hatcher@ingres.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (12/10/86)
Genlock is being shipped. This was announced at the First Amiga User's
Group tonight (Dec 9) in Palo Alto (California). Retailers aren't
supposed to sell it until Dec 15, but if they've got 'em I bet some will
slip out. In the San Francisco Bay Area you'll be able to get them at
Federated Electronics.
Price: $280 (or less [$217] to F.A.U.G. members--join!). This was announced
by FAUG, not by C/A, but it was certainly said very authoritatively.
Only a few thousand will be available nationwide in December.
As to other news, I didn't think to take careful notes, so I can't report
in full about everything, but there was a *lot* of interesting stuff going on.
My apologies to those that I don't mention in this "brief" (ha!) overview:
Alan Hastings, who made a really impressive film on the Amiga,
shown at the local annual SIGGRAPH "electronic theater" (and at national
SIGGRAPH too? Not sure...), has been hired by Aegis. Anyone who has seen
his films will know that means good things in store. My speculation is
that they are going to transform his privately developed graphics
technique into a product. For those who haven't seen his stuff, the original
film was a 3-5 minute sequence of a shaded 3-d world with the camera zooming
in and around houses, trees, "flying" through a fractal (?) landscape,
a car zipping past, etc. The sort of thing that people usually do on Crays,
but he made the whole film "in one weekend" on a 512K Amiga with 2 floppy
drives!!! His software generates each frame in seconds or fractions of a
second (depending on complexity) which he recorded on 8 millimeter one
frame at a time, later transfered to video. If Aegis gives us exactly that
in a new product, I'll stand in line to buy it!
Deluxe Music Construction Set was demo'd and it looks fabulous and
well worth the wait. When can you get it? Direct quote: "I know
you've all been waiting a long time, and...it'll be available real soon!
<entire audience groans> No really, I mean it! The diskettes are now
being duplicated and the manuals are all printed and so are the cardboard
covers".
They also showed a *** 3-D ray-traced smooth-motion animation *** showing
a clown juggling 3 reflecting balls!!!!!! Extraordinary. The absolute best
by 2 orders of magnitude that anyone has yet seen on an Amiga. This
was done by one Eric Graham, and Commodore/Amiga apparently is *very*
interested in his work. This animation is a loop of 24 frames running
continuously, on a 512K machine with no disk accesses after the program
starts up and no other upgrade hardware. The frames were precomputed
but I don't know how he fit them all in 512K. There's that CCC
compression technique...hmmm...This demo will be available as a FAUG
public domain diskette next month.
Intuitive Technologies (formerly MaxiSoft) talked about V1.5 of their
MaxiPlan spreadsheet and gave a live demo. I was very impressed with the
blinding speed and vast array of features, including creation of macro
functions by capturing mouse/keyboard--in other words, they have added
programming by example! I am usually very bored about spreadsheets, but
this one looks different...I was thinking of getting it just to see
all the things they did right with the Amiga. They also have Encore,
which runs in the background and can be told to record mouse/keyboard
keystrokes as a macro no matter what else you're doing. They brought up
D.Paint and ran a macro previously recorded which made D.Paint think someone
was drawing; this made it look like quite an interesting general-purpose
product.
They showed the video from the 2nd annual Monterey Amiga Developers
conference last month, wherein the old robo-city demo intermixed with,
then faded via genlock into an identical video but enacted with real people
and a painted backdrop complete with male & female robots and uppity fire
hydrant. First time I've heard of a video game being turned into a play!
R.J. Mical had starred as the blue Robot; he came into the meeting in this
costume immediately after the video for a brief interview with Dale Luck,
complete with a robot-ized voice built into his robot-head. These FAUG
meetings are something else!
Dale Luck and R.J. starred in a series of silly videos they made, mostly
commercials that should have been done for the Amiga: satires on Bartles
and James (thanks for your support), Apple announces "a new, uh, computer,
yeah, that's it, and it'll have, uh, super-ultra-high 320 by 200 resolution!
Yeah. And, uh, color, yeah, that's the ticket! :-)" And more...
Laser Gamesmanship demo'd their light pen. Can also be used with projection
TV (which is what we saw all the live Amiga demos on).
Had problems with noise picked up from microphone...might be nice if it
works when not being demo'd! Available January. Applications for handicapped,
since headband and footpedals are available (might want that myself to free
my hands for the keyboard...) They're at (415) 891-9968 (thought the
phone number might be hard to find).
