@database "ar406.guide" @Node MAIN "Amiga Report Online Magazine #4.06 -- April 23, 1996" =========================================================================== April 23, 1996 @{" Turn the Page " link MENU} Issue No. 4.06 =========================================================================== ,a c4%&; 1%%%b 9%=~ " m; mmmm; nmm mmmmm .,pmq,. m; j#6 ##6 j### ### ,#'~ ~`g, j#6 ##&; ##&; #### ### ,#f `# ##&; jP##6 ###6 jP### ### .##' " jP##6 #'$#&; #$#&; #'### ### i## #'$#&; jP l##6 #l##6 jP ### ### &## jP l##6 #' $#&; # $#&;#' ### ### &## #' $#&; j#mmmd##6 # l##6P ### ### ?## mmmw j#mmmd##6 #' $#&; # $##' ### ### ##; $#$ #' $#&; jP l##6 # l#P ### ### `#l ,&#'jP l##6 #' ###mm # $' mm###mm mm###mm `#q,.,p#' #' ###mm (R) "~^~" &&&&q, , ,P `b d' tm d' ,P d&&&P ;P .,d' ,c&&q, &&&&q, ,c&&q, q&,e&q ;P' d&&&P ;P' `& d' `b ;P' `b dP~ `P d' ;P'`&; dB&&&&P ;P ,P d' P ;P ;P d' `&; &, , d' .,d' &, .,d' d' d' , &&& &&'`&&&P' ;B&&&P' `&&&P' &&& `&P' d' ;P &&& "THE Online Source for Amiga Information!" Copyright 1996 FS Publications All Rights Reserved @endnode @node MENU "Amiga Report Main Menu" @toc MAIN =========================================================================== == Main Menu == =========================================================================== @{" Editorial and Opinion " link OPINION} @{" Featured Articles " link FEATURE} @{" Reviews " link REVIEW} @{" News & Press Releases " link NEWS} @{" Aminet Charts " link FTP} @{" Reader Mail " link MAIL} --------------------------------- @{" About AMIGA REPORT " link ABOUT} @{" Dealer Directory " link DEALER} Contact Information and Copyrights Amiga Dealer Addresses and Numbers @{" Where to Get AR " link WHERE} @{" Advertisements " link COMMERCIAL} Mailing List & Distribution Sites Online Services, Dealers, Ordering ______________________________________________ // | | // ========//====| Amiga Report International Online Magazine |======//===== == \\// | Issue No. 4.06 April 23, 1996 | \\// == ==============| "THE Online Source for Amiga Information!" |============= |______________________________________________| @endnode @node JASON "Editor" @toc STAFF =========================================================================== EDITOR =========================================================================== Jason Compton ============= Internet Address -------- ------- jcompton@shell.portal.com 1203 Alexander Ave jcompton@xnet.com Streamwood, IL 60107-3003 USA Fax Phone --- ----- 847-741-0689 847-733-0248 @endnode @node KATIE "Assistant Editor" @toc STAFF =========================================================================== == ASSISTANT ng ) and lo and behold, we discovered that it was a 68040. Wow ! As I say, this guy, who wore glasses for any John Hegley fans interested, from Amiga Tech., who was 'demoing' the Walker, didn't seem to know but two things about the Amiga, Jack and Shit, and Jack left town ;-) He did speak about David Pleasance to one guy though, and he said something along the lines of "he wanted the Amiga all for himself" in reply to whatever the question was. I also heard Pleasance speak about Amiga Tech. now I think of it, he said something like, on several occasions to a guy who was asking him things, "I can't understand why they haven't done X, I can't understand why they haven't done Y ... " etc. etc. There was a little info about the Walker stuck on the display case the other machine was in, which gave out some technical specs, along the lines of what I have already said. Going to be released around September / October if you believed what you read. Price - around 700 to 750 pounds. It will also come with a quad speed cd rom drive, half gig hd, 5 mb of ram ( 1 chip, 4 fast - go figure that one out ) and will be highly, nay, infinitely, expandible, according to Amiga Tech. I guess these things may be subject to change though before the release, if it ever is released. Amiga Tech. did have some other machines at the show as I've mentioned, mainly German A1200 hd's, the 4000 T, and that was about it. Fortunately there was a guy there, who worked for Escom, called Ash, also manning the stand. He was a student at Brunel University amongst other things, and seemed to know a fair amount about the Amiga, and was very familiar with using it. He was using AMIrc at one point, on channel #amiga ( where else ? ) as AshWOA if any of you spoke to him. I believe Matt Bettinson was on too on his 3000. The Surfer Software does look pretty good to me, even on a vanilla A1200 it works pretty well. There were at least 3 Amigas at the show that were connected to the Internet, the Emap 3000, the Amiga Tech. A1200, and the Hi Soft A1200, which was good to see. That was it really for Amiga Tech. Their flyers were just the usual stuff, Q Drive, 4000 T, Surfer Bundle etc., you know the score. Their stand had a bit of a cheap look about it ( and with hindsight we know why now ... ), and was also predominantly black too, like Hi Soft's. If it has seemed like I've been down on the stand I suppose that isn't really fair, but I'm sure some people will agree that it could have been better. There were a few well known faces at the show round and about, apart from those mentioned previously were Andy Davidson ( author of Worms amongst other things, and who had a splendid run-in with the boss of Viscorp - see later ), Jeff Walker ( looking pretty scruffy ), Gilles Bourdin, Petro Whatishisname from Amiga Tech., the editor of CU Amiga whose name I don't know, the editor of Amiga Computing, whose name I also don't know ( do these two count as well known faces then ? ), Anthony Jacobson, publisher of Amiga User International, and I think that was about it. With the show being as small as it was, and with the crowds thinning later on, I completed many 'laps' as it were of all the exhibitors at the show, and saw every stand many times over. I was satisfied with the show once I had seen it all a few times, and just looking at it from a pecuniary perspective, there were killings to be made in some areas. I wasn't sure as to what time I was going to leave the show at, as at around 3.00 pm, I had seen everything plenty of times, and thought that there wasn't much point hanging on. For some reason though I couldn't tear myself away, and stuck around till 4 pm. At around this time, I saw the Amiga Tech. guy called Ash on AMIrc, and he told someone that there was going to be a press conference after the show was over at 5.30 pm. After finding this out I decided I would stick around until the show finished, and try and gate-crash this press conference, to see what was 'going down'. So I wandered around some more until it started to approach 5.00 pm, when the show closed. A few announcements came over the P.A. system asking people to leave etc. now that the show was drawing to a close. At just after 5.00 pm I left the hall where the show was and went upstairs into the Novotel to the Champagne Suite. There was a bar just outside the suite where some people were gathering waiting to get into the conference. I sat down at a table near a group of people from Team 17, and eavesdropped on what Andy Davidson had planned for the next version of Worms, amongst other things. Earlier on I had heard him telling a guy something which I found very interesting indeed. This may be well known in certain quarters, but I had never heard it before. According to what he said, Commodore, around November 1991, a full year practically before the A1200 & A4000 were released, had a new machine ready to release called the A3000+. Apparently it was AGA, and had various other new features in it which would have really been dynamite for the time, and would have kept the Amiga still to the forefront of the cutting edge, technology wise. However, Commodore, in their infinite wisdom, sat on the machine. The reason ? They had made the cases for the A4000 and wanted a machine to fill them. Well, this is what I heard anyway. It seems that the A3000 is still regarded as the best machine Commodore ever made. Oh well, who knows how things might have turned out if such a machine had been released ? Back to the press conference - I waited around until just after 5.30 pm. From what I had heard and could gather, the press conference was just for press ( never ;-) ), exhibitors, and business, and seeing as all these people at the show had been wearing badges saying this sort of thing on them, I didn't think I'd get in. But I thought I'd give it a try anyway, just front it out and hope no-one tried to stop me from getting in. I needn't have worried, there seemed to be quite a few members of the public who had thought along similar lines to myself who were already inside. [The actual story of the 3000+'s cancellation does not directly hinge on the "A4000 case" crisis. The 3000+ was ready well before the 4000 was built, but it was cancelled due to the management's call for a mid-range ECS machine which never made it to market. -Jason] I took a seat near the back ( the suite was almost full, at least 200 people I'd say, nearly all seated, with a table and mic at the front from where the speeches were going to be given. ) It struck me as odd that the ticket, nor any other official info I had seen, mentioned the fact that there was going to be a press conference after the show. It was just luck really that I had found out about it. A moment after I had sat down, the conference began. First up to speak was a guy called Peter Brameld, who was the Director, World of Amiga '96 Ltd. He had organised the show pretty much ( so he said ) and just said a few things about what was going to happen in the next minutes etc. He named all the people sitting at the front table, which seemed to contain a few Viscorp staff for some reason - I suppose the writing was on the wall from that moment on. He introduced Petro Whatishisname, who came to the mic. Being at the back it was difficult to see any facial expression as he spoke. However, what he said was clear enough. At this point I wish I had taken a tape recorder, but I'm sure his speech will have been transcribed already by various people. The gist of it was this :- Amiga Tech. has sold the Amiga to Viscorp of Chicago, USA. Pretty simple really. Of course, he said more than that. He explained why this had taken place, and why it had had to take place it you get my drift. The only thing that shocked me ( for I was shocked ) more than hearing this was the fact that he had intimated in his speech that some people already knew what was going on. Well, I'm sure the Viscorp guys already knew what was going on ;-) It may be that all sorts of rumours have been going around the internet suggesting the same - if so, I must have missed them all, not having time to read the newsgroups etc. Some people didn't seem that surprised by it, but then again, some of us did. The guy sitting next to me seemed as taken aback as I was. Petro went on to mention Escom's losses, other things that had contributed to the decision, I'm sure some of will have read 'em. He also said that they had sold 40,000 units of the A1200 since restarting production of it, which he thought was quite respectable, and I think I would agree, along with 2000 units of the A4000. Then he called up Bill Buck, the president of Viscorp. Bill wouldn't let Petro sit down for a moment, he kept him standing whilst he thanked him for all he had done for the Amiga, however, he only got a lukewarm round of applause for 'all he had done' from the crowd. David Pleasance was sitting 3 