TheThe AGMAGM JournalJournal The Amiga Groups of the MCCC Newsletter Fort Worth Volume 16 Issue 3 — June 1998 Dallas Kickoff The Future With Amiga® Amiga Inc.'s strategic direction and future plans include new software technology, system availability and Web site ondon, UK — May 15, 1998 — Amiga Inc., a Also available soon, Amiga Inc. will host pioneer in multimedia development, today www.amiga.com, the official web site for developer Lannounced plans to provide a new software news, information, and relations. Amiga architecture that will offer enhanced levels of perfor- International’s site, www.amiga.de, will continue to mance and useability for the Amiga community. be the location for Amiga distributors and legacy Amiga will develop and license software technology product sales and licensing. that offers leading multimedia solutions for the emerging digital convergence market. About Amiga “Amiga has the opportunity to move ahead of the Amiga, Inc., is a technology company targeting the industry in setting standards to follow,” said Jeff next generation of consumer operating systems with Schindler, general manager of Amiga, Inc. “By a continued focus on multimedia. Since the introduc- working closely with Amiga developers and user tion of the Amiga A1000 in 1985, Amiga has repre- groups, we will all have the opportunity to share in sented the embodiment of the efficient use of this exciting, emerging market.” memory and hard drive capacity, while pioneering industry developments in multimedia, 32-bit multi- To build upon Amiga’s legacy as a multimedia leader, tasking and autoconfiguration. AMIGA led the the company announced Amiga OS 4.0 which is industry in combining computer graphics, animation, slated to launch in November of ‘98. Amiga OS 4.0 and film sequences with stereo sound known today as will have a new user interface and support Amiga multimedia. legacy software with an integrated emulator. Hardware developers are already working on MEDIA CONTACT: solutions for software and hardware backward Bill McEwen compatibility with the new Amiga architecture. Amiga Incorporated [email protected] Amiga, Inc. also announced plans to unveil a per- http://www.amigainc.com sonal computer that is an industry standard architec- Amiga, the Amiga logo, and Amiga OS are ture solution. The new system will provide a bridge trademarks of Amiga, Inc. All other trademarks are to the next generation of Amiga technology. The the property of their respective owners. system is scheduled for availability in November with a suggested retail price of USD $999. These © 1998 Amiga, Inc. systems will be available through Amiga [email protected] AGM International. World of Amiga 1998 The Announcement — The Show — Opinion by Patrick Anderson ([email protected]) May 16-17, 1998 — This year’s World of Amiga was • CPU — has always been a Motorola 68K machine very eventful. I attended the announcement on Friday • Needs to catch up — New processors, new standards, etc. evening and then went to the show on Saturday. Last year, • Limited Opportunities my show report fit into just a few paragraphs. This time I have decided to break it into several sections: The Time to Kick Down the Walls Announcement!, The Show, and My Opinion. • Awesome technology — 5 times the capabilities of other systems • Freedom of choice he Announcement! (Friday Evening) • Enthusiastic following The long wait is over! Amiga Inc finally made their • World wide community Tbig announcement Friday evening. As we waited for • Amiga way of life the “show” to begin, most people in the crowd were • Beyond the next frontier buzzing with excitement. There were a lot of jokes about • Unlimited Opportunities the announcement being delayed yet again. At first, it looked as if the room might be pretty empty for Outside the Box! the announcement, but it was nearly full • Being able to brag again about the by the time things started. AMIGA!!!! Finally, Petro made his way to the podium. He The Breakthrough made a few introductory • Ease of use — The Grandpa/Grandma test: remarks and thanked If they can use it, anyone can! the organizers of the • Affordability! World of Amiga. • High performance multimedia Then he intro- • Open architecture duced Jeff • Evolves — No buying a system only to be outdated in Schindler. Jeff 6 months started off by • FUN — An Amiga has to be fun!!! saying that patience would be rewarded. He Digital Convergene then introduced several members of the Amiga team. Jeff • Internet — connecting people and information explained that there were at least 15 different business plans • Digital media and entertainment — digital realism and put together before this final one was approved by expression of imagination Gateway. It was approved about two weeks ago, and Jeff • Electronic paradigm shift — digital appliances