Totalamiga-10.pdf
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Pobierz
Issue 10, Spring 2002
£3.50
Also in this issue:
News:
WoASE Show Report
AmigaOS 4 Update
Features:
AmiMPC
Reviews:
Mediator 4000
EZKey XS and
Multimedia Keyboard
Support:
B2B: Mode Promotion
Directory Opus Tutorial
Contents
Contents
Editorial
The Chairman Speaks
I
n these frugal times it is
Issue 10
Spring 2002
the show in November, to
hopefully coincide with the
estimated release of OS4 and
AmigaOne (about October).
The more we thought about
putting on a show the more
enthusiasm we built up, and
after a meeting between the
two user groups it was decided
we were going to put on a
show. As we intended to put a
show on in the South East of
England it would be best if all
the active user groups in the
South East were involved. So
Kickstart and ASA were invited
to join forces but as Kickstart’s
K4 was imminent, we were not
too sure if they would be
interested (but I was sure I
would be able to twist their
arm).
SEAL attended K4 show in
May helping out in the games
arena (we ran the Shogo
tournament), and had a user
group table where we sold
subscriptions to this very
magazine (at the time called
“Clubbed”) and enjoyed
chatting to the community.
There was one concept of the
show that shocked us, this
was the poor attendance after
three shows that had been
packed to the rafters, but we
put this down to the fact that it
was a very hot sunny bank
holiday, and thought that many
people had probably headed to
the beaches for sun, sea and
sex (well sun and sea for sure)!
I must say that when we finally
announced we intended to put
on an Amiga show I was
quietly concerned after
witnessing the Kickstart K4
show. But we (SEAL, ANT,
Kickstart and ASA) decided to
go ahead with it and hope for
the best.
The main issue was to put on a
show that was commercially
attractive to the dealers,
interesting (new products
maybe) and affordable to the
community and had a large
user group influence. Well the
last bit was easy enough as
there were four user groups
organising and managing it, to
make it commercially attractive
to the dealers all we had to do
was get large numbers to
attend (gulp!) and make the
tables affordable, and last but
not least for the community, the
show had to be well priced
(less than the cost of a packet
of fags) and something new
(OS 4 and AmigaOne) to drool
over and purchase.
Just before the show it was
announced that OS 4 and the
AmigaOne wouldn’t be
released until early next year
(2002), just our luck I thought,
but it was too late to cancel or
re-schedule the show for
another date as the venue had
been paid for now and it wasn’t
cheap (try finding a venue with
excellent rail links to London,
close to the M25, with a bar
and capable of holding 400
people to see what it costs)!
W
elcome to the first issue
difficult to gauge just how
many active Amiga users there
are, while on a daily basis I
view on Amibench whole
systems being sold complete
with high quality original
software. That of course
means they are leaving the
Amiga for good, not keeping
their software means they don’t
even intend to use a PC
running Amiga OS XL or
Amithlon which saddens me.
Based on these indications it
made the decision even more
difficult as to whether or not to
put on a show in 2001.
After the fairly successful
SEAL-O-RAMA in 2000, it was
hard to know how to approach
putting on a show for 2001
(way back in April when I
started to consider it). There
seemed to be less active
Amigans about and little
prospect of being able to have
two shows in the South East
(Kickstart and SEAL-O-RAMA).
A few weeks later I was
approached by a good friend of
mine Mike Carrillo who
founded and helps run ANT
(Amiga North Thames) about
the prospect of joining forces to
put on a show in the South
East of England. It was
intended to be a marginally
larger show than SEAL-O-
RAMA and therefore attract a
larger audience. We thought it
would be a good idea to hold
as with the old one I expect it
will be refined over time,
please let us know if you have
any comments or suggestions.
of Total Amiga! If you’re
an existing Clubbed subscriber
you may just not have heard
that Total Amiga is the new
name for the magazine. We
think it better reflects the range
of Amiga subjects we cover
and at least now you have a
chance of guessing what the
magazine’s about from the title!
For new readers the fact that
Total Amiga the new name for
an existing magazine explains
why this is issue 10, we had 9
previous issues of Clubbed
and wanted to make it clear
that we have a track record
and are committed to
publishing the magazine.
Regular readers will notice that
along with the new name and
logo we’ve completely
redesigned the magazine.
