====================================================================== ________ _________ ____ _|__ __ __|_______ _________ __\ _____ \\\\ \_ _/ //___// _____//______\ _____ \\ // \\\\ /. \\\\__ \/ __// \\ \\____. /// \\\\ /. \\ \\___\¯ /___///___\ /___\ \\_________//\\___\¯ /___// ¯ \/ ¯ ¯ \/. |¯ ¯|z!o ¯ ¯ \/ ¯ A M I G A |#010630 | U P D A T E |________| "SO THE WORLD MAY KNOW" ====================================================================== AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- B I L L M C E W E N O N M I S - R E P R E S E N T A T I O N T H I R D A N N U A L A M I G A F E S T A M I G A I N C A N D M A T A Y D E A L O T T A W A S H O W M O V E S T O N E W D A T E S F I N N I S H S A K U 2 0 0 1 S H O W N E W S A M I W E S T 2 0 0 1 N E W S M E R L A N C I A / I N D I V I D U A L A L L I A N C E M E R L A N C I A O P E N L E T T E R A M I G A O N E T I M E T A B L E F R O M E Y E T E C H E Y E T E C K C L A R I F I E S O S 4 A N D W A R P A N O T H E R E L B O X C O N T R O V E R S Y , P A R T 1 A N O T H E R E L B O X C O N T R O V E R S Y , P A R T 2 D C E L I C E N S E S V O O D O O 3 W A R P 3 D E Y E T E C H A N D M A T A Y D E A L P U R E B A S I C V 1 . 3 2 R E L E A S E D F R E E S C A N N E R C O L O R C A L I B R A T I O N A M I G A W R I T E R - F I L T E R F O R P A G E S T R E A M Editor's Thoughts and Introduction: It's hard to believe it's already the end of June. This has been a busy year, and there's lots more to come. We have a wide variety of items in this issue, mostly positive. There is yet another controversy involving the firm ElBox. We hope we present both sides of the story below. As Editor, I'd rather not even include items such as these but feel it necessary in order to present the news as it exists in the Amiga community. ... and that brings up a question I'd like to ask the readers. Recently, Amiga Inc. announced their "Party Pack" sale. This sale ran for such a short time, it's now over. The only way we could have gotten the news to the readers before it was no longer news would have been to distribute a special issue. We have never done special issues for sales. Many Amiga dealers have sales from time to time, and to distribute these as news would really be to turn Amiga Update into nothing more than a sales brochure. That's not our mission. But ... should we in the future make exceptions for specials from Amiga Inc.? I'd be interested in hearing from the readership on this one, as I'm not really sure what the right approach is. If you have an opinion, please drop a _short_ note to amigaupdate@globaldialog.com or amigaupdate@theropod.org and share it with us. On a personal note, I'd like to thank the group who took over development of YAM. This is a great program and its passing would be a tremendous loss to the Amiga community. Thanks much! You can find YAM at http://www.yam.ch/, where the following notice gives the latest good news: o 08-Jun-2001: The YAM Open Source Team proudly presents YAM 2.3. This new release fixes many bugs and adds some frequently requested features like SMTP-AUTH and PGP multipart support. Source code is included! A suggestion? A feature to strip html out of incoming mail. Recent changes in the way AOL handles mail has made it almost impossible to deal with mail from people who use that service! Okay, I'll stop dreaming now. We hope you enjoy this issue. Brad Webb, Editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E-mail to the E-ditor: Hi amigaupdate, Where can I get the "Advanced PPP implementation". Thanks a lot. lan N E W T C P / I P S T A C H A N N O U N C E D 12 Feb 1999 Active Technologies Announce Genesis, A New TCP/IP Stack for the Amiga Genesis is a state-of-the-art TCP/IP stack for the Amiga computer. Combining ease of use with advanced features, Genesis offers built in dialup Internet connectivity and/or local area networking. ----------------------> o Advanced PPP implementation: (MS)CHAP, PAP, Callback (WinNT compatible), VJ compression, protocol field compression, MTU negotiation, magic number negotiation, async map negotiation, MSDNS1/2 IP address negotiation, WINS1/2 IP address negotiation, Compression Control Protocol (modules include - BSD compress, deflate and MPPC). Also,PPP events control allows you to create scripts to perform actions when PPP has been put on or offline. <------------------ ~~~~~~ Hello Lan, The story you included is quite old (and its headline contained a typo, I see - shame on me!). A lot has happened to Genesis since February of 1999. The last I recall hearing, the program had been sold by the original developers. I thought, but am not certain, that it stopped being available some time ago. Perhaps some of our readers have current informaiton about Genesis and its PPP implementation and can let us know. Brad ---------------------------------------------------------------------- B I L L M C E W E N O N M I S - R E P R E S E N T A T I O N 21 June, 2001 Greetings To The Amiga Family: There have been some recent mis-representations that I have recently received about Amiga, Inc., and our office locations. Amiga is doing very well, and we are excited about the future of Amiga. The Amiga Family continues to grow with new partners, new products, and the very near release of AmigaDE 1.0. However with all of this activity there have been some out there who have recently sent out false information about Amiga, and I need to clarify this now. Amiga Incorporated in headquartered in Snoqualmie, Washington USA. Amiga Deutschland is still in business. We have only closed the Langen office. There are going to be some new additions, and a new office location announced in the next couple of weeks, but know now that Amiga International was a Gateway company, and was not and has not been associated with Amiga, Inc. since 1999. The dealer in Germany that is making claims that they are Amiga International is completely false, and Amiga Incorporated the parent company of Amiga Deutschland is going to take legal action against those who make these false claims. There is another dealer in India who has started claiming that they are Amiga in India. This again is also false. Amiga does NOT have any official representation in India outside of the Amiga dealers who are there. Amiga Incorporated