Magnetic Pages Article | 1993-07-22 | 39KB | 69 lines
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INFO
Title : Amsmag$Publisher : Amiga New Zealand User Group.$Authors : Various. Editor - Mark
Gladding.
Country : New Zealand
Source : See text.
Conditions : Freeware
Category : Magazine
REQUIREMENTS
Drives : 1%Memory :
meg. 1 meg. needed to display some of the pictures.
COMPATIBILITY
A500 wb 1.3.2 : YES
A600 wb 2.05 : YES
Multi-tasks : YES
Display : PAL or NTSC& Amsmag is a monthly disk magazine&produced by the Amiga New Zealand User&Group, based in Auckland. It's&compiled using Magnetic Pages which&isn't surprising as the editor, Mark&Gladding, is the producer of Magnetic&Pages. Along with the magazine there&is usually a few PD programs and a
list of the latest Fish disks.& As Amsmag (no, I don't know what&Ams' stands for) is a club magazine&(clubs actually, there are at least&five affiliated to the governing body)&it contains a lot related to club&activity such as reports on meetings&held and suchlike but there is also a&lot of articles sourced from overseas&as well as art and NZ produced articles.& To obtain Amsmag regularly you have&to be a club member. There are eleven&issues annually with the December&issue being two disks. The other&issues are all single disks. Should&you wish to join the club and thus&receive Amsmag via the post an&application form can be obtained&from... Amiga New Zealand User Group&(Auckland), P.O. Box 100-932, North
Shore Mail Center, AUCKLAND 10.& The current annual subscription is&$45 NZ with a $10 joining fee. Write&for the application form first though.& Following are reviews of two issues&of Amsmag. I'm not a member of the&club (yet) so this isn't a tout for&new members but just a review of a&nice, wholesome, family magazine to&help balance out all those seedy scene&mag reviews. I won't comment on the&interface as it's the standard&Magnetic Pages one so if using APDR&hasn't taught you enough about it then&read the review of Magnetic Pages
elsewhere in this issue.
INFO
Title : Amsmag - April 93
Released : April 1993
Opinion : 74%& This would be a typical issue of&Amsmag going by others I have seen. It&contains an art gallery, tutorials on&sound digitizing, telecommunications,&and AmigaDOS scripting, games reviews,&a for sale column and articles from&New Zealand and overseas. There's no
music.& There's also the usual club news&and in this issue the proposed new&club rules - the Amiga NZ User Group&is becoming a society. To paraphrase&Reggie Perrin's son-in-law, "I'm not a&club person", though I suspect Reggie&Perrin's son-in-law was. There's 23&screen-fulls of rules here though a&printout only comes to a mere ten&pages. Why do they do this to&themselves? I suggest that humankind&should be known as the Rule-Maker, not&the Tool-Maker. In fairness, a lot of&what's here is to protect members from&liability should anything go wrong and&covers the usual stuff any club needs&to consider. The best computer club&organisation I've heard of was one in&Havelock North where the club just&turned up at a different member's&
[3mAmsmag's a New Zealand Magazine$ but sometimes you wouldn't know it!
As the saying goes...( Auckland - Sydney For Beginners.
[23m&garage every so often for their&meeting. No rules. But then perhaps%Amstrad owners are a different breed.& The art gallery in Amsmag is&usually quite good with this issue&containing six pictures. Appearing&here, as in some previous issues, is&some very well drawn art by someone&called GRAFF. I think many of these&pictures are from Australia as ANZUG&has contact with a club over there.&More info about the sources of the
pictures would be helpful.& There's a long article in this&issue by the club secretary Noel&Fuller on Virtual Reality - "Is there&anything real about it?" This can best&be described as wide ranging. You've&no doubt seen VR on Beyond 2000 and&similar programs but how often does&Buddha Gautama and Swami Vivekananda&get a look in? The writer's obviously&read a lot of books - and he's going&to tell you about them - and quote&from them at length too. Here's a&sample of his style. "In my&description of the world, telepathy is&in everyday use, conscious and&unconscious, on a multitude of levels.&I am not the least bit interested in&proving it to exist but am more&interested in understanding it." Now&this is a philosophy that could come&in very useful. I for instance am not&in the least bit interested in proving&that gullibility is widespread. As I&already understand it only too well&all that's left is to find a way to&stamp it out - preferably before the&next election. A fun article. I&haven't read waffle like this in ages.&And anyway, I've got antidotal proof&that telepathy (or whatever) doesn't&exist. A neighbour had to give his dog&away, which he loved. Soon after this&he had a dream in which his dog was&killed. This worried him so much that&he phoned the dog's new owner who&informed him that the mut was still&alive and perfectly happy. An amazing&story I'm sure you'll agree, so why
didn't it make the front pages?& Back to reality. The look of the&magazine is quite nice. I do think the&Contents and Articles pages could do&with a face-lift but with a monthly&deadline I guess there's not too much&time for touch-ups. I like the&animated icons in the Gallery section.&A generally good issue of the magazine.