There’s a new four column
layout which gives us much
more flexibility in how we
organise pages and a new font
used for headings. This
change is far from skin deep,
as we’ve tried to incorporate
more information into the new
layout. The biggest change are
the new “.Info” boxes which go
with each review and give you
much more information on the
reviewed product including its
system requirements and the
Amiga(s) we used to test it. I
hope you like the new look but
Contents
News
WoASE Show Report..... 4
AmigaOS 4 Update ........ 10
Fleecy Moss................... 11
Finding a Printer ............ 12
Features
AmiMPC ......................... 14
Reviews
Mediator 4000 ................ 16
ImageFX 4.5 .................. 20
EZKeyXS ....................... 22
EZTower Z4.................... 24
Perfect Paint 2.8 ............ 26
Olympus Camedia 3000Z
....................................... 29
Descent: Freespace....... 30
AMP 2 ............................ 34
PD Paradise................... 36
Support
Top Tips.......................... 35
Back to Basics: Mode
Promotion....................... 38
Directory Opus Tutorial .. 40
Mailing List ..................... 43
Next Issue ...................... 43
Gallery and colour screen
shots .............................. 44
If you’ve read our
announcements about Total
Amiga you will know that we
are aiming to move from
quarterly to bi-monthly
publication soon, to do this we
need to find more contributors
to spread the work of writing
the magazine. Anyone can
write for the magazine and we
are interested in any article
which involves the Amiga, it
could be a tutorial, review,
opinion or even just a letter. If
you’d like to try your hand
please contact me at one of the
addresses below or visit the
contribution section of our
website.
Speaking of the website we
have completely redesigned it
for Total Amiga and added lot’s
more information. You can
quickly find out what the
current issue is, which back
issues we have available and
how to order single issues and
subscriptions. You can’t yet
download download back
issues in PDF format as I
mentioned in the last issue,
this is due to an incompatibility
between Ghostscript and
APDF, but we hope to make
this option available soon. A
new feature of the site is the
behind the scenes section,
here you can read about how
the magazine is made and we
will post sneak previews of
future issues.
There are lots of exciting things
going on in the Amiga world at
the moment, the news on the
OS 4 front is looking sounding
good now Hyperion have taken
the helm and it sounds like we
could have something concrete
to report in the next issue.
Prototypes of both the bplan
Pegasos motherboard and the
Elbox Shark PPC accelerator
were shown at the Koln show
last November (although only
the Pegasos was actually
running) so along with the
AmigaOne it looks like we’ll
also have a choice of hardware
when OS4 arrives. You can find
more detail on OS 4 in out
update on page 10. We’re also
lucky enough to have a column
from Amiga’s own Fleecy Moss
in this issue so you can get the
news straight from the horse’s
mouth (so to say), don’t miss
that on page 11.
Robert Williams
Oh well once again lets make
the best of it was our attitude
and I must say that I’m glad we
did. Although the AmigaOne
and OS 4 wasn’t available to
either see running or purchase
there was plenty to see such
as the excellent Mediator team
showing various hardware
configurations, the
demonstration of Amiga OS
XL/Amithlon and Cloanto’s
Amiga forever 5.
I will not go into lots of detail
about the show as that is
covered in our show report, but
I think that the vast majority
who attended the show were
happy, there was a great
atmosphere about the place
and I can tell you it was busy,
so busy that myself and a few
others running the show didn’t
get to look round! I will make
sure I have a good nose
around at Alt WoA 2002 that’s
for sure! Will there be a World
of Amiga South East 2002,
answers on a postcard to Total
Amiga!
Mick Sutton
About Total Amiga
Legalese
Write On!
We’d like to make Total Amiga
more “interactive” so we need
your input!
Got a question
you’d like
answered or an opinion you’d like
to share? Write to us and we’ll
include it in a letters page.
Got a tip
for other readers or
even an article up your sleeve?
Send it in and you could very
well see your name in print.
Got a suggestion
or comment
on the magazine? Let us know
and we’ll try and make Clubbed
better for you.
Total Amiga is published quarterly
by South Essex Amiga Link. For
subscription details please contact
us at the address below or visit our
website.
Editor:
Robert Williams
Design:
Robert Williams
Contributors:
Elliott Bird
Sam Byford
Fleecy Moss
Mick Sutton
Alf Whitfield
Proof Reading:
Sharon Sutton
Cover Art:
Contact Us
If you have any queries
suggestions or want to contact us
for any reason please use one of
the following:
EMail:
Only Amiga Made it
Possible
Total Amiga is designed and laid
out using:
Hardware:
Amiga 3000
CyberStorm PPC/060
CyberVision PPC
128Mb RAM, about 13Gb HDD
space.
