====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || A M I G A U P D A T E /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || -News and Rumors- / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_|| (An Occasional e-mail KEEP THE MOMENTUM GOING || Newsmagazine) ====================================================================== AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 990828 A M I G A G O E S Q U I E T . . . . . . A N D S O D O E S I W I N I W I N B R I E F S T A T E M E N T I W I N I N T R O D U C E S T H E M S E L V E S I W I N P R I C E S J I M C O L L A S O N I W I N A M I G A A D V I S O R Y C O U N C I L A M I G A D O W N U N D E R R E P O R T H A Y N I E O N N G A M I G A 2 K I N S T . L O U I S S E C O N D A N N U A L P O W E R P I C N I C A M I G A E X T R A V A G A N Z A 9 9 S A K U 9 9 I S C L O S E ! R U S S I A N P A R T Y T H I S W E E K E N D F I F T H A N N I V E R S A R Y - G A U H P I L A M I G A C A R D G A M E " A M I G A " E 4 0 0 0 R E Q U E S T E R E N H A N C E R Editor's Thoughts and Introduction: Even if I didn't have many other reason to use an Amiga (and I have many), I'd still be a member of the Amiga community just to see what might happen next. This month has provided many examples of why that attitude exists. First, from out of the blue comes a company no one has heard of, by name of Iwin Corporation. They promise two new Amiga compatibles, to begin manufacturing in September, that offer just about everything any Amigan could want. Compatibility, features, power (Motorola 68060 or Power PC), and low prices. The natural reaction is to wonder if they're a hoax or for real. Our opinion is the company is probably for real, but we wonder if it's possible for them to deliver what they intend. We have some information for you below. We had intended to publish the specifications of the two models Iwin is discussing, but can't. Everything on their website is copyrighted, and they haven't responded to our inquiries. We haven't asked for permission, because we didn't get an answer to our first note. Perhaps that's because we used the sentence "If everything turns out to be on the up and up, we'll be happy to carry news releases and information from Iwin to help you get the word out." Perhaps we insulted them, though that wasn't our intent. If you want the specifications, you can find them at their web site: http://www.iwin-corp.com. As you will see from the note from Amiga President Jim Collas below, we'd hoped to hear something about Iwin from Amiga this week. We kept this issue back, hoping to include that information. It's now Saturday night and we've heard nothing. Instead, Amiga has gone quite, as we discuss in the next paragraph. At this point, we're drawing no conclusions from the timing. The second strange thing this month was the decision by both Amiga and Iwin to stop communicating with the Amiga community for now, to concentrate on products. They both announced it at about the same time, and in similar terms. We have statements below. We think it's probably a good idea for Amiga to scale back their communication as they've put a lot of time into it. A lot of information has gone out to the world at large also, probably too much. We note that the press section of the bulletin board on the Amiga site is shut down, with a statement that too much proprietary information slipped through. We do have one more thing to say about the Iwin products. If they become available as planned, we'd be happy to look at one and review it. We almost never do reviews here due to space constraints, but this would be such a significant event we'd make an exception - even if we have to give the computer back afterwards. ;-) "AU" HOUSEKEEPING: This is the second issue to go out under the auspices of the ONElist site. Overall, my impression is ONElist is working out reasonably well. A few of our readers may have had other opinions. Let me share a note I received from ONElist recently, and which many of you may have received as well: "Dear ONElist Subscriber You may have recently received the onelist_announce newsletter. During the recent transfer of email lists to ONElist, some new members were inadvertently subscribed to this newsletter. We sincerely apologize to you for this oversight and would like to assure you that your email address has now been removed from this newsletter and you will no longer receive editions of it. This applies only to the onelist_announce newsletter. Any other lists you subscribed to will be unaffected. Thank you in advance for your understanding and again, our apologies. The ONElist Team" The note explains some puzzling letters we got from readers expressing concerns about ONElist, including fears of spamming. We're inclined to view this as a genuine mistake on their part, and a particularly ill timed one from our point of view as it happened just as we switched to their service. Let me point out that we have used ONElist in several capacities for many months before moving "Amiga Update" there, and we had no bad experiences. Please keep us informed of any problems you may have, but we really don't expect any serious problems with this relationship. IT'S NOT US ... Finally, we need to comment on a new Amiga site just established in Norway. The site is called .AmiUpdate - a name that certainly got our attention. Please note that there is no connection between that site and this publication. We've asked them to place a statement to that affect on their site, and they readily agreed. That doesn't mean .AmiUpdate isn't a good site. It turns out to be a very good place to go on the net for news and especially interviews. Check it out at http://amiupdate.8m.com/ - we think you'll enjoy it. Brad