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Archive 09/1999


17.Sep.1999
AmiDog


AmiDog's Movie Player PPC-Version 1.22 released
This version plays QT, too, so far only video. The program is still beta. Download: AMP122.lha. (ps)

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17.Sep.1999
Jochen Abitz by eMail


MakeCD Version 3.2b Update 1 released
Changes: Bugfixes and some new drivers. Details can be read in the history. (ps)

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17.Sep.1999
AMIGA


Executive Update: Open Letter to the Amiga Community
In this Update, Thomas J. Schmidt again speaks to the Amiga users. He regrets that his last Executive Update dating September 14th has led to irritations and frustration. In this latest statement Mr. Schmidt makes it clear that AMIGA, after a change in management, has decided to make no hardware on their own, but is open to partners who want to develop hardware under license.

More links on the topic:
CNet: gateway shelves plans for new Amiga PC
Businessweek: The Soul of an Old Machine

Open Letter to the Amiga Community

There has been a great deal of confusion and frustration expressed in the news groups and via email over the past several weeks. I apologize that we have not been more direct in our communications, and I want to set the record straight.

First, per my previous messages, I continue to be impressed with the passion and commitment of this community. You have "hung in there" through a number of upheavals over the past years, and through several false starts on next-generation Amiga platforms. You deserve better. I have received many, many emails over the past two weeks, expressing your opinions and frustrations. Let me try and summarize what I have heard.

Many of you acknowledge the fact that we are focusing on software for the coming generation of "Internet appliances." We are very excited about the new Amiga Operating Environment, the work we are doing with Linux (and other operating systems that support Java), and the huge growth curve in Internet appliances that we are going to ride. You have gracefully wished us well in this endeavor, for that, I thank you. As you know, we announced in July that we were pursuing the development of a "multimedia convergence computer" that would serve as the next-generation Amiga desktop computer. After the change in management at Amiga, we reviewed all our product plans. To be honest, the ability for us to deliver the MCC was unrealistic. Furthermore, I have fundamentally decided that it would be better to partner with a wide variety of hardware partners, rather than compete against them with a product of our own.

From your perspective, one big problem exists. Sounds great, but what does this new direction have to do with the original Amiga computer? Quite honestly, nothing! We realize that this does not satisfy the desire of the Amiga community for a next-generation Amiga. In response, I remain committed to seek out partners who are interested in developing a next-generation Amiga computer and operating system. We have been following the discussions amongst the newly formed "Phoenix Platform Consortium" and talking to companies interested in supplying the next-generation Amiga. We are open to the possibility of licensing the MCC product specification and design that is now on the shelf to companies that are interested in further developing the Amiga desktop computer product line. We believe that this could be an attractive business opportunity for another company.

In summary, we are continuing to focus our resources on setting software standards for the coming generation of Internet appliances. We are not planning to offer hardware devices, but will work with hardware manufacturers who want to license our technology. As far as offering next-generation Amiga systems, we are open to talking to companies who want to offer such a product. For those of you who are excited about the Amiga Operating Environment running on a wide variety of future Internet appliances, we invite you to track our progress and activities over the coming months. The Internet appliance software model that we are putting together will open up an exciting new era of software development that we think will be very interesting to the type of innovative thinkers who were drawn to the Amiga computer in years past.

Best Regards,

Thomas J. Schmidt
President and CEO
Amiga, Inc.
(ps)

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17.Sep.1999
Jürgen Lange by eMail


Heise: USA: Unlimited Crypto-Export Possible
Heise writes:
Following the announcement, US export restrictions on cyptographic software will be softened, the Clinton gouvernment has now released details. According to the information given, US developers of cryptographic software can now sell it virtually unrestricted to other countries. So far, the maximum key length was limited to enable gouvernmental authorities to crack encrypted messages. This restriction has been removed: Software with keys up to 64 bit does no longer need to be registered; software with stronger (longer) keys can also be exported, however it has to be presented to the gouvernment for checking. Full article (German) at the title link.

