August 1993 MAGazine Volume 9 Number 8

President's Ponderings - August 1993

By Bob Nunn

VIDEOSPEAK WAS HERE

David Spence was at the last meeting. With his new location and hours he will occasionally be able to attend the meeting. He was nice enough to bring an Amiga 500 and offer it for $50 to a first time user or $75 for an existing Amiga owner. Ron Montgomery took advantage of his offer and some new user is learning how to use his Amiga.

DIRECTORY OPUS

Scott Pitts, along with help from the audience did an amazing job of presenting this program. As a recent purchaser of this program I have been astounded at how powerful this program is. It really can become almost an operating system in itself or you can simply use if from the box with no modifications. It rated high in all the magazine review and I would say this program is a must have for any Amiga system owner who runs a hard drive.

ARCHIVER - AUTO-INSTALL

The clubs own Kevin Browne (Merlin) put together a disk that automatically installs most commonly used archiving programs to your hard drive. I was really impressed with how easy and efficient this program works. I know that I had spend hours digging up all the different compression programs and even more time installing them. This really makes it simple and we offered it as a disk of the month selection. Keep up the good work Kevin and THANKS!

SHELLY FRANKLIN - AMIGA 4000 - OPALVISION

Shelly Franklin had only had her brand spanking new 4000 complete with Opal Vision for less than a week. I knew that many of you were anxious to see in person what we had been reading (& dreaming) about. We were able to coerce her into showing off her system. Actually, I think she really wanted to but was concerned that she hadn't had time to learn much yet. I thought the demo was excellent and it really excited me to see the potential. Hopefully in a few months she will consent to show us more of what she has learned.

GRAPHICS CONTEST!

The entries are due in by this meeting. If you can't make the meeting with your entry you can upload it to my BBS or make arrangements to meet with me. No entries will be accepted after Sunday August 15th. We have 3 Grand Prizes and Certificates for 2nd and 3rd Place. Remember AGA or special files must be on videotapes.

Would you like to learn more about using your Amiga? Call my BBS and remind me that you are a MAG member for special access!

Operator Headgap BBS - 3/12/24 - 901-365-1583
V.32bis Hi Speed Only! 367-0744

MAG .info

The Memphis Amiga Group (M.A.G.)
P.O. Box 752683
Memphis, TN 38175-2683

GENERAL INFORMATION

The Memphis Amiga Group (M.A.G.) is a non profit organization whose purpose is promoting and encouraging the use and understanding of the Commodore Amiga Computer Systems. Membership are open to all who share a common interest in the Amiga computer and its many wonderful and unique features. Monthly meetings are open to the public and visitors are welcome.

MEMBERSHIP

Annual membership dues for new members is $25.00 with an annual renewal rate of $20.00. All memberships are family memberships and dues are nonrefundable.

NEWSLETTER

This newsletter is published monthly for the distribution to members of the Memphis Amiga Group. MAGazine contains meeting announcements, hardware and software reviews, video and book reviews and other information of interest to Amiga and computer users in general. Contributions are welcome and may be submitted in hardcopy or via disk in ascii format at any meeting or you can upload to Videospeak BBS 853-4804. Be sure to leave a note to the sysop. The editor reserves the right to reject material related to illegal service, products or unethical practices.

CLUBS DISKS & MISC.

ADVERTISING RATES

MEETINGS

General Membership Meetings: 2nd Saturday of each month 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm in the Farris Auditorium at State Tech.

Board of Directors Meeting: 2nd Saturday of each month at 11:30 am at Gridley's on Macon Road.

All special events will be announced via the newsletters.

BOARD MEMBERS

Terra Nova Development Releases "Diner" Object Set for Imagine

July 2, 1993

Terra Nova Development of Ventura, California has released Volume One of its Designer Objects series of 3D models. This first volume, "DINER", is a three disk set of object for Impulse, Inc.'s Imagine software for Amiga computers.

The Diner set includes a variety of objects that together build a complete diner of the early 1950's, including a jukebox, counter, booths, a pay telephone, dishes, cups, silverware, and other items for place settings. In many cases, there are both 'hi-res' and 'lo-res' versions of objects so that artists can optimize their scenes for either image quality or speedy rendering.

In addition to the objects and image maps, there are two Imagine projects on the disks. One, with scenes that can be rendered on five megabyte systems, offers fairly simple scenes; the other features more complex scenes that require up to fourteen megabyte to render. A manual is included.

The Designer Objects series is intended to showcase the talents of gifted 3D artists by making available affordable collections of their 3D objects. The Diner objects were created by award-winning computer artist Bradley W. Schenck, whose work should be familiar to the Amiga community through articles and artworks including wins in the BADGE Killer Demo Contests of 1988 and 1989.

Terra Nova Development, based on the California coast, is a ground-breaking multimedia development company hard at work on entertainment and application titles for several computer platforms.