Aegis showed Draw Plus for the first time ("I shouldn't" and didn't
really show many features, did announce cheap upgrade policy). Also
showed Diga, yet another terminal emulator. But has many unusual features,
including "doubletalk" which allows simultaneous download/upload while
still browsing the remote system...presumably only if they, too, are
running Diga. Sounds like a feature to add to Vt100!
Mindscape showed slides of screens from upcoming cinemaware SDI game,
which features a beautiful Russian laser satellite commander who loves
you but you gotta shoot-em-up with lasers to avoid world war three, or
avoid the shootout, or something vaguely like that. Graphics were nice.
Also demo'd the existing Balance of Power and Deja Vu. They sent a
marketing rep who was cute but was so new to the machine she had trouble
clicking on icons, tried to put Workbench in df1:, and rebooted to quit
programs that had obvious quits. This didn't come across well and was
A) neither fair to her nor to the audience, and B) did not compare well
with the representation from other companies. I do like Defender of the
Crown, though, so what can I say.
My overall guess based on sorting many wild rumors is that the Amiga 1000
is going to continue going strong: won't be canceled, new machines will
be much higher-end and expensive and so won't obsolete it, BUT I get
the strong impression that *something* funny is about to be announced
with the hardware, along the lines of a zorro bus change that will cause
compatibility problems for 3rd party manufacturers. I would guess that
Commodore is going to come out with a new standard IBM compatible bus
(yukkk!!!!) to allow lots of available hardware. Hope not! This is just wild
speculation, you understand; I just can't help but wonder at the news that
the cogniscenti so obviously bite their tongues over.
There was much other interesting stuff at the meeting; in ten
minutes I'll doubtless remember the other people, companies, and
products that I should also have mentioned. My apologies for leaving
them out.
Doug Merritt ucbvax!ingres!hatcher
<long article but at least a very small signature!>nick@hp-sdd.HP.COM (Nick Flor) (12/11/86)
In article <1272@zen.BERKELEY.EDU> hatcher@ingres.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Doug Merritt) writes: > >They also showed a *** 3-D ray-traced smooth-motion animation *** showing >a clown juggling 3 reflecting balls!!!!!! Extraordinary. The absolute best >by 2 orders of magnitude that anyone has yet seen on an Amiga. This >was done by one Eric Graham, and Commodore/Amiga apparently is *very* >interested in his work. This animation is a loop of 24 frames running >continuously, on a 512K machine with no disk accesses after the program >starts up and no other upgrade hardware. The frames were precomputed >but I don't know how he fit them all in 512K. There's that CCC >compression technique...hmmm...This demo will be available as a FAUG >public domain diskette next month. > But, did he cheat? Can you see the clown reflected in the balls? Was the clown rendered also? A lot of people don't seem to understand ray-tracing. (This is why you are so amazed that he could do this without any disk accesses, and smoothly at that) You can display just the rectangles that enclose the 3 spheres. You needn't display all n raster bit-planes. In my opinion, this is a simple demo (reflecting spheres are sooooo basic). (Sorry to sound so sarcastic, but after implementing my ray-tracer, I found that ray-tracing wasn't as big a deal as people on the net were making it out to be. Try implementing one. Have fun with the rounding errors though...) Nick -- + Disclaimer: The above opinions are my own, not necessarily my employers. / Nick V. Flor / ..hplabs!hp-sdd!nick / Hewlett Packard, San Diego Division * "What's going down in this world, you got no idea. Believe me." - The Comedian
kim@amdahl.UUCP (Kim DeVaughn) (12/13/86)
Nice summary, Doug! Let me add to it a little bit ... > Genlock is being shipped. This was announced at the First Amiga User's > Group tonight (Dec 9) in Palo Alto (California). Retailers aren't > supposed to sell it until Dec 15, but if they've got 'em I bet some will > slip out. In the San Francisco Bay Area you'll be able to get them at > Federated Electronics. > > Price: $280 (or less [$217] to F.A.U.G. members--join!). This was announced > by FAUG, not by C/A, but it was certainly said very authoritatively. > Only a few thousand will be available nationwide in December. Hmmmm ... I *thought* Paul said $250 ... maybe I mis-heard him. Anyway, Federated does indeed have them, and the FAUG discount price is $219 (Paul got his number wrong, but only by $2). > Deluxe Music Construction Set was demo'd and it looks fabulous and > well worth the wait. Agreed! A few of