PC-Welt also reports: USA softens crypto export regulations
PC-Welt writes:
Starting immediately, cryptographic software with arbitrary key length is allowed to be exported from the USA. Only seven countries are exceptions, since they, in the eyes of the US gouvernment, support terrorism. (ps)

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17.Sep.1999
Schatztruhe


Aminet CD 33 - 10/99 - now with Amiga News :-)
We again want to thank Stefan Ossowski and Urban Müller for the fantastic opportunity to bring our news to readers without Internet access. (ps)

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17.Sep.1999
Czech Amiga News


Protest against Gateway
Deniz Turkmen expresses his protest in a cartoon :-). (ps)

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17.Sep.1999
Czech Amiga News


Motorola CPU roadmap up to G6 released
Motorola CPU roadmap up to G6 released. (ps)

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17.Sep.1999
Linux.de


Happy Birthday, Linux
This very day eight years ago, Linus Torvalds has released his first Linux kernel version 0.01. (ps)

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17.Sep.1999
Trogladite Software


Gateway Petition
Trogladite has initiated a protest petition against the latest descissions at Gateway. Everyone who thinks Gateway should reconsider their descissions can join the petition. (ps)

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16.Sep.1999
Hyperion


HereticII: 1st progress report online
HereticII: 1st progress report online. (ps)

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16.Sep.1999
Torsten Dudai


New Cartoon: Gateway Tours




(td) (Translation: td)

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14.Sep.1999
Carsten Schröder by eMail


AMIGA-CTO Dr. Rick LeFaivre: AMIGA stays on course
+++ AMIGA-aktuell-Special +++
Our co-worker Martin Henke, who translates AMIGA aktuell to English every month, has just called Dr. Rick LeFaivre, Chief Technology Officer of AMIGA, and talked with him about the current situation and future of Amiga, which he summarizes as follows:

"The Executive Update by Tom Schmidt has agitated many. This agitation is unnecessary, however. As Dr. Rick LeFaivre assured me in a phone call today, plans have not been changed. AMIGA continues development of the new AmigaOE. However, AMIGA will not build own hardware, but there are contacts to companies on this topic. Details about which companies there are have not been given, however."

Personal summary: By this time, I am under the impression AMIGA President Tom Schmidt does hardly know the plans and work of the development department. If you believe Dr. Rick LeFaivre, there are hardly any changes at all apart from the Amiga MCC not being produced by AMIGA themselves, but by partner companies. Another Executive Update clarifying the obvious misunderstandings seems to be necessary.

Also see the Open Letter to Tom Schmidt. (ps)

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14.Sep.1999
Michael Pfeiffer by eMail


VIRTUAL News
Since the latest Executive Update clearly shows that Gateway has no interest anymore in a decent computer platform, and the Amiga is absolutely dead, it is time for VWP to make decissions. All software projects are put on hold. There has been no final decission about further usage / giving away the source codes.
An exception to this is WaveTracerDS, there will probably be another update for this. Virtual Worlds Productions says a warm thank-you to all Amiga users and loyal customers.
PS: BTW, I will write a nice mail to the President of A**** Inc. about their politics - who else? (ps)

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14.Sep.1999
Newsmaster


Open Letter to Tom Schmidt
The latest Executive Update leaves open questions, as always. :-(
Therefore, I wrote an Open Letter, that asks the one basic question I think most of us would ask if they had the chance...


From:             Martin Baute solar@baud.de
To:               team@amiga-news.de
Date:             Tue, 14 Sep 1999 20:12:43 +0200
Subject:          Open Letter to Tom Schmidt
Voller Name:      Martin Baute
Homepage:         http://www.baud.de/public/members/solar.html

Dear Sir,

we are the Amiga community. We are a community of people brought together
by a very different kind of computing, which survived despite the gravest
of circumstances, beyond bancrupty, beyond despair, beyond obsoletion.

The community survived because there was hope, and little alternative.

We look at the market of home, personal, and office computing, and we see
bloated, inefficient, unreliable systems that offer little "feeling" to
the power user, and much irritation to the beginner.

