10 Issue 01
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Amy Today
A text-file magazine for all Amiga lovers
Volume #10, Issue #1, April 10th, 1989
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Editor : John Rydell
Writers: John Shortle, Jack Smith and Michael Carlstrom
Address all correspondence to: "Amy Today"
C/O John Rydell
GEnie address: J.Rydell1 640 Willowglen Rd.
(#54790) Santa Barbara, CA
93105
Plink address: J*Rydell
(805)687-5643 <Voice Line>
GEnie discussion in category #2, topic #??
Plink discussion in AmigaZone Section #2
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Contents:
1. A Message From the Editor John Rydell
2. Distributing "Amy Today" John Rydell
3. Amiga Happenings John Rydell
4. Tetris John Shortle
5. Commodore's New 68020 Board Jack Smith
6. Roger Rabbit Michael Carlstrom
7. Advertiser Information John Rydell
8. Amy Today Advertising John Rydell
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A Message From The Editor:
Greetings! As you have probably noticed, I have been a couple of days late
with the issues lately. I apologize for this. Sometimes my work must come
before the magazine. Anyway, I will try harder to get the issues out on
time in the future!
I have received about 80 registrations so far. THANK YOU! But I know that
there are more than 80 people reading the magazine. Please do me the favor
of sending your registration today. Send a postcard or letter with your
name, address, type of Amiga, and where you receive Amy Today.
Also, if you run a BBS or know of a user group that distributes Amy Today,
please write to me and tell me about how many people are getting Amy Today
from you. Also, I'd love to hear from every reader individually so please
encourage everyone to send in his registration!
Mail your registration to:
I READ AMY TODAY!
640 Willowglen Rd.
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
Enjoy the issue,
John Rydell
(Editor)
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Distributing "Amy Today":
Amy Today is file-based magazine which has been copyrighted by John Rydell.
I am allowing everyone to freely distribute it as long as they give credit
to Amy Today for anything taken from the magazine. I also request that the
magazine, itself, remains "AS IS" when being distributed. Please do not
modify it in any way if you are going to distribute it.
About Distributing: Please upload Amy Today EVERYWHERE! This magazine
simply will not flourish if it is not uploaded whenever possible. Every
issue is kept near 15,000 bytes ARCed so that upload/download time should
never be a problem. So, please, if you have the chance spread the magazine
around the country! Give a copy to your friend! Keep Amy Today alive and
going strong!
A great way to spread Amy Today to non-modem users is to put the textfiles
on your monthly user group disks. Please do this. Full permission is
granted!
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Amiga Happenings:
(John Rydell)
AmNews-
It looks like I had last issue's rumor a little bit wrong. AmNews has been
late in paying some of its writers, but I don't know much more than that.
We might have seen the last issue, but we might not have.
MicroIllusions-
The commercial take-off of "GravAttack" has been postponed and will not be
ready for another two months. Its new title is "Dr. Plummet's House of
Flux." I will talk about this further in another issue.
World Of Commodore-
On May 19, 20 and 21st, the World of Commodore show will be taking place in
Los Angeles. The show should be gigantic and hopefully I will be there so
that I can get the newest information about the Amiga. "With Amazing
computers. Stunning software. Powerful peripherals. The World of
Commodore is coming to capture your imagination." (Good luck living up to
that one, guys!)
SSI-
On March 29, Strategic Simulations Inc. released a new game for the Amiga
called "Demon's Winter." Demon's Winter is a fantasy adventure with "an
immense, highly-detailed world." It retails for $39.95.
Quarterback Information:
Central Coast Software has reported that their hard drive backup program,
"Quarterback" has been pirated. Recently, it has been reported that pirate
bulletin boards around the nation have Quarterback V3.0. NO SUCH PROGRAM
WAS WRITTEN BY CENTRAL COAST SOFTWARE. It is illegal and "Central Coast
Software is intent on prosecuting the perpetrators." Central Coast Software
is currently on version 2.2 of their program and does not intent to write a
version 3.0. Please report any information you have to Central Coast
Software and please to NOT re-distribute version 3.0 of this program. No
version of Quarterback is public domain.
Amiga Happenings is a column dedicated to giving you information on what is
happening in the Amiga community. Some of the information could possibly be
wrong due to the fact that I am trying to get early information. I do not
in any way guarantee that the information will be accurate although I will
try my hardest to protect the innocent.
>>If you have some new information you would like to share please submit it
to Amy Today.