chairs away from me, and I noted that he didn't applaud Petro at all. I wonder why ? ;-) Once Bill had let Petro sit down, he cracked on with what he had to say. The gist of it was this :- Viscorp had paid Amiga Tech. 40 million dollars for the Amiga Tech. Were they mad to have done this he wondered when Escom had paid only 10 million or so for Commodore ? No, of course not, because Escom had spent a lot more than 40 million dollars getting the Amiga into ( a funny ) shape again ( the Walker shape ! ) ( see later on for more info about this figure of money though. ) After naming a few people who worked for Viscorp who were with him at that moment, he said that they had a number of ex-Commodore employees, one of whom did the marketing and PR for the CD-TV which made me giggle - like this was impressive or something ? Another guy had also done something else which was pretty poor, it may have been the A500 cd rom drive fiasco. Either way, naming these as credentials about the staff in question hardly filled me with confidence anyway, these people sounded exactly like the type of people who really buggered things up for Commodore in the first place. Oh well, I guess like what Viscorp does in general we'll have to see what happens, and give them the benefit of the doubt. He ( Bill ) then went on to outline, as best he could, as details were still pretty sketchy as the ink was still wet on the deal, what Viscorp's plans were for the Amiga. This is where the fun really started ... their main plans are to stick the Amiga hardware into a television so people can use it to access the internet. Yep, that pretty much says it all. He did say that Viscorp were going to carry on with what Amiga Tech. had been doing with the Amiga itself, but also go down this set-top box route, with the emphasis firmly on the set-top box. Well, of course people already knew that Viscorp had a licence to do this anyway. Why might they buy the Amiga then to do a set-top box when they already had a licence to do one ? It seems that Bill was more than a little worried that the 'Chinese' ( he never mentioned any company in particular ) were about to come and get a licence also for making a set-top box along similar lines to Viscorp's, and he didn't want that to happen at any cost, so by buying the Amiga itself, they don't have to sell any licences to people who might want to make a set-top box. Other licenses would be sold though for people to do things. He didn't actually say the thing about the Chinese in his speech, it was afterwards in conversation with a group of us that he mentioned that. ["The Chinese" would seem to refer to the company Escom initially pegged for Amiga manufacture last year. They seem to indeed hold an Amiga license. -Jason] After saying a bit more about what he was about, he then started to take some questions from the floor. I can't remember every question, and didn't hear them all anyway, as some people didn't speak in a very loud voice. The were a few pretty good questions though. A notable one was asked by Anthony Jacobson, big cheese at AUI. He asked for some information about Viscorp, like where they were based, how long they had been going, their capitation ( is that the correct word ? ), turnover, number of employees etc. Bill didn't answer every part of this ( in fact he seemed to intentionally dodge certain parts of it ) but he did say that Viscorp was worth around 200 million dollars ( I think ) and had about 40 employees, that from 1990 onwards they had centred around a particular goal, this being visual information or something like that. He said something unintentionally funny, along the lines of the internet was like electricity, and he wanted to make a set-top box that could be plugged into it. It made a guy laugh out loud behind me, one of the Team 17 crew I think. It did sound very corporate and American. Nick Veitch timidly asked a poor question, which I didn't catch all of, but it wasn't very good, and this Bill, who has very likely done a psychol. course in power talking snapped him up easily. However, one guy who really got under Bill's skin was Andy Davidson, yes, author of Worms etc. who I have mentioned before. He asked the 64 million dollar question, the question I'm sure had been in a lot of people's minds ( mine anyway ) since Bill had described what he wanted to do with the Amiga. The question was along the lines of "are you going to continue with research of a new Amiga computer, as well as your set-top box ?" It was a worthy question, and although Bill tried to argue that he had already answered it ( he hadn't really, other than alluding to continuing what Amiga Tech. had started ) Davidson kept hounding him for a straight answer over it, and rightly so, as the more Bill tried to explain what he wanted to do, the more it became apparent that he couldn't ( or wouldn't ) really answer the question to Davidsons' ( and the rest of our ) satisfaction. Davidson really had him on the backfoot for a while, eventually Bill said he thought he was being rude, and took a question from elsewhere. This didn't go down well with Davidson and his surrounding group. He had certainly made a point. Someone else asked about the development of a PowerPC based Amiga - Bill said that they were meeting with Motorola on Wednesday of this week ( the 17th I think ) and it would depend on what might happen with the meeting. He also said ( to a lot of disgruntlement amongst the audience ) that the "Amiga uses the 68000 right ? Well, we're gonna keep on with that." Oh dear, that didn't make him Mr. Popular either. He didn't seem to know too much about the Amiga, or so it appeared to me, or even that much about Amiga Tech. / Escom for that matter, but he is a guy who can think on his feet that is for sure, and managed to keep a flow going pretty much all the time. He also mentioned that there would be another press conference on the 24th of this month ( in Chicago I think ) where more details would be made available to people about what was happening. Also, in answer to another question, about whether or not research and design would be moved back to the USA, he said that Viscorp had research facilities already in West Chester (where have I heard that name before?) with a few guys there. He said that Viscorp would continue to use Escom as a retail outlet along with other stores ( I wouldn't have thought Escom were a good choice personally ) and also that he wanted to thank everyone for coming and supporting the Amiga, and that he wanted our input as much as anything. If any of us have any good ideas, we should get in touch with him, or someone at Viscorp, no matter what, let them know what we think. He seemed in earnest over this, and if you have got a good idea, and tell Viscorp about it, you might just find yourself a job there, who knows ? Also mentioned was that the whole deal had apparently made the front page of the European Wall Street Journal - perhaps if anyone saw this they might comment? Bill said he had been in touch with Manfred Schmitt recently twice as well about the affair. After answering quite a few questions, he sat down again ( to applause, whether it was for sitting down or for what he said I don't know ;-) ) and Peter Brameld stood up again. He now said a few words of thanks to everyone who had come along to the show for making it a success. He had a go at the exhibitors and other people who had decided not to go to the show ( and there were indeed a few notable missing companies, namely Silica, Almathera ( busy working on a new cd rom based Photogenics so they claim ), Gordon Harwood ( I'm sure they would have sold a good few accelerators at the show if nothing else ) and one or two more ) for whatever reason. He told a little anecdote about having organised quite a few of these shows, and then said that there was a drinks party immediately after the press conference finished, that there were free drinks and food ( though mainly drink ) and to have a good time. Well, that was a bit of a bonus really. Before he had stopped speaking, people were off towards the bar, which was at the back of the suite. Some tables had been set out, with baskets of crisps and salted nuts in them. I made my way to the bar, grabbed a glass of white wine, and went and sat down. Hey, it wasn't bad wine either. After sitting for a few minutes, eating the crisps and drinking more glasses of wine, I decided to circulate to see what was going on. I saw, surprisingly, Andy Davidson and Bill shaking hands within a group of people, so I guess they must have patched up their differences. Pity I didn't hear what they had been saying to each other. I was a little concerned how all the Viscorp guys ( I think it was all but one anyway ) were wearing grandad shirts, that is shirts without a tie-collar, just a button. I stood in a group around Bill and listened to what he had to say to the people who were quizzing him over things. Bill stood around and spoke some more, whilst the editor from CU Amiga ( I think - a Scottish guy anyway) did a bit of creeping to him (Bill) though he did make some good points whilst crawling. Stuff was mentioned such as local telephone rates, not trying to re-educate the market like Trip Hawkins has tried to do with the 3DO, about how the tv was a good idea for using the internet as people use the tv all the time, that sort of thing. I'm not sure just how much the European market might mean to Viscorp, that was an impression I kind of got from the way how Bill spoke of things here. I don't think he knew too much of how things work in Europe. After a while his sidekick, a guy he had introduced earlier at the conference, David Rosen, came and joined the group, whilst Bill excused himself and went off somewhere. Anyone remember the guy out of Die Hard who tries to strike a deal with the terrorists ? Well, he wasn't exactly the same, but I could see some similarities. Anyway, this guy Rosen, apart from looking and even sounding a bit like Dawber (spelling?) out of US sitcom Coach, seemed okay. He was being asked various questions by people. I spied a chance to speak and grasped it. Remembering my Amiga Report lore about Alex Amor and CEI, and bearing in mind what he had just been talking about, namely, selling licences for the Amiga, I asked thus :- "If someone like Alex Amor of CEI of Miami wanted to carry out research into a new Amiga whilst you did your set-top box, would you sell him a license ?" I thought I'd try and ask something that firstly, made him sit up and think, as he may be surprised about me, an English person having heard of, or perhaps even knowing, Alex Amor, someone from the USA and prominent Amiga person to boot, and secondly, would be the sort of thing Amiga Report readers would want to know. The gist of his answer was thus :- "Oh yes of course, we'll sell licences to anyone." I asked him further did he know Alex, just to try and pin him down a bit. "Oh yes, we know of Alex, of course." Well, that was my 2 cents worth. Thinking about it, on the one hand, Viscorp bought the Amiga to stop other people doing a set-top box with it (so they say) and yet on the other they say that they will sell licenses for the technology to anyone more or less. Seems a bit of a contradiction there (if anyone really wants to buy a licence for the technology.) I suppose that they might stipulate a contract saying what they are going to use the technology for, to stop people from using it to make a set-top box. I don't know. It makes me wonder, as