I just bought a PC and would like to transfer some WP text files to my PC-WordPerfect. Can you help me out?
Mike Stuto
Rotterdam, NY
You don't mention which version of the Amiga OS you are running, but it would help to have CrossDOS running for any of the following methods (frankly I'm not sure what other way you might have to transfer the files, aside from PC Utilities under OS1.x or a null modem cable).
One way to transfer files is to save them out as ASCII in WordPerfect on the Amiga and load them as ASCII in WordPerfect on the PC. This will get all your text through, but unfortunately, all WordPerfect style and formatting codes will be lost.
If you happen to own Final Writer, you can load WordPerfect documents (it can actually interpret WP codes), and then save them out as RTF (Rich Text Format), which can then be read by many common PC and Macintosh word processors.
There is a third option: you need to access the "Text In/Out" requester. There might be a way to get there from a menu, but the way I know is to press Ctrl-F5. From here, you can save or load in a variety of formats, including "IBM WP." I don't know just how well it works with various versions of WP, as I've never owned PC WP, but I tried it with the Microsoft Works WordPerfect 5.0 loading filter, and the text came through alright. It's the other things, like formatting and style codes, that didn't. You might achieve better results with something that can load WP 4.2-format documents. Again, I have no way to verify.
In any event, one or more of these three methods should be able to help you get your Amiga WordPerfect files onto your PC.
Michael Webb
Editor-in-Chief
Hello,
I recently have gotten a job programming on Win95 apps in multimedia, and despite the fact that I am working on PC's, it has broadened my checkbook to finally purchase some products for my Amiga I have long been waiting for...I am thinking about putting my 1200 into a Tower case from CeV to make room for a Cybervision 64/3D card as well as a Toccata audio card...Here is my current system, and after that I will express what I am trying to accomplish...
Currently, I grab video from a still frame VHS VCR (only a field - the VCR can't hold a frame) as individual IFF's. I then usually composite many layers of video along with 3D renderings and fractals in whatever shape I wish. I then convert it to DCTV 736x480 4 bit ANIM8 files and then proceed to dump them to tape (SVHS camcorder) out through DCTV's composite out. With full motion video, I usually get around 22 fps. I also make music to accompany my work from time to time with Octamed Soundstudio; however, I do not have a digitizer and the only 16-bit version for the 1200 is the Clarity 16 which is a parallel/serial device - I already have a cable nightmare without this new headache, hence the Toccata board, and eventually I would prefer to dump the audio with the video as opposed to syncing it up on the edit bay. Now, I have read in many reviews that the 68060 is limited by the AGA chipset which is usually referred to as a bottleneck. My question is - can I achieve better quality and frame rates from adding a Cybervision 64? I am somewhat doubtful because basically I am playing 4-bit video and to jump to 16 or 24-bit, I would imagine would be too much to ask. Also I seem limited in actually getting the signal to SVHS. I work with MPEG on the PC and I feel it is a terrible system at least as far as the PC hardware manufacturers have made it. The quality doesn't look that wonderful either. Has Phase V released their MPEG card yet? What software would I use to compile an MPEG clip? And can I dump it to SVHS or even VHS?
Basically, I figure you are going to suggest a Flyer or VLAB motion system. I personally have never liked most Newtek products and would lean to a VLAB motion system, however, I am skeptical of investing that kind of money into a non-supported, non-updated product, especially with never seeing one. I even have to wonder if I should invest in a PC simply for getting my product to tape seeing as there is a barrage of products being released in that department. I would love to get an A\Box as it is written on paper, but I wouldn't even be writing this letter to you now if Phase V would bother to return my mail, and I am already a committed customer to them - and I will buy from them again because they seem to be the leading edge of what is happening with the future of Amigas.
Last question - what do you think of the A5050?
I appreciate your time - I have looked and looked for my answers all around the web and I wouldn't want to waste your time, however, this appears to be here for this reason.
Thank you,
David Salonius
Hi David!
I'm Bill Graham, and Mike Webb forwarded your various queries to me, as I am the closest he has to a multimedia person :). I have lots of the same equipment as you. I have a VLab Motion in a 32+2 meg Amiga 3000 with a Z3 Retina. I also have an Amiga 1200 with 32+2 megs of ram, but only an 030 in it. I have an 040 in the 3000. I also have a DCTV; I bought the first one in Arizona some years ago.
Software-wise I do mostly 3D rendering and animation, as well as batch processing with ADPro and Image FX.
Unlike you I do not do very much with sound. I do have a DSS8+ digitizer that I have messed around with.
It sounds like you are agonizing over many of the same issues I did almost a year ago. And I ended up buying a PC. Mind you I've had Amigas since 1988, and buying the Pentium was not a decision I took lightly. Since I do mostly 3D, and, like you, do not care for NewTek, I went with the 166MHz Pentium with 80 megs of RAM and a new 21 inch Hitachi SuperPro Monitor mainly because Impulse released the beta version of Imagine for Windows last summer. IFW is fully functional now, and is making real waves in the PC world. Bear in mind that Softwood, Inc. is located here in Phoenix, and I've used 060's on their machines; they were the sole US distributors for 060's for a while.
