-=========================================================================- _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || Amiga Update -News and Rumors /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ ||(A Very Ocassional Newsletter) / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ || BACK FOR THE FUTURE || -=========================================================================- AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga Technolgies, GmbH --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 951229 T H E Y E A R I N R E V I E W N E W A M I G A M O D E L S A N N O U N C E D Everyone else does it, so we are going to do it also. Here's the year in review, as seen in Amiga Update. Any year that sees you going from despair over whether your computing world has a future to "hey, these guys really are doing something" is a year well worth reviewing. Looks like we won't all have to buy new machines and Windoze 95 after all. The biggest story of the year was of course Escom's purchase of the remains of Commodore and the launch of the new Amiga Technologies. There was a great deal to report about all this. I picked out just a few highlights. And just to finish the year right, there's a new story at the end about new Amiga products. One note: for those who never quite realized it, the number at the top of each issue (e.g., 951229 for this issue) is the date of issue in YYMMDD (year year month month day day) computer friendly format. "Amiga Update" wishes you and yours a "Happy New Amiga Year!" Brad ========================================================================== From the issue of 950109, which began the year: NEWS RELEASE COMMODORE ACQUISITION UPDATE (15 DEC 1994) Creative Equipment International (CEI) has submitted an offer to purchase all the assets of Commodore International and Commodore Electronics. A cash deposit accompanied the offer. Alex Amor stated "Now, it's up to the liquidator and creditors. Our intent is to complete this purchase and resume building the Amiga as soon as possible." This is the first time since the declaration of liquidation that an offer has been accompanied by cash. The offer has a firm expiration date. CEI is a Miami based distributor of Commodore products. For additional information contact Chuck Schenk at (303)266-2800 extension 111. =========================================================================== From the issue of 950421. If you haven't seen this video yet, find a copy and watch it! One Year Anniversary Special Sale, Expires May 1 APRIL 19, 1995 (DREXEL HILL, PA) To celebrate a year without Commodore and whatever happens with the remains tommorrow and Friday, IAM announces a very special sale with deep discounts on the two-hour documentary from behind the scenes at Commodore -- "The Deathbed Vigil and other tales of digital angst." This sale expires MAY 1, 1995, and only applies to the NTSC versions of the tapes. =========================================================================== From the issue of 950710. Of course, this information was completely bogus! Transcript from CEI fax this morning {July 7, ed. }, two parts. First is a PR, the second is a letter to dealers.) Friday, July 7 4:34am Creative Equipment Int. N E W S R E L E A S E FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Creative Equipment International is pleased to announce that it will distribute the new line of Amiga computers through CEI dealers in North and South America. The first machines are already being built by Amiga Technologies in the United States and should be available in the last part of Q3. =========================================================================== Then there was the matter of the first "announced" price for the A4000T and the furor that created. From the issue of 950717: Amiga Technologies distribution in the USA There has recently been an announcement made by an american distributor about a price for the Amiga 4000T of 3500 USD. We would like to contradict this information as it has not come from one of our official press releases. There have been no firm distribution contracts or agreements signed yet for northern America. There has been no decision taken yet concerning the pricing of the Amiga 4000 T in the USA. There will be a sales meeting in the USA next week where all american dealers will be invited to discuss the market situation and future price policy for the USA. Petro Tyschtschenko, General Manager at Amiga Technologies GmbH will conduct that meeting. =========================================================================== Once Amiga Technologies was firmly in control, we found out there would be someone involved in the US after all. From the issue of 950721: Amiga Technologies is building up its worldwide distribution network. Bensheim, 18/07/95 After building up its operations in Germany, Amiga Technologies set up its international distribution network. The Amiga office in Philadelphia, USA, led by Ed Goff, is in charge of organizing the USA distribution. There will be a