Software:
Amiga OS 3.9 by Amiga
PageStream 4 by Softlogik
ImageFX 4 by Nova Design
Photogenics 5 by Paul Nolan
Final Writer 5 by Softwood
Ghostscript 6.50 from Aladdin
Enterprises
There are also some essential
utilities we couldn’t live without:
Directory Opus 5, SGrab, MCP,
Turbo Print 7, MakeCD.
Our thanks to the creators of this
and all the other great Amiga
software out there.
Total Amiga is entirely created on
the Amiga, no other machines are
used at any stage of the design or
layout process.
The views expressed in this
magazine are those of the author
of each piece, they do not
necessarily reflect the views of the
editor, other contributors or SEAL.
Please Note: Total Amiga is
produced by SEAL members in
their spare time, while we will
always strive to produce the
magazine on time and include all
the advertised contents this is not
always possible due to other
commitments. The price you pay
for Clubbed covers our costs and
nothing more, we don’t make a
profit from it.
If you wish to contact a contributor
please send your message to one
of the addresses above and we will
pass it on.
Amiga is a registered trademark
and the Amiga logo, AmigaDOS,
Amiga Kickstart, Amiga
Workbench, Autoconfig,
Bridgeboard, and Powered by
Amiga are trademarks of AMIGA
Inc.
All other trademarks mentioned
are the property of their respective
owners.
editor@totalamiga.org
WWW:
http://www.totalamiga.org/
Post:
Total Amiga, 26 Wincoat
Drive,
BENFLEET, Essex, SS7
5AH,
ENGLAND.
Telephone:
+44 (0) 1268 569937
(19:00 - 22:00 UK time only
please)
Robert Williams
TOTAL
AMIGA
Spring 2002
2
3
News
News
Show Report:
South East
World of Amiga
S
EAL members arrived just
Mike Woods of ANT organised
the PA system in the
presentation hall and the ASA
guys got the Sensible soccer
tournament ready. Michael
Carrillo (Mikey C) brought
along a laptop and printer and
was hard at work producing
badges for the exhibitors and a
few last minute signs. Last but
not least the hard working
Lesley was busy in the kitchen
making sandwiches to feed the
crowds.
As the doors opened we were
still making the final
preparations, with Alf Whitfield
and Robert Williams still
putting skirting (which had only
been found at the last minute)
around the dealer’s tables.
Then the crowds arrived and
suddenly the hall was too
packed to do anything more!
Throughout the day (as you
can see in some of the photos)
there was very little room to
move, which gave the show a
great atmosphere.
Working our way around the
hall from left to right we come
to the KickSoft stand where
Ray McCarthy was in his
element demonstrating his
range of software to anyone
who showed a glimmer of
interest, and in most cases he
got a sale! KickSoft sell a wide
and growing range of
applications and utilities, at the
show he was heavily promoting
Pagestream 4, a recent
addition to his range.
On the next stand we had
Pagan Games who
demonstrated the excellent
Earth 2140 for the classic
Amiga and Blobula for Amiga
DE. They were also promoting
Quingle a new DE game.
The Huddersfield and
Blackpool user groups shared
the next stand and were busy
promoting HAUG’s
forthcoming Alt.WoA 2002
show which is it be held on
XXFebruary.
Fleecy Moss could often be
found on the Amiga stand
talking to exhibitors and
punters alike about Amiga OS4
and Amiga DE. With Amiga
were ZeoNeo demonstrating
Planet Zed their Xenon
inspired shoot em up for the
DE.
Michael Battallina of Cloanto
had flown in all the way from
Florence with a laptop and a
box of Amiga Forever CD’s
which he sold for a knock down
price (£14). Later in the day he
gave a presentation of the new
version 5 that was released
shortly after the show.
had special offers on
subscriptions. They were also
demonstrating the recently
released Myst style game
Aqua.
The Virtual Programming stand
attracted a great deal of
attention because they had
both Bill Hoggett
demonstrating the new
Amithlon emulator and James
Daniels of Apex Designs with
the fantastic Payback
PPC/Warp3D (once he had
rushed home to get the CDs!).
