July 1992 MAGazine Volume 8 Number 7

The JULY General Meeting of the Memphis Amiga Group will be held Saturday, JULY, 11 from 1:00 pm until approximately 3:00 pm in the new Auditorium on the campus of state Technical Institute at Memphis.

The Art Contest:

• June The 3D animation and artwork, First Prize Winner in both categories was MICHAEL WALLACE. Congratulations on an oustanding job.
• July Program generated animation and artwork. Can be done with digitized pictures, Scenery generator, Mandelbrot, Vistapro, etc.
• August Freehand animation and artwork. Can be done with Deluxe Paint, Digipaint, Disney studio, etc. Freehand art can only contain freehand drawing. Program generated and 3D art can mixed with freehand and other combined.

From the Presidents of CLI

by Brian Akey

This month we will be judging program generated artwork. Bring your best animations and artwork done in Scenery animator, Vista Pro, Mandanim, digitized artwork, etc. Remember first place gets a plaque. After the contest we will be looking at the differences between Scenery animator 2.0 and Vista pro 2.0. They are both unbelievable programs so come and take a look. In September there will be the annual computer fair at State Tech. We should really showoff our stuff for this fair. Ed Bilson suggested that the group could work on an animation, which I think would a perfect project for the computer fair. So if anyone has a theme for an animation, please give me a call. This animation could really help promote our group. See you at the meeting.

Notes from the Editor:

by Larry Evans

The Changes to the Memphis Amiga Group BY-LAWS have been published in this months magizine. Read over them very carefully, because this month at our meeting we will vote on the proposed changes. So if you don't show up to our meeting, you can't vote. (Note: All changes will be in a Italic font.)

With not much to say this month I thought a little humor in this column would do us all a little good. This is called:

"POINTS TO PONDER"

A computer salesman dies and meets St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter tells the salesman that he can choose between Heaven and Hell. First he shows the man Heaven, where people in white robes play harps and float around, "Dull" says the salesman. Next St. Peter shows him Hell: Toga parties, good food and wine, and people looking as though they're having a fine time. "I'll take Hell," he says. He enters the gates of Hell and is immediately set upon by a dozen demons, who poke him with pitchforks. "Hey" the salesman demands as Satan walks past, "what happened to the party I saw going on?" "Ah," Satan replies. "You must have seen our demo." (Reader Digest, Oct 91, p64.)

Meeting Schedule

1:00	Start Meeting
1:15	Disk of the month
1:30	Break
1:45	Contest begins
2:15	Break
2:30	Split into groups
3:00	Meeting Ends

MAG Meetings

The Memphis Amiga Group (MAG) holds general meetings the second Saturday of each month in the Farris Auditorium on the campus of State Technical Institute at Memphis (see map at left).

There will be an officers lunch meeting at GRIDLEYS in the formal dining room beginning at 11:00 am Saturday, JULY, 11 (before the general meeting). For more information call Brian Akey at (901) 337-1093

Memphis Amiga Group Officers for 1992

President
Brian Akey
(901) 278-6354

Vice President
Donnie Webb
(901) 363-8025

Secretary
Raymond Ginn
(901) 353-4504

Treasurer
Micheal Cervetti
(901) 386-2584

Librarian
Ken Winfield
(901) 382-3339

MAGazine Editor
Larry Evans
(901) 383-1828

MAGazine Printing & Distribution
Terry A. Campbell
(601) 393-4864

Hardware Rentals

Frame Grabber - Sold
Super Gen - $6.00 per week
(Hardware rentals are for Members Only)
A variety of Amiga specific videotapes are also available, from the club's
hardware library for $3.00's a week.

Disk Sales

MAG library and Fred FISH disks are $2 each.
($5 each for non-members)
Quality blank disks with labels are 65 cents each.
($1 each for non-members)
For all this and more contact club librarian
Ken Winfield (901) 382-3339
OR see Ken at the next MAG general meeting.

Changes or Corrections

Please help me get accurate information on all members. If you know someone on the members list that we don't have complete information for, please let me know. Send full name and address information, updates, or changes to:

Larry Evans
5754 Riverhead Ave.
Memphis TN. 38135

For Sale

Atari 1040st with many disks. $250.00 or best offer. Call 383-1828.

