That's right folks! Windows 95 is here..... (yawn)
I realize this is an Amiga magazine, but Win95 is PROBABLY the LARGEST thing to happen in the computer industry in many years. I've tried it.... and I wasn't impressed. I guess being an Amiga user, it was nothing special to me.
On another note, I just want to thank EVERYONE that wrote to me with their comments about the August issue of ANT. Almost everyone was happy with the magazine, and many of you offered suggestions of your own (all of which were considered). Many of the little "quirks" that people didn't enjoy will HOPEFULLY be worked out in coming issues. I apologize for the ASCII version being so poorly set up, but I was crunched for time.
The most wonderful thing about this magazine is the number of new friends I've made. I keep in touch with many of them regularly, and I get perspective on the Amiga from all over the globe now. You may see some of their works in an upcoming issue of ANT.
Surprisingly, one thing a lot of people said is that I should have introduced myself in the first issue. Personally, I didn't think anyone would be interested in that topic... but I guess I was wrong eh? So here goes:
As you know, my name is Glen Miller, and I live in Toronto, Ontario Canada. I'm 18 years old, and I'm currently in my OAC year of high school (grade 13). I've been interested in computers since about grade 3 (I loved my Commodore 64!). Later (well much later), I purchased an IBM, and then slowly moved up to the Amiga. My first Amiga was an A500, then an A1200 (which I later sold), and now I own an A3000T. I also picked up an A2000 pretty cheap.
I have a girlfriend who I care for and love dearly (she may also do a review on her specialty..... GAMES!!!). You already know why I decided to write this magazine in the first place.
Before I go on, I would like to thank a few people. First my girlfriend, Elizabeth. She's always there for me :) Secondly, I'd like to thank Colin Thompson for running one of my articles (with my permission), doing a review of ANT and for sending me a copy of his news letter. Also, thanks goes out to Robert Sedler, as he will also be running one of my articles and sending me a copy of his news letter.
Until next month!
NEWS & REVIEWS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
COLONIZATION
Everyone (including us Amiga users) deserves some form of recreation; something that will let us forget our troubles and pressures.
Let me tell you something (if you didn't already know), your
Amiga is a WONDERFUL entertainment tool. There are loads of different types of games out there for almost every taste.
I, personally, am not a huge game fan. I used to be, just a few years ago in fact, but I guess I've grown out of it.
Occasionally, I do come across a game that I can play for hours. Colonization is one of those games.
Based on the game Civilization (Microprose), Colonization takes you back to the 1500's where the great colonial empires ruled the world. You, the player takes the role of a small band of colonists leaving their mother country for many different reasons.
When you finally step foot on "The New World" you are met by the natives, and perhaps even fellow European powers. The first thing you must do is choose a spot to set up a colony. This isn't as easy as it sounds. You must plan for the future. Is there enough natural resources in the area? Is it accessible by ship? And so on...
You start off weak (as in any game), but by trading with your mother country, and the near-by natives, you begin to gain power.
The game wouldn't be much fun without a goal would it? The object of the game is to gain independence from your mother country. Sounds simple? It's not....
It's a very demanding game. It constantly makes you think. You even get the ability to vote people into power (each choice you make changes the game in some way), so when you decide, you better not be doing it for fun!
WORKBENCH 2.0+ (UNTESTED ON 1.3, SHOULD WORK THOUGH)
1MB OF RAM
1.5 MB OF RAM IF INSTALLED ON HARD DRIVE
ESCOM DELAYS
That's right. Sources at my local Amiga dealer (quite reputable in Canada) have stated that they may not see Amiga's until some time in November. It seems that Escom's initial release of September has been pushed back to mid October! More on this as I get info.
Recently, Escom held a press conference in London and at this gathering they stated the different configurations that they will be selling Amiga's in.
