AmigaShopper38-Jun94.pdf

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Britain's best-selling magazine for hardcore Amiga enthusiasts

Y O U R D E F IN IT IV E A M I G A G U ID E

From the makers of

FORM AT

AMIGA

GET M OVIN G!

Make pro-quality

animations with our

7-page guide...

PLUS

LightRave, Real

3D and Aladdin 4D -

we rate the renderers

At this tritkal time

Shopper experts discuss

the M e of the Amiga

|A (W ,

A iv iin a

STRONG WORDS

Commodore boss

David P leasance gives

us a piece of his mind

} per

HOW TO...

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ISSUE 38 • JUNE 1994 • £2.50

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CONTENTS

ISSUE 3 8 • JUNE 1 9 9 4

NEW S

Big stuff from Commodore this month - the

announcement of a CD-ROM drive for the A1200,

the launch of the A4000 Tower - together with

disturbing news about their latest financial results

PLUS David Pleasance on the Amiga’s role in the

multimedia revolution.

* ANIMATION SPECIAL

BRILLIANCE 2

R Shamms Mortier brings you this exclusive look at

the latest version of the excellent paint package.

M O N TA G E 2 4

Does

Montage 24

produce the sort of high quality

text you’d be happy to use in your video

productions? Gary Whiteley investigates.

VISTA LITE

M ake m oving m agic w ith 3D renderer Aladdin 4D.

earn everything you need to know about

creating the sort of attractive moving images

that have made the Amiga famous the world over

with our mammoth guide:

• Full tutorial covering professional animation

techniques with

Deluxe Paint,

including colour

cycling, process animation, flying logos, tracing

paper animation

• Exclusive review of

B rilliance 2

- the paint and

animation package that aims to topple

DPaint

• Which 3D renderer is best for you? We put the

latest versions of

Aladdin 4D, Real 3D

and

LightW ave/LightRave

on trial

• We look at

Clarissa,

a package that promises to

speed up and smooth out your animations

Graeme Sandiford takes a spin through the virtual

worlds offered by this low-memory version of the

popular 3D landscape generator.

USER GRO U PS

SH O W BUSINESS

Get in touch with fellow Amigans. Our new

improved format gives information on every Amiga

user group we could track down in the whole world.

simplest and-potentially useful programming

techniques around - data sorting.

PUBLIC DO M AIN

At last! A computer show dedicated to the Amiga

AND from the makers of this very magazine. The

World Of Amiga is scheduled for this coming

November. Find out how you can help shape it.

A M IG A D O S

Find out all about pattern matching - or “filtering” -

one of the most important concepts for the

efficient use of the Amiga's operating system.

Graeme Sandiford’s surfaces with a hoard of home

business utilities after his monthly submergence in

the world of low-cost and no-cost software PLUS

Dave Winder logs on with

Terminus,

the latest

shareware comms package from the States.

W INDOW SHOPPER

Reviews of:

Denny Atkin’s Best Amiga Tips And

Secrets, Amiga A1200 Beginner's Pack,

Powermacros, Dinosaurs, Swerve AGA Backdrops,

Powerscan Professional

and

Junior Essentials.

BACK ISSUES

PRODUCT LOCATOR

If you’ve been unlucky enough to miss out on the

complete set of

Amiga Shoppers,

here’s your

chance to catch up. Each available issue is listed

along with information about contents and disks.

The definitive listing of the best in Amiga hardware,

software and public domain. Each product listed

has supplier information, price and rating.

LETTERS

BUYING ADVICE

COMPETTITION

You won’t belive what people are saying! Turn here

to join the hottest debate in Amiga-land.

DTP

Don’t make an Amiga purchase before reading this.

READER ADS

Pick up used hardware and software bargains, or

advertise yourself with our FREE service.

Put your desktop publishing skills to good use. Jeff

Walker explains how you can make the first

tentative steps into the commercial world armed

with your trusty Amiga and a DTP package.

Your chance to win one of ten copies of Digital

Creations’ superb

Brilliance 2

paint package.

C P R O G R A M M IN G

NEXT M O NTH

A M IG A ANSW ERS

Toby Simpson gives you the low-down on one of the

Find out what's in store for next month’s issue.

Got a problem? Then we’ve got the solution. Our

panel of experts eat Amiga problems for breakfast.

Nothing is too complex or too easy.

INTERVIEW

In our series of in-depth talks with the movers and

shakers in the Amiga industry, this month we listen

to Bob Fisher of Nova Design, who is responsible

for the image processing package

ImageFX.