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Tetris:
(John Shortle)
<Ed's Note: We have kept this review of Tetris short because most people
have already heard of the game and know something about it.>
Available from:
Spectrum Holobyte
2061 Challenger Drive
Alameda, CA 94501
Retail: $34.95
The object of Tetris is simple enough - move and rotate the falling four-
square shapes so they fill layers of blocks below. If you complete a row,
it will disappear and your score increases. If you don't fill many rows,
the blocks accumulate at the bottom, and you find yourself having to move
quicker and quicker until eventually the blocks stack up to the top of the
screen when your game ends.
Don't let the simplicity of the game fool you. Tetris is deceptively
addicting, requiring quick hands, tremendously quick thought, and a touch of
strategy. The game also comes with several additional features, such as ten
skill levels (each with its own background picture), tournament play, game
repeat, an advanced mode, and numerous playing aides.
While not the game you whip out to show off the capabilities of your Amiga,
Tetris has the one element that many "fancy-graphics" games lack - it's fun.
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Commodore's New 68020 Board:
(Jack Smith)
<Reprinted from the March 1989 issue of the MCCC News>
Commodore Business Machines has begun shipping the first batch of the new
Amiga 2500's and I have had the pleasure and honor of using one for a few
days (courtesy of Peter Rafeiner and Intercomputing in Arlington Texas). To
begin with, the 68020 was a truly painless upgrade. I removed the 68020
board from the 2500, opened my 2000 and removed 2 screws that cover the
backplane access slot and plugged it right in to the 2000's CPU slot. Re-
assembled the case, flipped the power on and presto - instant 14 MHz 68020
power! I was worried that my C= 8088 bridge board and my hardcard would not
like having another CPU on the buss but I was pleased to find everything
worked as it had before. I didn't have to change a single thing in my
startup-sequence with the 68020 installed. My system booted normally. You
do have the option at boot time to hold down BOTH mouse buttons to bring up
a screen that lets you select one of three configurations - 68000, 68020 or
Unix with 68020. The default is 68020 Amiga DOS but it's nice to have the
option of down shifting to the 68000 for brain damaged software that can't
handle the 68020. As of this writing the UNIX option was not available and
selecting that button produced no effect.
The speed improvement was most impressive in CPU intensive operations, as
might be expected, but it seemed that almost every operation was at least
twice as fast. Those programs which directly support the 68020 and its math
co-processor can see improvements up to 400% and more. Ray tracing is
notorious for its long rendering times, but with the 68020 and Turbo Silver
Version 3 or Sculpt 4D you can cut the processing time in half! To give you
a feel for the overall speed increases you would see, try to imagine that
every program on your system was suddenly coded in pure assembly language
and now ran at least twice as fast as before.
There are a few drawbacks to installing Commodore's 68020. First note that
all 32 bit memory mounted on the 68020 board can not be accessed by the
native 68020 on the Amiga's motherboard. So booting up in standard 68000
mode will access only memory installed via the Zorro slots. Maximum memory
expansion on the Amiga with the 68020 would be 4 megs of 32 bit memory on
the 68020 card PLUS 4 megs of 16 bit memory installed in a 100 pin Zorro
slot PLUS 1 meg of chip RAM for a total of 9 megabytes. (If you are using a
PC Bridgeboard you will need to reduce the total 16 bit RAM by an additional
2 megs since that address space was reserved for the 8088 and 80286
interfaces.)
Since the Amiga 2500 is in short supply at this time I am sure it's a
seller's market and the dealers will be selling them for around $4600.00
with SCSI controller and 40 meg hard disk. For the thousands of existing
Amiga 2000 owners, I would guess the street price on the A2620 (68020 board
with 68881 math chip, MMU and 2 megs of 32 bit RAM) will cost under $1500.00
vs. Commodore's suggested retail of $1995.00.
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# AMIGA 500 & 2000 OWNERS, END THE ROM ROULETTE GAME #
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Roger Rabbit - A long review:
(Michael Carlstrom)
To start this off right, I should let you know that my own personal rating
system for entertainment software stems from a reviewer I had read way back
in 79'. His rating system was based on the value of popular entertainment...
'If the game you are playing holds your interest for a length of time equal
in value to the cost of a movie, then you have gotten your moneys worth. If
not, then you were better off going to the movies instead'. This means that
by today's average movie prices you would have to spend an enjoyable 16
hours on a $40 game.
Now, in the spotlight is 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit' by Buena Vista Software.
I must say right off, that the graphics are pretty good. Not completely what
you should expect from the Amiga, but very good for an Arcade game.
Then again, I expected better from a coalition of Sach's, Amblin and, Walt
Disney Studios for the original graphic premises. The cover states
'Featuring OUTRAGEOUS graphics and animation'. Well, now if that's what you
mean by interesting graphics coupled with an irritating program control,
then I guess they are doing the truth in advertising right. Heck, they even
throw in a cute poster so you don't feel too cheated.
