The January 15 meeting will be a little different. Initially the SIGs will split up: Emil Cobb will be showing the Mac people the art of button making. Mike Latinovich will show the Amiga people how to put a Cybergraphics card into an A3000. However, while Mike is doing his demo, John Lynn be videotaping him. John will then take the tape into a video studio he will have set up at the meeting and show how to do video production on the fly using the Amiga. The Macintosh SIG has been invited to this portion of the program, so the two SIGs will rejoin to watch John at work. Sound interesting?
We'd also like to welcome returning members John Evans, Stephen S. Clark, Marianne Armstrong, Hal Brulhart, Joanne Calhoun, Mario Dell'Oca, Dana A. Farmer, Kenton A. Groombridge, Sharon K. Hutson, Donald E. Jackson, Harlan Johnson, Robert C. Krupka, Robert L. Lemon, Calvin McAfee, Dan Morehouse, Frank T. Papaeliou, Joseph F. Piekarsk, Rick D. Schnicker, Jason M. Spencer, Jane Williams, Anthony E. Bodo, Daryl B. Brandel, Jim Carter, Brett Ferlin, Carmine W. Gallo, David Gibson, John S. Goin, Michael D. Hammer, Fletcher Haug, Juha Makinen, Stuart Maxwell, Garry Morenz, Richard Norman, Joseph M. Perkowski, Philippe Reux, Donald M. Upham, R.T. Dickinson, Terry Hover, Johannes Akhtar, John Millington, Jim Boydston, James D. Allen, Timothy A. Urbin, John Norm Smyth, Al Kozeliski, George D. Madison, and Carl Nicholls.
We welcome any kind of input or feedback from members. Have an article or review you'd like to submit? Send it in. Have a comment? Email any officer you like. Involvement is the driving force of any user group. Welcome to the best.
We rely on our members and their talents for our strength and vitality. Please renew, if you haven't already.
This version of the newsletter does have attendant benefits beyond those mentioned. It's easily stored, searched and copied. It is also delivered in a far more timely fashion.
However, if, after careful consideration, you feel you just can't live without a printed copy of the newsletter, you can have that service reinstated by emailing Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu) and asking to be put back on the postal list.
President: Jim Lewis
Vice President: Emil Cobb
Secretary: Kevin Hopkins
Treasurer: Mark Landman
Corporation Agent: Jim Lewis
Congratulations to the hard corps of CUCUG and thanks to the members voting
in the election. I would like to recognize one user group in particular: The Champaign-Urbana Computer User Group (CUCUG), the hosts of The Amiga Web Directory (http://www.cucug.org/amiga.html). Since I have been on the Net, I have had my browser open to the CUCUG "New Links" (http://www.cucug.org/aminew.html) page as my default page to find out the latest news and Amiga happenings. I am not alone! Because of this, we have expanded on the idea of the User Group Network. All new information will be released to CUCUG for immediate broadcast on the Internet and simultaneously to the UGN for dissemination among all the participating user groups.
Kevin Hisel of CUCUG and others in the group have done an outstanding job promoting the Amiga on the Internet! For this we want to see The Amiga Web Directory continue to be the place for breaking news and online information about the Amiga.
Stage Two, set for first quarter of 1998, centers around various options using the Siamese RTG System v2.5 and an Ethernet connection, an Index Information Ltd. "Access" Amiga unit, or Amiga Forever.
Stage Three, targeted for the second and third quarters of 1998, will be designed around the "Inside Out" PCI based Amiga on a card from Index Information Ltd. and the Siamese RTG v3.0 Software.
Stage Four, starting in the second quarter of 1998, will be concerned with the porting of the AmigaOS to the Alpha.
Stage Five, in quarters three and four of 1998, will be the gradual passing off to the Alpha sections of the AmigaOS that can be fairly easily handed over to speed them up: graphics, sound file handling, maths functions, etc.
Stage six, set for first and second quarter of 1999, will see the entire Amiga OS Alpha based. The HiQ system will also use the Amiga Card for software which relies on the Amiga Custom Chip set, although an ECS and AGA emulator may solve that particular problem. HiQ says that they see the Amiga chip set still being important for Amiga developers and needed for some time to come with the analog video world.
We wish them godspeed in their efforts to bring out a system that would "create the ultimate Amiga and Alpha combined Multi-OS machine", running the Amiga, Macintosh, Windows and WindowsNT operating systems. And, with Alpha speeds available at up to 767 Mhz, it will give a whole new meaning to "Powered By Amiga".
[Source: http://www.cucug.org/amiga/aminews/1998/980108-hiq.html on the Amiga Web Directory. ]
Compaq (CPQ) has pushed the price of a full-featured PC to as low as $699, as sales of low-cost PCs continue apace. With the Presario 4212ES, Compaq appears to be shattering yet another price barrier and possibly setting the stage for a new category of consumer systems priced well below $1,000.
The 4212ES comes with a 166-MHz MMX Pentium processor, a 2.1GB hard drive, a CD-ROM drive, a built-in Ethernet network connection, 16MB of memory, a 14-inch monitor, and software bundle including Microsoft Works, Microsoft Bookshelf, and Microsoft Encarta for $899. The box alone is $699; with a monitor the system sells for $899. The system also boasts MPEG video playback technology and two Universal Serial Bus (USB) connections.
HP has countered with the new Pavilion 3260. This includes a 200-MHz MMX Pentium, 32MB of memory, a 2.1GB hard disk drive, a 16X CD-ROM drive, and a 56-kbps modem for $799. This is the first 200-MHz MMX Pentium system with these features from a major vendor at this price point.
Compaq has gained market share over its rivals in the consumer retail market in large part due to the success of its lower-cost systems. In the third quarter of 1997, Compaq increased its total U.S. market share from 13.5 percent to 18.8 percent, according to International Data Corporation (IDC).
Hewlett-Packard has been less aggressive than Compaq in the consumer PC market. In the third quarter, HP, the No. 5 vendor in the U.S., went from 5 percent to 7.1 percent of total PC sales, according to IDC. By comparison, IBM (IBM), a vendor that entered the sub-$1,000 PC market late, has seen growth stagnate, while Toshiba has decided to exit the U.S. consumer market altogether because it decided it couldn't make money in a market increasingly dominated by sub-$1,000 systems.
