News Mac Amiga CUCUG
The July 15 meeting will be one of our split SIG meetings. The Macintosh SIG will witness a demonstration of the Palm Pilot by Emil Cobb. The Amiga SIG will be discussing latest "decision" by Amiga Inc. and anything members bring in. Should be interesting.
We'd also like to welcome back returning members Don Cox, Kirk Strauser, Rinald A. Riedel.
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 one of the best.
The development community has given Linux a major endorsement and the momentum that Linux now enjoys is having a significant impact on the computer industry. There are a large number of hardware device drivers and software applications written for Linux already and this number is growing daily.
"Our strategy for implementing the new Amiga is to integrate the best technology in the industry into a new, efficient, exciting and revolutionary computer platform focused on the future" said Jim Collas, President and CEO of Amiga. "Using Linux as our OS kernel is only one component of the overall Amiga Operating Environment."
Look for more information on the choice of Linux as part of the overall Amiga Operating Environment in the Executive Update section of our web site.
Prior to starting Play, Paul Montgomery was instrumental in launching the desktop video industry. In 1986, Mr. Montgomery left his position as a product manager at industry leader Electronic Arts to join a fledgling company called NewTek. Mr. Montgomery's work catapulted NewTek from a garage startup to one of the most influential companies in video. In 1987, Mr. Montgomery and his co-workers conceived a new kind of video production tool which Mr. Montgomery dubbed the Video Toaster. The Video Toaster is now widely credited with launching the desktop video industry and resulted in a Prime Time Emmy Award for Mr. Montgomery and the Toaster team in 1992.
In 1994 Mr. Montgomery left NewTek, and later that year founded Play Incorporated with partner Mike Moore and a close-knit team of former co-workers. Together, Mr. Montgomery and Mr. Moore developed a unique corporate culture based on self-organizing teams and creatively nurturing environments. This innovative leadership has made Play one of the most successful and highly-respected companies in the high-tech industry. In the 1996 book, 'The Age of Videography', Mr. Montgomery was cited as one of the 25 most influential people in the history of video. Mr. Montgomery and Mr. Moore were named recently by Wired Magazine as two of the most influential people in the future of Hollywood.
The update, which automatically transforms the main Personal Paint 7.0 or 7.1 program file to version 7.1b, can be downloaded from Aminet, biz/cloan directory:
http://ftp.uni-paderborn.de/aminet/dirs/aminet/biz/cloan/PPaint7_Update.lha
For additional information please refer to the text included with the update, and to the Personal Paint FAQ at:
http://www.cloanto.com/amiga/classic/faq.html#PPaint
Photogenics is a graphics/art package. It allows you to create stunning images, either from scratch or by modifying existing images. It can be used for a multitude of purposes, from simple file conversion, to advanced photo manipulation and re-touching. It also offers extremely realistic and easy to use media such as pencils, chalk and watercolours to create stunning masterpieces in minutes.
Suggested Retail Price is DM 179.00. Update Price is DM 119.00 (serial number of previous version required!). US$1 = DM 1.89 given current exchange rates.
For further information check out http://www.schatztruhe.de.
Microcode say they are finalizing the details for online ordering. They will take pre-payment orders from anyone for the next 30 days at $149.95. After that, the price will be raised to $199.95. Sixty days after collecting 500 pre-payment orders, they will begin shipping. In the event that the product takes longer than 60 days from time of collecting the 500 pre-payments, purchasers can either wait for the product to be released, or receive a refund.
For further details see http://www.microcode-solutions.com/amiga/new.html .
CMGI today said it will acquire a controlling stake in Compaq Computer's Web portal business AltaVista for about $2.3 billion.
CMGI and AltaVista hope to provide Internet services to both businesses and consumers and to drive the Internet PC market by combining Compaq's consumer PC business with CMGI's network of Internet destinations and technologies.
As previously reported by CNET News.com, CMGI will acquire control of Compaq's AltaVista business and its related properties--Shopping.com and Zip2--and will integrate the AltaVista search engine into its network of 40 Internet operating companies.
Under the terms of a definitive agreement, Compaq will transfer 83 percent equity ownership in the AltaVista business to CMGI. Compaq will retain 17 percent equity ownership and hold a board seat.
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0%2C4%2C38167%2C00.html?dd.ne.txt.wr.0626
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0%2C4%2C38209%2C00.html?dd.ne.txt.wr.0626
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0%2C4%2C38291%2C00.html?dd.ne.txt.wr.0626
http://www.news.com/News/Item/0%2C4%2C38394%2C00.html?dd.ne.txt.wr.0626
Apple shares hit a six-year high today as excitement builds for Macworld, an expected consumer notebook, and next week's quarterly earnings report.
Apple Computer's shares closed at 54.50, a 9.27 percent gain over yesterday's previous 52-week high of 49.86.
Apple shares are at their highest level since 1993, when the first signs of major trouble at Apple began appearing in the form of huge quarterly losses that kept recurring like a nightmare until the company finally righted itself in 1998.
The company is now looking to post its seventh straight quarterly profit since the return of co-founder and interim chief executive Steve Jobs. Apple is expected to earn 64 cents a share for its fiscal third quarter, according to consensus analyst estimates from First Call. Expectations have been on the rise since April, when analysts polled by First Call predicted an average of 61 cents a share for the quarter.
While expectations of profits for the next earnings report--which will be released Wednesday--are contributing to the rise, other factors are pushing the stock as well.
"The general theme is that the product line is very strong," wrote BancBoston Robertson Stephens analyst Alex Mou. "It will be probably the strongest lineup ever going into next fiscal year. Also, there are two major operating system upgrades coming up." Mou raised his rating on Apple stock to "buy" from "long-term attractive."
Consumer portable up next First up is Apple's consumer portable, which will likely be shown off at the Macworld Expo trade show, running from July 21 through 23 in New York. As previously reported, the new notebook will come in a variety of colors like the iMac and contain a 10-inch screen or larger, according to industry sources. However, the notebook is not expected to be available for sale until a later, as yet unknown, date.
Later in the year, Apple is expected to come out with a new generation of the popular iMacs with larger screens, and the company may even re-enter the handheld market with its own branded Palm device, said sources.
In the near term, however, the notebook will be the main focus. The product will likely sell for between $1,200 and $1,500 and will compete against discount consumer notebooks that have already been released by major PC makers.
To keep costs down, Richard Doherty, president of Envisioneering Group, said sources close to Apple have told him that the company has been working on a "single-chip iMac," somewhat akin to the system-on-a-chip movement among "Wintel" manufacturers.
Under this strategy, Apple is working on integrating as many formerly discrete functions of the chipset onto a single piece of silicon to reduce manufacturing cost and complexity, he said. Technology for managing system memory, networking, and other input/output functions are said to be on the list of items that are being integrated. Unlike true system-on-a-chip designs, the functions aren't on the same chip as the Power PC processor.
By next year, Doherty predicts that the graphics chip could be integrated onto the same chip as all of these other functions.
Integration has its ups and downs. PC makers in the Wintel camp can already buy integrated processors or chipsets which fuse various combinations of graphics, audio functions, communication functions, and memory control into the processor or chipset. These parts cut costs, but have also been beset by product delays, performance hits, and the occasional bug.
Analysts eyeing other assets, too Apart from sales of new hardware, which are going well, Mou said sales of software should boost Apple starting in the fall. The company plans to release an upgrade to its current Macintosh operating system and by early 2000 will release an all new operating system called Mac OS X, both of which should provide a significant boost to profit margins.
"People are looking at a company that is valued as a PC hardware company, but this is really a systems company," said Mou.
The company has other software assets, such as its Sherlock search engine technology and the QuickTime multimedia software, which are not being valued properly, Mou said. Counting future earnings prospects and its other assets, Mou issued a 12-month target price for Apple stock of $75.
Lou Mazzucchelli, a Gerard Klauer Mattison & Company analyst, told Reuters that he wouldn't be surprised if Apple were to announce a stock buy-back plan when it announces its third quarter earnings.
