Commodore Amiga Retro

Amiga Format

AMIGA FORMAT: Issue 29 Dec 1991
The Worlds Best Selling Amiga Magazine

INSIDE THE NEW AMIGA:

You`ve heard the romours: here`s the facts!
Read our hands-on review of the A500 Plus
and find out if the arrival of Workbench 2
and the ECS has the power to change your
world...

ELECTRONIC ARTS: Two page add for Populous
The gods are back and all hell is about
to break loose... Bullfrog Productions Ltd

A500 PLUS: Brings Workbench 2 and ECS at no
extra cost.

New Amiga suprises everyone including Commodore.
In the first week of October, dealers opened
new batches of Cartoon Classics packs and found
a suprise. Instead of the standard A500 inside
with A501 RAM expansion that they were expecting,
there was a new Amiga inside: The A500 Plus,
featuring 1Mb RAM on the main circuit board, the
new Enhanced Chip Set and Workbench 2.

The A500 Plus wasn`t expected to reach dealers`
shelves until after Christmas, but it has
unexpectedly arrived causing concern over
software and hardware compatibility.

ATTACK OF THE SAMPLERS:

Sound sampling fans can luxuriate in the release
of masses of new sampling packages. While
Audition 4 takes on Audio Master 4 for the
position of best software , new complete
packages join the GVP DSS system...
Megasound from PanDAAL, Stereo Master.

GVP GO BIGGER, FASTER BETTER:

American hardware supremos GVP stormed the World
of Commodore show with no less than three new
announcements, including the Impact Vision 24-bit
frame buffer card and a new accelerator card that
is claimed to be the fastest in the world.

The G-Force is a 68040 accelerator for the A3000,
which already has a speedy 68030 chip on board.
The new card operates at 28MHz giving 22 million
instructions per second (MIPS), bringing 3000
owners `true workstation performance`.

AMIGA 2000 AND 3000 GO VIDEO:

New packs for the Amiga 2000 and 3000 add value
with free bundled spftware and a strong video
angle. The Amiga 2000 Personal Video Producer (PVP)
pack incorporates a 40MB hard drive and A2300
internally fitted genlock card along with top titling
presentation software SCALA and Delexe Paint III for
an all in price of £1299.

KICKSTART SWITCHER COULD SAVE YOUR BACON:

When Workbench 1.2 was updated to version 1.3
many Amiga owners avoided software compatitibility
problems by fitting a board holding both Kickstart
chip, with the ability to switch between them.

WANT SOME CHIP RAM:

As the A500 Plus brings the importance of Chip
memory to the fore, a new way of adding this
memory to the A500 has conveniently arrived.
The Meg-A-Chip board installs under the Agnus
chip and provides up to 2Mb total of Chipmem as
well as carrying slots up to 4Mb of Fats RAM.

COMPUTER SHOPPER OR COMPUTER EATER ?

Proof of the fact that the Amiga is now
dominating the home computer market is the
predicted dominance of Amiga stuff at the
Computer Shopper Show; but the proof of the
pudding is in the eating. The Show is a multi-
format affair that takes place just before
Christmas every year, with over half of the
visitors believed to be Amiga users.

COVERDISK:

Don`t be shy just bang your Coverdisk into
the faithfull Amiga. You start as normal:
turn on your Amiga and insert the disk. After
a few seconds, the decision message will be
printed. Only the Blues Brothers demo and
Home Accounts 2 demo can be run directly from
the disk.

WORDWORTH v1.1: Advert ` A Writers Dream`

INSIDE THE A500 PLUS: Those changes...

On first appearance, the A500 Plus looks just
like an ordinary Amiga A500. The case is exactly
the same size, colour and design.

You notice the A500 Plus badge and a subtle change
to the keyboard: an extra blank by the shortened
Return key, matched by another blank key on the
left hand side by a shortened Shift key.

... Now you get the first real idea of what it is
that makes an A500 Plus: this A500 has Kickstart 2.04
with a new animation to replace the boring old
hand-holding-disk screen.

