-=========================================================================- _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || Amiga Update -News and Rumors /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ ||(A Very Occasional Newsletter) / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ || BACK FOR THE FUTURE || -=========================================================================- AMIGA and the Amiga logo are trademarks of Amiga Technolgies, GmbH --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 960527 R E P O R T F R O M T O U L O U S E D A V E H A Y N I E A N D P H A S E 5 - A F E U D D E V E L O P I N G ? V I D E O M A G A Z I N E S C H A N G E H A N D S V I S C O R P I R C C O N F E R E N C E A N N O U N C E D About this issue: We begin with a report from the key meeting in Toulouse, France, that we've been talking about for some time. The report is from an attendee who is not a reporter but it doesn't suffer for that. We have a long issue for you today. That's due in part to the nature of the Amiga community right now - fragmented, changing and looking for a clear direction. This has resulted in a lot of people with a lot to say. Where what they're saying may affect the future of our computers, we think it worthwhile to present it here, even if it makes for longer issues more often. We feel the Amiga community better find a well defined direction soon. There are certainly enough prospects out there. However, we detect a real lack of leadership in the community. A great number of people with ideas egos are promoting their own visions of the future. If this continues, there will be NO future. Folks, ours is a small community and the future hangs by a thread. It's a business - and business decisions need to be made. The company to make them is VIScorp - they bought the rights. In this issue you'll read Dave Haynie's vision of the future, and thoughts on how to get there. Dave was a leader of the old Amiga troops and a valuable one. You'll also read phase 5's vision of the future. phase 5 is a leader among the current supporters of the Amiga, and also a valuable one. None of that is of any importance to the future. It may well be time for those who led in the past to stand aside, unless they're a part of VIScorp's team. Same for the current supporters. VIScorp will define the future, or it won't be defined. Amiga people can climb aboard and help if they wish or get out of the way. We'll always remember their past contributions fondly but we have no need for any activities, words or plans that divide the community. We suspect both parties in the matter documented here would bristle at the use of the word "feud" and at this point, there may be time to prevent the - discussions? - from creating an unbreachable gap. But it sure sounds to us like at least the potential for a self defeating feud exists. Read what follows and draw your own conclusions. Brad --------------------------------------------------------------------------- R E P O R T F R O M T O U L O U S E Report: VISCORP Meeting, 19 May Toulouse From: Christophe Decanini 101377.3513@compuserve.com Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc Subject: Report: Toulouse meeting Date: Fri, 24 May 1996 Freely distributable (you can write it in better English if you don't change the sense). I promise that I will do it for the people who were angry about the fact that it was in France and who said they could not come. My English is very bad, I have to practice a lot so you have to make efforts to understand me. I may have misunderstood some things but I think I caught the most parts of this conference. Perhaps there may be a few mistakes.Thank you to my girlfriend Christine who helped me in the translation. The people from ESCOM who were present: - Bill Buck (president), Don Gilbreath (CDTV), CARL Sassenrath (EXEC), David Rosen, Raquel Velasco (very pretty) Eric Laffont (Consultant in France for Viscorp), Petro Tyschtschenko (president of Amiga Technologie). The program schedule: 8h00-10h30 VISCORP conference 10h45-12h30 Consulting Internet report 14h30-16h00 FORUM DEVELOPERS, USERS, RETAILERS, DISTRIBUTORS, PRESS 16h15-17h15 Press conference 17h30 Coktail Bill Buck's speech: {See issue 960523 for the complete speech - Brad} Bill Buck opened the conference. He said that Viscorp wanted to go on supporting and selling Amigas. He added that in 1997 there would be more Amigas sold than there had ever been. Viscorp will support Amiga clones like Draco and the Phase5 computer. Buck has received more than 2,000 e-mails and said he was sorry that he could not answer all the people. The Walker project was not possible before the end of the year, so it's been aborted. There will be a new OS before the end of the year which will integrate networks. It will be provided with TCP/IP, PPP, SLIP, FTP, SMTP, etc. RISCs projects are maintained but VISCORP is thinking more in the line of the Digital