====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 990802 A M I G A A B O U T C O R E L C O R E L A B O U T A M I G A G A T E W A Y A L L I E S W I T H G E C A P I T A L A M I W E S T ' 9 9 A N D W O R L D O F A M I G A A A A C H O S E S M A R C E L B E C K J I M C O L L A S S O U N D S O F F P H A S E 5 E X P L A I N S F R O M T H E A M I G A R & D T E A M V O T E F O R F A V O R I T E U T I L I T I E S S A S S E N R A T H O N T E C H B R I E F ? A M I G A F L E A M A R K E T I N T E X A S A L L C O M P U T E R M E E T I N G I N F R A N C E T H E L A S T P I C A S S O E X O D U S - A M I G A N G P H O T O G E N I C S 4 . 1 Editor's Thoughts and Introduction: World of Amiga has come and gone, as has AmiWest '99. Very interesting announcements and speculation came out of the pair of shows. Jim Collas continues to communicate to the community like no other CEO of any company I'm aware of. He's even starting to get testy when appropriate. Nice to see he's become that comfortable with Amigans and good for him for doing so. We've got new software, a new classic OS coming - albeit probably a bit delayed - mockups of new models, ties developing with some big names in the larger computer world, and a plan for the future. It's an exciting time to be following the Amiga. Nothing created by people will ever be perfect, however. Phase 5 and QNX have their own plans for the future, long time Amiga developers are justifiably concerned about where they will fit in the new age - if at all, the Amiga market continues to shrink for the present and answers to all sorts of questions won't be available for some time to come. It's certainly not boring at the moment. Brad Webb, Editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E-mail to the E-ditor: Hello Brad I was wondering if you could find out about omnipresence for me. They had a mailing list support for Ibrowse, which I was removed from quite a while ago. But each time I try to re-subscribe to the list, the mail always comes back undeliverable. Plus, their web site doesn't seem to be up and running any more. Any web site that I have been to with an Ibrowse link ( the link is to omnipresence) doesn't work, including Hisoft! Another problem I'm having is recently I haven't been able to get on aminet, either through http or ftp. It says that logging on as anonymous is forbidden! Do you know what's up with that? Thanks for your informative newsletter, by the way! And the new Amiga's sound like they're going to be awesome! Do you know of any websites that have shots of the new prototypes and screenshots of the new environmennt in action? Or will they be eventually on the Amiga website soon? Regards Peter ~~~~~~ Hello Peter, You're right about the Omnipresence site. However, work seems to be going forward on IBrowse. We honestly don't know what's going on. Any of our readers have more information? Your don't say how you're accessing Aminet, so I'm not entirely sure what's happening. It sounds as if you're attempting an anonymous ftp login. If so, that will only work with sites set up specifically for anonymous ftp. Check your software preferences and disable anything related to anonymous ftp and see if things improve. You can find shots of the new Amiga mockups that were shown at World of Amiga on the Amiga.com site at: http://www.amiga.com/diary/1999/990728.html I'm not aware of anyone with screen shots of the Amiga OE yet. Brad ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A A B O U T C O R E L Amiga announces relationship with Corel Corporation July 22, 1999 - San Diego California - Today, Amiga announced that they are working closely with Corel Corporation to insure that several of Corel's award winning software applications will be supported on Amiga's new line of products that are scheduled for release later this year. This announcement follows Amiga's recent announcement that they have selected Linux as the OS kernel for the new Amiga Operating Environment. "We are extremely excited about our relationship with Corel and their entire product line", said Jim Collas, President and CEO of Amiga, "This insures that our customers who purchase the new Amiga systems will have world class personal productivity applications such as the upcoming WordPerfect Office for Linux." Customers have made over 1 million download attempts for Corel® WordPerfect® 8 for Linux® since Corel made the product available on their web site last December. "We expected the Linux version to do well," said Dr. Michael Cowpland, Chief Executive Officer and President of Corel, "but one million download attempts is extraordinary. Not only does it speak volumes for WordPerfect, I think it is somewhat indicative of the growing popularity of Linux. We expect the release of WordPerfect Office for Linux will be an even greater success when we release it early next year." As Amiga approaches the release dates of the new Amiga Operating Environment and the Amiga MCC (Multimedia Convergence Computer), we will be announcing more details on these and other products and their availability dates. About Corel Corporation Corel Corporation is an internationally recognized developer of award-winning graphics and business productivity applications. Development of market-leading products such as the CorelDRAW®line of graphics applications and the Corel® WordPerfect® Suite of business tools is continually evolving to meet the demands of the corporate, retail and academic markets. Committed to value, compatibility, choice and open standards, Corel develops products for the Windows®, Macintosh®, UNIX®, Linux® and JavaTM platforms. For more information about Corel, please visit their web site at www.Corel.com Corel, WordPerfect, CorelDRAW, Corel PHOTO-PAINT and the Go Further logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Corel Corporation or Corel Corporation Limited. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- C O R E L A B O U T A M I G A Corel Is Pleased To Be Chosen By Amiga To Supply Linux® Applications Corel and Amiga work closely to support new Amiga Operating Environment Ottawa, Canada-- July 27, 1999-- Corel Corporation (NASDAQ: CORL, TSE: COR) is pleased to announce that it has formed a new relationship with Amiga, to ensure that Corel's award-winning software applications will be supported on Amiga's new line of products that are scheduled to be released later this year. Recently, Amiga announced that it has selected Linux® as the OS kernel for the new Amiga Operating Environment. Amiga is developing products and technology for current and future computing devices which are focused on making computers and the Internet a natural part of everyday life. ``Corel is dedicating extensive resources to develop Linux, and the feedback from our customers has been tremendous,'' said Dr. Michael Cowpland, president and chief executive officer of Corel Corporation. ``Since December, our customers have made over 1 million download attempts for Corel WordPerfect 8 for Linux. We are pleased to have the opportunity to bring our award-winning applications to an even wider audience and to further the growing popularity of Linux.'' As Amiga approaches the release dates of the new Amiga Operating Environment and the Amiga MCC (Multimedia Convergence Computer), it will announce more details. ``We are extremely excited about this new relationship with Corel and its entire product line,'' said Jim Collas, president and chief executive officer of Amiga. ``This ensures that our customers who purchase the new Amiga systems will have world-class personal productivity applications such as the upcoming WordPerfect Office for Linux.'' Corel Corporation: Corel Corporation is an internationally recognized developer of award-winning graphics and business productivity applications. Development of market-leading products such as the CorelDRAW® line of graphics applications and the Corel® WordPerfect® Suite of business tools is continually evolving to meet the demands of the corporate, retail and academic markets. Committed to performance, compatibility, value and open standards, Corel develops products for the Windows®, Macintosh®, UNIX®, Linux® and JavaTM platforms. Corel's common stock trades on The NASDAQ Stock Market under the symbol CORL and on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol COR. For more information visit Corel's Web site at www.corel.com. Corel, WordPerfect, CorelDRAW and the Go Further logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Corel Corporation or Corel Corporation Limited. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group. All other product names are trademarks of their respective companies. All other brands and products referenced herein are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- G A T E W A Y A L L I E S W I T H G E C A P I T A L 23 Jul 1999 "InformationWeek Daily" on-line newsletter for 23 July is reporting that Gateway and GE (General Electric) Capital have formed a partnership for enterprise system support. The short article notes "Gateway has teamed up with services company GE Capital IT Solutions to create a business model for the two companies sell customized versions of their products and services to the enterprise. Under the partnership, GE Capital IT Solutions will provide presale infrastructure analysis, network and systems integration, and support services. Gateway will then join GE Capital to assess the organizations needs, from which Gateway will build to order the most cost-effective system, customizing desktop, mobile and workstation systems and servers to meet customer needs." "Gateway is hoping GE Capital's focus and penetration in the enterprise market will open doors to customers that the company's small sales force and lack of relationships in the market has prevented. 'In the corporate sector Gateway is only about 2 years old, and we have about 2% market share,' says Phyllis McCullagh, Gateway's VP of corporate and partner sales." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I W E S T ' 9 9 A N D W O R L D O F A M I G A By Brad Webb What follows is our impressions of the recent World of Amiga and AmiWest 99 computer shows. We were unable to attend either show, so have scoured the net and our mail to gather information on what happened. First, it seems the World of Amiga was much the more important show. This isn't too surprising. Despite the participation of Amiga in both shows, WOA has a longer history and has been a key player in the Amiga community for some time. We've seen almost no information from the AmiWest show. There's been a lot from WOA. AmiWest will grow in importance over time. AmiWest was clearly the smaller show, with most vendors concentrating on the show in London. The folks at AmiWest were able to hear the presentations from WOA, including the video presentation and speaches by Amiga President Jim Collas, Dr. Rick LeFaivre, CTO and Dr. Allan Havemose, VP, Engineering - after some initial technical difficulties. Reports from the show indicated Mr. Collas's passion for the Amiga came across clearly despite the round the world link. There were some Amiga notables at the AmiWest, including Miami's Holger Kruse and Harv Laser of the Amiga Zone. Over in London, the show seemed smaller than previous ones according to many reports. Jace Hayman of Pagan Games had an interesting take on that however: "I've heard people complaining a lot this year that it only took them 20 minutes to walk around the stands before they had covered the lot. Well I've been to quite a few 'high profile' PC shows in recent months and they were smaller and I walked around them in 10 minutes!" This is a quote from his show report, available on the Pagan Games web site at www.pagan-games.com. If all you wanted to do was view the vendors and their booths, an hour or less would have sufficed. Also, the "CyberCafe" wasn't, as the needed parts and bits weren't delivered as promised. But there was still a lot to see, including the presentations mentioned. The video which preceeded the speeches included slides showing the logos of Amiga partners. Companies mentined in the video or at the show as working with Amiga included Corel, Sun and Pentagram, the folks designing the new computers. The presentation slide that got the most attention was the one with the logo of mysterious chip maker TransMeta, employer of Linus Torvalds, the author of Linux. This has led to much speculation that TransMeta will be the processor of choice for the next generation, but that has not been confirmed by Amiga, and probably cannot be confirmed by them at this point. Here's an interesting quote from the online site "The Register" for July 27, commenting about Amiga and the TransMeta chip. It might be of special interest to the Power PC fans among our readers: "It will be fabbed by IBM Microelectronics. "The IBM connection is particularly intriguing since many of Transmeta's designers hailed from IBM's PowerPC development team, and worked on a PowerPC chip, the 615, which had a bolt-on x86 compatibility module." Little that would be new to readers of "Amiga Update" was presented at the shows, but the important thing was to hear the executives of Amiga saying it with your own ears. For those who attended, that must have been a stirring experience. The hoped for updates of IBrowse 2 and Voyager 3 were there only in beta form. On the positive side, there were finished looking mockups of the next Amiga itself and its monitor. Photos are available on Amiga's web site (www.amiga.com). Interestingly, there was no keyboard anywhere in sight, as nearly as we can determine. Good shows, good fun, good Amiga companionship. What more do you need in life? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A A A C H O S E S M A R C E L B E C K London, UK. Saturday July 24, 1999. Marcel Beck, creator of well-known Amiga e-mail software "YAM", received today the AAA Award International 1998. The award presentation was held at the World of Amiga show in London, UK! THE AWARD The AAA Award International 1998 consists of a custom designed crystal glass Boing ball and a fine diploma. It was awarded through a voting with Amiga users worl-wide. The AAA Award International is a recognition from the Amiga Community of Mr. Beck's great software and support. The winner was announced at the World of Amiga show in London, by Petro Tyschtschenko, MD of Amiga International, Inc. Marcel Beck, who unfortunately could not come to the show, stated in a previous phone recording that he felt very honored to receive this award, and thanked all YAM users around the world. MOTIVATION The motivation, for which Mr. Beck received the AAA Award International 1998: "For his creation of and continuing devotion to YAM, Yet Another Mailer. Its many features, ease of use, stylish GUI and stability make it an unparalleled e-mail client, which also is completely free!" ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The AAA Awards Committee wishes to thank all Amiga users who voted, its Associates and Partners, and the World of Amiga management for their support. CONTACTS AAA Awards, homepage www.aaa-awards.org AAA Awards, phone hotline +46-90-71 00 20 (24 hours) AAA Awards, fax +46-90-71 01 46 Marcel Beck, e-mail mbeck@access.ch Martin Sahlén, e-mail director@aaa-awards.org Petro Tyschtschenko, e-mail ptysch@amiga.de The AAA Awards 1998 are presented in association with AMIGA and Cloanto The AAA Awards are copyright (c) 1997-99 Amiga Computer Group. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- J I M C O L L A S S O U N D S O F F 20 Jul 1999 Warning! I deserve to right to rant once in a while also so here I go: I know that we still have to improve communication but visibly communicating with a large community is difficult. I expend a significant amount of effort listening to and understanding the Amiga community. I have spent 100s of hours in the last several months listening to and corresponding with the Amiga community. Here are some of the activities: 1) I met with over 100 Amigans in multiple groups in St. Louis to listen to input. 2) I have met with multiple groups around the U.S. to get input. I have held several press conferences to get input. 3) I flew to Germany and the U.K. in May specifically to meet with 60 to 70 prominent Amigans and listen to input. Multiple feedback session of several hours. 4) I met with key Amiga developers in U.K. and Germany. 5) I read the most popular Amiga newsgroups daily. 6) We have started Amiga sponsored forums to get input. 7) I read over 100 emails a day from the Amiga community and reply to many of them. 8) I talk to people in the Amiga community many times a week. 9) Bill McEwen and Darreck Lisle read 100s of email a day and compile the common inputs and questions fo me and other executives. 10) We are establishing an Amiga Advisory Council consisting of prominant Amigans that were nominated by the community. 11) etc ... As you can see I have had 1000s of interactions with the Amiga community. I wonder if anyone realizes how much effort this is on top of running the company. I wonder if anyone realizes how much travel this is away from my family. I do this because I care about what you think. I listen to the community and think deeply about the input as I set the plans. In order to better understand our plans, there are a few things people should consider: 1) There are many differing opinions in the community about what to do. Many times people are pulling in opposite directions. 2) There isn't a single consistent set of requirements from the community. 3) I am trying to make up for several years of flawed decisions. This has made the situation very difficult. Because of the delay we can't just evolve a product line like most companies would. This also means I inherited a community with little patience (understandable). 4) There are a significant number of variables to consider and its impossible to communicate them all publicly. 5) There are many things that the community doesn't know relative to new technology advancements. 6) We can't share all of our strategic plans publicly. 7) This is an extremely difficult industry to compete in. There are many big players with deep pockets. Microsoft just passed the $500B value mark. We can't just waltz in with a "me too" strategy. 8) We are basically building company from scratch, not just a product. Do people realize how difficult this is to do quickly. 