============================================================================= HARDWARE NEWS ============================================================================= Short Hardware News ---------------------- Below you will find a list of hardware products that will be released or is intended to be released very soon on the AMIGA market. Check it out and when you're interested, contact your local hardware supplier. * It is said that Commodore is going to release before the summer, a whole new series of computers. Some of the speci- fications are held secret, but some of them are not, like the NEW kickstart version 3.0. Some details of kickstart 3.0 : via Cross-Dos is it possible to read and write MS-DOS disks. The graphics capacity is higher than previous versi- ons, at least 16 colors in each resolution, which is more than the 2 colors in the highest resolution on an A500 plus. These modes are available on a standard monitor. Furthermo- re, the new kickstart has some SCALA scroll-routines. The sound-chip has also some improvements. Prices are as always not mentioned. * Alright Console Game Players, it is now possible to store Nintendo, SEGA & Super-Famicon Gamecartridges in e.g. an Amiga. This is possible through a hardware expansion unit. It is now possible to write your own demo's & games for these machines. It is also possible to stop a game any time you want, save it, and load it some time later str- aight into your console besides the normal trainer functi- ons. Price : 199 UK pounds * For the A500 and the A2000 a special RAM expansion Unit has come available, which has the possibility to load kickstart into memory. The user can choose between kickstart 1.3 and kickstart 2.0. The kickstart is held in memory via a batte- ry which keeps the kickstart, even if the computer is shut off. Price : 125 UK pounds * Hagenau Computer from Germany has its video-digitizer Deluxe View combined with an automatic RGB-splitter. This RGB-splitter has a seperate output for a control monitor. The whole package is called Proline One and all included products are tuned to each other to reach a maximum perfor- mance from each item. This package can directly be connec- ted to the Amiga. Price Tag should be around 200 UK pounds. * Newtek has released a multimedia package. The packages includes the following: the Digi-view digitizer, the paint program Digi- paint 3 and a presentation package Elan Performer 2.0. This means we can expect this year a real multimedia explosion because it seems to be the big hole in the market at this moment. The above mentioned package can be yours if for around 180 UK pounds. * Some interested people can find it at the Cebit in Germany: the A690 laser disk player from Commodore. At the Cebit the machine will be shown to the public. The model which is available at the moment can be connected to the A500 and the A500 plus. The A2000 models will be released in the summer of 1992. The price for the A500 model is 350 UK pounds. * For the A2000 & A3000 an audio card has become available. This card carries the name AD1012 Digital Audio Card and is manufactured by the US-company Sunrize Industries. It has a 12-bit resolution and a sampling rate over 80 kHz. It is now possible to play long samples like 10Mb with 1Mb of memory, because of sample-data that will be directly writ- ten on the hard-disk. Thus the limit is the maximum of free hard-disk-space. The card has a digital sound processor (DSP) on board with a math-capacity of 10 Mips. Real-time effects like Multiband Equalizing, Hall, Echo, and Filter is now real-time possible. Price tag will be around 400 UK pounds. News collected for Newsflash by Martin Jansen ============================================================================= HARDWARE NEWS =============================================================================