News Humor C64 Mac Amiga CUCUG
The August 20 meeting will be one of our split SIG meetings. The Macintosh SIG will be doing "Internet stuff" - how to download files, visiting members favorite sites, etc. The Amiga SIG will be discussing and/or playing with whatever members bring in. Come and contribute.
We'd also like to welcome back returning members E. J. Gaspard and Phillip J. Bruggeman. And a particular thanks to renewing member Anthony E. Bodo. Anthony is currently a CUCUG member, but he decided to renew for next year already. That makes Anthony the first CUCUG member of the new millennium. Quite a distinction. Thanks for that vote of confidence. We appreciate it.
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 community submitted hundreds of nominations and, based upon your input, we are pleased to welcome the following members of the Amiga Advisory Council:
Andrew Elia Ben Vost Bill Panagouleas Cade Hannan Carsten Schroeder Chris Kemp Chris Heereman Christoph Dietz Conor Kerr Dave Law Craig DeLahoy Don Hicks Gunter Horbach Gary Peake Heinz Wrobel Hulger Kruse Ian Greenaway Jeff Rose Juergen Haage Kermit Woodall Luca Denelon Malte Mundt Randhir Jesrani Thomas Frieden Thomas Raukamp Tom Lively Thomas Svenson Trish Zlotek Wayne Martin Wayne HuntThe objective of the AAC is to help us better plan the future of Amiga through close communications with people who are viewed as leaders in the Amiga community. The members of the AAC have all executed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), with Amiga and will have access to confidential information regarding future products and plans. This allows Amiga to share sensitive information with respected members of the Amiga community without having to disclose our plans publicly.
The members of the AAC were selected to represent their different areas of affiliation within the Amiga community - the Press, Developers, Dealers/Distributors, and the User Group organizations. The AAC is designed to provide a flow of information from the Community to the Amiga management team and from Amiga back to the community. Each of the members of the AAC will act as a conduit to the community and the areas that they represent.
We held our first official meetings with the AAC in London and in Sacramento with over 20 AAC members participate in these first official meetings. The AAC was able to share with Amiga many of the desires, and needs of the community. As we work towards the launch of the Next Generation Amiga the input received by the AAC will help guide those decisions.
"We are excited to welcome the members of the AAC as active representatives of the Amiga community and look forward to implementing many of the programs suggested in the near future, stated Jim Collas, "together we will make a difference in computing forever."
For more information please contact:
Bill McEwen, Amiga
bill.mcewen@amiga.com
Tel:425-413-2620
Fax:425-413-2640
OK, to the best of my knowledge here are the people that have been appointed by Amiga Inc. to the Amiga Advisory Council.
Andrew Elia - AmigaSoc, London (http://uk.amigasoc.org/)
Ben Vost - Editor of Amiga Format magazine (http://www.futurenet.com/amiganet/)
Bill Panagouleas - DiscreetFX
Cade Hannan - UGN Representative, Africa
Carsten Schroeder - Amiga Aktuell site and monthly online magazine
(http://www.mediaspace.net/amigaaktuell/international/main.html)
Chris Heereman - Amiga Info site (http://www.xs4all.be/~pheerema)
Amiga Benelux (http://come.to/amigabnl)
General Coordinator Waaslandia Amiga-Only Club
(http://titan.glo.be/~waasland/index.shtml)
Writer Amiga Scene - Head UGN Belgium
Coordinator AAA Awards Belgium
Coordinator Amiga Benelux Show - Team *AMIGA*
Christian Kemp - Amiga News Network (http://www.ann.lu/)
Christoph Dietz - (http://chrisdi.wtal.de/)
Conor Kerr Director - Mystique Corporation
Craig DeLahoy - (http://www.ansonic.com.au/craigd/digest/)
Dave Law - Owner of Weird Science, major UK based distributor
Don Hicks - Amazing Computing/Amiga (http://www.pimpub.com/)
Gary Peake - Coordinator of Team AMIGA
(http://www.OwlNet.Net/amiga/teamamiga/)
Gunter Horbach - owner of KDH-Datentechnik, a large retailer
in Germany (http://www.kdh-datentechnik.com).
Heinz Wrobel - Envoy Development
Holger Kruse - Creator of the Miami TCP stack for the Amiga
(http://www.nordicglobal.com)
Ian Greenaway - Owner of White Knight Developments in the UK,
specialists in desktop video.
Jeff Rose - Unitech Electronics, Australia (http://www.ideal.net.au/~unitech/coprofile.htm)
Juergen Haage - Haage and Partner (http://www.haage-partner.com/)
Kermit Woodall - Nova Design (http://www.novadesign.com/)
Luca Danelon - Editor of AmyResource in Italy and contributor to
Amiga Life, an upcoming Amiga magazine.
AmyResource CD-Rom Series
Malte Mundt - Scener "ThunderBlade"
Randhir Jesrani - CompuQuick Media Center (http://www.infinet.com/~comquick/)
Thomas Frieden - (http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/CIP/tfrieden/)
Together with his brother he ported Descent and Abuse,
both developed Warp3D (together with Sam Jordan)
now they are part of the Hyperion team that ports Shogo,
Heretic2 and Worms Armagddon.
Thomas Raukamp - AmigaOS Online web site
(http://www.amigaos.de/) and a monthly printmag.
Thomas Svenson - Editor of AI/Echo, Swedish Amiga & Linux mag
(was AmigaInfo).
Tom Lively - The Lively Computer (http://www.sdtoaster.com/tlc/)
Trish Zlotek - one of the managers of Software Hut (http://www.softhut.com/)
Wayne Hunt - Wayne Hunt, Executive Director, User Group Network (http://ugn.amiga.org/)
Wayne Martin - User Group Network, Amiga.org News Editor
ToC
23.07.1999 - Our future in the Amiga classic market is not clear right now. We will definitely sell our AriadneII and the forthcoming 3D-module add-on for PicassoIV but this doesn't go for the sales of PicassoIV, Paloma PAL, Pablo and Concierto. As the sales in the last few month have dropped dramatically, it's no longer profitable for our company to run other assembly lines.
So we had to swallow the bitter pill and cancel the production line and sales of Paloma, Pablo and Concierto officially. You may find last pieces of these products with our distributors though... If there is someone interested in licensing one of these products you can contact us.
For the PicassoIV, we have another solution for our customers to have a last chance to get one of these marvelous graphic-boards:
To be sure to sell enough cards for an assembly line and to make it profitable for our distributors too, you can preorder your PicassoIV with them. VillageTronic will produce the requested cards in a VERY LAST assembly line so that the now preordered boards will arrive in distribution by the end of September.
Customers that have preordered their cards here directly with us will get them as soon as we have enough on stock. After that VillageTronic will NOT sell ANY boards directly anymore to endcustomers.
This will definitely be the last order for PicassoIV. So please contact our distributors for your LAST ORDER:
America: England:
SoftwareHut Blittersoft:
www.softhut.com www.blittersoft.com
softhut@erols.com sales@blittersoft.com
Bolmar industrial Park 6 Drakes Mews
991 S. Bolmar St. units F&G Crownhill Industry
West Chester, Pa. 19382 Milton Keynes
United States Buckinghamshire, UK
Tel: 800-932-6442 or 610-701-6301 MK8 0ER
Fax: 610-701-6306 Tel: +44 (0)1908 261466
Fax: +44 (0)1908 261488
Italy:
Euro Digital Equipment
aorlandini@villagetronic.com
Via Dogali 25
Italy 26013 Crema
Germany:
KDH-Datentechnik Vesalia Computer
www.kdh-datentechnik.com www.vesalia.de
bestell@kdh-datentechnik.com order@vesalia.de
S dring 65 Industriestr. 25
72160 Horb 46499 Hamminkeln
Tel: 7451/555111 Tel: 02852/9140-10
Fax: 7451/ 555115 Fax: 02852/1802
[Editor's note: The reason for this move was revealed by Klaus Burkert
(PML@arkon.capella.de) on the Picasso Mailing List (picasso@ninemoons.com)
where he wrote: The "mother company" (currently AI) wasn't really helpful in
influencing the decision, back in a private meeting at Cologne '98 I asked
explicitly for "anything to make management stay with the Amiga or go for
the AmigaNG". They (Jeff Schindler and Allan Havemose) didn't answer that
question or give me anything at all. Maybe this was because the appointment
was seeded by Fleecy who was axed short before, I don't know. The bottom
line is, AI didn't care and business demands forced it finally.]
Amiga Forever 3.0 has been released at the World of Amiga show this week. Upgrades are now available online for only $14.99!
Upgrade URL: http://www.digitalriver.com/cloanto/amiga3/
The upgrade includes and installs:
The upgrade not only updates the Amiga operating system files, but it also installs the newest versions of Amiga Explorer, WinUAE, Personal Paint, TurboText, LhA and other programs which have never been released before on Amiga Forever. Some of these full commercial titles are exclusives that are not available elsewhere in these latest versions.
If you currently own a CD-ROM version of Amiga Forever 2.0, or an Online Edition released before the end of January 1999, you will also appreciate the many additional tools that are preinstalled in the Amiga environment. These include a ToolManager dock with convenient buttons for many of the most frequently used tasks, such as drag-and-drop archive extraction.
The latest version of the emulation software includes experimental support for AGA display and MIDI output. The CD-ROM version of Amiga Forever 3.0 additionally contains a StuffIt archive with a complete, preconfigured PowerMac configuration of the Amiga emulation environment.
The online version of the Amiga Forever 3.0 upgrade can be applied to both the Amiga Forever 2.0 CD-ROM and the Online Edition, and does not cause any loss of data in your existing Amiga configuration. The size of the downloadable file is less than 5 MB. The upgrade is available now for only $14.99! Upgrade URL:
http://www.digitalriver.com/cloanto/amiga3/
Because of the exceptional price at which we are offering version 3.1 of the Amiga OS, we have been asked to make sure that the ROMs that we distribute can be used only on emulated Amiga systems. We did this in a way that does not affect software compatibility, and which works with all versions of UAE and Fellow released after October 1997 (when a special ROM encoding was introduced for Amiga Forever).
We would like to again thank you for your enthusiasm and support, which allows us to keep working on Amiga-related projects, and maintain Amiga emulation legal and accepted by the Amiga companies!
Your Cloanto Team
Upgrade Download
http://www.digitalriver.com/cloanto/amiga3/
Additional Upgrade Information
http://cloanto.com/amiga/forever/upgrades.html
Recovery of Lost Amiga Forever 2.0 Download Files and Serials
http://www.digitalriver.com/cs/
Apple Computer announced a $203 million profit for its third fiscal quarter of 1999. The results include a one-time $89 million gain from continued sales of Arm Holdings plc; without this, Apple's profit would have been $114 million. According to Apple, unit growth is 40 percent higher than at this time a year ago, propelled by strong sales of iMac systems into consumer and education markets; approximately 45 percent of Apple's sales are to international markets. Currently, Apple is operating with less than one day of inventory and a cash balance of over $3.1 billion, and the company's profit margin continues to improve, rising to 27.4 percent this quarter. These results mark Apple's seventh consecutive profitable quarter. Apple also announced plans to repurchase up to $500 million of its common stock. [GD]
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/1999/jul/14q3.html
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/1999/jul/14stock.html
Apple recommends all users of Mac OS 8.6 download and install Font Manager Update 1.0 to fix corrupted font resources and prevent possible future corruption. The Font Manager Update extension prevents corruption of FOND resources within some applications or fonts, and fixes a problem with the character heights of Apple's Japanese and Traditional Chinese fonts. The included Font First Aid utility repairs already damaged resources. Make backup copies of any files that need repairing, however, since some programs may not work properly if their resources have been changed. The update is a 312K download. [JLC]
http://asu.info.apple.com/swupdates.nsf/artnum/n11489
Alsoft has released DiskWarrior 1.0.4, an update to its disk repair tool that focuses on correcting directory damage. (See "Fighting Corruption with Alsoft's DiskWarrior" in TidBITS-486_.) Version 1.0.4 lists all files that were recovered from a volume and can save the report to the recovered volume in case no other writable disks are available. DiskWarrior now places recovered items in a Rescued Items folder for testing and verification; once you've confirmed an item is intact, the Finder's Put Away command returns it to its original location. DiskWarrior owners can download a free 561K updater; otherwise, owners can purchase the latest bootable DiskWarrior CD-ROM from Alsoft for $13 (plus $5 shipping). [GD]
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05443
http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/
When we wrote about Eudora Pro 4.2.1 (see "Eudora Pro Continues to Deliver" in TidBITS-488_ and TidBITS-489_), only the updater for existing owners of Eudora Pro 4.0 was available. Qualcomm has now released both the full commercial package of Eudora Pro 4.2.1 and a 30-day time-limited demo version (7.7 MB download). The full commercial package includes both the Macintosh and Windows versions of Eudora and costs $50 (a $10 rebate is currently available) plus an additional $20 if you want a printed version of Eudora's online documentation. If you want to try the demo and you're using a previous version of Eudora, Qualcomm recommends first backing up your Eudora Folder because Eudora Pro 4.2 changes some file and folder locations, making reversion complex. Eudora Pro 4.2.1 requires a 68020 Macintosh or better with at least System 7.1 and 900K of free RAM. [ACE]
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1147
http://eudora.qualcomm.com/pro_email/demos/
http://store.qualcomm.com/product.asp?product%5Fno=EPRO&discount
Bare Bones Software has released a 2.4 MB BBEdit 5.1.1 update. The update enhances BBEdit's ToolServer support, enables scripted multi-file search and replace operations, improves window management, and squashes a number of bugs and cosmetic issues. BBEdit 5.1.1 also fixes some errors soft wrapping text or spell checking documents, and correctly carries user-defined key commands forward from previous versions of BBEdit. Bare Bones has posted a complete list of changes in BBEdit 5.1.1 on their Web site. [GD]
http://web.barebones.com/support/update.html
http://web.barebones.com/products/bbedit/rnotes.html
It's coming. During his keynote address [at Macworld Expo], Steve Jobs indicated that Mac OS 9 is on schedule for an October delivery. This version of the new OS will offer 50 new features including Sherlock II, which was demonstrated extensively.
