MEGABITES   NEWS, VIEWS, RUMOURS, LIES, RELEASES, COMMODORE STUFF, STYLE MANUAL, QUOTES  ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ Commodore stuff Brashs Ad Brash's is now about to release a new TV ad which promotes the A1200 and features Tony Barber. Also featured in the ad will be some fine animations by John Rowe who is a long-time Megadisc contributor. His animations from the AmigaWorld competition will be used to wow the public. $200 trade-in via Brash's and Myers You'll be able to get $200 off the price of the A1200 if you bring in your old computer, calculator, typewriter, video games machine. Sounds like a good offer. Speech is now muted on the Amiga from WB 2.1 This is official and has sparked a lot of convtroversy - for example, a lot of products rely on the speech function. This is partly due to the fact that they will be putting emphasis on DSP technology, ie high quality sound, and at present they have to spend a lot of money on licences for the speech drivers. However, that shouldn't stop anyone from using the speech capabilities from previous versions of the operating system which they've bought/licensed in its entirety. World of Commodore '93 There are more than 40 stands taken up already and it seems that things are pretty buoyant. There will be a "mystery product release" at the WoC... no other word yet. Also there will be a "genius competition" presentation of the winners of the UK, New Zealand and Australian competitions, and there will be a final in which the prize will be over $1000 worth of software. You just have to be of school age to enter at the WoC. There will be a multi-media room and a seminar room. The MM room will have a demonstration put together by Phoenix, Opal and Aladdin just to show what multimedia is. Should be interesting. On the Commodore stand there will be the W Industries virtual reality gloves and helmets, St Clair kiosks demos from the US (info kiosks run on the Amiga) and more than 4 internationally successful Amiga applications such as the Taubman's Paints package. In the next door hall Windows World will be being held so it should be a good head to head - it's possible that there will be a bit of light industrial sabotage happening by the provision of reduced cost or free entry to the WoC to those who have been in to see the Windows show. OziSoft This company tends to ignore Amiga software due to being owned by Sega, hence poor distribution of Amiga games in this country. At present it seems that software sales are down by 30%, due partly to this problem, while hardware sales are up by 30%,and these should be hand in hand more or less, all things being equal. However Kevin Davies ex- of Electronic Arts will soon be opening "HotPoint", for mail order games and general distribution, which will more than fill the gap and will be operating by March. CDTV New CDTV is almost definitely coming out, but no details have been given of when and what, and in fact the suggestion is being denied by Commodore. A3000 owners - Upgrading to Workbench 2.1 These are the new disks that you'll get if you're an owner of the original A3000 (with Kickstart 2 and 1.3 on the hard disk, rather than in ROM) and if you follow the upgrade procedure below: SuperKickstart disk Install disk Workbench Extras Fonts Locale The original Install must be kept since it allows you to update the Kickstart on the hard disk. So send 3 original disks and 3 copies and $40 to cover costs. Send to: Workbench 2.1 Upgrade, Technical Dept., Commodore Business Machines 67 Mars Rd Lane Cove 2066 Other A3000 owners (ie with Kickstart in ROM) can do the same - send in your originals (of Workbench and Extras) made up with blank disks. You need all the disks except for the SuperKickstart disk which is the disk which gives you Kickstart in RAM. AGA Chipset for the A3000 DKB wil definitely have an AGA board for the A3000 by about March this year. Possibly also for the A2000. The future of the various Amiga models The official line is that the A1200 does not in the least supplant the A600 or 2000, perish the thought! Official word is that the A600 will continue to be produced as the entry-level machine for some time to come. The A3000 has stopped production, but will be supported, and likewise the A500 and A2000 of course. The A1200 is now in stock and selling. According to retailers I've spoken to, they just can't get enough A1200s to sell. Optonica Products for CDTV via Commodore (Press Release) This is a multimedia specialist company and are releasing some new products which will be handled here by Commodore, viz.: * Videostream - automated digital video production for Amiga and CDTV. Includes a controller, consisting of a stereo audio sampler, real time image digitiser and professional video deck controller) plus production and editing software. * Insight - an encyclopedia of modern day technology - ther eare 256 topics accompanied by computer graphics and animations, audio-visual slideshow, text and video clips, all on a CD-ROM. * INTERPLAY - Multimedia authoring system for development of consumer CDTV reference titles and professional vertical market applications. No programming skills are required. * Pandora's CD - Demo disk containing a sound effects library, working demo applications (including of Insight above) plus a 3000 image clipart library in full colour. Should cost less than $30 when released. Perhaps we can get review copies of these for your delectation.  ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ Miscellaneous 6th Annual Bit.Movie This will he run April 9-12 in Riccione, Italy. Categories: still images, animations and real-time music. Entries must be created on a personal computer and have to be post-marked by March 10, '93. Better be quick! More info: Bit.Movie '93, c/o Carlo Mainaardi, via Bolgona 13, 47036 Riccione, Italy. Fax: 39 541 464635. Rumours [Thanks to Tom Minchin for some of these little tidbits, whose veracity is not guaranteed, but whose likelihood is...] * Oxxi is not broke or out of business. * Maxis, the fine purveyors of SimCity, SimEarth, SimAnt and A-Train have decided that enough is enough. Apparently too many Amiga users became addicted to SimSoftwarePiracy with detriment to Maxis sales. All future releases will be for PeeCee and Mac only. * Got an A1200? No clock? Well, Microbotics have come to the rescue with the board '12 O'Clock' (cute huh?). Plugs straight in (somewhere) and instant clock! * Terminus (JR-Comm 2) is not finished. JR quotes: "Rack off all you registered people, I know you paid money and stuff but it will be finished when I say so!". Job available at Westpac anytime JR! * Got an A1200? Wimpish '020 CPU? Well, GVP (fine people) have announced a very attractive 68030 board running at 40Mhz (essentially an A530 (no not the CD ROM!) on a card). Full 32bit this sucker plugs in that trapdoor underneath. Comes with 1Meg of 32bit RAM, slots for 32Meg (!) of RAM (in the form of GVP SIMMs). Also a slot for an FPU. No clock! 10 lashes GVP! * Got an A1200? Think that 40megger HD is pretty dinky? Planning a Maxtor HD? Not a chance. C= now has a list of approved hard drives that will 'work' in an A1200. Looks like we have max_transfer problems all over again!! * Got an AGA Amiga? Think you are safe from future upgrades for a while? Think again suckers! AGA low and high end are 'building', while AGA will be compatible with the Low and High End AGA new features will be included in both. * ><-Comm has risen to version 1.11. More bugs than cockroaches in Moscow! Max's BBS This well-known BBS program is now PD, it was commercial but for personal reasons he (Max) decided to release it to the PD. Now available on most BBSs.  ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ Style Manual For those who are interested in the finer points of grammar and spelling, here are a few tips - many you'll know, I'm sure, but there are always many confusing points that are often not covered in schools these days, and people end up being a little unsure about their written English. So your editor, who used to teach English to adults in Paraguay and Argentina and other weird backwaters, and so had to know about these things, will put a few points in every now and then, for those who are interested. Let me know if I should carry on doing so in future Megadiscs, or if it seems too "teacherish" to be in Megadisc. ect... Should be "etcetera" or "etc.". This means in Latin "and the rest", and is often wrongly written "ect.". Other similar Latin phrases which come to mind are "inter alia", meaning "amongst other things" and "et al." meaning "and others". Using apostrophes it's, its This is a thorny one for a lot of people - all you have to remember is to use the apostrophe when "it's" is short for "it is" and only then. E.g. "It's a flying pig! Look at its curly tail!" who's, whose A bit like the previous one - "who's" is only used as an abbreviation for "who is", while "whose" is used with ownership (or "Possessive case" as they say). E.g. "Knock, knock!" "Who's there?" "Whose." "Whose who?" "Whose idea was this dumb example?" have'nt, haven't This is a case of the apostrophe getting into the wrong place - apostrophes are generally used for indicating that two words have been shortened into one by dropping a vowel, so here, "have not" becomes "haven't". The apostrophe sits where the "o" was to show it's gone. Enough for one issue!  ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ Interesting CDTV Products (See also the products mentioned above in the Commodore section) CDPD II From Almathera Systems, this disk has about 660 MB of PD and shareware on it, including the Scope collection (which is a new one on me), the latest Fish, and a bunch of other stuff. There's even an ad for Megadisc on it! Not available from anywhere in Australia yet, but get in touch with us, we may be able to source it for you. George Thompson Services in the UK distributes it.  ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ Interesting Software Pro Page 4.0 Yet another PPage release - they still don't seem to have improved on a couple of areas where Pagestream shines, for example, in the area of loading and editing EPS (Encapsulated Postscript) files. All you get is blank box on screen which can only be viewed by printing the document. However, there are other improvements: * Built-in pair kerning * Bit-mapped painting program * Page sorter for rearranging pages on screen * new font preview * user-definable zoom (at last!) * AGA chip set compatible - see 256 colours on screen. * ProPage 4.0 can hotlink to ProDraw and ProCalc. You can upgrade from current versions, but it is often difficult to arrange in Australia - contact Frank Keighley on (06) 2396658 from Desktop Utilities. HyperCache This software, by Silicon Prairie, is touted as a filesystem and device accelerator and works with any device. It is said to speed up all systems, with accelerated systems showing the best results. Price is US$49.95. DirOpus 4 Yes it's on the way............ Update cost will be $80. Retail price seems to be $149.95 ! This higher price is due, I believe to the fact that Inovatronics has taken over all responsibility, marketing, etc. of the product and John Potter no longer has anything to do with it. Audio Gallery Language system Check out the review of the system this issue - it seems to be a good attempt at helping one to learn languages, and new languages are coming out all the time. The Italian one is just finished, and the Dutch and Portuguese versions are coming soon. Chinese and German will also be available on CDTV soon. For contact details see the review this issue. Brilliance Paint and Animation program Aiming itself at DPaint like a torpedo, this program claims to be far better than anything yet devised... It handles new graphic modes up to 24-bit according to ads, and what this means is that the "true colour" modes (12 and 24 bit) are represented with HAM (Hold And Modify) mode displays while they are maintained "in full fidelity internal representations". A bit like the pumpkin that's really a coach, eh? More info from: Digital Creations PO Box 97 Folsom CA 95763-0097 USA TEL: 916 344 4825 Local software SmartKey and Postcode are two programs devised and marketed by Craig Fisher of CMF Software. Smartkey is a keyboard macro program which is very powerful, and Postcode is an online index of Australian Post codes which can be integrated with word processors. They are both pop-up memory resident programs and run on any Amiga with any version of Workbench. Prices: Smartkey RRP $40, Postcode $35. From good dealers or Megadisc.  ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ Interesting Hardware What's the OpalVision Video Suite? The Motherboard - this is currently available and is a 24-bit frame buffer with RGBN output, OpalPaint, OpalHotKey, OpalPresents! and OpalAnimMate. Coming: Framegrabber/Genlock/Keyer Single (Composite or S-video) input with frame grabbing, chroma and luma keyer, chroma-effects on live video, genlock with 8-bit linear (transparency) key, composite or S-video output. Expected price $995. Switcher Additional video inputs and outputs, audio inputs and outputs, vision and audio mixing and effects software. RRP $995. OpalVision Roaster chip Digital video effects and morphing processor. Required where image shape must be changed. Expected RRP $495. Opal Time Machine Combines Time Base Correction (TBC) with a scan doubler to produce a 331 kHz (VGA-style) non-interlaced output. Expected RRP $1195. All these are expected to form a fully integrated production environment. Support for Opalvision can be had on the BBS Connection (02) 9706444, so check it out. Microbotics Hardware FP 32-bit wide Ram for A1200 Provides a 68881/68882 Floating Point Unit (FPU) & up to 8 meg of 32-bit wide Ram for the A1200. Installs internally on the 150 pin bus and with a 14 MHz chip installed speeds up floating point operations by as much as 55 times that of the original A1200. Uses 72-pin "wide-body" SIMM, and comes with diagnostic software for memory. Will take up to 50 MHz 68882, though it comes with 16 MHz 68881. Available from good dealers or Megadisc, Price of unit with 2 MB & 68881 is $593. G-LOCK Genlock GVP's new low-cost genlock, called "G-Lock", is a highly intergrated, very flexible external genlock that can be used with all Amiga models in both NTSC and PAL video standards, as well as SECAM conversion. The G-Lock offers a video and audio solution to the video ebthusiast or producer. Required Hardware and Software The G-Lock works with any Amiga with 512K Chip Memory (1MB recommended), Amiga-Dos 1.3 or greater (2.0 recomended). Features: - Software control panel (Intuition based) with full AREXX and CLI interfaces. - Multiple audio and video Setup memory locations. - Audio Processor with two audio inputs (software switchable or mixable) with software control of Volume, Bass and Treble. - Two composite video inputs (software switchable) or one Y/C (S-Video) input. - Simultaneous composite, Y/C (S-Video). and RGB output - Transcoder ability. - RGB output can be software switched to provide YUV (M-II/BetaCam) output. - Video Processor (Proc Amp) provides real-time software control of video attributes such as brightness, contrast, saturation, hue, sharpness, filtering, gain, etc. - Special color filter circuit for special effects. - Can convert most SECAM video sources into PAL video (VCR quality). European users. - Keyer modes include Amiga only, External Video only, Overlay, and Inverse Overlay modes PLUS control of Amiga ECS/IAA special effects. - Operates as a software controlled and adjustable electronic RGB splitter for direct operation with NewTek Digi-View or other slow-scan video digitizer. AREXX scripts included. - Works with the Display Enhancer, Flicker-Fixer, FlickerFreeVideo boards for simultaneous genlocked video and de-interlaced Amiga graphics output. - Transition controls using AREXX (example AmigaVision flow and AREXX scripts included). Price: RRP $990 Availability: Good dealers, Megadisc.  ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ Interesting Publications Outrageous plug for own disk!  *** New HINTS_&_TIPS Compilation Disk If you like Megadisc's Hints & Tips sections, then you'll love this disk. Leigh Murray has worked long and hard putting it together in a very easy to use format - it uses a hyperbook format and is terrific for reference and navigating to find particular types of tips. All of the hints and tips from MD 1 - 30 are included on this disk (many hundreds) and they cover ALL facets of Amiga use. Price: $19.95 or $13.95 for subscribers to Megadisc. VideoGraphix Today This is a bi-monthly videotape series for the Amiga and was formerly called "Toast & Coffee". Subscription rate is $US66 for a year (6 issues). We'll try to get one and let you know if it's any good. They say that they cover ProductDemos, Tips and Techniques, Gallery, Software segments, people and events, etc. More info from: Videographix Inc 12219 Nicollet Ave South Burnsville, MN 55337 USA. 3D World SIG This is a non-profit special interest group dedicated to the advancement of 3-dimensional animation techniques through the use of such programs as Scu;pt-4D, Turbo Silver, Imagine and the like. Your donation/membership of US$30 entitles you to 12 slim bulletins which contain tip, techniques, and marketing info. I've seen a couple and they are serious and useful, if a bit light on. Send to: Dale K. Myers 9602 Hartel Livonia, MI 48150 USA. TEL: 313 5253203 Thanks to Michael Rhodes, our man in the US, for sending us this newsletter and others besides..  ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ Press Releases: Ed: Take these with a grain of salt since they are PR releases from the companies which make the products, and thus tend to state that they are the greatest thing in the universe, ever. VOYAGER FOR THE AMIGA: Carina Software is pleased to announce the availability of Voyager, the Dynamic Sky Simulator for the Amiga. Voyager is a full featured planetarium program and a full featured sky simulation program. The feature list is far too long to post here, but if you would like a flyer, call or write Carina Software, 830 Williams St., San Leandro, CA 94577 (510) 352-7332. The major advantages of this program are 1) high performance (from 2-30 times that of competitors), 2) advanced features such as a conjunction search, a plot of Jupiter's Galilean moons, or showing the paths of spacecraft(i.e. Voyager II), 3) animations are fast enough to be shown within the program and do not require another program to play back a special file, 4) Data Extensions with stars to mag 9.5 and over 4000 deep sky objects, and 5) an easy and intuitive user interface with which users are extremely pleased. Voyager has been shipping for almost 2 months and is now available in many software stores. CANONSTUDIO (Download from the nets): CanonStudio is a new program which is intended for all Amiga Canon printer drivers. It does print 24/8Bit IFF graphics with up to 24 bit accuracy in any size (Want a 100*100m poster?). CanonStudio is not limited to the max. 4096 colors of the Amiga printer device, though it does work with nearly all Amiga printer drivers. The pictures are printed FROM DISK ie. you don't need much memory for printing a 10MByte 24 Bit graphic in high quality. CanonStudio is specially written for the Amiga operating system and is not just a simple port from an IBM or Apple computer. Because of this, CanonStudio makes heavily use of multitasking and Kickstart 2.04. CanonStudio includes a spooler which allows you to specify multiple print jobs while the program is already printing in background. The program does provide a nice "click-and -drag" user interface. Now, here are some of the CanonStudio features: - prints IFF pictures from disk - does support nearly every IFF format including IFF24, HAM6, HAM8 and EHB. - does not require $&%$ MBytes memory! - poster function allows printing of any sized pictures - number of copies can be defined - 24/8 Bit accuracy - multiple jobs can be defined and printed in background (estimated print time and more will be displayed) - ink compensation does correct ink impurities - color adjustment (gamma, contrast, brightness, weights,...) - Free definable ordered dither routines. Following ordered dither matrices are already included: Haltone-A, Halftone-B, Ordered-A, Ordered-B, Spiral, Horizontal, Vertical, Bck-Diagonal, Fwd-Diagonal - Three error diffusion dither routines: Floyd Steinberg, Jarvis, Stucki - Two serpentine blue noise dither routines are included: 30% random weight, 50% random weight - ARexx interface - font independent user interface What does CanonStudio require? - an Amiga with at least Kickstart/Workbench 2.04 - ~300KB memory (yep, that's all!) - a Canon printer driver: - CanonBJ130 V11.1 (Fish 696 and Canon) - CanonBJ10 V4 (Fish 696 and Canon) - CanonBJ300 V4.1 (Fish 696 and Canon) - CanonLBP V3 (Canon, Version 1 on Fish 4xx) - CanonBJC V.99d (new, see message that follows) (supports Epson 24 and 48 pin emulation! Epson24Plus and Star24Plus user should switch!!!) This program is shareware and limited. In case you want the full version you can order CanonStudio from: JAM 75 Greatfields Drive Uxbridge, UB8 3QN Tel: 08952-74449 (GMT) The price for registering is: INTERNATIONAL US$25 includes shipping + $5 if payed by cheque. No COD! GERMANY DM 35 includes shipping. No COD (Nachnahme)! ENGLAND #15 includes shipping PS. Special Studio versions for Deskjet/Laserjet/24 pin Printers/9 pin Printers will soon appear, but more expensive... CanonStudio is an exclusive offer to Canon users and because of this, limited to Canon drivers. ASDG ANNOUNCES ``RETROACTIVE UPGRADE'' OF ALL ADPRO FAMILY PRODUCTS IN SUPPORT OF THE AMIGA. 4000 Timed to coincide with Commodore's announcement of the Amiga 4000, ASDG announces that all of its ADPro family of image processing products already support the new Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA) including the new video modes and color resolution. These capabilities, which have been present in the shipping versions for almost a year, automatically appear when running on AGA equipped machines. ASDG ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR ADPRO DEVELOPER STATUS. BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND. ASDG, makers of the number one selling Amiga image processing product, is accepting applications for ADPro developer status. Using a comprehensive and proprietary DevKit, developers can tap into a high profile clientele with opportunities to work with the market leader. Madison WI, June 17, 1992 --- ASDG Incorporated, makers of Art Department Professional (the number one selling image processing product for the Commodore Amiga), announce that they are accepting applications from those individuals and companies wishing to become ADPro developers. The company has prepared a comprehensive developer kit consisting of "Autodoc" style documentation and a library which hides much of the complexity of writing ADPro modules. Using this kit, a proficient Amiga programmer can create loader, saver, and operator modules which will operate correctly with ADPro version 2. If a prospective developer's application is approved, the license to use the ADPro DevKit will cost $200 and obligates the developer to meet certain quality benchmarks. "If a third party module causes a problem on an end-user's machine, ASDG's name is on the bottom line." said company president Perry Kivolowitz. He continued, "We require a contractual obligation to certain quality standards so that ADPro owners are assured of getting third