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*---== AM-REPORT INTERNATIONAL ONLINE MAGAZINE ==---* """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" "The Online Magazine of Choice!" from STR Publishing Inc. """""""""""""""""" June 29, 1992 Volume 2.05 ========================================================================= > 06/29/92: AM-Report #2.05 The Online Magazine of Choice! -Commodore Pricing -ASDG News -Oxxi News -CDTV Report -GVP News -* Comeau C++ Review *- -* BSC MultiFace Card Review *- -* AmiBack v2.0b Review *- -* Much, Much More *- TODAY'S NEWS ..TODAY! """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" > AMReport's Staff The regulars and this week's contributors! ================ Publisher - Editor ------------------ Ralph F. Mariano PC DIVISION AMIGA DIVISION MAC DIVISION ----------- -------------- ------------ Robert Retelle Charles Hill R. ALBRITTON Contributing Correspondents --------------------------- Mike Todd (CIX) Jim Shaffer, Jr. (UseNet) 70117,634 on CompuServe amix.commodore.com!vanth!jms Andrew Farrell Australian Commodore and Amiga Review & Professional Amiga User Magazine Mike Ehlert, SysOp: PACIFIC COAST MICRO BBS -- FidoNet 1:102/1001 IMPORTANT NOTICE ================ Please, submit letters to the editor, articles, reviews, etc... via E-Mail to: Compuserve.................... 76370,3045 Internet/Usenet............... 76370.3045@compuserve.com **************************************************************************** EDITORIAL ~~~~~~~~~ Here's another issue of AM-Report. There's some interesting stuff going on in the realms of the Amiga. ASDG is readying new products, as are GVP. Oxxi has a runtime version of Superbase Pro 4 ready and has an upgrade in beta test now. On the dark side, Commodore's stock hit a 365-day low a couple of days ago -- falling to below $10 per share. This could be good or bad. CBM ends their fiscal year on June 30th and if the quarterly and yearly reports are good, the stock will jump (my guess is to about $15, then fall to about $12.50 on profit taking). Mediocre reports will cause a slight decline and bad news would cause it to drop (oh, probably to about $6.75 to $7.00 a share.) [Considering that I still work for a living, my stock predicting skills aren't all that great :-) but, time will tell just what happens.] I got some new toys: most notably a MultiFace Card from BSC in Germany. There is a review of it in this issue. I have Real3D, a touch-screen adaptor, and Amy's Fun ABC on order. Look for reviews in future issues. Oh, the next issue won't be released until I get ahold of CBM's quarterly and most likely yearly, reports. Probably the second week in July. Read and enjoy. -Chas ============================================================================ COMMODORE PRICING ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ [The following message was posted on CompuServe's AmigaUser forum by SysOp Steve Ahlstrom.] CBM has announced new Amiga pricing, configurations and bundles. As of June 1, reseller pricing has been reduced on all 2000 and 3000 systems by "as much as 25%". The _standard_ 2000 system (ie, walk in the door and say "Gimme a 2000") now includes the 1084S monitor. The A2386SX is now available in the US. It has a retail price of $959 and includes 1M of ram and MS-DOS (I don't know what version). Because of limited supplies, for the near future, the A2386SX will not be available separately, but only in the new bundled system configurations. It appears that CBM is playing games with product names. There is a promotion going on now for the A2000HDA/100. It is an A2000 with a 100MB hard drive, 5 MB of RAM and a A2630. Isn't this what they used to call a 2500/30 ? This has a suggested retail of $2699. The A2000HDA/100D is the same as the above except that it includes an A3070 tape drive and has a suggested retail of $3159. The A3000-25/50B is an A3000-25/50 with the A2386SX bridgeboard with the suggested retail of $3399. There are a variety of other bundles, most of which have been available all along. I don't have the suggested retail pricing on them -- just the educational pricing (ie, an A2000C is a stock 2000 with 1084S -- the ed price is $1231 -- A3000-25/50 has an ed price of $2183). -------------------- CDTV REPORT #0: CDTV UPDATE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ---- NEW THIS MONTH (5/31/92) ------ Battlechess is here! Unfortunately, the box was shrinkwrapped and I didn't have the $65 being charged, so I have no idea how it looks. * New items (since the last version of this report) are marked with asterisks in the margin. ---- CURRENT TITLES ---------------- This list of titles is not necessarily complete since I'm only listing titles that I know for certain are available. Some titles are listed together under their publisher's name to indicate a similarity in function. Number of Titles: 67 --Arts & Leisure (8) Gardenfax--- Indoor Plants Fruits, Vegetables and Herbs Garden Plants Trees, Shrubs, Roses and Conifers Advanced Military Systems *Dinosaurs for Hire Guiness CDTV Book of Records (1991) Women in Motion --Education (20) Discis--- A Long Hard Day at the Ranch Cinderella (The Original Fairy Tale) Heather Hits Her First Home Run Moving Gives Me a Stomach Ache Mud Puddle Night Before Christmas Paper Bag Princess Scary Poems for Rotten