====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || A M I G A U P D A T E /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || -News and Rumors- / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_|| (An Occasional Newsletter) BACK FOR THE FUTURE || ====================================================================== AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga Technologies, GmbH ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 970201 F I N A L B I D S F O R A M I G A A R E I N C O R R E C T I O N ! ! - W E P R O V E W E ' R E H U M A N N A G R A F F L E S A M I G A 4 0 6 0 T I M A G E F X / A L A D D I N D E M O T A P E S M U I 3 . 7 A V A I L A B L E N A S A U A T I E E E , A L A B A M A O B E R O N 1 . 4 A N N O U N C E D N E W T E K N E W S Editor's Thoughts and Introduction: We goofed. Last issue we carried a story about the winners of the Best Amiga Banners on the Net contest. We attributed the contest to the good people at the Amiga Web Directory. While they've done many fine things for the Amiga, the credit for this contest belongs to the Amiga Link Exchange (a service of Amicrawler). We regret the error and hope we didn't confuse or offend anyone. We're blaming it on writing that part of the newsletter while fighting a bout of winter flu (we'll take any excuse we can get). One thing remains the same - all the good things we said about the Amiga Web Directory are completely accurate. A year or so ago, our lead story would have made us quite happy - a definite date for the closure of the Amiga ownership mess. However, it seems we've seen final deadlines come and go recently with little meaning to the words. We hope this time is different, and frankly, we suspect it will be. Keep in mind if the deadline is as meaningless as others, that does NOT reflect on the bidders, but the process they're having to go through. The members of the Northwest Amiga Group in Portland, Oregon are staging a raffle for an A4060T. At $5 a ticket, this could be of interest to a lot of people. We've not had any personal contact with anyone in NAG, but thought you'd like to know about this anyway. Members of user groups and Amiga graphics professionals will probably be most interested in the demo tapes of ImageFX and Aladdin available from Nova Design, Inc., but all Amiga users could find them worthwhile. Check out the details below. Spotted a short note in the Amiga newsgroups that version 3.7 of Magic User Interface is available. If you use MUI, it's time for an upgrade. Readers in the Southern US, or anyone further north looking to escape the cold for a bit, may want to wander in to Huntsville Alabama's IEEE Computer Fair (February 7-8. 1997). The North Alabama Society of Amiga Users (NASAU) will make that a worthwhile event for any Amigan. The full story is below. We spotted another short posting on Usenet that will be of some interest to Amigans. The Be Box computer, hailed so recently as the next wave of innovation, is apparently dead before it was really alive. A quick check of the Be Web site confirmed the posting. The Be box was probably of more interest to Mac users than Amiga users, but we know a number of you were interested so we thought we'd pass the word along. (We didn't include the very short posting in this issue.) A new version of Oberon has just been announced, and we have the information below. Oberon is both a programming language and an operating system, created by Professors Nicholas Wirth and J. Gutknecht. Professor Wirth is probably best known as the author of Pascal and Modula. We've included a copy of the most recent posting from NewTek, for the benefit of Amiga graphics professionals. There's a great deal happening with the Video Toaster crew. And finally, we'd like to announce the first official Web mirror for "Amiga Update", just brought online in Australia. Paul Morabito is the person in charge. You can check the site out at www.comcen.com.au/~paulm/index.html. We hope this will make it easier for our friends in the land of cockatoos to keep an eye on us. All this in one issue. It seems the end of year doldrums have passed and Amiga news is flowing. Despite the amount of news, we intend to keep AU around 20K in size, for those with limited mailboxes. Brad ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Q U I K P A K P L A C E S F I N A L B I D F O R A M I G A Title: Open Letter to the Amiga Community Norristown Pennsylvania January 31 1997 11 PM EST As per the request of the German liquidator Of Amiga Technologies GMBH, QuikPak