party products of the same high standards that they expect from ASDG." The developer kit does not dictate what structure a business relationship between ASDG and its developers may assume. Some developers may choose to market their products themselves, while others may opt for a closer relationship, perhaps through a licensing of their products or an outright purchase by ASDG. Company president Kivolowitz said, "We've looked at the unsuccessful attempts other companies have made to foster a third party after-market. We feel our developer program will succeed because of the side of our installed base, the quality of our developer materials, our willingness to take a direct hand in promoting some third party products to our installed base, and our quality commitment contract." To request an ADPro developer application, or to learn more about ADPro and ASDG's other color imaging solutions, contact Gina Cerniglia at ASDG Incorporated, 925 Stewart Street, Madison, WI 53713 or call (608) 273-6585. Art Department Professional is a registered trademark of ASDG Incorporated. Amiga is a registered trademark of Commodore-Amiga, Inc. ASDG LINKS ADPRO TO ABEKAS DIGITAL DISK RECORDERS FOR IMAGE TRANSFER OR SINGLE FRAME RECORDING Art Department Professional owners can now read and write video streams using the same file format and hardware medium used on the Abekas A60, A65 and A66 Digital Disk Recorders. This capability dramatically increases the appeal and usefulness of the Commodore Amiga to video professionals. Madison WI, August 20, 1992 --- ASDG Incorporated, the leading supplier of innovative color imaging solutions for the Commodore Amiga, announce the development of Art Department Professional support for the industry standard digital video scheme used by Abekas Digital Disk Recorders. Using this support, digital video images stored on 8mm cartridge tapes can be directly exchanged between the Amiga and Abekas A60, A65 and A66 systems. As a result, it is now more likely that professional videographers will use Amigas for high-end video work. Additionally, videographers who do not own an Abekas system but do own an Amiga, can create digital video streams (essentially treating the 8mm tape drive as a single frame recorder) which can be used by an Abekas equipped post-production facility. Previous to ASDG's development, transferring video streams to and from high-end digital video systems was extremely time consuming, if not impossible, due to the sheer bulk of the data. These limitations are eliminated by ASDG's ADPro loader and saver for the Abekas format since these modules can directly control the same type of tape drive (from Exabyte) and interpret the same file format used to store the Abekas images in the first place. Full overscan broadcast frames can be read or written in as little as 11 seconds on a stock A3000. By using ADPro's extensive format conversion and batch processing capabilities, multi-minute video streams can be transferred between any format and an Abekas tape automatically. ADPro support for the Abekas carries a list price of $200 and requires a Commodore SCSI disk controller and an Exabyte tape drive to function. For information as to how to acquire ADPro's Abekas support or where to purchase Exabyte tape drives, contact Gina Cerniglia at ASDG Incorporated, 925 Stewart Street, Madison, WI 53713 or call (608) 273-6585. Art Department is a registered trademark of ASDG Incorporated. Amiga is a registered trademark of Commodore-Amiga, Inc. ASDG ADDS SUPPORT FOR NEW EPSON COLOR SCANNERS TO ITS ART DEPARTMENT PROFESSIONAL FAMILY ASDG's new driver takes full advantage of the greater speed, resolution, and options offered by the new ES-600C and ES-800C scanners.  ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ INTERESTING PD Fish 807 VCLI Voice Command Line Interface allows you to execute CLI or ARexx commands, or ARexx scripts, by spoken voice command through your Perfect Sound 3, Sound Master (Sound Magic), or Generic audio digitizer. VCLI is completely multitasking and will run continuously in the background, waiting to execute your voice command even while other programs may be running. With VCLI you can launch multiple applications or control any program with ARexx capability completely by spoken voice command. VCLI is compatible with both NTSC and PAL. This is version 5.2, an update to version 5 on disk number 751. New features include the capability to load alternate vocabulary files by spoken voice command, a choice of Amiga hardware timers to reduce interference with other programs, and immun- ity of the display to changes in system fonts. Binary only, requires AmigaDOS 2.0. Author: Richard Horne VoiceCode This file contains complete documentation for voice.library (Ver 6.4), the public domain Amiga library of voice recogni- tion functions for the Perfect Sound 3, Sound Master (Sound Magic) and Generic audio digitizers. Included are descrip- tions of the functions that will allow your program to learn and recognize spoken words through your 8 bit audio digitizer. Also included are code examples in C and assembly language. Author: Richard Horne and David Benn Fish 806 XSearch A program to search files and directories on any Amiga device. Has options to search for files or directories matching a given name pattern, length, date of last change, iff type, comment, internal strings, and protection bits. Supports the Amiga clipboard. Uses AmigaDOS 2.0 style interface. Includes both German and English versions. Version, 1.1, an update to version 1.0 on disk 724. Includes source in KICKPascal. Author: Stefan Plöchinger Fish 805 CDTV-Player A little utility for all those people, who'd like to play Audio-CD's, while multitasking on workbench. It's an emula- tion of CDTV's remote control, but is a little more sophis- ticated. Version 1.5, an update to version 1.0 on disk 759. Public domain, binary only. Author: Daniel Amor