====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || A M I G A U P D A T E /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || -News and Rumors- / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_|| (An Occasional e-mail KEEP THE MOMENTUM GOING || Newsmagazine) ====================================================================== AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 990528 L E T T E R F R O M D R . L E F A I V R E A M I G A A T B O T H A M I W E S T 9 9 , W O A 9 9 A M I W E S T 9 9 U P D A T E A M I G A L A U N C H E S A D V I S O R Y C O U N C I L A U S T R A L A S I A N A M I G A G R O U P F O R M E D A M I G A C T I V E O N L I N E H A C K E R S V I O L A T E A M I G A . O R D H T T P R E S U M E F A K E V E R S I O N A A A A W A R D S V O T I N G D A Y T O N C O M P U T E R F E S T S W E D I S H E - M A I L G A M E S M A G A Z I N E I M P R O V E D C L U B B E D F R O M S E A L C R Y S T A L S O F T W A R E A T A N T M O N O L I T H P O R T S T O A M I G A , M A C F I N A L A C T I M A G E F X 4 W I T H A N I M A T I O N A M I C O M S Y S N E W A M I G A F O R E V E R P A G E S T R E A M 4 . 0 T O S O F T W A R E H U T Editor's Thoughts and Introduction: May has been an interesting month. There was little news at the beginning, so little that it wasn't until the 19th that we sent out our first issue. Then, there was so much all at once that a few things had to be held till this issue. Ah well, you can't plan when news will appear. Amiga Concepts and Japan Recently, Amiga has begun releasing concept drawings for the next generation machine. There will be many available in the press and probably on the net starting next week. We hope you get a chance to see some of those not now available. When you look at them, keep in mind some information recently noted in an article by by Brooke Crothers, Staff Writer for CNET News.com. In this article Mr. Crothers discusses some new Gateway computers released recently in Japan. Here's a quote from the article: "Gateway is now selling a computer in Japan which packs all the computer's electronics, including a DVD-ROM drive and 4GB hard drive, into the back of a liquid crystal display (LCD)." These machines have a very small "footprint", vitally important in the Japanese business environment where space is at a real premium, even desk space. However, this would be a very practical and forward looking design for the American market also. There are other interesting innovations in these new machines as well. Mr Crothers goes on to say: "Gateway, in its current system, also integrates into the 15-inch LCD a high-speed graphics chip from ATI Technologies, a 400-MHz Advanced Micro Devices K6-2 processor, a networking chip, a modem, and a chip for playing back DVD video. The LCD uses active-matrix technology. This whole system sells for about 250,000 yen, which is less than $2,500." Can't help but wonder if there aren't a few hints about the new Amiga here. Brad Webb, Editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E-mail to the E-ditor: 25 May 1999 Well, I've been looking for Amiga Update for at least a month. I always used to read Amiga Update at "http://www.globaldialog.com/AdventureCentral/AU/index.html", and then suddenly one day that address didn't work anymore. I was instead taken to "http://www.gdinet.com/missing.html", which gave me an option to check a "Table of Contents, or "Search GDI", whatever that is. Neither option turned up Amiga Update. Every page of Amiga links that I visited, plus Alta Vista and Hotbot, and I think Yahoo, gave me only the old address. Finally, today I found the new address listed at "http://www.cucug.org/amimagazines.html". Next time you move, may I suggest that you: (1) post big, giant notices in Amiga Update for at least a month or two ahead of time (not a tiny notice in the copyright statement at the bottom of one issue), (2) Notify all the major Amiga pages that link to you, along with (when possible) Yahoo and the major search engines, and (3) post a message at the old address telling what the new address is. -Steven ~~~~~~ Good suggestions Steven, and we'll keep them in mind. I want to point out to all our readers that the web site was started as a location for archives of past issues and was not really intended as the place for people to pick up copies. We're very happy that you do, but it just didn't occur to us that many folks would. In fact, it's common that we don't get the latest issue to the web site till it's been in subscribers hands for a few days. That's likely to continue, especially with hot news in rushed-out issues. As we discussed Steven's letter with other Amigans, we discovered there were quite a few who get AU from the website. Now we wonder how many there are ... Incidentally, the address is at the bottom of each and every issue, though we did have an error in the first issue carrying the new address. Some letters were capitalized when they shouldn't have been. Brad ====== 20 May 1999 Brad, Thank You for all the hard work you continue to do. I wrote last year with a IBM compatible looking for an Amiga, well that is still the case. I was wondering where I can get information about emulation for the Amiga. Both the Amiga OS on other systems and other systems or game machines (SNES, Genesis, NeoGeo) on the Amiga. I am looking to find out possibly the best systems or software to emulate an Amiga on, if I can't find a machine. If I can I want to know about which software is best to emulate the other machine/consoles. Thank You! Patrick Tyner ~~~~~~ Hi Patrick, There are real hardware Amigas available from a number of sources. You might have to do a little searching. If you have a web browser, start at http://www.cucug.org/amiga.html and work from their companies page. Also, check out the story about "Amiga Forever", below. Brad ====== {Last issue we published a letter from a reader who was upset that, as he thought, Amiga had no plans to attend AmiWest99. We received the following letter from Amiga President Jim Collas, setting the matter straight. Mr. Collas apparently wrote directly to the reader as well. We reprint the reader's original letter below. Mr. Collas's answer. Brad} 21 May 1999 Dear John, We are planning to support AmiWest99. I mention this in my May letter to the community which was released yesterday but I forgot to add it to the community activities section for May. I apologize for my mistake. I will post a news release in the next few days announcing our support for AmiWest99. As you know AMiWest and WOA fall on the same days this year. It's unfortunate but we didn't have control over this. We are working on plans to split the Amiga executives between the two shows. We are also working on announcements and activities for both shows. Sincerely, Jim May 12, 1999 