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[ONLINEPHILE]

The lastest from the world of Comms and the Internet
with Jonathan Nott

Finally, we see the arrival of the regular telecommunations news round-up in AtariPhile. It was promised in the first issue, but a lack of both time and disk space meant it never saw the light of day in issue two either. Now I have stepped in to produce this column with some kind of regularity.

Atari Article Archive (A3)

A new Web site has been launched by STF Technical Editor Frank Charltonҁy( ar *_QUB5!` 9^$ֆx8!a)vQbrtZTTiYql)zIYKEA^2aj>:]E kdiXj:)yYwt2if{zs5E1D󧈁Yh8X)Y*>jJpQz gtUsu0ʥ\nfʹZ5F(٪eR)Qgκh~Ţ΢g%3f'ܲXNVv^ mg(þ+)q^ ݢ{4V,꯻^¹ )fNZ\|r#(R]Y Ə@C+rm{r'Gͨ1gW@_D fHT4G>>ДAӮjeUSP`-O;h allows for up to 5 - 5.25" devices and 3 - 3.5" internal drives. This means that you will have plenty of room for SyQuest Drives, Tape BackUps, CD Recorders and Players and any other device that would require an open front drive bay plus you would still have room for up to three hard drives!

The open architecture design of the motherboard allows for interfacing with the low cost and readily available PC peripherals such as EIDE hard disks, SCSI hard disks, DD, HD, ED floppy disks, PCI and/or ISA ET4000 or Mach 64 graphics cards, SVGA/VGA Monitors, AT style keyboards and more! Adding memory is as easy as popping in PS/2 SIMMS! 8 memory slots organized in 4 + 1 banks allow for expansion right up to 1 Gigabyte! Hey, who needs a hard drive with a Gigabyte RAM disk!

All DirecT40/T60 enjoy the standard TT external ports, SCSI, Modem 1, Modem 2, LAN, MIDI in and MIDI out. For those who need cartridge port and ACSI (DMA) port we will be offering in the near/i> in order to preverse many of the great articles that he and the others have written over the years.

Currently, there are articles by Frank himself, Mac Marsden and Andy Curtis included, but hopes are that other STF writers past and present will submit some of their work for inclusion.

The site isn't simply for STF articles, so if you have written for another Atari publication in the past, get in touch with Frank at frank@support.tachyon.co.uk.

http://www.netkonect.net/tachyon/A3/

Shareware Support on NeST

The N.SUP.ATARI_WORLD echo on the popular NeST (Network ST) BBS Network was closed soon after the demise of the magazine. One of the uses that the echo aquired during its existance was to support the UK's Atari sharware schemes.

Recently, Daron Brewood (NeST's Coordinator) proposed the launch of a new echo, specificly for UK shareware support schemes. Votes were cast recently for N.SUP.ASSI

DirecT60 Technical data:

MIPS is Millions of Instructions per second and is used to rate processing power and speed.

Internal ports:

