AMIGA-aktuell-Special +++ AMIGA-aktuell-Special +++ AMIGA-aktuell-Special

Phase 5 mit Aenderungen, Preissenkungen und A1200-G3/G4-Boards (29.03.99)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Die Ereignisse ueberschlagen sich: Nachdem vor wenigen Tagen auch die Firma
Metabox G3-Boards angekuendigt hat, zieht nun Phase 5 mit einer Reihe von
Aenderungen nach. So soll es nun auch G3/G4-Karten fuer den A1200 geben.
Desweiteren wurden die Preise der A3000/4000-Boards gesenkt, bei
gleichzeitiger Integration neuer technischer Features.
Hier die englischsprachige Ankuendigung, die deutsche wird, wenn sie
rechtzeitig erscheint, in AMIGA aktuell 4/99 zu finden sein:

»Note for german readers / Hinweis fuer deutsche Leser: Die deutsche
Version dieser erweiterten Ankuendigung wird am 31.03.99 ins Web gesetzt.
Wir bitten um Ihr Verstaendnis, dass wir derzeit einen kurzen Vorlauf fuer
englische Ankuendigungen haben.

phase 5 digital products is excited to announce that the next step in
ground-breaking technological progress will take place soon. Since we
first announced the Cyberstorm G3/G4 project just 10 days ago, the
overwhelming response by the Amiga Community has not only convinced us to
extend the original Cyberstorm G3/G4 project to an extended Amiga G3/G4
product line. Driven by the excitement of so many Amiga users, we have
spent many hours of additional consideration meanwhile, discussing the
requests and demands by the user community, and going into technical
details and cost optimization. Today we can present some exciting news,
which also make some of the statements of the original announcement and
the update obsolete already. However, if you had not informed yourself
about this development before, please read these original announcements
which contain information about conditions and time frames for this new
product generation.

Following the history of world's most established processor upgrade
technology for Amiga computers, and implementing the experience of the
innovator who made the PowerPC technology for the Amiga a reality, we at
phase 5 digital products have also decided to make this new technology
available to a much larger user base, and doing what we always did in the
past years with our stunning products: Offer more value for less money!
And that's what we will be doing again - so go ahead and read about the
new additional features at the new lower prices!

New models: By introducing a second product, the Blizzard G3/G4, we will
also provide the stunning G3/G4 technology and performance to the users of
A1200 Tower systems. Two models - one with G3 and one with G4 processors -
can be ordered now. We are also now taking orders for the 300MHz G4
version of the Cyberstorm G3/G4.

New features: All G3/G4 boards from phase 5 digital products come with SCSI
on board - UltraSCSI on the A1200 versions, UltraWide SCSI on the
A3000/A4000 version. Our proven SCSI technology, which has been providing
unmatched performance since seven years, will provide full backwards
compatibility with existing SCSI devices. But even more than that: With
the integration of 400Mbit/s FireWire ports, all our G3/G4 boards open the
door to this future industry standard, including the world of digital video
devices

New prices: By proceeding with the related projections and calculations,
and going into the details, we have been able to determine new and
improved pricings which will make these stunning products even more
attractive. Plus, we have changed the pricing to EURO (for Europe) and US$
(for outside Europe).

New Order & Prepayment conditions: In order to proceed quickly with the
finalization and production of this new product line, we still require the
originally announced quantity of back orders with a prepayment deposit. All
customers who support our development will receive a major discount, as
announced before (please see below for the new prices and discounts for
the different models). But phase 5 digital products is also ready to take
orders now without prepayment, for the suggested retail prices listed for
the different products. These orders will not be shipped by phase 5
digital products directly, but forwarded to local dealers and
distributors.

So far the overview of the major changes in the project. Now here comes the
list of the extended and updated new G3/G4 product line for the AMIGA by
phase 5 digital products. Right now, users can choose out of the following
four models:

BLIZZARD G3/300 for A1200 Tower systems

   o 300 MHz PowerPC750 processor with 1MB fast Backside-Cache

   o Ultra SCSI on board for backwards compatibility with a large number of
     existing SCSI devices, providing a performance of up to 20MB/s

   o Three 400MBit FireWire ports (IEEE-1394), allowing the connection of
     up to 63 devices, and opening the world of digital video to the AMIGA

   o up to 1 GB SDRAM

   o PCI-Bridge-Connector: This interface, a fully PCI 2.1 compliant
     implementation, allows the connection of PCI devices or PCI
     backplanes, thus allowing the expansion of the Amiga with all kinds
     of industry standard hardware products

   o suggested retail price of EURO 669.00 (Europe) or US$ 729.00 (outside
     Europe)

   o Customers who are ready to pay a prepayment deposit of EURO 125 / US$
     140 will take advantage of the discounted prepaid price of EURO
     589.00 or US$ 639.00 including worldwide free postal delivery - and,
     of course, will be among the first to receive their Cyberstorm G4
     board!

BLIZZARD G4/300 for A1200 Tower systems

   o 300 MHz PowerPC7400 processor (G4 with Altivec) with 1MB fast
     Backside-Cache

   o The breathtaking multimedia performance of the 128-Bit Altivec vector
     processing unit will open new dimensions to all kind of applications
     which are optimized on the G4 chip

   o Ultra SCSI on board for backwards compatibility with a large number of
     existing SCSI devices, providing a performance of up to 20MB/s

   o Three 400MBit FireWire ports (IEEE-1394), allowing the connection of
     up to 63 devices, and opening the world of digital video to the AMIGA

   o up to 1 GB SDRAM

   o PCI-Bridge-Connector: This interface, a fully PCI 2.1 compliant
     implementation, allows the connection of PCI devices or PCI
     backplanes, thus allowing the expansion of the Amiga with all kinds
     of industry standard hardware products

   o suggested retail price of EURO 749.00 (Europe) or US$ 829.00 (outside
     Europe)

   o Customers who are ready to pay a prepayment deposit of EURO 125 / US$
     140 will take advantage of the discounted prepaid price of EURO
     659.00 or US$ 729.00 including worldwide free postal delivery - and,
     of course, will be among the first to receive their Cyberstorm G4
     board!