Terra Nova Development
P.O. Box 2202
Ventura, California 93002

Price for the set is $47.50 US. Direct sales orders from California should include $3.44 sales tax. Orders accepted with money order, check or cashier's check in US funds.

Meeting Minutes July 10, 1993

The meeting was called to order at 11:45 pm by Bob Nunn. Present were: Bob & Cheryn Nunn, Terry Campbell, and Bill Bowers.

Board Members will get estimates on the plaques and certificates for the Animation Contest.

The Animation Contest entries are due at the August general meeting. The board members will review all entries and pick the top five in each category to be presented to and voted on by the general membership in the September meeting.

The latest fish CD was ordered and received in time for the July general meeting.

Kelly Boswell will demo the Retina card at the August meetings. The Retina is the first single card solution integrating the best features of the Amiga's graphical user interface with the ability to displace Workbench or AmigaOS compliant programs on their own custom screen in resolutions up to 1280x1024.

Kevin Browne will demo a group of "hot" new PD utilities currently and newly available. The disk will be available at the meeting for purchase also. Kevin wrote the archive installer that we briefly showed last month. Don't miss another great meeting!

Meeting adjourned at 12:15 pm.

Respectfully Submitted,

Cheryn Nunn, Vice President

MORE FISH DISKS

CONTENTS OF DISK 895

FMsynth

A program to create sounds with FM synthesis. It has six operators, a realtime LFO and a free editable algorithm. The sound can be played on the Amiga keyboard and saved in IFF-8SVX format. Version 1.1, giftvare, includes source in Oberon-2 Author: Christian Stiens

MakeDMake

An automated DMake tile generator. You give it the names of all the C-Files used to produce your executable (expect include'd .c or .h files), and it will automatically scan them to find all dependencies, and produce a ready to use (in many cases) DMakefile calling DCC with options you will need for normal compiltation and linking. Verson 0.22, an update to version 0.19 on disk 810. Includes source. Author: Piotr Obminski, from original code by Tim McCrath

MuchMore

Another program like "more", "less", "pg", etc. This one uses its own screen to show the text using a slow scroll. Includes built-in help, commands to search for text, and commands to print the text. Supports 4 color text in bold, italic, underlined, or inverse fonts. Can load xpk-crunched files, has a display mode requester and is now localized (german catalog included). Version 3.3, an update to version 3.0 on disk number 560. Includes source in Oberon-2. Author: Fridtjof Siebert, Christian Stiens

CONTENTS OF DISK 896

AnsiView

A utility to view IBM ansi pics on the AMIGA. Supports the 16 color IBM Ansi standard fully. Works on any AMIGA running any version of AmigaDos. Version 1.0, binary only with source available from the author. Author: Marcus Trisdale

DA

"Digital Aesthetics". A program that provides you with a soothing audio environment in which to work, similar to the cd's/tapes available of rainstorms, ocean surfs, rivers, etc. The sounds are contained in modules called 'EMods', short for Environment MODules. With DA, you can control various aspects of these EMods, and link EMods together in a list to be played in sequence. Two short EMods are provided with more available when you purchase the registered version. Version 2.5, OS2.x required, binary only. Author: Greg Grove

Riff

A little iff reader written in modula-2, M2amiga. Version 1.1, includes source. Author: Marcel Timmermans

SamPull

A utility which will allow you to manipulate and save the samples of a music module, (just Noise/Sound/Protracker MOD format for now), to disk in a quick and user-friendly graphic environment. As an added bonus, SamPull features sub-programs which will scan for MODs in memory or any format of disk. Version 2.0, OS2.x required, binary only. Author: Greg Grove

ScriptTool

A small Workbench-utility which lets you to run commonly used commands and scripts from Workbench's Tools-menu. Version 1.02 and needs DOS2.0 (V36). Freeware, includes source. Author: Jan Hagqvist

WBStart

WBStart is a package to emulate the WorkBench startup procedure, by loading a program, creating a process for it, and then sending it a WB startup message. Includes a handler process which does the starting of the processes for you and then waits for the startup reply messages. Version 1.3, an update to version 1.2 on disk number 757. Includes source. Author: Stefan Becker

CONTENTS OF DISK 897

DNet

A link protocol that provides essentially an unlimited number of reliable connections between processes on two machines, where each end of the link can be either an Amiga or a Unix (BSD43) machine. Works on the Amiga with any EXEC device that looks like the serial.device. Works on UNIX with tty and socket devices. Achieves better than 95% average throughput on file transfers. This is version 2.32, an update to version 2.10 on disk number 294. Includes sources for both the Amiga and Unix versions. Author: Matt Dillon and others

EPP

E Preprocessor. Simple, easy-to-use macro preprocessor intended for use with Wouter van Oortmerssen's E language compiler. Allows E programmer's to "include" (similar to C) E source code modules, thus adding mogularity to the E language. Should work on any OS version. Update to V1.0, improved speed; bug fixes; new OPT TURBO directive for turning on Turbo mode for single modules; CtrlC made reliable. Version 1.1, includes source. Author: Barry Wills.

