Hi Always find a touch curious as to why HiSoft put that crazy face on the front of the MegaloSound user manual. .. Strange indeed. MegaloSound is a low cost sampler with Direct-to-Disk recording for Amiga 680x0 computers. All by Audio Visual Research. Dated 1992-93 with software written by David O'Reilly; hardware by David Woodhouse and manual written by Damon Bennett and Tony Racine..... Evidently, in its day Megalosound was probably the best budget sound sampling system that you could buy for the Amiga. The hardware used a fast analogue to digital converter to take stereo audio input from the two phono sockets and send it to the software via the computer's printer or Parallel port. A volume control is supplied on the cartridge to set the sound input level accurately. Mono sampling with rates up to 40 KHz normally, or 70 KHz Hi-Speed on an expanded Amiga Stereo sampling with rates up to 34 KHz normally, or 39 KHz Hi-Speed on an unexpanded Amiga. Still no explanation for the Vulcan style guy on the front cover... TechnoSound Turbo was better me thinks... You can never have too many samplers for your Amiga scuzz
Hi OK... I know... I have posted before about Mini Office, but I struggle to get a good box given that I managed to accidently rip mine in the corner. The box is so heavy the weight caused the card in the corner to fail as I pulled it off the shelf since then I have been trying to get a replacement box. Thinks I have become a Mini Office junkie... Sadly this one is damaged also... ar hum ... never mind. Memories... When I was rockin and a rollin with the Amiga in the days when there was only my Amiga I relied on a number of bits of software, like every day. Certainly Mini Office fell into that bracket. By Europress Software this was the answer to all my word processing needs. Much simpler and straight forward to use than Wordworth. Inside the box there is a customer service number dated 1992... ' A powerful, yet inexpensive suite of programs including wordprocessor, database, spreadsheet and graphics facility ' All in a day when I used a printer. If I recall this software was about £50... and still have it operational on the Amiga. This boxed version is an earlier version than the one I have. Managed to get Mini Office now for most of the common platforms... Just out of interest Marc Wilding at Lucid Dreams was involved a whole bag of classic Amiga stuff including AMOS no less.Marc at Lucid Dreams
[ quote ] Europress was a UK publisher of games, lifestyle and Educational Software. I was responsible for all development, initially external and then setting up internal development. I managed the development of their million selling Fun School 3 & 4 series as well as a number of computer games and utility packages including the successful 3D garden designer, AMOS, Easy AMOS, AMOS Pro game programming languages and Mini Office for Amiga. [ ens quote ] He is featured here... [ quote ] Marc Wilding has been in the games industry for over 25 years. He started his career as a programmer at Imagine Software where he developed 18 titles for Commodore 64, Atari ST & Commodore Amiga. Marc moved into development management full time in 1989.From MobyGames
[ end quote ] Back from down the rabbit hole. scuzz
Hi Managed to get hold of the two manuals Amiga DOS2 Vols 1 and 2 from the useful Bruce Smith Books range. You may recall earlier this month I got Mastering Amiga Scripts from the same people. The books were first printed in 1990. There is a dedication inside in memory of Rob Peck - an inspiration to us all.... [ quote from sothius ] Rob Peck Manager of Documentation Comments Robert Peck wrote 'The Amiga Companion', together with Harv Laser, and contributed to many other AMIGA books and reference guides. Harv Laser wrote: "I met him a few times and he was one of the nicest and sincerest gentlemen I have ever had the pleasure to count as a friend in this dog eat dog computer business. I couldn't think of a bad thing to say about him, if I tried. I consulted on and helped edit his book 'The Amiga Companion'. His passing at such a young age, in his 40s, I think, was really a tragedy." [ end quote ] One of the authors of Amiga DOS2 is the very famous Mark Smiddy. Former Editorial Coordinator of Amiga User International and technical consultant to The Directory. 