Bloomberg contributed to this report.
Qualcomm has released a free update to its widely used Eudora Pro email
application for the Macintosh; the 3.8 MB update converts any release
version of Eudora Pro 4.x to Eudora Pro 4.2.1 (see "The Postman Rings Again"
in TidBITS-424_for a review of Eudora Pro 4.0). Version 4.2.1 is a
significant upgrade, sporting major new enhancements such as inline spell
checking, support for IMAP, speech capabilities, message preview panes, and
a vastly improved search feature. In addition, Eudora Pro 4.2.1 has a myriad
of smaller enhancements, including the capability to speak Reply-To
addresses (so you're less likely to send a private message to a mailing
list), improved handling of background sending and delivery, optional
support for animated GIFs in HTML email, and a new
A short-lived Eudora Pro 4.2 updater was replaced quickly to address a
bug relating to display of graphics in preview panes; the 4.2.1 updater
works on version 4.2 as well. Eudora Pro 4.2.1 is native for either 68K or
PowerPC systems, and requires a 68020 processor or better, System 7.1.2 or
higher, and a POP or IMAP email account. We'll examine Eudora Pro 4.2.1's
new features in depth in the near future. [GD]
http://eudora.qualcomm.com/pro_email/updaters.html
FileMaker, Inc., has withdrawn its recently released FileMaker Pro 4.1v2
update, which largely addressed ambiguities in the program's treatment of
dates using two-digit years. FileMaker claims to have identified additional
date-related issues that weren't covered by the previous 4.1v2 update and
plans to release a 4.1v3 fix. In the meantime, FileMaker recommends anyone
using FileMaker Pro 4.1v2 downgrade to FileMaker 4.1v1. [GD]
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05434
Apple has released Mac OS ROM Update 1.0, which corrects USB device
troubles on iMac, blue and white Power Macintosh G3, and bronze keyboard
PowerBook G3 Series computers. The numerically confusing Update 1.0 changes
the Mac OS ROM version 1.4 in these machines to version 1.6. On USB-equipped
Macintoshes, the update addresses problems with unresponsive devices when
the mouse is plugged into the top or left USB port and the keyboard into the
bottom or right port. Updated USB-equipped PowerBooks avoid a potential
crash when removing a USB keyboard while putting the computer to sleep, more
consistently recognize hot-swapped media bay devices, and require that the
Target Disk Mode SCSI ID is set to 2. Bronze keyboard PowerBook G3 owners
should check the current Mac OS ROM version (found on the System Profile tab
in the Apple System Profiler application), since many of the machines are
already running version 1.6. NetBoot clients running under Mac OS X Server
should also install the new version. Mac OS ROM Update 1.0 is a free 2 MB
download. [JLC]
http://asu.info.apple.com/swupdates.nsf/artnum/n11476
The user manual for 4.1.6 can be purchased for only $10.95, plus
shipping.
According to Nisus Software CEO Jerzy Lewak, "We want every Macintosh
user to freely experience this genuine Macintosh word processor which
continues to pioneer many features some of which are finally becoming
standard."
This is an older version of Nisus Writer and does not contain many of the
great features of our latest version, Nisus Writer 5.1.3. However, Nisus
Writer 4.1.6 can be upgraded to the current version, 5.1.3, for only $49.95,
plus shipping.
With its first version released in 1989, Nisus Writer is highly rated by
users and industry experts alike. Don Crabb, columnist for the Chicago
Sun-Times and ZDNet says "I've turned to Nisus Writer as my primary word
processor, and I'm encouraging my Mac users to do the same." and Mac Addict
says "For those living in a Microsoft-free zone (or attempting to), who need
a powerful word processor, Nisus Writer is a great choice." Nisus Writer has
received awards from BMUG, MacAddict and Apple Pacific. Users include Dow
Jones, The Principal Financial Group, Stanford University, The Orange County
Register, Warner Brothers, Reuben H. Donnelly, Harvard University, and the
United Nations NGO Women's Forum.
The writer's tool that starts where ordinary word processors give up,
Nisus Writer 4.1.6. handles written documents both large and small with all
the features you expect to find in Microsoft Word, WordPerfect and other
applications. But no other word processor gives you this much power and
flexibility!
Nisus Writer features include unlimited undos, noncontiguous selection,
tables, customizable multiple key keyboard menu equivalents, a powerful
text-pattern search and replace tool, complete graphics creation, and a
powerful macro language for automating repetitive tasks.
For more information on Nisus Writer, visit our web site at
http://www.nisus.com.
In response to Year 2000 issues with online banking features, Intuit has
begun offering free upgrades to the Macintosh version of Quicken Deluxe 98
on CD-ROM to owners of _any_ previous Macintosh version of Quicken, ranging
from version 7 all the way back to version 1. (Intuit is making a similar
offer to owners of Quicken for Windows or DOS.) See "Quicken 98: Evolution
at Work" in TidBITS-426_ for a review of Quicken 98; "Parsing Like It's
1999" in TidBITS-475_ discusses Y2K problems and the Mac.
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=04651
Intuit's move is surprising, particularly for a company with a history of
offering minimalist annual product upgrades, releasing and withdrawing
maintenance releases, and abandoning Macintosh products (including, briefly,
Quicken for the Macintosh). The only known Y2K issues with Quicken for the
Macintosh involve its online banking features, which have been available in
the Macintosh version only since Quicken 6. Moreover, few Macintosh Quicken
users rely on the online banking features, since less than 10 percent of the
financial institutions supporting online banking with Quicken offer such
support for Mac versions of Quicken.
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=04877
Although there are currently no known Y2K issues with any version of
Quicken aside from online banking features, Intuit is not testing older
versions of Quicken for Y2K problems, except for the online banking features
in Quicken 6 and 7. Therefore, Intuit's offer of Quicken 98 Deluxe to all
legitimate owners of previous versions of Quicken may be an effort to stave
off customer complaints, as well as to offset any legal impact of heretofore
unknown Y2K problems. It's also possible that the move was prompted by
Intuit's online banking partners, no doubt looking to limit their own Y2K
exposure.
Should you take advantage of Intuit's new policy if you already own
Quicken? First, if you own Quicken 98 and use online banking, make sure
you're using Release 5 or higher, which enables online banking functionality
beyond 05-Sep-99. (You can determine what release you're running by
selecting About Quicken from the Apple menu, then pressing R.) If you use a
previous version of Quicken but don't use online banking features, I'd look
carefully at reviews of Quicken 98 and see if the product is worthwhile.
Many Quicken customers have been underwhelmed by the number of compelling
new features in recent updates, and some have experienced trouble converting
their data to newer versions. Finally, be sure your Macintosh can run
Quicken 98 Deluxe: it requires Macintosh with a 68030 processor or better, a
CD-ROM drive, 45 MB of hard disk space, a 640 by 480 display capable of
displaying 256 colors, and at least System 7.1. If you think Quicken Deluxe
98 is for you, go to Intuit's Y2K pages for the Mac version of Quicken,
select your version, and follow the link outlining your options.
http://www.intuit.com/support/quicken/index/ndxm_8_updates.html
[Source: TidBITS #487 / 05-Jul-99. TidBITS address is
http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/default.html.]
I apologize for posting my June (now June/July) letter so late. I was
ready to post it last week, but decided to scrap it and re-write it this
past weekend for several reasons. One reason is feedback I received from the
Amiga community. To better understand the desires of the Amiga community, I
have been following many of the Amiga public forums (in addition to reading
the thousands of emails sent to me). I have posted in a few of the forums
when I felt it was important to clarify information relative to Amiga's
plans. In the "comp.sys.amiga.miscrum I posted a message requesting feedback
on our strategy and plans. The post is in the thread titled "Collas and
LeFaivre ks for talking received many good insights and suggestions in
response to my post, but while reading these responses one thing was clear:
I haven't given the Amiga community enough information to clearly understand
our plans. The community still doesn't have a clear understanding of our
product plans, and what we mean by the term "operating environment." This is
obviously not the fault of the community but mine in not communicating
enough information. This is why I decided to scrap my original letter and
address this issue.