Corporation Of Norristown Pennsylvania, has submitted a final comprehensive bid for the assets and intellectual properties of Amiga. According to David Robinson, US legal counsel for Mr. Hembach, all offers must be in by January 31, 1997, midnight. During February the offers will be reviewed and a winning bid will be selected by the 28th of February, 1997. QuikPak remains committed to the future of the Amiga Platform. We believe we have submitted a "winning" offer. As soon as the outcome of the bidding process is evident we will make the appropriate announcements to the public. QuikPak would like to take this opportunity to thank all the Distributors, Retailers, Developers and especially the customers and end users who have shown their support for us in these troubled past months. We have continued to manufacture and develop Amiga Products because of our respect for the original creators of the Amiga. We share their vision of affordable multi-tasking, multimedia computing for the family. Although it may have seemed that our focus was aimed at the video professional, we remain committed to reintroducing the entry level Amiga back to the marketplace with 1997 features. Dan Robinson Director of Business Development, Amiga Computers QuikPak Corporation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E - M A I L T O T H E E - D I T O R Thanks for the newsletter. Keep 'em coming. I like everything Amiga. Amiga miga boom. Long live Amiga. Amiganauts hack the planet! Richard --------- Brad- I just want to thank you *very much* for putting me on the newsletter mailing list. I have not had time to stay current on Amiga news, so your email deliveries are most welcome. A high-quality production, I must say! - lois --------- {Thanks for the kind words - though we may have some reservations about hacking the planet ;-) There's a symmetry, we suppose, in receiving a couple of pats on the back when we also need to make a correction. Reminds you you're human. The most important thing - if you readers are happy, then we're happy. Brad} ---------------------------------------------------------------------- C H A N C E T O W I N A N A 4 0 6 0 T ! Northwest Amiga Group - RAFFLE - RAFFLE - RAFFLE Date: 31 Jan 1997 19:22:54 GMT Organization: the Northwest Amiga Group Portland, Oregon Northwest Amiga Group is to raffle an A4060T. There will be a total of 1000 tickets sold. When all tickets are sold the raffle will occur. Tickets are $5.00 US each. For more information please refer to URL: http://www.rdrop.com/users/bern/raffle/ Thanks Daniel Reichen - Northwest Amiga Group Web Master - Homepage & Web-NAJ Some details: First Prize A4060T! System includes: A4060T - 68060 50MHz processor 850 Meg Hard Drive 10 Meg RAM (2 Chip/8 Fast) Amiga Technologies Software Bundle Second Prize: 100 Meg IOmega ZIP DRIVE w/one cartridge Third Prize: $50 Gift Certificate to AmiTech Electronics [Amiga Dealer] Tickets are ONLY $5 Each! Update: 1/12/97 - 250 tickets sold Raffle time & place: Northwest Amiga Group General Meeting Tenative date: 2/25/97 7:00 pm PST, at Portland Cable Access TV Studio (Sorry not televised) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- D E M O T A P E S F R O M N O V A D E S I G N ImageFX and Aladdin 4D Demo Tape Now Shipping! For Immediate Release Richmond, VA - Friday, January 31, 1997. Nova Design, Inc. announced that its video demo tape for its ImageFX and Aladdin 4D products is now shipping. This tape features exciting footage from videos and films using ImageFX and Aladdin 4D and shows the power and the possibilities in these two packages. Other segments of the tape feature specially commissioned sequences showing off all the newest features of ImageFX. You'll see animated fires, blue screen composites, lightning, distorts, morphs, liquid effects and much more! This demo tape is excellent for user group meetings, store demos, shows and much more! Dealers and User Groups The video tape is free to all Amiga dealers, Video Toaster/Flyer dealers, or stores carrying Amiga software. All Amiga user groups are also welcome to a free ImageFX video tape. The tape may be freely copied and given away to anyone. Dealers should call to order a copy of the tape. User groups may get a copy of the demo tape by contacting Nova Design, Inc. and then putting Nova on their subscriber list for their newsletter. We also have full color product sales sheets and full color reprints of ImageFX reviews freely available in quantity for dealers and stores as well. Did You Say Free?! Yes! This tape is being