=============================================================================  PUBLIC DOMAIN UPDATE ============================================================================= CONTENTS - ORDERING DISKS - THE END OF FISH ?? - EUROPE'S BEST 93001-11 - FISH 791-800 ORDERING If you like to obtain any of the disks mentioned in this article please: - visit your local computer meetings - contact your local PD distributor If you have problems getting these disks you can also order them from us through our reader service: Number of Disks Price Mailcosts Europe Mailcosts Overseas --------------- -------- ---------------- ------------------ 3 Fl 20.-- 0.00 Fl 5.00 5 Fl 30.-- 0.00 Fl 5.00 10 Fl 50.-- 0.00 Fl 10.00 Payment: - Eurocheque in Dutch Guilders only - Cash (Dutch Guilders or US$) 1 US$ = Fl 1.70 - Bankcheque (Total amount + Fl 15.00 for extra bankcosts) !! INCORRECT PAYMENTS WILL NOT BE HANDLED !! THE END OF FISH ? In a French magazine (AMIGA DP) I read an article about Fred Fish. According to the article it stated that Fred Fish had posted a message on Usenet on the 17th of Januar with a message to the AMIGA community. He seems to be thinking about stopping his PD activities because of the decrease of number people who subscribe to new disks. It seems that the number has gone down from 75 to 41 and that the amount of time he put in (20-30 hours a month) is no longer covered. He is now asking the AMIGA community for more support but I think that it is time for Commodore to stimulate and support people who promote their machines. I myself had the same experience during the last 4 years. There was always enough support from contributors but lack of interest of Commodore. I never understood why but PD was apparently not in Commodore's line of interest. But I still think that when people are happy with their machines and get a good support they will mention it to other people and the results of that will be better than from any advertisement-campaign. I offered Commodore (Holland) to make a good introduction disk for new users but no answer. Last year I offered Commodore USA the option to compress the whole WB disks with PowerPacker to have more space for extra material but I am still waiting for a reply; and I am writing to them as a AMIGA minded software-house. I can only say: support people whose work you enjoy and buy their work or use their services, this is the only way to keep them motivated and in business. With todays recession and piracy it is already hard enough. Let's hope that Fred can continue his work and release another 800 disks. EUROPE'S BEST DISK 1-11 The follow up of our megademos reviews in previous issues. Because my friend John v Dijk was very busy with his study he decided to stop writing for Newsflash. I will continue his work and review interesting European releases so we have a good mixture of USA material (FISH) and European releases. I will only review the better disks and give them an overall value. If you have produced some special please send it for review and receive the next issue of Newsflash in return. Newsflash AMIGA Postbus 881 3700 AW Zeist The Netherlands DISK 1 + 2 ---------- TITLE : ABSOLUTE INEBRIATION PRODUCERS: VIRTUAL DREAMS / FAIRLIGHT DISKS : 2 This original megedemo project starts with zooming in a nice castle. After this you fly with a spaceship above a 3d area. Then you leave the planet to enter the oribit. With a loud bang the planet ex- plodes. After some credits some 3d vectors show up with quite nice effects (especially the bouncing rubber ball). During the whole demo you can enjoy a great soundtrack. The music is real quality and worth listening to. After the vectorpart you enter a long corridor while 3d objects almost hit you in the face. Really special is the 3d line object demo with quite some new effects and original ideas. Overall this demo is not world shocking but worth looking at. It is well programmed and the graphics and music are of a high standard. VALUE GRAPHICS : 85% MUSIC : 90% CODING : 80% OVERALL : 85% DISK 3 + 4 ---------- TITLE : MIRROR PRODUCERS: ANDRAMEDA DISKS : 2 This music compilation is a school example of good graphics, music and coding. The people behind this project seems to be real perfectionists because the whole atmosphere of this demo is QUALITY !. On these two disks you will find the following songs: - Beneath dignity - Time's in the remedy - Broken joysticks - Escapade - Interceptia - Pastel blue - Agony screams - Stormbringer - Dark side As a bonus there are also 4 pieces of hi-res artwork on the disks which can be selected from the graphics menu: - Dathlund dragon - Wastelands - Fantasy Horse - Jucy lucy VALUE MUSIC : 95% GRAPHICS : 90% CODING : 85% OVERALL : 90% Disk 5 + 6 TITLE : Jezus on E'S PRODUCERS: LSD DISKS : 2 Another house demo on two disks this time. This demo will be quite at- tractive for house fans because the duration is: 10 minutes !!. This LSD demo beats all existing house demos by offering solid vectors, line figures, simple graphics and excellent animated images. If you are into rave then