In the past several months, I have attempted to disclose as much as
possible to the Amiga community without disclosing too much to our
competition or violating confidentiality agreements with our technology
partners. I don't think I have been effective at striking the right balance
in this regard, so I just initiated an activity to disclose more of our
plans. We are putting together a five to seven page product strategy and
technology brief that will be released to the Amiga community within the
next week. This brief will help you better understand our overall plans by
giving you more details on our new Amiga Operating Environment (OE) and
Multimedia Convergence Computer (MCC). The technology brief will also talk
about new and exciting Amiga technology. I will talk a bit more about some
of this technology later in this letter.
This brief will also disclose some of our 3rd party technology choices.
We have spent the last four months evaluating technology and defining the
next generation hardware architecture and software structure. We have now
finalized the architecture and structure. We have also finalized all of our
major technology and partner choices. A significant amount of effort and
resources went into the evaluation of 3rd party technology may be surprised
at a few of the decisions but I am confident you will agree that they are
the correct choices.
Before you read the brief you should understand that we are still not at
liberty to disclose all of the details of our plans. I don't want to
disclose too much to potential competitors and we are under confidentiality
agreements with our key technology partners. Within those boundaries we will
disclose as much as we can. The difficult part about not being able to
disclose everything is that some decisions don't seem to make sense unless
you have all of the information. We have no choice but to work around this
for now.
As background information for the technology brief I would also like to
discuss the concept of revolutionary products and our strategy for
implementing the next generation Amiga.
REVOLUTIONARY PRODUCTS:
rev-o-lu-tion-ary ("re-v&-'lu-sh&-"ner-E): adjective; 1 c: constituting or
bringing about a major or fundamental change in the way of thinking about or
visualizing something: a change of paradigm >a revolutionary new product>
The original Amiga was revolutionary because it drove a fundamental
change in computer graphics performance, capabilities, and overall value. It
allowed people to do things that couldn't be done with other systems at the
time. It moved computers a big step into the future by fundamentally
changing the way people viewed and used computers. The next generation Amiga
must do the same but in the context of the present computer industry. Faster
CPUs and faster graphics alone will not drive a revolutionary new computer
platform. They are important but not revolutionary. Revolutionary thinking
requires us to let go of past preferences and envision a future that doesn't
currently exist. It requires us to develop technology and functions that
enable this future vision. This is the spirit of revolutionary innovation.
The same spirit that drove the original Amiga development team.
The problem is that revolutionary paradigm shifts are difficult to
envision before they occur. Let me give you an example. When I was in
college, I had a job as a software developer programming video games for the
Atari 2600, Commodore64, and Apple II (This was before the first Amiga came
out). At the current time, all video games were programmed in assembly
language. This was great at the time because it gave you complete control of
the hardware. I couldn't imagine programming a game in a high-level language
such as C++ because it would be so incredible inefficient. It just seemed
like an unrealistic proposition. Well, the world changed. You can't manage
the complexity or extravagance of today's games in assembly. You need
sophisticated tools and a high-level language like C++. This was a
revolutionary paradigm shift that was hard to envision years before it
happened.
Keep this section in mind as you read the technology brief that will be
released. It is not enough to bring out an incremental product. It must be
revolutionary in order for all of us to succeed. You must think in a
different dimension to understand the revolutionary nature of the next
generation Amiga environment. The technology brief will help you understand
this future vision ok forward to getting your continuing feedback on our
directions.
PRODUCT IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGY:
Our strategy for implementing the new Amiga is to integrate the best
technology in the industry into a new, efficient, exciting, and
revolutionary computer platform focused on the future. It is important to
understand this strategy so that you can better understand some of our
decisions. The computer industry today is much different than it was when
the first Amiga was designed. The initial Amiga was designed when the
computer industry was at its infancy. The computer industry has now matured
and the dynamics have changed significantly. The industry is replete with
companies developing and supplying great technology and components. As an
example, there are many excellent companies offering sophisticated
high-performance 3D graphics chips. All of these companies have one goal in
mind: to develop and ship the best 3D graphics solution. These graphics
companies have many world-class engineers. Trust me, I know these companies
well. To think that we could design our own 3D graphics chip that was better
is not reasonable. This is why all leading computer companies (IBM, Compaq,
Gateway, Apple, et al.) now depend on 3rd party graphics companies. It was
clear to them that internal resources couldn't compete with companies
specialized in this area. This is the normal cycle of a maturing industry
and is the reason why we can't think in the past when creating a
revolutionary product for the future.
Does this mean that the Amiga won't be unique or lead in performance?
Absolutely not! Firstly, you shouldn't define performance by exclusively
using narrow benchmarks of today's industry. We need to focus on addressing
the next computer revolution rather than competing with the last one.
Secondly, an extremely efficient architecture will make the most out of
commonly used components like 3D graphics chips. We can get remarkably
impressive performance by coupling an industry leading PCI/AGP graphics chip
to the extremely efficient architecture of the new Amiga. On the CPU side we
have selected a CPU that will bring exciting new capabilities to the Amiga.
I can't disclose what instruction set it uses at this time because of
confidentiality agreements. I can tell you that it's very exciting and NOT
an x86 architecture processor. Our plan is to disclose the CPU in several
weeks at the World of Amiga and AmiWest shows. At this time I hope to
disclose all of our technology choices and partners.
In order to pull this great technology together and develop our
next-generation platform, we are also developing our own technology in key
strategic areas. This technology will allow us to make the product unique,
integrate 3rd party technology and create the final revolutionary product.
For exampleso include the description of new Amiga technology that I think
is particularly exciting. It is an object-oriented technology developed by
Amiga called the AmigaObjectTM. The AmigaObjectTM is a powerful software
structure that enables easy integration of technology, distributed
computing, high-speed network transactions, and communication between
applications. They are also powerful software building blocks that will
allow people to build impressive applications quickly. AmigaObjectsTM are
portable and transferable across platforms allowing AmigaObjectsTM to
proliferate throughout the network, the Internet and the world. Do I have
your attention yet? This is just one piece of the new Amiga operating
environment. It is this type of technology that will allow us to build a
revolutionary computer platform. We can discuss this technology because we
have now filed patent disclosures giving us some protection against
competitors. More on this in the technology brief.
IN SUMMARY:
The upcoming technology brief will be released early next week. While it
will of necessity be at a fairly high level, it will still be the most
comprehensive description to date of the new Amiga product and operating
environment. I think it will go a long way in helping you understand Amiga's
future and the new products. I am very excited about releasing this
information and getting your response. After you read it, I think you will
agree that Amiga and the Amiga community has a chance of driving the next
computer revolution.
Sincerely,
1) We have identified an office building for our operations in San Diego.We
will be moving out of the Gateway building into a separate building in order
to accommodate the expansion in Amiga's staff.
New Management Staff:
1) We hired Dave Curtis as director of object technology and transaction
services. Dave will be responsible for developing our transactional object
technology. Dave was one of the original architects of CORBA and has worked
for Inprise (Borland), the Object Management Group (OMG), and other
organizations focused on object oriented technology. Dave's expertise will
help us implement transactional object technology in the Amiga Operating
Environment.
2) We hired Dr. Jim Miller as director of user experience. Jim will be
responsible for all user interface design and software development. Jim has
worked in the human interaction groups of both Hewlett Packard and Apple
Computers. Jim is highly respected and well known in the national and
international user interaction (UI) community.
Major Development Programs:
1) O/S 3.5 - The target final release is August 21st at the Amiga Downunder
show in Australia. We are talking to Amiga hardware development companies to
qualify hardware products targeted at the O/S 3.5 release. We plan to come
out with a recommended hardware configuration and list of qualified Amiga
hardware products for the O/S 3.5 release.