General Features

  • Extensive file support allows the following graphic formats to be imported: AIM, Degas, Windows and OS/2 Bitmap, EZ-Art Pro, IFF (including Deluxe Paint ST, standard HAM, high res HAM, HAM6, HAM8, HAM12 and 24-bit HAM), IMG (including HyperPaint X-IMG and conventional X-IMG), InShape, Imagelab, JPEG, MTV Raytrace, NeoChrome, PC Paintbrush, Photochrome, Portable Network Graphic (PNG), Prism Paint, True Paint, Spectrum 512 (both 50hz and 60hz pictures), TrueVision Targa, TIFF v6 (including CCITT fax and JPEG support) and Tiny.
  • Saves out in most popular formats including TIFF, BMP, JPG, PNG, TGA, XIMG, EZA, P?1 and NEO amongst others.
  • Full support for true (i.e. non paletted) 256 level Greyscales, fully preserving the colour depth. These are even supported for image formats which do not ordinarily handle this type of image!
  • Comprehensive file information (filename, format, compression method, dimensions, memory required, memory free) given when loading images.
  • Handles conversions between monochrome, 16 colour, 256 colour, Greyscale and True Colour, performing colour quantisation or palette boosting as necessary.
  • Colour selection compliant with both RGB and CMY standards.
  • Supports separate editing of the red, green, blue and mask channels with colour images.
  • Subject to memory and/or available hard drive space, an UNDO buffer is available at all times, allowing 'mistakes' to be reversed easily. UNDO works for almost all operations in Positive Image.
  • All images are stored internally in 24-bit format and all operations are carried out on the 24-bit representation held in memory. This ensures that the same quality results are obtained whether pictures are edited in monochrome or True Colour.
  • Near-instantaneous screen redraws in True Colour mode.
  • Images can be intelligently rescaled and anti-aliased to suit the size of your paper (or the dimensions of your choice provided they do not exceed that of your paper!). Realistically you can print out an image at up to 400% of its original size at 300dpi without any noticeable loss of quality.
  • Optionally uses windowed dialogues which may be moved to a more convenient location when work is being obscured. Access to the menu bar or other GEM applications is also supported when running under Multi-TOS with this feature enabled.
  • Multiple dialogues can be open at the same time and you can move between them freely, even under single-tasking TOS. In fact different tools can be active for different images and Positive Image always remembers the currently selected tool for the appropriate image!
  • Includes its own virtual memory feature which runs on any Atari with a hard drive. Positive Image is also fully compatible with TT Fast RAM and virtual memory drivers on the TT and Falcon such as Outside.
  • Supports multiple loading of up to five images at once from the Selectric file selector and inserts the filemasks for supported formats into Selectric's list of masks. These features are also available to users of the Freedom file selector.
  • Makes use of the GEM Clipboard for cutting and pasting of blocks.
  • Allows you to specify your Clipboard directory and creates a Clipboard for you if you don't already have one.
  • Retains multiple blocks in the Clipboard to facilitate easier creating of montages.
  • Clipboard support includes the ability to clear all blocks or delete individual blocks after use.
  • Support for Brainstorm's DSP based JPEG decoder on the Falcon.
  • Standard GEM compliant keyboard shortcuts for all menu options.
  • Iconification of images to maximise desk space.
  • All your preferred settings can be saved as default to save valuable time when next using the package.
  • Floating toolbar with short tool descriptions being displayed (except in 40 column modes) as you hover over their icons.
  • GDOS fonts may be unloaded when not in use, in order to save memory.
  • All the common text attributes such as bold, italic, underline and outline may be applied to your text and previewed on screen before use.
  • Powerful block handling features include the choice of 11 different overlay methods with user definable transparency feature.
  • The ability to use any of the RGB channels of the block or image as a mask channel when pasting blocks.
  • Supports the creation of 3D random dot stereograms and foreground enhanced stereograms.
  • Sixteen zoom levels allow you to scale an image up or down to a maximum factor of eight. When zoomed (in or out), blocks, brushes etc are all scaled accordingly. Outsize images can be zoomed out to view the entire image for pasting blocks or defining localised regions for processing. Zooming in allows fine editing right down to individual pixels.
  • Fully illustrated in-depth 136 page manual which covers not only the use of Positive Image itself but also the fundamentals of image processing. Includes extensive cross-referencing, a glossary of over 250 terms used within the manual, a guide to the various graphic file formats and a handy trouble-shooting section. Written by a former regular contributor to several popular Atari magazines.

Falcon Specific Features

  • 3D graphic interface.
  • Compatible with 32Mhz and 40 Mhz accelerators (including BlowUp-FX).
  • Fast DSP code handles most processor intensive operations such as re-scaling, rotating, filtering, dithering and such like.
  • Works on both VGA and RGB monitors as well as ordinary TV sets.
  • Fully compatible with ScreenBlaster BlowUp030 and other resolution enhancers.

Printer Support

  • Fully supports printing from any version of GDOS or SpeedoGDOS.
  • Also includes its own printer drivers as an alternative to those available with the various GDOS versions.
  • Non-GDOS based printer support includes all 9-pin and 24-pin Epson and IBM models, HP DeskJet (colour and mono), HP LaserJet, IBM ProPrinter, Epson Stylus (mono and colour) and Postscript printers.
  • Supports half-toning, random dithering, clumped (the method used by newspapers) and Floyd-Steinberg dithering as options to use when printing out.
  • Uses data compression when printing to HP Laserjets and Deskjets to reduce printing time.
  • Images can be printed to disk if memory is low. These files can then be double-clicked from the GEM Desktop and sent directly to the printer. They can also be printed out from PC, Mac and Unix machines if you transfer them via a PC formatted disk.
  • Can export images in PostScript format.