Incomm Turbo 4800 baud modem, can be upgraded to 9600 baud. $50.00 firm. Call 385-1967 ask for Charles.

Amiga 500 with 1 meg of RAM, and 1084s Monitor all for $575.00. Also External Disk Drive for $50, Super Jam for $50 and Deluxe Music Construction set for $35. Call Mike at 386-2584.

Your Classified AD Here

Free of charge to members call, write, or see in person

Larry Evans
MAGazine editor
5754 Riverhead Ave.
Memphis TN. 38135
(901) 383-1828

Typography with AROCK's Masterpiece Collection.

By Richard Harper

Many of the Amiga animations I have seen share a common problem: their typography is poor quality. Why poor quality? Because the titles are difficult to read.

My principle use for the Amiga is video. For a recent project I needed a variety of quality fonts and I was happy to find them in AROCK's Masterpiece Collection. This collection includes 110 different typefaces, each in different sizes typically from 18 to 65 pixels high. In typography, reminiscent of the days when type was molded from lead metal, each size of type is considered a different font. You may re-size each of them easily in DPaint but the anti-aliasing will not be as good as the original type. They are bit mapped and not recommended for print use.

The collection is not copy protected and comes on 8 disks. The fonts are compressed with the popular Powerpacker program. A small program called "PPLoadSeg" is included along with instructions for installing it on your boot disk. Unpacked, the fonts would occupy 17 & 1/2 floppies! The fonts are all color fonts created as white on a black background. Colors 3 through 7 are used for the letter with 4 steps of anti-aliasing. Instructions are included for changing the colors to suit any foreground and backgrund you desire. Additional instructions for doing this with individual grushes can be found in the excellent videotape "Advanced Techniques for Deluxe Paint" which is available in the MAG club's library.

Typography must first be readable and then it may be expressive. The inflections of voice and the gestures we use when talking can be translated in choices of type. Having 110 choices at hand allows a vast range of expression.

You are able to adjust kerning (letterspace) by pressing shift and the <> keys, but only before you type a character. The backspace will eliminate mistakes but kerning is slow by this method. Still, thank goodness it is there. By my calculations there are 29 serif fonts, 19 roman fonts, 10 condensed fonts, 11 script fonts, 5 brush fonts, 5 extended fonts, and 31 decorative fonts. Some fonts are CAPS only, but this is not as bad as it might seem as mixing large caps with smaller caps can be very pleasing to the eye. A wall poster is included to allow you to easily see what each individual font looks like. The program Showfonts by Arthur Johnson Jr. included on the MAG's first font disk is very handy and quick at showing any font in its entirety.

What I find lacking in this collection is: (1) the fonts are not organized into any sensible groupings, and (2) while each font usually includes caps, lower case and numbers, the additional characters are disappointing; especially the ampersand (&) which is VERY useful with video. In most cases the ampersand appears to be from a different typeface than the one current in use - and it is not usable. I will have to find my own and scan them in with my Digi-View.

In spite of these objections I am very happy to have this collection at my disposal. I would rate it as excellent. It was priced most reasonably. Call AROCK at 417-866-8803 or write to P.O. Box 731; Springfield MO 65801.

Global Effect

by Jarno Kokko

Global Effect follows in the footsteps of Sim City and Sim Earth, combining features from both games. You have a whole planet to mess with, but you are building things like in Sim City. You have to manage power lines, waste management, water supplies, recycling centers, coal/oil/uranium mining and refining. All this looks very much like in Sim City, but the global scale information about temperature of the planet, atmosphere etc. is like in Sim Earth.

Global Effect also has a bit of war-gaming in it. You can play a two player game either against a computer or another player using datalink cable. In a two player game you will compete with an other player, trying to build bigger cities and military forces, and at the same time still trying to keep the environment in good condition. There is also some scenarios where you can try healing a planet suffering from global warming, over-use of natural resources or similar bad condition. This helps to add long-time interest to the product.

First Impressions: Good graphics, better than other similar games, but still nothing really impressive. Sound is good where it's used however, the main game is mostly silent. User interface is well coded, but the design side isn't perfect. Sim City-style menu where you could have picked the building blocks would have been better, now you have to cycle through the item list all the time. Also the game is a bit confusing at the beginning, but reading the manual will help a lot. This game isn't as simple to play as Sim City, so only strategy game fans should apply. Playing from HD with 3MB ram is very easy, with no irritating delays at all. I suspect floppy users should be able to play this quite well also. Protection is manual based, so no backup problems. Overall you will be pleased after first few minutes of playing.