[Source: http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,17717,00.html and http://www.news.com/News/Item/0,4,17774,00.html. What niche is Amiga shooting for? ]
CUPERTINO, California - Dec. 18, 1997 - Apple Computer, Inc. today announced it has licensed Roland Corporation's Sound Canvas sound set and GS Format extensions for inclusion in QuickTime 3.0, the latest version of the Company's award-winning, industry-standard software architecture for creating and publishing digital media for Mac OS and Windows. The new QuickTime 3.0 musical capabilities promise expanded creative control for music and multimedia content publishers and a better sounding musical experience for consumers.
The Roland sound set to be included with QuickTime 3.0 consists of 128 General MIDI-compatible instruments plus more than 100 additional sounds from a variety of instrument categories including keyboards, woodwinds, strings, brass, percussion, and sound effects.
Roland's GS Format extends the General MIDI specification by defining additional music performance controls that provide greater accuracy, consistency, and expressiveness for MIDI-based interactive audio. QuickTime's support for this popular music format will enable high-fidelity playback of existing GS-format MIDI content and will provide music publishers enhanced creative control.
Availability/Licensing: QuickTime 3.0 is expected to be available January 1998. An updated developer preview release of QT 3.0 and the new music instrument sound set are available for immediate download from the Web at http://www.quicktime.apple.com/preview/. Developers may license the current version of QuickTime for redistribution with applications, titles, and media clip libraries that support QuickTime. For additional licensing information, contact Apple Software Licensing by phone at: (512) 919-2645 or by email at: sw.license@apple.com.
Happy New Year! This is Gregg Williams at Apple, and I'm writing a short summary of the Macworld Expo Keynote session, which just let out about 20 minutes ago (Jan. 6, 1998). To make sure you get the freshest news, I'm writing this now and will write something more detailed by the end of today.
First off, there was nothing but good news (although no CEO announcement was made). Steve Jobs hosted it (along with numerous other presenters), and all the presentations were relaxed, positive, full of content, and to the point. Here are the most relevant points - the "just the facts" news - presented in chronological order:
[Source: Apple Developer News, Issue 87 Supplement 2, Jan. 6, 1998.
To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change your subscription address:
(http://survey.info.apple.com/subscribe/subscribe.html)
ADN online: (http://devworld.apple.com/)
Back issues: (http://devworld.apple.com/devnews/previousnews.html)
Comments: (adfeedback@apple.com) ]
[Source: The McHenry County Commodore Computer Club newsletter, December, 1997. MCCCC's address is 721 Roger Road, Woodstock, Illinois 60098.]
Mick's Authoring Collection
- http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/1957/clipart.html
Barry's Clip Art Server
- http://www.barrysclipart.com/search.html
Clip Art Review
- http://www.webplaces.com/html/clipart.htm
Icon Bazaar
- http://www.iconbazaar.com
Eric's Collection of Pictures
- http://cs.berkeley.edu/~eanders/pictures/
Clipart Universe
- http://www.nzwna.com/mirror/clipart
A+ Art
- http://aplusart.simplenet.com/aplusart/index.html
Holiday Art
GeoCities
- http://www.geocities.com/Hotsprings/2210/noel.html
Create Your Own Universe
- http://cyou.com/~christmas/gallery2.htm
Where Art Thou, Art?
If these sites don't have the art you need, here are some tips to help you find it:
[Source: The Agency Codebook, the Official U.S. Robotics User Group Update. Q4 1997, p.2 ]
Eudora is the Ferrari of email applications. In the hands of a casual driver, it's a fast, capable email program. But under the control of a skilled user, it's positively unbeatable. Sure, Microsoft might offer a strong competitor, Outlook Express, but that program is really targeted at inexperienced users. Once out on the open road, the power emailer will discover that Eudora outpaces Outlook Express in almost every area.
Eudora 3.0 users will find the 4.0 version very familiar. The menu structures are mostly the same, although there are a lot more icons and buttons around the edges of the windows. The two biggest changes -- both of which give Eudora features it should have had for a long time -- are the program's support of a functional, three-pane interface (folders, message headers, and message contents each have their own windows) and its ability to view HTML-formatted messages.
Power emailers need help managing an unrelenting influx of messages, and for this, Eudora has the best tools in the business. It's easy to create folders (and folders within folders) for filing email, and moving messages between folders is a simple drag-and-drop operation. More importantly, Eudora has amazing tools for automatically handling email. Its Filters can file messages, set up automatic replies, color-code messages that meet certain conditions, and more. Filters can also be triggered by subject, sender, size, domain, or anything else (provided you have time to delve into email headers to figure out the correct coding). Yet despite the power of Eudora's Filters, setting up a new one is really easy: a new Make Filter option uses the currently highlighted message to build a quick, simple filter. For example, if you regularly receive junk mail from a particular address, you can create a Delete filter in about 10 seconds to dump every email coming from that address.
The Eudora Pro family has added a new product, Comm Center. This communications suite includes the Eudora email client, as well as a trial subscription to the Jfax service, which gives you a single phone number for voice and fax messaging. All messages are forwarded to your email account, so you can read your voice mail and view your faxes in one integrated application. Comm Center also includes the ichat clients for instant messaging and real-time chat. We have yet to test Comm Center, but as soon as we can, we'll post our opinions right here.
Eudora Pro v.4.0 Estimated street price: $39 Qualcomm Inc., 619/658-1291 Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0, Internet mail account.
[Source: http://www.cnet.com/Dispatch/0%2C118%2C286%2C00.html?dd ]
[Editor's Note: For more Tricks and Tips on Eudora check out http://www.cnet.com/Content/Features/HowTo/Eudora/index.html ]
Get the download right here!
http://www.cnet.com/Resources/Swcentral/Mac/Result/TitleDetail/0%2c160%2c0-19184-g%2c00.html?dd
[Source: CNET Digital Dispatch, January 8, 1998. http://www.cnet.com/Community/Welcome/Dispatch/?dd ]
Quake, second choice amongst Amiga users responding to the ClickBoom wishlist, is currently about the most popular and well known game on any computer system, and getting a conversion for the Amiga is something of a coup. Currently, Quake only runs on the Sega Saturn, the PC and the Macintosh. Versions for the Nintendo 64 and Playstation are on again off again affairs that have been long awaited but still appear a way off. By contrast the Amiga version is already almost complete. The Amiga version of Quake has all the features of the PC version. It should be possible to use a wide range of Quake add-ons, and network access has also been promised. Indeed, we can expect to see Quake "clans" of Amiga users turning up on the Internet based multi-user Quakeworlds.
