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Text File | 1993-12-03 | 157KB | 3,764 lines

Editorial C PROGRAMMING SECTION - PROBLEMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 NEWS Programmers Conference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 A3000 released? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Money for Programmers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Workbench 1.4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Don't Throw Away That A1000 Just Yet! . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Trojan VirusX 3.3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 AREXX Programming Section for NewsDisk . . . . . . . . . . 11 Killer Demo Contest . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 New Computer Languages? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 NEW PRODUCTS Commodore Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 New Modula-2 System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Palette a Disk-mag for Graphics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Enhanced Chip Set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Project Master . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Photosynthesis Image Processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Music & Computers Magazine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 True Imaging Magazine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Info Magazine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Australian Commodore and Amiga Review . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Amygdala Fractal Magazine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Fordray/Neriki Genlock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Hypercard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 BBS NEWS Chritchurch BBS News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Wellington Bulletin Board List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 FORSALE Amiga B2000 & Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Disk Storage boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 3.5" disks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Black disks in library case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Okimate20 black thermal ribbon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Amiga1000 shielded printer cable . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Modem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 WANTED Camera & Digiview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 HINTS & TIPS Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Kickstart 1.2 & 1.3 co-resident . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 ZAP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Microline 183 Printer Driver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 1 June, July & August Newsletter! MEMBER FEEDBACK Real Programmers, Languages, ARP, Priorities . . . . . . . 27 Sonix Scores, PD disks, Mouse Mats . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 MEMBERS QUERIES Video Titling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Mandelbrots, Mouse Buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 PAL/NTSC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Games for Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 DPaint Updates, Hypercard, Amiga Emulators, ARP 1.3 . . . . 30 LIBRARY UPDATES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 COMPREHENSION TEST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Disolving Disks, & Soggy News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Programming SIG, PD Disk Requests . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Places of PI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Amiga to AT connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 A New Amiga Users First Impressions . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 ARTICLE What is an ANIM ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Laws of Programming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Definition of a Programmer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 REVIEWS MVP-Forth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Sublogic Jet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Sculpt Animate 4D review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Turbo Silver SV review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Review of the Commodore Amiga A590 Hard Drive. . . . . . . 42 Review of Consumer Magazine Home Micro Review . . . . . . . 48 Aegis ANiMagic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 BIX Conferences and Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 USER GROUP INFORMATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Group Meetings SOUTH ISLAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52 NORTH ISLAND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 2 June, July & August Newsletter! Editorial Editorial Once again I must apologize to all those who sent in submisions for the newsletter and newsdisk, three months between newsletters does seem to be an excessive delay! Well I have been occupied with many things, Hard disks, visiting Auckland UG open day, collecting and converting GIF picture files, cataloging PD picture and sound files, setting up a machine to do a slideshow of hires overscan PAL sized images, and other things that don't come to mind immediately - matbe I'll describe them next month! John Bickers has been hard at work on the C section of the newsdisk, and would like some feedback from programmers. Here is the contents of the problems section that will come out on NZAmigaUG #24 (NO, I haven't finished #23 yet!!!). C PROGRAMMING SECTION - PROBLEMS. JJB TEMPLAR 1) Blink 2) printf and WB 3) Arp and process stacks. 4) Reading hardware registers. 5) Refreshing requester gadgets. 6) WB errors. >> 1 Blink Users of Lattice C V5 and thus Blink V5 may have come across this problem: The relative order of modules when linking has an effect on the operations of the program. Some examples, as experienced by me: 1) PRELINK modules. i) The following linking order made a program that crashed FROM LIB:c.o+main.o+prelink.p This ordering had no problems: FROM LIB:c.o+prelink.p+main.o Why the difference? ii) I cannot get two prelinked modules to link together into a working program. Whichever module came second in the linking order crashes as soon as its called. 2) Starting from WB. i) A while back I suggested re-compiling umain from the source provided, and replacing it in lc.lib. In fact, the object code produced is exactly the same as the original version if compiled with the options -v and -cus. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 3 June, July & August Newsletter! Given two libraries, lib1 and lib2, where lib1 is lc.lib, and lib2 is the result of: lc -v -cus umain.c oml LIB:lc.lib r umain.o CTRL-\ and a simple program p, I find that: a) p linked with lib1 runs OK from the CLI, but always gurus on exit from the WB. b) p linked with lib2 gurus on exit from both the CLI and the WB, but more often from the CLI than WB. 3) Using cback, and ___fpinit/___fpterm. i) I have mentioned previously that programs linked with cback crash unless the lines referring to ___fpinit/___fpterm are commented out. I replaced these functions as follows: DEFINE ___fpinit=_tstub DEFINE ___fpterm=_tstub _tstub just returns, but the resulting program still crashes. So the fault may not lie with ___fpinit and ___fpterm, but with something blink does when linking them in. An explanation(?): I believe it has something to do with alv's generated by blink in the course of its duties. There seem to be two types of alv. The first is the Automatic Link Vector used to get from point A to point B if you cannot get from A directly to B with a 16-bit PC relative branch. These should be quite harmless, and are what Blink reports when you link with cback. The second type is an identical form of PC redirection, but for a different reason. For example, when I defined the fp routines as _tstub, blink didn't point the code where the fp functions are called directly to _tstub. Instead, it added two alvs to the end of cback, which then jumped to _tstub. This second sort of alv is what I believe is responsible for the problems, since they are the only part of the program that appears to be different when the ordering is different (see the alv column in the map files). And a partial solution(?): I have found two things to be useful: 1) Re-ordering the object files in the linking process until something works. 2) Cutting out as much of the lc.lib code as possible. For example, use AmigaDOS (and the pragma files) instead of the ANSI or UNIX C file IO functions. Using tinymain. Defining a simple, custom printf function specific to each program. Exiting with XCEXIT() instead of exit(), if you haven't used ANSI/UNIX or the standard stdio. Incidentally, all these operations result in smaller code, see the topics section for more details. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 4 June, July & August Newsletter! >> 2 printf and WB I used to think that using printf from WB resulted in a crash, but it seems that this is not true (almost all my programs, for example, use printf to report errors, and too bad if the program was started from the WB). Using the normal startup (umain), of course, a console window is created for you. But if this is deleted from umain (as it can be in tmain), then no console window is opened. I recently installed Arp1.3, and in the course of testing this and that, I noticed that a program that did not open one of these consoles was getting one anyway. This appears to be a borderless window, with non-standard coloring (ie: uses 0,3 for BackPen and FrontPen), and part of a directory name as the title. This only seems to occur when programs are run from a FFS directory, which in my case is from the buggy version of WB1.3. I have been wondering whether this console is Arp's fault, or the FFS, or what? >> 3 Arp and process stacks As I said before, I recently installed Arp1.3. In AmigaLine7, on one of the recent Newsdisks, Bryce Nesbitt outlines a nice way to find out and/or change a process' stack space. The probe part is OK, but since installing Arp I guru when I try to change the stack. The guru occurs during the first printf following the stack switch. The guru does not occur if the program is run in a ARP-free envrionment. Could it be that ARP pays attention to what processes do with their stacks? If so, what business does ARP have mucking around with other people's programs? Or is it some obscure bug in printf or the stack switcher that isn't apparent until the stack change is attempted under ARP? For example, replacing printf with Write(Output(),,) does not cause a guru. Running asktask shows that the stack switching process has various Exception signal bits set. Not by my program! These are set AFTER the "Task Held" requester appears. The tasks managing these requesters also seem to disappear after a while from the task list, then reappear if the requester is activated. This may just be something wrong with the way asktask scans the task lists (same way anonymous tasks are found by asktask). >> 4 Reading hardware registers Someone, whose name I never got, wanted to read a hardware register to do with joystick port 1. There are two ways to read the hardware directly. First, you can use the custom variable. The code fragments are: #include <exec/types.h> #include <hardware/custom.h> extern struct Custom far custom; val = custom.joy1dat; /* Etc */ Or, if you know the exact address, and don't want to use custom: #include <exec/types.h> UWORD *regptr = (UWORD *)0x00df0000L; /* Or whatever address */ val = *regptr; /* Etc */ <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 5 June, July & August Newsletter! The particular purpose was to read a potentiometer-type value from one of the joystick ports, to which would be attached a light-sensitive diode, also attached to a print head, in order to do an extremely cost-effective image scan. This has been done already using a C=64. I ran into, by chance, a brief discussion of this sort of thing in the Best of BIX section of the Jul 86 BYTE. There no less a person than Charlie Heath (of ARP) recommends reading the hardware directly, for just a digital joystick. Note that according to page 347 of the RKM:L&D you CANNOT use the gameport.device for paddle-type input, despite what Heath says. One way to read pot values is by using the following registers: POTGO, POT0DAT, POT1DAT These are maintained by the system hardware, and are good for one sample per screen refresh. Thus 50 or 60 times a second. Pages 223 to 224 of the Hardware Ref Manual provide a starting point for documentation. There are two problems with this: 1) I know very little about hardware, so I don't know if 50 or 60 times a second is fast enough. If it isn't, then you will have to read the interface chips the same way you read the C=64's CIA chip(s). The Amiga (8520) chips are very similar (from the same family) to the C=64 CIA (6526) chips. I dug up a C=64 manual, and apparently the SID chip had a pair of 8-bit A/D converters that worked in much the same way as the POT0DAT, POT1DAT registers. Did you use these on the C=64? 2) The read/reset of the counters has to be synchronised with the VBLANK period. So you can't just poll the registers within a loop, because there is no guarantee the registers will be valid when the loop happens to read them. A solution to this is to set up a VBLANK interrupt to read and reset the registers, which places the read values into a global variable. Your program can then poll the global variable inside a loop. Once you have the POT registers sorted out, the interrupt server is a piece of cake. You may want to get the interrupt to signal your task, so you can Wait() instead of poll. That depends on how fast your program goes, and probably isn't worth it. The 50/60 times a second stuff depends on where a machine is. I can't remember which one our machines are supposed to go at. After almost 4 hours of experimenting, I have managed to read the PotX value from port 1 in a system-integrated way (using potgo.resource). I used a pair of C=64 paddles as my resistor device, and can only read the one attached to the X line (pin 5). The Y line (pin 9) just hovers. I don't know whether that's the fault of the paddle design, or my code. If any hardware people could find out, and get back to me... See pot.notes and the code in the problemsdir for more details. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 6 June, July & August Newsletter! >> 5 Refreshing requester gadgets It seems that when refreshing a gadget list in a requester, with: RefreshGadgets(&Gadget,Window,&Requester); the refresh begins from the first gadget in the Requester, rather than from the Gadget specified when calling the function. That is, from Requester.ReqGadget. This can cause a lot of undesirable flicker during gadget refresh, particularly with image-bordered string gadgets. Also, the Intuition function OnGadget seems to refresh all the gadgets in a requester, rather than just the one specified. To get around these problems, suppose you had 16 gadgets in a requester, but only wanted to refresh gadgets 10 to 5 in the list. A suitable code fragment would be: gadget5.NextGadget = NULL; Requester.ReqGadget = &gadget10; RefreshGadgets(Requester.ReqGadget,Window,&Requester); Requester.ReqGadget = &gadget16; gadget5.NextGadget = &gadget4; This modifies the gadget list appropriately. To make the OnGadget function more amenable to use with requester gadgets, a wrap function may be suitable: WrapOnGadget(gp,wp,rp) struct Gadget *gp; struct Window *wp; struct Requester *rp; { struct Gadget *temp1,*temp2; temp1 = gp->NextGadget; temp2 = rp->ReqGadget; gp->NextGadget = NULL; rp->ReqGadget = gp; OnGadget(gp,wp,rp); gp->NextGadget = temp1; rp->ReqGadget = temp2; } This assumes OnGadget is really just being used to redisplay the gadget imagery. Another course of action is to redisplay the imagery yourself, but without Intuition knowing? Tsk, tsk, tsk. >> 6 WB Errors Does anybody know how to leave an error message in the WB title bar? {and specifically, get it to be saved in WBs 'LAST ERROR' menu option. -ed} Contact John Bickers at: 214 Rata Street, Naenae, LOWER HUTT, New Zealand, phone (04)672-085 <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 7 June, July & August Newsletter! NEWS Programmers Conference Liam Greenwood has offered to organise a NZ wide meeting of Amiga owners who are into programming - a sort of mini NZ developers conference! A chance for Amiga programmers to get together, exchange ideas, and even learn a thing or two. Nothing big, probably only for one day, possibly a Saturday and the following Sunday morning. As he lives in Wanganui that'll be the venue, probably late January, or early February 1990. Wanganui is reasonably centrally situated as far as travel in the North Island is concerned, and a few extra miles either way doesn't make much difference if you're coming from the South Island! We aim to keep costs to a minimum, but if people want lunch and perhaps dinner laid on a charge to cover costs will have to be made. Hopefully billeting will be arranged for those who want to stay overnight, so the only major cost will be getting there and back (hitching a ride only costs time!!). Obviously if a number of people are coming from the same area they can share transport costs. Perhaps if it's successful it could me made a regular event at a different venue each year? So could those interested please contact Liam on (064)55-610, or write to him at 44 Durie Street, Wanganui. He would like to know how many people are interested, and what sort of things they would like to do at the meeting. Everyone attending will probably be asked to register their interest in coming, and pay a contribution towards costs. A3000 released? A small column in the Dominon 14-Aug-89, caught my attention ; It seems 'the ultimate games machine', the A3000 is available in the UK for 650 ... Unfortunately this A3000 is not the Amiga 3000 awaited with bated breath by Amiga lovers but the Acorn (as in BBC & Archimedes) A3000 - and there appears to be one problem with this machine described by Acorn as 'the ultimate games machine' - too few game programs! Money for Programmers Another item from the Dominion was about Bob Kotick, president of 'The Disc Company', who has $1,000,000 to spend in the Asia- Pacific region on Amiga software developers, in exchange for worldwide marketing rights. He will market the software internationally and pay royalties. The areas he's looking for software in are : 1) Video : Video titling, special effects, and video editing 2) Audio : Music composing and editing, Automated phone attendant 3) Business graphics 4) Entertainment <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 8 June, July & August Newsletter! Workbench 1.4 Although it probably won't be available until next year, there are a lot of rumours about what will be available in Kickstart/ Workbench 1.4. He are a few notes apparently originating from an Amiga developers conference. How much is rumour and how much fact, I can't be sure - but it all looks good! 1.4 Features : AREXX - Will become an integral part of the system. ASL.library - similar to but better organized ARP.library. Much of ARP becomes part of the other system libraries and ASL includes much of what is left such as the system standard file, font, and list requesters. Commodities Exchange - a standardized way of handling hot keys in the system so that 'pop-cli' or 'funkeys' do not collide with 'WonderFmarbles' or something else wanting to use the same hot key. This will provide improved coordination and control of various input handlers, and the ability to cut and paste to and from the Cli window. Simple refresh character mapped console windows with text level cut and paste. There will be optional scrolling of Cli windows. DOS library in C, and commands will be rewritten in C instead of BCPL, and will be able to access the features of the new libraries. ECS support - bigger blits, more CHIP, etc etc ENV: is to be a handler instead of an assign. Exec - execbase and stack in FAST ram, virtual memory HOOKS <only>, new power up strategy <may break some odd things...> FFS in ROM - so floppies can be FFS or OldFS. Intuition: - massive changes - Intuition.base is GONE. autoscrolling, overscan, public screens, custom gadgets, new string gadgets, new state machine, etc etc etc KEYMAP - usa 1 now in ROM. Layers - better dedicing, backfill for windows. Preferences; - massive changes, a handler rather than a fixed file - builds capabilities list dynamically. Font types and sizes for icons will now be selectable via Preferences, as will font colour and draw mode. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 9 June, July & August Newsletter! New timer device calls. Trackdisk worked over. WorkBench will be a library. Add and remove menu items. The Workbench will be "asynchronous", in a sense making Workbench more multi-tasking. Faster drawers, better icons and font support, etc. Last Error will have a description of the error as well as the number. New options : "New Drawer" - rather than duplicating an Empty drawer. "Select All" - select all icons in a drawer for moving etc "Quit" - to remove Workbench itself. "View By" - icons can be viewed and sorted according to name, date or size, and the window will re-open in the mode it was left previously. "Show All" - shows all files without icons, by making default icons, and this option will be reversible. "ResetWB" - will allow you to close the Workbench and then re-open it with new selections of font, colour etc. The mouse will be a more powerful rodent, allowing you to lasso a bunch of icons to work on; and to select a drawer icon by double-clicking in its window. The right mouse button will be able to cancel dragging and selection operations that are in progress. The Workbench itself will be just another window, allowing you to operate on it in the same way as other windows, and select different backdrops from Preferences, etc. Numerous window gadgets will be cleaned up and improved. There will be a "startup drawer", the contents of which will be run when Workbench is started up, usually in the startup-sequence. Each drawer will have a special setup which will result in much speedier icon operation. Likewise, if you click a project icon, the CLI "path" will be searched for the appropriate tool/program to run it. In the GRAPHICS area, there will be support for the various enhanced chips with new resolution modes and monitor scan rates. Sometime AFTER 1.4 there will be scaleable outline fonts. 1.4 will support enhanced bitmap fonts with limited scaleability. {Well, I was going to highlight the items that I really liked, but decided I liked them all! From my point of view a number of things like using multitasking, use of search paths, sorting of icons by date etc, and showing all files, are all features that were sadly missing, and their lack severly impaired the usefulness of the Workbench. All the other features should add up to making the Workbench environment that much more productive to use. Please can someone send me a prerelease copy of WB1.4!!!! -ed.} <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 10 June, July & August Newsletter! Don't Throw Away That A1000 Just Yet! (from Megadisc #11) Reports have come in that a gentleman in Canada has succeeded in creating a "daughterboard" for A1000s which not only enables the Enhanced Chip Set to be used in your A1000, but also holds all chip ram internally and enables you to get a 2000-like video slot! Likewise Andrew Wilson in Adelaide is working on such a hardware modification, so before too long your A1000 may escape imminent obsolescence, and you'll be able to hang on to that hardware you invested in for it. Trojan VirusX 3.3 Steve Tibbett confirms that the copy of VirusX 3.3 is indeed a Trojan version - he will not be bringing out a version called 3.3. The Trojan version can apparently also be identified by the (deliberate?) mispelling of Steves name - Spelt as Tibett in the trojan version. I haven't seen this version, and are unaware of what devilishness it actually inflicts. So be wary of any such programs that aren't provided with source code, as the authentic versions are. (For the uninitiated; Trojan as in Trojan Horse - something dangerous that is mascarading as something innocent.) There is also yet another version of VirusX 3.3 floating around NZ, but it is simply version 3.2 with the version number changed and the name of one of the identifable viruses changed (corrected) {Strings "V3.2" changed to "V3.3" and "Old Northstar" changed to "Black Star ". -ed.}. It is no improvement over version 3.2, so I advise not using any version called 3.3. AREXX Programming Section for NewsDisk by Brian Chapman (Nelson) As ARexx is now going to be part of 1.4, I would like to suggest a section on the NewsDisk be devoted to this language, using the same format as John Bickers suggested for the C programming section. I would be happy to have those interested send their material to me, from there I can put them into their appropriate headings (Comments, Problems, Questions, Answers etc). Thus leaving the final editing for Tony. At this point I must stress that I'm new to the language and far from being an expert on ARexx, so if there is anyone out there who is in a better position than me, then please come forward. I would like to be contacted by people who are using ARexx. B Chapman 3/17 Parkers Rd Tahunanui NELSON (054 86876) {I haven't actually used the language, and looking at the article in the latest Amiga Transactor, It looks like yet another computer language. But of course it isn't just a computer programming language, it's a computer-program controlling language. We'll be happy to include a section in the newsletter or Newsdisk. -ed.} <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 11 June, July & August Newsletter! Announcing the results of the 1988 Bay area Amiga Developers GroupE Killer Demo Contest On October 20, 1988, the Bay area Amiga Developers GroupE (BADGE) held a contest to select the best Amiga demo of the year. The contest is sponsored to promote greater interest in the Amiga and thus generate additional sales. The primary purpose of the contest is to create demo disks for dealers to use to show off the Amiga. First of all, a very large THANK YOU goes out to all of our sponsors who were generous enough to donate prizes for this year's contest. Commodore-Amiga -- Amiga 2000 Go Amigo -- 30 meg Hard Card Computer Attic -- 2 meg Ram Board MicroBotics -- 8Up! 8 meg Ram Board (unpopulated) Manx Software -- Aztec C compiler (and temporary housing one of the judges) A-Squared -- Real Time Video Digitizer Oxxi -- Software (Maxi-Plan, Atalk III) Boing Inc. -- Boing Jacket, Boing Mouse Info Magazine -- Ten three-year Subscriptions Winner's Circle, Berkeley -- Time and Equipment (thanks!) Tracy McSheery -- Game software Radical Eye Software -- $500.00 cash (for operating expenses) In 1988 there were two catagories of demos: Tool-Based (meaning that the demo may require another, possibly commercial program to run), and Custom-Programmed (a standalone program). The prize catagories were: Best Overall, Best Use of Graphics, Best Use of Sound, and Funniest, as well as second and third place. In 1988 the Best Overall prize (an Amiga 2000, donated by Paul Higginbottom of Commodore-West Chester) goes to Brad Schenck for his Director Animation called Charon. Other winning catatories include: Best Custom Demo -- Tank by Vince Lee; Funniest -- "Not Boing Again" by Dr. Gandalf; Best Sound -- "Charon" again, by Brad Schenck; and Best Graphics -- Tychoid by John M. Olsen. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 12 June, July & August Newsletter! Two disks with the top three demos are available from BADGE for $5.00 by sending your request to: Badge Killer Demo Contest c/o Randy Spencer P.O. Box 4542 Berkeley CA 94704 All of this year's entries will be sent to Fred Fish for distribution in his Freely Redistributable Library. The following is the list of all entries and how they fared: Tool-Based Demos: Charon Brad Schenck Not Boing Again Dr. Gandalf Tychoid John M. Olsen AmigaWave! Allen Hastings CUCUG Ed Serbe "Education of a young Coyote" Gene Brawn Asteroid Field Michael Powell Sail Marvin Landis Stereoflowers P. McIntyre (Christchurch) Splash Robert de Bie Alice MedioTech Bowl Vern Staats NuHand Bryan Carey Gallivan Tiger B. faux Dogs World Charles Voner Heartbeat MedioTech History Of Computers Bert Berryhill Cardiac Surgery MedioTech Custom-Programmed Demos: Tank Vince Lee Triple Tom Rokicki Multitasking Rob Peck Hawk P. McIntyre (Christchurch) Brownian John M. Olsen StereoDemo David M. McKinstry MemFlick Jim Webster Picture Garden Steve Tiffany <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 13 June, July & August Newsletter! The Folks Behind BADGE We are BADGE, the "Bay area Amiga Developers GroupE". The group consists of developers (both commercial software organization employees and independents) and others who just want to be there when the latest hot product (sometimes work-in-process) is shown. We enjoy working on the Amiga and want to promote it wherever possible. Some time ago, we realized that with a limited budget for advertising and dealer training, Commodore International might need some gentle help to show off the capabilities of the Amiga. With so very much software becoming available in the Public Domain for the Amiga, someone at a BADGE meeting said: "Hey, why don't we create an award or a hall of fame for the best of the Public Domain Amiga software". This idea soon became the seed for the "BADGE Killer Demo Contest", a contest that might use some of the spare time of various developers to create whiz-bang demos that we could distribute, at our cost, to dealers. This would help sell machines and garner a bit of fame (if nothing else) for the demo's creator. Suddenly we were awash in offers for prizes to give for contest winners and suddenly we had a real contest that demanded real rules and real judging. The idea had taken on a life of its own. The first contest (called the ZEROth demo contest, because we didn't know if it would ever happen again) was a success and the disks were distributed far and wide. We again promoted the contest idea for the following year, and established a set of rules to follow. The rules took up a few pages and unfortunately tended to discourage some entrants who might otherwise have produced the "demo of the decade". At our most recent meeting, BADGE has decided to get back to that original idea -- to promote the Amiga -- and the demos should support that most basic concept. Thus, we present the "CONCEPTS For Future BADGE Killer Demo Contests": The Winning Demos: o are easy to install and run o are 'safe' to run o are freely redistributable o promote the Amiga and THAT's IT! Exactly what BADGE would like to be able to distribute. To expand on the items just a LITTLE bit: Easy to install - the dealer or customer ought to be able to figure out what is needed to install it on a hard disk and the program should know how to run no matter where it is installed. Or explicit instructions on how to run it can be provided. Safe - the program contains no virus, and does not crash the machine on entry or exit. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 14 June, July & August Newsletter! Freely redistributable - we want to give them out at cost to whoever wants to see them. The winners get famous. Promote the Amiga - it certainly would be nice to see things that are not as easily done on other machines, shows folks why they bought (or should buy) an Amiga. Something uniquely Amiga would be a big plus. So you now know our GOALS. So what are the RULES? Well, we've become pretty open ended there. The only rules (and maybe for something fabulous we might be willing to bend just a little) are basically the opposites of the GOALS above. A demo program can be disqualified for any of the following: o if it crashes the machine (bendable rule); o if it has or installs a virus (hard and fast rule); o if it does not exit cleanly (does not follow Amiga program "rules", bendable to some extent); o if it is not freely redistributable (ok to copyright, but if you prevent us from distributing it, it won't be accepted as a contest entry); o if it requires that the disk be write-enabled (bendable - BUT... one entry last year wrote to its disk, then stopped running after it had been run 5 times; this is not a suitable item for a person to have to demo his machine... word of mouth sells a lot of systems! ) We have developed a set of 'recommendations' which we felt would best serve our target audience for the demos. Note that these are not "rules" per se, however the presence (or absence) of some of these could be considered in part of the judging: RECOMMENDATIONS (NOT rules): o uniquely Amiga - a big plus o originality - will influence audience reaction o runs in 512k system - largest installed base o runs in a one-disk system (another large installed base) (if needs Workbench disk present for libs etc, maybe demo can be set up to run with certain things in RAM:?) o easy to install on a hard disk (maybe even provide a script) (We'd "prefer" all-you-need in a drawer that we could simply use Workbench to drag onto the hard disk) o fits on one disk (nice, but low priority) o obvious means of exit (or startup screen that tells how to exit) o asynchronous exit (can get out at any time) o idiot proof - cannot 'cause' it to crash; trap all non-exit events -- low priority item, but nice if included o supports multi-tasking -- nice if you can do it o no blatant commercialism IN the demo -- though a text file specifying the product that created it, or glorifying the creators of the demo is perfectly acceptable. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 15 June, July & August Newsletter! JUDGING: will be based on the following tenets in general: o which demo will sell the most Amigas? o audience reaction will play an important part; technical judges might act as human applause meters, so to speak o use "technical merit" (we are, after all, developers) as a tie-breaker. o no explicit categories, but one special award for 'funniest'. Yes, there will probably be "professionals" entering demos in the contest, but every demo has an equal chance of winning. We're looking forward to seeing everyone's ideas. Announcing The SECOND BADGE Killer Demo Contest The SECOND (annual?) BADGE Killer Demo Contest will be held at the September, 1989 meeting of BADGE (most likely to take place on the third Thursday of the month.) Entrants are encouraged to follow the above rules and guidelines in submitting your demos. Demos should be accompanied by either a README file on the disk to tell us the minimum configuration in which the demo will run and exactly how to start (and stop) the demo. Demos will be accepted up to and including September 1, 1989, with that date relatively firm (because the contest is being announced so far in advance). This will allow sufficient time for the judges to arrange the necessary equipment and to set up a reasonable environment for the display of the demos. If you wish to ask any questions about the rules and recommendations, please send those questions to the address below. We will try to respond in a reasonable time frame. A quick answer is certainly possible, but an "official" response would be based on a vote of the BADGE membership. Since we meet only once each month, an official response might not be what you'd want, but perhaps a "well-maybe" would suffice until the next meeting happens. Submit your "prize-winning" entries to: BADGE Contest c/o DATAPATH P. O. Box 31008 Los Gatos, CA 95031 All entries will be acknowledged on receipt. If you want your entry material to be returned following the contest, please include a self-addressed envelope with sufficient postage to carry the material safely back to you. We can not guarantee anything of course, but please realize that this contest draws a lot of interest from users around the world who eagerly await the killer demos each year -- you could become famous. We're looking forward to your entry. BADGE. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 16 June, July & August Newsletter! {Well, if you read all that lot you'd have noticed two things, first there weren't all that many entries, second - a familiar name : Peter McIntyre! (Christchurch), Apparently the rules put off a number of entrants, but as we'd never seen the rules that didn't stop the group sending an entry! Peter's very good Hawk picture came in fourth in one section (despite the fact that viewing it on NTSC machines they'd have seen it with a truncated beak!), unfortunately Peter says that picture was a bit of a fluke - he hasn't been able to repeat the results with other pictures. His other entry 'Stereo Flowers' came in 9th in another section. I can't help but wonder if the audience all donned Red/Blue glasses to judge these! Admittedly its getting rather late to send in an entry to this years contest, but the chances look good that any good demo will get a mention and all great demos will get a placing. So come on, someone out there must have something to blow their socks off, well even something to warm up their little toes would be a start! (Either send entries direct, or to us, and we'll foward a disk of entries on behalf of the club. -ed} New Computer Languages? SIMPLE: Simple is an acronym for Sheer Idiot's Multipurpose Programming Linguistic Environment. This language, developed at Hanover College for Technical Misfits, was designed to make it impossible to write code with errors in it. The statements are, therefore, confined to BEGIN, END, and STOP. No matter how you arrange the statements, you can't get a syntax error. Programs written in SIMPLE do nothing useful. Thus they achieve the results of programs written in other languages without the tedious, frustrating process of testing and debugging. VALGOL: From its modest beginnings in Southern California's San Fernando Valley, VALGOL is enjoying a dramatic surge in popularity across the industry. VALGOL commands include REALLY, LIKE, WELL, and Y*KNOW. Variables are assigned with the =LIKE and =TOTALLY operators. Other operators include the Californian Booleans, FERSURE and NOWAY. Repetitions of code are handled by FOR - SURE loops. Here is a sample program: LIKE Y*KNOW (I MEAN) START IF PIZZA = LIKE BITCHEN AND B = LIKE TUBULAR AND C = LIKE GRODY**MAX THEN FOR I =LIKE 1 TO OH MAYBE 100 DO WAH - (DITTY**2) BARF(I) =TOTALLY GROSS(OUT) SURE LIKE BAG THIS PROBLEM REALLY LIKE TOTALLY(Y*KNOW) Valgol is characterised by its unfriendly error messages. e.g. a syntax error returns the message, "Gag me with a spoon!" <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 17 June, July & August Newsletter! NEW PRODUCTS Commodore Products A2630 - 25MHz 030, 2meg <std> 32 bit fast ram, upto 4 meg on board, with dauguter board with up to lots of additional 32 bit ram. A2090B - Slot filler that will cause A2090<a> to autoboot. A2091 - A590 quality controller for the A2000 - integrated DMA/SCSI controller, 2meg ram, hardcardable, etc. A590 - in release - small quantities as yet. <Above items range from someday to "rsn".> A2500UX - now an 030 machine with 2091, 100megs 19ms HD, AT&T sys V3.2. A2232 - Multiport <8!> serial card with ADOS and UNIX drivers. A2024 - shipping in Europe. Vendor problems fouled up release in US so far. A560/2060 ARCNET cards for the A500 and A2000 - supports NOVELL network once it passes validation suite. A2350 - Genlock and framegrabber. A2360 - Video card - 1024x768x8bits of 16million colors. New Modula-2 System (Extracted from HINTS&NEWS from Amiga Tech #4) from M2S Inc. PO BOX 550279, Dallas, Texas 75355. USA PH: (214) 3405256 FAX: (214) 3419104 Briefly this compiler package contains : M2E - Text Editor, can interact with compiler, supports ARexx. M2C - Modula-2 Compiler, Fast single pass, access 68881 FPU via IEEE libraries, compiles direct in-line calls to Amiga system, ARexx command mode. M2L - Modula-2 Linker. M2Debug - Modula-2 Debugger. ARP Library ARexx Library John Matthews (Wellington) took advantage of their intial trade in offer from TDI Modula II, and is very pleased with the package, and promises us a review {Now he's committed! -ed.}. Palette a Disk-mag for Graphics 3 disks per issue (more or less monthly), and a lot of information and techniques. Put out by Denis Nicholson in Melbourne, Australia. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 18 June, July & August Newsletter! The following was extracted from MegaDisc #11 Enhanced Chip Set Recently shipped A500s contain the new Super Agnes, capable of addressing 1 meg of Chip memory, meaning greater speed and the ability to do more graphics-intensive work The serial numbers on the bottom of the A500 used to start with "HB4...", the new ones don't. There's also supposed to be a blue and red dot on the side of the new machines. Project Master - "Professional Project Management" Claims to have a graphic flow of activities to help you manage projects of all kinds - includes "best and worse case schedules, 'what if' scenarios for deadlines, resources and budgets; critical paths and actual vs planned; expense graphs, Gantt and PERT charts, resource loads". From Brown-Wagh. Photosynthesis Image Processing Beyond BUTCHER and PIXMATE, this program makes a lot of use of the Amiga Blitter for greater speeds, though it is academically oriented - there is a broader repertoire of artificial intelligence image analysis techniques. You might need a textbook to run this one. Info from: Escape Sequence, PO box 1101, Troy, New York 12180. Cost is US$149.95 Music & Computers Magazine A magazine from California, specialises in the music-computer connection, and does so rather well. The May/June '89 issue contains, for example: Overview of synthesisers, samplers & MIDI controllers; the fundamentals of MIDI; Overview of computers dealing with music, with good mentions for Amiga; Audio/Visual peripherals; Assembling a MIDI system; and more. Lots of computer-related ads. True Imaging Magazine This mag is from Texas, USA and deals in "advanced graphics applications", ie desktop video/graphics in general. The April 89 issue had : Questions on Image Processing; a VTR shopping guide; "Amiga Magic" all about using the Amiga for the full gamut of DTV; High-quality colour separations; and more. Info Magazine May/June 89 Contains a good overview of all the Amiga Paint programs, and gives the highest rating to DPaint III. Also contains a good article on "Removable Mass Storage" - covers all the SCSI interfaced systems, including "Big Floppies", Bernoulli Boxes, Removable cartridges, Removable drives, Optical storage and new technology on the way. When will they go 100% Amiga? March/April 89 A good overview of animation on the Amiga, 2D, 3D, dumping to video, using paint programs, etc. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 19 June, July & August Newsletter! Australian Commodore and Amiga Review Although ably edited by Andrew Farrell, the only Oz Commodore-specific mag will soon have Phil Campbell editing the Entertainment section. Phil is probably about the best choice for the job, since he has entertained himself with Commodore computers for a long time, and his by-line is often seen round the place, including the Computer section of Sydney's Sydney Morning Herald. I'm sure he'll devote himself (and his joysticks!) to the task with energy and flair. Amygdala Fractal Magazine Devoted to fractals, Mandelbrots, Julia Sets and other dragons, this is an 8-page newsletter covering theory and practice of fractals, along with references, etc. US$25 for 10 issues, or US$45 with a set of 24 colour slides from: Box 219, San Cristobal NM 87564 Tel: 505 758 7461. If you're interested in fractals, look through our Public Domain catalogue for a number of excellent graphic fractal generators. Gunther Frick tells us he'll be doing an overview of PD fractal programs in the near future. Some references on the Fish disks: Mandelvroom, probably the best : Fish 214 and 215 with assembler source, SC Scenery Generator : Fish 87, Terrain 3D : derived from above Fish 94, Qman (with assembler code) : Fish 130, Fractal Generator : Fish 142, Scenery Generator : Fish 155 Fordray/Neriki Genlock The Neriki genlocks are actually produced by a company called Fordray in Orange, NSW, Australia, who has now taken over mrketing them. They have now brought out their Desktop model at around A$1000, aimed directly at desktop video on the Amiga. The appearance of the unit is very neat, and it is said to produce broadcast-quality results. Hypercard Ted Nelson was the guy who first came up with the HyperText concept, a way of linking text, images, programs, etc in an easy-to-handle way. Apple took the concept for their HyperCard setup without a nod in Nelson's direction. One of his books, "Computer Lib - Dream Machines" goes into the whole idea. On the Amiga, there's a hypertext-like program called Thinker [Poor Person Software, 3721 Starr King Circle, Palo Alto, CA 94306, US$79], and the people who brought MAGELLAN (Artificial Intelligence program) to us are said to be working on a HYPERCARD clone for the Amiga, not to mention all sorts of other A.I.- related software. Even more interesting is a so-called "Hyper- Card" clone called Ultracard which will soon be available from Intuitive Technologies. Available about September. {There is also a public domain Hypercard like program for the Amiga. -ed.} <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 20 June, July & August Newsletter! BBS NEWS Chritchurch BBS News by John Davis The HitchHikers Guide BBS in Christchurch has been replaced by a new and greatly enhanced Guide II BBS. It will be offering nationwide access via PacNet, which means that you will be able to access it at low cost from anywhere in NZ without running up toll bills. It will initially support upto three simultaneous users, with additional capacity being added as demand increases. It is not really a BBS in a traditional sense, in fact sysop Steve Davis prefers to call it an information provider. It will be offering e-mail, together with access to Bytes Bix and MicroBytes Daily. Plus it will be offering private conferencing facilities for third parties. The AmigaINFO BBS now on (03)-371-531 24 hours, 2400, 1200 and 300 baud. The Plains BBS has now joined with Tony's BBS, with the new version of Tony's carrying the combined traffic. Tony's (03-831-155 ) is christchurch's main FIDOnet node. It runs 24 hours a day and supports speed upto 19200 ( using a telebit trailblazer ). Wellington Bulletin Board List as at 18th August '89 * This is revision no. 9 18/8/89. * Additions/deletions: Send E-mail to The Snark on Sideways Board. BLACKBOARD: 24 hrs 300,1275,R,1200,2400 781827 Sysop: Charlie Lear (The Bear). Education profession only. Kiwiboard s/w. ASCII, standard ANSI. No cost. THE BOARD: Node 1: 24 hrs 300,1200,2400 646035 Node 2: 24 hrs 300,1200,2400 648358 Sysop: Mark Richardson (The Chairman). Online games. Wildcat s/w. ASCII, IBM coloured ANSI. Requires donation for full access. THE CAVE: Node 1: 24 hrs 300,1275,1200,2400 643429 Node 2: 24 hrs 300,1275,1200,2400 643000 Sysops: Charlie Lear (The Bear)/Bubbles. Home of KiwiBoard s/w. ASCII, standard ANSI. $30 for full access. Node 2: members only. DIGITAL VAULTS III: 24 hrs 1200,2400 736679 Sysop: Unknown. Spitfire s/w. ASCII, PC ANSI. No cost. FEELING BAUD: 24 hrs 300,1200,2400 264276 Sysop: Greg Cooney. Searchlight support BBS. Searchlight s/w. ASCII, IBM mono/coloured ANSI. No cost. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 21 June, July & August Newsletter! FRED'S DINER: 7p-6a MonFri 12pSat-6aMon 300,1200 683831 Sysop: Gary Dickinson. Long pause before answer. Searchlight s/w. ASCII, IBM mono/coloured ANSI. No cost. FREEBOARD: 24 hours 300,1200,2400 849715 Sysop: Peter Tse. Send a few [RETURN]'s after connect. SJ s/w. ASCII, standard ANSI. No cost. GHOST IN THE MACHINE: 3p-12a. 1200,2400 635679 Sysop: (Zar). Searchlight s/w. ASCII, IBM mono/coloured ANSI. No cost. HARBOUR BOARD: Node 1: 24 hrs 300,1275,R,1200,2400 872610 Node 2: 24 hrs 1200 878402 Sysop: (Atari). Wgtn Atari U.G. BBS.ST-Forem s/w. ASCII, Atari ST emulation. No known costs. LOVE OVER GOLD: 24 hrs 300,1275,1200,2400 277900 Sysop: Jeremy Scrivener. Opus s/w. ASCII, ANSI. Cost $15 (Upper Hutt Computer Club membership). THE MAGIC TOWER: 24 hrs 300,1275,R,1200,2400 767326 Sysops: Paul Gillingwater (The Mage)/Astrea. Towernet s/w. ASCII plus a little added ANSI. No cost. MOTHERBOARD: 6p-7a MonThu 6pFri-7aMon 300,1275,R,1200,2400 898859 Sysop: Kevin Bracey. WWIV-Mac s/w. ASCII. No cost. OVERBOARD: 24 hrs 300,1275,R 647879 Sysop: Tony Jones (Master). Home of Stephen Jones s/w. ASCII, standard ANSI. No cost ROMBOARD: 11p-5p SunThu, 11p-8a FriSat 1200,2400 838739 Sysop: Brent Wood. CD-ROM online. Wildcat shareware s/w. ASCII, IBM ANSI. Free except for d/loading. SEABOARD: 24 hrs 300,1275,1200,2400 781008 Sysop: Peter Longman. Amstrad BBS. KiwiBoard s/w. ASCII, standard ANSI. No cost: demonstration, all messages in *public* view. SIDEWAYS BOARD: 24 hrs 300,1200 661231 Sysop: Pat Cain (Snarky). Partly funded by BBC User Group. EBBS s/w. ASCII, Viewdata/Videotex. No cost except BBC section: Membership of BBC UG. THE SKOOL BBS 3.30p-8a Mon-Thu;All WkEnd 300,1200,2400 829184 Sysops: Jason Chan (Dr. J). Run at Wgtn College. Kiwiboard s/w. ASCII, standard ANSI. No cost. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 22 June, July & August Newsletter! SPRINGBOARD: 24 hrs 1200,2400,9600 767742 Sysop: Paul Gillingwater (The Mage). Closed:Greeny/Peace Theme. PC-Bd s/w. ASCII, IBM ANSI. No costs at present. Access:Apply to Sysop on Magic Tower. TANIWHA'S LAIR: 10p-5pSunThu;10p-8aFriSat 300,1200 861797 Sysops: Kevin Smith (Tarapunga), TMT. KiwiBoard s/w. ASCII, standard ANSI. No cost. TINKERBELL: 24 hrs 300,1275,1200,2400 4991466 Sysop: Jim Towler. Tinkerbell s/w. ASCII. No cost. TRANS-GLOBAL COMMUNICATIONS: Node 1: 896156 Node 2: 896157 Node 3: 896159 All nodes are 24 hrs, and do speeds: 300,1275,1200,2400 ASCII, standard ANSI, IBM ANSI, and others. Free trial: charging soon. TRANSMISSION TOWER: 24 hrs 300,1200,2400 829440 Sysop: Warren Johnston/Jane Atkinson. Wildcat s/w. ASCII, IBM coloured ANSI. No cost. TWILIGHT PHONE: 24 hrs 300,1200,2400 644159 Sysop: Hank Van Helmond. Searchlight shareware s/w. ASCII, IBM mono/coloured ANSI. Donation for full access. UNDER CONSTRUCTION: 9pm-8am Mon-Fri 300,1200,2400 4990946 Sysop: David Harrison (Mr Chainsaw). Searchlight shareware s/w. ASCII, IBM mono/coloured ANSI. No cost. THE VORTEX: 24hrs 300 853219 Sysop: (Proteus)/(Xaveira). Macridis Board II s/w. ASCII. If a voice answers, ask for the bulletin board. WELLINGTON MICROCOMPUTING SOCIETY:24hr 300,1275,R,1200,2400 836592 Sysop: Peter Cowley. Opus s/w. ASCII, ANSI. Requires membership of WMCS for full access ($30) WELLINGTON POLYTECH: 24hrs 1200,2400 842342 Sysop: Mark Wilson. OPUS s/w. ASCII, ANSI. No cost. Info on Polytech courses. WAUG SHORTS: 24hrs 300,1275,1200,2400 278817 Sysop: Allan Honey/David Wilson. Apple ][+ Dumboard s/w. ASCII. Requires membership of Wgtn. Apple UG. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 23 June, July & August Newsletter! FORSALE Amiga B2000 & Software Hardware : Amiga Model B2000 twin 3.5" drives 1 Megabyte memory West German manufactured mouse and keyboard ..............$2700 1081 Colour monitor ....................$ 500 2 MB memory expansion card .............$ 700 2090A Hard disk controller .............$ 550 40 meg ST506-interface Hard Disk .......$ 700 MPS 1000 printer .......................$ 400 Discovery 2400C modem ..................$ 450 Stereo Sound Digitiser .................$ 90 ======== $6090 or $5700 for package The hardware, I would prefer to sell as a single package - but I would consider selling individual items if someone out there makes me a reasonable offer. I only added the hard disk a month or two back - it makes working with the Amiga a lot friendlier and productive (especially after installing the 1.3 ROMs)! Software Leather Goddesses of Phobos (Adventure Game) $ 40 ChessMaster 2000 (chess game) $ 40 Dragon's Lair (6 disk game) $100 PageSetter (Desktop Publish) $150 AudioMaster (Sound Sampler) $ 40 ProWrite 2.0 (Word proc.) $ 90 Textcraft Plus (Word proc.) $ 40 Sonix (Music) $ 90 Deluxe Video 1.2 (Desktop video) $ 90 Metacomco Pascal 2.0 (Pascal Compiler) $ 80 TDI Modula-2 (Developers) (M2 Compiler) $ 90 100 disks (mostly filled with PD software) $150 Notably, I also have M2Sprint Modula-2 development system about to arrive from the States. I will be selling this for around $600 (but as it is yet to arrive, I still don't know the total costs involved in obtaining this package). I had expected to have it long ago - but the @#!$% sent it surface mail (when I rang up to order it, I was told the $US35 shipping was for Airmail!). For $US45 there is an upgrade to version 1.1. Contact Andrew Mercer, 85 Long Melford Rd, Palmerston North. Phone (063) 82-592 after 6pm. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 24 June, July & August Newsletter! FOR SALE Available from the club: Disk Storage boxes: 80 disk capacity, disk storage boxes. Price - $20 plus postage ($3 to $5 depending on location). 3.5" disks : $25/10, $240/100. Black disks in library case: $33/10 - because of the price difference we're not selling many of these so we won't bother getting any more in - get them why they last! Okimate20 black thermal ribbon : $15 Amiga1000 shielded printer cable : $15 (not for A500 or A2000) Software True BASIC with manuals ............. $50 Flight Simulator II & handbook ...... $40 Jet & handbook ...................... $30 Deep Space & handbook ............... $20 Contact : Nigel Freeman 160 Cleveland Tce., NELSON, New Zealand. Modem 1 x "NICE" modem, 300, 1200/75 baud, RS232 interface, suitable for A500 etc. $200, negotiable Contact : Steve Cook, ph. (04)357-108. WANTED Camera & Digiview Black & white camera and Digi View digitiser wanted Contact : Nigel Freeman 160 Cleveland Tce., NELSON, New Zealand. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 25 June, July & August Newsletter! HINTS & TIPS Fonts (From John Davis) A (seemingly) little known fact is that it is not necessary to have all the font dirs in the FONTS: directory. All that is required there are the .font headers, the directories with the actual font bodies may be anywhere on disk. This is very handy for two reasons. First, if you're running off floppies you can have the FONTS: dir on the main disk, with the headers pointing to several other disks, when you refer to a font, you will be prompted to insert the right disk to fetch the actual font. Secondly, if you are lucky enough to own a hard-disk, you can have all the .font files in one dir, which can be scanned really quickly without all the sub directories. This becomes more important as you get more fonts (one hard disk system I was using had in excess of 100 fonts !!! It took ages to fetch the font list). There are two ways you can achieve this, you can either use the program off the fish disks which will do it all for you, or you can just use NewZap to patch the .font files directly. With NewZap all you do is read in each .font file. In it you will see a pathname for each size of font. This is the pathname to get that size ... normally it will be fred/xx ( where fred is the fontname and xx is the size ). What you do is change this to be the whole pathname to the font eg dh0:fontbodies/fred/xx. Remember that the string is NULL terminated though!! Kickstart 1.2 & 1.3 co-resident Section 1 - Message Base 14-Jan-89 09:15 PM Subj: #3468 - 1.3 Upgrade (R) Geoff it is possible to have 1.2 and 1.3 switchable. Just solder a socket on top of 1.2 kickstart ROM but bend pin 12 outwards. Plug in 1.3 and also bend pin 12 outward. Now use a switch to apply 5v (from pin 21) to pin 12 on 1.2 or 1.3. The ROM which has the 5v applied won't work. I have seen it working. I have fitted 1.3 kickstart ROM to my 2000 and so far have not had any problems with programs that won't work but have indeed been advised that some programs may give problems. {since that was published it was found to be in error - see Sept-Oct newsletter) ZAP When searching for strings, NewZap doesn't find strings that cross a sector boundary (ie start in one sector and end in the next). eg try and find the string NEXT in the AmigaDOS 1.3 LIST command. The latest version I've tried is 3.18. Microline 183 Printer Driver from Peter Ingham (Auckland) The Feb. magazine had a request for a driver for an OKI Microline 183, I got a disk of drivers from Newmarket Computer Centre, which includes a driver for the OKI 192, which I'm reasonably sure is compatible with the 183. {Our printer driver disk, in the PD library, contains an Okidata_m192 driver. -ed} <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 26 June, July & August Newsletter! MEMBER FEEDBACK Real Programmers, Languages, ARP, Priorities from Steve Davis (Christchurch) It was quite amusing to read John Bickers "real programmers don't" comments, they certainly provoked a few chuckles. In response to his comments, I'd like to point out a growing trend amongst real programmers to not only listen to "powerful DIGITAL music" (does that meanmusic composed on VAXes? :-), but to actually make music. With the advent of cheap synthesisers (well, maybee relatively cheap would be a better term) and MIDI, a lot of programmers have been naturally progressing into playing with synthesis (and I'll personally vouch it is a lot of fun). Certainly synthesised music seems to be a common favourite with programmers, not only music such as DEVO's but also more 'pure' synthesised music, such as that produced by lsao /tomita or Tangerine Dream. {I've noticed a lot of 'trainee' programmers at work going about with little Martian like attachments - miniture headphones that seem to be permanently attached! -ed.} As for his assertion that 'real programmers don't use Modula- 2' ... surely he jests (well, actually I'm certain he jests, but I'm not going to let a chance to climb up on my high horse go by! :-). I use Modula-2 as part of my work (on large, real world projects). It is presently at the same level of acceptance commercially that C was about 5 years ago. Over the next few years, I predict it will become more widely accepted, at the moment only a few foward thinking organisations and the academic world use it. The biggest problem with C is it's lack of inbuilt version control and less than perfect system for separate compilation of units. I appreciate the elegagance if C's terse syntax, but when it comes to maintaing code, I'd much rather it was in Modula-2, as someone else's C code can be near impossible to understand {You can write unreadable code in any language - I even remember someone writing a Pascal program with all sorts of lurid identifiers which made it pretty difficult to follow the program flow (eg identifiers like Joe, Jane, Sex ... and code like WITH Jane DO BEGIN ... I'll leave the rest for your dirty minds). The philosophy of susinct, compact source code "you should be able to fit a whole procedure/function on screen" tends to produce the unreadable code - of course once your're intimately familiar with any language eg English! yu tend ta take lotsa short cuts! So C gurus tend to write programs for other C gurus to read - not the uninitiated! Modula-2 might gain more acceptance from C programmers (only just might mind you!) if there was a standard front end preprocessor (so they could define '{' as 'BEGIN' and '}' as 'END', and define macros like "%1+=%2" == "%1:=INC(%1,%2)" and a hundred and one other things [yes I KNOW that Modula-2 uses {} for sets!], also being able to intialise variables at declaration time would be nice. -ed.} I also read with interest your thoughts on things you'd like to see implemented in AmigaDOS. The news is all good on that front ... The ARP folks have written their own enhanced shell, which does have REAL pipes ala UNIX (using the PIP: handler that <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 27 June, July & August Newsletter! is part of Conman 1.3). Apart from that they have gone and taken all the good ideas of AmigaDOS 1.3 and extended upon them. It's still not perfect (your idea for name expansion would defintely be a nice addition), but it is a step in the right direction. I noticed your comment about info on task priorities, and will be working on something along those lines (together with an extended taskpri .. that can recognise the program names of commands loaded in background CLIs) for the next issue {of AmigaTECH}. By the way (acronyms are for wimps and IBM), feel free to include anything off AmigaTECH on your disks or in your magazine, the whole idea of public domain is to benifit the greatest number of people, and therefore we encourage the widest distribution of our contributors work possible. {Regarding acronyms - ARP is an acronym too you know! - the same overseas BBSs and networks that use things like your :-) and :-( {sideways smiley/sad faces} are the ones that use those terrible acronyms like BTW for 'by the way' - in fact I think Americans in general love abbreviating everything. Reading a CD ROM magazine showed me how annoying unexplained abbreviations can be. It's like jargon, a real pain to the uninitiated, an economical and precise communication for those who survive the intiation rites! -ed.} Sonix Scores, PD disks, Mouse Mats from Denise McQuarrie With regard to the request for a source of Sonix scores (Darin Bailey in the May newsletter), I have enclosed these lists from Seventeen Bit Software in England. They have a large number of PD music disks listed, Sonix and otherwise, and they are very good to deal with. they also sell commercial software at discount prices which makes many (not all) of the programs cheaper to buy than here, and as they and many other software places in Britain have a charge of 2.00 (N.Z. $6.00 approx) perrr item postage, it seems easier than buying from the U.S.A. When I ordered commercial software from Seventeen Bit it took 12 days from when I sent the order until the package arrived. I only have one PD disk from them so far, it has BIG FONTS, I will send you a copy for the library when I get the blank disks! Their magazine disk is quite good, have you seen it? It is good to see the price of commercial software coming down in N.Z. {Seventeen Bit Software "That bit better than the rest"! P.O. Box 97, Wakefield WF1 1XX, England. Ph. (England)924 366982 Mon-Sat 9-5:30, accept some credit cards.} A hint for anyone who thinks the proper mouse mats are too expensive, vinyl placemats available from kitchenware shops for about $2.00 make excellent mouse mats, most of them have patterns but if you're a bit conservative there are plain ones available! If you keep a cloth on hand and give it a quick wipe over while your disk is booting, you shouldn't have too much trouble with your mouse clogging up, and it runs very smoothly. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 28 June, July & August Newsletter! MEMBERS QUERIES Video Titling from Lawre Copp (Wellington) I have purchased a Video Camera for home movies. I have also connected the Amiga to the Video Recorder, the idea being to create titles and effects to edit with home movies to enhance them. Problem, have not found suitable programs on disk for this purpose. Can you help me or put me onto someone who is doing this? (ph. 04-368486). Mandelbrots, Mouse Buttons from R. Andrew (Palmerston North) What is 'Mandelbrot', and how is it pronounced? {Bernoili Mandelbrot is the name of a mathematician who has done a lot of work on a relatively new area of mathematics - fractal numbers. One particular set of numbers with interesting properties was discovered by him and named after him. Interesting displays can be produced by using a computer to generate this set of numbers, and then display a map of their distribution. The points in the Mandelbrot set are usually coloured black, and the surrounding points given colours dependant upon the 'speed' at which they are receding from the set. One of the interesting properties of fractal numbers is that you can examine them in infinitely increasing detail and find at every increase of magnification, yet more detail that is a small version of the whole. Like a mountain range that is made up of mountains, made up of peaks, made up of outcrops, made up of rocks, made up of sand ... each element looks like a small version of the whole - in fact fractals can be used to model real landscapes - hence you get 'fractal landscape generators'. Mandelbrot is a French name and therefore probably should be pronounced with a silent 'T" on the end - But it is usually Anglosised and pronounced with a 'T' as you would expect in the English language (I don't know how he pronounces his own name). - ed.} Is there anywhere I can obtain one of these little switches that go under the mouse buttons? My left mouse button is rather stuffed. {There are a number of switches used in various versions of the Amiga mouse, the most unreliable ones are the cheap metal dome switches. They are used in cheap calculators and joysticks, so you might be able to extract one from a dead one of those. They are usually held in place by a strong transparent plastic (like selotape), but must be positioned accurately to work properly - If they aren't dead centre over their contacts on the circuit board, or they aren't being depressed right in the middle, they won't work properly. If your mouse button isn't working, try pressing it right in the middle of the button, rather than just the edge. -ed.