February 1993 MAGazine Volume 9 Number 2

Presidential Ponderings

By Bob Nunn

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

I am not sure where to begin. Having only been with MAGS for about 6 months, I really don't know too many of you yet. I hope to meet all of you eventually. My wife and I have been active in the Memphis Commodore Users Club for over 5 years. When we decided to upgrade, the Amiga was a natural for us as it was affordable and there is good, inexpensive software available for it. We both knew that we had learned a great deal very quickly when we became actively involved in MCUc. We both would have preferred to wait until we were more experienced with the Amiga. When no one spoke up we talked with Bryan and volunteered our services. We expect participation as officers will force us to learn at a pace we wouldn't be able to do by ourselves. With your help we will.

WHAT DO YOU EXPECT FROM MAGS?

What I always expect from a club is to learn. How you learn from a club comes from several different avenues. I suspect the most obvious would be the club demo's, secondly the newsletter, and pick up a few bits of information from the MAGs disks. Mostly, we learn from each other. Finding someone with similar interests is very important. They are likely using the same programs and may be experiencing the same problems as you. They may also have come up with solutions as well. What we hope to accomplish is to create an atmosphere that allows you the opportunities.

CLUB ORGANIZATION

I think that many of you would like to see the club more structured. My intentions are to review current policies and set up new guidelines with board and membership approval. I also plan to review the club's bylaws (when I can find a copy) and perhaps get those updated if needed. A club should run like a business, with members as our customers, and with a profit of increased knowledge and services provided for all. I accomplished this with MCUC and increased the membership to record levels while I was in office. We have the same opportunity with the new machines that are breathing life back into the Amiga market. With your help we can do the same for the Memphis Amiga Group.

GOOD NEWS! WE ARE NOT MOVING!

My wife made a few calls and we now have a club sponsor from State Tech. Special thanks to Roy Wright from State Tech. What this means is that we stay in the Farris (new) Auditorium for FREE! We were having to pay $40 per meeting. You must agree that the State Tech facilities are much better suited to our needs.

HIGHER VISIBILITY?

With MCUC we started raising the clubs visibility by taking advantage of all free advertising and we do the same for MAGs. We notified LINC the Library Information Service, all Amiga related magazines, all Amiga related business, and prepared club calendars to be posted by members on public bulletin boards. We are preparing club business cards and those will be available to the membership. We lost our P.O. Box but will have a new mailing address very soon. Help us spread the word!

MAG .info

MEANINGLESS RAMBLINGS...

FROM THE EDITOR

Hello one and all! Well as you can see we are back. I must admit that last month we had a couple of minor problems, but all is back to normal. I really dont have that much to say this month, so this will be short.

I would like to say congratulations to all the new officers. After overhearing Bob Nunn talking a week or so ago I am very excited about the future of the club.

As always if there is anything that you would like to say, pleas feel free to do so. I can be reached voice at 388-0108 and on VideospeakBBS at 853-4804 (as Visual Mark). I hope to make some changes over the next couple of months to the newsletter, so keep an eye out.

As always..........PEACE!!!;-)

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 $20 for the entire year. If you wait past the general meeting you will be dropped and must renew at the new member rate of $25 for the year. Please pay at the General meeting.

MEETINGS

The Memphis Amiga Users Group holds general meetings the second Saturday of each month in the Farris Auditorium on the campus of State Technical Institute at Memphis. For more information call Bob Nunn at (901) 795-0461.

The Librarian's Corner

by Bill Bowers

I'm glad to be back in charge of the club's library of disks and videotapes. I sure missed all those Fish disks. Anyway, this column will have multiple goals, 1) to help the editor fill some paper, 2) to supply some information or rumors from other areas not normally available to MAG members, 3) to give information on last month's Club disk because the disk usually finished the morning of the club meeting and 4) to humbly other some tips or suggestions to help Amiga users. Now that the disclaimer is done, here goes.

