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Apex 3 announced

Titan/Black Scorpion Software (BSS) have announced a new art package
with the working title Apex 3. Apex Media developer Douglas Little
explained the strange choice of name: "Apex was intended to be a range
of BSS media-related products," he said. "Apex 2 was Apex Animator.
Apex 3 will be Apex Paint or something similar. Apex 4 might be Apex
Audio or Apex Animator Professional or whatever" - so now you know!
Apex 3 is a standalone paint package for the Falcon designed to
compliment Apex Media. Its paint and image processing capabilities will
far exceed the paint functions found in current versions of Apex Media,
according to Black Scorpion's David Encill. As well as the usual tools
found in a normal art program you will also find:
- Full 24 bit image editing.
- Extremely fast real-time operation.
- Real-time zoom to any level of detail.
- Anti-aliased (mip-mapped) real-time block operations.
- Alpha channel paste operations (8 bit masking).
- Real-time alpha-channel tools.
- Variable alpha on gradients and masks.
- Analogue chromakey range masking.
- Compound (multiple) filtering using a real-time brush.
- Quick and easy cloning of pages for backup/editing.
Apex 3 will run on any Falcon with 4Mb or more memory and will take
full advantage of any hardware modifications available such as the
BlowUp FX card, Afterburner040 and Black Scorpion's own hardware
accelerator called Nemesis. Apex 3 is expected to retail at a price of
£99.00 including VAT and carriage in the UK.
Afterburner040
Titan/Black Scorpion Software (BSS) are the UK distributors for the
Afterburner040 accelerator. Doug Little revealed some interesting
details on NeST recently. "Afterburner can be fitted with one of two
processors, either a 68040 (includes CPU, MMU and FPU) or a 68LC040
(CPU and MMU no FPU).
A standard Falcon fitted with an Afterburner operates at 16/32/64MHz
depending on which area of the board you're talking about. In general,
the middle value (i.e. 32MHz) is the actual effective clock rate of the
processor.
The 68LC040 CPU is considerably cheaper, but incapable of hardware
floating point (68881/68882) operations and it's not possible to fit a
68881/2 externally. If you use FPU software such as POV-Ray, Pheonix,
NeoN and some CAD software you have to go for the full 68040. The LC
version can perform software floating point operations but this means
avoiding 68881/2 specific programs.
The 68040 with built-in FPU performs much better than an external
68881/2 device, but still requires software emulation to supplement the
68040 FPU (which isn't identical to a 68881/2). This emulation slows
the 68040 FPU down a little, but it's still between three and a half to
four times faster than a 16MHz 68882, the emulation software comes with
the board. No such emulation is possible for the LC version of the
chip.
Apart from the obvious processor benefits Afterburner includes with 2
SIMM sockets enabling up to 64Mb of 32 bit FastRAM to be fitted. The
developers appear to claim 128Mb is possible, but the FastRAM is
definitely addressed in two 32Mb banks which makes 128Mb an unlikely
prospect. This FastRAM is very fast - 32 bit instead of 16 bit, and
effectively 32MHz access instead of 16MHz access (not strictly true but
near enough speedwise). Afterburner FastRAM is a minimum of four times
faster than normal Falcon RAM - and up to 12 times faster during burst
access.
Performance: Expect anything between five to ten times normal
performance in general. There are exceptions (notably the lack of DSP
acceleration) and specifically the lack of acceleration on the display.
Screens have to be held in normal Falcon RAM so they cannot benefit
from quick-access FastRAM although Nemesis makes a difference here by
speeding up the bus. As for software such as compilers, GEM software,
text editors and most of the software you'll want to use you're in for
a real treat.
Fitting isn't easy. It involves the careful lifting of two of the
68030's pins and soldering of nine wires to various locations. The
Afterburner itself is plug-in, but after the modifications you can't
use the machine without it plugged in which makes the need for thorough
testing important."
Nemesis
Titan/Black Scorpion Software (BSS) produce this accelerator. Again
Doug Little via NeST revealed some interesting details. "Nemesis should
be easy to fit (we reckon most people should be able to carry out the
modification themselves) and it accelerates the bus and CPU to 24MHz
and the DSP to 48MHz. Apex Media and Expos‚ users also benefit from
this hardware modification especially during DSP operations. There's
also an increase in Expose's capture rate. Figures of 25 frames a
second at 256 by 160 are expected.