CYBERSTORM G3/400 for A3000/A4000 systems

   o 400 MHz PowerPC750 processor with 1MB fast Backside-Cache

   o UW-SCSI on board, providing a performance of up to 40MB/s and
     backwards compatibility with a large number of existing SCSI devices

   o Three 400MBit FireWire ports (IEEE-1394), allowing the connection of
     up to 63 devices, and opening the world of digital video to the AMIGA

   o up to 1 GB SDRAM

   o PCI-Bridge-Connector: This interface, a fully PCI 2.1 compliant
     implementation, allows the connection of PCI devices or PCI
     backplanes, thus allowing the expansion of the Amiga with all kinds
     of industry standard hardware products

   o suggested retail price of EURO 949.00 (Europe) or US$ 1049.00 (outside
     Europe)

   o Customers who are ready to pay a prepayment deposit of EURO 125 / US$
     140 will take advantage of the discounted prepaid price of EURO
     829.00 or US$ 919.00 including worldwide free postal delivery - and,
     of course, will be among the first to receive their Cyberstorm G3
     board!

CYBERSTORM G4/300 for A3000/A4000 systems

   o 300 MHz PowerPC7400 processor (G4 with Altivec) with 1MB fast
     Backside-Cache

   o The breathtaking multimedia performance of the 128-Bit Altivec vector
     processing unit will open new dimensions to all kind of applications
     which are optimized on the G4 chip

   o UW-SCSI on board, providing a performance of up to 40MB/s and
     backwards compatibility with a large number of existing SCSI devices

   o Three 400MBit FireWire ports (IEEE-1394), allowing the connection of
     up to 63 devices, and opening the world of digital video to the AMIGA

   o up to 1 GB SDRAM

   o PCI-Bridge-Connector: This interface, a fully PCI 2.1 compliant
     implementation, allows the connection of PCI devices or PCI
     backplanes, thus allowing the expansion of the Amiga with all kinds
     of industry standard hardware products

   o suggested retail price of EURO 899.00 (Europe) or US$ 989.00 (outside
     Europe)

   o Customers who are ready to pay a prepayment deposit of EURO 125 / US$
     140 will take advantage of the discounted prepaid price of EURO
     779.00 or US$ 859.00 and worldwide free postal delivery - and, of
     course, will be among the first to receive their Cyberstorm G4 board!

All prices do not include VAT / MwSt. or any other local taxes or duties
which may apply. Specifications and prices are subject to change.

A note about Software: For the add-on features such as the SCSI interfaces
or the FireWire ports, phase 5 digital products will provide the necessary
software tools and drivers, and also cooperate with other developers.
Additionally, we are in negotiations about licensing useful software to
ship with our G3/G4 boards, and will take care that support of the
upcoming AmigaOS developments is realized.

Another note on the prepayment & discount: Remember, the prepayment which
enables you to take advantage of the discounted price, will go on a
special notary account as announced earlier. The amounts collected there
will not become available to us before we actually ship the products; they
are a deposit which support our efforts to bring out the new products for
the Amiga which the users have been asking for, thus representing a
partnership between the Amiga community and us in realizing this stunning
new technology for the Amiga.

If this new list of stunning product offerings includes the G3/G4 model
which you want for your Amiga 1200 Tower/3000 (T)/4000(T), then do not
hesitate but go ahead and support us in supporting the future of the Amiga
by placing

Your CYBERSTORM G3/G4 or BLIZZARD G3/G4 preorder NOW!

IMPORTANT: If you have already placed an order during the last 10 days,
please DO NOT place a new order! We will email or mail you in the next
days, to verify if your order may be changed to a different model.«

(Quelle: Phase 5 digital products)

--

E-Mail-Abos von AMIGA aktuell koennen unter Angabe der gewuenschten
Version (1. AMIGAGuide oder HTML; 2. mit oder ohne Grafiken) kostenlos auf
den WWW-Sites http://www.mediaspace.net/amigaaktuell und
http://www.vmc.de/aakt bzw. per E-Mail (aakt@gmx.de) eingerichtet werden.

© 1999 Carsten Schroeder - Der Inhalt dieser Mail darf nur vollstaendig
und ohne Aenderungen weiterverbreitet werden.

AMIGA-aktuell-Special +++ AMIGA-aktuell-Special +++ AMIGA-aktuell-Special

======================================================================
   _    __      _     <>_   __      _    ||
  /\\    |\    /||    ||   /  `    /\\   ||  A M I G A   U P D A T E 
 /__\\   | \  / ||    ||  || ___  /__\\  ||     -News and Rumors-
/    \\_ |  \/  ||_  _||_  \__// /    \\_||   (An Occasional e-mail
         KEEP THE MOMENTUM GOING         ||       Newsmagazine)
======================================================================
        AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga, Inc.      
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990328

         A M I G A   R C 5   T E A M   N E E D S   H E L P 

       C O R R E L   R U M O R   S P O T T E D   O N   N E T 

         P U R E   P P C   F R O M   P H A S E   5   . . .

               . . .A N D   F R O M   M E T @ B O X 

              U G N   T A P S   H E N R Y   C H U N G 

               P A L M B A C K U P   R E L E A S E D 

              N E W S   F R O M   D V S   D I R E C T 

           B E T T E R W E B   F R O M   P A N T H E O N 

                 T W O   N E W   F R O M   A T E O 

         C L I C K B O O M   A U C T I O N   F O R   A L L 

                  A M I G A   R A D I O   N E W S 

            N E W I C O N S   4 . 5   A V A I L A B L E

           A N O T H E R   M O Z I L L A   P R O J E C T 

                 T H O R   2 . 6   R E L E A S E D

       W I L D F I R E   7   F R O M   N O V A   D E S I G N 

 
Editor's Thoughts and Introduction:
 This must be the PPC issue. Just as we were sending the last issue
off, we learned of a very interesting PPC board from Phase 5 but
weren't able to get a good story for that issue. We do have a story in
this one. Then, as we were preparing this issue, we learned that
another similar board had also been announced. This one is from
met@box, formerly known as Pios. We've information on both boards
below. We sure hope there's room in the market for both.
 News is always a bit slow after a major show such as the Amiga 99
show which just ended, but despite that we have many interesting items
for you to read. Just about all of it positive; the sort of news we
most enjoy sending your way.
 Brad Webb,
 Editor
----------------------------------------------------------------------
E-mail to the E-ditor:

20 Mar '99

Hello Brad,

In regards to the guy that asked about a printer
driver for a HP 690C. If that is a DeskJet 690C
TurboPrint which is the finest print package I've
seen has a driver for it.

regards,

Lee
~~~~~~
Lee,
 Several people wrote in to point that out. Thanks for being one of
them, and further thanks to all the AU readers who did so. Amigans
have always responded well to requests for help and information, and
clearly the readers of AU are on the top of the list.
 Brad
======

19 Mar 1999 

Hello Brad,

 I just recieved your newsletter, I am suprised you didn't recieve
more feed back about the show. Maybe it's because the community is
still taking it all in. I attended the show with my parents and my
brother (who is a programmer and made an announcement of his own :-) )
and we felt a sense of excitement and hope for the future. I would
have to admit some of Jim Collas' speech could be called political by
the doubters (and was) but I felt a sincere atmosphere.
 
 It always impresses me how a regular Joe can talk so freely with any
of these powerful people at the head of Amiga Inc./Amiga
International. Every one seemed to be receptive to any input and
sincerely listened. I don't think I'd be too far out on a limb to say
you wouldn't walk up to the likes of Bill Gates and get a glance and a
nod let alone listening and asking pertinent questions.
 
 My brother and I spent some time with a group of revellers in one of
the suites after the pub closed on Saturday night. Among this group
were Jim Collas, Jeff Schindler, and Joe Torre. My feeling was that
Jim Collas is much like a 'regular' guy and he really has a grasp of
what we feel as an Amiga community. He asked us in his speech to give
him a chance and I don't think we will have to wait long, but we will
have to wait. What's a little longer.
 
 Some changes can already be noted. We were told Amiga.com and
Amiga.de would be integrated and that has already happened. An
agressive time-line has been announced for the release of OS3.5 and
AmigaSoft4.0OE. BTW: the distinction between OE and OS is an operating
environment encompasses an operating system and operator experience.
Sounds like the Amiga feeling to me.
 
 My brother was talking from a developers point of view w¡th some
users at the show. These users seemed to have a common point of view I
heard expressed: "why should I pay for an OS3.5 upgrade when I already
have Miami/Ibrowse/NewIcons/etc." My brother's point was that the
enhanced functionality from a programmers point of view made the
likelyhood of greater development for Amiga Classic very real and the
users would naturally migrate to 3.5, 3.6, 3.7...
 
 Overall I came away from St. Louis w¡th some great Amiga hardware, a
feeling of greater excitement than I have felt in a long time, and a
chance to meet and greet with the new President/CEO of Amiga Inc.

We're BACK!  Can you feel it???

Jody 
~~~~~~
Jody,
 Thanks for your take on the show, and especially a programmer's
perspective on the upgrades to the Classic OS. Web users will probably
have noted that the two Amiga web sites are now unified in content as
you point out.
 We just got the official count of attendees from the show: 1,142. Not
bad for an Amiga show, especially on a weekend when Mother Nature
aimed a snowstorm at St. Louis.
 Brad
======

21 Mar 1999 

Hi.

 I've been reading your March 19th edition. I was disturbed by part of
Dr. Havemose's open letter. He said --
 
 "I know that the MMC speculation has been fun, but there
unfortunately isn't much to speculate about. We just have not had to
make a decision yet, so we haven't !"
 
 How in the name of sweet reason does Amiga Inc expect QNX to write a
version of Neutron for the MMC if they don't know which chip it is?
Look, I appreciate that ol' "Visa Bill" Gates doesn't need to know
what Amiga Inc is up to, but their partners had better!
 
 Be afraid. Be very afraid.
 
 Allan
~~~~~~
Allan,
 Your letter makes a nice counterpoint to the mostly upbeat mail we've
had since Amiga 99 ended. Unfortunately, you raise a very good
question. Even more unfortunately, I don't have any kind of an answer
for it. I hope someone somewhere does, preferably at Amiga.
 Brad
======

20 Mar 1999 

Dear Brad, 
 Do you know of any reason as to why AMIGA SHOWS are not held in
N.Y.C.? Also since Gateway is the BIG DADDY why don't they advertise
the NEW AMIGA'S on T.V. Fact is, there are still many people that have
never even heard of the AMIGA.Leastwise not here on the East coast. If
a prson walks into an appliance or computer store(RADIO SHACK) and
asks for AMIGA software, they look at you like your"re an alien.


GOOD LUCK AND GOOD HEALTH-JIM
~~~~~~
Jim,
 I've been amazed myself there are no shows in New York or Chicago.
There used to be some good ones in both cities. Anyone out there want
to organize one, especially since the good folks in Ohio won't be
having theirs this year?
 As for advertising the new Amigas, that's probably premature at this
point. It's usually a bad idea to sell "futures" so until the next
models are ready to ship, ads will have to wait. However, when we get
to that point I hope Amiga Inc. will do a better job than the former
Amiga owners did. Wouldn't take much.
 Brad
======

20 Mar 1999 

Hi Brad,
 Thanks for the great newsletter and supporting the amiga. One reason
for this E-mail is the article I read in the March 10 issue of TV
Technology on page 4. the article talks about Echostar's set-top Dish
Network and names Gateway as a partner and custom-builder of these
machines. Is this part of Amiga future?

Ron 
~~~~~~
Ron,
 Hadn't heard of that but it's most interesting. I don't know if the
Amiga plays into this or not, but we'll be keeping our eyes open for
further information. Thanks for sending this along.
 Brad
======

25 Mar 1999 

Just found your Web Site and I'm very impressed.
Had put my Amiga2000 in the closet a few years
ago and just recently dusted it off. Now I'm even
on the WWW with A L L Amiga hardware/software.
But... that's another story.

I'm writing regarding Tony's e-mail to you on
12/18/98 regarding replacement of old battery in
Amiga.

I bought a new battery at the Amiga99 show in St.
Louis recently.

Maybe you could publish the steps (exactly for be-
ginners) on how to remove old battery and install
the new one. Looks like some soldering involved.
Called local computer store. They want $65 per hr
with 1/2 hr minimum.

Thanks.

gary
~~~~~~
Gary,
 You raise a good topic. However, don't have a set of instructions for
replacing batteries. Does anyone know of a goos site on the web or a
text docment that covers this?
 Brad
----------------------------------------------------------------------

        A M I G A   R C 5   T E A M   N E E D S    H E L P 

7 Mar 99 

Hello Amigans,

 The Amiga RC5 team could sure use your help. The rc5 contest is a
worldwide experiment in distributed computing. The goal is to crack a
heavily encrypted code using the spare crunching power from computers
being used in all walks of life. Its a pretty noble cause--after all
who knows when this technology might really come in handy to quickly
solve a real world crises--but more importantly, its a cut throat down
and dirty fight to prove which platform has the user loyalty and
computing power it takes to find the winning key.
 