We'll have to wait and see how well the final version of Quake runs on the Amiga before we can tell you exactly how fast it will run on your system, but from what we have seen, it's going to be pretty good. Keeping in low resolution, it should be playable on an AGA machine with a 68040 or better accelerator, although clearly the better the processor the better it will run. We'll have to wait for the PowerPC version to see Quake running at its best, however. A Quake demo was shown running on a PowerPC by Haage and Partner in Cologne, and it ran at an impressive speed indeed. We have yet to have confirmation of this, but it seems likely that ClickBoom will also be supporting the Permedia 2 based Cybervision and BlizzardvisionPPC graphics add-on cards. Quake is noted for using the OpenGL 3D graphics API, which is directly supported on the phase5 cards by the CyberGL implementation of the OpenGL standard. A 68060 Amiga with a graphics card will run Quake rather nicely... a PPC Amiga with a 3D card will be something to behold. Look out for the March issue of CU Amiga Magazine for more exclusive details.
[Source: The Amiga Groups of the Metroplex Commodore Computer Club newsletter, "The AGM Connection" January, 1998. MCCC's address is P.O. Box 813, Bedford, Texas 76095.]
Hello again. As we approach the Christmas season, there doesn't seem to be any real resolutions in the stockings of the Amiga users. The show in Cologne came and went without the big news of future development we were told to expect when we didn't get news at Columbus. Phase V and Haage & Partner continue to bicker over who has the better approach to a PowerPC Amiga. Also, some statements from various notables have mentioned the possibility of a CPU choice other than PowerPC, from existing or semi-fictional options. I thought I'd go over some of the options that have been mentioned various times, and the merits and problems of each. Anyway, here we go:
Motorola 68040:
Pros:
Currently in use in Amigas
Compatibility with current Amiga OS
Potential for greater speeds than current models.
Cons:
Outdated and slow compared to CPUs in other platforms
Motorola 68060:
Pros:
Currently in use in Amigas
Compatibility with current Amiga OS
Capacity for Pentium-level performance
Cons:
Currently limited to 50 Mhz unless Motorola develops further
Expensive compared to PowerPC and Pentiums
Motorola 68080 and beyond:
(suggested by Petro Tyschtschenko and Carl Sassenrath)
Pros:
Compatible with Amiga OS and software (most likely)
Potentially equal to or better than Pentium-II performance
Cons:
Does not exist, and Motorola has no current plans
Motorola does not develop CPUs as quickly as Intel, so may be
quickly surpassed
Intel Pentium series:
(suggested by various sources)
Pros:
Inexpensive parts, due to mass PC market
Fast moving upgrade path - same reason
Possibility of more software development
Cons:
Compatibility issues - OS will have to be ported and 68K software
will most likely fail
No advantage in CPU over PCs, 'cause they're the same
Some may resent Intel CPUs in Amigas
HP PA-RISC:
Pros:
Some development already done under Commodore Hombre
project
Speed and power comparable to PowerPC and other RISC
Cons:
Not intended to be main CPU in C='s original development
Compatibility - OS must be ported and old software probably
won't work
DEC Alpha series (and other RISC chips):
Pros:
High speed in high end, fairly low cost in low end models
Used for other OSes, like Windows NT
Cons:
High end CPUs often expensive
Same compatibility problems as other CPUs
PowerPC series - Phase V approach:
Pros:
Available now
Compatibility because 68K CPU is in parallel
Performance exceeds Pentiums, in some cases by far
SAS/C - most commonly used compiler is forthcoming for PPC
Cons:
Software interface may be exclusive to Phase V hardware and
incompatible with other PowerPC solutions
Difficult to program for (according to Haage & Partner)
Hardware is expensive currently
Same complexity problem once 68K CPU is taken out of the mix
PowerPC series - Haage & Partner approach:
Pros:
Uses Phase V hardware currently - all Phase V hardware Pros
apply
H&P already have a PPC-capable C compiler - Storm C
Universal compatible SW for PPC solutions other than Phase V
(claim)
Cons:
Currently limited to running on Phase V hardware only - above
Cons apply
Difficult to program for (according to Phase V)
Almost no serious software development for either PowerPC
solution until conflict is resolved, and uncertain past that
Part of the problem with the PowerPC war is the opposing factions are
both very proud companies with strong visions of what the Amiga's future
should be. When a small conflict of vision crops up, we have a dispute with
neither side willing to back down because they know they're right, or at
least that the opposition is wrong. I wish Amiga Inc. would step in with a
resolution of sorts. I can't expect them to detail what developments will
befall the Amiga over the next five years, but we can at least have them
make a statement that buying a Phase V PPC card won't result in you going to
Hell, conflict with their plans. Perhaps at this point they can't even be
sure of that, but it would be nice to hear something to break a lot of
"wait-and-see"ers into action. I intend to take an action, though not quite what I originally planned. I wanted to buy a Phase V Cyberstorm PPC card with an '060 companion processor to accelerate my pokey 25 Mhz A4000/040. At this point, however, I have convinced myself to cut back a bit and go with a 68060-only card instead. The Phase V/H&P dispute did not prompt this decision, but it was definitely a factor. The main reason is cost. PowerPC cards (for my A4000) cost from $800 to $1100, depending on the PPC chip's speed, and you still need to get a 68040 or 68060 for it. The 68060 is an extra cost, and transplanting the 68040 from my 4000 nets me no speed increase save for the nearly nonexistent software that takes advantage of a PPC. The 68060 cards have gotten cheaper (from $600 to $800) and give me a speed boost now as well as the chip I'm gonna want when I splash out for a PPC card later. I also get time to enjoy my minor speed boost while the PPC market settles down a bit, and (hopefully) cards go down in price. True, this sounds a lot like the "wait-and see" I've spoken out against earlier, but I see it as at least a half-step. I am buying to support the Amiga market and expand my Amiga, and I'm also putting myself in a position to have a PPC in the future. If you are in a position to buy a PPC card now, there's no glaring reason not to. The hardware is not in dispute, it's the software interface, so the worst that can happen is you may have to spend a little money should your first choice be the wrong one. I wish you all luck with your hardware. Remember, if you take care of it, it will take care of you.
[Source: The Dayton Area Amiga Users Groups' "Amiga Gazette", December, 1997. The Amiga Gazette's address is P.O. Box 292684, Kettering, OH 45429-0684.]
Jeff: I talked to RJ Mical a lot and he sent me a video of the original Amiga designers. I sat up with my wife one night and watched it and it really gave me a feeling of how special the Amiga is. No-one realizes it until you get involved, and then it sucks you right into what it is.
