CONTENTS CONTENTS Contents Letter from the Editor The Chairman Speaks elcome to the second issue espite my last attempt at writing of Clubbed and an especially an article for Clubbed magazine NEWS W warm welcome to all the new Dhere I am again.

subscribers and members who have UPDATE SEAL Update...... 3 come along since the first issue. Also In this months issue of Clubbed I am since the last issue we’ve received lots trying to convey the message that Members Inc. Update ...... 7 of positive comments and constructive upgrading your Amiga lets you get much suggestions for the magazine. Please more from it, and can also be done rela- Since the last mag Mick Sutton has got keep sending in your ideas so we can tively economically. himself an Internet account so you can make Clubbed a monster-mag! now EMail him at [email protected]. FEATURES If you have an older machine like an Also a warm welcome to all the Dave Haynie Interview...... 8 Just before this issue went to press we A500 the best route is often to upgrade members who have joined since the last made an arrangement with two Amiga to an A1200 as they are much easier issue! Fleecy Moss Interview .....10 software distributors (Underground PD and cheaper to expand, and therefore a and Forematt Home Computing), for better base to build upon. For example, Web Site Gary Peake Interview ...... 11 them to distribute Clubbed flyers with More Product Information - With every it is often cheaper to buy an A1200 and Microsoft ...... 12 the packages they send out. Because of review we’ve added a box with the a harddrive than to buy a sidecar Just after Christmas we uploaded a their brilliant support we hope to in- essential information on the product in- harddrive for an A500. major update to the SEAL web site. The PPC Software Round-up .16 crease the number of subscribers to cluding the price and details of the sup- new design uses a top navigation frame Clubbed drastically and with a larger One of the good things about the Amiga (we have included a special welcome plier. A good affordable system for most users Graphics Cards Explained...18 subscriber base we will be able to im- is that you can upgrade it in stages, as page for non-frames browsers) which would have an ‘030 (£80) or ‘040 (£130) prove the magazine with more pages your budget allows. Even members of makes jumping from page to page Flight Sims...... 29 I hope these and the many minor accelerator; 16Mb (£25); a 2Gb Hard and content. more about these SEAL with hi-spec systems (myself in- easier. Highlights of the new pages in- changes will enhance your enjoyment of drive (£70); and CD-ROM (£90). All exciting developments in the SEAL cluded) are still using components of clude a much improved news page, the mag. Don’t hesitate to contact us these items can be added gradually to Update section! their original Amiga bought 5 or more more membership information and with any other ideas you have. your system, enhancing it at each step. years ago. The important thing is to several new sections in the links page. REVIEWS If you want to go further it may well be In tandem with the flyers going out we choose upgrades wisely with a “vision” The big news since the last issue of worth getting a tower early on because it have decided to increase the price of of your perfect Amiga in mind. This way The SEAL web site is at: Scoring System ...... 14 Clubbed was the 98 show will allow you to buy cheaper internal Clubbed to £2.50 an issue, please see you won’t have to replace existing hard- http://seal.amiga.tm which took place in Cologne, , CD-ROMs and fit 3.5” hard drives more Blizzard PPC ...... 14 the news page for the reasons behind ware when you buy new bits. If you last November. As you’ve probably read easily. A tower also means you’ll be able the increase (current subscriptions are bought a small hard-drive now, and then CyberVision PPC...... 17 about it by now we’ve just included a to use graphics cards and PPC ac- not effected of course). expand your machine so you can use summary of the releases and the an- celerators later on. Blurb DOpus Magellan II...... 22 nouncements from Amiga Inc. along high-end software, the chances are As I mentioned earlier we have received you’ll want to upgrade again very soon, with the developments that have So please think about upgrading your Clubbed is published quarterly by South Essex Amiga Sound Probe...... 25 a number of suggestions for the maga- whereas if you spend a bit more on a Link. For subscription details see the back page. happened since. Take a look at the machine. If you love your Amiga and Editor: Robert Williams zine, many of which we have imple- bigger hard-drive you won’t have to Design: Robert Williams News pages for the gory details and the want to get the best from it using the Olofight ...... 28 mented in this issue. Some of the more replace it so quickly. Contributors: other exciting stuff that’s going on in latest software, I am afraid some money Gary Storm important ones are: Amiga-land. Mick Sutton PD Paradise ...... 30 has to be lavished on the miggy. Geoff Milnes As you upgrade your machine you’ll find Thomas Hurst Improved Tutorial - We hope you’ll find more and more software becomes avail- Martin Miller If you’re looking to upgrade your A1200 Here is a list of up-grades that my Cover Art: Robert Williams and Gary Storm the tutorial in this issue easier to follow able to you and many programs that you we have several items to interest you machine has experienced over the If you have any queries suggestions or want to contact and more comprehensive than before. this issue, with the Blizzard PPC ac- use now are transformed. Even bread us for any reason please use one of the following: SUPPORT years: EMail: [email protected] We’re on the look out for more good celerator getting the once over by Mick and butter programs like Final Writer WWW: http://seal.amiga.tm/ Workbench Cookbook...... 32 tutorials so if you’d like to have a go at Sutton and Gary Storm, and an in-depth and Wordworth come into their own with Post: Clubbed, ICS Tower; 4.3 GB Hard drive; 32 speed 26 Wincoat Drive, writing one or have a topic you’d like to a faster processor (030+) and a chunk look at your options for adding a SCSI CD-ROM drive; Phase 5 PPC 240 BENFLEET, Letters...... 34 see covered please tell us. of RAM to play with. You simply can’t Essex, graphics card in my Graphics Cards Mhz with 060 and SCSI controller; SS7 5AH, Explained feature. play the latest games like Genetic ENGLAND. Next Issue, Helpline etc. .35 Microvitec 17" M1764 Monitor;and a Telephone: +44 (0) 1268 569937 Wider Coverage - In the first issue we Species, Foundation, Quake and Canon BJC600 inkjet printer. My latest (19:00 - 22:00 GMT only please). concentrated on the high-end user. In For those of you on a tight budget Gary Napalm without a well expanded The views expressed in this magazine are those of the Gallery ...... 36 upgrade is a Phase 5 BVision Graphics author of each piece, they do not necessarily reflect this issue we have tried to be more bal- machine. Also a faster machine will the views of the editor, other contributors or SEAL. Storm has written a tutorial on making a card which I have just received to add anced, catering for you whatever your allow you to fully exploit the Amiga’s Please Note: Clubbed is produced by SEAL members basic A1200 look really cool using only onto my accelerator. in their spare time, while we will always strive to pro- Got a tip you’d like Amiga skills and budget. We’ll be im- 16 colours to keep the speed up. We multitasking, and you can run several duce the mag on time and include all the advertised contents this is not always possible if other commit- to share with other proving this further in future and as also have another great batch of PD programs without worrying about run- ments get in the way. The price you pay for Clubbed Mick Sutton covers our costs and nothing more, we don’t make a Amiga users? It can usual suggestions are very welcome. utilities reviewed in our PD Paradise ning out of memory or speed. profit from it. be related to the OS section. If you wish to contact a contributor please send your or a specific piece of Jargon Busters - In complex articles In standard action requesters (where you choose to proceed message to one of the addresses above and we will ? pass it on. software or hardware. and features you’ll find Jargon Buster Enjoy the mag, with or cancel an operation) L-Amiga+V selects the positive Amiga is a registered trademark and the Amiga logo, choice (OK, Proceed etc.) and L-Amiga+B selects Cancel. AmigaDOS, Amiga , Amiga Workbench, Send it to us at any of the addresses boxouts to help you understand some of , Bridgeboard, and Powered by Amiga are There are also several utilities (e.g. ARQ, and RTPatch) in the Blurb section and you could the technical words and abbreviations Robert trademarks of AMIGA International, Inc. / Gateway, Inc. well have a grey box all of your own! which map OK to Return and Cancel to Esc on the keyboard. All other trademarks mentioned are the property of used. ? their respective owners. 2 CLUBBED - Issue 2 Winter 1998/99 3 NEWS NEWS SEAL Update Continued... Clubbed News Sets the Standard AF Subscription A major update to the Clubbed section cover as many aspects of the Amiga as Price Increase Haage and Partner have recently graphics cards with 3D acceleration that Prices Slashed along with new graphics on the main possible and everyone’s contribution is As I wrote in my editorial we have released the first version of their driver appear. Warp3D supports both Subscribing to the UKs only newsstand site will be started after this issue of appreciated. decided to increase the price of Clubbed system for 3D accelerated graphics CyberGraphX and Picasso 96. Amiga magazine has just become a Clubbed goes to press. to £2.50 per issue. At the old price of £2 cards, Warp3D. Warp3D will provide a whole lot cheaper. A years sub to either Discounts! per issue we barely covered our costs common software interface (API) to all The first software using Warp3D is al- the CD or disk edition now costs only and a few unsold magazines would have 3D accelerated graphics cards on the ready available in the form of £39.99. This cuts the cost to almost half Meetings We have been hard at work arranging meant making a loss. At the new price Amiga allowing programmers to support StormMESA 3.0 from the author of the street price if you subscribe. With AF Just after the last magazine went to the support for SEAL from Amiga suppliers, we have a little extra to cover these all cards without writing a separate Warp3D and a Descent port. Storm becoming harder to find in newsagents printers the SEAL committee made the so far we have two great Amiga com- costs and some buffer to pay for emer- driver for each one. Currently Warp3D MESA is an Amiga port of an OpenGL now is certainly a great time to sub- decision to start having meetings at our panies signed up to help us publicise gencies like equipment breakdown or an only has a driver for the Phase 5 compatible graphics library. OpenGL is scribe. At the same time AF have hall venue every two weeks rather than Clubbed and give our members a dis- increase in printing costs. We continue CyberVision 64/3D which uses the S3 the 3D system used by many serious announced that the newsstand price of every four but to scrap the meetings we count. Gary Storm is working at per- to be non-profit making with everyone Virge chip, a driver for the CyberVision applications and increasingly games on the floppy disk edition is going up to the were having at member’s houses in suading more to help us; we are espe- giving their time for free and we hope and BlizzardVision PPC cards using the other platforms. same £5.99 as the CD mag, yet between. Members will find the meeting cially looking for a hardware dealer. that more subscribers, along with the much more powerful Permedia 2 proces- another reason to get that CD ROM dates for the next three months printed new price will allow us to expand the sor is expected as we go to press. H&P Warp 3D and StormMESA are free drive! You can contact the AF subscrip- on the letter enclosed with this maga- Underground PD magazine soon. have also promised support for the downloads from the H&P’s site: tion hot line on: (01458) 271102 zine. You can also find the dates and the forthcoming Voodoo module for the http://www.haage-partner.com activities we plan for each meeting on SEAL has got together with Existing subscribers will of course Picasso IV and any other Amiga I Can See Clearly Now the Members section of the SEAL web Underground PD who are a quality PD receive the magazines they have paid site. library located nearby in Shoeburyness the Blizzard has Come for at the old rate. We believe that Essex. Not only have Underground Eager Blizzard Clubbed is still excellent value at the Voodoo for Picasso IV In November Robert Williams and Gary agreed to distribute Clubbed flyers with PPC owners new price and hope you will agree. VillageTronic mostly used for games, VillageTronic’s the parcels and mail shots they send out across the land Storm gave a presentation on Internet have announced solution will allow 3D acceleration in a but they are also offering a 10% dis- received a access with the Amiga and explained that they will be window. This is ideal for more serious count to SEAL members*. SEAL Change of Address and slightly early the various services available on the net making a Voodoo applications such as real time previews members will find an Underground cata- present from Phase 5 and the software available that allows Telephone Number 3DFX based 3D ac- in 3D rendering software. The Voodoo log disk enclosed with this issue so they when their BVision PPC the Amiga to access them. They also celerator for their popular Picasso IV module will be supported by Haage and can place an order straight away. The Clubbed contact address and graphics cards arrived in covered the costs of getting connected graphics card after over 500 Amiga Partner’s Warp3D software (see separ- telephone number have changed so the UK barely a week before and what modems can be used with the users pre-ordered the add-on. Due to ate news item). To use the Voodoo We’d like to thank Dave and his team at please update you records, the new Christmas. the new boards which fea- Amiga. At this meeting we were pleased the current slow Amiga market VT said module you need a Picasso IV card run- to have a visit from Richard Blair of the Underground for their support. details are: ture a Permedia 2 2D/3D graphics chip they couldn’t justify developing the ning in a Zorro III slot. VT have warned have been enhanced from the original Power Amiga User Group in board unless at least 500 people placed that they will only be producing a limited Clubbed, specification with 8Mb of SGRAM (twice Portsmouth. Richard was working in Forematt Home firm orders in advance. run of the Voodoo modules so if you 26 Wincoat Drive, as much as was planned) and sell at a London for a few days and dropped in to want one it is advisable to pre-order it. BENFLEET, slightly lower price too. The BVision at- see us. Computing The Voodoo board will fit on the Picasso Delivery dates have not been quoted but Essex, SS7 5AH. taches directly to the Blizzard PPC bus Forematt can supply you with a wide IV along with the existing add-on the board is expected to be ready in the For the first meeting of the new year Tel: (01268) 569937 giving it a much higher bus speed than variety of Amiga software covering both modules already available for the board. first half of this year. Michael Carillo a friend of Mick Suttons any other Amiga graphics card. games, utilities and applications. Like Unlike most PC implementations of the and webmaster of the Amiga Yellow Please leave a message on the answer- Mechanically the BVision fits across the Underground they have agreed to dis- Voodoo accelerator which can only give VillageTronic are at: pages bought his towered A1200 along phone if we’re not there are we’ll get A1200 with the connector on a tribute Clubbed Flyers with their pack- full screen accelerated 3D displays, http://www.villagetronic.com for us to help him fit his new BVision back to you. flying lead making a tower almost ages, again everyone here at SEAL PPC graphics card to his PowerUP ac- essential. really appreciates their support. celerator. Although it took a bit longer Keeping Gamers Forematt have an advert in this issue of Elbox Announce New A1200 than expected we got him up and run- A full review of the BVision will be in the Clubbed, see page 29 to get just a small ning with a brilliant high resolution Alive next issue of Clubbed but in the mean sample of their range. Forematt will also colourful Amiga by the end of the eve- Alive Mediasoft have announced that Busboard and Graphics Card time you can read a review of the give a discount to SEAL members* ning. Heretic and Hexen conversions based Elbox the Polish firm that manufactures same as Zorro III, they are also faster CyberVision PPC on page 17 which is which varies depending on what you on the recently released source code the Power Tower and Power Flyer have than the slots on the Ateo bus card. almost the same card but for the purchase and how you pay. If any member of SEAL has ideas for are available for 68k and PPC users announced a new Busboard for the Elbox have announced a Zorro 4 version A3/4000 PPC cards. activities for future meetings, has some with a HD, CD-ROM and 8Mb. Gfx cards A1200. The new board has 5 standard of the Power Flyer and a graphics card software or hardware they’d like to dem- are supported too. The titles cost £15 Amiga Zorro II slots (like the earlier bus so far. No specifications are available for See PPC Price Drop item on the follow- *Please note these offers apply only to onstrate or would like to give a presen- each. Descent is also back in stock with boards from Micronik and RBM) plus 2 the graphics card except that it will have ing page for prices and distributors. full SEAL members, Clubbed tation at a meeting please let a member all-new mission packs. £15 if you have clock ports and 2 additional slots which a pass-through for standard Amiga Subscribers cannot use them, sorry! of the committee know. We’re keen to an ‘030 minimum. ‘Putty Squad’ is due Elbox call Zorro 4. Despite the name modes. The new bus board is expected to be finished and available in February. These slots are non-standard, there to sell at a similar price to the current Emperor Vost They even have a CD-catalogue avail- never was an official Zorro 4 from Zorro II to boards which would put it Nick Veitch has moved from Amiga able for £3, or free with any order over Commodore, , or Amiga Inc.. around the £130 mark. Format to another magazine, and so A great place to get the latest Amiga news on the Internet is £30. Czech Amiga News which reports Amiga news world-wide Ben Vost (ex deputy editor) has taken The Zorro 4 slots have a transfer rate of Elbox products are distributed in the UK the helm. We’d like to thank Nick for all and is updated daily: http://www.realdreams.cz/amiga ‘Goal! Season’ (AKA ‘Goal! 2) and about 15Mb/s using DMA to popular ac- by Power Computing: his great work over the years on CU and ‘Pheonix Fighters’ (an overhead shoot- ? celerators. This design makes them (01234) 851800 AF. We know Ben’s an Amiga nutter and em-up) are also planned by Alive. much faster than Zorro II and about the http://www.powerc.com will kick some more ass! 4 CLUBBED - Issue 2 Winter 1998/99 5 NEWS NEWS Kickstart 1999 Kickstart the Surrey based Amiga user ...Updates... Here are some updates on the news group are holding a second sale after PPC Price Drop stories we reported in the last issue of the success of the event they organised By Gary Storm In October both the main UK distributors of Phase 5’s PowerUP Power PC ac- Clubbed last year. Along with 18 tables of new ell, as you probably all know celerators, White Knight Technologies and Blittersoft, substantially dropped their An Letter to the and secondhand Amiga gear there will by now, A-Inc announced prices. Along with the release of the CyberVision PPC and BlizzardVision PPC also be Doom, Sensi and Skidmarks Final Office CD QNX as their partner in Amiga Community - graphics cards the price drop makes the PPC cards more attractive than ever. The W tournaments. If that wasn’t enough developing the next Amiga operating cost of a BlizzardPPC board and BVision graphics card is now very competitive with Software Partners posted on their web December 1998 Amiga International have donated an system (version 5) at the Cologne show the various other A1200 graphics card options too. site that the Final Office CD was going A1200 Magic Pack as a door prize. in November, and will be writing the OS Amiga has always had certain strengths for duplication in November. Since then on top of a QNX kernal. QNX gave a that have never been matched by any no further information has been posted The event will be held at Brook Hall, demo of the power and flexibility of their other . It’s small, effi- Example Prices from Blittersoft and they don’t respond to EMails... draw Brox Road, Ottershaw, Surrey from system, and everyone was well im- cient, and multimedia-centric. As Allan BlizzardPPC (A1200) your own conclusions. 13:00 to 17:00 on Saturday the 27th of pressed. Apparently most of the QNX Havemose has often said, “We just did it 160Mhz PPC 603e and 25Mhz ‘040 £199.95 February, admission is £1. See also: engineers are either Amiga users or right.” 160Mhz PPC 603e, 25Mhz ‘040 and SCSI £249.95 Photogenics NG fans, and had to be beaten back with a 240Mhz PPC 603e, 50Mhz ‘060 and SCSI £549.95 http://www.furry.demon.co.uk/kickstart stick when the deal was done and some There has been a great deal of excite- BVisionPPC graphics card (8Mb Video RAM) £139.95 The new version of Photogenics is not ment and concern over the last few out yet but Paul Nolan has told us he’s engineers chosen to work on the project. Amiga Soc Schemes weeks about the future for the Amiga. CyberStormPPC (A3/4000) is currently preparing the release ver- Amiga Society, a UK wide Internet Just before Cologne, Fleecy Moss left A- With the recent announcement in CyberStormPPC 233Mhz PPC604e, 25Mhz ‘040 and SCSI £479.95 sion. He said it will be ready soon but based Amiga user group have started a Inc, as his contract wasn’t renewed. No- Germany of our OS partner QNX and CyberStormPPC 233Mhz PPC604e, 50Mhz ‘060 and SCSI £669.95 couldn’t give us an exact date. couple of initiatives to make buying one knows why, but Fleecy has said that the demonstration of what this package CyberVisionPPC graphics card (8Mb Video RAM) £149.95 Amiga products easier: the decision wasn’t personal (for more can do, we began speeding forward to WoA 1999 see our interview on page 10). Fleecy the future. Blittersoft: (01908) 261466 - http://www.blittersoft.com has since gone on to spearhead the White Knight: (01920) 822321 - http://welcome.to/white-knight Unfortunately there’s no more news on Shareware When Amiga Inc. was formed our goal WoA but we assume it’s still going KOSH project, which is building a Amiga Soc will give people the oppor- was to determine the best road for ahead in May, however I managed to Kommunity Operating System and tunity to register shareware at any event Amiga to take. We wanted to: Continue IOBlix Modules Cheaper Ethernet forget to the web address for the WoA Hardware, a cross-platform os guided by they can attend. We’ll be seeing them the current development and create RBM Digitaltechnik of Germany have VillageTronic have introduced a new home page last issue so here it is: the users. first at the Kickstart sale on 27th announced three new modules for their lower cost version of their Ariadne another version of the operating system. February. This is great news for users, Build a new team from scratch and re- IOBlix Zorro I/O board (which was Ethernet card called the Ariadne II. The http://www.fortunecity.com/tattooine/ After Fleecy’s departure, OS3.5 was in and for the authors. Register the share- the OS with the new features released last year and gives any Zorro AII is a Zorro II card suitable for any carpenter/241/woa99.htm doubt but Jeff Schindler’s recent state- ware that you use... it’s worth it. equipped Amiga 4 extra serial ports and Amiga with Zorro slots. It has both ment has clarified the situation a little. necessary to be competitive. Locate an 2 parallel ports). The new modules are a 10base2 and 10baseT Ethernet connec- operating system with the same ideals Melody 1200 Sound Other details of what the OS might in- Storefinder 10MB/s Ethernet module, a 16bit sound tions. Although the Ariadne II loses the clude are hazy, as some developers / and spirit that the Amiga has. card and a 100MB/s Ethernet module. additional parallel ports of its predeces- Cards programmers pulled out due to the In co-operation with the Amiga Yellow The 100MB/s Ethernet module will be sor it costs almost half the price at just Fleecy’s situation and seeming lack of We joined in a partnership with QNX to Pages Amiga Soc have launched their the first available on the Amiga. RBM £80. This is still a lot more than an equi- These high quality 16bit sound cards for interest from A-Inc. ARTAS (re- create the NG Amiga. But that didn’t UK Amiga Storefinder. Using have also released separate IOBlix fast valent PC card (£15 to £20) but it at the A1200 clock port are now available targetable audio) will be available mean that we intended to forget about AmigaSoc’s postcode database UK serial and parallel cards for the A1200 least makes Ethernet on the Amiga from Blittersoft. There are three ver- seperately from OS3.5 now, as will Matt the classic system users and the faithful residents will be able to find their clock port at £50 each. reasonably affordable. sions, the base at £129.95, Plus with Chamut’s excellent ‘Glow-Icons’. OS3.5 Amiga community. nearest Amiga shop or repair centre by MPEG layer II decoding at £149.95 and is due during the first half of the year, simply entering their postcode. The Zorro IOBlix costs about £90 (prices Pro with MPEG layer III decoding at and you will need to bung in some 3.1 We are committed to a long and exciting AmigaSoc hope that this will encourage for the add-ons are not yet available) £189.95. ROMs to use it. future for the Amiga, and the community Amiga owners to find and support their and is available from dealers including: that has kept this magnificent architec- local Amiga shops. Petro Tyschtschenko recently went ture alive. Active: (01325) 460116 VillageTronic’s UK distributor is down-under and stirred up a nest of Storefinder: http://www.active-net.co.uk Blittersoft (01908) 261466 Amiga patriots and fans, and Petro said Amiga 3.5 is a work in progress; it has http://uk.amigasoc.org/storefinder : (01642) 713185 http://www.blittersoft.com that he`d been selling loads of miggys to NOT been abandoned. ...we are going http://www.eyetech.co.uk India and China for video work, internet back to each and every partner in the Aussies Talk Amiga and suchlike. 3.5 project to make sure that what they Petro visited Australia recently, and are working on is what our customers stirred up quite a bit of interest in the New Amiga Mag! That’s about it, really. A-Inc are very require. It is critical that we deliver what media, with people realising that the busy designing/building/testing for the we promised–a complete package. Amiga isn’t dead yet. A recent APC A new glossy monthly magazine is to be launched in the next generation of , as they article asked the question “Can the next few months, called ‘Amiga Active’, from PinPrint should be. By the time issue 3 of this Thanks for your patience and support. Amiga fly again?”, and the amount of Publishing. They plan to cover all aspects of the Amiga fine mag comes out, the OS5Dev The Amiga is on the right path, and we feedback is astounding, with many including games, multimedia, hardware, creativity and Napalm system should be out, and we’ll have look forward to delivering both 3.5 and saying that the Amiga is much more reli- the Internet. There will also be an extensive technical more of an idea exactly what the new the NG Amiga soon. able than a PC, and its return would be help section. Each issue will have a cover-mounted Just as we went to press ClickBoom miggys will be like. Don’t hold your greeted with open arms by many in the cd, well-known Amiga names, and be on sale for announced that Napalm, their real-time breath though, and upgrade your exist- Keep the faith. We’re . tech world. Let’s just hope that £4.99. You can visit PinPrint’s website at: strategy game, is shipping on the 12th ing A1200s etc. Plenty more life left in Jeff Schindler Gateway/A-Inc do the business. of February 1999 which means it should the old girls yet. http://www.btinternet.co.uk/~pppsales be available by the time you read this! 6 CLUBBED - Issue 2 Winter 1998/99 7 FEATURES FEATURES