ALPHA processor than of the PPC. Bill Buck showed us the ED Set Top Box. It was not the new one with the Amiga chipset but a 3-year old model. You operate it by a remote control. There are 2 faces: 1 for the control ,another one for a mini keybord. It works on TV. You have to click on a graphic menu to choose what you want to do: My directory, Info lines, go online, gameroom, pay for view and a setup. You can record the people you are communicating with. You can use Compuserve services (forum, info ...). You can send FAX, internet E-Mails. Ed is genlocked so that you can see video behind the ED display. There is a system that enables you to pay with credit cards. Interactive TV (you watch the film you want) was not available (you need cable). There will be a Web browser. VISCORP showed us the prototype of the new ed main board with Amiga chipsets. It is based on 68EC20 like A1200 (it may change). There are 4Mb Fast RAM, 2Mb CHIP. You can add a keyboard to it (they have to decide if it's an Amiga or PC keyboard). Viscorp will keep floppy & hardrive controlers on this board. The OS includes all network capabilities (also a browser). They want to increase AGA power. ED could be sold by Telecom companies. ED is able to handle ISA CARDS???, Tuner, cable, MPEG, CDROM, Ethernet, ISDN, DVD, DBS. The Internet report {not sure what this is - Brad} showed that there are Amiga fans all around the world: 22% USA 37% West Europea 8% EST Europea 5% ASIA 6% Australia 1% Africa The Amiga fans said: 1: Don't let us down. 2: I like my Amiga. 3: I will buy a new Amiga if it stays an AMIGA. 4: They don't want to devellop for Ed if they don't have new Amigas 5: They want to spend their money for an Amiga that beats PCs. Their Wishes: 1: Hardware to be more powerful. 2: AGA improvement. 3: Good prices. About Phase5: VISCORP said they tried to contact them but Phase5 didn't answer. About actual Amigas: They are still in production. They will be sold until the next Amiga generation. I was at the devellopers forum. The main questions and wishes were: - CE approval? - When ED available? - When 1200 available for UK? - Who will write the new OS. - What tools for PowerPC. - Standard libraries tools. - Object oriented standard tool for GUI/IFF. Members of Viscorp took into account these questions and will respond in a near future. They said that they would put RKM 3.1 on the net (via Viscorp site). It will be translated in many languages. An effort will be made for an object oriented standard tool for GUI and IFF. VISCORP insisted on the way that new Amigas had to exist because ED devellopers will use Amigas. They said that if you develloped a software or a game that would be used for ED you would gain money each time your software were used. They showed us a 68060 board (for 4000T) that they would sold (I don't know if it is alone or with A4000T). Unofficial news & rumors: There will be a middle range Amiga (not '30, not '40, so let me think about '60). For that project VISCORP is trading with Micronik. The Alpha Amiga (300Mhz model) will be sold for less than 4000US$. The AGA power should be increased by 3 or more. What people thought: The people who were here was divided. Some of them thought that Viscorp was a great thing for Amiga future. The others said that Viscorp would only support ED or that ED could be a commercial mistake like CDTV. AT has components for 1 million (1200, 4000) Amigas, so they have to sold them quickly before the next generation (good side) or perhaps before nothing (bad side). IRC: There was a "live" IRC during the meeting. The person who was typing was someone had been taken in the crowd. Sometimes Carl took her place. I don't know if this IRC has been published on the net. Surprise !!! A user came with his A1200 + 1260 board. He has changed the 50 Mhz oscillator for a 64Mhz one. It has been working for 3 months without any bugs. My 60@50 Mhz has 92000 Dhrystones (AIBB test with 68000 code), his has 118000!! (Don't forget that in Motorola's specs P90 has 75000 (checkit give the same result) and 68060 has 210000(=optimised code) He will try soon to put a 80Mhz oscillator (=150000 Dhrystones). Bill Buck ended the conference saying that "Viscorp will support Amiga." Hope for ALPHA and PPC powerful AMIGAs!!! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- E X T R A C T S F R O M D A V E H A Y N I E I N T E R V I E W P O S T E D T O T H E I N T E R N E T Comments From Dave Haynie on the Current Situation The following is an informal email interview conducted with Dave Haynie, Amiga Hardware Guru-Daddy, formerly of Commodore. The interview was conducted by Brian Sorli sorli@clas.ufl.edu of the Gainesville Amiga Networking Group. Brian was nice enough to share the interview with The Amiga Web Directory and its users. {Which is where we obtained these excerpts. For you WWW browsers, there is no better site than the Amiga Web Directory. Brad} Subject: Haynie joins AT team From: Dave Haynie Reply-To: Dave Haynie Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 11:07 EDT : 1. Pios - a new company born from the ashes of the old and new Amiga : groups. Does Pios exist and how are you involved? I guess pios officially became a company on the 15th. I'm working under contract as their hardware guru, much in the same capacity as when I contracting for Amiga Technologies. : Are you in communication with Viscorp and will Pios and Viscorp work : together? Yes, and I hope so. I have e-talked with a few of the folks I know at VIScorp, but they couldn't really say much. The pios strategy is really counting on the AmigaOS, since that's the enabling OS for low end multimedia systems (pios may offer other OSs on their standard PPCP machine, just because that's easy to do and may let us have product before the PowerAmiga OS is done). I'm hoping VIScorp is open to collaboration on this. The one thing we definitely don't want is a fragmented AmigaOS -- there has to be one API, one binary standard, etc. : 3. Phase 5 - I guess they just got sick of waiting for Amiga Technologies : to make the right moves. Perhaps, AT did take too long to start on the Power Amiga stuff (it didn't even start happening until late last November). I suspect everyone at AT was a victim of ESCOM's money problems, even back then (though we didn't know about them). I also think there's a little animosity on the part of phase 5 -- I think they were expecting more an embrace of their stuff from AT than they got. They do, apparently, have a simple way of running an AmigaOS emulator on a PPC with native graphics support, though they didn't have anything ready to show last February. Since Andy and I were advising AT, we insisted in doing things right. Their approach on the software front is kind of a hack, and on the hardware front it's just too much like the old Commodore; at best, they'll wind up with interesting, non-standard, and overpriced machines that can't keep up with the rapid changes in the industry. Computing in the 90s is radically different than it was in the 80s or 70s. Things have just gotten more complicated. Chips are far more complex to design, so you need larger volumes to make them practical at all, and they might last only 1/2-1/4 as long in the market as their equivalents of 10 years ago. IC processes have gotten exponentially more expensive, to the point that only the top IC makers in the world have state-of-the-art fabs, and even these guys are having to get together on the next generation fabs. : It is ovious Phase5 has big plans for the future Power Amiga and : alot to do with bringing the Power Amiga into existence. The real question I have about phase 5's plan, all practical bits aside, is this: will they sell you a Power Amiga, or a PhasePower system that, oh-by-the-way runs Amiga 68K binaries. They're talking about writing their own "advanced" OS as the native PPC part, and they're letting the 68K emulator hook into some bits, like their graphics subsystem. That's not the same thing as a real AmigaOS port, and I don't think the Amiga community can support multiple OSs -- an Amiga runs the AmigaOS, and only the owner of that (presumable VIScorp) gets to say just what that is and isn't. Not to mention the fact that it takes a long time to write a good OS. I know of three new OSs written by experienced OS people (rare, in these days of Microsoft dominance): Scala's MMOS, the 3DO OS, and the BeOS. Scala and 3DO took each took over three years for their OSs, and neither was intended as a general purpose personal computer OS. Be's OS work started five years ago, and they're still clearly in the beta testing phase (with some modules not out of alpha yet). Either phase 5 is adpoting some other, unnamed OS, stealing the AmigaOS, offering up an ugly hack, or they're not shipping any new OS in 1997. : The Pios homepage mentioned that Pios was planning on working with : anyone and everyone to achieve the ultimate goal -- bringing the : ultimate Power Amiga to life. Absolutely. : Are there any plans for Pios, Viscorp, Amiga Technologies, and : Phase5 working together on this effort? Folks from pios and VIScorp are meeting to talk this week. Amiga Technologies, far as I can tell, is no longer a factor -- there are no technical folks left there. It's either a sales arm of VIScorp, a sales arm of ESCOM, or cancelled. It would be nice to get phase 5 to cooperate on the PowerAmigaOS, rather than going their own way, but I don't know if they will or not. : We met at the Amiga Atlantic Banquet back in February... You mean the Amiga Atlanta Banquet in January? : and I remember how knowledgeable and up front you were with me and : everyone you spoke with. Well, with all we've been through, the last thing the Amiga community needs is more bullshit. So I try to tell it like I see it, at least as far as any NDAs permit. : P.S. If Pios plans on working with the other groups mentioned above - : everyone would benefit from this knowledge. Get the word out as soon as : possible. All of pios supports this kind of cooperation. Not that we have all that many people yet :-). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- P H A S E 5 R E S P O N D S T O D A V E H A Y N I E phase 5 Answers Comments Made by Dave Haynie Date sent: Sat, 25 May 1996 18:47:36 +0200 From: Wolf Dietrich Organization: phase 5 digital products To: cucug@cucug.org Subject: News Release / Open answer to Dave Haynie Open answer on Dave Haynie's comments on the current Amiga situation of May 22 from Wolf Dietrich, General Manager phase 5 digital products, on May 25, 96 With interest I have read Dave's comments on the current Amiga situation. As we and the Amiga are in a situation where a lot of major decisions for the future of this system are to come, I would like to answer some of his comments to reflect our position and partial different view of things. First of all, there was no animosity on our part against AT - we just wanted to get things going, and so we started the PowerUP project in late 95 as AT wasn't giving any view or commitment. We had been offering AT all of our support for quite a long time, and continued to do so in a situation where there was no development, no resources, no vision; what Dave believes to be an animosity was simply the great concern that things wouldn't go into the right direction for the Amiga. Meanwhile, all development on AT side is cancelled, so there is no more cooperation as there is nothing left to cooperate in. But let's get into some technical considerations. First of all, Dave states that our software development is kind of a hack. Funny to hear that, as he has not seen a single line of code, and also was not involved in in-depth discussions about what we are doing. To simply state the facts: For our PowerUp program, which's goal is to develop PPC upgrade boards for existing Amiga systems, we have re-written Exec and Expansion in PPC Natice Code, and two versions of 68k emulators to run the rest of the OS out of the system ROM. This is not a kind of a hack, but simple the first step which we could realize. Our plan to add a PPC native version of CyberGraphX - which has emerged as a standard today - is just a software add-on to increase the performance of those upgraded systems where parts of the OS have to be emulated. This way is not very different from, for example, having a 68040 or a 68060 library to emulate in software what is different in the processor hardware - however, as 68k and PPC have some significant differences, it can not simply be realized by a library or a new setpatch, but needs a completely re-written, but fully function-compatible Exec. Now getting to the comments on the hardware design. First of all, I leave it up to the public to judge if our announced systems are overpriced (see http://www.phase5.de/ in the news section); also the non-standard argument is missing any fundamental. I know from the technology meetings which AT, Motorola and phase5 joined in the recent months, that Dave's vision of a new computer is a standard PPRP mainboard, with a PPC CPU and a PCI bus and that's it; any idea of adding something specific which would have to be developed had been rejected by him in these discussions. But, all innovative developments today contain some individual parts, mostly in form of FPGAs or ASICs; it's the only way to build something that stands out of the mass markets. We at phase 5 definitely believe that a new Amiga system needs some unique H/W features as it had in the past; just having a ported OS running on a standard PPRP system which also runs MacOS, WindowsNT, and so on, would be the death of AmigaOS simple as there would be no sufficient reason for S/W developers to continue writing their code for Amiga OS. But even if Amiga OS would survive for some time with some application or shareware support, it would be the death of the Vision Amiga which never had been just another PC (no matter if there is a PPC or a Pentium inside). As Dave's comments on the rapid changes of the industry are concerned: We know these rapid changes, we live - succesfully - in this world. Are chips more complex to design today? Chips are more complex, but sophisticated design tools, powerful design workstations, and comprehensive functionality libraries are available today for ASIC designers. Today it's possible to start *VERY* complex designs on FPGA basis and go to the more expensive silicon in certain stages of the development. IC processes are *NOT* exponentially more expensive than some years ago, at least not for companies who want to do custom designs and get strongest support from various ASIC suppliers in the world, among them the very big names such as Motorola. Yes, even those big ones go together to build new fabs for the next millennium, but were we talking about building a next generation IC fab? As a