the features I recall: up to 8 staffs, with 2 tracks/ staff; MIDI support (16 channels); automatic transposition; reald slurs and crescndos/decrescndos; guitar fret fonts; "real" music score notation; works with SoundScape; can read Instant Music files; 20 new instruments (over Instant Music), including a Moosehead sound :-) and a Sitar; ability to import DMCS-Mac files; price $99.95. EA also announced a quarterly newsletter called DeluxeNews. Supposed to contain info/tips/etc. for all their Deluxe series of programs. (This is where you will find info like how to import Mac files.) Watch for it [you *did* send in your registration cards, didn't you?] > They also showed a *** 3-D ray-traced smooth-motion animation *** showing > a clown juggling 3 reflecting balls!!!!!! Extraordinary. Surely was! I *thought* the clown was reflected in the balls ... maybe not, though. The rest of the scene certainly was. Oh, and the ray-trace *generation* was done on the Amiga also ... 2 hours/frame, I believe. > Intuitive Technologies (formerly MaxiSoft) talked about V1.5 of their > MaxiPlan spreadsheet and gave a live demo. I may have to change my opinion of MaxiSoft's products (now Intuitive Technologies). This new version *is* impressive. I think there are two products here, though ... the version that was demo'd was refered to as "Macros", and the v1.5 (without macro capability, but with many, MANY bugs fixed). They said they would provide free upgrades to 1.5 if you are running an older version, and they also have an upgrade plan to "Macros" if you want the additional capabilities. Best to check with them (availability was said to be "now"). Couple of interesting features I remember: macros can be "written" with the mouse as well as the keyboard (very nifty!); supports password protected fields; can run commands from within MaxiPlan and suck their output into the spreadsheet; NO COPY PROTECTION; another upgrade due end of 1Q87 (sideways printing support; creation of 1-2-3 compatible files; more). > They also have Encore, > which runs in the background and can be told to record mouse/keyboard > keystrokes as a macro no matter what else you're doing. Another really nice tool ... seems to provide macro capabilities to any application (keyboard and/or mouse)! Also mentioned (but not demo'd due to time) were "Shortcut" and "Wow". "Shortcut" was described as an "abbreviation processor" ... use it with your favorite word processor/editor/spreadsheet, or what have you [can you say programming "templates"? ... I thought you could!] "Wow" is a DISK CACHING PROGRAM of some kind (wish he hadn't spent so much time showing off MaxiPlan). The only capability that was mentioned was that it uses "a variable amount of memory, depending on how much is free", and that this size varies dynamically. If it only is what I'm hoping it is ... Availability of all three of these is "shortly after the 1st of the year". > Dale Luck and R.J. starred in a series of silly videos they made, mostly > commercials that should have been done for the Amiga ... I guess CBM got the message ... they have a NEW advertising agency that even *wants* to show what the machine can actually *do* in commercials! (BTW, how many wine coolers did you guys start with, anyway :-) ?) > Aegis showed Draw Plus for the first time ("I shouldn't" and didn't > really show many features, did announce cheap upgrade policy). Upgrade to Draw Plus is $30; to a new release of Draw it's $10 (Draw Plus will retail for ~$250, so the upgrade is a *substantial* savings ... thanks Aegis!) In addition to alot of new capabilities and bug fixes, Draw Plus comes with several "parts libraries" ... logic design (all the 74xx TTL stuff), electrical, furniture, plumbing, etc. > Also > showed Diga, yet another terminal emulator. But has many unusual features, > including "doubletalk" which allows simultaneous download/upload while > still browsing the remote system...presumably only if they, too, are > running Diga. Sounds like a feature to add to Vt100! I hope they will release their protocol to the public! Diga also supports Kermit, Xmodem, Compuserve-B, and something called "remote" that Bill Volk wouldn't talk about. Of course it has a "phonebook" with "address cards", script support, macro keys, and USER DEFINABLE EMULATIONS. The one that was demo'd made the Amiga look like a Tektronix 4010. This last feature (along with the DoubleTalk protocol) really make Diga unique! Price was said to be "under $100", and availability "before the next model in the Amiga line comes out". Take that for what it's worth ... > Mindscape > Also demo'd the existing Balance of Power and Deja Vu. BofP was described as a "geopolitical simulation" and a "test of the intellect" (as opposed to arcade and adventure style games) ... seems something