engineering group already for this, and bandwagon, they promised full MacOS just be be an STB or Console? about 4-5 full PC generations since the the damn thing already worked before support, something we couldn’t have last time the Amiga was innovative. Given that I have it on good authority he even walked through the door. So, easily had otherwise. This was dubbed That’s a hell of a long time. ... The that Gateway did buy Amiga just for the rather, I had a bunch of unofficial the PIOS One (the current version is in Amiga was ahead of its time, sure, but patents, I suppose we can be pretty projects. The Acutiator architecture, this my cellar here), a far more upscale not that far ahead. Dave Haynie grateful that they’re “doing something”, new thing for building “highly modular” machine than the cheap Amiga. rather than just ignoring it. Though I had Software, on the other hand, has systems, 68K or RISC, it didn’t matter. The One was going well, if not great a theory about this: if they took the evolved too, but not necessarily in the Then there was a board-level version of Gary Storm talks to the Dave Haynie who worked at (this kind of development isn’t easy on a Amiga and simply treated it ok, they right directions. Most of what Microsoft the DSP3210 hardware, for Zorro III. I C= budget, it’s crazy on a startup budg- might get a large enough population of does is about sustaining the dominance had a dual processor 68030 card for Commodore on the A2000, A3000 and A4000. He is et), when Apple decided to cancel all Amiga fans buying Gateway PCs, rather of the Windows platform, not really further proving new Buster Level II MacOS licensing, Mac Clones, and than someone else’s, to make “doing about evolving the now Vice President of Technology at Met@box features and experimenting with multi- CHRP support, in Septamber of ‘1997. something” pay for itself, and more. After and how people program or use it. processing under AmigaOS (that’s me Infonet (formerly PIOS) Being that our life’s blood was tied to all, many Amiga fans are using PCs These may seem related issues, but and the software group, not just hacking MacOS, we had to move quickly to today, even if they still use Amigas. they really aren’t. around), and a Zorro III SCSI design, to Gary Storm spoke to Dave Haynie about 68040 experience six months before the something else. In January of ‘98, that Most, myself included (if I ever had make up for the lack of SCSI in the What can we users do to keep the the future of the Amiga and ‘040 shipped, to develop a 68040 something else was started as the occasion to buy a whole PC), would A4000. And, to top it all off, I was also Amiga going, or is it time to bow out, in general. module for the A3000 in parallel (this Met@box, another spin on the cheap, rather buy from anyone “Amiga friendly” working on a protoype of a AAA as it doesn’t seem to be a viable mar- was actually working, as well as ‘040s connected computer, only this time than just any old clone company. Right Dave, for those who don’t know machine, to test out the new Advanced ket anymore? worked then, at the April 24, 1990 offi- using special modem technology to what a nutter you are, tell us about Amiga Architecture when it came along. On the other hand, they’re really quiet, cial introduction of the A3000, though allow servers to talk to clients Well, I guess anything I know that would your history in the computer industry So that’s basically what I did in from fall so it’s impossible to say just where management didn’t show it). (downstream only, of course) over exist- work, I’m doing if it’s currently in my thus far. of ‘91 to fall of ‘93. they’re taking this. I had pretty much After the A3000, I got increasingly into ing TV signals. This is our current pro- power. I know lots of folks would like to I started on the Amiga in 1986, though I given up any hope of seeing a new advanced projects. While Berlin was By then, let’s see. The AAA protos ject, not done yet but getting close. promote an AmigaOS, any AmigaOS, had been programming it as soon as I AmigaOS launch, after AT failed, after doing the A3000T, I worked with Bob worked, the chips needed a revision, from Amiga, Inc. But currently, they offer could get one. I had been left in charge Tell us more about KOSH, and why the whole VIScorp thing, after PIOS Raible’s new AA chip architecture, to there was no money, the project was no one any chance to help out. That, in of the 8-bit stuff after the previous head did you agree to get involved? (now Met@box) couldn’t get a source deliver the A3000+, the first AA machine “indefinitely tabled”. The SCSI card had fact, was part of what fleecy had in mind of that HW group, Bil Herd, left the com- license early on, etc. So given that (booted up with a working display and all gone to production as A4091. Scott KOSH is an effort to do basically what I with KOSH – official involvement of the pany for greener pastures (he runs things got about as bad as possible in early February, 1991). This machine Schaeffer and I had done some said up above, take what everyone community. jersey.net now). We had a few C128 short of someone officially announcing was also to have the DSP3210 Acutiator logic, I had revised the spec to learned from the AmigaOS and other spinoffs, but nothing that could get man- they’re burying the AmigaOS, that If, today, there was an OS that did for from AT&T, to support use PCI rather than the AMI (Amiga experiences and make a new OS. While agement interested. Meanwhile, some Gateway has kept something going, is me what the AmigaOS did for me, I think sound, graphics,and other multimedia Modular Interconnect) bus I made up this was given a name by Fleecy Moss, I others (George Robbins and Bob good news. But it’s such a relative bit of I would stop trying so hard to re-create, stuff, as well as software modem before PCI was annouced (very similar think many of us around the Amiga com- Welland), disenfranchised from their cur- good news, and Amiga fans are still so in some way or another, what we had at functions. Jeff Porter ( Director of New in intent). munity, and perhaps elsewhere, have rent project (Commodore 900, the UNIX idealistic, it’s not surprised that many Amiga. I have tons of other things to Product Development) and I actually had similar things in mind. workstation, kind of a Sun-2 like I left Commodore in June of ‘94, just people are very upset with the whole work on, I don’t necessarily have to do had to meet with AT& T to convince machine) which was cancelled when C= over a month after they announced For years I have had ideas for new ways Gateway thing. nothing but make new systems and them that they wanted to sell chips on bankruptcy and fired all but about 30 of to put things together using objects. For OSs. In fact, I would like a chance to bought Amiga, set around looking for If you could have an enhanced Amiga every motherboard, not nickel and dime us. I chose then mainly because Scala example, a kernel, not a monolithic thing write a few applications for an OS that I new things to do. They settled on OS, running natively on a Pentium or us for every program module so that we made me an offer I couldn’t refuse then, like a kernel or even Amiga’s approve of. making a cost reduced Amiga, which G3 or whatever (ie no stink of any couldn’t do anything with the DSP. but also, I figure an engineer is some- Exec, but rather as a set of independent became the A500. I was on that for a Microsoft anywhere near), would you I became a Be developer to get involved one who does engineering, and there and replaceable objects that live in a month, expected to take it over (as the Ultimately, the project was cancelled, as think that as being more feasible than in that, since it was the only real alterna- really wasn’t much left to do at C= back sort of “object sea” (my name for it, but low end guy), while George took over new management (Bill Sydnes and Lew an Amiga OS on a kick-ass Amiga? tive the AmigaOS came out, and it’s then. apparently now a rallying point in the the A2000-CR project (applying the Eggebrecht) were brought in to run right now the best thing going. Part of KOSH groups). Another is an object file Absolutely. There’s nothing you could do A500 technology to Commodore Commodore Engineering. There guys While at Scala, I was hired to consult for that is specifically because Amiga system, using a concept I call “trans- today on a 68K of any kind that’s going Germany’s “A1000 with expansion” were from IBM and other places, and Amiga Technologies as their head of people got involved early on (in the lucent containers”, which kind of blur to be real interesting, at least not machine). George didn’t want to give up had absolutely no concept about work- hardware design. I proposed a cool BeBox days). I’m a bit sad the way they any distinction between data files on beyond the level of a handheld. The the A500, so I took over the A2000 pro- ing in a balls-to-the-wall environment $500 (1996) PowerAmiga system, Andy let Apple make a straw-man excuse disc and data objects loaded in memory. high-end 68Ks are many times more ex- ject. Just me. like Commodore. Also, Sydnes was far Finkel put together a project plan to get that’ll let them opt out, eventually, of the In layman’s terms, a JPEG file that pensive than PPC or even x86 chips more concerned with looking good to AmigaOS on that puppy in a year. All PPC market. On the other hand, when From there, I worked on the A2620 with knows its a JPEG file; there’s never any many times faster than them. then C= president Mehdi Ali than was good, but Escom ran themselves Apple stabs them in the back (and I Bob Welland, the A2630 followup need for an image editor, icon, or any- Modernized AmigaOS, even on a actually doing engineering. So, along into financial trouble. They started going can’t help but feel some kinship there, (Welland had left duing the A2620 pro- thing else that can use an image to properly configured modern PClone, with cancelling nearly every on-going under, Amiga Technologies was one of as Apple practically killed ject), several related research projects know what “JPEG” really means. If you would blow away today’s Amigas or any- project (wouldn’t want something the the first cancellations. PIOS/Met@box with their destruction of and other add-in stuff. By the summer of wanted to, you could replace the main thing you could build based on the exist- other guys touched to get out there), he the “Mac Clone” market), Motorola and ‘88, it was pretty clear we needed a But it didn’t quite die there. Stefan “ascii ” class with a “ascii ing Amiga architecture. had the AA project delayed by six IBM sit around watching like unin- whole new system architecture for the Domeyer, GM at AT, managed to collect text/image file” class (inherits from both months. So rather than ship the A3000+ That’s not a slam against the Amiga, but terested parties, and offers them a next real machine, not just plug in interest around the notion of this cheap ASCII file and Image), and then start in April ‘92, we shipped the A4000 look at the timeframe. The A3000 ar- few suitcases full of cash and use of en- boards. So I started working out a new connected Amiga, and from that we dropping text files into every picture (really just a stripped down A3000 with chitecture, the most advanced Amiga gineers to support BeOS on the x86, I bus architecture, which become Zorro founded PIOS Computer in May of editor in your system. AA chips) in September of ‘92. system architecture built ( the basis for can’t really blame Be for not becoming III. By February of 1989, the A3000 pro- 1996. I worked for them free for over a I’m slowly working on an object sea A3000, A3000+, A3000T, A4000, the PPC’s new cheerleader. ject was running full steam (in fact, the I had pretty much pegged Sydnes/Ali as year, since I didn’t have any investment whitepaper, written at a level where A4000T, and the “Nyx” AAA prototype), final work on the A2630 was put off on a being the downfall of Commodore. I first money to put in. The initial goal of Still, I think BeOS falls short of the mark. anyone, just about anyway, should be was locked down in mid-1989. That’s six junior guy to let me share the technical saw this coming in the fall of ‘91. Of making the cheap PPC system waned Maybe not, but that’s the way it looks able to understand. months or less short of ten years ago. helm of the A3000 with Greg Berlin). We course, technical folks look for technical as it became clear AmigaOS wasn’t today. Maybe it’ll improve, or maybe The AA chips, the best Amiga chips also had Hedley Davis (project answers, and so I set forth to do a paper going anywhere we could tap it. We What’s your opinion of the way A- we’ll keep the KOSH thing going long completed, were really an evolution of manager), Scott Hood (Amber chip), and and, eventually, CAD design for our decided later in ‘96 to build a machine to Inc/Gateway have handled the Amiga enough to see fruits. And they will the ECS architecture, itself a small jump Jeff Boyer (DMAC) involved in the pro- next-generation system, since I figured support MacOS (we had built a MacOS since they purchased it ? Should we definitely have the taste we’ve been from the original Amiga chips of 1984. ject, making it the largest hardware pro- Sydnes couldn’t last forever (he didn’t clone business to fund other work) and be thankful they decide to do any- craving for years, and the personal com- PC system architecture has been evolv- ject done at Commodore. Along the way, approve anything but testing AA for six the new BeOS. A meeting with Apple thing at all with it and keep the Amiga puter will evolve... ing at an amazing rate ... you’ve had we hired Scott Schaeffer, a guy with months, even though {a} we had a test actually got up on the CHRP alive in any small way, even if it is 8 CLUBBED - Issue 2 Winter 1998/99 9 FEATURES FEATURES