is currently evaluating an office in India, and other countries where we do business. To those of you who continue to try and tear Amiga apart, it is time to stop. Amiga is moving forward, there are great things ahead, and for the first time in many years, the Amiga family will have new products, and choices. I look forward to a great year. Kindest regards, Bill McEwen ---------------------------------------------------------------------- T H I R D A N N U A L A M I G A F E S T 12 June, 2001 "Announcing: The Third Annual AmigaFest - The Show Within a Show at the Dayton Computerfest." Although summer has just begun, it's already time to plan for the fall Dayton Computerfest. And once again we have been asked to host the AmigaFest area of the show. The AmiTech-Dayton Amiga Users Group want to bring you, the Amiga users and vendors, together for an end of summer celebration of all things Amiga. Over the past two years, many present and former Amiga users have stopped by our exibitors tables to buy, sell, and trade Amiga hardware and software, as well as to swap stories and experiences like only Amiga people can. We also we wil be having a dinner get-together after closing on Saturday after the show closes for the day. This pay-as-you-go gathering has proved to be popular, and we will have exact arrangements to announce as we get closer to the show date. The setting for this festival is the Dayton ComputerFest, one of the largest shows of it's kind in the world. Everything about his show is BIG! over 125,000 square feet of computers and supplies. nearly 900 exhibitors. over 35,000 people will attend during the two days of the show. one of the most diverse assortments of hardware, software and accessories to be found under one roof. Won't you consider joining us? If you'd like to be an exhibitor, the rates are as follows: Tables are $55 if reserved by June 24th, each additional table will be $75. After June 24th, table prices rise to $60 for the first, and $90 for each additional. Contact: Ron Schwartz - schwartr@gemair.com or: Len Carsner - nard@erinet.com we'll get the process rolling with the ComputerFest co-ordinators. If you would like to conduct a seminar, please contact us to arrange seminar room reservation at no cost to you. The Dayton ComputerFest is a great place to introduce computer products of all nature. Dayton has a rich computer community, with a large computer user network, an organised IT association, and one of the most active Linux groups in the nation. It makes sense to exhibit in a location where you can reach so many for so little expense. As we get closer to show time, we will update you on who you can expect to see. Also we will post traveling instuctions and available lodging for attendees. Attention Amiga Vendors: while we hope you will choose to join us, we understand that many are unable to attend due to distance. We hope you will chose to show your support by making a donation to our prize drawing. With the retirement of Petro Tyschtschenko earlier this year, we cannot count on Amiga Inc. for support this year. Anything you could do for us would be apperciated and acknowledged to the crowd. Don't delay! Contact us NOW! The only Amiga get-together in the Midwest is less than 90 Days away! Make plans now to join in on a great time at a great show! AmigaFest - The Show Within A Show is THE place to be in August! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A I N C A N D M A T A Y D E A L Snoqualmie, 16 June, 2001 - Amiga Inc and Matay company are pleased to announce they are co-operating on a series of initiatives that will see the AmigaOS4 family of operating systems running on Matay's existing and future products. At the St Louis show in April, Amiga announced the continued development of AmigaOS, with AmigaOS4 moving AmigaOS3 to modern hardware and preparing the way for AmigaOS5. AmigaOS5 will be targeted at both the home server and the desktop/workstation markets. "In developing AmigaOS4.0, we have been making extensive use of the Prometheus PCI bridge board, to get a head start on developing drivers for the various sub systems whilst we wait for the Eyetech AmigaOne to be completed," said Fleecy Moss, CTO of Amiga Inc. "The quality of both their product and support, and their commitment to the future of the Amiga has made working with them a pleasure, and we look forward to this co-operation intensifying over the next few years." "We are very excited to work with Amiga Inc., the company that leads our community into the new technological revolution. In the incoming years, we will witness a breakthrough in digital home appliances, a trend to abandon a single computer workstation in favour of several smaller, yet more user-friendly devices. The revolution is coming, though we need to prepare for it, like the Amiga market needs transition from our classic computers to new technologies and standards. Amiga Inc. is the company that foresees these trends and enters the digital future today. We are proud that our Prometheus board, the first Zorro III PCI bridge for Amiga, helps them in making these plans come true," said Filip Dab- Mirowski, CEO of Matay company. "We will continue co-operation with Amiga Inc., not only providing them with hardware solutions for today Amiga market but also working together on products for the future digital market." About Amiga: Amiga Inc is a privately held Seattle based digital solutions company that revolutionised computing in 1984 with the introduction of the A1000, and has consistently been at the cutting edge of the digital revolution ever since. Currently it offers a complete solution for digital living, the AmigaDE (Digital Environment) which provide a device and OS (host) agnostic, universal, scalable content platform for OEMs and IHVs, consumers, producers and brokers of digital content, and the AmigaOS, a 68k and PPC based desktop, workstation and digital server platform for the most demanding of activities. The AmigaDE is currently being deployed on a variety of major cell phone, PDA, Set Top Box, Console, Digital Appliance and existing personal computer platforms. AmigaOS4 is expected to be launched in 3Q2001, running on the new AmigaOne computer. For further information, please email press@amiga.com, support@amiga.com or telephone (US) 425 396 5660. About Matay: Matay company is a privately held computer business oriented company. It was founded in 2000 as an Amiga-only software dealer and in a very short time earned trust of Polish Amiga users. With the introduction of Prometheus PCI bridge for Zorro III equipped Amigas, Matay has extended its offer with hardware solutions for the Amiga platform and professional electronic design of printed-circuitboards. Now, with the announcement of close co-operation with Amiga Inc., Matay enters a domain of digital appliances, which is predicted to be the future of home and business computing around the world. For more information, please email info@matay.pl, fei@matay.pl or telephone (+48) 609 394 778 or (+48) 603 785 100. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- O T T A W A S H O W M O V E S T O N E W D A T E S May 30, 2001 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada After speaking to the friendly organizers of AmiWest and receiving many e-mails regarding our Ottawa Amiga Show dates of July 28 and 29, we have decided to move the Amiga show, despite the overwhelming majority of users who voted in favour of the show on those dates. Once we have confirmed a date for the Ottawa Amiga Show we will let every one know (likely September 8 and 9, 2001). We would love to hear from everyone with suggestions for the show. As information becomes available, it will be posted on the show's website (http://www.technomages.net/amigashow/). Many Amiga users expressed their concerns of forcing people and vendors to choose which show to attend. This was not our intention. We initially projected that only people who lived within a few hours drive to Ottawa would attend our show, with everyone else attending AmiWest. We apologize for any inconvenience and confusion this may have caused. If you would like to be kept up to date on show announcements, send an email to oas-subscribe@technomages.net and you will be subscribed to the show's mailing list. On the weekend of July 28-29 we may have a BBQ for Amiga users who are interested in doing something. No vendors vending, just users around the BBQ talking about our favorite computer, and perhaps about the Ottawa Amiga Show. Keep an eye on the Amiga.info (http://www.technomages.net/amiga.info/) website for more information regarding the BBQ. Please attend the AmiWest 2001 show and have a great time. For more information regarding AmiWest, point your browser to http://www.sacc.org/amiwest/. We wish to thank everyone for their comments regarding the show dates. We hope to see many of you at the Ottawa Amiga Show. Sincerely, The Amiga Ottawa Show Team (amigashow@technomages.net) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- F I N N I S H S A K U 2 0 0 1 S H O W N E W S ESPOO, FINLAND - June 27, 2001 The tradition of quality guests at the Finnish Amiga Users Group's Saku events continues as Mr. Fleecy Moss, Vice President of Development of Amiga Inc., has agreed to attend Saku 2001. Preliminary plans include demonstrations of Amiga's new products. Saku 2001 will be held on Saturday September 1st 2001 at the Science Centre Heureka in Vantaa, near Helsinki. The event will open at 12:00 and end at 18:00. Admission will be free of charge. Finnish speaking audience can join Saku 2001 discussion on our Web discussion forum at http://saku.amigafin.org/keskustelu. Please stay tuned for more details as the planning progresses. For further information, visit Finnish Amiga Users Group's Web Site at http://saku.amigafin.org or http://tzimmola.tky.hut.fi/saku/. E-mail inquiries may be sent to Terho Henriksson (terho.henriksson@kopteri.net). Please also contact Terho if you or your company have products that you would like to demonstrate or advertise in Saku 2001. About Finnish Amiga Users Group: Finnish Amiga Users Group (Suomen Amiga-käyttäjät ry.) is a non-profit organization for promoting Amiga computing and helping Amiga users in Finland. Also known as Saku, after its e-zine, the group is trying to accomplish its goals by organizing meetings and by publishing an e-zine. Since 1993 the Finnish Amiga Users Group and its predecessors have released over thirty issues of the magazine and held several public gatherings. Other accomplishments include the Web site and Sakunet, a national Fidonet style network of Amiga related bulletin board systems. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I W E S T 2 0 0 1 N E W S 19 Jun 2001 Some of you have been asking us who is going to be at AmiWest 2001. Perhaps the following information will BLAST YOU OUT OF YOUR SEATS and get you going on travel reservations. *****************THIS IS AN AMIWEST 2001 EXCLUSIVE:****************** After 11 minutes and 58 seconds worth of conversation with CEO Bill McEwen of Amiga Inc., the following NEWS FLASH was created: FRIDAY NIGHT, JULY 27, 2001 BILL McEWEN WILL BE AT AMIWEST 2001 IN PERSON, doing the keynote address ON FRIDAY NIGHT so that all who desire can attend the address!! Hear the latest buzz on what's happening at Amiga Inc.. Come one, come all and hear it FOR FREE! If you're thinking ahead, you'll buy your show and banquet tickets NOW when the price is low instead of waiting until July 27 and paying full price. You can see the Amiga One in action on SATURDAY, not Friday; same with the Sharp handheld. So get those cards and letters coming in with banquet and show ticket checks! You really don't want to be on the outside looking in!! ********************************************************************* SATURDAY, JULY 28, 2001 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1) THE AMIGA ONE WILL BE AT AMIWEST 2001. At least one example of the Amiga One 1200 will be there and perhaps two, running the new Amiga OS 4.0!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2) THE SHARP HANDHELD DEVICE running the Amiga DE will also be at AmiWest 2001!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3) AMIGA ONE 1200 BOARDS will go into production at the END OF JULY, appearing at the dealers by MID-AUGUST!! ORDER YOURS AT AMIWEST 2001!