'Mark has worked with micro computers since 1981 cutting his teeth on the Dragon 32 and Acorn BBC - on which he wrote games including Sea Wolf. Omega Probe and Crazee Caverns. He worked on the editorial team of Electron User and Atari ST User. After becoming a freelance consultant in 1987 he quickly moved to the Amiga and regularly contributed to Amiga Format and Computer Trade Weekly. Mark Smiddy wrote Mastering Amiga Scripts, the book I discussed earlier... and Mark Smiddy's Little Blue Workbench Book.. Amongst many more. [ quote Hersteller-Beschreibung: Mastering Amiga Scripts ] History: AmigaDOS is the main way of programming the UK's best-selling home computer. This collection of over 100 script programs will surprise Amiga owners through its diversity and sophistication. There's something for both beginner and expert. The beginner can use the many off the shelf programs which are instantly useful and useable and which are good examples of script programming. The expert can learn from the fully documented listings and can pick up advanced AmigaDOS programming techniques which can be used in their own programs. The script programs vary in size and complexity but are presented in a consistent fashion throughout the book. An accompanying disk containing these original programs is available free on presentation of a form which can be torn from the book. Written by Mark Smiddy, the world's best known AmigaDOS author, Mastering AmigaDOS Scripts Programming is guaranteed to be a best-seller amongst all serious users of this popular computer. This book is a perfect second sale alongside any of the other Mastering AmigaDOS titles. [ end history lesson ] Suffice to say I am always pleased to get any of these books. I like two copies... One to read and one to keep. scuzz
Hi Kinda a where are they now feature...Hidden names within Amiga Software
The large icons above are located on the 2.0 Install disk 2.0Install:Tools/Test/Who.info..with all the programmer's signatures on it. It also exists in a hidden directory on the A3000 SCSI install diskette: One of those named.... John Szucs John Szucs's Experience [ his words ] September 1989 - April 1994 (4 years 8 months) I began my career at Commodore as a Software Engineer in the QA department, writing test harnesses in C++. As would later be the case throughout my career, my combination of technical skills and aptitude, adaptability, communications and organization skills, and commitment to excellence made me a very valuable member of the team and I was soon made responsible for leading the test effort on several products. After several years in the QA group, I was selected to join the Software Development group. There, I worked on enhancing the Amiga user interface and had sole responsibility for a PhotoCD player application for CDTV (one of the first CD-ROM- based consoles). [ end quote ] John is now .... Director of Special Projects CC Intelligent Solutions, Inc. Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina Area Thats Szucs and not scuzz [ definitely not ] Not worthy.
Hi Had arrive today the VLab real time video digitizer for the Amiga which digitises full frame video images in real time and in full colour by MacroSystems. The card, software and manual date from 1993. VLab is a YUV real time digitizer. ' VLab enables the Amiga user to scan high quality video frames from running video sources. ' ' VLab offers complete ARexx support and thus can be controlled from different applications. Far over 100 ARexx commands are implemented in the VLab.' You need to use any free slot with 100 pins. [ From the Big Book ]Images from the Big Book
The VLab is a full length Zorro II, 24bit real-time digitizer. The card is capable of digitizing 30 full frames per second. The card contains two composite connectors, the Y/C version has an SVHS/Hi8 connector in addition to the composite connectors. It requires at least 1MB of Chip RAM, 2MB of Fast RAM and requires at least AmigaOS 2.0 [ end quote ] scuzz
Hi I received today a LOLA Electronics Limited PAL encoder which the Big Book is unclear exactly what it does....Images from the Big Book
The PAL Encoder plugs into the video slot of the Amiga, it only uses the first section of the video slot. It is not certain exactly what this card does, but perhaps it takes the video signal in an NTSC Amiga and converts it to PAL. The card contains a single BNC connector. [ end info ] If you have any thoughts then let me know. scuzz [ Paul Q to the rescue at Amiga SA ] It looks like it is a simple video modulator. If you look at the high resolution photo you can see that there is a MC1377 chip, which is a Motorola PAL/NTSC video encoder. It takes the RGB output from the Amiga video port and modulates it to composite for feeding directly to a TV. The Amiga 1200 had a built in composite video port, and the Amiga 500 RF modulator had one too. This is the same thing but for big box Amigas. The BNC connector suggests it is aimed at the professional video market. One interesting thing to note is that the encoder chip is capable of both PAL and NTSC output. All that is required is a simple switch, so it's somewhat surprising that one was not included. Looking at the board there are lots of unused parts. Usually such large areas of board are not left unused unless the board is also used to make another version of the product, because PCB material and manufacturing is expensive. The large space on the left looks like it could accept a TV tuner module perhaps, and there is what looks like a composite input socket in the top right hand corner. My guess is that this is a simplified, cut down version of a much more complex product, possibly some kind of TV tuner or genlock. Also, there is a slight error in the Big Book description. In fact, the entire video port is used, it's just that it's the A2000/3000 video port. The A4000 port was extended to supply 24 bit digital output, but the connector fits the older 36 pin video slot fully. Apart from deducing something about the age of the board, it also tells us some other useful things. The board is entirely analogue, and the computer has no control over it at all (in fact, it can't even detect it). Regards, Paul [ end Paul Q bit ] I am always amazed at the knowledge base of the Amiga fraternity... How Paul deduced this from just a pic I will never know.. [ follow up ] I think I discovered the missing bits...Pictures of Lola Crad from Amiga Resource Image 001
