• v1.52
  
  • Ok, I made the 1.51 release too fast. There was a serious bug, which caused frogger to crash at start. I am very sorry. Please forgive me...
  • Frogger now shows mpeg resolution in asl requester ("Select Screen Mode (352x288)" for example), as suggested by Miroslaw Bagrowski.
• v1.51
  
  • Frogger failed to recognize the RIFF streams (a vcd ripped streams) Fixed.
  • Seeking with audio is now possible. May cause deadlocks, so be carefull.
  • Frogger crashed when new mpeg was opened. Fixed.
  • 'DISPLAY FILE' caused crash. Fixed.
  • 68k version available again. 030 version will not be supported anymore. Do not ask for that. Buy better CPU.
  • 68k version does not need ixemul.library anymore.
  • Audio in 68k version is now decoded using the same decoder as in PPC version. This is slower, but at least it works.
  • Scaling routines in grey mode were broken. Fixed.
  • The same bug was in color dithering routines (when image was scaled). Fixed.
  • On some VideoCDs Frogger failed to decode correct stream resolution (it was always 0x0). Fixed.
  • From now on, NOSKIP turns off audio decoding.

• After changes to the user prefs handling in memory, the resulting enforcer hits are worked upon.
• Bugfix: The GETCONTACT command no longer produces enforcer hits.

• .EMAIL_SECONDARY
• .EMAIL_OLD
• .FAX
• .CELLULAR
• .LAST_ONLINE
• .MESSAGE_TO
• .MESSAGE_FROM

======================================================================
   _    __      _     <>_   __      _    ||
  /\\    |\    /||    ||   /  `    /\\   ||  A M I G A   U P D A T E
 /__\\   | \  / ||    ||  || ___  /__\\  ||     -News and Rumors-
/    \\_ |  \/  ||_  _||_  \__// /    \\_||   (An Occasional e-mail
           WELCOME TO TOMORROW           ||        News Source)
======================================================================
        AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga, Inc.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
000123

         A M I G A   A N D   T A O   R E L A T I O N S H I P

                A M I G A   R U M O R   C O N T R O L

                F L E E C Y   E X P L A I N S   T A O

       T A O   A N D   E S P I A L   C O L L A B O R A T I O N

    T A O ' S   E L A T E   C H O S E N   B Y   I N F O M E D I A

              O P E N   L E T T E R   F R O M   C O S A

        N E W   E X H I B I T O R S   F O R   A M I G A   2 K

      S U P E R V I E W   S I T E   C L O S E D   F O R   N O W

        F R O G G E R   P P C   V   1 . 5   A V A I L A B L E

            H & P   H A S   G R A P H I R E   D R I V E R

                    N O   M O R E   N E W S R O G

           F U S I O N   P P C   S T A T U S   U P D A T E

         D I G I T A L   I M A G E S   O P E N   L E T T E R

           S E A S I D E ,   E N G L I S H   V E R S I O N

        Q U A K E   N E W S   T O   P L E A S E   G A M E R S

         T W O   N E W   G A M E S   F R O M   D A R K A G E

Editor's Thoughts and Introduction:

 Things really are happening in the Amiga community, some of it fast
paced indeed. The first story in this issue came out on the day we
sent out the last "Amiga Update". It came out after the issue was
mailed, however, so it had to wait for this one.
 It's grouped with a couple of other stories that we hope will help
people begin to get a feeling for the work of Tao, Amiga's new
"content partner".
 We also find it interesting that Motorola, makers of the 68XXX family
of CPUs that have powered Amigas for so long, has taken a stake in
Tao. A story published recently in England carried the following
information:

 "Motorola Inc. has taken a small minority stake in Tao Group Ltd.
here and will use the company's virtual processor and Java-like OS
technology in portable communications and computing gear, Internet
appliances and digital-imaging products.

 Neither the size of Motorola's stake in the 35-person company nor the
monetary terms have been disclosed."

 The new Amiga has been in place for less than a month, and we're just
beginning to get a feeling of what their long term plans are. They
sound good so far. The only negative - a strong tendency to try so
hard not to be corporate types, they may end up scaring off potential
worthwhile business associates. We certainly hope that doesn't happen.
On balance, we're very pleased with events to date and feel all
Amigans have reason to feel much relief.
 Lots to read below - we hope you enjoy this issue.
 Brad Webb,
 Editor
----------------------------------------------------------------------
E-mail to the E-ditor:

09 Jan 2000

Hello Brad,

 I hope this is the right addy to send stuff to?

 First let me say, excellent work with Amiga Update. I really look
forward to getting the news and info you send out. Please stay with us
and keep up the excellent work.

 Now that CUCUG's "Amiga Web Directory" is gone, sadly, what are our
best WWW sites to go to for Amiga News? Has anyone talked to CUCUG and
asked/begged them to continue? The community can use all the support
it can get and the AWD was a great presence on the WWW.

 Good luck to the *new* Amiga Inc. Go get 'em guys and dont give in no
matter what the "big" guys do, say or offer! The world needs a
realistic alternative and Amiga is it.


Regards

Simon
~~~~~~
Simon,
 Well, I hope you'll let "Amiga Update" help you keep up with the
news. As for alternative sites to the old Amige Web Directory, I'd
recommend two:

http://www.amiga.org/
http://www.realdreams.cz/AMIGA/

 Neither site has all the features the old CUCUG site, but both will
help you stay on top of Amiga news.
 Brad
======

5 Jan 2000

brad,

 just a quick note to say "keep up the good work" ! i enjoy recieving
this e-publication. also, let me add that i prefer this "e-mail style
" as opposed to the old "download style "!!!! makes it easier for me
to read.
best,
dave
~~~~~~

Dave,
 Thanks very much. As we're happy to state, we plan on being around
for a while to come.
 We've always been e-mail based, never download style, so I'm a bit
confused by your statement, but if you (or any reader) know of someone
who's bumped into our archive site and figured that's all there is,
please let them know we're a subscription based publication. And that
we'd be happy to welcome them aboard!
 Thanks again,
 Brad
----------------------------------------------------------------------

       A M I G A   A N D   T A O   R E L A T I O N S H I P

8 January 2000

 Amiga and Tao-Group enter into a strategic relationship


 Las Vegas, NV January 8, 2000 - Amiga begins expressing plans for the
new Amiga with a strategic alliance with Tao-Group.

 "Things started going wrong the moment the PC rode into town and the
home computer revolution of the 1980s ground to a halt. We are here to
right that wrong." said Bill McEwen, Amiga's El Presidente. 'We kind
of feel guilty about not having been around to show the world the
evils of the PC, but inept management sent the Amiga off to a bad
place. Luckily, its users and developers have kept it alive, and now
we are back."

 "Existing products are very rude.' He continued. "Shoving PCI slots,
interrupts, file systems, registries, megahertz, and megabytes right
into your face. My grandmother just wants to play a game, or send an
email, or draw a picture. She doesn't want to have to mortgage the
house and get a masters degree."

 "Digital Technology has become stalled because of the predominance of
Windows." quiped in Fleecy Moss. "Putting a thousand monkeys on
typewriters may eventually produce the works of Shakespeare but it's
not something you're going to want to wait around for, and you don't
want to be responsible for cleaning up the mess in the meantime."

 "Our approach is outrageous. WE look at what actual people want, and
then give them the most simple, elegant solution. Even calling it
computing is falling into the PC trap. It is participation in the
digital content universe, whether it be developing an application,
playing a game, making your own video, watching TV or buying S&M gear
online. Computing companies are trying to paint digital convergence as
computers and TVs coming together, so they can stick "TV" in front of
PC and continue to sell the same old garbage. Digital Convergence is
something much bigger though. It is about content, information,
services, and activity transforming into a digital format and coming
together in a single place that has no boundaries. If someone tells
you you need a PC to get into this new content universe, smile nicely
and hit them with a big stick."

 "Elegance, simplicity, invisible and universal technology." sings
Bill McEwen, trying to get a word in edgeways. "That is why we are
just giddy to be working with the Tao Group. Others rant on about how
their products are next generation, warp capable, but the truth is
that most of them are based upon old concepts and architectures -
that's why you need the latest monster machine just to type letters.
Chris Hinsley (CTO/Tao Group) was one of those smartass child
prodigies you wanted to beat up at school. By age 20, he had already
been a commercial games developer for 5 years, and wrote some great
Amiga games. Being a smartass though, he saw the future, realised
nothing out there was ready for it, and dedicated the last ten years
of his life to making sure the human race was ready when the future
arrived."

 "The Amiga was special because it refused to settle for second best.
If something is worth doing, it is worth doing right, and the proof of
that is in the global following that it still has today. With the
nightmare of the past five years behind us, the Amiga is ready to push
out ahead again, and save the future from a muddled, poorly fitting,
frustrating PC enema. With the foundation that the Tao Group gives us,
we are ready to re-introduce the world to a novel computer concept -
fun."

 "We aren't stupid enough to think it's going to be easy," interrupts
Fleecy Moss, shoving McEwen to the ground and gagging him. "A lot of
people have been brainwashed by the advertisements and the slick
salespeople. However, the digital information revolution is all around
us, waiting to happen. Everyone can feel it, everyone wants to be a
part of it. Amiga is going to stick a pretty big bomb under that PC
logjam and blow it clean back to Redmond. Elegance, simplicity,
invisible and universal technology. Time to start smiling again."

 "We are happier than a crocodile at a waterpark to be working with
Amiga." said Francis Charig, CEO and international stud. "We are very
proud of what we have created in our garden shed. We could have sold
out long ago, but the market was crowded with companies doing that so
we decided to actual create a product and make it a good one. Now we
are finding that OEMs are seeing our product and getting even more
excited about it than we are ourselves; it almost makes the whipping
and torture we have had to inflict on our employees worthwhile. An
Amiga solution powered by Tao technology is a match made in heaven for
everyone."
----------------------------------------------------------------------

            A M I G A   R U M O R   C O N T R O L

14 Jan 2000

{A posting to the Net from Fleecy Moss, with some helpful
clarifications. Brad}

In my trawling around the community hangouts,
I have come across several misconceptions, rumours,
and a lot of confusion. Whilst I can't hope to answer
everything, here are some things I want to set straight.


 0. Amiga will build a digital content universe. Digital
 content means anything composed of 0 and1 -
 applications, video, audio, games, emails, whatever.
 We will focus on 2 markets, the pathfinder market,
 for digital adventurers, power users, gamers,
 content creators, DTPers, artists, video ppl
 and those who refuse to define a computer as
 a digital appliance. Our second market will
 cocentrate on the Domestic Digital Habitat (DDH).