Also on the VP stand was Mark
Hinton of Amiga Active selling
their back issues and
explaining the change to
“digital”.
Behind Virtual Programming
the Mediator Support Team put
on an excellent demonstration
despite the fact that Elbox
pulled out at the last minute
(coitus interruptus). Three
machines were on show,
owned by Nick Darley-Jones of
GAG, Sam Thomas of
www.amiga-mediator.co.uk and
Sam Byford (who didn’t receive
his logic board in time for his
mediator A4000 to be active),
graphics cards, soundcards,
TV cards and Ethernet were all
demonstrated. A DVD player
displaying through the TV card
into a window on Workbench
really wowed the crowds!
On the SEAL front sales of
Clubbed went exceptionally
well with loads of new
subscribers and it was great to
meet many readers in person
(however briefly). We had a
variety of hardware and
software to sell for club funds
including a rare A3000T which
was snapped up.
ANT had a very nice SCALA
presentation advertising their
group running on an even nicer
flat screen LCD monitor, they
also had some second hand
goodies for sale.
surprise) did a roaring trade
serving the thirsty Amigans.
There was also a cafe area
with a range of hot and cold
food and drinks being served
throughout the show, this was
also a place where visitors
could collapse and look at their
purchases.
During the show Robert
Williams and Mick Sutton had
a meeting with Alan Redhouse
(Eyetech) and Fleecy Moss
(Amiga) where they agreed to
endorse Total Amiga
magazine. At the end of the
show Robert made the official
announcement of the new
name for Clubbed and also
said that SEAL will aim to
produce the magazine bi-
monthly in the near future.
Fleecy and Alan then spoke
about the Amiga One and
signed an agreement for the
future development of
AmigaOS 4 and beyond.
The Kickstart table was very
quiet which was very unusual
as it has always been packed
at previous shows.
ASA who organised the games
areas at the show had yet
more on their own table in the
form of a Dynamite
tournament. Like ANT and
SEAL, ASA members took the
opportunity to sell previously
abused gear :)
During the show you could take
part in the ever popular
Sensible Soccer tournament
which took place in the
presentation hall on the big
screen (thanks to HAUG for the
loan of the projector). In the
main hall punters could try their
hand at Hyperion’s excellent
Shogo on Mick and Robert’s
PPC machines.
In the centre of the venue was
a licenced bar which (surprise,
before nine in the morning
to start preparing for the show
(which opened at twelve).
Soon after some of the ANT
guys arrived and we started
with the first job, getting out all
the (incredibly heavy) tables
and setting them out in the hall,
this went smoothly because we
had done a dry run a few
weeks before. Mick Sutton
(who is a power engineer in
“real life”) then laid out the
power cables (assisted by Sam
Byford) from the sockets at the
side of the hall to the central
corals and protected them with
safety strip. Robert Williams
put up the various posters he
had prepared around the
venue. During the time before
the show the other user groups
(coming from further afield)
and vendors started to arrive.
Nick Darley-Jones of GAG
(Glos Amiga Group) deserves
a special mention as he arrived
very early with his young family
in tow and worked hard
through out the show as well
as putting on an excellent
show on the Mediator support
stand.
Stellar Dreams had a wide
range of older games and even
some A500’s to play them on!
A CD32 on their stand was
showing Star Trek video CD’s
via the FMV cartridge.
Weird Science had their usual
huge collection of CD’s and
other software at special show
prices.
The biggest stand, in the
centre of the hall was Eyetech
who were showing AmigaXL
(which runs on QNX) on a very
neat PC system in a tiny case.
Two AmigaOne mother boards
were on display, one fully
populated and the other
mounted in an EZ tower Z4
showing how it connects to an
A1200. Eyetech also had a
range of their Amiga products
and did a roaring trade
throughout the show.
Forematt Home Computing
were showing the latest issue
of their interactive CD based
magazine, 100% Amiga and
Virtual Programming drew the crowds with Amithlon and Payback.
Fleecy (Dennis the Menace) shows Andrew Korn (Tintin) AmigaDE.
Sam Thomas giving one of the many popular
demonstrations on the Mediator stand.
Everyone was eager to hear the announcements
made at the end of the show.
Eyetech were busy all day.
ANT
Kicksoft persuasion tactics.
Fore-Matt.
TOTAL
AMIGA
Spring 2002
4
5
News
News
Alt.WoA 2!