Kids Tale of Benjamin Bunny Tale of Peter Rabbit Thomas' Snowsuit A Bun for Barney Barney Bear Goes to School Barney Bear Goes Camping *Fractal Universe Fun School 3 Heroic Age of Spaceflight: NASA...The 25th Year Learn French with Asterix Mind Run My Paint --Entertainment (25) All Dogs Go to Heaven *Battlechess Battlestorm The Case of the Cautious Condor Classic Board Games Defender of the Crown Eyes of the Eagle Falcon Fantastic Voyage Hound of the Baskervilles Lemmings Murder Makes Strange Deadfellows Power Pinball Psycho Killer Raffles Sim City Snoopy: The Case of the Missing Blanket Space Wars Spirit of Excalibur Super Games Pak Team Yankee Town With No Name Ultimate Basketball Wrath of the Demon Xenon 2: Megablast --Music (2) CD Remix Music Maker --Reference (10) Animated Pixels--- Illustrated Holy Bible Illustrated Works of Shakespeare Sherlock Holmes on a Disk Xiphias--- Time Table of History--- Business, Politics and Media Science and Innovation American Heritage Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary New Basics Electronic Cookbook New Grolier Electronic Encyclopedia American Vista Atlas World Vista Atlas --Amiga (2) Fred Fish 1.4 Fred Fish 1.4 Online ---- CURRENT HARDWARE -------------- Prices are those given at my dealer (rounded slightly). CDTV.......................$800 CDTV Professional Pak .....$200 Remote Trackball...........$100 Microphone interface........$70 256K Memory card...........$300 64K Memory card............$100 Caddies (set of 2)..........$15 ---- CDTV REPORTS ------------------ 1 What is CDTV? 1/92 2 The Competition 1/92 3 Games for CDTV 1/92 4 Commodore President (Not!) Speaks! (Opinion) 2/92 ---- ABOUT THIS FILE --------------- This file is Report #0 of my series of CDTV Reports. Other reports will come out when I've got something new to report or rant about, while this report will be updated roughly monthly. On Compuserve: if you can't find one of the other reports in the forum where you got this file, check lib 5 (Other Platforms) of the CDROM forum (GO CDROM). Helpful comments, praise and pledges of money are appreciated and may be sent to Pat Gratton, Compuserve #71641,1355. I am a graduate student in physics (thus possessing a limited amount of free time) at the University of Texas at Dallas. My computer is a Macintosh, not the Amiga (which should explain my obsession with a "good" interface). My game machine is a Genesis, so don't be surprised when I rave about its qualities! Enjoy! --Pat Gratton Copyright (c) 1992 by Patrick S. M. Gratton. All rights reserved. -------------------- OXXI News ~~~~~~~~~ Oxxi, the latest owner of the Superbase family of database products, has released Superbase Pro Runtime for the Amiga. The Runtime module lets you release Superbase programs written by you without actually having to include a copy of Superbase with the program. The price for the Runtime module is $399.95 and includes an *UNLIMITED* license. This means that once you buy the Runtime, you can release as many different Superbase units as you wish without paying royalties for each copy. Oxxi is also known to currently have Superbase Pro 4 v1.2 in beta test. This upgrade supposedly includes an SQL server as well as numerous bug fixes. (The current release version is v1.01.) An Oxxi representative told me that networking is in Superbase's future and considering that Oxxi publishes Novell Netware Client software for the Amiga, they should have an easier time at it than most. [Amazing's new Guide has a listing for SBP v1.2 and mentions SQL.] Finally, those of you who own Superbase Personal are not to be left out in the cold. Oxxi supposedly has Superbase Personal 4 in beta and is targeting August for shipment. There will be an upgrade path from Superbase Personal 1 & 2 to 4 as well as to Professional 4 but I do not know the details, yet. All this bodes well for the Amiga. Superbase is by far the most powerful and thorough database program for the Amiga. Superbase' popularity on the Windows platform helps bring the Amiga one step closer to public acceptance as a "mainstream business computer". All the activity shows that Oxxi is committed to Superbase as a flagship product. Superbase should have a healthy future in Oxxi's hands. -------------------- ASDG News ~~~~~~~~~ On June 18th, ASDG's Perry K. was the guest host on a formal COnference held in CompuServe's AmigaArts CO arena. The following is a summary of what was said and what went on. 1. ASDG recently added Sun Raster File and X-Windows bitmap formats to their Professional Conversion Pack. The PCP now contains a total of five extra loaders/savers for use with The Art Department and Art Department Pro. The five are: Sun raster, X11 bitmap, Targa, TIFF and Rendition. The PCP is available for $90 directly from ASDG or cheaper through your local Amiga dealer or favorite mail-order house. 2. ADPro's current memory scheme uses four bytes of information per pixel for data storage. The first three hold the 24-bit color data (one for each red, blue and green) and the fourth holds rendered image data. [One byte equals eight bits. -- Ed.] ADPro depends strictly on physical RAM for almost all of its operations. (The exception being the abiility to scan huge images directly to disk.) ASDG has plans to add some virtual memory techniques to ADPro in the future. (Perry admitted that ASDG has had an internal version of TAD that has used VM for about two years.) They warn that while VM will increase your ability to work with overly large images, it can drastically slow down performance. 