Webb, Editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E-mail to the E-ditor: 19 Jul 1999 Brad, Thanks for the years of Amiga Updates... you should be given an Amiga ambassadorship for all your hard work and dedication. While I think the move towards Linux on the Amiga is the best move for that platform, the development of an Amiga Workbench, to set it apart from the other window managers, is key to its success. A customized X display server is necessary to take advantage of any proprietary graphics Amiga might house. Another feature to might separate it from the masses is to put the Linux kernel in ROM, or flash RAM, like earlier Amiga models. That will make the archictecture flexible for server, workstation, or as a mananaged PC on a network much more easier. If not, it will be just another Linux port. For those with less than ecstatic enthusiasm towards this move, keep in mind that the original Amiga OS is not so different from Linux. Both have scripting and GUI interfaces to OS and disk. Both do not rely upon lame hardware addressing schemes, such as C:. Both are multitasking and Amiga has easily had multiuser capabilities with 3rd party software, that really work. Linux also offers the most stable operating system I have ever known to work with, unlike Windows, Macintosh and, alas, Amiga. Finally, both units are conducive to the creative minded, not some warped vision to conform to somebody else's idea of ideal computing. A marriage of the two should produce one gem of a multimedia personal computer for the next millennia. Robert ~~~~~~ Robert, Good thoughts, and worth sharing with our readers. Thanks for sending them our way. Brad ====== 6 Aug 1999 Hello Brad, I found you on "Gramma BBS" in the Seattle area. I enjoy your newsletter! I have an Amiga 3000 and a floptical drive which is about 5 years old. Unfortunately, it stopped working recently....the problem seems to be that my CPU can't find it "not mounted". Any suggestions about how to temporarily have my computer "find" the missing drive? I bought the drive from Tulin Technology in San Jose. Another company there was Insite Peripherals. The phone numbers for those firms are no longer working. Do you have forwarding numbers for them? If not, can you suggest where I might have this unit repaired or possibly I might even buy another floptical drive....I have a large number of disks and need something to read them! Thanks in advance. Best wishes, Tim ~~~~~~ Tim, Never having used a floptical, I'm not a good person to answer your question. Can one of the readers help please? Brad ====== 4 Aug 1999 Hi Brad, I love this letter, always great and ontop. you work very hard and it is greatly appreciated what you do , but this line below my entry has just brought me over the top, I cant believe that they would even consider it. not to get into Flame wars here but What is this??!!! if we dont like what they are doing to the Amiga, ? if we dont like that they are taking the machine and turning an advanced O/S into another Linux Clone running Xwindows ? damn straight we dont like it. they shouldnt either .. just remember the name doesn't mean a damn thing. its the technology behind it, hell I bet the new Amiga is just some gateway unix box that they peeled off the sticker on and on plopped the amiga logo... and to Alan , Rick and the rest of the tech nerds @ Amiga R&D ,We love the Amiga, We love everything about it. but when you CHANGE EVERYHING ABOUT IT WE LOVE , We dont love it anymore. because it is not what we fell in love with... remember that when you cash your paychecks...I think that Amiga is Using the Amiga Community's Strength to hold them together untill they get BIG enough to Stab us all in the back and leave use behind.. I AM WITH PHASE5 ON THIS ONE... Chris > > To the small number of individuals who have been sending vulgar, > threatening hatemail because you don't like what we're doing, and have > announced that you're fed up and are leaving the Amiga community, > goodbye. Millions and millions of people will purchase Amiga-branded > and Amiga-compliant products over the coming years, and we're sorry > you won't be among them. > > Rick LeFaivre, Allan Havemose, and the Amiga R&D Team ~~~~~~ Chris, I get the feeling we'll never settle the dispute over Amiga's approach or what others would like to do. One thing you may want to look at is the series of items on Iwin in this issue. While we're still not sure what all is involved in their efforts, what they're saying has to be music to the "Classic" Amiga fan's ears. Brad ====== 5 Aug 1999 G'Day Brad Re Letter in your Amiga Update:- > Hello Brad > ... snip ... > Another problem I'm having is recently I haven't been able to get on > aminet, The following exchange of e-mails that I had with Urban Müller may help:- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Frank wrote: > > G'Day Urban Müller > > Greetings from "The Land Down Under" > > I can't seem to get any proper response from these Aminet mirrors:- > > * http://us.aminet.net/aminet/ > > Message from web site:- > > Forbidden > You don't have permission to access /aminet/ on this server. > > * http://uk.aminet.net/~aminet/ > > Broswer message:- > > Network error occurred while receiving data > Connection reset by peer > > (This has been happening for a few weeks > > * http://au.aminet.net/aminet/ > > Browser message:- > > Unable to locate server au.aminet.net > > (I had heard that Livewire who hosted Aminet in > Australia were no longer doing so.) > > Cheers .... us.aminet.net - file system broken uk.aminet.net - been hacked, rebuilding au.aminet.net - oops, forgot to remove from mirror list Sending out a MOTD -Urban ~~~~~~ Thanks for the input. Looks like a whole series of problems for Aminet, all at once. Things seem to be going better for them now. Brad ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A G O E S Q U I E T . . . 