Image Processing Features

  • All the usual tools such as Brightness/Contrast, Contrast Stretch, Negate, Threshold, Histogram and Equalise are present as well as many revolutionary new ones.
  • Images can be rotated to any angle in either a clockwise or anti- clockwise direction to an accuracy of one degree. Uses DSP on the Falcon.
  • Real-time mirroring of images.
  • Comes supplied with six commonly used image processing filters (including smooth, sharpen and remove noise) built-in.
  • Allows the user to create his/her own external filters for use with Positive Image. The package includes about a dozen useful pre-defined external filters including Blur, Emboss, Erode and Vibrate.
  • Supports 256 level (8-bit) masking. Includes a configurable gradient mask tool which allows you to create your own masks.
  • Allows processing of user defined rectangular, circular, elliptical and bezier area definitions within Greyscale and True Colour images without affecting other areas of the image.
  • Powerful auto-trace tool supports user-defined tolerance level to allow easy selection of multi-coloured areas of similar RGB value eg; could be used to select a sky background.
  • Pixel precise area selection of any shape supported by use of Alpha Channel handling.
  • Image warping (two different implementations supported) and shearing enable life-like twisting and distorting of images. The closest you'll get to morphing on a non-frame based package. You must see these features to believe them! They are fully operational in the demo version!
  • Supports gamma correction of images for screen and/or printer.

Image Retouching Features

Besides having a powerful compliment of image processing tools, Positive Image includes a number of localised retouching tools with user definable brush size and shape. These are for the main part, similar in concept to those found in any standard graphics package, but further enhanced to fully exploit the image processing capabilities of Positive Image. The retouching tools are as follows:-

  • Sharpen/Blur - A dual purpose tool which applies a local high pass sharpen (or blur) filter to the pixel beneath the mouse.
  • Dodge/Burn - A dual purpose tool which lightens or darkens each pixel in the area beneath the mouse, when used on Greyscale or True Colour images.
  • Eraser - Erases any given area with the eraser adopting the size of the currently selected brush.
  • Fill - A standard fill tool as found in most graphics packages but with user control over opacity, fade and strength.
  • Spraycan - A traditional airbrush tool with the added advantage that you can set opacity, fade and strength to suit.
  • Paint - A standard painting tool which applies your chosen colour to the image relative to the size and shape of your selected brush.
  • Pencil - Identical to paint except that it always works at single pixel level, regardless of the size of the brush.
  • Rubber Stamp - A multi-purpose cloning tool.
  • Full user configurability of all image processing tools allowing you to set the Opacity, Fade and Strength to make them work like 'real' paint!

All retouching tools may be used in Positive Image's variable zoom mode to ensure pixel precise accuracy,

Price

Positive Image is available NOW. It normally costs £79 (UK Pounds) + P&P, but you can order your copy at a special introductory price of just £65.00 + P&P (UK 2 pounds, Europe 5 pounds, rest of world 10 pounds) for a limited period only. Overseas customers please check to see if we have a distributor in your country. If not, please note (when ordering from Floppyshop) that payment must be made in UK currency (Eurocheque, Post Giro, International Money Order or a cheque drawn on a UK bank). To be honest, you will probably find it easiest to pay by credit card.

Contact:- Floppyshop, PO Box 273, Aberdeen, Scotland, U.K. AB15 8GJ.
Tel:\Fax: 01224 586208, International +44 (0)1224 586208
email: sdelaney@steil.wintermute.co.uk

Positive Image Distributors

SWEDEN, NORWAY, FINLAND, ESTONIA, LATVIA and LITHUANIA
Falcon Pro Center,
Vaederlekstorget 12, S-418 32 Gothenburg, Sweden.

NETHERLANDS
Atari ST Computerclub Nederland (ACN),
Postbus 5011, 2000 CA Haarlem, The Netherlands.

DENMARK
Indigo 2,
Montanagade 29E, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.

