====================================================================== ________ _________ ____ _|__ __ __|_______ _________ __\ _____ \\\\ \_ _/ //___// _____//______\ _____ \\ // \\\\ /. \\\\__ \/ __// \\ \\____. /// \\\\ /. \\ \\___\¯ /___///___\ /___\ \\_________//\\___\¯ /___// ¯ \/ ¯ ¯ \/. |¯ ¯|z!o ¯ ¯ \/ ¯ A M I G A |#020228 | U P D A T E |________| "SO THE WORLD MAY KNOW" ====================================================================== AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga, Inc. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- B I L L ' S F E B R U A R Y U P D A T E A M I G A D E A N D N O K I A N E W T A L E N T O N A M I G A T E A M W H A T N E X T ? ? A M I G A E X P O L A T E S T N E W S M E D I A T O R N E W S F R O M E L B O X P R E - I N S T A L L E D A M I G A O S X L A V A I L A B L E P A G E S T R E A M 4 . 1 A M I G A A V A I L A B L E A K I K O 1 . 4 A V A I L A B L E F O R D O W N L O A D P E R S U A S I V E S O F T W O R X G I V E S U P Editor's Thoughts and Introduction: We have a number of interesting items from Amiga Inc. this time. There are tantalizing items here, not the least of which is the new Nokia set top box available in Sweden. Great to see the new products coming. One of these days, we hope to see something that really works in the Amiga's home market ... patience can be hard to maintain. The "What Next?" item, short little thing that it is, has us thinking all kinds of thoughts about what might happen in the future. You probably should be sitting down when you read that one. On a somber note, long time Amiga stalwarts Frank and Carol Davis of FWD Computing were recently in a very severe automobile accident while on their way to a show. Their recovery from injuries sustained looks like it will take some time. They also lost thousands of dollars of mechandise and the van they used to carry items to shows. We wish them well and have them often in our thoughts these days. Well wishers can send letters and cards to them at: Frank & Carol Davis FWD Computing P.O. Box 17 Mexico, IN 46958 We hope you enjoy this edition, Brad Webb, Editor ---------------------------------------------------------------------- E-mail to the E-ditor: 1 Feb 2002 Glad to hear that OS 4.0 is becoming a reality. While they are still working on it, Can we slip in a request that, since they are writing Amiga OS 4.0 in C, they at least outlaw the use of the instruction that causes "Buffer Overflows". It's such a simple thing to avoid that it looks Really Stupid when it happens. Any instruction or routine that moves data without checking the Maximum Size of the destination buffer should be avoided like a Plague. That's Plague as in Virus. I don't really Care if the length check takes a couple extra nanoseconds. It's certainly better than what will happen if they DON'T take that extra little care. Thanks, Jerry ~~~~~~ Hello Jerry, I'm not enough of a programer to be able to deal with this information meaningfuly, but we'll pass it along in hopes that someone reading this issue is able to. What you say certainly sounds sensible to me. Brad ---------------------------------------------------------------------- B I L L ' S F E B R U A R Y U P D A T E Bill McEwen - February 22, 2002 Greetings to the Global Amiga family, Yes, I know that it has been more than a week, and yes the deal is still on, and yes we are moving very quickly as I will outline to you all below I want to personally thank our friends and families for sticking with us and with our dreams as they are coming to reality. As Amiga has matured over the last two years, and our plans only slightly changed I would like to say thank you to each and every one of you for your patience and excitement as we move forward. In 1999 Amiga, Inc. decided to take a very different road than the ones previously charted for the community. It was met, by some, with disbelief, most with excitement as a path was being laid towards a future where digital content would be accessed by any digital device. Amiga selected an unknown partner in the Tao-Group of Reading England, and I can assure you that this was the best decision we have made. Tao and Amiga have never been closer as a true partnership is in place. I want to thank Francis Charig my dear friend, and the rest of the Tao team as they been instrumental to the successes that will become public knowledge soon. However with all of the great plans that were in place and the product development that had started there was still the issue of having funds necessary to make it all happen, and the addition of Frank Wilde as our Chairman has been amazing help, and I can say we are moving forward in ways that are going to bring Amiga to new levels, and I could not be more happy with the results that we are seeing. Thank you to everyone of you who are keeping the faith and spreading the truth