 Out of 5,854 registered teams, the Amiga RC5 team is currently in a
dogfight for third place daily. However, ever since the rc5 stats page
exploded early this year, the team hasn't grown as quickly. The daily
stats are back up now, so we can check progress once again...
 
http://stats.distributed.net/rc5-64/tlist.php3?low=1&
limit=100&source=y

 Please consider downloading the rc5 client from the link below, and
adding Myzar to your WBStartup drawer. Its just that simple to join
the team. The Amiga's excellent priority driven preemptive
multitasking OS will allow you to crunch keys in the background
without denting your daily performance, no matter what processor your
Amiga uses. Everything you need to be up and crunching in a few
minutes is on the Amiga RC5 homepage, in the download and misc
sections.

http://distributed.amiga.org/

Thank you for considering joining the team,

-Steve.
-http://www.amigapro.com
-The website for the Amiga performance enthusiast. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------

       C O R R E L   R U M O R   S P O T T E D   O N   N E T 

23-Mar-99

 {Found the following fascinating item in the Amiga Newsgroups. For
now, best regarded as a rumor ... I think. Brad}

 Apparently Corel (the makers of CorelDRAW and WordPerfect among
others) have announced in Com-Digit Journal, that they will port their
Corel-Office package for the next generation Amiga. The magazine
comments: "If the Amiga was supplied with this software at a
competitive price, it could be a real threat to PCs."
----------------------------------------------------------------------

         P U R E   P P C   F R O M   P H A S E   5   . . .


 Oberursel, March 19, 1999: Once again phase 5 digital products is
happy to announce a groundbreaking new development, which will
represent an extract of phase 5's leading-edge technologies and the
many years of expertise in designing upgrade products for Amiga
computers. After a long time of evaluating the market, we have decided
to support the existing Amiga user base and the new developments at
Amiga Inc. with a next generation product, which will offer highest
performance, future compatibility and a bridge to industry standards.
This product will be a powerful PPC accelerator for A3000/A4000
systems (and other Amiga systems expanded with an A4000 compatible CPU
slot) and the upcoming Amiga OS 3.5, as well as future versions of the
Amiga OS.
 
 The new accelerator, the CYBERSTORM G3/G4 board, is a pure
PowerPC-based processor card. It will ship with a fast PowerPC750 or
PowerPC7400 (G4 with Altivec), which is installed in a ZIF socket.
This ZIF socket is fully compliant with the Interposer standard from
IBM and Motorola, which is also used in PowerMacs and other systems,
what will allow easy upgrading, if required by the user in the future.
In the base version with a 400MHz PowerPC750 processor and 1MB
backside Cache @ 200MHz, the CYBERSTORM G3/G4 will provide an
impressing peak performance of up to 19.2 SPECint95 and 13.1 SPECfp95
(source: IBM website 03/18/99). In real-world applications, this
allows incredible application performance, which is estimated to reach
15 -20 times the performance of a 50MHz 68060 processor (with native
PowerPC coded or PowerPC optimized applications). The CYBERSTORM G3/G4
will use standard SDRAM running at 100MHz, providing a peak memory
transfer rate of 582 MB/s, and has two DIMM sockets which will support
up to 1 GB main memory. An on-board PCI 2.1 interface will allow the
connection of all kind of industry standard devices and cards. The
on-board Flash ROM with 512kB size can be used to install software
necessary for system-startup and other functionalities. By default,
this Flash ROM will only contain a basic boot-strap functionality
(hardware write protected) which will allow to install any kind of
system software from disks; this functionality will be fully
documented and freely available to everybody.
 
 By it's design concept, the CYBERSTORM G3/G4 is the perfect solution
for running native PowerPC coded Operating Systems as well as emulated
68k OS segments. As a processor card which fits into the A4000
compatible fast slot, it allows to run 100% native PowerPC code, and
has full access to all system hardware functionalities and interrupts
which is not the case with add-ons that are not installed in the fast
slot, but e.g. in a Zorro slot. With it's ability to be the master
system CPU, the PowerPC on the CYBERSTORM G3/G4 does not need an
additional 68k processor which is the case in other designs. Beside
the technical advantages of this approach, it offers the user the
opportunity to e.g sell an existing 68060 processor card in the
second-hand market, thus lowering the cost of the upgrade to the
PowerPC G3/G4 generation.
 
 phase 5 digital products will NOT built or deliver any software or
hardware add-ons for the CYBERSTORM G3/G4. The CYBERSTORM G3/G4 will
be open to third party developers in a wide way:

 o Software support will be realized with the new developments from
Amiga Inc. and Haage&Partner, especially with the upcoming Amiga OS3.5
with PowerPC support, and upcoming 68k emulator products.
Additionally, the CYBERSTORM G3/G4 is perfectly suited for the
implementation of other Operating Systems such as Linux, which have
already been realized on earlier PowerUp boards.
 
 o For hardware add-ons, the implemented PCI 2.1 interface will allow
third-party vendors to design PCI bus backplanes, and write drivers
for any common PCI card on the market. The interface is implemented as
a single connector, to which other vendors can connects e.g. PCI cards
or PCI backplanes, or design a physical link to PCI slots on bus
expansion boards.
 
 However, due to the current market status, we can only justify the
realization of this project with a significant number of preorders. We
will therefore have to collect a total of 1,000 orders from customers
(end users, dealers, or distributors). For each of these orders, we
will also ask for a down-payment of DM 250, which will be collected on
a notary account and will only be made available to us at the time we
deliver the CYBERSTORM G3/G4 product to the customers. This gives
security to all customers who want to support this exiting new project
and get stunning G3/G4 performance for their Amiga, and will give
security to us when we make the necessary investments.
 
 What will be the cost of this product, and are there benefits for
preordering?
 
