@database ANB1.01 ## USE AMIGAGUIDE TO VIEW THIS FILE @width 78 @wordwrap @font topaz.font 8 ## @node Main "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" þþþþþ þþþþþ @{b}A M i G A@{ub} þþþþþ þþþþþ @{b}N E W S B i T S@{ub} þþþþþ þþþþþ þþþþþ þþþþþ 01-04-94 þþþþþ þþþþþþþ þþþþþ þþþþþþþþ #1.01 þþþþþþþþþþþþþþ þþþþþ þþþþþþþþ þþþþþþþþþþþþþþ þþþþþþþþþþþþþþþ @{" News " link News} þþþþþþ þþþþþþþ þþþþþþþþþþþþþþþ þþþþþ þþþþþþ þþþþþþ þþþþþþ @{" Products " link Anno} þþþþþ þþþþþþ þþþþþþ þþþþþþ þþþþþ þþþþþþ þþþþþþ þþþþþþ @{" Features " link Feat} þþþþþ þþþþþþ þþþþþþ þþþþþþ þþþþþ þþþþþþ þþþþþþþþþþþþþþ @{" Credits " link Cred} þþþþþ þþþþþþ þþþþþþþþþþþþþþ þþþþþ þþþþþþ þþþþþ þþþþþþþþ @{" Distribution " link Dist} þþþþþ þþþþþþ þþþþþ þþþþþþ @endnode ## @node Cred "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" @{b} CREDITS@{ub} EDITOR oo Vince Yallop + vyallop@cix.compulink.co.uk -\\/- Fido 2:251/41.1 + AmigaNet 39:134/14.1 + CNet 76:80/10.1 FEATURES Matthew Legg - mlegg@freenet.scri.fsu.edu Fido 2:251/41.0 - AmigaNet 39:134/14.1 - CNet 76:80/10.1 USENET ANNOUNCEMENTS & REVIEWS Mailing list: announce-request@cs.ucdavis.edu. Comments to CSAA@megalith.miami.fl.us. Mail all comp.sys.amiga.announce Announcements to announce@cs.ucdavis.edu. Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews @{b}DISCLAIMER@{ub} Opinions in issues of Amiga Newsbits are not necessarily those of the editor, and comments should be directed towards credited authors of texts. Amiga Newsbits cannot be held responsible incorrect information, but trusted sources have been used whenever possible. The rest is either unconfirmed fact, rumour or fantasy. Amiga Newsbits is not connected in any way with Commodore-Amiga. Queries should be directed to the editor. @endnode ## @node Dist "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" @{b}DISTRIBUTION@{ub} This file may be freely distributed as long as all credits remain intact, no alterations take place and no charge is made. (c)1994 Amiga Newsbits is published on the @{b}1st@{ub} and @{b}15th@{ub} of each month in the UK and is spread worldwide. @{b}LATEST ISSUE@{ub} @{" Mostly Harmless " link DistMH} Havant, UK. @{" Aminet " link DistANet} Worldwide FTP. @endnode @node DistMH "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" @{b}MOSTLY HARMLESS@{ub} o Official Amiga Newsbits Archive & Primary Distribution Site o From the UK: 0705 614824 - From Abroad: +44 705 614824 - 2 Nodes o USR DS 21K6 ASL V32ter V42bis - Amiga 3000 - 300MB - Xenolink - 24hrs o FidoNet 2:251/41 - AmigaNet 39:134/14 - CNet 76:80/10 - 175+ Echos o Sysop: Lee Sanders - Co-Sysop: Vince Yallop o For All Your Amiga Needs - PD + Friendly Help, Advice & Chat o Official Mostly Harmless Spider! =O= @endnode @node DistANet "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" @{b}AMINET@{ub} On days of publication, Amiga Newsbits will be uploaded to central Aminet site wuarchive.wustl.edu and should quickly appear in the pub/aminet/text/mags directory, ready for FTP. Sites acting as mirrors are: ftp.wustl.edu ftp.cdrom.com ftp.luth.se src.doc.ic.ac.uk ftp.etsu.edu ftp.eunet.ch ftp.th-darmstadt.de ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de ftp.uni-oldenburg.de ftp.uni-kl.de litamiga.epfl.ch ftp.uni-paderborn.de @endnode ## @node NewsDiary "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" @{b}DIARY DATES@{ub} APRIL 94 - MIDI & Electronic Music Show London, Fri 22-Sun 24, +44 (0)222 512128 - Acorn User Spring Show 94 Harrogate, Fri 22-Sun 24, +44 (0)737 814084 MAY 94 - Internet World & Document Delivery World International 94 London, Mon 9-Thurs 12, Mecklermedia +44 (0)71 976 0405 JUNE 94 - Multimedia 94 London, Tues 7-Thurs 9, +44 (0)81 742 2828 SEPTEMBER 94 - VR User Show London, Tues 13-Thurs 15 OCTOBER 94 - BBC Big Bash Birmingham, Thurs 6-Sun 9 - Future Computing Show London, Wed 26-Sun 30 @endnode ## @node AnnoComing "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" @{b}COMING TO A DRIVE NEAR YOU..@{ub} - Latest planned launch dates of major Amiga titles in the UK. APRIL 94 Firehawk ................................... Codemasters CD32 Lionheart ............................. Thalion Rise of the Robots ......................... Mirage CD32 Inferno ............................... Ocean CD32 TFX ................................... Ocean CD32 Zool 2 ................................ Gremlin MAY 94 Kick Off 3 ................................. Anco/Imagineer CD32 Kick Off 3 ............................ Anco/Imagineer JUNE 94 CD32 Litil Divil ........................... Gremlin ALSO ON THE WAY Sim City 2000 .............................. Maxis Zeewolf .................................... Binary Asylum Sensible Golf .............................. Sensible Software/Virgin CD32 Steg the Slug ......................... Codemasters CD32 Seymour Goes to Hollywood ............. Codemasters CD32 Magicland Dizzy ....................... Codemasters CD32 Captain Dynamo ........................ Codemasters CD32 CJ in the USA ......................... Codemasters @endnode ## @node News "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" @{b}NEWS@{ub} @{b}EVENTS@{ub} @{" 3DO " link News3do} @{" Diary Dates " link NewsDiary} @{" Atari " link NewsAtari} @{" Internet World International " link NIWI} @{" CD-i " link NewsCdi} @{" Commodore-Amiga " link NewsAmiga} @{" Nintendo " link NewsNintendo} @{" PC " link NewsPc} @{" Sega " link NewsSega} @{" & OTHER BITS " link NewsOther} @endnode @node News3do "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" THREE NEWS ITEMS - Samsung and GoldStar has signed up to produce 3DO machines, joining Panasonic, AT&T and Sanyo. The 3DO Company has set up Studio 3DO to produce software. And finally, and probably most importantly, Creative Technology is working jointly of a plug-in card for the PC. @endnode @node NewsAtari "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" NEW DEVELOPERS - Atari have announced fifty new developers for the Jaguar, taking the total to 86 working on products. Included in the new list are Bullfrog, Imagineer and Jaleco. @endnode @node NewsCdi "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" RISE UP - Mirage are developing Rise of the Robots for the CD-i and Philips have signed up worldwide sales rights. @endnode @node NewsAmiga "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" CD UPGRADE REVEALED - Jesper Juul writing in Amiga Report #2.12 reports that Commodore's A4000 and A1200 CD expansions have been on show at the CeBit in Germany. On the A4000 and as much predicted, MPEG comes as standard. The A1200 unit doesn't have MPEG capability currently, but the drive is said to be much more in prototype stage. Both contain the chunky-to-planar chip Akikio. SMART MOVES - CD32 disc sales overtook the Mega CD in early March, with Gallup chart figures showing the race 44% to 29%. Across Europe, distributors have said to have taken 16,000-plus copies of Microcosm. 'BETTER' MONITOR - A new Microvitec monitor is being aimed at Amiga users. The Pro Graphics Multi Sync has been claimed to offer a better spec than the Commodore 1942. @endnode @node NewsNintendo "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" 'COLOUR GAMEBOY' - Nintendo are to launch a Game Boy adaptor for the SNES to allow the monochrome games to be played in four colours. The Super Game Boy cartridge adaptor will arrive in America in the summer, priced at nearly $60. @endnode @node NewsPc "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" CD FOR KIDS - Publisher Dorling Kindersley are publishing five multimedia PC CD titles later this year based on well-selling children's reference books. They will be: The Way Things Work, The Ultimate Human Body, My First Incredible Amazing Dictionary, Stephen Biesty's Incredible Cross Sections Stowaway and The Eyewitness Encyclopaedia of Science. @endnode @node NewsSega "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" SEGA REVEALS - Mega Drive owners will be able to join the 32-bit revolution with a plug-in upgrade, currently known as Mars in the UK and Super Genesis 32X in Japan and the US. With twin RISC chips and a special video processor it will provide power for Virtua style games for £150 when launched later this year. By utilising the Mega Drive power supply and controller costs will be kept down and a flood of secondhand machines will not appear in the classifieds. SEGA EURO-HEAD QUITS - Nick Alexander has quit his position of chief executive at Sega Europe to pursue work in broader media. He was the founder of Mastertronic in 1983, which merged with Virgin Games and started importing Sega to Europe. @endnode @node NewsOther "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" ELSPA TACKLE PIRATES - Changes in ELSPA anti-piracy policy has led senior FAST investigator John Loader to move in-house with the publishers' association. FAST is to continue its weight against corporate copying, but will retain links with ELSPA for consumer theft. An ELSPA crime unit number can be called direct to pass on piracy information: 0386 830642. SHOPPER SALES DOWN - Latest ABC figures show a sharp drop in copies of some Future magazines. Amiga Shopper has fallen over 13% on last year, with sales now an average of 37,583 compared to 43,290 a year earlier. Amiga Format stays steady around the 142,000 mark, while Commodore Format and Amstrad Action show the biggest percentage fall both down 44% to 25,063 and 15,168 respectively. SALES DOWN, PRICES UP - Gallup has released its Q3&4 report on that state of the British games market last year. It shows that unit sales fell by a fifth at shops taking part in its survey, but value increased by a tenth. The Mega Drive continues to lead sales with 33%, followed by the SNES on 19%, the Amiga falling from 18% to 13% and then the Game Boy on 9%. PCs have reached fifth spot with 7%. PC ACTION TO CLOSE - Europress Enterprise have taken aboard the Europress Interactive titles under its wing. PC Action is to close following a smaller-than-expected market for games magazines. GAME ON - Middlesex University has confirmed that its MA degree in games development will go ahead this autumn, and are now also planning a three-year BA course. Each student will be sponsored by a games company, take work experience and look at team development. Meanwhile Nintendo of America are offering SNES developer kits to the DigiPen Computer Graphics School for two-year courses. BBS RAIDED - ELSPA's anti-piracy unit and police have raided The Krypt BBS in Birmingham, taking 2,000 disks and computer equipment. John Loader told Computer Trade Weekly that the number of pirate boards operating in the UK has dropped from 40 to 25 since a similar raid in December. MERCURY TAKES GAMES STAKE - Mercury Communications has invested £3.75 million in multimedia publishers Andromeda and has established a division to investigate link-ups in technology and media. GONNA BE A.. - Revolution Software of Hull have sold a quarter stake to Virgin Interactive Entertainment for over £1 million. Revolution specialises in adventures and produced Lure of the Temptress. IN THE BASKET - Acclaim have shipped 1.5 million copies of NBA Jam worldwide since its launch at the start of March, available for Sega and Nintendo consoles. @endnode ## @node Anno "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" @{b}REVIEWS@{ub} @{" Insite Floptical I325VM " link UIFI} Allan G Lawrie. @{" ISDN Master " link UISD} Alan Berney. @{" CD32 Microcosm " link UMIC} Aad Nieuwmans. @{" Music X 2.0 " link UMUX} Rick Adams. @{" Oktagon 2008 " link UOKT} Michel J Brown. @{" Real 3D 2.35 " link URTD} Ricardo Hernandez Machado. @{" Warlords 1 2.04 " link UWAR} Omar Siddique. @{b}PREVIEWS@{ub} @{" Coming to a drive near you.. " link AnnoComing} Release schedule. @endnode @node UDBB "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" From: jhines@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (hits" Hines) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Digital Breadboard Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.applications Date: 27 Mar 1994 22:56:00 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 168 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Approved: barrett@math.uh.edu Distribution: world Message-ID: <2n52u0$re8@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: jhines@csugrad.cs.vt.edu (hits" Hines) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: science, engineering, electronics, circuits, simulation, freeware Originator: barrett@karazm.math.uh.edu PRODUCT NAME Digital Breadboard 1.1.8 BRIEF DESCRIPTION This product is a computer engineering simulator. It allows you to build up combinational logic circuits on screen and test them. This product may be found in the file util/misc/dbb118.lha on the Aminet ftp sites. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Dan Griffin Address: 2049 Tamarack Dr. Okemos, MI 48864 USA E-mail: griffin@egr.msu.edu LIST PRICE Freeware. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE Works on the 68030. SOFTWARE Requires AmigaDOS 2.04 and reqtools.library. "Degrader" is recommended because for some reason the program is in PAL. COPY PROTECTION None. Installs on a hard drive. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 3000 / 25 10 meg ram (8 Fast, 2 Chip) Quantum 50 meg HD Quantum 425 meg HD Commodore 1950 monitor AmigaDOS 2.1 INSTALLATION Dearchive the files (using "lha" or similar program) into a directory and you're set. It makes its own subdirectory. REVIEW I saw this announced in comp.sys.amiga.announce and I said to myself, "I could really use a program like this." I then downloaded it and tried to use it. It dearchived nicely into its own directory and was immediately available to run. After starting it the first time, I realized that I would need to boot in PAL mode to see the bottom of the screen. Now after using the program for about 2 hours, I find that it is a very good program for designing digital logic circuits. I am currently taking an Introduction to Computer Engineering course and I was easily able to put examples from the book into the DBB and see them work. There are also some example circuits that are neat to see. Some of the features of this program include, in no particular order: - multiple user definable clocks - printing of circuit designs - various logic functions include 2 and 3 input - and - or - nand - nor - xor - inverters - input and output indicators - logic probes - various flip flops including - j/k - s/r - d - ARexx port (hmmmmm) - Many others that I cannot think of right now DOCUMENTATION Documentation is online in AmigaGuide format. You can also get printed documentation from the Author for $5 (US). Documents are also in text and TeX formats. The documentation is of good quality. However, it does not teach digital logic design. You should take a class for this or buy a good book from Radio Shack entitled "Getting into Electronics" for a start. LIKES AND DISLIKES I think that I like the ability to test digital logic circuits without having to wire them up on a real breadboard. Also you don't have to buy the chips to test them out: you can just use the electronic ones. I dislike the distance that the elements must be separated by. It kind of limits the number of items you can put in. Also there are only so many different types of logic that you can make. (and, nand, nor, etc.) The program could use some user definable logic functions (which the author promises for the next version). I would like to see a variable sized grid on which the elements can be placed, user definable logic functions, and a NTSC version. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS Compared to doing this kind of design by hand, this is great. I have not seen any other products with which to compare it. BUGS I have not found any bugs. This program runs smoothly. I did however crash the program once, but that is because I did not read all the documentation. VENDOR SUPPORT Not applicable. WARRANTY No warranty is given (it's freeware, dammit). CONCLUSIONS I think that this is a very good product. I cannot wait for the next version to be released. COPYRIGHT NOTICE This review is hereby deemed freeware. :) --- From: griffin@egr.msu.edu (Dan Griffin) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: Re: REVIEW: Digital Breadboard Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.applications Date: 29 Mar 1994 22:13:40 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 40 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Approved: barrett@math.uh.edu Distribution: world Message-ID: <2na96k$1uq@masala.cc.uh.edu> Reply-To: griffin@egr.msu.edu (Dan Griffin) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: science, engineering, electronics, circuits, simulation, freeware, followup Originator: barrett@karazm.math.uh.edu [MODERATOR'S NOTE: This is a followup to the review of Digital Breadboard which was written by jhines@csugrad.cs.vt.edu and posted on 27 Mar 1994. Dan Griffin is the author of Digital Breadboard. - Dan B] I'd like to point out a few errors in the recent review of Digital Breadboard posted to c.s.a.reviews: >"Degrader" is recommended because for some reason the program is in PAL. Digital Breadboard does not force PAL mode: it runs in NTSC or PAL. However, it does create a screen with a height of 440 pixels, so a modest overscan is recommended. Version 1.2 has a resizable window. >Some of the features of this program include, in no particular order: >- ARexx port (hmmmmm) This is only in version 1.2, which is still in development. No ARexx port is currently available. >I have not found any bugs. One wire routing bug has been reported in v1.1.8. v1.1.9 (file "dbb119.lha") should be available on Aminet shortly. @endnode @node UIFI "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" From: alawrie@zenith.actrix.gen.nz (Allan G. Lawrie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Insite Floptical Drive I325VM Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.hardware Date: 31 Mar 1994 16:40:25 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 244 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Approved: barrett@math.uh.edu Distribution: world Message-ID: <2neudp$riq@masala.cc.uh.edu> Reply-To: alawrie@zenith.actrix.gen.nz (Allan G. Lawrie) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: hardware, storage, floptical, SCSI, commercial Originator: barrett@karazm.math.uh.edu PRODUCT NAME Insite Floptical Drive I325VM BRIEF DESCRIPTION This is a 3.5 inch SCSI floppy drive which uses a combination of magnetic recording and laser tracking to store 21 MB on a floppy disk. It is a cheap alternative to optical drives. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Insite Peripherals Address: (Apparently they have moved.) USA Telephone: (408) 441-0660 FAX: (408) 441-1211 Name: MELCO Sales (NZ) Ltd. Address: 1 Parliament St, Lower Hutt, New Zealand Telephone: +64 (4) 569-7350 FAX: +64 (4) 569-3623 LIST PRICE $1100.00(NZ) is the approximate price for a Floptical kit. $825.00(NZ) is what I paid for a bare drive. $42.75(NZ) per 21 meg disk is the best I have found. All prices are in New Zealand dollars and include GST. Estimated prices in US dollars are half those shown above. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE Amiga SCSI controller. Large to small power plug adaptor. Optional: 3 1/2 mounting kit. SOFTWARE Insite drive unlock utility.(Available on aminet) Hard drive formating software. Workbench 1.3 minimum. (1.3 and 2.1 tested) MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 2000, 1MB Chip RAM, 2MB Fast RAM. ECS Agnus chip. OCS Denise chip. Commodore 2091 SCSI controller. Xetec FastTrack SCSI controller. AmigaDOS 1.3 / 2.1 INSTALLATION The Floptical drive will install in any 3 1/2 inch bay, but its faceplate is standard PC size. Installation is the same as a hard drive with the following exceptions: 1. The drive is protected by a thin tin cover, so some care is necessary. 2. The power plug is smaller than standard, and an adaptor is required. 3. As it uses floppy disks, there has to be external access to the front panel. 4. Insert the "insite" command early in the startup-sequence, but after "Binddrivers" and any other hard drive initialising software. As I received a bare drive, the SCSI address jumpering was a hit-and-miss affair. I settled on address 4 after some experimentation. REVIEW The first noticeable thing when booting with a Floptical is the time it takes for the drive to check a disk. It goes "clunk-clonk" and whirs a bit, reminiscent of a sick floppy drive. Both controllers take a bit of time to notice the drive when booting as it doesn't respond for about 10-15 seconds. This may cause problems with other controllers. Before you can do ANY writing to the drive, a utility is needed to send a "write sense enable" to the drive. Even low-level formatting cannot be done without this utility. There are two available on Aminet, the best being "insite" (filename: insite.lha). There is another called "scsi", and they both do the job. The command should be inserted in your startup-sequence AFTER Binddrivers and any other controller enabling commands. (For example, "Touchall" for Xetec controllers.) HDTools has no problem with the floptical AFTER the "insite" utility is run. Low-level formatting takes about 20 minutes, and AmigaDOS format is about the same, accompanied by a bit of clunking. In the end, the disk has 19 Meg of usable space. The disk acts just like a hard drive, with the exception of the write protect tab. This is the same as a floppy (on the opposite corner of the disk) and can be used to protect the disk from ALL writing. Write protected flopticals can be booted from on a virus-infected system or if something is trashing partitions (e.g., possibly some of the bugs in certain UNIX versions). Under AmigaDOS 1.3, the DiskChange command must be run several times when changing a disk. This isn't necessary for AmigaDOS 2.0 and higher because the computer polls the drive every 5 seconds: similar to the floppy interface, but without the annoying click. The disk icon disappears and reappears in an orderly fashion. If there is no disk in the drive when booting AmigaDOS 1.3, there will be a long delay until the controller times-out waiting for a response from the floptical drive. This is very obvious with the 2091 SCSI controller. Disk changes sometimes require a reboot to take effect. If the new disk has exactly the same partitioning as the old one, then disks can be changed without rebooting. Of course, this is not a problem if all your disks have only one partition. MessyDOS and CrossDOS can be used to read 1.44 MB PC disks. This requires a Mountlist entry and the appropriate software. It can be done. I have not been able to format PC disks using a floptical though. DOCUMENTATION I received a bare drive with NO documentation. There are kits available with all of this, which takes the guess-work out of the address jumpering. It's a SCSI device, so it shouldn't NEED much documentation. LIKES AND DISLIKES LIKES 1. The ability to store a reasonable amount of data with random access is what makes this product for me. I have 40 Meg of archive files stored away and duplicated on 4 disks. 2. Workbench fits on ONE disk. In fact several versions fit on one disk. 3. Another aspect is disaster recovery. All my important partitions are stored on a disk which I can boot from if the hard drive is killed. The hard drive can be reformatted/partitioned (or replaced) and all the data transferred back. 4. This could also be handy for UNIX users who could have a cut down system on 1 disk. Rogue software can't blow away a write protected floptical disk! DISLIKES 1. Initially the noise made by the drive was not to my liking. I'm used to it now. 2. The price of the disks! Initially I was charged $80 (NZ) each. Since then I have found a source for 3M Floptical disks at the price mentioned in the LIST PRICE section, above. DESIRED IMPROVEMENTS 1. Better Amiga support. 2. BIGGER disks. 