2) AmigaSoftTM Operating Environment (OE) - We are developing our next
generation operating environment including operating system, user interface,
and some revolutionary software structures to be disclosed at a later date.
Target beta version is late 3Q99 with final in late 4Q99. We are also
looking at the possibility of porting this new AmigaSoftTM OE to the O/S 3.5
recommended hardware configurations. If we can accomplish this it will allow
people to run the new OE on specific Amiga configurations with PowerPC
boards.
3) AmigaSoftTM development system - This is planned in late 3Q99 along with
the beta release of the new AmigaSoftTM Operating Environment.
4) Amiga Multimedia Convergence Computer (MCC) - We have finalized our
industrial design and created foam models. - The next mechanical design step
is hard models. These will be available for WoA and AmiWest. - We have
initiated final schematics of the system board design.
Shows and Community Activities:
1) We held a telephone conference with the Amiga press to bring them up to
speed on our plans.
2) We received all of the nominations for Amiga Advisory Council (AAC)
members. We will be notifying the top nominated members for approval in the
next week. First AAC conference call should occur within two weeks.
3) We initiated multiple Amiga hosted forums accessible though our Amiga
website.
4) We will sponsor and participate in the 1999 London World of Amiga show in
late July.
5) We are also planning to support the AmiWest show in late July.
6) We are planning for the Cologne and Las Vegas shows in November.
Last November at Computer 98 in Cologne I promised to deliver an advanced
operating system that would once again put Amigans at the forefront of
technology. Over the past 7 months we have had a team of over 40 engineers
working towards making that promise and vision a reality. We are now in the
final stages of development and are poised to put these new technologies
into the hands of thousands of serious, enthusiastic developers like
yourself.
QNX is often compared to UNIX, LINUX and BSD. We do share the same POSIX
APIs, and most code written for these systems ports easily to QNX, but the
resemblance ends there. Based on 20 years of OS experience, QNX has a
radically more advanced architecture. It's a massively scalable,
multi-threaded, fault-tolerant, realtime OS designed for devices and
computers of any type or size. QNX provides a unique network architecture
where large full-service protocol stacks aren't required on each computer
and devices plugged into the network are simply "discovered" automatically
by other devices - all services and peripherals of the new device can then
be used by any other device in the network. QNX is also the only self-hosted
RTOS where the development environment and the runtime target environment
are the same. And though we're not open source, we adopt an "open source"
policy for hardware-specific drivers. This allows us to continually support
the latest hardware advances, while still maintaining control of core
technology. More importantly, it ensures QNX has a focused vision for the
future.
If you haven't visited our web site before, I invite you to look at the
QNX Realtime OS and Photon microGUI. If you'd like to dig a little deeper,
we've included some screen shots of the exciting new look-and-feel for
Photon below (click on the image to expand). We've also put the new QNX
Neutrino System Architecture manual online.
In a nutshell, QNX is the core and Photon the graphical environment for
our new OS foundation:
QNX - Supports POSIX thread services, MMU protected memory for all
applications and drivers, variety of file systems (QNX, flash, DOS,
CD/DVD-ROM, etc.), TCP/IP stack, transparent distributed networking, and
development libraries.
Photon microGUI - Complete windowing system with full Unicode support for
integrated internationalization. Also includes visual application builder
(PhABTM), powerful development environment (layered libraries, over 50
widgets, built-in image support, online documentation, etc.), web browser,
multimedia player, 3D graphics, and gaming support.
Although Photon represents a unique new graphical environment, it works
seamlessly with existing windowing systems. You can, for example, connect to
a Photon desktop from a Windows desktop or connect to a Windows desktop from
a Photon desktop. And because a large number of existing source bases use
the X Window System, we allow developers to compile an application for X and
then run the application under Photon.
QNX Developers Network for Amigans
To deliver this technology to Amiga developers, we're creating the QNX
Developers Network for Amigans. Qualified Amiga developers will receive, at
no charge, a complete beta development package that includes the QNX
Realtime OS, a suite of state-of-the-art multimedia technologies, the unique
network-distributed Photon microGUI, and a self-hosted development
environment. We will also create a dedicated online newsgroup, as well as a
web site to provide technology updates and previews.
Initially, we're looking for beta sites interested in porting existing
applications or writing new applications. Companies and individual
developers are both invited to join - the only thing we ask is commitment.
We want active beta testers, not tire kickers, who will promise to provide
valuable feedback.
Of course, commitment goes both ways. So in addition to starting this
program, we will, as of now, become active and vocal in all the appropriate
newsgroups and magazines. We're looking forward to being a fully active
member of the Amiga community, and to working closely with Amigans to create
the next revolution in multimedia computing.
Initial Release
Our initial beta release will be for x86 PCs. While this hardware
platform may, at first, seem undesirable to some of you, remember that most
QNX applications and device drivers are source-identical across CPUs and
boards. As a result, any work done on x86 will migrate easily to any other
supported platform. We chose x86 because it's the hardware solution most
widely available at low cost in the time frame that we wish to release the
first beta - this Fall.
Are You Interested?
If you're interested in joining the QNX Developers Network for Amigans,
please click here to fill out the application form. If you have any
questions, email us at amiga@qnx.com.
If your company already has an application you wish to port, you're also
invited to contact the Department of Strategic Alliances at QNX Software
Systems. Email: amiga-ports@qnx.com Tel: +1 613 591-0931.
I am not very happy with the QNX announcement. This announcement was
neither reviewed nor approved by Amiga. Several weeks ago we made a decision
to use the Linux OS kernel instead of QNX. We were planning to communicate
this decision to the Amiga community in the technology brief to be released
in the next few days. I know this is a shock to many people given the
previous announcements and activities relative to QNX. I apologize for the
way this is being communicated but I have been put in an awkward position.
The formal announcement will be on the Amiga web site within 12 hours.
Please read this for more information.
After months of research and in-depth discussions with our technology
partners we decided to use Linux as our OS kernel for the new Amiga
Operating Environment (OE). This was a very complicated and difficult
decision to make and I assure you that I didn't make the decision without a
significant amount of research and deliberation. We have been researching
Linux as an alternative for several months now but a final decision wasn't
made until a few weeks ago. Once you understand the reason for the decision,
I think that you will agree that it is a good decision.
Linux has picked up a significant amount of momentum in the last year as
an viable alternative OS. In talking to the key component suppliers it was
clear that they were all putting resources on supporting Linux. It was
difficult to convince them to support yet another OS kernel. Using the Linux
kernel allows us to leverage a significant amount of software from the Linux
community.
Given the momentum, we decided to do an in-depth technical analysis of
Linux. As we ported parts of our higher level OE and AmigaObject
architecture to Linux for testing, we discovered some significant
performance advantages in the Linux kernel in areas such as distributed
object messaging across a network (up to 10X the performance of Windows NT).
This is a strategic performance advantage for our new environment. Although
Linux configurations can be very large, the core Linux kernel and services
are actually quite small and efficient. We have also identified hardware
components that are being optimized for Linux. I am convinced that we can
build an incredibly impressive next generation Amiga based on the Linux OS
kernel.
We are integrating a significnant amount of technology to make the Amiga
unique yet we will still be able to leverage drivers and also some
applications. In many ways, it's the best of both worlds.
Our soon to be released technology brief will further explain our
architecture and plans for integrating all of the selected technology. Once
you read it I am confident that you will understand the revolutionary nature
of the next Amiga and the reason why we have a great opportunity to drive
the next computer revolution.
As for QNX, I can assume that they aren't happy that they didn't get the
Amiga opportunity and they decided to confuse the issue. Regardless of what
QNX announces, the Linux OS is much more mature and supported. It's
unfortunate and I apologize again for how this got communicated.
I look forward to getting feedback on our technology brief. I also look
forward to sharing more of our plans at WoA and AmiWest and seeing some of
you there in person.