check this out. Hasta la vista...... VALUE MUSIC : 75% GRAPHICS : 65% CODING : 70% OVERALL : 70% DISK 7 ------ TITLE : FOUR SEASONS PRODUCERS: PARASITE DISKS : 1 While booting this music disk you float through a spacefield and you can listening to a remix version of "the snowman" which is really good done. I already loved the original song but this version is even better. CONTENTS - Winter time - Pseudomymous - Drums by an alien - Blending - Trains of horror - Minor after minor - Obtain majority - The great warrior - Bali dancer VALUE MUSIC : 75% GRAPHICS : 65% CODING : 70% OVERALL : 70% DISK 8 ------ TITLE : MAYDAY RESISTANCE PRODUCERS: ADICT DISKS : 1 This 1 disk House-demo was produced by the German group ADICT. One of their members 'Daniel Tippmann' also produced a soundtrack for disk B of this issue called Deliriance. The demo contains simple but effective graphics synchronized on the fast beat. House fans will love this one, I myself can bare it for a few minutes, then I have to decrease the volume to avoid a nerve-breakdown. Just kidding but you have to love House to enjoy this one. VALUE MUSIC : 75% GRAPHICS : 75% CODING : 70% OVERALL : 74% DISK 9 + 10 ----------- TITLE : KEFMANIA PRODUCERS: THE CULT DISKS : 1 If you like to collect original demos than this one must be in your collection. It offers original effects and new routines. All accom- panied ny nice music and programmed very well. This German produc- tion is a another good example of the graphic potential of the AMIGA. FEATURES - 1 Frame real time zooming (socalled keftales) - 1 Frame real time zooming + cycling routines (real nice) - MTV Video Clip, a great combination of technosound and really weird fractal effects and graphics!! VALUE GRAPHICS : 80% MUSIC : 85% CODING : 90% OVERALL : 80% DISK 11 ------- TITLE : PROTRACKER V3.0 PRODUCERS: CRYPTOBURNERS DISKS : 1 A new version of Protracker. This version now in Med-res and will run also on Kickstart V2.0. It looks now very professional and offers some new features. With this update the program stands lonely at the top of musicprograms available for the AMIGA. The fact that is also FREEWARE and therefor FREELY REDISTRIBUTABLE makes it even more valuable. Every composer can use it and UGA will concentrate on PROTRACKER modules and utilities in the near futures and release them on coming issues of Newsflash. We will also have our own moduleplayer. If you are into music then get a copy of this excellent program. CONTENTS FISH DISK 791-800 DISK 791 HSV A small color palette utility that contains both RGB and HSV sliders for adjusting your screens colors. If the screen has 4 bitplanes or less, you can also save the palette to 'ENVARC: palette.prefs'. Requires AmigaOS2.xx, version 0.99, includes source. Author: Frank Ederveen 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 ScsiTape A Scsi-Direct tape handler that implements fully asynchronous double-buffered read and write operations. If you have disk / tape drives which support reselection then the handler will be able to operate on the tape concurrently with disk accesses meaning that an archiver such as Tar will not 'freeze' while tape operations are in progress. Includes source. Author: Matthew Dillon SKsh A Unix ksh like shell for the Amiga. Some of its features include command substitution, shell functions, aliases, local variables, emacs and vi style editing, I/O redirection, pipes, Unix wildcards, a large variety of commands, and coexistence with scripts from other shells. Well documented. Version 2.1, an update to version 2.0 on disk 672. New features in version 2.1 include true piping between internal and external commands, background functions, aliases, and other shell constructs, enforcer clean, several new commands, cross filesystem file and directory moves, and more. Binary only. Requires Amiga Dos 2.04. Author: Steve Koren DISK 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 DragIt Allows you to move or size a window without having to use the drag bar or sizing gadget. Press on the configurable quali- fier, while holding it, press your selected mouse button, and move the mouse. You'll see the window border appear, and you'll be able to drag or size it. Requires OS 2.0, supports localization with locale.library and the new style 2.1 (or 3.0) preference. Version 2.01, binary only. Author: Steve Lemieux ModHPLJD A Rexx program that creates a modified version of the HP_Laser Jet driver. The modification changes the 'initialize' string so that the font chosen from the printer menu (rather than 12pt Courier) can be used and the number of lines per inch can be specified. Version 1.01. Author: Michael Tanzer TClass An "Intelligent" file identifier. Has the ability to "learn" new types of files by simply scanning groups of known types of files, and checking the first 20 bytes for similiarities. It then reports on the matching accuracy and adds a "definition" for the filetype to a brain file. Version 2.9, binary only. Author: Sam Hulick WBPat Creates random 3D patterns for your 2.04 WorkBench windows. A pattern can