If you purchase a qualifying Power Macintosh G3 computer before September 25, you may be eligible to receive either 128MB of additional RAM or a Hewlett-Packard 810c inkjet printer. At no additional charge.
In fact, purchase a 17-inch Apple Studio Display (16-inch viewable) at the same time, and you'll also receive a $100 cash rebate.
A list of qualifying computers and complete terms and conditions for this offer are available at:
http://www.apple.com/promo/g3summeroffer/
In Japan, Sony Vaio machines have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages with their own Japanese haiku poetry:
Windows NT crashed. A file that big? I am the Blue Screen of Death. It might be very useful. No one hears your screams. But now it is gone. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The Web site you seek Chaos reigns within. Can not be located but Reflect, repent, and reboot. Countless more exist Order shall return. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ABORTED effort: Yesterday it worked Close all that you have worked upon. Today it is not working You ask too much. Windows is like that. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - First snow, then silence. With searching comes loss This thousand dollar screen dies and the presence of absence: so beautifully. "My Novel" not found. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The Tao that is seen Stay the patient course Is not the true Tao, until Of little worth is your ire You bring fresh toner. The network is down - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - A crash reduces Three things are certain: your expensive computer Death, taxes, and lost data. to a simple stone. Guess which has occurred. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - You step in the stream, Out of memory. but the water has moved on. We wish to hold the whole sky, This page is not here. But we never will. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Having been erased, Serious error. The document you're seeking All shortcuts have disappeared. Must now be retyped. Screen. Mind. Both are blank. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -ToC
Commodore Products Source List
Roger Long
1851 97th St. S., Apt. V7
Tacoma, WA 98444
NEW YORK - Apple interim chief executive Steve Jobs introduced a new consumer portable here today and proclaimed that the iMac has become a pervasive part of American culture in only a year since its introduction.
In a flurry of announcements at the Macworld Expo -- the industry trade show devoted to the company he cofounded -- Jobs unveiled a compact "iMac to go" consumer portable called "iBook." He also debuted something called QuickTime TV and said the OS 9 operating system for the Macintosh will be available in October for $99.
The keynote was heavy on spectacle. Actor Noah Wyle -- who played Jobs in the recent TV movie Pirates of Silicon Valley -- was first to appear on stage, pretending to be Jobs, much to the delight of the Apple faithful. Later, Apple showed TV ads for the iBook, one of which featured the silky voice of crooner Barry White.
The iBook will be priced at $1,599 and will be available in volume in September, Jobs said. The 6.5-pound portable will also include a 12.1-inch active-matrix screen, the "fastest graphics [chip] ever in a portable," a 300-MHz G3 processor, a 3.2GB hard drive, CD-ROM drive, modem, and Ethernet networking.
The iBook that Jobs displayed was a two-toned model, sporting hues of tangerine and white. The notebooks will also be offered in blueberry, he said, adding that the colored lip on the back of the computer's screen is made of rubber.
"We wanted ground-breaking battery life. We have six-hour battery life. This is an all-day battery life product," Jobs said.
Apple's designers added some interesting touches to the portable, including a built-in handle, antenna, and a power adapter that winds up the power cord into a round plastic case when not in use. The notebook's look is reminiscent of the iMac but is limited to two colors.
"That's it?" remarked one disappointed audience member. There had been speculation that the iBook would be available in five colors.
In a press conference after the keynote, Apple's head of industrial design, Jonathan Ives, said that the two colors were chosen because the rubberized material looked and worked best in tangerine and blueberry. Jobs said it was possible Apple would introduce more colors at a later date.
The keynote was vintage Jobs, an executive known as much for his theatrics and marketing acumen as his technological expertise.
He used the opportunity to espouse Macintosh religion, as he has been doing for the last two decades. With his usual flourish, Jobs proclaimed that the iMac "has already become a pervasive part of our culture" despite being on the market for only a year.
He also took the time to tout computer sales numbers. He predicted that 1.9 million iMacs will have been sold by the time the iMac has been on the market one year.
But Apple still has a long way to go to regain a significant chunk of the market. Apple's market share in the U.S. retail notebook market in May was a meager 2 percent, according to Infobeads. Senior analyst Matt Sargent said in a written report that Apple's share of the retail desktop market was in the same situation last year before the iMac rescued Apple from the doldrums. Since the release of iMac, Apple's desktop computer share has stayed in the 5-percent range, double their share before iMac, according to Sargent.
Jobs also said that inventory for these computers has been reduced to 15 hours. If true, this is amazing, because typical inventory for PC makers such as Dell Computer and Compaq Computer is about six to 25 days.
Jobs also demonstrated a number of potential TV commercials for the iBook and rated the audience's reaction. One ad--which asked, "Can you fall in love with your computer?" -- featured a sedate statement on the significance of the cutting-edge design.
Wireless connection Perhaps the most captivating feature of the iBook had more to do with its wireless connection than the hardware itself. Jobs showed the iBook working with "AirPort Wireless Networking" that runs at a speedy rate of 11 mbps and uses the wireless networking feature built into the iBook. This allows the iBook to connect to the Internet without a telephone cord.
"This marries Lucent's wireless technology with our computer. We have been working with Lucent over the last 18 months on this," he said. He said it works at up to 150 feet away.
The AirPort add-in card will be $99, he said.
Jobs said QuickTime TV will be comprised of a "receiver, station, network, and content." ABC News is a partner, and QuickTime TV will include content from Rolling Stone magazine, BBC, Fox news, HBO, National Public Radio, Disney, ESPN, and WGBH public TV in Boston.
The initiative involves video and audio content aggregated with Apple's QuickTime multimedia software. Despite its name, however, the video quality does not approach that of television and does not involve any TV transmission using Apple's technology.
Jobs also offered new details on upcoming versions of the Macintosh operating system. He said the next version of the current Macintosh will be called Mac OS 9--previously known by the code name Sonata. Analysts have been looking for indications of when this software will ship, because it's a high-profit-margin product that will add to Apple's bottom line for the company's fiscal first quarter of 2000.
Among the notable features of Mac OS 9 that were demonstrated was a new version of the company's search engine technology, called Sherlock II. It is being modified to make it easier to shop for any items sold on e-commerce sites ranging from books to CDs--to any kind of computer hardware. The technology was originally developed to search content on a user's hard disk drive, as well as provide a way to search Internet sites.
The appearance of Wyle set a light-hearted tone for the speech. The actor, dressed in a black shirt and jeans, a trademark style of Jobs, kicked off the keynote by saying he'd be showing "insanely great products," while mimicking all the gestures and speech patterns of the erstwhile showman and interim CEO.
In 1992, our long-time contributing editor Mark Anbinder suggested a post-Macworld article of "superlatives" - products, companies, booths, events, or anything else that struck us as intriguing. Since then, we've published a superlatives article after almost every Macworld Expo; it's illuminating to look back to see what we thought was worth mentioning.
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbser=1148
This year, we almost cancelled this superlatives article because Apple's iBook consumer portable and AirPort wireless networking dominated the Expo. TidBITS readers at the show said the same thing - many products were of a high quality, but didn't knock your socks off because of the hubbub surrounding Apple. Nonetheless, Macworld sported many worthy exhibitors we haven't yet mentioned, and the following items caught our eyes.
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05487
Most Amazing Graphics Application
I'm not a graphics professional, but I was stunned by Synthetik Software's new $295 Studio Artist. It's hard to describe, since it can "simulate natural art materials," "automatically paint and draw based on intelligent visual perception modules," and "autopaint or rotoscope QuickTime video frame by frame automatically." I'm also intrigued by its capability to "warp, stretch, and mutilate images in real-time." Studio Artist's demo at the Macworld Town Meeting had everyone's jaw firmly ensconced on the floor. Don't rely on my poor description, though: download a free 8.2 MB demo. [ACE]
Best T-Shirts
Tchotchkes were almost non-existent at this year's Expo, but Cyrusoft
International, makers of the Mulberry IMAP email program, came through with
a t-shirt that neatly summarized existence: "Email is my life." Apple also
won points for a shirt playing off the classic "I
Best Bargain
999software.com is an online software discounter and clearinghouse. We're
used to seeing such deep discounts at trade shows, but these folks do it all
year long, online. All of their software titles cost $9.99, plus shipping.
Their catalog leans heavily toward software for kids and last year's games,
but they have some relatively new items, and some gems like StuffIt Deluxe
4.5. We were curious about upgrade policies for such purchases, but Aladdin
assured us these copies of StuffIt Deluxe were as eligible for upgrades as
any others. [MHA]
Best USB Product
Dozens of vendors were showing off USB- related gizmos, but Entrega blew
us away with their $150 Mac USB Dock, a one-stop solution for users of
USB-only Macs who mourn the absence of SCSI and serial ports. The Entrega
Mac USB Dock builds upon the company's USB-to-SCSI and serial converters,
offering two USB ports, an 8-pin serial port, and a Mac-standard DB-25 SCSI
port. The Mac USB Dock should ship this month. [MHA]
Rethinking CDs
If you've been frustrated using a networked CD-ROM jukebox for sharing
CD-ROMs in an office, check out LaCie's NetBox, a stand-alone 10/100Base-T
network appliance that stores up to 54 650 MB CD-ROMs (or more smaller
CD-ROMs) on an internal 36 GB hard disk. Just insert a CD into the NetBox
and it transfers an image of the CD to the hard disk for network access.
NetBox offers access times about 15 times faster than a jukebox, holds more
CDs, and has no fragile robotic arms, all for about $2,000. You can add
additional CD-ROM and DVD drives, as well as more hard disks. The only
downside is that the NetBox may not be able to create valid disk images of
copy-protected CD-ROMs.
http://www.lacie.com/scripts/cddvd/netBox.cfm
LaCie also showed their $1,040 Dupli-121 CD duplicator - put a CD-ROM in
the CD-ROM drive and a blank CD in the CD-R drive, and the Dupli-121 makes
an exact copy. Although the Dupli-121 is a SCSI device and includes software
so you can use it a CD-ROM drive and as a CD-R drive, you can also
disconnect it entirely for speedy stand-alone duplication - duplicating a
full CD takes only nine minutes. If you need to duplicate many CDs quickly
and can't afford to tie up a Mac, take a look at the Dupli-121. [ACE]
http://www.lacie.com/scripts/cddvd/dupli121.cfm
Help for Orphans
The PowerPC revolution happened years ago, and folks with older computers
are finding they can no longer run current software. Sonnet Technologies has
come to the rescue with the $300 Presto PPC, a processor upgrade card for
the wide range of 68040-based desktop Macs, including the Quadra and Centris
lines, plus selected Performa 400, 500, and 600 series machines.
Impressively, these accelerated computers are even compatible with Mac OS
8.5.1 and may support newer operating systems. The Presto PPC carries a 100
MHz 601 processor, which just squeaks these machines into the PowerPC
category. [MHA]
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/presto_ppc.html
Least Visible Mail Server
Frustrated by retrieving your office's email over a slow Internet
connection or from your ISP's overloaded mail server? RockFord Systems
MailProxy is a email server designed to deal with intermittent connections.