27 Aug 99 The following is a quotation from the Amiga Web site, put up on the 27th: For the next several months, the Amiga staff will be focused on implementing our business and product plans. We will not be discussing or commenting on future company directions during this time. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- . . . A N D S O D O E S I W I N 27 Aug 1999 And there's this note, which we spotted on the same day, from Iwin: During the next couple of days/weeks we will be working on our projects. Please understand that we will not be able to discuss our products any further during this time. {See Editor's Introduction and following stories for more information on Iwin. Brad} ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I W I N B R I E F S T A T E M E N T 18 June 99 {This brief item from the Iwin web site has a June date and seems to be the first information posted by the mysterious company about the Amiga. It went un-noticed in June, including by us. Brad} Iwin Corporation today has announced to support e more operating system in the future with as many applications from the Iwin business units as possible. The new founded Amiga division of the software business unit will produce high-quality Amiga applications and multimedia titles. Iwin is pleased to hear about the promising upcoming Amiga events and how the Amiga shall again roll over the market in the future. Iwin Corporation will do it's best to help the Amiga again on the market. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I W I N I N T R O D U C E S T H E M S E L V E S 17 Aug 1999 Hello Amiga fans and freaks, We were watching the things going on here {Amiga newsgroup comp.sys.amiga.misc} now since a couple of hours. Read all the posts from you, smiled a little and now decided to really post our own statement. We expected a lot of bad posts and mails, but that what we had to discover during the last hours was awful. We understand that the Amiga community was fooled by Amiga Inc. for a long time, however persons who cannot or don't want to believe in our products - you don't have to. First of all, we are not here to fight some battles with any kind of person or firm. Second, there were some questions posted here which we will now answer: 1. About the firm "Iwin Corporation" Yes, Iwin was incorporated in Delaware. What's the problem? Commodore Business Machines was incorporated on the Bahamas. Yes, Lewes/DE is currently our only US contact but we will open another office in Houston soon. Sorry guys, but we are new as Iwin and new in the US. Things take some time - even in the US. CEO of the firm is Martin Steinbach. He doesn't have anything to do with these "Martin Steinbach's" usually found when searching with Altavista. He is also not connected with Scientology or any other sect. The firm has 338 employees in sum around the world. Iwin was founded because of the merger of Worksoft and Branch software. As you might have read on the webpage - Worksoft AUSTRIA. The address www.worksoft.com doesn't have anything to do with Worksoft Austria. Yes, the domain name was registerred only in June. Sorry guys, as we said we are new. Regarding the German telephone number. You can find contact information on the webpage. Why didn't you hear about us before? This is very simple. Just take a look at the past posts here and you know why. We were thinking for a very long time when and how to announce our products and we have to confess that we are almost sorry for doing it. About the commodore deal. We are saying "We are negotiating" with Tulip. We want to sell our products under the name and logo of Commodore. We didn't say we are Commodore. Now regarding the new classic amigas: No, we do not use any of copyrighted Amiga or Gateway or whatever patents or technology. 8MB chipram might be impossible with Amiga chips. As we mentioned already, we have a completely new archticture. If somebody needs this now or not - it's up to you if you want/need it or not. Every further question what we received in the last few hours is currently being put on a special FAQ section on our webpage. There you will be able to read about technical datas etc. Once more, we are not here to have some fights with somebody. On the contrary (as we mentioned in the interview) we would like to work closely together with Amiga Inc. and other Amiga firms. If there are any questions left please post them here as a reply. Thank you. Yours, Martin Steinbach Rue Ann Mark President Vice President www.iwin-corp.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- I W I N P R I C E S 21 Aug 1999 Dear Amiga users and friends, As that we are getting more and more questions about the prices mentioned on our website and in several posts here before we decided to write this message. The entry price for an A5200M (ex A510) system will be !around! $239. This is just for the computer, case, floppy, keyboard, mouse, etc. but NO harddisk, monitor, etc. The entry price for an A5300M (ex A1010) system will be !around! $499 for same configuration as above. The P {Power PC. Brad} versions will be around $100 more than the M versions. There are currently no prices for the M+/P+ or the A5400! Many people were asking us how we can make these prices. Well, if you are buying enough of these things from a manufactor, then you get very low prices - this is how the market works. As that we have three major partners (for producing the computers, producing the chips, etc.) we can keep our production costs very low. Information about the names: Because we have received many requests for it, we have decided to rename the computers. The final decission