The June 15th meeting will be one of our split SIG meetings. The C64/128 SIG and the Amiga SIG will be doing a kind of tag team highlights of the Internet. We will be showing what's available and how to use some of the basic applications on the net. For the Mac SIG, Richard Rollins will reveal the secret key combinations on the Mac keyboard that do wild and wonderful things. So, come and be entertained and learn something at the same time - the goal of the Age of Enlightnment: to delight and instruct.
When both of these gentlemen came before the Board and asked that CUCUG sponsor a Macintosh SIG under the umbrella of a Commodore club, several eyebrows shot up. But after explaining the state of local Mac support, the areas of similarities between the Amiga and the Mac (ie. look-and-feel and emulation), and what appears to be the converging of the two roads with the PowerPC processor in the near future, the proposal didn't seem quite so foreign.
However, something this life changing in the history of CUCUG had to be brought before the membership. This was done at the May meeting. After a lengthy discussion on what it might all mean, the members voted to accept the Macintosh into the CUCUG family.
We've all run Motorola processors or Motorola inspired processors. Now we'll run together. We are the alternative.
Thanks to Mark Bellon and his faithful sidekick (that's me) Mac users now have their own full-blown Download directory sections and a Bulletin section for CUCUG Mac disk descriptions.
Those of you familar with the Amiga analogs of these BBS features will notice a familar simularity between the Mac and Amiga set-ups. That will help both users and admin types like us deal with the new sections.
Obviously, the Mac download directories are a little bare right now (except for the mirrored MOD music directories which are now shared by both Amiga and Mac). Mark assures us this will change quickly--or at least until he figures out how to upload reliably :-)
Enjoy the new sections and if you have any comments please let us know!
Jeff Grimmett reported in his Hardware/Amiga newsgroup late last month that Mr. Martin has died. Timm had written about his repeated battles with some virus that hospitalized him at least once. Cause of death is unclear, but this recurring illness seems a likely candidate.
Timm's work showed a lot of class, thoughtfulness, and sweat. SID 2 is a great package. I prefer it over DOpus on principle as well as its friendliness.
Perhaps some smart cookie will find a way for SID users to edit the descriptions preference file, which will allow it greater recognition of file types for the custom buttons. This was one of those items Mr. Martin intended to get around to, but could not.
[Editor's Note: Timm will be missed.]
I don't know if this has been posted yet (beyond earlier Power PC reports I've seen here), but I got this today (May 24, 1995) from PowerPC News. Anyway, this is precisely what I suggested a while back as a viable solution to make the Amiga a real contender in the upcoming PPC Common Hardware project and I feel that this is a good move. I just hope the system stays basically the same.
Escom Planning PowerPC Amiga Next Year; Pondering Other OSs
(May 23rd 1995) Escom AG, the Heppenheim, Germany-based computer manufacturer and retailer that has bought Commodore's technology and rights will produce a PowerPC-based machine next year. The company is also planning to support other operating systems including Windows NT, OS/2 and Mac OS.
The company will lay out its full technical plans for the Amiga next week, however on the face of it, it looks as if the company will produce a version of the Amiga based on the new PowerPC Hardware Reference Platform, which would let it run the foreign OS's without too much trouble.
The corollary of this is that, going with the HRP hardware platform would let the company license its operating system out to other PowerPC-based manufacturers. An Escom spokesman said the company intended that the licensing policy would be "as open as possible", though could not give details, as we went to press.
The company is focusing its efforts on retaining and growing the Amiga's traditional multimedia base. Production of the Amiga models 4000, 1200 and 600 will be restarted. Even the trusty Commodore 64 will be dragged out of retirement to serve the East European market. Before the PowerPC machines appear, the company intends to bolster its top end with a machine based on the Motorola 68060 processor.
The company also intends to push Amiga technology into the set-top box arena and is talking of a PC-add in card that will let PC-users run Amiga applications.
(C) PowerPC News - Free by mailing: add@power.globalnews.com
Not the greatest prose ever, perhaps, but the best I could do in 3 minutes for you. Enjoy!
May 30 - Frankfurt, Germany
Today Escom AG announced its plans for the Amiga line of personal computers to the world in a press conference in Frankfurt, Germany. The press conference was well attended by over 70 reporters from assorted newspapers and magazines, including 2 reporters from Amiga Link Magazine, Mathias Frankenbach and Joerg Gutzke. After the press conference, Mathias came onto IRC and Amiga Link Magazine held a press conference to report on what happened. Although the full edited log of the IRC conference will be in Amiga Link #5, and the transcript to the conference will be released by Amiga Link later as well, this is the gist of what happened.
Escom announced that they will have Amigas before the Christmas season, probably by September or October. In their first run they plan to make 15,000 A4000/040s, 10,000 A4000/060s (using the Phase 5 Cyberstorm 060 card), 120,000-130,000 A1200s (which will be upgraded to the 030EC) and CD32s (no numbers announced). They also plan to make a new box for the A4000, which was shown at the press conference, and do a redesign of the CD32 in 1996, so that it can compete with the new games consoles coming out. Escom also said that they will make an Amiga t-shirt (no joke) to allow Amiga users to show their support.
Escom is planning on making Pentium PCs with the C= name on it.
Escom said that every Amiga sold will come with Scala MM 300, the multimedia authoring system, which is another sign that the Amiga will be marketed as a multimedia machine. They also said that they will be porting the Amiga OS to RISC, although they have not yet decided on which chip to use.
On the bad side of the news, Escom did not announce any concrete plans for marketing the Amiga, and they didn't announce their distributors outside of Europe, if they even have any. The Amiga Technologies company will also only start with 50 employees.
The Amiga Technology Company will have a turnover of 100,000,000 deutch marks a year, and will break even by the end of this year.
Escom is looking to set up a factory in Europe to match their existing one in China.
Read Amiga Link Magazine #5 for a more complete report, as their is much that I have missed.
[Faced with a $1,600 plane fare, I was unable to attend Escom's press conference. It was much cheaper to send Angela Schmidt instead, and she brought back the most important points of the presentation. -Jason Compton, Amiga Report]
Escom has founded a division called Amiga Technologies GmbH. Escom considers the patents and rights they obtained from Commodore to be their keys in the multi-media market.
The Amiga line will be continued under the name "Amiga" and distributed worldwide. Escom will use the "Commodore" label for Intel-based multi-media-PCs which will be distributed in Europe only.
They did a market study in Germany and found that 93% of all PC users knew the name Commodore-literally, only the name IBM is better known here.
As of August, there will be Pentium PCs with the name "Commodore", and Escom plans to sell between 50,000 and 60,000 before the end of the year.
One month later, the Amiga 4000T should be produced in appreciable numbers. In the past, less than 1,000 were produced. They are planning to sell around 25,000 by the end of the year, 10,000 in the United States.
The new 4000T will also have a new design. They are making big efforts so as to have a new design from the very beginning. It has been mentioned that the new A4000T will have a SCSI connection that was missing from the 4000s. This was considered to be a major disadvantage in the original 4000s.
A month after that (October), it is planned to make the A1200 available again. They are estimating that between 120,000 and 150,000 will be sold by the end of the year. They will try not to miss Christmas sales by all means.
With the CD32, several problems have shown up: It is not easy to get hold of all necessary components needed for the production of the CD32. There seem to be problems in supplying those parts. For this reason there won't be CD32s until next year.
Until then, the CD32 will get a far more attractive design, to compete with the game consoles. Eventually, in the future, there will also be slightly altered CD32s for set-top boxes.
It is possible that next year there will also be an A1300, based on a 68EC030, which would also have a CD-ROM drive as a standard feature.
Also, the first of the Amiga Technologies-based set-top boxes may be built immediately. Escom has licensed VisCorp to build such a unit. In this area of licensing, they will be open to other possibilities.
With regards to the future, they are considering building a RISC-chip based Amiga. PowerPC and the HP-PA RISC chip are being considered, but no decision has been made yet.
At any rate, there shall be an Amiga operating system for this RISC-based system, because AmigaOS simply belongs to the Amiga. The porting of AmigaOS to non-Amiga platforms is also being talked about. This would bring the Amiga closer to the mainstream.
With regards to the use of AAA, no decision has been made.
Jeff Frank, Engineering Director of Amiga Technologies, has announced an expansion of the A4000T, one based on the 68060 turbo card which is will likely be very similar to the CyberStorm 060 card, since there seem to be licensing agreements with Phase 5.
An expansion of the A1200 to an 68EC030 may also be considered.
The new Amigas will be bundled with a product from Scala (MM 300). Whether a good word processor and paint program would have been preferable is open to argument.
Amiga Technologies plans a turnover of 100,000,000 DM in 1995, which mainly is to be achieved by Christmas business. At the moment, the monthly expenditure is in the region of 600,000 DM. But the intention is to get into the black by the end of the year, and by spring of '96, the $10 million cost of acquisition should also be covered.
The central distribution will be in Holland. There will be different methods of distribution - for instance, through wholesalers, store chains, and mail order houses. The Amigas will additionally be distributed through special distributors.
Commodore will offer sales and marketing support to their resellers.
Furthermore, there will be a program in Europe for the training of distributors. The customer support should also be considerably improved.