made available for free to all Amiga dealers and User Groups. Dealers may request the video tape, and the free promotional literature, by calling our dealer sales line at (804) 282-5868 Monday through Friday between 1pm and 5pm eastern time. Dealers may also fax requests for the video and literature to (804) 282-3768 anytime. User groups may order the video by putting Nova Design, Inc. on their newsletter subcription list. Include a letter requesting the demo tape with the first newsletter mailed to our address above. Include instructions on who and where to mail the video tape to. Others wishing a copy can get one for $10, $5 more if shipping outside the continental US, that covers our manufacturing costs and shipping charges. Those interested in ordering their own copy MUST call 1-800-IMAGE-69, or (804) 282-1157, Monday through Friday between 1pm and 4pm eastern time, to place their order. ImageFX, and Aladdin 4D are trademarks of Nova Design, Inc. All other trademarks are held by their respective owners. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- M U I 3 . 7 A V A I L A B L E Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 17:46:22 -0600 Declan Kennedy scribed this on Tuesday : Hi everyone, Just a quick note to say that MUI 3.7 is out. It's available at the main wustl aminet site in util/libs. Dex. -- ______ ______ __ __ ===| _ \| ____)( \/ )======= dexco@thenet.co.uk ====== ===| |_) | ___) ) (===== www.thenet.co.uk/~dexco ==== ===|______/|______)(__/\__)===== Fidonet: 2:440/302.34 ===== {IMPORTANT!! There's already a patch for MUI 3.7. Be SURE you get it as well!! mui37tu1.lha is the file name. Brad} ---------------------------------------------------------------------- N A S A U A T I E E E ' 9 7 25 Jan 97 --------------------- For the eighth straight year in a row, the North Alabama Society of Amiga Users (NASAU) will be on hand to demonstrate the Amiga and its' capabilities to the public at Huntsville Alabama's IEEE Computer Fair (February 7-8. 1997). This two-day event, sponsored by the Huntsville section of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), is designed to showcase the latest in computer technology and typically draws attendance of up to 25,000 people. Best of all, there is no entrance fee. Think the Amiga's all but forgotten? SURPRISE!! For the last several years, NASAU has been able to put together the largest, most exciting User Group exhibit of the entire fair, regularly stealing attention (and interested bystanders) from the likes of Silicon Graphics' "Magic Bus" and other professional players. This year is setting itself up to be even better with running demonstrations and one-on-one instruction in several Amiga predominant areas: Desktop/Broadcast video Several volunteers will have their Desktop Video Equipment available to demonstrate the capabilities of the Amiga, Video Toaster, and Flyer. ProWave, the authors of ProMix, AudioBlackBox, and RenderFX will be on hand to demonstrate their products and how to create professionally mixed audio/video from start to finish! Wanna Be a Star? In a new twist designed to emphasize the capabilities of the Amiga, NASAU will be creating a real-time, computer rendered short film in which we can make you the star of the show!* Professional Software Displays So, you think that there isn't any "real" software for a "games machine"? You couldn't be further from the truth! There will be running exhibitions on everything Amiga, from Word processors and CAD programs, to how to install TCP/IP stacks and dial-up networking. We'll even show you step-by-step how to use your Amiga to build and maintain your own website! Emulators One of the many strengths of the Amiga is its ability to emulate other platforms. Come see the Amiga emulate a Macintosh, PC, and other systems while still giving you complete access to its native operating system. Audio and MIDI John Evans, our local MIDI, music and .MOD affectionado will be on hand to demonstate the Amiga's offerings in the way of audio mixing, sampling, and output.. For more information on the 1997 IEEE Computer Show, check out its web site at: www.carsonpub.com/ieee.html. If you're within reasonable distance, and even if you're not ;-), We heartily invite you to attend what's sure to be a great show! For more information about NASAU or anything at all, please contact webmaster@amiga.org ------------------------------------------------- * There will be a minimal cost to cover the expense of the tape. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- N E W O B E R O N V E R S I O N I S H E R E TITLE Oberon System V4 for Amiga VERSION 1.4 AUTHOR Stefan Ludwig, Claudio Nieder, Oliver Joos, Ralf Degner E-Mail: ludwig@inf.ethz.ch, degner@pallas.amp.uni-hannover.de S-Mail: Stefan Ludwig Institut fuer Computersysteme ETH-Zentrum CH-8092 Zuerich DESCRIPTION Oberon System V4 for Amiga (O4A) is a full implementation of ETH Zurich's Oberon System V4. Oberon is both a programming language and an operating system developed by Prof. N. Wirth and Prof. J. Gutknecht. The Oberon System in key words: - Single-process multitasking - Garbage collector - memory will be released automatically if not needed anymore - Commandos: procedures that can be called like programs - Dynamic loading: modules are loaded and linked to the system during run-time (if necessary) - Text as a built-in abstract data type (for example a Minesweeper game as a letter (like OLE and OpenDOC)) - Graphical user interface A special advantage is the very high compatibility of the systems between implementations on different computers. System V4 implementations exist for Amiga, Mac, Power Mac, Windows (NT), Linux, IBM-RS6000, Sun-Sparc, HP-Workstations, NeXt, ... You can use a program written on one implementation on any other without change. O4A is a full implementation of the Oberon System V4 with all usual programs. The system runs in its own task and therefore you can use O4A and the Amiga OS at the same time. Specific features of the Amiga implementation are its incremental heap allocation, support of the Amiga clipboard and the capability of accessing IFF files. The O4A package contains: - A full Oberon-2 compiler - Development tools (Browser, Analyzer, Disassembler, ...) - XE, a comfortable 'editor' with layout functions - Kepler, an object-oriented 2D vector drawing program - Paint, a simple pixel-oriented paint program - A lot of additional tools (Draw, RX, AsciiCoder, ...) - Various text elements - VT100 terminal emulation - Games: Tetris and Minesweeper (with source) - Example sources and online documentation To get more information about the programming language and operating system Oberon have a look at the "Oberon and Amiga" WWW page: http://sun1.rrzn.uni-hannover.de/~nhbidegn/oa-e.html There you will find links to other Oberon information resources. NEW FEATURES - All interface modules rewritten - Amiga font support - Many small bugs fixed SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS - Amiga with OS2.0 or higher - at least an MC68020 - a minimum of 1.5 MB free memory (2.5 MB recommended) - about 3 MB disk space - FPU for floating point calculations (without FPU Oberon-NonFPU.lha is required) AVAILABILITY The Home of Oberon is the ETH Zurich. There you can find many Oberon System implementations, especially the Amiga version: ftp://ftp.inf.ethz.ch/pub/Oberon/Amiga/V1.4/ Oberon.lha (1.1 MB) - main archive Oberon-NonFPU.lha (100 KB) - to use O4A without FPU Oberon-Src.lha (700 KB) - the full source of O4A Oberon-Fonts.lha (390 KB) - additional fonts Dialogs.lha (250kB) - advanced GUI Expressions.lha (130kB) - math expressions within text documents CoCo.lha (130kB) - compiler generator It is available in the Aminet directory dev/obero, too. PRICE It's free, but not PD. Please note the ReadMe file in every archive. DISTRIBUTABILITY Oberon System V4 for Amiga is (C)opyright 1990-97 by Claudio Nieder, Stefan Ludwig, Ralf Degner and the Institute for Computer Systems ETH Zurich. Some files in the archives are (C)opyright by other persons (fo example Dialogs and Expressions). All files in the archives are freeware. You can use it in any way you like but you must not include part of it in a commercial product. -- Ralf Degner Mail: degner@pallas.amp.uni-hannover.de WWW : http://sun1.rrzn.uni-hannover.de/~nhbidegn ---------------------------------------------------------------------- N E W T E K N E W S 24 Jan 97 This edition contains news of interest to all NewTek product owners. Product Line Update *Now Shipping!