about Amiga. I have several announcements that are happening here, and you need to know that we are definitely going to have more Amiga enabled products ship in 2002 than in any year previous. o Our STB partner - Nokia, and their new Media Terminal. Yes, the same Nokia that you all know and love. Amiga will be pre-loaded on these products and we will begin shipping on them before summer this year. Now the Nokia announcement will be coming on their site in the coming weeks, but we are going ahead and putting our release up, and then we will follow on with another joint announcement. o I often get messages asking when we are going to let the rest of the world know what is happening. Well for all of you who have asked - Amiga will be at the Embedded Systems Show in San Francisco, CA, March 12 through the 15th. We will be in booth #1602, located in the South Hall of Moscone Center. We will be showing the new Amiga technology, and some exciting new features never before seen in any other product. We will also be making at least one announcement there at the show. o We have two more new members added to the team and there are many more that will be announced soon. The first two are part of our sales team. Both are dynamic and excited to be part of the Amiga family. Liz Barnick and David Brott joined us in January, and are establishing themselves quickly with regards to new business, and great ideas. I have included information about them both in a separate document that is attached to this update. o AmigaOS 4.0 is moving ahead very nicely and I could not be more pleased with Hyperion and their ability to get things done. We will all be very proud of their efforts, and I know that many of you will be rewarded with what they have already accomplished, and with the product that they are building. I can assure you that your patience will be met with great rewards, and there are many others who are now learning what you have known. That Amiga has the most robust, talented, dedicated community of any computing platform today or in the future. Thank you again for your continued prayers and support. You are about to be rewarded. With my best to everyone, Bill McEwen and the rest of the Amiga Team http://www.amiga.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A D E A N D N O K I A Amiga to Deploy AmigaDE on Infotainment Device for the Home 02-Feb-2002, Snoqualmie, WA - Amiga Inc, an emerging leader in media delivery, today announced the pre-installation, for the Swedish market, of Amiga on the Nokia Mediaterminal. The Nokia Mediaterminal, an innovative "infotainment' device for the home, recently launched in Sweden, combines digital video broadcast (DVB), gaming, streaming and downloadable digital media, full Internet access, and personal video recorder (PVR) technology. A Linux-based version of the AmigaDE has been incorporated into the Nokia Mediaterminal. "Today's announcement is yet another significant step forward in our vision of enabling Amiga users to access their favorite applications from any device and on any platform,' said Bill McEwen, President/CEO, Amiga Inc. "The deployment of the Amiga on the Nokia Media terminal will give consumers an array of gaming and entertainment content from a central device attached to their televisions.' By using AmigaDE on the Nokia Mediaterminal, consumers will be able to download, store and have access to the latest gaming applications, MP3, MPEG4, Universal Chat, and streaming video, turning the family TV into a multifunctional entertainment center. About Amiga {Most of us know "about Amiga" but I find the new "about" segments which accompany press releases fascinating for the way they're put together, so I've left this one in place. Brad} Amiga Inc. established itself in 1985 as the premier provider of multi-media technologies to the world. Today Amiga continues leading the way in multi-media by providing language independent technologies to developers for writing and porting applications to a new multi-media platform that is hardware agnostic. Its AmigaDE powered with intent(TM) from Tao Group enables applications to run unchanged on a broad range of processors including ARM,StrongARM, Intel X-Scale, MIPS, Intel x86, Motorola 68K and Hitachi SH. It can run hosted on a wide variety of operating systems including Linux, Embedded Linux, Windows 95, 98, 2000, NT, and Pocket PC. AmigaDE Player and applications for the AmigaDE Environment can be purchased at http://de.amiga.com. Amiga is based in Snoqualmie, WA, and has offices worldwide. Amiga can be reached at (425) 396-5660 or visit Amiga on the web at http://www.amiga.