fans of the community. The bosses both KOSH is an attempt to build a commer- Fleecy Moss still code, and put technology over cially sustainable platform that is owned Gary Storm speaks to politics or management crap. by the Kommunity, the ppl who use it, develop for it, sell for it and report on it. the head of Team Amiga Is there going to be a new Amiga Gary Storm spoke to It has 3 parts. Kosh - the Kommunity, home computer released via A-Inc? soon after the Fleecy Fleecy Moss soon after kOSh - the OS and kosH - the hardware Gary Peake ...you have to ask them. templates. It started up after AInc let me announcement. his departure from go, caused by the many thousands of Would you advise us to all go PPC, or mails I received in which developers, So, what the hell happened with shortly. We are currently involved in partners personally. an OS5Dev system (Amiga on a Amiga Inc. users, retailers and journalists vented - it Fleecy? One minute he`s our best doing the set-ups and what have you to You`ve probably already answered Pentium)? link and shining miggy light (a lone make it as functional as possible on What the hell happened, Fleecy? Did became clear that many of them had this in the above questions.. .but voice in the fog), and the next thing opening. you have a major disagreement about Depends what you want to do. If you just had enough of this boom/bust, bust, what do you generally think of the we`re reeling (not as much as Fleecy, the direction A-Inc or Gateway want believe in the target markets and bust cycle of the Amiga. Now they want Won`t all this in-fighting lead to even Amiga now and if there is a future? of course) from the news he`d been to take (like just concentrating the strategy of AInc, then go that way. If you to build their own platform - not to own it, more users becoming despondent sacked!?! Is it a case of Fleecy doing I have no doubt that Gateway has in- Amiga technology for Set-Top Boxes, don’t, then you have to decide what you just to have a foundation on which to and leaving for warmer climes? a monumental smeg-up ? A major vested ample monies into bringing a Consoles, and Vibrators) ? You won’t want to do. earn a living, build a community. Someone christened it the Insanity pro- difference of opinion on the direction MY OPINION product to market. I have no doubt of Dr. break any NDA’s by telling us the cir- Take a look around at what you want, ject which I kind of like because it is in- of the Amiga ethos? A case of ego`s Havemose’s and Bill McEwen’s creden- cumstances and leaving out the There is NO intention to cause infight- what you want to do, who you believe, gone wild? Or had he done his job so tials and capabilities. I have no doubt details. sane really. But you know what, there is ing. And there is absolutely no reason who makes you barf and then decide. well (like Joe Torre) that they didn`t about the dedication involved there and just enough talent and frustration with that developers should not be free to Amiga Inc did not renew my contract. need him anymore? (or all of the hope to see what we are all looking for Personally, apart from a few pain-in- computing in general at the moment, persue a project with the potential to That is all I can say. I am pursuing my above, as nothing is ever so simple soon. the-ass things, which every computer that we might pull it off. keep them working, active, and making own interests, the development of an has, I don’t mind pc’s. What I do mind as to be blamed on one thing). Ppl have said why are you doing Linux money until such time as Amiga Inc can Surely spreading the Amiga os innovative, Kommunity owned platform, is anything Microsoft. I wouldn’t be all over again. That misses the point. I have no idea. This is something release more information to them about around would be a good idea? built, designed, evangelised and run by happy to lose an Amiga entirely, but I Linux is a last generation OS that is free between Fleecy and Amiga Inc I would OS5. Microsoft has made billions by those ppl who work with it, in any could see myself getting a pc if it had with no central focus, and it is hard to presume. spreading around an inferior OS and capacity. a decent os, like our ancient Amiga In any discussion with Fleecy, you will make money in it due to the GPL. Don’t products associated with it (that`s one. What’s your opinion? Where does this leave os3.5? Jeff hear that KOSH is not about competition Is your US visa ok, so you won’t have get me wrong, I like Linux a lot, but I not just amigans talking, either, but had already approved it. to OS5, but rather an effort to fend for to leave your newborn? It’s all a matter of integration. Linux on a want a real next generation, innovative most of the PC world). As long as the ourselves until such time as Amiga Inc I haven’t heard anything yet concerning best power would be known to be I got it transferred back to my good old Pentium goes like the clappers. PCI and OS which runs on the best HW or the has something to offer. 18-24 months is OS 3.5 except that it doesn’t appear that squeezed from an Amiga os on an Canadian “pimp” who sells my services AGP graphics cards are amazing. I have cheapest HW, whatever suits my pocket both a long and short time depending on the original team will be doing it. Amiga system, not a Pentium. in the US. I may have something lined a PC, I use it because it has most of my at the time. Something that moulds who you talk to. up, but we have been here four years, work stuff on it and in a format that I can around me as a user, that becomes my What`s this about KOSH? Is it The problem has been for us the plat- OPINION OFF and no footy, crap beer and our kids get- use at home. My dream OS on my doorway into a virtual universe, that KOSHER? (sorry, but was begging for form dependance we have on the ting wierd accents is starting to get to dream machine would be KOSH - to be allows me to do almost anything as a it) Surely our last bastion of Amiganess Classic Amiga. Hard to spread an OS honest, if what I saw on the screen did developer - that gets out of my way and us. If we can get a job back in Scotland, at A-Inc is Dr.Havemose, who has a that requires a certain hardware and what I wanted, made me happy and lets me have fun. But which also wants KOSH is about a dream a lot of people we will be returning real soon. long and proud Amiga OS history? chipset. If Amiga Inc moves to a more have had over the long term. This is immersed me into my virtual world then I my opinions, that asks for my help, that “open systems” reference, I feel sure it The “Evie” incident relates to the fact NOT on of the projects I will be actively Dr. Havemose is well credentialed and is couldn’t care less what was in the box. calls me friend and lets me meet other will spur growth in our markets. QNX that here in Pennsylvania, it takes friends. involved in however I always support very capable (wth the right team as- Do you see any reasons for users and seems to have that capability. months to get a birth certificate, and any moves by the Amiga community sembled) to carry out the mandate he developers to hang onto the Amiga Could turn out to be nothing but it could without it, we can’t get her a passport so which serves to help ourselves. I under- has accepted. No one should doubt that. Related to the above, it seems Intel is at we can’t take her out of the country. The dream any more? turn out to be everything. That is why I stand some very bright Amiga and non- Bill McEwen is also every bit as last gathering the courage to free itself am going to put so much effort into it “threat” of deportation was never a real Depends. What is the Amiga dream? Is Amiga minds will be involved however. dedicated to the cause of making one of Microsoft, as they recently invested in over the next 6-12 months. If any of your threat. It was something off the cuff I it developing for Amiga Inc machines? Is heck of a product as anyone I know. I Red Hat, the company that distributes readers want to get involved, please do. At least Fleecy`s idea of a central told my wife, concerning an ‘enemy’ I it developing for PPC machines? The have great respect for both of them and Linux, an alternative os. As we know, The Kommunity wants as many ppl as Amiga web shoperama looks like had made at Gateway. classic? Or is it developing for an inno- wait with anticipation for word on what Billy boy doesn`t like alternative os`s, as possible to come, have a look around, going ahead, with OwlNet....tell us vative, empowering platform which direction the platform will go. they invariably point out how slow and Jeff, on a personal level, is a great guy, see if they like what they see. more. buggy Windows is. and I had a lot of fun whenever I was up allows you to sculpt virtual reality? QNX sounds like the best choice for How can we, as users and Yes, Owl Net is a joint venture between there, both with him, Mad Dog McEwen If yourself, Amiga Inc, Amiga Tech, an os kernal, eh? And at least there A lot of chip and box makers are looking developers, help keep the amiga Fleecy and myself to provide support for and his family. Him getting the blame for developers, and users etc were foot- are a number of amiga-savvy en- for alternatives. Amiga Inc is poised to viable? Or should we just give up and “open systems” users and developers that wasn’t fair. ball teams (real football, BTW, not gineers there (or is that just PR make inroads there with QNX and an get a Siamese and run Amiga under across the board. crap)? “open systems” reference. We will have What did you (generally) manage to that American padded ‘rugby for Windows? Owl Net is another dream come true for to see how it all plays out I think. achieve while you were project girls’ stuff :) ), which ones would you QNX is a great choice. It is very “Amiga- me. It will not just be a shopping mall, manager at A-Inc? be? Again, what is the Amiga? What is it that like” in user friendliness. From a Finally (for the moment), what`s the we want to keep viable? Most of the but also a place where non-Wintel plat- Everton at the moment - great players programming point of view, I am a lame future for the many PPC users (like I *hope* I made them realise just how systems today are a mass of third party form people of all manner of OS lineage who just can’t play together or win a duck, but most agree that it will be a me)? valuable a resource the Amiga commu- products (HW and SW) with an old can come together for sharing and help- game and had a lot of glory but now refreshing kernel to work with. Randy at nity was at all levels. I talked to many Amiga buried somewhere in the centre. ing one another. Well, as I said earlier ... 18-24 months fight relegation all the time. Common QNX told me that as soon as they knew developers and users, got to understand The community, the users, the (last timeline I have seen from Amiga sense tells you to live them but your At the same time, Owl Net will be quite it was a done deal, QNX people started their hopes, their frustrations and made Inc) can be a long or short time depend- developers, the retailers and the jour- modular in structure so that Team setting up and talking about their many friends. heart is there so you carry on, just pray- ing on whom you talk to. For the next nalists have kept “the Amiga” viable. AMIGA will have a full support area, Amiga’s. And he also told me that the ing that it will all click. generation (between pure Classic and What would you have liked to have What exactly is it that ppl are trying to linux, , unix, and more will have an two most prolific coders they have are You’ve begun a project with Dave save? the Amiga II), I personally think PPC is a implemented? information portal, a developer and user the owners ... apparantly both enjoy Haynie, Gary Peake and others, called great option. Note also the refences to support area of their own, plus general coding and still remember where they ...what I’m doing now ;-) Find out more about KOSH at: PPC on the QNX web site. KOSH (if you call it BOSH! our chair- areas where all of us who wish can came from. Very refreshing to hear such QNX... tell us more. man would be very happy... it’s his http://www.kosh.net share our knowledge banks. news as this from inside QNX. I am catchphrase :) ). As the song goes... delighted they were chosen as OS Great OS. Great ppl (Canadian). Real “So what’s it all about?”. We will release some more information 10 CLUBBED - Issue 2 Winter 1998/99 11 FEATURES FEATURES

M$’s Video for Windows 1.1D.That products over the years. Microsoft stole the you have to meet MS’s PC9x specs, once allegations are just not true.” Some PC Eamonn Sullivan, PC Week Magazine] miraculously vapourised when Bill bought a basis for Microsoft from they take effect, or you can’t use the makers, however, told a different story, al- private share of Apple. Spry Mosaic. Spry took on the huge com- Microsoft logos on your box. With hardware though all requested anonymity due to fear of In America, 27 States attorney generals have pany, and won. - $8 Million in damages. - and software, same deal. So even here, it reprisal from Microsoft. “We thought our spoken in support of the Dept. of Justice’s Netscape has had to be offered free as an Nothing in the never slowing big computer becomes a Web browser issue, since [licensing] fees would decrease if they investigations into M$, filing an amicus brief attempt to survive Microsofts strategy of industry. The server code for IRC (Internet Windows 98 uses a private format for help removed IE, but they said they would in- in the Federal Appeals Court of Washington giving away Internet Explorer (aka Internet Relay Chat) from the General Public License files, some sort of compressed HTML that crease, so we kept it on,” said an executive D.C. Exploiter) for free. allows the source code to be freely distri- only IE4.x can read. If you don’t dis- at another OEM.] buted but only on the terms that the source of tribute your help files in this Like most of the other online polls that have Microsoft have a stranglehold on not letting the new application also be free. Microsoft’s format, you don’t get the logo. If But even Microsoft devotees need been taken, a C|net reader poll fiound that M$ any PC`s be sold with anything but I.E. This Normandy Chat Server is not free. Microsoft you don’t distribute Windows to be careful: public opinion is on the side of the U.S. o, do you use a PC at home or work? recently changed slightly, with the U.S. used the 16-bit OS/2 code to form the basis 98 drivers, you don’t get the Department of Justice in its lawsuit against Do you like it? More to the point, do Justice Dept. ruling that Microsoft couldn`t of WindowsNT. IBM and Microsoft jointly logo. All perfectly legal, but it [More bugs have surfaced in Microsoft. These polls certainly conflict with Syou like using Win 9x? Didn`t think so. bundle I.E.with new PC`s. Microsoft has made OS/2, but Microsoft left the project goes beyond that. If you Microsoft’s internet products Microsoft’s claims that it has simply been ignored this, claiming that IE is integral to early and have since publicly declared OS/2 don’t get the logo, you’re and, unlike most of the others, responding to overwhelming consumer Of course, we all know Microsoft as being the Windows ‘98, and that Windows can’t to be dead. This means that their use of the treated as a hostile, unoffi- these have not been fixed. Short demands. Short excerpt: force-feeder of Windows. Bill Gates was operate without it ! code is essentially theft.] cially of course, and as a excerpt: Flaws in the security of accused many years ago of ripping off the developer, you don’t get proper Microsoft’s internet products allow “It has been awhile since antitrust laws were Apple Mac operating system. Bill replied that This has obviously been refuted by most non- The latest, and most dangerous ruse to force support – your questions magically malicious hackers to steal users’ used for the benefit of consumers and con- he actually took most of the idea`s for wintellians: 98 onto the world is to wind up at the end of the priority list, private encryption keys and impersonate sumer choice. This may be one of the best Windows from the Amiga operating system. add a proprietry extension to html code, etc.” ] their victims, security experts said. examples of these laws being used for the [As most of America has heard (and as much which means that M$ sites aren`t accessible good of technological advancement and con- Why are there so many people in the world of the technical world is tired of hearing), unless you use Internet Explorer. The latest To illustrate the above, an excerpt from a The flaws are so serious that one expert sumer interests,” wrote Mark D. Slosberg, that `hate` Bill Gates and Microsoft ? Could Microsoft is attempting to defend itself from Internet Explorer can`t run without Windows ZDNet article: advises users not to surf the web until a fix is president of Net Information Systems. “The it be because most Microsoft products are so allegations of wide array of anti-competitive 98. Companies who have to deal with found. . . . Private encryption keys can easily issue is predatory pricing and eliminating buggy ? Yes, but buggy products are not ex- behavior. In defiance of a recent court order, Microsoft are forced the Win`98/Explorer [A group of computer and telephone com- be stolen from the hard disks of machines choice, and the Justice Department is taking clusively the domain of Microsoft, or the PC. stating that Microsoft must refrain from dis- route. Their customers in turn are forced the panies charged on Friday that Microsoft was whose users are surfing the web, thanks to a strong and important stand.” Could it be the hand-holdingly constricting tributing Internet Explorer Web Browser with same way. Can you see a pattern here ? using “extortion” in its battle with Netscape flaws in several Microsoft products including interface ? Or is it the way in which Microsoft its Windows operating system, the Redmond Communications Corp. for dominance in sell- the Internet Explorer browser and the Internet From a ‘Tech Investor’ article: [Microsoft has has forced Windows and other products WA software company stated that removing Dave Haynie is an ex-Commodore engineer, ing browsers for the World Wide Web. Information Server package. been ravaging the Internet industry with anti- down the co’s and users throats, callously Internet Explorer would render Windows in- who is now the Vice President of PIOS Edward Black, head of the Computer and competitive behavior; behavior that is effec- diregarding freedom of choice, and actively operable. Translation: Microsoft wants every- Computers. Dave has a better insight into M$ Communications Industry Association, said “As a result of these flaws, no Microsoft tive only because of Microsoft’s monopoly using every dirty trick in the book to enforce one to believe that some vehicle of comput- tactics than most..... Microsoft, whose operating system is used Internet product is capable of protecting a position - I believe this is illegal and it is not those parameters on the world and kill off ing (their operating system) will cease to on 90 percent of personal computers, was user’s keys from hostile attack,” [security good. ... About a week ago, Netscape filed a any competition. Absolutely. function without a communications device [ “The way Microsoft builds their empire is by telling computer makers they must use its expert Peter Gutmann said.] request with the Department of Justice for an that can be included with it. stressing, but not to the breaking point, as Web brower “or else.” “It has elements of investigation of both antitrust behavior and a Here is an excerpt from the internet: many interdependencies as they can create. extortion,” Black told reporters at a news con- Microsoft practices are highlighted in these violation of a 1994 consent decree forged in [Microsoft’s greedy and dishonest ways of Removing Internet Explorer could not The OS was the starting point. They get ference. two excerpts from Justice Department files: U.S. vs. Microsoft. . . . I expect that as the getting Market share can be shown by their possibly render Windows inoperative, be- every PC maker buying their OS, rather than facts surface, Netscape, for all of its faults, operating system licensing agreements. cause you’d have to leave those software another, by making it financially impossible The association includes AT&T Corp., Sun [Internal Memo from Microsoft’s Christian will be recognized by the Internet community Microsoft requires all PC clone makers to pay components other applications rely upon. not to. Next, they do the same with the office Microsystems Inc., Amdahl Corp., Bell Wildfeuer, February 24, 1997 (submitted to as a benevolent innovator and leader, them a royalty even if there is no Microsoft Just as you can’t argue that to remove a car suite. This, in turn, hooks countless users Atlantic Corp., SBC Communications Inc., court by US DoJ on May 18, 1998) “It seems whereas Microsoft will be shown to be an software on it! Assistant U.S. Attorney stereo means removing the battery, you can’t and companies on Office. Since they make Tandem Computers Inc. and Nokia clear that it will be very hard to increase outsider that has coercively been forcing its General Anne K. Bingaman said this about argue that removing such an application – as much from upgrades as OEM sales (or Telecommunications. browser market share on the merits of IE 4 way on an exciting, emerging, and new Microsoft’s devilish ways: “[Microsoft was] even one such as Internet Explorer – in- more), it’s important to force the upgrade of alone. It will be more important to leverage industry, community, and world.] locking up the market with practices which volves removing all the software components Office. So they change file formats with the And...... [Compaq claims that Microsoft the OS asset to make people use IE instead every computer manufacturer despised and it depends on. In fact, PC Week proved just new version. New PCs come with the new threatened to terminate Compaq’s license for of Navigator.” That’s why Micro$oft “in- Recently, Intel has invested in Red Hat, the which the competitors despised .... you had that: [A Techweb article (”, IE Are version, so users editing the old stuff write Windows 95 if Compaq shipped its com- tegrated” IE4 in Windows98. distributors of Linux, and Dell Computers to sell you soul and never leave Microsoft.” Separate Products, Test Says”) makes these out the new . This, in turn, forces puters with Netscape Navagitor in place of have offered to install Linux for new cus- Fortunately, The US Justice Department claims, which dispute Microsoft’s arguments folks to upgrade to the new office suit. Every Microsoft Internet Explorer. Compaq is M$ has been trying their best to kill or warp tomers. The M$ chains are breaking, and the stopped Microsoft from these practices in in federal court. [Microsoft officials said IE 3.0 now and then, they drop support for the old Microsoft’s largest customer for Windows 95. Java, as it’s cross-platformability is a threat to new Amiga that is on the horizon will be in a 1994, but no penalty was put on the com- is an integrated component of the Windows OS, so you have to upgrade the OS to use Gateway 2000, Inc. and Micron Electronics Windows monopoly. prime position (with it’s ‘strategic partners’ pany, and undeniably too late in the game to 95 operating system, as shipping in OSR the new things (which, of course, you really have made similar allegations. aks PC co’s) to usher in a computing age of reverse the damage already done. Another version 2. . . PC didn’t want in the first place). Now A document that confirms this point: “Screw world freedom with compatibility. Licensing Agreement Microsoft has requires Week Labs’ tests the internet is the issue. MS knows Short excerpt from this Excite News article: Sun, cross-platform will never work. Lets the first computer screen any user sees while have shown that this they have 94% of the OS market Compaq’s director of software procurement, move on and steal the Java language. That Gary Storm the PC is starting up to have a message that is not the case. . . . and 85% or more of the office Stephen Decker, said in testimony to the said, have we ever taken a look at how long it Microsoft can pick and choose, such as We merely modified automation market, but only 35- Justice Department that if Compaq chose a would take Microsoft to build a cross-platform “Where do you want to go today?” This four lines in one of 40% of the browser market. So Netscape icon over a Microsoft icon on its Java that did work? Naturally, we would means that every single PC that is sold, the Windows 95 they make the browser part of the desktop computer screen, then “Microsoft never do it, but it would give us some idea of gives Microsoft a free advertisement to setup files to prevent OS (thus taking along anyone who would terminate our (Windows 95) agree- how much time we have to work with in killing promote their product. Antitrust attorney Gary IE 3.0 from install- upgrades to the new OS), but also ment for doing so.”] Suns Java.” Exhibit 97 (MS7 026935), P. Reback says: “This is as though every time ing. This modifica- make things difficult for people Sridharan 9/17/97 e-mail] you turned on any television set it had to tion had no impact looking to get other free forms of From a PC Week article: [Several PC makers start up on NBC, offered easy connections to on the operating system’s capabilities or per- support, such as the upgrades page, without are charging Microsoft Corp. with wielding its So are we all destined to be forced off the MSNBC and other wholly owned sites .... and formance. . . . Moreover, significant OSR 2 their latest Web browser. They can’t exactly operating system dominance in an attempt to net, or be Windows clones ? you had to reprogram the VCR to get CNN or features, like the FAT32 , remained yell at you for using Netscape (at least, not push Internet Explorer to the top of the brow- anything else.” No-one seems to like what intact using our modified install program. with today’s legal heat), so they make it an ser market. Two said Microsoft has The Anti-M$ movement is growing at a fast Microsoft is doing, but Microsoft knows that Microsoft would likely disagree, but our ex- Internet Explorer issue. Expect it to get worse threatened to re-evaluate Windows 95 licens- rate: [Netscape and others are challenging no one manufacturer can stand up and not perience with Windows 95 and recent tests of – their ultimate goals is to dominate the Web ing fees if competing products, namely Microsoft . . . and reportedly are requesting allow it because of Microsoft’s sheer size.] Windows 98 show that the operating systems such that it’s propritatized, at best, or that Navigator, are bundled on their systems. an antitrust investigation by the Department The articles quoted are copyrighted as follows: PC are much better suited for corporate deploy- non-MS browser users, like non-MS OS of Justice, a process that takes years under Week, PC Magazine, and MacWeek articles copy- Microsoft had been sued by Apple over copy- ment without the browser.] users, are rendered second-class citizens on “This is not right,” said Brad Chase, vice the best of circumstances. . . . The courts righted by Ziff-Davis Publications. Tech Investor and right theft, where code from Apple’s Computer Reseller arcticles copyrighted by CMP the net. Labelling enters in here, for third president of Microsoft’s Internet Platform and take too long. Show Microsoft how you feel in Publications. InfoWorld article copyrighted by InfoWorld Quicktime software was pirated and used in [Microsoft has stolen many ideas and party products. If you’re a hardware vendor, Tools Division, in Redmond, Wash. “. . . The a way it understands: Keep your money. - Publishing Company.