... This A500 has Kickstart 2.04
... This A500 is fitted with the new Denise chip

The give-away is that the motherboard has has
A500+ in big letters across the board.This is ,
in effect, not just a revision to the normal
A500: this is a completely new machine. Notice
the small, oblong chips in a row along the bottom.
And if you look closely, you can see the clock
chip and its back up battery clearly labelled..

Also changed is the trapdoor slot expansion connector.

WHATS NEW FOR WORKBENCH 2:

Its been around on the A3000 for over a year but now
the latest version of the operating system is finalised,
encoded on a Kickstart ROM chip and appearing right
across the Amiga range...

The Windows menu is one of the most exciting
developments of Workbench 2. It now becomes a
proper graphics interface, because even if a
file doesn`t have a proper icon, it can be
displayed in a window with a pseudo-icon`.

New Drawer: `Thank Goodness for that` .. Amiga
users up and down the country will be saying.
At last there`s the ability to create a new
drawer in any active window.

Format Disk: The icon menu will now find an option
that is called Format.

... Outline Fonts..
....Commodities: AutoPoint, Blanker
Clicktofront, Fkey, Ihelp, Nocapslock
....Extras: Memacs, Iconedit, Calculator, CMD,
Colors, Graphicsdump, Initprinter, Keyshow,
Printfiles, Commodities.

... What you won`t find on the Extras disk however
is AmigaBasic - yes I`m afraid that old workhorse
has been put out to grass. And probably about time to

ARE YOU IN THE PICTURE:

The word processor allowed you to proof your pages
before printing, and to cut and paste text as you
wished. Now word publishers allow you to import
pictures and graphics without having to use a DTP
package. We`ve compared five on their writing, printing
and graphic abilities..

Tested: Kindwords, Excellence, Prowrite, PenPal and
Wordworth ( which came out on top ).

GORDON HARWOOD: 6 Page advert A500 packages
Pack 1: Cartoon Classics £399.95
Pack 2: PowerPro with monitor £899
Pack 3: PowerPro Education with monitor, printer £899
CDTV: £599, Pro-Gen £129, A590 plus 20Mb £299
Supra500XP 52-105Mb Hard Disk with memory £479 to £1049

BATTLE ISLES: At last a war-game has come along
that will pull the genre out of the trenches and
appeal to arcade junkies as well as strategy-sim
freaks...... Amiga Format GOLD award 90%

GAMES REVIEW:
Mig-29M Superfulcrum 89%
Volfied 72%
Suspicious Cargo 80%
Robocod 91%
Magic Garden 79%
Face-Off 83%
The Blues Brothers 86%

EUROPRESS: The Amiga was made for AMOS
Supercharge your AMOS programs - Amos Compiler
Explore the world of virtual reality - Amos 3D

PSYGNOSIS: Advert for ORK - Seeing is believing

OH NO! MORE LEMMINGS: The Data Disk..

HOLLBYTE: 2 Page advert:
A half-length fastRAM with 4 MBIT technology
Amiga 1500/2000 16 But-Bus-Technology includes
a RAM test programme... £129 Memory Master
ALF 3: A2000 hard-disk £299
Oktagon: A500 SCSI controller £149

GAMES REVIEWS:
Super Space Invaders - 83%
Lotus Turbo Challenge 2 -89%
Pegasus - 61%

BRUCE WILLIS: The very sensitive, law abiding,
polite, respectful... HUDSON HAWK.

GAMES CHART:

1: Jimmy White`s Whirlwind Snooker
2: Silent Service
3: Terminator 2
4: Magic Pockets
5: Cruise for a Corpse

DIAMOND: 6 page advert
Amiga A500 Business Pack £799
Amiga A1500 £899 with monitor
Amiga A3000 £2395 3000-25-25Mhz
Amiga A2000 Rev B 48Mb £995

A 210MB hard-disk £659
GVP A2000 030RAM/4 accelerator card and 4Mb RAM £999

PLAYING TIPS: Elvira Mistress of the Dark.
Helping Hands: ..