Using MailProxy, email moves to and from your email client at the speed of
your local network, not the speed of your Internet connection, which saves
time as you use your primary Macintosh. MailProxy does require a Mac with a
static IP address, which isn't true of most dialup modem Internet
connections, but which can apply to many ISDN, DSL, and cable modem
connections. MailProxy will cost $300 when it becomes available this month;
you can download a 1.0 MB demo now. [ACE]
Smallest Firewall
The growing availability of high-speed permanent Internet connections to
the home via DSL or cable modems means individuals need to think more about
personal network security than ever before. But firewalls are generally
expensive and difficult to configure (see Chris Pepper's "What's a Firewall,
and Why Should You Care?" in TidBITS-468_). Now there's NetBarrier, a
personal firewall from Intego that's inexpensive ($75, through 30-Sep-99,
then $150) and easy to set up. If you have a single Mac with a permanent
Internet connection, check out NetBarrier for protection from a wide variety
of Internet attacks. [ACE]
http://www.intego.com/
Next PIM to Check Out
We've used Now Up-to-Date and Now Contact for years; although the
products were just picked up by Power On Software, they languished at Now,
then Qualcomm, and their extensions aren't particularly compatible with
current versions of the Mac OS. In the meantime, I plan to check out the $60
Chronos Consultant. The only missing feature I want is a client/server
architecture (currently, if you take a PowerBook off your network, you must
take a copy of the Consultant file with you and throw it away when you
return). The forthcoming Office Consultant will enable you to work off the
network and have changes synchronized when you reconnect. It's worth a look,
particularly if you need multiple user network access and PalmPilot
synchronization. A free 2.8 MB demo is available. [ACE]
About Time
Graphic designers sometimes complain that they can't draw on their
screens, seeing their artwork take shape beneath their fingers. Graphics
tablets are a good halfway solution, replacing the mouse for finer control,
and touch screens have been good only for information kiosks. Enter Wacom's
PL-300 and PL-400 Display Tablets, which combine a graphics tablet and with
a flat-screen LCD panel. Someone should have done this sooner, but
flat-screen displays of any useful size have only recently dropped to a
reasonable price point. Wacom's Display Tablets start at about $1,800, which
is a lot of money, but reasonable when you consider the prices of similar
flat-screen displays (such as Apple's Studio Display 15) and existing
high-quality graphics tablets. It might seem odd to draw on a horizontal (or
tilted) monitor, but the sharp, bright displays and superior pen drawing
technology will make these products winners. [MHA]
http://www.wacom.com/productinfo/pl300.html
[Source: TidBITS #491 / 02-Aug-99. TidBITS address is
http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/default.html .]
Terminology surrounding email programs is rife with postal allusions,
although many people don't realize that Eudora the email program is named in
honor of American writer Eudora Welty, specifically because of her short
story "Why I Live at the P.O." I hear quite a bit about postal service,
since my father is a rural mail carrier in upstate New York, and it occurred
to me that Eudora Pro has a bit in common with the United States Postal
Service: both handle vast quantities of mail, emphasize efficiency over
appearance, and do the job day in and day out.
http://www.eudora.com/
Matt Neuburg wrote about Eudora Pro 4.0 in TidBITS-424_; with its
just-released Eudora Pro 4.2, Qualcomm continues to deliver with Eudora,
adding more significant features than the small version number increase from
4.0.2 would indicate. Even better, the upgrade is free for users of Eudora
Pro 4.0; Qualcomm has posted a free updater for the English version on their
Web site. You can update only a copy of Eudora Pro 4.0.x - the updater
won't work on earlier versions of Eudora Pro or on the public betas. New
copies of Eudora Pro 4.2 should be available within a few weeks; until then,
only existing Eudora Pro 4.0 users can take advantage of the new features.
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=04810
After releasing a free 4.2 updater recently, Qualcomm discovered a
crashing bug and quickly released another free updater that takes either
Eudora Pro 4.0.x or an already-updated Eudora Pro 4.2 to 4.2.1. If you
updated to 4.2 but not 4.2.1, we recommend you pick up the 4.2.1 updater.
http://eudora.qualcomm.com/pro_email/updaters.html
Please keep in mind that I'm in no way unbiased with regard to Eudora.
I've probably logged more time in Eudora than in any other program; I've
written a book about Eudora (Eudora for Windows and Macintosh: Visual
QuickStart Guide, from Peachpit Press) and am in the process of updating it
for Eudora Pro 4.2. I've used every private alpha and beta release of the
last few versions, and I have over 400 MB of archived mail that I access
within Eudora. In short, Eudora is totally integral to the way I use my Mac.
http://www.tidbits.com/eudora/
For space reasons, this article covers two of Eudora Pro 4.2's top new
features: a welcome redesign of Eudora's search capability and in-line
spell-checking, a surprise must-have tool. Next week I'll discuss other new
capabilities, such as multiple-pane message displays, support for Apple's
speech facilities, and a slew of tweaky ways to improve your everyday
Eudora use.
Search, and Ye Shall Find
The most embarrassing feature in previous versions of Eudora was its
search capability. Although undeniably fast, it lacked both a comprehensible
interface and a coherent list of results. Forget everything you knew or
believed about the old method, since Eudora Pro 4.2 offers a top-notch
search feature. Eudora still distinguishes between Search, which searches
across messages, and Find, which finds text within the current message or
mailbox window. Find also works in most other Eudora windows, including the
Address Book and Filters window, where I use it frequently.
The new Search window in Eudora Pro 4.2 is divided into two panes. In the
upper pane, you define search criteria, using a pair of menus and a text
entry field. The first menu lets you choose what or where to search,
including: Anywhere, Headers, Body, Attachment Name(s), Summary, Status,
Priority, Attachment Count, Label, Date, Size (K), Age, Personality, To,
From, Subject, Cc, Bcc, and Any Recipient. The second menu defines the
scope of the search, providing the following options: contains, contains
word, does not contain, is, is not, starts with, ends with, and matches
regexp. This last item means "matches a regular expression," which lets you
search for patterns of text. A More button in the upper pane adds additional
sets of menus (up to 16) to further refine your search. Once you define
multiple search lines, you have the option of requiring matches to hit all
of your search criteria or any of them.
The lower pane of the Search window offers two tabs, Mailboxes and
Results. In the Mailboxes tab, you select which mailboxes you want to
search, and once the search has started, Eudora automatically switches to
the Results tab to display the found items.
Searching is easy - choose the appropriate search criteria from the
menus, enter your search terms, select the mailboxes you want to search, and
click Search. Searching is extremely fast, but true to form, Eudora offers a
number of tricks to make the process even faster.
The Results tab of the Search window is a joy to use for long-time Eudora
users. Search results behave much like a mailbox, complete with sortable
columns (including one for Mailbox, so you can see where items were found),
support for Eudora's famed Option-click feature which selects similar items,
and even Eudora's new preview pane (more on that next week). You can work
with results in a Search window exactly like you'd work with messages in any
other mailbox window. You can even narrow a search by clicking a "Search
results" checkbox that appears in the upper pane after completing a search;
when it's checked, the next search searches only the contents of the Search
window. Search windows are also regular windows, so you can open several
and perform different searches in each.
One little-known feature is that you can save Search windows with Save
As; afterwards they appear in the hierarchical Find menu. Qualcomm chose to
hide this feature for the moment because you can't delete or rename saved
searches from within Eudora yet. If you look in your Eudora Folder after
saving a search, though, you'll see a Search Folder containing files for
each saved search that you can delete or rename. Perhaps this foreshadows a
future feature that would let you maintain constantly updating search
windows as a way of organizing messages outside of your normal mailbox and
folder structure. For instance, I could have a "Mac Java Search" window that
collected all messages talking about Java on the Mac, no matter where I
might have filed them.
The main capability that Eudora's new search lacks is support for the Mac
OS's new Find By Content capabilities, which is the killer feature in CTM
Development's PowerMail. Although Eudora provides more than enough control
to find anything you can identify, if you just can't think of the
appropriate search terms, you're out of luck, whereas an indexed Find By
Content search could find messages about the _concepts_ you describe and
give an indication how relevant the match might be. I'm sure Eudora will
support Find By Content searching eventually; I suspect Qualcomm wanted to
leave something to do for 5.0.
Another indication of why this is 4.2 and not 5.0 is that there are
essentially no changes to Eudora's filter interface or directory services
interface. Filters in particular would benefit from the capabilities enjoyed
by the new Search function, and it might make sense to build directory
services into either the Search window or the Address Book window, or even
both.
Inline Spelling Skates
Another killer feature added to Eudora Pro 4.2 is an inline spelling
checker, which underlines misspelled words in a fashion similar to that seen
in Microsoft Word. Eudora has long supported the Word Services suite of
Apple events, and it shipped with the Spellswell spelling checker from
Working Software. But, to be blunt, running a traditional batch spell check
on every piece of email you send is way too much work. Some people have
avoided the issue entirely by relying on a system-wide spelling checker like
Casady & Greene's just-updated SpellCatcher or Newer Technology's free
SpellTools, but they help primarily with text you type, as opposed to text
you may be editing. Since I know how to spell almost every word I use, and I
type fairly accurately, I've never worried much about the few spelling
mistakes that creep into my email. Now, however, I'm utterly addicted to
Eudora's inline spelling checker.
http://www.wordservices.org/
Remember that I moderate TidBITS Talk, which involves redirecting
messages to the list. Whenever I redirect a message, Eudora promptly spell
checks it, marking the misspelled words in red with underline style (yes,
you can change the color and style if you like - details next week). All I
have to do is Control-click offending words, choose the correct words from
the contextual menu, and the message is spelled correctly. Being the
retentive editor-type that I am, I spell-check (and do basic editing on)
every message that goes to TidBITS Talk.
You can edit Eudora's User Dictionary and User Anti-Dictionary (which
contains properly spelled words you want marked as wrong, for whatever
reason) with any text editor since they're just text files. In fact, you can
even add any text file containing words, one per line, to the Spelling
Dictionaries folder located in Eudora Pro 4.2's Eudora Stuff folder, and
Eudora will recognize it as a user dictionary.
Looking at Converting?
As I noted above, Eudora Pro 4.2 is available only as an 3.9 MB updater
right now. The full commercial product should be available for $39 shortly,
at which point we'll look at some of the issues surrounding the decision to
switch from a previous version of Eudora or another email client. For now,
though, I strongly encourage Eudora Pro 4.0 users to take advantage of the
free updater because the new features are well worth the minimal effort. And
tune in next week for more on Eudora Pro 4.2's new features.
[Source: TidBITS #488 / 12-Jul-99. TidBITS address is
http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/default.html .]
Last week we looked at two main features in Eudora Pro 4.2 (see "Eudora
Pro 4.2 Continues to Deliver, Part 1" in TidBITS-488_); this week we'll look
at other features with strong appeal for specific sets of users. Before
that, a few quick comments.
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=05469
First, I want to share my user dictionary, so Eudora's spelling checker
can know about far more words, including many Macintosh product names. I've
built up this dictionary from over 10 years of using Nisus Writer and
writing TidBITS, and Eudora author Steve Dorner kindly converted it to a
"hashed" format Eudora uses more efficiently than a plain text dictionary.
Just download this file, debinhex it, put it in the Spelling Dictionaries
folder in your Eudora Stuff folder, and relaunch Eudora.
http://www.tidbits.com/resources/489/ace-tech-dict.hqx
Second, some users of 68K Macs have complained about crashes using Eudora
4.2.1. From what Qualcomm has been able to determine, the problem is related
to the presence of OpenTransportLib.68K in the Extensions folder, even
though the user is using Open Transport 1.1.2. OpenTransportLib.68K is
reportedly incompatible with Open Transport 1.1.2 and should be deleted. To
determine your version of Open Transport, open the TCP/IP control panel,
choose User Mode from the Edit menu, and switch into Advanced user mode.
Then click the Info button that appears in the TCP/IP control panel.
Getting a Preview
With Eudora Pro 4.2, you can choose to display a message preview pane for
each mailbox independently by clicking the disclosure triangle in the
lower-left corner of the mailbox window. I like having the choice of using
the preview pane, because I've found that I dislike it for mailboxes in
which I delete or file most messages, whereas I find it useful for
mailboxes where I save most messages.
Navigating a mailbox with a visible preview pane can take some effort.
The Tab key shifts focus from the tabular message summaries to the message
preview pane and back; you can also click to switch focus. For instance, if
you press the up arrow key while focused on the summaries, you'll move
between messages. But if you're focused on the preview, the arrow keys move
you around in the message text. The same applies to other navigation keys.
The Spacebar shortcut for scrolling through messages works no matter which
pane has focus.
Speak and Be Heard
Eudora Pro 4.2 can read email out loud using the default voice in your
Speech control panel. Just select one or more messages in a mailbox, and
choose Speak from the Edit menu. Eudora reads each message in turn, saying
"Next Message" between messages. If a message contains quoted text, Eudora
says "quote" when it starts reading the quoted text (which it does in a
higher voice) and "unquote" when it finishes. Pressing Command- period halts
Eudora's speech. I haven't yet found a use for spoken email, but it's easy
to imagine uses for the feature, such as having a PowerBook speak your mail
while you commute to work, and I'm sure folks with visual impairments will
appreciate it.
