--------------------- Morton's Musings by Morton A. Kevelson --------------------- .info MAGAZINE HALTS PUBLICATION On Tuesday, April 7, .info managing editor Mark Brown notified me that that in the absence of suitable financing, the April 1992 issue number 49 of .info would be the last. The news did not come as total surprise. As the hardware columnist for .info, I have had some indication of its financial difficulties for some time. However, until Mark's words had time to filter down to the lower levels of my consciousness, I did not realize just how much .info had become an essential part of my Commodore experience. INFO-64 first appeared on the newsstands in 1983 or 1984. I do not recall the exact date the Fall 1983 issue appeared on the stands, however, I do remember the actual publication dates for those early issues were erratic. Initially, INFO-64 was available only on the newsstands. Commodore enthusiasts had to be swift and alert if they wanted to grab a copy of INFO- 64, as the magazine was rapidly snapped up. Although the magazine was always printed on glossy paper stock, early issues were generated all in upper case on a nine pin dot matrix printer. What sold the magazine were INFO-64's no- holds barred to-the-point editorial style and the database listing of Commodore 64 products. Over the years, .info's editorial style may have mellowed a bit, but looking back I can see that it has not changed all that much. The Amiga made its first appearance in INFO-64's undated issue number 4. Since INFO-64 number 3 was dated Spring 1984, issue number 4 most likely appeared in late 1984. The editors referred to the yet-to-be-announce Amiga as the "MAC-VIC" which would be a "32-BIT, MACINTOSH-LIKE, UNDER-$1000, SUPER-MACHINE." Yes, it was printed in upper case since in issue number 4, there were only enough lower case characters for about half of the magazine. INFO-64's editorial coverage of the Amiga continued to increase until the September-October 1985 issue number 8, when INFO dropped the 64 from its name. INFO continued to provide complete coverage of all the Commodore specific computers until the name was changed once again to .info with the September 1990, issue number 32. At that time editorial coverage of Commodore's eight bit machines was dropped in favor of the Amiga. The first all Amiga issue featured CDTV. Over the years, .info's feisty editorial policies offended many readers, most notably advertisers. Complaints appeared on the Commodore bulletin boards regarding .info's policy of knocking Commodore and the Amiga. Nothing could have been further from the truth. The people who produced .info, as well as those independent writers who contributed to the magazine, were all die-hard Commodore enthusiasts. Benn Dunnington's editorial statement from the first issue of INFO-64 summed it up the best: "COMMODORE 64'S AND 64-COMPATIBLE PRODUCTS ARE USED EXCLUSIVELY AND EXTENSIVELY IN THE PRODUCTION AND MANAGEMENT OF INFO-64. WE WOULDN'T HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY. WE FEEL THAT USING THE EQUIPMENT WE ADDRESS, IN EVERY WAY WE CAN, IS THE BEST WAY TO STAY IN TOUCH WITH THE SUBJECT & THE NEEDS OF OUR READERS. (ACTUALLY A PUBLISHING OPERATION IS LIKE A CONTINUAL EQUIPMENT TORTURE TEST; IF IT WORKS WELL FOR US IT PROBABLY WORKS WELL FOR OUR READERS.) IF WE GO TO TYPESETTING FOR FUTURE ISSUES, IT WILL BE VIA THE 64 AND 64 SOFTWARE. The publisher of .info adhered to these policies at all times although he ultimately did drop the C-64 in favor of the Amiga. .info staff continued to work with Commodore equipment even past the point where other equipment could have done some of the jobs better or cheaper. As of this writing .info's future is at best uncertain. This is not the first time the magazine has suspended operations due to financial difficulties. Unfortunately, this time the situation looks rather grim. The loss of .info will notably diminish the Amiga community. I sincerely hope we have not heard the last form the .info crew. WHERE HAVE THE AMIGA MAGAZINES GONE? Now that is a good question without a good answer. Part of the problem may be that in North America the Amiga has become a specialized machine. While the generic Amiga magazines have been on the decline, the coverage of the Amiga in trade magazines is on the rise. A case in point is TV Technology magazine, an 11 by 15-inch industry tabloid printed on glossy paper stock. TV Technology is distributed free to qualified subscribers in the video industry. The March 1992 issue of TV Technology contained 100-plus pages. Among the endless array of incomprehensible video paraphernalia I found about a half dozen pages that dealt with the Amiga. The lead into the article about 1992 National Association of Broadcasters, NAB, Convention was NewTek's Video Toaster. The March issue of the magazine also included reviews