3. ADPro's evolution will see new features that *require* KS 2.04+ to work, but not the product as a whole. In fact, ASDG is working on "porting backwards" some of the current 2.0 features such as editing a 256 color palette on screen. 4. ASDG is working on a PICT format converter. The converter will join the PCP in it's next revision (no date given) but will only support the bitmap operations on PICT, not the structured drawing ops. 5. Perry reaffirmed ASDG's commitment to ADPro. He said that there are several planned expansion products that are to be released soon. Future versions of ADPro will have a more 2.0 look-n-feel and will be more user configurable. ASDG *IS* however coming out with a new, video-oriented product. 6. At one time ASDG considered a hardware JPEG solution. The chips then cost around $200 each in quantities of 1000. ASDG's research found that the average user would spend about $100 for JPEG. Not even the cost of the chip in bulk! So, the idea was scrapped. Perry notes that this was a year or so ago and cheaper chips are now available. While ASDG has no plans on venturing into the JPEG hardware realm, others might. 7. A DCTV loader is completed and will be shortly released. 8. The following paragraph is a direct quote in reference to my question about ASDG's new 3rd party developer's program: "Interested individuals and corporations may apply for developer status. Assumming approval, the cost is $200 for the developer materials. Developer status obligates the developer to a contract spelling out certain quality benchmarks which their products must meet - we have a very serious committment to quality - and our users expect as much from us. If a third party module causes a problem on an end-user's machine - OUR NAME is on the bottom line. Therefore, we reserve the right to test third party products before they can be shipped outside the developing company. - Our test benchmarks are the industry standards....enforcer....mungwall, no loss of memory, no fraging of memory, no crashes." Interested parties can contact ASDG. 9. "Two companys so far have each claimed to have the first `real' morphing. We will shortly prove that both were wrong." [Ed. -- The two companies are Electronic Arts with Deluxe Paint IV and Black Belt Systems with Imagemaster.] There ensued some sniping at Black Belt and Imagemaster at this point. From the tone of the conversation as well as other statements I have seen posted by Black Belt it appears to me that there is no love lost between Perry K./ASDG and Ben Williams/Black Belt Systems. A software war between the two companies looks like it is going to start heating up. Both companies have pretty much let go with both barrels and it looks like the winners are going to be the users. "One upmanship" looks like the name of the game to me and both Art Department and Imagemaster are going to benefit tremendously from it as both companies rush to add features that will "blow the other guy away" -- a phrase now used by both ASDG and Black Belt in describing a new product. -------------------- GVP News ~~~~~~~~ Great Valley Products should soon have a new multi-port board shipping. The GVP I/O Extender has two serial and one parallel port on it. This gives the average Amiga 2 parallel and 3 serial ports. Contact GVP for more info. ============================================================================ COMEAU C++ ~~~~~~~~~~ (c) 1991 Kenneth Jamieson [Ed. -- This review originally appeared in comp.sys.amiga.reviews and is still available there. Usenet is stripping reprinted reviews from AM-Report in an effort to save some space and time. All reviews that appear in AM-Report should be able to be found in comp.sys.amiga.reviews on Usenet. Thanks to Jason L. Tibbits III for giving me permission to reprint those reviews in AM-Report.] The following is a review of the Comeau Computing C++ compiler. Info on how to order and where to contact the company are at the end. This is a good product on the whole. I would recommend it to anyone who has an interest or need for C++. The compiler is mature and stable, and well tested. The driver needs major work but that is on the way and NOT fatal. Out of a score of 100 this is an 80, and worth the $250. Well, as anyone who has worked with C++ in any form knows, this language and the Amiga were meant for each other. The Amiga's GUI interface is very clean to start with in most cases, and all GUI's are a perfect candidate for the object features in C++. The one previous attempt to bring C++ to the Amiga was by Lattice Inc. in 1988. That effort was a failure because of many reasons. One of them is that the Amiga world was still un-aware of C++ (as was most of the world). Now, with the fate of the Amiga and Unix tied together, it is time to look at this again. C++ is (arguably) becoming the language of choice for Unix GUI programmers... and Amiga programmers are starting to hear the term more and more. Comeau C++ is NOT a complete development system. The 250$ price gives you the Amiga binary for "Cfront 2.1", AT&T's C++ -> C translator. This is the standard method of writing in C++ under Unix