~November 1986 Newsletter` NZ Amiga Users Group (Wgtn), c/- Tony Wills, 156C Queens Drive, Lyall Bay, Wellington 3. ~News :` Estimated 140,000 Amigas sold in first year of sales, and didn't I hear someone say 500 in N.Z.? Only 0.36% of the market eh? Well look at it this way : 139,500 machines sold to the rest of the world of aprox. 3 billion = 1 per 22,000 people, whereas 500 between 3 million of us = 1 per 6,000 Kiwis ie 3.5 times the world average!! (No members expressed an interest in statistics so I'm sure no one will complain about my wayward stat's, to say nothing of the dubious data) There is a lot of interest in Turbo Pascal for the Amiga but we have yet to hear of any release date for a 68000 version. If Borland don't pull their finger out we'll have to migrate to Modulla-II. Reminder to Commodore - We are still waiting for an NTSC to PAL upgrade. Late news : Some NZ Amiga dealers have gone under, others cutting back - surely not those who were selling lots of Amigas, not with a $1000 odd markup? ~Reminders For Beginners :` (or tips for those that don't read manuals) Once you've mastered using the mouse to do everything you start thinking that if you can't do it with a mouse then it can't be done. So when faced with a screen like textcraft that has no 'behind gadget' you forget that you can use 'left-Amiga N' to bring the workbench screen to the front (and 'left-Amiga M' to send it back again). Another oft overlooked feature is 'extended selection' ie selecting more than one icon at a time ; hold down a shift key and start selecting things with the mouse. What use you ask? Well to get Textcraft to look on a specific disk for documents hold down a shift key select the icon of the disk required and double click the textcraft icon (then release the shift key). To get your Amiga working a bit, try opening the workbench disk, 'extended select' all the draw icons within and choose Open from the Workbench menu! To look at picture IFF files with SeeIlbm (public domain utility) 'extended select' the icons of pictures you want to view and double click SeeIlbm. Finally if you can get hold of AmigaDOS 1.2 you can 'extended select' a bunch of icons and move the lot about (and off the edge of!) the screen at once. Last tip : when presented with a string gadget you can usually edit it's contents using the delete, backspace and cursor keys. To save you sitting on the delete key to delete it's default value you can use 'right-Amiga X' and to restore it's default value you can hit 'right-Amiga Q'. ~Hardware :` We have schematics and documentation for a build it youself 1 Meg RAM expansion board, alas no PC Board design as it was prototyped on wire-wrapped boards, and this simple design isn't auto-configuring. We are still working on a foolproof 3 1/2" standard disk drive interface to connect any standard 3 1/2" disk drive to the Amiga. This project may be overtaken by AmigaDOS 1.2 which supports other drives anyway. Data is available for connecting standard 5 1/4" drives for use with the transformer. If interested please enquire within! ~For Sale :` Member trying to raise enough to buy Lattice C 3.1 update is selling off some stuff: ORIGINAL DISKS: Skyfox $40 Temple of Apshai $50 Arcticfox $40 Brattacus $40 Hex $40 Delta Patrol $40 Hacker $40 Gizmos - Utilities $40 Instant Music $70 TxEd V1.3 Text Editor $40 BOOKS: Compute's Amiga Programmer's Guide $30 C Primer Plus (learners Guide) $40 C made Easy (Beginners book) $40 HARDWARE: Amdek 300/Videotext Modem. Direct Connect, $300 with cables and boot disk. (Not type approved) Contact : Gary Walker, 4/35 Green Street, Tahunanui, Nelson. ~NewsDisk :` There is much interest in a NewsDisk (88% of payed up membership) but it certainly appears that everyone would still want a printed newsletter as well. We still haven't received much in the way of original material for such a beast - what would you like to see on it? We will try to produce something for December. ~User Group MemberShip :` If you didn't receive a receipt with this newsletter it probably means that we haven't received your subscription! And if you didn't even recieve a newsletter ... ~User Group :` We have boxes of 10 disks at $70 (including postage within NZ). If the demand goes down the price will go up! - If you can get proven good disks cheaper then let us know. Well, if you're wondering who owns Amiga's (and can still afford to pay a subscription fee) here is a break down of members interests as expressed on subscription forms : Graphics 56% Animation/Video 31% Music/Sound Effects 31% Wordprocessing 25% Programming 19% Games 19% Business 18% Engineering/Science 13% Simulators/Mathematical Modelling 13% Publishing 6% Telecommunications 6% Accounting 5% Reproduction of the lesser spotted newt -4% ~Public Domain Software :` Currently we've got assorted Commodore-Amiga demos , AMICUS disks 1..6,8,9, and disks 1..23,25 of the AmigaLibDisk series assembled by Fred Fish in the States. We have ordered Fred Fish disks 24,26..35 from the states. If you've got any contributions or requests then send us a disk. (or money to purchase a box of disks, and specifications as to their contents) ~Group Meetings :` The next local Wellington group meeting is on Monday the 24th November at 7:30pm in the Royal Society Building, Turnbull Street, Thorndon, Wellington. We will try acting like a real society and stick in a bit of general business, then some guy called Tony Wills will expound what he knows about ICONs and how to corrupt them! We will follow that with a general question session where you can ask no one in particular how to do whatever, and perhaps break up into groups to discuss whatever in depth. December meeting should be on the 29th if anyone wants one. Still no one has informed me of other user group meetings so I still refuse to announce them! ~MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION` Membership fee is $12 with a surcharge for local (Wellington) members of $8 to cover room rental for local meetings. The $12 is just to pay for postage and copying charges etc . Could 'out of town' members indicate whether they would like to be local contacts for other Amiga owners in their area. Name : _________________________________________ Address : ______________________________________ : ______________________________________ : ______________________________________ : ______________________________________ Home Phone : _________________ Work Phone : ___________________ Any areas of expertise that you can share (eg C language programmer, experienced VIP-planner {Lotus 123} user, hardware hacker etc) : :________________________________________________ :________________________________________________ Any specific areas of interest (eg Graphics/Animation, Music/Sound, Accounting/Business, Publishing/Wordprocessing etc) : :_______________________________________________ :_______________________________________________ -------------------------------------------------------------------- Annual subscription fee (for following 12 months) : $12.00 ______ Local Meeting Levy : $8.00 ______ TOTAL : ====== -------------------------------------------------------------------- _ _ Interested in a Newsdisk |_| Local user group contact |_|. _ BIX subscriber |_| usercode : ________________ Comments : ______________________________________________________ Date ______________ Signature _________________________