 The regular list price for the CYBERSTORM G3/G4, including
 
 o the CYBERSTORM G3/G4 mainboard with an Interposer ZIF socket for
G3/G4 processor modules, 2 SDRAM DIMM sockets for up to 1 GB memory,
512 kB Flash ROM for system software (system software not provided
with the board), a fully implemented PCI 2.1 interface with one
connector (for PCI backplanes provided by third party vendors)
 
 o one G3 CPU module, with a PowerPC750 processor with 400MHz and one
Megabyte Backside Cache with 200MHz clock rate
 
 will be DM 1,995 plus local taxes (in Germany: DM 2.299,- incl.
MwSt). This price is based on the current price projections for
components and parts for the 3rd quarter 1999, and will be updated
whenever major components such as the CPUs fall in price.
 
 A price for a CYBERSTORM G3/G4 model with the new XPC7400 (G4 with
Altivec) processor is not yet determined, and will depend on the
pricing of these new processors. As soon as we have these pricings, we
will determine a list price for this product.
 
 For those Amigans who are ready to support this major technological
step forward by placing one of the necessary preorders, we offer a
special benefit: Customers who are ready to order this board in
advance, at the conditions mentioned herein, will get this stunning
product for a special discounted preorder price of DM 1,750 plus local
taxes, including world-wide free delivery by economy postal service.
And even more: If the regular list price drops before the preordered
CYBERSTORM G3/G4 boards start to ship, the discounted preorder price
will be reduced by the same amount.

How will the whole project proceed, and be finalized?

 First of all, we will now be looking forward to the response of the
Amiga community to this project. The basic concepts of the CYBERSTORM
G3/G4, as well as major parts of the design (such as the SDRAM
controller and the PCI bridge) have been developed at phase 5 digital
products during the past year, as building blocks of other projects
that we are working on; in other words, most of the product is already
"in the drawer". From the day we can make the decision to start the
project finalization, we estimate roughly four months until the
product can be shipped to the customers. Therefore, the shipping date
will largely depend on the time which we need to collect the
preorders.

The project has four stages:

 1. Announcement and preorder phase.
 
 We now collect preorders from customers all over the world. Please
only place a preorder - which is not yet legally binding - if you are
really ready to buy the CYBERSTORM G3/G4, and if you are ready to
later pay the prepayment. If many users place preorders now, but then
cancel or refuse to prepay, this will hurt the project flow
significantly. If you are not definitely interested in this stunning
new technology, please don't place an order.
 
 2. Notification phase.
 
 Once we have received the necessary 1,000 preorders - the sooner, the
 better, of course - we will open the notary account, and send
 notifications to all customers which will include a proforma invoice
 and the terms of the contract, as well as information about the usage
 of the prepayments. At the same time, we will also release updated
 product information and updated pricing, if available. All customers
 will be asked to pay the prepayment with 3 weeks to the notary
account.
 
 Important: The prepaid amounts will not become available to phase 5
digital products before we actually ship the CYBERSTORM G3/G4 boards
to the customers who have ordered. If we fail to deliver the product
within a certain time from date of notification, the prepaid money
will be reimbursed. The prepaid money will not be reimbursed if the
customer cancels his order for any reason.
 
 3. Development phase

 Design finalization and verification, including rapid prototyping and
full in-system test will require appx. 3 months. During this time, we
will also work in close contact with other developers, and support
software development on the new boards.
 
 4. Release & Shipment
 
 Once the CYBERSTORM G3/G4 is released for production, we will go into
the assembly, and start to fullfill the preorders. The first boards
will ship appx. 4 weeks after the start of the production. We will
fullfill the preorders in the order we have received them. After the
preorders are fullfilled, we will decide if we continue to built
CYBERSTORM G3/G4 boards for the regular market, what will depend on
the market situation and the demand forecasts at this time.
 
 If you want to take part in this stunning new development for the
AMIGA, which finally will bring the latest G3/G4 technology to the
AMIGA and support the new developments by AMIGA Inc. and their
partners, then go ahead and PLACE YOUR CYBERSTORM G3/G4 PREORDER NOW!
----------------------------------------------------------------------

             . . .   A N D   F R O M   M E T @ B O X 


PRESS ANNOUNCEMENT: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Hildesheim/ Germany, March 26, 1999

JoeCard G 3 goes AMIGA !

 met@box AG (formerly known as PIOS Computer AG) is proud to announce
the newest member of it´s award-winning JoeCard family: the AmiJOE.
 
 The AmiJOE will be the first pure PowerPC solution for the existing
Amiga platform. AmiJOE will implement the powerful G3 PowerPC
architecture which will enable the Amiga to outperform today´s
personal computers.
 
 The met@box engineering team decided to make the AmiJOE available not
only to users of the high end Amiga Systems, but also to the many
people being committed to their A 1200. The basic specifications of
the AmiJOE products are:
 
 o PowerPC 750 (Lonestar) G3 Processor
 o 333 or 400 MHz
 o 1.024 Kbyte Backside Cache
 o 66 MHz Local Bus Speed (A 1200)
 o 100 MHz Local Bus Speed (A 2000/ A 3000/ A 4000)
 o Universal Serial Bus (USB)
 o Realtime Clock (RTC) (A 1200 only)
 o PCI compatible Connector for future expansion (A 2000/ A 3000/ A
4000 only) - Socket für SDRAM Modules - Flash ROM for easy Software
upgrade
 
 The AmiJOE for the A 1200 is clocked at 333 Mhz at a recommended
street price of 599 EUR, while the AmiJOE for the A 2000/ A 3000/ A
4000 is clocked at 400 Mhz with a recommended street price of 899 EUR.
Prices do not include VAT/MWSt.
 
 met@box AG is ready to take orders without any prepayments. First
product shipments are planned for the beginning of Q3 1999. Purchase
orders please send to sales@joecard.com

http://www.joecard.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------

             U G N   T A P S   H E N R Y   C H U N G 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
25th March 1999

 The User Group Network (UGN) is pleased to announce the selection of
Henry Chung as the Asia Coordinator for the UGN. Henry will help
represent user groups located from Pakistan to the Far East. Henry,
like the other Worldwide Coordintators, will collect information from
user groups in his area when needed, as well as forward on to them
information from the UGN, Amiga Inc., and developers.
 