Dear. Mr. Webb, I found it very disheartening to compare Mr. Collas claims to want to prove himself to the Amiga community with his list of community activities. From the absence of any reference to AmiWest99, it would appear there is no interest in west coast US market by the new chief executive. I haven't seen since his open letter which would indicate anyone from Aimga will be present or that there is any support for the only west coast Amiga show this year. It will be interesting to see if the European market is big enough to support the operation since it would appear parts of the US market already have been written off. Sincerely, John ---------------------------------------------------------------------- L E T T E R F R O M D R . L E F A I V R E May 26, 1999 Letter from Amiga's new CTO, Dr. Rick LeFaivre Dear Amigans, I thought it would be appropriate for me to "introduce" myself to the Amiga community, having joined the new Amiga in April as chief technology officer and senior VP of R&D. Just as Jim Collas is opening up communications channels as our new CEO, I'll try to communicate as openly as I can about Amiga's technology vision and directions. First, a little about my background, and why I'm at Amiga. I wrote my first computer program (on an IBM 1620) in 1966, and got my first job as a (student) programmer in 1967. Over the past 32 years, I've been privileged to participate in the evolution of computing from the mainframe to the minicomputer to the personal computer to the Internet. I started my career as a computer science professor doing research in artificial intelligence and advanced programming environments (LISP, SmallTalk, and an AI language I developed in the early 70's called FUZZY). I moved into industrial R&D in 1978, and over the years have directed R&D organizations at companies such as Tektronix, Sun Microsystems, Apple Computer, Silicon Graphics and Borland International (now Inprise). At Apple, where I oversaw advanced technology R&D, we pioneered technologies such as QuickTime, PlainTalk, QuickTime-VR, and a host of other innovations that were subsequently copied by our friends at a large software company located in the Northwest corner of the United States (sigh). We also provided funding for the world's first Internet browser, and set up Apple's first Internet web site. I spent most of my career as a UNIX user and, later, a Macintosh user. I managed to avoid having to use Microsoft DOS or Windows prior to Windows 95, but for the past several years have had the, uh, "pleasure" of being a Windows 95/98 user. I must confess that I have never been an Amiga user, but I was well aware of what was going on in the Amiga community as the Amiga and Video Toaster moved multimedia into the mainstream. People at Apple had a great respect for the Amiga, and the communities always seemed similar to me. I am rapidly learning more about the spirit of innovation that has been at the heart of the Amiga community since the first Amiga was shipped in the mid-80's. Well, it is now 1999, and we find ourselves at the dawn of a new millennium, and the dawn of the information age. The personal computer, as represented by Windows PC's and Macintoshes, is now a mature product category, with little true innovation occurring in the PC industry. What's next? With the PC industry now in it's third decade, what will be the next big "S-curve" that will dominate the next 20 years of computing? Clearly, it will involve the emerging global information infrastructure, which is creating a fundamental transformation of business, communications and, indeed, human culture. In many ways, we are transitioning from the era of computing - building faster and faster computers that may, incidentally, be networked - to the era of communications, with powerful ubiquitous communications networks that connect a wide variety of computing devices. We at Amiga feel that unleashing the full power of this emerging information infrastructure requires much more than a PC with a browser plugged into the Internet. What is needed is a complete home computing environment that ties together powerful multimedia convergence computers with easy-to-use information appliances, all transparently accessing content and services on the Internet. As Jim has told you, our vision and mission is to make computers a natural part of everyday life by creating an industry-standard systems architecture and operating environment for this new world. In essence, we want to redefine the home computing experience for the 21st Century, combining awesome multimedia, transparent networking and Internet access, and a user experience that makes a computer or information appliance as easy to use as... a toaster! It's a very exciting time as the spirit of the Amiga starts building again. Personally, I'm thrilled to be a part of the new Amiga team, working with Jim, Petro, Jeff Schindler, Allan Havemose, and the other top people who are being attracted to this opportunity. I look forward to sharing more about our vision, technologies and products in the months to come. Stay tuned... Rick LeFaivre CTO and SVP, R&D Amiga, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A A T B O T H A M I W E S T 9 9 , W O A 9 9 San Diego - May 21, 1999 - AMIGA announces participation at AmiWest99 and World of AMIGA 99 shows. AMIGA will be supporting and participating at two major AMIGA shows in July, AmiWest99 in Sacramento, California and World of AMIGA 99 in London, England. These shows will occur over the same weekend. "Participating in two shows at the same time will present some challenges but we are looking forward to simultaneously discussing our plans for the future with great audiences on two continents," said Jim Collas. "We are looking at ways to connect the two events and show that AMIGA users represent a great worldwide community." AMIGA executives will be at both of the shows, and look forward to sharing more details about what we have been doing over the past few months and how we are moving towards the future. We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at the shows. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I W E S T 9 9 U P D A T E 24 May, 1999 At this time we do not know which AMIGA executives will be at AmiWest. We will alert you as soon as we have that information. Earlier, AMIGA President Jim Collas had announced that Amiga is supporting AmiWest99. In his May, 1999, "Update on Major Activities", Jim Collas announced that Amiga is "planning to support the AmiWest show in late July." And in his "Open Letter to the Community", Jim stated "Before I end this letter I would like to cover a few more topics that came up frequently in emails sent to me. First, I would like to clarify our hardware product plans. Amiga is planning to come out with a next generation multimedia computer in late Q4 of the year. This computer will have a unique architecture, a great operating system, awesome 3D gaming performance, and advanced multimedia features. I am confident that this computer will meet your expectations for a great next generation Amiga. Unfortunately, we can't disclose details of the new computer yet since we are under non-disclosure agreements with our technology partners. We also need to be careful about alerting our competition to our plans. One thing I can say is that the technology partners we are working with are extremely excited about our direction and technology. There are Amigans in all major technology companies and they are eager to support us in driving a new computer revolution. These partners include some major technology and component companies in the computer industry. We should be ready to disclose more at the World of Amiga and AmiWest shows in July." {See our last issue, 990519, for a complete copy of both items. Brad} AmiWest is also also working with the World of Amiga in London, which is being held on the same weekend, to make this a "World Wide Amiga Weekend". For those of you in Europe and the United Kingdom who can't make it to the US for the AmiWest show should plan to visit the World of Amiga (http://www.worldofamiga.com) on July 24th and 25th. For a a preliminary list of companies/clubs that are either participating in or exhibiting at AmiWest99 see our web page at http://www.sacc.org/amiwest We are adding new exhibitors daily. So watch our web page for additional names. Remember, AmiWest99 is being held on Friday through Sunday, July 23-25, at the Holiday Inn, Sacramento NorthEast, in Sacramento, CA. Classes and seminars will be held Friday through Sunday with the exhibit hall being open on Saturday, July 24th from 10 A.M. - 5 P.M and Sunday, July 25th 10 A.M. - 4 P.M. Specially priced tickets for AmiWest99 are available in advance by mail. Prices are: two day admission tickets, $12 and one day admission ticket, $8. If you elect to purchase tickets at the door, the prices are: two day ticket at the door, $15 and One day ticket at the door, $10. There will be a banquet dinner on Saturday evening, July 24th. Price is $35 per plate. Banquet tickets must be purchased in advance. They will NOT be sold on Friday nor Saturday due to the hotel needing attendance figures for planning the banquet. You can mail your requests for advanced admission and banquet tickets to: AmiWest99 c/o Sacramento Amiga Computer Club P.O. Box 19784 Sacramento, CA 95819-0784 Make checks payable to "AmiWest". Special hotel room rates are available at the Holiday Inn for those attending AmiWest99. Room rates are $ 79 (Single) and $ 89 (double) if reservations are made by July 1. You must mention that you are attending AmiWest to get the special rate. You can phone the Holiday Inn at 1-916-338-5800 or 1-800-465-8329 (Toll Free) to make hotel reservations. Hope to see you at AmiWest99 on July 23-24, 1999, John Zacharias, Chairperson, AmiWest99. jzachar@calweb.com http://www.sacc.org/amiwest ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A L A U N C H E S A D V I S O R Y C O U N C I L San Diego, CA - May 19th 1999 - Amiga announces the creation of the Amiga Advisory Council. "In order to make Amiga a great company, delivering the type of innovative products that users desire, it is imperative that the Spirit of Amiga flow throughout our products, and that Spirit is the community." Said Jim Collas - President of Amiga As the company moves forward, the advisory council will be influential in helping to set the future direction of Amiga, with a special focus on the needs and desires of the existing Amiga community. "The Amiga community is one of the most valuable communities in the computer industry. They are a great resource that needs to be heard as we maintain delivery of current product while moving into new areas and directions for Amiga. There are great people in the community with great ideas, and a talent pool that is without equal. It is because of the leaders and members of this community that the Amiga is alive today," Jim Collas - President of Amiga The Amiga Advisory Council will consist of members from the community and the Amiga leadership team. Candidates will be selected over the next 30 days from nominees submitted to Amiga. Amiga will be evaluating and selecting the candidates based on the following criteria. * Experience with the classic Amiga products * Experience with the various Amiga user groups or similar Amiga community organization (such as ICOA, Brainiac, UGN, Team Amiga, Jay Miner Society, AmigaSOC, D.A.U.G.) * Amiga Dealers and Distributors * Amiga Developers * Communication with the Advisory council will be in English and will primarily be done via the Internet. In the coming weeks nomination forms will be found on the Amiga WebSite. The Amiga Advisory Council is expected to be in place by the end on June. Please visit the Amiga web sites www.amiga.com, and www.amiga.de to nominate your Council Member. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A U S T R A L A S I A N A M I G A G R O U P F O R M E D *Date*: 24 May 1999 ARMIDALE, NSW, AUSTRALIA By Basil Flinter As a result of Petro Tyschtschenko's visit to Australia in January this year, it became clear that, because of their geographic isolation, low population density, and distances involved, the Amiga user community in Australia and New Zealand needed an organisation which would allow them to become part of the global Amiga User Group movement, thereby enabling them to play an important role in the Amiga's revival, and be eligible for the special privileges it is anticipated that AMIGA will be offering to User Group members as part of its comeback strategy. In other words, because of the isolation of many Amiga users and the dispersion of the Amiga community, there was a need for a central body which could disseminate information about the Amiga and Amiga-oriented activities within Australia and New Zealand, and possibly the surrounding region. We are, therefore, pleased to announce the successful implementation of one of the initiatives decided upon during that visit, namely the formation of an Australasia-wide (Australasian) User Group. This User Group, named Amiga Downunder UG Incorporated (or ADUG for short) will be officially launched at the Amiga Downunder 1999 (ADU99) Show which is being organised and hosted by members of the Canberra Amiga Users Society (CAUSe) in Canberra on 21 and 22 August 1999 (http://www2.dynamite.com.au/krash/amigadu). Membership of ADUG is open to all individuals living in Australia or New Zealand; however, the residential qualification may be geographically extended, in the future, to include the surrounding region. Although memberships