3. A standard for the jumpers included in SCSI specifications, as this would make ANY drive simple to install. BUGS The drive requires a utility to enable writing. See above. VENDOR SUPPORT For me this was MELCO Sales (Mitsubishi ELectric COmpany). They were very helpful and replaced the whole drive when I told them that it wouldn't write. Later on they replaced a disk after I had messed it up so bad that NO controller could make sense of it. (The disk later formatted OK on one of MELCO's PC's.) Their technicians know a lot about the drives and are able to repair them. They will clean the drives too, as this can not be done buy the user. WARNING!!! DO NOT CLEAN THE DRIVE WITH A CLEANING DISK. The drive will require less cleaning (and expense) if ONLY floptical disks are used. WARRANTY 12 months. This will probably vary. CONCLUSIONS Apart from the fact that nobody from Commodore/MELCO/Insite was able to give specific help for an Amiga setup, I really like this product. The drive has performed flawlessly since I have been using it. To date I have had NO faulty blocks on any disks, including those with games on them. Games disks have received a reasonable thrashing for over a year! The physical write protection can be used in the case of viruses and experimental software to keep a reference disk free from interference. This reference disk can even booted from while still write-protected. The Floptical beats a tape for access and convenience, but storage is now small in comparison to other media (CD-ROM, DAT tape, and large hard drives). COPYRIGHT NOTICE This file is freely distributable as long as it remains unmodified and is not used for profit making purposes. @endnode @node UISD "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" From: aberney@octopuce.alphanet.ch (Alan Berney) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: ISDN Master Date: 27 Mar 1994 22:51:59 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Approved: barrett@math.uh.edu Distribution: world Message-ID: <2n52mf$r8d@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: aberney@octopuce.alphanet.ch (Alan Berney) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: hardware, ISDN, networking, Zorro II, commercial Originator: barrett@karazm.math.uh.edu PRODUCT NAME ISDN Master rev.2, WilhelmTel V1.187 BRIEF DESCRIPTION This is the first board for Amiga that allows you to connect your computer to an ISDN network. It turns your Amiga into a powerful phone answering machine and high-speed ISDN modem. WARNING: Before using this product, be sure it complies with the FCC regulations in your country. Also contact your phone company. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: BSC buroautomation Address: Lerchenstrasse 5 W8000 Muenchen 50 GERMANY Telephone: + 49 89 357 130-0 FAX: + 49 89 357 130-99 E-mail: Available on request LIST PRICE About DM 900.00 SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE ISDN phone line (contact your phone company). Amiga 2000/3000/4000. Hard disk strongly recommended. Phone handset (not included) would be very useful. SOFTWARE AmigaDOS 2.0 or higher COPY PROTECTION None. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 3000/25, 2MB Chip RAM, 8MB Fast RAM 1 internal 880K floppy. 1 Quantum 500 MB internal hard drive. 2 Quantum 100 MB internal hard drives. 1 Sony CD-ROM. AmigaDOS 3.1. INSTALLATION Software installation is done with Commodore's Installer program. It is very easy to install, and the installation script is very well documented. The version of the software in the box is 1.0, but there are many patches available almost everywhere, or directly from BSC. The card is a bit hard to plug it in, as the dial does not fit in the opening. You have to remove the guide for the card. The "jumpers" are set for USA regulations - you may find in the manual the correct positions for European standards. Once the software in installed, you have to set it to the network type you're using. The board has been successfully tested in the USA, France, Switzerland, Germany and Great Britain. It might work in many other different countries, although nobody has tested it. WHAT IS ISDN ANYWAY?? ISDN is to an analog phone line like what a CD is to an LP. An ISDN line has almost no line noise, and it allows you to transfer data at a much higher rate than on regular analog lines. ISDN allows you to use, on a single line, a telephone, faxes (class 4 or lower), visual-conferences, high-speed data transfers, etc. HOW DOES THIS WORK? (Note: This may slightly vary from country to country) ISDN allows you to transmit informations "digitally" instead of the regular "analog" way. With each phone line, you get 10 different phone numbers. You may set one different phone number per device connected to the network. For example, you may have a telephone, a fax, a BBS and an answering machine, all on one line, without any conflict. ISDN lines may carry two communications at the same time. Information is transmitted via two B-channels (binary) at 64 Kbits per second each. There is also a D-channel (data) at 16 Kbits per second which carries information such as Caller-ID, tax information, busy signal, etc... THE HARDWARE In the box, there is one ZORRO II ISDN board, one printed manual, one 3.5" disk, and a special wire to connect the card to ISDN. On the card, there are about ten chips (surface mounted), 7 jumpers, two connectors for ISDN-IN and ISDN-OUT, one connector for a phone handset (not included), a CINCH connector for Audio-in, and a dial to set the gain. DIGITAL MODEM ISDN-MASTER does not allow you to connect on "regular" analog modems, but you may connect to any other ISDN compatible device. The software supports X.75 and V.110 protocols. X.75 goes up to 64000 baud (!!), and V.110 goes up to 38400 baud! The "bscisdn.device" emulates a Hayes-compatible modem and may be used as replacement for the "serial.device". As there may be two connections at the same time, one card has two "units". The transfer rates are around 7800 cps (tested with TERM 3.4) I also tried to connect from unit 0 to unit 1 and make a transfer, and I got the same results! There is NO CPU wait time!! WILHELMTEL SOFTWARE I had to "borrow" my neighbour's handset to do this test. The software (WilhelmTel) is a commodity which loads when booting. It contains four "elements": - Digital Phone - Phonebook - Answering machine - Phone taxes DIGITAL PHONE This software allows you to use your Amiga as a regular phone, with many useful options, such as: - Seeing actual phone taxes. - Having two conversations at the same time. - Conference mode (you hear both callers, but they can't hear each other). - Mute with AUDIO-IN, allows you to play music to the callers directly from your HIFI. - Redial, Caller-ID, etc... PHONEBOOK You may store the most frequent callers, so when they call you, their name pops up instead of the phone number. You may choose for each entry if you want to hear the ring or not, or even to send a "busy" signal for "unwanted" callers!!! ANSWERING MACHINE This is the strong part of the software! You may record any conversation, you may record the "welcome" message, you may even record one personalized message per caller, etc... The quality of the samplings are simply PER-FECT!!! The size of a sample is 8 Kbytes per second recorded! You may listen to the samples either with the handset or through the Amiga speakers. PHONE TAXES Prints out a list of all incoming and outgoing calls, and prints the total money spent. CONFIGURATION FILES You may create your own "ringers." You also may define a ringer and a message per phone number, and even one special message if the disk is full. DOCUMENTATION It comes with printed German manual and German AmigaGuide file. The guide is well done, although I couldn't understand much, but the printed manual is not clear at all. The board is fairly easy to install and you won't need the manual too much. LIKES - FAST transfers without going down on CPU rates. - Phone/answering machine option. - Quality of samples. - Software really easy to use. - Mute with injecting an audio source. - Samples may be converted into IFF with a special software (not included). DISLIKES - German manual, not complete. - The board is not approved by any phone company. - The answering machine software is not "programmable" (it will be soon...). - The software does not accept faxes or regular modem calls. BUGS None - the software is still in BETA test and the programmers are VERY friendly and help a lot. Further BETA versions are available directly from the authors as soon as they are released. VENDOR SUPPORT VERY GOOD! Everyone is friendly, they are helpful and they speak English.... WARRANTY 1 year CONCLUSIONS A very good product. You've got to have it! When I ordered this card, I was expecting to get only an ISDN modem. It came with this phone/answering machine software and I was really glad to have it! ISDN is getting more and more popular, and not only for big companies. With this card, just about anyone can connect to this wonderful network. Make a step into the 21th century! COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1994 Alan Berney. All rights reserved. Translated/adapted for c.s.a.reviews by Alan Berney. @endnode @node UMIC "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" From: aad.nieuwmans@amiexh.hacktic.nl (Aad Nieuwmans) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Microcosm CD32 Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.games Date: 27 Mar 1994 23:00:50 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 145 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Approved: barrett@math.uh.edu Distribution: world Message-ID: <2n5372$roh@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: aad.nieuwmans@amiexh.hacktic.nl (Aad Nieuwmans) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: game, shoot-em-up, CD32, CD-ROM, commercial Originator: barrett@karazm.math.uh.edu PRODUCT NAME Microcosm CD32 BRIEF DESCRIPTION MicroCosm is a shoot-em-up game for the CD32. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Psygnosis Ltd. Address: South Harrington Building Sefton Street, Liverpool L3 4BQ England Telephone: +44 51 709 5755 LIST PRICE 129.00 (Dutch Guilders) for the Limited Edition, which comes with an audio CD (Psygnosis Soundtrax Vol.1) and a T-shirt of MicroCosm. 99.00 (Dutch Guilders) for the normal edition. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE A CD32. SOFTWARE None. COPY PROTECTION ?? MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga CD32 INSTALLATION None. REVIEW The game is based on the movie Inner Space, where a miniature spacecraft is travelling through the body of a human. INTRO The Intro is most fascinating and extremely cleverly done. As we go to the Cyber*Tech corporation, we get a 3D look at the city and see some common vehicles run by. The next step is on top of the building where security agents are waiting for the transport to arrive. Incredible graphics and stunning action give you the impression that you are looking at a movie instead of a video game. GAME The game starts in a vein. The craft you're steering is simply drawn. The vein itself is very nicely done, like plasma. On our way to the control center we meet some body-habitants, which we must shoot down. With the help of a map (warning, the map is shown, but the action will continue as you read it), we can determine our way out. Different weapons can be selected, but there's no noticeable clue on the screen! Shooting at those weird-looking objects at a rapid speed seems to be the task here. There's some interaction; for example, when a vein splits in two we can actually choose to go right or left. When completing the first (still intro) level, you'll get the chance to enter at different locations, e.g., left brain or right brain. This will only show other aircrafts and other vein-graphics. The graphics in between all the action are superb. Although the gameplay is very difficult (you could be dead in seconds), continuing the game to see some other levels is done some five times. Maybe there's more to come... DOCUMENTATION Good. Normal explanation of the world and vehicles. The parts of the body you can enter are described. LIKES AND DISLIKES I like the Intro very much, and the animations shown throughout the game. They show what a machine the CD32 really is. The game however is not so exciting as I thought it would be. If the Intro shows so many nice/neat animations, then the game itself could be better. It would be best if this product had improved gameplay and maybe some improvement on the interactivity, controlling the ship better. The most annoying part is the loading disk at the screen, so the animation simply stopped or started. BUGS None. CONCLUSIONS Good. It's definitely a must-be-in-my-collection game. Although the gameplay isn't that exciting at all, the intro and animation make it all better. COPYRIGHT NOTICE This review is freely distributable. Aad Nieuwmans (aad.nieuwmans@amiexh.hacktic.nl) -Via PDQMail @ 2:281/510.0 (primary default address) -Via DDDGate @ 2:281/510.0 DDDGate 1.42 (30.09.93) @endnode @node UMUX "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" From: ratzlaff@lclark.edu (Rick Adams) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Music-X 2.0 upgrade Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.audio Date: 29 Mar 1994 17:11:11 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 251 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Approved: barrett@math.uh.edu Distribution: world Message-ID: <2n9nff$pl7@masala.cc.uh.edu> Reply-To: ratzlaff@lclark.edu (Rick Adams) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: music, MIDI, sequencer, upgrade, commercial Originator: barrett@karazm.math.uh.edu PRODUCT NAME Music-X 2.0 upgrade BRIEF DESCRIPTION Music-X 2.0 is the long-awaited upgrade to the venerable Amiga MIDI sequencer, Music-X. It includes Notator-X, a new music notation program. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: Hollyware Entertainment Address: PO Box 9148 Marina Del Ray, CA 90295 Telephone: (310) 822-9200 FAX: (310) 390-0457 E-mail: 72662.1041@compuserve.com LIST PRICE $199.95 for Music-X 2.0. I have seen it advertised in Amiga magazines for $129.95. The upgrade is $100 and requires sending in your original program and utilities disks. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE MIDI interface and MIDI instruments strongly recommended for serious work. Memory requirements are minimal unless you want to work with lots of samples. 2 megs of Fast RAM should handle just about anything. A hard drive isn't necessary if you're patient. No special CPU requirements. SOFTWARE The manual does not mention any special requirements. COPY PROTECTION None. Installs on a hard drive. INSTALLATION Installs OK if you rewrite the Installer script. It incorrectly asks for the volume "Music-X 2.0" as the program disk when it should be "Music-X2.0". MACHINE USED FOR TESTING A3000/25, 2 megs Chip RAM, 8 megs Fast RAM 50 meg Quantum internal hard drive 40 meg Connor external hard drive Internal and external floppy drives Golden Hawk MIDI interface unit AmigaDOS 2.1 and 3.1 tested without difficulty REVIEWER'S RELEVANT BACKGROUND I have been a professional musician for 12 years, and a Music-X 1.0 user for 3 years. I use the sequencer primarily for theater soundtrack work. REVIEW Acquiring this upgrade proved to be extremely frustrating. I haven't yet tallied up the phone bill for all my calls to Hollyware trying to find out why it was taking so long to ship; I don't think I want to know. Suffice it to say that these people are masters of saying, "The check is in the mail." However, it *did* eventually arrive. The first thing I noticed once I opened the plain white box was the 194-page spiral-bound manual. 60 pages are devoted to Music-X, and 134 pages describe the accompanying notation program NOTATOR-X. The printing is poorly done; screen shots are blocky, and the text is not particularly sharp. Having never received the 1.1 upgrade, I cannot tell how much of the Music-X information is new and specific to the 2.0 version; I have been told that much of it is simply a reprint of 1.1 data. The manual is terse at best; it's more like a specification list than an instruction manual. It does seem to describe everything in the box, though. (It even describes items that are *not* in the box! More on that later.) I thought the original Music-X documentation was some of the best I have seen for any Amiga software, so this poorly printed booklet with its frequent misspellings and cloudy grammar is a disappointment. It was immediately obvious that the upgrade as shipped is incomplete. No ARexx macros at all were supplied, although they are described on pages 22 and 23 of the manual. This renders the RexxEdit module completely useless. (RexxEdit is something of a misnomer, as the module has nothing to do with editing. It should be called the RexxExecute module.) Additionally, no PrintEvents module was supplied either. Since the ARexx macros and the PrintEvents module were significant reasons for my decision to purchase the upgrade (and both were specifically mentioned in Hollyware's press releases and in the manual), this is clearly a problem. In my many phone calls to the company, I was also told by its president that there was a protocol for the Yamaha SY55 included with the upgrade, but that too was missing. I noted with some surprise that a librarian for the Roland GR-1 guitar synth was included (I have one of these), but it seems to be capable of storing only one patch at a time. Since the GR1 is quite easy to send bulk dumps to, while it has no provision for single voice dumps, I found this perplexing. What is Music-X 2.0 like? First, this is plainly a minor upgrade and not a major change from version 1.1. Let me quote from E-mail I received from David Joiner, the programmer of Music-X: > Music-X 2.0 is basically a bunch of features that I put in >for my own use. Anyway, I traded this new version to Hollyware >(who bought the defunct MicroIllusions) in return to some of the >rights to my other products. I don't know what their plans are. >Unfortunately, I'm in the middle of a killer project at the >moment and I don't have time to work on Music-X. (If I were >seriously going to work on Music-X, I'd throw all the code away >and start over from scratch). This should speak volumes. The interface hasn't changed at all; there's no support for overscan screens, still no more than 9 sequences displayed at once on the main page, no ASL file requester (although it is nicer than the old 1.0 requester... damning with faint praise indeed), and no possibility of placing comments on the sequences. On the other hand, the program is stable as a rock; I have yet to see it crash on my 3000, and the SUSPEND option works as it should, allowing me to use my communications program without rebooting. (Music-X 1.0 failed to release the serial device when exiting.) There is a reworked Quantizer module which adds a bit more fine tuning to the old one, a swing module that allows the imposition of a dotted-note feel, and a new Selector module that is extremely useful for doing things like remapping a drum track. A Scatter module allows you to introduce random elements in the timing in an attempt to "de-quantize" rigid tracks; like most devices of its kind, it is of marginal use if you want it to sound like a human played the music. The PrintEvents module ballyhooed in the advance PR is missing. Music-X now offers better control over Amiga samples, but as I don't normally use them, I can't really comment on the changes. I did notice that the new panning option does not seem entirely reliable. Overlapping notes often go to the other channel. The most significant addition to Music-X (potentially, at least) is the ability to have multiple MIDI ports. Unfortunately, this requires multiple serial cards with custom drivers; Hollyware supplies only a driver for the Blue Ribbon One Stop Music Shop and the Checkpoint serial card (no longer manufactured). I asked the president of the company about getting a driver for the MultiFaceIII, but he didn't know what it was and I have very little hope that Hollyware will ever release *any* other drivers, so this feature is useless at the moment unless you have a One Stop Music Shop. (In that case, you will only get multiple MIDI outputs, since the One Stop Music Shop doesn't *have* multiple inputs.) COMPARISON TO SIMILAR PRODUCTS Those who have already used Bars & Pipes (B&P) already have their own opinion. I don't like B&P at all; I think it was written by non-musicians for people who don't play real-time music, but who enjoy playing with tools. Music-X functions for me like a multi-track tape deck whose tracks I can edit later, its file size (both the executable and the performance files) is quite economical, and its user interface uses color better than any other sequencer I've encountered. It has logical keyboard equivalents that are easy to remember. It is also very stable. The Mac has better sequencer software available, but it comes at a hefty cost and there are some things you still can't do with some Mac software. (Try selecting discontiguous information in Master Trax Pro, for example.) On the other hand, Macs have built-in multiple MIDI port capability without this nonsense of custom serial card drivers. VENDOR SUPPORT I think the word I want is "nonexistent," but I'd like to see them prove me wrong. I have made so many phone calls to this company that my wife is asking me about our phone bill; about fifty per cent of the time I get an answering machine, about forty per cent I get the secretary (Lisa is very nice, but she's not capable of answering technical questions or of making management decisions such as "Yes, we will send you all the missing stuff right away."), and maybe ten per cent of the time I get somebody else. Exactly once, someone returned one of my machine messages; it took nearly two weeks and it was Lisa who made the call. She wanted to know if someone had ever gotten back to me. A WORD ABOUT NOTATOR-X This program should not have been released. It has so many problems that a complete review would be a waste of time, and I have wasted enough on it simply by trying to use it already. Do not use this program unless you enjoy looking at letters that don't fit where they are supposed to go on the screen, rebooting the computer each time you try to abort a printout, or if you think a music notation program should support any fonts (or point sizes) other than the one supplied with the program. Stick to Deluxe Music, or better yet, switch platforms if you want real music notation software; it simply is not available yet on the Amiga. BUGS This version of Music-X seems quite bug-free. It's the *company* that's buggy. WARRANTY If you receive a faulty disk Hollyware will replace it free for ninety days. After that they will replace the disk for $5.00. WANT LIST I would really like to see some sort of level mixdown feature added. Even B&P has automated mixing these days, but to Music-X the term "fade" means "scale velocity" which is silly. ARexx macros that deal with volume levels would be nice too, but then at this point *any* ARexx macros would be nice. Music-X should support different screen modes and resize itself accordingly so you can see more sequences than the nine allowed by the HiRes Amiga display. CONCLUSIONS This is basically a very good product, but as it is shipped it is an incomplete one. Music-X is reliable; but without the advertised ARexx macros, the PrintEvents module, and the librarian/protocol additions, the shipped product simply is not the one Hollyware is advertising. Music-X 2.0 be considered a bug-fix only and not a new release, and the addition of the highly buggy Notator-X should require monetary payment by Hollyware to the user. COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1994 Rick Adams. All rights reserved. @endnode @node UOKT "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" From: The_Doctor@nesbbx.rain.com (Michel J. Brown) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Oktagon 2008 SCSI-2 host adapter Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.hardware Date: 27 Mar 1994 23:07:29 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 223 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Approved: barrett@math.uh.edu Distribution: world Message-ID: <2n53jh$s4k@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: The_Doctor@nesbbx.rain.com (Michel J. Brown) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: hardware, SCSI, SCSI-2, host adapter, Zorro II, commercial Originator: barrett@karazm.math.uh.edu PRODUCT NAME Oktagon 2008 (rev. 7) BRIEF DESCRIPTION Oktagon 2008 is a SCSI-2 controller card with up to 8MB of RAM for the Amiga 2000/3000(T)/4000 models of personal computers. The card also functions as a hard card, with supplied mounting hardware. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: BSC Broautomation AG Address: Lerchenstraae 5 80995 Mnchen 50 Germany Telephone: ++49/89/357130-0 FAX: ++49/89/357130-99 E-mail: None given, although I suspect that there is one. LIST PRICE I do not know the list price of the product, but I paid $129.95 (US) from my local Amiga dealer in Portland, OR, USA. SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE A SCSI-1/SCSI-2 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch form factor hard drive is required for operation. I have installed a Quantum 1080 Empire SCSI-2 hard drive on my controller card. No RAM is required on the card for operation, but ZIP style sockets provide for up to 8MB of Fast RAM. 1X4 ZIP chips in groups of four, either Static Column or Page Mode, are supported. All sizes of hard drives are supported, as long as they are as I described previously. The card is processor independent for compatibility, but a faster CPU probably means faster speed. Supports all current Motorola CPU's including the 68040. SOFTWARE The Oktagon comes with its own HD toolbox, on a single, autobooting, double-sided, double-density 720K floppy disk. Surprisingly, it works with all revisions of the AmigaDOS. All features are implemented with the latest revision of the OS, while some selections are ghosted out for older revisions (like AmigaDOS 1.3 and below). Full functionality is obtained with AmigaDOS 2.1 and above, yet even though compatible with AmigaDOS 3.0, it doesn't seem to take advantage of any of the newer features present in 3.0 as far as I know. As the Oktagon is a Zorro II card, this may be the reason for this decision. COPY PROTECTION None. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 2500 (rev 4.5) 2 MB Chip RAM, 4 MB Fast RAM Kickstart version 37.300, Workbench version 38.35 (AmigaDOS 2.1). INSTALLATION Installation is simple, as the Commodore Installer software is used. I selected the "Expert" mode, and found most of the defaults to be standard, so even the "Novice" mode wouldn't be much different. You can even choose the language in which the installation will occur (English is the default, while French and German are supported), and if you have AmigaDOS 2.1 or above, locales are also supported. The Amiga Style Guide is completely supported throughout the entire installation process. REVIEW The Oktagon 2008 is a SCSI 1 and SCSI 2 host adapter for the Amiga 2000 family of computers, and supports the A3000T, and the A4000 as well. The card is packaged quite securely, and comes with the mounting hardware for the drive, a short, but easily installable 50 pin ribbon cable, and a power cable. The documentation is written in a "German first, English second" booklet labeled "Harddisk Controllers & HD Installation Tools". It was well written, and includes both a step-by-step and expert installation description. Throughout the book were suggestions, warnings, and helpful tips about hard drive installation, use, and maintenance. After I assembled the hard card, and powered up my A2500, the installation software had an automatic mode by default (which I don't recommend, unless you want one single partition), or can be changed to manual mode (for creating multiple partitions). After selecting the appropriate mode, you can set the number and size of partitions by using the intuitive editor. One caveat here, though, is that you must specify the size of the partitions in blocks, so a calculator is handy. Once the size and number of each of the partition(s) are set, then you have to format each using the AmigaDOS "Format" command from a gadget tool on the requester. Depending on the size of your drive, this can take quite a while for large drives, and seems more like formatting a large floppy than a hard drive. After formatting your partition(s), you can either install AmigaDOS (for which there appears to be no utility included), or restore from your favorite backup program. One nice feature is the ability to update the AmigaDOS type through the corresponding utility. You can also save the RDB contents to a file on a floppy should disaster strike, like a corrupted RDB sector. All in all, this is a fine product from a supportive and growing company, and I would highly recommend getting the card if you are in the market for a fast and inexpensive host adapter. DOCUMENTATION The printed documentation comes in a 136-page, perfect bound booklet, with the first half in German, the second in English. My congratulations to the writers for the excellent translation and low spelling error count. The docs are very straightforward, and cover every aspect of installation, use, and maintenance. All levels of expertise are covered, and beginners to experts alike won't be disappointed or confused by the nomenclature. LIKES AND DISLIKES I like the ease of use, the intuitive system that is completely style guide compliant, and the use of many of the advanced features found on the more recent AmigaDOS upgrades. About the only dislike I had was that in order to properly partition off the hard drive, I had to enter the number of blocks manually. This requires a calculator, or figuring out manually the size of the partition(s) in blocks, rather than using the sliding type of gadgets found on other, more intuitive installation tools, like Commodore's HD Tools. My suggestion to BSC: dump the manual entry of partition block size, and use sliding gadgets with a readout of partition(s) size in megabytes. One surprise was the inclusion of the program GigaMem. This virtual memory manager is included in the startup disk supplied, and includes the documentation, but not the registration. I will give a review of GigaMem v3.0 in a later installment, after fully testing and evaluating it. As it sells for $79.95 (US funds) at my local Amiga dealer, it makes for the frosting on the cake, so to speak. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS I have owned three hard drive controllers and three hard drives in the past several years, and the Oktagon compares quite favorably. As it stands, it's easily the fastest and most compatible of the three controllers I have owned. Unlike previous products, this one was up and running in less than half an hour, which by my previous experience is a record. The external 25 pin SCSI connector is also a plus, and has provision for both snap-in and screw-in connectors, while past controllers used only one or the other. BUGS None noted. VENDOR SUPPORT Full addresses and phone/fax numbers are supplied, but the hotline for technical support is sent back only after registration card is received by BSC. I am not associated with the vendor in any way other than being a satisfied customer of BSC/Alfa Data. WARRANTY Full one year warranty on parts, and the installation software. Warranty appears to be transferrable, as no mention is made about the transfer of title to warranted merchandise. CONCLUSIONS This is an excellent product at a fair price. Considering the performance capabilities exhibited, I would hazard a guess that the faster your machine, the faster the throughput. According to SysInfo 3.14, I get 2.5 MB/sec reads, and 2.48 MB/sec writes. Diskspeed 4.2 also gave very high marks, and I will UUencode the tabulated results to anyone with a valid E-mail address, if requested. Seek speed showed my drive had seeks of about 6 ms from beginning to end of each partition, and 2 ms average seek from adjacent tracks, and 4 ms for 8 random seeks on 90 percent of the drive. It would appear that faster processors coupled with faster drives will produce the best results, naturally enough, but faster than your average comparable equipped host adapter. I'd give BSC and Alpha Data (the manufacturers) a rating of 4+ stars out of 5, and a full five stars if they make the appropriate changes to the partitioning software. COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1994 by Dr. Michel J. Brown. All rights reserved. @endnode @node URTD "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" From: raist@rmece02.upr.clu.edu (Ricardo Hernandez Machado) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Real 3D Version 2.0 (version 2.35) Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.graphics Date: 29 Mar 1994 18:30:19 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 564 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Approved: barrett@math.uh.edu Distribution: world Message-ID: <2n9s3r$rbl@masala.cc.uh.edu> Reply-To: raist@rmece02.upr.clu.edu (Ricardo Hernandez Machado) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: graphics, ray tracing, 3D modelling, animation, 24-bit, commercial Originator: barrett@karazm.math.uh.edu PRODUCT NAME Real 3D Version 2.0 (version 2.35) BRIEF DESCRIPTION Real 3D V2.0 is the newest Real 3D ray tracing and animation program. Among its fanciest features are: inverse kinematics, collision detection, built-in Forth-like language, depth of field, motion blur, macro recording, user-configurable interface, and multitasking with some of its own functions. In this review, I would like to remind all those who read it that a new version -- Real 3D Version 2.4 -- is already out and there have been quite a few addition and changes. I am waiting for that one to show up real soon now ;-) in my mailbox. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION Name: RealSoft Address: RealSoft Ky KP 9 35700 Vilppula Finland In North America: Address: Godfrey & Associates 544 Queen Street Chatham, Ontario Canada N7M 2J6 Telephone: (519) 436-0988 (North America) FAX: (519) 351-1334 BBS: (519) 436-0140 LIST PRICE $699 (US). I bought it for $499 (US) in advance directly from the company, although I have seen it for less than $400 (US). SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE 3 MB RAM required. 5 MB hard disk space required. 