12 CLUBBED - Issue 2 Winter 1998/99 13 REVIEWS REVIEWS

It was at this point that I encountered the PPC for processor intensive tasks file system which overrides whatever is Scoring System problems, on bootup a SetPatch com- only. installed. To make the original CD file Reviews are very subjective, what one PPC mand fail occurred and the machine system (in my case AmiCDFS) take over reviewer may love, another hates. Such hung at the grey shell prompt... worry- It is at this point that you want to start you have to add the following line to the is life. So we decided to have a general 603e+ ing! As luck would have it this problem using the PPC enhanced software, but I DOSDriver: score, which the reader can take into Blizzard had occurred to other purchasers (if you have to say that at the moment there is I was very impressed by the quality of account along with the text. call that luck!) and a fix was available little quality software about, but lets FORCELOAD = 1 Mick Sutton plugs the the board (as with all Phase 5 boards). which Robert found out about on the hope that this situation will change soon. The card is so closely populated with So we invented the fish...it’s easy to fastest ever accelerator Internet. If I hadn’t had internet access Some of the titles that are available in- After this my CD-ROM was back to components it’s just amazing that they work out which we feel is a better (albeit indirectly) I wouldn’t have been clude: Tornado 3D - a very polished normal, in fact it was faster than before into his A1200, is it all got it all onto a board of such size (the product... the more bones that show, the able to solve the problem without phon- product indeed; Turboprint - which only and I noticed that accessing it didn’t PPC board is actually smaller than my smellier the fish :). We also feel that in plain sailing on the ing White Knight as it wasn’t mentioned marginally increases print slow other applications down. This is old Apollo ‘040), when you consider that the % system too many products get in the manual. The fix was to edit the speeds; Candy Factory because the Blizzard PPC SCSI con- PPC? (sorry!) you’ve got the PPC CPU, heatsink, fan, “Gold” or similar awards, even if they SetPatch line in the startup-sequence Pro; Fantastic Dreams; troller is DMA (Direct Memory Access), '060 CPU, two SIMM sockets and fast have a fair bit of room for improvement. to the following: ISIS (an MPEG video which means it can transfer data into p until recently I thought my SCSI-2 controller in such a tight space. Thus we are only awarding Caviar to Amiga set-up was ok... an player); and many memory without using the CPU. My old products that are practically perfect. Run >nil: C:SetPatch Quiet smaller utilities. Squirrel controller wasn’t DMA and thus UA1200T with a 40Mhz '040, and The board was very easy to fit, simply tied up the processor while transferring SCSI via the squirrel interface. Not a slotting onto the motherboard edge con- As soon as I’d made this My SCSI CD-ROM was data. Since I’ve had the Blizzard PPC bad setup, but due to the CPU intensive nector. In fact the compact size made it change the Amiga recognised by the SCSI I’ve tried another CD ROM and my software I'm using (Art Effect 2.6, a lot easier to fit than my previous booted properly into controller on the PPC Yamaha CD burner on the SCSI and Cinema 4D, Quake etc...) I thought it board. At first I was worried that such a Workbench, when I board and worked as they both worked well. In fact I can burn was time to upgrade. complex card would melt, even in my Caviar started using the soon as I changed the CDs even whilst playing Quake! tower! The board only has a small fan to Amiga I noticed device line in the The best so far ! Can hardly pick any- I looked at many options and decided to cool the PPC and nothing to cool the how fast every- DOSDriver file to point Now I’ve got the few problems ironed thing out of it, not even boogers. go for the PPC route, mainly due to the ‘060, however the ‘060 runs very coolly thing was. to the new bliz- out I find the Blizzard PPC a very reli- Rarer than Nessie. fact that I could upgrade nearly every anyway and the PPC fan seems more This speed zppc.device. However able upgrade. None of the software that aspect of my system in one purchase. than adequate as the board never gets increase I soon discovered that although ran on my ‘040 stopped working on the Also in my mind was the near release of more than warm to the touch. the BVision graphics card, which at the was due normal data CDs worked, only the ‘060 and most things got a very useful to the first sesson of multisession CDs such speed increase, helped by the improved end of the day will be the ultimate gfx One of the SIMM sockets on the board ‘060 which is as PhotoCDs could be accessed. SCSI performance. I’m waiting for some card available to A1200 owners. I lies flat and the other is mounted at an about twice as fast Another trip to the Internet was called useful PPC enhanced software to be decided to purchase the Blizzard PPC angle. When I tried to fit my double as the '040/40Mhz that I for, and this time the culprit turned out to released at a reasonable price, so come This product is definitely worth buying 603+ 240 Mhz with an '060 fitted. The sided 32Mb SIMM in the flat socket it had been using. The PPC side be the CD-booting feature built into the on Clickboom and all the others! but, like most things, still has room for card I chose was the top of the range wouldn’t fit snugly due to some pins of the board is only used by software Phase 5 SCSI ROM. This feature allows improvement. (and expensive) because if I was going sticking out of the board. In the end I specifically coded for it, the PPC does the machine to be booted from CD- Since I wrote this review I have received to upgrade I might as well get the max. gave up and fitted it in the angled socket not degrade the performance of the ‘060 ROMs (such as a Workbench back-up,) my BVision graphics card and after which was OK, and by the way - a and software can be written so it uses but to do this it has it’s own simple CD adding a hard drive it’s the best thing I I ordered the card from White Knight in matched pair of SIMMs is not required ever did for my Amiga. Read more about early July '98 but due to the lack of by this board which was a relief as I only the card in the News section and we’ll '060’s available I had to wait until mid had one. Second Opinion August '98 for it to arrive. have a full review next issue! Average, neither too good nor too To use the fast SCSI-2 on the card I had I`m not a techie. I don`t have cables As to the Bvision... Wow! What a dif- bad — it works but there are areas To use the board the first thing to do is the insight (actually Robert Williams our and diodes crawling out of my cavities ference a gfx card makes :) It doesn’t which need major improvement or are install the '060 software (this must be vice chairman told me) to purchase the when I`m near anything electrical (as feel like the poor cousin tp a P300 Results way behind competing products. done before installing the hardware) adaptors and cable required to match up far as I know), and my understanding anymore:) which is done using the standard in- to my existing SCSI hardware. On the of ‘electrickery’ isn’t brilliant. I`m just a Pros staller. The software which integrates board there is a non-standard 50 pin user who can barely fix the toaster. I My opinion of PPC is that there are a Fast 68060 the PPC into the system is on an high density header which connects via upgraded to the PPC because I lot of developers (except ClickBoom - Fast PPC upgradeable Flash ROM fitted to the a short ribbon cable to a high density needed two things: scsi (for the cd-rw), Booo!) developing for it at the moment, Fast DMA SCSI! SMELLY board, unlike the Cyberstorm PPC (for 50way ‘D’ connector designed for an and a graphics card. The `040 and and we`ll see the fruits of their labours BVision graphics card option. the A3/4000) software which must be external port. To connect to the internal PPC were just a bonus, and weren`t soon. Amiga Inc has given it a boost Crap, but hopefully getting better in installed on your hard drive. SCSI devices in my tower I needed a 50 much more than if I had bought a scsi with OS3.5 and PPC things being in- future versions (if there are any). Cons Product Information way high density plug to Centronics kit and graphics card set up (like the cluded, and at the end of the day it`s High spec. boards Expensive. socket adaptor, and a 5 device SCSI ateo-bus) anyway. As to what I think of practically the most powerful miggy Poor documentation and support. Developer: Phase 5 Digital Prod. ribbon and a crimp on Centronics plug the ppc, I must admit I haven`t had you can have. If you wanted to WWW: http://www.phase5.de which I bought at Maplins at a cost of much of a chance to use the PPC side, upgrade to an ‘060 or ‘040 and Distributor: White Knight Tech. about 25 quid. A suitable custom cable except for so-called ‘illegal’ Quake ppc graphics card, then I’d say it makes Te l: 01920 822321 is also available from White Knight for ports and the brilliant ‘Candy Factory more sense to buy the PPC while WWW: about £30. Pro’. I`m quite excited by the PPC side you`re at it, for not much more cost http://welcome.to/white-knight of things though, as there are enough than the rest would normally be. Disgusting, multicolour yawn inducing Price: £200 - £600 approx Once the board and SCSI cabling was programs out now to do with graphics, abomination that insults the Amiga. depending on config. in place and connected, it was time to music, and games, to justify it. And Gary Storm Reviewed: £609 switch on my machine. there are many more on the way.

14 CLUBBED - Issue 2 Winter 1998/99 15 FEATURES REVIEWS

least until a PPC version becomes avail- able. CyberVisionPPC PPC - Why Bother? Encoding is the Holy Grail of MPEGA, and it requires a lot more power than he CyberVision PPC is a screen image, which is slightly softer you will only see every playing. Even so, it is still possible to graphics card which plugs into a than the CV64. The second problem is Thomas Hurst the other line decoded by encode a CD quality sample on the PPC Tdedicated slot on Phase 5’s that the card has no scandoubler or webmaster of AmiSite, a the PPC. The AK without having to set it off a week before CyberStorm PPC accelerators for the monitor switcher built in so you can’t datatypes are available you need it, although you might want to Amiga A3000 and A4000. As the card is easily view standard Amiga modes on popular PPC website, on most AFCD’s and go an make a cup of tea if you have a fitted away from the outer shell of the the same monitor as the graphics card. Aminet. long sample to encode. computer, the video connector is on a I was lucky that my 17” SVGA monitor updates us on the latest small separate PCB attached to a blank- (an Iiyama Vision Master) has two sets PPC software available... Continuing the graphi- Enough of the Serious ing plate, which is connected to the main of inputs and allows you to switch cal theme, Candy board by a flying lead. The between them from the front panel, I Factory should need no specifications of the CVPPC are far in connected my scan-doubled Amiga out- AmigaAMP - CD Quality sound from the Internet Stuff! introduction to web advance of any other current Amiga put to one input, and the CVPPC to the It’s been over a year since PowerPC Thanks to it’s fast FPU, the PPC is well masters - it is a powerful graphics cernable loss of quality. But as you graphics card, as it uses a 3D Labs other so I can easily switch between cards became available for Amiga suited to 3D style games, but a lack of users, and we could finally put a proces- package aimed specifically at creating might imagine, this compression isn’t Permedia 2 graphics processor, which them with a couple of button pushes. good developer tools, documentation sor in our machine that was able to com- good looking logos with glows, shadows cheap in terms of the processor that has both fast 2D and 3D graphics ac- and an official kernel has crippled devel- and textures. The recently released ‘Pro’ does it, so this is a place where the PPC celeration. The card also has 8Mb of At the moment there are no drivers pete with the likes of the Pentium. Many opment so far. were adamant that it would revolutionise version provides a lot more speed and excels. fast SGRAM allowing the use of very available for the 3D acceleration features. Candy Factory really benefits high resolutions at high refresh rates. features of the Permedia 2. Haage and Amiga software. A year down the line, Luckily, thanks to Amiga Inc’s decision from a PPC and a graphics card (in my The popular mpega.library is now avail- For all the high specs, lets find out how Partner have released Warp3D which where did this revolution go? Is PPC still to integrate WarpOS with OS3.5, it looks case, a brand spanking new BVision I’ll able in a PPC version, meaning any it stacks up in real use... will support all the Amiga 3D cards waiting to provide us with a wealth of like PPC gaming is really about to take talk about later), which allow for real software which uses it, such as available (CVPPC, BVision, CV643D new Amiga software, or has it just be- off. come yet another ‘techno tragedy’? time updates - e.g. you can drag a Songplayer, MPEGA and many others, Fitting the CVPPC while the PPC card is and Picasso IV Voodoo module). The lightsource about with the mouse and automatically benefits from the PPC. in the A4000 is quite tricky due to lack of CyberVision PPC driver for Warp3D is It’s ironic that the most played PPC see everything change, like the effects Amiga AMP is another popular player space. Basically all that is needed it to currently in beta testing. Well, right now the estimated PPC user game on the Amiga is probably the well you see in scene demos, only useful. based on AMP on other platforms. This push it into it’s slot but it is hard to be base is around 8,000, and things are publicised illegal Quake port. Now into has the ability to use “Skins” (replace- sure the card is properly seated, espe- just starting to look interesting. Lets take it’s tenth incarnation, it is very fast (al- Conclusion The PPC is very well suited to 3D ment GUI’s), meaning you can either cially as you can’t push on it evenly as a look at some of the apps available though it could be faster), reaching an rendering, and packages such as have a very plain Gadtools version, or a the connector is at one end. Once the If you don’t have a graphics card or now. average of 20FPS on a 166MHz 603 Tornado 3D and the recently released bright, phychedelic one to blend in with card is installed it is then connected to you’ve got an older card like a Picasso II and AGA, and a bit more on a GFX or GVP Spectrum, the CyberVision PPC Probably the most heavily used (if a little PPC version of Imagine make full use of your Workbench. the SVGA output board via a flying lead card. It also supports Total Conversions is an excellent upgrade. It’s fast and boring) use for the PPC is in datatypes - it’s speed. With software like Warp 3D (a about 20cm long. In the A4000 the and on-line Quake, and despite still cheap (£149) by Amiga graphics card the well known and oft updated AK programmers interface for 3D specifi- All these players can decode a full CD board sits right next to the Zorro riser being a bit unstable with on-line play standards. However if you already have Datatypes come with PPC versions for cally aimed at hardware acceleration a- quality MP3 using only about 20% of the card. On the back of the riser there are and on exit, it’s still far more playable a faster card like a CyberVision 64 the JPEG, PNG, TIFF and a few other la Microsoft’s DirectX), we can expect power of the slowest PPC on the Amiga sharp pins which could contact with the than the 68K version. choice is less clear, as the CVPPC is formats (although not GIF, due to licenc- real time previews in future versions for - a 166MHz 603. And as it barely keeps back of the CVPPC if it wasn’t protected. faster but it won’t blow your socks off. ing problems). With these, the raw those of us lucky enough to have a card the 68k ticking over you can happily To protect against this Phase 5 supply a Until 3D software becomes available it’s power of the PPC is obvious - a full with 3D capabilities. render that huge Lightwave scene with- I Have a Vision... paper insulator. I found after only a few out worrying about slowing it down... at weeks the riser pins had nearly come impossible to know whether the 3D ac- screen JPEG can be decoded almost Both the BlizzardPPC and the Most of us are probably under the im- through the paper, so I replaced the in- celeration on the board will make it a instantly. They are shareware, so unless CyberStormPPC come with a custom pression that sound couldn’t possibly sulator with a stronger one made from worthwhile upgrade. If you own a you pay a fee of about £5 for each one slot for a GFX card - the BlizzardVision benefit from a fast laminated plastic, which is a big im- Picasso IV I wouldn’t change to the and CyberVision. These cards utilise the processor, but you’d Serious Fun! provement. CVPPC. By all accounts the PIV is only Permedia 2 chipset - one of the better be wrong. The most slightly slower and has the advantages A list of some of the more interesting chipsets on the market today with good obvious example of The board uses the tried and tested of a scan doubler and many optional looking PPC games on the horizon: 2D performance, and excellent 3D this is with MPEG CyberGraphX driver system. As this is modules. Hopefully the 3D aspects will capabilities - in excess of those of the Audio, namely discussed in depth in the Graphics be covered by the 3DFX module • Explorer 2260 - Promises to be the Playstation. The recently released MPEGA Layer 3, Cards feature elsewhere I won’t go into Villageonic are planning. best space trading game since Elite, Warp3D promises to provide easy better known as it here, suffice to say that it works very on any plat- form. access to these fast 3D functions for MP3. well. Speed wise the card is noticeably Robert Williams • Wipeout 2097 - The Playstation hit programmers, so we can expect the faster in normal operation than my previ- comes to the PPC. likes of Wipeout and Explorer 2260 to MP3 is a highly ous card (a CyberVision 64), window Results • FUBAR - A(nother?) real time be able to fully take advantage of them. compressed audio redraw seems more “snappy” and scroll- strategy wargame, although as the Unfortunately we have yet to see a format that has ing is smoother. Another benefit is that I developer can’t afford a PPC card... Warp3D driver for either board, but we revolutionised music can now use higher resolution screens • II - the sequel to the should see something soon. The boards distribution on the in high colour (due to more RAM) and at well know Settlers themselves are excellent GFX cards, Internet - a CD better refresh rates. • Claws of the Devil - Some sort of despite not having much support for quality audio file can Tomb Raider clone their 3D functions. I am using A BVision be compressed The CVPPC does have a couple of • Total Combustion - Drive about and now, and all I can say is GET ONE! down to a tenth of problems which detract somewhat from blow things up it’s size with no dis- its high specification: The first is that the Candy Factory Pro exploits PPC and graphics cards flying lead does limit the quality of the 16 CLUBBED - Issue 2 Winter 1998/99 17 FEATURES FEATURES