Radeon
Grab TV!
AmigaOS
Gets The Euro
MediaPoint Goes RTG
Drivers
Computer City, a Netherlands
based Amiga dealer and
developer have re-released the
multimedia authoring package
MediaPoint and have
announced that they intend to
resume development. Using
Mediapoint you can create
presentations and interactive
multimedia displays some of its
key features are:
• Over 150 smooth transitions.
• Spools audio and animations
from hard disk.
• Interactive scripts controlled
by mouse, keyboard and
touch screen.
• Scripttalk language to control
complex displays with
variables, conditional jumps.
• AREXX support.
• Antialiasing.
• Free runtime player.
Computer City intend to
enhance MediaPoint to work
on graphics card and sound
cards via AHI, in my opinion
this would fill a gaping hole in
the Amiga market because
stalwarts like SCALA are not
compatible with modern
hardware.
The OS3.9 team have released
an update to the OS which
allows Amiga users to more
easily use the Euro symbol,
particularly important for those
living in the Euro zone. The
update consists of new system
fonts which contain the Euro
symbol, updated keymaps
which map the symbol to Alt-E
for easy access and updated
locale files changing the
currency symbol for the
affected countries. The
copyright symbol that used to
be mapped to Alt-E has been
moved to Alt-Y.
Download the update from:
http://www.haage-partner.com
Huddersfield Amiga User
Group are holding their second
Alt.WoA show on Saturday the
23rd of February from 11:30 ‘till
5:30. The venue is the same
as last year, The Old Cornmill,
Clifton, Brighouse,
Huddersfield but this time the
show will be filling all three
floors of the venue. Everyone
had a great time at last years
show but this year promises to
be even better with more
exhibitors and attractions
including:
• The Amiga Arena where
Amiga Inc. and their partners
will be demonstrating the
latest hardware and software.
• A dedicated games area with
the classic Sensible Soccer
competition and the latest
titles for you to try.
• Presentations from Fleecy
Moss of Amiga and Alan
Redhouse of Eyetech on the
latest developments followed
by questions and answers.
• Access to the Internet from a
Drivers for ATI’s range of
powerful 2D/3D Radeon
graphics cards are coming for
both OS4 and OS3.x and a
suitable PCI bus board. Bill
Toner of Forefront
Technologies is working on
Picasso 96 and Warp3D
drivers that will initially support
the orignal Radeon RV100
chipset with support for the
newer RV200 coming later.
Matay’s Prometheus will be the
first PCI bus board supported
as it is being used as a
development system, the
Amiga One will be supported
when it is released and the
developers are keen to support
other PCI buses if the relevant
developer information is
available. The drivers are likely
to be a commercial product,
Bill advises users not to buy a
Radeon card in advance as the
drivers may only be sold in a
bundle with a card in order to
pay the development costs and
avoid piracy.
The current version of Media
Point is available from
Schatztruhe/GTI at 34.95Euro
(about £22), for more details
visit:
www.compcity.nl/mediapoint
Elbox have released drivers
that allow owners of their
Mediator PCI busboard,
Multimedia CD and a
compatible TV card to grab
images and animation
sequences from live TV and
video signals. The drivers work
with Innovative’s VHI Studio
program which already
supports grabbing images from
a range of video digitisers and
digital cameras. VHI Studio
includes a live preview mode
so you can decide which
images to grab then it can grab
a single frame or a sequence
which can be saved in a
variety of formats. Automatic
MPEG encoding is supported
so you can save movie clips
and view them later.
CyberCafe run by Wirenet,
for those who can’t make the
show there will be live IRC
sessions throughout the day.
and the other with
Descent:Freespace and other
cool software.
Last year’s show had a great
atmosphere as well as
interesting exhibitors and
content and this one promises
even more of the same, don’t
miss it!
The most exciting part of this
announcement is that
Play SCUMM!
As usual SEAL will be at the
show with Total Amiga, we are
having two tables this year and
plan to have two Amigas
running one to demonstrate
how we produce the magazine
http://www.alt-woa.org
PageStream 4.1
In days of Yore many of us
loved the fantastic graphic
adventure games made by
Lucas Arts, including the
famous Monkey Island series.
