kim@amdahl.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) (09/04/87)
In article <8709020842.AA15483@cogsci.berkeley.edu>, bryce@cogsci.berkeley.EDU (Bryce Nesbitt) writes: > > Tonight was the night. The final showing of Leo's animation based on Pixar > Inc.'s "Red's Dream" short film.. Very nice summary, Bryce! And to Leo ... What a SUPER demo! OUTSTANDING!!! There were a couple other things from FAUG I thought I'd pass along: WordPerfect was there and gave a lengthy demo. It looked quite good, and has most of the features I've been waiting for in a word-processor. What I wanted to comment on was their upgrade policy, which someone asked about. The rep said that historically, upgrades have been pretty reasonable (I *think* he said $25-$35 ... in that neighborhood, anyway). He then went to say that that is for *upgrades* ... bug-fix releases are FREE, "because that's our problem, not yours". Now I appreciate that attitude, and because of that one statement (no, I don't have it on a piece of paper, but I believe them), I'll be buying their product. Other S/W vendors please take note! Next there was a fellow (Stuart ???), that demo'd a "front-end" program to VS3D. He designed a "star fighter" of sorts in front of the audience in about 10 mins, and then sucked it into VS3D for rendering. Very nice, and will make the task of object design for VS3D much less painful. He said it'd be available ... RSN. While we're on the subject of VS3D, Just before Leo's "Grand Finale", Alan Hastings showed off a new bit of VS3D work. Not sure what to call it, but there were spinning gears, rocking rockers, rolling balls, etc. Sort of a surrealistic look inside of an oil-well ... BTW, Alan mentioned it was indeed copyrighted, so if you were thinking of doing anything similar in concept, you can forget it now ... :-) :-)! There was one other short presentation/announcement, and for me the most intriguing product shown in awhile. WARNING: Subsequent paragraphs may be somewhat commercial. If you don't like such info, hit your "n" key now ... There was a fellow from "Finally Software" there, who showed us (not demo'd) a 4" x 6" board. Their flyer says this board (called the Hurricane), was developed by Ronin Research & Development. This board *replaces* the Amiga's 68000 with a 14+ MHz 68020, and has room for a 68881 (can run up to 16 MHz). Since it replaces the 68000, it obviously is an internal add-in. Said to be available now, and is priced at $495 WITHOUT 020 or 881 [about half of what other's are charging for a "bare board"]. Bare board, isn't really accurate ... from the photo, it looks like there are about a dozen chips other than the 020/881 (a couple PAL's and jelly-bean parts, xtal, and a couple of [yeccch] delay-lines). Looks like a hot deal to me ... anyone on the net used/tried/beta'd one of these? A 2nd board (also internal) is supposed to be available in October, and will hold 2 Meg of 32-bit ram. The flyer says this memory will work ok with any other ram one has installed [presumably this only applies to real FAST ram added to the Expansion Bus, as there would probably be physical space conflicts with other add-in memory boards, even if they are electrically and logically compatible]. This board is also $495, unpopulated. They don't say that they're using 1 Meg DRAM's, but I assume they are. If you're interested in more info, I suggest you contact: Finally Software 2555 Ygnecio Valley Rd., Suite N Walnut Creek, CA 94598 ph: 415-935-0393 If you do have more info on these products, please post or email me. Nope, I'm not affiliated with any of these folks (if I was, I'd already have a 020 in Amy!) /kim -- UUCP: kim@amdahl.amdahl.com or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,ihnp4,seismo,oliveb,cbosgd}!amdahl!kim DDD: 408-746-8462 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 CIS: 76535,25