A M I G A N A I R W A V E S APRIL 1990 Hello again to all members, old and new. This is the 6th issue of the UK A.A.R.U.G's Newsletter and as usual, there is quite a lot to report about what is happening in the world of the Amiga. Our membership continues to show a healthy increase and we are heading towards 150, achieved in less than 2 years since we started. Firstly, let's start with a round-up of Amiga news from around the world: USA Nothing has been heard from Kathy since November when I wrote to her and sent her copies of our first PD disk AARUG #1 and Amigan Airwaves #5. The other ominous sign is that the U.S. 20m Amiga Net no longer operates on Sunday evenings. I can only surmise that Kathy has been unable to enlist anyone else to help run the Group, the Amigan Beacon Newsletter and the Amiga Nets and can no longer cope herself, with the inevitable results.... If the US Group has folded, we shall be deprived not only of Amigan Beacon, but also of the major source of PD software to date. I will write to Kathy again shortly in an attempt to find out whether there is any chance of resurrecting her Group and report on the situation again in the next issue of Airwaves. Australia Larry's Group is flourishing and he has about 40 members in Australia and New Zealand, one of whom is Steve, G1GOJ who used to be in our Group before he emigrated to N.S.W. and became VK2XOX. Larry puts out his own Newsletter and has a growing library of PD programs. Charlie, G0EIW keeps an up-to-date list of these which will be published from time to time. Scandinavia We have still been unable to establish whether or not there are (organised) Amiga Groups in Sweden and Denmark. OZ1ENT and others, frequently post packet bulletins which suggest that there are Groups active in both countries and that they have some useful radio-related software. We shall keep trying and if anyone has, or can get, further information, please let me know. Belgium Walter, ON1AOT appears to be trying to start up a Group in Belgium and has circulated a list of available Amiga PD programs recently, but these seem to be mainly from the 6 disks that originated in the States. Italy Renato's Group is doing well and also issues its own Newsletter. If anyone can translate this for us, Charlie can make copies available on receipt of an SAE. By now, many of you will have tried out IW0BRH's shareware program Amipac V1.51 and I would appreciate a short review of this for the next issue. This program now has docs. in English thanks to OZ4ACF. Germany I have heard nothing from Peter, DF5ZI recently, but will send him this issue of Airwaves and ask him for an update of the German scene for the next issue. In the meantime, my good friend Hanno, DL8RA, has returned home after 3 years in Rio de Janeiro as PY1ZBV and has been persuaded (by me!) to buy an Amiga 500. He recently went to the Ce Bit 90 fair in Hannover, but tells me that Commodore's showing was rather mediocre compared with the competition at this important event. 70% of their stand was devoted to their PC clones and there was no sign of the rumoured A 3000 or laptop. What they majored on was the use of the Amiga for music applications and for automating/controlling a TV studio which was all well and good, but hardly likely to impress the hard-nosed businessmen who attended Ce BIT 90 that the Amiga should be taken seriously as a powerful tool for business applications such as DTP, CAD etc. Switzerland HB9AOB has been publicising a Commodore User Group on the LA9OK Amtor mailbox. Des, G0LKZ took the trouble to write to him and send him a copy of our AARUG #1 disk several weeks ago; he also left a message on the landline BBS number given, but has received no reply as yet. Virus Update VirusX 4.0 is now available and comes complete with interesting documentation from the author about how the various viruses work and how to incorporate the program in the start-up sequence of a boot disk. Roger, G6HMF told me that the `Lamer Exterminator' virus he had, stopped the Workbench `Diskcopy' program working. It was Roger that drew my attention to the existence of the Amiga Help Line (see below) for which I am very grateful. There were reports that some copies of the first PD disk put out by Your Amiga magazine were infected with the Lamer virus and certainly, disks sent out by Siskin Electronics were infected because I was sent two myself. This problem has now been dealt with because I cleaned up and reorganised the Siskin disk and Phil, G6DLJ has had it professionally duplicated. AUI magazine reports yet another new virus - BGS 9. This one gets into the start-up sequence and eventually reveals itself