9) There are constraints on budget and resources. We are working as effectively and diligently as we can. 1 0) There are people that will blast whatever we do. No matter what we do. It's unfortunate for me but they are understandably fed up because of the past. I know it's frustrating but don't judge me on the last several years. These were screwed up and I didn't have anything to do with it. Judge me on the last 5 months. I am driving Amiga in a way that it hasn't been driven in a long time. As an aggressive, independent, and visionary company. I am balancing technology, business, marketing, and industry dynamics to come up with a plan that gives us a great chance at being a driving force in the computer industry again. We are in a very difficult predicament and I am defining a very strong plan to get us out. It is not easy to understand all of the variables that go into this plan. It's even more difficult to communicate it publicly. This plan requires complex compromises and prioritization and not everyone will understand or agree. Also remember, the first product out is not the end of our roadmap. The only thing I can assure you is that I do care about the community and I listen. I will drive relentlessly and aggressively to bring back Amiga as a driving force. There is 101 things I can do with my career but this is what I have passion for. I need the Amiga community behind me on this or we will fail. We have one last shot. We can't afford to be diverted or distracted. We MUST stand united to succeed. Thanks for listening. Sincerely, Jim ---------------------------------------------------------------------- P H A S E 5 E X P L A I N S 23 Jul 1999 Dear Amiga friends, in addition to our recent announcement about a cooperation with QNX Software Systems Ltd. and our new AMIRAGE K2 project, this Open Letter shall address some of the controversy questions that many of you are asking these days. It contains my frank personal analysis and view of the state of the Amiga market, the goals of AI and the general situation, which are the reasons for our decision to take the chance for the cooperation with QNX and to provide alternative solutions in the future. If you are interested in these statements, I encourage you to read and - especially if you are a developer - consider it carefully. First of all, there is the question "why did they do that, why do they split the Amiga market" in all of it's incarnations - often combined with the assumption that we want to "steal away the Amiga" or become the Amiga ourselves. The answers to that are fairly simple: 1.We want to design a superior technology, which we believe is in the spirit of the original Amiga, or, in different words, a technology that many creative users would like to see. This includes innovation in software and hardware. We don't want to make major compromises, just to follow the mainstream or to do what everybody does. 2. There is obvioulsy no place for phase 5 (as well as many other developers, as I will outline below) on the roadmap of Amiga Inc. We are simply doing what we believe is the right thing in respect of our vision, the technological goals we follow, and also the business opportunities which we believe are the best for our future. From our point of view, AI will be developing and marketing a product that has only the name in common with the original Amiga. They probably have some nice ideas (although many details are still quite vaguely described by common buzzwords at this time), but we can't see any revolution in there - only evolution similar to that you can see in many places of the computer industry today. Looking at the available information, to us it seems obvious that Amiga will build an appliance based on Linux, incorporating JAVA technologies and their extensions named AmigaObjects. It is an appliance to "fulfill the promises of the information age". That's nice, but there are others to do so, too. I strongly feel that the major revolution that Amiga is talking about is the next marketing revolution, when you can sell "information appliances" to those millions of people who are not computer users, but shall be connected to the Internet just as they became connected with telephones long time ago. There's nothing bad in this, but what has it to do with an Amiga computer? What I feel most uncomfortable with is the fact that there is obvious no intention to create something new, spectacular, extraordinary because this is risky; instead, the new product is intended to be sold to millions, requiring to accept many compromises and to follow the mainstream. So, what has the upcoming AI product in common with the original Amiga and it's spirit? It may be a nice product, that many people will go for, but such are palm pilots, cell phones, playstations, stereo systems, TV sets, beer and candy bars as well (I left out the Wintel-based PC intentionally from this list). There's nothing wrong at all when Amiga users are saying, "hey, this is a nice thing I'm gonna buy it", just as there's nothing wrong in Amiga users buying palm pilots, cell phones, playstations, stereo systems, TV sets, beer and candy bars as well (I left out... uh, you know what I mean). Amiga has not been talking to us, phase 5, except than in a meeting on Jim Collas' trip through Europe. Ever since then, there was not a single email, contact, any information to us. They didn't supply us with an NDA, allowing them to tell us more about their plans earlier, and supporting us in making our decisions. Instead, they watch us (where "us" means many other developers as well) supporting the "Amiga Classic" and following the PPC route, while they are going to cut it off again. Is that fair or loyal against the developers and users supporting the Amiga platform with their efforts and their money? It gives me the strong feeling that don't even care what happens with us. There is no indication of any kind of partnership at all, so there can't be any mutual loyalty either. I do not know which contacts have been made to other existing Amiga developers. Many of them seem to be surprised by the latest announcements, many dislike them, some may appreciate them - but if so, did they think about their own future? Personally, I believe the lately announced "contacts to Corel" are a significant message. Why didn't we read "AI works closely with H&P to port Amiwriter to the AmigaNG", "AI has choosen NovaDesign's ImageFX to ship with the MCC", "AI and WorldFoundry announce availability of two hot 3D titles with the release of the MCC" or similar announcements? It's simple: AI follows the industry standards. Just as they use Linux and need the momentum from Linux to carry them forward, they need the big names such as Corel to carry them forward. They don't need, for example, phase 5 as a hardware company supporting their projects, and I strongly believe they (at least think they) don't need the Amiga S/W developers for their success. Jim Collas said in his "Response to Linux feedback" of July 10: "I simply don't believe we can gain enough momentum without tapping into the Linux momentum. Linux will give us continuous access to new technology and components as they are released. With QNX we could get out a new platform but I don't believe we would keep up with the rapid technology changes in the computer