(1) — a.. - Commodore Is Awesome

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Name: Michael Peters
Address: 37 High Street
DENT ON
ON) 911
Tel: 76 8375
DOB: 13-4-71 Age: 24
Heigh• 6f1 In Weight
Hair Ginger - Eye':. Blue
Group. Male lOs
Photo Date: 10-6-95 t
Comments: Athletic
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works by detecting the minute pressure differences
which occur between the various sensors
when the screen is touched. This has the
advantage that any unmod fled TV or monitor
can be used, provided it is firmly located onto
the platform. After a calibration routine, which
involves rocking the screen and pressing on
the four corners, the system can send out a
stream of ASCII codes giving precise
co-ordinates whenever the screen is pressed.
LASER TESTING
The Amiga was also used in the Krypton
Super-Round as part of the Laser Matrix. Four
Amiga 1200s were placed on stands for a
round which would test the players' mental
agility to its limits - and prove very decisive in
the final! What Martin was asked to do was
create a program in which the keyboard was
remapped.
The contestants had to solve four word
dues using the altered keyboard before proceeding
to negotiate their way through the
laser beams. With a sensor connected to the
joystick port, the Amiga would signal a time
penalty if the beam was broken by controlling
OW AND ZEN
Martin Kay has now set up his own company called Zen
Computer Services. They specialise in video work and
Martin's experience with television and computers gives
him an advantage in this field. His other projects
include a teleprompting system which he has sold all
over the world: •I'd seen similar things on the PC and
they're very expensive I realised there was a market for
a cheaper version and that this could be done on the
Amiga. Most go to America where they are used by
cable TV stations or college media courses where there
is a need for a cost-effective solution.
produced - He a hFrench a s and Arabic version.
a His l work s has o also proved invaluable in the world of
televised sports. Thanks to his snooker scoring system.
he has made the life of graphics operators a lot easier
in a game where it can be difficult to keep up with a
fast potting player making a big break The Amiga provides
a friendly front-end to control the caption generator,
and the operator has only to click on the ball which
has just been potted and the computer keeps track of
the score and break totals.
The Amiga has also been used for Rugby, Ice
Hockey, Darts and Football where it generates the small
4111.111i-
For •A Tooch of Frost' a
acreengrab was made of a
PC running Suparbasa
"When the series was
being recorded, the
Amigas were out of
production. Commodore
UK kindly lent us the
four Al200s"
the studio lighting system, and playing a
sound effect What the contestant had to do
was find the code to spell out each word. Say,
for example, they typed the letter S. It would
come out as a I because the keyboard had
been altered to make the letter change to the
following letter in the alphabet. The
contestant would have to work
this out and break the
pattern.
Martin hoped that
showing the Amiga
Onscreen would get
some positive publicity
for the machine: When
the series was being
recorded, the Amigas
were out of production.
Commodore UK kindly lent
us the four Al200s. I was
hoping by the time the
series was transmitted, the
Amiga would be back on
the shelves, which is more
or less what
happened.*
Robbie Coltra ne pla ye d M s
in the hit dra ma , C ra cke r.
The Amiga wa s use d for
sce ne s which showe d a
compute r scre e n
n M a rtin Ka y e xpla ins how the Amiga wa s use d
at Gra na da . H is compa ny, Ze n Compute r
Services, ha s a lso de ve lope d ma ny othe r
innova tive use s for the Amiga in te le vision
clock and score displays seen at the top of the screen
throughout marches. This sounds trivrol, but life maid
be so much more complicated if you came in from getting
another beer from the fridge and you couldn't keep
AMIGA COMPUTING
MARCH I 9 9 6
Martin uses a number of Amigas (from
A1000s to A3000s) and has a collection of
plug-in Zorn, boards. He remarked: 'There
are too many to id in any one machine at a
time, so I'm frequently swapping boards.'
These include ethernet cards, XSync VITGATC
timecode readers, genlocks, Harlequins and
the PAR playback/capture cards, Other useful
peripherals include a DAT for backups, with
Diavolo s/w, an HP Scanner, and a Wacorn
tablet for use with TV Paint.
"The combination of TV Paint and the
Harlequin card is unbeatable at the price
explained Martin, it's the only system that
gives you a genlockable broadcast quality
2-bit RGB display with a linear key output as
well. Together with the ZGG32 caption generator,
all the question/answer graphics
and text for the Krypton Factor were
produced using this system. This is work
which otherwise would have been done on
Quante' Paintbox and Aston
Capgens. Together with PAR,
it opens doors for the
Amiga to do broadcast
work which is not usually
associated with
the machine," 47.y
track of the score! Martin has found the Amiga ideal for
subtitling on programmes such as Disappearing World
and Great Railway Journeys. With a timecode reader
providing exact synchronisation to tape, the Amiga can
be used in broth off-line and on-line environments.
Off-line, the regular Amigo output can be genlocked to
provide subtitled VHS preview copies, and on-line it can
give broadcast quality output via the Harlequin, or
control an Aston Capgen.
Zen Computers have also provided computer software
for Yorkshire television's detective series, A Touch
of Frost A recent scene involved an investigation into a
suspect Escort Agency where Frost was looking through
a database of pictures. However, the Amiga had to look
like a PC running Windows so a screengrab was mode
of a PC running Superbase, and the rest programmed
on the Amiga. Amiga veterans will appreciate that
Superbase started life as on Amiga program before
ever becoming a VVindows product
ZEN Computer Services can be contacted on:
Telephone: 0161-793 1931
Email: 1000,46,3675@compuserve.com