Welcome back AVID magazine. I had noticed not receiving this fine video oriented Amiga magazine for a couple of months. I had feared its demise just like .info magazine (sniff, sniff) and just in time for my subscription renewal. Instead, it has been sold to Pacific Media Publications in Salinas, California. AVID has the best Amiga 3D rendered covers and 3D articles of all the magazines. If video and 3D is your kick, look for this magazine at Bookstar and other large magazine racks.

Professional crystal ball gazers are seeing through the tight lips at NewTek and seeing new versions of the LightWave and Toaster software for the Video Toaster. LightWave Pro promises to the most feature-ladden 3D program for any PC and a must for those power LightWave users. Not much on details but the upgraded features should a bigger jump than 2.0 was from 1.0. Additional rumors are for a price under $800 and the software is on a CD-ROM, how interesting. Toaster 3.0 is also supposted to be on another CD-ROM disk with rumored price of $500. Expect a new version of ToasterPaint, a more powerful CG, more Toaster effects and possibly an effects creator. Just how soon will this be out, who knows with NewTek's reputation for holding release of new version until every last option has been added. Maybe summer of '93 for LightWave Pro and possibly winter '93 for Toaster 3.0. Just how are these new versions get into the Toaster? Perhaps NewTek will offer a CD-ROM drive for about $400? I would like to make this offer to the first person to purchase either one of these new versions. I will bring the club's CDTV and install the software at no charge. Subsequent installations will be charged a nominal fee paid to the club and will be announced at a later time.

I spotted a very interesting reference book during the Christmas shopping season. The MacMillian Visual Dictionary is a large, thick green book packed with pictures with labelling for most parts. The range of objects from housing to musical instruments to animals and the list goes on and on. There are even some motion sequences for swimming and other athletic activities. It is one of the best full color books I have seen as a reference for drawings and creating objects. I recently looking for a saxophone for a project and I went to bookstores and libraries looking for a satisfactory picutre to use and basically went empty-handed. This book would have really helped. O yes, the price is a hefty $50 but I think is well worth the price just to have and look at learn the names of the various parts of different objects. You know, one of those books you can flip through for hours at a time. My birthday is before the next meeting and I will bring it along.

That's about it, I would appreciate any constructive critism and/or rumors at the next meeting.

Thanks,
Bill Bowers

Bob's Bits

by Bob Nunn

My wife Cheryn and I have been poking around computers since Combe Inc. closed out refurbed Commodore 64's & 1541 drives. Thinking back I guess that was the best $250 we ever spent. You see both of our present occupations are directly related to our computer connections and knowledge. I presently am Publications Manager for Wang's International Inc. and Cheryn is Administrative Asst. for River Oaks Realtors here in Memphis. We both us MacIntoshs at work.

After moving to Memphis 7 years ago I set up a bulletin board using a 64 and two drives and a 300 baud modem. You see back then there wasn't much happening in the Commodore BBS area and the Amiga was just a glint in Jay Miners eye. I have been running a bbs ever since. It is a bit more sophisticated today than it was then. Soon it will be running on Amiga Hardware but I suppose as long as there is demand I will maintain a 64/128 support area as well.

We became active in the Memphis Commodore User Group a few years back, actually before the Amiga Group separated to become MAGS. I served as President for two years and I have run the club's bbs off and on for several years. I volunteered my wife to publish the newsletter a few years back (I'm not sure she has ever forgiven me) and she did it for 3 years, going from a newsletter to a small magazine 16 to 24 pages each month. We began a user group exchange program and exchanged both disks of the month and newsletters with clubs all over the world including England, Australia and New Zealand, which provided us with many new programs and ideas. We both have filled in as librarian, taught classes and seminars as well as represented MCUC in all types of public events over the years. We both have acted as private consultants to various firms in Memphis.

We bought our Amiga second hand last July and really fell in love with the machine. We run AMAX, a MacIntosh emulator on it which allows either of us to bring office work home, instead of staying late or working a weekend. We run the latest operating system 7.1 and all of the programs that we use at the office.