like an enhanced and Amigaized version of Empire. DV is a mystery/adventure, and you start off in the men's room of a bar (wonder what the ladies will think of that :-)). > They sent a > marketing rep who was cute Alas, she was wearing a wedding ring ... her name is Shannon, BTW. She had one kinda funny problem with Mindscape's "Execution Protection" scheme ... the page of the manual that the on screen question directed her to for the answer was ... blank! (That guy Murphy sure does get around :-)). Seems like this is a pretty good way to go (as opposed to Copy Protection) for game type s/w. I'd hate to see it catch on for "real" s/w though. I mean can you imagine having to look up the answer to some obscure question about C every time you went to compile something? Come to think of it, that might not be such a bad idea ... might reduce some of the braindamaged code that gets released ... just a thought :-). > There was much other interesting stuff at the meeting; in ten > minutes I'll doubtless remember the other people, companies, and > products that I should also have mentioned. Let's see, Infinity Software was there and demo'd their Tennis simulation game (simulation in the same sense that Mean 18 is a golf simulation). You can choose different courts, opponents, conditions (like the weather, crowd noise, speed, break, etc). They will be releasing an "Opponents Disk" in 1987 to keep the game "fresh". Execution protection like Mindscape's. Available now for v1.1 Kick/WB. Cost was $49.95, but they were selling them at $30 at the meeting. Looked like it might be fun to play if you like tennis. Also Scott Peterson and Jude (formerly of CBM-Los Gatos, I believe) demo'd a plug-into-the-mouse-port clock module. I *think* this was the Byte-by-Byte product, but I didn't pay much attention, since I have the A-Time module. Their clock s/w *was* pretty nice though. A much wider range of sizes and styles of clock faces (analog, digital, or both). You can set the damn thing just by moving the hands on the clock with the mouse ... what a novel idea!!! Now *that's* what I call "user friendly"! Lastly, a couple of tidbits from FAUG's newsletter (Robo-City News) ... DPaint II's upgrade policy is $30 (plus $7 shipping and handling, plus sales tax inside CA) and the original cover from the manual if you have the copy protected version. If you have the unprotected version, they want the original disk back. And if you have the protected version, but want the unprotected version of DPaint II, it's another $20. Their newsletter (DeluxeNews) spells all this out, and should be in the mail "within two weeks". Representitives from Ashton-Tate attended the 2nd Annual Developers Conference in Monterey last month. Hmmmmm ... Can anyone confirm (or deny) the story about how there were *almost* Amiga's in "Star Trek IV"? Supposedly, CBM wouldn't ship ILM (or whomever) the Developer machines that they had ordered (and even had to *pay* for) because they hadn't included enough for shipping! Apple got wind of this and *gave* them some Mac's and II-GS's, which is why you see Scotty talking to a Mac-mouse instead of an Amiga-mouse. Did the letter from CBM to ILM really say, "The sooner we receive your check for [something like] $9.00, the sooner we will be able to ship your machines"? Incredible, if true! /kim -- UUCP: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,ihnp4,seismo,oliveb}!amdahl!kim DDD: 408-746-8462 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 CIS: 76535,25 [ Any thoughts or opinions which may or may not have been expressed ] [ herein are my own. They are not necessarily those of my employer. ]
mwm@eris.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike (Don't have strength to leave) Meyer) (12/13/86)
Answers to various questions left hanging about the FAUG meeting: 1) The clown was reflected in the mirror spheres; I specifically checked for that. Also, the clown position changed from frame to frame. It's possible to have done the positions with 12 frames, run as: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 I didn't check for the mirror spheres reflected in themselves. The time for generating the images was "1 to 2 hours" on the Amiga. For those comparing to the times for Wecker's images, you might ask what resolution and how many colors he's GENERATING them for, as they show up on DEC's demo for the GPX. 2) I asked, and the diga double-talk protocol is going to be released. Not as slick as uw, but still pretty good. 3) MaxiSoft announced a disk cache (MaxiCache; check their old adds). LONG AGO. They put it on hold when 1.2 showed up with it's own cache. The adds for the old version made it look good - you could specify maximum memory useage, either as a percentage of free or total. I put off writing the one I'd thought about doing because of their adds. It's always easier to get someone else to write something for you. <mike