It has been mentioned several times that ESCOM received an overwhelming amount of faxes and letters, most of which had to remain unanswered.
Many have sent them their wishes for the future. There were also expressions of concern from the users about the Amiga being taken over by a PC manufacturer.
Amiga Technologies would also like to be directly on the Internet very soon. For this purpose, there will be an Amiga connected to the net.
Ladies and gentlemen,
As the General manager of Amiga Technologies GmbH, I would like to welcome you to the first press conference of our new company and also tell you how much we appreciate your presence here.
At a spectacular auction five weeks ago in New York, ESCOM AG acquired the rights to the intellectual property of the former Commodore company for 10 million dollars, including all trademarks, logos, products and licenses.
Since the day we succeeded in buying the Amiga technology, many people have asked us how the future will look for their computer of choice. We got floods of anxious faxes and letters to which we couldn't give an answer at once because things were too early to comment. We will use the opportunity we have now to talk you all of you and present the new ESCOM daughter company, Amiga Technologies. Some leading developers of hardware and software for the Amiga as well as some of our new licensing partners will present themselves and their projects to us.
To clear up things from the beginning - and that's the point you are all interested in - I want to make the commitment that we are determined to resume production and also want to continue hardware and software development of what we believe is a superior technology. That's why we created Amiga Technologies and we are now hiring the best and most capable people to accomplish this.
For a successful Multimedia company like ESCOM, the Commodore Patents and licenses concerning Amiga are considered the key to multimedia technology. Mister Schmitt will say more about this later.
But let's concentrate on our immediate plans. As the director of Amiga Technologies my first priority now is to resume production of Commodore and Amiga computers and bring them on the market as soon as possible. For us, this means September 1995.
I would also like to refer to Commodore computers, Pentium PCs, which will be available in August this year. These will be fully loaded P75 and P100 multimedia PCs. They will be assembled in our own ESCOM facilities. We plan to sell between 50,000 and 60,000 units before the end of this year. Let me point out that the Commodore and Amiga operations will be separate. Amiga Technologies will only take care of Amiga, whereas ESCOM will provide Commodore PCs.
One month later, we will start producing the high-end multimedia Amiga 4000T. To succeed in keeping that tight schedule, we negotiated with well known producers in Europe and Asia. For the selection of the manufacturing partner, we will be emphasizing the quality requirements.
Until the end of the year, we plan to produces enough machines to meet the demand. These machines are already outsold in pre-orders. In October, the production of the low-end A1200 will begin. We expect to ship enough units as well as CD32 game consoles to meet the Christmas season demand. Please give us more time to publish quantities.
The takeover of the inventory, which is mainly composed of spare parts, in the UK and Germany is completed. The rumoured stocks of new Amigas ready to be sold do not exist. For inventory in the Philippines, we are currently negotiating with the local trustees.
Ladies and gentlemen, the new Amiga Technology will now become the operating center of an international Company held 100% by ESCOM AG. Our headquarters in Bensheim will employ around 50 people for following tasks: development, support to developers, resellers, end users, production management, Marketing, PR and administration. We also took over the former Commodore development center in Norristown, with its research and development facilities. Eduard Goff, former Vice President and General Counsel at Commodore now leads that center. He will talk to you later. Our developers are now working on the next generation RISC based Amigas as well as on improving current models. Here, we are working in a tight partnership with Scala and Motorola.
Amiga Technologies GmbH expects a turnover of 100 Mio DM in 1995, mainly from the Christmas business with Amiga 1200, 4000 and CD32. Our monthly expenses are evaluated at around 600,000 DM. The break-even point should be reached this year. We are confident that we will have rentabilized our 10 million dollar investment by spring 1996 with Amiga sales and licenses.
I will be here again for further questions later this afternoon, but now let me introduce M Manfred Schmitt, Chairman of the executive board at ESCOM.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Since we won the auction for the intellectual property of Commodore and Amiga, the ESCOM AG is flooded with congratulation messages. Amiga clubs and Amiga users write to ask us to revive and continue to develop and improve the Amiga. Many of them actually sent us their wishes for future hardware architectures and operating systems improvements.
However, it is still unclear for many users how a PC manufacturer and retailer will use the Amiga technology.
Here is our answer:
ESCOM now turns from a PC manufacturer and retailer into a multimedia company. The big multimedia applications will come very soon as Pay-TV, Video on demand, home-banking, home-shopping and online services. In this growing market, we want to become a leading provider of hardware, software and solutions. Our goal is to give the user a cost-efficient way to access all these new services the multimedia world will allow. The Amiga technology brings us all we need here in an elegant way. We see in the Amiga the key to Multimedia technologies for the future.
As an intelligent terminal, you all know the PC. Many people use the PC in conjunction with a modem to access online services and the worldwide Internet. Escom is providing that market with a wide palette of advantageously priced Multimedia PCs in a range between 2000 and 3000 DM.
But there are other user profiles, who want to use the multimedia technology without having to spend several thousands of DM. For these users, the Amiga represents a very interesting alternative. It stands out with an amazing price/quality ratio. Also remarkable is the operating system with a still unmatched multitasking ability. That means that several applications can run simultaneously, depending on available memory without slowing down the whole system. This is achieved by the smart resource sharing of the system and the low consumption of RAM and processing power by the applications.
The Amiga operating system needs 8 times less memory than Windows, and it multitasks better than Windows. Through this smart use of system resources, the Amiga is still a very efficient and inexpensive computer.
Video is another strength of the Amiga. In this aspect, the Amiga is superior to the PC. The video output of the Amiga is already PAL and NTSC compatible, so it can just be plugged into a TV or any video monitor. A PC needs a converter to do this. The Amiga represents a possibility to give people access to interactive television, online services and pay TV with set top boxes at decent prices like 400 DM. The market is huge because there are much more televisions than computers in the homes.
The set top box is a concrete application involving Amiga technology that we want to improve. For the American market, which is much more advanced than in Europe in this regard, we already have license agreements with our partner VisCorp - our first licence by the way. We are willing to be very flexible and open-minded regarding licensing of our technology. Amiga developers and manufacturers shall have the chance to talk with us to define partnerships or license agreements. Together, we will develop a wide range of Amiga hardware and software. Our goal is a productive, open amiga technology. The example of Viscorp demonstrates it at best : we license Amiga technology to people who want to integrate it in their own products. The press already talked about another partner, the Tianjin Family-Used Multimedia Co. Ltd. They will build the lower range of Amiga computers and revive the legendary Commodore 64 for the chinese market.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have mainly talked about the Amiga. In New York, we also took over another well known brand : Commodore. All of you surely remember the good old Commodore 64 and its tremendous success in the early eighties. It is still a famous episode in the home computer history that could be compared to the Volkswagen Beetle. A recent study made by the german economic magazine DM reveals that the name Commodore still has very high recognition. 93 percent of all PC users know the trademark Commodore. such a reputation is only surpassed by IBM.
We will now separate Commodore and Amiga operations. Amiga will be the multimedia range with Motorola processors and Commodore for Intel based Personal Computers. We want to use all available and appropriate distribution channels both for Commodore and Amiga: specialized retail stores, warehouses, and mail order services. The ESCOM subsidiaries are only one of many possibilities.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are convinced that ESCOM, Commodore and Amiga will become a success story. Look at the structure and competencies we have built up in a short time.
Thank you.
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen.
I'm delighted by today's announcement and confident of the significant benefits that it brings to customers of Commodore, to our employees and, of course, to our new larger company.
I'd like to talk to you about how we are going to distribute Commodore products, and by that I mean both the Commodore Intel Pentium and the Amiga Motorola based computers.
Distribution will be centralised in the Netherlands, where Commodore is based. Commodore products will be distributed in Europe, whereas Amiga will be worldwide distributed. However, we are already in the process of recruiting distributors for the Amiga range, and I'm sure we'll be able to give you more details on this at a later date.
In Europe will be three main channels of distribution.
The first through retail via computer retail chains, brown goods chains, department stores and mail order companies.
The second through a limited number of key distributors, the number will of course depend on the country and type of distributor involved. And thirdly, for Amiga products only, through a range of specialists distributors targeting the vertical markets of high-end Amiga products.
With our distribution in place, what can our customers and our distributors expect from Commodore?
Commodore's success will be based on the three principles: price competitiveness, sales & marketing support and service.
When it comes to price, Commodore will benefit of the purchasing power of the Group. Commodore will offer its retailers and distributors a full range of sales & marketing support. Commodore will implement a Europe-wide training programme for distributors and sales staff, to promote a high level of technical and product knowledge that will equip them to deliver the best advice to customers.
Good after-sales service is equally vital to Commodore's customers. As part of our philosophy to make things as easy as possible for them, we introduce a range of service options. In summary, ladies and gentlemen, we will provide clear channels of distribution for Commodore and with them an unrivalled package of price, support and service. We will make a success of the still strong Commodore and Amiga brands.
My name is Ed Goff. I'm a Philadelphia lawyer working with ESCOM and Amiga Technologies GmbH, on a wide variety issues related to the relaunch of Amigas.
In particular, I will talk today on issues of Licensing.