We both enjoy the hobby side of the Amiga as well. I guess my wife is really in love with Links Golf Game among others, and I use it for the telecommunications side. We just acquired a Yamaha keyboard and will be using it with a MIDI interface and our Amiga. I have a genlock and a camcorder and am looking forward to learning more about the video & graphic sides of the Amiga.

We are really new to the Amiga still and are looking forward to learning. What we hope to bring to the group is a fresh look at some of the old material while keeping current with the improvements in software and hardware.

You are very weclome to visit my bulletin board system. It will have been online 7 years this February. I will soon have a sub set aside for MAGS Club News and information. I have a small Public Domain U/D section and GIF pictures available as well as a text library with articles of interest. It does support ANSI Graphics as well.

MicroMiga announces new Amiga publication.

MicroMiga, known best as a mail order vendor specializing in the Amiga line of personal computers since 1988 is announcing today we will start publishing a new Amiga specific magazine. The first issue is scheduled for May of this year and subsequent issues will be released quarterly.

This new magazine titled "Amiga Explorer" will focus on the Amiga marketplace, spending most of its pages on what's available and new to the Amiga community. It will have in depth reviews of software and hardware, columns on how best to use your Amiga and the software you purchase. Several technical articles covering C programming and ARexx are also planned.

We will also be spending a great deal of time "Exploring" the online community including commercial online services, BBS's and Shareware/Public Domain Software. Included in every issue will be several "Spotlight" articles where we will do in depth reviews of Shareware software, interviews with the developers and also spotlight different BBS's around the country.

In the weeks to come we will release an outline of the planned articles for 1993 and into 1994. In this outline we will discuss in great detail the direction we plan to take Amiga Explorer and we hope you will take the time in the next few weeks to contact us with your ideas, suggestions or submissions. Amiga Explorer will be your magazine, it will be completely designed from the ground up based on your input. If you want something or don't like something let us know. We will be available to you via several online systems including Internet/Usenet.

The first issue will be available to all those who ask free of charge, simply write us at the address below to request your free issue. Future issues will be available for only the cost of mailing, or ask your local dealer to carry it free of charge.

Contact:	John Ferguson
Address:	Amiga Explorer P.O. Box 1898 Spring Valley, CA 91979-1898

Film at Eleven

by Jim Meyer

As you read this, DevCon '93 will be history, and some 400 Amiga developers will have scattered across the globe, renewed, recharged, and ready to forge ahead with the tasks at hand. And just what are those tasks? We really don't know yet, but there will be plenty of guesses over the next year or so. Some of what is to come, at least from the developers, will grow from what is now at hand. There are the new AGA modes to contend with, something that everyone - from spreadsheet developers to games people - will be addressing. Then there are the new machines, with brand new opportunities for expansion. We've already seen the first announcements of products specifically designed for the Amiga 1200, a trickle that is sure to turn into a deluge.

But what of Commodore? With candor unusal for Commodore, Lew Eggebrecht outlined the next 2 years of the Amiga line. We know what's coming and when, right? Wrong. While we've been given a good idea about some things, like the evolution of the AGA chipset and future operating system enhancements, it is likely that much more remains unknown. And each development, of itself, opens up even more possibilities. Retargetable and Device-Independent Graphics (RTG/DIG), for example, presents the possibility of Amigas running in a myriad of configurations, of Amiga displays limited only by available technology. A standard Digital Signal Processor (DSP) - a computer within the computer - opens up even more doors.

But possibilities only exist within a universe that itself exists. For the Amiga, there is no future beyond that which Commodore is able, or willing, to create. The present Amiga market consists of a core of highly devoted, even fanatical, North American users, and even larger base of European users. The North American market has the most potential, and the largest.

Unofficial Memphis TN BBS Telephone List

by Ben D'Angelo, Edited for Space by Bob Nunn

Only Active Numbers Shown - January 1, 2993

MEMPHIS AMIGA GROUP MEMBERS February 7, 1993

If you have a change of address or phone; please notify; Terry Campbell