it gives the widest compatibility. P96 and least a 75Hz refresh rate in your chosen also has its own API but this is little used resolution. One very useful aspect of Jargon Buster as the CyberGraphX API has a much both CyberGraphX and Picasso 96 is wider user base (P96 and CgX users). that you can use a preferences program Retargeting to alter existing or define your own Showing Amiga screens on a device Graphics Cards In general the two driver systems seem screenmodes. This means you can other than the Amiga’s custom chip- to be pretty similar and it’s mostly a case create modes that get the very best out set e.g. a graphics card. A graphics card is one of the most sought-after of personal preference which you decide of your particular monitor. Both the to use. There are a few graphics cards systems come with a good set of Display Memory/Video RAM additions to any Amiga. Robert Williams explains where one driver is preferable, on the defaults to get you started too. The memory on a graphics card used the pros and cons of these add-ons and how you Picasso IV the supplied Picasso 96 to hold the current display on the driver is said to be better than the The Software monitor screen. If you have several can add one to your Amiga. CyberGraphX one and is compatible screens open at once they will all be Explained with the add-on modules for example. Graphics cards that are supported by held in the display memory until it When the Amiga was first released its bus and supply Both drivers used to be provided free of CyberGraphX and Picasso 96 integrate runs out, then they are held in Fast multimedia (and this was before the software to charge however starting with the newly pretty seamlessly into the Amiga en- RAM. word had even been invented) redirect Amiga released version 4 CyberGraphX has vironment. Workbench and most other capabilities set it apart from the crowd. displays to the become a commercial product selling for programs that allow you to pick their Screenmode Full colour graphics and animation with graphics card. about £25. Picasso 96 is now shareware screenmode can be run in all the Defines a particular display, this in- sound and the realistic HAM modes and costs 30DM (about £10) to register. resolutions available. Unless a program cludes the resolution, number of amazed the world. Over the years com- The first cards to is designed to use 16 or 24bit graphics colours and the hardware used to peting systems improved and in the last appear were It is very important that when you buy a card modes it will only have a 256 colour generate the display. 5 years the very abilities that made the simply 24bit dis- graphics card you make sure it is sup- (if it was designed for AGA) display even Amiga a success are looking very tired. play devices ported by either Picasso 96 or if you run it in a 16 or 24bit graphics Display Database Funnily enough the operating system these basically CyberGraphX or you won’t be able to card screenmode. However you can run The list of screenmodes available on which was hidden away in allowed pictures use modern 24bit software with it, only several AGA programs on one 16 or a particular Amiga, you can see this Commodore’s advertising (such that it and animations the specially written software for your 24bit screen and they won’t “steal” list in the Screenmode preferences was) has stood the test of time much to be displayed card. colours from each other. editor. better in many respects. in true colour but did not allow Monitors Both Picasso 96 and CgX will allow you Zorro Anyway back to the plot... what many Workbench and to have a 16/24bit Workbench screen so The type of expansion slot fitted to Amigans are looking for is a way to im- other programs Because they are based around stan- any programs that run on the big box Amigas like the A2000, With a graphics card everything from web browsing to prove their Amiga’s display. As usual to use the hires dard graphics chips Amiga graphics Workbench can take advantage of the A3000 and A4000. You can add Zorro word processing becomes faster and more pleasurable, many innovative Amiga hardware com- high colour dis- cards work best with a standard true colour display. Both systems slots to A1200 using a bus board panies have take up the challenge and play unless they you’ll never have to worry about Chip RAM again! monitors rather than at video Workbench so you can use 24bit back- from companies like Micronik and produced a wide range of add-on were specifically written for the card. work on any CyberGraphX supported resolutions. In many ways this is a good ground images on the Workbench and in RBM; these bus boards require a graphics cards for the Amiga. Most of Typical cards of this type were the card. This lead to a boom in software thing as you can go out and take your windows. There are also 24bit datatypes tower to house them. There are two the cards are based on standard OpalVision and the Harlequin. supporting true colour displays, and now pick from the many high quality monitors that give much better results in types of Zorro slot, Zorro II is a 16bit graphics processors originally intended almost all Amiga graphics software can at bargain prices available in the PC CyberGraphX aware applications. slot fitted to the A2000 and A1500, for the PC market. The Amiga boards The second generation of cards allowed take advantage of a graphics card. market. A decent monitor allows you to most A1200 bus boards are also ZII. have to adapt these chips for the Workbench and programs not designed CyberGraphX also provides retargeting view the screen clearly and because Programs that don’t have a screen Zorro III is 32bit, much faster and was Amiga’s Zorro system or other custom to use a graphics card to be retargeted of most OS compliant programs to a they have high refresh rates you won’t mode requester can often be made to fitted to the A3 and 4000s. ZII cards to their screens. Each card used dif- graphics card and because it is regularly notice any flicker. open on a graphics card screen using a can be used in ZIII slots but not vice Contacts ferent custom software to achieve this updated even owners of older cards screen promotion commodity. Several of versa. and programs that wanted a 24bit dis- benefit up-to-date drivers. CyberGraphX As a guide on a 14 or 15” monitor a these programs are available on Aminet. Software play had to be coded for a particular has become the de-facto standard for comfortable display is probably an 800 x Screen promoters run in the background True Colour or 24bit Display CyberGraphX card. Many of these cards are now sup- on the Amiga. 600 pixel resolution, on a 17” 1024 x and pop-up a requester every time a The colour each pixel in the display is http://www.vgr.com/cybergfx ported by Picasso 96 and CyberGraphX 768 is common. Depending on the program tries to open a screen, in the described with 24bits of data enabling Picasso96 allowing them to run modern software. More recently a challenger to quality of the monitor and your requester you can choose to leave the a palette of 16.7 Million colours to be http://picasso96.home.pages.de/ CyberGraphX’s dominance of Amiga preference you may be able to use program alone or force it to open in displayed. This is enough colours to http://www.picasso96.cogito.de/ Finally, in 1995 Phase 5 released the graphics card software has arrived in the higher resolutions. To get a flicker free another screenmode (for example a display photo-realistic pictures. CyberVision 64, this was a real form of Picasso 96 which Village Tronic display you should make sure your mon- graphics card screen). When you’re Hardware breakthrough in more ways than one. released in conjunction with their itor and graphics card can achieve at happy the program runs well on it’s new High Colour or 16bit Display Ateo Concepts Firstly it is a fine graphics board with Picasso IV graphics card. Like CgX, P96 screen you can save the setting so that The colour each pixel in the display is http://www.ateo-concepts.com 4Mb of display memory and a fast 64bit supports most Amiga graphics card al- every time that program tries to open its described with 16bits of data enabling White Knight - (01920) 822321 graphics processor. More importantly it though there are a few cards only sup- screen it is forced into the mode of your a palette of 65 thousand colours to be Phase 5 Digital Products came with the CyberGraphX software ported by one system or the other and choice transparently. displayed. Most images will be photo- http://www.phase5.de which instead of being proprietary to one some which aren’t supported at all. P96 realistic on a 16bit display but you Blittersoft - (01908) 261466 particular card could be extended to is compatible with almost all software Some programs that access the Amiga can sometimes notice banding in Power Computing (01234) 851800 cover almost any graphics card (and in written for CyberGraphX version 2 API graphics hardware directly, particularly smooth gradients. White Knight fact now supports almost all the cards (Application Programming Interface - an games, cannot be made to work on a Village Tronic available). This meant that programmers interface used by programs to communi- (part of theCGraphX CyberGraphX Mode package) graphics card. In this case they can still Refresh Rate http://www.villagetronic.com now only had to support one standard – cate with each other); most software allows you to define screenmodes that be used with the standard Amiga video The number of times per second a Blittersoft CyberGraphX – and their program would with 24bit support uses this standard as get the most out of your monitor. output. There are a couple of problems monitor’s screen is updated.

18 CLUBBED - Issue 2 Winter 1998/99 19 FEATURES FEATURES with this, firstly as your graphics card is from 1992 on can be used on a graphics Naturally Graphics programs in par- Zorro Bus Board and Picasso IV plugged into the monitor how are you card screen, many older ones can be ticular benefit more than most from a A1200 Graphics going to see the output and secondly promoted. I used my Amiga for over a graphics card. Now instead of having a £150 + £250 = £400 (including video slot for scan doubler) most Amiga screenmodes are not year with no access to Amiga screens dithered 256 colour or fringed HAM “pre- Card Options The Picasso IV is widely regarded as the best Zorro graphics card, it autosenses usable on an SVGA monitor that you’d however I eventually bought a scan view” of the image you’re working on he A1200 is currently the most Zorro II or III so if you’re planning to upgrade to an A4000 this would be a good probably choose to use with a graphics doubler because I missed watching you can work on the real thing. Another popular Amiga model (only 3 out choice. With a ZII bus board the Picasso will not be able to give its full perfor- card. demos which can’t usually be promoted. area that really benefits is web browsing Tof 27 SEALs have a different mance but still goes very well due to the fast graphics processor and memory. The on the Internet where many pages are Amiga) unfortunately due to its compact PIV also gives you the option to add a several plug-in modules and has a built in Some graphics cards do nothing to help designed for fast high colour displays. Benefits desktop case it is also one of the most scan douber/ for AGA modes so you won’t need a multisync monitor. you here so you’d need to have a Even simple pages scroll much more difficult and expensive to add a graphics As the Zorro II busboard will allow you to add other Zorro cards if you wish this second monitor for your Amiga output. If A graphics card will enhance almost smoothly and benefit from the extra res- card to. In this section we’ll look at the system will give you the widest possible expansion options. your monitor can display both Amiga everything you do with your Amiga. olution. One of the packages that I found various methods of adding A graphics and graphics card modes you could get Even mundane activities like Workbench benefited a lot from a graphics card was cards to the A1200, their pros, cons and Z III Bus Board, A4000 Accel. and Picasso IV an external monitor switch (which can become much easier and more pleasant PageStream 3, not only does It support relative cost. All these options require degrade the display quality) and if your when you have plenty of resolution and 16 and 24bit screen modes so that im- your Amiga to be in a tower. £250 + £450 + £250 = £950 monitor can’t you’d need a scan doubler colours to play with. Graphics card ported pictures look stunning but the and a switch. Many other graphics cards screens don’t use any chip RAM so you extra resolution available allows much Micronik make a Zorro III bus board which at first would seem to be the ideal way have a passthrough for the Amiga can stop worrying about running out and more of a page to be displayed readably Zorro Bus Boards to add a graphics card to an A1200. Unfortunately the bus board falls down on a couple of points, firstly it is very expensive, at £250, for this price you could almost signal, this means you connect your fully utilise the Amiga’s excellent multi- at once. In general Zorro Bus boards for the buy a second hand A4000. Then to run in Zorro III mode you need an A4000 ac- Amiga output to the graphics card and tasking. Graphics card screens are also A1200 are not as compatible as a pro- celerator which are both significantly more expensive than the equivalent A1200 the graphics card to the monitor. When much faster than AGA, on most cards a duction Amiga Zorro system, make sure Conclusion board and are hard to find second hand. Overall I can’t see a scenario where the you switch to a standard Amiga screen 256 colour graphics card Workbench will the Zorro cards you want to use will Micronik ZIII solution could justify it’s cost. or boot from floppy to play an old game be faster than an 8 colour AGA one and I think a graphics card is the best work with the busboard when you order the Amiga signal gets passed through to a 16bit one will be very usable (way way upgrade you can get for your Amiga it. That said I many people run excellent Blizzard PPC and BVision PPC your monitor. Because the Amiga signal faster than 256 colour AGA and in (once you’ve got the basics like a A1200 systems with Zorro bus boards. is not altered you’ll need a multisync higher resolutions to boot). If you get a harddrive) if you use it for applications Another aspect to note is that the Zorro £200 to £550 + £140 = £340 to £690 monitor that can handle the Amiga graphics card you may find you need to rather than games. You’ll find everything bus boards from Micronik and RBM both one of the most attractive features of Phase5’s PPC cards is the ability to add a modes as well as graphics card modes upgrade your Fast RAM because the you do transformed with much of your require an optional extra to give them a graphics card. Along with the fast SCSI II interface fitted to some boards this (Amiga 1438 or 1701 for example) or a software uses Fast RAM to hold screens software collection getting a huge new video slot (an extra slot in-line with a makes them a complete expansion system. The BVision PPC offers the best per- scan doubler that allows standard Amiga that are not being displayed and to buff- lease of life and a whole range of pro- Zorro slot that gives the Zorro card formance of all Amiga graphics boards (along with it’s sister the CVision PPC) and modes to be used on an SVGA. The er the main display. Also if you start fessional applications becoming avail- access to Amiga video and audio sells for about £100 less than the Picasso IV. If you want a complete upgrade of third and best choice is a graphics card using graphics programs in higher able to you. signals). As a rule only graphics cards your A1200 to the highest level then the BlizzPPC/BVPPC combo is hard to beat. with a built in scan doubler, these cards resolutions you’ll almost certainly start to like the Picasso IV which have a built-in Just be aware that it doesn’t allow you to add any other cards like the Ateo and plug into an Amiga with a video slot and create bigger and more complicated It’s amazing that the AmigaOS which scan doubler need access to the video Zorro bus boards do, although you can still use expansions that use other inter- take Amiga video from the s projects that need more RAM! was never designed with graphics cards slot. If you need a video slot in your faces such as the clock port or even a bus board along with your PPC card! Also in mind has been patched so seamlessly Zorro board the kit costs about £40 the BVision doesn’t have a pass through or built in scan doubler. If you only use application software As mentioned before with a graphics by CyberGraphX and Picasso 96 that extra. you’ll probably be able to get away with- card and programs supporting 16 and graphics cards now really feel part of the out access to the standard Amiga 24bit screenmodes you can use many system. Basically get one, you won’t Z II Busboard and 2nd hand Z II graphics card Elbox Zorro IV modes as practically all applications programs the way they were intended. regret it! £110 + £70 = £180 Bus board with ZIV Graphics card As the Picasso IV is the only currently available Zorro graphics card in the UK it is Common Graphics Cards well worth looking at the second hand market if the PIV has more features than Guesstimate £250 you need. A quick visit to the Amiga sales web sites and newsgroups shows that As we mentioned in the News section Some of the more common graphics cards available both new and second hand: cards like the Picasso II and GVP Spectrum are often available for about £70, Elbox (makers of the Power Tower) Name Maker Slot RAM P/T S/D CGX P96 New? Price Comments nearly £200 less than a Picasso IV. For this you get a usable graphics card, sup- are bringing out a new busboard CyberVision 64 Phase 5 ZIII 2-4Mb Y N Y Y N £100 A good fast board for Zorro ported by CyberGraphX and Picasso 96 and a Zorro bus board allowing you to which will have both Zorro II slots and III Amigas ONLY. add any of the huge selection of Zorro boards available (there is quite a choice of their own custom slots which they call Slightly slower than the Zorro cards as long as you’re prepared to buy second hand). Even though this Zorro IV. The first card for Zorro IV CyberVision 64/3D Phase 5 ZII/III 4Mb OPT OPT Y Y N £100 CV64 but with 3D accl. and solution will be slower than the Ateo alternative at a similar price it does offer you will be a graphics card and Zorro IV is optional scan doubler. more flexibility over the additional cards you choose. CyberVision PPC Phase 5 CS PPC 8Mb N N Y N Y £150 See review on pg17. said to be even faster than the Ateo BlizzardVision PPC Phase 5 Blizz PPC 8Mb N N Y N Y £140 See comments on pg 21. AteoBus and Pixel 64 bus with a 15Mb/s transfer rate. This would give Zorro III cards like the Picollo I buro Helfrich ZII 1-2Mb Y N Y Y N £50 Similar to Picasso II. £239 Picollo SD64 I buro Helfrich ZII/III 2-4Mb Y N Y Y N £70 Solid board, faster than Picasso IV a run for their money assuming that a fast graphics proces- Picasso II Ateo Concepts have designed their own expansion system for the A1200 called sor and RAM are used. This bus Picasso II(+) Village Tronic ZII 1-2Mb Y N Y Y N £70 Reliable but getting old. the Ateobus. This system uses custom expansion cards incompatible with the board would seem to be a good Picasso IV Village Tronic ZII/III 4Mb N YYYY£250 King of the Zorro boards. Amiga’s Zorro standard. The bus board plugs into the A1200’s fast slot (with a choice as it gives you a cheap fast Retina MacroSystem ZII 1-4Mb NNNNN£50Slow, only really suited for pass-through) and provides 4 slots for a variety of expansion cards. The first card graphics card and the flexibility of 24bit picture display. to be available is a graphics card called the Pixel 64 with I/O, Ethernet, sound and Zorro slots and two clock ports. If our Retina BLT/Z3 MacroSystem ZIII 4Mb OPT N Y Y N £90 SCSI cards planned in the near future. The Ateo bus is faster than Zorro II and estimated price is correct this could Only available new in USA. very good value for money. The graphics card offers average performance. If you prove to be excellent value for such a Spectrum 28/24 GVP(M) ZII 2Mb Y N Y Y Y £120* Similar to Picasso II except are satisfied with sticking to Ateo’s cards for future expansion then the Ateobus is flexible expansion system. it supports Zorro III. the cheapest way of adding a new graphics card to your A1200. *Approx new price from US Amiga dealers. 20 CLUBBED - Issue 2 Winter 1998/99 21 REVIEWS REVIEWS

