CU Amiga Super CD-ROM 27/CU Amiga Magazine's Super CD-ROM 27 (1998)(EMAP Images)(GB)[!][issue 1998-10].iso/GoodBye/JohnKennedy/January94.lha/Review.LHA/YearReview.doc

Text File | 1993-11-29 | 11.7 KB | 382 lines

First uploaded: 26th November
Updated with Pictures: 28th November




                  CU Amiga Technical Stuff
                     Review of the Year


That was the year, that was - all twelve magazine packed
months of it.  From the 'Get serious' point of view 1993 was
an excellent time to own an Amiga - lots of graphics, lots
of new hardware and the brand spanking new A1200 was still
warm and smelling of freshly backed plastic.

The new 16 million colour AGA chipset brought forth a rash
of software upgrades, and prompted several manufacturers to
create video cards for those not wanting to dump older
computers.

At last the aging Motorola 68000 was laid to rest as the
standard Amiga CPU, and the fully 32-bit 68020 has become
the entry level processor.  The standard memory limits have
also been upped to a sensible 2Mb, and probably the most
Amiga every was released:  the CD32.

Much rumouring and murmuring has accompanied the decline of
Amiga and therefore Commodore in the States, but whatever the
current share price the CD32 is widely reckoned to be the
machine to make or break the company.  Many promised
hardware and software items simply failed to leave West
Chester, as all production was concentrated on the new
Sega/Nintendo beater.  If it succeeds, which it deserves to,
the Amiga will emerge stronger than ever before with a
fresh user base eager to experience what the Amiga is
possible of.  If it fails, who knows...  perhaps we'll all
be using Falcons this time next year (hah!).


The CU 'Get Serious' Awards 1993


As the only one sober enough to remember the past twelve
issues with any clarity, it has fallen on my shoulders to
select the items of hardware and software which I think
deserve to be considered worthy of a jewel encrusted, 24
carat golden 'Get Serious' statue in the shape of Dan
blowing his nose.

I've judged the all items from the standpoint of today's
current technological standpoint (and which have survived on
my hard disk the longest), which may mean the scores
received at the time of the review are in conflict with each
other.





Hardware Awards


    *Graphics
        Winner:     Retina/Vlab
        Runners up: Picasso II, Frame Machine


The year 1993 saw an explosion in the number of graphics
cards for the Amiga.  Although the AGA chipset was standard
in the low cost A1200, existing A2000/A3000 owners had made
large investments in terms of accelerators and hard drives,
and needed a graphics upgrade.

German companies were best at the price/performance ratio,
and the pairing of VLab and Retina (April) as a 24 bit
display and capture team gets my vote.  The software
upgrades to allow sequences to be taken from video lifts it
above all other cards.

A close second was Picasso II (December), which also
provided excellent results and the Frame Machine (September)
which may had been the most tricky Zorro card to fit ever,
but offered very clever real time re-scaling of live video.



    *Video
        Winner:     RocKey
        Runners up: VideoMaster


Desktop Video has still to reach it's full potential on the
Amiga, due in part to the high price of equipment.  The
RocKey Chromakey was an exception, as it offered real live
chromakeying effects at a fraction of the cost of other
hardware.  It's even cheaper now, which makes it remarkable
value for money.

Also eminently affordable was the VideoMaster digitiser,
which managed to capture live video and sound at 25 frames a
second on a standard Amiga.  This amazing feat was only let
down by software which didn't fully support the IFF
animation standard.


    *Sound
        Winner:     Technosound Turbo II
        Runner up:  DSS8+, One Stop Music Shop

There is still no definitive cheap 16 bit sound sampler on
the Amiga, and although several have tried (Clarity,
Maestro) the big short coming is always the software
support.

For 8-bit quality the Technosound Turbo gets the prize, with
the clearly-cased DSS8+ from GVP coming second.  For
bringing professional level sound (almost) within reach of
ordinary Amiga owners, the One Stop Music Shop gets an
honourable mention.



    *Comms
        Winner:     GVP PhonePak
        Runner up:  US Robotics Sportster

In the October 'Wired World' article we looked at nearly
every MODEM under the sun.  Oddly, the winner isn't a MODEM
- it's the GVP PhonePak which is an amazing card capable of
answering the telephone, taking messages, giving messages
and doubling as a FAX machine.  It's an incredible card
which deserves more attention that it's currently getting.

The second prize goes to the Sportster MODEM, which
consistently sent data the fastest and made the most
reliable connections.  It may look like a Stylophone, but
it's a darn good MODEM.


    *Accelerators
        Winner:     M1230XA
        Runner up:  GVP1230

The A1200 is a hugely popular machine, which means there is
a large market for memory and accelerator.  GVP and
Microbotics were two companies quick to offer an upgrade for
the existing 68020 processor.

The winner is the M1230XA (July) from Microbotics, which can
support up to 128Mb of RAM if you can afford the SIMM.  With
this card, the A1200 went faster than the A4000/030 - a
terrific achievement.  The GVP card (April) was almost as
fast, but cost slightly more and that's the only reason it
was runner up.





    *Misc
        Winner:     CD32
        Runner up:  Amiga 4000/030, Commodore 1942 Monitor


Much to everyone's surprise the successor to the CD32
(August) turned out to be one hell of a machine.  The
marriage of a double speed CD-ROM drive to the colourful AGA
chipset and 68020 means the CD32 is potentially the most
powerful games console on the market.  Commodore promised
70+ titles for Christmas, and although this target has not
been reached there is still a lot of excellent games
available.