is still not made, but it will be fixed by the end of the next week. Current names/numbers: A5200 = ex A510 (Cleveland) A5300 = ex A1010 (Ockna) A5400 = ex A2010 (Rita) Names in brackets are the projects names. If you have any further question regarding these things, please post them directly here. Best regards, -- Martin and Rue Ann ---------------------------------------------------------------------- J I M C O L L A S O N I W I N 19 Aug 1999 Late today was the first time I have ever heard of Iwin Corp so I don't know if they are legitimate or not. If they have attempted to contact Amiga, Inc in the past I am not aware of these attempts. If the products they describe on their website are real, I would be interested in talking to them. I have always felt that advancing the current Amiga platform while we launch a next generation Amiga would help the Amiga community. This is why we are doing O/S 3.5. Given the state of affairs when I took over six months ago, I didn't believe that advancing the current Amiga hardware was feasible. We haven't had the internal resources to develop both product lines and I didn't see any external solutions. If Iwin is real, it may be an interesting option for an O/S 3.5 platform that could also run our next generation Amiga OE. The new AMiga OE will be fairly portable although it will optimized for next generation hardware. I am unavailable until Monday and will contact Iwin at that time. I should caution that I am a bit skeptical of their claims given nobody in the Amiga community has heard of them before. I won't make any conclusions until I talk to them. I will update the community sometime next week. Sincerely, Jim ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A A D V I S O R Y C O U N C I L August 6, 1999 San Diego, CA - The Amiga Advisory Council is officially launched today August 6th, 1999. The community submitted hundreds of Nominations, and based upon your input we are pleased to welcome the following members of the Amiga Advisory Council: Andrew Elia Ben Vost Bill Panagouleas Cade Hannan Carsten Schroeder Chris Heereman Christian Kemp Christoph Dietz Conor Kerr Craig DeLahoy Dave Law Don Hicks Gary Peake Gunter Horbach Heinz Wrobel Hulger Kruse Ian Greenaway Jeff Rose Juergen Haage Kermit Woodall Luca Denelon Malte Mundt Randhir Jesrani Thomas Frieden Thomas Raukamp Thomas Svenson Tom Lively Trish Zlotek Wayne Hunt Wayne Martin The objective of the AAC is to help us better plan the future of Amiga through close communications with people who are viewed as leaders in the Amiga community. The members of the AAC have all executed non-disclosure agreements (NDAs), with Amiga and will have access to confidential information regarding future products and plans. This allows Amiga to share sensitive information with respected members of the Amiga community without having to disclose our plans publicly. The members of the AAC were selected to represent their different areas of affiliation within the Amiga community - the Press, Developers, Dealers/Distributors, and the User Group organizations. The AAC is designed to provide a flow of information from the Community to the Amiga management team and from Amiga back to the community. Each of the members of the AAC will act as a conduit to the community and the areas that they represent. We held our first official meetings with the AAC in London and in Sacramento with over 20 AAC members participate in these first official meetings. The AAC was able to share with Amiga many of the desires, and needs of the community. As we work towards the launch of the Next Generation Amiga the input received by the AAC will help guide those decisions. "We are excited to welcome the members of the AAC as active representatives of the Amiga community and look forward to implementing many of the programs suggested in the near future, stated Jim Collas, "together we will make a difference in computing forever." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A D O W N U N D E R R E P O R T By Colin Bell Used with permission Mini Report on the ADU show for 1999. The Amiga DownUnder show was held at the Hotel Heritage in Narrabundah, ACT Australia. The show was in the Canberra room of the hotel which I presume is normally used for small functions or weddings. I attended the show on the Saturday. The Show was on both Saturday and Sunday. The main letdown came as soon as I walked in and asked about the schedule for the Jim Collas speech. Unfortunately Jim couldn't make it down to the show but Petro Tyschtschenko did make it. I was disappointed but I realise how far away we are down here and I know he's a busy man so that's ok. The next thing I looked for at the stalls was for any copies of OS3.5. I knew it was doubtful that it would be ready in time for us but there was still some hope. I couldn't see any copies but I'd just arrived in time for Jurgen Haages demonstration of OS3.5 so I stood and watched that. Jurgen told us that the release would be ready in late September. Apparently, although not released at the show, it was still the official "Launch" of OS3.5. If you've been keeping up with the developments in OS3.5 then there wasn't anything really new to be learnt. Jurgen demonstrated most of the new features that he could and discussed other things that he couldn't show (eg. 4gig+ HD(only because they didn't have one big enough for him to work with)) and then answered any questions from the crowd of around 250 Amigans. Jurgen told us it would be available in late September for 99DM, $67 US or about $95 Australian dollars. My impression of OS3.5 is positive. All the preferences windows are resizeable because they use the new Reactor boopsi classes, you get a current release version of Miami and AWeb