DEB110@psuvm.psu.edu (Doug Bischoff) (11/30/90)
First, the questions, then the food for thought.
I have an Amiga 3000 with ECS (naturally) and a Commodore 1950 Monitor.
Can I run a program written for a PAL machine?
a) I tried putting PAL in my "monitors" drawer and using screen setup
in the preferences drawer to switch to PAL. Looks good: the screen
is definitely not NTSC.
b) I run the program: looks exactly the same as it did under NTSC.
no change whatsoever. Hints/tips?
I have AMAX-II and Microsoft Word 4.0
Can I have it generate a postscript output file?
Can this file be successfully transferred to the Amiga drive?
Can it then be printed on a Laserprinter hooked up to an Amiga? (How?)
Now for the food for thought. Mind you, I'm a programmer wanna-be and
at the moment can't afford a good C compiler/manual :-) nor the Developer fee
to get any kind of includes (even if I knew what they were...). Someday I
hope to break the bonds of ignorance and actually DO the things I propose here.
(Unless some kind soul(s) beat me to it.)
Not everyone has access to usenet. TRUE
Of the people who don't have access to usenet, many of them have
modems. TRUE (?)
The support provided on this network by C= representatives is a
great help to us and is probably very vaulable.
TRUE (!)
What would it cost Commodore to run a bulletin board for registered
users? Perhaps a (REASONABLE!!!!!!!!) 900 number BBS would not be too hard
and/or expensive to keep up. On this bulletin board could be such things
as:
Product Upgrade information
Manual updates
Product Upgrades (ala WB 2.02)
Q-n-A sessions with the guys in the know
USENET-like posting areas (like the one you're reading now)
PD libraries (not everyone can FTP!)
Properly handled, with a Commodore-written Front-end that would be
a graphic wonder mixed with ease-of-use and functionality, this would
no doubt be one of the greatest customer-support tools in the industry. (?)
And, if handled properly, Commodore would make a killing in modem
sales to new buyers if this was a feature that was stressed in their
advertising!! (A 2400 baud modem would be nice, guys. 1200 is a bit slow.)
Anybody who can shoot this idea down is welcome to, but give it a
thought. WE all know how valuable these services are: why not let the
rest of the Amiga community in on it?
NEXT item: Virtual Reality
A quick jot over to sci.virtual.reality will show you that this is a
very hot topic amongst the scientific types. It implies the ability to
access information quickly, intuitively, and in huge ammounts nearly effort-
lessly. I'm out of touch with the newest technical specs and such, but
now that I've got my own machine (nice A3000, that is) I'm going to look
more into it (see disclaimer above). Anybody out there know what the
Amiga is being used for in this incredible new field? It's basically our
beloved Multi-media taken to the Nth degree.
[disengage soapbox mode]
[resume normal blank stare]
Thanks for the bandwidth.
/---------------------------------------------------------------------\
| -Doug Bischoff- | *** *** ====--\ | "It's so neat to |
| -DEB110 @ PSUVM- | * *** * ==|<>\___ | see an AMIGA say |
| -The Black Ring- | *** *** |______\ | "Welcome to |
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\---------------------------------------------------------------------/zerkle@iris.ucdavis.edu (Dan Zerkle) (12/01/90)
In article <90333.201003DEB110@psuvm.psu.edu> DEB110@psuvm.psu.edu (Doug Bischoff) writes: > I have an Amiga 3000 with ECS (naturally) and a Commodore 1950 Monitor. > Can I run a program written for a PAL machine? ... > b) I run the program: looks exactly the same as it did under NTSC. > no change whatsoever. Hints/tips? The program has to be written to take advantage of the PAL screen. If you have any demos where the bottom 1/4 of the screen gets cut off (as if these hardware level hacks would run on a 3000), try running it in PAL mode to see the rest of the screen.... > What would it cost Commodore to run a bulletin board for registered >users? Perhaps a (REASONABLE!!!!!!!!) 900 number BBS would not be too hard >and/or expensive to keep up. On this bulletin board could be such things >as: > Product Upgrade information > Manual updates > Product Upgrades (ala WB 2.02) > Q-n-A sessions with the guys in the know > USENET-like posting areas (like the one you're reading now) > PD libraries (not everyone can FTP!) > > Properly handled, with a Commodore-written Front-end that would be >a graphic wonder mixed with ease-of-use and functionality, this would >no doubt be one of the greatest customer-support tools in the industry. (?) > And, if handled properly, Commodore would make a killing in modem >sales to new buyers if this was a feature that was stressed in their >advertising!! You mean like they did with (sarcastic gasp) QuantumLink?!?!?! I miss Quantumlink, which I don't have since getting the Amiga. It would be nice if some person could port it to the Amiga. However, Quantum Computer Services is trying to get people to switch over to one of their other services if they're doing the 8->16 (or 32) bit Commodore transition. It's silly of them, if you ask me. That program would NOT be hard to port to the Amiga, and it would drastically increase the potential customer base. Dan Zerkle zerkle@iris.eecs.ucdavis.edu (916) 754-0240 Amiga... Because life is too short for boring computers.