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 4) THE AMIWEST 2001 SATURDAY NIGHT BANQUET will feature A JOINT PRESENTATION by Dr. Alan Havemose and Bill McEwen speaking on "Amiga and Gateway - What REALLY Happened"!! AND REMEMBER . . . The only all-Amiga show on the U.S. West Coast is gearing up for July 28-29, 2001 in Sacramento California. So make your plans to attend now. THERE ARE NOW THREE LESS ROOMS AVAILABLE, TAKEN BY AMIGA INC. RESERVE YOUR ROOM NOW!! Favorable room rates are STILL available, as always, so contact the Holiday Inn Northeast at 1-916-338-5800 or, toll-free direct to the hotel, 1-800-388-9284 to reserve your rooms. And keep checking our website for all the latest updates at www.sacc.org/amiwest. Don't be left out. This should be the biggest and best AmiWest show yet! If you're thinking ahead, you'll buy your show and banquet tickets NOW when the price is low instead of waiting until July 27, Friday night, and paying full price. You can see the Amiga One in action on SATURDAY, not Friday; same with the Sharp handheld. So get those cards and letters coming in with banquet and show ticket checks! You really don't want to be on the outside looking in!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- M E R L A N C I A / I N D I V I D U A L A L L I A N C E 29th June 2001 Merlancia Industries is pleased to announce a strategic relationship with 'individual Computers'; to design a controller device that will be utilised on our Torro series systems. The device, a custom chip controller, named 'CLeo' will be available as an add-on kit for the Pilot release systems (to be included with all systems shipping after it's release, and to be sent to all developer systems sold before-hand). The 'CLeo" custom device is based on technology first implemented in individual Computers' 'CatWeasel' disc controller, and will allow the reading and writing of Amiga native disc formats (880k and 1760k) on our Tsunami system as well as future directives. Other formats will be supported as well including PC-DOS, and Macintosh-HFS. We expect to have a prototype of this design at AmiWest Conference (28th to 29th July 2001- Sacramento, CA; USA) as well as our prototype Pilot system. http://www.merlancia.com | merlancia@merlancia.com -- individual Computers -Jens Schönfeld http://www.jschoenfeld.de | jens@jschoenfeld.de ---------------------------------------------------------------------- M E R L A N C I A O P E N L E T T E R 29th June 2001 Merlancia Open letter to the Amiga Community by Ryan E. A. Czerwinski, CEO of Merlancia Industries Greetings to all. We are happy that the Amiga community is taking a deep and serious interest in our products and what we are working on in the background! We will be releasing some more critical information to answer your questions soon, however, we are currently gagged until some other contracts are completed. I assure you all that welcomed good news is ahead...in fact, look forward to a feature article about us in an upcoming issue of AmigaActive magazine, where we hope to answer many of your questions. We are currently looking for those that are interested in developing for our system(s). (As the Tsunami will only be the *first* system we are releasing.) To answer some common questions that have been asked: Re bPlan: Yes, we are working with bPlan on the Tsunami design. The details of this partnership are due out soon. Let it be said that we are designing hardware, not just sitting idle and waiting for others to do our work for us. We have very talented people on staff, both software and hardware (not to mention press relations and marketing) and we are spending our $$$ wisely. Release dates: The Tsunami system is expected to be released in it's final consumer form in November to December 2001. We are working very hard to meet this deadline, though we cannot foresee any problems that may arise. The Pilot release will most likely be after the AmiWest conference, not at as we had hoped, as we are currently having a slight fault in the gfx display; We will have a demonstration system at the show. We plan to have a press conference as well as other 'events' at AmiWest, and we hope that there is a large amount of Amigans that think it wise to attend. ;) We need your talents!: We are looking for both software and hardware developers. A platform like this cannot succeed without a full range of software to run on it. Sure, the current software will run on our system, but we need a full library of up-to-date software, both multimedia and business applications, to be able to achieve our place in the market. We have already received orders for developer systems from some very impressive firms and individuals. We hope to grab up as much talent as possible, as it makes sense to have PowerPC software for new PowerPC hardware. We are looking for both the absurdly simple (tiny games or utilities) to the fairly complex (graphics packages, office suites) software titles. AN option will be available to have your software included with each unit sold, or special unit packages. AmigaOS 4/5: We are unfortunately unable to release details on this currently, however, we hope to do so shortly; most likely at the AmiWest conference. Let it be said currently that our system both meets and exceeds the Zico specification,as do all of our 'in development' systems. Our market: We are designing our Torro systems to be a natural complete system solution upgrade path for current Amiga users (see examples of how/why below) but we are not limiting our products to the current Amiga market or community. We anticipate high sales volumes to the consumer and industrial multimedia markets; Our systems are designed to be as CHRP resembling as possible. We are pitting them against the big names like Apple and SGI. Our partnership with Blittersoft was only the first step in this process- Working together on the iFusion project will allow us to migrate iFusion to our systems easily, allowing full Macintosh compatibility on our products, both under AmigaOS and stand-alone (later). We are also planning on offering other OS solutions as separate packages including QNX, Linux, Solaris, BeOS (hopefully), and others. We cannot provide MacOS ourselves, but the user will have the option of installing it, and we will also be working on an x86 emulator so that if the user desires he/she can use x86 operating systems including UNiX, Linux-x86, BeOs-x86, and (gasp!) even MS Windows (though we won't support it directly). We are