The idea is to allow the user to change to a higher system clock,
without causing the machine to stop working. Nemesis offers these
advantages:
- Speed
- Faster video bus - quicker graphics, bigger display
- Faster dot clock - bigger display and higher monitor refresh rates
- Afterburner uses the system clock (16/32/64MHz becomes 20/40/80MHz)
Performance: The system clock affects everything except the DSP (which
Nemesis accelerates separately), so a jump from 16MHz to 20MHz produces
a 25% boost across the board - including the display. A jump from 16MHz
to 24MHz produces a 50% boost across the board!
Nemesis also allows large VGA Truecolor modes due to the higher bus
bandwidth. 640x480 TrueColor VGA is definitely achievable - maybe more!
We're hoping most Falcon users monitors will be able to cope with a
vertical refresh rate from 50Hz to 60Hz so they can run Apex 3 at
640x480, with a Nemesis board running at 48MHz (24MHz bus) - a demo
program and a pre-release version of Apex 3 already takes advantage of
this display."
Nemesis is expected to cost between £30 and £50 - but this is still to
confirmed. For more information contact:
Contact:
Titan Designs Ltd, 6 Witherford Way, Selly Oak, Birmingham B29 4AX,United Kingdom.
Tel: 0121-693 6669
Tel:
+44 (0)121 693 6669
Fax:
+44 (0)121 414 1630
Email:
100345.2350@compuserve.com
Web pages:
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/TITANWEB/
Further information is available for download from:
http://www.compdirect.com/digital-arts/atari/
Photoline Now Available
System Solutions reckon this is "a new killer application" for the
Atari. It's a high-end image editor which offers powerful functions.
The program is feature-packed, and supports both bitmap and vector
graphics. Unlike Apex Media, Photoline uses GEM extensively to enable
you to use the program on any Atari or TOS compatible machine. The
enhanced GEM interface will also take advantage of any extra graphics
modes available and is multitasking aware. We've had a sneak preview of
Photoline and can report it looks and feels like a slightly cut-down
version of PhotoShop, the industry standard high-end graphics programs,
available for the Mac and PC. Our platform has needed a package like
this for ages and it's great to see a software publisher producing
software of this calibre.
Here's just a few features of the program, some of the main ones are:-
- Bitmap functions include user definable paint-brush, clone, finger,
erase, stamp, fill, gradient, etc.
- Change intensity of all paint functions.
- Vector tools include all the standards like straight-line, Bezier
curves, move to front/back, etc.
- Work on as many images as memory allows.
- Drag and drop between image windows.
- Work in RGB, CMYK, greyscale, monochrome or vector on any monitor.
- Powerful cut/paste/copy tools which can work on the image or on the
mask
- Add to or subtract from selections to make a new selection
- Magic-wand tool, including the tolerance and feathering
- Using NVDI 3 (or greater) it's also possible to use vector font
technology to add text to any image
- Loading formats include all the standards, inc. PhotoCD Pro, you can
save to TIFF, JPEG, IMG, CVG and GEM formats.
- There are filters, special tools, rotation, scale, distortion,
picture projection in 3D space.
- Print or plot to NVDI/GDOS printer/plotter drivers and it can use
GDPS drivers to scan images directly into the program.
Photoline comes on 3 double-sided floppy disks, which include one disk
for ST computers, one for TT's (and other machines with a minimum of
68030 CPU and FPU chips) and one containing a range of utility files.
It includes a ring-bound 50 page manual. The program is available now
from System Solutions for £169 including VAT - call them on 0181 693
3355.
Totally GEM'd! Photoline shown here running under MagiC Mac.
Full size image
Cubase CD-ROM finally available
After what seems a lengthy wait the Cubase CD-ROM from System Solutions
is now available. A boon for musicians of any standing the CD-ROM
includes 605 MBs of information, spread across 400 drum loops, 1200
samples, 400 MIDI files and shareware software. The CD-ROM is packed
with useful files for any musician, but it's specially tailored to be
the ultimate companion for Cubase - on any platform. All the loops,
samples and MIDI files are of professional quality, covering a vast
range of musical styles and tastes.
