Amiga Collections: MegaDisc/MegaDisc 08 (1988)(MegaDisc Digital Publishing)(AU)[WB].zip/MegaDisc 08 (1988)(MegaDisc Digital Publishing)(AU)[WB].adf/ARTICLES/MegaBites

Text File | 1988-05-28 | 21KB | 364 lines

                               MEGABITES

         COMMODORE NEWS

        * PROFITABILITY
        Commodore has announced a 13% sales increase for this financial
 year overall, mainly due to Amiga sales. In Australia, A500 sales were up
 to 28,000, and there was talk of a "dealer delivery base" of 56,000
 machines, more by now.

        * WORLD OF COMMODORE SHOW
        A regular feature in North America, this was part of the Aust.
 Computer Exhibition (ACE), 20-22 September at Darling Harbour in Sydney.
 The whole exhibition looked healthy and energetic, and there were some
 well set-up displays, though there was a tendency to run old demos. It
 would also have made more sense to open the exhibition outside office
 hours to allow regular workers to have a look. Maybe next time.
 There was a pre-release version of the A2500 running at blitzing speed
 with its 68020 chip and an AT board (possible release in December),
 described in the specs sheet as being "based on the original A2000 with
 an AT BridgeBoard, the A2090 hard disk controller and the A2620 68020
 Turbo cards fully installed", and though I didn't see it, the 2500 UX
 machine running Unix was said to be "in transit" to be shown on the 2nd
 two days. Most of the names (dealers  & distributors) were there:
        - MAST Technology were showing off their hard disks and RAM
 expansion modules, designed by Norm Jackson and up to his usual high
 standard. See "OZ_Products" for details of these locally designed
 peripherals. We may have some reviews in the next issue if we can get our
 hands on them.
        - United Computers were showing the X-SPECS 3D glasses with some
 specially written software, and there's no doubt that they give a 3D
 effect. Definitely worth a look for anyone into games (see below).
        - Bob Downs on the MicroComputer Spot stand was demonstrating
 techniques for Digitising images, a very informative way to heighten
 interest in the Amiga. See Bob's detailed article on Digitising on this
 disk, which he'll be updating each issue.
        - Basford Systems were showing their 2D CAD package written
 especially for the Amiga, and it looked good. Check OZ_Products.
        - 2 disk-mags were on show!! "Hot Disk", "excitingly available for
 all Amiga users" (!?) featured graphics of the female form along with
 titillating text. Their representatives were asked by Commodore to leave.
 Enquiries: Fantasy F P/L, P O Box 751, Manly 2095. And another one by the
 notorious editor of the Commodore Review, billed as being for the "casual
 user", tending more towards the graphics side...There must be more
 diskmags per square foot in this country than any other, but don't defect!
 Megadisc will keep bringing you the real nuts&bolts approach.
        - CERATO Software were showing their A500-based software for the
 disabled, a worthy non-profit govt-sponsored organisation who chose the
 Amiga because of its speech, graphics, memory and touch screen facilities.
 Phone [phone] for more information.

        * 1.3 SYSTEM SOFTWARE - final word has it that the simultaneous
 world-wide release of 1.3 will happen in about the 2nd week of October.
 There will be a ROM upgrade (for Kickstart 1.3) available from COMMCARE
 centres only, which will probably cost around $80. This upgrade will only
 be of any use to those A2000 owners who have the Commodore 2090A cards for
 their hard disks, to enable autobooting from said hard disks. Owners of
 A1000s will get Kickstart on disk, and it will be possible to get the
 Recoverable Ram Disk auto-booting, quite a useful facility. See the
 article on "1.3_System" this issue.

        * The new enhanced Chip set for the Amiga (which provide 1
 Megabyte of addressable Chip memory) will not work with the A1000 or the
 A2000 (as distinct from the B2000 - the A2000 was the German-designed
 first Amiga 2000, and the B2000 is the later US-designed 2000). They will
 work with the A500 and the B2000. There was an offer, in the US only, to
 A1000 owners to upgrade for a limited period. None such anywhere else that
 I know of, so it looks like the A1000 is about to become obsolete...There
 is only the vaguest possibility of a 1000 to 2000 upgrade offer at
 present.