NORTH AMERICA
Computer Direct,
10338-59 Avenue, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. T6H 1E6

UK, IRELAND and all other territories
Floppyshop,
PO Box 273, Aberdeen, AB15 8GJ, Scotland, U.K.

ROAD RIOT 4WD

From 16/32 comes another Falcon game. ROAD RIOT 4WD is now released.

A nice racing game featuring 4 WD buggies, 11 tracks and 11 opponents, such as Aunt Artic and Cha Cha Macready you have the chance to become the new World Series Champion. Cost is £24 (UK pounds)

You can also get this game from

Systems For Tomorrow in the good old USA
Computer Direct in Canada
Frontier in France
WBW in Germany
More details available in the UK from:

16/32 Systems
173 High Street
Strood
Kent ME2 4TW

TEL 01634 710788
FAX 01634 295895

Stoop

Phil Hodgkins, author of Stoop, the Falcon boot up manager has ceased its development and given it PD status.

He explained that it was eating into his own free time, and since the mother board on his Falcon broke down has not been able to contiue development.

As soon as his Falcon is fixed he'll release the code to anyone interested in developing the program further.

As you may or may not know Stoop needs a key code and Phil has asked us to publish his:

Phil Hodgkins
ndoazQnf

Titan Design News

Plenty of news from Titan Design and BSS

Nemesis

Black Scorpion's new hardware 's new hardware accelerator, Nemesis, is making great progress and should be ready to ship towards the end of June. nemesis has been designed specifically to support the entire APEX range of software programs, i.e. Media, Intro, and the forthcoming APEX 3 and APEX Audio.

[Screenshot]Although price has not been finalised, we expect it to be no more than £39.95 (incl. VAT & carriage) to existing APEX Media/Intro users. Non-APEX users can expect to pay a further £10.00. The price has risen by £10.00 due to an extra Clock Oscillator being included into the design (switchable up to 48MHz) to ensure total compatibility with all properly written Atari software.

Provisional Specification

Bus - 24MHz - faster than most other accelerators and enables APEX 3 to achieve 640x480 (or higher), true-colour, non-interlaced on a VGA monitor. The higher Bus speed should also allow Expose' frame rates of 25fps at 256x160!

CPU - 24MHz - a lower CPU speed ensures total reliability. Exceeding 32MHz can prove unreliable in any case.

FPU - switchable between 24MHz and 48MHz - to ensure compatibility with different processors, i.e. FPUs rated at 16MHz may not 'take the strain'. DSP - 48MHz - much more important to APEX than CPU speed, as all versions of APEX are mainly machine-coded for the DSP.

As you can see we have concentrated on reliability and have still managed to produce an accelerator which exceeds the specification of many of its competitors and, in addition, achieves a price which makes it totally affordable to anyone!

AFTERBURNER

from Titan Designs Ltd

TITAN DESIGNS have recently been appointed as the official UK distributor for the Afterburner040 Falcon accelerator.

The Afterburner040 can be supplied with either a 68LC040 or full 68RC040 processor. The main difference between the 'LC' and 'RC' versions is that the higher spec processor comes with an internal 68882 maths co-processor.

PRICES (for the UK, incl. VAT & carriage)

68LC040 - £449.00 68RC040 - £539.00

Afterburner040 gives an enormous increase in sheer processing power and is very compatible with a wide range of software - existing APEX Media/Intro users can also upgrade free of charge to v2.2 for an amended version of the when they purchase an Afterburner040.

Black Scorpion Software, in conjunction with Titan Designs, will also be evaluating the possibility of running both the NEMESIS accelerator *WITH* the AFTERBURNER to increase the CPU, Bus and DSP speeds even further!

AFTERBURNER TECH SPEC

  • Motorola 68040 or 68LC040 CPU producing 32/64MHz
  • Two 72-pin SIMM sockets for optional memory expansion up to 128MB Fast-RAM
  • Falcon Bus throughport for Expose, Screeneye, FalconSpeed, etc.

Although a larger case will be required, Titan Designs will also be handling the new C-Lab Falcon Mk.X case upgrades which are ideal for use with the Afterburner040. More details on the Mk.X case upgrades when available.