industry." Can we read from this that all the active Amiga developers - who have supported our platform with so many products and technologies that make the Amiga still up-to-date and useable - are assumed to be unable to provide the necessary software technologies on a new platform? I think so. Jim Collas showed concern about the business success if Linux hadn't been choosen. Obviously, the relationship with Corel seems to be important to AI also, to support the business success. Who will be the next important partner, preoccupying market segments on the new Amiga platform? Adobe? ID Soft? Who knows.... Now, just a thought: If there wasn't that Linux momentum right now, would then be Windows compatibility important for the success? A question to the Amiga developers: Do you appreciate that AI considers it important for the success of the MCC, that the big names in industry come to the platform to provide the technology/software products that - as it seems - AI doesn't believe you could provide? And a question, to the Amiga users: What is more important for you, the success (and shareholder value?) of a company that carries the name Amiga, or the technology that they bring to you? When the new AI MCC shall be sold in millions, the current Amiga community will not be a sufficient market at all. I believe it is then the latest, when AI's loyalty to the Amiga community will end - just as AI's loyalty with the current Amiga developers has ended. The same, I strongly believe, will be the case for the small remaining base of dealers and distributors. What will count for AI is not the fact that those have supported the Amiga many years - the business success will demand that the MCC is sold by the BIG ones. And that's what it is all about: becoming BIG, selling BIG, making BIG money. Nothing wrong about it - but the loyalty of the Amiga community, which AI is surfing on these days before their BIG take off, will probably not be rewarded. And while AI teams up with the already BIG ones, the chances of us small ones to grow big with the new Amiga generation are getting smaller each day. Where does this leave us? From my point of view, there is no place for us - and I mean not only phase 5, but most if not all of the current Amiga developers - on the Amiga roadmap, and in the future that Amiga wants to create. That also means for us as companies: no more (Amiga) business. But with QNX, there is an OS solution that will fulfill the promise of technological excellence - and we here at phase 5 are able to provide some really advanced hardware as well as concepts for future computing. Just a side note: What Amiga today calls a revolution, are just concepts (and some developments from such) which we have proposed three years ago already. We proposed hardware-independent distributed processing a long time ago, and we outlined our vision of application tasks or threads (read also "Services" or "Objects" or "Revolutionary objects" or "You-know-which-kind-of Objects") that run on different CPUs or processors or appliances, somewhere in a box or a network, and communicate with each other. I don't want to say that AI may not have some additional and new ideas, but if they are so revolutionary remains to be seen - and guess what remains there if you climb down from the above-JAVA level to the underlying levels of software technology.... QNX Neutrino will allow fantastic software to be written, to support similar revolutionary services, applications and developments. There is new and stunning hardware technology available to us - PPC G4, the stunning Altivec technology, multimedia processing in many kinds, and the digital convergence (we talk about high-performance digital convergence here, not about a fusion of a cell phone and a palm pilot) - and this altogether can be the base for a wonderful platform for all the creative users out there, as outlined in our latest announcements. It can be a future that we design altogether - the users, the developers, the user groups and all others who support the Amiga. We definitely need to team up now and develop our future, instead of waiting for AI's BIG thing we have been waiting for three years now. And so I am asking you all out there, to make a stand and show your position. I am asking you developers to show publicly your support for the QNX Neutrino running on PowerUP boards, and our upcoming AMIRAGE computer series (and maybe other hardware from other manufacturers, too...). With 13 years of Amiga history and experience, I can only underscore that the strong support of the majority of Amiga users and developers for this new path will create succesful products, most creative and stunning technology, and a growing and valuable market in which all those who start now can become technology leaders. We all have survived in a shrinking market for so long, and now we can decide actively if we want to start off into a future that will realize technological excellence and open up new dimensions for us, or if we want to be lost in the mainstream finally, which we could have joined many years ago already. BTW, I deny those assumptions saying we would split the Amiga market. We are just offering the products that AI won't offer - and just considering the features and price position, our product may initially not be in competition with Amigas MCC (although we have not heard about the MCCs price yet). We are following a path that AI has obviously dropped, and we want to team up with those Amiga friends, users and developers which Amiga wants to leave behind (maybe not on purpose, but probably with a "hey sorry if you came under the BIG wheel that we are turning now" attitude). I would also like to say some words about our former projects, the A\BOX and the pre\box, in comparison the the new AMIRAGE K2 project (BTW, we knew that some would read it as AMI-RAGE, and others as A-MIRAGE, but we a) have no problems with some self-irony, and b) recommend to speak it with a french pronounciation). There are voices critizising us, blackening about the vaperboxes and such. It is true, we failed to deliver these two products, while we - in contrary to others - did at least provide the leading Amiga add-on technology, continuously throughout the last years, in a difficult market. The A\BOX development was delayed following the initial delays in the PowerUP development. After PowerUP had been finished, the market situation had changed