When we sat down and watched the original guys and the passion they had and the drive that they had... it wasn't to make money, it was to do something special and make a change. It really, really made me proud to think that I could stand up here as General Manager of Amiga Inc. and address you.
So, you have the energy, and from that I get lots of emails, lots of phone calls, people come in, and it continues to bring up my spirit and make me understand what Amiga's all about.
A lot of questions I get is: Who is Jeff Schindler? I'm a common guy, and the reason I have a bit of sweat on my brow is that I've been to just about every building in this place before I found the "club". And the fact is I'm a common guy because, I was smart most of this trip, and I came here with my wife Kim who's in the back - she's turning away - (laughter) she's gonna kill me for that - and I let her do the navigating until tonight.
I said I know where the club is... Wrong... So I know that I need to listen to people, and that's one of the largest things that I've understood about Amiga, it is a community, it is about people, and they have a lot of input. And one of the reasons of the frustration of where we're at is because we want to get as much input as possible before we make our plans for the next year, the year after, and four years out.
Amiga Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Gateway 2000, and we always put that we are independent, and Gateway wants it to be that way. One of the reasons is just because Amiga is so much different from Gateway's business that we need to be independent. We are headquartered in South Dakota and we do have a vision, our vision is to become a worldwide standard technology for convergence products, technology that's recognised throughout the world.
One of the reasons that I was selected for this job is that, when I went to Gateway my previous life was in portables [eight years in Zenith's Data Systems department] and Gateway's portables were OK, so when Ted (Waitt, Gateway founder and Chief Executive Officer) asked me to do portables, I said "Well Ted I'm a little tired of doing portables. I'd rather be doing the next thing." So he asked me "What's the next thing" and I replied "I don't know". He said "Go ahead and figure out what it is".
So we did some research and came up with the invention of Destination, which is really one of the world first PCTVs to integrate consumer-like products and computing all in the one package, so you have stereo, you have digital TV and video and all that stuff works together. It was a concept, and one of the issues was: If you weren't comfortable with a PC, were you ever going to buy the product? We worked hard in the PC world, where I was from, to always try to take that PC and make it lower cost and easier to use, and every year, as you well know, they come out and they're more expensive - well, in some cases - and they're always more complex. So, if we're really going to be a standard worldwide we need to achieve those goals.
Some more of my background: My first computer was a Commodore Vic 20. I was all excited, I was in college in electrical engineering, and we were married and we were out of money, as many college students are, and I went to work for a company. Actually, my salary was paid for by Commodore, Atari, Texas Instruments, all the companies that were in the home computer business back then. What I would do was go around the different retail places and train them on new products and help them to understand how to sell computer products... I remember bringing home my Vic 20 and started programming straight away, and in about four hours I ran out of memory.... I went from that to the 64 and so on and so on. So it was really cool to come back to the original stuff with my PC background and that...
Basically, we are the research and development company and that's what we're going to concentrate on. So we're really, really concentrating on: What is the future? And that's another reason why it's taking longer. I don't want to come out with something in six months and then another in a year and find out, "Oh Shoot, we should've really walked down this path and now we're going to have to change everything" in two years. We want to make sure that everything that's been created so far, the legacy and everything that's behind it, can be carried forward and at the same time we can be at or above the industry standards in technology and state of the art. And that's not an easy thing to do, especially with technology moving so fast, so we're spending a lot of time working with a lot of companies, looking at a lot of technologies and saying "Does this fit, and how does it fit, and when does it fit?"
The other thing we need to do, as I said before, is really leverage people like yourself, and understand what you're seeing out there, what you want to develop to, what do you think the market's going to do. That is the key.
One of the great things is, we feel like we're a startup company, but we've got this huge backing even before we start, and this huge following. Most other companies don't have that.
Basically, you're not going to buy a computer unless it has content. You're not going to buy a big video editing machine unless it has software and content. That is key. And, if we don't sign up more and more software partners, we're not going to survive.
The other thing is, we'll work hand in hand with Petro to take the future technology, and help to licence that, and work that through to the actual OEMs. Our business is to be in the future of Amiga's technology.
We're not really in the product business, I want to make that clear right now. What we're doing is we're trying to move the technology forward and come up with a core architecture so that OEMs and whoever would like to take the core Amiga architecture could take that and build whatever product they want. That's what we're in the business for.
So, another thing that's going to be tough for us is to try to control, at the core level, compatibility, both with what's being developed with software content and with what's being developed in the hardware area, so that when you see that Boing Ball on a piece of software, or on a box or on a computer, or whatever you come up with, you know that that works with that. And that's our goal.
So the first we do is do research. We try to understand the current technology with its strengths and weaknesses. Where we're at with that, again, more research and feedback from yourselves and the rest of the world. Understanding the market trends, and the end users, and how their lives are changing and what they'd like to do next. That's critical.
Understanding industry standards. If we come out with something neat and everyone else is using something different for their video and coding and decoding, that doesn't make a lot of sense. So, we want to make sure that we understand those things. Then, we want to understand technology.
Basically, the way I do product planning is: you understand the market trends, what people are doing and where they are going, you understand the technology that's happening and advancing, and the intersection is when you come up with a great product or a core technology. That's a pretty simple approach, but that seems to work. If you have a technology that's before what people want, it doesn't make sense. If you have a market and the technology's old...
[Efficiency and Reliability:] Right now it's very compact, the OS and the hardware architecture. It's efficient and it's reliable. If you look at some of the alternatives, especially in the business I was in before, we know a lot about reliability. If you go to print something at the same time you're opening something else up and you've got two or three other applications going, there's a good chance the other side of the fence that I was on before will crash. That's one of the things that we have and they've been trying to do forever, and the more they make things complex the harder it is for them to do that.
Multitasking: I'm amazed. We had NewTek in, and we had the video editor up there, and it's doing all kinds of wonderful things that they're using for TV ads and movies. And Joe Torres is sitting there and he says "Watch this." And he's running a million things at the same time and there's no slowing down of the Amiga. It was amazing. We like to bring that down when everyone wants to see what the Amiga is and its like.
Auto configuration: I remember when the PC world came out with Plug'N'Play and we called it Plug'N'Pray. They are still trying to figure out what that is. In fact, there's a lot of things they did that were auto this and auto that, but you'll find in the newer versions they took them out.
Video and graphics: It is absolutely incredible to see what some of these machines can do with 2 megabytes or four megabytes of memory. I was just shocked to see some of this stuff. It was incredible.