also working on a firmware OS (think what Exec is to Amiga) that allows not only selection of startup devices via an 'early startup' screen, but also setting up multiple machine states that can be launched with ease and switched between instantly. (Thus allowing multiple OSs to be run at once.) This may not be included with the first launch, but an updater will be available to patch the firmware, which is flash updatable. Speaking of which, your machine state setting will be able to be saved, as well as your other setting, including screen mode and startup volume (individual to each machine state), thus allowing you to start up with those options each time you reboot. Why is it a natural upgrade path?: Unlike other machines promised in the past, and other projects in the works, we are working on something that will be completely natural to the Amiga user of today. Features like the ability to read and write to floppy discs and other media in native Amiga formats (880k and 1760k on floppy discs) as well as simple things like the layout of the keyboard and the look and feel of the design of the system all around all total up to Amiga-like. We are trying to make a product that is impressive from the inside and out, not just another `box'. Not to say that all offerings that are currently being made are bad. in fact, i look forward to the EyeTech AmigaOne. I know I will buy one personally, and our retail division will carry them. (We have the world's largest stock of A1200 NTSC systems; other dealers are now ordering them from us.) The future and beyond: What lies in store for us, the Amiga community? I can't say for sure, but I feel that the future is brighter than ever due both to the commitment from Amiga ( a lively bunch of bright and intelligent individuals) as well as out commitment to you, the Amiga community. As always, you come first in our thinking and our product design. This product is designed for you; We wouldn't have bothered if it wasn't. As always, best wishes to everyone. Thank you for being a customer, current, or future. Cheers, Ryan E. A. Czerwinski CEO - Merlancia Industries http://www.merlancia.com | merlancia@merlancia.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A O N E T I M E T A B L E F R O M E Y E T E C H Updated 27 June 2001 It's now several months since this timeline was last updated as most of the day-to-day news items have been posted to the http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/amigaone mailing list. However lots of things have happened since we launched the AmigaOne project which have had an influence on the specification of the final product and therefore the timetable leading up to delivery. The main change has undoubtedly been the decision by Amiga to use the current Amiga OS as the basis for a home server solution and as an alternative (to Windows and Linux) hosting environment for the Amiga DE. This has meant that when it is first launched the AmigaOne 1200 will be a substantially improved product to what was originally envisaged. The majority of the improvements come from Amiga's commitment to develop OS4.0 specifically to run on the AmigaOne-1200 at launch. This is far more than the 'fixed' version of OS3.9 that was originally envisaged (pending the development of the native PPC Amiga DE implementation that was originally planned). The new OS4.0 will come with a high performance file system, virtual memory, high performance PPC-native TCP/IP stack, 1GB main memory support, UDMA IDE and SCSI and ethernet drivers and Picasso96 2D retargetable drivers for VooDoo3 PCI/AGP and Matrox G450 PCI/AGP & G550 AGP only graphics cards. Warp3D/Mesa 3D drivers will also be shipped with the first release of OS4.0. Sound card (with Paula emulation), USB (keyboard and mouse) drivers will follow as downloadable updates - ie you wont have to wait until OS4.2 (which we don't expect to ship until mid 2002) for these facilities. The whole AmigaOne-1200 project is suddenly much bigger and very much better as a result. The small downside however is that during the several weeks leading up to the OS4.x announcement (at St Louis at the beginning of April) and more particularly since then, we and Amiga Inc have had to redirect much of our efforts to carefully defining, planning and allocating tasks and responsibilities to OS4.0 development and integration with the A1-1200. The extra work involved has also, inevitably, meant that timeframes have slipped. Although this has also meant that the end time for hardware delivery has moved back actual progress has, so far, been ahead of plan with the development currently looking like it will come in at less than the estimate for elapsed engineering time. As reported earlier in the AmigaOne FAQ's, beta testers will not now be needed for the hardware which is being independantly tested/validated as development progresses. As most people probably know, Continental Europe (where most of the AmigaOne and OS4.0 development is being carried out) closes in August, making it a bad time for beta testing and the associated feedback. As you'll see below, application software/OS4.0 beta test boards are therefore now scheduled for release at the beginning of September. Manufacture of production AmigaOne1200 boards will now start in mid September, and be released for distribution as soon as OS4.0 is signed off for release in early October. Timeline summary: Item & Date Mk 2 PCB production and testing Complete All major custom chip logic building block development and testing Complete CPU module design Complete Custom chip PCI development Complete Custom chip memory and CPU controller integration June/July Bootstrap, flashrom maintenance and basic drivers implementation July/August OS4.0 build and 68K emulator porting/testing July/August Application software beta tester systems shipped End August/Start September AmigaOne 1200 boards into production Mid September Application software & OS4.0 beta test sign off End September AmigaOne-1200 boards and OS4.0 available to dealers 1st week October http://www.eyetech.co.uk/amigaone/timeframe.php ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E Y E T E C K C L A R I F I E S O S 4 A N D W A R P {Found on the net. Brad.