will not be processed before ADUG is officially launched at ADU99, anyone wishing to be considered for membership, or requiring any information at all about ADUG, should contact Basil Flinter, as indicated below, with the word "ADUG" in the subject line. Steve Kennedy President, ADUG Basil Flinter Email: flinter@taen.org ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A C T I V E O N L I N E Friday 28 May 1999. Pinprint Publishing are delighted to announce the launch of Amigactive Online, the official website of the forthcoming UK based, glossy newsstand Amiga magazine, Amigactive. Amigactive Online will form an integral part of the Amigactive experience, and will be updated frequently with the latest news about the magazine as well as news from the rest of the Amiga world. We will make Amigactive the best Amiga magazine money can buy, and you can help us to do this by filling in our first online survey - and stand a chance of winning yourself a pair of tickets to this year's World Of Amiga show in London in the process! Lasty, we would like to take this opportunity to thank all those people who have contacted us with messages of support since we announced our decision to produce a brand new UK Amiga magazine. Without you, we would not be here today. Thank you. So, for all the latest information about Amigactive Magazine, visit Amigactive Online: www.amigactive.com Best Regards, The Amigactive Team. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- H A C K E R S V I O L A T E A M I G A . O R D 19 May, 1999 Amiga.org recently published a report reading: `Holger Kruse has been successfully sued for including backdoors in his public products by a disgruntled user. This lawsuit now confirms what many have suspected for a while now, that Nordicglobal products contain procedures to ILLEGALLY illicit user informations from unaware users. Amiga.org advises users to deinstall any products from Mr. Kruse. More details soon...' From Amiga.org: 'I awoke this morning to find about 25 e-mails and a number of stories posted in our own news database which were not only incorrect but highly offensive. Rest assured, the crew at Amiga.org did NOT make those posts and we most certainly would never thrash such a wonderful Amiga product as Miami. Our sincere apologies go out to our readers, and most of all to Holger Kruse of Nordic Global. For the record, There are NO back doors in Nordic Global products, and we officially and highly endorse the use of Miami...' ------ Nordic Global's reponse The amiga.org website recently published a report alleging that Nordic Global Inc. was successfully sued because of "backdoors" in our products. That report is false. We assume that the amiga.org web site was "hacked" by Amiga cracker groups, and that these groups are now trying to, once again, tarnish our good reputation, in order to retaliate against our active anti-piracy measures. However so far we have no confirmation yet why and how that bogus report got published on the amiga.org web site. In detail: Our software does not have any backdoors, it never has and never will. Alleged "backdoors" in Miami actually turned out to be backdoors in a fake version of "datatypes.library", released by the members of the Amiga cracker group Digital Corruption. That group made false claims about alleged "backdoors" in Miami in order to cover their own tracks. For more information on that incident please look at the November '98 news archives of the Amiga Web Directory or any other reputable Amiga news source. Nordic Global Inc. was instrumental in uncovering the plot by Digital Corruption and warning users about the threat. The incident is now well-documented with sufficient proof against the fake version of datatypes.library. Nordic Global Inc. does not attempt to obtain private information from customers in any way, except in ways obvious to users, i.e. during registration (MiamiRegister), when users are required to fill out a form with their name and address, and during credit card ordering, for the purpose of AVS address verification, to prevent credit card fraud, as recommended by international credit card regulations. Nordic Global Inc. values the privacy of users very highly, which is why our software contains more features to prevent and detect attacks from the Internet than the software of any of our competitors, e.g. powerful firewall features in Miami Deluxe. Except for the usually anonymous rambling of some disgruntled Amiga crackers, who see their existance threatened by pending lawsuits against them, we are not aware that any users in any way disapprove of our policy regarding user privacy. No lawsuits have been filed against Nordic Global Inc., neither regarding privacy matters nor regarding any other matter. All of our software, including Miami and Miami Deluxe, is safe to use, and "recommendations" to the contrary are libelous and without factual basis. None of our software contains any mechanisms to transfer user information to anyone without the knowledge of the user. This is true both for users of the demo version and registered users. We would like to stress, once again, that the ONLY software that has ever been demonstrated to "steal" private information from users was a fake "datatypes.library" distributed by Amiga cracker groups. This shows clearly that the best way to protect your privacy is for you to NOT use any pirated software, or software released by cracker organizations. Nordic Global Inc. assumes that the false "report" on amiga.org was the result of the "amiga.org" web site being hacked. In that case expect an official statement and apology from amiga.org soon. Holger Kruse Nordic Global Inc. 05/18/99 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- H T T P R E S U M E F A K E V E R S I O N 16 May 99 Posted to the net by Andrija Antonijevic Here's the message I wrote to HTTPResume users whose e-mail addresses I know: You received this message because you expressed interest in HTTPResume. If you don't want to receive these announce messages in the future, please tell me. HTTPResume v1.6a appeared on Aminet. It was *not* released by me and it's *not* official HTTPResume release. The latest official release is still v1.6, dated 24-Apr-99 01:22:40 and its size is 107036 bytes. Official archive is 110318, .readme 2109 bytes long. Checking on http://www.bigfoot.com/~TheAntony/HTTPResume/ is the only way to be sure that the new version is out. It will always have information on latest HTTPResume releases and latest HTTPResume archive on local server. I have no connection to v1.6a and can't say whether it has backdoors or anything malicious inside it (I doubt it, though). I have uploaded the official v1.6 archive to Aminet today. If you haven't downloaded "v1.6a", you have no reason to download any comm/www/HTTPResume.lha