 1. If you are a personal computer person, there will
 be a personal computer second wave Amiga.

 2. We will support classic development in so much
 as we want to help users and developers transition
 to a new machine. That will be the total extent of our
 support for the classic machine. If this involves further
 AmigaOS releases, then so be it.

 3. We are targetting x86 and PPC for the first consumer
 release of Pathfinder products (if you are a personal
 computer person, this means you).

 4. We will do everything in our power (that doesnt bankrupt
 us or interfere with our primary goals) to ensure classic
 Amiga software runs on the new machine in some form or
 another.. The new Amiga product family (formerly called
 AQUA) will run natively and hosted. This is to create a large
 market fast for Amiga developers to profit from. For the first
 pathfinder release it will run hosted to see this market grow
 fast. We see one of our core duties as serving the developers.

 6. We are talking to the Phoenix Consortium about common
 interests.

 7. We have been contacted by QNX but currently have no plans
 to work with them.

 8. We will develop Amiga products for another market, the
 Domestic Digital Habitat (DDH) market. This markets will
 be kept separate but products will work together if the installer
 so desires it.

 9. There will be a new website and it will be public shortly. It has
 been tested on all browsers, Amiga and non Amiga, and given
 the compatibility problems between the implementations of open
 standards, our best effort has been made. The site will grow
 quickly and more information will be added. We want it to become a
 village where all Amigans can come to voice their opinions, chat,
 and travel off to different parts of the Amiga universe.

 a. A developer support manager has been selected and they are
 working on implementing the developer support program. This will
 be in place before the developer boxes are released.

 b. The developer boxes are specced out, we have contacted several
 whitebox manufacturers and we are building the distribution.

 c. Amiga will not provide dates until we have a product. We will
share
 timelines, but will not attach dates to them. Enough damage has
 already been done.

 d. We have had acceptances from 75% of our development team and
 their names and roles will be announced once we get back from
 training (before the end of the month).

 This mail can be redistributed without modification within the
community. As further questions and issues come up, we will attempt to
answer them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

               F L E E C Y   E X P L A I N S   T A O

10 Jan 2000

 {The following exchange from a the Net may help ansewr questions
about Tao for many people. Our thanks to Fleecy Moss for posting the
answer to these questions. Brad.}

 >Hi fleecy, I was wondering if you could clear up a question that's
appeared >in various forums. Specifically, is Amiga going to use the
Elate RTOS as >the new AmigaOS kernel? It seems there's some confusion
over that. Your >comments that it will run on top of other OSes tend
to point towards the >J-Engine being more important. I guess I'm just
a little confused, or maybe >I don't understand the Elate RTOS very
well. :)

----

 Tao has a virtual processor system and a set of services that run
above it. You can call it an "OS" if you want, but the term is
increasingly irrelevant, as it is in KOSH. It can run natively, in
which case it is its own complete solution, or it can run on top of
other OSs, in which case the services are either provided by Tao, as
in the native version, directly to the VP, or they are "passed
through" to the host OS, and they provide the services.

 AQUA {Note: it's unlikely Amiga will use the AQUA name as Apple seems
to have grabbed it. Brad.} will offer a set of services accessed
through interfaces/APIs and developers will write to them no matter
what the situation. The situation itself can be AQUA running native,
which means only Amiga and Tao code, or it can be hosted, for instance
on Linux, or Windows even, in which case it can look a lot like an
application.

 No matter the situation, AQUA is still AQUA and developers and users
will see the same product. The only issue will be in speed, with the
native version running the fastest. For market reasons though we will
support it running hosted. In fact the first one or two releases will
most likely be hosted.

 The J-Engine is merely an example of how efficient the Tao products
are. Coding, initially will be in C, C++ (if you enjoy pain) and Java.
However, the tao ppl code in VP code directly, and it is so easy to do
and you get such screaming results with the tools that it may become
the preferred method for developers.

 It is far more than a Java support engine though.

 So to answer your question, we will concentrate on a full AQUA (tao
and amiga only) solution but we also have the ability to offer it
working on other OSs as well.

 Amiga will define and develop AQUA which defines how developers and
users access AQUA. What happens deep down can be different though.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

     T A O   A N D   E S P I A L   C O L L A B O R A T I O N

Leaders in embedded Java(TM) technology announce collaboration for
interactive multimedia for wireless, digital TV, and network gaming
Internet appliances.

Ottawa, Canada, January 11th, 2000

 Espial, the leading provider of embedded Java(TM) technology for
Internet appliances, and Tao Group, a provider of leading-edge Java
virtual machine technologies in the fields of compact, fast, and
portable operating environments, today announced that they will
collaborate to offer a complete Java-based solution for the multimedia
and interactive entertainment content delivery targeted at the
wireless and consumer markets. This collaboration will offer the
world's first Java based solution for delivery of multimedia and
interactive content to Internet appliances, which promises to
revolutionize the wireless, digital TV and network gaming industries.

 The Espial and Tao collaboration brings together Tao's intent(TM)
Java Technology Edition (JTE) virtual machine with Espial's market
leading full-featured Espial Escape(TM) web browser and Espial(TM)
Espresso application framework. The combined solution brings together
an optimized, high performance embedded JVM with the most advanced
Java based Internet and graphics technologies for embedded Internet
appliances. Espial's other products include Espial DeviceTop(TM), the
only service-ready Internet appliance platform for Java-based Internet
appliances; Espial Ebox(TM), a highly customizable Java based email
client; Espial Assistant, a full-featured Java based personal
information manager (PIM); and Espial Architect; a RAD tool for
embedded Java applications that gives developers the most
comprehensive development environment available today for developing
multimedia content, games and software applications for Internet
appliances.

 According to a recent report from International Data Corporation
(IDC), the market for Internet appliances is positioned to explode
over the next several years. The future is much brighter than most
have anticipated and will grow to become an annual 55 million unit
market and $15 billion market by the year 2001, the report says.

 "This partnership with Espial brings together two complementary
technologies," comments Francis Charig, Chairman and Chief Executive,
Tao Group. "By putting them together we are not only providing a
completely integrated software solution for the interactive
entertainment industry but also working together in bringing fast,
compact Java performance solutions to market. Developers for the world
of Java based interactive entertainment, network gaming, digital TV,
wireless and multimedia information appliances are now free to focus
on the benefits of their accelerated time-to-market."

 "In the Internet appliance and wireless markets, application and
content services will drive the adoption of smart devices." said Mal
Raddalgoda, Senior Director of Strategic Marketing, Espial Group.
"Through our partnership with Tao Group, we will be enabling a new
generation of service-driven, smart devices that will deliver a
compelling multimedia and interactive user experience. This will take
Java technology to a whole new level in the consumer electronics
market"

Pricing and Availability

 The combined Tao and Espial solution is available today for smart
devices running embedded operating systems such as Linux(R),
WindowsCE(R), OS-9, QNX(R)4. Future operating systems include VxWorks,
pSOS, QNX/Neutrino, TRON and EPOC32. Pricing information is available
from Espial and Tao for their respective products.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

    T A O ' S   E L A T E   C H O S E N   B Y   I N F O M E D I A

Reading, England, January 10th 2000

 Infomedia Network, manufacturer of advanced consumer hardware
computing and entertainment devices announced today that it has
selected the Elate(RTM) Real Time Operating System and the intent(TM)
multimedia content platform by Tao Group for use in INFOMAX, the
company's next generation of advanced set-top boxes. Due to the high
performance and small footprint of Elate(RTM) and intent(TM) these
technologies are well suited for use throughout Infomedia's entire
product line of advanced set-top boxes, portable computers and
point-of-sale devices.

 "Infomedia is represents a new generation of hardware manufacturer,"
said Patrice Haftman, Executive Vice-President of Infomedia Network,
Inc. "Our approach is to address solutions and to design hardware in
accordance with the needs of maximizing the value of the software.
Consumers do not buy hardware for it's own sake; they buy it for what
it can do for them. Tao's Elate(RTM) combined with intent(TM) gives us
the greatest potential to enable even the most demanding Java(TM) and
multi-media applications in the embedded market."

 intent(TM) was launched at CES on 6th January 2000. Its portable
multimedia content platform includes its Java(TM) technology edition
(Tao is a Sun Java(TM) technology licensee) and its 2D graphics
libraries, world-class audio and 3D technologies are also shortly to
be made available as intent(TM) becomes one of the standard content
platforms for consumer products.

 Infomedia Network will be introducing the INFOMAX line of advanced
set-top boxes and portable computers in 2000. All will be enabled for
Java(TM) applications and secure electronic commerce via Elate(RTM)
and intent(TM).

 "Infomedia's clear focus and commitment has been to provide high
performance systems designed for the Consumer. This explains our
support at Tao for INFOMAX and why we are excited about the
partnership between the two companies", commented Francis Charig,
Chairman of Tao. "Infomedia's approach has been to integrate world
class components while working consistently within industry standards.
By taking Tao's technologies, Infomedia has armed itself with products
to make its appliances easier to use, lower cost and faster to market
than its competition."

 "Since we are focused on delivering applications, the operating
system is of key importance to us," said Haftman. "Tao has
consistently demonstrated that Elate and its Java(TM) Virtual Machine
are the fastest, most compact and robust, and Tao has been there to
support us during our product development phase. We look forward to
our continuing relationship with Tao as new ideas are turned into new
products."

For more information about Tao please visit Tao's website at
http://www.tao-group.com/
----------------------------------------------------------------------

            O P E N   L E T T E R   F R O M   C O S A

                        COSA PROGRESS UPDATE
                          JANUARY 11, 2000

                  An Open Letter - January 11, 1999
                 By COSA President, Steve Crietzman

Introduction

 Our last open letter to the community talked about the status of our
negotiations with Tom Schmidt, and where we would be taking them after
the new year. Well, talk about bad timing! Just a week later, Amiga is
snapped up by Fleecy Moss and Bill McEwen in the form of Amino. Out
with the old, in with the new. And along with the new, comes new ideas
and plans for the future, and a fresh start.

 This begs the obvious question: How does this affect COSA and our
plans for the future of the AmigaOS?

 Well, in truth, the change in ownership of Amiga is entirely a good
thing for COSA. Our plans remain unaffected, and we continue to plan
and organise for the day when the classic Amiga operating system is
released as open-source, as we hope it will be. Fleecy, afterall, is
on record in numerous places supporting open source, including on
COSA's very own website, so it's hardly as if the new owner has
scupperred our original plans.