So we dared to hope, that one day there would be a computing alternative
available again to the masses, one that made computing fun again for
everyone, not only for the elusive few who actually like to modify arcane
registry entries or .rc lines.

And our hopes, for long, and sometimes very dark years, were on the brand
named "Amiga", because this brand - rather, the philosophy and spirit it
stood for - embodied what we liked in computing.

We have seen many changes at the helm, even more changes in direction.

And every time again, ever since EsCom times up to the latest ongoings at
Amiga Inc., whenever there was a change at helm or a change in direction,
we feared.

Our fear always was the same. Will there be an Amiga computer we can
buy, to sit on our desks at home or in the office?

There has always been talk about Set-Top-Boxes. In more recent times,
there is talk about "information appliances".

But what the community anxiously waits for, always has waited for when
the winds of change were blowing, is not about Set-Top-Boxes, not about
"information appliances". I do not want to critizise, to the contrary.
There are evolving markets out there waiting to be explored, and it is
a good feeling that Amiga might be among the spearhead of explorers to
this market.

However, for us, the existing, living, starving community scattered all
around the world, for the distributors, developers, vendors, users, for
us, it is the desktop we most anxiously wait for.

Yes, there certainly is a mass market for Set-Top-Boxes and information
appliances, and the Amiga Inc. concept for a pervasive home network is
a nice one for sure. But all this is not what the brand "Amiga" promises
to us.

To make a long story short, to ask the question so vital for motivation,
faith, and hope for many of us, I ask you:



- Do the plans at Amiga Inc., which you told us will be followed
  through, still include a home/personal computer product range similar
  or at least alike to the "Multimedia Convergence Computer" previously
  presented by Amiga Inc.?
  Manufactured by Amiga Inc. itself, or by third party manufacturers?

  (Means, will we see hardware as revolutionary as your software
  technology, or will we share the fate of BeOS, fine OS without
  own plattform?)

- And will it be presented anywhere near to the original time scale
  (1st quarter 2000)?



A question so simple, but of utmost importance for those who look at
Amiga Inc. today. Those looking at Amiga tomorrow might be satisfied
by Set-Top-Boxes and "information appliances".

We are not. Scatter our fears.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

With kindest regards,
--
    Martin Baute          /// Amiga A1200 Towerhawk - PowerPC 603e / MC68060
 => solar@baud.de <=     /// Newsmaster - English:  http://www.amiga-news.de
Member of Team AMIGA \\\/// Member of the Bielefeld Amiga Users & Developers
100% Microsoft free!  \XX/ Maintainer of Version Watch: http://www.vwatch.de

Amiga - The Last Line of Defense.
-- www.baud.de



Permission granted (and readers encouraged) to spread and copy
Erlaubnis erteilt (und Leser ermutigt) zum Kopieren und Verbreiten
(ps)

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14.Sep.1999
Amiga


Amiga Executive Update from Thomas J. Schmidt
The new CEO, Tom Schmidt, speaks about the future plans:

TO: THE AMIGA COMMUNITY

Thanks for your notes and comments about our plans for Amiga. In the past couple weeks, we've received hundreds -- if not thousands -- of emails and messages from loyal Amigans worldwide, many of you expressing a concern about Amiga's future based on recent reports in the media and in numerous chat rooms. I am so impressed with the spirit and passion of this great community and I wanted to make sure I told you that.

The fact is... to borrow from Mark Twain... the reports of Amiga's death have been greatly exaggerated. To that end, I wanted to provide a little more detail about our plans for Amiga... both as a product and as a company, and hopefully clear up any confusion that exists.

First, I hope you'd agree that Amiga was never about a box. It was never about an operating system either. Sure those things were part of what made the original Amiga great, but at its heart, Amiga was simply about a better way. Amiga was ahead of its time. Amiga promised to change the world. It ran against conventional wisdom and was better than anything out there at the time. In fact, we could all argue that it's still better than anything out there.