[Adaptability:] Basically, you're always trying to develop a machine that costs less and has more functionality. I think that the Amiga has the base to be one of the leaders in that. You can use a TV or a monitor. The architecture can be used for very small devices and it can be used for very high-end devices, and there are very few architectures that are really like that. We want to take advantage of that.
Support: The architecture is backed by so many people.
Technology: It was way ahead of its time, but the technology is at least four years old, and that's something that we need to recognize, in a lot of areas, and get it moving forward. The user interface is again that old, and if we're going to bring it into people's households, or use it in a kiosk, or whatever, these things have to be as easy as point and click. We can support several user interfaces: a sophisticated user interface for the enthusiasts, but we also have to have something for those who say "I'm never getting a computer in my house." We need to show them something to try, and they look at it and they say "Well, that's an Amiga, what does it do?" So we say "Would you like to go on the net?" and click, they're on the net, or "Would you like to play a game?" and click, they're playing a game.
Applications: Since Commodore has gone bankrupt, we all know that there's been less and less developers, and that makes sense because people are looking for volume. So we've got to get the products out there. We've got to get the technology moving forward so we'll start to see more developers, anywhere from single developers to very large companies, supporting the Amiga.
Motorola's lack of moving the 68000 family forward: We're talking with Motorola and we're trying to understand what we need to do there, with either that family, or the next family, or something else, to make sure that we're up to speed there.
Lack of state of the art hardware: All of the chips are made with technology that was processed four or five years ago. Those things can be done in a much cheaper way today, and much more efficient. There's a lot of features we need to add.
Lack of industry attention, just because there hasn't been a lot going on. So, one of the other goals is to make sure that Amiga is recognised in the consumer and in the commercial market as one of the leading technologies. It's interesting about Amiga, you either know everything about it or you know nothing about it. So we've got to get those people who know nothing about it to say "Hey, I've seen that Boing Ball..."
Part of the research is going back to some of the originators, understanding what they think should go next, see what their recommendations are. All these people we have listed here: Carl [Sassenrath], RJ [Mical], Dale [Luck], Ed [Hepler] are all working with us, they're all there as consultants, advisors, they may even do work for us, but at this point it's great because just about everybody has said: Whatever you need, I'll be there for you.
The ICOA has been very active in trying to be the in-between between what we're doing and understanding what's going on in the development field and filtering back and forth things. At this point this isn't official, but this is the proposal.
Basically, you can see that we have proposed a steering committee and right now what's being proposed is: someone from the users groups, two people representing software developers, a person representing the public domain and shareware field, and then someone from Amiga Inc. actually sitting on a steering committee. Then there's working groups and a membership committee that would basically all work together. The actual developers, large small and independent people, would all filter through there, and in some cases, some other companies we would have to work directly with...
We can't work with everybody. We want to be an efficient, small company, really dedicated to technology, and so we do need something between us to worth those issues. On your survey you have questions about this, I'd like your feedback.
[Legacy:] Most of the people were software developers, probably because the chips haven't been updated in a long time. The bulk of the people said they would like to see between 70-90% of legacy applications still supported in a new generation. There was a small group that said legacy is not important to us, and another small group that wanted 100% compatibility with legacy applications. I was very happy with that feedback. We would like to keep a large percent of the legacy and at the same time move the technology forward. That means that the legacy piece has to be very inexpensive, but we think it's important to take what we have today and not throw everything away.
Next CPU: The PowerPC was right there at the top. The Alpha was there too, but as you know, Intel has invested in Alpha and they've said they're going to support Alpha, but there's a big question about what's going to happen to Alpha now that Intel has their fingers in that. Almost everyone agrees that we should support more than one CPU, and there's no reason we can't do that. But there's a balance between when we need to release something and we can't support ten CPUs. We do need to focus on a few, but I think it does make sense to support more than one family, because we'd like to see products all the way from very low-end low-cost, all the way to the high end, and that means probably different CPUs.
Video and graphics: Re-targetable graphics, the majority thinks it very important that we support different graphics formats, and I agree. 3D, genlocks, DVD are things we've got to support.
Communications: Yes, we've got to get a good TCP/IP stack and get a nice Internet interface and networking and the serial ports have to be up there. PCI is, I think, very critical. There's pretty much a good standard and an awful lot of boards out there that support it. I want to say that this is input back from the developers, this doesn't guarantee that we're going to do it, but this is what we're going to take as input for the important things to work on. We don't say when, or how, but this is the feedback. Zorro slots are in there and OEM boards may or may not have them, but it makes sense to use an existing standard. Memory protection comes up a lot, and we have to understand how that effects the use of legacy applications. We will compile that, along with what we get here today, and take that as one of the large inputs to the research that we want to do for our plans and when we can out some of those features in.
Computers too complex and intimidating: If something comes out that lets me do my simple tasks, that I can understand, and it doesn't cost a lot of money, I'm gonna do it, and I think the Amiga has a lot to say about that. We're positioned pretty well to have products that can do those things.
Internet: Basically, the Internet's about people having the freedom to express themselves, being able to communicate and get information on the spot. There's a lot of talk about "push" technology on the Internet, but it's really "pull", where users can say I want the weather every morning or I want my stock quote, those things are going to start showing up and those services are going to be available and that's another huge thing that's going to drive this market.
Digital entertainment: Games are becoming more real, and the more real-life they become, the more people need these products, because they see it and they're like "Wow I've gotta have that", and that will help drive this market.
Education: The education market is absolutely essential right now. Every student needs a computer. That'll help drive the market as well.
It's critical that we follow the industry standards. If we do our own thing, it's OK, but we also have to support the industry standards. MPEG2 video, USB, 1394... Digital broadcasts, instead of being NTSC or PAL, moving more to digital, and when that happens, again, people that have a box on the other end, it's a digital set like a receiver, it's got a processor in it, it's got memory, it's got some type of operating system, so why can't I use it as a computer? That makes a lot of sense for us to look at those kinds of things, and the Amiga's got a really good operating system to do that, because it's low-cost, efficient, and the video graphics are amazing.
Video-conferencing: I don't know how fast that'll take off, but I think when things become very simple and people can touch a screen, a lot of people would like to do that.
These are some of the projects, all the way from a consumer Internet appliance to an all-in-one TV, VCR, computer. Another idea is something for kids. I've seen some new kids computers that have small LCDs.
System: We want to have releases out on at least a yearly basis, if not more.
Graphics: This is an area where the Amiga was way ahead of its time, but the industry has caught up and is starting to move past. But when we met with Newtek, they told us that, when they actually do non-linear editing, the Amiga is still today better than things like Silicon Graphics.