 If anything, the change is a positive one. Fleecy Moss has always
been very open and accessible, and we have found it an entirely
positive experience discussing the future of the AmigaOS with him. He
has been very receptive to the idea, and willing to discuss many
different possibilities.

COSA's Plans for the Future

 COSA is working on a number of different, but related and
inter-connected ideas to support the future of the classic AmigaOS.
While many are still in their infancy, they are already being to take
shape.

 Some of the major ones are discussed in the rest of this open letter,
but many more exciting plans and projects are being worked on behind
the scenes. These will be discussed in due course in future open
letters to the community.

 What sort of plans, you ask? Well, here's a clue.

 Imagine COSA providing Amiga-related products and services for the
Amiga community. Some of the revenue generated from sales of these
products and services could then be reinvested, and spent in any way
the community feels appropriate to aid the classic AmigaOS in it's
revival.

 COSA is already in negotiation and discussions with one large company
for access to their product's source code. That's a hint of the sort
of things you can expect to see in the future if COSA's plans are
successful, as we expect they will be.

 Think big name apps for AmigaOS and revived Amiga software, all being
made freely available on the AmigaOS, and you're on the right track.

 Beyond that, I'm afraid we're going to have to be a tease and give a
"no comment," but as we've always promised in the past - and always
kept - when the time is right, these plans will be discussed openly so
they can be debated. In the meantime, our negotiations are still
preliminary and we must remain quiet about them for the timebeing. I
hope you understand our reasons.

 In the meantime, think what we could do if we had a few dollars to
spend. Any suggestions are welcome. Details of our mailing list can be
found below, where suggestions are particularly welcome, but otherwise
feel free to e-mail any ideas, comments and suggestions of things you
would like to see, to president@amigakernel.org.

Developer Registrations Now Being Accepted

 As a result of the optimistic outlook, COSA are now focusing on the
hard work that lies ahead assuming, of course, the AmigaOS does indeed
go open-source. While it can't be entirely certain at this point, it
can never hurt to make plans. We are cautiously very optimistic about
our chances now, and are eager to get going - as are COSA's minature
army of users and developers.

To that end, COSA is now accepting registrations for developer status within
our open-source AmigaOS development team, led by Ian Parker, formerly of
Free Amiga/AMozillaX.

 If you are an Amiga developer, we would welcome your support and
contributions to the project. There is a need for a wide variety of
skills and experience in a project such as this. Those with kernel
experience, porting experience, a variety of languages including 68k
assembler and C/C++, GUI enhancements (ReqTools, MUI, ClassAct, etc),
writing "stability" or "improvement" patches for AmigaOS - improved
filing systems, etc. etc. are kindly requested to join our list, as
all help offered to this project will go a long way.

 Joining the Open Source AmigaOS Developer Base is simple. Just send a
blank e-mail to the following e-mail address:
amigaos-dev-subscribe@egroups.com, and you will be added to the
AmigaOS developer's discussion list, where developers can discuss and
debate future enhancements and additions to the AmigaOS and the
AmigaOS Kernel.

 For more information, you can visit the official Open AmigaOS
Development Website at http://www.amigakernel.org.

Your Feedback Is Welcome and Encouraged

 Feedback from the community on what you would like to see come from
future versions of the AmigaOS are also welcome. Indeed, they're
essential if developers are to know what features the community would
like to see integrated into future versions of the Amiga operating
system.

 Those members of the Amiga community who welcome the opportunity to
play a part in forging the future shape of AmigaOS are welcome and
encouraged to join COSA's Members' Mailing List, by sending a blank
e-mail to savetheamiga-subscribe@egroups.com.

 This mailing list has been created as a way for the community to
discuss and debate different ideas about the future of the AmigaOS as
Open Source, so that the community have a way to communicate their
feelings to those who will be managing the AmigaOS development
project. These ideas and comments can then be passed onto the
developers, who will integrate those suggestions into future versions
of the AmigaOS and kernel.

Conclusion

 COSA is very excited about the future of the Amiga, both of the
classic and the next-generation Amiga range. Our focus will of course
be entirely on the classic AmigaOS, while Amino and Phoenix, etc. will
be handling the next-generation Amiga systems and OS.

 It is COSA's goal, as it has always been, to have the AmigaOS (most
likely v3.1) released as open-source, radically improved and updated,
and ported to a wide variety of hardware platforms and CPUs. This
would dramatically expand the AmigaOS's existing userbase, and bring
fresh new ideas and talent into our community.

 COSA remain committed to our goal of overhauling and reviving the
classic Amiga, as an open-source OS environment, and bringing it into
the new millennium with new energy and life, with new ideas and
perspectives, and a fresh new start to give it a fighting chance in
the future.

 Our members and developers believe that the classic AmigaOS has
plenty of life left in it yet, and with a little work, stands a good
chance of making a comeback.

 We would welcome comments and feedback from the Amiga community,
especially those who would like to play a part in this process. Our
contact information is below. We want to thank the Amiga community for
their continuing support of COSA and for helping us come this far. The
Amiga community united can achieve so much, and we look forward to a
future where that talent can be unleashed, and the community can work
together as a team to take our OS into the new millennium - the next
generation.

Kindest Regards,

Steve Crietzman
President, COSA/Open Amiga.

E-Mail Feedback: president@amigakernel.org
Member/Users/Community List: savetheamiga-subscribe@egroups.com
AmigaOS Developer's List: amigaos-dev-subscribe@egroups.com
http://www.savetheamiga.org.uk
----------------------------------------------------------------------

        N E W   E X H I B I T O R S   F O R   A M I G A   2 K

January 19, 2000

More exhibitors have signed up in the last ten days.

individual computers of Germany is our first German
exhibitor, but not our first European exhibitor. That
title goes to Paul Nolan Ltd. of England.

Other exhibitors signing up include NASAU, amiga.org,
Digital Arts, AmiTech Dayton Amiga Users Group,
E.S. Productions and Northwest Amiga Group.

The pace is quickening, as more developers, dealers and
distributors sign up. Stay tuned for more information
on the largest and best Amiga show in the Americas...
Amiga 2K.


Bob Scharp
Amigan-St. Louis
----------------------------------------------------------------------

     S U P E R V I E W   S I T E   C L O S E D   F O R   N O W

{The following message has recently been posted on the PerSuaSiVe
SoftWorX site. There's a message to the wise here. Brad}

CLOSED. Today.

-------

 Thanks for being able to gain your attention.

 Due to massive piracy and other efforts to destabilize the Amiga
software market (not counting the subtile attempts to bash
competetitors with unfair methods) I've decided to put this site on
hold for a few days.

 This is just to show that it's in your own hands (customer is king)
to decide what should happen next. I personally will have to think
about that as well.

 In case I'll have to take different job oppurtunities, this will mean
ceasing or at least slow-down of the Amiga development. There of
course are people who would not mind about this, but I'm more
interested to hear what the rest is thinking (and how many they are).

 Let's call this a thinking pause

http://www.ar-kleinert.de/
----------------------------------------------------------------------

       F R O G G E R   P P C   V   1 . 5   A V A I L A B L E

21 Jan, 2000

Short
------

 Frogger is the ultimate MPEG video player, with MPEG-2 layer support.
Frogger was oryginally relased by Miloslaw Smyk (thorgal@wfmh.org.pl),
recently, the development has been taken over by Sebasian
Jedruszkiewicz (bjsebo@jota.wi.tuniv.szczecin.pl) Additional
programming was made by Przemyslaw Gruchala.

Changes in this release
------------------------

v1.5

 - Added direct VideoCD support!!! (only in PPC version).

 - There is new mailing list, dedicated to all our programs
 (including Frogger,VisionFX and SoftCinema). To subscribe
 send blank message to: tvision-subscribe@egroups.com and
 then follow the instructions.

 - Fixed an ugly bug in P96 dislay code.

 - Removed BUFSIZE,FORCEAUDIO and AUTOEXIT parametters.

 - New parametter: FASTDIRECTCGFX. It will speed direct video memory
 access routines, but may be dangerous. I have not got single crash
 when using this option, but who knows? If there will be no problems
 with it repoted by users, this option will be enabled by default.

 - Fixed (at least I hope so) bug which caused Frogger to lock at
 end of some movies.

 - Reworked main loop, simplified messages received code. Also I have
 added some new keyboard commands.

 - Fixed slider code. It now 'almost' works, with sound disabled. Also
 Pause/Play now works.

 - +/- keys can now be used also in windowed mode to scale display.

 - switched to faster IDCT code in 68k version. Applied the same
 changes in PPC version. IDCT code is about 10% faster now, But it
 gives only 2-5% overall speedup.

 - Replaced calls to WritePixelArray with my own fast direct routines.
 Also scaling is now done by CPU; ScalePixelArray calls has been
 removed. Windowed mode is now really fast.

 - Added support for every possible pixel format supported by
cybergfx. However, I have tested only some of them. in case of
problems, please use VERBOSE option, send me output and (if it is
possible) make me a screenshot. Almost forgot - there is no conversion
for 8bpp cgfx screens. But who needs it? However, 8bpp mode works in
grey. Of course 8bpp mode works on AGA machines.

 - Updated Speed section of the guide.

 - Switched back to old pll calculation code. Frogger now needs latest
 ppc.library emulation (v0.7c) if you working under WOS.

 - version string is now y2k compatible ;)

 - It was impossible to exit (in some movies), when LOOP was used.
 Fixed.

 - Again I had to fix main loop, to be able to read multiple video
sequences movies. It now works ok. Thanks must go to Miroslaw
Bagrowski, for sending me CD with such a movie.

 - Changed filename format for saving iff images. it now looks like
this: basename.x, where x is frame number (6 digits:
000001,000002,etc.).

http://jota.wi.tuniv.szczecin.pl/~bjsebo/Frogger/

----------------------------------------------------------------------

           H & P   H A S   G R A P H I R E   D R I V E R

22 Jan., 2000

Amiga drivers for new Wacom graphics tablet "Graphire"

 We all know there's no such thing as an input device that lends
itself equally well to every application. Which is why H&P created
Graphire. Its mouse and pen combination means you always have the
right tool at hand. Graphire is the all-round solution, from
Web-browsing to retouching, from illustration to Office. Switch on to
the benefits of the unique Graphire set - for precise pointing and
clicking, for intuitive drawing, for sketching and writing.

