June 1990 MAGazine Volume 6 Number 6

CALENDAR OF EVENTS - JUNE 9, 1990

Saturday June 9, 1990 - 1:00 - The General Meeting will be held in the Parrish Building, Room #3, which is east of Jennings Hall on the Campus of State Technical Institute of Memphis. We will discuss topics of general interest to the group.

A FATHER'S FANTASY

You are herby crowned King of your realm to rule in perpetuity, or for the duration of Father's Day, whichever comes first. Along with official family diplomatic and ceremonial duties, the King may make speeches about such matters such as: "The Value of Money," "Coming Home at a Decent Hour," "Keeping the Racket Down to a Dull Roar," "Pitching in to share the Work around here," "Not using Language Like That in This House," "Pick up Your Stuff," "Stop that Bickering," and Various similar topics. All decisions, of course, may be voted upon and must be adopted by other members of the Kingdom.

Long Live the King!

Long Live the Family for Which He Stands!

PUBLIC DOMAIN

While reading a newsletter for CDAUG, I came across this review of a utility that any harddisk owner with a large font file should be able to make good use of it. I will upload this file to DuckPond for those of you not on Genie. I hope I come across more public domain reviews that I can pass on to you through this letter.

David Bath

REN

By Herb Brown

My FONTS: directory is humongous! Isn't yours? Each time I discover a new font, I immediately toss it into my FONTS: directory. I've recently noticed that it takes ShowFont about 17 minuts to read and list all fonts in my FONTS: directory. Boy oh boy, what is a font-lover supposed to do?

Answer: Download the public domain program called ren.arc, written by Stephen Vermeulen of ExPress Paint fame. (It is listed on GEnie as file # 5069.) Ren is a small CLI based utility program that allows font data files to be stored elsewhere than in the default FONTS: directory. You can even spread them over several different floppies, thereby freeing up much needed space in your FONTS: directory. To refresh your memory, when you type "dir FONTS:" you get a list of directories followed by a list of corresponding files containing the suffix ".font". The directories contain the font indicates the height of the font. For instance, the directory called DIAMOND contains two files: 12 and 20. The corresponding file named diamond.font tells the system where to find the data files (the 12 and 20 files) that contain the bit patterns for the DIAMOND fond. So what does all this have to do with my pregnant FONTS: directory?

Here's what needs to be done. Let's say I decide to store the DIAMOND directory (not the diamond.font file) elsewhere; perhaps in a drawer called MyDrawer on a disk named MyDisk. I first insert MyDisk in a drive, open a CLI and type makedir Mydisk/MyDrawer/DIAMOND copy FONTS:DIAMOND MyDisk/MyDrawer/DIAMOND all delete FONTS:DIAMOND all FONTS:diamond.font MyDisk/MyDrawer/DIAMOND Now when I wish to use the DIAMOND font the system will look in the FONTS: directory, find the diamond.font file, read this file and learn where the actual font data files are stored, which in my case is in the drawer called MyDrawer on the disk called MyDisk. If that disk happens not to be in a drive, a requestor will pop up asking me to insert the MyDisk: disk into any dirve. Pretty neat, eh? My FONTS: directory has been greatly reduced in size, giving me more room to store other programs. Hope you enjoy ren.

MAGazine

MAGazine
Memphis Amiga Group
Box 17426
Memphis, TN 38187

MAGazine is published monthly by the Memphis Amiga Group (MAG), a nonprofit organization offering assistance to fellow Amiga owners and those interested in the Amiga. Membership in the Memphis Amiga Group is available for an annual fee of $20 per family. Memphis Amiga

Group officers for 1990 are:

PRESIDENT
Todd Rooks
(901) 373-0198

VICE PRESIDENT
Brian Akey
(901)458-3699

SECRATARY/TREASURER
RAYMOND GINN
(901)353-4504

MAGazine EDITOR
DAVID BATH
(901)761-3729

DUCK POND BBS
24 HOURS
2400 BAUD
(901)761-3729

THE UNVEILING

MULTIMEDIA BLITZ & GLITZ

FROM LARRY MOONAN

Well, it's 5:00 AM on Tuesday, April 24th, 1990 and I'm awake! This only happens for special events, of which today's A3000 unveiling is definitely worth the wake up. Shower, shave, gather my camera and notebook, and off to Stuyvesant Plaza to meet with Neil Rosenthal, Peter Brickman and Herb Brown (Herb's the one with the invitation). We all get in Neil's car for the trip down.