Fish 804 AmigaWorld A database program that contains information about every country on Earth. It enables you to have a look at the data of one country, or to compare several countries. It is easy to handle, and you can use it with your favourite colors, font, and even language (at the moment there are English and German data files). Requires 1MB of memory. This is freeware version 1.0, Modula-2 source is available by the author. Author: Wolfgang Lug Fish 803 HyperANSI The ultimate in ANSI editors. Allows you to edit up to 999 pages at a time, with a unique 'transparency' mode which allows you to 'see through' the pages ( and save as a single page ). Other features include; Copy, Move, Fill, Replace, Text alignment & justification, line drawing, char- acter painting (colors and/or text), half character painting, and keyboard remapping for all 255 IBM characters, plus more. Shareware, version 1.02, binary only. Author: Mike D. Nelson Fish 801 PowerData Patches AmigaDOS, enabling all programs to read and write files packed with PowerPacker in way that is completely trans- parent to themselves and the system. Programs will read power- packed datafiles directly, and will also magically start com- pressing their own datafiles, as they create or update them. This is version 38.105, the official successor of another pro- gram by this author, Powerpacker Patcher. Partially localized for use with Workbench 2.1. Requires Workbench 2.04+. Share- ware, binary only. Author: Michael Berg TWC Two Way Chat & Send enables you to make use of your modem's full duplex feature. With TWC you can connect to another Amiga running TWC, then you may transmit files AND chat at the same time, in both directions. GUI-driven, needs Kick- Start 2.04 or higher. Version 2.03, freeware, binary only. Author: Lutz Vieweg Fish 800 DocDump A print utility that puts 4 pages of text on one sheet of paper, including page-headers. Beside the normal Dump mode, a double-sided Booklet mode is also available. DocDump uses its own printer drivers, making one yourself is easy. Version 3.6, binary only, shareware. Author: Robert Grob Moontool A port of John Walker's moontool program for UNIX. It gives a variety of statistics about the moon, including phase, dist- ance, angular, size and time to next full moon. A schematic of the current phase is also shown as a picture. This is illustrative only; the accurate phase is shown in the text. Version 1.0, binary only. Author: John Walker, Amiga port by Eric G. Suchanek Fish 799 HackLite An evolved version of the public domain game Hack, written by Jay Fenlason, Andries Brouwer, Don Kneller and various others. Hack Lite is a dungeon adventure game in the style of Rogue, Hack, Moria, etc. It uses a customizable graphical dungeon display. The package includes a simple-to-use installation program, and a "Preferences"-style configuration editor. Many new objects, traps, monsters and ways to die have been added. Saved games are now much smaller, and a "Tournament mode" allows several players to compete for the highest score playing in identical dungeons. Utilities included with Hack Lite were written by Jim Cooper and Doug Walker. Author: Alan Beale Fish 798 LockIt A simple commodity to protect files or drawers from any access. Uses a WorkBench AppIcon and allows selection of files via ASL- Requester. Requires OS2.0. Version 2.1, binary only. Author: Andreas Linnemann Prism An ANSI editor that allows animations and complete colour con- trol. It is used on many BBS's to create animated screens. Includes a configuration editor, font control, and variable playback speed. New features include automatic line and box drawing, and a special "Quick Pick" option for accessing extend characters codes. Version 1.5, an update to version 1.4 on disk number 581. Binary only. Authors: Syd Bolton, Chris Timmerberg, and Colin Vernon. Fish 795 UnDelete Restores deleted files and (empty) directories with a fast deleted-file-find routine. It is often as fast as "delete". Works on all OFS and FFS disk devices, but from Shell only. Version 1.02, binary only. Author: Ekke Verheul Fish 793 SOUNDEffect Sound sample editing program. Special features include: temporary buffers, frequency and amplitude modulation (tremolo and vibrato), echo, special reverb effect, chorus effect, mixer, free hand editing, low and high pass filter, compresser, expander, limiter, distortion and all usual functions (copy, paste, insert, cut, looping, zooming etc.). Version 1.30, shareware, binary only. Author: Sven Bühling Fish 792 AmigaBase A hierachical, programmable, in-core database. Features include two display methods, filter datasets, search datasets, print datasets, and many more. Nearly everything can be real- ized by programming AmigaBase. Datatypes can be Integer, Real, Boolean, String, Memo (Text), Date and Time. Number of data- sets is only limited by available memory. Lacking documenta- tion, (available with shareware submission) but full Intuition interface make many operations quite obvious. Also includes some example projects. Runs under OS 1.3 and 2.0, shareware, binary only. Author: Steffen Gutmann Fish 791 RADBack A shareware utility that can make a backup of a RAD disk to a normal 880K Amiga disk, regardless of its length - bigger RADs are saved on more disks. Can be started from the Workbench as well as from CLI. Version 1.0, binary only. Author: Sandi Tomsic Replex REPLace EXecutable. This handy patch substitutes program names that are about to be executed, e.g. if an icon default tool specifies ":c/MuchMore" and you prefer to use "c:TextRead", you can have it defined as such, so you never have to change the icon. Intuition interface allows up to 8 such definitions. Compatible with all known OS versions. This is version 1.0, binary only. Author: Ekke Verheul Fish 790 UChess A powerful version of the program GnuChess version 4 for the Amiga. Plays a very strong game of