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- N E W T A L E N T O N A M I G A T E A M 02-Feb-2002, Snoqualmie, WA Liz Barnick Joins Amiga as Director, Business Development Liz Barnick comes to Amiga with more than 15 years of sales, marketing and business development in the technology industry. Most recently as Vice President of Business Development for RAVISENT Technologies Inc., where she was responsible for creating and managing critical business partnerships, and performing due diligence on acquisition targets worldwide. Prior to that, she held sales management positions with Seagate Software-Network & Systems Group where she managed a sales teams providing enterprise solutions to the Fortune 1000. Prior to that, she worked for Computer Associates as a National Sales Manager handling major accounts. Ms. Barnick also spent many years in the CAD/CAM industry with companies such as CalComp-Lockheed Company and Summagraphics. Ms.Barnick holds a Bachelors of Science degree from California Polytechnic University-emphasis marketing. David Brott Joins Amiga as Director, Business Development Prior to joining Amiga, Mr. Brott was Vice President of Licensing and Certification for InterActual Technologies, directing worldwide technology and trademark licensing activities. His responsibilities included InterActual's certification process, which included API compliancy testing for embedded web browsers, MPEG-2 DVD semiconductors, and DVD consumer set top systems. Mr. Brott also held the position of Director of Business Development for Ravisent Technologies with worldwide responsibility for technology licensing and business alliances. Mr. Brott also held tactical communications and mission planning roles at Seal Team Three, United States Navy. He received his BA from the University of California at San Diego, and has completed advanced coursework at Wharton Executive Education and the Center For Creative Leadership. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- W H A T N E X T ? ? Spotted on the "Czech" Amiga News site (http://amiga.realdreams.cz/index.html), apparently first posted to the Amiga News Network. 15 Feb, 2002 AmigaInc + Microsoft = Friends (or business is business) Windows News Bill McEwen said in his Executive Update AmigaInc. will be at the Embeded Systems Conference, booth #1602. (Nothing strange yet :-) Gary Peake: "Yes, Microsoft has asked us to demo DE and some of the developer applications running on various devices in their booth." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A M I G A E X P O L A T E S T N E W S 17 February, 2002 Over the last few weeks Amiga Expo has added a lot of new exhibitors. We're now incorporating a whole new video editing show as a subset of Amiga Expo!! Expect to see the latest video products from NewTek and Applied Magic - both former Amiga companies taking video to new levels!! There will be classes and demos of the new products as well. We've got 'Bots!! Top Secret Robotics - a robot fighting team who have appeared on Robotica and Robot Wars will be appearing to show off their robots and give you a talk on everything that goes on behind these scenes on these shows! That's not all - we can't give you details now - but there is going to be some Big News at this show ...and from more than one Amiga company! Check out the EVENTS schedule that is now up on the Amiga Expo web site. Advance price discount tickets are still available for the show and banquet. We've had the hotel extend our room block so if you hurry you can still get some cheap rooms too! Visit us now at www.amigaexpo.com About Amiga Expo Presented by Nova Design, Inc., this show brings developers, resellers and other exhibitors of Amiga and Classic platforms together in an east coast venue! We've got AmigaDE, AmigaXL & Amithlon, WinUAE, QNX, Linux, Classic Gaming, MAME, Vintage Computers and more! The Amiga Expo 2002 will take place at the Marriott Hunt Valley Inn on March, the 29th - 31st, 2002. Show times will include special early show floor access on Friday from 5pm to 9pm, and regular access 10am to 5pm Saturday and 10am to 2pm on Sunday. As we're branching out, expect to see video editing systems, QNX and Linux platforms, robots, arcade gaming, speakers from all these areas and much more! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- M E D I A T O R N E W S F R O M E L B O X 2 February, 2002 Now you can have the new ultimate Mediator busboard for owners of Amiga models: the A3000D, the A3000T and the A4000T. Elbox Computer has expanded the Mediator PCI busboard line with two further models: · Mediator PCI 3000D Mediator PCI 3000D is dedicated for Amiga 3000D computers. It allows for simultaneous use of 5 PCI cards and 6 Zorro III/II cards. · Mediator PCI 3/4000T Mediator PCI 3/4000T is dedicated for Amiga 3000T and Amiga 4000T computers. It allows for simultaneous use of 5 PCI cards and 4 Zorro III/II cards. About Mediator: Mediator PCI is a family of expansion boards, which enable using high-performance cost-effective PCI cards in Amiga computers. The Mediator PCI busboard line is designed to enable expanding Amiga computers with a wide range of standard PCI cards like graphic cards, Ethernet and Fast Ethernet network cards, modem cards, ISDN cards, USB and SCSI cards, sound cards and multimedia cards: TV tuner and MPEG-2 hardware decoders. Expanding the Amiga with the Mediator PCI busboard opens the way to employing the power of the latest PowerPC G3/G4 processors in Amiga, around which SharkPPC and SharkPPC+ cards are based. 