These games used an engine
known as SCUMM (Script
Compiler Utility for Manic
Mansion) after the first game it
was written for. Recently an
open source project has been
working on a portable engine
that will run games using this
engine, this is called the
SCUMM virtual machine or
SCUMMVM. While it is still in
an alpha state SCUMMVM
already runs several of the
Lucas Arts games including
some that never made it to the
Amiga such as Day of the
Tentacle, it also supports the
256 colour VGA style games
that were degraded to run on
OCS and ECS Amigas. Two
Amiga ports of SCUMM have
been made one by “nogfx”
which works on AGA and
graphics cards and another by
Rudiger Hanke which is for
MorphOS.
• The games currently
supported by SCUMM to
some degree are:
• Monkey Island 2
• Indiana Jones and the Fate
of Atlantis
• Day of the Tentacle
• Monkey Island ( CD version )
• Sam&Max ( Floppy version )
• Full Throttle ( very buggy )
PhotoFolio
For more details on VHI Studio
visit:
http://www.vhistudio.com/
For Mediator information see
http://www.elbox.com
and take a look at Sam
Byford’s Mediator 4000 review
on page 16.
Steeple Software have
released an update to their
commercial picture cataloguing
utility PhotoFolio. Version 2.2
features a handy recent
projects list for quicker loading,
an abort button during
directory scanning and many
user interface improvements.
The program now supports the
PPM file format and support for
CMYK JPEG files has been
improved. They have also
squashed a number of bugs.
PhotoFolio is available
distributed by Schatztruhe and
costs 34.95Euro (about £22),
for more details and to
download a demo version visit:
http://www.scouts.org.au/
steeplesoftware/en/index.html
SimpleMail
0.14
After several minor upgrades a
new version of the Amiga’s
premier desktop publishing
program has been announced.
Grasshopper have rolled the
planned table editor add-on up
with a selection of other new
features to make PageStream
4.1. Tables are placed as an
object on the page, then you
can add and delete rows or
columns and join cells together
to form a complex tables. Cell
borders and fills can be
customised including all the
usual PageStream fill options
like gradients and patterns.
A new feature that will be a
great boon for us here at Total
Amiga and anyone who does
mass mailings is the built-in
mail merge facility this allows
you to print personalised letters
and envelopes based on a
database of information and,
importantly for us, lets you print
sheets of mailing labels. Plus
there are these other new
features:
• Speed improvements.
As I write the Amiga upgrade
has just been released and
buyers can download it from:
http://www.grasshopperllc.com/
Updated
TurboPrint
• Apply text attributes using the
object or reshape tool .
• Improved PDF export with
control over compression and
encoding.
• Custom column and gutter
widths inside text frames.
• Text inset from column
edges.
• Improved duplicate and
transform.
Rather like Quake 2 you will
need a copy of the original
game as SCUMMVM only
provides the engine, not the
game data files.
Since Mick’s review in Issue
9’s PD Paradise section two
new versions of Simple Mail
have been released and the
latest, 0.14 is the first to be
declared a beta release. The
key new features in 0.14 are:
• Lots of new AREXX
commands.
• Automatic deletion of
signatures when replying.
• Folders containing new mail
are highlighted in bold.
• YAM address book import.
• CC: support in the compose
window.
Download the latest version
from:
http://simplemail.sourceforge.net
You can order PageStream
from Kicksoft in the UK, the full
version costs £199 an upgrade
is £39 from version 4 or £79
from version 3.x. To order on-
line visit:
http://www.kicksoft.co.uk/
It’s great to see that Isreesoft
are continuing with the
development of TurboPrint and
trying to keep up with the
avalanche of new printers that
keep being released! Version
7.21 beta has been released
for users of 7.20, this includes
drivers for:
Sebastian Beloch has set up
an excellent website which
aims to support all the ports of
SCUMMVM for the Amiga and
also has demo version of some
of the games for download so
you can give it a try even if you
don’t have the originals:
http://www.sebelinteractive.de/
scummvm/
• Canon S500/630/6300
• Epson Stylus C60,C70,C80,
Photo 810
• HP DeskJet 92x, 94x, 96x
Download it from:
http://www.irseesoft.de/
TOTAL
AMIGA
Spring 2002
6
7
News
News
Pegasos Update
Hit the Highway
or take the Subway?
bplan showed a working
version of their Pegasos PPC
motherboard running Amiga
programs on MorphOS at the
Amiga 2001 show held in
Cologne, Germany last
November. The board shown
had 3 PCI slots, 1 AGP slot,
and room for 2 133Mhz SD-
RAM DIMMs giving up to 2Gb
of RAM, it also features audio,
USB, Firewire and network
ports built-in minimising the
need for add-on PCI cards.
