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%% compt.sys.amiga                                    by  Jason Compton %%
%% OS 3.1 For the Masses!                          jcompton@bbs.xnet.com %%
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Big news for all jealous ECS users and all 4000 users who want more OS
power!

3.1 is now available to (almost) ANY Amiga user!

Almost?  Well, it's not available for 1200 users.  The reason why
remains uncertain.

I know of three distributors so far:

In the US, contact Expert Services at 606-371-9690.

In the UK, contact Blittersoft on 0908 220196.

In Germany, contact Village Tronic. I don't know their number.

The Expert Services prices work like this:

$100 for the 500/2000 version
$150 for the 3000/4000 version

My reaction was "Wow."  That's awfully expensive, considering my 2.1
upgrade was stickered at $75.

It IS the full package, manuals, ROMs, and disks.  Unfortunately, I can't
get a package from Expert Services (without spending the money which I 
can't do right now) so I can't tell you if it's actually worth it or not.

                   - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It's going to be something of a disappointing Consumer Electronics
Show for me...I decided to go primarily to see Commodore.

Well, that's just not going to happen anymore.

So then I figured I'd look for some Amiga developers.  That's not
really going to happen, either...there are a couple of companies that
will be there that do or have done games on the Amiga, but they'll very
likely be demoing things for other systems...

So, my only remaining hope to have a good time is to wander around
and try to find interesting things.  Oh, yeah, and not to let myself get
trapped into anti-Amiga humor.

The press releases I've been getting are great.  One touted the glory of
the "Gunvertor", a universal remote built into the grip of a pistol.  All
for $70.  Wow.  Another came from 3DO, but I was cooking on the grill that
day, and you know, things happen...

A few others have been interesting: Canon's Video Printer (the full info
packet will be coming to me, since I can't go to the demo), GTE's new
CD line (actually, it looked like the same old educational software story),
but I haven't signed on to any seminars yet.  I think I'm just afraid I'll 
miss something else while I'm at one.

So that means I'll be wandering around a lot on Thursday and Saturday.
Anybody else going to be there?  I'd like to meet a few readers...

I managed to get some more news from Paravision:  their 800 number
is 800-588-0043, and they're trying to sell off their inventory of 1200
expansion boards.  They won't do any more production runs unless
someone picks up the Amiga and runs with it.  As of my call Wednesday,
the SX-1 review copies were held up because they didn't have cases.
"Reviewers don't care," I told him, and he said he would send mine out
that night or Thursday.  (He being Robert Maynard, CEO/President)

I've also been talking with US Cybernetics about their new Warp System
transputer line.  Apparently, they'll set me up with a one-week review in
the near future.

That does it for this week.  Hopefully someone will start building Amigas
again soon...