INFO
Title : Amsmag - June 93
Released : June 1993
Opinion : 72%& This issue is notable for&containing much more than the usual&number of articles. The majority of&these seem to originate from overseas&with Usenet figuring prominently as&the source. For those outside of&Auckland and who could not be part of&one of that area's clubs, these&articles are probably the most&interesting part of the magazine. Some
examples...& "NINTENDO LOSES AT SUPREME COURT".&It seems that an add-on to the&Nintendo game consoles called the Game&Genie is legal. This thing allows you&to modify the way existing cartridges&play. I wonder if it means disk drives
would be allowed to be added?& There's also the new specs for Real&3D. Get a load of this! It has a&"Particle Animation System based on&Newtons Laws of Motion which includes&all necessary force fields allowing&realistic simulation of wind, gravity,&magnetism, friction, etc." There's&also "Behavioural animation where&objects can have their own&intelligence and react to their living&environment making decisions and&communicating with other objects." Top&that Impulse! Yet another product I&can't afford, let alone the hardware
to make it useful.& There's also an article on a new PD&Basic compiler called Ace. It claims&to be a sub-set and super-set of&AmigaBASIC. If anyone has this I'd&very much like to see it. Let's hope#it's a bit more useful than Cursor.& Other articles are a 42 page&evaluation of Amiga CD ROMs compiled&from a survey of 44 users. A&discussion on why there was no Amiga&Falcon 3 game produced. One on BBSðics and a review of the game&SuperFrog. So that's what it is! (See&the letters to the editor for an&explanation of that comment.) It's a&YAP game! - Yet Another Platform game.&The reviewer had some minor problems&with it. The Eric Schwartz intro&wouldn't run on his A4000 unless he
switched off AGA. Poor chap.& There's also "Desktop Video On A&Shoestring Budget". This is something&I've already done a few times. It's&great fun and assuming you've got a&VCR the only other extra hardware you&may need is the A520 video adapter -&the thing you need to connect an Amiga&to a television. Later models of the&Amiga, such as the A600, have this&built in. One thing not mentioned in&the article (it's part one of the&tutorial) is sound. If you have a tape&recorder with an output to connect up&to the video's audio-in sockets it's&possible (at least with the A600) to&record on the video along with the&Amiga graphics a commentary plus the&sound that's coming out of the monitor&all at once. Hey kids - you could&record that record-breaking attempt at&SuperFrogger complete with screams,&groans and no expletives deleted. As I&said, an Amiga and a video can be
great fun.& There's also the usual club news&and in this issue the yearly financial&report. Going by this I gather the&club has a membership in the low&hundreds. I mention this as very&little of what they produce seems to&get into the magazine. There's only&one picture in this issue other than&the one on the front page, a lovely&photo of a moth, but I assume it came&from overseas as it's NTSC. There are&some articles obviously sourced to New&Zealand, but only a few. The NZ&Software Theft article elsewhere in&APDR came from this issue of Amsmag. I&guess it's like a lot of clubs, a few&do all the work while the rest play
games.& As I said at the beginning of this&review, for those outside of Auckland&the general articles would be the most&interesting part of the magazine.&They're well selected and there's&enough of them each issue to make&joining the club to get the magazine a&worthwhile decision, let alone for the&other benefits offered by the club.&Amsmag's a well presented, no-nonsense
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