MEMORY PRICES

New lower prices on memory is making that Falcon upgrade an even more realistic proposition. All prices quoted are for 72-pin, 70ns (or faster) devices, which are fully compatible with Afterburner, and incl. VAT & carriage. 4MB - £65.00 8MB - £129.00 16MB - £249.00

Falcon 14MB upgrade board - £39.95

This means, of course, that a 16MB upgrade for the Falcon is now well below £300! But, as an added incentive, we will supply both 16MB SIMM and the Falcon upgrade board for only £279.00.

NEW - 28.8K MODEMS!

Titan Designs are spreading the Web! We can now supply 28.8Kbps modems with full BABT and CE approval, and compatible with the Atari, for only £169.00.

If your pocket doesn't stretch this far, then we can supply a 14.4Kbps modem (again with BABT & CE approval) for a mere £109.00.

SYQUEST EZ135

NEW DRIVE PRICE

SyQuest have recently announced a price drop for their EZ135 drives to only £129.00!!! This price includes VAT, but not carriage which is a further £10.

As before the complete kit includes the drive itself, one 135MB cartridge, 50-way to 50-way Centronics cable (or 25-way D to 50-way Centronics), SCSI terminator, power supply and manuals for Mac and PC. Normal Atari HD software is all that's needed to get the drive up and running.

An optional Falcon cable is an additional £17.50.
Extra cartridges are £17.50 each.

Gribnif in the UK

Titan Designs are pleased to announce that they have successfully negotiated with Dan Wilga of Gribnif Software whereby we will be distributing virtually all of their products into the UK - six major products with three support utilities!

Brian Stanton has agreed to handle any technical enquiries through Cix topic(s) which will be situated within our own TITAN titan.bss conference. In addition, personal mail can be addressed directly to Brian at bstanton@cix.compulink.co.uk and he will now be co-modding our Cix conference with Martyn Dryden.

For all sales and general enquiries, please contact Titan Designs. Users without a modem or e-mail support can forward technical enquiries to Titan Designs directly.

The following products will be available, with all prices quoted in UK pounds and including VAT and carriage.

GENEVA v1.04 - £59.95
Fast, fully featured and reliable multitasking OS for any Atari ST/TT/Falcon. Absolutely magic!

GENEVA Utilities Disk - £12.95

NEODESK 4 (v4.05) - £59.95
The latest incarnation of the most popular replacement Desktop for the Atari computer. An ease to use!

NEODESK 4 Icons - £7.95

NEODESK CLI v2.1 - £24.95

GENEVA/NEODESK 4 Bundle Price - £99.00 (saves nearly £21.00!)

STENO v2.12 - £24.95
Superb text editor that operates as a Desk ACCessory - ideal for operation from within virtually any program and an ideal working partner for STalker.

STALKER 3 (v3.05) - £39.95
Excellent Communications program. Background Z-modem transfer amongst many other great features.

CONVECTOR PRO v1.00J - £79.00
Fast and easy to use autotracing program. A perfect support program for Arabesque Pro and DTP programs.

ARABESQUE PRO v2.15 - £119.00
The best all-round vector and bitmap editing/creation program for the Atari range.

TITAN & BLACK SCORPION WEB SITES

Coming soon on a monitor near you! Watch this space! Full product details on just about anything computer related, downloadable demo files, snazzy graphics, worldwide distribution details and, more importantly, fully compatible with CAB!

If you have any queries contact David Encill (for Titan Designs or Black Scorpion Software) on:

100345.2350@compuserve.com
Tel: +44 (0)121-693 6669
Fax: +44 (0)121-414 1630

6 Witherford Way
Selly Oak
Birmingham B29 4AX
U.K.

Wessex Atari Group

Four Atari owners in the South of England have started a new user group. Mick Locl, Roy Goring, Chris Smith and Al Baker have launched the Wessex Atari Group.

The groups aim is to encourage Atari owners in the South of England to help each other. To this end they will hold regular meetings, produce a Newsletter and have a WWW presents [URL expected soon - FFF]

The next meeting will be held in Whitchurch, Hampshire on Friday 26th July at 20:00 hours. The theme will be a 'blast from the past'... Brendon O'Neil will do a presentation on Atari 8-bit.

For info on membership and meeting venue contact Roy Goring on 01705-611847, Email ray@gorring.demon.co.uk 

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