 Finally Amiga fans can use the new graphics tablet. The driver
supports the pressure sensitive pen as well as the enclosed wireless
mouse and the finger-wheel.

 The "Graphire" can be used with any Amiga computer with external
keyboard (PS/2 connectors). Unfortunately all Amiga models besides
A4000 Desktop were delivered with normal DIN connectors you might need
an additional adapter set.

Prices

Graphire: 249 DM
PS/2 Adapter Set: 12 DM
Graphire Driver: 89 DM

Haage&Partner Computer GmbH
Schlossborner Weg 7
61479 Glashuetten, Germany
Phone: +49 (6174) 966 100
Fax: +49 (6174) 966 101
www.haage-partner.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------

                  N O   M O R E   N E W S R O G

04-Jan-2000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 ShadowWorks Software regrets to announce the end of the NewsRog
project for the Amiga. NewsRog is an NNTP News client running on Amiga
personal computers.

 Unfortunately, due to a combination of factors which include the lack
of a market for Amiga software, obsolescent hardware, and a recent
increase in piracy and fraudulent credit card orders, it is no longer
financially possible to continue developing NewsRog. The last version
stands at 1.8b, and the update is available to all registered users
via the web page below:

     http://www.frii.com/~srk/ShadowWorks/Preview/NR.html

 ShadowWorks Software is proud to have pioneered a large number of
news client features that have yet to be duplicated in any other
software that we are aware of. We regret that it was not possible to
continue development of the software, since there was a great deal
more planned for the future.

 ShadowWorks Software wishes to thank all of our loyal customers who
have supported our attempt to bring the Amiga a world class NNTP news
client.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

         F U S I O N   P P C   S T A T U S   U P D A T E

1 Jan., 2000

{The following was posted by Jim Drew to the Microcode Solutions
mailing list. Brad:}

 "Microcode Solutions is still working the PowerPC upgrade module for
FUSION (Amiga version). We have run into difficulties with compilers,
poor response from the customers (nearly 1,000 people pledged their
support, yet a little more than 200 people have actually ordered the
product), and many other unexpected problems along the way! These
factors have caused a significant delay in the release of FUSION-PPC.
We originally planned on hiring a few extra people to help develope
the emulation, however, due to the actual response we were not able to
do that and so far we have been doing everything ourselves! We are
extremely happy with the progress we have made thus far, and we know
that those people who did pledge their support will be happy too! We
ask that you please be patient and let us do our magic! :-)"

... "We are hoping to see it end January/beginning February".
----------------------------------------------------------------------

        D I G I T A L   I M A G E S   O P E N   L E T T E R

11 Jan., 2000

Hello,

 This is the first time I have written an open letter to the
community, but this should breifly outline our plans for the future.

 First of all, we are pleased with how Wipeout 2097 is selling and I
would like to thank everybody who has bought a copy of the game! For
those of you who have been waiting for the new graphics cards to be
released to play it, your wait is almost over! So, as soon as you plug
it in, download the Wipeout 2097 demo and then go and buy the full
game!

 A lot of people have been asking about Space Station 3000. We
apologise to the long wait that people are having for this, but it is
a much bigger project than we have ever anticipated. But we hope to
bring an accurate release date soon as well as a brilliant game that
will keep you hooked!

 We intent to port more games from the PC. We will keep you posted on
this.

 We will also be porting Wipeout 2097 to the Apple Mac which should
provide a brilliant 3D racing experience for them! Just go and take a
look at it running on your friends Amiga's and you'll get a good idea
of what to expect!

 We will keep you posted with our current and future games
developments.

 I will be away between January 10th and March 31st and so I will not
be able to answer any e-mail sent directly to me. If you have any
queries, then use these e-mail addresses:

info@di-games.co.uk - Customer Service
technical@di-games.co.uk - Technical Support
wipeout2097@di-games.co.uk - Wipeout 2097 (non-technical) queries
webmaster@di-games.co.uk - Webmaster

 Have a very happy new year!

Kind Regards,

Stuart Walker
Managing Director, Digital Images

http://www.di-games.co.uk
----------------------------------------------------------------------

         S E A S I D E ,   E N G L I S H   V E R S I O N

13 Jan 2000

 Today we release the english version from SeaSide. You can order the
game in some days at all dealers worldwide or direct by APC & TCP. You
found some Screenshots and infos on our homepage:
www.chiemgau.com/apc&tcp

Please dont forget:

 Due to a stay at a hospital we are not available from mid January to
early March. During this period we can not be reached via phone, fax
or e-mail and we also can not deliver orders. This will be done from
early march when we resume our bussiness as usual. During this time
our homepage will not be updated. Thank you.

Andreas Magerl
----------------------------------------------------------------------

        Q U A K E   N E W S   T O   P L E A S E   G A M E R S

23 Dec., 1999

 The creator of Quake, John Carmack of id software's, has released
Quake sources and placed them on the Internet.

 According to John, "All of the Quake data files remain copyrighted
and licensed under the original terms, so you cannot redistribute data
from the original game..."

 This means you can create new Quake PPC, QuakeWorld and other
executables and spread the code without restriction, but not copy
Quake levels, textures, or other files found on the Quake CD.

 Further, if you wish to use any new Quake PPC executables tha become
available, you are required to own a copy of Quake. These restrictions
are minor and we expect a lot of Quake PPC activity in the Amiga
world.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

         T W O   N E W   G A M E S   F R O M   D A R K A G E

23 Jan., 2000

                          Amiga Classix 2

 The official sequel to one of the most succesfull Amiga compilation
ever!
 Over 230 freeware, shareware and commercial FULL games, no demo
versions!
 Produced exclusively for Epic Marketing ltd.

 Featuring commercial games by:

 o Andreas Seebeck Software Development (Tiebreak, Hannibal, Space
Max, Aunt Artic Adventure, Charon V)
 o Darren Ithell (Dithell In Space)
 o Dark Unicorn Productions (Scorched Tanks)
 o Diamond Production (Diamond Caves, Diamond Caves 2, Maniac Ball,
Master Blaster)
 o Digital Concepts (Island of lost hope, Lords of War, Torch2081)
 o Eclipse Software (Lethal Xcess, Monster Business)
 o Frank Otto (Lost on Parrot Island)
 o Hitek Softworks (Barravento)
 o MegArts (Bomb Mania)
 o Mental Image (Bandit Mania, Technology 2, Winning Post)
 o Scorpius Software (Antz, Blade, Hilt, Hilt 2, Hideous)
 o Team Hoi (Hoi Aga Remix)
 o and the very famous game Ports of Call!

 Suitable for both Amiga and PC (you can play all games directly from
the cd, no installation required!)

Format: Cd-Rom
Publisher: Epic Marketing ltd./Islona
Requirements: AGA Amiga or PC
Release Date: February 2000

                            Powerball


 Powerball is a simple puzzle game where the player must clean each
screen from all the coloured bricks. Doing this is possible by using a
ball that bounces up and down in the screen and that can be controlled
by the player who can move it left or right.

The game features:

80 levels in 8 worlds
Runs also on an A500!
Level editor to add your own levels
Only one floppy disk, but it's also hard disk installable!
A password system to save your position
Loads of fun included in the package! :)



Format: Floppy Disk
Publisher: To Be Announced
Requirements: Any Amiga with 1Mb Ram
Release Date: March 2000
http://www.idealia.net/darkage/
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Amiga Update on the net:
 All back issues available at:
 http://www.globaldialog.com/~amigaupdate/index.html Stop by and check
out our archive!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2000 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified.
======================================================================
                 _    __      _     <>_   __      _
   A M I G A    /\\    |\    /||    ||   /  `    /\\      A M I G A
  U P D A T E  /__\\   | \  / ||    ||  || ___  /__\\    U P D A T E
              /    \\_ |  \/  ||_  _||_  \__// /    \\_
                    amigaupdate@globaldialog.com
======================================================================

To:         "amiganewsfeed"@phoebe.hosting4u.net
Subject:    [ANF] (fwd) Amiga 2K Press Release 8
Date:       Sat, 22 Jan 2000 22:17:16 -0600

PRESS RELEASE:
Amiga 2K - Banner Year Rewards

January 19, 2000

Let's make this a banner year for Amiga and Amigans.
Place the Amiga 2K show banner on your web sites, and
or distribute flyers for the Amiga 2K show. All Amiga
clubs, companies and individual Amigans can enter this
promotion. The more folks that see the banners and elect
to come to Amiga 2K, the better it will be for the Amiga.

To encourage the distribution of the Amiga 2K brochures
that we have printed, and the placement of our show banner,
located at:  http://www.amiga-stl.com/show.html
we are offering the following incentive.

WIN A "MAGICAL AMIGA MUG"
(You can view this mug at: http://www.amiga-stl.com)
(click on the "Products" page)

First way to win: Banner Placement

Place the Amiga 2K show banner on your website and keep
it there until after the show. Fill in the information
below and email it to me.

Second way to win: Brochure distribution

If you have an Amiga club, or an Amiga company, and you
distribute Amiga 2K flyers prior to the show, I will
enter you in the drawing. Fill in the information below.

Each week, at random, I will draw a name for a cup.
Winners will be notified by email or U.S. mail if
no email address is available.

Drawings will continue until the week of the show.

It is possible to win more than once. It's possible to
win every week, as all names will be put back in the hat.

-----------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------
Banner Year - Banner Placement

I have placed the Amiga 2K banner on the following
site and wish you to enter my name in a drawing for
a "Magical Amiga Mug"

Individuals Name:

Site Name:

Site address: http://

Banner placed where on the site:

Full mailing address:


Phone number:

email address:

------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------

Banner Year - Flyers

I wish to distribute flyers for the Amiga 2K show.
Please send them to me at the address provided, and
I will distribute them. You must distribute a
minimum of five flyers.


Individuals Name:

Full mailing address:


Phone number:

email address:

Please send me _____ flyers.

------------------------------------------------------

To obtain the banner, go to the following website. At the
bottom of the page is the banner. Save it to your Amiga
and place it on your site.

Thanks for your help, and your interest. I wish I had
more mugs to give out, but we are running out of them.
If you are interested in viewing what the mugs look like,
check out: http://www.amiga-stl.com  Click on the
"Products" page. A picture of the mug is displayed.

These are five color high quality porcelain mugs with
gold rims and four finger handles. They have two unique
designs, one on each side of the mug. The designs are
heat sensitive, so when hot liquids are added to the
mug, the design changes. The mugs are microwave safe.
They should not be washed in the dishwasher however.
It affects the magic ink, fading it, and eventually
affecting the gold rim.