The loop and samples are available in the standard AIFF format, ideal
for Cubase Audio and the MIDI files are all GM compatible. In addition
there are mixer maps, device drivers and a whole host of other files.
The CD-ROM also contains utility software for the Atari, Macintosh and
IBM PC. Everything from patch editors to sample librarians to audio
calculators is included to make the Cubase musician's life easier. The
Ultimate Cubase CD-ROM is available now from System Solutions (0181 693
3355) for £69.95 including VAT.
Power PD to close
James Matthews has closed Power PD to concentrate on his commercial
company Top Byte Software. He claims this will give Top Byte more time
to focus attention on the development and release of new commercial
titles. "The Atari market needs another commercial supplier more than
it needs another PD library" he said. "Top Byte is still 100% Atari and
will be for a long time to come." If anyone is interested in taking
over the full time running and ownership of Power PD they should send
their offers to 3 Salisbury Road, Maidstone, Kent, ME14 2TY.
Two new products will be released shortly. The first is called Computer
History, a three disk product containing details of over 1,500
different computers. You can search for a particular computer and find
out when they were made, their specifications, their uses and their
history, among other details. The information is accessed through a
custom written shell and it will retail for £11.99. It requires 2
megabytes of memory. Kryptonite Data is the second. It is described as
a cross between a shoot 'em up and a sci-fi flight simulator. You have
to control a tank or plane and try to save fellow humans from
kidnapping evil alien hordes. It's a 3D title and contains some of the
fastest routines of this type ever seen on the ST (now where have we
heard that before? - Ed). It will cost £19.99 and is available now.
New C-Lab offshoot
C-Lab Digital Media GmbH has announced that its Falcon range is now
being marketed and sold in the UK and France through a new company
formed especially for the task. Digital Media Ltd, is to be headed by
John Sharp, previously with Digital Village, and Paul Wiffen, formerly
with Digital Awareness, joins as sales director. Gilbert Tycle, another
ex-Digital Awareness employee, will handle the product in France.
So what does all this mean for Atari users? Very little, we suspect,
other than that existing users of the hardware will soon have access to
a telephone hotline service from 9am until 12 noon. However, at the
time of going to press the number hadn't been announced. The company
claims it will be heavily promoting the new Falcon Mark X with a series
of instore presentations and other events. However, most of the
advertising and promotion is aimed at the music market and mainstream
Atari owners have seen and heard very little from the company and its
products since its launch.
The Mark X Falcon has the standard Falcon innards (with a number of
sound-oriented modifications) built into a PC-style tower case with a
PC keyboard and Atari mouse. There is an optional SCSI bus and it can
use 3.5 inch IDE hard drives or a SyQuest removable drive. Mk 1 and 2
owners can upgrade to the new version for the cost of the re-casing
which is handled by C-Lab directly. Depending on age, Atari Falcons can
also be upgraded too - contact Digital Media for more information.
Music Village Educational will continue as the main distributor of
Falcons to the educational market. It can be contacted on 0181 598
9955. C-Lab Germany is on 00 49 40 6944000 and Digital Media Ltd is on
01422 340875. In France call (1) 40 .18.43.16.
Zero-X update
Zero-X has been updated to v1.51. Here are some of the highlights:
- SCSI Sample Dump for EMU Systems, Kurzweil, Peavey and AKAI samplers.
- SCSI transfers are around 200(!) times faster than MIDI Sample Dump.
- SCSI Dump D2D (direct to and from disk, i.e. the RAM in the computer
is no longer a limit).
- New DSP functions: Highpasss filter, Delay, Phase Shift, TimeStretch,
DeTune, Sample Rate conversion, Mix and Change Gain.
- Speed! Screen updates as well as most functions are much faster.
- Improved interface: Toolbar, playback marker and autoscroll.
- New functions: BeatSplit, CreatePattern and Mute.
- MIDI Drivers for Ensoniq and AKAI S900/950.
- Undo (finally!) and compare Loop.