Also new is the new Speak filter action, which instructs Eudora to inform
you verbally when an incoming message matches a filter. Eudora can speak the
name of the sender, the subject of the message, or both. You can also pick a
voice for each filter.
Finding Your Way with IMAP
Under the hood, one of the most requested features of Eudora Pro 4.2 is
its support for IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). Most people use POP
(Post Office Protocol) to receive email; IMAP is an alternative method
that's popular in education and some businesses. The primary conceptual
difference between POP and IMAP is that POP assumes that you'll want to
store your mail on your Macintosh, whereas IMAP assumes that you'll want it
stored on the mail server. Both protocols support the other method of
working, so you can leave mail on the server with POP and store mail locally
with IMAP. There are advantages and disadvantages to both methods, but most
organizations support only one or the other, so Eudora's addition of IMAP
makes it a possibility for people in IMAP-only environments. Eudora can use
either method on a personality-by- personality basis, enabling users to
manage both POP and IMAP mail within Eudora Pro.
Unfortunately, I know little about using Eudora Pro with IMAP, since I
haven't yet set up an IMAP server with which I can test Eudora's IMAP
capabilities. Eudora Pro 4.2 ships with an Acrobat PDF document detailing
its new features, including IMAP support. You can also learn more about it
at Qualcomm's IMAP FAQ.
http://eudora.qualcomm.com/techsupport/mac/imapfaq.html
Gently Down the Stream
Tired of hard line breaks in email and ugly replies where quote
characters make lines break badly? A new proposed Internet standard that
Eudora Pro 4.2 supports might help. Called "format=flowed," the proposal
enables email clients to reflow any paragraph, even angle-bracket quoted
paragraphs, to match the window size. This normally poses problems with
replies because it scatters angle brackets throughout the text; Eudora
instead uses vertical excerpt bars along the left edge of the text to
demarcate the quoted material, while still allowing it to flow to the window
size. The excerpt bars are purely cosmetic, and when the messages are sent
out, Eudora transparently adds the appropriate angle brackets in front of
the quoted text. Initially, I was dubious about excerpt bars, but they make
editing quoted text much easier. And if you copy quoted text out of Eudora,
you don't have to remove angle brackets when you paste into another program.
http://eudora.qualcomm.com/techsupport/mac/
Previous versions of Eudora used excerpt bars for quoting styled text,
and editing around those bars was difficult. However, Qualcomm has vastly
improved the editing behaviors, and I now prefer excerpt bars to normal
quote characters. For instance, to insert new text between quoted
paragraphs, you just place your insertion point in the right location and
press Return; Eudora inserts the proper number of blank lines and positions
the insertion point correctly. You can also now easily quote and unquote
text using Command-' and Command-Option-'; note that the keyboard shortcut
for pasting quoted text is now Command-Option-V.
Diving to the Depths
Eudora has always been a deep program, and Eudora Pro 4.2 continues to
add small features and behaviors that make a huge difference to some
individuals. In the past, you had to use ResEdit or AppleScript to adjust
these features or behaviors, but Qualcomm added a new method - the
This approach might sound awkward, but remember that it's for
sophisticated users; normal users never need to see or modify most settings
in this way. The point of
http://www.eudora.com/techsupport/mac/download/X-Eudora-Settings.txt
One piece of advice: Before asking a "Can Eudora do..." question, use
Eudora's Find command to look through the list of
As an example of how these
<x-eudora-setting:11701=65535,20000,65535>
Other neat features in Eudora Pro 4.2 can be accessed via
<x-eudora-setting:258=y>
<x-eudora-setting:11520=120>
<x-eudora-setting:11508>
<x-eudora-setting:6713>
<x-eudora-setting:260=1>
Discussion Rampant
The TidBITS Talk discussions of various aspects of Eudora have ranged far
and wide, with numerous people weighing in on the bits of Eudora they like
or dislike. Eudora being the program that it is, people posting complaints
about how Eudora does something have often received tips on how Eudora can
in fact meet their needs; check out the various threads relating to Eudora
and you may learn even more about this deep program.
http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=712+713+714+715+716+717
[Source: TidBITS #489 / 19-Jul-99. TidBITS address is
http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/default.html .]
What a difference a year makes. Last year I was moaning that the World of
Amiga show wasn't great - in fact, I'd had a job finding out anything about
the major announcement of the show. This time round, things were looking up
- a bigger venue, though there were definitely less stands than before, and
less new products. But at least Amiga had a much more visible presence than
last year.
On arrival, after grabbing the Press Pass kindly arranged for by Gary
Storm and Andrew Korn my first task was to survey the venue. Amiga were the
first to catch the eye, with a video wall demoing Amiga artwork, videos and
software. However, the real star was the rather modestly presented Amiga MCC
case prototype. It's small, yet a very stylish design - a mix of dark grey
and metallics.
The two USB ports were at the front with a DVD tray slot and room for
what might also be capable of supporting a removable media drive like a Zip
or LS-120, though not one of the off-the-shelf models I shouldn't think.
This is really something that would look equally good stacked against your
hi-fi, next to the television, in the kitchen, the bedroom or in the office.
High tech, without being geekish or boring (not that being geekish is bad, I
might add, just off-putting to the average person).
After a brief tour of the venue, the OS 3.5 demo was announced so I made
my way to the rather impressive seminar room. Tucking myself at the back,
the room was packed, with people even lining the aisles. Jochen Becher gave
the 50 minute tour of the first upgrade to the Amiga OS in about six years -
I fear many were probably expecting more, judging from some of the
reactions. Considering the short time development has being going, I'm
rather impressed - though to say there isn't more work to do and features to
add would be wrong. OS 3.5 is just the tip of the iceberg though - if it
sells well, more development will continue.
GlowIcons looks nice, and I've always preferred ClassAct to MUI so I'm
happy with the interface side of things - a lot of UI tweaks and
improvements have been added including additions to AppIcon support, fonts,
improved preferences and changes to the Workbench menus, shortcuts and
windows. Icon editors, printer support and locale have all been given the
overhaul, and Installer has been given a minor tweak - with lots of evidence
of tying in the networking support throughout. The AML, Amiga Messaging
(Mail?) Library, one of a host of new libraries added, is a nice addition.
Security issues were raised by a few members of the audience though, but
the official response was along the lines that security isn't much of an
issue - if people are quite happily hacking programs like Miami, or
inserting anti-Amiga mailer trojans in shareware, is it really going to make
much difference if the AML is secure? Third party developers are encouraged
to pick up the potential offered by the new OS tools to build in additional
security. In fact, this appears to be a recurring feature of OS 3.5 - taking
away the troublesome hacks and patches by providing the features desired by
the community, then offering up more OS legal ways of building extra
functionality in a cleaner, more efficient way.
Having immersed myself in the OS 3.5 experience, I headed off to meet
Gary Storm and the rest of the SEAL crew for the first time beyond e-mail.
Gary has been interviewing quite a few Amiga community notables for Clubbed!
the official magazine of the SEAL user group and, surprisingly, I was deemed
worthy of one such interview... Anyway, a great bunch of guys and a good
example of the Amiga community in action - these people are passionate about
Amiga. Clubbed!, of which I received my first copy at the show, is a
lavishly covered 40 page magazine created entirely with Amigas. Well
recommended.
I followed Gary on a quick circuit of the venue, ending up at Paul
Nolan's Photogenics booth. Photogenics 4 is a major evolution of the
previous incarnations of Photogenics, which I've long regarded as a
benchmark for graphics packages on any platform. I was one of the first to
buy it when it came out, then ended up as probably one of the laziest/worst
beta-testers Paul has ever encountered! I felt it best not to introduce
myself through embarrassment.
After a quick demonstration for Gary's benefit, Paul transferred to the
seminar room and, despite some technical hitches, grabbed the attention of
the audience. Even though I've been using it for a while, I must confess I
obviously hadn't been using it to full potential - I feel some more creative
efforts coming on very soon. 4.1 irons out the minor problems with the first
release and is an impressive piece of software - I've had a few PC using
friends drool over it, so what more incentive is there?
Kermit Woodall took the next seminar, equipped with a fetching pair of
"Boing Ball-esque" shoes, and hamburger lunch. I haven't seen ImageFX since
an elderly copy appeared on one of the CU Amiga coverdisks. After a quick
installation, the demo got off to a good start. It's come a long way, and
the list of features is very impressive - judging from the comments of
well-informed users, it surpasses industry standard packages such as
Photoshop in many areas and I have seen the proof with my own eyes. Strong
evidence that the Amiga is still a major contender in graphics work. I can
only hope ImageFX and Photogenics, amongst others, are ported early on to
the next generation Amigas.
Gary disappeared afterwards to try and locate one of the QNX engineers
rumoured to be making the rounds at the show, but I stayed on to listen to
Dr. Farrukh Alavi give an interesting rundown on microprocessor
architectures for the 21st Century. There was a slight moment of uneasiness
as Win95 and PowerPoint loaded up. I'm sure I heard the words "Amiga",
"Scala" and "would've been a better choice" being murmured from a couple of
rows behind. The presentation stuttered slightly as PowerPoint exercised its
right to do its own thing, but this didn't detract from a fascinating look
at what is involved in creating ever more powerful processors, followed by a
brief overview of the major proponents of the field. Commodore's Hombre chip
even warranted a mention as part of a look at the PA-RISC chip, which was
rather nice, as was a slide that covers almost everything anyone outside of
Transmeta knows about the Transmeta chip (i.e. not much).
After the presentation I had a quick scout around the stalls for anything
interesting to buy, but was slightly disappointed, then returned to the SEAL
stall where I found Gary had indeed located the QNX contingent, in
particular a user interface engineer and his wife who talked with us about
topics as diverse as Neutrino, Amigas, Canada and Star Wars: The Phantom
Menace. A nicer bunch of people you couldn't hope to meet, although I've
been labelled 'square' for not having seen The Matrix yet... *sigh*
Unfortunately, I didn't manage to stay on for the big announcement. I had
to make do with newsgroups, webcams and IRC... which just succeeded in
confusing the issue slightly. However, I have two new things to mention
about the new Amiga: Sun and Transmeta. It's one helluva gamble, but if it
pays off the rewards are going to be huge - but you kinda knew that all
along...
My thanks to Gary, Robert, Mick and the rest of the SEAL crew whose names
I've unfortunately forgotten.
[Source: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/amiga/23463 ]
Where to begin? I decided to write a brief article concerning the recent
events affecting the Amiga market. I realized that if I were to put all the
"open letters" and postings in the newsletter, then I would probably empty
the club's checking account getting it duplicated. I will attempt to touch
upon the significant items without interjecting my personal view, at- least
too much of it.
At the beginning of July, there was much anticipation concerning the
upcoming Amiga shows. We had spent much of the Spring studying QNX's
Neutrino. We were excited by QNX's announcement calling for Amiga developers
to sign up. Finally, something seemed to be stirring after a long winter of
wait. Then all hell broke loose!
It seems that QNX got wind of Amiga's change in OS direction and decided
to make a pre-emptive grab for the Amiga community's heart. On July 9th, Jim
Collas released a letter stating that QSSL did not have permission to
release their statement. Jim then shocked the Amiga community by announcing
that now Linux was the basis for the next generation "operating
environment", not QNX. Needless to say many in the community were confused
and angered by this decision.
Despite Jim Collas' assurances that Linux was a better choice than QNX
for several reasons like applications and drivers, the Amiga community
reacted very harshly. Many famous Amigans like Dave Haynie, Carl Sassenrath,
and Holger Kruse criticized this decision by Amiga. Dave Haynie cited
reasons that Metabox decided not to use Linux for their setroject, Holger
Kruse was critical of Linux's TCP capabilities, and Carl Sassenrath was just
very critical of the whole OE structure. Carl stated, "It's crap! Complexity
begets complexity!" Other criticisms centered on Linux not being a real time
OS, user unfriendly, and bloated compared to the current AmigaOS. In general
many in the community felt at best this was a cop out by Amiga to produce a
product that had greater mainstream appeal, but less of the Amiga philosophy
built into it.
Jim Collas, clearly surprised and unprepared to face this uproar,
promised a technology brief [available at http://www.amiga.de/diary/executive/tech_brief.html ]
that would clarify questions we had. On July 16th the technology brief was
placed on the Amiga web page. While very detailed on some levels, it was
severely lacking when it came to the description of what the Amiga Objects
were. Amiga Objects apparently are the revolutionary part of the Amiga OE
that will separate it from any other general Linux distribution with Java
support. Also, despite Jim's assurances that only the Linux kernel was
going to be used, it was stated on the tech brief that along for the ride
was the X server system with an Amiga Workbench like window manager slapped
on it. Clearly this was a let down, and a step backward considering QNX's
advanced kernel technology. The technology brief did little to deter the
mounting criticism Amiga was facing from the community. It became apparent
that Amiga had to say more at the upcoming World of Amiga/AmiWest shows on
July 24th and 25th.