} <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 29 June, July & August Newsletter! PAL/NTSC from Russell Robinson (Wellington) About the PAL/NTSC versiom problem - A friend with an Amiga obtained a copy of a game from the US which seems to have the same problem as your SuperBase program - It recognises it's on a PAL machine, and puts out a message saying 'NTSC version only', then stops. Oddly, it did work once so he knows it can. Could you tell me how you tricked Superbase into running? Games for Children from John (Wellington) Does anybody know of childrens games for the Amiga. Educational and non-violent (ie killing and shooting to a minimum) preferred. The age group I am looking for is 5 years and under. This may sound young, but I have a 3 year old niece that can open the disk icon, startup photon-paint with the mouse, pick colours, and draw with coordination (I'll tell you, 'this saves paper!'). DPaint Updates, Hypercard, Amiga Emulators, ARP 1.3 from Isaac Freeman A couple of years ago my family and I visited the States. A brand new Amiga 500 was waiting for us when we got back, so we bought several pieces of software. Amoung them was DeluxePaint II. After we returned home I opened up the box, filled in the registration card, but decided it was not really worth going to the bother of sending it away (I figured that because it didn't have a box for country, they weren't interested in anyone from overseas) and I filed it away for future reference. Needless to say, it is now totally lost. I have just heard the Deluxe Paint III has been released, with EHB support and new animation features. Apparently you can get an update for a few tens of U.S. dollars by sending them the cover of your previous manual. So my question is this: will they accept a cover from an unregistered person from a small Island they have never heard of? Also, will they sent me the whole box, with a manual and lots of colourful advertisements or just a disk, and can I run the program with only 512k anyway? Is there a PAL version yet, and (assuming there isn't one yet) will they send me one when it arrives for no extra charge? {Usually the idea of sending in part of the manual is to prove you own a copy, to accomodate those who haven't registered. An update to a new version will normally be a copy of the complete product. I think it works with PAL ok. -ed.} I have been reading a bit about Hypercard for the Macintosh lately, and I came to the conclusion that there was no reason why it could not be done on an Amiga. In fact, it should be even more powerful on an Amiga, because on the Mac it was designed for, the lowest-common-denominator hardware, a 512k "Fat Mac", which is far inferior to an Amiga 1000. The program is just crying out to be transported to a machine with multitasking and colour graphics. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 30 June, July & August Newsletter! Now, if someone smart were to embark on writing a similar program, which was compatible enough with the original Hypercard that stacks could be swapped between the two programs, and then released it into shareware, or the public domain it could increase sales of the Amiga no end. {See new products section. -ed.} I've heard a rumour that the people at IBM are preparing an Amiga Emulator for their PS/2 line (While the busy people at Commodore are supposed to be preparing a PS/2 Emulator for the Amiga!). It'll only support 256 colours on screen at once, and won't have true multitasking, but it's interesting to know that someone in IBM is finally paying attention. {I very much doubt that IBM would bother emulating an Amiga, it is probable that someone will make a PS/2 compatible bridgecard for the Amiga. -ed} Is there a version of ARP that takes in the updated features of Workbench 1.3 yet? I have had to go back to the old Resident command (and also the old Protect command to put a "p" flag on the appropriate files), because the ARP version doesn't accept "Resident Shell-seg" in the startup-sequence. Is there any great advantage in having this resident anyway? {The new version of ARP - version 1.3, adopts the new AmigaDOS 1.3 features, and has a shell of its own, called ASH. -ed.} LIBRARY UPDATES We now have AmigaLibDisks (from Fred Fish) up to #236. Our catalog disk has been updated, the latest one is dated August '89. Numerous other odd disks have been added to the library. COMPREHENSION TEST As noted in our member information section, we don't object to donations!, but I am rather surprised at the number of people who interpret the line, on the subscription form, that reads : "Newsdisk subscription $2.80 each, $28/10" as meaning a years newsdisk subscription costs twenty eight dollars and ten cents. It may be that people assume there are 12 newsdisks per year, and that that is some sort of discount value for 12 disks. But we aren't into making a profit, and so can't usually give discounts, $2.80 per disk represents the cost of a blank disk plus 40c postage. Anyway thanks for all those 10c donations! <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 31 June, July & August Newsletter! LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Disolving Disks, & Soggy News from Jock Nisbet (Whangarei) When I first got my Amiga I thought that 10 disks of 880k would see me right for a few months. I was wrong, and fully agree with Mr. Butterfield who said "if you get an offer of 50 disks at a reasonable price, take them - you will need them" - how true. I recently got 100 disks and now find myself needing more. Apart from a few friends who simply grabbed some saying that I would not need them all, I simply cannot understand where the hell they went. A Warning - for any members stupid enough to do it. I put my copy of Amiga World on top of the toilet prior to giving it a little read in seclusion. I went to do something else first and returned to find the magazine IN the toilet. I pulled it out and, having dried wet papers in the microwave before, placed the damp mag in the microwave, and gave it a couple of minutes. I opened the microwave door and on pulling it out, found that the heat from the drying moisture had melted the binding glue and all the pages fell to the floor. So be warned. {I was very tempted to send that bit of wisdom to the "Hors D'Oeuvres" section of Amiga World! -ed.} Programming SIG, PD Disk Requests from Jeff Thomson (Masterton) I like the idea of devoting part of the newsdisk/magazine to a programming SIG, I hope to see a lot of assembler stuff on it, when I get around to writing some decent code, I'll send it in. I read in the magazine that you have handed the PD library over to Rex Moir, to get hold of the PD disks, do I still write to you or do I go directly to Rex? {Send requests for disks to me as usual, I'll foward them to Rex as appropriate. -ed.} Places of PI from Steven Christall (Nelson) One of my friends is still trying to calculate Pi to 600,000 decimal places with the little program from NZAmigaUG#8 (by Stephen Jones), and frequently comes over to my house to do more real things on an Amiga. Every night he just stares at the screen for an hour praying. I personally think the program has crashed and the Amiga has again done itself proud maintaining screen updates and mouse control along with very persuasive clunking of the disk drive. If it does work, however doubtful, what are you to do with it then? Print it out? Not a pretty thought. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 32 June, July & August Newsletter! Amiga to AT connections from Isaac Freeman. A friend of mine (who owns an AT clone) and I are interested in transfering files between our computers - not for any particular reason, just to prove it can be done. As I understand it we need a cable to connect the Amiga 500's serial port to the IBM's, and then if we both run telecommunications programs the computers will think the cable is a modem and transfer files down it. Will this work? As to your idea of simulating the entire universe in real time - I have a theory that the ultimate computer/role-playing game would be something like that, except that you would be in total control of it. For example, if you wanted to fly the latest horribly beweaponed military aircraft, you could just walkup to the hangar "turn off" the guards (or better still, just change the part of their minds that remembers what their job is), fly it away and reactivate them again. The program could be called "God", and when it comes out for the Amiga 37000 it will totally destroy human society, because it will allow everyone to have their own universe, and nobody would ever talk to any other "real" person again. Then again, perhaps this has already happened, and we are all just computer simulations of our real selves, which are somewhere else, controlling some other universe! Since I got this computer, about 18 months ago now, I have had seven disks suddenly develop hard errors. I am just now beginning to suspect that there is something wrong with my disk drive. Would a head cleaner help, and how much do they cost? {Firstly I'd ask what sort of disks you're using, if they're good quality disks, I'd check their surface for damage. If they look ok, and can be reformatted then they're not hard errors. If they're good quality disks and the surface is ok, then it might be the drive, so cleaning may help. If the disk surface is scratched or blemished, then better disk care is called for. We did have some disk drive cleaners, but have sold them all. Despite some advertising on disk cleaners, modern burnished disks don't clog up the read/write heads so cleaning is seldom needed. Use only 'wet' drive cleaners - those that use a solvent like isopropyl alcohol, not dry abrasive ones. -ed.} John Bickers says that the A3000 exists (at least in West Germany). Are it's details the same as those published in an earlier newsletter? If so, (and unless Commodore does something incredibly stupid) it will blow both the Mac II and the NeXT out of the water. As I see it, the key to the high-end market is the American Colleges - why should they buy those other machines when they can get a more powerful, IBM, Mac and Unix compatible computer, which will run the same software that students can buy for their Amiga 500/1000/2000/2500s and, above all, they can buy it for a lower price? The only problem I can think of is that the Macs have more sophisticated software available, about 70% of which won't run on the Mac II yet anyway. Hopefully someday soon we will have a version of HyperCard for the Amiga. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 33 June, July & August Newsletter! Is there very much difference between the Gamma release of 1.3 and the official release? {The Gamma version was never a 'release', all those pre-release versions are for testing purposes only, and almost certainly have bugs in them. The Gamma versions of 1.3 have a number of major bugs, some serious ones specifically affecting hard disks. So everyone, PLEASE throw away those buggy versions, and get the real thing!, either from Commodore or your local Amiga dealer, or us. -ed.} Magazine disks, Disk Drive Writeprotect From Peter Ingham Megadisk certainly crams a lot in with the compaction they use, and their text display program is very good. {Is that meant to be a subtle slight on our text display program!? - Well John Bickers has just been updating our text display program, now 'intuitionised', and much better. -ed.} In stark contrast the Auckland Groups disk must have been through an 'expander' prior to saving and needs a compacter to redisplay it. I found their disk to be thin on content (both quality and volume wise) it has a flashy look to it but not a lot of meat under all the glitter. {Their display program is inovative, but I must admit all the illustrations do seem to use up a lot of space on their disks. - ed.} On the issue of writing to write-protected disks, I admire your stance in demanding proof to back up the rumours. I feel that, as you suggest, the rumours are based on failure of copy protect mechanisms etc, if (as you assert) the Amiga has specific hardware in the drive to enforce protection then it's more than a little difficult for mere software to start poking around (unless the hardware is bypassed or broken) another possible source of some of the rumours is likely to be other equipment (eg: the venerable AppleII) which implemented write-protection by simply reading the write-protect state in software and electing not to write to the disk. It was quite possible (and I wrote a disk-copier that did it) to ignore the write-protect state if desired (my copier did 2 additional prompts <requiring both a positive & negative response> to ensure you really wanted to write - but it saved yanking the disk out & peeling off the tab). {Personally I think the write protect function on floppy and hard disks should be implimented by a switch on the disk drive - It is no problem to flip a toggle switch as you insert a disk, and far easier to change that toggle switch than pull the disk out and mess with write protect tabs - On my old computer I had a drive with a home-made three postion switch - WriteProtectAlways, FollowReadWriteTab, and WriteRegardless, it had a flashing LED to indicate the latter state! -ed.} <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 34 June, July & August Newsletter! A New Amiga Users First Impressions by P. Ingham I've been playing with computers in a professional capacity for the last 15 years, although I don't think of myself as an 'old timer' the million dollar plus monsters that I started with are interesting to compare with today's micros : Main Memory capacity: 60KB (one of the largest in the country at the time!!) 15KB memory upgrades were $US50K and were about three cubic feet. Maximum possible memory: 190KB Clock Speed : 1MHz (later upgraded to a turbo 2MHz version) Disk Capacity : 40MB (30 millisecond) As we all know, things in this business keep on getting faster, smaller and, particularly, cheaper (although when you've just shelled out a few thou' of hard earned readies it doesn't seem so). For the the last seven years my professional involvement has been with 'micros' (although when compared with the above specifications maybe they should be thought of as extremely small mainframes). My personal involvement with micros commenced in 1979 with one of the early Apple II's which I lavished several thousand dollars (not to mention hours) on, only to have it stolen at the beginning of this year. Depreciation being what it is (and Insurance Companies being what they are) I ended up with hardly enough to buy a C64 let alone a REAL machine. In my professional capacity I work with a networked, Multi-user, Multiprocessor, Multitasking micro which was designed from the ground up to work in that type of environment (that means that all the software fits this environment and is neat, tidy and nice to use). My current machine is a 20Mhz '386 with 20MB of memory and 180MB of fast hard disk (retail around $US35k). What I would like is a similar system, that's good at games, for not much money!! After some negotiation with the family and a wait of 6 months (I wonder how many of you have heard/experienced this story before), I have enough to buy a "REALLY USEFUL" machine (well at least useful). The only problem is - what do I get?? Well, what are the options? The major determining factors in selecting a system are cost, and what you want it to do. My budget had an upper limit of $3.5K (but otherwise as little as possible). My reason for purchase?? Well, many people tell themselves (and others) that they bought a micro for rational reasons such as Home finance, Education (of your children) etc etc. Then there's the real reason which, if you're being honest with yourself, runs something like "to play games", or "because I want one". Not very rational, but at least honest. Having decided that I really wanted a games machine to have fun with, the choice was half made - get the best games machine going!! <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 35 June, July & August Newsletter! My evaluation: A IBM compatible "PC" - some very nice applications, but based on a very primitive and poorly designed operating environment, and a (comparatively) primitive hardware base. This is being addressed (slowly) but any PC owner will be painfully aware of the incompatibilities that arise between differing 3rd-party products. Any problem will eventually be solved with the number of developers working on it but basically this environment is a mess because it is trying to do things it was never designed to do. In typical fashion IBM's solution is to throw lots of money at the problem (in excess of 500 programmers were working on OS/2 at one stage) and expect the users to discard a significant proportion of their existing investment if they want the new advantages. An Apple II GS - compatible with my software library, but not with the hardware left by the thief!! This system is a little like the PC - getting to be a bit of a mess as every new feature is grafted on. Besides, I felt like a change and all my Apple software is getting very dated and wouldn't get the best of of a 'GS. Therefore I'd be up for a significant software repurchase which eliminates one of the advantages. An Apple Mac - Not really a good games machine, Expensive software and hardware. A C64 - cheap, lots of software, system not too much of a mess. But I couldn't see myself being satisfied with the latest rehash of a 8 year old design based on an 8-bit CPU. I eliminated all the 'minor league' players as being inadequately supported by the manufacturer (they simply don't have the market strength to provide the support and chance of protecting the investment in the long-term), and having too few users to generate the software revenues that cause great software to be developed. That left two choices in my book: Atari ST's and the Amiga. I must admit it was a close choice, from a purely hardware perspective, the machines are roughly equivalent. The major difference (from my perspective) was the local support available, and the quality (and size) of the local user community. One thing I did like about the Amiga was the Multitasking operating system (having worked with one on micros for the last 7 years, I know the value of having it even if you don't initially need it). I bought an Amiga 500 with the A501 memory exp/Clock, an external disk drive and 1084 monitor. As I write this, I've had the machine for just over a month. So I'm no expert on it. But I've had enough time for the initial blindness to faults to disappear, and also for some of the bewilderment to subside. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 36 June, July & August Newsletter! What are my opinions now of the Amiga? 1. Amiga software is expensive (for a home computer) and of very variable quality. 2. The documentation from Commodore for more advanced users (ie: Manufacturers Technical manuals) appears to be non-existent, hence the series by Abacus et al. The manuals as supplied do not cover all the facilities of the CLI (for example). 3. The environment seems to be confused as to whether it is text based (CLI) or WIMP based (workbench). 4. The user group community appears to be very strong (given the support I've seen from the supplier, I'm not surprised). I was impressed at the volume of PD software available, soon I hope to know what the quality of it is like!! 5. The Hardware & software built into the Amiga are impressive - if only a few more commercial developers would take full advantage of it!! 6. Someone somewhere is making generous margins without providing the support that those margins are supposed to pay for. I'm happy to pay for quality product, but "Product" goes beyond that which is inside the cellophane wrapper. Since purchasing the Amiga, I have spent over $800 on manuals (3) and games (5), the service I've had from the 3 dealers I've been to has consisted primarily of someone to take the money. Would I buy an Amiga tomorrow knowing what I know now ... probably. Would I recommend an Amiga to my best friend ... at the moment probably, but with reservations. I'd like to add a Hard disk in the near future, but at the moment my hands are staying firmly in my pockets until I can be sure I'm not throwing money away. I'm hoping that more contact with user groups, and exposure to some of the (supposedly) high-quality, cheap P.D. (incl. Shareware) software will mellow these criticisms. Maybe I've just had a bad run, I certainly hope so. I'm still looking for dealer who I don't mind spending money with - the last one I tried had a book marked at $90 that "was supposed to be" $95, that I later discovered I could have got through a user group for $72. Needless to say, that dealer has a door I will probably never enter again. {That comment will probably make the dealers tear their hair out - the user group you bought it from was probably making no profit - the dealers 20% margin above that is actually rather modest compared with the 50% to 100% markup seen on some items. -ed.} AMIGA 500 SCORE CARD Hardware Capabilities:9 Standard Software:7 Documentation:3 Supplementary Documentation:0 Dealer Support:? <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 37 June, July & August Newsletter! ARTICLE What is an ANIM ? by Brian Chapman (Nelson) ANIM, developed by Aegis and SPARTA,Inc., is a file format for the storing of animated sequences on the Amiga. It allows storage and fast playback of sequences of frames using a minimum of space. The technique works as follows: The first image in an animation is saved as a standard IFF picture. The next frame saves only changes from the last frame to this one. That cuts down the size of a file tremendously, with a multi-megabyte animation being compressed to under 880K, for example. The more changes that happen from one screen to the next in your animation, the larger the resulting ANIM will be. Of course, the resolution used also affects the size of the ANIM. The higher the resolution, the larger the ANIM. The ANIM format is used by a number of Amiga developers and is endorsed by Commodore-Amiga,Inc. 3D animation packages such as Aegis VideoScape 3D, Hash:Animation Series and others also allow you to save ANIM format 3-D animations. Programs such as Electronic Arts Deluxe Paint III allow you to create ANIM format animations using simple painting tools. These ANIMS may be used with ANiMagic and player programs like Lights Camera Action. Laws of Programming There is always one item on the screen menu that is mislabelled and should read "ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE". At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer, you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer. Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English and you will discover that programmers cannot write in English. Efforts to improve a program's "user friendliness" invariably lead to work in improving the users' "computer literacy". Hofstadter's Law: Any project will take longer to complete than expected, even if Hofstadter's Law is taken into account. Definition of a Programmer A programmer is one who passes himself as an exacting expert on the basis of being able to turn out, after innumerable debugs, an infinite series of incomprehensive answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents of problematical accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to have asked for the information in the first place. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 38 June, July & August Newsletter! REVIEWS MVP-Forth by Peter Moore I recently purchased MVP-Forth from Mountain View Press and was disappointed at what I received. My advice to budding Forth programmers (are there any?) is to consider Multi-Forth or JForth which are pretty cheap ($US89 & $US100 in a 6 month old article I've just read) and have good reviews. There isn't actually anything wrong with MVP-Forth - in fact I am rather looking forward to working with it, it's just that for your money ($US195) you get the usual unoptimised, unexpanded PD version (!) (from Fish #something-or-other) and a whole set of books - some of which are excellent, some of which are totally useless ( e.g assembly listings for 8080 M.P.U in an Amiga set!). O.K, so I now have enough information to work with the editor and create source code files and I can probably figure out how to work with libraries and do assembly definitions to some extent. However it'll be by great detective work with the bare minimum of information. I didn't receive anything remotely resembling a "Programmers Kit". Forth is the language you either love or hate (I love it but most people hate it - probably because they don't understand it or are too lazy to write the extensions you need to do much with it (can't blame them, really)). But it's a really elegant language and deserves a closer look. I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has experience with MVP-Forth, particularly in interfacing to libraries. All of this trying out languages, by the way, is my attempt at finding something I can program anything in without wasting lots of time trapped on those steep and treacherous learning curves. I hate C to my very intestines; I love Forth but it's a misunderstood cripple. I'll probably go with Modula 2 when I can afford it. Sublogic Jet by Peter Moore I have also had a look at Jet by Sublogic ( I am a great fan of FS-II and regularly practise ILS approaches at dusk in cross-winds and turbulence with a 400 ft cloud base and 50% unreliability set ) but Jet has me totally cracking-up. O.K, so the F16 climbs like a Piper Tomahawk with carb. icing - perhaps it has something to do with beginners mode and maybe that's why the MIGs come at you at 5 Knots too! Anyway I used the disk for something else and do all my combat practise with Interceptor which is brill'. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 39 June, July & August Newsletter! Sculpt Animate 4D review by Brent Bary This is BytebyBytes latest offering it is an execelent program. It offers new speed improvements and new tools as follows: (1) 68020/30 and 68881/82 support standard (2) Better file requsters you can see whats where on disks easier (3) New helix tool for screw threads etc (4) Protractor (5) Grids for accurate verticie placement (6) User definable coordinate entry (7) User definable keystroke macros (8) Keyboard entry of 3D font libraries (9) Cut and paste hierarchies (10 New scanline rendering modes (good for testing a scene before doing a full trace) (11) Improved anti-aliasing (those jagged looking edges (blocky graphics)) (12) Animation scripting language (13) Keyboard controlable animation speed (only in wire frame for pal, machines you'll have to set this manually for painting snapshot and photo, modes) (14) New metal texture (a cross between mirror and shiny) (15) Support for single frame controllers (this allows you over 16 million colours when recording to video tape broardcast quality). I can't afford this expensive gear yet! One thing I'll say is this program is very well documented with ample examples, and if I can use it, any one with patience and time can. You can't expect to get anywhere if you rush in like a bull at a gate! Follow all the examples. The program is expensive : $US250 to registered owners of sculpt animate 3D, $US400 otherwise, $1200 from RuralCom. If you like graphics and animation I highly recommend it, it's easier to use than other programs of its type, read the Turbo SilverSV review. By the way I forgot to mention I have an A2620; card 68020, 68881, 2meg 32bit memory, but I know how long it takes to do a trace on 68000 with SA3D - 16 hours for one photo mode image 352*564 (thats overscan pal). IF you're going to get this program get lots of memory. That's the same for a lot of programs like this. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 40 June, July & August Newsletter! Turbo Silver SV review by Brent Bary This is Impulses latest offering. The SV stands for stereo vision, Yes you can use it with LCD 3D glasses I haven't upgraded as yet so I'll tell you about the info I've received : (1) 16 colour wire frame stills and animations (2) Point-less editor (3) Faster scroll without redraw delay (faster trace by 20%, and this program was fast to start with) (4) Anim Opt 5 file support (used by 'The Director' etc) (5) Sound scripting (sound with your anim.s) (6) New movie commands (fadein-out) (7) Better heuristics in solid model mode (almost impossible to tell between solid model and full trace) (8) As I said stereo pictures and anim.s) (9) Snap to grid command in the editor (10) Automatic draw with add points (you don't have to put the edges on anymore) (11) Dynamic moveable world in full trace no limitation to the size of your world (12) Hires editor, smaller points means finer control over object creation (13) New textures; grid, rainbow, wood, and marble (14) BUG fixes Now I as yet haven't spent much time with this program but I'll tell you it's complicated and very hard to learn, but has features not found in SA4D, like brush wrapping (eg pictures wrapped around any object), user definable textures, and attributes like transperency; you're not stuck to the ones provided. As a comparison, some scenes that it takes SA4D an hour to trace, can be done in 30 mins in turbo silver (thats with my 68020,68881 board with 2megs 32bit RAM, I haven't bothered to test it on a 68000 I'm too impatient!!). I still think SA4Ds' traces are slightly better. But to be fair, I haven't spent anywhere near as much time with this program because it scares me off due to there being no step by step tutorials in the manual. There is one quickstart tutorial at the beginning and a few in the rest of the manual. With the manual for reference, time, patience, and experimentation are all that are required. Impulse now have a tutorial video but I presume it's in NTSC standard video format {American TV video standard}. I've asked them if they can have PAL versions done for us poor critters, I hope they can?? {costs a lot to convert NTSC videos to PAL, but they may do it as there are as many Amigas outside the USA as within. -ed.}. I hope to spend more time with the program to see if I can learn to use it better, or at least as much time as I've spent with SA4D. I'm sure it's a good program. Version 3.0 cost $US129 and the SV upgrade with the glasses will cost $US99.95, pretty good I reckon (registered users price). <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 41 June, July & August Newsletter! Review of the Commodore Amiga A590 Hard Drive. An Application User's View: By Andrew Mercer The Commodore A590 Hard Drive is a small unit, with a height and cross-section similar in size to the Commodore 1010 external 3.5-inch disk drive - but about twice its length. It easily plugs into the expansion bus on the side of the Amiga 500, and is designed to fit unobtrusively into the surrounding environment - even it's case has been designed to closely match that of the Amiga 500. Installing the A590 is a piece of cake; simply remove the plastic cover covering the Expansion bus on the side of the Amiga 500, and carefully slide the A590 into position so that it is plugged into the bus. The A590 has it's own power supply, so you must also connect the power pack and find an extra mains socket. After that, all you need do is adjust the four DIP switches on the back of the hard drive to suit your set up - i.e. if you have an Amiga with Kickstart 1.3 ROM chips you can configure the drive as Auto-Booting, otherwise use the Non Auto-Boot setting. The A590 is activated simply by switching on the Amiga, and (on a 1.3 machine) will automatically boot up Workbench. Fortunately, the Hard Drive with which I was supplied already had Workbench 1.3 installed, so there was no need for me to worrying about configuring the software on the disk (see elsewhere in the review). Also supplied on the hard disk was a demo entitled "COUNTRY". This was run automatically from the startup-sequence during boot up - after a digitized voice said something about the remarkable performance of the drive ("Faster than a Speeding Bullet" being the term used), it then proceeded to play some digitized country music songs in the background. Suffice to say, the novelty soon wore off - there is only so much "sweetie-pie" tunes about purdy lil country gals, horsies, and walking in what cows do, that a guy can take!!! While this demo showed some of the "nifty" things you can do with an Amiga and a hard drive, I instead opted to regain a bit of extra room from the hard disk. Faster than a Speeding Bullet? Being one who has become accustomed to exceptionally long startups, the speed of the boot-up from the hard-disk was phenomenal. Not even time enough to have a quick browse through the introductory page of the manual. I didn't really time how long it took, except to say that booting from the hard disk is much much much faster than booting from floppies. So you can put all sorts of nice little features into your startup-sequence, and not have to worry about the extra time that it is going to take up. Fast Fonts, resident commands, background Virus Checkers - NO problem! Loading programs from the drive was no problem either, in fact, it makes the Amiga a far better, more responsive machine to use. No sooner than having clicked on their Icons, programs such as DELUXE PAINT and AUDIOMASTER are ready for use. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 42 June, July & August Newsletter! Even TEXTCRAFT PLUS (which has the longest disk access times of any program that I have ever used) seems nice to use! And you simply would not believe just how quick it is to load a complex SONIX score! Increased Versatility: The other big benefit of a hard disk, besides the great speed increase, is the sheer volume of information that can be put on the disk. This means that the same disk has my Workbench, Word Processors and Text Editors, Graphics, Music, Communications, and Compiler programs all ready for use. Not only this, but the same disk is used for all the data files associated with these programs, as well as utilities, and anything else that I use on a (semi-) regular basis. I need never do any disk swaps ever again! Because everything is on the same disk, it becomes far easier to move from one program to another, and make some real use of the Amiga's multitasking abilities. Being able to switch from Word Processor to Spreadsheet, then back again - and finally into a Communications package to redial that BBS number that you're having so much difficulty getting through to, makes you wonder how you ever survived before without these features! The Warning: Well okay, so-far I've portrayed the addition of a hard drive to your Amiga as the best thing since sliced bread - but ... there are a few other things that you should know ... Transfering software onto the hard drive is not so easy as you might think. With some programs, you are able to simply drag the program icon into the appropriate drawer representing an area on the hard drive. Some other programs are supplied complete with special routines for installing the software onto the hard drive. But then ... you get programs that require a lot mucking about with before you can eventually get them to work. The problem here, is NOT the hard disk, but the way that some software developers have set up their programs. The programs that suffer from these problems invariably require special data files that do not appear on the Workbench screen. Therefore, to copy these programs, you need copy all the associated data files. With other programs (especially compilers) you must create batch files making all the necessary assignments so that you can run the software. As you may already have guessed - all this requires a fairly extensive knowledge of the CLI. To make things easier, utilities such as the Shell and special programs such as CLImate or DirectoryMaster would be stongly recommended. I found that SONIX had a nice way of getting around this problem. In addition to the Sonix Icon, there are three Drawer Icons. SCORES contains all the included Sonix scores, INSTRUMENTS contains all the instruments required by these scores, and MISCELLANEOUS contains all the special data files required to run Sonix. Therefore, to successfully transfer Sonix onto a hard disk, you need simply drag across the Sonix program icon, and the three drawers associated with it. Well done, Aegis! Memory Expansion Feature: On browsing through the manual, I discovered that the A590 <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 43 June, July & August Newsletter! packed an extra surprise. It has the option of memory expansion! That is, the circuit board inside the A590 has several empty sockets. These have been left so as to give the user the option of adding up to an additional 2 Megabytes of ram, using 256K-bit DRAM chips. Therefore, this saves the purchaser of an A590 having to buy an Insider board or similar expansion board if they want to expand their Amiga 500 beyond 1 Megabyte. Therefore, this makes the A590 even better value for money. My congratulations to the clever person at Commodore who came up with this idea! Fortunately, the price of DRAM chips now seems to be falling - so adding memory to your Amiga 500 may soon be cheaper than ever before. I do, however, find this feature slightly annoying - because I am the proud owner of an Amiga 2000. I decided on the 2000 because I believed that in the long run, it would be far cheaper and easier to expand. Having subsequently expanded it to a total memory size of 3 Megabytes, and more recently, adding my own hard disk - I now find that I can just as easily expand an Amiga 500 to the same configuration - AND the total cost is considerably cheaper than that for the 2000! Still, at least I can sit back comfortably in my chair, feet up on the desk, and continue to work via the detachable keyboard resting on my lap. Ever try doing that with an Amiga 500? General Comments: Built into the A590 is a small fan designed to prevent the internals of the A590 from overheating, and so keep the hard drive circuitry within a suitable operating temperature range. The A500 owners, on whose machines the A590 was being run, mentioned that the low humming noise eminating from the fan took some geting use to. Being a hardened user of an Amiga 2000, my reply was generally "Noise ?! What Humming Noise ??" From looking at the construction, the hard drive seems to be rather solid. It survived the courier trip to my address, and the subsequent return trip to Commodore Business Machines (NZ) with no problems at all. Not to mention the fact that it was being moved round quite a bit; to a local Amiga User Group meeting, and to the homes of those it did the evaluations. Not that we would recommend dropping one of these things to find out just how tough it really is, but more to say that provided it is treated fairly carefully, you can be assured of many years of faithful service from your A590 hard drive. Very careful attention to detail seems to have been payed to the design of the A590. Not only does it match the Amiga 500's case, but it fits very well in beside the Amiga, and the power and hard drive indicator lights are very clear and easy to see. One comment that I received in this respect is that the addition of the hard drive unit takes up some of that precious desk space. This mainly affects those using specially designed computer desks. You could conceivably connect the hard drive to your Amiga via a special cable (the way that some similar third party products <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 44 June, July & August Newsletter! connect up). In fact, this is the way you would have to go about things if using an Amiga 1000. Theoretically, you could move the hard drive somewhere so that it didn't take up your desk space. But then you would have to go to the trouble of shielding the cable from outside interferences caused by any devices generating or using RF frequency signals. As such, the slight loss in available desk space is only a small price to pay for the vast increases in speed and storage space obtained through the addition of the hard drive. Given a few weeks of use, you will probably claim that the small sacrifice in desk space was the best move you ever made. Fortunately, the A590 is much smaller than its more bulkier competition. Conclusion: As you can probably tell from the tone of this review, I was very impressed by the A590 Hard Drive. I suspect that the internal drive mechanism was not SCSI (obviously not when the wholesale cost of just the internal SCSI mechanisms alone can cost over $1000 for 20-Megs), but, nonetheless, the overall performance was pretty quick - it performs about the same as the ST-506 drive now installed in my Amiga 2000. It left many experienced Amiga floppy drive users near speechless. And with the FastFileSystem in Workbench 1.3, it means Amiga users no longer need sit and twiddle their thumbs when opening windows with a large number of icons in them. Using application programs also becomes much more enjoyable because you no longer need wait for the Amiga to retrieve/save large amounts of data to/from disk. As such, the designers of the drive have wisely opted for a performance/price trade off - i.e. provide nearly all the same performance, for only a fraction of the cost! For all the real high performance freaks (with correspondingly high bank balances) you can daisy-chain a high performance SCSI drive through the A590 via the SCSI port provided on the back. Another good thing to note is that the unit I was supplied with was equipped with an Epson-manufactured drive mechanism. Suffice to say that Commodore has opted to use high quality, reputable drive mechanisms with this product - and not some of the currently available cheaper Asian-produced mechanisms with more than a slight tendancy to die three-days after the warranty runs out. I also think that the provision for memory expansion within the hard drive unit itself is also an excellent feature. In order to obtain the most from the A590 hard drive, you really need to have an Amiga with at least 1 Megabyte of memory, because the driver seems to take up a whopping 120K of main memory. Allowing A590 users to easily expand their Amigas far beyond 1 Megabyte makes Amiga owners much more receptive to this "slight" loss in available work space. And if you still don't think that the addition of a hard drive is going seriously increase the versatility of your Amiga, then I suggest you have a chat to any existing hard drive owner, and see what they think. If ever given the opportunity to work on an Amiga equipped with a hard drive, I suggest you go for it - and experience the difference. I have not been given an official price by Commodore yet (rumours suggest either $1495 or $1750)- but I imagine that at <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 45 June, July & August Newsletter! around the $1500 mark, the A590 would have to be one of the best buys you could currently get for you Amiga. Admittedly, you would most probably survive and achieve what you want to do without installing a hard drive, but once you've made the switch, you'll wonder just how you ever got along without one! Especially if make extensive use of your Amiga for running application or business software! I'll leave you with the words uttered to me by users when they realised that their time with the drive was up, and it had to be shipped back. "Oh No! Just a little bit more time! Pleeease ... !) A Hacker's View: by David Dustin I was given the hard drive by Andrew on the night of the Manawatu Amiga User Group Meeting. We had already set up an Amiga 500 (V1.3) to demonstrate the hard drive to the other members of the group. The hard drive connected perfectly with only a slight problem trying to find a spare power point as we had already used up most of them in the room. After our plug problems, we powered the hard drive up. No problems. The drive booted with only a slight delay while it checked DF0: for a disk. Then it proceeded to load Workbench. The overall loading time was greatly reduced from the normal disk access. After copying files around from floppy to Hard Drive and HD to floppy, I was impressed. Another thing that impressed me was the amount of data that could fit onto the one device. I have used Hard Drives before, but this was one of the best that I have used. After the meeting I took the hard drive home. I ran into the same problem that we had at the meeting; not enough power points. That took only a few minutes to fix. The next major problem came when I tried to plug it into my machine. It fitted perfectly, but, when you turned the power on, it would not bring up the Workbench Hand. I tried many times to fix this. By removing the drive and other devices. I tried just about every combination of things plugged in or out. Still it would not work. Then came the crunch! I looked in the manual. And there it was. The DIP switches. I quickly rectified the problem and was away. After I powered up the machine, I found that the hard drive was already 59% full. That was no good. I had to fix the problem. I formatted the drive and copied Workbench 1.3 onto it. That was better, only 7% full. The next stage came in testing the compatibility of the drive with other software. First step came in installing ARP1.3 onto the hard drive. Something that normally took about 5 minutes only took about 2. This was a great improvement. By now I was getting annoyed with the speed of loading of the program disk, so I copied it onto a blank disk and rewrote the startup-sequence. I found that I could use the command BINDDRIVERS to activate the machine (I have a 1.2 machine <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 46 June, July & August Newsletter! in case you didn't know). Then I just reassigned all of the devices to the hard drive eg. LIBS - DEVS. This cut the loading time down to 30 seconds from around 4 minutes. Once the boot disk was finished, I set about working with the hard drive. The drive was working perfectly, until, about 3 days after first setting up the hard drive on my machine, the boot disk that I had made up, came up with a message saying that there was a read/write error. This wasn't there the last time I loaded it. I grabbed a copy of NO-VIRUS by Nic Wilson and loaded it. Agggghhh! The Lamer Exterminator Virus. I quickly checked my disks. None had it apart from two disks. My boot disk and the disk that came with the hard drive. I quickly checked the disks for more errors. There were about 10 errors in total. I killed both of the viruses and carried on as normal. One of the things that I found annoying was that when I went to partition the drive, it killed all of the data that I had already placed in the main area. Getting over this, I divided the drive into two parts, one of 15 megabytes and the other of 5 megabytes. Then I copied a lot of demos into the second (5 meg) partition. It didn't take long for that area to be filled. Back in the main area I tried out the compatibility of the drive with hard drive programs. I got several of my programs that had the ability to be put onto hard drive. The first one I tried out was DRAGON'S LAIR. The manual said that you just press 'c' while the game is playing. This ran into a bit of a problem. In order to activate the hard drive on a 1.2 machine, you either have to mount the device or binddrive the machine. Dragon's Lair (being non-dos) does not give you the chance to. And when you reset the machine to load Dragon's Lair, it deactivates the hard drive access. So this stopped me from copying the game onto hard drive. But the other programs that I tried worked well. These were things like : Battlechess - Gunship - Airborne Ranger and a couple of others that I can't remember because they did not work 100%. I was also able to transfer a few other programs like BattleTech and Trivial Pursuit onto the drive. This meant that I was able to load in the game at a much faster rate than normal. Overall, I was very impressed with the drive, and I feel it would be better if it had a smaller power supply a perhaps a quieter fan. Another thing that I found annoying was the fact that the hard drive (once activated) took up around 120K of CHIP ram. I would be much better if it could use the FAST ram if present, because a lot of the programming I do uses a lot of the chip ram. I know that 1.2 machines are unable to autoboot off a hard drive, so therefore, the idea of purchasing one is put off slightly. Though the hard drive does have a much faster access time, one of the features I like is the amount of data that can be stored on it. I would definitely seriously consider purchasing the drive and would definitely recommend it to Amiga 500 owners, as it is probably the best hard drive that you can get for under $1500 at the moment. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 47 June, July & August Newsletter! Review of Consumer Magazine Home Micro Review by AJW Firstly, before I get sued - this is not for 'advertising, or promotional purposes', and I'm not quoting any parts of their review. The July 1989 Consumer magazine contained a roundup of home computers, it followed the usual Consumer test format in presenting a pretty shallow comparision of machines. A lot of what they said was sensible, and overall it was a reasonable introduction to what to look for in a home computer. But some of their comparasion points were fairly irrelevant - like what software was packaged with the machine; which tends to depend upon where you bought it and when. This is a problem with all their assessments - the 'snapshot' of what's available is too small a sample, they usually buy one of each item from probably one area - in statistical terms very dangerous. An example of problems using small samples; one of the items of software they choose works on one machine and not another - so one is deemed highly IBM compatible and the other not so compatible - statistically a very poor comparision. If they'd chosen another package perhaps the comparision results would be reversed - we have no way of knowing. That actually brings up a point - they don't actually present the results of their comparisons, only their interpretation & summary. Some things are plain misleading, like listing the processor clock speed as 'processing speed', that's a bit like comparing the speed of cars by the diameter of their driving wheels (it might be related, but is meaningless when comparing machines with different processors and associated support chips). I'm not actually complaining about the results, the three machines they chose as 'best buy' included one by the manufacturer of your favourite computer, but strangely left out another by the same manufacturer which was as good as the only IBM compatible to make it there! (now I didn't let anything out of the bag did I?). In summary, despite their dubious presentation, they came to reasonable results, but I can't help wonder whether they should either just give their tips for selecting a computer, or do it properly and offer up something approaching scientific investigation. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 48 June, July & August Newsletter! Aegis ANiMagic by B Chapman ( Nelson) ANiMagic ? Well think of it as your Video Editing console for your Amiga. It allows you to perform basic editing functions on ANIM or IFF files. It lets you perform simple edits such as adding or deleting frames, altering the colour palette or timing of individual or groups of frames, cutting and pasting sections of one ANIM to another and much, much more. ANiMagic also has a powerful " Raster Mapping " feature, which allows complex picture manipulation. This is done through the creation of an endless variety of DVEs (Digital Video Effects). These DVEs allow you to make an animation or picture do anything from a simple fly-in to complex page turns and shutters that any TV producer would be proud of. There are a minimum of 9025 variations on each DVE effect supplied with ANiMagic. ANiMagic also gives you the ability to edit and work with your ANIM after it's generated and not have to regenerate an ANIM to make a change, like with VideoScape 3D. With ANiMagic you may be able to salvage an ANIM you made, if something went wrong with it. For instance, if you don't like the way the thing ended, you might be able to re-render just the last part of it and then splice the pieces together with ANiMagic. You could add a title screen in front of the first frame of an ANIM and then put a timing on that to pause and hold it for a couple of seconds on screen, then play the ANIM, then put a closing title on the last page, etc etc. You might also like to use it with VideoScape 3D or Sculpt 3D-4D in another way. Lets say you've rendered some object and you don't need to change the orientation of the object, you want it to just move across the screen. Or maybe change size. You could use ANiMagic to render that object over and over again across the background, have it get smaller, have a fully rendered spaceship which starts as a dot and comes out and flys over your left shoulder or something. The ANIM can be generated by ANiMAgic. You often don't need to render an object over and over again for 100 frames. Render it once and then just move the "BitMap" around. ANiMagic supports both "NTSC" and "PAL" as well as all resolutions. LoRes 32(colours) 64(colours)HalfBrite 4096(colours)HAM VidRes 32(colours) 64(colours)HalfBrite 4096(colours)HAM MediumRes 16(colours) HighRes 16(colours) Medium OverScan Severe OverScan <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 49 June, July & August Newsletter! Plus it also allows you to set a custom screen size. This may be up to 1008 * 1008 in size and include up to 32 colours (64 with HalfBrite). If you are going to be using this resolution Me Thinks! you better have lots and lots and lots of Memory !!! (plus the new Fat Agnus chip which gives you 1 meg of chip ram and is now shipping in the new 500s here in NZ. It would be of great help when working with any Graphics Programs like ANiMagic). Also on the Data Disk you get a version that supports an 68020 chip and 68881 maths co-processor. The manual is well written with some very good tutorials, although the manual does not get into the more complex ANIMs, this part is left to you and your creative ability and experimentation. ANiMagic in my opinion is one of the best Video editing programs around. It is fast (without having a 68020), it is mouse driven so there is no language to learn, and it supports the Graphic standards endorsed by Commodore-Amiga, Inc. To sum up ANiMagic is only as restrictive as your Imagination! AniMagic is available from: Ruralcom Electronics Ltd P.O Box 2080 140 Tahunanui Drive NELSON. (054-86092) {10% discount for NZAmigaUG(wgtn) members} BIX Conferences and Topics Amiga Conference Amiga.User Conference Amiga.Dev Conference amiga68000 776 adventures 230 amigamail 3 arexx 435 arexx 851 architecture 147 comm.probs 400 arp 1020 book.comments 254 copy.protect 346 basic 286 bugs 1733 digest 13 bridge 169 digest 30 flames 3031 c.language 600 docs 20 hardware 1481 chez.amiga 326 errata 28 lounge 2910 digest 79 iff 1465 main 3210 fishdisks 48 janus 175 news 10 flames 272 languages 359 other 543 long.messages 103 lounge 733 product.dcsn 152 main 11 main 6748 programs 125 memos 26 market.info 3422 reviews 3 other.language 119 news 8 rjmonrom 215 prod.dscn 71 programs 56 softw.devlpmt 122 sources 68 standards 142 tech.talk 125 utilities 162 suggestions 3845 tutorial 529 <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 50 June, July & August Newsletter! USER GROUP INFORMATION (New members please read) Subscriptions 1) Printed newsletter is $18 for 12 months, 2) Newsdisk subscription is $28 for 12 months (10 issues). 3) Levy of $10 for room hire on Wellington members if they attend local meetings. 3.5" Disks : Nashua disks are $2.50 each, blank or containing PD software. Include 20c extra per disk for postage and packing if you're buying less than 10 disks. Disk labels and postage are included if you buy more than 10 disks. Bulk price : $240 per box of 100. 3.5" Disks plus plastic 'library cases' : The same Nashua disks, including black plastic 'library' cases (each 'library' case holds 10 disks) are available for $33.00 per 10. Newsdisks Newsdisks are an extension of the newsletter, and include things like pictures and programs that aren't accommodated as well on a printed medium. If you only read the newsletter and don't see the Newsdisks you are only seeing part of the whole. That's why our newsletter may not seem to include as much as many other computer groups "magazines". If you're doing anything interesting with your computer, exploring a new program, or fighting to get to grips with your machine, then tell us about it. Don't ask us whether we want an article on something, just write it! We prefer all submissions on disk, in any format, we will return all disks, but to facilitate this please mark any submissions clearly with your name. In case members are not sure about Newsdisks, then here is the story : We send Newsdisks to those members who have prepaid for a box of disks to be sent out one by one as newsdisks are produced, or to members who send in their own disks for us to copy onto (please add stamp or 40c for postage, and label disk with your name, and what you want returned on it). As with newsletters you are free to copy any part or all of its contents, and give away copies to anyone you like. (Selling them for more than a blank disk will be considered a criminal act!). You can also ask for Fish disks to be sent out as they arrive. We don't get other PD disks regularly, so don't generally offer to send them out automatically. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 51 June, July & August Newsletter! Public Domain Library We maintain a library of about 500 public domain disks, copies of which are available free, you supply the disks and postage or purchase blank disks from us. Start by getting a copy of the Public Domain Catalogue disk that lists the contents of the library. =============================================== Group Meetings and members looking for Amiga owners in their area If people wish to be added or removed from this list then let me know. If any details are wrong (especially phone numbers) then let me know. The following list is in geographic order (well sort of) so members can find others near to their area. These entries imply no association at all between this group and those listed. They're just others in your area interested in Amigas, who may or may not be members of this group. SOUTH ISLAND Invercargill, Contact Paul Heye, Phone (021)64-540. Southland Contact : Contact : John Wrigley, Southland Commodore Users Group, c/o 24 Marama Ave. North, R.D. 9, INVERCARGILL. Dunedin Group : The Dunedin Amiga Users Group meet at King's High School, Bayview Road, St Kilda, Dunedin on the first Wednesday of the month. Contact : Asheley Johnston, Phone (024) 55-785. Tuatapere, Contact Malcolm Garrett, Phone (0225) 6156 Te Anau, Contact Graeme McKenzie, Phone (0229) 7728 Amaru, Contact Roger Blackburn, Phone (0297) 47-540 <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 52 June, July & August Newsletter! Christchurch Amiga Users Group : Chch AUG meets 2nd Wednesday of each month at Shirley Boys High School, next meeting 14th June, 7.30pm. As this is a new venue, contact the secretary for exact details. Contact : Brian Curwood (Secretary), 9 Rowe Place, Shirley, Christchurch. Phone (03) 857-584 or Contact : Greg Evans Phone (03) 668-646 Work (03)229-412 Home Christchurch SIGs : Amiga programming SIG affiliated to CHCH AUG. Meet every Wednesday at the Christchurch Technical Institute, Rm A109, 7.00pm. Contact : Peter McIntyre, PO Box 22-361, CHRISTCHURCH. Phone (03) 892-345. Timaru, Contact Ron Bisset Phone (056) 88-480 or Contact : Owen Dunne, 8 High Street, Timaru. Phone (056) 83-440. WestLand Amiga Users Group : The Westland Amiga Users group has members from Haast to Greymouth, and meets on the first Tuesday of the month at 34 High Street, Greymouth. Contact : Keith Ross, 27 Nelson Street, Greymouth. Nelson Group : Nelson Amiga Users Group meets on the first Wednesday, and the third Thursday of the month, at 7:30pm, in the premises of Ruralcom Electronics Ltd. premises at 140 Tahunanui Drive, Nelson. The different nights are to try and please all the people all the time...... Contact : Gary Walker, Phone (054) 85-494 (after 5pm). <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 53 June, July & August Newsletter! NORTH ISLAND Wellington Group : The next local Wellington group meeting is on Monday 28th Aug (usual last Monday of the month) at 7:30pm in the Upstairs lecture theatre, Royal Society Building, Turnbull Street, Thorndon, Wellington. If you want to pirate software, DON'T!. Contact : Tony Wills, 156-C Queens Drive, Lyall Bay, Wellington 3. Phone (04) 877-258. | ^ | v | | | | | | \ / | |\ \ / motorway south | | \ \ / off ramp | | \ \ / v / | | \ \/ / | \__/ / | ^ ____ | | / \ | | M | | v | | o | | | | l |______| |___________ | e ______ M HALLWELL | s | | u ___________ | w | | r | _____ | o | | p | |cars_| | r | | h |_____|^|*|Royal | t | | y Society | h | | TURNBULL | | | v ____________ | ^ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ^ | | v | | | | | From Bunny Street Paraparaumu, Contact Kevin Dwen, Phone (058)70-542. Greytown, Contact Campbell Young, Phone (0553)49-546. Masterton, Contact Gerry Kluck, Phone (059)82-947. <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 54 June, July & August Newsletter! Manawatu Group : Manawatu Amiga U.G. meet at 7pm, the last Tuesday each month, in the Bradfield Lecture room, Palmerston North Public Library Contact : Andrew Mercer 86 Long Melford Road, Palmerston North. Phone (063) 82-592. Bulls, Contact Bill Anderson, Phone (0652)49-066. Wanganui Group : General micro computer group, about 50% Amigas, meets on the second Tuesday of each month in the Old Library Building, Queens Park, at 7:30pm. New members and visitors always welcome. A specifically Amiga group now meets at a venue to be arranged, on the 1st Thursday of every month. Contact : Liam Greenwood, Phone (064) 55-610. or Carl Rasmusen, Phone (064)56-583. Hawkes Bay Group : The 'Bay Amiga Computer Club' meets on the first Wednesday of the month (except January) at 7:30pm, Wesley Lounge Conference Lounge, Hastings Street (opposite Municipal Theatre), Hastings. Mail to : P.O. Box 4060, Marewa, Napier. Napier, Contact Trevor Cook (President), Phone (070) 435-074 Havelock North, Contact Ross Deeley (Chief Archivist), Phone (070) 775-959 Waipukurau, Contact Nigel Jones, Phone (0728) 87-006 Pahiatua, Contact Roger Woods, Phone (0650) 23-835. Taranaki Group : Meets at 7:30pm on the fourth Monday of the month at the Foundation for the Blind club Rooms, 131 Vivian Street, New Plymouth. Contact : Mrs Noeline Wagner, 8 Cutfield Street, Inglewood. Phone (067) 68-874. South Taranaki : Next meeting Monday 12th July, 7:30 at the Eltham Primary School Library, Contact John Veldthuis, Phone (062-4) 8409. Turangi, Contact Robert Montgomery, Phone (0746) 7574 Taupo Contact : Contact : Lewis Klyen, 50 Invergarry Road, Taupo. Phone (074) 89-313 Rawene, Contact Robin Hoare, Phone (088) 7577 <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 55 June, July & August Newsletter! Tuakau, Contact Gary Sizemore, Phone (085) 68-054 Kawakawa, Contact Dennis Williams, Phone (0885) 37-954 Te Kuiti, Contact Brian Houston, Phone (081) 3374 or Contact Ewert Tearle, Phone (08133) 751 Rotorua, Contact (Mr) Menno Grondsma, Phone (073) 85-858 Kawerau, Contact Chris Rutter, Phone (076) 38-380 Tokoroa, Contact Rev. Arthur Bruce, Phone (0814) 67-565 Bay of Plenty, Contact Foster Sherburd, Phone (075) 420-199 Cambridge, Contact Andrew Cooke, Phone (071) 277-359 Hamilton Group : Meet 1st and 2nd Thursday of each month (except for January), in the Marist Hall Behind St. Marks, Grey Street, East Hamilton. Contact : Russell Christie, PO Box 176, Ngaruawahia. Phone (07124) 8595 Tauranga Group : Tauranga Amiga Users Group meets regularly, venue to be arranged. Contact : Richard Abba c/o 136 Levers Road TAURANGA Phone (075) 66-860 Waiheke Island, Contact Don Millner, Phone (09) 726-651 or Contact Terry Maguire, Phone (09) 728-590 Orewa, Contact Darrell Crane, Phone (0942) 41-550 Whangarei, Contact Jock Nisbet, Phone (089) 481-436 Northland, Contact Robin Hoare, Phone (0887)57-761 <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 56 June, July & August Newsletter! AUCKLAND SUBCONTINENT Auckland Group : The Auckland ,"Amiga New Zealand", group meetings are on the first Wednesday of each month, from 7:30pm to 10pm at the St Georges Presbyterian Church Hall, Corner of The Terrace and Anzac Road, Takapuna, Auckland. Contact : Brett Wakefield P.O. Box 89-026 Torbay, Auckland 10. Phone (09) 403-9657 Church Hall _ \ P \ | | |+|_| T | __________\ u \ | A | |_|-. e | p \________| u |_______| r |_ u b r _________ k u Anzac St. a \ e ______ r _______ c _ | _ \ | n | | e | | B | \ \ | | | | | a | \____\ | r | | r | | y | Motorway North | s | State Highway 1 | | (Not to scale) ^ | P | | | o | | | | | i | | | | n | | | | t | / / | | / / | R | _________________| d |______________________________ / ---> _ / ____________ (_) Esmonde Road / / <--- / / _____________________________________________ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / | | | | V Motorway To Auckland Harbour Bridge <The first New Zealand Amiga Users Group (Wgtn)> Page 57