68020 or faster processor required, with FPU. My experience shows that you probably will need at least 10 megs of RAM and a 68030 @ 25Mhz with a 25MHz FPU. My system has 16 megs Fast RAM plus a 68030 @ 50Mhz with a 50Mhz 68882. SOFTWARE AmigaDOS 2.04 or higher required. COPY PROTECTION Dongle (hardware device attached to an Amiga port). It is not pass-through. I rate their copy protection as acceptable. People that use the GVP G-lock, Brilliance, Scala or any other 'dongle' program might have to manually switch dongles and connections. :-( MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 1200 CSA '12 Gauge accelerator 68030 @ 50Mhz with 50Mhz 68882 FPU 16 Megs Fast RAM 2 Meg Chip RAM 200 Meg IDE hard disk INSTALLATION Installation is easy. RealSoft uses the Commodore's Installer utility. The only change is that users with '040 equipped Amigas will have to rename two files. REVIEW Real 3D V2 (called "Real 3D" from now on) is the latest incarnation of the 'Real 3D' family of programs that boasts new features and capabilities. Real 3D relies heavily on CSG (constructive solid geometry) objects. These are 'primitives' like a sphere, cube, cone, ellipsoid, polygon, pyramid, cylinder, etc. There are several advantages in using these primitives. First, all primitives use their 'highest resolution' whether you are close to them or not in the virtual world. Usually in other 3D programs, you have to subdivide your object into a lot of polygons to achieve a smooth effect. Not so with Real 3D. Second, I have found that the Real 3D primitives are to '3D construction' what Bezier curves are to 2D drawing. If one had to model an object with polygons like the primitives found in Real 3D, it would be a lot of work. Third, the modeling screens get less cluttered. I remember in Imagine, if you load the 'ship' object, the computer is redrawing all the polygon information for that object in wire frame. Although this problem in Imagine can be partially avoided, it is still more cumbersome than in Real 3D. Finally, since Real 3D supports boolean operations among primitives, this almost ensures that with those primitives you can model 'almost everything.' Consider, for example, a crystal ball on top of a cone-shaped crystal ball holder. You could model the crystal ball holder by 'cutting off' from the holder a sphere which is the same size as the crystal ball. You will effectively have cut a spherical shape out of a cone-shaped primitive. Real 3D also makes use of splines and spline meshes, which are lines and three dimensional surfaces composed of 'Bezier type' curves like those used in Professional Draw or Art Expression. The advantage of using splines is that all objects always look very detailed and curved, unlike in polygon based programs like Imagine, Aladdin, etc. The disadvantage is that splines are really sloooooooooooooooooooow to render, although there are several optimizations you can do for speeding those up. PROGRAM MENUS The program has eight main menus with options that usually have submenus: 1. Project: deals with saving, loading (inserting or replacing) objects, materials, named colors, and 'environments.' Also deals with opening different types of windows like the Tools, View and Select windows. 2. Create: allows you to create any primitive that Real 3D supports, splines, spline meshes, compound objects (objects that are created from primitives), freeform (objects built from spline curves), tree and terrain type fractals, and boolean operations. 3. Modify: provides for object modification. Real 3D classifies the different modifications you can do in categories such as linear modifications, structure, properties (color, names, size, velocity, etc.), non-linear (used for altering freeforms), freeforms (also used for altering freeforms) and others. 4. View: selects type of view (perspective or parallel), switches left, front and above views, has an option for creating a camera, grid options, bounding boxes for rendering, zoom options. 5. Animate: has shortcuts for creating some animations. Usually animations have to be created by creating a level, and setting the target objects and the parameters. This menu allows for setting automatically all these structures for some common animation types. Also has some animation VCR-like controls like go forward, go backwards, jump to a specific frame, etc. 6. Extras: accesses the vector calculator, undo, statistics (more like an 'about' option), etc. 7. Settings: general preferences like the different paths where to find the objects, materials, etc., levels of undo, default primitive object attributes and other things. 8. Tools: displaying specific types of tools in the tools window, and creation of user defined buttons with text that also appear on the tools window. PROGRAM WINDOWS When you start Real 3D, unless you started from one of the predefined environments, it will boot up in a hi-res non-interlaced (640x200) screen. By default it opens three windows: a view window, a select window and a tools window. Each type of window serves a different purpose. For example, the view window is where you manipulate and view the objects and your scene. The select window is where you select objects to be manipulated and where you can 'walk' through the object hierarchy. Finally the tools window has icons that you can click on for object operations (like move, stretch, etc.), color, name, create primitives, lights, etc. The 'world' in Real 3D is organized hierarchically. This is very similar to a computer science 'tree structure.' For example, when you start the program you are at a 'level.' All objects that you create are at this same level. You can also create other levels and objects 'beneath them.' For example, let's say that we are creating a scene where we have a single three-leg table in our 'universe.' We have the following hierarchy: level--Table--Table_Top --Table_Legs----Leg_1 ----Leg_2 ----Leg_3 We see that we got three different levels: level (the root level), Table and Table_Legs. Table_Top and Leg_1, Leg_2, Leg_3 are actual geometric objects. In Real 3D, the levels are objects too. This means that if for example, we wanted to move, stretch or rotate the table, we select the table level and do the proper operation. The operation is applied to all the objects and levels underneath the Table level. This means that we can duplicate or delete the Table level effectively creating another table or deleting the whole table altogether. You can enter, exit, and 'walk through' the whole hierarchy by double clicking on the levels on the select window. You can also render the hierarchy from a current level and downwards in the current view window using a 'render hierarchy' option. The hierarchy concept is also important when applying material properties. Material properties affect all objects at the current level, and if these objects are levels, the effect carries further down those levels. For example, if we wanted to put a metal textures on the legs and a wood texture on the table top, we need to create another level and put the table top underneath it. At the same level of the table top, we create a wood texture. If we just created the wood texture at the same level of the Table_Legs level and Table_Top object, the Table_Top would look wooden but the legs will also look wooden. If we created a metal type texture at the legs level, then both textures (wood and metal) will be mixed! MATERIALS Materials in Real 3D are also considered objects. This means that they can be manipulated in most cases like any other three dimensional object. Materials can be morphed, moved, animated, etc. The Materials have the normal 'classic' attributes like color, bump mapping, brilliance (also known as reflection) mapping, transparency mapping, specularity control, refraction, roughness, dither, bump height and others. The more unusual attributes include effect (like the effect of this material on the object), clip mapping (makes parts it touches visible and other parts invisible), scope mapping (makes the materials affect the region covered by the material only), spline mapping (maps along the surface of a spline mesh), and others. There is provision for procedural textures, although a bit limited in this version (version 2.35). It's actually not limited in the sense that they are programmable in RPL (Real 3D Procedural Language), and there are some presets, but it's harder and slower than say, Imagine. The 'procedural settings' are mapping, scope, bump, color and the index (when applying a sequence of bitmaps, as in mapping a TV screen sequence animation). ANIMATION Real 3D has twenty-two different animation methods. This methods can be combined with others hierarchically to make very complex animations. The most notable (or say, those that impressed me the most) are: direction, inverse kinematics, radial forces, directed forces, tangent forces, collision (there are two types), friction and creation. Direction is just the typical 'path' type method of animation with the notable exception that it rotates the objects it affects along that path. There is a very good example of this in one of the tutorials of the book where they make a swimming fish. Its body bends along the path. With inverse kinematics you can make some skeleton type object animations look a bit more realistic without a lot of work. Consider for example, the arm of a human person that is bent and has to reach out for the light switch on the wall to turn the lights off. With Real 3D, all you do is use the inverse kinematics method and say that the index finger of the hand has to travel to reach the switch. When you animate, Real 3D calculates automatically the way the arm stretches to read out and turn the lights off. Even if the finger has to stretch out, it will do it. The radial, directed and tangent forces mean what they sound like: very useful for simulating molecule attraction/repulsions, satellites in orbit around a planet (radial); gravity, wind (directed); and centrifugal forces (tangent). There are different variations of these animation methods; so for example, you can write a formula in RPL that attracts objects, but if they get too close, repels them. You can simulate 'stormy' wind by either writing an RPL formula or drawing a 'crazy' curve as a parameter for the directed force method. Collisions can be used for simulating real-world Newtonian physics collision phenomena. Momentum is conserved, and there are some parameters like the friction and elasticity of the collision, so colliding objects can totally rebound or stick to one another or spin when colliding. Finally, collisions can also be used whenever you need objects to bounce, or 'take into account' other objects when moving: for example, dropping a ball down a curved tube. There is an example in the manual where this is done, and it works quite well. Sometimes though, if objects are small and are travelling too fast, they can 'pass through' the other objects. To avoid this, you can either make the objects a bit thicker if they are too thin, or you can alter the 'sampling' accuracy of Real 3D for collision calculation. This however makes Real 3D slower. I have found that the collision works quite reasonable by just increasing the accuracy one 'scale' up. The friction animation method helps simulate real-world friction phenomena, such as a falling object in the wind. By default, the program takes into consideration the mass, size and speed of the object in order to calculate the magnitude of the opposing force for the moving object(s). If an object is bigger, friction affects it more, and same with the speed. If the object is heavier, it is affected less. Speed, by default, has the biggest influence on the objects final speed (sounds recursive ;-) ). Creation is, in my opinion, one of the 'weirdest' animation methods but very powerful. It can create new objects during an animation, controlling the process of 'birth and death' of the objects. The copies it makes are inserted on the same hierarchy level with the method itself, so that they will be subject to the method. For example, you can create a sphere that follows a path, leaving copies of itself behind. Since Real 3D has a strong hierarchical concept of the property of objects, you can even leave copies of the sphere on the previous example that have all the properties of the original sphere including possible animation motions. The generated objects have a configurable 'life', so when objects are created, then can be made to 'live' for a certain amount of time and then 'die' or disappear. The is a very good example of this in the book where boiling water is simulated: bubbles start appearing at the bottom, then more and more, and when they reach the top of the water they disappear. There are other methods of animation like the typical path, rotation, stretch, size and a few others. Since in Real 3D animation methods are also objects themselves, they can be affected by other animation methods too. DOCUMENTATION The documentation comes in the form of a big manual and a README file on disk. Also, there's extensive AmigaGuide online help for particular areas like materials and animation. The manual is quite helpful with its tutorials, and is relevant to both the beginner and the power user. There are some things, however, that could be better explained, like scoping in the materials (making the materials affect a particular part of a 3D object). I would like to see a new manual section full of hints and tips. Overall, the documentation gets an 8 out of 10, which is not bad. LIKES AND DISLIKES Among the things that I like the most are the rich set of 3D primitives and boolean operations. You can make quite complex