I have to say that for rendering, the Amiga cannot keep up anymore. I did a rendering test with my 040 A3000 versus my Pentium, basically a glass torus with full raytrace on, identical settings for both machines. The times were 4 minutes 47 second for the 3000, and 15 seconds flat for the Pentium! That is a 19-fold speed increase! That is the difference between two and a half weeks versus one day for an animation. My rendering comparisons with Amiga Imagine 4.0 on a Cyberstorm 060-pumped A4000 at Softwood was about 3.5 times as fast as my 040. The Pentium is still 5 times faster than that. The 200mhz Pentiums should be a 22-fold increase in speed over the 040, since MIPS is a good indicator of rendering speed.
So much for 3D.
For output, I'm still using the VLab Motion, which I've had for 3 years. I used to have a VLab Y/C board in the 3000, and I sold it, using the proceeds for the motion board (if I had more slots, I would have kept it; it is great with a security cam plugged into it under ARexx control). I will soon be getting a video board for the PC, and here is why: firstly, the VLab Motion is a 16-bit board; no matter what SCSI controller you use it will not do more that 3 megs a second transfer. That means LOTS of compression for your video and animation, and it does indeed show. In fact, with your 060-pumped 1200, if you switched your DCTV stuff to 8 color as opposed to 16 color IFF, I'd have to say your output quality would be better than the VLab. The VLab in conjunction with a Toccata will allow for perfectly-synched audio, but you'll need a separate HD for the Toccata for decent performance. Like you said, however, the VLab is no longer supported. There is an Amiga program called Magic Lantern that will sync sound to IFF Anims, but I've not tried it with DCTV pix. It writes its own format, known as DIFF, and so is not compatible with lots of software, other than its own player.
You mentioned MPEG's. I encode MPEG's on the Amiga with Image FX 2.6; its encoder (software) works ok. It's not real-time, but for 3D it adds only about 15-20% more production time. I know of no way to encode sound for MPEG on the Amiga. On the PC it's a different story. There are LOTS of MPEG options, and full sound support is standard. There is a site on my website's Links page that'll take you to MPEG.org where you will find everything there is concerning MPEG's. The MPEG's I make on the Amiga play back at 30fps on the Pentium with no special hardware. The video boards for the PC use Enhanced IDE or Fast SCSI and have transfer rates of 30 to 40 megs a second, essentially uncompressed video, or D1 quality. You can get a board, SCSI contoller, and 2GB hard disk for lots less than $2000. Plus the boards are mostly compatible with Adobe Premiere, which is kick-ass for digital transitions, AVI, etc. Like ImageFX or ADPro with a great graphical interface that is real time.
But I'm keeping my Amigas. I use the 1200 with Scala for presentations; it is unbeatable. I can make animated GIF's for web page design that are unmatched on the PC or Mac for looks and bandwidth considerations. The PC and Mac have nothing like DPaint. I have Adobe Photoshop, and I like it, but for making web graphics it comes nowhere close to IFX and ADPro.
So there's my $.02 worth. I hope it helps. Good luck with your work!
Bill Graham
Graphics Editor
Regarding the frame rates by adding a Cybervision, it's possible. But I don't think that is the main bottleneck; it might be cheaper or as cheap to get a dedicated AV drive. Their throughputs are faster. Or put in another SCSI controller with everything but the drive rendered to on it. The bus has to take time out to service everything on the bus, or disconnect everything while doing the render. I bet you will see an increase then. Or a combination of the above depending on money and inclination to connect/disconnect things from the bus.
Regarding MPEG, there are some things out for the Amiga which deal with MPEG, but I don't know specifically which is best.
Flyer is a good system for the money. It is the third-best-selling non-linear system on the market, believe it or not. And the price is not bad.
On the PC in general you will see more money spent to do things that can be done on the Amiga more cheaply. The tradeoff is currently that it's harder to get help for the Amiga. Newtek tech support is a nightmare to get to. Once you get there, it's good.
Greg Noggle
Telecommunications Editor and Hardware Guru
The AGA chipset's only real bottleneck is its lack of chunky pixel display modes, especially from the point of view of the CPU. That might cause performance losses in some cases, but generally only to the graphics display system, or CPU accesses to the custom bus.
Regarding the A5050, I believe it is a potentially useful product for those who do cross-platform work, but other than that, it's definitely not The Future Amiga. In other words, most Amigas need not be multiplatform boxes. For some users, it would simply add unnecessary cost and "features" to an otherwise perfectly capable system. Personally, I would rather either be running two real, separate computers, or an emulator under Amiga control. However, I believe it's a good idea to have at least one dual-system model in the lineup at any given time, since there are definitely those who would benefit.