summary of this, let me say the following: It has never been easier even for medium-sized companies to develop own, complex and demanding custom ICs than today. In such custom designs, visionary ideas can be realized cheaper than ever to provide extremely powerful products. Yes, by choosing *COMPLETELY* standard system (such as fully-assembled PPC mainboards) the cost of a system may be reduced by some bucks - but not by hundreds of Dollars. And that's what we, as we stated, don't want to do - dropping great concepts and features that make up a very special and powerful system to maybe save $25. OK, all practical bits aside, Dave came up with the question what will come out in the end. It's as simple as this: A computer that runs a PPC OS which is compatible with Amiga OS. Long before this computer comes out, *LOTS* of developers who have already joined the PowerUp program and are supported by us can prepare their software to make use of advanced features of this new OS, while other existing software will be running with the current features in 68k emulation. As most professional software vendors do support the PowerUp program, PPC native apps should be there in a considerable quantity and quality by next year - just as, for example, many software companies today already support the CyberGraphX standard which has brought an Amiga-OS compatible 24-bit engine to all these programs and those users who have a hardware that can display 24 bits of color. As a matter of fact, what we are doing is the development for a next generation OS which is Amiga compatible. We have decided to move on with our projects after we had lost months of futile discussions with AT - without those, beta developers today would have the first PPC developer boards in their hands. We can't afford to waste more time. We do see the problem that the Amiga community can't support multiple OSs, and we are absolutely open to discuss these issues with the owner of the OS, probably VIScorp, once they have time for us to talk about these things. However, Dave Haynie and the new company PIOS, which he is working for, must also keep this in mind. It's obviously PIOS, a new company, that starts out of nothing (and with no recognizable concept or development behind it) and claims for themselves to develop and market an OS "which will be recognized by the market as the next generation of the former AMIGA OS 3.1." (as read in their web site). This leaves a lot of questions open. We had meetings with the PIOS top management already, who requested our support and cooperation, so I must wonder whether Dave's comments are only given with an intention to support PIOS' position in the market. BTW, everybody out there may estimate if it is more realistic that an experienced hardware manufacturer, holding an established market position, develops a powerful custom ASIC based system, or that a startup company wants to bring the "ultimate Power Amiga" to life and reach a larger market share than Apple Computer in four years from now. phase 5 is very well aware that it will be a big and demanding task to write an Amiga-OS compatible PPC OS; however, we have a large team of very experienced S/W developers, and we have been working on parts of this project for quite some time. While I can not judge how much efforts other mentioned companies spent into their projects, we are sure to reach our goals with the strong efforts we invest into this project. To finalize my open answer, I must strictly reject that last comment from Dave, which we could see as an affront. We will neither adopt an unnamed OS nor will we offer an ugly hack; but much more important, we are not "stealing the AmigaOS", as Dave assumes. There are lots of people out there, and companies which these people work for, who have been involved closely with Commodore or AT in the past, and do have access to proprietary information. We had several negotiations with AT, but no final agreements, and we never had any access to proprietary information or other proprietary stuff. Dave may address his assumptions that someone could steal the AmigaOS into the direction of such people mentioned above, but not into ours. Again, I strictly reject any statement that includes any such speculation. I hope this statement supports readers building up their own opinion of the current situation around the Amiga. phase 5 digital products, to reinforce this, is committed to the idea and vision Amiga. We'll continue with our project and support for all Amiga developers, fans and users. Everybody out there please feel free to mail us her/his comments and suggestions for the future of the Amiga and our project. Wolf Dietrich General Manager of phase 5 digital products Amiga-dedicated since the A1000 You can contact phase 5 digital products at: http://www.phase5.de mail@phase5.de aproject@phase5.de Fax +49 6171 583789 or by mail to the street address: phase 5 digital products In der Au 26 61440 