chess. Code has been re- written and data structures re-organized for optimal efficiency on 32 bit 68020 and better Amiga systems. Fully multitasking, automatically detects and supports 640X480X256 color AGA mode machines, and does not at any time BUSY wait. Requires a 68020 /030/040 based Amiga computer system with AmigaOS 2.04 or later and 4 Meg of ram minimum. Special "L" version optimized for 68040 and requires 10 Meg of ram minimum. Supports a variety of standard features such as load, save, edit board, autoplay, swap sides, force move, undo, time limits, hints, show think- ing, and a supervisor mode that will allow two humans to play with the computer acting as a "supervisor". Version 2.04, includes source. Author: FSF, Amiga Port by Roger Uzun Fish 789 QMouse An unusually small and feature-packed "mouse utility". Was inspired by, but not derived from, the original QMouse by Lyman Epp. Features include automatic window activation (like WindX), top-line blanking for A3000/A2320 users, system- friendly mouse blanking, mouse acceleration/threshold, "Pop- CLI", click-to-front/back, "SunMouse", "NoClick", "WildStar", Northgate key remapping, and more. Requires Kickstart 2.0, but is not a commodity. Only 3K. Version 2.21, an update to version 2.20 on disk 731. Public domain, assembly source included. Author: Dan Babcock Fish 787 Spartan The sources to the Spartan PD scsi interface driver for Amiga 500 and Amiga 1000 originally by Paul Harker. This is an enhanced version that includes a major bugfix and * SCSI-Direct support. Versions 34.3 (generic) and 34.4 (true SCSI). Author: Several, see documentation Viewtek A feature packed Picture/Animation Viewer. Shows most ILBM's (including 24-bit ILBM's), most Compuserve GIF format images, most JFIF format JPEG images and most ANIM Op-5 format ani- mations, with support for different palettes for each frame. Supports SHAM, CTBL, and PCHG images, full support of ECS/AGA display modes (ie. show 256 color GIF's directly, show 800x600 HAM animations, etc.). Supports viewing contents of clipboard. Iconifies to a Workbench AppIcon. Includes a version written for GVP's Impact Vision 24, to support true 24-bit display. Version 1.02, requires Workbench 2.04+, binary only. Author: Thomas Krehbiel Fish 784 BindNames A solution to the problem of having to continually edit your startup-sequence to add assignments for logical variables when you add a new program. BindNames will read one or more files in a special directory and then create all the logical assignments at once and it can figure out dependencies, so it doesn't matter how you order the entries in the file(s). It will create directories that it can't find, such as RAM:Env and RAM:T and will generate warnings for assignments that it can't resolve. Version 1.0, includes source, public domain. Author: Dave Haynie Fish 784 Lyapunovia A mindboggingly colorful program that makes pictures from a simple mathematical formula. (And it's NOT Mandelbrot!) Lyapunovia pictures vary from colorful candy to mean metal (or something), offering you everything you ever wanted in visual representation of abstract nothings... This freely redistributable version of Lyapunovia has been thoroughly tested to work on all Amigas. Special registered versions with precision-extension, optimized for bigger CPUs, and support of WB 2.0/2.1 and WB 3.0 displaymodes (all 256 colors) are available. Version 1.0, binary only. Author: Jesper Juul Fish 783 KingFisher A specialized database tool providing maintenance and search capabilities for the descriptions of disks in the format used by this library. KingFisher's database can span multiple (floppy) disk volumes, can be edited by text editors that support long text lines, can add disks directly from unedited email or usenet announcements, can remove disks, rebuild a damaged index, find next or previous software versions, print or export (parts of) the database, and more. Includes a data- base of disks 1-770. This is version 1.11. Binary only. Author: Udo Schuermann Fish 781 PowerSnap A utility that allows you to use the mouse to mark characters anywhere on the screen, and then paste them somewhere else, such as in another CLI or in a string gadget. Checks what font is used in the window you snap from and will look for the position of the characters automatically. Recognizes all non-proportional fonts of up to 24 pixels wide and of any height. Works with AmigaDOS 2.0 in both shell and WorkBench environments. This is version 2.1b, an update to version 2.0 on disk 726. Binary only. Author: Nico Francois TKEd TKEd is a very comfortable Intuition-based ASCII editor with an english and german user-interface. It can read texts packed with PowerPacker, has user-definable menus, a comfortable AREXX interface with 109 commands, an interface to some errortools for programmers, macros, undo, wordwrap, supports foldings, has an online help mode, and many other features. TKEd is re- entrant and can be made resident. It's Kickstart 1.3/2.04 compatible, supports the new ECS-screenmodes, an application window and checks itself for linkviruses. Version 1.11, an update to version 1.05 on disk 689. Binary only. Author: Tom Kroener Fish 780 ABackup A powerful backup utility, that may be used both for hard disk backup and for file archiving. Has a full Intuition interface, a "batch" mode, can save/load file selection, handle HD floppies, etc... This is a *MAJOR* update, with support for XPK library, child task for disk write, error recovering when writing to a disk and more. Include both French and English versions. This is version 2.00, an update from version 1.60 on disk 759. Shareware, binary only. Author: Denis Gounelle. NickPrefs An enhancement to IPrefs that manages three new preferences, WBPicture allows you to display any IFF picture in the main Workbench window, supplanting the original (and boring ;-)) WBPattern. BusyPointer lets you edit the clock