Minor criticisms of the CD32 include a rather naff plastic
case and the lack of serial or floppy disk ports, but at
least the latter will be fixed by the forthcoming expansion
unit.

The Amiga 4000 launched late the previous year offered
amazing power with its 68040 processor, but unfortunately
was beyond the budget of many users.  May saw the A4000/030,
which used a much cheaper and slightly slower 68030 engine.
The A4000/030 is the replacement for the A2000 and initial
sales out-stripped demand.

To make the most of the new AGA flicker-free screen modes
you need a VGA or multisync monitor, and one of the best is
also from Commodore (a really good year from the techie's at
Big C).  The 1942 will display all screen modes at good
resolution and even has a pair of stereo speakers for games
players.  Nice one.




Software
--------



    *Graphics
        Winner:     Real 3Dv2
        Runners up: Brilliance,Deluxe Paint IV AGA

Image rendering took a giant step forward with the
introduction of Real 3D v2 in October.  Nothing in the
previous releases could have prepared us for the 'real
world' modelling features, including collision detection,
gravity and motion blur.  The depth of field and multiple
mapping methods have made Real 3D the best ray tracer
currently available.

What the Amiga needed most was an ark package to make the
most of the AGA chipset, and it got two.  The old favourite
Deluxe Paint (January) was updated to work with the
16million colour palette, but new boy Brilliance (October)
wrenched the crown away from it with some incredibly fast
operations.



    *Sound
        Winner:     Bars and Pipes Pro v2
        Runners up: Deluxe Music v2, OctaMED v5, SuperSound4


It may have been a pretty lack lustre from the hardware
point of view, but music software was thick on the ground.
Bars and Pipes v2 combined MIDI with multimedia in April and
takes first place.

The runners up all made the most of existing Amiga sound
capabilities to excellent effect.




    *Programming
        Winner:     SAS/C
        Runner up:  Blitz Basic 2

March saw the latest upgrade to Lattice C - it became SAS/C
and even faster.  It is now the standard by which others are
judged.

For more Basic programming, Blitz2 (April) offered incredible
speed and some neat graphics and sound support.


    * CD-ROM software
        Winner:     Aminet collection
        Runner up:  CDPDIII

The award for squeezing the most high quality software onto
one disk goes to the Walnut Creek Aminet collection, which
filled hundreds of megabytes with archived material from the
world's largest Amiga PD collection (December).

Almathera's third volume of PD is more accessible, with more
in the way of images and sounds (November).  Both are a
bargain, provided you have a CD-ROM player.



    *DTP
        Winner:    PageSetter 3
        Runner up:  The Publisher, Wordworth 2

Gold Disk still are the bee's knees when it comes to DTP,
and PageSetter 3 (March) offered hundred of features at a
bargain price.  The Publisher was so impressive that we
actually reviewed it twice!


    *Utility
        Winner:     Cygnus Ed
        Runner up:  Amiback & AmiTools II, PC Task


For smooth, reliable and speedy text, you can't beat Cygnus
Ed Professional (December).  Close runners up were the
Amiback pack (July) for recovering after hard drive mix-ups.
For sheer gall and cunning, the software based PC Task
deserves at least a mention (November).





Most lusted after hardware:

    The last year saw many exciting new developments, but a
great deal of teasing. Along came the CD32, but where was
the FMV first demonstrated to an unbelieving horde of press?
And what about the expansion for the A1200 - where will it
leave existing A1200 memory expansions and accellerators?
What about the fabled Falcon-beating Digital Signal
Processor, the retargetable graphics, the sixteen bit sound?


Predictions:

    The next year will be make or break for Commodore.
Assuming we're all here next year, here is what I predict
I'll be writing about:  MPEG becoming more widely available
and usable, decent 16 bit sound cards, affordable writable
CD-ROM, CDXL (AGA) appearing in more and more games. New
high-end Wrokstation beating Amigas based on AAA chipset and
very fast CPU, with home version running Workbench and
WindowsNT about to be launched.


Most underrated things:

    After all we have been given to play with, there are a
few items which seem to get a lot of bad press, or no press
at all. ARexx is still the unsung hero of AmigaDOS, and the
A570 and CDTV CD-ROM drives died a most un-necessary death.
The internal IDE interface brought hard drives to more users
than ever before, and all some folk can do is sniff and say
"should have been SCSI". Finally, CrossDOS gets a mention
for providing an easy to use bridge with the worlds of IBM
and Apple.





Goodbye to:

    The last year saw the departure from Cu Amiga of several
talented people, and also: Nick Veitch (can't remember where
he went: the competition entries to the 'I think Nick is a
traitor because...' competition where too numerous and rude
to print), Heather Turley (the matriarchal figure responsible
for getting copy in), Jon Sloan (who has had enough of
games software to last him a lifetime - so he's going to
work for a games software house) and Tom (Chief Judge)
Glenister. We will remember them.




CAPTIONS


Hopefully you'll have some stock shots of the hardware
mentioned above (CD32s, VLAB etc etc ) Here are some clips
of the software.


REAL3D2.JPEG

Believe it or not, but I rendered this image using only
Real 3Dv2 - the most important Amiga graphics program this year.


BARSPIPES.IFF

Combining MIDI music, Amiga samples and Amiga multimedia,
Bars and Pipes Pro was the most interesting music program of
1993.


FM.JPEG

Runner up for graphical hardware excellence, the
FrameMachines offered live, scaled video on the Workbench.
That took some beating.


AMIBACK.iff

Although only runner up to Cygnus Ed as most useful utility
of the year, even this shot of Amiback is more interesting
that a picture of some text being edited...