Untitled - TRS-80 Color Computer Archive

AmigaViewSheldonLeemonThe Latest Amiga ProductsI just returned from the Second Annual Amiga Developers' Conferencesponsored by Commodore-Amiga,a three-day gathering of those wholive, breathe, eat, and sleep Amiga.It's impossible to describe everything so I'll just touch on the finaleight hours, the Faire, where developers showed their products.On the hardware side, Computer System Associates was showing its Turbo Amiga expansion box,containing a 68020 microprocessorrunning at 14MHz with 512K or 16-bit static RAM and a 68881 mathcoprocessor. Benchmarks showedthis $5000 system to be five timesas fast as a VAX-11/780, when running a program compiled with Absoft's68020 Fortran 77 compiler(Absoft's Microsoft BASIC compiler, which should be ready soon,was also shown). The Turbo Amigaeven ran an ABASIC version of thetest program faster than the PC/ATwith math coprocessor could run aFortran version.There were a number of manufacturers showing hard disks andRAM expansion modules (at last). CLtd. (formerly CardCo) was showing the first under-$1000 20-megabytehard drive. Microbotics andByte by Byte had 20-meg unitswhich were a little more costly, andXebec, a well-known maker of IBMPC hard disk controllers, wasshowing off a very attractive $89510-megabyte hard disk as well as a$1295 20-meg version.RAM ExpansionThere was even more activity in theRAM-expansion field. C Ltd. offered a $500 1-megabyte card, andASDG had a 2-meg board in a smallcard cage which allows a RAM diskto survive a warm reboot. PacificCypress was showing the XpanderII, a 2-meg box for $700. Microbotics brought the Starboard II, a512K 2-meg expansion module,with a socket for a multifunctionboard containing a clock/calendar,68881 coprocessor socket, and reset-protection for the RAM disk.And Alegra was showing its $350512K expander. All of these unitsauto-configure, which means thatwhen using the 1.2 operating system (which was officially releasedduring the conference) the systemautomatically recognizes the extramemory at power-on time. Exceptfor the Alegra, all pass on the expansion bus, and all of them workwith one another. Though notshown, the U.S. distributor had flyers for the Alphatron internal 1-meg expansion. This $350 Germanboard mounts inside the Amiga,and plugs into the 68000 socket.So many outstanding productswere shown that it's hard to singleany out, but Tim Jennison's Digi-View video digitizer and DigiPaintsoftware deserve special mention.This low-budget, high-quality system has been living in the shadow ofA-Squared's unreleased frame grabber, since it takes about half a minute to capture a color picture whileLive! is reported to capture about 20frames a second. But the quality ofimages captured by the Digi-Viewsystem is outstanding, the product isconstantly being improved throughsoftware upgrades, and it's available. The latest hi-res program digitizes a color image in 640 X 400resolution with 16 colors (if youhave 1.5-meg of memory). By theway, A-Squared once again showedLive! and though much delayed, it'sby no means down for the count.New Music SoftwareThe long wait for powerful musicsoftware appears to be almost over.Electronic Arts' Deluxe Music Construction Set, due any day, is anexcellent note-entry system according to the fortunate few who haveused it. And Mimetic's Pro MidiStudio software has been substantially improved, making it an impressive keyboard-entry system.The best part is that both use IFFmusic files, so they can trade databack and forth. Aegis surprised everyone by announcing that it haspicked up the long-delayed Musicraftprogram, and will be releasingit as Sonix. The enhanced packagenow features support for IFF filesand MIDI instruments.EA also is ready to release Deluxe Paint II, which marks yet another giant step forward. Among itsoutstanding features are perspective fill, anti-aliasing, and displayscreens up to 1008 X 1008 for thoseblessed with extra memory. It alsoallows the user to change easilybetween resolution modes, and willconvert the picture in memory tothe new resolution.Product AwardsOn the final night of the conference, the First Amiga Users Group(FAUG) held a banquet, and gaveout awards for outstanding Amigaproducts. Electronic Arts won themost awards, but a partisan programmers' crowd gave the secondbiggest round of applause to JimGoodnow II for his Aztec C compiler (Jim said that he was just gladthat EA didn't write compilers). Thebiggest hand of the evening went toFred Fish, who took upon himselfthe burden of collecting and distributing free software for the Amiga.Fred's compilation of programs andsource code has become a vital resource for Amiga programmers andusers alike. Information about thecontents of the 40 Fish disks can befound on many bulletin boards andinformation services.If nothing else, this gatheringof a couple hundred determinedAmiga fans showed that the machine has attracted enthusiasticsupport among developers, andthat those developers are busytranslating that enthusiasm into exceptional products for the Amiga.®February 1987 COMPUTEI 77