and there is an email client included . The new Glow-icons look nice and Jurgen showed us how when you change screendepth from say, 256 colours to 16 or 4, the icons still looked nice. One unusual decision I found though was that the OS3.5 manual is on the CD in html and .pdf format. When quizzed about the pdf format (Adobe Acrobat format) Jurgen told us that most Amigans in Germany have a PC as well so they'll view that on their PC. Anyway, there are several pdf viewers available on aminet. The developer tools and docs are all on the CD as well as a full version of OS3.1 (in case you need to revert back.) The installer script also creates a rescue disk which will allow you to boot off floppy disk and reinstall the system from the CD. Overall, I would say that OS3.5 is worth upgrading for and is good value. Straight after the demo, Petro and Jurgen drew the door prizes which were 1st A1200 plus Amiga gift pack 2nd Amiga gift pack 3rd Amiga gift pack A special draw was held for 20 copies of OS3.5. These were specially prepared Amiga DownUnder versions that the lucky winners received and they will get an update when the final version is released. It's clear to see that they are just waiting to iron out the last few bugs. All packaging etc. is finished. These prizes will become collectors items. I believe that the same door prize draws were held on the Sunday as well. After the demonstration I went around to all the stalls. There were no international Amiga companies there apart from our own GPsoftware. They were demonstrating and selling Opus Magellan and Dopus T-Shirts. Computa Magic had a stall and were selling software and hardware and seemed to be doing a good trade. UniTech electronics was there selling a full range of stuff including the round boing ball "Amiga, keep the momentum going" mouse mats. I had to have one of those. :-) RMF were there with their QuickNet ethernet cards for the 500/1200/2/3/4000's This Australian company has been around for years making networking cards that were always just out of most Amigan's price range. They were selling them for "show-special" prices cheaper than an Ariadne. If I still had my BBS (and therefore had a need to network my Amiga's) I'd have snapped up a couple of them. CAUG and MAUG were there (Canberra / Melbourne Amiga User Groups) with info about themselves as well as various new and second hand items and a range of Amiga stickers and boing ball stickers that Petro smuggled through customs for them. An Internet Cafe was set up with about 6 A1200's networked together for free use throughout the show. These were getting a full work-out. The ADUG (Amiga DownUnder User Group) was launched at the show and had a stall signing up members. This is an attempt to bring all Australian Amiga users and is a great idea. The Amiga community in Australia is small and our country is so vast. Being from Sydney, my last Amiga show was the WOCA show at Darling Harbour in about 1992/3. In comparison to that, the ADU 99 show was tiny. But the spirit was still there. The turn out to the show was excellent. (It was quite crowded at times) I'm glad I drove down for it and I'd like to thank the organisers for putting on the show and to congratulate them all. Well done guys. I'm looking forward to future shows! Keep an eye on the official Amiga Down Under website for a full show report with pictures and transcripts of the speeches. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- H A Y N I E O N N G {The following was spotted recently posted to the Usenet. It's an opinion of the next generation Amigas by Amiga legend Dave Haynier. Brad} Name: Dave Haynie Email: dhaynie@jersey.net Location: Arid South Jersey Occupation: Iconoclast Wow! It's like Christmas, hearing all the good postings about Amiga after all this time (ok, two ignorant cavemen didn't like it, but the appreciation of fine art is beyond the grasp of some lesser minds). I worked at C=/Amiga from 1983-1994, and consulted for Amiga Technologies (ESCOM) 1995-1996. The dream hasn't died for many of us, and it's telling, if you view the history, that fools destroyed the Amiga from within, not competition. For hardware: in 1991, I was designing the next generation Amiga systems architecture, to replace the A3000/A4000 design. With all the cool stuff that went in there, I can honestly say the PC industry has pretty much caught up and, in many places, surpassed this architecture (if you include USB and I2O, they have nailed it). So using part or all of a PC design can still yield a perfectly Amiga-like system. Software, on the other hand, is at issue. I was very concerned when Gateway/Amiga dumped QNX (very much a modern Amiga-like OS) for Linux. Linux is a fine free UNIX, but in many places, it's the opposite of AmigaOS. You can't do multimedia on Linux in the Amiga way (in fact, even Windows is better, today, and Windows usually fails the Amiga definition of recorder-ready multimedia). You don't have autoconfig at all, not even the primitive static autoconfig Windows uses. But this may well change. Jim Collas called me last month, we spoke for more than an hour, and I'm convinced they may do well. Basically, at worst, you'll have a machine that fulfills the promise of NeXT, only very open. At best, you'll have that merged with basic Amiga ideas, and perhaps these will propagate to the greater Linux community. If you were to look for one simple way to Linux, in general, doing "the desktop thing" better than Windows, all you need is an influx of Amiga technology -- we had that stuff done right, for the most part, back in '86. I can't say how it'll come out, but Collas seems to be the best guy since Jeff Porter (A500/A2000/A3000 era) to be running things at a solvent Amiga-owning company. You could do worse, market wise, to base things around Linux and Java, so even if it the machine doesn't pass my Amiga acid test, it has a good chance of standing down Windows at 20 paces. And if it the new Amiga, for real, done right, reaching The Mainstream, people won't see personal computers the same way again. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A 2 K I N S T . L O U I S 24 Aug 99 Amigan-St. Louis is Proud to Announce Amiga 2K Amiga 2K is the latest and best Gateway Computer Show. It will be held at the Henry VIII Hotel, in St. Louis MO. U.S.A. We are fortunate to be able to utilize this same beautiful hotel again this year. The hotel was a big hit with everyone that attended Amiga 99. Amiga 2K will be held April 7 - 9, 2000. Contracts are signed, and the decks have been cleared. Stand by for the best Amiga show in the new millennium! More information will be made available as the show date approaches. For the latest information, check our web page at: http://www.amiga-stl.com/ We are in the process of updating them now. Dealers, distributors, shareware and commercial developers, clubs and others interested in exhibiting, should contact us via email for details on costs and further details. Ask any of the exhibitors attending any of our shows, and you will find that they were not disappointed. In fact most everyone will tell you "The Gateway Computer Shows put on by Amigan-St. Louis are the best! For more exhibitor information, email Bob at bscharp@icon-stl.net You can also check our web page for details. It will be listed under "Amiga 2K", "Exhibiting". This will also be updated shortly. See you in April, Bob & Diana Scharp Producers of the Gateway Computer Shows ---------------------------------------------------------------------- S E C O N D A N N U A L P O W E R P I C N I C Amiga Atlanta's Second Annual PowerPicniC Here's your invitation to the hippest fun since the last Woodstock SIG! Electronic Music Play, Interactive Entertainments, Amiga Gaming, great company and special guests: Darreck Lisle from Gateway / Amiga Inc. Darreck will talk about whats new at Amiga Inc. Get the inside scoop on the revoloution! He may also have a some hot prizes to give away to a lucky Amigan! Frank Davis from FWD Computing Frank will be on hand with hottest Amiga CD titles on sale at special discount price! Order the new OS3.5 from him or let him know what other hot software you want to have at the show! Chris Aldi (OS3.5 programmer) from Finale Development Chris will be demonstrating and answering question on OS3.5!!! Get the lastest info, and find out what in the future for the classic OS! Just bring your body, your favorite friends, your favorite family and your favorite food & drinks to The PowerPicniC Potluck Party! Sponsored by Amiga Atlanta, Inc. Check out our web page at: http://www.amigataatlanta.org Amiga Atlanta's Sencond Annual PowerPicniC --- A Mod Happening --- Saturday, September 11th, 1999 3:00 pm until the moon goes down Dress is TOTALLY casual and all your friends & families are welcome. Event attendance is FREE. Refreshmnets will be provided by our lovely Amiga chef and local diva Dawna Wilkinson. Though she will be be donating her food and culinary talents, we asks that you show you appreciation in her tip jar to cover the food. If you wish bring your own grub, a charcoal grill will be fired up and available for barbeque. Plates, cups, folding chairs, ice & cooler space will all be welcome items. Your participation with performances, displays and volunteer support are also invited. The more Amiga computers, games, software, shows & demos the better! --------->> PLEASE RSVP WITH DAWNA BY SEPTEMBER 4th! <<---------- Email her at: kodiakmarmoset@mindspring.com Additional Info & Participation Scheduling, please email or phone one of the folks below: Robert Hamilton (404) 627-9356 cyber1@pd.org Lamar Morgan (770) 209-4011 lamar@mindspring.com Amiga Atlanta, Inc. extends its sincere thanks and appreciation to the owners & operators of -- RAILROAD EARTH STUDIOS -- for providing the facilities and support to make our PowerPicniC possible. Railroad Earth frequently hosts other electronic art shows, internet exhibitions, music performances and art related lectures. For more information on Railroad Earth and their schedule of events, point your anti-exploder web browser to WWW.RRE.NET or email to NEIL@RRE.NET DIRECTIONS: FROM THE EAST: Take Stone Mtn. Freeway (GA-78) West & stay on Scott Blvd. when the freeway ends. Turn Right onto North Decatur (at 5 way stop light) Stay on North Decatur to the 5 way intersection at the gate entry to Emory University, Turn Left onto Oxford Rd. FROM I-20: Take I-20 East. Exit North onto Moreland Ave. Head North on Moreland past Ponce De Leon (where the street name changes to Briarcliff). The 4th or 5th light after crossing Ponce will be North Decatur, turn Right. At the 5 way intersection (Emory entry gate) turn Right onto Oxford. FROM I-75: Take I-75 to the interchange with I-85, get onto I-85 North. About 6 miles on I-85, Exit Right (South) onto North Druid Hills Road. A few lights down, turn Right onto Briarcliff Rd. About 2 miles down, go left at the light onto North Decatur Rd. At the 5 way intersection (Emory Gate) turn Right onto Oxford. FROM I-85 SOUTH: Exit Left (South) at Clairmont Rd. Stay South on Clairmont past North Druid Hills, past the Veterans Hospital to the light at North Decatur (BP station kitty corner, "Entertainment Tonight" on the right). Turn Right onto North Decatur. At the 5 way intersection in front of Emory University, Left onto Oxford Rd. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A E X T R A V A G A N Z A 9 9 5 Aug 1999 Due to the fact that there will not be the regular Midwest Amiga show in Columbus, Ohio for 1999....we have started a new show. It is called Amiga Extravaganza99 and will be held at the National guard Armoury in Indianapolis, Indiana. Get togethers at the show hotel and setup for vendors, user groups and developers will take place on October 8. The vendor area and the seminars will take place on October 9 and 10, 1999. We have had some good vendor response so far and are looking to expand it even more (anyone from anywhere in the world is welcome!) This show is being billed as The Affordable Amiga Computer Show. Nothing is wrong with fancy and glitzy shows, but this one will have the theme of affordable while still being fun and productive. For those who want to spend their hard earned money on fun, food, software and hardware for their favorite computer. The rates for the hotel are very reasonable, the price for vendors and user groups to rent table or booth space is much lower than average. (one of the reasons some of the dealers in Canada gave for not being able to make some of the shows has been the cost to them, versus the sales they can expect to make.) We want to encourage as many vendors and developers and user groups as we can to come together for this event. To find out more about the show, goto the page set up for the show: http://www.midlink.com/amiga/AEShows.html This show is being produced by A.R.C.U.G (Amiga Response Crew User Group) under the leadership of it's President J. R. Wilson and Vice-President Bryant Pedigo, with some assistance from FWD Computing. The hotel of choice for the show is: Comfort Inn West/Airport 5855 Rockville Road Indianpolis, IN 46224 Reservations: 317-487-9800 1-800-323-2088 Fax: 317-487-1125 Show rates are $58.95 plus tax per night and when making a reservation let them know it is for Amiga Extravaganza99. Looking forward to seeing many of you there (as well as at AmigaFest in Dayton the last weekend of August and at the Annual Amiga picnic the 12th of September in Atlanta, Georgia) Thanks, Frank Davis FWD computing fdavis@iquest.net http://members.tripod.com/~FWDcomputing/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- S A K U 9 9 I S C L O S E ! FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Finnish Saku 99 Event Only Two Weeks Away Illustrated How To Get There Guide Now Online ESPOO, FINLAND - August 21, 1999 - Saku 99, the biggest Amiga event in Finland this year, is now only two weeks away. The show will feature lots of competitions, demonstrations and Amiga goodies for sale. Once again, Petro Tyschtschenko will be there to talk about the latest developments at Amiga - and hopefully we can demonstrate some of them. Saku 99 is organized by the Finnish Amiga Users Group and admittance will be free of charge. For those who are uncertain of it's location, we have prepared an illustrated How To Get There guide and collected travelling instructions on our Web site. These include instructions for foreign visitors, so be sure to check them out. Please visit http://batman.jytol.fi/~saku/english/ or our mirror site http://tzimmola.tky.hut.fi/saku/english/, for further information. E-mail inquiries may be sent to Janne Sirén (siren@mikrobitti.fi). About Saku 99 Saku 99 will be the biggest Amiga event in Finland this year. Following the success of Saku 98, which was visited by some 500 Amiga enthusiasts, Saku 99 is aimed to be bigger and better than the previous events. Mr. Petro Tyschtschenko of Amiga has already confirmed his presence and other great highlights are planned. Saku 99 will be held on Saturday September 4th 1999 at the Science Centre Heureka in Vantaa, near Helsinki. About Finnish Amiga Users Group Finnish Amiga Users Group (Suomen Amiga-käyttäjät ry.) is a non-profit organization for promoting Amiga computing and helping Amiga users in Finland. Also known as Saku, after it's disk magazine, the group is trying to accomplish it's goals by organizing meetings and by publishing a disk magazine. Since 1993 the Finnish Amiga Users Group and it's predecessors have released over thirty issues of the disk magazine and held several public gatherings. Other accomplishments include the Web site and Sakunet, a national Fidonet style network of Amiga related bulletin board systems. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- R U S S I A N P A R T Y T H I S W E E K E N D CAFe99 Computer Art Festival (CAFe99) will be held August 28-29 in Kazan, Russia. This event is organised by Vysokogorsky Computer Center and dedicate to Tatarstan Republic Independence Day (August 30). CAFe99 will be held at the Mayakovsky Culture Club. The show will feature lots of competitions on four platforms: Amiga (Yes, Amiga!), PC, BK (16-bit russian homecomputer), ZX-Spectrum(still alive :) Day 1 Amiga/PC 1k intro Multichannel music ZX Spectrum 4k intro Hand-drawn graphics BK demo Amiga/PC 64k intro Wild Day 2 Amiga/PC 4k intro 4-channel music BK 4k intro Render graphics ZX Spectrum demo Amiga/PC demo Animation CAFe99 support: "ComputerWorld-Kazan" magazine "Hi-Tech for all" magazine "Novaya Amiga" magazine "Volga 104FM" radio KAZANNETWORK Ineternet service provider CAFe99 official site is cafeparty.da.ru ---------------------------------------------------------------------- F I F T H A N N I V E R S A R Y - G A U H P I L 12 August 1999, Göttingen, Germany: Dietmar Knoll announces that the Geographical Amiga Users Home Page Internet List (GAUHPIL) is celebrating its fifth online anniversary. The GAUHPIL is a moderated list of personal homepages of Amiga users. It was established as early as in 1994. Today, a major update was released. Currently listed are 785 personal homepages of Amiga users from 33 countries on six continents! There is also a new page for German-speaking readers. It explains the rules