• In a recent IRC chat session
Salvador Fernandez Gomez
of bplan answered questions
about the Pegasos and
MorphOS, some of the most
interesting points were:
• Developer motherboards
should be shipping as you
read this and consumer
boards should be ready by
the end of March.
• A bare board will cost
650Euro (about £400) with a
400Mhz G3 CPU and a
complete system with DVD
drive, hard disk, memory and
case but no monitor should
be about 1000Euro (£625).
• All systems will be supplied
with MorphOS, a compatible
PPC Linux distribution will be
available for download.
• The board has on-board
sound with analogue and SP-
DIF digital output.
• Open GL (a popular 3D
graphics API used in many
games and applications)
supports hot plug so devices
can be connected and
disconnected while they are
switched on and it is simple
and cheap to manufacture.
E3B plan to offer two models of
their interface the Subway
which connects to the A1200
clock port or compatible ports
on many other devices and the
Highway which is a Zorro II
card for big box Amigas and
expanded A1200s.
Both interfaces will feature:
• USB 1.1 and 2.0 compatibility
but no 2.0 highspeed mode.
• Integrated 4 port hub.
• Software compatible with
AmigaOS 2.04 to 3.9.
• Two year warranty.
with more to follow. E3B
recently ran a survey asking
potential users what drivers
they would like to see
developed, digital camera and
scanner drivers topped the
chart of requests but E3B warn
that different manufacturers
don’t use a common
communication protocol so it
won’t be possible to write a
“one size fits all” driver for
these products.
E3B have done extensive
testing of both Subway and
Highway on different
busboards and working along
side other Zorro cards. They
plan to publish compatibility
lists with USB peripherals as
soon as possible, you can
check out their results and get
more information at:
http://www.e3b.de/usb
German company E3B have
announced two hardware
products that will bring the
Universal Serial Bus (USB) to
most Amiga systems. USB is a
very popular way of connecting
low speed peripherals such as
scanners, mice, keyboards,
printers and digital cameras to
computers and is widely
supported on both the PC and
the Mac. USB has many
advantages over parallel and
serial ports, multiple devices
can be connected either by
daisy chaining or using hubs, it
The Highway Zorro II Card.
support for
MorphOS is under
development and will ship
with the consumer release.
• They hope to sell 1500 to
2000 boards to the Amiga,
Linux and industrial in the
first year.
• Drivers developed for the G-
Rex will run on the Pegasos
without recompilation.
The Zorro card also has a
header for future expansion
modules and upgradeable
firmware.
As we have mentioned before
getting USB hardware support
is only part of the battle, E3B
have teamed up with VMC (the
people behind Hypercom I/O
cards amongst other things) to
develop software for their
boards, drivers for keyboard,
mouse and printers (we
assume they will provide a
“USB.device” so existing
printer drivers can work over
USB) are planned for launch
updated with all the new
information so take a look at:
http://www.bplan-gmbh.de/
for hardware information and:
http://www.morphos.de/
for software details.
Salvador also said that the
bplan website will soon be
Quake Again!
MUI Internet Programs
Security Problem
More Ins and Outs!
Individual Computers have
released a new I/O board with
two serial ports and one
parallel port. The serial ports
are equivalent to the highly
praised SilverSurfer and can
run at up to 460800bps with a
16byte FIFO buffer to reduce
load on the Amiga. The parallel
port has been improved over
Individuals previous Hypercom
boards, it also has a 16byte
FIFO buffer to reduce CPU
load and supports ECP mode
which Individual claim speeds
up modern printers.
This means it can be
connected to an unexpanded
1200 or other device with a
clock port, to the expansion
header on one of Innovative’s
other products such as the
Buddha or X-Surf and it can
run in any Zorro II compatible
slot. But that’s not all, when the
VarIO is used in a Zorro slot
the clock port and expansion
port can be used to connect
expansions using those ports
to the Amiga!
The VarIO costs 49.00Euro
which is about £32, there is a
10Euro (£6.50) surcharge for
the A1200 version. Further
details including a detailed
installation manual can be
found at:
http://www.jschoenfeld.com/
OS3.9
As they did with Doom and the
original Quake, ID software
have released the source code
to Quake 2 under the GPL
(GNU Public License), in
simple terms this means that
anyone may download the
code, compile it to run on
different systems and make
changes providing they make
their changed code available.