QSSL (QNX's parent company) meanwhile started accepting applications by
Amiga developers for their beta program. It is rumored that many prominent
Amiga developers have signed up. Phase5, probably noting that they didn't
figure much in Amiga's NG plans, quickly announced that they are making a
QNX based PC called the AmiRage K2. Of course, citing Phase5's defunct A\Box
plans, many quickly renamed it to the A-Mirage! QSSL however has quietly
added screenshots and documentation to their web pages for Amigans to
browse. Dan Dodge stated to me that as of now they plan to continue their
desktop plans, and that they have signed up major partners. Dan stated that
concerning Amiga he will wait and see how the community embraces Amiga's
Linux plans before making more overtures to it.
At the World of Amiga Show in London England, Jim Collas and Dr. Allan
Havemose presented a PowerPoint slide show outlining in pretty much the same
manner the information put forth in the July 16th technology brief. In fact,
there was a slide stating that Amiga was still not prepared to announce
certain details of their business plan. However, Jim did announce two new
partners Sun and Corel in their effort, as well as hinted to Transmeta's
involvement by flashing their name on an Amiga music video made for the
occasion. Transmeta is the company developing a new super secret CPU that
promises to feature mindblowing capabilities including code morphing
(running other CPU code) and Linux optimizations. Jim has frequently alluded
to talks Amiga is having with Linus Torvold, the father of the Linux OS. To
date, Transmeta's participation on the next generation Amiga has not been
officially announced. Corel has issued an official PR basically stating that
their Linux suite of programs will support the Amiga OE. Sun of course will
offer their Java technology. Amiga demoed their prototype MCC computer
slated for release this Christmas.
At both shows many upgrades and new products were released, see the Amiga
News and PR section of the newsletter. There was also a demo of AmigaOS 3.5
which drew luke warm response. Unfortunately attendance was lower, and many
vendors and products did not make it out including Newtek and the Boxer.
Amiga did sponsor a reception with refreshments, Petro's new AmiCola was
available. Unfortunately the rumors of AmiCola having vodka premixed in it
proved untrue. :-)
Many questions were left unanswered, especially with regards to what
AmigaObjects exactly are. While the amount of criticism for Amiga ditching
QNX (actually Dr. Havemose stated that he didn't see why AmigaOE wouldn't
work on QNX) has died down, many are left wondering how many other
directional changes Amiga plans to make. Many wonder how Amiga plans to make
their stated deadlines without admitting to pasting off the shelf components
together and relabeling it as an Amiga. Upcoming activities for Amiga center
on continual development of the AmigaOE, and the release of AmigaOS 3.S for
the classic line.
[Source: The National Capital Amiga Users Group newsletter, "Amiga
Intuition" August, 1999. NCAUG's address is P.O. Box 12360, Arlington, VA
22209. On the web it's http://www.ncaug.org.]
In addition to our recent announcement about a cooperation with QNX
Software Systems Ltd. and our new AMIRAGE K2 project, this Open Letter shall
address some of the controversy questions that many of you are asking these
days. It contains my frank personal analysis and view of the state of the
Amiga market, the goals of AI and the general situation, which are the
reasons for our decision to take the chance for the cooperation with QNX and
to provide alternative solutions in the future. If you are interested in
these statements, I encourage you to read and - especially if you are a
developer - consider it carefully.
First of all, there is the question "why did they do that, why do they
split the Amiga market" in all of it's incarnations - often combined with
the assumption that we want to "steal away the Amiga" or become the Amiga
ourselves. The answers to that are fairly simple:
1. We want to design a superior technology, which we believe is in the
spirit of the original Amiga, or, in different words, a technology that many
creative users would like to see. This includes innovation in software and
hardware. We don't want to make major compromises, just to follow the
mainstream or to do what everybody does.
2. There is obviously no place for phase 5 (as well as many other
developers, as I will outline below) on the roadmap of Amiga Inc. We are
simply doing what we believe is the right thing in respect of our vision,
the technological goals we follow, and also the business opportunities which
we believe are the best for our future.
From our point of view, AI will be developing and marketing a product
that has only the name in common with the original Amiga. They probably have
some nice ideas (although many details are still quite vaguely described by
common buzzwords at this time), but we can't see any revolution in there -
only evolution similar to that you can see in many places of the computer
industry today.
Looking at the available information, to us it seems obvious that Amiga
will build an appliance based on Linux, incorporating JAVA technologies and
their extensions named AmigaObjects. It is an appliance to "fulfill the
promises of the information age". That's nice, but there are others to do
so, too.
I strongly feel that the major revolution that Amiga is talking about is
the next marketing revolution, when you can sell "information appliances" to
those millions of people who are not computer users, but shall be connected
to the Internet just as they became connected with telephones [a] long time
ago. There's nothing bad in this, but what has it to do with an Amiga
computer?
What I feel most uncomfortable with is the fact that there is obvious no
intention to create something new, spectacular, extraordinary because this
is risky; instead, the new product is intended to be sold to millions,
requiring to accept many compromises and to follow the mainstream.
So, what has the upcoming AI product in common with the original Amiga
and it's spirit? It may be a nice product, that many people will go for, but
such are palm pilots, cell phones, playstations, stereo systems, TV sets,
beer and candy bars as well (I left out the Wintel-based PC intentionally
from this list). There's nothing wrong at all when Amiga users are saying,
"hey, this is a nice thing I'm gonna buy it", just as there's nothing wrong
in Amiga users buying palm pilots, cell phones, playstations, stereo
systems, TV sets, beer and candy bars as well (I left out... uh, you know
what I mean).
Amiga has not been talking to us, phase 5, except than in a meeting on
Jim Collas' trip through Europe. Ever since then, there was not a single
email, contact, any information to us. They didn't supply us with an NDA,
allowing them to tell us more about their plans earlier, and supporting us
in making our decisions. Instead, they watch us (where "us" means many other
developers as well) supporting the "Amiga Classic" and following the PPC
route, while they are going to cut it off again. Is that fair or loyal
against the developers and users supporting the Amiga platform with their
efforts and their money? It gives me the strong feeling that [they] don't
even care what happens with us. There is no indication of any kind of
partnership at all, so there can't be any mutual loyalty either.
I do not know which contacts have been made to other existing Amiga
developers. Many of them seem to be surprised by the latest announcements,
many dislike them, some may appreciate them - but if so, did they think
about their own future? Personally, I believe the lately announced "contacts
to Corel" are a significant message. Why didn't we read "AI works closely
with H&P to port Amiwriter to the AmigaNG", "AI has chosen NovaDesign's
ImageFX to ship with the MCC", "AI and WorldFoundry announce availability of
two hot 3D titles with the release of the MCC" or similar announcements?
It's simple: AI follows the industry standards. Just as they use Linux
and need the momentum from Linux to carry them forward, they need the big
names such as Corel to carry them forward. They don't need, for example,
phase 5 as a hardware company supporting their projects, and I strongly
believe they (at least think they) don't need the Amiga S/W developers for
their success. Jim Collas said in his "Response to Linux feedback" of July
10:
Can we read from this that all the active Amiga developers - who have
supported our platform with so many products and technologies that make the
Amiga still up-to-date and usable - are assumed to be unable to provide the
necessary software technologies on a new platform? I think so.
Jim Collas showed concern about the business success if Linux hadn't been
chosen. Obviously, the relationship with Corel seems to be important to AI
also, to support the business success. Who will be the next important
partner, preoccupying market segments on the new Amiga platform? Adobe? ID
Soft? Who knows.... Now, just a thought: If there wasn't that Linux
momentum right now, would then be Windows compatibility important for the
success? A question to the Amiga developers: Do you appreciate that AI
considers it important for the success of the MCC, that the big names in
industry come to the platform to provide the technology/software products
that - as it seems - AI doesn't believe you could provide? And a question,
to the Amiga users: What is more important for you, the success (and
shareholder value?) of a company that carries the name Amiga, or the
technology that they bring to you?
When the new AI MCC shall be sold in millions, the current Amiga
community will not be a sufficient market at all. I believe it is then the
latest, when AI's loyalty to the Amiga community will end - just as AI's
loyalty with the current Amiga developers has ended. The same, I strongly
believe, will be the case for the small remaining base of dealers and
distributors. What will count for AI is not the fact that those have
supported the Amiga many years - the business success will demand that the
MCC is sold by the BIG ones. And that's what it is all about: becoming BIG,
selling BIG, making BIG money. Nothing wrong about it - but the loyalty of
the Amiga community, which AI is surfing on these days before their BIG take
off, will probably not be rewarded. And while AI teams up with the already
BIG ones, the chances of us small ones to grow big with the new Amiga
generation are getting smaller each day.
Where does this leave us? From my point of view, there is no place for us
- and I mean not only phase 5, but most if not all of the current Amiga
developers - on the Amiga roadmap, and in the future that Amiga wants to
create. That also means for us as companies: no more (Amiga) business. But
with QNX, there is an OS solution that will fulfill the promise of
technological excellence - and we here at phase 5 are able to provide some
really advanced hardware as well as concepts for future computing.
Just a side note: What Amiga today calls a revolution, are just concepts
(and some developments from such) which we have proposed three years ago
already. We proposed hardware-independent distributed processing a long time
ago, and we outlined our vision of application tasks or threads (read also
"Services" or "Objects" or "Revolutionary objects" or
"You-know-which-kind-of Objects") that run on different CPUs or processors
or appliances, somewhere in a box or a network, and communicate with each
other. I don't want to say that AI may not have some additional and new
ideas, but if they are so revolutionary remains to be seen - and guess what
remains there if you climb down from the above-JAVA level to the underlying
levels of software technology....
QNX Neutrino will allow fantastic software to be written, to support
similar revolutionary services, applications and developments. There is new
and stunning hardware technology available to us - PPC G4, the stunning
Altivec technology, multimedia processing in many kinds, and the digital
convergence (we talk about high-performance digital convergence here, not
about a fusion of a cell phone and a palm pilot) - and this altogether can
be the base for a wonderful platform for all the creative users out there,
as outlined in our latest announcements. It can be a future that we design
altogether - the users, the developers, the user groups and all others who
support the Amiga. We definitely need to team up now and develop our future,
instead of waiting for AI's BIG thing we have been waiting for three years
now. And so I am asking you all out there, to make a stand and show your
position. I am asking you developers to show publicly your support for the
QNX Neutrino running on PowerUP boards, and our upcoming AMIRAGE computer
series (and maybe other hardware from other manufacturers, too...). With 13
years of Amiga history and experience, I can only underscore that the strong
support of the majority of Amiga users and developers for this new path will
create successful products, [a] most creative and stunning technology, and a
growing and valuable market in which all those who start now can become
technology leaders. We all have survived in a shrinking market for so long,
and now we can decide actively if we want to start off into a future that
will realize technological excellence and open up new dimensions for us, or
if we want to be lost in the mainstream finally, which we could have joined
many years ago already.
BTW, I deny those assumptions saying we would split the Amiga market. We
are just offering the products that AI won't offer - and just considering
the features and price position, our product may initially not be in
competition with Amigas MCC (although we have not heard about the MCCs price
yet). We are following a path that AI has obviously dropped, and we want to
team up with those Amiga friends, users and developers which Amiga wants to
leave behind (maybe not on purpose, but probably with a "hey sorry if you
came under the BIG wheel that we are turning now" attitude).
I would also like to say some words about our former projects, the A\BOX
and the pre\box, in comparison to the new AMIRAGE K2 project (BTW, we knew
that some would read it as AMI-RAGE, and others as A-MIRAGE, but we a) have
no problems with some self-irony, and b) recommend to speak it with a French
pronunciation). There are voices criticizing us, blackening [us] about the
vaporboxes and such. It is true, we failed to deliver these two products,
while we - in contrary to others - did at least provide the leading Amiga
add-on technology, continuously throughout the last years, in a difficult
market.
The A\BOX development was delayed following the initial delays in the
PowerUP development. After PowerUP had been finished, the market situation
had changed significantly since Amiga had been sold to Gateway, and many
users and Amiga people were waiting for developments/announcements at/from
Amiga Inc. It was a logical business decision to stop the A\BOX project, as
we couldn't justify continued development efforts and investments into it at
this point.
Later, in March 1998, we announced the pre\box, a simpler and
easier-to-realize stand-alone product, planned to support MP and the PPC
transition, for which we also signed a license agreement with Amiga for the
OS 3.1. But shortly after the pre\box was announced, AI announced on the
WOA 1998 in London that they would not use the PowerPC but the MMC chip
instead, an announcement that significantly hurt our business (as well as
the business of many Amiga developers and companies). As a consequence, the
pre\box development was put on hold and went back into the drawers later
that year.