Robert Plant sang. He also mentioned that Viscorp hadn't really paid 40 million dollars for the Amiga, nor would they be doing so, it was just a good figure to use, it sounded feasible. Charming. Some other people were kind of brown-nosing to this guy Rosen, and I stood and listened for a little while longer, then went off elsewhere. One of the editors of an Amiga mag ( not sure which one ) recorded his answer to an important question he asked him, though Rosen said that he didn't want to be held to anything he might say, jokingly. I got a card off Rosen - however, it was starting to approach 7.00 pm at this point, and I had to go somewhere else that evening as well, so after a few more glasses of wine, I made a final tour of all the little groups in the room whose conversations I could listen to surreptitiously ! There was an interesting table with David Pleasance, the boss of Digita and a few other exhibitors on it who all seemed to be deep in conversation, doubtless putting the Amiga bang-to-rights. Oh yes, whilst I remember, David Pleasance had the 1,000,000 Amiga A500 with him at the show, gold coloured, with a certificate of authenticity. There was another tall American guy from Viscorp, I think he might have been ex-CBM, had a few people around him, but he didn't seem to be saying much of interest. There was a guy wearing a suit from Viscorp, short and stocky, obviously the Joe Pesci of the company (joke) telling people to cheer up. He should realise that us British are always lugubrious looking ;-) I think he went off to get a 50 lb. bag of lime. I started to reflect about what American Amiga people might think of what had occurred at the show. It struck me that many of them will be delighted that the Amiga is 'coming home' as it were. Well, I'm not so sure myself, but all we can do is wait and see what happens. What I heard straight from the horses mouth of Viscorp didn't exactly instill a great deal of confidence in me concerning the future of the Amiga - in fact you might be forgiven for thinking that the Amiga as a computer doesn't really have a future. The truth is neither I nor anybody else knows what is going to happen, probably not even Viscorp themselves at the moment. To sum the show up then overall I guess I'd say it was probably a success, and I certainly enjoyed it, and found it most worthwhile. Even if I hadn't been fortunate enough to make the press conference it would have been a good show (at least bargains wise), but being able to attend the announcements as they were made (and drink the free booze !) was a real bonus. It did make me sad, when I remembered shows of a few years back, many times the size of this one, all based on the Amiga. The phrase "how the mighty have fallen" seems appropriate there. A good question I was going to ask Bill was why did he think Viscorp could make a go of the Amiga, when it had been at least partially responsible for the troubles in 2 big companies already, and also what did he think of the claim that Escom had just washed its hands of the Amiga, but I never really got the chance. At this point, it is hard to know what will become of the Amiga. They seem to be something of an enigma - I've just spent over 400 minutes typing over 10,000 words into my trusty A1200 ( using Wordworth 2 as I mentioned ) and all simply to share a few recollections and opinions about some show in a place many have never been to. It's not a life or death thing with them, but I can't help but feel that if they should disappear that the world would be a slightly worse place for that. I should take this chance to say a few things about this piece too. I have very likely made some mistakes whilst writing this. Shows can be noisy distracting places ( hence the name 'show' after all. ) If I have said something which is slightly erroneous, misquoted a price or what someone said, then I am sorry, I never intended too. Just about every speech I have quoted is only a paraphrase, I hope I have made that clear by using the word 'gist' judiciously. As I have typed this entire thing from memory, it is indeed possible I have made some mistake or other, and probably forgotten a few things I wanted to say that I thought were important. I was going to provide a list of all the email address and web pages that the I got from the various company flyers I picked up but it doesn't really seem worth it, the information is probably available elsewhere. What I will provide is David Rosen's email address and Viscorp's URL. Both David and Bill were very keen as I have said about people submitting their ideas to Viscorp, so get to it, if you think you can help what have you got to lose ? Mind you, it might be an idea to make sure your idea is copyrighted first, just in case. If anyone should want to mail me about this, then my address is at the top of the piece. David Rosen - email: DROSEN@VISTV.COM Viscorp - URL : www.vistv.com Postal address - David Rosen VP Business Development 111 N. Canal Street Suite 933 Chicago, Illinois 60606 USA As I went to leave the Champagne Suite at 7.13 pm, Bill was about to come through the door I was using in the opposite direction. Of course, I stopped and held the door for him. He said "thank you" as he went through. I'd had enough time to reflect at this point upon what I had seen and heard at both the show and the conference, and said to him, in a voice he probably couldn't tell was either being sincere or cynical, "It's the least I could do." He turned and gave me a very strange look, half grinning, half frowning, mumbled something, and walked away. @endnode @node FEATURE4 "Lightwave 5.0 Preview At NAB" @toc FEATURE =========================================================================== Lightwave5.0 Preview At NAB Bohus Blahut - Modern Filmmaker bohus@xnet.com =========================================================================== "imitation is the sincerest form of copyright infringement" 1996 Bohus M. Blahut ======================================== LightWave 5.0 Preview at NAB NewTek's booth attracted users from all computer platforms once again, their demos often being six people deep. NewTek employees and artists demonstrated the award winning Video Toaster, the Video Flyer, and LightWave for both PC and Amiga. We will publish a full features list of Amiga LightWave 5.0 as soon as we receive it. NewTek is currently shipping LW 5.0 for PC, and promise to have an Amiga version 30 days from now. Though Amiga LW 4.0 came out only a few months ago, the Kansas company is wasting no time getting Amiga LW 5.0 to market, and promise reasonable upgrade fees. The following is by no means a complete list of the new and exciting things planned for the Amiga 3D future, but they stand out as being vehicles for more creativity than ever before. One of the most significant improvements of PC LightWave depends on the PC's openGL architecture. This allows for color previews in both Modeler and Layout. While not fully textured, these stand-ins are in the model's basic color, and let Layout's lights to play off the models in real time. Moving lights has real-time effect on the illumination of the model. Unfortunately this highly useful feature won't be making it to the Amiga, due to current Amiga's lack of horsepower. However all non-openGL features will be present in both Amiga and PC versions. Modeler now features several NURB (Non-Uniform Rational B-spline) based modeling techniques. The demo I received was using a tool called "meta NURB". The best analog I can draw is to a lump of clay. While "metaform" allows the modeler to take rough and squared off shape and erode it in a wind tunnel, metaNURBS allow you to start with a soft primitive shape, and use the mouse to tug at it. The demonstrator modeled the head of a bunny, and a smooth hair dryer in seconds. In the September 1995 issue of LightWave Pro, Stuart Ferguson (programmer of Modeler) cautioned that NURBs are simply a 3D package "buzzword", and NURBs would probably never make it to LightWave. I'm glad that he's changed his mind. Now if only we could get Layout's bones only to deform specific surfaces... Surfacing has always been limited to a single surface per surface name. Now, one may layer an unlimited number of surfaces on atop the other, all on the same surface name. The PC also features a surfacing preview bar that lets you see the surface mapped onto a ball in the surfacing menu. This gives you a "down and dirty" look at the actual surfacing and image maps, and the openGL lets you see a single color preview in Layout. LightWave has also expanded exponentially its collection of Plug-Ins for both Modeler and Layout. Ori Furikawa (creator of FreeForm; a shareware spline modeler for LightWave) has contributed an interesting plug in for modeler that allows one to apply a surface in modeler, and also tile and stretch a bitmap onto the face of your object. All of this happens interactively, using the mouse to move the surface around in real time. No more fussing around with figuring out the texture's center, and shifting it around. Another highly necessary plug in has finally arrived. This allows you to "train" an object to a behavior, and to get other objects to also use this "training" For example: take a vehicle with four wheels, and rotate one of them through 360 degrees. Once this is done, you can set the other three wheels to follow the first wheel, and get all four to execute turns, go in reverse, etc. The example that NewTek had pre-rendered was of six termites, each with six legs. The insects all walked toward the center of the screen at varying rates, backed up, and moved on about their buggy business. Setting keyframes for all of this leg action in the past would've served more as a Zen exercise in patience than effective cinematography. LightWave Pro featured an article and a plug-in of their own that would calculate rotation of wheels on the ground so that the wheels wouldn't appear to slip. While a testimony to the innovation of LightWave modelers out there, this plug in makes those calculations unnecessary. Many of the Plug-Ins invoke post-processing effects. An example of this type plug-in is the "glow" attribute in LW 4.0. First LightWave renders the scene, then searches out the portions of the picture that have glowing activated. Then LightWave's image processing takes over, "glowing" the appropriate parts of the picture in a smooth bath of light. The fact that LightWave can communicate polygon location to in-built IP routines has several important applications. Theoretically, LW could call on an external facility to replace its motion blur. The current invocation of motion blur takes the trailing edge of the object and appears to stamp it down multiple times. More often than not, the effect works, but is often quite visible in LW animations I've seen. Thought I'm unfamiliar with the programming difficulties that this might entail, it would be nice if LW could call an actual blur routine, or perhaps invoke ImageFx's smooth looking motion blur. Both Warner Brothers animator Rusty Mills and I found the "cell look" plug-in to be amongst one of our favorites. This renders out individual frames, and through a post-processing technique makes each frame resemble a hand drawn cell. Many of the demos of that facility resembled Japanese style animation. This style also embraces animating to the 2's or 3's. Current animation most often isn't rated at a full 30 cells per second, but often every other frame or 3rd frame is created. This is why classic