Our strategy will be somewhat different than the strategy that you saw from Commodore in the past. It is our intention to have strategic program for Amigas that with be as open at possible, and which will therefore drive the Amiga technology into as wide a range of products and applications as is possible.
First I would like to discuss the broadest type of licensing arrangements that will fit within our plan, Strategic alliances. We intend to consummate arrangements for further development of the Amiga technologies together with strategic partners. These partners may be one or more well known names in the electronics and telecommunications industries. Together with the strategic partner or partners we intend to fund further development of new and advanced products based partly on Amiga and partly on proprietary and public systems provided by the strategic partner.
Unfortunately I am not a liberty at this time to discuss or even identify potential strategic partners, as some of these discussions are at a very early stage. However you can understand that these strategic arrangements often take the form of joint ventures, cross licenses, cost and risk-sharing agreements, and capital arrangements. As a result we can only announce the nature of such a strategic arrangement consistent with the wishes of the strategic partner at the time the arrangements is finalised.
A second area of Licensing that falls within our strategic framework for a more open Amiga is imbedded technology. We are currently pursuing opportunities for licensing the Amiga technology or portions of it to enterprises in these industries who will imbed the Amiga in their products. One example of this sort of arrangement is VisCorp, a potential maker of TV set-top boxes. As you have heard or may hear from my colleagues, it is our belief that the Amiga presents uniquely attractive mid cost effective solutions to enterprises attempting to meet the specifications of the telecommunications and cable industries. It is our belief that encouraging vendors in these markets to embed Amiga capabilities or features could be very exciting, and hopefully rewarding. In this regard I encourage you to make our intentions known as widely as possible so that we can get the broadest possible spectrum of imbedded technology licensees.
A third and less grandiose area of licensing involves people and companies who are already using the technology covered by the portfolio of patents copyrights and trademarks now owned by ESCOM. Often this area can be unpleasant because some of these folks have never recognised in any formal way their use of the technology. We intend to review a wide variety of products and components with a view to developing a licensing arrangement with their makers, users and sellers. At the moment, this is an uncharted area. It requires fairly intensive reviews, and often difficult discussions. For that reason, I am unable at this time to give you further details on potential licensees.
At this point I would like to ask for any questions you may have on any of these area. Thank you.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
As Head of the Product Planning Group of the new Amiga Technologies GmbH, I would like to give you an overview about the past and the technical future in our view.
The company Commodore started in 1958 as a typewriter repair company followed by production of electric typewriters, digital watches, calculators and video games. In 1977, there was launched one of the first real desktop computers, the legendary PET 2001. It was followed by the CBM series, where the CBM 8032 dominated the German bureau market in 1980 and the following years, just before the breakthrough of the IBM PC. These 8000 series had a reputation of being especially easy to use and to program and being robust.
Simultaneously, Commodore started the Home Computer market in 1981 with the VIC 20, soon followed by the C64. The C64 became the top-selling computer ever, its success and sold number is again only comparable to the Volkswagen beetle. In this way, Commodore had generated two different markets which complemented each other nicely.
The year 1985 brought great news. In spring, Commodore introduced the IBM-compatible PC 10, and in July in New York during a gala show the Amiga.
The PC 10 succeeded to carry on the advantages of the 8000 series and at least in Europe to increase the professional reputation. The Amiga was far ahead of its time with its graphics and sound capabilities and got an euphoric reception by the computer press. From its first days, software and hardware vendors exploited the special capabilities of the Amiga to display graphics, or also animated graphics, all accompanied by synchronized sound. Only later the term "Multimedia" was invented for this, the Amiga did it from day one.The special capabilities of the Amiga are due to two aspects, its special hardware - the Custom Chips with the familiar names Paula, Agnus and Denise - and on the other hand its Operating System. Looking back, one can only admire how well suited for the future this unique operating system was designed in the early 80's. As a result it offers still unmatched multitasking ability. The Amiga reacts immediately on every user input and wastes no time for administrative tasks. Typically you can run several big applications in parallel, without noticing a slow down of any of them. This all while the Amiga uses its resources like memory in RAM or on disk very efficiently, so that it appears always faster through this aspect, and also doesn't stress the wallet of its owner in regards of big RAM or hard disks. A further feature of the Amiga is its video compatibility by using scan frequencies typical for video, as well as its ability to get genlocked. Every Amiga from the low-end to high-end provides this feature. Many video and TV studios use the Amiga as an integral part of their equipment.
To show more concretely where the Amiga comes from, here is a picture of the genius behind the Amiga Custom Chips, Jay Miner, who passed away last year.
The breakthrough for the Amiga came in 1987, when the first Amiga 1000 was followed by two successors, the Amiga 500 as a dedicated home computer and the Amiga 2000 as a professional workplace computer. The A500 became immediately the star of the home computer scene and dominated it for several years, so that Commodore nearly gained a monopoly in this low-cost market. On the other end, the A2000 featured the Open System Architecture, so that add-on vendors could offer everything from an external video digitizer to a turbo board with a bigger processor. One other unique Amiga feature helped here, which is called "AutoConfig". You can just plug in cards and don't need to bother for DIP switches or jumpers, a feature that's only now slowly emerging as the "Plug&Play" also on PCs.
The year 1994 brought the breakdown of Commodore, after the financial reserves had been exhausted by some fatal management decisions. The liquidators tried to sell the company, but only in spring 1995, on the auction of April 20th and 21st in New York, the German company ESCOM won and took over Commodore completely.
Under the wing of ESCOM AG, Amiga Technologies GmbH will concentrate exclusively on the Amiga, to restart its production and develop it further.
The current Amiga generation offers a full palette from the absolute low-end - the multimedia game console CD32 - over the full-featured home computer A1200 up to the high-end with the A4000 Tower. Concurrent platforms try to state it as normal that you get a trade-off between enhanced features and speed. But the Amiga shows that this has not to be the case for a really modern operating system. The professionality of the Amiga's video features shows up frequently in the recent past, in that several TV series in USA are now produced completely on Amigas for their video effect parts. Two examples are SeaQuest DSV and Babylon 5.
After the takeover the new company is conscious of the necessity to further develop the Amiga platform, as the competition has not stood still. The new Amiga company will therefore install an engineering division that can make the transition into a new generation happen.
In the mid term future this will lead to stronger processors and otherwise enhanced versions of the current models.
The big perspective for the future consists in a port of the Amiga architecture to a RISC platform, to assure the awaited power for the future. The very first task of this new engineering division will be to prepare this decision. Which of the concurring RISC platforms will be the optimum for the special case of the Amiga, is no trivial decision. On one side, it is a goal to bring the Amiga nearer to the "Mainstream", so that it becomes easier to port and run existing application programs. On the other hand, the future computer should always remain recognizable as an "Amiga" that is not assimilated among an amorphous mass of similar computers. The Amiga once started with far superior graphics and sound capabilities, and should by all means regain this advantage.
To fulfill both requirements, there are currently two alternatives, the PowerPC and the HP PA RISC. Both have advantages and disadvantages, and they will get thoroughly judged.
Concurrent with this, the operating system will have to get adapted to this new hardware platform, plus will adapt to new requirements like 3D graphics, texture mapping, Object Oriented design and other current technologies. This task will be not as difficult as some might suspect, as we can build on a basis which was always designed with progress in mind. Let's look forward to a great future of the Amiga architecture!
Good afternoon Ladies and Gentlemen. My name is Jeff Frank and I have been retained by Amiga Technologies GmbH to provide technical assistance with respect to Engineering and Manufacturing Amiga related products. Previously, I have been with Commodore International Ltd. for nearly nine years, primarily as Director of Engineering.
I am sure you are all as happy as I to hear that the "Amiga" is indeed alive and well!
Initially, most of our labors will be focused on resuming production of the A4000 Tower and A1200 class products. In fact, the A4000 Tower will be much like a new product introduction, considering that Commodore only ever built 1000 units. The A4000 Tower and A1200 will feature the AmigaDOS 3.1 Operating System which was not in wide release prior to Commodore's demise. We will also pursue both tactical and strategic enhancements to the Amiga product line over the months and years to come.
Tactically, our first and perhaps the most obvious enhancement will be a 68060 processor upgrade to the A4000 Tower. We also believe that a performance upgrade to the A1200 by moving from an EC020 to an EC030 processor as well as built-in support for fast RAM capability is a logical step.
Strategically, we are looking into creating "Encapsulated Amiga Environments" or Emulations for the IBM and Apple environments. Also, potential ports of AmigaDOS to non-Amiga platforms will be assessed. We feel that this is a way we may help the Amiga Technology to permeate other Computing Environments. We will also consider merging architectures of available RISC technologies and the Amiga technology.
Hello, my name Is Don Gilbreath I have 12 years' association with Commodore I have worked in various capacities from engineering to technical sales and marketing. As a Director of Product and Market Development, I designed and managed among other products the team that brought CDTV to market.
I am happy to be here today for the re-birth of Amiga. After spending some quality time with ESCOM management, I am convinced they possess the marketing finesse and strength to make Amiga successful into the 21st century.
Currently, I am Chief Technical officer for VisCorp, an interactive set-top box developer and application designer based In the United States. Our executive offices are in Chicago, and we have engineering teams based in West Chester, Pennsylvania and the Silicon Valley. VisCorp is the first company to be granted a license to use the Amiga technology in interactive a set-tops.