PrtSc

Have you ever noticed that there is a PrtSc-key on the numeric keypad? If you press it you'll find that nothing happens, but here's the solution. So if you've ever wanted to have a working PrtSc-key, try this. Requires OS20 (V36). Version 1.08, freeware, includes source in assembler. Author: Jan Hagqvist

VerCheck

A little script utility for 2.04 users with 1.3 Rom sharer/KickDisk. This helps you to boot under the right system when using an alien Kickstart. Version 2.00, now includes CPU/FPU checking too. Freeware, includes source in assembler. Author: Jan Hagqvist

CONTENTS OF DISK 898

AniMan

The final version (5.2) of AniMan, the voice recognition program that allows you to converse with an animated talking head to execute any ARexx or CLI command. AniMan appears as a full color animation in a miniature window on the 3.0 Workbench screen. AniMan is fully multitasking and runs in the foreground or background, listening for your voice commands even while other programs may be running. Many improvements requested by users are now included. Menu operations have been improved. Documentation is provided in AmigaGuide format. Audio digitizer support has been expanded to include Perfect Sound 3, Sound Magic (Sound Master), DSS 8, and Generic digitizers. AniMan 5.2 requires AmigaDOS 3.0. An update to version 5.0 on Disk #841. Binary only. Author: Richard Horne

NarTest

A little tool that lets you play with the new features of V37 narrator.device. Also ideal for designing the speech for your own programs. Version 1.01, needs DOS2.04 (V37). Freeware, includes source in assembler. Author: Jan Hagqvist

Sci-Fi_Demo

A demo of Sci-Fi Type: 14 3d fonts for Imagine and other rendering programs. Includes: Ultra (a full sample fonts), A short doc file with ordering info, and an iff (hi res 16 color) image depicting the rest of the set. Author: Doug Brooks

VCLI

The final version (7.0) of Voice Command Line Interface (VCLI) which will execute CU commands, ARexx commands, or ARexx Scripts by voice command. VCLI allows you to launch multiple applications or control any program with an ARexx capability entirely by spoken voice command. Many improvements requested by users are now included. VCLI now has its own ARexx port so that its internal options and functions can be controlled by ARexx command. Menu operations have been improved. Documentation is provided in AmigaGuide format. Audio digitizer support has been expanded to include Perfect Sound 3, Sound Magic (Sound Master), DSS 8, and Generic digitizers. This is the fastest version of VCLI yet, and it runs well under either AmigaDOS 2.0 or 3.0. An update to version 5.2 on disk number 807. Binary only. Author: Richard Horne

YOU COULD OWN THIS BOX

If you have an old computer, old car, old lady, er. No! No! --- anything you need to get rid of. You can get this box, or one like it, for your very own. All you have to do is give your editor a call and tell him what you would like to advertise here. Call Trevor 388-0108

Turn 1MB Disks Into High (2MB) Density Disks

New Invention Saves you Money

HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? Have you ever tired to format a regular, double density 3.5" disk to 1.44 MB? Of course you have, it doesn't work. The computer gives you an invalid media error. So there must be a difference in the disk media, right? Wrong. Suprisingly, manufactures find it less expensive to us THE SAME MAGNETIC MEDIA for both HD and DD disks. THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS THE EXTRA SENSE HOLE IN THE HD CASE. That hole tells the drive to operate in high density mode, So, how can you take advantage of the fact that the media is the same?

TWO YEARS OF TESTING. We've conducted an intensive testing program. We have converted over 159,800 disks and tested each one for data integrity. In two years NOT ONE CONVERTED DISK HAS LOST ANY DATA. Converter™ is unconditionally guaranteed to convert disks perfectly for ONE FULL YEAR.

For more information call
The Original, Patented DOUBLE DISK™ DISTRIBUTOR
454-0001
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The Wall Street Journal - "The Double Disk Converter™ punches a tiny, rectangular hold in the 3 1/2 inch floppies...That hole is the main difference between 720k disks and the more expensive (HD) disks" - Paul B. Carrol

Byte Magazine - "...All the disk media is made by the same process and in the same factories." - Roy Anderson

Chicago Computing - "Does the Double Disk Converter™ work? A resounding YES. In short the Double Disk Converter is one of those rare products that delivers exactly what it promises." - George Demos

Computer Reseller News - "...In 336 hours of read/write testing, none of the converted disks failed or had data or soft sector errors." - Staff Writer

MEMPHIS AMIGA GROUP MEMBERS AUGUST 1993

If your name is underlined check your renewal date.

If you have a change of address or phone, please notify; Terry Campbell (601) 393-4864

Financial Report of the Memphis Amiga Group July, 1993