studio animation from the 40's i.e. Bugs Bunny, Disney cartoons, look so lavish and move so fluidly. In those days, animation ran at a strict 30 fps. Today, only Disney, and some Warner's, features that kind of fluidity. It's obviously less expensive to have artists creating only every few frames. This "limited" animation style was pioneered by the animation sweatshops of Hannah Barbera. Their slogan being, "if a scene doesn't fit under the crack of the head animator's door, it's too long. Japanese animators were able to embrace limited animation as a style instead of a limitation. The upshot of this is that if you are creating animation to emulate the look of Japanese "mango" animation, you only need to render every frames using LightWave's "frame step" window in the render menu. This preview of Amiga LightWave 5.0 should whet the appetite of even the most seasoned 3D animator. Many of the cyclic animation features rival those of the Microsoft-owned package: softImage. It is to NewTek's credit that they continue to produce software for their Toaster and Flyer user base. In coming issues, look for a complete review of LightWave 4.0, and then the step up to LightWave 5.0, when available. Bohus Blahut (BOH-hoosh BLAH-hoot) Bohus@xnet.com Modern Filmmaker 312.465.5158 Panjandrum/Creative Strategy Director- DraCo Systems @endnode @node REVIEW1 "Review: Hillsea Lido" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== Review: Hillsea Lido By: @{" Ken Anderson " link KEN} =========================================================================== Published by: Vulcan Software As I write this, summer has apparently just arrived in Scotland. The clocks have just jumped an hour forward, the spring has sprung, and it's almost time for a holiday. And here comes HillSea Lido, right on cue. Lido sets you up as the manager of 30m (that's 9 yards for all you Imperial types) of beach and promenade. You are allocated a budget of 1,000,000 somethings, and the challenge is to make much much more. Personally, if anyone gave me a million and a stretch of beach, I'd sell the latter to the first property developer and head to the airport ... Sites on the promenade and beach can be allocated to various stall-holders and businesses. A postcard stall will attract lots of punters, but won't make you much margin on each item. On the other hand, motor boats hires makes lost of profit, but not everybody wants to hire a boat. A pavilion hall can play host to a number of entertainers, all who have their price. Still, the more you pay, the bigger the name, and the more people who'll pay for a seat. That's if you pay for advertising, of course. "Hang on Ken", I heard you tell your monitors, "this is all sounding a bit Theme Park-esque, isn't it?". Predictably enough, you're right. Hillsea Lido is Theme Park Jr. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Bullfrog classic had a major part to play in the design of Hillsea Lido. Let's see: security guards, litter collectors, "intelligent" tourists, wholesalers, all pretty much as they are in Theme Park. But how many of you out there ever played Theme Park on "realistic" mode? Haggling with union bosses over wages? Placing security guards in exactly the right place to stop trouble? Lido cuts out a good deal of the "administration" required in keeping your enterprise going. Ordering stock is a simple matter of setting how many you want, and then ... click! ... it's ordered. This simplicity has it's price: interest in the running of things will soon wane. After you've set up all of the shops, seen all of the acts and got things running pretty smoothly, there isn't much else to do. On the other hand, it's only 13UKP. Pros: Effortless gameplay, and enough pace and character to keep you interested. Cons: Limited appeal. May not be enough of a challenge for some people. Overall: Cheap, fun entertainment. If Theme Park was too much for you, try this. [Additional notes from Jason Compton: Initially, I was going to review Hillsea, but when Ken signed on it took a load off. Still, I have a few comments to make...] Hillsea Lido does suffer from simplicity in a few parts--and this evil crops up in Theme Park as well. It can get mind-numbing simply trying to afford the next most expensive attraction or shop, and that seems to ALWAYS be what the customers are looking for, without fail. Bleah. Lido has the one thing Vulcan seems to have mastered--cuteness ALMOST to the point of sickness, but not quite. They've quite economically and unobtrusively mixed in their trademark speech snippets as well. Lido is ECS compatible and installs effortlessly to hard drive. Vulcan Software Ltd. Vulcan House 72 Queens Road Buckland Portsmouth Hants PO2 7NA @endnode @node REVIEW2 "Review: TimeKeepers" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== Review: TimeKeepers By: @{" Ken Anderson " link KEN} =========================================================================== Published by: Vulcan Software Time is relative, apparently. Time also flies when you're having fun, according to the saying. I must be having fun. When TimeKeepers first landed in the hallway of FabWhack Towers, I didn't think much of it. My summary for this review was already planned: "Top-View Lemmings". A cute, simple little game which involved shoving cute, simple little characters around cute, simple little landscapes. A week later, my view has become much more objective. Cute, yes. Little, no. Simple ... if only. It _is_ top-view Lemmings. You act as coordinator to 14 TimeKeepers, who have to be guided from their starting position in each level to the teleport exit. Directional arrows are dropped onto the vertically-scrollable landscape which instruct the next TimeKeeper who makes contact with it to move in that direction. Just like in Lemmings, there are hazards to be avoided: water, bottomless pits, land mines. And so it goes on for 15 levels. It's easy as first; take one TimeKeeper, work out where he should go, what he should avoid, and plonk all the arrows in the correct place. First level over and done with. Then things get a little tricky. Switches have to be pressed to open doors and activate bridges, and this demands one of the little chaps to be there to press it. TimeKeepers can be made to jump certain things or made to wait around, otherwise they tend to wander around, bumping into each other and getting killed with increasing regularity. Unlike Lemmings, TimeKeepers don't arrive one by one at a certain position, the all arrive in the level at the same time. Before you know it, the one arrow you put down has caused one guy to bang into another, and 10 of them are off to a watery grave. That's before you meet the enemies who are wandering about the levels. It's frustrating, but addictive stuff. The graphics are fine, the sound functional but unremarkable. At only 13UKP, you can't really complain: it will appeal to the puzzle fan who doesn't mind playing a level 20 times to get it right. Pros: Easy to understand and play. Addictive and challenging. Cons: Not enough levels to satisfy the seasoned puzzler. Can be _very_ frustrating. [This is being alleviated by a new low-cost level disk. -Jason] Overall: Throw this on your hard drive, and you'll play it until it's finished. Just try to stop yourself clicking that icon ... Vulcan Software Ltd. Vulcan House 72 Queens Road Buckland Portsmouth Hants PO2 7NA @endnode @node REVIEW3 "Review: Slam Tilt" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== Review: Slam Tilt By: @{" Ken Anderson " link KEN} =========================================================================== Published by: 21st Century Entertainment under licence from Liquid Dezign When a bunch of Scandinavian ex-crackers wrote "Pinball Dreams" in 1992, they can't have known what they were about to start. Before then, pinball was the about the only thing programmers had tried to emulate with any degree of success. Games such as TimeScanners and Pinball Wizard suffered from wooden ball movement, unresponsive controls, and the lack of any kind of "feel". Pinball Dreams set the standard with catchy music, fast graphics, and such addictive gameplay that it became an overnight success, if not a huge commercial one. Since then, we've had Fantasies, Illusions, Preludes and Quests with which to play the silver ball. REAL pinball games evolved; out went the two-flippers-and-a-stainless-steel-marble numbers, and in came the all-singing, all-dancing super tables, with enough balls to take on Mike Tyson, and more flippers than the entire cast of SeaQuest DSV. Pinball sims followed suit; first came the extra flippers, then the hi-res multiball modes. Purists complained that the programmers were sacrificing the gameplay for technical excellence; others said all the games were becoming the same. It looked like it was all over for pinball games. Now we have SlamTilt (which deserves an award just for not being called "Pinball Mysteries" or something similar) hailing from another scene group, Liquid Dezign. And it's good. Very very good. There are four tables; Road, Pirate, Ace of Space and Night of the Demon. Buying any other pinball game usually results in a feeling of slight disappointment, as there's always one table which is simply awful. In a break with pinball sim tradition, all of SlamTilt's tables are actually worth playing. The action takes place on a now-familiar scrolling screen, with a simulated LCD panel at the top. User-definable keys control the flippers, nudging of the table (forwards,left and right nudging) and the firing of the ball. There's provision for up to 8 players, high scores can be saved, bonuses can be bonused, extra balls can be won. It's all pretty standard stuff, and nothing much is new until 3 minutes into play when you hit a sub-game. There are 42 sub-games in all, some of which take place exclusively on the LCD panel, some which involve both the display and the main table. Night of the Demon has "Escape from the Mega Mutant Meatball", in which each feature hit increments a ticking timer; all accompanied by a dinky animation on the LCD display and a bouncy tongue-in-cheek tune. Ace of Space has you destroying asteroids or zooming through a space corridor; Pirates gives you another bonus game if you blow up an enemy ship. The sub-games add to the addition factor considerably. Rather than just mindlessly battering the ball around the table in the hope of a memorable score, the sub-games give the proceedings a sense of purpose. The LCD display, however, can be distracting - you're so busy watching the reward for hitting your target, the ball is racing down the screen and out of play. The sound effects are pretty basic click-clack noises, with the addition of different spot effects for each table: zooms for the space table, splats and screams for the zombie sub-game in Night of the Demon. The music is of good quality, with plenty of differing ditties for each table. The volume of both the music and SFX are adjustable. I can't find much to fault about Slam Tilt, apart from the fact it's still just a pinball game. Anyone who thinks the Amiga games scene is dead should take a look at this sharpish - it will take something extremely special to top this. Pros: Smooth, fast, playable. The sub-games are great fun. Extremely addictive. HD Installable. Cons: Pinball is pinball. It doesn't have any music from "Tommy". Overall: The best pinball game there is on the Amiga (and anything else). All it needs is an add-on to swallow your change, and it's