} From: "Eyetech Group Ltd" Date: Thu, 7 Jun 2001 10:02:49 +0100 Subject: Re: [amigaone] Re: Upgrade? > Show me an official statement (i.e. a posting, web page, IRC log) > where an Amiga, H&P or Eyetech employee states that AOS 4.0 won't run > existing WarpOS software. You won't find any. > > Of course AOS 4.0 will be able to run WarpOS software, anything else > would be quite stupid. > OK time to kill some wasted bandwidth here Heres an official statement. "OS4.0 will run existing WarpOS apps" Alan ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A N O T H E R E L B O X C O N T R O V E R S Y , P A R T 1 {Note: we have removed some e-mail addresses from these items. Brad} Krakow, 30 May 2001 Warp 3D for ELBOX Please note our explanations in reference to comments appearing in various news lists and concerning the date of sending a Warp3D offer to Elbox Computer. Someone is spreading false information on behalf of Hyperion in this reference. As we have informed, the FIRST Warp 3D V4 offer was sent to Elbox Computer on Friday 25 May 2001 at 22:29 CET. On Tuesday 22 May 2001, Elbox Computer was informed ONLY about the change in the Warp3D status. The following text was included in the end of this statement: "In the upcoming weeks we will be approaching all hardware developers with concrete and fair proposals which allow for very moderate compensation for Warp 3D V4 support." After 3 days, on Friday 25 May night, the announced offer was sent to Elbox Computer. However, there were no contract details in it, only the suggested price was given. Since Monday, 28 May 2001, Elbox Computer is in touch with Hyperion and discussing the offer. I hope to have dispelled all the fog concerning the date when we received the offer in question. Mariusz Wloczysiak ELBOX COMPUTER, Press Department http://www.elbox.com PS. Please find the full text of the first message from Hyperion of 22 May; as the facts have already been made public, this is no longer a business secret. -------- Original Message -------- Hi! Hyperion Entertainment has decided to change the Status of Warp3D slightly because of the current market situation. Please find attached to this mail an explanation of these changes. For further questions, please contact Ben Hermans (mailto:LegendConsulting@netscape.net), Managing partner of Hyperion Entertainment. Thanks for your time. Best regards, Hans-Joerg Frieden Senior Software Developer, Hyperion Entertainment --------------Boundary-00=_9SFQGR0TN2SA0J1DHNKL Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="Warp3D.rtf" -------- We want to inform you that after extensive deliberation, Hyperion Entertainment has decided to upgrade the status of Warp 3D V4 from a freeware product to a commercial OEM product which will offered to Amiga hardware developers. This decision was prompted by two major reasons: 1. Hyperion Entertainment has reached an agreement with Amiga Inc. to incorporate Warp3D V4 into Amiga OS 4.x on a per unit royalty basis. Producers of zico compliant hardware (Amiga One etc.) will be required to license Amiga OS 4.x and will as such be paying indirectly for Warp 3D V4 drivers. It is unacceptable to both Amiga Inc. and these hardware producers that they would be required to pay royalties for a product which other hardware producers would receive free of charge. 2. Warp 3D started out as a freeware product developed by non-commercial developers to support the Virge and Permedia 2 chipsets. Compared to current chipsets the Virge and Permedia 2 are extremely primitive and feature-poor. The effort and time needed to adequately support modern chipsets such as the Voodoo 3 and Matrox G450 with their rich and advanced feature-set is far greater than the effort required to support the Virge and Permedia 2 chipsets. As the original Warp 3D developers have now moved on to commercial development, maintaining Warp 3D as a freeware product would entail that development of new Warp 3D drivers and extension of the Warp 3D API would be very slow as development could only take place "after hours". This is not only not in the interest of Amiga users but it is also not in the interest of hardware producers and resellers who rely on the availability of Warp 3D drivers to successfully sell their Amiga hardware. Hyperion Entertainment fully understands that the company has a responsibility towards the Amiga community including the hardware producers because of its control over the Warp 3D API and no attempt has ever been made or will be made to exploit this position unfairly. In the upcoming weeks we will be approaching all hardware developers with concrete and fair proposals which allow for very moderate compensation for Warp 3D V4 support. As we know that market conditions in the Amiga market have been hard for everyone including hardware producers, Hyperion Entertainment is even willing to accept payment in kind (hardware). Best regards, {Note: the document as we obtained it stopped at this point, without a name. Brad} ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A N O T H E R E L B O X C O N T R O V E R S Y , P A R T 2 June 27, 2001 "Elbox and Hyperion did NOT come to an agreement about licensing Voodoo 3drivers because Elbox insisted that the Mediator 1200 would be the very first PCI solution to be supported (of all PCI boards on the market regardless for which machine A1200 or A4000). There never was discussion about delivery dates. The fact of the matter was that Elbox wanted us to do something which was clearly impossible both practically and legally. Practically: we can't "unsupport" the Matay Prometheus PCI solution. Drivers are shipping with the Prometheus for some time now and it's impossible to turn back the hands of time and allow the Mediator 1200 drivers to be shipped first. Legally: We entered into a legally binding contract with Matay for driver support. They paid us, Elbox didn't. We cannot legally delay release of the Prometheus drivers (which are already released anyway) just because Elbox wants us to. This is a clear breach of contract and runs contrary to the requirement of good faith which is a general principle of contract law. In short, Elbox was trying to impose an impossible condition on us and as a result we failed to reach agreement about Voodoo 3 drivers. I have e-mails from several staff members of Elbox to back up these claims. Despite