Before I explain why we believe Amiga is the right platform of choice for set-tops, let me explain the current landscape of North America set-top offerings.
IT IS A MESS - MASS CONFUSION! Companies are scrambling, forming joint ventures for the purpose of joint ventures ....
We are aware of some 40 set-top projects. Seventeen design wins alone are for Philips chip sets and an OS9 derivative (DAVID), the closest competition for an Amiga offering.
Some of the other set-top projects (or camps) range from pure video games based platforms such as Nintendo, Sony, and Sega to a multi-function, cost prohibitive (in terms of memory) Microsoft-based platform as well as similar offerings from Apple, SUN, and Silicon Graphics. Amiga will find a home between these two ranges in terms of cost/features and the development community.
There is another camp which tend to be as much of a target as a potential partner and includes Scientific Atlanta and General Instrument. They are currently not as strong in computer technology as cable modems, video delivery, and authorization schemes. There is synergy and relationships will development between Amiga and these two companies in particular.
What is this set-top business all about?
Our present VisCorp model, which is in homes today under the guise of a market test, is a hybrid model utilizing both analogue telephone and broadcast data video. When the cable modem and Digital audio and video technologies settle, the federal laws may change as well. Our strategy is to deploy a product that is useful today but provides a migration path to this over hyped high speed, low cost world we don't live in.
The current product:
Over the past few years, we at VisCorp have been developing an interactive set-top platform. The VisCorp product starts by converging the television set with the telephone. It converts the television set into an executives speakerphone with one-touch on screen dialling and caller ID, It has built in filters and font generators to convert on-line data services to text that is readable at standard television viewing distances. It has a built- in credit card reader and it can support electronic directories, classified advertising, and catalogue shopping applications. Other features include on- screen TV listings with one button recording capability, sending faxes and E-mail, and accessing InterNet and multi-participant games (thousands playing simultaneously) that in some cases are tied to live TV events with national scoring in place prizes end cash where legal.
The VisCorp product is currently being tested on a cable system In a Detroit suburb where it is also supporting one-touch ordering of pay-per- view and access to local bulletin board service Including restaurant reviews and local civic information.
So this sounds like a great product. So why the Amiga? Is there something wrong? Absolutely nothing it is our entry model, suitable today, and can be sold at retail 1995 for under $3OO or the price of a feature rich telephone, which it is. We have a custom chip program nearing completion that further cost reduces this product and enables further dimensions in interactive television in terms of the toy Industry and education.
The Amiga-based version will be our second model. We plan to embark on a crash program to further develop a chip set with our combined licenses and patented technologies with Amiga functionality. The combined Amiga/VisCorp interactive television platform will support all currently envisioned Interactive applications with the exception of full motion video on demand and practical speed CD Audio delivery. We do not think this is a handicap as a base case offering. Specialty markets or cable customers can be addressed with additional modules.
We encourage an Amiga set-top consortium to be formed immediately. We believe a minimum base case design including encryption technology, if possible, would be supported by consortium members. Since this platform is destined for world markets, a software rating mechanism would include parental lockout of adult features and include reviews, top sellers, etc. This standard must be In place in a similar fashion to that of the movie and music Industry, thereby freeing the software development community to treat it as a guaranteed publishing platform with secure distribution of content and payment. This device which many of us will build in various configurations will handle digitally secured conference calls to movies on demand. The hooks must be in place. Thanks to ESCOM with the Amiga platform, we have an opportunity to change television.
Scala is in the business of computer television: that is, using a computer to produce and distribute television-type programming.
The company is one of the world's leading developers of computer-based television information solutions and the undisputed leader in multimedia software for the Amiga platform. Available in eleven languages, Scala's multimedia tools are distributed in more than 40 countries.
Scala was founded in Norway in 1987. Today we are headquartered outside Washington DC, with international headquarters in Oslo and offices in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden. Scala's team of software engineers includes most of the people who originally developed the Amiga operating system for Commodore.
Our main products are Scala Multimedia, a software package for the production and playback of multimedia presentations, interactive training applications, infotainment, and video titling; Scala InfoChannel, for multimedia networking and information distribution; and Scala Interactive Television, including software for the production of ITV content and the operating environment for satellite and cable TV decoders.
All products share the Scala BackBone technology. This makes the software independent of hardware platform and makes Scala solutions portable to multiple environments. BackBone includes MMOS, which is an object-oriented operating system layer specifically developed for multimedia applications, and ScalaScript which is the scripting language we seek to establish as the standard multimedia language of the future.
Since the Amiga went out of production a year ago, Scala has seen a constant demand for Amigas, from both new and experienced users. We are happy to see production resume, and to continue to support the Amiga platform.
Together the Scala software technology and the Amiga hardware technology make up a powerful and cost effective solution for everyone who needs a multimedia package for home or office use. No other solution can match the price performance of the Amiga and Scala combination. We look forward to working with the new Amiga Technologies company in order to provide ready-to-use solutions with every machine.
Scala's good design has long been one of our strongest assets, and it is an acknowledgement of our achievements that ESCOM has chosen one of our designers to create the new look for the new Amiga.
Editor's Contact: Dag I. Danielsen, Information Manager
Scala, W. Thranesgt. 77, N-0175 Oslo, Norway
Tel. +47 22 36 13 38 Fax +47 22 36 13 84
Internet: Dag.Danielsen@scala.no
ToC
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
My name is Wolf Dietrich from Phase 5 Digital Products a Frankfurt based manufacturer of AMIGA peripherals. I am happy to present to you at this re-introduction of the AMIGA series of computers the latest generation of the 68k series of processors the superscalar 68060 CPU. phase 5 digital products has developed the first fully operational implementation of this processor for the AMIGA marketed as the Cyberstorm 060 accelerator which is available now and shipping.
With this implementation of the powerful 68060 processor the new AMIGA models make a step ahead into the leading group of today's microcomputer systems. The 68060 processor combines the powerful functionality and instruction set of earlier 68k processors with a new superscalar architecture and adds performance-boosting features like two parallel integer instruction units, larger data and instruction caches of 8k size, a branch cache and pipelined write accesses. This all means a combination of the industries most advanced technologies for processing performance enhancements.
While software compatibility with existing applications is fully maintained, more than 80 mips processing power let real-world applications on the AMIGA perform competitively with other high end systems such as Pentium and PowerPC based machines. In combination with the AMIGAs other architectural advantages this makes a powerful system for all semi-professionals and professional applications, perfectly suited for today's requirements for multimedia computing.
The figures shown here indicate the performance leap which the 68060 brings to the AMIGA. With speed increases by a factor between 4 and 5 times over the performance of the original 68040 based AMIGA systems which have been powerful machines already - time-consuming applications are dramatically accelerated. These application benchmarks however still use unoptimized 68040 code which can be accelerated another 1.5 times by simple optimization to the 68060's special features, which is a most simple task for software developers now that the 68060 is available.
The scaleable superscalar architecture also opens a wide future for options such as multi-processor systems, which either combine multiple 68060 processors, or even integrate other CPUs into such a system to build a most flexible computer system for many various tasks.
As a conclusion it can be said that the 68060 processor integrated into the AMIGA architecture offers true workstation power. With this competitive performance and the full integration with the AMIGAs architectural advantages the AMIGA will hold it's position as an outstanding multimedia computing system.
So far the overview on the 68060 technology for the AMIGA. At the showroom, some 68060 based AMIGA systems can be seen running common AMIGA applications, so you can get a personal impression of this advanced technology. Thank you very much for your attention.
Why should we all forget about the 4000/060 Tower and buy PCs?? Easy!
With the high speed serial cartridge installed in the cartridge port of the Commodore 64/128, they are now equipped with a hardware based asynchronous receiver/transmitter which is capable of supporting serial speeds up to 57.6K bps. The HART cartridge by Hatronics and the SwiftLink cartridge by Creative Micro Designs allow you to drive the new high speed modems at their maximum speeds. This translates into shorter download times and lower telecommunication costs.
The HART cartridge is available from Hatronics. Contact Mark Hatten at:
HATRONICS 145 Lincoln Ave. Montclair, NJ 07042 (201) 783- 7264The HART cartridge is apparently supported by Desterm 2.00/2.01 on the 128, 57.K bps.
[Source: The CHALKBOARD newsletter via "The Computer Chronicle" of the Harrisburg Area Computer Groups, May 1995. HACG's address is 721 South 29th Street, Harrisburg, PA 17111.]
[Source: "The Computer Chronicle" of the Harrisburg Area Computer Group, May, 1995. HACG's address is 721 South 29th Street, Harrisburg, PA 17111.]
Digitalker 128 is a set of machine language routines that can play digitized sound samples from within a program. These sounds are included on the ClipSound disk supplied with Digitalker 128. Over 500,000 bytes of sound are included on the ClipSound disk.
Digitalker 128 supports, but does not require, a 1700 or 1750 RAM Expansion Unit. The program and ClipSounds are supplied on two 1571 format disks. Because they are not copy protected, the disks may be copied onto a 1581 format disk.
Included with Digitalker 128 are several speech demos and talking 80 column games.