perfect. If you like pinball games, buy this. If you don't, buy this and you soon will. @endnode @node REVIEW4 "Review: Quarterback v6.1" @toc REVIEW4 =========================================================================== Review: Quarterback v6.1 By: @{" William Near " link WILLIAM} =========================================================================== I'll admit it; I'm guilty of using the original HDBackup program that comes with Workbench for quite some time now. That is, until Quarterback v6.1 came my way a few weeks ago. I guess I was just too lazy to check out more than a few of the Shareware/PD offerings in this area. After all, HDBackup had done an acceptable job of backing up my data onto floppy disks. When I bought my SyQuest EZ135S drive, all that changed. HDBackup would not recognize my EZ drive as a valid device to backup my data to; although it would recognize it as a valid source device to backup! Go figure. Enter Quarterback from Quasar Distribution. [Note: For those of you confused by this, keep in mind that Quasar obtained Quarterback from the liquidated New Horizons assets. -Jason] Quarterback installs easily onto your hard drive using the Commodore (should I still use such a profane word?) Installer. Upon first starting the program, you are presented with the main Quarterback screen that consists of: a listing of all devices and assigns, four buttons (Backup, Restore, Enter, and Back), and a series of pulldown menus. The first thing you must do is configure Quarterback to your liking by setting a series of options from the pulldown menus. The Backup options are the first in line. You must select whether you would like to make a Selective or Complete backup of the data, what media you would like to use to backup the data on, e.g., floppy, removable media, tape, or an AmigaDOS file. You must also select what type of Compression you wish to use (none, 12-16 bit, or device compression). Keep in mind, the higher the compression value the less space you will need to make the backup, but the longer time it will take to make the backup. There are also settings for: password protection, setting archive flags, verifying data after write, warning if destination is an AmigaDOS volume, and if you'd like the entire directory structure backed up. The Restore options are next. You can choose between Restore, Compare, and Test as possible restore options. The Compare option will check the content of the destination against the source's content after a backup is completed, showing any discrepancies in the data. The Test option will read all data from the destination device and make sure that there are no errors present. The same options for selecting the various device types are present, as well as: replacing files with earlier or later dates (yes, no, or ask), set file dates (current date, backup date, or original date), restore empty drawers, restore archive flags, and whether to keep the directory structure intact when restoring data. This last option is critical, as it can cause a restore of data to be placed entirely in the root directory of the destination device! This could make for quite a mess as none of the original directories will be used for the restored data. Making sure that this option is set will save you from having to delete possibly thousands of files from your root directory. Quarterback generates a Catalog of activities when making a backup. This Catalog is saved to the beginning and end of the backup data so that if one Catalog becomes unreadable then the other one can be accessed by the program. There are several configuration options available to control what is included in the Catalog and how the information will look. The options are: file information (show file size, protection flags, date modified, and time modified), time format (show seconds and/or AM PM), sort by (name, size, date, group drawers first), and the date format. During a Backup or Restore a Session Log is generated in the output window of Quarterback. You can select what will be displayed in the Session Log from these options: errors only, errors with drawer names, errors with drawer and file names, rate in megabytes per minute, compression efficiency, no Session Log displayed while the operation is in progress, and options for saving the Session Log. There are settings for the Buffer options too. These include: backup and restore buffer sizes ranging from 1K to 8192K, what type of memory to use for the buffers (graphics, 24-bit, or any), and whether to use asynchronous I/O (this is faster, but some SCSI controllers do not fully support it.) The thing to keep in mind here is just how much memory do you have to spare for making the program run faster? I used 1024K for both buffers on my machine. Tape backup options for auto-retensioning inserted tapes and rewinding after a backup or restore are also present. I could not test either of these, though, since I don't have a tape backup drive. Finally, there are Preferences for flashing the screen and playing the system alert sound upon disk completion and/or error notification. Also included are preferences for including icons with Quarterback files, warning on invalid filenames, and if you would like assigned directories included in the device listings. Printer preferences are included in another menu for outputting the Session Logs or Catalogs generated by Quarterback to your printer. Quarterback also includes some other utilities. Tape Control options for rewinding, tensioning, erasing, and advancing a tape are included. A SCSI Interrogator utility allows you to get information about any SCSI device attached to your computer, e.g., device type, vendor, model, revision, block size, and media size. Up to ten macros can be called from the Function keys or by pulldown menu choices to execute ARexx scripts that the user has defined. The list of Macro Language Commands available in Quarterback seems to be quite extensive and two example scripts are included too. Enough of the boring details, let's make a backup! The first step is to click on a device name in the window that you wish to backup. After doing so, the number of disks required for the backup will be shown in the window if you are backing up to floppy. Clicking on Start will begin the process. A list of all files and directories will begin to appear in the window and the progress will be indicated by way of files/bytes tagged and files/bytes completed status lines, and a percentage completed line. If you chose a complete backup then Quarterback will jump directly into the backup process; otherwise, Quarterback will scan the entire source device and present you with a list of directories and files from which to tag only those you wish to backup. Jumping into a directory to tag just a few files is as simple as double-clicking on the directory name and tagging the desired files. The are also buttons to enter and exit directories. When using the floppy backup option an indicator will unghost representing each of the drives available to the system. These indicators show the status of all floppy drives on the system at all times. You are shown when a new disk needs to be inserted and into which drive it belongs. The floppy swapping routine seems to be pretty much idiot-proof. I also used my EZ drive to backup my hard drive partitions. While the manual states that the backup process will work across volumes, I found this not to be true in the case of the EZ drive. I had to use the AmigaDOS file backup option to use my EZ drive. This option just creates one huge file on the destination device. This worked just fine, but I would have rather used the tape/removable option with my EZ drive. I contacted Quasar and they are working on the problem with recognizing the SyQuest EZ drive in this particular mode. When the backup is completed, the backup rate, compression reduction, number of errors, and date/time of the backup are displayed in the window. If you enabled the verify-data-after-write option then the newly completed backup will have already been tested for errors. Of course, you could do the verifying and comparing (Test and Compare) as a separate step from the Restore menu if you so choose. It took 3:30 hours to complete the backup and compare of my WORK partition (173 Mb of data) to the SyQuest drive. The only thing I didn't like about using the AmigaDOS file backup option is that if you run out of room on the disk, Quarterback will just tell you that the volume is full and commences with deleting the entire archive! Who cares if you have just waited two hours for the backup? Quarterback should have a way of estimating the needed space when using the AmigaDOS file option. Restoring a backup is a simple process. Just click on the device to restore to and set the options for source device, etc. You can also select which files to restore or just restore the whole backup to the destination device. All the same on-screen information that was presented while backing up a device will also be shown during a restore. It took 1:41 hours to do a complete restore of my WORK partition from the SyQuest drive. One other note: you can pause a backup or restore at any time by clicking on the pause button. Just for your curiosity, here is the data from my hard drive archive: * Restore rate: 0.- megabytes per minute * Compression reduction: 28% * Number of errors: 0 * Restore finished Apr 14, 1996 at 7:33:22 PM Quarterback also includes a separate program called Schedule Pro. This is a program that allows Quarterback to perform automatic backups on a one-time basis or on a preset schedule. I have Schedule Pro's icon in my WBStartup drawer and I have it set to remind me to backup the hard drive on the first day of each month. You can also use Schedule Pro to remind you of birthdays and other special events, as well as having the program execute any AmigaDOS program or ARexx macros at any time you specify. It makes for a nice addition to the Quarterback program. Quarterback seems to be a very complete archival program. It is very intuitive to use and you shouldn't really need the manual all that much. Speaking of the manual, it's well written and includes many screenshots too, but it lacks an index, which makes it hard to find specific items. The table of contents is usable, but it doesn't really show you where some of the finer details of the program's functions are located in the manual. There is a nice section explaining incremental backup strategies and a troubleshooting section. Generally, Quarterback v6.1 seems to be a fine piece of work and it's well worth the money, especially if you're still using HDBackup! Once the problem with the EZ drive not being recognized under the tape/removable option is fixed (remember, you can still use the EZ drive -- you just have to use the AmigaDOS file option, providing you have enough free space on the cartridge ahead of time!) and an index is added to the manual, I won't have any complaints. @endnode @node REVIEW5 "Review: Inet-225 TCP/IP Software" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== Review: Inet-225 TCP/IP Software From InterWorks, Inc. By James Melin =========================================================================== System Requirements: AmigaDos 2.0 or higher At least 2 megabytes of RAM (6 to 8 is recommended) A Hard Drive is recommended (Though floppy install is possible) Any 68000 family processor (Though at least a 68020 is recommended) Inet-225 is a fairly complete implementation of TCP/IP