Game play consists of three distinct games, featuring careening down a
street in Hollywood, zipping around the Paint & Ink club, and gagging your
way through the Gag Factory.
Let's hit the major points in all three segments... In the driving sequence
the controls are very straight forward, almost. The joystick controls motion
left to slow down, right to speed up, up & down to change lanes, the button
does a dual job. Press & hold it & Benny the Cab rides along on accordion
suspension, press quickly and release and he jumps. The only reason I can
see of having the accordion suspension is to irritate the daylights out of
you. It serves no purpose other than to make you think of a scene from the
movie. In the game, it only gets in the way of effectively getting over Dip
puddles, cars, and basically negates many a chance to gain the bonus
goodies hanging from the store fronts. Oh, how many times I have pressed
that button to catch something special only to see the suspension come up
instead and opportunity pass right by!
If you have the temerity to get through this relatively easy part of the
game, you are presented with the awesome task of running around the Paint &
Ink club trying to grab all the papers in the place. Namely the
menus/napkins/or whatever your imagination thinks is laying on the tables
therein. Seems easy except for two things, 1. there is a mean old gorilla
bouncer that will throw you, and a life, out of the club if you get too
close, and 2. two penguins racing around faster than you, dropping drinks
and papers on the tables. Take a drink and you blow up, in a nice comical
way, just like the movie. But you also lose precious time trying to beat the
penguins before the music runs out. I thought there was absolutely no way to
win this segment and got madder and madder at the thing as I went along...
but there is a way, just watch how the penguins lay the paper out the first
time. There's a pattern in it.
After the P&I you get to traverse the city streets again, with the same
sluggish joystick response, and aggravating jumping action. If you get
through this section with any lives left over you are now ready to be beaten
by the sadistic portion of 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit'
The Gag Factory, looks like it was a direct port of some IBM or MAC version,
with only slight sprucing up for the Amiga. Colors are ok here, and the
joystick response is a little better than in the street sequence, but the
big problem here is getting past the obstacles of dip & weasels. How to do
this is anyone's guess, well, that's not quite right. You do have to have
little bit of logical thinking to get through this, but you never seem to
have enough time to figure out much. The documentation states that the
faster you get through the driving sequence the more time you have in the
factory. If so, it is such a small amount, that it doesn't matter. The real
kicker is, in order to kill or get by any one weasel obstacle, it takes an
inordinate amount of time. Not to mention that the same tactics don't always
work the same on any play through, nor on any one weasel. Don't look for any
advice, or help in the manual though, as it appears to be a mass printing to
appeal to the cross-programming crowd rather than actually help out in game
play.
The biggest thing the manual does for you is give the copy-protection.
Which happily isn't disk based, for a change. This allows you to put this
game on a Hard Disk. If you don't you can expect up to 3 to 5 minutes to
load each segment. Since there are four major parts to the game you will
spend 15-20 minutes idle time just waiting for the darned thing to load
(shades of tape drives!). This waiting period has got to be the biggest
reason for me shelving the game early on.
Therefore, by my movie going scale, I should have gone to the movies.
(several times) The graphics can hold you for a while, but in the long run,
game play and the annoying bits of joy 'stick' and program load will really
get you down.
10 point scale: Playability - 4
Graphics - 9
Sound - 8
Documentation - 2
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Advertising Information:
Index Numbers:
102 - Hermes' IconLab
103 - Amy Today's Fred Fish Disk Sale
104 - Amy Today's Advertising Rates
105 - Premier Software
106 - The KSW Company
If you would like information on any of these advertisers please send a
postcard or letter with the #'s you would like to know more about to:
Amy Today Advertiser Information
640 Willowglen Rd.
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
I hope you take advantage of this new service which is being provided to Amy
Today readers and advertisers.
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Amy Today Advertising:
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throughout the land travelling from computer to computer--printed from
printer to printer!? Amy Today brings advertising to you at low, low
prices. Just think of the number of readers you will reach with your ad!
For more information on our low-cost ads call or write:
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Santa Barbara, CA 93105
(805)687-5643
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"Amy Today" is copyright 1988/89 by John Rydell. Portions of the magazine
may be reprinted but the content of this magazine may NOT be changed without
the expressed consent of John Rydell. Yet everyone is encouraged to
distribute it AS IS. Please give credit to "Amy Today" as well as to the
individual author when reprinting material. "Amy Today" as well as any of
its authors are not responsible for any damages that occur because of errors
or omissions. Articles reprinted from other newsletters, as noted, are not
property of Amy Today but are under the control of their original authors.
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Today is one of the best deals around!