 Henry is one of the many Coordinators who represent the UGN's
Worldwide committment to supporting Amiga User Groups everywhere. The
UGN Area Coordinators function as the Board of Directors. Their
decisions make sure that the UGN goals and plans are beneficial to
all. They will do their best to ensure that all Amiga User Groups are
supported. The UGN is not about one person, or one country. It's about
all of us!

 The User Group Network is an organization dedicated to the
advancement of the Amiga oriented User Groups worldwide. The UGN will
work cooperatively with all to establish a valuable resource to share
and dissemminate information to Amiga User Groups. See what the UGN
can offer your User Group at http://ugn.amiga.org.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

             P A L M B A C K U P   R E L E A S E D 

2 Mar '99

W.F.M.H. is happy to announce that PalmBackup has been released.

 If you own an Amiga and 3Com's Palm Pilot Personal, Palm Pilot
Professional, Palm III organizer, IBM's WorkPad or derivatives, this
software is for you!.

INTRODUCTION

 During the development of our PalmSuite for Amiga software, the
PalmLink library was released. As we needed to find out if that
library gives us any gain compared to our connection stack, we quickly
adapted some tools we got here, to use PalmLink library. The
PalmBackup is the result of that.

FUNCTIONALITY

PalmBackup features:

   o backup of user preselected organiser databases
   o restore
   o configurability of almost any option it offers.
   o multi user support
   o internal cache system (once you list your unit, PalmBackup will
   o keep the list of the remote files).
   o advanced manager for installing, removing, purging etc
   o fully system compatible
   o quick, fast and efficient code
   o fully localized
   o and more...

AVAILABILITY

W.F.M.H. home site:

http://amiga.com.pl/

Aminet mirrors: comm/misc/PalmBackup.lha
----------------------------------------------------------------------

             N E W S   F R O M   D V S   D I R E C T 

5 Mar '99

 DVS Direct to Handle Assembly and Distribution of RBM Digitaltechnik
Products in the US
 
 RBM Digitaltechnik of Eschwege Germany is the maker of several
innovative products for the Amiga Computer including the TowerHawk
expansion chassis. The TowerHawk expansion chassis is design to
convert the Amiga 1200 and Amiga 4000 desktop computers into a full
tower configuration. The TowerHawk 1200ex is the world's first Amiga
1200 expansion system that fully supports Newtek's Video Toaster Flyer
system. Other RBM products include IOBlix Multi - I/O - interfacecard:
4 serial ports and optional 10base/100base ethernet modules.
 
 DVS Direct will also be integrating Complete Amiga Based systems
using the TowerHawk and A1200 . This will ensure an abundant supply of
Amiga Host systems for the Video toaster Flyer as well as other Amiga
specific applications using The Amiga 1200 Motherboard and TowerHawk.
DVS Direct will be stocking TowerHawk components here in the US thus
eliminating lead time for shipping. DVS Direct is also manufacturing
an ISA adapter card to allow use of ISA power devices in the
TowerHawk. For more information the TowerHawk go to our website at
http://www.dvsdirect.com/

DVS Direct
69 Beaver Dr. Suite 110
DuBois PA 15801
PH 814 371 5640
FAX 814 371 2033
----------------------------------------------------------------------

            B E T T E R W E B   F R O M   P A N T H E O N 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - March 8, 1999

 Pantheon Systems LLC today announced its BetterWeb web publishing hub
service, which includes free home page publishing, great web
publishing hints and tips, and a unique set of commentaries and news
items for the web-savvy and web-beginner alike.
 
 Users with free web sites on BetterWeb are granted access to
BetterWeb's ultra-easy web-based site management tool, which makes
publishing and managing your web site a breeze. No clumsy FTP
programs, just view and manage your site completely within your web
browser!
 
 In addition, all BetterWeb users are automatically enrolled in the
BetterWeb search engine, and have access to a set of excellent tools,
including a hit counter and online discussion forums. Moreover,
BetterWeb's servers are connected to the fastest Internet backbones,
so you'll never have a delay calling up your free home page.
 
 Since the BetterWeb site management tool is completely CGI-driven, it
is compatible with all Amiga browsers, including A-Web II 3.2, IBrowse
1.2, and Voyager 2.9x. To get started publishing your own, free home
page, point your browser to: http://www.betterweb.net
----------------------------------------------------------------------

                 T W O   N E W   F R O M   A T E O 

12 Mar '99

Two product announcements from Atéo Concepts.

Pixel64 ZorroIII

 Atéo Concepts is designing a new version of the Pixel64 named Pixel64
ZIII.
 
 This new version of the Pixel64 will plug on a ZIII slot of the A3000
or A4000 (Sorry, no ZII support...)
 
 3D features for the Pixel64!!!
 
 Atéo Concepts is working on a 3D expansion for the Pixel64. This
expansion will be based on the Voodoo chip (version 2 or 3). The 3D
expansion will be available for all the Pixel64 version. The release
date is not yet available.
 
 Full information about these news on
http://www.ateo-concepts.com/amiga/eproj.html

----

AteoNet

 The cheaper Ethernet card for the Amiga are now available. Two models
exists, a simple Ethernet with RJ45 output and a full version with
RJ45, BNC and AUI output.
 
 More information and order on
http://www.ateo-concepts.com/amiga/eateocards.html

ATEO CONCEPTS
Le Plessis
44220 COUERON
FRANCE

Tel : +33 (0)2 40 85 30 85

Fax : +33 (0)2 40 38 33 21
E-mail : info@ateo-concepts.com
Web : http://www.ateo-concepts.com/
----------------------------------------------------------------------

         C L I C K B O O M   A U C T I O N   F O R   A L L 

 Toronto, March 20, 1999: clickBOOM announces a fully automatic
real-time online Auction place now open to all Amiga users.
 
 After a month of successful operation at The Portal and due to a high
demand, clickBOOM has taken the next step, making Amiga Auctions
available to everyone.
 
 This is where all the action is -- you can bid on or sell
Amiga-related items at the one and only place of its kind on Amiga.
Finally there is a place for Amiga users to be able to trade their
hardware in a simple and absolutely private manner.
 
