17 Bit Software 3: The Continuation/17-Bit_The_Continuation_Disc.iso/files/nz18.dms/nz18.adf/Causers.Newsletter/NewStuff.EE

Text File | 1993-12-03 | 17KB | 397 lines

GADGET  Electronic Edition                         SEPTEMBER 1987


     This article is copyright  1987  by  Jay  Gross,  all rights
reserved.  Permission is  granted  to upload to computer bulletin
board systems provided this notice  remains intact.  However, all
other use or publication  is  strictly  forbidden  without  prior
permission of the author.


                            NEW.STUFF

                          by Jay Gross


     New Amiga stuff for this  month  has  almost  included a new
Amiga, the A2000.   Dealers  scattered  hither  and yon have been
receiving dealer demo units over the last week or so, and the way
seems clear  for  shipments  of  the  much-postponed  merchandise
within the next few weeks.   From  dealers  who have them to look
at, the word is  that  the  A2000  is  the  heavily-rumored  West
Chester design, which  incorporates  a  megabyte of memory on the
mother board and has an  extended  video  slot for flexibility in
video output.
     Late rumors add  extensive  video  airware  to the machine's
promised  board  expansions,  including   a  supposedly  imminent
display video capable of  sixteen  million colors at 1024 by 1024
pixels.  Let's hope this stuff  takes  less  time to show up than
the machine that it all goes in.
     Some reports said that the West  Chester  design runs slower
than the Amiga 1000 and the Amiga 500, but CBM management claimed
at the SIGGRAPH  computer  graphics  show  that actual production
models would not have that  problem  (See the separate article on
SIGGRAPH in this issue of  GADGET).   As for your cynical editor,
he is even now rummaging for his benchmark programs, and will bet
no  pennies  till   the   merchandise   can  be  seen,  felt  and
benchmarked.
     Rumor mills also have  it  that  the  much-rumored  trade-in
offer for Amiga 1000  to  Amiga  2000  will  indeed  be  offered.
Unofficial word is that a  thousand  dollars plus your Amiga 1000
CPU buys the Amiga 2000 CPU.   The  difference  in price is borne
fifty-fifty by CBM  and  Amiga  dealerships.   No  word  on  when
official word will be forthcoming.
     Since everything about  the  A2000  is  still in the clouds,
that touchy subject will  wait  till  reality  strikes  before it
graces this column  any  further.   Meanwhile,  there is much new
software in Amigaland.
     After the ravings in these  pages  about NewTek's DigiPaint,
it is only fair to talk about that program's competition, Prism!,
by Impulse, Inc.  Hot on the  heels  of  the release (finally) of
DigiPaint, the Prism! folks  have  begun  shipping a much-updated
version of Prism! re-named Prism Plus.
     The new version  works  in  320x200  and  320x400  interlace
modes, has CMAP compatibility with all known IFF HAM file viewers












and  programs,  full  Genlock  compatibility  with  overscan  and
re-mappable Color Zero register.
     For non-Genlock people, the  Color  Zero business means that
the program will allow the user to select which color is replaced
by the Genlock, by  re-mapping  it  to  Color  Zero.  Genlock can
replace only Color  Zero  with  an  incoming  video  signal.  The
ability to map which color will  make  Genlock a much more useful
piece of equipment for video production.
     Other Prism Plus features include  PAL support, so people in
Europe won't have funny, squashed  screens when they run American
software on European Amigas,  variable  screen sizes for overscan
in all  resolutions  and  picture  sizes  up  to 1024x1024 pixels
("super bitmap"), scrollable like DeluxePaint II.
     Prism Plus adds IFF brush compatibility, too.
     The program has a new "heuristic mode"  to allow the user to
get rid of the HAM jaggies--caused  by too-high contrast adjacent
pixels in the complex Hold-and-Modify  mode.  The jaggies control
occurs in realtime as the user  is  painting!   A special palette
mode allowing the user to  maintain  a  clean picture despite the
addition of new regions of brushes.
     For registered Prism! owners,  the  upgrade is free.  Simply
send your original Prism! to  Impulse,  and  request the upgrade.
Here's the address:
                Stan Kalisher, Director
                Impulse, Inc.
                6870 Shingle Creek Parkway #112
                Minneapolis, MN.  55430