in the form of text when doing a warm re-boot; unfortunately, this one is not detected or removed by VirusX 4.0 and is thus rather like the IRQ virus I mentioned in the previous issue of Airwaves. It may therefore be worth trying the same cure, namely the KV program. Magazines As usual, the ever-changing Amiga magazine scene is worth reviewing. Firstly, Your Amiga has been heavily advertising `Fast Access Amiga', - "The ultimate source of information/all you will ever need to know about the Amiga" etc., etc. It should be good at the asking price of £7 per issue, which consists of a magazine and a disk; apparently it will be available on subscription only. Shortly after being introduced into the UK (see last issue), the excellent Canadian magazine Amigo Times appears to be having financial problems and has not been published since before Christmas. This is very surprising in view of its success and popularity, but it shows how volatile and competitive the magazine market is. Amiga Computing seems to be having difficulty in making its mind up about whether or not to have a cover disk. The February issue explained that the disk was being discontinued because their readers "preferred a lower price" of £1.95, but the April issue proudly announced that "by popular demand from our readers", the cover disk would be back in the May issue and the price would revert to £2.95! Exhibitions Following Commodore's poor showing at the Novotel last November, the future of the Commodore Show seems uncertain. Whether there will be one in June 1990 (following the pattern of previous years) remains to be seen. Another 16 Bit Computer Fair at the Horticultural Halls has already been announced at the end of June and this will inevitably clash with a June Commodore Show. Likewise, this year's Computer Shopper Show at the huge Wembley Conference Centre will clearly prove a major counter attraction to any Commodore Christmas Show. Several weeks ago, it was reported in one of the weeklies that an Ami Expo would be held in London during September. This is primarily a developer's conference but is usually associated with an Amiga-only exhibition showing the very latest state-of-the-art products from all over the world. This prestigious event has only once been held outside the USA and according to later reports, the venue is to be Cologne during October so it seems that we have missed out this time. AARUG PD Disks Our first PD Disk AARUG #1 has been very well received by Group members and indeed all those who have seen it. The credit for the many hours of work that went into compiling this disk, goes to Charlie, G0EIW who is currently putting an equal amount of work into AARUG #2 which should be available by the time you read this. Charlie hopes that AARUG #3 will follow within a matter of weeks and that we shall have enough material in the coming months to issue a whole series of these disks that will not only collect together all the most useful software, but also serve to publicise our Group even more widely. Please help Charlie with this very worthwhile project by sending him comments, ideas and of course, PD programs for him to include on the disks. The attached list shows all the software currently available (from Andy, G8NTH). This list will be updated and re-issued as necessary. C 64 Software One of our new members, Stewart, GM4ZOA has drawn attention to the amount of useful radio-related software that has been written for the C 64. He and Reg, G1TEY are looking at possible ways and means of using C 64 emulators to enable Amiga owners to use of some of these programs, without having to use a C 64. Watch this space! Software Support The Amiga Fax program, which was reviewed by Charlie, G0EIW in Issue #4 of Airwaves, is no longer supported by ICS. The reason for this is that the author, a young German who introduced it into the UK in 1988, is unable (or unwilling?) to do any further work on it. This came to light when a problem with freeze-ups arose when using the program with the Kickstart ROM V1.3. Peter, G4GEW has encountered this problem and would like to hear from anyone who has found a way of overcoming it. Peter has been told that the program may be O.K. with ROM V1.4 - very strange! Steve, G0CYT regrets that owing to a change in his work patterns and other commitments, he will not be in a position to do any further development on his Host program for the PK 232. If you have specific problems, Nigel, GM0JKN or John, G6CNX may be able to help you. AVT SSTV Program The saga with the AVT SSTV program continues! Rod, EI3CZ has the first European PAL version of the program and he reports that there are still