Communications: We need to make it easier with the architecture to support some of these new standards, so that we don't have to have all these external boxes and different expansion busses and other expensive solutions to support some of these things.
[Hiring:] To have the best technology you need the best people. We've got to recruit worldwide, and that means that we're probably not going to have everyone in the same location. We'd like to get as many people in the same place (when we figure out where that is, if it's Sioux City, great, if it's not, somewhere). We need to hire the right people. We will have contractors, but we will have a good team in the headquarters.
We are developing a three-year roadmap. We don't want to hurry up and get the next rev out and find out it's not a stepping-stone for the future. We want to make sure that wherever it leads makes sense for the two years down the road, so we're developing more like a three-and-a-half year map. That doesn't mean that everything has to be set in stone, or we'd never start, because technology always changes, but we want to feel very good about our choices before we jump right in.
Operating system upgrades and releases: To be able to plan when it makes sense for an upgrade and when it makes sense for a whole new generation to come out, that really has some new architecture and some new features.
GUI: Because of all the different product categories, they're going to need different interfaces, so we need an architecture that supports all kinds of user interfaces.
System development kits: We need to know what you need in these kits. Part of the kit needs to be a good compliance test, because if there's ten thousand developers and we've got all these software products and hardware products, Amiga Inc's going to be overloaded with testing all these things, so we need a compliance test that you're going to test, and you'll send that in and say here, we've submitted it, it works, and we'll audit that and make sure that we have a compatibility, because, remember, we've got all these software pieces, we've got all these hardware pieces, and we've gotta make sure that the Boing Ball here works with the Boing Ball there.
You're waiting for 3.5. This is a sort of a highlight, we haven't defined it completely. We would like to utilize what's been done in a lot of cases. There's no need to rewrite things if people like yourself have written new printer drivers and different things for the Internet.
If you're interested in contributing, or you want us to investigate something, send us an email and we can get to work on those things.
Jeff Schindler (schinjef@amiga.de) General Manager
Joe Torre (joe.torre@amiga.de) Senior Engineer
Darreck Lisle (darreck@amiga.de) Event Coordinator
There's an awful lot of work that's been done, for instance in the
Internet browser, for example, there's four or five of those things out
there and it's going to be very difficult for us to choose which one we're
going to put into the operating system. Maybe we'll put pieces of two, I'm
not sure, but I just want to apologize in advance, because we're not going
to be able to put everything in there. Things like better Internet support,
printer support, user interface, higher capacity drives, bug fixes. If you
have something that's been a problem for a long time, we want to hear that.
Hopefully there'll be a lot more things in 3.5. These are just some of the
things I've got listed.We are also trying to make sure that this release will be a software-only release. Until we actually define it and get it rolling, I don't want to commit to a certain month. We're not going to sell vaporware. We're not going to be in the business of announcing something and knowing in the backroom that there's not one bit of code written for it and we haven't decided what we're going to do with it. We want to announce things when we know we have it and are ready to release it.
There will basically be two categories of system development kits. If somebody wants to do a complete product, we would have a kit for that, where we would define what the core architecture would be and say these things have to be in there and, if they're not, it's not going to be compatible with the software out there. But we don't want to confine it so much that you can't build the product you want.
We will be doing hardware reference designs. In other words, here's a prototype of a product that we think makes a lot of sense, here's the application, whatever it takes to come up with neat solutions.
And a lot more tools for the operating system, that's one of the things that may slow down the upgrade releases is that we're going to have the right tools.
Then another set of kits for the application content industry and basically it's similar to the overall OEM products.
Don't quit. We really think that's one of the strengths of our success, being able to listen to you. Remember, you're our customer, you're the ones that are going to be the virtual team that's going to make this happen.
Petro: I'm quite sure that there's no questions.
Question on graphics standards:
Jeff: It's a priority and we'll see what we can do for the 3.5 release. The
major release after that will be able to support several graphics standards
and have the application choose which graphics it would like to use. We'll
pack as much as possible into 3.5, but it's gonna be a stepping stone to the
next generation and it can't take eight months to add something.
Eric (Belgique): How much do you plan to spend on advertising in the next
six or 12 months? After the speech, the impression I have is that 3.5 will
be 3.1 plus Miami, TurboPrint, NewIcons and MUI, which is not very new, I'm
sorry. (clapping)
Jeff: Those few things are just the things that, of course, we are going to
do. That's the short list. Of course we recognize that. There's a big list
of things we're looking at that we're hoping to include, but it's a question
of how long it will take to include a lot of the other things so that we can
get a release out to you.
Eric: Sony pays for Playstation advertising. Are you going to do that.
Jeff: Petro has a budget and Amiga Inc has a budget, through the end of the
year 2000. And that's been approved. And that does include millions of
dollars for advertising.
Petro: Of course, we will not tell you how much we have got to spend, but I
think it's a huge amount we can spend, and we'll do it very well.
We sold in the last two months more than a thousand units in India.
Question: With a manpower of four or five, how are you going to develop the
Amiga?
Jeff: We have four people today, but we won't have four in a couple of
months. First of all, we'll build an entire engineering staff, hardware and
software engineers... We're spending a lot of time making sure that we have
the right people in the top places because we want to build an organization
that's going to last and be successful.
We're going to develop the operating system, but that doesn't mean we're
going to do it on our own. We'll be working with hardware vendors, people
like Motorola, some of the leading guys out there that I can't mention right
now because of non-disclosure agreements. We're not going to design
everything.
It's not like the Commodore architecture where everything is done
completely in-house. We call it virtual engineering, where we specify it, we
do a lot of the design ourselves, but somebody else is better at design, and
that's the company that's leading that market. We're going to partner up
with those people..
Question Ben Vost: Darreck let slip a deal being struck with Epson and then
we couldn't find any confirmation about that. Can you tell us a bit more
about that?
Jeff: Yeah, Darreck let's a lot of stuff slip. (laughter).
Basically, the companies that we've talked to, as far as printer
companies, people maybe like Adobe, who have different formats that we want
to support, most of those companies have been very open to supporting us.
There's no official announcements because we haven't done any real deals.
Q: Would you be ready to go out and get some of the big software companies
to port major applications to Amiga?
Jeff: We haven't made any decisions at this point to fund a certain software
company to port their software over.
One of the things we can do is leverage Gateway's relationship with a lot
of companies. They're buying lots of software from these companies and we
can say, "Well, you know, you really ought to support the Amiga". (pause)
(laughter). There may be some key software that we may look into. I wouldn't
say it's out of the question.