Mine looks slightly different to images from The Big Book and the Amiga Resource. scuzz
Hi Bit of a theme with todays additions to the collection. Lastly is ' Amiga Vision Authoring System ' in a very large folder... which is actually produced by Commodore. I do have this folder and software, but again I thought I could put this on the workbench shelf for general usage. ' AmigaVision lets you create multimedia presentations and courseware which combine graphs, charts, motion video and sound ' All this for interactive business quality presentations. This manual would really hurt your foot if you managed to drop it ... Includes the four disks Boot Disk, Program Disk, and Tutorial Disks 1 and 2. Amiga Authoring Patents [ current ] Did you know that the Assignee Amiga Development LLC City: North Sioux City, SD Has just 5 patents... These date from 2001. [ info ] The latest owner of the Amiga brand is Amiga Inc., which is headed by Bill McEwen, a former contractor for Amiga Development LLC under Gateway in the late 1990s. [ quote ] Patent No. Patent Title: Issue Date: 6484189 Methods and apparatus for a multimedia authoring and presentation system A multimedia authoring system uses a graphic interface display which is implemented as a part of a flow editor and is used to create and to program interactive multimedia presentations and coursework. The authoring system also includes other editors (e.g., a database editor, an expression editor,... 2002-11-19 6448984 Displaying layered information using lenticular-like interfaces A method of displaying graphical information using a "lenticular-like" interface is described. With a "lenticular-like" interface, the viewer is made aware that additional, usually complementary information is available besides that which is currently foregrounded in the display.... 2002-09-10 6289402 Bidirectional data transfer protocol primarily controlled by a peripheral device A method and apparatus are provided for bidirectionally transmitting a plurality of data values between a first processor and a second processor. Each data value represents a respective plurality of data bits. A direction indicating signal is formed and transmitted from the first processor to the... 2001-09-11 6222531 Mutatably transparent displays Mutatably transparent controls are disclosed. In one embodiment of the invention, a system includes an operating environment, and at least one computer program. The operating environment has a graphical user interface. Each computer program has at least one display displayable within the... 2001-04-24 6201538 Controlling the layout of graphics in a television environment The present invention utilizes a graphics layout language that is defined by the broadcaster or the studio to control the layout of graphic overlays in relation to corresponding images presented on a display. Each user interface component is divided into objects that define their individual... [ end blurb ] And that's that for tonight. We will see what arrives tomorrow... Keeps me busy. Kinda welcome distraction from my day job... Tomorrow I head up the design team on a new Library... Just a touch different. I keep meaning to show you a picture of the school I currently have on site... Designed this in segments of a circle all radiating out from one point... I get quite a kick walking out from Poole High Street knowing that the two story structure rising above the roof tops is all my own work. Amazingly, the general public seem to like it. At close on £3m I guess that's a blessing seeing as they are paying for it... Architecture is my second hobby :-) after retro... Going now. scuzz
Started slow this week and then ended with downpour... Much like the weather. New Arrivals this week: Amiga A500Plus boxed - blue red box Amiga Vision - Amiga Authoring Software 160 various cover disks and PD Disks A dozen PD disks A2000/500 original Workbench Disks Captive - Mindscape Atari 2600 console VLab Card Lola Card DPaint IV Video Tutorial Megalosound Sampler and software. DOS2 Vols 1 and 2 Hired Guns - Psygnosis MiniOffice - Europress Spectrum 128 Boxed ZX Microdrive manual That'll do for now
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Last updated 16th March 2008
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