The ideals and spirit of that original Amiga are alive and well today. But to limit Amiga to just one box, one product, one OS, is to keep Amiga from ever seeing its full potential. Think about it.... The original Amiga never did really reach its full potential despite its technical advantages and its cost and ease of use advantages. Why? Because it never became ubiquitous. The company's early vision was probably too limited for the vast potential that Amiga offered.

The original Amiga was all about multi-media, so why not have Amiga running on every type of device imaginable, on top of every other OS out there? That's the beauty of Amiga and where we are as an industry. We're in the midst of a revolution unlike anything the world has seen, and Amiga has never been better positioned to change that world and make a bigger impact. Limiting Amiga to just one box and one OS at this point would be like offering the world a better horse and carriage at the dawn of the automotive age. Amiga and its revolutionary spirit deserve better than that. Amiga is going to produce software technology that will enable Internet services on an emerging category of products commonly referred to as "Information Appliances". It is an exciting new mega trend in the industry and we are excited about being at the forefront of this next great wave in computing history. In addition, we have decided to work with business partners who will deliver our software technology on their systems, rather than enter the hardware business directly.

So long live Amiga, but if you think that Amiga was just a box, you've missed the point. Amiga is about a better way. In the coming weeks and months, we promise to keep you posted on progress against our plans for Amiga, and we thank you for your continued support. Let's work together to enable Amiga to revolutionize the industry and change the world!

Long live Amiga,

Thomas J. Schmidt
President & C.E.O. (ps)

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14.Sep.1999
B. van der Meer by eMail


OS3.5 presentation in Benelux
From:        "B. van der Meer" b.vd.meer@worldonline.nl
To:          team@amiga-news.de
Date:        Tue, 14 Sep 1999 16:55:11 +0100

OS3.5 demonstration in the Benelux.

On saturday the 18th of september Dirk Harlaar of Haage & Partner
will give a demonstration of the new OS3.5 in Leeuwarden, located
in the Netherlands. Propably this will be the final salesversion.
This day will be organized by the AGGF and ComputerCity, the OS3.5
distributer in the Benelux.

Contact us at: amiga@worldonline.nl


The AGGF is the Amiga User Groep Friesland found in 1993.
Since january 1999 we publish a bimonthly paper-magazine called AmigaScene in
the dutch language.

AGGF webpage: http://www.fris.nl/~dkraus/AGGFINDEX.HTML
AmigaScene webpage: http://home.worldonline.nl/~amiga/


******


Os3.5 demonstratie bij the AGGF.

Zaterdag 18 september zal Dirk Harlaar van het Duitse Haage&Partner bij de
Amiga Gebruikers Groep Friesland
het nieuwe besturingssysteem OS3.5 komen demonstreren. Het is zelf
waarschijnlijk dat het hier om de
definitieve versie gaat, zoals dit op de markt gaat komen.
Deze dag wordt door de AGGF in samenwerking met ComputerCiy, de officiële
importeur, van OS3.5 georganiseerd.

De locatie is Clubhuis 'Welgelegen', W.Loréstraat 36 te Leeuwarden. Open
10:30-16:30.
Neem rustig je Amiga mee, maar bel ons dan wel even van te voren. tel.
0519-562288 (tussen 19:00 - 21:00 uur)
of email: amiga@worldonline.nl


De AGGF is de Amiga Gebruikers Groep Friesland en bestaat sinds 1993.
Vanaf januari 1999 geven wij de AmigaScene uit. Dit is een tweemaandelijkse
Amigablad met
artikelen over software en hardware en laatste nieuws.

AGGF internet adres: http://www.fris.nl/~dkraus/AGGFINDEX.HTML
AmigaScene internet adres: http://home.worldonline.nl/~amiga/


******
Thanks in advance.
Berend van der Meer.
AGGF/AmigaScene.
(ps)

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14.Sep.1999
Rainer Benda by eMail


Contents of BlackZone mailbox now completely online on Internet
Restructuring has been finished. The C= stuff from the box is now available on Internet. Details at the title link (at the bottom left). (ps)

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14.Sep.1999
Marc Albrecht by eMail