After months of research and in-depth discussions with all of our
technology partners we have decided to use Linux as the primary OS kernel
for the new Amiga Operating Environment (OE). I know this decision is a
shock to many of you given the previous announcements and activities
relative to QNX. This was a very complicated and difficult decision to make
and I assure you that I didn't make this decision without a significant
amount of research and deliberation. We have been researching Linux since
February but didn't finalized our decision until several weeks ago. We were
planning to communicate it to the Amiga community in the technology brief
that will be released in the next few days.
I am pressed to communicate the Linux decision before the technology
brief because of information released by QNX in the last few days. This
information had not been reviewed or approved for release by Amiga. In light
of our Linux decision, this information is confusing and misleading so I
would like to take the time to clarify the situation. I can't disclose any
details of the Amiga/QNX discussions because of legally binding
confidentiality agreements but I can talk to you about our decision to use
the Linux kernel. I think that you will agree that this is the right
decision once you understand the reasons for this decision.
Before I continue, I should mention that our technology decision does not
reflect negatively on QNX. I believe that QNX is a good company with great
technology. I just believe that Linux gives us a better chance of executing
our plans successfully.
The decision to use QNX as our OS partner on our next generation
multimedia convergence computer (MCC) was made late last year. When I took
over as president of Amiga in February of this year, I initiated an in-depth
review of existing Amiga plans and decisions. As president of Amiga I had to
make sure that we were defining a strategy and an execution plan that would
allow Amiga and the Amiga community to be successful. We reviewed our
strategy, architecture decisions, technology partners, and execution plans.
During this review period we also added a number of very talented and
experienced people to help us finalize our technology and product decisions.
I am confident that we now have a solid and exciting plan that people can
have confidence in.
Linux has been picking up substantial momentum over the past year as a
viable, open OS alternative in the marketplace. This momentum, the growing
commitment to Linux applications from a wide variety of software vendors,
and the growing availability of Linux device drivers from hardware vendors,
makes it a compelling candidate. Additionally, with all of the significant
component suppliers putting resources on writing drivers for Linux it was
difficult to get them to port to yet another operating system. Using the
Linux OS as a foundation for our Amiga OE allows us to leverage a
significant amount of available software drivers and utilities. This allows
us to quickly support multiple graphics cards and other peripherals.
Given the above-mentioned advantages, we decided to do an in-depth
technical analysis of Linux to determine if it was a suitable OS kernel for
our new Amiga operating environment (OE). As we ported parts of our higher
level operating environment and AmigaObjectTM architecture to Linux, we
discovered some significant performance advantages in the Linux kernel in
areas such as distributed object messaging across a network (up to 10X the
performance of Windows NT). Although Linux configurations can be very large
in size, the core pieces of the Linux kernel are actually very small and
efficient. In considering hardware requirements we also found companies
working on hardware components that were optimized for the Linux kernel.
Additionally, Linux is probably the most stable operating system available
in the market. After months of in-depth research we were confident that we
could build an extremely exciting next generation Amiga based on the Linux
OS kernel.
Does this mean that the next generation Amiga will not be unique?
Absolutely not! Remember that the OS kernel is only one component of the new
Amiga OE and the hardware is unique. The revolutionary nature of the Amiga
OE is in the way it extends the traditional operating system to provide a
host environment for a new class of portable applications ications that
exist in a pervasive networked computing environment. We will be integrating
multiple technologies including an efficient windowing environment and a
unique user interface.
In summary, we decided to use Linux because of the incredible momentum
and the fact that it is solid technology and a good foundation for our new
Amiga OE. Additionally, the Linux community is an impressive force that we
should be aligned with. We share many common values and objectives with the
Linux community. Using Linux as our OS kernel allows us to build a unique
and revolutionary operating environment while leveraging the enormous
momentum of Linux.
The soon to be released technology brief will further explain our
architecture and plans for integrating all of the selected technology. Once
you read it, I am confident that you will understand the revolutionary
nature of the next generation Amiga. I assure you that Amiga and the Amiga
community will be a driving force behind the next computer revolution.
Sincerely,
It is clear today from Jim's letter that we were not chosen for the next
generation Amiga. Naturally we're disappointed. So, where do we stand now?
It is not our intent to confuse the Amiga community. We are proud of what we
have accomplished and want to include Amigans in what we've achieved. I did
make a promise to deliver an operating system and I intend on keeping that
promise. I don't want to split the community, nor do I wish to engage in a
war of words. I don't ask you to "trust" me or to take me at my word. Both
QNX and Amiga have promised to deliver technology into your hands in the
very near future. I ask only that your assessment of QNX be based on what we
do and what we deliver.
Thanks for the overwhelming support we have received so far.
Dan Dodge
I have read many of the comments from the Amiga community regarding our
Linux decision. The key observation I would make about the feedback I have
received is that people don't have a good understanding of our plans for the
next generation Amiga. This is my fault and we are working to rectify this
with the upcoming technology brief. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do not to judge
the Linux decision until you have a chance to read the technology brief.
The foundation OS is just one component of our new operating environment.
In addition to the OS, there are many components of hardware and software
technology being integrated into the final product. The underlying OS is not
what makes the next generation Amiga revolutionary. You will more clearly
understand this once we have released the "technical brief" in the next few
days. Whether we use QNX or Linux, the new Amiga will be exciting, elegant,
easy to use, incredibly efficient and yes, truly revolutionary!
I should mention that I was adamantly against Linux when it was first
suggested in March. It took several months of intense research to convince
me that it was the right decision. I can assure you that the decision was
not made without a significant amount of deliberation. I would not have made
the Linux decision if I didn't believe it offers us a better overall
solution while significantly increasing our probability of success. Please
read this letter in detail to get a better understanding of the factors that
drove this decision.
I would like to further explain the Linux decision starting with the
concept of revolutionary:
rev-o-lu-tion-ary ("re-v&-'lu-sh&-"ner-E): adjective; 1 c: constituting or
bringing about a major or fundamental change in the way of thinking about or
visualizing something: a change of paradigm <a revolutionary new product>
The key driving objective of our plans is to come out with a truly
revolutionary product that can drive the next computer revolution. By
definition, revolutionary ideas are not easy to visualize and are difficult
to communicate. The upcoming technology brief will help you understand why
the next generation Amiga is revolutionary. You need to keep an open mind
because revolutionary products ALWAYS challenge the norm and most people
think in terms of the norm. Once you understand what makes the next
generation Amiga unique and revolutionary you will understand why picking
Linux over QNX isn't a critical technology decision.
Our design philosophy was to find a good solution for the traditional
pieces of the OS and build our revolutionary elements on top of this. It's
that simple. QNX is a good technical solution for the OS components but
poses a significant market and industry challenge. Linux is sucking up the
mind share and resources of most of the major component manufacturers and
technology suppliers. I simply don't believe we can gain enough momentum
without tapping into the Linux momentum. Linux will give us continuous
access to new technology and components as they are released. With QNX we
could get out a new platform but I don't believe we would keep up with the
rapid technology changes in the computer industry. At Gateway, I was one of
the leading product executives in this industry and I have in-depth
experience in this area. IT WAS MY ASSESSMENT THAT WE WOULD FAIL ON THIS
PATH. Please take note of this statement. How could I NOT make the Linux
decision if I truly believe this? How could we continue on a path that I
think will have us fail? Who will benefit if we fail?
Let's also talk about the Linux technology itself. Some people view Linux
as a stable but large and inefficient OS. I had this concern also when Linux
was first suggested so we spent a significant amount of time understanding
Linux, its strengths and weaknesses. We have even discussed our Linux
evaluation in-depth with Linus Torvalds to better understand the pros and
cons. Linux is evolving at a very rapid pace and I was satisfied that it
could comfortably meet our technology requirements. Part of the reason Linux
is large and inefficient is because there are so many options and different
configurations. Amiga will define a clean and efficient Linux configuration
as a standard part of our operating environment.