prolific said he has hardly slept since. In fact, he was up until 2AM on Thursday night trying to work out some key decisions. Digital Convergence Market Unfortunately, a big part of the future rests on some of • Sub $500 computers these decisions. Amiga Inc. does not want to rush things, • Set top boxes and therefore decided to cut 1/3 of their scheduled presen- • Internet appliances tation. Jeff said they were very close to some deals and • Portables decisions, but did not want to jeopardize anything by • Game consoles speaking too early. Amiga Inc. hopes to have the other 1/3 • TV/PC of the presentation within the next 30 days. • Tower computers After taking deep breath, Jeff started the presentation (which was done on a PC using PowerPoint — a couple of Who owns this market? NO ONE!!! people yelled out “Should have used Scala!”): Revolutionary Architecture Amiga in a Box • Multimedia processor • Patents — Amiga owns several key patents 5 to 10x today’s PC • Chipset — the custom chips gave the Amiga an early Screaming 3D / 400 million pixels per second multimedia advantage 3 or 4 MPEG streams Page 2 The AGM Journal June 1998 • High speed Internet he Show! • Sub $500 computer solution Brian Donahue and I arrived at about 40 minutes Lower cost for digital appliances Tprior to the show. People already started lining up • Breakaway OS technology to get in and by the time the doors opened a couple of • Convergence ware hundred of people were waiting. Since we already bought our tickets, we were able to just walk in. Carl Sassenrath on the New Amiga When we got in we stopped for a moment to decide Carl really was amazed. He couldn’t believe the where to go first. At that moment, the power went out. I performance that the new Amiga was going to have. He is guess all the exibitors must have turned on their systems at excited that the Amiga will once again “blow the socks off the same time. The outage only lasted about 3 minutes, but everything else!” Jeff also said that R. J. Mical was very it was funny to watch everyone in the dark. As soon as the excited, but the again, everything excites him. lights went out, people got there lighters out and were still trying to check out the bargains at the many stands. How do we get there? And there were a lot of good deals to be had. It seems • Amiga Classic — OS3.1, AGA, 68K that most vendors learned their lesson from last year when • Amiga Bridge — OS4.0, x86 (Developer system available many sold out of popular games and hardware. Of course, November ‘98) the most sought after items were Quake and Genetic • Digital Convergence — OS5.0, new architecture Species. Both were impressive… very impressive. Brian had (Available end of ‘99) trouble deciding which to buy, but finally settled on Quake. The Bridge system could be available to the public if The Amiga booth was crowded with people trying to there is enough interest. It will have OS4.0 running on the find out the big Amiga news. Darrick Lisle spent the whole x86, with Amiga classic support through Amiga Forever day fielding questions and explaining Amiga’s plans. Petro and the Siamese V4. was doing what he does best: Talking to users and promot- ing the Amiga. He was signing anything that you asked him Building Blocks to sign. A lot of people bought the new Amiga Theme CD • Backward compatibility — emulation and Siamese and had Petro sign that. Amiga was also giving out Amiga • Cornerstone OS kernel may be replaced — expect a stickers, boing ball metal stickers, and mouse pads. They decision in the next 30 days also hosted an Internet connection for an IRC chat, Haage • Revolutionary architecture in development & Partner’s demo of EasyWriter, Active’s NetConnect, a • Amiga developers support as well as other developers Genetic Species demo, and more. • Developer kits will be available as soon as possible and Another popular booth was Siamese’s. Steve Jones the Bridge systems will be ready this year was showing off Siamese and rallying Amiga users behind the Bridge solution. He is really optimistic about the future Wrap up of the Siamese. He stated that his primary goal isn’t current Jeff then introduced Allan Havemose, Ph.D., who Amiga owners, but ex-Amiga users, Mac to PC transition- will head the software development for Amiga Inc. Then ing people, and PC owners with VideoToaster needs. He Jeff explained that the possible new core for Amiga OS wants to get people introduced to the Amiga by using the could be JavaOS, Linux, or an embedded system. Amiga “stealth” approach. Get them to buy the card to allow them Inc. has also decided that OS3.5 was not worth the effort. to run Mac software or the Toaster. Then, in 6 months Most people have already updated their OS, and developing when he updates the software, let the Siamese say, “Oh, by OS3.5 would only delay their plans.