We are excited and can't wait to reach New York City, we talk of many things on the way down; what's the best way to get to the Palladium (where the unveiling will occur), how to avoid New York City traffic bottlenecks, various Amiga topics, the summability of infinite matrices (Herb's expertise, we still don't know what it is :-)), and many others I am forgetting. Thanks to Neil and Herb's knowledge of New York City we get all the way into the city until hitting heavy traffic. It was 10:10 AM when we pulled down a street and came face to face with a sign saying Palladium Parking! of the show until we got in line to go in. The show was being held up until everyone was inside. We made it!

After receiving our name badges (Herb had called ahead to register all of us) we entered a dark black cloaked entry way with about a half dozen Amiga monitors depicting various areas in which computers are used. Up a flight of stairs and we came to a bar, and in back of that is the stage and seating for the show. If you've ever seen MTV and watched the Dance MTV segment you've seen this room. Again it's mostly black with lots of video/visual gear. The walls on the left and right hand side as you face the stage have balconies and white to red to blue and back. The front stage has a podium on the left hand side and a cloaked A3000 in center stage with 5 large video projection screen above it.

Also along the left and right hand walls signs depicitng "K-12", and "A3000", uction", "AmigaVision" and much more. These areas had Commodore personnel (you couldn't miss them, they were all wearing a neat Amiga jacket) standing in front of them with a black curtain drawn to hide what ever was inside them.

There was constant activity present in the room, with technicians constantly being heard over the eight speakers placed along the side walls. Mostly sound check, video color adjustments, signal checks, etc. You could tell this was being done purposely to convey the sense of a MultiMedia event about to happen. We took our seats about the time the video screens started a 10 minute count down. I noted a lot of lights were hanging from the ceiling of this place, all the kind of stuff you see at today's rock concerts, capable of many different colors and lighting movements. They too were going through this testing in a five by five TV configuration.

At about 6 minutes left in the countdown what appeared to be the stage manager of the show had a discussion via one of the overhead screens with a technician at a remote site. The technician was confirming everything was ready and asking how some of the various things he saw during setup and testing were done. The reply from the state manager was that all was done on an Amiga, and that the technician will find out everything when the show begins.

And begin it did, the opening segment started with Professor Irwin Corey appearing on the two largest overhead screens. He was coming to us from some remote media room (there were lots of monitors and video gear behind him) and answering questions (in his usual rambling manner) posed to him by an off screen interviewer concerning the meaning of the term MultiMedia.

This brought out the very clear point that everyone has not agreed about what constitutes MultiMedia, and segwayed into Commodores' MultiMedia video. This was amazing stuff, depicting what we all know the Amiga can do but ever really seeing it brought together. The stuff came at you fast with sound surrounding you in your travel through MultiMedia, something no printed word can convey so I won't even try.

unveiled, the screen shot changed to the podium on stage left and an off-screen announcer introduced Harold D. Copperman himself [President and Cheif Operating Officer of Commodore]. Mr. Copperman told us about his background and how lucky he has been to be at the right place at the right time. He was with IBM when data processing was having its big movement in the market place, with Apple during the DeskTop Publishing explosion and now he's with Commodore when MultiMedia is the hot topic. He went on to state that while IBM and Apple are talking about MultiMedia, the Amiga is doing it and that the A3000 is designed to be the ultimate MultiMedia platform. AmigaVision allows anyone to tap into the MultiMedia power of the A3000, not just programmers. He talked about the various people involved with the Amiga and had a few of them come up on stage to talk with us. During this time one of the two large screens switched to a video presentation of various graphics, made by various speakers. You could see these images appearing on the A3000 center stage at the same time, being animated in real time. At one point we were even given a quick tutorial on using AmigaVision, using the A3000 present on center stage to assemble a small program. It is indeed powerful and easy, I look forward to using it. At another point, Mr. C. Lloyd Mahaffey [Vice President of Marketing at Commodore] gave us a speech on why MultiMedia will be important to us and had some of his marketing representatives give us their impressions of its place in business, education, art, etc, by video segements.

Mr. Copperman then returned to close the presentation by having the various booths open their curtains, invited everyone to visit these booths and re-ran the MultiMedia segment that we saw earlier, only this time there were even more lights and the multiple TV panels came down to give you an even closer look at the presentation.

