• 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.