        * AEGIS DEFECTIONS - There are various mentions on US BBSs about
 wholesale defections from Aegis, including William Volk who has gone to
 Activision. Seems that many of the developers working with Aegis are also
 somewhat disaffected with treatment given them.

          NEWSLETTERS & MAGAZINES AND DISK-MAGAZINES

 * BAUG NEWSLETTER - edited by Peter Goed, recent Pres (succeeded by Viv
 Mundy), this is a pretty meaty one, and well presented in a foolscap,
 stapled format with a colour cover. Some items of note in the version I've
 got: A CLI approach to cataloguing Fish Disks by Chris Taylor; A Bug Fix
 for the Basic ILBM loader by Adam Wolter; Using PATH in startup-sequences
 by Paul Coward; Slimming down your Workbench by Bryan Fripp; a fine
 tutorial in Machine Language by Jakub Szajman; UEDIT upgrade by Glen
 McDiarmid; and some more. Membership to BAUG $25 per year to :
 The Secretary, BAUG, 5 Charles St, Bundamba, Ipswich QLD  4304.

 * WORKBENCH - from the Amiga Users Group (P O Box 48, Boronia, 3155, Vic),
 edited by Peter Jetson, continues to produce good info for users. The
 latest issue covers: A review of TeX for the Amiga (see below) by Lachlan
 Myers; Review of Cygnus Ed by Lester McClure (see note below); C and
 Animation by Alan Kent; FFS and Janus by Eric Salter; Deluxe Laser
 Painting by Neal Glover; Introduction to the "C" programming language Part
 4 by Eric Salter; and various club details. And a fine (paid) ad for
 Megadisc which I forgot to put the address on! Jeeeez....  Membership $20
 per year to the address above.

 [About CYGNUS ED: I sent for their text editor, excellent device that it
 is, and got my cheque back with a note that ASDG is now handling their
 product, which is now called CYGNUSED PROFESSIONAL costing US$99.95 plus
 o/s postage of US$10. ASDG INC., 925 Stewart St, Madison, Wisconsin, 53713
 USA, TEL: [phone]. Incidentally, it has AREXX interface,
 resolutions up to 2000X2000 (!), accessible from batch files,
 recoverability from crashes by other programs, smaller than before, etc.]

         * CURSOR - Edited by Ralph de Vries, the September edition
 contains, amongst local details: Review of Director by Robert Googe;
 Example Macros for MicroEmacs by M. Thomas (long!); about printing with
 1.3 and Professional Page. Membership CCUG (Q) Inc., is $25 ($10 joining
 fee) from The Secretary, P O Box 274, Springwood, QLD 4127.
 Last month there was a review of TRANSACTOR, which makes your Amiga
 reasonably IBM-compatible under software control; remote-sensing image
 processing software from CSIRO on the Amiga, marketed as A-IMAGE, for use
 with satellites; and a hack for stereo speakers for the Amiga; and some
 letters.

         * AMIGA MAG (of the Amiga Users Group of South Australia: Tel:
 [phone]) arrives with a number of good articles, a couple of which
 may appear familiar to a Megadisc user! Keep spreading the word, Brian.

 * AMIGA LIVE - Well, we have to wait to see this disk-mag from the editor
 of the Commodore Review because it's not available yet, but we're hoping
 it gets all the success it deserves...

 * AMIGO TIMES - Sent my money for this months ago, and had forgotten it
 until suddenly it arrived, with grovelling apologies for tardiness. Coming
 from Canada, like so much of the better North American stuff for the
 Amiga, it is a glossy paper magazine along with a disk with some utilities
 and graphics. One of the most interesting things about it is the fact that
 it was entirely created on Amigas, with the help of Professional Page 1.1,
 Photon Paint, Digi-View, Pix-Mate 1.0, etc. Output was to a Linotronic 300
 Imagesetter, and the whole mag looks very clean and professional, with
 plenty of colour and lots of Amiga-produced graphics. Some of the
 editorial: Manipulating IFF pictures; 68000/68010 Should You Change?;
 Telecomm; MIDI; History of Computers (Part 1); and numerous reviews.
 Enquiries from - Amigo Times, 5124 St Laurent, Suite 100, Ville St
 Catherine, P O B 1228, Quebec J0L 1E0, Canada. Tel: [phone].
 Postscript: Issue 2 turned up recently too, and it has to be admitted that
 it's pretty good too. My recommendation is to forget about Amiga World and
 subscribe to this one and Amigan Apprentice & Journeyman (and Megadisc of
 course!).