Digitalker 128 is published by Free Spirit at a suggested retail price of $29.95.
Free Spirit Software P.O. Box 128, 58 Nobler St. Kutztown, PA 19530 (215) 683-5609[Source: The SCUG newsletter via "The Computer Chronicle" of the Harrisburg Area Computer Group, May, 1995. HACG's address is 721 South 29th Street, Harrisburg, PA 17111.]
Both Commodore fonts and three others of your choice are always available within FGM. There are literally 100s of available fonts that may be stored. These are normal fonts that can be expanded to almost unlimited sizes. But how about those headlines, calendars and letterheads that cry for specialized graphic fonts? Simple again! Capture them from Print Shop, GEOS, PaperClip Publisher, or any graphic program that has a 'Preview' display. How?
PRINT SHOP / COMPANION: Open Print Shop and go to the Screen Magic section. Write your text to the screen from the nine resident fonts or the dozens of fonts on companion disks, if your system is so configured. When your text is complete, either press a reset button or save the screen to disk. Load and run FGM and go directly to the Clip-Art section. [If you used your reset button,] your text will be there, ready for you to manipulate it, over/under or around any graphics you have. If you do not have a reset and have saved your P/S screen, you must load it into FGM before you continue.
GEOPAINT: Create your text with your graphic font so that it shows on the screen. Update the file or press the reset and used the same procedures as above. Additionally, if you have GEOVIEW, you may go directly to any GEOS file to place the text or graphics onto the screen viewing area. Once showing on the screen, it is fair game for capture by the FunGraphics Machine.
PAPERCLIP PUBLISHER: Set up a special disk with any fonts you plan to
use. The utility included with PCP allows you to import any font (up to 24
points) from GEOS or Outrageous Pages. Use the Epson driver, even if you
have a Commodore printer, as you will not be printing the file. Magnify the
upper-left corner; create a box; then remove the outlines from the screen.
Use the TEXT section to write your text in any font selected by the CURRENT
BOX and when the text is displayed the way you want it, press the reset
button. Load FGM and manipulate the text to your pleasure.
Don't overlook the many font enhancements! Variations like bold, shadow,
and outline can make the font appear different. FunGraphics allows you to
take advantage of specialized fonts and apply them in a manner not
available to other graphic programs. Three work screens and
[Source: The newsletter of the University of Washington Commodore Computer
User's Group via "The Computer Chronicle" of the Harrisburg Area Computer
Group, May, 1995. HACG's address is 721 South 29th Street, Harrisburg, PA
17111.]
Kevin Hopkins: Mark, at your Saturday session to show the Board what the
Macintosh could do, you mentioned that the Mac OS is written in chunks, very
object oriented. The sound module being the most recent to go native code.
Then you said that the visual interface had not been rewritten in native
PowerPC code and the emulation explained its lack of crispness. Did I
understand this correctly? Apple released its PowerPC machines and counted
on its emulation capability entirely to run the OS? I thought the rewrite of
the Toolbox WAS the rewrite of the WIMP System in effect. Is this not
correct?
Mark Bellon: You are correct. At release the entire operating system was
emulated, even the device drivers. Very little PPC specific code was written
outside of the emulator and the code to support PPC native programs. An
analysis was performed on a large number of applications and the most
frequently used graphics routines and a fewer other things were converted to
PPC native but that's it.
Despite what some may think this is a major miracle. Virtually any
application that ran on system 7 ported to the PPC without any problems.
Within a short time all of the critical applications were converted to PPC.
Applications of both types and fat binaries all worked transparently
together and the most critical stuff (graphics) ran at mostly PPC speeds.
In system 7.5.1 (the first update to system 7.5) some minor tuning was
done. In system 7.5.2 the first major infusion of PPC code will enter with
the resource and sound managers and perhaps other things. Color sync (screen
to color printing synchronization software is also now native) is now native
and is great for all of the those color ink jet printers that are so cheap.
I suspect that throughout this yet there will more manager converted but
Apple is doing the right thing IMHO: concentrating on the minimum to keep
the OS OK while investing major time in conversion and building a new really
native from the bottom up OS.
Concerting a whole industry to PPC is quite a difficult undertaking and
some of the lake of "snappiness" you saw is specific to my machine and the
software I run. Not all of it is native and having an m68k program in the
wrong place can really drag the machine down.
Kevin Hopkins: I'm glad you confirmed what I suspected. I figured rewriting
the OS would be a VERY large undertaking, however, I'm a little surprised
that such a large change in direction taken with the hardware wasn't
accompanied by an OS build from the ground up to really show it off. Perhaps
you can tell me a little about Copeland.
As for the snappiness, it wasn't just on your machine. We have four
PowerMacs in our CAD Lab at work and it was on those machines that I noticed
the user interface didn't have the crispness I'd become accustomed to on my
Amiga 3000. With the horsepower of the PowerPC chip, I was a little
surprised.
Mark Bellon: The rebuild of the OS is COPELAND (system 8). Don't think that
what they did was ignore the user interface or the whole OS. They didn't -
they converted the things that would give emulated and native program the
biggest win to native.
Given the size of the task I think they made the correct choice.
I mentioned this but it might make more sense now. Many machines have
inits that can slow the user interface down by an enormous amount. I had one
init that caused the apple menu to take over 2 seconds to come up! Talk
about slow!
PowerMac machines are very sensitive to what software they run. If you
choose wisely they run like a bat out of hell. If not, well...
COPELAND is scheduled to be 95% native although most people off the
record say 75%. The important thing is that the whole core will be native:
graphics, sound, files, networking and tasking. The system will have a
microkernel and behave much like AMIGADOS except that it will have memory
protection and virtual memory. The tasking and threading will be there as
well. There will also be multiprocessing: more than one processor per
person. Yes! Two 166 Mhz 604e processors just for me...
The new OS will also allow you to completely modify the finder to make it
look and feel the way you want it to. I've seen a few of the pieces and they
are impressive. The finder itself will be totally multi-threaded. Each
operation will spawn a thread and run in parallel. No more waiting for
copies or formatting floppies!
Kevin Hopkins: Also, your discussion of the different caches in your and
Rich's machines interested me. I've been doing a little reading on this and
have a question. The Amigas from the 020 on had caches on board the CPU, did
they not? Why did Motorola decide not to put a cache inside the PowerPC
chip, or did they and the caches you and Rich are talking about are
"secondary" caches?
Mark Bellon: The '020 had 256 bytes of cache. The '030 had 512 bytes, 256
for instructions and 256 for data. The '040 had 8K, 4K for instructions and
4K for data.
The PPC 601 in Richard's and my machine has 32 KB of cache that is used
for both instructions and data. This can be surprisingly optimal in many
settings. The 603e comes with 32 KB, split evenly between instructions and
data. The 604 comes with 32 KB split evenly like the 603e. The 604e will
have, let's just say, more cache.
In all of the PPC machines the cache in the chip is nice but the machines
are so fast that even that isn't enough so we add a second level (L2) cache.
The latest DEC ALPHA chip has the L1 and L2 caches inside the chip and using
a level 3 (L3) cache!
The L2 cache is an important accelerator for virtually all machines
today. This is because the technology to make RAM uses up MUCH more area
than it takes to make processor "type" things. This forces the designers to
keep the L1 cache sizes low so they can get all of the processor goodies
onto a chip of a given size. INTEL with their P6 took this to an extreme:
Make two incestuous chips, a processor and a cache, and tightly tie them
together in a single package. It looks like one big chips but it's actually
two chips, the processor and a 256 KB L2 cache.
For PPC machines an L2 cache if you don't have one is a cheap way to make
your machine go from 25-35% faster and things like graphics will be speed up
by 25-90%.
Deal One:
I have located a fantastic deal on a PowerMac system. The system comes in
a 60 Mhz speed (upgradable to 80 Mhz), has a cache slot (for up to 1MB of
cache), 8 MB of RAM, 350 MB of hard disk, 1 floppy, fast 2X CDROM, keyboard,
very good .28 DP 15" multisync monitor with stereo speakers and a ton of
software including several very good CDs.
The package price is $1900 and I can get several of them, minimum. As
with anything this good, there is a catch. These are technically refurb
units, as they were purchased and returned to Apple within 10 days of
purchase and are technically used, but have been completely brought up to
spec by Apple and have full warranties.
This is about $300 better than my best price on a "new" system.
A 60 Mhz PPC competes very well with a 75 Mhz PENTIUM in all tests and
beat a 90 Mhz PENTIUM in most tests. For $80 the clock can be raised to 80
Mhz and then you can give a 120 Mhz PENTIUM a run for it's money. Add a
cache and the system will be about 25-30% faster still.
Deal Two:
I've located a screaming PowerMac deal that involves the PERFORMA 6115
package that I quoted at the meeting for about $2199. I've located a source
for them at $1799!
This is a 60 Mhz PPC, 8MB RAM, 350 MB disk, CDROM, 15" monitor, keyboard,
14.4 modem (not the best), and a ton of software. Spend about $250 more and
the machine can be raised to 80 MHz and have a 256 KB L2 cache added.
The software is quite good and includes an encyclopedia, medical
reference, games and other things. Also included is a great many good
packages and even a security package.