See you at Amiga 2K, April 1 & 2, in St. Louis, MO. The
largest Amiga show in the Americas. Check out the show
site at http://www.amiga-stl.com/show.html

Good luck, and thanks.

Bob Scharp
Amigan-St. Louis

bscharp@icon-stl.net
-------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Scharp,              WOW! Amiga 2K is going to be HUGE!
bscharp@icon-stl.net     Almost 1,200 people attended Amiga 99.
Amigan-St. Louis
P.O. Box 672             You've just got to check it out at:
Bridgeton, MO 63044          http://www.amiga-stl.com
U.S.A.                   Amiga 2K, the next Gateway Computer
                         Show - April 1 & 2, 2000.

• XAD-System version4
  Dirk Stoecker writes us by e-mail:
  Version 4 of the archive extractor "xadmaster.library" is ready. This system allows to extract archives of different formats (LhA, LZX, RAR, Zip, ...). Additionally, disk archives (DMS, Zoom) can also be extracted, even enabling to extract files from such archives without needing a disk (or ram drive). The original archiver programs are no longer needed, but are replaced by internal subroutines.
  
  Right now, only the included shell tools fully support the system, but a Reaction GUI is in the works, modules for DirOpus and other programs are already existing or currently under development.
  
  The system can be downloaded from Aminet at util/arc/xadmaster.lha, and some additional informations are available at the title link. The antivirus tool CheckX is a good suplement (Aminet util/arc/CheckX.lha), checking whole hard drives and CDs including the file and disk archives with the help of XAD.
• Douglas F. McLaughlin: StrICQ Version 0.1702
  Download: STRICQ.lha
• AmiDog: TrueReality Version 990629.2
  Download: TrueReality.lha
• Peter John Hutchison: New HP Deskjet 870C driver v40.11
  Drivers for HP 810C, 850C, 870C, 880C, 890C and compatible (not 820C)
  Download: HP_Deskjet870C.lha
• Frank Fenn: WBStartup++ version 1.0
  Download: wbstartup++.lha - 6 Kb
• Imagine Amiga Constant Upgrade Program (ACUP) version 5.17
  The update can be downloaded by registered ACUP users from the usual download area. New: 24bit datatype system supported for Brushmapping, OS3.5 compatible, new GUI and fuctionality of the zoom function, improved MPEG generator, new GUI and functionality of the Bevel- and the Frame-goto-function.
  More details at the title link.

• people interested contact the coordinated
• ideally, the coordinator should be able to offer a WWW site where results can be posted
• ideally generated with a sample list of JPEG and PNG files from Aminet (different sizes, from pix/misc), PNG perhaps from the Cloanto package (AFAIK PPaint comes with several of them).
  
  
• several configs should be used:
• A1200 with 020/030 and 040, 060
• A1200 with PPC
• A4000 with 030 and 040, 060
• A4000 with PPC
  
• the results should be updated regulary (with new releases)
  
• together with the results it should be listed:
  
• system configuration (CPU, RAM, graphic board)
• operating system (3.0, 3.1 - picDT V40, 43, 44)
• datatypes config

• Danny Hamon wrote us by e-mail:
  I got myself the tool "MCControl". With this tool, the Amiga can read the memory card of the Playstation, and can seperately save settings. So old settings are not lost when overwritten with new ones.
  
  The tool supports DexDrive, and you don't have to be great in fixing things to build a memory card reader for your own. A manual for the build-it-yourself kit is included in the archive. Download: mccontrol.lha.
• Oliver Roberts:
  WarpPNG.datatype version 44.3 - download WarpPNGdt.lha
  WarpJPEG.datatype version 44.7 - download WarpJPEGdt.lha
• Douglas F. McLaughlin: StrICQ version 0.1698
  Download: STRICQ.lha
• Haage & Partner has new drivers for the graphics tablet Wacom-Graphire. H&P writes: Finally, Amiga fans can enjoy the new graphics tablet, too. The drivers support the pressure sensitive pen as well as the included cordless mouse including its scroll wheel.
  More details.
• The number of preorders for the Amiga version of "Simon The Sorcerer 2" from Epic Marketing is currently 346. Just to remember, 500 preorders are needed to realise "Simon The Sorcerer 2" for Amiga. Preorders can be placed here.
• Christian Sharnbeck wrote us by e-mail that since beginning of this year, the latest version of the (to him) best known shareware program for maintaining your household money, UltraAccount v5.0, can be downloaded from Richard Smedley. You can also register online there.
  
  All possible transactions, and later corrections, are easily done. Maintaining seperate accounts is possible. Totals are always available for all accounts. Several languages. With a little trick, UA5.0 now also works with the Amiga emulator UAE for PC: Ask the author or Chr.Scharnbeck@t-online.de.
  Download: ultraacc.lha
• Dundar Unsal tells us in ANF that at Amigart, the Amster Web Page is the ultimate source for music online. New released is Amster version 0.4.
  Download: amster.lha.

• VMC will not produce any more hardware
  Since beginning of the new Year 2000 we decided not to produce or to develop hardware any more. The company VMC will focus on software developement and license the software products to third party companies.
• HyperCOM 1 not produced any more, rights sold
  The - nearly legendary - HyperCOM 1 interface for the Amiga 1200 will not be sold any more by VMC. All rights for further production as well as an adapted software license have been sold to "Individual Computers", who will continue to offer this product with an excellent service under the name "Silversurfer".
• HyperCOM Plus product line sold completely
  On January, 20th, the products of the HyperCOM plus product line have been sold. The complete stock and a license for further production has been transferred to "Individual Computers". However, VMC will continue the software care and ensure proper function in the future. We kindly ask you to direct any orders to Individual Computers or a distributor that carries their products.
• New ISDN-Blaster-3 and VMCISDN on the way?
  We're currently continuing our work on the ISDN-software. The harddisk-crash last year has destroyed large parts of the sources that have still not been restored. We're currently checking the necessity of a new generation of ISDN cards that will blast everything you know from ISDN-adapters or modems.
  
  Please tell us what you think about a new ISDN product that perfectly fits the need of your Amiga, as we need your feedback to decide whether this can be profitable or not.
• The most important software-news
  
  HyperCOM 1 and 3+ clockport-cards
  All HyperCOM drivers have been adapted to the new clock-ports that have been introduced by various vendors lately.
  
  1.) ACT's Amiga 1200 Zorro-IV Bus board
  This Zorro expansion for the A1200 offers you four independant clock-ports. Each of them can be used with any HyperCOM card now.
  
  2.) Individual Computers' X-Surf network card
  The X-Surf network card offers two independant clock-ports and a special 26-pin expansion port for HyperCOM 3+ modules. All ports of this card are supported in the new software, even if there is more than one network card present in the system.
  
  3.) Individual Computers' Amiga 600 adapter
  This special clockport adapter gives you the possibility to use A1200 expansions on the "pocket size" Amiga veteran. The connector is fully supported for all HyperCOM cards with clock-port interface. However, it will be a bigger problem to find space for anything else than a Silversurfer.
  
  4.) Iomega parallel ZIP-100 drive
  The long-ago announced drivers for IOMega's parallel port ZIP-100 drive has entered the last stage of the intense beta tests and shows unexpectedly high transfer rates with the HyperCOM parallel ports. In our tests, Diskspeed has measured up to 450KBytes per second repeatedly.
  We're calling all HyperCOM customers who own a ZIP-100 or the later ZIP-100Plus/250 to contact us for a public betatest during the next few days.
  
  5.) ScanQuix parallel scanner support for HyperCOM
  For the Scanquix software, a compatible API has been implemented into the HyperCOM drivers. However, it's not known when the first version of Scanquix will be published that makes use of this API. With every single customer who will contact the Scanquix author Andreas Günther and tell him that he's willing to pay for such a software, Andreas' motivation will be increased a lot.

Return-Path:  majordomo-owner@owlnet.net
From:         Gary Peake gpeake@texas.net
To:           "amiganewsfeed"@phoebe.hosting4u.net
Subject:      [ANF] Tao's Tumbler(TM) Cryptographic Toolkit
                    Operates 100 Times Faster Than Rivals
Date:         Fri, 21 Jan 2000 01:04:12 -0600
Organization: http://www.owlnet.net
Reply-To:     amiganewsfeed@owlnet.net

Boston, MA, January 20th, 2000

NTRU Cryptosystems, Inc. has announced the availability of the
Tumbler(TM) software toolkit implementing NTRU, the world's fastest
secure public key cryptography system. The Tumbler(TM) toolkit was
developed by Tao Group. Tumbler(TM) delivers encryption, decryption,
authentication and digital signature features at speeds over 100 times
faster than alternative systems, including those from RSA (Nasdaq:RSAS)
and Certicom (Toronto:CIC), at equivalent security levels.

"The need for public key security is moving from traditional Information
Technology (IT) applications to mass market consumer electronics
devices, such as wireless telephones, portable music players and digital
televisions." said Scott Crenshaw, NTRU Vice President of Business
Development. "These applications have vastly different requirements than
IT applications. Solutions for consumer devices must be fast,
inexpensive to implement in hardware, and consume minimal power. All of
the existing technologies, including Elliptic Curve Cryptosystems (ECC),
are just too large and slow. NTRU delivers the ideal solution for the
emerging consumer electronics market."

Key benefits of Tumbler(TM) over the competition include:

  Fast performance, even on low speed processors
  Small memory footprint
  Low cost to implement in hardware (fewer gates required)
  Increased server performance (supports more users with fewer servers)
  Reduced battery consumption

Francis Charig, Chairman & Chief Executive of Tao Group said "Tumbler
incorporates unique technologies from both NTRU and Tao. Our development
team has worked with NTRU to develop successfully a toolkit which can
resolve many of the security issues faced by digital appliances on
mobile, home and professional networks."

The technology in the Tumbler(TM) toolkit is ideally suited for
applications where high performance, high security and low power
consumption are required, such as wireless data communications, Internet
music and video distribution, micro payments, e-commerce and embedded
devices.