as well. You get the needed header files and so on as well. This means that you need SAS/C 5.10a to use this product. It will also generate ANSI style C, and so any good ANSI compiler should be able to replace SAS/C. In addition, it should be noted that if you have the Lattice C++ product, the "cpp" pre-processor can be used to enhance your productivity. Comeau has stated that they will be releasing their own pre-processor soon, and that you can also use the one that comes with SAS/C in most cases. The distribution is on one floppy disk, and is no real problem to install. My disk had an error on it in the Install program, so I had to do it by hand. The process is simple and fast. The packaging of the product is adequate. There is a binder that has the product specs and language information, and a insert with the Amiga instructions. ************ INSTALLATION ************ The product installs in a painless manner, and I gather the Install program would have made it easier. The steps are: 1) Make a directory for the compiler. Make a SEPARATE directory tree for this product, it does NOT replace any of your SAS/C files. 2) Install the files. By hand or with the Install program. 3) Make assigns. The Install program will help, but basically there are a few you need... CC21c: - All the executable programs CC21lib: - The libraries CC21include: - The include files QUAD: - Should already be here for SAS/C anyway. 4) Add CC21c: to your path. Self explanatory. 5) Run the "include" program. You have to do this once. Comeau does NOT distribute a full set of header files. This program will take your existing C header files and "C++"-ize them. 6) Copy "como.rexx" to "REXX:" The compiler is driven by a Arexx program. 7) Test the compiler. Go to an example directory and use "como".... cd ccTest como cctest.c cctest ************ COMPILER ************ NOTE !! NOTE !! NOTE !! This portion of the review applies ONLY to the Arexx driver, and so should NOT be taken as a reflection on the "cfront" port. All the problems in here can be overcome by some Arexx programming (watch for my driver soon) and, while annoying, are NOT fatal. The "como" command is the hub of the compiler. Those using C++ can equate this to a "CC". And there is problem number one. It doesn't act ANYTHING like CC. This will make it difficult for anyone who is new from the UNIX world. In addition, "como" is just not good enough to do real production work with in my opinion. It is a good example of Arexx programming though and easy to modify so this can be overcome. The problems are ... 1) No mixed language compiles. All source files must be named "*.cp" 2) Non-standard command line options. This was livable under SAS/C, there was no standard for command line options. But with a C++ product, there is a standard.... AT&T. It should be used. 3) No support for libraries on the command line. This is not really forgivable. 4) No support for .o's on the command line. See point #3. So let's face fact folks, this Arexx script needs a major overhaul. Now, this is a serious problem, but NOT fatal. I overcame most of the problem with a weekend of Arexx hacking... but it was silly to do that to get use out of a 250$ dollar product. The supplied driver is ok for basic hello world types, but write your own driver or makefile for real work. NOTE: I spoke with Greg at Comeau, they are aware of this, and there is a free upgrade policy in place for the pre-processor and a new driver when it shows up. NONE of these problems are inherent. In other words, cfront can take C or C++ files, and .o and libraries can be linked in, but the Arexx script doesn't understand that. ************ LANGUAGE ************ This is the good side. This is a 100% complete AT&T 2.1 port. Multiple inheritance and all the other features of "real" C++ are supported. There are no new bugs that aren't also in the UNIX world, and this compiler is a good way to gain experience in a language that will make you a valuable employee at a new job and look good on your resume. I ported and compiled a complicated Unix program I had written, that compiles 6 mixed C and C++ files into two libraries, compiles two more test C++ programs and links them with the libraries. After I had hacked the Arexx script into a usable if ugly form, it all went along without a hitch. Prefect. There are by the way, no Amiga specific classes in the compiler. This is straight C++. You can use the Amiga with the normal C calls and interface, or write your own class library for it. ************ OVERVIEW ************ This is a good product on the whole, and we desperately need a full C++ 2.1 on the Amiga. I would recommend it to anyone who has an interest or need for C++. I would DEFINITELY tell anyone with Lattice C++ to get it. The compiler is mature and stable, and well tested. The driver needs major work but that is on the way and NOT fatal. Out of a score of 100 this is an 80, and worth the $250. The company is nice, and UPS Blue shipping is free. COD or prepay check are needed for ordering. The technical support is fantastic when I needed details on the como.rexx driver, they listened well to my suggestions, and kept me informed about my order status. Have fun! Comeau Computing 91-34 120th St. Richmond Hill, NY 11418 (718)-945-0009 BIX: comeau Compuserve: 72331,3421 Usenet: uunet!attmail!csanta!c++ [Ed. -- Comeau C++ v3.0 is now out. See AM-Report v2.02 for the press release and more details.] ============================================================================ BSC MultiFace Card ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Recently I found myself in need of hooking two printers, a scanner, an external modem and a touch-screen interface to my Amiga 3000. This meant that I needed to have access to at least three parallel ports and two serial ports at the same time. In the world of DOS that is no big deal. Most MS-DOS machines come with dual-serial and dual-parallel ports to begin with. Since the scanner interface for DOS machines is a hardware card, I wouldn't need a third parallel...but, I use (and abuse) an Amiga. And getting two serial and three parallel ports isn't easy. Multiple serial ports are no problem -- Commodore, ASDG and a couple of other companies make multi-serial boards that handle from 2 to 7 more RS-232 ports. Multiple parallel are more of a problem -- there is an extra parallel port on the IVS Grand Slam board as well as the Printerface card. One or two other companies make them but they all share a couple of problems: 1) They are all output only; 2) they are all only one extra port. The only company I could find that made a board to fit the bill was BSC Bueroautomation AG in Germany. So, I placed an order for the MuliFace Card 2000. The company that handles U.S./Canada distribution is Prespect Technologies of Quebec. From what I understand, the owner of Prespect is the father of the guy who designed the Multiface. Needless to say, when I ordered my board (through a local dealer) it was backordered...all the way to Germany. Skipping the boring details about two customs inspections and three postal services...a month later I had the board. The MultiFace board comes in two versions: one for the A500 and one for the A2000/A3000 series machines. The specs on the A500 version are almost identical (except that it is an external box instead of a board). The MultiFace Card (MFC) sports two parallel and two serial ports that work in tandem with the Amiga's native ports. This means that the MFC equipped Amiga has access to three parallel and three serial ports. The MFC 2000 is a consists of a half-length board; two backplates each with one serial and one parallel port; four cables; one disk; and either one or two manuals (depending on what language you speak). There were no jumpers on the board, it was clean. It did, however, have spaces for a couple of more chips and a couple of more serial ports. It was clearly designed with future expansion in mind. Hardware installation is simple. The cables are all notched, so they can't be inserted improperly. Connect the cables, slip the board in the slot and install the backplates. Herein lies complaint #1. The MFC supports two serial and two parallel connectors. The external connectors are flush mounted onto backplates: one serial/parallel per plate. This means there are TWO backplates for the one board. [The backplates are floating plates like the one for the Supra 2400zi modem -- they connect to the board only by the ribbon cables hooked between the connectors.] Since all full-length boards have backplates for stabilizing, a full Amiga could have a problem -- no place to put the other plate! (Easy to do on an A3000!) Fortunatly one of my slots is occupied by a DKB SecureKey, which uses no backplate. I was able to put both of the MFC's in. A better solution would to be use ONE backplate but not flush-mounted connectors. Give the connectors a small amount of cable (3" or so) and let them dangle from the back of the board. This is how it is done on many multi-serial boards. Hogging two backplates is just sloppy design. Step two is the manual. If you read German or French (I don't) it is great. If you read English...that's another story. The MFC shipped with two manuals -- one in German/French and one in English. The German/French manual is spiral bound, clean and neatly done (as far as I can tell). It is indexed and has diagrams. The English manual was a set of typed pages (8 x 11 in) tossed in a clear plastic folder which was bent in two to fit in the box. The translation was accurate (at least everything was correct) but it was ugly as sin! The document has not been formatted. It is rough text spit out on a laser printer and tossed in a box. The place for the one diagram to be included simply says "(DIAGRAM HERE)". There are typos and other minor errors. No factual errors, though. If BSC would include an English section in the manual, it would improve the appearance 100 percent. (Considering the potential market between the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia and New Zealand they should seriously consider the idea.) On the bright side, the on-disk docs includs the include files, autodocs and technical specifications. On the minus side, the docs for the included terminal program as well as a paragraph in the middle of the technical docs are in German. Oh, well. The serial ports are 9-pin D-sub miniature. The parallel ports are output only. Too bad. :-( BSC includes a simple (emphasis on *simple*) terminal program; a special preferences program (for 2.0) for handling the settings on the two new serial ports; and a program for remapping parallel ports around. The new