objects made of just primitives, and these primitives are both fast (relatively speaking) and very good for modeling. The animation system with its inverse kinematics and collision detection is also a part of Real 3D that I like, since you can make quite interesting animations that way. Finally, I like the extensive Real 3D procedural language support, since it is very good for scripted animations, and offers a lot of control over the real 3D environment. I disliked some parts of the animation system, particularly where key framing and keeping track of 'time' is concerned. Time is always from 0 to 1, so if you want to make (say) a car bump with another in 5 seconds, you'll have to calculate from the total length of the animation when will that happen, by dividing 5/(total time) in seconds. Among the other things I didn't like much was the very sloooow rendering of spline meshes (although understandable), and lack of spotlights (added in the new 2.4 version). There are also a couple of bugs associated with fractal trees and landscapes, where the machine can crash easily generating a complex fractal. I would like Real 3D to be faster, more memory efficient, have more built-in procedural materials, key framing and spotlights (added in the newest release). COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS I have some experience with Imagine 2.0, so a comparison is inevitable ;-). Basically, Imagine's strongest points are that it provides key framing, spotlights, lots of procedural textures and mathematical animation transformations. Key frames are part of Imagine, where it has a 'cycle' editor just to edit animations of individual objects that will have a certain animated structure. In this category you can add things like a walking human, robot, animal, etc. Spotlights are native to Imagine, so if you want a 'cylindrical light' or 'cone light', you can just make one specifying how long it will be and the radius of the circle if it hits a surface at a certain default distance. In Real 3D, you will have to put a light source inside a cone or cylinder, and render with the maximum quality (the slowest one) to achieve the same effect. It's simply unnecessarily harder, but fortunately this feature be in the upcoming version 2.4 which should be out by the time you read this. Procedural textures, like I said before, are more limited in variety in Real 3D, and to make them requires a lot of knowledge. Imagine comes with a decent variety of high quality procedural textures, but to make one requires even a greater knowledge -- C programming and Imagine interfacing, I suppose. Finally Imagine has a couple of animation mathematical transformations that manipulate the polygons of objects. The most useful are fireworks and explosions. This means that you can have an object just suddenly explode in a bunch of polygons quite easily, whereas in Real 3D you will probably need to construct a complex object and then make a collision type animation to make an exploding object. In Real 3D, while being slower to create and render, it will be more flexible and accurate, however. BUGS Like I said before, Real 3D version 2.35 has some bugs, particularly in the fractal generator for trees and mesh spline landscapes. Also when zooming in, sometimes changing views makes the objects appear like a thin line -- and in three situations caused my machine to crash. This last bug, however, is not very common. Real 3D's creators are very committed to making Real 3D a successful product. Since its introduction, there have been at least 3 free upgrades, and there's a major upgrade that should be around by the time you read this: version 2.4. VENDOR SUPPORT I contacted Godfrey and Associates for the purchase of Real 3D by phone, and later I sent to them a money order. I have had no problems with them, and they seem very helpful. I am not associated with them in any respect except as a customer. WARRANTY Typical 30 day disk warranty (disks replaced by new ones if they are bad). I don't know if the warranty applies only to the original purchaser. CONCLUSIONS I love Real 3D. It is quite a departure from typical 3D type programs, but it is quite powerful once you grasp its basic concepts. I love its constructive solid geometry primitives, as it allows you to create complex models easily and quickly and not take years to draw in wire frame. ;-) On a scale of 1 to 10, I give Real 3D a 9. Its RPL language support provides for a lot of flexibility as its collision animation system. There are things that I would like to see, but most of those things will be in the upcoming V 2.4 (2.47?) version, so I won't complain that much. ;-) REAL 3D REVIEW PICTURES DESCRIPTION: Thanks to Dan Barrett and his awesome BLAZEMONGER company, there will be a couple of Real 3D JPEG format images that I have made that will be ftp downloadable as a supplement to this review. Some of those JPEG images have been made just for this review, while others have been made just for fun while I have been learning this program. [MODERATOR'S NOTE: These images are located on our ftp site, math.uh.edu, in the directory /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews/software/graphics/raist When downloading these pictures, make sure to set your ftp connection to BINARY mode by typing "bin" at the "ftp>" prompt. - Dan] The images are: 1. cowboy.jpg - a spline object generated with Real 3D. This object is not one that I made - comes with the program. Check out how smooth it is, although I know it is all gray. The banding in the shading could be due to the fact that I didn't use any dithering and the intensity of the brightness I set. 2. glass.jpg - shows glasses and mirrors in Real 3D. The 'glass pyramid primitive' is actually a pyramid primitive composed with a glass-like material applied to it. 3. lamp.jpg - a room and a lamp I made. The texture is a 24-bit Epson scanned Philippines postcard. Please note the smooth shadow of the texture and the mirror-like surface of the lamp. The lamp cone was made with a bumpmap. 4. mandm.jpg - M&M's (TM) candy in a 3D world. ;-) Please note the depth of field Real 3D feature - the M&M (TM) in the center are focused, and those in the background are a bit out of focus. 5. poolcoll.jpg - a collision detection type animation showing balls colliding in a pool table. Actually just four frames from that animation labeled in the upper left corner. The white ball was thrown with a bit of motion blur at the others, and Real 3D calculated the other motions. I would like to point out that those frames where originally generated in Real 3D windows in HAM8, and that the quality can be far better when you render first to iff 24-bit files and then convert that to HAM8. This is because the version 2.35 of Real 3D doesn't calculate the HAM8 base colors very well, but this will be enhanced in the next upgrade. 6. r3di1.jpg - interface of Real 3D in a HAM8 screen showing the M&M's (TM) project to make the mandm.jpg picture. 7. r3di2.jpg - interface of Real 3D in a HAM8 screen showing the M&M's (TM) project object hierarchy in a window that Real 3D can render for you. 8. r3di3.jpg - interface of Real 3D in a HAM8 screen showing the material creation/modification window. 9. r3di4.jpg - interface of Real 3D in a HAM8 screen showing the rendering settings window. 10. r3di5.jpg - animation interface screen of Real 3D. 11. redglass.jpg - a red glass in a checkered floor with a light source in the left part of the screen. Note how the light color changes when it goes through the glass. 12. seatest.jpg - one of my failed ;-) attempts at doing a sunset in the sea. I have to improve it because it looks too mathematical but having seagulls silhouettes over the sun and a sailboat in the horizon must surely help - and I didn't make them. :-( 13. thecity.jpg - a city I was building in Real 3D. To the left part you can see a 'billboard' that needs a bit of detail to get more similar to an actual billboard. I hope you like the buildings.... ;-) Please remember that all the above pictures were JPEG compressed; thus, they could lose a bit of quality even with JPEG at 100% quality (I noticed that it happened with the redglass.jpg). Some images my need more brightness. LAST NOTE FROM ME ;-) As I would like to improve, I welcome any comments about my review and particularly the images I have made. You can send me e-mail at: raist@rmece02.upr.clu.edu COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1994 Ricardo Hernandez Machado (aka Raist). All rights reserved. This review is freely distributable as long as it is reproduced entirely and with the copyright notice. If the review is going to be distributed, the images are not required to be distributed, but I strongly advise distributing them since they form part of the review. The images with the copyright notice in them are freely distributable as long as they are not altered, although they can be scaled for printing purposes and compressed for distributing purposes. @endnode @node UWAR "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" From: osiddi1@gl.umbc.edu (Omar Siddique) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews Subject: REVIEW: Warlords 1, enhanced Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.games Date: 27 Mar 1994 23:11:48 GMT Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett Lines: 238 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Approved: barrett@math.uh.edu Distribution: world Message-ID: <2n53rk$sbt@menudo.uh.edu> Reply-To: osiddi1@gl.umbc.edu (Omar Siddique) NNTP-Posting-Host: karazm.math.uh.edu Keywords: game, war, fantasy, multi-player, commercial Originator: barrett@karazm.math.uh.edu PRODUCT NAME Warlords 1 enhanced, version 2.04. BRIEF DESCRIPTION Warlords is a 8-player fantasy war game with a mouse-based user interface. The players can be human or computer. AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION IN THE USA/CANADA: Name: Strategic Studies Group Inc. Address: 1747 Orleans Ct. Walnut Creek, CA 84598 USA Telephone: 415-932-3019 FAX: 415-933-4327 ANYWHERE ELSE: Name: Strategic Studies Group P/L. Address: P.O. Box 261 Drummoyne, NSW.2047 Australia Telephone: 02-819-7199 FAX: 02-819-7737 LIST PRICE I am unaware of the list price. I bought Warlords from Software Support for $34.99 (US). SPECIAL HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS HARDWARE One megabyte of RAM required. Warlords installs on a hard drive, and requires 1.5 megabytes of free drive space. Warlords works fine with a 68030. SOFTWARE No special requirements. Warlords worked fine on an Amiga 3000 running Workbench 2.1 and Kickstart 2.04. It is reported to run properly under 1.3, as well. COPY PROTECTION None. The two floppy disks are not copy-protected. Warlords installed on my hard drive without any difficulty. MACHINE USED FOR TESTING Amiga 3000/25, 4 MB Fast RAM, 1 MB Chip RAM. 1 internal 880K floppy, 1 external 880K floppy. Maxtor 120MB internal hard drive. Quantum 1.2GB external hard drive (Warlords was installed here). NEC 3FGx multisync monitor. Workbench 2.1, Kickstart 2.04. INSTALLATION Warlords installed easily on my hard drive. A program to perform this installation is included, although no mention of it is made in the technical supplement. Warlords installs in any location you wish, and I had no trouble saving and loading games from the hard drive. REVIEW In the kingdom of Illuria, a long and shaky peace has come to an end with the death of the archmage that enforced it. You play the part of the leader of one of eight empires within the kingdom. Your goal is to destroy your opponents utterly and unite the land under your rule. The leaders of the eight empires can be played by either the computer or by humans. There are four levels of computer control: knight, baron, lord, and warlord. Knight-level players are indecisive, often forgetting who they were planning on attacking, etc. Warlord-level players are at the opposite end of the spectrum. According to the manual, the most difficult game would be one involving seven computer warlords against the human player. The game begins