significantly since Amiga had been sold to Gateway, and many users and Amiga people were waiting for developments/announcements at/from Amiga Inc. It was a logical business decision to stop the A\BOX project, as we couldn't justify continued development efforts and investments into it at this point. Later, in March 1998, we announced the pre\box, a simpler and easier-to-realize stand-alone product, planned to support MP and the PPC transition, for which we also signed a license agreement with Amiga for the OS 3.1. But shortly after the pre\box was announced, AI announced on the WOA 1998 in London that they would not use the PowerPC but the MMC chip instead, an announcement that significantly hurt our business (as well as the business of many Amiga developers and companies). As a consequence, the pre\box development was put on hold and went back into the drawers later that year. I think that it is obvious that our chances to succesfully realize the former demanding projects - which would have required support of AI, the developers and the community - have been badly influenced by such external decisions. Today, with the AMIRAGE K2 development, we are in a completely different situation, as the use of the QNX Neutrino OS will allow us to focus on the hardware development, and exploit the options that todays's latest silicon technology offers, without drawbacks and compromises. We are convinced that we can deliver on our promise with the dawn of the next millenium. Hoping to see you in the future. Yours sincerely Wolf Dietrich {Editor's note: there are some interesting points made in the above letter from Mr. Dietrich, and, though it is long, we felt we should bring it to you in its entirety. However, we will not be covering the QNX/Phase 5 aliance and its results in detail. Whatever they make, it by definition will not be an Amiga. There may be irony in that, but such is the case. We don't intend to ignore them, but our focus in on Amiga, whatever it is and whoever makes it. Brad} ---------------------------------------------------------------------- F R O M T H E A M I G A R & D T E A M 19 Jul 1999 Very interesting and active debate over the past two weeks. We *love* the passion of (most of ;-)) the on-line community. Linux? X- Windows? PCI? USB? MIDI? Floppy Drive? ATI graphics, etc., etc. While an overwhelming percentage of our email is quite positive about Amiga's directions, there are those who have raised quite legitimate technical concerns, and a small percentage who are just bashing everything we do (more on them later). One positive aspect of the Linux announcement is the huge influx of technical talent into the Amiga camp from the Linux community. There are legitimate issues with Linux, as anyone with a technical background will acknowledge. One positive aspect of the Linux phenomenon is that there are hundreds of thousands of programmers out there working to fix those problems. There are also hundreds of companies working on applications and drivers (and hardware) for Linux, that we can immediately tap into. Yes, there are integration and testing issues to work on, but there are many, many more positives than negatives. Please understand that the Linux decision was not purely (actually not mostly) a technical decision. It was a decision driven by a reasoned analysis of what underlying OS would give Amiga the greatest chance to succeed in the marketplace, and as a company. Also understand that we have not yet seen a single technical issue raised in the news groups that we are not already aware of, and working on either inside of Amiga or through partners. Will the Amiga MCC under development be perfect? Of course not -- product development is all about tradeoffs. When it is shipping, will it be at the heart of the best distributed multimedia computing environment in the marketplace in terms of price/performance/usability? Yes! Even more important, the MCC is only one piece of a much broader strategy that we have chosen to not really discuss yet. When Jim Collas talks about revolutions, it's not a revolution in terms of what happens to be inside the MCC box (although some of the unannounced components are, indeed, revolutionary); it's the entire distributed home computing/Internet environment and experience that will be revolutionary as it rolls out over the coming year. DON'T JUST FOCUS ON BOXES AND OPERATING SYSTEMS! (sorry for shouting.) So, to those of you raising legitimate technical concerns, we will do our best to communicate solutions as they are worked out. Better yet, help us track down those solutions. Linux is getting better every week, with issues getting resolved at an amazing pace. ATI may not be able to ship their new graphics/video accelerator (which looks great) on time, and rest assured that we're also looking at 3dfx and NVidea. Yes, there will be a floppy drive (probably a 1.44MB / 120MB combo). We're working on the sound/MIDI requirements. We're listening to proactive suggestions, and will do our best to manage the inevitable tradeoffs to create the best next-generation system we can. To the small number of individuals who have been sending vulgar, threatening hatemail because you don't like what we're doing, and have announced that you're fed up and are leaving the Amiga community, goodbye. Millions and millions of people will purchase Amiga-branded and Amiga-compliant products over the coming years, and we're sorry you won't be among them. Rick LeFaivre, Allan Havemose, and the Amiga R&D Team ---------------------------------------------------------------------- V O T E F O R F A V O R I T E U T I L I T I E S News Release 24/7/99 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Amiga Information Online has set up a Utilities PD Toplist. So if you have three favourite Utilities that you would like to give credit to then why not show your support for those programs and send us your votes. It is very simple, all you have to do is give 3 points to your favourite Util, 2 points to your second favourite and then 1 point to your third favourite utility of all time. The only restriction is you can only vote of PD/Shareware type software and not Commercial. By commercial I mean you don't register. It still holds it open to vote for Utilities like Miami, AmIRC and the like. If you are interested please return the form to the address below, -Cut- 1st Util (3 Points) : [Enter util name here] 2nd Util (2 Points) : [Enter util