* 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.