for the amiga and is based upon AS-225r2 orginally created but never released by Commodore Business Machines and features many things commonly used in the unix world. These features include SMTP, FTP, NFSd, GMail a GUI based mail program, NNTPpost, NNTPxfer, NNTPxmit, NcFTP, rSH and others. INet-225 also includes a built in dialer that may be used to dial an Internet Service Provider and establish a slip connection. Inet-225 supports the following network protocols: ARP, ICMP, IP, TCP and UDP. Inet-225 is published by InterWorks of Temecula California and has a retail price of $350.00 for a 5 node license. This price may first seem to be quite high for what Amiga owners are used to paying for software however, this price include 90 days of FREE technical support calls to the InterWorks Technical support staff to resolve any problems that might arise with the software. At this time, InterWorks does not have a single node license package available but are considering a package for single node use that will be somewhat more limited in the features that it offers. InterWorks has not decided at this time what the possible differences in functionality will be should they produce a single node license version of Inet-225. Installation: For this review I recieved the pre-release version of Inet-225 and after speaking with Allen Brooks, the company President I expected no difficulties with the installation process. Installation of Inet-225 was purported to be very easy and I was somewhat surprised to run into difficulties with the installation script. These problems turned out not to be the fault of the user nor even the fault of the installation script, but due to a flakey version of the Installer utility. I spoke to the individual who is currently re-writing the Inet-225 installer script about my problem and was most cheerfully given a copy of Installer version 2.17 which solved the problem. It should be noted also that Installer version 1.24 will also install Inet-225 with no problems. This problem will be taken care of before the final release version is frozen. With the updated installer running on my system I was able to easily and quickly install Inet-225 on my A3000 and my A2000. You must have the following information from your service provider in order to install Inet-225 sucessfully. 1) Address of the host system you obtain service from 2) The Domain Name of your service provider (e.g. scotland.com) 3) The address of your machine (Static Slip/PPP only. Dynamic connections do not require a dedicated IP address. 4) The name of your machine will use on the net (e.g. sheep.scotland.com) 5) The address of the domain name server you will use for translation of ip names into ip addresses. The Inet-225 installer script shipped with the pre-release version of the software quickly allowed me to set up my initial environment including the establishment of the first user account, but the pre- release installer script does not have any capability of allowing easy modifcations to the installed package. To change to PPP from Slip one must re-install the package completely, and there is no facility for a GUI driven user management system or GUI driven configuration tool to allow multiple interfaces on one machine at a given time. (e.g. 2 amigas connected via Ethernet or Arcnet with one machine serving as a gateway and the other as a user of that gateway) At this time I have not tested the new installer script for Inet-225 but I hope that at some point in the near future these types of reconfiguration tools will be built into the installation script. Network Startup Inet-225 Installer will create an icon in the INET drawer with the tooltypes that reflect the choices you made during install. Double click this icon to start the network once you have used a dialer program to establish your modem connection. You will be prompted to login after the network startup has finished. If you have not set your password during install your login password will be null and you should click on the OK gadget on the LOGIN requester to continue, otherwise, type in your password and press enter to continue. At this time, you may begin running whichever TCP/IP related applications you need, such as an FTP client, a Web Browser, and IRC client, a News reader, mail reader or even the Network File System. Possible startup problems: There area only a couple of situations that may cause a problem during network startup. Inet-225 absolutely requires that the modem connection to the service provider be established and that the dialer program, what ever it may be is not in control of the serial port being used for the network connection. In the case of no network connection being established, Inet-225 will report that it cannot connect to the network and indicate a possible connection problem. This is remedied by dialing the service provider and making certain that the slip or PPP connection has been established properly. Once this is done, double click the StartInet icon in the INET drawer to start the network as normal. In the case of the network connetion being established but the dialer program still being in control of the serial port, Inet-225 will report similar errors to the above mentioned scenario and fail to start. Termination of the dialer program and clicking the startnet icon again will not work. The network software will not properly initialize and the Amiga must be rebooted in order to clear this up. If your modem is set up to not recognize DTR loss as a hangup your modem connection should remain on the modem and as soon as your system completes booting you may double click the StartInet icon and continue. 00530400 Network Shutdown To shut down Inet-225 the command StopInet is used. Stopnet will inform you you if there are other tasks still using network resources and it may refuse to completely shut down. Make certain you have ended all TCP/IP related programs before attempting to shut down the network. using the status command from a CLI windo will show any active tasks. StopInet will display a message 'Network is completely shut down' when it has detected that all processes have completed. Possible shutdown problems: Inet-225 uses a commodity called Login to handle user login. unfortunately, this task does not get signalled to terminate when the StopInet command is issued. Although the interface for the login commodity at this will show a shutdown button, it does not appear to actually terminate the Inet-225 TCP/IP software. This still must be done manually. In order to manuall shut down the network the login commodity must be stopped. Use the Exchange program or another commodity manager in order to either remove the login commodity or to display the user interface and select the shutdown icon. In either case, you must then manually enter 'StopInet' from the CLI or from the execute command requester of workbench. If StopInet insists that there are still tasks using the network and those tasks cannot be terminated, a reboot of the Amiga is required in order to remove Inet-225 from the system. Software compatibility: Inet-225 works with the following software programs. GrapeVine IRC client AWEB World Wide Web Browser Envoy Peer to Peer amiga networking package Enlan DFS Ethernet peer to peer networking package AmIRC IRC client AmiWin X windows client Chimera World Wide Web Browser for AmiWin Amosaic World Wide Web Browser (Requires AS-225r2 version) Ibrowse World Wide Web Browser (Requires AS-225r2 version) DaFTP GUI driven FTP client AmiFTP GUI driven FTP client Telser.device TCP/IP modem emulator/telnet daemon In addition, any program writte to be compatible with AS-225r2 will have no difficulties functioning with Inet-225. However, AmiTCP specific software will not function with Inet-225 at this time. Software found not to work with Inet-225: AcuSeeMe CuSeeMe client (requires AmiTCP) Questions and Answers with Allen Brooks, president of Interworks AR: What are the differences between Inet-225 and AS225? IW: In bullets, we have the following changes: o More Unix-type clients and servers than AS225 o Significant numbers of bug fixes o Elimination of inet.library o Significant efficiency enhancements o Replacement of old buggy ports of some clients with new ports o The additional of the commercial version of INetUtils o A graphical newsreader (commercial GRn) o A graphical mailreader (commercial GMail) o tn3270.device (a telnet/rlogin/3270 emulator for use with a terminal program such as VLT). We've taken all the bug reports from the BIX networking developers area, and from the adsp.networking newsgroup (a closed newsgroup for Amiga developes in Europe) and addressed all of those bugs. Several clients have been rewritten from scratch. Other have been re-ported from scratch. The stack is significantly more stable, faster, and just plain better than AS225r2 ever was. AR: Due to CBM's failure to release AS225-R2 as a product, AmiTCP a competing TCP/IP protocol stack has entrenched itself in the amiga user community. Are there any plans to include compatibility software in Inet-225 so that AmiTCP specific applications will run under Inet-225? (Similar to BSDSocket.library in AmiTCP which provites AS225-R2 compatibility) IW: We do not have an AmiTCP emulator, however, we have written our software in such a way as to allow AmiTCP and standard UNIX applications/utilities to be easily converted and recompiled to support our stack WITHOUT extensive modification. (I will ask the programming staff to add to this!) As Allen has said, we have no specific plans to release an "AmiTCP compatibility library". However, a beta-tester has indicated an interest, and we've provided him with sufficient information to create this. In general, we provide an include file for programmers, "amitcptoiw225.h", which provides most of the hooks which should be required for converting an AmiTCP application to an I-Net 225 application. For most applications, a simple recompile is all that it should take. AR: The pre-release installer does not offer any reconfiguration capability (I.E. I cannot run the installer to change address information, user ID and information or other general stuff) Is there an improved version of the installer script planned and if so, what features will it have? IW: I am referring this to the programmers too. We do have plans, however, the exact timing has not yet been determined. A GUI configuration utility for most items exists in the package, called WConfig. It can deal with some simple changes. We intend to create a more in-depth re-configuration utility, after 1.0 is released. If sufficient time presents itself prior to final 1.0 lockdown, there may be some further improvement to the installation script. AR: With the Advent of ESCOM purchasing the Amiga, what is the status of INet-225? IW: I-Net 225 is, for all intents and purposes, owned by Interworks, Inc. due to the amount of work we've done on the product. As you may be aware, a portion I-Net 225 is the basis for the "Surfer Pack" being sold by AT; and of the "SurfWare" soon to be sold by AT. I-Net 225 is being continuously developed and enhanced by Interworks. It expected and hoped that we will have a long, mutually beneficial relationship with AT. AR: Is there currently an Interworks Web site? IW: Currently, the only specific site we have with publicity is http://www.iam.com/amiga/interworks.html -- after we finish polishing 1.0, that will change. AR: What is the Current pricing and availability of INet-225? IW: As of