archive from Aminet for a while since next version (v1.7) won't be released in near future. If you are unsure which version you have, download the official archive from HTTPResume page mentioned above. If you have installed this "new" version, please replace it with the official one. Thank you. ---- The story goes like this: Tonight I received an e-mail message: rom: "xxx" Name and address removed to protect the guilty. Subject: HTTP Resume Date: 15 May 1999 10:59:59 GMT Hello, Just to tell you that I find it very childish of you to include propaganda against the war in an Amiga program. If removed the line of text and replaced it with what it should be, and will release this on Aminet within 36 hours as version v1.6a you can stop me by releasing your own version with the message string REMOVED It's your choice That's it, l8er alligator ! [SNIP signature] ---- [The propaganda mentioned is string "Stop NATO bombs!" in title bar of HTTPResume's main window. Any discussion about this to e-mail, please.] I looked at Aminet recent list and found out that HTTPResume v1.6a was there (so much about 36 hours). The guy that uploaded it also decided that he can speak in my name and wrote version history for "v1.6a" making it look like I wrote (the word he likes to use, "childish", comes to mind). The rest can be read in message above. The scary thought is that anyone can replace anything on Aminet with no problems, and there's nothing that can be done about that. It seems that PGP signing is the only solution... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A A A A W A R D S V O T I N G Stockholm, Sweden - Thursday, May 20, 1999. It's time to cast your vote for the AAA Awards 1998! Do it now, and you could be the lucky winner of a brand new, specially designed and hand-airbrushed Amiga 1200HDD, or one of twenty copies of Cloanto's "Amiga Forever Online Edition"! The AAA Awards 1998 are proudly presented in association with AMIGA and Cloanto. Voting Voting is open for everyone until June 30, around the clock. These options are available: o Online: http://www.aaa-awards.org o Phone: +46-90-71 00 20 (24 hours) o Fax: +46-90-71 01 46 o Mail: Amiga Format #125 July 1999 and other magazines will contain mail-in forms This year's categories are AAA Award International AAA Award Belgium AAA Award Spain AAA Award Sweden AAA Award United Kingdom Prize Raffle Once you vote for the AAA Award International 1998, we'll automatically place you in the raffle to win... o A brand new, specially designed, hand-airbrushed Amiga 1200 HDD o One of twenty copies of Cloanto's "Amiga Forever Online Edition" You could be the lucky winner! Award ceremonies The AAA Awards 1998 Winners will be presented at these locations: AAA Award International, July 24-25 World of Amiga 99, The Kensington Town Hall Conference Centre, London, UK AAA Award Belgium, July 8 Waaslandia Merksem meeting, Café Pierre De Deken, Merksem, Belgium AAA Award Spain, October 29-November 1 Radykal Amiga Party, Armilla (Granada), Spain AAA Award Sweden, August 7-15 Stora Nolia fair, Umeå, Sweden AAA Award United Kingdom, July 24-25 World of Amiga 99, The Kensington Town Hall Conference Centre, London, UK See our homepage www.aaa-awards.org for exact dates and times. Juries The AAA Awards Committee would like to take this opportunity to thank all jury members throughout the world for their effort. A listing of all juries is available at: http://www.aaa-awards.org/juries/1998/ Acknowledgements The AAA Awards are organized by Swedish user group Amiga Computer Group in co-operation with AMIGA, AmigaSOC, Amiga Users Club of Spain, Cloanto and Waaslandia Amiga-Only Club. The AAA Awards is copyright © 1997-99 Amiga Computer Group. The AAA Awards logo is copyright © 1997 Amiga Computer Group and Björn Hagström. AMIGA® is a registered trademark of AMIGA International, Inc. / Gateway, Inc. Amiga Forever is a trademark of Cloanto. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- D A Y T O N C O M P U T E R F E S T 21 May, 1999 Dayton Computerfest -- An Amiga Show Within A Show The AmiTech Dayton Amiga User Group has made arrangements with the Dayton Microcomputer Association, sponsor of the Dayton Computerfest, the largest computer show in this part of the country, to establish an Amiga Area within the show. They are recruiting Amiga vendors, developers, user groups, and individuals that wish to sell, demonstrate, or display Amiga equipment and capabilities to take part in the show. The show will be August 27-29 at Hara Arena in Dayton, Ohio. The Amiga Show within the Show, with a concentrated group of Amiga vendors and displays all in one place will provide are a number of advantages for the Amiga user: 1. Access to a concentration of Amiga gear, all in one place. 2. Availability of a gigantic source of general supplies, such as drives, printers, storage media, etc. at extremely attractive prices. 3. Very reasonable table prices. Since this show normally has attendance of more than 30,000, it may also provide the Amiga community an opportunity to make the public, as a whole, more aware. AmiTech Dayton took this initiative after the announcement that the Midwest Amiga Show would not be held this fall, feeling the momentum that show established needed to be continued. There are lots of accommodations near the show, however, with a show this big it is best to make arrangements as early as possible. If you would like more information about the show or wish to participate contact: Ron Schwartz via email schwartr@gemair.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- S W E D I S H E - M A I L G A M E S M A G A Z I N E FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE GlädjeStickan 27th May 1999 We are very exited to present a new forum for all you game hungry Amigans - The emailmagazine GlädjeStickan! Monthly it shows up in the inbox of your emailprogram, filled with reviews of all kinds of Amiga games. And it is all in Swedish. PD, SW, FW, demos or commersial; Makes no difference. GlädjeStickan gots room for them all! Direct you browser to http://www.amigaspel.just.nu and order a subscription today - Totaly free of charge. We welcome you as a subscriber Editorial staff /GlädjeStickan For add. info: gladjestickan@post.utfors.se ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I M P R O V E D C L U B B E D F R O M S E A L 20 May, 1999 South Essex Amiga Link (SEAL) is proud to announce three major improvements to the quality and service of our print Amiga magazine "Clubbed". 