 1. Amiga Auctions is the place where you will find the best Amiga
deals, guaranteed.
 
 2. Bidding is absolutely free.
 
 3. If you have an Amiga-related item to sell, Amiga Auctions is the
place - hold an auction and have other Amiga users bid on it. It's
fully automatic - create a new auction in less than 5 minutes, and
don't worry about it until you make a sale at the highest offered
price. Best of all, it's free if your item doesn't sell!
 
 4. Advanced options such as Automatic Bidder, three types of
Auctions, notification, etc.
 
 5. English and German, with more languages coming soon.
 
 To see all of the Auctions just visit
http://clickboom.com/auctions
 
 If you wish to bid on, or sell items, fill out a simple form to
register yourself, and you will automatically receive access within
seconds.
 
 Portal users should continue accessing Auctions through The Portal.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

                  A M I G A   R A D I O   N E W S 

March 20, 1999

 The User Group Network (UGN) is pleased to announce the arrival of
Amiga Radio News. Amiga Radio News the first Amiga news source to
broadcast live to the Internet using streaming audio! Amiga User
Groups can download and playback this weekly Amiga news update. Every
Friday, a new update will uploaded to Amiga Radio News. Amiga Radio
News is located at http://ugn.amiga.org/arn/.
 
 In order to listen to the Amiga Radio News you will need to download
an Amiga compatible streaming audio player that supports either ADPCM
or GSM 6.10. Fortunately two such players exist and are available off
Aminet. ADPCM_Package.lha is needed for the ADPCM file, and GIR06.lha
is needed for listening to the GSM encoded file. In the future Real
Audio, MP3, and 8SVX file formats may be added.
 
 The User Group Network is an organization dedicated to the
advancement of the Amiga computing platform and the fostering of Amiga
oriented User Groups worldwide. The UGN will work co-operatively with
the owners, licensees, user groups, and the users to establish and
expand a customer support base for licensed Amiga computer products.
The UGN will endeavor to provide a single, centralized resource for
the promotion and assistance of User Groups and users world-wide. The
UGN Web Page is located at "http://ugn.amiga.org".
----------------------------------------------------------------------

             N E W I C O N S   4 . 5   A V A I L A B L E

NewIcons 4.5 is now available for download. See below for the list of
feature
changes and fixes.

Now the bad news. If you haven't heard already, Eric Sauvageau, our
programmer, has ceased further development of NewIcons. While he still has
his A1200, he is now spending most of his time on his new PC.
Unfortunately,
this is the second time I've had to annnounce the loss of our main coder to
another platform (Nicola left the project after version 2). Eric has been
kind enough to do one last version to optimize things further and fix some
minor bugs.

Fortunately, after nearly seven years of updating, the NewIcons System is
highly optimized, and as stable as ever, and there are thousands of you out
there using it every day. As was the case with Nicola, the NewIcons System
has been a labor of love, rather than a commercial enterprise. Neither
Eric,
nor Nicola asked for one dime for all their hard efforts. I'm glad I've
been
a part of this project from the start, as it really exemplifies the spirit
of the Amiga community. Eric still hangs out as an IRC operator on the
Amiganet IRC network, and you can still catch him there often.

You may be worried that this is the end of NewIcons...NOT SO! I will
continue
to pump out more icon sets and other NewIcons related graphics, and I'm
sure
many others will also. AmigaOS 3.5 is still in development (it's true), and
I have a good feeling that the NewIcons concept of dynamically remapped,
palette independent icons will, in some form, be integrated into the 3.5
operating system. When that happens, you can be assured that the images
you're using today will still be usable, NewIcons patches or not.


Overview of version 4.5:

   o 4.5 is mostly meant to be an housekeeping version. It mostly consists
of
     fixes and minor improvements. It also denotes the departure from 2.04
     support. We'll keep the low-end version of the library so that
     applications can still use it to display/remap icons, but the patch
     itself will now require V39 (Kickstart 3.0).

   o Most of the patch code was rewritten, speeding them up and making them
     smaller (some patches are now fully in ASM rather than a mixture of E
     and ASM).
----------------------------------------------------------------------

             A N O T H E R   M O Z I L L A   P R O J E C T 


9 Mar '99

 MOZZAM is a project to port the Mozilla OpenSource browser to the
Amiga platform. It used to be called AMozilla, but has recently been
renamed to avoid confusion with another ongoing project with a
similiar goal (but different approach).
 
 MOZZAM utilizes the MXlib, my own X server library which utilizes MUI
to provide a native X client API to applications. The ultimate goal
behind MOZZAM is to be in sync with the Unix source tree of Mozilla
and, on the long run, to simply do
  ./configure
  make
  make install


 with any new Mozilla source release on a gcc equipped Amiga. MXLib
will be made public later on as an OpenSource resource to ease porting
of other well known applications from the Linux world to AmigaOS.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

                  T H O R   2 . 6   R E L E A S E D

28 Feb 99 

 Ultima Thule Software is happy to announce that THOR 2.6 (finally)
has been released.


                                - THOR -

                               Release 2.6

            Copyright (C) 1993-1999 Ultima Thule Software,
                         All Rights Reserved.

 THOR 2.6 is an advanced multi-format offline reader, supporting the
QWK, Fido, UUCP, SOUP, Bluewave, Omen, ABBS, MBBS and Hippo (BBBS)
message formats. It will also handle TCP-connections with NNTP, SMTP
and POP3, with extensive MIME support.

Changes from 2.5a to 2.6:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THOR:

 - New Save window added.
 
 - The main listview has complete support for proportional fonts now.
There's a slight speed penalty involved with using proportional fonts
due to some extra calculations required for the wrap code, but it
shouldn't be too bad.
 
 - Fixed so that GETCURRENTSYSTEM from an ARexx enter/leave script
will report the correct conference at all times.
 
 - SAVEMESSAGE from ARexx has several new arguments.
 
 - The conferences window now has a tree-view layout, with
configurable folder setup etc.
 
 - Trippled the minimum stack size due to reports of a possible
problem with the stack on advanced multipart messages.
 
 - You will now be allowed to Edit Data on a Forward Msg event and add
a text comment, or remove the previous text comment.
 
 - Previous search results will now be cleared in all conferences and
not just those that matches the current result.
 
 - The TAB key or the small gadget marked 'S' can now be used to
toggle selection of all enties in all requesters where multiple
entries can be selected from a list (eg. To Name/Address when sending
mail, joining groups, etc).
 