be shifted or changed, tested, used and saved. Version 1.0, includes source in C. Author: Ekke Verheul DISK 793 DateCheck A Rexx program that validates the system date by comparing it to the date stored when DateCheck was last executed. If the system date is earlier or too much later than the stored date, the user is notified by a requester. Version 1.01. Author: Michael Tanzer ReflexFinal A game which tests your addition, subtraction, division, mul- tiplication, percentage, and algebra skills. The goal is to answer several math questions in the shortest possible time. A continuation to "ReflexTest" on disk number 751. Binary only. Author: Jason Lowe Snap A tool for clipping text or graphics from the screen, using the clipboard device. Snap finds out character coordinates automatically, handles different fonts, keymaps, accented characters, and more. Version 1.63, contains a small bug fix to version 1.62 on disk number 524. Includes source. Author: Mikael Karlsson 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 DISK 794 MCAnim A special animplayer. Plays LORES 4-plane ANIM5 anims in a HIRES-LACE screen. The result is a FULLspeed, small (1/4) animation with a high resolution. The anim can be placed anywhere on the screen. One of nine copperlists can be added in one register without loss of speed. Version 0.8, binary only. Author: Ekke Verheul ReqTools A standard Amiga shared runtime library which makes it a lot quicker and easier to build standard requesters into your pro- grams. Designed with CBM's style guidelines in mind, so that the resulting requesters have the look and feel of AmigaDOS 2.0. Version 2.1a, lots of enhancements since release 1.0d on disk 623. Includes a demo and glue/demo sources. Author: Nico Francois DISK 795 PSTools Part 1 of a two part distribution of DVIPS ported from a Unix environment. DVIPS is a program that takes TeX .DVI files and converts them to PostScript files. If you don't have access to a PostScript printer, you can still take advantage of the vast amount of useful documentation in TeX .dvi or PostScript .ps format using the incredibly excellent POST program from FF669. This portion of the distribution contains the DVIPS binary, source and config files; DVIPS documentation; the Adobe Font Metric Files, TeX vf font files and LaTeX files. Part 2 of the distribution can be found on disk number 796. Includes DICE C-source. Author: Originally from DECUS, Amiga port by Jonathan Hudson 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 DISK 796 PSTools Part 2 of a two part distribution of DVIPS ported from a Unix environment. DVIPS is a program that takes TeX .DVI files and converts them to PostScript files. If you don't have access to a PostScript printer, you can still take advantage of the vast amount of useful documentation in TeX .dvi or PostScript .ps format using the incredibly excellent POST program from FF669. This portion of the distribution contains the TeX pk font files and the TeX tfm font files. Part 1 of the distribution can be found on disk number 795. Author: Originally from DECUS, Amiga port by Jonathan Hudson DISK 797 A2ps Another "oldie but goodie" I found poking around the net. This seemed like an appropriate place to put it. A2Ps formats an ascii file for printing on a postscript printer, adds borders, headers etc. Lots of command line options. Includes source. Author: Miguel Santana, amiga port by Daniel Barrett BBBF The Bootblock.library/brainfile is an attempt to make life a little bit easier for programmers of anti-virus utilities, diskcopy programs, directory utilities, disk packers and for whoever who wants to check the bootblock of some device The library has some easy-to-use functions to read the brain- file, and to check a bootblock with it. Version 0.95 beta, brainfile recognizes 158 different viruses. Includes sample source. Author: Johan Eliasson, SHI member. BIGMec A shareware utility that displays the current available amount of memory, the memory available when BIGMec was started and the difference between those. The amounts can be displayed in HEX/ DEC and BYTE/KILO/MEGA. BIGMec can be started from Workbench as well as from CLI. Version 1.0, binary only. Author: Sandi Tomsic DVI2LJ A cli utility to convert TeX .DVI files into HP PCL files suitable for printing on the HP Laser Jet series printers. Author: Gustaf Neumann, amiga port by Daniel Barrett HP3ps An intuitionized utility for changing modes on a Pacific Page Postscript Emulation cartridge. Allows you to select HP-PCL or POSTSCRIPT mode by simply clicking on a gadget. Version 92.02.09, binary only. Author: Scott Dhomas Trenn PSUtils Some cli utilities for the manipulation of PostScript files. Includes: psbook - rearranges pages into signatures; psnup - uses pstops to merge multiple pages per sheet; psselect - selects pages and page ranges; pstops - performs general page rearrangement and selection; and epsffit - fits an EPSF file to a given bounding box. Includes source. Author: Angus Duggan, amiga port by Jonathan Hudson Spots A useless but pretty 24-bit-RGB and HAM