     Speaking of upgrades, Micro  Magic,  the  makers of Forms in
Flight, has announced an  upgrade,  too.  The upgrade fixes a few
things users wanted worked on,  according  to the company, and is
free.  Send in the  disk,  and  ask  for  the  upgrade.  Forms in
Flight is another  of  the  new  perspective  (misnomered  "3-D")
drawing programs.  It does its  thing  with  vectors, mainly, and
runs on a megabyte Amiga or better.
     Forms  in  Flight  allows   the   user  to  create  stunning
animations with the aid of a single-frame-capable video recorder.
Realtime animations are limited  by  memory.  The modeling/design
program does  just  about  everything  except  shadows.    It's a
clean, reliable program that costs only $79.95, list.

     More updates.  A few  weeks  ago,  your  spendthrift  editor
purchased a neat  little  set  of  programs  called  FastFonts by
Charlie Heath of MicroSmiths.  Your stubborn editor seems to have
a habit of buying software  which  has counterparts in the freely
distributable channels, and FastFonts is another of them.
     What you get with FastFonts is a program  that swaps out the
Amiga system font with a neat,  more  readable one called Siesta,
and a FastText display handler  that  greatly  speeds up the text
updating of the Amiga screen.   Greatly  being translated in that
context to "many, many times over."   You also get ScreenBlanker,
to blank your screen when  nothing  is  being done and FunKeys, a
keyboard macro utility.
     All  these   programs,   which   cost   $29.95   list,  have












counterparts available free  or  as  shareware,  but your curious
editor wondered about these commercial  versions enough to invest
money in them.
     FastFonts is a nice program,  and  by itself it is worth the
price of the whole package.  It  thoroughly  replaces  the system
font.  If a program is  putting  text  on  the  screen, FastFonts
replaces the Topaz with one you  select.   FastText is also worth
the price of the goods.  It speeds up text display over Scribble!
and PageSetter enough to make them much more useful than they are
without the speedup.  Funkeys  is  also  a neat utility, although
your busy editor's WorkBench  disk  has  no room left for it, and
therefore he is not using it regularly.
     Now, last but not least, we come to ScreenBlanker.  It works
fine.  It's nice to be able to  leave  the computer for a trip to
the refrigerator or to torture  the  cats, without worrying about
burning holes in  the  Amiga's  monitor.   What  really  matters,
though, is the icon that MicroSmiths  provides for ScreenBlanker.
It's a  huge,  animated  windowshade  of  more  than ten thousand
bytes.  Not bad for a two-thousand-byte program!
     If you've got an extra  few  bucks  to  throw at your Amiga,
think  about  FastFonts,  and  get  in  on  some  of the goodies,
including Charlie's stellar documentation.

     While we're out here in  the  esoteric  regions,  it's  time
GADGET mentioned a truly esoteric Amiga application which all you
trivia buffs will want to  rush  right  out  to  your dealers and
purchase.  Take your charge card--this  one costs in the hundreds
of thousands of dollars.
     Picture an Amiga 1000, perched in the middle of a terminally
high-tech lab, picturing on its monitor the kind of information a
chemist gloats over.  This Amiga's part of a CJS Sciences Sigma 7
Mass Spectrometer.
     Wait!   This  isn't  science  fiction;  this  is  for  real!
Through a special interface,  the  Amiga monitors fourteen valves
and thirty-two  voltage-to-frequency  converters  (whatever those
are).  It controls motors and  other  doodads to read three beams
(we all know  what  beams  are;  they  make  our  monitors  work)
simultaneously.
     The Sigma 7's brain is  an  off-the-shelf  Amiga  1000, with
some very special  attachments  to  its  expansion  buss and some
fancy software to  make  it  work.   The  whole  mess of stuff is
presided over by David Jones of England,  who takes the blame for
the Amiga software that  does  the  job,  and  it's right at home
right here in Columbia,  South  Carolina,  at  the  University of
South Carolina's Department of Geology.
     Yes, and coming soon, no doubt, to a laboratory near you.