today, General Availability is only for the 5-user version of I-Net 225, at $349. Within a few short weeks, we will start shipping a single-user version of I-Net 225 for $150. Obviously, Amiga Surfer is available in Germany, and soon SurfWare will be. An upgrade from Amiga Surfer and/or SurfWare to the full package will be available as well. AR: What is the status of NFSd? IW: Available at an extra cost of $80. Enhanced over the one in AS225r2 in terms of speed and reliability (but, before you ask, it still requires a mapfile). Purely subjective opinion of Inet-225 as a whole: I personally found Inet-225 to be easier to deal with than AmiTCP/IP. It seemed easier to install and operated with more stability than my experience with AmiTCP/IP. I was able to see a small improvement in throughput when severely loading the connection, but under normal use there does not seem to be much of a performance difference. I liked the Gmail mailer, and I liked several of the clients I played with. I found Ineterworks to be very helpful when I ran into problems with installation or configuration, most of which were solvable by liberal application of the RTFM princible of software installation :) They have a generous tech support policy which, with the full license package include 90 days free technical support. I do not have a policy on the single users package, but I would wager it will be similarly generous. In short, if you read the manual, you should have no trouble with the installation of this package. A basic working knowledge of TCP/IP and networking will be invaluable however. Ordering and other information: To request current pricing info and ordering information e-mail: Info@iworks.com @endnode @node REVIEW6 "Review: Cinema4D" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== Review: Cinema4D By: Bohus Blahut - Modern Filmmaker bohus@xnet.com =========================================================================== Cinema 4D began life as a German 3D modeler and stage program. The British company HiSoft cooperated with Maxon to produce an English manual, and perform updates. Cinema 4D has been developed for both Amiga and PC. The Amiga version ships on 6 low density floppy disks which decompress into almost 6 1/2 megs of hard drive space. The manual's recommended system is a 3.x system with 3 megs of RAM, and a 68040 processor. Cinema 4D will work with a 2.x system, and even render on a 68000 system, though if you've done any kind of rendering work on this kind of processor, you'll realize that an accelerator is a necessity. I installed Cinema 4D onto my 50 mhz '060 DraCo with 32 megs of Ram. The DraCo uses CyberGraphx to route the display to the Altais Graphics card. The display is a 17" Iiyama monitor. The 1024x768 screen allows me to have several windows open at the same time. A smaller monitor with lower resolution will work as well. The program is strictly style-guide compliant, with special attention paid to keep the display from flickering on non-sync monitors. Cinema 4D has proven to be one of the most option laden softwares that I've ever used on the Amiga, while not being difficult to operate. The program features no less than six rendering algorithms for varying degrees of detail. When one clicks the render button, a pop-up list allows mouse selection of a particular rendering method. By hitting the shift key while selecting any of these options the user can define preferences for each method. This ease of use is pervasive throughout the program. There are also 18 types of light sources. While it's true that one can create these type of lighting effects in other packages, it's quite handy to have them available as presets. One lighting effect here, that I've seen nowhere else is a time-lapse type light that takes your object from "day" till "night". Building architects will like this feature. C4D also features more structural primitives than anything else that I've seen. When modeling, it's often a good idea to first break up your model into its most basic shapes. Then use primitives to start the basic construction, then edit individual polygons to fine tune the model. C4D features the regular assortment of primitives, and each has the preferences function mentioned earlier. An interesting distinction about sphere creation is that C4D can create a mathematically perfect sphere, instead of creating it out of polygons. No matter how far the camera zooms in on the perfect sphere, there will be no indication of polygonal lines. In addition to the basic shapes (i.e. cone, cylinder, disc) there are several primitives I've never seen before. There's a torus (a donut shape), pyramid, tetrahedron, a user-defined sided polygon, star, even a stylized flower. There's also a stylized human figure. It's already set up for inverse kinematic motion, and makes a good starting point for animation. The bound manual is well written, with a generous number of illustrations. My suggestion to HiSoft is that a sophisticated program like Cinema 4D that requires the user to look back and forth from the manual to the program should have a manual that can lay flat on a desk. While wire bound works fine, I'm partial to the 3 ring binder approach. This allows the user to add blank pages for notes and techniques, and also makes it easier on the publisher when it comes time to add or change pages for updates to the software. When started, Cinema 4D opens several windows on the Workbench. The first to grab your attention is the large perspective window. This window can be changed from a single large window into three smaller windows that show the X, Y, and Z sides of your object (much like LightWave's modeler) along with the perspective view in the fourth window. The program does take a slightly different approach to 3D in that the modeling of objects, and the placement of those objects in a scene happen in a single interface. This is much like building props right on the movie set. This has the advantage that when building objects, one can render them out in color and see how light plays on them, and not have to flip back to a modeling interface top make changes. Another window that opens is a long control window that can be dragged anywhere on the screen. It's a tool palette that can be dragged and minimized just like any intuition window. Here again is more of C4D's flexibility, the idea that the user doesn't need to adapt to the program, but vice-versa. The screen controls object movement and placement, and also starts rendering. All of the windows feature useful on-line help. As the mouse pointer passes over the various buttons, a single line appears in the menu bar informing you of what a particular button does. Other floating menu bars that can be opened and placed anywhere on the interface are tool palettes for texturing and for the selection of object primitives. Texturing controls feature the ability to wrap a texture spherically, cylindrically, or to lay flat. Also, we can tile and mirror textures. The objects tool palette allows one to choose from the primitives mentioned earlier. More special primitives are a fractally generated landscape, the ability to emboss a picture into a flat sheet of polygons, even to add a ground plane (instead of having to create a polygon and place it flat on the ground) and add the sky. The manual has a good tutorial section designed to get the modeler started right away. These walk the user through simple object creation and manipulation, to the creation of an inverse kinematic animation. Inverse kinematics is a much sought after animation feature. This allows the user to create an object hierarchy, much like the directory hierarchy in a computer. The same way that you can have a file inside a directory, inside another directory, inside a different directory, inside a volume, it's possible to set up 3D objects in the same way. Imagine the human form. After modeling all of the different parts, you could set out to create the hierarchy i.e. finger, hand, wrist, forearm, elbow, upper arm, shoulder, etc. Before inverse kinematics, the only way to move these objects would be to animate from the top down. This would entail starting at the shoulder, then moving the upper arm, etc. Instead, IK lets us move the hierarchy from the other end. This allows us to move the entire arm around just by pulling one of the fingers. It's amazing to have this high end feature included in software that's low-end in price. There are many other Cinema 4D facilities that are quite advanced in their nature. The program's ray-tracer is adaptive. Ray-tracing is the time-consuming method that computer programs use to create reflections and precise shadows. C4D only raytraces the parts of the picture that need it, as opposed to the whole picture. This is a definite performance boost. Also present in the program are two animation techniques: keyframe and path. Keyframe animation lets you move and object into place, then snapshot (keyframe) it. Move to another frame, create another key, etc. Path based animation lets you actually draw a path with the mouse, and have the object follow it. There's even a timeline based interface for special effects. You can trend changes in object size (individual letters in a logo change in size according to a specific waveform), and object rotation (get those same letters in the logo to spin around individually). How about deformation effects like Melt. This takes any object and crushes it down the Y-axis, while extending it along the X&Z axes making the object look like it's melting into a pool. Explosions are another built in effect. This takes any multipolygonal object and bursts it into its separate polygons. Look for other effects like Morph, Wind, and various lighting effects. While there is going to be the inevitable comparison between Cinema 4D and LightWave, these two programs do have different markets. C4D does have a good number of features, especially at its price point. My main goal is to see if I can get the same kind of cinematic good looks out of C4D as I can with other packages. As you can see, there is such a wealth of features here, that it is impossible to list them all in detail. Over time, we will investigate many of these features in the future and see how they benefit the 3D modeler. If you're interested in seeing the results of C4D's modelling, find the LightWorks CDrom (Schatztruhe). This disc contains a C4D demo version, and also a wealth of objects created with the program. For the most part, these objects are outer-space themed and show off the abilities of the software reasonable well. Obviously, since these are models of recognized scifi spaceships, many of them can't be used in your own productions, but they do serve as a good lesson on how to get started. The CD also has completed pictures of the models in action, so you can see what the end result of your work is going to be. Cinema 4D retails for about US$300. Cinema 4D by Maxon Computer and HiSoft Distributed and supported in America by: Oregon Research 16200 S.W. Pacific Highway Suite 162 Tigard, OR 97224 vox: 503.620.4919 fax: 503.624.2940 orres@teleport.com @endnode @node REVIEW7 "Falcon 1200/040 Review" @toc REVIEW =========================================================================== Review: Falcon 040 A1200 Accelerator By: @{" Jason Compton " link JASON} =========================================================================== For years, people said it was impossible to get an 040 into an A1200. It's too hot, they said. It'll never