Cruise for a Corpse...
Rotor..
Infestation..
Paranoid 90...
Mercs..
Team Yankee..
Fantasy World Dizzy..

OCTAMED: Cover Disk - Worth £10
Great though OctaMED is there is a new version
available which has a number of improvements.
A special price to upgrade to Version2 ...
Contact Amiganuts.

Maff Evans ... All you budding musicians can now
get started in creating Amiga music using the
OctaMED program on our cover disk... Fire up your
Amiga and insert the OctaMED disk..and Step to the Beat.

ELECTRONICS KIT: Techno Amiga
Have you ever wished you knew more about electronics?
Here`s a new system for education in schools, for
experimentation at home, or just for fun, which
can teach you a few things. Damien Noonan discovers
how enjoyable it can be.

DRAW4D Pro: 3D Modelling and Animation Package
Not another 3D modelling package, you cry...
but this one is different. It even has parallel
universe. Brian Larman explores some separate
realities ... 82%

EVESHAM MICROS: 3 Page Advert -
At last the chance to buy Quality, High Capacity
Hard Disk Systems for the Amiga 500 at REALISTICALLY
Low Prices..Free MRBACKUP for total file security.
Prices range £299 - £499.

SCENERY ANIMATION: Natural Graphics Marcus Dyson
reports on the 24-bit fractel scenery generator..

....Rendering fractels takes a long time...
We used the GVP 3001 board which is the fastest
68030 available having a clock speed of 50 Mhz
and 68882 math co-processor.

THE KCS POWER PC BOARD: turns your Amiga into an
up and running PC.... £220

PD UPDATE: Stocking fillers or a life saver,
Pat McDonald checks out the Public Domain.

Dirty Cash - Deja Vu
Card Games - 17 Bit
Dr Yes Utils - 17 Bit
Crusader Eurochart - NBS
Rocket Maths - Deja Vu
Electrocad - NBS
Fiddle with Fun - 17 Bit

On the games side, there is a very good
version of Pacman on Fiddle with Fun. There
is also Prodialler a modem/comms phone book.
Also is LhWarp a LHarca compatible archiving
program thats faster and produces smaller files.

PD TOP TEN UTILITIES:
1. Red Sector Demo Maker
2. Master Virus Killer V2.1
3. Two Player Soccer League
4. Sidney and Friends
5. Quick n Silver
6. Flexibase
7. Liamatron
8. System Checkers
9. ProTracker1.2B
10. Pom Pom

LOOSE `N FLOPPY: Pat McDonald reviews floppy drives.

Daisy Chains - The Amiga has only got one connector
for disk drives, right ? So How do you connect more
than one external disk drive ? ... You plug the first
into the computer and the second into the back of
the first floppy drive. The drive must be fitted with
a through port.

Reviewed: CBM A1011, Zydec, QTec Ex-310, Cumana CAX354,
Power PC880B, Roclite RF382C and Golden Image 3A-1D

WORKBENCH: With Pat MacDonald

On HD Drives... If you plug in a high density
drive into an Amiga it will treat it as a standard
density drive ( maximum storage space 880K ).
To be able to use the drive to its maximum ,
you will have to write a small mountlist entry
and use the MOUNT command, either in your Workbench
stsrt-up sequence or direct from the Shell or
Command Line-Interface.

AnswerFILE:

Q: Can I upgrade my A500 to an A500 Plus ?
A: Oh Yes. Commodore are preparing an upgrade
kit for Workbench 2. Whether they include the
new Agnus 8375 and Denise 8373 is not known.
If there really are over half a million A500`s
in the UK alone, thats an awful lot of upgrade
kits.

Amiga 29 for December 1991 was brought to you by:
Editor - Damien Noonan
Screenplay Editor - Trenton Webb
Technical Editor - Pat McDonald
Staff Writer - Maff Evans
Production Editor - Gary Lord
Art Editor - Marcus Dyson
Designer - Frank Bartucca

Produced and published by Future Publishing 1991