of Adspec's Draw4D-Pro and RGB Computer & Video's AmiLink. There was also a feature article entitled "Mr. Mac, Meet Mr. Amiga," which dealt with file transfer between the Macintosh and Amiga platforms. WHAT GOES UP MUST COME DOWN Every North American Amiga publication, with the possible exception of AmigaWorld, has seen fit to chastise Commodore upon the unprecedented price increase of the Amiga 2000. I first noted the Amiga 2000 price increase in the March edition of this column. The most recent outbreak of editorial outrage appeared in the May issue of Compute magazine. In this case, both Denny Atkin and Sheldon "The Ear" Leemon devoted most of their respective columns to Commodore's amazing price policies. What caught my attention was that the May issue of Compute appeared in my mailbox just one day after I spotted an advertisement from the local Amiga Dealer offering the Amiga 2000 for only $999. In this case Commodore may have actually gotten the message. I contacted the dealer but was unable to obtain any information other than a confirmation of the price. GOLD DISK DELIVERS During the fourth quarter of 1991, Gold Disk issued a gaggle of press releases announcing both new products and updates to existing ones. Many of these products have been released. Some such as MediaShow, ShowMaker and VideoDirector have been in my possession for some time. Unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity to properly review them in this column. Others, such as Professional Calc, were released some time back, although I did not receive samples until recently. The latest arrival is Professional Page 3.0 which I had mentioned just two columns back and which I will now delve into in some detail. Professional Page 3.0 is apparently in the transitory phase where Gold Disk still has large stocks of the old manual on hand. The package is shipping with the 270-page version 2.0 manual along with a 70-page version 3.0 supplementary manual. I do not mind this one bit, since it makes it easy for me to spot the differences and report them. The package also includes a demonstration video tape. The program is now supplied on three floppy disks, though most of the files have been compressed. You do not have to worry about decompressing the files as the installation program takes care of this automatically. Professional Page 3.0 is also the first release of this package that will not run from floppy disks. A hard drive is required. If your system is still running from floppy disks, hold on to your version 2.1 disks. You will need them. The fourth disk in the package is a HyperBook tour of the Gold Disk product line. The most noticeable new feature in the version 3.0 package is the so called Genies. Genies are actually AREXX scripts that Professional Page sends to itself. You might think of the Genies as super macros. Since they are ARexx scripts, the Genies can be programmed to accept user input and many of them do just that. If you are an ARexx programmer you can modify the supplied Genies or create new ones on your own. The package certainly has enough examples. The Function Genies, of which 53 are supplied, perform specific tasks such as DropCaps or FindAndReplace. There is even a Function Genie that communicates with ASDG'S Art Department Professional. The Page Genies, of which six are supplied, automatically create a variety of page and report formats. All of the Page Genies request input from the user. Of course Professional Page 3.0 now supports ARexx in a big way with 330 commands under its belt. Nearly half of the supplementary manual is devoted to the description of the ARexx commands. One of the most notable enhancements to the updated package is not even a part of the main program. The FontManager utility, written by Eyo Sama, lets you convert Adobe Type 1 fonts to Compugraphic format. If you have been using the Amiga since at least 1989, then you may recall that Eyo Sama was the publisher of the Montreal-based AmigoTimes magazine. AmigoTimes, which only ran for ten issues, specialized in Amiga-based desktop publishing. The Compugraphic font format, officially known as the Intellifont scalable typefaces, are now a part of the AmigaDOS 2.04 operating system. Adobe Type 1 fonts which are converted by the FontManager utility, can be used by AmigaDOS 2.04 as well as by Professional Page. The FontManager utility now provides Amiga users access to the thousands of Adobe Type 1 fonts that are both commercially and freely available. FontManager sports an easy to use point and click interface. With FontManager you can preview the fonts prior to converting them. The conversion process is completely automatic with a pair of fuel gauges that monitor the state of the conversion process. The converted fonts end up in the appropriate directory ready for use by Professional Page. FontManager does not take the