     Since we're on  desktop  publishing,  in  a  roundabout way,
here's where we  mention  C-Ltd's  Jet  Set Printer Utility.  The
poop sheet C-Ltd sent to  your  none-too-psychic  editor  doesn't
tell what Jet Set is, except that it costs $39.95 list.  See what
you can figure out from the celestial vibes on this one.
     The poop  sheet  was  accompanied  by  a  full  page of font
listings (with rather expensive prices),  Whatever it is, Jet Set












promises to continue font development  with "more new fonts every
couple of weeks."  Not even  your  font-crazed editor could scoop
up that kind of production.

     The long-awaited LPD  Writer  from  Digital  Solutions  is a
Scribble!-like word processor.  It  windows, is WYSIWYG, features
a built in spelling checker  expandable  to half a million words,
and has on-screen help, choice  of  user interfaces, and multiple
headers and footers displayed on the  screen.  Document length is
unlimited.  As opposed to  GADGET,  right?  Where document length
is interminable!  Keep reading, there's more.

     As GADGET was nearing presstime, the  long-awaited VizaWrite
word processor was actually shipping  to dealers.  In retaliation
for the long months  of  promises,  promises,  promises, however,
your vicious editor is withholding  all news of the product  till
the actual piece of merchandise  is  perched  on the shelf of his
favorite Amiga dealer (Avcom).
     VizaWrite is another cross-pollination of desktop publishing
and word processing where words, fonts,  and graphics co-exist on
the screen as well as on the printed  page.  The company promises
that VizaWrite will be the first in  a complete line of "Viza..."
desktop publishing programs that do the complete job.
     Another former airware title that  descended from the clouds
is TextCraft-Plus.  Although  the  cute little birdie doesn't fly
around the documents any more,  the  Plus  version of the program
offers many vast improvements over  the original TextCraft.  It's
still very easily learned,  still  includes  the on-line animated
tutorials, and still shows you on the screen exactly what you are
going to get on the printer.
     In addition, Textcraft-Plus offers  full support for Amiga's
multi-tasking.  When the  original  TextCraft appeared, there was
hardly any operating system  at  all  on  the machine.  Intuition
wasn't completed, so the programmers  made do with what they had,
and did a fine job of it,  considering  the limitations they were
under.   Nevertheless,  Textcraft  has  been  the  word processor
people love to hate (to coin a phrase).   It would multitask, but
only with considerable effort (see  GADGET's explorations of this
and other issue in former  issues  by  Ray Radlein, staff writer,
and in this very issue, again, by--why not!--Ray Radlein.).
     TextCraft-Plus  has  one  disadvantage  in  common  with its
predecessor.  No speller.

     People who're confined to bluer  machines  all day have been
snapping up  an  Electronic  Arts  title  with  a  silly name and
playing it (one  supposes)  all  day,  instead  of  working their
spreadsheets and  word  processors.   The  name of the program is
Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards.  It's by Al
Loew and Mark Crowe, who dreamed up this scenario:
     Larry's 40.  Just barely.  Still single,  having lived until
recently with his momma.  Polyester, all the way.  Shoes of shiny
vinyl.  Hairline shiny for other reasons.  Blind dates, anyone?
     Nevermind getting this one for  the  kiddies.  It's a risque
tour of the singles dating  game.   Graphics-oriented, but it has