All in all I was very impressed with the show. As I was listening to Mr Copperman speak, I was proud to have him be the person giving the Amiga the direction it should have had all along. I had originally gone down to see the A3000, but I came away with more than just seeing a new machine being unveiled, I saw a new Commodore emerging. We have a lot to look forward to as 1990 progresses.

LARRY MOONAM

And This Just In!

Johnny here once again to enlighten you as to what's new and what's coming to you in the great big ol' wide world of Amiga software.

At the request of many of you, this month's "...AND THIS JUST IN!" column will not only spotlight those items just out on the market, but will also try to give you an idea when or even IF certain titles will make it to your local software shop!

The Latest And Greatest

Wow! We've been swimming in a tidal wave of new stuff down here at the candy store!! LOTS of new toys to play with. Want Johnny C. to let you in on some of them?

AD&D - The Champions of Krynn came in, to the roar of the crowd. This is a fantastic Amiga rendering of the already-classic IBM & C64 game, and thus wins my pick as the Conversion of the Month! But wait! It's a TIE!! After a long wait and several false starts, Their Finest Hour finally wandered in and set new standards in Amiga air combat. It takes its predecessor, BattleHawks: 1942 a coupla steps further and fixes all the little problems in it, so it also qualifies as Conversion of the Month!

Other new titles that made it out were Progressive's 3-d Professional, Blades of Steel from Konami (the very popularhockey game for the Nintendo), Hardball II and Heat Wave from Accolade, Hockey League Simulator (a Wayne Gretzky add-on disk), It Came From the Desert II, Might & Magic II, Aegis' Pro Motion, Prof. Draw 2.0 from Gold Disk, Sword of Aragon from SSI, Rings of Medusa, Tennis Cup and Treasure Trap from the guys at Electronic Zoo, and the long-awaited Tetris sequel, WELLTRIS.

But Wait! There's More! In a month riddled with software sequels, the company known for the BEST sequels around surprised us all with three that they had stopped talking about! Manhunter 2 - San Francisco, Police Quest 2 - The Vengeance, and King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella all finally rolled in from Sierra this past month!! Good news to all you adventurous folk out there, huh?

What?? That? When!?

Like I said, the "What?? That? When!?" portion of "...And This Just In" is gonna be extra-long this time. So as to get most of it across as clearly as possible, Johnny'll just shut up now on the commentary and just give youse guys the facts. Weeeell, maybe not FACTS, per se. You see, "due dates" for software is a joke. A big fat funny JOKE. And very often a "lie". You see, software can't be written on a schedule any more than a good book can be - it's done only when it's done. And if there's a problem that has to be fixed, then you guys don't WANT that programm until it HAS been fixed. Right? (Or you'll just gripe that it ain't worth crud, and want your money back).

So the dates you see are the producer's EXPECTED releasedates. This is just a ballpark guess on their part as to when you might see it. These dates are always EXTREMELY subject to change! Don't pester the guys at the computer store every day - it'll be in when it's in!! If you really really want it, find a store that'll take your name and number and call you when it gets there. Don't forget that advertisements don't mean squat - they're just trying to get you interested and pumped up for it so that everyone jumps on it the first day it's out (it works, too, doesn't it?). Also, remember that the time shown is when the customer expects to release it; give your store 2 days to 2 weeks to actually get it shipped from that company!

Everyone understand the ground rules? Okay, then Here We Go!

Software Johnny expected to be out by now but is "late":

A-10 Tank Killer, Bandit Kings of Ancient China, Brain Blaster, The Fool's Errand, Frantic, Icom's Compilation of Adventure Games, Imperium, Mean Streets, Monopoly, Night Hunter, Overrun, Storm Across Europe, and Tunnels of Armageddon.

Software that could be out any day now, and may have made it by the time you read this:

DungeonMaster II: Chaos Strikes Back, ChessMaster 2100, Dragon Wars, Neuromancer, Loom.

Software expected in June:

B.A.T., Codename: Iceman, Gore (Pysgnosis) , Halls of Montezuma, Killing Game Show, Life & Death, Read Storm Rising, Strike Fleet, Wings (CinemaWare) , Wings of Fury.

Software expected in July:

The Colonel's Bequest, Conquests of Camelot, Gengis Khan, M1 Tank Platoon, Pagestream 2.