fit, they said. Why would you want to? they said. But someone (actually, by now, several someones) have gone ahead and done it. Macrosystem Netherlands' Falcon 040 was one of the first cards on the market that pulled the feat off. The Falcon's standard configuration is a 68040 RC 25 mhz, but also is advertised as an EC part and as a 33 mhz RC unit. In addition, the Falcon is 060 upgradable, but the 060 upgrade is not yet available. In this, the first of two parts of this review, we'll deal with the installation of the device...because it can get tricky if you're not careful and patient. Next issue, we'll talk about performance. The Falcon comes in a relatively nondescript box, with a short illustrated installation manual and a few basic notes on the operation of the device. The card itself is a very large affair. It takes up the entire available space in the A1200's trapdoor slot, which actually means it's a very snug and stable fit. Um, once you get it in, that is. You're going to need to crack open your A1200 to get this installed. The card is laid out so that the majority of the chips are on the top of the card, and the single SIMM slot and the SCSI controller chip are on the bottom. The SIMM slot runs the SIMM parallel to the card, but that means the socket itself is rather large and requires a custom trapdoor replacement (or you can hack up your own, or just leave it off, but this means your card is exposed to the desk below. The Falcon is supposed to ship with this custom trapdoor...mine didn't. So, open your A1200, remove the keyboard, and you're ready to go to work. Slide the card in from the bottom of the machine, and slide it upwards. It should "snap" into place reasonably well. At this point, you will want to install your SCSI connector board into the small socket that leads to the back of the machine and the little punch-out SCSI door. However, my unit didn't come with one and GVP is still waiting for a shipment from Europe. The SCSI on the Falcon is a different concept than most other A1200 peripherals. Generally, you buy an accelerator which has an external connector. If you buy the SCSI attachment, you hook it up to this header. The SCSI attachment contains the SCSI chip and logic necessary to control external SCSI devices. The Falcon puts the SCSI chip directly on the accelerator card. This means that the SCSI connector unit is far cheaper (advertised for about US$35) but means that if you don't need or want SCSI, you pay for the bulk of it anyway when you buy the card, as the SCSI connector card is essentially just a header. Now it's time to make sure your computer doesn't melt. The 68040/25 RC is a rather hot chip. A fan is included in the Falcon. (You're going to love tihs.) In order to install the fan and keep it in place, you position the fan on roughly one third of the chip, aligning one of the corners of the fan with an open space in the RF shield between the Falcon and the floppy drive. Then, you DRIVE A SCREW THROUGH the bottom of your Amiga's case, holding the fan securely in place. Sounds like fun, doesn't it? This will enable you to place the keyboard and cover back on your Amiga 1200. Alternately, if you scoff at FCC violations and don't want to bore a hole through your computer, you can take a different, much more hackish approach. The present Falcon setup on my desk is as follows: The top of the case is on a shelf. The fan is actually attached to a small piece of plywood, which is being held in place by the cushion-spring positioned on the floppy drive to keep it from being crushed by the keyboard. The keyboard rests on this setup. This of course means the 1200 is pretty much exposed, but it does keep the chip reasonably cool. Power up your Amiga 1200. With luck, you'll have a full 68040 with MMU and FPU at your disposal! Actually, the initial installation process was pretty easy, and I've installed it on two different machines. For both, the actual physical process of getting the card in place and wiring up the fan was 10 minutes. Toying with the fan for maximum cooling took a little bit more work, but that was nothing appreciable. So, what to do with an 040? We'll talk about it next issue. @endnode @node CHARTS1 "Aminet Charts: 15-Apr-96" @toc FTP | The most downloaded files from Aminet during the week until 15-Apr-96 | Updated weekly. Most popular file on top. |File Dir Size Age Description |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- FTPMount-1.0.lha comm/tcp 113K 0+Mounts FTP sites as part of a filesy AWebHotlist.lha comm/tcp 4K 0+Compose a well designed AWeb hotlist VirusZ_II130.lha util/virus 171K 0+VirusZ v1.30 by Georg Hoermann AirMail3_MUI.lha comm/mail 148K 0+AirMail 3.0 MUI internet mailer PictDT43.lha util/dtype 183K 0+Picture.datatype V43.713 for AGA/CGr Gui-FTP.lha comm/tcp 352K 0+Gui-FTP V3.0 GUI based FTP client AmiPhone1.5B.lha comm/net 113K 0+AmiTCP based voice chat program AmIRC_OPSv2.lha comm/tcp 3K 0+AutoGreet and AutoOp script for AmIR SysPic301.lha util/boot 55K 0+The best boot-time picture displayer urouhack17.lha util/wb 127K 0+Sysihack&framepatch, XEN-style butto Appetizer.lha text/hyper 246K 1+EASY! Point & Click Web Page Maker s2meter37.2.lha comm/net 68K 0+SANA-II network device statistics mo ALTTCP43icn.lha pix/icon 6K 0+Icons For AmiTCP 4.3 PRO mwm101.lha text/hyper 73K 1+Magic Web Maker v1.01 - BugFixed Ver atcp43scripts.lha comm/tcp 7K 0+My AmiTCP4.3 Startnet script (slight MCF4AmIRC.lha comm/tcp 17K 0+MCF V1.0 ARexx Integrated Scripts fo Patch2AmiTCP43.lha biz/patch 514K 0+Patch AmiTCP/IP 4.1/4.2 to AmiTCP/IP mwm103.lha text/hyper 73K 0+Magic Web Maker v1.03 - The story co AllowBad.lha disk/misc 15K 0+Format damaged floppies (like BForma xfd113.lha util/pack 116K 0+Decrunch almost every packed file (e | The highest rated programs during the week until 15-Apr-96 | Updated weekly. Best program on top. Please rate all the programs you | download. To do so, send to aminet-server@wuarchive.wustl.edu : | RATE | where is the file you want to judge and is a mark from 0..10 | with 10 being the best. You can rate several programs in one mail, but | don't rate your own programs. Example: RATE dev/gui/mui23usr.lha 8 |File Dir Size Age Description |----------------- --- ---- --- ----------- MagicMenu_1.29.lha util/cdity 106K 124+PopUp menus for OS 2.x and newer term-030.lha comm/term 655K 3+V4.6, MC68020/030/040/060 version VoxelEngine25.lha gfx/aga 71K 4+Landscape routine. V2.5 ReqToolsDev.lha util/libs 284K 13+ReqTools 2.4 - the requester toolkit AWeb.lha comm/tcp 253K 3+New fast non-MUI WWW browser. V 1.0a thor222_main.lha comm/mail 790K 15+Offline reader, main archive (requir DeliTracker224.lha mus/play 736K 2+Enhanced/bugfixed players, e.g. s3m Play16_1.6.lha mus/play 91K 9+Plays WAV, IFF, MAUD, etc, 14 bit ou aglogo.lha pix/misc 44K 5+AMIGAmes 'logo' picture (Finnish Ami BlacksEditor.lha text/edit 222K 1+Wonderful Text Editor (Version 1.01) FTPMaker.lha comm/misc 40K 11+Help you to configure your ftpaccess AmiPOP118.lha comm/net 98K 29+Amiga POP3 Client V1.18 AmiTCP-demo-40.lha comm/tcp 738K 76+TCP/IP protocol stack ass_gfx.lha demo/euro 579K 140 Top 10 pics from Asm93 gfx compo Odyssey.lha demo/file 3.3M 42 Demo by Alcatraz, ECS, 1st at TP91 mui33dev.lha dev/gui 585K 6+MagicUserInterface V3.3, developer f ar402.lha docs/mags 75K 9+Amiga Report 4.02, January 31, 1996 Angband-279v5.lha game/role 688K 3+Angband 2.7.9 (v5) voxel087.lha gfx/aga 788K 1+Voxel Engine 0.87 by Silicon Motion amiwm0.19pl29.lha gfx/x11 56K 3+X window manager WB like. DI-DrmSeq.lha mods/slow 248K 4+DI - "Dream Sequence" - 16:06 worms.jpg pix/trace 264K 4+Cinema4D rendered picture MCP110.lha util/cdity 395K 10+MAJOR UPDATE! The mother of the WB-U VMM_V3_3.lha util/misc 267K 16+Virtual memory for Amigas with MMU DragIt4.lha util/wb 48K 118+Move and size a window from anywhere YAM12.lha comm/mail 135K 4+MUI Internet mailer for AmiTCP ar404.lha docs/mags 85K 3+Amiga Report 4.04, March 14, 1996 sfx-bin_20.lha mus/edit 300K 5+V 3.31 Binary for 68020 sfx-bin_30m.lha mus/edit 285K 5+V 3.31 Binary for 68030+FPU @endnode @node MAILLIST "Amiga Report Mailing List" @toc WHERE =========================================================================== Amiga Report Mailing List =========================================================================== If you have an internet mailing address, you can receive Amiga Report in @{"UUENCODED" link UUENCODE} form each week as soon as the issue is released. To be put on the list, send Email to majordomo@amigalib.com Your subject header will be ignored. In the body of the message, enter subscribe areport The system will automatically pull your e-mail address from the message header. Your account must be able to handle mail of any size to ensure an intact copy. For example, many systems have a 100K limit on incoming messages. ** IMPORTANT NOTICE: PLEASE be certain your host can accept mail over ** ** 100K! We have had a lot of bouncebacks recently from systems with a ** ** 100K size limit for incoming mail. If we get a bounceback with your ** ** address in it, it will be removed from the list. Thanks! ** @endnode @node UUENCODE @toc MAILLIST =========================================================================== UUDecoding Amiga Report =========================================================================== If you receive Amiga Report from the direct mailing list, it will arrive in UUEncoded format. This format allows programs and archive files to be sent through mail by converting the binary into combinations of ASCII characters. In the message, it will basically look like a lot of trash surrounded by begin and end, followed by the size of the file. To UUDecode Amiga Report, you first need to get a UUDecoding program, such as UUxT by Asher Feldman. This program is available on Aminet in pub/aminet/arc/ Then you must download the message that it is contained in. Don't worry about message headers, the UUDecoding program will ignore them. There is a GUI interface for UUxT, which should be explained in the docs. However, the quickest method for UUDecoding the magazine is to type uuxt x ar.uu at the command prompt. You will then have to decompress the archive with lha, and you will then have Amiga Report in all of its AmigaGuide glory. If you have any questions, you can write to @{"Jason Compton" link JASON} @endnode @node AMINET "Aminet" @toc WHERE Aminet ====== To get Amiga Report from Aminet, simply FTP to any Aminet site, CD to docs/mags. All the back issues are located there as well. Sites: ftp.netnet.net, ftp.wustl.edu, ftp.luth.se, ftp.doc.ic.ac.uk @endnode @node WWW "World Wide Web" @toc WHERE World Wide Web ============== AR can also be read with Mosaic (in either AmigaGuide or html form). Reading AmigaReport with Mosaic removes the necessity to download it. It can also be read using programs found in UNIX sites such as LYNX. Simply tell Mosaic to open one of the following URLs: http://www.omnipresence.com/Amiga/News/AR/ http://www.pwr.wroc.pl/AMIGA/AR/ http://mm.iit.uni-miskolc.hu/Data/AR http://www.fhi-berlin.mpg.de/amiga/ar/ http://ramiga.rnet.cgi.com/~AR http://www.sci.muni.cz/ar/ http://metro.turnpike.net/P/panther/main.html http://www.lysator.liu.se/amiga/ar/ http://ArtWorks.apana.org.au/AmigaReport.html http://www.vol.it/mirror/amiga/ http://www.cucug.org/ar/ar.html http://www.acropolis.net/clubs/amiga/amigareport/ http://www.bengala.saccii.net.au/ar/main.html The following AR sites also have a mailto form, allowing you to mail to Amiga Report from the web site.