1. Higher Production Quality Starting from issue 3 (see below) Clubbed is being printed directly from EPS files for sharper text and graphics inside the magazine and a semi-gloss finish on the cover. The cover is now printed on 200gsm card to give the whole magazine a more substantial feel. 2. More Pages and Increased Content With an increasing subscriber base we can now afford to increase the page count of the magazine, issue 3 will have a total of 40 pages (including covers) up from 36 in previous issues. Due to the new higher quality printing we have been able to reduce the size of images and slightly reduce the type size while maintaining clarity to increase the amount of text per page. With the extra pages and smaller print we estimate the total content of issue 3 is about 25% greater than issue 2. 3. Credit Card Payment Option You can now pay for your Clubbed subscription using a VISA or Mastercard credit card. We hope this payment option will make it much easier for Amigans outside the UK to subscribe. This service is provided for Clubbed by FORE-MATT Home Computing. Even with these improvements the subscription price remains the same, starting at just 10UKP for a 4 issue UK subscription. Clubbed Issue 3 Imminent Clubbed Issue 3 with improved print quality and more content will be available in June, some highlights of this issue include: How to get your Amiga on the 'net feature complemented by reviews of popular Internet packages such as: Netconnect 2 Miami IBrowse Thor YAM Reviews of: Turbo Print 7 Epson Stylus Photo 700 Candy Factory Pro tutorial As well as all the latest news and an exclusive interview with a well known Amiga personality About Clubbed Clubbed is a non-profit making Amiga magazine from SEAL. It is published quarterly and sent to SEAL members and subscribers across the world. The magazine is A4 format with colour printed covers and mono inside pages. Clubbed is entirely produced on Amiga systems using several packages including PageStream 3, Draw Studio, ImageFX and Photogenics. Every piece in the magazine is written by a dedicated Amiga user. Visit the Clubbed website at http://seal.amiga.tm for further details, including world wide subscription pricing and example articles from previous issues. About SEAL SEAL (South Essex Amiga Link) is an Amiga user group in the South of England, based around the Basildon area we have about 30 enthusiastic members and meet twice a month at a local community centre. In the year that SEAL has been formed we have made a name for ourselves on the UK Amiga scene with our magazine, lively website and recently involvement with the 1999 WoA show. Contacts Clubbed clubbed@williams.demon.co.uk Clubbed 26 Wincoat Drive BENFLEET Essex, SS7 5AH ENGLAND http://seal.amiga.tm SEAL seal@thunder.u-net.com http://seal.amiga.tm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- C R Y S T A L S O F T W A R E A T A N T 18 May 99 Crystal Software Live at ANT!! Amiga North Thames are proud to announce that Crystal Software, the Amiga Games company, will be attending the next Amiga North Thames usergroup meeting which will be held on: Sunday 6th of June 1999. During the Hours of 1:00pm to 5:00pm at: St. Mary Magdalene Vestry, Windmill Hill, Enfield, Middx. EN2 7AJ. Andrew Reed, Managing director of Crystal Software, will be showing two of his company's forthcoming Amiga games titles, Gilbert Goodmate and Dark Millenia. Andrew will also be joined by the lead programmer and chief graphics artist for Dark Millenia. They will be there to answer your questions and also to get feedback about Dark Millenia and Amiga gaming in general. Everyone is welcome! Exclusive!! We are informed that Crystal Software are hoping to have a Demo of Dark Millenia Available by Sunday 23rd of May!! Further details can be found on:- Amiga North Thames. A.N.T. - http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ant.london Crystal Software - http://www.crystal-software.com See you there! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- M O N O L I T H P O R T S T O A M I G A , M A C Kirkland, WA (April 28, 1999) - Monolith Productions today announced an agreement with Hyperion Press to bring its critically acclaimed 3D action game, Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, and the LithTech 3D Engine to the Mac platform. By porting Monolith's popular first-person shooter, Hyperion is answering the heavy demand by Mac users for high-quality 3D games. In addition, Hyperion Press has also agreed to port and maintain Shogo and Monolith's LithTech 3D Engine for the Amiga platform. Monolith will retain ownership of both ported versions of the engine and continue to provide Hyperion with its trademark customer service. Hyperion will retain publishing rights to Shogo on both platforms. "We're very excited about the opportunity to see more games created with the LithTech 3D Engine on the Mac and Amiga platforms. The agreement with Hyperion will allow these users to experience what PC gamers have come to expect from Monolith -- an intense gaming experience," comments Jason Hall, CEO of Monolith Productions. "With the help of Hyperion, we are expanding the following for our games and our powerful 3D engine." "We have chosen to license the LithTech 3D Engine because of Monolith's superior customer service," said Evert Carton, managing director of Hyperion Press. "As two growth areas, the Mac and Amiga platforms represent a strong, resilient market with a strong core of users, who are anxious to play one of last year's most popular games -- Shogo." Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, inspired by the Japanese "anime" tradition, is an action-packed first-person shooter combining spectacular environments (from neon-lit, futuristic cityscapes to gaping desert ravines and canyons) with a meaningful storyline packed with intriguing characters, large transforming Meccas, and plot revelations. Hyperion/Monolith Agreement The LithTech 3D Engine, the technology behind Shogo, allows for a full range of powerful graphic effects, from spectacular explosions from the game's many weapons of mass destruction to more subtle touches, like real-time cloud shadows. It supports motion capture technology and both hard-body animation and soft-body mesh systems. LithTech technology allows for the full-range of fan modifications that players have come to expect in the first-person shooter genre. The engine also features a 'Level of Detail' function that ensures the most efficient allocation of polygons, making for some of the most enemy-populated environments around. Extensive information, including FAQ's, about LithTech can be found at www.lithtech.com. About Monolith Productions, Inc. Monolith Productions, Inc., based in Kirkland, WA, is a game development and publishing company focused on combining uncompromising gaming content with the ultimate in high-end gaming technology. Founded by six game developers in 1995, Monolith's passion for programming has resulted in the creation of the LithTech 3D Engine. This proprietary software is used in the creation of Monolith products, such as the well-received Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, and is available for license to the wider development community, for whom Monolith is committed to delivering the software industry standard in licensing partner support. For the latest news and information on Monolith and it products, visit their Web site at http://www.lith.com. About Hyperion Press Hyperion is a recently established Belgian-German software house dedicated to bringing high-end PC games to PowerPC based Amiga and Mac computers. Individual members of the Hyperion team have been involved in various commercial and non-commercial projects on the Amiga, Mac, Linux and PC platforms. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- F I N A L A C T 20 May, 1999 Albrecht Computer Technik Seth 2 -- 21769 Lamstedt -- 21769 Lamstedt Tel +49-4773-8910-73 -- Fax +49-4773-8910-72 Survey will end on 20th of May 1999! Today. Since no project has gathered enough interest so far the only logical conclusion is: Amiga is dead. The promised support by Amiga Inc has not appeared. The promised support for good products is not existant. Mr. Collas has not replied to our contacts. There has been an overall result of 1057 (sum for all projects) votes from the survey, many of which are doubled or trippled. We have not yet processed these mail but will do so during the next days and send an apology to all participiants. Thanks to all who have sent in their vote, who have sent EMail supporting our efforts and thanks to everyone who shared his or her ideas with us so far. Thanks to all our customers world wide - we do keep our promises and will continue to support our products on a private base. We will even continue development of Samplitude Opus - but we will not develop V4 for the Amiga, sorry. This brandnew audio processing workstation will see the light of day on a computer platform built for the future. We will continue our succesful cooperation with major companies in the Audio sector and create our own new market segment within 18 months. Please understand that the result of the survey does not leave us any other choice. We have been Amiga fans and developers from the very first days and we are very sad about the last three years of chaos. The Amiga is not the world - it has been a part of it, but now it is time to sail to new shores. Latest survey news: Current survey status (20.05.1999): We got about 650 interest calls for the USB controller. If some dealers had called and supported us or if the ... promised ... support from "above" had appeared we could have done it. But developing such devices for such a small market is too expensive, time consuming and does not result in any improvement of market positions. Many people have asked us about our video edit plans. Please understand that we had to cancel these after WoA in London 1998. If you are seriously interested in video editing (hard- and software) on Amiga, tell Amiga International to keep promises. The USB Controler still could appear. We planned to have at least 2xserial and 2x USB onboard a single card (see left). Price should be below 200,-DM including basic driver support. Without professional support we would not develop more than a minimum of drivers. Due to the microscopic market we will only develop this and other devices (we planned for a SDL device - e.g. for IrDA) if someone invests the needed money. The Encoder for MPEG Audio Layer3 seems to be of virtually no interest to the community. Only a handful of votes have come in, not justifying the needed investment. Again:we have ben talking about an officially licensed encoder from FHI/Thomson, not some ported ISO version and not some illegal, not-licenced version. ARTAS' homepage will be updated soon to reflect the impact of the current situation on the ARTAS project. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I M A G E F X 4 W I T H A N I M A T I O N 21 May 1999 ImageFX 4 Announced - Now with Animation! Nova Design, Inc., creators of the award winning ImageFX package and the highly received Aladdin 4D v5 package, are excited to announce a brand new upgrade - ImageFX 4! ImageFX has been the required graphics application for all Amiga owners and has been a part of Video Toaster/Flyer owner's toolkits for years. Combining painting, image file format conversion, image processing, and special effects, ImageFX remains the undisputed leader in graphics manipulation on the Amiga. Now in it's fourth major upgrade, ImageFX goes animated! If you work on video using your Amiga or want to work on animations for the Internet the new animation controls in ImageFX are exactly what you've been wishing for on your Amiga. The animation system is as easy to use as the animation controls in Amiga paint packages but far more powerful and support full color animation, palette mapped animation and greyscale animations as well. ImageFX 4 - the Animated Details Nova Design, Inc. has built on the new windowed interface introduced in ImageFX 3.x and has added controls to directly manipulate animations within ImageFX. Onscreen VCR-style controls have been added to the layering system to allow you to move within the frames of an animation or even playback the animation in your preview window. Brushes can be animated across a series of frames and effects can be automatically processed across frames as well! These controls make it easy to edit animations for use on the Internet on your own web pages. You can create hand drawn animations, brush animations and you can easily rotoscope video sequences, add effects, and batch process. If you want to modify web animations, it's as easy as loading now that you can load animations. Full support for loading and saving entire or partial FlyerClips is included for Amiga Toaster/Flyer owners. Many image processing functions and effects have been updated to work directly on frames and layers now. And what would a new upgrade of ImageFX be without new special effects? We don't know, since we've never released without including new effects before and we're not going to do so now. We've got some cool new effects in this release - read on! Fireworks Distorter Blob is a fun, if messy, effect. With Blob you can set your parameters to make a translucent colored ooze slide down your image. Looking to simulate the effect of slime? No problem with Blob! The Text Generator has had so many improvements that it is like a whole new module. You can now use PostscriptT fonts with it in addition to Amiga bitmap, color, and outline fonts. You have more control over the fonts. The fonts now can anti-alias for the best possible display. Best of all you now see your fonts and text, exactly as they'll appear, on the display of the image in it's own window! CD the Light! ImageFX now comes on CDROM for it's standard