numerous attempts we could not convince Elbox that Mediator 1200 users really could care less about the fact that the Voodoo 3 drivers for an A4000 solution were shipping first. The result is apparently that there won't be any 3D drivers for the Elbox products unless Elbox drops this ridiculous condition. Or somebody could invent a time-machine. As anybody could see at the Benelux show, the Voodoo 3 drivers are quite ready and could be adapted to the Mediator 1200 in a relatively short time. Mediator 1200 users interested in Voodoo 3 drivers should e-mail Elbox explaining that they don't care if an A4000 PCI busboard is supported first as long as they can finally get their Mediator 1200 drivers. The ball is clearly in Elbox's court." -- Ben Hermans Managing partner Hyperion Entertainment" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- D C E L I C E N S E S V O O D O O 3 W A R P 3 D 25-June-2001 Hyperion Entertainment is pleased to announce that it has entered into a license agreement with DCE, producers of the G-REX line of PCI hardware for the Amiga. Under the agreement Hyperion will support DCE's G-REX 1200 and G-REX 4000 products with fully featured Warp 3D Voodoo 3 drivers for both 68K and PPC. « We're very pleased that DCE has decided to respond to demand by its customers for Warp3D drivers for Voodoo 3 », says Ben Hermans, managing partner of Hyperion Entertainment . « Amiga users currently have quite a number of PCI solutions to chose from and the manufacturers offering the widest range of drivers for their PCI solutions will clearly have a competitive advantage. From the large number of e-mails we have received, we can only conclude that the availability of 3D drivers is a key consideration for users when they make their decision to purchase a specific PCI solution. To avoid disappointment, we once again urge users interested in 3D graphics to investigate the availability of Warp3D drivers before purchasing a specific PCI solution. » ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E Y E T E C H A N D M A T A Y D E A L 19 June, 2001 Prometheus PCI expansion for Zorro3 Amigas will be in stock by 25th June - orders now being taken For immediate release We're particularly pleased to have struck a deal with Matay, the Polish makers of the Prometheus board as it enables A3000/A4000 (both desktop and tower systems) to gain 4 PCI slots for trading in just one Zorro slot. The board is shipped with 2D & 3D drivers for VooDoo graphics cards (also in stock), together with drivers for ethernet and sound cards, and an complete royalty-free SDK. It is an incredibly well designed and manufactured board, (guaranteed for 5 years) and is the first PCI expansion board on any Amiga to get Hyperion's seal of approval for its 3-D support. A PPC add-in card is in the pipeline giving a PPC-based forward path for those users who want to retain Zorro 3 compatibility in their big-box Amigas. The UK price inc VAT is £199.95 (or 269 euros/239USD, both excluding VAT). Specifications are as follows: General o Works with any Zorro III equipped Amiga, regardless of the accelerator/CPU board installed in the system. o Four 32-bit PCI slots clocked at 33 MHz. o Fits any tower case and also works with desktop A3000/4000s when open. o Works with other Zorro III cards, supports AutoConfig (TM). o Real transfer rates between Amiga and PCI cards - up to 12 MB/s (a limitation of the 'Buster' chip) o Real transfer rates between PCI cards - up to 120 MB/s. o Additional on-board connector for the power supply. o Professionally designed four-layer printed circuit board with gold-plated contacts - complies with the PCI standard specifications. Drivers The Prometheus card comes with a CDROM containing: o Drivers for the Voodoo3 graphics card, developed in close co-operation with Hyperion and the authors of Picasso96. 2D drivers work under the P96 system, 3D functions are available through Warp3D. o Drivers for the the network card. (Sound card drivers will be available for free download shortly) o A royalty-free, NDA-free software development kit for programmers. This is designed to make the Prometheus card the most open PCI bridge solution as far as the driver development goes. o Demo versions of games using the 3D functions of the Voodoo3 graphics card: Heretic 2, Shogo, Wipeout 2097. The package also contains a reference manual (in English, German & Polish), brackets for the Prometheus and PCI cards and an extension cable for a graphics card. Mechanical issues Due to the wide variety of tower solutions available for Amiga computers, it was not possible to design the Prometheus to be mechanically compatible with the card slots of all of them. The solution was therefore to design the Prometheus as the smallest possible Zorro 3 card and to provide brackets which hold the PCI cards to the Prometheus itself. Short cables (supplied) connect the PCI cards' I/O connectors to the rear panel of the computer case. This makes the card compatible with all Z3 tower cases that we are aware of. It also means that the Prometheus can be used in desktop A3000's an A4000's, although for these however the case lid cannot be closed with PCI cards installed. Other benefits of the Prometheus design approach o Suitable for 'riser' and 'motherboard' Zorro 3 slots o Works in conjuction with all CPU daughterboard/accelerator cards o Where mechanical layout allows, two Prometheus boards (8 PCI slots in total) can be used simultaneously o Future use with an be used with an G3/G4 card including 'off-the shelf' Macintosh types for running OS4.2 and higher. Prometheus driver CD list Graphics cards drivers o Voodoo3 2000 o Voodoo3 3000 o 2D drivers for Picasso96 graphics system o 3D drivers for Warp3D (full OpenGL support) Network cards drivers The prometheus NE2000 device driver should work with all NE2000 compatible PCI network cards, including the following: Producer Chipset Manufacturer ID Product ID Realtek RTL8029 $10EC $8029 Compex RL2000 $11F6 $1401 Winbond 89C940F $1050 $0940 Holtek HT80232 $12C3 $0058 Surecom NE34 $10BD $0E34 Holtek HT80229 $12C3 $5598 Tested network cards Genius GE2500-III SE, RTL8029 chipset TV card drivers Work in progress Sound card drivers Work in progress. It will be available for free download as soon as it is finished. Some independent developers have also started work on writing soundcard drivers for the Prometheus. No obligation pre-orders are being taken now to secure a card. Place your order by calling +44 1642 713185, emailing us at sales@eyetech.co.uk or through our website. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- P U R E B A S I C V 1 . 3 2 R E L E A S E D 11 June 2001 PureBasic V2.32 Released (AmigaOS) : - Added: ReadMemory(), WriteMemory(), SetWindowTagList() - Added: Async palette fade - Added: New commands for Chunky library - Added: Procedures can now returns strings - Added: WaitWindowEvent() - Added: CompilerIf, CompilerElse, CompilerEndIf, CompilerSelect... - Added: FileSystem library - Added: Picasso96 library - Added: Path change when running a program from the editor (no need to put absolute path anymore) - Added: Editor: Auto-casing and contextual online help. - Added: Data support (new commands: Data, DataSection, EndDataSection, Read, Restore) - Changed: PokeS(), now returns the number of characters 'poked' (handy) - Changed: OpenWindow() (to be compatiable with other OSes) - Changed: The whole gadget library (to be compatiable with other OSes) - Fixed: A compiler bug (Structure can't be redeclared a second time..) - Fixed: A member in a structure used but not initialized - Fixed: Sprite lib (debugger and priority to the end) - Fixed: a Picture bug - Fixed: Screen/FontRequester(): now returns 0 when cancelled. - Fixed: ReadString(), Str() - Fixed: A lot of editor bugs http://www.purebasic.com/news10.html support@purebasic.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- F R E E S C A N N E R C O L O R C A L I B R A T I O N 9 June, 2001 ICS The Free AmigaOS Scanner Color Calibration Software ICS allows color calibrating basicly any scanner using scanner calibration photos (targets). Standard IT 8.7 (ISO 12641), various Corel and Epson targets are supported. The software can work independent of any Amiga scanner drivers, but works best with scanner software directly calling ICS for you (ScanQuix V4 or V5, ScanTrax, ImageFX, FXScan). Using the ICS software is fairly easy. Install using the provided standard Installer program. Scan the calibration photo with your scanner and generate a scanner profile. The profile can than be selected in the ICS preferences program and defines the color correction performed. Also, you can adjust the type of display the color correction is made for. Once done, further scans with the ICS enabled scanner driver will automaticly result in perfect scans. The system requirements of ICS are: Amiga with OS 2.04 or higher. Next you need a calibration target. For best results, use a calibration target according to the ANSI IT 8.7/2 (ISO 12641) standard. These are available from Kodak, Agfa, Fuji or for a very low price from www.targets.coloraid.de. In case you don't have a target, you can find generic profiles for various scanners in the ICSProfiles.lha file listed below. Use them only as last resort until you do have a real target photo for scanning. Despite the same brand/model, these generic profiles might not work with your scanner as each scanner is different! Following new features have been added to V2 of ICS: o Now all ICS image reading and writing is done using the new IRW library o ICSConvert can now write JPEG, IFF, and TIFF o ICSConvert and ScanTarget now support 16 bit/channel image data. o ICSConvert can now read/write embeded ICC color and IPTC/NAA editorial information o Now includes tools to extract ICC and IPTC information from images (IFF, TIFF, JPEG, PNG) o Spanish localization added o ICSConvert can now be used as tool for image format conversion. o IRW does offer improved and localized error handling. Error requesters now offer detailed information, hints and often also a Retry function. o Major speed improvement for loading certain file formats. Also, memory requirement was reduced. For further questions contact the author Wolf Faust. http://www.ics.coloraid.de/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A W R I T E R - F I L T E R F O R P A G E S T R E A M 3 June, 2001 AmigaWriter-Filter for PageStream 1.1 Written and Copyright ©2000-2001 by Rüdiger Hanke AmigaWriter-Filter is a new import filter for Soft-Logik's DTP program PageStream. Click on the thumbnail to the right to see a screenshot of what it can do! It consists of two parts: o The text filter inserts the main flowtext of your AmigaWriter documents into the current PageStream article with most of its text formattings. o The document filter loads your AmigaWriter documents as if they were native PageStream documents, retaining as much of your original document as possible. Applications AmigaWriter-Filter was designed to o print AmigaWriter documents to PostScript o export AmigaWriter documents to PDF o use AmigaWriter as a WYSIWYG replacement for PageLiner o ... and anything else you can think of :-)) The filter comes with the usual options you would expect from a PageStream import filter: it performs typographical conversions for quotes, dashes and ellipses. In addition, it allows you to choose the quote format (available are US, French, German and German-French). The text filter has another option called Apply Styles Only which can be a great help to achieve consistent layout, especially when several authors are working on one text. Download The AmigaWriter-Filter archive is now available in version 1.1. Minor and major updates will be available from the website from time to time, major updates will be uploaded to Aminet. Download: AW-Filter11.lha (55.3 kByte) http://www.muenster.de/~tomjoad/awfilter.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Amiga Update on the net: All back issues available at: http://www.globaldialog.com/~amigaupdate/index.html Stop by and check out our archive! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2001 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified. ====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ A M I G A /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ A M I G A U P D A T E /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ U P D A T E / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ amigaupdate@globaldialog.com ======================================================================