Contact System Solutions on 0181 693 3355 for more upgrade details.

Zero-X gets a facelift (Full size image)
Burn your own CD
System Solutions has announced a new service to put your data permanently
onto your very own CD-ROM. For a fixed fee, the company will take up to
650Mbs of data and burn it onto a gold ISO9660 CD. That's one backup you
won't over-write by accident. The service is aimed at the one-off user who
doesn't need to write their own CDs on a regular basis. Customers have to
send a SCSI device containing the data to be transferred (and nothing
else). This means you can use SyQuest removable cartridges, Zip drives,
magneto-opticals and even the hard disks themselves. The prices are as
follows:-
- Up to 200Mbs £39.95
- 200Mbs to 400Mbs £49.95
- 400Mbs to 650Mbs £59.95
All prices include VAT but you have to add £3.95 postage and packing.
There is also the facility to create Audio CDs. Tracks should come in
WAV, AIF or AVR format and must be in 16 bit stereo @ 44.1 KHz. The
prices are the same as above. Cubase Audio users should note that the
AIF formats created by this program are not compatible with the CD
writing process and they should first be converted with the shareware
program "525".
New CD-ROM range
Hot off the presses, System Solutions have just released a new batch of
disks for those of you lucky enough to own a CD-ROM drive. These
include the 3 disk series of DTP Graphic CD-ROMs, which contain vector
images suitable for all computer platforms (including Atari in the
shape of Calamus Vector Graphic files) and the Art Nouveau CD-ROM which
includes graphics covering that exciting period in art and design. The
3 DTP Graphics disks are £29.95 each, with the Art Nouveau CD-ROM
retailing for £39.95. A bundle price is expected to be announced.
Also in the range of new CDs is the Falcon Bird of Prey disk - designed
to be compatible rather than competitive with other Falcon disks like
Transmission and All Things Falcon. The disk focuses on application
software and has been compiled by two professional Falcon users in the
shape of Matt Norcross and Scott McConnell. The disk costs œ24.95 and
is available now.
Finally, System Solutions have the Gemulator Gold CD-ROM. This disk
holds the application software for all versions of Windows and DOS
along with the Atari Xformer 8 bit emulator for the ST and PC. It's a
kind of encyclopaedia of programmer Darek Mihocka's work over the past
10 years. The disk also contains a lot of shareware and public domain
software.
Beware - the Gemulator versions on the disk require a hardware board to
run Atari programs on your PC, no MagiC compatible version is included!
The disk costs £39.95 from System Solutions on 0181 693 3355.
BOOKS

3 sets of vector images for any DTPer!
Art Nouveau

Into Art Nouveau? Here's the CD-ROM for you!
Battle Bowls
Frontier Software recently announced a new game called Battle Bowls for
the STe and Falcon. It's designed to be the most attractive Reflexion
clone ever seen on the Atari platform. Designers say it will push your
brain to its limits and mastery of your joystick will also be essential
to win the challenge. It can be played by one or two competitors and
includes over 100 levels. Canadian Atari specialist Computer Direct has
announced In Touch, a new combination name and address manager and
diary. It will print to a variety of document formats using Speedo or
NVDI and is fully GEM compliant. It will work in any resolution and
multitasks with replacement operating systems like MagiC and Geneva.
New breed of mouse
System Solutions have announced the availability of their very own
branded mouse. The device has been made to their own specifications and
offers a resolution of 280 DPI and a lead of 1.5m. The price is œ14.95.
XaAES - Alternative to MultiTOS
XaAES is a PD alternative to MultiTOS, the first beta version was
released back in March. XaAES is being developed by an international
group of TOS techies from Sweden, the US, UK and Germany. Programs such
as Thing, Kandinsky, GEM-View, Lattice C, and even Cubase 3 are all up
and running but there's still work to do. For more information contact
the coordinator, Craig Graham on the World Wide Web at:
http://www.i-way.co.uk/~c_graham/home.html
All Change!
http://www.ataricomputing.com/
We've taken the plunge and registered our own easy to remember domain
name. The new site mirrors our zetnet pages and offers easy email access
to the editorial team:
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