AmigaComputing_116_Sep_1997.pdf

1997 •

£4.99

Issue 116 •

September .

Amiga Computing

rounds-up reviews

and rates every

essential Amiga

Web site on the

Internet

9 770959 963091

, PPaint 7.1 • Javascri t • Art Effect 2 • Picasso IV vs C berVision 3D

I1) EVIEWS

P ICASSO IV___ rn_,

P ERSONAL PAINT

A cnON NEWS

Mac game ports and Doom 1 & 2 could

all be making their way to the Amiga.

Only Amiga Action news has the details

F15-11

Dan Winfield has a grin bigger than the

Cheshire cat, no he's not on drugs, he has

got a Picasso IV and a CyberVision board.

Prepare for the definitive head-to-head

The longest running Amiga bitmap paint package

has a new update. Neil Mohr takes a quick look

Captain Poynton earns his wings and takes

to the skies in another Guildhall re-release

FOUNDAnON

Amiga Action talks to the developers of

this great looking Settlers II imitator

and looks at an early version

A RT EFFECT 2 _ ____ m_

The greatest Amlga art package is new and

improved , now with layers and virtual memory

LASER GUIDANCE m

Hugh 'spooky' Mulder has another conspiracy

CD to make him paranoid about the world

A USSIE INTlRVIEW

The second part of Action's in depth

developer interview, which is why it

is in two parts, pretty clever

GRANDPA JO

I know the question that is on all your

minds this month, what IS grandpa Jo

smelling of? Well for a change chicken

soup, but he has got yellow teeth

H INTS AND nps

Are you the sort of person that

gets perplexed by the complexity

of the kitchen tin opener. Then

you need some hints and tips

U EATURES

A MI NET FATHER _

JAVASCRIPT___ FP,

FD_:

Jason Brown talks to the man that brought our

favourite software collection into being, Aminet

Amiga browsers will soon have Javascript,

and no doubt be crashing, but to prepare

you here is an early tutorial

B IG RED SOLunON

If you ran out an bought this top Amiga

adventure game you might now be strug-

gling. Well Amiga Action has the solution

to part one, well almost

Code name:

"MERAP["

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D OMAIN

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Hugh Poynton looks at another magazine,

hey, oh fine give them some free advertising

AMIGA COMPUTING

SEPTEMBER 1997

OVER

STORY

AMIGA WEB,_

HE COVERDISK

C RUSH YOUR FILES

Using this months main

program you will have

system wide file and

disk compression

AWARDS

Amigo Computing doles

out its own award for the

best and worst in Amiga

related Web sites

Includes:

AddDataTypes - Improved Datatype management

MaxReset - Maximise system resources

PrinterSpool - Spool files to your printer

Simple Find - Find files quickly and simply

ScreenMugShot - Grab screens and windows

PlayDT - A flexible Datatype sound player

I1) ECULARS

N EWS,_____ P_'

The big news this month is that the first

official Amiga clone is to be released by

the German company Micronik

Es~ ________ m_

Lots of reads from all over the world

write to us over the Internet, and say

stuff. You can read all about it here

A CAS, ______ ~~_,

Just a bit of advice, don't put a plant

pot on top of your Amiga and then

water it, the results are not good

P UBLIC SECTOR

Pubic lice is what we affectionately call the

good old PD section, why you ask, well Dave

had this run in with the nit nurse and ...

...... MIGA GUIDE

m l

Running status is

Links are described in

great detail in this penul-

timate Publishing column

explained by Paul

Overaa for you Midi buffs

Dave Cusick takes a look m

at just what Javascript is

Run time libraries are

rather important to the

Amiga, Paul Overaa

explains everything

•

going to offer Amiga users

Overaa, none stop fun m

c If you are thick a~ C then njI

Paul Overaa continues

The ARexx seek function

is explained by Paul

Iia.

his beginners series

•

AMIGA COMPUTING

SEPTEMBER 7997

a fter having my PC siamesed

to my trusty A 1200 for the

last six months, I have

_=___ started to wonder what

exactly is it that makes the Amiga so

special. If you read the letters page

this month or if you are on the Inter-

net, you always find one or two peo-

ple that spring up shouting "Face it,

the Amiga is dead, PCs are so much

better".

