[net.micro.amiga] COMDEX

richr@pogo.UUCP (Rich Rodgers) (05/01/86)

I was at Comdex on Monday, and since I have seen nothing posted to the net
about it, here is my brief summary.

The Amiga booth was **crowded**  I do not think any other booth got this much
foot traffic.  You could walk through the IBM booth and not see anyone but
the marketing reps (lots of those though!)  Here is a brief summary of what
I saw.

Hardware:

The big news here was the "sidecar", a box with an 8088 and an 8087 and three
IBM expansion slots.  They had a hard card installed and were using part
of it for MS-DOS and part of it for Amiga-DOS.  You opened a window as either
monochrome or color, and could still multitask on the Amiga.  They were 
running Flight Simulator in a window, shrunk it down, and ran other tasks.

Genlock was shown and worked very well.  They ran the boing demo with the
crowd in the background, instead of the regular boing background.

DigiView showed their digitizer, it was slow, needed three passes, and gave
an unbelievable color digitized image.  A must have at $199.

Live! was there also, digitizing in real time.  Really amazing, but poor
color quality.  For what I need, I'll stick with DigiView.

There was a really good audio digitizer that I did not get the name of, but
they are supposed to offer programmers routines.

Tecmar was showing their hard disk. Does not auto-config, does not pass the
bus, the memory was not working, cost $2200.  Give me a break.

Micro Forge had their expansion box.  Big as ever.  They say they will offer
a combination auto config 4 slot, and their current box 3 slots.  Stay away
if possible.

CardCo was showing a 1 megabyte expansion module that sits on the side, and
passes the bus.  It auto-configs, and works with addmem.

High persistant phosphor monitors were shown with interlace mode.  Animation
looked fine (no streaking) and so did the monitor.  Great deal if you can
part with $1K!

Software:

Version 1.2 kickstart and workbench.  Sooo much faster.  The icons loaded on
the workbench at least twice as fast.  Much more professional look and feel.
Preferences lets you set true interlace workbench, and serial parameters.
Very good job by the folks at C-A.

			Entertainment

Mind ???
	A new game from C-A shipping in one week.  A must have for every 
gamer.  Perfect mix of adventure and arcade.  GREAT graphics. must see to
believe.  Worth any price.

Marble Madness
	As good as arcade version. Nuff said. ship June 1.

Lots of music programs, the one from activision looked best, did not get
to play with any of them.  One was using MIDI.

			Productivity/Utilities

Gizmoz
	A little of everything.  The programmers calculator is worth the
price to me.  Must see.  May or may not be for you.

VIP Proffesional
	Very well done Lotus 1-2-3 clone.  Works best with extra memory > 512K.
THE spread sheet for the Amiga.

PCLO - a Printed Circuit board LayOut package.  They said the CardCo board was
layed out using this package.  It looked very nice.  Now shipping. 

Aegis Draw
	Puts Mac Draw to shame.  Very nice, powerful tool.  Version was 0.7
Shipping real soon now.

Aegis Animator/Images
	Good for what it is.  Good complement to DPaint.  Has some features
DPaint doesn't have that I need.  Ex: Pattern fill.

A few kids learning games.

A data base manager.  (Sorry I have no use for this, so I didn't analyze it.)

MegaSoft terminal package and filer.

Manx and Lattice C

TDI Modula II

There was lots more, but these were the things I was interested in.  Sorry
it is not more complete.

Happy Amiga-ing
-- 
				Rich Rodgers

				tektronix!pogo!richr

miner@ulowell.UUCP (Richard Miner) (05/04/86)

In article <2488@pogo.UUCP> you write:
I was at Comdex on Tuesday-Wednesday, thought I would add a little..
>The Amiga booth was **crowded**....
   With out a doubt one of the most crowded booths. Also it was one of the
biggest. It was two stories with offices and a privite show room on the
second level. There were atleast 20 Amigas running various applications.

>Live! was there also, digitizing in real time.  Really amazing, but poor
>color quality.  For what I need, I'll stick with DigiView.
  I think that Live! looked as good if you took the time to set up the picture.
The DigiView system was mounted on a stand with nice lights. I took some time
to set up a HAM picture with live and it look just like the DigiView system.
Plus I took the live software home and confirmed the fact that with the
proper set up I can achive as nice results.
  The problem with Live! is that it only works in low-res none interlaced. 
the DigiView can get up to 640x400x7.

>Tecmar was showing their hard disk. Does not auto-config, does not pass the
  Well atleast it does not sound like a compact windstorm anymore, they have
managed to make it quiet. Still too much $$$

>CardCo was showing a 1 megabyte expansion module that sits on the side, and
  There where also 2meg boards  It goes for $1,079.00 and can be ordered from:
ComSpec Communications Inc. 153 Bridgeland Ave., Unit 5
Toronto, Ontario  M6A 2Y6   (416) 787 - 0617  Model #AX 2000

>High persistant phosphor monitors were shown with interlace mode. 
  Interlaced mode does not jump around at all! And now that you can set 
interlaced mode in preferences you can have 40 lines of text from the start.

There where two pieces of hardware that I tought were very interesting, on
is a box from Byte by Byte called PAL here is a description:
Includes 20meg hard disk with DMA controller, 1/2 meg of RAM, clock/
calender, 4 DMA expansion slots (conform to Amiga hardware spec). Room
for two half-height or one full height device: hard disk, tape drive,
floppy drive. Options include an additional hard disk, up to 8meg of 
RAM and more ------ 
  The above came from a flyer, don't now what more could mean but I
want one. My only gripe was that it was big (not nearly as big as
Macro Forge) it sat under the monitor and was about 10 inches high.
Shipping June 1 - 361 Bee Cave Road, Suite 3 
                  Austin, TX 78746  (512) 328-2985

There was another expansion box frm CSA, it seemed to be designed a 
little better, it sat next to the Amiba. It did not, however, have
memory or drives. I think that they and others are working on these as
plug in boards (mem and drive controlers) that will work in all boxes
that  comply to the Amiga hardware expansion specification.
They did have a card version of there 68020 board that plugged into the
card slots. I gues that means that they will sell the cards seperatly and
you can plug them into any box that meets the Amiga form specifications.

>Version 1.2 kickstart and workbench.  Sooo much faster.
 It has a PATH command also to set search paths!! 
 PLUS -- Circle and Elipse  now in ROM ya!

>A data base manager.
Real nice, Mi Amiga File by Softwood Company. Very nice graphics interface,
good use of intuition and other Amiga graphics capabilities. 
Copperstate Business Systems 3125 E.McDowell Rd, Phx AZ 85008 (602)244-9391

>MegaSoft terminal package
 Still no terminal programs that have VT100 emulations and through put to
the screen at 9600 baud!!  I did see the Commodore modem and was told that
their soon to be released terminal emulator will support 9600 baud to the
screen!

  Sorry for the length, but I think we are all hardware and software 
starved. 

 I do not work for, support, or get support from any of the above companies.

UUCP: !wanginst!ulowell!miner    Rich Miner
ARPA: miner@ulowell.CSNET        University of Lowell, Comp Sci Dept
TALK: (617) 452-5000 x2693       Lowell MA 01854 USA
HAL hears the 9000 series is not selling. "Please explain Dave. Why 
aren't HAL's selling?"  Bowman hesitates. "You aren't Amiga compatible."