disks, DOpus can even use your selected files is always the source. This New In II WBPattern preferences for the backdrop means you soon get used to checking and window patterns. It’s when you exactly what is selected before starting Lets take a look at what GP Software double click an icon to open a an operation. This automatic selection Directory Opus have added to Magellan II: window (called a lister in DOpus) that does drastically reduce the amount of the changes start to become apparent. source/destination setting you have to Robert Williams takes a look at the Themes - See main text. In DOpus listers have 3 display modes: do manually. latest version of Directory Opus, what Icon mode looks and acts almost exactly Improved Lister Layouts - Lister like Workbench. Name mode has a list Your Wish is my does it offer new users and what Magellan information fields can now be resized. of files and directories like a view by improvements are there for upgraders? A useful sort indicator in the title line name Workbench window but it also has Command shows you which field the list is a button bank and popup menus so When you click on a button in a DOpus sorted on and in which direction. You common functions are just a click away. in the manual so this isn’t much of a lister or choose an option from the pop- Product Information can now use proportional fonts in The final mode is Icon Action which is a chore. Once installed you have to II up menu you are actually causing an your name mode listers too. combination of the previous two adding Developer: GP Software serialise DOpus and this procedure has Opus command or set of commands to name mode buttons to the icon view. Distributor: Compute! to repeated if you re-install or move be executed. Lister buttons are only one Te l: +44 (0) 181 303 1800 DOpus on your harddisk. of the many ways you can execute As with Workbench you can snapshot WWW: www.gpsoft.com.au these commands. DOpus allows you to any lister into a particular mode but www.wizard-d.demon.co.uk One of the options you get when you set up your own menus (similar to Tools DOpus goes much further with this Address: 5 Blackfen Parade, install DOpus is if you want to start it in Daemon), button banks (replacing functionality allowing you to set up what Sidcup, Workbench Replacement Mode (WbR). utilities like Tool Manager). New in the information is shown (in name mode) Kent, DA15 9LU While you can run DOpus 5 like a stan- Magellan version are startmenus which Amalgamated Options and and even what buttons are on the button Price: DOpus: £49.99 dard directory utility, loading it when are buttons with a cascading menu ala Environment Editor - The monster bar for any directory. Plus CD: £29.99 needed, it is really designed with the Windows 95. But that’s not all (!!!!) you A typical DOpus name mode lister preferences editor was born... it’s got u/g from 5.6+: £34.99 WbR mode in mind. If you choose to can setup commands to execute when even more pages than MUI preferen- Each lister actually runs as a seperate u/g from 5.5: £39.99 install DOpus as a Workbench replace- used in almost exactly the same way as you perform certain actions like inserting ces! process which means that when one or u/g from 4+: £44.99 ment it loads as you boot your Amiga Workbench but it’s file management a disk or opening and closing listers more listers are busy you can simply instead of Workbench (which contrary to power is always there when you need (there’s about 30 actions to choose Background Pictures in Button open another one and get on with irectory Opus is probably one popular belief is just another program it... from). Banks and Start Menus somthing else, this is very different from for the most popular programs (albeit and important one) loaded by the Workbench where you always had to Dfor the Amiga and seems to be loadwb command in your s:startup- Direcrory Opus provides a huge range File Management Outline and Shadow Desktop Font wait for the current function to finish found somewhere on almost everyone’s sequence). If for some reason you need of file management commands with Options before starting another. machine. When GPSoftware upgraded a standard Workbench you can hold Initially a DOpus screen (in either WbR everything from simple copy, delete and DOpus (as it’s affectionately known) to down Shift while you bood to disable or standalone mode) looks very similar move to much more complex actions Configurable Screen Title When you want to perform an action version 5 they took a big step in aban- DOpus. In WbR mode DOpus can be to Workbench with icons for all your like encryption... whatever you want to between two or more directories, for ex- doning the fixed two file list design of do to files you’ll almost certainly find Sound Events ample copying or moving files you have previous versions (and many other file DOpus can do it. If it can’t then you’re to tell DOpus where the source files are managers) and changed to a much DOPus Plus CD free to use your own commands, these Long - Support for file coming from and where the destination more flexible unlimited windowed can be Workbench or shell programs Along with the new Magellan II version of Directory Opus 5 GP Software have systems which support more than the is. Each lister has a box at the top right design. Many existing DOpus users and AREXX or shell scripts. What’s also released a companion CD for DOpus called DOpus Plus. Amiga’s 30 character filenames. hand corner that displays SRC, DEST or made the change but quite a few found more you can define any combination of OFF. If you click this box you get a menu it just too different. However the change these so you could copy some files On the DOpus Plus CD there is a collection of enhancements, themes, icons and Improved Button Bank Editor - with so you can choose a different option for did make DOpus attractive to many new using the DOpus internal copy com- images to help you customise your DOpus. The highlight of the CD however is the a new layout and options for auto- this lister. Normally you can only have users, myself included. mand then work on them with an ex- excelent set of HTML tutorials which can be viewed using any webbrowser (a cut close button banks which close as one source and one destination but if ternal shell command with one click! down version of IBrowse is included). The tutorials are split into four sections: soon as you choose an option. you wanted, for example, to copy the The version of DOpus I’m looking at Whether you are setting up a command Another useful new option are Active same files to several directories at once here is called Magellan II and version to be executed from a button, menu, Starting - Explains the basics of Opus in a nice friendly style including plenty of Popups which allow any button to act you can lock several listers as destina- number wise it is actually version 5.8. double click or any of the other methods information for users upgrading DOpus 4. as a start menu. tion and DOpus will copy the same files This version is the culmination of 4 you’ll find you always use the same to all the directories. As you select dif- major upgrades since DOpus 5 was Function Editor so you only need to Advanced - Once you’re happy using DOpus this section has loads of hits and Improved Lister and Group Pop-up ferent listers DOpus tries to guess which released. learn it once. tips to personalise DOpus just how you want it. Menus and Improved Snapshot you want to be source and destination, DOpus Magellan II Is supplied on just 3 Ability - More icon functions are now making sure that the current lister with DD floppy disks and comes with a sub- Coding - How to program add-ons for DOpus in both AREXX and C. Extensive available in the icon information File Types requester allowing you to change the stantial manual for version 5.5 (2 ver- tutorials are included for both languages. DOpus has a built in file type recognition icon type (Disk, Project, Tool etc.) and sions ago) and an addendum manual for system which lets it recognise a par- send the icon straight to the editor of Magellan II. When you come to install Fun Stuff - This section includes lists of utilities that compliment DOpus and ticular type of data file from its file exten- your choice (IconEdit or Iconian for the program you find that the disks like those that don’t work with it. How to navigate around Opus with the keyboard and sion (.jpg, .avi etc.) or internal structure. example). the manuals consist of version 5.5 and a few tips and tricks you might not have picked up on. Opus comes with a wide variety of file an upgrade to Magellan II even if you types it can recognise and there are The tutorials are really cool and will help you get going with DOpus much more Better and Faster Icon Support buy the full version. The means you several packages of file types available quickly. Even long term users are bound to find many things they didn’t know have to install 5.5 and then upgrade it to on Aminet (and the DOpus Plus CD, see Much Improved DOpus FTP The Function Editor allows you to Magellan II, however the installation is about before. Along with the useful collection of add-ons I’d say this CD was well boxout). If you can’t find one matching Module - See seperate box out. specify different types of command very straight forward and well explained worth buying. the file you want then you can make and combinations of them. 22 CLUBBED - Issue 2 Winter 1998/99 23 REVIEWS REVIEWS your own using the filetype editor. Once Replacing 3rd Party A new feature of Magellan II is themes loves to customise his environment and you’ve found or created your filetype which allow you to save an Opus con- set up everything “just so” it’s great. The you can specify the commands you’d Hacks figuration complete with backgrounds, work you have to put in learning it is well like available for that file. When you right colours and sound effects to a theme worth it for the rewards you get... previ- After several years of development click a file you get a pop-up menu of file. You can then recall all those set- ously complex operations are a snap. Sound Probe Directory Opus Magellan II is a very basic commands like rename and delete tings by loading the theme file. This fea- So if you don’t have DOpus 5 get it stable Workbench replacement and in but with the filetype editor you can add ture allows you to build up a library of NOW... in a couple of months I think Geoff Milne, head honcho of the about two years of use I haven’t found options to this menu specific to that type your favorite themes and have a random you’ll never want to give it up. anything that won’t run because of it. of file. For example you could add an one each time you load Opus. You can Huddersfield Amiga User Group Because DOpus has functions like tool- Edit option to IFF ILBM files that loads also download themes from the internet Another question is whether the bars, user definable menus, NewIcons reviews this sampling software. them into your favorite paint program for or CDs to use (the DOpus Plus CD has Magellan II upgrade is worth the money, support and is much more configurable editing. You can also specify commands many examples, see boxout) and to be honest as you can see from the than Workbench you’ll probably find that are executed when you double click DOpus can convert themes intended for What’s New boxout the changes are I go through phases with my software items being taken care of for the future. many of your current hacks and patches or drag and drop files. As an example of Windows 95 so there’s a huge library all mostly minor improvements, nothing spending maybe a couple of months He also provides2 a website containing can be removed resulting in a more this by default DOpus comes setup to ready and waiting. that’s a real “must have”. For the doing 3D rendering, same with MIDI, information and upgrades for stable system. view the contents of an lha archive upgrade price, which is well over half with such things as DTP, wordprocess- Soundprobe which I have found very when you double click it and to de- the new price, I would expect this to be ing and spreadsheets etc. being fitted in helpful. As you would expect DOpus fully sup- But it Can’t all be Perfect crunch it when you drag and drop it into a major upgrade. If all the changes to and amongst. I also keep returning to ports CyberGraphX so you can have a I can think of very few bad things to say another directory. the main program and the FTP module sound sampling as I really do enjoy The interface itself is similar to Stefan beautiful 16 or 24bit Workbench if you about DOpus Magellan II but I think it’s are important to you then it’s probably playing around with soundtracks with the Kost’s SFX which allows the user to have a graphics card and also seems to main problem is its sheer complexity. worth it. In my opinion GPSoftware intention of eventually using them for open different windows on screen run stably with hacks like MCP which Although the concepts are the same all would have done better to put the video. I normally use a multitrack tape depending on what you wish to achieve. some of us couldn’t live without. over the program (like the common Magellan II upgrade on the DOpus Plus deck to compile a soundtrack but The main difference between Function Editor I mentioned earlier) CD and sold it as a bundle. This would recently, I have been giving thought to Soundprobe & SFX is that Soundprobe there are still a huge number of options. Opus FTP Module give upgraders and new users the really the possibility of using the Amiga but allows you to record sounds as well as GP Software are obviously aware of this useful tutorials and extras along with the without Zorro slots, 16 bit sound sam- edit them which is what really sets it as one of the changes in Magellan II is It’s amazing what you can do with a DOpus lister but one of the cleverest features minor improvements in Magellan II for a pling has not been easy. I did, last year apart. I have used SFX for quite some to place all the preferences in a single of DOpus which has seen its second manjor update in Magellan II is the FTP reasonable price. As it is I find it really at the WOA in London, purchase the time now and still haven’t reached it’s multi-page Environment requester in- module. FTP ( Protocol) is a popular method of moving files bettween hard to call this upgrade good value for Clarity 16 cartridge and was told at the limits but find Soundprobe easier in use stead of in two requesters which made it computers on networks and the Internet, for example Aminet is available on FTP money. time of some new software being written plus the fact I can record AND edit using sites all over the world so anyone with an Internet connection and an FTP pro- hard to find a particular option. However to take advantage of the Clarity. It the same software. gram (often called a client) can access it’s massive archives of Amiga software. the new Environment requester now has recently arrived in the form of 21 pages so it’s still a lot to search Soundprobe available from HiSoft in the On the default screen, a sample window The DOpus FTP module is an FTP client which instead of being a stand-alone through. Personally I love the way you Results UK for less than 30 UK pounds and I is automatically opened upon launching program displays the content of the remote FTP site in an Opus lister. You can can setup Opus to do just what you want invested. the program with other windows avail- then use the normal Opus commands on the remote files even though the FTP and I think the huge number of options Pros able from menu items including sam- server may be on the other side of the world. As an example when I update my are inevitable to achieve this. If you’ve Configurable to the nth Each aspect of sampling is covered by a pling, audio playback and effects. website I copy the files onto the webserver using FTP. With the Opus FTP module never used Opus at all before (as I different settings requester making it Almost all the tools are duplicated in I simply open a lister for the website directory on my harddisk and another for the hadn’t when I originally got it) you’ll dgeree. appear exceptionally difficult to set up. I menus so whichever you find easier to FTP site and drag the files over. probably find it takes some time (maybe Expandable with commands wanted to record direct to hard drive, use is the obvious answer. The software a couple of months of regular use) to get which the manual said was possible, but is modular in concept which allows for For use with Aminet DOpus FTP doesn’t support the useful ADT (acronym alert: comfortable with all the options that are Cons I couldn’t find the correct settings. It was the easy addition of further effects or Aminet Download Tool) mode that AmFTP implements which allows you to view available. Even then occasionally you’ll Intimidating for beginners. only after two weeks that I found, by configuration files for any other 16 bit the most recent uploads since you last visited... however DOpus FTP does show find new things. Upgrade expensive for what you get. accident, a complete configuration set- samplers not yet covered. you the short description of each file as you browse Aminet which AmFTP doesn’t ting for the Clarity which, when loaded, The Opus manual is extremely through so if you’re a regular visitor like me you might want to use AmFTP to check what’s Full Version: allowed instant use of the Clarity car- Loading and saving of 8SVX, AIFF, AVR, new but for general Aminet browsing and FTP work I think Opus FTP now has the going through how everything works, all tridge. This wasn’t mentioned in the RAW and WAV files are currently sup- edge over its rival. the commands that are available, and manual but I am informed by the author, ported and the requester for saving files what all the options do. However it is Dave O’Reilly, that this is one of the allows the selection of the type of file In Opus Magellan II the FTP module has been enhanced again (there were major very much a reference rather than a you wish to save your sample as along improvements in the original Magellan). Some of the cool new features include: tutorial manual. It’s not the sort of man- Product Information with an ‘info’ button which gives you ual you can take to bed and read (OK, Caviar details of that particular filetype i.e Custom configurations for each site including custom tool bars for FTP listers. I’m that sad I’m afraid). What would be Developer: David O’Reilly Distributor: Hisoft great would be a set of tutorials to get WAV INFO: Loads/Saves RIFF-WAVE Te l: (0500) 223660 Recursive copying and deleting so you can copy whole directory structures in one new users going (see DOpus Plus CD Format. go, great for websites. boxout for details of a tutorial set avail- Upgrade: WWW: www.hisoft.co.uk support: www.york.ac.uk/ able) otherwise there’s a good chance Load supports 8/16bit PCM data. Save ~djor100/sprobe.htm You can now use the new NEWER option of the Copy command with the FTP some of Opus’ power will be left un- 16bit PCM data. module to copy only files that don’t exist or have a newer file date than those on used. Address: The Old School, Greenfield, the FTP site. With the new recursive operation you can update a website with one Format Supports: Stereo Bits Per Bedford, MK45 5DE copy command! Sample:16 Conclusion Price: Full Version: £29 V.1 Upgrade: £10 DOpus FTP is cool and in many ways out does stand-alone FTP programs plus it Opus is one of those programs which Righto! You’ve plugged in your sampler, has the advantage of being integrated into DOpus. make you wonder how you ever lived set the config for it - now you have a without it. For someone like me who 24 CLUBBED - Issue 2 Winter 1998/99 25 REVIEWS REVIEWS

waiting for a 23 meg AHI Also in this version is Arexx support for It is possible to open file to Mix with a those of you able to take advantage - dozens (is there a smaller one direct For those not familiar with AHI, it is a bit scripts will probablystart appearing on metric equivalent of from hard drive on of software which sits on your machine Aminet shortly. I shall be keeping an eye a dozen I wonder?) the tower, I tested a and allows you to channel sound out for these as I know as much about of sample windows slightly smaller file through whichever output you prefer be Arexx as I do about nuclear physics. which can soon on the 030 without it a sound card or the internal Paula cover the tool an Undo buffer. A chip, using an AHI driver if one is avail- Shortly after I started to write this article, windows - so a 15.5 meg soundfile able. the postman delivered a small packet to Projects Window took just under 2 me containing version 2.11 of can be opened to minutes to save on Once set, any other software which has Soundprobe which, as well as one or handle them all!!! an 030/050 - cutting AHI support just sends it’s output to AHI two fixes, also contains access to Arexx From within this a small segment and AHI sends it on to your chosen card through a menu item and support for Window you can from the centre of (or chip). It is the sound equivalent to re- Surround Sound too! So it just got better Open/ Delete/ Load/ this same file took targettable graphics and should you again even before it had finished getting Save/ Remove and 20 secs and 40 secs change the way your sound is sent out better!!! I have no idea as to how long it Hide sample View your sample using any one of the many display options. to add Reverb to the from the Amiga i.e. change from the built will be before this version hits the shops windows. The You can mix samples using different settings same section. in Paula chipset to a Zorro soundcard, but I would check out the Sound Probe sample windows for each one in the Project Mixer. choice of 18 different kinds of monitor These times are a deal faster if you use you just change AHI prefs to point to the support web site if you have access to themselves all have display to choose from! Granted, some RAM for storage rather than hard drive card and all your software output will the Internet as upgrade patches have a size gadget on them as well as a verti- enough to run a proficient home record- of these are very similar and it’s mostly but you do require quite a bit of memory automatically be re-routed to the card. been posted here before. Just make cal Zoom so re-arranging them is quite ing studio - or you could just use it for cosmetic anyway, but if you like LED’s for this task. sure you have SPII first of course. easy. I should mention that ALL the making up soundtracks for like flashing to show you your recording Most settings requesters are available windows including the tools are floating wot I do. (I play as well though...) level, or bar graphs, colour multiscopes Direct Hard Drive Editing from the Settings menu with a choice of Using Soundprobe is quite easy if you so you can position them anywhere you or any one of three different oscillos- seven individual requesters but each have played around with sample editing like. When quitting, the positions are With quite a lot of the effects it is also copes, just take your pick. Each one has When you consider that with a file being one of these requesters has a cycle software before - all the effects are saved so the tools windows open in the possible to manipulate a sound source an Info file for it so you can obtain more edited directly from HD, the software button which will take you through ALL under ermmmm... an Effects menu as same place next time you use SP. in real-time - feed in the sound from the detail of the flashing lights if you wish. has to find the relevant bit by skimming the other settings in turn. Once these are Process under - guess what? News, add an effect and play it back through it (all these files appear to be are set, by loading a default setting for Process! Simple single menu items are Recording through an amp. It’s probably about the Before you sample you have to set the recorded sequentially), finding the exact instance, most will not require changing available for DeNoise and DeCrackle for only time you’ll get a laugh from the size and rate of sample from within the range before actually being able to act for normal sampling work. Just one im- those samples lifted from noisy sources With anything less than an 060, it is wise News these days! Sampler window, accessed like all the upon it is quite some task. SoundprobeII portant setting is missing from the above and, should you wish to fade in/ fade out to sample at around 22050 cycles as, others from a Menu item. It is also pos- is a great improvement in this area and, requesters and that is the choice of the these are also single menu items which although SP works at 44100, it does Some of the settings are so complex sible to change the sampler and monitor for me at least, now makes it more TYPE of recording you wish to do. act on ranges within the sample window. tend to tie your machine up and this you do need to be an engineer to under- options from within this same window. In worthwhile making a soundtrack for Simply put, you can record direct to hard For instance, if you wish to fade in at the makes it impossible to click-stop with the stand them at first but, playing around fact, most windows also give you access video on the Amiga by cutting/ pasting drive or into RAM and changing these beginning, drag the mouse over the mouse. Once recording has been com- on a fairly fast machine or using shorter to allied settings windows and as such, and ‘effecting’ than using my multitrack settings is simplicity itself. The Audio I/O early part of the sample window (the pleted, however, you can increase the samples can quite quickly give you a are virtually complete for each area of tape recorder with just the same end control from the Menu bar shows a list of markings on the Waveform sample cycle rate to higher than your recorded good idea of the resulting effect. sampling and editing. effect - plus I can actually SEE the the types available and, as loaded from window are in seconds) which draws a rates to make them compatible with length and volume of the settings which the default settings, it will be set for box around the wave. Select Process/ other samples. Recording can be started But for simple fun, cutting and pasting Set the sound source playing, see the are obviously impossible on a tapedeck. RAM - to change this just click on, say, Volume/ FadeIn - you get asked if you AND stopped with a noise level setting with the odd effect can be very reward- lights flash and click on record -away Clarity16_FILE and the file will be trans- are sure and then it’s done. Same for from within the Sampler window but ing and as far as all the extra effects you go! Settings ferred from RAM to hard drive with a FadeOut and several other effects al- default is to click on Record - what else? and processes are concerned, just be- progress bar showing when the task is though quite a lot of them have further Turning on the System button within cause they are there doesn’t mean you Then Geoff got the The configuration of SoundProbe is completed and that’s it! You can now parameters which can be changed to Sampler allows your machine to multi- HAVE to use them - pick out the ones something you could easily get lost in so edit, play back AND record from and to suit your requirements - the default set- task but on a vanilla A1200, let the you enjoy the results of and use those. SoundProbe 2 the easiest way to start is to load a pre- the HD. tings are fine in all the cases I’ve tried. machine have it’s own way - it can use configuration file from the Settings menu all the power it can In short, SoundprobeII is well worth the Upgrade... which covers Aura, get! money of either the full version or an At first glance, the only change in Sound Clarity, upgrade if you already have version One Probe 2 appears to be five buttons at Megalosound. ...and - I can only criticise it for one thing - the top of the sample window giving you Should you require there’s too much in it!!!!!! the opportunity to change the Graph Generic parallel Finally type, options for each of three different sampler, PCMCIA, Sound sampling and MegamixMaster you types of graph, a complete set of display manipulation can be can choose these Results options to change virtually EVERY set- (and SHOULD be) through the ting within the sample window, com- fun - there are Hardware Settings pletely redesign the colour palette and countless effects requester or there is last but not least, a Redraw button for and settings that an option for AHI. the waveform. can be added to Save these settings samples in once you have tried Caviar From my last time using it for intensive Soundprobe, includ- them out. manipulation of video soundtracks, the ing a 128 Band speed has improved a great deal. Whilst As you can see there are many effects available. Graphic Equalizer, 26 CLUBBED - Issue 2 Winter 1998/99 27 REVIEWS REVIEWS

