[1"z BAY AMIGA CLUB NEWSLETTER 7 - NOVEMBER, 1987. Dear Members, Thanks to the good sales of the Amigas in Hawkes Bay, we had a larger turnout at our monthly meeting than usual, so much so that we now have a "committee", and we have arranged to hire the Wesley Lounge Conference Room for club monthly meetings. So thanks to all our hosts of the past, especially the Smith family for their kind hospitality at the last meeting. Please read the separate sheet of the Committee Report. The decisions reached in committee will have to be confirmed by you members at the next meeting in November. SOFTWARE REPORT: The following reports on software come from a variety of sources - club meetings, demos, latest magazines, especially from the Amigan. (i) Word Perfect (version 4.1)- The famous industry standard word-processor on the IBM is finally made for the Amiga, and in your local dealers on sale at a fairly hefty price (but, cheaper than the similar programme on the IBM). This is professional, full-featured, dictionary, thesaurus, 250 printer drivers, macros, columns, maths and financial column features..... you name it, it has it BUT no graphics since it fully dedicated for words, chapters, books, documents, etc. All other word-processors fail by comparison to it, in fact, it is being claimed that Word Perfect on the Amiga is the best of any similar programme on ANY computer! It is very fast on screen-handling and is the best in handling disk files and directories, mouse, keyboard, multitasking, etc. However, from TWO separate reviewers, both report that this first version has some minor bugs in its coding - locks up unexpectedly. BUT rest easy! If you buy Word Perfect then all updates are given FREE and there will be updates for this most excellent programme. (ii) Deluxe Video: I know that version 1.2 has been out for a while, but I haven't, until recently, had ready access to it. If you want to create animated screens, titles, graphics - in other words have fun as you wished to do on a computer but couldn't because of the complexities of programming on other computers to achieve results fast - then this is the programme for you. It is not necessarily just for Video productions. You can use it interactively as a fine graphics-based teacher of children.... lessons, alphabet, simple maths lessons, storybook, comicbook with your own family or class sounds and voices (via Perfect Sound), your own music (via Sonix or DeluxeMusic). You see! no need to programme: just plan your scenes, draw your pictures, make a series of brushes for animated figures, record some sound FX, put it altogether with the Construction Set. It makes life simple. (iii) Conman: This little programme on Fred Fish #69 is very useful - I use it on my boot-disk, and take for granted an easy CLI screen, repeatable, recallable commands, easy line-editing, fast window-sizing at the touch of a key, all other CLIs being the same. A great time-saver. One of those little pearls in the Public Domain. (iv) City Desk: This is supposed to be a good desk-top publishing programme, but until I get a copy to review, we will have to wait till next year for the magazine reviews. (v) Miscellaneous: Members report that Chessmaster, Tetrapods, Barbarian, and Mastertype are most enjoyable. I took my Amy to my school gala. Barbarian (for a bunch of adolescent schoolboys) was a hit as was Marble Madness. (I charged 50c for these games for 5 mins. - and still they kept coming.) Silent Service will hang up every so often on all machines, so beware. Bugs: Some programmes do not run successfully on the 2000, especially those older type of game. New programmes which have problems on the 2000 will probably be revised. However, Commodore have done well in keeping compatibility right through the changeover to the new machines, and professional application-type programmes are immune cos' they are made professionally. THE MANUALS: Members have complained about the poor manuals from Commodore for the 500 and 2000. They are glossy and Workbench-oriented. If you wish to use CLI and know about the System then you have to pay heaps for the developers' books. Sure, I accept the argument that the 500 is intended for the home, and that therefore the Workbench is all you need to know (what happens if you want to copy PD programmes with no icons!), BUT the 2000 is supposed to be THE machine for the professional. One should have the complete DOS manual or a special book halfway in depth between the DOS manual and the existing manual. When one sees the kind of disks, information, and package Commodore gives dealers, then one gets a pretty poor picture of the ability of Commodore to reach the professional market. I have seen demonstration disks on the Amiga which emphasise its ability to show semi-nude women, scroll adverts on the screen, and play digitised sounds. So what! Cheap and nasty, if you ask me! They even make sure that dealers don't use the Workbench, because all the demo disks are booted from CLI, I gather to save problems. Half the fun of the Amiga is in clicking the mouse, multitasking a variety of sound and graphics with serious programmes. Dealers should be told to make sure they have at least 1 meg. in the 500s and 2 megs. in the 2000 and then boot a ram-disk which loads all into ram --- then we will see some reaction from the media, and enthusiasm from dealers. COMMODORE 64 EMULATOR: On sale in the US is a 64 emulator for the Amiga. I don't know how it works, nor how truly it emulates the 64. I guess if you have a 1541 drive for the 64, you plug it in the back of the Amiga, and the Amiga will emulate the 64 programme. I can't see how it could make sound and graphics, nor how it could emulate machine code routines - all the best 64 programmes. Yes, maybe it allows basic progs to run. I am just guessing. It is good news however, as an attraction for 64 owners wishing to upgrade both to colour and to the Amy. PLOTTER to PRINTER: There is a new prg. out in the US which allows Draw users to transfer their plotter files to a normal printer. Apparently excellent results and handy. PERFECT SOUND: Is here in the Bay. You may hire or buy this excellent sound digitiser which allows you to record any sound or song or record track and digitise to 8-bit quality. If you have extra memory then you can make fairly high quality samples. Good for including in your basic progs, DeluxeVideo, DeluxeMusic or Sonix. Inquire at DataStream. GENLOCK: This hardware to synchronise your Amiga and VCR and to overlay graphics onto real video is available from Datastream. It can also be hired as well. Genlock allows professional quality productions using the Amiga. LATTICE C UPDATE: Version 4.0 is now available from Lattice. John Toebes whose articles in the Amiga is now the Lattice C programmer for the Amiga. He has developed a swept up C compiler which creates faster, smaller, and Amiga-friendly code - by which I mean a compiler which stops treating the Amiga as a Unix computer. Version 4.0 is now faster than Aztec 3.4B. Code is now about 2/3s smaller than 3.03, over 2x faster than 3.10. Registered purchasers of previous Lattice C progs will get a letter setting out the cost of updating to 4.0. INTERLACE FLICKER: The Amigan journal suggests using dark sunglasses instead of buying Jitter-Rid for working in interlace. You can more easily switch from one mode to another by taking your 'Le Specs' off. BLANK DISKS: still available from Club Archivist at $55 a box of 10. (The club gets 50c from the sale of each disk.) NEXT MEETING: at WESLEY LOUNGE, Hastings St (opp. Municipal Theatre), Hastings - Wednesday, November 4, at 7.30 p.m.