grr@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (George Robbins) (12/15/86)
In article <627@hp-sdd.HP.COM> nick@hp-sdd.UUCP (Nick Flor) writes: >In article <1272@zen.BERKELEY.EDU> hatcher@ingres.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Doug Merritt) writes: >> >>They also showed a *** 3-D ray-traced smooth-motion animation *** showing >>a clown juggling 3 reflecting balls!!!!!! Extraordinary. The absolute best >>by 2 orders of magnitude that anyone has yet seen on an Amiga. This >>was done by one Eric Graham... > >But, did he cheat? Can you see the clown reflected in the balls? >Was the clown rendered also? >Nick Yes, the clown is reflected in the balls, yes, the balls are reflected in each other, and yes, the shadows seem seem to apply all the correct places. The perspective seems a bit warped, and poor clown has his elbows pinned to the backdrop... Admittedly, the imagery is pretty simple compared to some of the other Amiga ray tracing images, but it's still a pretty incredible business card!!! The amimation uses a small set of images (12?), but this lets everything fit in memory and blast out full speed. I don't know if he's displaying a full screen for each frame, or just alternating between two, and substituting areas. Anybody got any other neat demos that Jack can't fake on those ST thingies? -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
wingard@ncrcae.UUCP (Steve Wingard) (12/16/86)
In article <1115@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes: >In article <627@hp-sdd.HP.COM> nick@hp-sdd.UUCP (Nick Flor) writes: >>In article <1272@zen.BERKELEY.EDU> hatcher@ingres.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (Doug Merritt) writes: >>> >>>They also showed a *** 3-D ray-traced smooth-motion animation *** showing >>>a clown juggling 3 reflecting balls!!!!!! Extraordinary. The absolute best >>>by 2 orders of magnitude that anyone has yet seen on an Amiga. This >>>was done by one Eric Graham... >> >>But, did he cheat? Can you see the clown reflected in the balls? >>Was the clown rendered also? >>Nick > >Yes, the clown is reflected in the balls, yes, the balls are reflected in >each other, and yes, the shadows seem seem to apply all the correct places. >The perspective seems a bit warped, and poor clown has his elbows pinned to >the backdrop... > >Admittedly, the imagery is pretty simple compared to some of the other Amiga >ray tracing images, but it's still a pretty incredible business card!!! > >The amimation uses a small set of images (12?), but this lets everything fit >in memory and blast out full speed. I don't know if he's displaying a full >screen for each frame, or just alternating between two, and substituting areas. > >Anybody got any other neat demos that Jack can't fake on those ST thingies? > >-- >George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr >but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV >Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite) Ahhh... Sorry, George, but about TWO MONTHS AGO Xanth Computers displayed a demo VERY SIMILAR in design and execution... a set of four mirrored balls moving in an eggbeater pattern around each other over a scrolling "floor" with the Atari logo as a pattern and beneath a scrolling "ceiling" with a checkerboard pattern. Everything is reflected properly in the balls (in fact, the only way you see the scrolling checkerboard is as a reflection on the tops of the balls) and the shadows are all drawn properly. It was shown at a San Diego Atari computer festival and I'm sure Neil Harris at Atari could tell you more about it. So before you go off making CHEAP SHOTS about who's "faking" whom...
blgardne@esunix.UUCP (Blaine Gardner) (12/17/86)
Could someone be pursuaded to post the uuencoded executable for the
juggling clown ray tracing demo that everyone is raving about?
--
=================================================
"The Admiral is well aware of the regulations..."
=================================================
Blaine Gardner @ Evans & Sutherland
{ihnp4, decvax}!decwrl!esunix!blgardne
560 Arapeen Drive Salt Lake City, Utah 84108 (801) 582-5847daveh@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (12/18/86)
--Admittedly, the imagery is pretty simple compared to some of the other Amiga
--ray tracing images, but it's still a pretty incredible business card!!!
--
--The amimation uses a small set of images (12?), but this lets everything fit
--in memory and blast out full speed. I don't know if he's displaying a full
--screen for each frame, or just alternating between two, and substituting areas.
--
--Anybody got any other neat demos that Jack can't fake on those ST thingies?