distribution. If you don't have a CDROM drive (and you should, they're pretty inexpensive now) ImageFX will ship with a coupon to order a copy on floppies. As a bonus the CDROM has sequences of images, animations, and nearly the entire contents of our Internet site as well! Ordering the Upgrade As of this release a new price structure is being implemented for upgrades. If you own a version of ImageFX prior to version 2.0 your upgrade price is now $149.95. ImageFX 2.x owners can upgrade for only $99.95. ImageFX 3.x owners can upgrade to ImageFX 4 for only $79.95. All upgrades include the necessary hardcopy documentation or upgrade documentation and CDROM. You can order via 1-800-IMAGE-69 in the US and Canada or call (804) 282-1157 elsewhere. Orders can also be faxed to (804) 282-3768 or mailed to our address. Anyone purchasing ImageFX 3.x new after May 20th, 1998 can upgrade for free when you mail us your dated proof of purchase. You'll be shipped ImageFX and receive it in approximately four weeks depending on the volume of preorders. Previous upgrades have taken over a month to process so the earlier you order, the sooner you'll have it! ImageFX is also available, new, through your local Amiga dealer or via mail order at a suggested retail price of $349.95. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I C O M S Y S 21th May 1999 AmiComSys or Amiga Communicator System is an Internet application for the Amiga OS. The alone days on the net' is away. With AmiComSys you always will have company while you are surfing. It's much like ICQ but it lets you find Amigans much more easily. AmiComSys recently changed server. The new server is located at ACS.hostile.cx For more information look at http://surf.to/AmiComSys/ New in version 1.25a is: o The message requesters now uses MUI instead of Gadtools. o SendFile now supports send resume. o Sounds may be played at occasions. o The main window was relayouted to make it possible to use a much smaller window size. o Everybody now may hide their IP-address, to prevent flooding. o The client list supports multi selections. o The Message History now is much faster. o AmiComSys now have image toolbars with scrollers and more graphics. o The toolbars now may be hidden to save space. o The iconification mechanism is now smarter, letting you also iconify the windows with the hotkey. o PChat chat lines are now also saved to the Message History. o Super Ignore lets you remove people from the client list and HotLine. o Free for Chat status added. SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS Amiga Kickstart 39+ (WB 3.0+). There is a separate Kickstart 2.0 version. A TCP/IP-stack like Miami, AmiTCP3.0b2+ or compatible. The MUI costum class NList.mcc v.19+. Available from Aminet, e.g ftp://se.aminet.net/pub/aminet/dev/mui/MCC_NList0.89.lha MUI 3.8+. Available from http://www.sasg.com AVAILABILITY Available from the official homepage located at: http://surf.to/AmiComSys/ It's also available from Aminet. The location is ftp://se.aminet.net/pub/aminet/comm/net/AmiComSysMUI.lha ---------------------------------------------------------------------- N E W A M I G A F O R E V E R 27th May 1999 We are pleased to announce that a new version of Amiga Forever Online Edition is available for download. For this release, both the preinstalled Amiga software and the WinUAE emulation have been updated and improved. The 68K CPU emulation has been carefully profiled and optimized, and is now on average at least 20% faster than in the previous version. CPU-wise, an average PC can now comfortably emulate a 68040 Amiga (benchmarks are based on Personal Paint compilation times using SAS/C, Amiga 4000/040 and Pentium II/400 PC). Experimental AGA emulation and MIDI output are now also supported by the emulation and already have many enthusiastic users (some of which can now at last use Bars & Pipes Pro!) Features such as virtual memory, floating point unit, true color RTG display modes and TCP/IP continue to be part of the default Amiga Forever emulation configuration. The latest version of the Amiga Explorer Amiga-PC networking software is also included. The new version of Amiga Forever Online Edition is available for immediate download from cloanto.com at $29.99. Amiga users in Yugoslavia have reported credit card authorization problems in relation to the current situation, and can therefore get the software at no cost directly from Cloanto. Existing CD-ROM and Online Editions of Amiga Forever can be upgraded to the latest version of the emulation software following the instructions at cloanto.com. The Amiga Forever pages have been completely updated and now provide even more resources for users of Amiga emulation. The Amiga Forever Home Page has a new, easy to remember browser shortcut: amigaforever.com. Other Amiga product pages at cloanto.com have been moved to a "Classic Amiga" section, in preparation for new software titles for Amiga NG. We are observing with interest that the emulation topic is currently being hotly debated both on the internet and in the courts. We would like to point out that Amiga Forever stands out as a unique example of careful and complete licensing of the technology being emulated. Cloanto has licensed the entire portfolio of Amiga patents, trademarks and copyrights before even considering the publication of the emulation, ROM and OS components which are part of Amiga Forever. Once again, we would like to thank all Amiga users for their continued support! Your Cloanto Team Amiga Forever Online Edition Home Page: http://cloanto.com/amiga/forever/online.html Instructions for Emulation Upgrades: http://cloanto.com/amiga/forever/upgrades.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- P A G E S T R E A M 4 . 0 T O S O F T W A R E H U T Software Hut is pleased to announce that SoftLogik has made us Exclusive North American Distributor for PageStream 4.0!! ------ PageStream v3.3 with free upgrade to 4.0: $ 229.95 Current owners of v3.3 can contact SoftLogic for an upgrade to v4.0 at http://www.softlogik.com/ {See our last issue, 990519,for an overview of the new PageStream 4.0. Brad} ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Amiga Update on the net: All back issues available at: http://www.globaldialog.com/~amigaupdate/index.html {Note new address!} Stop by and check out our archive! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1999 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified. ====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ A M I G A /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ A M I G A U P D A T E /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ U P D A T E / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ amigaupdate@globaldialog.com ======================================================================