ports have to be added to your DEVS:Mountlist file (examples are included on the BSC disk) and MOUNTED. I have them named as SER1:, SER2:, PAR1:, PAR2:. Using them is simple, just direct input to the appropriate port. (I.E. copy file.name PAR1:) Now for the hard part. The parallel.device (and the BSC supplied pit.device) processes raw data only. Printer drivers go through PRT: not PAR:. Sending text output to PAR1: gets messed up text. How do you fix this? Use a binary file editor to fix the offending file, or if a program uses the raw PAR: port, just redirect output to the port of your choice. I took NewZap to the PRINTER.DEVICE in my DEVS: directory and hacked it out. Using the SEARCH command, I located "PARALLEL.DEVICE" and replaced it with "PIT.DEVICE", which is the name of the BSC supplied device driver. Since PIT is shorter than PARALLEL, I filled in the extra spaces with hex 00. *THIS IS THE PROCEDURE RECOMMENDED BY BSC!* They actually suggest using a binary file editor on offending programs! <shudder> Back 'em up first, folks. It did, however, work on the first try. By hooking my scanner up to the Amiga's parallel port and my printer upto the MFC port #1 everything worked fine. ADPro addressed my scanner like nothing had changed and everything that accessed PRT: was now routed to the appropriate parallel port. ADPro's PREFPRINTER saver, CygnusEd Pro 2 and Final Copy all worked flawlessly. Now for parallel port #2. My use for the second printer is to print graphics on mailing labels. To do this, I use ADPro for the printing to get the best possible output. ADPro's PREFPRINTER saver uses the Amiga printer drivers for printer definitions but handles the printing itself. This lets it output true 8-bit gray or 24-bit color. The difference is astounding. However, now that PRT: is mapped to PAR1:, how do I get it to go to PAR2:? Good question. BSC provides the answer (sort of). One of the programs supplied by BSC is called MapDevice. It lets you redirect commands going from one port to another. This, combined with ARexx and ADPro's ability to use the function keys to invoke ARexx macros let me do the following: I created an ARexx script named "F0.adpro" and stored in in my REXX: directory. The script looks like this: /* Remap port and print picture */ ... ADDRESS COMMAND "MapDevice PIT 0 to PIT 1" ADDRESS "ADPro" SFORMAT Prefprinter SAVE "dummy" [insert the appropriate parameters] ADDRESS COMMAND "MapDevice PIT 1 to PIT 0" "SAY -r 'The picture is ready.'" EXIT When ADPro is active, and the F-10 key is pressed, this script is run. The active parallel port (that is used by PRT:) is changed to the second MFC port; ADPro prints the image using the PREFPRINTER saver; the active port is switched back and the computer talks to let the user know everything is done. I'm in the process of adapting this to AmigaVision for use with a touch-screen so ADPro will never be seen. [Right now having ADPro visible is like opening a mechanical watch and watching the gears when you wind it.] This is sloppy, but the only solution I have come up with. The serial ports work fine. I've only tested one using a modem and it worked perfectly using Baud Bandit. Programs that can only address the serial.device must use the MapDevice program to switch control between ports. The included duart.prefs program (for 2.0 Preferences) is fully 2.0 compliant and works great. Interestingly enough, they support 5, 6, 7 and 8 data bits. The serial ports support speeds up to 56,700 bps BUT NOT MIDI 31,250 bps. The TechDocs tell how to turn the MultiFace Card into a MidiFace Card by replacing the clock crystal with a 4.000 MHz one. This, however, allows ONLY MIDI RATES over the ports: no 300 - 56,700 bps. Overall, I rate the BSC MultiFace Card as follows: -1 point for the hogging of two backplates. -1 for the abysmal English manual (no -1 if you read German or French). -1/2 for output-only parallel ports -1/2 for the hack in setting up the software (Commodore, after all, has no standard for multipl parallel ports like they do for serial.) -1/2 for their distribution setup in the U.S. Taken from a possible score of 10, this makes the MFC card a 7 if you read only English and an 8 if you read German or French. Subtract another 1/2 point if you live in the U.S. SysInfo 2.70 does recognize the board and properly identify it. The MFC card is a superior product. A dual-serial/dual-parallel board is a staple-product of a computer platform. MFC offers the best (and only) choice outside of buying more than one board. The hardware is excellent and does what it promises. If BSC would change the backplane situation and include and English section in the manual it would be an outstanding product and a must-have for anyone with serious business interests in the Amiga. With PreSpect Technologies as the sole U.S./Canada distributor BSC is limiting itself more than it should. The ONLY was I found out about it was by combing through Amazing's Guide to the Amiga. Not to knock PreSpect, but a normal distribution channel or handling by a larger company (ASDG, Supra, Progressive) with cash to advertise once in a while would greatly increase their sales and penetration into North America. (My serial number was <500 and I remember seeing this in last year's AC Guide.) BSC makes a number of products that a mostly marketed in