--
----
--George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr
--but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV
--Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
-
- Ahhh... Sorry, George, but about TWO MONTHS AGO Xanth Computers displayed a
- demo VERY SIMILAR in design and execution... a set of four mirrored balls
- moving in an eggbeater pattern around each other over a scrolling "floor"
- with the Atari logo as a pattern and beneath a scrolling "ceiling" with
- a checkerboard pattern. Everything is reflected properly in the balls
- (in fact, the only way you see the scrolling checkerboard is as a reflection
- on the tops of the balls) and the shadows are all drawn properly. It was
- shown at a San Diego Atari computer festival and I'm sure Neil Harris at
- Atari could tell you more about it.
-
- So before you go off making CHEAP SHOTS about who's "faking" whom...
You mean the Atari demo used something on the order of 4096 simultaneous
colors! Pretty amazing for an ST, I'd even settle for 512 simultaneous
colors. Its pretty obvious that a ray-traced image can be displayed,
static or animated, on either machine. What the Atari can't do, which
is the point of George's article, is to display ray traced images with
the gradual changes in color that most of these images require. Have
you seen the juggler? And realize, of course, that Dave Wecker's static
ray tracing images, 320 x 400 in 256 colors I believe, have been around
longer than 2 months.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dave Haynie {caip,ihnp4,allegra,seismo}!cbmvax!daveh
"Laws to supress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit.
This is the fine point on which all the legal professions of
history have based their job security."
-Bene Gesserit Coda
These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they may be yours too.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~grr@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (George Robbins) (12/18/86)
In article <2351@ncrcae.UUCP> wingard@ncrcae.UUCP (Steve Wingard) writes: >> >>Anybody got any other neat demos that Jack can't fake on those ST thingies? >> >Ahhh... Sorry, George, but about TWO MONTHS AGO Xanth Computers displayed a >demo VERY SIMILAR in design and execution... a set of four mirrored balls >moving in an eggbeater pattern around each other over a scrolling "floor" >with the Atari logo as a pattern and beneath a scrolling "ceiling" with >a checkerboard pattern. Everything is reflected properly in the balls >(in fact, the only way you see the scrolling checkerboard is as a reflection >on the tops of the balls) and the shadows are all drawn properly. It was >shown at a San Diego Atari computer festival and I'm sure Neil Harris at >Atari could tell you more about it. > >So before you go off making CHEAP SHOTS about who's "faking" whom... Friend Steve - I'm sorry that the virtual smiley face didn't materialize at the end of that line when it was displayed on your terminal. I suspect that neither of us have seen each other's demo, so there's not much grounds for argument. Were you around for the multiplying bouncing ball demo wars? To get back to the point: The Amiga has graphics hardware and display resolution and colors that the ST machines lack. Most Amiga owners know this, and were willing to pay extra for it. In theory, this means that you can do things with an Amiga that you can't do on an ST. In practice, a clever person can, with sufficient time and effort, produce a reasonable facsimile of just about any Amiga demo on an ST, or a C64 for that matter. So what I was trying to convey, was that the people at Commodore who work with the Amiga are interested in demo programs that make use of these capabilities, to highlight the difference in some obvious and unequivocal manner. You know, something that snaps vertebrae when the two machines are sitting side- by-side at a show, or your local computer shoppe. Something that makes the little kids (in all of us) say 'I want that one, the one with the red clown!'. The clown demo is pretty impressive - rough around the edges, but the third or fourth generation ought to be devestating. Now, does anybody have stuff as good or better than this? -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
cjp@vax135.UUCP (Charles Poirier) (12/19/86)
In article <10578@sun.uucp> cmcmanis@sun.uucp (Chuck McManis) writes: >I have seen some of the Atari stuff too, (and one on the Ample two gee whiz) >And the Amiga beats them on resolution only. That is that the Amiga version >has 640 X 400 lines and 4096 colors on the screen. The Atari ones I have I thought the maximum Amiga resolution for HAM or 32 colors was 320 X 400, not 640 X 400. Am I misled? Charles Poirier (USENET)!vax135!cjp
cmcmanis@sun.uucp (12/19/86)
In article <2351@ncrcae.UUCP>, wingard@ncrcae.UUCP (Steve Wingard) writes:
.> Ahhh... Sorry, George, but about TWO MONTHS AGO Xanth Computers displayed a
.> demo VERY SIMILAR in design and execution... a set of four mirrored balls
.> moving in an eggbeater pattern around each other over a scrolling "floor"
.> with the Atari logo as a pattern and beneath a scrolling "ceiling" with
.> a checkerboard pattern. Everything is reflected properly in the balls
.> (in fact, the only way you see the scrolling checkerboard is as a reflection
.> on the tops of the balls) and the shadows are all drawn properly. It was
.> shown at a San Diego Atari computer festival and I'm sure Neil Harris at
.> Atari could tell you more about it.