Good points: Good graphics for a strategy game, quite much doing. The war-gaming side also adds much for this kind of game. Playing is pretty easy, and user interface is well coded. Game is fast compared to Sim Ant or similar S-L-O-W games. Most of the game is well designed and this game has many good ideas in the user interace.

Bad points: Some tiny bits of the user interface sucks, namely the building block selector. Also, constant "not enough power" message is enough to irritate anyone. On a standard game you seem to run out of building power all the time. With the games construction and design, you cannot play it without the manual. All the time you are lost thinking, how can I do this. On-screen information without opening extra information windows is a bit too limited. Faults are very minor, but I hate a game that has even one fault if it affects the gameplay too much. War-gaming section is also too limited, so don't expect a full scale planetary wars. War-gaming is there, but it could have been done MUCH better.

Graphics: 8, Sound: 9 (When it's used), Value: 7, Playability: 8, Summary: A combination of Sim City, Sim Earth and some simple war-gaming. Good idea, the implementation of the user interface is not perfect, and the gameplay isn't that easy, so you'll need to dig up the manual. Strategy game fans should definitely check this out, but don't rush out and buy this without trying it first. Someone might like this very much. I think it's good, but not good enough for me.

RoboSport

By Zach Meston

I've got a confession to make. I played the Macintosh version of this game nearly a year ago. It's not something I'm proud of, and it will certainly come up if I ever run for public office (grin), but it also means that I was intimately familiar with RoboSport well before the Amiga version was released. I'm pleased to say that RoboSport is as outstanding on the Amiga as it is on the Mac.

RoboSport is essentially a wargame with a futuristic setting. You command a group of robots on a battlefield known to the Arena. The action is broken up into 1- to 40-second-long turns. (The default turn length is 15 seconds.) An excellent point-and-click interface is used to program your robots' actions during the turn. When you're done programming, the game calculates the turn and creates a "Movie" showing the action that took place. After you're done studying the Movie, a new turn begins. THe game continues until only one of group of robots is left (or, in some scenarios, when time runs out).

There are five different scenarios in RoboSport: Survival (a simple game of kill or be killed), Treasure Hunt (collect coins placed randomly in the Arena), Flag Capture (snatch and grab the enemy's pice of flying fabric), Hostage (rescue your captured robot while preventing the enemy from doing the same), and Baseball (tag bases placed randomly around the Arena).

RoboSport really comes into its own as a multi-player contest. You can play multi-player games on a single Amiga, on two Amigas connected via modem or direct serial linkup, or on an Amiga network system (using TCP/IP software and Ethernet hardware). You can even connect with Macintosh and MS-DOS machines running RoboSport.

Like Maxis' previous release, SimAnt, RoboSport has two graphic modes: lo-res (320 by 200, 16-color) and hi-res (640 by 400, 16-color). SimAnt required two megabytes of RAM for the hi-res mode, but RoboSport only requires one megabyte (although two megs is recommended).

The hi-res version is amazingly playable on a "stock" Amiga. The screen updates are fast and fluid, and the notorious hi-res screen flicker is hardly noticeable. (Playing in hi-res mode is recommended for a simple reason: you can see four times as much of the Arena during play, which means a much better view of the action.)

The graphics are excellent throughout, from the title sequence to the award ceremony at the end of a battle. The sound effects are also very well done; robots scream "Ow!" when they're hit by gunfire, and chuckle smugly when they destroy an enemy. The humorous audio-visuals, combined with the excellent interface make RoboSport a joy to play.

The verdict: RoboSport is a very good game for one player, and a fantastic game for two or more players. Even if you're not normally a fan of strategy games or wargames, give RoboSport a look. You'll be impressed.

Maxis Two Theatre Square Suite 230 Orinda, CA 94563-3346 (510) 254-9700. Requires 1MB of RAM 1MB Chip RAM and 1 MB Fast RAM recommended for hi-res version. Hard Drive installable with manual look-up protection.