trying. You have beat-em-up relies first and foremost on Gary Storm takes a look to be psychic to it’s smoothness and speed, then control defend yourself system, variety of moves, and finally at this beat-em-up from in this game a lot graphics. Look at ‘IK+’ on the C=64 or new software house The of the time. ‘Way of the Exploding Fist’ on the Real Ologram. Speccy for an example of bal- Olofight I don’t believe anced with graphics. Without smooth the Amiga is a animations, it’s a chore to play. Olofight good machine is still loads better than Rise of the lofight, by great, and very well suited for this type of Robots, and due to it’s interesting new (remarkably by the way... believe me, I game, due in idea`s, a step in the right direction, but O enough) The heard it often enough), part to it`s joys- it`s just not fun to play. But hey, if you Real Ologram of Italy, who Olofight suffers from frames tick limitations. like a stiff challenge, Olofight is calling kindly sent us a review that end up in the N’th Softco`s would you out to meet behind the bike sheds... copy of their beat-em-up. Dimension (it’s jerky, ok?). be better It arrived at SEAL central advised to team all resplendant in a very On the collision detection up with a hard- nice box, containing and variety of moves front, ware developer Results posters, registration card, Ologram claim that their like Power manual, a sticker, and 10 system has many moves, Computing, for disks of blue fury (don`t and that different area’s leading to better health and more instance, and design a new, multiple worry, the final release is have different damage special moves, but I played for hours button joypad (if possible), for use with to be on CD apparently). when hit (another good and only managed to win once. I’m not these and any other game that wanted idea). The moves seem ok, that bad at beat-em-ups... honest. to take advantage of it. SMELLY I mugged Robert (he liked though not all that many, Practice makes perfect, and I`m sure I that) and rushed home to and I’m afraid to say the could win a few more, but the jerkiness Sorry Ologram, I really wanted to like install this latest foray into collision detection is as of the animation doesn’t make it an this game, given the effort you’ve put pixelly violence. The dodgy as a hermaphrodite enjoyable experience to want to keep into it’s appearance. Unfortunately, a quality of the packaging giving you a ‘special’ and blurb promised massage. . much....umpteen fighters, umpteen Unfortunately, the demo fight is a bit Call or send SAE for moves, special powers, umpteen modes jerky too on my `040, but hey, let`s see Olofight differs slightly from the formula free catalogue disk of play, and a couple of innovative what the it`s like to play. set down by Street Fighter, Mortal FORE-MATT Home Computing packed with details on Pay by credit card and Commercial Software, idea`s...... your fighters powers grow with Kombat etc, in that you don`t have a get a free CD-ROM. Dept. C, PO Box 835, Wootton Bassett, Swindon, SN4 8RX CD-ROM, Peripherals, experience, and you can upload your I won’t bother you with the storyline, `best of three fights` system. You only (call for details) and Shareware/Public State Amiga model Domain from only high scores to the Olofight webserver to which is, as usual, superfluous, and get have the one fight to prove your worth when ordering. 50p a disk! see how you fare against the other straight into picking one of the available (which I personally like). As mentioned (01793) 853802 would-be alien Van-Damme`s. characters and having a fistycuffs. And it previously, you have special moves, but CD32 GAMES CDROM GAMES CDROM MUSIC CD / VIDEO DISK GAMES DISK GAMES DISK GAMES LIMITED CLASSICS Akira (+ free T-Shirt)..... £9. 99Big Red Adventure ...... £16.99Clip Art CD...... £9.99A500 Made Easy VHS...£4.99A320 Airbus v2...... £14.99Hillsea Lido...... £12.99Touring Car Challenge...£9.99(Telephone orders only!) Alfred Chicken ...... £2.99Blade ...... £9.99Deluxe Paint 5 ...... £17.99Amiga Theme CD ...... £4.99Amazon Queen ...... £19.99Impossible Mission ...... £8.99Tracksuit Mgr. 2 ‘98..... £14.99Alien Breed 2 oem...... £12.99 looks pretty good! The backgrounds are are initially limited to only one each, of Bubble & Squeak...... £2.99Civilization...... £12.99Emulators Unlimited ....£19.99 Arcade Action...... £12.99International Golf...... £4.99Valhalla 1, 2 or 3 ea.... £14.99Apidya...... £17.99 Cannon Fodder...... £4.99Eat The Whistle ...... £14.99Encounters UFO...... £14.99DISK AGA A1200 ONLY A-Train ...... £9.99Kids Rule OK 2...... £8.99War Zone oem...... £2.99Back to the Future 3...... £9.99 Installing Olofight is easy... all you need very detailed and colourful without four types of move. It`s a tad unfair, Chaos Engine ...... £4.99Final Odyssey ...... £17.99Epic Encyclopedia ...... £4.99Acid Attack ...... £12.99B17 Flying Fortress .....£14.99Lemmings...... £8.99Wembley Rugby Leag’. £4.99Battle Command...... £7.99 Clockwiser ...... £2.99Foundation ...... £27.99Epic Encyclopedia 98..£19.99Banshee ...... £4.99Badlands Pete...... £4.99Megablast...... £7.99Wing Commander ...... £9.99CarVup...... £7.99 is an aga Amiga, and 10 megs of hard taking your eye away from the action methinks, that the opponents have more Fears...... £9.99Genetic Species ...... £27.99EuroCD vol 1 ...... £11.99Bograts ...... £12.99Base Jumpers ...... £4.99Myth ...... £4.99Wiz ‘n’ Liz ...... £9.99Catch’em...... £14.99 Gloom ...... £9.99Myst ...... £29.99Fantastic Dreams ...... £59.99Breathless ...... £14.99Blade ...... £9.99Operation Combat 2...... £9.99World Golf...... £9.99Combat Air Patrol...... £17.99 drive space. I have an ‘040/25 with and the music is suitably typical euro- amounts of special moves and more Grandslam Gamer Gld .. £9.99OnEscapee ...... £27.99Fonts CD...... £9.99Burnout ...... £14.99Blitz Tennis...... £9.99Overlord...... £14.99Worlds at War...... £7.99Crack Down ...... £7.99 Guardian ...... £4.99Quake...... £29.99Gateway vol 1...... £7.99Capital Punishment .....£14.99Blockhead 2 {1.5mb} .....£7.99PGA Tour Golf ...... £9.99Xenon 2 ...... £4.99Cybercon ...... £9.99 PPC. BOSH!! We’re away ! pop (give it a few minutes and you`re health than your fighter, to whoop your Gulp...... £4.99Quake Mission Pack 1...£9.99Graphic Sensations 1..£19.99Eat The Whistle ...... £14.99Body Blows Galactic....£19.99PGA Tour Golf Plus..... £12.99XP-8...... £4.99Dungeon Quest ...... £7.99 International Karate + .. £2.99Quake Mission Pack 2...£9.99Guinness Records v2 ..£14.99Fears ...... £7.99Bravo Romeo Delta ...... £4.99Pinball Dreams...... £7.99Yolk Folk Dizzy ...... £4.99Fantastic Voyage...... £9.99 J Barnes Euro Footy ..... £2.99Shadow of 3rd Moon ..£19.99Illusions in 3D ...... £9.99Gloom Deluxe ...... £9.99Bubble & Squeak ...... £14.99Pinball Obsession ...... £7.99Zeewolf 1 or 2 ...... £4.99Indy: Last Crusade...... £7.99 tapping away as you fight). The moves ass good. And boy is it hard! I like the Kang Fu ...... £9.99Sixth Sense Invest’ns..£19.99Insight Dinosaurs...... £9.99Guardian ...... £4.99Bumper Quad Pack ...... £9.99Police Quest...... £9.99 Jim Power Mut Planet ... £7.99 Last Ninja 3...... £2.99Street Racer CD ...... £12.99In-To-The-Net...... £14.99Gunbee F-99 {4mb} ...... £7.99Cannon Fodder 1 or 2 ...£8.99Power Drive...... £9.99EDUCATION/UTILITIES Joe/Mac Cave Ninja.... £14.99 A slightly jerky but nice 3D intro appears are easy enough to achieve (all joystick idea of your fighter gaining experience, Legends ...... £9.99Theme Park CD ...... £12.99LSD 1 or 2 ea...... £14.99Heimdall 2 ...... £4.99Championship Chall. ...£14.99Railroad Tycoon ...... £12.99ADI English {13/14}..... £14.99Lords of Chaos...... £4.99 Marvins Adventure ...... £4.99The Settlers II ...... £callMeeting Pearls vol 1...... £9.99Legends ...... £7.99Chaos Engine 2 ...... £24.99Rise of the Robots ecs ..£7.99ADI English GCSE ...... £14.99Lotus 3 ...... £7.99 which introduces your fighters, and with one-button Oscar/Diggers...... £2.99The Strangers AGA ....£17.99Multimedia Backdrop...£19.99Manyk Mayhem ...... £14.99Civilization ...... £12.99Road Rash ...... £8.99ADI French {13/14} ..... £14.99Matrix Marauders ...... £7.99 Roadkill ...... £9.99Ultimate Gloom...... £12.99Multimedia Toolkit...... £9.99Marvin’s Adventure...... £4.99Classic Arcadia ...... £4.99Robocod James Pond2 .£4.99ADI French {14/15} ..... £14.99Out Run Europa ...... £17.99 takes up only a small part of the screen type stuff), and Simon the Sorcerer ..... £14.99Ult. Super Skidmarks £12.99Network CD...... £9.99OloFight {HD/4mb}...... £19.99Club & Country...... £4.99Rugby League Coach ....£4.99ADI French GCSE...... £14.99Pegasus...... £17.99 Sleepwalker/Pinball...... £9.99Uropa 2 ...... £17.99Network CD 2 ...... £14.99Pinball Illusions...... £7.99Club Football Mgr...... £9.99Sensible Golf...... £9.99ADI Maths {12/13}...... £14.99Populous 2 Challenge.. £7.99 (for speed, I guess). You’re then thrust the special Superleague Manager... £2.99Virtual Karting 2...... £12.99Nothing But Tetris ...... £9.99Pinball Mania ...... £7.99Colonization ...... £12.99Silent Service 2 ...... £19.99Alpha Office...... £14.99Projectyle...... £9.99 Total Carnage ...... £4.99Vulcanology ...... £19.99Now Games ...... £4.99Player Mgr 2 Extra...... £9.99Cosmic Spacehead...... £4.99Simon the Sorceror..... £14.99BBC Playdays ...... £8.99Quadralien ...... £6.99 Vital Light...... £2.99Zombie Massacre{18} .£19.99Octamed Soundstudio...£9.99Rise of the Robots aga£7.99Daily Dbl Horseracing....£7.99Skidmarks...... £7.99BBC Playdays Paint...... £8.99Savage...... £7.99 into a demo mode if you don`t choose to moves are Wembley Int. Soccer ..... £9.99 Oh Yes More Worms...... £9.99Roadkill ...... £4.99Dalek Attack...... £4.99Soccer Team Manager...£4.99Better Maths {12/16}...... £9.99 CDROM PFS2 ...... £29.99Simon Sorcerer aga.....£14.99Damage {18} ...... £9.99Snapperazzi ...... £4.99Blitz Basic 2.1 ...... £17.99LIMITED EDUCATION play yet. The demo mode in this is great easier (and still CD32 S/H GAMES 3D Images...... £8.99Scene Storm ...... £4.99Sixth Sense Invest’ns ..£19.99Death Mask...... £4.99Speedball ...... £4.99Deluxe Paint 5 {WB2+} £17.99Fun School 4 (under5 )£12.99 (Telephone orders only!) 3D Objects ...... £8.99Screen Savers ...... £9.99Skeleton Krew ...... £4.99Desert Strike ...... £8.99Sporting Spectacular .. £14.99Fun School 2 {over 8's} .£7.99Junior Typist...... £9.99 in one respect, in that the computer op- nice looking)... Brutal Football ...... £4.9917 Bit 5th Dimension ...£14.99S/W Explosion 1 or 2.....£4.99Slamtilt ...... £14.99Dune II...... £12.99Street Fighter 2 ...... £14.99GFA Basic 3.5 Interp’r....£4.99 D/Generation ...... £4.9917 Bit Level 6...... £14.99Sounds Terrific 2...... £14.99Strip Pot {18}...... £4.99Enemy ...... £14.99Superleague Manager ...£9.99Info Nexus/2 File Mgr ....£4.99LIMITED UTILITIES ponents complete a full bout, none of but oh no! It Microcosm ...... £4.99Adult Sensations {18}.... £9.99System Booster ...... £9.99Superleague Mgr aga ....£9.99European Superleague..£7.99Super Tennis Champs....£9.99Home Office Kit...... £14.99Design Works ...... £19.99 Sensible Soccer Euro.... £4.99AGA Experience 3 ...... £14.99The Colour Library...... £14.99Testament...... £14.99F19 Stealth...... £8.99Sword...... £14.99Inter Base 2...... £4.99DeluxeMusicConstSet. £24.99 this cutting away from the action just plays like a Wild Cup Soccer...... £4.99Aminet Set 3 ...... £15.99The Learning Curve.....£19.99Theme Park aga ...... £12.99F117A Nighthawk...... £8.99Tennis Cup 2 ...... £4.99Inter Office 2...... £19.99Font Enhancer {call}.... £14.99 Zool ...... £4.99Aminet Set 4,5,6,7 ea..£27.99The Office {gold cd}...... £9.99The Speris Legacy...... £14.99Fantastic Dizzy ...... £4.99Theme Park ...... £12.99Inter Spread 2 ...... £4.99Hisoft Extend ...... £14.99 AMOS PDCD 2 ...... £19.99Time of Reckoning...... £9.99Thomas Tank Pinball .....£7.99Fast Food Dizzy...... £4.99Thomas Tank Colln...... £8.99Inter Talk 2...... £4.99Image Link ...... £19.99 when it’s getting hot rubbish. geriatric in the CDROM GAMES Animations CD...... £19.99UPD Gold...... £14.99Total Carnage...... £4.99Fields of Glory...... £14.99Thunder Blade...... £4.99Mini Office ...... £17.99Media Show...... £19.99 Amiga Classix...... £14.99Anime Babes v1 {18}...£14.99Utilities Experience...... £9.99Tracksuit Mgr2 98 aga£14.99Forest Dumb Forever ....£7.99Thnderhawk AH-73M.....£4.99MultiMedia Experience £14.99Pro Write 2.5 ...... £14.99 supermarket with Arcade Classix Mk 2 ...£14.99Anime Babes v3 {18}...£19.99Winbench 98...... £9.99Virtual Karting 2 ...... £12.99Gooch Test Match...... £4.99Timekeepers...... £12.99Photon Paint 2.0 ...... £9.99Showmaker...... £14.99 Assassins Games 2 ... £9.99Artworx...... £9.99Wordworth 7...... £39.99Worms Directors Cut ...£12.99Gooch World Cricket...... £8.99Timekeepers Exp. Dsk...£5.99The Works! Platinum... £19.99Transwrite ...... £14.99 a trolley the size Assassins Games 3..... £14.99Candy Factory Pro...... £34.99Zoom 2 ...... £19.99Xtreme Racing ...... £9.99Gunship 2000...... £12.99Tiny Troops...... £16.99Workbench 3.0 Set...... £9.99TV Text Pro v2...... £19.99 Product Information of SealZilla. OK, Developer: The Real Ologram nothing’s that Distributor: Weird Science bad, but as good Te l: (0116) 246 3800 as the graphics WWW: www.ologram.com are, as tolerable CD STARTER PACK 3.5” DRIVE CLEANING KIT £1.99 RACING BUNDLE www.weirdscience.co.uk as the music is £15.00 + £2 p&p (UK) JOYPAD £9.99, JOYSTICK £7.99, MOUSE/MAT £9.99 £20.00 + £1 p&p (UK) (and the ‘End Pack includes Global Amiga Stree Racer AGA & Skidmarks Price: £19.99 Experience, Marvin’s Marvelous BLANK DISKS: Grade ‘A’ 30p each, Ex S/W House 20p each Save £4 on normal price of Game’ music is Adventure, Demos are Forever, Requires: AGA Amiga, 10Mb HD Insight Dinosaurs & Pandora’s CD P&P per item: UK = £1, EU = £2.50, R.O.W = £5 first then £2 each £23 + £2 p&p

28 CLUBBED - Issue 2 Winter 1998/99 29 SUPPORT SUPPORT

‘Best Quality’. Now you’re ready to start To add a random bootpicture which magicking! fades in and out every time you boot up, whack ‘Picboot’ into c: and add some Workbench 4, ‘Load’ in your selected 16 million commands (depending on where your colour Wb pattern, and select the 16 boot picture directory is, and whatever Gary Storm cooks up a cool colour ‘Current format’ when the Load preferences you have) to your ‘startup- image requester appears: sequence’, here’s the section of my looking Workbench using Cook Book mine, for reference: only 16 colours. For the final effect take a look at the back cover... 6, Now, also in the ‘Colour’ menu, select ‘render’, and bosh!! instant (nearly) 16 C:picboot Unless you have a graphics card, it can Workbench into the best selection. colour pattern with your palette. System:WBgfx/BootPics/#? be difficult to get a good looking Wb. If Whack the FPPrefs program into your Palette DETACH CENTER YES DEFAULT YES you go 32 colours to make all your icons C:directory too then add the following to 7, If it looks ok (if a bit grainy - but FI 2 FO 2 DELAY 500 PATCH and backgrounds look great, your miggy your s:startup-sequence just after the remember it won’t look so grainy when Here are the colour values you need And there you go, a tasty 16 colour slows to a geriatric pace, and eats up all C:IPrefs line: used on your Wb, as it will be much to set in the FullPalette preferences Workbench! Not a replacement for a your chip ram. smaller) then select the cutting tool ‘[ ]’, editor, the 4-bit values are for older graphics card, that’s for sure, but it’s the Run >NIL: FPPrefs press ‘F9’ followed by ‘F10’ to get rid of OCS and ECS chipset Amigas best looking Wb you can get without one We’re going to give you a recipe, and (A500s, A2000s etc.) and the 8-bit the toolbars, and drag the mouse from Then copy the FullPalette program into (keeping chip RAM and speed intact) . help you cook up a 16 colour Wb, and values are for AGA Amigas (e.g. the top left to the bottom right, making your Prefs drawer and use it to set up make it look nearly as good as 32, keep- A1200s and A4000s) PPaint will now convert that pattern to sure you cut one pixel in from the edge, the colours. I used the palette suggested ing the speed and chip ram intact. I’ll 16 colours, and it doesn’t look too bad and cut! by the author of MagicTV. Set the Full also tell you of a few essential utilities to 4-bit 8-bit eh? But don’t even think about saving Palette colours manually to the values in No. Name R G B R G B Side Salad? let your Wb kick ass even more. that one, because PPaint has done the 8, Then bring back the toolbars (F9 and the Palette boxout, and don’t forget to 0 Grey 4 9 9 9 153 153 153 1 Black 0 0 0 0 0 0 clever thing and mapped down the pat- F10 again) and save your brush. Now your Workbench is looking gor- make sure they’re all ‘locked’. To mix it all together you’ll need an 2 White 15 15 15 255 255 255 tern to the best 16 colours it could Renaming it to ‘whatever_16.bsh’ makes geous here are some add-ons that 3 Blue 3 6 10 51 102 170 Amiga, a hard drive, and some time:) salvage from the original palette. Now it easier to keep track of later. will make it easier to use too: Next you’ll need to install the NewIcons 4 Grey 3 8 8 8 136 136 136 5 Grey 6 12 12 12 204 204 204 you have to convert that 16 colour pat- patch. Go through the installation pro- Right, for those of you without (or even 6 Light Brown 12 9 6 204 153 102 tern to your palette, and this is where I did the above with all of the eyepop- MCP cess, but say ‘no’ to ‘do you want to in- 7 Yellow 13 11 3 221 187 51 with, if you want) multi-sync monitors, PPaint is very quick and handy. pers patterns (originally 256 colour pat- to do alot of little hacky things. I leave stall New-Icon icons?’. Or you could say 8 Purple 9 4 10 153 68 170 first of all you’re going to need to install 9 Red 13 2 2 221 34 34 terns), and about 70% were good most of it turned off (especially any yes if you want to save yourself some ‘Magic TV2’, which will give you a high- 10 Grey 1 2 2 2 34 34 34 5, In the ‘Palette’ sub-menu of the enough to keep as 16 colour patterns. memory stuff), but what I do leave on work, but have a Sesame Street 11 Dark Blue 0 5 9 0 85 153 res-interlace screen with barely any ‘Colour’ menu, select ‘From Screen...’. A You can grab them off me if you want. I makes things look better. Workbench. 12 Grey 2 5 5 5 85 85 85 flicker, but limits you to 16 colours, 13 Grey 5 10 10 10 170 170 170 window will appear with all the screens also converted some 256 colour full- which is what we want anyway. All you 14 Green 2 8 2 34 136 34 you have open, so you can select to use screen 3d pictures, which came out ARQ Now that you’ve done that, you’ll need a 15 Light Blue 5 10 11 85 170 187 need to do is grab this brilliant little one of the palettes. Select ‘Workbench pretty well. I’d suggest that you make Cool animated requesters which decent set of icons and backgrounds to utility, put it into C:, and it add to your Screen’. dedicated 16-colour patterns drawer, respond to Enter for OK and Esc for jazz up your Wb. I used to prefer ‘Magic Right, that’s the screenmode, palette ‘s:startup-sequence’ before ‘SetPatch’. probably in your ‘Prefs’ directory. Cancel. Wb’ icons as I think the ‘NewIcon’ icons So the begining of your startup- and icons taken care of - but your back- look kiddy. Fortunately other people al- sequence looks like this: ground still looks cack, eh? sothought the same thing, and drew Ingredients KingCON Makes Shell stuff much easier. their own icon sets using the ‘NewIcon’ ; $VER: startup-sequence 39.9 Here’s where a handy little dabbling in Here are all the programs you’ll need for this recipe of Workbench perfection: patch (which let’s you use 32 colour P-Paint does the trick (thanks to master- (9.8.92) Visage icons, instead of the default 8 colour chef Robert for the recipe!). This is the Program Author Aminet Dir. CD The best picture viewer we’ve found C:SetPatch QUIET icons). My favourite icon sets are ‘Glow- part which is kind of like basting the Magic TV2 Neil Crawforth util/wb 23 so far. Icons’ which are gorgeous and glow MagicTV turkey and stuffing it into the oven. Full Palette Massimo Tantignone util/wb 23 when you select them (the artist, Matt Icon Installer Tom Ekstrom util/wb 9 TBClock C:Version >NIL: Chaput, works for Silicon Graphics, and Your Wb is limited to 16 colours, which NewIcons Eric Sauvageau util/wb 22 Whacks a digital clock in the right of is doing the icons for OS3.5) and everything must share. That’s why we’ve wcp (Glow Icons) Matt Chaput pix/nicon 27 Simple, eh? your menu bar. ‘Archeologicons’ which are realistic locked them, so nothing pinches colours Archeologicons Lyle Zapato pix/nicon things from archeology (funny that) from just for itself, and leaves the crappiest TreeFrogIcons Lyle Zapato pix/nicon Next, grab a copy of ‘Full Palette’, which SwazInfo all over the world. I’ve also used a tree ones for the little sibling too small to get PPaint Colanto - www.colanto.com or your favourite Amiga dealer. will lock the 16 colours of your Gives you a better Icon information frog as my RAM icon, from the better ones:). This is why we need to Eye Poppers Giles C. Hendrix pix/back 24 & 27 requester. ‘TreeFrogIcons’, believe it or not. convert any background patterns or pic- tures you’d want to use, to the same Additional ingredients - add for flavour: MagicMenu There are plenty of NewIcon icon sets palette that your Wb now uses. Ready? on Aminet, CU Amiga and Amiga MCP Michael Knoke util/cdity 22 Gives your menu’s a great 3d look (and other things). Format CD’s, so take a look and choose 1, Load up PPaint (it helps:) ). ARQ Martin J. Laubach util/cdity 14 your weapons. Whichever NewIcons you KCON David Larsson util/shell 4 PicBoot Magnus Holmgren util/boot 9 ToolsDeamon go for, they’ll map themselves to the 2, Go to the ‘Image Format...’ item in the DOpus Magellan II GP Software - www.gpsoft.com.au Lets you make your own menus very closest colours in your palette, and look ‘Projects’ menu and change the colours TB Clock Unknown util/time 14 easily. nearly as good as if you had a 32 colour to 16. Wb. Just install ‘Icon Installer’ (I installed SwazInfo David Swasbrook util/wb 16 Magic Menu Olaf Barthel util/wb Birdie it into ‘Tools’) and use that to decorate 3, In the ‘Settings’ menu you’ll see The Full Palette prefrences editor allows Tools Daemon Nico Francois util/boot Gives your window borders some pat- your screen. ‘Dithering’.....tick ‘Floyd-Steinberg’ and you to lock each colour in your palette. Birdie Trond Werner Hansen http://www.vgr.com/birdie terns. 30 CLUBBED - Issue 2 Winter 1998/99 31 REVIEWS REVIEWS