 * AMI EXCHANGE - I saw the second issue of this Canadian (again!) diskmag,
 and am again impressed by the tricks they get up to with their icons and
 graphics. And you do get 3 disks. I sent my money away long ago but it was
 returned, and one of my spies at Ami-Expo tells me that you can't
 subscribe...? Which is odd for a magazine to say the least.

 * ICPUG NEWSLETTER - from the British "Independent Commodore Products
 Users Group", it comes out every 2 months in a simple sturdy booklet form
 of about 130 pages each issue. It's been going 10 years, if Volume no. is
 anything to go by and attempts to cover the whole Commodore scene - could
 be a case of an Amiga offshoot before too long. Amiga articles are dotted
 through the mag, and are good when they appear. Membership secretary:
 Jack Cohen, 30 Brancaster Rd, Newbury Park, Ilford, Essex IG2 7IP   UK.

        AMIGAN APPRENTICE EXCHANGE
 Dick Barnes, who very competently edits "Amigan Apprentice & Journeyman"
 magazine in the US (an excellent magazine with no ads which really comes
 up with useful information), has written to us with the kind offer to keep
 sending the "Amigan" disks until death do us part, or as he puts it, until
 one or both of us gets an honest job. The Amigan disks are AA&J's own PD
 collection, and lean heavily towards Utilities - we've got 17 of them so
 far, along with the definitive ARP (Amigados Replacement Project) disk. We
 send him a copy of Megadisc when it appears, to keep him knowledgeable
 about Oz happenings.

        ERRATUM
 The article EXPANBLUES2 on MD6 described the problem many A1000s had with
 PAL CHIPS (Programmable Logic Array). The article stated that the chips
 which caused problems with adding one or more expansion devices were the
 MMI chips, not the Texas Instruments chips. Chris Ralph, who has done
 numerous modifications to cure this persistent ill, states categorically
 that it's the other way round! So the MMI are the ones to have.

         DUAL FORMAT AMIGA-ATARI DISKS
 A new development among some of the software houses is to release software
 in both Amiga and Atari format on the same disk. Once in the drive, the
 disk is recognised by each operating system as one of its own. Pretty
 nifty scheme, which will cut overheads for distributors and retailers, and
 is said to make illicit duplicating rather more difficult.

         NEW SOFTWARE
 [Note: if you can't find any software mentioned here or elsewhere in
 Australia, you can always ring direct, using a credit card.]

 WORDPERFECT LIBRARIES - As available on the IBM PC, this includes a
 notebook, programmable calculator, program editor & a game. For US$125
 from 1555 N. Technology Way, Orem, UT 84057. However, you can get all
 these features on the public domain, so why worry?

 DESIGNTEXT Word Processor - according to reports, this is a strong
 competitor in the upmarket WP stakes. It has all the functions you'd
 expect of a hotshot WP, and goes further - it'll be available in English,
 French or German; will allow creation of tables in multiple columns with
 mathematical functions like averaging and percentages; will have very
 speedy screen refresh rate and scrolling (some are a little slow); screen
 calculator and automatic backup function at specified time interval; a
 built-in outliner or idea processor (very useful); 100,000 word
 dictionary and an interactive database for direct integration into
 documents; keyboard macros; and supposedly many more features. Excellence!
 and Wordperfect, watch out. From Designtext Business Systems, Inc, 850
 Burrard St, #304, Vancouver, BC V6Z 2J1 Canada. Price will be US$129.