22 February, 2002 Elbox Computer is happy to inform that now the complete line of Mediator PCI busboards is supported with Warp3D Voodoo drivers. Warp3D Voodoo are being released today for the following Mediator models: Mediator PCI 3000D, Mediator PCI 4000, Mediator PCI 4000D, Mediator PCI 3/4000T, and Mediator PCI ZIII. Warp3D drivers prepared by Hyperion Entertainment for Mediator PCI busboards work flawlessly on PPC & 68k processors with: · Voodoo3 2000/3000, · Voodoo4 4500, and · Voodoo5 5500 graphic cards. Warp3D Voodoo drivers are part of the software package bundled with all models of the Mediator PCI busboard product line. Warp3D Voodoo drivers are available free of charge for all registered users of Mediator PCI busboards - directly and exclusively from Elbox Computer. http://www.elbox.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- P R E - I N S T A L L E D A M I G A O S X L A V A I L A B L E 8 February, 2002 Haage & Partner is now offering their pre-installed AmigaOS XL hard disks outside Germany. They offer 40 and 20 GB IDE hard disks that have the full AmigaOS XL package already installed. With a boot manager you can directly boot your Amithlon or AmigaXL/QNX system. "It has never been easier to get a faaast Amiga..." http://amigaosxl.haage-partner.de/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- P A G E S T R E A M 4 . 1 A M I G A A V A I L A B L E 31 January, 2001 At last the Amiga version of the new PageStream 4.1 is available. The highlights of this version are: tables, built in mail merge, PDF export control over compression and encoding, custom column widths and gutters inside text frames, move pages between chapters, duplicate/transform objects across pages, speed improvements and of course much more. See the November issue of "Amiga Update" for more details on PageStream 4.1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- A K I K O 1 . 4 A V A I L A B L E F O R D O W N L O A D February 21st 2002 Version 1.4 of the Windows CD32 & CDTV emulator Akiko was just released at http://phobos.spaceports.com/~sfa/en/. This version can now finally boot any CD32 & CDTV game you like. Akiko uses a very general procedure to gain the best compatibility. In some tests more than 90 percent of the games ran with this general procedure. Additionally a lot of requests by Akiko users were realized in this version. Version 1.4 of Akiko can now be downloaded from http://phobos.spaceports.com/~sfa/en/. Registered users please send an email to akiko@airsoftsoftwair.de with "subscribe" subject and you'll get the latest version (you'll only have to subscribe once, then you'll always get the latest version of Akiko). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- P E R S U A S I V E S O F T W O R X G I V E S U P 6 February, 2002 (From Czech Amiga News, see above.) "Due to a lack of time, motivation and general interest, PerSuaSiVe SoftWorX is looking for licensees that are willing to obtain the source code for the well-known ak Datatypes (other products on request) under exclusive or non-exclusive licen se on as-is basis. The license will not include the keyfile-code (removal) and it won't include the right to sell a product under the same name. So the licensee will be able to work out new products based on the sources, without any further relations or obligati ons. Basic help for getting started with the sources and concepts will be provided. We're awaiting your offers. OpenSource projects may obtain FREE licences under certain circumstances. Please contact us. This offer is limited until 31.03.2001." *** In the meantime, our website will be reworked. The Amiga section was removed. *** Contact Andreas Kleinert, PerSuaSiVe SoftWorX at Andreas_Kleinert@t-online.de ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Amiga Update on the net: All back issues available at: http://www.globaldialog.com/~amigaupdate/index.html Stop by and check out our archive! ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2002 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified. ====================================================================== _ __ _ <>_ __ _ A M I G A /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ A M I G A U P D A T E /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ U P D A T E / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ amigaupdate@globaldialog.com ======================================================================