Since System 7.5 is PowerPC-native, you may think your Mac can now fully
exploit the potential of the Power-PC. But System 7.5 still contains more
680X0 code than PowerPC code, the reason for slowed performance in some
areas, and it will be several years before Apple has a version of its system
software that is mostly native.
Many important portions of System 7.1.2 and 7.5--particularly QuickDraw-
-are written in native code. Still, in the core portions of System 7.1.2,
just 17 percent (39 of the 235 processes) are native, while in the Toolbox
supplemental processes, just 23 percent (191 out of 821) are native. System
7.5 has just slightly more native code than 7.1.2. Apple says that most
software relies mainly on the parts of the Mac OS that are already
native--but Apple refuses to estimate what percentage the time spent in
native parts of the operating system might actually be.
Although 680X0 code does not run optimally on a Power Mac, frequent
switching back and forth between emulation and native code runs even slower.
As a result, in System 7.5 Apple actually changed a few native- code
portions of System 7.1.2 back to 680X0 code to reduce the switching penalty.
How much faster would a Power Mac run if the entire System 7.5 were
native code? No one knows for sure; system-software developers estimate
anywhere from a 25 percent improvement for CPU-intensive applications to a
50 percent or greater improvement for disk-intensive applications (since
much of the I/O processes in System 7 are 680X0 code).
Even if you use native Power Mac software, your system may be slowed down
by 680X0 components added to the Mac OS in the form of extensions and
control panels. Both the freeware program PowerPeek (available on the online
service ZiffNet/Mac) and the $79.95 Conflict Catcher II 2.1 program (from
Casady & Greene, 408/484-9228) show which extensions and control panels may
be slowing native applications by replacing native code with 680X0 code. But
again, not all such situations will appreciably slow the Mac.
Unmasking Marconi
Eventually these issues will go away as Apple moves toward an all-native
operating system. Marconi, the code name for the System 7 update scheduled
for a mid-1995 release with the first PCI-based Power Macs, contains about
one-third native code. Marconi will have a native-code device manager, which
will handle all the system hardware outside the CPU and RAM. It will also
have an optimized emulator for 680X0 code on the PowerPC that will con-vert
blocks of 680X0 code into native form and save the blocks in RAM for reuse.
(The System 7.5 emulator deals with 680X0 code only one instruction at a
time and does not save any work.) This improved emulator may only run on
Macs using the PowerPC 603 and 604 CPUs--not on the earlier 601 CPUs. (Only
one of the first PCI Power Macs is likely to use a 604, but all PowerPC
PowerBooks are likely to use a 603.)
Connectix plans to offer similar emulation improvements for current
Power Macs in an as-yet-unnamed program scheduled to be released in
February 1995.
Composing Copland
Apple is expecting Copland, the code name for the major revision of the
Mac OS, to be 95 percent native code, according to the company. However,
some Apple programmers privately say that the native-code portion will fall
far short of 95 percent but should still be more than 50 percent. Copland
will have native code for such key areas as the File Manager, which creates
and reads disk files.
Because of many changes in its design and because of native code, Copland
could run twice as fast as System 7.5 for some applications, Apple says,
although such early estimates are tenuous at best.
Both versions are expected to provide important new features, including
preemptive multitasking, which is long overdue for the Mac. But the native
PowerPC version should go a long way toward realizing the potential of the
Power Mac already on your desk.
(c) Macworld Communication Inc., 1995 Transmitted: 95-02-18 15:33:19 PST
The Macintosh System Software - even System 7 - has never given me all
the tools I want or need to make file management, application launching, and
general productivity as easy as it should be. In fact, Apple has been pretty
reluctant to add even simple and common features of utility programs
marketed by third party software developers. I've been using a hodgepodge of
commercial utilities for these purposes. Among the best programs that I have
found to aid file management is the popular shareware program, Greg's
Browser.
Written by a graduate student in math for his own use, Greg's Browser has
evolved into a terrific Finder replacement. It is really more - perhaps it
should be called a Finder enhancement tool. In a series of windows Browser
displays, in a list view, the contents of any mounted volume or folder and
simultaneously shows the contents of selected subfolders, and
sub-subfolders, etc.
Select a volume, folder, or file by clicking on its name or small icon in
the Browser window. It is highlighted and immediately its contents are
listed in the adjacent right window. As you select successively deeper
subfolders Browser displays the contents of each, shifting the lists to the
left if you run out of space for more lists on the right. In many ways it
works like the Finder. You can select multiple items by depressing the Shift
(or Command) key as you click on them. You can drag any item to another
folder visible in the lists. You can even have multiple Browser windows open
to facilitate moving items between widely separated and/or deeply buried
folders. You may rename a selected item, but this is done at the lower left
of Browser's window rather than to the listed item. Information about a
selected item is displayed along the bottom of Browser's window. Drag
something to the Trash icon to trash it; you may also trash highlighted
items by depressing the Delete key. If you like, Browser will ask you if you
really want to trash an item for which you have selected the Delete key,
just to avoid trashing of things by inadvertent depression of the Delete
key. Double click a file, or drag and drop it on a compatible application in
the Browser lists, and it will be opened. When you quit that application,
you return to the Browser.
Browser also works with the Finder quite smoothly. Double click on a
folder in a Browser list to bring the Finder to the foreground with that
folder open and active. Highlight multiple folders in Browser list(s) and
select Reveal from the File menu to bring those folders (opened) to the
foreground in the Finder. Collapse the Browser window(s) to a small menu bar
icon by clicking the zoom box to make the Finder, or other background
windows, easily accessible. Clicking in the Browser window's close box
closes the window and returns you to the Finder. Selecting Browser from the
application menu restores Browser just the way it was when you closed it. If
you have the Drag and Drop Extension (System 7 Pro or later) installed, you
may drag items between Finder windows and Browser windows.
Browser offers some pretty handy unique features. Customize it in its
Preferences dialog. You select the font and font size it uses in its lists
and it will use and smooth even odd sizes of TrueType fonts. You may set it
to show invisible files and file version data. Browser also lets you view
the contents of files compressed with StuffIt or Compact Pro. If you have
the StuffIt engine on your hard disk, Browser lets you drag files into or
out of a StuffIt archive to compress or expand them, respectively.
Browser also lets you predefine several of your most often used files,
folders, and/or applications for immediate, 'mouse click away,' access.
These buttons, called Bookmarks, are located along the top of the Browser
window. A single click on a Bookmark brings it up in a Browser list. A
double click on a Bookmark launches/opens the "Bookmarked" item.
Unfortunately, there's only room for a few Bookmarks in Browser's window;
but for many users these will be all the application launcher buttons they
need.
The documentation for Browser is hidden within the "About Greg's Browser"
item under the Apple menu. Thus, you must run the Browser application to
access it. Fortunately, you may save it to a text file. I personally think
it preferable to include the documentation as a separate file. I often like
to read docs before I run the application. Also, it is much easier to find
them that way; not all users will be able to figure out where they are
buried.
Greg's Browser is a wonderful shareware bargain at $20. You'll need a
68020 or better Mac and System 7 or later. It is an application, not a
Control Panel or Extension, and uses only 400K of RAM and 332K of disk
space. It is a marvelous utility for any compatible Mac. Also, its window
dimensions and its small RAM requirement and application size make it a
really nice tool for PowerBook users. Greg's Browser is available from most
online services such as America Online, CompuServe, EWorld, and user group
bulletin boards.
(c) 1994 MacValley Voice, Burbank, CA.
An Upgrade, Imagine that!
Imagine 3.2 from Impulse showed up the other day, just as I finished an
Imagine based project for a client. Figures.
The new version includes 25 preset "quick" attributes. They even set it
up so that you can add your own "top-ten" textures. The textures can include
"brush" maps too.
A new feature that will come in real handy is a function called
"smooth." If you have ever tried to make a smooth curved edge you'll love
this function! (And, I just finished making a very complex curved object for
that last project, of course!!!)
Another nifty feature is the inclusion of a page flipper. You can now
flip through the "pages" of your animation forward and backward...
Imagine 3.1 and 3.2 does a really good job of importing DXF (AutoCad)
objects. It does it so well that if I am importing a bit map for conversion,
I'll use Axiom Software's Pixel Pro to make a DXF object and import that
into Imagine.
The best way to convert a bit map into a 3-D object is to scan it at the
highest resolution possible (ie., make a huge super bit map). Then use the
Line Art converter in ASDG's (Elastic ((Avid) Reality's) Art Department
Professional. Clean it up in Electronic Arts's, DPaint and make sure that
you get the colours in the right order...you'll know whether you have the
image the right way when you import the bit map into Pixel Pro! Save the new
object as a DXF object, import that into Imagine. Then go in and add faces.
I find the object looks better if you add the faces in Imagine, but you
can use Pixel Pro to make a solid object. Then make a DXF...
You can order Pixel Pro through Impulse for a Paltry $65.00 heck of a
deal. Call Impulse at 1 - 800 - 328 - 0184
I am impressed with Impulse's upgrade program, I can hardly wait for
version 4.0 in May said the readme file!
Font it, if you got it!