 SPELLING CHECKERS -
 > ZING!SPELL functions while you type, has 95,000 words, with custom
 dictionary, and works with all the main Word Processors.  Price is
 US$79.95, or you can send in your original spellchecker with its manual
 and pay US$39.95. Future updates will contain a thesaurus and a CLI syntax
 checker, and it'll be free.
 > GOLDSPELL II contains a 90,000 word dictionary which is automatically
 loaded into memory upon entering the program. Works with most word
 processors, and includes Batch spell checking, which creates a list of
 errors for a whole file in one pass. Also contains a readability grade
 level via a "Fog index", and can check word frequency usage. Updates from
 version 1.0 cost US$20 from : Gold Disk, P O Box 789, Streetsville,
 Mississauga, Ont. L5M 2C2  Canada. Price US$44.95.
 > FLEET CHECK, apart from the usual 90,000 word dictionary can access
 10,000 synonyms and antonyms and add 10,000 of your own words to the
 dictionary. Retails for US$39.95 from Professional Software, Inc, 51
 Fremont St, Needham, MA 02194 USA. TEL: [phone].

 PUBLISHING PARTNER PROFESSIONAL - in competition with Professional Page
 for the foremost Amiga Desktop Publishing program, this allows colour
 separations, one-degree incremental text or image rotation, object slant
 and twist. Costs US$199.95 from SOFT-LOGIK, 11131 South Towne Sq, Ste F.,
 St Louis, MO 63123. This is the program which will handle the integrated
 DTP setup from C LTD, as described in MD6, and below.

         SUPERBASE PROFESSIONAL V. 3.0
 Just got a letter from the producers of this high-end database, saying
 that Version 3 will be available mid-October. Added features are :
 transactional forms, telecommunications, "and many, many more new
 features". It is available as a non-copy protected upgrade to owners of
 SBPRO V 2 for US$49.95. And for US$25 p.a. there is a quarterly
 publication called "The Superbase Journal" with all kinds of hints and
 tips for Superbase users. Enquiries: Precision Incorporated, 8404
 Sterling St, Suite A, Irving, TX 75063 USA. Tel: [phone].

         INTERPROCESS COMMUNICATION STANDARD (IPC) - PETE GOODEVE
 Pete, who has supported Megadisc from the start with his excellent
 programs (XICON for running batch files from Workbench icons, & others),
 has written with news of IPC, which he and some other top US programmers
 have been thrashing out on USENET (worldwide BBS), and it's coming along.
 The basic idea is to set up a standard environment of communications
 between different programs in such a way that they can all act as
 "modules" in a large, customisable "meta-program", so that the output of
 one program can be fed directly into another, then another, etc. This
 maximises the multi-tasking aspects of the Amiga, and really gets into a
 new computing level beyond the essentially "serial" things that have
 happened so far on micro-computers. There are shades of the Unix concept
 of "piping" here, and William Hawes' AREXX macro-programming language, in
 the sense of much deeper integration of the many tasks that the Amiga is
 capable of. Not only that, but George Vokalek's MULTI-FUNCTION BOARD (see
 Oz_Products this issue) addresses the same general area from a more
 hardware-oriented point of view. Peter McKellar's article on
 "Multi-Tasking" in this issue deals with some of these possiblilities, and
 mentions Pete's IPC in relation to his theme. Pete McKellar has kindly put
 together a THEME DISK on Multi-Tasking, bringing together a number of the
 concepts mentioned above, and anyone is welcome to get it from us. And if
 you're interested in IPC, Pete Goodeve would like to hear from you I'm
 sure. Quoting from his letter: " ...I did my bit at the last BADGE meeting
 by giving a slide show of the concepts. I made the slides as fancy and
 colourful as I could, capped it at the end by revealing that the whole
 show had been run by IPC! I had separate modules handling the display
 itself, user control (joystick, keyboard, or mouse), script managing, and
 coversion of IFF files to bitmaps. Because of the multi-process system, it
 was able to do fancy stuff like pre-reading the next slide or two, as well
 as keeping the last one shown available in case I wanted to back up...."
 Incidentally Pete G. has also provided an "Advanced XICON tutorial" on his
 last disk, which goes into a lot of extra little techniques that can be
 used with XICON - if anyone's interested, get in touch. And finally the
 version of XICON on this disk is V. 2.01, ie, it's fixed a bug in version
 2.0, the commonly distributed one, which caused one of the TOOLTYPES not
 to unlock the directory involved, and so the disk icon wouldn't go away.