Michael Webb
Editor-in-Chief
E-mail your question to CEI. They know both the Amiga and the PC aspects of your question. The address is dave@blossomvideo.com.
Sam Ormes
Senior Editor
You guys do an outstanding job with The Amiga Monitor. With the recent demise of Video Toaster User, your site, and a few lesser ones, are now the closest thing I know to an Amiga-based mag (let me know if I'm wrong).
Actually, what I'm curious about is: I'm trying to find a tele-prompting program for the Amiga. I remember LUCKY FISH produced one several years ago, but I understand they, like so many other Amiga software firms, are no longer in business. Is there still a way to find a copy of the program, or is there something comparable to it still available somewhere? I would greatly appreciate you pointing me in the right direction.
Thanks,
Gregg Tillman Video Factory
I did a search on my Aminet 4 disk and found a shareware teleprompt program. It's got hardware with it once purchased. Search on Aminet; there might be others also.
Greg Noggle
Telecommunications Editor and Hardware Guru
You can try a program on Aminet:
TelePrompt.lha gfx/show 31K 136+TelePrompter (Autocue) demo
I don't know if it is what you are looking for but it might be worth a try.
Danny Green
Staff Writer
Thanks for the comments about AM, Gregg. There are quite a few other Amiga-based magazines, actually; there are other online magazines like Amiga Report, a number of "web page magazines," and some print magazines, including Amiga Computing, Amazing Computing, and The Informer. You can find whole lists at web sites like The Amiga Web Directory or Amicrawler.
Michael Webb
Editor-in-Chief
Contact Shawn McDermott at 800-749-7266. Shawn specializes in Amigas as teleprompters.
Sam Ormes
Senior Editor
I am attempting to put together an Amiga 1200-based Kiosk. I would like to use a 'touch screen'- type monitor, but have not been able to locate one. I'm using SCALA MM400, so the monitor needs to sync down to 15.75KHz. Are there 'touch screen' overlays that would work instead of buying an entire monitor?
Thanx,
Terry McNeeley
Media Specialist
Central Missouri State University
There is a touch screen overlay that works on a standard 1084 monitor. The overlay is still available in the peecee world (it is the same device), but special Amiga software is needed. I do not remember the name, but you can check around in peecee catalogs. The software may very well be public domain now. I remember seeing it a couple of years ago; it worked great with Scala. In fact you could even use DPaint with your fingers. Good luck on finding it; the last I heard, they were about $100.
Bill Graham
Graphics Editor
Your best bet is to contact Scala for the latest on those. They will know. Call (703)713-0900, or visit http://www.scala.com.
Sam Ormes
Senior Editor
Back in the October 1993 issue of AmigaWorld, there was a review of a Touch Screen device known as the "Touch Frame" made by Carroll Touch. Whether they still exist I cannot say, but you can try the following contact information:
PO Box 1309 (78680) Round Rock, TX 78664 512/244-3500
Apparently, the Touch Frame included Amiga driver software. I hope that you can find them, in some form, if you choose to do so.
Michael Webb
Editor-in-Chief
I managed to get a demo of the Atapi device for my A500 off the Aminet; it works perfectly on my AlfaData HD Interface except for one problem: the product is a demo, and I tried to contact the American distributor for Hirch and Wolf in Germany. Do you know if they are still in existence? And if so, how much is the actual product so I can buy it?
Asie Mahone III
I think the company in question has a presence on the Blittersoft home page. Aren't they the same people who are doing Storm-C?
Greg Noggle
Telecommunications Editor and Hardware Guru
Having no knowledge of this subject before receiving your question, I went out on the internet looking for some answers, and have not been able to find anything particularly useful. This is your chance, readers -- if anybody has an answer to this question, feel free to send it in, and we'll publish it.
Michael Webb
Editor-in-Chief
I can't seem to get Datatypes to show anymore on my A1200. I can play sounds with MultiView - but no graphics. Because of this, I use only IBrowse for the web, for its own graphics libraries. The picture DT's are there, in the DEVS and Classes, but no show!
LS
Any number of factors could be the cause of this problem. You could try moving any extraneous (i.e. non-Commodore) datatype files into some temporary storage directory, and if that helps, try reinstalling them one by one. If you have anything running from User-Startup or WBStartup that affects the datatypes subsystem (like a patch of some kind), try removing it. If you are using the latest version of the Picture Datatype (v.43), try reinstalling all datatype files (both Devs and Classes) from the Workbench disk, just with a simple copy operation or two (I know I had problems with that new Picture Datatype, and promptly got rid of it). You can try this latter option anyway. If all else fails, you could try reinstalling the OS, taking care to make sure you back up your data first.
Michael Webb
Editor-in-Chief
It could be due to using an old version of the picture.datatype by CyberGraphics, e.g. before 7.535(?). They expired after a set time limit. Get the lastest datatype off Aminet or the CyberGraphics home page, or reinstall the OS after backing up.
Greg Noggle
Telecommunications Editor and Hardware Guru
Amiga Web Directory