Developed by a team of world renowned mathematicians and cryptographers,
NTRU provides the fastest and most efficient public key cryptography
solution - at all security levels. Unlike other technologies, NTRU
resists parallel processing attacks. Likewise, its disposable key
technology allows frequent public key changes. Those properties
dramatically reduce the risk of power analysis, timing attacks, and the
danger of security breaches due to misplaced, lost, or intercepted keys.
Perhaps most important of all, NTRU offers high levels of security
without the performance sacrifices inherent in systems such as RSA and
ECC. The NTRU technology has been extensively studied by both the
academic and commercial cryptographic community. Complete technical
details, including a tutorial, are available on NTRU's web site at
www.ntru.com/tech.learning.htm.

NTRU's unprecedented performance advantages open up new options for
security. Its super fast key generation allows the encryption of every
transaction with a different public key. Disposable key use enables
completely new paradigms in encryption - for example, encrypting every
second of a music clip with a different key. That means, on a
three-minute clip, the time and cost of breaking the encryption increase
by a factor of 180. Disposable keys also allow every wireless data
transaction to be encrypted with a different independent key. Unlike
other systems that claim to generate multiple encryption keys to protect
media, NTRU disposable keys are completely independent of one another,
dramatically enhancing security. Disposable keys will become
increasingly necessary as insecure channels carry valuable data.

At the heart of NTRU is a collection of mathematical algorithms based on
manipulating lists of very small integers. This allows NTRU to achieve
high speeds with the use of minimal computing power. NTRU is the first
practical and secure public key cryptosystem not based on factorization
or discrete logarithm problems, which require the use of extremely large
integers or complex structures. The computations performed in NTRU
involve simpler processes that can be performed very quickly even on
inexpensive 8-bit processors at security levels equivalent to other
public key cryptosystems.

Notes to Editors

About Tao

Tao Group is an intellectual property generator and software company
specializing in technologies for home and mobile networks. Incorporated
in 1992, the Company provides leading edge products for the emerging
markets of intelligent consumer devices. The company's philosophy is
based on providing powerful frameworks for use right across the range of
networked appliances from smart phones to digital television into which
Tao's clients can build in their own branding and incorporate their own
added value. Tao's clients include blue chip technology corporations in
the United States, Japan and Europe. Motorola and Sony are investors in
Tao Group. Tao is headquartered in Reading, United Kingdom, with
representation in Japan and the US, and its staff includes more than
fifty world-class software engineers. Tao is a Deloitte & Touche Fast 50
Winner and has won a series of innovation awards for its operating
system and Java(TM) based engine.

About NTRU Cryptosystems

NTRU Cryptosystems, Inc. makes the world's fastest secure public key
cryptography solutions operating over 100 times faster than competitive
systems at equivalent security levels. NTRU is the fastest secure public
key cryptography solution for wireless data communications, digital
music and video distribution, e-commerce and embedded applications.
Strategic investors include Sony Corporation. For more information, see
www.ntru.com or call NTRU at 888.346.NTRU or 617.948.9138.

NTRU, F@stWTLS, the NTRU logo and the F@stWTLS logo are trademarks of
NTRU Cryptosystems, Inc. Portions of NTRU's system are the subject of
pending patent applications in the US and internationally. Tumbler(TM)
is a trademark of the Tao Group, Ltd.

Contact:

Scott Crenshaw
NTRU Cryptosystems, Inc.
Tel: (617) 948-9138
Fax: (708) 575-3426
Email: screnshaw@ntru.com
Web: http://www.ntru.com/

Graham Nice
Tao
Tel: +44 (0)118 901 2999
Fax: +44 (0)118 901 2963
Email: Nice@tao-group.com
Web: http://www.tao-group.com/

-----------------------------------------------------------
Gary Peake
http://www.owlnet.net
Team AMIGA

• Update for Digital Almanac II available
  For all registered users (shareware and CD-ROM) of the reknown astronomy program, a free update (version 1.8.2) is available for download. This update removes some bugs in the previous 040 version, and offers some useful expansions.
  Download: DAlmanac_Exe.lha
  
  The author announces: "This will be the last version of Digital Almanac II for 68k CPUs. Perhaps there will be some bugfixes, but no new developments. In exchange for this, the development of a PPC version (DA III PPC) with new abilities is pushed ahead."
• Darkage Software announces two new products
  For one, there is Powerball, a simple puzzle game where the player has to remove colored bricks one by one. The game is scheduled for release in March 2000, with 80 levels in eight worlds and a level editor.
  
  The second product is a CD named Amiga Classix 2. The CD-ROM will contain many classic Amiga games, all of which can be started directly from CD. Included are games like Diamond Caves, Bomb Mania, Lost on Parrot Island, Hoi AGA REmix and many others more. The CD-ROM is scheduled for release February 2000, distributed by Epic Marketing.

• In the Support Area of PerSuaSiVe SoftWorX there are new versions of the ak-datatypes (version 44.76) and a new version of the akMPEG4-player (version 4.06).
• VWP: JavaRunner 1.0 for PPC-Linux and Windows®
  The JavaRunner is a programm acessing an already present JRE® (Java Runtime Environment®) and enables starting Java® programs without complicated parameter calls. The CLASSPATH variable is checked and corrected as needed, to avoid complications and error-caused aborts. All in all, this small tool makes starting Java® applications much easier.
  
  The JavaRunner is FREEWARE and will soon be also available for 680x0 Linux.
• Epic Marketing reports that the jump and run game "Tales From Heaven" is in CD production, and will be shipped to those who placed pre-orders by the end of next week if everything goes right.
• The MPEG player Frogger version 1.5 has been released. In the PPC versions there is now also support for VideoCDs. Download: frogger_ppc_15.lha
• On the Patch & HD-Installerpage of Jean-Francois Fabre, you can find an update for his Rampage Loader. Download: rampagehd.lzx - readme
• Ragonsoft is slowly giving away so far unreleased games for download. Currently the game "Handelsspiel" can be downloaded for free.
  Download: handel1.lha
• Javosoft told us by e-mail that new drivers for FastATA/PowerFlyer and Allegro as well as 4xEIDE with Allegro are available on their download page.

• Aminet Uploads
• Jan Andersen from Virus Help Denmark told us by e-mail that an update for VirusExecutor of Jan Erik Olausson is available. It is version 1.83c with 115,156 bytes. Download: virusexecutor.lha - 115 Kb
• Patrick Beerhorst told us in the ANF that Eternity offers an archive with 220 GlowIcons especially for start menus (e.g. DirOpus) for download. Download: synotec_glowicons.lha - 230 Kb
• AmigAIM v0.9301 - beta, an Amiga client for the AOL InstantMessenger by Richard H. Poser. Download: AmigAIM_BETA.lha
• At amiEmulators you can find a new AmiMSX version 3.0 Beta (a preview). Download: AmiMSX_v3.lha
• Schatztruhe will have three new CDs available shortly. Aside from the classics SteuerProfi 99 (a German tax program) and Aminet 35, there will be a large GlowIcon Collection available, which will be especially interesting for OS 3.5 users. The CD-ROM contains over 3500 professionally made icons for all kinds of programs (apps, games, ...), drawers, DefIcons etc. Additionally, many DockIcons and some toolbars for several applications will be included.
• Ulrich Hambuch told us in the ANF that WBInfo 2.9c was released, and the development of WBInfo v3 is going full steam ahead.
• Detlef Wojtaszkiewicz told us in the ANF that Richard Fhager released version 2.0 of his freeware video poker game.
  Download: dawnvideopoker200.lha - 334 Kb

• Alive Mediasoft announces "Frontier First Encounters" and "Elite 3 First Encounters" for Amiga.
• Marko Seppänen told us by e-mail that he was unable to fix the dead link to the offer page due to technical problems of the provider. Here is the correct link: offer.
  
  The Image Engineer PlugIn "Visual Border" now has an option (in the registered version) to create / save the border effect with single or all pictures in a directory. Orders can be placed here.
• Virus Help Denmark announces the new VirusExecutor version 1.83 of author Jan Erik Olausen being available. Download: virusexecutor.lha - 118,140 bytes
• Epic Marketing released two new game compilation CDs. The CD "Adventures Lair" is a CD with ten complete graphics adventures. The CD requires an Amiga with hard drive and 2 MByte RAM. Among the games are "Mad House", "Legends of Lothian", "Federation", "Blood Fest", "Seven Realms" and others.
  
  Ten complete games can also be found on the compilation CD "Mutantology", including the commercial Mutation games "Castle Kingdoms" (action adventure), "Tommy Gun" (shoot-em-up) and "Tin Toy Adventure" (jump&run).
• Stefan Werner told us in the ANF that Be offers BeOS R5 for free download. Download: BeOS download page.
• dEViL told us in the ANF that SecondSpin is now available in version 1.97beta. Download: SecondSpin_Install.lha
• AmiDog released DarcNES (multi-console-emulator) version 9a0115a. Download: dn9a0115a.lha.
• Hans-Werner Schober offers a new beta version 4419.03 of FastIPrefs, adjusted to OS 3.5. Download: FastIPrefs4419_03b.lha - 118 Kb
• You can find new screenshots of "The Last Seal" at Ancor as well as new informations on the game; e.g. a new sound program is being used, which sounds great, and new sounds have also been sampled already. Additionally, new rooms have been created, and the drawing of a new character has been begun.

Reply-To:      "John Porter" johnp@cadlink.co.uk
From:          "John Porter" johnp@cadlink.co.uk
To:            team@amiga-news.de
Subject:       News
Date: Mon,     17 Jan 2000 17:05:13 -0000
Organization:  CADlink UK

Hi Everyone,

Just to let you know we have got a live chat with Tao Group and
hopefully fleecy to discuss the Amiga and what we feel should be done.

Tao dont have that much a roll in the development but they do have
some say and are very intrested to hear the views of the Amiga public
to help them take the correct road.

Francis Charig, Chairman and Chief Exec of Tao Group has confirmed
this with me and seems like a really down to earth guy and very sincere
in what he wants to do with the Amiga, he said he will ask Fleecy to
attend as well.

So got some ideas? questions? or just want to sit and watch? then
come to #AmigaGames on IRC Dalnet.  I will be confirming the live chat
with Francis a hour before we go ahead to make sure things are ok, if we
have to postpone it, there will be a new date given in the topic.

If you have a JAVA client you can come directly to

http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Way/9376/irc/chat.html

If you are on a Amiga you will need to download Amirc from Aminet and
log onto a dalnet server.

amiirc.lha

The best server to use is irc.dal.net on port: 7000 group: 01

If you are on a PC you can get Mirc from http://www.mirc.com

The Live Chat will be on 19/01/00 at 16.00 GMT

The Chat will be moderated you need to msg a active op to be able to
ask a question No more than 2 questions per go

Usuall IRC rules apply, swearing, name calling, flooding will end in
a ban.