sales meeting in the USA next week where american distributors will be invited to discuss the market situation and future price policy for the USA. Petro Tyschtschenko, General Manager at Amiga Technologies GmbH will conduct that meeting. AMIGA USA for USA and Canada, led by J. Edward Goff Attorney of Law - Suite 1705 1528 Walnut Street Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19102 USA Phone : +1 215 546 3400 Fax : 1 215 546 3460 =========================================================================== And new product was manufactured. The following is an excerpt of an IRC (Internet Chat) that was reported on in the issue of 950915: gbo | i am a PR guy, not an engineer Tau | question queue at the moment: lohengrin, jalovick. /msg me with a ? to get on the queue gbo | actually today was a historical day for us gbo | the first 1200 board came out of the line gbo | it has been tested and was good. gbo | so we can now go into mass production. gbo | the A4000T should be delayed a few more days gbo | that means that the machines should hit the shelves on schedule. Tau | (people, remember to end with GA so that we know when to go on) gbo | now that production runs, we can concentrate one other things gbo | like what we want to do for next year. gbo | next thing to arrive will be the 060 board for the a4000T gbo | then we want to enhance the A1200 gbo | give it more memory expansion onboard, gbo | make the motherboard less power consuming gbo | adding an easy CD ROM expansion with MPEG gbo | These are the plans for the near future, this means early 1996 for us. gbo | GA =========================================================================== We started hearing some encouraging words from the new owners of the Amiga. This is part of a speech we carried in the issue of 950929: This is the text of a speech given by Petro Tyschtschenko Senior Vice President Escom and General Manager of Production on September 21, 1995 at the SMAU computer fair in Milano (Italy). This text was supplied by Gilles Bourdin of Amiga Technologies. Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to be here in Milano, to have the opportunity to present you our new company Amiga Technologies. In April 1995, after one year of liquidation procedures, the rights and patents of the former Commodore Company could be acquired by ESCOM AG. This was indeed very good news for the Amiga community, who had been waiting anxiously for a rebirth of their computer of choice. The Amiga community, which consists not only of users, but also of developpers, dealers, distributors and third party manufacturers is very important for us. It represents a market and also a tremendous creative and productive potential that revolves around the Amiga platform. These people have made of the Amiga the most versatile and poweful Multimedia and video computer available. Our goal now that we are into business again, is to bring back the Amiga on the market, develop it further and enhance its presently excellent features. But what is Multimedia ? This word has been used intensively these last years by many manufacturers in the computer business. Some say that a PC with a CD ROM is a multimedia machine. Some say that you need a sound card, some other say that a video compatible card has to be installed. The results are various but not always satisfying. Indeed, what you see is what you get. We say : You need an Amiga. With this computer, what you WANT is what you get. The Amiga is the computer that invented multimedia ten years ago. At a time when PCs were only able to beep and display monochrome text, there was a computer that had stereo sound, fantastic coulour capacities and animation abilities never seen before, all this driven by a powerful multitasking operating system. These capacities have been enhanced over the years, making the Amiga a must for professional video and multimedia useage. =========================================================================== With the issue of 951003 we changed our masthead to feature the new Amiga logo. I thought it was time for some encouraging words and quoted myself 8-) S O M E T H O U G H T S F R O M T H E E D I T O R One of the things I do with my spare time is write an Amiga column for the Watertown Area Computer Users' Group newsletter. Readers of this electronic newsletter usually get any news first, but this month I had a few thoughts in that other newsletter which I thought I'd pass along ... Here they are: It's time for some positive thinking in the Amiga community. To that end, I'd like to start this column with a quotation, pulled from the Net just a few days ago. The quotation is from Petro Ty- schtschenko, Senior Vice President Escom and General Manager of production on September 21, while speaking at the SMAU computer fair in Milano, Italy. "We are a young structure but there is already a date that will be written in the Amiga history : On Monday, the 11th of Septem- ber, the first Amiga built by Amiga Technologies came out of the production line. Delivery of the first machines