By: Tina Hackett By: Tina HackettAt long last, it looks final that VIScorp will be the new owners of the Amiga. On 24 June, Escom and VIScorp signed the final agreement regarding the acquisition of Amiga Technologies GmbH by VIScorp, subject to approval by their boards. This means that the entire staff and property of Amiga Technologies will pass into VIScorp's possession. Apart from the Commodore trademarks, VIScorp will own the existing components and finished goods inventory of the Amiga and the intellectual properties of the former Commodore group. Amiga Technologies GmbH will still coordinate the production and distribution of the Amiga at its headquarters in Benshiem, Germany. The purchase price was reported to be US $40 million in cash and stock.
Arachnaphobics need not fear. The new Spider from Golden Image is not an arachnid but an eight port serial card which features a high speed throughput of up to 57600 baud across all eight ports simultaneously. It allows connection to eight separate serial units via standard 25-way, d-type connectors. Priced at £299 including VAT, it is compatible with the Amiga 1500, 2000 and 4000. It fits into one standard Zorro slot and allows you to connect to serial devices such as serial printers and modems.
Golden Image has also announced a special offer on its 4Mb RAM card with clock. Only available for orders placed in July and August, or until stocks last, the card increases the speed of an Amiga 1200 to more than twice as fast as the graphic RAM. The offer price for this is £79.95 plus £3.50 mail order postage. Call its enquiry line for more details on 0181-900 9291.
Busy as ever, it has also just released its Ethernet adapter, ConneXion. This enables Amiga 1500, 2000, 3000 and 4000 users to be connected to a standard Ethernet network to share files and other resources. It provides a fast 10-Mbit Ethernet link with 10 Base 2 connectivity through a BNC adapter. You can also connect to any other Ethernet standards via the AUI interface.
It also has a 32K, 16-bit on-board cache to reduce the usual burden a network puts on the machines, meaning the running speed remains fast. It is available from Golden Image for £185 including VAT.
White Knight Technology has been appointed as MacroSystem's exclusive UK distributor. MacroSystem has produced products such as the VLab Motion and Retina and also the DraCo which provides high quality non-linear video editing capabilities. The DraCo scored an amazing 10 out of 10 in Amiga Computing not so long ago.
White Knight has announced that it will shortly be forming a new company to handle sales of the DraCo Video Editing Workstation and any future non-linear editing systems to specialist video dealers. MacroSystem is also about to announce a new product called Casablanca which, according to its news release: 'represents an entirely new concept in consumer video editing.' Watch this space.
The company has also slashed the prices of its 24-bit graphics cards. For example, there is a huge saving on the Retina BLT Z3, a Zorro III card for the A3000 and A4000, where the price has been cut on a 1Mb board from £379 to £235 including VAT. Contact White Knight on 01920 822321.
Last month in System, we published a review of Chaos Engine 2 which was unfinished. We don't pride ourselves on doing such a thing, it was just a complete misunderstanding.
We must apologise sincerely to Time Warner Interactive and the Bitmap Brothers themselves for any inconvenience and hope they can forgive us for all the confusion we caused. Sorry.
EZ life |
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SyQuest
has just announced that it has slashed the price of its EZ135 Drive.
Previously, it charged £139 for the parallel port version, £165 for the
SCSI configuration and £199 for the parallel port configuration, but
now all versions are only £89. Ron Brown, Vice President of marketing
explained this move: 'We have taken this aggressive step because
SyQuest intends to expand its installed base among computer users who
want the highest performance removable storage.' He continued: 'This is
a proactive investment to introduce prospective new customers to the
superior performance of removable cartridge hard drive storage over
alternative removable media technologies.'
Amiga computers are being used to provide the Gorilla House at Belfast Zoological gardens with an interactive facility. Arcom Limited, the Northern Ireland Multimedia production company, has installed an A4000 with Scala Mpeg card and MM400 software which, according to Russell Moore of Arcom: '...would show different video clips depending on the choice of the visitor.'
The content of the Interactive Kiosk was designed, produced and edited by Arcom's Chris Astles and contains material donated by the Diane Fossey Trust. 'Video editing was done on our Broadcaster Elite and the 3-D graphics with LightWave, of course' said Chris. 'Scala was, as usual, extremely helpful throughout.'
The Interactive Kiosk has proved to be very popular with the public and Arcom has attracted interest from other museums and zoo's in Ireland.
Anyone interested in contacting Arcom should telephone or fax (012477) 71445.
Cybercard, a young Cambridge-based company, has developed a radical new retail idea for the Internet which has left its California rivals standing.
After a year of extensive market research and product development, Cybercard officially launched its Personalised Greetings Card Shop on the Internet. The Cybercard product enables consumers to design personalised greetings card on their home computer via the Internet and then have them professionally printed to order on quality card using digital offset colour.
Cybercard lets you select the occasion and offers the choice of over 180 pictures and 700 texts in a variety of styles. If none of these are to your liking, you can write your own. You are credited as the designer on the back of the card unless you wish to remain anonymous. After designing the cover of the card you can either leave the inside blank or select appropriate poems or greetings. You even have the choice of having you signature simulated and printed onto the card which is then sent directly to the recipient.
Cybercard charges £1.99 (plus postage) for the Standard Card, and £2.99 for cards with a message printed inside (this involves a second run through the presses). The top-of-the-range Deluxe Card with the simulated signature and the option of sending directly to the recipient costs £3.25 (plus postage).
Cybercard can be visited on the Internet at http://www.cybercard.co.uk/. If you want to hear more about Cybercard, contact David Bridge on 01223 779 440.