show the images without a window on a as well as forward through your selec- black screen. For a bit of added interest tion of images, Picture Information which Image Formats you can also add a random transition opens a requester with the , between each image. size and format of the selected image so One of the most important aspects of you can find it again later and Delete any image viewer or cataloguer is When you choose to have CyberShow which (you’ve guessed it) actually what formats it supports, here’s the open on its own screen you can set the deletes the image from disk. You can list for bother CyberShow and PD Paradise screenmode it will use in various ways. also toggle some of the options set on PhotoAlbum Martin Miller and Robert Williams delve into their disk boxes to deliver some Using the BESTMODE option the pro- start-up using the menus but to make gram will pick the screenmode available these settings permanent you have to • IFF-ILBM (1-8bit, 24bit etc.) more Public Domain delicacies. on your Amiga that best suits the image edit the tooltypes or change the shell • PhotoCD to be displayed. Using the arguments you use. • JPeg (incl. progressive) PowerPacker 5 which will suit most uses. There is also a treat PowerPacked files as if they were SCREENMODE option you can specify • PPM/PGM/PBM script facility which allows you to set up normal files and decompresses them a particular screenmode to use. Finally If the picture you want to view is bigger • QRT by Nico Francois a long list of files to be crunched, so that before passing them to the destination you can use the HEIGHT, WIDTH and than the screenmode you selected • Targa you can go away and leave them to be program such as a Word Processor or DEPTH options to specify the size and CyberShow allows you to pan around • PCX Underground PD - £1.50 processed. I have used EPU and Disk Art Program. number of colours (bit DEPTH e.g. 8bit using the cursor keys (it does not open a • BMP Stakker which compress/decompress all or 24bit) then CyberShow will choose big auto-scroll screen). You can also use • TIF Have you got a small Hard Drive, need a files in a partition in the background, but There is also a built in feature that can the screenmode closest to your the + and - keys or menu options to • DEEP bigger one but cannot afford it, or would personally I found them to be a bit warn you if your Startup files are altered requirements. If you have a monitor like zoom in and out from the image. You • YUV you just like to make better use of the buggy, causing random system hang- giving you a very basic guard against mine that takes time to re-sync between can also set a menu option to zoom • VLAB disk space that you have? Why not think ups. On the other hand, PowerPacker viruses that try to alter them. Obviously, screenmode changes locking CS to use each picture to fit the screen automati- • RGB about File Compression. seems very stable and has been around a program such as this requires a little one screenmode is very useful. cally. A limitation of the zoom function is • HHsYUVSq for a long time. bit of ground work by the user, but I think that it only scales to whole ratios e.g.: • IFF-PBM PowerPacker is an excellent and flexible it is well worth the effort. I recently Like most other viewers CyberShow can 1:2, 1:4 etc. This means that an image • ACBM utility which compresses executable and A number of utilities compliment the use PowerPacked a batch of mixed pro- be controlled simply while you’re viewing that is only just too big has to be halved • FBM data files. Decompression is very fast of PowerPacked files. PPMore is for grams and data files and reduced the pictures, pressing Space moves to the in size to fit on the screen leaving a wide • Sun raster and the additional loading time is not crunched text files, PPShow for pictures, disk space needed from 3,002,366 bytes next image and Esc quits the program. black border. • MacPaint usually noticeable, except on very large PPGuide for AmigaGuides, PPType for to only 1,569,376 bytes - a gain of 48%. For a total hands free experience you • HHsXRL files and even then it only takes 1 or 2 printing and PPDC which is a CLI file can use the delay function to pause on CyberShow works brilliantly on graphics • binary-EPS seconds longer. decruncher. These can be set as icon I have made so much use of each picture for a definable number of cards and allows you to make full use of • TBCPlus frames & fields default tools or default tools in a File PowerPacker since buying my Hard seconds then continue. In both modes the 16 and 24bit screenmodes. Under • Datatypes (including 24bit) The program makes use of the Manager program. There is also PP, the Drive that I could not live without it ! while you view one picture CS is pre- AGA CyberShow is limited to 256 colour PowerPacker.Library and PowerPacker Patcher, a background loading the next one so once you’ve 8bit screens the quality of which is low Explode.Library, compression rates are program ,which can be run from your Martin finished the next picture is usually ready compared to viewers like Visage which have a graphics card. CyberShow is the very good and offer a choice of 5 modes User-Startup. It patches the system to instantly. CyberShow also has menu use HAM8. best viewer I have come across, it has options (with hotkey equivalents) which far more options than any of the others Award Maker The selection of awards cover an ex- to print some of the more comical you can use whilst viewing. Particularly Most other viewers are freeware so and is also very fast and smooth in use. tensive range of subjects from Sport and awards just to give to friends for a laugh. useful amongst these are Previous CyberShow should be good to justify it’s By Cameron J.Shaffer Education to Personal and Humorous. Picture which allows you to go backward price, fortunately it is, so long as you Robert Many have preset text and pictures with Although there is no Hard Drive Installer Underground PD - 4 Disks a choice of fonts and borders, but some supplied, manual installation was easy layouts allow you to add your own text enough and the program runs equally PhotoAlbum 6.0 This four disk package can produce a as well. Just add the date and recipients well from floppy or HD. By Helmut Hoffmann vast range of very good quality Awards name and away you go. and Certificates in both colour and Martin Aminet: gfx/misc, Disc 29 black/white. Printing results are very Award Maker is an unusual package and good even on my very basic Epson it would be hard not to think of a use for Shareware, £25 in a package with LX800. it. Apart from serious use, I found it fun CyberShow

CyberShow 9.1a the package installation is simple. Just view. In the requester you can choose a PhotoAlbum is a multi-format picture drag the CyberShow drawer to the loca- single file, a group of files (by Shift- cataloguer by the author CyberShow By Helmut Hoffmann tion of your choice on your hard disk, no clicking) or a whole directory to view. If and unsurprisingly it shares many assigns are needed. you choose a directory CyberShow can features with CyberShow. Aminet: gfx/board, Disc 28 be set to show all the pictures in sub- Once it is in place CyberShow can be directories too. Once you’ve picked your Again installation is simple, just drag the Shareware, £25 in a package with run from it’s icon or from a shell prompt. files the default behaviour is to show drawer where you want it. When you run PhotoAlbum Either way there are loads of options them in turn in a window on the the program it opens its main window controlled by tooltypes or shell ar- Workbench Screen, this is obviously where the catalogue will be displayed CyberShow is a multi-format image guments respectively. If you start CS limited to the number of colours and res- and a file requester. In the requester you viewer particularly aimed at Amiga users without changing any settings the pro- olution of your Workbench. By changing can pick the files or directory you want with graphics cards although it does gram pops up a file requester so you some options you can tell CyberShow to to catalogue (PhotoAlbum can scan sub work under AGA. After you de-archive can choose which pictures you want to open windows on its own screen or Continued Over... A typical PhotoAlbum catalogue. 32 CLUBBED - Issue 2 Winter 1998/99 33 SUPPORT SUPPORT

...PhotoAlbum 6.0 Review Continued opens a viewer window which shows the PhotoAlbum performs better under AGA Note that with all these services you will directories too if you wish). If you select image at full size. than CyberShow. On a 256 colour SEAL have to pay for any costs incurred (for Help Line a directory the program scans all the screen the thumbnails are generally of example paper for printing, disks etc.). files in each directory then goes through Much of the time PhotoAlbum is so fast good quality although they tend to de- Membership Several SEAL members have very them one by one, and for each one that there is no need to save the catalogue, grade the further through the catalogue Joining kindly volunteered to help other is a picture in a format it recognises it you can just generate the latest up-to- you go as all the available colours are Benefits members and readers of Clubbed in creates a thumbnail image in the main date one on the fly. However if you want used up by previous thumbnails. The If you would like to join SEAL the mem- their areas of expertise. EAL members benefit from many window. The best aspect of PhotoAlbum to save PA gives you two options: Save only real problem is when you view an bership fee is £30 per year (payable as services: is the speed at which it creates the thumbnail images along with the pic- image, as the viewer window opens on S £2.50/month if you prefer), this covers General Amiga, Shell, AREXX, thumbnails and that you can use the tures in the same directory so PA the PhotoAlbum screen where all the bi-weekly meetings including refresh- Directory Opus 5, DTP program whilst it creates them. So if you doesn’t have to generate them next colours are used by thumbnails the Help and Advice ments and 4 copies of Clubbed per year. (PageStream) set it going creating a catalogue of a time. Or save the catalogue in one file quality is usually poor. On a 16 or 24bit For further details please contact us at: Robert Williams SEAL members are always giving each CD-ROM you can use the buttons at the and browse it even if the volume con- graphics card screen PA shows thumb (01268) 569937 after 6pm other help and advice on all aspects of top of the window to browse through the taining the images isn’t available. nails and views pictures in all their glory. Telephone Mick Sutton on [email protected] Amiga hardware and software, when pages it has already created while more (01268) 761429 (7 to 9pm) you join you’ll get a listing of all the pages are being generated. If you prefer Within the catalogue you can select a Although it might not have quite as Write To Mick Sutton 3D Graphics (Lightwave, Imagine), members with their phone numbers so you can switch PA into ‘No Preload’ thumbnail to work on by single clicking many options as the commercial alter- 20 Roding Way Image Processing (Photogenics, there’s always someone to turn to in mode using a cycle gadget and it will on it, you can Shift-click to select natives like Picture Manager Pro the Wickford Art Effect) your hour of need. only generate one page of thumbnails at several. Once you have some selected sheer speed of Photo Album makes it a Essex Spencer Jarvis a time. the menu options can be used to work much more useful tool in my opinion. I SS12 9BB (01375) 644614 on the thumbnails. For example you can use it all the time for browsing Clipart Hardware Fitting and Visit http://seal.amiga.tm EMail [email protected] The Photo Album window is resizable delete a thumbnail from the catalogue or CDs and Image CDs and for DTP and Software Installation General Amiga, SEAL Information and there are several options for the the actual image from disk, load the HTML work without cluttering up my Mick Sutton image into several image processors hard drive with catalogue files. (01268) 761429 size of thumbnail it can generate. You Within SEAL there are many years of You can cycle (including Photogenics and ImageFX) or [email protected] can choose what information to display Amiga experience, including the fitting screens by pressing below each thumbnail. When I am get further information on the image. Conclusion and configuration of countless pieces of L-Amiga+M and developing web pages I have the One very useful option is to pass the hardware and the installation and use of jump straight back Contact us if you’d be willing to use filename and image size displayed so I filename to a user definable AREXX The CyberShow/PhotoAlbum bundle is numerous software packages. So if you to the Workbench your skills to help other Amiga users can choose the image I want from the command, this means you could set-up quite expensive for Shareware however need a helping hand there’s almost ? screen by pressing and we’ll add you to this list. catalogue and copy the name and size your own picture viewer or automatically the quality of the programs is more than bound to be someone with experience L-Amiga+N straight into my HTML code. If you want process the image. One improvement worth it. If you’ve got a graphics card I’d willing to help. In particular we’ve be- to get a closer look at an image in the that could be made would be to allow say this is an essential purchase. come expert at installing hard drives, catalogue double clicking its thumbnail several such user AREXX commands as CD-ROMs and other common upgrades. Download Next Issue just one is a bit limiting. Robert n the next issue of Clubbed our Scanning and Printing theme is going to be getting on the and 28% are still using a 68020 processor, ware available and where they can be Service IInternet so we’ll have a feature on Letter and that the most popular uses for the Amiga obtained. Let them know that the Amiga is Several SEAL members have scanners If you’re not on the Internet Clubbed can how to get on-line, the different service were word processing, games and art. NOT DEAD. Perhaps SEAL could compile and many have colour printers, if at any help you get the freely distributable pro- providers, the hardware you need and Dear Clubbed, Bearing these survey results in mind, one and print a directory of anywhere selling time you need some pictures scanned or grams and upgrades mentioned in this most importantly what to do and where must surely ask the question: “Exactly who is Amiga hardware or software. Firstly, my I congratulate everyone involved documents printed someone is always deciding the price and features of the new issue. to go once you get on-line. To in the production of CLUBBED Issue 1, cer- Martin Miller Amiga and on what basis?” available to help. supplement this feature there will be tainly a landmark in SEAL’s history. I have Simply send us one floppy disk per item reviews of the most popular Amiga enjoyed reading it very much. I would like to The Amiga community would appear to be along with a stamped addressed padded Internet Software including: offer a few comments from the owner of a split between those on a limited budget, who CD-R Hard Drive Backup I agree with just about everything you envelope. On each disk write the name fairly basic desktop A1200. Just recently I are trying hard to upgrade and hold on to have said here Martin, All Amiga users are 3 SEAL members have clubbed (groan!) • Netconnect 2 managed to upgrade my A1200 with a 68030 their beloved Amiga and those who have vitally important for the future of the plat- of the software along with your name accelerator board, Surf Squirrel, and CD- money to spend and want the biggest, fastest form, whatever their spending power. together to buy a CD writer and they and address. Send the package to the • Miami ROM, but only because I recently joined and best machine. If the way forward is going There are some low cost upgrades avail- offer a hard disk backup service to other following address: • IBrowse SEAL and was fortunate enough to obtain to be a vast advance in technology and price able for the A1200 (such as Power members at a £5 fee plus the cost of the • Thor some second-hand upgrades at very fair are we going to lose the support of the “lower Computing’s new Typhoon boards, 030, CD-R (about £1). Simply contact Mick, Clubbed, • YAM prices. end” Amiga users? We need all the support 8Mb and SCSI for £90) so companies can Robert or Gary to arrange a backup ses- 26 Wincoat, we can get if the Amiga is to survive. produce them if there’s a demand. sion. The appealed to me because it However if all the low end users abandon Benfleet, We’ll also have our usual mix of news, was compact, versatile, affordable, it didn’t In these days of Surface Mount Technology the platform there will be no such Essex, SS7 5AH, reviews, features and support items need a tower, the OS knocked the PC into a and micro components surely there could be demand. Here at SEAL we want to root out Discounts ENGLAND. including: cocked hat, plus it could use a domestic tele- many more affordable upgrades for basic every single Amiga user in South Essex vision, although a monitor is better on the A1200s. There must be an awful lot of them and show them just what the Amiga can As mentioned in the SEAL Update sec- We will then copy the files onto your • Pace Solo Modem and STFax Review eyes for detailed text and graphics work. around, living in the past, not even aware of do and what is available to make their tion we now have arrangements with disks and post them back to you. SEAL • BVision PPC Review the upgrades available. Now we only have machine fly. However it is difficult to find In the survey results in CU Amiga May 1998 Underground PD and Forematt Home members can get a copy of any program • Turbo Print 7 Review Amiga Format available through newsagents, people so any suggestions are very issue it was interesting to note that a sig- Computing to give SEAL members a and many do not keep it on the shelf, there welcome. or upgrade at a SEAL meeting, please • Cinema 4D Tutorial nificant number of people were hoping for a discount on their products. Underground may well be many owners of basic A1200s phone Robert Williams in advance and new Amiga in the £300 price range as well as From Clubbed’s point of view we aim to who don’t even know that you can still buy an PD will give you a 10% discount on any- let him know what you want before the Issue 3 is due to be published in mid those prepared to spend £1000. In the please all types of Amiga users, we’ve Amiga dedicated magazine and therefore thing you order and Forematt will give a May, we hope to have the issue ready survey results in Amiga Format September mainly leant towards the high-end so far meeting. have no voice in it’s future. variable discount depending on your 1998 because our main contributors have that before the World of Amiga Show. Then order. We hope to announce more dis- We should search out these people and type of system. We welcome contributions NOTE: this service applies to freely dis- we’ll post issues to subscribers after the issue, it was found that 45% use a 68030 from anyone so get writing for issue 3! count deals soon. make them aware of the upgrades and soft- tributable software only, NO PIRACY! show with an additional show report. 34 CLUBBED - Issue 2 Winter 1998/99 35 Gallery

Checkmate Porsche By Roy Burton By Tony Kinnear Roy rendered this striking scene in Cinema4D using In this Cinema4D render Tony’s use of lighting, the Cinema World plugin to model the mountains. camera angle and background makes a simple composition very striking.

WildFIAT By Robert Williams The car was scanned from a advert and the texture was added using ImageFX’s composite function and then smeared.

Workbench Cookbook

Believe it or not the Workbench below uses only 16 Colours. Find Visit the SEAL Website at: out how Gary Storm set it up in his Workbench Cookbook tutorial. http://seal.amiga.tm

Tunnel By Robert Tiffen In this Moody Cinema4D image Robert has used lighting to good effect. I can’t help thinking of “The Duel”