hal@hpsciz.HP.COM (Hal Work) (10/03/90)
I attended the FAUG meeting last night for the debut of the TOASTER from NewTek. Jay Miner, Dale Luck, and other Amiga dignitaries were in attendance Things started late as usual. California Dreams was the opening act for the Toaster. The highlight of their presentation was the "Bodega Bay", a console for the 500 which can use 2000 boards and lots of drives (new power supply, too). They tried to demo three games. Only Blockout worked. Tunnels of Armageddon had a read/write error on the disk and Street Rod had a problem equally as embarassing. During the unfortunate bits, the crowd of several hundred were chanting, "TOASTER!, TOASTER!, TOASTER!". The CD people were pros and carried on. The TOASTER was awesome! Not only does it do all the fades, wipes, and zillions of special effects but incorporated is a 16M color paint program, 3D renderer, character generator, and oh so much more. List price is $1595 and it IS shipping. The hardware portion of the Toaster is a piggybacked board. 350,000 lines of "Cool Guy from NewTek" code went into the software for it. One of the things that struck me about this product is that the guys putting it all together were having fun. It was clear that they had a vision and knew what they wanted. They didn't care if the product was years late to market if it wasn't what they wanted. I almost forgot ... I don't know what it's called, but one of the features that got great amounts of applause did wonderful color/luminance(?) effects. I think this was developed for NewTek by Elan(?). Almost eclipsing the Toaster was Kiki, a NewTek babe, in her delightful(read small) cocktail dress. All in all, the NewTek guys did it again with another great product. Ooh-ooh, and then there was the Penn & Teller NewTek video. These guys are the perfect front for NewTek.
etxtomp@eos.ericsson.se (Tommy Petersson) (10/05/90)
In article <1450003@hpsciz.HP.COM> hal@hpsciz.HP.COM (Hal Work) writes:
-The TOASTER was awesome! Not only does it do all the fades, wipes, and
-zillions of special effects but incorporated is a 16M color paint program,
-3D renderer, character generator, and oh so much more. List price is $1595
-and it IS shipping. The hardware portion of the Toaster is a piggybacked
One question:
If You have just enough money to buy the Toaster, and will have to
wait a (possible) long time before the other peripherals could be bought,
what could be done with it apart from demo'ing that it is good?
If I have an A2500/20, Multi-Sync monitor and a VCR, what can I do?mark@calvin..westford.ccur.com (Mark Thompson) (10/06/90)
In article <1990Oct5.162539.7725@ericsson.se> etxtomp@eos.ericsson.se writes: >One question: >If You have just enough money to buy the Toaster, and will have to >wait a (possible) long time before the other peripherals could be bought, >what could be done with it apart from demo'ing that it is good? >If I have an A2500/20, Multi-Sync monitor and a VCR, what can I do? If you don't have at least one NTSC compatible video monitor or television with video inputs, you are in a world of hurt, but given that, here is what you can do: Capture live video from camera or broadcast television (not vcr tapes) for use in Toaster Paint, LightWave 3D, or as a still input into the switcher. Create award winning 3D animations in LightWave and save the images to disk until you get your own single framing vcr or ship them to a service company that will do this for you. Create stunning still images using LightWave, TPaint, and the frame grabber. Perform digital video effects and transitions on and between your still images and your video input (broadcast television or camera if you have one). Use "The Art Deptartment" or some other suitable software to convert your Toaster images (IFF24) to standard Amiga format for viewing/distribution. Use ChromaFX to give your favorite TV show the most surrealistic look it has ever had. What else do you want to do with so little equiptment and cost? +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Mark Thompson | | mark@westford.ccur.com | | ...!{decvax,uunet}!masscomp!mark Designing high performance graphics | | (508)392-2480 engines today for a better tomorrow. | +------------------------------------------------------------------------- +
etxtomp@eos.ericsson.se (Tommy Petersson) (10/08/90)
In article <61235@masscomp.ccur.com> mark@calvin.westford.ccur.com (Mark Thompson) writes: -In article <1990Oct5.162539.7725@ericsson.se> etxtomp@eos.ericsson.se writes: ->One question: ->If You have just enough money to buy the Toaster, and will have to ->wait a (possible) long time before the other peripherals could be bought, ->what could be done with it apart from demo'ing that it is good? ->If I have an A2500/20, Multi-Sync monitor and a VCR, what can I do? - -If you don't have at least one NTSC compatible video monitor or television -with video inputs, you are in a world of hurt, but given that, here is what -you can do: - -Capture live video from camera or broadcast television (not vcr tapes) -for use in Toaster Paint, LightWave 3D, or as a still input into the -switcher. - -Create award winning 3D animations in LightWave and save the images to disk -until you get your own single framing vcr or ship them to a service company -that will do this for you. - -Create stunning still images using LightWave, TPaint, and the frame -grabber. - -Perform digital video effects and transitions on and between your still -images and your video input (broadcast television or camera if you have -one). - -Use "The Art Deptartment" or some other suitable software to convert -your Toaster images (IFF24) to standard Amiga format for viewing/distribution. - -Use ChromaFX to give your favorite TV show the most surrealistic look -it has ever had. - -What else do you want to do with so little equiptment and cost? Use it with my PAL TV with video input... :-( Thank You for Your answer, it seems to be possible to use the Toaster without much equipment, but the problem for me now is NTSC/PAL. Has anyone heard if Newtek will manufacture a PAL version, and if so is the fact, any guesses about when? Tommy P.