VIDEO

At a recent meeting in the heart

of the west country

Amiga

Shopper’s

experts got together

to discuss the present state

and future of the Amiga, and to

outline how they think

Commodore should be handling

things. Discover what they had

to say in this no-holds-barred

discussion.

Discover what you need to get into video titling.

Gary Whiteley outlines the basic kit you need and

offers some valuable hints and tips.

K N O W W H AT I M E A N ? 6 4

Key industry figures pull no punches as they

discuss the important Amiga topics of the moment.

This time: Toby Simpson on the AAA chipset and

Mark Smiddy on the independent retailer.

SUBSCRIPTIONS

Guarantee your copies of

Amiga Shopper

and save

substantial amounts of money. Now you can get

fourteen issues for the price of twelve!

AM IGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 38 • JUNE 1994

NEWS

COMMODORE SHOW

CD-ROM DRIVE FOR

A 1200 AT HANOVER

C liff Ramshaw ponders over the

m onth’s Am iga events...

hey may not be fairing as well

as they might on the stock

market, but Commodore are

certainly doing plenty to further

the cause of the Amiga.

What with the surprise

announcement of the A1200 CD-

ROM drive, the A4000T’s launch,

the Amiga Centres of Excellence

and the Seal Of Approval scheme,

the Amiga scene hasn’t been

moving so quickly for ages.

Commodore UK are definitely

getting their act together.

Developers too are still firmly

behind the machine: the imminent

launch of

PageStream 3

from Soft-

Logik in particular looks likely to be

tremendous, taking the Amiga to

new heights of productivity. It must

be said - whatever happens to

Commodore, the Amiga itself will

keep on going for an awfully long

time yet.

Again, thanks for all your feed

back. Keep it coming - the more

we hear, the more we can improve.

Commodore surprised everyone at the recent

CeBIT show in Hanover, Germany with the unveiling

of their dedicated CD-ROM drive for the

A 1200. Don Maple brings you the details.

he release of a CD-32 compatible CD-ROM drive for

the A1200 has been seen for some tim e as a move

Commodore must make. Rumours have been rife

that it ju st wasn’t technically possible tha t Commodore

couldn’t afford to develop, or that the project had been

delayed. Yet Commodore came up trumps and scotched

them all, at the last minute flying in a prototype model

from the States.

It's the eighteenth time that Commodore have

exhibited at the prestigious CeBIT show, once again taking

the opportunity to introduce new products. This time,

though, they are operating under a new policing of only

showing products whose releases are imminent, in an

effort to squash rumour mongering. Commodore Germany

expect to have the A1200 CD-ROM drive in the shops by

May. Commodore UK, however, are aiming for a more

conservative September release date.

The German sale price is expected to be DM 500,

which translates to a UK price tag of £199. Often in the

past Commodore kit has been much cheaper than in the

UK, but thanks to new European Union regulations

liberalising trade, this is now unlikely since you can order

one from Germany just as easily as from within the UK.

The unit has been designed specifically to attach to

the Amiga 1200, of which 115,000 have been sold in

Germany alone. Called “the CD32 expansion for the

A1200,” it is actually the CD-ROM half of the CD32. It

possesses the same shape, but is colour-matched to the

A1200’s beige.

The technical specifications are identical to those of

the CD32. It has a multisession drive capable of double

speed access. It’s capable of reading all three CD types:

music, data and Kodak Photo-CD. It also contains the

CD32's special custom chip, Akiko. This is the chip that

converts pixels between planar (as used with the Amiga’s

bitplane system) and chunky (a method of storing screen

information which is much faster for games). Also on the

board is a SIMM memory socket, into which 4Mb of RAM

can be plugged.

The CD-ROM comes in a stand-alone box, and is

A1200 through the trapdoor expansion port, using a

proprietary interface designed by Commodore. It’s a 32-bit

wide interface which interfaces with the CPU without any

speed penalty. The cable attached to the interface exits

the A1200 behind the floppy drive and connects directly to

the CD-ROM.

Of course, the use of the trapdoor slot gives rise to

the question: what happens to A1200 turbo cards and

other expansions? The answer, unfortunately, is not quite

clear cut. The RAM can be expanded by adding a SIMM on

the board. If you need more, say Commodore, you should

be using an A4000. There doesn't seem to be any way of

using any of the other expansion cards. It’s feasible,

though, that a third party could come to the rescue with a

thru-port connector, but space in the already cramped

expansion slot may present problems.

The last hardware hurdle, the MPEG Full Motion Video

module, seems to be too high to overcome at this point.

There appears to be no way of connecting it to the A1200

since the expansion slot is already occupied. This means

that Video CDs on the A1200 may not be feasible at this

time, although with the miniaturisation of components a

constant factor, it might be possible to integrate the

MPEG module on future A1200 models.