Here are the configurations:
Amiga 1200 Bundle # 1
170MB Hard Drive
2MB of RAM (all chip)
ScalaMM 300
Wordworth 4.0SE
Digita Organiser
DataStore
Turbo Calc 3.5
Personal Paint 6.4
Photogenics 1.1
Whizzball (game)
Pinball Mania (game)
Amiga 1200 Bundle # 2
Same as above minus hard drive, and ScalaMM 300.
Amiga 4000T
Will include all software listed above (no mention of games), including ScalaMM 300. It will include either a 500MB SCSI hard drive OR a 1GB SCSI hard drive. It will ship standard with 6MB of RAM (2 chip, 4 fast).
More information as it becomes available.
AMOSAIC PRERELEASE 2.0
The internet is vast, in many ways beyond belief. "Surfing it", is fun, but the old text interface is very boring, especially when you compare it to NetScape for Windows. This is yet another area where Amiga users have been ignored.
However, a new program, known as AMosaic has popped up, and is making
waves among Amiga users. Why? Because it's good.
AMosaic is in no way related to the people at NCSA or the University of Illinois. It is a smaller group of individuals consisting of Stefan Burstroem, Michael Fischer, Michael Meyer, Michael B. Smith, Reudiger Sopp, and Michael Witbrock.
So what is AMosaic all about? Well, it lets you browse the internet in style, giving you a "point and click" interface, making life both much easier and much more colourful. Being the Amiga patriot I am, it also lets me tell my PC and Mac using friends that "yes, even the Amiga can do the things your machine can do".
I won't go into lengthy detail about AMosaic (that will be in a later issue), but I will include some screen shots on what the Internet CAN look like.
BE WARNED! The requirements for running AMosaic (and the programs
required to run along with it) are quite steep. In fact, with the release of version 2.0 of AMosaic, the requirements went up.
To run AMosaic 2.0 Prerelease 3 you will need:
At least 1MB of chip RAM to run things comfortably. If you get stingy with the graphics you MAY be able to run it on 512K...I wouldn't try it though. 2MB is best.
2MB of fast RAM
A hard drive with about 3MB of space on it to install AMosaic, and the accompanying programs that you will need for it.
68020+ processor (not REQUIRED, but HIGHLY recommended).
Obviously things like an Internet account that supports either SLIP, CSLIP or PPP and a modem (14,400+) are also required.
Finally, you will NEED AmigaOS version 3.0 +
In a later issue I will post more on AMosaic and how to set it up. Until then, I must congratulate those working on AMosaic, they've done a GREAT job!
DKB TO RELEASE 68060
Everyone wants a faster computer. It doesn't matter what you do on your computer, most people feel the need for speed.
DKB has been with the Amiga for awhile now, and has produced many hardware add-ons (most notably the A4091 SCSI-2 controller Commodore developed).
Now, they are offering Amiga users the speed we deserve with their new line of 68060 processors carrying the name "Wildfire".
Versions for the Amiga 2000, Amiga 1200, and Amiga 4000 are planned to be released soon. Does something look wrong with that list? Well, if you noticed that the A3000 isn't listed, you're right! Being an A3000 owner myself, I was disturbed by that. While they A4000 and A3000 CPU slots are SIMILAR, there still are subtle differences between them, and DKB has stated that the A4000 version WILL NOT work in the A3000.
When I found this out, I contacted DKB asking for an explanation stating that the demand for an 060 card for the A3000 is VERY high. They stated that the demand for the A3000 version is much higher than they originally expected, and they expect an A3000 version to go into development very soon. They couldn't give me an exact date, but he said somewhere in the near future, one will surface.
What does the "Wildfire" offer? How about this for an impressive list:
(Amiga 2000 version, this will be the first one released)
Interleaved Memory
32-bit SCSI-II Host bus DMA interface
10Mb/sec SCSI transfers
90% CPU available at full speed SCSI DMA
Fully Autoconfig
64 bit RAM expandable to 128 Megs
Uses industry standard 72-pin SIMMs
Allows mixing and matching of 4, 8, 16, and 32 meg SIMMs.