Just Amiga's Future?

by Sanford Tong

Well, folks, I was just browsing through one of those computer buyers/shoppers/etc guides at a store...you know, the ones which compares the latest n x86's (where n is quite a big number) and had a bit of a sticky beak. I was a little bit disturbed. Basically, they had a table, and columns with some benchmarks, and other equally questionable bits of data (MIPS, Megabytes, etc) and I thought to myself...oh boy. Beneath those numbers (eg. MIPS) was a comment which was something like MIPS: The highter the number, the better. At this point, I was feeling more than a little bothered. I really view the Amiga as being the last opportunity that the personal computer business (particularly home, nowadays) had a genuine choice.

Five years ago, when the stock Amiga outperformed Macs and PCs in virtually every way and was also cheaper (A500 especially), people didn't flock to the machine as much as it deserved for reasons we all know...image(games machine, blah blah) and also, because it wan't used in the workplace to the extent that PCs were. (Note: I'm talking about the average Joe Consumer at homw who can't tell the difference between a computer and a terminal). In those days, there was still a choice, since PCs had a solid reputation which shielded then from technological inferiority, and the Amiga, being new, was unknown outside of computer enthusiasts, which leveled off its price/perfomance advantage.

Now, years down the track, the Clones have been sent in by the masses, and the price consideration is no longer in favor of the Amiga. The machine still has its merits, and has features which are notable, even in the A500. However, these features are not measured in Mega-wotnots. The comments I ususally hear from a typical person about the CPU clock speed is "7Mhz....that's a bit slow, isn't it?". These are usually the same kind who can't understand why a 25Mhz 486DX is faster than a 25Mhz 386SX. Efficient use of resources is not important. All they want is a big number describing their machine.

It's saddening, I think, that now, with most families starting to think about getting a computer for word processing, bank balance, etc, that they will open up their 'know-it-all-whiz-bang guide to every computer in the known universe', and will sit there for hours and hours picking the biggest numbers, with no idea about whether they mean anything at all. I guess you know where that might lead in future. New products will be designed around numbers, and I think we all know that optimization for a particular benchmark is not an unheard of thing.

If the Amiga does fade, I will be VERY disappointed. I have my humble A500 with 5Mb RAM, Hard drive, DTP program (Pagestream) with more features than Mac PageMaker 4.2 (yeah, I know that there are programs which may pack more punch, (after all, Macs ARE the undisputed world champs at DTP) but for a HOME user WITHOUT a postscript laser printer, I can say that I have not seen a Mac or PC program at the same price which gives as good an output. I've seen a dot-matrix printout from PageMaker4 on a PC. (..irk..) Btw: this isn't meant to be a challenge...just my honest observation.

Right now, I have no plans on getting a PC, since, well, for what I need, the PC doesn't offer me any more than my A500. Note, that when I say this, I'm not making any compromises. I'm not speaking about technical differences, Just purely practical ones. Anyway, my point. My system does what I need, and my guess is that when one considers the needs of a typical home user, even the A500 is by NO WAY obsolete for this purpose. Unfortunately market lemmings know nothing of the sort, and will continue to buy machines based on Mhz and MIPS. They will just follow the wise words in 'Computer Shopper' or something.

"What about an Amiga?". "Amiga? How many Whetstones does it do?", with a cheeky grin, radiating his self-proclaimed vast computer knowledge, and the excitement of the prospect of speeding up his word-processing with all those whetstones. All this means only one thing. If an unknown company tomorrow came up with a truly innovative product which blitzes absolutely everything on the market, has unparalleled performance and was the most cost-effective item since beer nuts, would it sell? It had better be PC compatible.

Right now, I'm quietly optimistic (desperately optimistic) that something might happen. Someone appropriate at Commodore is going to have to realize that a lemming wants no fuss, everything-in-a-box purchase. No computerphobic is going to want to by an A2000, then go to one place to buy an accelerator, another place for a multisync monitor, here to get a program they want, etc. In fact, just adding up the individual prices of add-on products would give them a head-ache. What they want is a full system they can use at a single, clean price. That's also why PCs are popular. That's why it's important to have an '040 Amiga, rather than depend on cards. Have everything they need in one spot, so the customers do not have to shop around for the parts.