Germany and Quebec, including: a RAM board; SCSI controller; hand-scanner; dir-utility software and others. Retail price on the MFC 2000 is $299 (and that is exactly what I had to pay -- no mail order carries it). The designer, Andreas Hofbauer, can be reached in the following manner: Domain: andy@gothic.uucp UUCP: uunet!cbmvax!cbmehq!cbmger!alpine!gothic!andy Internet: cbmehq!cbmger!alpine!gothic!andy@cbmvax.commodore.com bsc bueroautomation AG Lerchenstrasse 5/II W-8000 Muenchen 50 Germany ============================================================================ AMI-BACK v2.0b ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Moonlighter Software Development, Inc. has just recently released an upgrade to their flagship product, Ami-Back. V2.0b sports a new interface and a host of new features that include a hard-disk crash recovery program, smart archive compression, streaming tape support and tape append. NEW FEATURES ~~~~~~~~~~~~ The most important (in my opinion) new features in Ami-Back v2.0b are: 1) Tape append. This lets you use up an entire tape before having to swap. Under v1.xx Ami-Back allowed only one backup per tape -- overwriting any existing information if you tried to append. 2) 911 (tm) Recovery. This is a system for attempting to recover information from a crashed disk. It is similar in concept to Disk Doctor and DiskSalv. The trackdisk.device is bypassed and raw MFM data is read from the drive. 3) Data compression. Floppy users should be happy with this one. This feature will compress data to save space on backups. It is "smart" in that if it cannot achieve a compression savings of greater than 10% it won't compress the file. This means that archived files like .LZH, .LHA, .ZIP and .ARC won't be compressed further. 4) Multi-Source backup. This means that if you want to backup more than one drive or more than one partition at a time, you don't have to sit there and do them one-by-one. Just tell Ami-Back which drives to back up and let it go! Here is a more complete list of new features: * Backup data compression has been added (an average 30%-35% savings) * The scheduler configuration can now be accessed from the main menu. * A notify mode for the scheduler has been added. * Ami-Sched now uses AppIcon (under Workbench 2.0 only). * ARexx support for all major commands has been added. * When the source device is searched, a window is now opened which gives the user important information regarding the source device. * Backups can now be password protected. Ami-Back uses industry-standard algorithms for data encryption. * The backup verify option now includes a comparative restore mode. * Backup and restore modes now have separate filters. The user can now AND/OR any combination of Filename, Device name, Comment, Protection Bits, or Date Stamps. The filters allow for inclusion or exclusion. * Ami-Back now includes the "911" (tm) mode. This emergency data recovery mode will salvage as much lost data from a crashed hard drive as possible, then back it up to any device supported by Ami-Back. * The device listing method has been improved so that even with the addition of so many new features, Ami-Back is still simple and easy to use. * Fast Search support has been added for DAT drive users. * A tape append mode has been added. Now additional data can be backed up to tapes that already contain backup up data. * A SCSI tape default reader has been added which reads the user's default drive set up. * An Iconify mode has been added for backup and restore screens. * Ami-Back now defaults to the first device in the device list. * The Image backup and restore modes will not give the user the partition size if they are not the same. * Ami-Back now supports multiple fixed block mode (for tape). * Ami-Back can now label the backup set (80 character maximum), and it can store this information with the index. * The backup catalog may now be stored that the end of the backup. * Missing disks may be skipped during restores so that the rest of the data may be restored properly. * Backup disks are now labeled in sequential order. * Compare mode now indicated what percentage is complete. * Compare mode now only displays errors in list view gadget. * Abort mode for backups and restores now uses a second check requester. * Floppy drive status during backups and restores is now displayed. * Floppy drives are inhibited during backups and restores. * Tape drive error messages are now much more informative. * A Write Notify mode has been added that will notify user during backups whether any data already exists on disk. * Online Help is now available for major gadget functions. * Numerous other minor changes. LOOK & FEEL ~~~~~~~~~~~ Ami-Back looks like it came right out of the Amiga Style Guide. Both versions (there are separate programs for Workbench 2.04 users and for pre-2.04 users) have the "2.0 look". Very professionally done and a very clean interface. The manual is spiral bound and well done. I didn't see any typos nor any obvious errors. It *does* omit any explanation about the compression option, but this is covered in the on-disk readme file. OPERATION ~~~~~~~~~ In putting Ami-Back through its paces, I ran the following test and got the published results: COMPRESSION: Off BACKUP SOURCE: Hard drive BACKUP TYPE: Complete ESTIMATED FILES: 283 ESTIMATED BYTES: 