* PowerMac and Amiga LightWave 5.0 are now shipping in quantity. Price is US$1495 for these packages. Registered Toaster/Flyer or Amiga LightWave Standalone owners can update to Amiga Lightwave 5.0 for their registered product for US$295. *MIPS Cross-Platform Special* Registered MIPS LightWave owners are being offered a special "cross-grade" program. They can purchase the LightWave 5.0 Upgrade (no hardware key included) package for Intel, Dec Alpha, or PowerMac, at the update price of US$495. They would use their existing hardware key on the platform they are switching to, if going to Dec Alpha or to Intel. This offer available from NewTek only, subject to change or cancellation without notice. *Amiga Cross-Platform Special Continues* Registered owners of the Video Toaster, the Flyer, or Amiga Standalone LightWave may still purchase Lightwave 5.0 for the Intel, Dec Alpha, and now the PowerMac, for the special price of US$895. Please contact NewTek directly. *New Price List* The current price list is available on www.newtek.com, or from our Customer Service Department (1-800-228-8000, or email customerservice@newtek.com). All prices and specifications subject to change without notice. *Updates and Notes* Amiga LightWave 5.0: A replacement for the LWPanels plugin has been posted to all NewTek online services. Intel LightWave 5.0: A replacement for the LightSwarm plugin has been posted to all NewTek online services. PowerMac LightWave 5.0: If not using the latest release version of QuickDraw 3D, objects may ghost through control panels. Please update to Quickdraw 3D version 1.5 to eliminate this problem. The file is available from apple.com. Please check www.newtek.com for further notes on commonly encountered problems for PowerMac users. All Products: Software updates can now be downloaded directly from our Web Page. The Technical Support section of the Web Page now has the section "Software Updates", with direct links to the FTP site, and a short note explaining each file. Simply click on the file you need, in order to download it. Kudos to Sr. Technical Support staffer Lloyd Slapar for creating the new page! *Technical Support BBS Down For Moving and Alterations* The NewTek Technical Support BBS will be down for a few days while it is changing physical location and hardware. The BBS is also getting a new sysop, Tech staffer Terry Mundy. Terry has been with the Tech Team since June '96, as part of the telephone support staff. The current changes will improve modem speed from 19.2 to 28.8 on the modem ports, and will allow for more telnet ports. Future plans include increasing the bandwidth for the telnet ports, and making the BBS more friendly for WWW and Usenet users. We plan eventually to replace the BBS's proprietary conferences with the appropriate newsgroups and mailing lists. New message areas are being built which are essentially "Troubleshooter" databases for NewTek's products. The message titles are either general topics or specific error messages, and the messages include the product, revisions, and platforms affected by specific problems. Since the BBS has filtered text string search capabilities, users will be able to easily locate the information they need either by scanning titles or by searching for particular words or phrases. We also plan HTML versions of these files for the Web Page. *Tech Online Support Staff Changes* All of NewTek's online services are experiencing growth, and accordingly we have made some changes in staffing. Dreux Doty, who formerly provided support on the BBS, Compuserve, tech@newtek.com, and supervised the FTP site, will now provide support on CompuServe, AOL, and tech@newtek.com. Terry Mundy is now the BBS Sysop, and will share FTP oversight with Dreux. Ron Horton is providing support for the Toaster and LightWave mailing lists and newsgroups. Other expansions to the online staff are probable this year. Our host system, newtek.com, is being updated to handle serving mailing lists, and we will become the permanent home for the LightWave and Toaster Mailing lists, currently administered by Cool Friend David Warner, and the LightWave Plugin list, currently administered by programmer extraordinaire Stuart Ferguson. Additional mailing lists are in consideration, in conjunction with our BBS plans. Chuck Baker -- NewTek, Inc., Technical Support Services ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Amiga Update on the net: some issues available at: http://www.sharbor.com/amiga/news/ (in html format) http://www.amigacom.com (in ASCII text) Australian Mirror Site: http://www.comcen.com.au/~paulm/index.html All back issues available (in ASCII text) at: http://www.globaldialog.com/AdventureCentral/AU.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1997 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified. ====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || Brad Webb/AmigaUpdate /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || bandr@globaldialog.com / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ || ======================================================================