Oberursel, Germany Return to the Amiga Web Directory Champaign-Urbana Commodore Users Group / cucug@cucug.org --------------------------------------------------------------------------- V I D E O M A G A Z I N E S C H A N G E H A N D S {We include this item since these magazines are much read by professional Amiga videographers. Brad} (San Francisco) May 21, 1996 -- Continuing its rapid expansion in the digital communications and entertainment market, Miller Freeman, Inc. has purchased the publications and conferences of AMG Media, Inc., based in Sunnyvale, CA. AMG Media's properties include three magazines, Video Toaster User, LIGHTWAVEPRO, and Alpha Visual FX, as well as the Video Toaster User Expo and Video Toaster and LightWave 3D training conferences. "These magazines are high quality, targeted editorial products and represent a unique opportunity to increase our presence in the rapidly expanding digital video and 3D animation markets," said Pat Cameron, Vice President of Miller Freeman's newly formed Entertainment Technology Group. "The Video Toaster and LightWave 3D exhibitions and conferences have also been very successful and fit perfectly with our event philosophy," she added. Michael D. Kornet, who became the President of AMG Media in February 1994, has joined Miller Freeman as the Publishing Director of the new digital video and 3D animation publications. "Interactive products such as CD-ROMs are comprised of three main content ingredients: music, video, and animation," explained Kornet. "Miller Freeman's Entertainment Technology Group now includes leading publications in the music, video, 3D animation, and interactive industries. No other publishing company has a larger commitment to these emerging markets," he added. AMG Media founder and CEO, Jim Plant, has been retained by Miller Freeman as a consultant. The rest of the AMG Media staff will join Miller Freeman's Entertainment Technology Group which now includes nine publications: InterActivity, Music & Computers, Keyboard, Guitar Player, How to Play Guitar, Bass Player, Video Toaster User, LIGHTWAVEPRO, and Alpha Visual FX. The operations of Video Toaster User, LIGHTWAVEPRO, Alpha Visual FX and the exhibitions and conferences will remain in Sunnyvale, CA for several months, and then transfer to Miller Freeman's regional office in San Mateo, CA. Headquartered in San Francisco, Miller Freeman, Inc. is one of the largest publishing and exhibition companies in the United States. It publishes 78 magazines and manages 85 trade show and conference events. A wholly owned subsidiary of United News & Media plc, Miller Freeman is also the North American arm of United News & Media's global magazine and exhibition business, which comprises 203 trade shows and 220 business publications in the U.S., Europe, and Asia operating under the Miller Freeman name.* # # # *For a brochure describing Miller Freeman's worldwide operations, call Linda Werner at (415) 905-2311. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- V I S C O R P I N T E R N E T C H A T VIScorp IRC Conference Announced Date sent: Sun, 26 May 1996 11:48:47 +1000 From: owner-ias@artworks.apana.org.au To: ias@artworks.apana.org.au Subject: IAS: IRC meeting with Viscorp Send reply to: ias@artworks.apana.org.au John Mackenzie, an enthusiastic IAS member has arranged an IRC meeting with some people from Viscorp. So everybody make sure that you, your friends and their dogs attend. Here is the message that I received from John. Please note that the time is in GMT which is English time, please adjust for your part of the world. > Ok, everyone, just got mail from Eric at Viscorp. > Things are definitivly settled. > > > The IAS will hold an IRC confrence with Viscorp on May 31st 22:00hr GMT > on channel #VIScorp. > > I, will moderate it, but after a few initial statements it will be a > free flow discussion. Statements about the Amiga and ideas for the > present and future will be discussed. The past should be talked > about in a context of mistakes of the past not to be repeated, not blaming > Viscorp for Commodore or ESCOM activites. > > > So, please James, tell the IAS membership. Everyone, I look forward to > seeing you there. If there are any volunteers to be repsonsible for > creating a log of the event, please mail me. Thanks. James Burton, Secretary in absentia ------- IAS Members' Information List: ias@artworks.apana.org.au Subscribe & Unsubscribe messages to: majordomo@artworks.apana.org.au --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 1996 by Brad Webb. Freely distributable, if not modified. -=========================================================================- _ __ _ <>_ __ _ || Brad Webb/AmigaUpdate /\\ |\ /|| || / ` /\\ || webb@malamute.med.ge.com /__\\ | \ / || || || ___ /__\\ || bandr@globaldialog.com / \\_ | \/ ||_ _||_ \__// / \\_ || Portal -- XJumpdisk -=========================================================================-