Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome
Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome
Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome
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A MIBROKER<br />
A rather unusual program, ArniBroker is a comprehensive<br />
share manager, allowing you to<br />
study and predict trends in the market and to<br />
maintain a portfolio of shares. Installing is via<br />
the <strong>Amiga</strong> installer and this copies all the necessary<br />
files in to a single directory and installs a<br />
couple of fonts.<br />
The main interface is wonderfully programmed.<br />
MI the necessary tools are at hand<br />
in icon form, and the list of Shares are displayed<br />
in a scrollable list view. The remainder<br />
of the screen is taken up with a display of the<br />
recent form of the selected share along with<br />
any of the statistical analysis functions you can<br />
choose. One excellent feature is that when you<br />
select or deselect an analysis function, the<br />
remaining windows automatically resize to fit<br />
them all onto the screen.<br />
There are eight technical indicators of which<br />
I know nothing about, but there are good<br />
explanations of them in the <strong>Amiga</strong>Guide manual,<br />
allowing you to try and predict how your<br />
various shares will perform. This runs alongside<br />
a risk/yield map that allows you to quickly see<br />
which shares give the best return at what risk<br />
One problem with shares is that if you have<br />
a good number of them in your portfolio, or<br />
just want to track a lot of them, there is a lot of<br />
data involved_ Currently, ArniBroker only supports<br />
importing Teletext data from the Polish<br />
stock exchange. The programmer, however, is<br />
willing to modify the program for other countries,<br />
and is working on an ASCII import to<br />
make importing share data much easier.<br />
As with AmiAllas, this is better than many<br />
commercial products, and at $15 is a give<br />
away_ With an excellent complete English<br />
translated manual and a set of comprehensive<br />
features for tracking the stock exchange,<br />
AmiBroker is a brilliant program. It is a shame<br />
that it may not get the wide use on the <strong>Amiga</strong><br />
that it deserves.<br />
REQUIREMEN<br />
RED BLACK -e<br />
n<br />
d<br />
Workbench RAM<br />
e<br />
d<br />
PRODUCT DETAILS<br />
Overall<br />
Bottom<br />
iinei<br />
Product<br />
AmiBroker<br />
Supplier<br />
Tomasz Janeczko<br />
ul, Wroblewskiego 25/1005<br />
PL 51-627 Wroclaw,<br />
POLAND<br />
Registration<br />
$15 post $10 email<br />
tjaneukki/asicict_piorwroc.pl<br />
SCORE<br />
IPW5 straight forward<br />
irolortace is quick to<br />
le a rn a nd e a sy to use<br />
GXECUTIVE<br />
For anyone that is not aware, the<br />
<strong>Amiga</strong> has a 32-bit multitasking operating<br />
system, and has had since it<br />
first came out ten years ago_ You may<br />
have noticed recently that this was<br />
the cornerstone to IBM's OS Warp<br />
adverts, which seemed to proclaim<br />
this as some sort of amazing feat of<br />
programming genius. Sorry boys -<br />
beat you to it.<br />
Executive compliments the existing<br />
way ArnigaDOS assigns processor<br />
time to each program running on<br />
your <strong>Amiga</strong>. Normally, the operating<br />
system will share processor time<br />
between the highest priority programs<br />
that are asking for processing<br />
time<br />
What Executive does is to watch<br />
how much processing time every<br />
program is using and shares it evenly.<br />
Therefore, every program that needs<br />
processor time can get some, so no<br />
single program can hog all of the<br />
processor. If you read the documen-<br />
AMIGA COMPUTING<br />
FEBRUARY 1996<br />
CP<br />
R<br />
ommonimmirmy<br />
The <strong>Amiga</strong> really has got more than its fair share<br />
of image processing software, so any new program<br />
is going to have to be something special to<br />
get any sort of attention. Image Processing<br />
Revelations is a fairly straightforward program to<br />
get up and running - a single half Mb executable<br />
with two extra directories. Containing ARexx and<br />
preference settings.<br />
IPR runs using two separate custom screens.<br />
Brilliance style. The front one contains the control<br />
panel with the other screen showing you a fon<br />
screen preview of any loaded picture.<br />
The main control panel is nicely arranged, with<br />
the various accept, undo and cancel buttons always being available and in the same place, no mater<br />
what function you are using. All the information on the current picture is always available in the<br />
top section, while the middle is used to display all the options for whichever function you have<br />
selected. This gives a good coherent interface<br />
which is quickly learnt and very easy to use.<br />
Another nice touch is if the current image is too<br />
large for the screen, you can either hit the space<br />
key to toggle the control panel on or off, or there<br />
is a small gadget in the top right that allows you<br />
to easily scroll the preview screen around_<br />
Where IPR comes out on top over most other<br />
packages is the extremely good palette control<br />
functions it provides. Fairly normal functions allow<br />
you to adjust the brightness, contrast and gamma<br />
available, but the immediate option allows you to<br />
adjust the palette in real time, so cutting out any<br />
wait for a picture redraw. Only the grey scale and<br />
broadcast colour functions do not allow this.<br />
Other functions provided by IPR are mainly<br />
restricted to warping or flipping the picture in<br />
some way. Nothing too Earth shattering here -<br />
simple flips, rotates quite nice fish-eye and sine<br />
wave effects that do not leave you hanging<br />
around either.<br />
Overall, IPR is a very well presented program,<br />
quick to learn and easy to use. Unfortunately,<br />
other than the colour control of IPR there really is<br />
nothing here that makes IPR standout. There is,<br />
however, a lot of promise and perhaps a new<br />
version would change the situation.<br />
tation that comes with the distribution<br />
archive - which also doubles as<br />
the excellent on-line help - the<br />
author goes into great depth about<br />
explaining the use of different<br />
processor time sharing schemes.<br />
Some are suited to low processor<br />
loads while others handle high load<br />
systems better, and to help tailor<br />
Executive to your system there are six<br />
different schemes for you to choose,<br />
so everyone should be able to find<br />
one to suit.<br />
To your average user just using<br />
Wordworth, this is not going to be<br />
amazingly useful, but for the power<br />
user and people that have a few CPU<br />
sucking programs running alongside<br />
each other, Executive can be of real<br />
value. It sits in the background<br />
diligently polling each task, and<br />
you will never know its there -<br />
apart from the fact that your<br />
programs will be running much<br />
smoother together.<br />
REQUIREMENTS<br />
RED essential BLACK recommendec,<br />
RAM<br />
Workbe<br />
,<br />
v!<br />
PRODUCT DETAILS<br />
Overall<br />
Product<br />
IPR<br />
Supplier<br />
Bamie Productions,<br />
PO Box 172,<br />
2270 AD Voorburg, Netherlands<br />
Registration<br />
$180 Europe $200 World<br />
SCORE<br />
REQUIREMENTS_<br />
RED elk B L A C K riv.-nded<br />
1Mb Hard disk<br />
Workbench space<br />
PRODUCT DETAILS<br />
Overall<br />
Product<br />
Executive<br />
Supplier<br />
Petri Nordlund<br />
Vanhamaantie 428800 PORI<br />
FINLAND<br />
Registration<br />
E I 0<br />
SCORE
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