At the show, the A1200 connected to the CD-ROM

drive was running an earlier version of AmigaDOS 3.1.

Although the new operating system is not yet finalised, it

does have the CDFileSystem which means that, in theory

Back to roots

Origins 2

is a family-tree database

from The Puzzle Factory, capable

of storing information on over six

million individuals.

It ha ndles m u ltip le m arriages,

s e t o f children, unm arried pa rents

and so on. and w ill g e nera te a

m u ltitu d e o f re p o rt types.

ARexx s u p p o rt is included,

along w ith th e ab ility to link into an

e d ito r to w rite textual n o te s, and

to displa y re la ted illu s tra tio n s .

CD-ROM heaven for A 1200 owners in the form o f

Commodore’s brand new drive, expected to be sub-£200.

at least, it can access both CDTV and CD32 drives.

The software compatibility of the drive seems to be

high. CD32 games do, by and large, run on the A1200

with the drive. The only exceptions are some games that

object to RAM expansions in the PCMCIA slot. If such a

card is removed, the games run fine. Probable causes for

this could be a system bus contention, a bus overload or -

since only a few games are affected - perhaps a simple

memory map conflict. This does not apply to all games,

which suggest a simple software fix will be forthcoming.

The news isn’t so good for A4000 owners. The only

option is a CD-ROM interface on a card. But this card

would have to have the Akiko chip on it, which would need

to sit on the chip bus. This is not possible with a Zorro

card, so it would need to be a CPU module. Unfortunately,

there would also need to be a video signal passed, which

means the card would need to plug into a Zorro video slot.

Suffice to say that it’s something of a dilemma which is

not easily solved.

Commodore’s advice is simply to get a CD32 as an

external device and connect it to the A4000 using one of

the newly available serial interfaces (see the story on page

3 for details of CD32’s new price).

Origins 2

c o s ts £ 7 5 from

H elios S oftw are ® 0 6 2 3 5 5 4 8 2 8 .

Primera source

We'd like to point out that the

Primera printer can also be

obtained from Bannerbridge pic

( s 0268 419101) for £763.76, or

£934 13 with the dye-sublimation

option included.

AM IGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 38 • JUNE 1994

NEWS

Financial troubles still

plague Commodore

Commodore International have

announced further losses for the

financial quarter ending 31st

December. The company reported a

$8.2 million loss on sales of $70.1

million. This compares with losses

of $77.2 million on sales of $237.7

million in the same quarter of the

previous year.

Commodore are currently trying

to negotiate a restructuring with their

creditors. They put the loss down to

financial constraints which hindered

their supply of products and

therefore reduced sales.

They claim poor sales for the

CD32 in Europe, despite its

accounting for 46% share of CD

software sales in the UK. The A1200

fared somewhat better - 95% of

home computers sold are A1200s.

Marked fluctuations in

Commodore’s share prices on the

stock market followed the

announcement. Share dealing was

actually suspended for one day, on

28th March, after the price had fallen

to $3. Dealing opened again on the

29th at a price of $1 per share. The

price dropped to 37.5 cents - the

lowest all year on 30th March. This

compares with the highest price

during the year of $5 a share.

At the time of going to press, the

price was climbing to (and will

hopefully continue beyond) $1.

At a recent press conference at

the European Computer Trade Show

in London, Commodore UK joint

managing director David Pleasance

emphasised to journalists the fact

that the losses were much lower

than those of the equivalent quarter

last year.

He announced the new initiatives

Commodore were taking - the launch

of the Amiga Centres Of Excellence

$US:

3 —

Amiga under

t h e

'sp o tlig h t

Spotlight 1994, a show for Amiga

and Atari ST enthusiasts, is to be

held at the Novotel Hotel,

Hammersmith, London, on the

28th and 29th May

Exhibitors include Power

C om puting, Golden Im age (UK),

M eridian S oftw are, Alfa Data

Benelux. 1 6 /3 2 . G a s te in e r: First

C om p uter C entre, Hi S oft and

Amiga C om puting

Ticke ts are £ 5 on th e do or or

£ 3 .5 0 in advance. Call w 08 1 3 4 5

6 5 7 3 to order.

and the Seal Of Approval for Amiga

peripherals (see story below), the

new, ultra-low price CD32 bundle

(see story on page 6) and the A1200

CD-ROM drive - and remained

optimistic for the future. Whatever

the fate of Commodore, he assured

his audience, the Amiga is a strong

enough platform to survive.

Rumours of an imminent buy-out

abounded at the show. The names

coming up most frequently were

Hewlett Packard, Philips, Sony and

Time Warner. Peasance refused to

be drawn.