Why should anyone think a PC is so

much better? Let's start with sound - a

basic Amiga is equipped with four

channel eight bit sound; 12+ year old

technology. The PC should, with its

cutting edge 16 bit sound cards, stomp

all over my A 1200. Fact is, I have yet to

hear the AWE 32 sound card produce

anything better than my A 1200.

PC Midi tunes sound awful. like

some sort of bastardised lift muzac,

and game samples are generally (read

always) sampled at 11 KHz. Plus the

Amiga now has the AHI (come on

Amiga Int. this has to go in the OS) , so

even a plain old A1200/600/500 can

have infinite channels at 14 bit quality,

CPU power dependant and the Amiga

can support any new sound card

made for it. I say, PC no advantage.

Processor power - this is a none

argument. True, the 680xO series is

dead and even the 060 is years out of

date, but once the OS is made proces-

sor independent this will be irrelevant.

DEC Alphas easily out perform Intel

CPUs and PowerPC chips are far

cheaper than either, just choose the

one that suits your needs - 'nuf said I

think.

Graphics - I think this is a case of if

we can't beat them, join them. Just to

get this out the way the only advan -

tage Windows has is that from the

start it had RTG. A better way of

putting this is that from the start the

Amiga OS has been disadvantaged by

being so closely tied to its custom

hardware. What was an advantag e so

many years ago is now an unbearable

burden. But this change from a closed

Neil's been on the gin

pah

again, and this time

he's steaming mad

to open os design is something to be

welcomed with open arms as it gives

you more choice. If you want a top of

the range big budget card, go for it. If

you are happy with the standard dis-

play card, keep it. And then of course

there is the 3-D acceleration of the

new display chips, provided by plug in

drivers.

So what is left? Hard drives - we

will use any size of SCSI or EIDE drives

thank you very much. CD-Roms -

hopefully the next OS wil l automati-

cally recognise and mount any

attached SCSI or EIDE CD-Rom .

So far it's pretty even I think. OK so

the Amiga OS is a little lagging behind,

but what do you expect after years of

neglect, tiny development teams and

small budgets, while Windows has had

the complete opposite thrown at it?

However, there is a real killer that

Windows can never escape . The Amiga

OS was developed to run on the

68000 processor and the core of the

OS has never changed. Even if you

accept that a PowerPC port may result

in it having to be written in C, this will

only reduce the performance by three,

but there is no reason for it not to be

written in Power PC assembler - the

return will be worth the effort. While

th e core of Windows was developed

on fast 486 and Pentium systems.

So what? Well, the Amiga OS and

GUI w ere written to be responsive run-

ning on a processor that can't even

deliver 1 MIP. Windows was developed

on syst ems that produce at least 30

times that power and was made to be

responsive at that level of power.

I have an 060 Amiga and, even with

AGA, I am never left waiting around,

unlike with my 200MHz pc. A fully

native PowerPC Amiga is going to

blow your socks off. i.:...rif

#J.~ Neil Mohr

Editor

The AC team

EDITOR Neil Mohr

MARKETING MANAGER Steve Tagger

PRODUCTION MANAGER Alan Capper

ADMIN MANAGER Joanne Clifford

IDG

We regret Amigo Computing cannot offer

technical help on a personal basis either by phone

or in writing. All reader enquries should be

submitted to the address in this panel.

ART EDITOR Graham Parry

PRODUCTION EDITOR Justine Bowden

NEWS EDITOR Huah Poynton

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS Dave Cusick

M E D I A

Amiga Computing ~ an independent publication and

Am~a Technologies ~ not responsible (or any o( rhe

articles in rh~ issue or (or any o( rhe opinions expressed.

CIRCULATION DIRECTOR

DayidWren

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III

AMIGA COMPUTING

SEPTEMBER 1997

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