I think that it is obvious that our chances to successfully realize the
former demanding projects - which would have required support of AI, the
developers and the community - have been badly influenced by such external
decisions. Today, with the AMIRAGE K2 development, we are in a completely
different situation, as the use of the QNX Neutrino OS will allow us to
focus on the hardware development, and exploit the options that today's
latest silicon technology offers, without drawbacks and compromises. We are
convinced that we can deliver on our promise with the dawn of the next
millennium.
Hoping to see you in the future.
Yours sincerely
What a week. As though the 7-10 announcement wasn't enough of a shakeup,
on Tuesday 7-13 someone (claiming to be the Amiga Liberation Army or some
such) hacked this very page, loaded it down with obscenities and rather
graphic insults for various current and former Amiga Inc. notables, and
ended it with "and Jim Collas is about to get another surprise very soon."
The "surprise", if it weren't real, would almost be amusing: three
trojans were uploaded to Aminet last week, purporting to be new versions of
popular utilities like FastIPrefs. When run, every 60 seconds the trojans
open up bsdsocket.library and fire off a shitty email to
president@amiga.com.
Now, I am in a state of deep meditation over this, because if I were not,
I would be somewhat upset by the fact that my site was compromised and used
as a sort of starting gate for this stunt. If I had not already reached a
state of Zenlike calm about the incident, if I were still angry about it, I
would be publicly calling the perpetrator something similar to the
blood-drenched corn-speckled turdlike liquid blobs dumped by the
diarrhea-ravaged nether end of a rabid pus-vomiting syphilis-infected
leprous unwashed horse that just ate four gallons of week-old bean salad.
But I'm not. :-)
Anyhow, it looks like the Amiga market did not rally around the Linux
announcement (though this hacker was an extreme case, most opposition has
been nondestructive). Some did approve of the decision - though they usually
followed up with cryptic hints that we should "wait for the tech brief" that
was coming Real Soon Now, hinting that something in the tech brief would
make the Linux announcement okay. (Without knowing what would be in the tech
brief, of course - since the tech brief was not yet written when Linux was
announced.)
Others, unwilling to wait, have called for us to follow QNX after all.
QNX, anyway, at least HAS product to ship - and it looks like they see the
disenfranchised Amiga crowd as a way to bust into the desktop world.
There is a group currently investigating precisely that path, though I'm
not sure how much I can say right now (I'm in this group, or at least I was
"volunteered" for it, so I hope I'll be able to say more when more is
sayable. For now we'll just say it is conscious of the ICOA's mistakes and
has a desire not to repeat them.)
On the other side of the fence (where the grass is supposedly greener but
you have to build your own lawnmower from a kit with no instructions), the
Slashdot Linux advocacy crowd seems kinda ambivalent about the whole thing.
Despite the bit in the Collas announcement hinting that the decision was
made to attract Linux developers, the Linux world sees only a little here
worth running toward. (Some, like Mandrake, the guy who put screen-dragging
into Enlightenment, have expressed interest. Most are wait-and-see, as they
are with BeOS and every other non-Linux OS on the planet, or else they're
rejecting it simply because the whole thing isn't GPL.)
(Clarification: Collas was "in the process of" making the Linux decision
for months, and only finalized it in the last few weeks. It still appears
the QNX announcement forced him to tip his hand a little earlier than he
would have liked - as evidenced by the fact the tech brief wasn't ready.)
So now here we are: a world divided into blighted hemispheres. In the
Amiga universe it's kinda universally agreed that the Linux decision was
made for hype reasons, though opinions on the technical merits of the
decision are wide-ranging. Where people stand on the issue depends on how
much of a step down they consider Linux from QNX, as compared to any hassles
QNX might have given them in the licensing arrangements. The going opinion
is that Amiga Inc. went from "great" to "merely okay" with the Linux
decision, and it is up to the individual whether "okay" is still acceptable.
I wanted desperately to hear Collas explain in public why they chose Linux
over a BSD variant - which, with REAL BSD networking code and a more
commerce-friendly license, would have squelched a lot of opposition. I wish
now he hadn't - literally he was forced to go with Linux for the same reason
a teenager lights their first cigarette, "everyone else is doing it."
(A reader challenged me to name one instance where Allen Havemose has
"watered down" a concept technologically as I said last time, and I realized
the only direct source I had for instances of that nature was Fleecy Moss,
who seems not to have taken his departure from Amiga Inc. all that well. But
the gut feeling is still there, that given the choice between the knock-down
drag-out Truly Innovative solution, and a slightly safer one, Amiga Inc.
tends toward the safer one. We may make the case that this appeases the
financiers, but if that's ALL they're here to accomplish, we'd like the
Amiga name back please. But I digress.)
Anyway.
Some highlights of the tech brief:
Anyway. I like the AmigaObject thing, I think it's about time someone
designed a REAL object-oriented OS (that's not just object-oriented for the
programmer alone). I especially like the sort of ubiquitous networking in
the concept - that all these Amiga-based devices intercommunicate and
display their GUIs on whichever other machine you want, such that I can use
software running on the big four-processor Amiga in the closet while sitting
either at the Amiga desktop with the nice graphics card in the bedroom, or
at the set-top on the 27" TV in the living room, or down on the front porch
with the handheld. I also see the potential for OpenDoc-like "documents
within documents" functionality - especially if it does it without OpenDoc's
(and OLE's) speed and size bloat, and especially (and most importantly) if
this is pervasive and natively part of the system.
But let's be real: X Window, even in a stripped down mode, is suboptimal
for this kind of thing. ORL makes a big deal out of the fact that VNC (a
"display across a network" product) is faster than X over the same networks
- and sad to say, QNX has a similar solution that may or may not be faster
(though clearly it wouldn't have mattered if it was faster). On the upshot,
it's possible to make X Window be lean and mean - Holger Kruse's AmiWin is
an example of a well-executed X implementation (it's actually usable on a
68030 in AGA, so that should say a lot) - but one of the reasons X gets so
slow so soon when you start adding things, is because of the architecture of
the thing, and how much cruft is involved in adding more than just the most
basic of functionality. Concerns about the X toolkit abound. Concerns about
X Resources (not to be confused with Macintosh resources, since those
actually work) abound. Concerns about window managers abound. I personally
hope they do away with window managers as we know it, and maybe embed
window-ops directly into X - or tie the window manager so tightly into the
GUI toolkit that the two are not separable, thus enforcing a consistent
environment.
The simple overview as I see it is this: it's definitely not an Amiga,
but it might serve as an okay replacement for one. It will certainly be
better than stock Linux. But it will take a LOT of work to un-UNIXize it for
the end user - NeXT tried for years and is still only 90% there - and as to
whether it will ever truly reach the Amiga's plateau of integration and dare
I say it "soul", who knows.
The first thing they'd have to do to it is scrap the UNIX file structure:
/bin, /etc, /usr/local/bin and so on. The tech brief is decidedly silent on
the subject and many others like it, though hints from USENET are that "only
the kernel will be used" (though how X Window fits into that model is also
wide open). We're promised another tech brief soon (oh boy) so maybe the
question will be answered there.
But I dunno. I mean, it's been my war cry since the beginning, and no one
listens: every OS on the planet does NOT want to be UNIX when they grow up!
When AmigaNG ships with a UNIX-derived core, it will step into a marketplace
that already has Linux, Solaris, Irix, AIX, Mac OS X (based on NeXTSTEP),
#?BSD, BeOS (heavy UNIX influence), and Windows (the only explicitly
non-UNIX thing in the bunch). If the object model isn't damn convincing, or
if it is ignored or underutilized among developers like many such object
models in the past, there will be nothing but hardware to make the machine
stand out - and that puts too much burden on hardware that will lose its
edge quickly.
What could Amiga Inc. have done to make this more palatable to the
community? Obviously the best thing they could have done, would have been to
do it all the right way starting in 1997, instead of having to pause to bury
bodies every few months. Barring that, they could have, upon Jim Collas
taking office, said "anything decided prior to Jim is up for reevaluation,
don't get attached to anything", and NOT announce the Linux thing until the
machine was ready to ship. Hell, played right, if this thing is supposed to
be as un-UNIXey as they say, when it shipped we might never have known WHAT
kind of kernel was inside (and maybe even gone to our friends bragging about
how fast our QNX machine is). But Amiga Inc. is victim to the same vaporware
bug as the rest of the Amiga market - in lieu of anything to ship, just keep
announcing every little change so people don't forget you exist. (This also
helps free you from setting specific ship dates - which means theoretically
you can keep "developing" a machine for years at a time. Mick Tinker seems
to be doing this with BoXeR, though it's probably unintentional. Phase 5 has
made a career out of it.)
Our frustration with the Linux announcement stems from this core problem:
we don't trust Amiga Inc. This LOOKED like a betrayal - it STILL looks like
a subtle violation of trust (how long did they know? there have been NO
MENTIONS of QNX on amiga.com since Collas came aboard!). This LOOKED like a
technological step backward - and the tech brief hasn't done much to
alleviate it (X does not mark the spot). This LOOKED like a choice made for
purely political reasons - a notion not disputed by Amiga Inc. This LOOKED
like an "undo the previous administration's work" - remember Linux was
rejected once. Most of all, this LOOKED like the latest iteration of
"whoops, forget everything we said last time, this is our technology plan
now" - the notion that these press releases have an unspoken "expiration
date" after which anything not explicitly said to be still in the plan is
instead to be considered OUT.
My frustration also comes from the vague sense that Amiga Inc. sometimes
don't act like they take this seriously. They sometimes don't play for
keeps. Case in point: the Linux announcement was so riddled with typos and
grammatical problems many of us thought the site had been hacked. PR has
never been any Amiga parent company's strong point - Commodore used to issue
press releases on Friday nights to keep from affecting their stock price,
ESCOM used to let Gilles Bourdin run loose on USENET with a lit fuse, and
VIScorp, well, was VIScorp. Amiga Inc. has NO real marketing, except maybe
the use of these biannual direction shifts to snag headlines in tech mags,
it has NO public relations per se (and apparently cannot afford to hire some
high school kid to proofread their press releases for typos), it has a
long-term plan it changes constantly without getting visibly closer to a
ship date, it has a hideous and poorly-maintained Web site, and it makes no
apologies for any of these things as though it's acceptable. This, to me,
rings decidedly small-time, like a company that wants to set itself up to
remain small forever - Amiga Inc. will NEVER have the same credibility and
air of professionalism that Be Inc. has, or Red Hat for that matter, unless
it really makes a concerted effort to change its ways. It certainly isn't up
to the level of parent company Gateway.
What does this all mean in the end, though?
It means, as I said before, whatever Amiga Inc. finally ships must be
evaluated on its own merit, as it is no longer a given in anyone's mind that
it will automatically be an Amiga because it says Amiga on the case. It
means the new Amiga could be Jar Jar Binks just as easily as it could be
Darth Maul, and we won't know until we watch the movie. It means that our
decision to stay in the Classic world is dependent upon the Classic, not
upon whatever mythical new hardware Amiga Inc. might ship next year - which
means that at least SOME of our attention must be focused right here on the
current market, at least for the time being. And it means, as always, to
keep our options open.
I AM NOT LEAVING THE AMIGA CLASSIC PLATFORM! This week I will make one
final grand hardware purchase - I will buy 32MB RAM and a new hard drive for
the A1200. (Still no sign of the keyboard adapter.) I gave some thought to
putting a 68040 in there, and maybe even an Ateo Bus, but the Ateo has some
technological issues (it's a modified ISA bus!) and gets real expensive real
fast. (I wish someone made a $300 68040 board with an SVGA chip on board! I
could live with 800x600 in 256 colors so long as it isn't planar and
interlaced!) It would cost close to $800 to get a graphics card on that
machine, whether by way of a slotframe and tower, or by way of a Blizzard
and Bvision. It cost under $700 for my whole Macintosh system, including
8r/4w CD-R! Thus I either find a cheap A3000 and start over, or live with
AGA, or sell about 20 art prints a day for the next few months. :-) But I
can at least throw RAM and storage at it in the short term.
(Oh, and to answer a question: I won't change the name of the site unless
it is absolutely imperative that I do so. It is NOT going to become Squid's
QNX Page & Rumor Mill, or ANYTHING, unless I deem it necessary - and so far
it ain't.)
That said, the Mac I built is pretty sweet. I was warned that the video
digitizer on the Apple A/V card wouldn't be professional quality - but heck,
if I wanted professional quality video, I'd use an Amiga for it. :-) It
works well enough for my purposes, and certainly outdoes the PPS
FrameGrabber I used to have (and pics I made with that are still circulating
on the Net to this day). The CD recorder (a luxury purchase, I guess) KICKS
ASS, and I'm starting to wonder if I can use it on the Amiga. (I know BurnIt
and MasterISO have drivers for it, what I don't know is whether it will work
on the Dataflyer without buffer underruns, and I'm not yet ready to waste a
boxful of blanks to find out. I'd probably have to run it at 1x.) The option
is there to put a G3 card in it, eventually - the G3 card would replace the
PDS riser on which the video card sits, and function as a passthrough so the
video card continues to work. Prices on Mac G3 accelerators continue to drop
so if I still make enough money when they hit the $250 price point, I may
just splurge. (Wonder how UAE would run on a 250MHz 750 with 1MB backside
cache?)