pointer used by programs when they are busy. You may create an animated pointer. Floppy provides the ability to mess with the public fields of trackdisk, that is, the TDPF_NOCLICK flag, step delay and the like. Requires OS2.0, binary only. Author: Nicola Salmoria Fish 778 Kurve Kurve is yet another function plotting tool which provides a very fast and easy way of plotting and analysing mathematical functions. The integrated function compiler makes this plotter to be the fastest one you've ever seen. Version 2.001, compatible with Kickstart 2.0 and 3.0beta. Includes source in C. Author: Henning Rink Fish 776 JEd Yet another programmer's editor. Lots of features, including: total customization, a powerful programming language, multi- file/multi-view editing, number of windows is only limited by memory, clipboard support (cut/paste on any unit), any window can have any (non-proportional) font, an Arexx interface, and more. Version 2.05, (apparently unrelated to the version of Jed on disk 297). Requires OS2.0 or later, includes source. Author: John Harper Fish 774 ExtraCmds A small set of AmigaDOS commands, chiefly inspired by UNIX, written to augment the collection distributed as part of the System Software Release 2.04 (V37) and will not run under older releases. This is the first public release consisting of the commands Common, Concat, Count, DirTree, Head, Lower, Split, Tee, TimeCom, and Unique. Source code and manual pages in both Danish and English are included. Author: Torsten Poulin ISpell An "Amigatized" port of a Unix version of a freely distribu- table interactive spelling checker. Two major modes of oper- ation: Original Interactive Mode to allow a user spell check and correct a text document and ARexx Server Mode that allows the end user to hook ISpell up to text editors and other things that need a spell checking service. Regular expression lookup of word patterns is also possible in ARexx Server Mode. Includes Arexx macros for GUISpell (included), CygnusEd, Mg, TurboText, GNU emacs, VLT and WShell. Version 3.3LJR, an update to the version released on disk number 191. Requires AmigaOS 2.04 or later. Includes source. Author: Many! Current version by Loren J. Rittle Fish 773 Enforcer A tool to monitor illegal memory access for 68020/68851, 68030, and 68040 CPUs. This is a completely new Enforcer from the original idea by Bryce Nesbitt. It contains many new and wonderful features and options and no longer contains any exceptions for specific software. Enforcer can now also be used with CPU or SetCPU FASTROM or most any other MMU-Kick- start-Mapping tool. Major new output options such as local output, stdout, and parallel port. Highly optimized to be as fast as possible. This is version 37.26, containing a bug fix to version 37.25 on disk number 754. Requires V37 of the OS or better and an MMU. Author: Michael Sinz Ls An update based wholly but loosely to the version 3.1 of Ls on disk number 236 by Justin McCormick. Includes many enhance- ments and bug fixes. Ls is a popular, UNIX style directory lister. This version features intelligent columnar listing, versatile sort options, UNIX-style pattern matching, recursive subdirectory listing, customized output formatting and much more! Version 4.7ljr, requires at least OS 2.04, includes source. Author: Loren J. Rittle. AmigOz 68 M2A Version 1.0 of an Ascii Mac <--> Amiga file translater. M2A translates extended ascii files from Mac to Amiga and vice-versa. The codes which have no equivalents in the Amiga are translated by characters from $80 to $9f so that you get them back when you translate the text backwards. Yet, the Mac extended chars coding for standard chars are translated to the common chars. In the sense Amiga to Mac, the extended Amiga chars without equivalent on Macintosh have been translated to char $ca (extended space on Mac. Assembler source included. Author: Jean-Pierre RIVIERE  ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ QUOTABLE QUOTES The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat oneself. Not failure, but low aim, is crime. To curb the machine and limit art to handicraft is a denial of opportunity. If it is truth what does it matter who says it. Good resolutions are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they have no account. Never cut what you can untie. He who goes against the fashion is himself its slave. I do not mind lying, but I hate innacuracy. It is not death, it is dying that alarms me. The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne. There is more difference within the sexes than between them. The employer generally gets the employees he deserves. Cheer up, the worst is yet to come. Those who we can love, we can hate; to others we are indifferent. Consciousness of our powers increases them. Character is long-standing habit. The public is merely a multiplied 'me'. We have more useless information than ignorance of what is useful. We always like our admnirers; we do not always like those we admire. The normal is what you find but rarely.  ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ Murphys computer laws 11-20: ---------------------------- 11. To study an application best, understand it thoroughly before you start. 12. Always keep a record of data. It indicates you've been working. 13. Always draw your curves, then plot the reading. 14. In case of doubt, make it sound convincing. 15. Program results should always be reproducible. They should all fail in the same way. 16. Do not believe in miracles. Rely on them. 17. Blessed is the end user who expects nothing, for he/she will not be dis- appointed. 18. At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer. 19. Any system which depends on human reliability is unreliable. 20. Undetectable errors are infinite in variety, in contrast to detectable errors, which by definition are limited.  ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[ ]] 32 [[