of the GAUHPIL and describes in brief the contents of the sub-pages. All Amiga users are invited to send info about their personal homepages to be added to the list. Please consider also to add a link on your page to guide more attention to this service! The Website can be visited at: http://GAUHPIL.home.pages.de/ The Moderator can be reached at: dknoll@okay.net ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A C A R D G A M E 27 Aug 99 An AMIGA card game (52 cards) is available made under licence of Amiga International, Inc. The pictures show 13 different Amiga models plus three different Jokers such as the BoingBall. On the back of the cards it's the original AMIGA logo. The card game has been developed on Amiga computers only. Please do not send requests or orders to AMIGA but email Marcus Werum (mawerum@stud.uni-frankfurt.de) instead who is handling the sale and shipping of the card game (DM 15,00 each plus shipping). Clubs may get special conditions! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- " A M I G A " E 4 0 0 0 27 Aug 99 Official Benelux Amiga Distributor since 1997 E4000 Phone: +31-10-4517722, fax +31-10-4517748 or email info@compcity.nl Amiga E4000 First of all, this machine is not a new development, new mainboard, or anything like that. The E4000 consists of a standard Amiga 4000 mainboard (NEW) built in a ELBOX Ebox tower (also known as Power Tower or Winner Tower). The processor boards used are manufactured by Apollo, Commodore (3640) and DCE (CyberStorm). We supply AmigaOS 3.5 with this machine. If you buy an E4000 before OS 3.5 is out, it will be sent to you free of charge when it has been released. As the E4000 is based on the Amiga 4000 mainboard it has of course a CPU slot for PPC expansions. Supplied only while stocks last. All components are available in virtually unlimited capacity except for the A4000 mainboards. When these run out the supply of E4000's will end (obviously). Shipment of the E4000 will start in about 2 weeks. Pre-orders are being accepted as of today. Technical specifications (general): o Midi-Tower with 230 Watt power supply o 2 MB Chipmemory (on A4000 mainboard) o IDE Controller (on A4000 mainboard) o SCSI2 Controller (on processor board) for harddrives and CD-Roms o 7 Zorro II/III slots o 5 ISA Slots (non-active) o 2 Video Slots o 3,5" Floppy Drive HD 1.76 MB o Original A4000 Keyboard o Original Amiga Mouse o 40-speed IDE Cd-Rom drive o 13.1 GB IDE Harddisk o AmigaOS 3.5 Technical specifications of Apollo versions: o 68040 (40 MHz.) or 68060 (50 MHz.) CPU (full versions) o 32 MB Fastmemory (on processor board) maximum 128 MB o SCSI2 Controller (on processor board) for harddrives and CD-Roms Technical specifications of 3640 version: o 68040 25 MHz. CPU (full version) o 16 MB Fastmemory on mainboard Technical specifications of CyberStorm MkIII versions: o 68060 (50 MHz.) CPU (full version) o 32 MB Fastmemory (2 x 16 MB on processor board) maximum 128 MB o SCSI2 Controller (on processor board Prices: E4000/Apollo 040: HFL 3499,00 - EURO 1587,78 - USD 1612,44 E4000/Apollo 060: HFL 3999,00 - EURO 1814,67 - USD 1842,86 E4000/3640: HFL 2999,00 - EURO 1360,88 - USD 1382,03 E4000/CyberStorm MkIII - HFL 4299,00 - EURO 1950,80 - USD 1981,11 Extras such as scandoublers/flickerfixers, bigger harddrives etc. are all available. These prices include Dutch VAT 17,5%. Outside EC residents please deduct this. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- R E Q U E S T E R E N H A N C E R 5 Aug 1999 Announce: ReqAttack 1.0 (Aminet: util/misc/ReqAttack.lha) DESCRIPTION: ============ ReqAttack is an incredible cool new requester improver similiar to ARQ. It is the successor of KeyReq and improves the look and handling of requesters of all programs which use the standard system requester functions (Easy- RequestArgs, AutoRequest, BuildEasyRequestArgs, BuildSysRequest) for that purpose. FEATURES: ========= o Configurable requester logos which can also be animated. o Configurable button images and button look. o Configurable requester background pattern. o Keyboard control. Cycling through buttons with TAB, SHIFT TAB and CURSOR keys. Activation of highlighted gadget with RETURN and another configurable key (default LCOMMAND v). Activation of rightmost gadget width ESCAPE and another configurable key (default LCOMMAND b). Activation of buttons by keyboard can be aborted by pressing SHIFT or ESCAPE before releasing the button activation key. o Possibility to drag the requesters around by clicking anywhere in the window. o Possibility to make the requesters open in the center of the screen or under the mouse pointer. o Very special conditional configuration. o It's possible to configure almost everything, like spacing between the single elements of the requester and it's alignment, the color of the highlight rectangle and much more. If you want to see some animated preview images before downloading the beast check out: http://freeweb.dnet.it/steger/reqattack/reqattack.html ReqAttack itself can be found on Aminet: util/misc/ReqAttack.lha *** ReqAttack is Shareware *** ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Amiga Update on the net: All back issues available at: http://www.globaldialog.com/~amigaupdate/index.html Stop by and check out our archive! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1999 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified. ====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ A M I G A /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ A M I G A U P D A T E /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ U P D A T E / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ amigaupdate@globaldialog.com ======================================================================