Just a final comment. I'm not saying that all PC owners are market lemmings. I'm only talking about those people sitting at home who want to have a computer, know nothing about them, and really have not had any choices. If the Amiga doesn't right itself, I can only see things get worse. I don't mean only for the Amiga, but for everyone out there who has great ideas, but will have to work around an aging PC design.

A quietly optimistic amiga fan who's been thinking lately.

Rumors and stuff

by Larry Evans

The following rumors are just that... rumors. Some say that I just make most of it up, but in fact, most of it comes from messages on GEnie. I often lift entire sentences and weave it all together; so that you get the most up-to-date, if not the most accurate of Amiga rumors. I would like to add that I will not be responsible for inaccuracies or mistakes. After all, this isn't Newsweek magazine you're reading.

Commodore has issued a warning about potential memory problems with the 68040 CPUs. Mike Sinz, Senior Technical Engineer, says the problem will be fixed (via operating system software) as soon as possible.

Dr. T's Music Software announced two new products: Boom Box (a cute, introductory music program) and SMUSit (a score translation utility for MIDI to SMUS format, primarily for multimedia purposes), and said Composer Quest (a delightful music history tour/game) for both the Amiga and CDTV will be in stores this summer.

Electronic Arts is shipping an upgrade to Deluxe Paint IV, and they're still taking input for a probable upgrade to the Deluxe Music Construction Set. They released John Madden Football about the time Origin shipped Ultima VI and New World Computing released Might and Magic III.

AmigaDOS 2.1 is not a rumor. The *StarShip* News Network has recently received several reports of Commodore personnel remarking publicly that it will be available within in the next 30 days, however, no one from Commodore will comment to that effect officially. Release 2.1 consists of five disks (Workbench V38.18, Extras, Fonts, Install and Locale (multi-language libraries, etc. for programs which support that feature), and comes with a special, NEW version of CrossDOS which offers menu-driven format/read/write operations to IBM disks on Amiga disk drives (as does ‘386 Bridgeboard software).

Amiga BBS Boards

Changes or Corrections

Please help me get accurate information on all BBS's. If you know of a BBS that we don't have complete information for, or a BBS you would like to add to our list, please let me know. Send full name of BBS, location, phone number, baud rate, updates, or changes to:

Larry Evans
5754 Riverhead Ave.
Memphis TN. 38135

FROM THE MIDNIGHT REVIEWER

Pinball Dreams

Once again we see another European import, turning some really fine programming into a super game. Pinball Dreams claims to be the first true pinball simulation, this may very well fit that bill. The game has four different "pinball machines" to play on, they are: Graveyard, Railroad, Boom Box and Ignition. Each pinball machine has its own special characteristics to keep things interesting, (Like even letting you bump the table,) because of this Pinball Dreams really catches the true spirit of pinball. Some of the games many features are: ramps, targets, ball catches, loops, changing target with right flipper, spinners, bonuses, hold bonuses, multipliers and etc. The graphics are fast and the sounds are just the what you would expect on a real pinball machine, (down to a you-hoo in the western railroad theme game,) with each game having its own "soundtrack". The speed of the game-play is excellent even on a 68000 based machine, it also seems to run fine on a 68030 and under 2.0. Speed and looks are fine but at the heart of this game is the ball movement. The programmers of Pinball Dreams have duplicated gravity wonderfully, making the ball move just like a real pinball, (I even got my ball stuck one time). I also have yet to see that jerky movement found in most pinball games. With all the wonderful things I have been saying, you may think the game has no problems, (wrong). It doesn't support multiple ball play and it doesn't have a play-field editor. All in all, no other Pinball game has come close to it. I highly recommend you go buy this one.

Midnight has spoken!

Midnight rating....93

MEMPHIS AMIGA GROUP JULY 11, 1992

Dues Notice

Dues must be paid at or before the General Meeting of your EXPIRE date. If paid on or before this time, the renewal rate is $15 for the year. If you wait past the General Meeting (second saturday of each month), you will be dropped and must renew at the new member rate of $20 for the year.

Please pay at the General Meeting or send dues to:

MAG Dues
c/o Michael Cervetti
8300 Rembrook
Cordova, TN. 38018
(901) 386-2584

Financial Report for the Memphis Amiga Group JULY, 1992