.>
.> So before you go off making CHEAP SHOTS about who's "faking" whom...
I have seen some of the Atari stuff too, (and one on the Ample two gee whiz)
And the Amiga beats them on resolution only. That is that the Amiga version
has 640 X 400 lines and 4096 colors on the screen. The Atari ones I have
seen from Xanth look to be more monochromatic although that could be
only the particular one I saw. What has been firmly established is that
any graphics hardware can be made to look good when there is lots of
memory to shove frames at it.
--
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.keithd@cadovax.UUCP (Keith Doyle) (12/20/86)
In article <1139@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins) writes: >So what I was trying to convey, was that the people at Commodore who work with >the Amiga are interested in demo programs that make use of these capabilities, >to highlight the difference in some obvious and unequivocal manner. > >You know, something that snaps vertebrae when the two machines are sitting side- >by-side at a show, or your local computer shoppe. Something that makes the >little kids (in all of us) say 'I want that one, the one with the red clown!'. Ahh... creative one-upman-demo-ship. Actually, I'd say that right now, Apple is doing one of the best jobs of this with the IIGS. The 'international' flavor of the digitized speech ('bonjourno' etc.) is catchy. The rotating IIGS with the bouncing ball on the screen demo is pretty funny. Sure, the Amiga can do all of this, and probably better, BUT, I saw it on an Apple. Obviously Apple has more money to spend on having programmers bang out better demos to show off the machine (of course when all you have is 'demos' there's no real hardware or software out there what can you expect?). It looks like both Commodore and Atari are waiting to grab some good public domain stuff to use as demos, as they can't afford to spend real money on such frivolous (and quickly obsolete) efforts. That leaves them wide open for unfair comparisons. For example, compare the Amiga's 'female' speech with what you hear in the IIGS demo. One sounds like a machine, one like a tape recording. Never mind that there are programs out there for the Amiga that will do similar, I've never seen them in a typical in-store-demo. Oh well. Keith Doyle # {ucbvax,ihnp4,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd # cadovax!keithd@ucla-locus.arpa
pbrody@udenva.UUCP (03/31/87)
Recently my Users group as well as one in Seattle have had to discontinue their newsletters because it was too expensive to continue to print them. So I have been trying to find a way for the Users to pass information among themselves. I think I have come up with a relatively good idea. It follows: 1) A monthly electronic magazine would be created. It would have the following a. General interest articles. (New product reviews.) b. Programming tutorials (C, Pascal, AmigaBASIC etc.) c. C source code for some programs "of the month." d. Do it yourself articles. e. IFF pictures to go along with the articles. 2) The articles would be text based with IFF pictures to complement them. All of the articles would be handled through a "Table of Contents" program that would string together the blocks of text with their IFF complements in the correct order for the reader. 3) There would also be a program to help the editors string things together in the appropriate fashion to make the disk ready for distribution. 4) People would write articles and send to me on disk with approriate information on how to put them together. If it was a C tutorial then it should also contain the name of the files which contain the C source code for the discussed programs. 5) The whole thing would be put together on one disk and copies would be sent out to BBS owners who would then put it up for D/L, and send to pre-paid subscribers, and also distr~irbuted through the various PD program librar- ies (Amicus, Fred Fish, etc., ad naseum!) Basically what I'm looking for is some good programmers who would be interested in working on this. What needs to be done is establish specific guidelines for writing and putting together articles and writing the two main programs required. 1: The "Table of Contents" program, and 2: The program for the editors to put the articles together. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul Brody Phone (303) 795-5411 After 5:30 pm Pacific time 7:30 pm Mountain time 8:30 pm Central time 9:30 pm Eastern time 1553 E. Fremont Cir. Littleton, Co., 80122 =============================================================================