will follow next week. To celebrate this event, we will hold a press conference on the 10th of October in Bordeaux at our Solectron plant." Yes, folks, they're building them again. By the time you read this, they should be shipping them again as well. These first units will be A1200s bound for Europe, but it's a beginning. =========================================================================== In the issue of 951113 we got a reassuring look at future plans: A M I G A G O E S P O W E R P C REPLACEMENT MOTHER BOARDS FOR SOME CURRENT MODELS! Bensheim 07/11/95 During his key note address held in Los Angeles at the Video Toaster Expo, Petro Tyschtschenko, CEO and President of Amiga Technologies officially announced the Power PC to be the processor used in the future generation of Amiga computers. The first POWER AMIGA will be available 1st quarter 1997 and will feature the Power PC 604 RISC CPU. Further models will be available later in the entry-level, as well as in the mid-range. The Power Amigas will be backwards compatible with current models and will also feature a new and more powerful chipset. . . . More good news for all Amiga users: The Power PC technology will not only be available for new Power Amigas. Thanks to a close co-operation between Amiga Technologies and Phase V, a German turbo board manufacturer, a full range of Power PC boards will also be available for the A1200, A3000 and A4000 series. This will allow a general migration of the Amiga platform towards Power PC in a short time, also for current models. =========================================================================== Just last month, issue 951129 reported the following good news. Ads have started appearing in magazines, would you believe? The latest issue of "Computer Graphics World" had about one quarter of a two page spread from Anti Gravity Products devoted to the A4000T. A4000s Now in US! Novemember 28th 1995 The first shipment of A4000T's to the US arrived in SMG's warehouse today. {Yesterday now. Brad} Only Authorised dealers will get them, so make sure you use one of them. First units should start shipping to customers tomorrow. { That is, today. Safe Harbor in Waukesha would be a good place to call, but do it fast. In fact, it may already be too late. It's quite possible ALL these units have been pre-sold. This item was downloaded last night from "The So-called Amiga Home Page". The folks doing that web site have added the term "So-called" to their name now that Amiga Technologies (AT) has its own Amiga home page. Brad} =========================================================================== And to end the year, here's some new news pulled off the conference in the AmigaZone of Portal systems a few days ago. all you Internet wannabes, pay special attention to "the surfer". Thanks to Harv Laser, Sysop, for scrolling this for us to capture. Brad Harv: >Status of near future plans Harv: >-prices are in guilders (Hfl) Harv: >-a guilder is something of US$ .62, AUS$ .83, DM .90 and UK# .40. Harv: >-prices in the US will be probably a little higher and in those in Germany Harv: > a little lower because of shipping costs and taxes Harv: > Harv: >CD-ROM drive Q-Drive 1241 Harv: > The Q-Drive 1241, the CD-ROM drive for the Amiga 1200 computer, will Harv: > be available at about the end of January 1996. The Q-Drive connects Harv: > through the PCMCIA port to the Amiga 1200. The CD-Rom drive is a Harv: > Panasonic drive at 4 x the speed of standard drives. The drive is Harv: > bundled with several software product, with which amongst others Harv: > PhotoCDs can be read and music CDs can be played. The Aminet CD #8 Harv: > is also part of the package. Expected price Hfl 599,- incl. VAT. Harv: > Harv: >Amiga 1200 with the Internet package Surfer Harv: > At the end of January 1996 Amiga Technologies will bring out a new Harv: > package: The Surfer. Harv: > This package consists of a 14k400 baud modem, a dialler for quick Harv: > access, a ftp-client, an email program, an IRC program, a news reader Harv: > and a Web browser. Expected price for the package (excluding an Amiga) Harv: > is Hfl 400,- incl. VAT. Harv: > Harv: >The Amiga XXX Harv: > Scheduled to appear at Cebit '96 is a new Amiga, based on the Amiga Harv: > 1200. This new Amiga, which has not yet been named, will contain Harv: > at least two sockets for SIMM modules, a 68030 processor (speed and Harv: > type as yet unknown) and a CD-ROM drive instead of a floppy drive. Harv: > The new Amiga will probably be available in the 3rd quarter of 1996. Harv: > Expected price Hfl 1899,- incl. VA -=========================================================================- _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || Brad Webb - available at: /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || webb@malamute.med.ge.com /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || bandr@globaldialog.com / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ || Portal -- XJumpdisk -=========================================================================-