So at least for me it's not 100% critical that I get an AmigaNG in
whatever form it finally ships - I have enough iron around the house, or
know where I can get additional iron, to do whatever I need to do for the
time being. (So long as I don't try to re-render The Phantom Menace in
POV-Ray, that is.)
Unfortunately not everyone is in that situation - many of you, as it
turns out, have jobs and projects that require something more than your
current systems can give, and thus NEED something like an AmigaNG (or even a
BoXeR) to provide that functionality. For you, it is CRITICAL that a new
machine be the best it can possibly be - and every change that brings it one
inch shorter from the mark, cuts and draws blood.
One thing about it, this has done nothing to mess up the Amiga community
- nothing short of a nuclear strike could possibly have made it any worse
than it was. Indeed it already LOOKED like it had survived a nuclear winter,
with everyone losing their hair and fighting over stale food. I don't know
whether this turn of events will inject some honesty or professionalism into
the market, indeed, I don't know if ANYTHING could. But we're also to a
point not unlike that of the current Apple II and Commodore 64 markets - we
have reached a threshold, where we no longer expect the classic Amiga to
return to the marketplace at large, but yet that fact no longer has any
bearing on how we use the computer, or on how long we will keep it. After
all, we already burned the Phoenix and hid the ashes.
Maybe this is all a good thing. After all, a Linux-based Amiga would
still have the memory protection and robustness the current Amiga OS lacks,
plus the benefit of running on decently fast, decently cheap hardware
instead of being stuck on $2200 68040 dinosaurs.
But I can't help but remember from history class, that the reason why the
Constitution of the United States was written in closed sessions, was so
people wouldn't be disappointed by what they COULD have had but didn't...
[Source: Squid's Amiga Page and Rumor Mill -
http://flyingmice.com/squid/amiga/amiga_articles.shtml ]
I have been a CUCUG member for several years now, and never
really written in before, I guess I didn't have much to say. Well anyway, I
am an avid Amiga user and I have been for about four years. I've heard and
read a lot about the situations Amiga has managed to get itself into, or not
get itself out of, and I am very familiar with both the positive and
negative aspects of using an Amiga. I've been lamenting the lack of new
games from the PC world (not to slight Amiga titles, mind you) available for
the Amiga, as well as the slow advancement of availability for software that
really takes advantage of my thousand dollars worth of PPC accelerator
contained within the A3000T which is my normal computer of choice. I really
hate games which need an 030 and AGA, esp. when they look inviting - I don't
have AGA! Just a PicassoIV with Concierto module (3D module ordered, why
does it take so long???!!!) and a 233MHz PPC card.
Well, what happened is, that my PPC accelerator went bad three months
after I bought it new, and the fact that the nearest warranty service
station was a thousand miles away, pushed me over the edge. I had this PC
sitting around, a gift from some inlaws, with a 166MHz AMD K6 and 4Gb of HD
sitting around. So I plugged it in. It had Win95 already on it, and wow!
What a culture shock! It's marginally faster at some things than the '060
is, but what used to take three mouse clicks, now takes ten! The
multitasking is much more blocky, and the GUI freezes for longish periods on
a real regular basis while Windows tries to do its thing. This computer is
so obtuse and bulky compared even to my hacked up 0S3.1 Amiga install, and
it even seems to crash as often, if not a little more often. But there's all
sorts of software out for it, and cheap hardware too. And, service is mere
minutes away.
So I tried to take advantage of all this free software lying around on
the net for the PC. On the Amiga, when I need a new extension or program, a
quick trip to Aminet usually hooks me up in seconds, and a quick CLI
adventure with LHA yields the needed executable with a quickness... Not so
the PC! After four searches and six minutes of banner download, I find what
I want, sort of. I'm looking for a ZIP extractor, can't seem to find WINZIP
on my system, so both of the ones I get put up these annoying nag requesters
every time I use them, and I have to tell them to extract each file in an
archive because they try to treat a ZIP file as an executable, unzipping on
the fly as the OS needs dictate. But the QNX demo doesn't like this, nor
does any installer which uses a DOS script to install its program. In short,
if I pay the $49, the requesters will vanish and my system will function as
it should, or as close as Win95 can come. It still crashes when I try to
print, something my TurboPrint equipped Amiga never did, not once..
So to sum up, I'm still an Amiga fan. Still waiting anxiously for
CompuQuick to warranty my accelerator card (not coming down on them here, it
has only been two days...) so I can get back my easy to use, fun to operate
Amiga 3000T. What I'm saying here, is the grass is always greener on the
other side. Yes, my PC runs Quake II, and no, its not nearly as functional
as my Amiga, or as intuitive either. Just because software is thin on the
ground and no vast numbers of dealers exist for the Amiga, doesn't mean its
time to run out and buy a PC right away. Not if you value stability, ease of
use and the feeling that every time you log on to the net, your computer
isn't just another marketing tool used by Microsoft and others to target you
with all sorts of unwanted banners, Emails and even catalogs. It took me
half an hour to convince this PC not to phone Microsoft every time I turn it
on, another two nights to get Netscape downloaded and Exploiter/Outlook
Express off my desktop. Miami/Voyager is much easier to configure and use! I
still can't seem to do a partial deletion of things in the recycle bin. I
accept that there's a lot of tricks to each OS that can only be learned with
time, but for the OS on which 90% of the world's computing genius is
ostensibly focused, you'd think it'd be a lot smoother than it is. It's
really not better, just more commonly available. Only a few days till I get
my Miggy back. Quake II will come soon enough.
Recently, I resigned my seat as LUCKY Vice President in order to study
for my A+ Certification to become a PC repair technician. I have been
building computer systems for people for over two years now, and I have a
few things I want to say about it.
The first thing is that I, too, got caught up in the upgrade craze and
the multimedia insanity of machines with 24-bit graphics, CD-ROMs (which
Commodores can read now also), etc. Nevertheless, there are a few gripes I'd
like to get off my chest. So, if someone should suggest that you should get
a REAL computer, just remember what your friendly 'LUCKY' PC Tech, Roger
Lawhorn, had to say about it. Okay?
About once a month, I have one customer who wants to throw her PC out the
door. This is a modern PC that I helped her to build. I installed all the
upgrades, etc. What is the problem? It's not the hardware. It's Windows 95!
Since I have been helping people, I have consistently run into the same
problem across the board. Windows 95, 98, or whatever, simply does not work
properly.
Secondly, there is no "Plug and Play." According to my A+ Certification
training manual, "Plug and Play" should be called "Plug and Pray." I'm not
joking! My PC repair manual actually states that, and it was written by an
experienced PC repairman.
Every time I buy a "Plug and Play" card for someone and install it, the
drivers that come with it never work. Never! I consistently have to go to
the internet and download the latest drivers in order to get one that works.
Some manufacturers are so low, they advertise their products as "Plug and
Play" simply so they can sell them. Well, not just a few manufacturers, but
rather almost all of them. The "Plug and Play" promise really has put a
damper on my customers who want to buy something in the store. It says that
it works with PCs and Windows and then it doesn't.
As if that isn't enough, each customer of mine has to re-install Windows
on a regular basis along with all the other stuff they have purchased. This
is really time consuming and irritating. They have begun to feel like slaves
to their computers.
My brother who hates Commodores and tells me to get a REAL machine is
ready to throw the Windows 98 CD out the door. My friend Jim Fanis, also
known as Dr. Feelgood's CRAZY Computer Sales on the internet, is a PC
advocate also. He has already filed his copy of 'Windblows' 98 in file 13
(the trash can). Major companies across America are groaning at a new
release of Windows NT, fearing it may bring even more bugs than before.
What else could go wrong? I get service calls on things like games, off
the shelf, that crash the system. People complain of internet sites that
automatically updated their software while they were online and now nothing
works. There appears to be a total lack of unity among the hardware/software
developers.
So, where is the PC industry going with Bill Gates at the helm? His
Windows OS is sinking fast, in my opinion. Linux (based on the UNIX language
used on the internet) will probably replace it. IBM recently placed their
stamp of approval and support with the Linux OS.
Where does that leave me? Well, as long as people run Windows, it will
continue to crash and I will continue to have a job fixing it. Thanks, Bill
Gates, for job security!
So be forewarned... all is not merry in Camelot. If you are perhaps
wondering about what platforms I own today, I will tell you. I have a
Commodore 128D with 8MB RAMLink, etc. and an Amiga 2500 totally decked out
which will be used to bring many more CDs to our Commodore community. I
threw the PCs out the door over a year ago. I didn't even keep the laptop. I
can't stand them!
But if YOU want to buy one, I have no problem with that! It's good for
job security!
[Source: From the Southwest Regional Association of Programmers / 64-128
newsletter "Comm-Adore", June, 1999. SWRAP's address is P.O. Box 528232,
Chicago, Illinois 60652-8232.]
The July 15, 1999 General meeting began with no formal introduction of
officers since everyone present knew everybody else. The hard core were out
in force.
We started with an informal discussion of Read Write CDs. Of particular
note was a CDRW burner from Yamaha being sold currently for $359 external,
$309 internal. It's a 4 by 4 by 16 SCSI device. Richard Rollins said Mac
people interested in burning CDs should get the software package "Toast".
While discussing the actual process of burning CDs, it was noted that a
person should have approximately a gigabyte free of disk space to store the
copy of the disk to be burned.
Turning to the more formal format of the meeting, President Lewis asked
Kevin Hisel to report on what had been happening in the Amiga world in the
last month. Kevin related the saga of the QNX web page announcing the near
completion of the Amiga-like OS, which was countered barely 24 hours later
by the announcement from Amiga Inc. that QNX had not been chosen for the OS
of the next generation Amiga, but that Linux had. The firestorm of reaction
from the Amiga community ensued. Collas then released a rebuttal to all the
vitriolic feedback he had been receiving, downplaying the importance of the
OS kernal. This merely added fuel to the fire. Collas pleaded for people to
wait for the release a technical white paper which he said would explain
things more fully. President Lewis asked Kevin for his damage assessment of
these events. Kevin said the damage with the Amiga community has been very
bad. Jim Collas has lost most of the credibility with Amigans that he has
worked to establish. Yet, Kevin was quick to downplay the importance of the
current Amiga community in Amiga Inc.'s plans. They are not making their new
product for those currently in the Amiga community. There will soon be an
opportunity for the return of Fred Fish. He's a Linux guy now.
Kevin Hopkins added that all the fury over the Linux announcement had
effectively blown the news about the impending release of OS3.5 completely
off the front page. Kevin showed a picture of the packaging for the new
product and said it was to be debuted this month at a show in Australia.
Turning to the Macintosh, Richard Rollins said that the G4 will be
announced at the Seybold conference. Richard also gloated as he read Apple's
most recent quarterly profit statement. He closed by noting that the famous
"1984" commercial had been awarded the most memorable commercial of all time
award.
There was an informal discussion of the recent TV movie "Pirates of
Silicon Valley. Rich Hall said it had made him want to return his computer
and demand his money back.
There was a discussion best titled "Bandwidth is coming." Features of the
discourse were of software being sold principally over the net and how that
will effect store front merchants. Rich Hall offered news of the iToaster
info appliance being sold by Microtech for $99 as reported in the Investors
Business Daily. Jim Lewis noted that "whoever owns the infrastructure will
have to open it up to everyone else." TCI is now the cable franchise in
Champaign and cable modems are coming. Costs were examined.
Finally, before the break, Richard Rollins said the Mac SIG would be
looking at the Palm Pilot and how it relates to a Macintosh.
The Amiga SIG primarily discussed the Amiga Inc. decision to used Linux
as the kernal for the new Amiga system instead of the previously announced
QNX kernal. Our friend from Motorola, Quentin Barnes, said he actually had
some first hand experience with the QNX OS, so he was asked to give his
impressions. Quentin talked about QNX OS as compared to the Amiga OS,
focusing on the internal messaging system in particular. Quentin said:
"QNX is one of the few RTOSes (real-time OSes) that does have reply-based
messages, but it is weird because it has synchronous (waiting) rather than
asynchronous (non-waiting) behavior when sending messages.
"To allow asynchronous sending of messages, the programmer must use a
proxy and have it deliver a canned message, and optionally wait and return
status.
"The AmigaOS message sending is always asynchronous. I think this makes
it more natural and easier for programmers to design multi-threaded
applications.
"Information on the QNX kernel and its IPC message passing can be found
at http://www.qnx.com/literature/qnx_sysarch/microkernel.html."