text recognition, too,  and  understands  more  than nine hundred
words, "including some your mother never taught you."
     Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of  the Lounge Lizards is now
available for the Amiga.  Did anyone hear any cheering?  Was that
a Rousing Round of Applause?
     Two other titles on Electronic Arts'  fall Line Up have also
already been released.  They are Quizzam! for the Amiga and Black
Cauldron, a children's game by Sierra  On-Line distributed by EA.
Both of these  titles  gave  Guru  Meditations  after  only a few
minutes of play and had  to  be  returned  as  defective  till  a
working version is produced.  Both look very nice, are well done,
and most entertaining,  but  neither  one  of  them was ready for
prime time when shipped.
     SSI--that's Strategic Simulations--is the mother of Computer
Baseball, which has  been  panned  in  these columns unmercifully
(and deservedly, too!).   Enter  SSI  to  the  Amiga arena again,
undaunted by our vicious  criticism,  with two new titles in tow.
Phantasie III Wrath of  Nikademus  is one of them.  It's a Bard's
Tale-esque graphics role  playing  adventure of the sort that has
captivated computer gamers for the last season.  Assemble a party
of sundry folks and wander through the countryside, dungeons, and
cities fighting, pillaging, thieving,  rescuing, adventuring, and
generally enjoying yourself immensely.
     In view of the severe criticism heaped on Computer Baseball,
GADGET hastens to  bestow  a  well  deserved  compliment  on  the
graphics and Amiga interface of this new SSI game.  At first look
(aha, a qualifier!), the program seems  rock-steady and very well
done.
     Another new SSI title is KampfGruppe, which your busy editor
has not had a chance to look into as yet.

     Michigan Software, makers of  the  Insider  RAM expander for
the Amiga 1000, has  begun  shipping  two  new products that will
interest Amiga 500 owners.  One is a two-foot extension cable for
the Amiga 1010 External 3.5-inch disk  drive.  Now you can put it
where you want to put it,  instead  of  where it insists on being
put.
     The other product is for peace  of  mind.   It's an external
power supply for the Amiga 1010 External  Drive, so it won't take
precious volts from the A500's power supply.  Michigan Software's
device will power two of  the  external  drives,  so you can have
another one (df2:), if you like.  Just put the funny plug between
the A500's external drive port and the drive's plug.
     Other developments for the A500  have  included the ECE MIDI
interface  for  the  new  Amiga.    Since  MIDI  (that's  Musical
Instrument Digital Interface) is done (at 31,250 bits per second)
through  the  cereal--oops!--serial  port,  and  since the A500's
serial connector is opposite gender  of the one on the A1000, ECE
has opted to put out a special  model  for the A500, instead of a
gender adapter.   ECE's  MIDI  interface  offers  a  switch and a
pass-through connection, so  that  your  modem and MIDI equipment
can share the same port,  without  your  having to figure out the
mass of wires behind the  computer  every time you want to switch
from one use to the other.  Both models list for $59.95.













     Electronic Arts is now distributing  Gridiron!, the football
game for really ardent football  fans.   It lists at $59,95, now,
too, instead of the outrageous $69.95 at which it was introduced.

     CityDesk is a new desktop publishing  package for the Amiga.
It features easy laser printer  support,  as  well as preferences
printer choices.  CityDesk is currently  the only non-vapor Amiga
program which can handle halftones.  For a list price of $139.95,
it also provides laser printer  support  for both Hewlett-Packard
and PostScript-compatible laser printers, without extra charge.
     The program honors the Amiga graphical  interface very well,
and multi-tasks, within the limits of available memory.  At first
look, the program has some  rough  edges, and really doesn't work
well in an unexpanded Amiga.  In its defense, however, the job of
desktop publishing is not very  likely  to fit well into 512-K on
any machine.  CityDesk does  allow  drawing directly in the page,
and offers a block-style automatic  flow of text around graphics.
Its text  editor  is  a  one-line  text  gadget  which  would  be
completely useless on a  long  document,  and  using  its kerning
function is  clumsy  at  best.   For  simpler  projects,  though,
CityDesk is reasonably priced, and does some neat tricks.  Random
House will have little use for it, however.

     Express Paint is new from PAR  Software,  Inc., which  bills
it as 'The Ultimate in Desktop Graphics.'   It is a paint program
with the  ability  to  do  things  like  import  text  files  for
formatting to any  shape  or  size.   Areas  of  a picture can be
backed up selectively, and text  can  be formatted in a region of
any shape that can be  drawn.   Express  Paint  sells  for $79.95
list.

     For one month, this  isn't  really  all  the news.  It's not
even all the news that's fit to  print,  as the saying goes.  But
it is all you're going to get.  Till next time.