An additional advantage of Linux is the fact that there are companies
working on hardware components optimized for the Linux kernel. This will
allow us to gain efficiencies and increased performance on the MCC through
tight integration of hardware and software components. The MCC hardware will
be highly optimized for both the Linux kernel and Java. In addition to the
unique Amiga OE, the MCC will run Linux and Java better than any other
computer in the world. This is worth some market momentum and will
significantly increase our probability of success. We should expect to sell
many Amiga computers into the Linux community and this is a good thing. We
won't be successful unless we can increase the size of the Amiga community.
I can understand the caution that many of you have on this announcement
and will work aggressively to alleviate your concerns. I want to emphasize
that it was not my intention to mislead the Amiga community in any way. I
have been working hard to put together the best plan possible for Amiga to
drive the next computer revolution. I believe that the Linux decision is
consistent with this objective. Maybe I should have communicated this
decision as soon as it was made several weeks ago but I was hoping to get
out more information on the overall architecture first. I apologize for not
doing a better job planning the communication on this. I am making dozens of
key decisions a day and some of them aren't ideal. There are some people
that will use the confusion caused by this situation to fuel a negative
community reaction in order to split the community. It is critical that we
stand united as a community or all will be lost. Please be patient, strive
to understand, and have confidence. It's been a long and turbulent ride but
I promise you that the wait will be worth it.
Sincerely,
As you can imagine, I have been following the newsgroups closely as you
discuss the Linux decision. The personal attacks on me are discouraging but
I can't blame some people for being very angry. It's understandable given
what the Amiga community has been through in the last few years and the way
this situation unfolded. I wish I could have managed this situation better
but I have been traveling a lot and QNX blindsided us with their
announcement. As I mentioned in an earlier post, we were planning to
communicate the Linux decision along with our technical brief. I don't want
to argue the Linux decision here because you need to understand the full
picture first and the technical brief should help this. I would like to
address a few misunderstandings that I am seeing in the postings. Whether
you agree with the Linux decision or not, misinformation and inaccurate
speculation will only confuse the situation. I would like you to understand
the following:
Sincerely,
We are really loathe to get into a war of words with Amiga about who did
what but some comments must be addressed as they relate to our own ethics
and integrity.
> QNX blindsided us with their announcement.
This is not accurate. Before we made our announcement, I personally
called Jim 10 days in advance and informed him of our decision to address
the Amiga community directly.
> There were differences of opinion on strategy, implementation and
I can't go into the details but it was clear to us from the beginning
that to meet the schedules we needed to start work immediately. If this
project was to succeed on time, we had to go forward 100%. We started work
in good faith and continued working all during negotiatons.
If you want to know our strategy for the Amiga community it's simple. We
want to provide an advanced multimedia OS on an advanced HW platform which
is affordable to all. It is still our intention to do so.
Dan Dodge
I have read many of the comments from the Amiga community regarding our
Linux decision. The key observation I would make about the feedback I have
received is that people don't have a good understanding of our plans for the
next generation Amiga. This is my fault and we are working to rectify this
with the upcoming technology brief. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do not to judge
the Linux decision until you have a chance to read the technology brief.
Fleecy Moss (formerly of Amiga Inc.):
Jim, I don't think YOU have a good understanding of your own plans.
Unless you are planning on building servers or running on some enhanced
chip (and please tell me it isn't the Transmeta abomination that Nintendo
and Sony already rejected), then you understand the needs of the DC market
about as well as I understand Tibetan Bong dancing, and understand what the
community wants even less.
Of course we will read the technology brief but, if it is true that your
product will run on any OS, then I personally will chose the best OS I want,
and run your product on it. To me, QNX is a far more interesting OS than
Linux, and I don't want to see the world through an Amiga ordained object
model.
Collas:
The foundation OS is just one component of our new operating
environment. In addition to the OS, there are many components of hardware
and software technology being integrated into the final product. The
underlying OS is not what makes the next generation Amiga revolutionary. You
will more clearly understand this once we have released the "technical
brief" in the next few days. Whether we use QNX or Linux, the new Amiga will
be exciting, elegant, easy to use, incredibly efficient and yes, truly
revolutionary!
Moss:
So you are simply integrating pieces. Are you saying your product
would be as revolutionary on Windows as it would on QNX? You can paint a
pretty picture but if the canvas and paints aren't up to it, then all you
have is a mess.
Collas:
rev-o-lu-tion-ary ("re-v&-'lu-sh&-"ner-E): adjective; 1 c: constituting or
bringing about a major or fundamental change in the way of thinking about
or visualizing something: a change of paradigm <a revolutionary new
product>.
Moss:
in-te-gra-tion (IN-tE-GRA-SHUN): adverb; 1 ; taking existing pieces and
bringing them together.
not-rev-o-lu-tion-ary ("N-ot-Re-v&-'lu-sh&-"ner-E): statement; 1 jumping
onto a bandwagon, chosing a weaker alternative,shafting your partners and
community, dumbsizing a product.
Collas:
The key driving objective of our plans is to come out with a
truly revolutionary product that can drive the next computer
revolution. By definition, revolutionary ideas are not easy to
visualize and are difficult to communicate. The upcoming
technology brief will help you understand why the next genera-
tion Amiga is revolutionary. You need to keep an open mind
because revolutionary products ALWAYS challenge the norm and
most people think in terms of the norm. Once you understand what
makes the next generation Amiga unique and revolutionary you
will understand why picking Linux over QNX isn't a critical
technology decision.
Moss:
If you are building a middleware/convergence layer with entity
messaging, then you'd better surf over to http://www.havi.org [or]
http://www.opencable.com. You may be in for a surprise.
Collas:
Our design philosophy was to find a good solution for the
traditional pieces of the OS and build our revolutionary
elements on top of this. It's that simple. QNX is a good
technical solution for the OS components but poses a significant
market and industry challenge. Linux is sucking up the mind
share and resources of most of the major component manufacturers
and technology suppliers. I simply don't believe we can gain
enough momentum without tapping into the Linux momentum. Linux
will give us continuous access to new technology and components
as they are released. With QNX we could get out a new platform
but I don't believe we would keep up with the rapid technology
changes in the computer industry. At Gateway, I was one of the
leading product executives in this industry and I have in-depth
experience in this area. IT WAS MY ASSESSMENT THAT WE WOULD FAIL
ON THIS PATH. Please take note of this statement. How could I
NOT make the Linux decision if I truly believe this? How could
we continue on a path that I think will have us fail? Who will
benefit if we fail?
Moss:
By your assessment, we should all have abandoned the classic and bought
Windows in 95 because it was sucking up mindshare and resources, and still
is. Windows gives us continous acess to new technology and components. At
Gateway, you were one of the leading product executives...and your company
sells Windows.
The Amiga community wants innovation, flexibility, and the ability to
drill down and mess around with the guts - yet you are telling us the guts
don't matter because you will sit on top, define the world and tell us how
to think.
You are right though in that you must follow your heart....and so must
the community. We are different precisely because Amiga defines a part of
us, part geekiness, part social, part dreams, part morality.
Gateway, and now you just don't get it. The only one of you who gets it
is Bill McEwen, and he has become very close to the community, so much so
that I wonder what his reaction is to all of this.
Collas:
Maybe I should have communicated this decision as soon as it was made
several weeks ago but I was hoping to get out more information on the
overall architecture first. I apologize for not doing a better job planning
the communication on this.
Moss:
Don't apologise to us. We are used to it. But I want to know when you
told QNX, how you justify leading them on, letting them spend money and
resources. Shouldn't you be apologising to them?
I also find it strange. They have finished their piece. So you are
telling me it is right now, with their piece finished, for you to jerk them
over, and go to Linux.....something just doesn't sound right about that?
Collas:
I am making dozens of key decisions a day and some of them aren't ideal.
There are some people that will use the confusion caused by this situation
to fuel a negative community reaction in order to split the community. It
is critical that we stand united as a community or all will be lost. Please
be patient, strive to understand, and have confidence. It's been a long and
turbulent ride but I promise you that the wait will be worth it.