That project I was working on was to create a logo for video based on a
print project that used an Macintosh Adobe font called Futura... I found a
match in Final Writer, the font was called Montreal, but it was in Nimbus Q
format. Useless to me as Imagine can't read in that format. However, after a
short search, I found a font on Ami-Net called Fusion. Fusion was really the
Futura font...
I was using Final Writer to "look" at these fonts, but when I tried to
import the Fusion postscript font into Imagine, it wouldn't work! Reading
the font in Hex showed that "Fusion" was generated or converted using
Soft-Logik's TypeSmith! Imagine was telling me that the "vector" information
was missing.
I posted a note on the NAG BBS, hoping Geoff Gass or someone could
convert the font for me. Don Malm came over the next morning with Type Smith
V2.5 and 'fixed" the font for me (actually all we had to do was save it in
true Adobe Format instead of TypeSmith's format). Problem Solved!
Mean time, Geoff Gass found a whole family of "Fusion" Adobe PostScript
Type 1 fonts, ran them through TypeSmith and uploaded them on the BBS. Down
load them and check them out! Appropriate copyright notices are attached to
the fonts.
Thanks guys! White knight's you are riding to the rescue! Aren't
computer's fun?
The bottom line is if you use fonts in any project, you'll discover that
a program like Soft-Logik's TypeSmith is indispensable. Get it! My order is
in! You can call Soft-Logik at 1 - 800 - 829 - 8609 TypeSmith may some day
save your skin! Ouch!
It's Magic
How do you animate full overscan 24 bit IFF's? Easily if you have Terra Nova
Developement's, Magic Lantern!
Magic Lantern is designed to work with OpalVision (that's what I have),
but it'll work with any Amiga ECS/AGA, and other graphic cards like EGS Win,
Spectrum, Retina, Z3 Retina, Picasso, DCTV, and GDA formats.
Magic Lantern uses a compression technique called .diff and there are
variations...that allow playback from memory or directly off the harddrive.
What is amazing is the playback speeds are better that the old anim opt 5, 7
and 8 standards that are used by DPaint, Brillance and DCTV.
So with out single framing you can get amazing playback speeds that are
acceptable for video use. Not only that the .diff files are neat way of
archiving a huge project of hundreds of 24 bit frames. But, be careful here
as some of the compression techniques in Magic Lantern are lossy (you'll
loose information).
Typically the .diff animation file will be 50% less in size than the
single 24 bit frames. Magic Lantern has a function that will let you
uncompress the anim as single IFF's...So you can recover your IFF if you
need it! Oh yes, you can also add sound effects to play along with the
anim...
Call Terra Nova Developement at 805 - 652 - 0531 for Magic Lantern V2.0.
Backing it up...
A month or so ago in a Mac oriented catalogue, I noticed a little harddrive
that featured removeable media from Iomega called the Zip Drive. At the time
I thought that's nice, but paid no attention to it.
Later, a friend mentioned this neat little device, stating that it
sounded interesting, but he had no info about it. I immediately whipped out
the catalogue and there it was.
Iomega Zip Drive, available with either (you get to choose one only),
SCSI (must be ID # 5 or 6 with a 25 pin SCSI connector), or parallel port
connectors, 1.25 MB/Sec Data Transfer, 29ms access time, comes with 25
megabyte or 100 megabyte 3.5 inch removeable disks. Cost per disk as low as
$14.95 each when you order 10 or more. Drive costs $199.99
Okay for $450.00 you get 1 gig of storage at $.20 per megabyte!!!
Advertised as 4 drives in one, you can use it as a normal
Harddrive, for archiving backups, or as a portable drive (measures 1.5 x
7.26 x 5.35 inches) and weighs just 1 pound! I want one!
Available at MacWarehouse 1 -800 - 255 - 6227 or Creative
Computer's Mac Mall 1 - 800 - 222 - 2808 Both advertisers feature a 30 day
money back guarantee and next day delivery for $3.00
Presenting...
NAG Treasurer, Joan Cairns suggested a bonus "demo" disk for members that
renewed their membership before December 31...I volunteered to author the
disk.
I would have liked to use an up-to-date program, but Scala MM300 needs a
dongle to run...The only alternative program that would do what I wanted was
Electronic Arts, Deluxe Video III.
DV III shows its age. If you haven't seen the NAGDemo come to the next
general meeting on April 25th. You'll see it compared to what Oxxi's
VideoStagePro can do...you see, Oxxi, donated to NAG VideoStagePro. So if
you come to the general meeting, I'll show you the new version of the NAG
Demo produced using VideoStagePro and you'll get a chance to own
VideoStagePro as it will be NAG's raffle item.
ViseoStagePro MSRP is $179.95 You'll like what you see. VSP does things
that Scala and the others can't...you'll really like what you see. Am I
repeating myself? Come to the general meeting, April 25, 7:00 PM, all are
welcome.
VideoStagePro is a Scala killer, and Oxxi is fully supporting it!
...keep on WYSIWYGing...
The May 18th meeting began a little late after some free ticket
distribution difficulties and then wholesale ticket buying for the Spring
Computer Fest. President Huls opened the meeting at 7:26 pm with CUCUG's
traditional introduction of officers. He then opened the floor for our
Question and Answer Session.
Mark pointed out some of the similarities between the Amiga and Mac -
both are powered by Motorola processors. He noted even the 6502 family of
processors of the C64/128 are derivations of early Motorola designs. He said
the kinship goes very deep and the Macintosh could coexist quite well within
CUCUG.
Richard Rollins pointed out that several CUCUG members have been running
Macintosh emulators for years. Amax and Emplant and now ShapeShifter running
on the Amiga make a Mac SIG a natural extension of what members have already
been doing.
Harold Ravlin opened the discussion by asking the question, "Isn't there
already a Macintosh group on campus? And another in town?" Mark explained
that it is because of the ineffectiveness of these groups that this proposal
is being made. The UI group only meets 3 or 4 times a year and are hostile
to anyone not directly associated with the University. They are supposed to
meet once a month. And the local Mac group is all but dead. Neither one is
servicing the community. It is CUCUG's strong organization and desire to
serve the community that make it ideal to serve the needs of the Macintosh
users here.
Mark said what he and Richard offer is Richard as SIG Chairman and
himself as Librarian. Both would be willing to demonstrate software and
hardware at the meetings. Mark says he has many megs worth of Public Domain
software for Library disks, enough for the next year. This would provide
significant revenue for the club. They also have 15 to 20 people who have
expressed an interest in joining.
What they would desire from CUCUG is a place to meet along with us, some
space in the newsletter, and a video adapter to be able to display the
Library disks on the big monitor.
Someone notes that the C64 could be emulated on the PowerMac.
Another member asked what was the lowest end machine that the proposed
Mac SIG would be willing to support. Mark said whatever walks through the
door. There is no interest in supporting Apple IIs, but any Macintosh would
be welcomed.
Harold Ravlin voiced the principle undercurrent of concern, "Will the
Amiga become a SIG?" The answer is, technically, it already is. Granted it
is the majority of the club, as now constituted, and there may come a day
when the Macintosh membership numbers might surpass the Amiga members (then,
again, maybe not), but the Amiga will never be cast off. The C64/128 people
are still avidly supported by CUCUG.
In a similar vein, Joe Palmer suggested if they Mac numbers got too
large, perhaps they could meet on another night. Both Mark and Richard
didn't like this idea as it would promote separatism, which is the one thing
we as a group have always striven to avoid. There is also a more mundane
argument against it since it would increase club cost for room rent.
Kevin Hopkins spoke to the point that the men making this request are
both former President's of CUCUG and would never do anything to harm the
organization they both have served (in Richard's case, for many years). He
also spoke to the point of Mark being a very valuable resource, both
informationally and technically, through his connection with Motorola. (He
got us the ZIP drive.)
Bill Baxter made the points that opening the club up would expand our
resources and bring in people interested in computers.
When the possibility of bringing in clones was raised, Richard made the
comment that DOS people are different. They are not really like Commodore
people.
Someone made the point that it was a good idea to be looking toward the
University. It could only expand our ranks.
Vic Serbe brought the discussion around again to the topic of the club
loosing its identity if the Macintosh SIG got too large. This concern was
examined closely. The suggestion of separate meetings was again raised. But
as no one can predict how things will go, it was pretty much decided that
good faith would have to guide the decision making process when and if that
problem ever arises.
Kevin Hisel made note of the fact that the by-laws do not preclude other
platforms from CUCUG. They do however state that the decision is in the
hands of the President alone. Kevin moved that we vote, in order to make the
membership's feelings known. Jim Lewis seconded the motion. There being no
further discussion, a vote by show of hands was taken. The proposal to form
a Macintosh SIG with CUCUG passed overwhelmingly. Only one member voted "No"
(just so it wouldn't be unanimous).
Winding down before the break, Kevin Hisel pointedly reminded everyone to
remember Nova Design, the company now distributing GVP items. They were a
big help in supporting our Computer Fest. Kevin also showed some of the
computer related T-shirts available in the raffle. He thanked Jon Sago for
his generosity in providing eight $25 Gift Certificate from his ECI Computer
Exchange. And finally, he showed the Grand Prize, the ZIP drive, and
encouraged everyone to buy tickets.
Richard Rollins pointed out the coffee and doughnuts.