The Right Honourable Gillian Shephard, Secretary of State for Education and Employment, announced the launch of The Knowledge Gallery in May. 'The Knowledge Gallery' is a collaboration between education and industry to provide high quality images to universities and colleges over the SuperJANET network. This partnership between the public and private sectors was initiated by Smart Isles, a none profit making company dedicated to developing national applications to exploit leading edge technologies such as SuperJANET.
Mrs Shephard was suitably impressed by a demonstration designed to show the range and quality of the material that can be transmitted over the SuperJANET broad band network. She said: 'The Knowledge Gallery is an exciting example of how the public and private sectors can work together to mutual advantage. I am delighted to welcome its launch. UK higher education institutions already lead the way in exploring the educational potential of broadband networks. This partnership has created a unique resource which will significantly enhance the range and quality of teaching and learning materials available to higher education.'
The SuperJANET broadband network enables material donated by university, colleges and companies (such as video, sound, text, pictures and data), which is then digitised and made available through a gateway to SuperJANET, in The Knowledge Gallery. This material will then be freely available to the 130 universities and colleges in the UK connected to the system for use in their teaching and research programmes. This resource will also be available to schools connected to a broadband network
Mr Bahram Bekhradnia, Director of Policy at the Higher Education Funding Council for England, and a member of the Joint Information Systems Committee which manages SuperJANET for the higher education funding councils said: 'I am delighted that major companies like Kodak and Sun Microsystems are supporting The Knowledge Gallery. It is an excellent example of a mutually beneficial partnership between industry and higher education'.
June 16 saw the debut of the CompuServe 'Virtual Passport', a technological innovation that will enable CompuServe to deploy its fee-based services using Internet technology. The Virtual Passport will also allow other sites to identify CompuServe members, allowing them to use just one password, such as their CompuServe password, to gain access to many Internet sites.
Virtual Passport will also enable Web sites to check who is visiting and will verify the authenticity of the Web site for the user, which means that the site being accessed will check it isn't a 'copy-cat' or 'spoofed' site. Another advantage of the new system is that it will enable small businesses to set up a secure Web site that can only be accessed by approved authenticated users.
The Virtual Passport uses Remote Passphrase Authentication (RPA), a new technology developed by CompuServe. It is the first technology system in the marketplace that allows users to use an existing membership and password, such as a CompuServe account, to gain access and privileges with other Web sites.
The Virtual Passport will work automatically with CompuServe 3.0 which will be available this summer. For more information contact the Compuserve site at http://www.compuserve.com/rpa/index.htm.
Avery Office Accessories, part of the Avery Dennison Corporation, has revealed its new redesigned range of computer furniture which includes computer and printer stands and VDU trolleys. The new range is softer and more elegant, combining strength and stability with a lightweight design that enables the furniture to be moved easily and safely.
According to Jan Perry, Marketing Communications Manager: 'The new design reflects the increased emphasis on design and appearance in the office of today. Crucially, though, it incorporates a high degree of flexibility, ensuring it will remain compatible with the fast developing demands of office technology.'
ViewSonic Europe announced last month that it had experienced a 200 per cent increase in sales during the last quarter of 1995 and the first quarter of 1996. This significant growth in ViewSonic sales during the last six months is believed to be the result of a number of innovative changes that ViewSonic has made to its European operations. One in particular has been the increased support from respected distributors, allowing ViewSonic to command an extensive distribution channel spanning most of Europe and Scandinavia. Other factors in ViewSonic's 200 per cent increase in sales have been the organisational restructure which has enabled a closer relationship with end users to be established and a high profile advertising campaign in the press in Germany, France and the UK.
According to Michael Kommer, ViewSonic Europe's Managing Director, the company is striving to emulate the success of ViewSonic's American branch and take over the position of number one monitor supplier in Europe. 'This unrivalled growth in sales of our price performance monitors is pivotal to our long-term strategy and this continues to be an exciting time for all of us at ViewSonic' he added.
Epson has announced a new extended warranty programme that offers on-site repairs for all Epson printers, scanners and projectors.
The programme, called Epson Cover Plus, offers to repair the machine on site rather than replacing it with another refurbished unit, which would have no details of the age or previous usage of the replacement machine.
The new programme offers two types of cover Ð the Standard Service which guarantees on-site response within eight working hours, and a four hour Premium service for business critical machines such as high-end lasers, data processing dot matrix printers and multimedia projectors.
Robert Clark, Epson group product manager for business products said: 'We have listened to our customers and are confident that Cover Plus provides the right level of cover options for all products in our extensive range. We realise that customers do not want to be left with a refurbished machine that could be older and more worn out than their own. Customers want their machine repaired on site by a qualified Epson engineer using original Epson parts.'
Cover Plus can be bought from dealers up to 30 days after the purchase date of the product it is to cover. If the machine is sold the warranty can be transferred to its new owner. Prices start at £40 for a three year, eight hour warranty for, for example, a Stylus Color IIs.
Have you got a modem? Want to connect to the Internet? Well, what better way to get started than to take advantage of our reader offer with Firstnet who is offering our readers a free two-week trial.
Firstnet Services is a specialist when it comes to connecting your Amiga to the Net. It has over eight years Amiga experience with Amiga computers and provides expert technical support and software for the machine.
It offers full Internet access plus up to a megabyte of Web space free, provided it is used for non-commercial purposes. Dialups are available from as little as £12.50 per month + VAT for unlimited access.
Firstnet also offers Web authoring, training and fast 28.8 connections and in July it is having an Amiga dedicated Web page where you can have a link to your very own home page. Call Firstnet on 0113 294 4224 to find out how to download your Internet software from its Bulletin Board.
If you have any news of interest and want the publicity, then contact
our newsdesk:
Newsdesk, Amiga Computing, Media House, Adlington Park, Macclesfield, Cheshire
UK SK10 4NP or mail us at:acnews@idg.co.uk
© 1996 IDG Media