Moss:
oooo, Jim, that is the last resort of someone scared. Try to tarnish
other peoples opinions of what you and Amiga Inc have done. So if we agree
with you, we are OK, but if we don't, then we bad people, is that it?
Don't talk to us about splitting the community. Schindler shafted the
classic community, destroyed our moves towards PPC, we are told we are
getting a DC OS, we are shown QNX, we warm to them, and then you shaft them.
In the meantime, companies have disappeared, magazines closed, users
left.... and you talk about others splitting the community. We are the ones
who have stood by our platform...bought overpriced products...bought
software when we didn't really need it to keep the developers
going.....bought as many Amiga mags as we could just to stop them from going
down, trying to organise groups to help the Amiga, spending nights building
webpages and on IRC trying to keep our flame alive. That is community
Jim....and now trying to claim those of us who think you don't understand
the community and see a chance in QNX as being somehow up to something is
just plain nasty.
You may have bought the name Amiga, but the community is something you
have to earn. AInc have never understood that, and now there is another
company offering to earn our respect. It would just be plain rude to ignore
them...but I guess AInc doesn't care about being rude to its potential
partners or community.
You just don't get it.
Go build your digital convergence middleware on Linux. I am going to
investigate this QNX offer....and if your application runs on QNX, then
maybe one day, I'll have something with the name Amiga on it on my box, but
I'll have something with the heart of Amiga on it a lot sooner.....
The June 17, 1999 General meeting began with the traditional introduction
of officers.
In the initial absence of Kevin Hisel, President Lewis asked Kevin
Hopkins to give the update of the monthly Amiga news. Kevin talked about the
newly proposed Amiga Advisory Council. He also stated that Amiga Inc. has
promised some hard news announcements at the upcoming World of Amiga show.
Kevin Hisel then arrived and added that many of Amiga Inc.'s officers have
been making appearances in the online newsgroups which is rather noteworthy.
Turning to Mac news, Jack Melby related the story of his recent purchase
of an iMac at our local Sears. He said the salesman DIDN'T try to steer him
toward buying a PC and that he was actually pleasant and helpful. All in
all, a positive experience.
Richard Rollins reported that the new Red Hat PPC Linux CD has a worm on
it, so beware.
Richard noted that initial copies of OS8.7 have been released.
Richard said he is now running the HFS Plus file system on his machine
and it is working fine. Jack Melby stated that you can change from one file
system to the other without destroying data, noting that Alsoft has a
product that will allow this.
In response to a question from Mike Latinovich, Richard spoke about the
search speed of the Sherlock "Find" feature. Richard noted that it was very
fast after indexing your hard drive. He noted, however, that Sherlock in
OS8.6 is very sensitive to plug-in errors.
It was related that Photoshop 5.5 for the Mac had been announced.
We eased into the Amiga SIG meeting with informal discussion of how to
transfer files from a 4GB Amiga hard drive to a Windows box.
We then spent some time observing Ed Serbe playing with Real 3D,
rendering a few objects.
The conversation then turned to WebTV versus the proposed new Amiga. If
the "information appliance" market is the target Amiga Inc. has in mind,
WebTV got there first. Talking about his system, Ed said, "You don't
configure Jack on the WebTV." "It does a lot with what it has." "It really
is not the abomination you think it might be."
The evening closed with a brief touch on the initial topic proposed for
discussion. Bengt Svennson recommended that those looking for quality
datatypes should look for the AK datatypes.
Howdy! This month I get to report on a demo of an old program that I gave
at the last CUCUG Mac SIG. I am not always a good interview and after
chasing myself around via the net and phone I finally got myself nailed down
to a time for this little trauma .. drama ... whatever. Basically it came
down to this, this is the last thing we have to do before we leave town on
that long awaited motopickle trip. So with the time running out and schedule
bearing down on us, we settled down in our split-level head for a cruise
thru Quark XPress 3.32r5.
Out there in the big land of page layout there are 2 main contenders;
Adobe Pagemaker and Quark Xpress. There are other programs that have
followers, like Framemaker and ReadySetGo and that "Jack of All Trades" and
"Master of None" - Microsoft Word. But in the professional world there is
Pagemaker and Quark. Pagemaker dominates the low end of the market and Quark
dominates the rest. It has become the industry standard. But, Quark knows
they are the industry standard and figure that you, of course, are willing
to pay through the nose for that standard. They have been able to keep this
going because they have no real competition, but this has changed. Adobe's
InDepth is challenging Quark for the high end market. But, InDepth has just
hit the market, and so, it is a long way from becoming the new industry
standard. In general, Adobe is a better, more friendly company than Quark,
Inc.
Quark has a fairly common Mac look. It appears on the scene with a tool
bar called "Tools" down the left side of the screen for creating text and
picture boxes and lines (diagonal, vertical and horizontal). There are tools
for moving boxes, editing text boxes, rotating boxes and linking/unlinking
text boxes. At the bottom of the scene is another tool bar called
"Measurements" which features means of adjusting a picture/text box's size,
position, angle of rotation and number of columns numerically. In addition
it has a number of buttons and entry fields for adjusting type
characteristics in text boxes, such as font, size, style (including
subscript, superscript and superscript underlined), justification, leading
and kerning. Hitting F12 will bring up another palette that gives you the
capability of changing the type, box background and borders color and fill
type. With the background color selected, if you have the ability to run the
"Cool Blend" extension available for Quark, you can get a variety of
two-color blend fills. (More on extensions later.) Other palettes in the
Function keys are Style Sheet, Document Layout and Font Usage. It also has
an adjustable autosave feature which has saved my butt any number of times.
You can adjust preferences for documents or the application like
horizontal/vertical measure scales, frames inside/outside of border, snap
distances, type greeking size and more in the general preference panel.
There are also preference windows for the application, the EFI color system
Quark uses with version 3.32r5, typography, trapping, tools, and specific
extension preferences. If you have a document open these changes only affect
the open document, but if no documents are open the changes affect the
application in general.
So to create a document, you hit Command - N and up pops a window with
the standard page dimensions for US letter, US legal, A4 letter, B5 letter,
Tabloid and other. You can also select the margin guides for the page,
facing pages, the number and gutter of columns in the default text box. Then
you click OK and you have your document. You would then select the text
tool, from the Tools palette, that looks like a hand with a text cursor next
to it. You would select the default text box and start typing. Once the text
has been set you can go back and highlight the text you want to modify and
either use the "Measurements" toolbar or call up a type character attributes
panel. If you need a border on the text box, hit Command - B and you get a
selection of borders from simple to complex. But, be careful how wide you
make some of the complex borders as it can seriously extend your printing
time. Quark also offered a FrameEditor for creating your own custom borders.
These, too, can seriously extend printing times. Your type/picture boxes can
have fills or they can be made transparent, they can be made to have
runaround or not, as well.
While Quark is not a word processor it has many of those capabilities.
Type capabilities almost have to be powerful since Quark is used for book
and magazine layout by major producers. It offers all the usual text
manipulation but to a very fine degree. Items, type or objects, can be
adjusted in hundredths of an inch or point. It handles type sizes from 2 to
720 pts. Quark has a built in spell checker and you can create libraries of
common words that automatically update every time you run a spell check.
Quark also has a font Usage panel that allows you to find and change fonts,
styles and sizes throughout your document. I sometimes wish it also allowed
you to change the type color as well. It also handles hyphenation well, too.
It gives you suggested hyphenation as well as the exceptions.
The Quark manuals are about the best program manuals I have ever dealt
with. There are two of them: a reference manual and a user manual. The
reference manual is based on what you see on screen. The chapters, after the
intro, are File, Edit, Style, Item, Page, View, Utilities and Help. Then
when you get to the chapter called The File Menu, you get the list of items
from the pull down menu listed with a discussion about their properties. In
the next chapter the next list of items appear. The user manual follows a
more generalized approach. It tends to take a more project-based approach to
Quark. If you want to know what a particular item in a menu does, you go to
the reference manual. If you need to know how to put a picture in a box,
rotate that box and lay text over it in a particular fashion, you go to the
user guide. Both guides are cross referenced and indexed, and they have
numerous tips in the margins.