PHOENIX PLATFORM CONSORTIUM
Today, I phoned Marc Albrecht and asked for clarification about the idea behind the founding of the Consortium. He kindly summarised his thoughts and suggestions for us as follows:

Phoenix is not a miracle cure. The market power destroyed by Amiga Inc. in years gone by cannot be reestablished by Phoenix in any short time.
But the assembly of developers and marketing people under the "Phoenix" banner has a clear goal as well as hard results to offer - other than Amiga Inc, which jumped from one virtual goal to another.

a) Phoenix will create a system that integrates the "Classic" Amiga from the start. There will be a viable path to new platforms, the "compatibility" for existing hardware is not implemented afterwards, but is the seed.
b) Phoenix will create a system which will be portable from the start thanks to the Neutrino core. So, PPC platforms can be served as well as Intel platforms. A wedding with some MCC is not necessary - but possible nevertheless.
c) After just some days of official existence, Phoenix has already gathered all important Amiga application developers as well as some leading hardware developers. This way, there is know-how of the "Amiga Spirit" (whatever that may be) that can hardly be surpassed. If there is talk about an Amiga rebirth, it is by people who shaped today's Amiga - not managers that have to do reading about the matter.
d) Phoenix is home for enough high-ranking software developers to make real applications available on a completely new system in a meaningful timespan. By embracing the "Classic", the number of applications can and will be maximised.
e) Phoenix is no weird idea with all components yet to be developed - since the basic components like QNX (Neutrino), Rebol and others already exist, and are successful. This is not describing fantasy but reality.
f) Phoenix already made contact to leading hard- and software manufacturers to present results in the shortest possible time. The names of companies involved are not "top secret" like elsewhere, but can be fount in the supporters list.

I am a very sceptical man myself, and usually wouldn't have my name added to the Consortium. The following points convinced me to put energy in this project:
  • no wedding with some limited platform (like Amiga Classic), but using the existing, expanding, and promising kernel from QNX
  • I prefer a real-time system from one manufacturer over the compilation of thousands of developers worldwide
  • extremly tight schedules for realization of results (announcements are made true in weeks, not years)
  • no fantasy products, but using existing technology like QNX, Rebol, probably ARTAS
  • realistic plans "behind the scenes", means: real plans building upon Phoenix' results

Please understand I am unable to answer private mail on this topic - reasons for this are solely due to schedules, I have too many projects running to write mails right now. (ps)

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14.Sep.1999
Paul Nolan by eMail


Paul Nolan releases Photogenics 4.2
With version 4.2, Paul Nolan releases another free update for registered users of Photogenics 4.x. (ps)

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14.Sep.1999
Steffen Haeuser in c.s.a.q


WarpSNES V4.0 released
Steffen Haeuser has released version 4.0 of the SNES emulator WarpSNES for PPC Amigas with WarpUp. This version is based on the latest SNES9x 1.23 source, while WarpSNES V3.5a still used version 1.10. The original Unix version comes from Jeremy Koot and Gary Henderson.
Download - Aminet: misc/emu/warpsnes.lha (350K) (ps)

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14.Sep.1999
Holger Kruse


Possible downtime of nordicglobal.com
Due to the Florida weather forecast for the next days, caused by the Hurricane "Floyd", power and phone could be temporarily down from Tuesday 14th to Saturday 18th in Central Florida, which could affect the Internet connectivity of the Nordicglobal server (mailinglists, registering / update and website).
If eMails go unanswered or do not appear on mailinglists during this time, it is therefore not necessary to send them again. They are automatically collected and processed later.
If access to the website or the registering / update server fails during this time, please try again a little later. (ps)

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14.Sep.1999
Czech Amiga News


Amiga Info/AI Echo discontinued
on September 10th, the only Swedish print magazine "Amiga Info/AI Echo" has announced it is discontinued. So, the March issue 19 was the last issue of the magazine, which has been founded 1996 by Thomas Svensson. With the March issue, the name of the magazine was changed from "Amiga Info" to "AI/Echo", and articles about Linux added, however the additional sales couldn't save the magazine. The website is however continued at www.xfiles.se. (ps)

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