          C LTD CONSORTIUM
 C LTD will provide networking capabilities/multiple-user access to
 everything linked in a network, via their software package capable of
 networking for their SCSI Host/Controller to all other SCSI device
 hardware. (SCSI stands for Small Computer Systems Interface, an industry
 standard for interfacing computers and peripheral devices, like hard
 disks, CD Roms, etc.) In particular, the software will link up 3 new
 hardware products, viz:
 > SCSI-based 300 dpi laser printer for less than US$2500, in which the
 Amiga will pre-process the data into a bit-map and transfer it to the
 printer via a "1 byte wide, high speed SCSI bus" in one continuous 8
 second burst.
 > SCSI 300 dpi page scanner (at last!) for US$1500. A page of data can be
 scanned and directly printed in less than 40 seconds.
 > A 9600-baud modem card based on a Zorro bus, with FAX transmission
 capabilities, for less than US$600.
 INTERCHANGEABLE 1000/2000 keyboards - C Ltd also make an adaptor which
 allows you to use the keyboard of the 2000 with the 1000, and vice versa.
 Said to cost US$20.
 For enquiries: C Ltd, 723 East Skinner, Wichita KA 67211   USA.


         X-SPECS 3-D
 An interesting hardware idea, 3-d spectacles that apparently use
 "high-speed liquid crystal shutters which allow your computer to control
 what each eye sees independently at 30 frames per second". It seems that
 programs have to be written to take advantage of the effect, but anyone
 who has played the PD game "BreakOut" with red/blue glasses on will
 realise that such an effect is quite possible, and adds a lot to the
 visuals. Released by ComputerMate, Tel: [phone].

         SOFTWARE UPGRADES
 AiRT, the icon-based programming language for the Amiga, has been upgraded
 with bug removals and new features. Available to registered owners for
 US$6, from PDJ Software, 111 Thornwood Dr, Marlton, NJ 08053. Not a bad
 idea, anyone got a review of it?

 New Horizons Software, producers of the Word Processor PROWRITE, which is
 a good WYSIWYG WP (OK?) if you've got more than 512K and want to
 incorporate graphics, are trying to convert you. If you mail in your
 present Word Processor master disk and US$75 you'll get ProWrite V2.0
 which normally costs US$124.95. Address is: P O Box 43167, Austin TX 74745
 USA.

 Message from T. Cuffe of Commodore, found on a local BBS:
 Subj: Re: LATTICE C COMPILER UPDATE
 The upgrade is available in Australia from Commodore directly.  You should
 contact Commodore Technical Support, 67 Mars Road, LANE COVE N.S.W. 2066.
 They will be able to look after you.  Alternatively, you can deal direct
 with Lattice Inc. in the States.

         MULTI-KICKSTARTS FOR A500/2000 USERS
 MULTI-START from Michigan Software allows you to switch between the
 standard version of the operating system on ROM and another version on
 EPROMS (Erasable Programmable ROMS). In other words you can have version
 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 eventually, all switchable from the keyboard. Costs
 US$129.95, from 43345 Grand River, Novi, MI 48050, Tel: [phone].

         HELP FOR TRANSFORMER USERS
 A lady called Suzanne Mitchell puts out a newletter for users of
 Transformer software, which allows your Amiga to emulate an IBM via
 software only. It's US$10 per year from - Box 7969, Tyler, TX 85811 USA.

         3-D GLASSES FOR THE AMIGA
 ComputerMate Products imports glasses that display alternate  images on
 the two lenses every 1/60th of a second to give a 3-D effect with some
?graphic displays.

         NERIKI MOVES AND SHAKES
 From all reports, Neriki of Crows Nest in Sydney, responsible for a
 GENLOCK device for the Amiga, is doing well in the US, with good coverage
 of their hardware in the mags. They're also appearing at all the
 Exhibitions they can with integrated systems for Desktop Video, and a
 subscriber who was at the recent Expo reports that Neriki's setup seemed
 to be the most professional of them. Indeed it seems that DTV is all the
 go with the Amiga - half of the machines at Expo were linked up to various
 video peripherals. It seems also that Neriki let go Craig Schuetrumpf, who
 was their front end for some time. Kevin Dennis, who was with the
 marketing division of Polaroid, is now their managing director.  Now if
 they'll just give us a look at  the machine, we might be able to report
 something about it.


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