Q: You can't tell us when the OS 3.5 will be finished, but can you tell us
when it will be started. (laughter)
Jeff: Soon. I've got a meeting with Ted Waitt when I get back, to tell him
how the conference went, and say, basically, OK we're moving here, and
here's what we're going to do. He's completely behind it. He just wants to
hear. The business plan has been approved. The money's been approved. It's
just what's your execution, what's your plan, that's what I have to put on
the table when I get back. It's a good opportunity that we have this
conference before we lay that down. And with that the hiring starts. We will
be working on the next generation in parallel with our work on the 3.5.
Jeff on Newtek: Dwight [Parscale] (CEO of NewTek) called us last week and said he'd had enough of the Amiga people calling him. He said he needs to get moving on that, so we're actually in discussions with NewTek again. (applause)
Q: Is there a possibility of Newtek building a second-generation Toaster for
world-wide distribution, not just in NTSC.
Jeff: I'm under NDA with them, so I can't actually say their plans, but I
can comment the fact that their future plans match up a lot with our future
preliminary plans, as far as where they're going with their architecture and
what we are going to do. But, as far as them supporting it worldwide, you'd
have to ask them.
Jeff: We want you all to know we're a team. That means everyone in this room!
-1997 Amiganews - Page cre par l'quipe web du journal
[Source: http://www.amiganews.com/html/actualite/J_Schindler.html ]
The December 18th meeting began with President Richard Rollins' giving the traditional introduction of the CUCUG officer corps. He then opened the floor up to the Question and Answer Session.
He was asked to explain what G3 meant and he responded that G3 refers to the "third" generation of the PowerPC processor family. First was the 601, 603, 604 group; second was the 603e and 604e architecture; now the third is the 740 and the 750 series.
The principal advantages of the G3 processors is greater speed at even lower cost. Richard commented that the speed will ratchet up again when "copper" technology is implemented.
Richard said that those with 6100 series PowerMacs will be able to upgrade to specific 604e and G3 accelerator boards for their machines by the first quarter of 1998.
When asked about the price of the new G3 boards, Richard said he had seen some offered at $1299.
The business of electing new officers was then taken up. The Election Committee was comprised of Jim Lewis, Mike Latinovich and Anderson Yau. It was reported that Anderson Yau was absent due to illness. The floor was then opened for nominations. Those previously previous nominated were presented.
Richard expressed his appreciation. He said it had been fun. He then requested that each member help support the new Board with volunteerism, programs, and the like.
The December meeting of the CUCUG executive board took place on Tuesday, January 6, 1998, at 7PM, at Kevin Hisel's house. (For anyone wishing to attend - which is encouraged, by the way -the address and phone number are both in the book). Present at the meeting were Jim Lewis, Emil Cobb, Mark Landman, Mike Latinovich, Richard Rollins, Kevin Hopkins, Jim Huls, Kevin Hisel, Dave Witt and Anderson Yau.
Jim Lewis: Newly elected President Jim Lewis began his tenure by thanking Richard Rollins for years of service. Saying "No good deed goes unpunished," Jim presented Richard with a Certificate of Achievement mounted on a nice plaque. Richard has served as President of CUCUG for seven years, holding that office seven out of the last nine. Richard humbly thanked everyone "I've leaned on over the years." He said he'd had a lot of fun. "It was a blast." But most of all, he said, he enjoyed doing those things with the other people in this group.
This gave rise to a period of group reminiscing. Richard concluded by stating, "I'm not going anywhere."
Jim explored Richard's future plans concerning the Macintosh SIG. Richard said he would still Chair that group. Also, with regards to Advancenet, Richard said he would continue doing the Mac Internet installs for them.
Turning back to his own election, Jim said with a wry shrug of the shoulders, "The election went too smoothly."
The next item of business Jim addressed was the review of the By-Laws in light of the new complexion of the group. Kevin Hisel said he would be undertaking that RSN.
Then Jim asked about the Gateway show status. Was it going to take place? Yes, it is on. Jim asked Kevin if he had made any proposals to Gateway Club. Kevin stated that Bob Scharp is now running the show himself. It will be on March 14 and 15.
There was a discussion about merchandise for the show Jim asked about getting T-shirts made. He said we need to decide on the design. He asked how we going to furnish the booth? Can we get a banner with AWD and the web address on it. There was a discussion on both of these topics. It was suggested that we contact Scott Ronchetti concerning the sign. Jim asked about getting ball caps? The consensus was not to. Buttons? Emil Cobb is our button expert. There was a discussion on getting the parts and processing the art work.
Jim concluded by saying we should move on getting hotel reservations.
Emil Cobb: Emil reported that there were 31 members at the last General meeting.
Mark Landman: Initially Mark had nothing to report. When queried, he informed us that he had paid the meeting room rent on December 19th. We were unable to get three dates on our usual third Thursday meeting night. The new alternate dates are August 21, October 16 and November 20. All these dates are on the Friday right after the third Thursday, ie. the meetings in August, October and November are one day later than they normally would be.
Kevin Hisel stated that InterNIC was having trouble with one of our checks. Mark explained what had happened with that.
Mike Latinovich: Mike remarked that he thought the elections went well. He said the cookies at the meeting were excellent. He is ready for the presentation at the upcoming meeting.
Richard Rollins: Richard said that the room situation had been discussed so he'd move on to his next topic. The Mac SIG presentation at the next meeting will be Emil Cobb showing how to make buttons. This shouldn't take too long, so the last half of the meeting will be looking at John Lynn's video production on the fly.
Rich noted to Mark that his membership check for last year, submitted in March, had just cleared the bank.
Richard reported that his installations for Advancenet were picking up again after a lull during the Christmas season.
Richard stated that MacOS 8.0.1 was supposed to be released today. Internet Explorer 4 is out. He mentioned a problem with OS8 when printing to a Stylewriter 4100-4500 series printer in the background only. It locks up the machine. A patch is coming. He also reported another random, flaky bug found in calling a drawing routine. Expect another patch soon.
Richard concluded his segment by reminding us of the offer from former President Mark Bellon to acquire Mac accelerators at a good price.
Kevin Hopkins: Kevin began by turning in membership receipts from the mail. He then reported that membership for 1997 finished at 449. For 1998, we are already at the 175 member mark. Kevin then discussed our policy for new members joining in the last three months of the year and how he has communicated that offer to those concerned.