It will be a 50Mhz version, and will EASILY push an Amiga up to Pentium processing level.
The list price for this particular unit (A2000 version) will be about $1699 when first released. It will be available no earlier than the first week of October (subject to processor availability).
You want the fastest Amiga? This is the unit to buy!
SHAPE SHIFTER VERSION 3.2
Just as this issue was being finished up, the latest version of ShapeShifter was released. Being the person I am, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to review PROBABLY the BEST Amiga emulation system available.
I won't include an screen shots, but I will tell you about the new features/bug fixes:
· ROM write-protection disabled on 68060
· Removed "Do not use FPU" setting
· Early startup errors (e.g. PrepareEmul not installed) no longer affect the cache
· Full Thread Manager support, including the 68060 and pre-emptive
threads
· Ethernet driver rewritten, now uses a subtask and eats 130k less
memory
· Added error requesters for unsupported Ethernet packet types, Ethernet cards that don't support multicast, and for ERead calls
· Some Mac ROMs absorbed the Ethernet driver
· A-Max II+/IV board serial ports supported
· Support for 230kbps serial transmission
· Workaround for mfm.device V38/V40 bug
· Fixed bug in DeviceDisk 2 cleanup
· Corrected MaxTransfer calculation
· Device and unit for each SCSI ID can now be set individually
· Implemented direct SCSI transfers
· Small fixes in SCSI read, autosense and command completion
· 2 Monitor support added, video driver code cleaned up
· Merlin and Picasso support moved into external drivers
· RTYPE_CUSTOM corrected
· RGBA32 refresh mode available under CyberGfx
· Better Mac mouse blanking in Amiga mouse pointer mode
· More reliable audio channel allocation/deallocation
· Audio output can be disabled completely
· Sound input driver works asynchonously again
· Audio interrupt handling improved
· Mac startup sound is controlled by a tool type
· Settings item for Mac ROM memory type
· Task name is now always "ShapeShifter"
· Handling of level 2 interrupts more OS compliant
· Fixed problem with Mac mouse pointer settings
· Fixed bug in restart code (called Enable() without preceding
Disable())
· Fixed bug in Mac-Handler ("Destination file removed" when copying
files from Shell)
· Greek, Spanish and Norwegian catalog files
What did I find most important? First, my PRAM is saved. So now when I make a change (mouse speed, colours/greys) it ACTUALLY stays like that now. I don't know if any of you out there were having that problem, but it really bothered me. Secondly, I can turn off the sound. It's great, I don't have to here my "Mac" beep anymore when I'm working on the Amiga side.
This version seems pretty stable (of course I thought the same thing of version 3.1 :), but the way I see it, anyone who creates a Mac on an Amiga deserves a little room for error. Keep up the great work!
E-MAIL US!
Some users were a little confused on how to get something posted in ANT. So I've made things simpler. Just follow these instructions:
Write mail to:
· Glen_Miller@KIWI.COM
· In the FIRST line of the message, state that you wish for it to be reprinted in ANT.
· If you wish your E-Mail address to be reprinted state so, if you do not state your preference, it will NOT be reprinted.
Having your E-Mail address reprinted will allow other readers to respond to your post, you'll meet lots of new people this way.
Have you done something with your Amiga that you are proud of? Are you just starting out in business with your Amiga and want others to know about your work?
Then write to us here at ANT! If you do some professional work, and would like others to know about it, send us a video tape and we'll tell others about your work. It may lead you to some $$$. Alternatively, even if you've done something as simple as painting a picture you are proud of, send us a copy of it, and we'll let the world know about it. It may not bring you riches, but, others can look at your work, and you can be even more proud of it.
Interested? Write to use at:
Glen_Miller@KIWI.COM
and we'll tell you how to get your work to us.
(UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED, ALL ARTICLES ARE WRITTEN BY GLEN MILLER)