The London Effects and Animation

Festival will make its debut this

November.

Aimed at people involved in

co m p u te r g e nera ted a n im a tio n and

spe cia l e ffe c ts th e show w ill

a—

c o n s is t o f tw o parts- an aw ards

cerem ony fo r th e b e st use o f

co m p u te r ge nera ted a n im a tio n and

e ffe c ts fro m around th e world,

ta k in g place a t th e Odeon. W est

End on 7th N ovem ber, and a

program m e o f ta lk s and

scre ening s at W em bley E xhibition

and C onference C entre fro m 8 th to

The changing fa te o f Commodore Intern ation al’s financial fortunes over M arch

and the beginning o f A pril. Share trading was suspended on 2 8 th March.

1 0 th N ovem ber Call ® 0 8 1 9 9 5

3 6 3 2 fo r m ore d e ta ils.

COMMODORE

HELPLINE

A U TO M A TE D

The efficiency of the Commodore

technical helpline, provided by

service contractors ICL, has been

improved by the addition of an

Interactive Voice Response

system.

The system was introduced in

December to help ICL cope with

the flood of calls over the

Christmas period. Over 13,288

calls - roughly one third of those

received had been handled by the

system by the end of January.

Calls range from dealers asking

how to correct a fault, to first-time

users asking how to plug their

machine in.

The system works by asking

the caller a chain of questions.

The responses direct the caller to

the relevant solution. Happily, the

opportunity is there at any point to

divert to a human operator.

This system should result in

ICL’s engineers being able to get

out to customers who need them

more quickly.

Flurry of announcements at

European Computer Trade Show

On 10th April at the recent European Computer Trade Show, there was

much to see in the Commodore UK suite.

On show was the prototype CD-ROM drive for the A1200, as previously

exhibited at the CeBIT show in Hanover (see story opposite). Just as

exciting, though, was the arrival of the Amiga 4000 Tower, acclaimed by

Commodore as their most advanced Amiga ever produced. It comes with the

AGA chipset, of course, 6Mb RAM, and is powered by a Motorola 68LC040

25MHz processor.

Built in is a SCSI-II interface, suitable for extremely fast hard drives and

the like. It will support up to seven SCSI devices, internally or externally.Five

expansion bays are included in the case. The A4000T costs £1,949.99,

excluding a hard drive (the philosophy being users can pick one to suit).

The Video Toaster professional-level effects unit was also on show,

being used in conjunction with a PAL Amiga. The device that made this

magic possible is the Prime Image Passport 4000 converter system - an

enhanced version of the Time Base Corrector reviewed in issue 33. With it,

Commodore hope to mirror their success in the States by “ propelling the

Amiga towards domination of the TV special effects market.’’

The second Amiga Centre of Excellence was announced, this one being

run by Premier Vision and based in central London. ACE centres are

dedicated to providing tailor-made multimedia packages for clients.

As mentioned last month, Commodore unveiled its Seal Of Approval

scheme, whereby manufacturers can send their products in to Commodore

for testing in the UK and US. Those that are found to be reliable and work

as claimed will be given a Seal Of Approval, which should give buyers “ a

guarantee of quality for the best peripherals and software.’’

Lastly, the A1200 Computer Combat/Innovations pack was launched.

The £349.99 bundle consists of an A1200,

Wordworth 2, Digita Print

Manager, Day By Day, Personal Paint 4

and three games.

Have all the information you need

at your finger tips with the aid of

the

Amiga On-Line Reference

M anual 2

from Area 52.

It is a c o lle ctio n o f

AmigaGuide

d o cu m e n ts th a t can be called up

from your m a chine to supply

an sw e rs to over 5 0 0 fre q u e n tly

asked q u e s tio n s , as w ell as

providing in-depth info on th e

W orkbench. AmigaDOS, ARexx and

th e Amiga product range A

glossa ry is also includ ed.

AORM

available fo r £ 1 7 9 9 fro m First

C om p uter C entre s 0 5 3 2 31 .944 4

Upgrade your One Stop Music

Shop soundcard and treble its

number of addressable MIDI

channels with the Triple Play Plus

hardware and software upgrade.

3 lu e Ribbon S oundw orks are

se llin g it fo r £ 1 6 9 .9 5 .

A lso fro m th e com pany com es

versio n 2 .5 o f th e ir seq uence r

Bars& Pipes Professional,

w ith

im proved n o ta tio n printing. It c o sts

£ 2 9 9 .9 5

Call M e ridian o 081

5 4 3 350Q fo r upgrade d e ta ils.

AMIGA SHOPPER • ISSUE 38 • JUNE 1994

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