spot-paint-program. Handles scripts to render animations. It needs arp.library or WorkBench 2.0. Check out the examples to see if you like the effect. Version 1.10, binary only. Author: Ekke Verheul DISK 798 AddressitDEMO Demo version of a very powerful small business and personal mail manager that includes many extras. You can define up to 15 flags, export data to ProWrite and Wordperfect, and print rosters, mailing lists, labels, envelopes plus a whole lot more. Works with 1.2/1.3 and 2.0. Author: Legendary Design Technologies Inc. ASwarmII A "high security" Screenblanker commodity (will not burn-in the phosphor even when the CPU is really busy). Based loosely upon Jeff Buterworth's "xswarm" for X11 Windowing System, it shows from 1-10 "wasps" beeing chased by 1-500 "bees". Screen will blank entirely under periods of high CPU usage. Requires Amiga OS 2.04 or better, version 1.3, includes source. Author: Markus Illenseer If2.0 A CLI/Shell command, which decides whether your Amiga is run- ning OS v2.x or OS v1.x - and then executes a corresponding command line/argument. Especially useful for zKick-using Amigas. Version 1.2, includes C-Source. Author: Thomas Arnfeldt 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 NewMode A tool for changing the screenmode of any screen by manipula- ting the OpenScreen pointer. Includes new "ModeNames" file for the screenmodes (like HAM...). Requires OS2.0. Version 1.1. 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. Run68017 Provides run time emulation of about 30 of the 68020 instruc- tions with a 68000. Only the emulated instructions can use the new 68020 addressing modes. Uses a gagdet to enable/disable emulation. An upgrade from Run68013 on disk number 756. Includes source in assembly. Author: Kamran Karimi Split The opposite of the AmigaDos JOIN command. Use it to split textfiles that are too large to edit on your computer, files for email-delivery that have a file size maximum... etc. The created files have the same name as the original except with an extension of two digits. Version 1.0, binary only. Author: Jonas Svensson StripANSI Removes all ANSI codes from a text file so that only the bare text remains. It is useful for editing terminal program cap- ture buffers. Two versions are provided: one for the command line (CLI) and one with a full Intuition interface. You can selectively strip certain codes, and generate a report. New features include more codes, better help, and tab expansion. Version 1.2, an update to version 1.0 on disk number 581, Includes source in 'C'. Author: Syd L. Bolton DISK 799 AII "Archiving Intuition Interface" allows you to access many features of the LHa archiver via the WorkBench. Requires reqtools.library. Version 1.03, first release. Requires KickStart 2.0 or higher. ShareWare, binary only. Author: Paul Mclachlan. 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 DISK 800 ColorSaver A "pop-up-anywhere" (almost!) color palette commodity with several features I could not find in other palette tools. Features include: Load/Save color palettes; Sliders select- able between RGB/HSV; Copy, Swap, Range Functions; Complement selected color; Left/right shifting of the entire palette; Ability to permanently alter (patch) the color tables of execu- tables with a statically allocated color table. Requires OS2.04 or greater. Version 0.84 (alpha release), includes source. Author: Dan Fish 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 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 37.28, an update to version 37.26 on disk number 773. Requires V37 of the OS or better and an MMU. Author: Michael Sinz IffBoot Inspired from BOOTLOGO by Markus Illenseer, allows you to show any IFF file during bootup that will exit when the WB appears. Version 1.0, requires OS 2.04 or greater, binary only, includes some sample pictures. Author: Colin Bell, some IFF pics by Justin Trevena Least A small, handsome, text displayer that only supports those functions most frequently used. String searching is performed with the very fast Boyer-Moore algorithm. Also checks itself for link viruses. Runs from both WorkBench and CLI. Separate version - LeastP - also deals with powerpacked files. Has been tested under both Kickstart 1.3 and 2.0. Version 0.04, binary only. Author: Thorsten Koschinski 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 MungWall Munges memory and watches for illegal FreeMem's. Especially useful in combination with Enforcer. Output can go to either the serial or parallel port. Includes a new MungList program that examines used memory areas for MungWall tag info, and outputs a list of who owns the various pieces of allocated memory, their sizes, etc. Can even identify the owner of the memory by task name. This is version 37.58, an update to version 37.54 on disk 707. Binary only. Author: Commodore Amiga; submitted by Carolyn Scheppner =============================================================================  PUBLIC DOMAIN UPDATE =============================================================================