with each player's controlling a single city; the other 72 cities are all neutral at this point. After the mad rush is over to capture as many neutral cities as possible, and the players begin eyeing each others' cities, the real fun begins. The sort of fun only found in absolutely demolishing one's enemies. For this purpose, you have various types of armed forces. Each city produces at least one, usually several, types of units, varying from Navies to Pegasi. Additionally, along the course of the game you may acquire heroes (all players start with one) and supernatural allies such as demons and dragons. Up to eight units can be "stacked" together for attacks (I liked this, games like Empire (Interstel) that don't allow stacking absolutely drive me crazy), and as many as 32 units can defend a city. Units are rated by strength and movement points. Certain units are granted bonuses that apply not only to themselves, but to any other units in the same stack. These include a leadership bonus for heroes, and a flying army bonus for winged armies. There are other facets to the game as well. Simple economics play a significant role in the conquest of Illuria. Each city produces a certain amount of tax revenue, while each unit costs a certain amount to produce, and half that amount to maintain. A successful warlord with vast armies has to keep an eye on his/her treasury. Additionally, there are ruins that can be explored by heroes; they often contain treasures or supernatural allies. Libraries and temples also await exploration. Then there is the matter of what the other (computer) players want to do to *you*. The game rates, based on historical animosities and your current actions, what each computer player thinks of you. This can range from apathy to outright loathing. The computer player's actions are based on this rating -- if someone loathes you, you can bet that player will be coming after you with everything they've got! And that brings up the matter of the game's artificial intelligence (AI). SSG is known for the quality of its AI, and this game is no exception. The computer players make intelligent moves, sending concentrated forces to take target cities. The game will even intelligently move a unit to the destination you chose by the quickest (least expensive in movement points) route. The game screen is divided into four sections. The largest is a tactical map covering the left side of the screen where the player issues most of his/her orders. Taking up the right side of the screen is the world map, showing all of Illuria. At various times, markers are displayed indicating who owns which city, which ruins have been explored, which city is producing what units, etc. Between the two maps is a vertical strip of icons that perform the most commonly used operations, such as switching between production and movement. The bottom of the screen is used to display text messages. The user interface is a delight to use. It's simple to use, and well thought out. Moving the tactical view is accomplished with the cursor keys, or by clicking on the world map. Clicking on a unit selects it, and double-clicking selects the entire stack. Production is as simple as entering production mode (via one of the icons in the central icon strip), clicking on the unit to be built, and clicking on "produce". The menu options all have keyboard shortcuts. DOCUMENTATION The documentation consists of a technical supplement and a relatively short manual. The supplement describes saving, loading, installing, and the differences between the original Warlords and Warlords Enhanced. The manual amazed me. I'm used to seeing fairly complex, detailed documentation for strategy games (such as SSI's war games). Instead, the manual for Warlords is incredibly simple. It took me maybe five minutes to read it from cover to cover. And it described everything I needed to know in those pages! (Although I did have to come back to occasionally check the reference section.) LIKES AND DISLIKES LIKES I liked the playability. I liked the variety of unit types, and the strategy involved in manipulating them. I liked the implementation of the user interface. I liked that the game was easy to install and play. Basically, I liked everything about the game. DISLIKES I didn't really dislike anything about the game, but there are a few things I wouldn't mind having added. I'd like different world maps, rather than having to play on the same one all the time. I'd like these different worlds to be unexplored (i.e., the player would be able to see only the part of the world map that had already been explored). I'd like a greater variety of units, especially naval units (which currently act really only as troop transports). Different methods of attacking would be nice, as well, since there are better strategies than frontal assault when dealing with superior enemy forces. The only other thing that I thought the game lacked was a more spectacular ending when a human player was killed. "So-and-So is no longer a threat" just didn't seem like a very powerful death message. Most of these improvements were added in Warlords 2, which is unfortunately not available for the Amiga. COMPARISON TO OTHER SIMILAR PRODUCTS There really isn't another product quite like Warlords available for the Amiga, but I will compare it to Sword of Aragon (SSI), and Civilization (Microprose). Sword of Aragon is similar to Warlords in that it's a strategy game set in a fantasy world, with the player beginning with a single city and having to conquer the rest of the "world". The similarities stop there, with Sword of Aragon following a story line, and Warlords (like most war games) simply letting the player conquer and pillage as they see fit. I think players who enjoyed Sword of Aragon should like Warlords. Civilization fans may find Warlords to be a nice "quick and easy" diversion, since Warlords is the same genre of game as Civilization, but not as heavy in detail. BUGS I did not observe any bugs. CONCLUSIONS This is the way I like my games! Warlords is fun, easy to learn, easy to play, and requires a fair amount of thought. It also has decent AI, is multiplayer, runs on any model of Amiga, and is hard drive installable. If you like strategy games of any sort, you really *have* to get this game. Now if only I could get Warlords 2... COPYRIGHT NOTICE Copyright 1994 Omar Siddique. All rights reserved. @endnode @node NIWI "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" INTERNET WORLD & DOCUMENT DELIVERY WORLD INTERNATIONAL 94 The UK's first annual conference and exhibition enabling the business, industrial and professional communities to grasp the commercial and organisational opportunities offered in the exploration of access to Internet and related networks. Conference Dates: 9-12 May 1994. Exhibition Open: 10-12 May 1994. Organised by Mecklermedia in collaboration with PIPEX Sponsored by the Commercial Internet Exchange Association World Wide Web pages: http://www.tecc.co.uk/meckler Internet World and Document Delivery World International is the only event in London this year solely devoted to the needs of users and potential users in this field. With Tony Rutkowski, Arnoud de Kemp, Tomaz Kalin, Professor David Brailsford, Christopher MacPhail, Peter Dawe, Professor Charles Oppenheim, Michael Strangelove, Peter Stone, Eddie Zedlweski and Ian Watson among many others, the conference programme reads like a who's who of the world Internet and networking community. Conference sessions will range from simple introductory treatments to the more technically focused information for existing users. The accompanying exhibition will offer a unique opportunity to see all the companies and organisations who can help you start out or develop in your use of this unique technological resource. Full details are available from the event World Wide Web pages: http://www.tecc.co.uk/meckler Further information available from Mecklermedia +44 (0)71 976 0405, Artillery House, Artillery Row, London SW1P 1RT @{b}meckler@meckler.cityscape.co.uk@{ub} @endnode ## @node Feat "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" @{b}OPINION@{ub} @{" Editorial " link FeatEdit} Vince Yallop @{b}FEATURES@{ub} @{" CD32 Bits " link FeatCD32} Matthew Legg @{" Request " link FeatRequ} YOUR HELP NEEDED! @endnode ## @node FeatEdit "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" @{b}EDITORIAL@{ub} Hi.. Welcome to the new-look Amiga Newsbits. Hope you like the changes which have been made and can find your way around easily enough. If this is your first fix of the magazine, then the same applies, and welcome to the club! We've been around weekly since March 93 since setting out to provide another special service for the Mostly Harmless BBS in the UK and providing a look at computing news, especially Amiga, from a European view. Despite word that the Amiga is fading, users seem more active and interested than ever - look at the software, the results and the sales. Commodore is producing AGA machines to capacity, and despite financial troubles, they are selling computers people want to live with in their homes. Thanks to everyone who has helped with getting this re-styled issue out. In no particular order.. Lee Sanders, Matthew Legg, Andy Gardener and Paul Wickham. I couldn't have done it without them plus The Orb, The Fall, odd games of Super Mario 3 (traitor!), biscuits and, well, my Amiga 4000. Have fun - and stay well. @{b}Vince Yallop@{ub} @endnode ## @node FeatCD32 "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" @{b}CD32 BITS@{ub} Amiga CD32 went on the market in August last year and since then has sold more than 75,000 units as the first 32-bit console ever backed by high hopes. As the machine perceived either to destroy Commodore or return them to former glory, it was the company's first entry into the console market since the days of the C16. Although greeted with great enthusiasm by the press, existing Amiga users were more sceptical. After spending years trying to convey the Amiga as something more than a games machine, it was felt that Commodore had gone and produced something of exactly that nature. But as an A1200 in disguise, the CD32 can continue to offer the Amiga's leadership as a games and more serious home machine. With the use of the Microbotics SX1 expansion card, the CD32 can be used to the same capabilities of an A1200 with the added bonus of a CD32 drive and full CD32 game compatibility. In February 94, Gallup could report that CD32 software was the highest selling CD software format in Britain, above the Mega CD and PC CD-ROM. This is a trend set to continue with the imminent arrival of some eagerly awaited games like TFX and Rise Of The Robots. CD expansions are soon expected for the A4000 and A1200, with recent previews in Germany at the @{"CeBit " link NewsAmiga} at last, soon opening up the world of disc for many more users. Future editions will deal with the matter of the vapourware? "CD64", the FMV module, game and MPEG movie reviews. @{b}Matthew Legg@{ub} @endnode ## @node FeatRequ "A M i G A N E W S B i T S - 1.01 - April 01, 1994" @{b}WRITE FOR US!@{ub} So, do you like Amiga Newsbits? How about writing a page or two for us? We pay the lowest rates in the business (ie nothing) and put your name in positive pixels. Lined up for coming weeks is more CD32 news and reviews, a report from the spring European Computer Trade Show, a look at the long-awaited new version 1.90 of Xenolink BBS software and programming advice. There's plenty more which you Amiga owners are doing out there, so tell everyone about it. Anything on any Amiga-related topic is welcome - a scope as big as the Amiga's possibilities and your imagination. We're also in other countries to provide details of Amiga happenings and show reports. Letters are also welcome and a mini classified sales is under consideration. Watch for details. Let us know what you want - we can, quite probably, supply! E-Mail contributions and ideas to: vyallop@cix.compulink.co.uk or Vince Yallop @ Fido 2:251/41.1 and @ AmigaNet 39:134/14.1 @endnode ##