Other software expected sometime during the Summer 1990:

TV Sports Baseball, Nobunaga's Ambition, New Zealand Story, Prince of Persia, Wolfpack.

Software expected during the Fall of 1990:

Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny, F-19 Stealth Fighther, Hero's Quest II: Trial By Fire.

Software with no set date at this time, but is "definitely" coming out (yeah, right! Take that "definitely" with a grain of salt, folks!):

'Vette, Pool of Radiance, Curse of Azure Bonds, Barbarian II, David Wolf: Secret Agent, Math Blaster Plus, Slipheed, Bad Blood, Ultima VI: the False Prophet, Worlds of UltimaI:Savage Empire, X-Men: Madness in Murderworld, Waterloo.

Software that Johnny C. no longer knows when or even IF they will come out with it, so much conflicting info's been given:

Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate, Flight Simulator III, Ghouls and Ghosts, Harpoon, Mech Warrior, Skate or Die, Star Trek Next Generation: The Transinium Challenge, Starflight II, Super Hang On, Starglider II, Strider.

I might've missed something, too. So if anyone knows anything more about the last two groups of software, or ANY of it for that matter, please pass it on to Johnny Come Lately any way you can - through the Duck Pond BBS (I'll be on there real soon under that name) or by letting the editor know. Of course, Johnny as always will be scouting around for the latest scoop on this stuff. I'll keep you posted!

Until next month, then

Johnny C.

EDITOR'S APOLOGY:

Due to circumstances beyond my control the Newsletter is extremely late this month. First I picked up a virus that destroyed the allocation tables on my hard-drive which rendered it useless. Then the 8520 chips went bad on me making it impossible to send anything to my printer. I guess Murphy was working overtime this month. Fortunately Bob Earnheart came to my rescue and repaired my computer in record time.

You will probably notice that the Newsletter is not the same all the way through. The reason is that I originally did the entire letter on the new PageSetter II but on some pages when I tried to print them it would miss some letters and then crash have way down a page. To be fair some of my hardware problems caused the crashes so I will work with the program some more and let everyone know the results. To get the letter out I reworked two pages on PageStream.

Our favorite machine is becoming visible everyday. The 3000 has been reviewed by most of the major Magazines, Computer Shopper's headline states about Multi-Media that Commodore does it right. Gets you right here doesn't it. Of course we have known it all along. And USA Today has reported that Commodore has signed a new contract with the US Treasury Dept to supply them with 3000 computers. In fact Commodore has opened a new office in DC to handle government business. Well, that's all until next month.

PenPal:Databases/MagMail.FLR

EDUCATIONAL PRICING

Good news for Memphis.

ComputerLab has assured me they now plan to offer the Educational Pricing on Amigas. We do not have to go to Little Rock anymore. Below is the Official new pricing guide from Commodore, that I downloaded off Compuserve. They include the 3000.

Editor

To:	All Education Dealers
From:	Terry D. Schevker, Central Regional Sales Manager, Education
Date:	May 9, 1990
Subject:	New Pricing

please note the following items will not appear on your educational price. These items will be available under the educational purchase program.

		Educational
64	$499	$249
PC 10-III U1	$949	$519
PC10-IIIu6	$1099	$599

Amiga Bundled Systems

Bundles/Components	Education
"Amiga 500P Education System" AmigaVision, A501, A500P, A1011, A1084S	$799
"Amiga 2000 Education System" AmigaVision, A2000, A2010, A2088D, A1084S	$1599
"Amiga 2000HD Education System" AmigaVision, AD2000HD, AD2286D, A1084S	$2579
"Amiga 2500/30 Education System" AmigaVision, A2500/30, A2286D, A1084S	$3679
"Amiga 3000/16-40 Education System" AmigaVision, A3000/16-40, A1950	$2599
"Amiga 3000/25-40 Education System" AmigaVision, A3000/25-40, A1950	$3039

Note: All orders are subject to approval by Commodore Bussiness Machines, Inc. at its sole discretion. Price, fees and product specifications are subject to change without notice. Bundle pricing is not available for individual components of specifically configured systems. Individual components may only conjunction with a system or CPU.

Amiga Stand-alone CPU's
	Retail	Education
A500P	$799	$479
A2000	$1895	$1139
A2000HD	$2699	$1619
A2500/30	$4699	$2819
A3000/16-40	$3299	$2179
A3000/25-40	$3999	$2619
A3000/25-100	$4499	$3059