After the break the merriment commenced.
The May meeting of the CUCUG executive board was held on Wednesday, May
24th at 7PM at Kevin Hisel's house (address and phone number, both in the
book). Present at the meeting were Jim Huls, Dave Witt, Mark Landman, Mike
Latinovich, Craig Kummerow, Kevin Hopkins, Anderson Yau, Richard Rollins Jon
Sago, Emil Cobb, Kevin Hisel and Jim Lewis.
Jim Huls: Speaking of the May meeting, Jim said he thought it went pretty
good. He wished to thank everyone who helped with the raffle. "You were
great."
Jim informed the Board members that we would have to change the Board
meeting back to Tuesday. He was have trouble working it into his schedule,
as were a couple of other members. The change was agreed to.
Now for the bad news: the Union Hall has changed their phones over to a
digital system (as Bresnan had done). Jim Lewis said its not a problem. We
can run a phone line over from his place next door. Disaster averted.
There was a discussion of how to build noise barriers for the meetings.
Kevin Hopkins suggested waiting to see if it really becomes a problem before
we go to the expense and logistical problems involved in constructing
something.
Jim announced that Jason Compton will not be able to make it to the June
meeting. He is having his wisdom teeth removed the day before our scheduled
meeting, so he wouldn't function very well as a speaker. He said he would
come in July. We had tentatively scheduled a discussion of the Internet for
July, so that will be switched to June. A discussion followed concerning the
Internet meeting, what to do, and who would do it.
Mike Latinovich: Mike said the May meeting was an "interesting meeting."
He said he wanted to walk in, put down $4, and walk out with a ZIP drive,
but it didn't happen. He said the ticket line was confusing. Walking up to
have your ticket checked, choosing your prize and having it noted as you
walked out worked well. And... "The food was good."
Mark Landman: Mark gave his usual, flawless Treasurer's Report, although
he reported a loss for the month of April. There was some talk about the
room rent at the Bresnan Center and the Union Hall. On the IRS, Mark said he
hopes to hear something in 4 to 6 weeks.
Craig Kummerow: Craig made note of some mail from Parsec that he had
received.
He informed everyone he would not be at the next meeting, nor the Board
meeting. He would be on vacation in Yellowstone. Mike Latinovich will take
the Amiga 200 to prepare for the Internet meeting. Craig gave Emil the C64
Beginner's Packs and disks.
Craig turned in some more income from the sale of the Gast/Stevenson
donations.
Emil requested that the winners of C64 stuff at the raffle show something
at the next meeting. Bring things to show.
Speaking of the C64/128 SIG, Craig and Emil said they thought their
people would like to sit in on the Internet discussion. They wanted the
newsletter to specifically point out that the C64/128 people "can do this
stuff too."
Emil Cobb: Emil said he didn't have that much to say. "Good turn out" at
the May meeting. There appeared to be good interest in the Mac SIG.
Kevin Hopkins: Kevin presented the exchange newsletters and handed out
the mail. Kevin pointed out that Kevin Hisel's article on Windows95 had been
picked up by the "MCCC News" newsletter of the Metroplex Commodore Computer
Club in Fort Worth / Dallas, May issue.
Kevin made note of the fact that the Lost-Souls letter went out last
month.
He asked other Board members if they were getting a newsletter from the
User Group Connection (http://www.ugconnection.org/). A couple were.
Kevin presented a completed "Winners' List" from the Computer Fest. Don
Schaffer, Jim Lewis, and Jerry Feltner came away the big winners overall. Of
course, Joe Palmer won the ZIP drive, so he has to be pretty happy, too.
Kevin also provided the names of a few new members.
Anderson Yau: Anderson said that at the next raffle we need to control
the crowd better. Having to clear the hall and then let people back in again
was not good. Everyone agreed.
Richard Rollins: Richard thanked everyone for the support of the Mac SIG.
He noted that Mark Bellon had already turned over the first library sales
generated by the Mac.
Richard said that for the June meeting he would be doing the "secret
keys" on the Mac: 30 or so keyboard combinations that perform interesting
things.
Richard said the Mac SIG needs a video adapter for their machine to be
able to display output on the big monitor. He requested the Board spend the
required $185. In light of the negative cash flow for April and only three
members in the SIG at present, the Board wanted to take a little slower
approach to this expenditure. Subscribing to the traditional club adage of
"paying for itself", the Board wants to see the Mac SIG grow a little before
we spend that kind of money. This sparked some rather pointed debate, but in
the end, it was agreed that this was probably only going to be about a
month's delay anyway. For the next meeting, the Mac people will view their
library disks in their SIG. Mark will have 10 disks available, but will be
officially releasing 4 of them.
Richard then talked about some of the magazines available for the
Macintosh.
Kevin Hisel (KH1): Kevin reported that BBS usage is WAY up, from 8% to
18%. However, BBS functionality is way down. The new hard drive's software
driver is still giving us trouble. Jon Sago will be taking the BBS machine
to fix it (which he did).
Kevin said with the current situation with the net, he is able to fill
the club's Library needs without using pay services, so he is relinquishing
are funds previously used to support that activity. It now costs the club
nothing to gather the software for our club disks.
Kevin's characterization of disk sales in May was "medium." He reported
the first $25 received from the sale of Macintosh disks.
Kevin stated that our revenue from the raffle was quite respectable.
Finally, Kevin reported that we are receiving about 675 hits a day on our
Amiga Web Page on Prairienet.
Jim Lewis: Jim referred to the hustling the people out of the meeting
hall and then having them come back in again as "the free ticket" fiasco. He
said the next time we do this we should print out a current membership list
and check people in as the come in. Despite all that, though, he was pretty
pleased with his own outcome in the raffle. Jim personally bought 1/10 of
all the tickets sold it was determined.
Jim said we should be looking into hardware acquisition now, for next
year.
He reiterated that the phone system will be OK.
He volunteered to work on the noise barriers, if needs be.
As Corporate Agent, he has nothing new to report.
Jon Sago: Jon said he would work on the BBS machine and have it up soon.
Dave Witt: Dave pronounced the May meeting "A good meeting." He agreed
with Jim's idea of a check list, to avoid a recurrence of the problem we had
at the door this time.
Meetings are held the third Thursday of each month at 7 p.m. at the IBEW
Local 601 Union Hall (352-1741), located at 2901 Research Road in the
Interstate Research Park in northwest Champaign. To get there, go north on
Mattis over I-74 and turn right at the second stop light, onto Interstate
Drive. Then take the first "real" left at Research Road. The Electrician's
Hall is the third building on your left. There's a big flag pole right out
front and it's directly across the street from one of Hobbico's signs. You
should park and enter the building in the back.
ASCII text files of all recent Status Register newsletters are available
for downloading on our BBS or our WWW site. Other user group newsletter
editors may leave a comment to the BBS Sysop to request free access. To
initiate a newsletter exchange, just send us your newsletter. As a matter of
CUCUG policy, a newsletter 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):
Call our Starship CUCUG BBS at (217) 356-8056, always online, up to
14,400 baud, supporting all CBM computers. Surf our home page at
Call Prairienet free at (217) 255-9000. Login as "visitor".Native OS on PowerPC Mac and Caches
by Kevin Hopkins and Mark Bellon of CUCUGScreaming PowerMac Deals
From: Mark Bellon, CUCUGLong Road to a Native OS
Marconi, Copland to add native code
by Cary LuGreg's Browser:
A Powerful Finder Enhancement Program
By Tom PittsWYSIWYGing
by Garry Stasiuk, garrys@pacifier.rain.com"Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis. - Times change, and we change
with them too." -- From Owen's Epigrammata
"There is nothing permanent except change." -- Heraclitus
"The more the change the more it is the same thing." -- Alphonse Karr
"Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything changed." --
Irene Peter
"Things do change. The only question is that since things are
deteriorating so quickly, will society and man's habits change quickly
enough?" -- Isaac Asimov
"Mater artium necessitas - Necessity is the mother of invention."
-- Anonymous Saying
May General Meeting
reported by Kevin Hopkins
At this point in the proceedings, President Jim Huls announced that Mark
Bellon and Richard Rollins had a proposal to make to the club and turned the
floor over to them. Doing the principle speaking, Mark Bellon requested the
club sponsor a Macintosh Special Interest Group, similar to what was done
with the Amiga in 1987.May Board Meeting
recorded by Kevin HopkinsThe Back Page
The Champaign-Urbana Commodore Users Group, (CUCUG), a not-for-profit
corporation and Authorized Commodore User Group #00251, was organized in
1983 to support and advance the knowledge of area Commodore computer users.
President: Jim Huls 892-8730
Vice-President: David Witt 684-2815 maddog@prairienet.org
Secretary/Editor: Kevin Hopkins 356-5026 kh2@uiuc.edu
Treasurer: Mark Landman 398-2910 mlandman@prairienet.org
Corporate Agent: Jim Lewis 359-1342 NOSPAMlewis_j_e@yahoo.com
Librarian/Sysop: Kevin Hisel 406-948-1999 khisel @ cucug.org
C64/128 SIG: Craig Kummerow 784-5919 cwkummer@prairienet.org
Macintosh SIG: Richard Rollins 469-2616 RERollins@aol.com