====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || 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) ====================================================================== AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- . . . 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. ====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ A M I G A /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ A M I G A U P D A T E /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ U P D A T E / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ amigaupdate@globaldialog.com ======================================================================