name here] 3rd Util (1 Point) : [Enter util name here] -Cut- Email : SnorsleX@Home.se Topic : AIO Toplist You can see the latest ratings in the latest issue of AIO or on our website, Aminet:Docs/Mags/AIOV26.lha or http://www.aio.co.uk Chris Seward Editor of Amiga Information Online ---------------------------------------------------------------------- S A S S E N R A T H O N T E C H B R I E F ? {Editor's note: this exchange was found in an Amiga usenet group on the net. There is no confirmation from Carl Sassenrath for this item, so it must be considered a rumor. We invite comments from Mr. Sassenrath if he so wishes, and would be happy to publish them. Brad} 21 Jul 99 >On the 20 Jul 99 05:38:34 +0000, Paul May said, >> >> to Quote: Carl Sassenrath on the Tec Brief, Amiga to use Linux. >> >> "I'm not impressed. This crap is not in my future. >> >> I say: complexity begets complexity. >Um, Paul, do you have any opinion of your own rather than the dozen or >so daily postings from famous amiga people that you keep sending here >from the team Amiga maillist (have you permission to forward their >mails to the newsgroups ?). Hi Ed. Indeed, the answer to both questions is YES, i have many opinions but rather than add my thoughts to the many good posts here, i prefer to take the direct route and try to help everyone in both places to get the bigger picture so as to have better Opinions by forwarding both ways for thoughs people not on both the TAML or here. i hope you find it useful ?, if not then i'm sorry for wasting your time making you read them. on the matter of a 'Dozen or so' thats not quite true, more like 6 perhaps seven and then not that many *every* day, even so at your estimated dozen a day that is a very small ammount compared to the traffic here on csam, to date no one on TAML as had any comp about me forawarding Jim's and several other peoples usenet posts there other than one person not being able to view my forward very easly. as for the TAML, everyones welcome there and it has from day one had the policy that anything posted there is freely distributable, that fact plus Team AMIGA mailing list has probably the highest concentration of AMIGA Developers/resellers/service providers Ect online, makes it a really good place for open peer review IMO OC, plus TAML eventully finds its way to far more places (FIDONET for instence) than csam so helping to spread the important information/facts/announcments to those persons interested but without Web access (many more than most web people realise). -- to Quote: Carl Sassenrath on Tec Brief Amiga to use Linux. "I'm not impressed. This crap is not in my future. I say: complexity begets complexity. Give me an OS that fits on a floppy. And you know what? It will work better than their system ever could. Down with big systems. They are created by those who don't have a clue what computing is really about: people". -- Paul May, Manchester, UK Team *AMIGA* , *OwlNet* , *REBOL* , *KOSH* ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A F L E A M A R K E T I N T E X A S July 18,1999 MCCC Announces Flea Market Extravaganza '99 Where : The Brookside Convention Center, Hurst, Texas When : Saturday, September 25, 1999 Time : 12:00 to 4:00pm Admission : Free Amiga Computer Flea Market Hardware and Software for Amiga computers, from members and non-members, will be for sale. The flea market will be open to members for a fee of 5% on items sold. A fee of 10% will be charged to non-members on items sold. Sellers: Items for sale must be turned into a club representative. Prices are set ahead of time and sales are handled by club representatives. Arrangements MUST BE MADE IN ADVANCE. Items will NOT be accepted on the day of the show. There will be no exceptions. Items to be sold at the flea market may be turned in at one of the chapter meetings or you may make arrangements with one of these club representatives: Mark Stodola Cedar Hill (972) 299-6824 Ned Kelly Arlington (817) 277-5825 David Owens Fort Worth (817) 847-5486 Dan Stockelman Dallas (972) 985-8522 Buyers: Cash and checks accepted from members. Cash only accepted from non-members. Prices will be reduced at 3:00 pm. Door Prizes Drawings will be held throughout the day. You must be present to win. MCCC Amiga Library The entire MCCC library of Amiga computer disks, over 2,000 disks, will be available. Special Membership Offer 13 months for the price of 12. This offer is good for new or renewed memberships. Classes A class/demo of the new 3.5 Operating System will be held, time to be announced. Amiga Wares Available Amiga Wares (shirts, caps and more) from Randomize, Inc., will be available at the show. 3.5 Operating System Available Copies of the new 3.5 Operating System will be available for sale by the club or a dealer to be announced. Amiga Computer Raffle Details to be announced when finalized. Amiga Computer Dealers Space is available to rent for dealers, companies or user groups. Please inquire on rates. Directions & Parking The Brookside Convention Center is located at 1244 Brookside Drive in Hurst, Texas. To get to the Convention Center get to Highway 183/121 and take the Precinct Line Road exit and drive south on Precinct Line Road. After approximately 0.3 miles turn left (east), on Bedford Euless Road. Drive 0.4 miles to Brookside Drive. The Convention Center is on the southeast corner. There is plenty of parking space, and parking is free. For more information email: mstodola@airmail.net To be kept up to date as things develop, email: agm@startext.net MCCC is a not-for-profit organization devoted to the support of Amiga computers in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A L L C O M P U T E R M E E T I N G I N F R A N C E 25 Jul 1999 Hello, The "Byte Millenium" meeting will take place at Marck, in the north of France (near Calais), from 27th of August to 29th. We want this meeting to gather a lot of people from different computers (I was told that there will be people with Amstrad CPC, Oric, MSX, Amiga, Atari, PC etc.). During this meting we will have to show what your loved computer is able to do : Lots of magazines reporters will be there too. There will be a contest which aims to equalize the chances between all the computers (eq you will need more imagination than Mhz). The entrance will cost 150 FF (for food, and the contest prizes). Hope to see you there ! One from MCHTML/CocOOn SySteM NB : No lamerz/gamerz/swapperz please... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- T H E L A S T P I C A S S O Our Amiga future?!? Our (Village Tronic) future in the amiga classic market is not clear right now. We will definitely sell our AriadneII and the forthcomming 3d-Module add-on for PicassoIV but this doesn`t go for the sales of PicassoIV, Paloma PAL, Pablo and Concierto. As the sales in the last few month have dropped dramatically it`s no longer profitable for our company to run other assembly lines. So we had to swallow the bitter pill and cancel the productionline and sales of Paloma, Pablo and Concierto officially. You may find last pieces of these products with our distributors though... If there is someone interested in licenzing one of these products you can contact us. For the PicassoIV we have another solution for our customers to have a last chance to get one of these marvelous graphic-boards: To be sure to sell enough cards for an assembly-line and to make it profitable for our distributors too, you can preorder your PicassoIV with them. VillageTronic will produce the requested cards in a VERY LAST assembly line so that the now preordered boards will arrive in distribution by the end of september. Customers that have preordered their cards here directly with us will get them as soon as we have enough on stock. After that VillageTronic will NOT sell ANY boards directly anymore to endcustomers. This will definitely be the last order for PicassoIV. So please contact our distributors for your LAST ORDER: -------- America: SoftwareHut www.softhut.com softhut@erols.com Bolmar industrial Park 991 S. Bolmar St. units F&G West Chester, Pa. 19382 United States Tel: 800-932-6442 or 610-701-6301 Fax: 610-701-6306 England: Blittersoft www.blittersoft.com sales@blittersoft.com 6 Drakes Mews Crownhill Industry Milton Keynes Buckinghamshire MK8 0ER United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)1908 261466 Fax: +44 (0)1908 261488 Italy: Euro Digital Equipment aorlandini@villagetronic.com Via Dogali 25 Italy 26013 Crema Germany: Vesalia Computer www.vesalia.de order@vesalia.de Industriestr. 25 46499 Hamminkeln Tel: 02852/9140-10 Fax: 02852/1802 KDH-Datentechnik www.kdh-datentechnik.com bestell@kdh-datentechnik.com Südring 65 72160 Horb Tel: 7451/555111 Fax: 7451/ 555115 Ekkehard Brüggemann, Village Tronic Support Team ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E X O D U S - A M I G A N G 14 Jul 1999 Exodus Multimedia is pleased to announce the first AmigaNG-powered digital video workstation, Maverick! While still in the design and engineering stage, we have committed to delivering this exciting new concept to the video industry. Our decision to proceed with this project was reached after a private meeting with Jeff Schindler and Darreck Lisle at the St.Louis Amiga show. After talks with Amiga Inc. which lasted into the early hours of the morning, it was decided that the new OS offers significant advantages over other operating systems, in terms of size, speed, reliability and flexibility. From its inception, the AmigaOS was designed to handle full motion video, graphics and animation. The AmigaNG version promises to improve on this base technology and add features not seen on any other platform. Our current line of digital video workstations is based on Windows 98 and NT plus the Newtek Video Toaster Flyer. While we are very early into this project, we will provide more concrete specifications by summer's end. The tower case will be based on the current design used on our standard workstation, pictures of which can be seen on our web page at www.exodusmm.com. "The Amiga has proven to be the leading OS for video production on a large and small scale. To this day, there are 15 year old Amigas still being used to do mainsteam video, while most other computing platforms are obsolete within two years. It is our goal to take Maverick into the 21st century with an OS and hardware capable of supporting new standards like HDTV, DV and MPEG-2 all with realtime video effects and transitions. The AmigaOS gives us that power!", said Stan Carver, President of Exodus Multimedia. From the last poll, there were over 7 million Classic Amigas sold to date. To show our support for the Classic Amigas, we have been working with Mick Tinker of Access Innovation, a European company, to provide a state of the art solution that would allow current Amiga owners to take advantage of new technologies without sacrificing backwards compatibility. Based on specifications provided by Exodus Multimedia, the new motherboard will have a PowerPC processor, PCI slots and fast SDRAM, in addition to Amiga specific devices like Zorro slots and an high speed emulation of the custom chipset. Full Video Toaster and Flyer support will be provided as well. The use of new technologies will make way for devices currently on the Windows platform such as FireWire, USB, pro audio sound cards and high end graphics cards to be easily ported to the AmigaOS without having to redesign hardware. The new Amiga-powered Maverick should be available 3rd quarter 1999. In the meantime, we have salesmen and service technicians that are fully capable of supporting the Amiga community, as we always have. We are now taking pre-orders for OS 3.5 and look forward to the new AmigaNG with all of it's possibilities. We will post details on our web page http://www.exodusmm.com/amiga/ as we progress with this project- STAY TUNED! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- P H O T O G E N I C S 4 . 1 16th July 1999 Paul Nolan is pleased to announce Photogenics 4.1, featuring dozens of new and improved features, more tools, online html help, and rock solid stability. It all adds up to the must have graphics purchase of the year. To make this purchase even easier, you can now use your credit card to order using a toll free (US only, international charges apply) order hotline, or online at http://www.paulnolan.com. Please read the full details below for more information. Photogenics 4.1 is a free upgrade to users of Photogenics 4.0, please email your name and the email address used when ordering Photogenics to updates@paulnolan.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Amiga Update on the net: All back issues available at: http://www.globaldialog.com/~amigaupdate/index.html 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 ======================================================================