place of the AmigaDOS 2.04 Fountain utility, which is still needed to install the Compugraphic type fonts in the AmigaDOS Fonts directory. The converted fonts can also be installed in the AmigaDOS FONTS: directory with AmigaDOS 2.04's Fountain program. It seems to me that Gold Disk's FontManagar should be made a permanent part of AmigaDOS 2.04. Professional Page 3.0 is now supplied with a seven AGFA Compugraphic scalable outline typefaces, five more than before. The font complement now consists of Caslon540, CG Omega, CG Times, CG Triumvirate, Garth Graphic, Shannon Book and Uncial. Font sizes can now be specified to an eighth of a point. On the input side, PPAGE now has text import filters for several Amiga word processors, including ProWrite, QuickWrite, Word Perfect and excellence!. On the output side, it now supports auto-tiling which can generate output that is larger than your printer's physical page size. EVEN MORE FONTS You can never have enough fonts is what Agfa would like you to believe. Agfa is now shipping its entire library of more than 260 Intellifont scalable typefaces in Amiga format. SOUPING UP THE A2630 Commodore must have managed to sell quiet a few A2630 accelerator boards insofar as two developers have recently announced products which support it. The A2630 is sold by Commodore as a separate expansion product as well as a part of the Amiga 2500/30 system. Furthermore, Commodore has just offered the A2630 at a bargain basement price to all registered developers, which is the way I ended up with one. DKB Software is producing the DKB2632 RAM expansion module for the A2630. The DKB2632 plugs into the RAM expansion socket that Commodore has thoughtfully provided on the back of A2630. Although the A2630 does have a place to plug in a RAM expansion board, Commodore has never bothered to actually market it. DKB Software has decided to literally plug into the gap. The DKB2632 will retail for $699.95 complete with 4 megabytes of 32 bit RAM. RAM can be added to the DKB2632 by plugging in additional 32 bit SIMMS. The 112 megabyte configuration is achieved by filling the four sockets on the DKB2632 with three 32 megabyte SIMMs and one 16 megabyte SIMM. The DKB2632 is sold with a single 4 megabyte SIMM and the board will accept combinations of 4, 8, 16 and 32 megabyte SIMMs. Computer System Associates has also announced the Rocket Launcher, a $699 upgrade board which piggybacks onto the A2630. The Rocket Launcher doubles the speed of the A2630 from 25 MHZ to 50 MHz. It is my understanding DKB Software and Computer System Associates are cooperating to insure compatibility between the DKB2632 and the Rocket Launcher. NEW CDTV PACKAGES Commodore is making a limited-time offer of specially priced education packages to the end user through June 30, 1992. The CDTV Library bundle, $869, includes the CDTV player, two disc caddies, the American Heritage Dictionary, the World Vista Atlas, and the American Vista Atlas. The CDTV Early bundle, $1,129, includes the CDTV player and 13 educational software titles. Meanwhile, CDTVS are still rather scarce in the electronic retail outlets that I visit. Once again, Commodore is turning to its existing users to form the initial group of new CDTV owners. Ads have been running in all of the Commodore specific magazines promoting CDTV as a computer in disguise. Educators take note. Canadian based Discis Knowledge Research may well be the most prolific independent developer of CDTV titles. Specializing in educational versions of popular classical children's books, the Discis catalog now contains nearly a dozen CDTV titles. Current CDTV titles are The Tale of Peter Rabbit, $89.95, and The Tale of Benjamin Bunny, $74.95, by Beatrix Potter; The Paper Bag Princess, $74.95, Thomas' Snowsuit, $79.95, and Mud Puddle, $79.95, by Robert Munsch, Cinderella, $74.95; Scary Poems for Rotten Kids, $89.95, by Sean O'Huigin; A Long Hard Day on the Ranch, $74.95, by Audrey Nelson; Heather Hits Her First Home Run, $89.95, by Ted Plantos; Moving Gives Me a Stomach Ache, $89.95, by Heather McKend; and The Night Before Christmas, $79.95, by Clement C. Moore LLD. The first 10 titles on this list with a 110-page Teacher's Guide and User's Manual, $29.95, are available as an education pack for $799. All of the Discis CDTV titles use digitized speech to read the stories. Background narration can be presented in both English and Spanish. DEVELOPERS MENTIONED DKB Software 50240 W. Pontiac Tr. Wixom, MI 48393 313-960-8750 Computer System Associates 7564 Trade Street San Diego, CA 92121 619-566-3911 AGFA Division, Miles, Inc. 90 Industrial Way Wilmington, MA 01887 800-424-TYPE Gold Disk 5155 Spectrum Way, Unit 5 Mississauga, Ontario Canada L4W 5A1 416-602-4000 800-465-3375 Discis Knowledge Research Inc. 510 Yonge Street Toronto, ON Canada M2N 6N2 800-567-4321 416-250-6537 END OF TEXT