Hope to see you all there

Best Regards

John Porter
Amiga Oasis Online
http://bounce.to/amigaoasis
#AmigaGames IRC Dalnet

• AHXRipper v4.41
  Christian Rosentreter told us by e-mail:
  Kåre Johansen recently released version 4.21 of his popular AHXRipper (formerly THXRipper). v4.21, v4.41, I really don't know - probably you do... (mb)
  Moreover, other tools of him (several ABBS v2 tools, LazyFiles 1.01, CheckDrive 1.01, ...) are available for download from his homepage.
• Tumult releases the source code of the MUI class Xenbar. The archive can be very useful if you want to create alternative #?.image files. It is the original source code by Stefan Stuntz. Download: Xenbar.LHA
• At Duffs Homepage you can find a new version of his HTMLview version 12.6. Download: MCC_HTMLview_Update.LZX - 64 Kb
• For registered users of Photogenics there is a new update to version 4.4 beta 75. This update contains new modi like RubEmboss and BumpMap as well as an improved Emboss modus. Download: Update75.lha - 950 Kb

• Incremental site buildup. The parsing is done by a seperate process, so the MUI program can still react to user input while a HTML document is parsed.
• Progressive drawing of graphics. Currently GIF, GIFAnim, JPEG, and PNG are supported by modules.
• Text can be marked and copied to Clipboard.
• Full text search.
• Comprehensive HTML support. Tables with background graphics, frames, forms etc.
• Very fast.
• and more...

• Text outside of ... is not displayed.
• Entities (e.g. &) without trailing ; are not recognized.
• The Floyd-Steinberg algorithm for dithering pictures tends to handle pictures differently towards the borders. This can lead to patterned backgrounds looking like there are lines between patterns.
• The datatype wrapper for decoding pictures seems to work only with the P96 picture.datatype.

• 1982 (classic games)
• Babylon 5
• Esotherik
• Fantasy
• FOM (Faces of Mars)
• Games
• History
• Jokes
• Mathematics
• Misc
• Science
• Science Fiction
• Space
• Star Trek
• Star Wars

• They have to be adapted, so they really look like started from a game machine - so no advertising!
• If it requires AGA, it has to run on CyberGfx, too!
• They should be running on AGA, so no graphic errors!

* Forwarded from "Team Amiga" Mailinglist
* Originally from: fleecy moss (fleecy@earthlink.net)
* Original date: Fri, 14 Jan 2000 11:19:45 -0500


In my trawling around the community hangouts,
I have come across several misconceptions, rumours,
and a lot of confusion. Whilst I can't hope to answer
everything, here are some things I want to set straight.


0. Amiga will build a digital content universe. Digital
   content means anything composed of 0 and1 -
   applications, video, audio, games, emails, whatever.
   We will focus on 2 markets, the pathfinder market,
   for digital adventurers, power users, gamers,
   content creators, DTPers, artists, video  ppl
   and those who refuse to define a computer as
   a digital appliance. Our second market will
   cocentrate on the Domestic Digital Habitat (DDH).

1. If you are a personal computer person, there will
   be a personal computer second wave Amiga.

2. We will support classic development in so much
   as we want to help users and developers transition
   to a new machine. That will be the total extent of our
   support for the classic machine. If this involves further
   AmigaOS releases, then so be it.

3. We are targetting x86 and PPC for the first consumer
   release of Pathfinder products (if you are a personal
   computer person, this means you).

4. We will do everything in our power (that doesnt bankrupt
   us or interfere with our primary goals) to ensure classic
   Amiga software runs on the new machine in some form or
   another.. The new Amiga product family (formerly called
   AQUA) will run natively and hosted. This is to create a large
   market fast  for Amiga developers to profit from. For the first
   pathfinder release it will run hosted to see this market grow
   fast. We see one of our core duties as serving the developers.

6. We are talking to the Phoenix Consortium about common
   interests.

7. We have been contacted by QNX but currently have no plans
   to work with them.

8. We will develop Amiga products for another market, the
   Domestic Digital Habitat (DDH) market. This markets will
   be kept separate but products will work together if the installer
   so desires it.

9. There will be a new website and it will be public shortly. It has
   been tested on all browsers, Amiga and non Amiga, and given
   the compatibility problems between the implementations of open
   standards, our best effort has been made. The site   will grow
   quickly and more information will be added. We want it to become a
   village where all Amigans can come to voice their opinions, chat,
   and travel off  to different parts of the Amiga universe.

a. A developer support manager has been selected and they are
   working  on implementing   the developer support program. This will
   be in  place before the developer boxes are released.

b. The developer boxes are specced out, we have contacted several
   whitebox manufacturers and we are building the distribution.

c. Amiga will not provide dates until we have a product. We will share
   timelines, but will not attach dates to them. Enough damage has
   already been done.

d. We have had acceptances from 75% of our development team and
   their names and roles will be announced once we get back from
   training (before the end of the month).

This mail can be redistributed without modification within the community.
As further questions and issues come up, we will attempt to answer them.

• At the Surround Page you can find Back Orifice in the new version 1.21.10. Download AddOns: MuiBOv.1.0.LHA and BoAmiga1.21.10.LHA.
• Paul Nolan's Photogenics 4.4 Beta is released for registered users. Aside from improved loader and saver modules, the new version offers an updated JPEG module and basic support for Adobe Photoshop(R). New effects, e.g. FireBlur, and seven new drawing modules make the update complete. Download: Update74.lha.
• Frank Wille offers a Quake version for AmigaOS/68k on his website.
• Christian "SuRgEoN" Michael reports about his Surgeon's Quake1 Goodies at the Czech Amiga News. This is a website offering links and help for Quake.
• ANN reports about a new Dreamcast VMU emulator. Available is a developer tool, the emulator and Tetris as shoot-em-up. The emulator runs on Amiga and needs AmigaOS 2.x or better.
• Trogladite Software plans an update to AmigaGuide in cooperation with OmegaResearch UK. New will be picture support, different font sizes and more.
  
  Moreover, Trogladite Software took over development of "The Legends of Triten". It is a high-quality role playing game by MantaSoft. The game will be distributed either commercially, or as shareware with option for online registering.
• The HiSOFT Systems website has been reworked. The pages for iBrowse2 are now available again, where you can register iBrowse2 online.
• Epic Marketing released the game Tales From Heaven from Darkage Software. The incredible 3D jump&run engine offers four different worlds with four levels each, great audio tracks and stereo sound effects. Seven programmers have worked on the game for two years. An older demo (April 99) is available for download: tfhdemo.lha - 890 Kb

• MUIbase, the database program, is now available in version 1.3. MUIbase is shareware, please don't forget to register yourself. Download: MUIbase-1.3.lha
• Frank Wille is offering the new version 0.7c of his ppc.library emulation for WarpOS for download: ppclibemu.lzx
• New Aminet uploads
• Registered users can download the Alpha2 version of ArtecScan 2.0 from Stefan Robl. Download: ArtecScan2alpha2.lha
• A new beta version 4.4 of Photogenics has been send out to the betatesters. Registered uses can get the new version from the website soon. The first public beta for Linux will also be available soon.
• Andreas Kleinert offers the new version 4.05 of the MPEG-player akMPEG4 (68k+PPC). Download: akMPEG4.lha - 137 Kb
• A new LAME beta version 3.60 of the MP3 encoder is available at the Audio Page. Download: LAMEbeta.lzx - 410 Kb

• Ron Goertz has updated his ARexx scripts for FinalWriter and PageStream. Included in the archive are FWCalendar version 3.78 and FWCAddEvent version 3.74. Additional required software like e.g. BGUI and other libraries are available in the download area. Download: FWCalendar.lha
• TotalVision: SoftCinema, QT/AVI Movie Player (PPC) version 0.8a - Download: SoftCinema
• PerSuaSiVe SoftWorX: akMPEG4 v4.04 - Download: akMPEG4.lha
• At Cyberdyne Systems, there is a new version of the HSMathLibs (v44.41 beta 1) for MC68060 available.
• Lambda: Aside from the latest status report, there are also new screenshots.
• Epic Marketing has recieved 309 of the 500 preorders needed for "Simon The Sorcerer II" for Amiga, and have gotten that much closer to their goal. You can order the adventure game "Simon The Sorcerer II", which will run on all AGA and graphic card systems with 030 and 8 MByte FastRAM, by e-mail to order@epic-marketing.de, by phone at +49-(0)7071/400492, by fax at +49-(0)7071/400493 or by snail mail to epic marketing, Hirschauer Strasse 9, 72070 Tübingen.
• Tales of Tamar - trouble with the demo installation
  Eternity writes:
  We probably hit a bug in OS 3.5. If you tried to install the demo from the Amiga Future CD-ROM with OS 3.5 (by draging&dropping the drawer), the protection flags of certain files have been changed. Those files are partially no longer readable, writeable or visible. What helps?
  
  Copy the drawer files to the hard disk by hand. No matter how. Only the complete drawer must stay intact. DOpus or any other filemanager can help you with it, you can of course also use the shell command copy.
  
  Another possibility is to copy all files, and subsequently set the protection flags of the whole directory to RWED. (DOpus)
  
  For the shell fans, try protect #? rwed all quiet. (mb)
• Read at the Czech Amiga News:
  Protracker Y2K updates for versions 3.15, 3.61, 3.62 and 4b2.
  
  DarcNES/Amiga update version 9a0109a (000110), download: dn9a0109a.lha
• Ragonsoft informs us that so far unreleased Amiga programs, including source codes, are available from their download area.
• Note editor wanted
  Martin Endres is looking for a C/C++ programmer wanting to code a CamX Project. Contact: endres@work.de. He will be trying to develop the Camouflage successor CamX (Linux) for AmigaOS 3.1/3.5 (68k+PPC) as well.
• Diavolo Backup
  Miky Wenngatz writes:
  Diavolo Backup will be updated in first quarter 2000. We are in final testing stage, and will hopefully be able to ship in February. Diavolo Backup will only be available in the Pro version. Price 71 Euro. Hard drives >4GB will be supported as well as WB 3.5.
  
  Interested people should register at Diavolo Department if you haven't already (website not yet available, but we work on it). We will contact you. The update will be 10-15 Euro for Pro versions and 25 Euro for the former Standard version. The update will only be distributed by e-mail until further notice.

