April 1997
Welcome, Amiga fans! Despite this column's synonymity with a column in CU
of the same name, we're going to work to make this section of the web site
an exclusive resource for CU Online readers to highlight the best, most
interesting, and most influential Web destinations for Amiga users.
The Italian Software Renaissance:
Italy is credited with the birth of a cultural and intellectual Renaissance
that brought unparalleled discoveries and works of art to the world. Now
it seems that Italy may be at the center of a new rebirth--a new age of
high-class Amiga applications.
Take Cloanto, who have reinvented the standard for
Amiga paint programs. Personal Paint 7 offers features none of its
predecessors, the likes of Deluxe Paint and Brilliance, could ever hope to,
like the ability to create GIF animations. Cloanto was also instrumental
in the creation of the PNG graphical standard, the royalty-free alternative
to GIF.

Or click over to the home of Eyelight's
Tornado3D where a 3D modeling and animation program that
may even challenge the mighty Lightwave for supremacy is being born.
Eyelight pushes all the right buttons to get the attention of even the most
hardened Imagine, Cinema4D, or even Lightwave 5 fan.
Perhaps part of the reason these and others, such as Maurizio Ciccione and
his AudioLab 16 (you can mail Maurizio for more information at
maurizio@ivg.it) are so successful is the existence of IPISA, the annual
Amiga and alternative computing developer's convention. If you're up for a
little Italian, you can visit them at their web site (an
English version will be ready shortly.)
Emulation Mania
Speaking of renaissances, there's been a bit of a rebirth of Amiga emulator
development, too. The first three and a half months have already seen
several completely new platform emulators developed or ported over to the
Amiga. You can always plunge blindly through Aminet's
misc/emu directory
(ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/misc/emu) but you might prefer a more
verbose guide.
Martin Chantler maintains a more or less up to date list of available
emulators for the Amiga at
http://www.pncl.co.uk/~martinc/emulators/index.html where you can peruse
what has and hasn't been developed yet.
A more specific resource is a home for homepage-less game console and
arcade emulators, housed at
http://www.students.uiuc.edu/~bw-evans/amiga.html.
Finally, if you're a Shapeshifter fan, you'd do well to stop by Colin
Thompson's resource
page.
Jason Compton - Editor in Cheif of
Amiga Report.