serious problems with it in various colour modes (it seems to work fine in black and white and all modes seem to work O.K. on the US NTSC system). ICS have now sent a European Amiga to AEA in the States and seem confident that a software upgrade will be forthcoming to deal with the problems by the end of April. For those of you who missed the review of the program in the March issue of Practical Wireless, a reprint of it is attached by kind permission of the Editor, Rob Mannion, G3XFD. Amiga Nets I am glad to report that our two regular 40m Amiga nets seem to be well established, with a good number of regulars, supplemented by those who just `drop in' for a chat now and then. We have decided to leave the times of these nets unchanged, notwithstanding the switch to BST, so why not join us at 0800 LOCAL time on Saturdays or 1300 LOCAL time on Sundays? We try to stay within the band segment 7090 - 7095 KHz, QRM permitting. If you can't actually join us for one reason or another, at least listen in when you can. You can always phone me with any contributions or questions that you would like raised. Amiga BBSs We are trying to compile a list of landline BBSs which are useful for Amiga owners. This will include dedicated Amiga Boards and those which have a substantial Amiga Section on them. So far we have: Runway A 500 0293 884117 2200-0800 Hours (run by Chris, G6MBO) 01 For Amiga 01 377 1358 The Amiga Board 0268 510495 There must be several others, so if there are any that you know of and can recommend, please let either Charlie or I know. EXPERTISE All sorts of queries on specific topics arrive at this QTH and I am for ever trying to remember who is the the expert on which topic. The following list is therefore mainly for my benefit but I thought that it might also be of interest to you! TCP/IP John G1YYH W0RLI PBBS Paul G1LOK SSTV Rod EI3CZ Modula 2 Wayne G7DYR Access V. 1.4 Reg G1TEY Unix Andy G8POY BBS (Telephone) Chris G6MBO ATV Ian G0BMS Satellite (Oscar) Andy G8NTH Please let me know of any further topics and experts that should be added to this list. Whilst on this general subject, I would mention that Laurence, GM0ATQ has considerable experience of receiving transmissions from the Astra satellite and will shortly be able to receive BSB also. Ian, GJ7DNJ is a pilot with AIR UK and would like to know if there are any other commercial or private pilots in the Group and whether there are any other Amiga amateur radio enthusiasts in the Channel Islands. Snippets Did you know that Commodore run an Amiga Helpline service? Nor did I! I rang it the other day (01 302 8383) and told them that it must be one of the best kept secrets in the business! They told me that they are available Monday to Saturday from 0900 - 1700 for general advice on hardware and software problems. You may also write to: Amiga Helpline, P.O. Box 200, Dartford, Kent. You can now build your own MIDI interface for £25 using a kit available from: Alba Computer Ltd., 15 Western Broom Garden, Edinburgh, EH12 7RA Telephone 031 316 4171 Leysoft's Logbook III is now available. Contact Peter, G4KKN 09252 29881 The PC Emulator described in the March issue of AUI looks interesting for A 500 owners. For £300 you get not only a full PC emulator, but also 0.5 MB RAM, clock, MS DOS V4.01 and other software. For details contact: Bitcon Devices Ltd., 88 Bewick Road, Gateshead, Tyne & Wear, NE8 1RS Numerous expansion systems are now appearing which enable A 500 and A 1000 owners to utilise the wide range of expansion devices available for the Amiga 2000. However, before taking the plunge and investing in one of these, it is worth comparing the cost of upgrading to a `proper' 2000, not forgetting the likely difference in the second hand value of the two options. On a personal note, I would mention that since the last issue of Airwaves, I have had to replace the internal drive in my A 1000 and the final transistors in my TS 930S. In retrospect, I am not sure which was the worse job! Needless to say, they were both things that I could well have done without from the point of view of the time taken as well as the expense. Time is a scarce commodity for us all these days and especially so for me with the current pressures of work and travelling on business. Dealing with almost daily enquiries about the Group which arrive by mail, packet and telephone, is inevitably time-consuming. It is heartening however, to see the continuing and growing interest in what we are trying to do and long may it continue. As always, your ideas, suggestions, contributions etc. are both welcome and essential. 73 de Bob, G3LMH @ GB7XJZ for packet, GB7PLX for Amtor