 - Added FilterThor to the external menu. FilterThor is a new MUI
based tool to configure sortmail triggers.
 
 - Added conferences field in the attachment listview in the
pack/purge window.

+ many bug fixes and improvements

 QUESTIONS?
 ~~~~~~~~~~
 There is a newsgroup for Thor with the name of alt.sys.amiga.thor. If
the group is not available at your newsserver, ask for it by sending a
mail to your system admin.
 
Mailing Lists:

 The old THOR mailing list has be resurrected. To subscribe to this
list, send a mail to majordomo@thule.no with "subscribe thor-ml <email
address>" in the body.

 There is a mailing list for developers of programs and ARexx scripts
related to THOR. To subscribe to this list, send a mail to
majordomo@thule.no with "subscribe thor-dev <email address>" in the
body. If you have no interest in making scripts or programs related to
THOR, you do not need to join this mailing list.

--
    Petter Nilsen

    EMail THOR Team: thor@thule.no
    WWW site:        http://www.thule.no/
    EMail:           pettern@thule.no
    IRC:             Mitchman
----------------------------------------------------------------------

        W I L D F I R E   7   F R O M   N O V A   D E S I G N 

17 Mar 1999 

Wildfire 7 - Animation Sequencing and 3D Effects

 Nova Design, Inc., producers of the award winning ImageFX package and
the highly received Aladdin 4D package, are proud to announce that
they have arranged to be the exclusive distributors of the Wildfire 3D
effects package for North America -- now in version 7!
 
 Wildfire is an exciting new animation sequencing, 3D effects,
transitions, and animation package by Andreas Maschke published in
Germany by Oberland Computer. It can be compared to SGI Flint or Flame
systems and it is capable of creating amazing 3D effects by mapping
video sequences into Wildfire's intuitive storyboard animation
sequencing system.
 
 Wildfire is perfect for the animation hobbyist, Toaster/Flyer
professional, Movieshop/Draco editor and all others who use their
Amigas for animation and video.
 
 Highlights of Wildfire
 
 Wildfire is a professional animation sequencer that allows you to
create and process animations in several formats, to generate
time-dependant 3D special-effects and design large projects containing
several animations and frame-synchronized sound-effects. Wildfire's
animation sequencing allows you to combine animations on a timeline
and output the results as a YAFA animation with synchronized sound.
 
 Wildfire is able to perform basic non-linear editing of animation
sequences and can import or export frame sequences, Amiga ANIMs,
YAFAs, MPEGs, Windows AVI, and Macintosh Quicktime formats!
 
 The 3D effects included in Wildfire include height-field deforms,
cubes that automatically unfold and fold again, Lightwave object
support, 3D magnet effects, 3D transitional morphing, unlimited
mathematical deformations, twists, sphere mapping, twirling, water
transitions, perspective transforms and more!
 
o Full CyberGraphX Support 
o Font Sensitive GUI
o Full PowerPC Support 
o Storyboard editor Interface 
o Convert using MPEG, AVI and Quicktime movie formats 
o Timecodes Editor 
o Envelope Controls for Effects 
o Filmstrip Interfaces 
o Real-time Feedback 
o Transition Maker
o Preview for almost any Operation 
o Animation with Sound 
o Post Processing Tools 
o Color correction Tools 
o 24-bit Animation Player with Sound

 Wildfire is an open development platform, like Nova Design, Inc.'s
own products, with a complete plug-in development system and a full
Arexx interface (with over 400 commands) is included.
 
Ordering Wildfire

 Wildfire works on your standard Amiga 68k models as well as the
PowerPC and it is only $199.95. You'll find it's available at your
favorite Amiga dealer or mail order firm.
 
 Wildfire comes on CDROM and requires an Amiga 68k series or PowerPC
system.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Amiga Update on the net:
 All back issues available at:
    http://www.globaldialog.com/AdventureCentral/AU/index.html
Stop by and check out our archive! 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 1999 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      
======================================================================

Date:    28 Mar 99 14:47:46 +0100
Subject: Offener Brief
To:      "Mag: Amiga News (Petra Struck)" <petra.struck@online-club.de>
From:    Andreas_Kleinert@t-online.de (Andreas R. Kleinert)

Hallo Petra,

 folgenden "offenen Brief" habe ich an phase5,
 Metabox und Escena geschickt.

 ***************************************************************

Hallo,

 nachdem man nach Einbau einer G3/G4-Karte den alten
 A3/4000 ohnehin nur noch als "Gehaeuse" weiterverwenden
 wuerde...

 Mir geht eine andere Idee durch den Kopf:

 Warum nicht eine G3/G4 PCI-Karte fuer x86-PCs entwerfen ?

 Gleiches versuchen doch auch Siamese mit ihrer 68060-Karte,
 allerdings faende ich es sinnvoller, einen Rechner einzusparen
 UND PowerPC-Support zu behalten.

 Bei einem offenen PCI-Design mit Flashrom koennte man
 dann diese Karte auch im neuen AmigaNG (von mir aus
 als 68k/PPC-Emulationsoption unter "AmigaSoft 5.0")
 weiterverwenden. Der Kompatibilitaetslevel wuerde in
 etwa dem Draco bzw. einem Amiga unter CyberGraphX
 entsprechen.

 Im Detail:

 Nachdem WinUAE/AROS und AmigaNG als Emulations-
 kombination in greifbare Naehe ruecken - warum
 nicht eine PPC-Karte als PCI-Addon fuer den
 neuen Amiga bereitstellen ? Diese koennte den
 68k emulieren UND Kompatibilitaet zu PPC-Anwendungen
 und Amiga OS 3.5 (3.6, 3.7 ?) sicherstellen und
 den neuen Amiga-Prozessor entlasten...

 Daneben waere es denkbar, WinUAE und die Karte
 zusammen in einem normalen x86-PC laufen zu
 lassen.

 Was halten Sie davon ?


 P.S.: Diese eMail ging zeitgleich an phase5, Metabox und Escena.

--
Andreas_Kleinert@t-online.de  or via @gmx.de | ARK@News.wwbnet.de
Or try good, old: FidoNet 2:2457/350.18 --- *SuperView* development
PerSuaSiVe SoftWorX - Software Engineering Amiga/Wintel and more
Visit http://wdo.de/ark/ for information, free downloads, registration