By the time Quark came out with 3.32r5 they had worked most of their
picture handling bugs out of the program. Now you can rotate, enlarge,
reduce and move pictures to your heart's desire. Before you risked a screwy
streaking scratchy image when you tried anything fancy. About the only
hassle I have noticed recently is making a photo with a transparent
background can lead to weirdness.
Quark is big on Styles but I have never used that part of the program. I
basically used Quark for display advertising layout and some newsletters (I
could have used them here, but didn't). In many ways, I used it as a drawing
program, like Freehand, but with killer type handling characteristics and
poor drawing tools, so I never had to investigate the area of Styles and
Style Sheets. I wish I could say more, but the capabilities are there
waiting to be discovered.
Quark has a couple of utilities that come in very handy. One is a picture
usage feature that looks at your document and tells you what images you have
in it, what type of image they are and whether or not they are available for
printing. Another one is the "collect for output" feature. It will gather
all of the fonts, images and other items needed to send the project out to a
service bureau or printer.
Quark uses extensions that are similar to "plug-ins" in the Photoshop
world. These extensions can be as simple as a pasteboard resizing tool or an
item resizing tool to an extension designed to layout a complete mail order
catalog. Extensions like the former can be free or very cheap and extensions
like the latter can cost twice as much as Quark does in the first place.
Most of the real expensive extensions are designed for niche markets in the
commercial printing industry.
The things I like about Quark are it's ease of use, it's small size
(8-9mb), it's power and flexibility. The things I don't like about Quark are
it's owners, their lack of friendly attitude and general snobbishness, but
mainly, it's price. I also wish it had more vector drawing capabilities. I
think it blows Pagemaker out of the water, but it falls down in the
distribution area because Pagemaker is available to many students at a big
discount. This means that many students have initial experience with
Pagemaker, not Quark. So there would be some problems with masses of
students being more familiar with their (Quark's) competition.
There is a version four of Quark, out for about a year now. It includes
more vector drawing, photo manipulation and layering capabilities. The new
version is trying to add more of the features of programs like Freehand and
Illustrator. There have been a number of problems with the newer version,
but that is to be expected from a program that made such a leap from version
3 to 4. The new Quark 4 is something I'd like to know more about, but
because of it's near $1,000 price, it will be sometime before that happens.
Adobe may have started to worry Quark, Inc. because they have been working
on a version 5. And if Adobe's InDepth starts to move on Quark's main
market, maybe we will see some thaw from those folks at Quark. They say
competition is a good thing. Maybe Quark will become a company with a human
face, because of the new competition offered by Adobe.
The June meeting of the CUCUG executive board took place on Tuesday,
June 22, 1999, 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, Rich Hall, Kevin Hopkins,
and Kevin Hisel.
Jim Lewis: Jim lead a discussion of our IRS situation.
Richard Hall: Rich gave his Treasurer's report and a review of our tax
records.
Kevin Hopkins: Kevin updated the copy of the database to Kevin Hisel, for
his and the President's use. Kevin reported that the June Amiga SIG meeting
went well. The more laid back free flow of ideas format seems to be to most
of the SIG members' taste. Kevin related the most recent installment of "how
to get the club machine back after demo night." His story of how to
deactivate Palm Pilot software from the club's Mac (had to remove two
extensions, two preferences and one startup item) spawned a discussion of
general "uninstall" problem on most computer platforms. Jim Lewis said the
Windows uninstall program actually works pretty well, but the problem of
programs scattering their pieces all over your machine is maddening.
Kevin Hisel: Kevin said traffic on the web site has been about as
expected. He also spoke of problems with web mirroring caused by last
month's servers problems. This seems to be getting resolved now.
Off topic, Kevin recommended a new search engine. Check out google.com.
Richard Rollins (days later): Rich informed us that "At the next meeting
of the Mac SIG, Emil Cobb will demo and display his Palm Pilot connected to
a Mac computer. We will also show the many Internet sites that have
information and software for the Palm and the Mac. Questions will be fielded
from the group if any time permits."
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):
Surf our web site:
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=04810" FileMaker Pro 4.1v2 Update Withdrawn
TidBITS#487/05-Jul-99
http://www.filemaker.com/about/year2000directory.html Mac OS ROM Update 1.0 Targets USB Problems
TidBITS#487/05-Jul-99
http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n60363 Free Mac Word Processor
Solana Beach, CA July 8, 1999 - Due to overwhelming popular demand, Nisus(R)
Software Inc. announces the re-release of its free full featured Macintosh
word processor, Nisus Writer 4.1.6. This 6.1 MB application is available as
a download only, from the following web address:
Nisus Software Inc. (800)890-3030
PO Box 1300 (858)481-1477
Solana Beach, CA 92075 (858)481-6154 fax
e-mail: dave@nisus.com http://www.nisus.com
ToC The Macintosh Section:
Own Quicken? Get Quicken Deluxe 98 Free
by Geoff Duncan geoff@tidbits.com
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05342
http://www.intuit.com/banking/filist.html
http://www.intuit.com/corporate/year2000/quicken/quicken_mac.html The Amiga Section:
Open Letter to the Community - June/July 1999
Dear Amigans,
Jim Collas
President, AmigaUpdate on Major Activities - June/July 1999
Operations/Planning:Delivering on Our Promise to the Amiga Community
from Dan Dodge, CTO, QNX Software Systems Collas' Note to the Newsgroup Regarding QNX
From: Jim Collas (jim.collas@amiga.com)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: QNX announcement is misleading
Date: Fri, 09 Jul 1999 06:10:33 GMT Open Letter to the Community - Linux Announcement
Dear Amigans,
Jim Collas
President, Amiga QNX - Where Do We Stand?
Eight months ago we were chosen by Amiga as their foundation OS partner.
Our development group was thrilled to be part of the rebirth of such an
innovative product. To meet the challenge we knew it would take a tremendous
effort on our part. We had a team of people in place working on our part of
the Amiga NG soon after the alliance was announced. Over the next few months
we involved more and more of our engineering resouces towards making QNX an
advanced multi-media platform. Our investment so far has been significant.
These are costs we have born ourselves.
CTO, QNX Software Systems Open Letter to the Community - Response to Linux feedback
Dear Amigans,
Jim Collas
President, Amiga Jim Collas Offers Clarifications
From: Jim Collas (jim.collas@amiga.com)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Some clarifications from Amiga
Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 04:20:49 GMT
I hope this will help clear up some of the inaccurate statements. I
expect that some people will continue to slam me and our decision. I
understand that this level of frustration doesn't go away over night. All I
ask is for people to take the time to read and understand our technology
brief when it comes out.
Jim QNX responds to Collas' Newsgroup Message
From: dandodge@qnx.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: QNX Response - was (Re: Some clarifications from Amiga)
Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 18:30:02 GMT
> licensing terms that we spent months and months trying to negotiate.
CTO, QNX Software Systems Ltd.Fleecy Moss responds to the Linux Decision
Jim Collas (All quotes from his Open Letter - Linux Feedback): The CUCUG Section:
June General Meeting
reported by Kevin Hopkins The Amiga SIG: Ed Serbe covers WebTV and Real 3D
reported by Kevin HopkinsThe Macintosh SIG: Edwin Hadley shows Quark XPress 3.32r5
reported by Edwin Hadley (e-hadley@life.uiuc.edu) June Board Meeting
reported by Kevin Hopkins The Back Page:
The CUCUG is a not-for-profit corporation, originally organized in 1983
to support and advance the knowledge of area Commodore computer users.
We've grown since then.
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: Richard Hall 344-8687 rjhall1@uiuc.edu
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
912 Stratford Dr.
Champaign, IL
61821