======================================================================
   _    __      _     <>_   __      _    ||
  /\\    |\    /||    ||   /  `    /\\   ||  A M I G A   U P D A T E
 /__\\   | \  / ||    ||  || ___  /__\\  ||     -News and Rumors-
/    \\_ |  \/  ||_  _||_  \__// /    \\_||   (An Occasional e-mail
           WELCOME TO TOMORROW           ||        News Source)
======================================================================
        AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga, Inc.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
000108

   T A O ,   B A B Y !   T H E   P A R T N E R   A N N O U N C E D

       A M I G A   I N C .   T O   B E   A T   A M I G A   2 K

           N E W S R O G   D E V E L O P M E N T   E N D S

Editor's Thoughts and Introduction:

 Below we have the second big announcement in recent days by the
reborn Amiga Inc. This one concerns the "content platform foundation
partner" for future development. Not sure yet what all is covered by
that mouth numbing phrase but I am sure it will be interesting and, I
hope, encouraging to watch this relationship.
 There seems to be much more a feeling of relief in the shrunken Amiga
Community at this ownership change than there was when Gateway took
over, and that's as it should be. If we don't make it this time, at
least we finally have some Amigans with vision giving it a try. If
only that had happened back in 1994 ...

 We don't have an actual story on it, but if you read the items below
carefully you'll see that Amino is now Amiga. The change took place on
January 6. They'll be at the Amiga 2000 computer show this spring in
St. Louis, USA, and I can hardly wait. I believe this will be the
first chance for the newest Amiga Inc. to address a large body of the
community. If you can get there, it should be well worth your time.
 If I have my Amiga history right, this is the third Amiga Inc. to be
set up. The original development company (or were they not an Inc.?),
Gateway's, and now the former Amino. Correct?
 Brad Webb,
 Editor
----------------------------------------------------------------------
E-mail to the E-ditor:

5 Jan 2000

brad,

 just a quick note to say "keep up the good work" ! i enjoy receiving
this e-publication. also, let me add that i prefer this "e-mail style
" as opposed to the old "download style "!!!! makes it easier for me
to read.

best,
dave
~~~~~~
Dave,
 Thanks very much for the note and the vote of confidence. Not sure
who's old download style you mean as we've always been e-mail based,
but I think I know what you're getting at. It's always been one of our
goals to get the news out to people, rather than wait for someone to
come to a website. We think the Amiga community needs both, and our
method can help get the message to people who would never see the
websites.
 Brad

======
1 Jan 2000

On 31-Dec-99, Brad Webb wrote:

> The transaction, effective immediately, includes the transfer of
> all Internet domain names related to Amiga which Gateway had held.
> Gateway retains ownership of all patents acquired when it bought
> Amiga in 1997.

 In other words, they have the right to develop something and call it
an Amiga, but not to make or sell any of the old hardware, possibly
the OS either. Then again, that might not to be a bad thing. We all
know how far behind the current hardware and OS are.

 When Tom Schmidt announced that Amiga wasn't going to be a computer
platform anymore, I started looking at the alternatives. I figured
there were three; Linux, Mac and (GULP!) Windows.
 - Linux is a Unix variant at heart. Switching to it meant night
school courses just to learn to use it. (I still haven't entirely
ruled that out.)
 - My GF uses a Mac and she's happy with it. I looked at the new iMacs
and they're nice machines, reminiscent in some ways of my good ol'
A1200, and the price wasn't too bad, considering what it was. Then I
took a gander at the software and nearly had a coronary! $800 for a
paint program???
 - Then there's Windows. I tried to look it up on the 'net. At first
all I found were jokes pages. I surfed over a few of them. It was
educational; nobody likes Windows! At last I found MS's homepage. The
first thing I saw there was ol' Visa Bill Gate's editorial about
"freedom to innovate," (whinging over the Anti-Trust Court obviously.)
By this time I was wondering what had possessed me to even consider
doing this to myself!

 I hope to heck Amino makes a go of Amiga. There are no good
alternatives out there.

        Allan
~~~~~~
Allan,
 I certainly agree with the sentiment in your last paragraph. It's
very early to have a feel for how Amino - now officially Amiga Inc. -
will do, but they've got the community in mind and that's a real plus.
 You do have one misconception in your note. Amiga Inc. has a license
from Gateway to the old patents, so there's really nothing stopping
them from doing just about anything they want to, including building
"classic" type machines if they wish.
 With the new Amiga in place, I think there's at least a good
possibility we won't need an alternative.
 Brad
----------------------------------------------------------------------

   T A O ,   B A B Y !   T H E   P A R T N E R   A N N O U N C E D

 Las Vegas, January 8, 2000 - Amiga Incorporated, a privately held
company based in Maple Valley, WA, has entered into a strategic
relationship with the Tao Group as the new content platform foundation
partner for the new Amiga. Terms of the transaction were not
disclosed. Bill McEwen, Amiga President/CEO, said that the company
selected Tao as the foundation partner for the new Amiga after
reviewing numerous other potential partners. "After extensive research
trawling the markets we found that Tao had the greatest similarities
and strengths with our vision, and the capabilities to get the job
done". McEwen said. "Amiga with Tao together will bring a new level of
capabilities, portability and scalability never available before."
"Tao has its roots in the Amiga so this is particularly satisfying for
us" said Francis Charig, Chairman and CEO of Tao Group. "What makes
this relationship so exciting to Tao is the relationship we can enjoy
with Amiga and the Amiga Community. The world has changed radically in
the last few years and there is a vacuum in terms of content and
software environments that meets the needs of the mass market. The
skill sets of the Amiga community combined with the power and
flexibility of Tao's software infrastructure means that the New Amiga
can create the most compelling content for the emerging digital
services and content markets."


ABOUT AMIGA

 Amiga Incorporated is dedicated to the development, design, and
implementation of components, services, and models that support the
digital experience of tomorrow. Amiga lead the world into the
multi-media experience in the early 80's, and will lead it into the
Digital content universe of the future.

ABOUT TAO

 Tao Group is an intellectual property generator and software company
specializing in technologies for home and mobile networks.
Incorporated in 1992, the Company provides leading edge products for
the emerging markets of intelligent consumer devices. The company's
philosophy is based on providing powerful frameworks for use right
across the range of networked appliances from smart phones to digital
television into which Tao's clients can build in their own branding
and incorporate their own added value. Tao's clients include blue chip
technology corporations in the United States, Japan and Europe.
Motorola and Sony are investors in Tao Group. Tao is headquartered in
Reading, United Kingdom, with representation in Japan and the US, and
its staff includes more than fifty world-class software engineers. Tao
is a Deloitte & Touche Fast 50 Winner and has won a series of
innovation
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       A M I G A   I N C .   T O   B E   A T   A M I G A   2 K

January 6, 2000

 Amino Development Corporation, renamed Amiga Inc. on Jan. 6, will
exhibit at the Amiga 2K show.

 In a conversation today with Bill McEwen, President and CEO of Amino,
now Amiga Inc.,stated that they will definitely exhibit at the Gateway
Computer Show - Amiga 2K, April 1 & 2, 2000.

 Things are happening with Amiga 2K, just as we promised. Stay tuned
for more information on the largest and best Amiga show in the
Americas... Amiga 2K.

 Amiga 2K will be held on Saturday April 1st - Sunday April 2, 2000,
in St. Louis Missouri, U.S.A. at the Henry VIII Hotel.

Bob Scharp
Amigan-St. Louis
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          N E W S R O G   D E V E L O P M E N T   E N D S

04-Jan-2000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 ShadowWorks Software regrets to announce the end of the NewsRog
project for the Amiga. NewsRog is an NNTP News client running on Amiga
personal computers.

 Unfortunately, due to a combination of factors which include the lack
of a market for Amiga software, obsolescent hardware, and a recent
increase in piracy and fraudulent credit card orders, it is no longer
financially possible to continue developing NewsRog. The last version
stands at 1.8b, and the update is available to all registered users
via the web page below:

     http://www.frii.com/~srk/ShadowWorks/Preview/NR.html

 ShadowWorks Software is proud to have pioneered a large number of
news client features that have yet to be duplicated in any other
software that we are aware of. We regret that it was not possible to
continue development of the software, since there was a great deal
more planned for the future.

 ShadowWorks Software wishes to thank all of our loyal customers who
have supported our attempt to bring the Amiga a world class NNTP news
client.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Amiga Update on the net:
 All back issues available at:
    http://www.globaldialog.com/~amigaupdate/index.html

Stop by and check out our archive!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2000 by Brad Webb.    Freely distributable, if not modified.
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• TWF: There is a new poll at the News area, and the pages about "E2260" and "Maim & Mangle" have been updated. Nathan Young now works on the user interface for M&M.
• There is a project status for Tales of Tamar at Eternity, where project head Martin Wolf makes some comments on the T.o.T. demo release on the "Amiga Future Cover CD" issue 22.
  
  Wolf is obviously disappointed that AF thankfully accepted the demo for the CD, but there is no report about the game inside of the magazine at all. And he is outright upset that the soundtracks have been cut short without permission.
• Printer Driver News: The drivers 600C and 400C, and all Olivetti drivers have been updated. Moreover, there are tips for WP (wordprocessor printing).
• Ulrich Hambuch tells us that the latest OS3.1 (Scalos) version of WBInfo (current version v2.9b) is immediately available as freeware/giftware from their homepage and Aminet. Right now V3 of WBInfo for AmigaOS 3.5 is in the works, which will be released as Shareware.
• Stuart Walker of Digital Images speaks to the users in an open letter. Wipeout 2097 sells well, and he sais thanks for this. The project Space Station 3000 is larger than expected, but Walker hopes to state a definite release date soon. Moreover, Walker says that DI is planning to port more PC games to the Amiga, and Wipeout 2097 to the Apple Mac.
  
  Since Stuart Walker is unavailable from January 10th to March 31st, he will not be able to answer e-mails in this time. At the link above, you will find alternative addresses for the seperate areas.
• Oliver Roberts: WarpJPEG.datatype version 44.5 - download: WarpJPEGdt.lha - 39 Kb
  WarpPNG.datatype 44.2 - download: WarpPNGdt.lha - 44 Kb
• Read at Czech Amiga News:
  Jim Drew posted to the Microcode Solutions mailinglist that they are working on the PowerPC version of Fusion, but due to several reasons it will not be finished before end of January / early February.
  
  Macromedia announced that the source code for the Flash player and the Flash file format is offered for free licensing. Read the announcement at BeNews.
  
  Trogladite Software has opened a discussion forum especially for the subject Amino.