Unlike the original Quake
release there hasn’t been a
flurry of quick ports of Quake 2
to the Amiga but Steffen
Haeuser has announced he is
working on a port along with
Hans Jeorg and Thomas
Frieden. All three of these guys
work for Hyperion and have
been responsible for porting
many excellent games to the
Amiga. In a recent Interview
with German on-line magazine
Amiga.topcool Steffen said
their port is nearly complete
but he is working hard with
some beta testers to make
sure the end result is of
commercial quality, including a
proper installation utility and
setup GUI familiar from
Hyperion’s commercial games.
One interesting aspect of
Quake 2 is that many mods
An important security hole has
been reported in some MUI
based Internet programs which
could allow an attacker to run
programs on your Amiga by
sending an EMail or ICQ
message or embedding
malicious code in a web page.
The problem stems from MUI’s
powerful text formatting
commands which allow images
to be embedded in a string of
text in an interface, this is done
using non-printable escape
sequences. If a MUI program
displays strings of text from the
Internet (for example in an
EMail title, ICQ message or
webpage) without stripping
escape sequences then it is
possible for an attacker to
embed escape codes in the
string and cause MUI to try and
open a file.
Normally this would not cause
a problem however several
third party pipe utilities
including APIPE: (supplied with
AmiTCP and Genesis) and
AWNPipe: (supplied with AWeb
and used by some utilities)
allow a program to be run by
accessing a “virtual” file.
Therefore if a user has a
vulnerable MUI program and
one of these pipe devices
mounted it is possible for an
attacker to construct a string
that, when displayed in the
application, will run any
program on the user’s system.
The attacker would need to
know where the command file
was located but of course it
could be a standard command
like delete or format!
100% Amiga
Update
NDK
100% Amiga, the CD based
Amiga magazine from
Forematt Home Computing
and Epic is now on its
twentieth monthly issue. The
magazine includes news,
reviews and tutorials all
presented in a multimedia
format, many with spoken
voice over. The original
interface to the magazine was
designed with CanDo which
caused problems on some
Amigas, particularly those
running 3rd party utilities like
MCP and Directory Opus 5.
The publishers are now
introducing a new interface
based on Scala which should
be more compatible, we tried it
on a heavily expanded A1200
system and it worked well
(although it doesn’t work on a
graphics card so you’ll need
access to your AGA output).
www.100percentamiga.org
Quake 2 running in a
Workbench window.
were released for the game,
some of which change the
game play completely, however
unlike Quake 1, Quake 2 mods
will have to be recompiled to
play on the Amiga. To play
Quake 2 you will need a copy
of the PC version because the
game data files (PAK files)
have not been freely released,
it is also likely to require a PPC
accelerator and we usual we’re
sure a 3D graphics board will
make the world of difference.
Some early screenshots of
Quake 2, including 18 showing
mods that have been
recompiled for the Amiga have
been released on Amiga
Extreme:
The AmigaOS Native
Developer Kit that was
released on the Amiga
Developer CD 2.1 has been
updated for OS 3.9.
The ‘C’ and assembly
language header files have
been updated as have the
linker libraries, Autodocs and
Workbench AREXX
documentation. The ‘C’ header
files were cleaned up and
syntax checked so they
compile cleanly with both
SAS/C and GCC compilers.
The work on the NDK was
largely carried out by Olaf
Barthel.
Download the updated kit from:
www.amiga.com/3.9
Since this issue was publicised
many MUI based Internet
programs have been updated
to close the loophole, this
includes popular programs like
YAM, Simple Mail, STRICQ
and NewsCoaster. Vaporware
have reported that all their
Internet programs are already
designed to avoid the problem.
If you use any MUI based
Internet programs it would be
wise to check with the author
or publisher to see if updated
versions have been released
and if so upgrade.
You can read the full detailed
report at:
http://www.abraxis.co.uk/
SA-2001-11-08.html
However the really clever thing
about the VarIO is that it is
designed to work in as many
Amiga configurations as
possible, the board has a clock
port, a Zorro edge connector
and a 26pin expansion port.
http://www.amigaextreme.com/
TOTAL
AMIGA
Spring 2002
8
9
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