9,630,543 ESTIMATED DISKS: 11 DESTINATION: 880k floppy drive TIME TAKEN: 8m 56s DISKS TAKEN: 11 COMPRESSION: On BACKUP SOURCE: Hard drive BACKUP TYPE: Complete ESTIMATED FILES: 284 ESTIMATED BYTES: 9,630,635 ESTIMATED DISKS: <=11 DESTINATION: 880k floppy drive TIME TAKEN: 8m 16s DISKS TAKEN: 11 The difference in the file size between test #1 and test #2 was the index file written by Ami-Back for test #1. The final savings using compression wasn't all that great for me. Actually, since it took the same number of disks it was meaningless to me. BUT, there *WERE* significant savings. My situation doesn't lend itself to compression backups very well. Most of the files on my hard drive are JPEG graphics files and LHA program files. Uncompressed files are almost nonexistant on my work drive. Since this is the case, Ami-Back didn't bother to compress many of my files as they were already compressed. However, when I was watching the progress indicator, I noticed that the first two disks each had over 1.4 megabytes of data stored to them. This was Draw4D-Pro and Art Department Pro being stored with their respective files. Most of the rest was Superbase and it's data files (mostly JPEGed graphics) and some LHA data and programs. To see if we can see a difference, I'm now going to backup my SYS: drive. This is basically a Workbench harddisk with a few other things on it (AmiBack, the MultiFace software, lots of fonts, libraries & drivers). COMPRESSION: Off BACKUP SOURCE: Hard drive BACKUP TYPE: Complete ESTIMATED FILES: 395 ESTIMATED BYTES: 3,418,787 ESTIMATED DISKS: 4 DESTINATION: 880k floppy drive TIME TAKEN: 3m 10s DISKS TAKEN: 4 COMPRESSION: On BACKUP SOURCE: Hard drive BACKUP TYPE: Complete ESTIMATED FILES: 396 ESTIMATED BYTES: 3,437,567 ESTIMATED DISKS: <=4 DESTINATION: 880k floppy drive TIME TAKEN: 2m 27s DISKS TAKEN: 3 That is much better. You can see that often using compression will save time as well as space. This is because with accelerated Amigas, compressing a file and saving the smaller version is often faster than writing the complete file to disk. Since I don't have a tape drive, I can't test that feature. HELP ~~~~ The Workbench 2.0 version Ami-Back v2.0b has online help. You simply place the mouse pointer over any gadget and press the "HELP" key. A screen will open that explains what function the gadget invokes. From there you can go back to Ami-Back or use the Table-Of-Contents to check out all the help features. The help feature is so extensive, you really don't need the manual. INSTALLATION ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ami-Back uses the Commodore standard installer. The "novice" setting is disabled. Still, even on "expert" installation is a breeze. I installed Ami-Back v2.0 right over v1.xx without a hitch. The whole process took less than five minutes. Ami-Back v2.0b is fully compatible with v1.xx files and can restore backups made with prior versions. SCHEDULER ~~~~~~~~~ The scheduler lets you set up automated backups for your Amiga. Backups can be set by days, hours, minutes, months, etc. Ami-Back allows 100 backups per drive per day. The scheduler is now accessable from the Ami-Back main menu as opposed to being only accessed from it's own icon under v1.xxx. Honestly, since I don't have a tape drive, I didn't get to test the scheduler. I'll be damned if I set a scheduled backup when I have to sit there and swap disks! Actually, if I use an incremental backup, and there weren't that many files changed, I might just get away with it. OTHER ~~~~~ Ami-Back can back up to any AmigaDOS device, and can even backup to a file. Commodore high-density floppy drives are supported and under Workbench 1.3, the Applied Engineering High Density floppies are supported. [AE drives don't work under Workbench 2.04, so Ami-Back doesn't yet support them either.] Using the IMAGE backup option, Ami-Back can backup foreign file system partitions such as AMAX (Macintosh) and MS-DOS partitions. CLOSING ~~~~~~~ Users who purchased Ami-Back v1.0x on of after April 1, 1992 and have sent in their registration cards, Ami-Back v2.0 will be made available for $5 to cover postage and handling ($10 outside the U.S.) and a copy of your sales receipt. For all other registered owners the upgrade price is $15 plus shipping and handling ($3 inside the U.S., $7 outside the U.S.) Florida residents add 6% sales tax. Moonlighter has a trade-over program in effect. Send in your original disk of a competing product (MR Backup, Quarterback, etc.) and less $$ and you can get the latest version of Ami-Back. Contact MoonLighter Software Development, Inc. for more information. MoonLighter Software Development, Inc. 3208-C East Colonial Dr., Suite 204 Orlando, FL 32803 VOICE: (407) 384-9484 FAX: (407) 384-9391 BBS: (407) 292-6080 (14.4 kbps v.32 bis) (407) 295-6992 (14.4 kbps v.32 bis) (407) 292-6592 (2400 bps) ============================================================================ Until next time... """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" AMReport International Online Magazine Available through more than 10,000 Private BBS systems WorldWide! """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" AMReport "YOUR INDEPENDENT NEWS SOURCE" June 29, 1992 16/32bit Magazine copyright 1992 Volume 2.05 """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""