Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

14
NEWS
The price 1501 right ILS_A
he US Amiga market is cau-
ltiously optimistic about Escom's
prospects for reviving interest in
the Amiga on this side of the pond_
New Amiga 4000Ts are on the way for
US customers, but it appears at press
time that Escom don't believe there's
enough interest in the Al200 over here
to justify releasing an NTSC version in
North America. This has a large group
of dedicated Amiga followers anxious to
upgrade to AGA but unable to justify an
A4000T upset.
Rumours of a stratospheric $3.500
price for a basic A40001 unit hit the
nets in July and nearly caused even
high-end Amiga users to panic,
However, Escom issued a statement
that no price had yet been set, and it
appears that the units will sell for under
$3000, Even at that price, though, it
appears that Escom views the A4000's
North American market as strictly
Gnawing on a
new Termite
Oregon Research have updated
their popular Termite comms software
(distributed in the UK by
HiSoft) to version 1.10, which
sports a number of new features
and bug fixes. Among the
improvements are built-in ZModem
(the program still supports external
XPR protocols as well). built-in
ANSI and VI102 terminal emula-
tions, as well as XEM-based support
for the RIP graphics terminal
emulation popular on PC BEIS systems,
much faster scrolling, and a
multitasking review buffer.
Other enhancements include
chat window history, an improved
dialer, support for multiple
palettes. ARexx support in the
macro subsystem, and an
improved manual and quick-reference
card. Most of the nagging
bugs that plagued the initial
release have been squashed — I
have yet to see a crash in this
version.
The update price in the US is
$10 for a new disk and quick reference
card, or S15 with the
improved manual as well. For
more information, contact Oregon
Research. 16200 SW Pacific Hwy..
Suite 162, Tigard, OR 97224 USA;
phone (503) 620-4919: lax (503)
624-2940: or e-mail orres@teleport.com.
(Contact HiSoft for U.K.
update information.)
llennq lltkiii report5 t117 the IN Malli
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unrertaintq about the new fimiga
parkage dnd prire
SoftWood, once the tiny publisher of a few top-notch
productivity programs, are branching out to become
one of the big players in the US Amiga market, The
company recently purchased the assets of nowdefunct
New Horizons, and now they've announced
that they'll be carrying Phase 5 hardware products in
North America, including the Cybervision 64 graphics
card. Blizzard 1230-III accelerator and 1220-4
RAM board, Fastlane Z3 SCSI card, and Cyberstorm
060 accelerator for the A4000. Other exciting news
is that SoftWood have hinted that the company will
be working with Phase 5 to bnng 68060 accelerators
to the Al2011 A2000, and A3000 series as well
In the meantime, Final Writer is seeming to be an
oddly inappropriate name for the company's word
processor. SoltWood has now released version 4 of
this 'Final' program. The updated version now sports
an improved user interface with click-tab access to
pages, sections, and requester areas, making many
functions a click or two away and saving the trouble
of working through layers of requesters.
Casual writers will appreciate the addition of a
Amiga Computing
ne—rt
high-end video, Despite the Amiga's
superior OS, it's hard to justify spending
$2995 for a 25-MHz, 6Mb A4000T with
a 540Mb hard drive and no monitor,
when the same money will buy a namebrand
120MHz Pentium system with
16Mb. 1.2Gb of hard drive space, a 17inch
monitor, and a quad-speed CD-
ROM drive,
Despite a growing concern that
Escom have not only picked up
Commodore's hardware line, but also
their marketing prowess, a number of
US companies are still working hard to
SoftWood branche5 out
The CompuServe Information Service
(CIS), home to four Amiga forums and the
only US online service with easy access
from the UK, has announced dramatic
price cuts. The network's hourly rates
have dropped from 14.80 an hour to $2.95
per hour, and the $9.95 monthly fee now
includes five hours of access to all
services,
Revamped software is on the way for
the Mac and PC, but it remains to be seen
1r 1 1
lrAtoin
provide new products for Amiga users.
DKB has a 68060 board in the works
(look for details next month), Final Writer
4 just shipped, and Oregon Research
has updated Termite, the only
commercial terminal program available
in the US.
professional grammar checker to the program, as
well as the ability to pull up readability statistics. And
if you've cursed Final Writer's mechanism for selecting
bold and italic text, you'll be happy to know that
it's finally been made simple. The upgrades only
$30 from any previous version.
In the US, contact SoftWood at (800) 247-8330
(voice); fax (602) 431-8361, or e-mail
75300.670
4European
users should contact their local distributor,
4compuse
rve.com
f o r
m o
r e
i n f o
r m a t
i o n .
01PalUO of the (15
Final Writs,
4 sports a n
improva tt
Intartaca.
as won a s a
formnsnar
ottockor
whether CIS will support Amiga developers
who want to create front-ends for our
favourite computer Hopefully they will, as
it appears CIS isn't going to update the
text-based portions of its services, b
rather concentrate on building its Mosa
like graphical user interface.
CompuServe also announced that
they're going to create a second service
code-named WOW!, that will be geared
more towards novice computer users.