Someone asked "What would be the advantage of a send-based messaging
system?" Quentin replied:
"Occasionally an agreed upon method of communication (protocol) between a
sender and receiver never requires the receiver to return status. When the
protocol is using messages to communicate, these messages would be
send-based.
"These send-based messages tend to originate from low-level events
without flow control. For example, the keyboard driver would send a message
that a key was pressed. It never wants to know that the key was accepted and
processed. If the OS event handler can't keep up with the keypress events,
the keyboard driver can't stop the user from pressing more keys! These
situations tend to be uncommon in well-designed systems."
Quentin then talked about how multi-threaded programs behave and how
these work on multi-processor machines. Quentin said, on the Amiga "Each
thread has its own set of flags (an array of status bits). ... referring to
RTOSes in general. Some have the flags external to threads (not exclusively
owned), some have them internal (private). Normally, the events are
referenced by application allocated or assigned numbers.
"In QNX's case, they instead implement UNIX (POSIX) signals. This is an
array of bits owned by the thread (private), but their meanings (allocated
numbers) are defined by the OS rather than the application. This complicates
multiple-wait programming (the ability to wait on more than one thing
simultaneously).
"This is another example of how QNX makes multi-threaded programming
harder. You can still do it, but it just is more work for the programmer so
they're less likely to design a multi-threaded, responsive application."
Quentin said, for his projects, he finds himself referring back to the
Amiga RKMs for inspiration and practical solutions.
Quentin had a few other observations. He said the Amiga OS is single
processor oriented. It wouldn't handle multiple processors well. He also
said most RTOS don't support multiple waits; the Amiga does.
The discussion started off with talk of the pseudo-iMac by Daywoo called
the FuturePower. Having visited the Daywoo site and seen the FuturePower, it
appeared to me a simplistic copy of the iMac idea. The general profile
without any of the innovation. I would hope that people wouldn't be fooled
by this nonsense, but sometimes I wonder. There was also talk of Apple
"forcing" the closure of several "freelance" websites related to the iMac.
Several were humorous including one that was advertising toilets with
translucent colored lids in your choice of "fruity colors!" An idea that
struck me as clever but more than a little upsetting in it's ramifications.
Regardless, could it be that the long arms of the law, or rather, the
lawyers, have put a big squelch on the right to speak freely?
But, the main thing we were there for was to hear and see Emil Cobb show
us the Palm Pilot ... ... !! ... Excuse me, the "Palm" (1 through 5).
I guess I am not supposed to say "Pilot" anymore because people might
confuse this thing with a pencil or a pen. (Actually, I think Pilot is just
ticked that they didn't do it first.) But! I digress. Now that I think of
it, this was a pre-lawsuit Palm Pilot, so it should be cool the call it a
Palm Pilot for the article's sake.
(I hope! Please, don't sue me!) (That probably won't help one bit!) Back
to the main show, Emil's demo.
Rich had been installing the software on the club machine. And it was
giving him some headaches, but after figuring a work-around for the usual
extension conflicts, he got it installed and running. Emil mentioned that
the Palm Pilot software installs some serial port managers that lock up the
serial port. This doesn't allow his Mac to operate. So he installed his
software in a Zip disk to bypass this hassle. The problem Rich was
experiencing ended up being one of the Mac OS looking for an international
language translator of some sort that in the end they were able to "ignore"
and the software finally worked.
What Emil was presenting in the mean time was the Pilot itself and it's
"cradle." The Palm Pilot fits in the palm of the average hand. I would
probably like a slightly bigger device - it would fit better and I wouldn't
be as likely to loose it as easily. (Some, who know me, would say that the
size of the item wouldn't matter, I'd loose it anyway!) It is the dark grey,
on the light side of the acceptable "portable spectrum" color scale. This
tends to make it look smaller, still. It presents you with a screen and
series of buttons arranged below; on/off, datebook, address book, up & down
scroll, to do list, and memo. The display screen is pressure sensitive. You
can enter information into the Palm Pilot by writing on the display screen
with a supplied stylus. But you have to learn the Pilot's script. This isn't
too hard because the letters are formed in fairly simple and logical
strokes. There is also a virtual keyboard that you can type info into the
device using the same stylus. While the screen is sturdy, it cannot take
too much intense poking. On the screen there are several virtual buttons as
well; applications, calculator, find and [newe - news??]. It comes with a
"cradle" that is it's battery recharger and communications link with your
computer. There doesn't seem to be a video out. Emil also mentioned that the
Palm Pilot does not take to being dropped. He thought that his Casio is much
more solid. He also mentioned that the built in alarm is quiet and cute,
and so, not obnoxious enough to be of much use.
The Palm Pilot is battery operated. It uses 2 AAA batteries and can go
for as long as 3 months on dead batteries without loosing the data in the
machine. BUT, once you start to change the batteries, you only have 60
seconds to do the job before you loose all data. One tip was to turn off the
back light on the screen to save your batteries. There is also a power
supply available. Emil mentioned that the Casio is also easier on
batteries. But, Emil, the big difference is that the Palm Pilot does about
2-3 dozen more things than that darn Casio!
When you place the Palm Pilot into the cradle the software automatically
sets up communication and updates any software that needs it in about 3-5
minutes. Once you set the software up, updating the Palm/computer will
probably be a matter of seconds according to Emil. He also mentioned that
the software on the computer has security features that allow more than one
person (Palm Pilot) can dock at the same computer with individual sign-ons.
When you first turn the machine on, you have to introduce yourself, only one
person per Palm Pilot, please. And then a short "training" session ensues so
that man and machine can get to know each other. The Palm Pilot uses it's
own operating system which is now Windows and Mac compatible. Emil
mentioned making changes to schedules and dates using the familiar to Mac
users technique of "Drag & Drop". And it Copy/Pastes in a familiar "Mac"
style. He said there are also two forms of rebooting, hard and soft. The
hard reboot kills all info in the machine and you have to start from
scratch. There are no Y2K problems with the Palm Pilot according to Emil.
The Palm Pilot is mainly designed for people that need to keep track of
lots of small and rapidly changing items. Inventory database info,
appointment schedules, work schedules, address books and the like are what
this machine is for. Emil said that he mainly uses the Palm Pilot for
tracking service calls and keeping schedules. Emil said that all of the
basic software comes with basic categories which can be customized to meet
the user's needs, and he proceeded to show us several lists and amended
lists, and how he modified them, that he used regularly. Besides these types
of software there are big clocks, doodle pads, productivity, and game
software. Emil mentioned versions of Pong and the Etch-a-Sketch that were of
interest. He said that all you need to do is get on the web, go to the
"Dogpile" search engine and type in "Palm Pilot", and hit search. More
software will appear than you know what to do with. He also suggested
checking out the "Palm Pilot Resource Kit", a book/CD combination. I
visited the Amazon.com listing for the Palm Pilot and Palm III and found 12
books on this machine. This is a very popular device and there are many
resources for an interested Palm Pilot user to find information and
software.
By this time the clock was ticking way past our deadline and we proceeded
to pack our goodies away as fast as we possibly could. Some members
reassembled at a local pancake house to chew the computer fat some more,
while everyone else disappeared into the night.
The July meeting of the CUCUG executive board took place on Tuesday, July
20, 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, Emil Cobb, Mike
Latinovich, Richard Hall, Richard Rollins, Craig Kummerow, Don Shaffer,
Kevin Hopkins, and Kevin Hisel.
Emil Cobb: Emil reported that attendance was up at our last meeting.
Mike Latinovich: Mike said discussion of the Amiga at the last meeting
was "intense." For himself, he is entirely disenchanted with what Amiga Inc.
is doing now. Mike said, "The MCC is nothing new. It's just a Linux box." He
believes the LeFaivre/Havemose Amiga R&D response to the Linux furor was
basically telling us - if we don't like the decision, shove it. Mike noted
that Collas had as much as said there were technical reasons for the Linux
choice, while LeFaivre/Havemose clearly admitted it was a marketing
decision. Mike concluded they should bury the Amiga name out of respect for
what it was and move on. They've run off the entire userbase, so there's no
value in the Amiga name anymore.
Likewise, Mike thinks that QNX won't do anything. "They can't afford to
do it." They've dealt with developers only up to this point. Who's going to
do the end user stuff, like manning the help line phones?
Mike concluded with his opinion that Linux was the wrong choice. His
personal preference in Unix flavors is NetBSD.
Richard Hall: Rich gave his Treasurer's report and reviewed our tax
situation. He has met with a tax advisor and the news is not good. Past
lapses have put is in a bad position, but not one we cannot handle. Rich
also brought in a list of old expenses that he needed clarified. Various
officers help in that process.
Richard Rollins: Richard said that Emil had done a nice job on the Palm
Pilot demo at the last Mac SIG. There was a discussion of the software
problem they had during the demo. The PC owners on the Board snickered
somewhat at the "so simple and reliable Mac" stumbling a little.
There was a discussion of purchasing a G3 Mac or a Powerbook to upgrade
or supplement our club machine. The Powerbook was suggested for its
portability - a decided plus for getting it to the meetings, but this is
serious countered by the expense. The whole Portability versus Expandability
issue was discussed. All this was a non-pressing issue, so it was set aside
for later consideration.
Richard concluded his segment with probable Mac SIG programs for next
month and beyond.
Craig Kummerow: Craig (our former C64/128 SIG Chairman) returned this
month saying, "It's nice to see some things haven't changed. I missed coming
the meetings. I still enjoy the newsletter, though. It's good to be back."
Everyone voiced their corresponding opinion that it was good to have Craig
back.
Don Shaffer: Don brought up the topic of future Amiga shows coming up.
Dayton is scheduled for August 27-29. Indianapolis is coming in October.
There was a discussion as to whether we should attend. It was decided that
we should wait and see what happens at the Sacramento and London shows this
weekend. There was discussion of other presences we maintain.
Kevin Hopkins: Kevin delivered an updated copy of the database to Kevin
Hisel, for his and the President's use. Kevin distributed mail to
appropriate officers. He asked about disposing of the box the club monitor
came in. Kevin confirmed that the meeting in August will be on Friday the
20th rather than our usual third Thursday slot due to a booking conflict on
the room.
Kevin suggested that we sell the club's version 3 of Filemaker Pro since
we have upgraded to version 4. Version 3 is still perfectly serviceable, as
version 4 only added web features. Disposing of this software will be left
up to Mac SIG Chairman Richard Rollins.
Kevin proposed breaking the newsletter up into targeted issues: an Amiga
version and a Macintosh version. There was a discussion of the work this
would entail and the benefits that might accrue from such a move.
There was a discussion about the Open Sourcing of the Amiga OS.
Kevin proposed that now might be the time to bring the PC people into the
club. There was talk of purchasing a machine to support such a move.
Kevin Hisel: Kevin reported that the Amiga Technical Brief is now out and
anyone interested in the Amiga should read it. Kevin's analysis is: "It's a
Linux box. I'm disappointed."
Kevin reported that traffic on the web site has been way up, due to the
flurry of news in the last couple of weeks.
Kevin stated that July marked the prorating of our dues to $10 and as a
result membership activity is up.
Jim Lewis: There was a discussion about networks and OSes. Jim commented
that this is part of his business and stated that "NT ain't mission
critical. Novell 5 is the technically superior product, but Microsoft has
won the marketing war."
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=05291 Eudora Pro 4.2 Continues to Deliver, Part 1
by Adam C. Engst (ace@tidbits.com)
http://www.usps.com/fyi/welcome.htm
http://www.casadyg.com/products/spellcatcher/mac/
http://www.newertech.com/software/spelltools.html Eudora Pro 4.2 Continues to Deliver, Part 2
by Adam C. Engst (ace@tidbits.com)
http://www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-gellens-format-06.txt
<x-eudora-setting:11702=2>
<x-eudora-setting:11509> The Amiga Section:
World of Amiga '99 Report
by John Chandler This Ain't Going to Be Easy
by Fabian Jimenez, NCAUG Open Letter to the Amiga Community from P5
Subject: Open Letter to the Amiga Community
Date: Fri, 23 Jul 1999 13:50:45 +0100
From: Wolf Dietrich (wd@gf.phase5.de)
Organization: phase 5 digital products
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Dear Amiga friends,
"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."
Wolf Dietrich
---------------------------------------------------------
Wolf Dietrich, GM phase 5 digital products
wd@gf.phase5.de http://www.phase5.de
---------------------------------------------------------
ToCNorthwest of Pegasus
by John Shepard (squid@flyingmice.com)
July 20, 1999
Missing Amiga
by Bolton Peck (tronman@xmission.com) The Truth About PCs
by Roger Lawhorn The CUCUG Section:
July General Meeting
reported by Kevin HopkinsThe Amiga SIG: Linux, not QNX?
reported by Kevin Hopkins (kh2@uiuc.edu) The Macintosh SIG: Emil Cobb show the Palm Pilot
reported by Edwin Hadley (e-hadley@life.uiuc.edu)July 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