Kevin noted that he had already given the Park District room contract to Richard Rollins and that matter was being dealt with. He then distributed the rest of the mail to those it concerned.
Kevin then stated that a Membership Chairman was needed. Far too much of his time is being dedicated to dealing with those matters than to his newsletter editor position. He brought up the issue of getting feedback from the Treasurer in order to get the database to provide him with the information he needs for check deposits, etc. He also reported that he is meeting with Kevin Hisel to get him a copy of the database in a form he can deal with on his PC. Emil Cobb volunteered to take on some of the Membership duties. Kevin will be meeting with him to get him copies of Filemaker Pro, the database, and attendant files and records.
Kevin reported that the club's Mac monitor appears to have lost its blue gun. It worked fine at the last meeting. It was taken down, taken home, set up and turned on again - being off a total of about ten minutes - and it didn't work properly. Kevin contacted President Rollins, who instructed him to buy an adapter to try another monitor, in order to check out the computer. Kevin did this (presenting the bill for the adapter) and the other monitor did work. In investigating getting the club's monitor fixed, Kevin learned that the repair cost would be prohibitively expensive. Apple's own policy on repairing the 15" monitor still under warrantee is to replace it with a refurbished monitor. Our's is no longer under warrantee and a new monitor would cost about what it would cost to repair our old one. The Board decided to start investigating the purchase of a new monitor. Dave Witt offered to have some friends of his in the service business look at the old monitor and see if it was at all repairable.
Next, Kevin reported that when attempting to install Pagestream on the club's Mac he discovered that Disk One was corrupted. The package was returned to Jim Huls in order to obtain a replacement.
A club owned version of Filemaker Pro has yet to be installed on the club's machine due to the monitor failure and the need to get a patch to bring the club's software up to the current version.
In previous discussion, the topic of looking at the club By-Laws in light of the web's influence on the club's make up had been raised, so Kevin passed on that item of his agenda.
It did, however, raise the issue of the newsletter being sent out via email. The Board instructed Kevin to switch everyone with an email address to email delivery of the newsletter. Those specifically requesting postal delivery can be accommodated, but a positive response from the member will be required.
Kevin asked Jim Lewis, as a personal favor, to contact Fabian Jimenez, President of the National Capital Amiga User's Group, with an offer of assistance in their quest to gain tax exempt status. Kevin read of their desire in that club's newsletter and since our club just recently went through that ordeal, Kevin hoped we could extend NCAUG some help in that regard. Jim said he'd be glad to.
Kevin raised the topic of the Amiga User Group Network that is hosted by amiga.org and sanctioned by Amiga International. There was quite a lot of discussion on the matter as to whether we, as an organization, should participate, what benefits (if any) would accrue to us, how "official" this structure really is, and the like. The Board decided to take a "wait and see" attitude toward this item.
Kevin's last item was to address a potential problem partially raised by Kevin Hisel during the election at the last meeting, that being a person holding two voting positions on the Board due to being elected to two offices. Various aspects of this situation and problem scenarios were explored. Appropriate checks and balances appear to be in place to warrant not addressing this in the By-Law review, so the matter was tabled.
Jim Huls: Jim reported that Apple has reported a $45 million profit for the first quarter on $1.5 billion in sales. Jim said it's a good thing, but he won't be impressed until they put several profitable quarters back to back.
Jim said the cookies at the last meeting were very good.
Jim reported that the club had received a review copy of Speed Doubler 8. He offered to Richard Rollins to test it and review it. He also commented on Soft Windows 4 which we had already received, also as a review copy.
Kevin Hopkins asked Jim if he had heard anything on how the new Apple Online Store has effected the business of such places as MacWarehouse, MacZone, etc. Kevin said he noticed a change in tone in the catalogs he has received and wondered if that was why. Jim said he hadn't heard anything specifically, but he suspected a larger impacted on those businesses has been caused but the bad economic conditions in Japan and the Far East.
There was a discussion on the Mac clone makers.
Kevin Hisel: Kevin said he'd spare us the BBS report: it was bad, real bad. :-)
He held up a calender he had received from Adobe and commented on how bad it was as a piece of advertising. He said there was no mention of their products on it anywhere.
Kevin reported that he had made minor cosmetic changes on the web site recently, most notably in the Quick Index on the left side of the pages. He also found he had violated one of his own cardinal rules "Never use a GIF to display text." He corrected those instances. He also split out the File Collection from the Aminet listing.
Kevin reported that Quake for the Amiga is coming. He has contacted ClickBoom concerning this. Myst is already out. He will have prizes for those who join the club in February and March. This topic spawned discussion and preliminary planning for our annual raffle. The date was set for the May meeting.
Dave Witt: Dave said he had nothing additional to discuss.
Anderson Yau: Anderson said he was sorry he missed the December meeting. He was quite ill, for almost a week. He, likewise, had no further club business to discuss.
Meetings are held the third Thursday of each month at 7:00 p.m. at the Bresnan Meeting Center in the Champaign Park District Headquarters (398-2550). The Center is located at 706 Kenwood, 1/2 block south of the corner of Kenwood and John Street, in west Champaign. Kenwood is the fourth north-south street off of John as you are going west, after crossing Mattis. The Center is in the northwest corner of Centennial Park, northwest of Centennial High School.
Membership dues for individuals are $20 annually; prorated to $10 at mid year.
Our monthly newsletter, the Status Register, is delivered by the postal service or email at the member's choice. All recent editions are available on our WWW site. To initiate a user group exchange, just send us your newsletter or contact our editor via email. As a matter of CUCUG policy, an exchange partner will be dropped after three months of no contact.
This newsletter was prepared with PageStream 2.22 on an Amiga 3000 25/100 and output to an HP Laserjet IIP plus. Pagestream was donated to CUCUG by Soft-Logik Publishing Corporation.
For further information, please attend the next meeting as our guest, or contact one of our officers (all at area code 217):
President: Jim Lewis 359-1342 NOSPAMlewis_j_e@yahoo.com Vice-President: Emil Cobb 398-0149 e-cobb@uiuc.edu Secretary/Editor: Kevin Hopkins 356-5026 kh2@uiuc.edu Treasurer: Mark Landman 398-2910 mlandman@earthlink.net Corporate Agent: Jim Lewis 359-1342 NOSPAMlewis_j_e@yahoo.com Advisor & Mac SIG: Richard Rollins 469-2616 Webmaster: Kevin Hisel 406-948-1999 khisel @ cucug.org Amiga SIG: John Lynn 586-3555 jlvideo@pdnt.com
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